February 2024 Podcast: Accessibility, Lunar New Year, and more!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, and welcome to the Digitally Uploaded Podcast.
A podcast where we enunciate every single syllable, every single diagraph,
every single triagraph that we encounter.
My name is Alan, I'm going to be your host for this lovely month of February.

(00:21):
And with me is a man who loves words, he loves a good word.
He loves putting a word or two out into the abyss and hoping that you know everyone
hears it so it's matt sainsbury i don't know if i want people to hear my words to be honest.
Yeah when i say things people get upset so yeah
it's not incorrect i feel like

(00:46):
every couple of days i see your twitter and someone's pissed off
at you yeah pretty much like it's what i do whether or not it's it's justified
or not is up to debate but it happens how are you then matt are you good i'm
swell i'm happy to be back 2024 i'm still around which is a pretty good achievement

(01:06):
i reckon good for you well done.
It's about the best i can hope for yeah isn't
it great isn't it lovely hanging around i'm still there he's
hanging you've got the picture of that cat that i saw in every like stereotypical
80s like a basement from an american film it's just
it's iconic you know with us as

(01:28):
well as another man who enjoys a good word in fact i would
call him a man who is a a smith of
words it's harvard hello harvard good good morning
that's that's very kind of you i there are
very few things i can successfully smith that i would hope that
words are part of that you see and i'm imagining
you dressed as the guy from demon souls like the

(01:49):
the big like yeah the guy that's like smith guy yeah but you're just like you're
just like writing eating the crap out of some books yeah as they deserve it
those damn books yeah how dare they try to teach us right no exactly look they're
lucky they're not getting burned as i would say and a man who.

(02:09):
Has moderate respect for words yet wisdom no that's not the right word shit yet With wisdom.
Weaves them you were doing so
well alan you i was doing so well i was i
was thematic i was working it and
you know what it's trent hello trent

(02:31):
hello i good at word too a good
word oh yes what have we been playing trent
what you've been playing what i've been playing i've been playing another code it
came out january yes january and i've
been playing all of it and then now i'm back on pokemon
because i realized that there's an epilogue and so
i'm playing that though i haven't figured out aren't they meant to

(02:52):
be like the legendary like normal dog legendaries in
there now how do you get them well you're playing pokemon i thought people just
playing power world no people are still playing well people were playing pokemon
before power world came out everyone was playing the epilogue and then i sort
of like took quite time to get to that point because i was playing another code
so now i'm back playing the epilogue while everyone's now on to Power World.

(03:14):
I personally can't believe they made another code, because I thought one was enough, personally.
I thought it was just the first code. Oh, very good, Alan. Very, very good. Yeah.
I'm glad you... I'm glad that that... That was, like, cooking up in my brain.
You could have heard the gears whirring and the steam rising behind my head.
I was like, I've got a bit.

(03:38):
That sounds good, though. I mean, like, I've heard reasonable things about the
Pokemon DLC. I've heard it's a game. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a game. I mean, it's
not that bad. The epilogue, they dance for some reason and go moochie.
What? Yeah. What is moochie? I don't know. They dance. They dance like chickens.

(04:00):
Moochie moochie is pokemon's version of puff puff from dragon quest
no well i guess
that's why i disagree with it please
i have i have not played i have not played the dlc so
i'm just guessing there but it sounds sounds about right
right and can you play the game you need to refuse this otherwise it
becomes true i i don't know what

(04:21):
the dragon war z puff puff is so i'm just gonna say yes
yes it is last time i
watched dragon war z was like 20 years ago go matt not
talking about your quest dragon quest dragon quest
oh dragon quest like last time i played dragon quest
was like five years ago i don't
know what came out which i like recently the builder one on the wii u it's a

(04:44):
long time to pass for that it's been a long time between puffs it's been harvard
what have you been playing so this is a little bit on the high I've been playing
the original GBA Rhythm Heaven,
which is a lot of fun, incredibly well-designed for a GBA game.
And I'm just hankering for the Switch Rhythm Heaven to finally signal the end

(05:07):
of this console, maybe the next one.
Yeah, it'll be the last game, won't it? It'll always be the last game.
The second they announce it, we're like, yep, it's over, it's done.
Yep, the console's done, exactly.
Was Brianna in the trailer for that? No, so Beyonce was in the trailer for the DS one.
Oh shit, that's going to be really grim. Your brain was just jumbling.
I was thinking that thing about R&B singers.

(05:29):
The wrong singer for the wrong game. Yeah. Oh, no.
I would love that, though, if Rihanna, who had just released a single song,
like that single hit song in 2004, was advertising for this Japan-only rhythm game.
It should have been on Destiny's Guard. Every single member of Destiny.
I assume the Switch one would be TeiTei.
Like, they'll somehow recruit Taylor Swift to do the- If they're going to get that kind of money.

(05:53):
And then everybody will hate them for it because, for some reason, I don't know why.
I don't follow these things, but apparently Taylor Swift's the world's worst
person now or something.
Best or worst, depending on who you ask. He showed up to a football game and
it's- I can't believe I actually mentioned Taylor Swift because now everybody's
going to hate this podcast. Oh, it's good for SEO.

(06:13):
Yeah, they just found it.
Here's why taylor swift should join the marvel cinematic universe
back to rhythm heaven it is a
genuinely fun funny game like laugh out
loud so much that you'll have trouble actually hitting the
buttons to the rhythm so i highly recommend it yeah it's best not
to try actually try to do well in that game because it's impossible oh it's

(06:34):
so hard it's very very hard it's got rhythm yeah you gotta have that jazz i
always like how like the guy who came up with a game his goal was was to teach
people rhythm and really remind everybody that they don't have any rhythm.
He was like a producer for a... Oh, yeah, he's a legendary guy.

(06:57):
He's just a legend of Japan's music industry. And yeah, he decided he was going
to make this game to help people learn rhythm.
And yeah, unfortunately for him, everybody just realized they don't have any
rhythm. them so he absolutely succeeded because i had every single one of his
songs stuck in my head 100 it's fair and matt what have you been playing.

(07:20):
Well, I've been playing a lot of IPGs for some reason. I was going to say,
there's a game, I think your review of yours is coming out either today or tomorrow?
Which one? There's a certain blue-haired boy. Oh, yeah. Persona 3,
done that. It was good stuff. Yeah?
But, like a dragon, Infinite Wealth is probably the best Yakuza game of all.

(07:43):
Like, it's a close rival to Zero.
Like, that's how good this one is. That's mental. yeah it's just insane how
good it actually is like i went in thinking oh yeah you know i played enough
drag yakuza i'm getting old with the series but it's not they've just kind of
blown it out the park with this one it's an incredible game so that's pretty
good way to start the year,

(08:05):
and then i've been puttering around with the free to play atelier game as well
which just came out and for whatever reason they decided to fan service it up
like crazy so that's been a good time,
and yeah lots of games, too much content so it's just the side of the year it
was meant to be a break and it's not I assume that you're also deep in the minds

(08:29):
of Suicide Squad No, I am not,
Oh, that's such a you game Yeah, yeah, of course.
I'm very happy to see it's failed dismally and nobody likes it That makes me
happy. Because who was it made for?
No one wanted it. I don't know. I don't know. It wasn't made for me.
That's for damn sure. And I fucking love Batman.

(08:52):
It's good shit. It's just I don't get it. I don't understand.
But you know what I do get, Matt?
What are you behind, Alan? You know what I get? I get- What do you get?
Bloody Cat the Hero Harada telling me to sit down and shut the fuck up and not
ask him for anything ever again because goddamn he made Tekken 8.
Oh, boy. That's a game. Oh boy, it's a game.

(09:15):
I have about 18 hours in it already, and it's only been out for a week,
and I work a full-time job.
And I'm astonished how good this video game actually is.
It is the most accessible Tekken. It has the best learning tools I've ever seen
in a fighting game, I think.
It has probably the best story mode in a fighting game as well.

(09:36):
I've already had full-on moments already. ready.
I'm only like a few hours in. There is one scene which made me physically shake with excitement.
And the online works, which is wild because no other 3D fighting game has ever
had an online system that actually works.
It's just really bloody good. Basics are just so impressive for the fighting game genre.

(10:01):
It's like, wow, you actually want to teach people how to play your game and
the online is functional and the story is interesting. Amazing. Yeah.
Yeah, I know. It's wild. But it's genuinely fantastic.
It's rare that you come across a fighting game that is this comprehensive comprehensive
in everything and it just blows everything else

(10:21):
out of the water like i've played a lot of fighting games over the
last two years but tekken 8 is something else it's
so much more aggressive they've worked in the way that i play tekken
which is i'm gonna run at you and kick you until you die um rather
than any button mash for can i play
any button mash you could yeah you would
enjoy it they've added a new mode called special style which is

(10:44):
essentially you're a a button masher enjoy yourself cool because
that's how i'm playing final fantasy like uh like you are
which matt really really really likes i finally started playing that like
end of last year and what 16
16 16 yeah so so i've got like all the rings on to like stop me from like having
to like dodge and all that sort of stuff and i can just play it as a button

(11:07):
masher it's great that's fair but yeah so tekken's fantastic everyone should
play it everyone Everyone should get into it.
Oh, boy. Oh, boy. What a game.
I'm glad you enjoyed that one. Yeah. You might like it, man.
It's more Dead or Alive-y.
Yeah, I played it. I reviewed it. I mean, it's fine.

(11:31):
You are the Tekken boy. Yeah, I'm not the world's biggest Tekken fan,
but yeah, I enjoyed it enough.
It's just the characters bother me in Tekken. I'm not a fan of any of them, to be honest.
But the the the fighting
game mechanics are good and people that enjoy tekken
should probably get a good kick out of it as you have kind

(11:53):
of made clear so yeah i think they definitely
delivered you'll love it i think they definitely delivered for for what people
were expecting out of tekken so good on them and all that kind of stuff yeah
it's just exciting it's exciting that other like because i think tekken is also
the most casual fighting game because everyone kind of gets It's the idea of
left punch, right punch, left kick, right kick.

(12:14):
It's no Fireballs anymore. They've got rid of all the Fireballs from bloody Tekken 7.
It's actually approachable. You can play this game and have fun and not really
know what you're doing and still enjoy yourself.
And it's so sick to watch. I don't care if I lose or I win. It's just cool.
So everyone, go out and buy Tekken 8. It's a great game.
Sponsored by Hirata. So I could say you're Tekken-aliking to it.

(12:37):
Oh, absolutely. I've been Tekken-ing it to the streets for years.
Thank you.
Music.

(16:02):
It is a new month, and astonishingly enough, things have not stopped releasing.
Things will always release in this hellscape we call capitalism.
So, Matt, bring up the ways that companies are going to rob me of my hard-earned
dollary dues, and let's get into it.
Yeah, they're doing that in February.

(16:25):
They've got games coming out. It's ridiculous.
If you haven't already had enough games to play. yeah so
let's go through this little list that i've got here apparently metacritic
now does a coming soon that is curated so the
most notable games coming up this month with release dates and stuff so let's
see how this goes with us so it starts off february 6th as of the recording

(16:51):
of this podcast which we're doing on february 3 so from then on on february
6th we've got foam Homestar's coming out if you like your,
what's the Nintendo one, Splatoon?
Yeah. Yeah. You've got a Square Enix clone of that, which. Is that not an AI game as well?
No, they used AI for like a tiny little bit of one part of the like non,

(17:13):
like there's apparently there's album covers or something that you can go,
you can, you can find as as you play, like CD albums or something.
And they used AI to generate the art on those CD albums.
So it's really a light touch AI. The rest of it is all human generated.
I think that was a little bit of a controversy for nothing.

(17:36):
Not that it's good that they're using AI for anything. But anyway,
it's not an AI generated game, is the point.
But yeah, it's a Splatoon clone.
So if you like Splatoon, you might like this. you
don't have to have a nintendo switch to play this one so there you go and it's
free if you've got like the playstation plus subscription or whatever it is

(18:00):
there you get to play it for nothing so there you go online party shooter coming out on february 6th,
on worse things yeah i guess maybe maybe not heroin heroin it's pretty bad yeah
that's pretty bad it's pretty hot to argue that one.

(18:23):
On February 6th as well, you've got Woe Long Fallen Dynasty Complete Edition
coming out. Is it a sequel or an expansion?
No, no, it's just Complete Edition. So if you, with all the DLC and all that
kind of nonsense built in, if you haven't played it yet, you should play it.
You're going to hate it until you get past the first boss, but after that,
it's pretty smooth sailing.

(18:44):
Terrible first boss. With those games. First boss is basically the hardest boss.
Anyway, yeah. Are the skills transferable? If you're really good at Nioh or
really good at Dark Souls, will you automatically be really good at Wolong?
Or do you need to relearn the logic of each individual game to get good at it?
No, if you can get through Nioh or whatever, then you can get through Wolong. Wolong's just faster.

(19:08):
It's closer to Bloodborne in terms of its speed of play.
But the skills are transferable. It's not like a Tekken Street Fighter situation.
No, no, no. The skills are transferable enough. You just need to have really,
really good twitch reflexes with Woe Long, which is a little bit different,
I guess, to the slower paced Elden Ring and stuff.

(19:30):
But only marginally.
Only marginally. That game is hard.
It's definitely difficult, but that's the point. Once you get past the first
boss, it is pretty smooth after that, though.
For some reason, they just made that first boss brutally difficult.
In Woe Long, infamously difficult.
The boss that everyone will remember is the hardest thing ever but yeah

(19:53):
when you get past that it's all good i have
february 6th then we've got helldiver divers 2 coming
out on february 8 i feel like that's a that's a top-down shooter isn't it no
it's a it's over the shoulder shooting now it was a top-down back in the day
was it yeah there you go divers was a ps3 game That's a long time ago Yeah Now

(20:15):
it's a PS5 game I was in high school.
Innocent Allen Back in the day In Adelaide Doing his thing Yeah,
Wishing he wasn't in Adelaide. Playing Hell Riders.
On February 13th. So moving forward a little bit. We've got Banishes, Ghosts of New Eden.

(20:38):
Now that's come out of nowhere, but that's the new Don't Nod RPG.
That's an incredibly generic title. Yeah.
It's weird because it's probably almost certainly going to be way better than
the fact that nobody's talking about it.
It suggests. It sounds like a fake video game that you include in your teen drama movie.

(20:59):
I was going to say, Sean William Scott's going to play that in 2001.
It's got this really, it's looking really good. It's this dark RPG where your decisions matter.
Like I don't know if people remember, Don't Not Made a Vampire game.
Yeah, I was going to say something vampire.
Yeah. But this one looks like it's kind of cut from the same cloth as such.

(21:21):
Which hopefully the game plays a little bit better, but the narrative of Vampire was exceptional.
And if they capture that again in Banishes, then that will be a game that will
turn some heads when people actually play it, one would hope.
Everyone's so excited for Lost Records. That's the problem.
What is Lost Records? It's basically their new Life is Strange game,

(21:44):
but without being Life is Strange, because Square Enix owns Life is Strange.
Bench though i did not even know
they were making that there you go maybe i need
to join don't nods mailing list or something because i
miss out on all their games until they actually come out on february 13th we
have liss fanger the time shift warrior coming out don't know what that is at

(22:08):
all it's like a children's a young adults novel from the 90s it's like an anamorphs
the The hardest any game I've ever played.
This is like a turn-based RPG thing. A turn, a strategy.
No, it's not. It's a hack and slash. There you go. With a tactical twist.
It does look very gritty. I will give you that.
Published by Spotlight and developed by Sandor Studio.

(22:32):
And Yarn Shop in Australia?
Nice. That's such a specific joke that alienates everyone.
Oh, I'm sorry about that one.
Oh, it's published by Quantic Dream. Yeah, looks all right. Oh, yuck.
Looks pretty good. Okay, moving on. Ultros on February 13th.

(22:59):
Ultros is like the summon from... No, it's the octopus from Final Fantasy VI.
Yeah. I don't know why they made a game called Ultros, but yeah,
it is actually the octopus from Final Fantasy VI.
But this is not a game about that character. That would be so good.
They should definitely make a game about Ultros.
Make him a squid lord. Yeah, but they're not. I don't know what this game is,

(23:21):
but it's not that. So now I'm disappointed.
It's a psychedelic metroidvania where you wake up stranded on the sarcophagus,
a cosmic uterus holding an ancient demonic... Yeah, not as happy.
I just want Ultras, the octopus game.
They're fucking up. You want a uterus game? Yeah, it's a metroidvania with just a colour palette.
I guess that's what they mean when they say psychedelic, the colour palette
is... Yeah, no, they absolutely messed it up calling it that because now that's

(23:45):
what I want and I'm not going to get it. So zero out of five for that game.
I wish to be squid On February 14 Solium Infernum Which sounds like it's going
to be a horror game Is it going to be a horror game? Is it going to be a horror game?
It's a turn-based strategy It's a turn-based strategy game But it looks dark,

(24:07):
That's my kind of horror It looks dark It looks grim It looks like one of those
Old school 2000s It does, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.
Actually, it looks all right, now that I'm looking at screenshots.
It looks like a thing I'd play. Put it that way. Hold on, it's an old game. Games of 2009.

(24:28):
No, it's coming out on February 14th. Metacritic doesn't lie. I know.
There's a feature article written about it from 2011. Well, maybe it's been
development hell for all this time. Early access.
Initial release date, 2011. No, different game, I think. Different game?
Different game. Because the Steam thing says it's not out until February 15th.

(24:52):
Oh, that's so weird. So there's two unrelated games called Solium and Phelan.
And yet there's a bunch of reviews there
ign's written about it apparently yeah i think
that's why we're getting confused i think the steam one is just a brand new
game that's unrelated to the other one maybe all right you know that's oh no
praise for the original so there was an original back in 2009 which everybody

(25:14):
liked apparently according to the steam page and then there's a new one coming
out anyway it looks okay i'm probably going to review it now it's on my list I've added it to my list.
It's League of Geeks, which is the other one, guys, right? Yes.
Yes. Yes. On February 14, we've got Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3 Remastered.
If you want to play Triangle Boobs, but Remastered.

(25:37):
I hate that when you say Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3 Remastered, I don't know if you
mean the reboot of the original. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Yeah. No, these are the original ones. Triangle Boobs, that's why you've got
to qualify it with that. That's the most thing about those games.
Why would they retain that?
Didn't they do that haven't they slightly smoothed over

(25:57):
the boobs it looks like they have i can't
believe this is what we're talking about well let's
face it those games are not particularly interesting beyond that so i have
yeah so i've never played them before but i have them that they actually kind of
suck and they were only really well known because they
were a 3d platform action and one of
the first ones but the actual level design

(26:18):
controls everything was just difficult yeah
and there's just not much to them like they're not very good
games to be honest it was only noteworthy because of the boob
thing like even back then it was it was
early early era fan service and people loved it for that
alan's a big fan of tomb raider 1 2 and 3 i so i bought a ps1 as per the last

(26:39):
podcast and i've been looking at buying tomb raider 1 2 and 3 but what i've
seen is people saying don't do it the controls are horrific they aren't yeah
i hope they fix that that in this remake they probably haven't.
We've got Plate Up coming out on February 15th.
Don't know what Plate Up is. Let's keep doing the Google search thing.

(27:01):
Looks like just overcooks. Unrecovered cooks.
Sounds like Cooking Mama, but like moving out. Oh, it's a restaurant manager.
Yeah. That's fun. I'm on board with that. Yeah, especially if it's multiplayer. They're fun.
Procedurally generated permanent road like. Of course it is.
Boring. If it says roguelike these days, I lose interest very quickly.

(27:27):
I think just anything with any kind of inspiration. Now, here's a game I'm very
much looking forward to. I actually have a code. I haven't started to play it yet.
But, yeah, I'm super keen about this.
February 15, Spirit Hunter Death Mark 2 comes out.
I love Death Mark. Death Mark is, like, my favorite visual novel horror game.
Wait, didn't they already make Death Mark 2?

(27:47):
No, that was Spirit Hunter NG, which is... Okay. So we've got Spirit Hunter
Death Mark, then Spirit Hunter NG, and now there's Death Mark 2.
Yes, because they like to confuse people. That's what they do with these games.
I felt like I just had a stroke.
But this is so, so good. I cannot. I'm so excited for this.

(28:10):
They're just pristine good horror visual novels.
Yeah, I did really like it. I bought Spirit Hunter NG at full price and never
opened it. And now there's this.
Well, I mean, NG wasn't quite as good as Deathmark, I must admit.
I enjoyed it a lot for what it was, but yeah, it didn't quite have the quality of the first Deathmark.
I'm hoping by kind of naming it Deathmark 2, they've gone back to what made that game just so good.

(28:37):
Goddamn, I love that game so much. So yeah, that's what I'll be doing this weekend
once I get off this podcast.
I'm going to be playing that like crazy. On February 16, the Legend of Heroes
Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 comes out on PlayStation 5.
Now, of course, those games are already everything else, and I would imagine
people that are Legend of Heroes fans have already played them.
But if you are one of the few that has not, then you'll be able to download

(29:00):
them and play them on your PS5.
But 1 and 2 are still not available on PS5. That is correct,
because they were PS3 games.
And they're published by a different person, right? Yeah, yeah,
it's just outrageously stupid.
Like, if you're going to do Trails of Cold Steel, you need to put all four of
them on the same console because you do have to play them all through in order,

(29:23):
and jumping in on three is missing the point completely.
I was going to say, because that series is the series that has the flowchart.
Yes, it is. Yeah, that's too much.
And don't ever tell a fan you've played them in the wrong order because they
will hate you forever for it.
Like on the rankings of toxic fan bases, the Trails of Cold Steel,

(29:47):
the Legend of Heroes fans are right up there.
I mean, there's only like five or something in the world, so they're not quite as bad.
I was going to say, how many of them are there? Can I beat them all up?
There are dozens of us. Dozens. It's not quite as bad as pissing off,
say, the Taylor Swift fan base.
But, you know, they're noisy. Yeah, he's going to shake it off.

(30:08):
They're noisy. Lizzie, sorry, the two Trouser Cold Steel fans that listen to this podcast.
I know I just upset you, but it is what it is. Your fan base sucks.
The games are great. We're making fun of the fact you can't play your games.
We'd love to. Moving on. Just not on here. Moving on. We've got the big Nintendo
release for the month comes out on February 16, Mario vs.
Donkey Kong, which is the puzzle game.

(30:30):
It looks fun. It looks like a delightful thing to play. I like them.
They're good. They're frequent.
Did you play the old ones? They're twee.
Yes, I'd play them all. I like the 3DS one.
I like the one that they put on the... Was it the DS? DS Eyewear, yeah.
Yeah, DS Eyewear, which was that little minigame version that they... Yeah, it was good.

(30:51):
The original was still the best, especially Nintendo's lemmings.
They need to make more. Yeah, it's Nintendo's Choo Choo Rocket.
It is. Oh, Choo Choo Rocket is so good.
Why are they not making that more?
Yeah, well, they didn't announce that in the Sega... What are you talking about?
They do there is a choo-choo rocket on apple arcade i'm not touching that unless.

(31:14):
Well if you want to play choo-choo rocket there it is that's where you can play
it it's there they did it they gave you what you want alan it's like how there's
a mobile lemmings game do you really expect me to play that yes i do i have
it's crap oh it's okay but it's crap,
if if you're not into your twee nintendo games then apparently finally i would

(31:38):
not be surprised if this doesn't get delayed again for at least another three
or four years but apparently,
skull and bones is coming out on february 16th i don't believe it no finally
no no it's not you're full of shit i remember this was announced like 17 years
ago i was in high school what's that.
It's the pirate ship one. It was announced, wasn't it announced about the same

(32:00):
time they did the Assassin's Creed with the pirate ships? Yes, after Black Flag.
Yeah, and everybody was like, yes, I get to play a whole game based around this.
I'm looking forward to this. And then it just never eventuated.
So, yeah, it's coming out, Alan. It's going to be very Ubisoft.
It's not coming out. It's going to be very Ubisoft anyway. It is a Ubisoft original, to be fair.

(32:25):
Yes, it's going to be very Ubisoft. It's going to be Ubisoft Singapore. yes
it is unfortunately not because it's not
not not because it's coming out of that studio but but
because it's because it's a ubisoft game yeah i do feel really bad for the raven
legends team with the prince of persia game that came out because apparently

(32:46):
it didn't sell very well which is a shame it sold 300 000 copies yeah it's not
enough for body ubisoft though because No,
I know, they're all getting fired, but it's enough by most stretch of the imagination.
If I sold 300,000 copies of a game, I'd be pretty happy about that.
It's like how the Mario vs.
Rabbids 2 game, I only sold a million or something initially,

(33:09):
and Ubisoft's like, it underperformed. And it's like, what?
I'm very surprised that Ubisoft has control over that property.
Yeah, it's unfortunate they bought that.
Because they're also doing the remake of Sands of Time, and that is one of the
greatest games of all time, and they're just going to screw it up because it's

(33:32):
in development hell anyway.
It was being done by Ubisoft India, and now it's moved over to one of their
Canadian teams or something because they couldn't get it finished.
I don't know why. It's just a HD remaster.
I mean, they cancelled all their other games, so they've got to get the main
studios to do something.
Thing i assume that they're just putting a lot of ubisoft into

(33:52):
sands of time i i really don't like ubisoft screw
them fuck them useless to company well at least they're making games i like
like thq or whatever they want to call themselves these days like getting rid
of like all the like like good brands they had yeah it's a shame moving on cop

(34:12):
2 comes out on february 20 Quomp.
Quomp. No, I can't say Q without a U.
Q-O-M-P-2. So this breach of the English language comes out on February 20.
Quomp. Quomp. No, how do you say Q without a U? It's not what I thought it was.

(34:34):
We need a linguist. How do you say a Q without a U sound afterwards?
Quomp. Depends on what language you're saying. Wait, how do you spell it?
Q-O-M-P Oh, that's a very different game It's a little ball burnt in the round,
You know what, you sold me On Klomp Anyway.

(34:59):
The Thaumaturge comes out on February 20 as well That's the weird game where
you're playing as like a magic dude in a town and everyone doesn't trust you, right?
It's an RPG, yes. It looks... It looks cool. It looks good.
I'm going to say it looks a bit like a Spider's Game. It does.

(35:19):
It does. It sounds like a Spider's Game. It does. It very much sounds like and
looks like a Spider's Game.
But it's not, I don't think. It's not, yeah.
But it looks good. It looks good.
It has isometric perspectives.
So... That's back in Flake. Back in Flake.
Baldur's Gate is brought back. literally i think

(35:42):
it has people are much more excited about top-down stuff
than they used to be and it is an isometric storage rpg
an isometric storage of an rpg with
morally ambiguous choices it's disco elysium by
developer fool's theory who's fool's
theory what else have they done nothing seven
seven i'm not that game is not unfortunately the

(36:04):
movie i was gonna say seven okay do we have the boss inventory item i would
so play that i would play the hell out of that that'd be great like a ps3 era
seven game this is heavy rain play oh heavy rain but good.
Bandle tail comes out on february 21 that's a league of legends story so they

(36:30):
make me a lot of those. Well, they're not anymore.
Are they not? No, they put out an announcement saying we're firing half our
staff and we're not going to have any more of these interesting games.
We're just going to focus on our core properties and yada, yada, yada.
Yeah, I think they had a problem with that to begin with, is that they keep
making games that are not League of Legends, but they expect people to be playing

(36:51):
those and League of Legends at the same time.
I mean, it was an interesting idea to create all these little games to help
build out the League of Legends,
universe and stuff i approved of
that idea it's just unfortunately they're not a very good company because they're
american and they fire people the minute and they also have horrific sexism

(37:12):
in their in their ranks as well so well american company yeah what do you expect yippee,
on february 21 slave zero x comes out
hack and slash game what's slave
zero x oh that's an interesting art by
poppy works fighting game

(37:34):
mature fighting game this oh god is it is it full of titties no no it's not
it looks like the obscure arcade game that you would never see before you know
it's a brawler alan set in the biopunk world of slave zero in brackets 1999.
It looks alright. I think you'd like it, actually, Alan. I think it's your kind of jazz.

(38:02):
Okay. Yeah.
On February 22, we've got Nightingale coming out. A survival crafting game.
It's leaving early access, so you can play it now.
Yeah. And you type it into Google, you get the bird.
I do like the bird. The bird is a very good bird. Oh. It's a great bird.
It's also a great character in Tintin.

(38:23):
This is like a steampunk-y sort of survival game. Yeah, it's a survival game.
Like Ark or... Yeah, it's like Valheim, but in the steampunk rules.
Yeah. Clockwork rules. Yeah.
Steampunk, pretty cool. This is good. Yeah, it looks all right. I might give it a go.
On February 22, we've got Pacific Drive, which sounds like...

(38:49):
I'm pretty sure that's one of many Australian coastal bands.
I was gonna say it does have the vibe of like a surf rock band and it is a game
where you drive there you go it's gonna be one of those narrative driven.
Reflections on life as you drive through the countryside it's a survival game

(39:13):
I need an age rating to see it,
maybe it's not so bad suddenly zombies come out of nowhere and die,
we haven't had a good zombie game for a while actually it was
the scientific experiments gone wrong kind of
vibe speaking of horror sons of the
forest comes out on february 22 that

(39:34):
was a cool original game another early access game
that's coming out of early access and it
looks like another one of those survival games so there
you go zombies coming out so is it no it's
cannibals isn't it yeah it's like weird cannibal descent monsters yeah so yeah
there we go that's leaving early access on february 27 another game leaving

(39:56):
early access wrath aeon of ruin aeon of ruin that's a old-schooly shootery thing,
very old school it looks like quake it's quake it's a quake clone yeah it's
built on a version of the quake engine there you go oh hell yeah that's why
it looks like quake because it is basically Quake. I've never played Quake 1.

(40:17):
Quake! You should play Quake. Even I like Quake.
Like play three does that count no you need to play one it's official you need
to it's like a law okay i'll go do that it's on switch i'll probably just get
on switch yeah it's on switch,
it's on everything these days at the end on yeah february 28 we have star wars

(40:42):
dark forces remaster like the first person shooter yes it's been remastered
i'm here for that so Pretty good. There you go.
If you like some Star Wars, there you go. It's an FPS game from 1995.
Oh, I didn't realize this was so soon. Of course it's so soon.
I'm just going to keep creating games and forcing me to play stuff.

(41:02):
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth comes out on February 29.
I played a little bit of that at Tokyo Game Show. It's very much like Final
Fantasy VII, which is a remake, which is very good.
And now it's good. I played a little bit which was a little bit more open-y
world style bit than what you had in the original Final Fantasy 7 remake or

(41:23):
the first chapter of Final Fantasy 7 remake so there you go cool,
I didn't know that was this one that was a big
spoiler wasn't it do you reckon they're going to do that you can't
say that they can't not have
someone die because they've been pushing the whole idea that Zack is
an important character like they wouldn't have released bloody what's

(41:46):
it's called into crisis core they would not
have released crisis again without that being
linked in some way because they want people to know about that
story that's an iron game but i agree with you yeah it i mean also everyone
should just play crisis core because it's one of the better final fantasies
i think final fantasy 7 reboot will feature bodacious beach board there's beach

(42:09):
scenes in this one i really hate that they used alliteration there Oh, sweet.
I think this is a teacher moment for me, but the most eted literary technique
is alliteration because it never makes me happy.
If you're using alliteration and you're not in year two, I want you not to be

(42:31):
using alliteration. Does Vincent show up in this game?
Yes, he does. Does this chapter? He shows up in this chapter,
doesn't he? Yes, he does. He's in a bloody crypt and he's all gubby.
Oh, he's great. So if I want to play this one, I have to play remake first.
No. No. It'll recap it. They've made this clear in the thing that you can just jump in.

(42:52):
But you do. It wouldn't make sense. Why are they making a trilogy from one game?
Why can't they just make one game?
Because the original game is like 7,000 hours long. It's a big game.
It's 3D. It's also comparing a PS1 turn-based RPG to a big-budget fucking nerd

(43:14):
game for big nerds like us.
But now I'm confused, the remake came out, so why is there this game?
Like i feel like i'd be missing stuff by not playing
remake and then yeah you should
play remake yeah it makes them pretty good the hobbit
movies you know okay so but
with more justification in the world in the world of books and things trent

(43:38):
we have this thing called a trilogy right and in a trilogy you read one book
and then you read the next book and then you read the third book and the second
book and third book build on the first book so that's how it works three Discs on FF7?
Have they formally announced this on the other? Yeah, it's a trilogy.
Yeah. Yes, it's a trilogy. It's three. Yeah. So one for each disc.

(44:00):
Do you reckon you'll be able to miss Vincent? Because the first time I played
Final Fantasy VII many, many years ago, and this is probably why I didn't like
Final Fantasy VII originally, was that I missed Vincent. Vincent was an optional character.
Yeah. And if you missed him, you didn't get him. Well, it would be more clearly
telegraphed how to get him, because it was pretty hard to find him without- It was.
It was totally hard. Yeah, it was like a bit of a playground rumba character

(44:22):
when you were... Yeah, yeah, yeah, you definitely had to... Did you know that
Sonic's in Smash Bros. Melee?
He's in Smash Bros. Melee if you hold the button at 3am on a Tuesday evening
and then you summon Sadako.
No, my favourite one was the N64. for
some reason they got like one of the magazines in Australia what was it N64

(44:46):
Gamer or something convinced like the entire country in Australia that there
was nude codes for Goldeneye which was I remember this because my friend told
me about it there was nude codes for Goldeneye which is,
wait what which is just like why would you want nude codes for Goldeneye in
the first place just be pink rectangles it would literally just be a blurred pink square What?

(45:14):
That's so good but matt what are you looking forward to this month then because
no that's it that's the end of it that's the end of this list anyway there's
probably definitely made that mod in in 2024 there's no way that doesn't exist
yeah there's gonna be The year of our Lord, 2024.

(45:35):
Every year we straight up say Scott.
My game of the month, I mean, Final Fantasy VII remake, obviously,
but also Deathmark for me. Definitely Deathmark.
I just love the original Deathmark so much. So Deathmark 2, I really can't wait
to finish up this podcast so I can go and start playing it, to be honest.

(45:56):
Wow. I'm so curious. All right.
I'm going to be so disappointed if it doesn't give me exactly what I want and
I'm going to go slam it. But they better not fuck this up.
Like, this is it. This is my 2024.
My whole year is hinged on whether this game is good or not.
Our listeners are privy to a moment of Matt either turning and becoming the

(46:18):
Joker or turning and becoming the cool Joker from the Death Stranding trailer.
Tune in next podcast to find out.
Is he going to play the BB theme? I'm sitting in nowhere in October.
What was that out i'm releasing a spooky game nowhere near october it's just like,
randomly in february i'm just going to sell like five copies doesn't matter

(46:41):
when they release it so i figure that's probably what they're figuring that's fair just get out there,
oh but what are you going to get this month what's your vibe i don't
really want to get it because i don't think i have a platform that will run
it properly but the nightingale has stood out for me as one that does look quite
cool like the graphic style is interesting the the world to to me is like enough

(47:01):
different rust and valheim and stuff that makes me want to try it again and
i can see it becoming really successful so go to it.
And trent is there anything that piques your interest well i've
already got the mario and donkey kong thing pre-ordered so
i'm just gonna play that i'll probably also be
continuing playing final fantasy 16 till i end up finishing it so i'm pretty

(47:24):
far in it i assume at the moment so i'm almost done yeah how many hours are
you in trent uh i have no idea best of hours maybe like Like,
actually, what was the last boss you beat?
Last boss was I was teamed up with the Phoenix, and I could become the Phoenix as well. Oh.

(47:49):
Yeah, that doesn't really help. What boss, boss? Like, what were you fighting?
I've got upwards to, I just got the dragon element thing.
So I did the rock one, then I did the dragon, ice,
whatever element it's meant to be so i've got all them are
you beat bahamut yeah yeah you got ages ago yet yeah you just need the worst

(48:15):
thing with rpgs where after they've talked about all the progress they've made
like oh yeah the game's just about to open up just keep going now you know yeah
pretty much it's at the stage where it feels like it's wrapping up that really it's are opening up.
Oh, yeah. RPG's so much for that. Yeah, it's dog shit.
Soda 5 is the worst for that, too. And that 50 hours in, oh,

(48:37):
yeah, you've just done an open up. And now you can go do your daily tasks.
Luckily, Final Fantasy 16 wasn't so long. Like, it wasn't a 200-hour long game.
It's only like 30 hours long, yeah.
Yeah, you can finish it fairly briefly. I think I spent 50 in my original playthrough,
taking my time, doing my things, but yeah that's that's

(48:58):
not so bad for an rpg these days no and
i'm gonna just be boring as shit and say final fantasy 7
rebirth because i'm excited to see what they do i
want to know what stupid nonsense they've got you're just looking
forward to getting red into a swimsuit that's that's
the thing isn't it what no oh that's

(49:19):
that's that's what you're looking forward to you're looking forward to the beat
scenes and red because you got to think about red he's
just a pup i like he's cool no that game looks really cool and i i was so not
interested in seven remake in general but having played it that game's really
good this is not the main thing to look forward to but i am looking forward

(49:40):
to the remix cosmo canyon theme what a banger,
there's a banger it's a hardcore banger yeah no i'm not looking forward to it
at all because actually they um they already killed off my favorite character
so so fuck him. She comes back in disc three.
She comes back in disc three wearing Joker makeup and using an electric guitar.
I would be so hot for that. That would be great.

(50:03):
But I don't think Josie's coming back.
Music.

(52:22):
With the recent release of Tekken 8, I think one of the best features in that
game is purely the accessibility of it.
The game has been designed so that you can actually learn every single thing
in the game, even if you don't have an old man sitting next to you saying,
you're gonna whiff punish that.
It is really, really approachable and it made me think about how much better

(52:44):
we've gotten as an industry with just making things more accessible and easy to access,
but without dumbing it down and like just making
it so that other people can enjoy the game when they necessarily couldn't before
and it's it's really cool because you
know there there are people out there who like want to
play these things but just simply don't have the means to

(53:06):
do it and i think the best way to do that
is just to provide options that don't impact
anyone else and it comes back to the whole thing of like you
know is it cheating to put accessibility
options into a game at which which point no it's
not who cares if it's a single player game who cares you
know what i mean like just go outside and touch grass

(53:28):
if you're having an actual issue with someone else playing a single player
game differently but i think tekken 8 does it really well for multiplayer i
wanted to talk about that with you as well so there's a mode in the game there's
a there's a mode in the game called special style and basically what it does
is it changes your air combos to be triangles so So you hit triangles several

(53:48):
times, you do an air combo.
Your grabs become X, and then your evasive moves become square,
and something else becomes circle.
But each face button is mapped to something that is easy to do.
You do it, and you will do damage.
The trade-off with that is that you pretty much don't have control over the

(54:11):
combos you're doing, but you're still able to do them.
So if you know how to play the game but don't have fine motor skills to like pull off various moves,
it's not an impact on you it's limiting to a
certain degree but it still gives you the chance to succeed if you
know the game well and if you have the you know ability to
recognize oh i'm gonna do this now because i know

(54:32):
that they are doing this and it's just really really neat
it's very cool yeah there's a lot
of there's a lot of like little things i'm noticing in other
games as well like the remember when back in the
day you'd get a game and it would have colorblind settings and it would be colorblind
on or off and like now it's there's like 18 different versions of colorblind
it's so good because it means that i can i can like actually clearly see stuff

(54:55):
better i was wondering if you guys had thought of any games that have like really
good accessibility options because i know that trent you were talking about.
Ff16 and how it's got the the ring system.
And I've got the rings turned on so I don't actually have to do the dodge because
the dodge half the time I accidentally press a different button and it's like,
no, we're going to count that as pressing it.

(55:17):
So you didn't do it properly, even though the prompt and cinematic thing is still loading.
So I turned on like the one of the rings, which basically was like,
you don't have to dodge it, auto dodges.
And the game just is so much more smoother and I can sort of play as a button mashing.
And i'm also playing on like the easy story based
mode as well which is so much better for

(55:38):
like time based things because then i'm not doing the same battle over
and over and over and over again like i'm actually making
progress in the game and when time's limited it's
good to have those options yeah i have somewhat
internal conflict about that because all the new final fantasy
re re-releases like eight and nine
have that feature and me being an

(55:59):
awful person to myself is like you're not gonna do
that you're gonna have a real experience i'm just sitting there killing the
same enemy for four hours so i feel
like i could really appreciate that i like that they have
it in there and i wish that it was not enough of a
foolish person to actually use them well matt told me that basically the whole
game is basically boss battles and that's why everyone hates it so i'm like

(56:22):
well if the whole game is basically boss battles that's sick that sounds sounds
sick but like at some point if i'm playing the hard difficulty or the normal difficulty.
It's just gonna get ridiculously annoying because suddenly
like like all rpgs like it's like
playable and then there's like this huge like

(56:43):
gap where it's like expected you'd be grinding or doing side quests or something
to level up your characters and then suddenly it's like way harder to do anything
so that's why i'm playing on the easy easy mode because by the time it gets
to that it just feels like regular difficulty. So it's like, yes, awesome.

(57:03):
Will say though this is not on accessibility but people who be aligned to the
next story event in an rpg scare me there is a level of like do you not understand
that you you gotta go you adventure,
yeah exactly like the plot says you have to go right to this point right this

(57:24):
moment but you can also go play some minigames if you want like how could you
why would you not play the minigames,
it depends on the quality of minigames to be fair because i think about some
of the I'm going to get an FF10 and I want to blow out all of my hair and my teeth.
I agree with you, but I did also stop FF10 because I was turned to lightning dodges.
What? Something about my brain, man. I did that on stream not that long ago.

(57:47):
It was like an hour and a half of my life that I will never get back.
Sounds like riveting content for all of your people.
You know what? It was great.
It was wonderful. I love it. Have you got crap as the in-games anymore?
More they just don't do that anymore because like no one actually liked this
so we're just gonna stop it's one of those things where i think again people

(58:11):
need to focus on what makes something fun,
yeah again they're finally thinking about what makes it fun for the player instead
of being like oh yeah it's fun for the developers do this yeah it's not just
like i'm gonna troll the shit out of you by doing something insane matt have
you have you got any games that you can where you've actually used an accessibility feature.

(58:33):
I use them with Sony games half the time when I'm playing them just because
that lets me speed up, not waste time with those games and lets me move through
them and get my review done before, yeah,
before I play something that I actually want to play.
So, yeah, I think that, yeah, Sony's kind of the best of them at it.

(58:57):
You look at the accessibility features that Sony games have and they're just obscene.
There's a thousand menu options to work through if
you want in fact they probably need to look at the
accessibility of the accessibility features menu because
it can be a little bit confusing going in there and seeing all the stuff that you
can tweak around but yeah i think i think they're probably still the the shining

(59:18):
light and the last of us to remake or remaster or whatever the hell they called
it it was very impressive it was a really good example of that i think every
Every developer should play Sony games and take notes about how they've handled
accessibility because, yeah,
once you play those games and
you look at what the other developers are doing, it's not quite the same.

(59:39):
I mean, that should be like a profile system. Like the main console has like
a lot of settings which you can just like turn on, which may or may not be a thing.
But then games can pick that up and say, okay, do you want to load this profile?
And then it optimizes that game based off your settings.
That way you're not going every single game for like all the options It just
picks up that most of the time you want to play say, you know With certain features

(01:00:03):
turned on if they're available like that would be so much more,
Usable than you know, oh, you know, here's 20 million like things before you
can get to the character creation screen Isn't xbox kind of like that with this
controller that you can make a controller mapping profile for different games Yeah.
But I see what you mean, like that, but with larger things. Like if you use

(01:00:27):
the colorblind in one game, then what Matthew does for all the games you play isn't like that.
Otherwise, you have to dance when you start a game, which is going to the menu
and flicking every option that you want.
Yeah, or like arachnophobia stuff is becoming more and more common.
So there's features for turning them into blobs.
So a feature where it's like, and the system settings, where you can just turn
that on and say, okay, when it loads this game,

(01:00:49):
if it recognizes that it's got this feature, like accessibility option,
automatically turn battle that would make so much more
sense yeah yeah there was a big controversy a long
time ago with starcraft 2 competitive where they
had a creature that would trigger some people's trypophobia because
it was quite a disgusting design and some players would deliberately use it

(01:01:10):
for the psychological damage it would cause because people would see and get
scared what the hell yeah it was it was really gross it was a really gross design
but it's so So funny that it's just not necessary, right?
Like, it's not something that needs to be a part of a strategy game.
It just happens to gross out a lot of people. I don't know.

(01:01:32):
If the goal of that unit is to gross people out or whatever, then it has a role.
I mean, without trying to reduce the argument too much, I mean,
if you were to say, horror scares me, so you need to remove the horror from,

(01:01:53):
Resident Evil or something, that would be an accessibility feature.
But at the same time, there's an argument to say at some point that you just don't play the game.
I think it's different when it's like an intentional, like required thing for the game.
You can't really take the horror out of Resident Evil. Well,
I mean, StarCraft is a pretty dark science fiction property.

(01:02:14):
It's not it's not diablo though you know what i mean like you're not gonna see
the competitive side of things hold on they're not yeah it's a sport the narrative side of things,
if chess had a fucked spider demon that was gonna suck my face off i would be
pretty upset with that personally that's not required the bishop doesn't need
to uh commit a hate crime on on people,

(01:02:35):
to be proven that he's a bishop it's still just a
bishop i feel i feel like
that's like the main thing at the end of the day it's like it's fine
who cares that's so funny and my chest did have like a like a demon that some
players just not use out of respect and others want like screw it i'm just using
the demon yeah i'm gonna use this demon i'm gonna kill i'm gonna kill everyone

(01:02:55):
you know with my chest demon i do love this new trend though of arachnophobia
filters in games where they just write spider.
Incredibly funny i really like that they're the right spider
they become an orb with eyes and that's it and frankly
i think that's the greatest single thing of all time i do
love that i don't know if you've all jumped into

(01:03:17):
the the trend of lethal company yet or not
that is the
the game where you play with three other people and you
are a repossession uh agency for a
company going into different planets but there are
horrible monsters in the buildings and
one of them is a horrifying spider which is about
the same size as most spiders i saw growing up but the

(01:03:40):
the update for that added in a thing that literally
just changed it to this is a spider in like
comic sands i think that's great the
line to me is like if you're making a narrative artistic artistic
experience that requires the
use of that spider then by all means like warn
audiences that that's in there and then do it if it's

(01:04:03):
just like a fun game that people are meant to
enjoy and some people are going to have a
negative reaction to something and it doesn't need to
be a core part of the game then absolutely yeah i would love them to be able
to accessibility that out and just put it in the menu so not everyone has to
do it but it's nice to have that forethought i want to go back to the days of
the earlier ps2 era where it said this game contains scenes of graphic violence

(01:04:27):
you know what i mean like haunting ground and devil may cry one.
It would have the screen before the game being
like this is a violent game watch out that is
very quaint i do enjoy that it's so it's so
lovely it's the idea that you buy a game called devil may cry and
you're surprised that it's full of blood and demons and shit like okay

(01:04:49):
yeah it's right before the stupid ps2 edgy violence era yeah it's just it's
very nice yeah i do think that there is something to be said though i'm i mean
i'm eternally worried for the
silent hill 2 remake at this point i am the most afraid man of all time.
I'm very concerned that they're going to try and go very very hard but in the sense of it completely,

(01:05:15):
remove the the subtlety and the interest
behind that story and because silent
hill 2 does have a warning okay it does tell you that there's
some like messed up stuff in this game it doesn't show
you a lot and that's why i think it's better that it
like it doesn't do that because there's no no point why why do it and we all

(01:05:37):
know that bloober team have the the uh subtlety of a boulder being crushed by
an even bigger boulder so i can't wait for the scene where angela talks about
how much she loves to cut herself i can't wait for that scene that's gonna be really normal and fine.
You can always just play the short message that'll
give you an idea what no what's gonna happen with

(01:05:59):
this silent hill 2 is it
is it bad i don't know like i've seen in
the full gamut of responses to
it like this there are people that loved it
and there are people that absolutely hate it so i think that yeah you
just download it play it and see for
yourself what i'm saying is it's free i'll try it it's gonna

(01:06:21):
tell you it's totally free it's only a two-hour thing or
something as well and it'll tell you exactly what to expect
from the remake if you
don't like the short message then you can
probably say goodbye to the remake make i would think it's a
shame it's especially a shame given how exceptional
the resident evil remakes have been yeah i

(01:06:43):
think it's primarily yes or no i mean you can't
remake silent hill in the same way that resident evil was
really yeah it doesn't make sense yeah i mean resident evil was never a narrative
experience really yes it has a story in it it was schlock it's good fun but
it was always b-grade and it was intentionally b-grade you know that was the
point of it it was It was designed to be a big red zombie movie,

(01:07:04):
whereas Silent Hill is more...
Genuine effort to tell a story that has impact and you need the right developer for that,
and Blibberteam is simply not that I like Blibberteam I like Glacier more than
Alan does but I don't think Blibberteam is the right team for psychological

(01:07:25):
horror like Silent Hill is,
but you know who knows we'll see we'll see I mean at the end of the day I just
hope that more people are able to play more games that they want to play and
I think that But having a warning about some sort of content that might be in
the game, especially if it's meant to be intentionally disturbing,
yeah, chuck it in a warning.

(01:07:46):
If there's a mechanic that's too difficult to like.
Content warnings, I think that they're particularly useful. I think there should
be some kind of list where it actually lists out every possible content warning.
I see that happen a little bit with Itch games.
Developers working on those kind of little games on Itch. They actually set

(01:08:07):
up a website where they, if they, and some of them do go pretty hardcore,
they'll actually list out every single potential trigger or concern that somebody might have.
And you go there, you check it, and if there's something on there that isn't
for you, then you can kind of move on from it. Yeah, you can move on from it.
Which I think is a really, really good idea. yeah and

(01:08:29):
i hope it makes it people actually come around to the fact that
a story that people think is good because it surprises you
of shocking content is is not a good story no that's
always yeah exactly there's always good ways to tell that story without the
shock factor of it yeah i mean it's like comparing saw one to saw five that's

(01:08:50):
that's the way that i think about it where it's like saw one is a very slow
thriller and then saw five is like a horrible demon nightmare that I hate.
Like for paranormal activities like how many paranormal activities are there
like five or six four i don't like it the first one was like pretty slow yeah
and then it just became like crazy.

(01:09:14):
Yeah it's comparing something which i think is genuinely scary
like midsummer to a movie that is designed
to scare you by shocking you i don't want shock i want
to be incredibly uncomfortable and that's how
i'm gonna enjoy that game or that movie or
whatever like it's it's all about that in my opinion
and i think that adding in those little accessibility things

(01:09:34):
like making it so people are aware of what's going to roughly happen
so that if they have experienced that before and they know it's a
trigger fair enough you don't need to play this
game that's fine you can even just like watch a youtube
video and then skip the story it's up
to you who cares and on a mechanic sense
i think making it so that people who have dexterity any problems
because like i don't know about you guys but when i'm like 60 i'm gonna

(01:09:58):
my hands are gonna be screwed i want
to still play video games when you're
60 huh yeah like because i'm a
flute player like i did a degree in flute so my hands are
already kind of ruined and also i'm a big nerd for
pc gaming so my hands are contorted every single day
so i'm fully aware that my time is ticking so i'm really hoping they make shit

(01:10:24):
like shit more accessible for me when i'm old and decrepit yeah who cares who
actually cares make stuff that everyone can enjoy.
Music.

(01:14:02):
It is Lunar New Year this month, which is very exciting, and it is the Year
of the Dragon, of course, which, you know, got us all thinking a little bit.
What should we play during the Lunar Year, and particularly the Year of the Dragon?
Now, I got very excited at this topic idea because when Harvard proposed this

(01:14:24):
idea, I immediately went to think about how much I hate Overwatch.
As you do with all ideas. as i do with all ideas and i feel like as i am wants
to do with most ideas in general.
That that game does end a chinese lunar new
year event every single year and every
year it is a skin of the only chinese character in

(01:14:47):
a different costume and it's
you know oh it's but
i didn't realize that's what they did okay right there's sometimes overwatch
yeah it's may the iceland course yes yes yeah um yeah so uh they also sometimes
add those chinese lanterns to some of the maps they try like and you know what

(01:15:13):
i mean like they put some of it in i still hate them,
you have to give them credit though for
not doing something with diva because koreans don't
really do china doing it a year so at least
they got at least they got that culturally culturally correct i
was which is better than which is better than what most game developers
would do most game developers yeah just do like a like asian font and everything

(01:15:34):
yep yeah everything every
asian looking character must therefore celebrate
loony new year yeah i mean it's a very commercial thing
i feel like because a lot of those multiplayer games do have large followings
in east asia so they just want to appeal to the demographic while trying their
best i guess i assume fortnight does one as well i don't think so i feel like

(01:15:57):
i would celebrate every holiday but i can't believe this is it doesn't celebrate
it i'll tell you that much.
I've checked it doesn't celebrate any of the sick days either
it's yeah yeah i'm
just gonna get like google results about yeah yeah there's definitely luna new
year stuff that they've done for fortnight good for them yeah it's just skins

(01:16:18):
yeah it's always just skins yeah it's always your skins i i do wish that the
chinese new year was actually like celebrated,
more regularly because some of my fondest memories as a child is
going and having a shit ton of moon pie and shit
like that that's a different festival but yes is it oh my god is it it's a different

(01:16:39):
festival mooncakes are the best alan you're so mooncakes are a different festival
yes there's oh my god festivals the start of new year usually you have dumplings
and then And then 14 days into it, you have this, the general illness, rice balls.
I cannot, I cannot, in all honesty, think.

(01:17:01):
I'm so sorry.
That's okay, you can win today. We came back to school and we did it.
I was six, we did that, and we had Moonbark. I was like, hey, we're celebrating it.
It's all right. It's okay. The only Chinese event near us is the gold Chinese

(01:17:23):
event thing up in a gold panning town.
So they've got the dragon show where they go around with the dragon. Yeah.
Yeah. And they're very cool how just regional towns in Australia sometimes just
have Chinese communities that do that.
And it's just been integrated into the culture after a while. It's interesting.

(01:17:44):
Yeah. Yeah, we have the dragon parade here in Wollongong, too.
They come and chew on the head of all the shop owners.
It's not necessarily Chinese food, but, like, Matt, I've heard that dimmies
in Wollongong are really, really good.
Can you confirm or deny this? What the hell's a dimmies? A dim sim.

(01:18:06):
Oh, dim sim. Dim sims are dim sims everywhere in the world.
I don't know. Are you talking about a particular restaurant?
No, it's like apparently dim sims in Wollongong apparently just seen as really
really good It's like you know how they go to the chippy and they have the spring
roll with dim sim that you don't know who orders them,
I've never seen anyone order them I ordered them.

(01:18:28):
That's me I've always wanted that like they have a chica roll and they have a frozen um,
Spring roll and I've never seen anyone This is gonna
sound insane But the the go-to thing that I used to do
when I was very drunk in university was i would go
order like a kebab and then order some dimmies and then
put the dimmies into the kebab it was

(01:18:50):
just how it was that's like a that's like a uniquely australian food two foods
that are not as you know what's really really good this is sort of social appropriation
as a food because we were talking about like chico rolls there's there's this
bp in jerry's Plains, which is just out of Marshalbrook,
and their scallops batter tastes like a Chico Roll batter.

(01:19:12):
It's very seasoned, and it's the best scallops you will ever get from this BP. It's amazing.
Well, transitioning on the topic of food, actually, I feel like,
because Lunar New Year, to me at least, is generally a big family holiday.
We get together, there's a lot of eating involved. called, I do quite like a co-op game.

(01:19:33):
So that's something that I wish would happen more like maybe like an overcooks
thing or maybe like whatever that cooking game that we talked about earlier
today. I don't know what it was called.
Whatever that was. Yeah. Just like
that, but with recipes that are more international would be interesting.
Thinking about this like i think there's so much value in the idea of cooking mama as
a series that just has dlc where you can just

(01:19:55):
buy like a recipe pack for a different culture yeah that
would be really cool do they still also no because
it became like a a weird a weird like
legal thing yeah i don't know who that was great didn't
they didn't they one of the cooking mama games wasn't it like
a on the switch yeah yeah but it was also
like a half a stone situation no no

(01:20:18):
it was it was was a crypto mining thing yeah it was
a crypto miner making you mine crypto yeah
it's like causing a switch to overheat and shit yeah yeah yeah that was
that was pretty funny was that the version i bought i bought one
of her versions like on the switch and i haven't opened it or anything like
that just because it was like recalled it was like that whole harvest moon like

(01:20:41):
situation with like the uh cooking mama thing it was like an incredibly bad
game apparently and And I'm just like, I'm going to buy this just so I have it.
Yeah. It wasn't a Harvest Moon thing. They haven't used Harvest Moon to mine
crypto anyway, but they were apparently, yeah.
One of the Cookie Mama games was infected with malware or something, which yeah.
Turned your device into a mining resource. Anyway.

(01:21:07):
It'd be cool if they because when we started talking
about this i was thinking through other than those massively popular
online games that benefit from
having festivals from various
cultures there aren't that many other games
that really do much with the new year which is
kind of disappointing yeah there's like a it's like a christmas

(01:21:29):
or a couple of christmas games a couple of a lot
of halloween games and then nothing really else right well i mean yeah halloween's
kind of the only the one that stands out i guess because horror even when it's
not halloween is still something people want to play it's a good like connection
with christmas with christmas you only get that one window and people aren't

(01:21:49):
going to play christmas games outside of christmas.
Do you think that part of the reason why chinese new
year or the lunar new year isn't as big is
because it changes every year for 12 years and
like it's less marketable you can't sell sell like a
year of the rat game in a different year oh
that's so funny i did not think about but no i think

(01:22:10):
that's actually cooler because i yeah i love
that like i would do that because i want to buy a game that's set in the year
of my birth you know what i mean yeah you could do like a you do a year of the
dragon game and then just let it let it age right like it doesn't need to be
and then every 12 years re-release it because then it won't be some stupid like
marketing thing if If it's like released,

(01:22:31):
like if it's like released in the year of a rat and it's a year of a dragon
game like that, that would be kind of cool because then it's like,
oh, we're not cashing in on the fact that it's like, you know, Lunar New Year.
We just made this cool concept with like dragons and like Lunar, like, yeah.
Like what's the last cool dragon game that came out?
Lair. Remember Lair?

(01:22:52):
That was the PS3 launch game that killed Factor 5.
I remember the- Drakengard's not really in the spirit of festival.
No, that's a little bit different, yeah.
Slightly different vibe. Was it FromSoft or was it some Platinum that we're
going to make that got absolutely canned?
Oh, that was Platinum games. Yeah, it looks sick.

(01:23:13):
Scalebound was it? Yeah. Yeah. Scalebound.
That was a shame. I think a lot of Dragon games are very Western Dragon games.
You don't really have a lot of like Asian culture. Yeah. yeah well how is the
sword and fairy thing going i'm just assuming that would know about this.
Way although is that kind of

(01:23:35):
development community still going or have you been
following it well i mean sword and fairy is not
going anywhere it's kind of like the taiwanese final
fantasy so it's it's a massive property
i assume they're working on another one but yeah it's
it's they don't do they don't have anything to do with kind of the lunar new
year in them not that i can remember anyway that's always just been on my list

(01:24:00):
of things to play and never got around to it they're great games they're they're
really great games um they do a really good job of,
conveying a different culture to japanese rpgs within the the the context or
within the kind of the mechanics of the jrpg so they feel they feel like they're

(01:24:21):
obviously not as refined as what Final Fantasy and various other JRPGs do.
But yeah, they definitely feel different to play. They've got different narratives to experience.
It's a little bit hard, I guess, for us in the West because also the translations tend to be poor.
A bit, yeah. So yeah, it can be
hard to kind of get the full weight of the narrative that they're sharing.

(01:24:45):
But I have hope that that will improve. I think that's an issue generally with
Chinese and Taiwanese game development because...
For whatever reason, they just haven't got good translators that work.
Yeah, it's kind of a 90s RPG situation. Yeah, it's exactly that.

(01:25:07):
It's improved so much now because so many games have come out of Japan,
but it's not the same level of ubiquitousness that other countries.
It's becoming more noticeable because there are more games that are coming out
of China now and Taiwan. There are a lot more games.
And yes, they're still not doing a great job. I can't think of a single game

(01:25:28):
from either China or Taiwan where the translation has been good.
Do you ever play Chinese Parents? I actually don't know if that's a Chinese
game or if that's an ABC game, but that was very fun and it translated quite well. Okay.
It's funny, I have a housemate at the moment who's visiting from China,

(01:25:48):
and the whole premise of Chinese Parents is that you're raising a child to do the final exam,
in like a really challenging final exam in china
to enter university and she's playing god why
is this a game why is this fun i think i
think in general i just i wish there
was more ways to celebrate chinese history in general in

(01:26:08):
games because like there's some pretty fucking sick movies
about china right but yeah
there's lots of i can't think
of it yeah there's a lot of like I
understand it's not just as simple as saying we're gonna
make a game about China but when the only games about China I can think of are
made by Japanese devs it's a bit like oh yeah like you know what like it like

(01:26:33):
woe long is you know it's about China Disney Warriors is about China and yeah
it's all made by Japanese people and it's actually lucky love again why Japanese developers,
make games about China and they really get the history like they really do it
fantastically I I was having a chat
to my friend who's got a master's in international politics and relations,

(01:26:54):
in focusing on Russia, and he was saying he learnt all about Chinese history
from playing Dynasty Warriors as a 10-year-old.
But that was how he learned about it. I feel like because Western developers
making games about other cultures of rarely that considerate or all kinds.
Right. If you think about shadow warrior or whatever other Western game they've

(01:27:17):
made about any Asian country, like it's just nowhere near the same level. Yeah.
Yeah.
Like if you hear someone saying I learned about Japanese culture from versus
sheep and you're like, Oh, I do not want to talk to this man.
I mean, the thing is, the Western game developers, they have this habit of overemphasizing

(01:27:40):
the qualities that they think are Asian about these things.
And it comes off as Orientalist as fuck, really.
And that was really my issue with Ghost of Tsushima.
I don't think for a second that they went in there not intending to respect
the history or whatever.
That was obviously the intent of it. but it just
comes across as like a bunch of white dudes dudes that

(01:28:01):
really like the kurosawa film so they decide to gain from it
they just synthesize it they just take like the the visual
elements of it and just use that as color paint when
when japanese developers take on romance of
three kingdoms there's an intent
there to understand the book i think and the history and do those characters

(01:28:25):
respect within that without over emphasizing you know i mean obviously dynasty
warriors is pretty over the top but at the same time it's not insultingly so.
It's not drawing attention to the fact that you know this is
exotic or whatever because i think because to japanese
developers it's not i mean i know japan and china are different countries but

(01:28:48):
you know culturally there there's not
that it's got the exotic yeah yeah
it's not exotic the far east in
in like 1800s english poetry that just led into our current culture yeah yeah
it's not racist it's what we're trying to say which is why i mean which is why

(01:29:08):
i'm really looking forward to koei tecmo has a is it koei tecmo has a another japanese themed,
game on the way um what's it called another souls like on the way oh what's
that that looks it's coming quite soon i am intrigued i'm pretty sure it's koei tecmo.

(01:29:31):
Looks like Ghost of Tsushima was done by Japanese developers.
What's it called? Jesus Christ. Rise of the Ronin? Rise of the Ronin.
Yeah, it is that. I didn't realise it was a Koei Tecmo joint.
Pretty sure it's Koei Tecmo. And it won't be as successful because it won't

(01:29:52):
be what Western people view like what Japanese culture is.
So it's like, you know, you you can't make a Lunar New Year promotional thing
without it being over the top with some lanterns and red and whatever is the

(01:30:13):
vibe of that situation in the Western games.
That is what it's like in China as well. It's extremely...
It's kind of a nice resonance there is that it's a gaudy for everybody.
It's like Christmas everywhere else. like you know it's
christmas is not like christmas as we think of
it it's let's go buy a bunch of shit and be really over the top and get drunk

(01:30:38):
and you know what i like that that would be my preferred christmas themes actually
is just a heavily commercialized like capitalist,
store manager kind of game so monopoly yes monopoly christmas no no the best
christmas game would definitely be like violent night where it'd be like your

(01:30:59):
santa a santa souls like where you love that film chilling all the dudes because
yeah that'd be good actually i was in it.
No i like the idea of a monopoly christmas game
where you like you basically you're like the
role is you're playing as like the monopoly guy
instead of like buying the properties you're like

(01:31:21):
you own all the properties and then like you kick people out
on christmas eve and stuff like that and raise yeah capitalism do you think
do you think part of the problem with doing a lunar new year game harvard would
be the the the lack of awareness that people around the world have about chinese
games if that makes sense like.

(01:31:45):
We were just talking, we were making a joke about doing a Christmas game about
Monopoly, but that would be viable.
But do you think that Mahjong would resonate quite the same way? I think it's...
Or go? I think it's difficult because Chinese culture first entered the Western
sphere through the Orientalist lens.

(01:32:07):
So you get that problem where if you want to introduce Mahjong to somebody,
you have to first overcome the barrier of also you're not trying
to match tiles together and make patterns like it's actually a
whole separate game like there's a lot of unlearning that needs to happen
because of that so i don't know i
think i think you you encounter interesting challenges when you
try to to communicate culture in

(01:32:28):
a more genuine way when it hasn't been done in a genuine way
before yeah but i also think the problem
is that chinese developers don't care that much
about the western world sometimes well there's certainly that
i mean fair enough they don't have to china china has only relatively
recently started to export its games
like the guy the chinese game game industry

(01:32:49):
didn't exist as far as the west was concerned until five or
six years ago it's still very new you know but the ones that
are being exported are actually people who want to develop games for
the narrative or for the aesthetic side of things they want a wider audience the
chinese market has existed for a very long long time but.
It's mostly internal multiplayer games to make money off
Chinese people so it's it's got

(01:33:10):
its own fair share of problems I think
there's a certain weird thing
about being Australian I don't know if this is because I grew
up Australian obviously and all of us have but it's the
idea that we are a you know predominantly
like in quotation white the

(01:33:34):
colonial country surrounded by you
know a bunch of asian countries and i think that most australians are
far more approachable at least from my generation i feel
and not so much older generations but like
from my generation far more approachable to the idea of being like hell yeah
let's celebrate this this is cool as hell yeah well i
mean you're starting to you do see that i mean the the lunar new

(01:33:55):
year celebrations in australia are getting to be pretty large yeah and
as you know trent mentioned earlier even even the kind of far-flung whoop whoop
will you'll find lunar new year celebrations and then you know just over the
last couple of years diwali's become a big thing that we celebrate in australia
as well oh diwali's sick over here as well which is which is great to see for the same reason.

(01:34:18):
It's good to kind of recognize these other important events and cultures in Australia.
But you're right. I mean, I think that in general, the younger generations are
more comfortable with Australia being closer geographically and increasingly
culturally to Asia than Europe and America. Yeah.

(01:34:41):
It's cool and again i i hope that that reflects in the media that we consume
because i i want to see more stuff about it i don't i clearly don't know a lot
about it given that my one memory,
it's the wrong food item literally the
wrong food if i was given by a white teacher
might i add it was not my fault i will
say it's one cake would you look a lot more chinese than anything else

(01:35:04):
i feel like they've googled it and they're like this
is a recipe and her thing from china let's make
it and here you're implying it
googled it in 2002 when there was one
computer in my school that had internet google was big this google was still
a thing i remember like being like a kid like and going to like the library

(01:35:24):
when uh when like it just came out and like using google and i'm like how did
we all figure out that google was a thing back then like everyone Everyone was
Googling, and it was a thing somehow.
I will say, and I think another issue that the games industry has,
and we've talked about this, I think, in the past, is that with the exception of Japan.

(01:35:48):
The game development tends to be kind of homogenized in terms of the cultures that it represents.
Like in film, for example, you can tell when a film comes from China as opposed
to Japan, as opposed to Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, whatever.
You know, each of these, Nigeria, Bollywood, you know, all of these cultures

(01:36:12):
have their own film industries which produce films that are culturally relevant and distinctively.
To that culture. Whereas in video games, you've got Western games,
which is predominantly designed in in a way that kind of suits the American aesthetic and taste.
And you've got Japanese games, which does have its own kind of cultural identifiers.

(01:36:36):
But other than that, you don't. Like, there's a sense, I guess,
that Chinese games might be different.
But again, you then look at some of the games that have been,
that have come out of China, with the exception of Sword and Fairy and the work from Softstar.
Genshin Impact. Genshin Impact? Yes. Yeah, that's...

(01:37:01):
Wouldn't know that that came out of china unless somebody told you like there's
nothing in that game there's nothing in that game that says this is
a chinese game it looks like one one of
one of the the games that i enjoyed most
out of a chinese developer was about napoleon
what the hell was that oh yeah it was the banner of the
maid or whatever banner of the maid which is an excellent game again translated poorly

(01:37:22):
but an excellent game but you'd have no idea that came out of chinese developer
unless somebody told you one monocle that
makes me think a game is more chinese and that's like
a very heavy management side of
things like almost feeling like a bit of an otaku game for
the japanese environment like they expect
players to be able to manage larger amounts of steps

(01:37:42):
right right but that
that's just something that irks me because you know sometimes systems are complicated
and i like that some of the systems are too simple on what in western games
and i don't like that yeah yeah for me i mean yeah i totally get where you're
coming from there I guess the point I'm making is just that I would like to
see greater cultural differences reflected through games.

(01:38:05):
I would like to be able to pick up a game and say, you know,
this is distinctively Chinese. This is distinctively Australian.
Most of the games that Australians make are not identifiably Australian.
Nobody knows that Armello is an Australian game, for example. That's very true.
It's a distinctively Australian game. And it's fun when they do it.
Like, it's really engaging and interesting when they do it.

(01:38:26):
That's so true. Yes. When developers made the Borderlands, the Australian Borderlands,
which was very distinctively Australian.
People loved it for that, you know. And I would like to see that more kind of across it.
I'd like to be able to pick up a game and say, you know, this is obviously a
British game. This is a Russian game.
This is a Chinese game. That would be really cool for me.

(01:38:50):
Unfortunately, I don't know if the economics kind of match up because the more
culturally distinctive you make a game, the…,
racists you tend to lose as customers it's like
games because they're made up of larger teams as well
it's a bit hard to do that yes there is that too like there's
not that kind of creative from the top yeah a film
a film has a very distinctive creative vision like the director is like the

(01:39:13):
the the one pulling the majority of shots i mean these days it's a little bit
more complicated because producers tend to tell the directors how to make their
films but yeah there is that sense sense that there is still a creative vision
from the person at the top, and as a result,
the film reflects the culture of the person that directed it.
You're totally right, a game has a million different creative voices that are

(01:39:36):
put into Ubisoft were like, we're going to put Assassin's Creed in China next.
They'd go, okay, our department finds some Chinese stories and find some Chinese
narratives and then try to tape them together.
Ubisoft's making a game about, it's set in Japan, it's doing
an Assassin's Creed in japan and that game's
been worked on by like six or seven different studios
from around the world and it's it's

(01:39:59):
got it's got a lot of creative voices that go into it so it's going to
feel very much like it's not
going to have the same cultural impact that i think this rise of the ronin will
have because that's kind of being developed within a single studio within japan
so it's I must say that Ubisoft does do, as much as I dislike Ubisoft,

(01:40:22):
they do do a decent job of making sure that their games are culturally sensitive,
if not feel like a product of the culture. Like, for example,
the Baghdad one I played.
What was the name of it? The one they released last year. Oh, the new one?
Yeah. Oh, God, what was it called?
Mirage? Mirage. Thank you, Trent. Yeah, Mirage. Mirage is really good.

(01:40:44):
Mirage definitely feels like
they've done their work in researching Baghdad as it was back then and.
Feel like it came from a middle eastern development studio but
it does it's it's culturally sensitive
enough we've come so we've come full circle good
job ubisoft yeah i mean i've always been
i've always been a fan i i have always been a fan of how ubisoft does research

(01:41:07):
their history like the assassin's creeds games come across as researched which
is which is nice which is better than what most studios do yeah and you can
really easily feel that i feel like even the the general player has that sense of,
oh, this feels like it was done quite respectfully and, oh, this was not, you know?
Yeah. You'd think so. But then a lot of people seem to think Ghost of Tsushima is somehow.

(01:41:36):
It's because we're in the middle of a culture war. And if it's like,
it looks Western enough that it appeals to like their vision of whatever culture it's mimicking.
It doesn't really matter because they don't give
a shit enough that to actually know anything further
than beyond that so they're like sweet awesome it all
fills in the holes of the preconceived notions

(01:41:59):
i have about this uh race or cultural country or whatever and then it's like
10 out of 10 best game ever i can be very true i think that a lot of developers
at some point will appeal to the western fantasy of a certain culture rather
than the actual culture itself Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely it.
Again, Ghost of Tsushima being a really good example, the dude jumps into a

(01:42:22):
hot spring and composes haiku because haiku and hot springs are...
That american tourists to japan like to do you know that's
that's definitely it i love the
idea of jumping into a billabong and doing a banjo patterson is
walking around the channel yes we need

(01:42:49):
a ned kelly game which is incredibly incredibly racist and like over the top
like bogan australia we need it we definitely need Ned Kelly game.
We do. I think we need a game where we get drunk in a Melbourne suburb.
Just think like Red Dead Redemption but with a tin hat. Like, it'd be cool.

(01:43:09):
We get drunk in a Melbourne suburb, go to the local corner shop,
buy a kebab, get some dimmies, put it in the kebab, and then that's the game.
Make it drunk and you've got to find your way home.
And then it's like... I don't know if any of you have played that have played
Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth yet.
I will be, though. I'm asking about it in like a month.

(01:43:32):
That is a very interesting game because for the first time it takes the Yakuza
series outside of Japan. Oh, what does it go to? Hawaii. Hawaii.
It's based mostly in Hawaii. That's true.
And it's just fascinating how they've taken all the elements of the Yakuza series
and localised it to Hawaiian culture and whatnot. And it's actually really good

(01:43:56):
what they've done. That sounds great. They've done a really, really good job.
The way that they've reworked all the stores, like the shopping systems.
Even you start out the game in Yokohama, just like any other Yakuza game.
So you're beating up dudes and you're getting money in yen.
Then you get on the plane and the game comes up with a prompt saying,
okay, so now that you're in America, all the money's being listed in US dollars instead.

(01:44:20):
So the money system swaps over to... Oh, that's where that meme is from.
Yeah i love that meme
so much and it's it's really cute it's it's
really it's really well done they've made it very clear that
you know this is a different city it's a different culture it's a different you
know lifestyle and all that kind of stuff so yeah good respect it's it's the

(01:44:43):
respect i think is the main thing that's why i want to see more developers who
actually have backgrounds in that in areas of like different holidays i don't
care what holiday is put it in your game. Who cares? Make it fun.
Do it. If it's authentic, I'm here for it. If it's not, then don't do it. Don't.

(01:45:03):
Like a video game where it's like you're saying all about kebabs
like imagine like a video game where it's like you go
you get a kebab you get drunk and then
the video game is basically you trying to aim
in the toilet the midnight kebab i don't
need a video game i disagree i
think that would be actually an incredibly fun game is like make your

(01:45:25):
way home when you're drunk but you play it when you're sober so you
just get to see how frustrated you get control on
this character that will not do what you want it to do and everyone
just hates you you could call it a right piss up and then you have like fun
and squish like yell racist or sexist or whatever that is not my night i want

(01:45:48):
to clarify that that is not what my notes up.
Thank you very much. Thanks for throwing mooncakes at everyone on Lunar New Year.
Oh, don't. Have like a button mash command which is like, get back to your own country.
We need this to start.
That would be a fun fact. Your normal controls every now and then just randomly

(01:46:10):
become the wrong controls.
So like, the button for jump every now and then just becomes fall over.
I just need to press it at not the wrong time.
I do love the idea of just screwing around with that sort of mechanic. That's fun.
Music.

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