Get Played - Game and Tell: Resident Evil with Taran Killam

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Taran Killam joins Heather, Nick and Matt to talk about the original Resident Evil! They talk a bit about Baldur's Gate 3, whether Mario is a Druid, not being able to control the camera in Resident Evil, and VO Theater returns! This month's We Play, You Play: Dredge! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Check out our premium series Get Anime'd on patreon.com/getplayed or on Stitcher Premium. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Yeah. Thanks for coming so short notice. Yeah, of course. Of course. You called the window replacement team. I'm assigned to the job here today. So just basically walk me through what it is that you need me to do. This is a nice house, by the way.

It's a big mansion. Thank you, thank you. You know, it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but this front window right here is obviously smashed to pieces. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What, you throwing a party? Some kind of crazy party? No, so I was just kind of walking around

and I just turned a corner. And as I was turning the corner, some dogs jumped straight through my window and just shattered it. Shattered it to hell. You know, I obviously got scared so I shot the dogs. So what I need is I just need some like dog proof glass if you got that because I can't be

the guy in the neighborhood that's just, you know, shooting dogs. I don't want to be that guy. But I also don't want to be replacing my windows all the time either. Dog-proof glass. Yeah, just like something thick that like a dog couldn't jump through. Ding dong. Hold on.

Sorry, I got a... Ding dong. At the door. Hey, what's going on? Hey, neighbor. How you doing? I'm doing good. You know, I'm with somebody right now, actually.

Hey, man. Yeah, looks like you got a little scare with your windows being broken open. Nothing got stolen. Hey, you know, speaking of domestic turmoil, have you seen my dogs? Oh. They were in the yard, and I don't know where they ended up. Would you describe them as rambunctious, high energy, sort of? They can be a little riled up, yeah.

You know, if they haven't had their walk, yeah, a couple of Dobermans. I haven't seen any such dogs. I don't want to get in the middle of this, man. Shut your fucking mouth. I don't want to get in the middle of this, but I feel like you know where the are you shut up i don't mean to like i know this isn't my business yeah hey sorry who are you i'm uh i'm lloyd's windows and fencing uh we operate in this area i'll pay you so much if you're looking for a window replacement a fence replacement i feel like you gotta go harder on this guy because i got a sense that he knows exactly where your dogs are and again

none of my business yeah my windows are good right now but I'll look you up on Yelp if I've ever an issue yeah I mean I had a couple you know I got my couple Dobermans Mitzi and Cookie and you know they love to play in the yard and sometimes they can they can get a little rambunctious like you were saying

they can leap over the fence and I just wanted to make sure I don't know if they got into your yard or if you'd seen them at all you have no problems with any of your windows they're not uh for example maybe jumping through the windows ever at your house again i don't want to be i don't want to get in the middle of this but ask him if he's ever shot a gun a gun just ask him if he's ever shot a gun just ask him if he's ever shot a gun what I ask him if he's ever shot a gun I have fairly recently within the last 24 hours I have fired a gun and uh on the receiving end of the gun firing uh were two dogs that scared the living hell out of me uh because they jumped through my windows and shattered them to pieces as you can

see um there's you know these windows that's why the window guy's here and it was just a reflex i didn't know what else to do that i thought they were gonna try to kill me i thought they had some sort of like vendetta against me or something and i don't know what i had done to make them so mad to jump through my window and shatter it to a million pieces so i opened fire on the dogs was it was it was it Mitzi and Cookie? Well, yeah. I mean, I checked the tags. I checked the tags afterwards to see if they had

a name, and they did have names. It was your dogs, and I'm sorry, but I really do think that you owe me some windows. They were two beautiful, innocent creatures. It's not their fault they got the T-Virus.

Alright? It's not their fault. Oh, wait. Something's wrong with those dogs. Are you just going to shoot everyone who's got the T-Virus? I think I might. I think I might. Why don't you shoot me then, okay? Why don't you shoot me? You have the T-Virus? Yeah, I got the T-Virus. Here you go. How's this?

You know how that is? It doesn't stop me because I got the T-Virus. I'm going to keep coming. Oh, God. Here, quick. How's this? You know how that is? It doesn't stop me because I get the key virus. I'm going to keep coming. Here, quick, turn around. Lloyd, come with me. Turn around. I'm trying. I'm trying to move, but I keep running into the wall.

No, goddammit, Lloyd. I don't know how to move forward. Too slow, Lloyd. I don't know how to move forward. We accidentally walk in the wrong direction and are almost a Jill sandwich as we game and tell the original Resident Evil this week on Get Played. Thank you. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. And welcome back to the premier video game podcast, Get Played, where we used to talk about bad games exclusively. And then we started talking about any games. That's what this is. This is an any game podcast.

We decided it was a more fertile and more fun format to just have the leeway to talk about whatever. And that includes once a month, the final episode of the month. We talk at length about one particular game for this month on Monday, August 28th. That's the next episode. We're going to be talking about Dredge for our We Play, You Play format. So if anyone's playing Dredge, listen along. And even if you're not, listen along. I don't want to jinx us us we're doing a really good job of onboarding listeners to what's going on everybody is like very like this is what we do this is why we do it here's what's coming up we're on fire this is this rocks this is my first listen to get oh god even earlier than i i was just saying you know what that's on me not even normally his cue

is the thing no that's way before that's 100 on me and uh all i can do is apologize no it's not on you it's absolutely not on you i'm i'm pushing it i'm up i'm he's i i sat him back down in the waiting room. Oh, okay. That's right. We're all in person. Hey, we have a wonderful guest with us today. Very, very excited to have him. Taryn Killam is here.

Hi, Taryn. Hi, guys. Hi, Taryn. First-time guest, long-time listener. Wow. God bless you. I love the games. I love Heather Ann Campbell very much. Nick, I've been a fan of yours, actually, for a long time, too. God bless you. I love the games. I love Heather and Campbell very much.

Nick, I've been a fan of yours actually for a long time too from Tournament of Nerds. Oh, yeah. Way back in the day. Oh, my God. Skeletor. And Matt, our correspondents so far may have shot you to the top of the list of people I enjoy on the Zoom.

This is huge. Yeah, Matt's the best of us. There's good energy right now. For sure he is. This is huge to me because i'm a big fan as well and uh i you know i pride myself in being pleasant via email so this is really really huge nailed it yeah yeah uh my bachelor's degree in communications paid off was that your major no it was um that was actually my minor was in communications but it counts i'm either way english good emailing is the best explanation of what a community communications degree is good for yeah absolutely like oh yeah communicating

yeah that makes sense i always thought it was like doing the news or something but it's just like yeah email correspondence. I can send really good emails. And I've had a lot of friends send me their resumes and I look at their resumes and like, that's it. Have I ever talked about the degree that I got as a film major at Northwestern? Mistress of Crows. No, I have no idea. Mistress of crows. No, I have no idea.

Well, it was so they they they backpacked the whole film program onto a preexisting liberal arts or I guess I don't even know. I have a bachelor of science in speech. Which is such a strange like to study film and screenwriting and then to walk out of college with the degree that would allow you to become a speech therapist is that's I feel like that's a failure of the education system. To not have directed the King speech is really disappointing. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. There was only one of us that got to use the degree.

And it was Tom. What's his face? Yeah. Yeah. Wooper. There it is is i call him the whooper tommy we're college buds uh heather wait so you it's like you can become a speech pathologist or is there any other licensure you need to go through or i mean i'm sure there's something but like wow uh it's a i'm a bachelor of science and nothing in the coursework was like speech specific no nothing nothing i took a i took a class on on ancient erotic poetry like there's i'm listening quote your favorite for us

what's funny about ancient erotic poetry is that like there were chapters we studied where it was just fragments yeah so it was like so it was like a tablet yeah it'd be like it would be like put the lotus i know what to do with that softly that's yeah yeah i i'm already there. I'm there. I'm there. You got me there. A lot of them are about like ankles and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Taryn, we wear a video game focused podcast, but I have noticed your I have clocked your Epcot forever T-shirt, which is. Oh, thank you. Yes. Which is excellent.

Like, are you a theme park guy? Huge theme park guy. Wow. Huge Disney file guy. Yeah. Yeah. park guy huge theme park guy huge huge disney file guy um yeah yeah and and if i could steal one park from florida it would be epcot and if i move that here i don't know that i would have a reason to go to orlando wow although harry potter world is far superior there. So the Universal Studios out there is unbelievably superior. But I'm born and raised in Southern California, so I'm a Disneyland purist. Yeah, me too.

I've lived in LA County my entire life. And so that's like the Disney I know and love. But yeah, I've been to Epcot once. And I found it fascinating, but I think I was at the age where I didn't quite have like I couldn't process irony yet. So I couldn't quite enjoy it on that level, which I know is a big part of what people's Epcot appreciation is. I would assume it's changed so much from your last visit. It's there is there is a more sincere enjoyment right now for me. I was late to Disney World.

I didn't go till like 2017. Like I was a full adult with children. I'd only ever been to Disneyland and I was so excited to go World. I didn't go till 2017. I was a full adult with children. I'd only ever been to Disneyland and I was so excited to go there. And Epcot did feel like the crown jewel because every Disney Channel commercial had Mickey standing on the big silver ball. I was like, that's

the way to do Disney right. And like Disney World itself is just more quantity, but not necessarily more quality. Sorry to get so controversial. Yeah, this is not a political podcast. Epcot, right now, like currently for the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind ride, that might be the best ride in all of disney world for my mom wow in the way that expedition everest uh animal kingdom is like the ideal

version of matterhorn like what we wish matterhorn would be cosmic rewind is what is an elevation of space mountain that we didn't know we deserved. Wow. What is it about that ride? Because I know that Guardians of the Galaxy ride out here, but I assume it's something different? Completely different. And I went in blind, which was amazing. Are we okay with ride spoilers here? Yeah, I think so.

Okay, great. Thank goodness. It's basically the society that Guardians takes place in, the Nova Corps. Because Epcot is an exchange of cultures, right? All world cultures are coming together. And so you can do the World Pavilion and you can have Mexican food, Chinese food, German food all in the same day. The Nova people have come to share their culture with the people of Earth and so we're going to be teleported on board

one of their spaceships and the way they do that is so cool so fun so like in the way that Disney is now making waiting in line part of the right experience sort of galactic rise of the resistance they do that in a great way there is a um there is a

terry cruz performance that's also worth seeing like a plus for commitment but in a similar fashion to a segment you do here where you do voiceover script reading and then see the actual thing it might be worth doing that for Terry Crews' performance in the cosmic re-ride of the Guardians, right? Because you're like, whoa, buddy, whoa. Anyway, the ride itself is a roller coaster, indoor roller coaster in the dark, but it's like you're being transported through space.

One of the ancients, the eternal people, has come and stolen this power core, and you're helping the Guardians get it back. Okay, that's just the story. You get on the ride. It loads you in, and it's one of those coasters where the car itself can turn, like a teacup. It's not spinning full, like in circles, but it can turn to the side. It can turn right. It can turn left.

So as much as you're going forward, you're sliding, you're strafing, if you will. And what's amazing is that they use the element similar to the Guardians right here in California, where there is a pop culture playlist from Star-Lord's Walkman. So knowing nothing, I sit on there and then they go, we're going to blast you into space.

You are doomed. And suddenly you're in this like launch portal and Gloria Estefan starts blaring like come on everybody baby do that gunga and you shoot like California Scream and you shoot backwards it launches you backwards and now you're

spinning and like all to what are that song what's that song called I think it might be I think you said the full title yeah but i but they have six or seven songs when it first started there was like 99 songs like it was almost like it was a different one or every a different song for every ride of the day then they they pared it down to six. And one of them is everybody wants to rule the world by tears for fears.

That rocks. If you can get that song, you will have no better sensorial theme park experience for my money. Wow. Wow. I may be have told this spot, this story on the podcast before, but I met Steven Tyler uh when i worked for funny

or die that we would used to have celebrities would come in and we'd be like hey we could here's a video we could do with you and then they'd do a video and whatever that was the whole gimmick of the site for the few years it was relevant uh the so steven tyler came in for one of those meetings and we talked to him and he was like like just a very one of those guys who just like over shares and just tells everything uh anyway we talked for way longer than we'd expected. The meeting was wrapping up. He stands up and starts to walk out of the room. And Nick Karasi, who also worked there at the time, just asked him real like real quick is like, hey, do you ever ride your roller coaster?

Because they have the Aerosmith rock and roller coaster. And he's like, you ever ride your own roller coaster? Smith rock and roller coaster. And he's like, you ever ride your own roller coaster? And he spins around, like spins 180 degrees and says, yeah, man.

And sits back down in the chair and talks for 20 minutes about how much he loves his own coaster and how like heavily involved he was in every aspect of it. Like he was super intense about like, like, and then when the, and then when we're going down, like real fast,

it's gotta be a elevator, living it up. I'm going down. It was just like it was the most passionate i've ever heard anyone talk about anything that was steven tyler talking about his roller coaster the rumor is they tried to get guns and roses first that it was supposed to be guns and roses rock and roller coaster oh sure they got aerosmith um but i think to your point the passion mixed with the creativity you know know, Guns N' Roses doesn't have any going down.

They have you're going to die. And you don't hear that on a roller coaster. I don't think. No, it's very literal. You've got the elevator song. He also made a point of telling us like that song is about eating pussy, you know. It's like, oh, cool. Thanks, man. You dropped your scarf like, oh, cool. Thanks, man.

You dropped your scarf. Yeah. We're at work. Thanks. Told the rumor just to you, Nick. Yeah, locked eyes with me. Told me with his mind. Yeah.

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Head to factormeals.com slash getplayed50 and use code getplayed50 to get 50% off. That's code getplayed50 at factormeals.com slash getplayed50 to get 50% off. Okay, well, look, I could talk about theme park stuff all day, but we do have some video games to talk about. And so the question to the panel and to you first, Taryn, is what are you playing? What are you playing? Wow.

Oh, my God. What are you playing? I'm playing. Well, very true to the point for the Resident Evil. I was going to say, be on your best behavior. We have a guest. Yes. No, I'm very aware. It's such an honor to meet you.

I have purchased ammo and grip upgrades from you many times i recognize you i love your i love your wagon i love love your wagon work this is a guest yeah yeah yeah that's right this right here is a guest I don't know what took you guys so long getting somebody who gets the game on the show. We don't need to be critical of the booking process or a lot of our friends or anything like that. I have been playing, thanks to your, speaking of guests, your Gabrus episode uh diablo 4 pitch wow i've never been a big diablo guy but i jumped into it because of that episode wow and i i just got i was in canada for a month just family vacation stuff but i i've left behind a level 52 druid and was so excited to return and now and now the season has begun and this is my first diablo 4

season participation wow what so so this is like the first diablo game you've gotten into really i attempted to i think i attempted it and then got distracted by something else like i think i actually like was on a location i was shooting a movie, and Kumail was in the movie, too. And he and I were playing Diablo 2 together for a couple weeks. But that's the furthest I got. And then, yeah, the episode you guys did with Gabrus was like, it just got me excited because it was such a positive review of it, too, which I think is accurate.

I've been very much enjoying it. I'm glad. Yeah, I mean, I love that franchise. It's one of my favorite franchises as i've said in the pod but like i what what pulled you towards a druid i've always been a druid guy i love shape-shifting that's like in in any sort of rpg if shape-shifting is involved that that is a big draw for me. Never been much of a barbarian warrior like that. There's no drive in me. No primal urge for slashing. But I either like long distance magic or shapeshifting is my tendencies. Do you go bear or wolf?

I went the way of the wolf. Wow. Yeah. Love that. I know. I went the way of the wolf. Wow. Yeah. Love that. I know. I know. I did. I did wolf with poisonous serpent companion.

Okay. And that's serving me very well. And then just a ton of lightning. I was going to ask you, Taryn, how do you, how do you feel about a beam? Do you like beams? Good question. Love beams. Love beam.

Love my guy. X-Men. What was the first X-men where it was sort similar to diablo where you're sort of that high angle and cyclops's beam was like x-men legends yeah i think it was legends right yeah legends is such a great game i wish you had the four you had like a team of four and like yeah cyclops's beam just was unstoppable this is this is perfect this is that wow you answered correctly t Taryn. Thank you. Do you think that when you play a shapeshifter,

or like if the concept of a shapeshifter was real, do you think that they are role-playing a wolf? Do you think that they become wolf, like their brain is like wolf? Or do you think that they are like, I've got to act like a wolf? No, only because the joystick controls are as responsive as when you're in human form. It would be a cool, that would be a cool element to a game that when you go werebear, werewolf or whatever, you suddenly lose control of it for 30 seconds or whatever the time of the morph of the mutation.

That's like, that'd be cool. That would be cool. I like the idea that you're role-playing inside of a role-playing game. Yeah. Like your role, you, Taryn, a role-playing and shape shifter.

And that shape shifter is role-playing a wolf. Yeah. Well, okay. So, so that like, and I, I think we would,

the rest of us have all been playing Baldur's Gate three and I have less to talk about, but I know that the, the, the two of you have put some more hours into it. I've been waiting for console and I'm curious to hear if it's worth jumping into the Steam version because I have to wait until

September for PS5. It's cross the save transfers. So if you put in a chunk of time on Steam and you have the financial elasticity to be able to double dip on this game, then you can purchase it again for your console of choice and transfer your save over. Heather, we both worked on SNL. You know I don't have that financial flexibility.

Do you? Okay. do you okay so it'd be in first well since we're talking about this i've been playing with mouse and keyboard but i understand it controls pretty well with a controller is that your experience matt and heather have you played it any with a with a controller i yeah i've been playing it on my steam deck so it has you know the built-in controls and uh that plays it plays really well i i will say that there are a couple times when you know there's because there's a lot you can select at any given time and so just kind of remembering what buttons do what and like sort of navigating the the you know the play area and what you want to talk to somebody but you accidentally you know go sit on a log or something like that can be a little bit

frustrating. I imagine my favorite insult by the way go sit on a log. In a way it's like you're botching a bunch of rules while you're actually playing D&D. It's like I want to talk to that guy okay go ahead and roll. You rolled a one. You're sitting on a log.

Wait you just stole from him. Yeah exactly. I made a merchant so mad because i just like there was stuff outside the when you talk to him and i just took it and he was like don't fucking take stuff i was like okay yeah you're right i shouldn't have done that i didn't mean to i mean you'll get yelled out at a cbs for that behavior so well not the way i do it well not the way i do it is that why they have the plastic now in front of the razor blades yeah that's always the stuff I'm trying to steal yeah yeah yeah I'm trying to steal the craziest worst stuff uh but yeah I'm playing it on there and I put in some

time this weekend I was I was at a bachelor party this weekend in Vegas and I think I played uh Baldur's Gate for as long as I did everything else that we did when I was at a bachelor party this weekend in Vegas, and I think I played Baldur's Gate for as long as I did everything else that we did when I was there. I'm not like a... I like getting in the pool, but I'm not being a hot guy. Like, I don't like...

In temperature, I mean. Only in temperature. Right. That's what I mean. Figurative hotness you're all about. Yeah, I'm all... That's why you're doing this podcast greased up and shirtless.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I's like my whole thing. That's why you're doing this podcast greased up and shirtless. Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm in my Fabio era right now. But I played every time they were, like everybody was out in the pool kind of like hanging out. I was off to the side in the shade playing Baldur's Gate 3. And it did attract some, a lot of my friends came over, looked over my shoulder. It felt very elementary school kid playing

Gameboy and you wanted to see what your friends doing and everybody was very interested in what I was doing and particularly what the romance options how that was going for me and I was happy to report it was going pretty well I picture you with like a neck strap

for your laptop in the center of the pool everybody surrounded you yeah coked out of their brains watching you what's going on what are you doing that's watching you level up your beam as a sorcerer i'm imagining you're some sort of dark elf sorcerer you know i i didn't go beam this route because i never played balder's there's no beam in balder's well i didn't pick a a sorcerer class because i was playing a sorcerer in um in diablo 4 and i was just like i kind of just want to mix it up a little bit and i had heard that the barbarian class in balder's gate

is uh an easier onboarding for like for new players to that game and i had not had a lot of experience with that so i i jumped in there and it has been pretty easy but i guess you can respec anytime uh yes at a certain point yeah oh right it's really it's apparently really generous with that i mean like wait have we have we all found i i think i can just i can spoil an npc name because it's pretty early we've all found withers yeah you can talk to withers and uh withers will let you oh boy look for withers you got to go can talk to withers and withers will let you. Oh boy, look for withers. You got to go to camp, Heather.

Here's how I know Heather's playing. She's not going to camp. She's not healing. You got to go to camp. She's not getting hit. Go to camp. Camp? Wait, what's... Oh, you mean like the sleeping part?

Yeah, yeah. We're all the... I've gone to camp a few times. You got to meet withers. There's no people there. I mean, there's like the two people that I'm partied with. At a certain point, you'll be going to bed and they'll say somebody else wants to talk to you. And you'll be like, huh?

And then you look around and then there's a guy there. And it's Bill Withers. It's Bill Withers. I found him in the, like I was a dungeon crawling and i came across him i like discovered him and then he started showing up at my camp that's how he came to uh you know kind of be as part of my not my my combat party but my larger ensemble he's a helpful guy but he's nasty i have a dog pretty gross there's a dog that dog you have a dog wait you don't have a dog this game fucking sucks everybody can do whatever they want

you gotta get scraps go get scraps i gotta go get scraps scratch i have scratch oh i'm sorry scratch get scratch i do love that like in an endless mmo role-playing game and you guys just explain that there's a mysterious traveling wizard man who will let you change your identity and your magical essence. And Heather dropped dog on you and both of your minds were blown. I got to get this dog. Nick, I've been playing on a MacBook, so I'm on the worst of all worlds. So I can't right or left shift or right or left click on the mouse because I only have a trackpad. And it doesn't support controllers yet on Mac because it's technically an early build.

So I'm in hell. Like it is so hard to control the game. I did have an event this week in the game that I thought was pretty funny. an event this week in the game that I thought was pretty funny. There's like a town that's, you know, your perception check says oh, you're going to get ambushed

if you go into the town. And I was like, not my thief. That's not happening. So I separate the parties and then I sneak jump all the way through this town, all the way to the back of the town and then come all the way back up to the front of this town, all the way to the back of the town, and then come all the way back up to the front of the town, find the person who's going to ambush me, and then use the

shove to shove them off a roof. The moment my hands connect with them, I enter a cutscene where I'm standing on the ground in the town having a conversation with this creature. And they're like, yeah, so. And I pass all of the conversation without, like, I pass the conversation checks. And then they're like, okay, well, you're free to come into the town. We cut out of that cut scene and the thing is midair and falls to its death. out of that cut scene and the thing is midair and falls to its death. The cut scene ends, boy, I'm glad you didn't shove me.

I'm about to unlock unlimited treasure for you. What's worse is that that then triggers the other things to attack. Because they've all been activated. Like it was the stealth checks and all the rest of it didn't matter because the cut scene over like it overturns all of that sneak away sneak away fucking frustrating moment um i uh so i've been playing a lot of balder's gate this week because and I've sort of talked about this on social media a bit or hinted at it. Two weeks ago, as of this

record, or maybe a week and a half ago, two weeks ago. That's about right. My if this was a World Warrior segment, it should end with, you lose. But so it is a World Warrior segment, I guess. My wife.

Warrior. World Warrior. Amsterdam, you lose. My wife caught COVID. She it's the first time she's had COVID. And she it's the most frustrating fucking thing in the world. She was getting her hair cut and midway through the haircut, the woman was like, oh, I have such a terrible fever. I am so sick. And Mary was like, what? And she's like, oh,

it's like it's like you can't have a fever at work anymore. And Mary's like, no, you you can't have a fever at work anymore and mary's like no you you can't have a fever at work but her hair was half cut so the woman finishes cutting her hair and then mary bails jesus um she tells me this story and i'm like oh man that sucks i i hope you didn't get sick uh she's like me too four days go by and mary starts getting sick. But it's not terrible. And neither of us thinks, oh, you should take a COVID test because that just seems unlikely that this woman would have gone to work with full blown COVID. The next day, Mary's feeling awful. Now, I've hung out with her nonstop for the last five days unmasked. It's my wife.

I'm hanging out with her. Yeah. My wife. My wife. You got to say that too. My wife. And we give her a COVID test and she is like hard red line. So on that day, we start quarantining from one another.

The problem is I have now been exposed for five days to this gestation COVID period. So I also have to go into quarantine. And also in the rules of the Netherlands is that you have to, if your partner is sick, you also have to quarantine, which means that I have to cancel a hangout with listeners, a full get played get together that we had scheduled and I had bought

a bunch of fucking tickets for because I was trying to get people in for free an interview with a game developer in Utrecht who was going to talk to us about a game and wait that's a place not just an art store there is an Utrecht

it's a great city I mean I art store. There is an Utrecht. It's a great city. I mean, I can't tell if that was a deadpan delivery of a joke. Nick has only been in the United States. Any question he asks about other places is new information for him. Utrecht Art Supplies has been in business since 1949. I'm reading from the about on the website. This is the Utrecht I know.

I didn't realize it was a city in the Netherlands. Nick's actually good about learning because when he doesn't know something, he asks a question about it. And I heard that name just now. I just thought, I'll just not know what that is. So it's now been seven days that Mary has had COVID and I have still

not tested positive. But I've also had to cancel my trip to Retro Mesa, the retro video game conference in Norway, and my attendance at Nobuo Uematsu's concert and David Wise's concert. This fucking hairdresser has ruined my goddamn life. Wow. Out them.

Out them. Name. Has ruined my goddamn life. Wow. Out them. Out them. And also, Mary published a negative review of this woman and was like, not only did she give me a bad haircut, but additionally, she told me she was sick midway through and four days later I have COVID. And the woman got so fucking defensive on Google reviews and was like, well, you must have caught it at Pride weekend. Joke's on her. Mary and I stayed in all day on Pride weekend because we don't like crowds. We have no pride. We just watch. You can tell that she's like my soulmate because we watched JFK by Oliver Stone on Pride Day.

Which is also how that woman probably gives the haircut. Back and to the right. Just move your head back and to the right. I also got COVID for the first time in Amsterdam. Oh, my God. I'm pretty sure I got last summer. It was my first time ever there. Had a wonderful time.

My favorite moment was walking through the red light district in the middle of the day. And my then 13 year old daughter saw a woman in a window and went, oh, shit. But we went, we went, I, I, I shared a joint at the bulldog and, and I'm pretty sure that's where I got it.

And literally it was like, my allergies are acting up. And then literally like 12 hours later was shivering in bed, but it sucks. I can't believe I haven't caught it, especially since I've, like 12 hours later was shivering in bed, but it sucks. Um, I can't believe I haven't caught it, especially since I've, I've been,

what was with Mary for so long. And yeah. And you've had it before. No, I'm still, I'm still, you still haven't zero. Yeah.

You're the Ellie of COVID. Wow. That's huge. Actually. I'm just surprised because like, when you hear is like, oh, my barber had covid and gave me is the best city. So pretty. So pretty. It's... God, I can't fucking believe how much... Like, there's like non-refundable flights.

Yeah, that sucks. Non-refundable. It's like so much, so much of an economic personal fallout from this fucking woman going to work. Yeah. There is this sort of Dutch attitude of like shrug it off right um that is that is sort of cultural and that also extends to they don't give paxlovid out here so like you if you get covid unless you are hospitalized you don't have access to paxlovid because it's like

just sweat it out you You'll get it. It'll be alright. Yeah, have a joint. That is so frustrating. That's such bad business ethics. I feel like even the Resident Evil merchant knows not to show up at the wagon with COVID. With La Plaga. I wish I could say you right.

Oh, shit. I should have known better. The merchant's a bug chaser. I am what they call patient zero. Okay. Okay, that was your bat. You've heard of a wet market. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, what is wetter than my market? I guess that's true. That's true. You are kind of constantly damp. Yes. It's really unnerving. Yeah. Nasty.

But I'm hoping to reschedule. I'm devastated about not being able to go to see Nobuo Omatsu perform. That's fucking like once in a lifetime to see that and him and David Wise at the same night. That's insane. But hopefully most of these other events i'll be able to reschedule um i know that there were people listeners who flew to amsterdam to be able to participate in this stuff and i feel nothing i'm so sorry and i feel so bad um and i've also gone insane from being in this uh apartment so um yeah. You lose.

Perfect. I did just want, I did want to mention that first off, that sucks out there and we talked about that off-pod. It's fucking brutal.

Fucking sucks. We were talking Druids earlier and Taryn, if you do get around to BG3, it's Druid City, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So many Druids. Yeah, there's a lot of Druids. It's just the most fun. It's just so fun. It's just so fun to talk to trees and turn into bees. You know what I mean?

Negotiate with a squirrel? That's a big thing that happens. Do you think Mario is a Druid? Like, class-wise? Like when he changes in, when he puts on the tanuki suit he like he can turn into animals and bees and cats it's all elemental power yeah yeah yeah turns to stone yeah could be i i mean like i kind of like a battle mage too like he can handle he can do a little bit of melee but he also can like throw fireballs you know he can do some like uh some some some spellcraft where he's like takes flight or what have you but he's so beholden to items is the thing a druid battle mage dwarf

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Let's talk a little bit about Resident Evil, because this is a big thing we wanted to do today, Taren, with you. You told us this is one of your favorite games, or just a game that is really meaningful to you? It's my favorite video game ever. Resident Evil 1? Yes. Wow. ever and Resident Evil 1 yes wow it's the first game that that affected me like viscerally emotionally when I wasn't playing it first game ever and I remember I was in Bear City Video I grew up in Big Bear City California and we're at Bear City Video renting it and my little brother Taylor had just gotten the PlayStation, which was sort of, in my opinion,

a spiteful birthday present because I had bought my I'd saved up and I bought myself Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis and was like ruled with an iron fist of like who could play it and when. And I feel like my parents were like, OK, well, you're you're four and a half year younger little brother now gets, you know, the like premier console in disc technology. Um, and like, he likes sports and stuff. So he had FIFA, but we went to the video store where he like, we got to get something new. And I, the cover, like the cover was the, the, the art on the cover. It's, it was white with red font. And then I think it was Chris Redfield, but like, he looked horrified.

He was like pixelated and screaming with a machine gun. And it's like, what is this? And there was some random kid, very similar to like a traveling merchant in the Resident Evil franchise who just appeared and said, don't get that game. It's impossible. Nobody can beat that game. Wow. And I said, don't ever tell me what i can't beat

don't ever and and putting that in like i'd played games with like you know live action cut scenes before right but the quality of this canadian non-union production like i hope the casting person for those cut scenes won an award for that opening video because the likeness of each of like the archetypes of body shape and hair sculpting and accessorizing like has never been matched to this day in my opinion it is such a such a time capsule for that era that there is like just full motion video like they shot something for the intro like nowadays you would like any modern resident evil they're not going to do that any modern game they're not going to they're not

going to do that but it was like oh we can put a video file on a cd-rom uh let's go ahead and do that and there were a lot of games of the era like you know command and conquer and so forth right that had these fmv cut scenes and yeah that's the thing that i almost like i i played resident evil at the time uh i played resident evil 2 on playstation and i i kind of at times memory hole that they that that opening fmv oh my god but that's such a big part of it the snarling dogs like hound of the maskerville insert snarling prosthetic dogs and like like albert the character of albert wesker i like they got the guy that physically embodies him they'll never beat a better physical live action likeness than the guy in that opening movie like full dreamboat

right like like strong hairline blonde like i played the attitude too and it's all dubbed it's all redubbed right no don't go because like and it just is off but but horrifying because like you play it and i also love like a like a drawing room murder mystery i get the create like i love that oh yeah so like, hearing the ticking grandfather clock in that first hallway, it was like, was mind blowing. And the first interaction with a zombie past the dining room was horrifying.

Horrifying. And like, I think I've never been more afraid than those dogs jumping through the window in that hallway. I don't think I've ever- Oh, yes. Had a bigger jump scare in my life since. It's an amazing jump scare.

Like, I don't, I mean, on consoles, certainly, I feel like the Resident Evil dogs through the windows, which, by the way, I went back and played the original this week on PS5 through the PlayStation Now service, right? And so I got to see that cut scene in HD for the first time because like when you played it in the 90s, you were playing it through composite video on a CRT.

Like a lot of those details were sort of like Romero cloudy and like, you know, there's flashes of white to punctuate like gunshots and you're like disoriented and you're a child. So it's also like you've managed to rent a horror movie that your parents don't know you have. And it is so violent. Like the blood sprays when you shoot a zombie is like a quarter of the screen is taken up with like blood mist. But for console players, and I don't know if this is true for PC, because I feel like, you know, Doom predates this. There are scary games on PC that certainly predate Resident Evil. But for console players, the dogs jumping through the window is the first time any of us had a horror moment in a video game that worked.

Right. There were gory games, but they weren't like Mortal Kombat wasn't scary unless you're like super young, you know, or like a splatterhouse on on, you know, on PC Engine TurboGrafx was like, you know, like like but those were like the whole thing was like, oh, there's blood in a game. It wasn't actually viscerally scary in the way like a Doom or a Resident Evil is. Before we move too far past it, I wanted to bring up the Resident Evil guy

from the box art. This is the guy you're thinking of, right, Taron? I mean, like, look at his face. It's so great. And Chris Redfield has never really looked like that. No, but it's a little Sylvester Stallone. A little ash from Evil Dead. It's very much evil dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this one, not one. I naturally open to why two faces at the same three faces. Really? It's like an angry guy a scared guy and then a burnt guy yeah yes yeah yeah who's with maybe a broken neck either like it's too muscly or it's just broken it's like turned all the way around yeah yeah uh one interesting because you just brought up heather like this is like the the such a scary

game and and and that was a big part of i think of it of its success and certainly it was a thing that like like again this is this is a game along with final fantasy 7 as someone who grew up in nintendo household and was a nintendo loyalist that got me on board with playstation i bought a playstation one i've experiencing this in final fantasy VII on friend systems. And it was it was just like you. They weren't doing this sort of thing on Nintendo platforms. It was like something like, oh, this feels like a grown up game at a time when I was a teenager and wanted to be a grown up desperately. And and then also the other thing is that Alex Garland, who wrote 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle directs it, and that's like the movie that kind of has the, like, leads to the resurgence of, zombie is now

a genre in part because of 28 Days Later, but a big part of where that movie came from, just talking about the Ouroboros of influence, is like, he was a fan of the Resident Evil games, and that, like, put him, you know, like, and those games obviously came from the George Romero zombie canon, so it's

just like, it's kind of interesting how important important Resident Evil was is like kind of a pop culture touchstone in terms of where we are nowadays. There's so much I mean, this zombie is just like I feel like that's like what Western used to be. Yeah. It's also the first like it's the first game that is marketed as survival horror. Resident Evil. Oh, that's a great point which then becomes i mean so much of the tension of the resident evil game is not just is there a zombie around this blind corner with your pre-selected camera angles so that you can't really tell what

you're about to run into there's also the constant tension of, I have three fucking bullets. Yes. And if I run into something, like that's part of the fear element conjured by the game is resource management. So survival horror is a subgenre of video gaming because Resident Evil is like, yeah, what if you only give them like three bullets and one health kit? Like, what if you only give them like three bullets and one health kit like what what if you had to deal with it's a game that starts conceptually on hard mode yes which is awesome including including movement including like the block step movement where like like so many like giggle screams came from like okay i lost my three bullets. Run away from this. No, why are you backing into a corner?

Turn the other way. No, get it. That chair's in the way. My knee is not, it's stuck on the chair. It gives the player, like even with control over the character on screen, it makes you as clumsy as people in horror movies. Yes, exactly.

100%. You can't quite get out of the room the way that you that you are able to in say resident evil 4 and onward where it's like oh i've got full command of this character i can get them here yeah i can get them from a to b without a problem in resident evil and this control scheme in case you you're really young, I guess you don't even have to be that young. I guess you'd be like 20 now. If you're 20, then this game comes before you were born. What year did this come out?

1996. 1996. So this game is coming up on 30 years old. Yeah, if you were born the year this game came out, you're 27. Yeah. Yeah, if you were born the year this game came out, you're 27. Yeah, so, but if you're too young to have played the original Resident Evil games, the cameras were fixed in separate locations in each room. So there was a cutting from camera angle to camera angle previous, which means that the only way to move forward is to press up. So you can continue to hold up and no matter how many times the camera shifts angles, you're still moving forward through the room.

But you get into a fucking combat situation and who remembers to hold up to move forward when you are trying to move away from something yeah i think it's a learning curve you never really get over because it's just it always feels unnatural for the direction your character's moving to not correspond with what you're seeing on screen and with those fixed angles like even just aiming like even if you were to master them, aiming over your right shoulder versus aiming from an eagle's eye view in the top corner of the room, you don't know if your gun is in line with the zombie who is slowly moving towards you. It's just great. Like I do miss that slow tension of the games. Like I've heard you guys talk on

the podcast before about like the biohazard, evil why did we but i think for this first one at least if it was named biohazard before playing and i was in the mansion there's something about the resident word itself yeah being in a residential like like there's evil in this residence that that i don't know like i i like i've i've tried to follow you on like yeah biohazard's great and and that sure and certainly plays much better for later later titles um uh of this series but like the resident evil and the slowness and like i'm in a hall i'm in this big hall but i'm so alone like some of that was the real psychological scare was like,

Heather, you're exactly right. Like, I can't see what's around the corner and that's like the tense scare, but like never was at ease, never felt at ease. No. With like just being in that main hallway and just be,

and you know, like that slow tension I really miss from, from, from the, these later games. It's a it's a it's kind of a key to and that's a good observation because it is like you feel isolated. Yeah. And I think there weren't a lot of games that necessarily explored that, you know, even something like Doom, a game I really, really loved. But but like that game is like there's there's monsters just everywhere there's not really a point where you're like oh man i'm alone and i don't know

uh i don't know what to do and i don't know what else is out there what do i do next and the and and then like you might go into a room with a statue with a glowing jewel eye and it might just be a puzzle room and you might be okay but it also like is such a it like i've i it's the only game that i have replayed over 10 times because wow 10 times easily well you know and that's including like the remasters on gamecube right what have you but the original game and then like wanting to show it to my kids and like yeah it was so it was such um from storytelling from character, from, from also like playing the old, like archaic version. Like,

it's so funny. Like we had this running joke, me and my siblings that when Jill survives the room where the spikes come down, it's going to cry. And Barry crashes through the door to save her. She go, you know,

and she goes, Barry, you saved me. And he kind of does a head movement where it looks like he's staring at her chest. And it was the funniest thing to us for forever it's like mary you saved me and he goes oh well anything for a teammate or whatever it is yeah so it but like it just meant so so so much but it gives it

some place to build to that slow pace like in the way that games don't as much like like i feel like uh tears of the kingdom and more breath of the wild like gives you that oh you don't even know what you're in store for because by the time you're under the mansion in the umbrella facility fight you know like it does change significantly like yeah Like the look and feel and pace of the game changes so much, but they've earned it too. So it's so exciting. I just love it. I love it so much.

The game was before, just real quick before we move on. How did your kids react when you showed it to them? I only showed it to the older one. Okay. And it was too scary for her. She was like,

she's like a little like, okay, you like this game? It was that energy. You like this? What are you doing? Why are you? There's something about like, because going back and playing some of these, like in particularly like going back and playing this one,

even like after, because my first Resident Evil was Resident Evil 4. And like the movement obviously is so much different in that game, but then playing the remake very recently, going back to the ones where you can't really control it that well feels scarier because you feel less in control because you've had it before. So taking away what Nick said, the action hero feel of the games makes me feel

even more like a coward than I already am. I'm just like, this is awful. This is a fucking nightmare. I hate not being able to see and all that stuff. Ugh, yuck. I want to talk a little bit about the director of Resident Evil, who is Shinji Mikami. He directed Resident Evil. He also directed specifically Resident Evil 4.

So, I mean, if you're going to talk about like fucking awesome game design director, this is a fucking dude. He also directed one of my favorite fucking PlayStation 2 games, God Hand, hand which is incredible and also features a very strange control scheme so it's almost like the guy's like hey what have you made like an action game that was a fighting game where you kind of controlled a little bit like resident evil it's so fucking funny it's it's a wild uh game he also oversaw uh frequent me bringing up on this show gamecube game killer seven um right he was the writer of killer seven so this is a dude with a lengthy career and an enormous amount of influence over like Resident Evil 4 changed the way that all these other video games controlled and like that over the shoulder camera play that that happens in like Gears of War and all these other games following Resident Evil 4. so first he does resident evil affecting all genres and potentially the growth of the zombie subgenre in film and television then he does resident evil 4 and and then all the video games are like oh we need that camera that over the shoulder camera we need to do it

uh and then he directs um god hand which you guys got to play because it's so fucking good it's so fucking good. It's so good. I know that is a legendarily like weird game. Oh, my God. I only know its reputation. It is so fucking fun and so funny. It's like an actual, like there are so few comedy games that are actually funny. And this is one of them.

So the guy's like a real multi-hyphenate yeah he's sort of like the who's who's the director they keep bringing back to relaunch bond mark mark foster mark forster something like that like he did golden eye and they did casino royale like like that's what that reminds me of but yeah it's it it takes a and a particular uh I don't know the Bond franchise well, but it takes like kind of a particular sort of mind to not be stagnant and not be like, okay, well, I did this thing that worked before. I'll just do it again when he goes away from the franchise and then comes back. And I think we talked about this when we did a Resident Evil 4 remake episode, but he was not the original director of RE4. He comes on and sort of figures out how to adapt it to a modern audience, which is... He also, he redesigns or he supervises

a lot of the throwing out of what they had been doing on Resident Evil 4 and being like, no, no, no, it's got to be like this. It's got to be like this. He also, he was the executive producer on Ghostwire Tokyo, which I've heard is really good. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. I haven't played that game, but I've heard is really good. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah.

I haven't played that game, but I hear that that's excellent. And then Hi-Fi Rush, which I've seen art for. Matt played Hi-Fi Rush. Yeah, that game riffs. It's fucking great. It's an action rhythm game. Maybe this dude is all about it. Maybe he's a genius.

Maybe he's the best of us? Like, of humanity? Yeah. I think so. You know, I think that's... He's at the very least very interested in input. Like, not maybe necessarily, like, what the story or, like, the thing is.

He's like, no, this has to control Strange. Like, we gotta do a new thing with the control. That's his whole thing. Yeah, every game that Heather referenced was like, control strange like this. Like we got to do a new thing with the control. That's his whole thing. Yeah. Every game that Heather referenced was like, Oh, he's tapping into an, he's tapping into the experience of the player.

Yeah. Or then like he's tapping into what am I, what frustrates me? What, what brings me joy? And really like how, how do we keep the tension so that the achievement feels even greater? One of the reasons God hand is so good is that like so tom and jerry cartoons used gunshots when they were punching each other like

you'd hear gunshots yeah god hand also uses gunshots when you punch people i'm there's one we were talking about resource management earlier and the thing that stressed me out i think the most from the original resident evil is ink ribbons which is how you'd like because because it was not at the era of oh i could save anywhere unlimited saves it was like i had to manage when i could end my play session and resume it later and i i don't know i mean taryn do you have it? Like, I certainly think like as a kid, when your playtime is not necessarily controlled just by you,

that was definitely a thing I was like really conscious of and always stressed out about. There absolutely were attempts to like circumvent that by leaving the machine on, like going into the typewriter room and then just leaving the machine on while I went to school. And like, certainly it did not work well. Cause it just came out like surprised. It did not start a fire with just leaving spinning for, for eight hours. Um, I remember the stress of that, but I

also like the ego of myself as a player was like, how far can I get without more than more than 100% protecting it? It's like, am I going to, am I going to be docked for having saved eight times as opposed to only four? So that was a game that the, the resource stress for me was herbs. Like the,

the herbs always. Yeah. And, and like getting the best cut, like wanting to have a red and a green and then ending up with three greens and then combining two of the greens for whatever and then finding a red and just being furious at myself like that was that was the real head game of of conservation for me during that game matt even playing the resident evil 4 rebake i had i

just had moments like that i was like god man yeah i guess there was a red right here i already combined these harder to see a little bit, too. Sure. Yeah. Have you kept up with the franchise? And if so, what are your favorite more recent entries? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Resident Evil, where you're in the house with the family. Oh, yeah, that's seven. Hey, hey, we're good.

That's seven, yeah. Yeah. That was like, oh, we're back. And again, because we're back, the resident element of it was really capitalized on like i i probably was most disappointed by the most recent one because like werewolves aren't zombies yeah you know like werewolves aren't something and like i liked a lot of the character design i like the the mysticalness of the sisters and stuff but it never like capitalized enough to me and store like i feel you got a lot more of their relationship in the story of this weird family that like like out out of the game

like reading journal entries or whatever and then so i didn't i didn't love that as much um four was absolutely great but it just was different like shooting axes out of the air i was like that's cool as heck but that's this is not the same this isn't giving me the same fix um as and this is this is scandalous because i agree with your take that that that five is crazy racist yeah but there is there is visual and gameplay stuff that I do like. Almost like leaning into daytime, hot, desert. Like setting as horribly just tasteless, you know, as the narrative of that is. And pharmaceuticals and robbing third world countries of proper care and testing on them.

There was like there, I don't know. There was, there was something that I enjoyed about that gameplay that had nothing to do with the story of it. Yeah. Daytime is interesting for horror. Like you don't see it that much. So like,

you know, a movie like mid summer comes along and the entire day is in the daytime and you're like, this is fucked up yeah this is worse well since since there seem to be set on remaking the entire resident evil franchise anyway it feels like five is a one they could try to figure out how to mute some of those more offensive i don't know how they're going to i don't know either yeah like i i wouldn't even i don't know man maybe they'll just skip it they might and they might frog it leapfrog it yeah i mean i mean two is two is fun but even the like everybody loved the remake there was something about the character of mr nemesis like the fedora like it's just there

was a silliness to it we're like and and look like not that i'm gonna argue you know a giant snake in an attic isn't equally silly in its own way but um i also like i didn't feel safe in a police department i don't know it just it just felt like um yeah it didn't have the same um for me i love zero i think zero is phenomenal and i really love the zero was the was onube, and it's almost a precursor to, you know, the Alpha Bravo team's mashup of the original Resident Evil. But I really, really enjoyed that one a lot. But it is, like, because of my experience with the first one, I have consumed all Kool-Aid.

I will be first in line for any future release. Do you keep up with the lore or is the lore secondary to the way like because I've watched some of these CG Resident Evil movies and I'm like, this is so fucking baffling to me yeah like do you like when you see any characters yeah jill claire dynamics any chris jill claire relationship dynamics i do like leon worms his way in but i'm not like leon i could take or leave personally sure um but anything like because it also like it just hit on every level because the the stars team there was a predator feel of it too you know what i mean alpha team bravo team like we get to the chopper like it was all of the and the specialists of like i love a team of specialists you're the sniper guy you're the muscle you know what i mean like that's that's you're the master of unlocking yeah that's the the probably my big draw of dnd is like oh we as a team

come together and and you know compliment and fill fill any you know fill in the missing pieces that that otherwise we would be weak without i'm not saying that right but um i think you know what i mean yeah but i just yeah 100 i i so in terms of like larger world because then it's then it's like the movies never did it for me um we we re-watched resident evil one for the podcast and and the newer one yeah welcome to raccoon that's right yeah and and we yeah. And it's so distinct from the games that it's kind of like, I think if you treat it as your own thing, Resident Evil 1, the movie,

is kind of still fun. I know there are people who are really into that franchise, but I haven't watched all of it. Isn't there a brand new, brand new Resident Evil TV show or movie or something? There was a Netflix one

that was canceled. And then where, shoot, where Lance Reddick played Albert Wesker. Everyone said that he was the best part. And, you know, he's since passed. But then there is also an animated movie that just came out uh pretty recently i think it's called resident evil death island yeah that's right death island it's crazy how many swings they take with this franchise they're just like a new red like it's like once a year a new resident yeah properties the ninja turtles of of video games yeah right yeah yeah that's interesting to think about too

because not like well not to get too into ninja turtles but like i saw the new one and i really i quite enjoyed it it was it was a lot of fun but then looking back not a single one of the other ones are reviewed well and i was like well wait did people like this like enough to keep bringing it back and trying again but like it's the same with resident evil none of them are technically good, but they just keep doing it. Yeah. But the Resident Evil games, though, are awesome. Yes, absolutely.

By and large. And I haven't played all of them. I've definitely got to catch up with the modern entries of the franchise. I haven't played seven or eight. But these are extremely influential and important games. And certainly in the context of when they came out these i think these are these are great games and yeah resident evil one just i don't think it had as profound an impact on me as it did tarrant but it is a game that like oh wow it kind of changed my concept of what a console game could be yeah i highly recommend playing seven seven i gotta check it out yeah

was it's it's so good like there's a full there's a full level that like like you know you're you're drew barrymore and scream opening scene level play is phenomenal and terrifying and simple but intense and then the game starts and you're in the house with this fan and i was just like oh my god this is this is the best it's been since the first one wow does it do the move where it hits you with the title card after that because i always love that in the game hell yeah yes where you're like there's a full story like you've gotten a full story before the game starts it's amazing this is a different franchise but did you um did you get to mess with pt ever when that was when that was a thing that was available no i don't think so no oh oh oh the guillermo one right yes yeah i did no no no it's

a hallway game the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It's the scariest thing I think I've ever seen or experienced. It's so fucked. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when we covered it, I played it with Mary and she was like, this, I don't like, I don't like this. Yeah.

I don't like this. I like feel bad like it like it yeah it's awful yeah yeah yeah heather should we watch this thing you put in the chat well so yeah i put uh i put in i shared with the the room uh footage of the resident evil theme restaurant in japan um which we can we can share i i suggest jumping to like midway through the video because it's a promotional piece. It's very long from Capcom. But in Tokyo, they often have these theme restaurants. I once went to a Cowboy Bebop theme restaurant in Akihabara.

But this was the Resident Evil restaurant in 10 years ago, the Biohazard Cafe and Grill. That's a nightmare of a name of a place to eat. Here we go. Pets are missing or talking about the Arkley Mountains and the mansion up there, the mansion incident. They have newspapers on the walls from Resident Evil series.

Pet shop, all kinds of little things that really help set the tone. And as you walk in and enter the Biohazard grill, it would make sense only to have some ornate crest you would have to adorn the door with before it would even open. So I assume someone has since solved a very elaborate puzzle to get this crest up here, which now allows

us to proceed inside and see the rest of the restaurant. I'm in. I love it. I'm in. Your waitresses are in police officer restaurant. I'm in. I love it. I'm in. You've got your waitresses are in police officer outfits. Right, yeah. And then they sort of do a replica of the police station.

Oh, jeez. Where you eat. And then the menu is like Salisbury steak, and they give you handguns that's that is very different experience in america yes oh wow look at look at the they they ordered at the table yeah they ordered some kind of like uh beef steak it comes served on a skewer like a like a body length skewer yeah which then you cut off hunks of meat in order to eat.

She like picks up the gun and shoots at it. Yeah. Just a one sauce squirts out of the barrel of the gun. I love the idea of a dining experience that's supposed to evoke police lobby. Oh boy. Yeah. This whole thing kind of is like,

is deeply cursed in a way that I don't. Yeah. Also those, This whole thing kind of is like is deeply cursed in a way that I don't. Also, those those guys making the video are exactly who I think would be. Very bold and screened on that on that mic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I we should we should because the crest was mentioned and you talked about this earlier a little bit, Taryn, and I know you talked about this earlier, a little bit, Taryn. And I know we talked about this a lot,

but I do, we should touch, touch on the thing that I fondly characterize as resident evil, shitty little puzzles, which I always, which you start in resident evil one. They don't make any sense in terms of the environment. Like it doesn't really like, it kind of,

I guess it kind of makes sense in terms of where like it being a mansion, but once you're in the police station, once you start to get a different environments and you're still like putting jewels into statues and putting crests onto paintings it's it's like total nonsense but i think but i do it is a thing i have a lot of fondness for i always want to see one of these games i love the absurdity of its practicality like if this is a well-functioning umbrella facility, who needs to put a blue and red jewel into this tiger's eye to reveal basically a gun room?

Yeah. But one out of every five makes sense. I remember you got to get Rebecca to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano, and I'm like, there's something cool about this, something eerie and creepy. Right. But yeah, and also not only the practicality of these mechanisms, it's the the who even if it was like in panic mode under a zombie attack.

Why did someone put one jewel up in the water pitcher of that marble statue and then another jewel like in the floorboard of the kitchen. Yeah. Right. Well, also like one of the very first things that happens is you get a map for the first floor out of a statue's vase. And it's like, who needed a map of their own house? Yeah. Why did they print it?

And then why did they climb up on top of a statue and put it in a bucket? Yeah. Yeah. But thank goodness they did because, and put it in a bucket? Yeah. Yeah. But thank goodness they did. Cause boy, it was fun to get it. Any, any,

any closing thoughts, anything we missed Taryn? I don't think so. I mean, you know, some of that, some of that voice acting stuff, I,

you know, I've never been able to track down really like, but you know, also the, the, the sound of the the of the footsteps, the heavy footstep of the first Resident Evil, the clip clip clip clip like is so is so dear to my heart. But yeah, Barry, where's Barry? What a what a mansion like to have a time machine and travel back

to those recording sessions and just see like yeah alright try it again really lean into what a there's also one other thing

about the game that I want to like sing the praises of which is in in this era of gaming load screens in between uh like individual rooms was such like a a chunky part of hiding the programming behind a curtain and in like Final Fantasy games you do a really slow fade

in and out when you go from area to area resident evil covers that load time with a door like you you open a door to go into a next room and there is a slow you know rendered in real time polygonal door that slowly creeps open and ushers you into the next area which heightens the tension it was a great cover like it's it's a kojima level like oh what if and and now that you don't need those loads uh load screens to happen anymore those elements are still preserved in like if you're playing it on a ps5 you still have to open the door and it still fucking works like you're still like oh what's going to be am I going to

like immediately get a jump scare from a zombie am I going to get like a beautiful ornate pool room like what's going to be on the other side of the door it's a really good bit of design 100% well hey we were talking voice acting

just a second ago, and I think that segues nicely into our segment. Let's see how we stack up against the most memorable voice acting in video game history. It's the return of VO Theater. And Matt, you got something for us. That's right, yeah. I've sent you all a script in your email.

So it'll be there. Should I have sent it before we started? Absolutely. Did I send it when we were, you know, some part through the show? Because I realized I forgot. I did. But it should be there. And I'll do this stage directions.

Taryn, why don't you read Guy? Why don't you read Guy? And he's sort of like a, you know... The role I was born to play. Yeah, you're Guy, but you're sort of like a, like, you run like a boxing gym guy, so you're sort of like, you're that kind of guy, you know? Okay.

Nick, why don't you read for Rio, and, you know, just give that everything you got. Great. And Heather, you'll be Bear, okay? Okay. And Bear is like a big fighter guy. Oh, okay. Big fighter guy.

So this is from Shenmue, if you didn't already say it. I did not say it. The Dreamcast game Shenmue. Yeah. Which Heather and I both played. Taren, did you ever mess with Shenmue? Did you ever Dreamcast? No. I missed Dreamcast game Shenmue, which Heather and I both played. Taren, did you ever mess with Shenmue? Did you ever Dreamcast? No, I missed Dreamcast.

I was so hard on 64 for so long. Right. And then was straight into the PlayStation disc console. The Shenmue, I think, is a game that I think is kind of a debacle, but it's fascinating and I'm glad it exists. Was the Spider-man game dreamcast there was like a spider-man game that came out on there was one that was also on uh i think it was they eventually got it on everything it was uh for playstation uh dreamcast and i think i think

the first one is on nintendo 64 as well you are correct, Taren. The PS1 Spider-Man got ported to Dreamcast and got a graphical overhaul. I love those games. I do remember playing that at a friend's house. There was also a good Resident Evil on it, Code Veronica, which I don't remember that got ported anywhere else. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that.

It probably was on PS2. If you are unfamiliar with Shenmue at home, this was a game that was sort of a slice of life in a slice of life mystery where you play as a guy named Rio who's trying to solve, I believe, a murder. It's been so, I mean, it's been so long since I've played Shenmue. Is it his dad's murder? Yeah, his dad's murder. But the game also includes like that you can get a part time job using a forklift. You can go into an arcade in Shenmue and play old Sega classics.

So it feels like you're in a town. And that was part of the pleasure of playing Shenmue. But it has a really ambitious game that the world and technology were not like really ready for but like if you like the yakuza games are like a like a modern version of what shenmue is trying to absolutely yeah you can draw a straight line from shenmue to yakuza for sure um why don't we keep that are you gonna read these states because i know you transcribed this you did not find the script for shenmue Are you going to read these stage directions? Yeah, I wrote them.

I'll read them. Here we go. This is from Shenmue. Interior, some sort of alley or garage or something. People are standing around. Hey, it's you again. How about some arm wrestling? He'll be your opponent.

It's 40 per bet. How about a match? Maybe I'll be your opponent. It's 40 per bet. How about a match? Maybe I'll try it. All right. Let's go. Time skip. The fight is about to begin. Here's a newcomer, a daredevil, all the way from Japan.

Ryo Hazuki against a monster who broke 99 arms. Bear Norton. People are cheering. Bear is basking in it. You want me to call a doctor? Ryo and Bear are now in arm wrestling positions. Sorry, your arm will make it 100. We'll see about that.

Might as well get ready. You'll hear me say fight, then begin. Ready? Ready. Fight! I got you! Bear wins. The crowd boos.

We hate Bear. Too bad. You lost. Scene. Great. Wow. Too bad. You lost. Scene. Great. Wow, very good. Very good. That was great.

An incredible rendition. I will now share my screen to show you exactly how they did it here in the game. And it is a big mess. Hey, it's a big mess. Hey, it's Jurgis. How about some more wrestling? Do you view your opponent? It's $40 per bet.

How about a match? Maybe I'll try it. All right, let's go. Here's an ultimate. A daredevil all the way from Japan. go it's like he's recording into a microphone from the other side of the room love bear norton's character do you want me to call a doctor sorry your arm will make it 100 we'll see about that i got you

wow Wow. I wish you'd given me the Tony Clifton direction. That's such a perfect. That's exactly what he sounds like. I was trying to place it for so long. He's Tony Clifton. I also like that Rio, and this is true for the entire game, Rio's delivery on everything is like he has never said words before.

That's why I kind of thought Nick would be perfect for the read. That's right in Weiger's wheelhouse. You want someone who's not believable as a human? I got you. Burned into my brain is like him interviewing, like when I played the game back in the 90s or 2000s, him interviewing kids to be like, hey, do you have any details on this murderer that happened?

Except he asks like, hey, do you remember what happened that day? And you're like, what the, like if you're any human who heard that question you'd be like i have no literally no information yeah i don't know what the fuck you're talking i'm sorry man i i i don't deal with solicitors i wish you all the best very well perhaps i will learn more from you in the future good good luck good luck i i donate to a lot of places and so i like to give directly to shelters and causes but i wish you all the best donation

now there's an idea it did it's those graphics seeing those graphics it made me uh real hungry for some time crisis oh yeah oh yeah yeah it was just in terms of like color palette and and the like it just i was like oh i miss me some time crisis yeah some aggressively visible polygon yes yeah i love it there's something about those like those those early 2000s arcade visible polygons where it's like the refresh rate is 120 frames per second. It's so smooth and pretty. Yeah. But it's also you're zooming in really fast on like a mannequin's face.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. That rock, Matt. Good. Good clip.

You pick there. And hey, that's that's this week's get played. Our is by alex gonzalez dead air alex g on twitter and instagram and also we got get animated going which you can find only at patreon.com slash get played uh heather we're still making our way through harui suzumiya yeah we're watching mid-2000s mega hit the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya we're watching uh three episodes this week from the final arc of season two of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, subtitled The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya. So come check it out. If you watch anime, if you don't watch anime, if you just like hearing our rat like voices squeaking through your speakers. And also you get our entire back catalog there where we talked about a bunch of stuff so check that out uh taryn killam our guest what an absolute treat to have you here please

come back anytime so great to talk with you such a fan of all of you individually a fan of the podcast very very happy to be here uh that's that's really nice you to say thank you so much i know it's a weird time to do be plugging anything but you have anything you'd like to direct people towards i don't know if you've covered this this is not of my own thing but i just finished tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow oh yeah you read that and talked about it we have we have not oh it's wonderful and it feels very appropriate for get played it's a novel about uh it really about relationships this this friendship but um it it exists in the world of game design. And I really loved it.

I love that. I really, truly want to read that book. I cannot fucking wait. Yeah. It's really well done. If we make it into content, we can justify it.

It does a really great job of playing with, like, chapter structure, too, where, yeah, and that's all I'll say about it without spoiling anything. But I just was very impressed, and I think if you like video games, you'll especially like it. But if you're just a human with feelings, it's, it's really an enjoyable read.

Oh, there you go. Well, I will want to, I was planning to read that anyway, but with that endorsement, he said human with feelings. He said human with feelings he said human with feelings now well i could learn things uh and you know i it brings me no pleasure to do this uh especially because i feel like we just you know i feel like we bonded pretty hard on the show with you taryn and uh i'm just gonna take the bullet for this even though you said that i was at the top of the list, and I don't know if this is going to change this for you. But you got played, and I'm so sorry. Holy shit. Holy

shit. And here I thought I played along. Holy shit. I was the player. No, I was the player No I was the playhead Oh damn I have the feeling In my soul right now

Is the sound that they would play On the HBO interstitial series And it goes Brain games is now over, but I'm going to change brain games with, uh, get played. Get played is now over.