This spot was originally intended for a Metal Gear Solid vs Splinter Cell episode, but I ran into issues getting it together. I settled on this episode to be the next one, instead. This was pretty funny to me as I had delayed this episode multiple times because I was struggling to find ways to splice the analysis into what were supposed to be fight scenes. I tried to make this elaborately paced episode where the criticism was being delivered while the fight was going on. I wrote the criticism to be quite snappy and brief. Thankfully there’s not a whole lot to say about either game unless you’re a super hardcore fighter fan, so you can quite easily get to the point.
But even then it just wasn’t working. It just doesn’t translate right in a purely audio medium, so I had to settle for forcing in lulls to each fight to spare myself shoving punch sounds every five seconds during the editing phase. As I said, the snappy pace of the criticism meant these lulls wouldn’t last too long so the story could keep moving at a satisfactory pace. I enjoyed the set pieces, especially the recurring gag with the mallet.
I was happy with how it all came together, but happier to get it out of the way.
There isn’t a whole lot to get into here and I’m conscious of how light this entry might be compared to others, so I thought I’d discuss the decision that this series should have a bigger story and lore. My main priority has always been to make my analysis and observations more entertaining. I also want to encourage listeners to try episodes that they might not necessarily be interested in from a game perspective, purely so they can hear the stories and the jokes.
The one thing that I considered was introducing plot threads that play out through multiple episodes. I haven’t reached that stage in writing yet, it’s still a big picture plan that’s growing more fleshed out over time, but I’m currently pretty confident that I can introduce this stuff without it overwhelming the episodes. I don’t intend on over-relying on the bigger mythology stuff and I view my approach as being more in line with The X-Files over something like Lost. It’ll be predominantly standalone content, hints and teases added occassionally to create intrigue, but not distract, and then do a full episode here or there that focuses in on the big stuff and ensuring the games discussed are still thematically relevant. I’m pretty happy with how the plan is shaping up.