Games for the rest of 2023 | Blue Beetle | Poundshop Cosplay

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Geeky Brewing Podcast. Joining me today is Mr. Leaf rex. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:04] Speaker A: Mr. Sam Edwards. [00:00:05] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:05] Speaker A: And Mr. Keith Leeford. All the way down. [00:00:07] Speaker D: Hi, everybody. [00:00:09] Speaker A: How have we all been? We all good. We've moved studios again, as you probably noticed. We just feel like change, but it relies. Anyway, coming up on today's show, we'll be talking all about Blue Beetle. We'll be looking at the games releases of the REM remainder of 2023. [00:00:26] Speaker B: We were talking about the Writer strike. [00:00:28] Speaker A: In America, plus our one Geek things and the return of Pound Trop Cosplay. No, just me. Okay, fine. [00:00:37] Speaker B: Roll credits. [00:01:00] Speaker A: Lee. There are many video games still coming in 2020. [00:01:04] Speaker B: There are too many video games. It is absurd. Yeah. So basically 2023 is rapidly becoming like all the delayed COVID projects. Yes, it's basically we have another 1998 on our hands where basically every game is the best game ever made, and there's too many of them to keep track of. And as we're coming up to the end of the year, we have a number of big sort of high profile releases still yet to come. So we're going to sort of run through some of the stuff coming. [00:01:36] Speaker A: So we've had some really good RPG fan games come out recently. So Boulders, Gate Three, if you're a big fan of the old D and D style. Starfield if you like. Bethesda RPGs, which I am currently playing through, but we've got some other stuff rather than just RPGs coming out. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yes. So coming up, probably by the time that this episode is actually out, we've got Mortal Kombat one, because everyone now. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Mortal Kombat won the 11th game in the franchise. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's the twelveTH twelveTH game in the franchise. The last one was Mortal Kombat. Eleven. But yeah, it's one of these things where it's like, oh, we're going to do a reboot of everything, so we're. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Going to didn't they do that with Mortal Kombat seven or eight? [00:02:16] Speaker B: I think they go through a reboot every few years. I've never really been super into Mortal Kombat, but it's one of those series where I know it just endlessly reboots and its plot just gets on because they overly convolute the plot and then realize we've written ourselves into a corner. So let's reset everything again. [00:02:34] Speaker D: It all makes sense in game. Yeah, it's all got a reason there's a story behind it. [00:02:39] Speaker B: And they've gotten like all the celebrity cameos this time around with a K, of course, because it's more combo. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Did I hear Megan fox's? [00:02:48] Speaker B: Megan Fox is playing. I think it's Natara. But the funny thing is about this is that she only did half the work that she was supposed to do, and they had to get an actual professional voice actress in to do all the actual in fight grunts. Because she apparently is too good to do them, I guess. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Too good to be grunty. [00:03:08] Speaker B: But also Johnny Cage, who originally was based on Claude Van Damme. They have in I think it's in the special edition pre order thing, but inevitably will be released as DLC. There is a costume which is just straight up Jean Claude Van Damme and it even changes his voice to be Jean Claude Van Damme. It is ridiculous. [00:03:30] Speaker A: So note something weird. Like they've actually made him a magic user. Like he can actually stand toe to toe because he was just a celebrity before. It was only celebrity paced powers. [00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, well, his greatest power was crotch punch. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Which was the most obvious Jean Claude Van Damme reference because he basically just does the splits and punches his opponent in the crotch. And that's basically the move which is taken directly from bloodsport. [00:03:58] Speaker A: If it works, it works. [00:04:00] Speaker D: To be honest, I mean, I wouldn't like it if somebody did that to me. I would not want to fight anybody's doing that. [00:04:07] Speaker C: Insult to injury as well because he's presenting the perfect opportunity for them to crotch punch him. [00:04:12] Speaker B: Yes. So, yeah, Mortal Kombat one is coming out. [00:04:18] Speaker A: I've never been a big fan of Mortal Kombat. I was more of a street fighter. Two turbo, hyper fighting, unlimited every superlative under the sun edition. I never understood that with the Epstein Fighter. It's like we'll just stick another superlative on the end. [00:04:35] Speaker D: Next release. [00:04:36] Speaker B: This is what you have in fighting games. Before, Patching was the thing, and now we have Patching. You just have one version and that's the end of it. But, yeah, I've also never been particularly into Mortal Kombat. I found it very kind of the animations to be very stiff. And I think it's just a kind of holdover of the fact that they had, like, digitized people just doing terrible martial arts moves because none of them knew martial arts. They just kind of just copied what the movies were doing and occasionally somebody going toasty in the corner. Yes. So there's that. Yes. We have Assassin's Creed Mirage, which is supposed to be another effectively a reboot because they're going back to basics after the last three big, sprawling, epic RPGs. They've now kind of truncated it back down and they're going back to the Middle East. So they've effectively gone back to where the series starts. [00:05:31] Speaker A: So they had Origins, which was the soft reboot of the reboot. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that was where they started doing that's, where they basically turned Assassin's Creed into big, sprawling RPGs that are way too long, where they took Far Cry. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Three map and just copy pasted lots of things over the top. [00:05:46] Speaker B: I played Origins, and one of the things that really annoyed me about that is that half the map is just an empty desert, just so they can say they've got a big map, that there's literally nothing in the desert and like, yeah, it's Egypt, whatever, but you don't need to render this entire left side of the map to just be an empty desert. [00:06:05] Speaker A: If they put something at the center of the desert, then that might be. [00:06:08] Speaker B: Quite slightly look, I did it. I was like, I'm going to see what's out there. There's nothing out there. It was a waste of time. I'm sure somebody was sat there. You'd be talking. Which is also why I never played Odyssey or Valhalla. Valhalla, from what I've heard, like, at this point, is like, I think it's. [00:06:24] Speaker A: The better one out the lot. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Well, not from my perspective because apparently it takes about 200 hours to finish and I'm just like, yeah, no, I'm done with this. But Assassin's Creed Mirage, basically they are going back to the Middle East, so it's set in Baghdad and they're basically sort of making it more like the older style, I think, because people just got so I think that ubisoft got so many complaints about just how big the games had gotten. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Will you still be able to sit on a bench and hide from the. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Entire I really hope so. I think my favorite Assassin's Creed moment in the series was like being able to I think I took out a whole group of guards and then just casually threw them all into the same haystack. There was no limit to it. You could just keep piling them in. So I hope they bring that back. [00:07:15] Speaker D: I think I missed an opportunity there to have Assassin's Creed appeal to kids who used to drink in the 80s. Yeah, because if you've got Assassin's Creed Mirage, you should have had Assassin's Creed Taboo. So anybody old enough knows that reference. Yeah, right, in kids. [00:07:34] Speaker A: But they've just never done Feudal Japan, which is obviously what everybody's always asked for. [00:07:41] Speaker B: I think they're going to do it, but it's going to be like a mobile game because it's supersoft. [00:07:47] Speaker A: They can put more microtransactions in there. [00:07:49] Speaker B: I mean, let's be honest, ghost of Sushima exists. We don't need Assassin's Creed of Feudal Japan at this point because that basically is it. There we go. Also, it is the 90s again because we're getting Sonic versus Mario in one week. So basically Sonic Superstars, which is the new 2D Sonic game, is coming out in the exact same week as Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which is the new 2D Mario game. [00:08:12] Speaker A: They're really cashing in on that film, aren't they? Saw a Nintendo direct. It was like, here's everything Mario humanly possible. [00:08:21] Speaker B: They are really doing a lot of Mario stuff at the moment because obviously you got the well, there's one other thing on the list that I'm bringing up, which is the Super Mario RPG remake. It's also coming in, so they've got that. And next year they've got Luigi's Mansion, two HD, and they're doing a Princess Peach game called Showtime. And they're also bringing they're finally rereleasing paper. Mario the Thousand Year door. [00:08:43] Speaker A: It's one of the better Mario games. [00:08:45] Speaker B: To be fair, because that's one that I've been wanting to play but it's on the GameCube, so it costs about 300 quid from literally anywhere. But, yeah, I just found it funny that both the Sonic 2D game and the Mario 2D game are coming in the exact same week and I'm like, oh, it's 1993 again, is it? [00:09:03] Speaker D: It's not quite the same because it's not like it's Sega versus Nintendo play Sonic on a mega drive. [00:09:09] Speaker B: I mean, I'm inevitably going to get both of them for the switch. [00:09:13] Speaker A: I wonder if they'll give it the ugly Sonic, like, as a DLC costume. [00:09:17] Speaker B: No, they've got the sort of classic characters, so it's like from Sonic generations. It's that sort of design of classic Sonic. So the little chubby version that they did, along with Tails, Knuckles and Amy, and I think they're bringing in some of the weirder ones from that sort of era that like a bit three of the most. [00:09:39] Speaker A: He's not going to kiss a human girl again, is he? [00:09:41] Speaker B: No, I think they're going light on the story this time around. There's a lot of emphasis on the actual platforming and on sort of co op play as well, because obviously, with all these different characters that you can play, they're allowing you to. I think it's up to four players. Which also Super Mario Brothers wonder has as well, which is they took the new Super Mario Brothers games and went, what if we put them on drugs? Because it's basically like, oh, we come up with the idea of the Wonder flower and it makes weird stuff happen. So the pipes start crawling around on the floor or you'll just inflate. And I'm just like, Nintendo, what you just did there is you announced to the internet that you're going to do Elephant Peach, who's able to inflate, and I don't know why you thought that that was a good idea. [00:10:33] Speaker A: Oh, there's going to be some artwork yes. Coming to the internet, which none of. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Us would like to see. Elephant Peach and Daisy, because they're both playable. But, yeah, it's got like, I think, twelve playable characters, although two of them are Toads and then half of them are Yoshis, so it may be not cheating a bit. I'm also slightly sad that they didn't show if you can stack the Yoshis, because I know you can have one Yoshi ride another Yoshi, but I'm just wondering, can you have the other two Yoshi just have carrying all the weight? I mean, they showed off like the Elephant Mario riding Yoshi and he just looks done with everything. The workhorse of the Super Mario Brothers universe. As soon as they showed it, you just see his face and he's like. [00:11:25] Speaker A: You'Re an elephant, why do you need to be riding a dinosaur? This does not make any kind of. [00:11:29] Speaker B: Sense, but it does look a lot of fun and it's going to be, I think I believe it's the first game without Charles Martinet as Mario, because they recently made that announcement that he will no longer be voicing him or the assorted other Mario variants. [00:11:46] Speaker A: There was a Tweet that went viral this week where somebody said, now Charles Martinez passed on. This is his line. And it was the last line for the Super Mario Brothers movie. And it's like, what passed on? And everybody was like, what? [00:11:57] Speaker D: Has he died? [00:11:59] Speaker A: Died within the five minutes since we're dying as marriage? No, it was just a very bad turn of and it just went viral. [00:12:05] Speaker B: Because everyone was like, oh, my God, moved on. He's not passed on. But, yeah, I know that. There are people out there just like, oh, they better not ruin it. And I'm just like most people didn't even notice in the original trailer that it wasn't him. There were some people who weirdly, were like, that's not Charles Martin there. And I'm like, how did you know? [00:12:26] Speaker A: Just earwigging. [00:12:27] Speaker B: It just sounds like Mario. So I don't know what the problem is. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Well, at least Chris Pratt's not doing the voice permanently. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, we don't know yet. We don't know who it is. Maybe he's actually gotten really good at doing a proper Mario impression, whether he. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Useful to do that with the movie. [00:12:43] Speaker B: But let's move up and then we have the return of the Spider Man on PlayStation. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Spiderman. Two of them. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Yes. Spiderman two. Despite it being the third one. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:12:59] Speaker B: But there's two spider mans in it. Spiderman, whichever you prefer. Because you've got Peter Parker and you've got Miles Morales. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Both playable from the start, I think, aren't they? [00:13:10] Speaker B: I think so. From what I can gather, it's one of those situations where I think you can maybe switch between them. So, obviously I have no interest in Spiderman game, but I know that this is like the big PlayStation game for the year. [00:13:24] Speaker A: I know they showed off the suit customization mod, and it was something like there's over like 20 or 30 different suits from all the eras of Spiderman. But you can recolor any part of the suit to any colors you want. So you can take the Tobin Maguire Venomized suit and turn it neon pink if you want. [00:13:44] Speaker D: Gamers hair. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, I'm looking forward to that in Tekken Eight when that comes out in January, there's going to be inevitably a ridiculous customization in that. But, yeah, of course. That is like the big PlayStation exclusive, though, Spiderman Two, because it's all they've got now is Marvel games and live service games that no one cares about. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Spiderman games, though. [00:14:10] Speaker D: That's all Sony have got when it comes to Marvel. [00:14:12] Speaker B: Well, they've got Wolverine coming. [00:14:16] Speaker D: That's Xbox. Yeah. [00:14:18] Speaker B: I think it's Insomniac doing it. Yeah. [00:14:21] Speaker A: But it's still multi platform, I think. [00:14:22] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it wouldn't be if it's PlayStation. At best, it would be PC. [00:14:28] Speaker D: Possibly. Possibly. I wouldn't have thought so now, because it's only Spider Man. They've hung onto the yeah, it'd be interesting. [00:14:35] Speaker B: But so far as far as I can tell, they've only announced it. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Maybe they bought the license off screenings because they wasted the entire Marvel license. [00:14:41] Speaker D: Well, Xbox is getting Indiana Jones. [00:14:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:49] Speaker B: So, yeah, we got that. And then we have Alan Wake two, which I am very excited for. As most people are aware, my game of the year for 2019 was Control, which is set in the same universe. And I went back and played the original Awake. So it's basically just it's going to be just more weird remedy stuff that's sort of very Twin Peaks inspired. And it's going to have sort of two stories kind of running side by side. So you've got, like, an FBI agent who's investigating all the stuff that went down in the first game trying to figure out what's going on in this place. You've also got these weird cultists wearing deer heads bursting through walls, so that'll be interesting to deal with. And then you've got, like, Alan Wake's side of things where he's sort of trapped in the lake from the first game. So trapped in the dark world and trying to escape from that. [00:15:43] Speaker A: I'm hearing a metal band full of Nordic gods will turn up at some point as well. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Yes, probably. It's funny because I was actually listening to some tracks from the recent Poets of the Fall album and thinking, okay, which one of these tracks is going to show up in Alan waiter? Because one of them will it's because the reason being is that the lead singer is, like, best mates with Sam Lake. So they just keep putting their songs in the game. But, yeah, like the Alan Wake side of things, visually, they've clearly taken a lot of stuff from Control. [00:16:15] Speaker A: I wonder if it's still going to be sponsored by Durasil. [00:16:18] Speaker B: I believe all that was removed from the remaster, so I doubt it, unfortunately. But, yeah, it's going to be a very interesting one. I'm already kind of getting out the cork board and the red thread because the FBI agent that you play her partner is very clearly Max Payne. Like, it's got Sam Lake face. It's got the same voice actor as Max Payne. And we already know his character name, which is Alex Casey, which is a character written by Alan Wake in the original game. And I thought rockstar. They do, because in the original Alan Wake, effectively, you can pick up bits of Alan's novel, Alex Casey novels, and they get Max Payne's voice actor to do them. And the story is basically just he's a hard boiled cop in New York, and it's basically this plot of Max Payne's wife gets killed. But they've gotten around it by giving him a different name and all this. And now he's apparently in the real world, and they've clearly used Sam Lake's face and the same voice actor. Again, I'm just like, you've just put Max Payne in it. But you've renamed him. So rockstar. But to be fair, because they're doing the remakes of Max Payne, I wouldn't be surprised if they got some sort of agreement with Rockstar to allow that to happen and got their blessing for it. [00:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah, Rockstar haven't done anything with Alan Wake for, what, a decade now, so. [00:17:44] Speaker B: It'D be very interesting to see how that turns out. But, yeah, I'm very curious to see what they do with that. Then. Lastly. Like I said, the Super Mario RPG remake is coming out. [00:17:58] Speaker A: So are they just lifting the N 64 game and giving it a polish? [00:18:02] Speaker B: Originally, it was a Snez game. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Snez, sorry. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah, from the looks of things, it's basically like it's got like a visual upgrade from the original, but from what I can tell, it's just the same game. Which, of course, originally famously didn't come out in Europe, but we did get it eventually on the virtual console and stuff. [00:18:21] Speaker A: Horn dolphin emlets. [00:18:25] Speaker B: But, yeah, it is a good game, so it is going to be cool to see that get a fresh lease of life. So that's just some of the stuff that's coming out in the coming months. But there are so many more games. I could have filled this with all the sort of high profile indie games and stuff as well. [00:18:45] Speaker A: Well, I'm assuming there'll be also a FIFA, also a Call of Duty. [00:18:49] Speaker B: There's definitely a call of duty. Any of them reason I didn't put. [00:18:54] Speaker A: SmackDown 6,000,000,750, the reason I didn't put. [00:18:57] Speaker B: A Modern Warfare on my list was just because I don't think any of us have anything to say about Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three, apart from the fact that it's the second Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three and they're just confusing everything. But, yeah, there's all sorts of stuff coming out. It's so much there's too many, yeah. [00:19:19] Speaker A: Any highlights for yourselves? [00:19:21] Speaker B: Anything you're looking forward to? [00:19:23] Speaker D: Not really. I've got too many games that I haven't played yet. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Well Starfield's now on game of pass, if you like. Bethesda RPGs, I suppose that's everybody for the next three months doing Radiant Quests on empty planets. [00:19:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I still have Balders Gate to get through, so I'm dealing with that at the moment. And also there's a couple of other things that I've been playing and not to mention the amount of stuff that gets thrown at me for, like review copies and things like that that dragged me away from doing that, but at least I get paid for those. [00:20:00] Speaker A: If any of that doesn't take your interest, go onto Steam or your gaming service of choice and look in the indie section. [00:20:06] Speaker B: What I will suggest is that every Friday I write the games release roundup on Geekybrummy.com, and therefore I will provide you with a lot more games. [00:20:19] Speaker A: There's usually some really good indie stuff in there that you probably might skip over. [00:20:23] Speaker B: I know that one off the top of my head that is coming out is a game called Jusant, which was shown at the Xbox Showcase, I believe. And it's basically sort of like you're playing as someone who as a climber, and he's got like this little slug friend that sits on his shoulder and is very adorable. It's from the people who made life is strange. And it's very much not Life is Strange, but yeah, that looks very interesting. And I've got my own that one out. And that's out in October because everything's out in October. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you, geekybrummy.com. [00:21:01] Speaker B: Every Friday. Well, most Friday. [00:21:03] Speaker A: Most Friday. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Check out the latest releases. [00:21:08] Speaker A: Remember Heroes? A TV series? [00:21:11] Speaker B: No. [00:21:12] Speaker D: I do. [00:21:13] Speaker C: I quite liked heroes. [00:21:14] Speaker B: It was a very good first season. I actually do. [00:21:18] Speaker A: It had a very good first season. And then things went wrong because there was a writer's strike in America. Guess what's happening at the minute? Another writer strike in America. But this one I'm fully backing and I fully appreciate why they're going on strike at the moment. But, yeah, it does mean that TV's not going to be great for a while, I think. And also at the same time, we've also got a SEG after strike, which is the US's Screen Actors Guild. Plus lots of letters. Can't remember what they stand for now. So there's a writers and actor strike going on at the moment, which means film and TV production has shut down for a while. No promotion. Think what's our thoughts. Keith, I'll go with you first, because you are in the film industry, you are on IMDb. [00:22:10] Speaker D: I can fully understand why they're doing it, and I fully back all the reasons they do. It's interesting that the studios are taking such a hard line with it because they put together a list of the kind of things, the demands they want, and some of it is to do with the rise in AI. And the problems with AI generated content, one type or another. [00:22:35] Speaker A: And streaming media is the other. [00:22:36] Speaker D: And the residuals from streaming content being put out on other platforms other than their original things. And some studios have been fully brilliant about it. A 24 one studio just went, yeah, fine, great, we'll do it. [00:22:52] Speaker A: They're the only studio at the moment who have fully agreed to everything in both the SAGAFTRA and the writer strike. [00:22:59] Speaker D: Which is why actors and stuff are able to promote a 24 material that's coming out over the next few months. But some of the other studios just being wholeheadedly ridiculous about it and kind of basically, if you follow Ron Perlman on his instagram, ron is not shy about saying what he thinks about this, particularly when some of the studios are basically, you know, we don't care. Lose your house, it's fine, we don't care. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Bob Oger from Disney, I think it was basically which was brilliant because they'll. [00:23:32] Speaker D: Just lose ron basically went, we know where you live, you know, and not having a mortgage is not the only way you can lose your house. I kind of thought, Nice one, Ron, but I don't understand why the studios just don't they're making enough money. I mean, these institutions aren't shy of a few quid, especially Disney billion dollar industries. I mean, everybody is chasing that kind of billion dollar box office now. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Is it? Aaron Paul came out and said he's basically earned nothing at all from Netflix streaming Breaking Bad. [00:24:04] Speaker D: Yeah, but this again, it's one of those ridiculous things about big corporations squeezing out the actual people who are creating the content. I don't want to go into it right now, but the comics industry, again, is another industry that squeezes out. [00:24:24] Speaker B: There is a very prominent thing happening in games as well at the moment, with Unity specifically. [00:24:29] Speaker D: So there's a big thing that just kicked off this week between one kind of writer and DC, and it just. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Throws up the fact that Fables yeah. [00:24:40] Speaker D: And it just throws up the ridiculousness that these organizations do not learn from this kind of like, yeah, we're going to make billions of dollars off other people's ideas and art and creativeness. And then when they kind of say, can we have a little bit? And they're not asking for a lot, but just enough. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Well, the Writers Guild striker completely understand because if you've got something like AI threatening your entire livelihood and at the end of the day, AI is a production of humanity's knowledge thrown into a big boiling pit. [00:25:09] Speaker B: It's plagiarism. [00:25:11] Speaker A: It's a giant plagiarism landmine. [00:25:14] Speaker D: But again, it's the side industries that all of the people that work in VF film production and stuff as well, everybody's suffering. And yet I can't see how a studio thinks that by playing hardball and just going, no, we're not going to give you anything, that somehow they're going to be able to generate content out of AI that they're going to sell to people. [00:25:37] Speaker B: No, I know how they think that way, because basically, you got to remember that none of the people in charge of these studios are actual creatives. They're all people who came from Wall Street. And basically all they know is money needs to line needs to go up. That's all they understand. [00:25:53] Speaker A: Well, it's not even just line needs to go up, it's line needs to go up this year. So that means we need to push. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Out line needs to go up infinitely. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Forever, basically, but very much this year because my bonus is based on that. And it's this case of, well, if we keep throwing more content, then we'll get more cash and we'll hit every single thing. I mean, big case in point. So Marvel Secret Invasion, which probably not the greatest Marvel series of all time, and I appreciate Superheroes has opinions, but when they did the credit scene to that one, it was obviously they'd use something like Mid Journey or it was AI inspired because it was obviously impacted by the strike. And they were just like, we'll just throw some crappy credits together. [00:26:34] Speaker C: I kind of took that to be an intentional choice because AI being a big thing about sort of fake imagery, replacing real imagery, kind of tied in with the themes of the film, of the scrolls impersonating. [00:26:50] Speaker A: I just think it was a very quick and cheap way of getting a. [00:26:53] Speaker C: Lot of credit as well. [00:26:55] Speaker D: To be fair, I don't imagine the people who did put it together didn't charge them a lot of money. Yeah, I think the people who put it together probably charged them quite a lot of money but didn't do an awful lot of work. But again, I think that just happened at a point where it was all kind of hitting the news and everybody was kind of hyper focused on it. [00:27:12] Speaker B: Speaking of making a lot of money and not doing a lot of work. Back to the CEOs. [00:27:16] Speaker D: But again, I think what all of these big film companies have fallen over is they've all seen Netflix do okay out of streaming and literally every studio has gone, we're going to have our own streaming service. So you've got lionsgate, you've got shudder, you've got and it's like at some point you're all going to not make money because we're in a channel four would have it economic crisis so that there's only so much money to go around. And so spreading it out all over the place, it's the same as when kind of network television and cable kind of happened. [00:27:54] Speaker A: Well, I was going to say we're back to the dark days of cable where everything to watch the content you want because it's now being spread out. That was the one advantage of Netflix back in the day, was it had everything on it, so you would just pay your streaming subscription and watch what you wanted. But now every studio has taken their toys and gone away. [00:28:13] Speaker B: We're back to the dark. [00:28:16] Speaker A: 80, 90 pounds if you want to have every single stream. [00:28:18] Speaker B: It's kind of similar to what some companies have been trying in games with. Like you've got EA Play and you've got the Ubisoft service and stuff. [00:28:26] Speaker A: Xbox. Game pass. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Yeah, but I like that at this point, I think most of the EA Play subscribers are just Game Pass subscribers because it's all tied in. But then again, I think they've realised that, oh actually, maybe we should just be part of this service rather than have our own. [00:28:40] Speaker D: But at the same time you've got the reduction of physical media as well. So it's like we're not going to actually put that content out on a physical dis. [00:28:49] Speaker A: There's like a minimum amount of watches now at the cinema booth before they even consider it for Blu ray. [00:28:56] Speaker D: And the fact that they were all scared of piracy back in the kind of early two thousand s. And it's like everybody's just going to go back. To that again because nobody's going to go, oh, I want to watch this show that used to be on this channel, but now it's on this streaming service, which cost me 1599 a month. So I'm not going to but go. [00:29:14] Speaker B: And steal it even further. With that. You've got stuff I think Disney have been doing this where certain shows that have underperformed, they're just pulling they've pulled them from the service, but because they've only been made for streaming, there's no physical version of it. So it's just gone forever. So people will just pirate it because it's the only way to get hold of it. [00:29:31] Speaker A: There was a big thing, I believe it was. I can't remember Hulu in the States bought another streaming service and then just binned half the content that they didn't want on it, and it was made for this streaming service. And they were just like, yeah, we're. [00:29:47] Speaker D: Not going to you've got people like Netflix, who in the UK are aware people should know we're all big fans of Final Space, but they're basically going to shutter Final Space and there's going to be no way for you to watch that show after a while. And Olin Rogers is putting out this graphic novel, and he's fully aware that this graphic novel, which has a recap of the first few seasons, I think. [00:30:09] Speaker A: It was like a thousand prints are allowed. [00:30:11] Speaker D: No, he's doing as many as he can up until the point where he actually does it and prints it. But again, you've got creators who are going, I've put my heart and soul into this content that at some point, through no choice of my own, nobody's going to be able to see. And the other ridiculous thing about digital content and streaming is you don't own it. So even if you buy it through Amazon or whatever it is, at some point, Amazon's like, yeah, we're not hosting that anymore, so it's gone. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Well, there was a big thing with Discovery Plus because they merged with H. Was it HBO, Max or one of them? [00:30:44] Speaker D: It's the Warner brothers. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah, Warner Brothers thing, because basically Cartoon Network, they just gutted the content. And you had all these people who's like, I spoiled my heart and soul into, as you said, this art for many years. It's very popular show. And I'm like, no, just because it doesn't make enough revenue. [00:31:01] Speaker B: Well, with Warner Brothers, their problem is know if it's not Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings and we can't milk it forever. [00:31:08] Speaker A: Or DC. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Or DC. That's the attitude that they've very much adopted lately. I'm honestly, as we mentioned, Mortal Kombat surprised that that's even still allowed to happen, quite frankly. [00:31:19] Speaker A: But I think it parallels as well, is people are going to just go somewhere else. All these talented writers and actors, if Hollywood is going to reject them, all they'll do is go somewhere else and become independents. And we've already seen it with stuff like YouTube and people who are doing Kickstarter funding and going away and creating their own passion project. Some of them aren't great, some of them have got some real good talent behind them and some of them were really good production values nowadays. And I think that's the future of stuff is people are going to start rejecting streaming and as you said, it's either piracy or go and find something else. [00:31:54] Speaker B: I mean, I also think as well, we're going to see at this point with all this stuff going on with Hollywood, we're going to see productions from other countries, see a rise of stuff. [00:32:05] Speaker A: From UK, the UK, Canada, Australia, I. [00:32:08] Speaker B: Mean, like Netflix, Hoarding, all the K dramas are having a great time right now. [00:32:15] Speaker A: But at the same time US media, I think is collapsing in on itself. I mean, visual artists as well. There's a massive thing at the moment about VFX in movies where you pay by shot. And I think the last flash movie proved that if you pay by shot, you're not going to get the greatest quality. CGI sometimes because they're just rushing to get the shots done and it'll just. [00:32:37] Speaker B: Be, man, I haven't seen that film, but I've seen clips of it. And. [00:32:42] Speaker A: It'S like if you think about peak CGI, which was, what, 510 years ago, if you think about again, Infinity War endgame, and Oli, you haven't watched. [00:32:50] Speaker B: This, but I don't know. Peak CGI for me was Jurassic Park. [00:32:53] Speaker A: You think about the care and the attention done to those kind of things and you look at the stuff that they're pushing out now and it's just get it out there, get it out, get it out. I mean, there was a few things I noticed recently in the Ahsoka series because I'm watching that and you look at that and you go, oh, that's a really bad composite shot there because the lighting doesn't match. They've not put any attention to it. You can just see it's her standing in the volume and they've just gone paste. [00:33:16] Speaker D: But that's the other thing about the streaming stuff is they'll go, oh, we'll change that later, because they've done it already with a lot of the streaming shows. [00:33:22] Speaker B: They've tweaked, they've learned the wrong lessons from the games industry, we'll fix it. [00:33:26] Speaker A: Later, we can patch this. [00:33:28] Speaker D: But if a smaller studio like a 24 can get their act together and agree to these things and put out good content, good original content, why can't the big studios start to do that as well? I don't mind occasionally during the kind of summer blockbuster season that we get the big temp hole movies, maybe I'd like to see a lot less sequels and a lot less kind of like legacy material as much as I like it. But I do want to see new and exciting things, new characters, new stories. [00:33:59] Speaker B: I think the problem is though, is that if you look at what sells. It's not a 24 stuff. Apart from everything, everywhere, all at once. [00:34:09] Speaker A: I don't know, I think they've got a lot of stuff coming out soon and they're starting to mix stuff up. Perfect example. Stop making sense. The a 20 talking heads concert. A 24 have done the Remastering. They've done A 4K release on that one. [00:34:22] Speaker B: It's coming up at the Mockingbird, I think, for that. I think that's the problem is that they've got, like a degree of cult success, but I think it hasn't really translated to big numbers. And I think that's why the other studios aren't interested in copying their model. Because it's like, yeah, but we want to make billions of dollars. [00:34:41] Speaker C: If A 24 is going to get to the point now, because we're already seeing a lot of big films, like Dnt, for example, being pushed back because of the active strike, they're not able to promote them. So the studios are worrying that they're not going to get the numbers because they're not doing the promotion. So they're pushing the films back, hoping that by the time it comes out, the strike will have ended, they'll be able to promote them. So we're in a bit of a dry patch in the cinema at the moment in terms of big tent pole films. If A 24 is the only studio that's putting things out, then that's the only thing people are going to go and see. So they're going to make the money. [00:35:17] Speaker A: I'm hoping it starts off a new kind of non Hollywood based golden age of cinema, where other things get through. [00:35:25] Speaker D: Yeah. I wonder if the audiences are accepting of that. I think some of the problem is with the audiences. [00:35:33] Speaker A: The audience have been trained for the last 20 years to expect spectacle when they go to the cinema. And Marvel has been one of the biggest issues around. That is they push the boat out with big explosions, constant beats, massive spectacle, movies. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Although I do feel like, from what I've seen, the audiences do seem to be getting tired of it. Yeah. [00:35:52] Speaker A: And that's what I'm saying. I think we reached that turning point now. It's like if you think about the golden age of Hollywood with all the cowboy movies, we've reached that point of it's another superhero film. [00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Because obviously, if you think like, this year, I think the only real sort of success stories in terms of superhero movies have been Guardians of the Barbie, whichever Spider verse movie it was. [00:36:18] Speaker A: But again, there's massive issues in the background of that one because overworked artists. [00:36:22] Speaker B: We'Re back to the VFX stuff again. [00:36:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I think, as you said, I fully support the strikes and I hope that they get resolved soon in the benefit of the writers and the actors. But, yeah, it's time to look elsewhere. Hollywood. Talking of superhero movies, no Segue. This has been a new DC movie dropped, and it's an origin story your favorite type of superhero movie where they give all the buildup for why the character exists. Again. It is DC's Blue Beetle. Bit more of a fan character than probably the Justice League. So I don't think many people know who Blue Beetle is as much it's Jamie or is it Jaime? Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle being played by Zolo Mare Dewena, who is also in the Karate Kids TV series Cobra Kai. So that's where he's come from. If you haven't seen him, I'm going to mangle these pronunciations. I apologies in advance. Adriana Bazaza. Damien Alakazar. George Lopez. RAL. Max Tu. [00:37:38] Speaker B: And I bet you were so happy when George Lopez yes, George Lopez. [00:37:43] Speaker A: Great. [00:37:44] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:37:44] Speaker A: Very rich. Susan Sarandon's in it. [00:37:46] Speaker B: Yeah. There we go. [00:37:48] Speaker A: Harvey Guillain, who you might know from what we do in the Shadows and Becky G as the voice of Kajidar, which I was very surprised about when I found out was Becky G as well. But yeah. So it's a less well known DC character, put it that way. But it's kind of your standard origin story of kid finds a weird thing, weird thing crawls up his bottom, turns. [00:38:15] Speaker D: Him into a superhero. [00:38:17] Speaker B: This sounds accurate from what was in the trailer, turns into a superhero. And yeah, I hate when that happens. [00:38:24] Speaker A: And tries to stop Susan Sarandon from taking over the world. [00:38:27] Speaker B: We should just let her take over the world, quite frankly. [00:38:31] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Keith, you go. You're a comics expert. [00:38:35] Speaker C: Blue Beetle. [00:38:36] Speaker A: We got multiple iterations of Blue Beetle. I won't spoil. [00:38:40] Speaker B: So Keith who? Yeah. [00:38:43] Speaker D: This is where it goes all horribly wrong for me. I've not really read any of the hamy. [00:38:48] Speaker B: Keith, why are you here? [00:38:51] Speaker A: I'm much more of a Ted creations in the comics. [00:38:54] Speaker D: Well, it's one of those weird ones because he's not originally a DC character. He's a Carlton comics character which has a whole history. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Is that a comic outfit run by Will Smith's cousin? [00:39:08] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. It's much older, but it's one of those weird ones where DC brought it in. And if you've ever seen Watchmen, owl man in Watchmen is basically Blue Beetle because there was all these rights. [00:39:20] Speaker A: It was a golden TV or a radio serial back in the don't know. [00:39:26] Speaker D: I'm not that old. Thanks very much. But yeah. So I don't really know him. But it was nice that kind of alluded to the history of Ted Cord's kind of history of Blue Beetle. And he kind of had all of that Cord Industries and all the rest of it because basically it's just an analogue of the Batman kind of thing. Rich person does stuff with gadgets. Whereas this new iteration, you've got the kind of alien kind of technology element to it and the kind of crazy kind of anime esque elements of it of I can create you any weapon, and all of that kind of stuff, which is kind of cool. But as a film as a whole. I kind of liked it. I enjoyed it a lot because it wasn't grim and it wasn't dark and it wasn't kind of know, we've got to be all serious and sweary and nobody can take it seriously unless we're really kind of like and the costume wasn't that spiky, so that was good for DC. But it was light, it was tough, it was more on the kind of side of Shazam, where it's kind of much more in the Shazam side of the DC universe. [00:40:27] Speaker A: It felt very much more PG or more kid friendly than a lot of DC stuff has been recently. [00:40:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say there were some very dark moments in it where he first becomes Blue Beetle is one of the most sort of harrowing things I've seen in a superhero film. Really, really genuinely quite kind of disturbing on an almost Cronenbergy kind of level. [00:40:50] Speaker D: Yeah. Kind of body horror element. That is what you want when you're kind of eight and nine. You want kind of something that's like. [00:40:56] Speaker C: Yes, oh, this is a bit kind. [00:40:57] Speaker D: Of exciting, but I think it worked really well. I mean, again, it fell into the terrible kind of superhero trope. Of all the stuff outside. The CGI battles is great. The CGI battles are a bit kind of like meh. I kind of seen it all before and it all becomes a bit murky and is it dark and raining? Know, it would be really nice for superheroes to have a fight kind of in the daytime when it's sunny. [00:41:24] Speaker A: That was the thing. Because it's based in Palmera City, which basically feels just like this is Miami, but we're not going to call it Miami. And they do go quite a lot into about immigration and second generation families and getting over the border. And that was really interesting stuff. [00:41:38] Speaker D: The whole Mexican side of things was really, really well done and kind of bringing in these kind of Mexican actors and people who've got kind of higher profiles in the kind of Hispanic industry kind of stuff. So that was really good that it was kind of really well, it was good for people being able to see themselves being represented on the screen. So that's good for DC. And I've kind of heard rumblings that James Gunn's not going to just kind of wipe it out of existence. Well, somehow he's going to incorporate it into the new version of the DC universe. [00:42:13] Speaker A: It didn't really tight at all into the Snyderverse, from what I can recall. There was a few lines, throwaway lines about Batman, few throwaway lines about superheroes, and there was no real mention of the Snyderverse, which is probably good. [00:42:28] Speaker D: Well, I kind of hope that what James Gun's going to do a little bit because the Blue Beetle I kind. [00:42:34] Speaker A: Of well, James Gun likes not eightier superheroes quite a lot, which we've seen with Guardians and we saw with Suicide Squad he likes picking odball characters. [00:42:45] Speaker D: Well, the Blue Beetle that I read in the kind of was the version that turned up in the kind of Justice League that was rebooted at the time, which was a little bit lighter. So you had Blue Beetle, Booster, Gold, Fire and Ice. Guy Gardner, batman. So it was a little bit lighter and a little bit funnier. So it veers a little bit more towards the kind of feel of something like Guardians of the Galaxy. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Yeah, someone who has absolutely no knowledge of any of this. That list of names was absurd, especially Guy Gardner, because I'm like, isn't that the guy from Elbow? [00:43:18] Speaker D: But also you have Russian heroes like Red Rocket. Red Rocket. But that 80s Justice League, and they had Justice League Europe and stuff. It was really good because it was just funny and like Batman punching Guy Gardner and Martian Manhunter just eating Oreo cookies. [00:43:36] Speaker B: Look, I don't like Elbows music either, but that's not fair. [00:43:39] Speaker D: Which was also a riff on a kind of judge dread staring to the face of whatever it is. [00:43:43] Speaker A: But I really quite like the art style on it because they kind of riff off that 80s vibe of Neon and it's that kind of Miami Vicey kind of style. [00:43:51] Speaker B: And the music. [00:43:54] Speaker C: Worked into that really well. [00:43:55] Speaker A: I mean, there's a bit of Motley Crue and everything. Throw it in there. [00:43:59] Speaker D: I found it much more entertaining than a Flash overall. [00:44:02] Speaker A: Oh, amazingly more entertaining than the Flash. [00:44:04] Speaker B: From what I've heard. A lot of things are more entertaining. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Watching that screen behind you 4 hours just with nothing on it would have been more entertaining than going to the. [00:44:14] Speaker D: Flash, but if you were kind of looking for a nice slice of superhero fun yeah. You don't really need to know anything about the history of the character. It's pretty much presented all there on screen for you. [00:44:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Mrs Greek, you ruby summed it up perfectly for me, which you basically just said it's a Saturday afternoon comic book movie. Yeah, it's something that's going to be on Channel Five in a few years. You'll just watch it because it's entertaining. It's entertaining. And I said, I do quite like the said the Poppy style that they did when they went back to Ted Kord's Blue Beetle hideaway. Sorry, spoilers. When they go to his hideaway and it's got like all the 80s tech in the background. And then George Lopez suddenly becomes this tech genius overnight. That was a bit weird. That was a little bit like, we've not really built this up with a character. Now he's just a tech genius. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:04] Speaker D: Also, I'm demanding that his grandma gets her own movie franchise because that was one of the greatest moments in there. She's like, it's just that moment when you just go, sweet little granny. But no, she's gone through some things. So if they want to do a spin off, maybe young Grandma there's a whole kind of thing set in the kind of like fifty s and sixty s, the concept. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Younger Grandma isn't that just a normal adult woman? [00:45:35] Speaker D: No, but if you're going to spin out a film franchise young Grandma that's a hook, isn't it, there? [00:45:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So what do we think of Holo? Married duena as Haney Reyes. [00:45:46] Speaker C: I thought he was good, but I think he suffered slightly from having such an interesting set of characters as his family around him as well. [00:45:54] Speaker A: I think he was the normal one in the family. And yeah, you said he was more of the quiet member of the family. I mean, his sister is hilarious in it. [00:46:03] Speaker C: His sister's great and full kind of range of emotion as well. Not spoiling anything. There's a moment in the middle where something dramatic happens. Her reaction to it was genuinely quite affecting. [00:46:17] Speaker D: Gut punch moments, aren't they, really? [00:46:19] Speaker A: Yeah. OMAC as a villain is always going to be a bit troublesome because it's basically just one man army corps. It's not really a Blue Beetle villain, I don't think. [00:46:32] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a big DC thing because it's a creation of it doesn't I would have liked to have seen the more Jack Kirby esque parts of it. But again, that's kind of part of the whole problem with comic books being translated to movies. You're never kind of going to get the version that you kind of want, but it worked out. [00:46:54] Speaker A: It looked better. It was like fully kitted with the spinny arms. [00:46:58] Speaker D: It was like it had the slight. [00:47:01] Speaker C: Problem, which a lot of superheroes have of it's basically the goodie, but as in same power set as the hero, but it's a different color. [00:47:11] Speaker B: So you can distinguish them in the CGI battle. [00:47:14] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. [00:47:15] Speaker C: And that is the only way. Speaking of villains as well, susan Sarandon was clearly having a lot of fun. [00:47:23] Speaker A: But, oh, she went full ringman. She was chewing the scenery left, right and center. She was like, I'm going to have fun being in a superhero movie. [00:47:31] Speaker C: But she had some of the hammiest dialogue spectacularly. Like if you could get a kid to write some generic bad guy superhero. [00:47:41] Speaker B: That'S something for me, is just like the notion of Susan Sarandon being a villain in a superhero movie. She works quite well is OD. And I think that's probably why she just leaned into it, because she knew it was an like, if you know. [00:47:54] Speaker D: Anything about what Susan Sarandon is about, you just go, this is just a. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Brilliant all it makes me think of is Rail Julia in Street Fighter. [00:48:04] Speaker D: It's kind of up there, I'm an. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Evil CEO and I'm going to play the evil CEO. But, yeah, I liked Harvey Gideon's. Bit of cameo. He was great with Sanchez. [00:48:20] Speaker C: You got it right. [00:48:25] Speaker A: It's a good DC film. It makes me wonder what they're going to do with the Aquaman Two movie now, because that's coming out post Christmas, and it's the last of the Snyder diverse James Gunn's reboot. And it's kind of I'd have preferred they finished on this film rather than Aquaman Two. [00:48:45] Speaker D: Yeah, I think Blue Beetle would have been a better way to kind of. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Like, take everybody out, have that transfer over. [00:48:52] Speaker D: Yeah, because, I mean, you got to worry about a film that only has its trailer released about a month and a half before it's due to hit script. [00:49:00] Speaker A: Well, it's less than 100 days. As I said, they released a trailer this week and it was meh, and. [00:49:06] Speaker D: The underwater CGI hair looks terrible. And you just go, oh, my God. [00:49:09] Speaker A: This is just and it's like it's going to get no promo because of the writers and actors strike. I'm surprised Warner Brothers actually managed to find it on one of the hard drives. I assume it was just in a box labeled Snyder stuff. James Goodman was throwing everything elsewhere and we haven't released this one yet. I'll go on, then. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Considering how Warner Brothers treats their DC movies, I'm surprised they didn't just throw it away. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Well, they did that with Batgirl. [00:49:35] Speaker B: That's what I'm talking about. [00:49:36] Speaker D: They probably looked at it and gone, do we really want to upset Jason momoa? [00:49:40] Speaker B: He was just stood out growling at him. [00:49:45] Speaker D: Okay, Jason, for you. [00:49:46] Speaker B: He's just looming over the desk. [00:49:49] Speaker A: It's like Michael Keaton gets his moment in the sudden movie. We say we don't need to worry about it. Just I'm interested to see James Gunn's iteration of DC, but I think it's got that much of a hangover now with the whole Snyderverse Whedon, Justice League stuff. I think they probably would have just done better putting it to bed for a couple of years and then, nope. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Gotta make money now. [00:50:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I think Marvel just messed it up for every other studio that's got superhero related content because they all feel like they've got to follow that Marvel formula. [00:50:27] Speaker B: Not even just that. Remember the dark universe? Yeah. [00:50:30] Speaker D: Well, we got one. [00:50:32] Speaker A: No, we got one. [00:50:33] Speaker B: We got one. [00:50:34] Speaker A: The Mummy, where they released the trailer without any soundtrack on it. [00:50:37] Speaker B: I love that trailer. [00:50:38] Speaker D: It was so good in that because they did all those promo shots of everybody sat around. [00:50:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, they had this whole plan, but they only ever released The Mummy. [00:50:48] Speaker A: And they tanked completely. [00:50:50] Speaker C: Invisible man meant to be part of that as well, and the franchise sort of died and they just went, oh, no. [00:50:59] Speaker D: But I think if James Gunn kind of just focuses on the stories and the characters, doesn't worry too much about trying to replicate the Marvel thing of everything's interconnected. It would be nice to have some references to things, but every comic book doesn't interrelate with every other comic book. They do try half the time, and it's really annoying. But you can have standalone stories. [00:51:25] Speaker A: I mean, I saw Batman the Multiverse with the old flash movie, didn't they? So there's opportunity that they can use this terrible scenery. [00:51:35] Speaker D: That whole thing was just the worst part of the Flash movie. [00:51:39] Speaker B: I've actually seen the clip of it. I can't imagine watching a movie, and then that scene comes up in the middle of it and you're like, what? [00:51:47] Speaker A: It was the bit where they're like, oh, look, it's the character that famously committed suicide. The actor that famously committed suicide because he didn't want to be typecast as Superman. [00:51:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it was also just like how every character was just kind of like staring up at the portal like, oh, we all need to pay attention to the Flash. It had like, if Poochie isn't in the room, everyone needs to ask, Where's Poochie? [00:52:12] Speaker D: That was a stunningly toned death sequence. [00:52:16] Speaker A: And then the whole Nick Cage of it, and it's like, oh, we're just going to cut to this fight scene for 30 seconds as Nick Cage, Superman. Not explain it, just have Nick Cage. [00:52:27] Speaker D: If any of you know about it. Here you go. [00:52:29] Speaker B: But I don't know how you can put Nick Cage in a movie and just waste him like that. [00:52:34] Speaker D: It's been done before. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Going to say, I think there's a fair few. [00:52:37] Speaker B: I know there's a few, but, like. [00:52:39] Speaker D: He'S on a high again at the moment. [00:52:41] Speaker B: Even like the Wickerman was like, salvaged by him just chewing the siege. [00:52:46] Speaker D: I don't think I'd ever heard the phrase the Wicker Man. I think Cage Wickerman salvaged it. But I liked the Batman last year's. Batman, I kind of liked that standalone. It was brilliantly together. [00:52:58] Speaker A: Batman really good, the film, wasn't it? And it was a great interpretation of Batman, and I'll stick by it quite a lot because yeah, as you said, it's all right. It's another origin story. But it was very much weldon year One go and let Matt Reeves play with that one. We got the Joker foiler, Do, I think it's called, which is kind of that separate thing. [00:53:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:23] Speaker D: Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Interesting. But who knows what I like Gun. What he did with the suicide, the Suicide Squad was brilliant. [00:53:32] Speaker C: I loved that. [00:53:33] Speaker D: That was just like, this is ridiculous, and I hope we have more of that in his DC universe. But again, it's going to last a few years until he falls out of favour, and then somehow until they dig up another tweet. If you just want to be entertained for an afternoon, give it a shot. [00:53:52] Speaker A: I'm sure it'll be on stream within three minutes from the release of this episode. [00:53:55] Speaker D: I mean, it reminds me of things like the Shadow and the Phantom, those kind of like eighty s and ninety s superhero movies. Dick Tracy, all that kind of like, yes, we're just going to have some fun with it. [00:54:04] Speaker A: Even, I'd say, part of the mask. [00:54:06] Speaker D: The mask? Well, the mask is comic book superheroes. [00:54:09] Speaker A: And it has that kind of dark edge if you ever read the comic book. [00:54:12] Speaker B: Really? [00:54:12] Speaker A: Actually worth reading. The Mask comic book it is not the film. [00:54:17] Speaker D: But yeah. I really enjoyed this. [00:54:19] Speaker B: Well, I don't know how you'd write a comic book. That's just a Jim Carrey vehicle. He's too animated for a static medium like comics. Well, you can try. You can certainly try. [00:54:33] Speaker A: Yeah, having a rubbery cafe. It might have worked well in one piece, we don't know. But yeah, it'll be all solid. Thumbs up, entertaining, 2 hours. Don't expect too much from it and you'll be reward. [00:54:50] Speaker D: Yep. [00:54:53] Speaker B: Wow. [00:54:58] Speaker A: The king returns. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Hello. I'm here at last. I got caught up in traffic. My carriage was caught up in traffic. [00:55:14] Speaker A: You were on tour, weren't you? Yes. [00:55:18] Speaker B: So we're doing the pound Shop cosplay again, I hear. So my handlers tell me as they push me into the room. So I hear that the three of you. [00:55:33] Speaker D: He got a dragon. [00:55:37] Speaker B: I thought that they there we go. Anyway, I hear that you have costumes for me. [00:55:45] Speaker A: What was the theme? [00:55:46] Speaker B: Oh, my, the theme was ancient history. It was meant to be tied into the Indiana Jones movie, which is now. [00:55:54] Speaker D: On DVD and Blu ray available stream. [00:55:57] Speaker B: Now, but unfortunately things got in the way of that. But anyway, the theme is still the same. So who would like to present their cosplay first? [00:56:10] Speaker A: I think it's the King to decide. [00:56:14] Speaker B: Well, I believe Keith was the winner last time, so I think it makes perfect sense for him to go first. [00:56:24] Speaker D: Okay, I shall go and prepare. [00:56:28] Speaker A: We may have to play hold music. [00:56:29] Speaker D: Yeah, you have to play hold music. [00:56:31] Speaker B: There'll have to be I will get the brass band to play some trumpet music. A fanfare of some sort. [00:56:40] Speaker D: Just talk amongst yourselves. [00:56:43] Speaker A: So, Mikey liege, what era do you think of Asian history? That Keith is beautiful, well dressed, like. [00:56:50] Speaker C: An era with a lot of belt crew. [00:56:53] Speaker B: Yes, the remember? I don't know. I'm very curious to see, to be honest. [00:57:01] Speaker A: Any hints, sir? Keith. [00:57:03] Speaker D: No. [00:57:06] Speaker B: For some reason I'm expecting a wizard of some sort. I don't know why. [00:57:10] Speaker A: I think Keith would make a good Gandalf. [00:57:13] Speaker B: He would. [00:57:14] Speaker A: Well, maybe a Merlin. [00:57:16] Speaker D: Your expectations need to be much, much lower. [00:57:23] Speaker B: If not that, then I don't know. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Are we on the continent of Europe, Keith? Kind of. [00:57:36] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:57:39] Speaker B: So what was colonized by Europe? Everywhere. Everywhere was, yes. [00:57:49] Speaker A: How much progression along with the costume are we? [00:57:52] Speaker D: About 75%. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Well, I will dock points for time taken to change. [00:58:01] Speaker A: Did you keep within budget? [00:58:03] Speaker D: Oh, yes, it was well within budget. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Good. [00:58:07] Speaker A: I mean, nobody wants to be spending the royal coffee. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Absolutely not on useless frippers. Seven pounds are very important. I believe it was seven pounds. I don't know what budgets are. [00:58:16] Speaker C: It was a lead. [00:58:18] Speaker B: I have infinite money, so I don't really care about budget. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Six and a half hours later, the. [00:58:24] Speaker B: King is getting impatient. Luke. [00:58:26] Speaker D: It's going to be worth it in the end. [00:58:28] Speaker A: It's almost time. [00:58:29] Speaker B: I will be the judge of that. [00:58:30] Speaker A: It's always time for the royal feast, isn't it? [00:58:33] Speaker B: It is. [00:58:34] Speaker D: Okay. [00:58:35] Speaker B: Royal engagement. [00:58:43] Speaker D: As you can probably guess, I am a mummy. [00:58:48] Speaker B: I was thinking the Invisible man would it's a very interesting take on a mummy. [00:58:59] Speaker D: Keith. [00:58:59] Speaker B: You are aware that they wrapped the whole body? [00:59:02] Speaker A: Look. [00:59:04] Speaker C: I think that meant he was a biker mummy. [00:59:07] Speaker D: BMX mummy. [00:59:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:10] Speaker D: So obviously Indiana Jones would have come across some mummy in his investigations of ancient temples. So I think I've nailed the scene. [00:59:19] Speaker B: I'm not sure they'd be wearing those shirts. [00:59:22] Speaker D: I'm a contemporary. [00:59:24] Speaker B: Yes, the contemporary mummy. Mummy. [00:59:27] Speaker A: It's a reverse weekend of birdies. [00:59:32] Speaker B: So, I mean, I was going to ask, like, are you how this fits in with the budget? But I can I think I can kind of see yeah. [00:59:43] Speaker A: Why the sunglasses? [00:59:45] Speaker D: So you can tell where my eyes are. [00:59:55] Speaker A: What was the total expenditure? [00:59:57] Speaker D: A pound. [00:59:59] Speaker A: Including the sunglasses? [01:00:00] Speaker D: No, those were models only. But, you know and considering I put this basically I had this idea and put it together on the way to the studio, I think there's got to be some leeway and credit to that. [01:00:12] Speaker C: It's pretty well, you're well banded up. That's not an easy thing to do on your own with no mirror or help. [01:00:18] Speaker D: And when I have to take my glasses off to do this as well, I don't know what's going on there. So just be careful when you go backstage, as there's things on the floor, including my specs. [01:00:29] Speaker B: Okay. [01:00:30] Speaker D: Well, I hope this doesn't go on for long, because I've realized that I haven't left myself any breathing holes in this costume. [01:00:38] Speaker B: Maybe we should hold this for as long as very well. I will make my judgment. [01:00:47] Speaker D: I wasn't expecting to win this time, to be honest. [01:00:50] Speaker B: We might as well move along and change it to your costume. Please. [01:00:59] Speaker C: Just avoid the I'll do my best in true my costume's tradition. [01:01:05] Speaker B: Are you trying to sabotage the competition, Keith, by placing a barrier in the way of your stuff? Because that will see further docking of points. [01:01:15] Speaker C: I think the bigger issue is in true tradition of my cosplay type things, mine is very hard to see out of. I would. [01:01:31] Speaker B: So is this my theme was not hide your vision. My theme was ancient history. [01:01:38] Speaker C: I can apply the hide your vision theme to most themes you want to give me. [01:01:42] Speaker D: You can see why I put the sunglasses on now, can't you? [01:01:45] Speaker A: I think it's an improvement, to be honest. [01:01:48] Speaker D: With or without? [01:01:49] Speaker A: Either. [01:01:50] Speaker D: It's really tough to put sunglasses on without ears. [01:01:56] Speaker B: When you take the sunglasses off. I am reminded of an old tale that they told in the courts of known as the Tale of the 13th Floor, which was part of a series of tales known as one is Afraid of the Dark. I believe and there was a tale about weird alien creatures in a tower or something like that, and they had a face like that, so that's what that reminds me of. Not sure it reminds me of a mummy, but I hear rustling my leash. There's a lot of rustling. [01:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah. One eternity lately. Any clues, Mr Sassam? [01:02:41] Speaker C: Not a million miles away from Mr Keith. [01:02:45] Speaker A: We're going to end up with two mummies. [01:02:47] Speaker D: It's the Scorpion King. [01:02:52] Speaker C: I'm just working out where to assign the microphone on this. [01:02:58] Speaker D: I mean, I'm looking around, I can't see anything, really. [01:03:03] Speaker B: Three weeks later. [01:03:05] Speaker D: Can you see? [01:03:06] Speaker A: Let's see if Sir Sam can make it before the studio gets. [01:03:12] Speaker B: You. Break the studio. Let's take the point. Stop. [01:03:14] Speaker D: I mean, I'm getting the impression of a toga. Yes, all right. [01:03:21] Speaker C: Okay. [01:03:23] Speaker D: Fair enough. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Very interesting choice, FAM. [01:03:26] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:03:26] Speaker A: It's come as a furry. [01:03:30] Speaker D: I mean, come on. We've got it going on thematically. We're on the right page. [01:03:35] Speaker B: Okay, keith, could you provide your organs to him, please? Because I believe that that was how. [01:03:40] Speaker A: The mythology got some spare Coptic jaws. [01:03:47] Speaker C: The heart and a feather, I believe, is what's required. [01:03:54] Speaker A: So, do you want to explain your costume, sir? [01:03:56] Speaker C: I am Anubis, the Egyptian god of death and afterlife. [01:04:02] Speaker B: And how much money was spent on that, precisely? [01:04:06] Speaker C: Seven pounds. The sort of frame of the mask is cardboard, which was free. The material is a throw rug, which was six pounds and obviously sewn together. And then the toga bit is a very, very cheap and not very pleasant to wear tablecloth. One pound for two of them. [01:04:36] Speaker B: Very good use of material there. I'm impressed by the use of the throw rug most of all. [01:04:45] Speaker C: I was quite pleased, actually, with that, because on the one side, like, the outside bit, that you could see it was the kind of shiny material that's in the ears, which I thought may or may not work. I was sort of hoping it might look like a kind of starry sky, almost, and that would look quite cool, and then opened it up and it turned out it was just nice black fur on the other side. So I was like, oh, yeah, that's perfect. [01:05:14] Speaker B: Excellent. [01:05:15] Speaker D: He's obviously got a higher quality pound shop rank. [01:05:21] Speaker B: Well, very interesting. Very good. I believe you might have a costume. [01:05:28] Speaker A: For Mrs I have we got three costumes this time around. [01:05:33] Speaker B: Excellent. [01:05:34] Speaker A: I shall return shortly. [01:05:36] Speaker D: You've not used your go change. [01:05:39] Speaker B: I don't like catchphrases. [01:05:40] Speaker D: Catchphrases. [01:05:43] Speaker B: They're tedious. I have executed people for lens. [01:05:48] Speaker D: I'm hoping that Ryan fits with the Egyptian theme. Me and Sam just like, well, it's. [01:05:53] Speaker A: Not a million miles away. It does involve a hat change. [01:05:58] Speaker D: Many months later. Hi, Mommy. Tomorrow. [01:06:03] Speaker C: Could be Greek. [01:06:05] Speaker B: Greek? [01:06:05] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, greek. I like the idea. [01:06:07] Speaker B: Greek. [01:06:10] Speaker D: Hydra. [01:06:11] Speaker C: Do you reckon that would be ambitious? [01:06:14] Speaker D: Because you said hat change, so it could be. [01:06:19] Speaker B: Gorgon. [01:06:20] Speaker D: Gorgon would be comfortable or medusa. [01:06:25] Speaker B: Medusa is a gorgon. [01:06:26] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. Eventually I can't see anything yet. [01:06:32] Speaker B: Famous. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Wow. [01:06:37] Speaker B: Very interesting. And everything's falling off. [01:06:41] Speaker D: He's just a bit too far away and I haven't got my specs. [01:06:43] Speaker B: It is nice to be joined by a fellow aristocrat. [01:06:47] Speaker C: I'm having to turn my head quite far to see you back us close, Dionysus. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Yes. I am the god of wine and madness. I thought it would be appropriate for Indiana Jones in his elderly age, ruined by wine and strong liquor and with. [01:07:06] Speaker B: A tinge and all the punching and. [01:07:08] Speaker A: The punching and a tinge of madness, he would be welcome to meet me. [01:07:14] Speaker B: So walk me through the budget. [01:07:17] Speaker A: So the horns of Dionysus were 20 cups, which cost one pound. The hairband of Dionysus is model's wife, so the ivy of Dionysus was some garland that was available and that was one pound. The the robes of Dionysus were two pounds. And the goblet of Dionysus, which is short on wine. Wine is two pounds. Also excellent. Six total pounds for the budget. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Okay, so we have a mummy, we have Anubis and we have Dionysus. [01:08:02] Speaker A: That's my wonky horn. [01:08:06] Speaker B: Some strong contenders this time around. And also, Keith. [01:08:12] Speaker A: My horns are drunk, which is appropriate. [01:08:20] Speaker B: It's a very tough decision because my holy ivy and horns seem to be. [01:08:35] Speaker A: Disagreeing with this climate. I should be reposed somewhere with more wine. [01:08:41] Speaker B: I think I shall award this one to Sam for his Anubis costume. Well deserved, because that head is genuinely impressive. [01:08:55] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:08:58] Speaker B: I do like the Dionysus. Keith, you put some effort in, I guess, but I think it is that Anubis head that I think is just glorious. So, congratulations, you have won. [01:09:17] Speaker C: Thank you very much. [01:09:18] Speaker B: Pound shop cosplay. And on that note, what is the. [01:09:22] Speaker A: Theme for next time before you disappear? [01:09:29] Speaker B: I will get back to you on that one because I need to leave. I have a royal engagement I am going toilet to that way. I have a symphony orchestra to attend and I will do that immediately. Goodbye. Goodbye. [01:09:58] Speaker A: Well, that's enough of that. It is time for one geek thing. Who's going to go first? Keith, what's your one geek thing since the last time I saw you? [01:10:12] Speaker D: My one geek thing last time you saw me? Well, there's quite a few things that have taken my fancy over the past few weeks, but I'm going to kind of go back to something that I didn't mention the last time, but you saw on the previous episode was the Miu Mini retro console. I bought the plus version through AliExpress, which means that I can play lots of retro console games from late 70s arcades, Atari, two six hundreds, right through to PlayStation One, which has entertained me no end on the train over the past few weeks. [01:10:48] Speaker B: Do you sing? [01:10:49] Speaker A: The me and you theme to you. [01:10:50] Speaker D: No. [01:10:51] Speaker A: Me and you. [01:10:52] Speaker D: No. I have changed the boot screen so it says new Me you mini in the style of the new Nintendo DS, which is quite cool. So I've put some of the rums that I already possess. [01:11:05] Speaker A: I mean, these are all legally backuped. [01:11:07] Speaker D: Copies of your these are copies of games that I already have. Yes. I'm at the moment trying to put Muppet Treasure Island onto it because apparently it will work as a PC port part of the software. There's a community that run an alternative firmware for it called Onion OS. If you're an ambanik person. There's another one which is called Garlic. I have no idea why they've chosen. [01:11:33] Speaker A: These kind of OS that are based on fruits and vegetables. [01:11:35] Speaker D: Yeah, which is kind of weird. So there's a way of doing ports onto there as well. So PC games. So things like Doom and other bits and pieces you can put on. I'm trying to currently work out how to do the Scum VM, which is kind of the Manic Mansions and Salmon Max Freelance Polices, which I've still got the CDs for. [01:11:58] Speaker B: I know Beneath the Steel Sky runs on it as well. [01:12:00] Speaker D: Yeah, I think that one's freely available as freeware. But I'm trying to figure out how I can get the Muppet Treasure Island one because apparently it will run on the software, but I've not figured out how to actually rip the disks into the right format to put them back in, which is quite interesting. It's a bit easy with some of the other bits and pieces and I haven't got ones that have got like the big kind of voiceover bits and pieces, so it still does the kind of non CD sound and stuff. But I'm quite impressed with its PlayStation emulation, which is quite nice. That's quite good. Which means I can play parasite Eve again. Although after I bought this, I did find at my mom's house my old PlayStation One, which I was like, I could have just played it on this instead, but that's fine. [01:12:50] Speaker B: So these were legally obtained. [01:12:53] Speaker D: The ROMs that are on are games. [01:12:55] Speaker B: That I've already got in interesting cars that it was never released in Europe. [01:12:59] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I got a copy of. [01:13:00] Speaker A: It, not a Japanese import. [01:13:02] Speaker D: I did have a modded PlayStation, which for other reasons, but to be able to play imported materials from other bits and pieces, which was quite good because that was a game that I really wanted to play and it was like, Why, damn you. I think we've got the US version. It wasn't Japanese because it was in English, because otherwise it would have been completely and utterly unplayable. [01:13:25] Speaker B: I have played the NTSC version, but I was in America when I did that. [01:13:29] Speaker D: So I'd got a couple of imported games, same as I had on the GameCube. I got action replay things so I could play imported games because it was just some games you just couldn't get over here, I think Skies of Arcadian, I got a US version for the. [01:13:45] Speaker A: GameCube because I sold my EU copy and it's one of my greatest regrets all time. It's probably worth more than every other console that I possibly own now. [01:13:55] Speaker D: So I've still got that. And I've got the Metal Gear Solid, even though I've got Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation One. And then for some reason, I've got metal. Skill got metal. Metal Gear Solid. Twin snakes for the GameCube. [01:14:10] Speaker B: Yes. [01:14:10] Speaker A: Which was the really so I've just. [01:14:12] Speaker D: Literally got it on like dozens of different machines. But it's quite nice. It's small screen, really good. [01:14:19] Speaker A: I thought you said Mattel gear solid. Then I was like, I'm just imagining Ken just trying to sneak around my job's. Just sneak. [01:14:28] Speaker D: But it's kind of cool. It's kind of cool to be able to play. Like you were saying about in the past, Lee, about not being able to play older legacy games and you get these ridiculous machines that are no bigger than a mobile phone. Really, to be able to play the games on, it kind of keeps them. [01:14:44] Speaker A: Alive nine times out of ten as well. [01:14:46] Speaker D: Yeah, it's just great to be able to kind of still play those games in a form that's relatively pocketable and it's a great thing to be able to have around on the I am. [01:14:58] Speaker B: Very much in favor of emulation when companies are not making things available. [01:15:03] Speaker D: Yeah, and it's relatively straightforward to rip ROMs of dinglings because it's relatively easy to get hold of the kind of cartridge rippers. So if you've got your old kind of like Super Nintendo games and Game Boy games and stuff, there's devices you can just plug them into, which are useful for other things when you're trying to get backup saves off things. So things like Pokemon I've still got my Pokemon Blue and Red and the. [01:15:36] Speaker A: Battery save, those batteries have done well. [01:15:39] Speaker D: For last, so it's kind of useful that. But there's a whole kind of community of things and devices on the internet and the Onion developers are on Facebook and kind of like have a lot of support for people who are trying to like, how do I get my copy of this game? Or whatever it is? [01:16:00] Speaker C: So they do supply a lot of. [01:16:01] Speaker D: Tools and kind of interesting stuff. And they're currently working on trying to get DS to work, which is interesting. [01:16:09] Speaker A: How's that going to work on a single screen? [01:16:12] Speaker D: You can put it side by side. The other thing that you can do with the mini minis for vertical shooters on arcade games, you can turn it sideways and just remap the buttons, which is quite cool for some of kind of like because I quite like vertical scrolling. [01:16:27] Speaker B: Does it have a touch screen? [01:16:28] Speaker D: Because that would be the no, because it's quite cheap. So there'll be a limited number of the games on the DS that you. [01:16:34] Speaker B: Can actually yeah, because I know that there's one specific thing in Phantom Hourglass that would basically make it impossible to play on there. [01:16:42] Speaker D: Which is a shame because you've got. [01:16:43] Speaker B: To physically close the DS in order to make it work. [01:16:46] Speaker D: Yeah. So there's some things that it's limited by the thing, but there's a huge explosion in these kind of machines, people like Amber Nick, and there's another one with a weird name that I can't remember, like Polyuhu or something ridiculous. But there's a lot of these kind of emulation machines coming out and stuff as well. But just be wary of kind of copyright content. [01:17:08] Speaker A: Kind of a legal way to back up your own personal game. We've put them in your pocket. Perfect. [01:17:14] Speaker D: But easier with CD stuff than the cartridge based things because it's a bit of a faff and you've got to get these additional bits of material on them. But you can do quite well because you can pick them up on ebay, rip all the stuff and then just sell it on again because it's kind of easy to kind of get off. So it's quite good. You're looking at me as if you want to get it. [01:17:37] Speaker A: That's more of the selling of them. [01:17:40] Speaker D: No, selling the device you're using, not the actual games. Because you want to keep those. Why have I kept them for blinking 20 OD years when my partner goes, why have you got these games? Because you haven't got the console anymore. It's like, but I can't get rid of it. Because you can't get rid of know It's America kind of seems to be the place where they all end up going. I think there's not many places in the UK you can pick them up. You will see them around. [01:18:13] Speaker C: So it's all good. [01:18:14] Speaker D: But yeah, but I'll have some fun with that. It's nice. [01:18:17] Speaker A: Awesome. Sam, how about yourself? What's your one geek thing? [01:18:21] Speaker C: So I've just last night finished watching the final season of Disenchantment, the weird younger sister of Simpsons and Futurama, which I really thoroughly enjoyed. I think one of the advantages of Disenchantment that Disenchantment has over the other two Matt Groaning series is it's a continuous storyline that has an endpoint. So it's never getting to the point where Simpsons is now, where a lot of the season 655 yeah, and I love Simpsons. The older episodes are all classics, but I haven't watched it in years. But I know that if I did tune into an episode of Simpsons, all the characters would basically be exactly the same characters as they always were. Disencantment, because it's got that continuous narrative, it has actually room for things like character arcs and satisfying story developments. And yeah, the final season was lovely. It wrapped everything up really nicely. All the characters, even some of the ones that had died weirdly, had really nice, happy endings. [01:19:51] Speaker B: From what I've seen of the show, that sounds about right. [01:19:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:19:57] Speaker C: I do recommend it. And there's a lot of detail in it as well. So not just the kind of nice little background jokes that you expect from those studios, but things that kind of forecast plot points that are going to come up later on, or little kind of hints of a wider plot or conspiracy theories and that sort of thing. In the previous seasons, you can kind of look into the background and make up fan theories and that sort of thing. More than you can do with Simpsons or future armour. [01:20:39] Speaker A: So it's an actual show that's reached its conclusion rather than being a future army thing of, oh, we've been cancelled. [01:20:44] Speaker B: Oh, we're back. [01:20:44] Speaker A: Oh, we've been cancelled. Oh, we're back on a different streaming service. Oh, we've been cancelled again. [01:20:48] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:20:49] Speaker C: That yeah. It's so wrapped up and they made such a point of this is how the story ends for every character in it. There's no way they could bring it back. Maybe some sort of cameo appearance in Simpsons or Futurama, maybe. But I believe the final episode was written entirely by Matt Groening as well, which is quite rare. And yeah, the cast is brilliant as well, worth mentioning because he's got several very excellent British comedic actors. So, Richard Ayuardi, Noel Fielding, Matt Berry has a brilliant recurring character called Merkimer. [01:21:34] Speaker A: Who'S a does he overpronounce every word in a very Matt Berry kind of magnificently. [01:21:38] Speaker C: So, yes, he starts out as a prince who's a sort of potential suitor for being the main character very early on is turned into a pig, decides he's quite happy being a pig, and then for the rest of the show, there's a pig wandering around with a crown on that sounds like Matt Berry. And if that's not a reason to watch the program, then I don't know what is. [01:22:03] Speaker B: That was the main thing I was thinking of the entire time. You toying of the show. The main thing I remember from what I did watch was Matt Berry as a pig. [01:22:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, that's my one geek thing this week. [01:22:16] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you very much. Lee, how about yourself? [01:22:20] Speaker B: It's very difficult because only had one. Yeah, I know. Well, it's more just like because of review copies and games and all that embargoes. Not just embargoes, but also just like having something that I played just for myself. I think probably the main thing that comes to mind is kind of following on from like in a previous episode where I talked about Dang and Romper. I have been playing through a game called Master Detective Archives Brain Code, which is from the same people. It's from the same writer, same artist, same composer. A couple of chapters into that, So it's basically it is another sort of very anime detective game, but this one's a bit more free form. You can sort of wander around in this. So it's all set in this sort of corporate run city called Canai Ward. And there is a lot of crime going on, but it's all getting covered up. And you're part of a detective organization that is kind of working in the shadows because they cannot work openly because of the corporation running everything. And you're kind of this sort of trainee detective who's basically just like so determined to solve cases. He kind of isn't really paying attention to the oppressive forces that are threatening his life. He's just like, yeah, but someone's asked me to investigate this, so I have to investigate it. But you've got the Peacekeeper Corps who are basically trying to murder you, and here you are still doing this anyway, regardless. But yeah, it's very interesting just because in the sort of typical anime fashion, there is like a sort of shadow realm that you go into kind of finalize. So you collect all the clues in the real world and you go into the Mystery Labyrinth, which is in a sort of alternate universe guided by a Death God that you've apparently made a pact with, who in the real world takes the form of this little sort of stereotypical cartoon ghost. And then in the Mystery Labyrinth, she's basically like a goth girl with horns who vomits up keys. It's very anime. It's very ridiculous in a way, the way you know that the writers and everything knew how ridiculous it was and they're playing it up for it as much as they want. And in the Mystery Labyrinth, that's where you sort of piece everything together and you come to the conclusion and all that. It's a really good game so far. Like I said, it is very over the top in certain things. It keeps the ridiculous neon pink blood of danganronpa, which I find very funny that they just decided we're going to keep that as an aesthetic choice. And the mysteries so far have been sort of very interesting. There was like one case where you're sort of effectively given a list of suspects to sort of work through and you're trying to piece together who did it and then it turns out all of them did. So there's sort of like lots of twists and turns in the story like that. It's really interesting. And I want to know what's kind of going on with the wider mystery they're trying to solve with why is everything being covered up so much. It's just a really interesting time, especially. And again, just Shinigami, who is the Death God character, she is completely ridiculous. She's both comic relief and the sort of mentor character all at once. And it's really good how they've portrayed her. And even they kind of touch on some of the sort of skeeviness that you sometimes get in anime. It's kind of almost done in a parody way so you can kind of go along with it and also ridiculously. She's the only character in the entire game who's been giving jiggle physics like no other female character in the game has. It just she just her. And it feels like an intentional choice on her part that she's just like, I'm going to make these just go all over the place to cause distraction for no good reason. So that's kind of haridiculous. It can get. So just having a lot of fun with it so far, though, only a couple of chapters in. But yeah, that's exclusively on the switch as well. Awesome. What about you, Ryan? [01:27:00] Speaker A: I've got something big to well, something big. Well, something small. So remember a few years ago now, I think he was on Geeky Runway. We had the thermy consoles. So that was by a chap called Ken Burns, who makes tiny, tiny things. I think he also made a very tiny guitar, which we talked about. Or was it a very tiny violin? That was tiny violin. It was a tiny violin. But we now have the tiny TV. So there's two varieties of tiny TV. There's a tiny TV and the tiny TV mini. But I backed the Kickstarter campaign for the tiny TV mini. So it is, I believe, the world's smallest television with remote control, which is. [01:27:43] Speaker D: Bigger than the TV. [01:27:45] Speaker A: And it does work. So you get your volume. You've got your channel change, but you can change your channel. Got a nice little fireplace going on there. So there we go. But you can load your own videos on, which is really fun. You can do stuff like the Geeky Burry introduction. [01:28:04] Speaker D: You won't be able to see that. [01:28:05] Speaker A: On the screen, but we'll do some zoomed in footage of that one. But technically, spec wise. So it's got the same processor as the thummy keychains, which we all still have. It's a raspberry pi. RP 2040 processor. It has a 65 color OLED screen. And that 65 color OLED screen is 64 x 64 pixels. So lots of pixels to play around with there. It's got 8GB of storage. So it has the capacity for 40 hours worth of video. And it has quinting at it. And it has a 50 milliamp hour battery, which lasts about an hour. So you could watch an entire episode of Colombo on the tiny TV if you were willing to. But yeah, so it does that. And it has a nice little remote control to go. [01:28:52] Speaker D: So what's the difference between that and the non mini version? [01:28:55] Speaker A: So the tiny TV two, which is the Two, because there was original DIY kit, the two has a 65 color 216 by one three five pixel screen. And that has eight gig of storage. But that can only handle about 10 hours of footage. But it has a two hour battery life. So you can watch two episodes of Columbia or maybe one episode of Columbia and one episode of Medici wrote, that. [01:29:18] Speaker C: Screen just sounds too big for me. [01:29:21] Speaker A: It's a whole one inch screen. I just thought it was too big for this channel. But yes. But yeah, I shall pass. [01:29:28] Speaker D: It has it got a built in speaker. [01:29:30] Speaker A: It has got a built in speaker. So if I turn the volume up, I think this should work. You can hear our lovely intro music. [01:29:52] Speaker C: Kind of want to get it out on a plane or something and sit and watch it. [01:29:59] Speaker A: I just think it's a great little marvel of modern technology. We've now got to the stage where you can have less than a one inch TV. [01:30:07] Speaker D: I do quite like the content you've got on here is widescreen as well. Yes. Not using a full come with a little TV aerial. [01:30:15] Speaker A: It doesn't come with an aerial. The bigger one does have an aerial. The tiny TV. [01:30:18] Speaker D: Those are quite cool. [01:30:19] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, it's a 0.6 inch screen, so it is the perfect resolution for watching all your high definition content. [01:30:27] Speaker C: I do think they're missing a trick by not calling the mini one the teeny tiny TV. [01:30:34] Speaker D: It's quite impressive that you can change the channel. [01:30:36] Speaker B: Yes. [01:30:37] Speaker D: And there is stuff there. [01:30:39] Speaker B: Yes. [01:30:40] Speaker A: So there is a fireplace. Some videos of flamingos, I believe. [01:30:44] Speaker D: I don't know if they're flamingos. They're constantly random birds. [01:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I saw a seagull on there. It's definitely a bird of some sort. [01:30:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:30:53] Speaker A: There's a fireplace as well, I think so. [01:30:55] Speaker D: And then there's some the Earth from space. [01:31:00] Speaker B: Yes. [01:31:00] Speaker D: Quite impressive. Although the fireplace is cool. Let's do the Earth. [01:31:04] Speaker A: It is the ISS, I believe. But it was yeah, it's something I backed some time ago. It has had some issues around the in rejection molding and the 3D printing to get it released, but yes, but. [01:31:17] Speaker B: Just think of, like, the Earth from space footage. You've had this whole space mission, put a bunch of people into space and then that footage has come back to us. Also, it can be on that tiny screen, so you can truly appreciate the majesty. [01:31:38] Speaker D: I mean, it's ridiculous that I'm quite tempted to get my kind of six inch Star Wars figures and just, like, put them on a little SETI made out of Lego and they can watch TV. [01:31:50] Speaker A: If you think, like, not me particularly, but you think about dolls houses, this would be like the perfect kind of thing to put inside a doll's house and just have that playing away in the background. And it is USB C as well, which is instantly the best USB. Even Apple have learned that lesson. [01:32:10] Speaker B: No, no. I think you'll find they were forced to learn that by the EU. [01:32:15] Speaker D: So excited to kick the table. [01:32:17] Speaker C: Yes. [01:32:19] Speaker A: I think it can store up to 25 videos, so you can have 25 channels of content on there. So if you were on there and you're like, you wanted a good couple of episodes of something like animaniacs or something like that, as you said on a plane. [01:32:32] Speaker D: Freaker. [01:32:33] Speaker A: Pop that out. Yes. The only thing it doesn't have is an audio jack. Annoyingly, because the. Case is less than 3.5 mm headphones. [01:32:43] Speaker C: You can only enjoy it as a group if you're with other people. We'll gather around everyone. [01:32:48] Speaker A: It's the perfect Christmas decoration. You get the fireplace on the TV, you get the family round tree. That'd be quite cool. But yeah, I attempted for maybe the tiny TV Two or the tiny TV mini. [01:32:59] Speaker D: Well, it reminds me when in the in the early eighty s, I used to have a binatone four inch TV with a tape deck and radio built into it, which isn't that much bigger than that, but it was black and white. So this is a step up color. [01:33:13] Speaker A: It's 65,000 colors, Keith. [01:33:16] Speaker D: Wow. That's quite impressive. [01:33:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that's my one geek thing. [01:33:20] Speaker D: Can I plug my PlayStation into it? [01:33:22] Speaker A: Fortunately not. [01:33:24] Speaker B: No. I think I think I'm sure it. [01:33:25] Speaker A: Probably will be hackable at some point. [01:33:27] Speaker B: I think the PlayStation plug might be bigger. [01:33:31] Speaker D: I mean, it'd be quite cool to have your PlayStation Five set up with this on top and you're playing God of War on it. [01:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah, you could probably put a couple of good couple of hours of Gods. [01:33:41] Speaker A: Of War footage on there and pretend you're playing away. [01:33:44] Speaker B: You know, it would be how wide is the HDMI cable? [01:33:47] Speaker A: Just about as wide as that, I'm sure. You can probably get a USBC to HDMI adapter. Maybe it's a hackable thing. Ken, if you're watching, maybe release some software for that. I don't know how powerful the Rockpie 2040 is, but maybe we can do some video output. [01:34:04] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, it would be the best way to play Modern Warfare 27 or whatever it is on there. Yeah, just sniper, whatever it is. [01:34:13] Speaker A: What do they call I'm thinking about the Last of US. Remastered. Remastered edition. [01:34:18] Speaker B: The remake of the Remastered. Yes. [01:34:22] Speaker A: Or Starfield. Perfect for Starfield. Yeah, maybe fallout. It's got that nice vibe. The cabinet style is quite nice. That'd be good for fallout. [01:34:31] Speaker D: I mean, FIFA would be great. [01:34:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Perfect game. [01:34:35] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:34:35] Speaker B: Just imagining like two people sitting down and playing a fighting game on it. [01:34:39] Speaker A: Street fighter combat One. [01:34:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:44] Speaker A: Street fighter. Six. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Geeky Roman podcast. Lee, where can we find you online? [01:34:55] Speaker B: You can find me in many places. You can find me on YouTube at Bob the Pet Ferret. And when I remember to update it, the Twitter account for that is Bob the Pet Ferret. It's still Twitter. I don't care. My personal account is the cheap ferret. And also I put a ton of writing up on Silicon Era, who I do work for. Lots of reviews, news and guides and things on there. So go check that out. [01:35:22] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. Sam, how about yourself? [01:35:25] Speaker B: Where provide your eye? [01:35:26] Speaker A: Do you remember which way around they are? [01:35:27] Speaker C: I think so. I'm on Twitter at Dragonsam 89 and Instagram at SD. Edwards 89. [01:35:37] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. And Keith. How about yourself? [01:35:40] Speaker D: It's Hardlock Hotel with an underscore between the Hardlock and the hotel on Twitter. But I'm also now on Blue Sky thanks to Grant Perkins, thanks for the invite and mostly kind of Wednesdays on Geeky Brummy, Twitter and the Geeky Brummy website with my picks of the week on the Geeky Bummy pool list which this week just gone whenever that is in recording paint noswatt. Thank you very much mate for a retweet and a like which got our impressions up to over 55,000 on that particular one. I haven't bought the book yet though. [01:36:18] Speaker A: But you can also find your shorts on our YouTube channel as oh yeah. [01:36:22] Speaker D: Which is just that's the best. How many times does I have to re record that audio? Less than a but yeah on YouTube as well on a Wednesday. [01:36:34] Speaker A: Awesome. And this will be released before it happens. We have our Birmingham Anime film festival which geeky primary is collaborating with the Mockingbird cinema, the Mac flatpak and Worlds Apart, Birmingham, On. So we have a fantastic range of stuff coming up. Evangelion 3.0 plus 1.1 thrice upon a Time. Nice short title there. [01:36:54] Speaker C: Squeeze him is. [01:36:56] Speaker A: We've got a special preview of that on the 29 September before it goes on general east on the 6 October we have a special advanced screening of Macross plus the movie, which one of the first times it's ever been shown in the UK. It's been in right hell for decades. So all the anime managers out for that one who are sponsoring the festival and we've got a brilliant Ghibli marathon so some of HaYomi Izaki's finest works and there's a kind of parallel to that Ghibli marathon. We've got a Shinkai marathon who is known a little bit as the new Ghibli in Japan. Some fantastic work there. Your name, weathering with you 5 cm/second garden of Words. We've got some other great stuff. So Cyber City Odo Eight, which is a classic 90s Japanese animation worlds Apart, a pitch Prom air and a silent voice and fantastic range of films. Perfect blue at the Mac. Bella Donner of Sadness in its 50th year at the Mac as well. So some finances are there all at BAFF UK which will be on the screen and in the description below. So go and check it out there. But otherwise we are geeky brummy. You'll find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, possibly Karoo Sky coming forward in the future, we never know. Threads. I believe we have an account that we never use. Like the rest of the entire UK world population. Yes, but on Twitter, Instagram, facebook? YouTube? Don't forget to check out the poll list. Don't forget to check out Games of the Week. More stuff coming to the website soon. But for now, goodbye everybody. Bye.