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S1 Ep12: Retro
74 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about the the games of their youth that helped to shape their...uhm, "personalities" they have now! Finally, something else to blame!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Soapstone Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
What we do here is go back, back, back, back.
00:01:01
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to your weekly dose of the soapstone podcast. Um, myself, Dave joined by my good buddy, Jake. How's it going? Everybody. I guess they're doing good. I should redo this. No, leave it. Oh man. I have to reduce. That's fine. Please recycle. We can cut our unsh, unsureness or, uh,
00:01:30
Speaker
Fuck, what's the word for that? Uncertainty? Yeah, I don't know why that went away. Yeah. I was uncertain about uncertainty. I had some tea earlier was basically the only reason I heard the word. You've heard of honest tea, but have you tried uncertainty? I fucking hate you and love you at the same time. What are you talking about tonight though, Dave?
Nostalgia for Nintendo and SNES
00:01:52
Speaker
Tonight we're going to be talking about some old games. Yeah. Some things that we grew up with, some things we enjoyed across Nintendo, Super Nintendo.
00:02:02
Speaker
anything before puberty really took hold i want to say let's start again that gives me like a couple years because i started playing games a little bit late my parents weren't completely sold on them so i've got like three years of gameplay i mean i started late too i didn't really get the chance to
00:02:21
Speaker
go through things, or even get a system until I was probably like 15. I was like, hey mom, literally, I'm the only person, please, can I just, can I play the games? So I was allowed to have a console. And you actually, you got on the other side of the console wars, I believe, from me, right? What was your, from what I know, it was a PlayStation, right? Well, that's what I ended up with. Okay, so. I started out with GameCube because I wanted to play
00:02:50
Speaker
It's probably Sonic Adventure Battle 2, because I played in the store, and I'm like, holy shit. And then I switched over to Xbox at a point, because I had to trade in my GameCube. I could only have one at a time. Right. For balance. And I played a shit ton of Halo. And then later in high school years, PS2 though, because I only have one other friend I want to play with. Right. Yeah. Now, they did have a network adapter for the PS2, but...
00:03:15
Speaker
That was like, who had the link cable for Game Boy? Nobody had that shit. Yeah. Nobody had the accessories. There was some cool stuff on the, the Game Boy side, like, as far as like in 64, right? But, Oh, you mean like the game reader for like Pokemon stadium? Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. That was legit. Now, where do you want to start though? Uh, so I think like probably where we jumped in, like,
00:03:41
Speaker
You have your first console, what was your first game? What did you play there that was actually pretty fun? And do you remember? Because if your first game was complete garbage, we probably shouldn't talk about that one.
Console Wars and Gaming Transitions
00:03:56
Speaker
I think the actual first title was Sonic Adventure Battle 2. Yeah. So I think I played it with my cousin when I visited him over the summer. And I was like, but what if I had my own version of this game? Yeah. And then we could battle chows and stuff. So it was really fun to do. Because I grew up on kind of Sonic CD or the early days of just side-scrolling Sonic. Yes. Yeah. And it was really fun to see that in a three-dimensional format, which
00:04:21
Speaker
is wrapped in a lot of nostalgia because it's not the best thing in the world by any means yeah but the music was fun the characters were cool i thought the plot made sense for some reason everything makes more sense as a kid you have that yeah malleable mind where you just go yeah okay after everything makes sense
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, okay. So yeah, no, I haven't played that game, but I've had tracks sent to me over the years. It's like, Hey, you're welcome to music. You're welcome. Almost exclusively from Dave. Yeah. But no, it looked, it looked really solid.
00:04:58
Speaker
I didn't play, Sonic was also kind of an opener for me, I would say. I think I probably opened with Sonic CD, which again, just, you know, your side scroller there. And I still go back and I listen to the, they had two different soundtracks, one for NA region, one for Japan and EU, I believe.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's that's really fun. That's my go back there. It's harder to go back to like actually playing the game itself. I don't like play the scrolling sonics as much anymore, but. It was pretty good. We had we didn't have, but my sisters had a Sega Dreamcast. That's not true. It was a Sega Genesis. They had a Sega console. Yes, it's a Sega Genesis.
00:05:49
Speaker
and they hit Sonic 2 on that. And I remember like Sunday morning before we went to church, me and my brother would wake up like really early and go to the living room, turn down the volume a ton. Oh my God, yeah. Load it up and I'm like, here's your tails. I will be Sonic.
00:06:10
Speaker
Dude, I don't know how many times that really brought back memory because a lot of times you'd have friends over in the summer and stuff, or you'd be over at their place and their parents are still asleep, but whenever you're over at a friend's house, everybody wakes up like 6 a.m. for some reason. Yeah. So we're like, let's get in some game time while eating leftover Doritos and shit. So you turn the game- I just had the Doritos. The TV volumes.
00:06:35
Speaker
Teach thrown you turn the game volume down on TV to like to Make sure you're on channel three. Yeah. All right specific channels and You just I mean binge play. Yeah Assuming you know you ever went to bed in the first place, right? Yeah, I
Goldeneye and Childhood Gaming Memories
00:06:55
Speaker
had to I had to eventually there's some games I played as a kid where I stayed up like a while playing them, but those were more and they're like in 64 days and
00:07:04
Speaker
Was this by yourself or with friends? Once with my brother, actually. It was for... Not a friend. Just family, a guy I know. Right. I can't think if I ever stayed up super late playing games. It would have been probably Goldeneye at a friend's house. Classic. Yeah. And then eventually, maybe Perfect Dark, because that was the same game, but, you know.
00:07:32
Speaker
better in most ways it had better music you could snipe people through the level while standing in a bathroom stall yeah oh that's great yeah there's gonna be so just so you guys know going into this we're gonna be all over the place we have notes but a sound effect of papers rustling the notes are gone it's kind of just ad hoc sound effect of me snapping the laptop and there goes all my money
00:08:00
Speaker
But yeah, we played that. There was like some other games that there was a bunch of games on the Genesis. A lot of them were not super great, but there is Cyborg Justice, which nobody knows about. Yeah, I'm giving you the squinty eyes now, like the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, it's like there was the queue before this, like, hey, let's not talk about games the other person hasn't played. But I want to talk about this just to describe it. It was a side scrolling giant robot fighting game.
00:08:24
Speaker
Where you picked like a chassis arms and legs at the start and they had like different weight classes and It's not like a Gundam thing. It's a fighting thing like more like Golden Axe or something like that. So it's a side-scrolling beat them up like your TMNT Turtles in Time. Exactly.
Unique and Obscure Games
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah
00:08:44
Speaker
And most of the game doesn't really matter, but they had the actual mechanics were such that if you had certain body parts, it would make you immune to certain attacks, you could do other attacks. And part of them was if you had certain arm types, you could just start ripping parts off of enemy mechs and then throwing them at other mechs. And one of them was actually replacement. So you could grab mech parts, rip them off their mech, and then put them on your mech, replacing the parts you already had.
00:09:14
Speaker
It was it was super weird to rock a raccoon like I'm gonna get that leg I'm done with the jumpy legs. I want huge beefy legs You can't jump you can only kind of like shuffle your legs and I like shimmy across the screen and Like there's things to this day. It didn't even make sense. You had the huge beefy legs. They had these like large gaps Periodically through the level you're supposed to like jump over or something and I'm like, but I picked the beefy wings I literally can't clear the gap
00:09:43
Speaker
This game is not good. Do you just fall in and you're fucked or? I think there was some mechanic to like find a way over, but I didn't know that as a kid. I was just like, well, I'll jump in the hole and lose a life, I guess. It was a little more depressing.
00:09:58
Speaker
Imagine that other game you're slick the I'll just die You come across like the first goomba like fuck it Just just take me. I made never Just you stand in front of an arm. I'm coming goomba Please dramatic death Jesus take the wheel Yeah, I'm trying to think of other side scrollers I did back in the day I
00:10:24
Speaker
Probably the biggest one would have to be Kirby. Oh, yeah, like almost anything Kirby. Again, I'm gonna keep mentioning my cousin because I did a lot of my co-op gaining stuff with him because he had all the cool games, all the cool consoles. When I'd visit him over the summer, we would just play a shit ton and never sleep. It was great. Yeah, I remember this on me.
00:10:44
Speaker
And Kirby Superstar allowed for co-op. So normally if you're just Kirby, you could inhale an enemy and take the power, as Kirby works, for those who don't know. But you could also then make a little buddy, which is a copy of that enemy, but is friendly. So if you're second player, you could be that character. So you didn't even like play like Waddle Dee or something like that, like one of the other games?
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, you could essentially, player two could be Waddle Dee or Chilly, which was the ice guy. Okay. Knuckle Joe. I don't know that one. He essentially had these long range punches and kicks and it's a cool dude. Yeah, a little fighting.
00:11:24
Speaker
One of the things I really liked about it though is if you were the second player, the first player is like, hey, help me out this thing. You could just hold in the, I think the A button, which would turn you into a star and move you to the first player's position. Okay. So it's like a recall. Yeah, but you were untargetable and undamageable. So you just laugh while they were taking hits in the face from the boss.
00:11:43
Speaker
Conversely though, player one had the option to, supposed to be if you're at low health, they could essentially turn you back into the power. And then they could like suck you back up and resummon you at full health. Okay. Oh, that's interesting.
00:11:57
Speaker
So if you were dying, they could be like, oh, I got you. But they'd essentially have to give their power up to revive you. But a lot of times my cousin, because he's usually the player one, he's usually the player two. Right. If I was being a dick, he would just deanimate me into this world. See you, bitch. Taking you out of it. That's pretty great. And it had some co-op modes, too. I think the treasure chase.
00:12:25
Speaker
They've had minigames in a lot of those Kirby games. Yeah, because they have these little mini campaigns you go through. One of them is you go and collect treasures, but certain ones you need to have two people to activate a switch and go through. Yeah. But it's just a lot of fun with all the different powers you can get doing silly shit.
00:12:43
Speaker
I think for Kirby, for me, we didn't have like, I think my sisters had a Game Boy, again, a lot of them just used their stuff. And they had like the original, maybe it was even a cousin, might have been a cousin in this case, but the original Game Boy with a like black and white Kirby. Yeah. And played that a bit. But the one that really took off for me was we, back when video game rentals were from physical locations, was the thing. Blockbuster, you can say it. Pretty much. Yeah, I wasn't going to say the B word, but
00:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, that one. We went there and picked up Kirby Crystal Shards for 64. And that was just goodbye weekend. And you know, whatever other time I was supposed to have been doing homework. Which was all day, because I was home scum. Goodbye life, basically, until that was done.
00:13:39
Speaker
So for those who don't know, in Crystal Shards, you can have two powers and combine them. Yeah. Which is a really unique thing. And it was 3D. Yeah. Full sidescrolling, but it's three-dimensional. It's really solid. What was your favorite combo? Okay, so the one I immediately jumped to because it's like so iconic was the beam saber. Yeah. Beam saber was legit. I don't know if it's statistically the best. There were some I remember like
00:14:04
Speaker
You can turn into a fridge and just like spawn food items out of your person and then just walk up and eat them. Now, I don't know what this means as far as physics. But it basically meant as long as you had the power you pretty much had infinite health. Oh man, there's some other cool ones too. I can't remember off the top of my head.
00:14:24
Speaker
remember flame sword was one oh yeah that was cool yeah you'd have like hold it over your head you could throw it down in front of you like it goes down and then out and the sword would actually like fly off the screen yeah and you could just like pull another sword out of your mouth and do it again sword swallower cure me yeah slash guts oh man i didn't see that arc but there had to be one with uh
00:14:49
Speaker
rock and stuff to make the statue. That might just be base rock. I think, yeah, if you're just going straight up rock. Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
No, I can't remember. Oh, there was, um, there was a snowman. There was a snowman bomb one. If you got like snowman plus bomb, it would, you'd be invincible. I believe for like a couple seconds and then detonate like due to hemorrhage near you. So you're just like, okay, as long as this is a boss where I'm not going to like fall off the level or something, this is my attack strategy, invincibility, and then explosion.
00:15:23
Speaker
I assume you don't get damaged by the explosions? No. No, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that would suck. Invincible, and then you die. That doesn't sound great.
00:15:32
Speaker
That was really cool. And they had some really cool music that I linked probably a couple of months back on Discord, but some of their boss themes were really cool. And then a really weird final boss. I actually remember this. It was a O2. And it's like this flying angel type thing. It's got like band-aids on it. And you're like essentially in this almost like
00:15:57
Speaker
Mother slash earthbound final guy gas level thing where you're kind of just like in space. Yeah. Yeah It is it was weird. I recognized it was weird as a kid, too. It's like What is this game supposed to be telling me right now Curvy games are solid though. I really like I think for pretty much every iteration. I love the music Oh, yeah, cuz it's I think the first time you're getting into like
00:16:26
Speaker
Chippy 8-bit stuff that was like really upbeat. You're like, yeah, I'm fucking doing the thing. Moving forward, getting stuff done. But it wasn't badass. I think until like bosses and it starts to kick in. Yeah. No, it was great. I really liked Kirby. There was, um,
00:16:47
Speaker
Let me think, what else would we play kind of around that? Did you end up with it in 64 at any point? No, my cousin had that. Gotcha, okay. My cousin had everything! Yeah, it all kind of ends up on loan, I guess. We picked up... I never had a PlayStation until...
00:17:06
Speaker
well past like prime console gaming time I'd say and then I bought one from our friend Mike and I think I played it like once or twice and then like gave it to the the younger generation of people at the household but
00:17:25
Speaker
I've spent a lot of time on N64. A lot of time on that. We picked it up with like a good deal, and I don't know if I told you, I probably did tell you this before, but the time that we actually got it, like one, I had to convince my parents super hard to get it. I'm just like, because you know, they really didn't want me having a game station of any type in the house.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I was like, oh no, we'll do all this stuff and we'll do chores. And you know, like the childhood promises. Oh, yeah. I will do literally anything if you agree to this one thing. You just like start offering your first born and they're like, that's not what what and what are you talking? Intention servitude, anything in the future, you name it. It's what matters now is this game.
00:18:03
Speaker
it's like in the later years if like you don't want me to put you in a home i understand just like i just need this n64 i remember when i started to actually learn i could use that as leverage like hey going at home
00:18:19
Speaker
I used to joke with my dad that I'd threaten to put him in a home with my mom because my dad's pretty laid back and likes to read.
Excitement for N64 and Iconic Games
00:18:25
Speaker
I feel like in his old age, he would just want to keep to himself and stuff. My mom's very social, so I was like, if you don't get your shit together, I'm gonna put you guys together.
00:18:35
Speaker
Oh, man. But the the night that we actually had it, we had the PlayStation often or not PlayStation, the N64 off in a box and we had it kind of just there in the room. I remember laying in bed staring at it, just waiting to fall asleep. But my eyes are open. I'm staring at the N64. They've already adjusted. I just don't like looking at it. And I'm literally just too excited to sleep.
00:19:04
Speaker
I do miss those days as a kid. I eventually caught up on my home school years later. And they were like, I just can't wait to sleep. No, that is accurate. But we had we had basically the bundle pack because we got it from somebody else. We didn't get like an original or we didn't win it in like a Taco Bell promotion, which was running back then.
00:19:28
Speaker
And we had a lot of really solid games. We had GoldenEye, which we mentioned a little bit earlier, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and then we had some other games that were actually still pretty good. And we just felt out the collection from there.
00:19:45
Speaker
Did you have either like Mario Kart 64 or? We did. Diddy Kong Racing. We actually did have Mario Kart. Which I think held up a little bit better than Diddy Kong did. I don't know exactly why. I personally think Diddy Kong is really bad. Like I played it a lot as a kid. I enjoyed it.
00:20:04
Speaker
Like, I could play a game of drunk driving with Mario Kart 64 at any point. Yeah. It's just, it's a classic fun game for me. Yeah. No, Mario Kart was super legit. I remember there was a, there was that like dirt track that like went, went around, there was like jumps and things. It was kind of like a dirt bike track, but... And Wario's one? Yeah, it was Wario's. Yeah. And there was like a glitch or something. I mean, I mean, you could look up speedruns and see all of the glitches, but there was one in that where,
00:20:34
Speaker
If you like jump the wall you just skip most of the most of the map. It's pretty crazy. I think the reason that one was better than Diddy Kong for me at least was because Diddy Kong tried to do all of these things. It's like oh you can fly and you're like in a boat or something and now you're on the ground and all that and all I ever wanted was Mario Kart basically. Yeah you gotta do your uh
00:20:58
Speaker
I didn't know for the longest time that you could kind of like you slide and strafe into like turns. Yeah. For years. I did not know about that. Yeah. And they had they had like drafting and stuff. If you managed to pull it off properly.
00:21:12
Speaker
I don't know if that was drifting. Drifting. Drifting. Or do you mean like you're counter picking with Wario against the Yoshi? No, no, no. I mean like if you stay behind somebody in a race and you're like right off their side, you'll get a speed boost. Like a little draft. Okay. Again, more mechanics I never knew about because I played as a kid. I'm just like, get the boxes. Why do I keep getting blue shell?
00:21:36
Speaker
Oh, it's because I'm always an eighth or ninth. Yeah. I really liked when you were able to line up a green shell. Skill shot. Yeah. Skill shot. It's a skill shot. Snipe somebody, or what would more commonly happen is I would just shoot it, and then it would hit somebody 10 minutes later. That was me, planned.
00:21:57
Speaker
I think, and I'm not 100% because it's been years since I played this, I think you could hit yourself too. Oh yeah, you could. If you think of the green shell often correctly or something. I will not say I never hit myself. Stop hitting yourself. Yeah. Oh man. I liked warrior though because he just seemed weighted.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, he's not not as as weighted as Bowser, but no I think like the optimal thing was like Donkey Kong for like acceleration and weight I said like being like bumped in by other people and being like well, I'm fucked. Yeah
00:22:31
Speaker
I remember Toad would always be like, I'm just like, there's like non Toad tier and then there's Toad. It was kind of like assumption that Toad's in front and you just gotta pray for the blue shell. And that's your out.
00:22:46
Speaker
He's a quick little dude, but he was uh, he was soft. He was weak You could like actually crush people too if you're actually like landed on top of them. I remember correctly Yes, you can like come up on them, but you had them or or if they were like lightning Yeah, and they were like mini you could just run over them and flatten them
00:23:06
Speaker
Oh man, that was the original destructive tendency race. Surprising for Nintendo, but I appreciated it. Yeah, they had another on the N64. Another game like that was not like that, but Wipeout, which continued as the series for a while and eventually dropped.
00:23:25
Speaker
That was mainly... I remember playing in 64, but I see that all the time in arcade machines. Yeah. It was really good for an arcade machine, because it was just... The polys weren't super high, but it looked really cool. You went really fast and seen it, and really cared that the graphics were garbage. Yeah, that apparently got picked up at PlayStation for a long time. I think the last one was for PSP or something like that.
00:23:47
Speaker
But yeah, I remember there's like two or three tracks that were actually in there and they're like, and we're out of we're out of memory on the cartridge. So cutting back some of the graphics and now that was fun.
00:24:04
Speaker
anti-gravity racing, like good stuff. Did you play any other games for the N64? I have more overlap with you for N64, I think. Like how much like, oh, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and they were like N64. But I mean, that was kind of like the pinnacle of childhood because Nintendo was kind of before our time, certain people like inherited them and like would play some game. But even then that was considered retro gaming, right? Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
N64 I played a little bit of Gomon, but I have like no memory of that. Yeah, I don't know what that is It was very Japanese and it was fun But again, like no memory of that. Yeah
00:24:44
Speaker
That was one of those, and I guess they still exist, you know, as consoles where games can kind of come out and they're either like the mainstream, like everybody knows about this, like first party Nintendo or something like that. And then there's like the second party things where you're like, yeah, Doom, I guess, was also released on N64. And then you go even further down and you're like,
00:25:04
Speaker
Why is there this, like, super in-depth, like, RPG tactical game or something like that that literally no one's ever played or knows about? Yeah, there's lots of obscure things that just showed up. Like, I think War Games was actually on N64 as well. Like the movie? No, like War Games Def Con 1. Oh, okay. I mean, it was based off of the movie, or vice versa. I forget which came out first. I don't actually know. But it was, like, a nice fun, um...
00:25:32
Speaker
RPG game where you would build your units and go take objectives and stuff and you had like whopper and norad Yeah, but like I never played on 64. I didn't know what came out. Yeah for the longest time on that People tried for like for that console. They tried like games that did not adapt themselves that well to it and
00:25:51
Speaker
like look at your game look at the controller realize you're fucked yeah i know you're just like oh you don't have auto aiming oh man let me tell you and then if games managed to come out for that and the playstation i feel like the playstation version was almost always better it was just like
00:26:10
Speaker
CDs though. Yeah. But I did like that they tried to do the, hey, you kind of have like this single analog stick in the middle. Go for it. So that's why like Star Fox was a big success. Oh, yeah. It was before you had dual analog. Because you actually felt like you were using the joystick, the pilot stuff, actually moving around. It's cool. Just a very, yeah, I mean, it is a joystick, but it's just
00:26:32
Speaker
And then you had the Z trigger. Back when it was a fucking trigger. You didn't have shoulder buttons. You were aiming to kill. Pull that trigger. With perfect dark golden eye or anything. Yeah. And then Legend of Zelda. I mentioned I had those. What? Yeah. Is that a more niche thing you were mentioning?
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah, a protagonist named Zelda. Which is so far? He's a small green boy. Interesting. Yeah. He grows up to be a blue man. Sometimes a red man. Progressively interesting.
00:27:14
Speaker
now but I played that like a ton. I always put like Ocarina in particular because I didn't appreciate Majora's Mask until later when I realized that it wasn't just like a timer till you lost. Yeah. I have a lot of friends I've met like throughout the years where it's like, oh yeah, the reason I never played Majora's Mask is because I saw the timer and I was just like, nope. Yeah, it's a lot of stress, especially as a kid. You're like, oh, I don't want to lose, like permanently lose the game.
00:27:44
Speaker
Yeah. And if you just played like a little bit longer, you'd get the song time. You'd be able to go back. You'd realize that it's all this just replaying the loop and doing things differently and you don't have that stress. But I avoided that. Played Ocarina. Yup. And that took forever to beat because I was like a little kid and I was just like, I'm just going to run around and do stuff.
00:28:07
Speaker
And it is still a pretty big game, like it takes a while to beat, but if you don't know what you're doing at all, it takes that much longer.
00:28:16
Speaker
I don't want to focus too much on that, but as far as games that kind of impacted me as a kid, or my parents probably would never let me play if they saw specific things in the game, there was the Shadow Temple in Ocarina of Time, and there's all of these
00:28:38
Speaker
walls with like bones and eyes and things like that you need like the lens of truth and you're talking to spirits and stuff like that and it's just the creepiest thing like imaginable that and beneath the well where there's the dead hand thing that's like and goes to attack you I don't know if you played but I played a bit but I kind of like most people kind of tap that at the water temple I was like I don't got time for this there's so much sunlight outside let me go ride a bike
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah. Those are the things that legitimately creep me out. And like, I'm like, how is this in a kid's game? Then I don't know if it actually was a kid's game in retrospect, but it was rated E. Yeah, for everyone, including adults, it was more marketed for.
00:29:26
Speaker
It was really fun, though. Like, I still remember some of the songs. I would say even most people could could name it to and be like, oh, this is Epona's versus. Yeah. This is the song of love. Yeah. Yeah. Song of storms. A down up, A down up, A down up. Remember when Ocarina's were like the coolest fucking thing? Yeah.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, that was loud back. I mean, this still could be cool. Maybe they're going back to retro at this point.
00:29:58
Speaker
Well, I saw somebody who actually, I think using like a Raspberry Pi or something similar, uh, coded some things in the Ocarina where he could play a tune and certain things in his house would react accordingly. Okay. So I forget which song applied to which, but he had a song to unlock or lock his front door, uh, turn on like a water system to like water a plant. Another one to like turn on the lights.
00:30:27
Speaker
As soon as you describe this, I imagine that you just arrived home drunk one night. Just to play a song. Just like watering the plant. Dude! The door just stays open behind or just collapses on the floor. Wakes like an inch of water on the ground. It just holds the last note.
00:30:49
Speaker
That's what I always have a paranoid about like different locking mechanisms. Cause like a lot of phones now be like, Oh, it'll recognize your face. I'm like, but what if I don't look like me? What if I'm in costume? What if somebody punches me and then, then what, what if I bodyjack somebody and you don't know, you gotta be ready. What if somebody steals my fingerprints? Exactly. They're going to get into my phone. Oh yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
So anyways, not that, but the, uh, they did play around with some things kind of related to that. I remember at the end 64, they had that, uh, Hey, you Pikachu. Right. With the explicit, uh, they had a special place. I don't know the special PlayStation for it was crazy.
00:31:31
Speaker
No, but they had the Pikachu yellow N64 and the game itself was based around like a microphone attachment where it would loosely try to like pick up what you're saying and try to react to you. And this was like V1 attempt.
00:31:49
Speaker
Like you're shouting at your deaf grandmother trying to have her understand that thing. Pikachu, roll over! Play dead, Pikachu! Play dead!
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think I missed the one entirely. Did you do? Did you see Snap at all? Pokemon Snap. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah. You think I wasn't throwing apples at random Pokemon? Yeah, I was. Being that voyeuristic guy on a rail cart. Yeah, I think the first time I played that, I was just like, oh, this is nice. Like, cool. It's like, you know, taking pictures and stuff. It was a cool game. And it's like, throw apples at things. Just stun them. What are you doing?
Pokemon Snap and Photography Mechanics
00:32:29
Speaker
It's just like, oh, man, there's a kid over there. That's cool. Let's wave. Oh, God, my eye.
00:32:44
Speaker
That was really great. But that was one of those games that like they try to sell it to you at like Walmart or something. You've got like the playable demo for it and then you'd go home and you'd play through it a couple times.
00:32:57
Speaker
and you realize it's actually really short and you've already like beaten it you know within like a week kind of of like just playing around with it and you're like yeah i think i'm done i think there's like only three or four areas you would go through on a track yeah and there were other pokemon you had to maybe unlock things for you know like say it in my house but i'll play the flute i'll throw an apple in the bush that's the king yeah
00:33:25
Speaker
Let's just use this natural pause. Yeah. I don't know what pause you're talking about. The pause of the Pokemon. Oh, that's fair. There was a, yeah, Snorlax was up there. Giant Snorlax. I remember that guy.
00:33:41
Speaker
I don't even have that game. I don't know why I'm talking about that one. Sometimes I played a ton of with my brother with friends. I think I played at a friend's house first and then we convinced our parents to get it on eBay or something for like 25
Super Smash Bros. and Competitive Play
00:33:53
Speaker
bucks. Was it exactly $25? It was around $25. And which friends did you play with?
00:33:58
Speaker
I'm the only friend, so... Don't swear the specifics, Jake. You've already gone, really deep. But Super Smash Bros. It was probably the game I've sunk the most time into in N64. Like, once we got that, I was like, well, rest in peace, GoldenEye. Perfect Dark, you kind of have a chance, but we're much just gonna play against bots. Super Smash Bros. I'll have you know at my peak I could beat two level nine opponents if I played Donkey Kong.
00:34:27
Speaker
Did you grab them and throw them off? Yes, that's all I did. Maybe like, not his down spike, but his overhead spike. Spin. Those are the two abilities. That's all you need.
00:34:42
Speaker
Doesn't jump, doesn't move. No. Yeah, that's not necessary. That's inefficient. You got to save those calories for grabs. I played that with a ton with my brother and it's one of those games. I don't know if you had anything like this, but if you had it at your house and it was like vaguely competitive, you're just like, yes, yes, come over and play the game with me.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of the shtick, right? Like, if you have the multiplayer, combative game, and you owned it, you were the one who would occasionally be like, oh, I've played it a little because it's at my house. But you were the god to your person. Oh, no, you could pick any character you want. It's fine. You're just like, oh, just random. No, it's fine. It's whatever. I'll kill myself two times for free. Whatever. Yeah, just throw some stock. We'll make it even. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it.
00:35:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That's entirely true. And I think like any time I visited a friend's house to play a game, it was basically like that. They had all of the I feel like they just like bought strategy guides just to destroy me when I when I went over. They're just like, I show up and I knock on their door and they're just like, yeah, yeah. It's just like pushing just piles of prima strategy guides like underneath their bed. Let's play a game.
00:35:58
Speaker
Sadly, I hate to say that's one of the reasons I like the blockbuster, because you'd go there with a friend, you're like, hey, let's pick up a game for a 64 PlayStation, right? And then you bring it home and like neither of you have played it. Yeah. Unless you rented it secretly the week before. Right. But you could kind of just go in blind and play like a bloody roar or something else. And you're like, how the fuck does this fighter work? When can I ult? I don't get this.
00:36:22
Speaker
Man, but my my fighter that I was the god tier at cuz I owned it With Soul Calibur. Oh, yes, but that PlayStation. Yes is a ps2 days But my friend and another friend also had playstations. They also had their own copies of Soul Calibur Okay, so quickly we started having like grudge matches right or it's like all right who's been practicing more? Yeah until this day
00:36:48
Speaker
When we still get the opportunity, I will do a grudge match with my friend, Shad. We'll both pick Asheroth. And we've seen each other's combos so many times. Great. But he kicked my ass so many times with Asheroth. I was like, all right, fuck you. So I learned Asheroth's moveset. So I'd be like, oh, he does this, then I should counter here. He's got some vulnerability frames right here. Yeah.
00:37:12
Speaker
That's what I really liked about playing with friends growing up. You either have the joy of like, oh, it's a co-op thing, we get experiences together, or you beat me, you will regret that. And it kind of drove you forward to keep playing the game and getting better at it. So I think where I'm at today, I don't think I'm great at video games by any means. The kids have taken over. Definitely.
00:37:37
Speaker
Cause I do other things in my life from time to time, but it's definitely allowed me to like pick up certain games. Yeah. You could be like, Oh, it's that you're like, Oh, okay. I'll just go and jump and do these things. Right. And it's kind of natural. I use the gun. Shoot a Mario.
00:37:55
Speaker
Yeah, that was Mario Sunshine, I think, was the first person shooting. I think I stopped playing that game after I ripped a tentacle off that innocent squid. Yeah. And it was like flailing and I felt awful. That was the day of the tentacle. Was that Super Nintendo? I have no idea what that was from, actually. I think it might have been PC. I know it is an old game. It's an adventure game, right? So it's probably like point and click, I think.
00:38:20
Speaker
That sounds right. I thought it was made by some people who did Monkey Island, whatever that is. Some LucasArts thing. What might have been after Tim Schafer left LucasArts? I'm not sure. I haven't played that game. We really should look these things up. That might not even be a real game. This could be a group hallucination. I didn't really enjoy as much point and click. Oh no, I didn't. I mean, I've heard you talk about Myst though.
00:38:48
Speaker
Well, Myst is a classic. I think everybody is either played or knows about Myst because it's like, you're in this game. What do you do? I don't fucking know. But I've been like doing this run thing that I think is a puzzle for like two hours. It's kind of just like a repetitive task thing. You're just like, how does it kind of call me? I click on things and stuff happens. That's one of the first games where it's like, hey, there's puzzles. You're like, OK, what are the puzzles? And it's like, bye.
00:39:16
Speaker
And you kind of just had to figure all of it out. Yeah. There wasn't really a strategy guide. There wasn't, there's not really other people, the ones you talked to through books. They're all dicks. And you're like, all right, cool.
00:39:30
Speaker
They made like a remaster of that at some point. I think it might have been relatively recent. I considered picking it up, but I was just like, do I really, am I gonna play a point and click? I'm not. It's like it would be three minutes and be like, oh, I remember this game. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And I didn't play it back in the day. I did see the, a lot of games, my only exposure to the fact that they exist is I saw the cover at like Walmart.
00:39:55
Speaker
I'm just like, but there was games that actually cost a retail price. Those are immediately disqualified. Don't even consider those. Yeah, I don't have money. I'm literally a kid. Yes. The fact that I have allowance is a blessing from above. Yeah. You're like $50. You mean a million dollars? That's not happening. It's like, but who do I need to give the blood sacrifice to? Yes. I don't have that many first points. I'm already at three.
00:40:24
Speaker
Now there's, I think a price range was roughly like 10 bucks. That one I might be able to convince my parents if I like complete chores and things. And if I just like beg as though this is the only thing that matters to me in the world, I might be able to get like a $20 game if it's a bundle of multiple games.
00:40:44
Speaker
I'll be like, this is the last thing I'll ask you for this year. A month later. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I probably did more PC gaming, like as it kind of picked up through there and I didn't do online stuff that much. It was mostly just single player stuff.
00:41:05
Speaker
I mean, online wasn't really a thing back then as much as like you had the dial up noise. I think everybody remembers that ringtone. Hashtag nineties kids. America online. Did you get much into DOS at all? So I did actually, my grandparents had an old computer with DOS on it and, uh, they, they moved it because they, like, they had a, um,
Nostalgic DOS Gaming Experiences
00:41:28
Speaker
had it in like a back room and then eventually like some years later they moved it outside and this is my out of many instances i played DOS with my DOS games with my brother this one stands out because they had moved it kind of like outside and you know like we went out and plugged it in but it was winter and it was like frost on the ground and this is an unheated like shed
00:41:51
Speaker
Basically, so when you said outside a few men outside the room you need outside that outside the house. Yeah, so this is like in storage and storage basically So we like like this thing out to power we went out early morning when it's like freezing outside and we just like Sat there and played games This is the one where it's like it's like the Sunday morning story without any heating I
00:42:15
Speaker
back when i was your age but we played a bunch of games that didn't matter but the ones that did commander keen oh commander keen is a good good game and uh scorched earth which nobody nobody knows about but it's a it's like um worms you ever played worms yes it's basically the same thing with tanks okay yeah yeah
00:42:41
Speaker
I really want to talk about Worms, but I also want to talk about another DOS game real quick. Did you ever play Descent? Oh my gosh, yes. That game was so fucking good. I don't even know if I had that one on DOS. I think I had like a PC version of it because I remember loading that up.
00:42:57
Speaker
And then we switched operating systems and it worked again, but it was like windows 95 days or something like that. Right. That was just so fucking sweet. Cause you were like in this ship and you're driving around and then you were just trying to find like keys to get, to pull up the reactor and you occasionally come across an enemy and you'd shoot them down and you're like, I got them. Yeah. And that felt cool. And you had, if you pressed F you'd shoot out like a little thing of light because it was dark. You're underground in these caves.
00:43:23
Speaker
And then you'd go and you'd destroy the reactor. And you had 10 seconds and the screen would shake. And it was already like poly as fuck type graphics. And you were sprinting towards the exit, which you've already mapped out your path because you have 10 seconds. And it was so intense. And the music was good. And the scariest thing for me in that game
00:43:46
Speaker
It was a purple lattice you'd occasionally find in like a recessed area, which was an enemy spawner. Oh, but again, like you're going through these underground caverns and underground facilities and it was dark, but you'd have these guys who had claws.
00:44:03
Speaker
They were like mining robots that would like come up and like start just straight Yeah, they've been like taking out your whole armor and your shield and I would freak out. Yeah, so Every time I'd see like a purple thing I would go like and just sit in it because it wouldn't spawn an enemy in it I was like, all right plan out your next thing. Where are you going? I don't want to get ganked. It's like a tactical thing. Oh my god. Oh
00:44:26
Speaker
I actually remember the, uh, it was, I think it was on the disc on the CD. They had the, the energy orb, the descent energy orb. And, uh, this is very minor aside. I was considering picking up a discord nitro just to have the animated avatar just to like get the energy orb. Like animated. Oh, that would be so cool. Um, but it only works if you mouse over somebody doesn't always animate. So it was like, that's reasonable, but I also don't want it anymore.
00:44:59
Speaker
Okay, now we can talk about worms though. Yes. So which worms did you play?
Strategic Gameplay in Worms Series
00:45:04
Speaker
Because I remember there's Armageddon, World Party was later. I didn't actually, I never actually played worms. I just played a game that was very, very similar to it, I think. So you'd have to describe worms to me and I would tell you. Okay. How it's different. Basically you have teams of little dudes. It is a side scrolling game.
00:45:23
Speaker
Once your character was selected, you had the option to move a little bit. And then you had an assortment of items. A lot of which were weapons, some are utility to help you move around a little bit further. And you had like 60 seconds to do an action. But I mean like most common thing is like you move, you get out the bazooka.
00:45:39
Speaker
you shoot at somebody and you hope you can knock them off the stage into the water. And every worm had 100 health so you either had to damage them down or knock them off. A lot of times though I'd try and knock them off because that's the most efficient, that's an instant kill. So if you could
00:45:56
Speaker
jetpack or grappling hook up to another worm, get out the baseball bat and just just hit them. That was really good for hitting them long laterally. Or if you needed to like bump them up into something, you could use the Shoryuken, which is the uppercut.
00:46:14
Speaker
And they also had other things like mines and flammable barrels. Okay. You can call them these airstrikes and like set it up. And there was a wind patterns you had to factor in. Yeah. For if you had like a bazooka shot or that type of projectile, it would actually carry with the wind and grenades wouldn't. And you got to like piece together all of these things. And it was super cool.
00:46:37
Speaker
Yeah. That sounds like a more approachable version, basically, of Scorched Earth. Scorched Earth was more DOS-like. It was tanks. And there's kind of like a small band of pixels with a band of pixels that moves up for like the tank barrel. And a similar deal, you'd like it spawned into a map and it would be like dirt and then hills.
00:46:58
Speaker
And you had like maybe a little bit of fuel, you could move just slightly. But the idea was all predicting your shots and factoring in the wind and the world wrapped around. So if you fire it off the right side, it'll come off the left. So like if you were on the low ground and someone's on a hill on the opposite side of the map, on the left side, you could fire to the right and just hit them. But it was all about like the prediction and stuff.
00:47:21
Speaker
And then I think you got money as well, and you could buy items to like do things. One of them was like, one way you could die is if somebody, the one item was like, I think it was actually called a worm, basically. So it's kind of fun to go back to that. But it was a weapon that would hit the ground and then dig randomly in random areas. And what it would do is it would just destroy earth. And this is DOS, so it's not gonna like do a physics simulation yet.
00:47:47
Speaker
Uh, it would do the whole destruction thing, destroy all the earth was going to destroy and then stop. And this took like 20 seconds to resolve. Uh, and then the ground above it would fall down to fill the hole. And then the tanks would fall and the tanks could actually be destroyed if they fell far enough, unless they bought a parachute and they would fall on the ground. But it was all about like shooting nukes at each other and missiles and getting shields and stuff like that. It was really cool.
00:48:19
Speaker
I really do resonate with those type things. Cause worms also had like terrain destruction and stuff. Like a lot of times I would try to like burl underground and then like culinary strikes or other shit or use the super sheep to like fly an explosive sheep. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna explain this real quick. Yeah. I feel like I don't use explanation.
00:48:38
Speaker
So there were some special items which had like a longer cooldown or less uses. One of which was the Aqua Sheep. So it would shoot out as a sheep and normally with sheeps they would just explode after you press space. Okay, normal sheeps.
00:48:55
Speaker
But it would go and kind of jump out and when it was in the air you'd press space. And then you'd hear like a kind of superhero noise. And they would have a cape and start flying around. And you could direct it. But with the aqua sheep, it could fly, but it could also fly underwater. So you'd find where your enemy was and you'd put like a tactical strike on that specific spot. Tactical sheep. Yeah. That was fun. Tactical sheep inbound. It's all over.
00:49:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah. There's also like an old grandma, which would kind of just walk in a straight line until it timed out and then explode. Oh, there were like skunks that would jump and like put out a poisonous gas. And so it was dumb, but it's fun. No, that is pretty great.
00:49:45
Speaker
If they have multiplayer, we should check it out. It's on Steam. I know it exists on Steam. Might have to check that. So look forward to the Worms podcast. Or why Jake now hates Dave. We're only going to talk about the story.
00:50:05
Speaker
So talking about games, like where you kind of sit down and you play, play against each other, something like
Recapturing Couch Co-op in Modern Gaming
00:50:11
Speaker
that. That's something like I've tried to, I know you've brought it back to a certain extent and as well, we both have a steam link set up, right? Oh yeah. So you can like bring some friends over and actually get part of that experience. It was kind of forced on us when we were younger, right? Where you had to have a friend come over. You had to have a workable bike.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's why your parents are the couch in the basement. Yeah, I actually play the game there. And I think there's the trick here is I haven't made it work that many times. I have like some couch co-op games, but I don't usually load them up or people come over, you know, play board games or something. But I still I want to believe I bought a bunch of controllers just in case.
00:50:57
Speaker
ever becomes a reality, I'll be ready. I'm telling you, we should play more Gang Beasts, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a good party game. Anyone with a kind of like remove, well, they don't remove skill, but they add like a layer of complexity across the board for everybody. It's like, hey, this isn't going to be the most responsive thing. You're right. See ya. You're like, if everything was a little more responsive, you could go pro with this, but no.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah, I do enjoy games like that though. And they're not retro, you know, anymore, but I think that part of it is going back to, you know, sitting down on the couch playing games with friends. Or very rarely did I actually like get a couch, always be like ATV, a crappy console, like in their room. Yeah, there was just a lot of floor sitting. Occasionally you would maybe like, hey, can I borrow like a pillow to sit on? Sounds like my butt hurt.
00:51:52
Speaker
One of the reasons I probably have back problems. Yeah. When you went over to your friend's house, did you get to be like player one or did you become player two? I pretty much always played two, I think. Did you get like the shitty controller? Yeah. Like the crappy one, a little bit less responsive or off brand. It's like the sticky analog. Oh yeah.
00:52:19
Speaker
Which I mean if the host is feeling generous they would use that controller and still kick your ass, right? Yeah, they're the ones have been practicing. They have those prima strategy guys under their beds I'm not I'm not bitter about that I Never I never had proof. I never saw the strategy guys, but I know I know I think
00:52:39
Speaker
Of old controllers, while we still have some time, do you have a favorite? Well, it's not the N64. No, that was interesting, but not meant for intense playability. Yeah, I think. I mean, like kind of.
00:52:59
Speaker
It's not going to be Dreamcast either. Those things were gigantic. I don't even remember the structure. It's too large for my mind to actually comprehend because the last picture I have of it is as a child. And it actually goes beyond the boundaries of my mind's eye.
00:53:15
Speaker
It's not that a PlayStation controller was really solid. I think PlayStation. Yeah, they haven't changed in 20 years because it's been. It's like the PS4 one's like kind of nice. It's got like a couple of features that are pretty good, but it's the same basic structure, right? They added another trigger button like at some point, right? Yeah. The joysticks are now buttons. We made it.
00:53:42
Speaker
Uh, I think if you were to go back like beyond that, though, it's like olden style Nintendo things. I really like the, um, the super Nintendo controllers. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Like it doesn't have any of the features of any of those other controllers you've talked about. It doesn't have, you know, joysticks or anything like that, but they're just like simple and minimalist and they worked.
00:54:08
Speaker
And they had shoulder buttons too, right? I think they might have, yeah. Yeah. Because it was D-pad, your AYXB, select, start, I think like really small Elinors. Yeah, all the man needs. That's nice. I mean, when I was doing like Mega Man X stuff, that was
00:54:26
Speaker
I'm not going to go into the whole Megmen X tangent, but I remember using that controller and just liking being able to jump on walls, jump off walls, and it just felt like a good size. But now with modern games, I feel like I need to have the whole, like a three-dimensional thing in my hand, because you are doing so many other things with it.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, like for Snass here, this is like the age of platformers. And that was a controller perfect for platformers or just like top-down play, right? Yeah. Can I move around? Done. Yes. It's like north, south, east, east, west, and we're good.
00:55:02
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's all the time we have for today. I know we couldn't cover a lot of other games that we enjoyed playing. Right. And I'm sure we didn't hit any of the ones that you guys enjoyed playing. Hopefully one. Probably one. But please reach out to us at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com. We'll keep saying it every episode until you start emailing us.
00:55:24
Speaker
Or we have a Facebook page now if you want to reach out to us through that. But we'd love your feedback. We'd love to hear more about some of your gaming experiences and what it is to you, because obviously it's a huge passion for us, which is why we do this. For sure. Jake agrees. Yes. Yes. But we'd love to share that with you in some way, shape, or form.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's really great when people get involved. Our last episode was a request. Yeah, a fan request. We do that shit. Yeah, no. So I mean, if you request it and it's reasonable, I mean, definitely helps your chances. But again, thank you. Good work for you. Definitely. Yeah, we will. We'll be advocates for you. Thank you for sticking around to the end, like they've said, and we'll see you in the next one.