Hello there everybody this is Shane Arman row you are in the passenger seat with me passenger seat radio. It is Oh 2202020 weird, right? It’s it’s February 20 of 2020. It was one of those weird numbers in there somewhere. And you were on my 13 mile commute home. Welcome to the show. You had to work a little late today it does happen. I’ll tell you what, when you’re when you’re in at work at seven, so you’re up at like 445. And, and you know, you’re in the office at seven and then you know, anytime after Hey, Michael Caine, the great British actor is on. Anytime like after four o’clock you’re just feeling like it’s so late. And it’s been just a crazy ass day. We’re implementing some new server software at work and all the support systems have to be touched and updated and it’s just been it’s been pandemonium the last few days. So anywho and then I had some last minute stuff. people lined up at my door at four o’clock and it’s like I’m not getting out of here on time mid. So anyway, later show means sometimes we have different guests that have joined us. So that’s kind of cool. Michael Caine, of course here with us and Brian Holt is here to show it up. Let me bring up my keep list here. Alrighty, then. So, just to give you a quick update, I did manage to secure my testosterone gel last night. And it was flawless. It went exactly as I’d hoped, ended up being 28 bucks for my medication, which was great. It was actually even a little cheaper than they were supposedly going to be. And that’s because it sounded like they contacted my urologist and they said, You got a prescription for 75 milligrams or whatever. bottle and we have an ADA is cheaper for the customer can you have the ADA and I guess he said yes, that but not about about about so even without the insurance I paid 28 bucks. And that is good for me so I slathered up last night I slathered up this morning and I figured by the weekend, my tea should be rising quickly so I’m just I’m just so exhausted mentally from work that I can’t really tell if the TEAS kicking in or not. But I remember you know, it takes a few days to come back up so I am willing to be patient. So that’s where we are with that. Alright, what else do I have on my list here? I’ve got c 64 carousel tool to talk about. Me say. So last night we started so as you know I’ve talked about this on the show a few times. As you know, I I’m trying to get work my son through some of the great movies that I grew up watching. Because in a few years, maybe even less, he’ll be very disinterested in anything that I have to offer. That’s just the way it is. I figured I here 14 is about the right age. I don’t remember 14 myself. But 14 is about the age where you break the ties and what mom and dad say do or no means nothing. And you know, everything and life moves on from there. So I don’t have much longer to get all these great movies in that Brian needs to see recently watched April Fool’s Day, which he enjoyed. And we also watched Mean Girls, he had not seen Mean Girls. And he was he was opposed to seeing said Mean Girls, because he said, Hey, now Alex Jay Lopez. He’s like, Oh, this is a chick movie. This is a chick movie. I’m like, yeah, it’s it is a chicken. movie but just just bear with me. And so we watched that and he’s 13 Now of course, and he is most definitely in the girls. So listen if you turn out gay or something, it wouldn’t bother me. That’s not that’s not who I am. But, but I mean every he is he is evaluating and scoping every check on TV, every chicken the movies, so he is he is interested. You know, we saw adventures in babysitting with the yummy yummy Elisabeth Shue probably three years ago, ish, three, maybe four years ago. And the best part of adventures in babysitting is all of you know, it looks to be like a kids movie, right? So it’s got Elizabeth Shue babysitting a bunch of young kids, and they get lost in the city. Right? Hey, it sounds like a terrible movie. I mean, you watch it because Elizabeth she was in and she saw right. But it turns out that that movie like pretty much anything but a kids movie, if you really start dissecting it, and watching it with my son the other day again, first of all, you know, during the opening scene where she’s dancing to that crystal song, and then he kissed me, right, and she’s dancing on the bed, and she’s doing almost perverse things with the bedpost, right. And so, I’m watching like, Oh my god, she’s really hot. And I’m like, yeah, you saw this movie before. This is not new to you. And it’s like, Yeah, but she’s really hot. I’m like, Yeah, she’s really hot. Welcome to welcome to teenagers. Um, you know, and when girls are hot and so he got all sucked and he stopped playing Xbox, cuz I was watching on my little maxsa TV next to my computer. And he’s like, Guys, I’m gonna have to go I got a movie to watch. And so we were sitting there watching it. And I was realizing like how not the kids show that that is it really isn’t, you know, from touchstone right so touchstone way back when was Disney You know, when they wanted to produce a PG or a PG 13 movie, they didn’t do it under the Disney label, they did it under the touchstone label. And touchstone is the studio that released this. So you’ve got all sorts of nonsense going on. And at one point in time, right, for those of you who know the movie, at one point in time, they’re on the expressway, their tire blows out. They don’t have a spare some nice guy in a tow truck, toes them into the city, right? He has a hook for a hand, right this whole bit and the kids are all freaked out about it. And he’s on the way in. And he gets a call from his garage, his home, you know, his home base garage. And they’re like, Hey, I went past your house, man. He’s like, Yeah, what did you see? He’s like, he’s with that son of a bitch again, his mother finish. He grinds the gears and he starts driving the truck and he goes home. And his wife’s bawling some dude in their house. And he pulls out a gun and he’s shooting It the guy in the wife’s like draping on him trying to get him back to shoot the guy. And well wait a minute, you know, it just occurred to me. This is like as far away from a damn kid show as possible, right? You know, and they end up stealing a Playboy magazine. It’s got a bunch of stolen car orders on it, this whole bit, just cracks me up. So anyway, so we were watching that and it just kind of occurred to me. And then Penelope and Miller, which I kind of forgot What’s her friend, her little neurotic friend in that movie. And of course, my son’s one of my son’s favorite movies is Kindergarten Cop and which Penelope and Miller is in her finest form as the kindergarten teacher. So I thought she was kindergarten or first grade or whatever. But anyway, she’s, she was like the main, the main lady in that. And I’m like, guess who that is? brand, guess who that is? And so she got all sucked into that and we watched Mean Girls and he liked you know, he Loved Mean Girls, he doesn’t want to admit it right away, but he loved it. And so quotable, it’s got great things in it. And so we were talking so now he adds every time we watch a new movie, he adds quotes to his repertoire, right? So all throughout the movie when when Lindsay Lohan is having a little internal monologues and she’s talking about that guy she’s got the hots for, and he’s telling her how to do math. And every time he says something, it’s wrong. And she’s like, Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. So now Brian, words are going wrong, wrong. And so my wife is like, What are you talking about? these things mean girls said, You know, I don’t like that movie. And my son’s like, Well, you know, whatever. So my wife said, I think he might be ready for Starship Troopers. And I’m like, yeah, bring on the vert over. That means that opens the door to Robocop two, which I’ve been kind of holding out. Because it is Uber violent, right. But you know, Listen, my oh my i told you guys before My wife doesn’t seem to have a problem with violence. It’s nudity and sex. She has a problem with Meanwhile, you know, half of the shows could be a serial commercial in the UK, right. But anyway, so we started Starship Troopers and I haven’t seen i don’t think i’ve seen Starship Troopers probably in about 10 or 15 years, I’d say somewhere in there. And so it’s interesting to rewatch some of these movies. Now, we all know that there’s a lot of political overtones and Starship Troopers, which of course, you know, blow over his head. But there’s a whole bunch of you know, it’s it’s essentially a movie filled with beautiful people. The guys are beautiful people. The chicks are all beautiful people. You know, I don’t think there’s anybody ugly in that whole movie. And you know, Clarence Brown is in and he’s fucking fantastic. Michael Ironsides in he’s fucking fantastic. You know, Casper Van Dien, who’s, you know, who’s is sort of like the Rob Lowe of the 90s. Right? I mean, he’s almost too good looking to be taken seriously. Hey, oh, Bruce willers in He’s like, even my son’s like, you know, I’m not gay dad, but that’s a really good looking dude. I’m like, yeah. And then, you know, Jake Busey shows up and I’ve got to tell him the Jake Busey is Gary, you know, Gary Busey, his son, you know, so I get to bring all this stuff in there and he’s talking about how hot Carmen is and how dizzy is anyway, so we got through all the way to the point to where Rico’s in the back to tank getting his leg, you know, rebuilt from scratch. And so anyway, so we got that far and we’ll finish that up tonight. But it that movie holds up remarkably well. I mean, listen, you guys know I’m no fan of CG. And this CG is is is honestly nothing spectacular. But it’s used fairly responsibly. And there’s not too many times. I mean, the bugs look great. And those are all CG. And I mean, there’s not like the spaceships and a lot of those things look kind of bad. But the bugs look great. And I don’t know if it has to do with I think and I have to go back and watch some making of or something, but I think that the bugs were designed specifically to be they use a methodology of of making those arachnids where the CG doesn’t shine out. So that’s very dole their skin is very dull, it’s not shiny, it’s not overtly textured. So there’s a lot of it hides the CG very well on those and you can tell they used practical effects along with the CG so in the bug is actually picking some dude up and ripping him in half. You know, they’re using a physical prop for the dude being ripped in half. And that lens to the to the, to your, your mind’s eye buying into the CG you know what I’m saying? And I think if you look at Starship Troopers as a, as a CG piece and how they implemented it and how they do it and the way that they do it, I think a lot of filmmakers can actually learn something from how that was done. And that goes along with like hollow man’s the same way there’s a decent amount of CG and Holloman, which is also a Paul Verhoeven film and the way that they do the CG there’s a couple of times right when like, you know, when Kevin Bacon invisible is falling that chicks boob, it looks kind of bad, but, but for the most part, they they hide the CG well, and it’s like they took care to do it. Right. So I’m excited to finish that up with him. We haven’t Of course, I had to make him hide his face for the shower scene because I didn’t want my wife and I knew my wife had asked about it. How great How much do I how good do I know my wife? Right? So she even asked me when I came to bed last night. You know how the movie go. I heard you guys watching. I’m like, yeah, we’re really well, I mean, he was sad. He had to go to bed. And she goes, did you hide his eyes during the shower scene? I’m going God so this guy has got ripped apart. His end trails are hanging out all over the place. But you know You know, what’s your name? Dena, mayor’s boobs. He can’t see those. What else now? Now let him see the other day that he was really upset about. There was somebody else he didn’t get to see naked. Oh, we watched American Werewolf in London. And I said, and he was talking about how hot you know, jenia ghouta, or whatever name is is and I’m like, Yeah, I mean, she was like, she was the hot male fantasy of the late 70s and early 80s. And, and I said, you know, what’s, you know, the biggest shame is? He’s like what I said, You don’t get to see her naked later. He’s like, what? And I’m like, yeah, you don’t get to see it. Sorry. I, on the other hand, do so too bad. It’s funny, we had to have one of those discussions the other day, I’ll get off the movies. Now we’ll move on. I had to have one of those discussions with my 13 year old son, the concept of rights and privileges, right. So he hangs out with a lot of people. whose parents have absolutely no parenting skills, they have no parenting oversight. And these kids get to basically get whatever they want, do whatever they want. And there’s no checks and balances, and it’s really hard to try to parent somebody, when all of the kids peers are not getting parented at all. You know, $200 sneakers, you know, thousand dollar phones, latest and greatest electronics and video games. They’ll be the first one to have a you know, a $50,000 car on their 16th birthday. And meanwhile, my son is out picking weeds and and and shoveling dogshit to get an Xbox controller. You know what I’m saying? I want him to learn the value because so many people aren’t, and it makes me crazy. So we were having these discussions about so he earns money, right? So when he wants something, he earns it and I totally appreciate that. And he’s not reasonable. Beloved, he understands that there is a cost of doing business. And so he’s not looking for handouts he’s looking to he’s looking to work, you know, that’s great. So we’re having a discussion about something. And he said, he said, Well, you know, that Xbox or that whatever, so is mine, and I’m like, something or another and he’s like, and I’m like, Well, wait a minute, you do realize that you’re not a man, right? Because he said something later, and you know, I’m a man. Now I’m like, Okay, wait a minute. First off, you’re 13 she ain’t no man. I said, second, you don’t get that you don’t really own anything. It’s like, What do you mean? I said, here’s the deal. You don’t get to be a man until you can own land. When you can own land, then your man He’s like, what does that mean? And I said, you can’t own anything. He’s like, What? What? Yeah, I cannot. No, you can’t. You’re until you’re 18 you can’t own shit. And he kind of sat there with this sort of stump look on his face. Like I said, You’re really not responsible for anything. And you can’t own anything. You have no rights, you have no privileges. Right? You have nothing. When you turn 18 The good news is you get all of that shit. But then you’re also responsible for everything to like right now, if you go trash somebody’s car or you screw, you know, you key somebody’s car, you go break somebody’s window, you know who’s on the hook for that? me, not you, you’re going to be on the hook for through me. I’m the one who’s got to pay for the guys window, you’ll pay for it out of your ass, but I’ve got to pay the guys window. And so we had this, you know, this whole discussion about you know, you’re not a man until you can own land. So that was a nice awakening for him. And I said, here’s the truth. You can’t make a good decision. At this point in time, all the hormones kicking through your head, all this shit. You’re not programmed, your frontal lobe is not fully mature yet. That means you can’t assess risk. You know someone with an old discussion. Same thing I said with the girls did the whole same thing. He seems to be a little more understanding of the situation though the girls did not quite get that. Anyhow, what else is going on? Project Blue Book? I’m working on that still. For this season. I’m pretty I think I’m one episode behind. I’ll be probably watching that tonight. So that’s been really good. It’s still holding up. I was afraid that it was gonna have a really strong season opener and then it was going to tailspin but I am still in there like swimwear. Love that show Project Blue Book. And let’s see other TV I’m doing Of course, I’m still working through big mouth. It’s still one of my favorite shows. So much in fact that I found out that they made a Funko Pop figure of the hormone monster. And I said to myself, you know, I have to have that I have to have the hormone monster and I know what you guys are thinking you’re saying shame. You don’t love Funko Pops. In fact, you don’t like them at all. And that’s true. Most Funko Pops. I Do not like because the figures all look alike, right? They’re the same mold. They color the arms differently or they put a hat on it. And that’s supposed to be this other character. It doesn’t look like the character Michael J. Fox. the backs of the future Marty McFly. Funko Pop figure. It doesn’t look anything at all like Marty McFly doesn’t look like Michael J. Fox doesn’t look like Marty McFly. So why would you want some assembly line cut and paste looking? Figure? It doesn’t make sense to me. You know the Knight Rider Michael Knight doesn’t look like David Hasselhoff. He doesn’t really look like anything but the last pop figure that you got only in a black jacket. So I had to like pop figures. But this but this hormone monster looks exactly like the hormone monster. So it turns out that this came out in 2017 and apparently the hormone monsters and very popular Funko Pop. I had to throw down like 39 bucks to get my hands on one of those I’m very excited to be adding that to my little useless collection. But you know, the good part of this Funko figure is that, you know, people talk about when you start to get older and you’re still like hoarding shit, you’re still buying shit when you get older. It’s like, Oh, good, more shit for your kids to throw away when you die, right? The good part is, is my daughter is the one who got me into big mouth. And I promise you that if I were to if my wife and I died in a horrible car accident on our way to Vegas, that my daughter would not throw away my fun co hormone monster Funko Pop so it’s not headed for the refuse been too early. And who knows it might actually be worth something. Let’s see. Let me bring up my list here. I thought I had a couple other Okay, Starship Troopers. Let’s see. What else what else I’ve been playing lately. Video Game wise. Not a ton of Modern Warfare Season Two started right. So I ended up getting my battle pass. So that’s the deal, right? So for those of you who have tuned out of the whole Call of Duty series The last few iterations have been fairly standard, right? So you you buy a regular version, a deluxe digital version, which gives you a bunch of shit you don’t care about and it cost you 20 or $30 more and then you have to lay out every few months you have to lay out for a season pass in order to get all the maps and all the zombies and all this other shit. Well, I did away with that. And now their methodology of making aftermarket sales is to solely use the battle pass and loot box system. Now we know loot boxes are bad, okay. But, but on the converse side of that, they were using loot boxes in conjunction with The Season Pass bullshit and all these extra crap so now we still have loot boxes but and we have a battle pass which is where they make money as well but all of the stuff that matters all the weapons all the maps are all parody across the board so you always get all the new maps every time new maps come out you always get it regardless of whether you bought the dirt cheap ass Green Man gamers key for the standard edition you pay for the deluxe edition and or anger shoveling out hundreds of dollars for loot boxes. It doesn’t matter you everybody gets the same maps which means no more of this bullshit where you bought Season Season past number four DLC pack for you’ve got these great maps there’s like five people playing it is no one else bought the season pass. So all as well the DLC stuff all that stuff’s good. So, the battle passing a lot of people are not clear on this whole battle passing. So let me help you out. Real Quick. So, inside of Call of Duty as you know, our consumables which are these like loop there’s basically loop boxes or tears inside so you can buy containers so nothing is random anymore. You know what you’re getting all the time. That’s a huge step up from loot boxes, folks. When I talk about loot boxes I’m talking about like the crates that are in Overwatch, right? So you spend your you can you can buy them with money, or you can earn them over time, right but they trickle pretty fucking slow right Alex? They treat me I mean they’re slower than blackstrap molasses in the wintertime. But you don’t know what you’re getting when you open it. Could be peaches could be beans, who knows? The fact is, is there’s there’s all these characters that have all of these assets the chance of you actually getting assets for the character that you play a skin A an emotes a voice line a spray, the chances are slim to none and slim usually is already left the building, right. So, at least in Call of Duty Modern Warfare, they do have a purchasing system where you can purchase packs and but then they tell you up front what’s in the packs. And they have packs for all purchase sizes, right? And they keep a nice steady flow of this shit. I’m talking about charms to put on your weapons, stickers, all the sort of bullshit that most of us don’t care about. But there’s a vanity piece of the equation that keep people buying emblems, calling cards. I said stickers, operator operator, skins, right. I mean, these are all things that are 100% purely cosmetic now They skirt the line with something called blueprints. These blueprints allow you if you have a gun unlocked so you don’t get the gun for free. You stopped to unlock it like everybody else. But if you have the gun on lock, you can utilize this blueprint to get a special armory version of the weapon. If you as a senior player that is not spend any money on these crates, if you have the weapon and you have grinded it up and you have all the attachments, there is nothing that a blueprint of that gun can give you that you can earn for free. However, if you have a blueprint, a legendary blueprint, it can give you attachments you have not unlocked so you can’t get the scar. What the scar nine, right by by getting something out of one of these loop boxes but if you have the scar nine it can give you a blueprint that gives you three attachments or four or five attachments. And that allows you to have a slightly overpowered gun that you didn’t completely earn. That’s the only place that color outside the lines. And honestly, you know what, if that’s the worst that we’ve got, then that’s great. But the battle has let me get back to that real quick as the battle passes for into a lot of people of my age that have gone through the ranks of paid DLC and stuff like that. The battle pass is a tiered system. The more you play, the more XP that you earn, you advance a tear on this pass on this battle pass. If you’re playing the free battle pass, you only get items every five tears. So you start off at tier one, you get to tier two, you get nothing, you get tier three, you get another tier four, you get nothing. On the fifth tier, you get a blueprint on the fifth tier, you get some Call of Duty points on the fifth tier, you get x, right and everybody gets x at the same time when you get to that fifth tier, you get the x you get the you get the goodies, you get the charm, you get the whatever. Again, nothing is Battle pass cannot be attained really outside the battle pass in other words, you can earn it or you can get it without having to roll forward or spin forward and lucky for it and and I will I will grant them that the best items that come out of the battle pass which is usually blueprints or or coin are the ones that are on the 510 1520 2530 etc etc. Tier levels. If you’re willing to pay for the battle pass, you get like three months of this premium battle pass and you get goodies every single tier. So a tier one, getting good on tier two, you get a good yet three tier, you get a four, tier four, you get a goodie on tier five, you have the same goodie that everybody else gets who’s paying or not paying. And so it gives you something else to work towards. Right so it gives you something else to chase which kind of keeps the game a little more interesting. And some of the things are really nice that you get off of that battle pass. How much does that cost? Was 20 bucks per seat I know you’re thinking everything will shit. That’s right back to buying DLC that doesn’t sound right at all. Over the course of the battle pass, you can earn almost half of the next battle pass. I think you get like 1000 coins like every 20 or something, you get 100 coins every 20 years. So that’s five. So whatever it is, anyway, by the time you’re done with the battle pass for the season, you should have earned enough to buy halfway to the next battle pass. So the battle pass ends up costing you $10, not 20 as long as you’re using it, of course, as long as you’re making use of it. So 10 bucks every three months to get endless amounts of content and new maps and they’re doing a good job by keeping the content fresh. I’m actually okay with that. I mean, you’re not paying 10 bucks a month, you’re not paying 20 bucks a month. You’re not having to spend 5995 every three months. You know what I’m saying? It seems to me and I hate to say this because it’ll get thrown back in my face at some point. I feel like modern warfare There might be the first at least the first call of duty but kind of the first mass gain mass adoption game where they they might have done it right. I mean, I can’t think of anything inside of Modern Warfare that particularly pisses me off even even infinite warfare and and all of my other you know, favorite cod’s that things that piss me off. There’s not really anything in here that pisses me off and that’s, that’s an accomplishment. So anyway, I’ve been playing that I’ve been playing Overwatch Of course, because Overwatch is a go to game for my little crew. I’ve been playing a lot of Commodore 64 stuff recently because of making that that image and we’re getting closer By the way, the final version of that tool should be out by the weekend. And if that’s the case, I’m going to town making that video and you guys are going to love it. Very, very cool if you don’t have a Commodore 64 Mini yet or if you Want to spring for the Maxi This is as good a time as any See if you can get a deal or find one used or something or on eBay. See, you can get one for dirt cheap, especially if you love Commodore 64 because I’m going to blow your mind that you’re going to be able to do with this thing. So let’s see what about from VR land what’s been going on in VR land, I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t had a lot of time to play VR. I was recommended via friend Chad. He recommended this game he heard on a podcast called until you fall. It’s an early access game. And I of course knew about the game ahead of time because I’m I get a lot of quest news and information. I follow the Reddit subs I followed news feeds. I know a lot about what’s going on in VR world. But the game just did not seem to appeal to me. It felt like it was a lot of repetition. A lot of arm waggling not just People seem to want something different in VR than what I wanted VR. You know what I’m saying? So I was I was not I was initially rather turned off by this until you fall. Now this is not a quest game by the way. This is a school game. So if you have a question, I have to play it either streaming or through the Oculus link cable. Of course, if you’ve got a rift or you’ve got a mixed reality windows mixed reality headset, you can play Steam games on you’re all set to go. But let me talk about the game a little bit because I think it It hasn’t proven itself one way or the other yet. I played a about 45 minutes ish of the game. concern I wasn’t planning on liking the game at all going in 45 minutes means that it did its job it hooked me in it kept me coming back for more. So I’ve got to give it that. The game is like 12 bucks right now. Through humble bundle. I don’t know how much longer that the Feels good for him. It’s like 30 or 40% off. So it’s a decent chunk. I think it’s a $20 game or something. So anyway, so what’s the What is this game what is until you fall? This is a sort of, I would call it roguelike in the fact that once you die the game is over. It’s randomly generated pseudo randomly generated environments, right. So as you play the game, you’ll start to see the same rooms, rooms and configurations, the same areas. But there’s different the monster layouts, different the creature layouts a little bit different. Let’s see the C 64. Mini is $25 in stock and GameStop. Calm dudes. You have no excuse. Go now. Go and get really 25 bucks. I’m sure I might get a second one for that price. Maybe I’ll swing by GameStop on the way home shit. That’s a great deal. Anyway. that topic so the game starts you off. Essentially it you’re started with a dagger in a sword and it’s first person view of course and you are thrown into an environment This is outside like a forest and you encounter enemy after enemy after enemy This is why it started to sound like it was just kill this guy move on to the next guy kill that guy move on to the next guy. You know flutter your hands really fast however fast you could do is how fast you dispatch them. It did not look appealing to me. So once you dispatch all the enemies in one area, you go to the next area wash rinse and repeat. A first the enemies themselves don’t really change. They’re all the same. armored knight gu goon squad type characters, and they’re not all that smart and you can dispatch them pretty easily. So I mean, the the honest mechanics of the game are you can This guy killing that guy killing that guy. Go to the next area. kill this guy. That guy, that guy. Go to the next area. Oh, we got one big guy. Can I killing up? Nope. Gotta go back to the beginning. The guy Nope, kills me gotta go back to the beginning. Big Guy Nope, gotta go back to the beginning. And as you are performing these repetitive tasks, you are earning coin in the what’s called ether. And this ether allows you to progressively upgrade your weaponry, right. So these weapons have slots just like any of these modern role playing games, weapons have slots, and you can put gems inside the slots. And you can actually upgrade your weapon to have more than one slot. Right? You can then eventually as time moves on and unlocks bigger weapons, or better weapons, you can purchase sort of like an armor type protection thing. And you go right back out into the same path, right? So every time you go out, you’re going to fight four rounds of goons, the big guy back to the goons, now goons mixed with big guys. And it sounds like it would be ridiculously boring and repetitive. And this is why I wasn’t interested in the game. And we fought back so hard against actually even trying it out. So my friend Chad was was pleased enough, he was like, Listen, you gotta try this out it Listen, it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna cure cancer, he said, but for 12 bucks, it’s a good game. And he put it on his Steam account. And we have we share our steam accounts through our family sharing system. And so I tried it out. And after my 40 minutes, I made the $12 purchase. So I now own said game so that you test something to the value of the game. So here’s, here’s the part of the game that you don’t know about. As you continue to play through over and over and over again you get a little bit farther you die. Go back to the beginning. And maybe upgrade your weapons, maybe change weapons, try a little something different. Go back out run the same Gambit. It’s randomly generated, but it’s the same game. But you get into the big guy and I I died against that the first mini boss, I died about 10 fucking times in a row. I could not get past him. And it turns out that the game has a little more strategy to it, then massively flailing your arms. Now listen, you get away with that flailing arms show with the little guys. But if you want to play dinosaur arms, you’re not going to be the big guys. Right? So now all the sudden there’s a blocking mechanic. And just like say, punch out, which is a great example. Each guy sort of has a different style of attacks. So you sort of get a you started, get a rhythm, block, block, strike, strike, block, block, strike, block, block, strike, strike, block, block strike, right, you know what I’m saying? And so once you start to figure out The pattern and how these guys operate, then you have a much better opportunity. So it’s a learning there’s a learning bit behind it too. So the first the other guys, you can flail around and get through Bonita that first sort of mini boss. You’re, you’re kind of screwed. You got to you got it you got to figure out that’s that’s when you start to learn that there’s more to the game than flailing your arms. And of course, with this sort of the game, it always comes back to just one more shot at it one more shot at it. God damn it, I’m gonna beat the shit out of that asshole this time. One more time. No, damn it. I almost had the one fucking life bar left, I could add it back to the beginning. Okay, by buying upgrade. Back up there, I’m gonna kill it. So there’s a blocking mechanic. There’s also a combo mechanic, a striking combo mechanic. And if nothing else, here’s the part that you really need to take note of, in every sort of game on in VR, You can almost cheat the system. Remember the Nintendo Wii there have lots of motion control games on the Wii, right? Like bowling. You can literally play we you bowling, like you’re actually bowling, you could stand there with your little legs almost crossed, and then you pull the arm back and you release and you flail your other arm out right? So you look like you know you’re a you know, Brunswick Pro. But then you and then the clever people realize you can sit on the couch and flick your wrist and actually get strike after strike after strike. You’re missing the point of the game, asshole. You’re supposed to get off your ass and pretend like you’re bowling. But we can we can skirt the system by just flicking our wrist in the right direction, right. A lot of VR games, like beat Sabre beat Saber, my son can play the fastest maps on the high speed by doing what I call dinosaur arms. He’s not reaching out for the blocks. He’s not getting any kind of a good workout. He’s got his little, little tiny T rex arms and he’s flailing his arms around. And he’s getting the cuts and he’s getting them done fast enough that he’s being rewarded for like, abusing the game. It’s like reading a playboy for the articles you’re abusing this magazine. You may know the anybody know the source of that one. Anybody know that reference? I’m betting nobody gets that reference. You’re abusing this magazine. Anyway, this game, not so much. And I’ll tell you why. You’re actually given more power and you do more damage with the wider strokes and the arts of your attacks, which is the way all these games should be but then. So you immediately find out that if you’re willing to open up a little bit, you’re willing to get your butt moving, and your arms moving, that you can dispatch these little fuckers a whole lot faster and a whole lot easier. There’s also a finishing combo system as well. So once you’ve beat the crap out of them, they get sort of that stunlock thing going on, then you can actually, they actually give you a sequence that you can strike against them, they can dispatch them quickly. And of course, there’s upgrades to your weapons that let you do two combo dispatches versus three combo dispatches. It’s all a lot deeper than you’ll be watching on a YouTube let’s play video. So needless to say, I found I found again, listen, I’m not saying that this game is not going to get boring as shit after I play it for another hour. Right? They’ve got some work to do to make this not feel like it’s the same scene over and over and over again. But it is an early access but it’s 12 bucks. You know, there are people that will bitch about playing $12 for a game you get two hours or three hours out of to me, I’m good at my subtle play the shit out of that game. So whatever add add to that time, add to that value that ROI the amount of time my son’s going to play it and I know that I can take this on the road. And I know that my macho friends who I introduced VR to, they’re going to want to play it because you feel like a big man kicking people’s ass with a big sword or broad, a broad axe or that, you know, these little daggers these little extended claws things. Awesome. So, until you fall is the game we’re talking about. And it’s available on Steam. Right now, like I said it Humble Bundle, it’s $12 $12. You can’t go wrong with that. Even if you get an hour, two hours out of it, I’d say you need to get two hours out of it. You get two hours out of it, you’re good to go. But it’s not going to sit and rot in your steam backlog. I promise you that so and for those of you who have quests and a decent network, you don’t have to play it tethered. In fact, I would recommend that you don’t if you can. Otherwise use that pulley system you should have installed on your ceiling because a lot of flailing around going on. And you want to make sure that you’re not taking those cables out until you fall. available for your VR system now. See what else is going on. So it’s VR talking about video gaming movies, TV. Testosterone, what else I got going on not much. This testosterone funk that I’ve been on I haven’t been doing jack shit. Let me think here, let me check my list. I thought I had at least a couple more things on there. I’ve got I’ve got a big it until you fall. I got the carousel to talk about but I’m not quite ready to talk about that. Why not something I can talk about. So once again, I want to talk about a principle of video gaming. And so on Twitter, Ashley day and I were chatting about there’s a preview of this game based on the record of low das wars. Right That’s like a Japanese RPG. Type gain. But it started as a book series and they made a ti an animated TV series about the only reason I know anything about record of low das. Is that for running you pronouncing that right, I’m going to get smacked by somebody who’s and there’s no no you pronounce a man it’s Lotus. Lotus is slow down. No boss. The only reason I know anything about is that a friend of mine, Jared, he he knew I was we were both huge dragon Lance fans and apparently, record of low das is a carbon copy of Dragon lands. But like in Jabba japanimation for him right in anime form. And I’m like, Well, shit, if it’s dragonlance and that’s for me, right? But I never got around to it. There’s a nice DVD set out of like all 10 episodes of this cartoon they put on, like every character that’s in Dragon lands, raceland and caramon. And, and, you know, stern bright blade all of these characters apparently are like epitomize perfectly in this record of load us war. So anyway, so back to the original concept is apparently there’s a platformer coming out based on the series and it looks really nice and and Ashley day had mentioned it. He said this one second really nice game and I wrote back and I said yeah, but does it play well and I said that’s what he and I started talking about the wireframe principle of video gaming. And this is something that I haven’t talked about in a really long time and I thought I would bring it back up. If a video game, the visuals of the video game can only make a game but really good gameplay game better in my opinion. Okay, I will own my statement. The most beautiful game on the planet the most realistic looking graphics the most gorgeous game on the planet is a shitty game. If the controls suck if the game itself isn’t good and solid, the gameplay the mechanics are not solid looking game is still a piece of shit. Right? And I prove this out. ages ago, there was an Amiga game called orc attack. It’s a shareware game made in a most of all things. And this game had you playing this night running along the top of this castle wall. While these little orcs were crawling up the side of the castle trying to get up and infiltrate the castle. Your Squire with on the side of the screen with throw rocks into you know, throw rocks on the screen that you could then pick up and throw down and bash these little fuckers on the head. You could also wait until they started crawling over the top of the wall. Instead of throwing the Rockies brain them with the rock and very gory. I mean, listen, it’s 16 bit graphics. So how gory can it be I know. But the game is incredibly satisfying. It’s incredibly fun. It plays great, it’s super smooth. The gameplay is perfectly balanced. It’s challenging without pissing You off or attack? It’s great. It’s a great game. And I don’t know why it has not been remade re authored. and and, and and and and clone a million times because the game is great. I have expected it to pop up on Android. I’ve expected it to pop up on the PC on Steam. I’m expected a version to come around. But I haven’t found one yet. Anyway, I was in touch with the original authors of the game. There’s one guy was a developer, one guy that was an artist, I was talking to the developer. And I said, Dude, I said, Why don’t you port this to Windows? Dude? I mean, listen, I can play it an emulator but got you imagine how great this would be if it had like full orc brains popping out and and you know, you’re splitting them in half of these lightning strikes knows how great would that look? Now we all know that you can fuck up a perfectly good game by turning the graphic level up right? Or the resolution. Deluxe Galaga was one of the greatest games ever made ever. And when they upscaled it High Definition graphics, and they, they they fucked it up and they called it horribly, but I understand that only these Galaga get sued for that shit. But the game itself didn’t work as a high resolution shooting game, they messed it up. So you can mess up a perfectly good game by by upping the resolution. But anyway, so I wrote the guy he’s like, yeah, you know, I’ve been working on making it for Windows, and I’m like, really? And he’s like, yeah, I mean, I’ve got the mechanics all laid out. I just don’t have graphics yet because he the graphic guy wasn’t interested. You know, the one that did the 16 bit version wasn’t interested in in working with him on it. He’s like, so I don’t have any graphics. I just have like, you know, primitives. And I said, he said, you want to see a bill and I’m like, Fuck yeah, I want to see a bill. Let’s see it. So he sends over an executable, and I run it. And Holy shit. It is fucking orc attack. I mean, down to every mechanic. The bobbing of the of the night on top of the wall. You’re still like we’re blade, I don’t like it. You know what the problem of war blade is I’m only got a minute. The problem with war blade is when you there’s too much resolution between firing and actually getting to the target. So when you fire a bullet it takes forever for there to get to a target because there’s too much screen resolution. I’ve talked about this on another show. Anyway, so he’s this architect and he sends me there’s not a single fucking pixel it’s all like boxes and circles. But the game is dead on the motions, the movements, the the flow, it’s perfect and I spent like two fucking hours playing that game. And it looked like boxes and circles. Unbelievable. Anyway, so you can you can make a great game and it doesn’t have to look great to play great. You know, I gotta get out of here. My wife is going to kick on this machine arm and roll past me. She ready. We’ll see you next time. Take care, buddy.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
