Tacoma

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
2456 Stay the Same is back with A1 shot special of the game
Tacoma. Once again Tanner is joining me

(00:22):
for this game. Club welcome again, Tanner to
stay the same. Hi, Michael.
And I'm glad you renewed my contract for another year.
So I get to spend more time withall these people I know and
love. No, an accident.
I didn't know where you're goingwith that.
You sounded very robotic, so I didn't know if you were gonna be
an AI Tanner. That was.

(00:45):
That was insulting. That was just me being me.
No, God. I mean, look, you know, like
Ai's. Listen, we've got two strikes
going on with Ai's at the forefront and we've got a lot
going on with Ai's. I I've mentioned this before, I
love that we followed up Battle Network with this because it

(01:06):
weirdly connects to each other in terms of a little bit of the
theming. This is a very good connection
to Mega Man Battle Network, which is more Mega Man Battle
Network is a bonkers like kind of optimistic take on the all
digital future, while this is a much more corporate, grounded,
realistic version of the digitalfuture. 100% It also fills the

(01:28):
genre that Alien gets credit forstarting.
But really, there's a John Carpenter movie called Dark Star
that starts it. Which is Douchebags in space.
Douchebags or. Blue collar in space, whatever
you wanna call it. Yes, there's a lot of Alien in
this game that like what a touchon, but that's when we get to

(01:50):
the game club portion. What we usually do first is we
like to talk about games that we've been playing in our off
time between shows. And Speaking of which, I want to
apologize for everyone for the late episode, my air went out,
which kind of negates your ability to play games when it's

(02:10):
the peak of summer and you have no air conditioning.
But that's all fixed. I have played the game.
We are good. My dog is is fine now, so we're
all we're all good. Your dog sounded like they were
having a blast. Based on what you just told me,
yeah, you guys got to stay at someone's house with like a big
yard, big yard, A/C, another dogto play with.

(02:31):
They were having a great time. They were mad when my dog was
mad when I brought him home. So like, why we had a good thing
going. You slip on the couch and
everything is fine. Well, did you explain that you
had a video game to play? I yeah.
I told my landlord I was like, Ineed the people need this Tacoma

(02:53):
game club immediately. I need you to go and send the
guy, expedite the part. I don't care if the order can't
be made until after the weekend.You put that in now so I can
play some Tacoma. You're you're like, have you
not? Are you living under a rock?
The people are crying for Tacoma.
They demand it. There are strikes and riots in

(03:17):
the streets for Tacoma, which bythe way is a font.
I would like to note I mentionedthat it is a font while also
being a city in Washington, thatthis makes it a very a more
difficult game to Google than you would.
Think I, Michael. I also right before this wanted
to watch the launch trailer. I had to put somebody filter.
I was like Tacoma trailer. No, not the Truck Tacoma trailer

(03:38):
game. I also got the Truck No Tacoma
trailer game reveal and it took me to like truck reveals.
I had to Scroll down before seeing that Truck reveals is a
great concept. I would love for Jeff Keeley to
just do world premiere. And he just he publicly drives
over that kid who interrupted from Soft's accepted speech.
It's the Ford Lightning. Let me demonstrate.

(04:05):
Oh man. So, Tanner, what have you been
playing? I have been very busy between
like this and just some real life stuff, but don't worry, I
found time finally for Final Fantasy.
As I mentioned in Mega Man Battle Network, Part one that I
wanted to play 16 but didn't have the time, so I played Final
Fantasy 14 patch 6.4. So don't worry, I finally have

(04:29):
had more time. Last night I played Final
Fantasy 14 Patch 6.45. We're on to the.
We're on to the thousands digit.Dude, what do you get?
Like, OK, the patches are kind of weird now where like they
start coming out in like these. .05 increments as well as like
the big. OK, I'm not going to bore

(04:49):
everyone with like how final fancy 14 patch works, but the
point is like the .5 stuff is usually or the .05 is usually
like the Side Story. So this one was the big like
continuation of the Hildebrand comedy side quest, which is one
of my favorite parts of all Final Fantasy 14.
Especially because I just went into it like out of nowhere.

(05:10):
I didn't know there was this bigcomedy side quest that was going
to run through like all the expansions.
And to the point that last nightwhen I was playing it, I used
the PlayStation Share function, upload the short clip to
YouTube, and sent it to you to just be like, I just want you to
know what I'm playing. I'm going to explain this clip
from my my vague memory of waking up in the morning seeing

(05:32):
this message and be like, all right, let's watch this thing.
So hazy, tired. Morning, Michael.
Watch this clip, and now I'm going to explain it now, hours
later. All right, so you got a metallic
skeleton Terminator head with eye lasers and a mouth cannon
that's just just causing all kinds of trouble.

(05:54):
Then our band of heroes shows upand there's like a crab thing
that's also a bomb. So one of the members of the
party has flashbacks to them playing basketball and it's
like, I love basketball. So now's her chance for a three
pointer. She lines up the three pointer,
shoots it into the mouth of the skeleton except she misses.

(06:16):
But uh oh I assume. Who is the main character of
this game? Who I'm going to call my OC,
Please don't steal. Runs up and gets the rebound and
slams, dunk the ball, Kobe style, into the mouth of this
skeleton who then explodes. But also you have a guy in front
who I assume it's the quest giver who gets shot by the

(06:39):
skeleton man who I don't think dies, but it's like critically
injured. And that is this 3 minute clip
of this video game. Correct me if I missed out on
something very important here. No, I think you nailed it.
OK, I will just say that my OC was yes, you are correct.
That is my character and I feel like you're saying my OC cuz I

(06:59):
had them dressed like weirdly. I was playing the Red Mage class
which is like the like cool looking class all right, Like
cravats and cool hats and shit. So that is why they were dressed
like that feels like a guilty geared character, the guitar or
a lady. She, Oh my gosh, I did kind of
have her dressed like I know from Guilty Gear.
It happens. These things happen to the best

(07:22):
of us on it. These things crawl into our
subconscious, and then every character we make is the same.
Yep. Did I ever mention that like, so
Final Fantasy 14 had a near crossover raid, which I think
you knew about too, that it had like the near crossover.
And I listened to the soundtrackto that, and it slaps.
And I think it's like Cannon within near.
It's very bizarre. I got to be honest man, I

(07:43):
haven't played near Automata. I did not like that particular
quest line because if you don't know near Automata, you're like
what the hell is happening at any moment?
And I but when you beat it, you get 2 B's thigh high boots, like
her high heel thigh high boots. And I decided to put them on my
character, and I finally got to the point where I'm like, she
would never wear that. Like immediately.

(08:04):
I've like, I've like developed like a story for this character.
I'm like that that doesn't speakto her.
That's not her because I see people wearing those all the
time. But I'm like my character would
that that is impractical, Sir. She would not wear those in
combat when I see everyone else wearing the same piece of gear
and immediately makes you want to change into something else.
Yeah, there was a point in one of these patches where like, I

(08:25):
remember I moved up the game right after the patch came out
and went to like, the current. Shane Hub and everyone had like
Doctor Strange portals behind them because it was like the new
weapon from like the Raid. You could get like the new skin
and I thought that was cool for like 5 seconds and then I'm
like, I don't want that, I don'twant that at all.

(08:45):
But also actually, as we're recording this Final Fantasy 14
Fan fest is happening, they announced the new expansion
coming in the summer, which is kind of a long ways away to be
honest. I don't know.
There's only got like two more story patches to get through to
that. But I watched the trailer.
Did you actually watch the trailer?
No, I did not watch the. Trailer That's fine.

(09:05):
I figured you wouldn't then. That's fine, but I just wanted
to note that they have mentionedCUZ and Walker.
The last expansion was such a like big scale thing that they
were really going to need to like scale the stakes down a
bit, which made sense. But this one is called Dawn
Trail I believe, and it's straight up looks like the
vacation episode of an anime. It's like, here's all the

(09:28):
characters going to this fun newisland and having all sorts of
misadventures and, well, they might pull a, you know, do like
they did with Heaven's Word, where it's like actually there's
some dark shit behind all this. I I don't know.
The vibe to me was kind of off. And I'm a little worried that
because this game is actually, Ithink, so popular now and the
characters are so popular, it makes them all safe.

(09:49):
It's that thing where it's like they're never going to kill off
the fan favorites and stuff likethat.
And the vibe I got was just like.
So they think they think the best way to like continue this
is to just hang out with the characters which could be fun.
But like I don't know. I think that you need stakes.
Part of what did get me hooked on 14 was that for the first

(10:10):
couple of expansions they were like killing people like they
were killing the some main characters and I was actually
kind of taken aback by it sometimes but I don't know I'm
obviously I trust the team like this is still the same team but
little hesitant at how like. Oh my God, we're all having fun
at the beach. Let's do a swimsuit contest or

(10:30):
whatever. Like I mean this is also they
were this is the same team behind Final Fantasy 16 so I
imagine these two things were indevelopment around the same
time. So I bet when you're making one
epic big fantasy scale thing, I bet the other team is like, I
don't know man, time for a beachfiller episode and yet people

(10:51):
love it and buy all the skins to.
Recoup the development. That makes sense, especially
that actually, now that you say that, that reminds me of the
story of Spielberg shooting Jurassic Park, but having to
wait for the computer effects tobe done.
So he started shooting Schindler's List, and so he had
this very weird total shift every day where he would shoot

(11:13):
Schindler's List and then leave the set of this.
You know, Holocaust movie and then go look at CG renders of
dinosaurs and like approve them or not.
Like, OK, it was almost there. We need some work on the the
scales of the T Rex. It goes back.
All right, Liam Neeson. All right, Liam, now, tomorrow
you'll be taking them to the gaschambers, but I have to go look

(11:36):
and see if the dinosaurs have feathers or not.
Like, very like, sorry to make that joke, but just very, like,
what a total shift that had to be so bad.
Anyway, you're right. Maybe they were going through
something after 16. They were like, OK, let's just
let's just go to the beach. Let's just have a fun time at
the beach. Also, I'll like I said, I I do
love bringing 14 up on this podcast any chance I get.

(11:58):
But I will only say that, like, apparently the two new classes
they're going to add are going to be DPS.
I'm not a fan of that. We need a new tank class real
bad because I can't play Dark Knight and Gun Breaker forever.
I want I want a new tank, the healer.
No, never. The responsibility scares the

(12:19):
shit out of me. I always play healer in like
white game, like Overwatch. I'm always the healer because
I'm like someone has to do it. I'm like a middle school teacher
who doesn't want to teach middleschool.
It's just like, you know what all everyone here is terrible,
but someone has to, someone has to shape these guys to be a good
team. Well, it's funny.
It's funny that you know, most people when starting 14, myself

(12:41):
included, will pick a DPS class.And so when you're looking for a
group to do dungeons with like story based dungeons it can take
like half an hour to like 45 minutes if your DPS cuz you got
to find like a tank at a healer.If you're a healer if you ever
need to do anything you are instantly in that dungeon like
it. Actually to to his credit cuz I
played like I said I play tank classes.

(13:02):
For the most part tanks are the same way which I don't
understand cuz I think a tank ispretty easy to play if you but
we have a certain amount of timeto play video games.
Healer is great for anything because you can match into a
game super fast like Overwatch that actually, yeah, Overwatch
compared to you match into a game like 2 seconds. 100%
Whereas like man, I tried beforeOverwatch 2 launched.

(13:25):
I tried playing a little Overwatch one and I liked
playing it like DPS, whatever they call it, but like DPS
characters. It took like half an hour to
find one match. It was.
I was like, this sucks. But yeah man, I'm.
I'm hoping Dawn Trail is cool, but I don't know, just a just a

(13:47):
little bit worried that now they're going to be too cute
with everything. And in fairness again, maybe
this is like we're taking a breather before getting to like
some dark shit again. But I don't want them to be
afraid to do stuff that will piss people off to an extent,
you know? That, to me, is like the bane of
storytelling. Yeah, I love stories that just

(14:07):
come in with a hammer and just feel like everything you thought
you knew was different now. Get over it.
Get used to it. Yeah, and I sometimes I object
to it, but I don't know, I just want, I want to continue to
surprise me and which for the record is a very hard ask.
I know that that is like, you know, a very hard ask, but I do

(14:28):
think they'll be chasing that high of Shadow Bringers for a
long time, cuz I think Shadow Bringers really caught people
off guard. And I do think they know that
this can't be that right away, but we'll see.
C BU3 is like just on another level right now when it comes to
their success with this and how 16 really took off in such a

(14:51):
way. I really want to play that game
that looks phenomenal. Oh yeah, I can't wait.
I can't wait for this game that is out.
What I mean is I can't wait tillI have time to play it, Yeah,
the same. Or when it's on a sale, like
like another game I bought. I took advantage of a summer
sale in a game that I was like really looking into.

(15:12):
If you're done, if you weren't done, I'm sorry.
Oh no, I'm done. But I just want to note that,
like I sent you that clip to watch.
I do want to note that the The Comedy Side Quest was very
funny. It was very short but very
funny. And Michael, I feel like asking
you to watch that three minute clip is nothing compared to the
Lovecraftian horrors you've beensubjecting me to.
Over the past like 2 weeks. OK, that's a good that's a good

(15:37):
segue. A double segue.
A tag team if you will. Oh God.
Leading us to the game I for some reason decide to get.
So a EW fight forever is not thegame I got.
I was looking at that going well.
This seems cool. It's a lot more of an Arkady
wrestling experience. But man, the creation tools

(16:01):
aren't there. So I looked into the other
wrestling game that was out, WWE2K23, which was on sale, and
I was like, you know what, let'sget this a shot.
The review scores are in the 80sfor the first time since like
the the 360 days maybe. I was about to say I didn't
realize that people actually, like, are enjoying this
unironically. Like, people are really enjoying

(16:21):
this game, so short history. WWE2K20 was an absolute trash
fire of the video game. They took a year off, went to a
different team to develop it. 22was good, was a step in the
right direction. People like this. 23 is that
further improvement on that, so to speak.

(16:43):
I haven't played on any of thesegames since the 360, so I'm just
speaking what I know offhand. 20threes review scores are in the
80s. There's still some glitches and
hilarities that can ensue from it because it's like a more
realistic wrestling game with like 200 characters and some and

(17:03):
a bunch of different animations for sexual moves and everything.
Things are going to break, but it's fine.
But what ultimately got me into this one was watching Dan
Reichert from Giant Bombs streams on this game where he
could, seeing like, all the creation stuff that I loved as a

(17:25):
kid growing up with wrestling games from the Make your own
titles insane. Make your own characters.
You can make your own arenas. You can combine all of that.
Choose your own chyrons and yourown animation graphics and make
your own wrestling show. Make your own Payperview events,
customize your match types and everything.
This is an insane toy box Where and you if you're like man it's

(17:52):
a lot of time and effort to likecraft all of that they here's
the thing most of the work is already done for you.
If you go on the creation tab you can look up any character
that you want any like image that you want and download it
from someone who has who has created themselves.

(18:13):
For example, one of the top downloaded people is a perfect
recreation of Robert Pattinson Batman and he was he was my belt
holder for a while so you can have download, I don't know, 100
characters. He was your utility belt holder
for a while, hey? I don't remember if he has a

(18:33):
utility belt in that movie except when he pulls the bat
logo out of his chest he use it as a knife.
He's very practical because he has like the art, the grappling
hook blades on his arm that you can just grab one if he needs
to. I like that the elements of his
bat suit getting off topic here.But.
No, but well, I just want to note that, like, fucking I I

(18:54):
like the practicality of it. And also, I don't know if any
comedy last year made me laugh as hard as when he does like the
bat flying shit with his weird little flying squirrel suit and
just eats shit. He like hits a lamp post or
whatever and just oh God, it wasso fucking funny.
Year 1 Batman, when he's trying to figure out how to be Batman,
is great. Yeah, I I like that.

(19:15):
They did like year two. It's like, yeah, he's kind of
figured it out. Anyway, Yeah, Batman takes over.
So I have downloaded 100 characters, downloaded a bunch
of rings and stuff and there's an element of this game called
My Universe mode where you can create basically all the
foundations that you want to andjust let the game create matches

(19:39):
and create and you create show schedules, you make different
shows, minor and major for wrestling events that all lead
up to pay per views. And the game based on how
matches go will create rivalries, create like you can
divide the all the wrestlers andstuff into different divisions

(20:00):
that will rise on ranks and everything.
So you're basically setting up dominoes and when the game run
itself essentially like being a wrestling manager in a lot of
ways. So what I did?
Something that made Eric especially really mad was I
kicked all the WWE wrestlers outand replaced them with my
weirdos. Nice dude.
I you're actually really sellingme on this game, cuz that I

(20:23):
don't know who publishes this, but it feels like it almost
feels like Warner Brothers was like take the Nemesis system and
put it in a fucking wrestling game.
This is a this is 2K. Who does this?
Gotcha, But but it takes. It takes a lot of work and a lot
of time to set up everything theway you want it to because you
got to create. Once you have all the wrestlers,

(20:45):
you got to create teams for the wrestlers, Which teams are they
on? So naturally I have the I had
the X-Men and then I debated about me and my wife were going
back and forth of like, OK, Wolverine, Should he be on X
force with Deadpool or should hebe on the in the X-Men We
decided X force because Deadpooland Wolverine as A tag team that

(21:06):
people Boo when they come out isjust hilarious to me.
I do like that. I'm glad, yeah.
And the announcers, You can choose how the announcers
announce them. They announce them as Lucia
House Party. Nice, which is great, and you
you can make interested. The toy box aspect to this
insane video game is in it. Wild.

(21:27):
I sent you a picture of Sub Zeroholding the belt made of the
Infinity Stones in front of Cinderella's castle at Disney
World. Yeah, I had to, like go out and
look into the sunset after you said that, because I wasn't
there. One you sent that was like Moon

(21:48):
Night and Booster Gold, Booster and Booster Gold where the we're
going up for the tag team championship against Leon
Kennedy and Chris Redfield. Right.
Of course. Makes what a great pairing, But
both of those? You get 2 Resident Evil guys.
And then like a gritty St. levelguy from Marvel and a goofy DC
scifi character. Yeah, they they formed a tea.

(22:10):
I put all the BB Tear superheroes on the list on a
team called the B List. Nice.
It's them to Gwenpool Starfire. I also think calling these
characters B list as being generous, to be clear like I not
that I don't like them, but likecalling Booster Gold anything
above C list is very kind to him.

(22:32):
He's the leader of the B list. I think all his moves come from
the wrestle or them is, which has me very happy.
Yeah they occasionally you'll get downloaded characters that
don't have a lot of work put into them but you can always go.
You can always go in and edit them.
You can edit, change their move sets, be like, I don't think
they would do this. So you can be like, why does

(22:54):
Batgirl do with Stunner? I don't think she would do with
Stunner. I'm going to give her a new
finishing move and you can just go and alter stuff.
You can make changes to their outfits.
It's the probably the most customizable game I've ever seen
or played and I put so much timeinto just the My Universe mode
and to the point where last night I was like, I'll actually

(23:16):
play the tutorial and figure outhow to play this game instead of
just watching my AI matches. It's.
Nice. They're also every year they do
something called the My Showcasemode, which is kind of not a
story mode, but it's like their mission objective base mode,
like their event mode, and it's all centered around a theme.
This year's theme is centered around John Cena's famous

(23:39):
losses. So I don't know about this.
So John Cena does the narration and he's talking about all the
times that he's had really like devastating losses that shaped
his career. It's called Never Give Up and
how it kept him to keep persevering.
And so like the first one is you're playing like his 2006

(23:59):
title shot shot against Rob Van Dam and you're playing as Rob
Van Dam. And all the missions are
basically you got to do the moves that were done in that
match in order to get a perfect score to recreate the match.
And during the match they'll like go to a cut scene and then
do the cross, dissolve into the real footage of the match and

(24:21):
then dissolve back into the the game and you're playing it
again. OK, I understood everything
except the names of the people you said, yeah.
I know, I know who John Cena is,but like, I'm not familiar with
wrestling. I'm sorry, that's fine.
I'm I have a very basic knowledge of wrestling.

(24:43):
I want know it mostly from videogames, and I haven't played a
wrestling video game in a long time, except Fire Pro Wrestling
World, but that had that was just a create.
I like the sandbox stuff of that, but it was tied to a weird
Internet browser. All this stuff is tied to in the
game itself, all the creation stuff.

(25:03):
So I'm having a blast just creating my weird, bizarre
batchups. I did one.
Right now I'm in the middle of apay-per-view event that is set
in the Hive from of Umbrella Headquarters in Raccoon City.
Okay that I. Don't know why, that's what.

(25:26):
Yeah, that event is called global global saturization.
Nice good, good pick. And we have that's I I replaced
the Elimination Chamber for that.
So that's with the big Elimination Chamber event for
the women's title. Black Cat pulled it finally from
Regina from Dino Crisis, which made me.

(25:46):
Sad. Good for good for Felicia Hardy.
Man, that's good for her. She was a good word.
She was. She was consistently in like the
top five, like performing women.Wrestlers finally pulled it from
Regina who was just like an all out hardcore wrestler 1-2.
Fantastic Hell in the sail cage matches one against Sonia Blade,

(26:07):
the other against Jean Grey as he'll turn as the Phoenix.
Oh, Oh my. You know what?
You're actually the way you put that Phoenix again.
I'm not too familiar with wrestling, but Phoenix is such a
fucking heel turn thing that it is like a fucking wrestling
thing. Comic books are all just
wrestling. So the minute you the minute you
accept that, the more fun you have like, OK, I'm going to have

(26:30):
Jean Grey have this big loss. And once she has this big loss,
I have a costume ready for a heel turn switch.
I'm going to make her entrance where she comes out with a bat
made of fire with all the arena just like on fire and she just
comes out and just like walks towards the ring.
And I changed her eyes to glowing.
I gave her like magma coming outof her face.

(26:51):
It's such a cool costume change and I like the idea of then I
boosted her stats all the way upto 100.
Be like, no, now she's a threat,now she's going to climb the
ladder. Look at hey man you're actually
selling me on this so like it actually.
I mean so is it mostly specifically the management
that's that's that's most of thefun I'm having there is there is

(27:12):
a turns out there is a wrestlingvideo game in here with a bunch
of, if you like, wrestling with all your favorite dudes and the
game play seems like a lot of fun.
There's a lot of modes but that just the creation stuff and the
community the the the stuff thatthe community made is amazing.

(27:33):
You can. You can get lost in there for so
long and just have fun changing up stuff in a lot of ways.
Yeah, I can tell you're having fun.
Based on the pictures you're sending me, that is
unquestionable. Having someone make the Disney
World arena and then having Sub Zero win the Infinity Stones and
pulling them from Apollo Creed just makes me happy.

(27:55):
You can just look. At That's Where we got them
from. He beat Apollo Creed.
How dare you? Apollo Creed did come back and
win it, but then he lost it to Deadpool who upon winning the
belt grabbed the ref, took the belt from him and did pull,
threw him out of the threw the ref out of the ring and just
celebrate and dance with it as he does.

(28:16):
I can't believe he fucking killed Apollo Creed.
That is. Apollo Creed is there.
His son is rising up their rankstoo.
So eventually Apollo and Adonis have to meet in the ring, and
that's going to be a great moment when that finally
happens. Yeah, that's going to break the
time barrier, dude. Yeah, it what what my wrestling
organization is called New Earthand it's about like all these my

(28:38):
I already got a arena set that Idownloaded for Crisis on
Infinite Earths and that's my WrestleMania.
That's my finale is Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Is it at least? Does it have the red sky?
No, it's all everything's all blue themed.
Because it's based on the logo, I already did.
I already did a red event with the red room from Black Widow

(29:01):
when I made one of the when I made the Royal Rumble event red
room rumble. So everything was code and red.
I can't have too many red themedevents back-to-back.
OK, I just want to note that theRed Room is from the Black Widow
movie, right? I didn't see it.
Yes, from her comics and movies and.
Stuff. OK, if you're gonna make a red
event instead of doing the BlackWidow movie no one saw and or

(29:24):
cared about, do the fucking Crisis on Infinite Earth.
An event that people still reference and it's still, like,
beloved from beloved comic book creators.
Like, what are you doing? I just, I didn't make the arena.
Someone else did. I It's an outdoor arena because
it's WrestleMania. It's the big event.
Well, if you're if you're the manager, I'm your wealthy

(29:45):
investors who have some shady deals going on and I'm not happy
right now. Add that to your fucking story.
Speaking of story. Hey, right, the 30 minute mark.
That's how we do things. We're a well oiled machine here.
We're professionals. Speaking of well oiled machines
and professionals, hey, there's so many ways to transition into

(30:06):
this. It's like Speaking of Norse
gods, There's a, there's one Speaking of.
No, Odin, You're giving me a look.
I meant Odin, yeah, yeah, I was.No, I was pulling over my notes.
I was getting those out and ready.
Yes, So can I be honest, I foundthis game harder to take notes
for than a Mega Man Battle Network.

(30:28):
It's one of these games we've we've done a few of these
before, like these one shot adventures.
And the thing about these games that are so short and compacted
is that they don't really revealthemselves until the very end in
that games like this had to be taken at their full picture in
order to understand what's goingon.

(30:48):
I did take a lot of notes, but they were mostly beats for
beats. What were happening?
So that's what I found. I was like, oh, if I just take
these notes, it's just gonna be a description of like the plot.
I tried to get like as much gameplay stuff as I could, but.
Real quick, if you don't mind, Ijust want to say what my
playthrough was, which again, wewere planning to record last

(31:09):
weekend and couldn't because of your A/C.
Again, your dog is, you know, poor thing.
And I I I basically, I remember I played it on Friday planning
to do the episode and then I found out about you and I think
I finished it on Sunday. I played like.
I basically did the first section because it is split into

(31:30):
like 3 sections. Would you say maybe like 3, 1/2,
whatever you want to call it? Yeah, yeah, 3/3.
Three, I did the right. So I did the first section on
Friday and then a couple days later did the rest of it and
what was? So you played yesterday and
today, correct? Yeah, I played up through

(31:50):
Biomedical last night and then did all of engineering today.
Gotcha. So yeah, I mean, you could beat
this in one sitting. Like it's a very short game.
Not that it's a bad thing, but yeah, you could definitely do
this in one sitting. I and I mean we.
So I didn't know anything about this, right?

(32:10):
Like I told you, I didn't know anything about this game.
I didn't know how it actually played other than again, it's
from the Gone Home people, so it's probably gonna be similar
cuz I did play Gone Home and I. Michael I think I'm gonna come
down a little more negatively onthis game than you are, just
based on the way you've been talking about it.
I To get my overall impressions out of the way, I like this

(32:36):
game. I think it's one or two
emotional beats away from me really, really liking this game.
It feels like something's missing, right?
It really feels like there's something just.
Not there. And I was curious because I, I
did try to avoid, you know, knowing anything about this game
before playing it. And then after playing.
And I was kind of like, how was this received?

(32:56):
And I was happy to see there were some critics who were like,
just there's stuff here, but like, something's missing.
Like, it just doesn't really hitlike it should.
Like, like, they clearly wanted to.
And I I think that this is one of this is a perfect example to
me of a game. And I think we're going to be
talking about the story a lot because, again, it's like a.
Walking Simulator. Hate to use that term, but so

(33:19):
it's mostly the narrative that'sgoing to carry this game and it
really feels like they built a incredibly like a really good
and detailed world. And the actual plot, the actual
events that happen within this game to me is just kind of dull.
I wouldn't say dull, I was invested in all of it.
I just think it needs more like another hour or so with these

(33:41):
characters. Another big reveal, another like
one or two heart wrenching moments near the end to really
carry this through because I waswith this game for all of it.
I just wanted. I just wanted more at the end of
the day. Is my.
Yeah. Because, I mean, it's a yeah.
Oh, sorry. You, you go ahead.
That was pretty much the end of my thought.
You're good. Oh, well, I just, I think it's a

(34:04):
fine premise Again, I said douche bags or blue collar in
space. But it is essentially like.
I, I I'd say blue collar douche bags is the Dark Star movie by
John Carpenter which I recommendwatching if you haven't, even
though it is very bizarre. But I I think that like it's a
decent premise of OK you know spaceship came back there is or

(34:25):
not spaceship. Sorry.
You know space station. Nobody is on it and we have to
figure out what happened to the crew.
Fine, fine premise. And the idea that it's like, oh,
this, this. Company has been recording
everything you know and you can like kind of live a virtual
simulation of it. A virtual simulation, which I

(34:46):
don't fault the developers at all for this, but a virtual
simulation which no one has mouths because you know like
facial features could be hard todo.
I think it's a fine compromise. It's literally just walking like
wireframes walking. It's literally like wireframes,
but I actually really did like that.
They're all color-coded to theirdepartment and they all have
like a symbol on their back thatit reminds you like, oh right,

(35:07):
this is the medical person. This is the botnet even before
you know there. It's a great way to get you
introduced to these characters because right away, before you
like know their names, you immediately associate their the
job with a color, and then you go from there and associating it
with their names like I can name.
All that actually worked. I can name all of the

(35:27):
characters, and when I think of the character, I think of a
color, and when I think of the color, I think of their job.
It's all connected in that way. It's very smart how they dole
out that information. Yeah, no, I actually really did
like that. And I think the opening again
with like I said solid premise and a solid opening there is
that shot I really like of you docking in the ship and like
your ship reverses and you just got a straight shot of Earth,

(35:48):
which is a very good like just placing it.
It's like this is not like far reaches of space.
This is like we're still pretty close to Earth here.
Yes, we're still all within the solar system.
I want to say And yeah, this. I want to say right up front
this the game direction is phenomenal.
Like when you say. How do you mean how element both

(36:11):
like the direct direction of theactors.
How conversations themselves below.
How you can get this one big room with this scene going on
and there could be like a mini scene over here and the way
they're broken up as like peoplepass by in the hallway.
They can have like one or two words to each other and it went

(36:32):
stuff like that. And stuff like the way the the
environment itself is positionedlike you said, like you see the
view of earth and then you can go out.
Like the last thing I did beforeleaving Tacoma was I went back
to the Tacoma Dome and it lookedat earth just from the outside,
just took it all in. Just like give a just like I

(36:55):
book into the adventure by watching the first scene I
encountered over again to see iflike any of the contacts change
or something. And the fact that like am I
making sense when I when I made my direction here?
No, actually that, yeah, now that you described, I understand
what you're saying, OK, stuff like that.
Just the way everything is positioned and like the way the

(37:17):
game guides you through things, as well as like how it handles
cutscenes and like the dialogue scenes and everything, how all
that is like constructed is is brilliant, I think.
So I at 1st remind me when you OK, so you get on the ship.
And also, yeah, again, you're you are told by this company
like look, just figure out what happened and it's even less like

(37:40):
figure out what happened and more make sure you retrieve the
AI cuz that's proprietary that and we have to get that.
Yeah, everything else is unimportant.
It's all about going in and retrieving the AI.
You can figure out what happens too.
That's fine. But your main priority is go to
these three centers, plug in, extract all the data from this

(38:01):
ship and get the AI and deliver it back to us.
Yeah, and I love that you even have emails coming in from the
company. And one of them says, by the
way, this is all like confidential.
You sign an NDA, you can't say shit about anything you've seen
here. Cuz I love that moment where
it's just like, by the way, don't fucking talk about what

(38:21):
we're doing. And I do like that.
Right at the beginning you meet the Odin AI, which is the AI for
the station. And as you're being like led
into the station on the platform, it kind of like
glitches out. It's very much setting up the
typical, oh, the AI probably went rogue.
That's where we're going to go with this.
Yeah, it's a good fake out therebecause you could.

(38:42):
Yeah, immediately. It takes your knowledge on other
scifi stories and has you thinking it could go a couple of
directions with it, the main onebeing the rogue AI stuff.
Yeah, I will say that. It did it again, not really the
fault of the game because it's not like, first of all, it's not

(39:03):
like that many people saw this movie, but it kind of reminded
me of the Duncan Jones movie Moon, which similarly, it's our
Sam Rockwell on like a moon station alone.
And then an accident happens andthere's an AI.
And I'm going to spoil a bit of the movie Moon, which is you're
like, oh, is the AI the villain?And the end is very clear.
Like, no, the AI is actually a good guy essentially in this
story, But they wanted you to think the AI was a villain, and

(39:26):
so you you definitely get that. Vibe And when you go into the SO
you get into the ship, you know you're in a zero gravity thing,
which I thought the whole thing was going to be in zero gravity,
which I thought was cool. And I got to be honest, I was a
little disappointed when we started walking around.
I was, I don't get motion sickness, just all the way this
was spinning. And then you get on the, like,
elevator shaft. I was like, there's so much

(39:47):
movement in this game, I needed to calm down a little bit.
I was relieved when I started walking.
So I'm in the opposite aspect ofthat.
Oh my good God, everything's moving.
Fair enough, Fair enough, 100%. No, that's true because it does
remind you. It's like, wait, where is
anything? Because everything's moving all
the time. And so like, not only are you
not stationary, but nothing in the the station is stationary.

(40:10):
But yeah, then you get to go down.
Remind me, when you go down, youhave two directions you can take
in the first area. Are you able to choose which
direction, or does the game makeyou pick one?
I went right. I always went right first and
then went left I. OK I not sure I I would love to

(40:31):
I would maybe I should have playyeah well no I just.
I apologize listener that I don't have I can have that
information because now I I kindof wish I do because I also went
right first. OK yeah I I wish I wouldn't the
game first or I did go right first.
I wish I just knew if you could go left the game sight lights
you went to going to specific places like before I went to the

(40:52):
first zone which was like the crew, the crew area.
You've see writings on the wall that say to the Tacoma Dome.
So it's like all right before that we're gonna, I'm gonna fly
down here and see what's up withthat.
You see some like 0G basketball,which I got the achievement for
making a three pointer and I'm like, hey, this game, this

(41:13):
game's like Dead Space. Yeah, I I dunked for blue team.
I made sure to help him out. Yeah, they were behind.
So I was like, I'm gonna make sure Blue Team wins and it makes
like a nice sound when you you get that.
So yeah, fly the end of the hallway and that's where you get
your first, like conversation, where you're, you learn how the

(41:34):
AR recordings work. And I think we touched on this,
but there's a fun sign at the beginning that says, just so you
know, by onboarding the station,you forfeit your rights for you
not to be recorded and everything.
Yeah, I I love because like. This game is like I said, I do

(41:56):
like the world it presents and it's a very corporatized future.
And I like this idea that, yeah,the companies, they're just
recording everything you do. They control like every aspect.
I forget the name of the evil company in this game, but is
there shorthand? Vt Yeah, yeah, Vt just like, you
know, again, it's like a you sign a disclosure.

(42:17):
It's like, by the way, we can doall of this and all of this and
you can't do anything about it. One of my favorite little
details just to skip ahead is that the because it's all about
like, yeah, worker protections, which again very relevant to
what is happening right now and I love that the bill, the anti
union bill is called the OrbitalWorker Safety Bill which I

(42:38):
thought is I loved that. But yeah, it's called the
Orbital, but even though all theOrbital workers are against it
because really it's a fucking anti union bill in the skies of
a safety bill. I got very realistic.
And the thing they're celebrating when you go down and
you see a party, they're celebrating this union based
holiday where they were supposedto be humans were supposed to be

(43:02):
declared obsolete and that A IS were going to take over the
entire like space industry pretty much It was all going to
be A I led until the union stepped in and got that bill
signed, which is the obsolete day.
And it don't tell you that rightaway because all the characters
know what this is. It's something that you find and
like emails later on which is the nerd main crux of this game

(43:24):
is that a lot of this is a game which the story is you're going
to get as much as like you put into it.
So if you're not doing any of the investigating or going on
the optional routes, you're going to end up with a more
narrow view of this story than someone who I assume like we did
and investigated everything. Yeah, I investigated everything

(43:46):
I could. Again, if I sound down on the
plot, I might be, But I do really like the world building
in this game. Yeah, there's a lot going on if
you actually, I love looking at people's fucking screens.
I love peeking over their shoulders like, what do you got?
All the UI elements are so well done.
Yeah, it's I think it's excellent in that sense where.

(44:07):
And I think, again, going back to just the premise, I think
it's a fun idea for a video game, OK, We, you know, you have
these recordings. No one's here.
You do know that no one is on this ship.
But also, Michael, like, did youthink that maybe they were going
to do like a shock twist and someone was going to be there or
something? I'm just curious.
I was expecting one person to bein a Cairo pod at the end of

(44:27):
this game. Yeah, that I I kind of was too.
I was like someone is going, I thought how it was going to end
up was that everyone's going to be dead, but there's going to be
someone left in cryo here and I'm going to have to wake him
up. And I was thinking, yeah, I was
thinking it was going to be either Sarah was alive or it was
going to be Nat was alive in thecryopod.

(44:47):
And we'd have to choose to basedon her condition is we had to
choose if we wanted to open her or not.
Yeah, it's how I thought. That's a great reveal, by the
way, that, like, she will not survive the cryo because of a
health condition. Yes, because I like that.
You know, again with with Alien,you know, cryo is just a very
routine thing in those movies. And this is like, no, what it's

(45:08):
gonna do to your body. Like if you have certain health
conditions, you will not survivethis.
It's putting your body into shock, basically, when you wake
up. Yeah cuz your body's like frozen
solid and it's back alive. You are going to be in shock for
two hours. Like, we see that with the
botanist Andrew. I think his name is who's in the
corner? And he's like very.

(45:28):
It's like me when I wake up frommelatonin and do sleep, it's
like, how are we doing? We're going to Jupiter.
That's cool. Bro, that's why I don't take
melatonin anymore. I keep telling people about my
sleep problems and they're like,have you taken melatonin?
I'm like, yes. And I don't want to because it
fucks me up. I don't like it.
I'm just so tired of everyone telling me to take fucking

(45:50):
melatonin and listen, all right?Like, it's some fucking miracle
cure, all right? I don't want to be, like so
groggy or whatever. I feel like I have weird dreams
and shit and I don't want to take it anymore.
And every time at work I bitch about how tired I am.
It's like, well, have you tried melatonin?
And I've and I'm doing this withthe same people who have already
told me that and I've told no, all right?
So basically like you get to thefreaking room, you get to the

(46:12):
the like rec room thing and they're they're having that
party. And this is so I got to be
honest though, Michael, I think this, I believe this game was
partly based on this big play that was going around for a
while where it was like an immersive thing where you could
like walk around and follow the actors.
Have you ever heard about this? No.
Sounds like a mystery. I did.
I. Remember hearing about it?

(46:34):
Yeah, I remember hearing about it at the time.
And Oh yeah, so I'm. I'm looking at, I'm looking at
the wiki, to be honest. It's a There was a 2011 play
called Sleep No More. Yep, New York City.
I remember hearing about this and the idea was that it was
like, oh, we're going to tell the story.
But you, the audience can followsome of the characters, slash
actors around and choose which stories you want to follow.

(46:56):
And almost like a video game, they are going to do the same
thing no matter what. Yeah.
And so you get to decide what story you want to follow.
And I do wonder, I do wonder if a little bit of that, when you
turn into a video game is undercut when you can just
rewind everything. I I totally get what they're
going for. But part of me is like, well,

(47:17):
you don't really have to make a choice.
So really, these separate vignettes aren't really all
that, They're all just one big vignette, like you decide have
it be. I feel like in order to do that,
your game would need to be shorter than this.
I think it would definitely feelmore linear to be to be sure,
but I just. I don't know.

(47:38):
I felt it's one of those things where obviously all video game
is the illusion of choice. Have you guys played The Stanley
Parable for this show? No, we did not play The Stanley
Parable for this show. Well, if you ever do call me,
it's kind of a hack thing to like bring up The Stanley
Parable again. But I really think it's one of
those things that like nailed itso perfectly.
I love The Stanley Parable, but it's feel.

(48:00):
Like, it's just, I feel like anybody who has played The
Stanley Parable cannot like discuss The Stanley Parable.
It needs to be people who've never played it before, all
talking about this game. Because if you.
That's actually a fair point. If you have someone who's in on
it, then it kind of loses the discussion about The Stanley
Parable. I'm not going to go into The
Stanley Parable here. It's a great video game.

(48:21):
Check it out. If you haven't played it, if you
know, you know. Exactly.
And without spoiling, I will saythat it deals heavily with the
theme of the illusion of choice in video games.
Well actually you guys did play spec off the line, of course,
which is also that that one is directly addressing the origin
of choice. And I do think like this is a

(48:42):
no, this is dumb. I'm not some angry fucking 4
Chan freak, but when Mass EffectThree came out and I saw all the
endings, I just remember it really was like the curtain had
been pulled away. I saw how futile, like how none
of these choices mattered. I'm not fucking threatening
BioWare, you fucking freaks. But I it was one of those where

(49:04):
I did see. I saw the inner workings.
I saw how this like, oh OK, so this is what it's doing.
Which kind of sucks because now I know how this works.
I remember some Telltale series really fell into that as well,
where you're like. I see that you didn't really
give me a choice here. Walking Dead, Walking Dead.
It's just the vibe of a choice. Part 2 was the.

(49:25):
That's the worst one in terms oflike there's the character that
gets shot and it is one of the worst because that character
should not get shot if you've played your cards right.
But they do because the story has to have that happen, yes.
And so you really just, you really feel how much that, like
they are trying to force this tohappen and it's, you know, you

(49:45):
have to be subtle with it. Again, obviously there's not
really a choice in these video games that are ultimately like
preprogrammed. But we played among us this year
and that did a better job of notnecessarily hiding the choices,
but made it seem like your decisions were carrying weight.
Because in that story you had like an outside manipulator.
With we just test this game so Ican mention it like the crooked

(50:08):
man manipulating stuff behind the scenes.
So that had that, like outside LM as a part of the story which
shapes it. What ruins the like illusion of
choice is whenever you feel the game shift you back, it has to
be natural. It's like, you know, it's like

(50:29):
editing. It's like editing in a movie
when you notice editing is not doing his shot.
And and I should note that, likeI I want to be clear before I
get any hate for this. I know that you can't affect
anything in this game, and that's not the purpose.
Everything that has happened hasalready happened.
I don't think there's a problem with that.
I guess my sort of problem is the idea of you are going to

(50:50):
explore, like you can follow these conversations as you
choose. Well, if there's no real if you
can always just go back. I just feel like the gimmick I
notice the gimmick. I'm aware that like, it doesn't
really matter. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, this is a
video game and obviously you're technically always aware of

(51:11):
that, but I just in this one, I really felt it a game that I was
thinking about that. Really, I don't love either, but
actually I mean I respect some of his choices is night in the
woods and night in the woods. When you choose to like hang out
with a friend, you are choosing one friend over the other and
that does affect the story and there are like consequences.

(51:34):
So again, that one I recognize you are then changing the story
and this game is not about that.I just found that, like, I
really noticed the gimmick of this game and I.
At the end of the bit, I was kind of like, did I feel
interested because of this? At first I did.
I want to note in the game room,I thought it was cool.
I really did. I thought it was cool that you

(51:57):
get the captain's conversation and then you can explore the
captain's room while the scene is still playing.
And then you see them all havingthat conversation outside.
Yeah, I thought that was cool. Then I went and went to the
kitchen and listened to that conversation, which also
intersects with the romantic couple, the girl you like and
the other girl. Their conversations really cool

(52:17):
and birds. Yes, so you get them starting to
intersect. I just found it.
Not actually. I think it's great in theory.
Essentially, I thought it was a really cool idea that after the
first room I was just not as interested in anymore.
I was well, I was on board for this the whole time because I
had to. I liked seeing all the

(52:40):
intersecting conversations, likeevery time I got to a room I
would make it a point to follow 1 character at a time and with
that Fast forward button be likeOK when they all intersect.
I've already seen this Fast forward to make sure I was
getting every piece of the story.
I thought that was the way they do out.
That information was super interesting and this area is

(53:04):
where we get where they're celebrating.
Their obsolete day is. I love it because it's like the
it's ironic take on this holiday.
This is where we. Get like I said with the world
thing. I love the idea of Obsolescence
Day. Yes, I love the idea of
celebrating this. Yeah, this Union victory,

(53:24):
essentially. Obviously.
You know, like, there's no getting around the fact that,
like, this is a very political game.
In certain ways. It's a very and pro union game.
Absolutely, it's a very pro union game.
I want to know these. This game, like is my politics.
This is an example of like something where I agree with all
the politics of it. It just didn't hit for me.

(53:45):
Yeah, just like how there's other things that like hit for
me where I'm like, I don't like any of the politics in this, but
as a piece of art, I can't deny that It's fantastic, Yeah.
Yeah, look at looking at you, Top Gun Maverick.
That's just an Ace Combat movie.Hey man, listen, it can make it
happen. It takes place in the strange

(54:07):
reel. The the the you know what I
don't know? Ace Combat law.
I know that law is crazy, but I don't know of it.
Alternate alternate history? Fake countries.
Belka will rise again. Anyway, moving on, this is where
we get our inciting incident. The ship supposedly collides

(54:30):
with a piece of debris because there is a warning on one of the
displays that says just so you know, we're going to be
colliding with we're going to bein an area with some asteroid
and some space debris. Minimal.
There's a minimal chance of harm, and then all of a sudden
it causes a maximum chance of harm, which we find out later is
fabricated. But the communications are

(54:56):
damaged and the oxygen supply isdamaged.
Yeah, obviously, I think the twist is fine that it was all
fabricated, but it's one of those where it is kind of funny.
It is like very convenient that these particular things are
down. You know that like power still
ready but specifically oxygen and communication are out.
It makes it makes sense that I'mlike, of course this was a

(55:18):
fabricated event because of the way this happened, but.
Yeah, it's. I think it's, again, good setup.
OK, now we know what happened tothe station, even if we don't
know what happened to the peoplewe have.
Our what? Did they do after?
Yeah. That we don't know what happened
to the people. We presume they got out since
again there's no or they they'redead on the ship because there's

(55:39):
no like signs of life. That's we don't know which one
it is though. Or before we saw the remains of
like that ship. Did we Did they escape?
Did they escape to the moon? Are they lost in space somewhere
in cryo sleep but no communication?
What is their ultimate fate? And that is what the the main
mystery We are trying to do the job.

(56:00):
Our job is to like extract the AI.
But as the player we want to getto the bottom of this mystery,
this corporation as well as because a lot of the stuff is
laid out in this room. You get a lot of the character
relationships you through looking at.
I think everybody has their UI screen up at this one where you
can see kind of. Everybody.

(56:22):
Or almost everybody. It's a lot of them.
Between like the first two scenes, you get everybody's UI
screens where you can look at them.
So, you know, OK Matt and Bert are in a relationship.
I didn't find out until I got toengineering that they were
married. I was like, oh, here's their
wedding invite. Oh, actually, yeah.
I thought that too. Cuz I thought like, oh, they're
having like an office affair, basically, Yeah.
And then it's like, Oh no, they're married and everyone

(56:44):
knows this. Yeah, cuz that was kind of kept.
It wasn't necessarily kept secret.
It was one of those things they broke off whenever they weren't
in the room, whenever someone else came in the room and they
had the bit where they got busy in the supply cat abnet.
So I was like, is this a? Secret that is one of my
favorite uses yeah that is one of my favorite uses of this like

(57:06):
rewinding system is having the because that they jump on each
other and like knocks it over and then you get to see the
other perspective of. The doctor and the botanist,
like hearing something and just being like, the fuck is that?
But I actually did like, I like the whole office vibe of this.
Yeah, I like that. It's just the fucking office
vibe, you know? Again, this is blue collar in

(57:29):
space and it's just like, yeah, you know, we just feel put in
our nine to five. We go to work, we go home
because you'll get to explore their rooms.
They have books and shit. I gotta, I gotta ask, Bill,
Michael, how did you feel about some of the dialogue in this
game? Mostly, Mostly good.
I I was not a fan of a lot of it.

(57:50):
Hi. I think it's fine.
I got. I don't gotta be honest, man.
In in general, I do think a problem with video game
storytelling is that I just think a lot of dialogue usually
like, doesn't work. And this game, I don't know,
man. I I wasn't a big fan.
A lot of it just felt very like stilted and off to me.

(58:12):
Especially when it's not exposition.
It's like, not exposition. It's very like, oh right, this
is OK. I don't know.
It just wasn't compelling me. Gotta be honest, it does its
job. It doesn't inspire as I would
describe it. I suppose so.
It doesn't say for me like I wasall in.

(58:33):
I was mostly in on like the dialogue and everything because
I think the world building and the mystery were so strong.
I think taking on its own is where I could start to see
problems and everything. But I was, I was all in.
I was fully immersed in the story and everything going on,
with the dialogue in particular so.
I don't know, Gotcha. I don't wanna, I don't wanna

(58:53):
harp too much on the dialogue, especially cuz I didn't write a
lot of specific stuff down. But there, there was just a lot
of moments where I was kind of like, well, this is some like
video gaming dialogue and I don't mean that as a compliment,
so. I also want to note that this
game did crash on me at this point.
Yeah, same. It crashed.

(59:14):
Really. This game crashed on me three
times on the PlayStation versionif you leave it paused for too
long. Is that what it is?
Because I did? I think I paused it.
I went out to do something, I came back and I'm like, why is
it so slow? And then it just crashed on me.
Yes, it happened to me twice, two or three times.
That is really. That's really this game count in
2017, right? Yeah.

(59:36):
Are you playing on the PS5? Yes, I am.
I wonder if it's a weird PS Fivething.
Michael, I gotta be honest, we are two for two on a weird pause
crash glitch. So I'm gonna assume it is a PS
Five thing since you're also playing on that.
Yeah, so listener beware. If you have to take a shit, make
it a quick shit. If you come back because I was

(59:58):
hovering over the save and quit side, be like please, please,
please have all the same. Please.
Have other things. I did the exact same fucking
thing, the exact same thing. And also like, it wasn't because
I would press it. I would press like down on the D
pad, but it wouldn't go down right away.
And so I'm just pressing D pad like down.
I'm like, Oh my God, Oh my God. And I would hear a sound and I'm
like, is that the sound of it going down?

(01:00:19):
And then I'd wait and I'd see itgo down one and I'm like, OK,
down to the next one, Down to the next one.
Just keep going. Just keep going.
Yeah. And I think I was.
I was able to get there just before, Yeah, but it did.
It did crash on me. It only crashed the once, but
interesting for you, it crashed three times.
I do think it probably is a PS Five thing then.
Yeah, but that is also very bizarre because we both had wow,
we both have the same issue. Yeah, I mean, no one's at the

(01:00:42):
studio to upgrade this to next Gen. hardware, so oh boy.
Oh yeah, for for sure. And yeah, oh real quick.
I also want to note that like, again, I think so.
I was talking about how The Stanley Parable really deals
with the illusion of choice. Spec Off the Line does that as
well. The South Park Stick of Truth

(01:01:05):
game has one of my favorite bitswhere you're in an alien
spaceship and finding audio recordings.
Have you played that game? No.
But I've watched a couple playthroughs of it.
There's a pretty funny bit where, yeah, you're finding
these audio recordings. And it's essentially making fun
of the Bioshock style. Like finding audio recordings
that then become useful, where one guy's like, I found audio

(01:01:27):
recording and it had a combination for a locker, which
I thought was actually pretty cool.
Then I opened the locker and it was another audio recording.
And it's just like just this loop of like.
And he's like eventually I had to start eating the audio
recordings. I had no food because there's
audio recordings everywhere. It's a very funny bit.
And it kind of reminded me of like there, like to get into

(01:01:48):
something. I forget what it is.
But to get into like, oh, I think it's the captain's like
desk area or captain's office. Yeah, you have to find a code.
I forget where it was, but I wrote down like there's always
like a code written down somewhere where no one would
ever write a code down. Or what you can do is you can
follow them and you can see thementer the code if you're

(01:02:08):
following them on the keypad. Ah, interesting.
I thought about doing that and then I just found the code and
I'm like, Oh, well, I'll just dothat then, But that makes sense
too. Yeah, but and I guess that is
kind of fun then, that they gaveyou that option.
Fair enough. See.
This game has choice, no? Well, no, it's not even that.
It's just that that, to me is a more fun option than just
finding the code. I gotta be honest Michael, I'd

(01:02:29):
rather the code wasn't availableand I had to do that cuz that to
me is more fun. I like that idea.
I'd watch the bold ways to find the code, I guess There was
definitely a code written down somewhere where I I think I like
sighed. I was like, come the fuck on.
Like who would write a code downand like, put it here of all
fucking places? It was.
I know which one because I thinkI did the same thing.

(01:02:51):
It was Clive in his room. It was like A to do list.
It, says Jim. Locker code.
Yep, I was like Michael, that was it.
It was the Jim Locker code. The Jim Locker code, everyone's
Jim Locker code is a code to something else.
It's not original code. Yeah, it's so fucking.
Yeah, so and and I know these guys did the Bioshock 2 but

(01:03:13):
nervous den thing, but yeah, it just really like, I was like, Oh
yeah, this is still that era where it's like, what if cuz
what? This is 10 years after Bioshock
one. And obviously Bioshock wasn't
the first to do this either. You know, sense of Shock and
yeah, there's other games, but it is so funny that like, yeah,
10 years later we were still getting this, like find the code

(01:03:33):
to like open the door thing. It isn't that cool.
And again, maybe I'm maybe I'm too jaded, I'll fully admit
that. But I just was not as into it as
I was before. Yeah, I think, I think of that
South Park thing where you're like, oh, at first this is
really cool, and then you're just kind of tired of it.
You're like, all right, Where's the fucking code that's written
down somewhere? As someone who loves immersive

(01:03:55):
Sims and games like Deus Ex and Dishonored and all of that,
where codes are just part of thegame design, I'm just like, Oh
yeah, memorizing codes. That's.
This is something you do? Yep, there was that point the
moment. I think it was that because it
was that first code. It was a four digit code and I'm
like I'm surprised the first code here is not 045. 10451 and

(01:04:18):
guess what the final code is? And again, it was like, I don't
know if I yeah, like I said, I'mconflicted.
About it, my favorite was Death loop because I thought for sure.
That the first code in depth loop would be over 51.
I did it and I got an achievement for it.
Did you really see? That's actually kind of funny.

(01:04:39):
And I think Cole will set not Cole.
The main character will Colt will go through it and be like.
Is like. That usually works nice.
I mean I don't think the reference is bad.
I just kind of like, OK, here itis.
Here's the IT felt like end stage Stanley cameos.

(01:05:00):
It's like all right here it is like fucking whatever.
We know. We know what it is.
Here's, here's that. I will say at the actually, I'm
not going to go into how I feel about Stanley.
Those are very complicated feelings.
But yes, like, I mean you basically just explore.
Oh I do like the theme that the doctor is like constantly

(01:05:22):
talking to the AI. Yeah I do like that that she is,
cuz it almost made me suspiciousof her.
I'm like, you're weirdly close to this AI.
Like you stay away from the people and stick to this AI.
Have you ever seen the movie Sunshine?
You'll love Sunshine. Sunshine's A phenomenal movie.
Also, guess what happens to thatmovie?
They go to a ship where there's no signs of life and they're

(01:05:43):
like, what happened here? There's there's that guy who,
like, I love that the psychologist in that movie is
the one who's losing his mind the most from, like, staring at
the sun. Yes.
And that's how I was thinking the Doctor might be doing that.
Like, oh, the Doctor Who's supposed to help people is the
most like becoming less human because she's spending all this
time with this AI. We're gonna crank up the sun one
more percent today and just go feel, my friend to turn and

(01:06:06):
fucking yeah. Listen, listener, please watch
Sunshine if you haven't. Guys are just a phenomenal
movie. People hate the last 30.
Minutes for completely changing genres.
But I like it. Listen, if people want to be
boring and stupid, they can't, all right?
It's fucking cool as shit. It's so good, yeah.
I agree, Sunshine. Great.

(01:06:27):
Yeah. But yeah, Killian Murphy is in
it, Killian. And he's Oppenheimer now, Yeah.
Go back. Danny Boyle directs it.
Please go back and watch Sunshine.
That movie rules. The spacesuits are solid gold
and they rule God, I love how much.
And again, it's got like an office life vibe where they're
just eating dinner at the beginning and it's like, my God,
this shit again. It's just like, man, sorry to

(01:06:50):
gush about sunshine, get the script.
And it's not that distracting, cuz.
Chris Evans is obsessed with theholodeck.
My God, yes, I love man. I was about to say like I'm
sorry for getting off topic, butagain like this is a I don't
know how many times this has been done in a video game, but
this is a premise that has that again is fine but has been done
a lot like it's and in fairness cuz it's a good premise.

(01:07:11):
I thought about sunshine a lot while playing this game
actually. So one of the coolest editing
choices I've ever seen in any movie is when they do find that
derelict ship and they're using their flashlights cuz there's no
power and anytime the flashlightpasses by the camera and blinds
the camera, instead of showing the light, they show a face of
one of the crew members of that ship cuz they have a picture of

(01:07:32):
like them all standing together.And it is one of the creepiest
editing choices I've ever seen anyway.
Such a good so good. So where were we?
We're going to get to Biomedicaland around.
Oh yeah, we were talking about Sarah's relationship with the A
I and Sarah and Nat have the bigDevas connection to it.

(01:07:55):
Sarah, from being the medical support staff, I'm so sure.
I'm assuming she goes to the A Ifor assistance with that.
Nat is frustrated because I lovethis character toys and why
that's why. My favorite character.
She's in charge of the AI, but can't do anything with it.
She's explicitly forbidden from doing.

(01:08:15):
Good with the AI that is such a corporate thing of like you're
in charge of this, but also you can't do anything because it's
our proprietary shit. And then EV has gotten several,
like hand slaps from corporate saying stop asking to unshackle
the AI because she's asking on behalf of her crew member.
So she's the one getting in trouble for asking what Matt

(01:08:37):
wants to do. No, it's so good.
Again, it's a very good that is probably like my favorite
recurring story of the whole thing.
It's just this idea that like, yeah, they can't unshackle the
AI, which they need to do, but they can't do it because the
corporate overlords, you know, control it.
And they're like, well, what is my, what is my purpose here?

(01:08:59):
My job is to, like, run the AI, but I can't do it because they
won't let me touch it. And I also I I want to know that
I do also think that like one ofmy favorite reveals actually
might. Maybe my favorite reveal in the
game is I thought the reason Sarah was or Sarah was spending
so much time with the AI is because of that thing you find

(01:09:20):
out about her history. Do you know what I'm talking
about? Remind me that she as a doctor
performed like the wrong kind ofsurgery or like did.
Basically there was some medicalmalpractice on a food writer.
So so that's something I love. When you get to Sarah's quarters
she has a weird amount of stuff like about this food writer you

(01:09:43):
like you can read his articles and stuff and you're like I
didn't know she I love that there's so is a bait and switch
cuz you're like okay. This might be like some personal
stuff like she's actually kind of a foodie.
And then when you actually get into her emails, what you find
out is that she was operating onhim and quote UN quote, killed
him. And they basically we're gonna
let her off the hook if she agreed that it was her fault and

(01:10:05):
she said no. The station's AI which I forget
what name it is, but it's one ofthe named ones.
The station's AI told me the wrong procedure and the
corporation's like, our AI neverare wrong.
They can never be wrong cuz thenwe might be liable to a lawsuit.
And so you need to sign this if you want to keep operating on
like this peak great station, cuz it's implied that like the

(01:10:26):
one she was on was much better than this and she refused to
sign and like take the money andadmit that it was her fault and
so that was why she was bumped down to Tacoma.
None of that is said within the plot of the game.
This is something that you are able to determine through
reading these logs. Again, I feel like I'm being
harsh on this. This was one of my favorite

(01:10:46):
realizations of the whole thing because then suddenly Sarah
spending so much time with the AI makes sense.
I think she even has someone hasthis book, but I think it's her
has a book written by an AI and it is like, oh, the first AI
published novel. And I was like, damn, so Sarah
really likes this whole AI thing.
And yeah, finding out, no, it's because she is essentially like

(01:11:09):
trying to uncover what happened.She wants to be able to, like,
save her reputation and prove that she was given bad medical
advice by following the Ai's orders and the company won't
take responsibility for it. So did you not find any of this?
I missed that one. I understand this was genuinely
my favorite. Like I said, I think my favorite
recurring plot line was the whole we can't change the AI

(01:11:31):
thing. But my favorite, like, reveal
was this. I loved figuring this out as
much as I just said. It's kind of old hat.
This to me was very fun that you're able to put this together
by going through her like what she's looking at when she's in
private and what she's looking at when she's at work.
Cuz yeah, there's all these emails that are like, listen,
we're emailing you again. We will pay you all this money
if you just admit fault. If you admit fault, we will put

(01:11:54):
you back on the good station. You won't be stuck on fucking
Tacoma again. Interesting.
I didn't know that. You didn't know that?
I missed that reveal, but that'scool that there's stuff.
It makes you want to go back andplay it again sometime just to
see if there's more that I missed or didn't uncover.
Because I didn't. I didn't get the achievement at
the end for that's all you did. I achievement Pete that you got

(01:12:17):
all the pass codes and got opened up all of the UI.
I didn't get those. Oh, really?
I just had me go. I have achievements turned off,
by the way. I don't care about them and I
hate them popping up. So I turned them off.
So wait, I did that. And you saw that I did that and
you did not. I yeah, you found you found
everything. I did not find everything and
that was the thing I missed apparently.

(01:12:37):
Hell yeah. Rub it in my face.
I'm a scrub, but I did a little bit.
A little bit. I did.
I did Top Tier Gamer Pro Strats on Tacoma.
I did get the three-point basketball achievement, so at
least I have that. All right, Kobe, calm the fuck
down. He's dead.

(01:12:57):
Sorry, I forgot that he was dead.
Until just. Now is the crew preparing for
cryo sleep and this is the plot line that I found.
The most interesting of like who's going to go under when we
got to get our plan ready to go before each of us can go into
cryosleep and how the characterswere adjusting to that is what I

(01:13:24):
thought was was probably my favorite part of this game.
I do think that is, like I said,I think that wrinkle, that
cryosleep is actually a very dangerous thing to do, does
change things. Because when they first pitch
it, yeah, I'll be honest, I've seen so much scifi where it's
like, yeah, get in the cryo chamber, wait for help.
But when they're like, no, no, no.
Like some, like even at peak medical condition, like, you

(01:13:46):
might not survive this. And some people, like, I keep
forgetting her name. I'm sorry.
But like some people literally have a medical condition where
if they go in this 90% chance, they're going to die.
Yeah, the reveal that Nat only has like an 18% chance when she
wakes up of surviving because ofan unlying heart condition that
she is unaware of is Oh yeah, I love that they yeah, which did

(01:14:08):
they? I don't think they have her
reaction to like, finding out, which is fine, but I think that
like that was a thing. Like, cuz they scan everybody to
make sure everyone's good and then they realize, oh she can't
even do this. It's like she's a there was a
bit with Sarah where she's talking to the AI and she says I
didn't tell her, oh, you're right, yes.
Yeah, and she has an e-mail thatis being sent to the oversight

(01:14:32):
committee. That's like, I have opted not to
tell this person because I do not want to cause more stress.
And since she has a heart condition, I don't want her more
stress out before she goes into cryo to lower her chances of
survival. It is more ethical for her to
die in cryo, that is, to let herdie of lack of oxygen on the

(01:14:52):
space station. Yes.
And actually, you know what? You're really you're you're
helping me have a more positive opinion because I liked that
realization too. That, like, she is keeping the
secret. Because yeah, it's it's like,
look, she's probably going to die either way.
This this way she has a chance, as opposed to dying of lack of
oxygen where she's guaranteed. And if I inform her of it, I

(01:15:14):
risk putting her at a greater risk of not surviving.
Yeah, I also. I also I.
Agree with her here like that's a that's a tough call to make.
But I agree with her if I I think it makes sense.
If I was in that's condition, I wouldn't want to know cuz I
would want the best possible chance for survival.
Yeah. And it's like, look, we go from

(01:15:34):
100% chance you're gonna die to a 90%, like there's still a 10%
you can live in this option. I'll take the 90% over the 100
every time. Yeah.
And also, I like that they kind of note that the highest ranking
members of this crew are actually like the most useless
to the survival. They're the ones who are like
put them in cryo right away, Clive.

(01:15:55):
And they don't. Yeah, they don't even argue it.
They agree. It's like, no, we don't have the
mechanical expertise and the medical expertise to do this the
way guys do. The order in which they go under
makes sense because it's Clive and EV who you find out they're
in a relationship and Clive has a buddy who you find out later.
Works for the rival company Carnival, which by the way, you

(01:16:16):
know, we haven't addressed real company.
There's mentions of several realcompanies in this.
So, so Clive has a buddy who thinks, yeah, your relationship
with Evie is toxic. So there's a moment where I read
the e-mail and then found the scene where he was where Nat is
asking for permission to unshackle the AI.

(01:16:37):
And Nat and Evie's like, I can'tlet you do that.
And like Clive is like. Well, she has a point.
And Evie's like, who asked you? And it's like, yeah, you're
right. I'm sorry, I agree.
Wait, by the way, we keep sayingthe words unshackle.
Is that used within the game or is that just you and me?
That's just me. I use that term because Mass

(01:16:57):
Effect Two would have to basically hook EV to the entire
show. Yeah.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah.
I like that reveal. Yeah.
The highest ranking members of the crew are also the most, like
useless in this particular situation because at the last
flashback, I call it a flashback, whatever you want to

(01:17:18):
call it. You know, the last flashback
before like the big final one isjust the doctor and like the
engineers, essentially, because it's like, well, here's the
people who are important to our survival.
Like this is, which I also love this idea that the plan is
probably not going to work. And they all know that it's just
literally like, because as they're saying it, I am like,

(01:17:39):
well, they're probably not on the ship.
But like, this doesn't sound like it's going to work.
I'm no scientist, but this sounds bad.
We're going to drift towards themoon and hope someone catches us
before we crash into the moon while we're sleeping and and
again the the botanist who's thebig pessimist is like this
ridiculous and they're all kind of like do you have any other

(01:18:00):
ideas? Because it's either this or die
for blacks wait for help. Someone is coming maybe, yeah,
and I love that. So I love his character because,
which, well, in my opinion he's got some weird dialogue too.
But I like the idea of his character, which is that it's
not that he likes the big corporation, it's not that he
likes BT, but he has in a I would say in a non negative way,

(01:18:24):
or at least an understandable way, he is selling out, Yeah,
for a better life for his family.
Because there a currency in thisworld is your obedience to
corporations. Yes.
God, it's fucking horrific when I think they talked about his
student like his son's student loans.
Yes, he wants to go to like, Amazon you.

(01:18:44):
But you know the company's not gonna pay for that cuz that's a
rival company's college. Yes.
Like that's so fucking good and so bleak.
And again like if you want. To go to a Vt approved
corporation, we can give you what you we can cash in your
consumer points for $171,000 or something.

(01:19:05):
Yeah it's something ridiculous. And I I in general, I in general
even though I did it with Mega Man Battle Network because I
thought it was fun in general. I don't like to say this
predicted the future when it is talking about the here and now
which this game is very much doing.
You know, like it's one of thosewhere we can say it predicted
the future. It's commenting on now.
Yeah, like these are, these are issues.
There's a great Sarah Zed video,by the way, about Idiocracy

(01:19:27):
predicting the future. And she kind of, like, debunks
that and talks about how I was talking specifically about that
era. Anyway, I I really did like
that. Yeah.
So he is very much like, well, they'll come for help because he
has convinced himself that, like, this corporation isn't all
bad. You know, like we just have to
work with them. And so obviously they will send
help again. We'll find out later that they

(01:19:48):
deliberately are not sending help.
But even then he asked what convinces him to get in the pod
is he has a moment, Sarah goes and comforts him and then after
come which is a great scene. I love this exchange when they
talk to each other and then if you follow Sarah, she goes into
by herself and she has that panic attack.

(01:20:08):
Oh, after talking, I forgot about that.
But I love that. But yeah, she does the the calm
down thing and then freaks out. She's convincing him to calm
down. But while talking to him is
freaking herself out. So she leaves and it has that
panic attack. While Clive, if you look at her
UI, she's showing a picture. He's showing her a picture of
like this beautiful grassy fieldand like you're walking through

(01:20:31):
this field showing a visualizer as she's just like slowly coming
back to reality. It's a great Oh my God.
Oh yeah. It's become a vague to say,
realistic interpretation of a panic attack, but it really is
if you bring that fucking cat into this.
The cat being Antonio Banderas is Puss in Boots, a movie I have

(01:20:53):
not seen, by the way, which I'veheard is quite good, but I I'm
sorry this is such like a filledTwitter taker, Whatever.
Why can people not just be normal about a fucking movie?
Why does it always have to be this like giant thing where it's
like, this is a realistic, yeah,not a whatever, whatever,
whatever, whatever. I should watch that though,
because the animation actually looks quite nice.
But like, yeah, it is the panic attack thing.

(01:21:15):
I do think, listen man, I have, without getting into detail, I
have had to do that. I have had to calm people down
and then step away and be like, Oh my God, we are so fucked.
Like, you know, just like that'sthat has happened.
I have had to do that some people.
And so it was. We as humans are ultimately
stress, sham wows. We build up other people's

(01:21:36):
stress. We we comfort them and then we
need to be rung out ourselves. It happens.
Yep. You know what, by the way, I
think I will say that moment didn't hit as hard for me just
because I followed her story 1stand then did the Botanist.
And I think like if I had done Botanist first and then hers,
that might have made that hit a little harder.

(01:21:57):
I followed them to each to each other's place.
I was like, OK, I'm going to bookmark this.
I'm going to come back to us. I followed her, and then I came
back to the botanist. Oh, so you did the same order,
OK? I I don't know, I thought.
Because then I went back to the botanist and when he left you,
so he was like. Do they send vessels?
He was asking you, do they send vessels whenever the timing

(01:22:19):
gets, whenever the communications get cut off.
And he says yes. He was like, OK, on average, how
long does it take? They said 92 hours with 70 when
they have about 50 hours of oxygen at this point.
Yeah. And that was great because yeah,
he's just doing the math. Yeah.
So he's that's his deciding factor to going in the pod was
that he's he's doing the math. He's like, OK, the odds of

(01:22:41):
survival. Here are more likely in the cryo
bot pod than they are waiting for someone to come pick us up,
which you wait to find out it's not happening.
But yeah, which I want to know. We've we skipped ahead a little
bit. This is in the second section.
Yes. Yeah, because because you did
all that stuff, so you do the the rec room thing and then you

(01:23:04):
also get a flashback of like well before the accident.
That's like the second thing with that Jim Locker thing we
were talking about. But then yeah, this is where
they're making the plan and it was this.
What is the other one on this floor?
Cuz I think I went to the other one first.
That is where Evie and Clive arehaving to discuss.
They're having their like stressinduced discussion about

(01:23:25):
deciding to oh wait no cuz on the other side this is where you
get to the medical wing, where you find out Clive and Evie have
already gone under and that the botanist for the botanist.
I don't think has gone under yet, but he's written everybody
a message. Yeah, I like, I liked a lot of

(01:23:45):
the emails, by the way. It felt very real.
I'll give them that, that it definitely felt very realistic,
some of these chats. Yeah, So in the.
You're right. So yeah, the medical wing is
where you get like Evie and Clive.
You're right, they are already under.
Oh, by the way, did I already mention Evie is voiced by the
captain on Star Trek lower decks?
Off Mike you did but off my yeah.

(01:24:06):
I just found that very I was like I've heard this captain
voice before like not even just the voice.
I've heard this captain giving orders voice that's why.
So yes they they are already in cryo and I yeah you're right.
I like that scene between the couple where they are just like
this. You know this a long shot.
This probably isn't gonna work. And so they just start having

(01:24:30):
sex in the fucking like, locker room or whatever the hell or the
storage room as you do, presumably having sex.
All right. Like let's.
Yeah. Probably.
Also yeah. We kind of hinted you can go
into their personal quarters if they're, like, nearby.
Their personal quarters are all,like, in certain spaces.
Oh, I apologize. I'd like to note I love Clive.

(01:24:53):
You know he has like another. He's trying to find another job.
Yeah. Which I thought was it Cuz he is
telling EV like, oh I'll stay here with you cuz I love you.
But like you can see his records, he is looking at other
jobs cuz he has his friend worksat carnival.
Okay this was one of these personal quarters.
All right, so how do we feel about the Elon Musk as president

(01:25:16):
of South Africa? More detail.
Not a fan. Neither am I.
And I'm curious. I I'm like, was this in the age
of, like, Elon Musk? It's the fucking coolest.
And of course he's presidents. I feel like it had to not be
right. I feel like it had to be like a
it was trying to be satire, right?

(01:25:37):
It was like. That he'll turn somewhere.
This was probably the age when he was on The Simpsons and Rick
and Morty. God, I I'm hoping that that was
the case, that they or that thatwas not the case.
I'm hoping it was the case of like, because I think that is so
ridiculous to say. Here's the white man becoming
president of South Africa. Isn't that a great thing?
I'm hoping the developers realize that.

(01:25:58):
I I suppose that I was just like, I wonder how they actually
felt about this. Anyway, that was just a little
more detail where I was like, interesting choice.
Yeah, you can find that in somebody's room.
I like that Clive is just drunk in his room.
Like when you see his flashback.He is like drinking Scotch.
Yeah. Sarah has the best vibe.

(01:26:20):
She's like listening to indie rock as she's just chilling on
the bed. Yeah their rooms were oh I did
like the idea that and this is mate like elaborated in the last
section that all these rooms arefor individuals and you know
that, sorry, I keep forgetting their names.
The married couple wants to be in the same room, so they've

(01:26:42):
like kind of made a makeshift like two person room and turned
her room into a storage area. Right.
Because she's living with her wife, so yeah, of course.
She's like, I'm not gonna be in my room at all.
So we're gonna be with my wife. It's yeah, I love that.
It's just the storage area. Yeah.

(01:27:03):
Also, in one of those rooms there's a sex toy, I believe,
which you can't touch. Did you get that?
I think I missed that one too. You're buying.
So yeah it is in the the lesbiancouples room and like if you I
think it's a sex toy. I ought to be honest.
I looked at it and I'm like, I think that's a sex toy.
I'm not going to Google what it is.
But it is funny that because youcould pick up everything in this
game. I mean that.

(01:27:24):
I think we, I don't think we mentioned that that's the whole
thing is you pick up like everything, anything and
everything and you just look at all the labels on the food and
shit, all the brands and when you see that it like the text
actually phase it. Like, you know, the text
normally says like a tube of lipstick or like bag of chips,
like whatever you're about to pick up.
And the text says that's never mind, I'm not touching that and

(01:27:47):
you can't pick it up. It literally won't let you pick
it up. That's a good review.
Which I think I think that was funny.
I we were talking, you were talking about Wolf Among Us and
we were talking about Walking Dead years ago.
I did a Telltale video when I was trying to do like, video
game essays. It's not great, but I I stand by
some of my conclusions, but one of which is that like we all
have. One of those, that's fine, yeah.
Oh exactly. They would start having some fun

(01:28:08):
with like the little info bubbles that would pop up when
it's like, oh, Kenny will remember that or whatever.
Like I remember Wolf Among Us. One of them is Grendel is so
drunk at the bar that then when he passes out it says Grendel
won't remember this. Like, you know, they'll they'll
have like little fun moments like that.
To me this was them commenting almost on their own Gone Home
style. Here's what it is.
You can pick it up and it's likeI'm not picking that up just

(01:28:30):
like that, that for a moment. It also reminded me that like
you are playing as a character who has a back story.
We haven't really mentioned it, but like, you can go to your
personal you're looking at everyone else's files,
basically, and they're fucking desktops.
You you have your own and it has, like, your mission
briefing. It actually also has profiles on
The Crew, which I liked because I like any game where it's just

(01:28:53):
like, here's a code, actually, you could just look at
everything. Right now I did that.
First off, before I walked in, Iwas through my entire layout to
get a feel for everything. Before I went in, well, it gave
me a cool vibe of like it actually did kind of immerse me
because I was looking at it like, OK, if I was doing this, I
would look at refresh myself on all the profiles of the people
I'm looking for. It's very much so.

(01:29:16):
I thought, going back to our conversation with the botanist,
what he says, where the like, hesays they're weighing in the
rescue crew. Your role as a character, Amy,
your your character has a name, but she might as well not have
her role in the story is very, very, very minimal.

(01:29:36):
Yeah, it's just that there's a there's a twist at the.
Yeah, there's a twist at the end, which I am a little
conflicted on. And we'll talk about it when we
get there, I guess. OK.
But like, so I mean, what is so,I mean now this is what kind of
what I'm talking about, where we've gone through all these
gameplay things. So we're just kind of going
through the narrative, right? Pretty much.

(01:29:58):
Yeah, yeah. Well, then there's.
So yeah, they they have that biglike thing where the botanists
like, Yep, I'm ready to do it too.
And then this is kind of interesting.
The next section, if you don't mind if I go there, the 3rd and
final section, you can't even, you definitely can't go to the
left one right away. It actually prevents you from

(01:30:20):
doing so. And that's where the AI stuff
all is. It's where the AI operator's
office is. It's where the AI is physically
stored. You cannot get there, Like if
the door is like, jammed or whatever.
You you cannot get there. Wait, yeah, I I'm sorry.
I forgot. There's one thing that I found
funny again with how this game goes is we forgot to mention

(01:30:41):
that when you go to these sections, you have to put your
data pad in like a port in the wall, and it starts downloading
the data. And so it's literally the idea
because all you're there to do is that, like, you're not even
supposed to be going into any ofthese rooms, right?
And so it's almost like your character is just bored.
He's just like going to like. She's just taking the time.
Be like, well I got time, Might as well walk around.

(01:31:02):
Yeah. And so cuz I remember seeing
that it's like, OK and after like 10 seconds it's like .1%
download and I'm like, oh God, this is gonna fucking like a
real person like, oh this is gonna take forever.
Might as well fucking walk around.
See what? See what's left behind.
Anyway, I just wanted to know that cuz I did find it funny
that, like that is the excuse for why you're walking around
and not doing what you're supposed to be doing.
At least until that the reveal at the end.

(01:31:24):
But yeah, you can only go into like the engineering thing where
Michael did you get a little scared when you saw it.
Because when these things start,when these flashbacks start, it
gives you the time code. It says like this flashback is
going to be 4 minutes long because you know you can rewind
and stuff the same panic. Did you have the same panic

(01:31:45):
attack I did when I saw it was 20 minutes long?
Yeah. I was like, oh, what?
Yeah. I was like, oh God, oh God, no,
no, no, no. And then basically there's an
explosion, and then there's a glitch and it skips to the last
two minutes. So it's like 3 minutes total?
God, yeah. I was a little worried.
So I I appreciate that little twist because like I in general,

(01:32:07):
I'm less interested now in gameswhere they just have you stand
around and look at people talking.
I I never had a high tolerance for and I have less of a
tolerance now and I was like oh God, not 20 minutes.
And so, like when I saw it, whenit skipped, I was like, thank
OK, we're alright. We're alright.
Very positive on this game. That would have broke me.

(01:32:28):
Feel like no. OK, yeah.
And then rewind and do it again like for for the other portion
of the story, you know, because there are two stories now to
follow, which I do like that at the beginning, there's like 4
stories to follow and you just keep having less as more people
like going to cryo. Yeah, it makes it as the story
becomes more tense and they wantmore linear as the cutscenes

(01:32:52):
naturally do that by alleviatingpeople.
Gone and you can see. I I thought this was when you
walk into engineering, you see aboard that I actually took a
picture of because I thought it was useful.
I thought it was like an updatedboard of where these people are
now. But it was just a one given by
Nat, like a bulletin board. It wasn't like an updating

(01:33:14):
board. The Operation Moon Shot status
board. So at this point, yeah, Evie and
Cliver and Cryo. Nat is manual control software
is ready. She's installing the drone
Andrews and Cryo. Burt is doing the journal life
support. So Sarah's sitting by his
medical staff and support for Cryo AI is doing AI stuff and

(01:33:36):
the cat is probably sleeping somewhere.
I did like the AI is doing AI stuff.
Touch. Yeah, yeah, there's that board,
I guess. Also, some of it, never mind,
but like, so. So there's that big accident,
right. And I do love that finally when
like every, you know, they they get what's her name stabilized

(01:33:59):
and they're kind of realizing this plan is not going to work
because this is like, they haven't even taken off yet and
the ship is already like exploding.
Yep, I and I love that. It's like if if it was bad
before, it definitely is not going to, like, survive now.
This was the worst part of the story for me.
Because I wrote I choose to believe that they have some kind
of future tech that makes CPR simple.
Because the CPR scene where she did six chest compressions and

(01:34:21):
then Burt was responsive made meso mad, man, maybe they maybe Vt
didn't pay for that shit. But maybe they had that because
she did 6 compressions and then Burt.
All right? Vt's like, look, you'll be fine,
all right? We're not getting, like, the the
fucking resuscitation machines. What is that thing called The
defibrillator? Burt was, like, up.

(01:34:41):
Oh, that's true. Are you a CPR expert?
I I was a lifeguard about 10 years ago so Oh my God I would
love all your lifeguard takes onevery video game suggested for
the podcast like perspective of a lifeguard just in the final
like 5 minutes. It's just anybody who knows CPR
is immediately has immediately been ruined.

(01:35:04):
Any movie seen with CPR and video games seen with CPR?
Because everyone just says it wrong.
No. Then yeah, I I buy that.
I don't know CPR, but I buy thatit's incorrect in every fucking
movie and game and shit. 6 Compression She's like, I'm
responsive I'm like no. Wrong.
Yeah, not to get to in the weedshere, but she also like checks
for like, you can see her feel for a pulse for like a second

(01:35:28):
and then we go to compressions. I'm like, that's not enough
time. Get in the weeds, dude.
Wander through the weeds for a SEC.
So this is the so, like, in this, yeah, this scifi future
game where Elon Musk was president of South Africa, we
have, we have to talk about the fucking, like, CPR procedures
that they went through and how inaccurate they are.
I'd rather do that. That part may be bad.

(01:35:49):
Makes sense? Bert was looking to go to ours.
Yeah. Because you know, Bert's room is
here, too. When you find out that she is
like a great artist, she has a mural on the wall that she did.
And then you find out that the it's another corporation thing
was like, yeah, you can't go to those art schools that you were
recommended for because they're not in your network.

(01:36:12):
We'll pay for you to go to one of our schools.
Yeah, yeah, there's and and that's also great because again,
they're married couple. And like these tours essentially
are like a year long. And so of course they wanted to
stay together. But is it her or is it the other
one where it's like you qualify for a better solution?
Like you qualify for a better job, like you can get a better

(01:36:36):
job, but you're choosing not to.And I don't want to hold you
back because I'm not qualified, which is again as a very real
thing. That's very real thing.
Also, this is where Odin so Odinthe whole time.
Again, he hasn't been nefarious.We haven't.
We've been seeing a little bit where now when we would like go
into a section and the computer is like syncing with the ship's

(01:36:56):
computer. Like your onboard HUD is like
syncing with the ship's computer.
Sometimes you'd see a bit of writing that says like help or
like friends like stuff like that.
And so this is where Odin kind of reveals his true colors in a
positive way, where he's like, Sarah, you know, there is a way
to access my station. Like I can't tell you to do it.

(01:37:20):
I'm just letting you know that there is this opening right
here. And technically, technically, if
you did follow that path, you would get to my core or whatever
it's called. It's like the scene.
It reminds me so much of the scene from The Incredibles where
he's like, I'd like to help you,but I can't.
I'd like to tell you to take this form too, Michael.
That's what it is. I was trying to think of what
movie it reminded me of. You're right.
It's the incredible scene. It's the insurance thing of

(01:37:41):
like, I oh, I wish I could help you.
I wish I could tell you to go see Sarah in, like, this
department. You're right.
That's exactly what it is. And so that's great cuz she is
like why are you telling me this?
And again, I guess you had a different take on this.
For me it was like that Sarah issuspicious of AI because she has
been wronged by 1 essentially but seems to like Odin and trust

(01:38:03):
him. So she does this.
By the way when you go through this thing you get to see that
engineers like little hologram thing.
She can also see her. She's jamming.
You can also read the crossword.I think it's here.
You can read the crossword. Maybe it's somewhere else.
Yeah, the crossword has a bunch of great little lore tidbits.
My favorite being that Taco Bellhas become the number one fast

(01:38:24):
food chain on earth by switchingto VAT grown meat.
I thought that was a funny, funny little note by being the
first to switch to VAT grown meat.
Accurate. Yeah, I thought there was some
funny stuff in there. Actually, I didn't write them
all that That was the one that struck me though.
It's like, Yep, that's probably the the case checks.
Out. What made me mad was that I was
trying to, I was trying to play the crossword and I put it down

(01:38:45):
because I saw all right, I was looking at the crossword itself
and I was like OK4 across this blank was for across.
There was not a clue for four across.
Oh really? I got mad.
I put it down. I'm like, Nope, all right, fair
enough. So you get to this.
No. Well, OK, the lifeguard shit is

(01:39:05):
fair, all right? That's that's the personal
experience. But I mean, when you get to this
section, it's funny, this is theone like horror ish section
where you're like, is something gonna jump out at me cuz like
this is you know what we are now, yeah.
Scifi corridor things, Yep. And also we are now one thing
that has been with all the flashbacks is it also tells you

(01:39:26):
how long ago it was from what you are currently doing.
So we are now getting closer andcloser to like like time wise
what actually happened? I like to countdown aspect of it
cuz it shakes. Yeah, so everything like.
All the important stuff that's been recorded are within the
last four, three to four days and like as you go deeper, it
gets closer and closer and closer like because this is like

(01:39:49):
12 hours, I think this is really.
The explosion was 18 hours ago at that.
Oh no, the explosion was three days ago because that's the
whole thing they had. Like the explosion at the ship
that they're trying. To oh, yes, yes, you're right.
Sorry. The ship explosion was like 18
hours. So now you're at a point where
it's like, yeah, like 14 hours or something, Yeah, and you can
explore this. It's kind of fun to see the AI

(01:40:12):
engineers drawings of the AI, possible redesigns to make them
cuter or whatever or cooler. Just again, some fun office
stuff. Again, some more stuff about you
can't fucking adjust the AI, which I think is fine.
They're reminding you of that before they're about to do the
AI reveal, But like, she is trying to adjust, like change

(01:40:34):
the AI and the corporation is like, absolutely fucking not.
There's a cool reveal here with a pamphlet in that storage room
where you find out she's a part.There's a new faction that's
introduced. Yes.
So AI Liberation Force or something.
I thought that was setting up A twist, and I was correct by the
way. I literally wrote that down.
I'm like this feels like it's set up for A twist.

(01:40:55):
Check out the pamphlet. Yeah dude, it really like, as
Chekhov said, if you put a political pamphlet over the
fireplace, it has to be read by the player character by the end
of the play. So also in that same area where
you find that pamphlet, there issomething called the Christmas
Duck, which you can turn on. Did you turn on the Christmas

(01:41:15):
Duck? Not.
Turn on the Christmas Duck. It just like lights up and plays
like Jingle Bells or whatever. It's pretty great.
Yep, it was nice. I liked it.
So you get to the AI thing, right?
And this is like the big reveal of what happened.
Sorry, I want to touch on one more thing, Nat.
Yes, there's a really like, cuteand sweet bit where Nat is
introducing herself to Odin. And Oh yeah, she's like, no,

(01:41:39):
you're right, that is fun actually.
Nice to meet you. Yeah.
And and also they're looking at,oh, cuz that's the whole thing.
I forgot. They introduced this part of the
Sarah thing with her back story.They introduced this idea of
like AI performance scores and they give these AI tests and
their performance scores can actually go up as they're like
get becoming smarter. How simple.
Where they are basically. Yeah.

(01:42:01):
And so like, because I'm sorry, what is her name again?
The AI lady. Nat.
You just said Nat. So, you know Odin says here's
what my score is and she's like,let's go, you know, she does the
Matthew behind. Hey, like those are rookie
numbers. We're going to bump those up.
But it is funny that with Sarah that is actually brought up in
hers where she actually does cite that her AI score like the

(01:42:21):
AI that gave her advice. The scores have been trending
downwards for months and that isone of her like pieces of proof
that the court like Vt will not allow to get out into the public
space. Because I definitely saw that
the A I scores. What's the word, the the

(01:42:42):
spreadsheet that I think Sarah had in her office that was
showing like the scores and everything.
I just didn't get it. I just didn't connect the dots
there. That was for the station's AI.
She was on where she is basically looking at like, no,
the score had gone down. It was getting less intelligent
and yet I was still, you were still making me take it medical
advice from it. Did you find yourself hating the

(01:43:03):
Juno AI? Oh yeah, of course.
Like the game very much sets up that you're gonna hate the Juno
AI and like Odin. Like, oh, this, I think.
I think that might have been theAI, by the way, that Sarah had
operating with. I'm trying to remember exactly

(01:43:26):
what it was, but yeah, it's. Damn it.
There is like an AI on the hierarchy sheet that you find in
that office. Oh, I love that, That like these
Ai's, they're not like everywhere.
There's like 10 of them and they're specifically like on
these stations. Yeah, so yeah, that's you're
right, though. That is a fun little scene, her

(01:43:46):
meeting Odin. But yeah, now we can talk about
going to the Sarah, going into the AI chamber.
I like the light up floors. It's such a great entrance.
Also, I did I apologize. I had to go to like the Tacoma
Wiki or whatever. It was not Juno that gave her
the bad medical advice. OK, it was an unrelated AI,

(01:44:07):
although it is one of the ones in that hierarchy.
It is one of the named ones. OK, Yep.
Just wanted to make that clear anyway.
So floors. I'll just read my note here.
So VTCEO create a statement because we find the The main
thing you find first is Sarah uncovering this one thing.

(01:44:29):
I didn't like one thing where I think the story dropped the
ball. Here is Sarah's non reaction to
this revelation. She has such a non reaction.
It's like, all right, so here's this evidence that not only was
this whole thing fabricated, butthis was the decision of AI,
which you kind of hate. Yes.

(01:44:50):
As the best course of action to reverse, which by the way is a
great call back to reverse the gains made by the union that you
are celebrating at the beginning.
So after seeing all of that and seeing that Odin is even trying
to negotiate like Odin is withinhis parameters, like send a ship
to rescue my crew and they're like, we're not gonna do that.
And her reaction is this is bad.It's like something's, yeah.

(01:45:14):
The AI has the 2001 A Space Odyssey moment.
The AI is asking for help, and the other AI is saying, I'm
sorry, Bill. I'm afraid I can't let you do
that. Or Sorry, Dave.
Oh, I yeah, I know, but where'd you get Bill from?
That's what weird. I'll tell you exactly where I
got it from. Is the.
Oh God the. That's such an iconic line.

(01:45:34):
I can't let you do that, Dave. And you pulled Bill.
I don't know why that's so funny.
I know, I know where it's from. It's from the.
Epic rap. Battles of history.
The Steve Jobs versus Bill Gatesand he loses that.
Hell, 9000 has a rap where he says, I'm sorry, Bill.
I'm afraid I can't let you do that.

(01:45:54):
So what a what? A what?
A YouTube channel. What a YouTube concept.
The Early 20 Ten's YouTube was agood time.
Yeah. Wasn't it?
Yeah. It really what a what a great
time for everybody. Absolutely no one had any
issues. God, I I just keep seeing every
now and then. I like because I knew of epic

(01:46:16):
rap battles of history but then I'll find out about ones I
didn't know existed. I think recently they did an
Oppenheimer versus Thanos one because I saw people be like,
oh, I'm so glad to see this in IMAX.
And it was a clip from the epic rap battle of like, Oppenheimer
versus Thanos, of like, who's the most destructive but the
funniest fucking one. For some reason I did.
Again, I didn't know they did this.
And I would love to be in the room where they decided this was

(01:46:38):
a good idea, where it's like Adolf Hitler versus somebody.
But sometimes I just see the clip of the guy going, I have
Adolf Hitler, he's just so it's my God, it's like the funniest
thing I've ever seen in my life out of context.
It's just him screaming at the side bitch.
And he's doing the Nazi salute, which I am not even going to do,
even though the listener can't see me, but he's just like I am

(01:47:00):
Adolf Hitler. So fucking OK.
Sorry, I apologize. Versus they There was a three
parter of him and Darth Vader. No, that was not what they did.
Was it really Hitler versus Darth Vader?
Wow, wow what a fucking time. What was this like 2 weeks ago?

(01:47:26):
Oh, the When was the Hitler versus Vader one?
Hitler versus Vader was like Hitler.
That was like season one. Can you can you kindly, like,
inform people of like what what a fucking Sarah finds so I can
find the Hitler thing? All right, so yeah, Sarah finds
God Vt So VTE CEO create a statement.

(01:47:49):
Before everyone was dead, he wasusing the tragedy to push for
legal. For legislation to end the Human
Workers Rights Bill to make completely AI run orbital
stations was this disaster is set up was my note was the last
one to set up because you find out there's hidden throughout

(01:48:10):
the game that there was a disaster that killed the
previous crew as well. Oh right.
Yeah. You know you're right.
I forgot about that. They're like, yeah, another
crew. So you're you're kind of like
they probably did that one as well.
Yeah. So the bill to strip away the
job we talked about this is the orbital worker safety bill and
you find that it wasn't set up based on like I took a picture

(01:48:32):
of the AI directives here and it's almost directly the scene
out of Alien where you find out the.
Spoilers for Alien from 1979, but they find that we're
spoiling a lot of old movies. I'm sorry, except we're trying
to spoil Sunshine because that hasn't been seen enough and
people should watch it. People should watch Sunshine,

(01:48:52):
but they the scene where it's revealed that the purpose of the
corporation is to preserve the alien is revealed on like this
computer screen. It's almost identical here,
where you find out that the AI directives were changed, where
it's like. The AI shall explosively

(01:49:14):
decompress all oxygen tanks, disable all external
communications channels, fabricate data showing the
oxygen cons, and ensure that thecruise enters cryogenic sleep.
Yep, I actually so number one with the alien comparison.
I forgot that it basically takesplace in the same room as an
alien, where it's just this big old computer room.

(01:49:37):
And Alien to me is still one of the most effective because, and
I think this one's fine too. But I think it's almost like
more cold, even though it's likeit's almost more cold when it
says like, So yeah, if you haven't seen Alien, a movie from
1970, fucking Nine, one of the most iconic movies in history.
When Ripley, like, gets to, I forget she hacks into it.

(01:49:58):
I need to watch this movie again.
But she like, you know, looks into the computer and sees that
there's a new directive which ispreserve this new undiscovered
life form at all costs. And then it specifically says
crew colon expendable. That to me is like one of the
best reveals of like how evil a mega Corp is.
It's it's just Crew, colon, Expendable.

(01:50:19):
It's such a good reveal they do that same exact thing in alien
isolation. With you.
Have you played that game? Oh, I haven't played that.
No. But I I mean, I buy it.
Like, you know, it's a once again my current theme of these
movies. Do my device.
Do you mind if I spoil a bit in Alien Isolation?
Yeah, please go for it. Spoilers, listener.
Skip ahead one minute. So your play.

(01:50:42):
You play the game as Ripley's daughter as she boards a space
station which has uncovered Ellen Ripley's ship.
So this is that between Alien and Aliens where Ripley is
drifting in cryoslate in the escape pod, essentially finding

(01:51:03):
out cuz we found out an alien said she had a daughter that was
alive but it's now white. Very very the director's cut of
Aliens I would like to know anyway.
Carry on. Yes.
So in Alien Isolation they find the Nostromo and take it aboard
the space station, which is where the alien gets out and
hijinks and sue. But you find the remains in the

(01:51:24):
Nostromo and then because because Ripley's daughter is
trying to figure out what happened to her mother, so she
goes into that AI room. And has sits down and you see in
first person that computer terminal where she has the exact
same realization that her motherhad OK, she was like, no, yeah,

(01:51:46):
no, that's interesting. So it's the same twist from a
different perspective, but they mean different things to
different characters. I should I need to play that?
Yeah it's a cool thing to yeah. And this this one also I it is
hinted at before because they keep talking about how like they
want to open this like basicallya company town in space, which
also again fucking very real. They wanna open a company town

(01:52:08):
in space and they can't do it intime because of these
regulations, these safety regulations.
And so the board is basically like about to like oust the
current CEO or whatever, becausethey're like, you need to
fucking get this project. This is the entire future of
this company, but he's having this company town.
This isn't even the CEO's evil plan.

(01:52:29):
He asked an AI to make up scenarios.
This is genius The the he he asked.
He fucking went to chat GT and said how do I overturn this bill
that was passed in Congress And the AI is like here's the best
options and also I can't draw hands.
I like actually. I think they did fix the drawing
hands thing, but whatever. Fuck the AI.

(01:52:50):
Should. The AI Juno ran several
scenarios on different tragedies, world events that
could get legislation passed. The AI predicts the tragedy will
also reverse the declining Vt stock.
I God it's so fucking the great reveal.
This one is predicting the future.
This one was only like 6 years away from like the chat.

(01:53:10):
GPT will make these like decisions.
Thing chat beats such a good reveal ChatGPT.
Told us which country to invade.Yeah, basically dude that's
where like you it is just like amoment of like just a little bit
extra color in this would just be like, oh, one of the options
the AI recommended. Like we drop the station into
like a small country and start aglobal thermonuclear war so that

(01:53:34):
everyone has to live in our fucking space colony.
Like that is. And yeah, he is just like, which
by the way also just to me is a great again, I like the world
building of this game, great little bit of satire that the
CEO who is supposed to be in that position because he's great
at business decisions, goes to an AI and says solve this.
How do I like? How do I reverse stock?

(01:53:55):
How do I make yeah? How do I make bad number be
good? Yeah, I think it's it is said
that like he's not even the original CEO.
He's like the CEO's son, right? Yeah, like.
They have a great but he's like a fail son.
Yeah, and he. If you open up the dart board in
the recreation area, you can seethe CEO's picture on the dart

(01:54:16):
board. Did you throw?
Did you throw darts at the CEO before you knew anything?
I threw a dart at the CEO. I threw a dart at the CEO 100%.
I was like, who's this rich dude?
I'm gonna throw darts at his face.
It's like the IT is the Always sunny.
I've had enough of this, dude. Rule of thumb, whenever you see
a bunch of pro union crew members have a dart board of
some guy you also throw, you also throw darts.

(01:54:39):
Pretty safe assumption 100%. Let's see.
So the rescue craft was cancelled.
It says circumstances would be outside.
You're concerned. Not like beyond a real
possibility. They're not concerned to you.
Which is great. No.
Again, so, so fucking good. All of that is so fucking real.
Love it. But yeah, going back, Sarah has

(01:55:02):
a non reaction to this. She's just standing there.
I would like just something. Give me a performance.
Yeah, it's again, man, there's just, it feels like something's
missing. Going back to what we said or I
said the IT just feels like there's something that's not
there and I don't know why. This game is like 90% there for
me. It needs a nut.
Like it just needs, yeah, It's just something, man.

(01:55:25):
And I'm not. I just don't know what it is.
Like, I'm not. That's the thing.
I'm not going to, you know, backseat right the game here.
Like, I don't want to do that. I just really feel like there's
just something more that I wanted.
Yeah. And I just.
I don't know. The ending kind of wraps up
pretty fast here. So you get the you find out that

(01:55:49):
she was able to restore, Sarah was able to restore calms and
send out a distress signal. And that's where we think is
going to be our ending. We pull out Odin and then we
walk towards. We go back to the main.
Well, actually there's somethingelse I wanna note, which is that
yeah, you do wake up the other people.
You wake up the people who are in cryo.

(01:56:10):
You actually do get to see like 6 hours ago.
You get to see them all back together again and leave.
Yeah, it should be noted that the way they're about to leave,
they're getting a ride with carnivals.
So I don't know how I feel aboutIt's like another corporation is
gonna save them, It's just. And probably just use it as a PR
move. Yeah, which maybe it's part of
the satire, but I felt like, I don't know it.

(01:56:30):
Literally is a PR move, but theyand they had to reload for a
while. But you find out that the chain
was that Sarah sent the audio files to net.
Who sent the audio files to? There's a.
A little bit of a subplot with her being friends with this guy
who is an online dog profile picture who's like a
whistleblower for these corporations.
Oh yeah, that that was fine. I guess I I kind of was.

(01:56:54):
And it's funny that, yeah, it suddenly comes back back to be
very important in the end. I was like, this guy keeps
showing up. Is he important?
Turns out, yes, because he has connections to the press.
Because he's sort of like this union whistleblower who sends
out the the audio files to the press so that they leak it.
So if they are so if they are killed, that makes that

(01:57:18):
corporation look bad. But they should probably see how
the public eye, just in case, yeah.
And and also it's been noted like this has already happened.
So this is one of those things where like the information has
been kept from you, the player, because this is kind of like
this might have even been happening like as you were
fucking. Well, not the escape was not
happening. As you were docking again, they

(01:57:38):
were already gone, but like the word might be out already that
like, oh, this crew has survivedafter an attempted murder by the
company they work. For like the news may have
dropped as you were boarding theship and we're cut off, right.
And so, like, it is kind of funny that like, yeah, it
doesn't change it necessarily orno, I mean it does.

(01:58:00):
Because the word would have to know, because the reveal is you
are there to liberate the AI that was left on the station,
and you're getting there before.The corporation comes and takes
her AI to wipe, right? But you are.
You were hired by the corporation.
Oh, you're posing as a contract,A pro?
You a pro corporation contractor, right?

(01:58:21):
And so the corporation VTi keep saying corporation.
You ever seen the movie Roller ball?
No, any roller ball is not a very good movie, but it's a
dystopian future. And I remember watching with my
old roommate Adam and we just laughed every fucking time.
All they ever say is the corporation over.
Like if you play a drinking gamewhere every time they say the
corporation you will be dead even if you're drinking.

(01:58:42):
Like Bud Light if they say it somuch.
But Vt. I love organizations.
I love organizations with simplename.
Mission Impossible does this with the Syndicate.
I thought you were about to say the IMF, which I did not realize
until the new movie literally means Impossible Mission Force.
That is so fun. There is that great scene in the
new movie where they just have awhole meeting where basically is

(01:59:05):
them saying to the viewer, OK, here is what the IMF is because
it's gotten a little, like, stupid and like also how.
And by the way, I I love this movie.
But they're like, here's what itis.
And also, yeah, it's a little ridiculous that an agent could
choose not to accept the mission.
That means they're not a very good agent.
Like, you know, like they kind of have to address it anyway.
So. So yeah, you get to like, see
them all leave. And then, yeah, there's the

(01:59:27):
reveal that you've been doing this all to, yeah, liberate
Odin. I was expecting there to be a
choice here. I was expecting you can be like
I thought for. Sure.
I was like, you're going to plugthe AI in, and I thought you
would be, given the choice of your ship AI, your ship AI or
Odin. I thought that would be the
final like you had. I thought it was for sure going

(01:59:48):
to be like, after seeing this, do you still want to be a
corporate stooge or do you want to try to take down Vt?
And but for the record, I do maintain that, like, you know,
it's a good thing they don't show us what happens after, cuz
typically a corporation goes through some bad PR and then
they're fine afterwards. You know, let's let's just be
real, But, like, I don't know how I wasn't a huge fan of the

(02:00:13):
reveal that you were an undercover agent the whole time.
I don't. I don't know how you feel about
it. I don't hate it.
I think it's fine. It was like a it was a moment of
Oh yeah. Well, because I actually, I felt
like it was a moment of, well, the only way to win is not to
play because I don't want to give Odin to the fucking mega
Corp. So I don't want to go back on
that shift. But then and so I guess, I guess

(02:00:34):
they did that because they knew people would feel that way as
well. Yeah.
And I guess having like a final twist at the very end, they know
immediately it wouldn't matter because people would just like,
restart, continue their last save and then just see the other
ending. So.
Yeah, maybe having a definitive ending was the right was the
right choice. Yeah I think, I think it works.

(02:00:57):
I I that one. I'm not gonna of all the issues
I have with this game that is like the the bottom.
You know what I mean? Like that I'm OK with it.
That's fine. So then we that, then we roll
credits. Yeah, I was going to say that's
it. Oh, you do get to it is funny.
You do give Odin a choice and he's like, they're going to
fucking kill me if I go back to them like the AI version of
being killed. So can you please not do that?

(02:01:21):
Yeah, it was fun to have Odin bea non evil AI.
I'll definitely say that. Especially because let's be real
the the upside down pyramid withan I very much gave off the vibe
of like this guy's going to be evil.
And I mean that as a compliment to developers.
They were like what would an evil AI look like?
And they came up with this and it's like, but he's not going to
be evil. He's blue.

(02:01:43):
That means he's a good AI. Everyone knows that red AI is a
bad AI. You got it when they heard red.
That means they have evil intentions.
Yeah, we've all seen iRobot starring Will Smith.
Do you think we all drink games,do you think If, yeah, we've all
seen that. Do you think if the listener
were to drink every time we reference the movie over the
course of the last? We've referenced a lot of

(02:02:03):
movies. We've referenced a lot of, well,
in fairness, you know, and I guess I'm sure we get into the
final talks, but like this game pulls from a lot of movies and
there's always that inevitable, like how original can this be
when it's pulling from so many sources, You know, fair.
That's a good point. I I do think the really building

(02:02:25):
the labor stuff into the into the lore essentially that does
separate this a bit more from the other stuff now not entirely
like if you do watch John Carpenter's Dark Star they they
address that too where like theythey definitely deal with like a
a mega Corp like that but yeah Isorry I thought I heard so.

(02:02:49):
Yeah, I I guess I'm not. I didn't love all these
characters. I didn't think it was that new
and I've all. I won't.
I went into the how the game play.
I'm not super into it forever. Everything about this game to me
was fine except the world building, which I will 100% give
like a lot of credit. I really liked that particular

(02:03:11):
corporate dystopia that they constructed, yeah.
But also, even like the interiorof Tacoma was not that
interesting to me, if I can be honest.
Like, I don't want to trash someone's hard work.
I just, I don't know, Michael, like maybe, you know, I think
you you really sold it last timeof like Okay, the guy in charge
of the studios piece of shit. Presumably.

(02:03:33):
Like there are there were some good people who worked there and
maybe there's some shitty peoplewho work there as well.
But like, let's see what could have been and between This and
Gone Home. I'm not sure that we're missing
all that much and that is maybe too mean, I will grant you, but
I was not super enthused, man. I'm sorry.

(02:03:57):
I'll come. I'll come out of the airside of
just going. If they had another, if they had
another chance to make somethingwould this have been would
Because again, I I really like this.
I like the I like the pacing of the story.
I liked how the reveals were done.
I liked the cutscene direction and how things overlap with each

(02:04:20):
other. I thought this was like really,
I guess like the nicest criticism you can have of art is
that you want more of it. And that's ultimately where I
end up going. I like what I got.
I think I would have loved it ifI got more.
I I suppose, yeah, in some ways I'm just the opposite here where
I'm like. I didn't, I just didn't want

(02:04:43):
more of this. I was very kind of relieved when
it was over. Not really.
That's a bit too much. But I I was like I don't want to
be. I don't want to be mean again.
I I feel like I've actually beenrelatively positive over this.
But I said this to you without like, you know, again, we try
not to text each other before recording.
I straight up said like when we were planning this new recording

(02:05:05):
after you know, your IC went outand all this stuff, I'm like.
Yeah, we got to record like cuz Tacoma is already fading from my
mind and that's that might be very harsh, but I for me it's
just kind of forgettable, I'm sorry.
And maybe that's like the harshest thing I could say about
it. It is just very forgettable to
me and maybe maybe it will be for me.
Maybe in two years I'll forget all of Tacoma.

(02:05:26):
But where it sits right now being like the more the more
recent things I played I'm. I'm happy.
I'm happy we played this. I'm happy we did a deep dive on
this. I was really.
I enjoyed my time with it. I'm glad, but for opposite
reasons. I'm glad to know that, like for

(02:05:46):
me, Gone Home, which I think is again, I think Gone Home is
fine. I think it's fine, but I don't
really care for it. And also, it does go to show
that, like the discourse around Gone Home, in my opinion, was
just so overblown. Just a bunch of absolute fucking
chuds. Yeah.
It's like this was the game y'all were fucking rioting

(02:06:07):
about, you know what I mean? Like this was the game, and I
feel that way with this. I'm like, yeah, I guess I just
don't really care for the style.And before anyone says like,
well, yeah, it's not your genre.I do love like Firewatch, which
I think actually does have a very good story, very good
narrative. And I do really like what
remains to be Finch, which is very experimental.
And again, maybe it made me cry and this just.

(02:06:28):
And I think about Edith Bench and Firewatch every now and
again. And I just don't know if I will
ever think of this again. Except that time I was on this
show, on this game. It has not, in my opinion, it
has. What it's lacking is emotional
weights. There's no emotional.
It has none. It has straight up that.
That's the harshest I can say. But like, I see this as like a
really interesting scifi short story, but it's not going to.

(02:06:52):
When I think of like the great scifi, like video games, this is
not going to touch anywhere nearany of them.
It was a cool thing. I wish I got more out of it.
One thing I would recommend to you, a game.
I would recommend to you based on this game, what you liked
about more, the investigation stuff and the mystery of what's
going on. There's a game for you and I'm

(02:07:14):
going to recommend it to you too, listeners.
This one I want to do eventuallyfor the show.
Return of the Obradin, Michael. Why are you recommending my
favorite game of the year? It came out okay so.
I love Oberden, Yeah, I fucking love Oberden so much.
Great. Oberden is a phenomenal game.
Absolutely phenomenal. When you were explaining what

(02:07:35):
you didn't like it. When you explained what you
didn't like about this. I'm like if he hasn't played
Oberden, he will love Oberden. Yeah, actually I think that
might be a good way of saying it, cuz I'll say this much, if
you actually look at the plot ofOberden, it's not very
interesting. It is entirely like the
mechanics of that game carry it,yes.
And by the way, I know you're about, like, I'm sure you're
thinking like, what do you mean Oprah did?
It's not interesting. It is interesting.

(02:07:56):
I'm just saying that the plot, if you just outlined these are
the events that happened. Not like insane, right?
Like, just kind of like interesting.
It's like an Indian Zone story got from some sort of.
Thing but it but it also is literally the same thing.
You are an investigator. This ship has come back.
None of the crews on it find outwhat happened.
The interpersonal stories are what matter for that thing, not

(02:08:17):
the broad strokes of the story. Yes, that game is fucking
fantastic. I so actually, yeah, that's a
good recommendation. I would love to.
If you ever do an episode, I mean, I guess not me find
someone who hasn't played it before, but like, it's a
fantastic game. It really is.
I love Obradin. It's so good.

(02:08:38):
Also I do want to note that like.
Well, I'm if it seems like it being harsh, I really do hope
all the fucking developers who left that studio land on their
feet or have land on their feet.Just to be clear, there's a lot
of talent. Agreed.
I just, yeah. Hey, man, sometimes you get a
lot of talent together. You get a lot of talented
people, and then you make an Indiana Jones and the dial of

(02:09:01):
destiny, you know what I mean? Like, you make something.
It's fine. It's so whatever.
It's like I think. Crystal Skull's probably the
technically worst movie, but I'mgoing to remember Crystal Skull
more. Indiana Jones.
The Dial of destiny is the Tacoma of movies.
I am definitely, like, I am not going to like, retain any of it,

(02:09:24):
even though it is technically competent and like fine.
And there's a lot of talented people behind it, people I like,
but like, it's just so blah and just.
It's surrounded by a genre that is actually just has a lot more
going on in whatever. Anyway, Michael, we got it in
this game club on a movie reference.

(02:09:45):
We have to, although I real quick.
I do want to go back to the epicRap battles of history just
briefly. So I'm on the Wikipedia page for
it. So Darth Vader versus Hitler.
Well, what episode? Like how many episodes in do you
think they were before they did that one 2?

(02:10:05):
Yep. Yeah, I I was an avid.
I was an avid fan for the first like three seasons.
Were you really? Yeah.
I want to just read off the first, like couple episodes of
this for the listener. We're going along.
We got it. We you.
You got 30 seconds. All right, John Lennon versus
Bill O'Reilly #1 #2. Darth Vader versus Hitler #3,

(02:10:26):
Abe Lincoln versus Chuck Norris #4.
Sarah Palin versus Lady Gaga #5,Hulk Hogan and Macho Man versus
Kim Jong Il. This was such a weird era
anyway. That's the end of that 2010.
YouTube was a great time. Fucking why would you put Mr. T
versus Mr. Rogers? That's not a whatever.
I like that one. I remember, I remember liking

(02:10:47):
these, but I haven't gone back and watched them in like 10
years. So yeah, so scheduling wise for
staying the same. Things are a little weird for a
little bit because this one's arriving late.
Our next game club will be in the coming weeks will be when
it's supposed to air. So I'm going to be there's going

(02:11:07):
to be an extra week between episodes.
That's when the prep is going tobe for our next game.
I'll go ahead and reveal it here, but I'm going to skip the
prep work. Wolfenstein, The New Order.
We're going to be playing the 1st 8 chapters for part one and
the remaining game for Part 2. John is going to come back to do
some good oldfashioned Nazi killing with me as we discuss

(02:11:28):
the crazy story of Wolfenstein. One of my favorite shooters of
the last decade Straight up, so I'm looking forward to your
discussion on it. All right, so stay the save can
be found on Outside the Show on TikTok and Instagram.
No, sorry. TikTok and YouTube for crazy
show clips and shenanigans. If you actually want show

(02:11:50):
updates, go to Twitter. I'm still calling it Twitter.
Screw You and Instagram for. You're defying the president of
South Africa as of like 20-30 orwhatever.
Oh my my mistake. Sorry.
That's where you can find us forlike show updates and all of
that and interacts with us if you want to outside the.
Show South Africa cut The country of South Africa was

(02:12:13):
renamed to Why in 2035. Cutting this off.
This is going too long. Sorry.
Stay the save out could be foundon this.

(02:12:37):
It's been a pleasure. I can't.
I lost my fans thought savethesame@gmail.com for emails
and just to interact with us andcomplain I I've got to call this
Tanner. Thank you so much for joining
me. I'm broken.
I I haven't. My brain's been like fried after
your India Jones. And the doll of destiny is the
Tacoma of movies. Take I, I.
Love Harrison Ford, but like, I'm sorry, man.
All right. Thanks everyone for.
Watching and James Mangold is a competent director.
He's made good pictures before, but like this just was.

(02:12:59):
This just didn't hit. Stay safe out there.

(02:13:24):
I like.

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