Part 1: Act I: The Iron Curtain

Act I: The Iron Curtain
With slowbeef and Dave_O!


Both: Tangerines


Dave_O: So this is that awesome helicopter sim you were telling me about.
Slowbeef: Oh yeah this is great. You get to like fly over cities. And all the buildings are blue.
Dave_O: Those lights are so realistic.


Dave_O: Alright, go up. No, up.
Slowbeef: Wait, up?


Slowbeef: Aw...


Dave_O: Check that out. Who could that be?
Slowbeef: I don't know, but it's a Top Secret Episode.



Slowbeef: I think he shot down that helicopter with his glowing eye.
Dave_O: You know, most people close their eye when they shoot. He just like, flips it around.


Dave_O: This is just like a summer movie.


Dave_O: A shell? I didn't know they could shoot shells.
Slowbeef: Apparently, I don't know anything about M16s.


Dave_O: Alright, number one. Hit it.
Slowbeef: There he is, Duke Togo.
Dave_O: Duke "To Go"


Dave_O: It has a mohawk - that's ridiculous.


....
....
....


Dave_O: I don't know what you're supposed to do here.
Slowbeef: Neither do I. He's just glowering at us.
Dave_O: He looks disapproving.
Slowbeef: I know! "I know what you did today and it's very humiliating. I'm so disappointed in you."
Dave_O: Alright, check the manual. How do we turn around?
(You press A. This somehow causes people to approach you.)


Slowbeef: Alright, there we go... Wow, he's got a pair of mutton chops on him.
Dave_O: He does. And a huge neck.


Dave_O: If I met someone named Maria Lovelette, I'd be like "You're definitely not a spy."


Slowbeef: Heh. 'What can I do for you?'
Dave_O: See? It's Duke To-Go. It's a fast food place.



Dave_O: That's comforting. It wasn't you.
Slowbeef: Oh good - I'm not completely sure what I do and don't do.
Dave_O: 'I black out when I hold my M16.'
Slowbeef: 'I've been drinking for days.'



The four dot is an iconic moment of Golgo 13 - this is 95% of the main character's dialogue in almost every situation in the game. Seriously.
Dave_O: Uh oh, four dot.





Dave_O:Should I tell that story about the T-shirt?
Slowbeef: Please do.
Dave_O: Okay. My girlfriend really likes the four-dot, so she wants to put it on a T-shirt and I told her I'd break up with her if she did.
Slowbeef: And I would marry her if she did.
Dave_O: Yeah, so that T-shirt really decides our fate. And you have to say that like MY GIRLFRIEND.






Slowbeef: No one on the Internet has girlfriends.
Dave_O: Oh yeah. Slowbeef is my girlfriend.
Slowbeef: Oh dear. And the homoeroticism's right at the beginning.
Dave_O: You're calling me dear and everything.
Slowbeef: I wasn't even paying attention to the story. What are we supposed to be doing?
Dave_O: Well, there's a guy named Condor who has the worst spy name ever because it's an extinct bird.
Slowbeef: Okay.


Dave_O: And you need to kill someone to get a vaccine from them. You can't just take it. You just have to kill them.



Slowbeef: This is his attack.
Dave_O: Is Duke To-Go doing calisthenics?
Slowbeef: Look at my spring leg.
Slowbeef: And my flesh-colored shoes.
Dave_O: You have pink slippers on.

One interesting note about Golgo 13 is that in these side-scrolling sections, your Life decreases for no reason at all. See the L in the upper left corner? The number next to it just decrements for no reason at all.


Slowbeef: Yeah, look. My life's going down.
Dave_O: That's your urge to kill.
Slowbeef: Love of murder?
Dave_O: If you kill someone, it goes up. Watch.


It's true. You get ridiculous amounts of health back. Ridiculous doesn't mean "a lot" - it means literally ridiculous. Some enemy types give you as little as ten or as much as a hundred with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

Going inside...


Slowbeef: Ah, the all important Potsdam Station.



Dave_O: This is where Duke To-Go thought he left his briefcase, but it isn't actually there. So he just leaves.



Hostiles and bystanders all wear green, so it's nearly impossible to tell them apart. I jump-kicked this guy before he talked to me.
Slowbeef: Oh, sorry citizen.
Dave_O: That's how I start conversations.


Slowbeef: You watch yourself! I just kicked you.


Dave_O: They should call this game Eyebrow 13. Jesus, every male character has like a double caterpillar on his face.


Slowbeef: Whoa!
Dave_O: Oh shit.

That gun you saw brings us into Pan N Zoom mode - which is Golgo 13's version of an FPS. Basically, you can rotate in place, look up and down, and shoot people.


Slowbeef: This is where the game's like really broken because killing people here gives you like all your health back.
Dave_O: 'Cause it feels so good.
Slowbeef: Killing them in first person?


Dave_O: Do they like, climb into the ground?
Slowbeef: Yeah!
Dave_O: Maybe the cobblestones are like waist-deep and they just climb behind.

I should explain why the game's broken here. You get a LOT of health back from Pan N Zoom mode. Even better, if you die in Pan N Zoom mode, you start at the beginning of it. Sometimes the game will send you really far back if you die in a side-scrolling section, so if you're low on health, it's better to die here on purpose to refill your health so you don't start ridiculously far back.

Also, the bar on the bottom helpfully tells you how many people you've yet to murder and when there's one left, the game actually helps out by pointing out where the last guy is.


Slowbeef: I have the most useless gun in the world in this game, because everyone is lower than where I actually shoot.
Dave_O: And moreover, your whole gimmick is an M16, but you're apparently fighting with like a dart gun.



Slowbeef: Turn around!


Dave_O: So we did determine this is Germany. But there's KGB for some reason.
Slowbeef: And everybody looks like Hitler until you see them in the little dialogue box.
Dave_O: Either Hitler or they're just all really surprised.

Funny story... okay, not really. I did the video for this LP at work. I had the office to myself, we'd just finished a major crunch time to launch a website, and I had nothing to do. Dave_O was on, so... (shrug) I did a VLP at work. At this point, my boss Chris walks in and catches me goofing off on the clock.

Slowbeef: (to Chris) Hey, what's up? Uh... how'd 1775 go?
Slowbeef's Boss: (laughs)
Slowbeef: Alright...
Slowbeef's Boss: You can keep going.
Slowbeef: Alright, thanks!
Slowbeef's Boss: We just launched - there's no work to do.
Slowbeef: (to Dave_O) My boss just came in and caught me goofing off on the job. But that's okay. He's okay with it.
Dave_O: This is an important part of the LP.
Slowbeef: Absolutely. This is for the Internet, dammit!




Dave_O: Alright, four dots. Is your boss four-dotting you right now?
Slowbeef: Yeah. You wanna come over and check this out, Chris? This is an old spy game.



Dave_O: You're talking to Steve McQueen right now.
Slowbeef's Boss: What are you doing?
Slowbeef: I'm talking to Steve McQueen right now.


Slowbeef: And, uh... he's got four dots.


Slowbeef: You ever play this game before? It's called Golgo 13.
Slowbeef's Boss: No.
Slowbeef: Good, don't. It's terrible.


I attempted to shoot this guy, but the bullets pass right through him.

Dave_O: No, don't, that's a nice guy.
Slowbeef's Boss: Did you just shoot through him?
Slowbeef: Well, he was nice.
Slowbeef's Boss: Oh, so bullets just go right through nice people?
Slowbeef: Yeah, just like real life.


You can also jump-kick bullets out of mid-air in Golgo 13. They explode, but don't give you any health or extra bullets, which is really a lot of bullshit.

Slowbeef: And I just kicked that bullet. And that guy. And I have explosive feet. It's great. Wonderful. ....I'm so getting fired.





Dave_O: Look, it's Hitler. Oh, wait. I think this guy's a racist - he doesn't want you in here.
Slowbeef: I don't even know what race my character is. He's either Asian or keeps his eyes squinted all the time.
Dave_O: His race is eyebrow.


When your health gets low in Golgo 13, you get an annoying beeping sound. Since the controls are God-awful, expect to hear that a lot. And people on Skype to say:

Dave_O: You're gonna die again... I mean for the first time.




Dave_O: Quick, murder. You'll feel better if you murder the acrobatic monkey assassins.


Dave_O: Now shoot a helicopter down with your pistol.


This one managed to get off a missile. Missiles don't take much life away.

Dave_O: Duke To-Go. Immune to bombs. I just have this wonderful picture of him fighting these helicopters in a Berlin street with a pistol and all these bombs are just destroying everything around him and he just walks out of it, calm as hell.
Slowbeef: Right now, he's not even shooting. He's just glowering at them.
Dave_O: Ha. The bullets are just a representation of him glaring at the helicopters.



Dave_O: Oh man. That's how I'd traverse the streets if I could.
Slowbeef: Jump-kicking people?




Dave_O: Oh sweet. We saw her before. She changed clothes.


Dave_O: Cherry Grace.
Slowbeef: God almighty, I thought James Bond names were bad.
Dave_O: Wow, this is about to turn into a softcore porn.
Slowbeef: Let's hope so.



Dave_O: Four dots mean 'I agree.'


Dave_O: They're just making fun of you here. 'It wouldn't do to have the sniper on the ground, would it?'
Slowbeef: 'Hoo, well, you've got a point there!'


Dave_O: So if I have the story straight, you're about to snipe someone from a helicopter that you're flying.
Slowbeef: Yeah.
Dave_O: With one hand, you'll control the helicopter and the other hand, you'll hold an M16 and snipe someone.






Slowbeef: I like this smooth transition here. 'You'll have to get on a helicopter... and here it is.'

Act 1 End.