Speaker 1: Hello everyone. This week on GameSpot After Dark, we're joined
Speaker 1: by Will aka the Black Owning to talk about playing
Speaker 1: Metal Gear Solid in twenty twenty one CD Project Red
Speaker 1: being Held at Ransom, and TAM's adventures in Hollow Night
Speaker 1: Continue Enjoy.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to episode eighty of GameSpot After Dark.
Speaker 2: I'm your host Jake Decker, and joining me this week
Speaker 2: is Lucy James.
Speaker 1: Hello to more.
Speaker 2: Hussein Hello, and Will aka the Black One Hello.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: We're happy to have you here, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited.
Speaker 4: The early banter that we had was already.
Speaker 5: Fun and technical issues.
Speaker 2: Technical issues. Yeah, I feel like every week we I'm
Speaker 2: doing some different setup that makes everything really difficult for everyone.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's how it is. Sometimes you've got
Speaker 2: to refine the workflow exactly.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: I wrote a whole doc about it too, and it
Speaker 2: was very good, a six page document on how to
Speaker 2: produce and edit this podcast. I thought about sharing it
Speaker 2: with the Discord server because it might help people, but
Speaker 2: then I started to read through it and I was like,
Speaker 2: so much of this stuff is really specific that I
Speaker 2: don't know if it would be any help. But anyway, Will,
Speaker 2: where are you calling from? Out of curiosity?
Speaker 3: I'm calling from San Jose, California.
Speaker 2: Okay, close by then I'm Berkeley right now, Blue season,
Speaker 2: San Francisco to moors in Oakland.
Speaker 3: It's an all.
Speaker 2: Bay area right here. Yeah, same time, Not that it
Speaker 2: matters in twenty twenty one when everyone's in a zoom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who comes on wives?
Speaker 4: Maybe because I'm not trying to eat dinner well on
Speaker 4: the podcast.
Speaker 3: So that's nice, that's good. True.
Speaker 2: So normally we start off this podcast with what we've
Speaker 2: been playing, but we have a guest today, so we
Speaker 2: are going to start with the Chris from Dayton, Ohio segment.
Speaker 1: Awesome, you did the pause? Does that pause because you
Speaker 1: want us to do the song? Are we using?
Speaker 2: I was waiting for you guys to do this the song,
Speaker 2: but I will cut it anyway and use the Discord song.
Speaker 2: So that was a little unfair of me to just fine.
Speaker 1: I just want Will to know that we're gonna ambush.
Speaker 3: Him with beautiful song serenade me.
Speaker 1: So hang on, so throw it again again, and now.
Speaker 2: It's time for the Chris from Dayton, Ohio segment. On
Speaker 2: time right, Chris, Will, So the Chris from Daton, Ohio segment.
Speaker 2: I kind of explained it a little bit before we recorded,
Speaker 2: But the story behind it is that someone wrote into
Speaker 2: the podcast after like we had done like two or
Speaker 2: three episodes, and the question was, Hey, I'm enjoying the podcast,
Speaker 2: but I don't know who the hell you guys are,
Speaker 2: so tell me about yourself. And the question basically was like,
Speaker 2: what games are you playing? What games do you what
Speaker 2: games do you come back to often? What do you do?
Speaker 2: How did you get into streaming or whatever whatever it
Speaker 2: is you might be doing. Obviously, the writer was Chris
Speaker 2: from Dayton, Ohio. I don't think he's written in again,
Speaker 2: since I don't even know if he listens. I've called
Speaker 2: him out multiple times in this show, but I haven't
Speaker 2: gotten a response.
Speaker 5: So Chris, Chris from Ohio, if you're listening, let us know.
Speaker 3: This will be the episode the Oh my god, you're
Speaker 3: talking about me?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: You know what's his name in Red Dead? That guy
Speaker 5: walking around looking for his mate? Has anyone seen my
Speaker 5: friend Gavin? Has anyone seen Chris from day in Ohio?
Speaker 3: You would put out a SOS out here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the question is basically an easy one, define yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know, I already have written out, you know,
Speaker 4: I have the perfect answer.
Speaker 3: That's a lie.
Speaker 4: So a little bit about myself, Okay, In terms of
Speaker 4: games that I really like to play, I like action
Speaker 4: RPGs on a fundamental level. That's kind of what I
Speaker 4: gravitate towards the most. But I think there are a
Speaker 4: lot of really awesome games beyond that that I also
Speaker 4: like to share those experiences with others about. So that
Speaker 4: would be fighting games and shooters typically, but I love
Speaker 4: adventure games, I love some like traditional RPGs. Sometimes I
Speaker 4: even throw in puzzle games. You know, there's a really
Speaker 4: good example. I can think of Battle Chef, which was
Speaker 4: like an action puzzle game, which was.
Speaker 5: A game that was Chef Forrigade.
Speaker 4: Yes, phenomenal game, and it really just married the what
Speaker 4: I love so much about indie games, which is experimenting
Speaker 4: with things that you know, the Triple A's kind of
Speaker 4: pick up on later on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, anyway, aside from that, my favorite game of all
Speaker 4: time is Middle Gear Solid and yeah, yeah, it is
Speaker 4: an absolutely mind blowingly like amazing series and I am
Speaker 4: heartbroken at all the stuff that happened with Kojima productions.
Speaker 4: Kojima himself and Konami and all that kind of goes
Speaker 4: along with but even down to like when I first
Speaker 4: experienced playing Middle Gear Solid for the first time, going
Speaker 4: through that experience with my older brother, it changed me.
Speaker 4: It transformed me into someone who just kind of thought
Speaker 4: about video games as kind of this I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to say toy, but just like meant
Speaker 4: to be. It's very video gamey feel to things. Everything
Speaker 4: always felt like, Okay, now here's this boss battle, and
Speaker 4: here's this event, and here's this thing. Like it was
Speaker 4: like a very basic structure to a lot of the
Speaker 4: games that came before that, and that game kind of
Speaker 4: just twisted the idea of what games could and should
Speaker 4: be in a lot of cases, and it just kind
Speaker 4: of transformed the way I thought about games, but also
Speaker 4: about how I can grow into making stuff like that.
Speaker 5: There's like video games for a lot of people felt
Speaker 5: like an extension of the Arcade, right, Like, yes, everything
Speaker 5: they embodied for a really long time, even stuff like
Speaker 5: Super Mario Brothers, even Super Mario World, all those kind
Speaker 5: of games they were they felt like an extension of Arcade.
Speaker 5: Coin up. And then there's for certain people they have
Speaker 5: these games that feel like, oh, this is not an
Speaker 5: extension of okay, this is an extension of cinema and TV,
Speaker 5: and Metal Gear is one of those. I had the
Speaker 5: exact same experience. That's the game that did it for
Speaker 5: me as well. Yeah, yeah, I've got I've got two
Speaker 5: questions for you. When was firstly context this one? When
Speaker 5: was the last time you played Meta Solid?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, m I would say it's been like three years.
Speaker 5: Okay, how how many hours do you think it takes
Speaker 5: to beat Metal Gear Solid based on your memory?
Speaker 3: Like the first one?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the first one? How long do you remember playing
Speaker 5: that game for till you finished it?
Speaker 4: You know, that's such a great question. I've never tried
Speaker 4: to speed run the question. The games so context there.
Speaker 4: I've only ever played that game with just the idea
Speaker 4: of like exploring, experiencing, experiencing.
Speaker 5: Put an hour number on it that you think it
Speaker 5: would was.
Speaker 3: I would probably say like six hours.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can finish that game in five hours.
Speaker 3: It's wild.
Speaker 5: I did it on a stream and I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm going to settle in. I started streaming. I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna make a Metal Gets my first like marathon
Speaker 5: stream where I played loads of it. I finished it
Speaker 5: one saying and I was like, I forgot how short
Speaker 5: this game was. People go on about how long the
Speaker 5: cut scenes on and I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 5: done one one one stream.
Speaker 2: Secondly, is I have no excuse to play It's even
Speaker 2: on God too.
Speaker 3: That's why it Yeah, that's why.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about it and obviously being friends with the term.
Speaker 1: For so long, I've never played Metal Gets Solid and
Speaker 1: it is the huge It's my biggest shame. And so
Speaker 1: this year, in the year of not replaying stuff, is
Speaker 1: this my year that I go through and finally play
Speaker 1: every Metal Gets Solid.
Speaker 5: Oh Lucy, don't promise me thinks you can. Don't make
Speaker 5: promises you can't get.
Speaker 4: I would love to see and hear everything about that.
Speaker 4: I love introducing people to metal Gear because it's always
Speaker 4: you hear about it for so long you're like, all right,
Speaker 4: I want to know what that experience is is like
Speaker 4: for people who haven't played, who have heard about it
Speaker 4: for how long?
Speaker 3: Has it been? Almost so long?
Speaker 1: Like so okay, then this is my promise to you
Speaker 1: that by the next time I'm on the podcast, I
Speaker 1: do have a four day weekend this week, I will
Speaker 1: finish five of them. I will play the first one.
Speaker 5: The first one. Yeah, it's on good old games. If
Speaker 5: you want to play it. You can plug in a PC.
Speaker 5: You can plug in an Xbox controller, play secial controller.
Speaker 5: It's a little finicky, but it works your first time through.
Speaker 5: It might not be five hours. It'll probably be a
Speaker 5: little longer. Yeah. Yeah, but if you want, if you
Speaker 5: get annoyed with a certain situation, just tell me and
Speaker 5: I can help you for it easily. The first game
Speaker 5: is like you'll be like, oh, I see what this
Speaker 5: is going for and I can see where it is.
Speaker 5: The second game where when you play it, you're going
Speaker 5: to be like, excuse me, what is happening that a bit?
Speaker 5: That's that's the bit where you're gonna be like, you're
Speaker 5: telling me this was written in two thousand. Why does it?
Speaker 5: Why does every part of it make sense and is
Speaker 5: true right now to our lives? Yeah? How does how
Speaker 5: did they write? How did they write a script for
Speaker 5: twenty twenty?
Speaker 1: Like how Kajima wrote Death Stranding before? Yeah, twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: Everything that happens in Metal Gifts only two is like
Speaker 5: this is this isn't this is this is not cool?
Speaker 3: How how like pressure it is, this is real. It's
Speaker 3: like it's.
Speaker 5: Real, and it's like it's about things like corrupt presidents
Speaker 5: and memes and information, and it's about surveillance and it's
Speaker 5: about like social media being used to like cancel people
Speaker 5: and subvert society and it's like control them.
Speaker 3: And I was like, hey, I functioning on its own.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's just like excuse why excuse me? And
Speaker 5: then the third one is just like incredible.
Speaker 2: The third one is one of my favorite games of
Speaker 2: all time. And I haven't played one or two, but
Speaker 2: I've played all the other ones.
Speaker 5: The fourth one, the fourth one will teach you how
Speaker 5: to make the perfect sunny side up X.
Speaker 2: I will never forget that.
Speaker 5: And the fifth one is the best game I ever created.
Speaker 2: You and me?
Speaker 5: Are we are the same?
Speaker 3: One? Mind?
Speaker 5: How well? How do you feel about the rumor that
Speaker 5: Bluepoint is doing a remake.
Speaker 3: Of Ship Myself? Are you kidding me? All right?
Speaker 4: So one of the I've context I also run a podcast.
Speaker 4: I put a little bit of a high hiatus on
Speaker 4: it because this month has already been really crazy. Uh
Speaker 4: so we're going to pick it back up on March.
Speaker 4: On one of those episodes, I gave a pitch about
Speaker 4: what I would want the next meddal Gear Solid game
Speaker 4: to be, and in that pitch, I said, there was
Speaker 4: a game.
Speaker 3: By the name of The Division, I know many of
Speaker 3: you know about.
Speaker 4: It that had an idea to incorporate an app with
Speaker 4: it that would allow you to play with your friends
Speaker 4: without having to play the game. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 4: what if there was a way to incorporate that same
Speaker 4: thing into a metal Gear Solid game. But to take
Speaker 4: what they did with metal Gear Salid five, which was
Speaker 4: you know, a little bit of peace Walker and then
Speaker 4: like the new generation of stealth again, phenomenal stealth mechanics,
Speaker 4: Like holy shit, if you could bring that same idea
Speaker 4: of even making missions using your app or providing assistance
Speaker 4: recon assistance for teammates, and it's a cooperative experience, so
Speaker 4: everyone you pick up on a field, you can then
Speaker 4: bring them into the game and use them.
Speaker 3: In a four player cooperative thing.
Speaker 4: I feel like they try to do that with metal
Speaker 4: Gear Salad five, but they just ran out of time
Speaker 4: or budget or whatever.
Speaker 1: Am I imagining it? Or was there some thing they
Speaker 1: were trying to do with Silent Hills where they were
Speaker 1: trying to get phone connected and like there was your
Speaker 1: phone would ring or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So there was after after this is fairly recently
Speaker 5: that it was revealed, so it wasn't integrated into There
Speaker 5: was a I think it was like a patent or
Speaker 5: something like that, but there was documents where you would
Speaker 5: submit your certain information, like I think it was your
Speaker 5: phone number on your Twitter, and it would effectively incorporate
Speaker 5: that into the game. So you would get terrorized by
Speaker 5: someone phoning you. And the problem was like it it
Speaker 5: could have the potential to ruin lives, ye, like, and
Speaker 5: that could be an issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the time hit Man did that really terrible
Speaker 1: Facebook integration where you could put a target on someone
Speaker 1: Facebook friends with assassinate them over Facebook, and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I I My dream for one is
Speaker 5: for Bluepoint to do that game. My dream is for
Speaker 5: like Sony to purchase Bluepoint, then go to Konami and
Speaker 5: be like, here's some money, we own all your ship
Speaker 5: now and then and then like and then Bluepoint becomes
Speaker 5: the new Konomy and they get they get Metal Gear,
Speaker 5: they get Castlevania, they get a bunch of other franchise.
Speaker 5: One of the enders just let them or even it's
Speaker 5: like we we will we won't buy these franchises from you.
Speaker 5: We will license all these franchises and that's it. And
Speaker 5: I feel like Sony in a year where where they
Speaker 5: where they have a brand new console, or in a
Speaker 5: generation where they have a band new console and their
Speaker 5: whole thing is exclusive that no one else can get.
Speaker 5: I think they I think they have had to have
Speaker 5: gone to Konami with a big bag and been like,
Speaker 5: we'll take Metal Gear you. All you have to do
Speaker 5: is take this money, give us sign these contracts, will
Speaker 5: take care of the rest of it. They go to
Speaker 5: Blue Point and tell them this is your job.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: They bring in Kajima and go Kajima every two weeks,
Speaker 5: pop in to a zoom call. Just you just let
Speaker 5: them know, just tell us if we're doing anything stupid
Speaker 5: there or like any changes you want, and the rest
Speaker 5: of it is done and then executive produced by Hideo Kajima.
Speaker 5: I'll get solid done again.
Speaker 3: I am so here for that.
Speaker 5: And then they make the Frankiegger game after that, which
Speaker 5: is like, yes, yes, that's what we need.
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 4: I want to see the original Metal Gears as well,
Speaker 4: make the transition into this new generation, so like I
Speaker 4: would I know what happened, but I never actually played
Speaker 4: Meddle Gear one and two but not not not seriously,
Speaker 4: So if we could see that, oh my god.
Speaker 5: Dude, me sorry everyone, it's.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, it's not Yes, this is.
Speaker 3: What we normally do.
Speaker 5: Metal Gear one in the five engine would be incredible
Speaker 5: because like the whole thing with that ending connecting directly
Speaker 5: to metal Gear fives ending connecting directly to metal Gear
Speaker 5: one is like how that would have been. You have
Speaker 5: to believe that it would have been the next thing
Speaker 5: they did, like the next thing and just didn't happen.
Speaker 5: We got we got Death Rounding instead, which is a
Speaker 5: great game.
Speaker 2: But still, you know, yeah, you know what I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get off on a tange here. But you know what
Speaker 2: they should have had in death training. They should have
Speaker 2: had podcasts that you can listen to in game and
Speaker 2: death training like you could and metal Gear Solid four.
Speaker 5: Yes, ironically that would have been pretty cool. Metal Guest
Speaker 5: Solid four having podcasts was amazing. There was a just
Speaker 5: just like.
Speaker 2: Sitting like a blown out in a blown out house
Speaker 2: while enemies are crawling you just be there listening to
Speaker 2: like comment whatever it was.
Speaker 5: It was, it was Lucy, it was Ken was on it,
Speaker 5: uh and uh on the Metal Guest Solid podcast. No,
Speaker 5: there was a series of Kajima Productions podcasts with Ken,
Speaker 5: Kenny Trey, and Mazumi who who we know? And I
Speaker 5: think there were a couple of other developers from the
Speaker 5: studio as well. And I think Mark McDonald from previously
Speaker 5: eight to four, I don't know think I think he's
Speaker 5: still at you four. I can't remember where he's at,
Speaker 5: but like you know, uh, they one of them was
Speaker 5: on it as well, and like it was always people
Speaker 5: playing Monster Hunter and talking up out developing games. Ryan
Speaker 5: Payton was on it as well, because Ryan Payton who
Speaker 5: who now is that camouflage working on the Iron Man
Speaker 5: game or whatever they're doing now. But he before he
Speaker 5: was at Microsoft working at Halo, he was at Konami
Speaker 5: Kajuma Productions. He's the one credited for changing Circle an
Speaker 5: x on in Metal Gear Games to front cancel to
Speaker 5: you know thing, because he was like, stop this. Everyone
Speaker 5: in the West is confused by this change it and
Speaker 5: we were, we were, But yeah, they should have had
Speaker 5: podcasts in there. They should bring that back.
Speaker 3: That'd be sick anyway.
Speaker 2: Else you're like, yeah, we should probably move on, but
Speaker 2: before I do that, I do want to know how
Speaker 2: you got into streaming and what kind of other stuff
Speaker 2: you do and how you got into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, So I started streaming through a charity event with
Speaker 4: one of my really good friends. You may have heard
Speaker 4: of him, Andy Lunique. Yeah, so on Twitter with the
Speaker 4: food and all that, and I actually had an opportunity
Speaker 4: to do a little product with him recently for.
Speaker 1: Andy's food tweets. Yeah, combined with Yusuf's tweets for me.
Speaker 1: Soft of them just make incredible food and post about
Speaker 1: you all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I go on Twitter expecting to feel sad, but instead
Speaker 1: I just come away feeling hungry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which then makes you sad, which kind of puts
Speaker 4: you into the whole cycle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it happens.
Speaker 4: I have the opportunity and fortunate of having his food
Speaker 4: many times. So yeah, he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 5: I call that like, I call that loop the diabetes
Speaker 5: infinite where he just gets sad but you're trapped in
Speaker 5: this like Marvel versus Capcom style infinite, Like I can't
Speaker 5: get out.
Speaker 4: Of this, well just because I'll put the controller down.
Speaker 4: But it was through that event that I really Before then,
Speaker 4: I had been making YouTube videos, but it was just
Speaker 4: kind of there was no real super strategy around it.
Speaker 4: It was just more like, Hey, here are the things
Speaker 4: that I'm doing. I love talking about games and review
Speaker 4: doing them and blah blah blah. And so at the time,
Speaker 4: he wasn't working in games yet, but he had just
Speaker 4: gotten a job at Sandbox Strategies. He was like, Yo,
Speaker 4: I would love for you to come by and really
Speaker 4: see you know what streaming is all about, because I've
Speaker 4: been trying to tell you for a while, like you'd
Speaker 4: be really great for streaming. And we did that event.
Speaker 4: It was a twenty four hour event for Extra Life.
Speaker 4: We raised a bunch of money and it was just
Speaker 4: like this really beautiful community event that we were using
Speaker 4: our love and nerdom for gaming to help people, helped
Speaker 4: kids specifically, And it was kind of around that time
Speaker 4: when I was just like, all right, I get it.
Speaker 4: I want to do this more. And I just started.
Speaker 4: I got my PS four, you know, I had my camera.
Speaker 4: I just went live one day and it just kind
Speaker 4: of spiraled into the situation where I started meeting people
Speaker 4: within the industry but also you know, other streamers as well,
Speaker 4: and I already had the connections I made through making
Speaker 4: YouTube content and going to events and as press, but
Speaker 4: as a small press obviously, and that was kind of
Speaker 4: how everything started. And then from there on, Like at
Speaker 4: this point, I don't even feel like I would want
Speaker 4: to stop streaming at any point because it's become such
Speaker 4: a beautiful community thing of sharing what I love with
Speaker 4: other people and also having them share what they love
Speaker 4: with me, and being ingrained in that whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's just been really awesome.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of the barebones version of how I
Speaker 4: got started as a streamer. And then there were two
Speaker 4: other people who were really really influential and kind of
Speaker 4: helping me understand the difference between just streaming for fun
Speaker 4: and then like really structuring what I'm doing and really
Speaker 4: looking at the overall Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, whatever it is,
Speaker 4: looking at that whole thing holistically. And it was a
Speaker 4: DJ Knight and he went by DJ tech Live before,
Speaker 4: but he's Technique now. The two of them we're all
Speaker 4: really close still to this day. And this happened like
Speaker 4: what five or six years ago, and they they really
Speaker 4: helped me understand what could be possible with the medium
Speaker 4: and beyond that I don't know if I even mentioned
Speaker 4: it now. I mentioned it before we started recording. But
Speaker 4: I'm an artist too, so I'm a graphic designer and illustrator.
Speaker 4: So I have an opportunity to then take my experiences
Speaker 4: as an artist and apply that to live streams and
Speaker 4: discussions within gaming as well. Where I can take you know,
Speaker 4: I can pick out individual things about games that I'm
Speaker 4: playing and say, this is a really big deal because
Speaker 4: they're using dramatic lighting here to really let you feel
Speaker 4: what's happening, and this last of us, you know, to
Speaker 4: moment like if the lighting was any different, the whole
Speaker 4: mood would have been different. So we have conversations like
Speaker 4: that within the game streams as well as the discussions,
Speaker 4: and that really allows me to just have a unique
Speaker 4: perspective about the games that I play on stream.
Speaker 1: That's really cool.
Speaker 2: Did you ever do like, do you ever stream your art,
Speaker 2: like your art process when you do that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2: Because I find those streams very relaxing.
Speaker 4: I guess yeah, yeah, I have done them a bunch
Speaker 4: of times. This is going to be a shot at Apple,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say it anyway. They make really great hardware,
Speaker 4: they make software that works for the very specific things
Speaker 4: you want to do with them, but when it comes
Speaker 4: to streaming from them, it.
Speaker 3: Is This is where it was going very frustrating.
Speaker 4: So I have everything between like alerts to soundboards to
Speaker 4: obs decided to just completely not work anymore, to stream
Speaker 4: labs obs not being a thing until probably a few
Speaker 4: months ago.
Speaker 3: They were just not.
Speaker 4: Being able to use the audio card in the system
Speaker 4: without third party software to give it acts.
Speaker 3: It's just so all that to say.
Speaker 4: I do art streams now, but I was doing them
Speaker 4: a long time ago. Before then I stopped because of
Speaker 4: all the complications, and I'm starting to do them up
Speaker 4: again now.
Speaker 5: So Tim Cook, if you listen, get your shit together.
Speaker 3: Get your shit together now.
Speaker 2: Well, with that, we should probably talk about what we've
Speaker 2: been playing. So I am going to sit this one
Speaker 2: out because I haven't really been playing much that I
Speaker 2: can talk about necessarily, and also I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of a move, so I haven't had much time. But
Speaker 2: with all that, Lucy, what have you been up to
Speaker 2: this week?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: I finished the medium last weekend, so I was about
Speaker 1: halfway through where we talked about it last time I
Speaker 1: was on the podcast and you said, how do you
Speaker 1: think it's dealing with a couple of the heavier themes.
Speaker 1: Turns out I hadn't got there yet.
Speaker 2: I haven't finished it yet, Okay.
Speaker 1: I overall, I, like I said last time, a really
Speaker 1: great like sort of triple a double game, the likes
Speaker 1: of which you don't really get anymore. I really like
Speaker 1: the puzzle solving for me. It was kind of the
Speaker 1: right level of stress with which I could deal with
Speaker 1: at the minute, if that makes sense in a horror
Speaker 1: game like I could just I could just sit down
Speaker 1: and blast th a couple hours and were go. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's stuck the landing it all. I think
Speaker 1: it got a bit confused with itself. There was some
Speaker 1: stuff that I thought was really cool. There was some
Speaker 1: story beats. But over I mean overall, I liked it.
Speaker 1: I just was I think at the ending also outstated
Speaker 1: to welcome a bit. However, I started on Little Nightmares
Speaker 1: too this lunchtime, so I've literally played an hour and
Speaker 1: I totally missed the first one. And I'm now kicking
Speaker 1: myself because it just is a mix of limbo and inside.
Speaker 1: And while we're waiting for play Dead to do something new,
Speaker 1: there's this. It's great and I'm really enjoying it. But
Speaker 1: like I said, only an hour in, but I sat
Speaker 1: and just was enthralled the whole time. You know, I
Speaker 1: love it. And it's a puzzle game with minimal handholding,
Speaker 1: minimal dialogue any of that. Also, it's just creepy as hell,
Speaker 1: but it has little Ico moments in that you're kind
Speaker 1: of going around with another little kid and there's a
Speaker 1: button where you can hold their hand, and you know,
Speaker 1: the two of you are sort of running through grass
Speaker 1: and I just you know, it's Ico's twentieth anniversary. They
Speaker 1: have a it's a big anniversary for Fiveico this year.
Speaker 2: Eco.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I was excu I know, I know it's ego.
Speaker 1: That's one thing about me is that I'm very bad
Speaker 1: with Like you know, when you see words written down
Speaker 1: over and over again and you kind of think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is how I pronounce it, and then you say
Speaker 1: out loud you realize you're an idiot.
Speaker 2: Though it was just an accent thing.
Speaker 1: Now Eco, it is the twentieth anniversary this year, and
Speaker 1: so instead of replaying ECO playing Little Nightmas too, do.
Speaker 2: You think you'll go back and play one?
Speaker 1: I think I might, You know, I yeah, people, I
Speaker 1: remember people really enjoying one, and I just never got
Speaker 1: around to it. So yeah, I'm kind of in like
Speaker 1: a sort of soft horror, bit gross soft horror. I
Speaker 1: mean there are some there is some gross stuff in
Speaker 1: Little Nightmares. There is just body parts all over the place.
Speaker 1: There's there's a really weird like dinner table scene that
Speaker 1: you walk through where they've got like this big I
Speaker 1: don't even know what they're supposed to be. They look
Speaker 1: like wax but with like big huge bubbles of it
Speaker 1: coming out of their face and they look like they're stuffed.
Speaker 5: And it's the first game. The first game holds up
Speaker 5: really well, like it's it's really gorgeous, like the art
Speaker 5: technically like beautiful. When the sound is like like sometimes
Speaker 5: you have to like turn up the volume because you know,
Speaker 5: and turned to leant down the lights and get into
Speaker 5: the mood. It's such a good game to play. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm excited for you to play the best one as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but other than that, I'm halfway through season four
Speaker 1: of The Expense. You might remember that I started The
Speaker 1: Expense maybe three weeks ago, so that's how that's going.
Speaker 1: It's really good.
Speaker 2: You also put the medium down in your what you've
Speaker 2: been playing. What are your thoughts on it so far?
Speaker 3: So I feel like I'm only halfway through.
Speaker 4: I ended up going on a vacation like winter getaway
Speaker 4: thing with a couple of people. It was all, you know,
Speaker 4: we got tested before we went on the trip, so
Speaker 4: it's not like we're just irresponsibly, just really nearly going around.
Speaker 4: I actually quick short story, I actually had to like
Speaker 4: ask one of the flight attendants to tell someone to
Speaker 4: put their mask on in the plane on the way
Speaker 4: back because he just got on without the shit on
Speaker 4: it at all.
Speaker 3: So like, I take that very seriously, But I.
Speaker 2: Sorry, what was flying like just to It's like other
Speaker 2: than that, because it's something I've been so curious about
Speaker 2: and it's something I I'll probably have to do soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is nerve wracking for me because again, I
Speaker 4: know some people out there just don't take it seriously,
Speaker 4: and that drives me insane because obviously in a situation
Speaker 4: where they're on this enclosed space that they do have
Speaker 4: like the same air, they do have medical grade ventilators
Speaker 4: that they've like made sure work for combating that, but
Speaker 4: even still like it stresses me out because again I
Speaker 4: just no one none of us.
Speaker 3: Knows what these people's lives are like outside of that.
Speaker 3: So there's that you.
Speaker 2: Know, we need.
Speaker 5: You'll know you know what I'm talking about here, will
Speaker 5: you know? Do you remember recently it was like over
Speaker 5: the last two years, people started bringing arcade sticks. It
Speaker 5: was like the kof community they used to. They started
Speaker 5: bringing arcade sticks that were normal arcade sticks, but they
Speaker 5: had like a wall on one side so the other
Speaker 5: person couldn't see. Like it was really fascinating the like
Speaker 5: because sometimes when you're sitting next to each other, when
Speaker 5: you see a hand movement, like when you're when you're
Speaker 5: when you play enough fighting games, you're like instinctively react.
Speaker 5: So people started putting up walls so you couldn't tell
Speaker 5: when someone was moving their hand and react to it.
Speaker 5: Just just like massive walk around, just sit down, but
Speaker 5: just take the arcade stick with the wall. So like
Speaker 5: you sit down and just put out an arcade stick
Speaker 5: and the wall appears, and people are like, what's going on.
Speaker 5: Practicing combos start a business.
Speaker 3: On a plane. Yeah, uh well yeah, it's is nerve wracking. Uh.
Speaker 3: They try their best to space people.
Speaker 4: Out if the flights aren't full, but uh, they tend
Speaker 4: to make some of them full depending on what's going on.
Speaker 4: Like I know Christmas, they were just packing them in
Speaker 4: and that was really weird. But yeah, I've only flown
Speaker 4: I think twice since the pandemic hit, and I didn't
Speaker 4: want to do it either time, but you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: you just have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been weird because normally, like we travel a
Speaker 2: lot for work, like multiple times a year, and I
Speaker 2: have not been to an airport in over a year now,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's it's weird. It's a weird feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the airport has always stressed me out, Like I've
Speaker 4: always felt this like uncomfort with being in the airport
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 2: Until I sit down by my gate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, stressed, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the medium, the.
Speaker 4: Medium, Yes, I feel like I kind of understand some
Speaker 4: of the points that Lucy was just saying about how
Speaker 4: it doesn't stick everything, but where I'm at, like the puzzle.
Speaker 4: This actually ties into one of the other things we'll
Speaker 4: talk about later. But the puzzle that I had just
Speaker 4: got off of and I was like I was stuck
Speaker 4: on it for like a half hour. I had to
Speaker 4: have been at least that long. It crashed in the
Speaker 4: middle like twice while I was trying to do it.
Speaker 4: So there was like, why is this game crashing? Like
Speaker 4: it's not like mind blowing technical in any you know.
Speaker 2: Are you on PC?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, I've heard.
Speaker 4: I've heard there's been issues on PC stuttering and crashing
Speaker 4: just randomly.
Speaker 3: You're not doing anything. I'm just walking down the hall.
Speaker 1: But not even in the split mode, just like regular
Speaker 1: walking down the hall.
Speaker 3: One was a regular walking down the hall.
Speaker 4: One wasn't split mode, and I don't know if the
Speaker 4: other one was too, but they get crashed like three
Speaker 4: times total. But yeah, there was one puzzle that was
Speaker 4: just like really clumsily done. I had solved the puzzle,
Speaker 4: but because something wasn't literally lined up by.
Speaker 1: A pixel you know, wait, wait, wait is this the
Speaker 1: exact puzzle that Jake called out?
Speaker 2: Like, which which.
Speaker 1: Puzzle was it?
Speaker 3: There was a globe and it was moving and you.
Speaker 2: Know talking about it's where like the globe moves the
Speaker 2: room around.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had moved it in position like several times
Speaker 4: and tried to walk through that area and it just
Speaker 4: wasn't letting me. So I'm like, I guess I'm just
Speaker 4: not supposed to go out here, and it was literally
Speaker 4: like it just needed to move like a pixel over more.
Speaker 4: And I was like, this is bad, this is subjectively bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of them. I am at the stage now
Speaker 1: where I won't spend ages like trying to figure out
Speaker 1: a puzzle anymore. Like I will just immediately go to
Speaker 1: Google and type in things like medium chair which one
Speaker 1: or something if I get stuck.
Speaker 2: But like never played Baba as You, because god, you
Speaker 2: could spend hours and hours and hours and hours on puzzles.
Speaker 1: And I did buy Boba as You it was on
Speaker 1: sale recently.
Speaker 2: It is hard, oh man.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I there were a few puzzles in the
Speaker 1: Medium where either it just wasn't either I'd done it
Speaker 1: in the quote unquote wrong way and the game had
Speaker 1: a very prescribed vision of what it wanted me to do,
Speaker 1: or it would just randomly worn something in like not
Speaker 1: in a different area, but like close to me but
Speaker 1: not logically, yes, something should be there's one. There's one
Speaker 1: at the very end where you're following the little butterflies
Speaker 1: around and I was looking for the last bit of
Speaker 1: the puzzle because I couldn't progress any further. And then
Speaker 1: I looked it up and it was literally like pulled
Speaker 1: out like behind me, and I was like, what wasn't there.
Speaker 4: That happened with one of the I'll just say the threats,
Speaker 4: one of the threats of a stealth segment, like they
Speaker 4: were just going in the wrong path, and someone in
Speaker 4: chat was like, that wasn't supposed to happen. It was
Speaker 4: a really weird situation. I was like, well, I did it,
Speaker 4: so whatever.
Speaker 2: What do you think of the story in setting so far?
Speaker 4: I didn't know where it was going to go for
Speaker 4: the longest time. I'll say for sure that there were
Speaker 4: a lot of unexpected things that happened in it, and
Speaker 4: the reveals were pretty good. The settings themselves were eerie.
Speaker 4: They had a really good amount of atmosphere to them,
Speaker 4: and the shifting between the world made for some inventive moments,
Speaker 4: and I, yeah, I think that was my cats haunted.
Speaker 3: As soon as I say that, I'm like, ah, what's happening?
Speaker 4: But overall, I think they did a good job of
Speaker 4: kind of like invoking that like uneasy feeling out of
Speaker 4: you in a lot of those areas without necessarily being
Speaker 4: like too grotesque the whole time. But you know, there's
Speaker 4: a character I don't want to spoil it too much.
Speaker 4: But there's a young character who appears at some point
Speaker 4: who was like, who encapsulates that perfectly where it's like
Speaker 4: you have the duality going on with personality and also
Speaker 4: like aesthetic and it's just like, WHOA, Like I feel uneasy,
Speaker 4: but I know I'm supposed to feel uneasy, but I
Speaker 4: also feel like endeared in the moment. It did that really.
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, I know it'sen You're talking about that early on,
Speaker 2: and I did really like that scene because I would
Speaker 2: do the same exact emotions. When I saw it, I
Speaker 2: was like, WHOA. As you get to know the character,
Speaker 2: you feel more endeared.
Speaker 3: Like what you're saying, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: More how about you?
Speaker 1: What have you?
Speaker 5: I'm going to keep mind quick because it's not that
Speaker 5: different from last week I started. I carried on playing
Speaker 5: Hollow Night. Well, I restarted Hollow Night on PC because
Speaker 5: I started streaming it after my embarrassingly short Metal Gear stream,
Speaker 5: which I planned for multiple weeks on. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna play Hollow Night. And I started again
Speaker 5: and I'm getting more into it. I want to correct
Speaker 5: some things that I said last week. I don't know why,
Speaker 5: like but one of the things I think I mentioned
Speaker 5: was the inability to move while using a map, and
Speaker 5: I swear I tried to do that so many times
Speaker 5: on the SWITCH version and I remember being annoyed by it.
Speaker 5: But I did it on PC and it was fine.
Speaker 5: Like you can move very slowly while using the map,
Speaker 5: and I've unlocked a few more kind of items that
Speaker 5: make it a bit easier get around. Still not ideal,
Speaker 5: Still a bit frustrating, but it's better now. It's less
Speaker 5: of an issue for me, or maybe I just kind
Speaker 5: of got over it and quite being a baby about it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I beat the first boss and it was
Speaker 5: it was pretty good. It was like, surprisingly, I can
Speaker 5: feel my soul's kind of like experience translating over pretty well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I played maybe like four or five hours of
Speaker 5: that and I'm enjoying it. The world still hasn't grabbed me.
Speaker 5: The music is phenomenal, Like the music is so good
Speaker 5: in that game, and it feels really good as well
Speaker 5: to move. It's got like a really nice momentum and
Speaker 5: kind of inertia to moving the character around. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm just like playing through that streaming every I play
Speaker 5: like one or two hours every time. I stream, and
Speaker 5: my streams are usually like abrupt, like no schedule to
Speaker 5: it right now, because I'm just like, yeah, whenever I'm boord,
Speaker 5: I'll just stream, so like I get maybe like ten
Speaker 5: people being in there being like, oh you're streaming, playing
Speaker 5: a bit hold. And also my internet sucks, so sometimes
Speaker 5: I'll start streaming and I'll be like, people are like,
Speaker 5: why is this running in two hundred and seventy e
Speaker 5: three P.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I'm like, blame Sonic Internet. They suck. But yeah, for
Speaker 5: the most part, it's fine and yeah, so I'm enjoying that.
Speaker 5: I also started watching The expanse Yes, which is I
Speaker 5: watched one episode and I like I got enough out
Speaker 5: of it to be like, yeah, I can continue watching this.
Speaker 5: I didn't know Thomas Jane was in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if Jane Jane isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know if he's going to stick around.
Speaker 5: His character is really crap. His acting is also very crap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not my favorite.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's like he's like a ship blade runner right now.
Speaker 5: It's just like walking around and being really lame. But like,
Speaker 5: I like, I like where it's going and I can
Speaker 5: feel the Battlestar Slash massive effect vibes through it, So
Speaker 5: I'm to keep digging into it and watching a bit
Speaker 5: more of that and beyond that update on a persona
Speaker 5: five still playing it still in She Does Palace. I
Speaker 5: finally I finally beaten that I've sent the calling card.
Speaker 5: Now She Does Palace, I can finally get beyond it,
Speaker 5: which I'm hoping to do fairly soon. I see Jake
Speaker 5: every now and then on playing it, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I should do that too. Usually I start playing it
Speaker 5: because I see Jake is playing it. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I should do that as well.
Speaker 2: The Taste Maker, Yeah I met a palace now, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm catching up to you tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm so close to the new content I can
Speaker 5: taste it. And I had a I fought the battle
Speaker 5: before the set o Boss bellt I'm not going to
Speaker 5: say who it is in case anybody because that's a
Speaker 5: big twist, but I remember that I spoiled something.
Speaker 2: I'm going to bleep out the palace name of what I.
Speaker 5: Just yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe you should bleep out the
Speaker 5: sheet of it as well. But like that boss fight,
Speaker 5: I did that boss fight that I did, I remember
Speaker 5: it being way harder the first time in Vanilla Persona five,
Speaker 5: because this time I did it and I was like, well,
Speaker 5: I just run a train on you. Suck.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing that the whole game is
Speaker 1: much easier except for that one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's the.
Speaker 1: That one.
Speaker 5: That one is is like it's genuinely broken. Like the
Speaker 5: way you make that, you make that boss fight doable
Speaker 5: is to turn it onto the hardest difficulty and then
Speaker 5: exploit the weaknesses.
Speaker 1: That's what I do. Because you do you take way
Speaker 1: more damage, but you also do weigh more damage if
Speaker 1: you exploit weaknesses, and that entire boss fight is like
Speaker 1: you have to exploit every weakness and kill them all
Speaker 1: in the same turn.
Speaker 5: Is Yeah, it's one of them ones. But it's like
Speaker 5: if you get unlucky and get wiped out, you're starting
Speaker 5: all over again. But yeah, I'm slowly trucking through that.
Speaker 5: It's good. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, And I also bought
Speaker 5: myself a graphics tablet and I started drawing again. Fun.
Speaker 3: Hey I'm here for this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I bought a this This podcast is not sponsored
Speaker 5: by Hueyon, but I bought Inspira Hate six for ep.
Speaker 5: It's a basic one I had to walk on when
Speaker 5: I was in the UK, and I used to draw
Speaker 5: way more when I was younger, like when I was
Speaker 5: in college and university and desperately struggling with what my
Speaker 5: what I'm going to do with life? I was like,
Speaker 5: I could do art. I like art, and I was
Speaker 5: like really into drawing, and then I dropped off. And
Speaker 5: now I'm in a stage where I'm like I need
Speaker 5: things to make me feel happy again. So I was like,
Speaker 5: I'm going to get back into art. So I started
Speaker 5: messing with drawing again and it's fun. Yeah. My I
Speaker 5: realized that I've lost every skill that I had, Like
Speaker 5: I can't foreshorten for shit anymore. My abortions suck, Like.
Speaker 4: It's one of those things that we don't think about
Speaker 4: being hard until you're doing it, and things like shit,
Speaker 4: like you have to play so many tricks on your
Speaker 4: brain to This is one of the things I love
Speaker 4: about art though, But you have to play so many
Speaker 4: tricks on your brain to like break down when it
Speaker 4: is that you're seeing, yeah, to then represent that to
Speaker 4: someone else that they see what you're seeing. So like
Speaker 4: everything down to color, like our eyes constantly adjust so
Speaker 4: we interpret things in nighttime as being red. It's like,
Speaker 4: I know this is red because I know the conditions
Speaker 4: of where I am and what's happening around me, that
Speaker 4: this is red. But if you paint it, it's like
Speaker 4: a bluish purple but not red, like.
Speaker 3: Not the same at all.
Speaker 4: So you have to like constantly be telling your brain,
Speaker 4: make this purple, make this burgundy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the beat red, like right, you know.
Speaker 2: I went to school for film and I remember learning
Speaker 2: about light color and that reminds me a lot of
Speaker 2: that because that's something I literally never thought about until
Speaker 2: I took that class. And it was like, oh wait,
Speaker 2: like that's an orange light back there, and daylight is
Speaker 2: more bluish and like there is actually competing light in
Speaker 2: most rooms you're in, Like right now, my camera doesn't
Speaker 2: really know what what's white and what isn't because that white,
Speaker 2: it's it's fascinating stuff. But that made me think of.
Speaker 5: That, Yeah, and like as part of that, I've started
Speaker 5: also trying to watch more like drawing streams and drawing
Speaker 5: YouTube videos and just because you on art TikTok, yet
Speaker 5: I have been on art TikTok.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I can't draw for shit, and yet I
Speaker 1: want art TikTok and I love it.
Speaker 5: The problem the problem I found with art TikTok is
Speaker 5: I when I watch I like the process as in
Speaker 5: like both like the time lap stuff and also like
Speaker 5: the struggle to get something right. With art TikTok, they
Speaker 5: do that thing where they're like they put a pen
Speaker 5: to the page and then or like the tablet or
Speaker 5: screen and they draw a line and then they do
Speaker 5: like a handwipe and it's like crash Man play some
Speaker 5: dubstep and there's this amazing thing that I'm like, that sucks,
Speaker 5: Like you want to see the process. I don't want
Speaker 5: to see like a line and then you've created this
Speaker 5: piece of art Like yeah, that's not great, like but
Speaker 5: like YouTube is way more like that, and Twitch as
Speaker 5: well you get to see even slower, like the whole
Speaker 5: step by step process and see how they got to
Speaker 5: where they are. And the part of wartic Took I
Speaker 5: like is like where they're like, oh you can use
Speaker 5: this tool to do this thing, or you know, you
Speaker 5: can think about drawing in this way and like breaking down,
Speaker 5: Oh this is how you draw a finger or something
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we should probably move on to topics because
Speaker 2: we are running out of time and we are back
Speaker 2: with topics this week. First up we have is the
Speaker 2: cyberpunk twenty seventy seven City Project Read was hacked and
Speaker 2: then held it ransom. This is quite the story, and
Speaker 2: it still seems to be developing in some sense, but
Speaker 2: City Project put out an official statement saying yesterday we
Speaker 2: discovered that we have become victim of a targeted cyber attack,
Speaker 2: due to which some of our internal systems have been compromised.
Speaker 2: An unidentified actor gained unauthorized access to our internal network,
Speaker 2: collected certain data belonging to CD Project Reads Capital Group,
Speaker 2: and left a ransom note to the content of which
Speaker 2: which we released to the public. There's another note that
Speaker 2: they showed as well in this tweet. Although some devices
Speaker 2: in our network have been encrypted, our backups remain intact.
Speaker 2: We've already secured our it infrastructure and began restoring. We
Speaker 2: will not give into the demands nor negotiate with the actor,
Speaker 2: being aware that this may eventually lead to the release
Speaker 2: of compromised data. We are taking We are taking necessary
Speaker 2: steps to mitigate the consequences of such release, in particular
Speaker 2: by approaching any parties that might be effected due to
Speaker 2: the breach. We are still investigating the incident. However, at
Speaker 2: this time we can converm to the best of our knowledge,
Speaker 2: the compromised systems did not contain any personal data to
Speaker 2: our players or users of our services. We have already
Speaker 2: approached the relevant authorities, including law enforcement and the President
Speaker 2: of Personal Data Protection Office, as well as the IT
Speaker 2: forensic specialists, and we will closely cooperate with them to
Speaker 2: fully investigate this incident. They've had a not great couple
Speaker 2: of months.
Speaker 5: Which is a City Project read has been very much
Speaker 5: the case of soaring highers crushing lows lately, hasn't it
Speaker 5: like which Soaring highs gent a High and then cyberpunk
Speaker 5: and this absolutely crushing low. I love the message that
Speaker 5: the hacker left behind though, Hello, City Project, You've.
Speaker 2: Been epically pouned, just like, oh mind.
Speaker 5: My dad's again in portrait Now he's writing a hacker
Speaker 5: message with ethically that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a situation that has.
Speaker 4: It's so frustrating a gamer, as a fan, as just
Speaker 4: someone on the inside or the outside looking at this
Speaker 4: whole situation, It's like, all right, they clearly need a
Speaker 4: break they've in a way put themselves in this horrible situation,
Speaker 4: but they've you know which or three didn't didn't launch
Speaker 4: Perfect Condition either, But like it's one of my favorite
Speaker 4: games just all time period. Hell yeah, I know cyberpunkin
Speaker 4: Yeah right, I know cyber punkin Get There too. But
Speaker 4: obviously it's got a ton of issues like and then
Speaker 4: the whole hacking situations like I've I've.
Speaker 3: Personally, I don't even want to say anything about it.
Speaker 4: I've personally been hacked before multiple occasions, and it's like,
Speaker 4: obviously I've taken steps to ensure that doesn't really happen
Speaker 4: the same way it did before. But these people who
Speaker 4: are just going out of their way to try to
Speaker 4: make lives more miserable for other people, I get it.
Speaker 4: Like City Project Read betrayed the trust of gamers in
Speaker 4: really significant ways, but it's never been an excuse to
Speaker 4: send death threats the people, or to dux people to
Speaker 4: hack them and compromise data that's sometimes very sensitive. It's
Speaker 4: I don't know, there's just this's just there's a chemical
Speaker 4: in your brain that should have some level of empathy
Speaker 4: to be like, you know what, it's not worth this pain.
Speaker 4: I'm going to bring someone else for me to get
Speaker 4: whatever I'm trying to get.
Speaker 5: The problem is most people have that chemical, but it's
Speaker 5: like drowned out or canceled out by anonymity chemical in
Speaker 5: the brain. Like most people would go, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 5: shouldn't do this. It sucks, and then the other chemical
Speaker 5: goes no one will ever know. Okay, it's me.
Speaker 1: It's me against the corporations, isn't it.
Speaker 5: And that's.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing when Jake, when you were
Speaker 1: reading out that thing was like an actor and I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, caves.
Speaker 5: I love the idea of stealing his own source code.
Speaker 1: Taking his learnings from the I love the idea of
Speaker 1: him doing John Wick voice, just saying yeah, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm hack.
Speaker 2: At how many people are behind this, Because if it's
Speaker 2: one person, like I don't know, that seems pretty tough
Speaker 2: to do. Is one person as someone who knows literally
Speaker 2: nothing about hacking or any of that stuff. But if
Speaker 2: it is one person, it also makes me question what
Speaker 2: their infrastructure is like if someone was able to do this,
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a lot of information that we
Speaker 2: don't have that I'm very curious about. But like at
Speaker 2: the end, of the day. I hope they get this
Speaker 2: stuff sorted. This year, in particular, seems like a year
Speaker 2: that CD Project Red had kind of already laid out
Speaker 2: a plan to kind of regain the trust of fans
Speaker 2: and players and whatnot. And this, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: in some sense it has to be related, even though
Speaker 2: you imagine the development team is still working on those
Speaker 2: patches and VLC and whatnot. But like still after the
Speaker 2: year they had, can you imagine beginning of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: just some some dick does this just sucks? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's big Ben Affleck pushing the swing as
Speaker 5: Batman energy from from them right now.
Speaker 1: What they're picking up the dome.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they just can't get it having a smoke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why are there so many sad Beneffleck.
Speaker 3: He's just good at making that content.
Speaker 5: It's like him and him and Keanu as well, like
Speaker 5: they had they both have like sad Keanu is a
Speaker 5: thing and sad Ben Affleck is a thing.
Speaker 2: Just like, Yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Hope they bounce back, like regardless, Like they clearly screwed
Speaker 5: some things up, but like I think that you know,
Speaker 5: it's not beyond reproach. They can make good on that.
Speaker 5: But if they if they're constantly being kicked while they're down,
Speaker 5: they never be able to stand up. So it kind
Speaker 5: of sucks to see this, but also, you know, hopefully
Speaker 5: it's it's kind of a not a wake up call.
Speaker 5: I mean it's kind of wake up call because random
Speaker 5: outsiders shouldn't be able to just hack your way into
Speaker 5: hack their way into this thing. My favorite thing is
Speaker 5: like I saw a tweet earlier today being like, oh
Speaker 5: gamers that are seeing this this hacked stuff, being like,
Speaker 5: oh wow, this code is held together by tape and
Speaker 5: it's like not even fully tested and not implemented properly.
Speaker 5: This sucks. This is really irresponsible. And then the follow
Speaker 5: up is all devs ever like shifting in their seats
Speaker 5: because that's how all games are made. Like, yeah, that's
Speaker 5: how every game is made. Like you just don't know it.
Speaker 4: You literally can't flesh out the entirety of the outside
Speaker 4: boundaries of the map.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just like most games that hold together by
Speaker 5: duct tape and like praise.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well there's also there's also another topic that
Speaker 2: we wanted to touch, breaking news, breaking news, apparently Lucy,
Speaker 2: what's going on?
Speaker 1: So it turns out and now confirm by Neil Druckman himself.
Speaker 1: Bella Ramsey, who played Leanimalmont in Hey, remember Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: will be joining the Last of US HBO series And
Speaker 1: is she going? Is she definitely going to be Ellie?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it looks like she's playing Ellie. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The headline on the Hollywood Reporter breakout Bella Ramsey to
Speaker 1: start as Ellie. So I am very excited. Like, the
Speaker 1: thing that gets me most excited about the Last of
Speaker 1: US TV show is not Druckman's involvement, which I'm very
Speaker 1: excited about, but it's the fact that it's Craig Metzin,
Speaker 1: who did Chernobyl and the Hangover.
Speaker 2: Movies was pretty well written in some sense of the word.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like please be excited for Mike Tyson absolutely punching
Speaker 5: the ship out of Joel at some point to a
Speaker 5: Phil Collins solo.
Speaker 1: But no, like thinking thinking about who could play Ellie,
Speaker 1: a character that is so like, she's so strong beyond
Speaker 1: her year. And then I mean, I don't know about
Speaker 1: you all, but I've sort of repressed Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1: I covered it for work for years, and like, I'm
Speaker 1: not at the stage where I hated the final season
Speaker 1: so much that I just want nothing to do with
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But it's like I was very let
Speaker 1: down by the final season, and it's just like one
Speaker 1: of the things that despite devoting literally years of my
Speaker 1: life to that franchise, both books, on the show, once
Speaker 1: it was done, I was like, the ship has sailed.
Speaker 1: That part of my life is gone. And so this
Speaker 1: is like a really nice crossover of the two that
Speaker 1: I was totally not expecting. But I'm totally hyped.
Speaker 5: For the animalmon known for being a powerful presence in
Speaker 5: Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1: Bad Bitch.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember. I can't remember exactly all of those scenes,
Speaker 5: but I remember her sitting on a horse and shouting
Speaker 5: at about like two thousand men. So I'm into.
Speaker 2: That wow weapon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she was like she like told people to shut
Speaker 5: the hell up a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: So was it she when they were going around getting
Speaker 1: all the last together and she was like, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: bear island, I'll be with you. We've got like seventy
Speaker 1: two men. Yeah they're worth like hundreds.
Speaker 5: Yeah that was Yeah.
Speaker 2: She was a good character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's great.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't remember much a game.
Speaker 5: I saw it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I remember finishing the last episode or whatever.
Speaker 2: I was like watching it with my roommate at the
Speaker 2: time and just got up and I was like, all right,
Speaker 2: that's that I thought about it.
Speaker 5: Since that's the end of that chapter.
Speaker 4: I didn't watch a love Game of Thrones, but i've
Speaker 4: I've like in and out seen it.
Speaker 3: So my fiance and I lived to given now.
Speaker 4: But at the time, when you know, Game of Thrones
Speaker 4: were still going on, i'd go over her place and
Speaker 4: see it on sometimes, and so I would catch it
Speaker 4: every once in a while. But I caught the like
Speaker 4: the last four episodes of Game of Thrones, and I
Speaker 4: was just like, but why I was? I was caught
Speaker 4: up to everything else. I was like, all right, this
Speaker 4: makes sense, this connects to that.
Speaker 3: That's all good.
Speaker 1: It's just like, what's up without white Horse? Is that
Speaker 1: supposed to be symbolism?
Speaker 4: This character is acting kind of weird right now, like
Speaker 4: really just not what they would do in this situation
Speaker 4: at all. And like I knew that as an outsider
Speaker 4: who had only seen like a handful of episodes.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 5: The other part of that story is, as is the
Speaker 5: debunking of the rumor that Mahasha Ali was going to
Speaker 5: play Trol. Apparently he did look at the role and
Speaker 5: was in discussions, but ultimately decided not to sign on.
Speaker 2: That would be.
Speaker 5: Great, I imagine, imagine he looked at it and went, no,
Speaker 5: those notes are way too angry. I'm not getting any.
Speaker 3: But possibility.
Speaker 2: Questions this week. Like I said last week, we actually
Speaker 2: the email account is broken.
Speaker 5: So so I.
Speaker 1: Did get an email from it. Oh yeah, you have
Speaker 1: to change the GameSpot dot com to at readventures dot com,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know he had to do.
Speaker 2: So if you do want to send us an email,
Speaker 2: I guess you can do it after dark podcast at
Speaker 2: redventures dot com. Does that sound very Lucy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, after doark podcast at readventures dot com.
Speaker 2: So maybe it's just that we don't have those aliases
Speaker 2: back yet. Eventually it'll be settled. But in the meantime,
Speaker 2: if you don't want to do that, you can join
Speaker 2: our discord server by deeming myself. Or if you don't
Speaker 2: want to join a discord server, you just want to
Speaker 2: ask us a question, feel free to at me on Twitter.
Speaker 2: I will I will surely see it anyway. First question here, Lucy,
Speaker 2: do you want to take.
Speaker 1: Sure this is from Rob Goodard, longtime listener, first time question.
Speaker 1: Askerer as someone who loves a great game based on
Speaker 1: a popular franchise like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Batman,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Are there any books, comics, shows, or films
Speaker 1: out there that you would love to see get the
Speaker 1: gaming treatment. I would love to see something like Castle Rock,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily that show. Maybe you're a new detective
Speaker 1: in a mysterious New England town. You work through an
Speaker 1: overarching plot, maybe something around the machinations of Flag, but
Speaker 1: get wrapped in a small side quest cases that all
Speaker 1: have connections to the many works of Stephen King. It
Speaker 1: all makes sense in my head, and I'm sure I
Speaker 1: could spend a lot more time trying to explain what
Speaker 1: I'm picturing. I'm down for that, though, is a big
Speaker 1: Stephen King fan.
Speaker 2: I'm just I want a Mandalorian game. I'm not super
Speaker 2: into Star Wars. I enjoyed The Mandalorian for what it was,
Speaker 2: but I think just like an open world bounty hunting
Speaker 2: game similar to like the Witcher three could be pretty
Speaker 2: cool where you're just taking on different contracts. Maybe even
Speaker 2: like a CD project Red could do a pretty good
Speaker 2: job at something like that, even if it's not then,
Speaker 2: But I think, just like a Mandalorian, like not a
Speaker 2: super strong narrative, but more focused on these these moment
Speaker 2: to moment stories that you get as you meet different
Speaker 2: contract givers more or less, and you can kind of
Speaker 2: just explore the universe as you see fit. Be the
Speaker 2: bounty hunter you'd like to be. I think that would
Speaker 2: be really cool.
Speaker 1: Damn that it's really cool. And now I can't think
Speaker 1: of one.
Speaker 4: I have one, but like I'm now fixated on that
Speaker 4: because I really would love to see that and play
Speaker 4: that experience that.
Speaker 2: Just like watching the show, like, I was way more
Speaker 2: fascinated with all the little stories that they told the
Speaker 2: side quest opposed to like the grander narrative of baby
Speaker 2: Yoda and whatnot. As cute as baby Yoda is and whatnot,
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't I don't really care what
Speaker 2: this baby's deal is. I just want I just want
Speaker 2: Mando to shoot things. I guess.
Speaker 5: I've got a bunch I think we've talked about before.
Speaker 2: We have, We've had similar questions.
Speaker 5: Platinum Games should make a Blade game. Yes, Remedy Entertainment
Speaker 5: should make a co op narrative driven shooter based on
Speaker 5: the Supernatural TV show. I want the initiative the Gears
Speaker 5: of War team to do Demolition Man. Coalition initiative Coalition,
Speaker 5: yeah is perfect, Ok, Yeah, coalition to do Demolition Man.
Speaker 5: There needs to be a Green Lantern game. I'd love
Speaker 5: to see that. What else is there? There's I've got
Speaker 5: so many just like lodged in my head.
Speaker 1: How you come up with these so quickly?
Speaker 5: I'm like, I've spent a lot of time thinking about them. Uh,
Speaker 5: what do you call it? Rockstar Games Presents and what's
Speaker 5: it called? The Stephen King Dark Tower series? Imagine that
Speaker 5: I'll be pretty good. I'd like that. Yeah, that's pretty
Speaker 5: much it.
Speaker 1: I Ah, I don't know, because like we've had Alien Isolation,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much the closest thing you can get
Speaker 1: to an alien game, like a perfect alien representation of
Speaker 1: the movie.
Speaker 4: I guess, uh, fuck that game, dude, I've I've it's
Speaker 4: a great game.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I feel.
Speaker 3: Her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like My answer would be I would
Speaker 4: love to see Storm get her own game and then
Speaker 4: have that tie in, like if Insomniac could do what
Speaker 4: they did with Spider Man, but with Storm and then
Speaker 4: in like the Origin of Storm and incorporate her into
Speaker 4: the X Men and then having Wakan like I need it,
Speaker 4: I need.
Speaker 5: You could bring in you could bring into Chara into
Speaker 5: that as well, exactly perfectly. Oh yeah, that would be good.
Speaker 5: There hasn't been a good X Men game.
Speaker 1: Legends Destiny.
Speaker 5: The X Legends was good, but like was so bad?
Speaker 3: What X Men? What's X Men Destiny?
Speaker 5: Slight one was the one.
Speaker 1: That got pulled from shelves after the whole Silicon Knights
Speaker 1: is It Unreal stuff? It was basically like you got
Speaker 1: to sort of pick your mutation kind of semi RPG stuff.
Speaker 4: I forgot about that impressively bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Want to play that Storm game'd who would develop it?
Speaker 3: Insomniac Games will.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if they could literally just tie it into
Speaker 4: I don't know that there's so many things they could
Speaker 4: do because even with Spider Man they did they did
Speaker 4: just different shit with that. And we haven't really had
Speaker 4: a really great like version of Storm aside from like
Speaker 4: Marvel versus Capcom again X Men Legends. She was in
Speaker 4: that and she was amazing, but we hadn't seen her
Speaker 4: in really much else other than that, and we haven't
Speaker 4: seen a superhero game that did flight really well in
Speaker 4: a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like they could do some interesting things
Speaker 2: with like ranged attacks as well, almost like you'd set
Speaker 2: up your attacks early. You'd see where people are going
Speaker 2: to be and set up your lightning over there, and
Speaker 2: then maybe do some handhand combat over here, and then
Speaker 2: the lightning comes down pretty Yes, Lucy, didn't a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago you bring up like Bethesda doing a
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings game or is that more just like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's the Howards.
Speaker 1: How it had a Lord of the Rings in his
Speaker 1: room and Arcane hiring for a fantasy project. That would
Speaker 1: be cool, that's what it was. I would love to see.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I love what Manola's do with a
Speaker 1: Shadow of War Shadow of model. Now they've patterned to
Speaker 1: the Nemesis system though, But there's so much more to
Speaker 1: explore in Lord of the Rings, especially now that you've
Speaker 1: got the second Age TV show coming to I really
Speaker 1: hope that you get to go and see some of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So maybe.
Speaker 2: Maybe all right, next question here, Tomorre, do you want
Speaker 2: to read this last one?
Speaker 5: Yes? What if I get my screen curve I had?
Speaker 5: This one is from the one who finally proposed. Well
Speaker 5: done for proposing. Heay. I have spent ten or fifteen
Speaker 5: hours in Hollow Night stuck on one boss, the Trait
Speaker 5: of Lord kicked my ass a lot, and it's a
Speaker 5: relatively simple boss. I'd wonder Hollow Hollow Nest, trying to
Speaker 5: see if there's anything else to do in the meantime,
Speaker 5: because I just couldn't get past him. And today, today
Speaker 5: I actually choose the fight and finally beat him. No
Speaker 5: shame or regret. I'm nowhere there beating the game, but
Speaker 5: I don't really want to play anymore. Has there ever
Speaker 5: been a moment or boss in a game where you
Speaker 5: stop playing afterwards and had no desire to play. I'm
Speaker 5: sure a few days, in a few days, I'll go
Speaker 5: back and play, but I just don't want to right now.
Speaker 5: I just don't know right now.
Speaker 1: Fuck the Twin Princes in Dark Souls three.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I remember that.
Speaker 1: I hate them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a couple of naughty boys. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: I think I think a lot of people help with
Speaker 5: Dark Souls franchise. They have it with worn Stein and
Speaker 5: the Smile, I'm sure.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was really tough. I remember messaging you
Speaker 2: on Slack because you were in You're in the UK
Speaker 2: at the time tomorrow, and I was like, how the
Speaker 2: fuck do I do this? Because I cannot do this?
Speaker 2: And You're just like, relax, come back to it later.
Speaker 2: How they're just going crazy.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say something that's going to infuriate you. Infuriate you.
Speaker 4: I finished that fight you're talking.
Speaker 3: About the first fight with g Yeah. I did that
Speaker 3: fight on one try.
Speaker 5: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: And people who are I was streaming it, people who
Speaker 4: are watching it were just like, no fucking way. Another
Speaker 4: friend who has been stuck on it for like a
Speaker 4: solid week, was like, I can't wait to see you
Speaker 4: struggle on this fight like I did.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, I guess I got lucky.
Speaker 1: I don't know it.
Speaker 5: It's a real game that has a real game.
Speaker 2: I was watching him play and you're gonna be stuck
Speaker 2: on him forever. And he beat him third try, and
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 5: Well, I Andy Andy Cortez of kind of funny whereas
Speaker 5: is playing dogs. I was on stream and he went
Speaker 5: into the Ornstein and Smile fight and CHAT was like,
Speaker 5: here we go, lads. He just like absolutely stomped them
Speaker 5: like it was on It was cruel, how bad? How
Speaker 5: quickly he beat them. I was like, wow, he's uh good.
Speaker 5: He was like oh, I was like, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2: I guess my example though, would be just to keep
Speaker 2: this quick. My mind's probably just every Assassin's Creed game
Speaker 2: that I've played, not really necessarily due to bosses. I
Speaker 2: just got to a point where I wanted to play more,
Speaker 2: but I was like, I don't want to play more
Speaker 2: that bad, and then I just stopped. And I've always
Speaker 2: thought about continuing many of them, but I just never did.
Speaker 3: Was the traversal that got you just like having to
Speaker 3: get from pointing to be in.
Speaker 2: It's it's like it's always something different in all of them.
Speaker 2: I feel like two I just didn't like the gameplay,
Speaker 2: so I stopped with Valhalla. It was that the story
Speaker 2: didn't really interest me much, and never Black Flag. It
Speaker 2: was the traversal that I was just got tired of.
Speaker 2: It was just there's always something that I that I
Speaker 2: pick on with those games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my exams was going to be a little bit weird.
Speaker 4: It's going to be Mass Effect three, and it wasn't
Speaker 4: because I got stuck on something. Mechanically speaking, I couldn't
Speaker 4: decide between two love interests.
Speaker 3: So I just put the game down and just stop playing.
Speaker 2: I've heard it was people who have done this too.
Speaker 4: Yes, it was Leara and Miranda, and I didn't play
Speaker 4: the first one, so like everything I knew about Leara
Speaker 4: really came down to like what I was told about
Speaker 4: in the second one, and then in the third one, I.
Speaker 3: Was like, Yo, she's so cool.
Speaker 4: So I just didn't know, like which it's something so trivial,
Speaker 4: like it doesn't and then at the.
Speaker 3: End of the day it didn't matter.
Speaker 4: But like playing through the game and experiencing it and
Speaker 4: kind of falling in love with these characters, not just
Speaker 4: like romantically, but like just the characteristics of them, I
Speaker 4: just couldn't do it. I was just like, I need
Speaker 4: to stop.
Speaker 3: I just have to. I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3: I don't know how it's going to change the story.
Speaker 5: Difficult decision to make because like horrors amazing, and Miranda's
Speaker 5: got ahead of the booty, so.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: You won't be seeing that in legendary edition.
Speaker 3: Better not nerve.
Speaker 5: They should release the Sorry, I was just gonna say, like,
Speaker 5: if I was by the way, I would release Passionates
Speaker 5: for Legendary Edition, and they should only have one one entry.
Speaker 5: It just like NERFS Miranda's Booty.
Speaker 2: Michael never finished Michael in the Game Spot Office never
Speaker 2: finished Mass Effect because he was just too stressed about
Speaker 2: the idea of being done with all those characters.
Speaker 5: And oh yeah it's tricky. Yeah, it's difficult.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, thank you all for listening to episode
Speaker 2: eighty of Games But After Dark, and thank you guys
Speaker 2: for joining us. Lucy, where can people find you? And
Speaker 2: what are you up to this week?
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at least James Games and I'll be
Speaker 1: playing Metal Gear Solid for the fat Yeah.
Speaker 5: You'd love to see that tomorrow? What about you? I'm
Speaker 5: on tomorrow. H I'm just occasionally dropping nonsense in there.
Speaker 5: If you want to watch me, stream Twitch your TV
Speaker 5: for a session more h Otherwise I'm on you know,
Speaker 5: game spot things doing stuff. I will be playing Hollow Night.
Speaker 2: And will How about you? Where? Where can people find you?
Speaker 5: Both?
Speaker 2: On Twitter? Twitch, YouTube, whatever you want to plug?
Speaker 4: Everything is black only except for uh TikTok, which I
Speaker 4: guess someone took black only and whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know it's the worst.
Speaker 4: I'm going to be playing some Warframe most likely today,
Speaker 4: but uh, we're gonna gett into a.
Speaker 3: Whole bunch of stuff. There's some.
Speaker 4: NDA stuff I can't say anything about, play some really
Speaker 4: cool things, very shortly.
Speaker 2: Cool. And then you can find me at Jacob dech
Speaker 2: And that's it for this week. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 5: Bye.
Speaker 2: Don't be something, El