The Shelley Tasker Show

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Broadcasts live every Wednesday at 7:00p.m. uk time on Radio Soapbox: http://radiosoapbox.com

In this episode of the Shelley Tasker Radio Show, our co-host steps in for Shelley Tasker amidst the stunning Cornwall weather, bringing a lively discussion on the digital age and its societal impacts. The show kicks off with reflections on the influence of the Atlantic Ocean on Cornwall's climate, segueing into a critique of modern digital dependencies, particularly mobile phones. The host shares anecdotes about automated services in Korea and recent cyberattacks on UK stores, highlighting concerns about digital vulnerabilities and the potential for societal control through technology.

The episode delves into the world of gaming, exploring its dual role as both a social connector and a potential tool for military training. The host and guest, Mr. Ryan, discuss the immersive nature of video games, their impact on hand-eye coordination, and the controversial inclusion of political themes in modern games. They reflect on personal experiences with gaming, the balance between escapism and addiction, and the broader implications of digital entertainment on societal norms and behaviors. The conversation is interspersed with nostalgic references to early gaming experiences and the evolution of gaming technology.

[00:01:09] Unknown:

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Hopefully, my mic is coming through better this week. I've done a little bit of work on that. You are listening to the Shelley Tasker Radio Show. We are coming live out of speakfreeradio.com,   and possibly other platforms as well. I'm not not quite sure.   I'm standing in for my good co host, Shelley Tasker, who is   absolutely must be enjoying the sunshine because   this is this is the third show I've done for her, and   crikey, the weather has been absolutely stunning, and today is no exception at all. Absolutely   fantastic. On the way home from work this evening, my van registered 21 degrees, which for down here in Cornwall,   surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean,   that's pretty good going. That's pretty good going. The Atlantic tends to keep us kind of moderate all year, so,   21 degrees,   you know, in, in May, that ain't bad. It kinda reminds me of the lockdown year, really. But anyway,   there we go. So today's date is   the 05/14/2025.  

Got a great show lined up for you this evening.   I've got a guest coming on hopefully in a little while and we're going to shed some light on,   let's just say digital things or let's cut to the chase. It's going to be regarding   gaming. Now hear me out. It's not what you think. We're not gonna be talking about specific computer games and things like that. We're gonna be talking about the influence   that   the   computer games industry, which let's face it now makes up for a good 40% of media entertainments I would say nowadays, particularly amongst the youth,   probably more.  

Just discussing what sort of influence it has on society,   how it potentially could be used for other things as well. But before we get there, I've got some other   sort of digital things if you like to talk about.   I call them digital things because I really haven't entered the digital age myself yet other than owning a computer.   I hate mobile phones. Regular listeners will know that I can't stand   mobile phones.   They are the bane of   they are the bane and the corruption of society as we know it as far as I'm concerned.   You cannot walk down the street without having to step aside for someone that can't look up from their mobile phone,   to the point where in actual fact,   a lady that I work for, she's got a daughter that studies over in Korea. She's doing political science, believe it or not.  

But she's been given a bursary and she she studies political science   in Korea, in a university in Korea. And she went out to visit her last well, would have been towards the end of last summer. And she came back and she told me. She said, it's amazing. She said, everything's automated. Like, if you order food in a restaurant, nobody serves it to you or anything like that. It just comes out on a little conveyor belt, and then there you go. Yes.   Sounds great, isn't it? Sounds really personal service and all that kind of thing.   But also to the extent where   where we have zebra crossings here in The UK or or,   I don't know what you call them over in in America. You know, they're pedestrian crossings, you know, so that people can cross the road.  

Over here in The UK it's generally either what we call a zebra crossing which just has lights next to it and traffic by law has to stop if anyone steps out in the road and they're allowed to cross the road blah blah blah.   Public right of way and all that kind of thing.   But also we have, you know, we have like the the red and the green man thing. So you walk up to a pedestrian crossing, you press the button. I'm sure there's loads of them all around the world. It's very, very old technology now, even by my standards.   You press the button, you wait a little while, and the red man   changes from green to say that you can walk across the road because it's changed the traffic signals. Well, in Korea   they have to have red and green lights   in the pavement   because nobody looks up. It's so that you can stay plugged into the matrix and you only have to look a few centimeters to the left or right to see whether you can cross the road or not while hunched over your mobile phone. Isn't isn't society disgusting now and lazy?  

In my opinion, yes.   So, regarding digital things, digital things as I call them, so   there have been a series of quote unquote cyber attacks   on the, what we call, the cooperative   stores over here or co op for sure. All the locals will know them as co op.   And they've been they've been cyber attacked,   and it's disrupted   all their services, I. E. They they can't keep track of their stock control. They don't know   who needs what where, so the distribution service has gone out of the   window. Our local co op, the shelves are, I would say, half empty.   I would say half full, but in this case, I'm not that optimistic. They're half empty. So,   I just wanna say a few words about this, really.  

In this   digital age,   how easy   it is to shut the world down.   They don't need COVID anymore, folks.   They could just oh, so and so's had a cyber attack. So a few weeks back, it was a it was a UK chain store called Marks and Spencer's. They had a cyber attack too. Oh, I'm sure it must be Russia or some,   some frightening bear   that must be responsible for these these things. But I don't believe it at all.   You know, we have,   we have a, you know, a worldwide group that, you know, meets every year. I can't remember the name of them now. There there's a it's a worldwide group, meets every year   to,   simulate cyber attacks around the world   and what they could do to possibly combat them and blah blah blah blah blah. Well, this is, for me, this is the Hegelian dialectic.  

Problem   reaction   equals the solution that they wanted to bring in all along.   So how easy it will be now to shut the world down   because everyone   has gone digital? Everyone's paying for shopping with their wristwatch   or the chip in their forehead. Sorry, no we're not there yet.   Everyone's paying for their shopping on their phone or their wristwatch   and I'm sat there with cash in my pocket going, You fools!   You absolute   fools! Do you not know what you're letting us all in for if you carry on down this route?   Do you still like your mobile phones, folks?  

So,   you know, at the end of the day, I just I think that,   this whole   system,   this whole this whole idea that somebody a a group can be cyber attacked and it will destroy business, who's it gonna benefit, folks?   Who did COVID benefit? We never saw an Amazon van down here in the in The UK.   Sorry. In in Cornwall in The UK.   Never saw an Amazon van down here   before COVID hit. And, it was always delivered by somebody like Yodle or, you know, some other courier company. If you if you ordered something from Amazon,   down here in rural Cornwall, it was always delivered by what we would call in The UK a a white van man.  

Someone in, you know, in a in a flash jacket and a I don't mean a really cool looking jacket. I just mean one of those luminous things, what we call a flash jacket over here. Little luminous jacket. They come out, knock on your door, and deliver your parcel.   But when COVID   hit, they were allowed to just drop those parcels outside as everyone is now. The only people that don't drop parcels outside your door   is the Royal   Mail in this country.   Every other courier company is allowed now since COVID,   even though COVID doesn't exist anymore, apparently, or it might. I don't know. Did it exist in the first place? Jury's out. Whatever.   Now they're allowed to just dump it on your doorstep, ring the bell,   and   I'd love to swear here, but then they leave.  

Regardless of whether you're at home or not, I've came home a couple of years back to a guitar pedal worth £200   sat on my doorstep. Luckily we live down quite a quiet road, nobody had decided to go and pick up the package just to see what was in it.   But this is occurring all the time,   obviously,   and there are no companies.   You know, so we've got this whole courier thing where we didn't see an Amazon van down in Cornwall before the lockdowns.   And then by the end of the second lockdown, there was an entire fleet   of top of the range Mercedes Benz   electric and diesel vehicles   dropping things at a rate of knots and, yes, just dumping them on your doorstep and buggering off.  

You know, and and if you if you send the message back and say, it didn't arrive.   You know, that's not my doorstep. There's a photograph been taken there and that's not my doorstep. Do you know what? That's good enough for them. They'll just turn around and say, it's alright. We'll send you another one.   What   private   company, what what family business can afford to keep up with those sort of business   ideals? What what you know, who can compete with that?   So this whole thing now but, you know,   that was what I'm trying to the the example I'm trying to make or the comparison I'm trying to make is that, you know,   the the Hegelian Dialectic problem, reaction, solution. COVID can't touch you, can dump   package on doorstep. Yes. That's what they wanted.  

Dump package on doorstep.   If it disappears, no other business will be able to compete with us anyway. And because no other businesses are allowed to really run during COVID, well, we've taken up the lion's share of the, the commerce. Great.   Brilliant. Centralization.   What is that? What's another word for centralization?   Communism. Yeah. That's the one.   So, you know, we've got this scenario now   where shops, like, big like, I know I I bet I've heard recently that the coop is actually owned by the Labour Party. I don't know whether that's true or not. No idea. Don't know who the major shareholders are and and what their political affiliations are. Don't actually give a toss. But the fact of the matter is even these large companies now can be attacked you know what?   I don't think Amazon's gonna suffer from a cyber attack anytime soon.  

Do you? Bearing in mind that Jeff Bezos actually, you know,   got a huge grant from the American government just to house the CIA servers and set Amazon up off the back of it.   I don't think they're gonna have any   problems with with hacking, but all these other companies are, even institutions,   and I mean institutions   in The   UK such as Coop   and Marks and Spencer and, yeah, and all these other, you know, places. We've had so many cyber attacks over the last four years,   five years.   And, you know,   this whole sort of body I can't remember what it's called. Cyber something blah blah blah blah. I can't remember what this whole body is called, but this whole body that was set up   simply to simulate these things rather like COVID   was simulated   about four four to six months beforehand,   and everyone that everyone that left the meeting got given a COVID, like, plushie.  

You know,   that was a simulation and then they put it into play.   Same with the cyberattack   organization as far as I'm concerned. Problem, reaction, solution. What will be the solution? Well, we're going to have to the solution the biggest part of the solution is is we're going to have to tighten   quote unquote   cyber security   which basically means   the thumbscrews are going to get tightened on all sorts of things that you end up doing online.   Mark my words.   You've already got programs like Discord and all these other little messaging programs that by default   will automatically tell everyone else that you're in contact with what you're actually up to on your computer at the time unless you switch it off. This person's playing this game. This person's listening to such and such on YouTube. Whatever.  

So you can see where this is going problem, reaction, solution, and the fact that they can take down literally, you know, I mean the amount of damage this must have done to the cooperative and the amount of damage it must have done to Marks Marks and Spencer for   the few days that it occurred and all these other businesses that it's, you know, been   targeting,   well, the mind boggles, doesn't it? I'm gonna leave I'm gonna leave you guys to think about that while I'm gonna play a little tune in a minute.   And, hopefully, after after that, I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of introduce the the topic. I just wanna make sure that my guest is still there, and he's still   happy to go. Yeah. It seems to be good to go.  

Okay. So I'm gonna play a little tune now, then I'll introduce the topic, and,   we're gonna get right on with it. So,   this one,   I I had to play this one. It's a cover of an Iron Maiden tune. It's done by a group called the Iron Ladies. I guess they couldn't call themselves the Iron Maidens. It's a little bit too close.   But have you seen the writing on the wall, folks? Digitally?   Here we  

[00:14:50] Unknown:

go.  

[00:20:53] Unknown:

What   a fantastic   cover. That was so well done. If you listen to the original,   the only thing you'll hear different pretty much   is the vocals. So, yeah, they did really well. That was the   the Iron Ladies. You can find them on YouTube. They do lots of, I'm assuming, Iron Maiden covers. So, yeah, they were pretty good.   So topic tonight,   I've got a brilliant guest on with me this evening. He's been on before.   Topic for tonight is   essentially   essentially,   are video games   a good or a bad   influence   upon society.   Now   there's lots of pros and there's lots of cons.   So hang on. I'm just gonna bring up my guest right now.  

Mister Ryan, can you hear me, old boy?  

[00:21:45] Unknown:

I can hear you 555.  

[00:21:47] Unknown:

Good evening. Good good evening. Good, sir. Thank you so much for joining me again. I know you've got all sorts of things going on around you, so I really, really appreciate your time and company this evening.   So,   a little story first.   The only reason I know mister Ryan   is through video gaming.   And   it was one of those one of those random   moments.   And I'm not gonna explain in in full detail and bore everyone. But, basically, I was playing an an aviation game, a a flying game, World War two aviation as everyone knows. World War two. I love the whole aviation side of things.   And   I was on this mission,   in this game, and I placed   an in game wager   on the game in order to earn more points from, you know,   achieving the the   parameters of the wager that I'd made, I e, kill five planes   and   have you know, be on the winning side.  

And to cut a long story short, I'd killed my five planes,   and   it didn't look like we were gonna win because   they still had one base left on the opposition. And I'd run out of planes that could carry bombs. So there was literally nothing I could do about it. And I'm there flying around going, oh, bugger.   Bugger. I'm   oh, man. I'm just I'm I'm and I'm killing people. I'm taking people out of the sky just out of anger.   And then, literally,   there were there's a little bar at the top on either side. Yeah. There's a little bar at the top of the game which shows you which side is closest to winning. And there was just, like, a tiny little sliver of color on each side. There was a blue tiny little sliver of blue and a tiny little sliver of red.   Obviously, I wanted the red to disappear as I do it in most days of my life.  

But I wanted the red to disappear.   And,   out of nowhere,   out of nowhere,   their base just disappeared.   And,   and and so we won the game. And it was, oh, brilliant. Brilliant. I looked back through the flight log afterwards and   somebody called Rhinelander   had flown in, I believe a Wellington bomber, but it might have been a it might have been a an American bomber. I'm sure he'll tell me in a minute. It was. It was.   He'd flown in this he'd flown in this this plane and literally dropped a bomb at the last minute, won the game   for me, and it won my wager. So I was compelled to message this random chap who was on my flight team.  

Just messaged him out randomly. He just said, man, thanks so much. I had a wager on that game, and you just won the game for me. You beauty.   And we've been talking   ever since. Is isn't that right, sir?  

[00:24:38] Unknown:

I think it's been eight years. Yes. Man, you explained that so colorfully and so brilliantly. I was reliving the moment.   I know it very much.   It is. It was in fact,   an American built b 25 Mitchell bomber and I think I was carrying like three one thousand pound bombs.   Yeah. That's enough of nerdy of the nerdy details. But yeah, that's that's how we met and yeah. We we've been  

[00:25:03] Unknown:

friends for eight years now. We've been good friends ever since. And it's been and, you know, and and for that, you know, for that reason alone, I would argue, obviously, that, you know, video games can have a really, really   positive influence. I've met so many people around the world. Before I started doing radio,   I'd already met loads of people from around the world   purely through gaming. And I remember   many, many years ago, I used to play a game called Guild Wars. And we had   it was a worldwide game, and there were people from all over, you know, obviously,   people from all over the world playing it. And I had a Serbian and a Croatian.  

Bearing in mind, this is back in 2,005   when that game started, so I think I started playing towards the end of that year.   So the Serbia Croatia war was very, very,   you know, was was very, very near history back then.   And this I had this Serbian in the in the in the guild, and there was a Croatian who I was friendly with that he wanted to join as well. And I said, look. Before you join, I just want you to know,   there's actually a Serbian in the guild.   And he said to me,   there's no room in games for politics.   I was like, okay. Are you sure? And he said, yeah. No problem. Invite me in. And you know what? Those two   honestly got on like a house on fire. They were throwing all sorts of insults and stuff at but they got on so well, and they spent an awful lot they spent more time playing with each other in actual fact than they did playing with the rest of the guild. So and, again, enough nerdy boring stuff. But there is no room   in video games for politics. Is that right or wrong?  



[00:26:40] Unknown:

Well, it's it's getting in the way of having fun. That's what's what's what's gaming and it's all about. It's it's it's meant to take your mind off things, take you elsewhere on a wonderful adventure or just   keep your mind busy. That's my opinion on it. But, you know  

[00:26:55] Unknown:

Well, I've always maintained.   Yeah. I've always maintained that, I'd rather be playing a computer game rather than zoning out in front of the TV because at least my brain   is active. Now that's always been Oh, yes. That's that's always been my argument.   Yeah. But You you  

[00:27:13] Unknown:

Go on. If I might interject interject   on that point because that is exactly the same reason I play computer games.   Sometimes more   grindy arcade y stuff. But most of the time, I mostly enjoy games that have a good rich,   story driven   thing going on because   it when you're in control of,   what's happening,   or maybe even go this way or that way, or do I save the maiden, or do I slay the dragon, or maybe make a deal with the dragon.   It will it gives you so much more opportunities   and it keeps you in the story, draws you in. That's   what most of these games still do. Well, they're getting rarer, but we're getting into that later, I think. Yeah. I will. But, you know,   it is so much more interesting for for someone who also,   grew up watching television,   watching fantasy stuff on television,   reading books. I read the Lord of the Rings. I read countless   fantasy novels and all that stuff.  

So I've seen it all from the eighties till now. And I think,   all has its benefits, but games,   it's it's   it's a living experience   on some level,   but also some drawbacks,  

[00:28:37] Unknown:

which we'll get into later. Yeah. I mean That's just my take on it. Yeah. Absolutely. No. I think you're absolutely right. And I I I think in some respects, the the game journeys are quite linear and are and are meant to be. But the,   so my my main my first   and and, and it's it's a question that we're gonna go back to at the end of the show.   Are games good   a good or a bad influence   on society?   Now one of the things I'm gonna say, so we're gonna argue pro or con, but I think   one of the biggest things is that they are a massive   time drain for an addictive can be very mentally addictive for the reasons you've just said.  

You know, you can immerse yourself in something. I mean, back in my day, back, I mean,   we'll we'll get into   the old computers and things like that in a minute. But back in my day,   one of the most exciting things I discovered in primary school was what they used to call fighting fantasy books. And anyone my age will probably remember that. I'm knocking on 50 folks. So anyone my age will remember the fighting fantasy books, and I'm sure there's the like bought out now,   for kids   those kids that choose that reading is a good idea.   And basically, what a how a fighting fantasy book would work is it'd be a fantasy story.  

And   every so often, you'd   you'd be expected to roll dice for certain scenarios,   But also, you'd get to choose. If you want to if you want to save the maiden, to quote yourself, turn to page 56. If you want to make a deal with the dragon, turn to page 74.   And if you want blah blah. So you'd have like this. The book it made books not quite so linear. It made you sort of more involved with the story line, which I thought was a really, really good thing. And obviously, computer games are an extension of that.  

[00:30:23] Unknown:

You know what? You you brought up a very nice topic. I I played those games. It was the German version, Das Schwarzer Auger or The Black Art, which is like   a fantasy,   setting. And I quite vividly remember,   one of the beauties of those books,   you had a description,   you took action, and that had consequences.   But on the same time, and that was the beauty of it,   in in contrast to the to the games that do does all for you,   does everything for you.   You had your mind   coloring in   all the stuff. You had to imagine things. You you were basically living this this experience with which I think is quite beautiful. It's it's the same   when you're reading books, you know. Your mind   paints a picture.  

Yeah. Absolutely. That's something that is missing from from from games, even though they are very beautiful and they draw you in. But, you know, that's like pros and cons between those two. Yeah. But it's just just it's a random thought that crossed my mind, but that that's coming to mind for me right now. Yeah. Well, absolutely. I mean, well, it's no different to, you know, it's no different to reading the book. So you mentioned Lord of the Rings earlier. I one of my mates,  

[00:31:35] Unknown:

a a guy called Jim Bob, we used to call him Jim Bob because there were lots of Jameses in the community, so he got nicknamed Jim Bob. And, so Jim Bob used to read an awful lot of fantasy. And Lord of the Rings,   Raymond d Feist, all that kind of thing. Oh, yeah.   And,   Lord of the Rings. When the films came out, I was astounded by them. I thought they were brilliant. I thought they were so well done. You know, Peter Jackson really pulled it out of the bag   with all that. You know, if you bear in mind where Peter Jackson came from, which was, like, really, really   cheesy,   really badly cheesy,   horror movies,   back in the day,   when you think of where he came from and and what he achieved with the Lord of the Rings stuff and, obviously, he had a huge budget.  

How he got that budget, I have no idea. I don't know the background, whatever.   But I thought they were fantastic. And when I spoke to Jim Bob about them, he was like, well, where's where's where's   Tom Bombadil?   Where's Tom Bombadil?   He's not in the story. He's like he's one of the best characters in the story, and they've not even kept him in. So you've got that comparison then really of the fact that, you know, when you read a book, as you rightly say, you paint   that huge vast picture yourself. And your mind   is,   you know, capable of all those things throughout your own experiences through life and throughout things you see in your It's beautiful. Yeah. I I remember, I think,  

[00:32:57] Unknown:

pretty much the very, very high first high fantasy book I ever read was written by Margaret Weisz and Tracy Hickman. And some people might even have their ears perk up right now because those are authors from the Dungeons and Dragons universe.   Right. And I think it was like a trilogy of,   Dragonlance with Thanos Half, Evan Stern, Brightblade and all this. And back in the day, that was probably   early nineties and I was barely able to read proper English or even speak.   So I had this massive, I think,   thousand plus pages book in front of me, which I struggled   to read through because German, trying to learn English. Hey, good idea. Let's try this try this humongous book and and and get through. Well, I got through.  

I had a had a had a blast. It was quite an adventure.   Got to know   fantastic characters.   Well, yeah.  

[00:33:55] Unknown:

It's this Yeah. Great books. Yeah. That's that's funny actually. It's it's funny you say that. The guy at the local kebab shop borrowed a copy of Hidden Government from me the other day and because he wanted to read it. And I gave it to him and he went, oh, it's in English. And I was like, well, he didn't. They didn't   they didn't put it into Turkish. I'm sorry.   You know?   So anyway,   you know, yeah, like you say, you know, people get your your brain paints   people get disappointed. The the point I'm trying to make is people get disappointed when they go and watch films regarding book you know,   that are made from books they've already read because they'd imagined it differently,   I suppose, is what I'm trying to say from that. And everyone knows that scenario. You know, you must have,   read book or or or, you know, read original comic strips. Or one of my one of the original ones for me was,   Ghost in the Shell, which was a a manga movie back in the day. I loved the animation, all that kind of stuff. Thought it was absolutely fantastic.  

Obviously, derived from a a Japanese comic book at the time, but   and then it went over to Hollywood.   Yeah. And then it went over to Hollywood, and and you had, you know, Hollywood Actresses and stuff playing   the the part of the, you know, the main protagonist and all that kind of thing. And it was just,   it wasn't anything like it wasn't anything like I expected. Even though it was very good, it was it wasn't anything like I expected. So you've got that whole kind of thing.   So we're kinda digressing a little bit, but I feel it's valid.   So, yeah,   so one of the things   that I'm gonna,   bring up in a minute is the fact that   I personally think you know, regardless of whether   you know, we we can all say that, you know, we've met some lovely people online, whether it's gaming or not.  

But I think gaming one of the biggest problems, I think, with gaming is that particularly for children,   it's a massive,   massive   distraction   and a time eater.   And,   I think for a lot of for a lot of adults, sad adults like myself as well, it can be a time eater   as well,   which could be you know, that time could be spent doing you know, serving yourself a lot better. Is this one of my one of, one of the other great hosts on Radio Soapbox is Paul English, and he always this is a phrase of his which I like to use quite often, and that is, I was thinking about doing such and such, and then I thought,   is it time well spent?  

You know?   And in some respects for relaxation,   yes. I get it. But,   one of the   things that I've, you know, one of the other bullet points that I sent to you last night just to mull over,   mister Ryan, was the fact is   all the you know, we we're all familiar with the Ukraine war and and and all these other wars that have been going on in recent years, And everyone's seeing drone footage of such and such or or drones are going in and dropping bombs and and all that kind of thing.   And here's a really simple example as well. You know the Titan   submarine? You know the type the one that went down to see the Titanic and then imploded,   and then everyone spent a week pretending that it wasn't imploded and they, you know Yeah. Because they didn't wanna release it in the media, for whatever reason. It was a good distraction for whatever political thing was going on at the time, I'm sure.  

And if anyone wants me to elaborate on that, I can.   But they used to control   that little tiny submarine   with an Xbox controller.   They did. It was the re Xbox controller was linked in. It was either Xbox or PlayStation. I think it was Xbox. It was linked into the main system, and they got they they guided that submarine down to the depths of the Titanic using an Xbox controller like   like anyone would have in their home, like, all their kids use whatever. Yes.  

[00:37:52] Unknown:

But don't you worry. They supposedly   had replacements on board. I've I recently watched a video, so take it with a grain of salt. They had, like,   salt. They had, like, eight replacement controllers   on board, but that's just this that's just the input sending   module you're using. What's what about the receiver you it's failing. But that's just me being redundant,   but German efficiency, you know.  

[00:38:17] Unknown:

Yeah. I get it. I get it. No. But isn't it funny though that, you know, some something like that would have been   and then and then you think about computer games and there's all these different games now.   You know? And and as I say, the the drone footage from the Ukraine war or all that kind of thing and the and the literally, the footage of drones dropping bombs on on   positions and that kind of thing, you know, enemy positions.   You these guys   these guy you know, I I'm sure a lot of these games that are put out at the moment are solely designed   to enhance reaction speed, high hand eye coordination,  

[00:39:05] Unknown:

that they fly over areas that that look like Reaper drones. Reaper drones. That's it. So they fly the m two nine or something. If I'm I might be wrong here, but, you know, they have a big turboprop in the back and they carry, like, two hell fires and stuff or bombs or whatever and have big massive cameras on there. So they bakes they could either read your newspaper or you could have of your hand,  

[00:39:26] Unknown:

whatever they choose to do. Sure. That's a really good way of putting it. Yeah. It's   probably true. It probably is true. Yeah. They could read the news for they could probably look at the color of your eyes just to identify they've got the right facial recognition,   you know. That's our target. You know, drop the bomb.   But I think they all You you  

[00:39:45] Unknown:

you don't ever get a detailed information about what capabilities   those planes and aircraft and whatever   devices they use actually have. So this is always a bit of a guessing game. But, you know, is it I think it's pretty accurate to say they could probably read the new newspaper or bomb it out of your hand. You know? Well, in in the day and age where there's telemetric car insurance whereby you have to download two apps onto your phone,  

[00:40:10] Unknown:

one app just so that the the phone knows when you're driving the car and all that kind of thing, and the other app tells the phone when you're in the passenger seat rather than the driver's seat,   I'm pretty sure that these drones can read the newspaper that you're reading. Yeah.   You know,   stuff has got ridiculous now. It has really got ridiculous.   Yeah. So I'm convinced in actual fact that a lot of these,   video games nowadays,   Call of Duty,   all these sort of first person shooters and stuff,   and particularly, there are a lot of drone games,   up for download as well, drone simulators.  

But I'm convinced that it's used for military training. I am convinced that it is.  

[00:40:57] Unknown:

I can actually,   tell you a little something I read up earlier because I was kinda curious and looked it up. But,   let's start a little bit further down the road and and catch you up on the other end. Yeah. I think when when you're looking at, like, shooter games like Call of Duty, it's basically an arcade game. So there's not much tactics in there apart from running and blasting stuff. Just having your gun like   and doing all that stuff. And there's not much training involved there. But there's also other games that are called armor   three is the latest iteration, which is highly tactical, squad based.  

You even have all your co commander controlling the whole thing. It's far more tactical, far more   organized. You even have, like,   vehicle units on the map that are being controlled by players that have some   tactical use in application of force here and there and all that stuff. And how you apply these things,   they teach you a certain approach to certain situations in combat. I think that has a certain training value even though that's far from the real world as well.   But to get to the actual point, you were talking about training and drones and stuff. Yeah.   You know the game DCS.  



[00:42:12] Unknown:

I do. Yeah.   I do. I own   I own a couple of planes on DCS, actually. Exactly. I do. Just just to give  

[00:42:21] Unknown:

just to give the viewers a bit of more of insight what is DCS. It's called Digital Combo Simulator by Eagle Dynamics. That's the, the company who who makes this game, air quote.   And it's basically like a like a operating system,   and then you buy plugins or   air quote, planes like f sixteens,   a tens,   or the mighty Mustang,   World War two fighter, the Spitfire.   Probably most of you guys probably know what a Spitfire is. And then you can can get in the cockpit, flip all the switches,   look at the dials, what they do. And it's it's very, very detailed   as far as the game goes, but it's it's very up there.  

And actual fact, there's a there's a, professional or rather,   governmental or military version of the game   where they actually used the game to train,   Ukrainian f sixteen operators   for   button and levers and and and dials and all that stuff, where they are and how to flip them and how to use them. Systems,   are being taught in there.   A 10 is like the American warthog. That's like a big plane with a big cannon in the nose and does lots of damage in Afghanistan and all that stuff.   Very good plane for close air support. That's being trained in there   even   in the American military, which has probably more   money for simulators and all that stuff. Even they use it in some squadron. I looked it up. I have forgotten the name or the number.  

You can look it up on the DCS page. They use it to train systems   and buttons and levers where they   are. It's obviously   not replacing pilot training as a whole. It's not replacing the actual flight training which is pretty much mandatory. I'm I'm a bit of a aviation   enthusiast, so I would know.   You need all this stuff, but it's a great   additive   to actual training and it's probably a great money saver and we all know money is king.  

[00:44:24] Unknown:

Money is king. Of course it is.   Yeah. So, you know, essentially, these things I mean, it's yeah. Like you say, obviously,   genuine flight training is needed.   But I remember,   quite a few Christmases ago,   my,   my in laws my my parents' in law, my my other half's parents,   for Christmas bought me   a Spitfire   training manual that they used to give to the pilots.   And I believe me and you used that manual to get the plane to get to get the Spitfire off of the ground in DC   anyway. And it did work. Yes.  

[00:45:03] Unknown:

Exactly.   And that shows quite a lot. You   know, to be honest, the Spitfire is a plane. You basically flip about five to eight switches. I don't know. I haven't flown it in a while. But it's it's like eight to 10 switches of buttons and prime the engine, crack the throttle,   spin it up, hit the ignition,   or the magnetos,   off you go.   And the rest is just basically systems monitoring and keeping it airborne without cooking the engine.   But it works. If you go by the manual, you can actually use it,   because that's how it's modeled. And that goes, goes to show that how detailed games   can be   when they're done right. Obviously, DCS,   I wouldn't necessarily consider it a game that is easily accessed for the normal casual gamer. It's for nerds like you and me. We are we are nerdy enough to get into the nitty gritty of it. We want all the bells and whistles and we want all the detail. I'd I wanna fly a real Spitfire, but I just know that opportunity is never gonna come. So DCS is about the is about as close as I'm gonna get, really.  



[00:46:13] Unknown:

But   yeah. So, you know, they they there is a certain aspect, I think, of military training. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of these   really high end PlayStation kids,   you know,   they probably do if they sign up for the military and ask ask what their, you know, hobbies and stuff are. I'm sure that goes   some way towards   putting them in certain positions,   whatever.  

[00:46:37] Unknown:

Mostly hand eye coordination and reflexes,   which is a big thing in in this environment. If you want to have quick thinking people because I think that that's more on a psychological level. You need people,   in those games and that's what I recognize. I have still good reflexes and I'm approaching 50 as well. I caught stuff out of like a glass out of the air while it was falling out of the cupboard. I still do   that. But also in gaming, you have   to do,   split second decisions in in modern shooter games or,   you have to make   tactical or strategical   decisions in other games.  

All that can be trained and you can benefit from it in certain aspects of your life. Yeah.   Like I said, that's the pros but there's also downsides. Like you also already said, like copious amounts of time you sink into those games.   And just on a personal note, you were mentioning it earlier. Sorry if I'm going a bit off topic from the That's right. We're talking about now. But,   you said   some people   spend a lot of time,   in games and I'm guilty of that.   Some people probably   don't know what I'm talking about. Others will knowingly giggle.   World of Warcraft was a big part of my life for probably ten years, and I've spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours in this game, probably more. But on the other hand, it's it's like a you you know how to interact with those games. You play those kind of games as well. But the beauty of it, sometimes you meet meet with people   and Yes. You decide on, hey, let's meet in real time.  

And   over all these years, I've I've got to know quite a few of peep of those people personally   and I'm still very much good friends, not only with you, but also some German people.   We were in the same guild and we happily   meet   every every few months for a few beers, maybe a barbecue, maybe go camping or whatever. Just do   non   PC,   non digital stuff because   we share   a common ground,   experiences,   all those wonderful things from the past.   But   we kind of moved on and Yes. But we don't we don't disregard   those experiences. It's it's valued   valued   part of our lives and we have we can look back at it and and and still think, hey,   do you remember we did this and that?  

Yeah.   And   everybody's grinning and and and and cheering and raising their glasses and then carry on doing other stuff and listening to some proper music, whatever that might be for you. Well well, I mean different. I know.  

[00:49:29] Unknown:

Just just to just to clarify for the listening audience,   I didn't play World of Warcraft. It was rubbish. So just just to clarify, we didn't meet in World of Warcraft. I was a Guild Wars man. But anyway, I don't know. Yeah. So so there we go. Politics already enters into gaming.  

[00:49:42] Unknown:

Yeah.   There   you   go. But, you know, we we we met up in in this other aviation game you mentioned earlier, and I'm I'm still playing it,  

[00:49:54] Unknown:

on and off, over the years. It's it's Well, I've got a little I've got a little confession to make. And,   I hope Perrin's listening.   So I I went over to visit, you know so this is the Shelley Tasker show.   I went over to visit Shelley, I don't know, about five, six weeks ago.   And,   I was talking to her son, Perrin, about War Thunder, which is the game that we met on.   And,   I was explaining that it's, you know, it's like a historical journey. It's quite educational when you look at the planes. I said, you gotta it's free, and you don't have to pay anything for it. You know, it's fairly educational,   and you get to kill things and stuff.  

And, she sent me a message back that night saying, guess what game is playing?   So, yeah, got a new recruit for our squadron, mate, at at some point when he's when he's ready.   Anyway anyway, look. So,   so,   we're coming up. We got about I don't know. We got about ten about nine minutes left till the top of the hour. So before the top of the hour comes, I'm gonna I'm gonna play a little tune and stuff.   I might even play a couple, but,   just to give you time to you know, if you need to go to the bathroom or whatever you need to do, give you a bit of time to do do that. But when when we come back,   I'm gonna   this this might bore people, but it might also,   spur off some,   some archaic thoughts in people's minds. And then I say, I'm gonna ask you after the break   what your first computer was.  

Because, I mean, obviously, I'm knocking on 50. You're kind of you're you're only a little bit behind me. Two days behind. Yes. We were brought up in an era where digital watches were an amazing thing.   We were. Well, there's no two ways about it. We were brought up in an era where if someone had a digital watch rather than a watch an analog watch with hands that move around,   that was cool. And you could press a button on it. Shiny and  

[00:52:00] Unknown:

Yes. Exactly.  

[00:52:01] Unknown:

You could the my first digital watch had two buttons on it. It had one that that   when you pressed it, it it told you what the date was.   And and,   if you pressed it the first time, it told you how many seconds past the at the minute you were. And if you pressed it, the next time, it told you what the date was. Do you know what the other button did?   Lit it up. It lit it up. It gave you a little light. How amazing was that back in the day? I mean, not being funny,   my I went to school with a guy called David Trump.   No relation to Donald,   I have to say, but I went to school with a guy called David Trump. And, obviously, you know, he was the butt of many jokes because Trump doesn't mean in The UK what it means in Germany.  

Trump in The UK is is is a way of   politely referring to the fact that somebody broke wind.   So there we go,   which is why Donald Trump is an ongoing joke for me. I'm sorry. But it is.  

[00:53:04] Unknown:

But my mate Donald Trump painfully biting my tongue here.  

[00:53:08] Unknown:

My mate my mate David Trump sorry, not Donald Trump.   My mate David Trump   had   a calculator   watch. So that was one of these little wristwatches that actually had little buttons that you needed a   a a biro nib to press the buttons on. The buttons were that small. But he actually had a calculator watch back in the mid eighties. Man, I was so impressed.   So impressed.   Really was.   Yeah. So,   anyway, look,   we're we're coming up for the top of the hour now. So I'm gonna play a tune, maybe two. In fact, I'm good definitely gonna play two because there's one tune I really feel I should play.   There's another tune that I'm gonna play,   which will relate to the conversations that we're having and about to have.  

So, folks, you are listening to radiosoapbox.com.   This is the Shelley Tasker Show. Shelley is still on hiatus, so I'm afraid you are stuck with her co host, mister Scott.   So,   this first tune that I'm gonna play   is the excellent   Graham Hart.   Let me just find the one there we go. That's the one I was looking for. Okay. So we will see you just after the top of the hour, folks.   Enjoy.  

[00:55:19] Unknown:

So take me from the struggle road   to where they'll never reach me.   I put   me. I put me in a place and time where all my friends   will   be.  

[00:55:39] Unknown:

Take  

[00:55:43] Unknown:

me home. Take me home to Cornwall   This works for the boys.   So I'm Cornish fun and Cornish bread.   I don't take that for granted.   But when the spirit of Cholani   calls,   I will not be prevented.   Standing  

[00:59:00] Unknown:

The amazing Graham Hart. I love that tune. That's that's that's a real summertime tune as well for me. Love it.   Yeah. So we you are listening to the Shelley Tasker Show, folks. I know I've already said that a few minutes ago, but we are at the top of the hour.   So you're listening to radiosoapbox.com,   Shelley Tasker Show. Today's date   is the 05/14/2025.   And I forgot to say at the beginning of the show, as Shelley always does,   it's good to have your company.   So we're talking tonight with mister Ryan,   my guest of a of a couple of times now,   regarding   the use of computer games in society. Are they a good influence, bad influence?  

And, you know, you know, in the light of all the cyberattacks and everything that have been happening   over the last few years, and as I said at the beginning of the show,   problem, reaction, solution.   I believe that they're being done on purpose in order to just bring in more laws, bring in tighten the thumbscrews that little bit further.   You know, in light of all that, you know, the the this   digital age, this this age that we've all entered into   in one way, shape, or form because we've not been really given an an awful lot of choice. I've had to get rid of my landline now, and you know how much I hate mobile phones. I still refuse to own one. I'm still using my missus   for the for the business and that kind of thing. So,   yeah, it's it's it's one of those things. But listen, so before we get in to the next bit of discussion, I've got a tune that I wanna play for you.  

And I I know that   Bastian may well   recognize this. You you may or may not recognize this old boy.   But   I bet you know, this this this touches on what we were talking about,   regarding   are they use is it used for military? You know, are video games being used to help   train future generations   to   for for the military,   etcetera, etcetera.   I think we already agreed they do. But Yeah. I definitely think they do. But so I'm gonna take you back now   to   the nineties, the early nineties,   or the mid nineties at least. And there was a game bought out called Cannon Fodder. Do you remember it? Oh,  

[01:01:22] Unknown:

role play it. Play the song. I'm gonna play the song.  

[01:01:26] Unknown:

So, trying to get my head already. So so this, you know, this this was basically a   a a war game.   It was a very old school war game, but,   just check out this theme tune, folks.  

[01:01:40] Unknown:

Lemmings  

[01:01:44] Unknown:

with guns.  

[01:04:10] Unknown:

So you remember that one then?  

[01:04:12] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. I played counters. I was in this game. Like, I already wrote in the chat. It's basically Lemmings with the guns, but you would have to know what Lemmings is all about. Yeah. You know, from from the technical side, it just just had this   thought in my head. If you imagine way back in the day, I think the game was like two,   floppy oh, well, the hard ones, not the really floppy ones. Yeah. Two two one megabyte or two one hundred and twenty or what was it? Two I think it's it was two one point four megabyte   floppy disk. Whatever. Yeah. Two floppy disks and they fit the whole game on there which is like less than two megabytes and they even included   the music which is mostly midi or digital or whatever and the samples, which is probably the biggest bit of the whole song. If you know a bit of music and and and technical the technical side of it,   the singing is actually,   analog and the biggest thing in the whole thing. And I fit all this on on two disc and still have had a full game on there, which kept me busy for hours. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, you you know, when you think about it, war has never been so much fun.  



[01:05:21] Unknown:

You know? Go to your brother, kill him with your gun, leave him lying in his uniform, dying in the sun.   You know?   And Very poetic.   Very   very poetic. It's quite chilling when you think about, you know, most of the wars, you know,   particularly at the at the beginning   of the last century   were all about Brothers Wars really.   So maybe that's what they were trying to get at in that song. Yeah. Yeah. But,  

[01:05:53] Unknown:

I think the whole game is basically   a satire and they even said that but it was so misunderstood   even way back in the time when when people were a bit more critical about most things,   regarding,   media. Let's call it like this. This this day and age, I wouldn't consider myself being   as educated and critical as you and and as insightful.   But,   way back in the day, people probably were and some got it and some others didn't and that kick, I think, quite of a fuss   back in the day. And and in Germany, I think they even tried to to,   put it on on a blacklist because it was so brutal and all  

[01:06:35] Unknown:

that rubbish. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.  

[01:06:37] Unknown:

Yeah. So there there were quite a few games back in the day that were actually forbidden because they had copious amounts of red pixels in there, literal red pixels. You couldn't tell what was, like, obviously shooting what's going on. But there are   meant to be repickle pixels around in shooty games, but they were so bad for the youth and Yes. Well, it incites violence. Did you remember that the old mantra was that all these games incite violence?  

[01:07:06] Unknown:

The original version of Grand Theft Auto now, which is a massive franchise now,   huge franchise,   the Grand Theft Auto franchise. The original version of that, which was literally just, you know, not much past 64 bit graphics and and just a top down   runaround thing where you were basically you were a criminal and you were employ employed to do criminal things. And the most exciting thing was when you got police attention and you had to try and escape the police.   You know? And and that was bad. That they threatened to ban that in The UK. And I remember that the play state it was on the PlayStation one. And I remember going to a shop in Newquay and saying, have you got a copy? And he said, I've got one copy left. I said, can you keep it for me? I'll put down a deposit.   Because I didn't want to not be able to get hold of a copy in case it got banned. Was that media hype   maybe?  

Or maybe they did seriously think about banning it. But if it was, you know, they never did end up banning it. So maybe it was just media hype, and it just threw people you know, drew people towards going out to buy the game because you you not might not be able to get it, and you can be really violent on it. And then you have this whole thing, you know, about fighting games and this, that, and the other. It it incites violence   in young children   and, you know, and teenagers. And and,   you know, they're seeing things that they shouldn't necessarily see, and they believe it to be real and blah blah. You know, we've all heard the silly arguments that go on. You know? Yeah.   You know, as as the old phrase goes, guns don't kill people, rappers do. Was it is that the is that the phrase?  

I'm quite sure.  

[01:08:40] Unknown:

Yeah. The thing is, well,   in my opinion, I've I've played,   well, as you know,   copious amounts of games and even a few   Grand Theft Auto games. I think I started on the PS two with, Grand Theft Auto three was the actual one. And   four and and and and the the the eighties '1,   which I forgot which version that was. And all the the,   the ones that that were out way back in the day,   I think the actual one five is is   ten years out, and they have recently updated the game to a newer spec. So if you wanna give it a go and and have a look at it, you can still do it with a modern system. But, you know,   all these police chases and bank heists and robberies and things,   well, it never occurred to me that I need to pick up a gun and go to the nearest bank and do what I saw in the game because I've been raised properly.  

But on the other hand, I can still   see how some very gullible and and mentally deranged people sorry. I'm I'm bit fishing for words here because English is not my first language.   But people who have mental problems, let's put it like this, and are not,   don't have proper supervision   or people who care for them properly,   that they could be liable to make wrong decisions based of what they see in the game.   But it's not   a general thing. So it's not like you and me, hey, grab your AR 15. Grab your Lee Enfield. Let's go fucking   shoot up a bank and some some police and some bloody coffers and and and and and grab it and and go marauding   down the village and shoot up people in their heads and and do terrible things   to their bodies.  



[01:10:32] Unknown:

No.   Yeah. It just well, it would   it wouldn't occur to any sane thinking person. It's it's pure escapism. Obviously, it's pure escapism. But I suppose one could argue that it does normalize it   for people.   And so one of the things that one of the other bullet points in fact, the final bullet point I sent you last night, in actual fact, was,   you know, are games used to sculpt   public opinion? And and and I'm gonna   I'm gonna haul you over the coals a little bit because you said to me last night, well, you know,   that's sort of like political stuff possibly. I don't know.  

I'll let you have an opinion on that. And do you know what my words were to mister Ryan? My words were,   shut up, mate. You're the one that sent me based mods. So   Yeah. So can you explain then,   sir, what   based mods is? I I I obviously, it's a website. But if you could just go from the top and just take your take your time and go slow.  

[01:11:36] Unknown:

Okay. I'm I'm trying hard. So,   well, there are games out there. And,   if you don't like how the games look or how they play,   they are so called mods, which are additions to the game that alter the gameplay, the looks, the mechanics of the game, or even   music or whatever.   And there are certain web pages. There's, for example, Nexus mods, which is a very   big one, which got into quite some controversy because they're banned mods,   freedom of speech things.   And but they're fairly big. So they have everything. So you can if you want to have your character   sporting a yellow,   yellow bird outfit, that's fine. If you want fuller nudes, it's on there as well for the degenerates.  

All that is in there. Or just if you want to start up with a decent amount of money,   you can always patch this in or there's one fairly actual game. It's a historical,   fantasy game, which is called, Kingdom Come Deliverance   two. Not advertising this one, but it's a great game. If you want to have   the option to save the game, which in my opinion is a staple   and the go to thing   or a mandatory thing for every game. You have to patch it in to the game because you would need to buy in game   drinks, like potions, in order to save unless you're leaving the game the game, which saves the game automatically.   Stuff like   this. But there are also other websites   like based mods, for example. And what you find there   are, I would say,   a little bit more,   how would you say it? It's a more Well,  

[01:13:24] Unknown:

this is the way I would put it. Anyone that is fed up with woke nonsense   in their games,   like   LGBTQ   stuff   and, you know, just, you know, all this nonsense that is being seeped into the mainstream media nowadays that is now also being seeped into games, in my opinion, to sculpt public opinion   and   make society that little bit more degenerate.   If you don't like those things in your games, you can go to based mods.   Download some modifications.   Mods is short for modifications. So you can download a a game modification.   So I can't think of any particular ones at the moment. I think Forspoken   was I I can. Okay. So I'll let you list some in a minute. But you can download   modifications for these games, which take all the woke crap   out of them,   which in my opinion   is absolutely   fantastic.  



[01:14:22] Unknown:

So you got you got a list of a few games that I I have I have two examples for I think a fairly recent one is the   new Assassin's Creed game.   Steeped   in controversy   because the main character is a black person,   who is, in Ubisoft's world,   a famous samurai who goes marauding around   feudal   Japan, slaying Japanese people,   destroying temples, which is a cardinal sin.   Even in games in Japan,   everybody's appalled about that. And I think,   or other games, I think there's   might be,   might be a bit wrong here, but I think there is a mod for this game or another one where you can actually change   his skin color   to what is,   period appropriate.  

Some people on earth are very much into,   historical accuracy.   That's one thing.   So you can change,   the characters to something that is more real for people who care about that. Let's put it like this. The other one is going back to the game I just mentioned, Kingdom Come Deliverance. There's the main character Henry,   which is a blacksmith   and you're very good and well friend,   forgot his name, Hans. Very German name by the way.   Hans is his his good mate and they're going on this adventure through medieval Bohemia and doing all that   stuff. And,   in the first game,   they were just mates.  

In the second game, they implemented   a,   Romans option between the two guys.  

[01:16:04] Unknown:

Oh.  

[01:16:05] Unknown:

Which Really? You don't have to follow. I have to to stress that. You don't have to follow that but you can if you want to. So I'm fine with that. I'm not going to to go down that route. But   there, going back to the mod page, you can actually   mod the game   so you don't have these conversation   options in the game anymore.   If you're   too, too snowflakey about this option being in there,   I'll I do this on purpose. I know you are. You can you can patch it out,   but if you just don't care,   you can play the game and have the options. You know, me personally, I wouldn't go down the road, you know. Also me having gay friends but even they are annoyed by all this shit going on.   Just saying that, that says a lot about modern gaming.  

If even the gays and the lesbians are pissed off with this shit in in games. But   I'm getting off topic. You can also games   but there's not   everything in there but there are few options to look around. You can can browse their website. It's basedmods.com,   I think. Have a look at it if if you're so inclined, if you're a gamer and if you don't know about this page, just have a look. Maybe there's something in there and and you can can   I've seen other games you can patch out gay flags or or alphabet  

[01:17:26] Unknown:

flags out of the game if they offend you. That's an option. I don't care. Just shoot up people in the games they're in. Yeah. I know exactly. Because you're there you're there you're there just to relax. But then, again, this goes a long way, I think, to sculpting public opinion and normalizing certain things that never used to   be normal. And this is me talking, not not I'm talking for myself, not you, obviously.  

[01:17:50] Unknown:

I I just prove I just prove the point that I'm kinda   well, more on the indifferent   side or maybe more on the gullible side if I reflect a bit on myself.   But even I get to the point where I get totally annoyed by certain tropes that,   modern   quote media is trying to force down our throats Yeah.   If you know what I'm saying, you know. And I'm I'm kinda liberal. I have friends,   in workplaces   that are   that are German,   Turkish,   that are from from from the African country. I go along with most of the people unless they're a cunt. Sorry for sorry for the bad word.   That's an awful word. Sorry. Sorry. You know, I'm I'm very sorry I said that live but, unless they're a bad person, let's put it like this.  

But, you know, it's it's it's the person.  

[01:18:42] Unknown:

Yes. I I get what you're saying. But, you know, for me, things like,   so Amazon, going back to the Amazon group,   and Jeff Bezos and all that, they bought out a game of a few years back called New World,   where you couldn't if you created a character within it,   you couldn't choose to be male   or female   per se.   You know? You could you you it was basically gender nonspecific. The whole game is gender nonspecific and was pushing that very   thing. And and you know what a a demon, I think, Amazon is. You know, what a what a blight on humanity a company like Amazon is. It's it's simply there   to to take business away from the small man, centralize it into one big conglomerative.  

No businesses can compete with Amazon's,   business ethic.   No no,   you know   if if Amazon did gardening, I'd be out of business.   Yeah.   So they bought out this game called New World, which,   you know, was specifically all the characters that are in it are   are gender nonspecific.   Body type a or b? Body type a or b. That's right. Correct.   So and I just sort of think, you know, this this normalizes   otherwise   not normal ideologies.   And it may be normal nowadays, but I know I'm I'm aware I might be offending people. I I suggest you look around the world we live in and shut your mouth, but, you know, that's just my opinion, obviously. I I know I might be upsetting a few people, and I don't per se, you know, have any offense with gay people, whatever. I just don't like the idea   that,   for instance,   adolescents or younger   can be confused   with this sort of thing.  

I e,   if if any of you any of you out there die in a motorbike crash and they can't identify   your body,   they will simply identify you as male or female   by looking at your skeleton.   Simple as that. Regardless of how many implants and how many changes you've made to your body,   you'll be classed if you're if you are not really identifiable, they will identify you as male or female via your skeleton,   and that is a medical   fact. So I do not like the idea that this sort of stuff   is put into games   that are available.   Alright. For adults, you can do what you want.  

And I and I and I'm not one for censorship at all, but I don't agree   that these sorts of ideologies   should be put into games   in order that it normalizes it   where it would otherwise be   not so normalized in society. It's just another method   for me   of,   pushing the these ideologies across. So that is rife in computer games at the moment, I think.  

[01:21:51] Unknown:

Oh, yeah. Oh,   man. There there there's I don't know if you if you follow the whole controversy   and,   forgot the game,   name.   But there's this this this,   this is literal in game character. I think her name is Tash. She's supposed to be of a race of dragon descendant fantasy setting, obviously.   And there's literally   a passage or   a scene in the game, which you cannot skip because it's it's very very important   where you sit down with this, character's mother and yourself. You're basically caught between the rock and the hard place and she starts off, yeah, I'm   I'm identifying   as such and such and,   I'm happy with it. And you're sitting there and the mother's obviously going off the rails quite quickly and you're sitting there and,   oh, boy.  

What am I getting into?   I'm I'm Yeah. I'd I'd forgotten the whole phrase what what she was saying but it's literally going all but this this this gender identity   thing which I understand some people who are going through this, they have to deal with quite a lot of stuff by   why   I why is it in a game that it's about a fantasy, about dragons and stuff and greater things and the community? Why are you so important that I have to to drop saving the world to deal with your emotional distress?  

[01:23:15] Unknown:

Yeah. I'm I think you're in the nail on the head. I just think you've written it now. Why do we have to,   create, in actual fact, perpetuate this emotional distress amongst users, amongst players   on, you know, on the basis that, you know, they felt that it had to be in the game, and you can't skip the cutscene. I mean, it's just   it's,   you know, this and the very fact that you can't skip the cutscene shows that that it's being foisted upon people.  

[01:23:44] Unknown:

You   you might argue, you know, we've been talking earlier about issues,   I'm going through earlier. You know, that's that stuff I'm forcing onto you and and and well, as a friend you listen and we I choose to listen.   Exactly. Exactly. You choose to listen. But, me as a gamer, I'm presenting   with an issue   that I don't expect from a game, which is kinda,   let's say, novel.   But I think,   am I the auditeer?   Who's this for? And that's another issue you see quite quite frequently in modern gaming. There's this countless,   of countless copious amounts of games coming   out, fanfared,   as the new best thing for the modern audience and then they fall flat on their faces with like maybe maybe   a fifth or tenth of the expected,   gamer amount or people who buy the actual game, which certainly tells you quite a lot that people mistakenly bought the game expecting something different and the actual audience is about two to 5% maybe. So who are they making these games for? Yeah. And when you think of the losses  

[01:24:58] Unknown:

when you when you think of the losses that are incurred in these in these massive games companies,   They they pile thousands and thousands, if not millions, into making these games that are supposed to capture people's imagination   and, let's face it, waste a lot of time for them. Not waste.   I don't say waste,   unnecessarily,   but they are time sinks. They certainly you can sink an awful lot of time into most computer games nowadays if you're into them.   And the fact that they're prepared to release something   with some agenda behind it that will then   that they'll lose they'll lose all the revenue.  

Who is it who is it for? Million. 4 hundred million.  

[01:25:40] Unknown:

That's one game I recall. I don't I forgot the name because I just pushed it aside in my Well, I know Forspoken was one of these games. It's Forspoken one. It was a minor one, but that was on a on another level. But there were other games. I I think it was like a hero shooter or something. I forgot the name. Some people would probably know exactly what I'm talking about. I think we're looking, it was even a triple a developer,   I think. And they were looking   at roundabout   $2.50 to 400,000,000   potential losses for that game and that was a game where Sony was also in on board. Sony, PlayStation,   that company   or Yeah. Televisions or whatever you you used,   but PlayStation is probably a term that most people will know. That company got involved,   sponsored the developers and and lost them about 400   up to up to 400,000,000   because they misjudged   their audience   and they got punished for it, you know. Not saying trying something new is is bad, you know. Sometimes people,   well, I'm I'm fine with having games for people with other world views and and and political   upbringings or whatever, that's fine. But if you're on such a broad scale,   are you prepared to lose that much money or just do you just want to to make the money?  

Well, obviously It's right there. People are shutting their wallets. They just there's so many people around that, hey, let's book with our wallets. And that's what a lot of people do these days. They're not buying these games.  

[01:27:12] Unknown:

Yeah. They're not buying. And you think of the outlay, you think of the losses and they, you know but these companies are still going.   Yeah. So it's almost like they got given a little backhander. Can you put some of this in your game and we'll we'll subsidize you? You know, it it wouldn't I wouldn't be outlandish to think that even if it's not the case.   Yeah. Crazy stuff. Well, look. We're coming towards the bottom of the hour. There's only, just over thirty minutes left of the show. I've got a couple of songs that I'm gonna play,   over the period of the rest of the show.  

One of these   you're so gonna recognize,   mister Ryan. You're so gonna recognize. So,   what I'm gonna do I'm actually so I've got an old version and a new version of this particular song.   And the new version is someone has   someone loved the game so much that they remade   the sound the the actual soundtrack for it. So I'm hoping I'm gonna play   I'm hoping I'm gonna play   the   remastered one first. But if I don't,   I'll play it afterwards. Okay? Just so that you get the comparison between the two. But how groundbreaking was, you know, back in the days with literally eight bit sound.   Anyone that's not familiar with that, go you know, just put in eight bit sound into Google. It'll tell you what that is.  

Literally eight bit sound because they had so little space to work with. As as mister Ryan said,   you know, most games were on one one point four megabyte disk, some stretched over into two, some stretched over into three, but a lot of that was soundtrack rather than graphics and gameplay   purely because they wanted to make the game   shiny for and and marketable, if you like.   Soundtracks   really,   the soundtrack sell movies.   They sell games. They sell albums too, don't they? You know?   Yeah. I know that I owned the Alien soundtrack when I was when I was younger just purely because it was so atmospheric.   Anyway, look. So we're at the bottom of the hour. You are listening to the Shelley Tasker Show. We are coming live   out of speakfreeradio.com   and probably other platforms as well.  

Here   it goes. See what you think of this one.  

[01:29:36] Unknown:

There was men.   Now   Psygnosis   presents   a DMA   design game.  

[01:29:47] Unknown:

The  

[01:29:50] Unknown:

biggest unanswered question is Yeah.  

[01:29:54] Unknown:

Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money? Where is the money?   Where   is  

[01:30:05] Unknown:

the money? Where   is the money?   The biggest unanswered question is where is the money?   Where is the money?  

[01:32:25] Unknown:

Because that didn't go quite according to plan. So I think I think the first the first tune I thought was quite apt. Where is the money? The money. Yeah.  

[01:32:37] Unknown:

I recognize  

[01:32:38] Unknown:

that one. Yeah. So that's that was a a very, very old diagnosis game called Blood Money.   And the second tune that you heard that just a little snippet of, which I have actually got a remaster of, but I don't seem to be able to find it at the moment,   was came from a game called Interesting. Came came from a game called Shadow of the Beast, which was a massive franchise back in the day.  

[01:33:01] Unknown:

You know what's interesting? I can tell you,   it sounds very much that the songs you were playing were actually 68 bit Amiga versions of the game, I think. I might be slightly wrong here, but those   sound very much, like the Amiga version just for the for years.   The Commodore   sixty four was a computer,   that came out in the eighties and the predecessor   was the one twenty eight for RAM. And following that was the Amiga, which was a far more superior system that was even used in Hollywood for, like, sound production.  

[01:33:33] Unknown:

Right. Okay. Yeah. So it wasn't eight bit. Sorry, folks.   Yeah. So going back to what I was gonna say ask you at the top of the hour, mister Ryan,   what was your what's your   really, because, I mean, we live with computers now. And there might be some younger listeners in the audience,   that would be astounded   to know that, you know, we we were brought up through the through the age of the first home computers. So what was the first computer you either interacted with or owned? Or both?  

[01:34:07] Unknown:

I just mentioned it,   recently, but also looking at a picture right here. I still have a probably   a 35 year old photo in front of me, which clearly shows the Commodore   sixty four.  

[01:34:22] Unknown:

So that was   64,   bytes. Was it not not megabytes,   but Kilobyte.   Kilobytes. Kilobytes.  

[01:34:30] Unknown:

Yeah. When you picked it up the system, you were looking at, a whole system   basically on 64 kilobytes and the available   RAM way back in the day was,   38 kilobytes. I looked it up. I don't know this on top of my head, but I looked it up, had it hooked up to normal television set via the antenna cable   and there you go. Had some hard drives or like floppy drive things   even like a tape recorder and the screeching   printer and all that stuff. Yeah. The dot matrix printers back in the day. There you go. I was looking for that term but, yeah, I had the MPS 800 which is like a   continuously fed paper thing and you could print out these banners like hello or happy Christmas or  

[01:35:20] Unknown:

happy happy birthday. And it was and it was all made up of little x's and stuff, wasn't it? Pretty much. It was. And the whole thing was basically nine needles screeching  

[01:35:29] Unknown:

over the papers for hours. We sort of like,  

[01:35:34] Unknown:

sorry sorry for that noise. Yeah. Thank you for the impression.   That was that was that was pretty accurate to be fair. It was just as grating at least. So  

[01:35:44] Unknown:

I'm trying.  

[01:35:47] Unknown:

Yeah. So my first computer,   I I can I you you are streets ahead of me? My first computer was a VIC 20,   a Commodore I was before. 20, which had   20   kilobytes   of memory or or processing power. So   so so just to put things into perspective,   a 28   bytes   makes one kilobyte.   A 28   kilobytes   makes one megabyte.   So   when you're looking at, you know,   your   your phone your modern day phones which have an average of 64 gigabytes   storage.   A gigabyte   is a 28   megabytes. So this is how small these computers were at the time.   And the amount of   the amount they got out of those, gameplay wise,   was absolutely amazing when you think about the programming involved just to write the letter a on the screen.  



[01:36:55] Unknown:

I I always jokingly put it. You can take a modern day phone,   use it as the main computer   to fly to the moon,   and have, like, entertainment   and games and all stuff multi   threaded   all the way. So you're you're watching a movie, you're listening to music,   you're recording a voice, and you're still flying the spaceship  

[01:37:18] Unknown:

on the phone, on a bloody phone. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we can do these days. It's amazing. Absolutely incredible. And I suppose the technology really is not the problem as we've ascertained,   really. It's what the technology is used for and who's in charge of it and what, you know, what their agendas are rather than their own. And I and I take everyone back to the beginning of the show when I was talking about the cyberattacks on businesses   and and that kind of thing. You know, it's   so I'm I'm gonna you know, we're we're coming up for twenty minutes to the top of the hour.   I'm gonna ask   this question again,   and and just I just   just just give me your your best answer,   mister Ryan. Are games   a good or bad influence   on society? And and if you if you if you   if you if you think both, just   validate your your your choice. That's all I'm gonna say.  



[01:38:19] Unknown:

Well,   it it is it is a solid yes or no for me because it has its obvious,   advantages and is very, very, very real negatives,   as we just mentioned or may maybe people who listened,   or listeners who who got who were with us the whole time. They,   you can pick a few things that are positive out of there but, you know, like,   time constraints is a stick   is a thick negative or a big negative,   you're wasting such a load of time in those games and I'm guilty of that even to this day.   There are some people who literally get very, very, addicted to games and I think I personally was very, very addicted to one of those games I mentioned earlier World of Warcraft for,   let's say, ten years. But   on the upside,   I met some brilliant friends in there.  

But I'm lucky   I got off it at some point because I realized, hey, there's better,   use of my time doing other things and spending that time,   like, face to face with people like we do.   And all these things   come to mind. Yeah.   Yeah.  

[01:39:38] Unknown:

So it's a it's a yes and a no. It's a yes and a no. It's a yes and a no for me. Yeah. Yeah. So there are some positives, but definitely the time sink is a bad thing. I think the Yeah. The distraction I mean,   let's face it. It's really easy to dumb down education   in in society   if there are so many distractions. And let's face it, for kids nowadays,   the one of the biggest distractions is quote unquote   screen   time.   Yeah. And the reason I use the word quote unquote screen time is because that's what it's been labeled, and people limit their children's quote unquote   screen   time   in order that to to quote Paul English,   is it a good use of their time?  

So   I I   I have to say,   I   I think   that I think they're a positive   influence on society. Now, I'm gonna qualify   that because I've said a lot of things opposing.   I think they're a great influence on society   for the social aspect. One of the most amazing things and you did World of Warcraft.   I did Guild Wars. They were two opposing games. It's kind of like whether you like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or whether you liked,   Oasis or Blur.   You know? There's always these two dividing parties,   and Guild Wars and World of Warcraft were were the the video game equivalent, if you like.   I sunk over ten thousand   hours   into Guild Wars. I wasn't playing it the whole time. Some of it was automated,   but I've had my computer on specifically running Guild Wars   over the last twenty years  

[01:41:34] Unknown:

for ten thousand hours. Now I'm just gonna work out while have you I'm assuming you've got some comment to make there. I'm just gonna work out how many actual days that is while you're talking over the top of Yeah. I I I can probably match that. But, on World of Warcraft, you had to do all this manually because there was no automation in there. So I literally was sitting in front of my computer and wasting all that time actively.  

[01:42:00] Unknown:

Okay. So  

[01:42:02] Unknown:

this is this is actually quite straight. It's not a competition, but but yeah. It's just just to get   across a point. But, you know, the amount   of of of time you're potentially losing if you you don't have any self control.   Look at myself at the mirror right here.   It's quite staggering.   So, yeah,   when you grow up or have some   capabilities of of of of,   what's what's the right term? Sorry. Not not first language, but introspect or self reflection or whatever.   I realized at some point, hey,   the amount of time   I'm uselessly   grinding this game for some marginally gain   gain in game   is is basically lost.  

Why don't you just pick up the guitar and use it to riff a bit or just use some some some,   or play some some shapes and things and lovely tunes on there and and which we did,   in person last time I came to, to your place. Yeah. In Cornwall. Yeah. Yeah. In in Cornwall. It's, you know, that that that that felt feels a that was a brilliant evening. I remember that one when we were just sitting there and playing actual real guitars instead of virtual ones that are very very limited and we could do our own stuff. It's far greater and far superior. But you have to grow up because it could games can suck you in. They waste your time with all the little mechanics and things and   one big thing,   fear of missing out and that's what draws in most of the people and As as my good co host would say, FOMO,  

[01:43:40] Unknown:

fear of missing out.  

[01:43:42] Unknown:

Exactly. That's the thing. It's a big big thing that keeps people interested in the game. I have something. You don't. I have this shiny   pink armor or   brilliant   or gem studded armor. I have this massive flaming sword and my   my   lower nether regions are far bigger than yours.  

[01:44:09] Unknown:

Yeah.   I don't know quite how many hours I've done on Guild Wars, but I'm gonna say it's over 10,000. It's definitely over 10,000 Yeah. Which equates to, folks,   crikey. I'm quite embarrassed about this actually. It's over a year.   It's in actual fact,   it's four hundred and sixteen   point six   days.   Only three hundred and sixty five days a year. So there's a whole over a whole year of a year and a half of my life   that's been spent into into a virtual   scenario.   And look, we've all got our favorite books that we go back to and things like that, and we read more than once and stuff. I can guarantee   you haven't spent a year and a half   of your entire life. Like, I'm talking back to back. I'm not talking a year and a half immediately. I'm talking consecutively   four hundred and sixteen days. That's what it accounts to. That's what it amounts to.  

So, yes, they are a massive time sink. I do think they are positive for society   on the basis   of the   communal aspect. And I've met so many people over the years that   like yourself,   who I've spent an awful lot of time with.   We we both know a guy called,   nickname Kiza over in Serbia. Yep.   What a fantastic guy. You know? And I would have not had the opportunity to meet these people and get on with them so well   had it not been for the fact that I've sunk time into computer games. So there is that aspect of it. And I would still say   it's time better spent   than   watching the TV. I'm sorry to all you TV watchers out there, but why you would   get, like, the largest propaganda   industry in the in in the world,   why you would invite it into your living room and just let it flow into your brain while you think of nothing is beyond me.  

That which is why I don't watch TV and things like that. But I do sync time into computer games because I think that it keeps my brain active   and my hand eye coordination, that kind of thing. But   as we've already iterated on the show, it's it's not about the technology.   It's about what it's used for and who's in charge of it and what their agendas are.   Military training is just one of those things. And the whole idea of softening people's minds up to the the fact that war has never been so much fun. You know, go to your brother, kill him with your gun,   leave him lying in his uniform there in the sun, whatever the lyrics were. You know?  

It does have a massive influence, which is why you can understand   why   people were shocked back in the late eighties, early nineties that games like Cannon Fodder could exist because there were red pixels on the screen that were there to represent blood. I mean,   one of the most   fantastic things about Cannon Fodder going back to that game was the fact that sometimes every so often when you'd shoot someone they wouldn't just die. They'd lie on the floor with a pumping chest wound that would keep squirting until they died.   Now,   you know, it's rather like learning to it's rather like using   the old,   Nintendo Wii   boxing   to learn boxing. You get in the ring with a real boxer. You ain't gonna stand a chance like you wouldn't in the war zone if you had learned on cannon fodder or or any of these games you mentioned, armor, you know, these these Call of Duty games, these, you know, these arcade style things, but also these these other things that are   essentially attempting to be simulators of the real thing.  

It does   soften the mind   to the ideas that, well,   that's just what happens,   isn't it? Yeah. And so people can look at things like the Ukraine war, the Afghanistan war, all any war you care to mention, they can look back on it in retrospectively   and say,   you know, particularly with these these games in mind in the modern age that, well, that's just what happens,   isn't it? Yeah.  

[01:48:20] Unknown:

Yeah. If if you think about it, you know, you have,   a certain mindset that is being,   force fed through you, through propaganda,   upbringing,   moral restrictions   or or or religion or whatever that is that is making up your general mindset and then you have this kind of training   in, for example, DCS or whatever.   Not knocking in the game. I I like it for the realism, and I think it's it's a great thing. Even stuff like Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is very, very arcade y on level very basic on the flight model. But,   you you are getting into the game and desensitized   from what you are actually doing. And getting back to the point is how is this affecting training or the general view on things happening before you that could certainly   train operators,   in a way they or act to act a certain way they normally   wouldn't. Wouldn't they have been brought up way before with a different kind of mindset   or upbringing or whatever   because stuff like this wasn't available. I think it it it it is tearing down some boundaries   on one end because you see stuff all the time. And I think that is a bit dangerous if you think about it because if I'm not hesitating to press the button to pixelate   that blobby mess in front of me, which is actually a human being in real life I just hit with a Hellfire missile,   yeah. You kinda see where this is going. I just don't care as much. And I think that is one of the big dangers. And, yeah,  

[01:50:01] Unknown:

I think that has an impact. Well, absolutely. And and think, you know, all these all these guys out there flying the drones and and and flying drones that will drop bombs and and stuff,   you know, there is that sort of detachment,   if you like, from what they're actually doing because they're just watching it on a screen.   And, you know, because they're they're they're, you know, sort of 50   miles away in some airbase somewhere in a in a bunker,   and they're literally just controlling the drone through a screen, through their little Xbox controller or whatever it is they use, you know,   Warthog flight stick, whatever it is, you know, the the the whatever the kit is,   there there is a yeah. There yeah. But there's you know, it often worries me sometimes. You know? You could be flying one of these missions, mate. You know? You could be flying one of these missions on on   on DCS Digital Combat Simulator. How'd you know? In real life, you've not actually just flown a real drone. I think some in some cases, video games are gonna switch over to that that kind of thing. And when you subscribe to a certain,   service, should we say, you might be agreeing to go on active service, quote unquote.  



[01:51:15] Unknown:

Join up today. Fly in the Persian Gulf. Kill some hooties.  

[01:51:19] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly.   But I think there's a certain amount of desensitization   involved with this sort of, if you like, remote well, I'm gonna just call it what it is, remote warfare. Yeah.   You know, these guys that are in these bunkers,   you know, they've been out and they've flown a hard mission, and they go home to their wife and children at night. And they can feel kind of, like,   not as guilty because   because it was just they were just controlling it on a screen. They haven't had to had to see the blood and guts of the kids they've just blown up in real life.  

[01:51:50] Unknown:

Yeah.  

[01:51:51] Unknown:

So that's, you know, that is that's that's another side of it, isn't it? So I'm gonna say, for me, I think they're a good influence on on the on the large part on society. I think it is definitely more healthy than watching the TV. But Mhmm.   As long as it's for escapism   and, you know, there's no political agenda involved. And and as I going back to the Serbian and the Croatian that I had   that were the best of friends back in 02/2005   that that that were in my team, my group, my guild, whatever you wanna call it back in the Guild Wars days.   As he said to me, I said, look. There's a, you know, there's a Serbian in the guild. Are you gonna be alright with that? And he said, absolutely.  

He said, no problem at all. He said, there is no room for politics   in gaming. And that was one of the lovely things that I realized when I was running around when it was I mean, it was so vast. Both World of Warcraft and Guild Wars were vastly populated back in those days.   And, you know, we're talking millions of players.   And   you know that most of the people in that play you you always caught them at their best because they were there just to kick back and enjoy some   some downtime.   And as long as it's downtime,   I think it's a good thing. But like I said, there's so many   things have been bought out and so many degenerate things now. If you go on to Steam now and you have the fact that, you know, you because some games contain adult content. If you have if you go on to Steam, which is a games platform,   for those of you that don't know, it's like a it's like an online games library, and you can purchase stuff to put in your library. And it's it's it's yours as long as you don't violate their terms and conditions.  

You know, there's so many games advertised on there   that are literally I'm not being funny. They are x rated.   You know,   disgusting.   Disgusting.   Anyone, go out and go out and Google a game. Just put in   sex with Hitler,   game,   or sex with Stalin,   game. They're out there, folks. And not forgetting.   Yeah.   You well know that I I   I,   pretended I was a developer, and I got hold of the first Oculus Rift, the development kit.   And Yeah.   Because I pretended I was a a games developer and I got hold of this bit of kit,   I was entitled to go into the forums.   And   in the forums for Oculus, Oculus Rift, I believe it's now called Meta because it's owned by Mark Zuckerberg.  

In the forums,   people were putting up all the different sort of virtual reality   amazing things that they created, like roller coasters and stuff, and you could just download them for free and just test them out on your Oculus Rift. Brilliant. Brilliant.   Do you know what? The   the the there was one post that was always at the very top of the forum.   And compared to the other posts in the forum,   it I would say it probably had a thousand fold views.   I you know, most most topics had, like, maybe   800 or thousand views.   This one, you're looking at hundreds of thousands of views, this particular topic. Can you guess what topic that was, mister Ryan?  



[01:55:14] Unknown:

It's probably how can I, watch,   x rated content on this thing properly or something along the lines? No. It was worse than that. It was  

[01:55:24] Unknown:

virtual porn. All of it was virtual porn. Saying. Yes. That's what I'm saying. It wasn't how can I? It was people offering their wares, and there were all sorts of not just game   creators,   but porn companies   Yeah. Touting their wares on this particular forum. And that was when the virtual reality thing first came out. So you can see what direction that was headed in.   Can you see the writing on the wall, folks?   Anyway, look. Mister Scott,  

[01:55:52] Unknown:

I have a request.   Go on then. I don't know if it still fits in time wise, but we were discussing this shortly. So three games. Let me ask you a question. What was your first game ever? First game was Zox Kingdom on the Vic 20.   Pit stop on the C 64, driving a race car around an eight bit,   race,   thing. Most influential game for you, mate? Most influential  

[01:56:18] Unknown:

game for me.   For you? I would say would have to be   oh, I would say would no. I would say it would have to be Guild Wars purely because it was the first,   massive multiplayer online game that I ever played, and it made me realize that politics was not for gaming and that people around the world   were just like me.   So that was very influential for me. Yeah.  

[01:56:43] Unknown:

Yeah. I I can   can offer mine, which was the Fallout series. I played the first one countless times, the second one countless times.   All the the the episodes like three   New Vegas,   four, even a bit of 76. Six. There's the whole reason is because it was like   a end of the world scenario. The whole world got bombed to oblivion and you have to survive and that which I kinda feel mentally   sometimes.  

[01:57:13] Unknown:

So yeah. What were they what were they preparing us for? What are they preparing us for? Yes. Indeed. Exactly.   That was the second question. Go on then. And what was the third?  

[01:57:23] Unknown:

What would you recommend   people right now? If you'd say, hi. Money is not an issue. System is not an issue. What would you would you say people, hey, this is a great game. Just take a look.  

[01:57:36] Unknown:

Do you know what? I think it would have to be   something along the lines of   oh, no. That's a really hard question,   actually. I know. That is a really hard well done, sir. That's a it's not often you get me speechless on the radio.   I would say   do you know what? I'm gonna cheat slightly.   I'm gonna cheat slightly and say, if you can get hold of anything,   get hold of a a thing called MAME 32,   multi arcade machine machine emulator   32 bit, and that will give you every arcade game you ever played   from 1982   onwards.   So that's my answer on that. You're gonna have to be quick because we have got just over a minute left, sir.  



[01:58:26] Unknown:

Very quick one. I already mentioned the game earlier. So if you ever had any fantasies of being an an European   medieval knight in Bohemia,   that would be kingdom come deliverance   one or two. I would start with the first one to get the story or maybe watch your lot let's play for that one and then jump straight into the second one. Great game.   You feel right at home if you're  

[01:58:50] Unknown:

straight down the middle, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Absolutely. I would say avoid the second one because you you don't have to make that choice as to whether you want to, you know, be gay with your mate.  

[01:59:01] Unknown:

Look. Well, I'm the opposite. I say play both of them.  

[01:59:04] Unknown:

Okay. So, guys, you have been listening to the Shelley Tasker Show. Shelley, is on hiatus at the moment. She'll be back when she feels like it. We're coming live out of RadioSoapbox.com,   and I'm gonna play you out with Shelley's outro.   Thanks for joining me, mister Ryan. You've been absolutely fantastic.  

[01:59:21] Unknown:

Thank you very much. Glad to be here. Cheers. Bye. Cheers now.  

[01:59:26] Unknown:

Lots of love, folks. You you all take care.