Arrggh! A Video Game Podcast from The Waffling Taylors

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Discord server, Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

We were joined by Raina of The Ancient's Den this week. Raina has recently released an HD mod for the Dreamcast version of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, and it's bloody impressive. We talk zombie feeding simulators, the entire Legacy of Kain series, and about Raina's favourite controllers

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Because we're talking about some of the entries in the Legacy of Kain series - a series of games about vampires going around and doing what vampires do - we'd recommend that you skip this one if you have little ones listening, or are in a space where listening would be inappropriate.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

This week's episode starts with Squidge in the Nosgoth underworld... or was it Brighton?

But before long, the boys where joined by Raina of The Ancient's Den, the person behind the Soul Reaver HD Mod, and all-round amazing person.

And Raina takes us back in time to the late '90s - gaming magazines, demo discs, and incorrectly spelt main characters - when bringing us up to speed about how they got involved with the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. This was a time of internet cafes - remember them? - and floppy disks - remember THEM?! - and before widespread use of email.

Jay also shares a story of him playing around with the MP3 encoder on his home computer so that he could MAYBE load a single MP3 onto a single floppy disk.

I would go down to the library with a stack of floppy disks, which was my music library... I would swap disks after each song.
- Jay

And Squidge tells us that he first played Resident Evil 2 as a 9 year old.

I was so bad at playing it, I thought that it was a zombie feeding simulator.
-Squidge

Before we could talk about the HD mod, Jay asked Raina to...

Get Control of Yourself

This is a segment that we like to do every so often, which is based on a tweet from SinceSpacies - who is an absolutely amazing person, by the way. Seriously, go follow him on Twitter

Get a control of yourself!!!!!! What’s been your most fav controller of all time…
(and what controller bites the big one?)
- SinceSpacies

The idea here is that we want to know which is the best and which is the worst controller of all time.

Raina's Worst Controller

Raina chose the Xbox 360 controller.

The controller is really big and bulky, and it uses batteries... come on!
- Raina

Raina also dislikes the Dreamcast controller:

Not for anything other than the missing features. So with Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, they had to break the controls to make it work.
- Raina

Raina's Best Controller

The dual sense really surprised me... You can really feel the rope as your character climbs down, and you can feel tension when you pull an arrow.
- Raina

And both Raina and Squidge agree that the PlayStation controllers from DualShock on-wards are fantastic for FPS games:

I don't know whether it's because the analogue sticks are on the same level.
- Squidge

The HD Mod

Raina describes the origins of the mod by taking us back in time to the release of the original Legacy of Kain on Dreamcast:

They literally had three months to create the port, and that's not a lot of time
- Raina

Strangely enough, during the process of porting to Dreamcast, the graphical assets were reduced by quite a lot - meaning that the "inferior" release on the PlayStation TECHNICALLY has better graphics than the Dreamcast version.

They didn't have a lot of time, so I don't blame them.
- Raina

And Raina is calling this a "remaster" (or sorts) as the mod contains MUCH higher resolution textures which are swapped out, at runtime, by the Flycast emulator for Dreamcast.

You should certainly take a look at the comparison screenshots on the project's website here: https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/screenshots

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Have you ever visited the land of Nosgoth? If so, which Legacy of Kain games have you played, and why is Soul Reaver the best one? Have you tried out Raina's HD mod for Soul Reaver? Let us know on our shiny new Discord server.

Let us know on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• Join our Discord server and be part of future episodes
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Support us on Ko-Fi
• The Ancient's Den
• The Ancient's Den blog 
• The Soul Reaver HD Mod
• Flycast

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Discord server, Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

Moonwalking to the fridge, Memento, video games, kitties, The Lonely Island of programming, spoilers, whether Tom Holland knows he's Spider-Man and silliness. That could only mean one thing: G has returned to the show. But what do these things have to do with video games?

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

This episode has a few poop jokes in it, all around the 10 minutes and 30 second mark.

A misquote from the 1982 classic Blade Runner ("am I lesbian") at 12 minutes and change could cause issues for some listeners if they are listening with little ones.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Seeing as how it being several weeks since Jay had done the intro, he decided that he would be in charge of intro-ing the show, and he did a pretty terrible job of doing it - as always - but it wasn't just Jay and Squidgey in this episode, as they were joined by G (aka #dontCallMeAudrey).

Considering that it had been almost two years since G was last on the show - his last appearance was in episode 92 "Would You Kindly" from October 2020 - and a lot of amazing things have happened in his life since he was last on - including having a new little one, and her taking her first steps ON THE DAY THAT THE EPISODE WAS RECORDED! How cool is that?

Nothing in the episode will compare to that news, and it will be all downhill from that moment. So strap yourselves in, folks.

And even though G had not been on the show for a long time, he fell right back into the format without any issues

The memories may fade, but the pain remains
- G

Less than 10 minutes into the episode, the boys started to have an existential crisis:

Surely the best way to know whether you are a Sim or not would be to look up. If you see the green crystal, then perhaps you are Sim... perhaps
- Jay

The Cat Game

Of course the hot topic of the month came up: The Cat Game - aka Stray - and the boys had a lot to say about it: from the fact that G has been playing it with his eldest, to the fact that Jay remembered being interested in it because the first ads for it played up the Kowloon Walled City based design of the game world.

And when talking about mutual friend Sakura, and how she should definitely play this game - seeing as she is a rather big fan of the feline species - G had this to day:

I don't understand why we don't just get responses to our every message with, "Can't talk; being a cat"
- G

Indeed.

...

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Have you ever played The Cat Game? Does it fill you with the cutesy-wootsy fuzzy-wuzzies? What about that rather dark storyline? What about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, have you played that? Is it really that good?

Let us know on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• Join our Discord server and be part of future episodes
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Classic REbirth mod
• G on Twitter

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

First of all, we'd like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you'll agree that it's an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We'd also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie's Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she's blooming brilliant.

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Discord server, Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

Squidge invited Jay to make his first appearance on the Cupboard of Shame, and he brought along a white whale of sorts. What do Arnie, Sly Stallone, and trashy 80s cyberpunk movies have in common? And why is Jay recommending running, head first, into walls? This CoS will answer those questions and more.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the fifth episode in the new series, he invited Andrew "Podcast Collector" Dickinson to dispatch something into the devious - and totally real cupboard - cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game.
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen two entries so far:

• Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
• Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138
• Sean wanted to yeet Risk of Rain 2 into the underbelly of the cupboard in episode 139
• Ginger wished to send Final Fantasy X-2 into the depths of cheap MDF that is the cupboard in episode 140
• AndrewD was on the fence about Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days and whether it should have been in the Cupboard of Shame, in episode 141
• JonnyG spoke about the weird-a-thon that is Deadly Premonition is episode 142

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

• Iron Man the Movie Video Game
• WET
• Rambo: The Video Game
• Crackdown
• Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode. All of the "classic" Cupboard of Shame episodes - aka before Squidge's 2022 sexy reboot - can be found here.

Jay's Chosen Game

And Squidge got directly into the topic of discussion: which game would you like to put into the Cupboard of Shame:

It's actually three games, but the game that I want to throw into the Cupboard of Shame is called "Power Blade 2" on the NES. But I can't talk about Power Blade 2 without talking about Power Blade. And I can't talk about Power Blade without talking about Power Blazer
- Jay

But using Squidge's rules, it's not possible to throw more than one game in at once. So Jay had to pick just one game:

Power Blade 2 is what I would like to nominate to be thrown into the Cupboard of Shame
- Jay

Or for those tuning in from Japan - and there are more than a few of you, if our podcast hosting stats are to be believed - Jay is referring to "Captain Saver".

But before he could talk about Power Blade 2, Jay needed to talk about Power Blade:

So Power Blade is a game for the NES, right?
In this game, you play totally-not-Arnold-Schwarzenegger who runs around in '80s style tank-top [attire] and everything. He doesn't use his fists, doesn't use guns. He uses a boomerang - which is vaguely daft as it is, right?
And that's all you really need to know.
... they took a game called Power Blazer which was released in Japan in around 1990-1991, which was a Mega Man clone... except that you used a boomerang. When the [locationsation] over to the UK and US happened, **EVERYTHING** about the game changed except for the boomerang and the music.
- Jay

Squidge regaled us with both of the stories presented on Wikipedia, and on GameFAQs. First up, Wikipedia:

After years of fighting that took millions of casualties, Earth is recovering from the revolts of the 22nd century.
In 2192, New Earth has a master computer that holds a database of off colony planets. In the wrong hands, the database could prove fatal.
One day aliens attack the master computer, making the Master Control Program malfunction.
Nova, a lord of the ancient Power Blade, is summoned to take care of the situation. The Power Blade is a glowing energy boomerang that Nova uses to defend himself.
- Squidge

And now, GameFAQS:

22ND CENTURY WARRIOR. (in all caps, like you're shouting)
When New Earth's master computer is attacked by aliens, only Nova, lord of the ancient Power Blade, can battle through the control centre and restore the database
- Squidge

Squidge also wrote his own intro:

On his way to head office to complain about tickets that he bought to see Cyborg One Direction, only to be shocked that they were genuine, Nova gets a new mission: to sto...

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Discord server, Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

Matthew Bliss (the host of The Dead Drop podcast) joined us to talk about two of his favourite puzzle games ever. We also talk about what we've been playing recently, and we drop him off for a short spell in the Thunder Plains. But we also talk about Wata Gaming, NFTs, and ARGs, too.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Whilst there aren't any swears in this episode, there's discussion of Doki Doki Literature Club! and the mental health issues that the characters in the game suffer from.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge decided to start this episode off by intro-ing everyone - including the first reference to the Waffling Taylors Tag Team Champion belts, and the "Half a brick in a sock, on a pole" match - a real wrestling match and a real championship belt, by the way. And before we had much of a chance to talk video games, Jay wanted Matthew to talk through his podcast a little:

Part of the reason I wanted to hang with you guys a little bit is because I do my own video game news podcast called "The Dead Drop"
Basically, that podcast runs twice a week. I do it on a Monday and a Thursday, which may or may not be Wednesday and Sunday for people with our present time futuristic thing happening.
Each show only goes for ten minutes. I'll cover six or seven major video game news stories, or ones that I think are of interest.
... And the whole point of that podcast is to ensure that people are getting informed if they can't get through all the Kotakus, IGNs, and the GameSpots.
- Matthew

Recent Games

The Recent Games segment will not be new to listeners, but in case you're new to the show here's how it goes: we go round the table and discuss one or more game that we've been playing recently, and whether we think it's worth the listeners checking it out. We continue to do this until we've run out of games to discuss.

And this episode was no different.

Matthews's Recent Games

• Citizen Sleeper

And mention of this game has Squidge giving us his most important piece of life advice:

Always be yourself, unless you can be a giraffe
- Squidge

• Her Story

Discussing Her Story gets Jay stuck on discussing Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and in almost as much detail as the last time it came up.

Jay's Recent Games

• Power Blade

Squidge's Recent Games

• The Witness

And discussion of this game reminded Jay of one of his favourite lines in The Good Place:

This is how I always got out of escape rooms. If you break enough stuff, they open the door and kick you out
- Elanor Shellstrop; "The Goods Place", Season 3 Episode 8: "The Book of Dougs"

Wata & Game Grading

The conversation about Jay's recent game - Power Blade on the NES - started a conversation about Wata and the game grading scandals. And Jay gives a scathing description of how Wata are grading their games. It's similar to the coin collecting, baseball card collecting, and any other collectable industry.

Interestingly, Matthew points out that NFTs could be described in the same way. Except that NFTs (and other blockchain based technologies) are destroying the planet with the sheer amount of electricity required to create them.

Inscryption & Asemblance

Matthew's description of these two titles is practically perfect:

These are games that bend so far backwards on themselves that their head is going over their back, through their legs and over their back again so that they are staring at their hamstrings.
- Matthew

But the problem is that these types of games need to be experienced rather than described, because the gameplay is based on discovering the right pieces as they go along.

Both Inscryption and Asemblance have ARG components in them, with Asemblance literally taking you out of the game and over to Reddit, then to imgur:

[there are] little flashes of images on the computer, and one of those flashes is a Reddit page, and you can read a username.
So you look up that user on Reddit, and it's got like 13 posts. And one of those is about a blue butterfly. But you see a blue butterfly in the game.
So you look up that imgur location. And that account that's attached to that Reddit account also has an image that solves an interior puzzle to the game. Which is an overlay of a map, attached to a wall... that allows you to navigate a different memory, using both time codes, and locations and interactions in order to complete it.
... It takes a village to complete it.
- Matthew

...

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Have you ever played Incryption or Asemblance? We'd love to hear from you about you experiences with it. What about other ARG heavy games like Doki Doki Literacure Club? Did you know about the spectral analyser thing in the soundtrack to Doom (2016)?

Let us know on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• Join our Discord server and be part of future episodes
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Support us on Ko-Fi
• The Dead Drop
  • Website
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Twitch
  • YouTube
• Listen on:
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Spotify Podcasts
  • Google Podcasts<...

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Discord server, Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

What do The Bushwackers, Borderlands 3, The Matrix, and Zorro have to do with the 2003 "cinematic experience" that is Uwe Boll's first video game adaptation: The House of The Dead?

Squidge and Jay sat down to discuss Uwe Boll's The House of the Dead. Is this movie worth watching? Is it even any good? What's with the LED eyes? And did SEGA really sign off on all of this?

psst. we've actually done a bunch of these "goes to the movies" episodes. Check this page to see all of the released specials.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Due to the nature of the movie we talk about in this episode, we’d recommend that you don’t listen to this one with little ones around.

This film (whilst also being pretty dreadful) contains nudity, swearing, violence, and pretty badly acted out zombies.

We've also left in all the swears, as it's an episode about a horror film.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Our amazing intro was performed by Morgan Ritson, definitely check him out for similarly amazing stuff

We decided to change up the format of our "goes to the movies" episodes. Instead of working through the plot, we decided that it would be much more fun to focus on a handful of scenes from the movie. This serves the double purpose of:

• Simplifying our episodes, and getting to the gags quicker
• Not having to discuss the plot which this movie doesn't have

With that said, we jumped to jump straight into a description of this movie...

Basic Info on the Movie

We didn't even get through our introductions before Jay started complaining about this movie

The dynamic range compression in this movie is almost non-existant
- Jay

In fact, the audio issues in this movie made Jay "do The Bushwackers thing", which is the walk that the legendary pro-wrestling tag team did on their way to the ring.

Squidge sets the scene by reading the IMDB plot summary for this "cinematic experience":

A group of college students travels to a mysterious island to attend a rave, which is soon taken over by bloodthirsty zombies
- Squidge

and that's about all that really happens in this movie, to be fair. However, the 1978 movie with a similar name sounds pretty good:

A 1978 film consisting of four short stories about a man who takes refuge from a thunderstorm in the residence of a mortician
- Squidge

Initial Thoughts

Remember that this movie is based on a 1996 on-the-rails arcade shooter which takes less than 26 minutes to get through. Sure, there was a story but it was essentially:

On December 18, 1998, AMS Agent Thomas Rogan receives a distress call from his fiancée Sophie Richards from the Curien Mansion. Rogan and his partner "G" fly to Europe and arrive at the estate, finding it overrun with undead creatures, which Dr. Curien unleashed

Like, that's literally it.

Seriously, there's so little plot in this game that the arcade cabinet takes 28 minutes to get from booting to completion.

The ADR (Additional Dialogue Replacement) in this movie is off the charts:

This is ADR: the movie
- Jay

With all of the important dialogue being recorded on set, with a microphone which was located two galaxies away, and all of the un-important dialogue - the grunts, screams, and such - being replaced with ADR.

And if you want to read Jay's notes, you can by clicking here. Warning: he took this notes whilst watching the movie, and was several beers in by the time he got to the 36th minute mark.

it was the only way to survive this "cinematic experience"
- Jay

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, some out-of-context screen grabs from the movie, and some links to related things.

Are you a fan of the Silent Hill games? Have you seen this movie before? If so, what did you think to it? Would you fling it into a tree? If not, are you likely to watch it now?

psst. we've actually done a bunch of these "goes to the movies" episodes. Check this page to see all of the released specials.

What other movies would you like us to cover? Let us know on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• Join our Discord server and be part of future episodes
• Us on Twitter
• Our Facebook page
• Support us on Ko-Fi
• House of The Dead on IMDB
• houseofthedeadmovie.com
• Double Dragon - Witty Remark Here
• Our other Goes to the Movies episodes
• Trancers

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Because the game we discussed in this episode deals with some pretty tough topics around mental health, we wanted to give you all a fair warning about it. We don't just discuss the mental health topics in the game, but we also take a moment to talk about how important it is for those who are suffering to get help.

As such, you may want to skip this episode if mental health issues are a particularly triggering topic.

But we'd also like to say, in the words of Stephen Dubner:

Take care of yourself, and if you can someone else too.
- Stephen Dubner

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Tom from Kölncampus ECHO wanted to join us about Disco Elysium, so we invited him on the show to tell us what's so great about it.

But the first question to ask was whether we had played it. Jay hadn't, and Squidge had only played a little of it:

I essentially looked round the main area that you get in the tutorial: the tutorial area. Adn I realised that me trying to be a good cop is a bad idea. And it's one of those where you've gotta set up your skills, and I don't think I set them up right, so I got dead ends at every turn.
- Squidge

Tom handily passed on the studio's short description of the game by way of tempting him to play it:

DnD meets '70s cop show. What do you imagine the game to be, just from that sentence?
- Tom

Which lead the chaps into a discussion about the clever design and story-telling trick of having the main character forget what their name is.

You, the person, are the character; the character is an avatar through which you interact with the world. By having the character not know their name, you're providing a blank sheet for you to become. You're saying, "this is the person, this is what they look like, but you can choose the name you want."
- Jay

But the clever design doesn't stop there. As Tom points out, standard RPGs have you design a character of your own, setting stats, picking out a head, body, hair, and whatever; and you provide the character traits for the character through your choices. Whereas with Disco Elysium, the character already exists, and your job is to rediscover their character traits - through the use of virutal die rolls, your choices, and how with the game altering it's story slightly based on both of those.

Standard RPGs have skills like Defense, Attack, Initiative; whereas Disco Elysium has skills in things like "electro-chemistry" which reduces the affects of drugs and alcohol. The other difference being that each of the 24 skills in the game can talk to the player. The electro-chemistry skill, for example, talks to the player trying to get the player to have the character take more drugs and alcohol.

The thing that makes Disco Elysium brilliant for me is [that] it does not only depict the trauma - a lot of video games try do that, or do that. But it let's you play the trauma. It lets you really experience being in a situation, playing as a character, that has a lot of trauma in him... and you get to play with them, and experience living with them, because they constantly tell you things. You don't get a break. Every time you got to sleep in the game, you have dreams about them.
- Tom

The fact that game itself started out life as a table-top RPG game is rather telling. The detail put into the gameplay mechanics, the frankly huge amount of lore (and how regularly it is delivered), adn how it is designed really bear this out. Apparently, the game that Robert Kurwitsz (the designer of the game) would host game nights where his bandmates would play the game - he even wrote a book, expanding on the universe of the game, in 2013 called "Sacred and Terrible Air" - at the time of writing these show notes, it's only available in Kurwitz's native Estonian

...

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

What have you been playing recently? Do you agree with the anonymous review that Chief read during this episode? What would you take with you to the Thunder Plains?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Tom on Twitter
• Tom's interview with Brian David Judkins about his podcast "Encounter Party"
  • Tom's podcast is mostly in German
• Moon logic
• Resident Evil Heardle
  • It's like Wordle, but with the music from the Resident Evil games
• Wordle is a daily dose of delight, despair, and sometimes smugness

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

First of all, we'd like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you'll agree that it's an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We'd also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie's Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she's blooming brilliant.

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the fifth episode in the new series, he invited Andrew "Podcast Collector" Dickinson to dispatch something into the devious - and totally real cupboard - cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game.
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen two entries so far:

• Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
• Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138
• Sean wanted to yeet Risk of Rain 2 into the underbelly of the cupboard in episode 139
• Ginger wished to send Final Fantasy X-2 into the depths of cheap MDF that is the cupboard in episode 140
• AndrewD was on the fence about Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days and whether it should have been in the Cupboard of Shame, in episode 141

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

• Iron Man the Movie Video Game
• WET
• Rambo: The Video Game
• Crackdown
• Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode. All of the "classic" Cupboard of Shame episodes - aka before Squidge's 2022 sexy reboot - can be found here.

JonnyG's Chosen Game

And Squidge got directly into the topic of discussion: which game would you like to put into the Cupboard of Shame:

The game that I would like to put into the Cupboard of Shame is called "Deadly Premonition", alternately "Deadly Premonition Director's Cut", or more recently "Deadly Premonition: Origins"
- JonnyG

Even though JonnyG already owned Deadly Premonition, he was suckered into buying one of the other two releases of it. This happening to JonnyG is such a regular occurrence that his friends call it "pulling a Jonny."

And before long, the first tangent of the episode was in play:

Before we actually owned a Playstation, we went and rented one from the game shop down the street.
We rented the Playstation, we rented Final Fantasy VII. We did not know that you had to provide your own memory card.
I played Final Fantasy VII for two and half days without turning the machine off, and I got to a point where you were only allowed to put one fighter in, and forgot to give him cure magic.
And it was all gone.
- JonnyG

We all need to take a moment to press F on our keyboards and pay our respects to young JonnyG.

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What's So Bad About it?

Any discussion of a bad game needs to cover what’s so bad about the game. So Squidge asked, “what’s so bad about this game?” before visibly recoiling. Whilst there's a lot to say about this game, JonnyG covers the majority of his problems with it in six very short sentences:

It's bafflingly difficult to play. Not like it's hard or the challenges are strange. But it's like, the moment to moment interactions are incredibly clunky. Like, you run extremely slowly.
It has a lot of square-footage and not a lot of things to do. So if you're at the Diner, and you have to the police station, that's in-game miles away; and the car they give you only goes 45 miles an hour.
- JonnyG

The main character takes warnings about the case he's working on from his morning c...

First of all, we'd like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you'll agree that it's an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We'd also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie's Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she's blooming brilliant.

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the fifth episode in the new series, he invited Andrew "Podcast Collector" Dickinson to dispatch something into the devious - and totally real cupboard - cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game.
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen two entries so far:

• Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
• Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138
• Sean wanted to yeet Risk of Rain 2 into the underbelly of the cupboard in episode 139
• Ginger wished to send Final Fantasy X-2 into the depths of cheap MDF that is the cupboard in episode 140

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

• Iron Man the Movie Video Game
• WET
• Rambo: The Video Game
• Crackdown
• Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode. All of the "classic" Cupboard of Shame episodes - aka before Squidge's 2022 sexy reboot - can be found here.

Andrew's Chosen Game

Although Andrew has a list of games which are Cupboard of Shame worthy, one shone like a beacon when Squidge approached him to be on the show:

It didn't review particularly well, but I liked it as a guilty pleasure - and that's Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
- AndrewD

Squidge admitted that he had never played either of the Kane & Lynch titles, because he had been blinded by the light of Borderlands. Which is quite interesting when you think about it.

Apparently, it was initially the art style which drew Andrew in:

So [Kane & Lynch :Dead Men] is like a generic looking PS3 third person shooter. It's a decent enough game - I've never played it, but from what I've seen it's a decent enough game.

But for [Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days] they completely changed it. ...it's all set in Shanghai for the majority of the time. And it's mostly at night, all neon lights and stuff... it looks amazing, and that kind of caught my eye.

And then I ended up playing it. I played it on my own, and I also played it in co-op. And it took me by surprise that a very generic third person shooter could actually be quite enjoyable. And almost film like
- AndrewD

What's So Bad About it?

Any discussion of a bad game needs to cover what’s so bad about the game. So Squidge asked, “what’s so bad about this game?” before visibly recoiling.

What's bad about this game?

Well it reviewed horrifically when it came out; it was lambasted as being this generic third person shooter that really didn't make any effort. It was almost a step back in some regards to what had come recently, like Gears of War and those kinds of third person shooters that have done things like cover mechanics.

Kane & Lynch is a straight forward third person shooter, so you just run at people at shoot them. It was super generic and came out at a time when these kinds of games were evolving. A lot of people saw it as style over substance
- AndrewD

Those are some pretty strong points, to be fair.

---

And even the story felt phoned in, apparently:

The story gets you from place to place within the game, but it's really threadbare. So you get introduced to a mob boss that you have to go meet, and you have to kill a load of people to get to. Or you have to save somebody, I think his girlfriend crops up and you have to go save her.
- AndrewD

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

What have you been playing recently? Do you agree with the anonymous review that Chief read during this episode? What would you take with you to the Thunder Plains?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

First of all, we'd like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you'll agree that it's an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We'd also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie's Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she's blooming brilliant.

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the third episode in the new series, he invited Sean "Rackham The Dancing Bugbear" O'Dell to yeet something into the devious - and totally real cupboard - cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game.
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen two entries so far:

• Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
• Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138
• Sean wanted to yeet Risk of Rain 2 into the underbelly of the cupboard in episode 139

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

• Iron Man the Movie Video Game
• WET
• Rambo: The Video Game
• Crackdown
• Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode. All of the "classic" Cupboard of Shame episodes - aka before Squidge's 2022 sexy reboot - can be found here.

Ginger's Chosen Game

Wasting almost no time at all, Squidge leapt in with the all-important question: which game are we yeeting into the Cupboard of shame?

Final Fantasy X-2. Where do I even begin with this game?
...It's shameful for me to actually admit that I've never been able to beat [this game], honestly, because it made me so damned mad.
- Ginger

And, as Squidge said:

Unless you put in the time to 100% it, the payoff isn't worth it
- Squidge

We're convinced that Ginger's initial thoughts are shared by a lot of people:

When X-2 first came out, I was super excited. I was like, "hell yeah! Girl power!" There's an all female lead. I was stoked. I was super stoked.
And then I played it.
... it's a beautiful game, like you said. It comes right off of, like, when graphics were finally getting good for video games.
... and here's why I always talk $h!t about this game: why do I need [the strategy guide] to actually beat the game?
- Ginger

Squidge's detailed description of Final Fantasy X-2 (for those who haven't played it) is:

Final Fantasy X-2 is the first direct sequel in the renowned RPG series. X-2 highlights a cast of returning characters and features mission-based gameplay. An all female lead cast, unique job classes, and dynamic battle system.
It doesn't stop there, there's more.
The story takes place two years after Yuna defeats Sin in Final Fantasy X, and follows Yuna's journey to find her lost love. Scattered across the land are spheres which show visual recordings of historical events or open up different types of job classes to use in battle.
- Squidge

As Ginger points out, the game doesn't pass the Bechdel test because Yuna is looking for Tidus, and all of her conversations with other female characters revolve around Tidus.

And no discussion of Final Fantasy X-2 can be complete without Jay's description of it:

Let's play dress-up- Jay

When asked for comments, resident expert in all things Final Fantasy Lulu had the following to say:

I remember two things:
1) Final Fantasy XIII-2 is best described as "Lightning raising her wardrobe"
2) I remember final beating Final Fantasy XIII. I was sitting on the living room floor crying. Not because of the ending, but because I'd finally beaten it. And Jay told me that I should list "Beat Final Fantasy XIII" on my résumé.
- Lulu

What's So Bad About it?

Any discussion of a bad game needs to cover what’s so bad about the game. So Squidge asked, “what’s so bad about this game?” before visibly recoiling.

Unless you have the strategy guide, you're literally not going to beat it. Unless you basically have read the strategy guide and played it over and over, and know it by memory, and know exactly who you've got to talk to and that's kind of me with VII - the original one.
Like, Sephiroth is an easy boss. And III - talk about a hard game - III, once it got released here, I still beat that one. But I didn't beat X-2
- Ginger

Add to that the fact that you can't possibly 100% the game in a single playthrough, and you have a strange setup. To the point where certain parts of the game were based entirely on luck, and one guide states:

If you don't get it this time, try rebooting your console and try again
- Guides and that

And PS2s weren't fans of being rebooted constantl...

First of all, we'd like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you'll agree that it's an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We'd also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie's Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she's blooming brilliant.

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the third episode in the new series, he invited Sean "Rackham The Dancing Bugbear" O'Dell to yeet something into the devious - and totally real cupboard - cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don't know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.
Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We'll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we'll share some fun facts about the game.
- Squidge

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen two entries so far:

• Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
• Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

• Iron Man the Movie Video Game
• WET
• Rambo: The Video Game
• Crackdown
• Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame - here's a link to that episode.

Sean's Chosen Game

Before they discussed Sean's chosen game, Squidge asked for Sean to describe the show that he works on: Dungeons and Pop

[Dungeons and Pop is] an actual play variety show. Because the players who run the main campaign are busy half the time, so we run multiple campaigns and one-shots.
A lot of pop culture stuff. Like out main one is, basically fantasy Power Rangers; before the Power Rangers RPG came out, too.
- Sean

And with Sean's podcast description out of the way - to be fair, fantasy Power Rangers as an actual play sounds pretty cool - Squidge asked the all-important question: which game are we yeeting into the Cupboard of shame?

It's kind of an older game, but it's one that a friend suggested.
I was looking for a game to get when there was a game sale on Switch and a friend of mine, I told 'em that I liked Enter the Dungeon and rogue-likes like that. Nuclear Throne. And he suggested Risk of Rain 2.
- Sean

But why did Sean buy the game? Had he read up about it before purchasing it, did he just go with what was listed on the Switch store page, or did he trust his friend's recommendation?

What I found was kind of neat was that it was a 3D game with that kind of... running around, grabbing items, that kinda stood out. And the art style is, I don't want to say "simplistic", but it's pretty minimalistic... it's kind of solid colours on top of other colours.
- Sean

When it was first released, there was no intro sequence meaning that most players had to scramble to try and figure out what the story was. But Squidge had done some digging for us:

What I can tell is:
You are a captain who are hired by UES - which appear to be an intergalactic delivery company, kind of like FedEx, "you weren't in, so we left your package on the opposite side of the moon". And from what I can see, the whole thing is like a survival, monster killing thing, where you're picking up a scavenger hunt for packages, and there's boss monsters.
That's all I can gather from it.
- Squidge

What's So Bad About it?

Any discussion of a bad game needs to cover what’s so bad about the game. So Squidge asked, “what’s so bad about this game?”

When I first played it, the difficulty ramped up sooooooo fast.
Because I was trying to level up by taking on hordes of enemies. But I was looking it up, and it was like, "you need to be able to run first,"... a lot of it is because you can't pick the other characters right away, so I was [playing as] the Commando. And it was a lot of, "you can't fire while running," and that kind of thing.
So I would try to level it out, but I was getting overwhelmed. I'd be fighting a bunch of monsters, and there'd be another 15 in the background.
- Sean

It seemed like one of those games where you have to turn to The Internet in order to get help on how to play it.

Yeah. The thing I watched didn't really help that much.
It's sort of like one of those things where you have to die a bunch of different times before you can get better, because you're going to level up from that. But you have to get to a certain point [first].
It was a little easier when I revisited it, before we started recording. But I think that was because I'd unlocked another character.
- Sean

What Are Some Redeeming Features?

It’s never good to focus on the negative. So what’s good about this game, or at least what redeems it slightly:

There are a few [redeeming features].
I like the items; some of them are built to help you. Like, I got one that's like, "oh, you get healing after you take damage." And then I got another one which was like, "as you kill someone, you get a temporary shield".
And I think I preferred playing i...