Latest / The Year Of Shame Challenge / S14E02 - Theoretical Cheesecake

Transcript

S14E02 - Theoretical Cheesecake · The Year Of Shame Challenge

• 0:13
  In the not too distant presence, a challenge unlike any other,
• 0:17
  begins Three men, One year 0 game purchases.
• 0:24
  They stand against temptation, towering backlogs and the
• 0:28
  endless lure of digital sales. This is the Year of Shame
• 0:34
  Challenge. A test of willpower, a battle
• 0:38
  against impulse, A journey into the heart of unplayed games
• 0:43
  where only discipline survives. Hello and welcome to Episode 2
• 0:52
  of the Year of Shame Challenge Season 14.
• 0:55
  You join myself, Rich, Stewart and Brian normally on our year
• 1:00
  long adventure of not buying or playing any new video games,
• 1:03
  instead turning our attention to the vast and under love backlogs
• 1:07
  of games that we have. In this and all of the episodes
• 1:10
  we'll do life updates, talk about what we've been playing,
• 1:13
  watching, reading. We'll have a round up of the
• 1:15
  games we're most sad to be missing out on, any news that
• 1:18
  catches our interest and finally, questions from the
• 1:21
  community. Normally there's the three of
• 1:25
  us, but this time it's just myself and Stuart.
• 1:27
  Hello, Stuart. Hey, how's it going?
• 1:30
  And sadly, Brian's been dealing with a family bereavement and
• 1:34
  travelling across the world to be with his family.
• 1:36
  So I'm sure Stuart, you'll join me in offering him thoughts and
• 1:40
  love and hopefully I'll be back next time.
• 1:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.
• 1:47
  Shall we kick straight off into life updates?
• 1:49
  So, Stuart, how have you been and what have you been up to?
• 1:53
  Yeah, I've been good. You know, what have I been up
• 1:56
  to? Well, not a lot away from the
• 1:59
  keyboard and and joystick. Myself and my wife took a trip
• 2:04
  down to a place called Huonville, which is about 30
• 2:07
  minutes drive away a couple of weekends ago.
• 2:10
  And it's a, a lovely area. You know, there's a river that
• 2:12
  runs through the centre of the town, lots of orchards, lots of
• 2:16
  vineyards, beautiful valley with with hills on either side of it.
• 2:21
  Just a really nice part of the world, you know, and it makes us
• 2:24
  appreciate living in Tasmania because it's clean air, clean
• 2:28
  water, fresh food, everything is just, you know, the way that
• 2:33
  that it should be, I guess so. So that was a nice, a nice trip
• 2:37
  away, even if it was only, you know, sort of a 30 minute drive
• 2:40
  one way and a 30 minute drive back, you know, but but yeah, it
• 2:43
  was, it was nice. So that was that was the
• 2:47
  activities away. I mean, other than that, you
• 2:49
  know, there's the usual doing the garden and walking the dog
• 2:52
  and, you know, going to the beach, but nothing major.
• 2:57
  It's it's been a quite a quiet month.
• 3:00
  What sort of dog have you got to share?
• 3:04
  It's a, it's a 2 year old chocolate lab and yeah, she
• 3:10
  thinks she's a poodle though and she'll run at you full pelt and
• 3:14
  just hit you like a rugby player and take you out.
• 3:17
  She's just been to the vets last week because she's now, I think
• 3:21
  she's about 43 kilos. She's a big beast.
• 3:26
  Yeah, but she's a lovely dog, you know, she's, she's soft as
• 3:32
  all hell. There's not a bad bone in her
• 3:34
  body. And she would, she would just
• 3:37
  lick you to death if she was given the chance, you know?
• 3:39
  But like I say, she doesn't know her own, her own body mass, and
• 3:43
  she just runs through things rather than running up to them.
• 3:48
  Yeah. Have you got a dog yourself?
• 3:51
  No, I'm we're a cat family. So.
• 3:55
  We did have two cats, but one of them took on a car about a year
• 3:59
  back. So we're, we're left with the,
• 4:01
  we're left with the annoying 1. So we had, we had two and one
• 4:04
  was beautiful and soppy and we're just, yeah, just always up
• 4:07
  for a fuss and just really calm and quiet.
• 4:10
  And the other one is like completely wired.
• 4:13
  And we always used to joke that if one, if one of them goes,
• 4:16
  we're going to be, we're going to be left with the shit one.
• 4:21
  And so it came to pass. So we've got this kind of like
• 4:25
  just crazy cat that just constantly like meowing for food
• 4:29
  and we'll just run around like a lunatic.
• 4:32
  But she's, she's sweet. She's sweet.
• 4:34
  I'd love to have a dog, but I think it's, it's one of those
• 4:38
  kind of lifestyle things. So I think if I was out in
• 4:41
  Tasmania with, with space around me and you know, beaches to walk
• 4:45
  on and stuff, I'd definitely be, I'd be in in the dog market.
• 4:51
  We used to have two cats, but they, I mean, they reached the
• 4:54
  age of about 18 before, you know, it was, it was time to, to
• 4:58
  say goodbye. Both of them were, they owned
• 5:03
  the house. The dog didn't even get a chance
• 5:05
  to, you know, get a look in. And so when they passed away, we
• 5:09
  got this tiny little kitten and it was called rogue because it
• 5:12
  was just completely rogue. Everything it did was just 120%,
• 5:17
  you know, over the top. And then I think I mentioned on
• 5:20
  the last episode, unfortunately I got I got bitten by a snake
• 5:22
  and and passed away. Oh yes, you.
• 5:24
  Know it only lasted like it was about a year and a bit and so
• 5:28
  poor we think so we haven't replaced it yet, but eventually
• 5:32
  I think that will happen and so we'll be back to the chaos of
• 5:36
  having cats and dogs, having this little power struggle in
• 5:39
  the house again, you know. Yeah, amazing.
• 5:43
  Yeah, what have you been up to? Rich Well, I mean, I'm very
• 5:47
  envious. You're talking about going out
• 5:49
  for nice walks and stuff. So here in the UK it has been
• 5:53
  raining like literally since before we recorded the last
• 5:57
  episode. There's there's towns and
• 6:00
  villages not far from me that are that are putting in good
• 6:04
  stints for getting the longest run of consecutive days of rain.
• 6:09
  It has been utterly miserable. It's been cold, windy, rainy for
• 6:14
  a month, so there's been precious little going out and
• 6:18
  about into the world. It's been, you know, just get to
• 6:20
  wherever you need to be under the most cover that you can.
• 6:25
  But that's been OK. I think I talked last time about
• 6:28
  hopefully moving house soon. I'm probably at exactly the same
• 6:32
  stage that I was a month ago. It seems that conveyancing
• 6:37
  solicitors only work on a Friday, and that work involves
• 6:41
  only answering emails. If I send them an e-mail saying
• 6:44
  hello, what's going on? And the update is the same,
• 6:48
  which is, Oh yeah, things are going well.
• 6:50
  We'll hopefully hear more next week, so look forward to the
• 6:54
  probably the same update in a month.
• 6:57
  But each time I do get a message, it makes me think that
• 7:00
  maybe it's happening soon. So I've actually had to
• 7:03
  sacrifice a bit of gaming time this month in favour of going
• 7:07
  through the countless and like infinite amount of crap that is
• 7:13
  stored around my house, trying to whittle down what's coming
• 7:17
  with me and what's being left behind or sent onto somewhere
• 7:20
  else. So I've been clearing out lofts
• 7:25
  and, you know, just going through cupboards and finding
• 7:28
  all manner of stuff. So up in the loft I've found
• 7:33
  it's called a play seat, which sounds like some kind of kinky
• 7:37
  sex toy or something, but it's a it's a racing chair.
• 7:41
  I found an old four, well, not even old a 4K four KTV with one
• 7:46
  pixel that's gone that obviously, you know, didn't make
• 7:50
  it through my quality control one day and immediately got
• 7:52
  replaced. I found a speaker system for my
• 7:56
  for my desktop PC. So I've, I've cleared out tonnes
• 8:01
  of stuff and the house is still chock a block with things, but
• 8:05
  progress is being made there. I've had a big birthday since we
• 8:10
  last recorded this week. Yeah, I've, I've racked up my
• 8:14
  half century, which is, yeah, unbelievable.
• 8:18
  So I had a nice day off work, went to the cinema and we'll
• 8:21
  talk about that in movies that we've been watching.
• 8:25
  So I went to a morning cinema viewing, which is always good
• 8:28
  fun because there's never anybody in the cinema.
• 8:30
  So there's me and my family and literally nobody else in the
• 8:34
  entire cinema sitting on our reclining seats.
• 8:39
  And it was, it was interesting actually, because we went in and
• 8:41
  there was no sound and just thought, oh, maybe they're maybe
• 8:45
  they don't pump out the sound until, you know, there's
• 8:48
  actually people in there. So we sat there in silence for a
• 8:50
  bit and then the trailers started coming on.
• 8:53
  There was still no sound. And so we had to go and get
• 8:57
  somebody and, and, and they were, they were super confused.
• 9:00
  And you know, I think maybe 20 years ago it would have been a
• 9:03
  case of just turning the volume knob up.
• 9:05
  But of course now it's all, none of it's controlled locally.
• 9:09
  So it was like, oh, we're going to have to ring, you know, main
• 9:12
  control and then they're going to have to do a reboot.
• 9:15
  So it's a little bit nervous, but we managed to get the get
• 9:18
  the sand going and have a nice time, went out for a nice burger
• 9:22
  lunch afterwards. And then I think earlier in the
• 9:26
  month a little bit related to kind of tidying up the house and
• 9:28
  getting ready for a move. I pretty much took a week off
• 9:31
  gaming. It's not not brilliant content
• 9:33
  for a gaming podcast, but it's, you know, it's one of those
• 9:37
  where you're thinking, oh, should I should I get on and be
• 9:41
  playing? And it's like, Oh no, go with
• 9:43
  your instinct. If you, if you feel like you've
• 9:45
  got too much, yeah, too much else going on, It's sometimes
• 9:48
  nice just to switch off. And then actually as ever, when
• 9:52
  you come back to it, it's all the better.
• 9:54
  You're like, yes, this is what I really love.
• 9:58
  So a bit of that. And then I've been, I think I
• 10:00
  mentioned I've got my, we were talking about New Year's
• 10:02
  resolutions last time. So I've been trying to get a bit
• 10:05
  fitter and lose a bit of weight. So weight update, I'm now 17
• 10:09
  lbs, which is 7.7 kilos lighter than I was on January the 1st.
• 10:16
  So it's sort of like progressing and not all, not all of it is
• 10:20
  fitness. Sometimes it's just not having
• 10:22
  those 3 glasses of wine on an, on an evening that all, all all
• 10:27
  adds up. So that's going well as well.
• 10:29
  And I'm feeling a little bit more energetic than a month ago.
• 10:33
  So well done. Well done, man.
• 10:35
  Thank you. I, I wish I could do the same
• 10:37
  for, for those of you that are on the audio feet, obviously you
• 10:40
  can't see, but I've definitely got a bit of a beer belly
• 10:43
  happening here and it's, it's not an easy thing to shift.
• 10:47
  I will say that. No, Yeah, yeah.
• 10:50
  Everyone finds it different in different ways.
• 10:54
  You know, difficult or easy. I tend to be able to yo-yo a
• 10:57
  little bit, which is good. Good in One Direction and not
• 11:00
  great in the other. I wouldn't mind, but I don't
• 11:03
  even drink beer, so I don't know where the beer belly comes from,
• 11:05
  you know? Amazing.
• 11:11
  Shall we, shall we move on to a bit of TV, film and books?
• 11:14
  What have you been dipping into? But I think you've gone hard so.
• 11:20
  Yeah. So with regards books, I'm still
• 11:23
  working through the The Wheel of Time series that I mentioned on
• 11:27
  the last episode. I finally finished book 7 and
• 11:30
  I'm now on to book 8 of 14. About 30% of the way through
• 11:33
  that. So you know, the, the, the
• 11:37
  pattern that was doing last month where climb into bed, turn
• 11:41
  on the Kindle, read a page, fall asleep next night, read the same
• 11:44
  page, fall asleep. I've been pushing through that
• 11:47
  and getting a lot more of that reading done.
• 11:49
  And you know, it's, I think the story is picking up.
• 11:52
  It might have just been that those books in the middle where
• 11:54
  the, the slow ones that Brian referred to previously.
• 11:58
  So it's a bit more interesting and seems to be moving a lot
• 12:02
  faster than it was before. That's really all on the reading
• 12:06
  front though. On, on the watching front, we,
• 12:11
  we tend to have membership on all of the streaming services
• 12:14
  that are available down here in Australia.
• 12:18
  And so I've spread the love across each of those.
• 12:21
  You know, there was a couple of things on Apple TV, the
• 12:24
  Shrinking season 2. Have you watched Shrinking
• 12:27
  before? I haven't.
• 12:29
  I think it's on a list though. I'm I'm actually going to be
• 12:31
  writing these down because I love ATV recommendation.
• 12:33
  It's it's. Got Jason Segal, who is in How I
• 12:39
  Met Your Mother. OK.
• 12:43
  And, and he's like a the younger psychologist in this this
• 12:48
  practise. And then Harrison Ford is the
• 12:51
  old psychologist, but he's got Parkinson's.
• 12:57
  And so the two. Of them are playing off against
• 12:59
  each other and you know, 1 is always very involved with the
• 13:02
  clients and the other is very standoffish and and just that
• 13:05
  dynamic of how that all works. And they're also going through
• 13:08
  their own stuff in in personal lives as well.
• 13:10
  So this is season 2 that we watched.
• 13:11
  I made the mistake when I was watching it though, of just
• 13:16
  hitting the button to say, you know, continue watching from
• 13:18
  where I was watching before. And for some reason it played
• 13:21
  the last episode, episode of season 2 first.
• 13:25
  So I watched the last episode and I thought that seemed weird.
• 13:27
  There was a bit of a jump from what I remember from the first
• 13:30
  season. And then the next episode
• 13:32
  started and it was like none of that episode had happened.
• 13:35
  And I thought, have they done like a loop back of what's going
• 13:38
  on here? So for the whole season I was
• 13:40
  sitting watching it going, why are they talking about that when
• 13:43
  they know how it works out? Dumbass just watched it the
• 13:46
  wrong way around, you know that? Is gutting, Yeah.
• 13:51
  The other thing, obviously Fallout season 2 came to an end.
• 13:54
  So I've watched all of that on on Amazon Prime and then Disney
• 13:59
  Plus Wonder Man, I think Paul from last season might have
• 14:06
  mentioned it on one of our Facebook chats that it was, it
• 14:09
  was out and it was good to watch.
• 14:10
  So I sat and watched that and it was it was one of the better
• 14:14
  Marvel ones I've watched so far. It was quite a good season to
• 14:18
  watch. You know, it's not all big
• 14:20
  explosions. There's, you know, it's a lot of
• 14:22
  the the personal dynamic between the two main characters.
• 14:25
  But but a really good season, a really good series so far.
• 14:29
  And then, movie wise, Oppenheimer finally got to watch
• 14:33
  that. Oh wow, you must have set aside
• 14:36
  a day to do that then. Oh jeez.
• 14:37
  It was a long, long one, wasn't it?
• 14:39
  Yeah, very long. My son is a massive, what's his
• 14:43
  name? Christopher Nolan fan and so you
• 14:46
  know, he loves all of the The Dark Knight trilogy.
• 14:49
  He loves Oppenheimer, he loves, you know, everything this guy
• 14:51
  does. So we had to sit down and watch
• 14:54
  it for family movie night. And then after that he said to
• 14:59
  me, oh dad, if you get a chance, you have to watch Memento, which
• 15:02
  is the the one from like the was it the 90s?
• 15:06
  I'd just. The guy out of Neighbours?
• 15:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I sat and watched that this
• 15:12
  morning and man, that is a good movie.
• 15:14
  I really enjoyed the twist of the on the end of that one.
• 15:17
  You know, the, the, the, just, the, the whole, the way the
• 15:20
  whole dynamic shifted and you realise that from scene to
• 15:23
  scene, it's all being shot out of order.
• 15:26
  And you have to watch how his cars slowly degenerating and how
• 15:30
  he's degenerating and all the people around him are all
• 15:33
  getting cuts and bruises and things to figure out where each
• 15:36
  scene fits into the timeline. I I think this was a very
• 15:40
  interesting way of doing it. And the last movie I watched was
• 15:43
  one called 1 Battle After Another, which is, that's the
• 15:47
  one that was up for all the, the awards last year.
• 15:51
  It's what's, what's the guy's name?
• 15:53
  Oh, man, DiCaprio. Leonardo DiCaprio.
• 15:57
  OK, Brilliant, brilliant movie. Really good.
• 16:02
  If you get a chance, sit down and watch it.
• 16:04
  It's well worth the effort. It's not at all what I thought.
• 16:08
  I thought it was going to be like a Quentin Tarantino thing,
• 16:10
  but there was very little violence.
• 16:13
  It was all just DiCaprio being a a pothead who couldn't remember
• 16:18
  all of his past life and just frantically trying to figure out
• 16:22
  what the hell was going on, you know?
• 16:24
  So really good movie. So that's, that's pretty much
• 16:28
  all that I managed to get through this month.
• 16:31
  What about yourself? Yeah.
• 16:33
  So I think last month in the books on the books front, I was
• 16:38
  reading wolf all and I mentioned it was quite, quite heavy.
• 16:43
  I've got about halfway through it.
• 16:45
  Literally every character is called Stephen.
• 16:48
  It's hell of the eighth time. So I'd be reading these chapters
• 16:51
  when Stephen's talking to Stephen and then another Stephen
• 16:54
  comes in and interrupts and says, Oh, how's, you know what's
• 16:57
  going on with Stephen? I, I just I've I've fallen off
• 17:01
  it. I thought, I'm, I'm struggling
• 17:03
  with this and I'm not enjoying it as much as I should.
• 17:06
  So I'm going to put it down because it's a massive book.
• 17:09
  So I just thought, you know, I'm, I'm not hating it, but I'm
• 17:12
  only really staying with it because I know what happens
• 17:14
  because, because history. And so I moved on and I
• 17:19
  completely pivoted and I picked up, I've got these lovely kind
• 17:23
  of collected books of fables, which I don't know whether
• 17:28
  you've heard of or certainly I mean, the game The Wolf Among Us
• 17:33
  is, is based on the fables comics.
• 17:35
  So it's all the fairy tale characters, Big Bad Wolf and
• 17:37
  Snow White and all of that lot in a modern day setting where
• 17:42
  they're trying to essentially kind of keep their kind of true
• 17:46
  identities secret and live amongst humans as if they are
• 17:50
  human. And it's an absolutely great
• 17:53
  comics. I, I picked that back up and
• 17:56
  read, read through the 1st collection I'd got of that and
• 17:58
  thought, oh, I actually, I really like this.
• 18:01
  And off the back of what Brian was saying last month about
• 18:05
  trying to find the right kind of service to, to consume, you
• 18:09
  know, manga and comics and that kind of stuff.
• 18:11
  I, I went down the rabbit hole of checking out some things and
• 18:15
  I've landed on, I mean, it started with a week of free
• 18:18
  subscription to DC Infinite. And then I think they, they're
• 18:23
  charged like 699 a month. So I thought, well, I've, I'll
• 18:26
  have my week. I'll get into something new and
• 18:28
  if I'm enjoying it, then I can, I can throw it at 699 a month
• 18:32
  for a couple of months while I get through something.
• 18:35
  So I, I googled away and looked for, you know, the best, the
• 18:38
  best kind of comic series and landed on a thing called Y the
• 18:43
  Last Man, as in the letter Y the Last Man.
• 18:46
  And it is just based on an event that happens to the earth.
• 18:50
  This is not spoilers. This is the beginning of comic
• 18:53
  one where all of the men in the world apart from 1:00 die in
• 18:59
  some kind of freak virus outbreak or whatever.
• 19:02
  And then following the the the adventures of the one remaining
• 19:07
  guy. And it throws up all of the
• 19:10
  obvious kind of issues that you're going to have with that,
• 19:12
  which is OK. So if the world's going to
• 19:14
  repopulate, he's going to be a busy chap and that kind of
• 19:18
  stuff. And it's absolutely brilliant.
• 19:20
  So I've read the first 21 issues of that and I think it runs for
• 19:24
  about 60 or 70. So I've got my teeth well and
• 19:28
  truly into that and it is so much easier than reading about
• 19:32
  all of the Stevens. So I've had a good time with
• 19:34
  that. I mentioned I've been to the
• 19:37
  cinema and just just watched the one movie this month and it was
• 19:40
  called as again, a little bit of a nod to Brian.
• 19:43
  So he's he's been quite influential even though he's not
• 19:46
  here today. I watched a thing called Little
• 19:48
  Amelie or the character of Rain, which is another it's an
• 19:54
  animated movie and I was trying to find this thing to watch that
• 19:57
  that I wanted to watch, but also would be good for the kids on my
• 20:01
  birthday. And it was it was really, really
• 20:04
  good. So it's all shop.
• 20:06
  It's based in Japan and and your classic kind of arty, nice
• 20:11
  music, nice dialogue. Some of the characters were a
• 20:15
  little bit annoying, but it was a really nice time spent and
• 20:18
  just like a film that just dips into a family's life.
• 20:23
  And it's kind of about what it's like to be a kid when he can't
• 20:26
  communicate and then relationships with adults and
• 20:30
  babysitters and stuff like that. So that was really good fun.
• 20:35
  And then on the TV front, I've had a, I've had a wild journey.
• 20:39
  So you mentioned Fallout, which is something I've not ever seen.
• 20:44
  And, and in fact, I've barely played the Fallout series, but I
• 20:47
  do, I obviously understand the setting.
• 20:49
  So last night I thought I'd, I'd dip in and have a little look at
• 20:53
  the Fallout series and just watched the first episode of
• 20:56
  season 1. And I was very, very impressed
• 20:59
  with it. Very, very impressed.
• 21:01
  So I think I'll be taking in some more of that.
• 21:05
  The Apprentice has started in the UK again.
• 21:08
  So this is Alan Sugar. It's, you know, reality telly
• 21:10
  where you get 20 idiots that think they're God's gift going
• 21:15
  in and trying to impress him. And I, I always watch The
• 21:18
  Apprentice because they've got this kind of idea of project
• 21:23
  management and what it means. And it's, it's, it's semi
• 21:26
  adjacent to the work that I do. I'm, I'm essentially a thing
• 21:30
  called a scrum master, which is, which is almost the antithesis
• 21:34
  of a project manager. You, you, you're going for the
• 21:37
  same outcomes, but trying to do it from a completely different
• 21:40
  angle. And so I watch The Apprentice
• 21:43
  and watch all of these people just deferring to the project
• 21:46
  manager as if they're the king or the queen.
• 21:49
  And then when they make, you know, make the mistake, it's
• 21:51
  just everybody blaming each other.
• 21:53
  So I, I, I watch it and I do a lot of shouting at the telly
• 21:56
  about how absolutely awful everyone is.
• 21:58
  And it, you know, it should be a team effort and why, why you
• 22:01
  placing all this emphasis on one person?
• 22:05
  I watched a truly harrowing series called Monster, the Ed
• 22:10
  Gein Story, which is where Psycho and Chainsaw Massacre got
• 22:18
  their inspiration from, from True Life.
• 22:22
  Just the most horrific television ever.
• 22:27
  So I think we'd watch the Dharma.
• 22:29
  I don't know, they've heard of it.
• 22:30
  The Dharma one, which is another mass mass murderer kind of
• 22:35
  story. And that was that was produced
• 22:38
  really well. I mean, it was really, really
• 22:39
  sick and disturbing, but it was somehow entertaining, whereas
• 22:43
  this one was just sick. So there's this guy digging up
• 22:48
  bodies, murdering people, chucking in a bit of
• 22:52
  paedophilia, all of the, you know, just sitting there in
• 22:55
  front of the telly just thinking, what am I doing?
• 22:57
  This is absolutely horrific. So off, so off the back of that,
• 23:03
  it was like, OK, I think it was 8 episodes.
• 23:05
  So it's once we've got through about 5, it's like, well, we,
• 23:08
  we've got to watch it to a conclusion.
• 23:10
  I did that, not not massively satisfying.
• 23:13
  And then moved on to one of my favourite comedies, which is
• 23:17
  Parks and Recreation, which is just based in small town
• 23:22
  America, Parks and Recreation kind of local government
• 23:25
  department. So we've rewatched the first two
• 23:28
  seasons of that and it is just absolutely adorable.
• 23:32
  Every single character is funny in their own way and it's a
• 23:37
  complete breath of fresh air. So that was the that was the
• 23:40
  antidote to watching terrifying monster programmes.
• 23:48
  Crazy. You need to balance the nose,
• 23:50
  don't you? Exactly.
• 23:52
  So that's it's been a month of balance, just balancing out
• 23:54
  deep, deep reading with comics and dark telly with with light
• 23:59
  telly. So yeah, my.
• 24:01
  Son's a big fan of the the DC subscription service as well he.
• 24:05
  OK, he read. Through every single one of the
• 24:07
  Batman ones available on there. And he moves on to the Red Hood.
• 24:10
  And so he's slowly working his way through the entire, you
• 24:13
  know, DC superhero catalogue. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:17
  And certainly getting his money's worth out of it.
• 24:19
  Yeah, there's tonnes there. Quite often, he'll come home
• 24:23
  from work because he works at the local casino.
• 24:25
  And I'll say to him, was a busy day.
• 24:27
  And he'll be like, Nah, there was nobody there.
• 24:28
  So I just sat and just just read my DC subscription.
• 24:33
  Oh well. Great.
• 24:34
  As long as you're getting paid for it, you know?
• 24:35
  Yeah, Yeah. Superb paying for his
• 24:37
  subscription in real time. That's brilliant.
• 24:40
  Yeah. Super right.
• 24:43
  Shall we move on to some games? I understand from your updates
• 24:48
  through the month that you have been a very busy chap, so let's
• 24:52
  hear about it. You know, I I don't view myself
• 24:57
  as having had a very busy month, but it does it does certainly
• 25:00
  look like a lot got completed. So this month I, I went back to
• 25:05
  clear obscure 33 and I'm still not at the point where I'm able
• 25:09
  to, you know, parry and block effectively enough to beat this
• 25:12
  this boss. So I'm still hammering through
• 25:15
  that and and trying to get past there.
• 25:18
  I put that to one side and I fired up Boulders Gate 3 again,
• 25:23
  managed to get the past the spot I was stuck at, played another
• 25:28
  maybe 10 hours of that and got through a couple of of, you
• 25:35
  know, set pieces before I hit another wall.
• 25:41
  And so that held me up for a a little while.
• 25:44
  I've now finally got to the point where I'm at Boulders Gate
• 25:47
  the town. So let's see how we we keep
• 25:50
  going there and then you hit the wall in that.
• 25:53
  Yeah, sorry. Yeah.
• 25:54
  When you hit the wall in that, is it a case of because, I mean,
• 25:58
  I've played a bit of it and I haven't reached any super walls
• 26:01
  yet. Do you do you have to kind of go
• 26:04
  elsewhere and grind or is it a case of replaying the section
• 26:07
  that you've just done and trying a different strategy?
• 26:10
  It's a. Little bit of trying a different
• 26:11
  strategy and, you know, cheesing it and hoping that they don't
• 26:16
  all attack you at once and that one of them gets stuck behind
• 26:18
  the wall for two moves. And that gives you the the leg
• 26:21
  up to actually take them out before they, they, they nail
• 26:23
  your team, you know, and then a lot of it is just down to what
• 26:28
  spells they managed to cast and take out your team.
• 26:31
  Because if you get hit by a stun spell on the first throw, then
• 26:34
  then that's basically, you know, so it was a little bit of that.
• 26:39
  And so, yeah, I'll keep going through it.
• 26:42
  And I mean, the story is, is just massive.
• 26:45
  You know, there's so much going on and those when you look at
• 26:48
  the quest lists, that just becomes overwhelming at some
• 26:52
  point, you know, because there's just so much to do.
• 26:55
  But it's, it's certainly got a lot of a lot of scope and it's a
• 26:58
  it's a really good game. So I'm going to continue with
• 27:00
  that one. I then started to look at my,
• 27:04
  you know, my A-Z type approach of playing games from the start
• 27:09
  and games from the end to get a bit of a mix up there.
• 27:12
  And I ended up picking Arcade Paradise, which I'd I'd never
• 27:15
  played before. It had zero hours played on on
• 27:18
  my list. I managed to get to the end of
• 27:22
  that. I unlocked all of the upgrades
• 27:26
  and I went back and I tried to play as many of the trophies as
• 27:29
  possible and then realised that that game is buggy as all hell
• 27:33
  when it comes to dishing out trophies.
• 27:36
  You can do the trophy target 10 times and it just doesn't fire.
• 27:42
  So there's, I think I've got about maybe 60% of the trophies
• 27:47
  on it and there's four or five of them that just never fired,
• 27:51
  which I can't go back and do without playing the game all the
• 27:53
  way all the way through again. So, you know, that was a little
• 27:58
  bit annoying. I have my usual weekly rec fest
• 28:04
  game that I play with my my local buddies.
• 28:08
  Still garbage on that, just utter garbage on it.
• 28:11
  I just cannot get into that game, you know, but it's but
• 28:14
  it's loads of fun. I was going to say, is it the
• 28:16
  kind of game where if, if, if it's if you garbage on it, it
• 28:19
  doesn't matter, It's still great fun?
• 28:22
  Is that how it kind of works out?
• 28:23
  Yeah. A little bit, you know, you can,
• 28:25
  you can still take out everybody and manage to smash them to bits
• 28:28
  and and they can manage to smash you to bits even if you end up
• 28:31
  coming last. So, you know, you don't have to
• 28:34
  be the best driver in the world. Contra rogue corpse is one of
• 28:39
  the one of us. I've been playing for a little
• 28:41
  while and it's, I mean, it doesn't feel like a very well
• 28:44
  fleshed out game. You know, you're, you're just
• 28:47
  going through these levels and just shooting everything that
• 28:49
  comes at you. But it's, it's fun.
• 28:52
  So I played a little, little bit of that couple of hours and then
• 28:55
  moved on. And then I picked up what's
• 28:58
  probably the biggest mistake of the month, which was ukulele.
• 29:03
  I, I've heard good things about the game.
• 29:07
  I started it and absolutely hated it.
• 29:12
  I gave it the usual, you know, two hours just to, to get into
• 29:16
  the game and figure out the controls.
• 29:18
  And after that I, I just have to uninstall it and ignore the fact
• 29:23
  that ever existed because it just did nothing at all for me.
• 29:27
  The, the audio was annoying, the, the graphics were glitchy.
• 29:31
  The gameplay itself was fairly basic.
• 29:33
  And I realised I'm not the target audience for it.
• 29:35
  But but yeah, I just did not enjoy that game at all.
• 29:39
  And then because I'm an, you know, a bit of an arsehole, I
• 29:44
  decided what else have I got in the Y categories?
• 29:47
  And the only other thing I had in Y category was the other
• 29:49
  ukulele game, which was ukulele and, and the Impossible Lair.
• 29:53
  And that was less, less annoying.
• 29:56
  You know, it's more of a, a side scroller.
• 29:58
  It's not full 3D. So I started playing that.
• 30:03
  And even though I didn't enjoy it, I managed to complete that,
• 30:08
  rolled credits, put it to one side, it's done, never to be
• 30:12
  played again. That is such a bold move going
• 30:15
  from ukulele that you hated. So then just picking up another
• 30:20
  ukulele game and thinking this time it will be better but well
• 30:23
  done. Yeah, and then I went back to
• 30:27
  the beginning of the alphabet and I picked up air memories of
• 30:29
  old, which looked like nothing to start with.
• 30:34
  You know, when I when I fired it up, I thought, what is this all
• 30:37
  about? And it turned out it's you get,
• 30:40
  I mean, the feel of it, it's a, it's a 3D sort of you're a
• 30:46
  character that can, that can convert itself into a bar and
• 30:48
  you got to fly around these islands and, and do various
• 30:51
  things. I mean, it's nothing like those
• 30:55
  games, but it gave me journey vibes.
• 30:57
  It gave me Chris vibes. It gave me equal vibes.
• 31:00
  You know, just something about all of those three games just
• 31:04
  seemed to manifest in this game itself.
• 31:06
  And it was a very short game. I mean, you can complete it
• 31:09
  within an hour and a half. So I, I finished that off and
• 31:15
  realised that I hadn't completed all of the trophies on that.
• 31:19
  So I went back and I platinumed it and it took three hours tops,
• 31:25
  You know, so certainly one that if it's on your list and you
• 31:28
  want to get, you want to get some, some completions under the
• 31:31
  belt air memories of old as, as a candidate you should be
• 31:34
  looking at, right? And then after that I decided to
• 31:41
  go back and look at Ben's recommendation again of digging
• 31:45
  out the spectrum. And I thought, I'm not going to
• 31:47
  dig out my Zedex spectrum again this month.
• 31:49
  I did it last month. I'm not going to be turning on
• 31:51
  too often. So I, I used my Spectrum
• 31:53
  emulator that's, that's sitting on my desktop here and I fired
• 31:58
  up Saberwolf and managed to complete that as well for the
• 32:04
  first time in how many years? I mean, the game's only been out
• 32:07
  for about a part of 40 years. So, so that was it.
• 32:15
  In February, completed ukulele in the Possible Lair Arcade,
• 32:18
  Paradise Air, Memories of Old and Sabre Wolf.
• 32:23
  Fantastic that's very good. Tell me a bit about the gameplay
• 32:27
  in arcade Paradise, because I've I've downloaded that and I've
• 32:30
  downloaded air based on based on you playing it.
• 32:33
  So they're both lined up, but I'm just interested in how it
• 32:36
  plays it's. It's actually two games in one
• 32:40
  arcade paradise. The first one you it's, you're
• 32:44
  managing the laundry and so you have to make sure that you're
• 32:47
  completing laundry services in time to get the bonuses to make
• 32:51
  the money. And then you invest that money
• 32:53
  in buying more arcade machines. And so you gradually expand the
• 32:58
  arcade area and reduce the laundry area until eventually
• 33:02
  the laundry disappears completely and it's all arcade
• 33:04
  games. And at that point, the gameplay
• 33:06
  then just becomes, can you complete the tasks that are
• 33:10
  needed in order to unlock the next upgrade to yourself?
• 33:13
  And whether the upgrade is, you know, you buy a car, so you have
• 33:16
  to take the bus to to work everyday and therefore you got
• 33:19
  more hours in the day you can work.
• 33:21
  Or whether you're buying shoes that make you run faster or a
• 33:25
  watch that does something different, or you're buying a, a
• 33:28
  book that makes the arcade machines breakdown less.
• 33:31
  Those are all the upgrades you're trying to work through in
• 33:33
  order to keep these things running.
• 33:36
  But in order to get those upgrades, you need to play each
• 33:38
  of the games. And so each game is is obviously
• 33:42
  like a classic arcade game. You'll have a, a Frogger variant
• 33:46
  and an Arcanoid variant and a, you know, a couple of shooters
• 33:50
  and some racers. And so there's an awful lot to
• 33:53
  do there. You know, it's my favourite has
• 33:56
  got to be one of the little arcade games you pick up is a
• 33:58
  game called Barkanoid. And it's an Arcanoid clone.
• 34:02
  So, you know, bat and ball, except you're a sausage dog.
• 34:07
  And so when the when the when the bat extenders come down, it
• 34:10
  just makes the sausage dog get longer and longer.
• 34:14
  Running. Around barking, bouncing this
• 34:15
  ball up and down, hit, try to hit the bricks.
• 34:17
  You know, that's pretty fun little games, yeah.
• 34:21
  Have a look at it, see what you think.
• 34:22
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:24
  Fantastic. Yeah.
• 34:27
  And I'd be keen to see what you think of air as well.
• 34:30
  Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely play that one because I wouldn't get
• 34:33
  start feeling guilty about not finishing stuff.
• 34:35
  That sounds like just the perfect candidate you.
• 34:38
  Can do it before breakfast, yeah.
• 34:43
  Shall I go on to my stuff then this this month?
• 34:46
  So it's it's not a long list, but we'll go through it anyway.
• 34:51
  I think every month I'm going to mention Rocket League and arc
• 34:53
  Raiders, so I'll, I'll keep it brief.
• 34:56
  I, I have been playing quite a lot of rocket league this month.
• 35:00
  I, I think when I, when I'm not sort of super into any
• 35:03
  particular game that that ends up being my go to.
• 35:06
  I'll just, you know, I'll just play this for half an hour.
• 35:09
  I'd set myself the goal of getting to champion rank at some
• 35:14
  point this year just to give it a bit of structure rather than
• 35:17
  just playing a Evergreen game. And yeah, not achieving
• 35:21
  anything. I thought I'd set myself a
• 35:22
  proper goal or so playing it a little bit more seriously and
• 35:27
  having a less kind of rec fest approach to Rocket League and a
• 35:30
  bit more of a strategic. Let's actually try and get the
• 35:32
  win here. I got myself.
• 35:34
  So the way the ranks work, I think I went through all of the
• 35:37
  ranks last time, but I'm in diamond at the moment.
• 35:40
  Champ is the next the next rank up and basically every two wins,
• 35:45
  and it has to be like a net two wins.
• 35:47
  So two wins in a row or win 3, lose 1.
• 35:50
  Every kind of net two wins, you move up a sub rank.
• 35:55
  So there's diamonds, there's diamond 1-2 and three and then
• 35:59
  and four, no diamond 1-2 and three.
• 36:02
  And then within each of those 3 sub ranks, there's 4 sub ranks
• 36:07
  as well. So it's something like if you do
• 36:09
  so it's 48 12:00 8/16/20, something like 24 net wins to
• 36:16
  get through the whole of diamond rank.
• 36:20
  And I got myself within four wins of getting to champ rank
• 36:26
  after like, you know, really going at it and getting quite a
• 36:29
  lot of wins. So I'd, I'd got twenty of those
• 36:31
  24 kind of net wins. And then of course, because I, I
• 36:35
  solo Q in a, in a duo's lobby, it's, it's just up to the lap of
• 36:41
  the God. Sometimes you're paired with
• 36:42
  somebody who's way better than you.
• 36:44
  Sometimes you're paired with somebody who's AFK.
• 36:48
  And I got so close and then I've just tumbled back down, which is
• 36:52
  always the way. So my, my plan is, you know,
• 36:54
  I've just got to kind of swing higher and just hope to just
• 36:58
  touch into champ at some point. So I'm, I'm back, back to where
• 37:02
  I started, but a lot of fun in the process.
• 37:06
  I'll talk to you every month about Arc Raiders.
• 37:09
  I've been playing a lot of that. I've been playing a lot of that
• 37:11
  with Ben from last year's podcast.
• 37:15
  So I think early in February we became weeknight buddies where
• 37:19
  there'd be a little message go on to on to Messenger, you know,
• 37:24
  I'm Inspironza, anybody around. And so we paired up on probably
• 37:28
  since last recording, I don't know, five times we've paired
• 37:32
  upon an evening and just run some raids together and had some
• 37:36
  really good, good fun with it. And it's been good actually,
• 37:39
  because I think when I first played with Ben, he'd only got a
• 37:42
  couple of hours into the game. And so was going through that
• 37:45
  initial, I'm super underpowered and everything's super
• 37:49
  frightening. And then within a few weeks, he,
• 37:53
  he, he's ranked up, his confidence has gone up.
• 37:56
  You know, the same with me. I'm progressing as well.
• 37:58
  So we, the, the kind of activities that we're doing in
• 38:01
  our raids are so different this week to the to three weeks ago
• 38:06
  where we're going and we're finding the biggest thing that
• 38:08
  we can take on and, and you know, giving it hell.
• 38:11
  So that's been a whole lot of fun, so much fun that I've
• 38:15
  broken my Azaron. So I've got this input device,
• 38:20
  which obviously audio listeners won't be able to see, but I
• 38:22
  think I showed it last time, this input device that
• 38:25
  essentially you put your hand into and there's keys all over
• 38:27
  the place that you can map to do the various things.
• 38:31
  But there's, there's one of the buttons that I basically have to
• 38:34
  press the whole unit kind of sideways.
• 38:36
  It has has the pivot, pivot sideways.
• 38:38
  And that's the chain shoulder that I'm using the gun on.
• 38:42
  And I've just used that so hard playing art graders that I've
• 38:46
  sheared through the little plastic thing that holds it
• 38:48
  together. So now if I swap shoulders, then
• 38:51
  the whole thing falls apart. Luckily I've got some bits sent
• 38:55
  across from the Ukraine to do a repair, so I think after we've
• 38:58
  done this recording I'll repair it and I'll be back in the game.
• 39:03
  Right. For the audio listeners, it
• 39:06
  looks like something out of the start of Terminator.
• 39:08
  You know, I think Terminator 2, they built the Terminator from
• 39:11
  that hand, didn't they? It's a fantastic device.
• 39:17
  It is really, really good at any game with kind of complex key
• 39:20
  binds where you want, you want your actions to be seamless.
• 39:24
  So whether it's reloading, swapping shoulders, crouching,
• 39:27
  that kind of thing, I think there's nothing for me as an
• 39:30
  unskilled keyboard and mouse kind of player, there's nothing
• 39:33
  that breaks the immersion more in the middle of a firefight
• 39:37
  than pulling out the little keyboard draw, looking down,
• 39:41
  trying to work out which button it is, do the thing that you
• 39:44
  need to do immediately, and then finding yourself dead by the
• 39:47
  time you look back up. So it has been a game changer.
• 39:52
  And then I've tried 3 new games from the backlog this month.
• 39:58
  So #1 is a game called Silt SILT.
• 40:02
  And it's, it's a kind of mysterious underwater puzzle
• 40:08
  platformer is the best way to describe it.
• 40:11
  It's kind of similar in vibe to things like Limbo and I've I've
• 40:17
  had a good time with it. It's it's, I think it's got a
• 40:19
  few. Kind of pacing problems, like I
• 40:21
  found myself crazy stuff like the whole screen is dark, you're
• 40:25
  underwater, everything's dark and bleak.
• 40:27
  There's some kind of mysterious, almost Cthulhu style creatures
• 40:33
  knocking around and you and you basically go around.
• 40:35
  You're you're a diver, but you can sort of mind control fish
• 40:41
  that you encounter. So you'll, you'll swim along and
• 40:44
  within the first few minutes, some fish will come and just
• 40:46
  gobble you up and you're dead. And then you learn that, OK,
• 40:49
  actually, if you can mind control it before it eats you,
• 40:53
  then you can take over being the fish.
• 40:55
  And then you can, you know, if you're that fish, you can then
• 40:57
  chew through some stuff and then unlock a pathway.
• 41:01
  And then there's other things like you can swim fish into
• 41:05
  poisonous underwater plants and then the fish carries the poison
• 41:09
  and then you can take that fish to another fish that would have
• 41:11
  been too hard to deal with unless it's eaten a poisoned
• 41:14
  fish and so on. So it's got some really nice
• 41:17
  ideas, but just some of the sections are, are really, really
• 41:21
  obtuse where there's, there's, you know, multiple paths and
• 41:24
  you're not sure whether you're meant to do them all or whether
• 41:27
  it's a bit Metroidvania where you, you go down a path and you
• 41:31
  can't do it until you've done something else first.
• 41:35
  So I was, I, it was a bit of a kind of 6 out of 10 for me.
• 41:38
  And I've, I've got a little way into it and I'm, I'm wondering
• 41:42
  about going back. It's, it's one of those when I'm
• 41:45
  doing my streaming, I find nothing more anxiety inducing
• 41:51
  than being super stuck on a puzzle again, because I'm
• 41:54
  conscious that, you know, if I'm, I'm broadcasting and if
• 41:57
  somebody goes and makes their dinner and eats their dinner and
• 42:00
  watches a movie and then comes back and sees how I'm doing, if
• 42:02
  I'm still stuck on the same puzzle, it's, I'm conscious.
• 42:06
  It's not not great entertainment.
• 42:08
  So, so I'll put that one down for now.
• 42:11
  I've picked up papers, please, which I'm sure lots of the
• 42:14
  community will have played at some point or other.
• 42:17
  And it's a game that I'd probably put 45 minutes into,
• 42:22
  you know, in previous years, many years ago.
• 42:25
  And I picked it up again. And, and it's, it's interesting
• 42:27
  because I think the first time I played it, I didn't quite
• 42:30
  understand what it was trying to do or what I was supposed to do.
• 42:35
  So you're, you're, you're put into this game in a, in a
• 42:40
  fantastical Russian state, essentially as a border border
• 42:44
  control person. And you've got people coming to
• 42:46
  your desk offering you their passport.
• 42:50
  And then you have to make a judgement about whether you're
• 42:52
  going to let them into your state or not.
• 42:55
  And I couldn't quite work out whether it was going to be a bit
• 42:57
  of a, like a social experiment thing where you knew you were
• 43:02
  meant to let certain people in and not let other people in, but
• 43:05
  whether you needed to listen to their story and, and potentially
• 43:08
  bend the rules. If you, you know, if you felt a
• 43:11
  bit of empathy with those people and wanted to give them safe
• 43:14
  passage. So I first time around, I just
• 43:17
  couldn't work it out. It's like, am I letting people
• 43:18
  through? Am I meant to be letting people
• 43:20
  through or am I meant to just be doing a desk job and doing it
• 43:23
  correctly? So this time around I I played
• 43:27
  it more and, and got right into it and, and it is absolutely
• 43:31
  brilliant. So you've got a long running
• 43:34
  plot. So on day one you're giving some
• 43:37
  very clear instructions about who can come through, who cannot
• 43:39
  come through. And the job is to, to just apply
• 43:43
  those rules. So it feels a bit like busy
• 43:45
  work. You're checking, you know, which
• 43:47
  state have they come from? Is it on a banned list of
• 43:49
  states? Is are the dates?
• 43:51
  Do they line up and do the different bits of paperwork have
• 43:54
  the same reference on that kind of thing?
• 43:56
  Sounds really boring, but you do it.
• 43:58
  And then at the end of the day, something happens and then it's
• 44:02
  transitions from one day to the next with a, with a new fresh
• 44:06
  newspaper, with news, a new briefing note from kind of head
• 44:10
  office. And you're given a different
• 44:12
  rule set every day based on things that happen.
• 44:15
  So sometimes there might be a terrorist attack and then
• 44:17
  there's other, other particular states are, are not allowed in
• 44:21
  or particular states now need an entry pass or, or, or various
• 44:26
  different types of documents. And how it all ends up playing
• 44:30
  is that it's a crazy race against time.
• 44:34
  So it just isn't the game I thought it was.
• 44:36
  I thought it was a very kind of cerebral, just sit and play it
• 44:39
  at your own pace. But essentially the the clock is
• 44:42
  ticking. So it's almost a little bit like
• 44:44
  that last level of viewfinder we talked about last month.
• 44:46
  The clock is ticking. If you don't stamp the passports
• 44:50
  and get things right, you don't earn any money and you're trying
• 44:53
  to maintain a family, you're trying to pay for the heating,
• 44:56
  you're trying to pay for their food, this kind of thing.
• 44:59
  And you only get the pay if you get your do your job right.
• 45:03
  So you end up having to try and review all these documents
• 45:07
  really, really fast. And there's all the every day
• 45:10
  there's more and more conditions.
• 45:11
  So it just becomes an absolute scramble of kind of mental
• 45:16
  gymnastics to get through it. Sorry.
• 45:22
  Do the that's OK. Do the rule, do the rules
• 45:24
  compound day on day, yes, OK, right.
• 45:29
  So there's no compound. Day on day.
• 45:31
  No, no, no. So you, you've got pre-existing
• 45:34
  rules and then yeah, more, more rules added on top of it.
• 45:38
  And then some like some dark and weird things start to happen.
• 45:42
  So it's not just people coming in with safe passage, but
• 45:45
  looking for safe passage. But you get people who just come
• 45:48
  and submit like complete forgeries.
• 45:51
  And then somebody will come in and just give you a little flyer
• 45:53
  for a lap dancing club and you're like, what is what is
• 45:56
  happening here? And then somebody will come and
• 45:58
  give you an envelope and say, OK, somebody's going to come
• 46:00
  tomorrow and they're going to ask for this, but you need to
• 46:03
  give them this envelope instead of this envelope.
• 46:07
  And so you, they, they're dropping little memory
• 46:09
  challenges for, for the following day.
• 46:12
  And, and then somebody came along and said, OK, this person
• 46:17
  is going to come tomorrow. And it, if they do and you do
• 46:21
  this, then I'll give you $1000. So it's kind of like, OK, we're,
• 46:25
  we're, we're paying like $2020.00 a day for our heating
• 46:29
  here. And the whole thing's a constant
• 46:31
  battle. And so I was like, well, I'll
• 46:33
  definitely do that. But then that all, all
• 46:36
  unravelled and I started getting under investigation from the,
• 46:38
  from the police and stuff like that.
• 46:40
  So there's, there's all these little things that are dropped
• 46:43
  in to kind of tempt you. And I think then I think you can
• 46:46
  navigate your way through them, but things can unravel pretty
• 46:50
  damn quickly. So I, I have just had an amazing
• 46:53
  time with that. I think there's 20 different
• 46:55
  endings to the game. So it's one of those that I
• 47:00
  think it will take a lot of replaying to, to experience them
• 47:04
  all. I've, I've gotten 33 endings.
• 47:08
  I've run out of money, my whole family's died of illness,
• 47:12
  freezing cold and starved to death and I've been arrested,
• 47:19
  I've had my family arrested all to do with these financial
• 47:22
  irregularities. And there's, there's 17 more
• 47:25
  endings to experience so on. On the face of it, I've had a
• 47:29
  brilliant time and I, I feel like I've finished it in various
• 47:32
  different ways. But a completionist would have a
• 47:35
  lot of fun going through and exploring all the things.
• 47:38
  And there's, there's one other thing.
• 47:40
  So it creates for each new game you play, it creates a timeline
• 47:45
  and essentially saves at the end of each day.
• 47:48
  So when you go into your load game menu, it's not just a case
• 47:52
  of picking up your last save game or a save file.
• 47:56
  You can navigate through this kind of tree of stuff and you
• 47:59
  can choose on which day of which save you want to resume.
• 48:03
  And it kind of lists down the stats of where you're at.
• 48:05
  So for instance, where I took my $1000 slightly shady bribe and
• 48:11
  then ended up getting arrested and my family slammed in gaol
• 48:14
  too, I could go back to that save and I could, I could go
• 48:17
  back to the day before and not take the bribe.
• 48:19
  Or I could go back to having just taken the bribe and see if
• 48:23
  I can work my way through the madness in a different way.
• 48:26
  So it is, I guess it's quite forgiving in the sense that you
• 48:29
  can, you can play it like that as well.
• 48:33
  So brilliant time with that. And then the last thing I've
• 48:37
  picked up, and this was just a wonderful surprise to find it in
• 48:40
  my backlog, was Mafia 2 Definitive Edition, which is a
• 48:47
  game. So I played the first Mafia.
• 48:49
  I think I played the the remastered version of it.
• 48:52
  I played that last year and absolutely loved it.
• 48:55
  Just like watching a gangster movie, a lot of cutscenes, usual
• 49:00
  kind of character tropes, but brilliantly written.
• 49:03
  And I was just scaring through the backlog and I I, I wasn't
• 49:07
  even doing the picking A or picking Z thing.
• 49:10
  I was just like, I need to find something that that takes my
• 49:13
  fancy. And right in the middle there
• 49:15
  under the Ms was Mafia 2 and I didn't.
• 49:18
  It's one of these games. Genuinely didn't know I had a
• 49:21
  tool. So year of shame.
• 49:23
  Congrats for uncovering these things.
• 49:26
  So I've been playing Mafia 2. It's very good.
• 49:31
  The same sort of thing, well written, really good gangster
• 49:34
  story. I think it's about 15 chapters
• 49:37
  long. I've gone through six of those
• 49:39
  chapters this week. So it's, it's probably, I don't
• 49:41
  know, a 1520 hour game. So I'm I'm getting towards
• 49:44
  halfway and really loving it. The combat's a little bit junky.
• 49:51
  It's quite difficult. You know, it's got a kind of
• 49:53
  cover mechanism which seems a little bit a bit binary.
• 49:57
  You can't really poke out of cover and take a shot without
• 50:01
  getting hit. You're always left out long
• 50:04
  enough to take some hits. But and and it does some weird
• 50:08
  things where sometimes you can't progress in a level because you
• 50:14
  have to kill all of the AI. And if an AI has gotten stuck
• 50:18
  somewhere in the mat behind the door, even if it was 10 minutes
• 50:21
  ago, you, you just can't progress to the next bit.
• 50:26
  And so you have to sort of backtrack and work out, OK,
• 50:28
  somebody must be stuck somewhere.
• 50:30
  And again, that that's a lucky thing because I was on the
• 50:32
  stream and I was, I was trying to make an escape from the
• 50:34
  police and I'd run up the stairs of this building, got onto the
• 50:38
  roof. It was really obviously
• 50:39
  signposted that I needed to just step out onto the ledge of this
• 50:43
  roof and then kind of shimmy along.
• 50:46
  But it, it just would not let me do it.
• 50:48
  And somebody just came into my chat and said, Oh yeah, there'll
• 50:50
  be a, there'll be a policeman on the, on the stairs.
• 50:53
  And sure enough, back down the stairs, Oh yeah, somebody's a
• 50:56
  bit stuck in the wall, pop them in the head and then off we go.
• 50:59
  So a couple of little things that aren't, aren't quite right
• 51:02
  about it, but it's, it's super and, and it's very much like
• 51:06
  Grand Theft Auto. So there's quite a lot of
• 51:07
  driving around that you do in these beautiful kind of historic
• 51:11
  cars. And it's got radio channels and
• 51:14
  it's playing all this kind of like great kind of jazz music
• 51:18
  from, I don't know, prohibition era.
• 51:20
  So it's it's it's really, really good.
• 51:23
  And I've enjoyed that a lot. So I'm not like you, I haven't
• 51:28
  been completing loads of games, but I have enjoyed what I've
• 51:31
  done. Yeah, that's the important
• 51:34
  thing, you know. Exactly.
• 51:37
  Shall we, whilst we're on games, shall we stay on the games and
• 51:42
  have a little look forward to things that have either just
• 51:45
  come out or things that are coming out soon that might be
• 51:49
  making you feel a little bit sad?
• 51:53
  Yeah, You know, again, I there's, there's not a lot there
• 51:57
  that I'm sort of looking at and going, oh, man, why this year?
• 52:03
  The marathon. I know I commented on marathon's
• 52:07
  graphic style last episode. I mean, it sort of looks like it
• 52:12
  could be fairly good. And that comes out in March.
• 52:19
  Yeah. But but again, it's probably not
• 52:21
  something I would have picked up day one.
• 52:23
  So it's it's not going to keep me awake at night knowing that I
• 52:27
  didn't get the chance to to buy it this year.
• 52:30
  One of the things that is coming out this year, which sorry, this
• 52:34
  next month, which is interesting me is a game called Screamer.
• 52:40
  I don't know if you can remember way back in the late 1990s,
• 52:45
  there was APC game that came out and this is the days when 3 DFX
• 52:49
  had just been released and it was a a car racing game called
• 52:53
  Screamer. This is what I think is a remake
• 52:56
  of it. And it it it looks, it looks
• 53:00
  like it's still got the same sort of, you know, look and feel
• 53:05
  the the wrapped some some anime style video capture stuff around
• 53:11
  the front of it to give it a storyline, which the old one
• 53:14
  didn't have. But at its heart, it's it's a
• 53:17
  racer. You know, it's a racer where you
• 53:20
  can destroy all the cars as you're as you're driving around.
• 53:25
  So that one, that one looks interesting to me.
• 53:28
  But again, it's not something that that I'm that fussed.
• 53:31
  I'm not going to get to play this year.
• 53:35
  There is a game coming out on the 19th of March, which to all
• 53:39
  intents and purposes none of us would have looked at and it's
• 53:43
  called Mouse Pi for Hire. Have you seen the videos for
• 53:48
  this one? I have not.
• 53:52
  It's given me chicken detective vibes, but yeah.
• 53:55
  Now imagine, imagine if Doom or Quake or any of these first
• 54:02
  person shooters, you got to play as what was the original version
• 54:07
  of Mickey Mouse? You know the one where it were
• 54:10
  Steamboat Willie. That's that's what it looks
• 54:13
  like. It's a first person shooter
• 54:16
  where you're a mouse going round and shooting some very Disney
• 54:20
  looking baddies. But it looks like good fun, you
• 54:23
  know it looks. Amazing.
• 54:26
  It's yeah. It's like, it's beautiful sort
• 54:29
  of Cuphead vibes a little bit, but like sort of 3D3D sort of
• 54:34
  Cuphead. It's brilliant, cartoon and all
• 54:36
  in. Black and white, yeah.
• 54:39
  So those are the only things that are coming out in the next
• 54:41
  month that that I had an interest in, but nothing that's
• 54:47
  going to make me want to, you know, have a klaxon going off.
• 54:52
  Having said that, though, I there's no klaxon sound that we
• 54:59
  need to put in this episode. Don't worry.
• 55:01
  Well, not from me anyway. But you mentioned that you just
• 55:04
  had a birthday. My birthday is this time next
• 55:07
  week and my my local mates are, they're insistent that there's
• 55:16
  going to be gifts incoming. And I've said, look, you know,
• 55:19
  you guys can buy me whatever gift you want, but be aware I
• 55:22
  don't have to play it this year. So you can buy it.
• 55:26
  If I don't play it, it doesn't count as my gift, right?
• 55:30
  I'm hoping that's how everybody else is understanding this, I
• 55:34
  think. That's fine.
• 55:35
  If people want to try and stitch you up and you show the the
• 55:37
  resilience to just file it away for 2027, I think that's
• 55:43
  absolutely fine. Because there's two ways it
• 55:45
  could go. Either they'll buy me
• 55:47
  Battlefield 6 because that's what they're all playing.
• 55:50
  You know, these are the same guys I play Rec Fest with.
• 55:53
  In which case I would, I would probably accept it.
• 55:56
  So I could play with them on a Thursday and we'd have a klaxon
• 55:59
  next episode that would. Be a big klaxon, yeah?
• 56:02
  Or they will buy me Barbie's dream house because they're.
• 56:06
  Bastards. And they know that that's then a
• 56:08
  gift. That's you know.
• 56:11
  How do you play that on the beer Claxon?
• 56:13
  It would be the greatest Faxon that's ever been played.
• 56:18
  Yeah. So we'll see.
• 56:20
  But I expect that, you know, by this time next week, there will
• 56:23
  be at least something that has to be considered as a gift.
• 56:28
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 56:29
  Have you got any plans for your birthday apart from playing
• 56:31
  Barbie's Dream House? No, not at all.
• 56:35
  You know, I've had, I've had 56 birthdays already, so one more
• 56:38
  is not going to make any big difference.
• 56:41
  It'll be a fairly muted affair with a family and and that'll be
• 56:44
  it. Nice, nice.
• 56:47
  Yeah, yeah, it's games coming out.
• 56:49
  I've I've written down a few things that are of interest.
• 56:51
  So you mentioned marathon. This is I'm going to file
• 56:56
  marathon under 30 bucks saved. So it had quite a lot of bad
• 57:04
  press over the last six months or so.
• 57:06
  In the last four weeks there's been quite a lot of excitement
• 57:10
  and it is the classic pre launch hype cycle that is going on.
• 57:16
  So I think they've released some trailer videos that actually
• 57:19
  look very, very impressive. And knowing myself, I would 100%
• 57:26
  have got snapped up in that kind of hype and I would probably in
• 57:33
  the next 7 days. It comes out March 5th.
• 57:35
  In the next 7 days I can guarantee that if I wasn't in
• 57:38
  the year of shame that I would 100% have pre-ordered it based
• 57:44
  on that little shortwave of hype.
• 57:47
  And I'd play it on launch day and get very excited about it,
• 57:50
  realise that I'm not very good at first person shooters and it
• 57:53
  would have gone on to that backlog for a future year.
• 57:57
  So what? It would have been a definite
• 58:00
  purchase and almost certainly a definite regret as well.
• 58:06
  And then a couple of other games coming out that I would almost
• 58:08
  certainly have bought if I wasn't doing this thing.
• 58:12
  One of them is Planet of Lana 2. So this came the the first one
• 58:19
  came to Game Pass not so long ago.
• 58:21
  I feel like it was probably within the last 18 months.
• 58:24
  I might be wrong. And again, this was a kind of
• 58:27
  limbo inside side scrolling, slightly mysterious puzzle
• 58:33
  adventure kind of thing. And it was absolutely
• 58:37
  beautifully done. It it's like it looked looked
• 58:40
  beautiful and all the sounds are really good.
• 58:43
  And again, it's like a kind of four or five hour kind of game.
• 58:47
  And I would absolutely have loved to play the second one.
• 58:51
  So that that will be on a little list of things to go shopping on
• 58:56
  a one minute past midnight. I think Mugenics has come out in
• 59:01
  the last week, which is a cat based.
• 59:08
  It's it's made by and I'm going to forget because I've got an
• 59:11
  old brain. What's the one with the baby
• 59:15
  running around firing its tears as weapons?
• 59:20
  Oh my word, no. I've got no idea there, no.
• 59:23
  It's so bad everyone will be shouting, shouting at their
• 59:26
  phones going, oh, you don't even know what it's called.
• 59:28
  Anyway, made by the same developers as another brilliant
• 59:31
  game and a couple of other things that I probably wouldn't
• 59:35
  have bought, but they're quite big.
• 59:36
  So Resident Evil Requiem is coming out very soon.
• 59:40
  I think Brian is sorely tempted by the DLC for Ghost of Yo Tai,
• 59:45
  which comes out. He is, yeah, To the point where
• 59:49
  he's been asking for clarification about DLC rules.
• 59:53
  I'm not not sure he's going to get a favourable verdict there.
• 59:56
  Oh no, I. Gave him a verdict.
• 59:58
  I said that he's welcome to to play it for free as long as he
• 1:00:00
  platinums the original game. Oh, is it?
• 1:00:04
  Yeah, OK. Sorry that seems that seems
• 1:00:06
  fair. And then one other thing
• 1:00:09
  actually that I would have been interested in.
• 1:00:11
  So Slay the Spire 2 is coming out in early access during next
• 1:00:16
  month, which I definitely would have enjoyed a double up, but
• 1:00:20
  I'll just have to stay off it. And then the last thing I always
• 1:00:24
  torch myself a little bit by looking at what's coming out on
• 1:00:27
  Xbox Game Pass and Kingdom Come. Deliverance 2 is coming to Game
• 1:00:33
  Pass, so if I hadn't had to cancel my lovely Game Pass
• 1:00:38
  Ultimate subscription for the purposes of this, then that
• 1:00:41
  would have been downloaded and played.
• 1:00:46
  Not this time. I think that was one that Paul
• 1:00:51
  from last year pointed out is it's got a free upgrade to PS-5
• 1:00:57
  if you own it on PS4. So it gets.
• 1:01:01
  The high res updates and all the all the wonderful new stuff
• 1:01:04
  that's in the PS-5 version as a free upgrade.
• 1:01:07
  So that, that's nice to see they're still doing that for,
• 1:01:12
  you know, games that that came from the PS4 era.
• 1:01:17
  Yeah, fair dues. Shall we move on to the news?
• 1:01:22
  Yes, we have an awful lot of news this this month.
• 1:01:28
  So a lot of it came out today, though one, one of the things I
• 1:01:33
  didn't notice at the beginning of of the month, though, was
• 1:01:37
  that the Grammys now have a podcast award that they give out
• 1:01:42
  every year. So I know we didn't win it last
• 1:01:45
  year, but you know, fingers crossed we get it next year.
• 1:01:50
  Watch this space. So that was that was the very
• 1:01:56
  first news article that I'd recorded is of interest since
• 1:02:00
  our last recording. Something that might interest
• 1:02:04
  you guys that own a Steam Deck is that Nexus Mods are now
• 1:02:08
  available in the Steam Deck. Oh, really?
• 1:02:11
  So. Any games that you that are that
• 1:02:13
  have got Nexus mods for them you can now easily get activated on
• 1:02:18
  on your deck without having to do a lot of fiddling.
• 1:02:24
  The guy that made The Last of Us in Chernobyl for HBO, He's now
• 1:02:32
  signed up to do a Baldur's Gate series, yes.
• 1:02:37
  Which, you know, if it's the same quality as as those two
• 1:02:40
  could be quite an interesting watch I think.
• 1:02:45
  For sure. Did you see the the the
• 1:02:50
  announcement for a game called Project Windlass?
• 1:02:54
  I've heard people talk about Project Winless.
• 1:02:57
  It's the strangest thing I've ever seen.
• 1:03:01
  Imagine God of War where a you're a human sized muscular
• 1:03:04
  chicken. Why a chicken?
• 1:03:10
  I mean, I think it's based on, you know, legendary stories from
• 1:03:15
  from somewhere, but it it's a very strange looking game.
• 1:03:23
  The No Man's Sky. Did you see the new version of
• 1:03:27
  that is dropping soon? Is it dropping soon?
• 1:03:30
  I was coincidentally was watching somebody streaming No
• 1:03:33
  Man's Sky and every time I either dip back in or watch
• 1:03:38
  somebody else dipping back in. The game has changed so
• 1:03:44
  fundamentally since. I liked it on launch, but it
• 1:03:47
  just seems different every time I look at it.
• 1:03:49
  Every. Single time there's been so much
• 1:03:51
  love given to it to make it what they originally promised.
• 1:03:55
  I think it might out be out already.
• 1:03:56
  No Man's Sky remnant and yeah, it's you can now go vehicles
• 1:04:01
  that you can build you can you can do missions on different
• 1:04:04
  planets doing cleaning up of environmental disasters and
• 1:04:07
  things like that. There's a lot of stuff there new
• 1:04:11
  that that you're right makes it a very different game to what
• 1:04:13
  what was originally launched. And then we come to today's
• 1:04:18
  news, and it's been an interesting day.
• 1:04:23
  So the Phil Spector and his second in command both stepped
• 1:04:28
  down from Xbox. That's huge.
• 1:04:36
  Yeah. So I don't know quite how that's
• 1:04:38
  going to turn out, but but that's a big, big deal, you
• 1:04:42
  know. And then in terms of, you know,
• 1:04:47
  other news, the there's been some kickback or push back on
• 1:04:51
  the shutting down of Blue Point by Sony to the point where some
• 1:04:57
  of the some of the PS-5 fans are now indicating that they'll be
• 1:05:02
  boycotting Marathon when it's launched, which could end up
• 1:05:08
  quite badly for Bungie because Bungie are next with their heads
• 1:05:12
  on the chopping block after Blue Point.
• 1:05:14
  I think so. Why are they targeting Marathon?
• 1:05:18
  Is there is there a link or is it just to get a PlayStation?
• 1:05:21
  I think it's just to get a PlayStation and, and we know
• 1:05:24
  that the Bungie are, you know, if you look at the the lifespan
• 1:05:29
  for Destiny and you look at at everything else that they've
• 1:05:33
  produced, all of that's coming to its end of life now.
• 1:05:36
  So if Marathon's not a success, they're not really going to have
• 1:05:39
  a whole lot to to keep them around, you know, so that would
• 1:05:44
  that would be interesting to keep an eye on there.
• 1:05:46
  It's just see how that that all turns out.
• 1:05:50
  And then Ubisoft, who seem to be going through a whole bunch of,
• 1:05:52
  you know, shutting things down and cancelling various bits and
• 1:05:55
  pieces, came out today and assured us that there is at
• 1:06:00
  least one new Far Cry, possibly 2, and at least two Assassin's
• 1:06:05
  Creed games coming out soon. The Assassin's Creed game, we
• 1:06:08
  know we're going to be the Black Flag remake and Assassin's Creed
• 1:06:12
  Hicks. The Far Cry ones, I haven't seen
• 1:06:15
  any news about where the location is going to be or
• 1:06:18
  whether they're going to be, you know, mainstream Far Cry or one
• 1:06:22
  of these weird sort of repackagings that they do where
• 1:06:26
  they. Play the same game Blood Dragon
• 1:06:29
  Blood. Dragon was good.
• 1:06:30
  Yep. And what was the one where?
• 1:06:32
  You had the motorbike key, Yes, Blood.
• 1:06:37
  Yeah, Blood Dragon had the motorbike version, but the the
• 1:06:41
  Far Cry Blood Dragon was the one that was like an 80s action
• 1:06:44
  movie. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:47
  It was all. Plural and you know, very gung
• 1:06:50
  ho American action hero type language that was used in the
• 1:06:54
  game. Loads of fun.
• 1:06:56
  Yeah, amazing. So that's.
• 1:06:59
  All the news that I had for this month.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah, I can't believe what you've had the benefit of having
• 1:07:04
  a day. So I've just got a part of bed
• 1:07:06
  for this recording and you've been consuming the Xbox news.
• 1:07:10
  So I'm still a little bit shell shocked when you mentioned that
• 1:07:12
  just before we started recording.
• 1:07:14
  And I'm thinking back to the like the absolute mess that Xbox
• 1:07:19
  was in prior to Phil Spencer taking the helm.
• 1:07:24
  And, you know, you can argue whether Xbox have done well
• 1:07:28
  under his tenure or not. I mean, I think he's revitalised
• 1:07:31
  them and they probably would have been doomed without his
• 1:07:35
  influence. But the fact that they're now
• 1:07:40
  going to be going on without him, I think it, it gives big
• 1:07:43
  questions, especially with, you know, next Gen coming up.
• 1:07:45
  It to me, it smells of, I don't, I, you know, I don't know
• 1:07:49
  whether he's pushed or he jumped, but it smells of, of him
• 1:07:53
  not fancying the next Gen and what it has got in store.
• 1:07:58
  Because otherwise I think he'd be, he'd be wanting to stay even
• 1:08:01
  if he didn't stay through the generation, he'd want to stay
• 1:08:05
  and launch it. And you mentioned one of the
• 1:08:07
  reasons why things might be a little bit iffy in terms of the
• 1:08:12
  the next Gen, Yeah. So it's not just Phil that's
• 1:08:15
  leaving, it's Phil and I think second in command, Sarah Bond.
• 1:08:20
  They've both stepped down today and they've been replaced by the
• 1:08:24
  Microsoft lead of AI division, who you know that that that
• 1:08:32
  sounds like they're planning some things that nobody really
• 1:08:36
  wants, you know. Yeah, yeah, that is scary stuff.
• 1:08:43
  Scary, scary stuff. Good one.
• 1:08:46
  Shocking, shocking news abound. Shall we move straight on to the
• 1:08:52
  questions, which I've got to say, Stuart, I appreciate that
• 1:08:56
  you've been you, that you've noted them all down.
• 1:08:59
  So rather than us like reaching desperately for the phones and
• 1:09:02
  trying to work out what's going on, you've pasted them all into
• 1:09:05
  a lovely little table. So it's, it's very easy for me
• 1:09:08
  to go through them. So I think what I'll do is I'll,
• 1:09:11
  I'll read, read out the questions, let you go first on
• 1:09:13
  each of them. Stuart.
• 1:09:14
  All right. Cool, so the.
• 1:09:16
  The first one is from another Stuart Stuart Whitehouse of
• 1:09:19
  Season 8 fame and asks nice and simply what is your favourite
• 1:09:23
  food and drink? Oh, so mine's going to be
• 1:09:28
  seasonal because food, you know, if it's middle of winter here,
• 1:09:30
  it gets a little bit cold, not quite as cold as it gets over
• 1:09:34
  where you guys are. But I, I do like a nice homemade
• 1:09:37
  cottage pie. If it's if it's in summer, you
• 1:09:41
  know some back strap lamb back straps or a nice big chunk of
• 1:09:44
  steak on the BBQ with some homemade potato salad.
• 1:09:48
  Drink wise, and I don't know if there's any noise in the
• 1:09:51
  background that you guys might have picked up on this
• 1:09:53
  recording, but it relates to my drink selection.
• 1:09:56
  I I tend to drink my own body weight in Pepsi Max every day
• 1:10:00
  and I managed to tip over an entire can of Pepsi Max into my
• 1:10:04
  lap right now about 5 minutes ago.
• 1:10:07
  So I'm sitting here a wee bit soaked at the moment, dripping
• 1:10:10
  in Pepsi. You.
• 1:10:11
  Love it. You love it, so actually shower
• 1:10:13
  in it. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:10:14
  Yeah, but, but I do like, you know, a whiskey or a gin and
• 1:10:20
  tonic or a glass of red wine at night, you know, just one glass
• 1:10:23
  of my dinner, you know, just, you know, make the, the day
• 1:10:27
  worthwhile. So those are my, my favourites.
• 1:10:31
  There's no, there's no one alcoholic drink that I prefer.
• 1:10:35
  Other than that it has to be gluten free.
• 1:10:37
  And you'll see for some of the the other options the other
• 1:10:40
  questions were being asked. That gluten free theme is going
• 1:10:43
  to come through quite strong here because I, I am celiac so I
• 1:10:47
  can't go anywhere near beers or anything like that.
• 1:10:50
  But, you know, whiskeys, gin and tonics, and red wine are fairly
• 1:10:53
  safe. What about yourself?
• 1:10:57
  Yeah. And for Yeah, for me.
• 1:10:59
  I think if if somebody came to me now and said OK, we're going
• 1:11:02
  out for dinner, your choice what you're going to have, I think I
• 1:11:07
  would always choose a really nice steak restaurant.
• 1:11:12
  I was lucky enough at Christmas time so we always have our kind
• 1:11:15
  of works subsidised Christmas dinner thing for our teams and
• 1:11:21
  it's always tightly controlled by budget.
• 1:11:24
  And we've joked every year about a restaurant near us called
• 1:11:28
  Pasture, which is just an incredible, super pricey steak
• 1:11:32
  place. And so every year the message
• 1:11:34
  comes around from the boss saying, oh, you know, where
• 1:11:36
  should we go for Christmas dinner this year?
• 1:11:38
  And everybody always types in Pasture.
• 1:11:41
  And then there's lots of like laughing emojis and yeah, yeah,
• 1:11:43
  yeah. But where are we really going
• 1:11:45
  kind of thing. And this year, I don't know what
• 1:11:48
  changed, but this year somebody did the joke Pasture.
• 1:11:51
  And then it was like, oh, I can't, I think we can do that.
• 1:11:53
  So we, we, we went to this steak restaurant and it just, there's
• 1:11:57
  something about going to a really good steak place where
• 1:12:00
  it's just out of this world, a completely wonderful taste.
• 1:12:04
  So I would always choose a steak meal out.
• 1:12:08
  I do love a Curry. So I've come from Birmingham in
• 1:12:11
  the UK, which is UK capital of Curry.
• 1:12:15
  And but I do make quite a lot of Curry at home.
• 1:12:18
  So I think if it was offered a restaurant now, I'd choose steak
• 1:12:22
  and like yourself, I, I'll enjoy a range of anything to drink.
• 1:12:27
  I think again, if I was offered just one drink, I'd probably
• 1:12:31
  take a nice glass of red wine, especially with my steak.
• 1:12:34
  But I do like, I think you can probably, you can probably see
• 1:12:37
  behind me. I've got a couple of bottles of
• 1:12:39
  bourbon on on my shelf now. So I, I, I do treat myself.
• 1:12:43
  Father Christmas brought me a couple of nice bottles of
• 1:12:45
  bourbon that I'll try and make last through the year.
• 1:12:50
  Good question, thank. Thank you for that, Stuart.
• 1:12:52
  The next question is an interesting one.
• 1:12:54
  It's from Brian, who, who obviously isn't here today.
• 1:12:57
  I don't know whether this is a question for the podcast or or
• 1:13:00
  whether it's really him just trying to establish the
• 1:13:02
  boundaries of the rules. But the question is, is free DLC
• 1:13:06
  allowed? I think Ghost of Yo Thai Legends
• 1:13:09
  is dropping soon. Yeah, I, I mentioned it earlier,
• 1:13:14
  you know, only if you plan on the original game, if you, if
• 1:13:17
  you go through the entire story, and that was me being funny
• 1:13:20
  responding to Brian. I think as long as you roll
• 1:13:22
  credits, you know, roll credits in the original game and then
• 1:13:25
  the free DLC is, is more than allowed.
• 1:13:29
  But if you're, if you're struggling with the original,
• 1:13:33
  then yeah, you probably need to spend the time to to get through
• 1:13:37
  that first before you you move on.
• 1:13:40
  Yeah. That seems on message, doesn't
• 1:13:42
  it? I mean, I was going to take a, a
• 1:13:44
  harder stance and kind of say no.
• 1:13:46
  And then I remembered everything I've, I remembered everything
• 1:13:50
  that I've said about Arc Raiders, which is they're
• 1:13:53
  dropping new content all the time and it isn't called DLC
• 1:13:56
  because it's a live service game.
• 1:13:58
  And so I can't be too hypocritical and say, oh, well,
• 1:14:00
  you can't play new content. You've got to do your backlog
• 1:14:04
  because otherwise I, I kind of stymie myself for the year.
• 1:14:09
  Yeah. Next next question from Paul
• 1:14:12
  Wilson of season 13 fame. Do you suffer from analysis
• 1:14:17
  paralysis when it comes to the over overwhelming choice of
• 1:14:20
  things to play and watch? And does it sometimes lead to to
• 1:14:24
  just not being able to make a choice?
• 1:14:28
  I, no, when it comes to games, I, I tend to look at the reviews
• 1:14:33
  1st and I, I know the style of game I like and so I tend to
• 1:14:38
  stick with what's safe. You know, I'm, I'm going to like
• 1:14:40
  this. So I'll keep playing the same
• 1:14:42
  style that, that does work against you in certain
• 1:14:47
  conditions because you don't go outside of your comfort zone,
• 1:14:49
  You don't try something new like, you know, arcade paradise
• 1:14:52
  or, or, or like Silt, for example.
• 1:14:54
  I, I was watching the videos of silt when you were playing it
• 1:14:58
  and I thought, man, that looks like something I would really
• 1:15:01
  enjoy. But I, I just never, never
• 1:15:03
  picked it up and never even tried it, you know, when it
• 1:15:07
  comes to what I tend to, what I, I, what choice I would make,
• 1:15:16
  Yeah. I just sort of fall into things,
• 1:15:17
  you know, it's, I've not been at the point where I've just gone,
• 1:15:22
  I've got this huge list and I can't figure out anything.
• 1:15:25
  I, I think the, the planning that we did before we went into
• 1:15:29
  this season is certainly working really well for me in terms of
• 1:15:33
  what I play next. Because I have that list and I
• 1:15:36
  know what I'm working through and I know what the, the
• 1:15:38
  procedure is. To the point where today I went
• 1:15:43
  back through that day to Z list and I've extended it out so that
• 1:15:47
  I get more of those really old retro games in there now.
• 1:15:51
  And so I've gone and I've extended out to say, let's look
• 1:15:54
  at ZX Spectrum and Commodore and Amigas and Atari SDS and all
• 1:15:58
  those things and add them into the list as, as a separate sort
• 1:16:01
  of side list. So yeah, there's things there
• 1:16:05
  that I'm looking forward to playing and I'll I'll just keep
• 1:16:09
  working through Lovely and. Yeah, from my side of things,
• 1:16:15
  yeah. So when it comes to watching
• 1:16:17
  stuff on telly, me and the missus have got a really tried
• 1:16:21
  and tested way of resolving stuff.
• 1:16:23
  So basically one of us will make a shortlist because obviously we
• 1:16:26
  we're the same, we've got all the different services.
• 1:16:28
  And so you could spend an hour choosing what you're going to
• 1:16:31
  watch tonight and then realise it's time to go to bed.
• 1:16:34
  So one of us will create a shortlist and it has to be
• 1:16:38
  created quickly. So it's just choose three
• 1:16:40
  things, one of which we're going to watch tonight and then the
• 1:16:43
  other one chooses one of those 3.
• 1:16:45
  So it kind of very quickly just homes it into, OK, we're either
• 1:16:49
  watching this, that or the other.
• 1:16:50
  And the other person just says, yeah, let's do this one.
• 1:16:54
  So that works well. And then in terms of what to
• 1:16:57
  play, it's quite nice. I mean, I mentioned last time
• 1:17:01
  about how I'd, I'd love browsing the stores and certainly pre
• 1:17:05
  year of shame, there'd be a little bit of analysis paralysis
• 1:17:09
  where I'm browsing stores in, in precious gaming time.
• 1:17:13
  I'd spend half an hour looking for what it might be and I might
• 1:17:16
  choose something. And then there's the download
• 1:17:17
  and all of that kind of stuff. So I, I would potentially waste
• 1:17:20
  a bit of time, but to be honest, looking through the backlog is
• 1:17:23
  not necessarily a, a quicker experience than looking through
• 1:17:26
  a store, but I, but I enjoy it. I, I, I've thought about this
• 1:17:30
  long and hard and, and whether it's, you know, am I wasting my
• 1:17:33
  time when I'm looking at what I might play rather than just
• 1:17:36
  getting on with it and playing it.
• 1:17:38
  And for me, it feels like part of part of my hobby.
• 1:17:41
  I enjoy it's, I don't know, it's like looking at looking at the
• 1:17:45
  menu in a restaurant. You, you kind of, you're taking
• 1:17:47
  in what the possibilities are and getting excited about them.
• 1:17:51
  And you might be not just choosing for tonight, but you're
• 1:17:54
  clocking other things or you think actually later down the
• 1:17:56
  line I might try a bit of that. So yes, I do suffer analysis
• 1:18:02
  paralysis, but I love it. Right.
• 1:18:07
  Next question from Ben Bowles again, Season 13 fame.
• 1:18:12
  What's your game with the biggest play time so far this
• 1:18:16
  year? Are you sticking to playing one
• 1:18:18
  then the next for completion or has something just grabbed you?
• 1:18:24
  Yeah, definitely Boulders Gate and clear obscure the only two
• 1:18:27
  that I've played across both months.
• 1:18:30
  I'd say the boulders gate has probably got more of the the
• 1:18:34
  gaming hours and than than any other.
• 1:18:37
  But this month definitely arcade paradise consumed the the vast
• 1:18:41
  majority of time. I, I do tend to stick to one
• 1:18:45
  game at a time and try and complete it until I hit those
• 1:18:48
  walls and, and just can't get past.
• 1:18:50
  And then I'll put it to one side and come back to it later on.
• 1:18:53
  And as, as we've seen, you know, if, if I finish a game and
• 1:18:58
  there's a chance of 100% in it, I'll certainly do that.
• 1:19:02
  You know, I'd, I'd go back and I'd clean up the last couple of
• 1:19:04
  trophies and just enjoy my time in that game world while I've
• 1:19:08
  got the time. Because I know that if I've, if
• 1:19:11
  I've rolled the credits, I'm probably never going to go back
• 1:19:13
  to again after I turn it off and, and move on to something
• 1:19:16
  else. So I complete it and then look
• 1:19:20
  for something else to to play after that.
• 1:19:22
  Yeah, I've got big respect for the way that you play games.
• 1:19:27
  You're you're both determined to get to the finish.
• 1:19:30
  But also I like that platinum thing.
• 1:19:33
  I'd, yeah, I find it amazing. I think it's really good.
• 1:19:36
  You're getting maximum value except for ukulele.
• 1:19:40
  Ukulele can sod right off. Exactly, Whereas for me it's
• 1:19:48
  I'm, I'm pretty much the opposite of you.
• 1:19:51
  I think I put in our chat this month, I'm a game slut and that
• 1:19:56
  and that kind of sums it up. So I will shamelessly play a
• 1:20:00
  game and then just ditch it and pick up something else.
• 1:20:03
  And I, I again, I've thought, you know, is this a bad thing?
• 1:20:07
  Should I be sticking to a sticking to a thing?
• 1:20:09
  But but my attitude for for my gaming style is that I I always
• 1:20:14
  want to be playing. The game that I want to be
• 1:20:17
  playing and that jumps around a little bit and some things I'll
• 1:20:22
  pick up and like Silt I picked up.
• 1:20:24
  I played a couple of hours of it and then the next time I
• 1:20:28
  streamed or the next time I gained, I, I didn't feel like
• 1:20:30
  it. And I did have that little
• 1:20:31
  conversation with myself. Oh, should I just carry on with
• 1:20:33
  silt? And it's like, well, I don't
• 1:20:35
  fancy it and I'm going to be kind to myself and play
• 1:20:38
  something that I do fancy. And I think that's when I picked
• 1:20:41
  up papers please. So, you know, and I had a
• 1:20:43
  brilliant time with that. So I think that's the thing.
• 1:20:47
  And for me, I, I do, I do like completing a game, but pretty
• 1:20:51
  much when I've rolled those credits, that's me done.
• 1:20:54
  Unless it's a game that I absolutely want to spend more
• 1:20:59
  time in the world. But the, the platinum thing,
• 1:21:02
  it's the way my brain is hardwired.
• 1:21:05
  I'm not fussed. Credits count for me.
• 1:21:08
  OK, I'll give myself a tick if the if those credits are run and
• 1:21:12
  to be honest, you know. As you say, it's, it's gameplay,
• 1:21:15
  it's, it's, it's not work and it should never feel like work.
• 1:21:19
  So, you know, if you're not enjoying it, drop it, get
• 1:21:23
  something else, enjoy your time there, and then come back to it
• 1:21:26
  later on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
• 1:21:30
  But yeah, like I say, I've got absolute respect for the
• 1:21:34
  completionists amongst us. I think it's your truer gamer.
• 1:21:39
  And then our last question is from a Mr Brian Riley of season
• 1:21:43
  13 and this season fame. And he says, well, he says,
• 1:21:49
  Stuart, that you picked a question last month.
• 1:21:50
  It was it was just in the chat at the end where you said, why
• 1:21:52
  weren't there any easy questions like your favourite cheese or
• 1:21:55
  whatever. So Brian is asking it this this
• 1:21:58
  time he says, what is your favourite cheese?
• 1:22:02
  And look, I came on bear bad cheese puns.
• 1:22:05
  Also cheesecake. Do you like to take it soft or
• 1:22:09
  hard? Well, firstly, I mean that deep
• 1:22:15
  voice really got me going there. I, I couldn't remember asking
• 1:22:23
  the question and then it was pointed out to me that it was
• 1:22:26
  about the favourite cheese from Stuart Cullen's question where
• 1:22:29
  Stuart had asked a, a fairly deep question of his last month.
• 1:22:33
  So yeah, favourite cheese, as silly a question as it is, I
• 1:22:40
  mean, if we're having a BBQ, as I said earlier with the steaks
• 1:22:43
  and things, I'd usually go with Halloumi.
• 1:22:45
  And, and if we're not doing a barbecue and you just want
• 1:22:48
  something to put on a cracker with a glass of wine, then then
• 1:22:52
  a Havarti is usually my my cheese of choice with the
• 1:22:55
  cheesecake. Havarti it's.
• 1:22:58
  Like a soft Eden, you know, it's, it's a, it's a very, very
• 1:23:01
  plain cheese. Yeah.
• 1:23:05
  With cheesecake, it has to be gluten free, obviously.
• 1:23:07
  So that does limit my choices. There's a local place here that
• 1:23:10
  does one, but it's a New York style.
• 1:23:12
  So I eat a hard cheesecake with a, with a biscuit, a gluten free
• 1:23:16
  biscuit base. And that's that's my usual go
• 1:23:20
  to. Nice, nice.
• 1:23:23
  Yeah, I do. I do like a bit of cheese of an
• 1:23:26
  evening and I think I would choose Cambazola.
• 1:23:31
  So that is relatively soft, kind of a Bree Bree like texture, but
• 1:23:37
  with a little bit of a little bit of the old blue mould going
• 1:23:40
  on in it. That would definitely be my my
• 1:23:44
  1:00. And then cheesecake.
• 1:23:45
  I love seeing a question about cheesecake.
• 1:23:47
  So my mother-in-law makes the most incredible cheesecake with
• 1:23:53
  a super soft, like almost just complete fluffy foam top and a
• 1:23:59
  beautiful gingery biscuit base. And I'm very excited because I'm
• 1:24:04
  off to the in laws after we've done this recording.
• 1:24:06
  And if I'm very lucky, there might be a cheesecake waiting
• 1:24:10
  for me later tonight so I can report back.
• 1:24:14
  So that is all of our questions, which I think brings us towards
• 1:24:19
  the goodbyes bit. I think that would be it.
• 1:24:23
  Thanks all for the questions. Again, a very good selection
• 1:24:26
  this month, so much appreciated. Hope you enjoyed the answers.
• 1:24:32
  Great. Yeah.
• 1:24:32
  And thank you Stuart for your company on the podcast today.
• 1:24:35
  I I wish you continued strength in the month ahead.
• 1:24:38
  Obviously with the birthday coming, you've got a few kind of
• 1:24:41
  tests and temptations to deal with.
• 1:24:44
  I did say earlier, I'm a bit worried you're going to complete
• 1:24:47
  your entire backlog at this rate.
• 1:24:48
  So we'll, we'll, we'll see how that goes.
• 1:24:52
  And again from me, thanks for the community questions and for
• 1:24:55
  tuning in to hear our pain and shame.
• 1:24:58
  So it is a goodbye from me. Yeah, and a goodbye from me.
• 1:25:03
  Onto the socials, you can e-mail questions and comments to us at
• 1:25:07
  yearofshame@gmail.com. We're on the YouTube MLGY
• 1:25:14
  lowercase OS, and you can contact us through Blue Sky X,
• 1:25:20
  Twitch and Facebook if you just type Year of shame, all
• 1:25:24
  lowercase. Thanks.