Low Five Gaming
Welcome to Low Five Gaming, the book club-style podcast where two brothers, Alex and Luke, share their lifelong love for video games through engaging conversations and friendly debates. If you're a passionate gamer, a casual fan, or just have a soft spot for the classics, our laid-back, conversational approach will make you feel right at home.
Each month, we'll explore the game of the moment or revisit a beloved classic, satisfying your gaming cravings with our unique blend of humor, insight, and personal experiences. Whether it's reminiscing about crunchy classics like Prince of Persia (89), getting hyped about the latest Nintendo Direct, or diving into deep discussions on FPGA consoles (much to Luke's chagrin), Low Five Gaming is your go-to podcast for all things gaming.
As brothers with a lifelong bond, Alex and Luke bring a genuine camaraderie and relatable banter to every episode, making it easy for you to connect with fellow gamers who truly understand your love for the virtual world. So, if you're looking to join a gaming community where you can enjoy thought-provoking conversations about your favorite games, look no further than Low Five Gaming. You're also invited to join the conversation in our Discord server!
Subscribe now and let's embark on this pixel-powered journey together, sharing our gaming adventures and creating lasting memories along the way.
Low Five Gaming
Disco Elysium - The Final Cut
Luke and Alex Talk Disco Elysium
This month, we delve deep into the surreal and thought-provoking world of Disco Elysium. Developed by ZA/UM and released in 2019, this narrative-driven RPG puts players in the shoes of a deeply flawed detective navigating a city rife with political tension, personal demons, and existential crises. With a unique blend of noir aesthetics and psychological depth, Disco Elysium challenges players to solve a murder while grappling with the protagonist's fractured psyche.
Both Alex and Luke rolled the credits on this complex journey. Luke experienced the game on his Steam Deck, while Alex split his time between his Steam Deck and PC. The game boasts a Metacritic score of 91 on PC, praised for its narrative depth and freedom of choice. With around 30 hours needed to complete the main story, it’s a substantial dive into a richly detailed world.
Join us as we dissect the narrative layers, discuss our favorite moments, and ponder the philosophical questions posed by Disco Elysium. Whether you're a seasoned detective or new to the streets of Revachol, this episode offers a comprehensive look at one of the most acclaimed RPGs of our time.
This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by dad rock.
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If you have just woken up from a drunken stupor and you have no idea what you're listening to right now, this is Low5Gaming. My name is Luke and this is my co-host and brother, alex Yo what up, Luke?
Speaker 2:Good to be here, yes sir. Thanks for the intro man. I have forgotten everything.
Speaker 1:Yes, my man, name unknown, has taken too much speed, too much tequila in his car, perhaps, and too much good times and he has, or sad times really, but anyway, he's forgotten everything. So we are the Disco Elysium podcast for you today. How you doing my man, man, I'm doing well, I'm doing well, it's over, taken by the sudden urge to smoke some cigarettes in the ashtray. You're like damn smokes, look good.
Speaker 2:Sorry, find some hidden beer. Maybe drink that, maybe give it to a bum, who knows, who knows who knows what's ahead of us.
Speaker 1:Let the people know what we are officially and where they can find us. Man.
Speaker 2:Yes, low Five Gaming. We're a backlog book club. We do a game a month. Play the book club we do. We'll game a month. Play the game, talk about it, see if we can beat it, talk about our experiences. We also invite folks to join us in our discord and, uh, play along with us. It's fun times. You can find us on low5gamingcom. You'll find links to all our socials there. You also find an invite to that discord.
Speaker 1:Come and join us hell yeah, this month sorry, we're actually on like a two-month there because we we really got into into some nitties and gritties and as young dads we decided we should beat a game for once, because we've been a little bummy about that, but we did Disco Elysium.
Speaker 2:Our win percentage. Dude, it was killing me. I was like you know what? We're playing some good games, we're having some good discussions, but I need to roll some credits bro, yeah, dude the Chivos.
Speaker 1:Bro, yeah, dude the chivos. We weren't, weren't building up on them, chivos, we're just, we're just slacking. So we got through disco Elysium. For those of you who don't know from the Steam page, disco Elysium, the Final Cut, is a groundbreaking role-playing game. You are a detective with a unique skill system at your disposal and a whole city to carve your path across. Interrogate unforgettable characters, crack murders or take bribes. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being. Some popular, user-defined tags. I found this entertaining. Rpg, totally true Story. Rich, totally true Choices matter, yes, and detective. They should also say hot garbage, mess simulator, because you can be as messy as you so like.
Speaker 2:Love the game look, man, I don't disagree with those tags. And when you look up what type of game this is, it is overwhelmingly described as an rpg, and it is. It's a role-playing game. Uh, but I tell you what, dude, I feel like it's a missed opportunity to just call this game a point and click adventure, because that's what a bucket is, man you know, I guess I don't personally have enough of a history of point and click adventures.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's an older millennial vibe no shots being taken, but just like pc, the general pocket that those games are super hot in. But it is certainly a point and click adventure. Yeah. I played it on the steam deck too, though, so it's like it's been adapted well. But it's what it is. It's a talk, it's been adapted okay. Fair, that's yeah. So I played both.
Speaker 2:I played both on the steam deck and on my pc and I got used to the controls on the steam deck. You know those which would be the same controls if you're playing it on any of the other systems. You know, with a controller and it works.
Speaker 1:I use a trackpad a lot, so kind of. Although maybe it kind of works like the analog stick. Anyway, continue. I did a lot of screen tapping on the deck. Occasionally yes.
Speaker 2:And so, like I'll tell you what man it works, I learned the controls and I made it work, because there is something about the convenience of being able to take the game to the couch or to your bed or whatever I love handheld gaming.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful, it's story rich. It's almost like a visual novel to some degree, but it's way more interactive due to the choices matter tag Indeed, but the super intense dialogue. So it was a great. I played probably 60 to 70% in bed and the other 30% on the couch.
Speaker 1:So, simply because this is not a game I had like on TV playing in the background like, no, you're fully, you're fully up in the game. So some four more particulars. It is from ZAUM there's a dash in the middle, otherwise you're tempted to call them Zaum or zaum or you know, I don't really know them like that but uh, that's the studio and that's the developer and the publisher. They're an independent game and developer and publisher based in the uk, in europe. Uh zaum studio was founded 2016 and they've grown to a global studio composed of nearly 100 writers, artists, engineers and producers.
Speaker 1:And Disco Elysium is their first game. It was released originally in 2019 on PC. It feels such like a PC game, hence your point and click. Since then, it has won numerous awards and Game of the Year honors, including four Game Awards, three BAFTAs and a DICE award. The definitive edition of the game, disco Elysium, the Final Cut, was released on PC, mac and consoles in March of 2021. And lastly, if you want to buy some sick, game-influenced fucking fashion statement piece, clothing, dude websites got you.
Speaker 2:They got them. Yes, sir, it is fun. There is like a bit of a culture that is built around this game. I think you know, if you, I think you, if you were to talk to some gamers, especially pc gamers, and ask them what are some of the best, it can be a bit decisive. But I do think that this game does rank in the lot, near the top of a lot of folks lists.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a. It's a masterpiece. You'll see it in the news too. Uh, so people make games documentary. If you want to hear some of the some of the industry tea we're not really insiders in the industry. There's some other pods you can go to for that but it should be mentioned a lot of the original writers. So, being super important because of how writing intensive this game is. They're all fighting over stuff and there's all sorts of nonsense, but anyway, we chose this game is. They're all fighting over stuff and there's all sorts of nonsense, but anyway, we chose this game because it is a natural evolution of alex's game boy niche games. He's like let's play games where we pal around and solve things and have a few little dialogue, choices and environmental choices and I was like, but what would that be like in the 20 teens and 2020s? And this game is a super evolved version of that it is indeed.
Speaker 2:It was funny about midway through. I think I hit you up and I was like dog it's it's kind of clowning that we went from pine pine creek to deadiest.
Speaker 1:You actually said it in person and I had been sitting on that hot take for weeks and I was like, oh dude, I was gonna fucking hit you in the face with that one on the pod. But yes, it felt like a natural evolution it. It was good prep work to kind of play, even though they're modern games made around the same time. That style of game, game Boy games.
Speaker 2:So to see it on a big, you know, to have this on modern consoles. It's obviously a different playground.
Speaker 1:So the story heavy, the dialogue, just like finding clues. It was very cool and this game woof, if you want. I'm sure if you made any list ever for the best type of games of this genre, this is going to be almost everybody's number one. It's acclaimed across the board. Man, a lot of people's top tens. Did it make your top ten Not to spoil?
Speaker 2:this whole thing. But is this one of Alex's famous top tens or what's up? Uh, I don't think so, man, I don't think so. It's it's great, it's great, but for me I don't know. I need to sit on it longer, man, I wrote the credits last night. So this might be one of those games that like that, over time I think about more and I'll be honest, like when I wrote the credit, like we can get in this later, but there's a lot of branching. There's a lot of branching story stuff that happens in this, and you know, I often use witcher 3, which is in my top 5, top 10, top 5 probably. Uh, actually, you can go to our, our goat games, and I think it might be three or four. I think I missed opportunity to make it three, I think it's four, but uh, that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:Very upset about that, but continue, that's neither here nor there. I was very upset about that, but continue.
Speaker 2:That's neither here nor there. I just think I need more time to sit on it, because I really appreciated it, but it did take me a while to get into it, and that's not a knock. A lot of games are that way, I'm not sure. I think I just need more time, dude.
Speaker 1:Well, I finished about a week and a half ago and I would say that at the time I beat it I was like that was super cool. There were some moments I was crazy and grossed and then I've thought about it a lot in the week and a half.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I think it might be one of those games and at first I was like maybe I'm just going to YouTube a bunch of different paths and I was like I'm probably not going to play least one more time and I'm gonna take it wildly different so that's what I was driving at is like, with all the different branching paths, like I'm happy with my playthrough, but you can just see, like I can just see all the different opportunities that you have if you chose, if you made different choices. So I do think that I would normally not return and I bring up witcher 3 because you know, I know that you can do branching paths in witcher 3, but I have way less interest in going back I know you did this recently but I have way less interest of going back to square one on Witcher 3 and doing a playthrough and playing it differently than I did the first time, whereas this game in particular.
Speaker 2:What's the deal?
Speaker 1:We're divided on that. It's just Triss every time, dude, you do Triss a couple times and then you move the romance to Yennefer.
Speaker 2:But that's the Witcher pod, you don't tell her, you love her and then you marry. Triss, and that's how you play the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, but it's been sitting in our backlogs because it's so acclaimed and so everyone's like you got to play this fucking game. And you hear it from critics, you hear it from friends, you hear it from friends on, hear it from, uh, friends on the internet. You just, you see good content around it and you're like I'm gonna get there. And uh, that, combined with the, it just shows up on my games that are great, on the steamy d you know the steamy d verified, and uh, you know some pre-boiling. But ace is like you gotta do the, you gotta do on the pots. All those things kind of came together and I was like let's fucking, let's do some disco and we, we disco danced. Is that why you kept sending me the travolta meme? Yeah, dog, disco dude. Just realizing that on the spot, I was like I was really into the saturday night fever travolta vibe like this is like the third time he sent me this gif and I'm like sounds good, dude, like man.
Speaker 1:Man loves travolta right now all right, it's the disco.
Speaker 2:It's one of the better disco gifts, just gonna uh, dude interesting for metacritic. On pc it has a 97, that's a, that's a fucking, that's a top tier score. Ps4 86, ps5 89. So the um, the console ports don't get as much love as the pc and I think that's because folks aren't able to use a mouse. Yeah, I'm telling you, man, the mouse is money in this game, the switch probably brought it down too.
Speaker 1:I'm sure this game doesn't switch the steve duck cooking not like other games, but you know it's, it's not a not powerful game right then.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, in true lo-fi fashion, shooting from the hip. Don't fact check me on this, but I am fairly certain that the original version of this game did not have voice acting, and they added that in in you know 16 versions or whatever, and I'll and dude, just just as good as the story is the voice acting in this game dude is so good.
Speaker 1:Yes, uh, although for the final cut I think they changed some of the actors so maybe there's a, there's a whole thing.
Speaker 1:But yes, the voice acting um was great, especially because I was coming off of a game that did none and they're still sick. But, like, you really get into the different characters when someone else other than your internal dialogue comes up with their voices. Uh, example, to jump ahead, kuno, uh, the fucking voice. I want to punch him in the fucking nose and we'll get into that later. Um, because I have lots of kuno thoughts, believe it or not. Fuck this kuno. Okay, overview of the game. Dude, super crunchy rpg. I know there's a CRPG and it means computer RPG, but this because it's been ported to consoles. It's still going to take RPG or CRPG because it's a crunchy RPG. You got lots of stats, you upgrade them, your character wears different clothing. So if you're into those types of choice thing and builds, this game does a pretty good job of that.
Speaker 2:Clothing and items give you boons or they might have a negative effect on you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that plays into how you want to play the game. There's different ways to go about the investigation.
Speaker 2:There's a dice roll.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's sort of hidden.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if it's actually really relevant dice roll, because there's some times I hit some ridiculously low percentage ones where I was like that's just how you progress the story. Yeah, yeah, but it's a super story, heavy game um the craziest writing I think I've ever seen anywhere for a story like the amount of dialogue I guess we haven't played ballers, great ballers, gate three yet. Geez, keep that in. But um, this game's writing is one clever, two funny and three insanely detailed.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's stuff that we've never seen and that I know from the different options and things I didn't choose that, like as far as the different perks and stuff that it can go down a lot of roads I don't think I've ever played a game where I've like cared so much about the dialogue and been so impressed with the voice acting that I actually felt bad when I like would click through stuff that I didn't like wanted to rush through yeah, you're like I have to put this down because I'm not playing this, right, right, right and.
Speaker 2:But there's certain things like I, you know I could kind of get a vibe, but you you miss out on little key details. Like it's worth taking everything in. Like I'll be honest, I did click through stuff when I was kind of trying to do other things or whatever, but I felt a little bad about it because I'm like wow, like even you know even this shit that I'm clicking through and it's. I also have a thing too where the the text is on the screen. So sometimes, like, if I'm in more, if I'm not like fully immersing myself into the game, like I quick read while they're like mid talk or whatever, and it's just like I almost felt a little bit ashamed being like OK, cool, forward, forward, forward.
Speaker 1:But because it's so good, it's so good, it's so good, but it's also lore dense. Oh yes, a lot of the times you are a can opener.
Speaker 1:And you're just getting to the bottom of this mystery and you're cracking people open. But a lot of times you're just talking to people and the whole point of it is just to world build and build lore. So I'd start to catch that drift sometimes and I'd get through. But this game is so detailed Sometimes you talk to someone about a certain thing for long enough where you get to know them you start to like put other pieces together so like none of it's totally random, but enough of it is or sometimes you skip through like an idiot, like just mention dog, I'm gonna click everything, type of person I know, sometimes, even if I wouldn't say that, because I know it wouldn't actually change the story, it's just I want to hear everything that you also get experience points for going different stuff.
Speaker 2:So it's like which I was a little bit disappointed. We'll get into this a little bit later and when we hit a spoiler time, but, um, it's, it wasn't detrimental because I was getting the experience points. But as far as like a full-on role play, like if folks are going to pick up this game, like play it any way you want, but that's one thing that I, you know, replaying if I replay this and I think I will, but it just is going to be I'm going to take some time to let it sit for a while. But I I will go in with a mindset that like, okay, I don't need a min max, my character, I want to fully take a route, I want to choose a route and play just role play, that fucking route. And that's.
Speaker 1:I thought about that a lot. Knowing how the story and the main beats play out, it'll be fascinating to like yeah side, but uh because my understanding spoilers the both of us had a pretty similar let's just say ideology.
Speaker 1:The two of us had a very on par ideology with each other and it was kind of hilarious. You could tell how careful we were playing. We'll get into that. But that's how cool this game is, is that, once you know like, you could go crazy with it on your first try, and I do encourage it yeah, shout outs to uh to rick of pixel project radio in the uh in the discord, for being our disco sherpa, he sure was dude you.
Speaker 1:One time I was like I don't want to look this up and you're like, dude, hit him up it'll, it'll be nice and communal. I was like that's a good point, dude. I was like it's not cheating if you ask the homies, so uh, shout out, rick dude.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, fuck yeah dude yeah, dog, uh, good, good ups, rick. I appreciated that and it's, it's, it's super fun, like, and another thing that he actually told us too was you know, don't be afraid to roll the dice and like you know, don't save scum like, just roll with it and that's that's. Another thing about this game is it's very story driven. Sometimes so did I, dog, but, like, I tried to roll with it. But I think that, like, truly this game, it's not like a, it's not like a mario, where you like can't get past a certain area and you have to, like hit the platforming perfect, and all that kind of bullshit. You can go through this game losing all of your roles. I assume, like it's just not going to work out the way you wanted it to, maybe, uh, like the story progresses, it just takes a different branch.
Speaker 1:I couldn't talk to the crate into opening itself. I was very upset about that. I got it open, but what? Oh more on that shit later. But uh, yes, dude, it's this excellent murder mystery. Once you know the ending, there's so much more you can crack open To give the vaguest overview to people.
Speaker 1:If you're just trying to like, there's factions and those factions are based on political ideology. It's your classic communism, capitalism. The names have been changed, like the countries that they're talking about, the groups they've been talking about. Sometimes they're obvious who it's like an analogy, for Other times it's just like hey, here's you know in any conflict, here's who this would be. But you have your communist capitalists, a little bit of fascists worked in. You have, like it's a revolutionary.
Speaker 1:You're from a city. That's not where your character ends up, so you're an outsider and you're just we mentioned in the intro like you've lost your memory and you're just trying to figure out this murder mystery. You're trying to figure out what's going on around and then, like you as the player character, knowing nothing, it's perfect. Right, it's a beautiful video game setup because although sometimes, dude, I as the character playing the game knew more than the character would allow in the game, and that's frustrating I'm like I, I know, I remember I've been able to piece this together Like, but there was a I didn't make my character really dumb, so that's actually on me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to remember Did. Did you read? Did I tell you what I cause? You get to pick your build in the beginning.
Speaker 1:I think you might even be able to adjust it but you give like you can go with and I I think I must have picked a physical build because we can. We can look at our stats here shortly. We're gonna pause that because that's definitely coming up, okay, um, just real, before we get into spoilers, just real like overview, like what'd you like about the game, what didn't you like about the game?
Speaker 2:before we get into the nitty-gritty right on I did not like the controls on the controller. Did not mouse 100 full set, that's correct. I did not like the controls on the controller. Did not Mouse 100% full set, that's correct. I did not like the way that it controls on a controller. I got used to it and it became acceptable, but I didn't love it. That said, if you can play with a mouse, it is so silky smooth. That's the way to do this 100%. I actually bounced off this game. It is. It is totally. I think that's because this dvd has.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah and the same would be for for your uh, for the switch as well, because you can do some screen tapping, that kind of thing steamy d has the uh track pads and, uh, I think there's probably some like probably some loading that happens. Uh, it's my understanding that the the switch version crashes from time to time. That would kill me yeah, that'd be tough.
Speaker 2:That would kill me, dude when I first tried this game, I bounced off of it and when I was about three hours into it I it just wasn't working for me. I was like going around, I was clicking things, I was like you know, trying to figure out what to do. I was just exploring everything and I was like there's nothing, it's not grabbing me like I didn't. But then I got to a point in the investigation where all the dialogue that I was having was coming together and it was pulling in. All these experiences that I had from just clicking all over the place and like all the like shit that I thought was pointless was being fed into the story and it was so rewarding.
Speaker 1:You feel really helpless when you first start playing and it's the most frustrating.
Speaker 1:'re like I feel stupid, but then once but it clicks once it does click and once you do find any amount of footing, you it feels really good, like totally, it gets you thinking a lot. But you do start like you're thrown in the pool and your character comes up from a stupor and is like what's going on? And you're like I don't know, you're the video game, you're telling me what to do and it's like, yeah, you'll figure it out, right, uh, I was just a derp from the beginning, which helped with that a little bit. But I had a similar experience where the first opening amount of playthrough was rough. But, um, I'm also a sucker for the isometric view and like uh, environments, sure, how did you feel about other than navigating it? Because there was times when I was using the joystick trying to get my guy to move around. I was like, oh my god. But other than that, like how do you feel about that art style in general?
Speaker 2:I like it. I think this is a very like good looking game. I think it's like stylized in a way that I really enjoyed. It's a little gritty. The isometric view that you bring up I think works really well for this, for navigating around the map. Uh, you can zoom out and kind of like get a, you know, and you can really zoom in close, which is cool too. Yeah, I think I think it works quite well and I think, like I don't know, do you know what those shoebox projects are called?
Speaker 1:growing up as a kid, you know what I'm talking about a little yeah, a diorama yeah, dude, I love that diorama style fucking yeah, it's your metric view.
Speaker 2:My bad to cut you off, but I needed. No, it's good nerd point in there I can dig it, man, like I think I think it looks real good. I really like the um, the character portraits I think I've done really well. I think everything art wise about this game is on point, yeah, and another shout out the music too.
Speaker 1:To the music and the voice acting, because once again it's it's a lot of fun to listen to, it's really engrossing. There's times where there is really weird dialogue and noises being made and I was like looking over because once again I ride dirty and I hit it raw. Everyone used to hear my audio, no headphones.
Speaker 2:So trisha, occasionally you're wild. She was just like what the fuck is going on.
Speaker 1:I was like I was wondering when this was going to treat me with this. But yeah, all of that is like crazy. So if you're thinking about a game like this, we say, definitely play it. If anyone, if you're just looking for a super awesome experience, even if you're not a heavy reader, you can listen and it really helps you out. And it's just unraveling that mystery.
Speaker 1:For someone who gets frustrated by that it, it starts to feel supernatural and super like, super gratifying Once you start pulling at that thread and figuring there's some moments I was pissed, but other than that, dude, it's extremely gratifying to have this story unravel yeah, dog, I think it's gotta be for me, dude.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know that I said, like when you, early in the up, when you asked me like what I thought of it is in my top, is it in my upper half, is it on my mont rushmore? Like I don't know that yet, but I will say, of this genre, it it's got to be.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I just don't know how many of the games I've played in this genre. I mean I guess a bunch, but yeah, no, totally, there's no way I could argue against that. I think Baldur's Gate 3, I haven't even touched that game yet and from what I can tell that might have an edge on this. But who knows, I'll have, I think. Even though it's not on my Mount Rushmore, I'd still say that this is like five whiskey bottles, five empty whiskey bottles out of five empty whiskey bottles. Bro, like this is what it's got to be.
Speaker 1:It's a full pack of smokes.
Speaker 2:Dude Right, it's a full pack of smokes and to whom I would recommend? I mean anybody that's into role playing, anybody that likes a crunchy like RPG a CPR what is it?
Speaker 1:It's the RPG. I invented the crunchy alternate.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Credit to me, I think it's good for anybody To some degree.
Speaker 2:I know that me personally, I'm really interested in gaming as an art form and when you look at the top list, like I'm always interested in like okay, everybody like this game is highly lauded, like I would like to know why, and I think that it's worth finding out why this game is worth playing for anybody that wants to play some of the best games ever made. Like this is going to be a part of that conversation. So if that's something that intrigues you, like a hundred percent, go for it. I think it also, like, if you're someone that maybe isn't super into like reading books or whatever, like if you know, if you're looking for an experience, it's going to be very similar to like reading a book, but like I'll choose your own adventure, basically like this might do that for you yeah, so strong recommends from both uh, and what we've really been waiting for to those of us who have played it already, because we're pretty late to this party.
Speaker 1:Do spoilers dude? Yeah al's gonna put up an official spoiler wall and, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna get into some probably not even the nitty gritty to those who have played it a few times. We're probably gonna give you baby's first adventure. But that's okay, dude, that's what.
Speaker 2:That's what we are here today believe that. Hey, if you made it this far, go check out this game. Throw it on your wish list, buy when it's on sale, try and play this game at some point. It is so worth it. You are definitely welcome to to come into the spoiler section, you know, but if you want to stay unspoiled, just scrub all the way to the time stamp that I will insert here. Come, come back for our unsextured sponsor, as well as our side quests. Hell yeah, you can scrub through to the 60-minute mark. © BF-WATCH.
Speaker 1:TV 2021. All right, so you mentioned it already. What was your build?
Speaker 2:Dude, I can't remember what the build choices were. I'm so glad we postponed this.
Speaker 1:I'll lead off with mine. Uh, I decided to be an absolute bonehead moron. I put up all the there. So there's the general overview of what I can remember was there is intelligence, there's emotional intelligence and then there is like physicals and I just intellect psyche physique and it's intellect.
Speaker 2:Psyche physique and motorics.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there's some differentiation between all of them, but I just generally decided that I was going to be like a big strong dum-dum and I was going to barrel through the world as a big strong dum-dum, and this game definitely allows you to do that. It makes it where. I did not get into a lot of the political heavy stuff because I didn't give a fuck, both in real life and in this playthrough. I was like my dude's, a big muscular dum-dum, although I would holler at holler at ace boy.
Speaker 2:dude hit up the discord and was like I can't wait for the most politically uh charged podcast to date. And, dude, I approached this game, so centrist we're both just centrist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude. Anytime anyone was like dude, communism, I was like, eh, whatever. And they were like, what about capitalism, dude?
Speaker 2:it got to the point in the game where it was teasing me for being so centrist, and some of the choices would be straight up. Like I'm just not gonna choose, like I'm gonna stick right in the middle yeah, the game is incredibly.
Speaker 1:Is the word facetious? Is that am I pronouncing and using incorrect content? The game, the writing is incredibly. Like dude, they're teasing the shit out of you. They're fucking like snarky, they're kind of just fucking with you all the time. It was the writing's crazy like that. So I went in as this bonehead and the first thing you can do is like you talk to this lady and you're like you want to sex me, you want a sexy good time, and then it's like do you're a superstar, cop?
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm a fucking star. Don't you know me?
Speaker 2:and I was like I didn't I leaned into the superstar stuff because I was yeah I was full psychopath.
Speaker 1:And then there's like an ashtray and you're like man, those smokes look fucking good and I was like, yeah, they fucking do. Dude, dude.
Speaker 2:I did the same thing, we did, we like approach it very similarly. As the game went on, I like became like I started like kind of having a character arc. I, if I were to replay.
Speaker 1:I would lean into just the next time I play and I'd be, super smart and snarky to people. That's how I think I would do it, because I've the centrist route. I never picked a side. I avoided some side quests because I didn't want to deal with some shit and I kind of wish I didn't. Um, specifically the union. Uh, I did one mission for the union boss and he was so greasy and mean. Um, when he makes you sit in that chair, did you sit in the chair, dude?
Speaker 1:yeah, uh, no, I I think I like, I think I opted to just stand and power through dude, because I finally, like, after the third prompt, I sat in the chair and then later on it gave me a dice roll and it gave me some negative towards the base roll, because I sat in the chair and he basically owned me and I was like, oh, I didn't want to sit in the chair that's clowning but he darth vader's you where he keeps changing the deal on you did you ever like do the second thing get people to get the signatures, or were you like fuck that?
Speaker 2:uh, I got the homeless folks that are always drinking to to forge some signatures oh really, so you had them do everyone else's signature no, just like their own sigs. But I didn't get the correct sigs. So you actually I'm not sure, like from my knowledge, like you don't actually see how that plays out. But, uh, I went and I talked to the folks that you need the signatures from and then I opted not to get them because I was like, fuck this, like yeah, I felt too greasy about it yeah, I was like you know, fuck these people over, but then like I did want to close that, that side quest, so I ended up talking to the, to the homeless dudes, and they signed it.
Speaker 2:So I'm not entirely like I don't not sure how that's gonna play out in the future, to be honest. But uh, did you give it to the mob boss?
Speaker 1:or, excuse me, I sent in the mail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, put in the mail. Okay, so did you get your?
Speaker 2:gun back from him or no? I didn't get it from him, I got it from the pigs.
Speaker 1:You got it from the cops.
Speaker 2:This didn't play out this way for you. Huh, no, dude, so my gun.
Speaker 1:I lost my. You lose your gun as a part of the game and it's like super embarrassing and I told the station and your badge and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I found a badge.
Speaker 1:But, um, eventually, but only after I did it some dirty deeds for the corpo lady. But that was actually good intel. So I don't regret that. You talk. You go to the pawn shop owner who's like some war vet, who's like high on some shit. He says he uses to cope and you're like, okay, that's interesting. And then he says he got rid of your gun. And then the union boss lets on like he has your gun, but he has you do these side quests, that you feels greasy and like you're going to never get your gun from him. So I don't actually know if he has his gun. I'm sure he might.
Speaker 2:People know, but I don't, so you didn't get the gun Cause you.
Speaker 1:I got the lady who offed herself a gun. I got her gun, Did she offer?
Speaker 2:herself to you? Or did you say I had, no, I saved her, or I let her go, rather. So when she had the gun in her mouth, I talked her out of doing that and then I let her free. Oh.
Speaker 1:I did not. I had good physics, so I was like I'm going to smash this stupid fucking machine.
Speaker 2:And then she's like, well, yeah, she attacks you with some sound frequencies or something. Yeah, I hit that thing too, dude, so I did get the gun, my gun back, or harry's gun his name ends up being harry, yes, harry dubois. Yeah, uh, so I could, because I, because I completed that task where I did mail. I mailed the forge paperwork, but, uh, I was able to. He gives you a contact to meet and she's this basically, it's this crazy woman that goes by the pig, like she calls herself the pigs. She's like this woman that's had a mental break. Uh, she has this like battery-packed sirens and like cop lights on her back. Where is she? You meet her. You meet her at like two o'clock in the morning or midnight or something like that, in north of the uh fishing village at the old, the old boardwalk area, and she's just got the sirens blaring did you go to the bench, or something?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, I think I know for that. I, I think I just like did, I did so much side question and stuff. I just burned time, um, and it's like takes a long time to like to get there and uh, I think, yeah, I think I because kim was with me, because you can only pass time when kim's not there. Yeah, so you can. Only you can only fast forward in time if kim's not with you, because if he's with you it's like, oh, we should like be working on this case. Uh, so I, I went over to her and she's like it's this whole big ordeal and, um, long story, it was like it's a wild scene, dude, but I ended up getting the gun back. She tried shooting me but it was out of bullets and so she like has a breakdown and uh, then you end up going to get, uh, yeah, so you get your gun back, and then you go tell titus and the crew to like go help this woman out all right, that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy. There's tons of stuff in there that I didn't do then. Yeah, so, as I mentioned earlier, I did the super sky cop path yeah and it's almost like perks or like these events and like you can, instead of upgrading your skills, you can like, choose and like you'll have a momentary deduction and a momentary like, sometimes benefit, sometimes nothing, and a certain amount of time passes before it sets in, before it's realized, but like so they call it a thought cabinet okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1:Yes, and like I guess we should mention. I never knew how to describe it, but like all, of your skills are based off of your motor functions, or like psychiatric terms.
Speaker 2:So the character sheet is like basically one skill tree and that's broken into intellect, physique, psyche and motorics and that is, like you know, so your base build. You said you're like really into the physical. I think I did middle because, like, my intellect was pretty low, my motorics pretty low, but my psyche and my physique were pretty high, uh, so which is like a weird balance, to be honest. But, um, and then you're, as you go to play out, you, uh, you get skill points and you can level those up, or you can use your skill points to level up the thought cabinets where, as you play this game, you'll encounter different things and it will. You'll start to have this thought and then you can choose. If it's something that you want, you do you want to take on this like, uh, whatever do you want to take?
Speaker 2:on this thought or whatever yeah, right, and then so there's a ton of them, but you get, uh, I think there's 12, 12 in total in this tree that you have to unlock, and then you have to spend another skill point um to. I'm not sure if you have to do two of those, doesn't matter. So you unlock these things and then you can choose one of those thoughts and like use your getting at is there's a time right, so, like, once you choose whatever, whatever this thing, there's a the problem, uh, so you have to think about it, and what that does is it has a negative effect, typically on you, while you're like thinking through this for a half hour up to like I don't know, I think the longest one I did was like 12 hours or something and it was yeah, so like. So, once you realize them, there's a solution. The solutions will come with bonuses from your thoughts, which will have some negative effects and some positive effects, uh, which are going to affect that original skill tree that I was talking about.
Speaker 1:It's a really interesting system um and a lot of cool stuff you can go into tree is almost like within psyche. It's like different psychiatric, like phrases like yeah.
Speaker 2:So for instance, like on intellect, you have a logic bucket, encyclopedia, rhetoric, drama, conceptualization and visual calculus, and each of those, as you like, increase them are going to give you different boons in your conversations. You know. So, when you roll the dice you have it's like, it's a lot like dnd or whatever right. So you have, you have like a certain skill set, but then you have your dice roll and basically any time that you're having conversation and there's like a fork, they'll be like or they'll call it a challenge, right? So if you have like, let's say, to beat the challenge, you need to have a score of like 12. So it takes your, your built in points, your dice roll.
Speaker 2:And then also, if you roll like this, one of those weird things with a computer game like this, like if you roll a snake eyes it's an automatic failure, if you roll double sixes it's an automatic pass. So that's thrown in there too. It's pretty interesting. But it's cool, man, it's one of those a little overwhelming at first, but after you, you know, 15, 20 hours in it's, it's super overwhelming but you get it, especially with the thought cabinet.
Speaker 1:It's like, um, I wish I would have taken advantage of some of that earlier, but it's all good um the thought cabinet stuff is cool for the role playing.
Speaker 2:I think too the one that I can't remember what it's called right now, but like it took me forever to learn it, or to like conceptualize and then get the boon, and it was essentially like uh, it made it so that Harry would be sober, which I was like that's cool, because that's kind of how I was playing this, like I dabbled in some drink early on and I traveled with some speed when I needed like it, uh, but overall like I wasn't really doing the drugs and consumption when kim was gone because psychologically I felt better about that, not judged
Speaker 2:but continue. Yeah, so it's like you know, I I kind of like, as the game progressed, the way that I was role playing, it is that, you know, I was kind of getting more and more like grasp over my facilities and I was like, okay, like I'm just not going to get into the drink or the drugs or whatever, unless, like, there was something particularly interesting happening in the game to do that. But it was something like at the end of the game there's a cool little breakdown that happens. Uh, that kind of goes over the type of character that you were, and I was a little frustrated in that because, one, the whole time I was playing this game, I was like it'd be so cool to see like a visual representation of what your choices and your path was. Uh, they don't have that, but that's like you know, that's just me being like I wish I had some visual data here, uh, but they do give you that.
Speaker 2:You know the conversational data that goes through. And kim, uh, for me this is a spoiler, but we're in this spoiler section like you can lose, like you can end up having kim. There's a tribunal where there's um, there's like all the, the, the dudes that are basically originally thought to be the ones who are the murderers. Like this hanging that happens. You know, they're kind of like the police of this town or whatever. Uh, and then there's these mercenaries that come in if there's a big standoff, right during that standoff they're hired by the corpos.
Speaker 2:The communists are kind of represented by the that faction right, yeah so there's a, there's a few branches there, major ones and the major one is, uh, that I'm keying in on here is the one with kim. So you can either warn kim that he's about to be attacked and uh, then he basically gets out of the way, or he gets shot and goes to the hospital and you have to finish the game without Kim. Which one did you get?
Speaker 1:Isn't that the one that Rick said the dice roll doesn't matter and he always gets shot.
Speaker 2:No, he might always get no, because, like he didn't get shot in mine, I got shot twice.
Speaker 1:Oh, cause I had like a 90% success rate on it and he got shot.
Speaker 2:So I was actually super pissed. You just hit that 10, bro, I guess, so you did, you get to finish.
Speaker 1:Did you get to play the kuno then? I sure did, that's great dude fuck are you talking to clown? Fuck, does kuno care?
Speaker 2:I was curious so I finished with kim and I think that's uh. I was poking around the internet. A lot of people think that's the way kim's all right. Some people like fucking love kim. I loved kim kim.
Speaker 1:I think he's cool. Kim was my sober daddy. He kind of a boner.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'm like come on, man, put on this jacket. But I was such a big mess I wanted to be better for kim dude.
Speaker 1:That's true. Same same same he was uh, he was the big homie dude I was. I was super salty because I shot a dude in the face in the tribunal because it was like something that actually used the motor onyx stuff oh yeah much into well, so I never really got to like punch or intimidate people. I don't know how to activate that interesting other than kuno, who I saved scum so I could punch him in the fucking face successfully um as a yeah, so I had to do that.
Speaker 1:But no, I shot the dude in the face and then there was some other shooting and then it like the ridiculously high chance of success failed and then kim got shot salty as fuck yeah, so he did get shot in my playthrough.
Speaker 2:I actually ended up being able to. I got a chivo near the end game because I was able to recruit kim to, uh, precinct 57. Oh, you know who I recruited, dude? Uh, I tell me I think I do, fucking junior officer kuno dude, yeah, they're like.
Speaker 1:No, this kid's like calling me like homophobic slurs all the time. I was like dog's, all he got like and I had quite the redemption arc with kuno. I earned his respect over time same, but I didn't, I didn't get to do deeply in the opening hour of this game. I wanted him to be. I punched him in the face. I saved scum so I could punch him in the face then I saved his life.
Speaker 2:So talk about an arc right there, dude, all right but he ends up I don't know, it's kind of he's endearing and dead and I know it's sad.
Speaker 1:Just little art projects.
Speaker 2:And you know, kuno, he's gonna be a good cop someday, dude, yeah, oh man, so so did you get to find out? Then, like what your previous backstory was? Did you like, for instance, like harrier for me, like he's a you find out? He was a gym teacher yeah, that kind of shit.
Speaker 1:Okay, I fell in love with some girl that didn't love him back. She's like really hot or something if that story, dude, that's for that.
Speaker 2:Like that was, like that was one of my biggest qualms with like the story of this game is like I could tell I knew, because that's like a big part of it. Dude, like he's like has all these like his memories gone and it's like I think it's partially because of the drinking and then it's partially because of like heavy trauma around his like relationship that failed and like for me, like I was like cool man, like I'm beyond that, like let's just like. Let's just like not focus on that too heavily and the game like really like makes and it's I don't know. I was just like I'm making choices for my character so that he can like move past this and it wouldn't allow you to.
Speaker 1:It's also interesting that you are like a superstar cop, so like I think, kim, as much as in the beginning of the game, I'm like I'm the biggest piece in the mess in the world. I think you do have like a super positive. You have a super think. You do have like a super positive. You have a super negative, but you have like a super positive reputation as far as, like there's the one lady who ends up offing herself in my playthrough. That was bummer. I didn't like that. That was a desire to save scum too, but I was like nope, sorry man. Sure, but she was like she calls you like the can way with people. You just keep prying and learning stuff you're not supposed to learn and you're something like debutante or something where you what is the phrasing, it doesn't matter but you turn down promotions to be a leader twice.
Speaker 1:So you're just an extremely decorated detective for solving way too many cases. I liked that I was the sloppy. That's why, like I enjoyed the superstar cop bullshit and the hobo cop bullshit, I just like to think of myself as a super unorthodox, shitty, awesome detective. Like I kind of liked that part of the role play. So him being a loser who rents weird and sad movies and misses his ex-girlfriend that wouldn't marry him because he was too poor.
Speaker 2:So I was into all that I thought it was, I don't know. I just wanted to move. I just like, I was like for me, I was like role playing this like big redemption arc and like that. Just it wouldn't let me get past that. Yes, tequila sunset dude.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed that part. That was fun too, um, but I was I was kind of weird about my playthrough dude. Like I definitely like you. I I kind of like had this like sober up thing, but then I brought it up earlier, I did that boon but it like it had so many negative effects on everything else that I was like I forgot it. So, like I did, like I opted to like lose that boon, uh, which is a huge waste of time, but I was like that's stupid. But, um, certainly I'm interested during that talk. So at end game, when you're having the talk with the other folks, uh, from your precinct, um, and then like the psych guy for me, like Kim, comes in and kind of gives a breakdown of my merits and like everything I did throughout the game and and I thought that was really cool, that was like that. That was kind of that thing I was hoping to see is like OK, like it's giving me, it's feeding me, a synopsis of my playthrough. I was hoping to see it like visually represented. But I'm very happy that as part of the story.
Speaker 2:But one thing, because I'm such a click monster and I wanted to do everything and I exhausted so many dialogue options. He was like he's kind of a racist. I was like, no, I was such an ally the whole time, except for one time, of a racist. I was like, no, I was such an ally the whole time, except for one time. And like, so, like. And then there's another thing, because I called the woman that used to mention in the beginning. When you're like I want to, I want to fuck, or like you know, what does he say? He says I'm ridiculous. He's like, yeah, um, I did that because I was just being sloppy and ridiculous at the beginning and I called her like, I called her a bitch, uh, and then so like, that was another thing kim brought up, even though the rest of the game I was like, really, like you know I was doesn't forget, dude.
Speaker 2:No, he does not. And he was like he's, like he hates women.
Speaker 1:I was like dude that one time all it takes al true colors uh the dude sitting on the bench or the fence who like works for the union? It's like okay, my racist friend. I was, like I don't know, the deep lore of this game. Like I swear I picked some option that I didn't even like realize. The big tough guy that's on the top of the big tough guy.
Speaker 2:That's like really doing the whole the racism stuff like there's a few super.
Speaker 2:This game can be really racist. This is weird, and it's weird that you can lean into it a little bit, uh, if you choose to do so. But there's the one guy that's like all into his race theory and I think because I I think that's partially why I got that comment is because I exhausted all of his dialogue stuff, um, and I think there's like the racist driver too. They're like chubby guy by the magazine rack. I think I exhausted all his dialogue stuff too and that probably that probably, um, you know, was part of that too. I'm curious did you meet the dice, lady?
Speaker 2:say more uh, she so in the commercial district like the doom commercial district, she is the she has a. She has like a studio on top of the building that you have to like go kind of a roundabout way to go up there and then you find out that, like, because the the book, the bookshop owner thinks that there's like this, like, uh, that this thing's like haunted or something like that, but it turns out that there's actually a woman that lives and works up there, that she makes dice. I did not, okay, uh, I was curious because you can, you can buy dice from her, but they're super expensive, they're like 50 bucks and then, like, I've never had 50 bucks, um, I asked that lady, the corpo lady, for like 100 bucks and she just did and I was like fuck yeah she gave it to you, she gave me money, dude, tight, tight yeah I thought that was hilarious, dude.
Speaker 2:You brought up the uh, the shipping container. I was able to get it to open yeah, and there's uh, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:It's like a dice roll, I think I say he's come to do it, to be honest. But here's the deal like. So we mentioned earlier that you can wear all this, so not only do you have your skill tree, uh, that that will give you different boons to help in certain, because you can look and it will tell you what skill needs to be high for the particular challenge. Sure, so like I would look at that and then I would leave, you know, leave the dialogue options and go into my inventory and then I'd I'd like sift through my clothes and items to see which would give you that, for that yeah right, and then I would go back to it like and you'd have a better percent chance of winning.
Speaker 2:Uh, so I. So I got my percent chance of like way higher to over 50, and then I say it's come to open it you get, once you get in there, dude for dressing like a psychopath.
Speaker 1:By the way, it's really funny you do.
Speaker 2:I got that. Different people make fun of you.
Speaker 1:They're like dude dress like a cop, you asshole I got it from kim once yeah, kim detectives at the end were like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:oh, that's funny, yeah, um. So I got in there and there's a dude in there, but it's crazy because there's like this psychedelic time bending thing going on. But it's one of the weird like things because this game is very much from harry's point of view. So you end up through the dialogue you find out that kim's not seeing the same thing. He's just seeing some like weird dude hanging out inside of the like in the storage storage container.
Speaker 2:But me I'm seeing this like psychedelic time bending weird thing of like a multi-billionaire, like crazy dude that just like hangs out in the storage container and like you can talk to him and I don't know for sure. What happens is, if you like cause there ends up being some challenges with him uh, where you can you basically, uh, I think you can like play the stock market or something ridiculous, I don't know, uh, because I wasn't able to get to that, but, um, but you can, I think, make a lot of money if you do that that way, and it was just like an interesting little scene. There's so much like. There's so much stuff in this game, dude yeah, well, that's crazy, did you?
Speaker 1:uh? Did you talk to everybody? Talks to the phasman at the end, right, no?
Speaker 2:but I did. You didn't, no, I did, but you not, everybody does. You have to be following the phasmid path like in the first place to even get that I don't know what it added.
Speaker 1:I was kind of like pretty ready for the end. That was wild, though. And then kudo's like, when you said that, like kim was going over all your merits to the cops, like kuno was doing that for me. And then he's like and we saw the biggest fucking. It's a new fucking creature, dude. And he's just breaking it down like a fucking meth addict, 12 year old would, and it was really funny to me and I was like, uh, don't bring that up, they're not gonna believe us now so it's actually so kim takes a picture of it.
Speaker 2:Oh, so you can. You can get kim to take a picture of it. He's got got a Polaroid camera, so you show everybody that you found this thing. It's pretty dope. So weird though, dude, the game totally. I was like first of all I don't know if I was upset, but I was like, really, the actual perp is just some random dude that you never meet in the entire game until you hit the island, everything felt perfectly intertwined to such a degree.
Speaker 1:So at the end that it's a guy that's been there the whole time and intertwined with everything, it still felt for everything had been written so perfectly. It felt a little cheap. Yeah, I agree, there's no way to pull this together in like a perfect way, so they have a sort of impartial, not actually tied into the commentary.
Speaker 2:As much sure I don't know there's just there's just no, and like the thing is is like I don't know what's the perfect detective story, like I'm not really sure I still found I, still we, we got there right, but it was just like I. I agree with you when you say it's a little cheap, like just because it's like well, okay, so like we figured out the case, and it was just because we've made it to the Island, but I had no option to go to the Island earlier. Like, which is fine, it's, it's whatever no-transcript, like a big whodunit, because you have the option to like blame different people and all this stuff. And then like when, the when, the whole when, the whodunit is someone that and actually one of the options is you can even say like I think it's someone that's not related to anybody here and that's, that's what I said, look, because I was just like trying to talk my way out of a situation, um, and that ends up being what it is, but I, I think it's fine.
Speaker 1:I just shot a guy in the face as soon as I could. I was like, well, before anyone else gets shot might as well.
Speaker 2:So you were holding the gun you're holding the gun and I was holding.
Speaker 2:Uh, did you do the necktie thing, the necktie and the spirits like get to you I don't think so so you find some ridiculous like high alcohol content spirits at some point, and the whole thing is like just hold on to me. And the necktie is like hold on and then, well, you'll know when to use it or whatever. So after this, after the scene where you pick up the, where you picked up the gun, I'm leaving that whole altercation. And then the necktie is like now's the time, because the necktie has got like this weird voice, it's crazy. So it's talking to you. You talk to the necktie throughout, right? You know what I'm talking about. The necktie never talked to you.
Speaker 1:Is that a thought cabinet thing you put in?
Speaker 2:Dog, it's like the original clothing piece that you wear. I think it's because one of my it must be one of my um thought cabinet deals. Yeah, it could be the thought cabinet, or it could be because, like my psych, uh attributes are so high yeah, my emotional intelligence wasn't very high I think it might be my conceptualization was so high, or maybe it was because of my.
Speaker 2:It might've been my Inland dude. My Inland Empire is a 10. I think that's why. So that too, my. So I have the crazy tie that was with me throughout that like talks to you, um, and at one point, so at one point, the crazy tie is like now's the time. And he's like put. He's like take out the bottle. So I take out the bottle. He's like put me in the bottle. And I was like okay, put me in the bottle. And then, just listening to the you know what is it? That's wild dude. Like this type of finding out this type of stuff is what makes me want to play this game again. Like it's just so all the different things.
Speaker 1:My Inland Empire was a three. Yeah, dude, that's the fucking fight things interesting. Yeah, I was super high, so when I got such a high percentage to shoot the guy in the face, I was like let's fucking go, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the dude, the whole tie thing, though. So it puts in the bottom and it's like, okay, like you'll know when to use me, uh. And then, sure enough, like what it is you make, it ends up being and kim's like what are you doing? And you're like I don't know, but I'm excited, you could one of the choices like I don't know, but I'm excited to find out. And then he's like yeah, me too, fucking weirdo.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, and then at that, at the altercation, it ends up being a multi, it's a multi cocktail. So I, so I, I equipped that and when I had the chance where you had the gun and had the chance to shoot, I had the chance to throw a multi cocktail at him. And I, similarly, I wonder if this is one of the things in the games where it doesn't matter because I missed, but I had a good chance of hitting him. It wasn't, it was great. It wasn't great, but it was like it was over. I want to say it was over 60, over 70, which, you know, I thought I would get it Like everybody was getting shot, but it's so. So, yeah, I had a mouth of cocktail there. How many people died at that? That was something I was curious about for you.
Speaker 1:A few for the union that I don't remember their names, but the one union guy was pretty bummed about it, and then at least one or two of the because there's, is there three or four mercenaries? I want to say there's three left.
Speaker 2:There's three.
Speaker 1:Did, are three or four mercenaries. I want to say there's three.
Speaker 2:You left there's three. Did you discover the one before the tribunal? Uh, did you know all three? Yeah, so, because when I got there they're like oh, there's a third one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah I wonder if you can find him first. Um, I knew one of the guys is the mercenary, but I never actually saw the other one so the uh.
Speaker 2:So I don't recall for the mercenaries who I think, like I think they get pretty injured or whatever. I'm not sure if they die or whatever, but they but for the actual like town folk I had six in total die like a bunch of people died damn who yeah, it was a shit show, anybody like that, I would remember uh, what's his name? Tiberius? Or what's the deal with the t? The leader, titus titus titus dies um pretty much every time the big fat guy dies titus finally reached an understanding.
Speaker 2:We were pretty cool with each other yeah, we were all right too, but he died. Did he die for you?
Speaker 1:nope, interesting some side pieces and his whole thing died, but not some of the main ones it was six.
Speaker 2:Only two of them were left.
Speaker 1:Did you solve the murder or the death at the dock and then tell his wife I did yeah, that was a bummer. And then Kuno Kuno was such a good character arc of a little psychopath. I'm trying to think if there's any other loose ends to really mention.
Speaker 2:You go on the date with the lady in the fish town loose ends.
Speaker 1:To really mention you, go on the date with the lady in the fish uh town. No, I had a low chance because kim was cramping my style, but oh, I did it.
Speaker 2:When kim goes to bring the, he brings the body back to the precinct, or something like that so that's why it's your chance.
Speaker 1:My chance is super low.
Speaker 2:I put on all the right clothes. I had a good chance okay, how's that date?
Speaker 2:I was cute dude. They like went on a walk, they talked and, like you know, they don't, like you know, I thought it was really nice for it. That's why that's what I'm telling you. Man, I was like we're pushing, we're pushing through, harry, we're getting, we're getting beyond this fucking lovesick bullshit, like uh. That's why I was like that kind of stuff. I was like man, I'm, I'm helping this dude, I'm helping him get by, and then, when you like don't, when you don't, it's um, I don't know. I was just bummed did you?
Speaker 1:did you get along with the old war vets?
Speaker 2:not really did you throw their ball?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah I'm a muscle build so I was like oh, this is something I can finally do. And then they're like hey, fucking jackass.
Speaker 2:And I was like yeah, and then I did find like a, I found like another like replacement for him and he was all pissed and they were just like at least he tried, impressed, yeah. But then the one dude dies, you die for you. Okay, cool, yeah, yeah, well, and then I cool kind of suck, but I was like oh shit, those, those guys were interesting. Uh, dude, we'd be remiss if we don't bring up the rave dudes, yeah uh, I never really got to the bottom of that.
Speaker 1:As far as I knew, they were making fucking drugs, but I couldn't call them out on it because harry, my har Harry, wasn't smart enough to piece that together. I failed the check. I was like that's really annoying.
Speaker 2:I don't know. They're probably making drugs, I don't know. For me they're just like rape culture dudes, man, they're definitely cooking drugs in their tent.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's rape culture. And then the church and the dead spot and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that stuff was weird. That stuff was weird. I think I have more to unearth there. That was an interesting little bit. I did a bunch of it, though. Did you get to dance with the music or whatever? I think so, oh man.
Speaker 1:That was fun. Yeah, no, the games. That's where some of it's weird is. You're like how much of this is about the story and how much of this is just about this kooky little town that you can explore. And I did a lot of those side quests thinking that I was potentially maybe solving the murder and I just wasn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I feel that I got pretty into the side quest when, when kim left, I was like there's a bunch of stuff and there's a couple things for, like I think you should probably have came around for this, so like everything that I couldn't I like was crossing off I'm assuming you never got in that bunker door no did you okay?
Speaker 1:no, there's got to be a way in.
Speaker 2:But I didn't make mention of it at the end game.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, fucking hermit man uses it. But yeah, that's about it. Well, all right, man, that pretty much wraps it up for me. I will play again, probably as a communist uh, definitely as a high intelligence, low muscle opposite build and then really fuck around with the dialogue way more than I did. How about you?
Speaker 2:I can dig it, man. I'm gonna give it a break. I'm gonna have a long break and, uh, work on some other things in my backlog, but I'll return to it someday and I think I'll try and play it the way I was saying earlier. I'm gonna try and really lean into a true role play, as opposed to like trying to min max, because I think it's like it's about going with the flow. It's a very big story game, man, and I think that when I play again, that's how I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1:Fuck, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Right on. Well, with that, let's take a little break. Come back with some Unstaged Sponsor.
Speaker 1:This month we've been brought to you by dad rock. Ooh, how you feel about dad rock dad, do I mess with some dad?
Speaker 2:rock Some.
Speaker 1:Steely Dan.
Speaker 2:Steely.
Speaker 1:Dan is an excellent example of some dad rock. Dad rock, as loosely defined as rock and roll your father would probably have listened to a AKA, just rock that has aged a little bit and isn't particularly edgy. I've been thinking a lot as to what constitutes dad rock and it's truly there's dad rock being made right now. Um, it just has to be mellow enough to not be like super vulgar. I think is really important, uh. But I bring all this up because I do a music book club with a buddy similar to this format, just not in podcasts, where we just pick different themes for two weeks and then we just kind of talk about the music we're listening to. And we went on a stretch of Neil Young to fucking, allman brothers to fucking.
Speaker 2:REM and my.
Speaker 1:Subaru was just a dad rock machine and dude you've never felt more stereotypical in your Subaru than when you're driving a fucking REM. It was a specific dad vibe. But you know what? Man fuck man, I just want to drink beer and whiskey and listen to dad rock. It's a good fucking time, dude you mentioned some good ones, bro.
Speaker 2:Some good ones. Yeah, you didn't put the boss in there. You guys haven't covered the boss yet.
Speaker 1:No, no, it hasn't been that long. And also, yeah, bruce spring street, that's a very, very specific dad rock, but it's definitely some dad rock dude I went into our dad's rock with the allman brothers. Uh, didn't know that old old daddy pants is quite the allman brothers fan. So that was like you know, we both have a little bit of some jam roots in us with some grateful dead and some other things. So Allman Brothers I felt like I was checking multiple boxes there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Allman Brothers are nice. How about Fleetwood Mac? You guys do that yet, Dude.
Speaker 1:Fleetwood Mac controversial.
Speaker 2:Is it dad?
Speaker 1:rock, or is that mom rock, dude? You know what I'm saying, dude, that's tough. You know what I'm saying, dude, I'm going to keep it in there, though.
Speaker 2:Stevie Nicks Just start a show, dude. That's mom rock, dude. I'm not listening to Stevie Nicks. Eric Clapton, you got to do Clapton yet.
Speaker 1:This is short-lived.
Speaker 2:This is only been going on for a little bit. I'm giving you ideas right now, bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, if I was just like truly going down the dad-dad rock vibe, I think some fucking. And I said it was only a matter of time before we covered REM or Wilco.
Speaker 2:I just didn't know which one was going to be first.
Speaker 1:So maybe I just got to throw out some Wilco Because these are all different bands that I know of being famous, but maybe I just never took the deep dive and I am not from the era right. Or maybe sometimes, if it's modern music, you just might have missed the movement and now you're looking back on it.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Hindsight, so it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:It's a it's an easy listener bro.
Speaker 1:I'd have an open mind. I bet you I'd like their cuts.
Speaker 2:When I I mean, you're not going to catch me like listen all the time, but I don't want to hear free bird but, I'm sure some of other shit hits really hard right. So I'm just, you know, just in my dad rock era, yeah, I'm gonna bring up one more sure pink floyd, pink floyd, dad rock.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, but also is pink floyd like? Let's delegate this is pink floyd easy enough listening to be considered dad rock, or is it too experimental and like?
Speaker 2:dog, you need to differentiate, or you, we should differentiate. Are you talking like dad, rock and yacht?
Speaker 1:rock. Okay, I said easy listening too many times to to kind of get you closer to yacht rock. Not that I don't look, love me some yacht rock too, like guilty as charged with the yacht rock. But I just kind of mean like I was listening to queens of the stone age. Today, queens of the stone age is not gonna be dad rock because it's a little too, grimy to be dad rock.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. But rock queens of stone is not butt rock, dude. Let's settle down on that dude. Maybe dad metal if we're gonna get I love.
Speaker 2:Queens of the stone age.
Speaker 1:I've seen them live yeah, I know I I was listening to the songs for the deaf which you had when you were in high school and I was like pre-middle school and I was like, yeah, I like this, this isn't scary. Um, I like two songs that aren't weird, but the rest of it's actually pretty good.
Speaker 2:But anyway, so the easy I bring a pink floyd for this though not vulgar, not too weird, not too experimental. The reason I bring up Pink Floyd is this I think you could include it in dad rock, but you bring up Fleetwood Mac. Is that mom rock? Mom had a big ass Pink Floyd collection. She was super into Pink Floyd back in the day. Are you sure about that?
Speaker 1:100% Ask her Did you steal all their Pink Floyd albums?
Speaker 2:She actually lost a bunch of them and I did steal the wall.
Speaker 1:Okay, what else have you stolen? You dick, the White Album.
Speaker 2:Beatles. Okay, well, and that's about it. You've pilfered more than I have. Oh, the Christmas albums.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did. It's probably equal. Anyway, pink Floydyd less dad rock, uh, but led zeppelin extreme dad rock. You get the difference here. Like I feel like there's a commercial ability that also plays in and like, would you listen to this rock with your kid in the car later on in life when it's? But like, chili Peppers is the epitome of dad rock. Now, if you think about it From our childhoods, when our children are listening to our music from the past, if they were to unearth our odd obsession not odd, it was on brand obsession with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That's extremely dad rockish. Now, this isn't a music podcast. If it it was, it'd be a pretty sloppy one. But we have been brought to you by dad rock because I've just been jamming in the subaru like a total dad. It's in, father's day is coming up, so it was just fitting in so many ways I can dig it, man, dad rock, dad rock, it's being made every day.
Speaker 2:Welcome back everybody. We've been doing some have we been doing some side question. You've been side question bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, aggressively as fuck. I don't know where to start or stop.
Speaker 2:Oh, I guess we did have two months to burn through this one. I know.
Speaker 1:I've like forgotten about takes that I had. So, uh, we'll start with you if you feel like you're, if you've got a shorter one, and then we'll go into my, my nerd ship dude, video game wise, this is the game I've been playing over the past couple months.
Speaker 2:To be honest, like it took me, you know, like just having a he's out of the newborn stage, but like you know, time time is, and when I've been getting the game again, it's been this one, but out of time watching the NBA man. So that's been a major side quest. Is, uh, actually watching the playoffs? Well, it was fun. Yeah, I don't know. Man, like you know, we're unashamed to be a Timberwolves fan. Like we'll always jock the Minnesota sports on this pod and people, of course, dude, actually, so, exactly. So, like you know, of course we're bummed, we would love to be in the finals right now, but, dude, that was, it was history. The Timberwolves made history. They won their first, you know, granted, like it kind of sucked to get slapped by Talis, but we, we got one man.
Speaker 2:I brought up Queens of Stone Age, you brought up Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was 20 years ago, bro. I went to that concert at the Excel. It was the Mars Volta, queens of Stone Age, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and during that concert it was during the Western Conference playoffs, when we were just about to start playing against the Lakers and Flea the drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers comes out wearing playing against the uh, the lakers and flea the drummer of uh of the red hot chili peppers comes out wearing a kg jersey and the stadium goes nuts, dude, it was fucking, it was so cool. And then he like puts up his finger and he was like hold up. And then he pops off the jersey. He's got a kobe jersey underneath and everybody's like ah boo, what the fuck? And then like we, and then we like proceeded to get slapped up by the lakers.
Speaker 1:Um, so there's a lesson in there, which is that go to concerts and a lot of times those opening acts kind of become legendary in their own dude 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:But, dude, it's been 20 years. It's been 20 years to get back to that stage and we actually won. We got swept by the Lakers 20 years ago in the Western Conference finals. There are some like we don't have to get into the weeds on why that happened, but you know, it was dope to. It was dope to win one. I would have loved to make that a better, a better like series, but I'll tell you what, dude, like major side quest and I was like am I gonna watch the celtics in dallas? Like I haven't been keyed into every game, like I was with the timberwolves, but, um, it's been fun, like I've been watching them. And i'll'll tell you what, bro, it's controversial. A lot of people say that I should be rooting for Dallas right now, but fuck them.
Speaker 1:Celtics are up by 18. So I think you're good Dude.
Speaker 2:And you know why, though, it's hard to cheer for the Celtics, dude? You know why I'm going with the Celtics? No, because that's where K kg got his chip. Fuck that, dude, fuck you don't like kg. You're ridiculous dude they've had like 20 championships like yeah, but that's where kg got his chip man. So like I have a little, I'm in some spot a ton uh I mean, that's true, that's true. 100 like any other sport, it's hard to cheer for the team that beat you.
Speaker 1:Some people say you should. Uh, luka donchic looks fat. We have to respect dudes who normalize chubby looking body types while succeeding, and Dirk was my favorite player growing up.
Speaker 2:Dude, I know, but he's great. I respect him now, but you're ridiculous.
Speaker 1:No, I'm very indifferent to the conclusion of this series, but it's looking like it's headed Boston. All right man, so basketball, I feel you.
Speaker 2:Dude Two. I saw dude Two. You watched dude one or dude two?
Speaker 1:Nope.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:Considering reading the book someday. Uh, great movies, the fallout show I am one of the millions who's like hey man. I should one of the millions who's like hey man, I should play more fallout games. Previously I had only played fallout new vegas. So, uh, at some point when the show first went on sale or when the show first aired, they had all the games on different platforms, pretty deep discounts. So I bought like fallout 4 and fallout 3 for probably less than eight bucks combined. Dude, it's something paltry. And fallout 3 is actually extremely hard to play on pc without like some really specific shits and supports. Uh, so playing it on xbox is actually incredibly smooth, but I am also playing a very crunchy bethesda rpg from like 2012 2011. So I was like a freshman sophomore in high school, um, so sometimes it's really really awesome to play that game and sometimes it is not a modern game. I'm trying to decide.
Speaker 2:Do I go all the way back to fallout one to like get my toes wet with the fallout, or do I just go?
Speaker 1:to three. No, I think people who, like I think the modern way to play it is start with like three or new vegas or four, and then sure you go back. Ace boy is the only person I've ever met who's played one or two, and I don't know if he's beaten either of them or even started one.
Speaker 2:Actually yeah, I launched.
Speaker 1:I launched one and it is crunchy yeah, and it's made by like bethesda bought the ip or like took over for three, so it was like a completely different thing in genre even before three. Uh, three's awesome. I wish I would have played it in its time. I think it would have been like crazy for me and if you are ever to pick up a file, so you've never even played new vegas.
Speaker 2:Uh, I fired it up but I only play about a half an hour and that's one that I I would really like to it has to tackle it has a specific like play style.
Speaker 1:That makes sense if you're playing it, but if you've never played it, sometimes it can be a bit jarring. How, just like in the fucking open, you are like well, what do you want to do, dude, you have this objective over across the map over there, like that obviously sounds like something that a lot of games do. But like fallout is really like, yeah, just it's over there, you'll figure it out, and then you run into all this other shit and go crazy. So I really like it. I find it kind of hard and difficult to vibe with occasionally, but there's some times where I just like mindlessly play it for a few hours and it's really sick. Uh, other than that, I also need to shout out uh, the second star wars game, jedi survivor. You have not played either of the ginger jedi games, have you?
Speaker 2:how about a quarter into the first one?
Speaker 1:okay, it is cleaner than the first one. The first one was really good, but like there was some weird dude. I've never played a more graphically impressive game. That's also like like falling apart. Occasionally respawn, knock on it. You'll see like clips go by, like some's glitching out over there, and you're like what the fuck? And then you'll be like lost in the environment. It's so gorgeous and then like just like part of your screen's just like glitching over there and you're like what the fuck? Or I killed this enemy and it's just like floating in the air. I'm like this games are really like.
Speaker 1:Whenever I think of like how hard it is to make triple a games like this might be the example of it. Uh, souls like game you're gonna die a bunch reminds you of uncharted. You never played any of those games, did you no? Uh, the three, the third person view, the climbing, platforming very reminiscent of that. I think it's reminiscent of souls like for a lot of reasons but one because you're in an area and then you unlock shortcuts that bring you back to the different campfire or meditation you got the campfire thing going on too.
Speaker 1:It's also like um you die a lot, you're all you perry. Um, it's weird though, because, like every time you rest, your enemies respawn, which is a souls like thing. But it's also like a metroid thing or like other games or like just every time you go there, the enemies are back. It's weird in a story-based game for that to happen.
Speaker 1:Like it's weird I did think that was odd, yeah, and like sometimes the stormtroopers are like fighting a different group and then you you save or whatever, and then you go back and like they're fighting again. So it's like that doesn't work. The immersion gets kind of lost. But I'm getting really into that game. That game is really sick.
Speaker 1:I do actually recommend it lastly, terror escape people just be ignoring me, sending them second, second video clips and telling them that this game is so cool. Dude, it's on my wish list now. Yeah, it's awesome. It's nice hexagonal puzzle. Deck building, city building.
Speaker 2:You basically have this terror escape speaking of hexagons, dude, you see the civ 7 coming yeah, you already know I'm ignorant.
Speaker 1:For that shit, don't cut me off. You have to listen to terror escape because you haven't responded to my various outreaches.
Speaker 1:Yet, uh, and you just lay down these tiles and they have synergies with each other and you build up this thing and you get this high score and it's really fucking engrossing and it's great and it's meditative and, uh, play the fucking game, dude. It's august. I'm just gonna buy it on steam and then start for alex and then start making him just harassment campaign until he plays it. So we'll see. I had two more side quests. Oh, so you're just gonna zone out. During my side quests I was thinking of new side quests for yourself.
Speaker 2:I was listening what do you have? I'll play percape. What do you want?
Speaker 1:me to say you shitty NPC, what do you want?
Speaker 2:I got a shout out to the homie, jimmy, who's in the Discord. Jimmy got together with him in the real life. He had a little couch co-op hangout. That was a lot of fun man. We played some multiplayer games at his crib with some homies. Two games that I want to say for folks, to people that want to do some couch co-op um, 100 couch co-op. Maddie makes games, the celeste maker uh, tower fall. Have you played tower fall? No, super, it's like it's a really fun multiplayer game. I think we we play with four folks. I think you might be able to do up to six or eight, but that one's a great multiplayer game, especially and it is an in-person thing. I don't think they have an online deal, uh. So that one's a lot of fun. Definitely take out tower fall, uh. And then the other game that he showed us that I was really into is called freedom finger. You heard of that one freedom finger.
Speaker 1:No, sounds gross dude yeah.
Speaker 2:So this one is the, the art style super cool. The music has like a bunch of licensed music. It's just like a great soundtrack dude. It's like in all the but you're, you're freedom finger because you're this middle finger spaceship, that's like flying through and shooting things for out of his finger. It's a shmup and you know how I feel about shmups. But then you like take this like cool comic book art style, uh, add these like really cool tracks, a lot of stuff from like um rhymesayers and shit like that. Like you know, it's's a lot of really cool tracks. And then you throw it into a shmup dude and it was just wild. So holler at Jimmy. Thanks for listening, thanks for being a homie, thanks for hosting the couch co-op session, bro.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, I just got a new lizard brain collected thing going on beyond my video game habits. I started dabbling in basketball trading cards, dude, my, my video game habits. I started dabbling in basketball trading cards, dude, my, my, uh. Big love for the Timberwolves and having so much fun, like getting keyed into the the NBA playhouse, got me thinking about cards, dude. And oh, I'm not going to go and do it too much, but I just got to say it's been too much fun, collect stuff man buy physical media, so alex would sell it to you.
Speaker 1:My problem is that like, yes, like I do sell stuff to like two rookie fed cards and he's got some russia pro team alexi schwedz, and he's got uh, you know, he's got a rashad mccance rookie card. He's also got a rashad mccance on gilbert renis's couch card.
Speaker 2:Dude, I wish he's got some super specifics. Dude, no man, I'm collecting for the TPUPS. That's my goal, but that's been cool.
Speaker 1:Those are all Timberwolves dude.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1:You don't know the nitty-gritty. Alexi Sved dude.
Speaker 2:That's a big stretch there where I had to tune out.
Speaker 1:When we win a championship, dude me and my Alexei Sved shirt purchase will be the leader of the bandwagons and I'll tell everybody else whether or not they're allowed to party with me, because you're a fucking sicko, if you fucking thought he was the future of the franchise.
Speaker 2:I remember when you were hyped on him. Does he even play?
Speaker 1:anymore. No dude, he's in Russia again with Corn Rose. It's awesome. Oh good shit yeah dude, there's some good.
Speaker 2:This is like some exciting guys that we had like not too long ago, like a kogi, he like went over to the phoenix suns or something like some, some people that we thought were gonna be like. I know some people that we thought were gonna do it for us, but you know what we got? Our savior in the ant man. Yes, sir, cool. Well, everybody for listening. You're a real one for sticking around.
Speaker 1:Big digital hugs.
Speaker 2:We got some shady liquor that we found in a who knows where you found it?
Speaker 1:Did you lick the liquor off the countertop? Did you do that?
Speaker 2:I didn't in this playthrough. When I first fired up the game, I did yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I did Anyway, yes.
Speaker 2:Low5gamingcom. Check us out. Join the Discord If you're not already there. We'd love to chat games with you. And, yeah, if this is your, you know, give us some ratings. If you're listening to us on, you know, itunes or Spotify or another catcher that has ratings, please rate us. Jump on our website. Buy a t-shirt. I don't know, fucking jock this shit.
Speaker 1:Get the word out. Let's play some games. Bye.
