Players

Squidge

Jay

The B

Russell

If you wish to support the Waffling Taylors, and the other shows in the network, you can over at Ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia. However, supporting us is completely voluntary and not required at all.

Another way to support us is to shout out about us on social media or give us a rating on your podcatcher service of choice. The more people who listen to the show, the more shows we can do.

Content Warning

Towards the end of the second half of the episode (around the 33 minute mark), we discussed the games that Jay had been playing. He had been playing the Nightdive Studio remaster of Shadow Man; this is a very dark game, and the content that we discuss for this game is very dark in nature. We would recommend that you don’t let little ones listen to this part of the episode.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

It had felt like ages since we last had The B on the show

but we’d last had him on at the start of 2021 - for episode 99

so we invited him back and had a bit of a catch-up. But that had to wait until after Jay had forgotten the feed like for Squidge

Jay's Avatar Jay:

Hello Squidgey! How are you Squidgey?

And of course, The B starts yammering on about how much he loves a certain Portuguese chicken restaurant

something something cheeky nindos

To be fair, we would not turn down a free Nindos

yes, the typos are intentional

We wasted no time at all in getting to the heart of the matter, and that was:

Recent Games

The Recent Games segment will not be new to listeners, but in case you’re new to the show here’s how it goes: we go round the table and discuss one or more game that we’ve been playing recently, and whether we think it’s worth the listeners checking it out. We continue to do this until we’ve run out of games to discuss.

And this episode was no different.

The B’s Recent Games

  • Call of Duty: Warzone

The B said that he had started this one “more out of curiosity” than anything else

I wonder whether that was "curiosity about whether he had the hard-drive space" - Jay

  • Outriders

And from his description, this seemed like a fun game with a forgettable story

SPOILERS! - Squidge

But it’s not something that B would be happy calling “Square-Enix’s take Destiny 2” because

The B's Avatar The B:

I’d like to say "Square-Enix’s take on a Destiny game." Although they did, kind of, have that with The Avengers - once you get through the main story. Because Avengers has a very similar thing.

But how forgettable was the story?

The B's Avatar The B:

Barely a week from completely the story, and I couldn’t really remember most of it

That’s harsh! But possibly true.

There are a number of different classes that the player can choose from, but B had forgotten what they were almost as soon as he got to them. Luckily, Russell was there to save the day:

I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT THE CLASSES ARE AS FOLLOWS: MAGE; CIRCUS CLOWN; FLORIST; IT MANAGER; AND PROFESSIONAL SON OF A SHEPHERD

You can always count on Russell.

And technical issues aside, B would recommend it. Especially if you have Xbox GamePass, something that B feels quite strongly about these days as it’s really quite cheap

compared to paying £60 per game when it first comes out

The B's Avatar The B:

If you’re on GamePass, it’s an easy recommend

Squidge’s Recent Games

  • Torchlight 3
  • Diablo III
  • Warriors All-Stars

But what is Warriors All-Stars?

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

Warriors All-Stars is Koei-Tecmo / Team Ninja, a lot of their more iconic characters are smushed into one world … and we’ll wage a massive war and figure it all out

Because Squidge mentioned “Noah” a number of times, Jay wanted to politely point out that he meant Nioh, but The B jumped in with:

The B's Avatar The B:

Her name is Nioh and she dances on the sand?

As hack-and-slash games go, the Koei-Tecmo “Warriors” series of games

so called because almost all of the entries have the word "Warriors" in the title, and all use the same set-up

are probably some of the best titles out there, for that genre.

It was while answering whether he would recommend Warriors All-Stars to fans of the hack-and-slash genre, that we lost connection with him

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

How do you know that I’m wearing trousers?

which is a question that no one wants to answer.

Because of that, we never got to hear whether Squidge would recommend it. In preparation for these show notes, Squidge had this to say:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

If you like bashing buttons, running around a battlefield, and hacking away at thousands of enemies then this is the game for you.

Jay’s Recent Games

For the discussion of what Jay was playing, we needed a trigger warning because one of the games he discusses is pretty dark.

  • Shadow Man Remastered

The original version of this game is one of Jay’s favourites

and one which comes up a lot, and was the inspiration for a two part series of blog posts

and the remaster from Nightdive Studios is simply amazing. It’s so good that Jay doesn’t think he’ll be able to go back to the original any time soon.

The remaster isn’t simply an upscaling of the game. Nightdive have gotten their hands on the original content for the game and put some of the previously cut content back into it. This includes new areas to explore like a summer camp where a large number of grizzly murders have happened, a scap yard, and an area called “The Experimentation Rooms”

this has an incredibly dark blank-and-you-miss-it-moment

It also fixes a number of known bugs with the game, and adds a more modern control scheme, and scales up to 4K. On top of that, the composer for the game

Tim Haywood

went back and remastered all of the music for the game, and released the soundtrack on his BandCamp page.

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners. Please see the above list for copyright details pertaining to music used.

Games Covered

We mentioned 25 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: