BAFF 2026 / YouTube to Hollywood - Finding new talent?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Geeky Remy podcast. Joining us today, Mr. Leif Rex. [00:00:04] Speaker B: Hi. [00:00:05] Speaker A: Mr. Sam Edwards. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:06] Speaker A: And Mr. Keith Bluefield. [00:00:07] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:08] Speaker A: How the devil are we all? We good? [00:00:11] Speaker C: Chilling. Cooler. [00:00:14] Speaker A: Cooler. Yes. [00:00:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Found aircon. [00:00:17] Speaker D: Yes. [00:00:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:19] Speaker D: Which in the UK is rare. [00:00:21] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:21] Speaker D: Everything's sold out. Fans aircon. [00:00:24] Speaker A: Yep. [00:00:24] Speaker B: I bought all the fans. [00:00:26] Speaker C: You bought all the fans? [00:00:28] Speaker A: Just only fans, Lee. [00:00:30] Speaker B: I spent, I spent a lot of money on only fans. Anyway, feel free to clip that. [00:00:38] Speaker D: Although I have started an only fans, that is fans. So just like videos of fans for people like can't buy them. So here's a video of some fans. [00:00:46] Speaker B: I mean right now that is some, some top, top notch pornography. [00:00:51] Speaker D: Would you like me to turn on the third fan? So I put it up to three. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Chilling. [00:00:59] Speaker A: I think the subreddit only fans is just people's experience with fans and the size of fans and good fan reviews [00:01:06] Speaker B: on the subject of that. Like my favorite thing is the fact that world politics is just porn. Yes. And then the subreddit anime titties is world politics. Yes. [00:01:17] Speaker A: It's the same as our Trees is about marijuana. That's a Reddit marijuana enthusiast is about arboreal related things. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:25] Speaker A: So if you want to talk about trees on Reddit, you go to marijuana enthusiast. [00:01:31] Speaker D: Tune in for content like that all the time. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Kids over the Internet. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:01:35] Speaker A: Anyway, going on today's show we're having a bit of a look back to more our 2016 favorites being a decade since the show started. So we're looking at films, looking at video games, we're going to look at the rise of short form creators and YouTubers into Hollywood which has been a notable few over the last few years. We'll be talking about Birmingham Anime Film Festival which is back at the Mockingbird this year and talking about some of the titles we will be showing, plus our regular one geek thing. But we shall be back after this. Yeah, Bath is back baby. And not the going it and splashing in your upstairs bathroom. It is Anime Film Festival 2026. So this year we're running between Friday 9th October and Sunday 11th October and we've just released our first batch of titles at the time of recording on the website. So we discuss some of the titles that we are releasing and when you can see them. So the first one is on Friday 9 October at 6pm Paprika nos the Spice. This is the amazing work of Satoshi Kon. So Satoshi Kon, if you're not very aware, very famous director is probably the Most notable work, it's Perfect Blue, which Darren Aronofsky completely ripped off wholesale for Black Swan. [00:03:28] Speaker B: I don't understand. Raccoon for a Dream. It's a whole scene. Yeah. [00:03:32] Speaker A: But yes. So Paprika is a kind of sci fi thriller masterpiece where you go into kind of tail around a machine that allows scientists to enter and record people's dreams, which gets stolen. And the kind of detective and a therapist trying to recover the device. [00:03:50] Speaker B: What you're saying is Christopher Nolan ripped this one up? [00:03:52] Speaker D: Yeah, I think loads of people have ripped it off because I think until the End of the World Vinvens is a similar thematic thing. [00:04:01] Speaker C: So yeah, yeah. [00:04:02] Speaker A: It was Satoshi Khan's unfortunate last feature film before he died suddenly quite early. Yeah. Won many awards. Tokyo Anime Award for best Music and feature Film award at the 12th Animation Kobe Awards in 2007. [00:04:16] Speaker D: It's a stone cold classic in it. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Absolutely beautiful title, rated 1587 minutes. So not too long if you can can put up with the beautiful visuals and the psychological content for that long. But yes, I would say it's probably one of my favorite of Satoshi Kon's works. Next up. So this title is getting a lot of press at the moment and because of the new version that's arrived on Twitter screens, which is the Ghost in the Shield. So we're looking at Ghost in the Shield, the 1995 classic anime version. But there is a new version which is based more to the original manga, I believe, called the Ghost and the Children. Netflix. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Isn't it a series? [00:04:58] Speaker D: It's. Yes, it's in several parts. [00:05:00] Speaker B: Yeah, several parts. Yeah. [00:05:02] Speaker A: But that's about the original manga version. But this is Mamoru Oshi's classic 1995 version. One of the most detailed and beautiful animes ever put to screen. About Section 9 of the Hunt for the Puppet Master. Probably one of the most influential animes with style and the questions it raised around transhumanism. Absolutely beautiful film. If you missed it last year, that's why we bought it back again. It's always one of those films that you find very popular. [00:05:30] Speaker B: It's one of those films that like for many years people were just going put a ghost in the shell on. So we did eventually. [00:05:38] Speaker A: And you get to see it again if you missed it last time. Yes. Next up, on Saturday, 10th of October, we're going to have a kind of mecha themed day, but we have Mobile Suit Gundam G Quacks or GQ Sig Hughes Linux. [00:05:54] Speaker D: When I saw you put this up, I was like, you got your keyboard. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Gquex is for me. Mobile Suit Gundam G Quacks. So if you've not heard of we also Gundam GCoax. It has a bit of a Evangelion history because Hidekiano worked on this and Studio Clover I think is his new studio. Can't remember the name of it. But yes, it's. It's his new studio involved. And it's a reinterpretation. A retelling of Mossic Gundam, the original 1979 classic anime. Or what if Char managed to get a hold of the Gundams it first? It's basically a parallel reality version. But yes. So this focused on a high school girl called Amateur Yuzuriha who is living a post for life in one of her space colonies. Until the chance encounter with a young girl pulls her into mobile suit dueling competitions known as Clan Bells. But yeah, some beautiful mecha designs. Beautiful things that's got a real underlying Evangelion vibe. Really different start the standard Gundam anime. So. And this is kind of brings together the first three episodes of the series. So really recommend that. And then we've got a double bill after that one. Which is the first one being Gurren Lagann the movie Childhood's End and the second one being Gurren Lagan the movie. The lights in the sky are stars. I promise I don't pick long titles on purpose. But yes. [00:07:17] Speaker B: So this is anime baby. [00:07:20] Speaker A: But if you've never seen Gurren Lagann. Studio Trigger who have recently done Cyberpunk Edranus and Cyberpunk Edrana series. Two trailers just recently dropped. But their work is beautiful. It's really high powered. Really high. High color, high contrast design. Again, robot battling suits. This about a chap called Simon and Camina who live in an underground city. They stumble on an artifact and beastmen invade from the surface. And then it takes it upon themselves to venture beyond the waters of their world. And there's giant robot suits and lots of other stuff and they're looking around the surface of the earth, etc. So that's the first half of the original TV series which had been condensed into this movie. And the second one is the skies and lights of Stars which is about set seven years years after the first half of the series. And this is where the giant robots go to space. I know. Who loves space battles with giant robots more than anybody else. Well, yes. So if you've not seen Gurren Lagann and Team Dagger and really recommend it. Studio Trigger's work is always beautiful. They also did Promare, which we screened a while back. But yeah, so this was kind of their biggest series. Really, really good. [00:08:30] Speaker B: I will say that like if we're sort of adding things with long titles all the time, this is why we need to start getting some isekai in there and really stretch those titles there. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Well, we have a slightly move long title with this one, but it's not too bad, which is Chainsaw man, the movie Resi arc this time. So this came out last year and if you missed it last year, that's why we're bringing it back this year. So if you've heard about the Chainsaw man anime, you don't really need the explanation too much. But yes, guy turns into a man with two giant chainsaws for arms. [00:08:59] Speaker C: All there in the Titan. [00:09:01] Speaker A: Yes, basically. [00:09:02] Speaker B: And this is a chainsaw for a face. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yes. And you get a little dog with a little chainsaw on it. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [00:09:09] Speaker A: But yeah. So really do recommend this one. And this one is kind of a side arc in the anime with character called Re in there. So really do recommend that one as well. Kind of recommended all these parts weirdly, [00:09:21] Speaker B: it's almost like we picked them for a festival. [00:09:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:26] Speaker A: And next up. So that was the Saturday. There is more titles to come, but just trying to sort stuff in the background at the moment. But starting off the Sunday, it's one of the most cutest animes I think we have ever shown, which is the concierge. So this starts Sunday 11th October at 11am this is the Hokkyu department store has a new concierge start called Akina and she has to train and meet the demands of her customers. Most of the customers are from the extinct species list, so they're all animal customers. [00:09:57] Speaker B: See, when you said the concierge, my brain went to Pokemon Con which is also adorable, but I don't think we were able to get the rights to that. [00:10:05] Speaker A: It's on Netflix, which is very awkward [00:10:07] Speaker B: to get and also Nintendo and company. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah. But the concierge is also a beautiful concept as well. So you get things from like a seaming searching for a gift to an owl looking to please his voice. And the whole job of this concierge is to help them find that watch needs to instruct. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Really, really geek for you. They really cute. [00:10:26] Speaker A: And the last one we're going to talk about today is Violet Evergarden the movie. So again, beautiful classic anime. And this is kind of the wrap up for the series. It can be watched standalone. Basically Violet who Is the character in this used as a weapon? Then the war moves on and the world is moving on. So she's trying to find her place in the world again and find her lost commanding officer and what happens is going to affect her life. So, again, a bit of an eclectic mix this year, but that was the first batch of titles, so any highlights that you fancy looking at? Guys [00:11:00] Speaker C: based in the show is always a huge one. Yeah. They also got good. [00:11:06] Speaker B: I know. [00:11:06] Speaker C: Chainsaw man, the movie was quite a recent one as well, wasn't it? So. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Yes. [00:11:11] Speaker C: So, yeah, if you missed that in cinema, that's good opportunity to watch it on a big screen. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Keith, Anything for yourself. [00:11:19] Speaker D: Probably going to be Ghost in the Shell more than anything else. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:23] Speaker D: I don't know how many times I've seen it already, but it's always a good one to watch again on the big screen. [00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:28] Speaker A: And that soundtrack. Oh, that's soundtrack. Lee, how about yourself? [00:11:32] Speaker B: I think just you said during that like an adorable anime means that the concierge has my interest, but obviously I'm going to wreck her. The Ghost in the Shell thing, because it is a classic. Yeah. [00:11:44] Speaker A: I mean, Ghost of Shadow is probably one of the highlights so far of what it was, but Paprika is probably mine as well, so I think that's a really good double bill on the Friday. Paprika, Satoshi Khan, amazing artist. And then, yeah, Ghost on the shelves. Follow Mamoru. [00:11:59] Speaker B: She. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Brilliant work. [00:12:00] Speaker B: Yep. [00:12:02] Speaker D: Cool. [00:12:02] Speaker A: So if you go to baff.uk or keep an eye on our socials. B A double F Underscore uk. [00:12:08] Speaker B: Do not search Baff because you just get the British Armed Forces Federation and that's not us. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Just go to baff.uk or on socials baffuk and you can find all the information that you need to on there. So delving back into our archive, looking what was on screen a decade ago when Beaky. When Beaky, Beaky Grummy, Beaky Roomy first, Geeky Rummy first started looking the Ancestor podcast. But yeah, so we picked three films to complement our look back. And Sam, you chose the theme of animated movies released in 2016, which aren't Disney animated movies as well. [00:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah. So, I mean, Disney did have a fantastic year in 2016. We mentioned Zootropolis in a previous episode, but they also had Moana, which was one of their best, I would say one of the best Disney films there has been. [00:13:09] Speaker A: Currently has a pointless live action remake [00:13:13] Speaker B: joined John. And a terrible wig. Yeah. [00:13:16] Speaker C: And speaking again of the live action ones, although very much in inverted commas. There was the live action Jungle Book. It was out in 2016 as well, which was one of the better ones that they've done. [00:13:29] Speaker B: But I thought, not a like bar though, is it? No. [00:13:34] Speaker C: So, yeah, I thought I'll pick a few animated films that came out that year that weren't Disney or Disney related. So kicking off and this sort of links quite nicely back to the Anime Film Festival of previous years. We've got yout Name. So written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, starring Ryuno Suke Kamiki, who was also in the kamikaze pilot in Godzilla Minus One and the upcoming Godzilla Minus Zero and Monet Kamishiraishi. Hopefully not butchered those names too much as high school students Taki and Mitsuha, who wake up one morning to discover that they've swapped bodies even though they've never met each other before. And they keep switching back overnight. So they figure out a system of kind of leaving each other nights to let each other know what they need to know to get through a day in. In their lives and try and figure out what's causing the connection, causing them to. To do this. And meanwhile, there's ominous reports of a comet approaching Dipan. It's the first of Makoto Shinkai's disaster trilogy. So Weathering with youh and Suzume Followed, which were inspired by and themed around natural disasters, which were obviously much more frequent events in Japan and caused a huge amount of devastation there. So it's all about understanding the sort of the impact of that and should [00:15:20] Speaker B: be noted, was quite fresh in their minds because of Fukushima in 2011. [00:15:25] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, it was the highest grossing Japanese film of all time at the time until it was beaten by Demon Slayer. And yeah, as I mentioned before, it's one we've shown at Beth, I think a couple of times and always goes down really well because it is such a beautiful film. [00:15:47] Speaker A: This is all of Makoto Shinkai's works. If you go back through his history, some absolutely beautiful stuff that he's done over the years. 5 cm per second is a particular favorite of mine. [00:15:57] Speaker C: But yeah, I think your name was the one that really shot him to stardom. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:03] Speaker C: In particular with Western audiences and got people kind of talking about him in the same breath as Miyazaki and those sorts of legendary filmmakers. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Fantastic soundtrack as well with Radwimps. He's collaborated with him quite frequently on his works. Yes. [00:16:22] Speaker C: So, yeah, that's my first pick. [00:16:26] Speaker A: I mean, if you've not watched your name, you are Missing out on a treat. It's some of the most, as I said, beautiful scene cinematography, beautiful artwork, very well constructed stories. He seems to be like the master of ennui in movies. I think it's a way to describe Makoto Shinkai. All of his. All of his ones have a really distinct sense of ennui and regret and loss, but at the same time as love and happiness and connection. [00:16:53] Speaker C: I think as well then there's quite a nice contrast between tradition and modernism in Japan that he captures in a way that I think Miyazaki doesn't quite do so well. [00:17:07] Speaker A: So they say Ghibli is more traditionalist in its anime store, whereas. [00:17:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but I mean, I think it's. Mitsuha lives in a more sort of bucolic setting, whereas Taki is in central Tokyo. And Shinkai does a great job of capturing the sort of more traditional side as well in very dibly fashion. But the Tokyo scenes are just stunning too. He's really got the kind of capturing the light glinting off buildings and reflecting on the windows and everything and the way that the rain falls on it and just really lovely cityscapes as well. So yes, very much recommend that if, if you've not seen it before. Next up is one of my favorite films, but I would say of all time, I think very much up there. So by the stop motion studio Laika, it's Kubo and the Two Strings and absolutely beautiful. Based on a kind of feudal Japan era mythological setting. Directed by Travis Knight who has directed most of Laika's films. But also recently did he Men, sorry, Masters of the Universe and starring Art Parkinson, who you may remember as the youngest of the Stark siblings in Game of Thrones. Charlize Theron, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara and a little bit of George Takei as well. Not loads, but he does get an oh my in the finance. And really gorgeous music by Dario Marianelli and Regina Spektor does a gorgeous cover of One My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles over the end credits. So the plot essentially is Kubo is a one eyed boy who uses a magical shamisen, a three stringed instrument to entertain his village with stories of his absent father, the samurai Hanzo, who he's never met to earn money to look after his mother who was very ill. But one night he's attacked by his mother's sisters who are these two kind of witchy supernatural beings. His mother saves him, but sends him on a quest to find his father's armor and Three pieces of it where he's aided in that by Monkey, who's a sort of reanimated lucky wooden charm. And Beetle, who is a sort of cursed samurai figure who's been transformed into a giant beetle. Essentially Monkey, played by Charlize Theron, and Beetle, played by Matthew McConaughey. And the purpose of finding the Miyama is to protect him from his grandfather, the Moon King, who wants to take his other eye. It's a gorgeous piece of animation and Lyco always been brilliant, but the. The kind of maturity of it really is quite striking. So they'd previously done Coraline. I think Paranorman and Boxtrols all came out beforehand, which were all great. And Coraline does have that quite well. They've all got quite a dark streak for Coraline in particular, but they felt like very much kids films. Whereas this has that kind of mature, epic feel to it that adults will appreciate as well. And some quite like not wanting to spoil anything. But some quite dark parts kind of come up in the plot. There is a. It was at the time the longest anime stop motion animated film. And it also, I believe, still holds the record for the. The largest stop motion character that's ever been created. So there's a demon skeleton who is 18ft tall. This is absolutely incredible. It won the BAFTA for Best Animated film and it was nominated at the Oscars for Best Animated Film and for Visual effects. It did lose both of those to Zootopia and Jungle Book, respectively. Huge critical success, but unfortunately didn't perform as well as it was expected to at the box office. It only made 77 and a half million dollars against a budget of 60 million. So it was a profit, but not huge profit, which is a real shame because it suggests people didn't go out and see it and they really should because, yeah, Kiss. Such a beautiful firm. [00:22:17] Speaker A: And the soundtrack as well alongside it is absolutely stunning. I mean, the work on the shamisen central plot point really brings that instrument to the fore. I think a lot of people don't realize the shamisen kind predates the guitar by choir sometimes. It's like, yeah, that impact. And I think a lot of people see a lot more shamisen players nowadays and hear that instrument a lot more. I think it's probably off the back of this, especially in western culture. [00:22:43] Speaker C: Yeah, very possible. And yeah, yeah, you're right, it is a huge part of the plot and they weave into the soundtrack really nicely. He can kind of. He's got a load of bits of paper that he can kind of create origami creatures out of that he animates with his music. And there are bits in there where you. You forget that it's stop motion. You have to sort of take a step back sometimes and almost look at him. Think someone who's like different models and. Yeah, it's such a incredible amount of craftsmanship that goes into it. And I think we talked a few episodes ago about Wildwood, like a movie that's coming up which looks like it's very much in a similar vein just in terms of the mythological theming to it and tone to it. So. Yeah, I cannot recommend Kubo enough. I believe it's currently streaming on itvx. So, yeah, well worth tracking down. [00:23:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of those films that like, everyone raves about and I'm like, I need to watch this film. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Absolutely do. Yes. [00:23:56] Speaker B: I love stop motion as a general rule anyway, so, you know, it's. It's one that I'm like, I definitely need to see this. I think it just passed me by when it came out, so I think [00:24:05] Speaker A: it wasn't very well marketed at the time, which is always a bit of a struggle with liker stuff. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the first I heard of it was people, people much later on going, it's one of the best animated movies ever made. And I'm like, when did this come out? [00:24:18] Speaker D: We raved about it on the show at the time and I picked it as my film in a year. At the end of the end of the. The year. [00:24:24] Speaker B: I wasn't on the podcast. [00:24:26] Speaker D: No, but you should have been listening. [00:24:27] Speaker B: But still, I didn't know it existed. [00:24:31] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. It's. It's a brilliant movie. All of the Leica stuff is hugely underrated in terms of its content. And I'd like to think that Wildwood will change that, but I don't think it will. I think it's a. It's just one of those things that people are a little bit more hesitant about stop motion. They are kind of CGI stuff. And the artistry that's being shown in all of the Leica films is incredible. You know, when I do anything about stop motion animation, when I'm teaching people it, I show them from the ParaNorman Blu Ray, the time and effort that goes into making a little lamp. And at the end of that, they show you how they make the glass, they form it, they make it work electric, electrically. And then they show you them placing it in the scene and then they just go straight past it and it's. It's that artistry that like I put into everything. Every single thing in their films is, is so beautifully animated. It's incredible. [00:25:34] Speaker C: Well, it's worth having that kind of step back sometimes because the beauty of it is it's done so well that you don't notice how well it's being done. [00:25:43] Speaker A: I think we mentioned it time after time previously, the credits for Box Trolls. [00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:49] Speaker D: Well, they do. They do it in everything that you do. [00:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Save for the credits in Kubo as well because I think they show them creating the skeleton creature. But yeah, like monkeys fur for example, as well. Like all. Loads of little strands that just kind of blow in the wind and it just looks completely natural. But yeah, there's so many little bits. [00:26:13] Speaker D: And their first attempt with the feathers on the sisters as well, which is going to become even more prevalent in Wildwood. Yeah, but yeah, great choice. Absolutely brilliant film. Everybody should see it. [00:26:24] Speaker C: And then from the civilian to the ridiculous, my last pick, just as a very different kind of animated film that came out in 2016 is sausage bear sequel. So this was directed by Conrad Vernon, who also directed lots of classic DreamWorks films like Shrek 2 Monsters vs Aliens, and also Greg Tiernan, who seems to have mostly done Thomas Tank Engine, but did also do the cinematics for the game God of war. [00:27:01] Speaker B: Okay. Which 2005 or 2018, I believe 2005. [00:27:09] Speaker C: So kind of written and conceived by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jonah Hill, Ariel Schaefer and Kyle Hunter and starring Seth Rogen and all his usual friends. So Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, James Franco, Ed Norton, Sima Hayek, Bill Hayden, Nick Kroll, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson and Paul Rudd all make an appearance. So the plot is, it's set in a supermarket where all the food has a kind of secret life, where it's anthropomorphic and it comes to life. And the sausage Frank dreams of being taken by the gods, the humans, to the great beyond. Away from the supermarket with his girlfriend Brenda, the bun. But when they're finally chosen, a suicidal jar of honey mustard who has been returned to the shop tells them it's all a lie and they fall off a trolley. Which starts a chain of events where they learn the horrible truth that that the gods that they worship are actually these monstrous beings that are just going to eat them when they take them away. And they rebel and try and get their own lives and identities. But it overtook South Park, Bigalonga and Uncut to become the highest grossing R rated animated film of all time, but has since been Surpassed by Chainsaw man and also two Demon Slayer movies. It very deliberately plays with the kind of conventions of your typical Disney and Pixar type films. [00:28:52] Speaker A: So it's Toy Story, but with Food and I. Yeah. [00:28:56] Speaker C: Or more generally, it's kind of stuff that you see every day having a secret life when humans aren't looking. Which is a very. [00:29:04] Speaker B: Although the joke is that the main character is a sausage. [00:29:08] Speaker C: There is that. [00:29:10] Speaker B: And his girlfriend is a bun. [00:29:12] Speaker A: She's called Frank. [00:29:15] Speaker C: And one thing I do quite like about it is they were very deliberately aiming for an R rating and not an NC17 rating, which would be a slightly higher one in America. And the thing that brought it down from NC17 to R is. And this is just such a wonderful sentence, in the big Food Audley scene, they were told by the MPAA that they had to remove one character's pubic hair. They were fine with the rest of the orgy, but the presence of the pubic hair was pushing up in terms of Save Energy. [00:29:49] Speaker B: There's Mandamin 2 getting released, getting approved by the BBFC because they reduced the number of decapitations to just two. [00:29:57] Speaker C: Excellent. So, yeah, it's also got a score by Alan Menken who is like. He and Howard Ashman wrote all the really big Disney show tunes from the 90s classic era. So yeah, again, kind of deliberately playing off those kind of Disney tropes. [00:30:22] Speaker A: I remember the marketing for this at the time being absolutely everywhere. Side of the buses, tv, cinema posters. Still never watched it. [00:30:35] Speaker C: No, it is one of those films. It is very deliberately stupid and over the top bit on the racist side in places as well. Ed Norton plays a character called Sammy Beigel Jr. Who's a very Jewish stereotype bagel. And yeah, some of the places it goes to are quite insane and yeah, very much not the sort of thing you expect to see on an animated film. But as I say, it's deliberately done that way. And I think if you go with it, it's an entertaining enough movie if you can kind of get on the same page. [00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was riding off the coattails of like the Ganapatau Gang, as you mentioned at the time, because I think this is the end was a few years before that, which again, all my Hollywood mates versus the end of the world this time. [00:31:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Which probably is slightly better film. [00:31:36] Speaker D: Yeah, it's good that they've all got it out of their system and have become much more mature, sensitive. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So for the Big eight now. [00:31:49] Speaker C: But yeah, it did leave the potential open For a sequel. There hasn't been one yet, but there has been a spin off Amazon. [00:31:57] Speaker A: I think the TV series is supposed to run as the sequel, isn't it? Or is it? [00:32:02] Speaker C: Well, the. What they were kind of setting up was almost a Roger Rabbit style. The characters go and meet their, their voice actors in real life, which I don't think is what's happened in the. I haven't seen the spin off show, but yeah, yeah. So it has some fun ideas in it, but it, it's definitely. If you're gonna pick one of the three films I've mentioned, this is not the one to pick. [00:32:27] Speaker D: Although it is the one to have the Joe Krasinski Legacy sequel after 15, 20 years have gone past to, you know, go, well, you thought Tron was good and you thought that, that my Legacy sequel is gonna be even there. [00:32:42] Speaker A: What terrible food pun would they use for the sequel? I. I don't know what to do. I don't know. Yeah. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:32:52] Speaker A: S. So to recap, the three times. [00:32:54] Speaker D: Sausage factory reheated. Sausage party reheated. [00:32:58] Speaker C: Yes. [00:32:59] Speaker D: There you go. That would work. [00:33:00] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's your name, Goobo. And the two strims and sausage party. Thank you. [00:33:13] Speaker A: There's been a bit of a trend going on Hollywood at the moment, other than innumerable sequels and rehashes of old [00:33:20] Speaker B: content which are all failing at the box office. [00:33:22] Speaker D: Yes, Some which do not deserve to, [00:33:25] Speaker A: by the way, go and watch Master of the Universe. But yeah, so in its desperation, I think, to find new avenues of content to mine and new ways, new ways to attract people to the industry, Hollywood seems to be turning to the Internet a lot more for content and as well for talent. So the last few years we've seen three big strong films that have come out supported very well by Hollywood and helmed by YouTubers. So we thought we'd take a look at the three YouTubers behind them and the films that they're doing. So the first one being Backrooms is Kane Parsons. So back rooms, if you've not heard based on [00:34:11] Speaker B: if you like. So basically like backrooms kind of originates as a 4chan thread where someone posted this picture of like a sort of yellowing office type building that was like completely empty with the caption that like you could no clip out of reality and find yourself in the back rooms. The idea behind it is it's sort of this liminal space where there's no. It feels like everything kind of feels off. It kind of goes on infinitely. It's like, it's like I said it's sort of like an abandoned office building. The sort of place where there should be people, but there isn't people. And it's kind of spawned a whole load of stuff online. Like all sorts of different creators have come up with things. There's the Backrooms Wiki, where, like, it's sort of the idea of, like, let's create like a whole, like, series of levels. Like, that's level one. And then it kind of goes through like loads of different things. People just kind of contributing things. Backrooms Wiki is bad. Do not look at it. It's kind of the SCP foundation if it was written by people who do not have any talent. But more relevantly, there was a short film made by a young director called. Well, he was calling himself Kane Pixels at the time. And this is. This is obviously Kane Parsons, who basically, it sort of. It was his interpretation of it. So it shows a guy sort of shooting a short film in the early 90s with his. With his friends. And then he sort of steps backwards and he falls through a hole in reality, finds himself in the back rooms. And most of the short is just kind of him navigating around and seeing all these strange things in there, getting chased by a monster and then falling through a hole in the floor. And that's how that ends. But he sort of spun it off into this whole series that sort of followed on his channel that basically kind of goes into like, what is this? Back rooms and ties in sort of like the idea of like a research facility that's studying the backrooms. And then of course, this caught the attention of Hollywood and now we have the movie directed by Kane himself. [00:36:23] Speaker A: Yes. I think his assistant director did a fair bit of heavy lifting on this, possibly to support Kane Parsons. But I was looking into Kane Parsons younger life and his dad is a VFX person. So his dad works in the VFX industry. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that's something that should be noted as most of the series was made with Blender. [00:36:39] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:36:40] Speaker B: And it's actually really incredibly well done because a lot of it does look kind of real. I think some of the VHS filters kind of help to sort of dull all the CGI elements of it. But it's really well done. Yeah. [00:36:54] Speaker A: I mean, because before that is only the real notable stuff on YouTube was attack on Titan, which he. It was a fan film series where he kind of did it as a war documentary style. So we did that first. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is the fun thing. So there's a YouTube channel I follow called Wendigoon. And he has become friends with Kane and there was an interview that he released around the time the film came out, and he actually mentions that the attack on Titan stuff, and apparently the back room short was made because he was procrastinating on the attack on Titans. Yeah. [00:37:27] Speaker A: And I think he tried another series called the Oldest View. [00:37:32] Speaker B: The Oldest View, yes. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is. Oh, underground shopping mall, I believe. [00:37:37] Speaker B: So it's a similar sort of vibe and that's got the. The rolling statue or something like that. So it's this sort of sculpture thing that follows this guy around to this mall. And I've seen, like, I've seen that too. It's. It's very. It's sort of very much in the same sort of style of back rooms. [00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, we've talked about a 24 quite a lot in the past in the show, and their willingness to experiment and find original content in Hollywood, which is a. Is a rarity nowadays. And I think taking Kane on as a director for this film as well kind of really does give credence and acknowledgement to the fact that his YouTube short series really pushed it from just being a bit of Internet lore into something. [00:38:18] Speaker B: I think they've made the right call on this versus when Hollywood saw the popularity of Slender man and decided, oh, we'll do a Slender man movie. And it was God awful because literally no one involved in, like, the stuff online was involved. They didn't call up anyone behind Marble Hornets and say, hey, do you want to make a film? It was like we just sort of gave it to people who don't know anything, but who aren't sort of immersed in the online community with it. Whereas this. It was like, we're just going to hire the guy who made these shorts. You know, I think that's a better call. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. [00:38:51] Speaker B: It's that. [00:38:51] Speaker A: It's that whole thing of liminal spaces. And I think, yeah, as I said, the Internet has grown it. But yeah, I mean, I'm really looking forward to seeing what Kane can do. Is he going to be a case of it or constantly. [00:39:03] Speaker B: He's only 20 years old. [00:39:04] Speaker D: Yes, it's 21 then. [00:39:06] Speaker B: 21. [00:39:07] Speaker A: But it's a case of, well, made this for $10 million and they've all recouped $366 million so far. So it's been very profitable for a 24 to do it, to be fair. But I think it's a case of is he going to be something you adapt to the media or is he going to Come up with some original content on his own, so might be interesting to see what comes out in the future. He's got a long career ahead of him. [00:39:28] Speaker B: I do think the movie is interesting just because it's so tied in to the web series. Like, it's very much a standalone story because, like, the main characters are original to the movie. They're not in the web series. And I think he's said that, like, he deliberately did it as, like, kind of a side story, a character piece that sits alongside the web series. So it can be enjoyed without the web series. But at the same time, as someone who's very familiar with it, there's a lot of things in the movie where I'm like, I feel I only know what's going on because I've seen the web series, so I wonder how people who haven't seen it feel about this. [00:40:05] Speaker C: So, yeah, I've not watched. Well, I think I watched a couple of them back after having seen the film, but I haven't seen any of the web series before the film. And, yeah, there were some bits in there that I thought, oh, that's interesting. It feels like it's hinting at a wider story, but I think that's like, for me, not recognizing it as being a nod to the web series. It just felt like part of the. The kind of mythology of the backrooms. Yes. And it just adds to the mystery of it. But, yeah, worked well for me. [00:40:41] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:41] Speaker A: I mean, definitely a fantastic breakout poem, especially for. For such a young talent to come through. [00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:47] Speaker A: I mean, Keith, you work quite a lot with young talent in your day job. There's this kind of a thing where they're looking at YouTube as an avenue. [00:40:57] Speaker D: It's more YouTube as a platform because of the fact that it's. It's now overtaken Netflix as the number one streaming platform. There's the most content is watched on YouTube rather than anywhere else. I have my reservations about all of the choices here, so I was gonna keep my powder dry until we talked about the other two movies. Mostly because I think more than anything, I think the next film we're going to talk about was much more dodging the Hollywood approach. I think Markiplier kind of did this all kind of out of his own money more than the others. I think it's a bit of a kind of reach where Hollywood is looking for something new and popular YouTube channels is an easy out. My reservations are what comes next, because, yeah, I've always said, you gotta have a good story. Doesn't matter how good your director is. If your story's rubbish, you. You're not going to go there and have. Have all of these creators got another good story in them potentially. They could be good directors with other people's material. I didn't see anything particularly in any of these where I would go directorially. You're interesting. They for me I had lots of issues with the. The two. The two more than the other. I think the curry barker one is a little bit different. That's more traditionally a film but again the other two are. Well, you know, they work in their own way but I don't think they're yeah sustainable as kind of like the next phase of Hollywood. I mean I remember back when we saw the kind of whole found footage for all that people got after Blair Winch and that kind of seemed to be like the next big thing. Yeah. But I don't know if it will translate to mainstream stuff. I think there's definitely a home for it on YouTube. This kind of short, kind of like 10 minute creepy video, kind of like back rooms particularly became part of this whole creepypasta thing which I do not understand in terms of like, you know, some of this might be slightly unnerving for a minute but generally it's not that scary. [00:43:28] Speaker A: Well, I think it's this thing not to get too philosophical about it but I think there's a thing now where so much stuff reality is in virtual space, especially if you're terminally online. The whole thing about liminal spaces and places like the back room and the SCP foundation is that physical space of you don't feel like you fit in there anymore. Yeah, there's that whole thing of this isn't an environment for me especially for something like the backrooms where we've got no technology with you and you can't connect. [00:43:56] Speaker D: I mean the upside is that these have been particularly successful in the last few years. We've had films about kind of like zoom or teams stuff happening in kind of like you know, the terrible Amazon War of the Worlds one. Just like what the hell. But we've also had kind of like that kind of AI stuff as well. And yeah, so they're kind of very much of the now like everybody's really interested into these things but I don't the sustainability of it all I think have. Is there. Is there more. More stories these people can tell or are they just going to get stuck? [00:44:34] Speaker A: We can do adaptation after adapting of Internet law. I mean let's flip over to Markiplier because he's kind of a bit of a different standout from these foods. So he started off years ago doing let's plays and doing viral content and this kind of. He became like that standard streamer thing of a bit like PewDiePie playing a game, watching people going on people watch your stream, pay money to content etc support, etc. And then he's been doing that for years and years and years. But then as you mentioned is for Iron Lung it's completely self funding that product directed, helped to write and I think and acted in it. And it's such a unique concept for somebody to do that and for it still to be quite popular and still make the money it has and it's having that audience without any kind of Hollywood involvement. [00:45:27] Speaker B: I think the one thing that like tends to get left out quite a bit with Iron Lung is the fact that it isn't his idea fundamentally. It's actually based on an indie game. Yeah, I think it is one that he did play on his channel. So it's like a very short horror game that sort of basically it's. The premise is exactly what you see in the movie where it's like, you know this, this prison has kind of been forced into this like submarine forced to kind of explore this thing. So and with. With the game it's very sort of. It was part of the kind of like these low poly kind of visuals kind of very limited in what they kind of show you. And I did find it was kind of interesting that he decided like I think he just liked the game that much. He was like I want to see this as a movie and just put all his money behind it and turned it into the movie. So I think it up for a bit. [00:46:22] Speaker D: It held the record for the most blood on screen as well for a bit. I think that's been overtaken now by something else. [00:46:29] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean the whole concept of the film is weird. Basically it's humanity's disappeared and is in the submarine as you mentioned, but the ocean's made out of blood, I think. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's part like when you sort of see it in the context of like other sort of similar games that have kind of been coming out in that sort of like. Because there is very much a movement within indie games of like these low poly horror games. They're like maybe two to three hours long with a very sort of lofty sort of concept. You know, it's. It kind of sits along things like mouthwashing and Signalis and stuff like that where it's all low poly, but it's like almost cosmic horror. Like these big themes of, like, isolated in like certain places and things. Like, you don't really get like a real grasp on reality around it. So, you know, like, in the context it makes perfect sense. But like, if you're not following a lot of that indie game scene, it might seem a bit left field. So it was interesting. [00:47:29] Speaker D: It actually got a UK cinema release, which was bizarre. Really? [00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:34] Speaker D: So if you'd have thought a film like that, pretty niche, would have ended up maybe some smaller independent screens, but it was in the Odeons and the cinema, so I mean, it's quite impressive that it got that much of a. An interest. [00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, 51 million reset return off the back of a 3 million budget, so can't complain. But yeah, I mean, I think I became aware because I watched a YouTube channel called Corridor Crew, which looks into the VFX and the history behind that. And Markiplier was there as an intern for a while, learning about visual effects as this was being filmed. So I think it was a really interesting title for him to work from and such an interesting concept to take that game and make into a film. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, fair play to him. For him, his money up and they're being convicted, having that conviction to put something through a bit more like a modern Kevin Smith kind of thing of going out there making something. [00:48:29] Speaker D: I don't think Kevin Smith ever made [00:48:31] Speaker A: that kind of money, but, yeah, but it's, it's. That's that kind of indie person who's kind of. [00:48:37] Speaker B: I think one thing does need to be pointed out. The Markiplier does have a massive audience already and that is a big part of what film's done as well as it has. So. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so we'll flop over to our final director, who is Curry Barker. So again, started off on YouTube and tick tock making comedy shorts, but had a really strong interest in horror. I think he did a very short film called the Chair. James Harris noticed that, reached down to him and said, do you want to make this? And he said, no, let's make Obsession instead. And then between that, he's done his own found footage horror film, Milk and Cereal. But yeah, Obsession, probably the biggest return on a Hollywood movie ever. $750,000 budget to over $400 million returns. [00:49:24] Speaker D: I look at that budget and go, yeah, I think you fudging the numbers there a little bit on how much it's actually cost because there's no way that that Was the actual cost, if Markiplier is costing like, 3 million or whatever it is. And this was basically done in your bedroom studio. [00:49:39] Speaker B: But I think, like, Iron Lung, though, I think had more like complex VFX and things like that. Whereas, like, most of Obsession is like mostly four actors in what looks like just general locations. It's just in a house in a music shop, you know, things like that. [00:49:54] Speaker D: Yeah, I still. I still think this is a little bit of fantasy in the kind of. Oh, yeah, it only costs this amount of money. Yeah. [00:50:00] Speaker A: I mean, Bloom House as well. They're not usually the sign of a good film, to be honest. They've had probably all misses and hits over their production career, but they are known for horror, and that's what they kind of specialize. [00:50:13] Speaker D: It's the most traditionally Hollywood movie of three. [00:50:16] Speaker A: Yes. But I think that comes back to a lot of Kariba when he said he's very, very much influenced by horror, and that's what he's growing up watching and understanding the beats of a horror movie. Most horror movies have a kind of similar pattern to how they're structured and how they work. So if as soon as you understand that pattern, and I know a lot of film schools start off by saying, make a horror movie or make a comedy movie, because that's kind of. You'll get your beats of. These are when things happen in a series. [00:50:41] Speaker B: He's probably the one I'm least. Least familiar with is like a YouTuber. Like, I'd only really heard of him through this. [00:50:47] Speaker D: He's not a YouTuber in the same kind of way, because the web. It was more like a web series. [00:50:53] Speaker B: And I've watched that he did the comedy skits and stuff. And. And like, I think the one. One of the skits I looked up just after I'd seen the movie, I think was one that was like, oh, yeah, this is absolutely the directory of obsession. It was something like the. Like the no Homo sketch or something, where it was like. It ended up with just like, him being like, I keep a vial of your blood under my pillow, and I sometimes, like, put it all over my face. I was like, oh, yeah, this is the Coyotron. Yeah. [00:51:22] Speaker A: I mean, wrote, direct, edited, acted in it. [00:51:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. [00:51:27] Speaker D: It's. [00:51:28] Speaker B: It's. I mean, I did in it when he was just a voice on a phone. [00:51:31] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's still kind of. Yeah, it made an appearance. [00:51:34] Speaker B: I did find it funny that, like, the. The friend in the movie is like, the guy who was in all the comedy Skits. [00:51:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:43] Speaker B: With him. [00:51:45] Speaker A: I think it deserves it. I think especially considers it's. I know you're probably thinking like, which audience does this happen? It's. Gen Z is kind of the target audience for this. [00:51:56] Speaker B: And me, I love the possession. [00:51:57] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. [00:51:59] Speaker C: It was a fantastic film. [00:52:00] Speaker A: First thing, it's what I was gonna say. It's targeted at Gen Z, but it's got much wider reach. [00:52:04] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:52:04] Speaker A: I mean it's again, as you said, it's probably the most classic film styles out of all of these. [00:52:10] Speaker C: Yeah. It takes a concept that has been done in lots of ways before. Be careful what you wish for. Yeah. [00:52:16] Speaker B: It's the whole Wishmaster thing. [00:52:18] Speaker C: Yeah. But, but applies it in a way that is. That feels quite original and. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:23] Speaker C: Something that people can relate to in a way. [00:52:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like I really kind of enjoy. I love the way that it sort of, you know, kind of presents like the, the girlfriend who's now obsessed as like the monster. And then as the film goes on, you realize, oh no, he's the one, she's the victim. [00:52:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:52:43] Speaker D: Although I think there are some people who aren't getting that. [00:52:46] Speaker B: No, [00:52:48] Speaker A: I mean his follow up is going to be called Anything But Ghost, which is supernatural horror film. [00:52:53] Speaker D: So I think this, this will be where we start to see whether we can do more. Because Milk and Cereal [00:53:02] Speaker A: again, that was more of a YouTube short that. [00:53:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:04] Speaker A: A bit of budget behind it, but yeah, this one is apparently two fake paranormal investigators are faced with actual ghosts, which sounds a quite interesting concept to be fair. Yeah, I mean Obsession, I think definitely is worthy of the titles. It's the, the accolades it's had. And it's very slick, very stylish, said very minimal plot and budget and concentrated. [00:53:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:53:30] Speaker A: But I think this is, it's a pattern that I'm seeing because I think this YouTube and sites like YouTube are now with the cost of cameras, things like that. We always hear the shots on iPhone, which is always at upper pants because there's $10,000 worth of action equipment. But it gives creative people a chance to go and learn and cut their teeth and develop something and build an audience before the big books start rolling in and the pot starts rolling in. [00:53:59] Speaker B: It's like in, in your sort of intro, you sort of almost, you know, you're sort of saying like Hollywood was kind of milking YouTube for content. Almost. I was like. But the thing about that is there are a lot of talented people on YouTube. [00:54:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:13] Speaker B: Obviously you gotta go looking for them, but like there's as you said, it's a great place for people to just make stuff that they think is cool and yeah, just put it out there into the world. [00:54:22] Speaker D: For me though, it should stay there, I think. God, this, it's not, this is nothing new. The John Waters, the David Lynch's, all these people that came before that were doing student films or whatever it is. And Hollywood has come along and gone, oh, this is good. Like you know, David lynch then gets lumbered with Elephant man and Dune or whatever it is and that doesn't work. And I think the problem I have with this is the idea of Hollywood strip mining content because it thinks we can do it on the cheap and make maximum profit, which is the same with any kind of horror or comedy. Hollywood always look to these things that cost them little but will make the big books. [00:55:00] Speaker B: See, I'm very much in favor of them like seeking out new talent in this way because this is where all the new talent is. You're not going to find them like putting necessarily putting student films together or if they are putting student films together, they're going to put them on YouTube regardless. [00:55:14] Speaker D: So the thing is it's good having the talent but then you've got to, that's got to come together with writers and everybody else and become something more. [00:55:23] Speaker C: The writing talent is growing up in YouTube. [00:55:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:26] Speaker C: As well. [00:55:27] Speaker A: This is the thing. It's like you've got one person crews for a lot of this stuff. That's what I'm saying. You've got the person who's usually the writer, the director, the producer. So I think it's that case of this is like distillation of that. And that's again probably why Hollywood is interesting because I don't have to hire a writer, I don't have to hire a director. I might, might have a couple of editors for some producers in, but it's nurturing that one specific person. [00:55:51] Speaker D: But again, there's distinct differences between short form content. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:55:55] Speaker D: And something that's 90 minutes or whatever it is. And for me particularly I felt this with, with Back Rooms was. There was an interesting idea. The first half an hour was really interesting and then it all fell apart in the last kind of half an hour. It went, oh, we've got to get to the end here and how do we do that? And we kind of just mash everything together. [00:56:14] Speaker A: To me that's the most Hollywood part of the film though because it's a case of, right, there's been this really constructive world building, there's been this really, there's been a natural kind of progress. And then it's like got 30 minutes left. Put an action scene in. Wrap it up. [00:56:26] Speaker D: But I, I don't see why that Kane couldn't have gone. I'm just going to leave it pretty ambivalent and not really try and force feed a conclusion of some description to this. He could have just gone that, that happened because that's what he does with the web series. It's like this just happens. I'm not trying to explain it, I'm not trying to. Yeah, there is some kind of through story. [00:56:47] Speaker B: There are, there are like a lot of that sort of ending does have its roots within the web series. Like you know, the what's revealed towards the end does have a basis in the actual web series. I'm trying to do very, I'm trying to talk around a lot of this, [00:57:04] Speaker A: but yeah, I think as I said, [00:57:06] Speaker D: they're all, they're all interesting creators. [00:57:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:10] Speaker D: Yes. I mean I want to see what comes next before I decide whether they're the, the savior of Hollywood is giving [00:57:16] Speaker C: them an opportunity to try the long form media and see if it works. See if they got their ability as [00:57:22] Speaker D: well for Hollywood not to just reject them. If, yeah, if the next film isn't a massive fit for them to go, oh, we're going to move. [00:57:29] Speaker B: And I will, and I will say that right now we're in a situation where like a lot of the big established stuff is not doing as well. Yeah. You know we've like, we've already mentioned about like things like Masters of the Universe is flopped to Supergirl's not doing well and like the Mandalorian movie didn't do very well and things like that. And it's like all of these things seems like the reliance on established IP isn't working anymore and relying on just like things that have already existed doesn't work anymore. But bringing in new talent considering how much the backrooms and obsessions brought in. [00:58:02] Speaker A: Well there's something on the crest for Wave here where we're gonna get sci fi tales, we're gonna get comedy, we're gonna get youtubers mind for other genres. [00:58:11] Speaker D: But I think there is a, there's a thing there of like the IP themselves aren't the problem. It's, it's how Hollywood is, is working with them. Because chucking 250 million things as a project, that's where he's going wrong rather than going what's the story we're telling? Yeah, how's the best way of telling it and then doing that because you could, you could give Kane Parsons a Star wars movie or whatever he is. [00:58:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:33] Speaker D: Give him 250 million quid and that wouldn't work. [00:58:37] Speaker B: Disaster, like I already know that that wouldn't work. He's clearly like embedded in horror and yeah. You know, it's like you could still [00:58:43] Speaker D: give him a 250 million dollar budget and if it's a terrible story and things aren't coming together. [00:58:48] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. [00:58:50] Speaker D: Hollywood needs to fundamentally look at why these YouTube things worked in the first place. [00:58:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:54] Speaker D: And that's what, that's what they're going. Rather than just going, we're going to steal that, throw a load of money at it and hope it works. [00:59:00] Speaker A: That's why I think the markiplier example is the best reverse of this because it's, it's opposite of Hollywood basically self funded film, self directed indie film that's managed to make big cinemas without much support from Hollywood kind of grassroots campaign, no major advertising budget, no major traders or anything like that compared to that. So I think that's the more interesting side and if more YouTubers come through that way, that's what I'm more interested in rather than the Hollywood Fed films. [00:59:29] Speaker D: The other big issue or not the big issue, but the other thing that is working in these favors is the audience themselves. [00:59:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:35] Speaker D: Because if we're not supporting these films as audiences or going to see them, it's going to fade away if we, if we go, we've seen a few of those and we're not bothered anymore. [00:59:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:45] Speaker D: Again, the same thing is going to happen as what's happened to Marvel films or Star Wars. [00:59:49] Speaker A: There's always, there's always a happy trend for horror. So I think seeing if other genres come through is of interest to me. [00:59:56] Speaker C: The other side of that as well of course is one of the appeals for Hollywood in taking these YouTubers is they already have a whole load of funnies who are going to go out and see their Flynns and it's sort of easy that way. [01:00:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a very interesting start of something that we've seen here and we'll be interested to see how it develops in the future. So in our continuing series about looking back over the previous decade, we now move on to games and Leah's picked out a selection of 2016's FPS titles for us. [01:00:33] Speaker B: Yes. So the main reason I sort of picked these out was sort of looking over games from 2016 and one that sort of really stood out, especially with some recent News is Doom, the revival of Doom from 2016, which basically was sort of id software, kind of almost kind of going back to basics while also pushing Doom forward. Like in terms of technical terms, it sort of stripped, you know, after Doom 3, where they were just kind of like, well, what if we kind of brought in all these survival horror elements and the ridiculous mechanic of like we have a torch and you have to put the torch away in this pitch black environment in order to fire a gun. And it was the stupidest mechanic in the world. And you know, just over complicating doom, doom 2016 was like, right, we're giving you a shotgun. We're giving you a whole bunch of demons. Go and shoot the demons with a shotgun. And that's the game. And it was a massive hit and it huge critical acclaim, huge commercial success and it really brought Doom back in a big way. [01:01:40] Speaker A: Don't forget heavy metal soundtrack. [01:01:42] Speaker C: Yes. [01:01:42] Speaker A: The can't just kill demons listening to pop music. It's got to be heavy metal. [01:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Heavy metal music composed by Mick Gordon, who is like just really kind of emerged as one of the great like video game composers of today. And I think one of my, like, I loved Doom 2016 and I think the main thing that made it so great was that it was so unashamed of what it was. It was. And it kind of played it up for all the camp that it was worth because Doomguy doesn't say a word. But they characterized him so well through just hand movements. It's things like, it's, it's little things like how like in the beginning of the game you get all these snippets of plot of what's going on and you've got like, you know, like a warning screen shows up that's sort of saying like, oh, you know, these are all the things you need to be aware of. And Doom Go just takes the screen and just kind of shoves it. There's a bit then like he gets in a lift and gets a call from like a scientist who's saying, oh, you know, don't worry about what's going on. Like all this was supposed to be for the greater good, blah, blah, blah. And we started. In any other game you'd get a big info dump about what's been going on. But what happens in Doom is the Doom guy just punches the communicator and cuts the whole thing off. And then it cuts to the title with the music playing and then the music piece ends with him cocking the shotgun in time with the music and it's just such a perfect intro that sets up the tone of the game so perfectly. And it just carries on that whole way for the rest of the game. [01:03:20] Speaker A: I think my favorite thing is there's loads of little secrets and everything. Like going back to that 90s FPS thing. When you find the little Doom guy. [01:03:26] Speaker C: Yes. [01:03:27] Speaker D: Doll. [01:03:28] Speaker A: And he like just twists his little arm out and then just fist bumps it. [01:03:31] Speaker B: Yes. Like he like all of those collectibles, all the little Doom guys has a unique animation like that. That is why that is also my favorite on the little fist bump. But like, it is the fact that he will like play with these little figures. Like when, like the whole characterization of him when you see him is this big hulking guy and very aggressive. You sort of think, oh, you know, this is like a dude not to mess with. But as soon as you present him with a little toy, he has to play with it. And I think another animation that was really, if you fall into lava and die, he realizes, I'm not going to get any other chance to do this. And he does the Terminator 2 thumb thing. [01:04:10] Speaker A: This is where I think Doom Eternal and Doom the Dark Ages didn't follow up because they changed it more into a rhythm shooter a little bit. So it's all about counter weapons. And certain enemies have certain weapons and you've got to learn to counter that. Whereas doom 2016 is bad guy gun. Yeah, there we go. That's all you need. [01:04:30] Speaker B: Like Doom Eternal I did not like as much. Mostly because it was a situation where every enemy is weak to a specific weapon. And if you use anything else, it doesn't work as well. And it just makes your life harder to do anything else. But if you don't have ammo for that one gun, you're basically just screwing yourself over. And it just wasn't as enjoyable. Yeah. And I think like the fact that they had a lot more focus on long lore explanations and long kind of story bits and like. But the thing that made Doom 2016 so good was it was like, we know you're not here for the plot, so we have a plot, but it's largely existing off it to the side. And even Doomguy doesn't particularly care for any of it. [01:05:07] Speaker A: You can go and read through the logs and listen to the audio tapes. That's on you. You have to enjoy that for the experience. [01:05:13] Speaker B: And I think one of the few times that Doom Eternal like really kind of went back to the tone of doom 2016 was first of all, you Explored his sort of castle in space. And if you go to his room, you find that he's a big fan of like a lot of 80s, big 80s movies. And you find like the rabbit cage. [01:05:36] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:05:36] Speaker C: And [01:05:39] Speaker B: he's just a massive nerd and it's great. But then there's also the moment later on where a character says to Doomguy, you can't just punch a hole in Mars and then immediately objective, punch a hole in Mars. And those are the only two bits where I was like, okay, this is Doom 2016 again. And then the problem was the rest of the game kind of fell apart. But, yeah, like, the main reason I sort of brought this one up is obviously because recent news about Xbox and their like, murdering of every studio they've bought up over the last 10 years or so includes basically gutting ID software, including most of the engineers who worked on the ID tech engine, which is one of the iconic engines in the industry. And now it's like, yeah, screw that. So. But at least we did have, for a brief moment, doom 2016. So. [01:06:30] Speaker D: Which you should go out and buy on disc, Right? Yeah. So whenever they archive it. Yeah, this, whatever it is, you can still play it. [01:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:39] Speaker A: I think Sony is the, the guilty party in that one at the moment. Touch on that another time. [01:06:43] Speaker C: It's so good. [01:06:44] Speaker B: Yeah. If you think Xbox is going to be like innocent of that too, then you're being very naive. [01:06:50] Speaker A: No, yeah. We've talked many times about the death of physical media and the you alone nothing society that we're heading towards. [01:06:58] Speaker B: But yeah, at least we had doom 2016. [01:07:00] Speaker A: We do have doom 2016. [01:07:02] Speaker B: Like Paris, I have this, I have [01:07:04] Speaker A: the soundtrack on vinyl, which is one [01:07:06] Speaker B: of my prize positions. But yeah, so while I sort of looked at that, I looked at. I realized, oh, there's a couple of other sort of very notable FPSs that came out in 2016. And one that a lot of people rave about a lot is Titanfall 2 [01:07:21] Speaker A: and the sequel with a single player mode to the game that didn't have a single player. [01:07:25] Speaker B: Exactly. But from what everyone has said, it's probably one of the best single player campaigns in any FPS ever made. You know, it's sort of, you know, you have like this sort of mech partner that you team up with, you know, the titan of the title, basically. But I think the main thing that everyone brings up is the one level where it's like time travel and you can sort of. I think it's like you switch between two different time periods. Within this level. And it's. And you mix that in with all the Parkour and the mech stuff and just really good gunplay and stuff like that. [01:08:03] Speaker C: It's. [01:08:04] Speaker B: And it's like. Like, this is one of the best levels ever made in any game sort of thing. I admittedly have only played, like, a bit of the beginning of it because I think it was on PlayStation plus at one point, and I was like, I'm gonna play this. And it's sort of on my backlog of, like, at some point I'll get to this. It's in my library. I'll get to it. [01:08:22] Speaker A: Quite a short campaign, but I think it's worth every minute. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [01:08:26] Speaker A: And Matt Mercer, of course, doing a voice. [01:08:29] Speaker B: He is the main character. But, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's one of the. Just all I've heard about it is just this is one of the greatest FPS campaigns ever. [01:08:39] Speaker C: It's. [01:08:40] Speaker B: You know, we're doing stuff with, like, Parkour. We're doing stuff with big mechanics. What can go wrong with that? You know, I think it's one of [01:08:49] Speaker A: those things that there's still a lot of annoyance that Respawn just took the scene and setting and transferred that to Apex Legend and then threw the rest of Titanfall's away. [01:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:01] Speaker A: And there's people still waiting for Titanfall 3. [01:09:03] Speaker B: There's still a lot of demand for a Titanfall 3, just because Titanfall 2 just impressed people that much. And I think, like, when Apex was announced, it sort of had a lot of people being like, oh, Respawn are doing a. Gonna make a big announcement. And then it was like, yeah, we're doing a hero shooter and it's out now. Go play. It's like, well, that's not what we wanted. [01:09:23] Speaker A: Still pretty popular, to be fair. [01:09:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:26] Speaker B: I mean, it's. [01:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And then they moved on to Star Wars. Of course, I'm Titanfall 3, please. [01:09:35] Speaker B: And, yeah, the third one that I thought of is kind of a different take on the FPS genre. It is super Hot, which is a game that, like, kind of. It's. It's an indie game, and it's sort of emerged kind of mostly through word of mouth. Like, I saw a lot of people just, like, quoting, like, the. The super hot kind of thing all over the Internet. I was like, what the hell is this? And the idea behind it is that it's a. An FPS, but enemies only move when you do. So it's like you can do a lot of really cool, kind of almost John Wick style stuff because everything slows down and you're trying to like bring things in and out. Okay. [01:10:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:20] Speaker A: I think there's a bit where you in the game you can watch back the level at normal times. [01:10:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So basically when you finish a level, it replays everything that you just did, but all in real time. And yeah, like the whole thing of it is like you can do it. The reason that you can exploit it is that you can kind of dodge bullets easier and you can like catch weapons that people throw at you and. And it's just like. It's a really fun, interesting take on the FPS genre. It's almost like what if we did an FPS but made it turn based is probably the best way to describe it simply. [01:10:57] Speaker A: And that's the thing. It's like that you die. There's no two ways about it. Like if you get shot or stabbed or hit, you die. [01:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Everyone in the game, enemies and yourself die in one hit. So you know, it's all about like making use of that frozen time and because you can look around, you just can't move. And then it's about making use of that and about positioning and just kind of. It's about being stylish and being cool. Like I said, it's kind of very John Wick in how it kind of comes together. You know, that sort of gun Fu kind of thing. [01:11:35] Speaker A: I remember feeling very mirrors edgy when it first came out with a very strong limited color palette that white, black and red. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:42] Speaker A: Pretty much the only three colors you get that game. So yeah, very, very good fun. I think all three are still available. TitleFall2 I know the multiplayer mode got shut down of very long but 11 points but yeah, but you can still get it on disk, I believe. [01:11:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:11:57] Speaker A: For quite cheap. Yeah. Computer exchange of choice. [01:12:01] Speaker D: Super Hot had a VR version as well. [01:12:02] Speaker A: Yes. And a Japan version I think. Super Hot jp I think they've got loads of different. [01:12:09] Speaker B: I don't know. I definitely know about the VR version [01:12:11] Speaker D: but yeah, it's the visual as well. It's super hot. [01:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:14] Speaker D: Which is kind of a thing that sets it apart. It's visually very different straight away from just looking at it. [01:12:19] Speaker B: It's the low poly thing again. [01:12:20] Speaker A: It's like it does have quite an interesting story alongside it if you play through. [01:12:26] Speaker D: And it's the John Wick's Apex game that came out a few years back, which was the kind of turn based thing again. It was all about positioning and timing and all the rest of it. It was a big influence on a few. Quite a few games after that. [01:12:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So those are my selections. So to recap, so we had Doom 2016, Titanfall 2, and Super Hot. [01:12:47] Speaker A: Find them at your gaming store of choice [01:12:52] Speaker D: or in the second hand racks at cax. Yes, cex. Not Cex. That's Sax, not sex. [01:13:04] Speaker A: It is time for our regular roundup of the one geek thing in our lives that has been burning a hole. In place of choice could be a TV series, video game, book, movie, comic, whatever you fancy. So it is our one geek thing. So we're going to start off with Sam. [01:13:23] Speaker C: I'm going to talk about a TV show that's returned to screens recently, which is House of the Dragon. So it's obviously a Game of Thrones spin off set 100 years or so before the events of the main series and into season three. Now. I'm a big Game of Thrones fan. Anyway, season two, one of the big complaints about it was it didn't really have the many kind of big battles. Like it felt like it was building up to something and then kind of ended with lots of armies marching towards each other without really actually getting that beef kind of conflict. That would have felt like a proper finale. You get that in the first episode of season three. And it's incredible. It's called the Battle of the Gullet in the books and it's like this huge naval battle with incredible real effects. They built ships and smashed them into each other basically, but also some fun CTI stuff. There's dragons flying around, proper kind of stakes. Yeah, I don't want to spoil anything, but there's quite a lot of the kind of drama and the interplay between the characters that was built up over season two comes to a head at the beginning of season one. Sorry, season three, episode one. And yeah, so that battle in particular was really exciting, but the show's obviously carrying on so a few episodes in now at the time of recording and haven't had any more battles or anything quite the same scale, but it feels like there's definitely room for at least one more before the end of the show. And yeah, if you like, lots of big fragons and big armies flying around and whacking into each other. And also some political machinations going on as well. You can't go too far in with Game of Thrones, but House of the Dragon's been doing that really well lately. [01:15:46] Speaker A: Do you think he'll ever finish the book series? [01:15:49] Speaker C: I really hope so, but thing is, House of the Dragon is based on Fire and Blood, which is a kind of historical style book. He's only done part one of Fire and Blood. There is a second part that still needs to be written as well as the two Game of Thrones books that he's still got to write that he's procrastinating with Fire and Blood. And on top of that, he apparently intends to write another five or so out of the Duncan Egg novellas that were. George, please, just pick a lane. [01:16:26] Speaker A: Pick a lane and finish it. [01:16:29] Speaker B: Stop doing Elden Ring. [01:16:30] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. If he can just focus on finishing the Game of Thrones series, I can almost take that ideal world love and finish the other two series as well. But I can take a leave then compared to yeah, just Kiss Givers, Dance of the Dragons and Winds of Winter. But yeah, I will happily absorb any Game of Thrones content that comes my way and very much enjoying House of [01:16:57] Speaker B: the Dragon at the moment. [01:16:59] Speaker A: Thank you. Lee, how about yourself? [01:17:01] Speaker B: So I have started playing Octopath Traveler 0. So I played the original Octopath Traveler sort of when that came out and was a little bit disappointed with it because like, I kind of liked the concept of like you have effectively eight protagonists, all with their own different stories that all kind of converge into one big story. But then the promise of that didn't really live up to anything with with that game because that one big story never really happened. It was still like you're playing eight simultaneous stories, just that all of the other characters sort of exist as party members in each of those stories, but they don't actually contribute anything to those stories. So. And then it kind of got really grindy and I just kind of dropped it. But I kind of. I played the demo for Octopath Traveler 0. When it came out, I think it was like November, December last year and was like, oh, this is actually a very different sort of take on it because. So what's interesting about Octopath about Zero is it's actually one of Square Enix's attempts to take one of their failed mobile games and turn it into a proper game. So it's it was originally Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent, which is one of their mobile gacha games that they put out into the world for about six months and then kill off. But they sort of took the foundations of that, took like the story bits, they took the characters and kind of put it into like a just a standard jrpg. But the way that this starts, instead of having like this, the separate eight characters is you make a protagonist like you would in sort of a lot of very traditional RPGs. And you grow up in this little town that gets burned to the ground and you are one of the few survivors from this thing. And so the story revolves around getting revenge on the people who caused all that to be burnt to the ground, but also rebuilding the town itself. So you, you go out and you, you've got different. They do this sort of multi path thing with different individual stories, but it all kind of does converge a little bit better around like you're ultimately rebuilding your hometown and everything kind of ties in with that. So yeah, when you start, you've got like three paths that you can take, which are the master of wealth, the master of power, and the master of fame. And because these are all the three people who were deeply involved in what happened to your town. So one of them is like the warlord that did the actual burning. You've got a playwright who, he bases all his plays on real life tragedies. So he's always kind of there making sure these tragedies happen. And he was present at the town being burnt down. And then the master of wealth is basically the woman who funded all of it. And the idea is you have to go and sort of take them down and they're all sort of these, they're holding all these grand positions. Like the playwright is like the most famous person in, in this town. And you know, people flock to his plays. And you know, regardless of anything that gets said about him, like people still worship him. And the, the warlord is sort of like hiding a lot of his actions behind supposed charitable things he's doing. Like I'm funding the building of a chapel, but ultimately I'm doing it as a cover for something else. And then you've got like the master of wealth is sort of. She's basically just stealing from the poor effectively. And a lot of it is very kind of. You can feel the real world politics bleeding into all of this. [01:20:57] Speaker A: You can probably just tell from billionaires maybe. [01:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's been a really sort of interesting thing because you have all these different things of like you, you want to get revenge. But it's also built around the idea of like you're trying to rebuild the town. You know, you're not just. It's not just a revenge story. It's about a renewal as well. It's about like. And there is an actual town building mechanic. So you can place all the houses yourself where you want to. And you know, you can place people into houses and try and get the right bonuses. [01:21:29] Speaker A: A little bit animal crossing a little bit. [01:21:31] Speaker B: Yeah. But yeah, I thought that that was kind of a really interesting take on it. You know, sort of you've got like these sort of very standard JRPG stories going on, but you've also got that sort of very grounded little life sim stuff sitting just off at the side. I just think adds like a nice little heart to it. And it does mean that the characters do kind of come together, especially since apparently there are something like 32 playable characters because again, it was based on a Gacha game. So it's like we've brought in all of those characters but now you can recruit them normally rather than having to go through a Gacha system. So yeah, that's pretty cool. That's Nintendo Switch, I assume it is on. It's on PC and Switch, I think Switch 2 specifically, I'm not sure. I can't remember if it's on PlayStation or Xbox. It might be because I know the original. The other Octopaths came out on those as well. [01:22:26] Speaker A: So yeah, it might say there was a big Switch title when it first. [01:22:29] Speaker B: But yeah, I know it's like. But like I said, it's one of Square Enix's attempts to redeem some of their failed mobile games because along with Final Fantasy Resonance that's come out later this year and people really want them to do it with the Nier mobile game as well because that apparently had a really good story but just wrapped up in mobile capture mechanics that if they got rid of all that, it could be really good. [01:22:50] Speaker A: So yeah, unfortunately that Square Enix is Mobus off Brande nowadays. [01:22:55] Speaker B: Yes. [01:22:55] Speaker A: So yeah, also yeah, Terms of fun. Keith, how about yourself? [01:23:01] Speaker D: My choice this month is something I had very conflicting thoughts about. First of all, the way it was done. A certain comics company released a new comic a couple of months back and they had one of these wonderful things called Blind Bags of which they put in alternative covers, various other bits and pieces. It's kind of a lottery what you might get. And one of these things they put in the blind bag was a complete surprise to a lot of people. They hadn't really teased it until very much close to it, but they reintroduced Ron the Space Knight into the Energon universe. So one of these Blind bags contained a comic, a one off comic apparently, which will not be released in any other form, written by Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead, Invincible fame and Lorenzo de la Frenchie. And they just popped it out there. So randomly somebody picked out a copy of a mask number One. And inside their blind bag was Rom. A completely independent story introducing Rom into the Energon universe, which on the one hand I'm very much opposed to the idea that this is how they did it. But on the other hand it means Rom is now in the Energon universe and he's about to meet GI Joe and Tomb Raider and Optimus prime and all the rest of it as a story, a one off story. It's really good. It sets up this iteration of a character which has been a toy in the 70s, was introduced as a Marvel character to kind of promote the toy by Bill Manflo and Sabashima in the. In the late 70s, early 80s, into one of the great comic runs of all time. Ron the Space Knight meets like lots of different characters in the Marvel universe. He's responsible for Rogue not being a villain. He makes her become the hero that she becomes. Totally missed out now on any kind of history of Marvel. But now he's now part of the Unitron universe. He has a sentient cape called Carpet. He goes through various things in this one issue and then ends up with a. A different arm. And he ends the issue running off to complete the hunt for the dire wraiths in the. [01:25:28] Speaker B: In. [01:25:28] Speaker D: In the Energon universe. He's now going to turn up in issues of Void Rivals, which I was already buying. There's one of the kind of two Energon universe titles I'm picking up. Void Rivals was one. Transformers is the other. So now he's going to turn up in. In another series towards the end of the year, I think. August issue 33, void rivals. He appears in. He's on the COVID They teased it post and now they've shown it off. [01:25:55] Speaker C: But. [01:25:57] Speaker D: So I'm kind of hoping Kirkwin can do something interesting with the character. He appears to have his mittens. Back in the IDW series a couple of years back. [01:26:07] Speaker A: He had fingers. [01:26:08] Speaker D: Rom doesn't have fingers. He has mittens. That's all very well. The design looks really nice. Wildly conflicted about how they did this kind of one off issue. I think it's a bit of a slap in the face to Rom fans. I did go and just buy it online from somebody and paid probably more than I should have. But again, it is a blind bag. So I could have spent double the amount to try and just get this one issue. And I don't really like the whole blind bag thing. It's a. It's an absolute scam. [01:26:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:37] Speaker D: And they shouldn't do it and they should have made it available to people normally, but yeah, but Rom's back, so. [01:26:45] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe the time limits exclusive for a very short amount of time. [01:26:48] Speaker C: But yeah, we're even there still. [01:26:50] Speaker D: But yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to see where they go with it. There's a lot of good stuff going on with the Transformers stuff. I do like Void Rivals as a series kind of GN GI Joe. I drop in and out of Mascot. Probably won't bother. But then they are bringing Laura Croft and Lara. [01:27:07] Speaker A: Lara. They're masked crusaders, Keith. They're working overtime to fight crime. No, they're clocking those extra hours. [01:27:14] Speaker D: The mask was never that good anyway. Sorry, mask fans. You're kind of like the Gobots of this kind of series. [01:27:20] Speaker A: The car transports to a flame, whatever. [01:27:24] Speaker D: But Rom's back, so that's good or [01:27:26] Speaker C: bad, however they go with it. [01:27:28] Speaker A: But yeah, I know it's had a character, been a character with the interesting past fit between Marvel the Image and Now Skybound and everywhere else. [01:27:37] Speaker D: But yeah, it was. He was that. Marvel got canceled after 75 issues. Rounded up the story. Then Marvel messed him up. The rights. Because the rights were owned by Hasbro. [01:27:47] Speaker A: Yes. Because it was a toy to sort of. [01:27:50] Speaker D: It was a toy. [01:27:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:27:50] Speaker D: It was palatoy in the uk. In the uk it was part of the Action man series. [01:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:56] Speaker D: So he appeared as part of the Action man thing or. The toy was terrible. I've got one, but it's. It makes just hissing noises. Yeah, but it's a character. It's the Marvel thing that's really the big thing. But this. This single issue was quite good and I quite liked it. So we'll see where it goes. [01:28:13] Speaker C: Awesome. [01:28:16] Speaker A: On to me. And I am going to pick mainly because it's dropped on Game Pass. I know we hate Xbox, but Game Pass is the one good thing that they do at the moment. [01:28:24] Speaker B: For now. They've got in that too. [01:28:26] Speaker C: Yes. [01:28:27] Speaker A: But I will say playing two main games really at the moment. One is Forza Motorsport 6. I know we talked about that recently and just got to the Ray Racer mech, which is always fun. But it's based in Japan, so. Definitely. But I would recommend that if you've not played it. And my other game choice, which is the one I'm probably playing a little bit more is kingdom come deliverance 2. Which game of the year? Last year and quite a few titles sold over 6 million copies now. But it currently got dropped on Game Pass recently. [01:28:59] Speaker D: And if you've not played Kingdom Come, [01:29:02] Speaker A: Deliverance or Kingdom Come Deliverance two they are. Well it's classed as an action role playing game I would say. It's a medieval world simulator to be fair. [01:29:11] Speaker B: It's peasant simulator. Yeah, it's specifically peasant simulator. [01:29:16] Speaker A: Basically you're dropped into medieval Europe and your job is to work his way [01:29:22] Speaker B: up here I believe is the. [01:29:25] Speaker A: Yes. Bohemia. So. And your job is to work your way up and become like a night or. Etc. So in the first game there's a. It's a whole storyline about revenge tale about and rescuing your father's sword. And then this picks up directly after the sec. After the first game you're working as a night steward for a Zor. As a steward for an actual knight. And your. Your group that you with gets basically raided by bandits and you and the knight character have to escape and you get knocked on the head and you lose all your strength and all your powers and then you basically have to start the game again from zero and then try and work up to deliver your message. You're being the knight is being an envoy at this point. But yeah, it just plunges you into medieval life. We've got to manage health, time, sleeping, fitness, etc deer, all of that kind of things. So imagine Skyrim but in medieval bohemian [01:30:31] Speaker B: and better with more survival camp mechanics is my understanding. [01:30:35] Speaker D: Yeah, it's triple to manage all of those things in real life in a medieval simulator and well it's that and [01:30:42] Speaker A: it's got a really, really in depth NPC kind of dialogue things. They will remember you. They remember what you've said to them in the past. They will change their behavior about what behavior you've done in their village. Etc. If you go and steal something off somebody, they will remember that you've stolen it off them and they'll try and get it back. And if you're wearing stolen gear and going to a town, the guards will instantly become hostile and arrest you basically. [01:31:05] Speaker D: This sounds wildly stressful. Don't like it. [01:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah. This is like my opinion on the Kingdom Come Deliverance games is basically like. I fully respect what they're doing. Like just in terms of like the. The sheer audacity of how much stuff they kind of crammed in there. But I also know that I would never play one of them. [01:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But in the first game, remember if you even attempt to use fast travel, 9 times out of 10 you'll be attacked by bandits because the whole point is immersion and you can have modes where you can turn off the map and all you get and the compass and all you got to do is guide yourself by the sun and sign posts. So it's. It gets super adepts. I'm not into that level of intense but it's. It's a very good game. It's very good mechanics and the sword play is really interesting because you can play as you get. You can pick it, pick a class weapon, say become an archer sword fighter. Or you could ignore combat altogether and become like a person with speech. Speech based things and try and be strong enough to like tell get people get out of things play. It's like a bard character in D and D basically. So I would recommend playing it if you're into the in depth side of it. Probably not as much but it is a fantastic game. It's beautiful. It's well done. I think it's based on the cryengine but really modified version of the cryengine and it's just one giant open world expansion that you can wander around and the thing is as soon as you get past the prologue bit it's like on you now. Do whatever you want. [01:32:40] Speaker D: This is not the game for me. [01:32:42] Speaker C: Not at all. [01:32:43] Speaker A: Are you of the Vatican yet by the way? [01:32:47] Speaker B: I do want to point out that in the time it's taken Keith to get out of the Vatican I have completed two Indiana Jones games. Not just that one but I went back to Fate of Atlantis, the old LucasArts one from 1992. Next time I played through the whole thing. [01:33:01] Speaker D: The next time I play I will progress the main story mission. [01:33:04] Speaker C: I promise you promise. [01:33:07] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean it would best narrative at the British Game Awards. It's Warhorse Studios doing a fantastic job. It's as I said it's. It's a game that demands time I suppose is the problem with it. So I've not got really far in it at all. But it's good fun to play and if you like that kind of setting in Sam you especially Medieval Europe kind of perfect tale for you if you want to go and become your own knight. [01:33:32] Speaker C: Sounds great. It also sounds like the sort of thing that I would get very absorbed in. And yes, like the Zelda games. Three years later it'll still be there on my tons of yeah. [01:33:46] Speaker A: But yeah would really recommend. So to recap Sam House of the [01:33:50] Speaker B: Dragon Lee Octopath Traveler 0 Keith Rom's [01:33:54] Speaker D: Space knight enters the Energon universe and [01:33:56] Speaker A: may Kingdom come Deliverance to Nighty Boogaloo. Thank you for joining us on the geeky Brummy show this issue. Sam, where can we find you online? [01:34:13] Speaker C: You can find me on bluesky threads and Instagram dedwards89 and on the geekybrammy website every Thursday doing the Film Roundup. [01:34:23] Speaker A: Keith, where can we find you? [01:34:25] Speaker D: You can find me on them, their social medias as hard Rookhotel and most Wednesdays on the Geeky Memory website with [01:34:32] Speaker A: the comic Book Roundup and Lee how it's off. [01:34:36] Speaker B: You can find me predominantly on YouTube where my goal currently is to release a video every two weeks. Mostly sort of short review videos but occasionally some bigger stuff coming in. But also you can find me on bluesky at Bob the Pet Ferret and did I say that my YouTube is Bob the Fat Ferret? We'll say that it is now. And also you can find me on the Geeky Berry website every Friday doing the games roundup even when it's too hot and even when there's only two games released. [01:35:04] Speaker A: But yes, so you can find us all at geekyrome on your social media of choice, be that in the Instagram, Facebook threads, blue sky or YouTube if you're watching it, or on Spotify if you're watching or listening to us on your podcasting streaming service of choice. And don't forget to head to geekybrummy.com if you want more information of the stuff we have discussed in this issues. Don't forget to follow Geeky Rummy as well for our Geeky goings on stream of what's coming up in and around the Midlands. Big thanks to producers Matt and Viv behind the scenes today for all their efforts, but we shall see you again soon. But for now everybody, bye. [01:35:48] Speaker D: This issue of the Geeky Bummy Podcast was hosted by Ryan Parish with Keith Bloomfield, Lee Price and Sam Edwards. It was produced by Matt Lovell and Viv Parish and was recorded live at the Millennium Point. You can follow us on all of the Social Medias et Burmy and you can support the show by visiting ko-fi.com Geeky Brummy this was a Geeky Brummy production and until next time, tararabit.