Nobody Panic - How to Get into Gaming with Ben Starr

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Stevie and Tessa’s excellent friend Ben Starr is only the bloody lead in Final Fantasy XVI, so he came in to a) explain how two people who are intimidated by gaming (and have only played the Sims) can ease themselves in and b) do his Clive voice which makes everyone both quite aroused and very uncomfortable. Subscribe to the Nobody Panic Patreon at patreon.com/nobodypanicWant to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Aniya Das for Plosive.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The date is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace. It's coming to London. True on Saturday the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September at King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. A. Games. It's in the game. I don't think that's what it is. It's the second one. Welcome to Nobody Fanick, where we do different how-toes each week. I'm Stevie. I'm Tessa. Game Over.

Sorry. Oh, oh, activate multiplayer mode. Ben has entered the game. Ben Star, who is the voice of Clive, the lead character in the new Final Fantasy. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for having me.

Ben is a star? Oh, his name is Liz. Literally, Ben Starr. Yeah. He's a star, he's an actor, and he's also our old friend. I mean, I remember listening to this show when you guys first started. I listened to your first ever episode. I've, yeah, I've come to your live show.

You actually have, yeah. Yeah, friend and fan. Friend and fan. But friend and fan, we've seen you do a lot of plays. Too many to count. Too many plays. I've watched you in many TV shows. Top on, top off.

Top off. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's my brand now. Yeah. But. We're here to learn about how to get into gaming because you're in a big game.

But also, you are a big fan-off game. And not just that game, many games. Many games. You're a gamer. I am a gamer. And me and Tessa, no. No. I think before we, I think we'd like to discuss how we feel about game.

Of course. First, for the listeners, because some people will be fans and we'll be going, oh my God, I know this game. And some people are going, sorry, what's the game? Now it's called Final Fantasy. And but four. 16. 16.

Went in so probably before. I don't know why I thought it was 16. Okay, so 16. 16. So this, could you tell us about the world that Final Fantasy takes place in? Yeah. So I'm a massive fan of these games as well. So the fact that I'm in them is a bit strange.

But there are 16 mainline entries into this franchise. It's over 35 years old. Sorry, what's a mainline entry? So like most things, imagine the Fast and the Furious. You've got your 10 Fast and the Furious films. But you also have the excellent film, Hobbs and Shaw, and that is a spin-off film. Great, great, great, great. So because it is a very popular franchise, Final Fantasy is one of the great storied franchises and video games.

Way back to the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 80s, there have been lots of spin-off games. Right, okay, amazing. Because it's a popular, it's not just a game series, it's a franchise, people want to make money off it. And the world is... Fantasy? Each game is completely different. So imagine it like an anthology series. So each game begins and ends in its own individual world.

And they create stories from scratch, these entire fantasy worlds. So imagine if it was Lord of the Rings, but a new, entirely new world. With no law and no canon and no like... No. What they do have are these kind of repeating motifs. So you have things that are... You're going to die when you see these. Chocobos, which are giant...

And I, conversely, I'm out. What's the chocolate? They're like the giant bird-like creatures, which can be ridden like a horse. On the ground or in the air? Well, they can fly a little bit, but I imagine the physics of a chocolate. It doesn't work. And then these other things called Mughals, which are these... Tess is like having a stroke.

When I tell you, when I tell you the Final Fantasy 16 is a dark fantasy drama. When I tell you, there are also Mughals, which are these beautiful little bear-like flying creatures with tiny little antenna. Yeah, they're really cute. But when you're saying the Chocobos, they're... have popped up in other Final Fantasy. So you can essentially, if you wanted to, go straight in with any of the... Great, brilliant. So that's good.

So you didn't feel like, oh, God, I've got to get through 15. This is an entirely new story. Love it. Great. You don't have to play. And that's what they want people to do is, if you haven't played any of these before, this is an entirely new story, entirely new characters. That is nice.

And are we playing as Clive? You are playing as Clive. Oh, it's just my dream. So, entry, so you can go in Final Fantasy 16, having not... Final Fantasy, would you recommend going in if you'd never played a game before? Yes, I would actually. Great. Because they've done this really amazing thing where they've taken out difficulty.

They want everyone to be able to play this game. And when you see, you'll think, oh my God, this looks so flashy and Clive's running around with all these powers. They allow you to add these rings to your character. So that basically you don't have to be able to press all these buttons. You can literally just press one button and it kind of fights for you. So it's a story mode. Oh, canon.

So because this is a story, it's really a. a story there's like 11 and a half hours worth of in-game cut sequences that we did all our facial capture for and action games can be quite daunting and they realize that they want everyone to be able to play it so you can have it so that like you just press one button Clive fights for you can have it where he automatically dodges you can't get hit you know you can get all the way through this story experience the world experience all of it and you don't have to oh my god I don't do that then yes I feel very excited about that because I think my issue with gaming is my thumbs be too big I can't get because I

I do understand, I have played a few times, and in lockdown, I attempted to get into the most recent Lara Croft. And I could tell what we were supposed to do, I would be like, jump, Lara. I think the problem is that you were shouting at the screen as opposed to actually... He simply wasn't jumping. And I couldn't, just could not get the thing. And I felt like, and anyone who tried to explain it to me, I felt like when I tried to explain the iPad to my grandma, you know, like I just was like, I can't press it. And I really felt the things felt backward that when I wanted to go forward, I actually had to pull it backwards. And my, you can't see me, but imagine my my hands are like claws, like, very tense claws. Very, very tense claws. Like the claws of the chocobo.

It's like the claws of the chocobo. It's not a terrifying creature for everyone, please. It's a beautiful, wonderful animal. A beautiful gaming animal. It's a majestic animal. Yes, but my claws are nonetheless, chocoboed up. And I have felt, so I do very, very stressed with gaming that being like, I have worked it out, but I can't do the physicality thing. So that feels very exciting to me. And then always, see, my shoulders are even going up now. And I've talked about this in the podcast before, but age eight at a large family party, I was sent to the attic where all the teenage cousins were hanging out. And everyone was playing football manager or football FIFA or something.

Football FIFA, probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, football FIFA. We all know it. They gave me the controls. I was the goalkeeper. I picked up my ball. I threw it directly into my own net. Everyone screamed.

I was removed from the attic. Yes. I never picked up a controller again. Many, if I may, not to be so gender stereotypical, because obviously every single person can play a game. But a lot of women I know have a very sick, like I have the one where I sort of said, I just said I was really good at Golden Eye a lot to try and make men like me. Sure, sure, sure. And then went out with someone and they were having a gold night party. And I was like, oh God.

And I was just really bad. It was just really obvious. And he knew, I knew. He never said anything. but the respect went from quite high to solo. That's on him. There's more to me than Golden Eye. Sure, sure, sure.

But in that moment, there wasn't. Yeah, because you had lied repeatedly. And just really over the top. And said there was nothing else to you but Golden Eye. But Godineye. And it got out of my way to change the conversation to Golden Eye. Of course. The only game I'd ever played to that point was Sims

and Crash Bandicoot Team Racing, both of which very bad at. There was no element that I could have been good at GoldenE. So, yeah, I think there's something very deep within. about, sort of similarly when like, with like football and stuff, if you didn't grow up playing football in PE, and then like you're in the park and some guys are playing football and the ball comes close to you and you're like, I should kick it back, but I will, I'll kick it.

I'd rather die. I'll miss the ball and kick myself in the face. I think it's a very, very, very human reaction. Yeah, it's a human reaction. With gaming, that stuff, so how would you, for someone like me... I'm sweating. We all are. I'm nervous for you. Obviously.

Yeah, how can we... Obviously, we'll go in with story mode with Final Fantasy 16. That goes about saying, because I want to make you make some fun noses. I'm going to make you proud. Can we make you take your trousers down or something? Can we make you... Do you know what's really interesting is that that sentiment is not as strange as you'd think. Right.

Yeah. There's a game out right now called Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. You're familiar with Zelda to the Kingdom? Right now is one of the most popular video games in the world. And what it gives you is almost unlimited freedom to build. And it is this amazing world in which you run around as Link. Of course, Link. And he's got to save Zelda and you're running around Hyrule.

And you have this thing where you can build. You can basically piece things together with this thing. And you can create these amazing contractions. Within the first day, all people did was make giant penises. And the internet and TikTok was just flooded with just penises, ejaculating fire everywhere. And you just think that is the, this is like a really serious, beautiful fantasy world and people are just walking around.

It's lighting, wouldn't think so. But that's the joy. Like, I watched my partner play Red Dead 2. It was like, came home. He'd been playing it for age and he was so engrossed. And the guy was just having a bath. Yeah. He was having a bath.

And he was sort of thinking, he was like, how long have you been in the base? But he didn't have quite a while. He was like, I was hoping someone, the woman downstairs with the bar maid would like come up and maybe have sex with me, but she just came up and offered me some soap. I was like, this is great. So it's that stuff that kind of really makes the game quite fun. There are many games recently. in which you can just have a bath.

Immersive Sims have really just thought, you know what this game needs is my character sitting in fictional water. Getting clean. Getting clean. And then there's one game called Ghost Asushima where you can have a bath and it's set in feudal Japan. And yeah, you just sit in the bath

and then you just tell your character what he wants to think about whilst he's in the bath. So he'll be like, think upon the mountains or think upon my relationship with my father. We've done a Dungeons and Dragons episode because I didn't understand it

and Tessa plays it. And it feels like gaming like that is like, next step from Dungeons and Dragons? Or not enough options for you? Yeah, I think it's that of being like, don't give me mountains or my family. Maybe I want to think about, well, my penis or something.

You know, maybe I think about... Zelda's for you. Is Zelda, and sorry, if this is so dumb, can I see other people's penises that they've made? Is it a multi-person world? So, no, this is a single-player world. But, I mean, with video games now, because it's just such an online group of, you know,

collective, that everyone just shares all their stuff now with video share. So like that game, that famous, Leroy Jenkins. World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft. I quoted that yesterday. Yeah, I can't.

I still think about it most weeks. If you're listening, you don't understand. Just Google Leroy Jenkins and watch the... Yeah, we actually can't describe it to you. It won't be as good as if you just watch. I think I've often conflated seeing World of Warcraft or understanding the world of war and then being like all games, everyone else on the internet can also join in. They can.

And I think that I know I'm confusing you now because what I said is one. thing and I'm saying the exact opposite. But video games are like TV, right? Video games are a medium through which we can interact with things. So it's like saying what do you like on TV? Do you like the news or do you like sports or do you like, you know, succession? These things are all completely different in what they attempt to do. And so video games are like that as well. Ultimately, it's just a medium in which we have physical interaction with and what that game does can just vastly change from genre to genre. You can have a game that is literally just reading a book. It's an interesting interactive story. You can have a game where you interact with people like second life, the really

famous one, about 15 years ago, where people would just live lives as different avatars, you know, themselves, just living normal life. You can play a game where it's just fighting people, you know, like Tekken or Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat. They are such different disciplines. And what we have now is various communities, like the fighting game community is its own group of people who love and appreciate these games and keep that community alive. MMOs, which we're talking about with World of Warcraft and final. Final Fantasy 14, a massively multiplayer online video game. And what that is like World of Warcraft, or more recently, Final Fantasy 14,

which is in one of the mainline entries, is a hugely popular MMO in which you play as a character and you can buy land in it. You can go on this amazing story. You can sign up to guilds. You can create all these characters. And people have found their partners and got married in these games. Like people hold vigils for their friends after they've died. It is this incredible community of like 20 million active players.

And they live their lives in this game. And people have spent thousands and thousands of hours in them because they have found their community. Where they live geographically, they don't have the people that share those interests. But on the other side of the world, they found people who like them. And that's the power of what video games can do,

is they can literally do everything. You play video games on your phone. You know, Candy Crush, it's a game. Yeah. So saying you don't like gaming is like saying, I don't like music or I don't like TV. There'll be something that you watch. It's just that we haven't found the game that would really get us in.

Also, the barrier to entry to video games is a little bit higher because what it's asking of you is to spend £600 on a video game console. Well, that was going to be my question. What would you say is a good entry-level console or way of playing the game for someone like me and Tessa? A Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch. The big three console makers are Microsoft. Microsoft who make the Xbox series of consoles.

There's Sony who make the PlayStation, and there's Nintendo who make the Nintendo. So they make the Switch. And they have made the Wii, and they have very excess. Oh, that's moving on. And so those are three major consoles, each with their own first party, so Microsoft make their own games that are only available on Xbox

or games that are only available on PlayStation or only available on Nintendo Switch. And Nintendo Switch is the most accessible because you can pick it up, you can plug it into your TV and play it, or most importantly, you can pick it up and it's a screen and you can play it on the go. Okay. And it's amazing. The games that they have are so accessible to people who aren't necessarily the most video game literate.

They are family-friendly games that kids and adults can both enjoy. They're basically like the Pixar of... Yeah, because I think my sister's partner plays one and he's like some toast and he has to get out of the toast. No, he has to like get out of the breadbin and go. into the to the toaster. Outstanding games. And that's, I think that is, yeah. Yeah.

And it looks quite fun. Like, sort of like phone games, but slightly more. Yeah. And they don't, they don't require that level of understanding that we, me as a gamer, I completely take for granted because not only you have to have that, you understand where the buttons are. And it's going to take an hour or two for you to get used to it. Then it becomes second nature to you.

It's a really difficult thing to master. I take it for granted. I have over decades of playing video games. I pretty much understand what button layouts and, the idea of like inverted controls and stuff are. And that may sound really difficult to understand, but it's something that I just do now because I've played video games for so long.

But Nintendo are so good at welcoming in new players. Okay. And I couldn't recommend the Nintendo Switch enough. You have Mario Kart on there, which is just the most fun thing. So maybe that's a good, like, first game for people then. It's amazing. Mario Odyssey, Zelda, these games are so magical

that I would always recommend that to someone. But if you like something more mature, like the incredible television show that we've just all seen this year, The Last of Us, on HBO, was originally a video game on the Sony PlayStation. It's too scary. I can't do it. I can't be in the same house when my partner is playing. Sony is really well known on the PlayStation for creating these amazingly moving in-depth character games, which are about story and naughty dog who made The Last of Us and they also made this game called Uncharted. The fidelity with which they're recreating these worlds. is absolutely remarkable. And to kind of get back a little bit,

Final Fantasy 16 isn't made directly by Sony, but they have a exclusivity deal with the PlayStation 5. And it's in that vein of these epic single-player stories that are told over multiple hours that you couldn't get in a TV show and you couldn't get in a film. And that's what that's for. Final Fantasy, do you need to have a PlayStation 5 to play it?

Yeah. Right, okay. And this is probably the most stupid thing. ask, you know, like, how, so like I've got an iPhone, I remember me, I should have, I've got an iPhone, like, excess, whatever, which is like seven years old. And it still obviously works really fine and it's great. If you were going to buy a PlayStation, do you basically have to get the most recent one in order to get the most out of anything? So what will happen when you buy a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox or Nintendo is you buy that hardware and then over a period of time, that hardware will update itself. You don't need to buy anything. It's like a phone. You'll probably have

it for about four or five years before the PlayStation. 6 comes in. And then that kind of decimates it because then the new games are all for PlayStation 6 fights the PlayStation 5 destroys it. That's part of Final Fantasy. Yeah, yeah.

But then so like, so Final Fantasy if I had a PlayStation 4, I couldn't play the new Funnel? Right, so, okay, so that's how they basically get you to try to make you buy the next. Okay, understood. Like an Xbox game, you have to have an Xbox, you couldn't put the thing into the I see.

I think those two big things of like, which console do you put it in? And they're like, how do the thumbs work? I think those things feel so overwhelming because they are, a bit like sort of learning how a car works or any of that shit

or literally learning to do literally anything. Someone uses like a phrase, an industry phrase like MMO and we're all like, oh, I'm too scared, you're using all the special words. And then you're like, it just means many. Yeah.

Many, many. Oh. You've been listening. I've been listening. And I think it's a case of just like bravely plowing through that for an hour of working out the thumbs. Are they good, like, YouTube channels, are they good,

are they good sort of tutorials that you could recommend that for people that want to learn about, to be like, what does the turn to my thumbs do? Because it's the ones on the side, to be out, if I'm honest. The ones that you are, like, at the front of the console? Like, what's, like, the L-1?

I'm like, what's that? So, most video games are brilliant at teaching you. And so what you usually have is a tutorial level at the beginning of most games. Yeah. I know that. And so they don't just go, please put 50 buttons in

you know like press all these look really cool because you're playing a video game for probably about 30 hours over you forget that you this is how you do this game and for the first three hours I'm rubbish at games for the first three hours right but a good game knows that you're going to be rubbish

it assumes you've never played a video game before okay most great games assume that you have no idea even what a controller is like they're that it's really that explicit and so it will then at the beginning throw an incredibly easy enemy at you that will require you to input one button

and then it will say, hey, how about you input two buttons and three buttons? And then before you know it, you are a master at this thing. Oh, that's really good. And that's why video games and video game developers are geniuses, because they make you feel incredible. They are these power fantasies. And all you're doing is pressing these buttons, which it has slowly introduced you over time.

And they are so brilliant. It will teach you things that you don't realize that it's teaching you. And where the camera will place itself and it'll show a monster over there. And the only thing in the room will be this one particular weapon. So the only thing you can do is use that weapon. And then so further on the game, you automatically know, oh, it's that enemy, that weapon. That's how you defeat that thing. And it's just picking up all of these things subconsciously that by the end of the game, you feel like a real badass.

Yeah. And I suppose that helps because my thing is when you watch someone play a game, you've not been on that journey with them. So you're just watching them go like, okay, I've got to use the, the sort of Calgario to defeat Bongo. I don't know what that game's from, but, like, yes, I haven't seen all of the stages. Also, most of the stuff on YouTube that you look at

is always, how do you get this thing? So people go onto YouTube because they're at that point in the game where it's high-level play and they need to find out how to do something. Yeah. So it's never going to be like, this is how to do the tutorial.

The tutorial's telling you how to do the tutorial. It's already that. Yeah, I didn't realize they have them. My only game is this Lara Croft game, and I did, I went into it cross. I went, I didn't. I didn't go in with my heart and my eyes open. And I was like, you know, stupid to do, can't do the thumbs.

And I was like, okay, I've sort of grasped it. And then the moment it got like even a bit harder, I was very quick to like, be like, throw it all away. And I think I just need to take some of that energy. And I'm not coming into this in a soft and vulnerable way. And we all must. And we all must. I need to come and be like, I'm ready, I'm ready to learn.

We're probably bringing a lot of baggage of like, oh, God, I can't game. I'm bringing so much baggage to the table. But the world is there with open. arms for us if we just... It's trying to get us in and we're going, no, I couldn't possibly! Because we're so badly burned. But also you don't need to play action games.

I really want to say that like these some of the most... Because before it was something that was a relatively small industry, which is now expanded into something huge. More and more people are getting into making games. They have more access to making games. So these tools to make games have just increased exponentially. People are making different types of games. So we're not just making shooter games.

action games, football games. We are making games that are about a kid in high school who's just dealing with depression. And you are watching these beautiful stories unfold and they are speaking to you in a way that isn't just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. And I have played more games over the past 10 years that have been about people trying to comprehend their own lives and are so incredibly moving. And they found a way of expressing that through gameplay, whether that's you just making choices and how that affects the person mentally.

It's really, really beautiful. and there are so many games out there, these just wonderful sweeping stories told over maybe about three hours that aren't just about people finding treasure. So they're not all like 30-hour, like... Yeah, so the fact that you can spend £5 or you can spend $150,000. So there's actually a big range.

You can also, I haven't spoken about Xbox yet, but they're doing it better than anyone. You have this thing called Game Pass where you spend maybe like £15 a month, and it's Netflix. So basically every game is included in that £15 on their platform. So you just buy it. an Xbox Series X, which would be, you know, 400 pounds or 500 pounds.

It's a big asking price. Then you spend 15 pounds, and you can play these games for no extra cost. Also, Xbox are trying to make video games as accessible as possible. So on a Samsung TV, you can actually just download the Xbox app on your Samsung TV and buy an Xbox controller, and you can play through your TV. You don't even need the box itself. Oh, okay. Streaming games is becoming the thing.

There's a bit of lag and it isn't as good as playing it directly onto your TV. But in the next five years, you're not even going to need the box. You're just going to need the subscription. Because that might be a barrier. People can't just drop 400 quid on an Xbox. Exactly. Streaming it right. So it's kind of similar to TV in that way.

It's moving fast. Other thing I want to ask about is, so you know, like, there's the gaming community online and stuff like that. Like, how would you find people who are also playing the game that you want to chat to? Is it just through like Twitter, Instagram or just like searching? Reddit is really really. really popular. If you want to find, like, I think already there's a Final Fantasy 16 Reddit that has about 15,000 or 16,000 people who just talk about it regularly and the game isn't even out yet. Okay, great. So Reddit is the play. Yeah, but I think YouTube's

really good. If you want help with games, YouTube and online has become the haven for talking about video games. It's a form of entertainment which has found its audience online. It isn't very much in the, in inverted commas, mainstream. Even though it is the most mainstream thing. It's just not on linear TV. It's a kind of a dichotomy, right, where it is, it is feel a little bit exiled onto online. But in doing so, it has galvanised those groups of people to find ways of connecting with each other in different ways. Anything that is a community that is tight-knit and obsessed about something. If you're not involved, you're just like, what?

How? Yeah, how have you? I want to be. But like how do you get, yeah. So it's like anything, isn't it? You've just got to remove your own baggage and you've got to like start to like getting a switch or getting and start to start, start. starting slow, not going straight in with something that might, even if it is easy

so like if the first game I ever play is Final Fantasy, even if it's on the easy story mode, I will be overwhelmed. I will have to just do like a couple of other little things just so I go yes, I can be some toast in a toaster. And then I can make you do the noises. I would love to recommend one video game to be...

Take trousers off to do the noises. I can just do that for you at any point. I was going to say you should do some noises for us. so we know what to expect. But I'm just going to be WhatsApping your videos of you doing things and me making you say things for about a year. I do have a dog in the game if that sells it. I have a dog.

He'll be with you the whole time. Can the dog get hurt? His name is Togel. He fights with you and you can pet him. And that was one of my greatest achievements in life was when they showed like a little trailer that we had and it's my character going, good boy. And it was can you pet the dog.

Said yes, you can pet the dog on Final Fantasy 16. and it was a video of me saying, good boy to Toggle. And I just thought, I've made it. I've made it, guys. I did see that, actually. Can you play the dog? Good boss.

The great thing about this game is Toggle can actually heal you in battle. So it's just a really strange thing. And my character goes, my wounds boy. And I just think like, really? What are going to lick them? Yeah, what's he going to do? My wounds boy?

When I'm near death. You are doing such damage to the credibility of this game. No. Does he lick the wounds? No, there's no physical. I think, I think. There's no physical touch it. I don't get to touch it.

No, it's, I think... Well, how could you? You don't touch it? I think he lobs me a potion. I think in his fur, apparently, he has some potions. He loves it? Yeah. This poor, like...

Yeah. All right. Oh, Togel. Have you got any friends in there? Have I got any friends? Yeah. I personally have you, too. And that's about it.

Has Clive got any pals? Yeah, he has lots of pals. Okay. Which I can't really talk about at the moment. He has lots of companions that he meets all over. Can you do your Clive voice and say, uh, What do I can say? I'm not very good at the key.

Just tell it that it's available in all good bookstores and that it's out now and then suggest that we come on the journey with you. I can't look. I'm so sorry because also you know me. I'm going to put my headphones. Yeah, I'll look away. I'll pretend to be a professional woman.

Okay, Ben, let's just go for one more take. Thank you so much. Clive and Torgle. Final Fantasy 16 is available now in all good bookstores. Even though it's not a book, it's a video game. So what is it doing in a bookstore?

Toggle, my wounds boy. There you go. Oh my God, Clive's so much hotter than I was imagining. He sounds so aroused. Does that Clive's M.O.? Yeah, he's hard, all the ejaculating. He's barely containing himself. I love it.

I love it. That's what he sounds like. Well, he doesn't sound like that all the time. You know, when you do like a 40-hour game or something, he can't just make that all the time. No, cool. Well, what was the thing you, because there's loads of little side things that you get to do, Side quest.

Side quest. What was one of those very mundane things that you had to do? Oh, yeah. So, I mean, in all of them, I obviously can't talk about what actually happens in the game. But in most video games, right, there are things called fetch quests or things that you have to do. And ultimately, when you play a video game, there are only so many mechanics that you can use. You know, go here, get this, bring it back. And then it's about how do we create interesting gameplay mechanics around that.

And so what we have is a way of using side quests to create world building. So you can have what seems like a mind. mundane task, which will always expand into something else that will teach you more about the world. You don't have to do it. You can learn about, you know, what this woman was going through, what this man was going through. You find like an injured soldier on the side of the road. And you're like, yeah, cool, I'll help you. Or you're like, nope.

Which is my favourite. No, thank you. Yeah. Or kill him. I'm very excited by that. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. It's very cool.

Yeah. I think it's unlocked a side quest in me. I think it's fantastic. It doesn't sound like it's unlocked a lot of them. I think Ben's voice unlocked a side quest in me, and I feel really uncomfortable about it. I can't look at you directly, so it was very good to come on the podcast. I'm really for 15 years, and I feel really uncomfortable.

Also, he's a very attractive man. Yeah, he's a very, very beautiful man. And you were famously absolutely Mouintern. Everyone says that. No, I think it's sort of, I mean, we realize, like, there's this really amazing community and world and stuff out there for me that just happens to be a sort of, behind a sort of four-foot wall that I've always been, like, oh, walls too high.

And it is high. But if, shimmy. Yeah. I can get over it. I'm making a metaphor here. There is a wall there, but I do believe it is not a large wall and I put the effort in. I could get over the wall.

And then it feels that there's a whole world out there that if you are also feeling like, oh, I don't want to go, I don't want to be parve. I can't get over the wall. Maybe we can. I actually do want to say one of the most amazing things to come out of the past five years, especially in the pandemic, is the fact that even if you don't play games, you can still experience them because so many people stream them. So if you do want to experience the story.

Twitch and Star. Yeah, so you can watch, and this is how people become very successful, is they just stream these games that people, they don't want to actually play them, but I want to watch someone who's really good of them play them. So a game like this, it has this amazing story. And if you don't want to play it, you can watch your favourite streamer, play the game,

experience the story for the first time. You too can have those emotions, and you don't have to play them. So you can experience it like it's a film or a TV show. How interesting. I initially thought the streaming community was more like, you watch to be like, how are they going to play this,

or what will they do or, you know, learning about how to get through a particular scene or whatever. I hadn't really realized that part of the magic was going through it for the first time with these people that you like and want to see them play it. And that sounds really fun.

It is really beautiful. And I've had the fortune to meet some amazing streamers in the lead up to this. And I've said, you know, I'll come on their streams as well and play along with them. Yeah. That's fun. Clive plays Clive.

Is there anybody in Clive? Clive plays Clive. Just saying all that you like, like, mouth along to your favourite. bookstores now. I'm so square. Is there anybody don't do the voice again?

We have. I've got stuff to do today. We're barely keeping it together then. But I've had like a, I don't, game, obviously I've said a million times, but I've been on Twitch because over lockdown I did like a, like some comedians went on Twitch and then immediately left Twitch when lockdown finished because it felt very gaming.

Yeah. Heavy. But I have watched people play games on there. And it is odd because I'd be like, yeah, I don't know why I'd do that. Like, and then you start and you kind of see immediately why it's so addictive. Because you can, like, at one point I was like cooking. I don't even know what the game was, but I was watching cyber something. And it was like, yeah.

And I was watching that. And I was watching for like an hour and a half. Yeah. I didn't even know the person, didn't know the game, was making like lasagna or something. And just make, which is actually quite involved. I'm making a very bad lasagna. Terrible lasagna, but really into. And it is fascinating how suddenly, it's like when you like pop in to see the Olympics,

and it's a sport you don't know. And you're like, cycling. And then you're like, get around the mellandrov! Get her out of the vela drone. I've never had that reaction. She shouldn't be allowed to compete. That is my favourite thing to do though, is watch a sport that you've never even heard of before.

Yeah, within half an hour you are going, oh my God, I wouldn't have done that. Like, I'm so in. You just need a bit of like stakes, or you just need to kind of plug in emotionally to one element. And then you're like crying about something. I think video game, you know, you enter a sort of arms folder, been like, what's this?

You're on a fucking sled, are you going down a thing? And then suddenly your shoulders come down, and you're so invested in something. It feels like I'm really excited to get in. I really do feel I'm arms folded in the doorway of gaming right now. And the actual game is more accessible than I thought. It's got a tutorial. It's meant to lead you in.

My interest is peaked by the Nintendo Switch. It's peaked. Yeah. I'm just going in straight to Clive. PlayStation 5. Yeah, difficult level. Difficult level. Clive's trousers.

That's my soul objective. He's got really great trousers. I believe it. I would say after there's Google Clive Rossfield. They'll be going off very soon. Good boy My wounds, boy My wounds boy

Thank you so much Ben Star And where can people find Do you give us your social media handles Yes Social media handles I'm the underscore Ben underscore star With two R's

because the Ben Star was already taken by someone who was in the second series of American Master Chef God damn it That's a blow So also follow him He seems like a nice guy Absolutely He makes a lot of great YouTube

YouTube content about how to make pies. Great. Actually, I think, yeah, follow him instead. Great. Follow him. And the game is out. Yes. Everywhere.

Everywhere. All good bookstores. It sounds fantastic. I'll be starting my stream. I'm off now to start now. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much, Ben, for being here. Thank you, Clive.

Thank you. Patrickliss, the dog. Torgle. Torgle. Torgle. The Moogles. The Moodles. Chocobos.

Chocaboos. Chocaboos. Bye.