Triple Click - Triple Play: Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Skol! Kirk, Maddy, and Jason are all playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and they have oh so many thoughts. The gang dive into what they like (the story! the mysteries!) and don't like (the bugs!) about Ubisoft's new Viking game. (Spoilers: It's way too long.)One More Thing:Kirk: Just King ThingsMaddy: The Queen’s GambitJason: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart TurtonSlate interview with Gary Kasparov about his work on Queen’s Gambit: https://slate.com/culture/2020/11/queens-gambit-garry-kasparov-interview-netflix-chess-adviser.htmlJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/join Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Lay down the oars on the long ship. Lift the horn to your lips and press triangle to raid. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we all played Assassin's Creed Valhalla, a game about being a Viking invading England. Sweening a big unwieldy axe and a big unwieldy game. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shrier.

And I'm Kirk Hamilton. And hey. And we're back. Here we are. Hello. We're back. for another episode. Another episode.

My daughter is currently devouring an entire slice of pizza. Nice. I wish I were devouring an entire slice of pizza right now. Yeah, maybe after this. I don't know. That sounds really good. So did you two know that if people become maximum fun members, they get access to these really cool episodes of the show that we record called Beanscast,

where we spoil video games and movies? Did you do know about this? I did know that. I could know it a little bit more. I might not have known it. You should explain for Kirk's sake. Yes, yes. Right, right. So, Kirk, if you wanted access to these really cool episodes, you could go to Maximumfund.org slash join if you wanted to.

Wow. That sounds enticing, I got to say. This month we're watching three Mel Brooks movies because I don't know why. You can ask Jason why we're doing that. Because we're playing too many video games the rest of the time. And we wanted to watch movies. We're going to analyze those on this month's being cast. But there's a bunch of other cool ones in there. So people should consider becoming members joining and listening to those if they want to. Or you can just listen to this show. You can. You can also do that. We launched a Discord last week. That's right. And it's still up and you can still join it. There's a link down in the show notes. This is not for members. This is for everybody.

We haven't taken it down. We have to take it down. The Discord is still there. It hasn't crashed and burned. We got it verified in fact. And we have a whole, we have like a vanity URL. If you just go to Discord slash like triple click pod. and you'll get there. There's emojis that people have made. There's like a Maddie emoji and a Kirk emoji. Wow. And there's also a, there's a bunger emoji. That's the most important.

It goes bunger, bunger, bunger, bunger, bunger, bonger, bonger, when you see fun. It's been really cool. Thanks to everybody who came and joined up. There's a ton of people over there. It's been really fun to just see people talking. And everyone's been really nice, which is also cool. And actually, we were joking last time about the weather channel,

because there's one of the channels is just for people to say the weather. But it's actually really nice. It is. Maybe it's not surprising that I think that since I've always been an advocate of talking about the weather on podcasts. But seeing people from all around the world who listen to this podcast saying, oh, like, here I am in Germany and this is what the weather is like is actually really amazing. So that's been a nice little part of the Discord. I'm waiting for someone to come in from Antarctica and be like, hey, I'm in the research vessel here. And I listen to triple click and it is minus 4,000 degrees.

If you listen to triple click and you were in the Arctic, either one, you got to check out. this Discord. We don't. Yeah, please come join our Discord. Last thing, something to mention up front is we have made a little ethics policy for Triple Click because we get a lot of free stuff and we disclose that on the show. And we decided to start having ethics. We decided this would be a good time to have it.

We had ethics before. We're just, you know, also putting them on the MaxFun website. Right. So this is kind of standard practice for most publications. And as it happens, Triple Click is a media outlet like this is our publication. So we thought it'd be cool to make a little ethics policy. That'll just be linked in the show notes. You can go check it out.

It's not anything very exciting. But that does now exist. So one more thing before we get started. A few days ago, we got an email from somebody in response to my PS5 controller chat about advanced haptics or whatever you want to call it. And he had some interesting things to say. So allow me to play a conversation that I just had with him. My name is Dan Sunshine. I'm a mechanical engineer, and I've spent probably the past two decades working as a mechanical engineer.

First, I was at NASA building devices that went to Mars, and then I was at a big fruit company. So you are literally a rocket scientist. Actually, aerospace engineer, I think would be the way to phrase it. Love it, love it. I love hearing from a rocket scientist who's like, hey, triple-click people, let me tell you what's really going on here. So you emailed us a few days ago saying, hey, Jason, when you were talking about all that haptics nonsense involving the PS5 controller, here's how it actually works. So do you want to kind of talk me through what you said in your email to us? Sure, sure. So what it prompted it was you had said something along the lines of the new PS5 controller has advanced haptics nonsense. And I thought it, which is totally, totally understandable because marketing certainly markets. But the thing to understand. stands is they're fundamentally different technologies in the PS4 and the PS5 controllers. And I think, like, a good metaphor would be comparing like a helicopter versus an airplane. You know, both of them

are going to get you from point A to point B, and they're going to do it in the air, but like totally different in how they actually work. So yeah, so why don't you talk me through the PS4 controller one and then how it kind of changed? So the PS4 controller uses a very, very tried and true older technology. Partational mass, rotational off-centric thing that was in. old pagers in the old cell phones, and to give you an idea how cheap it is, pretty much every time to go to a restaurant and you get one of those little buzzers that says on your table's ready, that's using the exact same technology. Is this the same that was in the N64's Rumble Pack?

Because that was really what started this whole phase. Yes. If you imagine you take a quarter and you drill a hole through the quarter and you stick it on a motor shaft. And so now when you spin the motor, the quarter spins nice and smooth. But if you were to say cut that quarter now on half from like 12 o'clock to six o'clock. and so you have half a quarter on the motor shaft. When you spin it, it's going to vibrate. So that's like all the technology.

It's very basic. But because of that, it has some really interesting limitations or challenges when you're designing an experience that the user's going to feel in their hands. So fundamentally, there's kind of three challenges and then I'll kind of explain how they affect video game. But the most important is the speed that you spin the motor is directly proportional to how hard it shakes.

and it's actually exponential. So if you spin twice as fast, you actually get four times as much load. The second one, so I'll kind of go to that three like limitations. The second one is this thing has inertia, it's like a car. Like when you accelerate a car, it takes time, quarter to half a second to get up the speed, and then the quarter to half a second to get down the speed.

And then finally, the vibration that's creating is general vibration. It's just kind of like circular. So those are those three challenges. Now, let's say you're designing a video game where you're carrying around a baby in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Can't imagine a game like that. And you think, like, it would be really great

if the controller buzzed like the heart of the baby. And so when you're nice and calm, it's going at 60 beats per minute. But when you get near bad guys with something scary, it goes faster. It goes to 180 beats per minute. And that would be the eccentric motor that the PS4 has. So let's say you want to vibrate it at 60 beats per minute. The first way would be to just spins per second.

Now, you actually can't do that with an electric motor. but let's assume you can. When you then get to the scary situation and the baby's heartbeat goes to 180 beats for a minute, you now spend three times as fast, which means you generate nine times as much load. And so all of a sudden you'd be kind of, they'd be controlled 10 times basically,

the shaking, and it'd be really uncomfortable. It wouldn't be something they could do. And so you can't design around situations where you need to change the speed. If you imagine you're designing a car game and you kind of like want it so that when you go over the rumble strips on the left or right of the highway you want it to shake at you know some speed at 40 miles an hour and you want it to shake twice as fast when you go at 80 miles an hour you can't do that because when you go twice as fast it's all of a sudden way more shaking which isn't a comfortable experience

the other problem is as I said it takes time to spin it up and so if we now instead of let's say in the baby situation where we're holding the controller instead of spinning once per second you want to just spin it up quick you know spin up and then spin down spin up spin down it takes It takes half a second to spin up, half a second to spin down. And so you can't create that situation. If you're trying to do a shooting game and you're doing every time you shoot, and you want kind of like boom, boom, boom, boom, you can't do that with a spin-up and takes time to spin down. Got it.

So in the world of PS5, it's using a fundamentally different technology. Yeah, so can you talk us through what does it mean to be advanced tactics? So instead of the, in a circle, this uses something called an LRA, a linear resonant actuator or a voice coil. it's the same thing that drives a speaker. And basically you're wiggling a mass back and forth in a line. And it's kind of like those old infomercials for the shake weight, where you're just shaking and it's just going back and forth in a straight line.

But this, there's one really fundamental key difference here. Unlike the PS4, where the faster you spin, the harder you shake, five can instantaneously, I mean like 150th of a second, but very fast if we're talking about the situation where you're carrying a baby in a post-poplifted wasteland, you can hit it at some load, let's say, 4 out of 10, and then all of a sudden jump up to 180 beats a minute, no problem, because it's so fast to get to speed.

And you can get to that faster. Like another good example would be in the shooting of a gun. You can quickly simulate shooting a fast gun where every single bullet that exits gives you a little jolt. But then you can at the same time, if you hit the end of it, if you get the end of the magazine, you can give it a slightly lower level. So if we're talking numbers, let's say you want like a 5 out of 10. you're shooting, it's like 5,5, 55, 55, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2.

That's 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2. And you can, you'll feel the difference of that. And then also it allows you to kind of feel the vibration in different parts of the controller in a way that the old technology would have? Yeah, definitely. So the old one is the phone, it just kind of generally shakes the whole controller in kind of general vibration. When you're aligned, you have a lot more ability to direct how you feel the vibration.

In the PS5 controller, there's, two of these, one in each kind of, you can just wiggle the left one up and down, you can just wiggle the right one up and down, you can wiggle them together, and you can create all of these different shapes of vibration that you could never do in the PS4, where it's just kind of general vibration. The thing that surprises me most is that it took so long to get any sort of innovation in vibration technology, because you said that this really, this new technology only arrived in 2015, was it? Well, the LRA linear resonant actuator, it's been around for a long time. time. It's what hard drives use to kind of go up and down the hard drive reader. The problem

or the difficulty is it's more expensive. As I said, you know, you can literally take a one cent motor and attach a quarter to it, I guess a 25 cent quarter and it'll work. It's complicated relatively mechanism. And in addition, the control, to actually control it is more complicated. So there is now a circuit board in the PS5 that has an additional chip or additional hardware to control it. So it's more expensive to build. It's just harder to use. Got it. So you're saying that the next time we go to Cheesecake Factory, we will not be seeing advanced haptic. Probably not. Probably not.

Probably not. Probably not. Thank you so much, Dan. This has been illuminating, and I appreciate you coming on to help explain it. No problem. Cool. What game did we get for free? Let's talk about a video game that we were all sent for free.

So, this episode is going to be a triple play on Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the new Assassin's Creed game, like the 48th official Assassin's Creed game in the long running series. And it's bigger than ever. Also the best selling launch day ever for an assessment. It is. They didn't give exact numbers, but it is sold a lot of copies. I can kind of imagine that. So we've all played this game, just breakdowns up front.

First of all, yes, we were all sent copies of this game by Ubisoft. We've all been playing on different platforms. I have been playing on PC. Maddie has been playing on PS4 and then PS5. And Jason has played... Free upgrade. Yeah, Jason has played on Xbox Series X and on PS5. Maddie has played about 20 hours. I've played 40-some hours and Jason has played 55 hours.

We know what Jason's been doing. Staggering. And yet it's barely even an inch of the game, I'm sure. It's true. It's a really big game. And we're going to talk about all of it. I'd say the one spoiler that we are going to mention is what happens in the Sears Hut, which is something that happens around where you're at, Maddie, like 20 hours into the game. It's not a huge thing, but it is one thing that is kind of a cool thing that has to do with like who Avor is and which kind of Avor you're playing as and that kind of thing. So we are going to talk about that just to warn you all up front. So yeah. Jason, I know you really liked this game. This was your one more thing last week. I almost want to ask Maddie first. Maddie, you've played 20 hours. What do you think of Assassin's Creed Valhalla so far?

I play 20 hours. I like it now. I will admit that for the first 10 hours, I didn't like it very much, which is tough. This happens a lot with video games. That's the first 10 hours, you're like, oh, you just got to get through the beginning of the game. and then it gets really good. In this case, you just have to leave Norway, and then the actual game starts, and you get to see the title card and so on and so forth. But I also feel... Do you love it when the title card comes in after 10 hours?

I love it. I love seeing the title card for a game, being like, oh, that's what I've been playing for the past 10 hours. Thank you for telling me. Thanks. Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Here I am. I also keep comparing this game to Horizon Zero Dawn,

and I think that that comparison is actually fair. At first, I thought it was because I had just beaten Horizon Zero Zero Dawn. And I was like, it's really just that my brain is stuck in that world. But playing this game more, there are so many similarities that I'm like, oh, they played Horizon Zero Dawn and they're borrowing a lot of design sensibilities from it that I don't think we're in previous Assassin's Creed games, or at least I don't, I don't remember if Odyssey had these things. I don't think Origins did. But there's, you can ride down zip lines. You can whistle to alert enemies stealth-wise, which I used to do a lot in HCD, you are using a bow and arrow, you're upgrading

all of your equipment, you, there are a bunch of other things that they'll come to me as we talk about it. Yeah, I will say, so those things were all on Assassin's Creed before Horizon and Horizon borrowed those things from Assassin's Creed. One thing is that you can slide while running, which you could not do in previous Assassin's Creed's and you could do in Horizon. Well, also, you play, if you're playing as a woman, you can play as a woman with like big braided hair. So that can be... Also, you fight giant robot dinosaurs all the time. Right. That is that's true. That is probably the most obvious similarity. Although it is still a science fiction game that has a modern day component that is sci-fi and then a past, well, past slash future component in HCD's case. Yeah, I don't know.

Since basically, I sort of see all those things as things that Horizon borrowed from Assassin's Creed, which Horizon was a very Ubisofty game. But I think playing them so close, it seems, that makes sense that it would just, the two experiences would be very, like, combined in your mind. And I wasn't loving it because I liked Alois so much as a protagonist. And Avor, I mean, we can talk about it, but... Oh, yeah. There's not a lot to Avor, at least so far anyway. It's more just that other people in the game I've decided I like a lot.

And that's allowed me to grow on the game a bit more than where I started out. So this is a game about Vikings. It is. Which means that you're pillaging. You sure are. get into the mindset of pillaging and being a selfish Viking pillager. Very against Aloy, who has this beautiful moral quest that she's on for the entire game. But Avor's beautiful moral quest is pillaging.

She's more a member of the early Sundom, like the pre-Reformation Sun Kingdom, her empire. Yeah. And I think that after 20 hours, I'm starting to see more of Avor's, like her relationship with her brother and that sort of. line with her, Sigurd, yeah, and their misgivings about their adopted dad and so on and so forth and coming into their own. And I'm like, okay, fine, I can get on board for this story. But in those first 10, 15 hours, I was like, damn, I really got to get in the mindset of invading another place, taking over people's houses, destroying all of their shit. And it is proudly acknowledged in this

game, by the way. Like, this is not any video game etiquette where like you're laying and you're destroying the pots and nobody acknowledges it. It's like, like part of the game is that you're destroying people's shit and taking it from them and you are proudly announcing that you're doing all of that and that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing because you're a Viking and I don't know it took me a little while again in that mindset but I'm in it now and I'm loving it I'm destroying stuff I'm burning people's houses I am solving people's around town much like Bayekwood and Assassin's Creed origins but I'm mostly just burning people's stuff and taking it and being part of an invading force and living the dream so I guess I like this game now

what do you think of it Kirk? So let me go next, since Jason and you're the farthest in, and I know you really like the game. And I want to say that I really like this game as well. And actually have warmed to it significantly since we talked on one last thing or one more thing last week. And I'm sort of in between the two of you in terms of how long I've played. And I do think that the length of time that I've been playing the game has been directly proportionate to how much I like it. The more I play it, the more I like it. The more I play it, the more I like Avor.

I felt very similar to what you're describing at the beginning. I thought the parts in Norway were a real, just kind of a drag, partly just because it was all these angry Vikings just kind of yelling at each other and fighting over like family shit. And I was kind of like, this just feels, it feels kind of overly familiar, just the aesthetics of it after God of War and Sky Room and so many video games, too human. I mean, who can forget, too human, the most iconic of all those games I just listed. And just, it was not grabbing me.

I was like, I don't care. These people all seem like jerks. And then I got to England. And like I was saying last week, I was like, oh, this just kind of, it looks so similar to the Witcher 3. It just has that kind of dark ages England look. It's not as exciting as Egypt or Greece. And so that wasn't really grabbing me.

And Avor still hadn't grabbed me. Now I've kind of been in it long enough and been hanging out with Avor long enough that I've grown to really like her as a character. And I should say I'm playing as the Let the Animus Choose option, which makes it so that in this part of the story, you are female Avor and you become male Avor when you go to the Sears Hut in like a different reality. So I think that that's actually confusingly worded, but I'm glad that I'm playing with that setting on and to know that that's kind of the intended way of playing. Yeah, I turned it on because you recommended it and I want to see what happens when I get

to the Sears Hodge. It's confusingly worded so it doesn't spoil the alternate reality. Which is cool and I get that. I've seen people like on websites and stuff describing it as making it sound like you randomly switch between them, which is just not the case. So anyways, yeah, I've really come around on it. And I do think it's interesting the way that the game slowly moves away from the like conquering, pillaging, Viking thing pretty quickly until you don't really need to be doing any more rating to upgrade your town. And soon, you're just a person running a nice little town and helping your friends out.

Yeah, you've already stolen everyone's stuff. You've already finished with that. So to zoom out for a second. Oh, it's time to zoom out. All right. Oh, finally. Zoom out with Jason. Zuming out with Jason.

The premise of the game, the reason you're running the settlement is because, well, it's because you leave Norway for England and the idea is that you want to, like, build yourself a new home in England. But you don't just want to raid everybody the way that you were in Norway. You want to forge alliances. And the entire game story is basically going from region to region, forming alliances with all these different people. And the more you do.

that, the more it feels like a standard Assassin's Creed game, and the more Avor has grown on me. Those stories, there's this kind of, there's a lot of different branches for this story, a lot like an Odyssey, how you kind of follow these main branches. Side quests are handled differently. We'll talk about that maybe in a little bit, though. You talked about that some last week, Jason. But those stories are great, where you go and there's these little dramas that play out between warring kingdoms. You get a real sense of just how kind of hardscrabble this whole time period was. This is set in the 9th century. So it's like way post fall of the Roman Empire. Everyone is just out for themselves. It's just these kind of factions of people brutally making

alliances and then just changing the rules and killing one another. And you're trying to form these alliances. And that all feels really good. It's really only in the actual raids, which are marked on the map. And then you pull up with your ship and you press a button to like begin a raid. You press triangle to raid. You press triangle to raid. And actually there's a thing that'll happen where if you ever die on a raid. I don't. I don't know if this still happens in the game or if this was just in my pre-release copy, but if you die on a raid, it loads you up just sitting there in your boat quietly. Yes, no, it does.

Right in front of the place you're about to raid. You have to start over the entire raid again, by the way. If you die during a raid, you go back to zero. So you better not die during a raid. But what cracks me up about it is that you're all just sitting there on your boat. And it's like this boat full of Viking Drangers. And they're like sitting there looking and the people on the beach are looking at you. And you can just sit there for a while.

And it's like, all right, hey guys. And then you're like, brun, you boil your home. you're like, go! And everyone like runs in after five minutes of times. Anyways, you can also decide whether or not you want to raid. You can just dock there and only sneak in, well, you can sneak in stealthy style and just be like, I'm not, I'm going to raid you, but I'm going to do it covertly. I don't know how much of that you've done. Well, you can't really, because most of the things. You can't actually open unless you're raiding. So I think that mechanic, the rating mechanic is the only one that feels like you're just being forced into this,

especially when you're rating a monastery, which is something I've watched that AMC Vikings show, and that is like very brutally depicted on that show where in this show, in the game, you can't kill civilians, but they definitely killed civilians in real life. They were just like totally murdering people and taking all their stuff. It's very strange because it's so incongruous with what you're doing in the story, which is making alliances with these people. And then even after you make an alliance with the region, you can still go and randomly raid like their monasteries.

It's very strange. Doesn't that make you think that the, it's basically the storytelling is in conflict with the true history of what actually happened? and they're trying to depict the history, which is interesting and cool. Or it's like we need, someone said, hey, we need a raid mechanic, and that had nothing to do with the story. They just implemented into the game. It was probably made by a studio in Bulgeria while everyone else is,

it's like just different components of like the Ubisoft formula that aren't quite meshing together the way that they, yeah. With actual history. It's not really part of the Assassin's Creed formula, though. Like the way that raiding feels in this game, it's like its own entire beast. Well, it feels kind of like the battles, the Spartan battles in... Yeah.

And there were like the fort assaults in Assassin's Creed for where you're like... Yeah, well, so there are two different types of raids, just not to conflate the two. One is the random, like you were describing where you find a pair of crossed axes on the map, and then you go and just steal some supplies for them. Those are pretty quick. And then there are castle assaults, which are part of the story. And those are very different because those give you little objectives. Those are actually super fun.

and they're more of like they're less civilians and randoms and random rating and more like each one has a purpose and you're doing it for a real good reason. So Jason, I want to know more of your specific thoughts you've played much more of this game since you had last week when you were already into it, but how are you feeling about the game now? Yeah, so my love for it has diminished a little bit

because for two reasons. And I still love this game. I really love this game. but two things that have really become a drag. One is it's incredibly glitchy. I don't know if you guys have noticed it, but it's one of the bugiest, like, big fall games I can remember playing in a long time. So it happened to you, Kirk?

You're on PC, and we are not. Yeah, I don't, I haven't noticed it as more buggy than another, than like an earlier Assassin's Creed game at launch, but that doesn't mean it's not buggy. It's plenty buggy. I haven't, like, had, like, falling into the world stuff or any real game-breaking stuff, certainly got its share of weirdness.

I have. Yeah, I've had some quests just like not work and like had to restart. At one point when I was in the fantasy realm that we'll talk about a little later, I was like trying to close a door and the game just wouldn't let me and I had to keep fighting infinite monsters. Anyway, so the glitchiness can be a drag because sometimes you'll hit that point, and I've talked about this in the past, but there's a point in a video game when it becomes, when it's a glitchy game where you start losing trust in the game and so like something will happen and you don't know if it was supposed to happen that way. You don't know if this guy was supposed to be hostile for this reason. And it's kind of a bummer feeling because it makes you feel

like your decisions, you don't know if your decisions actually matter or if it's just the game glitching out on you. But anyway, that's less significant than the real gripe I have with this game, which is, like many video games, it is way too fucking long. Like you said before, I've been playing for 50-something hours in the high end of the spectrum. And I've been playing I did some exploration, but I've really been doing a lot of story stuff mostly. Like I haven't spent a ton of time just exploring the world. Story stuff and killing order members, which is really cool and fun, finding the clues to track down the cult members and murder them.

And this game just never ends. Like the story path, this game is clearly meant to last you the next year or two until the next Assassin's Creed game. Well, I'm sure there will be DLC the same way that Odyssey just essentially became this endless game. There's DLC and answer ready. Yeah, I was kind of like optimistic when I saw the map because the map looks so much smaller than Odyssey's does. Too bad there's like seven of them. I mean, Odyssey's looked kind of small at first. It just keeps opening up.

Well, but Odyssey had all the water that was like the made it seem a lot bigger than I did. I shared that feeling, Jason. That compared to it, you're like, oh, this looks small and then you realize. Yeah, you're like, oh, this looks. And then you start playing and it's like, oh, my God. And you guys, you guys are probably around like 90, maybe 100 power or maybe Kirkier a little further than that. I'm at like 160, 170. You're at 160.

But you see on the map, there are some areas that are like 360 power, and you're like, Jesus Christ, this game is never going to end. And it's true, the game never ends. I've been playing so long that it just feels like it's, like makes my eyes bleed, like trying to, and I want to finish it just because I don't like doing, I know Kirk with Odyssey, like you played it over an extended period of time where you kept revisiting it. I don't really like doing that with these games. Like, I always, if I stop playing it, I'm probably not going to come back.

to it. So I just want to play it and finish it. But like the game is very much resisting my... It's big, man. And it really, I'm really trying to embrace that way of playing. And the side quest thing that you mentioned last week that we'll mention again is just that there are these, there are no longer side quests. I don't think that's totally accurate. It feels like there are side quests. Like there are some quests in my quest log that feel optional compared to the kingdom stories and the Odin, like Asgard story. Yeah, that's true. And, you know, like, and like the kind of main line stories. There's like just do quests for that kid. So the game doesn't distinguish between what's optional and what's a main quest. So, which is actually kind of

annoying as you get later on because you're like, I don't know what I actually have to do to keep finishing the story. And I'm guessing that it'll work like Odyssey did where for me I did all the three main storylines in Odyssey, which were similar, very similar to this. There was like the Atlantis supernatural storyline. There was the main storyline with Cassandra's family. And there was the, uh, the order or the, you know, the temple. storyline. And you had to actually beat all of them to get an ending that really felt like it all wrapped up because the identity of the leader of the Templars was like an important character in the main story. And you didn't identify that person until you did all of those. And like the

end of the supernatural storyline tied in with the modern day stuff in this really amazing way that tied all of that and Layla's storyline together. So I think you had to do those. And I'm guessing this is similar where you have to finish the whole Asgard story. You have to finish the main story of the kingdoms and you have to finish the order to get a true ending. And then the other stuff I'm seeing is optional. But there are also just out in the world, these little icons, these like orbs that you go to. And each one is this charming little story. And they're all really cool. And there are so many of them. Like there are even, they're also little glowing orbs. And some of them are big. And they're like marked as treasure and you want to get all of those. But also,

there are little ones. And sometimes it's just like it'll be a hut with a chess that just has some crafting materials in it. But it's still handmade. And like, has a cool little thing you have to figure out to get inside. And you could just play this game. Like a barricade and you have to shoot it through the window or something. And like, yeah, you have to shoot through the window. That one comes up a lot. And like, there's a feeling of like, cool.

Well, I want to just play this game that way and gradually take this all in. But it's so sprawling and ambitious. And the narrative goes so many different places that I am not totally sure what that experience will be like just because it'll take like 110 hours. and I won't finish it until like next June. Yeah. It can be frustrating later on because the story is actually really good and you want to know what's going to happen. The stuff between Avor and Sigurd is really good.

And then part of the real charm and what really makes this game work so well, in addition to the exploration, which is one of my favorite things about it. But my other favorite thing about it is that the way it's structured where like you go to these different regions and you can kind of, you get like two or three unlocked at once and you can decide to do them in any given order. Each one will either introduce you to these cool new characters who will then keep recurring, or each one will bring in old characters. And you'll really get to know, like this cast of, this ensemble cast of Saxons and Britons and fellow Vikings. And some of them are really fascinating. Some of them are terrible people and they're compelling in that way. And

some of them are pretty cool and have some interesting storylines. And there's some really cool stuff that happens between all of them and there is love and death and betrayal and all the other good stuff you would expect from a Viking saga story. Like it feels very much structured like a TV show where each new region is just like a new season with its own self-contained story and then also it might bring in some of the characters that you know and love. So it's cool and I want to keep doing it. But then just like each one is just like a never ending. It's just like, oh my God. I had a certain point where I was like, okay, it feels like we're at the climax of the story now, and then it's like four new regions that I have to play through.

And they're each called like the saga of something something. Yeah, yeah. It's like, here's a new saga that I have to complete. So, man, this game drags, and that's just such a video game problem that I wish these game developers would, I mean, it's systemic because people, they have to charge 60 and now soon $70, and people need to feel like they're getting their value out of these massive games, but it's a bummer.

They will feel that way about this. Get your hours worth. And I'm sure there are people out there listening to this and be like, oh, man, like, that sounds awesome because I can only afford to play this game. It's fun. I mean, that's all I want to play. It's just generally fun to play, yeah. Yeah.

For someone who is more, who has less time than disposable income for games, it can be a drag. Yeah. Jason, have you just stopped doing the little side quest entirely? Like, I don't know how I was to refer to the little mystery dots on the map. Yeah, that's what they're called like world mysteries, but they're mysteries. Yeah. Have you just stopped entirely? because you're only doing main quest now?

No, I just don't go out of my way to look for them as much as I did before in previous regions. Because there's so many, I feel like. There are a ton. Some of them I have liked, but I've also done somewhere I'm like, that was kind of a dumb one. And I don't blame anyone for this because they've had to write so many of these. But it's put me in a weird spot where I'm like, for ordinary, for Horizon Zero Dawn,

for example, I actually Googled like best side quests. and then I tried to play all of those because I was like, I want to know, I want to make sure I get to the good stuff. But for a game like this, I don't even know how one would go about compiling that because there are so many of these little dots. And I'm sure someone will compile those lists, perhaps even someone on my staff of guides writers, will do such a thing.

But it's, it seems impossible. Well, you can't really, because they're also short. They're short. They're all, they all take place within like a 10, radius. I would say there's at least one I found that's a cool King Lear reference. I don't know if either of you have found this yet, but that goes beyond just the place I found it and actually kind of covers a significant amount of the map and it like has some boss fights that are all like the whole, it's like, and it's one of, this game has a lot of that sort of English lit stuff

hidden in it where like you'll do Beowulf and then King, or I can see Sherwood Forest is on the map and I haven't gone there yet. And there's just like that whole period of literature is very well represented here. And that one is fun because it's like you have to, you feel cool because you get the reference. It's not super explicit, but you see what's going on. And you're like, I see what's going on here. And then it does kind of sprawl out into the whole region. And it winds up being these boss fights that are around the region that I'm assuming lead somewhere. So I would imagine there's going to be some nice compilations of those sorts of things, which I don't think there probably are as many of as there are just like, there was like, I found a guy who was like

a nudist who like wanted to steal the clothes from. And I was like, this is just silly. Like, I mean, it was funny, but it was a little like, whatever. What am I doing? Yeah. A thing I like about this game and about this series, so I've now played every single Assassin's Creed game. To our former boss, Stephen Totilla's chagrin, I have not finished rogue, but I finished all the other ones. I believe I finished all the other ones. And what's cool is...

Even the first one you finished? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I played so much of the first one, like, when it first came out. What's cool is that this series has now covered so much of recorded history because of these three most recent games. And we're still catching up to the first Assassin's Creed, which was set in the 12th century during the Crusade. So there was like 300 years after the events of this game, but we're pretty close at this point. Like this feels the most like the first one in terms

of setting. And then after that, we got Assassin's Creed 2 in Etzio's whole saga, which was like 15th, 16th century. Then, man, I mean, they got into like the 1800s. American Revolution. The American Revolution and then the 19th century with Syndicate. And then we went all the way back to like, I think it was 49 BC is when origins took place. And then we went even farther back in. We're like in ancient Greece. And it's so interesting to me, I'm like not much of a history buff, but I do think history is fascinating.

And every time I learn something about it, I'm like a shiny, a kid with a shiny toy. I'm like, wow, it's so interesting that things happened in the past. And then I forget it all a week later, you know? But it's been really cool to be like, I have now spent dozens and dozens of hours in all of these time periods. And when I put them together in my head like that and really arrange it, it gives me a sense of like human history that I think is actually kind of useful. And especially to see this period because after the fall of the Roman Empire, like that's when the Dark Ages happened. And you

kind of learn that in the history books. But seeing it, having played origins, which is like the height of the Roman Empire and things are going great. And then now it's like the world has kind of gone to shit and you're in the, you're going literally through the ruins of the Roman Empire. I think that's really interesting. And I also really like how this game depicts religion, because your religion, obviously, like, you follow the, like, Norse religion. And so it's all about Thor and Odin and those actual characters turn up in the mythological storyline, and you are Odin. So they're, like, very concerned with exploring that, which is interesting.

But also, Christianity is kind of just another religion that a bunch of people follow. It's making waves. It's out there. Yeah. And they're like, they're kind of like, they're just these other people. And it's not this dominant force that it actually becomes, even in later Assassin's Creed games, Catholicism and Christianity become this. like central to like the templar power and it's you know the way the world kind of is now where like

Christianity is the super dominant powerful religion at the time it was like pre crusades right and it was just kind of like all these people with their weird god and like I don't even understand what they're doing and I think I love that it comes up so often where you and your fellow Norse men and women are kind of like what is the deal with this religion like what are they doing and I find that really cool it's funny so there's there's a section later on where you actually navigate some pagan druid factions versus Christian factions. And there's some interesting stuff involving Sal Wayne, aka Halloween. Oh, I've heard about that.

That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is a cool time period just because there wasn't one dominant religion in the world. And so everybody... It's cool to visit in a video game. In real life, it was not... Don't get me wrong. I don't want to go live there.

No, that's what I mean. When I say cool, I think that it's very interesting in a way that I wasn't expecting. I know. I was like, didn't think I'd find that so kind of... compelling, but I do. Oh, yeah. And I think to one of the points that I think, Maddie, you made earlier, Avor definitely grows on you as time was on, but she's more of a cipher than like Cassandra or Bayekwer. I think that might be partially because of the performance and the accent and the character itself, just not being as like dominant and forceful as those two were. But I also think part of it is

just like the times and the context and the history and the, like, she's just not. quite as interesting, like a Viking lady. I mean, I guess that's kind of interesting, but it's not quite as like... I don't know. I feel like they could have come up with something. She could have been more like. Sure, but it's not someone who's, who's like entire, like, culture and history is based around raiding people is not going to be as like, there's not going to be as much room for depth as like an ancient Egyptian, like healer slash bounty hunter slash problem solver. You can just give her a cool backstory, honestly. They kind of try to. I feel like, I feel like the, okay, so the reason I like Bayek as a character is because he's part of this huge

structure and he has to worry about all the assassins shit, but really he's just sad that his son died and he's just a guy. Like, he's just a guy with a relatable problem that you understand. Avor, I don't feel like there's something I can point to and be like, oh, this is the thing that's driving her forward. I mean, maybe, maybe in 20 more hours, I'll be like, I finally understand her. Yeah. Well, this stuff, it's her and her. brother is the fundamental, like, conflict and question of this story. Well, and so, and to draw another parallel, I kind of agree with that. And actually, Maddie, I'm going to say that just thinking of it now, and I've been thinking about these three games, that I think that Bayak is the best character

of the three of, like, Cassandra Bayak. That's what I said on our triple click picks episode, as I recall. I remember you saying that, and I think I've come around, because I love Cassandra, but I think that Avor actually helps put Cassandra into focus for me, because Cassandra and Avor are pretty similar. and that both aren't super psyched about being assassins at all. Both are kind of just like maniac killers when you really get down to it. And what I really liked about Cassandra, I love her as a character, is just that she's this like smiling murderer who's just kind of like joyfully going around.

She's funny too. She's funny, she's fun. She's quippy. She's got a sense of humor about it all. And then she just kills people, like murders people who like have families. Yeah. And like, and Avor is the same way. But Aver is just Malacca.

A little, and Avor's just a little less fun. She's kind of more gritty. I mean, Kirk, you realize you're describing a character, two characters with dialogue options and one character who has a character. Like, that's a big difference here. I don't think that's entirely the difference. Like, I think it's also the way the characters are written. It's 100% the difference.

If you saw it. Not 100%. Wow. Maybe it makes up some of the difference, but it's not the entire difference. It's also the way the characters are written. If the games made, uh, if the games, like, made decisions for you as Avor and Cassandra, then you would have a much clearer sense of their personality,

as opposed to like, hey, I'm going to kill this guy, oh, I'm going to spare this guy, oh, I'm going to decide to give this person his acts. But in Valhalla, you make a choice, like once every like 5,000 lines of dialogue. Like, it's not like you're constantly changing the way the stories was. No way. You're making choices a lot more. But also, well, the other part of this equation is that in Odyssey and Valhalla, you can choose your gender, and Bayek is a person who doesn't, who has a pretty sure that all factors.

but the point is that like Bayak is for a number of reasons, the performance, the way he's written, sure. Like he is a more like whole feeling character than the other ones. Cassandra and Ivor or an Avor are an interesting comparison because they're similar in how they're both kind of missing that heart human part. And yet I like Cassandra a lot more as a character. And I think that just comes down to the performance and the specific dialogue she was given. I would agree with that. But I also think there's just a serious struggle in games with writing female characters. And Ubisoft, I mean, we can get into it. But like, this is a known issue with that studio that we've talked about on this show before and that I have been thinking about this whole time in playing the game and just being like, really the issue is with Ubisoft as a company. And those are some known issues that we've all heard about in terms of writing female characters, marketing female characters, whether or not we could even have a female character who is the defined choice, the authored choice, which this game also doesn't do.

am really excited to find out how they deal with the gender swap once I get far enough along. Like I'm doing Let the Enimus Choose and I want to go on that journey with them. But I also think it's sad that Odyssey and this game haven't made the commitment to having a fully authored female character that was designed by the team to be that. And the team wanted to with Odyssey. I know. I know. Or play Syndicate and like the DLC of Syndicate where Evie is the main character and you're like, you should have been the main character of the game. Your brother sucks.

Yeah. But I feel like a different weird problem is happening here where because you're trying to write a character who you can imagine as either a man or woman, you kind of end up with nothing. Like you kind of end up with a character who's not defined by their life experiences and how people treat them, which is boring inherently. And all you have for Cassandra is something like the voice actor coming forward and having this great performance, which makes a difference. I think she's very good. And Avor's voice actor, she's fine. I just don't feel like she has a lot to work with here because I don't feel like I understand. who this character is because they have to be a cipher in order for this construct to work.

Whereas Bayek, he's defined by fatherhood who he is, his relationships to other people and his specific life experiences and that's what's compelling about him as a character. And like, why not write a female character who's also defined by her relationships to other people, how she's treated, how she is in society, like just go go whole hog into it. Do that story. But that's not really what this is. Same thing with Aya and in origins where, and with, that idea of a version of origins that could have existed where Aya became the main character. Which would be so cool. And I liked how Odyssey made it so that you picked one of two characters who go on to exist in the story,

these brothers, this brother and sister. I like that idea. This game is odd. I mean, it's unusual. And I don't exactly hold it against it, but I totally agree with you that it makes the character feel less remarkable. It makes Ivor just feel more like, we've called her a cipher multiple times in this episode and more just like a cipher because it's like everything has to work both ways. though they could have just made it so that you play as female Ivor in the, you know, in Midgar

in the regular world, and then a male Ivor who is actually Odin in Asgard, which is how it works, and that's the way you're supposed to do it. But then the game is cagey about it because they don't want to spoil that. So then you could just wind up playing as one or the other. And then that's just kind of a less complex experience, but also I just, it's, yeah, it's a little weird. I don't, I don't, I'm not totally on board with the execution. I think that there's a, a cadre of people at Ubisoft and maybe that will now no longer be the case anymore but there was a

cadre of people who said hey this is a Viking game we have to have the male bearded warrior with two axes running around and slaughtering people like it can't be a can't be a girl has to be an alpha male like a shield maiden or something that's not a real thing except it is

except wait it is and it is worth it's especially worth bringing this stuff up and the stuff over the summer in the context of this game because I know there's some people out there who like don't want to play anymore you've saw games because of the culture of sexism yeah and harassment and it's certainly worth talking about i personally think that it's worth talking about the game on its own merits and i don't think that like the thousands of people who worked on this game who also suffered from the culture

of harassment um i think they're still and tried to make a good game despite that clearly right i think they're still proud of their work i think a lot of people are still proud very proud of their work i think a lot of the female developers who suffered from this culture are still very proud of their work on this game and other Ubisoft games. But if you're not comfortable playing Ubisoft games, I totally understand that after what we've seen over the summer. But yeah, all that is to say that it is really interesting

to see them trying to straddle that line. And I guess I'm kind of optimistic then in the future, they'll be able to make bolder creative choices now that it's no longer one person making all these calls. I am too. And I mean, I know that this game also had some other difficulties he's like the creative director being let go a few months before the game launched. And hell, COVID.

I mean, just as a logistical challenge COVID as well. And so as I'm seeing things like the glitches in the game and some of the other issues with polish, I don't know if those two things are related, but I can imagine that they might be related. And so I've kind of tried to take some of that with a grain of salt and be like, well, people had to complete this game without the person who was originally directing them because he was let go amid sexual impropriety allegations. so they had to figure out making the game.

I think that with the creative director, his decisions were mostly made before he was gone. I think COVID is the main reason that this game is so glitchy. Yeah, which is also a very fair reason to have these issues with the game as well. And yeah, I don't know. I will also say there was an extremely noticeable difference, at least for me playing it on PS4 as compared to PS5. I know this is not our next-gen console PS5 episode,

but now that I have a PS5, and I'm able to directly make that comparison. I don't know. I kind of get why somebody might want a PS5 because the game plays so much better on the PS5. It plays great on PC. I know people have had some issues with it and Watch Dogs has way more issues on PC,

like running well. But for me at least, on a 2080, so a pretty good GPU runs well. And it is buggy, but it's not crashy for me. And it plays smooth and is like a nice technical object for the most part. Yeah. Well, so one of the cool things, about this game and I think all Ubisoft games

now is that you can cross-save that is really cool platform. So what I did was, as I mentioned last week, I was playing on Xbox Series X for a while and then I switched to PS5 when I got a code for the PS5 version to test it out and first of all, both consoles run the game

great, it seems to... On PS5 does it use the cool controller stuff? Yeah, so that's what I was about to say. So I've been sticking with the PS5 version because the PS5 controller is so much better. It gets that rumble. So the Rumble stuff, it only uses that, from what I've seen, it only really uses that for some of the skills.

Like there's one skill where you have to hold the trigger to charge up, like your X. It's a good skill. And the longer you hold it, the more damage it'll do. Arguably an O.P. skill, actually. And so when you hold it, and this actually freak me out at first, the first time I did it, because I was so used to doing it on the Xbox controller, it like vibrates your trigger. And you have to, like, hold the trigger. It's a, like, it's a spider. Yeah. I was like, what the hell? And that's pretty cool.

But really, I mean, the PS5 controller, that's definitely going to be my default controller this generation because it just feels so much better than anything else that I have played with. The bowstring is pretty fun too. And I'm just saying. Sounds pretty cool. All right. Well, there's a lot more to talk about this game that we could get into. Maybe we'll do a beanscast next year sometime.

Like once if we actually finish this game. Yeah, in 20, 23 when we finished it. But for now, I think we're going to, I think we'll call it there. it's a good game. It's a cool one. Too long. Games are too long. It's true. I'm going to be playing it. Very big. Very big. You'll be playing it forever. All right. Let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing. Congratulations. You've won a ticket to attend an exclusive opportunity in a relaxing environment with two lovers. Wow. Well, this sounds like a sort of proposition of sorts, but really it's an ad for our podcast. Wonderful.

It's a show we do here on Maximum Fun where we talk about things that we like. and things that we're into. I'm Rachel McElroy, and you just heard Griffin McElroy, and we are excited for you to join us as we talk about movies and music and books. Things like sneezing, or the idea of rain. Can you get news or information you can use? I don't think so.

You cannot, because we're here to talk to you about pumper nickel bread. You can find new episodes on Wednesdays. So catch the wave. I can remember as a child thinking, it was odd that here was this can full of meat. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on my show, Bullseye, David Letterman on shame, regret, and canned hams.

Is this the best delivery version of pork? That's this week on Bullseye for maximum fun.org and NPR. And we are back for one more thing. Ooh, this is a very off topic, one more thing. I like it. Maddie, what is your one more thing? Why don't you go first? because I've actually seen your one more thing and I want to talk about it too.

Sure. So I watched all of the Queens Gambit, which is a show on Netflix starring Anya Taylor Joy, as a woman who never existed in real life, but wouldn't it be cool if she did? Sure way. Before you guys even start talking about this, just know that I've only watched the first two episodes. So she don't say anything past those. I won't tell you, but you should finish it, Jason. I think you want to enjoy the rest of the show.

Just watched them last night. We're watching them a couple every night. Yeah. So this is a show that's set in the 50s and 60s. It's over the course of this young woman's life. She's an orphan. She discovers from the janitor at her orphanage that she's extremely good at chess and takes lessons from him. She also struggles with addiction to drugs and later on alcohol.

And so she's got that problem throughout her life. And that intersects with how she perceives chess in a cool and also sometimes harmful way where she has to deal with learning how to play chess and relaxing and focusing without drugs and sometimes using drugs in order to relax and focus and then deciding whether or not she wants to continue with that. And it's so cool. It's such a freaking cool show. It is, isn't it?

It's really good. It is taking me back to being a kid who was not that good at chess, but at least kind of good at chess and like playing my dad. And those are fun memories anyway. And it also takes me into memories of just playing competitive games and being the only woman in the room and various scenarios and dealing with that. And this shows very much about that, although it paints a very nice picture of what that could be like because she is repeatedly in situations where she has to prove herself. And then, of course, she does and overcomes obstacles, which is such a power fantasy. But I feel like it's one I don't get to see very often. So I really enjoyed the hell of it.

That's what I like about it, too. I like that it's just like in the end of fantasy of a person. And it's a great story that just is like so well executed. I mean beautiful looking, beautiful sounding. The sets, the costumes, this music and the directing. There's some like really knockout sequences of like chess tournaments with all this overcutting and like split screen stuff that's so cool. Yeah, they keep having to come up with ways to film chess tournaments and make them exciting in different ways each time.

And they do. And they do. And I love it. There's a lot of good facial acting. That is such a mix of the acting and the chess itself. I've read and heard that the chess is very, very accurate. Like there are some little things they tweaked, but like a friend of mine had a son who competed in like competitive chess tournaments. And he's like, they really nailed the tournaments. They're really like that.

I think maybe Gary Kasparov was the helped with this show and it helped them get the chess right. I believe that that is correct. I'll Bing in here if I'm wrong about that. Bing, Kirk from the Future here. I'm not wrong about that. and we are going to link to a cool slate article, an interview with Kasparov, about his role helping with this show, which he did help with, and it's a really cool article.

Bing! But it is, so they really got the chess right, which is cool because, like you, Maddie, I played chess when I was a kid, but I never got great or anything. I know the, like, Blitzkrieg opening. What do they call it? It's like that one open where you take and, like, get made in three moves or whatever.

Like, I learned that as a kid, and that was all I ever learned. And I was like, that's all I need to beat my friends. but they really convey it's so like the flow of the game how it's just this abstract like battle of lines in a constrained space and how cool that is and then how you can just tell like when someone's made a mistake

or when someone's like gone the wrong direction or like or is on the defensive they just show it in all these subtle ways that's really cool and makes the show so engaging you're always like aware of what's going on and kind of getting drawn in it's really great yeah I also really like how they display the different kinds of tactics that you can use in a competitive game, which also reminds

me of fighting games and even Starcraft and other things, where it's like you can memorize combos or a lot of techniques, but her strength is that she plays intuitively. And so it's like she learns all of these different techniques, but then in the moment she'll see some pattern. And there are chess players who really do this. That part isn't a fantasy. Like those are actual techniques that people can learn. And that part of it was just really cool to me to observe the similarities, between different kinds of competitive games, and also how much of it is really just psychological and your own self-confidence.

And I don't know, it really brought me down a rabbit hole to like reading articles about female chess masters and like what their thoughts were on the show. And it's just been really cool. It's a cool show. I'm glad it exists. It's just a real crowd pleaser. It's really good.

I liked it too. Jason, what is your one more thing? Okay, so a couple of months ago, I recommended a book called The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. as it turned out just after I finished that book, he released another book. And you guys should tell me if this sounds familiar. It is a book set on a East India Company ship in the 17th century that is staffed by a whole bunch of sailors and top men and captains.

Does something supernatural happen? Is there a mystery? Something supernatural happens and people start dying. and there's a certain someone on board who has to figure out what the hell is going on. Does the whole thing look like an old Macintosh game by chance? It does. As you're reading, you suddenly start seeing these bigsles. So Stuart Turton, the author of this book, is a gamer, and I would not be shocked at all if you were inspired by Return of the Oberdin for this book.

But I finished it last week, and it is fantastic. Highly, highly recommended. Once again, it's called The Devil in the Darkwater. by Stuart Turton. He's just so good at, like, coming up with these high concept, like, amazing premises, and then creating these twisty mysteries that just make you want to keep reading and reading and reading. It's very, like, very, like, spiritual successor, Agatha Christie,

like, combined with, like, these awesome high concept, supernatural stuff. And it's just really, really enjoyable book. And I recommend it. Nice. I want to read it. I want to read the other one you said of his, too. The Evelyn Had Hardcastle Book. mystery books are cool um all right well i'll go quickly mine is related to books but it is a podcast

that i've been listening to it is a podcast called just king things which is um uh stephen king hosted by my friends hosted by yeah so um cameron i know cameron kunslman who worked at kataku for a time who i just have known through oh cameron yeah cameron is awesome through various uh various things and also hosted by michael lutz who uh i don't know but is a cool co-host and the two of them are reading through all of Stephen King's books. And it's like one episode a month about and they're like five or six in. I just saw, I think it was just someone tweeting about it. And I was like, oh, that sounds fun.

Why haven't I listened to a podcast like this before? Because I've read a ton of Stephen King and really like Stephen King and reread his books and stuff. And yeah, so I've just been listening to it. And it's been really cool. I really liked the episode on Carrie, which I haven't read. Have either of you read Carrie? No.

So I've seen the movie. This is part of why I haven't listened to this podcast because I saw it and I'm like, oh, I want to listen to this. but I haven't read every single book by Stephen King. So I'll just do that really quickly. And then I'll listen to the show. It would be a fun book club. You could skip some.

Like I listen to the one on Rage, which you can't even get anymore. That's a Bachman book that's about a school shooting and just sounds pretty wretched. Like they both kind of hated it. And the whole episode is just them being like, you don't need to read this book. But they do talk about it.

So it's almost like you get a book report on the book. You don't have to read it, which is nice. I skipped the one on Salem's lot because I haven't read that book. And now I really want to because it actually kind of sounds like it's a banger. and I'm listening to the one right now on Night Shift, his first short story collection, which is, I think, the first Stephen King that I actually read when I was probably like 11 or 12. And some of those books were scary. That one has trucks, the one where all the trucks come to life and start killing people.

Right, which gets adapted into a movie. Into maximum overdrive. A terrible movie that is like nothing like the short story. A lot of his short stories when they get adapted into movies don't make sense because it also has lawnmower man. Well, lawnmower man is just about a guy who comes over with a weird lawnmower that, like, drives on its own, and he's kind of like pan, like he's almost like a, some kind of weird god figure. Like a trickster. Yeah, and then he like kills the narrator with the lawnmower. And that's the whole story where they made it into a movie about virtual reality and like an AI taking over the world.

I can't even really remember. So anyways, that podcast is really good. I feel like a lot of our listeners might dig it. It's just like really nerdy, in-depth analysis. And it'll give you a nice appreciation for all of those little kingisms that connect his books and the sort of broader universe. So I'm really digging it. So is it like one episode per book? Yes, and it's been one episode per book. So you can listen to Just the Ones a book. You can, yeah. And they'll refer back to things, but they always explain what they said on past episodes. So that's called Just King Things. It's just a podcast. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Isn't that where people get podcasts? And it's great. So I take three, three good things. Three good things.

Watch, read, and listen to. Not video games. We're going to talk about so many video games next week. I think that's why we all kind of just like very deliberately, because next week we're going to get into every game of that song. Next week will be a game, a game extravaganza. But until then, this has been fun. And I will see you both next week. See you both in Valhalla. Bye.

Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod.

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