Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book Club. I’m wondering if there’s anything you’ve been playing this week besides death stranding, other than death stranding.

[00:00:09] Speaker B: Some of MLB the show 25.

Just some online play and offline. It’s the one main sports game I play yearly.

So, yeah, I just do a lot of grinding offline. Do Diamond Dynasty in it, which is like the.

The mutt for the. For baseball, so.

[00:00:31] Speaker A: Oh, like FIFA Ultimate Ultimate Team.

[00:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, FIFA Ultimate Team, but yeah, it’s like that, but it’s for baseball. For MLB the show, it’s Diamond Dynasty.

[00:00:40] Speaker A: So it really makes sense with. With the cards. I don’t know if it’s the same card format, but.

[00:00:45] Speaker B: All right, well, I do it. No, I do it. No money spent, though. I do not spend.

[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:00:49] Speaker B: Money on it.

[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah, transactions are.

[00:00:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s. There’s a lot. Luckily there’s enough offline stuff, as I said, to grind where I can get pretty good cards and make enough like of the currency for their market to buy better upgraded cards if I want.

[00:01:08] Speaker A: So at what point do you feel satisfied in the grind or is it just grinding and getting new cards as the entertainment? Like, do you actually. Do you play through games with the teams that you build through that?

[00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you. Yeah, you build up teams. They’re like different moments. They’ll have like, moments to do. They do like team of the week that have like moments or specific stats or something that you have to do with certain players, like get 15 strikeouts or starting pitchers or hit 10 home runs with Yankee players or something like that. So I just. I just grind it offline. I can only do like. I’ve watched some Twitch streamers play it a lot. They’ll go. Obviously they either do money spent or if they do no money spent, they’re on it for eight hours plus a day. And I was like, I’ll just grind it for a couple hours and then that’s about it. I’m fine after that.

[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely don’t spend as much time in live service games, but, you know, there’s. Obviously there’s a market for it.

[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like my only one I played. I tried Madam Ultimate Team and FIFA. I don’t like those as much.

[00:02:11] Speaker A: And that studio is located near you?

[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. MLB is made here.

Sony San Diego, so. And it’s been a PlayStation game.

It’s always been a PlayStation game, but it was exclusive until about two years ago, three years ago, when now it’s on Xbox and Switch as well, that’s.

[00:02:31] Speaker A: One of the games where actually PlayStation went the opposite direction and allowed it to be published elsewhere, which they are pretty tight on in most other, other exclusive games. So, yeah, good for baseball fans, I guess.

[00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it is. It definitely. I think it’s definitely increased their player.

The amount of players, especially fallen, like playing.

[00:02:55] Speaker A: Everything’s about money at the end of. At the end of the day. On Mind, I’ve been playing Persona 5 Royal a bit more and also have jumped back into dead cells, which I’ve been playing on and off for maybe four or five years now. Never put in quite enough time to really get good at it. I’m still on 0bc, if you played it at all. So I haven’t finished the Final boss yet. I just need to find that consistent way to get to their later stages that you don’t get to see as often to practice against the enemies that are there.

I guess I could use the custom mode or the practice mode. I probably will jump into that. It’s a very, very fun game. It has like some goofy sarcasm to it and a lot of tributes to other games out something like that.

Dark Souls bonfires appear in a random room somewhere. Funny for us, Alex. The corpse of Nathan Drake is found in a tomb somewhere, like that kind of thing. So they just like. Not poking fun, but just like giving tributes to all those types of things. It’s really entertaining to come across. And they have so many collaborations now too. They had a big expansion with Castlevania and it was very much inspired by Castlevania. It’s obviously got the Roguelite elements, but yeah, it’s a fun time. I probably just need to commit some extra, extra hours into it and see. See if I can finally finish the damn game.

[00:04:13] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I haven’t played it. I don’t know anything about it. I’ve just heard. I’ve heard of Dead Cells. I don’t really know much about story or anything, but I do like when games like as you said, when you have Nathan Drake there in like a tomb or whatever, they have little Easter eggs of different games in them. I always find that fun.

[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s always. It’s always a nice little entertaining thing. There’s a bit of that in. In Split Fiction as well, actually, that I came across and it was so totally unexpected. So still fun. What, if anything, really caught your attention in the most recent PlayStation State of Play?

[00:04:46] Speaker B: The biggest thing that caught my attention because I’m a huge fan, was the new Bong game. I’m a huge James Bond fan and one I’m still waiting to see who our next actual James Bond is going to be in the movies. I’m kind of going for Henry Cavill or maybe Aaron Taylor Johnson. I think might be a good Bond. But for the PlayStation Direct to see a new Bond game since I think the last one we had was, I don’t know, so Long goldeneye. Was it the cold night? Rogue Agent one might have been the last game that we got.

[00:05:21] Speaker A: The last good one that I can remember was the golden eye on N64. I know there were a couple others at some point, but I.

Those were just one games.

[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yeah, Bloodstone and Quantum Solace on PS3. I played those were both fun. I enjoyed those with Daniel Craig Bond. But yeah, I, I seeing this trailer and I know that it’s made by IOI who makes the Hitman games. It just looks, it looked really good.

I like the story. I like it’s as like a sort of prequel. Like a prequel Bond story of how he becomes a 007.

But just from seeing the trailer I was like, I was like man, this action. They have like the Bond suave with the character as well where like there was like a scene where she. There’s like a girl and she’s like oh, so what do you do? And he’s like, well what have you been doing recently? He’s like head hunting. And I was like, oh man. I was like, I can see that like, like Bron or Daniel Craig like saying that. I was like, it’s just like a suave line.

I was like after the trailer finished, I actually turned to my wife and I was like, I want that as a movie. I’d watch that as a movie as well. Like that storyline of him before becoming 007.

So yeah, I love being. That was my biggest.

[00:06:39] Speaker A: Nice that we get it as a game, that we get to live it ourselves.

[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that was my biggest takeaway from the state of play. Very excited for when that comes out. I think it’s next year.

[00:06:49] Speaker A: Not expecting it to drop in trailer to drop with much more detail in this state of play. And you know, I as a longtime fan of the Hitman series, am impressed. Very impressed. I think IO Interactive has taken a huge step forward and is obviously looking like they’re going to nail it. We haven’t seen any gameplay yet. I guess there was a little bit of snippets of it but there’s a.

[00:07:13] Speaker B: Little bit of snippets in the trailer.

[00:07:15] Speaker A: But really good to see where it goes. Yeah.

[00:07:18] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely want to see. Yeah. Excited to see see more. I was trying to look up on IMDb I was like just curious to see who.

Who were the voices, but they don’t have anybody as the voice actors yet. The only gentleman they had in there was one of the guys who I know is an actor and I forgot his name.

He was in like the opening of the trailer.

I forgot what the actor’s name is, but I was like. I was like, oh, I’ve seen him in TV shows or movies, but I was like who’s playing the Bond? But it’s not up yet so we’ll find out eventually.

Yeah, excited to learn more about that game.

[00:07:53] Speaker A: So let’s jump into Death Stranding. We really kind of moved forward quite a bit with this episode too. About Amelie I guess I would say I played a decent chunk of this on the PlayStation portal for various reasons I tried out. I’ve tried it with a couple other games before and it’s worked reasonably okay.

The cloud streaming function which is still in beta currently there’s even a in parentheses beta right there when you load it up. But it works. It works well with I would guess, I would say lower graphical requirement type games. It worked well with the original. Well I guess not the original with the. The 2016 Ratchet and Clank game.

I played a bit of Resident Evil 2 remake on there using the cloud streaming beta and froze a fair bit. Death Stranding really struggles and it’s kind of a shame but fortunately I have been able to also play it through the cloud or the regular stream straight from my PS5 to my PS portal and it works really nicely there and actually looks quite good even though it’s the smaller screen. Obviously it’s a major benefit to be playing on a large TV with 4K.

[00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it. Yes, it looks. Yeah, it looks so good on.

On the large screen.

Yeah, that’s how I. I have not tried that on Portal. I don’t think I will. I’m just going to sit and play it on my recommended. It looks nice.

[00:09:22] Speaker A: The same. Same here. I would suggest that. And really only using the portal and absolutely necessary to continue moving forward. But hey, at least there are options now.

[00:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

[00:09:37] Speaker A: So how did you go about approaching the playthrough of Episode two? I pretty much stuck to side quests that are at least on the way. I don’t think I took on any that required me going back and forth sometimes grabbed some side quest cargo and dropped at a closer post box to where that delivery point was, but didn’t go out of my way to deliver anything. You know, just personal time reasons. Didn’t decide to deviate too much from the main required orders for the episode and hoping to get into more. Some more side quests on in the future.

[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I was the same. I just did a few side quests. But what I like. So episode two started, basically. So it’s called Amelie. And what we find out is I believe Amelie is Sam’s sister.

[00:10:22] Speaker A: It certainly sounds like it because President Strand has been just. Bridget has been described as Sam’s mother. Amelie said mom or mother about the President as well. So I’m assuming that means they’re siblings in some form and Amelie is the new President now taking over.

I thought for a second that they were going to try to use her as a likeness of the. The President and then continue on thinking because they kept mentioning in the previous episode how important it was that nobody knew that the President died, all that kind of thing.

But yeah, I’m curious to see where that all goes because she says she’s still on the beach. I don’t get to grow older.

[00:11:03] Speaker B: That. That’s what I was about to say it. Yeah. She said, like, I’m stuck on the beach. Yeah. So she doesn’t grow older. Like there was. I think they showed, like. Yeah, it was like Sam was a kid and then now she’s older and when she sees Sam, she’s like, wow, you have grown up. Like.

[00:11:17] Speaker A: Right, right.

And it.

[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:11:19] Speaker A: And yeah. And actually in one of those flashback type scenes or even scenes that she showed to him, he was a young boy and she was already in the. In the beach. So she’s been there for a while, supposedly. And, you know, not sure I can call it a spoiler without knowing pretty much anything at all about where this Death Training one story is going. But I’ll bet we’ll hear a whole lot more about whatever the beach is. And we heard a bit in this episode, but I’m sure we’ll hear more by the end of the game because death rating 2 subtitle is on the beach.

[00:11:48] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Yeah. So we’ll definitely find out. Yeah, we’ll definitely find out more through this. What I notice also, I think Amelie, it seems like her mission is trying to connect coast to coast by connecting the waystations and everything to the Chiral network. That seems to be her.

[00:12:02] Speaker A: Exactly her main priority.

Yeah, totally agree. That’s what she keeps me to mention, how important it is to get everyone reconnected the interesting that’s interesting to me is the way that they’ve described the chiral network and the data transmission after they reconnect and continue their mission. To reconnect is so far, it just sounds to me like a sci fi version of Internet.

[00:12:28] Speaker B: I can see that. Yes. Yeah, it does kind of. It does kind of sound like that.

[00:12:33] Speaker A: There is a possibility that it doesn’t go much deeper. But I am. I mean, no, it’s a sci fi game. Got to be more interesting than that. They throw out a ton of lore vocabulary without going into much detail or anything about it. Like the demons run Edge Knot City, that they want to stay independent. They’re the ones that kidnapped Amelie. So she’s talking from there. She’s allowed to talk from there, but who knows what the demons are. I also am curious who or what are the gazers were mentioned at some point. There’s the mules.

[00:13:05] Speaker B: I was gonna say starting with this episode, One of the main things I noticed was just a good way of what I was learning was managing your cargo.

Like, you can carry the cargo on your back, your tool rack, your suit.

You can hold it if you want. I haven’t really ever held anything in my hand.

[00:13:23] Speaker A: Anything in my hands either. Because it prevents you from doing other things.

[00:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:13:29] Speaker A: Have you? But I also like maxed out your load carry capacity.

[00:13:35] Speaker B: Yes. And you go super slow.

[00:13:38] Speaker A: So slow, no matter what the terrain is. Yeah. They really prevent you from really having any desire to do that.

[00:13:45] Speaker B: I will say when I’ve carried the cargo, I usually.

When I’ve got a lot of cargo because I’m really bad at like just playing, like when it’s there, like, carry on back, carry on back. Carry on back. So I’ll like go into the start menu and go to cargo and then I’ll hit the. I think it’s like for us, triangle to auto organize. Yeah, Auto auto organize. And like. Yeah. Optimize, like the best way to put it all.

[00:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely do that as well. I would like to say that I’m the type of person that’s willing to, every time I get a new batch of cargo, sit there and manually optimize the positioning of everything. That seems like the type of thing a survival game fan would really enjoy. I’m not the type of person. I just want to keep walking.

[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah, the same here.

So start our flow. So the first. The first order that we had was a drug delivery oxytocin to a weigh station. Luckily, it wasn’t. It was not a long journey.

[00:14:42] Speaker A: You could either climb over a bit of a hill, a tall hill, or go around beachy area and then you end up. You’d end up climbing a larger hill to get up there. There weren’t a ton of BTs in the way to that one.

[00:14:57] Speaker B: No, there were not. I looked at them. If you went to the more beach area, you were going to go into BT territory. I went more the hill and I was pretty clear like my whole journey. I didn’t really.

[00:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I did go that run into route.

It wasn’t. There weren’t a ton of them. So I kind of just fell through and then found a weird path through the hill right there.

[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

And then what I liked was once we completed that order, you were now able to fabricate equipment, which was cool because now we can make ladders. PCCs, I think came out of that too. The post boxes.

[00:15:36] Speaker A: Yes. This episode in many ways felt like an ongoing tutorial that’s built into the game without calling it a tutorial because it kept giving you more and more options to do things and not in a traditional RPG style where you’re leveling up. It was more of like a.

There are so many tools available to you that we don’t want to bombard you with all of it right at the beginning.

[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was once we delivered. We delivered those drugs. I think the two. Two main orders that were for Sam were the next main story one which was to go way more west to a distribution center and then also to construct a post box, which I did end up doing actually a little later in that episode when way later when you had to come back that way, I was like, eh, I’ll just go and make the post box. Did you do it? Did you do the post box?

[00:16:29] Speaker A: I built the post box right when they told me to because the materials were right there and I just put it very close to wherever it was. And not a useful post box, but it got the job done. The interesting thing too is they give you access to the PCC which allows you to basically 3D print any of these objects that they give access to.

I kept forgetting to hit down on the D pad when I pull up a PCC in the menu, so that whenever I was trying to make the next thing in the list that they gave you access to, I kept forgetting to hit down on the D pad. So I’ve made at least three post boxes when I meant to make something else, whether that’s a bridge or a generator or something completely different. Kind of annoying myself doing That I did that too.

[00:17:16] Speaker B: I meant to build a generator, and I built a post box, and I was like, nope.

Luckily, I have, I guess, multiple on me.

So I then built a generator. So, I mean, next story one was to deliver these rare metals to a distribution center way more west of capital Knot City, quite a bit further away. And again, on your way there, it’s a bit more flat. It wasn’t too bad. It’s like a little bit up a hill and then down. But on your way there, you run into mules. And it’s the first time we meet and learn about what a mule is. And it seems like they’re basically. They were. It’s like they’re rogue porters, I guess.

[00:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So it sounds like there’s a lot of psychology, psychoanalysis mixed into the lore of this game. I don’t know if the story necessarily, but definitely the. The way that they create characters and so that they described the mules as being porters who became so obsessed with the act of delivering things, like, they didn’t want to get cut out when the drones started delivering packages, that they lost sense of themselves and ended up stealing people’s packages just to be able to deliver more packages or take them over.

[00:18:31] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, it’s strange, but okay, that makes sense. That.

So exactly why they’re called mules. That’s what they are. Pack mules. Basically.

[00:18:41] Speaker A: Pack meals. They’re pack mules that steal at the same time.

[00:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, they. Yeah, they attack you. They try and take your cargo. You gotta make sure you get away. I almost didn’t get away on the first time because I, like, I saw and I was, like, running, and then I stopped and I was like, oh, okay, he’s not gonna chase me. He was, like, chasing me more and more, and I was like, oh, oh, okay, I’m going to have to run. And I ran across the water onto the other side to give myself more room and a better getaway.

[00:19:12] Speaker A: And then the timefall starts and the BTs chase them away. Yeah, it was a very tense moment. The first time you get pinged by the mule’s Audra deck, where you see that someone else has scanned you and they’re coming after you.

[00:19:28] Speaker B: You. Yeah, it looked.

[00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I panicked a little bit and started running. Running in the other direction.

[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. It shows you it. What I do. Like, I guess when it scans it, it does show you, like, the general vicinity of where it scanned you. So you can leave that without potentially being seen to try. Yeah.

[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah, without being seen. But I think they continue to follow you for a bit. So it’s yeah, very much a cat and mouse game. Either you can run or you can go and you know, punch them I guess. But that when they’ve got three on one is. And you’ve barely done any combat at all so far by the time we meet them for the first time.

Running’s a better choice.

[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was.

[00:20:07] Speaker A: And then you go up into the hills through another section of BTS and you go through a forest.

And that, that brings me back flashbacks of Metal Gear Solid three because much of that game is in forest and jungle type tree lined territories with hills and all that. And this absolutely hit that vibe perfectly. You have to kind of scammer up a hill, down a hill, into this forest. Try not to fall. You got BTs all over the place. There’s still no way to counteract them. You’re holding your breath and the next time you release your breath, there’s already another BT on top of you. And then you finally get through and you’re. You’re meet up at the wind farm with the. The person that runs it there. And.

[00:20:51] Speaker B: I was actually gonna. You skipped ahead a little bit after the delivery of medals. I remember. You then actually have to recover the chiral printer because the place doesn’t have.

[00:21:00] Speaker A: A printer for you. That’s it.

[00:21:02] Speaker B: So no, you actually, you get the generator before we get to get the chiral printer interface and bring it back to the distribution center. Remember, it is stolen by the mules and you have to go to the mule camp.

[00:21:17] Speaker A: Yes. You have to infiltrate the mule camp. Yeah, I went through a cave.

I don’t know if you went to the same cave or went around the other way, but I went through a cave, up a hill, through a cave. And then I came out in some tall grass, which feels like the tall grass of most stealth games that have stealth as an option.

And I tried to build a watchtower there to scope it out. And I ended up building a post box and realizing how dumb that was and dismantled it. And then I snuck up the printer, looked through like the tent of the camp and then came back to go the way that I came and realized there was a mule sitting on a stool or something two steps away from the printer. I grabbed back and didn’t notice any of it.

[00:22:02] Speaker B: Lucky you. So my experience was different.

I got to the camp. I got to the camp. I built a watchtower just before the camp.

So I looked and I was able to scan and I found three mules that were there.

And so I walked in, but I got. As I walked in, I got scanned by their beacon.

I got scanned by that, and I was like, oh. So I started to run, and I started to run, like. Because I ran out of the area where they saw me, and I ran, hidden some tall grass, and one came up, and I was like, okay, I’m gonna sneak on him. Because it gave me the option of, like, when you sneak that you can pull out your strand and you can strangle them.

So I was walking up behind him to do that, and then a second one came out of nowhere, and. And I got caught. And basically, for the first two, I almost died. I had to. I beat them. I just beat them down with my fist. I attacked with fists, and I won. It took a while. I. I almost died, but I beat the first two down and then made my way through that. That cave down to find the third one. And the third one was sitting on a box or leaning against it by the post box.

And I was able to come up behind him and strangle him with a. With a strand and then get the printer, hijack or hack the. Hack the post box and get all the stuff out. Well, it was a different experience.

[00:23:27] Speaker A: Well, it was a totally opposite experience. Yeah, that’s. I don’t. I wouldn’t say that it’s stealth game experience made a difference there. I think it’s just literally the route that you take.

[00:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I tried to be stealthy, and it failed miserably, but it worked. It worked later on because there was another section, it was more stealthy. So we did that. It got the printer back. So then we built a bridge. Built a bridge and then started to do. Which was the next one, the one you talked about earlier, the power supply unit to go to the wind farm, which was. Yeah, that was a.

That was a bit trickier for me as well. My experience with it was went over the bridge was fine.

Going along, I noticed there were post boxes and some other. I always scan and see, like, the lost cargo. So I actually started putting some of the lost cargo in the other post boxes around.

And you can, like, deliver or entrust the lost cargo to other porters. So I was doing that with some of them, which was nice, because then I didn’t have to carry all the way back and forth.

It took me a little while to realize that when you scan, you scan and you can see what’s lost or what cargo’s out there or metals or resin. It actually also tells you where they’re supposed to be delivered.

[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I’ve noticed in the map menu, when I look at an order or a material in my cargo, I’ve noticed it there more than when I’m scanning it. So it shows up right underneath the item name or something.

[00:24:51] Speaker B: Mm. So then, like, I think on the way back from this, I was like, looking for ones that were going.

When I was going back to the distribution center, I was like, oh, is there any lost cargo I can take? And I can just deliver straight? Because if you deliver it instead of entrusted in a post box, you get more. You get a lot more likes. And I’m going with likes are like your xp.

[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to say that’s probably it because I think they. They didn’t explain it necessarily. Actually, there’s a huge list of tips in this pause menu that I haven’t looked at. I have 99 plus already, and I’m sure they talk about what the likes actually mean. I could probably just Google it too. But, yeah, I don’t. It seems like the XP because whenever I get a new delivery through, you know, it upgrades your porter level.

I guess. You still want likes.

There’s. There’s the media reflecting real life.

[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I will say when I’m passing signs or the bridges or whatever people have built or whatever, I’ll just click the touchpad and give the likes.

[00:25:50] Speaker A: And you have like 10 seconds to give as many likes as you want.

And so sometimes I just hammer on the trackpad just to see how far I can get just out of my own entertainment. I think my record is 50 something. It’s kind of funny.

[00:26:03] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:26:04] Speaker A: It’s almost like it’s on Mario Party minigame.

[00:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it kind of. It kind of is. I noticed also on the way there was a thing called sandal. Sandalweed, which actually you can use to create a different shoe, which literally. They’re sandals to help you what it is.

[00:26:18] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.

On the map, it has a sandal icon.

[00:26:24] Speaker B: You can create sandals to be way more quiet, but they’re not nearly as durable. I haven’t used it. I haven’t created or used them yet, but I just read it.

[00:26:33] Speaker A: I guess I’ll go.

[00:26:34] Speaker B: I actually had to. I switched my boots because one of my pairs of boots was basically dead by the end. So I switched. But on my. On my way there. Yes, we got. You get up there. You get to the forest.

And I didn’t look at the map or anything on the forest, so I went down a rope and I was like, oh, there’s a trail here on the right hand side. I went to the. If you’re just like looking at the map, I was like, okay, I’ll go to the right hand side of the forest. I went to the right hand side of the forest and that was a bad idea.

I. I ended up. I ended up getting almost killed by bts.

They ended up actually damaging my cargo a bit.

And I got chased by what looked to be like a giant oily catfish.

I just ran. I ran until I was clear and basically then at the wind farm and this was the first one. Once I got there and I delivered everything.

This was the first one that’s actually over.

No, I didn’t lose. Luckily my cargo but it didn’t get damaged. I got all the other ones. I’ve got like a awesome or S or whatever grade this one. I think I actually got a B because my cargo got not.

Not like undeliverable damage, but took a quite a big hit.

And so on my way back I was like, I am not going that way. I’m going the complete opposite direction.

[00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I’ve had a bit of the cargo damage. No, I don’t think I’ve had cargo damage. I’ve had containers that get down to 0% and I think if you fall again at that point you start damaging your cargo. And so I have avoided that like the plague. But it’s something you want to avoid obviously if you want to get your likes.

[00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:28:19] Speaker A: You’re gonna have a fun time when you finally get to Metal Gear Solid.

[00:28:21] Speaker B: Alex.

Yeah, can’t wait. Can’t wait.

[00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it’s not as scary. It’s not as scary. You have an advantage in many cases. But it’s stealth is a. I’m not bad. I like stealth.

[00:28:33] Speaker B: I do like. I’m good at stealthing.

[00:28:36] Speaker A: Usually when something that you can’t those types of games and turns into black goo that will reach out and grab you and bring you into a.

Well, apparently an exploding crater.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a good, good thing. Here have some.

[00:28:51] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:28:52] Speaker A: Tendency to avoid those things. Yeah. It’s also. I mean I’m super curious because obviously the palm prints get left all over your cargo too. Which is creepy.

[00:29:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Yeah. We did get later. I think actually it was after this delivery. After this one we get the repair spray.

[00:29:08] Speaker A: So you can actually haven’t used your.

[00:29:10] Speaker B: Cargo or the cargo boxes later on.

[00:29:15] Speaker A: And you’re able to repair the cargo itself or just the container.

[00:29:18] Speaker B: I think it might just be the container.

[00:29:21] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:29:22] Speaker B: But I mean you really have to.

Yeah, mostly like if you’re in a timefall, it’s just damaging your container, not the cargo I think as much.

[00:29:31] Speaker A: Right.

[00:29:33] Speaker B: So using the spray gets it like basically all the way back. But yeah, after we delivered. After it delivered the power supply unit. Yeah, you get the option I think now of making generators which then becomes as we spoke about earlier, very useful the generators are. Yeah, they’re. I. I built a few around to help me finish the. Finish the.

[00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I started making a handful of them towards the end because. Because of the motorcycle which is badass.

After the wind farm, this is where you don’t have an immediate required order. You just have things that you’re suggested to take from the wind farm area because no one really goes out there.

And so this is where you get into the last leg of this episode. And it, I mean I think Alex, you and I both had a similar experience. It’s.

It’s a journey. This second to last required order. You have to go back all the way to the capital city to get the order and then you have to cut across all the way back past everything you’ve already been to go up and down a mountain and then finally get into the port city and just everything in between there is so wild.

[00:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it was crazy. Yeah. Because you go all the way back. So I actually did a couple of.

[00:31:04] Speaker A: The side quests on the way back from Wind farm to the capital. I stopped at the distribution center to rest because I needed a break and.

[00:31:15] Speaker B: I did the same thing. I rest after that initial wind farm.

[00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I rested and so I picked up an order, a side quest order for the Luden’s fan. And so I found out Ludens is the.

Is the little keychain that hangs off the edge of the BB pod.

It’s also the character of the logo of Kojima Productions which is a. Basically a skeleton inside of a spacesuit. Anyway, so delivered to this prepper character that’s up a bit of a hill in a cliff and it’s played by Jeff Kiley, the Game awards presenter.

[00:31:51] Speaker B: I don’t. I didn’t do that order.

I didn’t see that.

[00:31:57] Speaker A: I mean it’s. It was interesting to see someone you somewhat or totally recognize outside of the main cast. So I’m curious if there are going to be any more surprise pop ins like that.

[00:32:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t think Jeff Keeley. I’d missed that order.

How interesting. Because I didn’t.

[00:32:15] Speaker A: I don’t remember where I got it from. I just, I just remember bringing it there and being surprised it was very much on the way from. Basically you get access to your motor trike right outside of the distribution center because you finally have the generator from the wind farm. And then you end up going back towards. I followed the river most of the way back towards the capital to get to the next order.

But I had to jump off of the trike because right up that hill was our.

Was this location.

[00:32:47] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.

[00:32:48] Speaker A: Well, so keep your eye out for random. Yeah, yeah, random proper side orders.

[00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.

[00:32:54] Speaker A: Later on the motorcycle makes a huge difference when backtracking.

And yes, I being a fan of Metroidvanias so I’m totally okay with backtracking. Usually Metroidvanias are much smaller maps and this thing is huge and you walk slow and you have to be constantly fiddling with L2 and R2. And while that’s part of the game and enjoyable, I think the motorcycle makes a huge difference and want to keep it around as much as possible. And of course I got that motorcycle charged it up at the distribution center, went towards the capital. I think my stop off with the Ludens fan was part of this problem. But basically, of course I had just enough charge to get the within throwing distance of the capital city. And then it died on me.

[00:33:40] Speaker B: Oh no.

[00:33:42] Speaker A: That’s where I had to walk the last, last little bit.

[00:33:45] Speaker B: But I built a. So I made it to the way station. I built a generator right outside the way station west of capital Knot City so then I can charge it. And then I went to capital Knot City on my way back. And then when I left capital Knot City after getting the orders for getting the aid package which was huge and heavy and a lot of stuff aid package. Which is also why I’m very happy to have the choice school. I built another charge station just outside capital Knob City for myself.

So.

[00:34:17] Speaker A: And somebody build one out. Oh, actually someone else had built one outside of capital not city. So I basically was. When I finally came, it very well could have been I found out that when you come I came back from picking the order up in the capital, came back to start walking and I walked by my trike and it had just enough charge to get to the charge station.

Charge it up and keep going.

[00:34:46] Speaker B: Nice. Oh, that’s lucky. I did also see that. I guess because your trike can get damaged in time fall.

[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I think mine exploded eventually, which makes sense.

[00:34:59] Speaker B: But what I what I saw was when I went to go when I got the cap city and I went to the private room it said and I Went and I was off. Coming off the vehicle, it said repairing vehicles. It says repairs. Because I was like in my head I was like, oh, can repair spray work? And it’s like the game knew what I was thinking and it popped up on the screen like repairing a vehicle. And it said container repair spray does not work on vehicles. I was like, damn it.

[00:35:23] Speaker A: Did you.

[00:35:25] Speaker B: What you can do is it goes.

[00:35:26] Speaker A: Into the city itself.

[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yes, I did.

[00:35:30] Speaker A: Like right up to the entrance to the.

[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah, right up to the entrance. But I guess if you drive down to the platform, it goes into a garage. If you go into your personal room, it goes into a garage where it repairs itself.

[00:35:42] Speaker A: Well, there you go. I need a generator. Every single battery which is useful for to know but gonna have a back full of PCCs only instead of orders.

[00:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, but. Yeah, but it came back before. Like I got the aid package. One thing I was going to mention, just random. Have you collected any of these like memory chips that you’ve seen around?

[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yes, I’ve gotten a couple of them and you have to turn them in at one of the computers and they bring up totally random things from our real world and they’re kind of entertaining. I think one of them that I got was Seven Samurai, which is Akira Kurosawa movie that I want to see. Have not seen yet, but obviously was a very influential on ghost. Ghost of Tsushima. Kind of cool to see it mentioned there. Obviously the world of death stranding is based on our real world just far in the future, post apocalypse.

[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I got the same one. I found that memory chip and then the other one I found was the God of War soundtrack.

[00:36:46] Speaker A: No way. I did not find that one.

[00:36:48] Speaker B: I found a memory chip and when I brought it back it said God of War 2018 soundtrack. I was like, what?

So there’s a layout Easter egg?

No, not gonna.

[00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it was probably.

[00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s just telling you about it. But again there’s a little Easter egg of just something. A complete different game, but another PlayStation game.

[00:37:10] Speaker A: I found a couple. I found one at the wind farm, right. Right near the entrance. I found a couple others that were just completely random things that I hadn’t really heard of. But I suppose I’m on the lookout for God of War and other things like that.

[00:37:25] Speaker B: Yeah, they’re. They’re intrigued. I like that. It’s just they’re random things.

So I’ll definitely. Yeah, I’ll be keeping an eye out too for more memory chips. But back to the main orders to get the A package to then Go to our next big destination, which was Port Knot City, which was quite far away. Well, I guess one of them was the equipment trial. We got a new equipment called a hematic grenade, which is basically a grenade made out of blood. Yeah.

[00:37:49] Speaker A: Did you find also. Short side note, did you find also the EX1 and EX2 grenades?

[00:37:55] Speaker B: I did, yes. So actually I think I found 0, 1 and 2.

[00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Oh, yeah. And 0. Yeah. So.

[00:38:03] Speaker B: Because I think it’s shower. Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:05] Speaker A: If you take a shower and your water becomes a grenade, because I don’t know if the scent or whatever, but when I used it on a bt basically pushed them away, it didn’t die, it just kind of dispersed and either moved on or something else. But I haven’t tried the. The one or two, which. The two versions of going to the bathroom.

But supposedly those grenades also have interesting effects on BTs. I guess we’ll have to try them because they’ve been populated in our inventory for free. But have you tried them?

[00:38:36] Speaker B: I haven’t, no. I haven’t tried any of them yet. So that’s interesting to hear about the shower one, but it’s going to be very interesting to hear about the. Let’s see what happens when we use the one and one and two grenades. Because. Yeah, I haven’t. I haven’t used them yet. I have them. I think they’re just in a private locker. I don’t even know if I have them in my. I’ll have to take them out of a private locker and throw them into my inventory to use.

But I did do the equipment trial for the hematic grenade, which was sort of a side quest where you can go. It’s like a firing range.

[00:39:06] Speaker A: I went to the firewood to try the Strand. I didn’t do it for anything else. I saw them available but didn’t try it.

I just tried it for the Matic Challenge rooms.

[00:39:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like challenge. Yeah, it’s. I don’t know if I’ll do many others. It was just to kind of get myself acquainted with it. But it was pretty simple to use. It’s just aiming.

[00:39:26] Speaker A: Uses your blood as a ammo instead of.

[00:39:30] Speaker B: When your aiming cursor’s red on a bt, just chuck it.

[00:39:33] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:39:33] Speaker B: And it’ll explode on them.

So I did that. So I did the order, which was from die Hartman, the elimination of a bt. So was it just outside, like it’s. If you’re going to the way station west, you go to the little BT area and then you take one out and you pick up the co crystals.

So I did that and then after that made my way.

Made my way to Port not City, which was long, grueling and grueling. All right. Grueling is a good word. That is a good.

[00:40:09] Speaker A: Are you a sliver of yourself now?

[00:40:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:40:14] Speaker A: Have you lost all meaning in life?

[00:40:16] Speaker B: How is. How was your experience with.

With that?

[00:40:21] Speaker A: Well, before we go into mind, I think, you know, it. It up till this point the game has been unique for sure in many ways, primarily the walking.

It drops little bits of lore here and there, which I think will. After we get through the orders, the logistics of the orders, we can jump into the story that’s going on here.

You know, it’s very unique in that you don’t have combat for a long time. You’re really sneaking and escaping and whatnot.

So basically I got to the base of the hill that you’re supposed to cross to get to the port and my trike died because I think the Timefall shuts down the electronics of the bike and you can push past it, but it just keeps stopping.

At least a couple times at the beginning you can. You can continue to drive through there, but at the, you know, at some point it’s just too many rocks to. They’re trying to make you ditch your bike. I left my bike smartly in the time fall zone instead of reversing out. So I’m pretty sure my bike is just gone. Anyway, I start. Obviously there’s BTs there. There’s BTs with most, if not all of the mountain pass. And I start walking through something that is kind of annoying to me, even though it’s very understandable because so many games do it. But the fact that you can’t save your game while in Timefall, I guess, okay, Enemy Encounter pretty standard, but it would be nice to have that option rather than having to put the PlayStation in rest mode.

Anyway, so after ditching my bike, I start hiking through the mountain, sneaking, holding breath. I get probably at least halfway through it.

And between the time fall, the rain, the fog and the BTS and just holding my breath, I got completely turned around and ended up circling back towards the beginning of the section. But through I basically just did a big reverse U or a U turn. I guess I was paying more attention to the BT location than my own custom markers on the map when I was hitting R1 to use the Audra deck. So I literally turned around and went backwards, came back up to my bike and I got a notification that the bike was heavily Damaged.

And then I looked at the map and realized I was almost back where I started.

So I turned around. I didn’t want to deal with all of the sneaking again, so I just started chucking the hematic grenades and killing off bts and finally made it to the mountain. And then, yes, the descent into the port was amazing. And the catharsis and relief of being out of that situation and finally just kind of hiking down. I also will say that hiking down that. That hill, as much as it can be for a video game, the haptic feedback of the dualsense controller is really useful here. But it did almost feel like it feels when you are hiking down a hill that’s too steep and you kind of get into a running motion rather than being able to slowly, calmly walk down.

That’s kind of cool.

How was your experience?

[00:43:31] Speaker B: My experience was similar. A bit different. I will say, slightly, as people might say, this might be cheating, but the first time I went through, I was on my bike and I made it, like, a good amount of the ways there, and I was trying to, like, just drive past BT’s, but it’s very hard to get the bike over rocks. And I got caught and grabbed by one and it completely took my trike and all my equipment and was like, throwing me around, like, in all the sludge of oil or. I’m still not sure what all that is.

I feel like it’s oil, but. Well, I’m sure we’ll find out later. But I had, like, lost all my cargo, and all my cargo was in, like, BTE in this oil sludge. And I was a little upset, so I would say what some people might call slightly cheated and went load last save and went back. Went back to the distribution center west and started over from there because that was my last save because I had saved just before going out. And as you said, you cannot save while you’re in BT territory.

[00:44:42] Speaker A: So basically, if you hit BT territory and it’s not behind you already, just walk a bit backwards, save, and then go into it, I think is the way to go. I learned that the hard way too, because the first time I started this, this mission, I left the capital city, I went to the right down the beach to go around the way that I had gone for the very first order, and ended up getting caught on my trike. The VT took the trike, and then all of my cargo ended up flying.

Didn’t want to deal with picking it up. And then I was like, okay, I’m just gonna restart and jump back From a few minutes ago and now I was back in the city and I had to recharge my bike. That whole thing I told you about recharging my bike, I did it twice because I had to go back from there. And so I ended up going left over the bridges by the distribution center and up the hill from there instead.

[00:45:30] Speaker B: Okay, that’s. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. But. Yeah, but then. So as I said, I reloaded it and I started going back towards the hill. And before I got fully to the BT area, I didn’t say, I still didn’t save it. Some reason it crossed my. But I went to my map. I like zoomed in as much as I could and I kind of made a route that I could go and I.

That looked clear of rocks. So I started going on my trike and I was going well. And when a bt, my thing was going off, my scanner was going off. I’d get off the bike, I’d grab a grenade and take out the one or two BTs that were there and then jump on the bike and continue on. And I kept doing that until I was literally almost scot free. And on the last bt, I drove a little too quick up to it and didn’t get off in time.

I got off my bike, but the BT had already like his hand had like touched me or the bike and it started to become more oily and started to try and drag me. But I was able to run and get out of it. Luckily. Didn’t lose any cargo, didn’t get damaged, run out of it and I just ran. And I was like, bye trike. I was like, no, I’ve lost it. I’m like, I hope I can make another one.

[00:46:46] Speaker A: I really hope that like you’re very attached to your trike. I get it. Because it’s so much easier to get around.

[00:46:54] Speaker B: Makes it so much easier.

[00:46:56] Speaker A: I do think there’s going to be, you know, considering that you have the PCC, I feel like you can probably 3D print one at some point if you. Unless they just keep giving you one in the place that they think you should have one.

I mean, you had one also. You start. You. Well, you don’t actually get to use it, but the first cutscene of the game you see him racing around on a trike, so I assume there’s going to be at least some more.

[00:47:21] Speaker B: Also.

I thought you could put your cargo on the bike, but I was not able to. All my cargo was, you can.

[00:47:28] Speaker A: I was all.

And if you stand, if you’re not on the trike and you’re near it, you can adjust, you can select items in your cargo and then when you say send it back, send to tool belt, send to hand, you can send it to the bike and you can carry a lot on the bike. Actually, that first time I lost the bike and restarted, I actually had a bunch of the primary orders on the bike and I, that, that, that was the reason why I decided to restart because there was no way to fight back against the BTS at that point.

[00:48:03] Speaker B: No. So, okay, I’m kind of glad then on this one that I did not have anything that hadn’t figured that out yet because, yeah, I would have lost, I would have lost like the primary stuff. But I did get out of it, luckily, again with all my cargo and nothing really damaged. And as you said, made my way that incredible, lovely, soothing descent down to Port Knot City to deliver everything.

[00:48:28] Speaker A: And, and well, that was one hell of an ending to an episode. But let’s, let’s rewind a little bit and talk some of the story here before we get into that last order.

So I think there’s a bunch of things, I think story wise, that came to me as, you know, revealing things, revealing bits and pieces. It seems like at the very, at the very beginning of this episode when Amelie’s trying to convince him to join them and everything, he’s very against joining his old crew and rebuilding the country. He’s super adamant about getting his BB back and he eventually does insert the Chili’s Baby back rib song here. But, you know, it was interesting to see him just kind of quickly change his mind. And obviously it’s all about Amelie and who we presume is his sister, but, you know, curious why or how it all plays out. I think they definitely show you some things here, but I think really we’re going to learn a lot more as we continue into episode three.

[00:49:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I totally. Yeah, we’re going to learn. I will. As I said, I’m hoping, and I’m sure we will with Kojima a lot more here in episode three, because it seems that Episode three of the game is a main. A good chunk of the story.

[00:49:36] Speaker A: The interesting thing too is that the episodes are all so far titled after a single character.

I’m sure there will be some significance to that decision besides just the fact that you interact with that character more in that particular episode. But everything is just a curiosity at this point. You know, there’s also. So Mads Mikkelsen’s character is your BB’s dad in his words at least. Not sure if it’s actual biological father, but that has to come into play at some point. Probably him trying to recover your baby from you.

[00:50:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I would assume so.

[00:50:10] Speaker A: And also then yeah, it’s a very odd still mother. I think they call it still mother. I think it’s his wife concept. That’s how they communicate with the other side.

[00:50:23] Speaker B: Huh.

[00:50:26] Speaker A: But. So he seems to be a fairly normal guy in the flashbacks that you get through your BB plugin. I just gonna venture a guess that he’s not going to be so normal when we meet him.

[00:50:37] Speaker B: No, I don’t think so. I think there’s. Yeah, I think there’s definitely more to his story that we’ll find out.

[00:50:42] Speaker A: I think a couple other things too. It sounds like the characters don’t know what happened during the death stranding either. They similar to us are finding out. It’s them finding out as part of the reason they want to set up the knots and the full chiral network to begin with. It’s not like they have knowledge that you don’t. And everyone’s. It’s almost. I mean it reminds me a bit of horizon zero dawn. Obviously it’s not so far future where they’re absolutely clueless, but there was a past civilization here that they know existed. They just don’t. And. And some of them actually were even part of it. They were part of the apocalypse. So it’s more recent. But no one really understands the death stranding. No one understands the beach. I don’t know if you listen to any of the interview files, but it sounds like everyone has a beach. So there are individual beaches. It’s some form of subconscious something and Yeah, I just don’t. I don’t know where that all leads.

[00:51:44] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I’m gonna have it now. I haven’t listened to any of the interview files. I’m gonna have to go back and listen to this.

[00:51:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And so you know it’s. It’s not. I wouldn’t say it’s not as cryptic as a souls. Like as an item in a Dark Souls game where you have to read the item description to reveal either puzzle pieces or lore pieces. But it is still similar to a Dark Souls cryptic piece of information because you can definitely in Death Stranding Ms. Interesting lore details. If you don’t listen to the briefings or read the briefings or the interviews in the order screens too. So the interviews have some interesting information.

The actual orders. If you hit the right side of the trackpad on PlayStation, it’ll give you that briefing. And some of the main ones have the briefing from Die Hard man. So far, most of them. But some of the other ones, they go into a bit more detail than they say when they first talk to you.

[00:52:36] Speaker B: Okay. I think I’ve looked at a couple, but not. Yeah, I’m gonna look at them now more for each of the orders to really start to understand all that more.

Get more.

[00:52:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you know me just reading. Reading all the things in the menus before playing.

Anytime a new one pops up, you drop what you’re doing. And not sure if it’s just this episode or all of them, but it sounded like you won’t be back to the first area again anytime soon. Since Die Hardman said to finish deliveries before crossing the lake. That’s before going through that mountain of bts. So if you love side quests or are a completionist, it might be good to knock some of the side quests out as soon as you get them. At the same time, right before the end of the episode, Mama gets on a call with you and seem to say that you could come back to do the things later. So I don’t know if there’s going to be a fast travel system eventually or things unwind.

A post game access to all the areas. I’m curious.

[00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. He said that and I was kind of like, okay, I think I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do.

I’m not gonna go pick up anymore.

[00:53:42] Speaker A: Really?

[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ll see too.

[00:53:45] Speaker A: A couple other things that. Just random things here. So when I was just exploring the menus of the private room, you know, after you get the ability to look at everything. I checked the music menu and had forgotten that one of the trailers for Death Stranding before it released had this awesome song by a band called Apocalyptica who is a group I discovered back in college. They had just started back then and had an album of Metallica covers that they played on four cellos.

And then they started releasing their own music that combined heavy metal with cello music. I still really dig it. And especially here, the contrast with the other Death Stranding tracks that are much more mellow and mellon melancholic.

Yeah, it’s there. There’s a certain vibe to this game and. And the music definitely plays a big part in that.

[00:54:33] Speaker B: Haven’t listened to them. I have. I should look at the menu and check out the other music because let’s see what else is.

Does it. Does it give you all the music throughout the whole game or just what you’ve got so far.

[00:54:44] Speaker A: I think actually I did at some point realize I saw a track had unlocked. So I don’t know which ones you start out with. That’s. That’s one that was already there by default in the music list. But I did end up actually, I think after walking down the hill. Right.

[00:54:58] Speaker B: Walking down the hill.

[00:55:00] Speaker A: There’s a song that plays in that moment and I think that song unlocked in the music menu after you hear it in that moment. So there’s probably some that are story specific that become available in the music menu after that. Great song.

[00:55:13] Speaker B: After the game. Okay. When we get to those points in the game. Okay.

[00:55:16] Speaker A: The other thing too that I noticed was that there was an ad, an actual in game ad for a Norman Reedus docu series that’s on AMC with the AMC logo. Product placement.

Yes, there was actually. That was in the shower door when it came time.

[00:55:31] Speaker B: That was in the shower door.

It was in the shower. I noticed that too.

[00:55:34] Speaker A: So that kind of gave me a bit of a chuckle. I know the original release of Death Stranding had the monster energy drinks as the energy drinks you consume to regenerate stamina or pump up your stamina. But they’ve been replaced in the director’s cut with some kind of in universe branding. I think probably because of something ran out. So there’s. There must be more product placement in here. Just so odd to see a real world, you know, TV show showing up here.

At least it’s relevant to someone that’s in the. In the game itself.

[00:56:06] Speaker B: It’s funny because it’s like, it’s Norman Reed. This is like, it’s his show with Norman Reed is blah, blah, blah. But why does that guy. For just saying, for like random people who like don’t know. It’s like, well, what is that guy? Why is he called Norman Reedus but in here he’s called Sam? What?

[00:56:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Why is this. Why is this Sam guy? Does he have a double identity?

[00:56:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:26] Speaker A: There’s a lot of little interesting tidbits in this. In this one, that’s for sure.

[00:56:30] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:56:31] Speaker A: Also at this sort of early stage of the game, in episode two, I, and especially before we got the hematic grenades, I was wondering, you know, there’s no way to fight back against bts.

There’s ways to stealth around them. You can hold your breath.

But I kept asking myself, is, is there any point or advantage to really go through the BT territory in the open world aside from just your own adrenaline? Like, if you’re an adrenaline junkie go to the BT territory. Why not just go around? And there were opportunities for that. Obviously they force you down that path at some points, but I’m getting the feeling that. Yes. Okay. Interesting choice in a game to have a grenade be the first weapon option you have.

I’m sure we’ll pick up some guns or something else. Something coming.

[00:57:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like later on you’re probably gonna.

Probably gun with like blood bullets or something like that. You would assume it’s probably coming later that you can use to.

[00:57:26] Speaker A: Oh, are we playing bloodborne now?

To take out blood bullets is part of the list.

[00:57:32] Speaker B: Are they?

[00:57:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean there’s gotta be ways to use.

It’s got to be guns. And it’s kind of. If you have a grenade, you have a gun. That’s.

We’ll see where it ends up.

[00:57:43] Speaker B: I’m sure those are coming later on.

[00:57:47] Speaker A: So otherwise.

Yeah, let’s. Let’s go into that ending of the episode and did it catch you by surprise? Did it catch you off guard to walk two steps out of the underground and then be jumped by Higgs? The introduction of Higgs played by Troy.

[00:58:05] Speaker B: Baker and what I will say, what an introduction.

[00:58:09] Speaker A: What an introduction. You know, he clearly used to be something like you. He has a deep connection to the death side of things. He can summon and control BTs, including the puddles and yes. The giant monsters that are the bosses. Honestly, I was wondering if this was the type of game that would have bosses to begin with and. Oh yeah, it does.

[00:58:30] Speaker B: Thinking. I was thinking the same exact thing I was curious on. Like are we going to have bosses or is it just going to be like larger scale, just BT fights like just other like the smaller BTs or.

[00:58:42] Speaker A: Just larger scale stealth sections and things like that. That’s sort of where I thought it was going. Clearly not. And your only weapon against it is the hematic grenade and. And at least it makes it very clear that that’s the weapon you have because that there’s a bunch of them lying around in the giant sea of black. But parkouring around buildings and not getting sucked in was an adventure.

[00:59:06] Speaker B: It was an adventure. Yeah. Luckily they do give you quite a lot of grenades. It actually I will say by the end of it it actually wasn’t as bad. It was a good first boss battle. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might have been.

I did pretty well make it parkouring.

[00:59:23] Speaker A: And jumping around more. Much more daunting than it actually is, which is a good thing. I think this. It’s a Little too early to just be crushing you, but unless it’s. You’re playing a Souls like. And this is not one of those. But it was, you know, it was well presented. I think it visually very striking. The whole scene went.

[00:59:40] Speaker B: It’s a giant Oct. Is it a giant octopus? I think.

[00:59:44] Speaker A: This is the closest. It’s the Kraken.

[00:59:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, Kraken. Yeah. I guess, yeah.

[00:59:50] Speaker A: It was funny though, that his character Higgs ended up. It looked like he.

It almost looked like Spider man shooting the webs out of his wrists, grabs onto them like they’re reins to a horse, and then pulled the monster out of the muck. It was.

[01:00:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it was a. It was a. It was a good introduction.

[01:00:11] Speaker A: The question that comes up is, is he the final boss or is it somebody else of the whole game?

[01:00:17] Speaker B: That is. Yeah, that’s. That’s gonna be a fun question. Clearly later.

[01:00:23] Speaker A: Fragile has some history with him. And we’re about to learn a whole lot more about Fragile in episode three.

[01:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think she’s gonna have quite a unique and interesting backstory. I’m excited to see where that goes with her.

[01:00:37] Speaker A: Other thing that came to mind. Did you actually watch the scene following where they crossed the lake? It’s technically the beginning of episode three, but there was. There was no way to save and quit at that point. So I watched it.

[01:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah. There was no way to say I watched all the way up to literally until you just get off and then it gives you where you can play and it’s episode three. And then I saved.

Right. But yeah, I watched the whole.

[01:00:57] Speaker A: I gotta say, that is one giant lake.

If you need that kind of barge to go overnight. I guess they must be based on one of the Great Lakes in Michigan, because I know that they. Those have full tides and everything, but. Wow. He was able to get in a deep nap with flashbacks.

[01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he was.

It was a long journey, it seemed like, for them, but. Well, yeah, or so would have. But I was in that. In that flashback too. You said Fragile and Higgs have a history. I think she mentions that they used to work together, I think is what it was.

[01:01:33] Speaker A: Or like mercenaries, contractors or contracting.

[01:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[01:01:38] Speaker A: Not sure they’ll. They’ll tell us more about that.

[01:01:41] Speaker B: It was. It was a good ending to episode two. It was fun. It was awesome to get it stepped up this.

[01:01:47] Speaker A: The offensive scale by quite a lot.

[01:01:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. It was a great introduction to Higgs and Troy Baker’s Higgs. I mean, the guy. You can see why he’s one of the top voice actors. The guy throws it out of the park every time. Just watching Higgs and his mannerisms, everything is in sync and it’s an interesting character. It’s going to be fun to see. And now we move on to episode three, titled Fragile.

[01:02:12] Speaker A: I’d say overall, episode two was a good way to figure out how the world works, how to. How the game works, and it has me very much intrigued for what comes next. I think it’s been a good experience, so I’m ready to jump on.

[01:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I really enjoyed episode two. I found myself until. Until the part going to Court, not city.

I enjoy myself. I was, like, actually talking to myself and like, okay, I’m actually, I’m enjoying this. This is actually quite fun. I’m enjoying now figuring more out here, what’s going on, what exactly to do with the cargo, what to do with, like, mules and how to use this and how to use all this stuff. Okay, now I’m starting to understand this more and I’m starting to have fun with this.

[01:02:56] Speaker A: So I’m certainly ready to jump right into the next next bit after we’re done here.

[01:03:00] Speaker B: I’m definitely excited to start the next episode, which is definitely going to be a longer one.

[01:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So episode three of Death’s training appears to be significantly longer than one and two. There were seven required orders in episode two, and there are 15 in episode three. Due to the time requirements of that being quite large, we’re going to split up episode three into two episodes of this podcast. Let’s aim to complete nine required orders by next week. They appear to be on the shorter side, and we’ll follow that up with the remaining required orders to wrap up episode three next week. The specific required orders that you should focus on this week are numbers 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, and 28. So that’s 18 through 24, 27 and 28. We’ll be continuing with order 30 next week and let you know which six specific orders are required at that time.

[01:03:50] Speaker B: I’m excited to start episode three. Here seems to be the more substantial part of the story.

Excited to see where it takes us.

[01:03:58] Speaker A: Time to see what’s on the other side of the lake.

[01:04:01] Speaker B: Yep, see what’s on the other side of the lake.

[01:04:05] Speaker A: All right, catch you next time.

[01:04:07] Speaker B: If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of Death Stranding and any future games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice. Spotify, Apple, podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram under the same name. Thanks.