Game Scoop! 784: Is N64 Really the Best Multiplayer Console Ever?

Summary

Game Scoop! 784: Is N64 Really the Best Multiplayer Console Ever?

Host/Author: IGN
Release Date: October 18, 2024

In this engaging episode of Game Scoop!, IGN’s weekly gaming news podcast dives deep into the nostalgic allure and enduring legacy of the Nintendo 64 (N64) as the quintessential multiplayer console. Hosted by Damon Hatfield, with contributions from Nick Lemon, Sam Claiborne, and Justin Davis, the episode blends spirited discussions, listener interactions, and a nostalgic trip through gaming history. Below is a detailed breakdown of the episode's key segments, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps.

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1. Introduction and Overview

The episode kicks off with Damon Hatfield welcoming listeners and introducing the in-studio guests: Nick Lemon, Sam Claiborne, and Justin Davis. The hosts set the stage for an exciting show, hinting at listener questions, the new Analog 3D console, and a special feature on an old issue of GamePro magazine.

2. Zelda Echoes of Wisdom and Silent Hill 2

[01:28 - 03:50]

Sam Claiborne leads the conversation by sharing his experiences with Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, lauding it as a top-tier entry in the Zelda series. He remarks, “I love the game. I think it's a top 10 Zelda game,” highlighting the abundance of side quests and loot that even contributed to balance issues in the late game.

Damon contrasts this by discussing his playthrough of Silent Hill 2, noting, “I did finish Silent Hill 2 and I will get to Zelda. I’m excited for it,” expressing eagerness to dive back into the comprehensive side content that Zelda offers.

3. Exploring UFO 50 and Game Challenges

[05:24 - 06:40]

Nick Lemon introduces listeners to UFO 50, a PC-exclusive title that has captivated him despite its challenging nature. He describes, “UFO 50 is a candidate for being like my forever game if you only get one,” emphasizing the game’s depth and replayability. The discussion touches on the concept of "kusoge"—unintentionally bad games that gain a cult following—with Nick mentioning Barbuda as a standout example.

4. Listener Email: Choosing the Right Switch Games for Kids

[15:30 - 21:12]

Baker from Greenville, South Carolina, writes in seeking advice on selecting suitable Nintendo Switch games for his 6 and 8-year-old children. The hosts enthusiastically recommend classics like Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8, and Stardew Valley, while also suggesting family-friendly titles such as Super Mario Party and Luigi's Mansion 3. Sam emphasizes games that promote time management and cooperative play, saying, “Stardew Valley is another good one for the whole family to enjoy.”

5. Analog 3D N64: A Retro Revival

[21:12 - 35:15]

The spotlight shifts to the latest retro console from Analog—the Analog 3D N64. Justin Davis introduces the console, highlighting its compatibility with original N64 cartridges and the newly designed controller by 8bitdo. Damon shares his nostalgia, stating, “I grew up in the N64 era. I loved it,” while Nick praises the N64 library, asserting, “There are more 10 out of 10 games on the N64. That's what I think.”

The discussion delves into the technical aspects, such as the console’s ability to play all regions and the innovative emulation of CRT displays. Sam Claiborne expresses excitement about retro gaming conventions as a means to explore the rich N64 library, adding, “I think this library is incredibly deep with some hidden gems.”

6. Retro Gaming Spotlight: October 1990 GamePro Magazine

[41:21 - 65:06]

A nostalgic segment takes the hosts through the October 1990 issue of GamePro magazine. They examine the cover art featuring classic monsters from Castlevania III and dissect various ads and reviews within the magazine. Notable highlights include:

• Ads for Retro Games: The hosts discuss quirky advertisements for titles like Kickle Cubicle, Mercenary Force, and Ikari Warriors, noting the unique marketing styles of the era.

• Introduction of a Graphical Rating System: GamePro introduces its now-iconic graphical rating system, shifting from traditional numerical scores. Damon remarks, “It's our new game rating system,” reflecting on its eventual iconic status.

• Letters to the Editor: The episode covers reader feedback advocating for more classic game reviews and tips, underscoring the enduring interest in retro gaming content.

Nick humorously highlights the magazine's eclectic mix of games and promotions, while Sam points out the hidden gems and isolated ad copy mistakes, like the misleading Street Fighter 2010 before Street Fighter II became a phenomenon.

7. Terrifier Movies Reaction

[65:01 - 82:41]

Shifting gears, the hosts engage in a lively discussion about the Terrifier movie series. Justin shares his mixed feelings, appreciating the practical effects and standout performances, especially Art the Clown, while critiquing the escalating lore in the sequels. Damon echoes these sentiments, noting, “There's just no suspense,” and expressing concern over the gratuitous violence.

Despite agreeing that the franchise isn’t for everyone, both hosts acknowledge the compelling elements that have made Terrifier 3 a box office success. They conclude that while the films may not align with everyone's definition of meaningful storytelling, the performances and practical effects are noteworthy.

8. Video Game 20 Questions: Guessing Maximo: Ghosts to Glory

[82:41 - 83:58]

In the interactive segment "Video Game 20 Questions," the hosts take on a listener-suggested game: Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. Through a series of deductive questions, they narrow down the game's identity, ultimately celebrating the correct guess. Nick praises the game's challenging platforming and intricate upgrade system, while Damon reminisces about his fondness for its difficulty and design.

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Notable Quotes:

• Sam Claiborne: “I love the game. I think it's a top 10 Zelda game.” ([01:39])

• Nick Lemon: “UFO 50 is a candidate for being like my forever game if you only get one.” ([06:40])

• Damon Hatfield: “I grew up in the N64 era. I loved it.” ([21:28])

• Justin Davis: “Metroid Prime Remastered is one of the greatest shooters ever made.” ([09:43])

• Nick Lemon: “There are more 10 out of 10 games on the N64. That's what I think.” ([22:57])

• Damon Hatfield: “They've got the frame rate drop so extremely like this.” ([28:15])

• Justin Davis: “I think it's a top-tier entry in the Zelda series.” ([03:10])

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9. Closing Remarks

As the episode wraps up, Damon thanks the guests and listeners, encourages feedback, and hints at future discussions on retro gaming and current titles. The hosts sign off with light-hearted banter, ensuring listeners are left entertained and informed.

---

Conclusion

Game Scoop! 784 expertly blends nostalgia with contemporary gaming discourse, offering listeners a comprehensive look at the enduring charm of the N64 as a multiplayer powerhouse. Through passionate discussions, insightful listener interactions, and a delightful retrospective on classic gaming media, IGN delivers a rich and engaging episode that appeals to both long-time gamers and new enthusiasts alike.

Transcript

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Sam Claiborne]

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[Justin Davis]

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[Nick Lemon]

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[Justin Davis]

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[Nick Lemon]

Like, you know to check the date.

[Justin Davis]

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[Nick Lemon]

Accidentally buy tickets on your 20th wedding anniversary and have to spend the next 20 years of your marriage making up for it.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate Savings. Vary terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Gotta be careful not to hit this microphone. What's up, everybody? Welcome to IG and gamescoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. And joining me this week here in studio is Nick Lemon.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hey, I'm back, baby.

[Justin Davis]

Joining us also this week are Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

I also have a microphone very near me. It's the first time I've ever used a microphone, according to YouTube.

[Justin Davis]

And Justin Davis is here as well. Scoop, we got a great show for you this week. We'll be hearing from some listeners. Got some good questions there. Want to talk about the new analog 3D? I haven't even gotten a chance to talk to Nick about this yet, and I have a very spooky issue of GamePro magazine for us to flip through.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, no.

[Justin Davis]

But first, Sam, you've beaten the Legend of Echoes of Wisdom. I know you were already talking about how much you really, really like this game. What's your sort of final verdict now that you've finished it?

[Sam Claiborne]

I beat it butt first too. Went right in with my butt first. I love the game. I think it's a top tier Zelda game. You get so much, like I did all the side quests, right? And you get so much loot and good stuff that you don't need any of it. That's like the one thing that, like, concerns me about this game is that you get. It's so fun getting it all though, so it's not like a problem with the game. But by the time I was going to fight the last boss, like, I didn't lose a heart on the last boss, let alone four fairy bottles worth, you know, an entire smoothie shop worth of hearts, a full heart meter, like, it was just like, nonsense, you know, I had such good Echoes I was working with by then that like, none of it mattered. So, you know, I think that was a little bit silly. The balance is definitely there for players to maybe not do everything and for maybe the Youngs to have an easier time. But that doesn't matter because some of the puzzles are still really interesting and hard and it doesn't matter how many hearts you have. Right. So, you know, it's not. It's not a complaint so much as a. Like, I wish there was. I wish there was some like a hard mode or something like that. That'd be really fun in this game. The slumber dungeon has some hard challenges. You have to do like a boss rush. It's pretty hard and stuff, but, you know, by the time you can just deploy a. A Moblin with sword or a Armus Level three or whatever they're called. They're called Darknut Level three. You're fine. Nothing can top those. And I will not even talking about the strongest one, which I won't mention because it's kind of a spoiler. Great game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Great game.

[Justin Davis]

Where do you rank it in Zelda's Best Zelda ever?

[Sam Claiborne]

Starring Zelda.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, no, I'd put it in my top 10. I think it's a top 10 Zelda game. I like it better than the wonderful Oracle games and it feels a little bit more like the. I like it better than the last game. What was it called? Link's Awakening. I like it better than all those. I think this is like up there with my favorite Nintendo 64 ones and link to the Past and of course, the most recent games for Switch.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Do you finish yet, Nick?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I definitely. I enjoyed what I've played of it. I just. It came out at a bad time because Metaphors out. Silent Hill 2 is out. And I was like, well, I should finish these first. So I finished Silent Hill 2 and I will get to Zelda. I'm excited for it. And the fact that you name dropped Oracle of Seasons and Ages makes me think like this game felt like an evolution of those games. And I'm excited to really just dive in and do a lot of the side content because I think that's the stuff that I enjoy doing in Zelda. Just all the little side quests and stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's great. That's the best. That's some of the best stuff. Although just going into a dungeon and solving puzzles in this game is like. It's so refreshing and different. It's different than doing 120 shrines again. It feels great. 450.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I've just been bouncing around to different little spooky games like I like to do this time of year. I played my yearly playthrough of Shadowgate, which is like 30 minutes, 25 minutes. I just like to revisit that every year. And then I was playing more beyond Shadowgate, the new sequel that just came out recently. And it's good, it's very well done. But it's not as spooky as I was hoping because although you start out in a dungeon, you immediately leave the dungeon and then you're just in a town in broad daylight talking to people. And I was like, well, this is not very spooky at all. So I'll table that one for now. And then last night I was playing.

[Sam Claiborne]

You should print out like a FAQ to play along with.

[Justin Davis]

You really do need a FAQ with some ASCII art at the top of the page.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I'd love to make an ASCII art FAC and put it up on the site for you because that would be great to print out.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's cute.

[Justin Davis]

That would be good. And then last night I was getting back to the Castlevania Dominus collection and playing some Donnas Sorrow, which is one of the games I've lost at. When I did play 20 questions by myself.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Several Christmases ago, that was a loss for me. What do you. You're still playing metaphor? You finished Silent Hill?

[Damon Hatfield]

I finished Silent Hill 2. Been playing a lot of metaphor and honestly, I still. It's the call of UFO 50 always pulls me back and I was like, oh, I should, I should, you know, I should gold another game. But I think I'm at a point now where I'm like, it's too hard to complete the games that I haven't completed yet. So, yeah, having a hard time. Alphazar's hat. Hard ass game as is Kick. What is it? Kick, the soccer one. We have the soccer ball. That game's hard.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is UFO 50 on consoles at all or is it just.

[Justin Davis]

It's just PC right now.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. I'll definitely have to just catch it when it hits switch at this point. I mean, like, realistically, I'm not.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. I mean, UFO 50 would just be the best switch game. There's so many, like layers to UFO 50. Like it's going to take you several evenings just to get through all 50 games and try them out for the first time and then you're going to find like, you know, six of them or seven of them that you just really, really love and really vibe with and you're just going to come back to them evening after evening. Or like once I do finally get tired of playing one of them, then it's like, oh yeah, I love that game too. Like I feel like UFO 50 is not my favorite game ever, but it's like it's a candidate for being like my forever game if you only get one. Is that a cheat? Because it's technically 50 games.

[Justin Davis]

I don't think it's a cheat.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I think it counts.

[Sam Claiborne]

Do you guys know the term kusoge?

[Damon Hatfield]

Kusoge. Isn't that the S word games?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, exactly. It's like games that are kind of now. It's almost like it's like you can make intentional ones, but the original one was spelunker for nes. They're just bad games that became beloved. Are there any games that are kind of intentionally annoying and bad in this, but like you can get through?

[Nick Lemon]

Only one.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think Barbuda. Barbuda was like, oh no, I don't think I want to play this one.

[Nick Lemon]

Amazing. Barbuda is the first game. And again, in lore or of UFO 50, it's supposedly the first game that this developer ever made. And that's the only one that I think feels like deliberately. It's janky. Kind of old and janky.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's so funny.

[Damon Hatfield]

Strong Atlantis. No Nazo energy from Barbuda for sure.

[Justin Davis]

And we talked about this last week, Sam. But it has its own whole 8 bit point and click horror game in there.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I saw the bathroom curtain being pulled back and there's a skeleton behind it.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's perfect for Halloween time. And it is genuinely scary.

[Justin Davis]

It really is.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's some stuff that they do, some really cle stuff with like you get surprised by this dude chasing you throughout the house. So you have to like click on things to escape. Like click entrances or exits. And the cursor gets harder and harder to move the longer he's been on shaking. So it's like your character's shaking and like paralyzed with fear. And there's some really interesting hiding mechanics. It's a good time.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm looking forward to the collector's edition of this, which actually comes out on Famicom cartridges. And it's every color of Famicom cartridge and a big rainbow, all 50 of them. And it comes on a like a little custom shelf.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep, that'd be sick. I'm just waiting for someone. I'm sure there's some sort of hidden Easter egg that Has. There's probably more games on there than what is advertised if you mess around with the hidden terminal stuff. But I have yet to even poke at that.

[Nick Lemon]

There is some lore.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Justin, anything else to mention that you've been playing?

[Nick Lemon]

I gave into the hype and started metaphor. You know, it really. I mean, I was going to say it's not on my radar. That's not true. Of course it was on my radar, but I didn't think I would get around to it and play it. But, you know, I changed my mind and I started it two nights ago. So, you know, I'm only four or five hours in and I love it. Game is fantastic. I like Persona 4 and 5. I don't like them as much as most gamers seem to because I thought that they were so wordy and like just 10 screens of dialogue just to communicate like one point and like say it and reiterate it and reiterate it and like this game so far. Maybe it's just because I'm only a few hours in, but it feels like a lot better paced. It feels really snappy. The transitions from the overworld into the battles, like, even if that hitched for like a third of a second, like that would get so annoying over time. Right. But just like everything just kind of zips along. Everything feels really smooth. I love it so far. I do think the game can be pretty ugly at times.

[Damon Hatfield]

Interesting.

[Nick Lemon]

It's really odd sometimes. It's like sometimes the sky boxes look really beautiful and the character models look really beautiful, but sometimes it almost looks like a PS2 game too. That early mind dungeon that you go through just has absolutely nothing distinctive or interesting about it. So it really is a tale of two games visually that I have a hard time wrapping my head around. But so far so good.

[Damon Hatfield]

What are you playing at all?

[Nick Lemon]

Great game. 3D box. Could that be the problem?

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it Xbox?

[Nick Lemon]

No. Yeah, I got an Xbox copy.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, I mean, I've heard similar issues like complaints online and there's an interesting thing that I'm probably going to butcher a little bit. But apparently there's an issue with the way the game does anti aliasing. And the only, like there's a lot of shimmer on it and apparently it gives a lot of people headaches just because of that weird anti aliasing shimmer. So people are like, well, what you do is if you have a PC strong enough, you crank up the render resolution to 200% and it solves the issue. I was like, well, not everyone can do that. So I'm wondering if that also has a plays into it a little bit.

[Sam Claiborne]

But dungeons are a problem in Persona also. It's like sometimes you're just like, okay, get me out of this nondescript building.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, yeah. The dungeons also in Persona also last forever and they're just better. This is just such an improvement in, like, so many ways of, like, you get in and out of cities and dungeons and dialogue and scenarios, just a lot faster and cleaner. It's great.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Okay, we're going to check in with the listeners right now.

[Nick Lemon]

Hey, listeners.

[Sam Claiborne]

Hello.

[Justin Davis]

Remember, you can always reach us at the email address gamescoopn.com just like Adam Swedberg from Spokane, Washington did. Adam says big Adam style. Star Wars Outlaws was not even on my radar, but after you guys talked about the game, I had to check it out. Been down on the franchise a bit as of late. Even though I'm a big fan of Star Wars, I have put over 50 hours into the game. It is so fun. I took Nick's advice to sign up for Ubisoft Play or whatever it's called, and Justin's to beeline through the first part of the game. I really appreciated the more lighthearted nature of K's character and not having some dark, brooding protagonist. I would disagree that it's like playing Assassin's Creed in Star wars makeup. It has similarities to that in Far Cry, but I would say that's unreasonable, unfair to say about the game. It has stealth and collectibles, but games have been doing that forever. Otherwise I didn't feel at all that was what the treatment or mood of the game. Anyway, I love what you guys put out and have entertained me for many years. I'm going to play that Warhammer game co op with my brother after you guys talked about it.

[Sam Claiborne]

It sounds awesome and has DLC coming out, right?

[Justin Davis]

Which? The Space Marine.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

I think something came out today. Maybe. Maybe I made that up.

[Justin Davis]

I think they also have not chosen.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sold like did not play. So I'm not following, but I overheard that. Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

And.

[Sam Claiborne]

But I do regret not finishing Outlaws and I do even more regret learning Sabacc only to play it a few times.

[Justin Davis]

I like Sabak. You don't. Do you not anticipate going back to it, Sam? Outlaws.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know how hard that is. Difficult thing. It's a difficult proposition.

[Justin Davis]

But now you can still do it. Now the game is only a couple months old. You could still.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's still pretty fresh. I have some assignment games that I'm doing though, so Really, I like every spare moment. I should be playing these games that are coming out. Right?

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, I forgot about this little guy. He was so cool. I know.

[Damon Hatfield]

I really like the cock and head guy.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, he's.

[Sam Claiborne]

He's rude but lovable. And then he plays Sabacc with you.

[Damon Hatfield]

He's basically Raphael.

[Nick Lemon]

He. A lot of this game is, you know, mood and atmosphere. Like in a positive way. Like, you know, the gameplay is fine. Like it's not bad, nor do I think it's good. It's very. Just kind of like standard. But like just walking around these places. Like, I think I said this when the game came out. I'm not even a gigantic Star wars fan, but it still just feels. It feels so good and feels so perfect. Like I just. The environmental artists, hats off to them, they should absolutely win all the awards for what they accomplished.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I agree.

[Justin Davis]

I should get back to this one.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm going to definitely come back to it when I think it's been maybe tidied up a little bit. Yeah. Just because it's very glitchy and the performance is kind of wonky. On my PC, I got. I got a pretty good PC and it should not be performing. The game does not perform up to standards. I am also curious though how like, I think this game handles stealth in some pretty cool ways. And I'm curious to see if those changes to stealth kind of make their way into Assassin's Creed shadows now that the game's been delayed a bit. Because I feel like Assassin's Creed has always been the big offender of the one dude detects you in one tiny little alleyway, therefore the entire palace suddenly hones in on you. So I hope that they learn a lesson and can transfer that over with. The way stealth is handled in Outlaws into Shadows, I at least need to.

[Justin Davis]

Make it to Jabba's palace. I owe that to myself.

[Sam Claiborne]

Jabba's awesome in it. He looks just as good as the Jedi puppet. It's really amazing.

[Justin Davis]

Cool.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, Jabba. Jabba looks really good. There's a not very good gameplay sequence in his palace actually. But there is really good stuff in there too.

[Sam Claiborne]

A lot of guards, just a lot of them.

[Nick Lemon]

I didn't like this planet, this sort of jungle water planet. It's the low point of the game and I did unfortunately do that one last. Um. So you know, all the other environments and areas I really loved. Except for. Except for that one.

[Justin Davis]

All right, moving on. This is Baker, who is a 41 year old guy from near Greenville, South Carolina. Says this Christmas, my 6 year old and 8 year old have finally worn my wife and I down and they'll each be getting a switch. The big decision now is figuring out what games they should get. They're stoked that Fortnite is free to play, but as far as normal games that cost money, their short list includes Animal Crossing, Mario Odyssey, Luigi's Mansion 2, Mario Kart 8, Minecraft and Street Fighter. 30th anniversary editions. Okay, cool, kids.

[Nick Lemon]

All right.

[Justin Davis]

Baker says, I'm an Xbox gamer. I have very little knowledge of the wider Switch library. So I'd love to hear some suggestions from all of you in the know people, what games you would recommend for someone just diving into Nintendo's library. Well, you hit the nail on the head with Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 I think are.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's bangers right there.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know the new Mario party we just gave a nine to. I was gonna say I think the whole family should play it because now it has pro mode, which means you don't have to randomize everything.

[Justin Davis]

Super Mario Party Jamboree.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm actually excited for a Mario Party game, so that's got to say something. Yeah, that's awesome.

[Sam Claiborne]

I would have had impressions of that by now, but again, I'm doing a bunch of other stuff, but I think that's a really good bet. Stardew Valley is another good one for the whole family to enjoy.

[Justin Davis]

That's a very chill, relaxing game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Was there a mention of Zelda on there?

[Justin Davis]

No, but I was going to mention either or both. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. My five year old loves playing those games. And he just runs around the open world, you know, jump, climbing up things, gliding down, finding monsters, fighting them, picking up new weapons. He just, he just does that. But I think you, Baker, if you're an Xbox guy, you haven't played those games. You could play. And then when you're not playing, the kids could just run around and have fun. If they're not ready to like actually play the story in the.

[Damon Hatfield]

You can tell the kids that Zelda's like Genshin and they'll probably know what it is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, totally. That's totally accurate. You know, it's funny too. If you did start them on the latest Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Every Zelda after that would be so confusing for them because it teaches you nothing about Zelda and it's so weird.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. My daughters are around the age of this. I forget his name already.

[Justin Davis]

Blake Baker. Baker.

[Nick Lemon]

Baker. My kids are around the age of Baker's kids and they are obsessed with all three Zelda games. They bounce around between them between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. And now they're playing Echoes of Wisdom. Cool. It might be a little bit much for the five year old, you know, for his younger one, six year old maybe, but, you know, like, they can play at their own pace. As you said, Damien, I would also add to the list Minecraft.

[Justin Davis]

Well, yeah, yeah, they had. He had it on his short list.

[Nick Lemon]

But yeah, oh yeah, he was on his short list.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then Mario Wonder is a good follow for Odyssey. Or maybe if Odyssey doesn't click, then Wonder is the one that's going to click.

[Justin Davis]

I was also going to mention Mario Wonder. The later. The later levels are pretty hard, but your kids can play a lot of that game before it gets too much.

[Damon Hatfield]

I would also enjoy it. Luigi's mentioned three. Like, I know they have two on the list, but three is just a straight up heater from beginning to end.

[Justin Davis]

It is lots of reading, though.

[Damon Hatfield]

It is lots of reading.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know what the reading levels are, but lots of reading.

[Sam Claiborne]

You don't have to go to school though. Am I right? You just save that time.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

You can learn how to read with Luigi. It's great.

[Sam Claiborne]

So two games came out last year that we gave really, really high scores to. And this is for. It was named. Sorry again, Baker.

[Justin Davis]

Baker. Baker.

[Sam Claiborne]

Baker Baker. Maybe for you, since you don't know this stuff. Metroid Prime Remastered is one of the greatest shooters ever made. And it still looks amazing and feels amazing. You could play that on your own. And Then also Pikmin 4, which is a game that, like, you know, you may always see Pikmin be like, oh, this is for somebody else. No, it's a real time strategy game that you will not put down. It is unbelievable. And maybe the family get into that too. I don't know. But like Pikmin 4. Incredible game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. My son likes Pikmin. I think it's four is a little too much for him to actually play, but he likes Pikmin and likes watching gameplay videos and stuff. And this game is amazing and it'll.

[Damon Hatfield]

Teach your kids time management. It's great.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, my God. Stressful time management, but better than the other Pikmins. The other Pikmins, you run out of days.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

And this one you won't.

[Damon Hatfield]

Man, Pikmin's so good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, that's right, Dundori. I forgot about that. The whole philosophy behind Pikmin.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, Pikmin 4 was really good. Like what a dream sequel that, like, you know, just completely delivered.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

And I didn't do the optional stuff like the endgame stuff in Pikmin 4. Got so hard and I should really, maybe someday go back to it and do some of that. Like, it was perfect.

[Sam Claiborne]

The object. Right. What's the. There was. There was Street Fighter on that list, which is like awesome. But was Smash Brothers because that's just one that everybody's kids play all the time.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it's not on his list, but yeah, that's probably, that's probably a good recommendation.

[Damon Hatfield]

And it's a great like crash course on like, hey, you've never seen this Nintendo character. What's their story? What game do they. What game are they in?

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I think we'll cut it there. We just, we just solved 10 birthdays for you, easy.

[Nick Lemon]

He's also a much nicer dad than me. Like, my daughters know there's a new Nintendo Switch coming out next year or rumored to be a new Nintendo Switch coming out next year. And then she said, you know, what are you going to do with the old Nintendo Switch?

[Justin Davis]

I said, well, well, it's going to go.

[Nick Lemon]

That's exactly what I said. I said, it goes into the closet with my other video games.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's time you learned the concept of trade credit.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, that. Yeah. That I own and that I bought and that are mine and not the family's. That's where they go. I do. It's not because I'm greedy and I'm unwilling to kind of share my toys with them. It's more to do with just like the unfettered. Like they get limited screen time. Right. So I'm like, I don't know that we need another Nintendo Switch.

[Justin Davis]

Their own, that they can like access at any time.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we gotta think about that. And there's no case on it and stuff like that. So I don't know.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Announced this week, the analog 3D, the latest retro console from Analog, known for the Analog Pocket. Nick, I know you're a big fan of the Analog Pocket.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love it.

[Justin Davis]

They've also done one with the super nt, which is a Super Nintendo, the sg. Analog sg, I think.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, Analog sg.

[Justin Davis]

They've done an Sega Genesis and then the Duo is for the NEC family of consoles that'll play TurboGrafx, PC Engine games and whatnot. And then so now they have one for the Nintendo 64. Thoughts on this? I'm sure this will sell out right away. Some of the talk about this is like, you know, I don't think I need this because the Nintendo 64's library is just not that great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, hold on, hold on.

[Justin Davis]

That's what we're here for.

[Damon Hatfield]

I grew up in the N64 era. I loved it. I had to gaslight all my friends into the thinking that I made the correct choice with an N64 when they had PlayStations. And you know, I will look back now and just be like, okay, I was wrong. I love the N64. I don't think the library's accurate.

[Justin Davis]

You can still love it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Paper Mario rips, Super Mario 64, and Banjo. Banjo's good.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, I honestly think. I think the games I would want to play today are Mario 64, the two Banjos, the two Zeldas, and perfect Dark.

[Nick Lemon]

I know, it's definitely like the two libraries. It's like there are 100 or more 7 out of 10 games on the PS1. An incredible depth and breadth of great games. But there are more 10 out of 10 games on the N64. That's what I think. The tippy, tippy, top of the pyramid. I think the N64 is some of the greatest games of all time. Whereas the PS1 has more great games, undeniably, but. But not like, you know, not greater than great.

[Justin Davis]

That's interesting. Sam.

[Sam Claiborne]

I completely flip flopped on this. I said I wasn't going to get it and now I tried. I'm going to pre order it, I think, or figure out another way to accomplish what I need, which is I want to see their emulation CRT situation that they're doing. So.

[Nick Lemon]

Justin. Yeah, no, I was just like, yeah, I agree. That's what's interesting about what analog does.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. So, you know, you've heard us talk about before how video games were never meant to be seen as, you see like a pixelated T shirt like Damon's wearing right now. That is not what that character looked like in, I believe, Rygar. It is meant to be a rounded, cushiony looking creature with an eye that looks totally normal and doesn't look like he's wearing sunglasses or whatever.

[Justin Davis]

I wear my sunglasses at night.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, so that the Nintendo 64 took that to another level. It's still rendering things in pixels and low resolution. And what happened on a CRT was everything smudged together and looked round. And you know, the polygonal things that we look back on now, like things didn't look really like that. Like there's kind of a retro polygonal look, you see in like, games that are supposed to look like a PS1 or 64 game, like, they didn't really look like that. And like, I think that's, that's really interesting. So I want to see what they're doing. So what they're doing is processing all that with no lag into what's supposed to look like a crt. Now that should all be possible now. Like, we're way past technological ability to do that. I've seen emulators doing it and I think it looks like crap. So let's see the people that have something in it bring it and make that work really well.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, we laugh about it today, but Lara Croft was not actually that pointy.

[Sam Claiborne]

When you turn back, that's a really good example. Yeah, Lara Croft. Everybody's like, wow, this character looks so amazing that they made movies based on her sex appeal. Which is like, you look at it now, you're like, what was everybody thinking? But the fact that the screen was basically smudged in this way, that they engineered the game for every single pixel to look like something other than what the pixel looked like, it's remarkable. And the biggest examples of that you see are Street Fighter 2 character sprites or Final Fantasy. Like if you look at the artists that made those by hand and what they accomplished to get the pixels work. So anyway, that's all to say, like, Nintendo 64 can look a lot better than Nintendo's own emulation system, right? Like, that's the way to play these games. So that's all interesting to me. Now I have a CRT TV and I have a Nintendo 64 and it's like, not that big of a deal to like, sort that out. But I don't want that for the rest of my life, right? I'd rather have a stack of analog systems in front of a. But HD television with an HDMI port at some point for that purpose. I still have a thousand arcade machines that have CRTs in them that require my care. So I can't be bothered with TVs anymore.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm kind of curious about their controller, their custom controller for it, just because it's weird. It looks so unlike an N64 controller. And its layout kind of implies. I don't know, that's what I like about analog. All of their devices feel like cool, collectible things that look nice in. In modern, like living rooms and things like that. But I don't know about this controller. It's a little wonky to me, to be fair.

[Justin Davis]

It doesn't Come with it. You buy it separately. Oh wow. It was created by 8bitdo.

[Damon Hatfield]

Got it.

[Justin Davis]

Got it for them. And the idea behind it is to take the buttons of the N64 controller but put them into a layout that's more familiar to people today.

[Sam Claiborne]

Whether that's Miyamoto's rolling in his grave.

[Damon Hatfield]

Right now looking at this. Oh no.

[Justin Davis]

Miyamoto is. What? I missed something.

[Nick Lemon]

You better hope nothing happens this week.

[Sam Claiborne]

You're going to kill Miyamoto just by showing him this. And how unfun it is. They take every single color that nobody wanted and make a Nintendo 64 controller out of it. And you liked it. This has the gate for the analog stick and the little rings around the analog stick that tore people's hands up in Mario Party. So it's got that going for it. But everybody knows that everybody held the center post on the Nintendo 64 controller and it could have just been this. I think it's funny. I think what's really cool about this system is that look at it. It's got the four Nintendo 64 controller ports on it. You could just plug in your old gold Zelda themed Nintendo 64 controller. That doesn't work anymore. And I just love how they do that. I love it. Like that takes tech to make a plastic piece and run that all to your FPGA system. That is expecting it. It's awesome. It's really, really cool.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. So speaking of those four controller ports. Analog calls the N64 the greatest MO multiplayer console ever.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that was like.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, look like I had both consoles growing up and loved both. But like N64, it's four controller ports. Like it's something we take for granted now. GameCube also had four controller ports. But like that was really like. That was genuinely pretty magical. To be like 1112 years old and just have that at your fingertips.

[Justin Davis]

And I don't think many consoles have. I think There are only four. I think N64 and GameCube and Dreamcast and the OG Xbox.

[Sam Claiborne]

I think the Wii had four GameCube controller ports.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Actual ports.

[Damon Hatfield]

Actual ports. Original Wii.

[Sam Claiborne]

You opened up the top.

[Nick Lemon]

The original Wii.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, so this. It wasn't, you know. Okay, so it was a great multiplayer. I played lots of multi bigger. I even played weird ones like Dr. Mario and Jet Force Gemini and Puzzle Bobble. Like Those are all 64 games that I played. Multiplayer. Like I get. I get the multiplayer system thing. Thing. Not to mention the shooters and stuff like that. However, the shooters and the racers are awful to play now on the Nintendo 64. And they definitely don't solve it by giving you that controller. Like James Bond is going to be James Bond again. Like it doesn't, it doesn't play right. Like you have to stop and use their. Like so all that stuff is like confusing. So, you know, I mean, the uplink, the resolution does not make it run better on four for pains. That's the issue with Nintendo 64 is that you get the frame rate drop so, so extremely like this. And no, no amount of CRT has fixed this like that. That if you go back and play it on crt, you're like, wow, everything's round and looks pretty, but it, it chugs, you know. And I don't know how we did it, especially in Mario Kart. Oh my God, Mario Kart 64 looks so bad now.

[Nick Lemon]

GoldenEye is legitimately running at 15 frames per second max, like in four player multiplayer. And yet hundreds of hours were spent on it. I didn't know what a frame rate was back then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, neither did I. Yeah, that's some.

[Damon Hatfield]

Allegory of the cave stuff, man. You can't go back now that you've seen it. You see what's cast in the shadows.

[Nick Lemon]

You don't get a lot of Plato's Caves references on games anymore. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

That's why I think the Rare games, Perfect Dark and the Banjos, it's probably better to, to still play them on Xbox because they.

[Nick Lemon]

Well, and you touched on this before, but also just the controls in Goldeneye too. This is probably me playing because for Nintendo's 125th anniversary, we did 125 let's plays of the 125 best Nintendo games. And I remember for the rest of my life the goldeneye day was coming up. It's goldeneye, let's play Day. It's Golden Eye, Let's Play Day. I'm so pumped to do this. Goldeneye, let's play. We were all jazzed. It was me and Tim Geddes and I'm not sure who the other two players. And then like, you know, I haven't played GoldenEye in like 20 years, right? And it's like I sat down and I'm like, I said, oh no. Oh no. The controls are so weird and like, and the frame rate so bad. Like it was almost unplayable.

[Sam Claiborne]

What's the Golden Gun situation? Was that a code you put in?

[Nick Lemon]

No, I think you just found it in the level.

[Damon Hatfield]

It was like. It was like a modifier. You could toggle on and off to.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, okay.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, well, it'll be interesting. We'll have to take a look when this is out. I think pre orders go live on October 21st. It's only 250 bucks, which I think is a nice price considering the N64 was $200 when it launched in 1996. So that seems like a fair price they're asking for. I think it's supposed to ship in early 2025.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, and you know what I'll immediately regret one year from now when they release the Clear Purple one.

[Justin Davis]

The Clear Purple one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Now it comes in every color except for the people who bought it day one.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like they always do that. It's so disappointing.

[Damon Hatfield]

I own a couple of them. I have the Super NT and the analog pocket and I think they do a great job of just making sleek looking devices. And it's a great entry point for people who are interested in getting into retro games because you can obviously play the original hardware, you can see the games with actual scan lines and be like, oh, wow, that's how it should look. And then you get into a rabbit hole where you're like, well, I guess I should buy a CRT now and you know, spend hundreds of dollars. And then you turn into weirdos like me.

[Nick Lemon]

I mean, it's great. Like it's great. Like I have a family. Right. Like this is the way that like we would enjoy those old games together.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. And correct me if I'm wrong, Sam, if you actually wanted to get this and start collecting, I don't think N64 games are that expensive just from looking around.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's not too bad. What I was going to recommend is that like, like find your local like retro convention that like game stores are really having a tough time and they have for years now just because there's so much online sales and it's difficult to go digging. But if you go to like a retro gaming convention, there's just tubs and tubs of games and like get things you've never seen and try those out because there's deep cuts in the 64 library. And then you look up and like, oh, IGN gave it a 6 or a 7 or something. And some of those probably hold up better because at the time they were disappointing because they were more 2D or they were more simple or something. They weren't Mario 64, but they weren't bad. And it's a cool library to explore. And I think you'll remember before the office shut down For Covid, I had acquired a few Nintendo 64 collections. I had lots of Nintendo 64 games in the office, and we were just starting to go through a bunch of them, and it was really fun. I'd put in Turok 2 or whatever, and everybody would come gather around and be like, oh, this looks better than I remember. Yeah, stuff like that. So I like that library because you can dig for these games right now, but there's expensive ones you're not going to find, like, you know, Mega Man RPG or what is it called?

[Justin Davis]

Legacy After Legends.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mega Man Legends.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, Mega man legends.

[Damon Hatfield]

Resident Evil 2.

[Nick Lemon]

You got to get Rocket Robot on wheels. Underrated. N64 gem. It's the very first game made by Sucker Punch.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, wow.

[Damon Hatfield]

I didn't know that.

[Nick Lemon]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

Castlevania64. Not a bad game, Tim.

[Nick Lemon]

Well.

[Sam Claiborne]

It'S a bad game for sure, but they made a Legacy of Darkness, which was a. Basically. Well, we ran out of time to put all these things in the game, and so they just put that out as a separate game. Like, what a weird era. I played through those games start to finish, though. Like, man, talk about, like, weird. Tank control, platforming.

[Damon Hatfield]

Very strange. Very interesting relic to go back to that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I adored those games. Like, I would. I just. I spent so much time in them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Paper Mario, still rich.

[Nick Lemon]

Closing. I'm closing the ebay window because it's like, oh, man. Beetle Adventure racing is only 20 bucks.

[Justin Davis]

What about Space Station Silicon Valley?

[Nick Lemon]

I looked up that one too. It's also like 30 bucks.

[Justin Davis]

They seem to all be about 30 bucks. The games I would want.

[Sam Claiborne]

What's the rockstar game that everybody likes?

[Justin Davis]

Space Station, Silicon Valley Harvest or Body Harvest.

[Sam Claiborne]

Body Harvest, that's what I was thinking of.

[Justin Davis]

Body Harvest, Blast Core was rare.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. 24 bucks. Well, I mean, I'm not. I'm not trying to buy a completed box. I would just.

[Damon Hatfield]

Just cart.

[Nick Lemon]

I'm not. I'm not a CIB guy, dude.

[Sam Claiborne]

Those boxes are always shredded.

[Justin Davis]

It plays the analog 3D, plays all regions so you could get bangai. Oh, nice. Which is very, very good.

[Damon Hatfield]

One thing again, this is not a Criticism.

[Sam Claiborne]

All Nintendo 64 is play all regions. You just take out a piece of plastic and you're done.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's true.

[Justin Davis]

True.

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm curious if it has, like, one thing that I think is a little bit unusual and it feels a little bit strange for Analog as a company, just because they are really dedicated to playing everything that was available for the console. The controller doesn't have any sort of port I don't think for the Game Boy adapter and also I'm curious if it has like Nintendo DD support, the disk drive support, I don't know because you can't play Dojin, the one person.

[Sam Claiborne]

On earth that owns it.

[Justin Davis]

It does have the booster pack built in, which I think is nice. No worries playing Donkey Kong 64 and Perfect.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Majora's mask.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's cool.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

But I don't know, I like if you play Pokemon Stadium. Part of the experience was throwing your Game Boy game in the adapter, connecting that to your controller. It was such an interesting way of playing your Game Boy games on a big screen.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, those 3D first designs of Pokemon blew my mind.

[Justin Davis]

Did you know Cleopatra married not one but two of her brothers and police in Victorian London had to wear their uniforms all the time, even when off duty. If you're an Assassin's Creed fan like me, then you'll want to know everything about the real history that inspires the games. And I have a podcast recommendation for you. Echoes of History Echoes of History, a podcast brought to you by History Hit and Ubisoft, takes you back to the past to discover the real history behind the Assassin's Creed video games. Every three episodes they examine an era explored in the games. Historian and Assassin's Creed mega fan Matt Lewis talks to world leading experts to step into the shoes of the real historical people you meet in the games, to take an eagle eye view of iconic locations you can climb, and to reveal the causes and events of the epic historical moments you get to relive in Assassin's Creed. Find out the true history behind the Assassin's Creed games by following the Echoes of History podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Dragon Ball Legends, the ultimate Dragon Ball experience on your mobile device. Dragon Ball Legends features action packed anime action RPG gameplay with Goku, Vegeta, Trunks and all your favorite Dragon Ball characters. Summon your favorite characters from popular Dragon Ball anime series such as Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT to Dragon Ball Super Fight in real time against friendly or rival Dragon Ball players from across the globe in live PvP battles. Enter ratings matches with your favorite Dragon Ball characters and earn rating points and rewards. Unite with friends to defeat powerful foes and co. Dragon Ball Legends features the best anime fighting scenes on your mobile device and now Legends Festival is on so you can get up to 300 free Summon tickets. Are you ready? Download Dragon Ball Legends today. Available for free on both iOS and Android devices. I love a Great deal as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to crawl through a bed of hot coals just to save a few bucks. It has to be easy. No hoops, no bs. So when Mint Mobile said it was easy to get wireless for just $15 a month with the purchase of a three month plan, I had to find a out if it's too good to be true. Turns out it really is that easy to get wireless for 15 bucks a month. The longest part of the process will be the time you spend on hold waiting to break up with your old provider. Isn't that right Seth? I am not going to lie.

[Damon Hatfield]

I was very pleased and very excited to find out Mint Mobile works even for me in the middle of nowhere Maine.

[Justin Davis]

I was honestly expecting to be shut.

[Damon Hatfield]

Out from all the fun of Mint Mobile. But it works.

[Justin Davis]

Worked awesome.

[Damon Hatfield]

I loaded in my code and to test it out I just drove out.

[Justin Davis]

I'm not even lying.

[Damon Hatfield]

It sounds like I'm making this up. I just drove out into the woods of Maine to see how far I.

[Justin Davis]

Could go without losing coverage.

[Damon Hatfield]

And I am happy to say I.

[Justin Davis]

Did not have any coverage interruptions whatsoever that I would not have experienced with.

[Damon Hatfield]

Any of the other providers. That alone is enough to sell me because look, look. Maine is a big state. There's a lot of woods.

[Justin Davis]

Stephen King is here.

[Damon Hatfield]

So it's haunted. There's ghosts everywhere. And everyone knows that ghosts hate 5G. But I am happy to say I.

[Justin Davis]

Have literally no complaints.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's inexpensive, there's no contract, I don't have to have all these weird hidden fees. And you know, best of all, it works in spite of ghosts.

[Justin Davis]

Thanks Seth. Say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. All Mint Mobile plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Find out how easy it is to switch to Mint Mobile to get this new customer offer and your new three month premium wireless plan including the unlimited plan for just 15 bucks a month. Go to mintmobile.com gamescoop that's mintmobile.com Gamescoop Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com Gamescoop $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigs on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Men, when we leave the house it's phone, wallet, keys and how's my hair look? But if you're experiencing hair loss, you may not be so confident when you step out your door. It's time to get that mojo back and restore your hair with hims. HIMS provides you with convenient access to a range of hair loss treatments that work all from the comfort of your couch, so you barely even have to pause whatever game you're playing. HIMS makes treating hair loss simple with doctor trusted options and clinically proven ingredients like finasteride and minoxidil that can regrow hair and in as little as three to six months. The process is simple and 100% online, so there are no uncomfortable doctor visits. Answer a few questions and a medical provider will determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment is sent directly to you in discreet packaging with free shipping. No insurance is needed, and one low price covers everything. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers, and they can help you get your confidence back, too, with visibly thicker and fuller hair. Start your free online Visit [e-mail] Gamescoop that's hims.com Gamescoop for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Hims.com Gamescoop results vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information.

[Sam Claiborne]

A Spooky Issue There it is.

[Justin Davis]

There it is. Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, it's the monsters.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sick cover.

[Justin Davis]

Here we go. The October 1990 issue of GamePro with an original artwork cover. It's supposed to be monsters from Castlevania 3 because they're covering this issue. And so we see us, the reader, are in an open grave while Wolfman and Frankenstein and Dracula and a witch and kind of a goblin guy are looking down on us. Dracula is just pointing at us and laughing. He's laughing.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Yeah, that's great art.

[Justin Davis]

Tales from the Crypt, a creature feature starring Castlevania iii, Frankenstein, Beetlejuice and Drax Night Out. Jack's Night out has had an official Reebok sponsorship in that game.

[Sam Claiborne]

What is that game?

[Justin Davis]

It looks like a C64 game, but it does have some kind of Reebok branding in that game. Huh.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Bury yourself in the coolest new carts like Mondo's Fight Palace, Ishido. Nobody knows these games. DuckTales is the only game that people know because Dragons Lair and nes, even though they're going to give it a good review. Sam Is that a good game game?

[Sam Claiborne]

No, it's not a good Game.

[Justin Davis]

It's not a good game. Getting into the issue, we have an ad for Kickle cubicle, which. Which I think is an underrated puzzle game on.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, it's a fun game. Iram killed it with that easy to play, understandable game.

[Nick Lemon]

And no more Mr. Ice Guy.

[Justin Davis]

I could have sworn that Arnold Schwarzenegger said that as Mr. Freeze in whichever Batman. But I looked it up. He doesn't.

[Nick Lemon]

And the only other you.

[Justin Davis]

The only other mention of this phrase in media is from an episode of Danger Mouse, the Nickelodeon cartoon.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, wow.

[Justin Davis]

So kudos to whoever did this copywriting. That was a pretty good. That was a pretty good pun. Pun. Not a cliche as I would have thought. Then it's an ad. A double page ad for the Vic Tokai review. You know, everyone. Vic Tokai, everybody says publishers of.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is not a paid sponsored page.

[Justin Davis]

Well, it's an ad. Just a double page.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, it is an ad.

[Nick Lemon]

It is.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Okay, kid.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

Because it's supposed to look like a page in the magazine.

[Justin Davis]

Clash at Demonhead and they still review, like the theater performance version of. I just don't think Vic Tokai was like a beloved name in video games even back then.

[Damon Hatfield]

The Moffat Conspiracy.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, that's the sequel to go go 13, I believe.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. The letter from the editor. This is a significant issue. If you jump forward a couple of pages, Gilbert, because it says to rate or not to rate, you'll notice a change on the pages of GamePro magazine this month when you Pro View section. Jump to the end of the first Pro View and you'll discover something that looks like this. It's the first issue with their famous graphical rating system.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow. Legendary. The fun fact is, eye popping.

[Justin Davis]

What you're staring at is our new game rating system, blah, blah, blah. And then it says, didn't they just.

[Sam Claiborne]

Give it a one through five?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, well.

[Nick Lemon]

But people have been arguing about game reviews and review scores and scales since the beginning of time.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did you see their senior editors? Pretty spooky too. Mike Myers.

[Damon Hatfield]

Good eye.

[Sam Claiborne]

Thank you.

[Justin Davis]

They say finally Redwood City.

[Sam Claiborne]

They're right here.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, they were right there. This rating system is an experiment, they said, but it would become very iconic. GamePro is not as well known as EGM, but these graphical scores, whatever you call them, tokens, avatars, are very well known.

[Damon Hatfield]

I still to this day, I was like, what's the fun factor?

[Justin Davis]

Exactly.

[Damon Hatfield]

What's that fun fact.

[Justin Davis]

Never came up with Fun Factor.

[Damon Hatfield]

Fun Factor and Pro Tip, all from Game Pro.

[Nick Lemon]

Yep. Pro Tip, Pro tips from Game Pro Scary Larry.

[Justin Davis]

Wow. Then in the letters system on the letters page over here, a lot of people writing in with the same topic saying, I'm writing in response to Donna Erickson's letter from the July issue. I've been playing video games since the release of the Atari 2600. I now have an NES, a Game Boy, a Genesis, and a Power Base converter. That's what you can put on your Genesis to play Master System cards. When I received my Power Base converter, I didn't know what SEGA games to purchase because I've never been associated with the system until I bought the Power Base converter. How many times can you say Power Base converter? I have subscribed to three different gaming magazines, but they all feature the newest games in their reviews. That's why I was happy to see your publication had a Pro Classic section in it. But you only feature Pro Classics every other month. I suggest you include this section each month. Also add a page or two of tips and tactics on older games. Do this and your magazine will be more informative for me and others who find themselves in the same situation. And then the next letter is, I'm an older Game Pro 33. I received my NES last April for my birthday after I begged for one for over a year. Who is the.

[Damon Hatfield]

I wasn't gonna cast any judges.

[Justin Davis]

Who's the 33 old man begging for over a year to get them an nes? He says, I have video game fever. Same, Russell. I'm always looking for information concerning games, their characteristics and strategies. I think an older games tips section would be perfect, especially for us game pros who are new to gaming. So, Sam, you should maybe think about older game pro tips in IGN Guides.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, they're all up there.

[Justin Davis]

Carl writes from North Lauderdale, Florida. Says, my name is Carl and I'm a real vidiot. Same, Carl. Same. I love your magazine because of the tips and codes that it gives out. I am but one of five game players in my house. My mom, dad, sister, grandfather, and myself.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

I'm 13. My mom is 33. My dad is 41. My grandfather is 72, and he loves puzzle games that give his mind a challenge. My sister is only seven and she just loves Nintendo. What's that I hear, Nick?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah, I forgot. I got the Nintendo Alarm o and it's 3:13. I set an alarm for it and I have Pikmin drowning right now.

[Justin Davis]

So there you go. That's what can wake you up.

[Damon Hatfield]

So if you don't get out of bed, more and more Pikmin will die.

[Nick Lemon]

But we said it specifically because Sam had a hard stop, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly. So it works. The Nintendo alarm works.

[Sam Claiborne]

And on that we could black me out for the rest of the episode. Good luck with 20 questions, everybody.

[Justin Davis]

Thank you, Jebber. You can either put a picture of Sam up there or we can change the mortgage. I prefer putting up a picture of Sam. You have to be making that while you click out.

[Damon Hatfield]

You gotta click out.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay, okay. Okay. Ready?

[Justin Davis]

You ready?

[Damon Hatfield]

It worked.

[Justin Davis]

It worked perfectly.

[Nick Lemon]

He's still here.

[Damon Hatfield]

He's static. That's pretty good.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did it work?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it does.

[Nick Lemon]

It's pretty good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Keep this all in.

[Justin Davis]

Keep this all in. Keep it rolling, Gilbert. Here we go. The next page is an ad for an NES game called Mendel Palace, I believe. But you know, what's the game like? Who knows? It's just this illustration of some interesting fantasy characters. It does have a two player mode, they say by showing two people playing the game. But God forbid they actually show us the game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it Mendel Palace? Like, it's Hudson Soft.

[Justin Davis]

It is Hudson Soft.

[Damon Hatfield]

I know. Did Kojima work on this game? I remember. No, I'm getting confused with the Penguin game. But I've seen Mendel's palace before. I'm just. Sorry, now I'm sidetracked, but I know what this game is.

[Justin Davis]

The next page is an ad for zexus, which I've never played, but I just want to point out, I just love that logo. Zexus logo is very cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sick art too.

[Justin Davis]

It's good. I've never played that one. Okay. And then we have the Game Pros rate sports games and it says, hey, Game Pros. I guess the readers of the Game Pros. I never knew that. Thanks for all your help. Back in February, we asked you to rate all the video game sports titles that were available at that time. Thousands of you sent in your surveys. It took some time for us to tabulate the results.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

So the top 10 all time favorite sports titles of the Game Pros at the bottom of this page, I guess Counting back from 10 would be RC Pro Am baseball Stars, Pro Wrestling, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, which I think is a genesis game. Bases Loaded, Double Dribble, Track and Field, Two Blades of Steel, Mike Tyson's Punch out and TECMO bowl at number one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Tecmo Bowl.

[Nick Lemon]

Still, I mean, those are all, I don't know, Tommy Lasorda Football. But like those. The rest of those are all classes.

[Justin Davis]

Yes, they check out RC Pro Am.

[Nick Lemon]

So good. Dude, that game's so playable. It is to this day.

[Justin Davis]

Good music too.

[Damon Hatfield]

Imagine doing a list like this now. It'd be borderline impossible.

[Justin Davis]

The best sports games of all time.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, just like every single one. I mean, we did at IGN last year, the 50, or I think it was the 50 greatest sports games of all time, at which I was in charge of designing a T shirt that said I was there when we crowned the best sports video game of all time.

[Justin Davis]

I did not.

[Nick Lemon]

If you want to get really nuts, just think about what it's like when we invite the audience to vote on game of the year. What could possibly go wrong?

[Justin Davis]

What could possibly go wrong? Hey, we've got football, boxing, hockey, you know, track and field, sports, wrestling, and then RC Pro Am, the sports that are represented here. Okay.

[Nick Lemon]

And what about Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, the pro classics, they got a feature on ghosts and goblins which I guess would have been four years old at this point.

[Damon Hatfield]

Great art.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, they're just like the letters were saying. They're just trying to showcase older games.

[Damon Hatfield]

The NES one kind of sucks though.

[Justin Davis]

It does. It's Micronics. If you've ever watched Jeremy Parrish's YouTube channel, he's got it out for Micronics.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

And then the next page is a little insert which I just thought was interesting because there's a game Pros like tips hotline, which we, you know, we've. We're aware of this. That's not that interesting. But there are different extensions you can put in to get tips just for certain publishers. Games like 1388 would have gotten you Activision.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

Or 5924 would have gotten you Capcom.

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude, I want to talk to people who ran these hotlines. I'd be so curious to like what games happen, had people the most, like, confused and whatnot.

[Justin Davis]

$1.75 for the first minute, 99 cents for each additional minute.

[Damon Hatfield]

Brutal.

[Justin Davis]

You know, they try to keep you on.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

As long as possible. Okay, then they've got Castlevania 3. I think this is a full review of Castlevania 3, which I really liked. Konami has done an exemplary job of combining the best elements of Castlevania 1 and 2 with new ingredients to make this an extremely familiar yet exciting new game. Almost. Almost. Really excited faces across the board. You can see on the next page there one kind of excited face. The rest are really excited faces.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't disagree.

[Nick Lemon]

I mean, yeah, they're right. Castlevania 3, it's a stone cold classic.

[Justin Davis]

The best one on the nes. And then this is their roundup of different horror games. And then they're reviewing each one. So they've got Beetlejuice, which they seem to kind of like Drax Night out, which we mentioned before. That's that kind of Bluish screenshot. So it's like a single screen, screen to screen. It looks like a Commodore 64 game to me.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is it elevator action?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like kind of like that. Pump it up. So where does the pump. It's the Reebok pump shoe that was in there. It says you'll find Reebok pump icons throughout Drax Castle. When you grab them, you can move super fast and jump like an Olympic athlete.

[Damon Hatfield]

What's Drac doing with some Reeboks? I don't understand.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know. Also Frankenstein for NES in here, and then Ghostbusters 2 for Game Boy. And then the next page is an ad for Mercenary Force on Game Boy, which the tagline is let's get Mercenary. This doesn't make any sense.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, wait a second.

[Justin Davis]

Let's get Mercenary. No, that doesn't mean anything. Continue on. They've got werewolf highlighted. This is all NES games.

[Damon Hatfield]

Creepy cartridges.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Okay. And then they've got the review. What's that?

[Nick Lemon]

It was just chaos back that. Like. Like until this month they were like, should we put a score with our reviews? Nah. And then this month they're like, let's.

[Justin Davis]

Just try it probably existed for two years, 24 issues. And they're like, maybe we should score.

[Nick Lemon]

Do them whatever you want.

[Justin Davis]

Then they've got the review of Dragons Lair, which you can see they loved the graphics of dragons there. No, no, I don't. No, it's not like it doesn't look like the arcade game. It's a 2D side scroller. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous. That's okay. You could jump to that next page, Joker, because it's an ad for two Toho published games, Godzilla and Circus Caper. And you know, from the company that brought you Godzilla comes Most fascinating game ever. Circus Caper. But what's that quote from Most fascinating game ever, which is apparently a quotation from somewhere.

[Damon Hatfield]

Tell Hope.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, it doesn't attribute the quotation. And if you're just making up a quotation, why would you want Most Fascinating to be the made up quote quotation?

[Justin Davis]

Most fascinating game ever is Circus Capers.

[Nick Lemon]

I'm thinking about getting Circus Caper. Is it any good? Well, it's Very Fascinating.

[Justin Davis]

Most fascinating game ever.

[Damon Hatfield]

Hurry, Tim. Save Judy.

[Justin Davis]

And then the next page. 17 companies have earned the right to display this seal. And it's the Genesis seal of quality.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, wow.

[Justin Davis]

This time.

[Damon Hatfield]

Are they allowed to do that?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I don't know. Can Nintendo patent a seal of quality? I don't know. The next page. They review an Atari 7800 game in 1990. It's called Meltdown, and they seem to think it was fine.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's an extensive review of an Atari game.

[Justin Davis]

I know, I know. And then the following page is an ad for ikari warriors on 7800.

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude, hell yeah.

[Justin Davis]

It says one of the new games for Atari 7800.

[Nick Lemon]

Wait. Oh, Atari, Ikari Warriors.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, but what a mistake to miss out on calling it Atari Warriors.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, man.

[Justin Davis]

But I like how it's not. Most interesting game ever. Most fascinating game ever. It's one of the new games for Atari 7800.

[Damon Hatfield]

The boys are making house calls.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. Next page is an ad for street fight. Street Fighter 2010, the final fight.

[Nick Lemon]

Oh, man.

[Justin Davis]

Which is a brawler on nes. And I thought it was weird that nothing about this makes any sort of mention to Street Fighter, so I looked it up. This came out a year before Street Fighter 2.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Justin Davis]

So that's Street Fighter 2. Wasn't a thing yet.

[Damon Hatfield]

And it's kind of bad.

[Justin Davis]

Well, yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

The next page is a review for the aforementioned Mercenary Force. Let's get mercenary. But there's also a weird copy for them, too. In their final paragraph, they say, sayonara, dude. You know, because it's Japane.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Justin Davis]

Mercenary Force features great looking graphics and furious gameplay. And then it says, got a yen for some epic Game Boy action. Check out Mercenary Force. Got a yen.

[Nick Lemon]

Is that. What is that, like urine? Urine. Urine.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, yen. If that's what they were going for, I think they missed out again.

[Damon Hatfield]

The game has pretty great scores, though.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, they liked it.

[Damon Hatfield]

I popping out scores all around.

[Nick Lemon]

We've said it before with these really old gaming magazines. There were no cops. They were all just doing whatever they wanted. They were putting whatever they wanted into the pages of these magazines. And no one was paying any attention. And the only people buying them were young kids that were like, sick.

[Damon Hatfield]

Got again.

[Justin Davis]

Got again. I don't know what they're going for there in the tip section. I just wanted to call it. They have the Mega Man 2 password where you can change the background of the robot masters. Instead of stars, you can change it to little baby chicks. Chicks flying by. If anyone wants to try that at home during the round selection Mode. Hold down both A and B buttons while you press the pad in the direction of the boss character you want to go after. Now hit start. When the boss appears on screen and does his little dance, he'll be standing in a screen full of little chicks instead of the usual star background.

[Nick Lemon]

That's from that 100% sounds made up.

[Damon Hatfield]

It does. That sounds like a fake. News tip, Justin Crow. Thanks for that protest tip.

[Justin Davis]

And then the next page is an ad for low G man on nes, which is, you know, a platformer where you can jump really high because you're in low gravity areas. But the copy just says seize. Which one? What?

[Damon Hatfield]

The game looks kind of cool, though.

[Justin Davis]

It's fine. But like, what does SEIZE mean? You just go through levels shooting bad guys. Like, it doesn't mean anything. They did get the seal of quantity in there at the top.

[Nick Lemon]

I'm telling you, it's because the demographic for these ads are just kids that are flipping through the pages saying, sick.

[Damon Hatfield]

Maybe, yeah, maybe it is just like, to directions for the reader, like, stop. Read this stuff right now.

[Justin Davis]

I guess sees. Okay, then we get into the pro news report, and there's all sorts of interesting stuff here. NEC opens first Turbo Zone store. NEC made the TurboGrafx 16. NEC has opened their first TurboZone, an outlet that exclusively carries the TurboGrafx 16 product line. The Ceremony Shopping center in Daly City, Justin, is where the kickoff kiosk is located. Okay, it's just a kiosk. It's probably a mall kiosk. It's not a full, like, brick and mortar store.

[Damon Hatfield]

I was gonna say rob that store. You'd walk out like a kingpin without how expensive those things are.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, I spent a lot of time in that Ceremony Center.

[Justin Davis]

And then it says, what is the interesting stuff in here? Oh, yeah, what about Game Boy they're talking about? They're rounding up stuff that they saw at ces. I guess this would have been the summer CES in Vegas. So Game Boy new releases, some of the hot ones included Gargoyles Quest from Capcom, Dragon's Lair, the Legend Mechanoids from Jaleco, Final Fantasy Legend from Squaresoft, and then Nintendo gets Japan fit. Nintendo has inked a deal with major tire manufacturer Bridgestone Tires to develop and market a Nintendo Home Fitness system in Japan. The system includes an NES software, a special modem hookup, and an exercise bicycle. Price approximately.

[Nick Lemon]

That's really cool.

[Justin Davis]

$2,000. I don't know that it ever came out, though. Wow. I know.

[Nick Lemon]

That is so much money.

[Justin Davis]

1990 money.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, I'm going to do the inflation calculator. I'll come back to it in a sec.

[Justin Davis]

Then there was an NES compatible color handheld in the works from some BDL enterprises. Portable NES compatible system is on hold for now. According to a spokesperson, the unit is complete but won't be marketed until Nintendo grants BDL a license. The handheld has a 4 inch LCD color monitor with a unique backlighting system that provides a sharp, easy to see image. It's also compatible with all NES software except light gun games. And it runs 30 to 40 hours on four C batteries.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh geez.

[Nick Lemon]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

I mean that's so cool. I don't think it ever came out.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that feels like a precursor to the PlayStation 1. Like little mount mounted TV and every console would eventually get something like that. But wow, I didn't realize that. So that it went all the way back. That's really neat.

[Nick Lemon]

By the way, $2,000 is $4,800 in 20.

[Justin Davis]

$24,000 for this Nintendo exercise bike.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean if you can track one of those down like a prototype dude, that'd be sick.

[Justin Davis]

Then on the next page, MediaGenic becomes the first North American developer for new 16 bit Nintendo system. MediaGenic is the first US company to be granted a license by Nintendo of Kyoto, Japan to develop video games for Nintendo 16 bit Super Famicom. Mediagenic will market its 16 bit cartridges under its Activision name in the U.S. yeah, so I looked it up. Of course Activision branch was making games for the Atari 2600 in the early 80s, but in the late 80s they changed their name to Mediagenic.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well it.

[Nick Lemon]

Why?

[Justin Davis]

I don't know, because after the crowd.

[Nick Lemon]

I didn't know that.

[Justin Davis]

I didn't know that either. I just looked it up today.

[Damon Hatfield]

But that's. Is that their Japanese like name? No, it was the first US company.

[Justin Davis]

They changed their name to Mediagenic and then they brought the Activision label back to start publishing software again. And yeah, I thought that was really interesting.

[Nick Lemon]

That is really interesting. I like the 32 bit Sega rumor right there.

[Justin Davis]

Oh yeah, but Sega's mom on this project. And then. Okay, a couple ads to end the issue with. There's an ad, a full page ad for Game Watch newsletter. It's just a black and white text ad with no imagery. It says you've heard about 50 to 100 games in one cartridge. Now learn all the details. Game Watch newsletter is the source for the latest underground news on Nintendo and other games and accessories. It is a unique news source that pulls no punches and gives the latest gossip and news that cannot be found anywhere else.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gossip.

[Nick Lemon]

Oh my God, I love it. I love, I love everything about this one. It looks legitimately like shady and vaguely dangerous. But also I also love that they're advertising their underground games new newsletter in Game Pro.

[Justin Davis]

Well, you just got balloons flying by you, Justin. So if you were to subscribe to this newsletter, you could learn how to buy new games before official release, below retail or host wholesale prices. Find out about overseas sources for games in the Orient and elsewhere. See how some people are paying as little as two to four dollars per game and they're talking about games like Tetris 2, Super Mario, Invisible Fan, Fancy what? Star Soldier, Devil World, Goonies, Ninja Adventure and many more. Also discover what is happening behind the scenes and in other countries. A 45 minute videotape showing and describing many of the above games in actual action. Multiple game cartridges and more is also available free when a two year bi monthly subscription to the Game Watch newsletter is purchased. Yeah, so who knows what was going on here?

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude, I gotta get this tape.

[Nick Lemon]

We. Yeah, I just googled Game Watch newsletter and the only thing I'm finding is the Supper Mario Broth Twitter account which is like one of the top 10 Twitter accounts of all time. But he just, he just has a copy of the same advertisement.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, yeah, I don't know if this videotape is out there in existence, but.

[Damon Hatfield]

1650 per call.

[Justin Davis]

But I think that gets you the subscription.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, got it, got it.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. So you just, you just call them, give them your address and info and then you're subscribed this. I mean it looks like a snuff.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean it looks like you're going to get sued. Like you just got served in a Game Pro magazine.

[Nick Lemon]

Is this just like a piracy, like just pirate game?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I think, yes. I think it's because they talk about that 50 games on one cartridge. It's probably a way for them to sell their illegal games direct to consumer through this newsletter.

[Damon Hatfield]

Man.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Magazines did not care.

[Justin Davis]

Well, this is the back of the issue and then the final ad is for the game service or they have service for 99.99. You can rent 12 games a year and they would.

[Nick Lemon]

Oh no, Damon, sorry. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll stop. But like I found. So the, the archive.org has the newsletter, it has the tape.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, wow.

[Nick Lemon]

But archive.org.

[Justin Davis]

Oh my God.

[Nick Lemon]

As of, as of as of the time we're recording this, archive.org is offline.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh no. So we can't watch it. Why?

[Justin Davis]

Is it offline?

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah, yeah, because it's been, you know, they're being sued and yada yada like. It's just not.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's tragic.

[Justin Davis]

Well, yep. Hopefully.

[Nick Lemon]

Anyway, I think more to come. I'll investigate this on my own time.

[Justin Davis]

Okay. Hopefully we can watch this video tape sometime. Anyway, the game service would rent you. You could rent 12 games a year for 99.99. If Nintendo, Sega or TurboGrafx makes it. We've got it. They said. What was the game. What was the Netflix for games? I think it's still going Game Fly.

[Damon Hatfield]

Game Fly?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, this is game fly in 1990.

[Damon Hatfield]

But 9,999 for 12 games. That feels like a ripoff.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

Yes it does.

[Damon Hatfield]

Cuz a rental would be like five.

[Justin Davis]

Bucks and you're paying what, like $8 a game? And I don't know if you just keep the game for as long as you want. They say it's about 27 cents a day though, so.

[Nick Lemon]

27 cents a day.

[Damon Hatfield]

And yes, we also. No.

[Nick Lemon]

Nobody beats high prices.

[Damon Hatfield]

Nobody.

[Nick Lemon]

All right, settle down, man. Why are you shouting at me?

[Justin Davis]

Wait, Jerry, can you zoom into the illustration in the top right? It's just like a winged rhinoceros dinosaur straddling the moon, playing a game and fist pumping. Because he has so many game cartridges. Maybe they're just floating around because it's low gravity.

[Damon Hatfield]

AI wishes it could.

[Nick Lemon]

There's a space shuttle that's like oddly proportioned around Saturn. Also, that looks a little bit. It looks like a gargoyle alf. Kind of like a punk gargoyle alf.

[Justin Davis]

And what's lurking in one of those craters? Two little yellow eyes. Justin, let's just enlarge this and put it on a shirt.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I would buy that shirt in a heartbeat.

[Nick Lemon]

That's sick.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, that's the October 1990 issue of. Okay, real quick. I know we got video game 20 questions. I want to do a real quick extracurricular activities because in the time since we last met, since last 30 last Thursday, I have now watched all three terrifier movies. All three of them. And now I'm completely desensitized to anything.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I've done a watch of the first two over the last like two weeks as.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, okay, so I, you know, I, I like horror movies, I like slasher movies and I like practical effects and fun kill gags and all that. But I was all. I was nervous to watch Terrifier for a long time.

[Damon Hatfield]

Me too.

[Justin Davis]

Because everything I'D heard. And as much as I like all that stuff I just said, I don't. I'm not interested in, like, gross stuff that makes me feel gross stuff that feels mean spirited. Yeah, I like the first one. I think the first one's my favorite one. This. Let's just. Let me just say my piece. I. There's no fat on it. There's no story. It's just guy dresses a clown, kills people on Halloween. And it has an amazing kill, like an all hall of fame, all time kill. And it's also amazing that it was made for $50,000. It's like, really, really impressive to me. So the second one is also like, I had enough fun with it. But they start introducing all this lore and backstory and it's all just kind of nonsense. That's not what I needed. But it does have another amazing kill that is, yes, it is hard to get through, but it's also like, wow, okay, that is a lot. And then, yeah, on this Week on Monday, we had the day off and I found myself in a theater seeing Terrifier three. And it's also pretty enjoyable. It's like kind of the best of the both worlds. It's not as long as the second one, but it also does keep introducing new lore, stuff that I didn't really need. But Art the clown, the guy that plays him, it keeps getting funnier and funnier with each movie. And anytime he's on screen, I'm just like, having a really good time usually.

[Damon Hatfield]

So he's a great performer.

[Justin Davis]

It is good. That's me. And I wouldn't. It's not like I'm gonna like, recommend it to anyone. I think you need to be in the mood for something pretty particular if you want to venture forth into these movies. They're not gonna be for everyone, but it was the number one movie at the box office last weekend in America, so that says so.

[Damon Hatfield]

Theaters are packed with for screenings of Terrifier 3. And it's just like one good for good for the director pulling this off. But also it's kind of wild that I can like walk in a room like, oh, yeah, these people love the terror. I'd be scared of those people. Like, what the heck? How is it the most popular nuts.

[Justin Davis]

If you are, like, if you don't think these movies are for you, like, I would never. I'm not never going to like, try and sell them to you or like, argue with her. Like, whatever. For me personally, they don't meet my definition of meaning. They don't they don't ever go too far to me. But what do you think?

[Damon Hatfield]

I do feel like it is pretty mean. Often I think that like in particular I'm. I'm fine with most violence and gore, but when it starts to feel like very pointed and targeted at and like just like cruel for the sake of being cruel, I'm like, I'm not really that into it. That said, I did watch these movies and I too, I had to stop a couple of times because there's like, I just felt bad watching some of the murders that happen, usually like the ones that target women are just unnecessarily mean and I'm like, oh, I like have my windows open. My neighbors could in theory see what I'm watching. I was like, maybe I'll continue this a little bit later. But yeah, it's all shock. I think there's excellent prosthetic work. I think the performer for art is incredible. His gestures and his ability to.

[Justin Davis]

He never says a word, word. His ability to go and funny from.

[Damon Hatfield]

Like static and stoic to just in inaction. Like it's. There's like an incredible shot where he's completely still in the first movie and like the, the girl he's chasing is, starts to run away and he just like in a flash frame just turns on and it's like, wow, that was really impressive. Very nefarious. Great dude. A great like performer. I think he'd be a great joker in the upcoming DC.

[Justin Davis]

A nice joker because Terrifier 3 totally smashed Joker 2 at the box office last week.

[Damon Hatfield]

But ultimately my big thing is there's just no suspense. So it's just like he shows up, murder happens. There's never a surprise that murder is not going to happen. Murder always happens and it's the worst thing possible. But I just like a little suspense.

[Justin Davis]

There's like five minutes of warm up or foreplay for the murder and then five minutes of the murder. Whereas in most, you know, in most slashing movies, a knife goes in, cut away.

[Damon Hatfield]

You're pretty unflinching.

[Justin Davis]

It's like five minutes of the murder is what.

[Damon Hatfield]

Whoever did the prosthetic work, hats off to you because I was like, did I just watch someone die in real life? No, thankfully not. Did you watch the music? Did your screening have the music video of the metal band? No, there's like, you can watch it online now. But essentially the setup is art. Gives a bunch of metal concert goers weapons and then it starts playing guitar for the metal band. And then when they clash in the pit, the people in the audience just start murdering each other and it's like kind of cool.

[Justin Davis]

Anyway, that's it. Justin, any interest. Have we created any interest?

[Nick Lemon]

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And I know what you mean about it not crossing over the line to being too mean spirited, but knowing what I know about the terrifier movies. That's just a very funny sort of observation and piece of feedback for me. Because it's like. Because it's all just murder. It's all just innocent people being murdered for no reason. But you know, but it never crosses the line to be.

[Justin Davis]

Well, I mean just think about Friday the 13th. Slashers have always been.

[Damon Hatfield]

But there was like. Slashers often have this like subsurface level of morality of like, oh, this person did something, you know, they.

[Sam Claiborne]

They had to.

[Nick Lemon]

That's exactly it. You know, the permissive, the promiscuous teens are being punished.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly. And this is just like this dude was just running a Halloween store. He just got decapitated. What the heck?

[Justin Davis]

Well, I want to say, I want to talk about one. One real quick spoiler thing so spoilers in case want to watch this. One thing I like about the first one, I think it's genre subversive a little bit. There's two fake out final girls. Right. That's kind of interesting.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's interesting.

[Justin Davis]

But in the second one there's just a regular ass final girl. Yeah. So that feels a little regressive to me. But that's.

[Nick Lemon]

That's Damon. Have you watched What? Changing subjects. Just extracurricular. There's a show, we talked about it the week you were not on on Apple TV called Sunny. No, it starts Rashida Jones and it's set in Japan and it's like a really dark comedy mystery story where her husband and son are killed and then the yakuza get involved and then it's set in like the near future where there's like robots, there's like homebots and there's stuff happening with the homebots. It's the most Damon show I can imagine. And Japan is really, really prevalent in it and I'm just obsessed with it. And we joke about there's these Apple TV shows that no one ever talks. It's the coolest thing you've ever seen. But Apple didn't buy bother to tell anything about it. And like this is definitely that, like to a T. Okay. It's really good.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

Well, this B roll that we're watching hasn't shown off the bot at all, but like the bot's got a really cute design and the voice actor is really cute.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. I'll definitely check that out.

[Damon Hatfield]

The actor from Drive My Car is in it, so I'm in. That dude's great.

[Justin Davis]

Okay, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Mike McCaffrey. Not sure if there's any relation, but let the questioning begin.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sam, you got anything?

[Nick Lemon]

Look at how much he liked his hair. Movies.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this game 70s, 80s or 90s?

[Justin Davis]

Nope.

[Nick Lemon]

Is this game on the Nintendo Switch?

[Justin Davis]

Nope.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, wow.

[Nick Lemon]

Great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this game made in Japan?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, cool.

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Japanese.

[Nick Lemon]

Was this game. Was this game made by Sega or Nintendo or Capcom?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes again, Dang are on fire. Is this a Nintendo game?

[Justin Davis]

No. Okay, that's five.

[Nick Lemon]

Is it a Capcom Capcom games?

[Damon Hatfield]

All right.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. But not 70s, 80s or 90s.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not 70s, 80s or 90 s. Not on Nintendo Switch. So we're thinking PS2 to now.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. This game come out within the last 10 years?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Nick Lemon]

All right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this game.

[Nick Lemon]

So what, that probably eliminates PS4 and PS5 or mostly.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this a platform? Former.

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Nick Lemon]

Is this a part of a long running Capcom franchise?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Yes.

[Nick Lemon]

What does that mean?

[Damon Hatfield]

Does this game feature. Do you play as a human?

[Justin Davis]

Yes. Okay, that's 10.

[Nick Lemon]

Okay, so Capcom does Resident Evil.

[Damon Hatfield]

They do Resident Evil Dino Crisis.

[Nick Lemon]

They do. I like that. That's your number two Capcom franchise.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, just because I failed on Dino Crisis before, so I got to make sure I say it.

[Nick Lemon]

So. Okay, so Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, you know, obviously Mega Man.

[Damon Hatfield]

Street Fighter, Dead Rising.

[Justin Davis]

Huh.

[Damon Hatfield]

You play as a human. Is this an action game?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, maybe like Devil May Cry adjacent then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

Or it could be. Maybe. Maybe it's like dmc.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, a part of a franchise. Yeah. Just because of how it would tie it into a long running franchise. It's a little weird. Hmm.

[Nick Lemon]

How many questions do we have left?

[Justin Davis]

Nine.

[Nick Lemon]

Several. Right. Is this a Devil May Cry game? But it is an action game.

[Damon Hatfield]

What other action games? I mean, they got like crazy stuff like p point end point zero three. Right. Like the GameCube GameCube era.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah. Yeah. PNO3, that's not part of a series at all.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's like Tron.

[Nick Lemon]

I mean, I don't know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Bond Mischief makers.

[Nick Lemon]

I don't know. I mean, what would we call action? Like would we call Monster Hunter or Resident Evil action?

[Damon Hatfield]

I guess in theory. Survival horror.

[Justin Davis]

I don't know.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't think Damon would get that generic with like. Yeah, it has action.

[Nick Lemon]

What's the. What's the Time frame. The time frame is after 2000. But. But. But before 2020. Like, before 10 years ago.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly. So 2020.

[Nick Lemon]

I've been picturing more modern games, but after 2000 gives us, like. That's gotta be like, Onimush. Like, some. Some of that stuff has got to be in the 2000s. The original Dragon's Dogma.

[Damon Hatfield]

Do you fight demons?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, maybe it is on the Musha.

[Nick Lemon]

I don't know that much about that game. I know that it had the weird controller. Oh, didn't it. Didn't it have a big crazy controller?

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know. Yeah, I'm not familiar.

[Justin Davis]

I don't.

[Nick Lemon]

I don't. I don't think I've played it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Let's.

[Nick Lemon]

I can picture it.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, it's fixed camera angles. It is basically Resident Evil, but with ancient Japan.

[Nick Lemon]

I mean, you could ask if it's an ancient Japan. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this an ancient Japan?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. What the heck?

[Justin Davis]

Oh, no.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's demons. You play as a human. It's a Capcom game.

[Nick Lemon]

So wait, wait. So wait. The demon question was. Yes, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Correct. You do fight demons.

[Nick Lemon]

But it's. And it's a Capcom game where you fight demons from the 2000s. That's not devil May Cry or Onimusha.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is Ghouls and Ghosts and Ghosts and Goblins. Is that Capcom? That's Capcom, right?

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, because they have, like, those. Maximo and the army of Zen. Maximo. Ghost of Glory, their PS2 action games. Let me see. You do fight demons. I'm trying to think of other demon fighting games that were Capcom.

[Nick Lemon]

Oh, man. Yeah. I don't. I didn't play any of those.

[Justin Davis]

Oh.

[Damon Hatfield]

We gotta. We gotta hone in. We gotta lock in. What are we doing?

[Nick Lemon]

Does the franchise. Franchise that this is associated with date back to, like, the 80s?

[Justin Davis]

Yes. That's 15.

[Damon Hatfield]

Do you.

[Nick Lemon]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Do you play as Maximo?

[Justin Davis]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, my God.

[Nick Lemon]

So what's the game actually called?

[Damon Hatfield]

So there's two PS2 games. There's Maximo, Ghost and Glory, and then there's Maximo and the army of Zin, both incredibly hard games.

[Nick Lemon]

I can't. I can't. Like, I can't picture them at all. Which one came first?

[Damon Hatfield]

Ghost and Glory. Does this game feature the army of Zin?

[Justin Davis]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this game. Is this Maximo? Ghosts and Glory?

[Justin Davis]

Close enough. Ghosts to Glory. Ghost to Glory is the title. Yes. Rocks.

[Damon Hatfield]

This game is so good.

[Justin Davis]

Ghosts to Glory, which, you know, they wanted to get Ghosts in the title to connect it to Ghosts and Goblins, but Ghosts to Glory. Doesn't seem to make much sense.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, it makes no sense.

[Nick Lemon]

It doesn't make any sense.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's such a hard as hell, like, action platformer with, like, a really intensive upgrade system. That's really fun. I mean, I was a kid when I played, so maybe it's a bad game, but I recall it being pretty darn good and pretty solid for what it is. It had no right being as good good as it is.

[Justin Davis]

And even though you're not Arthur, I think your armor still comes off. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Your armor still pops off. Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

With the hearts.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. That's the one thing that's weird. Why wouldn't you just have Arthur be the main character? But whatever. Good game.

[Nick Lemon]

I recognize this. I recognize this box art. But no, I've never. I don't think I've ever actually seen this game. Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's, like, different weapons, and then when you upgrade your armor all the way, it's gold, just like in.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, yeah.

[Nick Lemon]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Ghouls and ghosts.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. Cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

Good game, man.

[Nick Lemon]

It looks it. Yeah, it looks fun.

[Damon Hatfield]

I cannot believe we got that one.

[Justin Davis]

I think Gaijin gave it. That was back when we were doing decimal points. It's like a 9.2 or 9.3.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, wow. Okay. I was right, kid. Nick had good taste. Great.

[Justin Davis]

Yep. Nicely. Job Maximo. Ghost to Glory. Thank you for the suggestion, Mike McCaffrey. Oh, and by the way, if. For those of you that write in suggestions in a. You know, if you write in and I don't pick your game, don't get disheartened because I was looking for spooky games to use. Mike McCraphery sent me this email in 2021.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wow.

[Justin Davis]

Brought it up today and used it today. So maybe I'll get to yours someday. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you to Sam, who's still here with us. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Justin. Thank you to everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. I think I'll watch Friday the 13th Part 6 tonight.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's a good one.

[Justin Davis]

Got a hankering for that one. My name is Damon. This is IGN gamescoop and sayonara. Dude sees Seize Good. Under the arc of the weather Stained boards ancient goblins and warlords Come up the ground now making a sound the smell of death is all around and the night when the cold wind blows no one cares, nobody knows.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't.

[Justin Davis]

Want to be buried in a pet cemetery. I don't want to live my life.

[Damon Hatfield]

Again.

[Justin Davis]

I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again Fallen picture to the sacred place this ain't a dream I can't escape Molds of fangs, the clicking of bones Spirits moaning among the tombstones and at night when the moon is bright Someone cries something ain't bright I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again the moon is full, the air is still all of a sudden I feel a chill victorious criminal flesh is running away Skeletons dance I curse this day and at night when the wolves cry Listen close and you can hear me shout I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to be buried in a b cemetery I don't want you live my life again don't want to live my life I don't want to live my life not again oh no. Listening to a podcast should be time well spent and I promise it will be if you'll give this podcast a try. It's called Something you should know. I'm the host, Mike Carruthers, and in every episode I talk with leading experts on topics I know you will find fast, fascinating from why people can't keep.

[Nick Lemon]

Secrets, what your favorite music says about.

[Justin Davis]

You, why your pet acts in strange ways, and so much more. Something you should know is designed to give you information you can use in your life and give you great intel that you can share with others. I'm told it's a binge worthy podcast and with over a thousand episodes, there's a lot to binge on. Something you should know has been ranked in the top of the Apple podcast charts consistently for a long time. I know you're gonna like this. I just need to get you to try it.

[Nick Lemon]

Something you should know.

[Justin Davis]

It's available wherever you listen to podcasts. What's up everyone? It's Noah Daniels.

[Sam Claiborne]

Hey y'all, I'm jj.

[Justin Davis]

Hey guys, it's Kat and we're your host of the Real Hauntings podcast where we bring on guests who share their first hand encounter, ghost stories and supernatural experiences. Now on to the trailer. I've been warned, warned to not tell this story. But I think because of the way it ends, it's okay to tell this story because some people say that with certain entities to like speak of them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Or talk about them or in any.

[Justin Davis]

Way, like portray them as powerful will attract them to other people. The creepiest thing about it to me is a lot of times it would wait for me to know notice it.

[Nick Lemon]

Like, it would just lay its arm.

[Justin Davis]

Out like this, and then I'd be like, where is it? Where is it?

[Nick Lemon]

And then I'd see it and then.

[Justin Davis]

It would just slither back. For more information on the Real Hauntings Real Ghost Stories podcast, make sure you check out Real FM to learn more about our podcast and many other amazing podcasts.