Peter
Uh and and I'm just gonna say this and I could be wrong and and I don't want to live in a world where I am wrong, but that's okay. If you make a movie as good as The Princess Bride, and as long lasting as The Princess Bride, I just wanna believe that you're a great person. Welcome back to the Middle of Culture. I am one of your co-hosts, Peter.

Eden
And I am your other co-host, Eden.

Peter
Eden, I'm not going to ask how you are because we had a previous discussion before we started recording. But uh What's up? Anything interesting? Yeah. Cold there?

Eden
Feels like negative five.

Peter
Oh cool, that's awful.

Eden
Thirteen feels like negative five. I'm looking at my uh weather right now. It has been chilly, but hey, it does say on the bottom of my little computer, uh, you know, how the little tabs will give you updates on the weather. It says warming up on Tuesday. So I'll take it.

Peter
Very nice. Uh, you know, it has not been that cold, but we did finally get some snow. We got snow the was it the day before the wedding? I think it was. I think it was the day before the wedding. It snowed, uh, which was nice because then on the day of the wedding while it was colder, it was pretty outside because everything was covered with snow. Sure. And why instead of just kind of the variations of gray and green and brown that it has been for the last few months. It hasn't snowed since, so that is slowly melting.

Eden
But hey, it's gross now.

Peter
Yeah, but at least feels like winter, which uh I mean it's like mid-twenties to mid-30s now. Honestly, two weeks ago it was like 50s.

Eden
Yeah, it was 52 degrees and muddy on Christmas.

Peter
That was how we spent our Christmas.

Eden
52 degrees and muddy.

Peter
That's about what it was for us too. So it minus the mud, because it's not wet enough here to have the mud. It was just

Eden
bizarre but but it's almost it's almost like we're baking the planet uh uncontrollably um because we refuse to put any sort of government regulation in act to stop uh uh these large corporations from extracting everything they can from us as fast as they can.

Peter
Almost like almost like I don't know that seems like a wild idea.

Eden
interest and not their own.

Peter
Because capitalism. Anyway, what have you been checking out? Anything interesting that you've been uh checking out lately

Eden
I've been doing I've I've been checking out a couple of things that are worth mentioning at least. Uh so I have a friend, my friend Nathan is a very big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. And so we often talk about Sonic, Sonic games and things like that. I've never really played any Sonic games. I've played fifteen to thirty minutes of the original Sonic on the Genesis at a friend's house in the nineties?

Peter
Okay.

Eden
Do you have much experience and or uh uh uh uh familiarity with the Sonic franchise?

Peter
Here's what I'll say. I watched the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie with my boys when it came out. And that is probably the most I've spent in anything Sonic related, with one exception Is a number of years there was a sonic racing all-stars transformed something or other. Big long convoluted name of Basically it was a hey there hasn't been a new Mario Kart in a while, so we're gonna make a Mario Kart but put other random characters in it. And it was very well done and it was fun. And I would play it on my computer because that's where I had it. And it was not something that I played with other people because I don't play with people online because I just don't I hate myself enough to put myself out for that. So it was a fun single-player game that I would play occasionally.

Eden
Fair. Well, I like I said, no experience with Sonic, have not seen the movies. Um am occasionally interested by the comics because I know that famously the comics are pretty good, but also every time I think about that, I'm like, I could also be reading Something else. And so I do. I read something else. But uh Steam holiday sale. Every Sonic game was on sale for fifty to seventy-five percent off. And I was like, I'm finally gonna do it. I'm gonna buy some son I'm gonna buy a couple of Sonic games. So I famous I bought one of famously maybe the best Sonic games, Sonic Adventure 2, which I have not gotten to yet. And famously one of the worst Sonic games, Sonic Forces.

Peter
Okay.

Eden
So of course I sh of course I fired up Sonic Forces first. What are you thinking? Why would I play the good one before I was going to be able to do this?

Peter
I was gonna say you're that kind of sicko.

Eden
The s the thing that's interesting about Sonic Forces, and part of why I I uh I cooked this one up first, you don't play as any of the Sonic characters in it. You're not out here playing Shadow the Hedgehog. You're creating your own sonic sauna.

Peter
Oh.

Eden
You create your own character And then you play as them and you unlock new costumes and new outfits and new powers as your Sonic Sona.

Peter
I feel like that could get cursed real fast in a good, good way.

Eden
Yeah, uh mine is my dog Lily, because you could be a dog person. There's like eight different kinds of species you could pick. You could be dog, cat. Whatever the hell Tails is, Hedgehog, uh they were all mammals. You couldn't be uh there's a cool chameleon person in the first like 15 minutes of that game before go you go to character creation. I was like, oh. Can I be a cool chameleon person? No. You have to be a mammal. So I made my dog Lily into my sonic Sona.

Eden
So I am running around. uh using my grapple gun and collecting coins as my dog lily. And let me tell you, it's pretty mid, but I'm having an okay time.

Peter
Hey, that's all that matters. All that matters.

Eden
You know, it and I've unlocked a couple cute outfits for her. She's running around. We're having a good time. The other thing I would mention as far as games go, um, I have finally I've Always been I'm always dipping in and out of Withering Waves, and I'm back in on Wuthering Waves because the 3. 0 update dropped, which means we got a new nation to go to. And like, you know, the the the like gotchas that are like this always have this kind of rhythm. Ever since Genshin, all of them have basically had this rhythm of like Every time you hit a new milestone, a new point zero, you're basically going to a new place. And that's when you're gonna get the big new map unlocks. You're probably gonna get big new storylines, stuff like that. Um and Genshin was always that way, so Honkai Starrail was that way, and ZZZ was that way, and Withering Waves being very similar to Genshin is doing the same sort of thing. Sure. But what's interesting about Withering Waves, it is it is set on the planet Earth in like a weird post-post-apocalypt planet Earth, right? And so the first nation that you went to, Huan Long, was Spa like not space, like sci-fi China, you know? They they leaned into it. The Hoyo games, Genshin, Honkai Star Rail, they always go to fantasy and or sci fi China for their second country. In every single one of those games. Okay. But Withering Waves was like, no, we're going there first. And so Juan Long is basically just like Sci-fi China. It's great. You've it's fun. You walk around. It's again, it's post-apocalyptic sort of. So like the city is really cool and has lots of cool technology, but like there's big barren wastelands out there where big battles were fought and all that kind of stuff. 2. 0 comes out. We go to the continent of Renicita, which half of it is Steampunk Italy.

Eden
Okay. Uh and then the other half of it is Sword of Sci-Fi Ancient Rome. Because you've got like gladiator fights and everybody is wearing togas and all this kind of stuff and you're like, I thought we were in a world where sci-fi China existed. And it's fine, you know, Renicita, fun characters, fun story. Some of the fashions, that's like, I don't know about these ones, guys. But then we just got to 3. 0, so we are now in La High Roy. in a place called the Space Trek Collective, which is an underground city in a cave underneath the frozen tundra that is just a cyberpunk city. We are we we in it. We are 100% sci-fi again to such a degree that one of the things you can do in La High Roy that you couldn't do in the other worlds, your new traversal thing is you just summon a motorbike. And just tool around on these highways all over the place. And then when you see an enemy, you hold the dismount button and you throw your bike in their face and start the fight with doing damage on them. Um I and again I had fun in the 2. x areas. I it wasn't a bad time in any by any means, but I am having way more fun. with La Hyroi so far. And also one of the gimmicks is you enrolled at the Space Truck Collective Academy. So you're getting lots of great like school fashions and things like that. Or like one of the new characters doesn't have legs because she lost her legs in an accident. So instead she's got cool translucent sci-fi legs.

Peter
And you're like, Nice.

Eden
Hell yeah. Yeah. You can see literally all the way through your weird translucent glass legs. That's so cool. Anyway, I'm having a fun time with Withering Waves again. And the reason why I bring this up is because on top of having the uh motorbike that you're driving around Once they gave you that motorbike, they're like, well, we gotta give you different liveries to put on your motorbike, obviously. Right. So it's the so it's an ideal time to have a crossover with Sega. Would you like to put Sonic the Hedgehog on the side of your motorbike in Withering Waves? And the answer to that, dear listener, is I haven't unlocked the Sonic Livery yet, but I did unlock the Shadow Livery. So right now my motorbike has Shadow the Hedgehog on the back of it.

Peter
I love that. That's awesome.

Eden
The three uh Sega properties that you can unlock liveries for are Persona 3, Persona 5, and Sonic the Hedgehog. What a weird choice.

Peter
What a weird choice. That is very odd, but but hey, whatever.

Eden
But I've been having fun with it. Um the only other thing I will mention, I have read I got all six volumes of this series called Cheerful Amnesia. And Cheerful Amnesia was a delightful series. And what that series is about is This girl wakes up in the hospital and she has lost all of her memory for the last three years. Like she, you know, this is, you know, This is anime amnesia. This is not how actual amnesia works. We all know how this is. But she has lost all of her memory of the last three years. So she has no memory of her partner or their relationship or anything that they've done in the last three years. But she wakes up, she takes one look at her girlfriend who is sitting by the side of her bed, and she's like, holy shit, I want to date this woman. So they're off to the races because the girlfriend is like, oh no, she's she her mom says she has no memory of the last three years. Like, is she gonna even remember that we are together, that we you know, we live together, we built this life together. And, you know, we come to find out that the thing that caused her to have her anime amnesia is being so emotionally overwhelmed at being proposed to.

Eden
Um, so that is where they were at. They were like ready to get married, and now they have to start from scratch rebuilding this relationship. But it's really funny in that uh Prior in the in the earlier the pre-amnesia relationship, the amnesiac girlfriend was always the forward person. She was always the one who was initiating the conver like the relationship. She was the one who was putting the moves on the other girl. She was the one who was initiating all of their like physical, you know, she was the one who made the first kiss. She was the one who grabbed a boob for the first time. You know, all those sorts of things. But now she feels so flustered by how attracted she is to this woman and knowing that past her who she doesn't remember did all those things, she can't bring herself to do it now. And so suddenly the girl who was traditionally the bottom is like, do I does that mean I have to like sort of be the top now? Like I've got to guide you through what you guided me through. It was very cute. And uh it was nice, it was cute, they got married, they went on a honeymoon. It was very sweet, very fun. Uh I had a really fun time with it though.

Peter
That's awesome.

Eden
And I think that's the last thing worth mentioning. Okay. Yeah, that's it. I mean, uh just because it's shout-outs o'clock, uh, Adachi and Shimamura Short Stories 2 came out. Guess what's still the best book series ever, Adachi and Shimamura?

Peter
Sweet.

Eden
This one was almost entirely flash forwards of them like as an adult working couple. And it was great. It was just like, heck yeah. They made it happen. These girls figured it out. Anyway, what you been up to?

Peter
Very nice. So still picking away at uh three-body problem, I'm, you know, probably about two little over halfway, maybe two-thirds of the way done with the Dark Forest, the second book. It's getting to interesting places. I told you a little bit about the the sophons, you know, the protons that they've unfolded. Well, so in this one, the big thing is is they they pick four people from across the globe to be what they call wall facers. Uh and this again where you kind of go, is this a translation thing? I don't know if this is a translation thing, but wall facers. Sorry. And the wall facers basically it's like these four different scientists or military people or whatever, and the UN says, okay, they figure out that The trisolarans don't really understand their their communication amongst each other is basically all mental and and everything is open. They can't hide from each hide things from each other. And the sofons can pick up on anything that's written, said, or anything like that. So the wall facers, they set them up and they say. You just tell us what you need, but don't tell us why. You figure you just start thinking. And three of them go off and start coming up with ideas and then the kind of one of the main characters of this book, he just like rejects the idea. And everybody's just like, ooh. How sneaky. His plan is to make everyone think he's rejected. So he's he's doing his part by making us think he's not doing his part. And so they're just like, sure, whatever you want. Um the the ETO, the Earth Trisolarin Organization or whatever, the people who want the Trisolarans to come and just wipe out humanity. They set up then they elect from their group wall breakers. So each wall facer has a wall breaker. who are trying to figure out what they're doing. And it's it's interesting. Uh I I will be very curious to see where it goes. You know, we're jumping ahead a few years at a time here and there because The Tricellarins aren't gonna show up to Earth until like four hundred and fifty years from when they launched. So we've we've got some leaps to make. I'm curious to know where where book three is going to go 'cause we're only about eight, maybe ten years ahead of where the first book ended right now. But I am enjoying it. It's good. Again, it's one of those that because I think it's the translation and everything. You kind of have to listen a little bit more closely. It's not one of these where I put on casually. This is a if I'm listening, uh, you know, if I'm reading, whatever, if I'm listening to the audiobook, I have to be a little bit more engaged and focused on Focused. Sure. Um a couple new music things worth mentioning. Uh there's a new EP from the band The Eternal. The Eternal is a an Australian kind of Doom band. I like their stuff. Uh the EP's nice. It's only about 30 minutes. Um the first album that I've kind of discovered, The Eternal, was their 2018 album that was like an hour and 15 minutes. with the first song being like a 20-minute long track. So six songs and the total comes in at under 30 minutes. This is like the the eternal being real tight for for them. Easy crazy. Exactly. There is a band called Sewin. I don't know. Are you familiar with Sewin at all? Have you ever heard of them?

Eden
Name sounds familiar, but I can't I don't

Peter
So Martin Lopez, who was the drummer for Opeth up until kind of you know, Opeth had their hill shake up a number of years ago and Uh he was a drummer.

Eden
When they got bad, you mean. We can we can be honest.

Peter
So like Martin Lopez was a drummer when Opeth was good. Yeah. And so Martin Lopez plays drums for them. U Their first album came out, I want to say it was around 2012 or something. And they were very much a a Tool alike, which in the early kind of in the twenty teens, early twenty teens, where you know it had been however many years now since uh the last tool album. There were a bunch of bands kind of bubbling up. I mean, there was them, there was a band called Source, there was a band called Wheel, uh, which I like. I listen to these bands, but they all were kind of doing sort of the tool, tool sound. so unstarted out like that. They have moved very much away from that. And their newest album, Reliance, is interestingly probably their most formulaic, least progressive, straightforward album, and also probably the one I like the best. Someone's always had an interesting thing where Um there would be a few really, really good songs, a few pretty good songs, and then a handful of like, I'm skipping this one, I'm skipping this one. Some stinkers, skipping this one. And this is the first album where it's funny, it's it's kind of become mediocre enough that I'm like Yeah, I'm gonna listen to this whole album start to finish.

Eden
None of it's good enough that it makes you go, oh my gosh, this was great. But none of it's bad enough to make you hit skip.

Peter
Exactly. So interestingly.

Eden
There's something to be said for that six out of ten slop.

Peter
And I mean, you know what? Someone's really nailing it in there. It's It's interesting because I can objectively look at it and say, oh, this is probably their least good album. Again, it's not bad, so I don't want to say it's their worst album, but this is their least good album. But it's also because it is. fairly middle of the road. It's their most consistent album, which kind of has me has me enjoying it. Uh and then one speaking of Real good. We're coming back. Single number two from Archspire's upcoming album, Too Fast to Die, Limb of Leviticus, dropped this week. And holy fucking shit. It is so damn good. It is so damn good. Like it's fast, but then it just it gets into this. It's got two nice, it's some nice little parts where again, and this is one of the things I love about Arch Spire, they recognize If we want people to want to come back, you have to give them breaks. You cannot give somebody 30 to 40 minutes of 350 plus beats per minute without any pauses because people will be fatigued. And so they build a lot of this into their songs where it's, okay, we're going to give you just 20, 30 seconds where it's going to just mellow out. And we're going to let you just kind of catch a breath. And it's so funny. It In some ways it's like post-technical death metal. You know, you think of like you think of like Neurosis and Cult of Luna and Isis, those bands where they're so good at the dynamics where it was We're going to give you this long three, four, five-minute buildup, and then we're just going to drop this hammer on you. ArtSpire says. . Well yeah, but what if instead of doing that over a 10 to 20 minute song, we do that in a three-minute song? . So Okay. Everything's just really, really faster. So the fast parts are going to be way faster, but we're also going to give you these little brief moments and anyway. Then it gets to this groove at the end. that is just one of the best grooves ArtSpire has ever dropped where like I'm not I'm not a dancer type person. Never have been. But when it gets to the end of Limb of Leviticus, I'm just like groovin' and I can't help. I'm movin'. I'm like boppin' my head. I'm like moving a little 'cause it's just got such an infectious groove. I am so excited for this album to come out in April. It's just it's great. And then a couple things I want to mention, some games I've been playing, because I did play some games. Eden, you're familiar with the play date? I am you know that I am.

Eden
It's one of those things that I looked at it and I thought, I like that, but I don't $170, however much the playdate was. like that.

Peter
Yeah.

Eden
Yeah.

Peter
Well that's because you're a I like it. Uh because I finally because I finally sat down and I said, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna play Dig Dig Dino. That was the first game that came out of season two of the play day and Dig Dig Dino was a ton of fun. Basically, you're you're Your dogs that are running excavation site and you're digging up dirty socks and tin cans and coins and then gems and And then eventually you're finding these d dinosaur bones. And as you're piecing the dinosaurs together, these are not normal dinosaurs. And then you get to like the last area, and then there's these weird one-eyed aliens and It's this whole bizarre, subtle story of dogs uncovering dinosaurs at an archaeological dig and then realizing that there's some much greater Eldritch horror. that's lurking underneath these dinos that had been corrupting the the dinosaurs and the dinosaurs had been evolving to like wield weapons and try and fight these eldritch aliens. It's fantastic. Okay.

Eden
Spring it for the fences.

Peter
Yes, and it was a ton of fun. The gameplay loop is very simple. It is, but it's perfect for the playdate. It was uh the first playdate game where I've really sat down and I'm like, I'm gonna play this whole thing. And I did. I just sat there, I played it. uh and had a ton of fun with it. So I I am actually using my playdate. I I'm glad to to say that I'm using my playdate.

Eden
Good for you. That is that was the big thing that kept me from buying one. I was like, I'm gonna buy this and I'm gonna play it for two mi Because I'd done this before. I got an RD boy, and I played that Rdu Boy for 15 minutes, and then it's been sitting in a drawer ever since.

Peter
Yeah, totally. So um I'm gonna mention a game. I still don't know if I'm gonna finish it. And I started it It was one of these, you know, go out to Google Gemini or something like this, and I say, hey, look, here are a few games I really, really, really love. I don't want to replay those games, but find me something that's going to scratch a similar itch. I want interesting characters. I want a strong story beat, but I want good action. I want this kind of thing. And across Gemini Claude and ChatGPT, one that they all recommended was Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy that came out a few years ago. And I thought, I've got this. It's been in my library for since probably the last time or how many times ago it went on sale and I bought it. And so I started playing it. I don't know if I'm gonna finish it. I don't know how long I'm gonna play it. I made it through the first mission, and and I'm like Like it's fun, okay? Third person action, whatever. There's one big thing that's driving me crazy, and that is so I am playing on PC. With Steam using an 8-bit Dough Ultimate Wireless Controller. It's basically mapped like an Xbox controller.

Eden
Yeah.

Peter
The game cannot make up its damn mind if it wants to tell me to do X, push this button on your Xbox controller. Or to do this, push this button on your PlayStation controller.

Eden
It's giving you a square or X and you're like, which X? They're both. Well, but that's the problem. Well, that's the thing. It's not an across on the play space.

Peter
It's not just giving me that. It's giving me a. Or it's giving me a square. Or a circle. Or it's giving me, you know, you know the Xbox button that's the like the menu button, the two little squares kind of layered on top of each other? Oh, it's giving me-the yes, it's giving me that. Or it's telling me to push that big, you know, the textured stupid touchpad on a PlayStation DualSensor, DualShock, or whatever controller. It in the same gameplay session is throwing up sometimes Xbox prompts and sometimes PlayStation prompts. And the X is the one that kills me because it throws up an X and they're blue on both controllers. Yeah, they both do. So then I hit that, and guess what? It was a PlayStation X, so it didn't do what I wanted it to do, or it's an Xbox X, so it, you know. So that part is frustrating. That part is frustrating. Nightmare. And so that alone has me go, and I've gone in a dozen times and I've made sure it when I open up the controller settings. It has a picture of an Xbox controller there and it says Xbox controller, but then it is it can't keep it straight. So that's problem number one. But problem number two.

Eden
That's some classic Square Enix right there.

Peter
Oh, I mean, this is this is like grade A buggy bullshit right here.

Eden
Uh-huh.

Peter
But here's number two. The characters so far are so stinking annoying. Yeah. Rocket is being Rocket kind of from the movies, but kinda not, because this wasn't. You know, everything, this is like we're gonna get as close to the movies as we can without crossing over into the we're gonna get sued. So Peter Quill is wearing stuff more like the comics, but he doesn't look like it at all. And he's addicted to music, but it's not 70s, it's like 80s hair metal. So, you know, we're we've grown different music style here. Rafka is kind of mouthy and has an attitude. Drax is obtuse and and Gamora is just like overly aggressive and there's chatter. That's the problem.

Eden
Is the whole time at least in so much in that game.

Peter
so much chatter and I'm finding them so damn annoying that I just don't know if I'm gonna be able to push on through. Have you played it? You're talking like you have- I played about half of it.

Eden
And then I got tired of I don't think that the combat is very fun.

Eden
Uh, it's fine. It's but it's clunky and especially like the I can't think of what it's called because I played it years ago at this point, but the the thing where you like do the pep talk

Peter
Oh yeah. You you stop and there's the little l things that are coming up behind them and you gotta use that as a cue to figure out which one to say to get it right, to motivate them and resurrect him and get out there and kick some alien butt.

Eden
Yeah, I hated I hated that uh that whole dynamic and I think that was when once I got enough of those, I was just like, I'm not everyone says this is like a really well written game and I'm just not really seeing it.

Peter
Boy. Yeah, I have not seen that. I can see where people would I can see why this would get suggested for from AI tools based on based on my experience so far, but at the same time I'm kind of going. I think there's a real good chance I'll be deleting this and and finding something else.

Eden
I didn't I didn't finish it. I played probably half of it and then I was like, I'm good. I got other things to do with my life.

Peter
And you know, I I got to the beginning of chapter two and you come out of that first zone and you're getting snagged by I'm guessing it's Nova Core or something, because I haven't even gotten far enough. But some lady sitting there talking and your Peter Quilt characters mouth like talking back. And and I'm sitting here going, okay, hold on. You guys, again, the writing is not good enough. to get me to sit through exposition like this. Like either get me to action that's more fun or give me better, more interesting writing and characters. But I'm sitting here with these characters that superficially are super annoying, and so far that's all we have is superficial. And I'm going, I don't think this is for me. So I don't know. We'll see if I come back to it.

Eden
My my thought is I'd be curious to see if you do stick with it because I d yeah, I just fell off and I had no reason to go back.

Peter
My gut tells me if I haven't gone back to play it by the end of this coming of this, you know, within a week, I think I'm probably gonna say, all right, it's time to move on to something else. Um now the other final game I do want to mention because this one is an interesting one in that I started playing it. I played it over two days, really just wanted to get to the end because I was really invested. And interestingly, then I finished and I'm like, oh yeah, I did play that game, didn't I? So Eden, did you ever play Dispatch?

Eden
No, is that that new one about being the working in the the superhero show? Yeah, no, I've seen it and I was like, I don't think this is for me. It doesn't seem bad, but it doesn't seem like it's for me.

Peter
So I in here's what I'll say. I really enjoyed it while I was playing it. I forgot until I fortunately had made a note for myself that I wanted to talk about it. Because when I was thinking, sitting down, going, okay, what am I going to talk about today? I popped open that document and I went, oh, I did play dispatch. So dispatch made by a team that is mostly made up of people from Telltale Games when it fell apart. You can tell that because they're subtle little nods to some of those previous games. The Walking Dead, the Wolf Among Us, you know, even Batman, all that kind of stuff. I think there was some references to the Back to the Future game thrown in there that Telltale did. Um, you know, Telltale's an interesting story in that It it it is it reminds me of the plight we've saw with tech companies in the pandemic when all of a sudden, oh, people are working from home, we're gonna over overhire, over purchase, overdo all this stuff, not realizing that this is a blip. This is not the the ongoing future. And Telltale was kinda like that. They had stunning success with that first season of The Walking Dead. And then it felt like it was, oh, more, more, more. And they were getting bigger and bigger and multiple games going on at the same time. And this And it just it was unsustainable because people got really excited because oh, visual novels have been going on forever, but here's a big one that's cutting through the mainstream and capitalizing off the popularity of the AMC Walking Dead series at that same time. Guys, this was a blip. This was not uh this was not where people all day, every day, everybody's gonna be talking about the visual novel they're playing. They're still a niche genre of game. And so of course Telltale kind of fell apart.

Eden
It's nice that the Telltale games had like a nice big budget. They could hire, you know, uh big casts to tell their big stories, but like Part of the reason why visual novels have still succeeded even though they are niche is because one person can make one. Correct. You can use Renpee, which is a fairly str I have used it. You can use Renpee. To make a visual novel by yourself at your computer and all you need are some JPEGs and your brain. And so that is that is a a s a low barrier to entry. But the Telltale games got so expensive and they were built on this antiquated tech because they still wanted to use their original engine they'd been using. Which was clearly held together with baling wire and duct tape. Um when you play some of those older games, you're like, this do this can't do what you guys are trying to force it. it to do. Yeah.

Peter
Well, so I played Dispatch. I I liked it. I thought it was engaging. I'm gonna give a real short and because you feel that I mean this all happens really fast. Your character is a superhero called Mecha Man. He's the third generation Mecha Man and it starts out and you get in a fight and you know what? You get your butt kicked and the power source for your mech goes missing in your mech exploding. And you're just a regular dude now. And this is a world where superheroes and supervillains actually do exist. And you can't really be a superhero anymore because you don't have your robot, your mech. uh but you get hired to uh work as a dispatcher for superheroes. So the gameplay, there's a lot of the visual novel, you know, you're picking which response, that kind of stuff. And then the gameplay loop is you sit down and you have a shift and you've got a picture of this little section of Los Angeles and uh you know popping up on it are superhero needs. People are calling, they need, hey, I need a superhero. And you look at it, you read the description, and then based on the different stats for your characters, you try and decide, okay, who's my best hero or heroes, because they'll have synergies with each other to send on this. It felt a little stressful at first until I was like through a number of shifts and realized I'd maxed out my dispatcher level already. So I was doing more than well enough and I didn't have to worry about getting everything perfect as much as I was. And then it like it gets more complicated as you'll because of the dynamics in the team you're given, Z team, is it's a bunch of villains that are being basically forced to become heroes. And they're all a bunch of yeah, they're all a bunch of dysfunctional people and So you're balancing their dysfunctions with each other, their dislike of you, their villain tendencies. And so there is some interesting stuff to that. And then, you know, you get these scenes in between where you're managing that. But it'll mean that You'll have shifts where you start and you're missing two or three of your people because either they didn't come on time or they just said like fuck you and they left uh because they were pissed because of what had happened in the in-between scene and that sort of stuff. There's a bigger overarching story where the guy, the villain you're trying to kill at the beginning is, again, this is kind of this spiraling story there. I it was fun and so it's really interesting to me that I that it seemed so ephemeral. Because I enjoyed it enough. Yeah, I enjoyed it enough when I was playing it that I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna keep playing this. I just played it until it was done over the couple days I had off around the the wedding. And then literally forgot about it.

Eden
That's so interesting.

Peter
Just kind of forgot about it.

Eden
So just kind of quintessentially popcorn in terms of gaming, where you had a really fun time doing it, tasted really good. but had no staying power.

Peter
Yeah. And it's one of these things that I go, okay, if they come out with a season two, I will probably play it again because I enjoyed my time with it. But at the same time, it's very much going to be one of those Oh, I'm definitely letting you get the whole season out. Because they dropped this in episodes, and the episodes aren't very long. And they're gonna sh- I'm sure if they do a season two, they're gonna do it in the same way. And I look at it and go, Oh, I don't want that. It's ephemeral enough that like I'm gonna forget about it in even the week or two between episodes, depending on how long it takes them to drop it. So I need to wait till the whole season's out. And then buy it on sale and then just again bust through it in the course of a day or a day and a half.

Eden
So in in their defense, um, and perhaps damming an entire uh genre of comic books. That's what it's like reading single-issue floppies. If you read them every month, you read it the next month and you're like, what happened in this comic last month? Yeah. And then you get 20 pages. And then next month you say, now what? What exactly happened in this comic last month?

Peter
Yeah. It's it's fascinating to me because honestly, while I was playing it, I was Very excited to talk about it on the podcast. And then I finished. And again, had I not written down that I wanted to talk about it, I would not have remembered. You just played it entirely. I only finished it just under two weeks ago.

Eden
So weird, weird situation.

Peter
Maybe it's me. Maybe my brain's the one that's broken, but whatever.

Eden
No. I don't think your brain is broken. I just think that this is like extremely popcorn y media and that doesn't stick with you. I think if you watched a season of burn notice between this Recording and next recording, you aren't gonna remember to tell me, oh, I watched a season of Burn Notice because you watched Burn Notice and you were like, Hey, that was pretty fun. Bruce Campbell was there, his chin sure is uh prominent.

Peter
Yeah, right. Well, let's get on to our topic for the week. And I'm interested to see our thoughts on this. So so folks, a number of uh there was a kind of and this this started from out of tragedy, I'll be honest. Uh Rob Reiner, the director, actor, his wife, uh, they were both murdered. Uh, and it sounds like some, you know, really bad and poorly controlled mental, poorly addressed mental health issues were involved. And in the wake of that, there were a lot of people from Hollywood and people who have experience with Rob Reiner coming out talking about What a great kind person he was. Uh and and I'm just gonna say this, and I could be wrong, and and I don't want to live in a world where I am wrong, but that's okay. If you make a movie as good as The Princess Bride And as long as lasting as the Princess Bride, I just want to believe that you're a great person.

Eden
And you know You know you're not wrong.

Peter
Anyway, I'm gonna briefly say this. Here's my one moment. uh if you are a person who apparently in in in the wake of his this his tragic death There was, again, tons of people who've worked with them, nothing but positive stuff to say. So if you're a person who has bad things to say or about Rob Reiner, I just think that means you're a great huge fucking twat waffle.

Eden
Yeah, you just keep that to yourself.

Peter
Correct. Anyway, in the midst of this, I started thinking about the fact that Spinal tap as a quote band and the movie, this is spinal tap, and all of this is one of these things that there are parts about it that have just lived in my consciousness for years, despite having never seen this as Spinal Tap. And I thought this would be a time for us to go back and actually dive into this mid to early 80s or early to mid-80s. uh mockumentary slash fictional documentary thing and and see what was this actually like because again it has forty plus years Where people just make reference to things that are in Spinal Tap, and I honestly kind of wonder how many of them have actually seen this movie.

Eden
Truly. And I just, you know, before we get into the nitty-gritty of it, I was just looking at his Wikipedia page, and it is fascinating to me. Like what a strange again it is very sad that he was slain the way that he was slain. But in terms of his filmography, how weird is it that the first movie he ever directed was This Is Spinal Tap? And the last movie he ever directed is Spinal Tap to the End Continues.

Peter
That is really interesting.

Eden
And then, like you said, there's a whole bunch of stuff that is either some of the greatest movies you've ever seen or some of the movies that you've never heard of. Because Cassie and I, after we watched it together, Cassie watched it with me. Because she had also similarly never seen it, and she was like, oh, you know, cultural impact. Maybe I should watch Spinal Tap. I'll watch that with you. And so then we were talking about it afterwards and we were like, what else has this guy done? And we're like, okay, stand by me, one of the worst movies ever made. Princess Bride, one of the best movies ever made. When Harry met Sally, a great movie. Misery, a very good movie that's coasts almost entirely on the performances, not on the direction. A few good men, a very bad Aaron Sorkin movie. So it is really like a roller coaster going through his filmography. Um, but the question is, was it a high, a low, or a mid for his first film? What did you think about Spinal Tap, Peter?

Peter
Wow. I was hoping that I was going to get to be the one that asked you that question.

Eden
It's kind of mid. It's kind of mid. I'll just say I didn't have as good of a time as I thought I would, but But from an understanding the mockumentary as a format perspective, you can see here where it comes from and where so many other movies do it better, but couldn't have done it at all if Spinal Tap didn't happen.

Peter
Yeah. I think that is a perfect way to put it because I sat down and in the first few minutes, I thought, oh, I'm going to be laughing a lot. And you know what? I didn't laugh a lot There were definitely moments where I did laugh out loud, but it was mostly me going, huh, that's kind of funny and a little clever. Or again, those things where I'm like, oh. Okay, that's where that that's where that comes from. That's where that comes from. So it was way less funny than I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, very much so.

Eden
It's way more serious about just like what happens when you try to reinvent yourself and it doesn't work.

Peter
Yeah.

Eden
And honestly, the funniest part, the part that Cassie and I were like, that's the most delightful part, were all of the flashbacks when they were like, oh, they're the Beatles. Oh, they're the Rolling Stones.

Peter
Exactly.

Eden
Those flashback scenes were so funny to us. But then seeing the band in '84 trying to re-reinvent themselves as a hair metal. like gothy, you know, Motley Crew or uh or Judas Priest style band and really failing at it and nobody caring about their music or seeing them at like Occasionally it's funny, seeing them at the military dance playing their like I want like I you make I make you wet song and this like terribly euphemistic sex ballad While all of these military guys are trying to dance with their ghost steady girlfriends. That's pretty funny. But then there's all this stuff about the drama about the band and how they're not getting shows and They can't put the cover they want to put. That's just trying to be more dramatic and less funny and sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

Peter
And it's really interesting because I feel like now, obviously, I have not seen the second Spinal Tap movie. Um, I'm interested in it. I don't know that I'm gonna rush to go watch it, but I I definitely want to see because one of the things, the one of the differences I want to see between that one and this one. is I look at this and it gets back to when you and I watched The Taking of Pelham 123. That's a 70s movie. And it moves much slower. And it's a lot more. understated in ways than now and I haven't seen the the new version but then what I would imagine a version of that movie made in the 20 teens or 2020s would be. And I'm curious because this very much feels like, oh yeah, this was made in that same era. It is much more kind of slow and and subtle in ways. Where I don't think you would make a movie that way in 2025. But I'm not but I don't know. So so it's I think that that's part of why it wasn't as funny as I was expecting, because we expect something like that these days. Again, haven't seen it yet because I just don't watch that many movies, but that Weird Al mockumentary with what Daniel Radcliffe does weird Radcliffe is Weird Al and stuff.

Eden
Yeah.

Peter
So I get the impression, and please correct me, you've seen it. So I wonder, I wonder if that would be a little bit more almost over the top and and overstated in its comedy, whereas this feels like this was much more understated.

Eden
Oh, yeah.

Peter
And more consistent with the time frame it was made in.

Eden
Oh, absolutely. Weird weird is trying to make you laugh three times a minute. minimum. Like it is constant jokes and japes for 86 minutes or however long that movie is. Like it is not trying to tell a a more subtle story in the way that Spinal Tap sometimes does.

Peter
Yeah. And and like I say, I I think, and I could be wrong, but But that was one of the first things that jumped out at me is that, oh no, this is obviously a movie that was made in 1983, 1984. Like it just feels like that in. I mean, you wouldn't even make a documentary made in the last 10, 15 years would have so much more tension and and all sorts of things than this was. And so as a comedy. It's not nearly as funny as it would be now. And as a documentary, again, it's much more sort of just like we're standing here just watching. It's And it's it's interesting to see how things have moved in those respective fields of filmmaking and presentation in the 40 years plus since this movie first came out. So I don't know. I don't mind look here, guys, I'm gonna give you the short story recap. And Eden's already hinted at the key points, which is The band Spinal Tap has been around at this point for 20 plus years. They were started in the 60s, and we get looks into their past even before then. And This Marty, played by Rob Reiner, the the guy who's making this documentary wants to follow them on this big U. S. tour. And because of, as you mentioned, they're changing kind of who they are, what they are, what kind of band they are. We get issues with that. Their new album's not coming out because the because the cover, the record label's like we're not releasing that cover. It finally comes out. It's just plain black So, you know, it made me instantly kind of chuckle at myself just thinking of Metallica's whatever 1990, 1991 black album.

Eden
Cassie and I were joking about that same thing because because they're big things. Well, the white album just has a white cover and everyone knows that's great, so what's so bad about a black cover? And I was like, well, when you do that, it's bad. Because the Metallica's black album is terrible and is really the death knell for that band doing anything interesting ever moving forward.

Peter
Correct. So it was very funny in that regard. Just with the historical context. Um, but as the tour's going on and they're getting places, you know, gigs are getting canceled, crowds are getting smaller, and then all of a sudden Janine shows up, Janine being the girlfriend of the m David St. Hubbins, kind of the main vocalist and one of the guitarists. And then all of a sudden she's there and she wants to revamp them again with her Zodiac. influenced stuff and and we get so we get the fallout of oh well the band starts to break apart because of the influence of you know the significant other and and then it moves on and basically ends with uh and i can't remember it was sex whatever one of the songs got real big in japan and so then they finally the band reunites with the original manager and they're gonna go tour Japan. And and there we go. That's this is Spinal Tap. Nigel Tufnell at one point leaves and then he comes back and joins them for this final show before they start going to Japan.

Eden
Their fifth drummer dies under mysterious circumstances. Spontaneous combustion on the stage.

Peter
Yep. So then we have them in Japan.

Eden
The fact that they had to keep getting new drummers because all of their drummers died in tragic circumstances. That was that was funny. That got some chuckles out of me.

Peter
I appreciated that because I kept waiting then for the current drummer to die, wondering, this has to happen. It has to happen. When is it going to happen? Yes. And then we get then we get the during the credits again as they're playing in Japan, we get a new drummer and it flashes up his drummer. So yeah, what were some of the things that you thought, what were things that were funny that you did stick out at you, or or even things where you're like, oh, that's where that came from.

Eden
Yeah, I mean, obviously the up to 11 is the big cultural touchstone from Spinal Tap. And that scene is very funny. Like Christopher Guest with this look on his face of just like, well. It it's a number higher, so of course it's louder. And then Marty being there like, Yeah, but you didn't the the internals didn't change. You just changed the the you added a number to the plate. So it's the same, it's the same actual volume, right? And he's like, no, it's one number higher. And and yeah, he's like very funny.

Peter
He just ke he's like, well couldn't you just make ten?

Eden
Couldn't you just make it louder and make ten the loudest? And he's like, no, because it goes to eleven. That is very funny. And again, they just the deadpan way that it is delivered is just perfect. Like you see that and you're like, of course this is the guy that would go on to do this as his whole basic career.

Eden
Like because that is the important thing to know from this. Nigel is Christopher Guest, one of the co-writers of this film, who would then go on to write and direct many of the most famous mockumentaries of the last 40 years. Uh Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, Um The Wind That Blows, uh all these things that are like when people think of mockumentaries, they think of Spinal Tap, they think of uh Christopher Guest's Oeuvre and found footage horror movies. That's mockumentary. As as like a as like a shell.

Peter
Yes, very much.

Eden
And so it's just interesting to see. I feel like I feel like Nigel was the character who I was most interested in during the course of it. Um because he has the most journey. He has the he has the biggest journey as a character. Um I liked Nigel. I liked that performance. The bassist getting trapped inside of the cocoon was one of the funniest scenes in the film.

Peter
Yes, it was. And and I love that, you know, they're doing all these things to get him out of the cocoon and he gets out just as Nigel and David are going back into the cocoons. And then he can only get one arm back into the cocoon and the other one.

Eden
And then it snaps closed on his arm.

Peter
Speaking of speaking of the bassist Uh I I appreciated the payoff of the you know, things on the internet said zucchini, but I'm like, no, that was a cucumber. A cucumber wrapped in aluminum foil down his pants. because we get a lot of low angle crot shots of them in spandex and an early one and and maybe this is just me being a urologist, I don't know, but uh one of the early ones of the basis is he does have a big extra thing going down his left pant leg in the spandex. And so it hits that, but it is like. 45 minutes to maybe even an hour later from that initial shot where he's going through a a metal detector at the airport and keeps taking off stuff and they do the wand thing and it's because he's got a cucumber wrapped in aluminum foil down his pants. And so again, those were the things And it wasn't just that. It was a number of little things that I appreciated that we did get this set up early on in the movie. And there was a payoff. I mean, I think the drummer was a similar thing where we kept getting these little hints and and and I appreciated that there was a payoff for that. And so I thought that actually I thought that the movie did that really quite well. in setting up things that it was going to to knock down at the end and remembering to come back to those things. So I I like that. I thought it was pretty funny.

Eden
Well, and it's one of those things where I know that the um I know that the the dialogue of this film is almost entirely improvised. Guest. Famously, that is how Guest makes the mockumentaries. But he's he's given interviews about this, and I think this is obviously true here for Spinal Tap for the very things that you just said. Because they're so loosey-goosey in the dialogue, they have to be extremely tightly plotted so that they can get those things paying off later.

Peter
Sure.

Eden
And that is absolutely, I think, what you're seeing here is, yeah, the the the the dialogue itself, the scenes get a little like hairy, a little loosey-goosey, uh because you can tell that these are just people kind of like You know, who knows how this was probably four or five times longer and then they just trim it down to the funniest bits or the most impactful bits because that is how you do, you know, like improv mockumentary type s stuff. But they those scenes before they got in there and improvised were like, This is exactly what we need to do in this scene. And then let it flow, let it do its thing. But that is how you that tight plotting is how you get all that payoff at the end.

Peter
Yeah. One of the other things I I appreciated about this movie is, and again, I think this is in part A sign of when it was made that I think we've lost is the art of subtlety. I think there's a surprising amount of subtlety in this movie that would not be subtle. Um again by or either made by somebody else or made in more modern times. So for example, um The so did you you notice the sores on on their lips in one of the scenes, the herpes sores? And like one's on an upper lip and one's on a lower lip. uh little things in there where it's like they don't have to say it and you may or may not get it. Uh a lot of references to drug use without saying there's drug use, you know, people are like sniffing a lot and wiping their nose a lot and things like that, which again, they're very intentional, but I appreciated that It was a we're going to trust that you're either going to not notice this and not care, or you're going to pick up on it and go, huh? I see what you were doing there And and I actually really appreciated that aspect of it. And I thought that was one of the stronger aspects of this movie was the way it kept things a lot, a lot of things unsaid and just left it to you to either figure it out or to just not care and move on. Yeah. Um there's a really good one. Oh, go ahead. When when they decide, and this is I think uh I think this is I'm trying to remember, I just watched it yesterday, but I think this is after uh Nigel has left the band and the bassist convinces David to do jazz odyssey. So n n the bassist, so uh Derek Smalls has got a five-string bass. That he literally never touches the fifth string on.

Eden
No.

Peter
He never ever once plays that fifth string and especially when he's doing the jazz odyssey improv part. He never touches. Because he he's brought this up a couple times. We should do jazz odyssey. We should do jazz odyssey. And he doesn't even play jazz bass because he can't. It's like little things like that that again, I'm just enough of a nerd, and fortunately being surrounded by music people, and you're way more musical than I am, but but just enough of a nerd to go, oh, that's kind of funny. He specifically has a five-string bass that he doesn't use the fifth string on.

Eden
Yeah. Well, and that is that was a thing that I really like. Enjoyed about the film is that for being 80s hair metal, this is good 80s hair metal. This is not like terrible phoning it in not good, not well written music. It is well written and well performed. by those people because they wrote and performed those songs themselves and you can tell as you're watching it you're like Fuck. Christopher Guest is playing that guitar solo right there. And again, that bassist, he He's playing that bass. He probably has never learned jazz bass himself, which is why he never touches the fifth string either.

Peter
Correct.

Eden
Because he's like, I'm a regular bassist. I'm not a jazz bassist. But it'll be funny if we pretend like I want

Peter
Uh-huh.

Eden
But I just I I really respected the hell out of the fact that they wrote these songs themselves, performed them themselves. For all intents and purposes, could have been and maybe did go on a small tour after the movie came out. They could have. Yeah. They could have gone on tour as these characters. And uh I did download the soundtrack afterwards and I've listened to it a couple of times. It's got some bops on it.

Peter
Yeah, it does. It does. Um I did think it was really funny uh early on when they they go to the record. Well, again, not really funny, but this isn't a this didn't make me laugh out loud, but this made me smile moment. where they go to the they go to the record company's big kickoff dinner and you know it's this big party and you've got Fran Dresher there. uh as the she's one of the record people and they're there with the she's the promo person she's the promo person and you've got the president of the record company there and then again compare that to the final one where they're just basically on a balcony uh with like 15 to 20 people there. But they've got mimes handing passing around the plates of food and and their t-shirts say mime is money. And then the two mimes who we get to see, it's freaking Billy Crystal and Dana Carvey.

Eden
Yeah And that's the only scene you see them in. They have like two lines between the two of them. And I remember we were we were watching it and I noticed that was them. And then when the credits started, Cassie was like. Where the fuck was Billy Crystal in this movie? I was like, he was one of the mimes.

Peter
He was one of the mimes at the whisper, like a blink and you'll miss it moment, but yeah. So I I don't know. Do you have what other big things do you do you want to mention or or what are your final thoughts?

Eden
It's moved up at least a point in my estimation. It's pretty okay. As we've been talking it through and I'm remembering things, it's better than mid. It's pretty okay.

Peter
And I think for me, and that's kind of what I was thinking too, where I think a lot of that gets back to the idea of subtlety. Is there these things that are subtle enough that you might miss them. And without actually spending a little bit of time thinking about them again, you're kind of like, oh, that actually was pretty funny. But it was just, it was just sort of just gently laid in there for you. I mean I think one of the times where I actually did laugh out loud is the guitar that doesn't get played and Nigel's just like, listen to that sustain. And and Marty's like, but you didn't play it. He's like, shh. Just like, you know, there's there's enough moments in there that it doesn't hit you over the head. Or the guitar that you can don't even look at it. Don't even look at the tag on it.

Eden
He's like, no, we don't play that one.

Peter
Yeah, and then he's like he he he he does he makes part of he's like stop looking at it don't don't look at it. Um I just It's it was fun to watch, and I'm really glad we watched it because you see so much of a bedrock of other things. in movie making in a lot of ways, and not just moumentaries, but especially kind of the mockumentary genre where you go, yeah, I mean. . Spinal, this is spinal tap wasn't the first, but this is the one where really it was like, okay, here's how we're gonna do this, here's the way you do this, and make it again feel because It doesn't the funny thing is, if you didn't tell someone anything about this movie and they didn't know anything, you take someone completely ignorant of the history of Spinal Tap and this movie and any of that. And you sit them down and you have them watch it, I think they would truly believe it was a documentary from the 80s.

Eden
Because they believe the spontaneous combustion.

Peter
Exactly.

Eden
You would think this was a real documentary.

Peter
Yeah, you totally would. So I think I think it was, again, there's a reason people still make reference to this. Because I think it was pretty important in terms of establishing some things that have been considered norms. And I I don't see myself going back to watch it again anytime soon, but I'm absolutely glad that we watched it. And I thought it was a really, really interesting experience, both looking at it from its influence, but also just kind of that. that look back at movies from 40 plus years ago and go, all right, you know, you were doing things differently. And and at least in a few ways, I kind of go, hey, maybe we should learn a few things from that.

Eden
Truly.

Peter
So here's the other thing.

Eden
I mean, I don't even know what the budget of this film was. Let's make cheap movies again. We've talked about this multiple times. But hearing that like Avatar three is probably gonna top out at one point three billion and they're like, wasn't enough money, Jimmy. We're not gonna give you a budget for four and five and it's like one point three billion dollars isn't enough money. 'Cause the movie cost five hundred million to make, maybe you shouldn't have made a five hundred million dollar movie. Yeah. Maybe we should make maybe we should make twenty million dollar movies again or fifty million dollar movies again, guys. Right? Anyway, I'm glad we watched it. I thought it was fun. Um, it was a good excuse to watch uh, you know, a show with my wife. She she did not fall asleep.

Peter
That is always that is Hey, look at that.

Eden
You know, uh Sign of at least some quality number one. Cassandra did not fall asleep watching a movie at 8 p. m.

Peter
Hey, that's pretty good. That is pretty good.

Eden
So now part of that might be the fact that we were watching it with the dogs and they kept jumping up on her and then off of her. So she couldn't have fallen asleep anyway because they were really rambunctious. But still, she stayed awake. Yeah.

Peter
Well, you know, I think that's great. Well, we'll wrap it up here then. We'll be back in another couple of weeks. And uh We'll we'll chat about something then and there there may be hopefully I'm not I'm not spoiling this but there may be an announcement shared.

Eden
Also, I think it's important for folks to know. Next episode is our 100th regular degular episode.

Peter
So we're gonna do something. We got some homework. We have some home I have homework to do for this. Oh I'm gonna do that. I've been thinking about said homework, but I have not actually put pen to paper, so to speak. So I gotta get on that.

Eden
Yeah, me too.

Peter
Okay. Well we'll be back then. And until then, thanks everybody.