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Pixel Vision turns 50 with some earthshaking news, before Ben and Tao turn protector and carrier and take on the armies of Provence in A Plague Tale: Requiem, sequel to A Plague Tale: Innocence. The duo take opposing views as they discuss the contradiction between a didactic story and fun gameplay; why all in-game villains have caricature evil voices; how The Last Of Us sets the benchmark for effective storytelling in adventure games; if crafting, collectibles and upgrade elements are superfluous and interfere with a strong narrative; the influence of JK Rowling; force walk; and rats. Lots of rats.
Every key story element is spoiled by the end, but the first 45 minutes are spoiler free and pretty much all spoilers are heavily forecast.
Content Warning: PEGI 15. Coarse language, violent scenes, tragic developments.
Clarifications:
* The soundtrack to A Plague Tale: Requiem which features heavily is by French composer Olivier Deriviere, who also composed Greedfall, Alone in the Dark and Dying Light 2 among others. Ben’s a fan:
* The Arnaud aka Beast aka Wall confusion exhibited by both Tao and Ben is real, as testified to by several Reddit threads and errors in YouTube compilations. The Beast and the Wall are not the same guy:
* https://www.reddit.com/r/APlagueTale/comments/yrz5an/when_it_comes_to_arnaud_and_the_beast/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/APlagueTale/comments/z3njza/the_beast_arnaud/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/PlagueTaleInnocence/comments/10cj2dq/major_spoiler_why_did_arnaud_become_hunted_by_the/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/APlagueTale/comments/y6cx7o/a_plague_tale_requiem_chapter_vii_discussion/
Audio extracts:
* Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
* The Prodigy - Firestarter
* The Last Of Us OST by Gustavo Santaolalla
* The Godfather 3
* Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
* Dame Vera Lynn - We'll Meet Again
* Citizen Sleeper - Density
* Disco Elysium OST
* Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
* The Revenant OST by Ryuichi Sakamoto
* Wes Anderson Horror Trailer - SNL
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
* Skyrim Level Up
* Playstation 5 start up sound (reversed)
* Wolcen Lords of Mayhem OST by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud & Cedric Baravaglio
* Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - “Chill Winston”
* Pentiment OST by Alkemie
* Dark Souls OST by Motoi Sakuraba
* The Offspring - Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
* Brad Mehldau - Exit Music (For A Film), original by Radiohead
* The Mouse Outfit - Money
* The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Substack: Sign up free to read our reviews and commentary at www.pixelvision.net Twitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com
PS. So long and thanks for all the fish (and the listening!) - Ben and Tao xx


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Ben and Tao dive into A Plague Ta - oh wait, no they don’t, what’s been going on?!
Content Warning: PEGI 3. There’s literally no content. WTAF.
Clarifications:
* Yeah, to be clear, nothing to see here.
Audio extracts:
* Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? composed by Matthew Strachan
Find us at www.pixelvision.netTwitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com


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Wake up, Citizen! Ben and Tao are in festive spirits as they dish out a Christmas feast of sci-fi turkey with roast story spoilers on the side and cranberry DLC toppings in dice rolling space adventure, Citizen Sleeper - to be clear, absolutely not a turkey, by any definition! Your boys riding the mic get lyrical, discussing the overlap between board games and video games, gaming achievements, romance and gender in RPGs, playing good and evil, characters you can root for, and, naturally, Pixel Vision’s Christmas tradition… There’s a multitude of story spoilers after our initial reactions and the Taomun-ologue.
Content Warning: PEGI 12. Pretty PG this one. ‘Tis the season, innit.
Clarifications:
* Citizen Sleeper’s excellent soundtrack is by Amos Roddy. It’s available on Spotify:
* Gareth Damian Martin talks to PCGamer about his personal experience relating to gender and its influence on the game’s development.
* The other game by Gareth Damian Martin and ‘Jump Over The Edge’ studios is In Other Waters, which also looks really cool…
Audio extracts:
* Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
* The Twelve Days of Christmas - The King's Singers and The Tabernacle Choir
* Slade - Merry Christmas Everybody
* Disco Elysium OST
* Weird Al Yankovic - Smells like Nirvana
* The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
* Kool & The Gang - Get Down On It
* Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
* Icewind Dale 2
* The Dark Knight
* Free Guy
* The Sopranos
* Repo Men
* Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me 
* Sunless Sea OST
* Shaun of the Dead
* Hearthstone OST
* Observation OST
* Paradise Killer OST by Barry "Epoch" Topping
* In Other Waters OST - A Drifting Lens by Amos Roddy
* A Plague Tale: Innocence OST
* Frank Sinatra - Jingle Bells
Substack: Sign up free to read our reviews and commentary at www.pixelvision.netTwitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com


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The big wheel keeps on turningOn a simple line, day by dayThe earth spins on its axisOne man struggle while another relaxes~ Massive Attack

Ben and Tao are on a roll, fleeing the all flattening, deadening turn of the great wheel of time - or not time, just a massive, physics defying concrete cylinder crushing everything in its path for all eternity - aka The Eternal Cylinder. Your hosts try to make sense of the allegories therein, pondering metaphors and surrealism, story narration, procedurally generated landscapes, the perks of multiplayer gaming, and when an animal’s trunk is not a trunk but a snoot. As usual the game’s ending is outlined with some spoilers, but given the nature of the story, the gameplay impact would be minimal.
Content Warning: PEGI 12. Swearing. Ranting. One offensively audible clip from the Teletubbies.
Clarifications:
* The UK’s Teletubbies narrator was Tim Whitnall. This is a seriously disturbing show with an adult’s eye.
* Stephen Fry explains the story behind the ‘Pocketed It’ compilation. (TL;DR - he stumbled over the phrase while narrating the Harry Potter audiobooks so JK Rowling inserted it into every subsequent book).
* Ben enjoyed this take by Lewis Gordon of Vice: “I couldn’t help but look back towards the gigantic cylinder, an image nearly bursting with allegorical possibilities. In a way, we’re all the tiny Trebhum, doing whatever we can to postpone our eventual annihilation. In another, perhaps we—and I mean this in the humanity-encompassing sense of the word—are closer to the cataclysmic rolling pin, flattening and destroying everything we encounter.” And this one too: “For this time of gigantic crises we find ourselves in—none more so than that concerning the environment—it’s a fitting allegory, a reminder of the power that resides in the collective, and that our differences are an asset, not a hindrance.” You can follow Lewis here if you haven’t yet abandoned Twitter to the vultures and ashes.
* If you nostalgia hard on the Zoombinis reference, we recommend this video ‘deep dive’ into the game by GamesOnHardMode - it’s worth it for the comments alone:
* According to his Wikipedia entry, Peter Molyneux did not have any involvement in Creatures, Tao’s memory playing up (again). It was created in the mid-1990s by English computer scientist Steve Grand.
Audio extracts:
* Dance of the Knights by Sergei Prokofiev aka The Apprentice theme
* Other tracks from The Apprentice by Dru Masters
* Sir Alan Sugar, also his fictional secretary, whose real name is Samantha Moon, not ‘Frances’.
* Left 4 Dead OST
* Apex Legends OST
* Outer Wilds OST
* Void Bastards
* Midsomer Murders
* Stephen Fry - ‘pocketed it’ compilation
* Baldur’s Gate 2
* Chicago - If You Leave Me Now
* Blues Brothers - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
* David Cronenberg’s ‘Crimes of the Future’ trailer
* Zoombinis
* Creatures game SFX
* Spore OST
* Astroneer OST
* Line of Duty TV Series - End Title theme
Substack: Sign up free to read our reviews and commentary at www.pixelvision.netTwitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com


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To explore what it means to be human, Ben and Tao play with a pussy - a personified cat with an AI drone sidekick - while befriending wannabe artistic bipedal robots in feline post-apocalyptic, post-Homo sapiens adventure tale, Stray. It’s not all highfalutin social commentary though, they do get to remote detonate mutant bacteria with a light gun strapped to their teeny weeny cat vests. Analysis includes discussion of dystopian storytelling and tropes, the role of animals in games, children’s storybooks, whether art is a uniquely human venture, Tom Hanks, prison escapes in games, plus Ben shares why he’s not fond of cats or domesticated animals in general. As usual, some major story spoilers towards the end of the pod. If you’re going to play it, it’s recommended you do so before listening.
Content Warning: PEGI 12. Cursing. Animal cruelty. Egregious cockney accents.
Clarifications:
* All music for Stray was composed by Yann van der Cruyssen
* The collective noun for cats is, apparently, a ‘Clowder’. Doesn’t roll off my tongue either. The collective noun Ben used, ‘Posse’, is ‘a group of people armed with legal authority’, for instance, policemen.
* The Road is a dystopian novel by Cormac McCarthy. There’s nothing ‘basic’ about it. Ben regrets the term!
* The book Tao is clutching for is not ‘The Earth Remains’, an entirely different and unrelated novel by Shelley Burchfield, but sci-fi classic, Earth Abides, a 1949 American post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and the emergence of a new culture with simpler tools.
* Kurt Zouma’s personal contact details are… not really going to be published here. That was a joke. Read the room, or alternatively, this article about his crimes against cats.
* Here’s details on the prevention of migraines using vitamin B2, riboflavin.
* Machinarium was not from Annapurna Interactive, it was Amanita Design. It was released in 2009.
* Tom Hank’s new movie is called A Man Called Otto
* Prison escape features in Fable 1 and 3, but it’s also a story element in Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, The Witcher 2, Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Deus Ex, Dragon Age: Origins, Resistance 3, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Dishonored to name just a few.
Audio extracts:
* Machinarium soundtrack by Tomas Dvorak
* Prey
* DePresno ft. Liv Dawson - Gold
* Cats (2019)
* Transporter 2
* Half Life 2
* Minions
* Vinnie Jones and Ross Kemp in Extras
* Jason Statham
* Ocean’s 11 and Ocean’s 12 soundtracks, by David Holmes
* The Quarantine Zone (20 Years Later) from The Last of Us OST by Gustavo Santaolalla
* The Sixth Sense
* Superbad
* LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
* John Prine - Pretty Good
* The Lion King
* Eddie Vedder’s ‘Tuolumne’ from Into The Wild
* Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2
* Fallout 4 OST - Main Theme
* The Police - Every Breath You Take
* Alone Too Long - Daryl Hall and John Oates
* Fable
* Shawshank Redemption OST
* Escape from Alcatraz
* Blaktrix - Ironfist
* Castaway
* The Witcher
* A Man Called Otto
* Max Payne
* Snowpiercer
* Alex Jones ranting
* Squeeze - Cool for Cats
* Goat Simulator trailer
* Halo Infinite - Zeta Halo
* The Eternal Cylinder OST
* Cats and Dogs - Dr Syntax and Pete Cannon
Substack: Sign up free to read our reviews and commentary at www.pixelvision.netTwitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com


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Happy Halloween! Ben and Tao wallow in corporate servitude and debt until unionisation galvanises them to join the intergalactic picket line in zen, outer space deconstruction simulator, Hardspace Shipbreaker. In addition to the usual breakdown of the game’s story and gameplay mechanics, the duo get into gaming loops, micro objectives and puzzles, corporate megalomania and mandatory agreement to terms and conditions, the role of banter and companionship in games, dystopian retro futurism, and if gaming companies should use unsigned musicians for their soundtracks to foster more variety and cultivate new talent. Major story spoilers towards the end of the pod, but nothing detrimental to gameplay.
Content Warning: PEGI 12. Institutional oppression, bosses from hell, occasionally explicit cursing.
Clarifications:
* All music for Hardspace Shipbreaker was composed by Blackbird Interactive, specifically Jono Grant, Traz Dimji, Ben McCullough, Philip J Bennett
* Hardspace Shipbreaker was released on 16 June 2020
* Tao was right about the navigation system in Myst. It’s marginally different, but certainly comparable:
* While digging out the South Park ‘terms and conditions’ audio, I found this track by Seb Lowe which I think is worth sharing. Seems like a talented young guy:
* According to the Nintendo product page, there are actually 500 different products in Wilmot’s Warehouse
* Owen Wilson says ‘Wow’ compilation is, bizarrely, worth watching in full. It’s absurd:
* Vincent D'Onofrio, who acted Edgar in Men in Black (1997) is not the voice of Hal Rhodes. That honour goes to Adam Nurada.
* ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Check out their website here: https://www.welcometonightvale.com/
* Hypnospace Outlaw was our second ever episode and is available here. I like to think we’ve come a long way:
Audio extracts:
* Futurama theme
* Half Life 2
* Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place from Kid A
* 2001 A Space Odyssey
* Men in Black - Farmer Edgar
* Chuck Brodsky - Bill & Annie in full. Available for purchase here:
* The Office - ‘Good news and bad news’
* The Office - David Brent interviews Tim Canterbury
* South Park - HumancentiPad - S15E01
* Wilmot's Warehouse OST by Eli Rainsberry
* Pigs In Space, The Muppets
* Owen Wilson says ‘Wow’ over and over
* Welcome to Nightvale
* Hypnospace Outlaw by Jay Tholen
Substack: Sign up free to read our reviews and commentary at www.pixelvision.net Twitter: @pixelvizEmail: pixelvisionpodcast@gmail.com


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