DGC Ep 474: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (part three)

Hello and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duville and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who's always happy to keep the donut dippers busy. Too long ago.

Yeah, I I like that one. That one that one made me made me chuckle. There was another one that I was gonna throw in there what was like A man who must continue to endure uh uh harassment and humiliation, which, you know, I thought was more apt for our podcast overall, but maybe less indicative of the game.

Um and the game's tone. And that game, of course, is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Uh so uh let's let's get right into it with the tone because that is that is a thing that Sam says in conversation with uh I guess her her nickname is Grim or her handle is Grimm. Um about I think I installed like six camera taps or something like that in the penthouse, um, which is the only mission I have a hundred percentage. Uh and When I did the sixth one.

She said the analysts would you know, that would keep a bunch of analysts busy or something like that. And he said, Oh, I'm always happy to keep the dota dip dippers busy or whatever, you know. Yeah. Well, it was nice that there was a nice fun custom line for completing that because I didn't do that. I didn't finish the that uh secondary and so I didn't hear that. Yeah. It's a nice little reward. Yeah, it's also indicative overall of the tone because I feel like whenever he interrogates someone

He has, you know, he's like, Oh, do you like my knife? You know, it's it's brand new. I've been stabbing it into a lot of things lately or whatever he says, and you're just like, Oh my God Which is pretty true of me, but um But that's kinda he's got this rye the writing has this ry for for Sam particularly, has this very rye Uh, you know, seeing everything tone. He's also, you know, older than Grimm, so there's some banter about that at times. Um, and it does. Wi-Fi versus hi fi. Yeah, right.

High fiber? Yeah. Yeah. Don't put me in adult undergarments yet. Yeah, what am I, the president? Oh, sorry. That's not good. Um anyway. Jesus. Uh you're probably not gonna cut that. That out. No, I'm probably gonna leave it because'cause you know me. But um but yeah, I mean I I think you know, one of the nice things about his tone is that it actually counteracts the problem I normally have with Clancy, right? Which is the like

Yeah, endless tech babble speak and like not really feeling very human. And this is like this is very human. Like he was not I didn't think of him as a good character person. Like I I still don't think Jack Ryan is very interesting as a character. Like he's just kind of Yeah, whatever. He's he's very like you know, author insert or reader insert character. He's he and he is good as a

He would be Jack Ryan, I think, a good as a protagonist in a video game. I think he has been. I'm pretty sure there's a uh there's been like one Jack Ryan video game at least. Um but um the uh you know, I I actually really appreciate that they didn't go that direction. That Sam has his own person and he's got his own

And he's seen a lot and he's kinda done with all of it, but this is how he pays the bills or whatever. Or maybe he just likes it. Who knows? It's uh it's hard to say, but um giving him his own character.

And not having to make him a player insert character is a great choice for me. Like I cannot imagine if he were side. Yeah. Yeah, it's um the the you know, just not to not to be overly uh Um you know, uh what's the word uh to use I am tired right now, so I'm losing my words. But anyway, not to be overly like academic about it, but in a very Shakespearean way, you you need humor to counter

drama, comedy to counter drama, right? That was you know, that's my touchstone. Shakespeare didn't invent that concept, uh, but uh but that's my touchstone personally. Um, you know, uh Rosencranston's Gilnestern in Hamlet, for instance. And every one of the tragedies has some humorous characters, and that's pretty kind of one on one one on one uh drama stuff. And I think that Again, we've constantly pitted

Splinter Cell and Melgear against each other in this series and we will continue to do so. And it's probably very much uh, you know, uh potentially a cultural difference, but also just, you know, creative differences and Um, and there are different types of humor differences as well. Um, and it and Metal Gear gets even wackier and sillier over time. Mm. No, maybe it was an ape. I don't remember, but there was a smoking primate in I think in But he was other other than Snake. Other than...

Technically snake is also the smoking private, yeah. Right. Oh, I might have that wrong. Maybe the owner of the primate was was smoking. I forget. But anyway, there was a pri there, you know, there's a lot of wackiness that is is fun because of its wackiness.

Um and it does counter all of the snake seriousness, which is he's like obviously melodramatically overly serious. And a thing I like about Sam is He's still grounded the things he's saying are things that somebody with a rye sense of humor would say in real life, could say in real life.

Um, you know, obviously this is through a video game lens and we've talked about this game still having a somewhat melodramatic tone um and unrealistic tone at times, but When you put the two together, um, and I will throw in my favorite hitman as well, um, Agent 47 has some amazing, similarly amazing lines. When you because I've been playing so much of it, especially lately, um, it's sort of akin to the interrogate in this game, where you've put on a costume and you are about to do something.

usually assassinate the target or you're directly talking to the target and they think you're somebody else and he always has some pun, right, that he says about like uh you're you know, uh It's to die for, you know, this this fu goo this fugu sushi is to die for. And you know, and she's like, Great, and then you walk away. Yeah.

I it's it's funny because the the difference to me is that In the case of Agent 47, he's talking to the player, you know, and Sam is talking to the other character. Well forty seven in that case I just gave you he is literally talking about Well I know I know that he literally like but he's written to talk you know Oh you mean there's sort of a a a breaking of a double.

It feels like that to me. Like it it's meant to like he is he's sort of like he he's not turning and winking at the camera, but the puns are his way of turning and winking at the camera. Like aren't we? Yeah. Having fun, right? You know, and I don't think that Sam doesn't read that way to me. Like Like this is very deeply Sam's character and like Hitman Hitman is funny because I don't think of him as having No.

a lot of character other than the fact that he makes all these puns. But I think that it's like but that feels like a very much like, you know, can I make the pla you know, are we making the player laugh, you know, as we do these crazy things? Um It's interesting. the different sides of how they how the writing is employed, you know, the narrative is employed to do Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it's yeah, it's uh forty seven is much uh the hitman games are much more. I well, much more.

They're they're more self aware of how ridiculous it all is, I think. Yeah. And I think that Swinter Cell is like a kind of in the middle between the two because they still have a groundedness to what is happening.

But I I agree with you. I appreciate that they are having fun with his character and that he does have um um uh a perspective which a lot of You know, I guess Garrett and I know we're just talking about stealth games'cause it's we don't need to necessarily just talk about stealth games, but you know

They are ten they do tend to be fairly two dimensional and I do think that Sam has a perspective. And as you get a little bit further in, the Shetland stuff that comes up with that character, you know, there's And they're even referencing stuff that's happened and this is all plot.

story stuff, not character stuff, but there's you know, they're referencing his he references things from the past that he has opinions about, you know. Yeah. And so yeah, it's a good I don't know I don't know if you remember, maybe we I don't think we talked about this in the first episode, but

From a writing perspective, when the first game came out, it uh it was something that came out of nowhere because you know Rainbow Six was I think the only Tom Clancy game of note at the time. Maybe there was a Ghost Recon there. Um, and nobody knew about Spencer Solar what it was, and I think it won some awards even. Initial game. And it sort of st it it charted a course for the series where people started to really appreciate

Spencer cell specifically for the character and story within a context of a genre that didn't usually have it. Or or if it did, it was Metal Gear. So it was like so different, so opposite. It's like you either love or hate Metal Gear in those ways. Right. Um and it's just ridiculous for what it is. But um and so the tone and writing and characters for Splinter Cell has always been something that has been called out, despite its

You know, it's sort of uh again, exaggerated version of that. Uh and um I yeah, I I've been appreciating You know, similar to Hitman, also just like we talked about, the real world locations and the real world tone of what you're doing and why you're doing it. I've just enjoyed that so much more than something like Metal Gear.

Yeah, I mean I've I have noticed in some layering of backstory, I feel like um in the bank. Um, you know, mission briefing or maybe while you're while you're approaching it, they say Well, one of the reasons we know the layout of this bank is that you've been here before and I don't know if that's a in a prior game, uh, or if it's in yeah, well, I guess it would have to be a prior game, right?'Cause he was a unique

He was a new character, right? This wasn't not a Clancy character, I think we talked about. Yeah, I couldn't remember. I didn't go I I noted that too and I was gonna go look and forgot, but I don't remember if that was in the previous ones. Um I mean it could it could have still been something in his past right that wasn't in a game. Right. Right, right.

They did actually have books I think too. But uh yeah, but they're trying to they're trying to do world you know, it's world building. They're trying to build up that there is kind of a lineage to That was a good one. They've mentioned Georgia a couple times, um, as a reference to the first game because right uh one of the mm yeah, one of the leaders in in Georgia was the Okay.

Yeah, I was you know, I you mentioned that we didn't put this on our list, but we have talked about like how, you know, games in particular in Ubisoft's case have like gotten in trouble for um for setting games in real locations. But nobody really complained about the Clancy books or really any espionage books. I I kind of feel like it's unfortunate. It doesn't seem really all that fair. Now I do know that that um

that Franco and I think it was Jonah Jonah Hill, James Franco and maybe Jonah Hill interview movie, which was set in North Korea. I know that got a lot of flack. Um, that you know, North Korea wasn't happy about it, but you know, North Korea. Um I mean, Yeah, speak of the devil, right? Like It's in the game too. Yeah. Now was that movie good? I didn't see No, I heard that that well I did not see it either, but like

And Tomatoes was like seventeen percent uh type deal on that one. You know, so that was not uh I was not I don't see a lot of comedies anyway, Tim. I mean life is life is comedy. Oh boy. I know. Wow. Maybe you need to see more comedies then. You know, they are they do serve a purpose even Even the the silly stuff. But I I mean I just with the movie exhibit.

What we've been thinking of you with a new a new and final another final movie and a particular series coming out soon. Um I've been thinking about is what's his name? Stevo. Um Oh yeah, Jack the last and best. I was trying not to say it'cause I got I've got to mute that out now. Oh, sorry. That's right. I don't even equate that to a bad word. Yeah, I know you don't. Okay. Yeah, that's I'm looking for Uh one of my guilty pleasures. Um yeah, I uh

Oh, I just lost it. What were we just sitting? Oh, with the movie with the movie example I think it's a good one. But the reason I asked if it was a good movie is that I have a feeling that if it if it were a good movie It wouldn't have gotten the same kind of flack. Do you know what I'm saying? It's Oh okay. Never mind. Yeah, yeah. It was all doesn't matter, but but uh but in general, like I mean, all kinds of movies are set all kinds of real places. Like the born born movies or whatever, like

You know, and nobody nobody complains. Oh my God, you set this movie in a real place. I don't know. I just was I was thinking about that this morning, um, or la maybe last night, you know, just of like, yeah, it's weird that games get that kind of flack. Um, you know, or they did over, you know, this the South American comp you know, country, you know.

There is something to be said about like these real you know, these sort of real time ones, but most movies, you know, are that too, right? So the Bourne movies were set more or less in the time, you know, that they were released. So yeah, I don't know. I just was I'm just theorizing on this, but yeah, I mean we talked I think we talked about last episode, but to re rehash it a little bit with that particular example.

Uh well first before I get to that, my macro theory on what your on your your question or you know uh pontificating on is Because games are interactive and the player is playing these characters and doing these things, when you are going to quote unquote Cuba and doing the things you're doing. I'm wondering if it has a different impact.

I mean I think but I don't think political leaders play video games, so I don't know that they have a lot of games. No, no, no, I don't Yeah, I just mean well, but the thing is is like when when it they don't play them, but they hear about them from somebody in their life. That's that's true.

they and when when the you know we have plenty of examples thanks to GTA of this stuff going on where it's like well they didn't play'em, but they hear about'em and then they think and then they're like, Oh wait, what can you do in this game? Oh my goodness. And so we're gonna go and sue somebody. Right. But but you know, you're you're shooting a lot of people in Far Cry six. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and but and you are Far Cry Six is not set in Cuba.

No, I know. That's why I said quote unquote. Yeah, ex yeah, exactly. But but the so there's that. There's also as we know, there's there's a different culture around the two mediums, I would say. Well I was I was gonna say there's also, you know, there's more of an international box office than there is a video game international box office.

um overall, just because there is, even though in pure numbers, whatever. But um just that more sensitivity happens Hollywood's thinking like we need to sell to that Chin Chinese market, for example, in order to make the money back on a Marvel film. Right, uh, for example. Right. And with a video game, you're not thinking, Man, we really gotta get the North Korean market or whatever, you know, the Cuban market, right? Um

But uh yeah, I don't know. It there's a lot I probably shouldn't have brought it up'cause it's s we're taking so far afield. But I just was thinking about it lately, so It's an easy scapegoat though. It's it's like a cultural scapegoat generally for games. Anyway, you were gonna say something else second.

Well and the other thing I was just gonna say, I think there's the gamer culture versus movie culture that, you know, I think we can't deny, unfortunately. And I won't spend too much time on that. But the th the last thing which I brought up last time about this and that particular example with Ghost Recon um Wildlands is that The re So Ubisoft's bread and butter was real-world political locations before this, before that game. That was what they did. And it it didn't come up that often because

It was largely not offensive. But that particular game stepped over a line, I think. Oh, okay. And then they started changing their PR tune to cover their tracks, but still did whatever still still did the things they always did. You know what I mean? So it's like they didn't stop making Rainbow Six after that game. They made another

Ghost Recon. They've made more Far Cries and they set them in real location. So it's really just PR spin in my opinion because they got they got called out on doing a bad job on a particular couple games and And it's just, you know, it's sort of like it's just a messaging problem for them. It's like, well, we're not political, even though You know, yes we are c we're we're actually very political, you know. Right. So I you know, anyway. I could go on and on about this issue.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, and I probably could too, especially when we start to bring film into it. So let's instead Go back go back to the game where Tone play. Tone is is refreshing and and it's a good balance. And yeah. Sam is a memorable character, and I think that he very much is. is a reason that this series has been carried as far as it has, even though yes, it is dormant right now. And I really I really hope they figure out what they're doing with That one that's supposedly in development.

Yeah, it's it's a you know, there's been a number, there's like six or seven games or something in this series and maybe maybe even a couple more and it's you know, it is it has done some You know, there's definitely been times where I've been like, I should try that series, you know, as games have come out come out over the last, you know, couple of decades. Um and you know, I've just never I've I have kinda gotten away from

that kind of full stealth game, uh you know, in my playstyle. So it it is something that, you know, I've kinda gotten away. But let's um let's switch to where a lot of this character comes through. I've already mentioned, you know, the the intro was in the interrogation, but um we wanted to kind of segue into a topic about like what you get out of interrogation or something like that. It's your your topic, so go. Yeah, pick a number between one and ten. Three.

Oh, lucky guess. We're gonna play this again. Yeah. Uh yeah. Oh so good. So good. So I want to talk about what I realized is interrogate. So we talked about interrogate last episode. the surface. But if you start using it more and more, one thing that I just wanted to call out as a kind of a a macro statement that we can dig into or not really uh is

To your point on tone and character, because you're because Sam's doing the interrogating, you get a lot of Sam time when you interrogate. And there are so many great custom dialogue uh sequences based on uh custom and also some I've heard repeat. But the interrogate is this great Um entry point. for the team to deliver variety of things within game mechanics that players are initiating versus a cutscene or versus

um codec style, you know, delivery, which player is not technically in control of. You're you might have triggered it by an action, but you're not triggering it yourself. So interrogate has for me become this great takeaway of a way to encapsulate many things into something that is player driven. you c I'll call it a mechanic even though it's very simple. Um and even you have options because you can you can do a you know a lethal or non-lethal takedown afterwards.

And you don't have to interrogate them. You can just do that. don't have to interrogate'em. So so there's a so just to break it down a little bit, so one, to your point, you don't have to interrogate them. So There's already a little bit of uh a Pokemon kind of like, am I gonna try to interrogate every single person? Cause I don't know which one has some. might need or am I gonna leave some, you know. So sometimes I'm like, I probably should interrogate that person because they

Right. Um, so there's that question. Then there's how am I going to take them out? But during the interrogation, some things can happen. You get story.

Um sometimes it's actually critical path story you get from it. Not critical path, but it it relates to the critical path. Right, right. Um Like getting an an office key code, for example, too. Well that was that was one of my other ones is that that the the interrogate also results in keys that aren't keys. Right. Um and as far as like a game that has many different keys that aren't keys, yeah, that this is one of them. Um and some of them I'm even forgetting about.

Um with you know, turning off the fan. You know, like how would I turn you know, how would I turn off that fan or whatever to get to to enter the displace, I think it is. Yeah. Um you know, and so there there's like lots of that just

I mean it's stuff that you could just do, right? They the it it's it informs the critical path. You don't necessarily need it. Although you did have I think in in one of the early missions, like you you had deprived yourself of information you and oh it was on the on the ship you had said like oh I you you did something you maybe knocked out the person and who knew something. The captain. The captain, right. Right. Because you needed to know that the guy was in his

And they and and the game re the game um reacted to that. Right, right. Um because I had a codec come on afterwards from the the commander guy, I forget his name. Um and he said, Well, you're not gonna get what you need from the captain. You're gonna have to go find it yourself. Yeah. You know, so they actually had a Thank you. They had accounted for that, which is also great.

Yeah, so I mean I'd like more I honestly like more of that. I mean that's yeah that's one of the things I think Like I want some stuff that's in there and this feels maybe going a little hitmanny in a way, but but I do want some stuff that like recognizes what I've done. Um so for example, in the I think it was the uh Uh penthouse. No, I think it was displace. At one point in the displace mission, I had picked up Two different guards and put them in the break room off of the kitchen.

And I so wanted when I knocked out the next guy to have him say You know, once I knocked him out, let's go join join your friends in the break room or just something like recognizing that I'd done something that was like extra. Like you d I didn't have to do that. I just did that'cause I thought it was funny. Yeah,'cause there was a room that was like

There was a door and there was a tiny little room. It was clearly a break room. There's the kitchen with the microwave and everything next to it and like vending machines. And I was just the I just did it'cause that's the sort of story I tell myself in my head. Like I I've told you many times when I play stealth in something like Assassin's Creed or or whatever, that I'll go and I'll just like I'll kill everybody in a camp except for one. I'll just leave the one guy

Who's like, What happened to all my friends? You know. Um, you know, and uh and just have that story in my head. And I wanted the game I wanted Sam to to pick up on the on the fact that I had done that. You know. Um you know, it's early in this in this series and early for that sort of you know and detecting player intent is always dangerous. Um, but it did feel like an opportunity. And it but it does again also feel a little hitman y, a little more like hitman would do. But um anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And being being aware of the player in that way. Yeah. Yeah, and in Hitman, at least the modern Hitman, because again, the in the same era they weren't doing advanced stuff like that, but they've gotten more better, you know, they've gotten better Over time, and in the in the modern world of assassination, you can use the game systems uh against it for those reasons.

Uh like with like dropping a weapon on the ground, you know somebody's a player that the characters will react to it, right? Right. Of course. Or or obviously bodies too, but um but yeah. Um Yeah, and I just so I just uh uh unexpectedly interrogate ended up being this encapsulation of a lot of the different goals of the game, whether whether they knew it at the time or whether they happened upon it during development, we don't know. But

Um but it it it it s it uh it carries the burden of a lot of different things at once with a very simple concept, right? Um Uh I don't know if this is the case'cause I haven't been cruel enough to try it, but I assume if you're if you're holding somebody, just the mechanic of grabbing somebody, also they're probably a shield. Yeah, yeah. Which Snake uses that as well later on too.

Um, so yeah, I it's just impressive that such a simple thing that the player can initiate or not has so many variable options and impacts the game in so many ways.

Where it encourages you to do it. That's the other thing. Yeah. That it the rewards for it, not just story and tone and character and context, but key you know, key codes or uh keypad codes, um uh clues. There's also kind of sometimes sort of light training in there where, you know, he or the or the person you're interrogating will give you a hint about what about something. Like you mentioned

You know, more context with the the fan turning the fan off'cause you didn't need that. Right. But it was adding to the experience. But I've I don't have an example, but I do a vague memory of of a time when someone said, Well, you could do this, you know, uh, and they're'cause they're trying not to be killed. So they're trying to give'em something. Right. You know, like, uh well, um And sometimes it's a you know it's it's uh more of a key to a lock that's critical path and sometimes.

No, like like the lasers and things like that. Um Yeah. The yeah, and or the I think the retinal scanners too. I think you can walk through the retinal scanners if you have a guard. It doesn't like do anything with it, it just lets you. Um I I noticed that on Yeah, that's another yeah, but again, when the guard becomes another becomes another key. I I have a funny in in displace in the displace building I I'm sure you

There's that laser hallway. Yeah. Where I basically just had an unconscious guy that was my key. And I just picked him up on one side and dropped him. And then whenever I needed to go through the hallway I just picked him up again, so... Yeah, I have the same so also in displace there was a guy who there were these two like gates with like clear I don't know if they're supposed to be glass or plexiglass or something to the main elevators for the whole building.

And I thought I was gonna have to use those. So I kept picking uh the that level was one where I got really, really stuck and we'll get back to office buildings later. But I like I kept coming back and I had this guy that had laid down behind the the other elevators which were like internal to the displaced uh offices or whatever, um which I didn't realize for a long time you could use.

Which was part of why I was stuck. But the uh but I kept like going back to that guy being like, Okay, now can I use that those elevators? Nope, still can't use those elevators and I would walk back through and I it was just like this poor guy got picked up and put down like seven times. Uh Um, as I tried to figure out, you know, whether it was possible. And then at one point I'm like, Okay.

Because there was a guard at the end of a hallway who had a long sight line. I was like, Oh, but I know there's a bunch of like plastic bottles on the other side of those those gates. So I used the guy, I went and picked him up, um, I put him down in the doorway, thinking he'll it'll hold the door open. That even though it's not a door, I thought it would hold it open. It didn't. But um and then I picked up a bottle and was gonna walk through. Instead I had to throw like the bottle over Over.

And then pick up his body to unlock the door again. And then he and I ended up dropping him on the wrong side at one point. And I was like, Oh no, I lost my I lost my key. Uh and then I realized I didn't actually It would be sore.

Yeah, he's gonna yeah, he's gonna have bruises all over. Um, I wanted to talk more about the lasers because at the beginning of the bank we did very different things and that'll kinda get us into the the gadgets discussion. Um You know, w we both I expected you to say, Well, I didn't drop in through the roof because we hadn't had I guess you didn't wanna spoil it for me, um, what was gonna happen there. Uh so in the bank

The entrance and it might be the only entrance I think is through the roof. That's how I went in. It's not how I I guess you could probably enter from the side, from that court. Um I entered from the roof. I thought that would be it looked kinda cool. And I was, yeah, do a couple of little things up there and and enter through the roof. But then when you get when you get down to the ground level, you're in this like

Um I guess like a teller enclosure or something. I'm not sure what it's meant to be, but uh probably probably something like that. Or just like a security, a little security area. I think It's four tellers. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's so small I w I wasn't sure. But um

the uh I haven't been into a lot of banks and you know in the islands or anything like that. So who knows, maybe that's how they're all laid out. Um but there's these now there's like these layers kind of crisscrossing that area as you mentioned last week. Um And as you're as you're getting down to the lasers, the I think it's Grimm tells you, or it might be the the Cockney weirdo who's telling you about stuff that you can use your one of your vision modes to like disable the laser.

'Cause they're basically tutorializing that for you, but you just skipped that. So I want to talk about that. Because that's what I I was like, Oh, okay, cool. I didn't know you could do that. Um, I'm glad you told me that'cause I had no idea that I could e the weird thing is you can't always that's

why it's so weird is it was it felt very like specifically this, but then a lot of times I try to use it and it doesn't doesn't remote hack. So I don't know. Um I know it's more difficult to remote hack. I remember that from the mission tutorials, but I forgot how to do it. So um yeah, so what did you do to get through there?

Oh I just shot things. And you know, you were giving me a hard time. That's how I played the first level. I just shot things. I know. Well, I wasn't shooting people, but um And they're not really people anymore once you've once you've shot them. So Okay. Is that a matter of fact? Interesting rationale for a murderer. Yeah, so I well I just wasn't I guess I just wasn't listening right when I was coming down. I was too focused on on descending my rope.

Uh and this will come up actually because it ended up being um a major wall for me. Because I didn't And I didn't do it because you need to do it that time. And they do reinforce it in that displace mission, but I didn't really understand what they were talking about because I hadn't done it before.

Right. So yeah, I didn't know about the remote hacking and so I was like, Well and this is a a I think that the reason we wanted to talk about that little sequence is it's a testament to some of the sandbox nature of the game. Um so I just silenced pistol shot the monitors of the of the um of the computers. And it doesn't work for all the lasers, but it did take out enough of the lasers for me to get out of that, uh to climb over the the glass.

So I just yeah. So I mean it's nice that it accommodated that, you know, for me and then and that there actually are a couple of different options there. Um I mean also you could just leave and let the alarm go off and deal with the consequences. You didn't even have True. So it's like you have a lot of options there. Uh and and I have since bec now that I do know and remember you can remote hack, I also have been fooling with it.

And um it's you know, it's finicky and inconsistent, like you said. So it's a good idea, just a little bit tricky. Maybe it ended up being too powerful, so they had to limit it.

Yeah, I imagine that's it's something like that. I mean, they do my recollection, you know, now thinking about is that in the tutorial they do say that it's more difficult to do. So there might be some things where it's just like, It's too difficult to do. You just can't do it. Um so

Yeah, but I would imagine it would be it could be problematic for sure. Like, oh, I can just point I can just look at any camera in the level and disable it or something like that would be going would be going too far. Um it would be a different sort of a different sort of game, I think. Yeah, I mean it already feels a little bit like magic, so it's a little

It stretches credulity a little bit. Um but I think Wi Fi Well I think the idea it's Wi Fi, but in that case, why can't I just Wi Fi though you know, everything's connected on Wi Fi? Um well maybe it's not in two thousand four, so who knows? But Uh but I don't know. It just was a weird It was weird, like every now and again I can magically do this thing. Okay. Like I get it gives you frees you up a little bit on options. Gives you another cool thing to do. Um

Yeah, and it's on brand too. I think it fits it fits the spy theme and all of that. So yeah. The idea like that the NSA or somebody has developed things that are like well beyond uh, you know, what what we can do, you know. Like for example a an infinitely replicating uh like intelligence stack or whatever it's called, the Dvorjak McGuffin. I'm like, I don't think that that means what you think it means. First of all, infinite is infinite. It doesn't fit the computer. It's too Really good to me.

Yeah. And then it's on punch cards, but you run it at once and you get like six punch cards out of my You also don't understand punch cards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's all right. It's just hand wave it over. Yeah, I know. I know. Magic. You should have just you know pulled out a USB. I would have believed the USB like, oh, I know more about the structure of the program. No. But that's so... I got six punch cards.

That's so uninteresting though. Uh punch cards are hilarious and the audio that came with it and that weird scientist guy that's standing there. Yeah. He was super rare. Like really intently playing checkers. I'm like, Really? You're pla that you're really You didn't talk to the guy and have him help? I did. Oh, okay. He didn't do anything, he just said a couple he just said a couple lines for me. Oh no, he helped me reboot the computer.

Oh, I did that without him. I snuck behind him. I snuck behind him and oh I see. So when I talked to him after I was done, he didn't have anything else to do, so he just had some voice. Okay. No, I talked to him before and then No no. I was I was planning on taking him out so I let him I left him there and snuck behind him and did it all myself. Oh that's funny. That is very funny. That's funny that they let you do that then. Yeah, yeah. No. I mean it they they

I went into that computer error is like I don't know what I'm supposed to do and so and they told me, Oh, you should talk to the dude that's there and because the thinking was, Oh, maybe he's Dvorjak or Dvorak, I guess they say. Um You know, it's like, Oh uh oh no he's not. He what a weird voice too that guy was

Weird. Weird weird choices were made there. But uh yeah, anyway. Uh it was a little uh a little goofy with the maybe maybe they're maybe they've got really, really fine print on the punch cards. Tiny little I'd be worried about hanging Chads. Um

Yeah, so let's go to the rest of the gadgets because you've been using them a lot more than I have been. Um, and and that kind of ties into the w we've already been touching on the depth of player options and all these different sorts of places with Interrogate.

you know, and with how to solve those lasers. But there's a whole world of gadgets I have like not even touched yet because I basically do everything with the pistol or sneaking up behind somebody. That's like ninety percent ninety nine percent of what I do. Yeah. Yeah, and the and that's the bread and butter of these games. So it's it's good that they got that right and that you can play the game that way. It should you should be able to play the game that way.

And um and I just, you know, I just was starting to explore and I love gadgets as as you know, especially in spy games, seeing that uh that's something that we've done. Yes. Yeah. Um and doubled down on, but um So like the the example I'll give so so it it there's two topics here that are partner topics and we'll maybe get to the other one later of really just the concept of this game has a lot.

And I would say potentially too much. However, if you're somebody who's gonna replay the game or try to get a hundred percent on the levels, then it probably doesn't. It probably has the right amount. But for someone who's just playing it through once, I think you're not gonna end up using it. a lot of the game, unfortunately,'cause you can play it in a f in a pretty basic way. But the sticky cameras are the ones, the example I'll use that I started fooling with and

I'm not even sure to be honest I fully am using them correctly or using all of the things that they can do. But there's a lot going on there just for that. So obviously it's an attachment for your weapon, for your rifle. You have to attach it. Um and you have the uh the shock thing, shock bullets, shock whatever they're called, uh as well. And I use those a lot too. Basically tasers and a bullet, right. Tasers in a bullet. Yeah, so it's a it's a non lethal takedown there too. Um so

The the sticky cameras are interesting to me though as a good example for the depth of the gadgetry. And it's probably, as far as I've seen so far, probably the most, uh the one with the most depth.

Um the rest of them are more weapon like or simpler. But um This one kind of like Interrogate is another good example of encapsulating various elements of the game. So you obviously shoot it on at a wall, and it's silent when it hits. If you right click, it does a little uh s uh little distraction sound. Attract and it'll pull them over. Obviously it's a camera, so you can also use it to zoom in, look around corners, look at things from different angles that Sam would never be able to see.

Um so that gives you uh early warning on someone's patrol. I use it for that. See what I what I use for that is quick save. Sure. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And that's fine. There's no you know, s safe scumming is a is a term I've never liked personally. Yeah, no. I mean I I I mean I I'll often go up to a door and I'm like in the first few levels I was I would use the optic cable and all that stuff and now I'm just like I'm just gonna open this stealthily.

And then if there's somebody behind it, I'll just reload. That's fine. I think y again, it's like yeah, I d this this this high and mighty attitude that safe scumming is bad and that people are not quote unquote being good or playing the game right if you're safe. Like that's stop that. That's ridiculous. Yeah. Those people maybe have more time than I do. And yeah, maybe. There's some other things that we're going to do. Patience.

I think there's some other things going on there too. Yeah. Um ego maybe being another thing. But um so, but the thing that I like using the sticky can because it is a great part of the sandbox and it's just fun and interesting to use. And then if you do the signal thing, I think on the right trigger, or sorry, left trigger, so right, sorry, right trigger is the is the distraction. Uh left trigger actually shoots gas that knocks them out.

when they get close. And if they shoot I think they also if they shoot it it might release the gas too,'cause so sometimes I've had the gas release and I didn't actually do it myself. Um so it's also a non lethal takedown. Oh uh don't quote me on that. It actually might be lethal.

But I I think it's non lethal. I think it's non lethal. But'cause the gas grenades are lethal. I've used those as well to take out a whole Yeah. Yeah. You'll know what I mean in a Hokkaido. There's a great sequence that I won't spoil for you. I really I really liked Hokkaido. That's maybe my favorite level so far, but just because of its its level design and its flow and its setting and everything. The lighting is amazing.

Great shadow work. Um so yeah, so the it's just the You know, if interrogate is a player action that again has all of this stuff wrapped into it that exemplifies and really shines a l no pun intended light on all of the different aspects of the game that the player is initiating. Sticky cam is another example of that for me, that's a gadget, right? And it's just an, you know, another mechanic, but

It has so much going for it. Um, and then you start because it's integrated into the sandbox so well, then you start thinking outside the box on ways to use it, you know. Um and And even if it's just to distract somebody, not even use the gas to take them out, but just to distract somebody. Just to make a noise, right? Yeah.

Yeah, to turn around and and it you know, they when they're in um search mode, they walk so slowly, yeah, so methodically, they're like they're being very careful. And that gives you so much time. Because if you do it down a hallway and they turn around and they're like, Okay, I'm gonna really slowly walk with that sound, I was like, I got I turned inch by Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Um gas grenades.

Also interesting, like I feel like the interface choice to make everything fire and alt fire, which was very like that was very UT, right? You know, and other other Unreal games in general. Controller design. Yeah. Controller design based. Yeah. Yeah, and it it's funny because I don't like

It's not it but having made that choice that everything is fire and alt fire, it means that you that for every object you have you you want to open up what you can do with it, right? Because now you have two buttons to interact with it. So Yeah. Gives gives you gives you a lot of options that way and that's that's kinda interesting too. Um so is it like that you fire the sticky camera and now you're looking through it until until

Okay. Yeah, there's probably like I said, I don't think I even understand all of the different controls for it. There's probably uh well if you hit escape, I think you go back to Sam. Right. But yeah, once you fire it a couple You know, like a beat later, you are then looking through the camera. Okay. And you can tilt it, you can zoom in, you can aim it somewhat. is whether I could return to that camera later. You know. Um that's a good question, but I don't think so, no. Okay. Okay.

I think it's it is m it is meant to be sort of a uh an am an ammo round, right? It's gonna it's a it's an expendable, uh, consumable thing.

Got it. 'Cause you do have you you are firing it like a round and you do run out of them of course. Right, right, right. Well they're expensive, Tim. They are very expensive. I really, really I know we talked about this maybe in the first episode, but I really, really wish that the loadout. loadout system. Right. I want to pick, I want to pick how many of a thing. Unless we just don't understand it. But the weird thing about it is that oh, I just realized something. Uh

Okay. Um I'll get to that in a second. But the weird thing about it is in the loadout sequence for the campaign, they literally have empty slots in all three options. And it's like, what? Why are there empty slots in there? I will say sometimes the options aren't even distinct. There'll be Reddings, I think his name is Reddings uh lo loado. And then he's basically just saying use the stealth loadout. His loadout is the same as the stealth load. They're the same? I didn't notice that.

I I on one of them it was like exactly the same. I was like, He's just suggesting one of the two of them or something? But it's not always that, which was the weird thing, you know. So uh Really weird. My possible revelation that we may or may not sound like maybe may not get to do now is Uh multiplayer. Oh yeah. multi that system might actually be more robust in the multiplayer where you actually can fill all the slots. Yeah, we know how it's just scheduling right now for us as

Dash driven. Yeah, stick around to the end of the episode for what our schedule is over the next few weeks. Um'cause it's gonna be well, hopefully not too disruptive to our Maybe we should try to do it as a bonus episode after You know, when when our schedule is isn't so bad and when Yeah. Because I really I really think we have to play co-op. Yeah, I I really would like to. So it's I mean, I know how to do it. It's just like you're away, then I'm away and so

Yeah, I have to do it as a bonus that we we break out break it in the middle of something else. So we we'll we'll talk about it offline. That's true. We could do it later. Yeah, there's no rules. We can do it out out of out of sync. Um Or we could just do it on your stream, you know, it would be the other thing. And not Yeah, yeah. Um and this has spies versus mercs as well, right? That's correct.

Yeah, good. Which is I guess we probably won't be able to play that, but that is a that is also like uh allotted kind of anomalous mode that even we reference daily because of what we're doing in our day jobs. um as a a very unique approach to to PvP in stealth. Um which really hasn't been matched since. Um We're not doing it with Octavia of course, but in that same way, so Right. But we're inspired by it, you know. Right.

Well and there were there were other um attempts to do similar sorts of things. For example uh weird kind of parallel game because of what it was used for. But America's army. Um have Yeah. Soldiers versus terrorists. But both teams saw themselves as the soldiers. Yeah. And saw the other team as the terrorists. In both cases, which is what Yeah, that's some rough stuff.

Yeah, that's not something I want to discuss further really because we're not talking about that game. But like looking back on that, like I'm way more skeeved out now than I even was at the time. And at the time I was pretty like I was like, well that's interesting, but I didn't think about it more than that because I think we were busy shipping a game, so I didn't really think about it. I think it came out during during Republic Commando. No, it was earlier with Starfighter.

Oh Starfighter, okay. Or Jedi Starfighter, yeah, but it was it was definitely earlier than Republic Manor. Well there's I think there's the thing about Spides versus Mercs in this case though is that the the two big things and I I haven't played it since it was out, so I don't remember the details exactly. But I think there's two things happening. One, it's um it's asymmetrical. Right.

And I think the the the characters are asymmetrical as far as like one team space spies and has different abilities and sneaking around like you do in the game. And then as you would imagine. And it's asymmetrical in player count, right? And it's asymmetrical and player count. Yep. So both I think there are fewer spies, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's fewer or one. I don't maybe one. Yeah. I don't remember exactly but But that was

You know, that was a very cool concept and very rev you know, a revelation I'd say, for how to how to problem solve this. You could have just done a game of all about one or the other, but why you know, that's just doesn't sound Yeah, I mean without having played it, the one thing I would worry about would be the The thing about um, you know, how multiplayer is often structured is that like people generally exit the game or a team exits the game at the same time. Um, but if like you're the

presuming that people don't get back up, um, that player basically has has nothing to do'til the end of the match if they get taken down in the first few minutes, right? So Whereas if your whole team is eliminated, you know, in typical multiplayer games with like multiple teams, so like the PUBGs of the world and things. Um Like that team just goes and joins a new match, right? They they just kinda leave and c and go do Yeah, matchmaking project.

Fortnite. Yeah. It's a matchmaking problem for for that. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of people being a little like, Oh, I guess I got eliminated early, I guess I'm done for ten minutes while the rest of'em play is uh is a little tough for stickiness. But Yeah. We we did try to solve that a little bit on in Octavia not to talk about Octavia but yeah, and just giving giving down players stuff to do to help their team.

Yeah. The other thing, I don't remember if it was a tag mechanic either, too, where um where if one side wins, you get to go play as the spies, you know what I mean? Oh. Um and it kind of flips round based. Uh it might be round based, is what I mean. I see.

The the challenge my memory though and the challenge and because we won't get to play it I'll I'm continuing to talk about a little bit more is that you have to make the mercs interesting enough to play because other a uh a um symmetrical multiplayer games Um, that's one of the biggest challenges. Right. Evolve was one that I'd call out where it's like Everyone wants to be the monster. No one wants to be the soldiers. Right. Because the monster's cool and the monster.

Um, and so in this one, my memory is I always wanted to be the spy. And maybe that was just a me thing. Um, but it's like you once you go asymmetrical, you really have to make sure that both sides are fun to play on the Yeah. Yeah. And and this game was built around being a spy. So can I I have a fantasy, you know. memory of, you know, just the merc side of it being under underwhelming, but yeah.

Yeah, for sure. I mean it's it's uh yeah, you look at things like Dead by Daylight and the the people who are trying to survive have so many more Yeah, that's a good example. Yeah. They're very different experiences and they both are fun to play and 'Cause you could save somebody or you could you know, you you get more like there's some meta around it, I think, of of benefits if you manage to help somebody escape to the extraction or whatever.

So there's a lot of different sort of things that can that can balance that stuff out. Okay. Let's um let's turn to Kind of well, I want to start with the office buildings and then but but use that as a springboard towards the visual quality, the fidelity stuff we were talking about.

Um because we both got a little lost in the displaced building and y your quote in the uh pre show was like office buildings are the worst. Um which is funny because it's also Uh well it had t two things. One you know, one, yeah, we both got lost and so it was like really hard. I could not follow the map in that level. I was like, I'm not sure where I am and No landmarks.

Yeah. Um and then uh but actually there was a a micro a bit of micro level design in there that I actually really liked. And that was um the the guy with the briefcase. that you have to like remotely target, which was a mechanic you didn't understand because you didn't do it. I'll have to explain what happened even more, yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that in a moment. Well I'll do mine and then you do yours. So mine was

I so at the very beginning of the level, he's basically in the hallway between like two wings of the building, I to for lack of a better term. It's like in front of the elevators. And he's there, but if you get up kind of close and peek around the corner, they see you. So I was like, oh, I'll just like pull back and I'll do it from further away. But a nice little level design moment was like there is no long distance look at that interaction. Like you can only get up close. Like so the wall

It's like a it's not how a a hallway would normally be built. It it was like'cause normally like a hallway would go and it would go either to a T you know, or it would continue on, but you would have longer sight lines than typically. Like, um, so I just was like, this thing that I want to do to like get around the AI detection distance. the level designer blocked off by making the, you know, the sort of wall that was sort of straight in front of me.

just cut off enough of my sightline that I could not with with the wall that was to the right of me that I could not see these guys beyond it. If I went up to the wall in front of me, I could peek around but they'd see me'cause I was too close, but I couldn't pull back. And I was like, Oh, they've frustrated me in a healthy way, like a useful way. Like I felt like, Oh, I'm gonna have to find some other solution.

The other solution, unfortunately, was I just had to kinda wait and they went somewhere else and I targeted it somewhere else, which was kind of less exciting. But um but it was kind of a cool moment of like, Okay, the level designer knew I was gonna try this. What am I gonna do next? You know, and I I really liked that moment, even if it was my least level least favorite level so far overall.

Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, that's a good nuanced thing that maybe through iteration and protesting they found. Yeah. Um, but that's yeah, or it was just good planning. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good that was a good one. Yeah, it's the the whole briefcase thing is interesting in general because I think I think what they might like the perfect playthrough, what they might want you to do is to do it when you're above before they leave the room.

Maybe um because they you have a vantage point there and to do it like in a sneaky way. But so but I didn't do any of that. Um so A, not only did I not know and for you know, again was not I I missed it in the bank level, so it was like I hadn't been using Hack at all. And I was like, Okay. So it's I've used it twice, so

Yeah, well and she does reinforce it generally. She talks about sort of the Wi Fi element of it and stuff. But because I hadn't used it before, I didn't really know what she was talking about. And I was like, Okay, uh stay close, whatever, I'm just gonna go get the You know, so my approach was I jump into the room and scare the hell out of them. I taser I taser the guy, he drops the he drops the briefcase.

And they actually accounted for this because there was a voice line because she says, uh, oh, well that's or the commander says, Oh, that's one way to do it. And everyone runs away and or I take everybody out. In the next room, so you know, it goes out when you go out of that conference room, there's like a lower room below. There's a little bridge, right? And you go below. There's a laptop on the table below in the next room. Yeah. I thought that was the laptop. Oh.

I did not realize it was in the briefcase that he dropped because I tasered him. It was on the ground. It was on the ground of the conference room this whole time. I was stuck for hours, I feel like. Oh, wow. So you went to the yeah,'cause there was that room and there was basically a guy just kind of standing standing there. It's like an executive to me too, and I was like Executive? When you when you when you interrogate him, you ask him about coffee. So of course that's Yeah, right.

Lot of coffee. Breeze dried or ground, you know. And he's like, What what? I don't know. You know. So it was very yeah. Then yeah, and then the guy goes on to say, Well, you want cream and sugar? Please don't. Um yeah. Good stuff. Um so there was just a lot of red herrings, unintentional red herrings there that I was stuck on. I was like, is this the and I did end up having to look this up. This is the only thing I've looked up so far. And

And I was like, Oh, it's the briefcase. The laptop is in the briefcase. Right. Yeah. The briefcase is still sitting in the original first room on the floor. And you probably can't interact with the briefcase directly, or can you? No. No, I don't think so. I think I tried but yeah I don't So I just ended up I f once I knew that, because the the the main guy, like I said, I tasered, he's just laying on the ground. Right. And so I was like, are you kidding me?

And because unless you get the code from that, you can't actually do the server. So I actually went all the way through the level, basically nearly finished the level, was in the server room. Cause it tells tells me to go there. There's a objective mark there's an objective marker for it. Right. I'm like, I'm here. Why can't I access the server? Um and of course they did tell there is a voice line that says you need the key thing, the key code for it or whatever. Right, right.

The access algorithm or something. Yeah, and I you know, I miss that too. So it's like yes, it's me not listening, but also when you have only voice lines telling you this stuff, like the um the goals I guess do sort of also tell you that. But they don't they don't tell you the mechanical thing that you need to do, right? The mechanical thing tends to be in the voice line, which is like use your such and such to do This is

And they don't reflect that information in the goals. Yeah. I I agree. And that's a mistake. Yeah. Yeah, and these were the days when we did overly rely on VO to Yeah. Solve our problems for us. Yeah. Yeah. Which was really our fault, right? It's the developer's fault in that case. It's just yeah, if you miss a voice because voice lines are are temporary, you know, once they're they're ephemeral, is that Yeah, no, they're ephemeral.

So they go away and just like if you didn't retain that information, you're you're done for. So I mean you might be busy when that comes in. I mean, to your point last week, like sometimes voice lines come in where they make no sense, right? Because yeah, there's a dude right behind you and you're like speaking in full voice in your uh vocoder or whatever. So yeah.

So I had to go I went all the bay you know, picked up that guy to go through the laser room the hallway again, put him on the other side. That that whole place was singing with photons. And s yeah, and so I um

Uh and so I just had to go back and I'm literally standing next to the briefcase with my scanner looking at it. Wow. And then and then did it that way. So yeah. So it's a you know, it's it's it's cool and interesting in that It did technically account for me being that was like total knucklehead stealth, right?'Cause I I I didn't sneak up on I just dropped into the room during their meeting and they're like, holy sh holy, what's going on?

It's so funny'cause I didn't do it that way at all. I don't rem I went around to the stairs or something. So like Uh so you went just like a totally different path in the level, you know, and I you know, it's very funny'cause so they didn't even get to the hallway that I found them in, you know, that No, no, no. Cause oh, so did you also not get the instruction about the the the glass that could be up made opaque or not? I found that later.

Yeah, okay. So yeah, they if so if you don't do what you did, the next thing they do is they go they leave the meeting room and they go through a door that has an opaque Window.

Yeah, yeah. No, I did see it eventually, what you're talking about. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So and they go through it and and like Grimm says in your headset 'Cause because you're there like trying to listen to the behind the door to their conversation. He says, like, I'm just gonna open the window and I'm like, Open the window, what is he talking about?

Um and then he comes and suddenly his face is there. Like I can see his body. I'm like, where did he come from? How how did did he open the door? Like, no, he didn't open the door. The door's still there. And then she comes in and says Oh, those fancy windows. Fancy wind glass or whatever. Yeah, this glass that can be made opaque. Yeah. Uh, probably not exactly the way that they describe it, but y yeah, sort of. Yeah.

I think I think those are real, yeah. But yeah, anyway, and those are all over. That's in the server room too. Yeah, right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the guys come in. And they reveal them. So I I I as soon as I started that conversation happening, I jumped back on the rope and climbed. Yeah, that's what I did too. I I barely made it out of there. But it was a nice one.

a couple times there, so I got killed a couple times. So I'm like, what am I supposed to do here? Um and it turns out that I I just was waiting to listen to the dialogue too much. Um let's go to the Fidelity working with the assistant and mechanics. We'll do the email next time um because it's cause it's long and Uh talks about something we I'm yeah, I'm excited to talk about it more too, but it'd be great if Thank you.

Either had a chance to play some co-op or or at least just investigated the multiplayer a little bit more so we can speak a little bit more authoritatively to it. I mean, I guess we could probably if we can get I don't know if we get the co op working, maybe we could also try I mean, it would just be one V one so that'd be silly, but we could try it and see.

Yeah, I know how to get the the co op working. We just Okay. We need to spend the time. We need to spend the time. So it's like I need to do something and then I need to walk you through doing something. But uh we'll get that working. I'm not worried.

Um I just don't want to use an off the shelf solution for that. I want to do it myself because because these are our work computers. We don't want to just install some random software off the web to uh to do this one thing for our podcast. So No, I never do that. No, yeah, that's true. Never did that for in Interstate Seventy Six. Oh boy. Yeah, fair. Um I didn't, but yeah. Anyway. I've got so many computers.

Yeah. Just lying around everywhere. Uh yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the fidelity issue issue. We were we were talking in pre show about how the The visual quality works really well with the systems uh and mechanics, but that is this is definitely in your realm of expertise. So uh lay it on me and we'll talk about it.

Well, at the time when when the first game came out, uh um and really pretty much almost all of them uh in the series have been uh not only just for Unreal but for you know third person you know this is their stealth but third third person action-y stealthy action adventure game

They always set a high bar for art fidelity and tech technical fidelity, um, audio fidelity and stuff. That was like one of its things, right? And it was not not only usually associated with Xbox, so it was pushing the hard Hardware.

And they were always trying to get the bells and whistles in. And I would say that even today playing this one in particular from an art direction standpoint, um, stellar and from a art, you know, content and technical content and and everything, even design level design composition, like it's it's all really stellar and it still holds up for me.

um quite a bit. And then in a partnership with that you know, it's not like Metal Gear wasn't trying to do be cutting edge'cause they were always doing the cutting edge stuff too and they were often uh often associated with Playstation um first as well. Um, but they were doing they were kind of focusing in different kind of uh, you know, technical and artistic areas and they had their own art style as well.

But Spencer's all, for my memory and for me, was always this high bar of quality. And I think c oddly, um, in a great way, chaos theory still holds up for me. and a lot of... Um, I did up the resolution, but I don't think I've really upped much else. And so I would call great art direction.

Um, but they would you know, they also would take the sort of technical forefront of things of the day, especially for Unreal, um, and find ways to implement them in the game because it was not just a great showcase. for the game and for Ubisoft and for the engine and for the Xbox. Um but Rarely do games do a good job of partnering those technical cutting edge features. Like say clothes.

Right. Gameplay. Yeah. And the team did a great job at thinking through: okay, cloth is a thing, which they this was kind of introduced. Anyway, but they keep going with it. Uh, cloth is a cool thing, great sim. Engine does it well, it looks cool, it's got physics. Let's make a door out of it. You know? And so now you can cut through the cloth and create a door and

light acts differently. Um the rules of the game act differently'cause, you know, obviously they can hear you through the cloth differently than they can through a door. Um And I wasn't expecting that cameras would like just knowing that the era I was like, Oh, this camera's totally gonna detect me through this cloth. That's not gonna block it and it totally did. And I was like, Good for them

You know, I was like I mean'cause it looked like a heavy thick piece of cloth hanging from like floor to ceiling. You know, those are not typically like, you know, rayon or something. It's like it looked like a tapestry type, you know, thick And I was like, this is this is totally not gonna work. It was for the um extra objective on the penthouse level. I'm like

Uh, this is the first thing I'm gonna try to get to that camera, but it's totally not gonna work. So I'll have to figure out what I'm gonna do after that. And then it totally worked. I was like, Oh wow, good for them. You're like this uh this clotsim actually

you know, interacts with the this this, you know, the vision, you know, of the the camera vision, you know, the line of sight. I guess the line of Yeah, and they thought about that and they implemented it and it showcases cool technical elements that oftentimes I mean, they have ambient stuff like flags and curtains and stuff in places. But most of the time cloth was not was just a thing for that. You know, it was just to make it feel like a um a fleshed out world.

rarely are those sorts of things also integrated. So of course we've talked about lighting, right? Lighting is key in this and this is a segue to a, you know, a a recent uh a recent interview that we'll mention. Um Shadow work is also key. Uh, the way that they've lit, the way that they have the shadows working, because they're smaller levels, smaller play spaces, fewer characters, they can have their shadow

fidelity be higher to compensate for performance. So they've made a lot of really smart decisions to let the technical and visual aspects of the game shine. Yeah. Again, no pun intended. Um The game opens with a Dolby logo. Yeah. You know, and i this is a play with headphones game. Like audio is critical and it's not just for the NPCs, it's for you too, you know. And if you really if you stay still and really listen, you can hear someone's coming down. you know the hallway

before you see them, uh, and make plans based on that, you know. Uh and so it's just I wanted to call out that because in my opinion it is so rare to have the technical and visual um you know, uh cutting-edge features of an engine be so well integrated into the gameplay of the game. I wanted to call out that.

Uh and then on the lighting segue, which I guess we can both talk to, um,'cause we've talked about lighting earlier and its importance of, you know, dark and light. But uh Clint himself was in a recent interview Um he's just started a new studio. I think he's he's probably making the rounds, which is great. Congratulations to he and his team. Um but he was talking about the high fidelity engines of today, PBR specifically, which you you will need to talk to more.

Myself. Yeah. And about the challenge for stealth games in that regard when things have gotten so photorealistic and so uh rendering simulation realistic. that it makes the clarity of stealth and lighting harder. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think typically so it's it's physically based rendering for those um listening at home who are like P V R um is that a beer? Um It's like I said. Sandwich to me.

It's the modern rendering. Yeah, PB PB and what? I don't know what the R is in that. But um it's a uh it it's kind of a you use more information in all of your textures. um to reflect things like albedo and like different ways that the basically light interacts with

different substances. And it it makes, you know, everything look a lot more photorist realistic in general, if that's your artistic approach. And these games are, you know, they're meant to be Um Back in the in the day of this it would have been a mix, it's clearly a mix of uh light maps. for lights that can't be shot out, so things that are just

you know, far away. Um, you know, like, you know, the moon or something like that, you know, is is not something you can do about the moon is the moon. And that light would be baked into the level and then they have dynamic lighting on top of it. Um Then are all the lights that you can shoot out and they probably have

specific areas that they fall on, you know, um, not to the degree that you tag them, but typically you don't want more than a couple of lights in in this day. I mean uh is that true of Unreal Two? It's been a while since Unreal Two for me, but um My recollection is like Absolutely. You didn't want like a lot of lights interacting with any given object. So typically and you kinda see that in the levels, it's like lights are pretty spark. It helps focus it though, right? Like It's good.

There'll be one dynamic light in a room sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like whether or not you want to shoot that light is a question you really want to ask yourself is like Yeah, is that gonna draw somebody in? Like there's the noise factor and like they're gonna be able to do that. I checked it out. Yeah, it all works with it. Dynamic lights. Yeah. are a cool thing technology wise and artistically. And also in this game gameplay.

Exactly. Yeah, they they tie really, really well to that. Anyway, the thinking was um with the with the PBR is that uh there would be an issue of like the shadows being sharp and the lighting being clear, you know, to the player, just like visu through visual inspection. And like I sort of alluded to, it's actually more of an artistic and creative decision.

whether or not that's the case. You can still achieve that with with physically based rendering. You just need to really think about it, you know, as you're constructing things of like, oh, how do we want to achieve our gameplay goals with our t with you know, with choices in our art, you know, uh direction, um and how we light areas, you know, and I think it's I think it's achievable. It it's probably harder.

But then everything is harder in in a way, you know. Uh, you know,'cause we have so many more options today. Everything is harder. So you it it is just a constraint you need to put on yourself of like How much are we gonna allow things like global illumination to be a part? Like maybe you don't wanna turn on that latest bell and whistle because it does make it harder to make read, you know, more readable shadows, you know, and maybe that's not a thing you want. Maybe you don't want

you know, every time somebody fires a gun that it, you know, changes the lighting in a room, for example, right? Because you've got this system where you probably have some light probes or something on SAM in today's engines.

That are like how much light is hitting Sam. And if you like introduce these very hard to predict lights for the player, um, that would interfere with all of that. So I get I get why it's tougher, um, but I don't think it's I I think it's just something you have to really think about at the beginning of like we're gonna make the choices to use these things versus not these things in order to achieve the same goal. So or how to use them. Yeah, or how to use them. Right.

Yeah. So it's a good thing. Exactly. It's it's the same problems. I mean I think, you know, I I uh Clint isn't here to to defend himself, given the benefit of the doubt, but I think I think you're right in that he his points were really my memory of that article was that he's summarizing it. The summary is that he's he's also talking about how much uh more difficult it becomes. Yeah. Yeah. Um and that it is a direction challenge and it is that you have to rethink how you're going to direct.

Um, not just the overall direction, but just lighting direction, you know, level, level, whatever, art direction. Um And uh but it but it's like Those problems have always been there, but just easier ways to solve them. Right. Uh and I think what I liked about what he was saying is that right now, because the engines can do so much can do so much more than they've ever done before and becoming achieving photorealism is so much easier. It's still a lot of, a lot, a lot of hard work.

and assets generation, but there it's a lot more possible to achieve it than it's ever been. But the goal and I would actually say this for any photorealistic game, The goal isn't to be photorealistic or shouldn't be to be photorealistic. You still need art direction. You still need a perspective on what the game is going to be. And if you are making a s I think what Clint was saying is in my summary, if you are making a stealth game, that has to be a decision.

And you might be going for photorealism, but you are still making a photorealistic stealth game. Right. Right. And once you put that tag on it, you are gonna make different decisions about how the team needs to use the current technology to achieve a stealth game. You don't just get to make a photorealistic game. Right. It has to be a certain kind, you know. And it's so it's still possible, but just very difficult.

Yeah. I mean I think absolutely what you would do would be make a small art room, you know, which is just lighting folks. And then like say, okay, well, you know,'cause I'm sure they've got you know you've got some assets lying around that have been built in a t tr you know sort of modern PBR pipeline. You put those in an area and then

you know, you you do some video of that of walking through that space and then you do paintovers and saying, Okay, these shadows need to be more dark. How do we achieve that? You know, how do we you know, and you just kind of like you iterate on your process in pre-production, figure that out and and it's yeah, it's hard. But then you you know, you've you solved that problem and you use it to inform everything else you built from that point.

Like, oh, we had to not do this and we had to add this, we had to use this channel of texture information for this and you know, that's good thing. You know, or maybe even build a whole new shader model in some cases, depending. Uh Well an example, yeah, an example like to your point about uh the uh the Unreal Two of the time. You could still like just as an example, I'm not saying this was actually be would work or be the right decision, but just uh to to prove the point.

To your point on like having one, you know, beauty corner room that you're using and you could do it paint over probably with Unreal these days, you could do it real time as well and just start fooling with stuff. But you still could make the decision that even in a game today, even though you could have a hundred lights in one room, you still could make the direction decision to only have one. You know, even though the even though the engine could handle more. Right, right. Yeah.

And you're like, no, this game still is there's one dynamic light in here. And if it goes out, the player knows it's out, you know, kind of stuff like that. Right, right. Um, so again, I'm oversimplifying it, but there's still um it's really it was just a very timely I had seen the article before, but shout out to a friend of ours, Harley, who sent me a link. Yes. I think sent both of us away. Former interviewee.

Yeah, former interviewee is like, Hey, you might wanna read this article. And just just by sheer coincidence came out while we're doing the series. Yeah, right after the first episode. So she sent it to us that weekend. So yeah, thanks Harley if you're listening. I think you are'cause you're playing along. So uh so enjoy. I hope you're enjoying.

I hope your whole place is singing with photons. Um, all right. Well that we have we had one more topic, but we're we're starting to have podcast fatigue, so we'll talk about my other uh uh topic next time when we finish up, which will be um our review up our uh takeaways episode rather. Uh this is our third episode of the series. We'll do one more. Um I'm gonna aim to finish. I don't know if you'll have time because you are doing a little bit of travel.

Um but in terms of our schedule, so uh we will be uh off next week. Um and then we'll be back on the week following and then I think it's gonna be possible for us to record the week after that as well, with but that will be a new game. So I will Uh So'cause I am traveling after you after you're traveling. We're definitely having the summer the summer schedule uh hit us right about now. So we will do our best. Um but we'll definitely be off next week.

And we'll definitely be b be back the week following. It's it's after that that we're a little fuzzy. Um so we'll see. We'll update you if we know. Um you can shoot us reviews and uh we actually got some emails this time, but we're running long, so shoot shoot more of those at debgameclub at gmail.com. We'll try to we'll try to catch up uh next time with the takeaways.

and uh and whatnot. Um and as you point out, a good a good one in there. We're on the web at devgameclub.com and you can find my co-host twitching at twitch.tv slash Tim Longa Jr. with the JR at the end. where we might at one point figure out how to do co-op for this game and maybe maybe we'll do even uh the regular multiplayer one on one v one at some point. Uh you know, check check

Check for uh future notes in our fan run discord, uh where there is a channel for hey when we're when people are streaming, there's a there's a channel for that. But uh there's a link for that in the show notes if you'd like to join in and see all the fan discussions that Maybe we should get some community members in. That could be a thing we do too. So we will we will update when we know.

Our intro and outro music was written and performed by the immortal Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by Friend of the Cast Aaron Evers, and our logo, Discord, merch store, all of the things are by Mark Garcia. Have fun stealing French governmental bearer bonds this week and good night.