Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to episode 18 of from 8bit to 4k. I'm your host this week. I'm Jack Sohlman and I've got with me Mike of many names.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Howdy. Howdy.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: And we've got Pillow Pet.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: Hi. I'm fishing.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: He is indeed fishing in. Wow.
So if, if he responds weirdly to our our discussion now you know why, listeners. Yeah, I'm putting you on blast.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: Pillow. Sorry, someone's got to do it.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: It's fine. So guys, we have a Discord. We're part of the four Words Podcast network. The link is in the episode description. Join the Discord Come tell us about your thoughts on the games we talk about or suggest ideas for what you want to hear us talk about on the podcast or, or whatever else. Or just come hang out with us and play games we all play. Not just League of Legends, that is our primary game, but lots of other games too. And if you happen to play the same game as us or want to start a game that we play or vice versa, the Discord's the place to do it.
I also want to give a shout out to our patrons. Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippius, Esquire, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Yeet Dab for supporting us at the Shout out tier on the Patreon. Thank you so much. If you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com the Fourwards podcast because that's the podcast network we're on. $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month will get you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. Hear us discuss what we want to talk about this week and work to where we get our document prepped so we can actually bring you the main show and $10 a month will get you that same exclusive feedback and we'll shout you out at the top of every episode. And all those benefits do also apply to our League of Legends podcast, the Forwards podcast, which is the flagship podcast of our podcast network. So guys, the first thing we want to talk about tonight is we just want to highlight some amazing voice acting in games because we feel like voice acting in games does not give get enough credit. And I want to kick it off with one I've talked about before. So I'll be brief.
Female V in Cyberpunk 2077 is voiced by Cherami Lee. She is an anime voice actress. Like she's in a ton of anime and a fair amount of video games. Most of which are anime kind of video games.
But she delivers such an incredibly outstanding emotion filled performance in Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk 2077 has great voice acting across the board. Pretty much everyone except Keanu Reeves knocks it out of the park. I know a lot of people like Keanu Reeves voice acting as well. I could not stand his performance in Cyberpunk. But everyone else is amazing. But holy shit, apparently most people played male V when they played Cyberpunk. It's like 3/4 of players or more are male V.
Seriously, I've heard both voices. You are doing yourself a disservice playing as male voice and never experiencing the game as female V. So if, if you've played it before as male, give the game another playthrough. As female V. Jeremy Lee's voice acting is so goddamn good. There's so much emotion, so much rawness in the hard hitting moments that she just delivers so believably that you would feel like she's actually experiencing it. And this is a game that deals with a lot of heavy bullshit like Cyberpunk 2077 is dark and bleak and depressing at times. And you can hear it. So that's my recommendation. Sheremi Lee is incredible in Cyberpunk. Mike, you have a similar choice, but both sides of the coin.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah, this is the same difference thing. So like as he was saying, this is a pair of voice actors that do a double thing, male and female. And I'm gonna talk about why the female voice actor Jennifer Hill is so much better than the male voice actor when doing pretty much as we were talking about. Exact same lines across the board, Commander Shepard and Mass Effect, you can go through that game and so many people have talked about the emotion that you can get from Commander Shepard. Something, it is something in the way she delivers the lines that has an intensity to it that he does not. And I'm not going to call him out on it because he did a great job. But it's, it's just not the same like Mark.
Great, great voice acting. He is still a fantastic main character. And if I had not heard Jennifer Hale, maybe I would be putting this at a different point. But she does the same character with the same voice lines and a similar scenario. There's slightly more people who have played Jennifer Hale, the female shepherd, because, well, it's just older for one. It's, it's got a full decade plus on it. But it, it appealed to a bunch of male things to have female shepherd have a, you know, lesbian Sex scene in the game one. So people actively knew about that and decided to play female shepherd to get that.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. But the other difference here is Jennifer Hale, especially around the time Mass Effect came out, was incredibly prolific as a video game voice actor.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Specifically, she's in fucking everything. In the early 2000s.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Ratchet and Clank, Knights of the Old Republic.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: She's literally the voice of Samus in Metroid Prime. I am not kidding.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: How little voice acting there is for Samus. She is it.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Like, she's. She's prolific in the video game world. She does a lot.
She's Bayonetta from Bayonetta.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, I think she's literally Princess Peach at that point in time too.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: I think so.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: She's. She's got. She's everything. Yeah. She's got so many credits because she is a prolific video game voice actor, but she is one of the ones that stood out because you can tell early on, early video game voice acting, even some modern video game voice acting doesn't hit right. It's stale. It doesn't have the sort of emotion that you want to feel from it. Some of the newer ones really hit home in a way that others just don't.
And this was pretty probably the first time I had someone not. Not just. Just someone who did one role so well, but because of the writing in Mass Effect, I damn near cried in both romances I did with Jennifer Hale's character.
The. The sweetest one is Verse with Thane, where, you know, you have a. A romance that's doomed to fail because Thane's gonna die no matter what. And then you have the. The weirdly touching, somehow fantastic romance between her and Garrus.
It's. It's that, I think, is the bit that places her above Mark doing Commander Shepard, because even my favorite romance, which is Tali Shepard, doesn't hit as hard as the two female Shepherds. And it's just. It's just well done voice acting. Well done. Let's get more of that.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yep. And the romances are also one of the only places in Mass Effect where you get actual different voice lines because male and female shepherd have different romance options. They have some shared romance options, but then some of the characters like Garrus and Thane that you mentioned, they're not interested in men.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Yeah. They have to have different voices sometimes between those same interactions because obviously different sextones. Different interactions.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Yes. And that's kind of part of why Jennifer Hale is able to shine so much in those moments, is because they're the parts where it's. There isn't an equivalent performance from Mark. You just get her doing an amazing job.
So pillow. You however, have a game that probably very few listeners to this have ever even heard of, let alone played because it was. It was popular for an indie game but it was not a major like release that drew attention and eyeballs the way that Cyberpunk and Mass Effect were. Talk to us about this voice acting.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: This game is. Yeah, like Jackson. Not one that you've probably heard of unless you just came across it by a creator that played these kind of games.
And that's how I came across it.
So Firewatch is a narrative game at its best. Is where it is just all about the story and you gather getting in an attachment to these characters like you have to to be able to enjoy what you're doing in this game.
You are playing Henry and you are signed up for.
You signed up to go work in a Firewatch tower in Yellowstone.
And you arrive and you're greeted by your partner which is in another watchtower, miles and miles and miles away, unable to walk to away Delilah.
So Henry's voice actor is Rich Sommer. I had to look these up because I had no idea Delilah, which is Sissy Jones.
And you're just on this story or on this, on this adventure and journey as Henry where you wake up, you get told to go somewhere and walk. It's. It's a walking simulator. I mean it's, it's. All it is is really you're just walking and a story is being told to you while you press the analog stick and you're just live out living. You're living out the story.
But the, the emotions that these two put into their characters, it was fantastic. Like you wanted to listen to the story. Like you didn't want to skip the dialogue or any. You just wanted to hear like, oh, what's going on next? Like, oh, I want to what. What else do they say? And you get dialogue options. It's not a static like this is going to be said every single time. You get several options of what to say of whether it's going to be, you know, nice neutral or you could come off as like sassy and you know, be rude in some of them without ruining the game because the game is really good. If you like narrative driven like short stories. It is a short game. You could probably have it done in a few hours.
I think it's been a long time since I've played it, but I think you can have it done in a few hours. You just. It's all it is is just two people talking and telling a story and there is no mainstream to it. You like I said, you probably didn't hear have never heard of this game till now.
Go check it out. Go watch someone else play it because you can get the same enjoyment out of it. You don't have to buy the game, just go appreciate the game.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And also for what it's worth, the developers of this game were acquired by valve in 2018. So it's not like you're going to be denying indie devs money they deserve for an amazing game by going and watching it. A let's play on YouTube the way that you would with other indie games.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Literally like don't feel bad if that's the way you want to experience it. But also if you do enjoy a non combat story driven experience that you want to have control over, just go buy it and play it. It's not expensive.
[00:11:55] Speaker C: No. I think it's even free on game pass.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: And also Firewatch is extremely acclaimed. Like it won awards in 2016. It's really good.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Just a quiet game that nobody hears about because they. It wasn't made to be a huge media blowing game. It was made as just a labor of love kind of situation.
They weren't expecting to get rich off of it.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's 20 bucks right now. I'm pretty sure this is one of those games that regularly goes on sale for the big sales. Yep. So if you, if you have the expendable income, grab it. It's still very well acclaimed and it's still like if you like what you're doing here. A nice, nice really chill game. This is where that kind of thing shines. It's just my, you know I could do a relaxing story right about now.
[00:12:44] Speaker C: I mean it's based in nature so you're hearing nature sounds and you're in Yellowstone so you get to appreciate Yellowstone without actually being there. The graphics aren't like realistic or anything like that. It's. It's more cartoony than anything but it's an art. I think it's like draw. It's almost like drawn art. I, I would say go check it out. It's good.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Heck yeah. So Pillow, I'm going to make you talk some more. Our next topic is we wanted to briefly talk about a couple of games that the reality of their release was wildly different than the hype leading up to them and what our experience was with that. So Pillow, you've selected to Talk about no Man's Sky. Now, you've talked about no Man's sky in the context of its extended support after release before. So let's focus on what was your hype going into no Man's sky and then what was your actual experience with no Man's sky when it first came out?
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: So no Man's Sky. And again, like Jack said, me and Mike talked about this game extensively.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Extensively.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: But it falls right into the category of what you were told you were getting and what you actually got.
So when no Man's sky was released, and we've told why it got released the way it is, but when no Man's sky was released, you were told that you were going to be able to explore and this endless universe and, and do so much things, build and. And just unlimited amounts of stuff in this world that this sandbox that you could just play in and go and do anything and so much to do. It was not. It was not that. It was a.
At best a gathering simulator with some spaceships and you had to go there. I mean, it was. There was some quests you could do, but they were repeated quests. Like, it was very generic and it was not what it was supposed to. It was hyped up to be. So now I cannot remember what his name is, the lead developer or the. Who was in charge of hello, games at the time.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: I want to say Palmer Lucky, but I don't know if I'm right about that.
[00:15:03] Speaker C: It's like I followed the developer in this game for a long time because it was like, oh, this is the game I've been wanting forever. You know, this is checking all the boxes of games that I love. Endless exploration, which there was. There was endless exploration.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: And yeah, this is one of the. Not every promise was unfulfilled, but there were specific ones that were really annoying to certain people that were explicitly wrong.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Sean Murray. Yes, Sean Murray.
[00:15:34] Speaker C: Sean Murray. That's what it was.
So, gosh, it's been so long since, like, I don't even remember now. Everything that was promised that wasn't in there because they have given everything that was promised, plus some since then. So I'm trying to think back.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: So the biggest, the biggest promise that
[00:15:55] Speaker C: was the multiplayer, I think was the big one.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: You were supposed to essentially not be able to multiplayer at all because the universe was so big. The chances of you running into someone else were supposed to be so negligibly small. But if you found them, you could be able to talk to them and do other things. With them. That was supposed to be what the point was. Like you, you didn't have true multiplayer but you had like side multiplayer. If you came across someone, yeah, you would see them. People found and then explicitly like charted the map based on things that were actual promises that were fulfilled. You know, like you were able to name things for the first time you were exploring things. So if you were the first one to see something, it would pop up. And then now you know, this person found that and people use that data to extrapolate positions of planets to try and find places to meet together.
And couldn't because they didn't have it implemented because they went this is such a small chance. We don't have time obviously because we've talked about all the development problems. But like there were, there were some other like serious problems with the game. But it was and still is probably the single most, most potential of an exploration game. Because there are still things that people have never seen in that game. Because planets exist in a vacuum.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Oh yeah. Like I could go on right now in the high chances and create a new character and the chances of it spawning on a planet that nobody's ever seen pretty high. Unless I think they might have changed the new player experience.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: I think kind of that to push you towards it there. But there are like, there are quite literally quadrillions of planets because this is a full on galaxy straight up, they created a galaxy and that's.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: You're just not going to be able to explore it. And like there's parts of planets that will always go unexplored because you are literally exploring the planet. Like there's going to be spots that you don't find and nobody's ever going to find and see. There's going to be creatures that got created that nobody's ever going to be able to enjoy and see because that's just where the game's at. But this is not me boasting no Man's Sky. This is me talking shit about how they hyped me up and got me really upset with the game. Instead of having a bunch of fun, I was just, I was. Yeah, no, no bad. No man's sky bad.
I was given this project, incomplete project that didn't have the promises that it was was told and that felt bad.
But yeah, that's no Man's Sky. It was one of the overhyped games because it did not have the hype with it.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: All right, so Mike and I actually picked the same game for this.
So Mike, I'm going to Let you talk first. What was your expectations going into brutal legend, the 2008 Xbox 360 game?
[00:18:52] Speaker B: So this, this brings us to like this is part of this topic and part of another one simultaneously where like I thought this was a completely separate genre of game than it turned out to be.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Like advertising versus what I actually got. They showed maybe the first hour of the game and the first hour of the game it feels like, you know, you're an explorer. It's more like something like Jak and Daxter or I was going to say
[00:19:20] Speaker A: it's like God of War or Devil May Cry, but slower than Devil May Cry.
[00:19:26] Speaker B: And this was like one of the earlier open world games.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Because you have an open world to bounce back and forth. So like this is, this is more like the newer God of War in that sense where it's an open area but it's a. It's. It felt like a beat em up style thing.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: But also the first hour of the game includes some crazy set pieces like driving a fucking car through flaming skulls kind of craziness. Because this game is metal as fuck.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: This game is still fantastic despite what we're about to say. Great game.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Brutal Legend is great. Pick it up on sale if you haven't played it.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: But also fantastic.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: That's how it.
Yes, it has amazing voice acting. Everyone kills it in this game. It was kind of. We moved it to make this topic because we wanted to highlight other voice acting but it could have fit in our first topic as well. So it's presented. All the marketing is just the beginning of the game where it's this character action game. It's a story driven character action game is how the presentation was in all of the marketing with Jack Black playing basically himself as the lead with tons of stars from Metal. It's got Ozzy, it's got Rob Halford, it's got Lemmy Kilmeister. Like tons of huge names in classic heavy metal. That's what we thought we were buying. That is what the first couple hours of the game are. That's. That's the most frustrating part of Brutal Legend is. Yeah, the first couple hours of the game. The first couple hours of the game are actually what was advertised. And then after the first couple hours they introduce what they call stage battles, which is the meat and potatoes of the actual gameplay of Brutal Legend, which
[00:21:08] Speaker B: is sort of an rts.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: The easiest comparison I can give it is it's like the. The 2000 remake of Battlezone. It's an RTS where you are a like, hero unit within the RTS who is going around and issuing commands, but also actively fighting.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, and this was a console game, mind you. So like, console controls, RTS, which, yes, have never been great, especially in 2008.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: But frankly, this one, RTS control wise is worse than Starcraft 64 was.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Yeah, but like, and the, the worst part, the worst part, anytime you're not doing this, the game is still great. You still get to drive around your giant flaming hog and go mess around and see the giant skulls and do more metal shit. But like, yes, 60 to 70% of the game turns into RTS time and again.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: It's not bad. It's just definitely not as good as the character action portions are.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: It is not what I signed up for and it's not what you gave me in the beginning.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Yes. So Brutal Legend is one of the worst offenders of the bait and switch in gaming ever because it actually delivers what everyone wanted for a couple hours and then does something else.
[00:22:34] Speaker B: And the worst part is it doesn't even have the fucking tumultuity to be a bad game. So I can't just put it down. I have to do it because I want to know what the hell's going on.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good game, it's not a great game, but holy shit, what a bait and switch.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: So, speaking of bait and switches, do you guys mind if I chime in with another topic part of this that I wanted to go for it. So, talk of switch, bait and switches. The biggest bait and switches to me are mobile games.
And let me tell you why. Like, so you, you're on Facebook or for me it's, it's always, they always get me on TikTok.
So TikTok, you're scrolling. You get an ad and you're like, oh man, you know, that ad looks cool. So I'm going to use Total War here as an example. So. So Total War, the fake game ad will have you doing one thing which is like you have one character and it's shooting a gun and you're clearing a wave of zombies or whatever on a bridge and you collect power ups as you're going down.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: And like you'll be like, oh, this one's like a times three. Yeah, you'll get like times three and it'll give you like three gun shooters instead of the one. And you upgrade and you shoot stuff and get power ups, whatever. And then you're like, oh, cool. You know, this game looks fun. I could waste some time Time with this, then you install it, and then you get on it, and it's a city building game. I am so tired of city building apps games that it's. It's. It's awful. Like, you know, it started with.
And these are good games, by the way. Summoners War. I loved Summoner War. Like, I think that's the name of it. It was great. And then it moved into Raid Shadow Legends, which is another really good one.
But they don't do false advertisement. It's just a really good game. Like, it's just a gotcha game that's gonna. You're going to want to spend lots of money to get the best things you got.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: I heard a funny anecdote about Raid Shadow Legends. Apparently, if you stream Raid Shadow Legends on Twitch, people will go into that category searching for people to play with. And you will get people showing up in your stream trying to get you to play Raid Shadow Legends with them.
[00:24:47] Speaker C: Oh, I get better. Or force.
That happens to me on Discord. Like, I'll get friend requests all the time on Discord. Like, oh, we got this. Mutual. I was like, oh, whatever. They're like, hey, will you come play this game with me? I'm like, no, no, thank you. And it's just like a bot or something. Like, I have no interest in your. Your game.
Because these new city builder games, it's like, oh, build a town hall. Do this, do this, do this. And now you're in this big, giant open world, and it's like, I don't want to do any of this. I just want to play that was advertised. And you know the ones that like puzzle games where it's like, pull this pin and water comes out and it's like, save the.
Save the man from the. The. The lion or whatever. And you're trying to, like, pull the pins in a certain order to make sure this person can make it across the screen. Whatever. It's fun. It looks interesting. It's brain rot. And it's something that I could waste my time for, like 20, 30 minutes. I was like, this looks fun.
Nope, not that at all.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: I'm gonna.
[00:25:49] Speaker C: Just a city building game.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: A puzzle game. It's not a game. It's a puzzle game.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Well, you know what I mean? Like, just something like, I could waste my time with. Nope, nope. Just another city builder. And then there's one that's out right now.
Gosh, what is it? Last survival winner or something. I don't know. And it's AD is like, you're one Little dude and you go out and like, you build like this little fort and you collect meat and you upgrade things. Like you hold it over your shoulder and you go to this spot and it says it needs 30 meat.
You know what I thought of the ultimate one? It's the palworld mobile game that's out right now. I don't know if you've heard of starts off. This is a bait and switch. It starts off exactly as it's advertised. You go chop down wood. You keep collecting from the same tree, and it gets you X amount of wood because you need that to unlock the next thing or build something.
And then you catch palm on. And then all of a sudden when you get to the end, it's like, all right, now it's a city building game and you get to do none of the stuff you just got done doing. I played that game for like 20 minutes thinking, Yay, I got it. You know, the final.
It's the game that I want to play. No. Nope. Just. Just a city builder. That's it.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Not that there's any wrong with city builders. Just the bait and switch sucks.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Yes. I'm over it. I'm over it. Everything is just bait and switch on mobile games. Like, I will buy your game, install it, do whatever I need to do if it's the advertised game. But once I notice that you're not. That's not it. No, I'm good. They got the little bit of revenue out of me, probably for the ads I had to watch. And that's all they getting from me. Sorry. That was my little tantrum, my little rant.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: That's okay. You know what isn't? Debate and switch. We played more Terraria. So let's give an update on how Terraria has been going since we last talked about it. It's been what, a month since we talked about our Terraria playthrough on the show?
[00:27:45] Speaker C: I think so. I think so.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: I think the last thing we talked about was we were just about to start Hardboat or we had just gotten into it and Pillow had not gotten to play pretty much anything. We had like, gotten an hour or something in.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
Well, now we're well into hard mode, I'd say. What? We got two bosses down, Queen Slime and no. 3. We got two mechanicals and Queen Slime.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Yep. So we have defeated the. The twins, Skeletron, the. We have not defeated Destroyer.
[00:28:19] Speaker C: Destroyer. That's what it was.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Yes, we. We defeated the Destroyer. Skeletron prime beat us.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: That is true.
We almost beat Skeleton prime on first on accident because we didn't know he was spotting.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:31] Speaker C: He spawned randomly. Yeah. We ran out of time.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: We didn't do it because we lost. We actually did it.
Yeah. Like, we were under like 5% probably of total HP.
And I'm. Me being the guy that's learning this game from the front, I am. I'm pretty impressed with the game and there's still a lot to learn. And that would truly show with me. If I tried a solo playthrough, I'd be like, okay, Mike and Jax aren't carrying me. What do I do?
So now I'm like, I have to
[00:29:05] Speaker A: work on the base building instead of my wife handling it all.
[00:29:08] Speaker C: Yes. And then I would still wouldn't understand, like, summoning and how to get to bosses or where to find them. I don't know where you learn to do that because it's so weird. I don't know if there's like lore tablets or something you pick up or someone tells you, like, hey, this is a boss.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: So here's how things were learned. Initially, on initial release, we knew nothing. There was no wiki.
But as we played, you just sort of found the things out and your crafting was like, this was your standard crafting thing. And as you looked at it, you go, wait a minute. This thing summons a boss. I guess I can't use it during the day, I'll do it at night. Okay, I have to do this during the night. Cool, cool, cool. And then some people were just like, well, how far down can I dig? Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig. Oh, that's lava down there. Oh, that's just hell.
And then through goofing around, because the game ended when you killed the wall. If the wall didn't end when you killed the wall of flesh. But the. That was as far as the game progressed. That was the final boss at the time that. That there was not too much to learn. And they have done small addition ramp ups in essentially patches over and over and over for. What are we on now, like, 16 or something. I gotta go check that. But like the. The amount of major patches that Terraria has had that update.
Wild amounts of content.
Yep.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: To the point where the. The wiki is essential to be able to do anything. And specifically, if you're looking to play Terraria yourself. Terraria Wiki, gg, don't go to the old fandom wiki.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: And. And we say this with. With all the love in our heart.
Some games, when they are released, are capable of play, but they have now got too much stuff in them to start alone. Yep, I think I will be talking about that. That's a topic I think I would like to talk about with a game I would love to talk about next week. So let's talk about. I will, I will make a promise for a game I will talk about Warframe next week. Because Warframe is a game that needs to be talked about like this.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Yep, it sure is.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: And I think I would love to introduce. I would love to introduce some people to Warframe and play some Warframe with people. But there's only so far you can go with Warframe right now in a new player experience. I have not done the new player experience since they've revamped it the third or fourth time. But I know you don't know enough.
It doesn't teach you all of the intricacies of Warframe that really build you and Terraria, now that it has expanded into this, it's really massive for such a small game. The amount of content that it has for you is so large that you are now infoed out if you play blind completely.
[00:32:01] Speaker C: Now I would imagine that it's a lot easier for a new player, like if I decided to start it, like I'm still a new player because like, damn if I did it on the small map. Like instead of doing like a large or medium, like things are kind of more compact where I can find things a little bit easier.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: That'll help to a degree, but only to a degree.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: The other thing that really like you can learn some things just going through them, especially if you are familiar with the genre very intimately, like if you're a big fan of Minecraft, you'll understand the basics of what you're doing in Terraria. Only on a 2D plane. Add about 50% more gamification and you have Terraria.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Absolutely. So as far as where we're actually at now, we've. We've defeated two mechanical bosses. We defeated the queen slime as well. How are you guys feeling about your builds? Because I'm playing a Summoner for the first time. I've never played a summoner archetype in Terraria and we just got me a fabled Blade staff or whatever the best modifier is on Blade staff. I could be wrong about fabled, but oh my God, Summoner feels so good when you actually have a summon that has accurate targeting and is super aggressive.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: I'm still running bows, I'm enjoying the range combat and I'm at a point, I think I Have like, unlimited ammo. So it's cool because I have that super strong quiver or the unlimited ammo quiver. And then I have a lot of modifiers where it lets me save ammo. So I can get a lot more for less.
I don't. I don't. I don't know if I feel strong or not yet. Like, I. I know I can kill, you know, the enemies pretty easily. But I don't know if, like, I feel like I put more debuffs. I'm on things that I'm more than. I'm sacrificing damage for being able to apply, like, debuffs.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: You're definitely surviving well because there's. There's points when we're in boss fights where one of us just needs to survive. And most of the time the one person survives pretty well before everyone else can get along there. I think we've only had to completely redo a boss because everyone died once or twice.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: That's probably the wings doing all of that. And just being able to run for the hills.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Getting wings has helped a lot.
I. I am at a point now in Terraria where I've played every build type. Wizard is the hardest build type to get going. Because you need so many things to properly make it work.
[00:34:34] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:34:35] Speaker B: And I'm starting to get some of them to finalize things. Like, my biggest problem is mana. Biggest problem is mana. So I need mana generation. Or I just don't do anything. I spend a lot of our previous fights were me running around waiting for mana to come back. And then I would dump my mana and then I would run around waiting for mana to come back. So I'm slowly getting into the point where I'm able to permanently generate mana so that I can constantly do damage and constantly be fighting. So I think we're all starting to get into a bigger point. And then I know your wife is. It's very hard to play a melee build that doesn't have a range pieced into it. And we finally got her something that has melee that also does ranged.
[00:35:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: I don't remember which weapon we got her.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Scythe. We got the ice scythe.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Gotcha. The icicle. We need to get her a true Night's Edge.
But we need to kill Skeletron, Last mechanical boss for that.
[00:35:30] Speaker C: Yep.
I do know at this time of recording we had already.
We have plans to play Terraria tomorrow.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:39] Speaker C: Which I'm sure will be a good two, three hour playthrough. And you guys won't be able to hear this. But come watch our stream.
It'd be too late by the time you hear it, but make sure you tune in and put on notification.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: So join the discord.
We have a channel just to announce when we go live on Twitch and
[00:35:59] Speaker C: go onto our twitches and turn on the notifications. Go live notifications. And you can watch me blunder my way through while these guys zoom around with crazy fast flying mounts. And I fight. Oh, I finally got a unicorn. Unicorn's cool.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: I think.
None of us have flying mounts. We all have the wings.
[00:36:19] Speaker C: Maybe they. Yeah, wings.
I did get the really cool grapple hook that lets me teleport everywhere. And I probably spent like 10 minutes just grappling up and down the Tower of Aqua we have built.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: We got some good stuff. Yeah.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: All right.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's where we're at in Terraria. We will be playing more. So let's get to our last part, which listeners, if you've been listening, you may have noticed we didn't talk about games we feel like talking about or what's been going on in our lives. This week. We moved it to the end. This time we're trying it out. We'll see if we like it more or less. Let us know if you have an opinion on the order of things.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Yes. Please give us feedback on this one. If this is. This is like a structural difference to how the podcast is played, this is a feedback that we really want to get from people.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Yes.
So I want to start it off talking about not a game at all, but I want to talk about an amazing piece of movie news.
If you were following movie news in 2023, you probably are aware that a movie was made, completed, was shown. There were not in theaters, but like in. In like test screenings and stuff called Coyote vs. Acme. John Cena is in this.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: I've seen so many trailers for this.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: It is a movie about Wile E. Coyote after Acme equipment failing on him and harming him when he tries to use it to catch the roadrunner suing the Acme Corporation. By all accounts, when it was screened for these test screenings, it was genuinely charming, genuinely funny. It was also literally finished. It was done like post production was done on this movie. And Warner Brothers then decided, you know what, we're not actually going to release this movie that's done. We're going to do a tax write off of we worked on this thing and it never came out. Instead, and they took a tax write off, which Hollywood counting is bullshit. I think we can all agree on that. They shouldn't be allowed to do that. But this movie was supposed to come out in 2023 and then Warner Brothers said, nah, never mind.
This upset so many people so much that Warner Bros. Was pressured heavily to the point where they eventually sold the rights to the existing completed movie for more than what the tax write off was. So that it's worth it to Warner bros. And Coyote vs. Acme is finally going to be coming out in theaters on August 28, 2026.
This is a hybrid live action and animation movie in the vein of who Framed Roger Rabbit, one of the greatest films of all time. Do I think this is going to be as good as who Framed Roger Rabbit? No, because literally nothing is.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: You've got to do some pretty special story work to be that good.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Yes. But by all accounts, everyone who has seen this movie says it is genuinely fun and one of the most creative things that a major studio has made in at least a decade. Please go watch Coyote vs. Acme. Give a giant middle finger to Warner Brothers for how much they fucked over this movie by going and watching it in theaters opening weekend.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: This was supposed to come out four years ago. 2022.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: 3. Three years ago.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: This is the post. Production was started in August or was done in August. So this is post Covid scare. People can go out and go see theaters again.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah. The original release was July 2023, before Warner Brothers canned it.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: It's.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: I've heard nothing but good things. The trailers look great. There's trailers on YouTube now. That's why we're bringing this up now is because trailers released on YouTube this past week.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Watching the trailer right now in silence, like I'm not even listening to it. And it looks so. It looks charming. Very charming.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: I love when they incorporate cartoons into like real life. And they did that with the Slam Jam. I think that was that what it's called Space Jam. They did that with Space Jam and Space Jam was awesome. So, yeah, I think. I think this will be good.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: And the premise is just hilarious.
[00:40:35] Speaker C: It's.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: It's a. It's a great sounding movie. Which makes me think that's why it was canned was because someone went, oh, we don't want to be talking about this shit.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: I think someone was afraid that it was actually going to outshine the more traditional stuff.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Like this is. This is a farcical comedy and it sounds so good.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: I just hope I can see it.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: It's coming to theaters in August.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: John Cena can't see me.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Ah, well, you can only that would not preclude you from seeing the movie. That would just preclude you from seeing one of the main characters.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: There you go. Alright. The other thing I wanted to talk about is I have made progress in Illusion of Gaia, the second of the Quintet trilogy that I talked about last week. I'm about halfway through the game. There's six statues you wind up collecting throughout the story. I have three of them. So if you. If you're more familiar with the game, that gives you an idea of where I'm at. I just got the third statue. This game is what I remember from my childhood. It's good.
It's flawed, but good.
It's charming in a way that Soul Blazer was not. Illusion of Gaia is fun. It's. It feels almost Zelda. Like in that a lot of the dungeons feel like they have some light puzzle elements, but nothing like crazy. This is not like Oracle of Ages, I think was the puzzle oriented Zelda game.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Seasons and Ages?
[00:42:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Seasons and ages, yeah.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Well, one of Season, Seasons and Ages was more combat focused and one was more puzzle focused. I think Ages was the ages was
[00:42:08] Speaker B: puzzle, Seasons was combat.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: This is not that caliber of like Zelda puzzle vibe. This is more like Link to the past puzzle vibe of like, yeah, there's puzzles, but nothing's really gonna stump you for more than like a minute or two. Typically the plot is absolute nonsense. I have no idea what the fuck's going on in the plot.
I've literally ridden on an Incan gold ship, fought vampires.
It's weird. It goes all over the place.
I went to a floating garden in the sky after, like finding desert paintings.
Like, it's a weird game that mines a lot of real world archaeological anomalies such as desert paintings, such as historical stories about Incan gold chips for telling a weird fantasy story. And your protagonist in this game is actually a named character. Your name is Will.
You seem to have the ability to turn into other people, and I don't remember how that goes in the end. I don't know why you have that power, but you do. So you can turn into a knight dude who has a sword and can beat the shit out of things. He has more attack power and defense. And I know there's at least one other transformation, but I don't think I've gotten to it yet. I haven't seen it.
My vague recollection is that it's like a muscle man, but I could be totally wrong. I haven't played this game in over 20 years, but it's a lot of fun so far. Unlike Soul Blazer, I would actually recommend if you have an interest in old action RPGs. Illusion of Gaia is actually worth playing.
I will be playing more of it probably later this week, maybe after the podcast has come out, maybe a Thursday or Friday stream, but I will be streaming it on Twitch tv. Jacksonman who wants to go next?
[00:44:02] Speaker C: Mike, you want to go ahead? Mine's really quick so I'll go All right.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: I have a very quick topic and a not quick topic. A very quick topic. I've started playing Diablo 4 again today because the expansion just came out which gets a couple new classes and they've reworked things again and so far as what I've started to play and what I've seen good changes. They've they've made things a little more complex. They've added a lot more choice to to what you can do, which is one of the biggest problems that people had.
They have added in a lot more stats that you can work with, which is another one of the things that people have problems with was things being too linear and work with to to un too uncomplicated, too simplified and I haven't touched endgame yet. I'm like three hours into my first playthrough of the story because the new expansion is a new story. It's the conclusion of the story for this entire game essentially this is the final portion for Diablo 4 from what I've seen.
So I'm barely in but I'm liking what I am playing so far. I'm trying out the new class Warlock.
Very different feel from Necromancer which is good because they need to be distinguished because they're both sort of weird quasi summoner classes and they need to have distinctions between those Main thing I I like the changes that have been implemented so far. I think they're adding in a good amount of complexity without going too far into Poe 1 territory. If you're a Poe 1 fan and like that complexity this game is not for you. It's you're not there yet.
They don't have enough stuff for you to to have that level of customization. But if you like just like ARPGs in general plays well feels good so far. I'll have a better update once I finish it probably either next episode or the episode afterwards onto the real topic.
[00:45:56] Speaker C: So real quick before we get off Diablo so you're talking to the campaign changes and this is like what I play. I play Diablo for the campaigns I always have most of Blizzard's game because their storytelling is usually pretty good. Do you start with the old campaign and work into the end of the new campaign or they start you at the end of the character?
[00:46:16] Speaker B: If you make a fresh character right now with the expansion, you start there. If you have a level one character now, that does not mean you won't do that. If you buy the game blank, you may be able to play the game one to the next to the next like you were able to with previous expansions. I am not doing that because I've already played through the previous expansions. So as far as I am aware, you can go start story, continue story, continue story. Or you can just say, I've already been there. I've already done that. Starting here and start a How does
[00:46:51] Speaker C: leveling feel so far? Does it feel rushed?
Paragon leveling no more than normal.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Yeah, no more than normal. Probably a little less than what you're fearing.
[00:47:01] Speaker C: Cool. Awesome. That's all I had.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: But again, I am two hours in. I have not played much. Continuing on. I finished up season three of Babylon 5.
This is where this show starts to shine so hard. This is where this becomes not just of fantastic sci fi this season and season four, but like as I've seen for season three, this is now one of the best seasons of sci fi ever released. It has some of the greatest episodes on the hardest of topics.
Like there is. There is a wonderful episode early on into the season called Shadows of Gethsemane. This is a like painfully or passing of Gethsemane, painful look into loss and the obvious. The basic premise of the beginning of the episode is there have been like a convent of. Well, not a convent. A group of priests who have come in who are exploring all the faces of God. This includes all the alien faces of God. And they're trying to relate faith into the sci fi world of. Yeah, there's more than just humans now. So how has God showed himself in all these other races? And they have become a minor piece for the last couple episodes and they become a major player in this episode where we focus on one of those monks and a secondary portion of what you do to people who have been murderers. And it is something called the death of personality, which is this. If you are convicted of murder and you have no like no recourse, it's a dark enough thing. You can't. You can't serve a sentence and be free to go. If you would be like either put to death or lifelong in prison. No, we're not going to do that you're going to get the death of personality, which mind wipes you and puts you into a state in which you would like to help other people.
And this episode explores what happens when people don't feel that's enough. And one of the main characters for the show feels like initially like, no, this is I am an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth sort of person. You kill, I kill you back. And the explored feelings of you going on with this one monk who was a murderer and who has had a mind wipe. But you have learned who he is through the last couple of episodes and especially this one. Like what attrition, like what this does to a person. And it. It's a really poignant episode out of nowhere. We're talking about the faces of God and murder and. And human experience and rage. And it's such a good episode. But that's just like singular episodes of phenomenal quality.
This is where the war that the two major wars that are the surrounding sort of apotheosis of the show, the war with the Shadows and the civil war with Earth alliance both massively kick off in season three. And how you deal with people who have been completely loyal to the Earth alliance deal with when your government does things that you cannot condone anymore. Or there's the Shadows case of what is the ideology of something so much greater than you that has been sort of trying to make you grow as a. Essentially, that is what the Shadows are, is one of the older species who have been trying to push the younger species to grow in a certain way and where their ideology differs from the other ones who have the same sort of feeling of this. And this really kicks off. I could go for hours talking about just this season and I need to stop before I go too far. So, Pillow, continue.
What do you got for us?
[00:51:04] Speaker C: So I haven't been up to a whole lot lately.
I've had a pretty busy last few weeks.
Won't go into it. It's a little bit personal, but we lost a family member, so we've been dealing with that.
But what I will say is I get in the moods through the time of years.
Right.
And Mike, before I get into it, you look like you just remembered something. What do you got?
[00:51:31] Speaker B: I forgot that this season introduces my favorite character in the show. Marcus introduced an episode, the first episode of the season, and he continues to be a fantastic addition.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: And why is Marcus your favorite character in the show?
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Marcus has such a positive effect on the world around him whilst also being a terrifyingly deep character. And he is both a trope in sort of a like Love Smitten person whilst also being more than the trope. And the conclusion of his arc in later seasons is gut wrenching. I love him.
[00:52:09] Speaker C: Right. Well, if you got any more, if you think of anything else, just do the same thing and I'll stop and I'll let you go.
So times of year bring around me getting wanting to play certain kind of styles of game. In the winter it is always the long dark. I've talked about the game before. It's in the winter, it's a survival game.
But when it gets into spring and summer and you start getting thunderstorms.
My games that I want to get into are pirate games, specifically games that are in the Caribbean or based in the Caribbean because it's always storming down there. So I started playing a little bit of Sea of Thieves.
So Sea of Thieves is pretty fun game. I don't know if you've ever played it, but mainly a game where you're wanting to be co op, otherwise you just get griefed.
But you're on your pirate ship with your buddy or your buddies and you're just sailing around getting treasure, fighting other people, doing some cool story modes, hunting Megalodons and the Kraken and all. It's. It's just a really fun game. Which got me thinking. Then I saw a. I'm sorry, then. Then I saw a clip for.
Did you guys ever get into Assassin's Creed?
[00:53:31] Speaker B: The first three I was a fan of.
[00:53:34] Speaker C: Did you ever really like you ever played Black Flag?
[00:53:36] Speaker B: I did. I'm annoyed that we're releasing it.
[00:53:38] Speaker C: So they're re releasing Black Flag which got me sent me down the rabbit hole of a game that just got released recently called Windrows, which is always from what I've read been called the better Black Flag. It is a PvE and I haven't got it yet, but I want to PvE pirate game, survival builder game where you bought a pirate ship, you build stuff, you survive. I like survival games. It's right up my alley. I love builder games right up my alley. And I love pirate games. So. Right up my alley. So I got a feeling for $30 I'm not going to hate this game.
But the hard part is me convincing my wife to play it. So that's what I'm going to only going to play it with her. I'm going to try. And she loves Sea of Thieves so I don't think it'll be a hard.
So I'm looking forward to getting that game at some point. And then when I do get it, I will report back because I was a. An Assassin's Creed Black Flag fan. Loved it, loved everything about that game.
But. And that's why I was really sad, you know, overhyped games. We'll get back to that for a second. Did you guys remember Skull and Bones?
[00:54:52] Speaker B: Knew it. Never done it.
[00:54:54] Speaker C: Yeah. So Skull Bones, another pirate game. You know, trying to get into that trope was just an awful, God awful mess.
Overhyped and horrible, horrible game.
But yeah, that's it. I haven't really been up to a whole lot.
Just excited to get back into Pirate season of my life.
So here we are. Oh, I'm more active in drones now. I repurchased a new drone. I talked about drones last time.
Don't get a Contixo drone. It's not worth it. Spend the extra money and get dgi. Regardless of the United States ban on being able to buy newer models. Just get a dji. It's way worth. It's way better if you're getting into drones, but make sure you don't. You follow FAA regulations and it stays under the 250 grams unless you get licensed. That's it.
[00:55:46] Speaker A: Fair enough. And that's going to be it for the podcast this week, guys. Join the Discord. Let us know what your thoughts are on the games we talked about. Let us know if you're gonna be going and seeing Coyote versus Acme when it hits theaters, and we'll see you next time.
[00:56:02] Speaker C: Good night.
[00:56:03] Speaker B: Good night, everybody.
