Pixel Vision

All aboard for the rogue-like deck-building card game sensation, Monster Train - a relatively new entrant to the genre, but already super popular. Ben and Tao plumb the depths of hell to see if it really deserves all its accolades, while admitting to differing degrees of n00bdom. Under scrutiny is the rise of the digital card game, the barrier to entry for online games, and the philosophy of gaming. Yeah, that’s right, we go deep.

No spoilers really, not that kinda game.

Content Warning: PEGI 12. The usual tom foolery and jiggery-pokery with a smattering of bad language. Oh, and a weird f intro.

Clarifications:

• Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 epic romantic drama film directed by David Lean and set in Russia between the years before World War I and the Russian Civil War of 1918–1922.


• It’s unclear if Hearthstone makes more money for Blizzard than WoW, but very evident they both make a ton of dollar overall.


• Finite and Infinite Games is a 1986 book by religious scholar James P. Carse.

Audio extracts:

• Spider-man feat. Toby Maguire


• The Queen’s Gambit main title by Carlos Rafael Rivera


• Hearthstone theme by XX


• World of Warcraft main theme by XX


• Apex Legends trailer


• Beauty and the Beast (2017)


• Good Will Hunting


• Valve’s Artifact launch


• Darkest Dungeon


• Metro Exodus


• Slay The Spire theme by XX


• Hercules feat. Kevin Sorbo


• Angry Birds theme


• The Japanese Stories youtube channel

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pixelvisionpod 
Twitter: @pixelviz

Even more breathlessly than usual, Ben and Tao discuss the (quite literal) ups and downs of fast-paced parkour slasher, Ghostrunner. They get competitive in stat-chat to see whose reflexes aren’t quite holding up with age, discuss the increasing trend towards masochistic games and the Crash Bandicoot dilemma, and whether autosaves are the difference between a good, challenging game and a gamer’s hellscape.

Chunky story spoilers, but no-one plays this game for the story.

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Some swearing, lots of shooting, sweaty palms.

Clarifications:

• Mirror’s Edge Catalyst was not an exclusive. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in North America in June 2016.


• The firearm-based martial art used by Kurt Wimmer and Jim Vickers in their 2002 film Equilibrium is Gun Kata.


• Atlas is the name of the Bioshock character who Ben compares with Whisper aka. The Architect.


• The Ghostrunner Original Soundtrack is by Daniel Deluxe, released 27 October 2020

Audio extracts:

• Crocodile Dundee


• Alan Partridge in Tesco


• Synne Sanden - Tigers`s Net (Synthomania RMX)


• Equilibrium


• Bioshock


• System Shock


• The Lawnmower Man (SNES)


• Frostpunk theme


• Crash Bandicoot


• Titanfall 2 theme by Stephen Barton


• Jungle Book 1967


• Mirror’s Edge OST by Solar Fields


• Dying Light theme by Paweł Błaszczak


• Premium Rush feat. Joseph Gordon-Levitt


• ‘Escape’ by The Chemical Brothers from Hanna


• Frogger


• MTV’s ‘The Matrix’ spoof with Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake and Will Ferrell


• Arrested Development - Tobias Funke ‘excuse me’


• The Last Samurai main theme by Hans Zimmer


• The Harry J All Stars - The Liquidator

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/pixelvisionpod 
Twitter: @pixelviz

Finally out of exile, Ben and Tao visit the resort of island 24 for a spot of light holiday crime solving in the surrealist fantasy mystery puzzler, Paradise Killer. Cocktails in hand and against a backdrop of sexy synths and sunsets, the duo talk kinks and dating sims, Vimto and Diogenes, and when it’s simply not cool to accuse your friends.

Major story spoilers, primarily towards the end.

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Moderate randiness, a bit of light swearing, sweet ass tunes.

Clarifications:

• Music from Paradise Killer is by Epoch


• According to the developers, the mature content filter just replaces swear words with **** and blocks some of the voice acting lines which contain swearing. It doesn’t affect any gameplay or visuals.


• Rule 34 is an Internet maxim which asserts that Internet pornography exists concerning every conceivable topic.


• The dating sim games Tao is pretending to have no knowledge of are: Dream Daddy and Monster Prom.


• We’re talking about Kafka Memory, not Kafka Memorise (whoever that is)


• Diogenes, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy.


• The duck test is a form of abductive reasoning. This is its usual expression: “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Audio extracts:

• The Simpsons - Who Killed Mr Burns?


• Edward Scissorhands


• Mass Effect: Andromeda


• Braintax feat. Dubble Edge - Anti-Grey


• Midsomer Murders Theme


• Exit Music (For A Film) by Radiohead


• All This Love by The Similou


• Don’t Bring Me Down by PREP


• Love on a Real Train - Tangerine Dream (State Azure cover)


• Sound of da Police by KRS-One


• GTA San Andreas theme by Young Maylay


• The Cat Empire - 1001 (Hidden Track)

Fresh from the saloon with dusty wide-brimmed hats a-tilt against the scorch of the midday sun, Ben and Tao turn gun-slingin’, knife-flingin’ cowboys and massacre their way across the Wild West in pursuit of vengeance in the paradoxically stealthy, real-time tactics showdown: Desperados 3. Topics include: when it’s ok to cliché, bad parenting, charming shamans, and if game themes really matter, so long as the game is fun.

Major story spoilers in the final third, heavily forecast.

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Some swearing, lethal dynamite and a bit of hoodoo voodoo black magic.

Clarifications:

• Music from Desperados 3 is by Filippo Beck Peccoz


• Ben’s Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun review


• Dr Bones McCoy Star Trek compilation made vastly easier with thanks to YouTuber Biribissi Biribissi, their video here.

Audio extracts:

• Rango


• Back to the Future 3


• Red Dead Redemption 2


• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid


• The Quick and the Dead


• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly theme by Ennio Morricone


• Taken


• Taken 2


• Mariachi Sol De Mexico


• The Wolf of Wall Street


• The Mighty Boosh S01


• There Will Be Blood


• Prison Break theme by Ferry Corsten and Ramin Djawadi


• Mouse Outfit feat. Dr Syntax - The Shaman


• Will Smith - Wild Wild West


• The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)


• Dr Bones McCoy - Star Trek compilation


• Dragon Age Inquisition


• Commandos 2


• Superbad

New Year is off with a flash and a bang and not just on Capitol Hill as Ben and Tao get down to some rigorous rib-ripping, head-lopping and eye-popping demon slaying to save Earth from the ravages of Hell in first person shooter, Doom Eternal. Tao flexes his thumb muscle dominance, Ben finally uses the platform to bang on about time-to-kill (TTK), and the duo disagree over the innocence or not of the phrase ‘Mortally Challenged’.

No serious spoilers. Things die.

Content Warning: PEGI 16. Gruesome animations, generally violent delights and swearing. Lots of swearing. We’ll do better...

Clarifications:

• All Doom Eternal music is by Mick Gordon.


• The opening music is Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ which caused a riot on its debut in Paris in 1913. It seemed appropriate...


• The original Doom was out for MS-DOS in December 1993.


• The weapon Ben refers to in Dead Space is the Plasma Cutter.


• The four demon types are: ambient, fodder, heavy, super-heavy

Audio extracts:

• Doom Eternal OST


• London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle perform Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’


• The Revenant feat. Leonardo DiCaprio


• Elon Musk talks to Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast about his flame throwers.


• Parks and Recreation S05E16 - Bailout - “She’s the worst”


• Cupa Soup advert c. 2002


• Halo Grunt Birthday Party Skull


• God of War ‘Ragnarok’ theme by Bear McCreary


• Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End by Henry Jackman


• Handsome Jack, Borderlands 2


• It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, S03E05, Dennis Reynolds peaks.


• Dead Space 2


• Rollercoaster Tycoon theme


• Teletubbies theme


• Desperados 3 OST main theme

In this special Christmas bonus episode, Ben and Tao give Royal Mail a run for their money as post-apocalyptic couriers, stacked high with teetering packages but ready to deliver by road, zipline or exoskeleton in Death Stranding. Ben grills Tao on exactly what he found to enjoy in Hideo Kojima’s post-Stranding USA (or UCA as it’s called in-game: The United Cities of America). They debate product placement; the use of celebrity voice acting; voyeurism, auteurs and their egos; and whether Tao is a passive and subservient consumer. (He’s not sure.)

Some spoilers from around the half way mark, but nothing that will shed any serious light on the confusing plot.

Content Warning: PEGI 16. Frequent strong language and angry rants abound. Plus some eejit tries to nuke a few cities.

Clarifications:

• The original score was composed by Ludvig Forssell


• Tim Rogers’ review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZHUY-nVXKU


• Tim Rogers’ spoilers summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYlDQbHJ_ms 

Audio extracts:

• Red Dead Redemption 2 OST


• Minority Report feat. Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell


• Die Hard feat. Bruce Willis


• Rock Flag and Eagle feat. Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia)


• The Transporter films montage feat. Jason Statham


• Forrest Gump feat. Tom Hanks


• Prince of Persia 1989 OST


• Fable OST ‘Witchwood’


• James Bond 007 theme by David Arnold


• ‘Fields of Gold’ by Sting


• ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel


• ‘Bones’ by Low Roar


• ‘Don’t Be So Serious’ by Low Roar


• Nursery rhyme montage from Identity, Conjuring 2, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dead Silence


• Theresa May


• Quiet’s Theme from Metal Gear Solid V by Akihiro Honda

A road trip through the Deep South finds Ben and Tao soaring among the clouds and scouring the deepest mines on route to deliver a prize antique in surrealist point-and-click-and-choose-your-own-adventure-kinda, Kentucky Route Zero. From poetry and music to humanity’s impending obsolescence and the nature of, as Tao likes to say, voracious capitalism, no stone is left unturned as the duo try to decipher the impossible. Fasten your seat belts.

Spoilers throughout (but it’s not that kind of game).

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Surprisingly clean fun for once. Just careful of the bears...

Clarifications:

• Tao is referring to the Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere


• Andy Shauf’s bar concept album is Neon Skyline


• Harry James Angus’ album is Little Stories

Audio extracts:

• Barack Obama and crowd chant


• Spaced S01E07 ‘Ends’ (1999) feat Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes


• Greensleeves (anon and F. Cutting) performed by Daniel Estrem on renaissance lute


• Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street (1978) saxophone


• OSMOS (2009) game soundtrack


• Billie Piper - Because We Want To (1998)


• Phil Collins - Sussudio (1985)


• The Shining feat. Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel


• Andy Shauf - Neon Skyline (2020)


• Harry James Angus - The River Queen (2017)


• Rage Against The Machine - Take The Power Back (1991)


• Twin Peaks OST


• Sunset Overdrive


• Johnny Greenwood’s ‘Spooks’ from the Inherent Vice OST


• Lemon Jelly - The Staunton Lick

Our two adventurers set sail through the Deadfire archipelago, hot on the heels of the keep-stomping, giant-stealing, adra-devouring God, Eothas, in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. But with Ben playing as impatient neutral and Tao as dignified evil, can they get along? They spill secrets of their raunchy (on-screen) romances, question the rising trend of maritime oriented games, and probe the merits and disadvantages of diving too deep into the ‘role playing’ in role playing games.

Major spoilers from around half way, also spoilers for the original Pillars of Eternity.

Content Warning: PEGI 15. Strong language. Slavery, colonialism, backstabbing, and ribald crewmates bragging in explicit detail of sexual conquests.

Clarifications:

• This game was released in May 2018. The first one was released in March 2015.


• The party member is correctly identified by Tao as Pallegina.


• The original soundtrack is composed by Justin Bell who also scored the first game.


• The original sea shanties were written and performed by Nils Brown and Carrie Shaw.


• “Stanley’s Parable” is a reference to The Stanley Parable game. In the words of its designers: “an experimental narrative-driven first person game...an exploration of choice, freedom, storytelling and reality.”


• Netflix has not officially cancelled Mindhunter, but show director David Fincher has strongly implied it will be discontinued.

Audio extracts:

• Pillars of Eternity OST by Justin Bell


• Sid Meier’s Civilisation 2 OST 


• Command & Conquer Red Alert theme - ‘Hell March’


• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 - feat. Emma Watson


• Arrested Development feat. Will Arnett


• Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring feat. John Rhys-Davies


• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme


• South Park - ‘Make Love, Not Warcraft’ S10E08


• Hitman


• Baldur’s Gate OST by Michael Hoenig feat. Jim Cummings (Minsc)


• True Blood OST feat. Anna Paquin


• Mass Effect 2 OST - ‘New Worlds’ by Sam Hulick and Jack Wall


• Anchorman feat. Will Ferrell


• Schindler’s List theme by John Williams


• Mindhunter OST by Jason Hill

Drawing on divine favour and Godly boons, Ben and Tao are seduced by Aphrodite, hastened by Hermes and emboldened by Ares as they push the boundaries of daddy’s discipline in tongue-and-cheek roguelite, Hades. The two dissect the ‘roguelike’ genre, Tao finally finishes the game (not once, but twice!), and Ben reveals why his attitude towards this is the same as to shopping in Ikea. Plus, when is a spoiler not a spoiler?

Minor spoilers heavily forecast around half way.

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Flashing lights may trigger epilepsy, migraines and extreme pixel vision. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (Maybe.)

Clarifications:

• Zagreus and Megaera are not brother and sister…


• Prometheus was bound to a rock, and an eagle--the emblem of Zeus--was sent to eat his liver (in ancient Greece, the liver was often thought to be the seat of human emotions). His liver would then grow back overnight, only to be eaten again the next day in an ongoing cycle.


• According to Wikipedia, “Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing video games characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, tile-based graphics, and permanent death of the player character.”


• In ‘Patriot’, to prevent Iran from going nuclear, intelligence officer John Tavner must assume a non-official cover —that of a mid-level employee at a Milwaukee industrial piping firm.


• The HBO show ‘Beforeigners’ is set in Oslo, not Copenhagen/ Denmark.


• Ben is talking about Super Mario Land, the 1989 side-scrolling platformer developed and published by Nintendo as a launch title for their Game Boy handheld game console. (The first Mario platform game ever to be released for a handheld console.)


• The music for Hades included in the audio bed here was composed by Darren Korb.

Audio extracts:

• The Old Bachelor Z. 607, by Henry Purcell (for Harp)


• Borderlands - ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’


• Avengers: Age of Ultron


• Hollow Knight theme by Christopher Larkin


• The Champs - ‘Tequila’


• ‘In the Flame’ from the Pyre Original Soundtrack


• Kalandra - Skaldespille (from the HBO® Nordic series Beforeigners)


• Wayne’s World - “We are not worthy”


• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 5, Episode 2: "The Gang Hits The Road"


• Planet Earth 2 OST - ‘Dancing Bears’


• Halo 2 Soundtrack - Halo Theme (Mjolnir Mix) by Martin O’Donnell


• Faster Than Light OST main theme


• ‘Nude’ by Radiohead


• Palm Springs (2020)


• ‘Patriot’ TV series


• Dragon Age 2


• Harry & Paul, Series 2, Episode 2 - ‘40...45 years’


• Futurama, S4E4, "Less Than Hero"

Like ghosts in flying space balls, floating laptops and archaic CCTV, Ben and Tao go full Wheatley, buddying up with Dr Emma Fisher to solve the mysteries of low orbital space station, Observation, and its wonky AI, SAM. The pair ask where all the decent AI games are and tease apart scifi’s genre trope of ‘space gloop’, before Tao goes full Sigmund Freud on the nature of Emma and SAM’s inter-organism, robosexual relationship.

Spoilers from around half way (including one for Horizon Zero Dawn).

Content Warning: PEGI 12. Occasional strong language. Doppelgangers and evil robot alien space gloop. (Yeah, we don’t know either.)

Clarifications:

• Observation was released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 on May 21, 2019 and for Xbox One on June 25, 2020.


• Uplink is a simulation video game released in 2001 by the British company Introversion Software. The player takes charge of a freelance computer hacker in a fictional futuristic 2010, and must break into foreign computers, complete contracts and purchase new hardware to hack into increasingly harder computer systems.


• Observation was built in Unity.


• Actress Kezia Burrows is, in fact, also Welsh. Born in Neath, she lived in Porthcawl and then Carmarthen. She trained at RADA, graduating in Summer 2004.


• Anthony Howell voiced SAM and has also voiced roles in Dragon Age: Inquisition, SOMA, Vampyr, Anthem and Alien: Isolation (among others).

Audio extracts:

• Men In Black (1997)


• ‘Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes’ Xbox trailer


• Her (2013) feat. Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson


• Agatha Christie's Poirot main theme


• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)


• Interstellar OST by Hans Zimmer


• Julie Andrews: ‘Getting To Know You’ from Disney’s ‘The King and I’


• Horizon Zero Dawn OST - ‘Aloy’s Theme’ feat. Julie Elven


• Uplink OST - ‘Deep in Her Eyes’


• Hackers (1995)


• Who wants to be a millionaire?


• Human Traffic (1999) feat. Danny Dyer and John Simm


• The Expanse OST, title theme by Clinton Shorter


• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six/ Splinter Cell


• ‘Let There Be Love’ feat. Nat King Cole


• ‘Stay Alive’ from Portal by Jonathan Coulton


• Better Call Saul theme by Little Barrie