Death Stranding 2: On The Beach

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to side Quest on the Beach. That's right,
it's a Death Stranding two review. I'm your host Delmas
night with me the pizza chef or is a pizza chief?
I'm seeing both? Now is it supposed to find?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
I literally was like, I better not spell this wrong
and not be chief pizza chef. There we go. I
literally thought I was as typing it and I'm so sorry.
Mess it up? Brain not working. Pizza chef.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Nice, Now you needed a little more pizza in your
system to function.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I got the pizza last night. But yeah, we'll talk
about the pizza chef. One of my favorite parts of this,
uh this video game.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
So yeah, I mean this is kind of a crazy
journey to get to this point. In many ways, I
feel like Death Stranding was like one of the first
things we talked about in early and outside Quest, early
geekers days, you know, leading up to the game that
came out years later. But here we are, remember, yeah,
and then here we are six years later with the sequel. Finally,

(01:00):
me and you both live in you know, different houses
and stuff that we did back then. A lot has
changed in our life, but Death Stranding is back back
for more and I did you get a chance to
listen to back to our review that I pointed.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I meant to and I still have to because I
said I would, I still meant to. I I actually
don't know. I listened to about ten minutes. I haven't
finished it, but I did because it has a lot
some dish, Yeah that's why. But I remember us talking
about just the openings and certain things because the first
bit is just us being like, oh, this is what
this game is. So I haven't finished, but I want
to get back to it because I still want to
hear our thoughts of it last time. But I did.

(01:32):
I think I talked about some geek first. I did
watch the cutscene movie of Desk Stranding one to kind
of get a little up to date because I would
love to replay it. But that's uh, I think that's
something we talk about in that review. It's a long game,
like it just feels takes quite a while, so especially
it was the first one we're learning and it's all.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
News, so yeah, exactly. I did a lot of homework.
I watched two separate YouTube like breakdowns because the first
one wasn't fantastic, uh, And then I listened to our review,
and then the in game the game has like a
recap then you can check it as well, So like,
damn it, I don't know if I need to do this,
but I'm still glad I did because there was still
little pieces and details that were, you know, from all
those separate things that I was able like, Okay, I'm back,

(02:08):
I'm back in the headspace. I'm kind of remembering things.
But until recently it was like, what is dooms again?
It's like, oh, yeah, dude, that's very important to the story.
Kind of remember that is, but I just you know,
forgot about that term and whatnot. But yeah, it was
fun listening back to that episode. I definitely recommend you
do go back and finish the whole thing because there
was one a section in there where we talked about
a sequel potentially, and we were both like, we both

(02:30):
loved the game, but we were all like, eh, I
don't really want a sequel. Kind of wanted this to
be like a one and done thing and then Kojima
to go and make some other weird thing next. And
so it's interesting, you know. Obviously, I think in the
last few months and getting trailers and stuff like, we
have been very excited. This is mostly the reason I
bought a PS five is to play this game and Wolverine,
but mostly this game, and then ended up, like you know,
playing the shit out of Astrobot and a few other
things in the last few months. But really I've kind

(02:52):
of been gathering dust waiting for this game to come out.
So yeah, I feel like it's it's been quite a culmination.
But it's interesting that, you know, all those years ago,
we were necessarily super jazzed about a sequel, and we
had finished the game at that point, but you know,
I think all these years later, I personally I was
missing it a lot and like some of that gameplay
and stuff, and so I feel like in the last
few months I have been excited for the sequel, but
you know, back then, neither of us were really itching

(03:15):
for it at the time.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's it's kind of because when
I boot up the game, I even said to Emily
of like, oh, yeah, I was twenty nineteen, so no,
I'm like, yeah, six years ago, that's when the first
one was, and just so much has happened from you know,
we're going on our Tenuary top of that. A lot
recently but honestly that's within the first year, but still
that's our first E three. That was part of that
like PlayStation Conference of Dreams. That just was a to me,

(03:38):
the best conference I've seen in any E three summer game.
So it's games called like that is the standard, and
that was our first E three and I remember that
being a big day, and even then we probably told
us on the review. But the history of just even
Kajima gearmo enormous with PT and that excitement and the
shutdown like death Stranding, I think is maybe maybe to

(03:58):
I don't know where it's important in the gaming like history,
but at least with i'd say from the two thousands.
It's a very important chapter because it just covers multitude
of things of the PT stuff, Kajima leaving and starting
his own studio, him branching off and now doing games
with Xbox. Because like maybe there would be but if
Death Stranding, like I don't know, completely bombs maybe really

(04:19):
critically or sales, that could be it for Kajima, right,
he could just be well, he works with Naughty Dog,
he works with you know, death Stranding kind of gave
him a platform to keep going. Obviously he had a
great history, but I do feel in the two thousands,
the Death Stranding in general franchise just has a lot
to do with certain important pieces and moments of gaming.

(04:40):
So it's always fun to uh kind of look back
at that. And but now here we are on the.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Beach, yah know, I want to talk about that a
little bit more because I feel like I don't know
what it is about this game or now this series
that makes me like particularly like looking back at my
life and thinking about things, and like the context of.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
On the Road a lot that's yeah, you like saying.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I guess that's true, but yeah, like it's weirdly an
introspective game for me. I think a lot of that is. Yeah,
there's a lot of the moments of silence or just
like I don't know, adversity things like that. But I
don't like obviously like that that lead up of like
the that PS four hypes like in all these big games,
and I think, you know, Goes to Sushima followed it later,
so it's not like it was a last one that
closed that chapter, but it was a big part of it.

(05:22):
And getting those trailers, which such an exciting thing. Also,
like early Geek first, you know, anyone who's listened for
that long, you remember the hashtags save Hannibal were big bands,
Michael Suspense and like that, and there was such a
weird thing and so that was a big thing. And
when I listened back to the Rovie, I kind of
forgot about this connection. But you know, it was such
an important release for me in that year because earlier
in twenty nineteen is when I did my trip to

(05:44):
Nepal and did like a multi week long trek and
so like you know, seeing porters in real life and
then like going on these multi like several days and
it was super hard and difficult and I was my
body was destroyed and walking through the mountains. I feel
like then playing that a few months later was like, well,
this is kind of crazy. Timing is in a really
weird way. And then you know, in the kind of

(06:05):
months afterwards, a lot of people were joking about like, Okay,
this game came out in November twenty eighteen, COVID hits
March twenty twenty, and then like all of the idea
of Beat people being stuck inside they can't go outside,
you know, which is equivalent to like the time fall
and like stuff in the world of Best Stranding, and
so just thinking about that game, like how did he
predict that this is where the world was going to

(06:26):
go in a lot of ways, and I feel like
it became this time and place thing. And I think
even for me too, Like I those are my first
Kajima game. I'd never played anything of his at the time,
and so like I'm now with this sequel, I'm reevaluating
a lot of things thinking about my life and where
I was then and where I am now, and like, yeah,
a lot of change, particularly the last few months for
me as well, A lot of things have changed, you know,

(06:48):
even since that first game. I'm living in a new place.
I'm on a new open world map, you know, where
things are things serve for that. But me, both me
and you have moved houses several times in that span
of time, so I've had a lot of change in
my life. I've also like just beencome obsessed with climbing
the last couple of years, and like that's a big
thing with this game, is like balance and climbing, and
so it's interesting thinking about like comparing them to Paul

(07:09):
part with like where I'm now at and climbing, and
then also like since then, I've gone and played some
other Kajima stuff, Like I've played finished Metal Year Solid one,
played like Half a two and kind of hated it
and dipped. Then went back and played like a little
bit of Metal Gear like before Solid and some of those.
So now I have some more experience with some of
his games as well, and so seeing some of the
similarities all the way back to Metal Year Solid one,

(07:29):
with like the way he introduces characters by like putting
their name on screen with the actor underneath, and just
like you know, the Hollywood film nature of Kajema that
is not present in a lot of other video games.
But yeah, there's something about that stranding that brings out
an introspection I was thinking about, like Outer Worlds two
came out, or Outer world one came out in twenty nineteen,
Outer Worlds two is coming up this year, but like,
I don't have the same sort of connection of thinking

(07:50):
about my life in that same way, But this game
does make me introspective, And I was curious if it
is similar for you, because I feel like, going back
to that review, you talked about how this was potentially
the first game that that is potentially your favorite game
of all time. So we'll wait to see on the
you know, top ten game ranking on the ten recording soon.
Okay you can find yeah, tune into the episode. But also,

(08:12):
you know, you were already a father in twenty nineteen, right,
but now you are a father many times over, and
there's obviously a lot of themes of parenthood and fatherhood.
Is it just me or is there like an introspective
for like a bigger gravity to stranding outside of like
the actual game itself for you.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, I think it's just an introspective with and probably
anyone's listening to us they have that because we all
have that with our Like even last week when we
did my retrospect was shame. There's just certain things that
come out a certain time, whether they're book, song, movie
where you remember exactly where you were when you heard it,
saw it, whatever, and even then to that point, it's
kind of fun. I had this realization when I'm you know,

(08:47):
taking care of the BB and whatnot. When that game
first came out. Logan was she was born in August,
so so she was about three months and the twins
are six months, so they're the older. But still it's
like these games always come out. When I got like
that situation where there's babies going you got the ball,
So it was just that.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
You gotta watch if he is a third game, you
might be having more kids.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well no, no, there's no there's no possible sugg get
a dog.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Maybe I'll get another dog.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I'll I'll get a puppy. Yeah, that'll be that'll be
the third one. We've changed from babies to dogs because
you don't seem any I can't. I think we tell
them in the first review. There's not many like animals run.
I can't remember seeing a dog in this game, to
be honest.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
I mean a lot more animals in this game than
the first game, but I don't know if any dogs.
That's rather than the dog robots there.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, there is some more animals in this one. Yeah,
but yeah, no dogs. Dogs might have bit it in
the death ranting, But no, I agree. I think it's
just with and you brought the mad thing, which I
completely forgot. I think there's ties to our life and
the podcast specifically, even we talk about twenty nineteen, that's
the year that Endgame came out, and you know, speaker
hit us sub and said, oh you want to be
part of this and same thing that was a part
of that fall of us getting used. Okay, how do

(09:52):
we you know, do this type of ad place and
how we do this? So it's always tied to like
massive changes, and even then it's kind of funny this
is coming out in our we're on the to the
ten years so there. But it did give me that
it more given that when I sat down on the
night to play it, and I did think about because
I had not thought about it being twenty nineteen. It
felt a lot sooner than that, to be honest. And
I think we've all said the spilling times that COVID

(10:14):
messed up. Everyone's just kind of time span, like even
movie releases, not just because they just.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Like time fall once again, the raining that affects time
in a.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Weird way for COVID. I could tell you every single thing, movie, game, whatever,
but that was just like a weird time so just
even flashbacks that like, right, we've been through so much
worldwise and life wise. So no, it does, and I
think it is just because that's what the game does
as well too for many characters. Right, there's lots of
beats because it's it's dealing with like life being you know,
working right through life, figuring it out, and then obviously

(10:42):
a situation like COVID or just isolation or being alone
or there's multi times this game they're talking about like, oh,
maybe it's best for you just to disconnect right now, right,
And I think we all of us and yeah, and
I think all the generations after us are gonna struggle
with that, that idea of you know, not like unconnect
into your phone, unconnected and stuff. There's so many times
where I just a big I gotta put the phone down,

(11:03):
put the laptop down, whatever. So yeah, it's just I
think that's just because and then also ask lots of
questions about death of course, right, so a lot of
immortality stuff. So no, I agree, it gives me those
feelings as well. And I also will talk more about
that in the score or the review and whatnot. But
I think the music in this game highly helps with
that because I feel like the music has a lot
of I don't know, it feels like if there's a

(11:26):
heaven and you're going into it, so if the gates open,
some of the music is playing from this game, because
it's just like it just makes you think about stuff like, oh,
my goodness. So but yeah, I agree that it definitely
makes you pause for a second.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
So mm hmm. Yeah, So let's talk about this game
a little bit now now that we're that we did
literure intro there. You know, I guess, first off, like
spoiler wise, I've not beat the game yet, and so
we're gonna hold back. We will get more spoilery as
we get along, I suppose, but obviously I'm not. I
don't want to get spoiled either. I think I am

(12:01):
about twenty five hours in. I think i'm aut Chapter
eight is where I'm at. Travis, you have beaten the game,
I believe.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
In the game being the game, and then played about
a four additional hour, So so I think I'm at
forty or fifty hours i'm at. I think I'm just
under forty five. I think that's where I am.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Okay, yeah, uh, what'd you think of this freaking game?

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah, it's it's tough because it's I think there's kind
of like multitude of angles, and obviously we're gonna cover
them all in depth. I still think it's a great game.
I think probably what I said in the first Desk
Randing review, Kajima is like he's Kajima for a reason.
He's gonna give you a spectacle, He's gonna awesome games
cost a lot of money. I don't regret a single

(12:43):
penny of this, even if there's some stuff that might
not work here or there, whether it's set pieces, whether
it is just the option which will get into of
choice in this game, I think he did do a
good job, which I didn't have a problem with. There
were a lot of critiques of the first game. I
think he was trying his best to make it a
bit more accessible for people, and in that sense, they

(13:03):
added a lot of stuff to me, almost too much.
But it's not a bad thing. It's not conscious, Like, yeah,
they added so many items, weapons, vehicle additions, Like there's
like a little skill tree which I don't remember from
the first one having.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
I don't think it happened. Yeah, sorry, quick question. Did
you play the director's cut version of the Yes? They did, Yes, Okay,
so you got you. So I feel like there were
some things added there that are now in this game.
There there was a bit of a you wouldn't even
call it like a point five though, it was like
just like, you know, maybe ten percent more things in
it overall, like there was just a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I think so. But also there's a lot of stuff
that I not that I didn't do, but I just
still did it my way. Like I feel like there's
a there's a way I played Desk Stranding, and there's
a way that I feel like people wanted to play
Desk Stranding and I was never like, oh I don't
need that. I got to twelve dozens of games that
do that sort of thing. I like that it does this,
So it does to me feel it feels like the

(13:58):
first game, but better in a sense of everything that
was there before is still there. To your point that
you always bring up, they do this is like a
super minus. But they do do the thing where you
don't have the stuff from the first game, but that
stuff you get very fast. There's stuff that I was like, man,
I had to wait twenty five hours, and oh mission too.
You gotta try Cruiser. You're like, oh, okay, So I

(14:20):
think they do their best of Hey, of course, for
the story, we don't want you to have all your
gear that you had before, but we're gonna throw you
as much as possible. But no, I think, like I
said before, it's a spectacle. I think it's a grand
scale of video gaming. This game is beautiful. I'm the
guy that all the time says, like like three or
four years ago, if the graphics stop there, I'd be
fine with that. There are some close ups on people,

(14:40):
there's some environments that, man, it is just it's getting ridiculous.
It's like when we tell AI's just like ridiculous of
how good it looks.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Animations are amazing.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Top KNOWLEDG, top notch, load times crazy good too, Like
people lot of people bring it up. But just like
there's no phone checking in this there's no screens, there's
no nothing. You don't get a chance, I.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Must you're on a monorail and you just have to wait, yes,
literally four minutes. That's like okay, I'm gonna get up
some stretches.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
Usually I'm playing this game on the exercise ball when
I play in the living room, so that's I'm doing
a lot of role and the bouncing and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
I've been doing like some push ups when I have
to wait and like just trying to work out.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, oh yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, Sam, stretched
my legs a little, you know, so I think it
has that thing where I don't know why this sequel
got that praise, but it did. Everyone talks about Assassin's
Creed one to two, and I was there because those
are only the few Assassine Creed games I play where
assass Creed one's like there's like a bones of a
great game here, but it's very like, all right, this
is fine, but two was like everything you loved and

(15:38):
then a massive step up. And then there's all these
sequels that have done that before where we always say like, okay,
one is kind of the it gets you on a base,
but then the sequel, you hope is kind of like
a home run where it's like, go, every issue had.
So I think on a gameplay wise, they have done that.
I think you and I talked about that where there's
aspects of the game that I do feel are easier,
but I think it's a combo of me already knowing

(16:00):
this honestly felt like riding a bike. I was like,
oh am, I gonna worry about getting back in and
the balancing and everything. No, it felt just like it did.
I had played it past twenty but it felt like
it was just yesterday. I was holding the grips and everything,
and also because of BT's and stuff, you know what
happens there, So that was easier. And then, like I said,
just the amount of stuff you get, I feel like
that's what's made it easier. So I still think there's

(16:22):
aspects of the first game in that portion I enjoy
more so. Gameplay wise, it's just still the great fun
loop that it was when it started, just maybe even better.
Some new environments, some new things, and there's half the
stuff that I haven't even used because it's just like
not the play style that I choose, but I will
try it eventually just because I'm still gonna I want
to pretty muche hundred percent this game and get everything done.

(16:44):
So yeah, I think this game delivers on all fronts.
It's a great fall up on the gameplay. Story Wise,
I'm pretty happy with it, except I think they do
take some big swings, and I'm not gonna talk I
can talk in generalizations later. Some big swings I think
hit and this is almost we're talk about in RESPEC.
There's game there's moments where I just feel emotional because
it's just the how they pose the scene or the characters,

(17:07):
the culmination of the music, the background, the setting. Like,
there's some beautiful stuff. I think this might be Kajema
at his best as far as hitting the emotional beats.
Then there's the classic kajenaisms that are great, and then
there's some that I did not enjoy, especially near the
back half. There's some weird stuff that just kind of
took me out of it. And then I'll say there's
some big swings that to me really didn't work. So

(17:28):
to answer that question a long time ago, if it
needed a sequel, I'm still kind of torn on that
because I love the game and I think I'm fine
with it just being like a massive DLC, But there
is stuff in the story where I still go, ugh,
I don't know. But then there's stuff that I absolutely love.
So I think unlike the first game, which had that
was just like a you know, ten to ten perfect

(17:48):
story for me, I did have kind of two big
issues that fall into some type of do we need
to go down this route? And also like your favorite
in credit, where oh, we're doing something very similar again,
but it's just a little bit different. The difference with
video games is you get to play the game, so
it's a fun loop, right, But there's certain story beats

(18:09):
where it just feels like we've done it. And my
last point before I throw to you where I think
the story and the gameplay really don't bounce well is
in the first game, it was Hey, Sam, we want
you to Connect America. Go and as you went to
Connect America, the story unfolded as it continue along. Right.
The problem with this is it feels like the story

(18:30):
is off to left and the gameplays off to the right,
where it's always story beat and we'll look into the Sam,
how about you go do a delivery? Come back? You
do delivery. Fragile is like, hey Sam, you did a
good job. How about you come get some rest, come back,
get a story beat, and then it's and then it's oh,
go do a delivery. So I wish there was a
way that they kind of streamlined the main story even
more and left a lot of the ship like it.

(18:52):
It does not feel the deliveries and the story metch.
It's kind of like what you've talked about before. When
it's like Fallout three year or four? Is it three?
When you're looking for your father or your son or
whatever it is, yeah, four, When it's like, Hey, I've
my son, my baby son has gone. I gotta find them,
but I'm gonna go mess around these guls for three hours.
It's a lot of that where I don't buy.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
As if something with you, I'm gonna I'm gonna mess
up some gouls the like.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
There's certain situations where I just I do not buy
that Sam would be doing this deliver right now or
all of them movie. It just feels like they they
clash this time, where the first game it felt a
lot more naturally, I'd say the story in the gameplay.
So I'll say I through a lot of stuff, still
think it's a great game. I'm very not disappointed at all. Overall,
it's not a big slump, but I there are some
aspects story wise where I go I don't know if

(19:39):
this needed, But gameplay wise it's great. It's it's just
more deft, stranding, and I liked it's it's the equivalent
of Spider Man two, where it's like I like swinging
around with Spider Man in New York. I like dropping packages,
I like walking up a hill, I like trying to
look for battery and that's I say. This time too,
there's so much more structures. I feel like there's so
many people that the first game either didn't do that

(19:59):
or we're just use to that. I feel like day two,
I've seen everything so and I still love that aspect
the game. So yeah, overall, I'm I'm very happy with it.
I don't think it reaches the heights of the first one,
but I'm still happy with it.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, right on, I I feel like there is something
to the first game. I feel very identical to you
in a lot of ways, and obviously haven't beat the
game yet, so a lot of that remains to be seen.
Uh yeah, I think I can be quick on the story,
just because I haven't beat it yet. To me so far,
it feels like I'm playing a game of Avalon or
Mafia and I'm just like a loyal servant and I
have no information whatsoever, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So it continues that way. Like Sam is there's a
minors spoil. There's a one where just three characters are
just doing something fun and Sam walk's like, oh what
youre doing? And they all give them three things. He's like, cool,
and then he walks away. That's the cut scene where
Sam is like the least important character and I don't
understand and the first game. I thought that worked better
because it's kind of like he's like a O reluctant hero, right,

(20:53):
I'm just doing my job. But he grew so much
with Sam and he has like a child now and
he has these connections, but he still just feels like
just a close book. So you're right one hundred per
cent where it just feels like it's just a loyal servant.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
And yeah, there's like one character in particular we can
talk about more in the spoiler section of Man. I
feel like this character should be giving me. It's fucked
ton more info and sin. It's a video game and
you got to dole that stuff out, but I don't.
It kind of breaks the one like a connection from
the first game. It doesn't really make as much sense,
and I just feel like, what do we do in here?
Like I did question, I have questions motivations all the

(21:27):
time for just going along with things, even though he
kind of got duped in some ways in the first
game for just going along with things not questioning too much.
So I don't know, there's some stuff there that I'm
not sure about. But I also just feel like until
I get to that last chunk and things start to
click together, and like it tells me who this character
is and what their relation is to oes character, And
it's hard for me to really feel one way or

(21:48):
the other about it, but I think you worded it
really well there of just like the maybe disconnect between
the story and like the gameplay element of it, And
I think part of that is tied to like this
the DHV Magell and like the ship that you and
your crew are part of, and it kind of follows
you around, but it's always like a bit janky of like, oh,

(22:08):
we can't fly that right now because there's like a
bit of tar in the way you can go there first, like, oh,
actually we can't move right now because like our thing
is like jam, so can you go do this? And
then like we'll meet up with you later, and it
just it always feels a bit goofy, and then it
also takes away a bit of like the stakes of
Oh yeah, part of this game is that it's hard
as a heck to move anything around this world. And
now you can just like fast travel at any point

(22:29):
with literally a complete inventory and complete private locker full
of stuff, and you get like a worse score for
delivering things if you do it that way, but then
it kind of just goes against the core principle with
the gameplay of it is.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
I didn't do that. I always want those asses. So
I I think I fast traveled once in this game
when it was like go accept a mission and I
was literally on the other side. I'm not making that
trek I have. I'm so weighted down, I don't have
enough time. But I only fast traveled once.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
I don't like yeah, but you know it's unclear to
me too. This is getting more than the weeds. But
like if you fact travel a bunch of stuff like
right to the outpost, like kind of next to the
one you have to deliver it to, and then you
take it by foot, like, do you still get the
full grade or is that like are you getting a
slightly degraded grade because like half the map you skipped
over by flying, Like I.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Think, no matter what, if you travel with anything in
your care, get okay. Yeah. So I made sure to
drop as much as I could because I felt like
when I did that, there's some a's and b's where
when I'm on the road. This this I feel like
the first game. I was very iffy this game. I'm
very consistently like getting asses. I'm driving carefully, I know
what rouse to take, I know, okay, water, what can

(23:33):
I do? What can I not? So, but I think
you're all docked like a little percentage each time.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Good to know. Yeah, And then and then to what
you said two of the game's difficulty, This is I
think maybe my biggest critique on the gameplay side of things.
So this game, similar to the to the first game,
has like two open world sections, one like smaller one
that's kind of moreatorially zone and this game kind of
reminding you of the mechanics or if your first time player,
obviously teaching you those things. And then you know, a
bigger open world section and maybe there's a third one.

(23:59):
I don't know, I'm not that far. If there is,
I'd be surprised because the map's already freaking huge. But
you know, I messaged you as as you know in
the first like maybe two or three hours in, which
is you know, it's pretty early. But you know, this
game doesn't really have much cut scenes in the beginning
like the first game does. The first game is like
way loaded tons of cut scenes before you really even
play the game. This one that is not the case.
You get into it very quickly, and I messaged you

(24:20):
very early on. I said, hey, how you feeling about
the difficulty this? Like I'm thinking of bumping the difficulty up,
but is it just because I'm in the tutorialary? What's
going on here? H? And after that I did turn
it up to brutal that it's like normal and then brutal.
There isn't like one in between that, so brutals is
the highest difficulty and it has still been a breeze
the entire time. There's one boss fight where I turned
it down because sometimes the you know, you're moving around

(24:41):
so sluggishly and it's like, hey, this is just not
that engaging. That's just like a huge health bar. But yeah,
like I think that's maybe my biggest that turns into
my biggest critique is like I feel like the first game,
I was so on edge all the time. It's such
a tense game, whether you're in a BT field or like,
I never really felt like I learned the mules in
like a good way, Like I didn't do enough to
fully figure out O their mechanics, so I was always

(25:02):
scared as hell. And if you ever got closerm in
the first game, it would like ping, you know, do
that giant like radius ping, which is not in this game.
So now you can like sneak up a lot easier,
which is it's fun, but also like I just feel
like I've never really been challenged by the well they're not.
I guess some of them are called mules, and then
there's like other names for them. But you know, like
the the NPC fighter guys on the map BT's and
stuff like that came up. They're a little bit stronger,

(25:25):
but I still haven't felt like I've really been screwed
over at no point have I. I've fallen over once
in this game, you know, like I've never only tripped once,
which is crazy. I think part of this is what
you mentioned, like vehicles, you get them a lot earlier,
and I also think they got like a huge buff
in terms of like their ability to just climb hills
and like go through terrain and like jump, and then
also like there's ramps, there's like jumps, and there's like
other things that make the vehicles a lot better. So

(25:47):
I don't know, I just feel like the game is
way too easy, and that's like playing on the hardest difficult,
which is not what I do often in games. But
I just wanted like a little bit of pushback and
wanted some of that tension. But for the most part,
it's been a pretty easy, breezy experience. And now I'm
in like the big snowy mountain section of the game,
and that's getting a little bit harder, or my stamina's
ft and like I can't climb as well, and like
things working and stuff, and now the vehicles like can't

(26:09):
just go straight up the hill, so that's getting a
bit harder. But it's like, man, it took twenty five
hours to get to a point where I actually have
to like engage with the mechanics in a deeper way.
I also feel like this game is doing a lot
more combat than the first one. Now, of course in
the first game you could fight me was all the time,
but I was so scared of them I never really did.
But I think I think that was a thing in
the director's cut, right, there was like added like combat.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
That's why I didn't like it as much, which I
feel like this. I guess it did the same opening too.
This definitely because I've seen people say this in a
positive way and that's where it all comes down what
game you want of Like, this is the most mental
gear Regym has been in years. It's like, well, I
didn't really want that with death straining, Like I to
me then enough in death Straining was like, oh that's
a nice little like wink and nod, like hey, here's
some stealth action stuff you can do. But this definitely

(26:50):
felt like, oh for you mintle gear fans that don't
like this first one, you're gonna like this one, which
is weird because the rumors he's making like a spy.
I remember that was like or signc or whatever. It
is right that new one will PlayStation where it's.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Like a physic physical physic.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, I don't know where I came the but that's
pretty much all we've heard from that. Not much, but
it has been like, oh this is he's doing his
same gear.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah, so that's where like people just wait a couple
you know, wait five more years, you're gonna get your
mental gear. But I felt like he kind of I
would say cave because maybe that was always the plan,
but just kind of felt like that because I remember,
we're defastreading. A lot of people are like, well, this
is a metal gear. It's like, yeah, I didn't ever
think it was gonna be metal gear in my opinion,
but this one has definitely a lot of I'd say
it's like a twenty five percent metal gear ish. As

(27:37):
far as like action, they're they're definitely employing you or
at least giving you tons of options. Like ten hours in,
they're like you want to buy one? These twenty guns
were the first game it felt like, wow, there's I
thought I didn't use a machine gun until thirty eight
hours in. It was like I had to an a
mission where this is almost employing you of oh you
can sneak in or you go bust the doors open.
It's like, oh, okay, I thought that that because that

(27:59):
was the thing of the first game, the whole oh well,
you don't want to kill people because a void out
might happen, right, So it's like that's why I love
the anti medtal gear, Like we you don't want to
kill people or this. There's so many guns that are
just oh yeah, it's a machine gun that you can
just spray guy down, but it's not gonna boid out.
It's like rubber bolts or something.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Have with the grenade and we'll just like knock them
out out.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah. It's like, oh, okay, sure, So I feel like
he was maybe, like I said, maybe he always want that,
but I felt like it was him kind of helping, Like,
you know, he has a fan base. They like that
he was kind of throwing them a ball. They Okay,
here's some stuff for you, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah. So I'm just I'm curious what the difficulty even
changes in this game at all, because if it, I
figured it would maybe like add in more of these
weather effects and other new like physics mechanics, but like
those things are so rare even on brutal that I'm
guessing that that's not really changed. I'm guessing it's just
like enemy health numbers. I suppose maybe that's the only
thing I can think of. Like, I don't think obviously

(28:53):
it doesn't really affect the map. I don't think it's like,
oh there's more VT areas or more this or that.
I don't know if it makes your balance anymore. Like
I don't know what the difficulties really doing. But it
didn't really seem to make the game any harder. So
that's kind of, you know, my biggest criticism. I just
I want that tension, you know, like I want that
uncut gems like anxiety feeling from this game, which is,

(29:13):
I know, an uncomfortable thing, but I think that's what
made it such a strong experience the first time around.
All that to say a lot of negativity. I still
love the gameplay loop of Desk Stranding, and in the
years since no other games do this stuff. You know,
there's a lot of third person shooters and so that
element I'm getting through other games. But in terms of
this weird you know, planning out my routes and like
stacking cargoing weird ways or going to collect things or

(29:35):
planning Okay, if I just maybe take a veer off
this way, I'll only add like two minutes to my trip.
But I can grab this thing that I can go
take it to the you know, the the me mechanic,
and I get to like this bonus great, and then oh,
maybe this guy needs some help, or you know, maybe
I'm just gonna spend an hour trying to scale the
side of this mountain and set up some zip lines
because I never use ziplines in the first game, so
I want to try this out, and like that was
really fun. So I love the core gameplay here. It's

(29:58):
supposed to just being pushed back on a little bit more,
and maybe that will happen in these last sections, because
you know, I there's still tons of the map I
haven't even seen.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
I think it's a little harder, but not like I
don't think and bounds, but I definitely felt I mean,
the mountain.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Is already a lot harder than anything I've faced thus far,
So that's that's a good addition there. So I just
hope that kind of continues to be the case. And
I'm sure a lot of the bonus content and bonus
side quests and things like that will be extremely, uh
you know, much much more challenging and stuff like that.
But overall, I still love making my deliveries. I still
love building out my highways. I still get satisfaction when
I see that people have been using this random ladder

(30:33):
I put in a weird spot. Yeah, I you know,
the the amount of like the shot of dopamine I
got when I saw one of Travis's bridges out in
the world, a crossing a river in the middle of nowhere,
so you know, Cult of Jokers, Hell, yeah, that's so great.
And you had a ton of legs. I'm like, that's
my boy, this guy.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Oh yeah, that and a generator. There was a generator
I dropped early on. It was like one of the
first base. There's no generator in sight. I'm like, I'm
dropping one right now because I'm a big if I'm
in the vehicle, I'm using the speed like I'm going
as as I can. So got it. Yeah, the generating
on that bridge. But no, I was really cool that
you saw that.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I think that's some good kind
of light spoilery things. And I feel like safe to
say for both of us here, like, hey, if you
like the first game, you're gonna like this game as well.
Will it blow you away? Maybe not, but it's you know,
it's it's more the same, which is which is a
good thing for a game that as is as good
as this. It's hard to make a game this good

(31:25):
twice and like somehow it's it's happened. And you know,
it's hard for me to say without seeing the end
of the story, how I feel about all that, because
there's so many things that you need to get tied up.
So we will do a spoiler discussion at some point
probably as soon as I'm done, we can just kind
of emergency side quist that whenever it makes sense on
our schedule to fill that in and and just talk
about some of those story things in detail. But how

(31:46):
about that we take our first break, just like Sam,
we can hold the square button to just sit down
and rest for a little bit. Maybe nod off. I
don't know if you've nawed off in this game, but
eventually you get like a little like angel floating loo.
That's just like your head, like an old card too,
and very kind of interesting to just chuck in there.
But yeah, let's let's take a little rest here and

(32:08):
thank our patron producers Aaron Brady, April of Darkness, Jack Grant,
Sam super Bad, Mic tg G l M six nine
who's also playing Desk s Randing too. So let's keep
keep us posted with your thoughts. Scott loves you. I
want to hear how you're thinking about that. Is you
just finished one going right into two. That must be
a fun weeks or months like That's those are long games.
That's congratulations to you must have Jeremy Renner, Charlie Randall,

(32:29):
and Cocktail Klay. So thank you all of you for
supporting this show for you know, some of you for
I think since dest Rinon one came out. So that's crazy.
You know, we've had a lot of people who've been
along for this crazy ride with us. Uh, there's all
sorts of things going on in the feeds. You go
and check that out. I think Jurassic something rather is
coming out this week, you know, iron Heart reviews. At

(32:49):
some point. We got some newscasts coming out, all sorts
of great things on the patroon get episodes early and
add free over there. Remind me when is GV day?
What day is that?

Speaker 2 (32:58):
On the Colarchist nine ten am PSD ten hour stream,
you'd have Golden Geeks, Trivia, Geek Versus Couples, questions with us,
and a lot of other fun stuff. And then if
for video game stuff, I'll see I said that Geeze
Creed dropped or no, that's dropping later on this week
his Geeks Creed. So Reuben and Taylor back together to

(33:20):
record an episode of Geek First or Geeks Creed and yeah,
there you go.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
So yeah, lots of lots of great stuff. You go
check all that out. Let's take a quick break. We'll
be right back. Okay, we are back. So I guess
we can start with some kind of gameplay things. We
can ramp up to characters and stories a little bit
later on. I wanted to ask you very very specific
question early on. So and I guess what should we

(33:47):
do for spoilers here? Should we just like say everything
that I've got to is fair game or do you want.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
To ramp up a little bit more? I think so.
I think yeah, because I feel like lots of it's
tied to anything, because I think if you're playing non spoilers, yeah,
I won't go anything past I won't go anything past eight.
If you asked me anything, I could allude to something
like but no on spoilers if it's like, oh does
this get answer this that? But yeah, I think past eight.
It's a good call. What's what's the last thing you

(34:13):
did story wise? And that can gage my head? And yeah,
that's that's a warning for anybody if you're if you're
still playing along, you know, head Zone.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, like I said, I I think I believe it's
chapter eight that I'm on. I forget the name of it,
because the chapter names in this game are wildly like
one of the Conflagration. So I think I'm on I
think I'm on deluge. So what I've just done most
recently is like just in the last few hours is
when I finally well, I guess I could have gone
to the snowy mountain whatever I wanted, but I finally had
quest taken me up there to like the micro biologist,

(34:44):
I think, and then I did like a question or
two after that, so I went down to like the ghost,
the ghost what's his name? The ghost?

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Fuck the ghost hunter?

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Ghost hunter? Okay, yeah, that guy? Uh?

Speaker 2 (34:55):
And then like talk to that guy?

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yet wait, I thought I thought it was mandatory for
the main.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
QUI because did you talk to the phantom?

Speaker 1 (35:03):
The phantom? I don't know if I know the phantom?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Okay, because I because what I'm very confused about from
my playthrough this is.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
A non linear game. What am I What am I learning?

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Well? And this is I don't explain anything. I won't
spoil any details. I think it's for me. I thought
it was a side quest thing where or I think
it's like a sub order because was he talking to
you about like a headless ghost or something like.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I did that quest?

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, what did you do in that quest? Because I
chose to like, come back to it later, and I'm
it's not there.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Oh yeah I did. I did see on the quest
that I said, once you take this, you can't cancel it.
So did you accept the quest?

Speaker 2 (35:38):
I don't think I did, because I was like because
it was I was at the Phantom and that's where
it's like, Oh, there's this guy down here. I was like, oh,
the ghost Hunter. That sounds really cool. He had this
saying unless I did accidentally, because I was like, well,
it was the opposite direction. At the time, I had
some other deliveries because I was gonna have you weight,
so I'm gonna come back that to that later. And
then when I beat the game, I'm like, first thing
I'm gonna do is go to the pizza chef, and

(35:58):
then I'm.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Going to do you do not have his you don't
have him linked on the Kyl network, then well he
is because that was that That was the quest that
that gave him the trust to want to connect to
the Chiral network for me.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Or sorry, he's not. Because when I went there by myself,
they were like, oh, you have to unconnect from the
network to speak with this guy. And then I got
a trophy for it. Because then because uh, what's his name?
That the puppet was like, that must mean he's dead.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I think I know why that happens.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
You tell me, because I don't think I'm going to
get it well.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
And so I don't want you to counter spoil me
on a thing. But that quest was related to Higgs,
and so I'm guessing something happens on the main story
that you know eliminates it or gives a reason why
Higgs would like you don't see Higgs in that mission,
but you see like part of his army, and like
there's a lot of discussion about him as a character.
So my guess is because you came back to it
later and Higgs was either no more or he's on

(36:52):
the beach now, or I don't know what the he's
happening in the Higgs you know later on the mission
I've seen. But men, that might be a weird way
you can like deviating to a separate timeline there if
you if you didn't do that quest at the time.
I did it at the time because he didn't connect
the first like time I delivered there and I was like, well,
I want him on the Chiro network because I will
make things easier when I come back here later, because
then they'll be more yea, you know, support things from
other players. So I'm like, I'm gonna go to my way.

(37:14):
It's gonna take me fifteen minutes to go do this
question and come back. So yeah, I did it then
and there, and now I'm glad I did because maybe,
I mean, there must be a way for you to
connect him in some other way through all this quests.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, because the only thing I have to find. So
when you and this isn't a big spoiler when you
finish the game, it's still just like, okay, like the
last game you do, you know, boots you back to
me to go here's where you were. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly.
And then it's like, okay, you have an option to
be on the whatever the Cupid network or be off it.
If you're off it, it's almost like every single bt
era and all the ghost mechs are still there where

(37:46):
if you go on it, they're but to a lower
degree because it's almost acting like you haven't complete a
bunch of Maytation stuff. So I picked on because at
this point I'm probably I'm just gonna do mostly deliveries now, right,
Like I have fun enough fighting, but like I said,
I like the deliveries and when I'm fighting stuff, I
tried to do as much self as.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Possible, and you just turn that on and off at will.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
I haven't figured that out yet. So that's what I'm
gonna have to look into. Because when I went back
to the Phantom that's, uh, what is the what's the
puppet's name? Why am I forgetting it?

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Dolman don't?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Oh yeah, don't. Why did I forget that? Dollman was like, Oh,
he's gonna he's not gonna talk to you for connect
to this. That must mean he's he's like dot the
Dot deceased. And then when after he said that, hat
I got a trophy, so does the Phantom guy. He's
not dead though, is he? He's still just a site
for you you can talk to. Is that like A
revealed that the Fantom guy's dead?

Speaker 1 (38:32):
The ghost Hunter?

Speaker 2 (38:33):
The ghost Hunter?

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Is he he is a guy? Yeah, he's a guy.
I mean you only see him in like hologram form. Ok,
he's alive for me.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Because doll Mate sound like he was dead in there.
He was like, oh you can't talk to him.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
I wonder because part of that quest is like you
want to go find the Headless Rider because it's been
killing random people on the road, and so maybe in
the story is like he went there and got killed
by the by the Headless Rider. Is my guess of
what happened there.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Like by me not going, he like got killed. That's
what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yes, And yeah he went there on his own and
then died because you didn't do it for him.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to get back to you.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I have to.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
I want to get YouTube.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Because this is making me like scared to you know,
do not do now because I might other people might die.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
I am now because I didn't think anything of it.
So I'm gonna have to one YouTube back. Is that
thing's like locked off for me unless I can find
a way to turn that off, as which I'm I'm hoping.
But when I looked in the menu, I saw nowhere to.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
Turn that crazy that there would be because I just
I didn't think they would ever lock you up from
be able to do like the full coverage of the
Kyle Network. But that seems like that one might just
be locked out for you now. So you're just always
gonna have a red spot on there.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
That's that's crazy. Yeah, is there a report pack?

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Is there a New Game Plus thing that opened unlocked
to you like when you once you beat the game?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
I don't think so. No. I think it was more
just keep doing what you're doing. Feel like the.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
First game maybe added that, like I think it did
later director's cut or I can't even remember. Maybe it
never even had one. I'm not not too sure.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I thought it did, because I think that's the thing
of this generation. New Games Plus seems to come like
two to three months later.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
So yeah, I have been doing a pretty fair amount,
like probably half and half of like doing things that
aren't the main critical path and doing things that are.
You know, if if I ever see a quest that's like, oh,
this is a way for me to connect some part
of the chiral network, like that quest for example. There
was another one as well that I think was optional,
but it gave me. Oh it was the It was

(40:20):
like once you get to Australia, you know how you
like go down the hill, there's like the first guy
there who has like the glasses, and then you can
go to like the first observatory, the West Observatory, but
like one of the other quests you have there is
like go up to the What the hell I wish
I wrote down some of these characters' names, but he's
his name is like the the weapons Specialist or something
like that. I forget. Is that it the loan commander?

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah you did? Did you do that guy like immediately
or did you come back for I think meanly because
he's been I've been still dropping stuff off for him
just last night.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
So yeah, that was I feel like it wasn't It
wasn't a required quest at that point in time, but
I felt like it was great to do because it
gives you, like the sniper RFLE recipe, which is like
super helpful for certain missions obviously, like I feel like
certain sequences. I don't know what I would have done
without the sniper right for early on, because you don't
have like too many other guns yet at that point.

(41:12):
But yeah, so I definitely been going out of my
way to connect people like that when I can, and
then just like you know, going out of my way, like, Okay,
is there any of the deliveries that makes sense for
me to do along the way with the main quest,
Let me do that. I've been doing a lot of
highways highways are a great way to just rack up likes.
So that's a great thing to do because you know
people are just gonna use it, and it feels like
it is very helpful for a lot of other players.

(41:33):
I funny thing with this, like just because of how
many like, I feel like there are a lot more
other player objects in the world, and I wonder, you know,
I didn't get the early edition, so I'm like two
days lights. I don't know if that means that there's
just way more things, but I'm guessing it's more of
like a PS five can just rent, like have more
things on the map with out the game lagging and shit.
But like there are like I have not had to
make a bridge yet because there's so many bridges everywhere

(41:55):
that there's never been a spot where I'm like, I
really need a bridge here and there isn't one already.
So thank you. Obviously you're one of the reasons why
because you gave me, But like, yeah, I just feel
like there's a lot more stuff in the world, and
so I feel like because of that, there's things that
like I don't know, I haven't even made that many
battery towers because there's usually a lot of those. I've
made a couple of time fall shelters, but yeah, I
don't know. I feel like there's definitely a lot more

(42:16):
things in the world, and it's probably what makes the
end a little bit easier because you have a lot
more help in that way. But yeah, it's it's been
fun for me to kind of do side things along
with like main quest stuff. But I wanted to ask
you about the what you how you tackled these. So
once you first couple of quests in Australia, you go
to the West Research Center, you know, Fort West, not
whatever the heck the names these cities are.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Oh yeah, you have to go up to that first.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, you have to go through that first, like mule
camp and like recover stuff and like and bring it
up to the musician. I think is the quest? How
did you tackle that mission? Did you do it stealthy?
Did you do it loud? I'm curious if you had
like an interesting way that you tackled that mission, if
you can remember it.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I think, luckily I've done all stuff until I'd say
the third because obviously it's not like a movie where
it's in third acts, but I'd say the third portion
of the game. That's when I started to do more. Okay,
I'm just gonna X Y and Z pull it a gun,
pull right up, do all this. I think I first
started that when there was a mission where I had
to save somebody. They were kidnapped and I had to

(43:15):
say them and I was like, if I stealth this,
And it was getting more near the back half where
I just wanted to get through the story, and that
wasn't because old GV I used to do that where
oh I just want to beat the game the main
story because then the reviews coming up. I didn't have that.
This time. I just had that because I just kind
of want to know the story, like I'm locked in
the start.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
So it was there the first game. Yeah, I gave
the opportunity to come back and do all that stuff
afterwards in a convenient way.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Right, not everything now, I don't know now I know,
but we one could assume based exactly, which again too
makes sense because many games do that, right sometimes like hey,
if you progress, this mission's dead, so that might be that,
so we'll find out. But no, I think most time
I always had the The bowl of gun was my
break class. That's always what I would do is most
time I was just the strand I'd walk up rope

(44:00):
a little bit, but the bullying because most of the time,
as long as you can get them before they really
made a scuffle, you could stop that. And if you
did the head.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Shot, headshot them like are you gonna get are you
gonna get notified? Like are they gonna steal? Okay, I
get scared to use the bullet gun a little bit,
like I'm fearful if I don't snipe someone in the
head that I'm just gonna totally blow my cover now.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Granted though usually I'll do the bullet gun and then
it's gonna be like two to three seconds and I'm
over there pepper and them with rights and left. So
that's the thing where I'm knocking out really quick. So
maybe if you did do that and leave it for
a little bit, they would be like, hey, something's going on.
But most of the time no, And I was always
like I can't every time, but I was even for
the headshot is obviously to knock them out, but it's

(44:39):
just a satisfying animation. I love those, okay, And then
they hit them like I love that animation. A headshot
with the bullegun so no, it was a bit more.
It was just that the strand and I feel like
there's one. Oh, there was like a taser gun they
gave you at some point. I'm not sure if you
have it, yeah, which I used a little bit and
we have to charge up like yeah, using it because

(45:00):
that was too That was the.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
First time I used it. I did not realize there
was a charge gun, and that wasn't one of those like,
uh underworld sequences where you're fighting Neil Vana whatever that
guy's name is, and so I was like, why is
this gun not working? There's like skeletons everywhere, And then
I was like, oh, I have to charge this thing
for like longer than you would think.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, a lot of the things, like especially there's a
weapon getting near to the end of the game, it's
like great weapon, but the charge time is it puts
you at risk, so which which I appreciate because that
at least makes that a little more harder, right because
you could just pop it off. So no, most time, stelf,
because that's how I did with the first game. And
you know, from the first mission they kind of allude
that you could go in there guns blazing if you
got the right tools. But no, I just think it

(45:38):
fits with Sam. I know they set up like always
that armory experience, but just my Sam is he could
kick ass, but only when he needs to, like that's
the last resort. So yeah, mostly just just the rope
and the bowl oft down, that's what I was doing.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
So yeah, that that mission was I mean, that was
like for me, the first really big encounter with the mules.
I guess that was my first encounter with the mules.
Well there's that really small camp like really close to
that starting area there, and then there's obviously one or
two in Mexico, but that was the first like bigger
camp one, and so I still had that destra anyone
like fear of the mules and just like I don't

(46:10):
know at the point. At this point, I still assumed
that they were gonna get pinged as soon as I
walked like in the radius, which yeah, doesn't happen anymore.
I always fucked that timing up and destri anyone. That's
probably why I didn't like mess with the mules a
whole lot. But what I did for that mission was
to the west of it, or like to I guess,
to the left if you're coming from that from that
quest area, there's like huge like set of oat crops
like rocks and mountain, like a little mighty mini mountain

(46:32):
on the left side. I spent like ten to fifteen
minutes like setting up like four or five separate ladders
spilled to get to the very top of this mountain.
And it's funny, like I've I've looked back there and
I put a couple signs on the ladders. No one
is giving me a single light on those, like no
one else had no But I went way up on
top of this mountain, brought like four or five sniper rifles,

(46:52):
and I'm like, I'm gonna snipe out this entire base.
And man, it was like because most of the people
are like two to three or four hundred meters way,
and so like the calculation of the drop off if
they're doing the snipe rifle, especially from that height.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
They do warn you you had to go a couple
you know.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Yeah, it was really difficult, but it was fun to
figure that out, and like the risk was so low
because I was so high up there was no way
and went like a couple of times they did shoot
their a little like the electric trap things at me,
but like, you know, it's not like they were gonna
follow up some big gun killer or anything like that.
So that was going well. I was taking people out.
It was taking a long time because the shots were
really hard to hit, but I was taking them out.

(47:27):
And then I was like, after a while, I realized, like, man,
these numbers don't seem to be going down. And then
I realized that they start to wake each other up,
like if you let them get to each other, they'll
wake each other up and like get back in the phrase.
I'm like, oh my god, this is not working super well.
Eventually I got there under like three or four left,
so I was like, okay, now, I was like, now
I got to get in there. There's a few of them.
I went down, got to the bottom of the mountain.
They were chasing me kind of up towards the mountain,

(47:49):
but I was able to sneak away. So they were
still searching around the mountain area, but thankfully I kind
of darted around, ran into the base, did the hack
or the steel whatever I had to do to like
complete that quest, and then I just booked it for
the hills with the musician and Thankfully, I was far
enough away from them that by the time they got
back to the base, I was like, well, I'm gone
at that point, but they had woken up like four
or five more of them at that point. I was

(48:09):
getting really freaked out. And I think I saw a
tool tip later that was like, if you don't finish
off a camp, they will get stronger for the next
time you come back, and if you do finish them off,
they'll get weaker for the next time you come back.
So I'm like, now when I go back that it's
gonna be even harder. But and now I have less
fear and more tools, so don't I don't think it'd
be much of a challenge when I went back there,
But it was a really fun just I was like,
how can I, you know, get some crazy hair brain
scheme to figure this one out? And yeah, it was

(48:31):
just like I had never done anything that this running one, Like,
I don't even was there even a sniper in the
first game. I can't remember if there was, but I
think it a.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Like later on stuff where I think you do. I
remember getting a lot of weapons in the back half
because that was gonna be like you're gonna first a
bunch of stuff you can just shoot up like that's
where it's like, this is where you're safe. And yeah,
I was excited for the sniper, but I wasn't driving
with it. I don't know if I was just not.
I felt like I had to sometimes put two bolts
in them to get tranked. And yeah, they were alerting

(48:58):
a lot, so I was like, I am, this was
too dangerous for me, that sniper.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
So yeah, I haven't got like a silenced version. I
think that would be really useful to have, and then
maybe you could get like a little bit closer, go
for headshots and knock them up in one hit. But yeah,
I think the confusing thing is like oftentimes when you
kill an enemy in this game, it will like slow time,
but it won't like remove their number, Like you know,
when you go to a camp, it's like twelve of twelve,
but like when you when you start going to the

(49:23):
slow mo and you've got the kill, it like doesn't
reduce that number until like the slow mo is like done.
So I'm like, I don't know if I've killed this
guy yet or if I need to keep shooting bullets
and so I yeah, that's definitely the case with the sniper,
I'm like, do I need one more shot in the
sky or is he gonna fall down here? But like
if you don't, if I don't shoot now, maybe he'll
go behind cover. So yeah, there's a little bit confusion
there with the some of the weapons at some point, so.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
I didn't use that much that got recycled and it
was down in the drain.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Maybe you can give me a tip, you know, we
can talk in some character stuff later. But at one
point crazy cut scene with Tomorrow when you first really
see her using powers, which is doing some crazy anime stuff,
turning into tar flying around killing all these robots.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Talking about so cool stuff where I'm like, I don't
know what they're doing for that dressed desk stranding movie,
but that's where they need to watch this stuff, and
you guys gotta deliver on this stuff.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Yeah. Yeah, those that type of enemy, those like robots man.
The only thing I could see that did damage to
them was like the grenade pistol because that was the
only thing I had on me, that grenades. Yeah, like,
do you what else did you use to fight them?
Because the electric everything else they used.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Okay, electric rod And then when they dropped their Phantom Blade,
which I loved. I love a good sword that lights up.
Obviously Big Star Wars guy. I like that weapon that's
in that new Naughty Dog game coming up, the with
the terrible title Space one that yeah, where it's like
a sore and then lights all. So the second I
got a lot of Phantom blades saved up. So I

(50:52):
found that until you got the my go to for
the big weapons was the grenade launcher. The grenade launcher,
to me, it was great because there's the quadruz bol
but that is a little slower, and that's so you
it's weird, but it is. You kind of has a
big exposed to me, you still gonna be precise with
it when it's because it's a straight line. But that
grenade launcher covers a lot of radius and those usually
it would take about only three You would do a knockdown,

(51:16):
shoot it again, and then the third time it would
blow up and then sometimes even weaker because if you're like,
I'm not sure if you have a gun on your vehicle,
I have that, so when I drive by truck, I
got it. Yeah, So sometimes i'd find a grenade would
grenada launcher take them out in three shots or in
two the launcher not the pistol. But after other than that,
the electric rod worked really good, and then the phantom

(51:38):
blades worked well good as well.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
So yeah, I don't think I've seen that exact enemy
type again, like I've seen the other red robot type guys,
but there are other ones that like you can still
like headshot them, but those ones that I could not,
Like I didn't bring enough clearly, but I didn't obviously
know what to expect at that point, so I couldn't
be too prepared. And that mission is like I could
have driven it, but I felt like this feels like
a mission I should do on foot go find tomorrow

(52:02):
for all the footsteps and so you know, it took
me so long. It would take me long enough to
get back to any base to like go buy more items.
So I'm like, I'm kind of screwed, like I kind
of only have certain things here.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
No, you'll bump into them a lot more. There's a
lot of They're one of those enemies in the end
of the game, they're like you want to turn this
off because there's signs for the game. I feel like
they're not the new BT's, but there's certain portions where
they are around the map a lot and it's like
like there is sound where's like I'm gonna just drive
by these guys because I don't got I don't got time,
I don't want to deliver. I got this breakable cargo.

(52:33):
I take one hit, it's broken. I don't want to
risk it. So there are times where it's kind of posing.
But they also give you a new feature to deal
with them that you went with the BT's that I
won't spoil. It's a fun gameplay mechanic that it's really cool.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
So nice. I want to talk about the the DHV Magellan,
which I love that every character whenever they say that
in this game always says the full thing, Like they
don't just say that the DHV. They don't say see
at the Magellan, Like it's always DHV Magell. That's a
very Kojima thing. I think you always make sure the
characters say like their full name every time. In like
a goofy way. We talked about how it feels like

(53:09):
it makes a bit of a disconnect between like some
of the story beats and like the delivery mechanics of
the game, and so I think we've kind of spoken
on that. But the other thing, I mean, I think
the idea is great of having this ship where all
the characters are, so you can have more rapport between
the characters and they can be speaking to each other
rather than just like oh, lockings in this building, heartman's
up and his thing, and like maybe they're on like
a hollow decks thing together, but like rarely already interacting.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Very mass effect. Knights of Old Report, like like Star
Wars Nights of Republic, is that where every character you
collect on the mission. Oh, there's like twenty of you
in this thing and they're talking. So yeah, that's like
a trope I like, is we're all in the ship together.
So yeah, good point.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
And yeah it's not like you're walking around talking to
people on command, but you will, like when you're leaving
the base coming back to the basill, get cut scenes
that are sometimes story stuff but also sentiments will just
be like uh oh yeah, Rainy is just like teaching
tomorrow something you can hop and like answer how you
think this The quiz answer is for this, so you
get like funny little story beats mixed in with stuff.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Go ahead, please, I was gonna ask, because that's one
thing I I where, Oh I could so one time.
On the second time I did that with Rainey, I
accidentally hit the wrong direction. It doesn't just say oh no,
it's this. It makes you start all over. You gotta
like wake up and walk over and then do the cut.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
I wondered the first one, I answered, like the Platypus
egg one, I'm like, I don't know if this is right,
and I thought the game was just telling me I
was right no matter what. I said, Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, and then I was gonna say the other thing
is did you do uh when it's like, oh, I
guess we're like my spoilers or some sports. But when
Fragile offered you the first mission, did you say no
to it?

Speaker 1 (54:43):
I said yes because I felt like, okay, you know,
it's just gonna make me say yes eventually, and like,
I do tell you this, I don't think it makes
sense for Sam's character, but I actually I do want
to do this, so I I just said yes. But yeah,
is there something funny albums if you say no?

Speaker 2 (54:55):
So it is funny because I said no because in
my point, I kind of get what you was saying.
But I say is risk to go out there, and
you know, I'm not gonna say I was wrong, but
so he says no, and then you know, Fra just
kind of leads and whatnot, and then it stops and
it's the whole scene again where it's rain drops on
the hen, he's cooking everything, and it's that picture board,
but there's a picture of you talking with Fragile on
that scene, and it zooms in on that picture and

(55:18):
it opens the frame up and then it asks you
that again and I said no a second time. And
then what happens is it's the same thing starts the
scene over picture board. It starts to go that picture
of you and Fragile, but then it goes to the
right and it just looks at a picture of like
you and Bbie doing something and then he's like a
wrong one, and then it goes then into the and
then you can't say no again. So just like weird

(55:40):
like fourth wall breaking stuff, but just like yeah, genisms
were like, ah, let's just put this in here because
I was That's why I said no, because I'm like,
what happens if I say no here? But it is
just like a fun way to get you back there,
but they'll make you watch those cuts and over.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
So okay, interesting you mentioned that. Now that bigs a
question that I've had for you about Charlie. So Charlie
is a character that I I'm excited to learn more about.
But one of the first things you get with Charlie,
Charlie is like one of the leaders of this new crew,
Drawbridge whatever. But you never see the character, and he's like, God,
to make myself appear more friendly, I'm gonna take the
voice of one of your previous companions. You get four options.

(56:13):
You get Locknow Malignan just Marcoret Quality's character, you get Hartman,
you have die Hardman, and then dead Man. I think
is the fourth one. Now for me, I picked Locknane
Malignant first Quality.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah, I said, no, I allowed to do that.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Then I picked dead Man and said he just died,
like it's a little too soon. Maybe shouldn't do that.
Then I picked Hartman. It's like he's actually in this game,
so you can't pick Hartman. And then it and then
it forced me to pick you know, die Hartman at
that point, but so did you. You picked not Hartman
at the third option, then you went for die Hardman.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
I did Diehearman the third one because I liked a
little more and I found it very odd. The the
setup of the game of hey, everything you did joining
that you know connection thing, well, that's what I can't
remember what it was, not Apex, it was oh Bridges,
Oh Bridge is a shutdown and it's a new thing.
It's like, okay, and that's oh yeah, you know what,
die Hartman, you know your mom made him president. He's

(57:09):
not president anymore. There was a lot of that stuff.
It's like what I've said before movies that I hate
is win in Like this happens all time in comedies
when the main character finds like the love of his
life and then they are together, but in the sequel,
because that's not fun, they got to break them up,
but then they get back together at the end of it.
That's what this felt like. Well, you know, die Hardman, Bridges,
all this stuff, everything you kind of did, it all

(57:32):
disappeared in eleven months. It went away. So I liked
because to me, I was like, why is Die Hartman
not in this game? Like he was a very massive
character and Austin Adams Charlie. But now, yeah, with you
saying that, I kind of thought after that it was
you had to play as him, because I was surprised
when we were we did the credits because we talked
about like, oh we got l Fanning, but that not

(57:52):
too many big names. When the opening credits in Marvel Quality,
I was like, oh, she's back, because I didn't think
there was a known thing, so I thought, okay, same thing.
I thought she's gonna be more like a minor role
because she's a lot more busy now. But I was like, oh,
this would make sense if it's just her doing just
almost line dialogue, right. But yeah, as saying I went
for it right away and oh no, that could be confusing.
It's like that doesn't make much sense. So yeah, you
had to play as that die hardman.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah. I wondered if that if it was a narrative
thing so that the game gives you whatever your last
selection was, and it was gonna make that avoids. Whoever
your least favorite pick was is like the guaranteed one.
But I guess I just got unlucky. Die Hardman was
the one I was least curious about.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
So if you guys should hang up be breakingtinue though,
and they're like, you know, me as Charlie. I know
it's a little intimidating, So pick someone that's a better
voice for you. So it's just kind of funny for you.
It's like, oh those three people, no, no, that's not
a good choice. You gotta do this one. So it's
kind of at that point they should have just been like, ah,
this is you. I knew die Hardman, I'll give you
this voice. It was a weird setup of picks someone

(58:49):
you're comfortable with, Oh, but you can't have You're gonna
go with the least comfortable person.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
So you can just answer no comment to this, But
like basically what you're saying there, like I guess is
there never really more with die Hardman in this game?
Like there do they ever dig into that?

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Or like this may be the past events more I'll say,
I'll say even just it's not the big but just
in general of stuff with Bridge, everything with even like with.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
The president, I'm guessing like yes, hopefully gets okay.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yeah. Yeah. So all that's because that's when the game started.
That whole thing of all everything's torn down for me
was a big con. It almost made me feel like
everything I did in Death Stranding was pointless. I don't
feel that way so much. I do think there's some
stuff that I kind of maybe he didn't want the
scenes to be as long. I think we could have
used more context. So I think you get some answers
and there's more explanations. So I was happy with the answers,

(59:37):
even though I would have liked them a little more
in depth, because it feels like the whole game was
leading up to, like when die Hardman becomes president, that's
a big deal. His speech at the end when he's
like crying with Sam and he's you know, don't forget
the reveals that he hit, Like die Hardman and Sam's
dad were really close, you know, and he almost killed him.
So it was weird for that character. But they do
explain certain things about the time those eleven months.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
I'll say, yeah, I think I agree with you to
an extent where it does feel like a lot of
the characters kind of get I mean, some of them die,
some get brushed out of the rug. Obviously Dead Men
is gone now, so it's like it makes sense that
some of those the old guards so to speak, aren't
really around anymore in ar relevant way. But I do
feel like at least story wise, they set up like okay,
because you set up the network and like the text
is far enough now, like porters just aren't needed there

(01:00:21):
anymore because like the little janky little delivery bots are
the ones who can do all that work and there's
no requirement, like there's no reason to have a human
risk in there, which is funny when I think back
in DS one and how useless those things were and
whenever I sent them on a delivery for me, they
would always get like a C grade. Yeah, it'd always
find it would fall over.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Which is kind of that's a good algory for like
today's right when you talk about AI versus people and
then but even like to the little degree of me
playing the whole game, when they do this like well
to connect to Australia, you know, Fragile has our own thing
and she's working with the president. There's this and that.
I feel like this is something where Kajun does the
whole time. I bet you just gonna cut that in
Hey Bridges Expanding Australia. Nothing I played in the story

(01:01:03):
going forward made it feel like you had to have
like Fragile. The own group could just said, hey, Fragile,
is leading an expedition. She's with Bridges, now go to Australia.
But there's just so much expedition of well, the government
fell and now there's there's not a president, there's a call.
It's just like just say hey, even Die Hartman, he's
sending you Australia, go go go help out. It just
it felt like a lot of just kind of what

(01:01:24):
you referred to as death style death stranding words out
of you need some reason for Sam to get to Australia,
which like obviously the thing we haven't talked about, but
the big thing that happens at the beginning. I did
not still buy that he would go to Australia. When
Fragile I was just like, yeah, you need to get out,
you should come help me, and Sam's like, all right,
it only been a month since this traumatic event. I
did not buy that Sam. Sam is literally trying to

(01:01:47):
kill himself almost every day, and he's like, yeah, sure,
they didn't give him. There was no story reason to
me for Sam to actively go out there be like
I'm gonna try and help aut Australia. It's just at
least for a month. So I needed more backstory. I
wish they did something like he was helping someone out
or Fragile is in a tough situation. But even then,
to my point, we'll get more into it. I had

(01:02:09):
problems with Fragile to at the beginning because didn't I
didn't feel like she was that like apologetic, but she was,
but I felt like, this is a big deal that happened,
and she was like, yeah, you know, I just want
to be here for you. It's like it's kind of,
you know, a little your fault. But again, some things
work out better.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
So no, I mean, I think that's a I was
criticism or just a good storytelling, But like I am
kind of pissed at Fragile and I've like soured on
her a little bit just because of how I feel like, yeah,
she didn't seem to really be that affected by it
or like you know, trying to console Sam or trying
to help out much. And I feel like that whole
thing was her fault. Like I don't think, you know,

(01:02:45):
the crew that like hunted her down would have known
about his location were it not for her to go there.
I don't think that's been revealed to me at the
story here. And then obviously you know, you can only
blame her so much for like fucking up in that
encounter when the bad guys had come to his house.
But yeah, I I to me, that's like soured me
a bit. And then I don't know, I'm just getting
like weird vibes from her too, like, and I think

(01:03:07):
that's what I was hinting at earlier. Of I feel
like she so much is mysterious about like the President,
like Charlie. Obviously that's a huge mystery around, like who
the heck is this guy? And it seems like Fragile
knows that stuff, and like I would expect that she
should share that stuff with Sam to make him feel better,
and like he's earned that trust and he's been nothing
but good. And obviously he did ditch the UCA at

(01:03:27):
some point to go, you know, take care of Lou,
but like there's a reason for that. But also he
had accomplished the job, like he got the job that
he was asked to do done, and like he did
it with flying colors, you know, like you pretty much
succeeded across the board. So I just feel like that
was like she should do a whole lot more for him,
And I just feel like she's a bit too closed
off and not super sharing, and I don't know. Part

(01:03:48):
of me is wondered if you know, Once again, don't
don't comment on this, but like I don't know if
she's like an impostor or something like it just feels
like she feels very different than the character that I've known.
But also you know, she's smoking a lot in this
Like maybe she's just also in a bad place mentally
and that's where she's just not be able to be
a good support system. But it's also I also want
to know how she got into such a high point

(01:04:08):
of power within this company. Like I don't know, I
have so many questions about her, and I just feel
like she should be telling me those things, as like
this journey we've gone on together.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
With the smoking that's in there because Kajima said in
between the games he saw her smoking in a movie
and thought she just looked so beautiful, so he added
the game that's yeah, he's such like a goon or sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
I mean he also had that. He also had that
fucking statement that was like, oh yeah, early impressions of
this game were too good, so I made the game
worse so that people would feel more like on Separate Ends,
which is like, yeah, fuck you man. Like the stuff
he says is crazy, but Ryan john he makes he
makes crazy art and that's what we love him for it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah, Ryan Johnson does like knives down last year. He
gets similar comparisons of like Lot of Steel, think he
did a lot of those things on last year. I
just be like, I'm just gonna mess because there's a
whole characters speech and nights out too about like a
character wanting on purpose fuck with things people love her.
And then when that movie came up, I was like,
did he do that to last shut it? Or is
he just retroactive being like yeah, yeah, I did, Like
you never know what these guys right, but I'll say

(01:05:12):
when no reveals whatsoever, I'll say where you are. I
felt the same way by the end of the game.
I was happy with most of the answers and reveals.
I'll say, I still think there's stuff like how Sam
is helping them Australia that didn't makes sense because I thought,
to me, what I thought was gonna happen is Okay,
Lou's gonna get kidnapped and they're gonna be in some
ur charted places. And then it would be oh, to
get Lou back, you're gonna have to get this network

(01:05:34):
going on Australia and be like, oh, that makes perfect sense, right,
Why would you be trying to set all this stuff up?
You know, Oh, because I'm trying to get my kid back.
But they kill Lou and then it's like, well, why
is Sam doing this? I guess because Fragile just wants
them not to be bored, And it's like like, I
don't know, I just wish they found some other reason
to get him back into it, honestly, Like you mentioned,
like Higgs comes back, so they start to introduce this

(01:05:56):
stuff of other main characters, things of his past, but
it just didn't gie for me like a month, Like
a month to me, it's like that people and they
lose their child back and someone just ruins a person
in entire life. So it just felt very and especially Sam,
who is not a regular person. He has been through
multiple traumas in this game, and there's even more to
come in the game as you continue to play. So
it's just like this guy, I feel like, maybe, I

(01:06:18):
guess you make the argument, he's just used to it.
But I felt when Fragile went back to him. He
looked very low again, and he was just trying to
keept shooting himself in the head. He was just trying
to kill himself. So I there's a little pacing. It
felt like again what we talked about when you talk
about the massive cut scenes of the first game. A
lot of people said it was slow, and I almost
felt like a Gino was like, well, a lot of
people complained that was a slow start, so let's just

(01:06:39):
get right into it. Felt like we were kind of
missing some stuff at the beginning for Sam and Fragile.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
You know, I see that's something is surprised about. Like,
from what I know about Kajima, I don't think he
would care at all if people had that particular thought
like his own, he would want to change.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
You know. That's the thing. Though he's on his own.
It's his own studio, so it's like you want to it's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Always making extremely successful and like made a fuck ton
of money, you made a shit ton of many directors
cut Now he's getting a movie like I don't. I
don't feel like he. I don't think the lesson was like,
oh man, this game was a failure. I got to like, no,
make it better, but I think.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
There is still a portion of there's a bunch of
people that might go, ah, destrating one wasn't for me.
But if people go, well, you know, more metal gear,
like well, there's not a it's not as slow as
which I've seen so many reviews that are positive talking
about like it's better paced, there's more action, and like
I said, those aren't pauses that I have, but because
I did read a lot, not like in depth of things,
but more like the bullet points or listen to a

(01:07:31):
couple of podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Also like Metacritic, but I haven't seen like any reviewer listening.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Yeah, and that was, Oh, it's paced better and the
story is like easier to consume, which it's like, I
agree to a point, there's still some stuff in here
where it's like it's some wild stuff, but I just
accept it because like cool, that's what Kajima does. But yeah,
I wish at the beginning there's more stuff there, even
though it was like a terrible start for me because
that was another thing too of die Hardman's gone, uh

(01:07:57):
where Bridges is gone and oh yeah that baby you
spent the whole time game with that's gone. But I
think they get Sam on a good enough emotional journey
that I was happy we're ring up. At the beginning,
I was like, I'm not really liking much of this stuff,
and there's still again, I will say there's still stuff
at the end though they reveal that I don't like
and it actually affected my This is not a ten
out of ten like the other one, because there's straight
active there's active story stuff. Even like we haven't talked

(01:08:18):
about the Neil stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Is before we get to Neil, let me let me
pose up some thoughts on some of those things, like, yeah,
I feel like that is It's a funny thing with
Kajima in particular, is I feel like some you know,
political thoughts and takes on the world are things he's
like sometimes putting it in there in like a very
overt way and sometimes not so much. And that was
something that going back to Die Hardman, it was something
I wondered of, like, yeah, why what would be the

(01:08:42):
reason to swap out this character for this new president?
And I don't know, I don't know if it was
him making like a a racial thing of like, hey,
there's this black man who was appointed president and then
like within a year is gone replaced with like an
old white guy. I don't know that's part of it.
But also earlier on in the game, it's like, you've
got to deliver these vaccines to lube because vaccines are really.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
Okay obvious, Yeah, like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
You could have any number of things, but like the
fact that he was talking about vaccines and the like
specifically being like, these are the reasons why vaccines are good,
you know, and then like vaccines come back later to
with Tomorrow or they're like, oh, we gave those vaccines
that are incredibly helpful to this character of Tomorrow because
she doesn't have this immune system. So I feel like,
you know, at some points it's hard to tell, like
if it's a goofy story thing, if there's some reason

(01:09:27):
for it. And yeah, in the case of like being
die Hardman being replaced with the president, I right now
have no idea why that would have been done. But
as you're saying, it's it's something to to come so
that that's good, I gotta say, like, other cause I
totally agree with you. I think the tricky thing with
Sam as a character is I feel like sometimes Kudrema
doesn't know if he wants him to be like a
silent protagonist avatar type character, or if he wants him

(01:09:50):
to be like an active participant in the story. And
I feel like there's a lot of the things we
don't get there, And maybe part of that is because
there are just less super friendly people to him in
this Like you have doll Man and they have have
some conversations, but once again it's mostly just doll Man
talking at you. But I think in the first game,
you had dead Man, maybe had some more sequences of Hartman,
you had a bit more connection with Diehardman, you had Amile.

(01:10:11):
You know, you have all these other characters. I feel
like Sam could, like you could infer more about what
he's his internal world is thinking we're in this game
because there's like a bit of more disconnect between Fragile
and him. It feels like that would maybe be the
dynamic you'ld get that from. And then like there aren't
other characters filled into that spot in like a super
meaningful way.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
And there are lots of new like you were talking
about their new connections, it's not like, hey, I'm meaning
Amile or I mean diehard Man, but they already have
a history of like I know you you're so and
so scared of you or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
And then her Man and then they're like Sam is
like super sissive him and other characters I don't really like,
where are these emails coming from. So even the character
who's like a known character in the first game, who
wasn't his best friend or anything, but like has a
bit of that disconnect. So I was really sad with
the pardon of dead Man. I mean, I think he
got like his part of the story done, you know,
you pass the baton in a way. But I kind

(01:11:00):
of remind me how much I love that character. I
love his weird gimmick, and I love the performance there.
I know it's not Gearmo, it's like his his body,
but then like a different actor in there, but such
a friendly character, and I really like, to me, it's
like he gives Sam all the information. He he doesn't
worry about like saving things for story purposes, like a
dead man just gives all the info. And so I
really appreciated that, and I think he was really really

(01:11:22):
great in that early section. Also, I just love, like,
I agree with you, it doesn't make sense like necessarily
this Mexico into into Australia thing, but I thematically, I
love that, like the tutorial section is Mexico and then
we just go to this whole new continent of Australia
and like, I don't know, I just think that's that's
kind of a fun thing in general. Have you gone
back to Mexico by the way, like.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
I had two story wise, but I will interesting, Okay,
I will. My plan is to finish all of Australia
first and then Mexico. Mexico's a lot smaller.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Does it open more afterwards?

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
Because I know, I know no, it's just you kind
of go back to kind of like a retrace your
steps Sam, that's like, okay, let's go. You know there's
something yeah, exactly, So for me, my plans go there.
But it's a lot smaller and uh, I want to
say less interesting. But I guess so in a.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
Way, you know, I wonder because part of it was
that like it was like only half of Mexico when
you were first there and there was a huge tar
pit and then you go through the gate and unit
of Australia. But I didn't know if when you go
back there it's like, oh, well that's open now and
now there's like this whole other chunk of Mexico would
still be pretty small because it's just smaller area in general.
But I love that, like the tutorials just oh yeah,
we're just gonna connect a whole other country. It's like, yeah,

(01:12:30):
that's just a fun, fun thing to get to do.
So uh, goddamn, we just went in all sorts of
a million places. But I don't know, do you want
to do you want to go into Neil a little
bit more here now?

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Yeah, because that's one of my cons just kind of overall,
is it's both from a game pit. It's a gameplay
and a story point. The tough thing is, uh, those
levels fucking rock. I love really.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
I just finished a second like water water, Oh my.

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
God, that's my favorite. In a world where water levels
just completely suck, you know, that's most time it's like, oh,
hol that was great. She's just like a little slice,
but man, it's And I forgot to say this. This
might be hyperbolic, but I don't think so. I've gotta
say this in the opening, and I maybe will bring
it up again, but just in case I don't, because
that always happens on reviews, I will say this is

(01:13:20):
very likely my favorite video games score soundtrack ever.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
I loved everything.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
I liked wood Kid enough. I've heard some of the
stuff this. I had like five of these tracks safe
Like there's like stuff that like makes me emotional Low Roar,
which is such a sad that I never knew this
because I'd heard about this in between the lead singer
and the guy who started the band passed away in
between the games. Wow. So yeah, the guy, So what
happened was Low Roar started. I can't remember his name.

(01:13:45):
I'll show them, I'll find out. I'll shout it up
at the end of this podcast. But he started just
like a he was just from my iceland and Low
Roar I think started like twenty fourteen or sixteen. It
was just him. He was a soul act and he
brought more people across and brought a band, and then
in twenty twenty cause ammonia, he passed away. So and
they put out their last album this February and then
they just spent as a band out of respect for him,

(01:14:07):
so posthumously they put it out and a lot of
those songs are in this and could you have made
a saint when he passed? But so that's like another
when you talk about like reflective stuff. This game's like
many times you know, life and death and you have
the lead singer who has now passed on, but lots
of this new stuff. But the music just came out
on February, so low Roar was obviously along the first game.
But again, I don't know if I'll be able to

(01:14:28):
pull it off because they announce they're doing I don't
really know these things. Whe they're doing a Death Stranding concert,
there's only like sixteen showings. There's one in Seattle. There's
one mounch for all. I'm like, man, I would love
to because like the music is just Seattle, Seattle. Yeah,
so we could tell if if you have any interests,
we should talk and I'd be a little fly. I
could fly over the road journey for us, because that's

(01:14:49):
something where it's like, that's where there's not gonna be
another Death Stranding concert again. But the music and here
was this is like I say, life alter that, but
it's just like these are tracks now that are going
to be in my rotation for the rest of my life.
The first game had that as well, like just the
sc and it's same thing that I think the score
is guys or the composers is Ludwig Frizzle or Friezle.

(01:15:11):
He's fantastic too, like his music but just phenomenal stuff.
So before I forget the score, that is like my favorite,
that's up there with Mario or like that. I loved
every moment.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
The song that's popped up multiple times now, but is
first happens when you get introduced to Rainy. When you
just walk through that valley she's danced around, you're getting
introduced her powers. One of one of my very favorite
like video game character introductions of all time. I feel
like most video games don't go all out like that
to just introduce a character and not even like no dialogue. Right,
You're just watching this character getting to know her, and

(01:15:44):
she's just like this joyous person. But then it's like
a little bit suss of you backs off and that
that song, I could not find it on Spotify, but
I immediately tried to add it to my playlist. But yeah,
I've listened to that song like a bunch of times since,
and I should pop up in the game.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
I think it should be on there because I other
maybe maybe it's was on there now, but I had
it multiple death straining ones because you'll get in the
back game. But there's a game a song called to
the Wadler from wood Kid, and then the other one
is the Any Love of any Kind? But the choir version,
oh my god, I think it's actually the menu music,
but it's like a long six minute like the choir.

(01:16:18):
It's like, oh, just just chill, so.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
In love with the music in this game.

Speaker 2 (01:16:23):
Yeah, so neil Vana aka Nirvana, which I thought that
was a fun Joe Nirvana like, but it's tough because
it I think he set it up in such a
weird way when she was like, you know, we we
love Mad's Michelson. He was everyone's favorite, but we got
Neil this go around. You're gonna love it. He probably
just said that because it and not the story but
the function of story. It is just the Mad's Michelson

(01:16:44):
character over, so that's.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Not there in real time, only in like these weird flashback.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Like, yeah, clearly there's some story.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
You don't skeleton people with fire in the eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
Yeah, And that's where it's like again it it feels
that's where it reminds me of a Credibles too, where
it's like we're gonna do something slightly different, but we
hit on this plot point pretty much like the first movie,
like okay, and that's what this felt like. So I'm
torn with that because I love the game play. I
love those fun worlds, even the first when you're in
like the city and it looks like Doctor Trang just

(01:17:15):
popping off. There's at one set piece beautiful stuff. I'd
say the third one is actually the weakest there. But
so I'm I like those, But to me, I kind
of like, eh, a little lazy, like it's it's literally
the exact same thing again. That's like a very just like, oh,
let's just do the Mads Michelson's thing again. And I
will say the reveals in the story beats of that.

(01:17:37):
It's something I very much dislike. That's something that near
the end of the game, everything the affair. There's other stuff
too that they revealed that character that there's there's one
portion I like, but I think it's the same thing
as like the Australia thing, where there's certain things you
could have done with not revelations. But yeah, there's there's

(01:17:57):
one other i'd say reveal or twist that happens online,
and I it hurts some of the story of the
first game. For me too, I didn't love the additions
that yeah, we'll circle back, so I don't like the
edition of Neil Vanna, but I love those those missions.
So that's a tough thing where.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
I am something that I found, did you uh, because
obviously you did the deserting movie YouTube version like before this,
did you do the recap of the game? Like one
of the menu. So Matt's Michaelson is, as far as
I can know, the only character who is not mentioned
at all. So I'm thinking that there must have been
a rights thing, the money was too much. I don't
know what it is, but like, yeah, he's not mentioned

(01:18:35):
in the recap once and he's the only main character
who isn't and yeah, not in the therefore not the game,
so like his likeness isn't in there. Also, I think
it must have been a money thing or a rights thing. Yeah,
which is too bad because I you know, obviously he's
like not interacting with other characters in the world because
he's kind of sectioned off and like has this you know,
other connection with Sam. But I don't know, it just

(01:18:57):
seemed odd to me, you know, like, as far as
I'm in the game, Like it's not like qualities in
there much, but there's like obviously an acknowledgment that she
is a part of the story where Mads feels like
it and that is not the case at all. So
that that was really puzzling to me when I when
I saw that, because obviously I'm watching my YouTube recaps,
I'm talking, I'm listening to our review again, and obviously
that character is a huge part of the marketing of

(01:19:17):
the game, huge part of the game, but not part
of the recap. If you ask Kajima now and you're
twenty twenty five, how was his inclusion in the first
game like, and it's like, oh, he's just not in
the game at all. He wasn't important enough, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
So, yeah, it's weird because it and it is a
tough thing because least a qualities in there, and it
is I always go, they don't mention all. But at
the same times, like, I guess who would mention it, right,
because that whole thing with Mads was pretty much just
for Norman. Retis right, but it's still like a big thing.
I thought you might get mentioned to it. The first
time he connects with the b Bat which I'll say
I didn't like that lou getting killed off, but great

(01:19:52):
reveal of when he looks down and sees like the
bat ghosts like baby prints, You're just like, oh my god,
like that's such a heart like and then the two
fills up. You're like, oh, no, like that's exactly what
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Interesting even when the way you're talking about that, I'll
you know, i'll save that for our spoiler discussion, but
I yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
But even when he like linked up, I thought, oh,
he's probably gonna be like, oh, this happened to me before,
you know, I had visions like this at one point
and it revealed, you know, I found who my father was.
But it's just like sayingly, well, yeah, that's a vision
and then he goes on like Okay, it's just it's
just does this happen with everybody? Then? It is that
just a known thing? When you link up? I guess
he has dooms, right they Okay, I guess they did
say that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
That visions with him, but he's also attached to his belt.
For what it's worth.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
That and I'll take that back because in the first
game they did say people that have dooms that interact
with bebes can share that that that kind of tunnel vision.
So I'll take that back. But just yeah, fucked a little,
but yeah I didn't other than the actual level design,
I'll say it didn't work for me on a story point. Yeah,
we'll circle back to that because I think there's some
multiple big revelations where like, okay, that's some that's some

(01:20:58):
big stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
So yeah, yeah, until I've I think finished the game,
I don't think I have much more to add on that.
So how about we take another ad break and we
will be right back. Okay, So I feel like an
out one more.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
Please, because a couple of weeks ago when we did
some games past that scene that they show with nil
Van and the therapist, it's like so close to the
and I don't know why they show that, and not
that like it's a spoiler anything, it's just like I'm
still puzzled why they picked that scene to show. And
then once did you get the have you gotten that
scene or a version of that scene yet? With the
affair thing and like their origin of how they knew

(01:21:35):
each other.

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
The therapist stuff and who's.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
Yeah, and how they met they meet.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Well, they met because she was his therapist. That's what
I know at this point in time. Okay, more to it.
I guess we'll circle back. Well, speaking of circling back
about I feel like an hour ago now, I I
brought up the DHV Magellan, and then there's another thing
I wanted to say about it. We would offer all
these great tagents that I'm glad we did. One thing

(01:22:03):
that I think is really puzzling from a gameplay mechanic
is obviously the Magellan is often most of the time
following you to these different destinations, not all of them,
although it seems like it can kind of fast travel
to most sections and you can take all your gear
with you. One thing that I find kind of annoying
in this game though, is that like oftentimes it's like, oh,
this quest you have to grab from the terminal and

(01:22:24):
the Magellan, this one you have to take from the
terminal in the building, so you have to walk over
the building. And then one thing I just really really
wish I think the only thing I want here is
that if the Magellan is parked somewhere, I just wish
that the private lockers would sink between those so you
don't have to like, Okay, let me go to the
Magellan and grab my blood bags and then let me
see what I have in this base. I mean most
of the things now I just only put in the Magellan.

(01:22:44):
But then it's kind of annoying because if I go
back to a place and then the maagells like, oh
we can't fly right now, sorry, then I'm like, well shit,
all my stuff is there, and so just annoying. It's
just one of those things that adds travel time and
not in a fun desk serineing like ooh, I gotta
plan my route travel time. It's just annoying, and it's
it's never close enough that I just want to walk there.
Someone was like, okay, well let me just take a
car out. Let me do my car. I'mtna get my truck,
drive over here, grab stuff, come back. Usually that's what

(01:23:07):
I am to do. And I'm in the magell and
I got to go to the place, grab the mission,
find out what the mission is, then come back to
the magell and pick which items I want to take
and then go out again. So it's just annoying as hell.
So I I I hope that stuff gets like patched
and fixed and they just connect those lockers when you're
at a location, because it's just it's just weird. But yeah,
to me, that felt like a kind of a whiff,
like I don't I don't know. It feels like you

(01:23:27):
don't play test this and realize this is just super annoying,
I have to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Which reminds me think we had a lot of those isms.
I feel like they fixed a few of them with
like how you collect stuff and moving into stuff that
I think we have that with the first.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
So many times you've spam a or skip and then
you skip and there's another cutting, you skip, there's another cutting, skip,
there's cuts every time.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):
I don't like that or even just times. Being a
lot better helps with oh absolutely yeah so.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Yeah, uh so you know a lot of the new mechanics,
like in terms of delivery and like hazards and things
like that, Like they've all added new weather things like
there's sandstorms, there are like wildfires that can happen. There
are avalanches and presumably or like avalanche landslides kind of
same difference there. I feel like those things are so

(01:24:14):
rare that I haven't like I've seen two landslides right
now and it's been like Okay, there's three rocks falling
and they're not that big, so it's like kind of cool.
But I was hoping this would be more of a
thing I had to worry about when I was playing
this game, when I saw those things in the trailers.
The wildfires are really interesting. I wonder if there's like
once again in a Kajema, like maybe a climate change,
like you know, throwing some political like thoughts and things

(01:24:35):
in there. But I've only really engaged with that the
one time. And then one time I'm on the map,
I saw like, oh, there's a wildfire in this area,
and I drew through them and there was no fire
at all, So I don't know what that was about.
And then I've seen like one, one, maybe two sandstorms.
You know, it didn't didn't affect much. I've had lightning,
but it's like never hit me. So I don't know.
I just feel like there's a lot of cool things
that are added in there that make the world feel

(01:24:56):
more dynamic, and like those should be things that make
the game harder for the delivery side of things, and
maybe I just hope. I was wishing that like brutal
difficulty would may give an interface with these things a
lot more, particularly fucking rocks crumbling off of mountains and
like falling down at you, Like that would have been
a really fun thing to deal with, and it hasn't
really affected me twenty five hours in, So I don't
know how how do you feel about those things, Like

(01:25:18):
have you engaged with them much or had any like
interesting anecdotes engaged with any of those new mechanics.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
Yeah, first time I got to the an avalanche, that
took me out because I just zigged when I zagged
and I loaded my my previous load saved because there's
a lot of stuff on that truck. I was like,
I want to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
I'm excited to spend more time in the mountains because
I think that's where things are gonna get real for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. The only one actor I had
was there's an area where there's a lot of tall
standing rocks and I was there in the middle of
an earthquake and I had one of those things shake
and it fell very close. Hey I did.

Speaker 1 (01:25:56):
I don't think I've actually been like left over by
an earthquake yet, and I've experienced a few of them,
but nothing's ever really happened. So that's good to know
that I'm just maybe not lucky when those were happening.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
I had that, and I did have an earthquake one
time when I was trying to escape a bet and
then that stopped me from escaping Bet and I had
to do the whole Yeah. I had a couple of those. Yeah,
the sandstorms, Yeah, they didn't effect Actually they didn't affect.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
The first one the hell out of me visually.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
Cool, it's as a guy that and now you know
a little bit of it too, like love Mad Max.
That Mad Max game Inferior Road, they had that scene where,
yeah they go through that. Yeah right, I forgot And
we're in Australia too, which all the Mad Max movies
are in when they go through a big sandstorm and
Mad Max for Your Road, that's what it felt like
with lightning everything. And the second I've only done it twice,
but the second one did affect me only to the

(01:26:39):
point of I didn't have much battery and I was
kind of screwed. So I had to park somewhere like
somewhat near and then just drive over get another vehicle.
I had to do that type of thing because it
was one of these things where I didn't want to
reload the safe because the last save was quite a
far aways back, so I did the thing, Okay, let's
go get another vehicle get there. So but that was

(01:27:00):
something where I thought I can get through the sandstorm,
and the sandstorm just lasted way longer than I thought
it was gonna I thought it was gonna be okay, nothing,
so yeah, but yeah, the quake one that was the
best experience work because I think a character warned me
about that and some stuff had happened with rocks falling
story wise and a mission, but I just said, okay,
that set piece stuff. But then this was just randomly
one time while I was just doing a like a

(01:27:21):
sub order side delivery and it quake hit and that fell.
So I bet there's more things. It's just the thing
of it has to be that timing, right, because if
you just got to quake when you're nowhere, well nothing happen.
So maybe it'd be better if they happen more frequently.
But that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
I would love for the difficulty to effect, because it
sounds like it's not. But I would love to just
get blasted by like weather effects like all the time
and have to really be worried when I'm making deliveries
and things like that. The one that I do think
is very notable, and I think it's really really cool
are when there's heavy rain now it like will overflow
the rivers and then like a rise the water levels,

(01:27:56):
which will like destroy if you have like a ladder
that you maybe once crossed over, now it's kind of gone,
or it'll make it so like maybe now you normally
you could get through there with a with a try bike,
but now you can't. Usually a truck can get through
most things, like unless it's like a huge river. But
I think that one's really fun. It really is quite terrifying.
And yeah, I've definitely taken a couple of tumbles in
the in the rivers at this point in time. But yeah,

(01:28:17):
I think that that one's really effective because obviously, whenever
you're getting hit with the rain in this game, things
are a little scoop scoop spookier bets and things like that,
and I think mixing that with the water levels was
really great. That's something I'm always kind of have to
plant it in my routes a little bit more. So, Yeah,
I think that one's very successful.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
I will say maybe I don't know if it's because
like I don't know Australia that well, but it's a
video game. So when it's a video game with death Drant.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
That's Kyle. We got to get him on here and Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Want to sit them down and show him. Destrac is
just like it. But I did find I felt because
it's funny you said that you had some issues of water.
I felt like I had zero issues with water in
this game. That's why I was missing because I remember
quite a few times of the worst crashes ever if
you fall or running from BT he fell on a
river and all your stuff was just going down. I
had nothing like that, And there were so many times where, to.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
Be fair, I don't think. I think I've only dropped
my stuff once and it was like in Mexico is
like really early on.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
Okay, so there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
But and even then, yeah, like I don't know, I
feel like I generally for the most part, like maybe
I'm just like better at the game now, so I
know to go for certain spots and so I'm I'm
not gonna just risk it on things. But yeah, it's
it hasn't been a huge issue I just think the
rising water thing is cool mechanic, but.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):
No, I agree with you. But there's stuff where it's
like halfway through, where once I started to getting more
situations where I'm on the left there's a river and
the stuff, so where they're like, oh man, I'm gonna
have to go all the way around, I'm like, this
looks shall enough, and I still I cut through, and
I did it and it was fine, and all will
be like, well, you know it's gonna be a little
harder on your vehicle or harder on you. But I
remember the first game being many times where you start
walking out or driving your vehicle and go, oh no,

(01:29:45):
this is a lot deeper than I thought. But that
didn't happen much. I felt like almost all the body
of water I could easily just get through, which again
I more difficult the same thing if you could make
it like okay more, there's less shall errors. Now you
know that it's more rare to find. Well, yeah, there
are bridges.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
There are a couple of zones where the river not
even just like all having higher water just might not
be any river there if it's not raining. But then
when it rain, like spawns a river there, which is
which is cool. And you can kind of see like
the divots in the earth where where it will spawn.
That was cool. I think the addition of animals is
like fun. It's like it doesn't change much, but like,
oh I got to chase this thing around a little
bit capture it. I accidentally ran over like multiple animals,

(01:30:24):
which I feel horrible about. I don't know if you
don't dogs. Yeah, that souh. As we talked about earlier.
There are like stats now kind of tied with your
five I guess, like making, uh, getting likes online, doing deliveries. Service.
I don't even know what the service one is for.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
I think imanship is tied to the quality of the product.
I think because that's okay, that's one of the highest would.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
Have been in porter. But I guess that's a separate thing.
Maybe yeah, I don't actually I think that maybe is
like connecting with other people, like I think you're ranking
or using people.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
Yeah, I think you're right, because my too lowest are
combat and stealth.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Just because combat levels so slow, yeah, so slow.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Why don't we just so I guarantee you. I wonder
if though we talked to somebody that just is like
they're playing the full game like mental gear, and if
they're Combat's all away, right, that's because that's something.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
I've been gunning people down in the last few hours,
and like I'll get like I'll take them to a
whole base and maybe get like one point up, which
is crazy because sometimes I'll just yeah, go to the
base and get like three or four Porter levels and
it eventually slows down. But yeah, I'm kind of surprised that,
like even like Stealth, I feel like I do a
lot less with Stealth and get a lot more levels
than combat, which is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
And also I wonder if my stats will change because
anytime I see a recover mission for the back half,
I was like, I'm not doing that because I that
recoveries can those can take quite a while. I'm gonna
do a lot of that now in the post game,
but before so I wonder if that'll go. But yeah,
most is Porter. I think ser servicemanship is the is
like the S level stuff, because like I said, I

(01:31:54):
was making sure to get a lot of stuff of
the I'm taking slow because it's so nice. And now
they got like the S Legends Legends, which is funny.
I had like yep thirteen and then after the post game,
I had tons of orders that I was just like
kind of saving private lock or whatnot. Now I'm twenty
six SLL one, so like, I I love getting that,
so I think that's what it is. But I love
seeing that star, I love going up and uh yeah,

(01:32:16):
I think currently I'm two twenty eight right now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
So nice. Yeah, I know what I've gone on your profile,
like through the in game social thing, and uh, you
gotta friend me on there because I wonder if that
will make it so we see more of you. Sure
I will, yeah, because I went in there and like
hit your name and I said, like it's it's like
make connection or I don't know some death stranding verb
verbid for adding a friend, but yeah, go ahead and
do that. But yeah, I've seen your stats and who

(01:32:40):
those stats are looking looking pretty yeah the other So yeah,
as you level those things up, now you get you
have like this framework thing which is like a skill
tree sort of that you can kind of any point
like change out, like you're not locked into any points.
It's okay, Like it's fine, you know, some of the
upgrades are cool in there, but I'm not finding myself
super engaged with that stuff. It's a nice little bone.

(01:33:01):
I guess to like have a little bit more progression
on another thing. But I don't are you changing things?
I would often are you kind of just leaving it
and the like, oh I have sixty points now, and
now I can add one more peg to this, Like
I don't, are you really strategizing it? Like that's where
a thing i'd expect on the highest difficulty, I'd be like, oh,
I really got to strategize.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
But eh, I felt like they all made little differences.
This is one I feel we're broken records because you know,
obviously I'm not sure if this happened with you with
Marrowwind or one of the games you played in the past,
But when I was a kid, I grew up, you
know back there Nights of Republic and that was a
skill tree where it was the classic, Hey, you picked
this route, the stuff are gone, and that made your

(01:33:36):
choice all important. I think this game needed to do that.
I think the idea of hey, if you're a combat
person is because to me, you can't just unlock everything,
and that kind of feeds the purpose. Especially some are weird.
I feel like there's just three slots for making your
scanning better, like the whatever it is on your shoulder,
and it's like, do you need three?

Speaker 1 (01:33:54):
Just roll that allense for like you can like things longer,
and it's like, what do we really need that? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
Yeah? And that's what I mean where it's just like
make combine him, make it a very expensive one and
do it that way. So I that this to me
is actually even though there's some fun stuff like I
just unlocked auto drive, so if you get on the roads,
if you just hold the gas, it doesn't even you. Yeah,
so so there is some fun stuff that's what I
would have liked. Where it's like, oh the rain, Remember.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Where you got that? Got that? Did you get there
from a specific You usually get these things from a
specific person. I don't know if you remember it would
have been if it's a game thing and I just
haven't got there yet, then you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
Know it was just a random one. It would have
been from I can't remember. There's this scientist guy that
kind of has like the bowl cut, you know, he
has like, uh, he's glasses. He has a bowl cut.
Chat he's close to the guy that's the guy has
the glasses with like one glass of one up and
one the musician. It's in it's in that area where
it's like the musician, the loan commander, one of those guys.

(01:34:56):
I did it and they gave.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Me that Rainbow Valley. Is it that guy or yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
Think somewhere in there, yeah, Like there's like thet there's
the Australian like animal guy, not the animal shelter, but
another guy. So it's somewhere in there, which was nice.
So there's a couple that are fun. I think they
should have just made like even then, it's weird to
be like I guess, I guess it depends. There's one
where Okay, so your vehicle can be depleted, but it'll
take battery charge from your like Sam's battery, which I

(01:35:23):
think is good. But at the same time, it's like maybe,
I guess today, I just didn't anticipate how much people
will be Like you said, maybe PS five. She's like,
there's generators everywhere as long as you plant it out right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
Now, the one stuff I had to think about Sam's
battery that has never been okay, I've never did later.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
The snow Mountain, there's some there's some long tracks where
it's like man I got a long way to go,
and it's a lot of uphill. They do later on,
which is funny when you were saying it was challenging you.
They do later on when you complete a couple stuff,
give you spike tires so you can go up that
stuff easier. So that's where it's like, even when it's hard,
they're like, oh now it's easy now, you know. But
it does make sense because in the that was with

(01:36:01):
my cons and it's fine. But in the back, if
i'd say like thirteen to sixteen chapters, there's a lot
of you gotta go over that snowy mountain multiple times
and the you know, the DHV, I'd shut down. You
can't do it. So it's just like, oh man, So
again I'll say this. I should have said this at
the beginning. I always recommend play this game just the
way you want, because that would have been a time
where I go, I'm gonna take a break, come back later.

(01:36:22):
I've done this mount in twice. I don't want to
do it again. But you know, I wanted to see
what was going on Higgs or what was going on
the fragile and stuff. So it's like I gotta get
there which we haven't mentioned. I I think I'm gonna
predict that Troy Breaker is gonna win that Game Award Performance.
He really yeah, because I thought Higgs in the especially
in the back half, Higgs in the first game. That's

(01:36:44):
me like, okay, could you men him were friends and
Troy don't. Troy's a good voice actor, good even actor, Like, okay,
this is a fine on Higgs was just he's a generic.
I'm gonna bring on the desk stranding, you know, cool
or the Final Stranding or Last Stranding whatever it's called.
This game, man, he went to a different level.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
I think this is I'm really surprised to hear that,
based on the two times I've seen him so far.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
I'm really spry to hear you say that it gets somewhere.
There's some great stuff, which is boss battles and everything.
There's some repetition, but then there's kind of like some
fourth Bowl like hey, it's a repetition for the Sagare potition.
You we'll talk about that later, but it's, uh, yeah,
for me, this is it's up there with Joel, if
not better. It's it's his best work. So when he
when to day, I was talking about the Neil actor.

(01:37:28):
It's like, yeah, that's all good, But like, I think
Troy Baker steals this game from everybody. He's so old.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
That happened for you, like in the final hours or
when you were around my spot in the game, Like,
did you have that perception, because to me, I was
like so far. My thought is like I wish they
didn't bring him back. I got that's where I'm at,
So I'm really surprised with that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
I was somewhere like that. I was like, oh, why
is he need to be back. I still think you
go a little later on to get more of that
because I feel like, yeah, he's in there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
I've only seen him twice at this point. Yeah, so
that's yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
He definitely gets some more juice going on. I felt
the same way as you're like, Okay, it's him with
like a cool new costume whatever. But near the end,
I think there's some really fun stuff and I think
he's chewing the scenery. So I really enjoyed Troy Baker,
and this one's a shout out to him.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
So yeah, you know. One of the things too that
hugheses to get around is a coffin which you can
later get as an item, which like works kind of
similar to the what is it called the pv PCC whatever.
It is, like the thing the rack that you can
like throw things on me, I think, because yeah, and
then you can use it as like a snowboarder. Now
you can use this coffin as like an even better snowboard,

(01:38:32):
which I was like, Oh, this is gonna be perfect,
this is gonna help me so much with the snowy mountains.
I got like up there and it was like, oh,
you're not in the Kyal network. You cannot use this thing.
I'm like, fuck, I should have brought I should have
brought that the classic floating one, because that one, I
think you could still hop on it even outside the
Kiral network. So I kind of got screwed by that.
But yeah, that's that's been fun as like just another
mode of transportation when you don't want to commit to

(01:38:53):
bringing a biker a truck to a certain spot. So
that's that's cool. That's a weird thing. Let's see where
do I want to go next. I guess maybe we
talk about some more characters. Rainy is one that I mean.
I mentioned that that intro sequence, and I think that's
a really great two kens. I love her performance. I

(01:39:13):
think she's the actress that plays Yukio in the Deadpool movies,
which I looked up and I was like, she's so familiar,
and that's what she is. So that's that's fun because
obviously she plays like a very bubbly, silly, just very
charismatic character in that, And obviously she has more more
to chew on here, but I like her in here,
but classic weird Kajima character where she's like stuck at

(01:39:34):
seven months pregnant and she's got this weird doom's ability
where she has like essentially an aura where she can
reverse the time fall, but then like outside of that
she creates rain to the time fall ray and which
I'm kind of surprised that hasn't been a bigger part
of like the story. Like she's only she hasn't left
the Magellan, which you know not not a lot of
people do leave the ships or the establishments in this

(01:39:54):
but I feel like for a power like hers, she
should be doing more out there. But I don't know.
She's a fun person have on the ship story wise,
I think it's a thing that I just kind of
wait to see what the last few hours do because
she hasn't really done anything at all in the story.
She's just kind of there. But she has a nice
presence to have, so I'm gonna guess part of her
role is like teach tomorrow things, but like, I don't know,

(01:40:15):
anyone could do that, so it's not really unique to
anything about her character.

Speaker 2 (01:40:20):
You could just fragile doing that stuff. So yeah, I
think you get a little bit more, but I'd say
I'd say I could have used more from that character
as well. But the character is great. The setup of
it was just just so funny. In this world weird,
weird world. People like calling her a witch because of
what's going on with her and stuff. So again another
character with a tragic origin going on, but she's keeping happy.
And like you said earlier, the introduction was that was

(01:40:42):
just like a what the hell's happening moment? Like that
was just like it was such a because the first
that's where I will say again feels more middle geary
because that would always have weird out of body moments
where the first one had that. But it's way more
I think dramatic, and this is a serious could you
This was like a little break of who are you,
Like I'm riting, and it's like, oh yeah. It felt
very nintendoly in a way, like it felt like she

(01:41:03):
was being revealed as the next Smash fighter in that moment,
like Mario and Zeldo would be fighting and then look
over huh, and then Rainy would be walking up to
now she's in the Smash you know, which, Hey, I'm
not I'm not opposed to so or at least get
Sam in the next Smash, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
Please, that would be and I'd love to have mechanics
like that. But yeah, I think, you know, it's something
that's more front of mine now that we're in the
second game, those more characters. But it is weird how
often you stumble upon someone who's like, oh, I have dooms,
and it's like this thing is supposed to be super rare,
but then you're meeting so many people have dooms, and
they all have like superpowers. Essentially, they're pretty much superheroes
in terms of like they're weird gimmicks that they have,

(01:41:39):
and even if they don't have that, it's like, oh,
dead Man's weird gimmick is that like he's comprised of
seventy percent, like you know, body parties from like dead spots.
She's like, yeah, just like weird stuff like this, So
it is like you kind of suspend your I mean,
there's a lot of suspension of disbelief in this game
in general. But it is weird how often you encounter
these characters who have completely like, you know, one one
in a lifetime abilities, but then like they're just conveniently

(01:42:01):
popped up in like different points of the story. But
as a as a fan of George Miller, obviously it's
not his voice here, it's just his likeness. But what
are your thoughts on Tar Man, who's kind of like
the the pilot of the Magellan or sorry, the DHV Magellan,
I should use the full name.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
I like him, he's I think I've grown to dislike
him because he's like an exposition masinque machine. Like I
felt like in the back half my personality for sure. Yeah,
and I felt like in the back half I was
I was quickly reading the dialogue and then like skipping
it because it's always about the ship or we gotta
do this so fun enough, Like I like the idea

(01:42:36):
of traveling through the tar and I love the idea
of the hand, like like there's some cool fun genus
he has, like the cat, yeah demon like gu Tar cat,
so like some stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
Just don't know if there's dogs, but there's at least
one cat, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
There's one cat. So I think they just especially it'd
be different to me if it was George Miller voiced him,
because I like, Okay, you've probably only got George Miller
for a little bit of time. Here's what you can do,
but you don't, so you you're getting a new voice actor.
I felt like you could have gave him more personality,
Like I feel like they did that with Quinono Do
tore sells a lot of personality, but I feel like
dead Man has tons of personality, right and Tara Man

(01:43:11):
like he just feel like he's the pilot. But it's
fun seeing George Miller just always randomly popping up there.
So yeah, I'll definitely say, like again, the class of
characters in the first game versus this game one definitely
is the superior bunch of you know, ragtag people.

Speaker 1 (01:43:27):
So yeah, yeah, I mean, I think obviously, like the
Kajima is just such a big fan of film and
obviously has a lot of love for directors and like
specific actors, but like it is fun with the scene
which does directors. He's obviously a fan of through this means,
and obviously this makes a lot of sense with specifically
the connection to Australia with this game, and then obviously
that bulbs up into mechanics that we can like link

(01:43:48):
to Mad Max in a lot of ways that you
mentioned earlier, which is kind of a fun thread to
follow down there. So yeah, I like him in there
for like what he is. But yeah, definitely I feel
like there could be maybe a little bit more meet
on the as we like to say. I think one
that's really odd to me is doll Man. Like I
feel like my perception of this is that Kojima played

(01:44:09):
Got of War twenty eighteen. You know, probably he probably
played that maybe after the development investrand and he's like, oh,
mamir having this head on your belt, who can just
yap at you and be like a cool, funny, quirky character.
I love that idea. I want to do that too.
I'm gonna create this character of Dolman, But I guess
I'm just fine, like it hard to be like, oh, yeah,
this is a full person who has like their home,

(01:44:29):
like he lost his body. He was like, it's the
haw on the caw whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
It's just on waist belt.

Speaker 1 (01:44:34):
Yeah, it just seems like it's like when you are
not when you're at the base, you just like hang
them up on the wall, and so he's just like there.
So it feels like sometimes he's in the in the
main cockpit and he's like on his little rail and
he's flying around talking to people. But like I'm just like,
who is this guy? Where did he come from? I
feel like maybe I missed the backstory. I forgot the
backstory on him already, But he just it seems like

(01:44:55):
a weird addition that he's not like this isn't some
weird gimmea character, Like this is a human being. You know,
he's just trapped in a weird body. But uh, I
like him in there and you can throw him up
in the air, which I always forget is a thing
like I'm out meat one. He's cool. But yeah, I
guess I'm it feels like weird, weird choice. But that's
a lot of things in Best Stranding and Kajima stuff

(01:45:16):
in general.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
I guess, yeah, I can't remember. Yes, hog got separated
from his car and I think his call was like destroyed,
so that's why it's caused like a puppet. I I
he's somebody I would like to and this is not
be like, oh, a huge mass thing. I think there's
multiple things that kind of work with dolmen or or
we can circle back on the spoilers. I like the

(01:45:37):
addition enough, but I think the sports add more context,
Like Okay, I kind of see what they're going for.
I actually still think there's some flaws and something because
there's a I'll be very curious that when you get
to a certain point, because I feel like there's a
beat whether you're trying big man, this is a this
is a pretty big twist, and it's something that I
felt like they told us in the first two hours.
I'm like, and I think you will. I don't know,

(01:45:57):
because when we're talking about BB and the things, you
were like, oh, like, we'll sort of bad in the spoilers,
so there's some stuff where it's just like, okay, but
Dollman has some more roles to play, so yeah, go back,
that makes sense. But I like that. I like the
fun animation. We obviously knew about that, but I like
the animation for that, so Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46:14):
Yeah, I like that he's kind of like stuttering, uh
you know, he's kind of like half the frame rate
or whatever it is. So yes, just looks a bit
off and I love it. I think it's when it's
a scene one of the scenes with Higgs and Higgs
is like getting close, like oh you again, old friend
in the classic Troy Baker way, and then he gets
like red eyes and it kind of kisses at him
or something like that. So yeah, I like heaven on there,
and it is nice that he he'll talk about certain things,

(01:46:35):
so he'll comment on a character or a story beat
that just happened and listen back to a review. Something
I forgot about that happened in the first game is
you'd be like traveling somewhere and then someone like would
call you on like the little like watch or whatever
you had in that game, and then like pop up
and they like, rather than them just talking to you
over the columns while you continue to walk, it would
like pause the game to like deliver you this conversation.

(01:46:56):
And it was like it really started the game and
like it made just you know, when you're especially on
your on a long journey. This happened a lot in
the endgame when you're just doing long tracks and this
can doesn't really do that because you're in them gelling
so much. You're talking to your characters there. But I
think doll Man's a good kind of in between of
that where he can be there, he can comment on things.
But this time around, he doesn't like stop you, like, hey,
look at me, Well I talk to you and let's

(01:47:17):
pause the game. It just happens while you're moving around.
So it's it's you know, it's good to have an
extra character in the mix there. I'm gonna see my
BB thoughts, I guess for our spoiler discussion because I'm
very confused and I'm wondering if there's more to it
or not. There probably is, but you know, we'll save that.
Heartman's back. You know, he's cool. He's doing his weird stuff.

(01:47:37):
He was not our favorite character in the first game,
but I'm happy to have him back for what he is.
I like this new thing he's developed where he can
just like now he can just fall over anywhere, and
like he'll use that in funny ways, Like at one
point he's like sitting next to Fragile, so he just
like goes to sit down like he's in a chair,
but it's just like him being in his his goofy machine,
so you know, show outs to heart.

Speaker 2 (01:47:55):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
They're hinting a lot like I feel like he's gonna die.
I'm not looking at your face, don't want to see
your reaction, but I feel like that's what they're building
up to here. And I guess tomorrow, Yeah, Tomorrow is
a character. We haven't talked about a ton other than
that one cut scene. I don't know what do you
want to say about tomorrow? And uh without spoiling too much.

(01:48:15):
And the performance I suppose as well, because this is
actually El Fanning, right, not just a body double situation.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):
I think she's great. I've I've learned, not learned, but
I've just seen El Fanning more stuff recently because I
feel like it's a trajectory of her sister is very
popular as a child actress that I was always like, yeah,
there's El Fanning, but now it's like I've seen a
lot of her. Bak No, she's on her own island.
She's quite talented. Great performance.

Speaker 1 (01:48:40):
I'll go there and what I'll say they're holding back
a lot. Yeah, twenty five hours in I don't know
too much about this this character. We're just kind of
now getting into some of the details. But yeah, it's
it's been a slow burn for this character, a lot
slower than I thought, and it took a lot longer
her to get introduced than I expected based off the
trailers and things.

Speaker 2 (01:48:57):
But yeah, just double DEMI said earlier, some of the
actions pieces that you've already seen and then more are
fantastic stuff. That's what I'll say.

Speaker 1 (01:49:03):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:49:04):
They very great visual character and yeah, there's some stuff
I was not surprised about, but yeah, I'm excited to
talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
In our discord, the Great God Loves Me sixty nine
commented on the fact that you wish that there was
a bit more to do in like the the this
not the same private room. Yeah, the private room, that's
the one which I just at the point I got
into the game, got like the camera which I can
now interact with in the room, and as you mentioned,
there's like other things that maybe pop up. But yeah,

(01:49:34):
I I I I guess he misses the monster energy drinks,
which I don't even think are in the game anymore.
I think they patched them out or they took them
out of the they took them out of the director's
cut version right or I think it's like just the
license right up for the Monster Energy drinks. I think
they removed that stuff. But yeah, I mean, I I
feel like in this game it seems like you're in
the room a lot more, probably because of the Magell

(01:49:55):
and just teleporting everywhere. But I feel like I'm they
too like that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:59):
Sometimes you're just waking up and it's like, hey, Sam,
that's what's going on. You should go to the bridge.
It's like, just start with the bridge. Just say Sam,
oh you woke up like that, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):
All you need? Automatic shower please, like you.

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
Know, sink all that jazz. Yeah, which that was like
that was another beat. Like I don't want to forget
about this because we'll go more into spoilers. But I
really did not like Lou passes away and like, oh,
you should go to Australia and then he goes like
kitchen like dyes his hair. I was like, that's that
was little stuff like that's not the Sam I have
in mind. Especially I remember when we got which is

(01:50:31):
so fun now, when we got that first teaser or
one of them, it was like normal reads the gray hair,
and we were like, oh, he's clearly been through some
stuff I would have liked to be kept that look
like that to me was like it's a character. It's
the same way as solid snake or whatever he changes,
you know, Snake, sal Snak, all that stuff, like he
would always have like a different kind of look going

(01:50:51):
on in the games. One points an old man, one
points a clone, like there's all these things where it's like, okay,
you can kind of tell the eras of snake. It
felt weird, like, yeah, he's gonna dye his hair, Like
I just I did not enjoy that choice. I know
it's a minor choice, but for me, I just feel
like my child pass way. The last thing I give
a fuck about is oh my hair is gray now.
It's like felt odd. I felt like it was a choice,

(01:51:13):
but the fact that he actively did that did not
like that at all. There's a little thing about just
bugged me. Bugged me so much.

Speaker 1 (01:51:19):
Yeah, something that also I've been confused about is when
you go in your room you sleep, it's like, oh,
you are now well rested. It tells you what time
of day it is, and then it always says Sam's
sunburns have healed.

Speaker 2 (01:51:32):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
Is that is that a mechanic? Like is sunburning a
thing going on?

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
Like? What? So if you next time you're out, like
on the day for a little bit quite a bit,
it could kind of look like dirt. But if you
do a zoom in, it looks like his faces he's
sounds bad like kind of rotting. But that's supposed to
be a sunburn. And then after you shower, I guess
there's some alvera in that shower. It goes away, he's clean,
and it does say you're sunburns heal I think after sleeping,

(01:51:57):
so you do get is it just.

Speaker 1 (01:51:59):
A visual thing or yeah, okay, you're stamina or something.

Speaker 2 (01:52:02):
I actually I don't know for sure. It could like
to a small degree, but I haven't if if I
was told that or they showed me that, then I
must have missed it. So you never know. Because obviously,
like when you're high in the mountains and the frostbite,
so it could the frostbite affects you and the auction
affects you, so the sunburn actually might like hurt your
salmon a little bit, so maybe it does.

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
Interesting, what is your there's a little more customization than
at least I remember, what does your Sam look like,
what's your what's your visual, what's your set up?

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
For all I'm born, he just tase default Sam. I like, yeah,
I I have my vehicle, says porter, because I'm a Porter.
It's always the blue and red combo. I like that combo.
Whichever vehicle. I have a yme sticker on my backpack,
and that's it. I don't like that. I know when
people would have like when like here's a hat you'd

(01:52:49):
like her. Here's like the otter hat. I don't like
any of that stuff that because again, that for me
is just like that is the.

Speaker 1 (01:52:55):
V tuber like the tech uh like, yeah, whatever she
gives you, like a like a bunny hat thing, I
would not use that. That's that's too far for me.

Speaker 2 (01:53:03):
It takes me out of it. No, I just I
like I like Sam. It's kind of like when we
talked about the Spider Man game, like I'd like to
play as Spider Man with that suit because that suit
they designed. Then later on I'll try some Psycho stuff up.
But I guess I'm just in the mind of I'm
playing Sam, and I feel like he should still just
look like a porter. He's so worried about the glasses.
But you're clearly you're got some looks going on.

Speaker 1 (01:53:23):
A little bit. I mean for the for the car, Yeah,
I use kind of some different color palette that I'm liking.
I like that, what after you do those two quiz things,
And I'm sure there's more that Rainy gives you. She
gives you, like decos for the different characters. I too,
just the two all. I was hoping you get one
for each character.

Speaker 2 (01:53:41):
Unless I didn't walk up and like I was supposed
to do something like the Phantom guy or the head
the ghost Hunter. I only answer the two questions. It
was the egg and it was the shape. That's all
I answered.

Speaker 1 (01:53:51):
Oh okay, yeah, because because the rewards for both those
where you get kind of like a anime sort of sticker.
One is like a rain It looks sort of like
Rainy one is is Tomorrow, And I really like, I
think those those look really cool. So I have one
of those on the truck or something like that. For
the look of Sam. I mean, I'm I'm using the
stealth suit usually, which kind of you. I don't think

(01:54:11):
you can change the color of that only the default,
so you can change the color of When I before
I had the stell suit, I was using like kind
of like that darker green olive sort of color palette.
But now I have the the green that same green
drawbridge hat, and I have like glasses that kind of
like an orange hue to them, and so I do
a lot of like green orange highlights on my stuff.
So ill either with the vehicles, you know, putting like

(01:54:34):
a decoal on there that that kind of fits that
sort of thing. So I'm liking the hat. I'm liking
the hat in the sunglasses. That's my kind of my
kind of go to look for for Sam. That depletes
the notes I had written down. Is there anything we
haven't got to? Of course, you know spoiler discussion to come. Well,
we'll break down a lot more story stuff and I'm
sure a million gameplay things we forgot about. But anything
else you want to talk about today?

Speaker 2 (01:54:55):
Yeah, okay, So I will clarify my notes. When I
had to go back and forth between the snow Hill,
it was more in chapters ten eleven. That was a
lot of go there, go there, back and forth. There's
that let me see, I think those are okay? I'll
put the spoilers take on those for when we come
back to it. I'll say, because I don't think you've
probably got there, done it. And I've heard there's multiple

(01:55:16):
situations like this this in the game with other people
on the side orders or side characters. The pizza chef
man that's my name, fun little gimmick of oh, how
will they like a couple of how will they go
to the network? Well, if you give them pizza, they
might want that, and it's like, cool, pizza my favorite food.
But then there is just something there's two fun things

(01:55:36):
that happened where it was like, we'll circle back. I'm
gonna keep Pizza Guy in our spoilers because I don't
even want to say more could I want you to
experience stuff. I just say that's probably my favorite since
I got Conan O'Brien. My favorite thing is there's just
some fun wrinkles to the to the pizza guy and
or the pizza chef, and I just really like that

(01:55:57):
character they had. I think there's maybe more to come,
but they had cameos for Matt Mike Flanagan, and Katy Siegel.
Mike Flanagan does all like the Netflix like how House
on Hunting Hill. He's the director of Life of Chuck
and Doctor Sleep and stuff. And then Kate Siegel is
the actress that's in a bunch of his stuff. Also,
his wife threw me off because she has an Australian

(01:56:19):
accent in this, but she's not Australian. It's just won
those situations where it's her likeness but an actress is
doing it. So at first it's like, this looks a
lot like Kate Siegel, but like, I don't think it's her.
But then the next stop you do is to Mike Flanagan,
who is her husbands I'm like, okay, that was definitely
Kate Siegel then, and I didn't look online, but it's identical.

(01:56:40):
So big fan of that because I love his work.
He's one of my favorite directors right now. And and
he wrote the clay Face script recently, so and then
we're going to see Life of Chuck. Very it's very
like Des Randing, weird movie about life, but very good time.
And then the other thing is I can't remember if
the first game had this, didn't have the someone would
say something and whole pause and you can kind of

(01:57:01):
get the definition of the term.

Speaker 1 (01:57:03):
No, like the glossary term. Yeah, that that is an
amazing edition.

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
Yea, because like I said, Dylan has always said destinating
word salad. That is a thing, And even if someone
watching it, it's still nice to like, oh they said this,
I think I know this. Let me take a look,
and then boom, it brings you up. And even if
it's one thing, go okay, right, that's what that is.
So no, I really liked that addition. And again I
think that was that. I do think that was part

(01:57:27):
of the hindless of some criticism because people did say,
there's a lot of stuff in here and a lot
of terms and everything, and we went off a different track.
I forgot to say, I completely agree with you on
the doom stuff, and I think it gets worse as
it goes along. It felt like Sam having dooms in
the first game was a real big deal, like, oh
you got dooms where there's characters from the first and
it's not even a minor thing. There's the characters you

(01:57:48):
meet again from the first game, Like, yeah, and I
got some dooms, Like I don't think that was ever
said before, Like there's so many people that have dooms.
I was getting very bummed out by that because it
kind of made it. It's like, I mean to all
these I complained Taylor about where you know, stars movies, Luke, Skywalker,
Last Jedi, but then the animate said the books all
there is like twenty fifty jedis around. They just weren't

(01:58:10):
around fighting our fair. It's like, well, I at the
point of Lucas, he's supposed to be like the choke,
like he's the last one, and that's where I know
there was other people dooms, but I thought for Sam
that was a big deal. That's why why would you
go to Sam? He's a not a rebel, but he's
a rec loose. He doesn't exactly play well with others.
He doesn't want to be around people. You wouldn't want
him to be a reporter. But because he has dooms,
you kind of have to use them. But it's like apparently,

(01:58:32):
you know, hopskipping a jump, you're gonna bump into someone
with dooms that could help you out. So yeah, I
didn't enjoy that addition either.

Speaker 1 (01:58:38):
So yah, yeah, that that kind of reminds me of
that deep in the kind of north or the northeast
part of the map where you find like the mother,
the mother, the mother, yeah, the motherhood. And I forget
that actress's name, but she was in wasn't she in
like a Star Wars thing recently?

Speaker 2 (01:58:54):
She's a Jedipon ordered jed survivor. Yeah, she's there, and
she's in another thing too recently. So she's a lot
of gigs.

Speaker 1 (01:59:00):
So she has some crazy Doom's ability where she can
like reach into people's bodies and like you know, use
use that to take up bodies out. But she also
like pulls a bullet out of Sam, which I felt
like was a very strange scene.

Speaker 2 (01:59:13):
That was the bullet that Meal shot him with him
pretty sure, so the or I don't remember that, yeah,
because I don't know if you remember. That's how he's
uh repatriate or whatever. Is that she went back to
the beach and so she was to shoot Mad's Mickleson
because he's you know, doing bad stuff, lying trying to
get the baby bat there. She didn't know that he
was holding the baby, so that's how it killed Sam.

(01:59:36):
But she goes back, brings them back and then she
adopts Sam. So that bullet is from like that's the
same bolt that killed bad Mad Micholeson. So it's like
mich almost mentioned, Yeah, that's a slight reference to his
papa there.

Speaker 1 (01:59:49):
I missed that, thank you for So that's.

Speaker 2 (01:59:51):
What that signifies, as he said, kind of like like
people in war right back in the day when they
get shot, like they'd have bolts in them for years
if it didn't construct them or hurt them. So that
was like a nice little call back to uh, you know,
that's why he has that that gut wound to remember
if the bullet.

Speaker 1 (02:00:05):
So right right awesome? Okay, yeah, we will at some point.
I don't know if it'll be on a regular side
quest a week or if it'll just be a random
episode that drops with some spoiler discussion on story stuff,
but we will definitely do that in any other thoughts
we have with the game. You know, it's it's funny.
I was thinking back on Desk Turning one was a
game that you know, played a ship ton of we
did the review, like when we by the time we

(02:00:25):
did the review, that was different. We didn't have side
Quest on a weekly basis. We just did the review
when we were done with it, like as soon as
I like beat the game, and then like did a
couple more things. I lent the game to Kirkland and
then like, I don't think I ever revisited that because
like he had it for a few months. You know,
Kirklam takes his time with these games. He still he
might because I opened this case behind me and the
disc is not in there, so he might have.

Speaker 2 (02:00:46):
The day was playing it recently, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00:49):
But I but he had the director's cut addition, so
I feel like he bought it on something. But like,
I don't know where the disc. Maybe it's just in
my PS four. I'm not exactly sure, but not that
I'm gonna go back.

Speaker 2 (02:00:58):
And play like today, like in the house apart, I
forgot that I bought Strikers Digital on the Switch, but
I was like, where is this game? Like I found
every Switch game and I can't find them, Like, oh
my god, I have a digital dummy.

Speaker 1 (02:01:10):
So but yeah, I think you know, I bought this digital,
so I can't lend it to Kirkling this time. But
I feel like I'm gonna probably do a lot of
stuff in this game, more so than I did the
first time around, terms of doing more and more, and yeah,
because I had to go back to Mexico see. I
guess the story takes you back there, but just do
a bunch more stuff, and I feel like this is
a game. Probably we'll do a spoiler discussion, but I

(02:01:30):
will probably keep playing it throughout the year, and uh yeah,
I'm really curious to see where it lines up in
terms of the Game of the year stuff, how we feel.
I guess, did you want to throw a number on it?
You alluded to not give it a perfect score? Do
you want you want to? You want to do it
all with?

Speaker 2 (02:01:43):
So it's gonna say two. Even then, there's like some
weapons and stuff that now because I've done the game,
there are a couple like recover missions that that's where
I'm going. I'm gonna go try this out. Like there
is one I don't want to spoil. It's just like
a funny one tied to some thing. It's like that's
a very metal gear. Okay, snakes in a box. It's
that type of thing. Or this is stupid, but like
cool to try it out.

Speaker 1 (02:02:03):
So, oh yeah, that's pretty much what the coffin is.
I didn't think about that, but the coffin, you can
just go into the coffin. That's pretty much like a
solid snake box.

Speaker 2 (02:02:10):
Yeah, so it's even myself. I plan mostly doing deliveries,
but there's still a bunch of stuff I want to
try out, so I have new like gameplay stuff to
talk about. I'll probably be I'm gonna try to complete
every single thing here, like I'm gonna just try to hunt,
because I I think it's gonna be a game that
it's you can easily have like a few minutes of
downtime and maybe make a delivery and then be downe

(02:02:31):
with it, or at least make the trip. That's sometimes
what I do is like, hey, I'm gonna make this
trip and pause and be done for the night, because
then when I boot up, I'm on a main mission
right now. And that's sometimes just the journey. And we
mentioned the scoring soundtrack, but still every time love when
you're going a long journey and that score pops up
and then give you the sound and that's when you're like, Okay,
I'm going.

Speaker 1 (02:02:47):
To make playlists and stuff. You can set up your
own stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:02:50):
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so I'm a nine out of ten,
and I think mostly it's just the the one point
for the story stuff. I went back and forth to
nine point five, but then I so there's no story stuff.
There's just certain stuff of like the Neil and MADD's
missions very similar. There's just certain things we talk about
with the story and the gameplay not meshing. I think
there is a little bit of the easiness factor, which

(02:03:12):
I still love doing these things. But and again, I
guess I to you, maybe it's just that that first
game was harder for us because it was our first
time and it was not what we expected. We didn't
know what we're getting into. Were now it's like, okay,
I know what to do and what not to do
at least, so maybe that's just it right. So but yeah, nine,
so it doesn't reach the heights that this one will
be appearing on my top ten. I did really enjoy

(02:03:33):
it this time around. I do want a third game.
So it's funny where we were in the future, we're
des eRating one, like not absolutely this one was. Now
I'm like, okay, I.

Speaker 1 (02:03:41):
Which which continent do you want to go to next?

Speaker 2 (02:03:46):
Canada?

Speaker 1 (02:03:47):
Do you want to just go back to North America?

Speaker 2 (02:03:49):
So hopefully we can be phased at that point and
we can be.

Speaker 1 (02:03:51):
One of those like Canada can be the editorial area.
I know it's big, but at least give us Italy.

Speaker 2 (02:03:57):
That's where I'd like to go.

Speaker 1 (02:03:59):
Wow, that could be good tutorial area because it's kind
of small.

Speaker 2 (02:04:02):
Yeah, you're right, Yeah, so that could be.

Speaker 1 (02:04:03):
And then you could cross the water go up to
like Europe and get like a bit of a Western
Europe sort of area.

Speaker 2 (02:04:09):
Yeah. That or or maybe China, because man, something with
the Great Wall of China and a set piece that
could be some that could be some good.

Speaker 1 (02:04:20):
Yeah. I wonder what that would look like with the
time fall, how much it's decayed, and you can rebuild it,
just like you could build the highways of the monails
in this, you could rebuild the Great Wall.

Speaker 2 (02:04:28):
Yeah, it's I guess that's screen. We're one with China
or Japan. So that that's my thing is you start
off in Italy and he go to China.

Speaker 1 (02:04:35):
That it feels like Japan would eventually has got to
happen with obviously Kajima being Japanese and all that.

Speaker 2 (02:04:41):
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because he says he's not making
a third game. But that's where I don't know where he.

Speaker 1 (02:04:45):
Could say he was making a second game.

Speaker 2 (02:04:47):
I don't think he ever commented, but he said a
weird comment where he said, I'm not making a third game.
I got a concept for it, and if it happens,
someone else is gonna make it. So I don't know
what that means. I don't know if he's just kind
of teasing. I don't know if it is gonna be
a thing where with his product studio he'll let someone
else ship for that. I have a hard time believe that.
But maybe now that he sees other people working on
Salt Snake and you know that to stuff, maybe he says, Okay,

(02:05:08):
I'm over. Maybe he thought it was gonna be a
big deal, but no, I will talk spoilers, but not
very much. Want a third game now, and I think
there's some stuff that you could do that would be
also new with it. So yeah, I But overall it
said just because it's not the same ten as that
first one, I think that was gonna be hard to do.
Uh and again, also the same thing most of the
myke CON's worst story wise, So that's stuff that Kajima

(02:05:31):
could have worked on flesh out a bit but still
was a great time. It's gonna be hard unless there's
something else for this beat game of the Year for
me because I just love the loop I love. I
just love this world. I love the world kajimas. I
love the mental Girl world as well, but this I
have probably just because I'm older now and it just
I have more emotional attachment to this mental gear Salt

(02:05:52):
is like that yeah, badass cool action, like I'm gonna
see some really out there wild stuff where this feels
way more personal and melancholy. And I think maybe now
that mole, maybe if I play this game as ten,
maybe wouldn't have the same feeling, but as of old
are just it's hard not to go back into this
world and see everything. See I don't think this is

(02:06:12):
in the first game. We didn't mention it. Friendly porters
walk by and you can give there they're just CPUs,
but still you give the thumbs up and like you're
doing good out there, like just like I like that.
The game overall, with the likes is that's still stuff.
I like it. It's trying to enforce still like the
good in people and the good and being connected and
working together and stuff. So it's just a world I love.
And I really really really hope that A twenty four

(02:06:36):
nails that movie because I think and I don't know
what they do. I don't know if they adapt the
first game. I would recommend not doing that and just
telling a tale in this world. But I think there's
so many times, especially wait till you get to like
the last few chapters is still and there's some crazy,
crazy stuff that I'm just like, man, this is built
for the big screen. But yeah, nine to ten still
really enjoyed this game, have some minor quibbles, but loved

(02:06:58):
it for the most part.

Speaker 1 (02:07:00):
Yeah, I think we'll be getting at least a break,
you know, OD and Physicant. I would imagine all the
next games that we're going to see, Yeah, from I mean,
I think OD was announced before this game was.

Speaker 2 (02:07:09):
It was, Yes, so that should be next on the dock, and.

Speaker 1 (02:07:11):
I should be next. And from what I understand that
maybe is like a smaller thing, not maybe not a
fifty hour game. So we'll see what's happening there. Physic't
sounds weird as well.

Speaker 2 (02:07:19):
Right, we'll call it the hybrid game and movie thing,
right that.

Speaker 1 (02:07:22):
Yeah, we'll see what happens there. But it might be
might be a big weight now, especially just you know,
development times, yes, ballooning every year. It might be a while,
if ever, that we get a sequel to this game,
that we'll get like another director's cut thing where we
get like more content added to this like further down
the road. But uh, yeah, it's it's funny even I
haven't beat it yet. But like I, I'm kind of
in the same boat like I I, I would love

(02:07:44):
if we just got a desk rind in every six
seven years something like that, Like I feel like, revisit
it once again, bring the introspection out. How's my life
changed in these instance? Yea, But yeah, there's something so
unique about this gameplay and there's so much to it,
and I still have a ship time to discover in
this game. Uh and this one here on on the
freaking beach. So uh yeah, that's gonna be all for today.

(02:08:04):
Like I said, we will be back at some point
with some more spoiler discussion and then yeah, probably just
updates on side Quest as we play more of it
here and there. I'm sure, uh a year or two
from now, Kirkle will pick it up and your thoughts on.

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
It at that point here in the first twenty minutes
of side Quest, when what you've been playing, he'll he'll
talk about it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:21):
So yeah, and at at some point tay like, is
this game the first one's on Xbox? I think at
this point.

Speaker 2 (02:08:26):
It is now. I don't think it's on games Pass
or anything. I don't. I don't know. Tayo's a change
bad because I remember that game came out. You never
know how much of it's the place the Xbox. But
he's like, that doesn't interest me at all. But now
he's been like, oh, I've been thinking about trying out
some desk stranding. So yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:08:40):
It's I don't know where to get him off call
of duty, but if if we can, I think this, uh,
this would be a good one to get true get
him to do that for us. So we'll see. Uh.
Thank you everyon for listening, Thank you Travis for joining me,
and we will see you again next week. Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (02:08:53):
Get the get the Heart pan thumbs up

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