Game Scoop! 845: What Was the Point?

Summary

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Game Scoop! 845: What Was the Point?

Date: February 20, 2026
Host: Damon Hatfield
Guests: Sam Claiborne, Mark Medina, Justin Davis
Podcast Description: The IGN Game Scoop crew breaks down the week's biggest gaming news, answers listener questions, and dives into retro gaming and trivia—mixing expert insight with friendly debates, deep nostalgia, and plenty of laughs.

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Overview

In this episode, the Game Scoop crew reacts to the shocking closure of Bluepoint Games, discusses the pitfalls of long development cycles in games, answers listener questions covering everything from retro game recommendations to "consoles bought for one game," and waxes nostalgic about consoles and game genres. The group rounds out the show with a thoughtful discussion of "exploraction" games (Metroidvania alternatives), and the weekly Video Game 20 Questions challenge.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Bluepoint Games Shutdown

[01:48] Damon Hatfield: Shares the news that PlayStation is shuttering Bluepoint Games, developers renowned for masterful remakes (Shadow of the Colossus, Demon's Souls).

• Quote: “They were working, you know, they did the Demon's Souls remake that was a launch title for PS5 in 2020. After that…they were put to work on a multiplayer or live service God of War game…then the project was canceled." — Damon Hatfield [02:41]
• Team reflects on how this is part of a larger corporate trend—buying studios for their core strengths, then pivoting teams to live-service games, which frequently leads to cancellations and layoffs.
  • Mark Medina: "That live service mandate that came out…I cannot believe it ruined a whole generation, but it really did. Naughty Dog has not produced a new game…because they were working on [Factions]. Wolverine is probably…further along had they not worked on the Spider-man multiplayer game…” [03:39]
  • Justin Davis: "It's so stupid. Buy a studio that has this one thing that they do…and then [say], make a live service game. Never mind, we're canceling that, and also we're shutting you down…” [03:23]
• Team suggests Bluepoint could reform independently or be purchased by another company to continue their specialty in remakes/remasters.

2. Long Game Development Cycles & Industry Careers

[11:18] Listener Email - Andy from Montreal: Raises concerns about how lengthy game dev cycles hurt developer portfolios/careers.

• If a 4-5 year project is canceled or left before release, work can't be shown in a portfolio until the project comes out, leaving people reliant on side projects.
  • Andy (read by Damon): "None of what you did in the last half decade can be shown legally in your portfolio." [12:04]
  • Sam Claiborne: "It's doable if you're single and have no responsibilities. But...the task becomes a huge hurdle to overcome [with family]." [12:16]
  • Justin and others: Also bad for morale—losing years of work to cancellations.
• Discussion: Modern franchises (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, GTA) risk losing a generation of fans due to slow release cycles.
  • Justin Davis: "Taking five, six, or seven years to come out with something, you're not hitting these kids frequently enough..." [14:12]

3. Retro Console Wars – Nostalgia & Shifting Perceptions

[21:57] Sam Claiborne: Recalls being swayed as a kid into believing Genesis was superior due to Sega's edgy marketing.

• Team reminisces on:
  • Classic console “wars”: Sega vs. Nintendo, who had better sports games, the "blast processor" myth, and how SNES’s true library quality wasn't fully appreciated in real-time.
  • Sam Claiborne: "Sonic the Hedgehog...I got a Genesis for Sonic the Hedgehog. I didn't get it for anything else." [20:53]
• Discussion points include the rise and fall of Sega hardware (Genesis/CD/32x/Saturn/Dreamcast) and Nintendo's choices with expensive cart chips vs. hardware add-ons.

4. Listener Emails – Game Announcements & Hardware Purchases

[18:10] Daniel: "Has there ever been a game announcement that made you buy a console just to play it?"

• Mark: Borrowed a friend’s PS3 just to play The Last of Us. [18:43]
• Justin: Fond memories of buying an SNES in 1996 after the PS1 came out, getting a pile of classics cheap. [19:49]
• Sam: Bought Genesis for Sonic, N64 for Ocarina of Time. [20:53]
• Team reflects that with age and income, new system launches feel less special.

5. Exploraction/Search Action Genre – Metroidvania Alternatives

[32:16] Email from Matt Jones: Proposes "exploraction" ("explorative action") as a name for games typically called Metroidvanias, especially when describing non-Metroid/Castlevania IPs adopting those gameplay loops.

• Suggestions: Mega Man, Contra, Sonic, Tomb Raider (2D), and more could adapt the "search action/exploraction" approach.
  • Mega Man: "Each robot master has its own biome...use them to unlock new biomes..." [32:41]
  • Sam & Damon: Love 2D Tomb Raider Metroidvania idea; nostalgia for Yoku’s Island Express-style experiments (pinball plus Metroidvania).
• Justin: Shares there’s a subgenre of Mario Maker 2 levels that are “Metroid-like,” puzzle-box platformers with key-based progression. [35:08]
• Funny aside about how video game genres are often named after the progenitor game (e.g., soulslike, roguelike, "John Wick-like").

6. Modern & Retro Recommendations – Handhelds & Classics

[41:20] Talon (Listener): Asks for essential suggestions for NES, SNES, GameBoy, N64 classics to play on a new handheld emulator.

• NES recommendations: Mega Man 2+, Adventure Island 2+, Super Mario Bros, Balloon Fight, Shadowgate, Gremlins 2, Castlevania 3.
• SNES recommendations: Super Mario RPG, Link to the Past, Star Fox, Castlevania 4.
• Game Boy recommendations: Donkey Kong ’94, Kid Icarus: Myths & Monsters, Link's Awakening, Zelda Oracle of Ages/Seasons, Minish Cap.
• N64 recommendations: Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64 (modded with character swap).
• Quote: "Diddy Kong Racing is better than Mario Kart 64." — Justin Davis [42:02]
• Team fondly recalls odd “licensed” games (Predator, Home Improvement, Full House fighter) and the weird diversity of classic game catalogs.

7. “Video Game 20 Questions” Challenge

[47:26]

• This week’s mystery game is SSX (PS2).
  • Ash from Yukon explains it’s the game "I've started over from the beginning more than any other" because, as a kid, he had no PS2 memory card and had to restart daily for a month. [56:52]
• Panel works their way to the answer with questions about genre, platform, developer, and a lot of deduction.
  • Memorable moment: "There's a question you ask very often that would solve this whole situation for you." — Damon, hinting at “Is this the first in the series?” [56:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "That live service mandate...I cannot believe it ruined a whole generation, but it really did." — Mark Medina [03:39]
• "It's so stupid…they're the best at [remasters] and then…shutting you down even though we just bought you." — Justin Davis [03:23]
• "We're talking a lot about Metroidvanias and old games this episode and that's okay." — Damon Hatfield [39:56]
• "I think Diddy Kong Racing is better than Mario Kart 64." — Justin Davis [42:02]
• "I got a Genesis for Sonic the Hedgehog...biggest thing in the world...people said Super Nintendo was for babies. I was like, yeah, that makes sense to me." — Sam Claiborne [20:53]
• "We used to love putting on the Predator in the office...just to check out 'What did they make a game of this?'" — Sam Claiborne [44:14]
• "There's always appetite for remasters and remakes...Why not just let [Bluepoint] keep doing their thing?" — Damon Hatfield [05:06]
• "I've started over from the beginning [of SSX] more than any other game...couldn't get a memory card for a month!" — Listener Ash [56:52]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:48] — Bluepoint Games shutdown & Sony’s live service missteps
• [11:18] — Listener email: long dev cycles and career impacts
• [14:12] — Generational impact of slow game franchise releases
• [18:10] — Game announcements that made the panel buy (or borrow) a console
• [21:57] — Console wars nostalgia (Genesis vs. SNES, Sega's rise/fall)
• [32:16] — Naming the “Metroidvania” genre and pitch for “exploraction” games
• [35:08] — Mario Maker “Metroid-like” subgenre, more IPs for exploraction
• [41:20] — Retro game recommendations (NES, SNES, Game Boy, N64)
• [47:26] — Video Game 20 Questions (SSX)
• [56:52] — Listener story: being forced to restart SSX daily, no memory card

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Tone and Flow

The episode is energetic, candid, and suffused with both industry expertise and playful banter. The hosts toggle seamlessly between critical industry analysis (studio closures, corporate strategy) and gaming nostalgia (cart wars, classic games, fun “what ifs”). Listener engagement is high, with the show addressing multiple thoughtful emails that provoke both storytelling and lively debate. Classic Game Scoop: funny, geeky, and insightful.

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For Listeners New & Old

This episode distills much of what makes Game Scoop a staple: up-to-date industry insight, criticism of corporate missteps, retro gaming appreciation, and extensive listener interaction. “What was the point?” turns out to be a poignant theme on both the fate of Bluepoint Games and the shifting priorities of gaming's biggest companies—and why gaming nostalgia, exploration, and joy remain so crucial.

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Transcript

[Damon Hatfield]

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[Justin Davis]

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[Damon Hatfield]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to IGN gamescoop. I'm your host, Damon Hatfield. Joining me this week are Sam Claiborne.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, excuse me. I was caught in a crimson dystopia

[Damon Hatfield]

for a moment there.

[Sam Claiborne]

Thanks for rescue me. Rescuing me.

[Damon Hatfield]

Everything was golf and red and black for our listeners. Sam was just enjoying some virtual boy with.

[Mark Medina]

I don't know if enjoying is the word I would use.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's more like Lawnmower Man.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, more like Lawnmower Man. Mark Medina is here.

[Mark Medina]

I'm here.

[Damon Hatfield]

David and Justin Davis. Scoop, we have a great show for you this week. We have a bunch of good emails this week. Scoop Nation asks questions about search action games. There's a hot new roguelike that has caught Scoop Nation's eye. But first, unfortunately we start with some bummer news because just announced today, PlayStation is shutting down. Bluepoint Games, makers of mini remasters and the remakes of both Shadow of the Colossus and Demon Souls. Just generally a really quality remaster and remake house that's done virtually nothing but good, keep going good things over the past 20 years. So this comes from Bloomberg confirmed the news. Roughly 70 employees are going to be impacted. The closure officially happens Next month. What's weird about this is this is the quote. PlayStation bought Bluepoint Games in 2021, and this is the quote that they provided to Bloomberg. Bluepoint Games is an incredibly talented team and their technical expertise has delivered exceptional experiences for the PlayStation community. We thank them for their passion, creativity, and craftsmanship. All right, cool. Thank you. Get out the door. So they were working, you know, they did Demons, the Demon's Souls remake. That was a launch title for PS5 in 2020. After that, apparently they were put to work on a multiplayer or live service God of War game all the way up until January last year when the project was canceled. The studio then spent last year pitching new products projects, but ultimately was shuttered before anything got moving.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is just like Suicide Squad or Batman or whatever. It's like they could have been making these great games they were specialized at, but they're like, nah, make a multiplayer game. And then it screwed them.

[Justin Davis]

It's so stupid. Buy a studio that has this one thing that they do and do better than anybody else. They're the best at it. And then like, make a live service game. Never mind, like, we're canceling that. And also we're shutting you down even though we just bought you.

[Damon Hatfield]

It doesn't make any sense to me. Go ahead, mark that.

[Mark Medina]

That live service mandate that came out like, a few years ago, I cannot believe it ruined a whole generation, but it really did. Like, Naughty Dog has not produced a new game this whole generation because they were working on factions. Wolverine is probably would be way further along had they not worked on the Spider man multiplayer game, which looked awesome by the way, that leaked trailer. And then now Blue Point, like a multiplayer God of War game instead of making Bloodborne remaster, like, look, I mean, I think people need to move on from Bloodborne. Get over it. It's probably never going to be remade, but, like, come on. Yeah, especially not now.

[Damon Hatfield]

That just seems like an obvious.

[Justin Davis]

There's more like they, you know, they bought Bungie and like, Destiny 2 is not doing.

[Sam Claiborne]

I'm worried about the Bungie marathon situation right now after seeing my guard.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, if Marathon tanks, man, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen in that studio.

[Sam Claiborne]

And that's Bungie. It's Bungee. Like, to have a Halo and Destiny behind them and then be like, oh, worried about Bungie? What?

[Justin Davis]

Well, and like, much has been written. So Kotaku wrote a story that's kind of exactly what we're talking about. Like, everyone talks about Microsoft sort of Mismanaging some of its acquisitions. But, like, PlayStation's track record isn't much better. Right? Like, they. They bought Fireworks Studios, who launched Concord, and then that flopped and shut it down. So it's like almost every single studio they've acquired in the last several years has been shut down or at least been hit with layoffs.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. It's just crazy to me because there's always. There's always, like, an appetite for remasters and remakes. And like Justin was saying, that's. That's what Bluepoint does. They're. They're exceptional at it. Well, you. Why. Why not just let them keep doing their thing?

[Mark Medina]

People have been waiting for, like, bloodborne, obviously, but then, like, Infamous one and two. Like, there's so many things they could have remade. What are some of their shooter games?

[Sam Claiborne]

Like Resistance.

[Damon Hatfield]

Resistance.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, Resistance one I was thinking of.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Kills socom is another one people want.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Justin Davis]

I mean, do we think. And I'm not saying this is what I want, but do we think that maybe part of Sony's calculus is, hey, AI can do these remasters moving forward.

[Sam Claiborne]

Ugh, they could have just remade Shadow of the Colossus again. I'd be fine with that.

[Justin Davis]

Just make that once a generation.

[Sam Claiborne]

But honestly, what about just giving them Shadow of the Colossus 2? Right? Yeah, just do it. Just do the sequel. So what stops this studio, though, in this weird situation? I don't think much. Like, they already have an expertise. We're all talking about what they do. Like, what stops them from being like, okay, we're just called this now.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, just reform, get an investor. We're just trying to maintain our office space. Can we save for three months and then, you know, remake, you know, something for Ubisoft?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, yeah, I know. Or like. Or why wouldn't Sony be willing to, you know, sell them to someone else

[Damon Hatfield]

or let them go independent again or whatever?

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, we lost Damon.

[Sam Claiborne]

I guess the batteries went out on the camera.

[Damon Hatfield]

Joe, are you on.

[Mark Medina]

He's back.

[Sam Claiborne]

There he is. Okay, somebody just walk in the room and turn off your camera and run out. I don't know.

[Damon Hatfield]

Just Gremlins. Just Gremlins.

[Sam Claiborne]

They could remake Gremlins too.

[Mark Medina]

They could.

[Damon Hatfield]

So as A brief history, Bluepoint was formed 2006, and I didn't realize this until today, but it was two former Retro Studios employees that worked on Metroid

[Sam Claiborne]

prime because they're based out of Texas.

[Damon Hatfield]

I didn't know that.

[Sam Claiborne]

So it's all. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

In 2006, they released their first and only original game, which was a PlayStation Network game called Blast Factor. It was mediocre, we gave it a 5.9, but that started their close relationship with PlayStation and after that they did the God of War collection, the Eco and Shadow of the Colossus collection, Metal Gear Solid HD collection, Uncharted, the Nathan Drake collection. They did Gravity Rush Remastered, then Shadow of the Colossus remake and Demon's Souls remake. Along the way they also created the engine for PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale and handled the Vita port of that. They ported flower to PS4 and the Vita, they did the Xbox 360 port of Titanfall, and then they supported the development of God of War Ragnarok. So it's they just nothing but good stuff over the past 20 years. That's why it's such a shame.

[Sam Claiborne]

Weird. And I noticed you said we reviewed Blast Factor. I made sure that Damon, you did not in fact review Blast Factor.

[Justin Davis]

I did not.

[Damon Hatfield]

It wasn't you 2006 Jeremy Dunham handled that. He was running the PlayStation team back when we had teams. Anyway, that's bummer news. But hopefully, like someone pointed out, hopefully this team can, you know, just sort of reconvene and get back to making remasters and remakes that they just excelled at over the past couple decades. So you want to learn a new language, but you're struggling to get beyond the basics stuck on free apps aimed at cheap dopamine highs. Well then it's time to try Babbel, the language app that makes grammar fun and is really worth your time. Learning a language with Babbel is all about small steps, big wins and progress. You can actually track and feel. Their bite sized lessons fit easily into your daily routine and are also easy to remember. Just 10 minutes a day is enough to start seeing real results. Their courses are designed by over 200 language experts, real human beings to teach you relevant words and phrases you'll actually use so you can start speaking with confidence. In as little as three weeks. Babbel lets you practice real life conversation step by step, without the stress. You'll build the confidence to speak up when it matters, from ordering a coffee to chatting with new friends abroad. And Babbel is more than just lessons. They even offer a large collection of podcasts where Babbel experts reveal language secrets and offer an inside look at local cultures. I've used Babbel to brush up on my Spanish before traveling to Mexico and to learn a little Dutch on a visit to Amsterdam last year. Here's a special limited time deal for Our listeners right now get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com Gamescoop get up to 55% off babbel.com GamescoOp spelled B-A B-B-E-L.com Gamescoop rules and restrictions may apply. Every group has someone who insists on doing things the hard way. That friend still paying for a subscription. They forgot they had that one. Refusing to update their phone because it still works. NVC's Seth Macy used to be that person too, especially when it came to overpaying for wireless. Then he switched to Mint Mobile and he's so glad he did. Isn't that right Seth? That is right, Damon.

[Sam Claiborne]

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[Justin Davis]

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[Justin Davis]

Hey listeners.

[Damon Hatfield]

Listeners. Remember you can always reach us at the email address gamescoopgn.com Just like Andy from Montreal did Big Andy style and he says, I want to start by saying how much I love your show. I'm eager every week to watch the new episode. I wanted to add a little something in regards to what you guys said about long development cycles. We often lament how long it takes to make A video game or at least a western studio to make a. A video game these these years. And he says, as a veteran in the film and game industry, I believe he's an animator. A very long development cycle can be quite detrimental to the livelihood of the devs themselves. Here's an example. You start a project, work on it for four to five years, and then for X reason, you get fired or you move or whatever, you leave the company, have to find a new job. None of what you did in the last half decade can be shown legally in your portfolio.

[Mark Medina]

I never even considered that brutal.

[Damon Hatfield]

None of your can be shown online until the project has come out. That leaves you in a very tough spot. You kind of have to be working on personal projects on the side to keep your portfol portfolio up to date. And that's a lot of work.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's doable.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's doable. If you're single and have no responsibility. But add one or two kids in the mix and a ton of responsibilities, the task becomes a huge hurdle to overcome. Yeah, that's. That's just another reason why the long. They need to sort out and get these long development cycles under control.

[Justin Davis]

And then obviously, like, just. It's just bad for your soul. Like. Like, let's say the project's canceled, right? It's like, well, that's, you know, it's sad anytime you work on something and it doesn't see the light of day. But if you worked on it for a half, half decade, it's like, you know, we're not on this earth long enough for like, that much of your work to like, not come to fruition.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I never felt old until Todd Howard told me that Fallout 5 will come out one day after xxxx. I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be like 50 when this game comes out.

[Damon Hatfield]

Todd Howard told you that? Mark. He was speaking to you?

[Mark Medina]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

You should write our news team through an article.

[Justin Davis]

They're texting. Look, you just have to wire on these Apple G cards and then everything's gonna be fine.

[Mark Medina]

Him and Pierce Snyder. I just am draining my bank account.

[Sam Claiborne]

If you really were on, you know, this cycle, like, say you were working on, you know, gta, but not Red Dead. Then like, you. You worked on a game for 10 years and then a game for 10 years. Like, you got like three more of those in your life lifetime before you retire. Not before you die. Before you retire. Right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's like, you know, I was doing the cat math recently. I was like, well, if you know, I have a one year old cat. Like if my cat lives for 20 years, like I might have one more cat after that.

[Mark Medina]

Amanda has a leopard gecko that she got on her 18th birthday and we're almost 40.

[Sam Claiborne]

Wow, that's crazy.

[Mark Medina]

He's still there. That's still chilling. He's about to be the oldest leopard gecko to ever live.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's so cool.

[Mark Medina]

I don't know. I don't know if that's true, but he's, he's getting up there. I think the longest ones ever lived is like 20, 26. I don't know. Nevermind the comment section. Tell me I'm wrong.

[Justin Davis]

What was the stat like? See now, I don't know who this quote comes from, but there was a news story going around this week about how some Japanese youth, it was like a study. Have less affinity for Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy and these franchises that kids grew up with and really loved. And it's because their entire youth is going by without a release coming out in that series. If you're taking five or six or seven years to come out with something, you're not hitting these kids, you know, frequently enough for them to sort of care about, about the thing you make.

[Sam Claiborne]

Please do that for Kingdom Hearts.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I mean we, we all love Grand Theft Auto because we got three Grand Theft Auto games on one platform. And it's like I understand that like that can't happen anymore. People expect Grand Theft Auto to be this like insanely good thing, but it's like still they made fans of us.

[Sam Claiborne]

And to add to that, that theory that they don't need to be good games because there hasn't been a good Sonic game since I was 11. And those games.

[Justin Davis]

Sonic. So what was Sonic Mania? That one was all right. But yeah, otherwise

[Mark Medina]

the takeaway is I hope Sam's cat lives long enough to play Fallout 5.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. And, and the takeaway for everybody out there listening is that I thought Sonic was really good when I was a kid. The panel didn't. I thought it was. I thought it was good.

[Justin Davis]

We're all just catching strays over here from Sam for no reason at all.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay? They weren't strays. They were adoptees of your positions 10 years ago.

[Damon Hatfield]

I bet you that I didn't bring it up. I bet you that video is still getting angry. Comments. I haven't looked at it recently, but people are still angrily commenting on that video.

[Sam Claiborne]

You know, we get a person every once in a while. It's like I'm listening to Game scoop from the start, you know, and then somehow they made a comment on this one. But they're going to get to the episode. The Sonic was never a good episode. And then they'll understand all of this.

[Justin Davis]

The people I love, I love all of them.

[Sam Claiborne]

I never said.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I like all of our fans and I'm glad you're here, but the going back, like, it's. This is a news show. I don't understand what people get by going back to the old episodes.

[Sam Claiborne]

All the retro pieces are still retro.

[Justin Davis]

It's not like going back to watch Mad Men. Right. Like, that's a very different thing.

[Damon Hatfield]

You think 100% of our discussions are discussing something timely from that week?

[Mark Medina]

I will. I will say I. Before I worked at ign, I worked at a warehouse and I would listen to old gamescoop episodes.

[Justin Davis]

Thank you, Mark Damon. We've been doing this long enough now. Like, we flipped through, you know, whatever, the 1996 issue of EGM. So two things are going to happen. One, we are going to run out of old magazines to flip through because they stopped making them.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, that's true.

[Justin Davis]

But two, we can somehow, I don't know, like, we can use the Wayback Machine to flip through IGN from, you know, 20 or 30 years ago.

[Damon Hatfield]

I love looking at early 2000s. Ignore. The greatest thing is website looks. It looks better.

[Sam Claiborne]

It looks great. And it loads just as fast as it did back then on the Wayback Machine.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, true. All right, we're getting into the weeds. Andy had one other anecdote here.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's Andy, did you have a plan for this episode?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, and he says, I'm currently playing Avowed and Grounded 2. I really enjoy these two games. I think Obsidian is among the top studios of the last decade. It's really disappointing how the corporations estimate value in a title.

[Mark Medina]

Well, Avowed is great. I'm playing it on PS5 and I think it works very, very good. I like the game a lot.

[Damon Hatfield]

And you should also check out The Outer Worlds 2. I enjoy that game quite a bit. Okay, this is Daniel. Daniel says, since Baldur's Gate 3 has been the topic of conversation recently, I thought I would bring this to your attention. Recently, Larian made it known that they would have loved for Baldur's Gate 3 to come to Switch 2, but the decision wasn't theirs to make. Seems to be a Wizards of the coast call. From what I can tell as someone who just got the Switch 2 for Christmas and has put over 300 hours into Divinity Original Sin 2 on the OG Switch. I'm quite disappointed. I'm a 35 year old dad of four kids and I play in handheld mode 99% of the time. Because of this, I'm seriously considering a Steam deck to start my Baldur's Gate 3 journey.

[Sam Claiborne]

You'll love it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Which brings me to my question. Has there ever been a game announcement or release that caused you to go out and purchase another console just to play it? I remember being 15 years old at a friend's house when I got my first look at the Elder Scrolls Oblivion and a Game Informer magazine. I had never seen anything quite like it and decided to save up and purchase an Xbox360 just to play it. To this day, Oblivion will always have a special place in my heart and few games have delivered the way that one did. The first true HD experience in my opinion. We'd love to hear what from all. You guys are the best and are truly the only gaming podcast around.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I didn't have the money to buy it because I was like a young adult at the time. But I borrowed a friend's PS3 just to play Last of Us. Like I didn't have PS3. Like I borrowed it. Played Last of Us. Gave back because I was like I can't not play this video game. I don't know if I've ever bought a console specifically for a game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Were you like just a massive die hard Sony? I have to play everything Sony makes fan. Is that why you wanted to play?

[Mark Medina]

I didn't even have a PS3. I was a 360 kid back then.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sad dads.

[Mark Medina]

I just, I. Okay, so here's actually what happened. So I thought that Last of us was the Elliot Page game and I was, I had. You know, that's when Juno came out and stuff like that and I was like I want to play that and then. But I also love Beyond Two Souls so. So I really wanted to play it. I thought I played Uncharted or anything.

[Justin Davis]

I thought I was the only person that liked Beyond Two Souls. I also liked that game.

[Mark Medina]

Oh that game's great. My wife's alarm clock is still Willem Dafoe's theme song from that game to this day. I hear it every morning.

[Justin Davis]

I mean we now because of my work and because video games are my primary hobby. It's like I'm a day one. It's been a long time since I've not had any of the new consoles Day one. But back when I was buying them myself and had less income when it was a Great feeling. It was never like, oh, one game came out. Now I have to buy, you know, an OG Xbox or whatever it is. But, like, if you would wait two or three years to buy a console, and usually, you know, they only get more expensive now, but back in the day, they'd be like 200 bucks cheaper and there'd be a bunch of cheap games. And the game companies used to release, like, the budget lines of games like, it was the best. And like, I have a vivid memory of getting. I got a Super Nintendo in 1996 because the PS1 was already out. And so it's like, oh, I got the console for like 80 bucks and got a bunch of games for like 10 bucks. And you have this whole library of like, games that, like, back then, the console wars were like such a thing that, like, as a Genesis kid, I had to pretend like I didn't want those SNES games, but secretly I really did. And then I was able to get them all at once. That was a great summer.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean, I was an idiot. Like, I got Nintendo Power and you just get everything that Nintendo Power, you know, looks good, right? So it's like, that's how you did your selection. You know, I ended up with a virtual boy somehow. So something was hyping me on it. No, but my obviously, like, the biggest stories that I have are culturally, like, in line with the world. Like Sonic the Hedgehog. Like, I got a Genesis for Sonic the Hedgehog. I didn't get it for anything else. Like, it was for Sonic. Like, that was the biggest thing in the world. And everybody was saying the Super Nintendo was for babies. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense to me. This really rings true. But then a year or two later, I was like, well, I really like playing Super Mario World at my friend's houses. And Mortal Kombat looks a little better on the Super Nintendo. Definitely. I want to play off zero on the Super Nintendo, I think was the sale for that. And then I didn't play a lot during the early 64 PS1 years. And then I played Mario 64 a lot at a friend's house. And it was great. It was so fun. But then when Ocarina of Time came out, it's like, I need a Nintendo 64. That was the last time I really remember being like, this game sold me on the system.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, you gotta, like, you hit like a critical mass of like, maybe I can just pretend like Mario 64 doesn't exist. But then Zelda comes out and other stuff. Goldeneye comes out. I gotta have it.

[Mark Medina]

Beetle Adventure Racing.

[Justin Davis]

Beetle Adventure Racing's dope, man.

[Mark Medina]

You can spin. I. I've always. Only because it's now been brought up twice on this episode. I'm always curious because I, I was like six when this was probably happening. But, like, nowadays, console wars are very silly, right? The Xbox series X and PS5 are essentially identical and have 99% of the same library. But I'm always wondering, what leg did people have to stand on to say Sega was better than Super Nintendo?

[Sam Claiborne]

First of all, if you're going to ask a question, you can write [e-mail]

[Damon Hatfield]

just like, please go through the proper channels, Mark.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, seriously.

[Justin Davis]

Well, the thing is, Mark, when we were 11 years old, you have to understand that the Sega Genesis had blast processors.

[Mark Medina]

Sure, yes, of course. But like, the Super Nintendo library is still one of the best video game

[Sam Claiborne]

libraries of all time. That's kind of a. I think that's. That that came out of this early game journalism speak. Like, Super Nintendo's library is great, but there's a lot of great libraries. The NES has an incredible library. It's like, there's.

[Mark Medina]

Notice you're not bringing up Sega Genesis,

[Justin Davis]

you're just putting it against the Genesis back in the day. The Genesis kind of bodied the Super Nintendo for a long, long time. It wasn't until, like, as that gen generation wound down and with the benefit of hindsight, like, that people are like,

[Sam Claiborne]

okay, maybe the SNES wasn't specifically because it had the good sports games.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Sam Claiborne]

And that meant everything. It meant everything. And then it had blood and Mortal Kombat.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, they had blood. Mortal Kombat.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

And they had this edgy hedgehog mascot that was much, much faster than this, you know, kind of by comparison, methodical. Super Mario World. Right? That's a bunch of.

[Mark Medina]

Anybody that knows anything should know that Mario World is far better than any song.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, it was Kitty and. And it came out with F0 at launch and pilot wings and people didn't play those as much. And then there's just nothing for a while. Then there was like a punch out and Metroid. And those had trouble, like, getting audiences. Like, it was not. No. You think it was until Donkey Kong country that people were like, oh, my God, this is incredible. And like, it's, it's, you know, gonna compete backwards. And like, credit to Nintendo for putting chips in their games and then getting to do crazy things because that there

[Justin Davis]

is a few, like the Super Nintendo library, like, in games that they are better. But they are not cooler for, for 12 year olds. Like there's exceptions. Like Star Fox was cool but like they weren't. The games weren't as cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. And then like Final Fantasy right now we're like oh, but I had Final Fantasy 4 or 2 and 3 at the time. Like nobody cared. Nobody played those games.

[Mark Medina]

Like oh, funny because those are regarded as some of the best final fantasies of all time.

[Sam Claiborne]

Still no I. Games of all time.

[Mark Medina]

And then same with like Link to the Past and Earthbound and yeah, nobody played Earthbound.

[Sam Claiborne]

They didn't sell any copies there. And then Corona Trigger barely caught on. Mario RPG had a lot but it was at the end of its cycle. Like these are when you look back at a library wins. They're not wins at the time. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Thomas Klinsky and the Sega of America marketing team, how are they going to get people to buy the Sega Genesis? They capitalize on the fact that Gamers who were 8 when they got their NES were now 12 and they could say, oh now, now you're, now you're more of a grown ass gamer. You don't need to play the baby games on. You've outgrown Nintendo now you need the more grown up games.

[Mark Medina]

Genesis does what Nintendo. Yeah, I specifically remember the whole like broken down car and that's Mario Kart kind of deal, commercials and stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

So then you get to the end of that console generation and genes added a CD drive and a 32x add on.

[Mark Medina]

Sure did.

[Sam Claiborne]

And a Sonic and Knuckles cartridge. Whereas Nintendo was like, no, we're going to hold out and do these like really expensive chip additions to our games and they 100% won out that point. Like by the time the 32x goes out, like they would have trouble selling Saturns as their next gen console because everybody's like no, I just bought two iterations and they felt exactly the same.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. And that was all Sega Japan's fault.

[Sam Claiborne]

And then they killed it with Dreamcast.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean yeah, with.

[Sam Claiborne]

With Game Library.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

But not, not at the time. Like it was,

[Damon Hatfield]

it was too late though. They could not stand up to the marketing power of PlayStation or Nintendo Night Trap.

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[Justin Davis]

how old

[Sam Claiborne]

were you when you realized you were the son of a president?

[Justin Davis]

I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before.

[Mark Medina]

Infectious Love Story John F. Kennedy Jr.

[Damon Hatfield]

And Carolyn Bessette I didn't think I could love someone like this until you. From Executive Producer Ryan Murphy.

[Sam Claiborne]

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[Mark Medina]

want to spend the rest of my

[Sam Claiborne]

life with you, it's if I'm cut out to be Mrs. JFK Jr. FX's

[Mark Medina]

love story John F. Kennedy Jr. And

[Damon Hatfield]

Carolyn Bessette watch now on FX, Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers. All right, this is Jeff in Austin, Texas says hi Omega cops. While perusing IGN recently, I came across an article for one of the most daemon ass damie games I've ever seen, Hunt Down Overtime. The gorgeous pixel art, the roguelike structure, the gore and classic side scrolling action. I'm immediately all in on this game. Day one and daemon. I wanted to bring it to yours and everyone in Scoop Nation's attention in case you missed this announcement, rest assured. Jeff in Austin, Texas. I'm well aware of Hunt Down Overtime because the original Hunt down is a very damie ass video game. I love Hunt Down. I was just after I got this email I revisited it last night. It's great. So in case anyone doesn't know, Hunt down is a 2020 run and gun game developed by Easy Trigger, which is a Swedish developer Owned by Embracer now. And it perfectly nails that SCSI 80s synthwave aesthetic. Terminator, Robocop. It's got voice acting, it's got pixelated blood splatter, lots of little details and set pieces. And then gameplay wise, it's Contra or Metal Slug or Rolling Thunder, if you remember that Namco game. So, yeah, Hunt down is great. And then Hunt Down Overtime is a prequel, I think actually that's now a roguelike or Roguelite. And the tag, the tagline says every strategic upgrade strips away more flesh and builds a cybernetic fighter one chrome limb at a time.

[Mark Medina]

Hell yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

The description talks about biomes and stuff. So actually I think it's going to play like dead cells, which would be great. Bring it on.

[Justin Davis]

So this art looks super rad. I didn't even know that they made a sequel.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's not out yet.

[Justin Davis]

Do you say this is out or it's coming out? They're making it now.

[Damon Hatfield]

Early access, sometime this year.

[Justin Davis]

I think that the name Hunt Down Overtime, you could take those four, Hunt Down Overtime and rearrange them in any order and you would make a game title that was probably pretty dope and worked time. Hunt Overdown.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Medina]

I just like to imagine that the first game takes eight hours to beat. And so now it's, you know, now we're in overtime.

[Sam Claiborne]

So now we just say biomes all the time. That's the thing we've been saying.

[Damon Hatfield]

Biomes.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it's like, oh, the background's different. You're in a new biome.

[Justin Davis]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

Well, because what grass here.

[Damon Hatfield]

What did. What did Nick call it last week? Search action games. That was calling metroidvanias. That we are.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, but that's different than Dead Cells style biomes though, right? Well, that's more like Rogue legacy, where you're like, I'm going to go upwards and it's the attic. I'm going to go to the right and it's the garden.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. But I think Metro. So Metroid. A Metroid game. Like super Metroid. Yeah, we could say those are all different biomes. Right.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, that's like just using that term like the word is. But I feel like it's been become a game term to imply that there's some kind of rogue attitude to it. But maybe I'm thinking about it wrong

[Justin Davis]

the most, I think about biomes in the context of Minecraft and like other kind of like crafty open games of like, you know, going to different biomes or they're adding new biomes and it's

[Sam Claiborne]

different a level because you, you know, complete it and that's right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, speaking of all this stuff, our next email comes from Matt Jones, overlord of the super fans. He says Dear Damie and the Scoops, per the Search Action discussion in last week's episode. Hold on.

[Mark Medina]

Wait.

[Justin Davis]

Wait a second.

[Damon Hatfield]

What?

[Justin Davis]

You're just gonna. You're just gonna breeze right by Damien

[Mark Medina]

the Scoops, the coolest band name ever.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's us, right? We're Damien the Scoops.

[Justin Davis]

That's great.

[Mark Medina]

I love it.

[Damon Hatfield]

No notes per the Search Action discussion in last week's episode, I proposed that when it can't be called Metroidvania, it should be called Exploraction Games. Exploraction games. So with God of War, Son of Sparta released, and me recently finally playing Prince of the Lost Crown, because it came to game pass, I started thinking about other older franchises out there that could make for great exploraction games. Here are some franchises that I came up with that was Matt talking so Mega man says. I read up that there may have been attempts at this in the past, but how has Mega man not had a bunch of games in this genre? Each robot Master has its own biome, their own power. You get their powers, use them to unlock new biomes, finally arrive at Wily's Castle to use all the newfound powers to beat the boss. This seems like a no brainer. I agree, I agree. Let's cap them on that.

[Justin Davis]

That is a good idea.

[Damon Hatfield]

Contra. This one would probably be more Metroid esque as opposed to Castlevania, but why not have Bill and Lance fight through different areas to get to the vile Red Falcon's lair? All the guns they normally get in the original game, Fire, laser spread, et cetera, can be unlocked after beating certain areas or bosses. Then those guns can be used to unlock new areas. Yep, that sounds good too. We'll put Konami on that one and then Sonic the Hedgehog. He says. Okay, I'll admit this is more to get a Sonic Mania pun or I'm sorry, Sonic Vania pun with Sonic Mania. But Sonic usually goes from zone to zone, collecting Chaos Emeralds along the way. There could be an interconnected world where Sonic needs to get Chaos Emeralds to unlock new zones, fight Robotnik at the end with his time traveling in Sonic cd. You could even put a rewind ability in one of these emeralds. Plenty of opportunities. So what are the franchises the Scoop crew thinks could use an entry in the explore Action genre?

[Mark Medina]

This sounds like my nightmare because I don't like Metroidvanias.

[Damon Hatfield]

Because you're too. You're too old for them, right?

[Mark Medina]

I'm way too old for Metroidvanias. And so this. This idea of turning all of our games into Metroidvanias, way too elderly for that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

What if we didn't call them Explore Action. Call them Action Plures. Would you be more interested in

[Justin Davis]

why is there. Why is there this video game? So even roguelikes are named by, you know, rogue. Right. That's where they come from. And then obviously Metroidvanias and Souls likes. It's like movies. Like I like Mission Impossible isn't a Bond. Like, like other, I feel like other genres.

[Damon Hatfield]

Except there have been several. There are John Wick likes now.

[Justin Davis]

Cool. Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Is it John Wake just like kind of a spin off of like the Matrix though? Like not a spin off, but like, I mean like the fighting style.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's like one man, this like one man unkillable, one person unkillable thing. Like it's

[Sam Claiborne]

one Keanu.

[Damon Hatfield]

He has no. They made two nobody movies. And then there's the CC one with the World War II era. Dude, he's just, just. He. The Nazis can't kill him.

[Sam Claiborne]

He's impossible to kill. King Kingsman.

[Damon Hatfield]

Kingsman. Yeah, that's more like.

[Justin Davis]

Although those predate James Bond.

[Mark Medina]

Like.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, they. They. You know. So anyway, to answer the original question, In Mario Maker 2, there's this whole sub genre of Mario levels that I liked that are Metroid. Like they're these kind of puzzle box levels where you know, you're stuck in a room and you need to do a specific thing and go a specific way to get a fire flower and then you use the fire flower to get into the next space.

[Sam Claiborne]

Mario vs Donkey Kong a little bit.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. And so. And then there's these little, you know, these little Metroid, like non, you know, semi linear puzzles of like figure out where to go and what power up you need to sort of break out of this space. And I enjoy those. And I would play like, you know, either an open world 3D Mario or you know, a Metroidvania. Like 2D Mario.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. There's other ways to reshuffle these levels. Or Biomes. Biome Commando, which we only talk about on this show now. And it has Biome in the name, if you remember. That has like a map screen. You can go back to previous levels and do things with things in them. It has a map screen handles. And so does Mario World. Like we could use a little Bit more of that type of game, I think. Like they don't need to be, you know, corridor based connected areas. Like it is kind of cool to revisit things with more weapons and do stuff like that way, but then to have like a cool other way to shuffle up those levels.

[Damon Hatfield]

Biomic Commando. I can see one perfectly. Think of a game like Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown. But it's Tomb Raider. It's 2D 2D Tomb Raider. Metroidvania. Lara is very acrobatic. Be jumping around, flipping around in like a. A platformer Metroidvania game. I could see it. Let's, let's.

[Justin Davis]

That's a good idea.

[Damon Hatfield]

Let's put Crystal Dynamics on that one.

[Sam Claiborne]

What's the dung beetle pinball game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh man.

[Mark Medina]

Yoku's Island Express.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Think about a game like Yoku's Island Express. But yeah, just. Just like that. Just another one of those.

[Damon Hatfield]

What did that developer go on to do? They do.

[Justin Davis]

Which one? Yoku's Island Express.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. Who is that? So this is by Villa. Villa Gorilla.

[Sam Claiborne]

I bet even Mark would like that. Metroidvania.

[Mark Medina]

I did devs react for it, but I don't remember if I played it much.

[Damon Hatfield]

I don't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's a good one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, this is Ron in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Just wanted to shout out and say y' all have been a lifesaver since having to return to the office full time back in February this year. Gamescoop helps make at least one of those commutes bearable. Writing in to let Justin know that after playing nearly every Metroid and Castlevania over the years, I finally dipped my toes into Super Metroid and it doesn't disappoint in the least. Game is a blast. Playing this back in 94 must have been incredible. No wonder Justin loves it so much. I also can't get enough of that perfect sound the bombs make.

[Justin Davis]

The bombs do make a really good sound. Yeah, I mean Super Metroid, you know, it is like modern Metroidvanias have more interesting movement options and you can mantle up on ledges and stuff like that. Like Super Metroid is my favorite game of all time. But it is getting old enough now that if you didn't play it when it was new, certain stuff about how Samus moves and how you flow through the game, I could see sort of frustrating gamers that have a more modern sensibility, but something that the game absolutely gets right. That it still outclasses many games released now more than 30 years later is in its atmosphere and its Vibes and that this alien planet that you're exploring, you know, feels like when you're in the wrecked alien spaceship. It's like, it makes sense how these areas fit together as you go deeper and deeper into the planet. It's more hellish and there's, you know, lava everywhere. And like the way that those biomes are laid out is kind of like, has a logic behind it and there's, there's a, there's a wordless story being told with the way that Samus is sort of like, you know, pursuing her goals in a way that a lot of other Metroidvanias aren't quite as thoughtful about their environmental design.

[Damon Hatfield]

I would say, yeah, absolutely succeeds on Vibes. It's crazy that like this is. It was a Nintendo made game back then that had a totally different feel from anything else Nintendo had ever made at the time. Right from the title screen it's like, whoa, this is a very different sort of mood piece from Nintendo.

[Sam Claiborne]

Dead scientists.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, I've shared before that like, you know, when I played Super Metroid, I was playing it on an old crappy CRT and I did not know those were dead scientists until I just, I didn't. I couldn't see them on the title screen clearly enough. And then I played it, you know, later on a more modern television and

[Mark Medina]

was like, oh, I don't know what you're referring to. I need it. It's on the title screen.

[Justin Davis]

The title screen of the game is, is a broken Metroid container, is a scene. Yeah. Where a Metroid is broken out and there's a, there's dead scientists and you know, strewn around the room in pixel art.

[Mark Medina]

Oh yeah, poor.

[Sam Claiborne]

They got the, the energy sucked out of them.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, that's what you see right there. Very, very, very cool game. We're talking a lot about Metroidvanias and old games this episode and that's okay. Right now get up to 20% off select online storage solutions put heavy duty

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[Mark Medina]

KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor. The colonel made his $10 Tuesday bucket so full with eight pieces of juicy crispy chicken or tenders that it might just last you till Wednesday if you've got that kind of self control. I mean some people want leftovers, others are more into riders. Right nowers. The Colonel lived so we could chicken. 10 bucks, 8 pieces. One big deal with KFC. $10 Tuesdays.

[Damon Hatfield]

Prices and participation may vary. Taxes, tips and fees extra. This is Talon in Alaska. Talon points out that he's 28 and says my brother in law gifted me a handheld emulator for Christmas. I need some recommendations from my favorite oldies.

[Mark Medina]

Hold up.

[Damon Hatfield]

Are we the oldies? We his favorite oldies.

[Justin Davis]

That can't be right.

[Sam Claiborne]

We're the Damies or no, we're the Scoopies. You're the dam. Damon. Damie. No, we're the Scoops.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, Damon and the Scoops.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep. Mark is too old for Metroidvanias though that, that part is true.

[Mark Medina]

Way too elderly for that one.

[Damon Hatfield]

Alan says, I'd love to hear some personal recommendations for the NES Super Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo 64. I've already saved buying a Commando. Not to worry. I just finished Super Mario RPG for the first time. I'm lining up to play Super Metroid, link to The Past and Star Fox 64. Three of my old timers.

[Mark Medina]

There you go.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Justin Davis]

So what, just random, random suggestions? I mean, here's my.

[Damon Hatfield]

Make it thoughtful.

[Justin Davis]

Well, and like here's my kind of hot take about the N64 generation is I think, I think Diddy Kong Racing is better than Mario Kart 64.

[Mark Medina]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

And I also, I don't know that I'm going to say it's better, but I replayed both Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie recently and I think I'm like, ooh, Banjo might be better than Mario 64? No, I mean I would have never have said that until this most recent replay.

[Sam Claiborne]

I mean I can see the take. I'm just like, I didn't think that you would. You would ever say that.

[Mark Medina]

I didn't think anybody would ever say that. But here we are. It's the world I live in now.

[Sam Claiborne]

Once you get to that click clock

[Justin Davis]

woods, man, there's a mod of Donkey Kong 64 that lets you swap characters on the fly. So you don't need to go back to the character swap pads. It fixes and it legitimately like it. Honest to God, it makes that game go up to 2 points on like a top 10 review scale. Because the way that the game worked before is you would see a collectible that only one character could collect and like a. That's already really shitty and bad. But like they did it on purpose where you would need to be one character to unlock a door and then in that door would be another character's collectible. And so then you would have to go back and switch and come back. And so being able to swap on the fly in the modded version is. It makes that game actually really good.

[Mark Medina]

Man, I remember going through the things tooth. Yeah, this is a great game though.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, yeah. Very, very playable on Xbox too. Listen, on any nes, I would recommend Shadowgate, which I talk about quite often, one of my favorite games of all time. And I realize it's not going to be for everyone. It's a point and click adventure, but it's a, it's a game where you. It's an 8 bit Nintendo game where you explore a creepy castle in first person and the music is fantastic. It has a great personality and sense of humor. So it's just like a really, really cool piece that stands out for being unique and original on the nes. There are two other games that are like this from the same developer, but Shadowgate is way better than Uninvited or Deja Vu. So I'd love to HEAR Someone who's 20 years younger than me what they think about Shadowgate.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, there's a bunch of series on the NES that are pretty good overall. The Adventure island starting with two is really good and then Mega man starting with two is extremely good. So don't miss those. They're also really good with save states, which is nice. But yeah, generally things made by Nintendo are worth revisiting. So if you go and just look up all the games that Nintendo made, check out what they made for their Black Box releases early on like Balloon Fight and CLU Cool Land, stuff like that. Because there's elements of Nintendo games that have maintained throughout their entire existence that even go back before the Nintendo that just are part of their toys and stuff like that. And it's just fun to delve into for that reason, so I recommend that. And then there's a bunch of licensed games that are fun to just look at just to be like what they made a game based on this. Damon and I used to love like putting on like the Predator in the Office or like, you know, any, any, any movie that they made a game for. Like check it out. It's funny.

[Justin Davis]

There's usually pretty cool like there's eight bit versions of, you know, the Jaws theme song and the Gremlins theme song and all that stuff in the, in the nes games.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gremlins 2 is pretty cool. Good. That's a pretty good game.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah, it is.

[Mark Medina]

It's also a home improvement Super Nintendo game.

[Sam Claiborne]

That game's pretty awesome.

[Mark Medina]

Dinosaurs.

[Sam Claiborne]

It's really rare.

[Mark Medina]

Full house Tournament fighter. I, I, I would always recommend the Castlevania games, specifically 3 and 4.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Mark Medina]

Very, very good games. But I also think one holds up as like still one of the best side scrollers ever. Yeah. Castlevania is an easy win and very playable on those like handheld smaller screens.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

What the heck game is this? What are we looking at here?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, that is, you're honest Tim the Tool Man Taylor.

[Sam Claiborne]

You're on a set that's a dinosaur like Tomb Raider set and so you're fighting through it with your staple gun.

[Justin Davis]

Smart.

[Damon Hatfield]

This is a fast paced game. Or Heidi, It's a rare game on Game Boy. I would Recommend Donkey Kong 94.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, that's the one.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's, it's, it's, it's so good.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, cool.

[Sam Claiborne]

Game was a little rough to revisit Myths and Monsters. The Kid Icarus game is kind of neat.

[Justin Davis]

Neat.

[Damon Hatfield]

I never played that one.

[Justin Davis]

That's a good one too.

[Mark Medina]

I have a weird take, but this is probably just because of nostalgia. But I actually prefer Game Boy's Link's Awakening versus the Switch version because I just remember each screen in Link's Awakening and that, you know, the, you know, it's like the screen scrolls and you're like yep, I know what screen this is. I remember playing Link's Awakening on Switch and not having that same type of like, like I didn't like it as much. Right. Because the screen moves with you so it's like you don't have that like I remember this screen. It's like because you know, when we're kids we play these games over and over and over so that I, I would always suggest to go back and try this game out. I love it.

[Justin Davis]

I mean Zelda, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages are two. I, I was going to say underrated. I don't know. They're pretty appropriate. Yeah. Two of the, two of the best in all the games.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I think I never played Minish Cap, but I think a lot of people like Minish Cap as well.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah. I replayed half of that game over Christmas break and I forgot how the much the cap is like a real asshole. He's just very snarky.

[Damon Hatfield]

Was Minish Cap also Capcom? Yeah, it's just crazy that Capcom has made three Zelda games. Okay. All of that brings us to video game 20 questions. But maybe Justin needs to excuse himself. Or do you want to hang around for five minutes?

[Justin Davis]

I gotta go because I have a band concert. It's not for me, for one of my children. Okay. Good luck, gentlemen. Mark, you're gonna hard carry, right?

[Mark Medina]

Oh, yeah. Back it up. I got this.

[Damon Hatfield]

Make a good face to leave us on to Justin and Godspeed. Okay. What? No, he's not frozen. When's he gonna freeze? When you have to disconnect.

[Mark Medina]

There you go.

[Damon Hatfield]

Very excited to be here.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, I love it.

[Damon Hatfield]

Our suggestion this week comes from Ash, who says hello, Damon, Sam, Justin, and whoever else is lucky enough to be on the best podcast in the world this week. My name is ash. I'm a 42 year old father of two young boys, ages 6 and 9, from White Horse, Yukon, which is right beside Alaska. And I'm a lifelong gamer. I've been listening to your show for over 10 years now. Thought it was finally time to write in recently. In the last year or so, my oldest son has been listening to the show with me. And his absolute favorite thing is video game 20 questions. So much so that he constantly comes up with games to make me play video game 20 Questions with him. My suggestion this week. Week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that I've redacted more than any other game. And with that, let the question begin.

[Sam Claiborne]

I hope it's. I'm wondering if it's repurchased.

[Mark Medina]

I. I had to put a tab over Justin's face. I can't. I can't do it. Sorry. Can you read the redacted part one more time?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, man.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, you just want to hear it.

[Sam Claiborne]

As I was reading it, it's just.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Redacted. That got redacted. Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

My suggestion this week is redacted for redacted because it is the game that I've redacted more than any other game.

[Sam Claiborne]

And I think it's repurchased.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, could be. Oh, so it's probably Skyrim is the only game you can repurchase that many times.

[Sam Claiborne]

This come out after 2010?

[Damon Hatfield]

Nope.

[Mark Medina]

Not Skyrim. Okay, let's see. Not after 2000. 10.

[Damon Hatfield]

10.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this come out this century?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

So between 2000 2010. Okay. Was this game exclusive to one platform?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Was it a Nintendo platform?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sony.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That's five.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. Okay. So we are in the PS2, PS3 era.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this start its life as a PS3 game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Yes.

[Justin Davis]

Two.

[Mark Medina]

Okay. Is this game first party no.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, it could be PSP or Vita.

[Mark Medina]

True that. True. Dad.

[Sam Claiborne]

Did this start its Life as a PS2 game?

[Mark Medina]

Yes. All right. Not first party. Alrighty.

[Sam Claiborne]

Japan. Question.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Yeah. Was this game developed in Japan? Japan?

[Damon Hatfield]

Nope.

[Mark Medina]

Well, that rules out a lot.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Especially the exclusives.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Like final fantasies, Kingdom Hearts, all that.

[Sam Claiborne]

And it wasn't made. It wasn't published by Sony. Is that right?

[Mark Medina]

Right. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Interesting.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Let's see. Thinking Grand Theft Autos, stuff like that. Let's see. Did this game have more than one game in the series on PS2?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes. That is 10.

[Justin Davis]

Oh. Oh,

[Mark Medina]

that's interesting.

[Sam Claiborne]

Does this. Does this series have a game that's yet to come out that's been announced?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Mark Medina]

Not gta.

[Damon Hatfield]

No, not gta.

[Sam Claiborne]

Well, they weren't exclusive. I mean, they were, but briefly they were.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this game still only on Sony platforms?

[Damon Hatfield]

This game is still only on Sony. This game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Interesting.

[Mark Medina]

Okay, so it's a game that's part of a series that eventually probably went everywhere, but multiple of the same series were on the PS2.

[Sam Claiborne]

Who would have developed a game like that? This is confusing.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, Something like Tony Hawk, but I think Tony Hawk was everywhere. I think it was like even on 64 and stuff.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, there's like one that was just for P.S. or something like. I mean, sports is kind of likely here.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Yeah. Is this game like sports adjacent?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Mark Medina]

So it could also be racing, need for speed, stuff like that.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah. Is. Is this a game that you ride something around on four wheels?

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, it's not racing or skating.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

That's great. What? What? What? Maybe it's not wheels at all though. Maybe it's snowboarding or skiing or.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

This is interesting.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is there a. Do you. Do you. Is there any sort of vehicle, whether powered or unpowered. Powered, that you. That the humans move around on in this game?

[Damon Hatfield]

No. That's 15.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay. Okay, so at 15, we've determined that it's not a drivey, racy, extreme sporty game of that nil, but it could be just a regular ass sport game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Game.

[Mark Medina]

I did say sport adjacent, but I mean, I don't know what else that would mean if it's not a sports game.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this a game about a. A. Oh, maybe it's like a. A wacky golf game. Although those are always Japanese though.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Like everybody's golf.

[Sam Claiborne]

And.

[Mark Medina]

And what's. What's that series from Hot Shots. Golf.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this based on a. A non or. I'll just do it the other way. Is this based on a Team sport.

[Damon Hatfield]

No.

[Sam Claiborne]

Couple more questions.

[Damon Hatfield]

Three more questions.

[Mark Medina]

Not that I think Damon would choose Madden 04, but still. Yeah, boy.

[Sam Claiborne]

What do you do when you're not. And you know, when you're doing something sporty, but you're not playing a team sport or riding around by yourself on something?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it's PS2. So this is before like PlayStation Move. What's up, Damon?

[Damon Hatfield]

I just. The question that Sam asked was, is there a vehicle powered or unpowered that you. Something around?

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it could still be skiing or snowboarding maybe. It's a snowboarding game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Game?

[Mark Medina]

Yeah. Were the SSX games, were those PS2 games?

[Sam Claiborne]

I don't know. Yeah, I, I, well, I know that 1080 was the 64 exclusive.

[Justin Davis]

Right?

[Mark Medina]

Right.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this, is this a snow sport game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, I don't think I can get this. I mean, it could be if it's a series. Was around though. Maybe you can help with that.

[Mark Medina]

That my, like, I could only think of like SSX Tricky. But like, I don't know, like, is that the first one? And Is that one PS2 exclusive?

[Sam Claiborne]

That's still not. That wasn't a 64 series. I don't know, 1080.

[Mark Medina]

I thought 1080 was. Yeah.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Mark Medina]

I feel like we gotta do the cheating question.

[Sam Claiborne]

No, I mean, that won't really help us with this, I don't think. Well, I mean, I guess it would. Yeah, I guess you're.

[Mark Medina]

The cheating question is, is. Have we mentioned the game in the past one minute?

[Sam Claiborne]

No. Have we mentioned it at all?

[Mark Medina]

Yes, we have. Okay.

[Sam Claiborne]

I guess it's SSX Tricky.

[Mark Medina]

Could be.

[Sam Claiborne]

Or just ssx. Yeah, it's just called ssx.

[Mark Medina]

It could be.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is. I don't know how to narrow that down.

[Damon Hatfield]

Don't you?

[Mark Medina]

How many questions do we have left?

[Damon Hatfield]

One question.

[Mark Medina]

Oh, no.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this game Tricky? Is that what you want us to ask?

[Damon Hatfield]

There's a very, A question you ask very.

[Sam Claiborne]

Okay.

[Damon Hatfield]

Often that would solve this whole situation for you.

[Sam Claiborne]

Oh, is this the first in the series?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes.

[Sam Claiborne]

Is this ssx?

[Damon Hatfield]

Ssx, yes.

[Mark Medina]

We got there. Yay.

[Sam Claiborne]

I can't believe it.

[Mark Medina]

I, I'll be. I thought, I didn't know. Oh God, Justin's back. I didn't know if like Tricky was the first one in the game.

[Sam Claiborne]

I was, I vaguely remember that being a Modif.

[Mark Medina]

Got it.

[Damon Hatfield]

SSX. It was a launch title for PS2 and it's still, it never came to any other platform. It's still just a PS2.

[Sam Claiborne]

It looks like it has a good frame rate.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, it looks great. So what was the redacted thing without all the redacts?

[Damon Hatfield]

My suggestion is SSX snowboarding for PS2. Because it is the game that I've started over from the beginning more than any other game. And he has an explanation. My not so fun reason for starting it from the beginning so many times is not because I love the game that much, but out of necessity because when I bought my PS2 on day one from my local game store, they only had SSX available and no memory cards. So every day, every day I would come home from school, start the game over and try to get a little further than last time for over a month until I was finally able to get a memory card. And in my Groundhog Day like suffering.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah, you would get really good at it that doing.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, he kills that first stage. I, I was the same with like final dys 10. Like I would get to like when, when Santa attacks the ship. Ship. And then I would just like pause it and pray that nobody turned it off or anything.

[Sam Claiborne]

Great.

[Mark Medina]

And because I didn't have a memory card because like, you know, we just didn't know.

[Sam Claiborne]

That is the meanest thing. Well, thanks Ash. And, and the kid.

[Mark Medina]

That's a good one.

[Sam Claiborne]

Really, really good one.

[Mark Medina]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah. I think Tricky is the second one and that came to other platforms, but this game is just a PlayStation.

[Sam Claiborne]

Maybe even GameCube. I think that one.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think so too. Yeah. I think it came to all three. Cool.

[Mark Medina]

This looks great.

[Sam Claiborne]

Sorry. Who developed it?

[Justin Davis]

It.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's ea. They developed it and published it.

[Sam Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Justin Davis]

Wow.

[Sam Claiborne]

Crazy. It looks like a Japanese game for some reason, but it's cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

But EA Montreal though, so if you had asked if it was made in America.

[Sam Claiborne]

Right, right, right, right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Let's see who was this good Olympics.

[Sam Claiborne]

Olympics pick too. I've been watching the, I watched downhill. I don't think it's called downhill. It's called like freestyle snowboarding. Women's the other day and it was like incredible. Like the builds they make for those are incredible.

[Damon Hatfield]

I, I used to love the Olympics so much and always watch the Olympics. But now like my like TV viewing habits have changed so much. We just don't have ever have like the TV on and I just know I never think about it to go

[Sam Claiborne]

see I have to change everything to do that.

[Justin Davis]

Yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I just, I, I, it's been, but

[Sam Claiborne]

we've been putting on like the gold zone or the best of or whatever they are. Yeah. Like on Friday nights when we're like getting ready to go somewhere so it's been fun. I've been enjoying it, usually. Plus it's in Italy. Everything they show between things, I'm like, why am I not there?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, usually. I love the Olympics. It'll be here very soon. A couple years. Crazy Ash says. Thanks for all the great insight into gaming and all the fantastic weekly entertainment you provide. I look forward to your show every week. P.S. get excited for season two of paradise next week.

[Mark Medina]

Now that's how you do believe it.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's been a little over a year and season two is here. That's how you do it. House of the Dragon.

[Sam Claiborne]

I seriously, I remember the characters and the situation. Severance, what happened.

[Mark Medina]

Yeah, I know. It's like, I don't need to. Like when. When Severance season two came out and went back and watched season one. I don't have to do that for Paradise. I'm good.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yep.

[Mark Medina]

Ready to just watch season two. Let's go.

[Damon Hatfield]

That'll be really good. So thank you for the suggestion, viewers, listeners. If you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions. Oh my God. Email them to me at the address game scoopgn.com and that is all the scoops that we have for you this week, except for an important message. It is Humble Bundle's 15th birthday and everyone is invited. Celebrate 15 years of connecting fans and gamers with good causes with the humble 15 time capsule bundle featuring games from the very first Humble Indie bundles. Right now you can score Odd Sparks, an automation adventure, Kill Knight, Inbound, Bionic Bay, Mark of the Deep, Lugaro HD, Samorost 2 Osmos. And yet it moves. This all supports child's play organization that donates toys and games to children's hospitals worldwide. Head to humblebundle.com through March 11th to start playing today. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Justin's giant face. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind this episodes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN gamesuit. And this weekend I'm going to play redacted

[Mark Medina]

sa.

[Justin Davis]

Damon, did you watch the Slay the Spire trailer?

[Mark Medina]

No.

[Justin Davis]

Oh, man. We should do a Live Reacts. A gamescoop Live Reacts.

[Damon Hatfield]

I saw it.

[Justin Davis]

Very good.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think what March 5 is early access date.

[Justin Davis]

Well, the big. I don't even. I mean, I guess it's not really. You're not super spoiler sensitive. The big feature that they showed is that it has four player co op.

[Damon Hatfield]

Ooh. Well, I don't want to do that. But that's interesting.

[Mark Medina]

I mean, I had the same reaction. I was like that's sick. I'm never going to do that, but that's sick.

[Justin Davis]

It shows like four hands, like four cartoon hands, like picking, you know, in like the between mission events that happen, like what choice do to pick and stuff like that. It looks cool. It says it has co op specific cards.