S1E28 - Resevoir Dogs

Welcome back to another episode of Discreet Error, the podcast where every week we dive into the fascinating and extensive library of the greatest selling video game console of all time. I'm the PlayStation Two. I'm Derek Kicker.

I'm Ian Golding.

And this week we are cutting off ears in the adaptation, the video game adaptation. Some might call it a reimagining oh. Of the breakout hit from Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs. And all this is for Block Buster month blockbuster. So Reservoir Dogs. Reservoir Dogs.

Yes, sir.

So I was obviously a small child when this movie came out. Was it a big deal for you as the elder statesman of the podcast?

It's interesting. I remember seeing it on video at the time. It was video.

No ddvd yet.

And it was one of those movies.

That it was my freshman year of.

College, and everyone seemed to see it over Thanksgiving or Christmas break. It was just like one of those things that everyone came back and had seen it. It was very strange. It was just like it just hit. Maybe it had been released then, I don't know. And I don't even remember why I sought it out to watch it. But suddenly it was like the big.

Thing was this movie that everyone fucking loved. Yeah.

The movie came out on October 9. Yeah, I was three years old.

Sure. So your parents didn't take you to see it?

No.

Interesting.

It premiered at Sundance on January 21, 1992, which I was still two at that point.

And you're only two?

Yeah.

So, of course they didn't fly me out for that.

That's a shame.

That's a shame.

It is a shame.

That's a crime. Yeah.

And they fucking lit the world on fire.

And then that was like I don't know.

Was it only a year or two before fucking Pulp Fiction?

I think so.

I think Pulp Fiction is 94.

Okay. Yeah. Two years. Yeah.

So what's your favorite Tarantino movie?

Fuck, I don't I don't know.

Maybe.

Fuck, man.

I really like once upon a time in Hollywood.

That might be it.

I like Django and Change a fuck on. I even like, hateful eight. I like inglorious bastards.

I think I have a spicy take for this.

Is it? Go on.

I'm fairly confident it's close. It's between Pulp Fiction, but I think that slightly edges it out. Is Jackie Brown?

Yeah.

I feel like I need to see Jackie Brown again because I only saw it once in theater, like, week it.

Came out, and I haven't seen it since.

I remember not loving it, but now I'm thinking, like, maybe I'd give it.

Enough of a chance. It whips. Yeah.

Watch it again.

I got to watch it again.

I know I need to watch Pulp Fiction again.

I think I've seen Pulp Fiction.

Really? I've seen Inglorious recently. I've seen Hateful Eight broken into TV episodes or whatever recently on Netflix. And I saw Once Upon Time in.

Hollywood pretty recently, but yeah.

Oh, I guess. Better question here, right? What's the worst Tarantino movie?

Kill Bill volume two.

Exactly. I feel like it's not even particularly close.

No. And part one is pretty good.

Yeah.

It's just part two. It feels like nothing fucking happens till the last scene. It's like all the awesome shit is in the first one. And then you're just like she's just wandering around Mexico, and then she does the secret punch move and kills him.

And then I like death proof significantly more than I like, Kill Bill.

I don't mind death proof at all. I actually like just for Kurt Russell.

Yeah.

I feel like kill.

Bill, volume two is Tarantino's Life Aquatic.

Yeah. Okay.

Where it's like overly self indulgent. It's like his worst, like, excess. Like just nobody told him no on anything in that movie.

That's what it feels like. Especially just splitting the movie into two. It feels like it could have been one movie.

He counts part one and two as one movie.

Oh, he does?

I always wondered about that.

Okay.

When he says the final, he's going to do ten movies, so he's technically eleven releases, but it's only ten movies.

Correct.

Yeah.

He counts kill Bill as one thing. I saw the double feature of Grindhouse. I love Grindhouse, which was sick. That was a great experience.

Of course.

I also saw the.

Oh, my God.

What do they call it? The roadshow version of hateful. Eight on Christmas Day at the Cinerama.

Dome oh, my that's a long fucking time, isn't it? Yeah, that's the one. Split up. Like, with split up.

Right.

There's an intermission halfway through.

Oh, my God.

But there's also an overture at the beginning. So there's like a 15 minutes musical overture in the beginning.

And there's like a program.

It was fun. I enjoyed it.

Of course.

I, like, hateful eight.

A lot of people don't.

I love it. I love it. I get into it.

I remember we're just not even talking about the video game. But that's fine. We'll get to it. We'll get there. I remember going to see a movie at the Egyptian.

Okay. And for those of you who don't.

Know, the Egyptian is a very famous theater on Hollywood Boulevard. And they were shooting the Brad Pitt driving down Hollywood Boulevard scenes.

I feel like right there, everyone has a story about who lives in La. About seeing that fucking movie being shot. They shot fucking everywhere and all the time.

Yeah.

It's very funny because I was going there to see Friday the 13th Three in 3D okay. On an authentic silver screen.

Nicely done.

Nicely done.

But none of that has anything to do with Reservoir Dogs. The video game was released in Europe first. Weirdly enough.

Very weirdly.

But released in North America on October 24, 2006.

So 14 years after the movie came out.

Yeah. People were just clamoring.

You know what?

I feel I remember around this time, I think the DVD had been rereleased.

Okay, yeah, that's about right.

I have, like, a steel book mondo version of the movie that I'm pretty sure came out in 2006. And then I have a version that's, like, in a gas can, and the case inside the gas can is like, a matchbook that I also think came out at that time. I was obsessed. I worked at Rubio's, and the Rubios was in the same parking lot as a Blockbuster. So I would just go to Blockbuster and buy, like, previously owned DVDs. I had so many DVDs. It was insane, of course.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Can't believe it. But this game was published by IDOs bizarre, but developed by Volatile Games. Volatile games is a subsidiary was a subsidiary of Blitz Games Studios.

Okay.

And Volatile Games did their mature rated games.

Okay.

So they were like the Nissan to.

Infinity for adults, but for games with swear words, titties.

They did.

Like SpongeBob SquarePants underpants slam.

Oh, boy. Yeah.

And some other they did the Biggest Loser game.

The fuck kind of game would that be, even?

Yeah.

I don't know. Except for the obviously this company wasn't doing super good. They are defunct as of September 12, 2013.

Well, they hung on seven years after this somehow.

I mean, they were around for 33 years. They were started in 1990.

Wow. Wow.

They started as Dizzy Enterprises Limited, then Interactive Studios, then Blitz Games Limited, then Blitz Game Studios Limited.

It's weird.

It's always limited.

Weird. But other than that, there is shockingly little in terms of information on the development of this game.

I'm not actually that shocked.

It seems like it wasn't done with.

A lot of fanfare or record keeping.

Yeah. And I don't remember this game ever coming out. It was released on Windows and Xbox as well.

Okay.

I never knew when you said, we're playing this, I was like, I have no idea that this existed at all.

And I'll say the weird thing about this game, and this game does something very special that I don't think a lot of movie games do, which is follow the plot of the movie. Almost exactly.

Yes.

And it does it in a way that makes sense because basically the whole game takes place as largely the time in between the robbery at the beginning of the movie and the warehouse stuff, where the bulk of the movie takes place.

Right.

So it's a part that's not actually in the movie. So it kind of fills in like a gap. Right. Because we only see it in little vignettes in the movie.

Right.

Just the real small little things. Right, exactly.

Yeah.

Because the movie was so low budget. Yeah. So I guess with that said, let's get into the plot.

Sure. Try out the guns. Knock yourself out. I got to take a piss.

So the plot there's eight criminals, mr. Blonde, Mr. White, mr. Pink, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blue and Mr. Brown. And they're planning a heist for Joe and his son Eddie.

Nice guy, Eddie.

Yeah, nice guy. Same as the movie.

But they don't know that.

One of them is a copper.

Undercover copper.

Mr. Orange in the movie, played by Tim Roth in the game. Not at all. In fact, the only person we have to talk about to reprise their role because, of course and let's just go through who's in the movie.

Right.

Of course. Mr. Brown is played by Quentin Tarantino himself.

Probably. I will say he's never been a good actor, but this is his worst role. He stands out as a bad actor in this movie.

Yeah, he's also very bad in Pulp Fiction.

Yes, he is.

Yeah. He's worse. Maybe he's worse.

Steve Bushemi as Mr. Pink. Harvey kitel as Mr. White.

Maybe.

Career making for Steve Bushemi, right?

Possibly.

Yeah.

I think it might be.

I think this and Con Air.

Yeah, really doing it.

Tim Roth as Mr. Orange. Edward Bunker as Mr. Blue. And let me see, lawrence Tierney as Joe. And famously, Chris Penn. Sean Penn's brother as Nice Guy Eddie. And Michael Madsen as Vic Vega. I guess canonically related to Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction. Aka. Mr. Blonde. And the only person to reprise his role for the game.

Now, in my head, this was a prank by the rest of the cast, 100%.

Like, they told him, oh, yeah, we're all in.

We'll be there.

He went and recorded his shit. And then the game comes out and he's the only one, and he's like.

I look like fucking asshole. I just picture him showing up, recording day and being like, So, how was Harvey?

And like, who?

Oh, yeah, Harvey kitel. Mr. Whatever he played Mr. White.

Yeah, he's great.

He's great.

And we love Harvey kitel. Yeah.

Shows his dong and bad lieutenant.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God. And it's just so obvious that he's the only one. His voice is very distinct.

It's hilarious.

The second year's voice.

So funny that he's the only person that came back. It's weird that they even needed him to come back because he's basically just doing lines from the movie.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, I don't think you can just pull lines from the movie. But also, he's far, far worse at the lines in this. And you're like, yeah, he's doing a bad imitation of yourself.

Yeah, it's odd.

Very.

Also something that has to be talked about. I mean, the plot is the plot. It's the same as the movie.

Yes.

The only difference is, like, the endings where you can kind of make it out.

You get to see what happened to Mr.

Pink.

Yeah, that's basically it. It's funny because they clearly tried very hard to make Mr. Orange look like Tim Roth.

Yeah.

But they didn't even bother with literally anyone else, including kind of Michael Madsen.

Right. Which is even more bizarre that they.

Got him because he doesn't look anything fucking like him.

One thing that's really weird about this game is the cutscenes.

Yes.

The cutscenes in this game are super OD. They're all in game no FMV kind of stuff.

No.

And they're kind of, like long for no reason.

Yes, they are.

So the famous scene, the most famous scene from Reservoir Dogs where Mr. White is cutting off the ear of a police officer without the actual cut, they kind of just put the scene of the movie, but poorly digitized.

Like poorly put together.

It's super weird for no reason. And it's long and it's like, what?

Yeah.

And it's like they even do like the weird pan that he did with the camera when the ear cuts off. But like okay, you're doing a tribute.

Why some weird cuts in it too.

Yeah, they're very weird.

Yeah. It's very strange.

But yeah. Let's get into the gameplay a little bit.

Sure. I ain't taking you on this caper unless you can prove to me that you can handle yourself in unexpected circumstances.

Okay, kid. Now look, you're on your own on this one. You need to get from here to over there. And we're going to try and stop you. You need to stay low, crouch down if necessary. It'll make you smaller target. If you're so inclined, you can try out some of that commando shit.

So this game, I feel like.

Grand.

Theft Auto really fucking ruined everyone's brains.

Yes.

Because like 60% of games that came out after Grand Theft Auto, three are basically just reskins of Grand Theft Auto, but worse.

I'm going to say you've got your dish of Grand Theft Auto. But then the chef of Blitz Games or Vicious Games, whatever they call, came in and they had a little salt shaker that said, what should we call it? Hitman. And they sprinkled enough in there so that it was like but it's also a little hitman in there. People like that, right?

Yeah.

And it's OD. So there's the third person shooting, which you can get through this game entirely without firing a single shot. Yes, you can do that easily. There's a weird mechanic where you can hold people hostage.

Yeah, that's the hit me.

And then you can beat them with your gun. And the cops are like, oh, shit, he means business. And drop their guns. Yeah, they drop their guns. And you can force them to kneel and put gup against a wall. And it's super weird. And there's driving sections. The driving sections are not satisfying or fun at all. It's a slog. One difference we should point out, shooting is very difficult.

Very difficult. I have very poor aiming mechanics. One difference is when we say Grand Theft Auto, there isn't the seamless walking to car. They're different. Like, you can never get into a car and start driving from shooting. Unlike grand theft auto.

Right.

It's just like there's just sections. Like, this is a driving section. It's like they're two different games.

This game is virtually on rails.

It's full of, for sure, 100% on rails.

Yeah. There's not a lot of extra stuff you can do with the exception of the end scenario. Yeah, there's a couple. Because this game has multiple endings.

Three. It's got three endings.

I guess there's four.

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow.

It's a new yeah. I believe there is a fourth, like, hidden ending. I saw something about it on a long play. Not that it matters. Not that it's that much different. But there's a psycho ending where you get in a shootout with police and you die. Then there's a neutral ending where you try escaping and you get arrested. And then there's a professional ending where you hide under a car and then you steal a car, but you don't get the diamonds and you leave. I think there is a way to escape with the diamonds.

That's the fourth.

Okay.

But none of it matters. None of it's. That interesting.

None of those endings are, like, satisfying. It's not like you played this is all for Mr.

Pink.

When you say you get away with yes, it's not like you played the whole game as Mr. Pink. So you're, like, connected to the character. These are just three different cutscenes you can watch. And yes, it's 2006. We're before YouTube, so you couldn't just watch them. But these are now just like, I don't care. I don't care how this game ends.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

It's super OD. A lot of OD choices in this game. And it doesn't look great.

No.

But I will say this. It sounds great.

Yeah.

No, the soundtrack is it features the full soundtrack from the movie AK K Billy's supersounds of the 70s with comedian.

Stephen Wright as the DJ. I knew him. That was like when I saw the movie, that was like, the first thing. I was like, I know that guy. I still love his fucking stand up as a child.

Yeah. That radio station plays when you're driving. And all your favorite tracks from the.

Movie are in there.

Which is why this game was nominated in the third British Academy Game Awards for best Soundtrack. Which is cheating, apparently. A real thing.

That's cheating, though. It just used the soundtrack from the movies and, like, they curated these songs.

Yeah, that's very funny. So I'm looking right now because this had me super interested in who did the voices for this.

We have to talk about the Mr.

White actor and what he did with.

The Harvey kitel character. He does the most goomba. Forget about it. He doesn't say morone, but he fucking might as well.

Me and Orange jumped in a car and Brown floor after that, I don't know what went down.

And when you look up that actor, you're going to recognize him. Like, I feel like he might be the guy in Scrooge who says you can hardly see them nipples. I feel like he might be that.

Guy, but he's in yeah.

So the actor who voices Mr. White is Jack McGee.

Okay.

Now, you may be wondering who the fuck let's go through Jack McGee, because you obviously haven't watched the FX series Rescue Me.

Rescue Me. Yes.

Chief Jerry Riley. But he's also in an absurd amount of movies.

He's a that guy.

Yeah. Famously the Lethal Weapon franchise. He plays Mickey McGee.

No idea who that is.

In Lethal Weapon.

In Lethal Weapon Two and Lethal Weapon Three.

Okay.

Let's see what else he isn't scrooged carpenter.

Yeah, so he is.

You can hardly see the nipples, guys, because it's a carpenter. He said, Holy shit, what a pull.

Okay, so good call.

Yeah.

And he's still fucking doing it. In fact, he was in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

He was in the making a Murderer episode. He's the lieutenant. Lance Gerard.

Okay.

Which is such a good episode. And he's still doing he's an NCIS playing a different character than he played on NCIS ten years ago.

Sure. Why not?

Get him back.

He's on 911.

That fucking Ryan Murphy show.

Never seen it, but it looks fucking ridiculous.

Oh, yeah.

He's like a guy I feel like there's a good reason. He's had this long of storied, I guess, of a career, which is like, he's a white guy. He's just a certain type of blue collar white guy.

He is a Kirkland signature Brian Dennehy.

Perfect. Yes, perfect. Exactly. Right. Like, he is just nondescript. You don't want this guy to pull attention away from Adam Driver. When Adam Driver is at the fucking DMV scene, he can just deliver his lines. He doesn't pop at all. He's just a guy.

Right.

Boy, did he try to pop as fucking Mr. White?

Hell yeah, he did. You know, Wells tried to pop in this game was Scott Menville, who portrayed Mr. Orange.

Okay.

And he's a legit voice actor.

Okay.

He's done a couple of movies, too. He did a voiceover for the time traveler's wife.

Sure.

He was also in Pod. Favorite Ernest Goes To Camp Boy. Yeah. He's also in an episode of 911, everyone.

It's gonna be the new that Kevin Bacon.

Yeah.

It's gonna be like an episode of workaholics.

Okay.

He did an episode of Er.

Sure.

Voiceover, though. You go into his voiceover, and then it's just fucking since 1985, man's been working.

He's a worker.

He actually played a Cooper general in the recent Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Oh, Deed. Okay.

Cooper General.

Yeah.

General number seven.

General. Yeah. He's done a ton of TV voiceover.

Stuff, but other than that.

Very respectable.

Sure.

And then there's Michael Konakakia.

Okay.

Who plays nice guy Eddie in this game.

Yeah.

And he's also been in an episode.

Of Er about 911.

No, no.

911.

But he wasn't an episode of Hannah montana.

Oh boy.

Yeah. And 6ft under. So there you go.

Okay.

He's done a couple other video games too. He did driver parallel lines. Okay. He did la noir. He plays a character in La Noir. He also plays a joker and a Penguin thug in Batman Arkham. Origins.

Origins, worst one.

Yeah, not good. He plays someone but it doesn't say who in Arkham.

Knight probably just reused one of the.

Voice lines they had from Origins.

Although and then Mr. Blue is Carrie Payton, who is Ezekiel on The Walking Dead.

Oh wow. Okay.

Yeah. The guy with the tiger or some whatever the fuck.

Yeah, that's a cool I kind of like that choice on casting, I'll be honest.

Yeah. He's also done a lot of voiceover things. He is the Penguin King in the Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Oh shit.

Probably like a little reunion there. All we needed was Madsen and fucking Joe McCabe or whatever his name is.

Yeah, he's actually done a fuck ton of video games.

Okay.

He did deus x the original in 2000. Siphon Filter, The Omega Strain, x Men Legends Two, Rise of Apocalypse, Tony Hawks, American Wasteland Teen Titans God of War Two.

Oh wow.

Spiderman friend or Foe? Metal Gear Solid Guns of the Patriots.

Oh shit.

Yeah. Resistance two marvel ultimate alliance kill zone three StarCraft two metal gear solid piece walkers Shit yeah. Aliens, colonial Marines, god of war. Ascension injustice. He plays Cyborg and Doomsday. Batman Arkham origins he's Killer Croc and Warden Joseph okay. And in batman arkham knight. He's Asrael.

Yeah, I can hear that.

Okay.

Yeah. So he was also wasabi no ginger in Kingdom Hearts Three.

Oh shit.

And those are the only voice actors in this game with a Wikipedia page.

Everyone else just whatevered.

Now we've kind of shit on this game a little bit. Yeah, we've kind of shit on it a little bit. Let's see if the critics also shit on it or if we're just we just have bad taste in video games.

I have a feeling it's not us. Are you going to bark all day, little doggie?

Or are you going to bite?

So would you be shocked to find out that this game received mixed reviews on all platforms according to Metacritic?

I would not be shocked.

Every version of this game got a 50 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Wow. Okay, that's probably about right.

But there's a funny wrinkle in this too. The game has been refused classification in Germany and Australia, essentially banning the game from sale in both countries.

Is it because of the ear thing and the mutilation?

I guess so. The Australia classification board found it cannot be accommodated at the Ma 15 plus classification. And as such, the game has been made unavailable for sale or higher or would not be demonstrated in Australia. Now this is a country where you are almost positively going to get sun cancer, skin cancer.

Yeah.

Spiders are going to kill you.

Spiders are going to kill you. Snakes. Snakes in the toilet, or whatever they call the snakes in the Poopo. In the poopy, the poop waterho, the poopoo, whatever the fuck they call it. But they cannot do, like, just a very low poly violence. That's going to be a big nar from them.

Big old nar.

Oh, let's actually rewind, too. Germany. Germany. You're going to talk to me about violence? Germany, yeah.

That's even weirder than Australia, because there's some shit out there on I'll do after 1948. Even after that, there's some fucking shit in Germany.

Yeah. I don't know if Germany is really a country to be taking a hard stance on violence.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

Yeah. But okay. Eurogamer gave it a six out of ten. Game Informer gave it a 5.75 out of ten.

Sure.

Game Spot gave it a 4.6 out of ten. Game Spy, two stars out of five. Game trailers, seven out of ten. That seems high. Yeah. IGN UK gave it a 7.5 out of ten. The fuck out of IGN US gave it a three out of ten, proving once again, if you couldn't tell from the what they from what they eat for breakfast, the British have terrible fucking taste.

I know. Holy shit.

7.5 out of ten. Get the fuck out of here.

Five out of ten.

PlayStation Magazine gave it a three out of ten. And the Times, the British again, british Daily national newspaper, the Times gave it a four out of five stars. What the fuck?

80%. That's an 80%. That is fucking bonkers.

Yeah.

No wonder they eat fucking hog slops and still have a king.

It's eat beans for breakfast. That's the kind of people we're talking about.

Disgusting.

Vile.

Yeah. No wonder their empire ended.

Yeah, no shit.

Oh, my God.

Dear. Fucking Christ.

Touch grass. Holy shit.

Wow.

The Brits really need to pull it the fuck together.

They do. They do.

They need no wonder the Queen died. She probably died of dis appointment.

She probably died fucking what? She heard those scores.

Fucking four and a half or four. She finally caught up to playing Reservoir Dog.

It was in her fucking too.

And she was like, oh, this is shit. It is four out of five. I wonder what the rest of me country thinks about it.

Oh, boy. Oh, fucking boy.

Oh, fucking boy. Dude. Holy shit.

Yeah, because this game is a big old corgi turd.

It's a huge corgi turd.

Huge corgi turd.

Huge. Wow.

Oh, God. Well, what would you rank this game?

Fuck, man, this game is bad. Everything about it is like it's not even like, oh, they cashed in because it's like fucking 15 years later.

I'm going to give Reservoir Dogs three out of ten. Toby chu. Toby Chew.

That's from the opening scene there with the diner. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Right?

Toby Chews, three out of ten.

This game blew ten like a Virgin conversations.

There you go. A snappy dialogue, pop culture references. It just blows. It's just not fun. What this game is, you can get from other better games, a million other better games. It's just real bad.

Yeah, I think we've brought this game up before, too, but if you want a better version of what this game is kind of trying to do, just play the fucking Godfather game.

Yeah, exactly.

It is a much better version of what this game desperately wants to be 100%. And I think one of the most offensive things about this game is that there's just no reason for it to exist. No, I don't think anyone was asking for this. I don't think when it came out, anyone was like, oh, hell yeah.

Finally.

Oh, God, I can't wait for the Pulp Fiction game. Get out of here, god damn it. Yeah, so with that in mind, I'm going to give this game two severed ears, which is how many ears I'd rather sever than play this game again.

Well done. Well done. Yeah, it's a stinker. It's bad.

It's a big old turd.

It's a turd.

All right, well, that was our thoughts on Reservoir Dogs. Thank you all so much for listening.

More like Reservoir Dog shit. Make sure you follow us on social media. You can pitch us games. You can tell us we're fucking idiots. If you're British and want to yell at us for making fun of your bean slop breakfast, yeah, go right ahead. You can find us on instagram at discrete AirPod you can find me at Funeral casual games.

I'm at Ian Golding Games. So check us out on all of our socials and we will see you next week.

Badaboom, badabing.