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18. Our GOTY Picks 1990-1999! Gaming Memorabilia and Nostalgia | Games Over Plastic
43 Plays5 months ago
In this episode we get together to discuss what we are playing, gaming memorabilia, and then pick our Games of the Year for each year 1990-1999! A lot of fun was had
video version available at http://www.youtube.com/@gamesoverplastic
Timestamps:
00:00:00- Show Begins
00:05:35- Plucky Squire
00:08:41- Astro Bot
00:11:30- The Legend of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom
00:14:35- Until Dawn (PS4 Version)
00:20:35- Evil Within
00:27:25- Sackboy: The Big Adventure
00:30:10- The Witcher 3
00:32:00- Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC
00:39:01- Write In- Gaming Memorabilia
00:46:46- Midnight’s 1990
00:49:45- Sean’s 1990
00:52:10- Hodge’s 1990
00:53:30- Midnight, and Sean’s 1991
00:56:00- Hodge’s 1991
00:58:00- Midnight’s 1992
00:59:23: Sean’s 1992
01:01:25: Hodge’s 1992
01:04:20: Midnight’s 1993
01:05:30: Sean’s 1993
01:07:30- Hodge’s 1993
01:09:25- Midnight’s 1994
01:11:03- Sean’s 1994
01:15:25- Hodge’s 1994
01:17:00- Midnight’s 1995
01:18:01- Sean’s 1995
01:19:46- Hodge’s 1995
01:21:20- Midnight’s 1996
01:23:00- Sean’s 1996
01:25:45- Hodge’s 1996
01:27:00- Midnight’s 1997
01:29:00- Sean and Hodge’s 1997
01:32:20- Midnight, Sean, and Hodge’s 1998
01:36:50- Midnight’s 1999
01:39:41- Sean’s 1999
01:41:40- Hodge’s 1999
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Greetings
00:01:10
Speaker
Welcome everybody. This is games over plastic episode number 18. I am midnight. As always, I am joined by the two most Chad people in the gaming podcast fears. First of all, we have ah the master of graphics. That's right. I'm switching the order up. We're mixing it up
Hodge's Relocation and Weather Discussion
00:01:30
Speaker
today. We have the ginger who has relocated back up to the Midwest. Hodge, how you doing, sir?
00:01:41
Speaker
You're muted, sir. We're off to a great start. We're a fantastic start. Professional podcast. Well, because you should go second. So I muted myself. I threw you off. Gotta be on your toes. Gotta be ready. Gotta be on your toes. I know. I messed up. But I'm doing good. I'm tired. I one shot the drive back up to my parents. I'm at my parents' house for about a week. And that is a 17-hour drive, not including stops. So I left at 4 AM. I got up here. I actually made good time. I got up here at, like, 9.15 PM.
00:02:11
Speaker
so it was only a whatever that is 16 17-hour drive, so I was able to I was able to chop out a couple ah Like an hour and a half despite stopping I only had to stop twice because my car is a hybrid So it's able to drive about 500 miles before I need to fill so I was able to only have to do two stops so but yeah, I'm back up north gonna start a new job here in a couple weeks and ah But yeah, I'm ready to go it dude the fall weather though. Oh my god I'm just so happy to have it have moments where it's 50 60 degrees outside. That's my favorite weather. So I I'm so happy to be back up. All right. Well, I was going to say we're happy to have you back, but I'm i'm not a Midwesterner anymore. I move South. So, um, but yeah, welcome. It's funny. You experienced the absolute worst, um, of being in Texas the summer and you're, then you move back up and you're about to experience the worst of living up North cause it's going to be frozen winter soon. So that's great. Yep.
00:03:13
Speaker
So somehow use my job. You got both most my job. Yeah. Well, the the heat down south wasn't the bad part. Like, I don't care about being outside in 90, 100 degree weather. It's being up in those attics that were 130, 140 degrees. That was the worst. And up north, we have basements instead of attics. So I mean, we do have attics, but our stuff is most HVAC stuff is in the basement. So I'm able to go to cool basements instead of scorching hot, deadly freaking attics. So.
Guest Introduction: Sean Mason
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, i'll i'll I'll take that trade off. I'm OK with it. There we go. And then last but not least, we have the man, the myth, the legend, the coach and the teacher and the weeb, Sean Mason. How you doing, sir?
00:04:00
Speaker
I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here. Happy for Hodge that he's in his ideal weather situation right now. It's definitely fall. It's fall up here in New England as well. Leaves are changing colors. I have to rake some leaves um probably later today. Hopefully if I feel like who knows. I don't know. Mets are on later. I'm pretty hyped. Oh, yeah, all in postseason mode. So yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to talk about some great games, though. Oh, yeah, we're definitely going to do that.
00:04:30
Speaker
All right, boys. So introductions are done. Let's get
Podcast Platforms and Listener Engagement
00:04:33
Speaker
into the administrative stuff. The boring stuff. As always, this is games over plastic. The podcast for the agnostic gamers coming to you on all podcast services worldwide. Apple podcasts, Spotify, overcast, pocket cast, every cast.
00:04:50
Speaker
If you're listening to the audio version, just know that there is a video version that is always available to you with cameras, graphics, ah nip slips and everything. So we got it all. There is a link in the description of the audio version, which will take you right to the video if you want. You can also just go to youtube dot.com slash at games over plastic and you'll find us subscribe. We're trying to hit 100 subs.
00:05:16
Speaker
Leave us likes, leave us comments. If you have a write-in for the show, which we're gonna read one later, you leave that on YouTube. In the comment section, leave your little comment, your awesome comment, and then you can put a write-in and say, hey guys, what's your favorite this? Or what do you think about that? And we will answer your questions on the show if we if we can. All right, so
Current Gaming Experiences
00:05:35
Speaker
that's that. Thank you guys, we appreciate you. And with all that said, let's get into some gaming discussione and we are gonna talk about what we are playing And let's go ahead and start it off with Sean Mason, shall we? What have you been playing, Sean? Oh, I've been playing a number of games to start. I'm going to start off with just going to give you guys a little update on Plucky Squire. I wasn't really feeling it last main episode. I decided to give it another shot and I was playing a little bit of it, enjoying it a little bit more and a little bit more. And then all of a sudden,
00:06:10
Speaker
I started encountering these bugs where my sword would disappear and i it kind of reverted me back to like a chapter one state where you don't have a sword and you can't like roll and you kind of just are running around, but I'd still be in like the chapter that I'm in. So, you know, kind of broke the game, but they have this like intricate, um not intricate, but like this autosave system where you can reload past saves. So I'd reload a past save and it'd be fine.
00:06:36
Speaker
Then I got to chapter 6, and you get this new mechanic called like the Stamp mechanic. And right when I get the Stamp mechanic, my all my action command buttons, like my sword, my roll, my jump with like ah you like a rocket jetpack on, I just can't use them anymore. like Doesn't matter. I've tried reloading saves, it just doesn't work.
00:07:00
Speaker
Nothing works, and it completely broke the game for me, and I'm like I'm i'm good. I'm not gonna stress myself replaying this right now um I was like really aggravated about it like to the point where I spent like hours trying to like fix it like reload pass saves Shut my ps4 ps5 off um turn it on ah Deal delete the game and reinstall it nothing works So I was like I was just a little disappointed especially because I started encountering those bugs with like the sword part So yep. So plucky squire is like a no go for me right now until they fix that. And apparently they were supposed to release the patch that fixed it and and nothing was released that fixed it. So I'm like, all right, well, I'll just take a break from that. Yeah. Unfortunate. Okay. That really sucks. Cause I was actually debating finally hopping into it after kinda hearing the mixed reviews, but hearing that you were liking it the second time and all like, I was kind of,
00:07:57
Speaker
I was like, oh, sweet, it's time to hop in. But hearing that, I'm like, well, I guess it's it's kind of like, um, The Benedict Fox game that came out, I think last year, uh, I loved it. I was enjoying it so much until there was just a bug that brought me back to the beginning of the game and everything was locked again. I lost all my power. Like just my save was lost. And so I was so pissed off despite loving the game. Like it I liked it more than even people were just reviewing the it for the gameplay. I liked it more, but.
00:08:31
Speaker
It broke and I was like, well, I'm done. I can't do this then. I'm not replaying this game. Maybe one day if they fix it, but I'm not doing it now. And so hearing that plucky squire, hopefully they keep it going and fix that kind of stuff. Cause I do want to hop in one day and try it. Yeah, it was definitely frustrating, but you know, hopefully, hopefully it's fixed.
00:08:51
Speaker
Alright, but that got me to finally decide, you know what, I'm going to boot up Astrobot. So I started playing Astrobot and man, this game is freaking awesome. I absolutely love this game. um I don't want to spoil like any of the character like that any of the Sackboy cameo i mean sack boyy the astrobo cameo appearances.
00:09:12
Speaker
because um it is so good. ah The platform really is super smooth. It definitely reminds me of like a Mario game. It has that polish that like the Nintendo games have. um I love how expanded it is. It feels like a huge expansion, too. It feels like the playroom that was like bundled in with the PS5 was like a demo.
00:09:32
Speaker
That's what it feels like. It feels like that was like the demo version. This is the full game. And it's awesome. like every turn I'm constantly smiling, playing it. I'm constantly just like thrown with nostalgia. Even stuff that like I didn't play as a kid or just references that I didn't have any reference to. like i know I'm like, oh, I know what that is. Or, oh, that looks so familiar. Let me look it up. And then I look it up and be like, oh, my gosh. I remember this now. I remember this from like seeing commercials for it. It's so good. I'm like close to the end. I'm in the front. It's like I don't want to say what it is. It's like the. It's like the fifth like world overall world, not like a level, but like the fifth overall world. It's so good. I'm trying to savor every moment of it. I'm trying to say I'm saving every astrobot as I go, though. So like if I miss something, I just go hop right back in. It's so good. um Highly recommend it, especially if you even if you don't like platformers. Highly, highly recommend it. I'm going to play it. I just don't know when.
00:10:29
Speaker
it's in It's in the backlog. It'll get played at some point. Yeah, it's I think you'll like it. I'm sure I will. Yeah. I mean, because if you're a game plays, I mean, I know obviously you play longer games that have really good, like fleshed out plots. But if you're if you even if you just want a game, that's just a game plays king type game because obviously the plot of Astroplots really dumb. It's you're riding around on your PS5 spaceship and an alien comes and steals the parts and puts them in the five worlds that you have to go to. So it's literally you just basically you go save the SSD and the GPU and the CPU like
00:11:04
Speaker
It's literally all you're doing is the plot. So like I don't feel bad any of that. It's really just the worlds and the characters and stuff. That's kind of the like, oh, wow, I can't believe they put this character in the game kind of thing. So that's where the joy enjoyment comes from. It's really about the gameplay and the and just the love of PlayStation. It's also gorgeous. It's like such a gorgeous game to look at. Yeah, it's it's truly it's truly remarkable and awesome. it's It's crazy how fast I made it to. so
00:11:31
Speaker
But yeah, so um yeah, Astrobot, and then I've been playing on my Switch, a highly anticipated game. Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Ooh, this game is freaking awesome. Like, I had really high expectations coming in, like as I do for most Zelda games.
00:11:51
Speaker
But I've been blown away with this right away. If you're familiar with a link to the past, the map is almost like you can see like all the hints that this map is the same exact, almost like one to one recreation in that cool um art style that they have.
00:12:08
Speaker
But they add in like subtle little changes that make it different. So it's not like, oh, I'm just playing a link to the past again. And Zelda is so cool. She has. It's so funny that it's like the inverse of Link. So like Link has like, you know, he has unlimited sword power and he has limited magic. That's the opposite for Zelda, where she has all all the magic and limited like sword power or power for like when she's using her like summons. And it's so cool that you can just like summon like anything you conjure up.
00:12:35
Speaker
that you find. You can run around like the world with a mattress. And it's so cool. It's so much fun. I'm at the end of the game there. I know I'm in the last look. yeah I'm in the last dungeon right now, and it's just so much fun. And the art style, again, is gorgeous. It doesn't run the greatest on Switch. It runs better than Link's Awakening, though. I will give it that. It does run better than Link's Awakening, where in Link's Awakening, there were points where it was definitely chugging. um They definitely worked on that with this game. But yeah, i if you like Zelda, like especially the top-down Zelda, I'm gonna stop calling it 2D Zelda. It's top-down Zelda, because it's really not 2D. It's like top-down.
00:13:09
Speaker
if you like top-down Zelda or Zelda in general you're gonna love this and it is pretty cool to play as her in general it's like reverse you know role reversal where you're trying to rescue Link and save everyone um it is really cool though to see that a link to the past map in that art style too it's a huge fan of that game Um, yeah, but yeah, i'm loving it. Um, I highly suggest it to everyone. It's it's so good And it's funny some of my students were talking about it. They're like, oh, do you see that? I'm playing the game when you play zelda i'm like they're like mr mason You know, they made a zelda game. We play zelda like yeah i've been playing it. I know don't worry Nice silly children, of course. I know I know But yeah, it's really good
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to hop into it. I haven't been really wanting to buy any games right now just because um since I don't start my next job, I'm kind of, you know, save the cash a little bit. So once I'm working, I probably will. I'll hop into it. So it's going to be a little late, but I am excited, especially since how much I loved Link's Awakening playing it a couple of months ago. I was loving it so much that I am so excited for Echoes of Wisdom. um But yeah, I'm just going to have to wait a little bit just to.
00:14:15
Speaker
Just to give my wallet a rest for a little bit until I have that income coming back in. Right on. Yeah, that game looks pretty cool. I saw some gameplay. I was watching a review video of it. Spoiler free review. And it looks cool. um Obviously, I don't have a switch. Maybe I'll get to that someday on the switch to who knows if they pour. I would I would highly I would highly suggest it.
00:14:41
Speaker
right on I think you are playing one more game aren't you I'm excited about this one I'm playing one more game spooky season so I booted up until dawn it's a game that
Hodge on 'Evil Within' and 'Sackboy'
00:14:50
Speaker
me and my wife Claire are playing so we're playing it together I'm sorry for the glare in my camera right now and there's like the Sun is just like coming through this window right now and usually it doesn't do that I don't know why um But yeah, until dawn, um it's a great game. I'm playing the PS4 version, I'm not playing the PS5 version, so I wasn't gonna... I already own the PS4 version, so I wasn't gonna spend the money again, especially for a game that like I didn't know if I was gonna like or not. Because the first time I tried it, I got like 20 minutes in, and I'm like, yeah, I'm good. But I am enjoying this. We played about... like four and a half to five hours of it, and like one sitting last weekend. um I don't know, how long is the game? I don't even know how long it is.
00:15:30
Speaker
I'm not sure either. 15 hours maybe. Okay, so right so we're we're about like a third of the way through, I'd say. um It's rather interesting. Some of the some definitely like...
00:15:43
Speaker
Stereotypical like 90s horror like straight gives me a lot of scream vibes and some of the stuff It's like it's horror, but like some of the stuff is supposed to be like trophy and funny kind of But some of the decisions you make are like oh my gosh What am I gonna do and you don't have like unlimited time to decide so you're like oh my gosh I gotta make the decision quick. What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? It is interesting to just like run around and it's very creepy that Like you're up there, you know, the power goes out, they lose the cell. It's cool how they, they, since it's set in the modern times, like everyone has cell phones. So it's like, oh no, like the cell towers are down. It's a huge storm. And I'm liking it. um I don't know which characters like I'm like explicitly trying to save, especially because like, I don't know some decisions that um I've made where I'm like, oh, I think this decision will be good. And then it ends up being like, no, it was terrible decision. It was like thinking.
00:16:37
Speaker
um But yeah, it's fun so far. I'm enjoying it I am definitely gonna I'll have it done by next episodes where I can really dive in and talk about it and Tell you who my favorite characters are. I think the performances are really good though I think I think they did a really good job with the performances especially I got some big name actors and actresses in here So yeah, I'm enjoying it. It's fun. It's good spooky game start off that spooky season until dawn Yeah, I kinda wanna go back to it, especially with the hype of it being re-released. I'm bummed. I was actually kinda looking forward to buying it again on PS5, because I did love this game.
00:17:13
Speaker
But hearing that it's more busted than the old version, I'm like, I might just go back and replay the first one again, because I do. I love this game. I actually also just looked it up. It says eight to 10 hours. So you're probably a little over halfway. Oh, like halfway through. down Yeah. Yeah. ah But it's not. I don't think this is a spoiler. So but you can save or kill basically as many characters as you want. It's a very your consequences matter kind of game.
00:17:39
Speaker
And when I originally played it, I think I saved about half the people just because, yeah, like you said, you think you're making a right choice, but like a horror movie, you think you're going in the right door, but you're not going in the right door kind of thing. So it's I love that aspect of it. I wish that they had recreated with like those ah whatever, so like the little anthology series that they did after. I was hoping. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Dark pictureed dark pictures and those. Yeah. Dark pictures. Yeah, that's what it is.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, I was hoping those would be good because I wanted to hop into them. But hearing that they're all basically like sixes, I'm like, um maybe one day if I if they have like a, you know, cheap collection, 20 bucks for all of them or kind of that kind of thing, I might hop into them one day, but.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, I really like until dawn, so I'm happy you're enjoying it the second way through. Yeah, definitely. Going back to going back to like that, that like this the decision making like there's a character, her name's Sam or Samantha. I like I really wanted this. Like we really wanted to save her. And then we made a decision that like we're like, oh, this is definitely going to be like fine. And then we're like, what? And then she ends up dying. I was like, what? Is that the first one? Was that the first one who dies or no? Well, it depends.
00:18:45
Speaker
Well, there's a cliff i like a cliff event, right? Oh, that's the opening of the game. That's the opening of the game, and the cliff event. I don't want to spoil like how the person dies. yeah like um But we were we were like were like, definitely this is going to be great. She's going to be fine. And then she died. And we're like, oh, that that's great. So now we're like really like, OK, now I kind of Kind of trying to really narrow down. We've got to figure out what we're going to do with these decisions. But overall, it's good. Good experience. The illusion of choice. Yeah. OK, that's who Sam is. Yeah, that's it's Hayden Pennateer's character. OK. Yeah, you've got to save the cheerleader. If you guys remember that show, Heroes. Save the Cheerleader, Save the World. I heard after the first season it went downhill. It went downhill at some point. I don't remember when it was.
00:19:38
Speaker
It was good for, I think, a season or two or it like maybe even three heroes. Sorry. Hero. I never watched it. Yeah, I never. I didn't either. I just heard it went to shit after the. first Everyone I loved the first season I heard after the first I went to shit, so it didn't bother going watching it. Yeah. All right. Well, good stuff, Sean. I was excited to hear about that game. I actually didn't play that game, but I watched a full play through of it on YouTube.
00:20:02
Speaker
So I saw the whole story and all the choices and stuff and I thought it it looked awesome. I really liked the story and the choices. I do actually want to play it for myself. I was like Hodge looking forward to this remaster remake thing. um So I will probably play that once they've released some patches and got the bugs out fixed because I'm sure they'll get it under control. And then there's like a gnat flying around this piece of crap. Anyway, good stuff though, Sean. I'm glad you're playing a spooky game. And I think you chose a good one. Yeah, those Wendigos are pretty scary.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The wind goes. All right. Shall we move on to Hodge? What are you playing, sir? I am playing or I just started this morning a scary game because I wanted to get into the Hollywood or Hollywood Halloween spirit.
00:20:51
Speaker
I'm wearing even my Halloween town shirt right now. um But ah so I started Evil Within because I've been putting it off for about a decade. And I fell off almost immediately because I am not that big into it.
00:21:04
Speaker
I, uh, I played the first two chapters. Uh, the first chapter was a slog. It was the, oh, you're injured. So you kind of have to slowly walk through the room kind of out. And I'm like, every time that even in the last of us, which is a game I love when you're like Joel after the attack and you're just like slowly walking to the hospital, I'm like, this could have been a cut scene. I didn't need to interact with this and just make it a cut scene. I don't want to play this slow motion limping fucking character.
00:21:34
Speaker
And so I was really turned off right at the beginning. And but I'm like, you know, what it's just the opening. It's the title card hasn't even popped up yet. So I'm going to keep going. And then the second one. And but then you get out of the so you get hurt. And like I said, you're limping, you get in the elevator, the credits roll and then you get out of the elevator and you're walking fine again. I'm like, so that leg injuries just magically healed. Like this is a horror movie. Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
um But then the second mission you're like in a forest and it's a little better ah It's kind of a sneak around survival horror and it's not it's not a terrible game It's just not grabbing me nearly as much as like Resident Evil does or hopefully that Silent Hill game is after hearing it's great I do want to hop into it um but yeah, it's really just not grab me and people are saying that this is the better of the two and I'm just like I don't know. I might try and give it just a little more of chapter two more. But as of right now, it is really not grabbing me. I just don't I don't want to write off a game after like 45 minutes hour of gameplay. But if it's like another chapter to go by and I'm not enjoying my time, I'm going to drop it. But yeah, I'm kind of disappointed because I've been excited to play this game for a while. It's been I actually bought it years ago and just never played it because I just never found the time.
00:22:55
Speaker
And so i now that it's spoopy season, like, yeah, let's do it before. Cause I'm going to play Alan, like two again soon. But before I do that, I was like, you know what? I'll, uh, I'll cleanse the pal with a different horror game and yeah, it's not grabbing me. So either next episode, I'll say I've beaten it or I'll be playing on week instead. Good stuff. Good stuff. Sean, did you ever play that?
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah, I played it when it first came out and Hodge, you had talked about, you you just brought up how you're not feeling it. um I could totally get why if you had never played it before, you wouldn't be feeling it now. It's definitely, it's it was one of those early PS4, Xbox One games, and it feels so much like a PS3, 360 game. It's very gamey. I was I was, as I was playing it.
00:23:36
Speaker
As I was playing, it I was literally thinking to myself, did this come out on 360? I was like, I was like, so I'm like, no, this is an Xbox one game, I'm pretty sure. And then, yeah, that makes sense. That's early on. So well it was released for both. It was released for PS3 and 360 as well. Oh, OK. Yeah, that makes sense. because yeah and the Yeah because I was like Dead Space was a 360 game and I loved that game but this one it it has that jank but kinda not the
00:24:08
Speaker
the good parts of it either like where it's like you can look past the jekin dead space because the plot the gameplay and like everything is so fucking good but in evil within i'm like like that got the teleporting film i'm like this is kind of it's supposed to be supernatural but it almost feels anime like i'm like it doesn't it what is japanese Yeah, I know it is a tango game so it makes sense that it would have like I'm yeah i'm sure like I'm sure I would love like if it has the same kind of feel but better gameplay I'm sure I'll love that one that they oh my god was it that they came out with those on PS 5 first and Then came over to Xbox before they bought
00:24:47
Speaker
Oh, I'm like Doctor Strange. Yeah. ah Ghostwire Tokyo. Ghostfire Tokyo. Like I'm like, I'm thinking I'm like, I might like that better because it'll have better gameplay. It's more recent and it but it's still kind of a spoopy game. So I might even try Ghostwire this month just to get a good spoopy game in under the under the belt. But um since it's on game pass, because otherwise I'd buy like RE4 or RE8 or whatever. I haven't played those yet, but Um, but yeah, so I'll, I'll give it a little more of a try. If it doesn't land, maybe I'll either switch over to ghost wire or get back to my own wake replay before lake house comes out. But yeah, I was kind of disappointed, but yeah, we don't have to. Yeah. fa but
00:25:29
Speaker
So evil within for me, I've never played it. Um, I'm, I'm afraid to play it. I'm not a huge horror guy. I'm kind of a, I'm kind of a pussy. Like I don't really want to be super scared. You know what I mean? Like real life is scary enough, you know, dealing with my normal job and normal life. I don't want to also be scared when I'm relaxing. So I'm not a big horror guy. And I've always heard and seen that evil within is like this really, really scary game. Like S tier horror is what I've heard. That's the impression that I have of it. So I've never wanted to play it because I'm like, well, I don't want to be scared like that.
00:25:59
Speaker
um I will say shout out to Tango, though, because the game that we just previously mentioned, Ghostwire Tokyo, I did play and beat and I really enjoyed that game. I think that's like a sleeper, a sleeper game that if you're a fan of like open world types of games.
00:26:12
Speaker
where you get to clear the map out and enjoy a cool setting and a and a pretty cool story ah with a fun combat. That's one I recommend. I enjoyed that one. So I feel like Ghostfire wasn't talked about enough, and it hadn't. I think it has like an 88 on Metacritic or something like it has good good one of ratings. But yeah, it wasn't. It released. I think it got like lost because there was a game released right around it. I think. Hang on. I wouldn't be surprised based up of poor dating.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. March of 2022, what else came out in March of 2022? March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of 2022. March of Was Ragnar a criminal that time? That wasn't God of War. No. Oh, well, I mean, Forbidden West came out right before it and Elden Ring had just come out the month before. Oh, yeah. And yeah, 2022 so Elden Ring. Yeah, so. But that'll do it. Yeah, that makes sense. Literally, the entire Internet was playing Elden Ring and sharing videos and stuff. That was a whole zeitgeist. So yeah, I was going to say, because I remember Ghostwire did fall behind something, but I couldn't remember what it was. That makes sense. It's a good game, though. I recommend it.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, but my other game is I ah beat Sackboy. I finally got back to it. I had fallen off of it for a little bit because of other games and whatnot, but I went back. I won't lie. I felt disappointed in the going back to it because after beating Astro, which is a much better game, like don't get me wrong. Sackboy is a great game, but Astro is much better, I think.
00:27:50
Speaker
And so I went back and I saw how i was feeling, I was like, I miss Astro, but it is a great game. I'm not going to go for the Platinum because I saw there's a bunch of multiplayer trophies and stuff like that. And I'm not going to deal with that. So I'm not going to Platinum it. But other than that, it was a fantastic game. I loved it. ah Astro is still the better platformers in my mind, but I did love my time with it. It has some great concepts. The designs are a little weird, but I do kind of like the tiny kin like your honey. I shrunk the kids kind of sized person. I liked all that. and The villain was really entertaining. I liked it. He looked like ah an evil unraveled, the little string guy from Unraveled who looked like an evil version of him. And yeah, it was a really cute game. It's the so you know, the story of you're just kind of the like like a movie or Emmet, the little nobody guy who ends up saving everybody and he's the hero and
00:28:43
Speaker
So it's a cute game like that. I really enjoyed it. But yeah, that was the those are really the end. Then obviously I've topped in a fortnight and space marine and stuff like that, which are all fun, but don't need to talk about those again. So yeah, those are the games I'm playing. and All right. So and you have any thoughts on Sackboy before I get into my stuff?
00:28:59
Speaker
I absolutely love Sackboy. I think it's the best platformer on PlayStation right now. I think it's better than Astrobot. But I just enjoy the world design of it. I think the the audio of the game is amazing. And I love how challenge I think it's a lot more challenging than Astrobot, especially when you go into the um like knitted night trials and going for trying to get everything in one run. I think it's much more challenging. So I like it's the difficulty aspects. But I mean, honestly, they're both great games.
00:29:26
Speaker
yeah yeah we so astro robotts cross sabo game Yeah. I yeah i um i beat 13 of the 15 knitted nights with three stars. And then the 14th one, I only could get to two. That's the one where the the goal line chases you while you're trying to get the yeah time decreases. I couldn't get to a minute 15. I only got to a minute 20, which is silver.
00:29:49
Speaker
And so I'm like, I'm done. I can't do this. The last one is the last one is ridiculous. The last one is. Yeah. So here. Yeah. Seeing that that was 14 and they're still wanting to go. I'm like, I'm not going to bother. I'm i'm done. and I'm not going to get the platinum. If I were going for the platinum, I'd go for it. But since I'm not going for the platinum, I'm like, you know what? i I did what I did and I'm good. So, yeah, it was fun, though.
00:30:12
Speaker
All right. Good stuff. Good stuff. Some great games.
Midnight's RPG Adventures
00:30:15
Speaker
All right. Let me hop into what I have been playing. Um, so finally the masterpiece, the the chef's kiss, the 10 out of 10 Witcher three has been beaten boys. I've done it. I beat the main game. It was fricking awesome. One of the best games I've ever played. I beat the first DLC heart of stone. Awesome.
00:30:35
Speaker
Really good. And then I beat blood and wine, which was, as I mentioned before, this was the highest rated DLC of all time on like Metacritic or whatever for forever for a long time until shadows of the urge tree from Elden Ring came out and dethroned it by like a point.
00:30:50
Speaker
um But this blood and wine is a masterpiece. They introduce a whole new setting, a whole new world, which is super awesome. All these new characters, an amazing story where you got like this political intrigue, ah like the kingdom is being attacked, there's vampires and stuff, and it's freaking awesome. And you get to make cool choices. I believe it's replayable with kind of some different, there are different endings.
00:31:11
Speaker
I got the best ending and I got the best ending with no guide. I didn't look up anything. I just made my own choices and I managed to get the very best ending. I was super happy about that. um So apparently I just made good choices. What can I say? You know, but shout out, shout out to Witcher 3.
00:31:27
Speaker
um I hope to do a Witcher 3 DLC episode if I can get ah time is busy. If I can get my boy lock and maybe someone else in there, maybe put or somebody in there. I'd like to do a DLC on the Witcher 3 sometime, but people are busy, so I don't know if that'll happen. But maybe maybe will surprise you one day. OK, so maybe look forward to that, but also don't completely because it might not happen. So we'll leave it there. That game is freaking awesome. So good. It's in my top 10 of all time. Favorite games, no doubt.
00:31:56
Speaker
Um, and then I moved on, I'm doing some cleanup, right? So we have, ah as I've mentioned before, once or twice, we have Dragon Age four, the veil guard is coming on October 31st. Shout out to Halloween. And I can't wait for that game. So I'm doing some cleanup, right? So I went back to Dragon Age Inquisition, the 2014 game of the year, ah which by the way, it's funny.
00:32:18
Speaker
Dragon Age Inquisition was 2014 game of the year, and Witcher 3 was 2015 game of the year, I believe. The quality difference could not be could not be any further. like The Witcher 3 is way better. like The story in Dragon Age Inquisition is awesome. But when you look at all the other elements, the graphics, the combat, the world setting, the Witcher is just bodying it. like It's so much better. um But anyways, Dragon Age is awesome. I went back. I play in the DLC. right So i just i I picked up where I left off.
00:32:46
Speaker
i Loaded one of my recent save so I got my character, you know, I'm like some kind of Archer rogue or whatever like level 27 I fought a dragon right when I load it in because there was a dragon there So I'm like relearning the combat, you know how you go back to a game and you don't really remember how to play it So I beat this dragon to relearn how to play it. That was fun and um Picked it right back up. Now. I'm in in the swing of things. I start The first DLC, the Jaws of Hacken, it's like this basic DLC, kind of mid six out of 10. Like, you know, with those DLCs where they just kind of phone it in, they're like, here's a new world with like a super basic quest with barely any cut scenes and just, just fill up some time here. Have fun. That's what that is.
00:33:26
Speaker
It was okay. It wasn't that great. Then I hopped into the next DLC, which is the descent where you're diving down into the deep roads, which is something that's well known to Dragon age fans. Like from the first game, Dragon age origin, the girl in the deep world, deep roads, you got the dark spawn. This was a little better. It had more cut scenes and had a bit of a better story, but again, kind of mid kind of phoned in like, this isn't like a big story expansion. It's just like, Hey, here's some content with a, with a slate story. I beat that. Now my friends.
00:33:55
Speaker
now we're getting to peak because now I'm getting to Trespasser. The Trespasser DLC is is considered by many to be like a masterpiece. matt ah Mr. Matty Plays, our boy, he always hypes this up. Like this is a true story expansion. Like you could just tell immediately that all the money, all the budget, all all the production went into this because you have full cut scenes, full voice acting, full choices, full story and ah discussion trees. ah this is This feels like the real game.
00:34:25
Speaker
um This feels awesome. ah This is going to wrap up the story and it's going to tie up what happened after Inquisition and lead into Dragon Age 4. So it's the perfect bridge. You get to find out what's going on with Solas. Solas is ah the Dread Wolf.
00:34:40
Speaker
The Dread Wolf is what Dragon Age 4 was originally going to be called, if you'll remember. um So this is going to be awesome. I haven't beat this one yet. I'm in the middle of it. I'm a couple hours in. I'm loving it. So that's what I'm playing. I'll leave it there. Dragon Age DLCs are getting cleaned up and then I'm going to have some more time. So I think what's on the docket for me. Sean, I'm sorry. I know I told you I was going to play JRPG. I know I told you I was gonna play um Octopath 2, I think is what we talked about. um And I am going to play it. I want to play it. But like, I just feel like I need to knock out these DLCs first. I think I'm gonna play, do I think I'm gonna play, I think I'm gonna play Shattered Space after this. Even though it's not getting the best of reviews, um I was looking at the reviews for Shattered Space. They've been kind of bad, like,
00:35:28
Speaker
A couple good reviews, of course, but a lot of them are people honestly giving it like a five or a six out of 10. Like I think it's at a 59 Metacritic, which is not very good. um So I'm sad to say that. It's at a 57, which is the same rating that Redfall has. So I'm just thinking people are hating on. I'm not saying it's a 10 out of 10, but I think people are hating on Starfield because it's the school to do. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's no way it's as bad as Redfall.
00:35:57
Speaker
From my understanding, a lot of it isn't a criticism of like the story, perhaps, but it's more of there's a lot of game breaking things in it and a lot of. Oh, it's buggy. Oh, yeah. OK. Maybe I'll wait. If it's busted, that makes sense, because that's why Breadfall mostly had its bad reviews. Yeah, it's.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's very buggy. Like there's aspects where certain if you have a certain perk on, some characters will won't talk or they'll only say one line when they're supposed to talk like multiple times or you're talking or you're talking to a character and they're like they're supposed to be right in front of you. And they're actually like they're supposed to be right in front of you. But they're the characters like body is like miles away and there is talking. ah But yeah, I guess it's it's it's extremely buggy. What the fuck?
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah. Why did they? Why did they delay it? What are you doing, Bethesda? I don't know. I think they I think. Yeah, I don't know if it's really that buggy, which I i didn't know about any of this because I've been on media black out. I haven't been watching the video. There's no way they didn't catch that in testing. Then why didn't they just delay it? Like, what the fuck? Why release a buggy product?
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, so that that's where the a lot of the criticisms come from. It's not from the story. People are saying the story is great. But like some people are just running into these huge problems. The system's crashing. Oh, wow. It's stuff like that. OK. It's a little disappointing.
00:37:21
Speaker
So I mean, if I were I would wait like happened on Claire, my Claire, she's playing it. She's she was loving it, loving it. And then she ran into a bug where every single time she opened like, um like a crate, she had to like, she was searching for like, she was like, I had to go pick up and like a specific quest item. She couldn't pick it up. Every time she picked it up, the game would just crash. Oh, my God. That's that's unacceptable. Yeah. And so canno not yeah we we did some we did some research and it's tied to like a certain perk that you have.
00:37:51
Speaker
Um, and it's like, yeah, that's stolen. I love Bethesda, but I hate them at the same time. Cause why do they do this? Like, and you had to have known that this game was not ready. Just delay the fucking game. Like Jesus Christ. That makes me angry. Um, maybe they wanted to hit the hollow wind Halloween window, because I think this game is supposed to have sort of spooky vibes a little bit. I don't know, but it's still, there's no excuse for that.
00:38:16
Speaker
I didn't know that Sean, cause I've been, like I said, I've been on media blackout. I haven't watched any videos. I saw Maddie's video about this wasn't good enough. I didn't watch it because I don't want spoilers. My plan all along was that I was going to play it and that I would probably enjoy it and have fun. But now that I'm hearing this, I think it's best to wait. If it's really a buggy mess, I think I'll just, I'm going to wait. So audible, boom, change of plans. I'm not playing shattered space next. Maybe I'll get to your weebry instead. I'll push, I'll punt that until we get some patches. Once I hear that it's actually working well,
00:38:45
Speaker
I'll go in and enjoy it as it should have been, and as it's intended. All right. i do want to say I do want to say one last thing. She's playing on Xbox Series X, though. So i'm not I have no idea about the PC version. I just know about the Series X. Well, I'll play on Series X, too, because I already own it there. All right, I'll wait. So that's anyways, that's what I'm playing, boys. um it Yeah, we I was going to recap it, but we'll just move on. So let's go ahead and get into our write-in, shall we?
00:39:11
Speaker
All right.
Favorite Gaming Memorabilia Discussion
00:39:12
Speaker
So this was a, this was a really good write in. I'll read this right. And I really, I enjoyed this right in. So this was from the man and the man and the legend meatball. We love meatball. I love meatballs in general, like to eat them. They're good. You know, get some gravy. So barbecue, you know, throw them in a crock pot. That's good stuff. ah But meatball is is a Chad. He's a great supporter and friend of the show. He's always listening. He's always writing in and he's just, we really love and and appreciate his support. And he has great taste. He writes in and he says,
00:39:41
Speaker
Fun show as always lads once again midnight has the best list Let that marinate for a second let that marinate his top five last week was consoles So meatballs top five. He said game boy advance game cube N64, Xbox 360, and then his number one game, Sean, he was right there with you. PS5, so he agreed with you. So he agreed with both, with all of us actually, because ah Hodge and I was 360, that was his two, and yours was PS5, so that was his one. So he he he was loving what we were putting down, but he agreed with you, Sean. Hey, he's got some great consoles on there, so. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing bad. I love the GBA. Good good call with it. That thing was awesome. Yeah, the GBA looked awesome. I didn't own one, but like,
00:40:27
Speaker
The quality of the games and the graphics for a handheld at that time looked incredible. and you can play that that to the gamebo um The Game Boy Advance SP, the Game Boy, event okay the Game Boy Micro, that thing is awesome.
00:40:39
Speaker
I never had an s SP. It always looked so cool. Oh my god, the SP is so... that that's That's my definitive Game Boy Advance experience, is the SP. Dude, the SP was awesome. I always wanted one, but I already had an Advance, and obviously there's no way to convince your parents, like, can I upgrade this for just to have it fold? And so it was... I never had one, but I always loved it.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah, dude, I used to think the SP I thought the SP I still you know, what I used to think the SP was Game Boy Advance super powerful. That's what I used to say. Game Boy Advance super powerful. That's what it is. There you go. All right. And then he says my write in for the next episode. What's your favorite gaming related memorabilia you've collected over the years? I recently bought a Koseki series 20th anniversary poster, which I've hung in the man cave. That sounds pretty cool.
00:41:29
Speaker
ah Sean, what is your favorite gaming related memorabilia? You got anything? oh I mean, I have a lot. Shout out to that poster. That's part of the Trails series. That's what they're called in Japan. So yeah look at them yeah I know he's playing. through I know he's playing through the Trails games right now. So it's very special um for gaming memorabilia. I would have to say if we're not including like um special special editions,
00:41:54
Speaker
like like of like games Like I have the Final Fantasy Pixel collection, like I have that wrapped and stuff. Um, but gaming memorabilia? Um, well actually, you know, I'm just gonna do this. Shout out to this, one of my students last year, who's a really good art student, knew how much I loved Final Fantasy VII.
00:42:11
Speaker
So, but he made gifts at the end of the year, gifts, not not not gifts like G.I.F, but gifts with a T for all of the students. I mean, all of the teachers that he had and he he made them like paintings. And this is phenomenal. He made me a cloud strife one. It was unbelievable. um And I actually i have been hanging in my house. It's downstairs, unfortunately. um But it's hanging in my house. It was absolutely awesome. And it's really cool because it's like homemade and it was like nothing. It's something I didn't buy. And I was so unexpected and I absolutely loved it.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. What about you, Hodge, anything? Um, I, yeah, I mean, I have a lot of different things that I love. Like I was thinking in terms of actual games, the first collector's edition I ever bought was kingdom hearts. So I had this little heartless that came with it and I love it. But, um, other than that, I bought the Kakarot special edition that came with the statue of Goku and go on, uh, getting on the Nimbus cloud with a dinosaur chasing them or whatever, or fly next to them. And, uh, then obviously I have pre-ordered the Alan Wake one because I love that game, but.
00:43:13
Speaker
I also have like the first game I ever bought memorabilia for just straight up not collector's edition not whatever is Death Stranding I have three Death Stranding shirts and I have the looted and little statue guy so I love that but another one I drewill just kind of thought about while you're talking was it's not really like a collector type thing but I still have a like piles of Game Informer magazines. And it's just kind of cool to open those every once in a while and just see like them hyping up the unreal graphics of a PS2 game. And it's just like it's just such a cool walk down memory lane. And I like I was bummed when Game Informer closed because I've been subscribed to Game Informer slash like a GameStop Pro member for
00:44:00
Speaker
20 years or something like that. Like it's been a long time that I've been reading Game Informer. So when it got shut down, I was yeah I was so sad because I still had it on. I saw the app on my iPad and I'd still and not every month, but every couple of months I'd go on, I'd still read it.
00:44:16
Speaker
And it was it's such a cool magazine. I remember I got retweeted a bunch on Twitter once with an old account that I didn't have anymore, where i I tweeted out like, the Game Informer graphic designers deserve a raise because the layouts in that magazine were so fucking cool. And obviously, me being a graphic designer, I would notice that kind of stuff. ah So i like they all were like, oh, that's such kind words. And I'm like, no, yeah. I loved the layouts of Game Informer. The covers are legendary.
00:44:43
Speaker
And so just kind of having that as memorabilia is really cool to me. And yeah, I'm bummed it that it's gone. But yeah, so that's kind of the stuck gaming memorabilia that I kind of think of. Right on. Yeah. Shout out to Game Informer. You guys know that I'm old. I'm ancient. um I was working at Funcoland ah in like my senior year of high school. We're talking about, I'm talking about like 2000. That's how old I am. um And at Funcoland, we were selling Game Informer back then, all the way back then. So like it was a thing. It was awesome. Great magazines. They always had good stories and stuff. And that was back before the internet was super prevalent. We didn't have smartphones.
00:45:20
Speaker
So you really, you really were reading those things. And that was where you were getting a lot of gaming news. so it was guitar or It was awesome. Yeah, those magazines were awesome. Yeah. All right. Uh, for me, I'm not a huge memorabilia guy. I'm kind of lame, kind of boring. I want to get into it. If I had more space, like if I ever get a house, I kind of want to get like some shelves set up and kind of turn into like a mini GJ from a discord and get like some, some statues and figures and cool stuff and start collecting, but I've just never got into it. I've got some gaming shirts. Like, you know, I got Zelda shirts, halo shirts and stuff like that, which is cool. I would say the coolest piece of memorabilia I got, it's hard to see it's back there.
00:45:57
Speaker
Um, I have this, uh, with Star Wars, the old Republic, the Bioware MMO that came out, I bought the $200 collector's edition. Uh, and it came with a statue. It looks like this tall, like, I don't know, like 10 inch tall statue of Darth Malgus and it's super high quality. Unfortunately, the red lightsaber broke off at some point during a move and got lost. So he no longer has a lightsaber, just the hilt. Um, but yeah, he had his lightsaber out. He's got his mask on. He looks cool as hell.
00:46:25
Speaker
and it's back there and I really like that statue. I'm very sad that I lost a lightsaber, but anyways, shout out to Meatball. Yeah, he is. Yeah, he's a peace guy. So shout out to Meatball guys, write in please if you're listening to the podcast currently, go to the YouTube, type in some comments, give us a ah fun question and you might be on the show. Boys, shall we get into the main topic of discussion? I think we should. oh yeah All
Iconic Games of the Early 90s
00:46:55
Speaker
right. So today's topic, we are going to be once again, visiting the decades. We are going to be rating our picking our game of the year for each year from 1990 to 1999. We're going to start it back. We're going to start at 1990. Is that what we want to do, boys? Go for it. I thought we were going to start at 90. What do we want to do? Let's decide now. Let's do 90. All right. Let's do 90. All right.
00:47:22
Speaker
So we're going to start at 1990. What a great year that was. Most of you guys weren't even alive, but I was. zomb I wasn't. But I don't remember. I don't remember it. I wasn't even a thought. I wasn't even a thought. I'm sure you were a thought. You just hadn't happened yet. You know, um I'm sure. you're fair enough each other either nine They didn't know each other in 1990, though. Yeah. Oh, wow. I was I was in my mama's belly in 1990 in 1990. All right.
00:47:49
Speaker
So in the year 1990, there were some great games and I'm going to start it off. My game of the year for 1990 is Super Mario Brothers 3 on the NES. This is to this day, Super Mario Brothers 3 is my favorite Mario game of all time. It is a classic side scrolling Mario. It's not 3D, although I love the 3D too.
00:48:14
Speaker
Um, but yeah, this game was freaking awesome doing all the levels. There was also, there was some secret world. I don't even remember what it was. I don't even know if it was a world or a mode. I don't remember how you could get there, but you went in some, some pipe or something. There was like this little PVP mode or something where you were like, you could have two players like Mario and Luigi or something on the map at the same time. And like you were competing against the person and I don't remember the details of it.
00:48:39
Speaker
Um, but that was fun. Um, but the whole world, like the overworld was a masterpiece. Like they had like an actual overworld where you could traverse. Um, they had all the levels. It was fantastic. Um, of course the, the cover art is iconic. I can remember it right now. I haven't even looked at it, but I believe it was yellow and it had like, uh, the raccoon Mario on the front, right? It's just iconic.
00:48:59
Speaker
What a masterpiece game. Nintendo EAD, the developers of this, they've made, they got to be the best developer of all time. In my opinion, like the number of bangers that they have made, like all the, all the great Marios and all of the great Zelda games. Um, did they do Metroid too? I don't remember. Um, I had no idea, but they, they have to be number one in my opinion. Like they've just made so many all time bangers. I think they changed the name. I don't think they're an Nintendo EAD anymore. Didn't they change it to something else, but Who cares? It's still them. But that's my 1990 pick. Super Mario Brothers three. Sean, what say you? That's a fabulous pick, by the way. And that was my runner up for this year. I came very close to picking it. ah I just want to say Mario three is my dad's third favorite game of all time. So that's his favorite Mario game. So that's he always prefers that. So anytime we bring up Mario three, he's always defending it. All right. Shout out to Papa Mason.
00:49:57
Speaker
yeah um My game of the year from 1990 is Mega Man 3, another 3 in the series. um I absolutely love the classic Mega Man games, like absolutely adore them. And Mega Man 3 is where the series really just like took off and evolved. And this is like peak Mega Man, like peak Mega Man. The boss design is phenomenal. It has my favorite boss in all of Mega Man.
00:50:23
Speaker
And that is Snake Man. I love Snake Man. I was obsessed with snakes as a kid. So Snake Man was always like, oh, I love Snake Man. He's so cool. um Ultimately, really, really easy boss. And his power up kind of stinks to get. It kind of sucks.
00:50:37
Speaker
um But overall, the level design is awesome. and in interview yeah It introduced the slide mechanic that we're all familiar with in Mega Man, and they even have it in. It's kind of like the prototype to the dash in Mega Man X. um They added new rush abilities for the you know the dog rush. Overall, I just love like the majority of the boss design. is like I think it's the best variety of bosses. You have Magnet Man, you have Hard Man, Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Snake Man.
00:51:06
Speaker
I know. Hardman. It's very strange. Gemini Man jim and i in used to freak me out as a kid, like the level, because it was like there's a lot of flashing lights on the screen and I don't know, as as a kid I like freaked out about it. But yeah, Mega Man 3, awesome game. ah It's crazy to think how... how fast Capcom developed those original six Mega Man games like Mega Man one was like 1988 and then Mega Man two eighty nine three was ninety and then like four and five were both in ninety two like they came out in the same year like how that's ridiculous like these Mega Man games were awesome but yeah Mega Man three shout out to Mega Man three all right good stuff yeah I never really got into Mega Man myself but off obviously iconic hodge
00:51:51
Speaker
What say you sir, any thoughts on those quick or get into yours? Um, yeah, I never played Mega Man 3. I actually, I've never been, I've only played a handful of Mega Man game. Like I have never, I don't know. I did own some on PS one, whatever ones those ones were.
00:52:06
Speaker
but um But yeah, I never owned the older ones, but I played them, you know, later on. But um my game of the year for 1990 was also Super Mario Brothers 3. It was always my favorite of the original. Like I played the first one, of course, all the time. It's everyone knows Super Mario Brothers, the first one. they the 1-1 level of the Goomba right there and whatnot. Everyone knows start that game. But ah three was always my favorite because it was so cool. And I liked the presentation of it looked like a stage play. Everything was hanging or it was bolted to the wall kind of look. And so it was always a really cool ah thing. Then obviously before the days of the Internet, when you had to just kind of know the secrets or you heard them on the playground kind of thing. And that's how you knew where to go. And so I always I just it was always such a fun game and I love it. And
00:52:53
Speaker
So yeah, ah but these early years will find that I don't have too many alternates because I don't. It's like I was some years I was kind of lucky to find when I was like, oh, yeah, I do like that game for that year because I didn't because, you know, I was young. I didn't own 10 games a year like I do now as an adult and all that. So it's just kind of what did I have on the n NES or ah Genesis or whatever as a kid. So that's kind of where it is that. But say 1990 is Super Mario Brothers three.
00:53:22
Speaker
Shout out to the airships. Shout out to the airship levels. Oh, yeah. So fun. Every level is awesome, dude. the the The ice levels where you get to slide down, the water levels where you're swimming. Masterpiece. All right. Nineteen ninety one was also a year that existed and it was also a year where Mario was king on the Super Nintendo, the SNES. Sean loves that. We had one of the greatest Mario games ever made. Super Mario World.
00:53:53
Speaker
This game was awesome. This honestly was probably better than Super Mario Brothers 3, but because of the nostalgia and how much I played Mario Brothers 3, I have it rated higher. But Super Mario World, the 16-bit era, the graphics at the time were awesome. The overworld was beautiful. You got to ride on Yoshi, I think. That was fun.
00:54:12
Speaker
This was a great game. I really loved it. I played it a lot. I used to go over to my aunts um and we would play Super Mario World. She was a gamer and we would just pass the controller back and forth. You know, like if you die, then you pass it off and we had a great time. So I'm gonna keep it short and brief. We know the deal. Super Mario World. Awesome game. 1991 game of the year.
00:54:33
Speaker
my game of the year for 1991 as well. absolutely most When we went over our top 10 games of all time, it made my it was at the bottom of my top 10 list. um This game is unbelievable. I replay this game every year multiple times. When I'm bored, I'll boot this game up all the time.
00:54:49
Speaker
I love the cape power up. It's my favorite power up in all of Mario. I love just running, getting the sprint with the arms out, running straight up the wall and then or just running sprint and then jumping with the cape and floating through the level. I absolutely love it. I love the variety of the world design. So many different worlds. I love the yo the addition of Yoshi is so cool. um I love playing as Luigi as well. like They gave me that option right away to play as Luigi.
00:55:13
Speaker
um But yeah, this game is awesome. The final boss fight is iconic for me. with um It wasn't the traditional like you know's Bowser fight. it's like you know You have to jump on his little robot Bowser things and throw him up and hit him into the the clown. ah clown um Like, you know, the little clown vehicle he's in. um Yeah, I love this game so much fun. Like I every part of this game I bought, I bought the GBA version, I i bought it on Wii Virtual Console, Wii U Virtual, everything. It's like this is one of the most bought games of all time. Love this game. Love it. Can't recommend it it enough. Still holds up to today. Yeah, it's perfect. Hodge, how about you? And then your pick, too?
00:55:55
Speaker
Um, my pick was going to be actually it was Super Mario World, but I'm going to change it just to have a little variety in this. I'm going to go a Sonic the Hedgehog because this is I never I never owned an SNES. So I didn't play Super Mario World until I was older. And it is a fantastic game. I'm not discounting it at all.
00:56:17
Speaker
But Super Sonic the Hedgehog was the game that I owned because I had a Sega Genesis. And it was so much fun at the time. I mean, going back to it, it doesn't really hold up as much as Mario does. mario's definitely the better of the two series but this game was so iconic just getting the green hills zone just and dan dan dan dan du dan dan du just hearing that hearing that music it's just i love it it's game it has so much charm ah sonics isn't i mean obviously it's you know getting popular now with these movies out but it was always second fiddle to mario which it should be it's it is Mario is the better of the series. I always loved this game as a kid. It doesn't really hold up, but purely out of nostalgia. This is I loved this game growing up. I played it all the time because I see also these games are back in the day when there's no save files. It was just your start in World One. Every time you turn it on, you have to you have to be good enough to memorize your way through that level. And so, yeah, I love this game. So, yeah, I'll go sound like the hedgehog for 91.
00:57:22
Speaker
that was ah That's a fantastic pick because I love Sonic as well. um I was a Genesis kid. I had a Genesis. um I didn't have a Super Nintendo. I played Super Mario World at my aunt's. Like I said, she had a agenda or she had a Super Nintendo. But yeah, Sonic is an awesome game, very underrated. Well, I guess it's it's getting some love now. um But for a lot of times, it got a lot of slander. um But those original Sega side scrolling games with the iconic music and the graphics were amazing and moving fast and getting the coins and stuff, it was a lot of fun.
00:57:52
Speaker
Messing up, Dr. Robotnik. All right. yeah Moving on. 1992. Now, in this year, one of the most iconic games of all time came out, and I bet one of my co-hosts is going to name it, but I'm going to, I'm going to pick something a little bit different. I'm not going to be talking about something in the past. I'm going to be talking about Mortal Kombat. That's my pick from 1992. Mortal Kombat played that a lot on the Sega Genesis with the blood fatality. Finish two.
00:58:22
Speaker
So good, dude. Shout out to Scorpion. Shout out to Sub-Zero. So good. Lou Kang, of course. Dude, just awesome. Really fun fighting. Really gory. They had the fatalities. They had, I think, the babe-alities. Maybe that came later. There was all this cool stuff. I was never really that great at executing the fatalities. um I could do it like a third of the time and then freaking the other two times I would screw it up and I would just have to like uppercut them, just super lame. um But yeah, great game. Mortal Kombat, that's my pick. I loved it. Sean. So I've never played Mortal Kombat at all, never have. um The only Mortal Kombat game I played was Injustice, which is like the same kind of control scheme, same devs. I'm really bad at it, like really, really bad at it. But fun fact, um
00:59:11
Speaker
Johnny Cage, that character. Kids love him. I'm telling you, kids still love him today, Johnny Cage. I don't know why. They reference him all the time. they they There are kids who love Mortal Kombat still, which is kind of cool. um yeah All right, you want me to get to my 1992? Have at it. All right, my 1992. It was very difficult choice, but ultimately it came down to a link to the past. Legend of Zelda, a link to the past.
00:59:38
Speaker
Um, one of the most iconic Zelda games of all time. It's my favorite Zelda game of all time. Um, it's the top down Zelda I played every year. Um, this game blew me away as a kid, uh, with the going into the whole dark world. It's like you discovered a whole new world. Uh, it opens up. It's so dark and eerie with it's raining and you you have to like go to the castle link, go to the castle. You have to save Zelda. Um,
01:00:04
Speaker
The world was so alive. Like I talked about an echoes of wisdom. It's like the one to one, almost like the map from A Link to the Past. And that is so nostalgic for me. The the art style of this game is just gorgeous. That 16 bit art. ah The music blows me away to this day. I still listen to a lot of the songs. It was just super smooth. It was like the perfect evolution of that original Zelda game.
01:00:26
Speaker
And yeah, I absolutely love it. I highly suggest it to anyone who likes Legend of Zelda, definitely, or just like games in general. This is such a good game and it's so accessible now to play because it's, you know, it's been re-released so many times on the Nintendo Switch Online. um So many people clamor for a remake of it. I'm like, this game doesn't need a remake. It's it's perfect the way it is. um But yeah, Link to the Past is my game of the year for 1992.
01:00:53
Speaker
Great pick. Great pick. I played it and didn't beat it though, but played it, loved it. It's iconic. Hodge, what say you? Yeah, I actually just I was playing link to the past a little bit on ah switch not too long ago. It is a very fun game. I'd never I've never played it all the way through. So I was still kind of lost. I have to kind of get my toes ah wet on that one to see how I play it. But it I was enjoying it from and it is like you said, it is a gorgeous game. I love I mean, Grant, I've always loved the SNES look. It's such a gorgeous
01:01:25
Speaker
of ah but yeah that's good good choice from both of you um my number or what are we at ninety two ninety nineteen ninety two is ah one of my favorite games of all time is wolfenstein three d i love this game. I was up obsessed with it as a kid. Uh, just fighting Mecca Hitler is obviously the, even though he's like a mid game boss, he's not even the final boss. It's a different dude, but, uh, knowing all the secret walls you walk up to and there's a mini gun back there or whatever and just
01:02:01
Speaker
Just slaughter Nazis, just a fun, fun time. And I was, yeah, I was obsessed with it as a kid. I bought it again on Xbox 360 back when they had Apple Arcade, 100 percent there. ah Yeah, I just I adore everything about this game. And even though a lot of people like it, you know, it kind of Wolfenstein 3D walk. So Doom could run kind of thing. I've always preferred Wolfenstein over Doom. But
Nostalgia and Classic Games
01:02:25
Speaker
that's that's just me. I know a lot of people, most people would disagree.
01:02:28
Speaker
With that, even the modern ones, I love the Wolfenstein games. I couldn't give a shit about Doom. if I'm being completely honest, so. ah But yeah, Wolfenstein 3D, that's my game for 92. What about the all time classic Doom movie with The Rock?
01:02:45
Speaker
i never watched talked it was i never had I never watched it but I just remember watching the trailer and I'm like because this is back before there was like a shit ton of video game adaptations obviously and I remember watching it and I'm like they're not gonna do this they're not gonna do this and they go first person mode where he's slaughtering demons I'm like oh my god this is so stupid You should watch it sometime just because it's so bad. Like, it's awful. but Maybe I will one day. You might enjoy the terribleness of it. Just have a laugh, you know? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, shout that's a great pick. Shout out to Wolfenstein, one of the classics, of course.
01:03:23
Speaker
Um, I also am more of a Wolfenstein fan than doom. I haven't played any of the modern doom games like a doom and doom eternal. I haven't even played them. I don't know. I've been somewhat intimidated by them. I don't know if I want to play them. I'm not sure if I'm into that thing. I played the demo for 2016 and it was fun. I mean, the game plays good, but I'm just not one of those gore for gore sake kind of gamers. And that's really what it is. It's just like, look at how I can turn these demons into bloody chunks. I'm like, okay, that's fine.
01:03:51
Speaker
Then I heard I heard Eternals gameplay is better, but I'm like, I just don't. I've never cared. It's what it's like. It was awesome for machine games. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I played Doom. I played Doom 2016 in um last year. I liked it, but the story is like it's like I couldn't even follow I could not follow anything that was going on. So literally, I just put on. Yeah, I put on a podcast and just played through the campaign. I was like, I just want to play it for the mechanics. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. All right.
01:04:21
Speaker
Fantastic pick moving on to 1993. He's heating up NBA jam. That's my pick. This is the the amazing arcade basketball game. Freaking awesome. I think two on two, three on three. I forget. I think it was two on two, whatever. Just, just bawling out, man. They had, they had the actual teams. They had the actual players, of course, big dunks.
01:04:46
Speaker
They didn't have Jordan. I don't remember that. But yeah, that sucks. The the guy who made and NBA Jam was a Detroit Pistons fan. So he always made the Bulls worse. And I think at the time, Jordan just wasn't signing his likeness to things. So that's why he wasn't in it. But the piston the dude was a Pistons fan. And I guess if you ever ah something like if you ever shot a game winning three as the Bulls, it would 100 percent miss rate because he didn't want the Bulls to win.
01:05:11
Speaker
So that guy was very spiteful. Pretty screwed up. um But yeah, I love that game. Of course, he's on fire. They're just shooting literal flaming basketballs. The big dunks. I loved how you could completely like just just mess up people on defense, like just tackle and beat the shit out of them and steal the ball. Like there was no fouls, really. It was awesome. and NBA Jam, short and sweet. That's my pick for 1993. What a great time. What say you, Sean Mason?
01:05:39
Speaker
So I also have a sports game. It's a different sports game, though. Mine is Tecmo Super Bowl for the Super Nintendo. It was originally came out in 91 for the n NES, but they made a Super Nintendo version in 93. And this is the version that I had as a kid. Well, my dad had, and then I played it as a kid. And me and my friends would play this up and through 2010, through 2011. We would play this game all the time.
01:06:01
Speaker
We love this game. It was a huge improvement. We had the original tech mobile on NES and it was a huge improvement because this game had like the players in the game like they had all the players and they had all the NFL teams as of 91 and they had like records and record books and they had like a Season mode not a franchise mode but a season mode and they would keep track of your stats which was like really revolutionary at the time um But I absolutely love this game. It's it's such a good game like just pick up and play football game. It's not like heavily like, oh my gosh, I need to learn all like anyone can pick it up and play it. It was so much fun to just play. And, you know, we banned the Lions because the Barry Sanders weren't allowed to use the Lions. No, no Lions because of Barry Sanders. That was that was a no go. And Cowboys usually were banned, too, because Emmett Smith was insane in the game and they made Troy Aikman a God because he was on the cover of the game. So they made him like a freaking God.
01:06:53
Speaker
yeah Is it the original one that had Bo Jackson was unstoppable? Was that yeah, that's in the end that's in the so in the n NES version They had a couple they didn't have all the players they had like they had licenses with individual players and Bo Jackson original one But there was all the other players were like number 94 But super the Super Nintendo version had like the license for all the players. Gotcha Nice right on good pig Yeah, I forget about the technical games all the time. youre Yeah, that's so good. My 93 and actually I was so close to picking and NBA Jam because I do love that game. I love that one and the Xbox arcade one. I love them both. I played the hell out of both of them. But I'm going to go with instead, one of my favorite games of all time is Kirby's Adventure. I knew it. Yeah.
01:07:43
Speaker
I love, I love this game. Like I said, it's one of the ones that came with um the NES that my mom bought just out of garage sale randomly when we were kids. And I've been I've I loved it just ever since because it's it's such a even like take out the fact that he's like a cute little pink blob and you know, he's just kind of the cute look that he's the cute ah mascot of Nintendo and all that like he's not to but the gameplay was so much fun because you you could fly you sucked people in and you took their power so you just always had new powers to use and you know you choose basically based on what you have to do if there was a guy you could uh the bomb you could suck him up before he falls over and blows everything up and then you have one explosion to basically one hit an entire uh like screen full of enemies and it it was such a cool concept had the mini games of like the
01:08:33
Speaker
the crane or the ah quick draw and like it was I just love everything it's such an underrated like game because I feel like I remember there was the joke of any time a Kirby game comes out it's basically the death of the system it comes out right at the end of the system's life no one likes the game and then they move on to the next console Obviously, it was broken with the um what was it? Kirby's Forgotten Lands. Was that what it was called? Yeah. Yeah. That game was awesome. I loved that game. But that's not what we're talking about. This ah Kirby's Adventure. Yeah, I love this game. It's it's such a fun. And the I remember the pride of beating like the the like King Dedede at the end and stuff like that. It's such a difficult boss. And ah yeah, it's I love this game. So yeah it's my game of the year for 93.
01:09:20
Speaker
I love the box art of that game. The box art of Kirby's Adventure is so good. I love it. Yeah, it's sucking away the cover. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I love it. All right. Great pick. I like that we have variety here, too. We're not picking all the same stuff. That's wonderful. All right, guys. Moving on. 1994. I have another sports game for this year. This was a game that I played a metric ton of on the Sega Genesis.
01:09:50
Speaker
You know, I'm a Steelers fan. My Steelers were amazing in this game. It is Sega Sports NFL 95 with Joe Montana was on the cover.
01:10:01
Speaker
Um, it had everybody, it had all the players, all the teams. It was fricking amazing. The Steelers were so broken in that game. Um, that was the year, I think that was the year we went to the Superbowl and lost to the Cowboys and Neil O'Donnell through like three interceptions. And they were like rigged. I swear, I swear to God, this dude was paid off to throw those because like, there wasn't even receivers in the area. Like he threw the ball right to the defense. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I was so, mad I'm still mad about that. Uh,
01:10:28
Speaker
Neil O'Donnell to this day cannot come in Pittsburgh. Like he'll get beat up. Like everybody hates him in Pittsburgh. We got rid of him after that. He didn't come back. We hate him. Like he he completely threw the game. But anyways, I digress. ah We had Barry Foster was our running back. He was a great running back back then. And Dan, there was just a stretch run. You would just give the ball to him and he would just almost always beat the defenders and go on long runs. And it was amazing. What an awesome game.
01:10:53
Speaker
SEGA Sports, which later became 2K, it later morphed into 2K, but back then it was SEGA Sports, NBA, or I'm sorry, NFL 95 was my pick for 1994.
01:11:07
Speaker
soft thing I've never, I, yeah, that was unexpected. I didn't expect that. Um, for me, my pick, all right. It's happened where he entered the JRPG realm. It is Final Fantasy VI. In North America, it was released as Final Fantasy III in October of 1994. This is a seminal JRPG that lovers of the lovers of Final Fantasy, lovers of JRPG,
Celebration of Platforming Classics
01:11:31
Speaker
lovers of video games should play this game. This has an insane amount of characters in the game for a Final Fantasy game with all
01:11:40
Speaker
in-depth backstories and characters and full-out motives. There's optional party members, which is crazy for the time. ah There was like a two completely different worlds in the game like because ah there's a clear distinction and a point I'm not going to spoil what it is, but the whole map changes and the whole game just takes on a like a new life and it's like you have a whole nother like you know at the time long another like 10 hours of the game and you're like this is crazy you have kefka one of the most iconic villains of all time in gaming just a mad lad that kefka guy i used to compare him to the joker all the time so he used to call me that is a joker ah
01:12:16
Speaker
he's ah He's a court jester. um But the game is unbelievable. The cast is just so good. I love Celeste. I love her. Celeste. Sorry, Celeste. Sorry, not Celeste. I was thinking of the other game. Celeste, I love it. I just love everyone in this game. The combat system is like perfect for like a 16-bit JRPG. um It's just so much fun to just run around that world. the You have the iconic... um like um Opera scene which is like so tragic and so iconic where you're fighting above those spoilers concert Yeah, it's not a spoiler. You're fighting above an opera concert. It's all I said because I'm gonna play I'm gonna play that game. That's why I'm saying that I want to I want to do the pixel remaster. Sorry. Yeah um It's awesome. ah Highly suggested Final Fantasy 6 aka Final Fantasy 3 in North America But now it's going to six
01:13:10
Speaker
Okay, you satisfied? grow Good pick. um Yeah, the these pixel remasters actually just came to Xbox finally, I saw. um But yeah, I am planning on playing. I want to play four and six. I've heard i've Colin and other people say that those are like the seminal iconic ones. Do you agree with four and six? I think four and six. are I think five is better than four, though.
01:13:31
Speaker
but That's like that's not a popular opinion at fives really good But it's it's a lot of times it's often overlooked because it's in between four and six which are like the It's between four six and then you have seven right after which those are considered like the top three anytime you get a final fantasy list. So Yeah, they're also on my backlog So I'm gonna play those at some point but uh hodge what you got, man.
01:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, I had actually never heard of that football game that you did. And then Final Fantasy 6, that's always one I've heard so much about. And I now that the remasters or the yeah the pixel remasters are on Xbox, I kind of want to hop into into them sometime. I don't know when I'll get to them, but I do want to because i' I've always heard because i've obviously I'm a very ah ah most of my Final Fantasy experience is Seven in Kingdom Hearts. Like that's like I played 15, I fell off and then I play a little bit of 10 as a kid and eight, but that's really it. And so I want to get back to these ones because I've always heard that they're just really good. And I'd love to check out the pixel art because it just looked cool. um But yeah, hang on. One more thing. Even before, like you should just go through the art, the original art, like the original concept art for the game. The character portraits are gorgeous to look at.
01:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, I always loved that about uh, like I remember growing up I always drew like those really uh Like I don't know if it's like paint or what like very painterly pictures of cloud and just all the characters from final fantasy 7 I drew those all the time because I thought they looked so cool And yeah, so i've always i've always loved the kind of watercolor painting look of final fantasy characters they've always looked super cool and Yeah, I would I would not be surprised how if I loved that as much as you just said but um, yeah, my game for what are we 94 is uh, even though this is a game I never owned I loved it i've talked about it before briefly, but it's donkey kong country My like I said, my cousin kevin he had an snes and my cousin j also had one and they would always play these games together and so every time one over they're you know, if there's a
01:15:40
Speaker
you know, second controller I'd hop in as Diddy and play with them, but not that Diddy. And yeah yeah and these they were just really good platformers. And I always loved playing them. I don't have too much to say about them, because as I haven't played them really much since I was a kid, other than I hopped in the Nintendo online expansion a couple of times and.
01:16:03
Speaker
played through a couple levels, but, uh, yeah, they were just always really fun. And so I didn't have too much to choose from from 94 that I'd played. So I'm just kind of going with a game that I enjoyed and played a little bit that year. And so, yeah, Donkey Kong country is the game I'm choosing. I still am blown away with that. The game's running on a super Nintendo. Like I still cannot believe that that system is being pushed and the fact that they they made two more of them that pushed it even more. Yeah. Yeah. They're awesome games.
01:16:33
Speaker
but Yeah. Right on. Good choice. Yeah, that's definitely a classic game. I was looking up who developed ah this game. It was developed by Rare. how about yeah's rare yeah Rare made the original Donkey Kong games. du yeah back when Back when Rare was basically like Nintendo's golden child. Well, Nintendo EAD d was the best, but i Rare was number two, I would say.
01:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, I just because I just remember that spinning rare logo with Goldeneye booting up back in the day. I just wanted to remember that. Oh, yeah. All right, boys, moving on.
01:17:09
Speaker
And we are at the halfway point now. We've done the first five years. I think this is a perfect time to segue real quick. Not really a segue, but just a reminder to the audience, please go on to the YouTube comments. Let us know, first of all, most importantly, who has the best list. We love to compete. We want to know, but leave your list down below. What is your games of the year? We'd love to hear it. We read all our comments. We love you. All right.
01:17:31
Speaker
1995 my pick here I'm gonna keep this somewhat brief because this is a game I've talked about before don't want to beat that dead horse too much but my game for 1995 was command and conquer the awesome strategy game on the PC and on the PlayStation and stuff I talked about before how I used to roleplay but this game was awesome GDI versus not it had the live-action cutscenes and really fun real-time strategy. um Just a lot of replayability, a lot of fun. I really got into it. um Playing all the sides, all the missions, the campaigns, the stories. I'll leave it there. I've talked about it before. This is a fantastic game. Shame on you, EA, for killing Westwood Studios. Rest in peace. Sean, take it away, sir.
01:18:16
Speaker
Alright, so for my 1995, it's a game I just recently talked about on an episode a couple weeks ago, and that is Earthbound, AKA Mother in Japan. It came out in 1995 here, in June of 1995, and I'm just going to keep it short because, like I said, I talked about it a couple episodes ago. I love this game. It's it's an absolute like fever dream of JRPG, where it takes place in what Japan basically thought of the US, but there's like sci-fi aspects. And this game was so complex and complicated. they The game came with the guidebook. like The guidebook was packaged in with the game. No extra cost. That's how um crazy this game was. But I love this game. And I really, really, as like I said, I really wish they could give us a modern port of the sequel, Mother 3. Please, please, please. Probably not going to happen. But yeah, Earthbound. Great game. Shout out to Ness.
01:19:08
Speaker
shout out all right hodge take it away sir yeah my game for 1995 is one that i didn't own for a while i eventually got it later on because my first one was the third game in this series but my 95 game will be twisted metal um this game it was just so iconic at the time it's it's such a 90s game like
Ocarina of Time and Gaming Innovations
01:19:31
Speaker
If you really think about like the old, i I still remember some of the old ah commercials and stuff for where it was very 90s edgelord kind of like, we have an evil clown and an ice cream truck kind of thing. and And it was always so goofy. But these games were so much fun because it was just battle royale, but you're in cars shooting the shit out of each other. Each one has their own powers and stuff. These games are so, so, so fun. And I really wish
01:19:55
Speaker
that they had tried again. I mean, I know I think with Destruction All-Stars, they were trying to kind of tease one and then it was so bad. Should have been Twisted Metal. Yeah. And the so and then Twisted Metal Black is honestly my favorite Twisted Metal game, which is PS2. But ah yeah, this series is just so cool. It evolved and just really cool like lore kind of things. And apparently the show is good. I only watched the first episode. I thought it was OK, but not good enough to buy a subscription to Peacock for.
01:20:22
Speaker
Um, so, uh, yeah, I just, I really, I always loved the twisted metal IP and I would love for it to come back, especially with the success of the show, bringing, make a new one. I want, I want some destructive, uh, car memorabilia or I was just looking at my Allen wake.
01:20:39
Speaker
uh, thermos over there. So I thought of back to video game memorabilia. you talked about earlier good Let's get that sweet tooth, uh, ice cream truck. We're driving around the neighborhood. I used to have the sweet tooth Funko pop the, the bit in his ice cream truck back when I used to collect them. And then I sold it and I made a good, I made a pretty profit off those Funko's though. So people making fun of them. um it yeah There you go. But yeah, just metal. Okay. I think that's a great pick. I played that a lot with my brother. I enjoyed it. We had fun messing each other up.
01:21:09
Speaker
shooting them rockets. Good times. Shout out to David Jaffee. All right. So moving on to 1996. My pick for this one. Super Mario 64. We're going back. Oh, yes. Sean, you read my mind. Super Mario 64. That is my pick. You win. What a classic iconic game. I mean, it's hard not to pick this game this year. It was so good.
01:21:34
Speaker
course I had a Nintendo 64 I loved it I was blown away by the graphics of this game which is funny because if you go look at it now it kind of looks like super super janky and busted But at the time it was like, whoa, this is freaking 3D Mario. He looks so real. He looks real. That's how I thought. But this game was freaking awesome, dude, in the castle, jump in the painting, go through the world. The first time I ever experienced 3D platforming. It was so well done. Absolute blast. um I think I hundred percent of this game. I'm pretty sure I got all the stars. I did it all. I got the platinum trophy before they even existed. I love this game. Shout out to Super Mario 64.
01:22:15
Speaker
The last Mario game that I really got into and played deeply. I don't know what happened, but me and Nintendo, we kind of went our own separate ways. You know, I started to get into some more PC games. I started to get into more Xbox and PlayStation, but that's my pick. Super Mario 64. What say you, Sean?
01:22:34
Speaker
It's a great pick. i you know I'm not the biggest N64 fan as we went over, but some of the the games that were good that I liked, I really loved. I loved Mario 64. That design of Mario, I actually really like, like but the design, pix lee design with like the um the kind of curvature design. Like in Mario Odyssey, you could use the Mario 64 skin. I would use that all the time. Well, it was the only skin I used. Once I unlocked it, it was the only skin I used in that game. I loved it. Yeah. yeah um But for my game of the year in 1996 is Crash Bandicoot, the original Crash Bandicoot. I love, love, love Crash Bandicoot. My favorite, one of my favorite platforming series of all time. I'm not going to say my definitive favorite, but
01:23:18
Speaker
um This game is iconic for me as a child. The entire crash you know the original Crash trilogy on PlayStation we grew up on, just me and my sister and my dad just playing it so much over and over again. and Crash 1 was difficult. That was like the most difficult one of the original three. um The controls aren't the best. It definitely does not hold up as well as the other two, but I love how different like this game is compared to the other ones. um Like some of the map, some of the level design is so cool. Like I know the the bridge levels get a lot of flack because of like um it's really hard to see. what You know, you know, talking with all the fog and the bridge, they get a lot of flack. I love those levels. I love cheesing it, too. Sometimes I remember when I discovered you could choose it by jumping on the side and running her on the rope on the side. But it is still really difficult to do. But I love that when I found that out, my mind was blown. My dad showed me it and I couldn't believe it.
01:24:15
Speaker
um 100% of that game was so much fun as a kid. It took me years to do it. I'll never forget that. But yeah, Crash Bandicoot 1, traveling to all the different Wampa Islands, going to all the different levels.
01:24:28
Speaker
Such a good game, so many memories. The music is just so iconic. And I love Neo Cortex. Nathan Drake's favorite game, yeah. Spoiler. Well, not a spoiler, but you'll find out if you play the Uncharted series. um Also a shout out to Neo Cortex. Throwback to Sean Mason's first ever email as a kid. Neo Cortex 64 at Verizon.net. No longer in service. Dang. That's awesome. Rest in peace.
01:24:58
Speaker
All right, ho how about you? All right. ah Dude, I've replayed the insane or I bought the insane trilogy when it came out. And yeah, the first one is the hardest by far. It is a very difficult game up until Crash 4. Crash 4 is more difficult. Crash 4. Yeah, I haven't played that one yet, though. But so yeah, the first one, I actually I think I ended up falling off the first and then jumping into the second one when I bought the trilogy because I was like, I'm getting so frustrated because it is a tough game. I love it. I absolutely love it.
01:25:28
Speaker
I also think about, uh, I think it was, did you know gaming did an episode about like Spyro and crash and they talked about how Spyro, the enemies come for you. Whereas in crash, they were still programmed to basically just walk back and forth. They don't yeah target you at all. So like, i spro too and yeah yeah. So Spyro, like they came up with the technology to have the enemies actually attack you rather than just kind of be there. And so I always thought that was kind of cool, but.
01:25:51
Speaker
Um, my game for 1996, it was originally Mario Kart, but then I realized North America's release was 97. So I removed it and I'm with Mario Kart six or, uh, Mario 64 instead as well. That game is absolutely fantastic. Um,
01:26:09
Speaker
I see I bought that trilogy when it came to switch of the 64 Super Sunshine and Galaxy. And yeah, I've always this Mario 64 has always been such a just a great game. People say it doesn't hold up, but I disagree. I think it still plays really well. Obviously, they get better as they go on. ah Mario Odyssey, when you whenever you get a switch to like whenever that comes out, if it is back, bet you should play Odyssey. That game is so, so good.
01:26:37
Speaker
Um, but yeah, Mario 64 is, it's such a classic. It's,
Podcast Reflection and Closing Remarks
01:26:41
Speaker
yeah, the, the turn to 3d when everyone's like, wow, graphics will never get better than this. And, uh, but yeah, so so Mario 64. Yeah. Love this game. It's awesome. All right. Awesome pick. Obviously save his mind. So it's gotta be the right pick. Shout out to crash as well. Crash Bandercoot.
01:27:02
Speaker
As ah as I accidentally typed into the spreadsheet, but yeah my favorite bandicoot thing was the the commercials where he's just in the the mascot costume, just harassing people. But those that that was some fun. I always loved him when he was outside. He's outside Nintendo headquarters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome. You have the blow horn yelling at the building. It was it it was hilarious. What ah the 90s was great. What a great time. All right. 1997. All right. So we had.
01:27:29
Speaker
96, Nintendo EAD, as I said, Nintendo's best developer of all time. They passed the torch, though, in 97 to the second best rare. My game of the year, GoldenEye 007, was my pick for 1997. I played this game so freaking much. Couch co-op with my brother, ah with my mom's boyfriend, who was a gamer, but then whoever wanted to play.
01:27:53
Speaker
we were We were just getting it up with the split screen, passing the controller back and forth if you're doing the story mode. But mostly the split screen, the multiplayer was awesome, dude. you know Just going at it on those levels. it was It was iconic. It was the first time I ever experienced that most people ever experienced like actual competitive like shooter, first person shooter. um The Golden Gun, when you find the Golden Gun, that thing was obviously broken. It was just one shot everybody.
01:28:18
Speaker
Dude, it was so much fun. I just just hours and hours and hours like this to find my childhood. I was in high school at the time. It's just a vibe, man. I would love to be able to go back in time just for one day and play with my brother and play with these people. Just some golden eye once again. Just just awesome. I love it. um Yeah, I don't know what else to say. This game was a masterpiece at the time. It revolutionized the multiplayer shooter on console, at least.
01:28:48
Speaker
Um, freaking awesome. Sean, take it away, sir. I've never played golden. I never have played it. Um, yeah, it was like, it probably doesn't hold up. It's not going to hold up. So I'm not even, it I'm not even going to attempt to try it. Um, but for my game of the year in 1997, I think we can all guess what it is. It is.
01:29:16
Speaker
ah yeah no yeah Final Fantasy 7 is my game of the year in 1997. I've spoken about this game so many times. We did a spoiler cast for it. We did just talked about it a million times. um i love cloud strip I even brought up Cloud earlier with my you know gaming memorabilia.
01:29:32
Speaker
um game Game is amazing. So many memories playing it. If you have not played it yet, please play it. That's all I'm going to say. Just play it. Go experience the world of Final Fantasy 7.
01:29:45
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it is amazing. Check out our spoiler cast. If you haven't, we did a great spoiler cast on that where we get into it. I love final fantasy seven as well. I considered making it my game of the year, but ultimately I went with golden eye because I just played that game so much and it was just such a nostalgic moment in time for me. And as awesome as final fantasy seven was having just beat it recently. Um, I think I like golden eye more mostly because I, like I like the remakes of final fantasy seven better than the original. Um, but it's all great.
01:30:16
Speaker
Hotch? Yeah, and taking um taking kind of nostalgia into it because we're kind of placing it in the 90s. And so I do also understand that of like in the 90s, Goldeneye was more important to you than Final Fantasy. and Even if Final Fantasy 7 is, it holds up better than Goldeneye. Yeah, I respect the choosing of Goldeneye over slappers only, no odd job. um But yeah, I love Goldeneye. But yeah, I'm also going to go with Final Fantasy 7 for my game of the year for that year because it is so good. i was This is the first year where I was actually looking. I was like, ah there's multiple games I could choose from this. Final Fantasy is my correct
01:30:55
Speaker
answer but I also did love Croc. I said that as a joke but I do love that game and I'm gonna play the remaster when it comes out. I love Croc too. I love Croc too. And then Sonic Racing or Sonic R is what is called Sega Saturn game. I loved that game. It was so much fun. And then also Lego Island, a PC game that I played with my brother. Oh my gosh. I loved Lego Island. It was so good. It was right around delivering the pizza. Yeah, it was awesome and had racing in it and stuff. It was, it was like, it was like an open world. Like literally it was an open world. You were on an open eye, an open map on Lego Island and that game was awesome. But yeah, Final Fantasy seven. It's one of the greatest games ever made. It is
01:31:35
Speaker
Fantastic. The story, obviously as a kid, I just thought it was cool. Like, oh, chocobos are cute. And like that guy, like, you know, you play it, you don't really understand it, but then as an adult, you replay like, oh, this is like a very in depth story. There's a lot to this story. It's so good.
01:31:53
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It's and it's yeah, it's one of the best games ever made. So obviously, ah as a kid, I didn't play it as much as other games. like I played as a kid, I put way more time into Sonic R than I did Final Fantasy 7. But I haven't played that since I was a kid. And I've played Final Fantasy 7. I've played it multiple times since then. But ah yeah, so Final Fantasy 7 Game of the Year 1997. Yeah.
01:32:17
Speaker
Final Fantasy seven is awesome. Um, there's a lot that I didn't actually experience in it too. Like I missed stuff cause I was kind of just following the golden path a bit. Uh, like I didn't go to Wutai as we mentioned on our thing. I completely missed that. I don't know how, but I did. Um, and then Sean, like in our spoiler case, he was like, Oh yeah, you know, I was in this village. I was talking to all these people and learning all this stuff. And I was like, I didn't really do that. I just kind of moved ahead. So I probably should go back and play it again sometime a little deeper, but I don't know if I will. Um, I love the remake so much. So I'm just waiting for part three, man. Can't wait. Can't wait.
01:32:47
Speaker
All right. 1998. So we had a little theme here. So in 96, we had Nintendo EAD. They passed the book, the ball over to rare. Well, rare is passing it back to the King, Nintendo EAD for one of the most masterpiece games of all time. And of course, Sean, I am talking about Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of time, the one of the only Zeldas, maybe the only Zeldas that I actually finished to completion.
01:33:16
Speaker
And I love this game. Pause. No pause, actually, no. Full completion on this game. um This game's of Masterpiece, man. Open World or Open Zone, I guess you would call it now. Zelda. That amazing 3D graphics that they did with Mario, they took it into Zelda and maybe maybe made it look a little better. Awesome World, fun combat, cool story. I love playing the little flute, the little iconic song. Dude. The Ocarina. The Ocarina.
01:33:47
Speaker
I guess, yeah, that would make sense to call it the right thing. It's literally no Legend of Zelda, Flute of Time. It was a great game. Flute of Time. Yeah, I had the bootleg version from Wish. It was Flute of Time. Dude, with the golden, the golden cartridge, you know, the golden. Oh, my God. This game is absolutely iconic. Absolute masterpiece. Easily one of the top 10 best games of all time. Most iconic. um I love it. I love it so much. So that's my pick. The Legend of Zelda.
01:34:17
Speaker
flute of time. Excellent. I love how you pick the flute. You know, I came really close to picking the flute of time, but I had to go with the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. So I went with the Ocarina of Time version. um No, that is my game of the year as well. Ocarina of Time. um It's an amazing game. First 3D Zelda game kind of set the set the standard for what 3D Zelda games should be, you know, following the arc where you collect these three things and then the world opens a little bit more and you got to collect more things. um The music is just so like I just remember just humming these songs over and over again in my head. I was a terrible artist, unlike Hodge, but I would draw pictures of Legend of Zelda all the time, especially Ocarina.
01:35:01
Speaker
um going to like Gerudo Mountain and just like freaking out when you get into the Fire Temple like I like would freak out like what's going on in here I need my red tunic I'm like I can't put my red ti I don't know how to get the red tunic um and like your health just goes down um the Water Temple infamous Water Temple I actually like the Water Temple a lot I don't think it's that confusing um But I know like my friend Donny got stuck on the water temple for years, like years and years. And he refused help my dude. I can I can do it for you. No, um I got to do it myself. Absolutely refusing. But yeah, Ocarina of Time, a wicked special game. Shout out to riding Epona, like just riding around as Epona. Me and my sister would do that all the time when we were bored. So let's go right around on Epona. So yeah, Ocarina of Time. All right. Hodge.
01:35:50
Speaker
Yeah, this was a this was a tough year. Spy of the Dragon came out. Resident Evil 2. I never played the original, but the remake is amazing. Gex Enter the Gekko. I don't care what anyone says. I love the Gex games, too. But as as everyone knows, I'm a platformer whore. But you know, it's. Oh, I hope so. I hope so so much. I love that so much. um But I'm also going with Ocarina of Time. I'm kind of cheating because I didn't play it until it was on 3DS. I played that version first, but it's such an iconic game. It's a perfect game. And so I'm not ashamed to just make it it even though I didn't have the N64 version. I played 3DS, but
01:36:31
Speaker
The game is so, so, so special. It is such a great game that, yeah, everything you guys said, it's there's no debating it. Ocarina of Time is one of the greatest games ever made. And so, yeah, definitely I just have to go with it for 98. And that's and Spyro is my that's my least favorite of the trilogy. So I'm OK leaving it off for this one. But so Ocarina of Time is yeah, 98 for sure. All right. There we go. Unanimous sweep of the year. First sweep we've ever had.
01:37:01
Speaker
Yeah, so my pick for 1999, our final year, this is a game that I know you guys haven't played and probably 99% of the audience out there has not played this game. But this game is one of the games of my my favorite games of all time. I played thousands of hours of this. This was an MMORPG on the PC from Turbine Entertainment Software, published by Microsoft Gaming Studios.
01:37:30
Speaker
Asherons call. This game was freaking incredible. Amazing graphics at the time. You went into a full massive open world. It would take you 45 minutes to 60 minutes to run across the whole map. It was so big. There was all these towns, dungeons, portals. um I played on the server known as Darktide. It was the PVP server. If you ever look at my name in various places, sometimes you see my name is listed as Midnight DT.
01:37:59
Speaker
The DT stands for Darktide from this game. assurance call that was the pvp server you could attack anybody at any time in any place no holds barred there were no safe zones anywhere um this game developed its own political system where you had guilds um that would ally and go to war with each other this whole meta came out where it was like there was pk guilds that would randomly attack and kill players like blood was the biggest one on the server
01:38:30
Speaker
Uh, they were massive. Um, and then they had anti PK guilds that were like the honor guilds. They wouldn't randomly attack people. They would try to protect people if they were being attacked and they would automatically target the PK guilds like blood.
01:38:42
Speaker
um So it was like this whole meta. Awesome, awesome fun combat. You could actually dodge projectiles in this. So it had like a casting system where you could shoot like lightning bolt and frostbolt and stuff. But you could actually slide around and dodge the spells like it wasn't a guaranteed hit. It actually had a physics system like the the lightning bolt would go in a direction. And if it didn't hit you, it didn't hit you. It wasn't like just a homing track and guaranteed hit.
01:39:07
Speaker
Just an awesome game, dude. You could ah you had swords, you had bows, you had it all. It was it was, you know, fantasy game. It was so incredible. This game was I just love it. I literally, like I said, I played a thousand hours or something, made so many friends on there. ah My best friend, Henry, we played this all the time. There were so many different arcs and so many different metas. We played on different servers. um I could go on forever, but I will stop myself because no one else played this game besides me.
01:39:36
Speaker
Um, but assurance call. Oh my God. This, this was, this was so amazing. That's my pick for 1999 boys. Podge Sean. Sorry, Sean. Never heard of it. Um, all right. Next up on for my final game, the game of the year in 1999, we have Superman 64. Yeah. Right.
01:39:58
Speaker
yeah like game I've never even played that game, i just I'm just not flying through rings the whole time. Now, my game for 1999, this is a tough one, but I ultimately went with Crash Team Racing. Absolutely love this game, I played so many, ah this is the definitive kart racer for this generation, I'm sorry Mario Kart. Crash Team Racing is better, in my opinion, it's my opinion.
01:40:19
Speaker
I played so much of this game, the adventure mode was awesome. It was very much like Diddy Kong Racing's adventure mode, where you actually have like a real story going on. um I had the multi-tap for the PS1 and the PS2, so we would play this game for players, split screen all the time. um Just playing through the the iconic tracks, you have Coco's,
01:40:37
Speaker
the um Cocos Parkway, you have Pinstripe Skyward, Skymap with Pinstripe, there's Pinstripe Balloons flying all over the place. You have Neo Cortex's Castle. just app I just love this game so much and I just, oh my god, it was so much fun to play a Crash game, like a party style Crash game where I could just drive around as Tiny the Tiger. and get the power-ups and shoot people. The battle mode was great. ah Adored this game, and I'm so happy that they remade it. And it was I spent way too many hours playing the remake. But yeah, Crash Team Racing, iconic game. Let's go. Let's go. Hodge. Yeah, i i I never heard of Ashram's call. I looked it up just to see if maybe like I'd recognize the box art. No, I have no idea. but
01:41:26
Speaker
I thought you were going to say I looked it up to make sure you weren't making it up. Oh, yeah. That should be really funny. If you're like, yeah, it's an MMO, it's called the Michelin's poop. And I'm like, what? Amazing. way ah Amazing. um My game for 1999 is I was torn because two of them, I mean, I wasn't super torn, but two of these two games came out this year that are both on my top 10 of all time. And the first one is Pokemon Yellow, which everyone knows I love. That's what I thought you would pick.
01:41:57
Speaker
It's not what I'm going with. I'm going with Spyro 2, Ripto's Rage, which of course, as that that's what I thought you would pick. yeah Yeah. So it's not surprising. I love both of those games, but Spyro 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. I think it was in my top three. If it wasn't, it should have been. um it's i've It's what made me fall in love with platformers even more so than the Sega Genesis and n NES games I played as a kid. Three, I mean, I guess 3D platformer is what it got me into. I love everything about this game. Every mechanic is fun. The enemy Ripto is a memorable enemy that you get introduced ah to. God, what's her name? Elena or something? the
01:42:36
Speaker
the fawn yeah the little yeah yeah the deer the deer woman um and yeah it just it expands because the first spyro game it's very fun don't you run i love the first spyro game zero voice acting zero voice acting yeah zero voice acting you just go around you save dragons and that's literally there's really no plot it's just the dragons all disappear and you have to go to each world to save them I mean, two is kind of the same. You're just going for it. You're trying to get the orbs and whatnot. But it's I just had so much charm. I mean, it still does. I ah played it on reignited. I played it. I planted it on PS5. I got 100 on Xbox. It's one of my favorite games of all time. So obviously Spyro 2, Ripto's Rage is my game of 1999.
01:43:17
Speaker
The iconic level with those like monk little like the monkey though. Oh, I used to do that all the time as a little kid. Uh huh. Yeah. and They'd sit there going on and the thing would go without the platform would go up to where you have to go. And yeah, it was. Yeah, I loved it.
01:43:32
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Fantastic. Great pick. Didn't play it, but awesome. All right. go Guys, that's going to do it for us. That was our games of the year from 1990 to 1999. 30 amazing games. I dare say masterpiece games. Some of these. It was a lot of fun as always. Let's go ahead and wrap this thing up if we will, guys. Been a great episode. Thank you, guys. Listeners, leave us likes, leave us comments. Put your list down below.
01:44:00
Speaker
Let us know who had the best list and give us your write ins for next week's show or well, that the next episode, I should say. We will read the question in the next episode. a So let's go ahead and wrap it up here. Final thoughts. And let's start with you, Sean Mason. Final thoughts for episode number 18. A lot of great episodes. We went in the way back time machine here, the pre Hodge, pre Sean era of gaming for half of it, basically.
01:44:28
Speaker
But yeah, a lot of good games um overall. Love talking to it. Can't wait to play some games. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then Hajj final thoughts for episode number 18 as we're about to get up out of here. Yeah, 2000 to 2019 were super easy to like just well I mean, they were hard because you had to choose from a lot of games, but they were easy because at least each year had a game you could definitively say like this is my game where going from like basically 1990 to 96 was basically like there's one game that year that I really like. And then the rest is I either have never played it or its it was just a very poor, not holding up 90s game. And so once we got to 97 through 99, those were the years where I'm like, ah, what do I want to pick? So yeah, it was really fun to kind of go down that memory lane of what came out in the 90s and when did I have it and what did I play?
01:45:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. but And episode 18, our podcast is legally an adult. So that's how it works. There we go. All right. No more ditty. All right. All right. So go vote. There you go. So um it's not time to vote yet, is it? and Anyway.
01:45:43
Speaker
Oh, you're 18. You can vote. I got you. I'm a little slow. I need more coffee. All right, boys. My final thought, as always, is just thank you to the audience. We love and appreciate you and your support. It's always a blast to get together with my boys and discuss games. We have a great time. It is the weekend. I love the weekend. I'm off Monday. I have a three day weekend and I am going to enjoy it. It's my first day off in like a couple months. I haven't taken any days off and I needed it. So I'm going to get some gaming in. We get some gaming in.
01:46:13
Speaker
I'm going to watch some football. It's going to be glorious. I'm going to go to what a burger. There you have like this new bacon, bacon, jalapeno burger that they came out with that looks fantastic. So I'm going to get that. Uh, Hodge, you're probably going to miss what a burger. I don't think it's up there. Is it? No, the furthest up I saw it. I think it was in Arkansas. I saw one, but.
01:46:33
Speaker
when I was driving through, but- No Bucky's and no Whataburger. I know. Well, actually, there's a Bucky's that's opening up in Madison, Wisconsin soon, so I will have one within- Is there really? Yeah, within some driving- I mean, there's one in Missouri too. There'll be within somewhat driving range if I ever do want to go, but yeah, I got Whataburger's lunch my last day there because I was like, I'm going to miss this. I love Whataburger so much.
01:46:57
Speaker
Yeah, this new burger looks amazing. I'll share a picture of it with you after the show. But anyways, we're going to get about it here, guys. This has been episode number 18 games over plastic. I almost forgot the title. Please clap, everybody. You have a great day. Be great. Goodbye. Bye. See everyone.