GameNOW Vol. 2, Issue 4 - Super Smash Bros. Melee [S2E6]

WEBVTT
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Hey, Ty, are you ready to game?
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When?
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Now? Now? Now? Game now?
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Sure, game now, You've got fun Factor Two old gamers
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reviewing old video game magazine reviews. I'm Ty Shelter, He's
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Aidan Moher, and we're two professional writers who grew up
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loving the video games at video game magazines in the
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nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties and two thousands. Every episode we
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take a critical look back on the games media that,
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for better and for worse, inspired us to do what
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we do. First, go to funfactorpod dot com, follow the
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show on your podcatcher of choice, leave us a rating
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review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your media.
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Who'll read the best, kindest, funniest and most insightful ones
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on the air in our letters section, Please consider becoming
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a member of fun Factor Ultra, our premium tiers that
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unlock ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and the member's only
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channels of our discord. Just go to Funfactor pod dot
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up with it on our homepage. Then help us spread
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the word. Shout us out on Blue Sky at funfactor
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pod dot com and everywhere else at fun Factor Pod.
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So, ty this is gonna spoil the flip through a
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little bit, but can you read me the letter from
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David McLeod on page one hundred and two of this
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issue of Game Now. It's called Left Breathless.
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M Dear game Now. I know a guy who's selling
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Breath of Fire Snass and Breath of Fire three PlayStation
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for thirty five dollars? Do you think I should buy them?
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David McLeod, tye.
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Like, what a wild time? The cost of retrogaming, like
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a side like thirty five bucks A loose cart of
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breath Fire one isn't much more than that Even now.
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I just find it very amusing that David was able
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to right into a gaming magazine wait weeks for a response,
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like just hoping he'd get a response period before like
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moving on his friend's games, and be like, yes, I
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will buy those two bangers from you for thirty five dollars.
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Yeah yeah, but best weeks probably more like two or
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three months months.
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Yeah, yeah, that's unreal. Can you read game Now? Is
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response there to them?
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Yeah? Sure. We called the guys at our local Funko
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land and they quoted a combined price of thirty two
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dollars for those games. Now that you know the going rate,
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you should probably use that number to knock a couple
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bucks off your buddy's asking price. Oh boy, I just like, okay.
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Obviously David should have jumped on that good deal. Great games.
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Breath Fire kind of mid it's sort of like a
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SNS one point one or sorry, ANYS one point one
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style RPG. It's it's okay, breath Fire three jit Banger,
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It's so good. But this kind of brings us to
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today's discussion topic, Tie, did you sell your games when
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you were younger?
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I well, depending on younger, I definitely did sell my
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games as I was getting into in the Super Nintendo Air,
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Like once I got a Super Nintendo. And also I
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would go and you know old games that I'd beat
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a million times and was done with. I would go
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and sell and try and roll up two, three four
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to get like half the price off a new game,
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you know what I mean, Like that kind of a thing.
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And so and then I would.
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Also skins crawling just thinking about it, Yeah, the asset
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management man.
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Yeah, well, I mean it was at the time. I mean,
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you know, they're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, You're like, oh my gosh,
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I want this new Nintendo sixty four game, and it's
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eighty dollars. Here's you know, three Super Nintendo and Nintendo
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games I don't really play anymore. They could knock forty
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thirty twenty bucks and make it a reality, right, And
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so yeah, in some ways it made sense to me.
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And then sometimes I go and go, oh yeah, let
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me bust up my old games and then staring at
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me or a bunch of like cheap used games that
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I got later because I never had a chance to
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you know, I just got them because they were there
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to be bought for like two dollars. And so I
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have the same number of games I always had, but
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half of them are games I barely played, and many
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of the ones I played a tonne of, but I
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don't have anymore.
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I was, and like still am, loath to sell or
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trade in games. I don't even like trading magic cards
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like yeah, in a trade or for store credit. And
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there the economics can benefit you, right, because you can
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trade in one card and get multiple cards, right, But
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that was never the way the game trade ins worked, right.
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You were never getting like enough value, Like games typically
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were losing value once they were released. So like you
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had to trade in multiple to get a disc count
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on one game, So like the math just wasn't even there, right,
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Like that's like diminishing returns.
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Yeah, and I stopped, I was. I stopped doing that
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once we hit like Dreamcast era right for the same right,
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like right, games got cheaper around then, too, right cheaper,
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and everybody's doing the same thing of like, oh, let
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me trade in you know last year's Madden. Okay, last
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year's Madden is two dollars because everybody has last year's
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Madden and nobody wants it, right, Like it doesn't make
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any sense.
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Yeah, So, like I have a large game collection because
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of that, Like I never sold or traded games, and
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it's not crazy. I'm not doing like YouTube like gaming
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room tours in my collection. It's not that big. But
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part of the reason that I have a pretty good
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collection is I once I hit like nineteen twenty, I
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had a job and I would just like religiously go
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around looking for used trade in games at EB games.
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I would go to video stores and they would like
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cycle through games, right, and so you know, once it
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wasn't getting rented anymore, they'd pop it in the discount
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bin and I'd go and buy it. So I got
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complete in box Pokemon gold Heart Gold with the like
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step counter. It's worth three hundred dollars now and I
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got it for what nineteen ninety nine something like that,
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you know I have, I have Vagrant Story with a
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sticker for fourteen ninety nine on it, and so like
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I like trade ins, yeah yeah, but I never gave
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back to the used game scene. We definitely did like
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temporary trades in high school though, so, like, you know,
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one person had a game that I wanted to play
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at a game they wanted to play, So like I
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ended up with my copy of Robotrek or Slapstick because
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I swapped Legend of Dragoon with an older like student
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sort of friend who wanted to play that. We just
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like never got around to returning to each other's games though,
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So I still have robo Track nice, he still has
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my coffee a Legend of Dragoon. But I think I
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came out ahead on that one a little bit, just
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considering the prices of games these days. But I think
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even back then, I understood the concept of like value appreciation,
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right like and price appreciation for these things, and I
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was like no, like it's going to be more expensive
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later to buy this. Yeah.
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Well, I was also slightly burned by my experiences in
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the uh sports card and comic book collecting world, where
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you know, I was what ten and nineteen ninety one,
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and so like we'd already reached the time where but
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I know, I know, and so like, you know, boomer
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parents were already reading on the news, Hey, everyone your
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age who kept their baseball cards and comic books is
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sitting on a fortune. And so like, you know, we
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were getting told, oh, keep all this stuff, keep on.
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Like you know, everybody was going and buying you know,
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every new comic book's number one, and putting in a
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bag and a sleeve and a board and you know,
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her medically sealing it. And it's like, hey, guess.
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What, guys.
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The reason this appreciated in value is because because ninety
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nine percent of boomers read it and stuck it under
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their bad and you know, got ruined and thrown out
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or whatever like that's there's not very many copies of them.
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That's why they're valuable. So just just sitting on everything
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like a dragon hord isn't gonna work. And most times
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I'm a bit of a hoarder in that way. I
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don't like to part of things. I like to keep things.
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If I already spent money on something, I like to
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keep it. But it's not the same thing as when
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here you have a fun co land that's like by
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cell trade. Here's the new shiny thing you want, here's
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our price list for the stuff that you have, and
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you can make your own decisions on it. And hey,
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as a kid with undiagnosed untreated ADHD, the new shiny
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thing was a pretty hard pull. And so you know,
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there was that. I'm pretty sure I told and at
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least a bonus episode the story of what happened with
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my copy of Corono trigger right.
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Yes, okay, tell it again though, I think that was
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a bonus episode.
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Yeah, yeah, okay. So a friend of mine, one of
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my best friends in high school, was going into the Navy,
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and you know, I love this guy in general, h
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and and things got a little weird at this point
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because he went into the Navy for no real reason.
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And then it was kind of hey, I'm going into
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the Navy, you never know, like I you know, we
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gotta gotta get rid. No, it was more like, you
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know who knows when we'll see each other again. We
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have to party, you know, constantly, and then like every
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time he'd come back on leave, it'd be like, we
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have to party every night for a week because I'm
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leaving and I'll never come back, you know, And then
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you'd be back five months later, Hey I'm back, you know.
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Say's this weird thing. So he was going off to
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the Navy and he's like, Hi, you know how much
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Chrono Trigger means to me, and I know how much
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you know, you know how special and important this game is.
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That's why you need to sell me your copy of
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Chrono Trigger. And I was like, I hm no, and
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he's like, yeah no, but like I need Krono Trigger
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for my own mental health and well being while I'm
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off at the Navy and you're my friend, so you
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have to sell me your copy of Crowno Trigger. And
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I was like, I don't know, I don't I don't
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want to. And so I was looking at the eBay
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and eBay it was going for about one hundred bucks
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at the time, and I was like sitting there, going,
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I don't know what to do. And of course, I
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like he was kind of expecting me to not charge
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him full price either. And I was complaining to a
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mutual friend of ours, and the mutual friend of ours
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worked at a video store at the time. He's like, dude,
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we got four copies of Crowned Trigger. I'll steal one
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and give it to you. I was like, sure, cool,
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sounds great. So I took that copy of Crowno Trigger,
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wiped it, sold it to my friend for eighty bucks
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instead of the like one hundred and four I could
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have gotten on eBay, and then went, hey, you know
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here it is, like, I know, we both love this
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game so much. Here you go, and fy I just
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I wiped all my game saves. I didn't want you
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to have to worry about keeping it, and like I
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didn't want to have to worry about, you know, keeping
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I understand. I'm okay, cool, cool to you. Great, And
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so yeah, that's that's what happened.
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And like you short sold yeah, yeah, yeah, you shorted
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the Chronal Trigger market for your buddy. That's very similar
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to how I got my copy of Chronal Trigger. Actually,
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so I was headed off to the Navy, and my
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good friend had a copy of Chrono Trigger off to
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the Navy. You just no, I just like the idea
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of like you know that meme where it's like the
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tower of blocks and then there's the one little one
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at the bottom, and it's like, I just like the
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idea of like Chrono trigger being that one like support
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pillar real because that that resonates with me obviously. But
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that's fabulous.
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I love that story.
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It's it's so good and and like your friend probably
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still doesn't know.
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Yeah, no, I mean I don't know unless he listens
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to this, I don't know, but yeah, it's yeah, as
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far as I know, he was none the wiser.
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Fabulous. Let's get to this magazine.
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Yeah, okay, well hang on, uh before we open the
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cover and get into you game now, man, and I
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cannot wait. This is all new to me. I'm so excited.
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We do need to pay a couple of bills. So
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if you're not already a member of Fun Factor Ultra
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getting ad free episodes, hang tight through the break. When
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we come back, we will flip through game now. Issue
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I'm sorry, Volume two, issue four right here on Fun Factor.
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Welcome back to fun Factor. We're two old gamers review
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old video game magazine reviews. Of course we want you
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to review us, do we get a full five point
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zero fun factor, leave us a review on Apple podcasts,
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and we will read the best, funniest, kindest, and most
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entertaining ones on the air. Okay, Aiden, what is the
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deal with game Now?
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So today we're looking at volume two, Issue four of
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game Now magazine. From what I can tell, the volume
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is sort of arbitrary. It just ticks over at the
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beginning of a new calendar year, whereas the issue numbers
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are like continuous, so January two thousand and three would
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be whatever, like issue fifteen, Volume three. I wasn't really
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very familiar with game Now, or so I thought before
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I started researching for this episode. I specifically wanted to
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pick a magazine that I hadn't really read much of before.
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But if you look in the bottom a little right
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corner right under the this is formerly Expert Gamer. So
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game Now is actually Expert Gamer, which was EGM two
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and then Electronic Gaming Money, oh spin off. So this
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is like the third and final evolution of EGM two.
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You got Squirtle, warld Total and Blastois. We're at blastoys
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now and it's changed a lot, and we'll get into
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that through the you know, the flip through and later on.
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But the issue we're looking at today is one hundred
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and eleven pages. All right, there are nineteen games reviewed
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for five different systems, which is GameCube, game Boy, Advance, Xbox, PlayStation,
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and PlayStation two. Once again, like a major standout during
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this era of games media is just how finn these
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magazines are getting. At one hundred and eleven pages, game
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Now is like about third the length of an issue
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of mid nineties EGM Now. EGM was changing, right, They
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were getting rid of a lot of the stuff that
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we are going to find during the flip through in
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this magazine, sure, and so being under that Ziff Davis umbrella,
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they were kind of like, you know, spinning off certain
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aspects of games media out of the main mags. I think,
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into stuff like game Now. As I was searching for
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an issue to cover for this episode, like I said,
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game Now stood out to me because you know, I
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was like, what's game Now? And then I opened the
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masthead and I was like, oh, I actually know all
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of these people. Oh this is as if Davis Magazine.
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Of course I know all of these people. EGM two
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spun off from Electronic Gaming Monthly as sort of a
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I don't even know how to describe it. It kind of
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like focused on niche, smaller games, whereas EGM was focusing
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more of those big mainstream hits. EGM eventually or EGM
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two sorry, EGM two became Expert Gamer, which drifted even
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like further away from stuff like reviews, features, interviews, news
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and became like really focused on like tips and tricks
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style emphasis on tips and tricks.
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Okay, this was.
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Headed by a lot of familiar names, so we're going
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to see in the masthead, which arelready mentioned, but game
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Now sort of brought. So it went from EGM too
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to Expert Gamer and now game Now, bringing the magazine
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sort of back towards its origins again reintroducing reviews, but
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kind of merging them with big like walk through and
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strategy guys and codes and tips. It feels a lot
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like a magazine looking for a purpose, especially when kind
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of considered in context with the rise of the Internet
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at the time, like something like Expert Gamer was probably
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losing relevance because you could get all those codes online
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or those tips or those strategies way before the issue
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came out, and so all of a sudden you had
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to look at like, hey, what can we offer as
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a value for this physical magazine?
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Yeah, and aiden I'm I'm thinking of I just saw
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this past week on Blue Sky's somebody posted a game
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Facts pull of the day in like two thousand and four,
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and also like last week, so hey, like what age
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are you in age brackets and like seventy percent of
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the site was like between ten and twelve, and yeah,
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thirteen and fifteen or something like that, and now it's
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all between like it's all the same. People are literally
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all the same people, literally all the same. It's just
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like a wave the whole time. Now still going back
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at Oh, let me get on game Facts and see
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that thing.
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And yeah, I think what was happening because I think
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that's a pretty sharp observation, because I think game Now
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was maybe targeted to younger kids, like younger readers, the
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people who were reading EGM and game players like seven
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or eight years prior. They're growing up. EGM is like
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changing with them, right, growing up a bit with them. Yeah,
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I think game Now was was intended to sort of
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appeal to that next generation of gamer who wasn't necessarily
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old enough to be interested and developer interviews or high
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in the scenes you know uh e three press stuff right,
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they wanted codes or strategies or whatever, and that's what
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I think, you know, expert gamer, but specifically game nows
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switch over to being like a magazine with previews and
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reviews and some news, but also all of those tips.
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The Masthead appears all the way back at the magazine
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on page one oh nine, sidling up to a preview
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of the next issue, along with previews of Ziff's other
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gaming mags like Computer Gaming World, EGM and o PM.
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I'm not gonna flip all the way back there. I
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don't want to do like spoilers. But the Masthead itself
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features like a lot of names that are gonna come
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up over and over and over again this season because
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ZIF was getting so big, right and magazines from Ziff
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Davis was starting to dominate. We've got fun factors season
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two mainstay Simon Cox, of course we've talked to on
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several episodes already, fellow britt John Davison, who would like
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really make his mark at least with me with one
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up dot Com in a few years. We have Ethan Einhorn,
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who we spoke about a couple of episodes ago and
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is responsible for many of the world's worst games. Now.
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After leaving Games Media, he made a bunch of sonic games.
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Phil Theobald, who I recently filled in for on the
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Player one podcast, which he co hosts with Chris Johnston
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and fun Factor bestie Greg Stewart, who might be in chat.
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I can't see chat right now, but he's often here
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watching US Record editor chief Dan Leigh. He left games
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journalism not long after this, in two thousand and two,
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pivoting to marketing and communication. He currently has a bunch
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of initials after his name on LinkedIn, which like, I'm
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easily impressed. That impresses me. He's listed there as the
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quote executive director at Western to Page Special Recreation Associate Siation.
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I don't know what any of those words mean, but
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it sounds impressive. Uh, we've got the full dimers. But
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there were also contributing editors Gary Mallahan, Derek Collins, Kenneth
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slim Miller and Shane man God Bettenhausen, who we can
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thank for those l SHOADI denhim jeans that everybody loves.
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I was. I was looking up Shane Betton Houson because like,
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where do I know that from? But yeah, he's been with.
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Uh, he's been with Sony for a very long time, notably,
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and we will, I'm sure get to Shane Bettenhausen and
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Luke Smith and all of those guys in a later season.
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But Shane was of course a big part of One
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up dot Com and One Up Yours, which was like
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the video game podcast that sort of figured it out
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before anyone else. But he was an unabashed Sony fanboy,
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and I've never been able to figure out if it
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was a bit, if he was in character or or what.
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But he did end up working for so so and
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is responsible. I think for a long time he did
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like indie outreach, and so he was like working to
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bring a lot of really cool games, like smaller indie
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studio games to PlayStation. Later in two thousand and two,
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in November, z IF actually moved its gaming magazines from Chicago,
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where this issue was made, to San Francisco. Only associate
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editors Phil Theobald and Ethan Einhorn made the move with
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the magazine so later this year, almost an entire turnover
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of staff, but even in spite of a major like
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stylish redesign to bring the look and feel of the
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magazine Closer to EGM Game Now folded after twenty seven issues,
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but many of the most familiar names, like Cox and Davison,
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Theobald Bettenhousen ended up moving on to continue to work
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at EGM and one op dot com. Shane Bettenhausen ended
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up coming in house despite mean like a freelancer here
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on this episode, this episode, this issue at least once right,
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we had to get that in there, have to do it.
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Yeah, stay tuned for the my perfect console mentioned sure
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00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:21.079
to come yet this episode, Simon Cox episode Perfect, There
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00:22:21.119 --> 00:22:22.839
we go, There we go, There we go.
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00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:24.559
Oh, and that we got into games media at the
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00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:24.920
wrong come.
404
00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:27.119
Oh yeah, of course, of course, of course.
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But let's take a look at the magazine itself, because
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00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:35.039
I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in here.
407
00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:39.319
Absolutely, yeah, we'll do that. I was just uh thinking
408
00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:44.079
about how how close uh young Patrick Kleppik he just
409
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:47.480
barely missed the boat on being able to break into
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00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:50.960
the industry in his actual hometown. Must have missed it
411
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:54.000
by like two or three years. Instead he had to,
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you know, go move to San Francisco at whatever age
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he did.
414
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:00.880
Yeah, take that, but didn't he hang out at the
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00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:02.000
Chicago offices.
416
00:23:02.039 --> 00:23:04.720
Probably. Yeah, yeah, he was like a little little bit.
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00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:07.440
We should on some of these episodes.
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00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:11.119
He actually I got him on my old my last
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00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:14.599
podcast on the NFL, so we did. We had a
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00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:17.279
bonus episode where he came and talked to NFL with us,
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00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:20.119
which is pretty sweet, excellent and yeah, if you like
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00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:23.880
remap radio and you get the bonus episodes. Actually, their
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00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:28.039
latest where Patrick and Rob Zacney talk about being Chicago
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00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:32.039
sports fans and how much it sucks. The latest episode
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00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:35.119
just dropped and was almost three hours long, which is
426
00:23:35.279 --> 00:23:39.559
very I'm sorry, is Sock's been a Chicago sports fan? Yeah, well,
427
00:23:39.599 --> 00:23:40.720
I mean the bit because this is the.
428
00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:43.640
Black Hawks winning like multiple Stanley Cups with the entire
429
00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:44.839
Michael Jordan brun.
430
00:23:44.839 --> 00:23:48.079
Well, Yeah, that's the thing is is with like, didn't
431
00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:51.720
the Cubs want Socks just win the Pennant? Like, yes,
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00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:54.200
the White Sox are good, they're both Cubs fans. The
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00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:56.759
clubs won it in twenty sixteen, and then, as many
434
00:23:56.799 --> 00:23:59.200
people have been saying lately, that seems to have opened
435
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the portal to the darkest timeline.
436
00:24:01.079 --> 00:24:04.559
Yes, I know that was absolutely Well, what was what
437
00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:06.440
was the streak? It was one hundred and six years. Yeah,
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00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:08.599
something like that. It wasn't that the White Sox or something.
439
00:24:08.759 --> 00:24:10.640
Wasn't that the White Sox, not the Cub No, it.
440
00:24:10.640 --> 00:24:16.400
Was the Cubs and then the White Sox, right, so
441
00:24:16.400 --> 00:24:18.279
so because you know, they play in differently. So the
442
00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:20.960
White Sox are in the American League, clubs are in
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00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:25.920
the National League. The clubs are associated with like the
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downtown on the North Side more and then the White
445
00:24:30.759 --> 00:24:34.799
Socks are associated more with the South Side. There's also
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traditionally a class and race component associated with those fan bases. Right, So,
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Chicago Pope is a White Sox fan because they were
448
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a poor, second generation kids living on the South Side.
449
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:55.359
Right do you think that like the White Sox Pope
450
00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:58.240
like woke pope too, do you think it's his mission
451
00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:03.000
to like ascend through the church to like undo the curse? Yeah,
452
00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:06.359
this timeline could be like it kind of feels that way.
453
00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:09.000
Yeah, the real curse, I mean, I mean they seem
454
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to be superseding it at the moment, but the real
455
00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:17.759
problem is the owner Jerry Ryinsdorf, who uh own owned
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00:25:17.759 --> 00:25:21.319
the Bulls through all their great years and then basically
457
00:25:21.359 --> 00:25:23.640
made sure that not a dollar went to the White
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sox so for a very long time. They got a
459
00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:31.559
new park that was the worst new park since Tropicana Field.
460
00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:35.640
For those who watched the last episode, New Baseballcat. By
461
00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:39.240
the way, New Komiskey is rough. So anyway, sorry, sorry
462
00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:42.759
to Derail, I'm sorry. I apologize to everyone. I could
463
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do sports forever. It's time for the flip through tie.
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Yes, February two thousand and two. We're going to ignore
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that you skipped ahead to summer two thousand two in
466
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the last episode because that was like a weird quarterly magazine.
467
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Doesn't count. February two thousand and two. I have escaped
468
00:26:06.440 --> 00:26:10.319
January two thousand and two, but only barely, because man,
469
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.680
this period of time was so jam packed. Yes, like
470
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what have we covered Final Fantasy ten and Metal Gear
471
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Solid two and Halo? We didn't even get to like
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reviews of GTA three. Now we have Super Smash Brothers
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Melee on the cover of Game Now issue four. Can
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you paint a word picture for our listeners of this
475
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cover time?
476
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I would be honored. I would be honored to Game
477
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Now you have the big clean sanseraf red two slightly
478
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different shades of red for Game and Now Now is
479
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:48.519
all capitalized as capital G and again it's it's small caps,
480
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:51.960
so there's no lowercase letters happening here the game. Now
481
00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:57.599
we have four colored dots which seem to correspond roughly
482
00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:01.039
to their invoking face buttons on a controller, right, they're
483
00:27:01.079 --> 00:27:05.039
not the exact specific Famicom yes, right, so, and then
484
00:27:05.079 --> 00:27:08.920
as a Super Smash Brothers Melee Cheat to Win is
485
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:13.519
text overlaid Super Smash Brothers Melee Unlock Everything Special Moves list,
486
00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:16.680
And then we have the whole three D rendered Super
487
00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:22.559
Smash Brothers Melee Cast, high quality render on a perfectly
488
00:27:22.720 --> 00:27:28.279
flat desert ground with a perfectly stock blue and white
489
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:33.880
cloud sky. H but all the polygons available went into
490
00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:37.759
this rendering of the Nintendo Cast. And yeah, then of
491
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:40.160
course a couple other things Editors two thousand and one
492
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:44.799
awards over three thousand, three thousand cheats and tips for
493
00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:48.319
all systems. And I'm the more I look at this,
494
00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:52.200
the more I think you're right that this is attempting
495
00:27:52.279 --> 00:27:57.759
to target kind of this the underserved niche Yeah, that
496
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:01.119
all the other games, by going up market with our
497
00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:05.480
age cohort, are leaving behind, right, like kids that are
498
00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:07.279
seeing this mean, oh my god, I want all the
499
00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:11.160
Smash Brothers moves are not being like I want CPI
500
00:28:11.240 --> 00:28:15.079
atne portraits of Peter MOLLINEU Like that's just not that's
501
00:28:15.160 --> 00:28:17.839
just not what they want yet, right exactly exactly, I.
502
00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:26.400
Think, like to me, the cheat to win cheat like
503
00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:31.559
big bowld yellow like impact font with a drop shadow, overtop,
504
00:28:31.880 --> 00:28:36.920
overtop the name of the game, like obscuring Super Smash Bros.
505
00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:39.839
Melee Like that sent me ty, But I think it
506
00:28:39.880 --> 00:28:42.480
tells you so much. This is such a departure from
507
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:45.960
what we were seeing typically in these game mags, and
508
00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000
I do think, uh, the redesign that they went through,
509
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:51.559
like in November of this year, so several months after this,
510
00:28:52.039 --> 00:28:56.559
but not too long. The covers didn't change too much,
511
00:28:56.799 --> 00:28:58.359
that vibe didn't change too much. It was more of
512
00:28:58.359 --> 00:29:01.319
an interior redesign. But I think they wanted to stand
513
00:29:01.319 --> 00:29:05.960
out and appeal to absolutely a different crowd than you know, OHPM,
514
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:10.799
EGM and CGW. But let's start flipping through, because there's
515
00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:13.000
a lot in this magazine that I think is uh
516
00:29:13.079 --> 00:29:14.960
is worth looking at quapu La.
517
00:29:15.240 --> 00:29:17.000
Looking at this cover, I'd feel safe buying it for
518
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:19.400
a ten year old as approsed to those British ads.
519
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:22.359
Well, I don't really have that in the script. This
520
00:29:22.480 --> 00:29:25.119
is this probably won't make the episode, but the ads
521
00:29:25.119 --> 00:29:30.039
are a lot tamer in this magazine too, which is interesting. Yeah,
522
00:29:30.119 --> 00:29:32.119
so that's a really good, really good poll there.
523
00:29:32.519 --> 00:29:38.839
Okay, oh wait, my script interesting that my Life in
524
00:29:38.920 --> 00:29:45.079
Gaming documentary on EGM covers EGM two. Yeah, but like
525
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:49.640
the principles of EGM, if I'm recalling correctly, Basically, yeah,
526
00:29:49.759 --> 00:29:54.400
we made EGM two because like we could. I think
527
00:29:54.440 --> 00:29:56.640
it was like fine, but it just it just kind
528
00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:59.440
of sucked. It just like wasn't quite as good anyway,
529
00:29:59.480 --> 00:29:59.920
moving on.
530
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.160
Well, it seemed like, yeah, almost like they had the
531
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:05.000
capacity and it was like, oh, well, we can't fit
532
00:30:05.039 --> 00:30:10.000
these stories in the main issue. So but in any case, yeah, okay,
533
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:14.640
let's try this all again. Flipping forward to page six,
534
00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:19.039
we have like an image heavy table of content spread
535
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:22.680
across two pages. There's like an editorial from e I
536
00:30:22.759 --> 00:30:27.119
see Dan Lahy with like nice line art and ink portrait.
537
00:30:27.200 --> 00:30:31.759
It looks great. But again, looking at this makes me
538
00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:36.200
think it was geared or like, yeah, geared towards a
539
00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:39.960
younger audience. There's a big emphasis on pictures of games
540
00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:44.000
and a big emphasis on page number. So somebody can
541
00:30:44.039 --> 00:30:46.599
open this up, you immediately see Smash Bros. You know
542
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:49.960
it's on page fifty two. So it's more about recognizing
543
00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:53.599
what game you want to walk like read about, then
544
00:30:53.759 --> 00:30:58.079
going through it in terms of like sections or you know,
545
00:30:58.240 --> 00:30:59.839
editorial purpose.
546
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.240
This reminds me aiden years and years ago. There was
547
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:06.440
a stand up who had this routine that was on
548
00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:10.640
Comedy Central. I saw it a couple of times, but
549
00:31:10.680 --> 00:31:13.559
she was like, you ever go to Denny's and like,
550
00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:18.759
you wonder why their menus are like mostly pictures. It's
551
00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:23.839
because Denny's caters to the super stupid and the totally wasted,
552
00:31:24.759 --> 00:31:27.559
and so like when they come to take your order,
553
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:35.240
all you gotta do is be like, yeah, is it
554
00:31:35.319 --> 00:31:39.039
like again for kids? Like, yeah, there's ice Climb fifty two.
555
00:31:39.559 --> 00:31:43.480
That's the Mega Man. That's Mega Man seventy nine. I
556
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:48.440
turned like the crazy Taxi. That's crazy taxi. I know
557
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:51.440
a taxi when I see one. I'm nine years old.
558
00:31:51.559 --> 00:31:52.640
Turn to page sixty three.
559
00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:55.920
I mean, who's not flipping the page sixty four for
560
00:31:56.079 --> 00:32:02.759
a Zurich? Oh but that's really interesting because like I
561
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:04.640
was saying before the show. I was just traveling. I
562
00:32:04.680 --> 00:32:06.160
was in France for a bit and I would go
563
00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:09.559
to restaurants solo, and I speak like a little bit
564
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:12.559
of French just from being Canadian, but like I'd have
565
00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:17.039
to kind of like look at the menus and be like, uh,
566
00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:19.359
I think I know what I'm ordering, but like a
567
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.680
picture would have been like oh yeah that and just
568
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:23.359
point that pasta.
569
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:25.480
Like so I took I took French in high school.
570
00:32:26.160 --> 00:32:29.720
There was every like three years or something, the French
571
00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:32.920
Club would take a trip to France. Yeah, and my
572
00:32:33.319 --> 00:32:35.799
French teacher, my high school French teacher, was like, yeah,
573
00:32:35.799 --> 00:32:38.480
like a couple of trips ago. There's this like stand,
574
00:32:38.839 --> 00:32:40.759
you know, like a one food stand type of place.
575
00:32:40.839 --> 00:32:44.359
It was called Frosty and it sounds like they basically
576
00:32:44.359 --> 00:32:47.880
sold Wendy's Frosties, right, but like you know, and so
577
00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:51.680
you know, we had been talking about like verb subject
578
00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:55.519
order and stuff, right and like adjective order, and she
579
00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:58.200
was like yeah, so like a student comes up as
580
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:05.519
like yeah, stuck lot Frosty and they're like what like
581
00:33:06.279 --> 00:33:12.359
chackle lot Frosty, chockle lot Frosty, Like what, I don't
582
00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:13.599
know what, I don't know what you say, I don't know,
583
00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:15.880
and like everybody's like, I have no idea what's going on?
584
00:33:16.519 --> 00:33:21.119
And then finally he's like Frosty chockle Lot, Like oh
585
00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:26.519
oh of course, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, Frosty chockle Lot.
586
00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:29.240
We like, let's go so.
587
00:33:32.920 --> 00:33:42.519
Oh boy, amazing, okay, carrying on.
588
00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:43.279
Page one like the most.
589
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:47.160
And it is nothing but non sequitors. This is fabulous.
590
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:51.720
I love it. We're gonna skip ahead where we're actually
591
00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:54.359
going to hit up is news now, which is announcements,
592
00:33:54.559 --> 00:34:00.759
tidbits and rumors. The main feature here Rockham Sawlcome Press
593
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:05.920
Releases is kind of about how Sony hasn't had to
594
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:10.880
worry about Nintendo or Microsoft M so far, but they're
595
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:14.960
gonna one of them that never really happened. In hindsight,
596
00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:18.320
This whole like it's kind of like an op ed.
597
00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:21.639
I don't even know like what it is.
598
00:34:22.920 --> 00:34:26.559
I has just like never been more astounded than by
599
00:34:26.639 --> 00:34:30.199
the lead of this. I love the GameCube and Rock'm
600
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:34.760
Socam Press Releases GameCube Xbox. When Joe Fraser knocked Muhammad
601
00:34:34.760 --> 00:34:36.679
Ali to the canvas late in the first of the
602
00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:39.679
pairs three fights, it was clear that Ali, fresh off
603
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:42.400
his war protesting exile was going to have to deal
604
00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:45.679
with a serious title contender, Like, what the fuck is
605
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:46.159
that lead?
606
00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:47.760
What?
607
00:34:48.920 --> 00:34:51.760
I'm nine years old? I turned to this page because
608
00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:55.320
there's a picture of right cartoon whoever that is on it, right,
609
00:34:55.440 --> 00:34:58.079
Like okay, all right, Ali Fraser, let's.
610
00:34:57.880 --> 00:35:01.800
Go, and like even if you know, oh those two
611
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:06.719
Xbox first GameCube was not all ever's frasier, No, you know,
612
00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:11.519
like it's just bizarre, so strange. The next page, though,
613
00:35:11.719 --> 00:35:16.119
has a little feature about the launch of G four
614
00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:19.800
video Game TV Network. To launch, did you watch a
615
00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:21.159
lot of G four ty?
616
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:26.280
Honestly, no, Yeah, we didn't have it, so we didn't
617
00:35:26.360 --> 00:35:31.320
have it in the dorms because I was in college
618
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:34.280
at this time and we didn't have the dorm cable
619
00:35:34.360 --> 00:35:38.000
package was not nearly as good as my home cable package.
620
00:35:38.760 --> 00:35:42.679
And then my home cable package stopped being so good because,
621
00:35:43.719 --> 00:35:47.880
due to circumstances, my mom got married and moved out.
622
00:35:47.960 --> 00:35:51.639
I'm a reverse empty nester, so I actually moved back
623
00:35:51.679 --> 00:35:56.519
into my childhood home solo and had my friends as
624
00:35:56.639 --> 00:35:59.400
roommates until I got married, and then we bought my
625
00:35:59.559 --> 00:36:01.719
childhood home from my mom out.
626
00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:05.000
So then was that where you are right now, that's correct.
627
00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:06.920
Get out, Yeah, I know that.
628
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:13.480
Yeah, yeah, so I my mom always shelled out for
629
00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:16.559
the top cable package because she was a single lady
630
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:19.519
whose friends are in the TV. This is an exaggeration,
631
00:36:20.360 --> 00:36:22.800
but like you know, like both of us were big,
632
00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:26.920
huge media consumers. My mom actually worked in media advertising.
633
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:29.840
She worked at a TV station for a big chunk
634
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:33.239
of my life, my own life, and uh yeah, So anyway,
635
00:36:34.280 --> 00:36:38.719
I didn't get G four until I was until I
636
00:36:38.880 --> 00:36:40.960
was too old and had too many kids to just
637
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:44.880
sit around watching G four. So that's that's, that's that story.
638
00:36:45.679 --> 00:36:47.719
We didn't have G four in Canada as far as
639
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:49.880
I know, but we would get some of the shows
640
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:52.039
here and there, like Attack of the show I would watch.
641
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:58.199
Sometimes we had what what else? It was like Electronic
642
00:36:58.360 --> 00:37:02.599
Playground Electric Playground on G four. That's a Canadian show.
643
00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:06.440
But in any case, I think Gvoor was a great idea.
644
00:37:06.519 --> 00:37:07.559
I think it was like.
645
00:37:09.440 --> 00:37:14.480
Sort of regretful maybe in hindsight, And it's like rolling
646
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:19.840
creating the perception of like gamer culture was not great. Yes,
647
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:24.800
but let's carry on because we have spider Man, Spider Man,
648
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:30.000
Periper Rolls. Speaking of you know, kids, there's a spider Pad,
649
00:37:30.119 --> 00:37:35.400
which is a licensed Spider Man PlayStation controller that kind
650
00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:39.559
of looks like his like hips. Yeah, am I wrong? No,
651
00:37:40.119 --> 00:37:44.079
but that also looks better than most licensed controllers.
652
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:48.880
No, that controller looks really good. That is definitely the crotch,
653
00:37:49.159 --> 00:37:54.760
hips and upper thighs of his costume. The Spider Man
654
00:37:55.199 --> 00:37:57.960
action light rips.
655
00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:02.119
Look it's so good. So it's like you plug it
656
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:05.639
into the like the the link cable slot like a
657
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:09.840
like a regular light on a GBA, like the first
658
00:38:09.880 --> 00:38:13.320
generation GBA. But it's like Spider Man. If you're not
659
00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:15.239
watching the video version, it's like Spider Man is like
660
00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:16.559
holding up a light.
661
00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:20.119
Yeah, and it's like the arms are like straight out
662
00:38:20.199 --> 00:38:22.559
and then holding a light back down at the screen,
663
00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:26.079
which if you had a first generation GBA as I did,
664
00:38:26.239 --> 00:38:29.360
necessary it does look like it's two lights, which is
665
00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:31.440
an improvement over the ones that I had. But Ty,
666
00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:33.719
what I really need is for you to describe in
667
00:38:33.760 --> 00:38:38.679
the bottom right corner that's men multi tap and DVD remote.
668
00:38:39.159 --> 00:38:44.119
This is the most unhinged device I've ever seen. It's
669
00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.719
like it's like what were those what were all the
670
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:53.960
conferencing like video not video audio conferencing things every every
671
00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:54.880
conference room had.
672
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:57.719
Yeah, just sitting in the middle of the middle, like
673
00:38:57.880 --> 00:38:59.239
three legged thing with.
674
00:38:59.320 --> 00:39:02.159
The speaker and the button. Okay, so like picture that,
675
00:39:02.639 --> 00:39:06.320
except instead of a three legged thing, it's a domed
676
00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:10.559
version of the Audies X Men logo, like the steel circle.
677
00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:15.880
And then rising from the middle are three sculpted heads
678
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:21.679
and it's Cyclops Mystique and is that supposed to be Wolverine?
679
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:26.280
That is Wolverine exciction, and then Magneto is on the
680
00:39:26.840 --> 00:39:29.320
opposite side, which we cannot see in the photo.
681
00:39:30.199 --> 00:39:33.920
And uh yeah, and it's it's an X Men multi
682
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:41.079
tap and DVD remote for the PlayStation two. I'm I'm
683
00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:43.679
astonished this is so.
684
00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:48.559
Just let me read the description quote, look at this thing.
685
00:39:49.239 --> 00:39:51.840
Tell us that it's not the goofiest looking peripheral that
686
00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:55.320
you've ever seen. Regardless, X Men fans should get a
687
00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:58.840
kick out of this PS two multi tap that doubles
688
00:39:59.039 --> 00:40:04.320
is a DVD mote control for extra added goofiness. Each
689
00:40:04.440 --> 00:40:08.960
of the four sculpted heads, Wolverine, Cyclops Mystique, and Magneto
690
00:40:09.159 --> 00:40:10.239
have light up eyes.
691
00:40:10.480 --> 00:40:12.840
That's that was the cow I read ahead and I
692
00:40:12.920 --> 00:40:15.559
thought they all have light up eyes. I was like, what.
693
00:40:17.559 --> 00:40:23.079
What I feel like getting like getting to design, Like
694
00:40:23.559 --> 00:40:25.800
your job is to like come up with these ideas
695
00:40:25.840 --> 00:40:27.760
and design these like how do you how does one
696
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:29.239
become that? Like what?
697
00:40:30.159 --> 00:40:31.199
Like where?
698
00:40:31.280 --> 00:40:33.719
What were the product design meetings that like led to
699
00:40:33.800 --> 00:40:36.679
the creation of this thing? You just would never get
700
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:39.679
that anymore. And it's too bad. It's sick And I
701
00:40:39.719 --> 00:40:41.920
want to buy one of those. If you are a
702
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.559
fun Factor listener and supporter and I have an x
703
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:48.159
men multi tap and DVD remote, please let.
704
00:40:48.199 --> 00:40:52.880
Us d join the join the discord mus immediately.
705
00:40:55.320 --> 00:40:59.920
Okay, Fan month? Is that stereotypical? Here's what's coming up.
706
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:02.159
Here's the top ten in the US reader Top ten
707
00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:08.239
Japan Top ten Hot three of February. Nothing too interesting
708
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:13.360
there we have news about modding your GameCube. I think
709
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:16.000
it's interesting that you're starting to see like modding being
710
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:18.920
acknowledged in the press, especially in something like game Now,
711
00:41:18.920 --> 00:41:24.159
which we think is maybe geared towards younger players. Here
712
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:26.480
we have web Now, which is a section that looks
713
00:41:26.519 --> 00:41:30.679
at like gaming on the Web, and the big kind
714
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:34.039
of cutout taking up half the page is about Squaresoft
715
00:41:34.199 --> 00:41:38.639
launching play Online, which as we know still exists, is
716
00:41:38.679 --> 00:41:43.000
still sort of the underpinning thing for Final Fantasy eleven
717
00:41:43.199 --> 00:41:48.599
and fourteen. I love that they have a Final Fantasy
718
00:41:48.679 --> 00:41:52.880
nine picture in there because, as anybody knows, the guide
719
00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:56.079
on the play online integration of nine, I mean, that's
720
00:41:56.079 --> 00:41:57.480
a whole episode in and of itself.
721
00:41:57.559 --> 00:41:57.760
It is.
722
00:41:59.559 --> 00:42:02.280
There's an offer to play Tony Hawk's pro Skater three
723
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:05.920
with the ZIF crew. You have to email them before
724
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:08.800
January thirtieth. Keep in mind this is the February two
725
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:10.880
thousand and two issue, so you'd have to like get
726
00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:13.199
in there right away. Probably it probably came out, you know,
727
00:42:13.320 --> 00:42:18.400
in January. Got a couple of weeks. Email them for
728
00:42:18.440 --> 00:42:21.800
a shot of challenging us online quote. If we pick
729
00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:24.480
your submission, we'll email you back with the DateTime info.
730
00:42:25.039 --> 00:42:28.840
Get to play with the Ethan Einhorn and Todd Zuniga
731
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:31.679
from Official PlayStation Magazine. But I also wanted to look
732
00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:36.719
at Sight of the Month, which in February two thousand
733
00:42:36.719 --> 00:42:40.880
and two was awarded to gamers dot Com a ZIF
734
00:42:40.960 --> 00:42:49.719
Davis if you do oh Man. Surprisingly, gamers dot com
735
00:42:49.800 --> 00:42:53.119
does not lead anywhere today. It's just a parked domain.
736
00:42:53.800 --> 00:42:55.760
Probably costs a lot of money. I tried to find
737
00:42:55.800 --> 00:42:58.760
it on pork bun. Try to find it on name cheap, couldn't,
738
00:42:59.079 --> 00:43:04.440
but equivalent ones gamer gamers dot a I was fifty
739
00:43:04.519 --> 00:43:09.440
seven thousand dollars. Yeah, so gamers dot com like it's
740
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:10.960
gotta be worth a chunk.
741
00:43:11.400 --> 00:43:13.840
Uh. There's a Malaysian site that's been holding on to
742
00:43:13.920 --> 00:43:16.960
the Lions in Winter dot com since my old Lion's website.
743
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:21.559
I accidentally let that lapse six years ago, and I've
744
00:43:21.599 --> 00:43:24.719
been kicking myself ever since, and I can I keep
745
00:43:24.840 --> 00:43:28.960
trying to be some some way to like, yeah, they
746
00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:31.440
keep renewing it. It's like two hundred and five bucks.
747
00:43:32.239 --> 00:43:34.679
Like if I just stop, it's not that bad.
748
00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:36.639
But it's also like still on principle.
749
00:43:36.679 --> 00:43:39.599
It's on principle. And also when am I going to
750
00:43:39.639 --> 00:43:41.559
look at my kids and be like, no, you can't
751
00:43:41.599 --> 00:43:44.280
have that. Daddy needs his domain.
752
00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:51.719
Back domain right anyways, speaking of appreciating value, uh. Hands
753
00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:56.599
On starting on page twenty four, is the first review
754
00:43:56.880 --> 00:44:02.440
section in game Now focus specifically on handhelds, so it
755
00:44:02.480 --> 00:44:04.239
has a Game Boy Advance and a Game Boy Color
756
00:44:04.400 --> 00:44:09.239
up in the header there and mixes reviews and previews.
757
00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:14.800
Strangely enough, though, they use a different review format from
758
00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:18.639
the main reviews. Okay, yeah, so they score it with
759
00:44:18.840 --> 00:44:23.480
hands five hands from one to five hands they call them.
760
00:44:24.199 --> 00:44:27.400
They call them hands, they call them call them hands.
761
00:44:27.679 --> 00:44:30.920
The hands are very clearly styled in the manner of
762
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:31.679
a thumbs up.
763
00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:33.559
A thumbs up, that's what they call them.
764
00:44:33.719 --> 00:44:37.159
Hand is trash. Two hands is worth the peak like
765
00:44:37.480 --> 00:44:40.119
literally the rubiks has hands.
766
00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:44.840
Yeah, it's hands. So it's a five point review scale
767
00:44:44.920 --> 00:44:46.960
different than the main one. Like you said, one is
768
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:49.039
trash two where the peak three is play it, four
769
00:44:49.119 --> 00:44:53.920
is excellent, five is a must buy? Would you believe it?
770
00:44:55.159 --> 00:44:58.880
But the highest scoring handheld game of the month in
771
00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:03.800
game now everyary two thousand and two, Alienators Evolution continues
772
00:45:04.360 --> 00:45:07.599
for the GBA. I bet you saw that coming. It
773
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:11.679
got four hands out of four hands, which means it
774
00:45:11.920 --> 00:45:15.840
is excellent. What actually, sorry, quote it means it is
775
00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:18.079
quote excellent game excellent game.
776
00:45:18.639 --> 00:45:23.039
Alienators is based on an animated TV series, which is
777
00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:27.760
in turn based on the sractacular comedy sci fi movie Evolution.
778
00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:34.320
But don't let that stop you from playing. Okay, great,
779
00:45:35.360 --> 00:45:35.719
but like.
780
00:45:35.840 --> 00:45:38.039
And above that, it says, quote the name on the
781
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:41.320
box reads Alienators Evolution continues, but it really ought to
782
00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:44.360
say Kiddy Contra because that's what this game looks in
783
00:45:44.440 --> 00:45:47.000
plays like. And then I got the highest score, so like,
784
00:45:47.480 --> 00:45:50.360
it's funny how they're sort of disparaging it as a
785
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:55.039
kiddie game, but then also scoring at high I usually
786
00:45:55.159 --> 00:45:57.519
know most games, like, there aren't many games that catch
787
00:45:57.599 --> 00:45:59.440
me by surprise, and I go, I don't remember that
788
00:45:59.519 --> 00:46:02.840
at all, maybe haven't played it, but it's on my radar.
789
00:46:02.920 --> 00:46:06.000
I do not know what Alienators evolution continues is.
790
00:46:07.920 --> 00:46:13.559
I cannot believe the We have a licensed platformer movie
791
00:46:13.719 --> 00:46:17.239
tie in for the Markie Mark Planet of the Apes
792
00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:21.360
made by Ubisoft exclusively for the game Boy Advance.
793
00:46:22.119 --> 00:46:24.440
Oh yeah, there we go on the next page. Yep, yep.
794
00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:25.480
Oh.
795
00:46:25.639 --> 00:46:29.400
But also here we have a pro snowboarding game for
796
00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:32.760
the game Boy Advance from a guy named Sean. But
797
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:36.119
it is not Sewn White. It is Sean Palmer's Pro Snowboarder.
798
00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:41.440
I immediately edited that in my brain to white, yeah,
799
00:46:41.480 --> 00:46:44.280
because I mean it was always was at that time.
800
00:46:45.159 --> 00:46:46.199
That's wild h.
801
00:46:46.440 --> 00:46:49.039
Tony Hawk Pro Skater three. So we're kicking off previews
802
00:46:49.519 --> 00:46:55.400
American Bass Challenge. Uh, there's a really good fishing game
803
00:46:57.119 --> 00:47:00.960
cast and chill which is excellent. This is not like excellent.
804
00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:04.360
Then we come to incoming. So this is where we're
805
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:09.400
getting to previews of console games, specifically console games, not
806
00:47:09.519 --> 00:47:14.679
handheld games. We have time splitters too. Hurdy Gurdy if
807
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:19.360
you remember Hurdy Gurdy, Yeah, Pop and bop fund means
808
00:47:19.639 --> 00:47:25.880
meets animal husbandry. What a pitch You've an extinction? Eric
809
00:47:26.039 --> 00:47:32.559
Layman Favorite Sonic Adventure two, Yes, Unreal Championship, Blood Wag, Reckless,
810
00:47:33.079 --> 00:47:36.199
jet Set, Radio Future. The thing that stands out to me.
811
00:47:36.320 --> 00:47:39.280
This is a fairly straightforward preview section. But they have
812
00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:42.719
a power meter in the bottom corner. It goes from
813
00:47:42.880 --> 00:47:46.480
yellow which is warm, orange in the middle which is hot,
814
00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:48.920
and on fire, which is red. It's like a nine
815
00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:52.519
point scale. Most of them you won't be surprised to
816
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:55.159
find out, you know, top out in the hot section,
817
00:47:55.519 --> 00:47:57.800
because unlike reviews, where you kind of have to like
818
00:47:59.199 --> 00:48:01.840
sub or objectively like look at things and say, hey,
819
00:48:01.880 --> 00:48:03.559
we're going to cover this even though it's crappy, because
820
00:48:03.599 --> 00:48:06.880
this is a review of its quality, Like, there's not
821
00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:09.159
really any reason to do previews of games you're not
822
00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:12.360
excited about, right or your readers aren't excited about, So
823
00:48:12.519 --> 00:48:18.039
like why would you ever spend word count and page
824
00:48:18.079 --> 00:48:20.920
count on a game that's below hot?
825
00:48:23.039 --> 00:48:26.599
Well, well, because this is why the scale goes from
826
00:48:26.719 --> 00:48:27.960
warm hot to on fire.
827
00:48:28.079 --> 00:48:32.239
I know, but like Hurdy Gurdy got hot right in
828
00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:38.880
the mid Yeah. Right, So it's like you're never because
829
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:42.199
these specifically, it's not a rating system, so it's not saying, hey,
830
00:48:42.239 --> 00:48:44.159
we were really excited about this, but we played it
831
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:48.639
and as crappy. It's like how excited people are for it?
832
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:52.960
Yeah. I like the idea. I like the idea of going, oh,
833
00:48:53.079 --> 00:48:56.320
this looks good or this looks men, because.
834
00:48:56.199 --> 00:49:00.360
I don't think it's a valuative. I think it's meant
835
00:49:00.599 --> 00:49:01.320
like a hype meter.
836
00:49:01.960 --> 00:49:02.480
Yeah it is.
837
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:05.039
Shouldn't you only cover stuff that's hyped up?
838
00:49:05.880 --> 00:49:09.360
I mean, well you like also, we're talking about the
839
00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:11.599
same thing like we were talking about with like Carnage Heart,
840
00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:14.960
where the preview for Carnage Heart in like was it
841
00:49:15.119 --> 00:49:18.360
GamePro where there's like three screenshots. I'm like, yeah, we
842
00:49:18.440 --> 00:49:21.199
hope this one is a little more like action than Simmy, because,
843
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:24.440
like you know, the American audience likes action stuff with
844
00:49:24.719 --> 00:49:28.280
zero clue what the actual game is about. Yeah, three
845
00:49:28.360 --> 00:49:31.320
screenshots and a couple of sentences from the publisher and
846
00:49:31.480 --> 00:49:33.800
you can go, oh, this looks sick or whatever, and
847
00:49:34.039 --> 00:49:37.199
you're excited. So I think they're trying to say, here's
848
00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:39.639
how we're you know, how excited we are. And I
849
00:49:39.719 --> 00:49:43.840
think Riddy Gerty might be the lowest two bars into
850
00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:45.320
the three bars of hot.
851
00:49:45.519 --> 00:49:51.000
Yeah, Blood Wake has the same and then maxed out
852
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.159
jet Set Radio Future, which makes sense.
853
00:49:53.360 --> 00:49:56.480
Yeah, so this is also so now we're basically dealing
854
00:49:56.519 --> 00:49:59.480
this is nine marks, but we're also grading on the
855
00:49:59.519 --> 00:50:02.480
typical one to ten scales shrunk down to one to nine,
856
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:05.880
where nothing's getting lower than a four or five.
857
00:50:06.119 --> 00:50:09.880
Yeah, right, yes, because why would you like, surely if
858
00:50:10.239 --> 00:50:15.239
a game is a two warm, Yeah, you could use
859
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:19.079
that space for something that's better. Yes. In any case,
860
00:50:19.199 --> 00:50:21.880
moving on to the best and Worst of two thousand
861
00:50:21.880 --> 00:50:24.159
and one, we have covered a lot of these kind
862
00:50:24.199 --> 00:50:28.960
of top games of two thousand and one features on
863
00:50:29.079 --> 00:50:31.000
this season. We're not really gonna look at the like
864
00:50:31.239 --> 00:50:35.800
the good stuff, right, no surprises there. But what I
865
00:50:35.920 --> 00:50:38.039
really liked about this are some of the other like
866
00:50:39.199 --> 00:50:43.519
tertiary awards that they've they've given out because they're they're fun.
867
00:50:43.559 --> 00:50:46.400
They made me laugh. Our boy Shrek, which, as we know,
868
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:50.920
looks better than munch as Odyssey captured the coveted Worst
869
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:54.880
Movie to Game award, beating out Casper, which one of
870
00:50:54.920 --> 00:50:59.199
the worst play control I'm not looking it up. I'm
871
00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:02.880
just assuming this is related to the Casper movie. Yes,
872
00:51:03.280 --> 00:51:06.239
that came out at some point in the last thirty
873
00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:10.119
five years. Yes, Oh, I assume they're both movies. Sonic Adventures.
874
00:51:11.480 --> 00:51:16.239
What's his name, Devin Sawa? Devin Sawa, Yeah, he retweeted
875
00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:18.920
me once. Oh well, because he was the star of
876
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:23.239
that Casper movie and that was nice. That was yeah,
877
00:51:23.360 --> 00:51:27.159
well because that was my thing of like discovering that
878
00:51:27.679 --> 00:51:34.559
girls my age freshman year were also human beings with
879
00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:40.119
sex drives. Were like watching Casper in like band class
880
00:51:40.920 --> 00:51:45.920
and like he appears and half the class moans like literally,
881
00:51:46.239 --> 00:51:52.000
oh I don't like what what what is happening to here? Oh?
882
00:51:52.079 --> 00:51:55.199
My god? Like he was in so many lockers like cut.
883
00:51:55.039 --> 00:52:02.880
Out to him. Sonic Adventure two one biggest disappointment, which
884
00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:07.000
is wild because if you're expecting a good Sonic game,
885
00:52:07.719 --> 00:52:08.320
that is on you.
886
00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:09.480
That's so funny.
887
00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:12.800
I've never been disappointed by a Sonic game. My favorite, though,
888
00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:16.920
is biggest system, which, of course the Xbox One, not
889
00:52:17.159 --> 00:52:24.360
Xbox one. Xbox the one won biggest system. I like
890
00:52:24.480 --> 00:52:27.320
how the Xbox just so big that even back then
891
00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:29.639
people are like, man, this is big, this is leg
892
00:52:30.239 --> 00:52:31.079
what's going on here?
893
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:35.079
Worst new character rating for Metal Gear Solid two.
894
00:52:35.440 --> 00:52:35.639
Yeah.
895
00:52:36.039 --> 00:52:38.480
Yeah, just when Solid Snakes should be blowing stuff up,
896
00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:40.840
we have this little tw're fucking things up and start
897
00:52:40.960 --> 00:52:47.039
arguing with this girlfriend like we're really overlapping the two
898
00:52:47.079 --> 00:52:48.679
thousand and one in the two thousand and two here.
899
00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:49.639
It's very funny to me.
900
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.119
It's so good too, because the biggest the winner of
901
00:52:53.199 --> 00:52:57.960
Biggest Surprise is Metal Gears Solid twos twist. We really
902
00:52:58.000 --> 00:52:59.880
don't want to say what Metal Gears Solid tu is
903
00:53:00.119 --> 00:53:03.880
big secret. Also here's this that's defice to say. We're
904
00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:07.199
pretty surprised. Sin It's like, come on, guys, best babe
905
00:53:07.239 --> 00:53:10.079
Riku from Financing ten. You were a Riku fan, right?
906
00:53:10.320 --> 00:53:16.719
Oh yeah? Oh yeah. Best gameplay moment Halo playing multiplayer.
907
00:53:17.519 --> 00:53:23.519
Uh not the not the pawn scene from Financi ten.
908
00:53:23.559 --> 00:53:25.840
It should have been that, I it was good. Not
909
00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:33.360
the naked cartwheels from Medal Somewhere to ours music game
910
00:53:33.440 --> 00:53:36.760
in Sync, Get to the show for the GBC. I
911
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:38.920
love the music. Games were big enough at that point
912
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:42.000
that they got their own category.
913
00:53:42.199 --> 00:53:45.719
Okay, all right, biggest System, all this stuff. This is
914
00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:48.920
gonna be the biggest episode. If we don't get to
915
00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:50.920
the review, it is time to do what we do
916
00:53:51.199 --> 00:53:53.679
before that. We got to take one more break stick
917
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:56.599
tight through the break. If you're not a Fun Factor
918
00:53:56.719 --> 00:54:00.360
ultra member and already getting ad free episodes, and we
919
00:54:00.400 --> 00:54:03.440
will call them right back and we will review game
920
00:54:03.639 --> 00:54:08.280
Now's review of Super Smash Brothers Melee right here. On
921
00:54:08.440 --> 00:54:30.320
fun factors, beer and non sequiturs are how podcasts are made.
922
00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:34.039
This is quavy lea. That is au uh, that's T
923
00:54:34.199 --> 00:54:34.920
shirt material.
924
00:54:35.559 --> 00:54:38.039
Yeah, that could be a good fun factor.
925
00:54:38.159 --> 00:54:42.039
First, like merch, I keep, I keep, it's on my mind,
926
00:54:42.239 --> 00:54:43.079
it's on my mind.
927
00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:43.480
Yeah.
928
00:54:43.679 --> 00:54:46.840
I made merch for my lion's blog, The Lions in Winter,
929
00:54:46.960 --> 00:54:48.400
way way way back in the day. And I was
930
00:54:48.480 --> 00:54:51.719
so excited when somebody actually ordered a couple of my
931
00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:54.199
T shirts and then I found out it was my
932
00:54:54.400 --> 00:54:57.880
mom and it was like a yeah, thank you, mom,
933
00:54:58.119 --> 00:55:01.760
I love you, Mom. I appreciate your for best mom.
934
00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:02.000
Ever.
935
00:55:03.079 --> 00:55:05.519
Also, no nobody paid any money for my blogs.
936
00:55:05.519 --> 00:55:08.239
T shirt. I saw someone wearing a Triple Click shirt
937
00:55:08.320 --> 00:55:09.639
once at the water slide.
938
00:55:09.719 --> 00:55:13.440
Oh that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. And the Triple Click
939
00:55:13.519 --> 00:55:16.960
folks go crazy for like they're like the dream, the
940
00:55:17.079 --> 00:55:19.639
absolute dream is just to do what you did. See
941
00:55:19.679 --> 00:55:21.920
somebody wearing a Triple Click shirt in the wild for
942
00:55:22.400 --> 00:55:24.800
you know, no no, no connection, not at an event
943
00:55:24.880 --> 00:55:25.239
or anything.
944
00:55:25.440 --> 00:55:27.960
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, it's a dream.
945
00:55:28.280 --> 00:55:31.719
Okay, all right, we are back, folks. We are having
946
00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:33.800
five stars out of five stars worth a fun today.
947
00:55:33.800 --> 00:55:36.199
And if you are to leave a rating interview on
948
00:55:36.239 --> 00:55:39.440
Apple podcasts, post a comment on YouTube. You can also
949
00:55:39.559 --> 00:55:44.000
rate and review Spotify, which high logged into that account
950
00:55:44.079 --> 00:55:46.400
for the first time with like a year. Thank you
951
00:55:46.519 --> 00:55:49.880
friend of the show, Lord Druby, for apparently listening to
952
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:53.559
this out Spotify before we even had a live YouTube
953
00:55:53.639 --> 00:55:56.159
version and posting a rating, good review. I don't know,
954
00:55:56.280 --> 00:55:59.400
I'd been sitting there for lord knows how long. Anyway,
955
00:56:00.119 --> 00:56:03.920
wherever it is, post a review, leave a rating, and
956
00:56:04.440 --> 00:56:06.760
that helps us with the engagement and the algorithm and
957
00:56:06.840 --> 00:56:11.039
get our words and sounds and everything else into your
958
00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:14.320
eyes and ears and everybody else's because we love to
959
00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:15.760
do this and want to keep doing it for you,
960
00:56:16.199 --> 00:56:19.000
help us spread the word. But now all that stuff aside,
961
00:56:19.320 --> 00:56:23.000
it's time and we have to review Game Now's review
962
00:56:23.119 --> 00:56:25.360
of Super Smash Brothers Melee.
963
00:56:26.119 --> 00:56:30.280
Yes, the reviews in game Now issue for start on
964
00:56:30.360 --> 00:56:32.960
page fifty one. If you'll remember, there's one hundred and
965
00:56:32.960 --> 00:56:36.119
eleven pages in this magazine, so that's over halfway through,
966
00:56:36.280 --> 00:56:38.960
like less than halfway through that it starts. And there's
967
00:56:39.039 --> 00:56:40.920
kind of good reason for that, which we'll see in
968
00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:45.239
a moment. But it's because, as I mentioned earlier, given
969
00:56:45.239 --> 00:56:47.599
its background as EGM, to an expert gamer, the reviews
970
00:56:47.599 --> 00:56:51.679
are actually like hybrid criticism and game guide, So the
971
00:56:51.800 --> 00:56:55.840
review section is gigantic. It takes up a majority of
972
00:56:55.880 --> 00:56:59.840
the magazine, but the actual reviews themselves are kind of
973
00:57:00.400 --> 00:57:05.159
especially considering how big that section is. Here at the
974
00:57:05.199 --> 00:57:07.280
beginning of the now Playing section, which is what they
975
00:57:07.320 --> 00:57:11.199
call their reviews, the score sheet breaks down game Now
976
00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:15.760
scoring like this quote. C is average, B is good,
977
00:57:16.360 --> 00:57:20.239
A is great. Games receiving A D or F are
978
00:57:20.360 --> 00:57:25.960
poor and don't deserve your time, which notably two hands
979
00:57:26.039 --> 00:57:31.480
out of five is like worth maybe looking at, whereas
980
00:57:31.480 --> 00:57:36.719
here D is poor. Yeah. Interesting. They also have plus
981
00:57:36.800 --> 00:57:42.199
and minus so a plus, which if I do in
982
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:44.960
my math correctly. Again, no, I'm a strong point. I
983
00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:47.639
think it's a fifteen point scale. So they have a
984
00:57:47.679 --> 00:57:53.039
five point scale for handhelds, fifteen point scale for console games.
985
00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:59.159
For some reason, the categories they rate are control, impact,
986
00:58:00.079 --> 00:58:04.760
life span, and extras. Those are very much not the
987
00:58:04.880 --> 00:58:11.639
categories oh that we often see. Yeah, yeah, reviewed, I'm
988
00:58:11.639 --> 00:58:13.320
sorry you say these.
989
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:16.920
Are actually not the categories that they score out. I'm like, wow,
990
00:58:17.800 --> 00:58:18.320
they don't.
991
00:58:18.280 --> 00:58:21.599
Like individually give scores for each of these categories. But
992
00:58:22.239 --> 00:58:27.280
impact is like graphics and sound controls, control, lifespan would
993
00:58:27.320 --> 00:58:30.119
be like replay value, and what do they say, extras
994
00:58:30.199 --> 00:58:32.679
is like extra game modes, online plays, special cheats.
995
00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:37.840
I am drawn to this, I at least I at
996
00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:39.960
least like the attacks.
997
00:58:39.960 --> 00:58:41.599
Are you drawn to it? Like the same way that
998
00:58:41.679 --> 00:58:43.280
I like kind of want to look at the sun,
999
00:58:45.320 --> 00:58:46.920
because like I like.
1000
00:58:47.199 --> 00:58:51.079
Well, I like, you know, because this is we're starting
1001
00:58:51.119 --> 00:58:56.559
to move from aiden away from the game players. Okay,
1002
00:58:56.599 --> 00:58:59.280
we have six categ we have seven categories, we have
1003
00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:01.880
eight cat We are going to give a ten point
1004
00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:06.840
score in all of these categories. Hey, let's let's instead
1005
00:59:06.880 --> 00:59:11.119
of hyper hyper hypergranulating this, let's try and bring it
1006
00:59:11.280 --> 00:59:14.840
back towards something that like makes some sense. And I
1007
00:59:15.559 --> 00:59:17.920
think impact is kind of a dumb word, but like
1008
00:59:18.079 --> 00:59:23.039
control lifespan, like because you know they're usually gestures at
1009
00:59:23.079 --> 00:59:26.239
like replay value, right, yeah, we would call it value
1010
00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:29.360
now problem yeah yeah yeah, but like lifespan, like how
1011
00:59:29.519 --> 00:59:31.559
much play are you going to get out of this?
1012
00:59:31.639 --> 00:59:33.079
How much fun are you going to have out of that?
1013
00:59:33.199 --> 00:59:35.639
How long are you going to be? Like I'm I'm
1014
00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:38.119
still getting used out of this. I like the idea,
1015
00:59:38.599 --> 00:59:41.679
I'm not sure about the execution, I think too.
1016
00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:45.719
Like lifespan for me, hits different when I'm forty two,
1017
00:59:47.119 --> 00:59:49.159
then twenty and two when I was like nineteen or
1018
00:59:49.199 --> 00:59:55.920
whatever or eighteen, because like, I don't necessarily like long.
1019
00:59:56.039 --> 00:59:59.039
Lifespan isn't like a selling point for me anymore. If anything,
1020
00:59:59.119 --> 01:00:01.440
it like turns off playing that game.
1021
01:00:01.599 --> 01:00:01.719
Right.
1022
01:00:03.400 --> 01:00:07.360
Some of my favorite games I Mixtape I played when
1023
01:00:07.400 --> 01:00:09.800
it came out a few weeks ago. It's like three
1024
01:00:09.880 --> 01:00:13.000
hours long, yes, and it's one of my favorite games
1025
01:00:13.039 --> 01:00:14.920
of all time. I love it dearly.
1026
01:00:15.679 --> 01:00:18.719
Yeah we're mean we're doing our family run through of
1027
01:00:18.800 --> 01:00:23.239
Blueprints now. Yeah, we're up into like hour sixty four
1028
01:00:23.239 --> 01:00:26.639
to sixty five. Yeah, and that was all of one
1029
01:00:26.719 --> 01:00:29.719
hundred and twenty hour game for me. Yeah, and we're
1030
01:00:29.800 --> 01:00:35.559
just like bro like okay, like we're getting there, but
1031
01:00:35.679 --> 01:00:38.280
we're like, it's a week get to the finish line
1032
01:00:38.360 --> 01:00:43.000
and time okay, yeah, okay, but.
1033
01:00:43.119 --> 01:00:45.840
Yeah, I mean like and Blueprints I played before it
1034
01:00:45.920 --> 01:00:48.320
came out, so I didn't know that it was as
1035
01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:51.039
long as it was. Also, and of course Blueprints you
1036
01:00:51.079 --> 01:00:55.199
could play for fifteen hours get to like the end
1037
01:00:55.519 --> 01:00:58.280
quote unquote feel satisfied that you kind of beat the
1038
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:01.360
puzzle aspect of the game and not delve into it's
1039
01:01:01.440 --> 01:01:04.960
like meta narrative. So it could kind of go both ways.
1040
01:01:05.119 --> 01:01:08.400
But I look at other games, like I just played
1041
01:01:08.519 --> 01:01:11.280
Hollow Night and it's forty hours long. I think it
1042
01:01:11.320 --> 01:01:15.440
took me forty four hours almost Here's the Kingdom.
1043
01:01:15.679 --> 01:01:17.920
When they announced Here's of the Kingdom as one hundred
1044
01:01:17.920 --> 01:01:19.920
and twenty hour game, I posted a bunch of crying
1045
01:01:19.960 --> 01:01:22.840
emojis and said, I'm I can't play this. I'm not
1046
01:01:22.960 --> 01:01:25.559
gonna play this. I did play it, but I tapped
1047
01:01:25.599 --> 01:01:28.159
out around fifty sixty hours because I was like, I
1048
01:01:28.360 --> 01:01:29.760
just like I could.
1049
01:01:29.599 --> 01:01:31.519
Play I did the same thing I played about fifty
1050
01:01:31.559 --> 01:01:32.760
hours and then put it down.
1051
01:01:33.360 --> 01:01:35.239
I was, I was like, I can play this like
1052
01:01:35.440 --> 01:01:37.280
bench an impact. I can play this like a gotcha game.
1053
01:01:37.280 --> 01:01:40.119
I could spend the next six months putting two three
1054
01:01:40.159 --> 01:01:41.280
four hundred hours into this.
1055
01:01:41.480 --> 01:01:45.280
Yeah, I mean and like why yeah, like why but
1056
01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:48.880
you also play like Umama mousy or whatever that horse game.
1057
01:01:49.039 --> 01:01:49.599
Yeah, I do.
1058
01:01:49.719 --> 01:01:52.960
Game like falling into the trap of like easy to
1059
01:01:53.039 --> 01:01:55.039
pick up forever games is also bad.
1060
01:01:55.639 --> 01:01:57.960
Yeah, but you can you can play you know, you
1061
01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:00.960
can play with most of me for like sixty seconds
1062
01:02:01.199 --> 01:02:03.800
if you want. You can't play Tears of the Kingdom
1063
01:02:04.119 --> 01:02:06.800
for like any small amount like bite size amount of time.
1064
01:02:06.880 --> 01:02:07.639
It's just not possible.
1065
01:02:07.719 --> 01:02:12.480
Yeah, but when you got two games a year, yes
1066
01:02:12.920 --> 01:02:16.239
you wanted to, you know, get something that was gonna
1067
01:02:16.320 --> 01:02:19.440
last you. And I think again, coming back to looking
1068
01:02:19.480 --> 01:02:21.920
at what the audience was for this magazine, I think
1069
01:02:21.960 --> 01:02:25.159
we continue to see clues that it was probably for
1070
01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:28.679
that younger audience trying to get like new to video games,
1071
01:02:28.840 --> 01:02:33.639
like sort of like new newly passionate video game fans, right,
1072
01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:37.159
and they're gonna like love this kind of stuff. They
1073
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:39.840
don't even need to know what graphics are or whatever.
1074
01:02:41.800 --> 01:02:44.400
So I do like the abstraction now that like we've
1075
01:02:44.480 --> 01:02:46.400
kind of talked it through. I don't like the words
1076
01:02:46.440 --> 01:02:49.639
that they picked. I feel like it almost would have
1077
01:02:49.719 --> 01:02:53.159
worked better as like a grab bag of like badges
1078
01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:56.159
or awards or something for a magazine or for a game,
1079
01:02:56.280 --> 01:02:59.719
like it would have gotten lifespan and impact and control
1080
01:03:00.239 --> 01:03:03.000
because it has like you know, rather than of scoring
1081
01:03:03.119 --> 01:03:08.719
metric matrix. But uh, but you know, they're they try
1082
01:03:08.760 --> 01:03:11.840
to be clear. There's also the now rated thing at
1083
01:03:11.840 --> 01:03:14.719
the bottom here it says, quote, once we thoroughly played
1084
01:03:14.760 --> 01:03:16.920
a one version of the game, we'll give it our
1085
01:03:17.000 --> 01:03:23.800
final now rated rate. So so they must they're talking
1086
01:03:24.000 --> 01:03:27.159
probably because they were doing a lot of like strategy
1087
01:03:27.199 --> 01:03:31.920
and stuff. I bet they were playing early built and
1088
01:03:32.039 --> 01:03:35.159
so that means they probably weren't really able to.
1089
01:03:37.320 --> 01:03:39.800
Yeah we had that what was that one magazine? I
1090
01:03:39.880 --> 01:03:42.119
think this was an episode I did too, so I
1091
01:03:42.199 --> 01:03:45.760
did the research for it. But they had it. They're like, yeah, cool,
1092
01:03:45.880 --> 01:03:51.519
We're like, we're mixing our previews and our reviews. Yeah,
1093
01:03:51.599 --> 01:03:54.199
and we'll give you like ninety percent of review. But
1094
01:03:54.360 --> 01:03:56.280
until they tell us it's final, we.
1095
01:03:56.320 --> 01:04:00.360
Won't see then we can give like yeah, yeah, it's like, okay,
1096
01:04:00.599 --> 01:04:03.559
I guess strange times and like optical medium, and it
1097
01:04:03.719 --> 01:04:06.400
was easier to do some of that stuff, I think too,
1098
01:04:06.760 --> 01:04:09.000
and send out early builds. I mean, like famously, there
1099
01:04:09.119 --> 01:04:11.719
was that Jaguar CD I think it was a Jaguar
1100
01:04:11.800 --> 01:04:12.400
CD game.
1101
01:04:12.280 --> 01:04:12.840
Fight for Life.
1102
01:04:13.880 --> 01:04:16.920
Yeah, where like the press was accidentally sent an early
1103
01:04:17.000 --> 01:04:19.599
build and told it was a review build and so
1104
01:04:19.679 --> 01:04:23.840
it got like awful awful scores. I don't know if
1105
01:04:23.880 --> 01:04:26.280
the end product was any good, but uh, but yeah,
1106
01:04:26.639 --> 01:04:34.320
it's interesting times at any rate. Now, whoop, I'm gonna
1107
01:04:34.360 --> 01:04:37.559
just very quickly skip past the Super Smash Brothers Melee
1108
01:04:37.760 --> 01:04:39.000
review just so we can look at some of the
1109
01:04:39.079 --> 01:04:41.920
other stuff here in the magazine. We have Crazy Taxi
1110
01:04:42.000 --> 01:04:48.360
on the GameCube, a Zurich Rise of PARAFIAU for the
1111
01:04:48.519 --> 01:04:53.320
Xbox got a D minus not good. Uh, Star Wars
1112
01:04:53.400 --> 01:04:55.840
Obi Wan. Here, we've got the Metal Gear Solid two
1113
01:04:55.920 --> 01:05:00.320
Sons of Liberty review. That artwork like I saw it,
1114
01:05:00.360 --> 01:05:03.039
Snake is interesting. That can't be. I don't think that
1115
01:05:03.199 --> 01:05:05.800
was art from the game. That looks like ANEM cover.
1116
01:05:06.199 --> 01:05:08.800
I literally was gonna say I think that's the same artist.
1117
01:05:09.239 --> 01:05:11.960
I would say that's the same artist PSM used.
1118
01:05:12.079 --> 01:05:15.760
Yeah, it really looks ps certainly, but it can't be
1119
01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:19.960
because PS different different. Yeah, I don't know that.
1120
01:05:20.239 --> 01:05:22.800
The asset just looks very very PSM to me.
1121
01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:26.639
Yes, big time. Yeah. So we've got you know, Double
1122
01:05:26.760 --> 01:05:30.280
seven Agent and a fire ESBM, NFL Primetime Game Day
1123
01:05:30.320 --> 01:05:33.920
two thousand and two, Citizen Kabuto, which was one of
1124
01:05:34.000 --> 01:05:36.599
those games that I thought looked really cool in screenshots.
1125
01:05:37.400 --> 01:05:40.599
Proper the Rapper too. Res. I almost did Res this episode.
1126
01:05:41.199 --> 01:05:41.960
Have you played Res?
1127
01:05:43.119 --> 01:05:46.360
I haven't, sorry, I'm also you should hunt Down.
1128
01:05:46.400 --> 01:05:48.639
There was like a remake on like Xbox three sixty
1129
01:05:48.840 --> 01:05:51.199
or PS three or four something.
1130
01:05:51.480 --> 01:05:54.679
Yeah, yeah, game no, I it's well regarded. I'm still
1131
01:05:54.760 --> 01:05:57.559
wincing at the C minus for ESPN NFL Primetime, which,
1132
01:05:57.599 --> 01:06:04.199
as we discussed last episode, lost Konami the ESPN license. Yeah,
1133
01:06:04.519 --> 01:06:06.960
and then NFL Game Day two thousand and two from
1134
01:06:07.039 --> 01:06:11.360
nine eight nine Studios gets a D which considered three
1135
01:06:11.480 --> 01:06:14.280
or four years earlier. Game Day was considered a clear
1136
01:06:14.800 --> 01:06:18.400
favorite over Madden on the PlayStation. I love A Long
1137
01:06:18.480 --> 01:06:18.960
Way to Fall.
1138
01:06:19.199 --> 01:06:21.199
I love the pros for them too, So the pros
1139
01:06:21.239 --> 01:06:26.920
for ESPN Real NFL players, ESPN license, the game loads
1140
01:06:26.960 --> 01:06:31.400
flop fine, and then pros for Game Day better than
1141
01:06:31.519 --> 01:06:40.519
last year's Game Day no a D, decent animations, big hits. Yikes. Alright,
1142
01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:43.000
let's get to the juice. Let's get to the good stuff,
1143
01:06:43.559 --> 01:06:52.079
because no, okay, the Super Smash Bros. Melee review is humongous.
1144
01:06:52.119 --> 01:06:53.079
It's like eight pages.
1145
01:06:53.599 --> 01:06:56.440
I'm astonished. I'm scrolling and scrolling. There's yeah, there's so
1146
01:06:56.599 --> 01:06:57.639
much more of it than I could have.
1147
01:06:57.760 --> 01:07:00.639
Seven of those are basically just a strategy guide, and
1148
01:07:00.719 --> 01:07:04.000
so you have the move set completely with like damage
1149
01:07:04.039 --> 01:07:08.840
output ranges for every character in the game, and then
1150
01:07:08.880 --> 01:07:12.159
you have these sidebars that are about like unlocking secrets,
1151
01:07:12.360 --> 01:07:15.679
or you have like a little like who's mister game
1152
01:07:15.719 --> 01:07:18.320
and watch like he was this strange guy. So it's
1153
01:07:18.440 --> 01:07:21.199
it's kind of like a feature on the game. It's
1154
01:07:21.199 --> 01:07:25.840
also cheats. It's also strategy, but it takes up seven
1155
01:07:25.920 --> 01:07:29.840
of the eight pages. It's huge, which is neat, but
1156
01:07:30.039 --> 01:07:35.000
it's also like smashes, like you press the direction, you
1157
01:07:35.079 --> 01:07:37.320
press a button and it does the move too, so
1158
01:07:37.480 --> 01:07:41.360
it's like it's it it's.
1159
01:07:41.239 --> 01:07:44.559
A weird, like it's weird. It is weird, and can
1160
01:07:44.599 --> 01:07:46.400
you go one more page? And then I don't know
1161
01:07:46.440 --> 01:07:50.199
if you can zoom in on a ness. The happy
1162
01:07:50.239 --> 01:07:52.159
little kid from earth Bown returns and he's brought us
1163
01:07:52.199 --> 01:07:54.320
baseball bat with him. Use that be to smack your
1164
01:07:54.400 --> 01:07:58.800
enemies around. I didn't know the word kerning. I didn't
1165
01:07:58.840 --> 01:08:03.079
even know the word justification. All I knew was sometimes
1166
01:08:03.119 --> 01:08:07.440
I'd be reading a magazine and the most insane shit
1167
01:08:07.519 --> 01:08:10.920
would happen to the letters. Yeah, look at this, the
1168
01:08:11.400 --> 01:08:14.679
happy like. The spacing on Happy is so much tighter
1169
01:08:14.760 --> 01:08:17.359
than all the rest of the text. Comma Big Space.
1170
01:08:18.159 --> 01:08:23.359
Little kid from Earthbound returns and he's brought his baseball
1171
01:08:23.720 --> 01:08:27.960
like and then Earth also italicized, right right, and it's
1172
01:08:28.000 --> 01:08:31.319
all it's all italicized, except for Earthbound because Earth Bounds
1173
01:08:31.359 --> 01:08:34.600
the titles they de italicized it. But the italics don't
1174
01:08:34.600 --> 01:08:37.720
even look consistent. Some of the letters look more italicized
1175
01:08:37.760 --> 01:08:40.039
than others. I don't know what's going on here. This
1176
01:08:40.159 --> 01:08:43.600
happened all the time in old magazines, and I was
1177
01:08:43.840 --> 01:08:44.520
never sure.
1178
01:08:44.399 --> 01:08:47.399
What was going on with that, because like sometimes you
1179
01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:50.039
like in print, you're messing with the kernene so that
1180
01:08:50.119 --> 01:08:52.159
you don't get orphans or widows and all that kind
1181
01:08:52.159 --> 01:08:55.560
of stuff. But like in that first line in that bio,
1182
01:08:56.640 --> 01:08:59.520
that's the second shortest line. So like you could have
1183
01:08:59.600 --> 01:09:04.279
had kurrn perfectly normally and it would have had more
1184
01:09:04.319 --> 01:09:07.720
than enough space. So probably like a last minute rewrite
1185
01:09:07.880 --> 01:09:08.640
or something.
1186
01:09:09.319 --> 01:09:11.319
Like I get it, I get it, but like, man,
1187
01:09:11.479 --> 01:09:14.239
sometimes I was just like, what is going on? Every
1188
01:09:14.279 --> 01:09:16.359
once on the newspaper. You'd see it. You'd be reading
1189
01:09:16.359 --> 01:09:18.640
the newspaper and like one word would take up an
1190
01:09:18.880 --> 01:09:22.399
entire columns length. You know, you'd have like an eight
1191
01:09:22.520 --> 01:09:26.960
letter word spaced out so it takes up the entire column,
1192
01:09:27.079 --> 01:09:30.800
And like, did you not see that? Nobody saw that.
1193
01:09:31.000 --> 01:09:32.600
Everybody thought that looked fine.
1194
01:09:33.359 --> 01:09:37.800
Okay, So after seven pages of like strategy and move
1195
01:09:37.920 --> 01:09:40.640
sets and secret stages, we get to the actual review.
1196
01:09:40.920 --> 01:09:43.399
But even that page, half of it is taken up
1197
01:09:43.720 --> 01:09:49.560
with a sidebar about how to unlock secret characters. And
1198
01:09:49.720 --> 01:09:52.439
so in this review, the whole review is actually like
1199
01:09:52.600 --> 01:09:55.119
maybe two hundred words at the bottom of the final
1200
01:09:55.159 --> 01:10:00.239
page and then a sidebar labeled pros and cons. Let's
1201
01:10:00.239 --> 01:10:04.359
get to the actual main text first. I think, sure,
1202
01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:08.479
what's your experience with Smash Bros. Tie and specifically.
1203
01:10:08.039 --> 01:10:13.920
Melee, my experience with Smash Bros. And specifically Melee is zero.
1204
01:10:14.159 --> 01:10:16.439
I didn't play any Smash Bros Until Ultimate on we
1205
01:10:17.239 --> 01:10:23.239
we Switch. Oh my god, wow Brain Okay. Yeah, No,
1206
01:10:23.439 --> 01:10:27.960
I didn't play any Smash Bros Until Ultimate on Switch Okay,
1207
01:10:28.359 --> 01:10:34.039
And that unlocked something in my son, and he went
1208
01:10:34.199 --> 01:10:37.880
back and started getting into Smash Bros. And then found out,
1209
01:10:38.159 --> 01:10:41.520
like cool kids for Smash Bros. Play Melee also. I
1210
01:10:41.640 --> 01:10:46.880
believe he had a high school teacher who was into
1211
01:10:46.960 --> 01:10:50.479
melee and encouraged kids to beat and hosted a Melee
1212
01:10:50.600 --> 01:10:54.159
tournament with game cubes and TVs, and that really hooked
1213
01:10:54.600 --> 01:10:57.880
my son on melee also, and so he went down
1214
01:10:58.000 --> 01:11:01.399
like a big old Melee rabbit hole, like sophomore junior
1215
01:11:01.479 --> 01:11:06.279
year of high school, and he started playing on emulators online.
1216
01:11:06.880 --> 01:11:11.720
He got the Box Controllers, a big hardware programmable controller.
1217
01:11:12.479 --> 01:11:17.600
He actually just recently did a big like firmware mod
1218
01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:20.840
hack and then screwed up the firmware and then I'm
1219
01:11:20.880 --> 01:11:23.600
doing like a discord session with like the person who
1220
01:11:23.720 --> 01:11:26.720
developed the mod for the firm like through this whole thing.
1221
01:11:27.319 --> 01:11:28.920
And then he started going to He's been to some
1222
01:11:29.079 --> 01:11:32.199
locals the campus here in the state, you know, so
1223
01:11:32.399 --> 01:11:36.000
he's he's been he keeps playing Melee. He's big into it,
1224
01:11:36.119 --> 01:11:36.960
you know, follows.
1225
01:11:38.319 --> 01:11:38.439
Uh.
1226
01:11:38.840 --> 01:11:41.119
He's gone back and forth between Falco and Captain Falcon.
1227
01:11:41.159 --> 01:11:45.600
I think he's back on falcoh so punch, Yeah, I
1228
01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:48.760
think I think Falco is where he's at. But you know,
1229
01:11:48.800 --> 01:11:50.880
he's dabbled in like a little bit of everything, right,
1230
01:11:51.039 --> 01:11:52.560
and he you know, showed me all some of his
1231
01:11:52.640 --> 01:11:55.159
favorite streamers and stuff, and you know that was what
1232
01:11:55.319 --> 01:11:57.000
that was a COVID thing too, because that was kind
1233
01:11:57.039 --> 01:11:59.279
of right at that same time with COVID, and so
1234
01:11:59.479 --> 01:12:02.199
we he we got into watching he was playing Roundbow
1235
01:12:02.239 --> 01:12:03.600
six to two. So like I got into watching some
1236
01:12:03.720 --> 01:12:05.680
Melee streamers and some Melee terms, yeah, you know, and
1237
01:12:05.720 --> 01:12:07.279
I was like, oh, this is really cool, you know,
1238
01:12:08.159 --> 01:12:09.920
but yeah, I never did any of it.
1239
01:12:10.359 --> 01:12:13.680
So yeah, it's fascinating. But that's also like there are
1240
01:12:13.720 --> 01:12:16.520
so many people who's experienced with video games and games
1241
01:12:16.560 --> 01:12:20.960
culture is dressed through like watching other people play, right,
1242
01:12:21.039 --> 01:12:23.039
like let's plays and streamers and stuff like that. And
1243
01:12:23.119 --> 01:12:25.600
I was I was talking to somebody recently, I can't
1244
01:12:25.640 --> 01:12:30.000
even remember who, but like it just brought up like
1245
01:12:30.199 --> 01:12:32.560
oh no, they were talking about Pokemon card game and
1246
01:12:32.600 --> 01:12:35.199
how you know, lots of people watch like kids will
1247
01:12:35.199 --> 01:12:39.399
watch their favorite players stream playing Pokemon right card game,
1248
01:12:39.600 --> 01:12:41.560
and some people, like a lot of people just don't
1249
01:12:41.560 --> 01:12:43.680
get it and why that's appealing and why why aren't
1250
01:12:43.680 --> 01:12:46.159
you doing something better with your time and and stuff.
1251
01:12:46.239 --> 01:12:49.600
But I, you know, I find that it's just a
1252
01:12:49.720 --> 01:12:53.840
different way to engage with content like and not content
1253
01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:56.640
like capital C hashtag content, but just like you know,
1254
01:12:56.800 --> 01:13:00.399
different way to engage and consume something. And I, you know,
1255
01:13:00.920 --> 01:13:04.039
obviously I stream on the fun Factor Twitch page and
1256
01:13:04.119 --> 01:13:06.840
I enjoy doing that, and the community aspect of it
1257
01:13:07.039 --> 01:13:09.760
is something that I don't think people can understand necessarily
1258
01:13:09.840 --> 01:13:12.800
until they're part of it as well. But it's cool,
1259
01:13:13.039 --> 01:13:15.319
like for you as a dad to be able to
1260
01:13:15.720 --> 01:13:22.520
enjoy your son's like community and fandom in a way
1261
01:13:22.560 --> 01:13:25.279
that supports them like that, I just think that's that's
1262
01:13:25.359 --> 01:13:25.880
pretty cool.
1263
01:13:26.159 --> 01:13:26.359
It is.
1264
01:13:26.840 --> 01:13:30.840
I played a lot of melee, never competitively, mostly against
1265
01:13:30.880 --> 01:13:32.840
like my brother and stuff like that, but that was
1266
01:13:33.000 --> 01:13:35.239
the game. That's the smash game that I've played the
1267
01:13:35.279 --> 01:13:39.880
most out by far, and I liked it. And the
1268
01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:41.720
review touches on this a bit, but I liked it
1269
01:13:41.760 --> 01:13:44.039
because there was so much crunchy stuff to do a
1270
01:13:44.199 --> 01:13:46.479
single player that you were always able to pick it
1271
01:13:46.560 --> 01:13:48.119
up for a little bit, and it wasn't just about
1272
01:13:48.159 --> 01:13:52.960
that like competitive element, multiplayer element. You could get in
1273
01:13:53.039 --> 01:13:55.760
there and just do all the like do all the
1274
01:13:55.800 --> 01:13:58.640
extra stuff, right, and that sort of become part and
1275
01:13:58.720 --> 01:14:03.159
parcel with what's the guy sacrifice like game design methodology
1276
01:14:03.159 --> 01:14:05.960
and Kirby air Riders is the same way. And I
1277
01:14:06.000 --> 01:14:08.760
think that that's pretty fun and just the novelty of
1278
01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:13.960
getting a fight as Mario against Samus or whatever is cool.
1279
01:14:14.239 --> 01:14:16.600
Like it was silly and fun, and that Nintendo was
1280
01:14:16.640 --> 01:14:18.119
the first one to sort of do it and pull
1281
01:14:18.159 --> 01:14:22.920
it off. It's exciting, and I think it really unlocked
1282
01:14:23.039 --> 01:14:25.359
sort of the Nintendo verse as like an ip and
1283
01:14:25.479 --> 01:14:28.920
we're seeing star Fox crossing over with Mario now in
1284
01:14:29.000 --> 01:14:31.439
the movie, you know, like Fox McLeod being in the
1285
01:14:31.520 --> 01:14:36.479
Mario movie. I feel like, you all it all harkens
1286
01:14:36.560 --> 01:14:40.439
back to Smash Bros. You know, the resurgence of fire
1287
01:14:40.520 --> 01:14:43.439
Emblem and the popularization of fire Emblem in the West,
1288
01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:50.079
like in North America, Like that is because of Smash right,
1289
01:14:50.279 --> 01:14:53.840
Roy and Mars being in Melee is why fire Emblem exists.
1290
01:14:53.920 --> 01:14:55.800
The way it does now, and I think that's pretty
1291
01:14:55.920 --> 01:15:02.159
uh pretty great. This review here is from Phil Theobald,
1292
01:15:02.479 --> 01:15:05.439
and the review starts off by looking at the Nintendo
1293
01:15:05.520 --> 01:15:08.239
sixty four Smash Bros. Which I didn't play a lot of.
1294
01:15:08.319 --> 01:15:10.680
I've played since, but at the time that was like,
1295
01:15:10.760 --> 01:15:12.600
my brother was really into it, but I didn't. Really
1296
01:15:12.920 --> 01:15:17.000
kind of passed me by. Can you read Phil's opening
1297
01:15:17.039 --> 01:15:18.039
paragraphs for me time.
1298
01:15:18.600 --> 01:15:21.079
When the original Super Smash Bros. Was released for the
1299
01:15:21.199 --> 01:15:24.800
n sixty four, I was instantly hooked. Not only was
1300
01:15:24.880 --> 01:15:27.399
the novelty of pitting Mario in a fight against Link
1301
01:15:27.399 --> 01:15:29.880
a blast, but the game played incredibly well to boot.
1302
01:15:30.359 --> 01:15:32.960
As deeply as I love the game, however, I still
1303
01:15:33.039 --> 01:15:35.600
couldn't shake the feeling that it was more of a
1304
01:15:35.800 --> 01:15:40.399
multiplayer game. The single player mode was definitely lacking. Nintendo
1305
01:15:40.479 --> 01:15:42.720
must have heard that complain a lot, because the GameCube
1306
01:15:42.760 --> 01:15:45.720
sequel to Smash Bros. Is just as much fun to play,
1307
01:15:46.079 --> 01:15:47.880
even when you don't have a bunch of your friends over.
1308
01:15:48.720 --> 01:15:51.640
What makes the game so entertaining for the single player
1309
01:15:51.880 --> 01:15:53.720
is that there's just so much to do.
1310
01:15:55.680 --> 01:15:59.520
So he's echoing a lot of what I just said
1311
01:15:59.600 --> 01:16:02.239
about I think Melee was the one that I really
1312
01:16:02.319 --> 01:16:04.760
got into compared to the N sixty four to one
1313
01:16:05.600 --> 01:16:07.520
and didn't really you know, I played the Wii one.
1314
01:16:07.720 --> 01:16:12.119
I actually played the three DS one, But just the
1315
01:16:12.239 --> 01:16:14.600
inclusion of all of that extra stuff that gave it
1316
01:16:14.720 --> 01:16:17.680
structure was really appealing to me. And I think the
1317
01:16:17.760 --> 01:16:22.720
Theobald's pretty spot on here in his assessment of how
1318
01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:28.000
that single player expansion helped the series blow up compared
1319
01:16:28.039 --> 01:16:29.600
to its you know, it was popular on the N
1320
01:16:29.640 --> 01:16:33.800
sixty four, it became like Dynamite on the on the
1321
01:16:33.840 --> 01:16:34.439
game cube.
1322
01:16:34.880 --> 01:16:36.000
But like, what really.
1323
01:16:35.920 --> 01:16:38.920
Stands out to me about the writing in this review
1324
01:16:39.079 --> 01:16:43.479
is how bloggy it all feels. Zif Davis was behind
1325
01:16:43.520 --> 01:16:47.279
a lot of the personality driven boom and games media
1326
01:16:47.439 --> 01:16:51.039
like in the early to mid nots, But it's not like,
1327
01:16:51.640 --> 01:16:54.079
for some reason, it's not really working for me here
1328
01:16:54.800 --> 01:16:57.399
compared to the way it did. Like on on One
1329
01:16:57.520 --> 01:17:00.520
Up last episode, we talked about that Great World Series
1330
01:17:00.600 --> 01:17:04.359
Baseball review and how it didn't really like focus too
1331
01:17:04.439 --> 01:17:08.479
much on how the game was played, but more about
1332
01:17:08.520 --> 01:17:11.159
the feeling and emotion of playing it. Yes, yeah, and
1333
01:17:11.279 --> 01:17:13.800
this kind of feels like the opposite to me is
1334
01:17:13.880 --> 01:17:18.479
like describing how the game is in a way that
1335
01:17:18.680 --> 01:17:21.800
just it just doesn't work for me. It doesn't feel
1336
01:17:21.880 --> 01:17:25.479
like I learn or know more about the game after
1337
01:17:25.600 --> 01:17:27.880
reading this review compared to when I start.
1338
01:17:29.439 --> 01:17:34.119
Yeah, I don't have anything super cool to add to that,
1339
01:17:34.399 --> 01:17:39.960
because Detroit Lyons starting cornerback and twenty twenty four first
1340
01:17:40.079 --> 01:17:44.359
round pic Terrrian Arnold was just rested on multiple felony
1341
01:17:44.520 --> 01:17:49.359
charges of kidnapping and conspiracy, which I'll add up to
1342
01:17:49.560 --> 01:17:54.039
potential sentence of life in prison. So this is something
1343
01:17:54.119 --> 01:17:58.199
that was low key on the radar. It happened last year.
1344
01:17:59.399 --> 01:18:04.159
And yeah, anyway, every device I have is vibrating off
1345
01:18:04.239 --> 01:18:07.199
the table and I'm kind of trying to get grips
1346
01:18:07.239 --> 01:18:10.000
on it. But yeah, so anyway, Detroit Lions fans, this
1347
01:18:10.119 --> 01:18:13.680
is incredibly bad news. And everybody assured us that this
1348
01:18:13.920 --> 01:18:17.000
was just fine, even though any cursory glance at the
1349
01:18:17.039 --> 01:18:20.159
evidence revealed months ago it was like, this might not
1350
01:18:20.399 --> 01:18:26.319
be fine, and in fact, it is not fine. Anyway, continue,
1351
01:18:26.800 --> 01:18:28.960
I guess, right, So.
1352
01:18:30.760 --> 01:18:35.199
Yeah, sure, So in the pros and cons section, there's
1353
01:18:35.239 --> 01:18:37.600
a sidebar that, as we talked about earlier talks about
1354
01:18:37.640 --> 01:18:40.159
pros and cons pros, it plays great, which is like,
1355
01:18:40.520 --> 01:18:44.520
it's just that's just generic language. What does plays great mean?
1356
01:18:44.600 --> 01:18:46.399
What does that feel? Why do you do you feel
1357
01:18:46.439 --> 01:18:49.479
like you're the character? Do you feel like each character
1358
01:18:49.600 --> 01:18:56.199
is differentiated itself enough like fantastic multiplayer options, lots of
1359
01:18:56.239 --> 01:18:58.800
secret stuff to unlock. I just feel like it's very
1360
01:18:58.880 --> 01:19:02.920
vague minus is or the cons or action might be
1361
01:19:02.960 --> 01:19:06.880
too hectic for some, which I think is probably true.
1362
01:19:06.960 --> 01:19:09.760
But I think ultimately that is the strength of those
1363
01:19:09.840 --> 01:19:14.039
games is that people play them and it's not about
1364
01:19:14.399 --> 01:19:17.479
precision for a lot of people. Once you get obviously
1365
01:19:17.560 --> 01:19:20.960
into like well competitive it's very different. But the casual players,
1366
01:19:21.159 --> 01:19:22.600
you can get in there and feel like you're part
1367
01:19:22.640 --> 01:19:25.720
of the action and making an impact because of how
1368
01:19:25.800 --> 01:19:26.399
hectic it is.
1369
01:19:27.039 --> 01:19:30.560
Yeah, well, and this is also the ongoing complaint. The
1370
01:19:30.680 --> 01:19:35.960
reason Melee still is the most popular smash game in
1371
01:19:36.079 --> 01:19:39.600
the fighting game community is because it's fast enough and
1372
01:19:39.680 --> 01:19:43.920
technical enough and crunchy enough that you can get really
1373
01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:47.479
really good at it. Yes, and then later games and
1374
01:19:47.640 --> 01:19:51.279
especially Ultimate. Ultimate is very fun to play and anybody
1375
01:19:51.319 --> 01:19:53.319
can jump in and play and it looks great and
1376
01:19:53.439 --> 01:19:57.479
it feels great, but it's so floaty and the delay
1377
01:19:57.640 --> 01:20:01.239
is so much that there's just that at that low
1378
01:20:01.399 --> 01:20:04.680
skill ceiling where there's only so actually good you can
1379
01:20:04.800 --> 01:20:10.159
get at it, and the melee getting you know, opening
1380
01:20:10.239 --> 01:20:13.279
the doors to this this path of like you can
1381
01:20:13.359 --> 01:20:16.800
get competitively good at it is unusual for Nintendo, and
1382
01:20:17.079 --> 01:20:19.479
so unusual if they would end up not doing it again.
1383
01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:23.079
I feel like we didn't even know, no, not at
1384
01:20:23.119 --> 01:20:23.439
this time.
1385
01:20:23.520 --> 01:20:25.640
I don't think people understood.
1386
01:20:25.680 --> 01:20:29.840
How how technically calm not even complex isn't the right word,
1387
01:20:29.920 --> 01:20:33.479
but just precise and refined and considered. Yes, this game
1388
01:20:33.720 --> 01:20:36.840
was like the fact that melee is the way it is,
1389
01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:40.039
Like I don't even was it even intentional, you know,
1390
01:20:40.359 --> 01:20:41.960
like there to make a bunch.
1391
01:20:41.800 --> 01:20:45.520
Of evidence, you know, like a hardcore fighting game community
1392
01:20:45.720 --> 01:20:49.319
pouring all of their attention onto this game, and you know,
1393
01:20:49.560 --> 01:20:53.000
just absolutely deconstructing this down to the atom.
1394
01:20:53.520 --> 01:20:53.680
You know.
1395
01:20:53.880 --> 01:20:58.640
I I know my son has watched like hours long
1396
01:20:58.840 --> 01:21:03.199
YouTube videos. How like Donkey Kong's tie somehow counts as
1397
01:21:03.239 --> 01:21:05.720
part of his hip box, right, Like yeah, there's oh
1398
01:21:06.239 --> 01:21:09.199
in this when this character does this move, there's a
1399
01:21:09.279 --> 01:21:11.720
glitch where there's a two frame delay, and so you
1400
01:21:11.800 --> 01:21:15.560
can you know whatever, right, like all these super super
1401
01:21:15.640 --> 01:21:19.760
super technical, like and you get this impression this game
1402
01:21:19.960 --> 01:21:23.680
is this bug ridden mess. Like if you listen to people,
1403
01:21:23.760 --> 01:21:26.840
it only goes Yeah, well, if you pick any game
1404
01:21:27.760 --> 01:21:30.000
from two thousand and one and two thousand and two
1405
01:21:30.720 --> 01:21:34.039
and pick it to absolute pieces, you know, okerat of time,
1406
01:21:34.199 --> 01:21:38.600
many people consider it a masterpiece. Speed Runners cracked that thing.
1407
01:21:39.039 --> 01:21:43.520
Why open, right, Like, there's so many Mario We've talked
1408
01:21:43.600 --> 01:21:46.720
over and over Mario sixty four, right, Like there's so
1409
01:21:46.920 --> 01:21:50.279
many ludicrous glitches in that game and cut content and
1410
01:21:50.319 --> 01:21:54.960
everything else. So yeah, it's it's it's because it was
1411
01:21:55.199 --> 01:22:00.319
so precise and so well crafted that people then even
1412
01:22:00.600 --> 01:22:04.000
bothered to dig into every little tiny look and cranny.
1413
01:22:04.399 --> 01:22:09.640
Yeah, And like I don't think that you can design
1414
01:22:09.760 --> 01:22:12.520
a game necessarily at that level. That's not like super
1415
01:22:12.600 --> 01:22:19.199
iterative like long running fighting game franchises. Maybe you're getting
1416
01:22:19.279 --> 01:22:22.560
into like that minutia, but like I don't think Sacharai
1417
01:22:22.760 --> 01:22:27.279
was sitting down and necessarily like intentionally balancing the game
1418
01:22:27.359 --> 01:22:31.119
around Donkey Kong's ki, right, Yeah, but there was you know,
1419
01:22:31.239 --> 01:22:33.920
there's also magic juice that's going on, and like it
1420
01:22:34.159 --> 01:22:36.960
just kind of comes together and works. Like my dad
1421
01:22:37.119 --> 01:22:39.079
is a playwright and a journalist and some of his
1422
01:22:39.159 --> 01:22:42.680
plays are taught at the college level. And he once
1423
01:22:42.800 --> 01:22:46.000
saw like a test an exam about one of his plays,
1424
01:22:47.159 --> 01:22:48.840
and he was reading the questions. He was like, what,
1425
01:22:49.720 --> 01:22:52.520
I don't like, I don't know. I'd never thought of that,
1426
01:22:52.840 --> 01:22:55.279
Like I've never considered I never even like I couldn't
1427
01:22:55.279 --> 01:22:58.560
even answer this on this question, And like, I wonder
1428
01:22:58.680 --> 01:23:03.159
how much of like Melee's kind of brilliance is not
1429
01:23:03.359 --> 01:23:08.680
accidental but like almost like I don't even know what
1430
01:23:08.800 --> 01:23:11.560
the word. It's like non intentional.
1431
01:23:11.479 --> 01:23:14.399
Place right time or right place, right time, but.
1432
01:23:14.479 --> 01:23:19.720
Also just like having good people instinctal, you know, like
1433
01:23:19.880 --> 01:23:22.520
having the right people in there working on it, whereas
1434
01:23:22.640 --> 01:23:26.119
like the best stuff happens without you even intending it
1435
01:23:26.439 --> 01:23:29.760
or like serendipitous. Yeah, like I don't know, I don't know,
1436
01:23:30.399 --> 01:23:36.520
But anyway, that was one tiny little u con for
1437
01:23:36.960 --> 01:23:40.279
Super Smash Brothers Uh Melee. The next one is that
1438
01:23:40.439 --> 01:23:43.600
awful DK rap, which I think misses the point of
1439
01:23:43.640 --> 01:23:46.279
the series because it's all about ephemera, right, It's all
1440
01:23:46.399 --> 01:23:49.039
about deep cuts and stuff like that. But I can
1441
01:23:49.119 --> 01:23:54.199
look past that. He gives, you know, some little rundowns
1442
01:23:54.279 --> 01:23:59.600
about the control impact lifespan and extras lifespan. Notably, he says,
1443
01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:01.960
even if you do manage to collect all the trophies,
1444
01:24:02.039 --> 01:24:05.199
you and your friends could still play the multiplayer battles forever.
1445
01:24:06.319 --> 01:24:10.359
Spot on. You know, It's like there are games like Doom.
1446
01:24:10.439 --> 01:24:14.159
There are games like Super Smash Bros Melee that just
1447
01:24:14.319 --> 01:24:18.399
will last forever, not being forever games like Fortnite or Roblocks,
1448
01:24:18.600 --> 01:24:20.880
but just ones that are so sort of like perfectly
1449
01:24:22.520 --> 01:24:26.800
created in with the community to support them forever. Now,
1450
01:24:27.880 --> 01:24:32.199
he wraps up the now rated or the pros and
1451
01:24:32.319 --> 01:24:37.319
cons now rated sidebar by giving it an A plus,
1452
01:24:37.640 --> 01:24:41.399
which I think is the right score. Yeah, Theobald says.
1453
01:24:41.520 --> 01:24:44.920
Though as a little blurb like justifying the A plus,
1454
01:24:45.000 --> 01:24:47.399
he says, quote, I spent a lot of time trying
1455
01:24:47.439 --> 01:24:49.760
to think of a reason not to give this game
1456
01:24:50.199 --> 01:24:54.000
our perfect score. After hours upon hours of playing, I
1457
01:24:54.119 --> 01:24:55.680
couldn't come up with a better one.
1458
01:24:58.600 --> 01:24:59.039
End quote.
1459
01:25:00.159 --> 01:25:02.319
I think this touch is a bit like on a
1460
01:25:02.479 --> 01:25:07.680
topic we've discussed in the past, and how Yeah, our
1461
01:25:07.760 --> 01:25:11.039
review scales need to be used, and a plus or
1462
01:25:11.079 --> 01:25:15.479
ten out of ten cannot be reserved for perfection otherwise
1463
01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:17.960
it'll never be used. So then it's not a point
1464
01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:20.319
on your scale, then nine is the top of your scale.
1465
01:25:20.359 --> 01:25:21.680
But if you can't use the top of your scale,
1466
01:25:21.920 --> 01:25:27.920
you can't use a nine. I don't think a plus
1467
01:25:28.399 --> 01:25:30.880
ten out of ten needs to mean perfect, just that
1468
01:25:31.119 --> 01:25:37.079
it sits in that upper echelon of culture, not just
1469
01:25:37.239 --> 01:25:40.000
video games, books, movies, anything, Right, it just sits in
1470
01:25:40.159 --> 01:25:44.159
and belongs in that tier of the other greats. Right.
1471
01:25:45.239 --> 01:25:49.920
I'm a little turned off by theobald talking about spending
1472
01:25:50.119 --> 01:25:52.920
hours trying to figure out how to give this game
1473
01:25:53.680 --> 01:25:58.880
a lower score. Yeah, hindsight, like Melee is undoubtedly an
1474
01:25:58.880 --> 01:26:01.279
A plus game, one of the all time greats, one
1475
01:26:01.319 --> 01:26:05.199
of the most influential games of all time. I think
1476
01:26:05.359 --> 01:26:10.039
the idea that there's like journalistic integrity or independence or
1477
01:26:10.079 --> 01:26:16.279
critical thought that's compromised by giving top marks is just
1478
01:26:16.560 --> 01:26:19.760
sort of a dangerous way of thinking, I think is
1479
01:26:19.960 --> 01:26:23.359
just as bad as like, like, I don't I think
1480
01:26:23.399 --> 01:26:30.520
this idea that subjectivity is bad is bad.
1481
01:26:30.760 --> 01:26:35.760
Yeah? Yeah, no, I I on one hand, I understand
1482
01:26:35.840 --> 01:26:39.720
because you want to protect you know, you want to
1483
01:26:39.760 --> 01:26:45.880
protect against score creep, great inflation. Right, you want to say, hey,
1484
01:26:46.079 --> 01:26:48.680
like when we say this is a perfect game, you
1485
01:26:48.760 --> 01:26:52.279
want that to mean something. And you know, we've talked
1486
01:26:52.279 --> 01:26:55.199
before about how Next Generation had such a clear rubric
1487
01:26:55.279 --> 01:26:58.399
for their five point system. Even then, it was something
1488
01:26:58.520 --> 01:27:01.239
where you can kind of see some I remember I
1489
01:27:01.319 --> 01:27:04.800
think Fighters Megamix got a five star grade from them,
1490
01:27:05.560 --> 01:27:12.399
and I was like, Fighters Megamix, the fighting game that
1491
01:27:12.600 --> 01:27:18.000
is literally a remix of all of Sega's other fighting
1492
01:27:18.119 --> 01:27:26.560
games Data car is revolutionary, brilliant, and flawless, a new
1493
01:27:26.680 --> 01:27:30.239
high water mark. Fighters Mega Mix is revolutionary. If I
1494
01:27:30.359 --> 01:27:36.239
already own the first and second printing of Virtua Fighter
1495
01:27:36.359 --> 01:27:40.399
for the Sega stard, I already own Fighting Vipers, you're
1496
01:27:40.600 --> 01:27:44.359
telling me Fighters Mega Mix is somehow a fight, you
1497
01:27:44.399 --> 01:27:46.239
know what I mean? So it's like like you want
1498
01:27:46.239 --> 01:27:47.800
to guard against that, you want to protect that, you
1499
01:27:47.880 --> 01:27:50.520
want that your word to mean something. But I think
1500
01:27:50.600 --> 01:27:53.000
this is even more about even in this magazine that
1501
01:27:54.079 --> 01:27:58.680
not explicitly, but we can kind of tell from the
1502
01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:01.840
creative and editorial output what is targeted towards a younger audience,
1503
01:28:01.960 --> 01:28:05.920
is trying to grab kids that are not reading Next Generation,
1504
01:28:06.399 --> 01:28:09.680
that are not buying Intelligent Gamer. I mean, why did
1505
01:28:09.720 --> 01:28:13.760
they rebrand the magazine from Expert Gamer. If you're twelve
1506
01:28:14.000 --> 01:28:16.119
and you just want to know how to get jiggly
1507
01:28:16.239 --> 01:28:19.680
Puff in Smash Bros. You're not an expert gamer. You
1508
01:28:19.720 --> 01:28:22.560
don't think of yourself as an expert gamer. You want
1509
01:28:22.600 --> 01:28:27.159
to play games now, That's why it's game now. So like, like,
1510
01:28:27.279 --> 01:28:30.319
I get that, right, but you still have these these
1511
01:28:30.399 --> 01:28:35.000
are grown mostly men going oh man, can we really
1512
01:28:35.239 --> 01:28:40.880
give Nintendo a perfect score for just smashing all their
1513
01:28:40.920 --> 01:28:46.000
ip together in a box? And okay, I guess right, Like, like,
1514
01:28:46.279 --> 01:28:49.800
here you go, are you a Nintendo super fan? Here's
1515
01:28:49.840 --> 01:28:52.560
the dream thing he wanted to see, Mario versus Lincoln
1516
01:28:52.600 --> 01:28:55.520
a fight? Like, can we give that a perfect score?
1517
01:28:55.960 --> 01:28:58.359
I can see how that can be an editorial discussion
1518
01:28:58.399 --> 01:29:02.239
at the same time, Yeah, history proves this game is
1519
01:29:02.279 --> 01:29:07.520
this banger. It slaps. It absolutely is worthy as highest
1520
01:29:07.520 --> 01:29:09.399
scores you want to give it. And they gave it
1521
01:29:09.479 --> 01:29:11.479
an A plus. You know, they came to the right
1522
01:29:11.520 --> 01:29:16.359
conclusion ultimately, right, and so you go, okay, like, yeah,
1523
01:29:16.680 --> 01:29:19.239
I think it's worth having the conversation. But they I
1524
01:29:19.359 --> 01:29:20.760
think they landed in the right place.
1525
01:29:21.079 --> 01:29:24.720
So like, I think that's a good point because Metal
1526
01:29:24.760 --> 01:29:27.119
Gear Solid TWD also got an A plus, which I
1527
01:29:27.159 --> 01:29:30.600
think is the right score. Ethan Einhorn in the now
1528
01:29:30.720 --> 01:29:34.600
rated section says quote producer director Hideyo Kojima is one
1529
01:29:34.640 --> 01:29:36.800
of the world's greatest video game developers, and Metal Gear
1530
01:29:36.800 --> 01:29:40.479
Solid two is his undeniable masterpiece. You simply have to
1531
01:29:40.560 --> 01:29:47.920
play it. Hmm. No equivocation, right, yes, In fact, it's
1532
01:29:48.079 --> 01:29:53.119
just sort of slobbery and its praise. I would say
1533
01:29:53.199 --> 01:29:56.159
that Metal Gear Solid two is a far more flawed
1534
01:29:56.319 --> 01:30:02.039
game than Melee has held up. I mean, obviously Melgislo
1535
01:30:02.039 --> 01:30:04.640
two is held up quite well, but Melee has held up.
1536
01:30:04.960 --> 01:30:08.880
Melee is in like doom territory of old. Yes, yes, right,
1537
01:30:10.439 --> 01:30:13.479
but there's no equivocation here, And I think you're kind
1538
01:30:13.520 --> 01:30:15.640
of coming back to the same thing. Did Ethan sit
1539
01:30:15.680 --> 01:30:17.439
there going, Man, I want to give this an A plus,
1540
01:30:17.479 --> 01:30:21.000
but I don't think I can, right, Yeah, So you know,
1541
01:30:21.239 --> 01:30:24.479
like why not? Like why? And I think you're right?
1542
01:30:24.600 --> 01:30:26.920
That is like, am I really going to give our
1543
01:30:27.000 --> 01:30:28.800
top score to the silly fighting game?
1544
01:30:29.680 --> 01:30:32.640
And you know, because it's it's not child it's not
1545
01:30:32.840 --> 01:30:36.319
it's not tritty, it's childish, it's not gritty. It's not
1546
01:30:36.880 --> 01:30:40.600
what we think all the gamers want. It's not pandering
1547
01:30:40.680 --> 01:30:45.039
to the meta, it's not pandering to the mainstream consensus
1548
01:30:45.119 --> 01:30:47.039
at this time of what of what the audience is
1549
01:30:47.079 --> 01:30:50.239
looking for, But actually it is exactly what the audience
1550
01:30:50.319 --> 01:30:52.680
is looking for. It's giving the audience what they didn't
1551
01:30:52.680 --> 01:30:54.640
even know they wanted, but they wouldn't even be able
1552
01:30:54.640 --> 01:30:57.239
to dream it was possible before the original for n
1553
01:30:57.279 --> 01:30:59.720
sixty four, Right, and so you're going, all right, cool,
1554
01:30:59.840 --> 01:31:02.359
like we're taking the thing that people that was a
1555
01:31:02.479 --> 01:31:05.159
weird one off and we're making it a real thing
1556
01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:07.399
and people are really going to respond to it. So
1557
01:31:07.560 --> 01:31:12.039
I yeah, they're fighting ghosts here, They're fighting their own
1558
01:31:12.159 --> 01:31:15.560
perception of what people will of how what you will
1559
01:31:15.600 --> 01:31:16.159
perceive them.
1560
01:31:16.439 --> 01:31:18.640
What do you think about that making up the text
1561
01:31:18.720 --> 01:31:23.640
of the review? Uh, because I think like where I'm
1562
01:31:23.760 --> 01:31:28.600
ultimately left a little unsettled. Is great that he went
1563
01:31:28.640 --> 01:31:33.039
through the thought process, yes, but I think I don't
1564
01:31:33.039 --> 01:31:36.359
think it makes for an interesting review to me if
1565
01:31:36.600 --> 01:31:39.159
it's part of what makes it feel bloggy in a
1566
01:31:39.239 --> 01:31:42.800
way that I don't think really works here of him,
1567
01:31:43.279 --> 01:31:45.239
like his very naval game bloggy.
1568
01:31:44.960 --> 01:31:47.319
Is right, And this is something that I learned a
1569
01:31:47.359 --> 01:31:50.000
little bit early on when I was transitioning from blogging.
1570
01:31:50.119 --> 01:31:54.800
As I mentioned before, into professional writing, like immediately is
1571
01:31:56.439 --> 01:31:59.760
when you're blogging a lot of times if you're un
1572
01:32:00.079 --> 01:32:04.960
trained as a nonfiction writer. You know, you were a
1573
01:32:05.039 --> 01:32:07.560
good writer in high school. You know, people told you
1574
01:32:07.640 --> 01:32:09.600
you should be a writer. Right, and you sit down
1575
01:32:09.600 --> 01:32:11.000
and you open up and you start writing, and you
1576
01:32:11.079 --> 01:32:13.079
start using some of the same techniques that you're taught
1577
01:32:13.119 --> 01:32:16.319
in school. You're like, oh, well, you should anticipate the argument, right,
1578
01:32:16.479 --> 01:32:20.680
you should. You should leave room to be wrong. You should,
1579
01:32:21.039 --> 01:32:23.279
you know, use your I think, you know, use your
1580
01:32:23.359 --> 01:32:26.199
eye words and like, you know, couch things in certain terms,
1581
01:32:26.319 --> 01:32:28.560
and and you should go, oh, well, I might be
1582
01:32:28.600 --> 01:32:30.239
wrong because of X, Y and Z or oh I
1583
01:32:30.319 --> 01:32:33.079
can hear you saying, but Ty, shouldn't it be like this,
1584
01:32:33.359 --> 01:32:35.239
you know, and so you should include that and it
1585
01:32:35.359 --> 01:32:42.239
makes it stronger. But from a critical perspective and from
1586
01:32:42.279 --> 01:32:45.319
a journalistic perspective, you know, one of the first things
1587
01:32:45.359 --> 01:32:47.199
that really resonated me and with my good friend Michael
1588
01:32:47.199 --> 01:32:48.760
Shatti was one of the first people that edited me
1589
01:32:48.800 --> 01:32:52.439
at Bleacher Report. It's like it says by Ty Shelter
1590
01:32:52.600 --> 01:32:55.079
at the top. Yeah, you don't have to put I
1591
01:32:55.279 --> 01:32:56.640
think to start every sentence.
1592
01:32:56.760 --> 01:33:02.000
You have give me that note yeah, seven hundred times. Yeah,
1593
01:33:02.760 --> 01:33:06.399
like you've written that exact note on my drafts than
1594
01:33:06.439 --> 01:33:06.920
I can count.
1595
01:33:07.039 --> 01:33:09.039
Say the thing you want to say. Let it stand
1596
01:33:09.079 --> 01:33:09.439
for self.
1597
01:33:09.520 --> 01:33:11.800
Let's your name is, Yeah, your name is on there. Yeah,
1598
01:33:11.920 --> 01:33:14.840
you don't, like you don't have to justify your opinion.
1599
01:33:15.720 --> 01:33:17.279
You have you know, you have to make your argument.
1600
01:33:17.439 --> 01:33:19.920
You have to be clear and in the you know
1601
01:33:20.119 --> 01:33:23.319
what you are saying, convicted and what you're saying. But
1602
01:33:23.399 --> 01:33:25.560
you don't, Yeah, you can't. You don't need to couch.
1603
01:33:25.760 --> 01:33:26.600
You don't need to say that.
1604
01:33:26.760 --> 01:33:30.840
Like, you know, if you're sitting here going I racked
1605
01:33:30.880 --> 01:33:33.960
my brain for hours, days or weeks or whatever trying
1606
01:33:33.960 --> 01:33:36.399
to like not give this a perfect score, don't just
1607
01:33:36.479 --> 01:33:39.920
say like you can just flip that around to this
1608
01:33:40.159 --> 01:33:43.960
game is bulletproof. Like the flaws you're looking for don't exist.
1609
01:33:44.479 --> 01:33:47.119
You know, I I you can even exactly you can
1610
01:33:47.239 --> 01:33:49.960
acknowledge you can. If you want to anticipate an argument
1611
01:33:50.039 --> 01:33:53.680
against it, then make the case, yes against exactly.
1612
01:33:53.880 --> 01:33:54.960
Switch that perspective.
1613
01:33:55.119 --> 01:33:58.079
Don't say that the argument against it is valid, Say
1614
01:33:58.199 --> 01:33:59.800
here's why the argument against it is.
1615
01:34:00.119 --> 01:34:05.720
Galad Yeah, exactly. And you have so little space here
1616
01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:08.479
that I think that like the now rated section is
1617
01:34:08.560 --> 01:34:10.920
like that's the back of the box, right, that's the
1618
01:34:11.119 --> 01:34:11.920
elevator pitch.
1619
01:34:12.119 --> 01:34:15.800
You have one third of one page effectively on an
1620
01:34:15.880 --> 01:34:19.319
eight page section to actually write your actual review.
1621
01:34:20.000 --> 01:34:24.720
Yeah, so like go for it. Yeah, talk about that
1622
01:34:24.960 --> 01:34:29.600
feeling of like playing this upgraded version of the game
1623
01:34:29.640 --> 01:34:32.680
that you loved already on the Nintendo sixty four, and
1624
01:34:32.960 --> 01:34:37.920
like talk about it from its emotional perspective and say, like,
1625
01:34:38.199 --> 01:34:41.319
you know, even if you want to be like hey,
1626
01:34:41.439 --> 01:34:43.640
like I can't believe I'm giving this a plus. It's
1627
01:34:43.720 --> 01:34:46.560
like you couch it from the perspective of like you know,
1628
01:34:47.199 --> 01:34:53.199
as a critic, you know, I I have to be careful,
1629
01:34:53.760 --> 01:34:57.039
you know, becoming too emotionally attached to a game I'm
1630
01:34:57.079 --> 01:35:00.479
reviewing to make sure that I'm not whatever. Like you know,
1631
01:35:00.560 --> 01:35:02.760
there are so many ways to couch this. Yeah, not
1632
01:35:02.920 --> 01:35:05.000
couch this, but like frame this in a way that
1633
01:35:05.199 --> 01:35:08.640
is more sort of like critically insightful. I think into
1634
01:35:08.680 --> 01:35:10.720
the process, like goals of the game.
1635
01:35:10.800 --> 01:35:14.000
You know, no one was more surprised than me. Yeah,
1636
01:35:14.039 --> 01:35:17.680
to sit down and play this game, that'd be stunned
1637
01:35:17.720 --> 01:35:20.760
by yah, right, Like you know I played the I
1638
01:35:20.880 --> 01:35:23.960
played the n sixty four version, and you know that
1639
01:35:24.159 --> 01:35:26.680
was cool. This is a different thing, you know, like
1640
01:35:27.119 --> 01:35:28.560
there are ways to approach.
1641
01:35:28.239 --> 01:35:30.319
That, for sure. Yeah, taking like you know, the n
1642
01:35:30.399 --> 01:35:34.600
sixty four version, you know, was an amazing introduction to
1643
01:35:34.680 --> 01:35:37.720
this idea, but this is, you know, an expansion upon
1644
01:35:37.840 --> 01:35:39.720
that that puts it into the realm of you know,
1645
01:35:40.319 --> 01:35:43.039
the other top end games. You know, like there are
1646
01:35:43.079 --> 01:35:45.479
just ways to acknowledge that, Like, yeah, this is a weird, funny,
1647
01:35:45.560 --> 01:35:49.359
silly fighting you with Nintendo characters, but it's still one
1648
01:35:49.760 --> 01:35:51.800
percent deserves that day the same way they're doing with
1649
01:35:51.840 --> 01:35:55.079
the Metal Gear Solid two. Right. He just says, hey, okay,
1650
01:35:55.119 --> 01:35:57.119
Juam is one of the greatest video game makers of
1651
01:35:57.119 --> 01:36:00.920
all time. Guess what, Sakarai is too, right, And there's
1652
01:36:01.039 --> 01:36:04.840
no reason that one should have sort of waffling equivocation
1653
01:36:05.239 --> 01:36:08.680
and the others should just be like flat out saying
1654
01:36:09.159 --> 01:36:11.720
you know what they feel. And I wish I wish
1655
01:36:11.800 --> 01:36:13.680
we had seen that here. I wish there had been
1656
01:36:13.760 --> 01:36:16.920
more confidence to call that shot and say this is
1657
01:36:16.960 --> 01:36:18.640
one of the greatest fighting games of all time.
1658
01:36:19.840 --> 01:36:24.479
Xbox Official Xbox Magazine had no problem calling Dead or
1659
01:36:24.520 --> 01:36:29.000
Alive Free, Yeah, there the greatest fighting game of all time?
1660
01:36:29.600 --> 01:36:32.960
Why could game now not go? Melee is the greatest
1661
01:36:32.960 --> 01:36:34.840
fighting game of all time? Like why could you not
1662
01:36:34.920 --> 01:36:36.920
take that swing? Why are you embarrassed to say that
1663
01:36:37.399 --> 01:36:39.600
about Smash Brothers but not about Dead or Alive?
1664
01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:45.760
Yes, exactly, and like which is fine for a blog, right,
1665
01:36:45.960 --> 01:36:49.760
and like not disparaging blogs. My background is as a blogger.
1666
01:36:49.920 --> 01:36:52.000
I spent years as a blogger. Opened a lot of
1667
01:36:52.039 --> 01:36:54.720
doors for me. I learned a lot. You started your
1668
01:36:54.760 --> 01:36:57.199
career as a blogger, like absolutely I did. Blogging is
1669
01:36:57.319 --> 01:37:03.319
a fabulous like platform for criticism, But I just don't
1670
01:37:03.359 --> 01:37:05.800
think that that's what this is, especially when I'm looking
1671
01:37:05.880 --> 01:37:08.359
at it compared to other reviews in this issue of
1672
01:37:08.439 --> 01:37:09.079
this magazine.
1673
01:37:09.279 --> 01:37:13.359
Yeah, I'm gonna say, aiden, Okay, Yeah, we need to
1674
01:37:13.399 --> 01:37:17.159
scort this thing and wrap this wrap this episode up.
1675
01:37:18.479 --> 01:37:21.920
But I'm gonna say taken as a whole. And I'm
1676
01:37:21.920 --> 01:37:25.039
gonna say I am scrolling. Here's the seven pages of
1677
01:37:25.199 --> 01:37:31.640
not review. This is an exhaustive, exhaustive move list with
1678
01:37:31.880 --> 01:37:37.880
precise percentage damage percentage of every single freaking.
1679
01:37:37.720 --> 01:37:43.239
Move, mister Schulter. Yeah, where they provided a spreadsheet with
1680
01:37:43.319 --> 01:37:49.960
this information? Presumably, I don't know, so like yeah, and
1681
01:37:50.039 --> 01:37:52.920
then just reprinting it and then like beautiful design.
1682
01:37:53.600 --> 01:37:57.039
Right, I'm but like, I'm just saying, this is the
1683
01:37:57.159 --> 01:38:00.640
kind of stuff that you as as we're rich discussing
1684
01:38:00.800 --> 01:38:04.359
in chat with Quabile and others. You know, this is
1685
01:38:04.359 --> 01:38:05.720
the kind of stuff that you would go to game
1686
01:38:05.800 --> 01:38:08.960
facts for, right and hope it was accurate and hope
1687
01:38:08.960 --> 01:38:11.600
it was there, and it might not be. Here's your
1688
01:38:11.640 --> 01:38:16.439
spreadsheet with like every character, every move, every name, every
1689
01:38:16.520 --> 01:38:20.520
damage percentage. That's cool. Again, it's not part of the review,
1690
01:38:21.359 --> 01:38:26.479
but like, I don't know, it's just something that if
1691
01:38:26.520 --> 01:38:29.479
I were this magazine's target audience, I would be thrilled
1692
01:38:29.479 --> 01:38:32.600
to find alongside the review. I'll guess I'll say that, right, Like,
1693
01:38:32.840 --> 01:38:36.760
I don't think I'm giving it, quote unquote extra points
1694
01:38:37.000 --> 01:38:39.520
for it, but it is something to note that this
1695
01:38:39.720 --> 01:38:43.319
magazine is targeting a niche, it's targeting an audience. I
1696
01:38:43.399 --> 01:38:46.439
think it's killing it. I think, you know, this is
1697
01:38:46.560 --> 01:38:54.640
probably some significant percentage of this magazine buyers favorite issue
1698
01:38:54.920 --> 01:38:57.800
that they ever got of this magazine because Melee was
1699
01:38:57.880 --> 01:39:01.079
their favorite game and this was their bible for it. Right,
1700
01:39:01.239 --> 01:39:05.039
Like some this set of pages is as worn and
1701
01:39:05.159 --> 01:39:09.720
faded as are copies of game Players seventy five or whatever,
1702
01:39:09.760 --> 01:39:11.560
the one with Crown Trigger and the review of Crown
1703
01:39:11.560 --> 01:39:14.159
and Trigger, right, h and so like that's all great.
1704
01:39:15.520 --> 01:39:17.880
Ultimately they landed in the right spot, philt. They have
1705
01:39:17.920 --> 01:39:22.239
all got there, right, it's a plus. It's it's the
1706
01:39:22.359 --> 01:39:26.119
highest score. And for all the caveats and and couching
1707
01:39:26.319 --> 01:39:30.680
and and everything else, you know, they got there. I'm
1708
01:39:30.920 --> 01:39:39.840
still I'm still leaning. I'm gonna say seven jiggly puffs
1709
01:39:39.880 --> 01:39:45.119
out of ten, and I'm like kind of struggling to
1710
01:39:45.159 --> 01:39:48.079
get there. I'm leaning more towards six and a half
1711
01:39:48.960 --> 01:39:55.199
because ultimately, if I just had this one page in
1712
01:39:55.319 --> 01:39:57.119
any other magazine and it was like, this is the
1713
01:39:57.199 --> 01:40:02.039
review of Melee. Yeah, we don't get screenshots of gameplay.
1714
01:40:02.960 --> 01:40:05.840
We don't get here. There's a bunch of stuff we
1715
01:40:05.880 --> 01:40:10.159
don't get, right, Like I so, man, six and a
1716
01:40:10.199 --> 01:40:13.279
half might even be generous. I'm gonna stay at six
1717
01:40:13.319 --> 01:40:14.239
and a half. Six and a half.
1718
01:40:14.319 --> 01:40:18.520
Final answer, six and a half jigglypuffs. I just like
1719
01:40:18.680 --> 01:40:22.119
I cannot reconcile like some of the superlative language in
1720
01:40:22.239 --> 01:40:25.079
here with some of the other like couching and equivocation.
1721
01:40:25.239 --> 01:40:27.279
I keep using those words, but they're the ones that
1722
01:40:27.359 --> 01:40:30.840
I just that just start are started eating at me,
1723
01:40:31.039 --> 01:40:34.079
Like you can't talk about playing this game forever and
1724
01:40:34.279 --> 01:40:37.199
calling that like being exactly right. That's like people playing
1725
01:40:37.199 --> 01:40:39.680
this game for grab some friends and you're in very
1726
01:40:39.760 --> 01:40:44.319
serious danger of playing this skills forever. Yeah feels right. Yeah,
1727
01:40:45.199 --> 01:40:46.159
but he doesn't believe it.
1728
01:40:47.319 --> 01:40:51.880
Yeah right right, or he can't believe that, he believes he.
1729
01:40:51.920 --> 01:40:54.640
Can't believe it, or they lacks the confidence to like
1730
01:40:55.319 --> 01:40:59.199
say it own it, and that bugs me. I don't
1731
01:41:00.119 --> 01:41:07.159
like that. I'm gonna go out of one hundred for
1732
01:41:07.279 --> 01:41:11.159
this ru oh, I think stocks yeah sure, yeah, so
1733
01:41:11.239 --> 01:41:13.520
four out of ten for me? Yeah, good good, I
1734
01:41:13.600 --> 01:41:16.680
love it, I think yeah. I just I was. I
1735
01:41:16.760 --> 01:41:19.800
was disappointed. I had high hopes for this one. I
1736
01:41:19.880 --> 01:41:24.159
love Phil's work, I love Player one podcast, but this one,
1737
01:41:24.199 --> 01:41:27.079
I think was was a tough one man.
1738
01:41:27.560 --> 01:41:30.319
Wow. Lots of food for thought, Lots of food for thought.
1739
01:41:31.199 --> 01:41:34.600
Incredible stuff. That is our review of game Now's review
1740
01:41:34.840 --> 01:41:38.359
of Super Smash Brothers Melee? Did we get it right?
1741
01:41:39.199 --> 01:41:41.920
Make sure you leave a comment on YouTube. Make sure
1742
01:41:41.920 --> 01:41:44.399
you leave a rating or review. Make sure you join
1743
01:41:44.520 --> 01:41:47.960
our discord. Go to fun Factor Pod dot com. The
1744
01:41:48.039 --> 01:41:50.520
link is right there. Sign up with it to become
1745
01:41:50.560 --> 01:41:52.600
a member of fun Factor Ultra is right there where
1746
01:41:52.680 --> 01:41:56.359
you could have been on this stream, chop chopping it
1747
01:41:56.439 --> 01:41:59.239
up with us in the chat, like Quabi Lay, like
1748
01:41:59.399 --> 01:42:03.960
Darren Yep, Darren Hupkey, like other people, like lots of
1749
01:42:04.079 --> 01:42:06.079
members and friends of the show, people who have worked
1750
01:42:06.119 --> 01:42:08.960
on these magazines, people who read these magazines, people who
1751
01:42:08.960 --> 01:42:12.279
are writing for magazines, or they are equivalent. Now you
1752
01:42:12.359 --> 01:42:14.840
are in that chat with people who are making some
1753
01:42:15.000 --> 01:42:17.279
of your favorite podcasts. Some of our favorite podcasts are
1754
01:42:17.359 --> 01:42:19.880
in our discord, and we can talk about all this
1755
01:42:20.239 --> 01:42:21.960
all day long because this is what we like to
1756
01:42:22.039 --> 01:42:23.720
do and that we want you to be a part of.
1757
01:42:23.720 --> 01:42:27.119
That's got a fun factorpod dot com. Engage with us,
1758
01:42:27.159 --> 01:42:30.119
We will engage with you back. It'll be cool. Meanwhile,
1759
01:42:30.479 --> 01:42:34.079
we will continue to drop new episodes every two weeks,
1760
01:42:34.439 --> 01:42:38.079
plus monthly bonus episodes for our Fun Factor Ultra subscribers.
1761
01:42:38.800 --> 01:42:42.159
Just go to funfactorpod dot com sign up. I've promise
1762
01:42:42.279 --> 01:42:45.239
if you do, you and we will have a maximum
1763
01:42:45.319 --> 01:43:07.399
score in fun Factor. Are you we have full? Are
1764
01:43:07.439 --> 01:43:09.279
you sharing? I don't see that you're sharing?
1765
01:43:09.560 --> 01:43:14.359
Oh I'm not sharing. Okay, yeah, good call, I don't mind. Yeah, okay,
1766
01:43:18.159 --> 01:43:22.520
let me just one sick. I'm just going to get
1767
01:43:22.520 --> 01:43:27.199
back to put my script up on screen. But many
1768
01:43:27.279 --> 01:43:37.279
of the most familiar hh comic not found. Great, that's okay, okay,
1769
01:43:37.680 --> 01:43:38.479
give me one second.
1770
01:43:38.520 --> 01:43:41.199
Sure I know what I did.
1771
01:43:41.279 --> 01:43:45.479
I yeah, So I use this thing called yak reader itself.
1772
01:43:45.800 --> 01:43:48.000
We've I mean, we've talked about this on air before.
1773
01:43:48.079 --> 01:43:50.279
But it's a for reading comics and stuff. So it
1774
01:43:50.359 --> 01:43:53.960
assumes that you want to like flip to the next
1775
01:43:54.359 --> 01:43:57.920
issue of the comic you're reading, which does if you
1776
01:43:58.039 --> 01:43:59.520
click on like the far right side.
1777
01:43:59.520 --> 01:44:03.279
Anyway, Okay, you didn't download every issue of game now.
1778
01:44:04.920 --> 01:44:07.640
I couldn't figure out how to, but I will legally.
1779
01:44:07.760 --> 01:44:12.359
I will legally scan acquire. We're gonna skip past this page.
1780
01:44:13.640 --> 01:44:17.279
I think it's a preview as is it an advertorial?
1781
01:44:17.560 --> 01:44:19.319
I don't know. It's supposed to look like comic book.
1782
01:44:20.720 --> 01:44:25.279
Yeah, there's also sorry I scrolled away from it for
1783
01:44:25.399 --> 01:44:30.600
a second. Wait and the review is Melee right, Okay, yeah,
1784
01:44:31.239 --> 01:44:34.359
we will come right back and we will review. All right,
1785
01:44:34.399 --> 01:44:36.960
We are back on fun can hold tight?
1786
01:44:37.000 --> 01:44:38.520
I just open a beer.
1787
01:44:39.279 --> 01:44:40.920
I literally want to do the same thing. Hold on,
1788
01:44:44.239 --> 01:44:45.279
I guess, uh.
1789
01:44:47.239 --> 01:44:53.159
Wrong button one second? No, just keep reading I have
1790
01:44:53.319 --> 01:44:54.000
it in the script.
1791
01:44:54.279 --> 01:44:58.119
Oh sorry, sorry sorry? Uh so, then where am I
1792
01:44:58.159 --> 01:45:00.239
stopping U off?
1793
01:45:00.359 --> 01:45:05.079
At? So much to do? This is a message the tow.
1794
01:45:05.239 --> 01:45:09.319
No ForWord more sorry there. Okay, if we can zoom
1795
01:45:09.359 --> 01:45:14.439
in on Nessa's description that looks kind of like butt
1796
01:45:14.600 --> 01:45:17.359
on my stream, there we go. Okay, No, that's fine, okay, good, okay.
1797
01:45:17.680 --> 01:45:18.319
So uh