Get Played - Game and Tell: 32X

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Heather introduces Matt and Nick to the Sega Genesis add-on console the 32X. They talk about how it functioned, how it was a classic Sega misstep, the games and more. Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed. Follow us on social media @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently watching Dandadan go to patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Guys, guys, I am so excited. This package arrived in the mail that I have been waiting for for so long. Wow. I love getting mail so I understand why you're excited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't have time to open it before I came, but I kind of wanted to show you guys, I'm gonna become better.

You're gonna get better? Yeah, I'm gonna get better. Well, I'd say I think you're perfect just the way you are. Oh, thanks. Self-improvement is a noble goal, so hey. Thanks, I met this guy online, and he had this sort of, I don't know, I wouldn't call it a device,

but it's like a system through which you can better yourself. Now I'm worried. Yeah, yeah, at first I was like, that sounds good, but you kind of lost me at, I met a guy online. Well, no, but I mean, like, think about, everything we do in life is systems. That's true, yes. I forgot that everything we do in life is systems. No, that's yes. I forgot that everything we do in life is systems.

No, that's fair. There are systems of learning, systems of health, systems of self-improvement. This is just kind of like one of those. What is fitness besides following a prescribed system? Exactly, exactly. So I'm just gonna open this package. Okay, great.

I'm gonna jam this thing in. Jam it in? Okay, okay, okay. What do you mean? No, it's like a snap-on add-on device, so I'm just gonna What did you plug that into it looks like it hurt I haven't plugged it in I'm gonna plug it in do you want to see the output? I'm gonna plug it in are you okay?

that looks extremely painful 1,2,3,4,5 now you're doing crazy hates I can count better than I ever counted before 1,2,3, four, five! You look like you're in extreme pain and you look like you're very hot.

Yeah. But the seams by my mouth, the seams by my mouth are splitting, but I think that's intentional. The seams of your mouth? Ah! Okay. I think you should take this device out. I'm going to question. I'm going to question.

I'm going to question. Ask you. I think I'm going to question. I'm going to question. I'm going to question. You ask you any questions? I'm going to question. Who's the 31st President of the United States? I'm going to question. I'm going to question. I'm going to question.

That's wrong. It's like insanely wrong. If it's wrong, why'd it hurt so much's like it's like it's a me wrong If it's wrong why the hurt so much to think it cuz there's a fucking add-on device in your goddamn mouth Heather you idiot What did you do? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting mad you fucked up so bad This is so bad that you did this and I'm actually mad at you Only 32 I'm actually mad at you. No, no, no, no, I'm 32 times better than I was before. Why are we 32? I'm in a new world, if I did this before,

I'd be in so much pain. So you admit that you're in at least some discomfort then? I'm 32 times less comfortable, but I am 32 times better. I guess I'll ask you another question. Okay. I guess you can prove your superiority One train is traveling from a city at a speed of 55 kilometers per hour

It's this Another train is traveling in the opposite direction at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour Which train will reach its destination first My god hairs on fire bad breath get the fire extinguisher Jesus Christ Get the fire extinguisher I'm scared! What are you doing? I'm fucking scared! You just froze up? What are you doing? I'm not good in emergency! Get the fire extinguisher! Can we just submit something for- We don't have one?

What the fuck kind of company is this? Are you sure it's not hiding behind one of the dead light bulbs? Great, this is a great time to start a fire in LA, Heather. We enable 3D capabilities and fail, as we discuss console expansion Sega 32X this week on Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather-Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger. I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premier video game podcast, where this week we are finally doing the long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime 32X special. Wow. Wow.

And if you don't know what 32x is It's a system I'm not just saying it's 30 32 times the normal episode. No, it could be I'm saying we're doing the episode on the notorious Genesis add-on the 32x yes, it is a System it is a console in the way that DLC is a game. It requires the Genesis slash Mega Drive. It requires the base system in order to function. It is the grandest attempt at an expansion to an existing console as a way to preserve its hardware's shelf life.

We will get into all that. We will do our deep dive for 32X, which we have in front of us. We've been playing this some bitch, and we might play some more as we're recording. It's in the air that we are breathing currently. There's 32X in here. That's right.

You know what else is in here? Nick is wearing Gundam pants. I am wearing Gundam pants. They fucking rule. God bless, thank you. Where did you get those? This is an official Levi's collab. What?

So I got these at the Levi's store, yeah. A while back. Oh, a while back. Yeah. Oh, break my heart. I mean, you might still be able to get them. I doubt it. With pants that good looking, those sold out day of.

I saw, I ran into someone, and I know, I know because I'd been in there that it's an employee at a dispensary, a marijuana worker. I ran into this person as I was walking down the street and she said, those pants are hard, man. Like, kind of like not really a compliment, just kind of like, because they're print and they've just got, like, you know, the headpiece of a Gundam all over the legs. Yeah.

I just have to, I feel like I have to circle back. Yeah. Saying that somebody who works at a dispensary is a marijuana worker is the most insane thing I've ever heard. That's their field, they is a marijuana worker is the most insane thing I've ever heard that's their field they're a marijuana worker what do you what what do you do for a living I'm a marijuana I'm a marijuana worker the thing about it is it is exactly what they do yeah you're not wrong but for some reason the words sounded like they don't make sense together if you work in an office you don't call yourself a computer worker

I might start doing it because it's pretty I think I am a computer worker. I'm an audio an audio Medium worker here you are yeah, but when you're working elsewhere you're on computer words worker Marijuana work, thank you to all the marijuana workers marijuana workers. Thanks for your service. They don't get enough shout outs I feel like yeah, and you know hey those of you who are working legally and those of you who are in for you Who have to work extra legally God bless all of you doing the Lord's work. Yeah, and don't forget to Pass him if you spoke if you got him puff puff pass I'm like this

Are you fucking narc is that what's going on? I'm like I'm kind of like the opposite I'm actually like a really cool weed guy got it. Okay. Got it. Yeah marijuana enthusiast enthusiast I'm a marijuana consumer consumer consumer. I'm a marijuana consumer. That's correct. I'm a marijuana consumer. Yeah, consumer, I'm a marijuana consumer. That's correct. I'm a marijuana ingester. I can't get enough of this stuff. Ranch, you ever indulge in the sticky icky? Yeah, I hate it.

Oh, you hate it. You don't have a great reaction to it. Cause I don't necessarily have a great reaction to it either. I get a little anxious. Oh, I get, I like wanna die. Yeah. I've never had a good time. Yeah, I get the same way.

I don't like it. I get also extremely depressed the next day. Yes. Wow. time. Yeah, I get the same way. I don't like it. I get also extremely depressed the next day. Yes, same. Yeah, yeah, can't do it. Even CBD, I get depressed. Wow. I do fine and I certainly enjoy perhaps a THC edible every now and then.

All right. That's fun. I mean, to each their own. I think almost- That actually makes me like a party guy. I think almost all drugs should be legal almost All the good ones. Yeah, like I think mushrooms should be legal. Sure. Yeah marijuana should be legal Ecstasy maybe rails even let's let's get some freakin cocaine. I'm just kidding. Sure. Why not? I Don't know wheel look was isn't the Doug

Just lost the presidential campaign of 2035 Or maybe I want it We will swing completely the other way. Yeah, but yeah, we're not here to decriminalize drugs We're talking we're here to talk about video games. Are we not Nick? We're here to talk about the 32 X are we not, Nick? We sure are. We're here to talk about the 32X, but not yet. Not yet, now. Not yet. Before we get into the 32X,

we're going to stick firmly in the present, and we're going to discuss from perhaps the recent past some other video games we've been playing. The question is, what are you playing? What are you playing? Hi, it's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask you the question of the week. What are you playing? You're a Resident Evil Merchant, I'm here to ask you the question of the week. What are you playing?

You're a Resident Evil Merchant, I feel like, you know, because you're a vendor. Yes. You're a professional. Your occupation is sales. Yes. I feel like you sometimes are selling things that are illicit. I got to ask, we were just talking drugs. You ever sold any illegal substances? Yeah, and I'm really happy that my guy's out of jail. Your guy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my guy. I had a huge, huge storefront on the Silk Road. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. So that's where you're buying your goods to sell and you're selling like your green herb, your red herb, your yellow herb. You could get anything there. You know, you could- A gold egg perhaps. Sure.

Gold egg. I love gold egg. But yeah, that's where I would get my supplies. And for a while I've been cut off. I've had to counterfeit my drugs. Oh boy. Counterfeit? Yeah, you gotta cut it. Baking powder, baking soda. I got baking

soda? I got baking soda? Powdered sugar and then you sell it and you run as hard as you can. Immediately letting them know that you're bamboozled. Yeah, I gotta say like this is explaining a lot I got a green herb and a red herb from you and I combined them and I ended up with an oatmeal cookie. I think you saw me baking ingredients. Delicious. It was good. Who doesn't like an oatmeal cookie?

That's so crazy. What? Because a similar thing happened to me actually. What was it? I bought from you. Yeah? A yellow herb and a scope for my pistol. Yeah. Before I knew it, I was eating a flan. Well, you're lucky it was fawn or macaroni and cheese.

I wouldn't think to combine a yellow herb and a scope. I was holding onto the- Oh, you're holding onto the on to the kind of touched in my bad. Okay. I Told the guy he has with scope and I sold a mouthwash and ran that's kind of funny That's actually that's funny. That's not bad. Yeah You know what? Mouthwash is good. I appreciate it. I like it. I can't use mouthwash. No, it hurts your mouth.

I've got holes in all my teeth. Yeah, I should probably get those looked at. Straight down into the root. Oh boy, that's rough stuff. You should get some new teeth or something. Yeah, well, now that that my boys out of jail Maybe I'll be able to afford it. Maybe you could get them in a normal way. Yeah, get a new set of chompers No, I want to buy teeth off. They're still crowed. Okay alright

I guess if it's available, and it's like fine for you to do then by all means 20 30 40 teeth Don't think you need that man. No. Yeah, you're going shark mode. I'm going many teachers. I want I Don't think you need that many and then for somebody I know with your habits the more teeth do you have the more crevices? I don't have some more issues. I have to make up for lost time. I've been eating a lot of soup For years don't get us started on soup first First of all. Yeah, don't. Is ranch dressing a soup? Nick, what are you playing? I would say ranch dressing is not a soup.

That would be my verdict. What if it's hot? I mean, that just sounds like a putrid soup that I would not want to eat. I don't want to eat just like a bowl of hot ranch dressing with a spoon. Why do we thin it with water? Sounds even worse, honestly. I know that we put up with a lot of this show. This is the closest I've ever been to actually being mad at you. Stop. Hard stop.

Sometimes you got to make do with what you have. Little ranch dressing soup, little parmesan, and you got yourself a dinner. I mean, that just, it feels like desperation time. It's just like you're completely out of food and that's all you have to eat. Because it's a dressing, I love ranch dressing. That's an accompaniment, that's not a main. Agreed, agreed.

And I was getting a lot of my meats off the silk robe. So I had to make do. But my boy is out of jail. Well, I'm very happy for your isn't evil merchant. I'm actually going to defer because I think I'm worried I'm going to talk for a little while about metaphoric fantasia. So I'll someone else talk. Is that something you should be worried about? Because I feel like I do it every week.

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Sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. Switch to Mint and new customers can get half off an unlimited plan until February 2nd. That's Groundhog Day! To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to MintMobile.com slash get played. That's MintMobile.com slash get played! $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month new customers on the first three month plan only speeds slower Above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan additional taxes fees and restrictions apply see Mint mobile for details So I've been playing Bellatro a lot still. I can't stop playing it every time my wife sees me playing it. I'm playing it on something else. I'm playing it on Switch. I'm playing it on my Steam Deck. Playing it on my phone or the iPad. The thing that I would love more than anything,

and I know that it's a big ask. Yeah. I wish there was some sort of cross progression between the, because sometimes I'm like, okay, I'm playing Steam Deck, they're like, oh, you know what, Steam Deck too heavy. I wish I could pick up my run on my iPad

or the Switch or whatever and just kind of continue from there. Boy, are there any roguelikes to do that that have full cross play? on my iPad or the switch or whatever and just kind of continue from there. Boy, are there any Roguelikes that do that that have like full cross play? Hades has cross play between Switch and Steam. I don't know. Like even mid-run, you can resume a run on a different platform? You probably have to start.

Yeah, I don't know, maybe you can. I don't know. I think you can actually. Okay. But I wish that you could just even you know at least have cross progression You don't have to maybe pick it up in the same right right, but I have the same That'd be really great But I understand that it would require you to make some sort of account or something And that's a big undertaking for in particular a solo dev so I but you know hopefully it's something that we could see

I also wish that the That the phone version was in landscape mmm is wait I also wish that the phone version was in landscape. Wait, what's it called? Portrait. Portrait, I wish it was in portrait because it's in landscape currently. You gotta turn your phone. Something about it being in portrait

very appealing to me for some reason. I actually think how you could do the play space would be so tight. I mean like something like Marvel Snap, they did a very different game but it's also a card game. But that's specifically designed for portrait mode Yeah, even though it's like those games tend to play a little bit more naturally in landscape something about so I don't know call me

Call me a sicko call me some kind of portrait freak or something, but I Kind of wanted I want to see it in portrait. No, I think I'm with you I mean, I think they're they're reached a certain point where everyone just kind of got tired of turning their phones 90 degrees You know going like yeah, it's just a little bit annoying Even watching a video sometimes I'm like I can't believe I'm watching this video in portrait mode Yeah, so like this is a wide screen video that if I just turned my phone it would like fill the screen Yeah, but I'm refusing to do it.

I don't know what the psychology is. It does bother me though. I think we would all use landscape mode more if there was an audible snapping sound that your phone made when you turned it sideways. Like if you were holding it in portrait mode and you could somehow rotate and snap it in place without letting go of the hold position.

Like if the back cover was a grip and you could go snap, then I think we would all use landscape. Yeah, I guess if people have, maybe people with pop sockets, maybe they're more likely to go in a landscape. But that's also not, like, you don't wanna hold something in your palm effectively and then have it rotate. I'm talking like a trigger.

Yeah. Mm. I'm not, don't, I'm not like a, that wasn't me being a caricature of myself. I'm saying, like if the back of your phone was like the handle of a PlayStation controller. All I wish was that it was a wooden handle with a chain and a mace at the end of it.

God damn it. And you pull the trigger to answer the phone. You put it in your mouth to answer it. So I'm playing that, I'm still, I love it. I actually just, I've been trying, I don't have like a main strategy for it or anything I don't have any rhyme or reason for which decks I'm picking to yeah, just start my runs in I'm just kind of getting far where I'm getting far

And I'm on the like I'm not very far into any of them really I'm I'm on a green chip run of the red deck right now Which doesn't mean anything to anybody if you don't play the game, but it's, I'm having a blast with it. And then something I wanna do, something awoken me last week after talking about the Switch 2, is that I realized that I have like a

pretty dense Switch 1 backlog that I'm like, I could clean some of these up, cause some of these are certain percentages already done Oh sure right so I think it can back clean up, so I've been going through quite a few of those I was like I could Donkey Kong Tropical freeze is fucking hard. This is a hard game. It's got some challenging sections. Yeah Hey, just move over to funk. I think I gotta move over to funky

My ass kicked over here Doing that I? Think I'm almost done with Yoshi's crafted world Which is a game that I bought at launch and loved and just never and it's a game for babies I should just wash it and I started a new save on Metroid dread Because I say my last save is at the very end of it, and I'm trash at it now. Can't do it.

So I started a new one, and I think I'm just gonna try to see it all the way through from this new save. But we'll see. But that's what I'm doing. Wow. Love to hear it. Love to hear it.

Heather, what are you playing? I'll tell you right now. Let me give you a little bit of a list. I'm talking, I'm talking Star Wars Outlaws. I'm talking, I'm talking Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Oh, wow. I'm talking Persona 5. Oh, hell yeah. I'm talking even Red Dead Redemption 2

are all games I have promised myself to play and haven't been playing because I've been playing Pokemon Pocket. Games that I love that I want to continue. And what am I doing? I'm playing the Mythical Island SP Emblem Event on Pokemon TCG Pocket. What is the win condition for the for this newest?

Pokemon pocket event this tournament if you will a Tournament like like a tournament on the fortnight island. No a tournament on my phone Oh a phone tournament the win condition is five wins in a row. Uh-huh. So if you imagine That's a tricky. that's a tricky bit of Pokemon play. One win, fine. Two wins, not bad. Three wins, you're on a roll. But every game that you play is not only up to the draw of your own deck, but also the deck

that you're going up against. Right, is it a hard counter to your build? Yeah, like are you gonna be facing some meta that's designed specifically to take you down? Let me tell you, the event launched at I think it was noon two days ago, and by 12 20 I had beaten the tournament. Wow.

You beat the tournament. Yeah, I won the event immediately. First five games I played, I won. And it left me with a feeling of deep longing and emptiness. Because now I'm faced with the question, do I continue in the tournament as a spoiler for other people's runs? Sounds awfully Heather.

in the tournament as a spoiler for other people's runs? Sounds awfully Heather. Or do I create a fun deck to inspire joy in people I play against who might happen to come across me? And listener, I did the latter. I made a fun deck with absolutely random cards that I chose because they were cute or funny. For example, Slowpoke. For example, Caterpie.

I love Slowpoke. And Caterpie's only playable attack in the game currently is find a friend. And it just pulls a different card out of your deck, but you can spam it at the other person and they'll just see on their screen over and over again the words find a friend. And you can spam it at the other person and they'll just see on their screen over and over again the words, find a friend. And you can lose on purpose

and let other people continue their chain. Who knows if they'll make it past whoever came after you, but you can aid and assist. And I did that for two days before I got bored of it. And then I immediately started playing my main deck and ruining people's runs. But I tried, I really tried to be a giving, loving community partner.

Forgive me Lord, it's time to go back to the old me. Yeah, it's the old me. So yeah, as long as the actor strike continues against certain video game companies, I won't talk about any of those games that I've been playing but I have been playing Pokemon Pocket TCG Pokemon TCG Pocket makes me wish there were additional expansions that would let you make a 40 card deck instead of a 20 card deck It is igniting a hunger in me to play the tangible game It's also making me excited to go to a certain fast-food restaurant that is currently running a promotion

Where you can get a meal for children and get extra? Packs of cards sent to your phone Will I be doing that? today in The break in between our records. I mean, we have to get dinner. Oh, man, I didn't think about that. We could get that for dinner. We could get that for dinner.

Yeah. Or we could eat something moderately healthy. Or we could be really, really bad. We could be bad if we want. Yeah, we could. We're adults. We don't have to tell. We don't have to say it to anybody. So that's what I've been playing.

Wow. What a shame. to say it to anybody. So that's what I've been playing. Wow. What a shame, what a joy. Nick. What a thrill. What have you been playing? All right, let me follow up on our metaphor, Riffontazio, we play you play from last year. So last week I said I was gonna talk about

the end game of this game. Here's what happened. I thought I was steps away from the final battle when we last recorded. It turns out, and I should know this from the dozens of JRPGs I've played through over the years, that there is an additional act. That the final battle is not the final battle. In fact, there is another act that is even longer than all the previous acts. So that's what I'm deep into now.

I've not quite rolled credits on this sumbitch. I will hopefully have finished it by the time we're recording next week. But what a fucking video game. It's really, really awesome. I like it the more I play it. I like it more the more I play it. The art direction is absolutely stunning in particular.

And we all experienced this when even, you know, playing through the first half and change of the game that we got through when we did our episode last year. The character portrait art is so good. It's my favorite character portrait art ever in a game, both in the artistry of the character designs and also just the quantity of facial expressions. Like there's so many just specific different looks, particularly for the party members, the primary NPCs and the player character just to convey different expressions.

And on that same note, in terms of the storytelling, the writing and localization are both just top-notch throughout and the voice acting is on that same level. It's just an excellent presentation from a story standpoint. The one thing I will say about the story is that there are pacing issues because of the way that the cutscenes are loaded in. The way the game is structured, you basically have an act and that's the point at which you're preparing to go through this big main dungeon. You're doing a bunch of side quests to power up.

You're doing character quests to advance their plot lines. And then when you complete the final dungeon, however much time you have left in the calendar for that particular stretch of time, you can continue to clean up other stuff. Or if you do play the game, I think as it's supposed to be intended, you kind of save that towards the very end. You save the main quest, you wrap that up up and then you move on to the next act. But during that whole period, you're kind of just doing your own thing. And then when you hit an act break, then you just get this barrage of story, like just

so much lore, so much narrative. Seriously, and it's like a Kojima level of like multiple hour cut scenes. Like, especially as the game progresses and you're getting into the late game into the later acts. It's like, there was a certain point I was like, I think it's, I think this has been about three hours of gameplay. And 90% of it has been cut scenes. There are brief stretches where it's been interrupted where I'm like, hey, I've got to I've got to just like, honestly, like a trivial task. Like I like I take this character, I take my player character and I walk them down to the end of a hallway

to trigger a new cut scene. Or I just am in the in where we're staying and I just walk, I talk to a few NPCs and then walk over and go to bed. And then the next day, like, you know, another 45 minutes of cut scenes starts. It is shit like that. And I have a big tolerance for those sorts

of overlong cinematics, but even that just feels a little bit much. And because it's all loaded in this barrage in between acts, it's a little overwhelming, but the main story has, has just really pays off. It doesn't play its core. It doesn't play coy with its big reveals, with its big twists. Some of the stuff we talked about was like, I wonder if that's going to pay off.

It does pay off. And Matt, I'll say this, some of these revelations, I was shocked. I was shocked. You were shocked by some of these revelations? I think what happens with the player character, when they reveal, I'll be very general about this, when they reveal what's actually going on

with the player character, what their identity is, I was like, that is so earned and that is so satisfying. What a great reveal. I think it's really rad. And also, most of the character quests where you're kind of getting the backstory of Stroll and Hulkenberg and Heismay, all your colleagues, they have moments of real humanity and pathos and they're really, really engaging and I think they also just advance the overall story really, really effectively.

It's not necessarily the most hyper sophisticated or subtle stuff all the time, but it's just cool to play a game that treats you like an adult from a writing standpoint. It's like, I feel like this is a fucking annoying term you hear sometimes in creative output, but it's like writing to the top of your intelligence or playing to the top of your intelligence. That's kind of what it feels like. This feels like it's respecting me as a player, as someone who's engaging with this. Gameplay wise, the archetype system, which is the job class system, I really, really like and I really like it the more that the game advanced. I think this is like kind of and I think if we get a proper sequel to this game and I

expect we will, I think they will really figure out how to make this work a little bit better. But in this early phase, in this first iteration, I think it's very, very effective. I like it more the persona system because it feels more character specific. It's like you're changing this character's class as opposed to just affiliating them with some sort of supernatural entity. It is a little bit hard to know how to optimize. Like I didn't look at any, I haven't looked at any guides or anything. I'm just like playing this thing.

I'm just sort of free balling it. And not that it matters much because the difficulty level of the combat isn't that high, but it's not necessarily like you can intuit what classes are going to synergize. In fact, from that standpoint, it is, it does feel possible to waste skill points or experience points rather, because you can't respec and it's not revealed until later in the game what the natural synergies are, like which class you need to get to the adept and elite level classes of each individual.

You know, like, like, like, like, that feels like, for instance, like, Stroll, who is the warrior character, is like his inherent class, although you can respect anyone to anything. At a certain point, you can advance that to a new class. I think it's knight and then samurai. I think those are the next levels. But that's hidden from you until you unlock those. And then the criteria for that involves advancing the general class, which is the ADAPT class of

the commander class. I'm rambling way too long about this. I'm getting into granular detail. That does not seem like a natural relation to that character. It's like, oh, okay, I would not have figured that out on my own. I might have done it by accident, but then it's just like, well, I invested these points in this other class that doesn't actually synergize with it. It's not a huge deal, again, because it doesn't matter that much and there's enough experience,

but it is the kind of thing where it's just like, I kind of wish this was just made transparent to you so you could plan your characters a little bit better so you could spec them without having to look at a guide. I will say one more thing about the story, which is just it all feels like hyper contemporary. I think this is a big part of why this game is resonating so much and why people were just like, holy shit, this really broke through, this really came out of nowhere

and really there was actual discourse about it. You know, it's obviously like a big, the big thing it's talking about is prejudice, but it's also interrogating things like the anxiety epidemic. Like it's like, that's a huge part of it. It goes into the impossibility of democracy coexisting with a state religion and how that oftentimes will just lead to theocracy like that's a that's a big part of the story and it's just like that's a kind of a bold thing for a video game to be talking about.

And also like which I was surprised by is it gets into nepotism like later in the game was like this is really interesting. I was not expecting JRPG to like talk about this. But I overall really love this game. We'll see how the plane finally lands when I finish it. But it does have a few elements that do feel a little bit tedious and I didn't want to just gloss over those, which is why I highlighted kind of some of the issues with the pacing. But overall, just an awesome experience.

I'm just shy of the 90 hour mark at this point. So it's meaty. It's a big boy. Look what daddy did. But it's a hell of a game. (*laughter*) Why did that make me upset while making me laugh? (*laughter*)

I think there's still an air of hot ranch dressing soup in the air. Yeah, right. We're all just thinking about that Truly putrid All right, here we go. It's the Game and Tell for the Sega 32X. Heather, take it away. When I think back to the winter of 1994, I can practically smell the faint ozone from our TV and feel the cheap carpet under my knees. There I was, a kid sitting inches from the screen, Sega controller in hand waiting for the future. The magazines had rumors. They're

releasing a new add-on for the Genesis, they said. It's called the 32X. It'll make everything look like an arcade game. Arcade! That was the magic word back then. If console could just get close to that coin-operated sheen, it felt like a piece of the future. I remember scanning the shelves of our local electronics boutique, head tilted sideways to read the spines of Genesis game boxes. And there, at the top in bright, proud packaging, was the 32X, a bulgy, mushroom-shaped device that promised 32-bit graphics and a new era of gaming without having to wait

for the brand new, already announced Sega Saturn system. It was an awkward half step between the comfort of the Genesis and the uncharted promise of Sega's next console. It felt cutting edge. If you could run that cable between the 32X and your Genesis just right, put the special spacer in, and manage the spaghetti of wires without tangling yourself in knots, you would

open a portal to the future, or so we were told. Of course, in classic 90s fashion, nothing was as simple as the commercials made it seem. The folks at Sega kept telling us, take your Genesis to the next level. But we were kids stuck navigating whether we wanted to spend our allowance on a piece of plastic that might just might deliver better colors, 3D polygons, and Star Wars arcade in our living room. It's almost funny now how we believed that an extra chunk of hardware could transport us into a brand new generation of gaming. A generation that, if you squinted, sort of looked

like the real arcade titles you fed your quarters into on Saturday afternoons. I got one for Christmas. Now, surely, the void in my soul would be filled. Now, finally, it would be OK. Yes, I'm doing loop-de-loops and knuckles-chaotics in what feels like next-gen 2D. But soon the shine faded.

Something about the 32X library felt limited, like it was only half committing to the bit. But for a solid six months or so, the 32X was my faithful friend. We experienced the mid-level joys of virtual racing deluxe, the thrills of Star Wars Arcade, and the close enough port of Doom. It was underwhelming by modern standards, but as a kid, it was enough. Enough to believe that I was a part of something big, something advanced.

Even if Sega itself quickly abandoned me and moved on to bigger, more expensive hardware. I never let go of games or hardware, and the truth is that save for a brief moment in adulthood when I thought I could hide them from everyone and be normal, my Genesis and 32X have sat patiently below my television set, gathering dust, getting cleaned, gathering dust again, small, overlooked, but not quite forgotten.

Then again, I do also still have my Virtual Boy set up too. So the 32X remains this small moment in gaming history, a promise of arcade level performance jammed in a black plastic wedge that was plugged into your Genesis, a passing fling with 32-bit graphics that came and went so quickly. Yet if you talk to the kids who owned one, and I bet there's about five of us, into your Genesis, a passing fling with 32-bit graphics that came and went so quickly. Yet, if you talk to the kids who owned one,

and I bet there's about five of us, there's a weird affection there too, because for a year it felt like we were in on a secret that no one else quite understood, a secret that had been passed on to us like a game of telephone with the addition of the Sega CD. It was a transitional glimmer, awkward, messy,

but undeniably ours. And as a kid huddled in front of my TV, biting my lip, urging those extra bits to prove their worth, that I had spent my money for a good purpose, I came to appreciate the ambition. After all, in the mid-90s, we didn't need perfection, we just needed hope. Even if it was shaped like this funny looking

top hat attachment on top of our beloved Genesis, we believed. We believed in a future. And for a while, the 32X looked like it just might be it. It's funny. When we talk about the 32X now, it's often with a chuckle or a shrug, like we're counting a short-lived high school fling. At the time of its release, there was this sense that it was bridging the gap

between our comfortable 16-bit world and the promise of a 32-bit generation. But the truth is, it wasn't bridging anything. If anything, the 32X was like a detour, a scenic route that led you back to the inevitable place you were going to anyway. And that place was full-blown 32-bit consoles like the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation.

Here's where the 32X found its successes, such as they were. It delivered ports we couldn't get on the standard Genesis. Virtual Racing Deluxe, for instance, looked and played more impressively than its 16-bit counterpart. It had smooth-ish polygons, a sense of speed that felt futuristic. Star Wars Arcade brought the classic coin-op to our living rooms with this unmistakable John Williams fanfares and the swirling TIE fighters. And for those of us who lived through it, Knuckles Chaotix was at least an interesting

experiment, not the Sonic sequel we dreamed of, and there were many Sonic sequels, but it did give the 32X a splash of color and style. There was fun to be had, moments of awe even. But the failures came from the device's very nature. Sega's hardware strategy at the time was complicated. The Genesis was still going strong in 1994, but looming on the horizon was the Sega Saturn, the company's actual next generation console. The 32X was an add-on that the marketing folks championed saying, upgrade your

Genesis now, don't wait. But the Saturn was a completely separate beast in its own library, its own hardware quirks and a higher price tag. The 32X in that context became this middle child, neither fully embraced by Sega nor wholly integrated into the brand's future. There were only 40 games released total for the 32X and that includes the ones also released for the 32X CD which required Sega CD, Genesis, 32X and the disc. and the disc. Ugh.

The early to mid-90s were a time of massive transformation in gaming. Suddenly it wasn't just about faster processors and more colors, it was about making these crisp 3D polygons we saw in arcades and on high-end PCs. Sony's PlayStation debuted with cinematic marketing and sleek design, showing us a vision of the future that made the 32X look like a holdover from the past. And Nintendo, with its upcoming Ultra 64, later renamed the Nintendo 64, was also promising a next-gen 3D experience. In that environment the 32X simply couldn't compete. It wasn't a next-gen console, it was an accessory for a machine we'd already owned for more than five years.

And in gaming terms, in the 1990s, five years felt like an eternity. It's the difference between being a five-year-old and a 10-year-old. It's huge. Looking back, it's not the 30 COX was a total failure in concept. It was a glimpse of what could be done

with an odd add-on lock-on technology. The idea of modular upgrades isn't inherently bad. It's popped up time and again in gaming's history. The problem was timing, communication, and a lack of commitment from Sega. A Sega that burned us with the 32X and I feel began its downward spiral across the world. By the time the 32X hit store shelves, the buzz wasn't about making your old system better. It was about which brand new console you would buy next. And once Sega pivoted to the Saturn,

the 32X started collecting dust in all the corners next to your empty soda cans and crumpled game receipts. This is Get Played's deconstruction of the Sega 32X. Wow. Guys, what? Yeah, that was great, Heather. What? What? That was great. I want to say, because we have a lot to talk about with our own experience, but I wanted

to ask, beyond all the historical detail, what was your personal reaction to the 32X? You get it, you play it, you have it for a bit. Like at what point does the novelty wear off or at what point do you see it for what it really is? So I was and remain a Sega CD evangelist. Yes. When I, so you get the Genesis and you're like, wow, Sonic is so fucking good.

And then you get the Sega CD and you're like, holy shit. I think if the 32X was released before the Sega CD, that the transition from Genesis to 32X would have seemed more remarkable. Sure. But instead it felt like a bit of a downgrade. Like I was already playing games with huge orchestral scores. Like the idea that John Williams would be playing

on a cartridge was not really that exciting when the game hook for Sega CD had the entire orchestral soundtrack playing the entire time. Wow. So you're playing like a game that has a full CD quality orchestral score and then you step backwards to play Star Wars Arcade. So it was a really confusing system to get,

because I didn't want to abandon my Genesis because it had given me so many good memories, and I was super excited at the potential of the 32X CD games, because I was like, okay, once you get the 32X, it makes the Sega CD more powerful. And that was what I was actually excited about. And then they only came out with like four fucking games.

And I was like, but all of my most treasured memories of this era are the Sega CD. So I felt betrayed. Yeah, I will say that the, when I did just some real like, you know, kind of peripheral research, surface level research into 32X in advance of coming into this episode, knowing you were going to provide a lot of additional context, what I was surprised by was, A, how quickly

the Saturn came out afterwards. Like it was basically like bang, bang. It was like, it was, and in Japan, It was like it was and and in Japan It was like it came out in North America the same month that the 30 Sorry, the 32 X came out in North America the same month that the Sega Saturn launched in Japan November of 1994 It was like right on top of each other. So while you're reading the magazines Yeah, which were the only way to get gaming information in the 90s You're you're you open up your 32X the same month you get the magazines

that are giving you the first reviews of Sega Saturn games. And you're like, I've been fucked over. Yeah, I've been duped. I'm an idiot. Like, as good as virtual racing looked on the 32X, and I thought it looked really fucking good at the time. It looks good now. We were playing this beforehand.

I was immediately comparing it with screenshots from the Saturn version. And I was like, oh, this isn't the best it can be. And I thought it was, because that's the way it was being sold to us on television. Like we were being told, this is going to be as powerful as the Saturn because it has two 32-bit processors.

It's a legitimate 32-bit machine snapped into your Genesis. And it just wasn't, it just wasn't strong enough. It's the kind of, and I feel like there's so many decisions with Sega historically where you look at it and it's just, how did the company not internally decide not to do this? Like how like like the 32x is just like it's inexplicable because you've already carved up your market with the existence of the Sega CD. You already had a big peripheral that

came out for the Genesis to come out with a second one, a second expansion that further splits your market. Like now it now it's split into three or even four, you know what I mean? Like depending on how many of these different components a donor has. And it's also like you're appealing to the enthusiasts, the people who are early adopters at a time when they're anticipating a new console that's going to come out the very next year. Like every part of it seems utterly baffling. Here's what I think we can compare it to

and have it be a little less antagonistic to history, which is that the PS4 Pro comes out. Right. And yeah, you can trade in your PlayStation 4 and get a PS4 Pro, which is just a little bit better, but it isn't quite as strong as the PS5 is going to be. And then there's sort of backwards compatibility over those generations and sort of a milky blurriness between PS4, PS4 Pro, and PS5, and now PS5 Pro.

Right. So for basically the first year or two of the PlayStation 5's lifespan, basically all those games, even the first party games, were also coming out for PlayStation 4. I think that the ideal scenario, and probably the one they sold themselves internally is, not everybody is going to be able to afford what we already know is going to be an insanely expensive system.

Yeah, sure. The Saturn launched, I think, at $499 in 1996 or 1995. 1995, and- Okay, so in today's money, that's $11,000. Yeah, it's so much money. It's so much money. So they were like, but maybe there is a way that we can soup up the Genesis

to effectively release the Genesis Pro so that we can have games that we can develop internally that are sort of cross-platform. Like you'll get virtual racing for the 32X or virtual racing for the Saturn, and you'll be able to play a game that is comparable. Honestly, the 32X version is totally serviceable. And if you're the kid waiting for your parents

to be able to afford a Sega Saturn, if the library had kept expanding, if the system had met its potential, then I think that people would have been satisfied. Or I think this is the thing that would have, it was probably not possible from a hardware standpoint, but if it had been a thing of, if you own this, it enhances your, it enhances Genesis games that are compatible with it. Where, like having a completely different library, a library, a completely different SKU where it's like, oh wait, I'm not just, I mean, that's just a thing of like, of just

even a parent buying it for a kid for Christmas or for their birthday. It's like, oh, I got you the Genesis version instead of the 32X version or vice versa, just creating that market confusion. It's a whole thing. But to your point, in terms of extending its lifespan and comparing it to PlayStation 4 Pro, which probably came out about the same time in the PlayStation 4's lifespan as the 32X, because it was six full years since the release of the Sega Mega Drive, the Sega Genesis, when the 32X comes out.

It was like that thing had been out since 1988, and it's 1944 when it's releasing. I was like, sorry, 1988 to 1994. Aaron Powell You're thinking of something else you experienced in your life. Aaron Powell 1988 to 1994, it's like six years. That's a long time, and it's just a big gulf to think about. I was skeptical because so few of – let's be honest, nobody I knew had a Sega CD. And also, Sega knows internally that the Sega CD is not popular.

It does not sell as many systems as they thought it would. I think in part it's because they didn't release until it was way too late a combined machine. Yeah, sure. I think that they should have released the Sega CD as an add-on or if you're a new parent coming into Toys R Us or whatever, you can get the, we call it the Sega CDX, which I think is the name they eventually go with, and you can get the, call it the Sega CDX,

which I think is the name they eventually go with, and you can get the whole thing as one machine. Would have been, I think, a way to sell more Sega CDs, but if you're a parent going in after the Sega CD is released in America, and you're at the electronic games section, and you're like, I want a Genesis for my kid, and they're like, oh, would you also like a Sega CD

for your kid? You're gonna be like, fuck no, they're just getting a Genesis, why do I have to add more stuff? But if they'd been like, do you want the Genesis or the Genesis CD, then people would have been like, oh, well is that one better? Then I'll get that for them.

Yeah, it being an add-on to a new thing, like in that sort of scenario, I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, it's kind of like, I will say as a, we were a Nintendo family, I had a Super Nintendo, and at this point, I kind of felt like, hey, Super Nintendo has got this incredible library.

I felt pretty confident of, when I Super Nintendo has got this incredible library. I felt pretty confident of when I was a little bit more tribalist about these things. I'm platform neutral these days. I was like, ah, hey, Nintendo kind of won the console war. You know, they came from behind. They ended up like having like the better AAA games. But I will say I was looking at the Sega Genesis, I was playing my friend Sega Genesis at his house and coveting it and specifically coveting the Sega CD

because things like Lunar Eternal Blue or Snatcher, which we covered in the podcast, like things that had like speech and video and like you were saying, orchestral scoring. It's like, this feels like something, I know my console is incapable of this. Like that felt like something completely different. Whereas the 32X, I was just kind of like, what the fuck is this shit?. That felt like something completely different. Whereas the 32X, I was just kinda like,

what the fuck is this shit? I was just confused by it. So I do think there was a real clear appeal to the Sega CD, even if it wasn't reflected in its sales, but the 32X was just a little bit muddy. Matt, you were playing the 32X with us earlier. Yes. I mean, what were your impressions and like, what did you know about this console coming

into the conversation? So what I knew, what I thought I knew, we can take everything that I thought I knew and throw it out the window. I mean, Nick, I was shocked by this. Wow, you were shocked. I was shocked by this because I guess I didn't realize that it wasn't, it was and it wasn't its own thing. It is, you need another thing for it to work in this iteration of it, I guess.

The thing that I'm thinking about with all these parts, including the CD, because I'm looking at a photo with the tray that fits all of them, I guess, or I don't know if you could call it a tray. Oh yeah, when you see the abomination that is all of these things Frankenstein together, it is like, it is a legit site gag. Because this, that sucks to look at. That's bad. The Genesis with a 32X jammed inside of it

and the Sega CD to its side, yeah. Which also, that was the second form factor of it because originally it was Genesis, Sega CD underneath it, 32X snapped on top, which was at the time called the Tower of Power. This is the redesigned Genesis you're looking at. The fact that there's so many iterations of this and so many versions of it that are even possible, the thing that I'm thinking about in a modern context is...

Because the only... There's not really hardware modulation or hardware... They'll do a separate run of something, like the PS4 Pro or the PS5 Pro. Yeah, the PS4 Pro was not a thing that plugged into your PlayStation 4 to make it more powerful, and then they sold separate PlayStation 4 Pro games

that you had to buy. It's kind of a little bit like the difference between PlayStation and PlayStation VR. You know, it's a thing that you have to like, plug into your thing Which lets it do additional things or in prior gens like the you know, like the Xbox connect was kind of a thing, right? It's like but this is also in some ways I was thinking I don't know I was thinking about this today because of I think because in part because of the conversation we had

last week or Nick was talking about building his PC and how like when you're building a PC You can future proof it to some degree with with the different components that are gonna be a little more powerful maybe not as or too much power for what you need currently but Anticipating the power that's to come. Yes for sure You can't do that in consoles and that's why the console generations these days are typically seven-year cycles for some reason, until they do the separate SKU, which is the pro models, or the Xbox version of this is just with more hard drive space, or whatever it is. It's all digital series X, is what they end up doing.

I could see a return to something like this where it's PlayStation 6 or the new Xbox or whatever, but it's just PlayStation, it's just Xbox, and then the individual inner components are proprietary and swappable where you could swap the graphics thing to make it more, instead of having to buy a complete new console for it. This is, I think, another case of Sega,

and I'm tapping my computer screen like it's doing something and it's not, I'm just pushing the screen further and further back You're tapping it like you're scolding it. I'm mad at it. I Don't want to break your thing But I think this is a case of Sega Once again being too early to the dance where they're sort of like where dreamcast was also to where they're sort of like, where Dreamcast was also too,

in some ways too late and too early. It was not the right thing for the moment. This is also incorrect, but they're on to, it's not a bad idea, but the execution is bad. Also think about this timeline, right? The Genesis comes out in 88. This thing comes out in 94. 95 is the Saturn, 99 is the Dreamcast. They had exhausted

their most loyal fans. Because if you're a Sega kid, you have purchased between 88 and 99, it's an 11 year cycle. You've purchased the Genesis, the Sega CD, the 32X, the Saturn, the Nomad, and then the Dreamcast. And like, none of them were supported the way that the Genesis was, and you just kept feeling more and more burned by the company that you love. Heather, did you have a Nomad? I did. It was like such a cool thing in theory. My, I've only messed around with it a few times,

but like, it doesn't, was that a battery life issue? Was that the whole thing, just doing those full color Genesis games in a handheld mode? It was a battery life issue, and it also was, it came out late. Too late, yeah. Like, by the time you could play,

the Nomad was a handheld Genesis, and it was like, wow, I can play full resolution Sonic the Hedgehog in a handheld device? One, the machine was so fucking big. Like it was like holding a loaf of bread. Yeah, it's pretty bulky. It sucked. Closer to a Steam Deck than a Game Boy.

Yeah, yeah. And then additionally, by the time it came out, you were already onto a much, it was a different generation. And it's not like, by the time it came out, you were already onto a much... It was a different generation. And it's not like when the Game Boy Advance came out, it was like, oh, there are games being made for the Game Boy Advance, and it's new stuff. This was, hey, do you want to play your old games? We're never going to release new games for the Nomad. It's only your old games, and we're gonna be making new games for other systems. It's another thing where it's also like,

Sega, I mean, I get how you landed on this. And I think part of this was because of the, I'm trying to remember that the portable TurboGrafx-16 slash PC Engine, was it the PC Engine Pocket, whatever it was, that was like the first thing, it was like a 16-bit console that was just miniaturized that had a full-color screen.

You could just play the same games. Like I understand how they got to it, but it's like the whole genius of the Game Boy is that they could sell a whole different library. Like that was a whole, it was in a situation where people would be willing to buy new games for a different piece of hardware. Should we talk about the games?

Let's talk about the 32X games. So I think we should kind of maybe go in reverse order, because the last thing we played before we started recording was Matt and I were given a hands-on demonstration of the difference between the regular Sega Genesis, the base model Sega Genesis port of Virtua Fighter, if you can even call it a port, and then the 32X version of Virtua Fighter, if you can even call it a port, and then the 32X version of Virtua Fighter, which is a much better representation of the arcade game. So the Sega Genesis Virtua Fighter, it's Virtua Fighter 2, correct? That's the version we played?

Yeah. So Virtua Fighter was effectively the first 3D fighter in the arcades, and it was a pretty influential game. I'm sure people who are in the fighting game community remember it fondly and have their favorite in the series. But it had these aggressively polygonal figures. You could basically just see all the polygons on there. They weren't trying to sand off any of the rough edges.

It was represented very clearly as like a pretty rudimentary 3D model. And they were fighting in a 3D space. The Genesis port was not able to do any of that 3D. So it's effectively, it's weird to even call it a port because it's just a 2D fighter that's called Virtua Fighter. Yeah, and this was at a time,

the game was monumental because it was at a time when all of the fighting games a 2D fighter that's called Virtua Fighter. Yeah, and this was at a time, the game was monumental because it was at a time when all of the fighting games were 2D. They were all 2D and they were all basically followed the Street Fighter II template. Or the Mortal Kombat template. And then post-Virtua Fighter, you get things like Tekken and Soul Calibur, like all of the 3D fighters

extend from the lineage of Virtual Fighter. So it was a remarkable game to see in the arcade. Yeah, it was, I mean, I remember it being very cool and just kind of feeling like, I don't know, that along with virtual racing, virtual racing or racer? Was it racing or? Racing. Virtual racing.

Virtual racing! Those two felt like the promise of gaming that you'd see in Tron, you know what I mean? It was almost like, this is what sci-fi says gaming of the future is going to be like. There were also games like Virtual Cop, Virtual Tennis. Oh yeah, Virtual Cop was cool. Yeah, Virtual Cop was like a-

Really cool. Yeah, that's what I think about what I like about games. That's a fucking video game. That's what I like about games. Yeah, virtual cop was really cool That's what I like about games if only I could be a Virtual cop every time I played that game in the arcade. I would immediately put the gun in my mouth Having not seen the the the Genesis Virtual fighter Seeing it for the first time I would I would not have thought any differently because I had not I didn't really have a frame Of reference for virtual fighter. I knew as it. I know it as a fighting game franchise, but I didn't I didn't know it's

You know most necessarily the original games. You've maybe seen like Virtua Fighter 3 and on you know the the dreamcast port the the the virtual Virtua Fighter on Genesis it's just it's just not even that it's not even Virtua Fighter. Yeah, it's just like a different It's just like it feels like a 2d fighting game the characters even downscaled to like kind of like not even be The the right size and I guess they're kind of vaguely Polygonal, but it's it's I don't know I mean they kind of look like 3d objects in a 2d space But it's just a 2d fighter so the original arcade version is fully 3d from the jump. There's never

Yes, that's very amazing and very cool because then like when we played the The 32x version it did sort of click in when I was like oh Yeah, this is like a million times better and somehow more fluid more fluid than I was expecting it for it We had a mission the animation is great. Yeah, I mean it's like It's a cool game. It's a cool time capsule It represents in the same way that like the you know the, the FX chip, you see a game like Star Fox, and it's like, oh, okay, this is a game that the base Super Nintendo can't execute.

This feels like something different. And it's hard to make these comparisons using modern metaphors because there isn't this like multi-stage stepladder that extends downward from an arcade. It wasn't like, now we don't have a game that's like, stage step ladder that extends downward from an arcade. Now we don't have a game that's like, okay, here's Virtual Fighter on the arcade machine

and there's Virtual Fighter 3DX, which is less, but still really good. And then there's Virtual Fighter on the Genesis, which is barely respectable and kind of only winks at the IP. And then there would be Virtual Fighter for the Game Gear, which is like not and kind of only winks at the IP and then there would be virtual fighter for the game gear which Is like not an existing game, but would yeah like essentially playing a game on your watch like really bad Yeah, it's it's it's they're completely different things is basically just kind of using the Title almost as IP and just making something that that kind of resembles it, but yeah, and it's also

almost as IP and just making something that kind of resembles it. But yeah, and it's also- Oh, you know, actually here's how you can think of it. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the arcade version of Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation 1 is your 32X version of Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII Mobile on your cell phone

is the Genesis version. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense to me. So the other thing that's happened with arcade games is like it's been 20 years now since arcade cabinets were like the state of the art in gaming. It's been so long since they were just surpassed by a PC and then console hardware.

I mean like the Naomi board that was functionally just a dreamcast inside of an arcade cabinet. There was a – Bally Midway was installing Voodoo graphics cards just off the shelf like graphics cards into cabinets in the early 2000s. So it's been a long time since there was that golf. But yeah, the 32X version of Virtua Fighter is, I thought it was a really impressive port. I thought this, I was like, okay, I get this. This is like kind of like the promise of the premise.

Yeah, if you were watching a commercial, if you play Virtua Fighter in the arcade or at the 7-Eleven near your house and somehow they have that gorgeous, that was also by the way, the Virtua Fighter machine that I played near your house and somehow they have that gorgeous, that was also by the way, the virtual fighter machine that I played was at a hero, like a Chicago beef restaurant. So it's like all of the sandwiches,

Car Me and the Gang are behind the counter and they have an incredibly gorgeous, bright white virtual fighter machine in the front. I'm like, why is this here? Like even young, I was like, this looks expensive. That is, you know what I mean? The whole plot of the pilot of the bear is a, there's an arcade cabinet in there

and that they have like a fighting game tournament there to try to get like drum up business. I wonder if that's at all, I mean, that would be crazy if that was like that's based on that Italian beef shop that had a Virtua Fighter cabinet. I feel like all the Italian beef shops in Chicago in the 90s had a video game console. Got it, yeah.

Or arcade machine. More restaurants should have video game contests. That's a good idea. It is a good idea. It's a great idea. But if you're playing that game in the arcade and then you see the commercial for the Genesis version, you're like, oh, I'm sad.

Yeah. But then you see the commercial for the 32X version and you're like, oh my God, they did it! They fucking did it! And the truth is, if I'm remembering correctly, there was an awful loading time on the Sega Saturn version of Virtua Fighter that isn't present in the 32X version.

And so if you compare the ports side by side, the 32X version might even be better than the Saturn version. Yeah, I can't remember. I think the... Do you remember what speed the Saturn CD-ROM drive was? Because I think on the PlayStation 1 it was just a 2X speed. It was like so slow. Yeah, I think it's the same. So slow. And I remember playing one of the Mortal Kombat games on my friend Saturn,

and yeah, the loading time between, like when a new character would come into a match, it was like crazy. Like there was like loading time between rounds. It was like interminable. On the Sega CD version of Mortal Kombat, there's loading time before for fatality. That's so funny.

So you enter it in, you'd hear, da da da, and then it would hear, zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz zzz z And that would have still been amazing to you at the time. If a game shipped like that now, you'd be like, this is broken, or my thing is broken. This is bad. But the fact that that was even possible is so novel to think about. You didn't even have a smartphone to check. No. You're just waiting.

You're sitting there. You're sitting there, your ass is getting numb. Okay, so we also should talk about Knuckles Chaotix. Wait, wait, no, we played virtual racing. Oh, that's right, virtual racing, yes. I gotta say, I loved virtual racing, and yes, I was bad at it, but I loved the presentation, I loved the way it looked,

I loved how fast I seen it was going. Good frame rate on that, some bits. Yeah, really nice. And again, it's just pretty rudimentary, and the tires are effectively hexagons, but you know, the way the car animates looks pretty good. Can I say what I said when we were playing? Yeah.

Can you imagine if the tires were shaped like that for real? Would not be very comfortable, would it? Drive down the road, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. That is what he said. Yeah. You didn't do the little act on. I acted it out. That was nice little act on. I acted it out. That was nice little add on.

I got a little confident afterward. But then we played, or you guys played, Knuckles Chaotix, which was a game I owned at the time of release, back when the 32X came out. And as a Sega kid, as a Sonic fan, I had now played Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic CD, and I was like, oh my god, if Virtua Fighter looks this good on the 32X, I can't wait to see what they do with Sonic. God damn it, that game fucking sucks. It's really bad.

It's, well, yeah, it's a little cumbersome to play. So there's a single player in a two-player mode it is a game where there are two player characters on screen and They synergize off of each other and Heather you maybe could describe the way it works a little bit better having spent more time with it, but it's it's like a Lot of it involves how your characters are tethered next to each other, and so to move to different spaces, you have to either pick up the other character, or you have to do some sort of thing

where you slingshot the other player up onto a ledge. I bet that the design document, or the pitch for this game, was somebody in the office took a rubber band and put it between, or wrapped it around their first fingers on each hand. And they were like, imagine a video game where if you wanna like go really fast and then they would extend their finger in a direction

and make the elastic band taut, maybe like you would create tension between this energized rubber band between your characters and then you would release and slingshot yourself forward. I think that that was probably the pitch and people were like, oh wow, there hasn't been a game like this. And then after Knuckles Chaotix, there never was again.

Yeah. Cause I mean, and this is not for me to fix, certainly, but if you're gonna do a Knuckles game, why isn't it just like a Sonic game but with Knuckles? Why isn't there a Shadow game where it's just Sonic but it's Shadow, or Tails even? Like they could have just done that, but I guess then the criticism would be,

this is just Sonic but with a different guy. It's just reskinned, it's just a palace opportunity. You know Knuckles has his own is own mechanics his own movement You know, he can scale and he can kind of hover the the thing I will say is I believe this game I believe Knuckles and Knuckles Chaotix is responsible for introducing a good number of Sonic shitty friends Mighty the armadillo, Espio the the chameleon Sonic shitty friends, Mighty the Armadillo, Espio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile and Charmy B. Charmy B. I think are all debut in Knuckles Chaotix and they all kind of play

a little bit differently. I think this game is a – I get what you're saying Heather and I would not be shocked if like that's the kind of way that they were able to like internally articulate what they were going for. I have this just the sense that they figured out about halfway through development, or where they were pot committed to this concept that it just wasn't working, but they just had to ship this game because it was going to be, you know, a big exclusive for the 32x. One thing I will say is this was another one where we played it, we messed around with Sonic 1 on the Genesis, the base model Genesis before and just to like refresh ourselves in terms of how it

actually played on original hardware. Gorgeous game. God what's wonderful art direction. Yeah Sonic 1. It looks so fucking good. You put on Knuckles Chaotix which is a 2D game and it has a more vibrant palette. It has more colors accessible to it I believe? Like there's 64 colors on the Genesis. This seems to have more, but it looks,

just because of the color ways of the characters and the environments, it actually looks a little dingy in comparison. It looks a little less vibrant. Yeah, it was like, wow, you know, we can't show this specific shade of purple on the Genesis, so let's make an entire level out of it in Knuckles' Chaotix.

Yeah, and also, let's make freaking Espio purple too. Well, Espio is like changing colors the entire time. Yeah, that's really cool. I mean, it's got some of the art is really awesome. They also have a power up that makes Knuckles really, really big on your screen, which is- That was my favorite part. I loved big Knuckles.

Yeah, I don't know if, I don't think that Genesis could do like that sort of sprite scaling and rotation. They do a lot of that with the 32X games. Yeah. So Knuckles' Chaotix as a kid, huge disappointment. Real bummer, bummed out, sad. Yeah, I mean, like here's the thing, I played through a lot of It Takes Two,

and like that game is a, it's a, you know, require and mandates two players, two like human players, and KnucklesK.O.X. is going for something similarly, obviously many, many years in the future, a completely different approach to design. But it's like, that game you at least feel like you have like a modicum of independence as like player one and player two.

Like you're working towards the same end, but you can kind of do your own thing. Here you are literally tethered together. So you're so limited in what you can do. And the other thing is like, because Sonic games are so, what's so fun about them when they work, and you know, most of them don't, but when they work is they have that sense of fluidity and that sense of continuous forward motion.

Whereas this game, you're constantly coming to a dead stop just trying to figure out, okay, how do I get up to this next thing? It would be one thing if you were tethered, but you still had sort of your own autonomy Yeah Sure right right or like because I'm thinking about even like the Mario games where like if you're playing couch co-op with somebody You can't go further than where the where the screen is right because they're just you're all kind of in one plane And that's kind of the fundamental flaw because you want to be able to just go and do whatever you want or whatever at your own Pace, but you're always gonna somebody's gonna always be lagging behind Fundamental flaw because you want to be able to just go and do whatever you want or whatever at your own pace

But you're always gonna somebody's gonna always be lagging behind to a certain degree the other thing is I Just speaking of Mario that the game that it did specifically remind me of is The I admit boy now. I can't remember the name of it, but it was the Wii U exclusive 2d Super Mario Brothers game is it paper Super Mario? No not paper Super Mario. No, no, it was the Wii U exclusive 2D Super Mario Brothers game. Was it Paper Super Mario? No, not Paper Super Mario. No, no, no, it was not Super Mario.

It was a... Super Mario's U, the Luigi one? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Luigi U? New Super Mario Brothers U, and then there was the Luigi one that came out later that was a little bit better, but it was just kind of like, yeah, this is a 2D Mario, but it's just kind of... There's nothing really distinct enough here

To make this feel like a system seller. Yeah. Yeah We also messed around with the the amazing spider-man well before that yes Is that that we should touch on that one last okay? Matt and you both played doom. Oh, that's right. We played a little bit of the doom port What's pretty good port and it was my first time touching Doom. Which is wild to me. I've never played Doom ever. And...

His first time was the 32X port. That's... That you might be one of the few people on planet Earth for whom that's true. I know that you can play it on basically anything that has a screen. You could play it on a microwave. You could play it on, you know,

you could play it on a PDF. In fact play it on, you know, you could play it on a PDF. In fact, in fact, I think I could probably say this with absolute certainty. In the year 2025, you are the only person for whom it is true in this year that their first time playing Doom will be on the 32X. I think that's enough for me to make that true. Yeah, I think so.

You know what? That is, that's, nobody else can even beat beat me on this and I'm the only person that could have done it It's a it's an odd. It is an odd game to play with a controller with a d-pad I mean I played played the shit out of doom as a kid on on PC You know you you're so to strafe which is a key thing obviously in a first-person shooter You have to hold a button and then move left or right, which is a little bit awkward. But I do think it's a decent port. The audio is decent with a Genesis chip.

I think I just came up with something for the show. What? You've heard of the phrase June gloom. We've heard of this, can we confirm? Oh no, oh no. Can we confirm that we've just heard, at least I've heard of it. Yeah, I've heard of. Yeah, I've heard of you. Yeah, but I know what you're gonna say next June doom we do doom June doom is pretty good So we do the base game doom we do the new one will I think have come out new one?

Well, and then I guess what you know what doom eternal what else you doom three? Maybe I'm trying to figure out what the we can sort it out later, but it's not a bad idea It's not a bad idea at all. It's pretty good. Yeah. And I think we'd all be excited to do it. I mean- I do like killing a lot. We haven't cut, we've kind of undercover the Dooms for a big franchise.

We did do the Doom the Rock movie on our old Patreon. We've talked more about Doom than we have Doom. We have talked a little bit more about Doom. The Shy-Blood, et cetera? Yeah, Doom's a little bit more, I think, in the zeitgeist in the standard year. I'm trying to see how many things I can say that makes Heather mad.

I'm more like I've just had a tablespoon of salt. It's not mad. I'm just waiting to be able to spit. You don't even dislike it that much. Salt's pretty good. I think you do Doom, and maybe within that discussion, we talk about Doom 64, which is an interesting port Doom 3 I think is is an or do and or doom the 2016 doom when they just rebooted it with the same name

Yeah Maybe doom doom eternal is in there doom the dark ages for sure. Okay, there's there's there's some dooms we could do for I'm Writing it down. I'll just write it. I'll write it down. All right And also to everyone listening we might not do it. We might not do it. Don't get your hopes up I'm writing it down. We might not do it. Yeah, how we end up doing June dune play all the dune games honestly pretty good, too. Oh Worse, there's some good dune games. Oh do you there's a new one coming out where Paula Trades? Does something else that he's not supposed to I don't know what he does

I was just thinking of how you'd make like an alternate future one coming I was trying to think about how you'd implement Sandwalking if it was like a you know like an Ubisoft style like kind of 3d open-world game where you're walking around Arrakis Oh, it's a for sure a quick time event right where you have a quick time of a rhythm quick time I think I think there's enough sand walking that I think it would maybe be like a, it'd almost be like a toggle or like a press and hold. You'd almost like automatically go into sand walking if you're like holding circle while you're walking over.

Or if you're just actually not, you're using the analog stick, you know, like just a small, like a slight press of the analog stick, just a little tilt, then you would automatically stand to walk as opposed to running. You know the PlayStation 3 controller had analog buttons. Oh yes, yeah. They weren't used for fucking anything. Yeah, they didn't really, well they didn't feel right.

Yeah. Because they felt like a binary on off. Right, so you could do it with an analog button press. Like you have to like gently tap each button to walk. It sucks. Anyway. So the, yeah, we messed around with Doom and we messed around with Amazing Spider-Man.

We didn't get a chance to play the game that I was really excited about, which was, what was it? Shut Up and Jam with Scottie Pippen, what the hell is it called? Yeah, so 32X CD games were enhanced versions of Sega CD games that just allowed for a little bit higher bit rate on the video, a little bit more colors, didn't seem as washed out, but Nick made such a stink

about not being able to play the 32X CD version of Shut Up and Jam with Scottie Pippen. It's called Slam City, by the way. I'm sorry, Slam City with Scottie Pippen, also very cool. Slam City with Scottie Pippen that I'm here to surprise him with the Sega CD version of the same game. Wow. I did group text Slam City with Scottie Pippen or we riot.

You did say that. Yeah. Okay, here we go. Heather is booting it up right now. It should be noted that we are using the TerraOnion MegaSD, which is a Sega CD emulator and also allows you to play your entire library off of a single cartridge.

You know, you can just fucking steal from them. I don't care. Not tear onions, steal the games from the defunct library from Sega. All right, here we go. FBI raids head gum. All right, so here is Slam City with Scottie Pippen for the Sega CD.

I'm gonna hand the controller off to Nick and he can launch with button A. Scottie Pippen's son, also named Scotty Pippen, is now in the NBA. No, go down to that bottom. There you go. Okay, this is the right ROM here. Heather, as a Chicagoan,

what was your awareness of Scotty Pippen? 100% awareness. I know, for some reason I'm very acutely familiar with who Scotty Pippen is too, and I've never really watched basketball. I mean, I think he was one of the more famous players of the 1990s. Was he in Space Jam? Was Scottie Pippen in Space Jam?

I don't think he was. He had an interesting relationship with Michael Jordan, the number two on that team, but Scottie Pippen would have been the number one on pretty much any other team. They just ended up with two of the you know top 10 players in the league on the same squad. So this game has, we're seeing full video here and we're hearing, I imagine the song is going to come on to it maybe in pieces, onto the podcast episode.

All right, so here we go. I have no idea what the gameplay is like. Oh, okay, so this is like kind of a video experience? You got it. Ugh! You have to move him back and forth to block shots. This is not the game. This is insane.

So what this is, is over the shoulder of the player as I'm playing against an FMV opponent, a full motion video. You gotta shoot. Basketball player, and I guess the shot clock ran out. Okay. That woman was really mean. I'm playing defense now.

So again, I'm... Oh wow, okay, so this guy just got what passed me for a dunk. I can't tell how to play this game. What is going on? There you go, oh. Nick just took a shot and he did not make the shot. It got blocked. I just stole it from that guy though.

Why didn't we do this game on our old format? This game is insanely bad. Shoot! Shoot! Oh, get the rebound! No way. I can't believe- so yeah, this is a- We're speechless because of what the game is. Hey, I just stole the ball again. Okay, here we go. There we go. I threw it down.

I've never seen a video game like this that was my life That was the least interactive feeling I could possibly have for stealing the ball and throwing down a slam dunk Ranch you should come out from behind the desk so you can see what we're looking at This is like a is like a one button quick time event. Yeah, I mean, so basically it is a it is full motion video That is largely window boxed Into like effectively like a third of the screen. Tick tock baby, the clock will be 10. Alright so now I'm being taunted for the shot clock expiring.

By the way a 10 second shot clock, something that does not exist in basketball. Okay my opponent just switched a jumper. It is a live edited full motion video sequence that you have very light control over. And there is a graphics overlay over the front of the full motion video that is your player character. And you are trying to play a video game on top of a movie. The other thing is on Sega CD, this is something that would have

a bunch of egregious loading times, right? No, the loading times are emulated in this. Oh, they are emulated? Yeah. Bricked. This sucks. There's a res... So there are babes who are watching.

I like this part. Yeah, and it sometimes cuts to them for reactions. They seem pretty disinterested Maybe they will do better as my respect meter goes up, which is another thing that is at the bottom of the screen Nick for all of us start being better at the game. Hey, I'm only behind by one basket. I guess you're right Damn it don't talk meunt me like that, fingers. Yeah, fingers really got your number right there. Show some respect to my guy, Ace. Yeah, you're losing respect.

I assume that the final stage of this is you going up against Scottie Pippen. I would have to think Scottie Pippen is involved. If they didn't capture any video of Scottie Pippen, what are we even doing? But it's the kind of thing of like, they don't understand what the fantasy of playing this kind of game is. You wanna be Scottie Pippen. Yes.

The fingers got you. This is one of the things that the Tony Hawk franchise really got right. Yeah, they nailed that immediately. Immediately. All right, well this sucks. It looks like shit and it's also stupid. But, but I'm glad I got to experience it.

I'm glad I got to watch you do that. That was insane. My favorite part about watching that is, here's what I think it showcases, is that games like this, these full motion games that came out for the Sega CD were totally different than what you could play otherwise. So when you saw a movie

that you could effectively interact with, it was like your mind was blown. Whereas with the 32X, if you're playing Amazing Spider-Man, you're like, this is essentially just a video game. Yeah, this is just a platformer. And that's what Amazing Spider-Man was, and that's what our experience with it was It's just a kind of a tedious

Kind of gummy to control not really responsive. No, it's a nice animation of spider-man And yeah, you have web slinging but because it's 2d and your web slinging just consists of you know Swinging from the top of the screen either to the left or to the right. And like, I don't know, I feel like the thing about early Spider-Man games is that you end up doing stuff that Spider-Man doesn't really do that much. I mean, he spends a lot of time on roofs, but he's going inside buildings too. He's like, what I saw so far is that

he's only punching creatures and robots. I was like, it's not kind of really his main thing. He like fights thugs a lot of the time too. Well, when I was watching Nick play, also Spider-Man committed suicide over and over again. I ran out of web. It was making me laugh so hard, the idea of watching Nick's version of Spider-Man.

It would be like, you see Spider-Man on a roof, he punches a guy, he effectively does that, then he sticks his foot into a fan, then he just falls off a building. Yeah, you know Spider-Man, if he stands on an air conditioner, he dies. That game has some good ideas in it, like I think the web swinging is pretty good That game has some good ideas in it.

Like I think the web swinging is like pretty good for what it is and like having the web meter even is a good idea. Like it's an interesting tension builder there, but it is bad. That was really bad. I like the, you know, hey, you could give a, you have the three Genesis buttons, you can shoot a web, you can, you can, wait, shoot a web, what's the other one?

Punch. Yeah, you can shoot a web, you can punch, and then you can jump, and then if you hit the jump button in the air, again, like a double jump, you swing a web, so you can like swing from the top of the screen like that like those three things work well together it's just I think the actual responsiveness is not particularly good and the enemy design isn't it really interesting it's a pretty inert platformer and it also doesn't look that much better than a base Genesis game no the game that I was really into of the games that we played was the Star Wars arcade version for the 32x

Yeah, that was awesome. That was really cool. You're flying around as an x-wing pilot and you're You're shooting the Empire out of the fuck out of outer space and it rules It's good, but that type of game is always gonna be good. That's like a home run. It's a fancier version of Star Fox in terms of like at the time other games similar to it. Or a really, really shitty version of Squadrons from today. Or like a cruder crude or more arcade version of

Contemporary games like you know x-wing or tie fighter for for the PC. Yeah, I mean like it's a No, like that looked I didn't actually get my hands on that one, but that looked fun I do remember Star Wars there was Star Wars trilogy arcade was the one the Sega one that came after that later, right? That's right. Yeah, I do remember that game. I don't know, this was fun, Heather. I appreciate you. So in terms of how we actually did this episode, Heather brought some hardware over to the studio

and we set it up and we messed around for a while before we actually recorded and messed around for a little bit while we were recording. And yeah, I appreciate you doing this, Heather. I like it. Yeah, me too. This is a lot of fun. Also before Matt got here, Nick played after Burner Complete on the 32X

and I watched him kill Maverick over and over again. But I want to express, all these games are kind of highlight games. That After Burner looked good by the way. Yeah, these are all sort of highlight experiences of the 32X. We sort of singled out like the cream of a very small crop. And how small that crop is,

is I'm going to list all of the 32X games right here. Afterburner, Spider-Man, BC Racers, Blackthorn, Brutal, Corpse Killer, which was a Sega CD game, Cosmic Carnage, Dark Side with an X. Doom Fahrenheit, FIFA. Golf Magazine, 36 Great Holes, starring Fred Couples. Which sounds like a Happy Gilmore sketch.

Knuckles Chaotix, Colibri, Metalhead, Mortal Kombat 2, Motocross Championship, NBA Jam, NFL quarterback, Night Trap, another Sega CD game. Oh yeah, I didn't know it was a 32X Night Trap. Wait, was that a 32X Night Trap that required a Sega CD? Sega CD, yeah, yeah. Okay, got it.

Pitfall, Primal Rage, RBI Baseball, Shadow Squadron, Slam City with Scottie Pippen, Space Harrier, Star Trek's Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator. I think we're gonna see any of the list. Star Wars Arcade, Supreme Warrior, Surgical Strike, Team Mech Tempo, Tough Man Contest, Virtual Fighter, Virtual Racing, World Series Baseball, WWF Raw, WWF WrestleMania, The Arcade Game,

and Zaxxon's Mother Base 2000. Imagine a game system where you could list All of the games in I bet that was under a minute and 30 seconds There's a video game called tough man contest. I guess so I Didn't play it. I wonder what the smallest boxing game. It looks like I wonder what the smallest library is for a proper Console virtual virtual boy has to be virtual boy. Oh, yeah, I guess it's virtual boy Virtual boy. Oh my god, tough man contest looks like an amazing game. Did you see the packaging? No, here's the packaging Matt

Yeah, no, I'm in on tough man contest So it's a it's a it's a barrel-chested guy, bald guy it looks like, with his boxing gloves outstretched, and he's stepping on the neck of another man. Very violent. Sega 32X, its code name was Project Mars, and hey, you know what, it didn't quite reach the stars, but certainly had its expectations and a lasting legacy.

Are you okay? We'll be right back. Nick's crying, I see. Nick said it's sweating or something. I don't know what's going on. Any other thoughts on this? Thank you, Heather, for bringing it and for bringing a CRT TV for us to play it on. I'm not. Any other thoughts on this? Thank you, Heather, for bringing it and for bringing a CRT TV for us to play it on

and a miscellaneous box of cables. Really nice looking Sony Trinitron, you know, a nine incher but a nice screen. This was a gift from a listener. That's right. It's a lovely little nine inch Trinitron, one that I coveted for a long time and was presented to me

By a listener who asked not to be named Wow Wow Thanks, Craig Isn't it weird that like you got like a nine inch TV is like man that thing is small But yeah, nine inch hog you got a fucking piece Nick I was trying to figure out how to say something similar Guy was ever like hey come back to my apartment. I'll show you my nine-inch Thing fucking suck come back watching the matrix My angle is gonna be like it's so crazy that like a small TV

It's like I was going the small way. Like small just means different things when you're talking about different things. That's a small TV, yeah, nine inches, but nine inches something else, that's not small. I'm doing all right. I don't think that's nine inches. Do we think that's nine inches? I think that's smaller than nine inches.

Yeah, it's like really, but it's like big still, right? But on the other hand, if somebody said, hey, come back to my place, I've got an 85-incher, and you went home and it wasn't to television, you'd be upset enough to vomit. Yeah. I walked to the matrices and I thought, I'm this guy's hog?

Look, I asked a genie for a bigger hog, he ironically gave me, fulfilled my wish. He was a mean genie. What? What? What? I said I wanted the biggest dick in the world. He was like, oh, you'll have it.

Here we are. First he gave me a giant robotic Richard Nixon. Like, that's not what I asked for. Apparently there is a kind of duck that has a very long penis. So he was like, if it's gotta be the longest on earth, buddy. And yeah, I quack now. Meanwhile, the partner is just vomiting.

Hey, that was our Game and Tell of the Sega 32X. It's time for the question block. All right, these are all from our Discord, discord.gg slash get played. Get in there if you're not in there. It's a lot of fun. People are having a nice time in there. This first one is from Imaginary Colors.

Hi Imaginary. And they write, I know this is a video game podcast, but what were your favorite movies of 2024? And why was Nick's Megalopolis? You know what? I will say that Megalopolis is both, it's like, I kind of want to give it like a special

jury prize for being like so insane and not working, but also being such a huge swing that is kind of glorious, you know? Like certainly like there are movies I saw in 2024 that were absolute dog shit and they never wanna watch again and I would not count Megalopolis among those. Megalopolis is interesting. Like it has something it's trying to say. It's the DeLorean of cars of movies.

So like, yeah, a DeLorean's not very pleasurable to drive but boy oh boy is it interesting. Yeah, 100%. Andorean's not very pleasurable to drive, but boy oh boy is it interesting. Yeah, 100%. And it's the singular vision and I'm really glad that Coppola made it. Let's see, favorite movies of the year. Boy, it's tough. I mean, I don't think it was necessarily a great movie year,

but there were some movies I really, really liked. Lookback, anime, definitely probably still my number one. A Different Man we're actually talking about a little bit earlier. Off Pod, a different man's awesome movie. I really enjoyed that. Challengers I really liked and Luca Guadagnino's other movie Queer. He came out with two bangers this year. I like both of those quite a lot. We're talking Dune. Dune part two would probably be on my list. The substance of course, a couple more animated movies, Mars Express, awesome and you know it's streaming now, definitely check that out. And then also one that will probably get, Mars Express I feel like was under the radar

a little bit, it's like this French sci-fi movie that owes a lot to, you know, why can't I think of the movie right now? It was a lot to Blade Runner. It's like a detective, you know, a detective noir future movie. And it's really well executed and ends in a really unexpected place. That and then Flow, great cat movie, and I think – which I think was Latvian made. That was really awesome. And then a smaller movie I really liked is called Good One. And it's just basically about

a woman, her father, and her friend, a young woman, her father, and her friend just taking a hike through the woods, and it's really human, and it's really cool filmmaking. I really liked Wicked. I'm gonna pitch it to you as an anime that happens to be in live action and a musical. And if you watch it that way,

there's literally an anime opening sequence in the first quarter of the film. Like, the girl is running through a field and jumping, and the sky is blue, and she's singing about her dreams. If you cut that sequence out and put it at the beginning of the movie, it's a fucking anime. I also really liked Anora. I really liked Conclave.

And beyond that, I guess Dune, part two of the films that were actually released in 2024. So I made a list of movies, maybe prematurely, because I've seen some 2024 releases this month that I would probably add to this list. Dune, part two, number one with a bullet for me early on, saw it twice in theaters, loved it. I loved Long Legs.

I know that not everybody liked Long Legs. I loved it, I thought this movie was like, I just loved how it looked. I like Nicolas Cage in that movie. He's great, he's so, he's so, so great. And I won't tolerate any slander. I love him in movies. You either loved this movie or you either loved this movie

or you hated it, I feel like. I loved Nosferatu, I loved it. I have to see it. I'm an egg hag, I love all of Robert Eggers's movies You love Nosferatu Not like that though Cuz that's I saw what happened It got that girl a bit of trouble didn't it?

I loved the substance. I loved Abigail. Did anybody see Abigail? I didn't see Abigail. No, Abigail is a I loved Abigail did anybody see Abigail. I didn't see Abigail. No Abigail is a Action horror comedy. Oh, yeah little girl vampire. I gotta watch it. I hear it was good rules. It's so good Obviously I have to shout it out Sonic 3. I loved Sonic 3 We all like Sonic Sonic 3 rules. Did you see Sonic 3 you gotta see Sonic 3 it? That movie fucking rocks. It is really good. It's much better than Knuckles Chaotix. Way better by a million degrees. Speak No Evil, Anora, The Brutalists, and My Old Ass. Speak No Evil was a 2024.

That was cool. Speak No Evil was really, really great. Wait, I'm sorry, I cut you off a little bit. What were the other ones? Anora, The Brutalists, and My Old Ass. I really, really enjoyed it. The Brutalists and Nickel Boys, I'd put in the same category of maybe not on my top 10 list

because they're both pretty, pretty, I'd say unpleasant watches at times. Like they're endurance tests, but they are both like incredibly made films and seem like very personal vision. So I'm really glad they exist. Movies that came out in 2024 that I wish I had seen are All We Imagine as Light, which I've heard great

things about. I still haven't seen The Brutalist. I haven't seen Nickel Boys. I haven't seen Ryuichi Sakamoto's Opus, which I did want to see. And there was one other. Oh, I saw the TV Glow. Oh yeah, that was cool. Were all movies that I haven't seen yet from 2024, so if they aren't on my list, it's not because I didn't like them, it's because I haven't seen them yet. There's a lot of movies, movies are back in some ways. This next one's from SocalledButton.

Hi Socalled. What's up, Button? Button writes, "'Why will you all not play Bloodborne "'from FromSoft's Magnum Opus "'and likely the greatest ps4 game of all? So here's the thing as I've gotten more into from soft games I'd love the shit out. I love sec or oh so much

My my replay of Elden Ring and then playing all the way through that the shadow of the earth tree DLC I was like I I fucking love that game that game is an absolute staggering masterpiece It is one of the greatest games ever made and it's one of my favorite games of all time. I want to play Bloodborne. I'm sure I will love Bloodborne. The key thing there, and you just cited in your question, Button, is PS4 because it's like not on PC. And not that I don't game on PlayStation, but you know, I primarily game on PC.

I'm like, man, can we get a PC port of this some bitch? Is this really gonna be PlayStation exclusive and indefinitely or are we not gonna get like a proper PS5 rebaster? I probably am just gonna buckle down and play it at some point But part of me is holding out for kind of like the Demon's Souls kind of remake where they're going to you know Really kind of bring it up to the to, you know, really kind of bring it up to the modern day. But I don't know. Maybe I'll just buckle down and play it this year. I own Bloodborne on disc and played through,

I don't know, the first hour of it before I had to stop playing for work or something. Like it's not because I didn't like Bloodborne. It's because it just, I literally have a list of my favorite games of all time that I haven't yet played. Like games that I know I'm going to love and Bloodborne is one of those games.

I haven't played Rebirth and I have Cloud's wig on my table. Like I have to make it happen. You know what, Button? Challenge accepted. Yeah. I will play Bloodborne this year. Shit. have to make it happen. You know what, Button? Challenge accepted. Yeah. I will play Bloodborne this year. Shit! I'll do it too.

Yeah. But my answer for why I haven't yet is because I'm scared. Um. Zach writes, if you could only have one console for the next five years, be it PS5, Xbox, Steam Deck, Switch, Playdate, or other? No one's picking Playdate? Which would you pick?

I think I have my answer, and it might surprise you. I guess I'll go first, and I'm assuming PC's off the table because it was not mentioned. You could do PC, it could be anything. Well then it would be PC, but that also feels like a bit of a cop out. So I would say, I'm putting PC aside, I have to pick something. I think I might put my money on the switch, too

Whoa, it's gonna be just powerful enough where I'll be able to play everything that I want to play I think it'll get all the ports of all the indie games. It'll have Nintendo first-party exclusives I I think it's kind of like getting getting a switch in 2017 It's like you'd be in pretty good shape for most of the next five years that will be a point where the library kind of thins out a little bit and where the you know the The set-top box hardware console hardware starts to outpace it a little bit where some of those games aren't coming over But I think for the most part for the front end of it. You'll be in pretty good shape. That's pretty good Yeah, I didn't really I didn't think about switch to being on the table if

Switch to is on the table my answer is switch to if it's not I Think my answer is Steam Deck because sure You get the PC library. You got that going for you. It's portable. You could take it places You also get PS5 you get PlayStation exclusives on Steam now, don't we so I could I could still play God of War Ragnarok. I could still play Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2 on a Steam Deck on a portable piece of hardware, not be tied down to a console or TV. I can play those games anywhere I want.

Yeah, and you still have access to your vast library of hentai games. Yeah, that's right. Hunie Pop, Hunie Pop 2. I'm going with PlayStation. The rest. I'm going with PlayStation 5, in part because there are plenty of games that I still need to play that are on the PlayStation 5 through PlayStation 4 backwards compatibility

and the ability to stream larger libraries of PlayStation games. I also think that as an accessory, because it is not a playable console on its own, the portal counts as a PlayStation 5 controller. Okay, sure. Which also allows you to play the PlayStation 5, like, if your wife is watching TV or if you're on an airplane, maybe, and it happens to have like fast internet.

Yeah, on this magic plane. It's five years from now, five years from now. Man, wives sure do love watching TV, don't they? They love watching TV and giving me a hard time. Like I'm trying to play a game here. Yeah, get me the TV. And a nice cold beer while we're at it. I also have never played a video game

while sitting next to my wife who's watching TV because I'm always watching when she's watching. Yeah, we're always like spending time together. Yeah, and I actually love my wife. Yeah here's the thing, I love my wife. That was like a joke we were doing there. We love our wives. The way in which I would push any of you listening in front of a moving train to hear anything my wife had to say. It would be an instant, I wouldn't even think about it. Do we have any more questions or is it just three?

This last one's from Polybius, and Polybius writes. Polybius? Polybius. Polybius? Polybius right Polybius Polybius Polybius Polybius sounds more correct Nintendo switch game carts snack or whack also do you think switch two carts will taste the same? I'm gonna say whack to the carts because I do think they are designed on purpose to taste bad So like little kids don't joke on them, but I think that the switch two carts are gonna taste good I don't think the carts taste good.

And I don't think Switch 2 carts are going to taste good. I think they might taste good. I think that's gonna be one of the new features we're gonna learn about in the next Nintendo Switch 2 Direct. That the cartridges taste good now. Do you think that Switch 2 is gonna abandon the amiibos? No, I don't think so. They're so far, well, you can't even really see the sensor for it, but people are claiming there's not a sensor for it in the native hardware.

Wow. Wow! But who knows, it's all rumors and speculation. Just throw me down a flight of stairs. I don't mean my 12 amiibos. I've got so many amiibos. I looked this up because, I think they're gonna taste great. I look this up because I think they're going to taste great.

I look this up because... So, snack. I look this up because the names sounded familiar. Polybius, or Polybius, P-O-L-Y-B-I-U-S, which I believe is the username there. I'll just read this off of Wikipedia. Polybius is a purported 1981 arcade game that features an urban legend. The legend describes the game as part of a government-run psychology experiment based in Portland. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player.

The few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Supposedly all of these Polybius arcade machines then just disappeared from the arcade market. Isn't that wild? And also, it's kind of like a little bit prescient about what games would ultimately become, like just things that were data mining its user base and monetizing that. Wow. That really scared me.

I love the CIA any sort of Government agency I'm down. That's cool. Actually. I like that. You got like three letters in your name. You're pretty cool Yeah, FBI CIA NSA NSA the rest if there are four letters in your name you suck NASA sorry That's it for the question block guys, thank you so much for writing in and remember I said that the discord is discord dot GG slash get played get on in there Hey, that's this week's get played our producer is Rachelle Chen ranch yard underscore underscore sword Our music is by Ben Prunty Ben Prunty music calm our art is by duck brigade design duck brigade comm and a check out our patreon patreon

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I'm Ago Wodim. Check out my new show, Thanks Dad, now on HeadGum. I was raised by a single mom and I don't have a relationship with my dad and, spoiler, I don't think I'm ever going to have one with him because he's dead. But I promise you that's okay because on my new podcast I sit down with father figures like Bill Burr, Kenan Thompson, Adam Pally, Hassan Minaj, Tim Meadows, Andy Cohen, and many, many more. I get to ask them the questions I've always wanted to ask a dad like, how do I know if the guy I'm dating is the one?

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