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Retro Gaming: Dive into the nostalgia of retro gaming, reviewing classic games, discussing their influence on modern games, and exploring the evolution of gaming over the years.
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Get ready for a blast from the past in this nostalgia-packed episode of Codeplay Culture, titled "Retro Gaming: Dive into the nostalgia of retro gaming, reviewing classic games, discussing their influence on modern games, and exploring the evolution of gaming over the years." Join hosts Rui and Logan Dunning as they take you on a trip down memory lane, revisiting the iconic games that defined our collective gaming history and shaped the industry we know today.
From the pixelated adventures of the '80s to the 3D revolution of the '90s, our hosts delve into the magic of these timeless classics, examining their gameplay, storytelling, and innovative features. Discover how these retro games continue to influence today's gaming landscape, inspiring new mechanics, narratives, and aesthetics in contemporary titles.
Don't miss this chance to revisit your favorite childhood games, gain a deeper understanding of gaming history, and appreciate the ongoing legacy of these pioneering titles. Tune in to Codeplay Culture, grab your controller, and get ready for a nostalgia-fueled journey through the golden age of gaming.
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Transcript
Introduction to Codeplay Culture with Rui and Logan
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Codeplay Culture podcast, where we discuss tech, gaming, health, and the world around us.
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back everyone to Codeplay Culture podcast. Rui and Logan back at it again, rapping again with a bunch of friends. We
Exploring Retro Gaming and Memes
00:00:18
Speaker
are talking about retro gaming today. Rui, what's going on? Retro gaming, man. Nothing going on. Just here getting my, uh, getting my retro game fix, you know, chatting about old games, playing old games, getting into the mindset. That's, that's it, man. Oh yeah, man. Say,
00:00:38
Speaker
all your beer are belong to me. So like that's a, for those that don't know, that is what a throwback to it's a throwback to an old game. Um, I can't remember the name. Is this space invaders? No.
00:00:55
Speaker
Is it asteroids? No, no. No, it was. Shoot, what was it called? Oh, zeroing on the Sega Genesis. I had to Google that. Basically, it was all your base are belong to us. That was one of the one of the cut scenes. And that became a meme, of course, as you know, because of the translation, like probably like a Japanese made game or whatever it is. And it was, you know, you know, code pen. Yeah.
00:01:24
Speaker
So I gotta stop saying for those that don't know, but for those that don't know, CodePen is just a way of taking some HTML or CSS JavaScript, some web code and putting it online for people to use, consume, and rank. Like, oh, this is really good. But they sent out, I subscribe to their newsletters of
00:01:47
Speaker
I think it's like once a week. It's it's really useful to see some of the highlights of the community of what they've made, and they kind of ended it with like all all your base are belong to us or whatever. It's kind of cool, like, because like if you're going to like do something like that, you gotta be like borderline nerdy, but also, you know, a little a little cool too, right? Because if you go super nerd, then you're not cool. If you try to be cool, you're not cool. So it's kind of like weird. Yeah.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, that balance is, you need that balance, right? So,
The Xbox 360's Red Ring of Death and Xbox Live Arcade
00:02:21
Speaker
retro gaming and how it's changed over the years with remakes and remasters, and how the level design of the previous ones have influenced the future versions,
00:02:35
Speaker
When I got Xbox 360 when it came out and it red-ringed of death like four times, meaning that they luckily replaced it brand new four times with three additional consoles because of that red ring of death. Basically like when you get these red rings on the power and then it would
00:03:01
Speaker
it would not power on anymore. It's almost like the graphics card like died or the power supply or it melted or whatnot. And I remember they were coming out with this thing called, anyhow, like I loved Xbox 360 and all that stuff. Of course I would suffer that endurance because I just loved it. And they were releasing this tech called
00:03:22
Speaker
video games live. Sorry, not video games live. Xbox Live Arcade. Video games live is the Tommy Telerico concert, which by the way is awesome.
The Appeal of Twin Stick Shooter Games
00:03:36
Speaker
They would re-release retro games a bit, but with a new
00:03:44
Speaker
like updated graphics and whatnot. One of the ones on there that I fell in love with. I never played the original. It was Geometry Wars. Oh, yeah. And then they came up with Geometry Wars 2 and it was just such a like a steampunk, you know, explosions, Tron like top down dual twin stick shooter. Right. So like your left stick on the controller will move your
00:04:12
Speaker
character and the right stick will choose the direction to fire in, which means that you can go to the right and then you can point to the left. So go to the right with the left stick.
00:04:25
Speaker
actually if I explain this probably go to the left with the left stick and point right with the right stick would mean you would veer to the left and shoot to the right and then you could kind of move around with this twin stick action and just point and shoot which that that I never experienced that kind of controls but that was in retro games for a while but
00:04:45
Speaker
twin stick level. Yeah. Super Smash TV, right? That one comes to mind when I think of twin stick. Yes. That was the OG one, right? And everything else copied that controller style. I believe that there wasn't anything earlier than that one, but yeah. What's your favorite twin stick, either retro or retro reboot?
00:05:09
Speaker
so retro retro reboot i'd have to say so for retro i'd say smash tv that was the one that that stands out to me that was the uh that was the og and uh
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, that was my first brush with twin stick and and I loved it That was I think that was my favorite, you know in terms of retro but there have been some other ones that Really cool. I can't remember off the top of my head, but there were like a couple of zombie Fighting games. What was that one called alien nation? I can't remember now. Yeah, there was a twin stick one
00:05:42
Speaker
Do you remember that zombie one on PS, PS three? Yeah. So that one was really funny. Um, it was, let's just look at zombie nation, zombie twin stick twin stick shooter is a PS three, right? Yeah. That nation, that nation. Yeah. That was pretty close. I haven't tried that one and that was like fun. Yeah. Uh, yes. It was 10 ADP. It had to be right. It's PS three.
Sony's Innovative PS5 Accessories
00:06:13
Speaker
Yup. Did you see that announcement from Sony? It was about four days ago, or I guess if people are looking for the exact, I think it was the 25th of May. Sony had a conference and they announced these new noise canceling PS5 earbuds and also the new controller that has a giant screen in it that looks like the Wii U or the Nintendo Switch.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, so you can stream your games, right? Yes. Interesting that they didn't go too much into it, right? And they said stream your games locally on Wi-Fi, right? So then if you think about it, that's exactly what Wii U did.
00:06:57
Speaker
where it wasn't Bluetooth, it wasn't 2.4 gigahertz wireless. I mean, it could have been, but the technology was Wi-Fi direct, so the Wii U direct to the Wii U console. And then you get a lot of good one-to-one
00:07:14
Speaker
zero to low latency. You have to be relatively close. Right, yeah, because the range is not very far, right? Yeah, but that'd be kind of cool for retro games or anything where, imagine, you know, as a coder, you and I sitting at our desk, we get like a piece of work that we're working on for, you know, current
00:07:35
Speaker
client and then they'd be like, okay, add this, add that. So we do that, we commit and we want to just take, you know, five, 10 minute break. We got this controller sitting on our desk that is like wifi direct to PS5. And we're just like, yeah, let's play a little, you know, asteroid space invaders or full blown middle gear solid. Uh,
00:07:57
Speaker
Omega, is it Omega or Omega remake, Snake Eater? Do you see that? No, I didn't, man. So, you know, Snake Eater or Metal Gear Solid 3? So, obviously, Hideo Kojima is like, you know, screw you guys, I'm going home and, you know, does his own thing. But, you know, Konami is like, well, we don't need you. We got Metal Gear Solid. And then he's like, try to make one without me.
00:08:26
Speaker
And then they're like, oh, he's right. You know what? But we're just going to go down the remaster route. Right. So they announced the.
00:08:34
Speaker
It's not called Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake. It's called Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater. And Delta apparently is a throwback to, there was like a Delta team that they were all part of, or the kind of politicians and stuff. So it is Snake Eater. They showed like some awesome cut scenes of different bosses, like the parrot from the boss, the end.
00:09:01
Speaker
Um, the toad from the boss. Uh, I forget that they had all these cool names like the end and, um, but anyhow, I'm excited about that one because, you know, knock on wood, how could they mess that up if they all, all they have to do is, uh, so I got to knock on wood again, because that seems like the karma or the, uh, Murphy's lawn that is like exponentially high the way that I said it there. Um,
Evolution of Gaming Consoles from NES to Atari
00:09:27
Speaker
so yeah, that's not retro, but you know,
00:09:30
Speaker
know, this whole remaster thing is a way to relive these games, right? I never played my earliest brush with like very old games. This is predating. My first console was NES, was a neighbor had a
00:09:48
Speaker
I think like an Atari 2600, or I'm not sure if that was the second one, but they had games like ET and Pitfall, and it had that controller with like the joystick and button, like a red button. But what was it for you? Did you have like Commodore 64 or any of that kind of stuff? No, my first console was an NES. So that was my first system, first one I engaged in and played for hours on end.
00:10:15
Speaker
It was an NES, man. I didn't have any friends that had Commodore or PC. I did have a friend that had a PC. That was at the same time I had an NES, right? And PC games are always this untapped world, this mysterious, you know, this mystery, right? That's how I saw PC retro gaming. It's like this big mystery to unravel. But yeah, I had an NES and that's all I played, man. Atari? That was before my time, for sure.
00:10:44
Speaker
Isn't it nice that with NES, with the controllers not being wireless and no internet connection because internet either didn't exist or it was just like, I can't remember because I think the first internet enabled console was like the Dreamcast or the PS2, but can't remember. Yeah, it was one of those, yeah. Yeah, with Star Fantasy Online with Dreamcast. And then Final Fantasy Online with PS2, yeah.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah. Um, um, but like you would just sit with your spouse, not spouse spouse, you'd sit with your submarine or your friend. Yeah. I was married at like five. It was forced. It was like a harsh upbringing. Like there's still lawyers looking into the not lawyers, like sit on the carpet, you know, in front of the TV, you know, eyes glued to it for hours with a friend. Um, and then
00:11:35
Speaker
I remember my parents would make fun of me when playing Super Mario because I'd hold the controller, never experienced this. And when I would jump over the crack, I would tilt the controller like I was trying to get over. So I'd jump and I thought if I could just bring my arms far to the right, I would just make the crack. But it's funny that then they go and put motion controls in because that's natural.
00:12:02
Speaker
But yeah, the, uh, they did remake a lot of that stuff too. Like the side scrollers is a whole retro remake, you know, plethora. Yeah. Yeah. They have. And you know what? Um, yeah, couch coops were amazing man playing, playing back in the day with your friends, just all sitting next to you. You know, your siblings, it's a, it's, it's a magic that you can't replicate, man. Online gaming is, is fun, but it's not the same, right? Yeah. It's not the same. And,
Couch Co-op Games: Split-Screen vs. Online
00:12:30
Speaker
uh,
00:12:30
Speaker
You know, you sit there, you know, you're sitting there playing an online game, you do something, you're typically silent, right? You know, you're just, what are you gonna talk to? But when you have people next to you, man, you know, you got your buddy there, you just whack him in the arm. No, you tease each other. That magic is gone. But they still, of course, make couch co-ops even today, right? So couch co-op games and some good ones.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yep. I would say, um, you know, I probably controversial, but I will say, um, if you for a second, just completely cast aside, maybe golden eye on Nintendo 64. I, I'm a firm believer that split screen ruined, uh, couch co-op for the world. So if you can just, yeah, if you can just mentally park, maybe, um,
00:13:25
Speaker
uh, golden eye and any kind of ones that really did it well. Um, um, it is just awful taking like, even if you have an 85 inch TV and dividing that in four. Right. So, um, like the kids and I have been going on this rampage of finding a local couch co-op multiplayer games without split screens. So the one that we're playing and dude, you and I have to play when you come over next is.
00:13:54
Speaker
It is, I think it's called Adventure of Sackboy, which is the new, you know, little big adventure. Not little big adventure. Little big planet. Yeah, little big planet. And you just, you know, it's a drop-in. As soon as you connect the controller, it's all on one screen. Work as a team. Obviously, the difficulty will linearly or exponentially get more difficult as new players join.
00:14:18
Speaker
because they have to scale the difficulty. But no split screen, you're all on there. And I first noticed this opinion, which again, controversial, but I do believe that it pretty much, if split screen never came into the picture,
00:14:38
Speaker
Well, if it never came into the picture, there would probably never be any online, you know, because then, you know, you could logically think each of those four screens could be their own console. Yeah. And necessary evolution. But, but that.
00:14:56
Speaker
You know, if you think of the split screen as like divisions, like we're divided, we're not playing the same game. We have our own thing, you know, the divide and conquer thing. It's not really a team building kind of thing. It's more competitive and all that stuff. But, you know, all in one, whether it's, you know, uh, you know, street fire, mortal combat, whatever, um, or just like a top down isometric team.
00:15:17
Speaker
game. And the other thing I think that really buried online, sorry, that really messed up the couch multiplayer is the competitiveness. Not everyone loves to just jump in and compete with friends because some people are like, no, no, like, can we all be on the same team? Whether that's an adverse adversity to losing or a adversity to competitiveness or the person you're playing with is like,
00:15:47
Speaker
a sore winner or a sore loser, that kind of stuff. So I would say the funnest thing ever is we're all on the same team and there's no split screen and we're working to build together or have a common set of tasks and goals. Right.
00:16:09
Speaker
I love split screen, man. I have to say, I think split screen is awesome. There's this cool one, you know, the problem with cheating when you have split screen, right? You can see where the guy is, right? So PlayStation, I bought a game on the PS store called Screen Cheat. It's a split screen game. Have you seen this game?
00:16:27
Speaker
No, so it's a split screen game, you know two or four players and the object is to screen Screen peak and see where you because all the characters are invisible. So you're playing split screen. They're both invisible So you have no choice but to look at his your enemy screen or your person sitting next to you screen Yeah in order to kill them you have to gauge their position
00:16:50
Speaker
And we're there and then shooting that direction. So it's called screen, screen sheet. And it's, it's fabulous. What a game. Cool. That's cool. We got to try that. That's on PS4. It's on PS4. Yeah. I have it in my library so I can, uh, next time we get together, we can play it.
00:17:07
Speaker
Those are the other ones like the fall guys and anyone where it's like, uh, ragdoll physics and flopping around. Those seem to be really fun too. They're fun. Like gang beasts, right? That's, you know, couch co-op all on one screen. And, uh, it's fun, but, uh, fall guys is not a couch co-op, right? Right. Yeah. It's it's single player, right?
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's online multiplayer only. What was the one that we were playing before that had the kind of fall guys look like they're kind of gelatinous characters, but it was like, you know, falling off a building and trying to get up and like, so that was holding on.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah, that was it. There was another one that was on, you know, PlayStation Plus subscription. And it was like your two astronauts and you're just floating through space and you got to hold each other's hands and like use the right stick to pull things off. It's like each stick is like a limb. Right. And it's kind of like it's fun. It's like it's frustrating. Right. But it's really fun. I think it was like
00:18:14
Speaker
kids enjoyed it. And I don't think they spent enough time to it to really get into it. But it is challenging. Like the fact that you like throw everything out the window, you know, of like a control scheme, right? And it's like relearning how to use the
00:18:28
Speaker
the controller, right? But Mortal Kombat 1, you see that? Oh, yeah. It is a remaster remake. And again, of a retro game, when that came out on NES and Sega Genesis, Sega Genesis had blood and NES had dirt. Like it looked like a little... There's dirt that could... Yeah, there's mud that came off the people. But that's interesting. But I don't know, like Mortal Kombat went way...
00:18:58
Speaker
You know, it's like they were almost into like, you know, like rap. And then they went into like hardcore gangster murder music because like so much like skull cracking and like all that stuff where like it was like that, you know, back in the day. But it was like touches where it's like now it's like watches like, geez, like it's pretty extreme, right? Yeah. I'm like, holy moly. Like I need to I need to fast not have food in my belly while I'm watching this stuff.
00:19:29
Speaker
But yeah, that's a bit over the top of the top violence now. Yeah. They should probably calm down with that. Yeah. Yeah. Playback was fun, man. What a funny game. And yeah,
Impact of Video Game Violence on Gameplay
00:19:40
Speaker
that whole blood thing when you're a kid.
00:19:41
Speaker
And then you realize that you're playing the Nintendo version. You realize that Genesis has the blood. You feel cheated. I felt cheated, man. Where's my blood? Where's the blood? Yeah. And now they just have blood as like a setting. So sometimes like I'll go, I mean, it's hard to like, you know, turn off that kind of blend jet, the portable blender that allows you to make delicious and healthy smoothies on the go.
00:20:07
Speaker
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00:20:30
Speaker
You know, kids sitting next to me and there's a game where I can dial back the violence. So it, you know, I'll definitely do that or I'll, you know, put on a wholesome game to play, you know. Yeah. Some games still have that, that Gore toggle. Yeah. Like even, even today I saw a more recent game where you can toggle the, uh,
00:20:50
Speaker
the amount of gore. I think Last of Us, Uncharted, and even Resident Evil 4 remaster has a dial, which I think is blood on and off the gore level up and down. That would just be like, hey,
00:21:08
Speaker
you know, for the blood part, maybe there's like when you shoot instead of like some spray, it'll just like go, uh, you know, like almost like a punch. And, you know, that's, that's, um,
00:21:20
Speaker
Because it's a slippery slope with that, right? Because yes, it's definitely a functional convenience to have in situations where you're protecting certain people, like a parental control situation. But it's a slippery slope where I noticed in Resident Evil 4, 3 Master, the amount of settings that are in that game almost suggests that they kind of didn't 100% know
00:21:49
Speaker
what they wanted to do. And they're like, you know what, leave that up to the end user. Because if you overdo settings, even in like apps, right, or websites, then it's almost like, you know, Steve Jobs would say that, you know, we're going to tell them what they want, as opposed to let them pick and then be wrong, right? So it's a bit of a slippery slope. But
00:22:10
Speaker
I would say if you're going to provide all of these options, just whatever options like our default should be like what the Steve Jobs level of this is what they want should be. But as you know, RE4 was not like that and you and I were both getting motion sickness from it from the default settings. That was really weird, right? Never had that since PSVR, like just, okay, now I'm sick because I'm playing this game.
00:22:38
Speaker
But yeah, who knew you don't have to add so much to just have something beautiful, right? Right. Of course, man. So there's beauty and simplicity. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
80s Gaming Giants: Nintendo's Rise vs. Sonic's Struggles
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah. So going back to, um, retro, man, retro, what do you think the, um, the best retro companies are going back to like the eighties decade? Yeah. What do you think was the one that was the pinnacle of that, that decade?
00:23:05
Speaker
It's like the NES states, right? Or no, that's before that. No, the NES was 80s. Okay. It was. Okay. I'm pretty sure it was like 85 to like maybe something was, uh, yeah. Okay.
00:23:19
Speaker
I mean, Nintendo, starting as a Pinko Pachinko, there's some kind of arcade level of gambling company with cards or something like their origin. That really spring booted them to prosperity on the first party games. They just created these beautiful characters that were so captivating. NES had Zelda.
00:23:48
Speaker
Donkey Kong, I think was out before that in arcades with the first sighting of Mario going up the platforms.
00:23:58
Speaker
I really feel like Nintendo came out on top with that console war and Sega has been struggling ever since to produce a Sonic the Hedgehog that just is okay. Every new one, they're like, how about this? How about that? I'm not sure where they're getting the money for this.
00:24:19
Speaker
Um, and even though the last Sonic that came out was like frontiers or something was incredible, right? It's just, I don't, I feel like there's not just not an appetite for it or something. I don't know what's going on. Sonic has always been a good game, man. Ever since its inception, it's always been good, but yeah, it hasn't gained the traction that Super Mario has, right? Yeah. And, um, yeah, but I would say the pinnacle for me was, um,
00:24:44
Speaker
I'm just finding my love for games and it just snowballed from there. I'm like, what other platforms can I experience games on? And trying to get a PC and trying to get and Super Nintendo was like, wow, this is like way better. You know, the controller just fit, you know, your hands and
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, so that was the whole thing. I never had anyone that had a Jaguar or a 3DO. I didn't know a lot of people at the time that had computer games. But yeah, for me, it was that whole console war of NES, SNES, Nintendo 64. Actually, if you
00:25:30
Speaker
even back up before Nintendo 64, the NES and SNES was really like the, they were like just dominating. And then when N64 came out, it was kind of in competition at the time, I believe with the PS one, which is like, you went CD-ROM based or I'm not sure like who, you know, what struck first. And there was this kind of, you know, N64 was dabbling with, um, um,
00:25:58
Speaker
the CD-ROM technology, but they opted and took it out. But I remember going over to my friend's house, we'd have birthday parties, sleepovers. We'd just play that heck out of Super Mario 64. And that was revolutionary, even though that controller was just so weird. The Trident, just really weird.
00:26:20
Speaker
coming from where they started, they're like, this is the controller you need, right? And then SNES were like, here's a better one. And then almost every other console was like, you know,
00:26:32
Speaker
You know, big ups to Sony would came out with the, their controller that has not, you know, for the most part changed, you know, in 25 years, it still has the four buttons. Maybe they added the twin sticks after PS1 released. Yeah. And they had the, um, LNR at the top. Um, and like that was an intent or, um,
00:26:59
Speaker
SNS and NES form factor this kind of like chocolate bar horizontal controller. Yeah. And then Nintendo was like, you know what? Throw everything you know about everything like every other console, right? Which
00:27:13
Speaker
they had to differentiate themselves, I guess, because they couldn't, you know, slay the, you know, the numbers on the performance. Cause they didn't, they didn't have the money, I guess Sony and Microsoft did, right? So they had to go innovative with like motion controls and a Wii U with like a screen built in and GameCube. Actually GameCube was like one of my favorite consoles. That was a great console. Yeah.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I had a Game Boy player. Yes. Yes. And they had this game. It was called, I think, like the four. It was called the four Zelda's. I don't know what it's called, but it was like four links on the screen. They're all different colors and forget the name of it. But you would have to in order to play that multiplayer, you needed the GBA adapter for the GameCube. So everyone, because if you think about it,
00:28:11
Speaker
You have four different links on the screen, right? And you're playing a couch co-op multiplayer. If one link goes underneath into like a dungeon, it has to go down to the GBA screen to show you where you are. While the other three are on the TV screen, right? Yeah. Um, it was that one and, uh, final fantasy crystal chronicles on that one that you needed the GBA adapter for certain things. Right. Um,
00:28:41
Speaker
But yeah, they remastered that to Crystal Chronicles on PS4. And I got the physical, but I had to get it imported from Japan or something. How much did that cost you? I think it was pretty much double. But thanks to region free, it's pretty nice.
00:29:01
Speaker
And then Baldo was from Europe, and that was pretty much double. I mean, if you're going to buy it, and if you're pro-physical or whatever, it's reasonable. And I sent Nate a share of Final Fantasy IX remake, and then I was like, oh, dude, I never knew that they were remaking this.
00:29:28
Speaker
I was like, oh shoot, this is a video clip from five years ago. So it was like, it already came out, but I think it was just mute for me because that was like the black bars on the left and the right of the TV. They didn't really stretch it. They didn't really like, they're like, they basically took the core code or the PC version and like, and just shoveled it out for 59.
00:29:49
Speaker
It's a good opportunity to get rid of those old PS1 discs. I'm not sure if you do that, but if you have any super old physical games, I end up just throwing them out or charitying them once I get the remastered on PS4 or whatever, just because I don't want to carry that much physical, but I do want the best version of the game.
00:30:14
Speaker
But do you find yourself doing that with PS3? Nope. You keep them on. No, man. I keep them all, man. I keep them. I keep these relics, man. Yeah. I don't want to like end up having, you know, be old and having a shit ton of crap. And, uh, you know, I'm not a hoarder by any means, but, um, you know, they're, they're, they're smaller and little packages. They're little boxes. Just let, you know, store them. I don't buy too many games, but.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, I do keep them. Even if I get a remaster, I do have some remasters from that I bought on PS3 original and then remasters on PS4 games that I absolutely love. But I keep them both, man. Yeah, I can't part with it.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, I, I think I'm a little different in general, but specifically because of like, I think I like one of the biggest regrets of my life was, you know what? I'm going to just like take all of my games, throw out all the boxes and put them in a CD book. Oh, dude. And I, I did that. Um, it was, you know,
00:31:19
Speaker
At the time, I think it was like $20,000 worth of games, right? Going back to, it was PS1, PS2, PS3, GameCube. It was like all of these, it was probably like over a couple hundred boxes, like the DVD cases, right? Yeah. Even the frigging jewel cases from PS1. The books and all.
00:31:42
Speaker
So it was hands down the biggest regret of what I did with my media. So when I say that I throw out the old one, it's a way for me of accepting that blunder from the past and be like, okay, I got the new box. Because I could clearly go out and just get the
00:32:05
Speaker
or like from cdcovers.cc or whatever, download and print the cover and put it in a vanilla thing. But I'm like, it's a way for me to like, okay, I got that one now. I'll throw out the old one. But yeah, it was pretty bad. Yeah, man. You know what? Never jump on those kinds of trends, man. When CD books came out, CD binders came out.
00:32:28
Speaker
Everybody was just tossing their cases out. Just putting it in blinders. Like that trend, man, that trend is, uh, yeah, don't jump on trends like that. Just wait a bit. I wonder if I can go to, have you ever gone to toy rat in Milton? No. So, um, he's open like two days a week. I think, um, it's like, um, you know, like imagine micro play or, um, you know, like there's one, um, you know, Brampton.
00:32:53
Speaker
shoppers world or whatever, it's like got a lot of like older games. But it's like way, way crazier.
00:33:01
Speaker
like almost like a museum of everything. Like I remember I dropped off some stuff. I had an extra Xbox 360 HD DVD player. I dropped them off, you know, just to help his collection. But yeah, if you ever want to go there, let me know. It's on Main Street Toy Rat. And I would say the biggest collection of every single game accessory like ever that I've ever seen in my life. And maybe I could get some boxes off him and like
00:33:31
Speaker
you
00:33:32
Speaker
you know, put my discs in his boxes and, you know, buy the boxes. But he probably doesn't just have the boxes, but he might. I mean, if anyone's going to have it like when people are throwing this stuff out, I don't know. They probably threw it out. They probably didn't bring it to a place, actually. Right. Yeah. Back in the day, nobody nobody really thought about the future. Yeah. Yeah.
Arcade Memories and Iconic Games
00:33:54
Speaker
Just toss it out. Arcades. Right. Where retro started or not retro started, where retro was evolving.
00:34:03
Speaker
There's that whole thing where people are sitting up full blown in their house, like arcade cabinets that either have a lot of games on them or a single focused game with the actual hardware. Like the original. The original. And I remember I used to just watch people pump in quarters too.
00:34:22
Speaker
various ones like the Michael Jackson game where you could be like four different Michael Jackson's and like the powers that he had to just nuke all these zombies and stuff and and uh killer instinct and Mortal Kombat and like I just remember watching people just shred dude I grew up at arcades man like in Toronto man it was it was just like arcades everywhere there was a really big one on young and Dundas I spent a lot of time in that
00:34:51
Speaker
at that argument, spend a lot of money in time. Yes, man. It was like, they were lineups to play a street fighter. It was, uh, it was like competitions and then, you know, winter stays on and it, it was insane, man. Plumes of smoke everywhere. Yeah. Cause you could remember AIDS at that time during that time. Yeah. Oh man. I remember, um,
00:35:13
Speaker
It was, I think it was in a movie called The Wizard or something like that. The guy had like a Nintendo thing on his arm, you know, that accessory that you had a keyboard or something on from Nintendo. It's called, I forget what it's called, you know, like Game Boy VR or whatever it was.
00:35:33
Speaker
It was like red right now. I think the company thing was like this arm thing, but virtual boy. Yeah, virtual boy had virtual boy. The accessory was the arm or the arm was something else. I think the arm was like a glove, the power glove. Yes. So I think there was a movie called The Wizard and it wasn't like that.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, the power glove and stuff like that. I just remember I think it was in that movie or somewhere else where like the guys on the arcade machine and he's like, dude's been crushing it for hours on a single quarter, you know, like it's just like, you know, and I just remember you walk into arcade and there's like
00:36:09
Speaker
at Aaron Mills, there was like just no older guy with like, you know, very, you know, tight, professional looking clothes. And he had like on his belt buckle, you know, all these like quarters where he just like pops them out and gives them to you. Cause he was essentially the Pez, Pez dispenser, Pez dispenser for quarters, you know, he's like, give them up. But now that they created a vending machine level things for that doctor.
00:36:31
Speaker
Um, but I just remember like you would go at air mills, you'd, you'd hit the arcade, which was next to the, uh, movie theater inside. Right. So you like hit the arcade, go to the movie. And then in the main area, there's like this putt putt golf stuff. So you have the birthday parties there. It's like,
00:36:48
Speaker
and arcade. It was always like better experience visually, graphically, always audit auditorially with the arcade machines and you bring it home. You're like this. Yeah, it's pretty good. You know, but it wasn't the same. Right, right. But yeah, arcades are awesome, man. Have you ever have you ever played one called Operation Wolf? Mm hmm. It was a gun where you had like the grenade on the side. Yeah, man. Oh my gosh, that brought back memories. Where did you play that?
00:37:18
Speaker
I grew up playing that game of the arcade, man. So at Delta Hotels, my mom worked there and there was an arcade there and that was one of the games there and I would just go play. It was like next to the outdoor pool and next to like this squash indoor tennis thing and I was just
00:37:42
Speaker
I just remember like sometimes wouldn't even have a corner. I just like stand there holding it. People walk by. They think I'm doing it, but I'm like, really not like cool or something. Um, but yeah, Operation Wolf is like crazy hard. And like, I just remember like you wanted to get those grenades on the side of the gun. Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, it was so good. You know, uh, we didn't have a whole lot of, um,
00:38:06
Speaker
Obviously we didn't have a lot of money, right? So like you get, you know, get a couple of quarters, but as you're running out of quarters, you realize that, you know, this is your last quarter. What are you going to do? Right? Like funds over. So we ended up taking a hammer and flattening that quarter, right? You fly. Sorry. You don't flatten the quarter. You take five cents and you, you hammer it down to the diameter of a quarter.
00:38:30
Speaker
And you kind of drill a hole right at the tip of it and you put a string. So for five cents, you can drop it in and out, in and out of the slot. Yeah. And you can just keep playing. So I ended up, it worked, man. Okay. A hundred percent working. I've done it. It worked perfectly. And you just put that thing back around your neck. You know, you have it on a string and, uh, you know, you can just keep on going, man. Do you get booted for that once they find it? No, they don't, arcades are packed. They don't know what you're doing, but I've never, I never got caught.
00:39:00
Speaker
Wow, that's so cool. How'd you punch the hole in the neck? You have to use a drill. Okay, yeah. You have to use a drill or you can use a nail, like a sharp nail and a hammer. Yeah. You just need to get a hole right through a small hole and then just put either a fishing... What'd you tie, like a fishing fire?
00:39:16
Speaker
I used a regular string, but fishing wire is your best option, right? Because it's the thinnest wire. But if you're going to try it now, try fishing wire. I don't think they patch that. Right, exactly. Yeah, it's like you just got to find where the arcades are. They still have them. I mean, they're still Palladium. But now they use cards, right? They don't use tokens or cards and stuff.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. Everybody's out of luck with that, that hack. Yeah. You just have to use it on the retro. But I mean, at the end of the day, like if you own a retro like thing, you probably just open up the box and you just, as soon as the core goes in, you just have it again. I don't know, man. Retro is awesome. You can use it as a piggy bank.
00:39:58
Speaker
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00:40:28
Speaker
Man, I got a lot of change. I need to put in my piggy bank, but I don't have time to play Operation Wolf. You're like, you got to like, you're like, you know what? I'd rather go spend my money because I don't got like a week to play this game because I got so much because the inflation, right? It should be like Toonies, you pump a name. Yeah, absolutely. I think Toonies are like the standard for bell pay phones and stuff right now. Is it really?
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah. Like I saw one the other day, it's like insert your $20 bill or, I don't know, something ridiculous, but pagers and pay phones. Yeah. Pagers. I remember pagers, man. Remember the codes, pager codes. No, what was that? Yeah. You know, pager codes where you text like three, three, seven, seven and something else. And then he turned upside down and says, hello.
00:41:20
Speaker
Oh, really? You know, like the pager codes and you like draw text. Did not know that. Oh, maybe a little bit. The only ones I knew of like, was like star six, nine and star six, seven. And now they were like secret pager codes. And it's just kind of like, you know, you know, that acronyms and stuff that meant, you know, same thing, like, um, same thing like now, right. And tax calculators. No, you can text somebody like, um, I don't know.
00:41:47
Speaker
I have no idea. I can't remember, man. My memory's fading. I'm like from a pager generation, dude. Yeah. Yeah. You need to get a pager. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I know. I've asked you your age a couple of times. I keep on forgetting. That's how, uh, that's how many. Oh,
00:42:08
Speaker
Good old ladies. So yeah,
Preserving Retro Game Integrity in Remakes
00:42:11
Speaker
wrapping up retro. I mean, like, what would you like to see come out of retro, retro reboots or just any of that stuff in the next, I don't know, five years? Like if you, if you, if you wanted to say, Hey, I love retro. I wish they do this in the next five years. Okay. So I do love retro.
00:42:32
Speaker
And what I wish is they do not touch, remake, remaster any games that I remember and hold very dearly. Leave them alone. Let them be part of history and they're finding where they are.
00:42:48
Speaker
Yeah, don't ruin it. If you get the keys and you can dust it off and make it more beautiful, at the end of the day, just please 4K it or 8K it, but don't change the mechanics, all that stuff. Don't add too much that it ruins these childhood memories because as you see,
00:43:10
Speaker
You know, I'm, you know, the amount of people that love certain games and then we talk about the remaster is just like, no, you know, there are certain like good ones, but like at the end of the day, like. Can you point out one good remaster? Yeah, Resident Evil 4. That's a remaster. It's not a remake. It's a remake. Um. Meaning that. They OK, so they didn't just take the original.
00:43:41
Speaker
Okay, so divining remake and remaster, Resident Evil 4 in my eyes is a remake because the areas are different. They didn't take the same assets and like not everything is identical. And I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the
00:44:01
Speaker
the maps are different. Everything's a little different. They look nothing alike, where sometimes I'm in Resident Evil 4 and I'm like the remastered one. I'm like, oh, this is that area, right? Where as opposed to they did a remaster.
00:44:19
Speaker
not a remake of Resident Evil 4 on Xbox 360, which made it in 4K, which everything was the same. They didn't even touch any of the textures. I would say remaster is like, hey, just up-convert the graphics, maybe change the texture packs, maybe add some light effects and anything like that. But at the end, they don't touch the controls, don't touch the
00:44:44
Speaker
don't add, don't remove. And in RE4 remake, they removed some stuff, right? So I'm like, if you removed, like there was one thing in RE4
00:44:55
Speaker
remake that Ashley was driving this like mower thing that mowing down all the zombies and Leon's on the top, just sniping them all. That was completely cut from the game. There was a whole boss cut from the game that looked like this. I don't know. Thing. It's weird. It's hard to describe stuff visually, but I would say the one that was a
00:45:22
Speaker
I don't know if this was a remake, but when Demon Souls for PS5 came out, that to me was like,
00:45:33
Speaker
If that was identical to the original in terms of level and stuff, it was just basically better graphics. Nothing's changed, which I believe if you're going to do a from software game, it probably has to because of just how technically honed that stuff was. It wouldn't feel like a demon Dark Souls if they
00:45:54
Speaker
messed it messed it up too much, right? So I think that one is a perfect example of a remaster where they completely overhauled the graphics and stuff, but the level, the characters that they had, they took the original code and they were like, you know, optimize it, right? Exactly. So I think that's a perfect one. And another one I didn't like is the, as you know, the Final Fantasy 7. I was going to bring that up. Yeah.
00:46:20
Speaker
And I'm like, you know what, not everything has to be, um, not everything has to be like kingdom hearts. You know what I mean? Like, I know that these guys went super hardcore into, you know, hack and slash mode and now nothing else can escape that for FF for the rest of their probably. I'm just looking for that turn based level of.
00:46:42
Speaker
just take the Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9, exactly the same. You don't have to change anything, just make it more beautiful. And the cool thing about that is you just give it to a company like Blue Point Games or a remaster focused company that has experience doing it.
00:47:00
Speaker
and they'll take it verbatim, exact, and just overhaul the graphics. Nothing else changes. We don't need these new... We don't want, like you said, our childhood experiences degraded in any way or form. Whether it's like, oh yeah, this is kind of nice, but I kind of almost feel like every time I play FF7 Remake,
00:47:25
Speaker
I'm like, you know what? Let me turn this off and let me go play the PC version of Final Fantasy 7. Because that one you could up the graphics a little bit. Yeah. So yeah. I know when they did Nino Cooney for PS3. That game blew me away. I love that game. And then they made a remaster for PS4. I bought that. And it's actually a remaster. It looks so much better. It's 4K. Really? It looks amazing, dude. Have you played the PS3 version?
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah. I think I do. I got to pick your brain about that because I think I have both, but only for four. Yeah, they did. They took the original and they just made it more beautiful and more. It looks nice, man. It looks really nice.
00:48:12
Speaker
PS4 graphics. So they remastered it, exact same game mechanics, it's the same, the plays the same, everything's the same and I bought it, beautiful. And that's how you do it. I think the Last of Us, they came out with Last of Us remastered, that was on PS4, right? Right.
00:48:32
Speaker
and then they came out with the Last of Us 1. Now, I'm pretty sure it's the same thing that you're talking about where they just basically everything's the same, they just overhauled the graphics, but I'm not 100% sure because that was a bit of a departure because they added things like ray tracing. So I'd have to look at that screen by screen, but
00:48:59
Speaker
it would be nice to have like, I know you can't overly, you know, standardize things, but you know how there's the Peggy and the ESRB rating? Like if we're gonna have this like,
00:49:12
Speaker
no offense, shovelware remaster, make a sequel to Assassin's Creed 11 twice or whatever. Can we just please have a logo on there that says authentic remaster or a new take remake? Just like a little logo to say that this is authentic, we didn't touch the original code. Because what's going to happen, especially with AI, is they're going to find a way to just
00:49:41
Speaker
decompile the code of original games and have AI remaster some of the stuff. Because you see these fan remakes of Ocarina of Time and Zelda and stuff like that, where they're not touching any of this stuff, they're just making it more beautiful. I hope the fans really get through to the companies on this point.
00:50:01
Speaker
normally the lead game designer developer like Kojima is like, we got to do this because this is what they want and this is what I want. And then you have like Konami being like, you know, get out of here. Right. So hopefully it'll come through. But yeah, I hope that as well. I hope that there's a bunch of new retro games that come out that are untouched, unscathed.
00:50:22
Speaker
And they're just a true remaster. Give me 12K, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. Keep it going, man. We'll keep buying it. Nice. All right, Rui, thank you so much for your time today. And we'll see you guys next time on CoPlay Culture.