Favorite Sci-Fi Games

Greetings, my fellow space travelers through

space, time, and wherever else you find yourself

in this particular dimension of this particular

universe. I am your captain, Mike the Birdman.

That's right, I promoted myself. Deal with it.

I've earned it more than likely. Anyway, I am

here on the collaboration show between the GeekCast

Radio Network and ThisWeekendGeek .net. This

is a future imperfect show where we not only

talk about Star Trek, we also take a look at

other topics and interests in the sci -fi realm

genre. It could be movies, could be television,

could be video games, which we're going to be

talking about this evening. And though, as I

am rambling on here as your main host this evening,

I am not alone on the deck of the ship. joined

from the GeekCast radio network. Steve Megatron

Phillips, also captain admiral of the USS Future

Imperfect. Well, I'd say you're more the fleet

admiral. I'll captain this thing tonight. And

we are joined by our good friend, contributor,

and technically host with us at ThisWeekInGeek

.net's new show, Loose Cannon, a celebration

of B -movie horribleness, or amazingness, depending

on how you want to look at it, Aaron Paulier.

Hi everybody, how's it going? I'm awesome. I'm

actually in a really really really good mood

This is probably this is the first collaboration

show I've done in over a month I just came back

from vacation on twig, which if you've been listening

to the website this week We had our first show

back Steve. What is the show going live? Tuesday

Okay, so if you're listening to this on Tuesday,

I have just interviewed Doug Naylor, who is the

writer, creator, director of Red Dwarf, The Promised

Land, also was the co -creator of the original

series back in 1989. I loved Red Dwarf. I loved

that show. My God, I saw the movie and I fell

in love with it. So I may go back and rewatch

the 12 series preceding it. So I'm really, really,

really excited, but That is not what we're going

to be talking about tonight. As I mentioned,

we're talking video games. So it was suggested

in our little Facebook chat, our little own corner

of the subspace communication network or the

hyper pulse generators. If you want to put it

that way, we're going to be talking about some

of our favorite sci -fi video games. We're going

to be trying to steer away from more kind of

mainstream things. I say that as two of my things

are AAA game titles, but I'm looking at them,

not just from a gameplay. perspective, talking

about the deep lore associated with them. So

with that in mind, just to give you guys a chance

to kind of gather your thoughts, I will go first

with my first pick and then we'll each go around

the table. Each of us picks one and then we'll

come back and swing back around to me. So you

have a rough idea on how this is going to work

tonight. So the first one that I'm going to talk

about is a upcoming title, but the series has

been running since about 2001 on the original

Xbox. And I'm talking about Halo. combat evolved,

but more specifically the Halo franchise as a

whole. This has run across multiple instances

of hardware from the original Xbox to the Xbox

360 to the Xbox one to the upcoming Xbox series

X with Halo infinite with the Xbox lot or with

the Xbox showcase happening just a few weeks

ago where we saw the first campaign gameplay.

for Halo Infinite. It's something for a lot of

gamers to get excited about. And with the announcement

of multiplayer being free to everybody who owns

a Xbox, the world is indeed being able to play

together. And there's even talk. Actually, I

think it was confirmed that there's going to

be cross play between console players and PC

players. So truly, it is a hybrid world of players

all being connected as Spartans or elites. So

good times had by all. But... Halo is so much

more than multiplayer. Halo has a tremendously

interesting story, the story of Spartan 117,

Sierra 117, John, who was taken as a child from

a colony and augmented by Dr. Catherine Halsey

into the cybernetic super soldier who pretty

much saved the human race from extinction from

a alien collection of races known as the Covenant,

run by, I forget what their names are, but The

Prophet of Truth, Regret, and I think there was

another one, if I remember right. But basically...

They had worshipped these things out in outer

space, known as halos. They had regarded them

as holy relics, but turns out they were an alien

super weapon created to destroy something known

as the Flood, a parasitic life form that pretty

much touches you, infects you, and well, this

will be my one swear for the episode, you're

effectively fucked. You get turned into some

weird bio creature and it's pretty much game

over. They would later antagonists such as the

grave mind which would be a collection of flood

which eventually becomes so intelligent that

it would rival artificial intelligences left

behind on the halo rings and it's pretty much

a bad thing when a grave mine shows up they want

to destroy and consume all life in the galaxy

and the halo rings were designed to deprive the

halo or to deprive the flood of their food which

is all sentient life so not a good time for anybody

involved in general um but as the halo series

would go on the fight would continue across halo

one combat evolved halo two halo three Halo ODST,

which was a spin -off game where you played a

orbital drop shock trooper during the invasion

of New Mombasa on Earth. And you were playing

a human. You literally weren't as tough as a

Spartan. You had the same weapons, but you couldn't

do all the cool things they did. And it's frankly,

probably my favorite game in the series. And

I know that's not a popular opinion to have because

people want to play Spartans. And it was a really

short game, but it was a lot of fun. We then

had Halo Reach, where we had the prequel, which

was the fall of Reach, and Reach was a planet.

where the Covenant really put the screws to humanity

and a lot of terrible things happened, pardon

me, and a lot of people got wiped out, including

Noble Team, which was a team of Spartans who

were tasked with getting people off the planet,

trying to do what they could to save reach. But

eventually the Covenant started glassing the

planet where they would launch huge orbitable,

I can't say that word, Strikes from space and

a lot of people died. However, the one ship from

the UNSC was able to escape, and that was the

Pillar of Autumn, where the Master Chief slept

and he was the last surviving Spartan outside

of June, who is one of the surviving members

of Noble Team. The lore kept evolving as the

series got more and more popular, as these big

franchises often do. Then we had Halo 4, which

introduced a new enemy. Actually, no, there was

Halo 3. Halo 3, we killed the Covenant, more

or less. There was a big... I can't remember

whether there was like a truce, but either way,

we finished the fight and everybody thought the

Halo series was going to be over. Halo 4 came

around. The Master Chief is still very much alive.

He's floating out in space with his AI partner

Cortana. They discover something called the Shield

World, which is run by the Forerunners, the guys

who created the Halo rings, and more hilarity

ensues. Turns out humanity has been around a

lot longer than people realize. Going back...

like millions and millions of years. We've been

in space before. We've actually been knocked

back in our evolution. Now, I'm getting a lot

of this knowledge from an IGN video that I saw,

because there's a lot of stuff in the Halo novels

and comics I just didn't know about till like

a few weeks ago. And it was an OK game, actually,

probably my favorite multiplayer in the series.

Storyline wise, it has a really, really, really

touching moment where Cortana dies, she's going

through something known as AI rampancy, where

in the Halo universe, when they create the AIs,

after the AIs run for so long, they build up

all these memories, they start building up building

up personalities, they're essentially alive.

However, being alive comes with with a consequence.

They start unraveling, they go through something

called rampancy, and that means they effectively

die. So Cortana sacrifices herself to save the

Master Chief, and they have this really, really,

really touching moment, and you think it's the

end of Cortana. Not gonna lie, got a little kind

of tear -jerky when that happened. And then we

got Halo 5 Guardians on the Xbox One, and that

was a game. Basically... I don't even remember

a lot of what happened in Halo 5. I remember

this though. I remember how mad it made me because

Cortana at the end of the game, if you haven't

played it by now, Cortana turns into a bad guy

because she takes over like forerunner technology

and thinks she can take care of the universe

better than we can. So it doesn't end well for

a lot of us and AI starts to rise up. There are

some other games I haven't talked about there

is Halo Wars Which I only really played the first

one and not for very long And the story just

kind of goes from there. Halo has a tremendous

history in novels in comic books. There are tons

of toys But the thing that Halo will almost always

be universally known for is the multiplayer and

the multiplayer has been one of those things

that built Xbox Live. It's arguably the most

popular game on Xbox Live, especially with Halo

2. I met a number of interesting characters on

there over the years. Halo 3 would have a fairly

popular multiplayer, the multiplayer beta for

Reach. was remarkably popular and each alliteration

of the game has always had a really popular multiplayer

suite and it really kind of set the standard

for what console a multiplayer could be because

we did have golden eye in the, in the late 1990s

on the end. I love that game. Yeah. And that

game was fantastic. And that set the bar for

what console FPS could be. And then halo and

bungee said, okay. We can do better and they

did and that really forced other companies to

step up because we'd eventually get the Call

of Duty franchise We get Medal of Honor and all

the other countless FPS is over the years, but

it's halo that redefined multiplayer you look

at Organizations such as major league gaming

MLG and now you look at the Cod World League

Which is expanded out and eSports has never been

bigger. So I think in terms terms of a video

game franchise lures tremendously deep. It's

interesting, but from a video game standpoint,

halo really created something wonderful and long

lasting from something that should have been

a forgettable sci -fi shooter, but it took itself

seriously enough. The voice talent of Steve Downs

as the master chief being so iconic. created

a character that was memorable, likable, funny,

and never overstayed as well. And you never saw

his face throughout the entire franchise. You've

seen the back of his head, but you've never seen

117's face. So what do you guys think about the

Halo franchise? I can probably start. I've never

played it. I've never played a single one. I'll

admit. Ever played a single one I I don't know

anything about the plot or the world beyond that.

There's some kind of big megastructures involved

in it Yeah, that's it I know it's a game So I

have had the fortune of playing all three games

And they even had it for because I don't have

that Xbox 360 anymore that had the games But

I did end up getting I think Mass Effect 2 that

was for free on Origin A while back and kind

of replaying it. I will say that the gameplay

throughout this series does definitely get better

But so does the story and I love the aspect that

Yes, it's technically a shooter, but it's also

It kind of creates this universe That you can

kind of build on the previous ones. And that's

something that's not even done in anything really.

And to be honest, I really enjoyed how it played

in the storylines. Yeah, I mean, like Halo, if

it's done anything right, it does a lot of world

building. And as the series has gone on, you

do get a lot of little things filled in, like

there are... terminals, you can find there are

little bits of expanded Lord is listening to

the radio chatter between Cortana and the Master

Chief and you understand it. And I remember this

specifically, you used to get instruction manuals

with these games. And they would explain the

different races within the covenant that explain

how the grunts were called the you go or something

like that. And how they were a race that was

basically made to be subservient to the covenant.

But they were like brainwashed into being mindless

foot soldiers, which is why they're willing to

like sue it. side bomb, yeah. What's funny about

the series, though, is it kind of reminds me

of Unreal Tournament, but it's got a story, which

Unreal Tournament didn't have until the third

one anyway. But it's got a story, but also it's

just it feels very natural and familiar. Yeah,

I mean, Halo is one of those franchises, at least

the first three to four games is really, really

accessible. Basically the Master Chief trilogy,

in my opinion, one, two, three, and to an extent,

ODST are very accessible to an audience. A new

player could jump on at Halo Reach and then play

the series straight through. The series gets

a little convoluted when you get through four

or five and now infinite because now they're

trying to stretch it out because they're like,

Oh my God, guys, we've got a cash cow here. Shut

up Siri. I'm sorry. I'm actually gonna shut off

my phone because it's being an asshole Anyway

My phone's telling me off it just said really

anyway, um that aside Yeah, like halo as the

series went on it got a little less inviting

to new players. And that's something that I really,

really, really didn't like. But Steve, you're

absolutely right. With the first couple of games,

it allowed people to kind of get into it, allowed

people to access the circus, even at the, at

the beginning of halo two, you're back on earth.

You're just about to get a commendation for the

events that happened in halo two. And then, Hey,

the covenant have showed up and bad things happen.

And you get these awesome missions happening

on earth, or you're driving a warthog through,

through the streets, fighting a scarab. And then

you randomly, randomly gets transported to a

new halo ring or halo three. Um, at the end of

halo two, you like launch yourself back at earth.

And you're like, what are you trying to do, sir?

Finishing this fight. And then the game ends,

which true story. When I played halo two back

in the mid 2000 something, I remember at the

time I went to Walmart. bought the game really

really early in the morning and I played through

it in the entire in one entire day and I get

to the final mission I fight Tartarus who's that

giant brute guy the big guy with the hammer and

the Master Chief gets aboard that spaceship and

he's talking to Ron Perlman or Mr. Krabs I think

I'm pretty sure that's Mr. Krabs from Spongebob

and no that's Clancy Brown sorry I got that whatever

um and he's talking to this general guy and he's

like chief what are you doing and he says finishing

this fight i'm thinking all right there's gonna

be one more level i'm gonna kick the shit out

of the covenant then the game rolls credits i

screamed because i was like you've got to be

kidding me and there aren't too many video game

franchises that have left me wanting more and

i can think of just one other video game franchise

and that'll be my next choice But I'm not going

to tell you what that is right now. In fact,

I'm going to throw things over to Steve from

GeekCast Radio. And we're going to hear his suggestion

for one of the best sci -fi games, be it gameplay

or lore. So I alluded to Unreal Tournament prior

to all that. So what is interesting about that

series is it's actually one of the first I played

after the Doom and Duke Nukem era. And I was

not entirely sure if I was going to like it or

not. And basically, the first game is an FPS

pretty much all the way. There's really no...

I mean, yeah, you have some kind of characteristics

and kind of character types, but... And there

is a plot, but there's not much of it in that

game, at least as far as I can remember. I mean,

there there's two human. There's a human race.

There's the Scars war, which they created these

responders. So basically they could do these

death match tournaments and determine who's better.

And so the Liandry Mining Corporation would they

had these responders so they could basically

bring people back. from the dead. Basically,

it's like it's like if you mixed like an almost

celebrity death match with like Mutant League

with some other, you know, like first person

shooter and it's it's kind of that. So, yeah,

they had this grand tournament. So anyways, the

first game, there's not much in the way of anything

aside from having multiple game modes, like Assault,

Capture the Flag, Deathmatch, Last Man Standing

Team Deathmatch, you know, your typical first

-person shooter games. But Unreal Tournament

2004, which, funny enough, I picked up at a KB

Toys for $10, which this dates it, considering

both are not around anymore. It kind of picks

it up, and it's supposed to be the 10th year.

And Malcolm, this older team of Thunder Crash,

which is supposedly from the first game. Is kind

of the the ones that you're fighting on the team

of and They have all these weird envisioned maps

some of them are very Almost flesh like and you

have creatures that are almost borderline space

orcs But there's you can fly vehicles you can

I mean basically everything you can do in In

halo you can do in this But it's kind of taking

that, and you get to play it all online. You

can do the offline, but you can play it online

as well. And I think even to today, you can still

play it online somewhere. I played it probably

four years ago, and that was putting it a little

over 10 years since it came out. And then they

had a couple of other evolutions of it. But Unreal

Tournament 3 is where the game really kind of

got into it. actual voice acting involved. You

had more of a stylistic change to it, more of

the CG, more of the realism. It's kind of known

for all of its gore and the words, you know,

like headshot or things like that. But it has

a lot of different game modes. It's... This particular

one, you're dealing with the original Unreal

Tournament people who survived the Scourge attack

on the human colonies. And they're dealing with

a new race called the Necris. And they're basically

like the undead. And they have this biological

process that they replace things with nanoblack,

which basically infects the dead. And they become

part of the the other team and It's it's just

it's actually pretty wild in the storyline you

play as a character Called Reaper Who's basically

Taken down at the very beginning of the game

and he's revived and then he's he's on this basically

vendetta to destroy destroy them and you come

to find out at the end that Malcolm the guy who

is the the ultimate tournament guy from the very

beginning of the series Rided them out to the

Necris And then the game ends with like your

team completely dying which is kind of a wacky

cop -out you can considering they never came

out with another game for it until just a few

years ago where Unreal Tournament rebooted and

it's basically a free -to -play And it says pre

-alpha and they basically upgraded all the visuals

all the storylines all everything And It's more

of just a first -person shooter now, it's not

even really a storyline per se But yeah, it's

it's still one of my favorite series. Although

the newest one is so fast -paced it makes any

of the current FPS's look Lame by comparison

with how quickly you have to move in that game.

It like it kills your adrenaline. One of the

things I've always associated with the unreal

brand. When I was living in my apartment in my

old hometown, we used to have LAN parties to

play Unreal Tournament. I don't remember which

version it was, but I remember setting up network

switches to play this. And I've always associated

the Unreal Tournament series with PC, keyboard,

and mouse. So that's a big strike against it

for me. I hate PC -ing. Don't at me. Funny, you

should say that when I I actually purchased a

Xbox 360 controller years ago, like right as

soon as it came out, one of the aftermarket ones

plugged it in and I was able to play the game

with that. And so as soon as I realized that,

because I was I was really good with keyboard

and mouse on the game, like really good, insanely

like I could headshot people and didn't even

without a second thought. But. When I hooked

up the controller because I've been playing because

I bought the game again The series on my 360

and I was playing on that and on the PC So I

got pretty well almost ambidextrous with either

keyboard and mouse or the the gamepad Controller

and so I ended up switching completely to the

controller after that and it's kind of the same

thing when I play modern FPS is like the battlefield

series I can play it on keyboard and mouse, but

my capability of turning and moving is so much

better when I use a controller over using the

keyboard and mouse. Same here. I cannot play

an FPS on a keyboard and mouse to save my life,

yet you put me in a controller. I'm not saying

I can hang with the big boys, but I played COD

last night and went 30 and 6, so I don't think

I suck. Better than me on whenever I play those

kinds of games. I probably take this. the whole

shooting thing, probably a little too seriously.

It's probably not healthy. Um, I just like blowing

up buildings. So that's, that's my favorite thing

to do. One of the things I've, I've always appreciated

about the unreal tournament series as it always

seemed to push its levels of ridiculousness.

I think it was Unreal Tournament 2003. I remember

their maps being very, very open. And I remember

their guns and their gravity being very, very

unique among shooters at the time. The only other

thing I could think of remarkably similar might

have been Quake, maybe. They kind of came out

around the same time. Quake and the original

Unreal Tournament. But after the first Unreal

Tournament, it went from this darkish game to

more of a more vibrantly colored series, at least

until it went to Unreal Tournament 3, and then

it got super dark again. It's still vibrant colors,

but it's not as brightly colored as like 2004

was. Yeah, like Unreal Tournament has a certain...

art direction and um aesthetic to it that I always

associate it with early 2000s PC gaming and I

think that's kind of its charm although I didn't

know there were story -based pieces to it until

you told me about it. Like that's how much it

stuck with me. Like to me, Unreal Tournament

was the land game you played with your friends.

Like I had many, many pizza parties at my house

where we'd stay up till like three, four in the

morning and just play Unreal Tournament, Quake

and Rainbow Six. But Unreal was the fast paced

game. I mean, some of us played Counterstrike,

sure. But Unreal was that goofy weapons, goofy

physics, ridiculousness. It was, it was crazy.

Yeah. And that's what made the series really,

really, really, really charming. It wasn't like

Half -Life, which Half -Life you could mod the

shit out of and do things to. But Unreal Tournament

embraced its different origins at first, I think.

Kind of looking at it. It totally did, and I

actually used to have so many add -ons for the

game where I could change literally almost any

aspect of the game. I think I have it backed

up on some hard drive somewhere, but I used to

reskin the characters. I think I ran around as

Optimus Prime or Megatron 90 % of the time. And

there was a ton you could do with it. I made

it so that you could have jetpacks like you didn't

even need to grab the flying vehicle. And that

was awesome. It was also a detriment because

if you played the game with somebody that had

that, oh, you can get sniped in the air. So I

guess I don't know any other further thoughts

on the unreal franchise guys. Nope. Alright,

so I guess kind of moving right along we've kind

of stuck with FPS and shooters and I know Aaron

because he Aaron is the Renaissance man and more

educated than me or Steve What do you got for

us? Well, I I'm gonna go with a video game that

was probably the first video game and outside

of an arcade that I played and It's stuck with

me all these years and that's star flight It

was a It was a PC game that was released in 1987.

So that's gonna say something about this. It

came on two five and a quarter floppy disks.

And when I say that it gave you a universe on

two floppy disks, I mean it. Basically, it gave

you a big area of space to explore. It had about

270 star systems and around 800 planets that

you could explore in every single one of those

planets you could land on. Some would kill you

if you landed on them, but you could land on

them. And they were all explorable fully. This

was impressive for just two floppy disks, right?

But to give a little bit of background about

the game itself, it's the 47th century. And humans

are on a planet called Arth, not Earth. And Earth

has kind of become a legendary world. It's not

that humans have spread out throughout the galaxy.

It's that, well, humans had been spread out,

but now they're really not. They've all kind

of fallen back after the fall of the old Earth

empire. And there's a whole bunch of different

other alien races in the region. And some of

them you can hire for the crew of your ship.

And your ship, you can name whatever you want

to have it named. You mine minerals and scan

life forms on planetary surfaces and can upgrade

your Starship to have better engines, better

weapons, shields, more cargo pods. You can transport

more goods. So the first game actually even can

be slightly about, you know, trading, a trading

game, but it's mostly exploration. And the plot

centers around the fact that Worlds near the

core of the galaxy are going are going are just

being killed their stars are going Nova for no

good reason and you're having to figure out why

because as The game goes on there is a time limit

The time goes forward as you travel through space

and explore and at some point earth star is gonna

Go Nova and you need to figure out what's causing

all this stuff and find artifacts from the old

Earth Empire. You need to trade and get information

from all these different species, some of them

hostile. You need to explore these worlds and

just find little slips of paper that are on libraries

on Earth once you find Earth. And Earth is, there

are no more life, there is no more life on Earth

in this game either. It's a fascinating game.

and for coming on two floppy disks, I played

it for years and still didn't find every little

loose thread that was in it. It would go on to

inspire a lot of the future games like Star Control

that a lot of people probably recognize. It did

have a sequel called Star Flight 2. um trade

routes of the cloud debula i think is what it

was called and it was much more focused on trading

and there wasn't really a time limit so you could

you could really kind of get deep into the into

the weeds with that game um but yeah i absolutely

adore star flight and if anyone thinks that hey

look this looks like fairly clunky graphics because

yeah it's 1987 i'll agree it is it is pretty

clunky but the gameplay is there the story is

there. And I really don't want to talk more about

the story without ruining things for people that

do want to play it. But you can find tons of

images online of what Starflight looks like.

You level up your crew. Your crew you can name.

So you can make even little stories for yourself,

like role playing, right? God, I love the game

so much. And probably very few people around

have played it at this point, but it was extremely

popular back in the day. It was even ported over

to the Sega Genesis in 1991. Really? Yeah. And

it was not as good. It was basically the same

content and it looked newer. The graphics were

better, but I don't think the gameplay was as

good because I don't know. It felt... It just

felt different, even though I think everything

else was the same in the game except for the

graphics. It just felt different. phenomenal,

just the fact that that's how much could be accomplished

given the computing power at the time. I mean,

the only other game I could think that felt as

expansive, at least as far as I understand, because

I'm not a big old school PC gamer. I know the

ultimate games were very expansive for their

time, but, but they were also were fairly graphically

intensive. This sounds like it didn't have a

lot of graphic memory to work with, but it could

use a lot of text, which means you could squeeze

a lot of text on those five. five and a quarter

floppies. Yeah, and there was graphics like there

was even 3D graphics in the game. So when you

would land on a planet, you could pick the coordinates

that you would land at and then your ship would

land and you would come in towards the surface

and actually see landforms that were really there

because the whole planetary surface was like

mapped for each one of these worlds that you

could land on. So you would see the 3D graphics

of it. Yes, it was very chunky. I will admit,

but It was all there. Like there was graphics

to it that were pretty advanced for the time.

It sounds almost like a very, it's, it's, it

sounds like something that probably inspired,

uh, the team that made no man's sky. Yeah, it

does have some similarities. I would say there

there is some like genes from Starflight that

go into No Man's Sky. Like I said, Star Control,

the people that made Star Control were directly

inspired by Starflight. Yeah, God, there is even

in this game, there's an ecological generator,

like an ecosystem generator for this game. So

when you would land on a planet, it would generate

all the life forms for you to find and they would

each have niches. And some would be like aggressive

carnivores that would actually attack your little

land, your terrain vehicle. There's herbivores

that would just be kind of slow and you could

easily capture them without having to stun them.

There were small creatures that were difficult

to capture but weren't really aggressive. I mean,

very, very detailed stuff that would come out

of this. And capturing animals, that was a completely

legitimate gameplay to gain credits to upgrade

your ship. You didn't have to mine, but mining

was one of the easier ways of dealing with gaining

credits. You can still find the game for sale.

Let me see. I think I have it bookmarked. I will

find it at some point. GOG. GOG .com actually

sells Star Flight 1 and 2 right now for $5 .99.

Well, if you've got the price of a hot and ready

pizza from Little Caesar's, this sounds like

something you'd probably get a fair chunk of

entertainment value in. I mean, especially if

you're interested in the history of early PC

gaming and especially something that gives you

that universal sandbox to kind of play with.

If so, if you're willing to take a look at where

things like No Man's Sky had come from. And this

is probably something worth kind of checking

out. As I said, I probably put years worth of

time into the game, both of the games put together.

I mean, they really made an impact on me. That's

pretty cool, man. Steve, any thoughts on this?

Like, have you ever heard of this? No, I have

not, but it sounds pretty interesting. So I guess

kind of moving right along and actually kind

of keeping with the theme of space, which is

going to be a common theme in the show. But.

I promise you. We're going to swing back to me

and the other franchise that I want to talk about

about PC gaming or not PC gaming gaming franchise

as a whole. This one should come as no surprise

so much so that it's tattooed on my right arm.

And that is EA and BioWare's Mass Effect. This

series hit the Xbox 360 back in 2007, I want

to say, spawned Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2,

Mass Effect 3, and Mass Effect Andromeda, which

came out on Xbox One and PS4 and PC too. an interesting

response, we'll say. But the franchise, essentially,

you star as Commander Shepard, be you a male

Shep or femme Shep, which is my Shepard, voiced

by Mark Mir or Jennifer Hale, and you are on

a mission to, I can't remember the name of the

planet at the beginning, but you're basically,

you are set up to be the first human Spectre.

To basically represent humanity to the citadel

council council of alien races that you've met

after the first contact war basically You you

find these things known as the mass relays out

class out past Pluto and it allows near instantaneous

travel across vast swaths of the Milky Way galaxy

and we meet a race called the turians it doesn't

go so well for us but eventually a ceasefire

is declared and everybody starts to get along

after all however not a lot of people in the

galaxy like humanity they see us as too ambitious

they see is as problematic and you run into races

like the asari very beautiful blue -skinned uh

humanoids who are almost actually, I'm pretty

sure they're entirely female and they produce

in a way I think they talk about it in the novels,

but they can they can have sex with literally

anything. And that's how they reproduce. There

are races like the quarians who live inside environmental

suits, because they've had to live on ships aboard

a flotilla for so long, that they left their

their home planet home planet of Rannoch. They're

not used to being around viruses. They're not

used to being around other life forms. So they

live inside these biological suits their entire

lives because a common cold could kill them.

A cut could kill them. There are races known

as the Krogan, this huge warlike race who were

uplifted by a smart race known as the Salarians.

They were uplifted to fight a race known as the

Rakhni, basically giant alien bugs. And there

are other races across the Mass Effect Galaxy,

but the first game focuses on Commander Shepard,

and he's trying to warn everybody about a intergalactic

threat known as the Reapers. You are fighting

back against a former Spectre turned bad guy

known as Saren, and he's aiding the Reapers in

coming towards the Citadel. They want to wipe

out all sentient life in Milky Way Galaxy. It

is in their programming. And it's up to you and

your crew assembled from across the galaxy, a

Turian named Geras, a Quarian named Tali, an

Asari named Liara, a Krogan named Rex. I don't

think I'm leaving anybody out there. And it's

up to you and your crew to save save save the

universe and eventually it all culminates with

an attack on the citadel with one reaper and

it takes the combined uh forces of earth's fleet

and what's what races from the citadel and the

cool thing about mass effect is it takes a lot

into effect about choice the choices you make

the alliances you make the good bad indifferent

choices all impact the galaxy. And the cool thing

that Mass Effect did that I don't see many games

doing, in fact, I think Mass Effect is still

the first. The choices you make in the first

game will impact the second game. Your save,

your character carries over and so on and so

forth. Mass Effect 2 starts off with, they kill

Commander Shepard. You die. You are dead. And

an organization known as Cerberus resurrects

you. A human supremacist group. I might add,

resurrects you because they need the best of

the best, the best of what humanity has to offer

because a race known as the Collectors has been

kidnapping and destroying entire colonies. out.

And I can't remember in the terminus systems

out in the Mass Effect galaxy, a more lawless

part of space, the more wild part of the Milky

Way galaxy and things need to be dealt with because

the council doesn't want to believe it. They

basically they write you off. They're like Commander

Shepard's back, but we don't want to talk to

you. So Cerberus and a guy played by Martin Sheen,

who is an amazing actor in this. He plays a character

known as the elusive man, the head of Cerberus.

And he says, I've given you unlimited money,

unlimited resources, build your team, stop the

collectors. Humanity must be saved. And at first

you think he's a good dude. You then find out

the collectors are working for the Reapers. And

that's not good. They're basically acting as

agents for the Reapers to prepare us for the

arrival. basically in the arrival is when the

Reapers will eventually come to the Milky Way

Galaxy and it's game over for everybody. They

don't care who you are. They will wipe out all

sentient life as they are programmed to do every

50 ,000 years and then the cycle repeats. So

Commander Shepard has to go off in this suicide

mission to go through the I forget what the relays

call but you go to the home world of the collectors

you fight a human Reaper and Because the collector

or not the collectors the Reapers they they They

take elements of different creatures and they

transform them. They corrupt them. Like when

they corrupt a human, they get turned into what's

called a husk, stuff like that. And you find

out they do that to other races. Like I think

the the collectors were once a race known as

the Protheans, if I remember right. I'm going

a lot off of memory here. Yep. You're right.

Yeah. So it ends with you destroying the collector

base. and you come back and you are held as a

war criminal because reasons you are arrested

on earth and you are sent to prison you are locked

up and your crew disbands and everybody scatters

to the winds and then one day on earth you're

just about to go to see somebody I think Admiral

Anderson played by I can't remember the actor's

name now, and that's going to drive me crazy.

He's the voice of the U .S. Navy. Keith David,

I want to say. Yep, he played Goliath in Gargoyles,

too. Yeah. Yeah. So awesome voice, most powerful

voice. Love this guy. So you are about to see

him. And then the Reapers come to earth. The

Reapers have smashed through every defense system

leading to earth. The Reapers have invaded the

Milky Way galaxy. They've wiped out a race known

as the Batarians, which if you played the Mass

Effect DLC known as the Arrival, um, you have

to try and save, uh, the Batarian system, but

you have to go back and rescue a scientist behind

enemy lines. But the point of the matter is they

were the first system hit by the Reapers. They

stood no chance. They were almost entirely wiped

out. The Reapers don't care. They are corrupting

everybody. They corrupt the Asari, the Krogan.

And while this is going on, there is another

civil war happening. Because you know how I mentioned

those Korgans who live in the suits? Well...

little bit of backstory, they created a race

of sentient AI known as the Geth. The Geth are

essentially Mass Effect's version of the Borg.

robots. They were designed to be a slave labor

force until one day they basically said I think

therefore I am. They they deserve they determined

they wanted to have lives. They didn't like where

things were going and they kicked their creator's

ass and set them off world. So now the Reapers

have allied with the Geth. However Commander

Shepard has met a friendly Gath known as Legion.

You met him in Mass Effect 2. He's one of the

last crew members you can recruit. And you find

out there's a section of the Gath that don't

like the Reapers. They know they're being used.

So they want to take a piece of the Reapers and

upload the Reapers' intelligence to themselves

so they can be free. They upload the old machine

code. But to do that, the Quarians are like,

no, you can't do that. They'll... They'll kill

us. And you have to make the decision. Do you

uphold your alliance with the Quarians and wipe

out the Geth when they're weakest? Or are you

willing to stick it out on a limb? Trust the

Geth aren't going to stab you in the back when

they become free because you've been killing

them across three games now. and will they join

you and those choices matter. And if you choose

the wrong thing in here, one of your crew members

can kill themselves. Tali will throw herself

right off a cliff, which I have only ever watched

that scene on YouTube. I can't do that to her

because Tali is life. But the series all comes

to an end as you have to unite a galaxy to fight

the Reapers and you make your stand. at earth

as you're trying to build an ancient protein

device known as the crucible. The device as plans

have been left behind by races long before you

in cycles that have tried to stand up against

the Reapers before and lost. But now with the

races United with the solarians, the quarians,

the geth, everybody, we make our stand at earth

and it's a huge giant battle and one Reaper.

almost wiped out the entirety of Earth's fleets.

Now there's like 10 ,000 of them. What are you

going to do? So the series comes to a head. The

Reapers have taken the Citadel to Earth. And

Shepard comes to the Citadel. And it turns out

Cerberus is being used by the reapers they've

been indoctrinated that's something i forgot

to mention in all this the reapers can turn you

against your own people they often corrupt you

they tempt you but ultimately you end up serving

them they've corrupted the the elusive man believing

he can control the reapers here's a hint he can't

so you go to uh confront him on the uh citadel

and if you've made all the right choices all

along the way You can actually have the elusive

man blow his own head off, which is immensely

satisfying. But as you reach the at the center

of the crucible, you are met by a mysterious

entity that then gives you three choices. Control,

where you must sacrifice everything that you

are as Commander Shepard. But the Reapers are

now yours to to control. You can choose. to destroy

them. But in doing so, you destroy all synthetic

life, including an AI, which has become your

friend known as Edie, who actually existed in

the first game, but wasn't a controllable crew

member. She was just an AI that lived on the

moon, I think, but was actually given a body

later on was given a body and mass effect three.

And she was your ship's computer and mass effect

two. And, or if you've made all the right choices

all throughout the game, You can choose a third

option. Synthesis, where you combined organic

life and synthetic life. Again, you sacrifice

everything that you are. Or there's even a fourth

hidden choice. You can choose to shoot this creature

in the face and then everybody dies and the cycle

begins again. So depending on your choices, depending

on how you've played these three games, it all

comes down to four choices. What do you do? So

the canonical ending for Mass Effect has never

been defined because that's the beauty of Mass

Effect. It is an RPG where you are in control.

More people have accused the third entry of being

very kind of railroady, and they're not wrong

to a certain extent. But it is your story. It

is your commander ship or your decisions. Then

we lead into Mass Effect Andromeda, which takes

us back a little bit before the events of Mass

Effect 3. So the elusive man and other entities

and the Citadel Council, basically anybody who's

anybody in the Milky Way, knows the Reapers are

real. They know something is wrong. Shit. What

are we going to do? So they build ships, arcs.

They're like, okay, we need the best. We need

the brightest, but we need volunteers. So they

fill up all these ships with people and they,

and they take, um, they, uh, spin up their FTL

drives and they aim it towards the Andromeda

galaxy. The problem is this journey will take

600 years. So in case humanity dies and the Milky

way is wiped out something. will survive, but

they'll never see their families again. So you

play as Sarah Rider or Alec Rider, the son or

daughter of Alec Rider, who is what's known as

as a Pathfinder. The Pathfinder initiative is,

I think, what the project's called. And your

goal is to colonize the Andromeda Galaxy, the

Helix Cluster, I think it's called. So you go

to the Helix Cluster. After 600 years, you get

there. shit goes immediately wrong. The planet

that was supposed to be in a life zone that you

saw through a geth telescope 600 years ago. Um,

it's deadly. You can't breathe the air. It'll

kill you. There's lightning everywhere. You can't

live there. It's a hostile planet. When you get

to the Andromeda galaxy, your ship is immediately

disabled, you crash into some kind of an energy

anomaly, you don't know what it is. The other

arcs that came with you, the Asari arc, the turian

arc, the quarian arc, the arc that held other

races like the Volus, I can't remember what the

what things race was. All these other races,

you don't know where they are. But the races,

the ship that you were on, is actually not the

first one to arrive in Andromeda, or sorry, you

were woken up a little bit later, sorry. So other

factions that were on the ship that woke up before

you have left. So now there's people who stayed

aboard your ship and people who have formed a

renegade faction along with whoever happened

to be on your ship. It's already a galaxy divided.

There are Krogan, there are humans, there are

Asari, there are other races that have made homes

on other planets, and they're not very happy

with you. So it's up to you as the new pathfinder

to find new worlds to unite a new galaxy. But

now there's another threat known as the cat.

and they don't like you. They want to transform

and kill anything that gets in their way. You

find out that they are taking over a race called,

I think they're called the Angara, I think. You

run across a guy named Xol and he joins your

crew at one point. And you fight against these

things. Honestly, Andromeda is not a very good

game. Which is sad because the gameplay is fantastic,

but the storyline is very generic. It's like,

I'm evil for the sake of being evil. And you

can't understand me because raw. I have monsters

and robots and shit. Um, But that's where Mass

Effect kind of went off the rails. Now, where

Mass Effect excels, I think, is there's been

a wonderful series of comics by Dark Horse Comics.

There are two omnibuses for it available. There

are two or three novels written about the First

Contact War, The Elusive Man, I think, and they're

written by people directly involved with the

Mass Effect franchise, and they are considered

canon. So if you've been following the franchise,

it gives you a little bit of insight into the

elusive man, into Admiral Anderson and stuff

like that without conflicting with the information

that your shepherd would know because, you know,

it's meant to be your adventure. These are other

characters. These are side characters that you're

supposed to know. And Mass Effect, if it's done

anything right, it meshes far future technology

and world building, but with heartfelt characters.

Bioware is known very well for writing dramatic

stories. It's had a massive success with that

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic video games,

Jade Empire, a little less to Anthem. In fact,

the less we say about that game series, the better.

Mass Effect is where things hit home. It had

really believable romances, likable characters.

When people die, when choices are made, you really

feel them. You get connected to your characters

and the series really opened the door for more

interactive role playing that could be done on

a console, which is I think going to be the lasting

legacy of Mass Effect is that it made choice

and character relationships mean something because

you had that dialogue choice wheel, not unlike

something you'd see out of like Fallout where

you would have different kind of dialogue choices.

Here you could choose, is that a paragon choice

or is that a renegade choice? And the system

for dialogue and its effects would evolve over

time, a little less so in Andromeda, it became

a little more ambiguous, but. still it was, it

still came down to what's the tone of how you

want to, of how you want to determine this like

conversation. So the worlds of mass effect is

some of my favorite in sci -fi. In fact, Mass

Effect is probably second only to Star Wars in

terms of my favorite sci -fi franchises. I like

it better than Star Trek. I like it better than

Doctor Who. And that says a lot because I'm a

big sci -fi nerd. Yeah. Well, that's the thing.

I never expected a video game to have that much

world building in it. And that impressed me.

Like Fem Shep, I didn't fall in love with her

because she was a beautiful woman. I fell in

love with her because I created this character

in my mind. This is my playthrough. This is my

canonical Shep. In the first game, you have to

make a decision on a planet called Vermeier,

and you have to leave one of your crew members

to stay behind. Um, it's a choice between a guy

named Kaden or a girl named Ashley. In my playthrough,

I was romantically involved with a guy named

Kaden, um, as the Fem Shep. I chose him to stay

behind on Vermeyer to save Ashley. So in my canonical

playthrough, in Mass Effect 1, Fem Shep loses

a very important part of her. She loses her boyfriend

or more. In Mass Effect 2, after she dies and

her life is shattered, she has to find her friends

again. In that game, you can romance a character

named Garrus, who is a turian. And that character

and her, in my canonical playthrough, they fall

in love very, very, very deeply. And because

they're both soldiers, they both lost things,

like Garrus lost all his unit. He's been betrayed

by his friends. Whereas Shep lost what may have

been the love of her life, and she's learning

to love again. In Mass Effect 3, when once again,

they've been separated because she was in jail,

they find each other and they fight side by side

to save the galaxy. And just as you're about

to complete the final mission, you can have a

moment with each crew member. And Garrus says

something to you along the lines of... we're

going into hell together, but if you're going

to die, be in heaven 30 minutes before the devil

knows you're dead or something like that. And

there's another great line, something like there

is no shepherd without the carrion. And I just

saw in my, in my head cannon, this great romance

of these two people, these two soldiers. utterly

in love, devoted to each other, but knowing that

the ultimate sacrifice may have to be made. And

I haven't come across a relationship, and maybe

I'm playing this up in my own head, as powerful

as this that I got to be a part of and shape

the direction of. I mean, sure, there's been

some great romances in sci -fi, but this is the

one that I connected with. And when Mass Effect

3 ended, especially when they added the extended

scenes, you do get the say goodbye to your romantic

partner if they're with you on the final mission

just before you get up to the Citadel or the

Crucible or whatever the hell it is. And I wanted...

And I think that's why Mass Effect connected

with me so much more than some of these franchises.

I mean, Star Wars I love because of the depth

of its lore, the weapons, the technology, and

it was a part of what shaped me into a sci -fi

geek. Mass Effect made me appreciate sci -fi

as a genre on a whole different level, whereas

Star Trek... Don't get me wrong. I like it. Do

I love it? I don't know. Cause Voyager is my

favorite series and I don't know what that says

about me. Um, so, um, with all that essay, I

just gave you on Mass Effect. Steve, it is now

your go. I like Mass Effect. I played the first

three games and they were great. What did you

like about like basically like When you look

at it, what does Mass Effect say as a franchise?

What does it say about its gameplay? I just liked

how you could connect the story and choices you

made in the story affected the outcome. Yeah,

because it's something that, as far as I understand,

has never been done in a game franchise before.

And it was very groundbreaking to me that I got

a chance to shape a universe, a narrative that

was unique to me, how my playthrough was my playthrough.

And I wasn't just, it wasn't Halo where, oh,

I've killed the flood. I guess I'm going to the

Pillar of Autumn to blow up the engines. Yeah,

there's some set pieces, but it's the relationships

that made Mass Effect to me. And that's something

sci -fi or something, a video game. Has it made

me care about? I haven't cared about relationships

in a game. Really. The only other game that's

maybe done that in the last couple of years would

be the persona series. Like I must date best

girl because I want to, I want to make these

virtual characters fall in love with me and maybe

it's an emotional. fulfillment issue. Maybe I'm

exposing something about myself right now, but

I think Mass Effect has done that in spades.

I think in a lot of ways it fulfills an emotional

need in sci -fi. Yeah, it's got cool battles

and monsters and robots and weapons. But there's

heart to it. And I think that's something special.

Aaron, do you have any experience with the Mass

Effect franchise? I do. I've played the first

three games. I enjoyed the first and second,

and I enjoyed the third about halfway through

it. And then I got angry. Yeah. As a lot of other

people did. And it angered me so much, I haven't

been able to even look at Mass Effect since.

Well, Andromeda is not good. I'll tell you that

much. I, I, but honestly too, I loved too, but

it wasn't like the relationship. I just like,

I liked the story. I liked the story. I liked

kind of the settings that they had. I thought

the gameplay was good. You know, Hey, it was

a good game, but yeah, three really burnt me.

Yeah. Three, I'll admit was not for like everybody.

And the thing I think three did, did something

special because I think they source this to a

different team is they had multiplayer on three

to talk about the gameplay. I mean, obviously

I've talked about relationships. Mass Effect

one had kind of shitty shooting mechanics. I

mean, all things considered and it's loot system

was really kind of boggy. to the point where

it was annoying to pick up new armor and weapons.

Mass Effect 2 got it down to a T. Mind you, you

couldn't move very fast, so that's me as a Twitch

gamer kind of exposing my privilege, I guess.

Mass Effect 3 felt the best combat -wise to me,

plus being able to throw out power so quickly.

You could equip any weapon to any class, which

was great. But you're not wrong Mass Effect 3

burned a lot of people because it took away some

choice and its gameplay did suffer in places

But I think it's gonna go down as one of those

franchises that is important in the space of

computer and console gaming. I think, especially

in terms of newer franchises that have come out

in the last 20 years, I think it's very, very

important. There have been some, as I did mention,

there are comics, there is one movie. which is

called Mass Effect Paragon Loss, which was put

up by Funimation a couple of years ago, which

takes place just before Mass Effect 3, which

features James Vega voiced by... Shit, it's gonna

bother me now. Oh, Freddie Prinze Jr., who's

a surprisingly good voice actor, I might add,

because he's awesome in Star Wars. Rebels so

anyway, um Continuing on I think Steve. I think

it's your go Alrighty so my my next one is the

transformers games and I know it's kind of a

cop -out considering I run a podcast about transformers,

but what I like about it, and what's awesome

about it is because it's sentient robots. And

how can you get much cooler than that? So I've

played a variety of the games. My first introduction

to the video games of Transformers, and I'm going

to kind of give a Reader's Digest version of

this. I started with the Beast Wars Transformers

game, which was my introduction into the Transformers

franchise. That game came out in 97 and I still

have the CD. It's unbearable to play at this

point. Oh, God. Yeah, it's bad. It's a bad third

person shooting game that was on the PC and the

PlayStation. And you play these extra dimensional

aliens called the Skricks. which had no basis

in the show. It's just like, hey, let's just

theme a game with Transformers characters and

then have them say in a really bad voiceover,

maximize or terrorize. And it was so blocky in

90s. It was ridiculous. I could never get past

the first or second level in that game. And I

haven't tried to go back. What I did like was

this was one of the first games I played online.

And mind you, this was back in the dial -up days.

So my dad's phone line would be consistently

taken up by the fact I was playing Beast Wars

on it. They had the MSN gaming zone. And I don't

know if anybody remembers that, but you could

play a four person Battle, you know on this game

and I would stay up for hours playing this the

the game Play itself was pretty Non -existent

for this. I mean you had You you basically had

to rescue certain characters It follows the Maximals

Predacons just like normal and Yeah, so it follows

some of what the actual game comes out as, but

it's not nearly as good as it should have been.

But then you get to Transformers Armada, or in

the 2004, which was nearly seven years later.

And this kind of totally changed the Transformers

franchise on the PlayStation 2. And they were

no longer blocky. They were no longer really

that terrible to look at. The game was difficult,

but you get some beautiful scenery. You get some

beautiful colors in there. There's even at the

end you get to be primed with a jet pack going

against Unicron, like flying around orbit shooting

at Unicron, which is awesome. I'm more of the

ways than one and you have to fly into his maw

like it's crazy. But the whole premise of the

game is you are collecting many kinds to destroy

Unicron and you fight all of the various Decepticons

and it was very, very difficult to play. And

then fast forward six more years, and we got

the High Moon Studios games, the Transformers

War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, which,

quite honestly, were the pinnacle of Transformers

games. They were not only up to par with a lot

of the... It fits very well with the current

Netflix series, let's put it that way. as far

as the aesthetics and they used the voice acting

from some of the characters you get to play as

Autobots and Decepticons some of the major characters

and the first game they're literally fighting

for Cybertron and you destroy Megatron by the

end of the game and then in the second game in

fall of Cybertron they're Trying to leave Cybertron

and you get to get Plays like Grimlock and some

of the other characters and they actually rebuild

Megatron and you can play as him again But it's

both games are just beautifully done a lot to

do in them a lot of weird creatures you get to

see Robots bigger than you such as Metroplex

and The storylines on them It would take me too

long to go through them all but they were very

entertaining a lot of fun The boss battles on

it were not They were not bad but there were

some that were it seemed like they dragged on

a little too long And then getting to the transformers

devastation game, which I've also played that

one's more of a entirely different beast, but

it uses more of the cell shading and is more

of an homage to the Generation 1 continuity and

kind of fills that void of wanting to see some

of that come into play. But overall, those three

games, the Transformers War for Cybertron, Fall

of Cybertron, and Devastation are quite possibly

some of my favorite Transformer games that have

been out thus far. Yeah, I wouldn't disagree

with you there. Those are probably the strongest

Transformers games that have come out. There

have been other Transformers games with varying

degrees of success. In fact, a little bit of

trivia for you. The first game I ever reviewed

professionally as a games journalist very, very

early on in my career was the original Transformers

game for the Nintendo Wii. I want to say I think

it was for the or maybe it was Xbox 360. Either

way, it was Bayformers. It sucked. And I was

very young and very stupid. I played those two

and I didn't mention them for a specific reason.

Because they are shitty. They're garbage. However,

though, that being said, there was a Bayformers

game that was a tie in to Age of Extinction called

Rise of the Dark Spark, which was done by High

Moon High Moon. I've got a soft spot for that

game. I actually kind of enjoy it. I guess because

I wanted Transformers something. Although the

one by Platinum Games, which was Transformers

Devastation, there is a lot of fan service in

that. I think if you play as you can play as

Wheeljack or somebody, right? Can't you? Oh,

yeah. Yeah, because there's one point you're

jumping in a level and there's some dialogue

that happens and it foreshadows your death and

Transformers the movie. And I was thinking, okay,

that's a deep cut and that is fantastic. Um,

and because platinum games are known for their,

for their fast paced gameplay, I used to love

speed running that game. And because you can

upgrade your character with different abilities

and different points, I used to love replaying

the last fight up to Megatron and just bulldozing

everybody. I'm thinking, all right, I've kicked

the shit out of, um, Devastator or the Constructicons,

it's been about a minute and 30 seconds. I am

awesome. Stuff like that, or just fighting Megatron.

And it brought back so many voice actors for

it too. And it was such a lovely homage. Though

the High Moon Studios games, War and Fall of

Cybertron, you want storyline, you go for those.

Although there are new Transformers games in

development, they're going to be terrible. There's

one coming out soon. I can't remember what it's

called for the life of me. But there was a trailer

for it this year. It's so forgettable. It looks

like a mobile game that got ported. Why you would

pay money for this is beyond me. Aaron, what

about you? Have you ever played any of the Transformers

games? See, no, I have not. I seem to be like

the odd guy out with a lot of these. Not that

I'm not a console gamer or, you know. because

I do play on the console. I do play on PC. I

just never played a Transformers game, never

really had the urge to. I'm sorry to say. No,

you know what? I think it's a certain slice of

gamers that kind of fall into it. I mean, unless

Transformers was on your radar as a kid. Oh,

it was. I love the original cartoon. Absolutely

loved it. If I were to recommend one game to

you to play out of all the entirety of all the

Transformers games that have ever existed, I

would recommend Devastation. However, that being

said, finding a copy is going to be hard because

it has been delisted from every digital storefront.

And the only way you can get it is unless it's

already on your digital accounts, or you can

find a physical copy, but it is absolutely worth

it. It is fast paced. It is fun. It has a low

barrier of entry and it looks like you're playing

an episode of the G1 cartoon. Yes, I've been

playing it. I mean, seems like it would be fun.

Yeah, I'm sorry that I've never had the chance

to play any of them. I will find a way. So that

being said, let's go to you, Aaron. What are,

what is your next pick for some good sci -fi

games? Okay. So my next pick is also pretty non

-standard. I would, I would assume, you know,

compared to what everybody else's is talking

about. And I'm going to say it is a game that

has no plot and I love it. And it's Kerbal space

program. Yes, it is sci -fi because you get to

build your own rockets. Design your own space

program go to different worlds with little green

men that have giant heads and googly eyes and

funny voices and If there is one thing that you

can play to learn real physics real rocketry

It's this game and then you can get mods for

it as you know on PC Obviously that will add

in near future type of engines and systems, and

they're fairly realistic for the game for what

it is. Yeah, the solar system is fairly small

compared to Earth's solar system. Kerbal, the

planet that you start off on, is smaller than

Earth. But the game has infinite replayability

just because, hey, I want to have a challenge

of where I launch a rocket into space only using

RCS thrusters. You can do it. It takes a lot

of engineering, but you can do it. I want to

fly all the way from Kerbal, which is basically

Earth, to Pluto, the furthest planet that's in

the Kerbal system, whatever it's called, Elu.

And I want to do it with only solid rocket boosters.

You can do it. You get to do all the math. You

get to figure it out. And the thing is that you

don't even need to do the math to play the game

properly. It's trial and error. And if you build

a rocket that sucks and it blows up, well, it

looks great blowing up and you learn from your

mistake and you slowly are able to build rockets.

Just like in real life, the rockets blow up and

you learn from your mistakes and you're able

to get into orbit and then getting into orbit.

It's just the first step. Then it's time to go

to the moon. Maybe it's time to build a space

station. Maybe it's time to build a giant orbital

fuel depot. Maybe you want to try to figure out

how to send a probe. across every single planet

in the Kerbal solar system using only gravitational

slingshots. You can do it. It's all there and

it's freaking fun. I've probably put in 2000

hours playing this game and I'm not bored with

it. And they're going to release a second one

fairly soon. Kerbal space program, too. It's

amazing. I don't know. I can only talk good things

about it. I remember seeing, uh, some people

talk about this. I know I've seen some of my

friends stream this. I think my friend, uh, Dr.

Tara watt has streamed it on like his, uh, Twitch

channel. Um, and I never knew what it was about

other than it used real life rocketry and real

life physics. And I don't consider myself that

smart when it comes to math stuff. It's I can

talk myself out of a problem. He asked me to

solve a math problem. I'm probably going to die.

But I always thought it was a really neat idea.

And I've only really started PC gaming in the

last year. So maybe it might be something I could

check out because there's one other program or

game. I guess you could call it a game. Have

you ever heard of something called Universe Simulator?

Universe Sandbox? Yeah, that thing's fun. I've

heard of it. I've seen it. I don't own it. But

yeah, it does. It does look like it's a lot of

fun just from a physics standpoint. But remember

what I said about Kerbal Space Program. You honestly

don't need to know math to do it well. You learn

on the fly. And I've never sat down with a calculator

when playing the game. I never do. I just kind

of eyeball it like the Kerbals do because the

Kerbals are just, you know, funny little guys.

You don't think they're doing math. with how

crazy they are. But you eyeball it and you slowly

start building up a good knowledge of how orbital

mechanics work. And then suddenly you're realizing,

man, I actually know how to do gravitational,

you know, assist flybys. And you're doing it

kind of in your head and eyeballing it. And when

you suddenly realize you're doing that, well,

wow, this game has actually taught me something.

You know, it's one of those games where One of

the one of the strange things about world mechanics

is that if you want to slow down you actually

well if you want to catch up to somebody you

actually try to slow down to do it because you'll

drop into a lower orbit and thus speed up and

catch up to somebody in the orbit ahead of you.

So to speed up you slow down it's one of those

weird things in order mechanics that no one ever

really understands properly but the game shows

once you get into orbit. It's counterintuitive

and it's brilliant. Yeah, it's sci -fi because

you can build crazy nuclear powered Spacecraft

the tool around the solar system with but man,

I cannot recommend this game enough See, that's

something I had no idea about until you mentioned

it and I used to think of myself a guy who understood

spaceflight Yep. Nope. Um So that that is really

cool. And and I love things that encourage learning

like that, that encourage experimentation, that,

that encourage you to expand your horizons, think

outside the box, but have some fun while kind

of doing it. I mean, as you mentioned, you don't

have to be pulling out your pocket calculator

and doing graphs or anything, but that is neat

how you have to figure things out like that.

And as you said, eyeball it and just kind of

figure it out, I guess, with kind of that in

mind, I'd probably give it a whirl. I mean, I'd

like to watch a few people play it so I can kind

of not feel like an idiot the first time out.

Oh, yeah, there's tons of YouTube channels out

there that show like how to play Kerbal Space

Program, and they'll show you how to fail at

it. And the failure is part of the fun of the

game, like just having your your rockets explode

and tell it, you know, thousands of pieces rapid.

Some people call it rapid unexpected disassembly.

When you when you crash, you aren't crashing

into a planet, you're doing constructive litho

breaking. You know, you're breaking, you know,

when at Mars, when when probes go to Mars, you

aerobrake, you break by using the atmosphere

to slow down. Well, lithium breaking is just

breaking with rocks. So advanced lithium breaking

is a crash. Yeah. Anyway, the game is just a

lot of fun. I don't know, Steve. Does this sound

like something you'd probably check out? I'm

not sure. I mean, I'd have to see somebody play

it to see whether I'd be interested or not. Okay,

so I guess we're with that in mind we're gonna

do a lightning round. Oh my god Mike's changing

the rules. Okay, pick one thing and maybe succinctly

explain it in Two minutes or less. Another honorable

mention that you think is a fantastic game franchise

or something you should check out from the PC

games. And I'm going to recommend a franchise

yet again. And this is a franchise that Aaron

has actually written for. And I'm going to mention

BattleTech or MechWarrior. Finding the games

on PC is a little bit of a trick, but there is

MechWarrior online. MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries

launched last November, so you can play that.

There is Mecha Salt on the Xbox. And the main

reason I recommend it is the gameplay. It's amazing

mecha gameplay. It's very sim while still feeling

kind of arcadey at the same time, not like Titanfall

arcadey. But to me, what gets me is the lore,

the lore for battle tech. blows me away. You

don't have to be a fan of any one particular

age if you don't want to be. I mean, Aaron knows

I love the clan invasion, but if you want to

be a fan of the succession wars, you can check

those out. You can check out the star league

and there's data and lore there to support it.

So that's a series of games. I really recommend

you check out. They're fantastically fun. Awesome.

There's even a tabletop role playing game. There's

a war game for it as well. So if you don't I

write for yeah, so there are many options for

you guys to check out and I can't speak about

the praises of battle tech enough because it's

one of those franchises that I've loved for years

and I keep wanting to learn more About so I guess

very quickly thoughts from Aaron and Steve. What

do you guys think about the battle tech franchise?

I write for it. So of course I like it. Of course

I know a lot about it and I do recommend it.

Steve, what about you? I've played stuff kind

of like that before in the past. Just can't remember

the name of the games, but they're not MechWarrior,

but they're pretty close. Okay. So Steve, what

is your honorable mention? The StarCraft series.

Good call. Why? Because honestly, it was one

of the first Blizzard games I ever played. And

I was not disappointed. It was very much like

Command and Conquer, but with space stuff. You

had the zergs, you had the proteans or... Protoss.

Protoss. I knew it was something close. I just

couldn't remember. I haven't played it in forever,

but... But yeah, I mean, and then you had the

Terrans and you could command and build all these

different infrastructures. And depending on what

you had, like the Zerg could burrow underground,

the Protoss would kind of they were kind of energy

based in some ways. And then the Terrans had

like the physical armaments. And so it was it

was a lot of fun to kind of play through that.

And then seeing how, you know, you could also

fly ships over and. There was just a lot that

you could do with it, but it was all based out

in space environments. It was very simplistic

in the sense that you couldn't control a massive

army, like you couldn't command and conquer,

but it was fine because you could also still

kind of... Number base everything and delineate

where you wanted them to go and what them to

attack But there was a there was a really fun

story behind it at the moment I can't remember

any of it, but that's because time has been a

wicked enemy on my Remembrance of it, but I remember

having a lot of fun and playing it for hours

on end Yeah, same thing with me. Starcraft was

the first Blizzard game I really fell in love

with. I did play Diablo. Honestly, kind of hated

it. I hated Diablo one. Diablo two was really

good and I used to play it online and in battle

people. Plus, I knew how to hack the game with

with those those mods that you could get. I used

to when I would get beaten by somebody that had

some insanely ridiculous mod, I would go in and

I would hack their character and then all of

their armaments would drop. Which I knocked them

down to level one so they couldn't hold anything.

It was very Very very much fun and not right,

but they did it first so and then Diablo 3 I

played that a lot and that was That one was pretty

good for a while and then I kind of lost interest

in now They've they announced this like mobile

version of it, which nobody really cares about.

Yeah Uh, yeah, I'm a big fan of the Starcraft

franchise. I've bought in every collector's edition

that's ever come out though. I didn't play anything

past Starcraft two wings of Liberty. I did have

the other version, like heart of the swarm. And

I forget what the Protoss one was called. Um,

but love the franchise. It's a lot of fun, a

lot of interesting care. characterization there.

And it pretty much defined eSports. When you

think of eSports, you think of Korean arenas

filled to the brim of people playing StarCraft,

and there's still millions of dollars being made

in StarCraft tournaments. So yeah, Aaron, very

quickly, what is your honorable mention? Borderlands,

the Borderlands franchise. I freaking loved it

because it's just gun and run and it's silly

over the top. cheesy, corny, and overall brilliant.

I love the art style of it. I love the guns.

I love the nuttiness. I love the plot. Yeah.

Borderlands. Fantastic franchise. Gearbox really

has a winner on there. There's even an adventure

game called Tales from the Borderlands done by

Telltale Games a number of years ago. The humor

in that series is amazingly well done. The newest

Borderlands. It was all right. Like that. I thought

it was fine. I think my favorite though out of

the three so far. What is the second one? Yeah

I Like the plot of that a lot more. It was kind

of heavy -hitting there were points in it that

actually made me tear up But three is pretty

good. I still enjoy it. The gameplay is great.

The plot is good enough I like the add -ons that

they've put out so far for it. So I can't complain.

I think it's a lot of fun So anyway guys that

are some those are some of our recommendations

that that like you that you guys should check

out For our favorite PC games or PC or just game

franchises in sci -fi Yeah, we hit some familiar

hadn't thought of so Hopefully you will check

out some of these games. We do want to hear from

you Regarding some of your experiences with like

some of these games So Steve if people want to

get a hold of us, where would they have to go?

Well, they can email feedback at geekcastradio

.com or feedback at thisweekengeek .net All right,

and we always do want to hear from you. If you

want to reach us on Twitter, you can reach us

at This Week in Geek. Alex and I do take care

of the Twitter account there. If you want to

look for me online, you know where to find me.

So anyway, guys, we will be talking about something

else here on Future Imperfect rather soon because

Star Trek Lower Decks has started. So we're going

to see what kind of a wonderful disaster that

is. Honestly, I'm kind of looking forward to

it because I'm an idiot. Honestly, I am looking

forward to watching it. I'm going to be honest

about it, but I'm looking forward to watching

it. I'll say this. I'm looking more forward to

lower decks than I am to Star Trek Discovery

Season 3. Oh, yes, very much so. The only reason

I'm going to watch Discovery Season 3 is probably

because I'm going to talk about it here. Yep,

I'm watching it out of spite. So on that note,

we will catch you folks later. So until the next

time we take the USS Future Imperfect out of

space dock, we have been Steve Megatron Phillips,

Aaron Paglia and I've been Mike the Birdman saying

live long and prosper.