Episode 193: Halo Combat Evolved - Going Blankey Mode

[00:00:01] Welcome to Gaming Together, a cooperative podcast. Each pod we play through a cooperative experience to relate to you the listener. If this game is the creme de la creme of co-op or something better off playing solo. I'm your host, Nave, and the co-op partner I have with me this week is Josh from the Still Loading Podcast. How are you doing, man?

[00:00:26] I am doing in the middle. I was telling you off, Mike, some crazy shit's happening at home. Our basement flooded. But other than that, I'm having, I'm pretty damn well. I'm pretty damn good. Excuse me. So thank you for having me on, man. I've been looking forward to this. Yeah, man. I was really sad because you were like, oh, I'm gonna have to postpone it. And then a little bit later, you were like, actually, there's not much to be done. So we can go ahead and record again.

[00:00:52] Well, we have two sub pumps going, and that's about all we can do. So yeah, I'm just, we're doing the best we can. There's not much we can do about it tonight. Other than my anxiety being like, oh, God, is it? Is the water going down? But if there's not much we can do, there's not much we can do. So I'm honestly happy we got to record anyway, because that gives me, it's taking my mind off of this anxiety for it.

[00:01:22] Yeah, I understand. I mean, if I were you, I would probably be like Batman posted up in the corner, just rooting over it. I should have just brought my whole rig down to the basement. You could just I just for ambiance, like, this is my bad cave. Yeah, flooded basement of a middle aged white man.

[00:01:40] It's really, it's really funny. It's not funny at all, actually. But like, I just yesterday, I saw a real one I was school, I was scrolling Instagram. And it was like, a lady had a filter that looked like her basement was flooded. And she was at her mom's house. And she's like, Oh, my God, the basement mom and mom's like, Ah, it is like, clearly like an AI filter. You know what I mean?

[00:02:00] Yeah, obviously big. But the mom was upset. I don't know, man. I live in an apartment. So and I'm on the second floor. So I find, yeah, weirdly sheltered from this kind of experience. Keep it that way. Homeownership has been.

[00:02:20] Not to just to avoid dumping all of the baggage I've the shit I've been dealing with for the last like four months since we bought our house. Long story short, the some dude flipped our house and cut corners and spots we weren't expecting. Now the flooding I actually don't blame on this guy just shit happens. It was just bad luck. Like, it's rained heavily before we haven't had issues. This just happens to be the first time it fucking we have issues.

[00:02:47] But just so many things we've been dealing with, like the heating isn't keeping up to snuff in the winter here. And like I live in Pennsylvania. So like we do have all four seasons and the winter is, you know, it's winter. So we've been having to spend even more money than we were expecting after buying a house that we could barely afford to begin. It just it's been a it's been a journey, but we're making it through. We're figuring shit out. And I still get to podcast. And you know what? That's that. That helps my mental health more than you know.

[00:03:17] Since this is your first time on the show, we talked about this off the air a little bit, but we like to bring our co our first time listeners, first time guests up to speed with a co op memory, something seminal that they'd like to share throughout their lives. We like to talk about Left 4 Dead or like Call of Duty Zombies, Gears of War, things like that have been brought up. What is your seminal co op memory that you'd like to share with listeners? Well, buckle up your sit downs is a little bit of it's a little bit longer. So just bear with me on this.

[00:03:44] Um, so growing up, my parents are very religious. So we went to church a lot. Don't worry, this is not a churchy story. A lot of it takes place at church. And they were involved with the youth group, you know, stuff for like high schoolers and college kids to like, keep them engaged with Jesus and shit like that. Um, and so we would, they would periodically take us, I would, we were, I was like, probably in sixth grade, maybe fifth grade, like pretty young still.

[00:04:15] And they would take us to these events. They had these things called rocket, uh, rockathons. And what a rockathon was, it was a, it was a charity event that basically you would get sponsors and people, you would show up at the church and you would sit in a rocking chair.

[00:04:31] Excuse me. And you would rock literally like back and forth in the chair all night long. Uh, they would give you breaks for bathroom and food and stuff, but like you could do shit too. Like you didn't have to just sit there just having conversation for fucking like 12 hours. Oh, that's kind of what I was thinking. No, no people. They would show movies that we, we, we did a thing where we had, um, I think I remember one time we did like, uh, like basically like volleyball.

[00:04:56] Like we all had to sit in our rocking chairs and there was a balloon instead. And so you had to like lean, lean around. They find different ways to make it interesting. But one of the things they did that I, that I, one of my earliest memories was people would bring their TVs and their game systems and they would play video games all night long.

[00:05:15] Now that part of my memory is not co-op, but it, it, that's the buildup into what would become it. So what ended up happening once I got into the youth group and I was old enough to kind of like, uh, interact with it. I would set up land parties for these rockathons where we would all bring our X boxes and kind of apropos to the game we're talking about today. We would play games like Halo, more Halo two and a little bit of Halo three than Halo one.

[00:05:43] But I have land parties. I have co-op memories of Halo one as well, but this, these land parties were like mainly like Halo two stuff. Like we would, and we would play all night long, just so many death matches. So many, you know, tower, like all the, Halo two had so many customizable maps. Like tower of power was a customizable game type. Like a, like it was made by like, like, uh, fans and whatnot. It was a user game type and shit like that. Like it was all over the place.

[00:06:10] So we, we would play that, uh, for hours. And I remember that was a very seminal co-op memory of just these big land parties of just, uh, playing, but both sometimes the co-op of like the, uh, you know, we did play campaigns, but a lot of it was obviously like team on team type of thing. So there was, it was a lot of fun stuff like that. So yeah, that's like a seminal co-op gaming memory for me.

[00:06:38] It's just Halo two land parties at church rockathons, just sitting in rocking chairs for fucking 12 hours and playing a shitload of Halo. And actually the, the money that we would get, you know, we would go around, get pledges and stuff like that, that usually went to like a local family in need. So it actually went to like a good cause and stuff like that. So it was cool. Um, and not to plug my own show too early on, but there, I did an episode sometime last year called, um, what was it?

[00:07:07] It was like Halo two land parties, uh, no, sorry. Rocking chairs, land parties, and Halo two memories or something like that. I forget exactly the title of it. I can look it up in a, in a moment, but I talk about kind of like this idea of like gaming as a, in a collect in like a communal space. It wasn't necessarily co-op entirely. So I didn't, I didn't go into all the different stories, but I touch on this, on this land party thing in that episode. That's, that's one of the three main points I talk about.

[00:07:35] It's kind of the idea of like where you game in a communal space, even if you're not necessarily playing games with other people. Maybe other people are watching, or maybe you're all hanging out, kind of doing your own thing. But I did an episode kind of on that. So if you're curious about more stuff like that, I did an episode on that. I'll look up the number in a moment, but yeah. So sorry, long winded. That's my co-op gaming memory. No, you're totally fine. And plug away. That does sound like an interesting episode. And we've brought up multiple times.

[00:08:03] Me and Phillip went to the same church in high school and we would play rock band in like a little area with the youth group. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're no strangers. The rockathon, that is kind of where my brain was at. It's like maybe there was a church band or something and you're like rocking chairs. Like, oh, okay. There was episode, I found it. It's episode 286, rocking chairs, Halo 2 and land party memories. And it's actually pretty long. It's like two hours and 12 minutes. I interviewed people from like, I interviewed my mom.

[00:08:33] She was on it because she helped organize some of the stuff. So it was stuff like that. It was a lot of fun. So yeah, that's, that's, that's crazy though, that you guys had your own rockathon, but it was completely different. Yeah. It was really just because I don't know what caused them to get a rock band of all games, but yeah, a lot of the people that were there, I just, I didn't really fit in with that. I was really just there to be with Phillip. Phillip was my co-host for the show.

[00:08:59] We've been friends for a long time, but I was just following him around, hanging out wherever he was at. And then as soon as they got the rock band drum set out there, I was like, oh, this is me right here. Because I was, I'm, I am the rock band guy. I don't know if you can see my rock band drum set over there. I can actually. Yeah. Yeah. Just barely. Yeah. My apartment's kind of trashed. I've been sick listener listeners from last week. We actually re we recently recorded, we recorded really late on.

[00:09:26] So it was Thursdays, just a few days ago for us in recording time. And since then I've been dreadfully sick every single day. So if I feel kind of weird today, listener, it's because I'm literally coming out of a haze. I basically am the fallout guy coming out of the, of the vault and getting blasted by light and gamma rays and all of that. So I'm just trying to keep it together.

[00:09:53] Speaking of keeping it together, let's just move on to the next area of the games we've been playing. Do you want to talk about the games that you've been playing recently? Sure. Well, I literally just last night I beat Astro Bot. I've been playing Astro Bot. Oh, nice. Oh, it's, it was so good. It was so fucking good. I love that game so much. That is like, that is just joy in a, in, in a game. I just, it scratched so many different itches.

[00:10:23] I'm a huge 3d platformer fan. So getting to play a big triple a one again, after not seeing one for quite some time, it was just awesome. I've also been playing. Ray. I have a guest spot on a different show coming up, but I've been playing Rayman to the great escape on my N64 in preparation for it. And it's a, it's a game. It's not bad.

[00:10:50] It, it, it's, it's, it came out in the late nineties, early two thousands. I don't remember the exact year. I don't have the dates in front of me, but it's. It's a late era and 64 game. Graphics are much better than some of the early stuff, but the controls are a little janky. Some clever ideas, but it's, you know, it's early 3d gaming. So you have the high, you have some decent highs and you have some really bad lows. So the game is kind of all over the place with that. So I've been playing that. And the last one.

[00:11:20] I've been playing is I've been playing legacy of Kane soul reaver, the HD collection. Uh, uh, fuck that game. I don't like, I, I, I got, I got, I got a review copy of it and I'm going to be covering on my show and I'll give more thoughts on it when I do that episode, but not enjoying that game so far. It's getting better, but, uh, there, there's some, there's some issues with the port as well as most of my issues are just, I'm not a fan of the game, but it's my first time experiencing it.

[00:11:46] So, but yeah, uh, I try to keep it brief because I, I know that you only want to keep it to one or two games. So I wanted to be quick on those three. So that's what I've been playing those three. Oh no. Phillip is the one that put Phillip made these notes that wanted to, I will talk for, we've been on this section for like an hour. One time with when Phillip's not around, like sometimes we'll just get lost in the games we're playing. Uh, I really, I really want to top tap on the, uh, solar year thing. I've never played it, but I know a lot of people have this indie, not indie, this, uh,

[00:12:16] this darling, uh, you know, retro darling. That's it. That was what I was looking for, for the legacy of Kane games. And whenever they came out, I was looking forward to seeing how people thought about it because I plan on buying them, but I, my backlog is so insane. And I buy so many games that I'm, I'm just worried. I'll never play the game. Uh, so what's going, is it just like the controls or it's just like the outdated style of the game or what? Um, most of it is the outdated style of the game, but the biggest issue with the port,

[00:12:45] the only real issue I have with the port, uh, is it's too dark. It is very, very, very dark. And that's a big problem because the, so for example, in the first boss of the game, a little spoiler alert for how you beat the first boss, just if you don't want, if listeners, if you don't want to know how to beat the first boss, just earmuffs for like 10 seconds. Um, it's, it's in, in this little arena, there's a big like cage in the center and there's

[00:13:14] gates on, on like on three different sides of it. Like, uh, and what you have to do is you have to get to the other sides of the gates, open the gates with a lever. And then when the monster's coming in, you close the gate and it slams down on the monster's head. And that's how you, then you have to do that, you know, rinse, wash, and repeat a handful of times to get to the other side of the gate though. You, you can't get to you to get to the other side of the gate though. There are holes in like, if you're looking at it, if you're looking at like a doorway or

[00:13:43] gate, right? And there's holes in the top left and top right side of it that you can jump up to climb over and it takes you to the other side of the gate. And that way you can open it and, you know, lure the monster in. In the HD remake, you can't fucking see them because it's too dark. You have to just guess where they're at. I had to look up a guy and I'm like, there's no way I would have known that was there because it was too dark to see it. So you've got like one of the halo skulls turned on.

[00:14:13] Pretty much. I was so mad when I saw that and it, cause it's not even the game's fault. That's how they ported it at that point. The rest of it is the game is a little bit janky. It's got a lot of really clever and creative ideas for the time, but there is the, its implementation is a little clunky. And so that's, that's why I'm, I'm having a hard time getting through it. And honestly, I would say most of my displeasure with it has come from just the darkness of

[00:14:42] it because it's just, it's hard to fucking see. I had to, there was, I tested it out. I had to go up into the office that we're recording right now, turn off all the lights and then play it, like play it like that, like in pitch black. And then I could actually see what was happening. Total immersion though. Am I right? I don't know if I want to be immersed in it. The, the reason why that game is beloved though, it's, um, I forget the developer name already, but it's written by Amy Hennig.

[00:15:12] She did the story, Amy Hennig fame of Uncharted fame. You know, she created Uncharted and wrote the first three games. Uh, yeah. And so you can see her like influence in terms of the story in the game. There's, there's a decent amount of world building and characters and whatnot. I'm not a fan of it, but I can see why someone in that. Like if you were playing this in like 1999, when it came out, I think it was 99 and you saw something like this, it would have blown you away.

[00:15:41] You would have never experienced a game in terms of that level of production with voice acting, with story, like on a console. Like you wouldn't have seen that as frequently as we do now. Yeah. So I can understand why people have such a sweet spot for it. Like totally valid. It just, it's not my cup of tea. So it's probably pretty good to like go back. If you're into like seeing the like proto Uncharted, like seeing it's nothing like Uncharted in terms of gameplay. Oh yeah.

[00:16:11] It, it's, it, it's worth going back. If you want to see kind of like the trajectory of Amy Hennig, like I do think that that is a worthwhile exercise. Like look at some of your favorite developers, see games they worked on initially and see how they've progressed and learned as it goes along. Like you can do that. I mean, it's not too far of a stretch with Ken Levine. Ken Levine did System Shock 2. He was the director of System Shock 2. Then he did Bioshock, both one and Infinite.

[00:16:40] Now he's doing a new game and it looks essentially just the same formula again, Bioshock, but in on PS5. I don't want to talk about Judas right now. I'm really mad at them right now because I did it get delayed. I know. God don't say that, but it probably, yeah, it's supposed to come out in March. So it's part of my, so the listeners know, but I'm in a Metacritic draft.

[00:17:03] We were talking about drafts earlier, but we have a very bare, like bare bones, grassroots Metacritic draft going on in the Superpod network. And I'm part of that. And I drafted Judas thinking I was real smart. And then now I'm like shaking because I've been hit by two delays on my list. And I, one of the delays I swapped, we had, we get, we were, we gave ourselves two swaps.

[00:17:29] And one of the things that I swapped out was, I haven't used my second one, but my first swap was switching replaced out for Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta. And because I was like, oh, this is going to slap and replaced. I, I question mark. And so I, I, I got, I replaced, replaced, and then it got delayed like a week later. And then the altars got delayed, but it got delayed out of March into like Q4 2025.

[00:17:56] So I'm like, so you're saying there's a chance. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, also I've got, I've got a lot of things that I'm scared about now. I've got Pony Island 2, question mark. And then I've got Judas, which is like another giant question mark. So yeah, I'm scared. I'm scared. I might've really flown too close to the sun. Just like old Jude. That's not Judas. Judas. Uh, that's, that's, no, no, that's not Judas. That was, uh, oh my gosh. It's, I forget. I was going to say Icarus.

[00:18:26] I think it was Icarus. Oh yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Icarus. Oh, Icarus. Uh, but anyway, I'll talk about the game I'm playing, the soul game I'm playing, which is Tales of Symphonia. I've been meaning to play that. I have an original copy on my GameCube and I have yet to play it. Uh, hi, Em. I'm going to be doing a review on this because this is technically co-op. Uh, and so I was like, yeah, let's do this. Let's do a review for this game. Um, and then I got super duper sick.

[00:18:54] I don't want to bring it up again because it's a bad time in my life, but, um, I could barely stand playing it because I don't, it's just, I'm sick. I just want to watch TV, you know, like I don't want to play anything. So it was painful. It also affected my Halo play, my Halo playthrough. I didn't actually finish my, I was like, even though I'm sick, I can be sick, uh, blind and deaf and I can beat Halo CE on Legendary.

[00:19:20] That's not true because game is a little hard. So just a little, uh, so I only got three, uh, we'll talk about it later, but I only got three missions in on Legendary and I was like, I get it. I know, I know this game. I know what this game is, but Tales of Symphonia. Very cute. The, I love the, so they do the skits. This is a Tales, like, uh, staple. They do the skits.

[00:19:44] In the skits, the, the, the little JPEGs of them are so pixelated on my, on my 4K TV. I'm playing the remaster on, on Xbox Series X and it's just, it just makes it even more charming. I don't know what's going on where I am regressing, but you know, like I, I used to want to go forward with games and now I'm going backwards more and more. And there is some, some, uh, archaic jankiness about this game we were talking about.

[00:20:12] It's not nearly as bad as I would imagine, uh, uh, Legacy of Cain because this game is not as old as that. I'm pretty sure. No, it's not. Legacy of Cain was PS1, uh, uh, Tales of Symphonia's GameCube. So it's at least a generation and GameCube came out in 02, 01. I think 01 actually. And, um, yeah, it came out in 01 and, uh, Legacy of Cain came, Legacy of Cain came out in 99.

[00:20:41] So you got a couple of years at least from that. Anyway, I'm going too far into the weeds, but yeah, it's a different console generation. Uh, one thing that I've really liked, so I'm barely into the game really, uh, but I got off the boat. It's what's crazy is that the story I, I last year I beat, uh, what is visions of mana? Uh, and the story is like exactly the same as this game. Oh, really? And so I am like... I've never played a Tales game, so like, it's like, it's all new to me.

[00:21:11] They're really, they're really awesome. Uh, this one's an old, old one. Uh, my favorite's Vesperia, like from the 360, it used to be 360. A lot of people say that. My brother played that and really loved it. Uh, uh, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. So I, I just got off the boat, the, you know, the JRPG, we got to get a boat, go across the ocean to get to the other continent. Uh, so I just got to get the continent and I'm like looking at the water and there's something

[00:21:38] so soothing about this, like so nostalgic about this, like four and four like frame animation of the water going up and down. And I'm just like, ah, I don't know why I'm staring at it so long. I think, so here's, here's, here's, if you allow me to get on a soapbox for a little bit, you know, um, art direction is a lost art in gaming. Uh, I shouldn't say that it's, that's not true. And it's in AAA games, cause everyone's always going for this gritty realism that, you know,

[00:22:07] you got to, it's going to look like it's blood everywhere. Um, God, it's like the halo, the halo we're about to talk about the halo where you hit the button and it goes to the new graphics. And it makes me throw up instantly. I'm like, why, why does it look like this? It is the, the, the, the thing is cool, but like how it looks, I don't like art or I shouldn't say art direction is a, is a lost art now in games that that's, that's me being like a fucking like cheeky, but it's, it is something where if you look back on some of your favorite

[00:22:36] games as a kid and there's almost like a bell curve, I would feel like where like, so what is it? You look back on like games on the PS2 era that try to look realistic, you know, metal of honor frontline is always one that comes to mind for me, but like, you know, any game that is attempting realism. Um, and it looks like crap now. It doesn't like early PS3 games kind of look like crap right now, but like, they're not crap, but they, they look rough.

[00:23:05] They look really, really rough. But then you have games, you know, like Sly Cooper on the PS2 and that still looks good because it's a very stylized, the art direction is so strong that it, it, it can help the game still look modern, even though it came out over 20 years ago. And the same thing with Tales of Symphonia, the art direction is very strong. So even if the animation of the waves is only like four frames or this and that it's done

[00:23:31] in service of the overall aesthetic and it makes it, it works other, other times. Like, cause if, if the game didn't look good and you saw that, that four frames of animation, be like, you would start laughing at it. Like, look at this, this looks ridiculous, but you're not because the game, the game's art direction is strong enough that I can kind of withstand it. Yeah. I, uh, one game that really jumps out at me is the metaphor re-fantasio. Have you played that any? I have not played.

[00:24:00] I, that's a, that's a, is that a persona game, right? Yeah. It's the same studio. It's basically a persona game. Yeah. It's like a spinoff. But, um, the, I have so little time for RPGs, man. I want to play more of them, but like, dude, I, so, uh, actually it's already been announced. I can say this on my show. I, I do Mario month in March and I covered all Mario RPG games.

[00:24:24] Uh, super like, uh, super Mario RPG, paper Mario, Mario and Luigi, a superstar saga, thousand year door and partners in time. And I had to burn through all of them in like three months. So I'm like, I am RPGed out. I, when I do RPGs, I do it in like a three month stretch. And then I don't touch them again for like six months. It's so, it's so sad because I love RPGs as well. But man, when I, it took me like three extra months to be metaphor that I thought I was expecting.

[00:24:54] And I, I was shackled. Like I was shackled to the ground with that game and I just refused to play anything else. So when I started playing tales of, uh, I mean, tales of a symphonia, I'm a little nervous because I'm like, am I going to make it? Like these games always just, they just go on for, for a really long time. And I'm looking at the achievement list, especially tales and like, uh, persona games. They're crazy long. Yeah.

[00:25:19] Um, I, I think, I think this one's on the shorter side as far as tales or tales games are concerned because tales of a rise was hysterically long as well. And I don't know, I can't, I can't hold this over my head too much, but if I don't finish it, then I don't finish it. We're not delaying the episode, but, um, I, I am really enjoying the nostalgia that I'm feeling. I have played this game before. Not much.

[00:25:45] I'm already past where I remember where my memories end, but, um, cause I was a dumb kid when I played this before and I was like, oh, it's going to be like final fantasy eight, which is the one I was chasing for some reason. But final fantasy eight fan. Yeah. That was the first JRPG I ever played that. I, so I will always have a soft spot for that game. I replayed it, uh, about two years ago or so. And while I still love the battle system, the junction system, I think is one of my favorite

[00:26:15] battle systems. Just period. It's so fun to break. That story is awful. Dude. I, I, I grown to enjoy it. Like, I don't know what. So I think one thing that I don't remember what the podcast is. Oh, this is a shame because this would be a good plug for them. But, um, I'm not like we're bigger than the, it's a bigger podcast than us. But I mean, like the, uh, there's a podcast that went through like five or six episodes

[00:26:41] that did the story of final fantasy eight, like, and made it seem really, really good because they were explaining, like over explaining things, like, especially hammering at home that the, that the characters you're playing as are all like 15. And so it's like, why does Squall suck so bad? It's because he's a kid. Like, so they're repeatedly saying that. Yeah. Yeah. Even Quistis, the teacher is like 17 or something like that, or maybe 19. She is, uh, she's like a student teacher. Yeah.

[00:27:10] Like that was the whole thing. Like they even mentioned it. And so when I went back and played it, I was like, oh fuck, they do say it. They just say it. Like she's a, she was a student. And like, I, it's just so, cause I don't know if they, the way that they rationalized it, I can't get it out of my head now, whenever I think about that story, you know what I mean? And so now I'm like, that's pretty cool. For me, so for me, my, the biggest spoiler alert for anyone who has not played final fantasy earmuffs for like two seconds.

[00:27:38] The thing that kills me for that game is that they all realize the big plot twist. Oh, we all grew up in the same orphanage. What? Like that's, that's just the dumbest thing. I still love that game, but not for the story anymore. That story was really hard to stomach on my replay, but the battle system is great. Like I fucking love that battle. So I could play that all day. I think the whole thing about the orphanage is like the, why the reason why it doesn't

[00:28:05] feel good is because it's this, it's the plot twist, you know, but like whenever you kind of reorganize it in your head that like the reason why all of these people are interacting with each other is because of this thing, then it's, I don't think it's, it doesn't make it any real, really any better. It just is a cope really, I guess. But, uh, I don't know. I, I really, really enjoy that game, but I think it's just because I have that nostalgic soft spot for it.

[00:28:35] That's fair. That's fair. I gotcha. I gotcha. It, it, I, it, man, there's so many different, I don't want to keep plugging my show. I feel bad about that. No, you go plug. So when I first played finally, I played it with a strategy guide. Uh, I think that's one of the reasons I really loved it because I, all, a lot of the kind of BS that the game throws at you, I didn't have to deal with cause I had a strategy guy just kind of walking me through it and I could just enjoy the narrative and everything,

[00:29:03] especially playing that as a 15 year old, like the story didn't bother me because I was 15, just like Squall and just like everyone else. Oh man. I related to Squall so much. Like I was like, oh, I just thought he looked cool, man. I just loved how he looked. Um, scar. I was like, I want a scar on my face. I'm going to be like you, Squall. That'd be so fucked up. Um, but no, uh, what is it? Um, I, I would literally bring the strategy guide with me.

[00:29:33] To school. I would read it at lunch. Like I was obsessed with final fantasy eight and the strategy guide and everything. And then to tie back to my show, um, this does this come out later this week? You said, uh, yeah, it'll come out on Friday. My dog is trying to kill me. So a couple, I guess it would be not. It would have been the episode that came out on February 2nd for my show. I interviewed a dude named David Cassidy.

[00:29:59] David Cassidy was the author of the final fantasy seven and eight strategy guides, like the official Brady prima game Brady. Like he wrote for strategy guides for Brady games and prima guides back in the late nineties, early two thousands. Um, and I interviewed him about how he got started in the series and everything like that. One of the most fascinating interviews I've ever been, been lucky enough to conduct. Uh, like I'm assuming then you've played final seven, right?

[00:30:28] Yes. So in the back of the final fantasy seven strategy guide, there is a world map, uh, back in the day though. They were trying, they couldn't like, I guess for other guides before they would take like screenshots and they would like kind of piece them together, excuse me, to make, uh, a big map or something like that. But since final fantasy sevens world map was 3d, you couldn't really do that.

[00:30:55] So they actually commissioned an artist to make an oil painting of the world map. And that oil painting, they took a photograph of, and that is the map that is used in the back of the final fantasy seven strategy guide. It was commissioned by an artist. And one of the people who works at Brady games still owns the original oil painting. That's so freaking cool. Isn't that wild? One of the, when he, when he told me that I, I, my jaw dropped.

[00:31:23] I'm like, are you kidding me right now? Just absolutely nuts. There's something about over worlds that I just love in a fucking there's so it's, it's so hilarious. Cause I, it's like one of those things that's unspoken in your brain. Like you just like it and you never internalize that. And then I, you, I watched the, uh, so on the Xbox showcase a month ago, they had a, they had the developer for, uh, what? Obscura expedition 33. The title is the same.

[00:31:53] I'm not quite sure. So there's a, there's a JRPG coming out. I think it's a French studio and they, the, they're like, they made a big deal. Like, and we have the JRPG overworld and then they're just running around on the overworld. And I'm like, and I'm like, I can't believe other people love this. I'm like, this is just not something that I ever really thought about, but that's what I was thinking. Dude. I mean, I think people, I think people miss it. I do think that people miss it.

[00:32:20] It's such a nice way to like, kind of make the world feel a little bit more real. Like I remember when final 10 did away with it, I didn't mind it, but like, well, I remember playing final fantasy seven and part of the thrill of like part of the things that like really got me like invested and immersed in that world was you would leave a town and end on the world map and then walk to the next town. So you would actually feel like you were traveling, like you were actually doing world traveling. It was really cool. The overworld in tales of symphonia sucks.

[00:32:49] It sucks. Oh man. I didn't bring it back around to the game I play, but it does. It's just a normal overworld, but sometimes the camera chokes up on your character and you can't see anything. And so like all you, the 80% of the screen is your little chibi dude on the, and then you see some grass around you and I'm like, why is the, I don't know how to make the camera go backwards. I don't, it may be, there's just a button combination. I'm not pushing or something. I don't know. Tales of symphonia is it's, I'm not very far.

[00:33:18] Hopefully I get further and JRPGs are good. That's what we're talking about right now. All right. So we're going to move on to the news and updates section. And the, what did they buy section? I bought a game called anime studio story. And I lied saying tales of symphony is the only game I've been playing. Cause I've been playing this. Uh, this is a little comfy, comfy mobile game basically, but it's on Xbox. This studio, I forget who the studio is, but they have like literally like 25 of these.

[00:33:48] So it's like video game dev studio and movies. I don't know. There's a bunch of these. There's one like where you run a cafeteria or whatever. And it's really just a little management. Sam, you, you buy some employees. You name an anime, you select the genres, and then you watch the screen for like 10 minutes as they work on it. And this is great for when you're sick is what I'm trying to say. I like it. I love the art. You have a screenshot here in the notes. I love the art style.

[00:34:18] Yeah. Uh, every single one of their games looks like this. So like, if you like the art style, just find one of them that syncs up most. I don't know if you like anime that much, but it's like anime. It's been a while since I've watched any, but I like anime. Uh, yeah, I, I think I just picked this one arbitrarily because it was on sale. And so I was like, uh, it was like $3 off. Cause they're only like $9, I think. So, but I'm like, ah, fuck it. Let's go.

[00:34:45] Uh, I, I, Tales of Symphonia is too hard for my sick hands. So I, I'll do this one thing. The controls are obviously for like, are, are kind of stapled on there because I think it's clearly designed for either a computer or a iPad or something, but. Or a smartphone or something. Yeah. Because I'm constantly like, how do I get to this part of the menu? Like why won't my cursor go there? But, um, it's, it's a neat little game. Uh, did you buy anything interesting lately?

[00:35:14] Um, other than a sub pump for the basement, uh, that I mentioned before. Uh, hell yeah. I also bought Astro Bot literally like, I want to say, when did I buy it last? When did I buy this? I think it might've been just earlier this week, actually. Like, like, like, like five, six days ago. Um, I try and, so I'm, I got a recently got a new setup.

[00:35:40] So my streaming setup has changed somewhat recently because my, uh, old capture card died. So I had to buy a new one. Um, little that I know the capture cards are very affordable now that you can get like, I found one for like 60 bucks and apparently. Yeah. Uh, hold on. Let me make sure I have the right brand on this, but it says it's compatible with like PS five and shit. So I'm assuming it's going to be fucking fine. Um, I got, I got the recommendation from, you ever heard the YouTube channel, uh, my life in gaming? No.

[00:36:10] Ooh, you should definitely check them out, dude. My life in gaming is great. Um, what they, oh man, I, I gotta be careful because I could go down a rabbit hole with this. Um, so what their channel focuses on is getting the most video, best video picture fidelity out of your old retro gaming consoles and how to make them play on modern systems. Um, Oh, that sounds like crack.

[00:36:36] So it, it, it, it's, yeah, you gotta be careful going down this rabbit hole. Uh, my capture card is actually coming in the mail soon. It is, uh, an EVGA. Hold on. Where's the, let me see the order details. Uh, EVGA XR one light capture card. And it's says it's certified for use with like OBS and shit like that. Yeah. It's like $55 on Amazon right now.

[00:37:01] Um, but it says that it's, it works for PS four, PS five, Xbox series X, S one Nintendo switch. Um, it seems like it, it, it'll work nice and easy. He's, he uses it for his cameras. Like he's got really high end cameras and he does a pass through with it and then it works fine for him. So I'd assume it works for, for the, I'll, I'll find out it was only 60 bucks. So it's not like a huge, it wasn't like a huge investment comparatively.

[00:37:29] Um, so I, I needed to get a new TV cause my current setup is I have two computer monitors and my second monitor is an old TV. I bought like on black Friday, like in 2013. And it's just, I've never even heard of the brand before Dinex. I've never even heard of the TV brand before, but it's, it's served me well. It's still running, but it's, the sound isn't great. And the picture is a little bit like washed out, I would say.

[00:37:56] Uh, so I bought a new HD TV and like a, like a 32 inch. And then, uh, I bought Astro Bot for the PS five with it so I could play it on my new TV that is now hooked up to the right of me. So I actually have three screens in front of me, but just, uh, the ones, the TV. So I I'm going through all this extra information because the new setup is that new TV, which I could play Astro Bot on.

[00:38:19] But also, um, I, besides getting a new capture card, I also got this thing called a Retro Tank, uh, the Retro Tank 5X specifically. What that does is it is a, it's a way to take your old game consoles, upscale them, upscale the resolution to modern standards. And it does it in a way that doesn't look like shit. Uh, because so that's important.

[00:38:47] Well, real quick, like a lot, if you'll allow me to be a little bit like video nerdy, all retro game consoles output, out, output, excuse me, output at about 240 P until you get to the PS two era, which is about up to four ADP. Either way, you're not an HD until the PS three 360 era. Right. Um, even the Wii was standard, uh, standard definition. So the Wii output at four ADP, but if you're playing like your N64, your Super Nintendo,

[00:39:17] your NES, your Sega Genesis slash Mega Drive, um, Sega Master System, whatever, what have you, you're that shit's outputting in about 240 P. If you're playing on even just a 10 ADP television, it's have your TV is having to take the 240 P resolution and then expand it at least four times the amount in order to fill up your TV screen or fill up the, the proper, the fill up the way it's supposed to on the TV screen.

[00:39:46] Not only does our TVs not really built for that, because I mean, they could, if they wanted to, but no manufacturer gives like, why would a manufacturer think to like about upscaling 240 P images? Like, you know, everyone's doing HD. Like, why would they think about it? Um, but so most TVs don't can't, I mean, I'm sure maybe there's one that has a built, a better built-in functionality, but by and large, you're not going to find that. What products like the RetroTink does is that it does all that heavy lifting that the TV can't.

[00:40:14] Um, so when the TV tries to do it, not only does it look like shit, it also introduces input lag, which is generally why like rhythm based games from standard deaf TVs going on to an HD TV, you can't do because it's got to be such pinpoint precise timing. Um, you have to like anticipate it because there's going to be a delay that it reads it at. Um, that the, the screen is going to be delayed in sending you the thing that you need to.

[00:40:43] So you, what the upscalers do is that it reduces the input delay significantly. It'll actually, it's, it, it can up res it for you much quicker and feed it to your TV, um, through HDMI and it's good to go. So a RetroTink 5X is what it does that. It only goes up to 1080p. There is a product on that RetroTink site that can go up to 4k, but it's like a premium product. You're talking like $750 for this thing.

[00:41:12] It's, it's expensive as shit. Oh my God. It comes with a lot of features. You can like add scan lines back into it if you want to, to make it look like an old CRT television, um, stuff like that. Like you can, you can do, they have lots of different things that you can tinker with to like recreate that CRT feel on your HD TV, uh, which is pretty cool. But to bring it back to my life in gaming, try from my life in gaming. He's a buddy of mine.

[00:41:40] He's been on my podcast a handful of times, uh, actually not a handful, a lot. He's been on my show a lot. Uh, I, I talked to him. He, he does all the research in this. So he recommended, uh, the capture card that I got and the RetroTink. So to now bring it back to the question, what did I buy? All that fucking shit, TVs and RetroTanks and all that stuff. It's, uh, uh, the whole shebang. Yeah. So it was, uh, it's awesome.

[00:42:09] I'm, I'm very, when my capture card arrives, I'm very excited that I'll actually be able to stream games from my original retro consoles and not have like any, like it'll, it'll look crisp. It'll look crisp. Uh, it'll be, it's going to be awesome. I'm very excited. Have you seen that video, uh, about the guy who found the biggest CRT TV? Have you seen that? No, I don't think I've seen that. Oh my God. You're going to, I got to share, I got to show this to you.

[00:42:36] The, uh, so I, I looked it up really quick cause it's in my liked videos and I hardly ever like anything. I'm a very curmudgeonly old man. Uh, but the video is called what happened to the world's largest tube TV by Shank Mods. That's the YouTube channel is the only video I've ever seen by this guy. But, um, here's the thing. Shank Mods. I've never watched it, but I've heard, I've heard of his channel. I'm going to send you this on blue sky because this, the Zencaster is fleeting. I do see it. I got the link.

[00:43:06] But, uh, this video is incredible and it, it, it, oh man, I don't, I don't want to spoil any of it. I just, I know it's 35 minutes, but like next time you're eating dinner, you do this, make this your YouTube video that you watch, man, it's such a journey. And it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. And I don't, I don't really, I don't know much about any of this kind of stuff, but what you were saying just really evoked this video in me.

[00:43:33] Like, if you want like a, if you want like a really good breakdown of like this stuff, check out the, my life in gaming YouTube channel. Like they, um, they really do a fantastic job of breaking this all down. And the thing is a lot of their older videos are now out of date because there's been so much advancement in the technology. Um, but the, uh, there are a lot of like, it's crazy what they, what, what they show you.

[00:44:03] Well, oh man, I'm, I'm, I'm going to stop. Otherwise I'm going to go put on my nerd glasses and do shit like, and just talk about like, well, here's the differences between, you know, composite and S video and all these other acronyms and shit. But, uh, yeah, it's, I love this shit. It is really interesting. It's like a, what is it? LRG. Is that the YouTube channel? That's kind of, yeah. Uh, I, I enjoy, I enjoy listening to him talk.

[00:44:32] When I got COVID the first time I would just let his videos play and I just listened to his voice and just try and stay in reality, like try to not die. But, uh, anyway, uh, that no more COVID talk. We're done with that. Uh, so Patreon, wait, new pod updates. No, we don't got nothing. Uh, so Patreon here at gaming together. We work hard to provide excellent call content for you, the listener. If you have the meets, please consider supporting us on Patreon. The link is in the description below. This is the list of our current supporters. Jose Martinez, Merserker, this Mr. Kwong and St. Cracker 04 and Nikolai at night.

[00:45:01] Thank you guys so much for your support. If you can't do any monetary things, go give us a five, stars on iTunes and on Spotify and go do that to, uh, our friends over still loading as well. And what was the YouTube channel? Go subscribe to that YouTube channel. My life in gaming is the YouTube channel. We're giving support out to everybody today. We're going to take a break and then we're going to go do everybody's favorite, uh, part of the show, the Am I the Assholes. And then we play music. Do we, do you need anything? You need to do.

[00:45:33] All right. Uh, now it's time for the Am I the Assholes section. We're going to go online and assist some gamers in need. Uh, we got the little Am I the Assholes sheet. You see it there on the notes? Oh, I opened it up twice. I got it. Uh, so you see anything in there that, uh, looks good, looks, uh, interesting. You want to talk about? I mean, I didn't, I didn't finish reading it, but I did see the one about a podcasting thing. I'm like podcasting laptops. I'm like, might as well see what that's about. Uh, which number is it? Number four.

[00:46:03] It's the fourth line. The fourth one. Oh, okay. We've already done this one. Uh, so I should have mentioned if they, if there's any coloring on it, then it's already been done. Okay. Okay. All right. So the interesting thing about this. So while you're looking for another one, we actually found these guys and I, I talk to them regularly now. Like they put this podcast that's in the same by the asshole. It's really interesting. Oh, wow.

[00:46:33] Um, I, I think I found one. It's a row 10. Number 10. Oh, all right. Let me see here. It's about a office concern about BF's co-op partner. Uh, by queasy aioli 7652, which sounds like a throw. It is not. This is a, this looks like an account that somebody uses. They're posting five days ago.

[00:47:02] What is this? Area 52. This looks like a club named area 52. That's actually a cool name for a club. Let me see. What else do they, what else do they like to talk about? X and closet ADD. I don't know what this is. There's a lot of acronyms going on. I'm not even going to look in there. Charlotte Dober YouTube. All right. Well, we, we've got a live one here. All right. You want to read it?

[00:47:31] The, the, the one that I chose. Yeah. I'm sorry. We, we like to dive into the, the account a little bit first to see if there's anything. No worries. No worries. Uh, so am I the asshole if I break up with my partner, male 25, after seeing he used to set, he used to send nudes to his friend, female 24, uh, female 24 year old, 24 years old, excuse me, a year ago. And they still game together up to now. Hi gaming together. There you go. Hi, I'm female 24.

[00:47:58] And, and so my partner, uh, my partner male 25 has a girl quote unquote friend. Who's also 24 that he plays with online almost every day. And I just saw that they've been sending nude pics to each other. Like it's a normal thing. Like it's a normal thing to do a year ago. I just saw it today. I know they've been friends for a while, but I didn't realize that there was that sort of friendship that since did dick pits, dick pics and tits. Jesus Christ. It makes me feel grossed out that we've been together for almost two years.

[00:48:27] Oh shit. Oh, I have a two month old baby. I saw their conversation in Snapchat and the way that the talk is flirty as well, but they're not each other's types according to both of them. And also the fact that they still game a lot makes me. Aside from this, he's also been using and paying for only fans, uh, when we're literally struggling with money at the moment and I'm on maternity leave, so I don't help much with any expenses at home.

[00:48:52] And I've also told him it makes me uncomfortable seeing him using only fans, but what was eight but using only fans, but that was ages ago. And I thought he stopped, but I guess not. We haven't been intimate since I got pregnant and I'm not sure what to do, whether I confront him or not, or how to start having this whole conversation with him. Holy fuck, man. Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you picked a literal, a literal live grenade on this one. What is going on?

[00:49:21] No, like I, this is like a live grenade would be like, I mean, I feel for this, this person, this, this, uh, female, but like, uh, female age 24, I feel for her. Uh, but this is a very clear cut. She's not the asshole at all. In my opinion. Like, are you kidding me while you are still dating your, the mother of your child? I granted, I don't know if she was pregnant then. Um, yeah, they have a two month old baby.

[00:49:50] So she was not, she may have been pregnant. Actually. It was, it would have been very close. If it was a year ago, if they have a two month old baby and they met, they started sending those pics a year ago, which it doesn't even make it sound like it makes it sound like it's still happening. She just saw today. So the clearly like, that's still happening. Like, I'm sorry. Like when you, if that's something you used to do with this person, then that stops the moment you have a significant other. That's that you just, why?

[00:50:18] Like what other, like what possible reason would you have to send that? Just period. I don't, yeah. I don't know. You're supposed to be getting that attention from your partner. I mean, that's, I mean, unless that's the kind of relationship you have, they clearly don't. I mean, this person clearly doesn't want that kind of relationship. So this is just a breach, a breach of trust really. And the only fans thing as well. Um, if, if you, so it says he's also been using only fans.

[00:50:47] Uh, did she tell him to stop? Oh, she told him and made him uncomfortable and he said he stopped, but he didn't. And so that's just, yeah, we, it's pretty cut and dry. She has communicated her feelings to him very fucking clearly and he's still doing it. That's a breach of trust. I understand why she's conflicted. She has a child with this dude. So. Yeah, that's tough. That, that's really, that's tough. That's really hard.

[00:51:11] But like, dude, like he clearly is not, he clearly is not actually caring about you. If he genuinely cared, he would have fucking stopped. Um, you know, like I, I don't know. That's just, I think it'd be, it's only fans is almost a little bit weirder. Like if it was just like watching porn or something like that, I don't think that would have been an issue if, as long as she's cool with it, obviously.

[00:51:39] But like only fans, that's like a personal thing. Like, like you're invested in this creator's personality. I would assume, I actually don't subscribe to any only fans accounts, but like that's, but, but it's, you know, it's more. It's like one step closer, you know? Yeah. It's that, that there's, there's more, there's, there's a bigger parasocial relationship with this performer because you are directly supporting their exact content that they are creating for their fans.

[00:52:11] Um, versus, yeah, it's cause it's like, it's like, that's fucked up. That's weird. It's one thing to watch porn. And then it's another thing to like buy posters of a porn star and put it in your room, you know? Like, like while you're with somebody, your, your partner comes home and you just got like a porn star up in your, in your bedroom. And they're like, what, what is that doing up there? That'd be a pretty funny prank actually. A little bit.

[00:52:38] If your partner has that type of sense of humor, that would be a good prank. Yeah. Replace the wedding photos. Oh no, that might be too far. No, no, no, no. I feel for this person though, man. Like that, that fucking sucks. Like, but this, this dude, she has communicated with him exactly how she feels. She did not beat around the bush. I understand not wanting to rock the boat and like, you're nervous about confronting, confronting him again.

[00:53:06] But like, if you want to have a relationship that like values you, it doesn't matter if it was a guy or girl doing this. Like this is not a good, this relationship. Clearly this person is not in it for the right reasons. They just, who knows why that guy is in the relationship. If he's still sending dick pics to a person.

[00:53:28] And on top of that, like, it would be weird enough if they sent it prior to them, to him and his current girlfriend or partner being together and dating. And then he still talks to this girl afterwards. That's a little bit different. I could see how like, that could still be a problem. Like if, if she still feels uncomfortable, then it's kind of, the ball's kind of in his court.

[00:53:52] And if like, he still says no, like, I don't, that, that at least has a little bit more wiggle room in the sense. Like I, you know, we, we've, this part is behind us. Like it's past, like, but at the same time, that would be like date. That would be like talking to your ex every single day. You know, like even if that, him and that girl never dated, like they sent nudes to each other and then they still talk to each other every single day. Like, I don't know that I could see how that would be uncomfortable for, for her entirely. Either way, she is not the asshole.

[00:54:21] The dude is the asshole. He can get bent. Yeah. This is some ultimatum type shit. Like it's like no more only fans. Like that's the only way to salvage this, right? Like you have to repair. I mean, the, the, the guy has to repair his trust, repair the trust in the relationship. If she wants, if she wants to salvage this, if she wants to still be in the, like, if she wants to work on this, I should say, it's not salvage. Like she has to do anything.

[00:54:44] The dude has to get off only fans and he has to stop sending dick pics to this girl and receiving tit pics as well. Like no more, no more sexual photos, period. No more nude photos. I should say it doesn't necessarily mean sexual, but no more nude photos either. Then you have a conversation about like still gaming with this person every single day, which is still fucking weird. Like that, I, that I would even say get rid of that. But like, I don't know.

[00:55:13] Then, then, then you're asking him to cut off a friend, which if he cares about the relationship, maybe he will. I don't know that that's, that's the harder part. But either way, if he, if you already talked to ones and he still wasn't willing to do it, I don't know. Yeah. I think the relationship probably isn't salvageable because I forgot that it says, it says that they haven't been intimate since she was pregnant. So it's been like 11 months. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. With the kid, it's tough.

[00:55:40] I would say like, if, if it was a couple who was, who was, they weren't intimate for 11 months, but they were still committed to each other. They weren't doing shit like this guy was then. Yeah. There's still work. Then maybe there's like, you know, you're working on stuff. You're like, you're still committed to each other. You're just going through a very long rough patch. If you're still trying to work towards it and you figure it out, that's different. But this isn't what's happening.

[00:56:03] It's been 11 months and he's sending dick pics to another girl and he's like paying for only fans while they're struggling with money. It just, this dude doesn't seem like a good person. Yeah. It seems like a leech, not the asshole unanimous decision. Your trophies in the mail. I apologize for the situation you're in. So we can do another one. Let's go to number 58. All right. Nevermind. Just kidding.

[00:56:31] This is deleted by user. So let me go ahead and color this red. You know, that happens sometimes. Let's go to, let's go to 68. Let's jump in. Wow. I was actually, oh no, I wasn't on. That was you. Okay. So this is my, oh, hard word. Mycologist ancient six, seven, eight. I'm loving these Reddit names. So this one looks like it's only this post and some comments.

[00:57:00] So we might have, well, we have two comments here. So maybe a little bit of an update on this. Oh man. And apparently the dude, that's so fucking weird. Did you read what he like? So I guess he's giving an alias for his, this writer for their, this writer's son. Do you see what it is? Yeah. That was not on purpose. I know it was. It's really funny though. So it looks like we have to do this. Yeah. This is you. Canonically. This is what you're part of this.

[00:57:29] So I hope you weren't mean. All right. So this is am I the asshole for freaking out and possibly outing my son's friend. Oh, I just minimize my thing. Hold on. I tried to maximize it. Okay. My youngest son, Joshua. Who is 12? Who's 12 has a crush on one of his friends at school. A boy, Carmen. Who's 13. They've gotten really close lately.

[00:57:55] And even though Carmen likes to play cool as a cucumber, I still noticed him blushing and cheesing pretty hard at Joshua. Carmen is over almost all the time. So today, I guess they're supposed to kind of, I guess, oh fuck. I guess they were supposed to have kind of like a little date. Though in hindsight, I don't think Ot was as official as that. This would have been the first time they've been out without me lurking.

[00:58:22] I was going to drop them off at the arcade and I gave them enough money for a movie down the street and to eat at a kind of fancy restaurant for lunch. After a while, I was running some errands near the area. While dropping them off, I made a comment about how cute they looked together. Carmen got this weird kind of shocked look for a sex, but I didn't think much of it at first. Oh, come on. You have to at least type a second. Yeah.

[00:58:51] This is awkward enough as it is. About an hour and a half, I got a call from Joshua all upset. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong on the phone and I got there. Carmen wasn't there. I asked what happened and he tells me Carmen called his mom to pick him up. He won't say anything on the car ride and on the car ride home and went sulking in his room. His mom got him to talk after his mom got him to talk after she got home from work.

[00:59:17] Apparently, Carmen isn't as open about himself with his family as Joshua is with us and I wasn't supposed to know about him. He got freaked out and got mad at Joshua for telling anyone and his mom picked him up. My wife thinks I was, period, stupid to make such a comment like that without knowing if Carmen was even out and I probably scared the kid half to death. Is that scared or does that say scarred? Scared. Am I the asshole? Scarred would be two R's. Yeah.

[00:59:46] Now I'm hyper vigilant on the typos. There's a lot of typos in that one. That was hard to read, listener. But is this person the asshole for oopsie-daisying? I mean, do you want me to go first? Yeah. What do you think about this? No. I think that she was trying to be positive and affirming for both her son and the boy that her son is interested in.

[01:00:08] And if Carmen – now, if she wouldn't let it go and kept doing this now that she knows Carmen is uncomfortable, then yeah, she would have been. But if – I don't know. If this was a boy – like a heteronormative, quote-unquote, relationship with a boy and a girl and she said that, no one would have thought bad at an eye twice about it. Oh, you're a cute couple type of thing, right? Yeah.

[01:00:37] Like no one would have thought twice about it. It's not really her place to know. Like how awkward would that be as a conversation beforehand? You know, like, hi, Carmen, 13-year-old boy. Are you open with your sexuality with your parents? Like you don't ask that question to a kid you've only met a handful of times. There is no way she could have known prior without that even being almost more invasive. So in my opinion, no.

[01:01:03] She's not the asshole because she was genuinely trying to be supportive and then it backfired. It sucks. It backfired. That's an unfortunate situation. But like if Carmen was willing to go on a date with her son, it doesn't matter if he – like why wouldn't she have assumed he was out then at that point? Yeah, I don't know. It's weird.

[01:01:30] I just wasn't – I was not an active like dating person. I was not – my brain was not in it. Oh, I didn't have my first girlfriend until I was 18. You're in good company. Yeah. Yeah. I was usually bullied into my relationships. Like it was like that. So I – it's hard to kind of put myself in these shoes. I also don't really think this person is an asshole because this just seems like an honest mistake, right? Like there's no way you could have possibly have known their situation and everything.

[01:02:01] Yeah, I don't know. They were probably just trying to be supportive and then it just – it was a little bit too much for the kid. Yeah, kids are hormonal. You know? You never know what they're going to – how they're going to take something. Mm-hmm. And if she would have kept pushing, that's a different story. But she didn't. She – like if she goes back and apologizes – like I'm not saying to – like he's not out to his family now that you kind of know the situation. Unless this caused him to come out to his family. That's a whole – but even so, I still wouldn't think she's an asshole.

[01:02:31] Like she didn't know. And I don't know. Like I – like if you were under the assumption that your kid – your son was going on a date with another boy, wouldn't you assume that like he feels comfortable being out? I don't know. Yeah. Like I could understand if – I don't know. You know what? If there's anyone – if there is anyone in the LGBT community who would – has an opinion on this, I'd love to hear it.

[01:03:00] Like sincerely, I'm coming from this sort of as a cis white dude. So like I'm not – I've never had to be in the closet and come out. So like if their opinion would make – would be much more valuable to this conversation than mine. Yeah. Yeah. But – I also grew up in like a weird town where like the – I was – I acted very flamboyant. Like me, my – one of my closest friends, Steven, like in lunch would sit in my lap.

[01:03:28] Like we – and we're just two dudes just – and we weren't doing anything to each other. Like we weren't gay at all. But that – like we were – we grew up with like Jackass being like one of the most popular movies and TV shows of our time. So – and you just see so much penis and like so much gay jokes and stuff. Like there's a lot of – so we were just really like comfortable. Like our whole entire high school was just very comfortable with the idea of like homosexuality and stuff. So I – like all the people who were gay, everyone knew they were gay and they acted gay.

[01:03:58] It was like – and no one really thought twice about that kind of thing. So – Like it was very – like I grew up conservative Christian. And while I still am Christian, I'm not the current – Yeah. I'm not a fan of what's happening currently in our country. Just – I'll leave it at that. You should see my group chat. I am unhinged sometimes.

[01:04:26] They'll bring it up like, hey, Nave, you see this happen in the news? And I just rant for like five minutes straight. Like – Dude, I can't. I – it's – I – you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to – I'm hoping this all plans out. I have guests lined up. I'm doing a series on my show hopefully starting sometime in April called Punch a Nazi. And it's featuring games exclusively that you get to punch Nazis or take them down in some way, shape, or form for no particular reason whatsoever. You know, just that sounds like a fun idea.

[01:04:55] Yeah, there's nothing topical happening with it, not at all. Yeah, nothing going on. So I'm in the process of picking games and getting guests assigned, and I have to like play all these games. I'm kind of in a bigger time crunch than I was expected, but I kind of have this lined up just right. So, yeah, I say all that just to – I don't know. Whenever someone – I get nervous when I say like I grew up in a conservative Christian household because that has a lot of baggage with that. I'm not – oh, woe is me.

[01:05:25] I'm like I'm nowhere near – like I don't have nearly as much shit to deal with as other people. But it just – I always like to clarify it because I don't want people to get the wrong attention. But yeah, anyway. Yeah, you're amongst friends here at Gaming Together. We are all fucking clowns. We don't care what you're doing over here as long as you're not insane, which you're clearly not insane. And neither is this person. You're not an asshole. Mycologist, ancient – you're okay.

[01:05:53] That sounds like a Final Fantasy, like post-game boss. All right. Well, that was the end of the asshole section. Everything pretty straightforward. Pretty easy time this week. So we're going to take a break. We're going to start talking about the game of the episode Halo Combat Evolved. Music plays. Not the Halo music though. All right. How's the basement? Everything's still upright. Right. It's not gotten any higher that I can tell.

[01:06:23] But it doesn't look like it got that much lower. So I don't know. I can't tell if there's just so much coming in. I think it might have gone down like less than a quarter of an inch, like maybe an eighth. But the basement, like it's – I mean it's a lot of water to get out. But the one subpump we have apparently can pump like 40 gallons in a minute or something like that. You know what you should have did? You should have got a Sharpie and marked on the wall. You know how like kids mark their height? Yeah.

[01:06:47] But – and then forever you'll be like, hey, remember every time you go down there and just do that mark it like I remember when the basement flooded. I might do that after we're done recording tonight. I might take a Sharpie when I go down to check. I'm going to check it one more time because I usually go up until midnight anyway. And I might draw a Sharpie on it and then when we wake up in the morning at like 7, that I'll check to see. I always do this all the time. I go to bed at like midnight and I wake up at 7 a.m. It's just a habit now.

[01:07:18] Yeah, same, except I wake up at 6, unfortunately. God. Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. But anyway, I am good to go whenever. All right. And we're back. Halo Combat Evolved. We got the little Steam grab for the Master Chief Collection, which is amazingly on Steam. It says Master Chief's iconic journey includes six games built for PC and collected in a single integrated experience.

[01:07:44] Whether you're a longtime fan or meeting Spartan 117 for the first time, this Master Chief Collection is the definitive Halo gaming experience. Very positive. 216,000 reviews, which is insane. Mm-hmm. The Master Chief Collection dropped on Steam on December 3rd, 2019. But the Master Chief Collection originally was on the Xbox One, November 11th, 2014.

[01:08:09] And Halo Combat Evolved, the game we're specifically talking about, was November 15th, 2001. Yeah. So long ago. 24 years. Holy shit. Still holds up, in my opinion. I still think Halo 1 really holds up really, really well. I still think it feels like a solid shooter. I even think the graphics don't look bad, all things considered. I love the old graphics.

[01:08:37] I was poo-pooing on it, the newer graphics earlier in the episode, but I am definitely a zealot about it. Whenever I play the game, every now and then people come over and we'll drink and we'll play like Jackbox or Rock Band or something. And sometimes we play Halo instead. And whenever they switch the graphics, I always want to get up and walk across the room and dead like them. Like, how dare you force me to look at that? I'm just joking, but I love the old graphics.

[01:09:03] It's funny because I actually have a beef with Halo 3 graphics because I almost think the textures are too muddy. It's very hard to see what anything is in Halo 3, I feel. It's been a while since I've played it, to be fair, but I remember playing Halo 3 and just being like, I don't know, I think it was just a lot of the textures were a little bit too muddy, especially trees and rocks and stuff like that. It looked a little too samey to me.

[01:09:34] Especially on that first level? Yeah, it's been a while since I've played it. It's funny, so I think I've beaten most of the Halo games. But know which one I really want to revisit. It's Halo 4. Because I remember when it came out, a lot of old school Halo fans were poo-pooing it. They're like, no, no, this is not my Halo. Master Chief can sprint. What is this? Which, fair, fair. You know, he already ran fast as hell. I didn't really need all that.

[01:10:02] But I remember playing it and being blown away by the story. I loved the story of Halo 4 when I first played it. It was interesting. I'm very curious to go back to it now. It's been over a decade since I've played it. I'm very curious to go back to it now. I replayed them with my ex from a while back, Madeline. And she loved Halo 4 as well, which shocked me. Because I'm also one of the people who are just like, ugh, I don't like Halo 4 that much.

[01:10:31] It's just jarring. It's jarring going from Halo 3 to Halo 4. I think the most jarring thing is that Master Chief is a completely different person when he comes out of the cryopod. But because if you play Halo 3 and 4 back to back, it's like a guy who barely speaks just basically speaks in one-liners. And now he's constantly talking all the time. He has more dialogue in two chapters of Halo 4 than all of Halo before it. You know what I mean?

[01:11:00] See, I never even noticed that. But it's also been a decade since I've played it. I think when I first played it about a decade ago, I don't think I was really as critical. I don't mean critical in a bad way. I mean literally critical in the sense that I look at games critically. Ever since I – it's funny. I started the podcast. When did Halo 4 come out? 2014? 2013? Maybe 2012, actually. I think it came out at – oh, no. I was going to say it came out after the Master Chief Collection. That doesn't make any sense.

[01:11:30] I'll look it up real quick. 2012. November 6th. Yeah, 6th of 2012. Yeah, because it was on the 360. Exactly. And I – my podcast had not started then. I started the show in 2014. And even then when I started the podcast, it took a long time for me to kind of get my sea legs under me and figure out what the hell I was doing with the show.

[01:11:57] And I really don't think I really truly started like getting to appreciate games from like a critical lens and almost like historical and games as an art type of thing lens until I started doing the podcast. So when I first played Halo 4, it just kind of washed over me. So maybe I won't like it now. But I remember loving it when I first played it. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:21] It's definitely more of a story than Halo has ever really had, which if that's something that you would want, then yeah, that's really – it's kind of like one thing that I'm worried about with Doom, the Dark Ages, is that they're talking about like, oh, we're taking all of the logs that used to be there and we're putting it into the story of the game. And I'm like, oh, no. That makes me nervous because – So I think it works for Halo because Halo had such strong world building. Yeah. Doom never needed world building.

[01:12:51] Doom is just like you're going to hell and you're just shooting the shit out of some demons, monsters, aliens, what have you. You know, you didn't need all that world building for it because – but like Halo, like the first Halo, the story itself of the game, like plot for plot, is really simple and Master Chief is a pretty basic-ass character.

[01:13:13] But what's interesting about Halo was its world, you know, like this mysterious – you know, why – like you learned about the precursors and like – that's Jak and Daxter. Forerunners or whatever it is. Forerunners, yeah. That's it. You learned about the forerunners and like how like they constructed the rings for like defense against what – some type of thing. I can't tell what it is.

[01:13:37] And then you find that thing in that planet, in that first Halo and it's the flood and it's just – there's so much world building in the first Halo game. And it's done so well and so simple – simply that it just – it compels you to – and also the art direction was so strong like warthogs and like all the enemy designs and vehicle designs and character designs. Like it made you – it immersed you in a world with having to do so little in the story.

[01:14:06] And like the world did so much heavy lifting on Halo 1's story that it didn't need anything else. Doom, there's like – there's not much story at all. Like there's not much world building at all. There's a colony on Mars. A fucking portal opens up and demons come out. That's it. There's no – Blast them. Rip and tear. Yeah, exactly.

[01:14:27] And like that's why like Doom 2016 was such a revelation because they kind of brought back the boomer shooter and modernized – well, they created the genre that we know now as the boomer shooter. But they kind of modernized it, right? So Doom – like making story out of Doom I don't think is smart not because they couldn't do it but Doom never really lended itself to a really in-depth story versus Halo did because the world building already kind of had it in it.

[01:14:57] Yeah, and all the books and stuff. Like have you ever read any of the Halo novels? I got one right here. I did actually. Not that one that you have in your hand. I read the Fall of Reach, the one that they based – Yeah. The one that they based Halo Reach off of. The Fall of Reach, the Flood is really good. The Flood takes place during Halo 1. Man. And it's – yeah, I'm just saying the world building is amazing. I'm just going to repeat what you said.

[01:15:24] The world building is fantastic and we're going to get really deep into that in a second. We've basically been doing History and Preconceptions but like how did you first experience Halo? Like what initially put you on to it? Do you remember all of that? I do actually. I do. You're at a family party and it was some cousins of mine that I didn't see very often. And I remember the one older cousin, his name was Scott I think. I never – like he was much older than me.

[01:15:53] I was probably like – gosh, the game came out in 2001 so I would have been math like 12 when that game came – when Halo 1 came out. And I probably saw it when I was like 13. It was probably after Halo 1 came out that I actually played it. I'm going to get – sometime between 12 and 13 is when I first saw it. I don't know the exact time but we were – it was at some party. And I think Scott was probably in his mid-20s.

[01:16:21] So like this dude is like a decade older than me, right? Yeah. And he was still living with his parents at the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that but he was living with his parents at the time. Had his own kind of area in the basement and he had his own like, you know, TV and game setup and all that stuff. And I remember being – I remember going over and playing Halo for the first time. I remember specifically we played Blood Gulch that we played that map.

[01:16:48] And I remember getting in a tank and finding a shadowy portion of the map to like hide the tank. And I just started sniping people with the giant cannon. And I was hooked on it ever since. I wanted to play Halo so bad wherever I could. But it was very similar to how I got into Pokemon where like I didn't own the game but I had new people who did.

[01:17:13] So anytime I did, anytime I saw someone who had it, I was that shitty friend who was like, I don't want to play with you. I just want to play with your Pokemon. I just want to play Pokemon or I just want to play Halo. I don't want to play with you. Get out of here. I just want your Xbox and Halo right now. Same. Me too. And that was my first experience with it. Fast forward to my sweet 16. My parents are awesome. They always try to do fun stuff for us. So I had two options.

[01:17:42] Either I could do midnight bowling. We called it Rock and Glow at the bowling alley near us. You know, it starts at like midnight, goes to like 2 in the morning or something like that. And you bowl with like disco lights and dark lights. And back in the day, though, people were still out of smoke inside. So you would always come home smelling like an ashtray. So that was great. But so we would go and we would.

[01:18:08] It was an option to take like 10 friends to that or have a lot of people over and do a big party at our house. And I could get an original Xbox. And I was like, well, I'm doing the Xbox and I get a party with more people. Let's fucking do this Xbox thing. So almost sounds like a trap. Why is this one so much better? Well, I kind of talked them into it. But I said, like, well, instead of like because it was like Rock and Glow would have been expensive.

[01:18:36] You would have spent like I think it was like 11 bucks per kid. So if I invited 10 friends myself and one of my parents, that's like one hundred and fifty dollars alone. Oh, man. And like just for that, that's not including refreshments. That's not including like if they want to do any arcade stuff because there was an arcade there. So it's 2001 money. Yeah. Right. So why not spend one hundred fifty dollars on a game console and then have people come over and it'll be cheaper.

[01:19:04] Honestly, that they probably ended up spending more money on that party than they would have on Rock and Glow. But my parents are awesome. They just they're awesome. And so I remember getting Halo and I remember Halo 2 was already out and it still have I still kind of end this way with my podcast where like I refused to play Halo 2 until I had a Halo 1 LAN party. I had to have people over to play Halo 1.

[01:19:33] It didn't have to be a LAN party, just a multiplayer death match. So I remember having people over. We all played Halo and I mingled with everyone at the party and whatnot, make sure everyone was like, you know, that type of thing. And it was it was a lot of fun. So those are my earliest memories with Halo, like seeing at a friend at my like cousins. I don't even know if it was like if it was a like family party or a birthday party or a graduation party or something. It was some type of party. And I was seeing it there.

[01:20:03] And then also when I finally got it for on my 16th birthday after I think it was even after like the Xbox 360 was already out that I finally got to my original Xbox. So it I was very late to it. But yeah, so that that's my personal experiences with Halo. That's how I kind of first got into the series and into the original game. My I was also very late into it as well. So long time, very long. I haven't told the story in a while, I don't think.

[01:20:30] But a very long time listeners will remember a that my dad, my dad kind of like would come in and out of my life. And every time he would come back in, he would take whatever game console I had and sell it like all the games he'd sell all that. And then he'd buy another game console. And that would be like, hey, here I am. And then he would have like a like a returning gift. And so I constantly was like jumping from console to console like throughout my childhood. And so I had a play.

[01:20:59] I had a PlayStation. Actually, no, I had a GameCube at this time. And then he sold it for the Xbox. And it was very weird because I wasn't super into gaming because of the I didn't have a whole lot of games that I really enjoyed with the GameCube. And whenever I really like the PlayStation, too, because that's funny enough. I was I was playing Final Fantasy seven and eight and and and stuff like that on my PS2. And then when I went to GameCube, I had like burnout.

[01:21:27] And I was like, that's really the only thing I played over and over again. And so when I got the Xbox, he brought he was like, this is like the best game in in the world right now. Apparently he had a whole bunch of games, one of them being Halo. He was referring to Halo. I think he wanted Halo 2 and he just got Halo 1 because it was cheaper and he figured it was like the same thing. But I got a bunch of different games, Halo being one of them. I also got Jade Empire.

[01:21:52] I got Psychonauts and one of the Splinter Cell games. And funny enough, even though I'm such an evangelist for Halo, I bounced off of Halo with all of these games that I had. I was like, Halo's cool. Halo's interesting. But I really want to play Psychonauts because Psychonauts was kind of like my jam. And this was at way after Halo 2 had already come out. And then I started trying to play Splinter Cell. It was too hard for me.

[01:22:21] And I start and then I got on to Jade Empire and I fell in love. I was like, oh, my God, this is like it's kind of like Final Fantasy. But I I don't understand how it's how it's different or not. I didn't even know there were like genres of games. I didn't know how to describe what I wanted. So I was really into Jade Empire and Psychonauts. And eventually I went to I didn't have an Xbox at this time, but I went to my aunt and my uncle's house here in Oklahoma City.

[01:22:49] And my cousin had Halo 2 and he had Xbox Live. And I had never experienced online gaming before. I didn't understand. And so I he had he had Halo 2 and he had Phantasy Star online. And the first thing I saw was Phantasy Star. And I was like, this is crazy. You can play with people. This is like RuneScape kind of. And he's like, yeah, check this out, actually. And he pulls up Halo 2 and I get online with the headset and I'm getting destroyed in Halo 2.

[01:23:18] I've never played Halo 2 before. And so this is my first experience with Halo 2. And I am completely it's warped my brain. And when I go back home, I find friends with Halo. I get another Xbox because at this point I have a PlayStation 2 again. So I sold my Xbox, got a PS2. And then I just ended up buying an Xbox. So I have both of the consoles now. And I go to my friend's house and we have land party. Not really land parties, just four players split screen.

[01:23:45] But we're playing Halo 1 Blood Gulch and we're playing the stupid teleporter map. And it's like, oh, it's just a really good and wholesome experience. And that is when I really started actually playing through the campaign and beating it over and over and over again. And learning how to glitch out the boundaries and stuff. And doing all kinds of things with my friends. And yeah, it's funny whenever I think about my first experience with Halo.

[01:24:12] Because it's me just going, ah, I want to play Psychonauts instead. And I just feel like I'm an alien from that point in my life. Like, that's not me. That's still... I love those types of stories though, dude. I love... Specifically when you're like, I didn't know there was different genres. Like, I kind of miss that childhood innocence and wonder about games. Like... Yeah. It just... So my daughter is four.

[01:24:40] And she recently started getting into video games. Like, she likes watching me play video games. She was watching me play Astro Bot. She tried to play it herself. Her hands aren't big enough to fit around the controller. It's kind of adorable. Um... And... But I can see the same sense of wonderment from her. Where she's like, you... That... I know this isn't... Sorry, this is taking me down a bit of a rabbit hole. That isn't quite exactly what you were talking about.

[01:25:10] But it just... That's fine. It kind of reminds me of... It's tangentially connected, I guess. But like, when you're a kid, when you look at a game, the world feels bigger than the screen it's projected on. You know? Like, you feel like there's so much more poking at the wall. Like, that you could poke at the walls a little bit. And like... Like, I remember running into like... In like, on my N64 playing Donkey Kong 64. I remember like going into walls and being like, I think this pixel looks slightly different than this pixel. Let me try that.

[01:25:38] Now as an adult, like, I don't need to do that. Because I know how games work. And I understand the language of game design to an extent. I'm no expert on it. I'm not a game designer. But I've played enough games that I understand the language of game design to some extent. And, you know, as a kid, you don't have any of that. So you just... You try everything. You do anything. And like, you just... You jump over... You do jumps that you never would make now as an adult gamer.

[01:26:07] Because you've played too many games. You know that's a bad idea. Or you try strategies that you never would. And so... Because the world still feels so big compared to what it actually is. It's... Like, one of the reasons I'm doing... I was telling you off mic, I'm playing Rayman 2. For on the N64 for a guest spot on a different podcast. One of the reasons I chose that game was because I rented it from Blockbuster. And I... I remember being so, like, freaked out by the opening cutscene.

[01:26:37] Because, like, you... Like, Rayman's in this jail and he gets out. And there's, like, this weird jungle that you go into. And there's these yellow... I now know they're called lums. But I had no idea what they were called. Just these yellow orbs. And you have to collect these yellow orbs. And it felt like there's this mysterious world that I just got dumped into. And I never quite under... I could never quite put my hand on what that was. And now that I'm playing as an adult, it's... Like, that sense of mystery and wonder is gone.

[01:27:06] But I'm finding new ways to enjoy it. But I still... Like, I missed that era of not... Like, just not knowing. Just not... Yeah. Being able to look at a game and not knowing. Doesn't matter. Like, genres didn't exist. To bring it back to how I got on this sidetrack. Like, genres didn't exist. You just played games because you wanted to play games. Yeah. That feeling of discovery. I think that's what really permeates the games that I really adore lately. Like, mouth-washing and signalis and stuff like that.

[01:27:36] Where it, like, really kind of re-invokes that awe and that wonder. You know what I mean? Like, I don't exactly know where this is going. But this game is playing on the expectation that I know a lot about games. You know? Like, I understand games. Especially signalis. Mouth-washing, not so much. Mouth-washing is more of just a really incredible narrative that plays with nostalgia just from its aesthetic.

[01:28:02] But signalis is meta in many, many ways. I don't know if you've ever played that. I have not. I've been meaning to. But I shouldn't say I've been meaning to. I heard about it actually first from the retro hangover pod. No, from Tales from the Backlog. Dave from Tales from the Backlog covered it with, I think, the retro hangover people, Chris and Shane. So that's where I first heard about it. But I don't think I listened to the episode because I didn't want it spoiled for me. Good.

[01:28:31] Yeah, that game, you don't want it spoiled. But I'm also part of that fan club that's always preaching about signalis. My listeners hate it. My listeners will never play the game because of how much I talk about it. But anyways, man, how many? So do you play on the Master Chief Collection? Because it keeps track of your hours, I think. No, I've never. I don't own the Master Chief Collection, actually. All of my Halo playthroughs have been on original hardware or I put them in my 360 and played them.

[01:29:02] I would actually host LAN parties. Not just that one time on my 16th birthday. I ended up getting like, I would buy like Ethernet hubs. And I did a legit full LAN party. We had like four TVs upstairs and four TVs down in the basement of my parents' house. And we had an Ethernet cable strung between two different hubs to connect all of these. And I think we had like eight or nine Xboxes hooked up.

[01:29:31] And we would have huge like 14 player death matches. It could go up to 16, but I never got it. I think the highest I ever had was 14. And just have huge like Halo LAN parties. So much so, you know, we're talking about like other... I probably should have mentioned this, like co-op memories, like seminal co-op memories. My bachelor party for when I got married, I went out to eat with friends, went to a hockey game, and came home and had a Halo LAN party for my bachelor party.

[01:30:00] That sounds insane. Like, that just sounds so fun. It was a lot of fun. I really recommend you play Master Chief Collection at least a little because you have a PC, working PC, right? Yes, it's been a couple years since we're updated. Don't really have the funds for that. I think I'd be able to run it, though. I have a good enough graphics card. I think I'd be able to run it. Yeah. Master, we'll talk about this a little bit when we talk about the multiplayer a little bit later. But I was playing a lot of multiplayer the past few days.

[01:30:29] Just Halo 1. And you can find... There's just lobbies of people playing Halo 1. And it's so interesting. I used to... Speaking of Halo... We're talking about Halo 1. So, I did play a little bit of Halo on the PC back in the day. Because Halo 1 did get ported to the PC back in the day. And there was differences between Halo 1 on the PC and on console version. Specifically, you could get like the...

[01:30:58] I think a Covenant rocket launcher. It was called like a Plasma... Oh, shit. What was it called? It was like a Fuel Rod Cannon. You could get the Fuel Rod Cannon. And that was exclusive to the PC. You couldn't get that on the original Xbox. That was exclusive to the PC version. And I think the PC version might have had an extra map. Or maybe an extra level in the single player. I think it was an extra map, though. I apologize, listeners. I don't quite remember what all the differences were. I know the Fuel Rod Cannon was in there, though.

[01:31:28] Well... We played... We... I remember at one point in time, you could download Halo Trial. Which was a free version of Halo 1. Completely free. Like, legally free. It came from Microsoft. And it allowed you to play... I don't know how much of the single player. But multiplayer, you could do Capture the Flag. Or... Or... Team Death... Or like... Or Slayer. Just like free-for-all Slayer.

[01:31:58] So if you ever wanted to do... Like, Team Slayer... You would have to do... Capture the Flag. And you could only choose Blood Gulch. That was the only level available. You could do it. Maybe. So there was actually a whole micro-community... Of people who played only Halo Trial. Like, there was tons of games. Like, you would have... People created little clans. And the only thing you had to do to designate that you were part of a clan... Was just put the name of the clan in like... Parentheses... Before your name. So like... I think...

[01:32:27] I created one called the Sky Clan. And there was like... Just because I thought that was cool when I was like 15 or 13 or whatever. And... The servers, though, for that game... Were absolute shit. Because obviously Microsoft's like... We want you to buy the full game. We're not going to invest a lot of money into the multiplayer for the free trial version. And I got really good at it to the point where like... I could like... I could lead... I could lead like the site well enough.

[01:32:56] Or it would be like 5 feet ahead of the dude. And I would just line it up with his head. But like 5 feet to the left or right of it. Depending on which direction they were moving. And I would be able to do the 3 headshots with a pistol and everything. I got so good to the point of it. Where like one of like the noob... Like you know how everyone makes fun of you. If you use a rocket launcher. It's a noob cannon or something like that. Yeah. The noob move in Halo... Of Halo... Halo trial multiplayer. Was getting the Banshees.

[01:33:26] Because it was an easy way just to rack up kills. Because you didn't have to do... Like... Generally there wasn't a lot of people playing in a match. You would just... You would open up a game. And people would just... You would just sit there until someone showed up. And then you would see what would happen. And I remember I got good enough to the point where like... This is the only time I've ever been good enough at Halo at anything. Just to be clear. I'm not trying to sound braggy. I just... I played a lot of this because it was free. And I got to the point where like I knew how to...

[01:33:56] I understood the way Banshees moved really well. So like if they would start shooting at me... I know which... How to move. If they tried to charge me and like just run me over... You would just... You would charge straight forward. Because it could only go... Fly down at a 45 degree angle. So if you read the angle right... That's very awkward. Like you could... They could never go straight down. So you just fly... Or you just run underneath them. Turn around and keep shooting at them. Like... Yeah. You like used up a lot of ammo. But you eventually were able to get it out. So...

[01:34:25] I loved Halo trial man. It was one of my favorite experiences. Playing this game. God. That sounds freaking mad. I just... I can't... There's so... There's such nostalgia for this like time. Like the AOL dial up. Like this time period of like these older games. Like I was playing Half-Life a little bit. On the PC. And I'm just like... My computer can barely run it. But I'm just so... I didn't even play Half-Life when I was younger.

[01:34:54] But just the aesthetic. Like just the knowledge that people played this. And like... Oh it's crazy. To steal... Sorry. There was this fucking video. Where... I think it was a guy in Ukraine. Walking around. In like this like bombed out area. And like he was like... I don't know what he... I don't know what he was saying. But then he randomly was like... Something something Half-Life. And I was like... Oh my god. It does look like Half-Life. Like it's so weird.

[01:35:23] Like these videos. You know what I mean? What I was going to say was there... To borrow a phrase from the Retronauts podcast. They did an episode years ago. Like I'm talking like maybe even close to a decade ago. If not more. On this idea that you kind of are talking about here. Misplaced nostalgia. Feeling nostalgic for something that you did not personally experience. And you talk about Half-Life. I feel like really lays into that perfectly. Like for me, for example. Something I have misplaced nostalgia for.

[01:35:54] Anything on the NES. Like I didn't grow up with the NES. I had some... I played it like maybe once or twice at a friend's house. Like when I was a kid. But it was never like this formative seminal memory. Or like moment for me. The closest it was is that I do remember playing Mario. And that was the first time I fell in love with video games. It wasn't because of Mario itself. It was literally because I saw Mario on the screen. I would hit left or hit right. And Mario would move right. I'd hit jump.

[01:36:23] Mario would jump. And I went, oh my god. This is a cartoon you can control. Like that was my first thought as like a six-year-old or whatever. It just blew me away. Blew my mind. I couldn't believe it. But the NES I still feel nostalgia for. Even though it's not something that I got to experience. So you with Half-Life I kind of can relate to that. Where like you're nostalgic for something. That you never really got to experience originally. Yeah. I played Half-Life as a full-ass adult.

[01:36:53] But I feel like a little kid when I play that game. All right. So speaking of Steam and all of this though. PC gaming. We have our Steam reviews here. Oh my hours played is 351. On the Matsu-Chi collection. Jesus Christ. I don't know how long my hour. It would probably be a lot if you added up all the LAN parties. But I don't know if it'd be that high. Yeah. I mean I'm saying if I could somehow add up all my Halo 1, Halo 2, and Halo 3. Probably not. But Halo Reach also.

[01:37:23] All of these hours. It's probably over 2,000. Like I think. I played so much Halo 3. I played so much Halo 3. That was all I did all high school. Was Rock Band and Halo 3. But. Oh. Another funny thing. I can sort on. I use True Achievements to see like. I can see all my games here. And when I sort by the most time played. As recorded by my Xbox. It is the third game. Underneath only Rock Band 4.

[01:37:51] With 1,416 hours. And Clicker Heroes. With 606 hours. Clicker Heroes? I don't even know if I know that one. It is a garbage free game. Where you press A to do one damage. And that's it. That's all you do. You buy dudes that click for you. It's awful. Don't do it. That's so funny. It is literally just for dopamine. That's it. But. We're going to do the Steam reviews here.

[01:38:20] Which all of these are for the Master Chief Collection. There's no way to isolate it. To just Halo 1. But I just found some funny Steam reviews here. If you want to alternate. Reading them. Sure. I'll read the first one. From Arctic. Who does not recommend. It says. Complete ripoff of Destiny. True. Actually true. I saw that. I'm like. What the fuck? I'm sure that has to be a joke. Like a joke review. Yeah. I hope so. Because.

[01:38:50] 1633 people found that funny. So. It's a joke. Whether he wants it to be or not. I like the next one here. Where they gave it. They recommended it. Played 2.7 hours on record. And only 0.4 hours at the time. They wrote the review. I am scared of the menu music. It's ominous. A little bit. If you're not expecting it. There is a really good video. I saw years ago. I saw years ago. Oh fuck. I forget the name of it. It used to be on. You know. Remember the Escapist.

[01:39:19] That was a really popular. Like website. That's where. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was extra credits. Was the name of the show. They did a whole episode. About video game music. And they just talked about. How like. Iconic. The Halo theme is. Because each. Each. Let level. Like each layer in that song. Is like a really catchy beat. You have the drums. You know. Which is just a good rhythm. I guess. Not really a. Not really a melody.

[01:39:49] But then you have. Like the opening melody. Do do do do. Do do do do. Do do do do. Do do do do. Do do do do. And then. Or no. Sorry. Even before that. You have the choir. Where they go. Right. Yeah. Each thing that gets layered on. Is like. Something that you can. Like you. When you hear that opening. Like. Horn. That do do do do. That sticks with you. The choir. Even before that sticks with you. Then.

[01:40:19] When the actual. Instrumentation goes in. That sticks with you. It's just. The. That song is a masterpiece. In my opinion. It's like. Every. Every part. Have you seen that. Picture of the guy. On the piano. And it's on fire. Yeah. This picture. Here. Is it going to post. Yeah. No. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Every single part of it. Is like that. Even the chance. It's the guy with the. The pin. And the pin is on fire. That's right. But it's just. Aw. Have you seen that video.

[01:40:48] Of the guys in the bathroom. It's an old. Old video. But it's an echoey bathroom. And they start doing the halo theme. Like a bunch of. Oh. I think I've seen that. Yeah. It's iconic man. That's. The song is iconic. The next one. Awk you. Awk you. Lasty. Has 244. Hours on record. It says. This game helped me as a child. When my parents were going through a divorce. It's helping me now. When I'm going through a divorce. Oh no. I hope this helps you.

[01:41:18] When you go through a divorce. That's sad. But funny. But also kind of. Touching at the same time. Yeah. There's nostalgia. There's. There's. Loss. Grief. A lot of things. Very. Tight. Storyline. You've. You've given us. Awk you last. I mean. He's. He's. You know. Show. He's. Or. He. She. They. Are. Showing. Or like. Writing this. From a place of like. They're hiding. Kind of like. How vulnerable. They probably are. With that little bit of humor. But like. It.

[01:41:48] Oh man. It's shit like. Not that I wish anyone. To go through a divorce. Mind you. But like. It's. Shit like that. Where it's like. Games just really. Help so many people. In so many ways. Dude. Like. Oh my god. Sorry. I. I get emotional. When I talk about games. Not just because I have a gaming podcast. But like. I legit like. It makes me. So happy. Just to have these memories. Or anyway. I'm sorry. I'm going to go off on a tangent. I've been feeling. I've been in the feels lately. In my feels lately. Because Astro Bot. Has given me a lot of like. You know. Like. This is what gaming is supposed to be.

[01:42:19] So. I've been. Waxing a little poetic. About this type of shit. So I apologize. Listeners. If I. If I'm. Turning everything into some type of deep. Whatever. Riff of Puck. Oh man. Our listeners are used to the whiplash. We are a very silly show. Total whiplash. The. I mean. It does. What you were saying. Strikes a chord with me too. Because it's like. I mean. I kind of basically. Went through a. Quotes divorce. I had an eight year long relationship. That ended. That's the same lady. Madeline. I was talking about before. That I played Halo. Through Halo with.

[01:42:47] But the game that really helped me out. Whenever I was going through that. Was a game called Valhalla. Have you ever heard of this? The cyberpunk. Bar. No. Actually. No. It's a visual novel. With like a. Mixing drinks. Kind of. Gameplay. Where you sit down and talk. There's a game. Modern. A modern game. Influenced it. Called coffee talk. That a lot of people like. Yeah. I've heard of that one. Is. Is. Oh man. It's so good. I bought this game for like. Eight people. I might buy it for you. If you're not careful. But man. I love.

[01:43:17] I love. Whenever. people play this game. And they come back to me. And they're like. Oh. This is really a touching story. But it really got me through. Because that's. That game is cute and funny and stuff. But it's also very sneaky. And it's about. It's like actual theme. Which is like. Gloss and grief. And like. Trying to move on. From things. And it's like. It's. It's really. It's really good. Anyway. Do you want to read Fred. H95. Fred H95. Wearing those H95 masks.

[01:43:46] Halo is the most game ever made. Thank you Fred. Damn fucking straight. With your 266 hours on record. Man after my own heart. I like. I like this last review. Is from Gloob ski. Gloob ski. I sat arc. I don't know what that is. I'm going to not. Go ahead and not touch that. But. He's got 146 hours. And he says. Master Chief. You mind telling me. What you're doing in that snuggie. Sir. Going blankie mode. Blankie mode. My voice cracked.

[01:44:16] I forgot. I'm still sick. I can't do voices. But blankie mode. Do you know what snuggies are? Oh yeah. I know. The reverse. The reverse blanket. It's also like the sweatshirt. At the same time. Do. Do. Do. Children. These days. Know what a snuggie is. Or is that only for us? I mean. I don't know. My daughter doesn't have one. But I think she would love it. You know. I used to make fun of snuggies. And now I kind of want one. Like. Oh my god. I just. Oh man. My google algorithm. Has a choke hold on me. And.

[01:44:46] When I typed in snuggie. This is what came up. And so. If you just said that you want one. Maybe don't click on that. Because. I might. Dude. That's a fucking sick design too. Are you kidding me? This looks awesome. That's a great design. The back looks fucking dope as hell. Doesn't it? Like the. Oh man. I'm not willing to pay $74 for it. But like. That's. Might be.

[01:45:17] That's really cool. I bet this is comfy. I got a flooded basement to take care of. I can't pay $74. I understand what you mean. I unfortunately shop at Anime Ape. Quite a bit. So. That's why it popped. That was the first thing on my google. I was like. That's funny. I don't want to see this. So. Unfortunately. We're going blanky mode. Going blanky mode on the story. Because. If you don't. If you see my notes. There's. The notes are blank. Because I forgot to write the notes. For the story of this game.

[01:45:47] But it's okay. It's all up in our heads. Right. And also. I've got the. The Halo. ED. What is this? The Halo-pedia. Oh. Halo-pedia. Yeah. I deleted half the link. For some reason. I'm weird like that. But. So. I guess we'll talk a little bit about the campaign. We don't have to go beat for beat. We might. Because. I fucking. I love almost every level of this game. But. I really do want to talk about the pillar of autumn here. The very first step. The very first level.

[01:46:16] And also the name. The ship that you're on. The pillar of autumn. Halo has the best names for ships. Like. There is a. There is a metal band. I don't know if you listen to much metal. But there is a metal band called. It's been a while. Shadow of Intent. Which is named after. A ship. I think the Shadow of Intent. Is an. As a covenant ship. Okay. And. They used to make. Halo songs. Like. That was what their whole shtick was. Okay. That they were a metal band. That played Halo music. But. Shadow of Intent.

[01:46:46] The pillar of autumn. What are some other really good names? Halo ship. I mean. There's one I can't remember. I can't remember. Like half of them. I don't remember. One is called In Amber Clad. Holy shit. What a cool name. Like. We were talking earlier. About. Like. The world building of Halo. Like. Is. Have you ever heard of a cooler ship name. Than In Amber Clad? I think what works too. Is that. So like. There are some games.

[01:47:17] That their version of world building. Is they're going to throw a lot of fucking proper nouns at you. And they don't explain the context of those proper nouns. I think of games like Final Fantasy 13. Right. Where like. You get dumped into that world. And they start. Talking about like. This entire religion. And like. Government world order. That you have no context for how it actually works. And they just kind of expect you to go along with it. Halo doesn't need to do that. Like. They give you their world. They. They do that. They kind of do that.

[01:47:46] They kind of throw a lot of proper nouns at you. But. But they do. But they do it in like. Familiar ways. So like. You know what a spaceship is. You have an idea of what a spaceship is. Because you've seen one before. It's not a hard concept to grasp. So. When they give you a name like that. You know. Pillar of Autumn. Or this type of stuff. It's setting the tone for what type of world you're in. So even setting. Like. Having the ships be named what they are. As silly as that is. That's a type of. That's help setting the tone for the world that you're going to be in. Kind of like this. Like.

[01:48:17] Hyper dramatic. Like. Military world. If that makes sense. Like. It works really well. I just have this random list of them pulled up. Like. Like. Just from reddit. And. One of them. Unyielding hierophant. Farsight lost. Like. Farsight lost. Is just an insane name. As. Ascendant justice. Like. Harbinger of Piety. Like. Dude. Oh. Piety. Harbinger of Piety. Dude. Dude.

[01:48:46] A lot of them are just cool words put together. But that's like. That's what a name is. You know. Like. I don't know how. Like. There is just some guy in the back. That has just been thinking about this for like a decade. And has been waiting. He's just like. Absorbed in Greek mythology or some shit. And he's like. This will work. Just like. Just reading up a Greek mythology books. And coming up with names for shit. And a dictionary to find the fanciest sounding names you can. Yeah. I got that thesaurus out. I don't know about you. But when I do. When I am writing something.

[01:49:16] I do pull the thesaurus out. Oh. You got it. Because. If you have the same word for the same. Like. You want to find new ways. Just use the same. I find myself. If I'm posting something on Blue Sky. And I'm using the same word. Too many times. I'll go to the thesaurus. Just to be like. I know I could use this word. In both situations. But just for the sake of not. Repeating the word over. And over. And over again. I'll go. I'll find something. You've got to. All right. So we're on the. We're on level one. The pillar of autumn. This is just iconic.

[01:49:46] This is an iconic level. I think. It's a great tutorial level. Yeah. It's amazing. You get to see the Master Chief. Wake up. You get introduced to all the people. There's this YouTube channel called. Any Austin. Have you heard of it? Mm-hmm. It's like the third episode. Neuron bringing up any Austin. But. And for this exact same video. But he does. Like series. Where he's like. Finding weird. Or like. Kind of uneasy areas. In video games. And Halo. Is one of the video games. That he does. And. One of the first.

[01:50:16] Areas. Is in the pillar of autumn. At the very beginning. As soon as you get control. Of Master Chief. When you're in this. Like opening area. With. Kind of like a test chamber. Type of thing. Yeah. And it's before you have your gun. And like the. The sirens are going off. And it's all kind of scary. But you don't have to move forward. You can kind of just stand there. And like look at everyone. Have you ever done that? Like just like. A little. Taking in the sights. I have actually. I have just to. It wasn't necessarily to feel uneasy. But it was to like. What would happen if I just sat there?

[01:50:44] Like how long is it going to wait for me? Is it going to wait for me? And obviously it does. Like now that I know. How games work. There's like triggers. That you have to walk across. In order to trigger different events. So. If you don't progress forward. No triggers get triggered. And nothing will progress. Unless the game is programmed that way. To have a timer. But anyway. It's just so. It's so fun. And Halo. Especially. The series. Even all the way up to like Reach. There are moments like this. Where the time just freezes. And you're just stuck.

[01:51:13] In like purgatory for a little bit. If you don't move. If you don't decide to move on. Have you. There's this area. In the pillar of autumn. Like at the very front. In the cockpit. You can drop down. And like the whole front. Is like glass. Like you can see. Down. If you drop down. Into the area. Where it's so. There are these dudes. And chairs that are suspended. Over this glass. And so. I always thought that. I don't know. I love spacecrafts. Man. Like we were talking about the spaceships earlier. Like I just love spaceships. And the idea of them. Like when I played. Mass Effect. That I would wander around the Normandy.

[01:51:44] All the time. Just like letting my imagination run wild. As a kid. And when I was a young little boy. I. Even though I said I bounced off of Halo. I really did enjoy walking around the pillar of autumn. And just like looking at stuff. Imagining things. You know. It's a cool first level. I think one of the most interesting things. About Halo's like level structure too. Just kind of thinking about the levels in general. Is I didn't realize it when I played it. And I didn't realize it until I listened. I think Retronauts brought it up. And I.

[01:52:12] I know other people have brought it up before them. But this is just the first place I heard it. The levels are the same. It's this. They essentially made like four or five levels. And then you just play them in reverse to go back. Yeah. Which is. It's crazy. Like. It's really smart. But I had. Like. It's designed so well. I genuinely didn't notice it. Until someone pointed it out. Yeah. Especially when you get to the middle of the game. And they're like back to back. Well mine is Pillar of Autumn. You can't do that again. But sorry. Continue. Well the Pillar of Autumn you kind of do. Because you. Oh.

[01:52:42] Because you have to go back to Commander Keys. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that you go to a different part of the Pillar of Autumn. So. You're like. Oh. Okay. This is completely different. And also the pillars crashed. At that point. But. Man. The Pillar of Autumn. I really enjoy. The flow. Of this area. Because you don't have a gun for a while. Like you're kind of running past. Like. You're running past. Like all the aliens shooting. And you're seeing all of this stuff. And if this is the first time you've ever experienced this. Especially back in the day.

[01:53:11] Whenever this game first came out. It's like. Really cinematic. You know what I mean? It reminds me of like Medal of Honor. Like the Medal of Honor Frontline. Were we talking about Medal of Honor Frontline earlier? Yeah. I mentioned it when we were talking about graphics that don't age well. Yeah. Well. That's the weird thing too. Is Halo. Oddly enough. The graphics do age well. Even though they were going for hyper realistic for the time. I think it's because the art direction. Especially for the aliens. Just works well. And the fact that Master Chief is in a space suit.

[01:53:40] So you don't have to like animate a face or anything like that. You know? Yeah. You got all the Marines running around. But like you don't really pay attention to them. And also you're way taller than them. So it's like. I don't know what's going on. Ah man. I had such a frustrating time with the AI in this game on Legendary. I was trying to. I don't know if I mentioned on the pod right now. While we're recording. But I was playing it on Legendary while sick. Thinking I could beat it. And that is not what happened. Game's hard man. And a lot of it.

[01:54:10] It's really hard. It is very hard. I could beat Halo 3. Until I got to the part where you're in the ship trying to save Cortana. And it's like horrible. And that's when the Arbiter shows up to save you with the flamethrower. Like that level is insanely hard on Legendary. But every other level I could beat. And Halo 2 I'm also pretty good at Legendary. Except for all the sniper corridors. Halo 1 is a different beast man. There's something different about like having your health.

[01:54:40] Right? Like having your. So especially since you're. I'm so trained with Halo. That as long as I don't hear boop boop boop boop boop boop boop. Like I don't hear my shield being down. I'm like okay I'm safe. But if your health gets low. You'll just instantly die. Like you just like. Without warning on Legendary. Sometimes. Because some of the shots just take your health down immediately. Or your shield down immediately. So if you have something that takes down your shield immediately. It's probably also going to hurt you a little bit too. So your health is just gone. Yeah.

[01:55:10] Looked. So Halo 1 is kind of like a survival horror in that way. Especially on a harder difficulty. Especially once you get to the flood areas. Yeah. Which the good thing about this. Because this is a co-op podcast. Is that when it. When it's a co-op. You don't instantly lose when you die. And I was playing in single player. Which is partially why it was so frustrating. But unless you're playing Halo 2. Where you do. Like on Legendary. The Iron Skull is always turned on. Which is insanely frustrating.

[01:55:38] But in Halo 1. You just got to wait for your partner. To not be getting shot at really. To be like totally safe. Which usually means you have to kill everyone. Or run away. Which is a little time-suming. But it's better than losing. But in the Pillar of Autumn. Which is what we're talking about. One of the areas that I really like. Is the cafeteria. You like walk through the cafeteria. And if you look around on the walls. You can see like their little dispensers. That give you the little food. I always thought that that was so cool.

[01:56:09] Once again. It's just kind of adding to the world building. A little bit. Where like it doesn't feel like. It doesn't feel like you're going into some place alien. It almost actually feels like. Like you're going through like a Navy ship. Right? Like a mess hall in a Navy ship. So it. It. You have some type of. Grounded. Something. Some type of reality that it's grounded in. That makes it feel more plausible. Than if you would see just like. I don't know. Like I love the movie Alien. But that move. But that spaceship still feels like. A completely foreign thing. Because it is so.

[01:56:41] You know. It's meant to look futuristic. It's meant to look like something. Not of this. Not of this time. Versus. Halo. It almost feels like. What if we took. You know. Like 2001 military technology. And we're. Just put it in space. So like you. You feel like. You know. This is just a Navy ship. In a mess hall. But it's actually. A spaceship in space. Instead of a. Instead of like a war vessel. Or something like that. I think that really helps with it. Another part that I really like. Is that you kind of loop around.

[01:57:11] In the ship. Whenever you're. Walking through. In the. In the level. And so. The very beginning. You wake up. And you see. Like the dude. There's like this observation deck. Up above you. You see people standing there. Like. Waving you on. Like okay. Good. Master Chief's awake. And eventually. You end up in that observation deck. Fight. Fighting your way through the covenant. And you can look down. And you see. Elites. That were trying to gank you. Whenever you are asleep. They're trying to get you. And I just. That's so cool. Like. Like.

[01:57:40] I don't know man. It's. It. You know what it really. Weirdly reminds me of. Is like. Goldeneye. Like they. They have these like. Like these random parts. Of these levels. Where like. You see. This area. And then you come back. And now you're in that part. That you can see. From the other area. And I don't know. Well that once again. It just. It actually kind of reminds me. A little bit of like. What. One of the things that people like. About like the Soulsborne games. Where like the level design. Loops in and around on itself. So like. You'll go through one area. You'll.

[01:58:10] You'll progress through the game. And then when you. Get to a certain spot. It will open up a passage. That just like. Circles back on a place. You already were. So you don't have to backtrack. As much. And it kind of makes the world. Feel like it's this more. Lived in place. Because you have multiple pathways. Like you. Because you recognize location. It makes it feel. More lived in. And I feel like. They do that. With Halo. Like. Like what you're saying. Like. You'll see an area. And then you'll find. You'll get to it. Or you'll see. Excuse me. You'll travel to a new area.

[01:58:40] And be able to see some place. That you already were at. So yeah. It. The first level is just. It's a really. It sets the tone. Really well for the game. It's like. You know. The ships blowing up. All around you. You're. You're kind of getting. You're exploring through it. You also get to. Like crawl through duct work. And shit like that. I always thought that was really cool. Yeah. I think you get sticky grenades. Sometime in there. For the first time as well. Like the first time you stick an enemy. Oh that's so fucking satisfying.

[01:59:11] It's so good. And. I. It's so good because they react to it. They're like. Oh no. Oh god. I don't know. I don't think a halo one is like this. But. And the other halo games. When you stick elites. Sometimes they change after you. Trying to kill you with them. It's like. I love that. I think they might do it in the first one. I just love. I just love the. Oh. That's so like annoyed. Oh. Oh that's. Ah. It's. There's nothing better than like a really.

[01:59:41] Like if you're like far away. And you. You nail like a stick. And it just. You know. You're like a. You're like. A football field away. And you just chuck one. You're like. Let's see if this works. And all of a sudden. Like you just see it land on an elite's face. You're like. Fuck yeah. And then the. Yeah. Body shoots off. And then you just see all the enemies scatter. Like all the grunts and the jackals. There's. There's something. Like miraculous. About the AI in Halo. Like they just did such a good job. Like giving every enemy so much personality. Like there really isn't that many enemies. That you.

[02:00:10] That there's not a lot of diversity in it. But because. They all act so differently. And have such unique roles. Just moving the numbers in any direction. Like in each. With each of the. Different unit classes. Will completely alter the way that you approach a firefight. On like higher difficulties. One quick thing before I forget. Yeah. And I don't know where else to put this in. Did you know that Halo was originally going to be. For the Mac computers beforehand.

[02:00:40] Yeah. I don't know a whole lot about the story. But I do know that. Because people bring it up with the Microsoft thing. Well Bungie's first. Well not their. I don't know what their first game was. But prior to Halo. They made a series of games called Marathon. Which are essentially like kind of Doom-ish clones. But you can see lots of like elements. Of what would become Halo in there. And then they made a couple RTSs. I think Myth was one. I forget some of the others. And then they were working on Halo. And then Microsoft liked it.

[02:01:10] And bought it up from Apple. Like they bought it up. They bought up Bungie. So they wouldn't release it on Apple. Then that's kind of how we have this here. It was a pretty shrewd business move at the time. But it obviously paid off for Microsoft. Where Halo is still an iconic franchise. Even though they haven't really done much with it. Since they did the Master Chief collection. And then they did. What was it? Halo Infinite. A couple years ago. That's been about it. But yeah. I just like to shout that out. Because I find that super interesting.

[02:01:38] That it was going to be on Macintosh computers. Or Mac computers. And then Microsoft was like. Nah fam. And they got it then. Completely different timeline. That was one of the. One of the canon events. That altered our history. It's even more nuts. When Microsoft was getting into the gaming industry. At that time. You know. They got Bungie. They were working on the. I think their. Windows ME. Was one of the operating system. Was the operating system. On like. Sega Dreamcast. Or some shit like that. Like Windows helped them.

[02:02:08] With some of the. Structure. Of like the. I guess the. The. Like program architecture. Or whatever. Nintendo. Nintendo. Or not Nintendo. I'm sorry. Microsoft. Offered. To buy Nintendo. From like. They straight up. They had a meeting. There was an actual meeting. During. Right before the Xbox. Can I say right before. But like. You know. Build up to them. Developing the Xbox. And everything. Like. During all that time. They actually put in. An inquiry. To see if they. Nintendo would be willing. To sell the company. To them.

[02:02:38] And. They just laughed them out. Of the building. Apparently. Yeah. Something about. I think the translators. Just didn't. Translate good enough. To the English people. And it just. They came off. Really rude or something. I can't remember. What what the. Well I'm happy. That Microsoft. Didn't do it. Because I'm tired. Of fucking. Monopolies. In the games industry. As it is. And we did. We didn't need. One to start back then. So I'm happy. That they did not do that. Yeah. Just need. Just need.

[02:03:08] To not die now. So that Sony. Doesn't just. Have a death. Choke hold. On everything. Forever. Forever. That would be very unfortunate. Where were we at? Well we were still. Talking at the first level. I do think. We should. We should move on. To the next one though. Because it is like. It's getting late. On my end. Okay. We got you. Like. So we've got Halo. The seminal. The titular. The level. This is another. One of the insane. Classic levels though. Right. Like. Whenever you first. Like.

[02:03:38] Get off the. Escape pod. And then you see. The. The Banshees flying around. Man. Like. What an amazing feeling. This level is. Every time I play it. Also. It's just that. That you can see. What the Halo actually is. Like. It feels like you're on. Like. When they say. It's literally this ring. That somehow. Is like terraformed. To look kind of like Earth. And act similarly to Earth. And you actually see it. Like. You see how it works. It's. Crazy. It works. Like. It works really well. If you think about it. If the ring is spinning.

[02:04:07] The centrifugal. The centrifugal force. Would keep you pinned to that. To the inner side. Of the ring. So. It's. It's. Simulating gravity. Without probably. Actually having any gravity itself. Which. I don't know if that. I literally just thought about that now. I'm like. Oh. That makes sense. That's why. Like. The interior of the halo ring. Is where all like. The life is. Because it literally. If it's spinning. And you're on it. It's literally like. Pushing you against. The ground. So it's simulating gravity.

[02:04:37] I just thought of that now. Holy shit. That's wild. It's just a really cool. And interesting concept. I don't know how the atmosphere. Sticks around. But it's. It's technology. You know. Like. It's alien. They did it. They figured it out. We don't need to understand it. Just as long as we can breathe. A huge gamble. On everyone's part. Thank goodness. The air is breathable. On this thing. Right. But you know. That first. That second level. Excuse me. Is just awesome. Because you can see the. You can see the halo. For what it is. You also get your first taste.

[02:05:05] Of driving around in a warthog. Because it basically. You have to go to. Three different sections. On the on the map. To like. Just generally. Rescue some space marines. And whatnot. Or. Yeah. Are they space marines? Is that what. Whatever the fuck. I don't know. And you have to. That gives you. That helps you practice. Warthog maneuverability. It also. Has you practice. A lot of different firefights. It also shows you. The fucking scope. Of the levels. Like. Halo levels. I remember. At the time. Even at the time.

[02:05:35] They were considered. Long. For levels. Like people. Like. Because some of these levels. Take you like. 30 minutes to. 30 to 40 minutes. To beat. And that's really long. For a level. Specifically. I think. A level for. The silent cartographer. Is like a really. Really long level. It's one of my favorites. But it's a very long level. The cool thing about. The master chief collection. Is they have par scores. And par times. On every level. And so the par time. For this level. Which is like. This is a good.

[02:06:05] The good amount of time. To beat it. Is 20 minutes. That's a long level. That's a really long level. It. Yeah. It's. The. Halo. The. I think what's. So impressive. About Halo. Is the sheer scope. Of each of the levels. If you think back. To 2001. Games did not have. This type of scope. On a home console. You might see that. On like a PC. But generally. On home consoles. Levels were not. This expansive. And this vast. And like. It's a lot of.

[02:06:35] Literal. Like digital land. To track. So. Like this. This level here. Really kind of. Showcases. What this game. Was going to be. With. Those three separate areas. Like they do a great job. Of like hiding. The loading zones. And those long driving. Segments. But it's. It's really. It's a really well-designed. Level overall. I. I. The. And speaking of the long driving. Sections. There is the meme. Of Cortana. And seeing that first cave. And going. This cave is. Was. Is not a natural formation.

[02:07:04] Or something like that. And everyone memeing on. Like that's bad writing. But like. The whole context. Of the. Of the sentence. Is like. This isn't. This isn't a natural formation. That means somebody made it. That means it leads somewhere. Like. She's just like. That's just a logical. Like. Go in there. That obviously goes somewhere important. Is what she's trying to say. But like. Without saying it directly to you. Yeah. It's just funny. Every time I hear it. Because I just think about how people. Used to think that that was dumb. But it's not that dumb. I don't think it's that dumb.

[02:07:34] Yeah. Whenever I played on Legendary. Every single time. I tried to rescue those Marines. They all died. And so. It's impossible. I freaking hate it. My dog's coughing something up now. Probably here. So. That's Halo. That's. It's an insanely hard level. On Legendary. And it leads into the next level. Which is the Truth and Reconciliation. Another amazing ship name. That I. For some reason. Miss. Skipped over. It had it. Yeah. It had its own. Chapter.

[02:08:04] We forgot about it. Dude. Even Chapter 4's title. The Silent Cartographer. That's a fucking dope name. I know it's not a ship. But like. That would be a ship in the Halo universe. Like. All of these. It's just like an awesome band name. But they've already started doing that. With the Shadow of Intent. I mean. It just sounds like an amazing. The Silent Cartographer. It just sounds like a cool. Stoner metal band. You know what I mean? But. So the Truth and Reconciliation. This level's hard. I remember this is where you first get like.

[02:08:34] Snipers and stuff like that. If I remember correctly. Yeah. And the sniper has. What is it? Night vision. But it's like barely. Just. Green. But nobody reacts. So it's like. I don't know how that's supposed to work. But. One thing that I really like. Is whenever you get to that big teleport. Like not teleport.

[02:09:04] But the. The alien abduction. So. It's almost like a tractor beam kind of thing. When I first saw that as a kid. I was like. Hold. This is. Next level. Like. What video game does this? This is incredible. But. As I'm playing like. Psychonauts and shit. I mean. It's. It's once again. It. Not to keep harping on the same point. It's that world building. It makes you feel like. This is a foreign world. But like you. I just. I can't get over how. The art direction. And. And the world building.

[02:09:34] Is so strong in this game. That it just. It captures your imagination. It really does. Like. There's a lot. Like. So much. That's why there's so many books. That has been able to be. I mean. Obviously. It helps. This was a popular series. And so. They knew those books would sell. But like. There's a lot of meat on the bones. For this series. It's. Even. Even with small things like that. With like. Tractor beams and what's. It's awesome. This level. Is also.

[02:10:02] My huge issue with this level. Is that. When you do get to that tractor beam level. As cool as it is. You have to go through like. Eight waves. Of enemies. And then it's capped off. By fighting the hunters. For the first time. Do you remember the first time. Have you fought the hunters. I thought hunters don't appear. Until. The silent cartographer. Is it in. Truth and reconciliation. Uh. No. Yeah. So the truth and reconciliation. They. The two hunters. Spawn in. And then. Whenever you kill them. That's when the. All the.

[02:10:32] The marines show up. And you go up the tractor beam. And then. You go through like. Five more waves of enemies. And then fight. Two more hunters. So you. You literally fight. Four of them. In the whole level. It's awful. I could have sworn. That that. Maybe. I'm wrong. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When fighting the hunters. In the next area. Okay. Yeah. I just completely forgot. I could have sworn. Hunters. First appear in.

[02:11:02] Uh. Silent cartographer. I'm wrong on that one. Yeah. They do jump scare you. In the silent cartographer. You like walk in an area. And they're just like. Sup. And. Yeah. Oh no. Not these. Not these jokers. I mean. Once you know how to beat them though. Like. It's really easy. Yeah. It's. On legendary. There is just the. Always the lingering. Instant death. Like. Like. You mess up once. And then you're just instantly. Barbecued. But. Yeah. They're not terribly bad.

[02:11:32] It is just stressful. I think. Especially as a kid. They used to. They used to be like. Uh. I don't know. Like a. Like a juggernaut. Gargantuan. Like. Creature. That. Especially if you don't understand. To get behind them. Yeah. Like you were saying. If you understand. To shoot their orange spots. On their body. Then. It's totally fine. But if you fight them head on. They just have their shield. And you're just never going to hurt. Any. Hurt them in any way. You have to hope that you. The bullets you're spraying.

[02:12:01] Get a couple nicks. On the weak spots. Yeah. And the assault rifle. Is worthless. In this game. Like. Worse than worthless. Don't ever use it. Unless you're. I actually like the assault rifle. I mean. Obviously the pistol. Is known to be super overpowered. So you use the pistol. Like. 95% of the time. I think. I use the pistol the most. I use. Uh. The shotgun. The second most. And I actually don't like. Shotguns normally. But it's very handy. For the flood. Yeah. And then. I use the assault rifle. After that. I think. Yeah.

[02:12:31] Uh. If you're on legendary. The assault rifle. I think on heroic. It's totally fine. But on legendary. You. I don't even think. A full clip of assault rifle. Will make an elite shields. Go away. So. That's insane. Yes. It's. It doesn't work. It's really bad. So. Uh. That's just fresh in my mind. Because I've been playing it on legendary. But. Um. Yeah. Getting on the ship. The ship is kind of a confusing mess. When you get in there. But I think it's kind of supposed to be like that. A little bit. Especially at the beginning. When you have the like. They're.

[02:13:01] They're coming in through the. Oh. The invisible elites. I forgot. With the swords. Uh. Do you remember this? Dude. This scared me as a kid. I was like. No. That an elite. Doesn't have to even be invisible. Anytime an elite has a sword. That is the scariest fucking thing. Because they charge you. And like. They come out of nowhere. They move fast. Prioritize them almost over the ones that can hit you from a range. Because. They will close in fast. And they will kill you in one move. Yeah. It's over. The only respite that you have there.

[02:13:31] Is that there's a bunch of marines. That might get the aggro. They get killed first. Yeah. But. Uh. Yeah. This level is really cool. Uh. Because you get to see the inside of the ship. You see like a. Uh. Silent Cartographer. We were talking about earlier. It's this. Um. This is probably my favorite level of the. Of all. Same. It's massive though. Did you see. There is a. This YouTube video.

[02:14:01] Of people who mod the games. And they made this. A big team battle map. Just the. The whole level. Oh my god. Yeah. So they're like running around. Like that area with the dude. I don't know. This. The coolest thing about this level. Is that you can kind of approach it. In a lot of different ways. Yeah. So you can just kind of go. You can zig or zag. You go left or right. Like all the whole island is like. Kind of opened up to you already. But. I don't know. It's a really cool area. The thing is. The level is actually really linear. But it's very. Open world linear. If that makes sense. Like it.

[02:14:30] Each area that you. You go. Like sequentially. Or whatever. In the. Or you're supposed to. To each area. But each area you go to. Is gigantic. There are sometimes. Passageways. That will connect. Two areas. To each other. So you can either. Drive around on the beach. Around it. Or you could take. Like a passageway. Through to the other side. Type of thing. But. Each area. You're supposed to go. One after the other. It's very. Linear.

[02:14:59] But it doesn't feel. Linear. Because the game. Makes you feel like. This exploration. Is very organic. And like. You're not quite sure. Where you're supposed. To go next. I. But like. This it just feels like. This is just natural exploration. That you just happen to find. Where you need to go next. You know. Because the maps are so big. It's so well designed. It doesn't ever feel like.

[02:15:29] You know. Oh if I just get to this next area. I know I'm going to finish this spot. You don't know when the next area is. You don't know how big this level is going to be. Because they do a great job. Of kind of like. Masking. Where. Like. Like what the design actually is. It's great. Yeah. It is awesome. Did you ever take the warthog. And drive into the water? No. But I did take the. I would always take the warthog. And drive it as far into the base. As I could. Oh yeah. Because you can kind of wedge yourself in. Yeah. And like. Maneuver. Like. You can do that with like. Ghosts and bansies too.

[02:15:59] In different parts. Oh man. I just love how free. How much freedom you have in these games. If you. In this game. You can just drive into the water. Like. And just keep going. For a surprisingly long time. Really? You can go really deep. And yeah. And it's just dark foggy water. Everywhere. And the only way you can find your way back. Is like. You have that. Like the. The objective marker. Or whatever. Wow. You can see where you're supposed to be going. But. And since you're Master Chief. You got a helmet on. I guess. That's the whole thing. But I think if you put. Marines on your car. They don't die either. Under the water.

[02:16:29] So it's just fun. I don't know. It's just silly. That's kind of funny though. I assume they probably programmed. That you would die before. And then people would go under there. And die. And get frustrated. So they were like. Ah. Just let people have fun. Just let them go on the water. It could be one of those things. Where like. They just end up. It just ends up repeating infinitely. And you'll never really. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh. So the next level. Assault on the controller. And we don't need to talk about this. It's pretty cool. But it's kind of like the silent cartographer. The one I want to talk about.

[02:16:58] That was 343 Guilty Spark. Is that where the flood appears? I forget. Yes. This is where the flood appears. This is a seminal moment for me. Like. Like. When I think about. This specific area of my childhood. I do. Yeah. Explicitly remember. Like. I remember seeing the flood. I mean. Seeing the covenant running away. And it wasn't from me. And going. Why? What is that? Like. I genuinely remember that. Like. It feels.

[02:17:27] It felt so awesome. Like. Yeah. Exploring. And going deeper in. And like. Seeing the blood everywhere. And going. What happened here? Like. Yeah. It's such a good feeling. I think it works so well too. Because. Their storytelling. Once again. Through the world building. You have been conditioned to this point. That like. Your enemy are. Are the covenant. Right? They are the baddest things. You are going to face. Just period. You hear.

[02:17:57] You hear that. You know. Halo is a weapon. But you don't know what it's to combat. You don't know what it's for. And then you come across the flood. And. Like. The flood is such a diabolically genius. Enemy type. The fact that it's. You know. They take. You know. They're a parasite. That invades your body. And then. Basically kills you. But take. Takes over. And they. They run on a hive mind. Where there's like a. Like. Shared consciousness. Between all of them. And.

[02:18:27] I remember. Specifically. You notice in the graphical upgrades. Between. Halo 1 and 2. In Halo 2. When you. Kill. Some. Like. Any enemy. Whether it's a marine. Or. The covenant. You know. An elite. Or something like that. That's. That was. Infested with. With the flood. And you say you like. Blow off their arm. Because now. All of a sudden. They're all like. Their bodies decaying and shit. You actually see. Like the flood tentacles. Like kind of wiggling around. After. Oh. It's.

[02:18:56] It's so gross man. It's. The flood are so unnerving. Like. That. That really. Uh. Tweaked. Like a weird. Fear. I didn't know I had. Until I played Halo 1. When I first played this. Being like taken over. By a parasite. Yeah. Yeah. Or something. It is awful. Yeah. Especially. Later on. When you see keys. And you punch his face. I always thought. That was so gross. Like he's in the. In like the flood. Pustule thing. And you punch his face out.

[02:19:26] Like why did you do that? It's so gross. But. Yeah. The flood is horrific. And. Dastardly. Dastardly. And they must be stopped. Actually. Are. Are we the ones that. No. We didn't let them out. The people before us let them out. Right. I believe so. The humans before us. And I think the covenant. Were like running away. Like trying to stop us from. From unleashing it. Is the covenant. The people who put the flood in there. Or was it guilty spark? I don't remember. No. As far as I know.

[02:19:56] The flood. Were. Put in there. By. The forerunners. Who. The. The weapon to take out the flood. The whole. Yeah. Purpose of it. It's very much. They treated the flood as a quarantine type of thing. You kind of. I don't know if this has been. Is this is still canon. Or if this ever was canon. The vibe I always got was they were so altruistic. They were like. We can't let the rest of the universe. Die. If we don't. Like we have to take these out. So they. They essentially like.

[02:20:26] Killed themselves by turning on the halo rings. Because it just killed all. All life. Right. Right. And so it killed the flood. Well. No. It killed everyone else. Which in turn. Would kill the flood. Because the host. Because they could no longer host on anybody. There was no host for them anymore. So they were going to die. Slowly die out of starvation. Until we came in. And opened their two. Opened their crypts. And this is also what kind of leaves out the hive mind. Which is one of the main enemies in Halo 2. And 3.

[02:20:56] Gosh dang it. Do you. Of course it was us. The. Do you. Do you remember the. The crazy marine. That shoots at you. No. It's been a minute. Since I've played it though. It's. It's. It's just another seminal moment in my head. Where like you. It's this before. You see the flood. And you walk into a room. And there's a marine. Like sitting on the ground. And he starts shooting at you. Oh yeah. Yeah. I. I. I remember the first time I was playing. I got shot. And I. I didn't realize. I was like. Oh. And so I just blasted him.

[02:21:26] And I was like. Wait. That was a dude. I. I just blasted a human. Like. What the hell just happened? Did he shoot me? Am I going crazy? Like. It's like a really. It's. I don't know man. The. The whole level. The psychological warfare this game plays on you. Is really impressive. Considering it's not considered like a. A survival horror game. Or like a horror game. But the flood levels. Are straight up horror. In the best way. I'm not a horror fan. Mind you. But I. I like these levels quite a bit. Oh. And the music that plays that.

[02:21:56] Like the. The screechy. Like. Strings. Oh. It's such. It's so good. The whole soundtrack for Halo is amazing. Obviously. Yeah. Like the. The. The flood music is very. Very intimidating. Um. So. That's guilty spark. That's where we meet guilty spark. He's the orb floating around. He's the bad guy. But we don't know that yet. Um. We go to the library. That's us following. Well. I mean. I don't know. A lot of these levels. Well. Never mind. Let's talk about the two betrayals.

[02:22:26] Because this is where. Uh. This is that snow level. Right? Uh. Where you. Yeah. This is where you get to fly a banshee. Really. Yes. Not for the first time. You. You can hijack a banshee. I think. Earlier in the game. But like. You. You literally get to like. Run up to an unmanned banshee. Start flying it around and stuff. And this is a huge. Enormous level. And. You also get a scorpion. Don't you at some point? Yeah. You do. Yeah. Because you.

[02:22:56] You're going around like a. Uh. Like inside of a canyon. Like driving the scorpion around. Also one of the sections. Where I would try to see. How long I could possibly. Uh. Like how far I could take the scorpion. In and around. And stuff like that. Yeah. Dude. The scorpion tank. Every single vehicle feels great. To drive. In Halo. Oh. Absolutely. I don't know how they did it. Because their. Their control scheme is so. Foreign. Like if you play grand theft auto. And then you play this. It's just complete. Night and day. I.

[02:23:25] Something we didn't talk about. That we. That we definitely should have. Halo. It is the. It is. It's the. Progenitor. It's not the progenitor. But it popularized. The. Control scheme. That almost every game uses now. Where you move. Left. Up. Down. Left. And right. Stray left. Stray right. On the. On the left joystick. And then you look around with the right. There's games that. Like it's funny. I was actually playing the original.

[02:23:54] Medal of Honor. Last year. Or like two years ago. And they have this control scheme. In the game. But it's not the. The primary one. Really? Yeah. You could. Like where R1 actually fires and stuff. Because if you play the base. Control scheme. In the original Medal of Honor. X fires. You. You. Go forward. And backward. With the left joystick. And you look left. And you look right. With the left joystick. And then the right joystick. Has you. Straving left and right. But looking up and down. It's just.

[02:24:24] It's a weird. Mishmash of stuff. But like. I got used to it. When I was younger. It was no problem. Now it makes more sense. To have all the looking. On the joystick. And all the physical character movement. On the other joystick. Right? Yeah. Halo was not the first. To do that. By any stretch. But. It. Which. Every goddamn game. Now uses. I. Like I was saying before.

[02:24:54] I was playing Astro Bot. It's the same control scheme. You. Up. Down. Left. Forward. Backwards. Strave. Left. Strave. Right. And look around. Are the. Are on the right. Joystick. And. Or sorry. On the. You know what I'm saying. I just completely butchered. But you know what I'm saying. How. Like. Like. Horizon Zero Dawn. Same thing. Ghost of Tsushima. Same thing. Like. Every. Like. Big game. Uses that control scheme. Even if it's a third person shooter. Or a first person shooter. It. They utilize it. The only ones that. I.

[02:25:24] I don't even know. But yeah. They all. They all utilize it in some way. Shape or form. Or a lot of games do. I should say. Not all. But a lot. So I think it's super important to. Talk about. Because that is. A very important aspect of this game. That. It. Popularizes control scheme. Like. It made first person shooters. Not just viable. So. GoldenEye. Is the first game. That made a. FPS. Is like. Super viable. On home console. Halo. Like. Brought it to the next level. You know. Like.

[02:25:53] GoldenEye was the first through the door. And then Halo was like. I. I see your hand. And I raise you. And like. Essentially. They. They. They upped the ante. So. It's very important to like. Talk about that. When you're talking about Halo as well. Yeah. And now all of the games. Are using two weapons. That you switch between. And you have to pick up weapons. And stuff. I remember. My dad. Complaining about that. Actually. Like. That's a weird memory. That just unlocked. Is that my dad. I was. He was confused. Why he couldn't just have every gun. Like. Because that's how doom and stuff was.

[02:26:23] You know what I mean. Duke Nukem. You just. You just collected every. Torok. You know. Torok was a game that we were. We played a whole lot. Me and my dad. And so. It's a. It's a. It was interesting. That you had to switch your guns out. If you wanted the rocket launcher. I mean. So. We. We. We're basically done with the story. Everybody knows the story so far. We talked about keys. And we. The level for keys. Where. Like. You're going through. Like. That forest. But there's the green water. Like. Again. It's just like this crazy. Awful. Awesome.

[02:26:53] World building. Like. Like. This really weird alien place. That you're at. Like. Green water. With these weird plants. And stuff. And you're fighting the flood. All the way through it. And. A lot of these levels. You. You get to see the. The covenant. And the flood. Fighting each other. And it's just so cool. Like. It's. Because you have. Stuff like that. In like. Doom. Way back in the day. But. To see it. In like. The modern day. You don't. You didn't play. Medal of Honor. And see the Nazis. In the. Is there. There's not a third faction. In World War II. So that was a bad example. I would know. There was the Japanese.

[02:27:24] I meant like. There was the Axis. And the Allies. So it's like. Yeah. But like. You're not just only fighting Nazis. You're fighting Japanese. You're fighting. Nazis. You're also fighting. You could technically fight. Italians. Because Italy. And Mussolini. But anyway. Sorry. Continue. Yeah. I was talking about. I was talking about. The. The Axis. And the Allies. It was just those two. During. Yeah.

[02:27:53] Yeah. I don't know man. The. The story. Is amazing to play through. In co-op. I really wish. There was a. Because in the Master Chief. Collection. I'm pretty sure. You can only play. Two player. Just like in Halo 2. I don't think you can play. Four player. And like in Halo 3. And beyond. All the games are four player. And so. It's kind of. Can you play. The campaign. And with. With two people. With four people. I mean. No. Not in Halo 1 or 2. No. I didn't even know. You could do that in Halo 3. You can. Yeah. In Halo 3.

[02:28:24] I did not know. Uh. You. You're two random. They. They have names. But you're two random. Like elites. That look unique. Like they don't look like. Any other. Elites in the game. Okay. But. They just never. Are in the cut seats. So. They're just like. Background characters. But. I don't know. Halo is super fun. And co-op. And I think that this is the. Definitive way to play it. So just getting late. We don't really have to talk about the multiplayer. But I mean. Do you want to bring. Talk. Bring up any. Any map. Specifically. I mean.

[02:28:53] With Halo 1. Yes. There's only one map. I want to bring up. I have two stories real quick. About the multiplayer. One. One. One is with Halo 2. Just because I don't know. If I'll be on for the Halo 2. If we ever do Halo 2. Or whatever that happens. I just want to share this. My buddies. You know how. Halo 2 introduced in the multiplayer. That what. The way you killed. Your opponent. It would. Change the verb. On the screen. So you know. Instead of saying. You know. You know. John. John killed.

[02:29:23] Or let's say it was. Like whatever your. You know. Screen handle was. You know. Like. Super rabbit. Killed. You know. Regicide. Or something like that. I don't know. You know. Whatever the fuck. Instead of just saying. Killed. Or taken out. They would change that verb. In the middle there. For whatever you did. So if you. If you threw a stick. If you threw a plasma grate. And it stuck to someone. It would say. So and so. Stuck. So and so. If you. If you ran someone down. With a vehicle. You'd say. It would say.

[02:29:53] Splattered. Stuff like that. Humiliating. My friends. Decided to name. Themselves. A bunch of different things. My one friend. Justin. Named his character. Kobe. Because that was. You know. Kobe. Was it was a joke back. It was a popular joke. Back then. My other friend. Chad. Named his character. Spermicide. And then my friend. John. Named his character. Jizz. And John. Liked to drive. The vehicles. So every time. He would hit someone. It would say. Something like. Kobe was splattered.

[02:30:23] By Jizz. Yes. The funny thing. About that. Is that. In high school. I also played around. With that. My girlfriend. In high school. I made her. Xbox live account. And I thought. It was always funny. When it would be like. Someone so killed. This person. Right. It. It. But I. I liked. The gamer tags. That made it. A sentence. Instead of like. You know what I mean. So. I made her account. A cute zombie. So it would be like. A cute zombie killed you. Like killed this person. You know what I mean. Or like. This person was killed by. A cute zombie.

[02:30:52] And so. It didn't seem like a gamer tag. I always thought that stuff like that was funny. I love those types of jokes. Yeah. It's exactly what you're saying. It's funny that we have the same. We have the same mindset about that. My other set. My other. My Halo 1. Multiplayer memory. We. One thing that I wish. I'm sure they've brought back since. But I've been out of touch with Halo multiplayer. For quite some time. Halo 1. Had the beautiful thing. Where you could turn on. All explosives.

[02:31:21] With unlimited ammo. And unlimited. Or no unlimited ammo. But unlimited grenades. And so. What my friends and I would do. We would pick the smallest level. Which I. Semi ironically. Was called. The longest. It was just two hallways. Just going down. Like two hallways. That just ran parallel. With each other. Just straight down. I hate this level so much. We would. The recommended amount of people. For that map. I think it's like six players. Maybe eight. Like it's. It's on the lower side. You're only supposed to play with.

[02:31:52] Eight. Six to eight players. I want to say. We would cram 14. And then we would. Do all explosives. And infinite grenades. That. That game. That. Those matches. Chugged so hard. Because it rendered. So everyone was just firing. Their rocket launcher. Indiscriminately. Because there was ammo. Everywhere for it. And you could throw grenades. Without care. Just reckless abandon. Just chucking nades. And it was one of the most fun experiences. Because like. It was. One of those levels.

[02:32:21] Where like. You didn't give a shit. Who won or lost. Because you knew. It was like a garbage map. It was just something fun. To dick around on. Like you're just tossing nades. Like. It was. There was no greater feeling. Than just using the. The frag grenades. And just throwing them down a hallway. All of a sudden. That you would see. You get a kill. Because you. You didn't know anyone was there. You just have infinite grenades. Just chuck them. Wherever you please. Yeah. Grenade spam is a classic of Halo. In every Halo game. You always. That's the thing. If you're going to die. Throw a grenade. Like.

[02:32:50] If you know you're about to die. Just drop a grenade real quick. Either that or the. Also another classic grenade thing. If you could stick someone in the face. And their entire screen. Would just turn blue. From the plasma grenade on it. That was also a great feeling. I want to. I want to bring up a map. Wizard. Which is. I have one more after your story. Sorry. I have one more story. I just remembered. I was just going to say. That wizard is this like. Little tiny little square. With like random ramps. And like a platform in the middle. And.

[02:33:20] I was playing it last night. I was really drunk. But we. I ended up playing SWAT. And it became the sweatiest. But also the stupidest game. Of the entire night. Because. We would just. I would spawn and die. And then. Because. It's so small. That you could see like. 70% of the map. From one spot. And so. Eventually. I would. I would. I would. Spawn and not die. And I'm like. Oh my god. And I'd kill like. Eight people. In a row. Because they're all in the same area. And I'm just shooting them over and over again. And then eventually. I'll die.

[02:33:50] And then I'll be on the receiving end. Of getting killed over and over again. I was like. This is so dumb. Like. But I love this map. For some reason. The last story. That just popped in my head. Do you remember. When you would have. When you would play. Halo 1. And. If someone didn't have. Like a profile created. You could select default. And Halo would give them nicknames. And so. It wouldn't just say. You know. Like default one. Or default two. Or like. If your. If your profile's name was. Like my profile was super rapid.

[02:34:19] But I forget why. So. If. It wouldn't be super rapid. Like I'd be super rapid. And if they would not be super rapid one. Or super rapid two. They would select default. And then. Halo would give them random names. Like. The big L. Stumpy. Howard was one. You would just be called Howard. I don't remember that. But that's awesome. Oh dude. It was. It was the most random stuff. And it just. The idea of just being killed by Howard. Is like. The craziest. And.

[02:34:50] Funnily enough. So we were playing. In that. That LAN party set up. Like I mentioned before. Where some people were playing downstairs. Some people playing upstairs. And I remember. My younger brother Mike. I don't remember. If I was downstairs. Or I think I was downstairs. And he was upstairs. But I. I can kind of remember. It happened both ways. Either way. I was not on the same floor as him. And. Whoever Howard was. Was on my team. That's all I remember. I don't remember who was playing Howard. I don't remember which friend of mine. Was playing Howard. But. We're playing.

[02:35:19] We're playing a match. And. Every like two to three minutes. You would see. Mike was killed by Howard. Mike was killed by Howard. Mike was killed by Howard. When I forget. What my brother's handle was. But after like the seventh time. I hear this blood curdling scream. From the set. From upstairs. And you just hear. Howard. And he just. Loses his mind. Just screaming Howard. Haunted by Howard. Dude. That sounds like an emo band. From the mid 2000s. Haunted by Howard. Are you kidding me?

[02:35:49] Hell yeah. It is. It really does. I can hear them in my head. Oh my God. So anyway. Sorry. That was my last memory. I just. I forgot about the Howard thing. That kills me. No pun intended. That kills me every time. My last story for the multiplayer. Also happened last night. But. I played the worst level. In all of Halo. To ever exist. Chiron. Which is just a. Bunch of tiny rooms. With teleporters. That go to different. Rooms with more teleporters.

[02:36:19] And it is awful. But. And this was just a random. Match made game. It was. Flamethrowers. And shotguns. Which. The flamethrower. Was another PC exclusive weapon. So I never. I. This is probably the first time. I've ever used it. Because they added it. Into Master Chief Collection. And. I. And it was so. Stupid. It was so fun. Actually though. Also. But the. It's the only match. That I've ever played. On Master Chief Collection. That went to the time limit. Because.

[02:36:49] Wow. We couldn't find each other. Like we were just. Jumping through fucking. Portals the whole time. And so. We went to the time limit. But the flamethrower is so funny. Because. People. I. They were cowering. In rooms. With their shotguns. Like waiting for something. They're like. Please don't. I don't want to get blown. And I would come in. And you're like. Ah. I just flamethrower for one second. Die to the shotgun instantly. And then like. A second later. I would get a kill. And I'm just like. This flamethrower is so stupid. It's so funny. Because you're just.

[02:37:18] Your whole body is just on fire. It's like. So fun. Like. I wish this was in the original Halo. Like. On the Xbox. But. Honestly. It was probably too. Like. Intensive. Like. I don't know. Like. Something about this. Made the Xbox break. I bet. I don't know. But. This game does have a lot of really. Amazing. Multiplayer maps. I mean. Battle Creek. And Blood Gulch. And. Oh man. What is it? Chill Out. A lot of these games were. A lot of these maps were remade for other Halos.

[02:37:48] And I didn't know they originally came from Halo 1. So when I run in. When I ran in to chill out. I was like. Holy shit. This is a Halo 3 map. Like. I remember this. This is like one of the DLC Halo 3 maps. And. I just knew what to do. I knew everywhere. I knew where to go. Longest is a terrible map though. Also. Just for the exact thing you were talking about. The grenades. I love longest for that reason. I think it's actually a really. Good map. But at the same time. There's. It's boring. Like. It's just two hallways. And there's like. Side pocket rooms.

[02:38:17] And that's about it. Yeah. It says it got remade in Halo 2. Oh. Dude. The Halo 2 version of this map is amazing. Of course. It's the same thing. Except they're conveyor belts. With the boxes. Oh yeah. Do you remember that? Yeah. So apparently. Apparently this is the longest too. But also. This map is much smaller. Than long. Longest really is long. Like. It's long in the two directions. Like. That's it. But it's a very small map. Otherwise. Like.

[02:38:46] It takes you like five seconds. To walk from one end to the other. Like. It's. It's not that big of a map. In the slightest. But. That's what made it so fun. With all the grenades. And infinite. Or infinite grenades. And rocket launchers. Like. The smallest map possible. With the most amount of explosions. And man. Did our game. Like. Frame rates were dropping. Left and right. All right. Well. So that. We're going to wrap this up. We're going to go to our final words. Real quick. If we're going to recommend this. Or not recommend this. I'll take the first ones. And I'm obviously going to. Wholeheartedly. With my chest.

[02:39:16] Recommend Halo Combat Evolved. Along with the Master Chief Collection. These are. Extreme. This is an extremely accessible game. And. It has. If you play on the Master Chief Collection. There's a whole bunch of new bells. And whistles and stuff. You can have skins on your guns. And stuff. And you can make your Spartan. Look different ways. Like change their visor. And stuff. There's like. Different battle passes. And they're all like. Unlocked right away. So you don't have to like. It's not like. Like a thing. Where you miss out on anything. And if you don't like that. There are toggles. To turn all of it off.

[02:39:46] So all. It just looks like. Old generic Halo. That you knew and loved. Back in the day. And you. Not only that. You can play playlists. That jump between. Halo 1. And Halo 3. To Halo 2. To Reach. And then back to Halo 1. And like. There's just so much. Fun to be had. On Master Chief Collection. But specifically for Halo. Combat Evolved. Get your significant other. Play this game. In co-op. And it will be. A foundational moment. In your relationship. I promise. Make them. Play as Howard.

[02:40:17] Yes. Play Howard. Play Howard. Scream Howard out loud. When you die to them. Oh my god. What about you? Do you recommend this? Oh absolutely man. Like it's funny. Like I. When you sent me the list of games. That you're considering covering. I'm like. Well you know. Like one of the things. I mused about was Bulletstorm. Because I did enjoy that game. It's been a while. Since I played it. I'd have to replay it. Halo I didn't even have to replay. I've replayed this game. So many times. I know it.

[02:40:47] Like it's. It's so wild to me. How much I still remember. Even though I haven't really touched. The original game in so long. It still works. I think the art style. Is still really good. For its time. Like the graphics. Still look really good. Even on original hardware. The gameplay. Still feels fluid. And smooth. It feels like a modern shooter. Even though it was made. Back in 2001. The story. And world building. Are excellent. Even though the plot. In this game. Is a little simplistic. The story itself. Like the world.

[02:41:17] That it creates. The game creates. Is just fantastic. Only downside. I'd say. Is the final level. Doesn't. Isn't a great final level. It's fun. But if like. In the final level. The game. You know. It's the. Driving your. Driving the warthog. Across an exploding. I was about to say. Silent cartographer. No. Pillar of autumn. Exploding pillar of autumn. I like the level. But it. It's not a good final level. In the sense. Like. You've been playing the whole game. As a first person shooter. With some driving. Driving. And now it's testing you. On just driving.

[02:41:47] As your final. Like. Like. If you're a first person shooter. Give me a test of my first person shooter skills. Anyway. That's. Neither here nor there. If you play in co-op. There's a potential. You never drove. A moment. Yeah. Now they're expecting. So. It's a really good game though. I still think it holds up. And if you're. Like. If you don't like first person shooters. Obviously that's a different story. But. In general. This game still works in my opinion. It's still a fantastic game. And it's still worth it. Even. Oh my gosh. Almost. Oh. 20. Almost 24 years later.

[02:42:19] It's. An incredible experience. And it holds up. Josh. I just want to thank you so much. For coming out. And having this really lengthy episode. No problem. Real girthy. Do you want to shout out all of your. Your shout out. Your show. Shout out whatever you want to shout out over here. Yeah. So I'm Josh. The host of the Still Loading Podcast. I've been podcasting for quite some time. I do. I do lots of different types of content. You've. You've already heard some of the things. Because I've. I've shared some of my episodes beforehand. Most of my episodes are like.

[02:42:48] Deep dives on individual games. Where we talk about the game's history. We talk about. It's design. It's mechanics. Story. Themes in the story. It's world. Stuff like that. And just kind of breaking it down. What we like. And what we don't like. I usually have a revolving door of guests. And I consider my show. A little bit of a grab bag podcast. I do a little bit of everything. While most of my episodes. Are kind of game reviews. I'm also doing. I also have. Interviews with people in the industry. I mentioned before. I interviewed David Cassidy.

[02:43:17] The former strategy guide writer. I've also had on. Game designers. I had on Mike Micah. And not at the same time. But Mike Micah. And Stephen Frost. From Digital Eclipse. They're the company. That did the Atari 50 collection. They also did. The new TMNT game. Actually. The Cowabunga. They did the Cowabunga collection. And I believe they did. The new. TMNT game. Which I'm. No. Dotamu did that one. I'm sorry. They did the Cowabunga collection. Though. They did the Cowabunga collection. With all the old games.

[02:43:48] I've interviewed game developers like that. I've had voice actors on the show. Like Sissy Jones. From Firewatch. And David Kaye. From Ratchet and Clank. So. Tons of different options. And the last thing I'll shout out is. I have weird ideas. For episodes. I was talking to Nave beforehand. About. The Final Fantasy. Fantasy draft. Which is what happens when Final Fantasy. And Fantasy Sports mix. You don't have to know anything about Fantasy Sports. To like this. If you just like Final Fantasy. You want to hear an episode. Where people talk about it. In like a really interesting format.

[02:44:18] Go check it out. I do these drafts annually. And I have the. Basically. You draft them like. You know. Trying to pick your best Final Fantasy. And you're the most optimal Final Fantasy. That you can. And then I have the listeners vote. On who they think drafted the best Final Fantasy. That's how we determine who wins the draft. Is the listeners will determine. Who. Who had the best Final Fantasy. So. That's. That's all. That's all I got. I do all that stuff over at. You can check it. Check it out. Stillloadingpodcast.com. Or find it on Spotify.

[02:44:48] Apple Podcasts. YouTube Music. All that good stuff. And if you want to follow me on social media. I'm mainly over on Blue Sky. At Stillloading Pod. But I do post on Instagram periodically. As well. At Stillloading Pod. And I stream on Twitch. At Stillloading Pod. So. That's all the places you can find me. There we go. All that's going to be in the description down below. And. Next week. I don't know what we're playing. Whatever Phillip wants to play. Hopefully it's something short. Hopefully it's not a really long game. Because I'm still a little sick. I'm going to try to be less sick next week. Listeners.

[02:45:17] We're going to see you next time. Goodbye. Stay by. Bye.