Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 201: First Encounters

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Nadia Oxford, and Kallie Plagge look back at some the greatest publishers of all time and the games that helped define them in our eyes. From Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. to The Sims and Halo, it's an episode chock-full of meet-cutes!

This weekend Retronauts, you always remember your first time. Hi, everyone. Welcome to another Retronauts. It's me, Jeremy Parrish, you probably recognize my voice. But do you recognize this voice? Hello, I'm Callie. Callie. Do you have a full name? Callie, I work at GameSpot.com.

I am back. Thank you for having me back. Welcome back. Although her episode has not gone live as of this recording. I've been holding on to it for months. Oh, well. Months and months. This episode's a few months away too.

Oh, okay, sure. Wait, whose voice was that? Hey, it's Bob Mackey. And welcome back, Kelly. You've heard her episode already. What do you think? I hope you thought it was good. And then finally, do you recognize the last voice, the mystery voice?

Who is that on the line? I am the mystery voice. I am Nadia Oxford, and I am glad to be back. Yes, welcome back. So, without further ado, we'll jump into this episode because actually I don't really know what to say about this episode. I guess I'll be honest. This round of podcasts was very research intensive. and I needed a topic that would not be.

There's a shame in that. And so this is a light, fluffy, happy episode of Retronauts, probably. It's one that required zero research from any of us because it's all anecdotal. And this is First Encounters. So for this free-form topic, rather than being, like, super in-depth with the history of video games and sticking to, you know, one specific topic, we're going to take a lusoproast, approach, like I said, that's very anecdotal. I've asked everyone to think of their

five favorite game developers. From any platform, any era, it's okay if that company is no longer around, or if that company is still around and everything they make now is terrible. The fact is that at some point in their life, you said

I love the games this company makes and you still hold on to that. So think of those five developers and now think, what was it the first game I played by that company? And what was the game that made me fall in love with that company if those two things are not one and the same?

And that is the premise of this episode. And I'm regretting now that I did not open up a mail bag for this episode because I feel like listener mail would be great. But maybe that's one for the future because I feel like this is a very portable topic that we can bring lots of different guests into. And, you know, I specifically wanted Callie and Nadia both on here. because I think Bob and I have a lot of the same taste. Okay, actually, Nadia and I have a lot of the same taste.

Nadia, I've said this before, maybe not in the podcast. But if I were a small Jewish woman from Canada, I would be Nadia. So maybe our opinions are going to be very similar to one another. But I feel like, you know, Callie being younger than the rest of us, we'll definitely have different perspectives. And, yeah, I feel like, you know, we can bring lots of people on to the show and revisit this stuff. topic if it goes over well. So hopefully it goes well and people like it. I guess we'll hear about it in the comments if you don't. All right. So for, I'm actually sorry, Nadia, you said something after I said how similar we are. I think I talked over you. Oh, that's okay. I just

said I'm your alter ego. I'm proud of it too. Right. You're my shadow. I am your shadow. I am thou, that our guy. Yeah. All right. So for this topic, what I'd like to do is do it round Robin style. Each of us have made a list of our five favorite developers and the games in question. So rather than each of us go like one, two, three, four, five, I'd like for each each to go, like, we'll each talk about one, then we'll each talk about two, then we'll each talk about three, et cetera. And someone was kind enough to go in here on this list and organize it so that everyone's number one pick, their first choice, is all the same. I don't know That's a coincidence or if someone actually stepped into the...

I went back and fixed mine. Okay. That was awesome. Thank you. We're all very biased on this podcast. Yes. Unfortunately, people have preferences? You can guess what everyone put on their list and we're running through this one first.

L.J.N. Yes, I love LJN. I love Gatcha. Jaws. Oh, man. Those bad wrestling games. Oh, that X-Men game. That was incredible.

No, it's a Nintendo. So I guess, and also a video game developer. So I guess I will go ahead and just start on this. We'll just go in order since this was my idea and I have to, I have to stand in front of the classroom first. So, yeah, the first game, or the first developer I put on my list, it's not necessarily my favorite developer ever, but it is the first one that's on this list.

There's no particular ranking is Nintendo. And I think we all know who Nintendo is. Should we give a rundown just in case someone is coming to the retronauts for the first time and they've never heard of Nintendo. They're like, what is a strange Nintendo? What? Boy, is there a person like this? I don't know.

It occurs to me for the first time that what if we just talk about Nintendo and there's someone listening who's like, huh? Well, there are a playing card company that eventually made video games, but really... And also love hotels. And love hotels. Yes. All right. And a lot of mob involvement from what I've heard. But mainly known for the playing cards, occasionally they make a video game now and then, and they're pretty fun.

You know Mario, Zelda. Somari. Actually, Somari should have been in our piracy episode. That's true. Oh, well. Okay, so, yeah, Nintendo needs no introduction, but we introduced them anyway. And the first game I ever played by Nintendo, maybe not surprisingly, because I'm old, and because it was the first game of theirs that had – it was the first game of theirs that had any visibility in the U.S. was Donkey Kong, which I played in the arcade.

And I'm assuming that everyone has played the arcade version of Donkey Kong at some point. It's one of those arcade machines. I mean, tens of thousands were made. manufactured and distributed in the U.S. alone, and they are still around to this day. I also feel like Donkey Kong maybe needs no introduction, but maybe someone could introduce it. Actually, Nadia, this was on your list also Donkey Kong for Kalikovision. So maybe you could be someone talking besides me and talk a little bit about what Donkey Kong is. Donkey Kong is a big-ass ape, a very angry ape who kidnapped Pauline, who was Mario's girlfriend at the time.

I think she was just lady. Is Pauline the same as lady? Have they made that canon yet? Oh, that is a good question. I always thought, Pauline, okay, here's the thing. I grew up with the cartoon, and wasn't Pauline in the cartoon as well? Like, she was Mario's niece, quote unquote, but she was still Pauline, wasn't she? I always called for that.

That's quite the retcon. Yeah. Okay, the Cartagetian canon. Where does Super Mario Odyssey come in on this? That's the question, isn't it? What is the deal with New Donkey City in the first place? If I think too hard about it, my mind turns to liquid. Pauline's hair color is different too, right?

And Mario Odyssey? Yeah, she's brunette now. Yeah, yeah. That's supposed to like Sandy blonde. Yeah, but the point is that Donkey Kong was the game that made Nintendo kind of a household name in the U.S. and Donkey Kong was actually a follow-up to the failed radar scope, also from Nintendo, and the president of Nintendo at the time, blanking on his name for some reason, because it's Sunday. Yamoichi, or are you talking about it in the U.S.?

No, Yamuchi, that's it. He approached a young Shigura Miyamoto and said, hey, do you have an idea for a game? And Miyamoto said, I sure do, and he made Donkey Kong. And everyone thought I was going to flop like hell, but it became quite the phenomenon. and so did Miyamoto. Yeah, Donkey Kong was the first big video game hit to show up after Pac-Man. And Pac-Man kind of, I think, opened the market to the mainstream and made people say, wow, video games are cool.

I like this. I like this ghost guy, the guy who eats ghosts. He's neat. So then, you know, Mario came along, and it was a game packed with personality like Pac-Man, and I think people connected with it in a very direct way. And also it had a lot of variety in the stages. And certainly for me, like the... the presentation of Donkey Kong really made an impression on me.

I remember, you know, I was barely old enough to see over the console and didn't have any money to play video games with, but I would watch other people play. And it just was a very vivid and memorable game. You know, you've got the very first stage, you've got the bright pink girders on black. And, you know, Donkey Kong is at the top throwing barrels. So it's a very, like, lively dynamic game. The barrels are falling in lots of directions and rolling and they're dropping and they come down ladders and you never know where they're going to come down and when.

So you're climbing up to the top of the screen to reach Pauline and Donkey Kong while he's throwing barrels at you to keep you from making up to the top. And that's kind of the basic premise of every stage, more or less. But, you know, the game begins actually with a little bit of a very, very tiny hint of a story where Donkey Kong takes the girl and climbs up the ladders. and the girders initially are very, very orderly and neat, but then in his ape rage, he leaps with it bearing his teeth, and he's so heavy that he causes the girders to fall out of alignment with each other. So that creates, you know, the sort of ramps that the barrels roll along. So it creates this kind of dynamic, lively play style.

And, you know, at the time, it really stood out because it was just so colorful and detailed. and the gameplay was very involving even though it was pretty much just like run and jump. Yeah, it had some complexity to it. It had some unpredictability. There was some platforming. There were moving elevators. There were pies, apparently.

There's cement. But we thought they were pies at the time and fireballs and there were bonus objects to collect. So there was a lot going on within the context of this. And at the time, most video games were basically just like one screen that would repeat over and over again. But this sort of had four different scenarios. So it was a really impressive-looking game,

and it really was very vivid and caught my attention. It had great sound effects. Like when Donkey Kong jumps up and down on the girders, I think it's like sampled sounds. It's like derd-d-dun-d-dun. Mario's feet are musical. They're not musical, like, dig-dun. But, you know, he has that dook-to-to-to-to-to-t.

And so, yeah, there's just a lot of nice little neat touches. And for a six-year-old, it was like, wow, this is super cool, neato. So, yeah, it made a great impression. And it didn't hurt that Nintendo immediately seized on the popularity of Donkey Kong and had a Saturday morning cartoon. They released lots of merchandise lunch boxes and sticker books and plush toys that are very, like, absolutely terrible plush toys.

But they were out there and my brother had a Donkey Kong Jr. your plush. Are those the plush toys that have just a hard plastic face on them? Yeah, my aunt has one of Donkey Kong.

It's really cute. You could hit someone with that and break a bone. Those things are not child safe. That's how they did it in the 80s. Yeah, I mean, the 80s were, that's why we're also tough. Nothing phases us

because we survived 80s toys. I was not blinded by a Donkey Kong doll. You survived the gauntlet. So that was my first experience with Donkey Kong. And eventually I did own the game you know, a few years later on KalikoVision. But it sounds like Nadia, that's where you got your start. So why don't you tell us about what enchanted you when it comes to Donkey Kong?

It's funny because I wouldn't even say enchanted. My parents brought home Donkey Kong and KleegoVision from a hockey game. I still don't know how they did that, but they did it, a Canadian magic, I guess. That's the most Canadian story you ever heard. Did they win it or something? A fight broke out in the chaos, a loose Kaliko Vision flew into the stands. And they got it. It was a prize given out by Tim Hortons.

But basically, I played Donkey Kong from Cleovision, and it's funny that, Jeremy, you mentioned all those cute little touches that made Donkey Kong such a personable character when he appeared in the arcades because most of those were gone for Clecovision. Donkey Kong just stood there for pretty much all of the game. He never climbed ladders. He never broke the girders. He never really made those.

silly facial expressions and even though Donkey Kong for Kaliko Vision is honestly one of the best home console ports of the time, he actually scared the crap out of him because he was just as really angry looking white-faced ape and if you touched him

like he would inexplicably kill you and he just scared me. I mean and that was my first impression with Nintendo. There you go. So Nintendo terrified you and you said I need to do some more of this. I need this in my life.

I was going to say it's the only option for video games I had at the time. I knew I love video games, but I was only able to consume what was directly given to me. And that is probably why our Atari 2,600 version of Pac-Man. I stabbed it with a pen. Oh, wow. That's the only proper answer. The proper course of action. I had the 2,600 version of Donkey Kong.

He looked like an enchanted Hanewa statue, just this crude shape with its arms in the air. and just like a like a death rectus flailing. All right. You said Donkey Kong was your first encounter

with the Nintendo but the corollary to this question is what was the game that made you fall in love with Nintendo? For me it was Donkey Kong like it was a love it first site kind of thing. Like, I love that game and was always on the lookout for the Nintendo name on things after that because I was, even at that young age, I was like, names are good

and they mean something. But your love affair actually being in a few years later? Yes, I started with Super Mario Brothers for the NES. I was at a friend's birthday party and her mom was playing Super Mario Brothers for the Nintendo and it just blew me away because you mentioned talking about Donkey Kong how it was such a revolution to have different screens in a video game. To me that was Super Mario Brothers to the extreme. Plus it had like

even as silly as a story was, it had a story about saving the princess and the Mario world itself told its own story like going from above ground to underground to going to like this really threatening looking castle and fighting this big dragon monster. It just really, really spoke to me. And killing all

the civilians who had been turned into bricks and horse hair plants. Pounding them with your It was a dark story. They are gone, they are lost, they may as well be put to peace. But, yeah, that's what really captured me. Mario Brothers really, Super Mario Brothers, really captured my imagination. And that's when I started to really look for the Nintendo logo on stuff. And Bob, I think this would be a great launching point for you to talk about your first encounter.

Oh, with Nintendo? Yeah. Well, I think my first NES experience was very, very foggy memories of someone who I feel was vaguely my cousin. And just this, like, very 80s living room and playing kung fu for the NES and just lots of sound effects. It was actually kind of kind of frightening because I'd never seen anything like that. That had sampled voices and stuff. So there was like Mr. X going, whoa, woo, whoa, whoa, and stuff like that. When you were kids, stuff like Nadia said, it is scary.

So I was just sort of enchanted but also terrified of it. I think my first real love for a video game, I remember I did play Miss Pac-Man standing on a milk crate in the Hills department store. in the Rust Belt, the doomed Rust Belt. So I did play that probably first. But it wasn't until I went to, I did a lot of shopping with my mom, my grandma, and in the lobby of the store Big Lots, which I think still exists. It's even more depressing than a dollar store, everybody. But there was a stand-up arcade unit for Kangaroo, and next to it was Mario Brothers.

And I knew what a kangaroo was, and I thought those were pretty cool. So I would try that. But if you play kangaroo, it's kind of bad, and it's not really apparent what you should be doing. So I just would move the kangaroo around the screen. But Mario Brothers, the characters were way more attractive. There were more enemies. The art was better. The cartooniness was really cool.

The game tells you what to do when you put a quarter in. Before you start a stage, it's like, here's how you play. Like, here's how you do the mechanic in this level. Oh, there's crabs. You have to hit the crabs twice. Oh, the flies jump. You have to hit them when they land. So it was good in that respect for a little kid.

But just the sheer cartooniness of it was what really drew it to me. Like, also, kangaro is an ugly game. So those next to each other really made Mario Brothers the first game I really fell in love with and wanted to play all the time and would draw turtles on everything, would draw Mario Brothers on everything. But then Super Mario Brothers, I think another vaguely someone who was just vaguely a cousin, they had, they were gone. And, like, somebody was watching me. I don't remember. And I had access to all of their Nintendo games because they were just away.

So I played Super Mario Brothers. and I think I talked about this on that Super Mario Brothers episode where that's when my life changed. It's when I was like, okay, this is what my life is now. I only care about video games. Like from that time on, I have forsook, forsake. What's the past 10th? I had forsaken all regular toys. All regular toys were trash.

I was like, no, I only want video games. I don't care about action figures. I don't care about puzzles. I don't care about board games. My life is now video games. And it's been like that for the past 30 years. 30 years? Yeah, maybe 32 or 33 years. So, yeah, yeah. That is really what, I mean, it's for all the reasons that Nadia said, for all the reason that Jeremy has written about and made videos about. It really was a game changer. It really was a, like, a paradigm shifting experience. And that is when I devoted my life to my life to video games. And I've walked this Doom Path ever since. And now we have Bousette. So we've really come a long way.

Thank God, honestly. Now I know what I'm into also. I mean, it's been like a week, and there's already been amazing Bousat cosplay at New York Comic-Con. It's crazy. Video game fans, you're awesome in a weird way. And you work fast, for sure. Yeah. So finally, the final Nintendo entry here. Callie, you have a different entry vector for Nintendo for the rest of us. Yeah, mine's very different.

I'm admittedly pretty young. My first console was actually the Sega Genesis. My parents both play video games, and I grew up with video. games. And so it wasn't, I didn't, I can't pinpoint a moment where I fell in love with them just because I never really lived without them. And I kind of fell in love with the ones that my parents fell in love with. So I got an N64 for Christmas when I was five. And I can't, at that time, I didn't know the difference between a first party game and a third party game. So I just played whatever on the N64. But my cousins gave me Yoshi's story, which was great for a young, a

young child and I love that game and it fills me with happiness. Mario Tennis was also one of the ones that I played a lot of as far as actual Nintendo games go and then I think we rented Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. I think those were rented games because at that point in time, you couldn't just buy whatever game you want it. Not like my life now where I just have unlimited video game money apparently. But I didn't like really... About video game time.

Yeah, oh God. I didn't really fall in love with Nintendo until I got a GameCube because the GameCube was like mine. That was my choice to buy. And before that I had a Game Boy, but I'll get to that in my number two pick. But I understood Nintendo a lot better at that point in time. And Animal Crossing was one of the first games that I bought on a console at least that wasn't one that either of my parents was interested in. My dad plays a lot of shooters. My mom was really into platformers.

And Animal Crossing was just kind of a game that caught my eye in the store because it looked like the kind of game I would like. And it turned out to be one of my favorite things in my whole life. It ruined my life better. How did it ruin your life? My relationship with Animal Crossing is very complicated and I get very hardcore about it. I min-max my money and I get very intense. It's about decorating, and it's one of those things. I think I played New Leaf every day for maybe six months.

Wow. And I played Wild World the most because I was a teenager, and I played that probably every day for like a full year. And I can't wait for Animal Crossing 2019. It is the reason that I am still alive. But anyway, I do want to add corollary to this, which I love Animal Crossing. I think that was the game that really made me super fall in love. I think the game that really brought me into Nintendo also was Smash Bros. Mele.

I didn't write this down. Oh, wow. Okay. But Mele was the one where I was like, oh, all of these are Nintendo. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, like looking at the characters and being like, oh, that's a Nintendo game. Oh, I understand. Yeah. I never really thought about Nintendo, Smash Brothers in that sense of like, I feel like it's, oh, it's all your favorite characters together.

But I guess for someone who isn't familiar with Nintendo properties, it's like, oh, wait. Oh, huh. Asian cross-marketing. Especially melee, because the first game was just like, well, what if these things fought? Malay was like, we love ourselves, and here is every item from every game. And the museum is just like, here is where this character appeared for the first time. So that was really like the built-in Wikipedia for all things Nintendo up to 2001 in that game. Right.

Exactly. So I kind of like put an asterisk next to Animal Crossing because melee was the thing that really taught me about which games were Nintendo. And so, like, then I could go and pick out a Zelda game and, like, know what that meant rather than, just renting it at a store because my parents read about it in a magazine, you know? So Mele was definitely a great teaching tool, and I played a lot of it, and Peach is the best. Well, I just made a note to put you on our Animal Crossing episode. Yeah, all right. Okay, so we got the obvious one out of the way.

Now we can move on to maybe something that is less predictable. Actually, no, I'm looking over the answers here, and it's all predictable. All right, so. Only if you know us. Yeah, well, if you've been listening to this podcast, you're like, okay, yeah. So we'll just keep in the same order. Jeremy, Nadia, Bob, Callie.

So second on my list, again, not in any particular order, is SquareSoft, which I guess now is Square Enix. But there is something special about just the Squarespaceoft era, which ended in 2003 or so. I like the stuff they make now, but the 16-bit-32-bit era of that company was unparalleled. I agree. So, of course, we know who Squaresoft is.

Like I said, they're not part of Square Inex, but they're the company that has produced Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Einhander, Bushido Blade, lots of games we've talked about Parasite Eve, Zenogears. We've talked about them extensively on Retronauts because I love them and I like talking about their games. And the first game I ever played by them was the first game of theirs that ever came to America, which was Radracer, a racing game for Nintendo, the NES. It was part of the early drive to make 3D games, by which I mean games with 3D visualization effects. And in Japan, I think it was called Highway Star, and I believe it supported the active shutter glasses that they released for Famicom. But those never came to the U.S. So instead, they reprogramed it so that it just used the bichromic or duochromic or whatever.

called red and blue 3D glasses. So every game shipped with those. And that was optional. You could press the select button and it would turn on the 3D effect and you could hit it

and it would turn it off. I only played the game in like a loose card form so I was like this button makes the game uglier. I wonder what this is. Why would they do this? Yep.

So yeah, so it was a 3D racing game. It was kind of, you know, in the outrun style behind the car pole position behind the car style. You played one of like two different cars across multiple different tracks. You know, it's pretty standard racing game.

But what I remember about this is borrowing it from a friend and within a day had like this terrible shooting pain in my thumb from, I guess, the intensity of pressing left and right. I don't know exactly what it was, but there was something about the motion of driving in this game that gave me a repetitive stress injury. And it lasted for several days and my parents were like, I guess you can't play video games anymore, and I was heartbroken and devastated.

Unfortunately, that went away, and I stopped playing Rad Racer. But later I found out that Rad Racer was designed by Akitoshi Kowazu, the creator of Saga. So from the very beginning, he was hurting us. And mental anguish.

Kawazu has always been dedicated to causing suffering in his fans. Why do you like him then, Jeremy? I don't know. I think he needs to talk It's the same reason I like gin. There's a sociopath in my school. But Radracer was not the game that made me fall in love with Square. In fact, Radracer made me very wary of Square and I did not rent Kingsnight.

The game that made me fall in love with Squarespaceoft was Secret of Mana, which was not the first RPG by them I had played. But I think I've told this story before in Retronauts. I had kind of, you know, I'd gone to college and I was in my freshman semester. first semester of freshman year and was like, ah, video games, that's kid stuff, I don't care. And then I went home for Christmas and a friend of mine was like, hey, let's hang out and play some video games.

And I said, sure. And that was a pretty recent game. It was multiplayer. So we rented it. We both liked, like I'd borrowed Final Fantasy from him. So we were both RPG fans, sort of. And immediately there was just something about Siguramana that I just drew me in.

It looked really good. It had great music. And, you know, the multiplayer stuff was really fun. and it had this just kind of like lively, buoyant style that really spoke to me. And so we hung out for the rest of the day and played the game together. And then I took the rental home with me and continued renting the game for like a week and a half until I beat it. And then that was basically my Christmas vacation.

So at that point I was like, man, this genre and this company, I like them very much and I will pay attention to everything they do. And I did from that point on. So, Nadia, you also have Squarespaceoft on your list. So go ahead and divulge your details. Well, my first Squarespaceoft game was actually, as you might expect, it was Final Fantasy, but the twist here is that I really, really hated it. Whoa, what? Hated it.

Strong words. I didn't get it when I played it. I really didn't understand it. Well, the problem, it was on me because I had. just rented Dragon Warrior 3, which we all know is pretty much one of the best NES RPGs, if not one of the best RPGs ever produced.

And I went back to Final Fantasy because I was renting games at this point, and I thought, oh, okay, Final Fantasy sounds pretty cool. I actually think I got it mixed up with Faxanidu, which had been a recommendation to me at that time. And, well, first of all, here's the problem. Number one, the battery in

the game was shot, so I couldn't save properly. That didn't help. Number two, I just found it very slow and obtuse next to Dragon Warrior 3, especially since the translation wasn't very good, and I didn't really have an instruction book for the game, and I just found myself getting set back really easily. I just did not have a good time with that game. And I, as same with Parrish, I was wary of the Squersoft name for a while, even though it didn't require physical trauma. and I again I fell in love with Squarespace with Secret of Mata and that was a game I actually I rented on a recommendation from

I don't know how many of you familiar with Christopher Butcher of the beguiling but back then we were friends yeah well he recommended oh you should play Secret of Mata I said okay that sounds cool so I rented it and like Jeremy I fell in love with it this is a brilliant color, this brilliant soundtrack, and also the fact that I wasn't quite

used to RPGs that told a story because even Dragon Warrior Dragon Quest at the time was very much kind of almost like you know, learn the story as you go sort of thing. It was less about like the dialogue and more about what you saw. And Secret Amon told what I still think is a pretty good story.

I recently wrote a thing on US Gamer, a little bit of promotion there. Talking about the Secret of Mana doesn't really give you a happy ending. It's not a, even despite its buoyant look and its colorful style, a lot of bad things happen to the protagonist. And even though you do get kind of a bittersweet ending, it's not a very, it's not a storybook ending. And that's actually quite common with the kind of the mana games, I find. That was of the, I'm sorry, Nottie. That was of the era when, when you beat a game, you had to turn off the system before you could, you know, restart it. And I didn't want to. to turn off the system after that ending. I was like, no, something else has to happen. This can't be the end. No, it was very much the end and not

just the deal with the sprite got me down. Also the fact that you chase after this after Prim's boyfriend dialogue for the whole game and you see him finally at the very end and he kills himself to keep the Thanos, Jesus, Thanatos

from taking over his body. And the only thing he to say to her is goodbye and to this day I'm like wow that's that's pretty hard so yeah I just kind of I fell in love for Secret of Mono for that reason and I think it's a good reason I think it's a good reason

All right. So moving on to Bob, Bob, actually your number two entry is something that is very much in keeping with you. But number three is Squarespace on your list. So let's go ahead and jump ahead and go on order. I have to write a book on Maniac Mansion soon. It looks like we have some things in common here. Yes. So Rad Racer, I mean, didn't have that much of an effect on me.

I didn't, I mean, I kind of like racing games now. I don't really play them that often. But it was just another game and it was fun and it made sense and it wasn't bad. So I played it a lot. It was loose cart. And the game had the ugly button that you could press and make things. things brown and jittery. But I've told this, I mean, these are all great.

With me and Jeremy, these are the greatest hits of our gaming stories. But Final Fantasy 4, I played Final Fantasy 1. And back in the day, because Nintendo Power was like, you won't believe this game. It's so big. And you can win this contest and we'll give you a crystal and all this cool stuff. So I got into it, but I didn't really understand battle systems. And I was just like, I was trying to use items instead of hitting the fight button. I was like, I'll use my sword on this guy.

Oh, wow. It didn't really work out. And upon going back to it, I understood it. I actually, my stepdad is a huge like D&D nerd, right, like a total like fantasy nerd from the 70s, you know, like in the Tolkien and all that crap. Good crap, by the way, but he was the one who was playing RPGs before me and he was an early adopter of the NES and when my mom started dating him, I had access to all of his games and it was like all of the NES RPGs at the time like Fazanidu and Dragon Warrior and things like that. Like he was waiting to RPGs. He would eventually be more into computer RPGs for the amount of freedom, the D&D style. stuff where you weren't on a on rails basically through a narrative you're making your own

decisions but before that he was playing a lot of the japanese things and uh he was uh renting final fantasy two aka for the s nes and uh every time he came home from work he played a little more and i would watch him play it and i was just like as i was watching him i would get really into the story and the story is so like so goofy and so um it melodramatic but it was perfect for a nine year old. And just by watching him, I got way into the story and I understood the mechanics and I was asking him questions and he finished the game and that's

when I immediately I started my own new game of that. And that's when I understood RPG, something clicked and that's all I wanted to play forever. And I think six was the next step for me, Final Fantasy 6. And like it was not only, not only did I understand RPG at that point, but that was the

first real game to quote Futurama to make me feel ways about stuff. And I didn't know a game could do that. And, I mean, of course, it's all very primitive now, but it was taking a lot of risks narratively and doing a lot of things games wouldn't do and still don't do. So, yeah, a lot of those, a lot of my gaming development is tied to Final Fantasy 4 and then later 6. So you were ahead of the curve compared to me and Nadia on Loving Squaresaw. Yes. Ryan Ray Racer did not hurt me.

I mean, I think everyone when they start playing video games, they eventually have to, like, build up, like, strengthen their thumb skin. It's sort of like when you start playing guitar. So when I first got an N.S and when I was playing Super Mario Brothers, I did get blisters on my thumbs. Those were some blisters. This was like muscle and injuries. I did get a quote-unquote Nintendo thumb, but it was only once. And I think I built up the callus on my fingers after that, my soft child fingers. Now they're just rigid like steel.

But I think everyone goes through that. So finally, Callie, it looks like this is the RPG round. So go. I just want to point out that I think I have really muscular fingers thanks to video games. very thick, yeah, large ring size. It's great. I love it. But yeah, I mentioned the Game Boy. This is kind of a weird one for me because if you know anything about me,

if you know the first thing about me, you probably know that I really like Pokemon a whole lot. And I actually started with the Pokemon cards. My neighbor gave me a Bell Sprout card. That was my first Pokemon card. And then I started collecting them when I was in second grade. But I didn't play the games. I watched the anime for a while.

Oh, my mom actually was the one who suggested we do that, and she would watch it even when I wasn't home. But we watched the show together, and then I didn't really get into the video games because, and this is the most call-ass thing that could possibly exist. I didn't realize that I could buy a game boy because I didn't realize that they weren't just for boys. Oh, that's the worst branding ever. Yeah. I feel like it was intentional. Did you not have a Walkman as a child either? No.

Dang. Yeah. Yeah, I was just this like inherently feminist child and I just did it. I was like, oh, well, I'm not going to, you know, partake in that. But I really was really, I got very interested in getting a Game Boy color because I wanted to play Pokemon. And I remember I have two older male cousins on both sides of the family. So I had a lot of boys to inspire me with video games. And I remember I was talking to my parents about getting a Game Boy.

I think I was probably eight, and my mom suggested I call my cousin Sean and ask him for recommendations on what Pokemon game to get. And he suggested Pokemon Crystal because that was the first game where you could be a girl. So I actually started my Pokemon journey with Pokemon Crystal because, you know, that one felt way more like home to me. And I played it nonstop on the floor in front of a guide because I was really obsessed and I wanted to like play with a guide and like make sure I got everything right and like got all the Pokemon. And then I ended up going back and buying red, blue, yellow, gold, silver, and then the rest is history. But I did actually go back and revisit Pokemon, the original games after I played Christmas. So you're one of those kids who played through red and blue. I played through all of them, yeah. So I would play red and then I would play blue. I didn't really have a lot of friends who played video games. Well, friends period, but also friends who played video games. And so I didn't try to catch them all. There was no one I could trade with. My little brother. was not, he's not like a, at least a

JRP kind of person. He was more of like a play shooters, play Mass Effect kind of kid. So he was never like going to trade with me and that's fine. But yeah, so I was just going to like, well, I'll just catch them all across different versions. I had a lonely Pokemon experience too. I was old, older in high school when Pokemon came out. I had to hide my love of Pokemon for fear of being ridiculed even more.

So I just had to catch them, most of them myself. And there were no other Pokemon players. in my high school. Yeah. So my high school had a Pokemon club, but I was afraid to join it, so I never did.

And I was like really into hiding my love of Pokemon at the time. And now that's like all I post about on Facebook is I went to Japan for Pokemon. I did this thing for Pokemon. And now like they can deal with it. But at the time I was super not about that. But I did talk about the Game Boy being kind of

also a side introduction to Nintendo, but I pretty much only played Pokemon and a couple other things on my Game Boy. So yeah, That was my introduction to game freak, and I will play any Pokemon game that comes out, really. I mean, obviously. It's funny. You mentioned that you really lean into Pokemon now because I feel like my life now is leaning into and making my brand everything I was ashamed of liking as a teenager and I had to hide from people.

Now I'm waving my freak flag for everybody on this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. It's freeing. I feel way better about myself than I did in high school. so that's the real goal, right? Yeah.

All right, so round three, I'm so predictable. It's another RPG. What can I tell you? I like RPGs. Okay, so third on my list is Atlas. And I feel like my story is really different than other people who really love Atlas because I came to Atlas really late. Like, I somehow managed not to play any game published by them or developed by them

until 2007. I don't know. Maybe, maybe. You had to wait for one of your friends to work there. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe, yeah, right. That's not wrong. Maybe the surgeon simulator. What the hell is it called? Under the knife.

Yes, under the knife. Trauma Center. That's it. I think, actually, I think trauma center came out first. And, yeah, now that I think about it, it did. So I guess that was the first game I played by them, but clearly it didn't make a big impression on me because I didn't even put it in my notes here. But, like, I was aware.

of games that they created like Run Sabre and Revelations persona but I just never touched any of them and then a preview ROM of Etri and Odyssey came in to one up and because a friend of mine had localized been like the localization editor on it I thought well I should try this out

and I played a little bit of it not knowing what to expect and immediately was just like wow this is really addicting what is going on here so you know Edrian Odyssey we've talked about it a lot we'll do full retrospective on it at some point, but it's a dungeon crawler RPG, which I didn't think I would like.

You know, first person perspective, you don't have characters, you just have a guild and they're generic characters that you create and define. But that was part of the joy, it was that, you know, to figure out what is the best lineup of characters, how do I develop, you know, they earn a skill point each time they level up, how do I invest these skill points to make them the best team? How do I shift around the party once, you know, once I get to a new stratum of the dungeon and the enemies changed. I need different abilities.

So it became this really engrossing role-playing experience. And I think what really cemented this game for me is when I was, once the game came out properly, I picked up the cartridge and decided to start over and play the new game. And, you know, on the first couple of levels of the dungeon, you have the roaming bosses that you can see on the map before you get into combat, the FOEs. and the first few FOEs you meet are like really, really, like, deer on steroids. They're just like really powerful deer. Okay, so my wife, my girlfriend at the time was doing a photo shoot. She was like photographing a lake or something.

So I went along with her and was just like killing time sitting on a picnic bench by the lake while she was off with her large format camera, setting up shots and getting the sunset or whatever. And as I was playing, I looked over and there was a deer standing next. to me, and I, like, completely freaked out because, you know, there were all these deer foes roaming around the dungeon. I was trying to avoid them. And then I look up, and there's an actual deer standing about four feet from me, and I was sitting so still, it didn't even notice that I was there.

So when I looked up, it also looked up, and we both kind of freaked out simultaneously. But it was just like this really weird synergy between video game and life. And at that point, I was just like, this game is mine. Like, this game is part of me. I love this. So that combination of, you know, a great addictive play flow and format and just like a once-in-a-lifetime random coincidence really cemented that game for me. And now I really love Atlas stuff and I'll, you know, pick up and play anything they create. So that's my story.

Nadia, what's number three on your list? Well, first of all, I just want to say that the first entry and Odyssey game I got into was five. So that was quite recent. And the thing that hooked me, besides a lot of what you mentioned, is I went to the town and said, God damn, that is the smoothest jazz music I've ever heard in my life. It's so relaxing. Soundtrack. Oh, God, it's just so like, yeah, you're going to die up in that tree, but you know what, down here, everything's cool.

And I just got really hooked. Hey, Daddy, you want to form a guild? You don't have to. You don't want to. You can just take it easy. But as for my number three, my number three is Konami. and my first Konami game was Simon's Quest, Castlevania 2. I noticed this is also the game that you have

as the game that made you fall in love with Konami. How did that happen? As I've grown older, I really appreciated Simon's Quest more and more. I actually recently reviewed IGA, IGA, whatever you want to call him, Igarashi, let's go with that. And on my husband's suggestion,

he said, well, you ask him how Simon's Quest's influence Castlevania Simpton the Night because I have a feeling it did so I asked him and sure enough Simon's Quest its open-ended sort of nature went a long way into helping him pitch simply the night to Konami and they said okay cool go for it so we owe it that much that's for sure but as for the game itself I remember playing it at a friend's house with sleepover and I just love the fact that I had this this really big kind of creepy game where there was really no dead ends. You could just go any direction you wanted to. You could find these weird towns full of weird people telling you weird things. And this is something you pointed out once, Jeremy, in one of

your writings. As you get closer to Castlevania itself and the encounter with Dracula, you start to notice the landscape really gets more and more twisted with more dead trees, more cemeteries, more angry townsfolk who want you to just leave Dracula alone because you might rile them up and, you know, shatter what semblance of peace they have. So it's actually a really well-thought-out game despite its, let's face it, it has very vague, ambiguous hints because of bad translation and just bad writing in general. But let's be honest with themselves, that's kind of every NES game in a nutshell back in the day. So I don't really blame it for that, even the stupid cliff thing.

But it has a lot of atmosphere for an NES game, and I really admire it for that. I also love the fact that, you know, I was not the greatest game player on Earth, but with Simon's Quest, if you died, there was little consequence. You would stand up where you fell, and if you had to continue, you would still stand where you fell, and you'd lose your hearts, but you could always get those back. But you wouldn't, you know, say, we wouldn't see, like, oh, game over and be shunted right back to the start. So that was, that's why Simon's Quest, that made me fall in love with Castlevania and with Konami in general. I know it's kind of an unorthodox answer, but it's mine and I stand by it. I like it. So, Bob, what about you?

You also have Atlas on your list. So why don't you talk about your love of Atlas? It's different than mine. My love came for the series. They're known best for treasured around the world. So many sequels. Of course, I'm speaking of Rockin' Cats. And I leave in Japan.

It's called N-Y N-N-Yankees. Is that right? It is so, I mean, the game is like a B-minus, maybe like a B at best. But it is such a fun, imaginative game where it's like a weird noir cartoon with cats as gangsters. Like dogs are gangsters and cats are detectives. And it's really fun. And your main weapon is a gun with a punching glove at the end. And you can also use it to grapple and stuff like that.

And every level is just very different. It's very fun. And that's the, I don't think I remember Atlas being the designer of that game. Only in retrospect, I was like, oh, they made that game. Atlas made, the persona people made Amazing Tator, too, as well. They did. And a lot of other things you don't associate with Atlas. Jaws.

Friday the 13th? That might, actually, we're not sure who made Friday the 13th. I think it was Pac-in video or something. I thought it was Atlas. We figured that out five years ago, Jeremy. It's been a long time. New facts have come to life. I can't remember.

Well, nobody cares ultimately. Yes, but I mean, I think that was the first Atlas game I played. I think I was actually too afraid of the idea of Friday the 13th to play that game. and I did play a lot of Jaws, but I'm pretty sure I played Rocking Cats first. It has nothing to do with anything Atlas is known for. Atlas did do a lot of platformers like that and wacky races and things like that. But as they developed their own brands over the years, they really started honing on RPGs. And the main RPG that I fell in love with from Atlas was Persona 3 Fez.

And I tried playing the persona game before that, actually both of them. And even today, they're a little too fit. they're a little too unfair in some ways. Like, I really want to like the original persona games, and I wish the remakes of the PSP sort of modernize them. But they didn't really do that, and I'm sure that's great for the people who enjoy them, but they're a little too crusty for me.

But I think Persona 3, and then all the games that would pattern themselves after Persona 3, did an amazing job of making the 100-plus-hour RPG experience super streamlined, but also very addictive. And they built in a lot of these hooks that not a lot of RPGs had that I associate more with games like, I don't know, Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing where it's just like every day

you have choices to make. You can do something different every day. And everything is very much compartmentalized and made very streamlined and efficient. But they're still very big and deep games. And even things in the battle system like, oh, once you figure out the weakness, you always know it offhand.

And it was in this game too where it's like, it could have been in four. No, I think in three, all of your party members were AI. And outside of boss's fights, I think the AI was good enough that I didn't really mind. And in four, I think you had the option to turn on, you know, you can control your party

member, but again, the AI was so good, I would only turn it off for boss fights when I wanted to make specific moves. So they're so different than any of the other persona games, and they're so different than any other RPGs out at the time. And still today, that I feel like that was really what made me love Atlas games. Definitely that.

I was lucky to be unemployed when it came out. as well as four. I know. I was unemployed for persona three and I was unemployed for persona four. I've been gamefully employed since persona five, which means I have not touched it. So now I work off a Patreon.

I can't be unemployed. So maybe I'll never play it, but I really want to still. It's great. And then finally, Callie, you're going to break the crusty old people who love Japan, hegemini. So let's go, let's see what's next on your list. Yeah, this is a bit of a hard right, despite being maybe a crusty young person who loves Japan. Number three was Bungy for Halo Combat Evolved.

And I remember – so my dad's really into shooters, and we played a lot of shooters in my house growing up. My first ones were Doom and Quake, and I almost put Id Software on here, but I'll get to – I kind of have a – I cheated a little bit. I'll get to that in a bit. But I really – I would play them. They were fun to play with my dad and my brother, but I didn't really fall in love with the genre. and with Halo in particular, obviously, until Halo came out. And I remember so distinctly the day my dad brought home. He brought home an Xbox and Halo, and it was a huge deal.

My brother and I freaked out. It was after school. He brought it in to my brother's room. We set it up and we played Halo together and we would switch off. And the thing that really drew me into that game was how grand it all felt. I mean, when you first touch down and when you first see Halo, that is like the world is infinite. I can go see so much. I can do so much.

And then that game also brought me in with the story was the first shooter I'd played that I actually followed the story. I played Golden Eye, but like, you know, that's – I know what James Bond is, but I didn't pay attention, you know. That was a game where I was invested in the story as much as I was in the act of playing. and the gameplay. So it really just captured me and captivated me. And now I mean, Bunchy is the reason I started playing Destiny. I have such a love-hate relationship with Destiny, but... I think everyone who plays it does.

That is just the Destiny experience in general. It's true. But, you know, that game has a very different take-on storytelling. But I still think, like, the shooting mechanics are the best, modern shooting mechanics. that are available in Destiny. And so that kind of like helped keep Bungy alive for me. And so I followed them to Destiny and now I'm trapped in the Destiny prison. But yeah, it was – and then, you know, Halo 2 was a really special game too because I got to play with my dad a ton and we still play.

And I used to – he used to kick my ass and then over the summer I kicked his ass. It was like, I've come so far. Like time really has passed. It doesn't just pass the master. Exactly. That's awesome. Yeah, I almost put bungee on here for myself. But I guess maybe if we do another episode, I'll talk about them then.

Celebrity Big Brother is back, and we've got recaps of every single episode here on Rob is the podcast. So whether you watch for the epic blindsides or for the insanity, like Ricky Williams giving a colon massage to a constipated Cato Calin, yes, that happened. Check out our celebrity people of the coverage on Rob is a podcast on Apple Podcast, Podcast.com, or the Podcast One app. And caller number nine for $1 million. Rita, complete this quote.

Life is like a box of... Uh, Rita, you're cutting out. We need your answer. Life is like a box of chocolate. Oh, sorry. That's not what we were looking for. On to caller number 10. Bad network got you glitched out of luck.

Switch to Boost Mobile, super reliable, super fast nationwide network, and get four lines, each with unlimited gigs for just $100 a month. Plus get four free phones. Boost makes it easy to switch. Switching makes it easy to save. All right, so we're going into the back nine here, back ten. And I'm going to break the Nintendo hammerlock here by saying that my fourth entry is Sega. And the first game I ever played by Sega was Xaxon, which I have talked about on the podcast. But it is a cool, isometric shooter, kind of a side-scroller, but because it's isometric, it's not.

just like side-scrolling, but it has height and depth and, you know, both X and Y axes and was very confusing to me as a child because I didn't understand, you know, like aircraft flight controls. I didn't realize that pressing up meant you would go down. So I just crashed into the wall outside the base over and over again. But eventually we got the game on Colico Vision, and then I did come to terms with it and got pretty good at it. And now it's a personal favorite. And I really hope that makes it to, uh, the Sega Ages line for Switch, because I would love to play that game again.

I think that was also a vertical game, so it'd go really well with the flip grip. Yeah, that'd be great. But that is not the game that made me fall in love with Sega. The game that made, wow, I think I just heard Zaxon lying around outside. Actually, maybe that was Afterburner. The game that made me really, like, say,

wow, Sega's cool was Afterburner's sibling, Space Harrier, which hasn't actually that great a game, but my God, in 1985, that was so cool looking. That was the first of the Super Scalar games. We've talked about this on the Retronauts East Sega arcade retrospectives, too, but you're just like a guy flying around the screen. It's kind of like a racing game, except that you're not tied to the ground. In fact, if you touch the ground, you'll die, so don't do that. But you're flying and shooting and things are shooting at you from out of the screen

and things fly into the screen and then fly back at you. And it's all presented with this really great hardware-based scaling effect that makes the Sprites scale through different sizes really smoothly. It was the most convincing sort of 3D immersion that I'd ever seen in a video game to that point. And also, it moves at a super fast clip. It's a really hard game and the 3D elements and the positioning of things within space relative to your character. they're not always great

but it was just like such an impressive technical feed and had such a great feeling of speed that it really really hooked me and also just a great soundtrack and I've used Space Harrier music on this podcast more than a few times because it's just such a great

great theme one of the really first great breakout soundtracks in a video game so that was a game that really really just did it for me I do enjoy it but I really can never tell what's going on with that main character. It's just a guy in a windbreaker.

Something. Yeah. It looks just like he's wearing a windbreaker in jeans. He's pretty much just like, you know, member's only jacket. Yeah. It's the future, but it's also the 80s. I don't know what they're trying to tap into there, but it was an odd choice. But I do, I do like, I like how it looks, but you're right during me.

It kind of is not a great game. No, I feel like Sega would get better at the super scalar games a year later with Outrun and after burner and super hang on. And I recently, I think I might have mentioned this on a Retronauts East episode recently. but when I was at Long Island Retro Expo, someone had an X68,000 computer hooked up, and they had this really great driving controller, and I played super hangout on that, and it was just like a, you know, probably like a 14-inch monitor, but because it was like really close and I had that controller, there was just something about the sense of speed in that game

that made me just appreciate it more than any other racing game I've ever played. And it's like this arcade game from 1986, but it was just so well done and so fast. But it had such a great sense of control, like great handling, really tight controls. Yeah, just like Sega at their peak. I really love that sort of super-scaler mid-80s stuff. I would love to see more of that come to current systems. Zaxon also, but, you know, like getting super hang on or Galaxy Force 2 again on Switch would be so much more impressive than playing those on 3DS, which is the only way you can play them now.

Anyway, that's me and Sega. Nadia, who's next on your list? Yeah, so, Jeremy, I think you'll appreciate the game. I was introduced to Capcom 3, which is my fourth pick here. And that game was 1942 for the NES. No, you're wrong. I don't appreciate that at all. That was programmed by one guy. One guy who didn't know how to program stuff.

It sure was. And actually, my brother and I rented it. It was one of the first NES games we ever rented. And we were just flabbergasted at how bad it was. We were making jokes about how, you know, how the music, quote-unquote, just a bunch of beats. Did you call that music? Yeah. I said to my brother, I bet the company that made this game ran out of money or went out of business just before it came out.

So that that was all I could afford for music. Wow. Little did I know I would fall in love with one of their actually good games, and that's Mega Man 3, which to this day is just still a stellar example of a platforming game. I bought it used at a video store because I had kind of vaguely heard the name Mega Man somewhere and I said, oh, okay, this is 20 bucks, I'll pick it up and I just spent the whole summer playing it and just loving it and I've been downhill since then

because Mega Man eventually changed slash ruin my life, more changed for the better, frankly. It's like how I got into writing because I started writing Mega Man fan fiction. I ran a Mega Man fan site and I met my house husband through it. So, hooray for Mega Man. That's right. I think that's how we met, too. We did meet through

Mega Man stuff. Yeah. So you got your inside connection to the video games press through Mega Man. I did. Yeah. So I went a lot. Didn't you review Mega Man 11 for a U.S. gamer, Nadia? I did. I don't know that you can really be unbiased when speaking about Mega Man.

I take it you didn't like Mega Man 11? I haven't played it yet. I was holding out until, one, it came to switch, and two, the hoary D-pad controller came out, and that was like a couple of days ago as of this recording, and I've been really busy putting together podcasts, so I haven't had a chance to touch any of the game. Is it coming to switch, or is it just wishful thinking? It's already out on Switch. Oh, really? Okay. It did everything day one.

Got it. It truly is. I don't know what I'm saying. I was but to yell at Jeremy for port begging. Everything should be on Switch. I disagree. I disagree with your disagreement. Yeah, so I'm kind of surprised it was Mega Man 3 and not Mega Man 2, Nadia.

I got into Mega Man 3 a lot. Actually, I got into Mega Man 3. Then I played Mega Man 4. Then I played Mega Man 5. Then I went back to 2. Are you still hold up? Yeah, too. I still really enjoyed 2.

But here's the thing about 2. I was kind of in the middle of playing it and really enjoying it. And then my parents decided they had a conference with each other, I suppose, and said, Nadia play too into video games. She's not allowed to play video games anymore. So I wasn't allowed to finish 2. I was really pissed That's brutal

And then you divorced your parents I take it I should have I really should have That was a stupid thing for them to do Did they know They were quashing your career hopes Right there

I guess like back then Every parent thought in terms of that Farside comic Yeah I saw a lot of that when I was a kid Okay yeah so a lot of people Like thought in terms of that far side comic Where the parents are like

Just smiling over this child Playing video games They're imagining all these like Great Career opportunities for video games and of course they're all sarcastic like you know we need someone to rescue the princess top salary etc etc so yeah i guess they weren't thinking in those terms All right, so Bob, for your fourth pick, it's the most bobbish pick imaginable. It's rather bobbish.

It is entirely Bobesque. Bobesque. Well, it's actually my fifth pick because you didn't let me talk about Maniac Mansour. Oh, I was going up for the one that's on number two. Oh, number two? Yeah, you just went out of order. Okay, I didn't realize that. Well, yeah, it is very bob-like.

I wasn't vetoing that. Okay. I thought it was like, you've talked enough about that on this podcast. Well, I did an entire episode about it, and I am writing a book that I've gotten several extensions on because it's a lot harder to write a book than to think about writing a book. But it's Maniac Mansion for the NES, the NES version, of course. Computers were very expensive up until, like, the mid to late 90s when they became more of a mass market, get them shipped to you in a cow style box kind of experience, you know, with Dell and Gateway and all that's. stuff. So I would only have experience on other families' computers, and they didn't really have a lot of games. So something like a point-and-click adventure game was very new to me at the time,

which is why this idea was just very enchanting, the idea of, oh, it's not a game where you go left to right. There, you go into a house, and you can open drawers and look for things and solve puzzles. So just that was very enchanting to me, and it, like, made the game just, like, stick in my mind. But also, I didn't know until much later in life and studying adventure games and playing more of them that Maniac Mansion was a very pivotal game in the history of adventure games

and it sort of set out some rules that most adventure games would not follow, but it had a sort of a mission statement that Ron Gilbert, the creator, would bring to a further, he would develop further in the next game he worked on, which is Secret of Monkey Island. And from then on,

at least this company's adventure games would be a lot more fair than 90% of other adventure games which are all bad and not playable, including Sierra games. But I'm throwing them all under the bus, but I have to say when people complain about adventure games, they don't realize that

not all adventure games, hashtag not all adventure games, did the bad things. And they always think of the old man Mary article where it's like, yeah, making the fake cat mustache, I get it, I get it, it's all fine. But not every adventure game was like that, and the LucasArts ones, most of them,

were rather fair To a point, and Maniac Mansion was the first of the adventure games that were made by someone who didn't like adventure games and thought King Coast was bullshit. And he was like, I want to make an adventure game that is not bullshit. And that was Maniac Mansion. And I think it still holds up and look for my book in the future. Hopefully I'll finish writing it by the time this goes live. I actually have a quick funny story about adventure games, if you would indulge me for a minute. I had surgery a couple of years ago, and they warned me you're going to be really stone because this is abdominal surgery.

you're going to be on some really high painkillers. And I said, cool, whatever. Bring it on. And I woke up in recovery, and I had the nicest recovery room nurse. She was like 70 years old, had this beautiful silver hair. And I'm like, do you like video games? And she's like, oh, actually, yes, I really like King's Quest. Oh, that was programmed by a woman.

Did you know that? And she just, like, put up with me for this whole, like, hour or however long, they finally wheeled me out of there to give her some peace, I guess. Yes. So that was my experience sharing adventure games with a nice 70-year-old nurse. For all you know, that was Roberta Williams. She was moonlighting. But yeah, I think the value of that game, unlike many of the games of its time and why, it sort of changed things.

It made a brief ripple in that genre because Ron Gilbert wasn't an adventure game fan. He didn't plan for this game to be an adventure game, but he went home during the holidays and a nephew was playing skin class. He's like, oh, I'll try one of these adventure games. and he was like, boy, these were unfair, and I kind of hate this. What if someone made a version of this that was friendly and not hard to play and wasn't about, didn't have such an adversarial relationship with the player, which is why in Kings Quest you die like three million times on every screen. In Maniac Mansion, the deaths are Easter eggs.

You sort of have to work for, and it's obvious when things will kill you in that game. There's like five ways to die, but it's all things you have to work towards. So, yeah, it was very made, very much made as a reaction to adventure games of that era. And I think modern adventure games from everything from telltale, RAP, to whatever else is coming out are all sort of pattern after the Maniac Mansion Monkey Island style of being nice to you and not letting you get stuck forever. Although there are a few cases of Maniac Mansion where you can get stuck forever, but they're still hard to find it on your own. And finally, for this round, Callie. I picked a kind of weird one, I guess. Is it?

I'm there for it. Okay, good. My number four pick is Maxis. You jumped out of order. I moved them around I'm not there for this one Oh okay Come on I'm there I'm there

The best Maxis game is SimCity by Nintendo Okay I'm sorry Yikes My last pick was definitely a cheat I cheated a lot so I switched them And that one's the last one I'm going to talk about But anyway yeah Maxis I was first introduced to Maxis through the Sims

My cousin was playing the Sims A different cousin than the one who recommended funded Pokemon to me, and I thought it looked really cool. I was really into management Sims and games like that. And I was like a really big roller coaster tycoon kids, Zoo Tycoon. I would listen to friggin Avril Levine and play Zoo Tycoon to paint a picture. But I didn't actually own the Sims because my mom found out that you could woo-hoo. And get into like a cloud fight.

Yeah, and without, I don't think she realized that it wasn't like a, it was a very cartoony thing, but, and it's funny because I was still allowed to play like something like Doom, so, but that's, I understand, but I understand, but then. Sex is much, much worse than violence and murder. Of course, naturally. So I got into The Sims too, and I, I mean, I love the Sims. I love that, like, it was considered a, a girl's game, I think, in a lot of ways. And at the time that the Sims 2 came out, it was really the only game I ever got to talk to girls about. I didn't have a lot of female friends growing up. I had male friends, and we would talk about something like Halo.

But the Sims was the game where I got to bond with other girls. And now, of course, where I am in my life, I can talk to other women about all sorts of games. But at the time, this was a very acceptable thing to play and to talk about if you were a a teenage girl in high school and I just really fell in love with it in that like it married my interest in general the management Sims with a more like

human approach and also humor and then later on I did get more into SimCity and through that the city builder genre in general and the Sims 3 I actually went back and I found my high school journals and there is an entry

and this is the most internet commenter thing I've ever done in my life there is a journal entry from when I found out the Sims 3 was delayed and it's like all caps me furious

that I have to wait for the Sims 3 to come out in June I couldn't believe it So that was like your own personal message board But at least you didn't post it anywhere I didn't post it anywhere

I didn't be public I wrote it in gel pen I'm pretty sure Nothing says anger like gel pen Exactly Pretty sure the notebook had a dog on the front But, yeah, I just, to this day, I will get that, like, insatiable urge to play the Sims for, like, eight hours straight, and then I won't play it for six months.

Yeah. That's just my, that's just the vibe. That's a great pick. I think we are all, like, quote, unquote, hardcore game people just by virtue of our job that we have or had or what we do now. And I think we overlook the Sims as a very important game that never got bad. It's still a very good series. And everything else Maxis has done has not had the longevity. like SimCity is functionally dead because of the last game.

Spore never became anything. The Sims has always been building off of a very good foundation, and it's always been very good. Agreed. So we are going to do one final round through here, one final pass through the tulips. And this will be everyone's last pick for this episode. But again, I feel like there is potential for more of these. And I could certainly go through my six through ten picks and come up with some other games.

So we'll see what happens. But I'm going to end this adventure for myself on Namco, which is a Japanese company that's been around for quite a while, and is now part of Bondi Namco. And Namco is the part of the company that makes video games. Bondi is basically the part of the company that bought the part that makes video games. And, you know, before Bondi Namco, Bondi just made, like, they published extremely terrible anime games. They did make the Wonder Swan, which is kind of neat. I remember going to a press event and maybe. 2013 or 2014, probably 2013

and it was a Namcoe Bandai Press event, sorry, Bandai Namco, but at the time it was Bando Namkai, wait, what happened? At the time it was Namcoe Bandai and the first thing that they did, the first thing they did was they did an entire presentation about how now we are Bandai Namcom, like this had to be somebody

proving a point out of spite, like some angry agreements, like we're going to change the name, we're going to show people on stage and it's going to you're going to just, you're going to be upset, buddy. It's like somebody had had a disagreement and we all had to be like, we all had to pay for it. But, yeah, I remember sitting through that presentation. It's like, now we are Bandai Namco, huh?

Take that. Other side of the company. Yes. Well, this was long before that kind of nonsense. And the game that hooked me was, oh, wait a minute. I kind of messed up. I put Ms. Pac-Man on the list, but Namcoe didn't make that. They didn't even publish it.

That was general competing corporation in Midway and should not have happened. So they own the character now. They do, but that wasn't really one of their games. So let's reset. The answer is Gallagher. Yes. So I. Sorry.

No, that's great. My sister feels the same way. Like, that was the first video game that my sister really loved. And at first I didn't think too much of it. I was like, oh, it's like Space Invaders or whatever. And I was more interested in Pac-Man or Zaxon. but eventually in time I kind of got hooked on it and now it's a go-to, like a favorite that I always go back and play

unless it's one of those class of 82 machines because of the 25-inch monitor they use on that is too big. See, that's not right. No, like you need a smaller monitor so you can kind of line up shots and it's really hard to dodge the bullets that enemies fire at you on the really big screen. They don't get it. They're they blew it.

Yeah, there's also a version where you can change the, firing speed to fast, and I'm not about it, not there for that at all. But, God, I love Gallagher. Yeah, Gallagher, in its essence, is almost a perfect game. And I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, so I don't need to belabor the point. But, you know, it's, there's a great risk-reward element with the ship capture mechanic because you double your firepower, but you lose another ship. And also, you become a much bigger, like you have a bigger target profile.

So it's much harder to dodge enemy fire, even though you're twice as powerful. and, you know, are much more of a threat to the enemies. And to the challenging stages. Yeah. And the challenging stages, you really need the second ship. Yeah. Unless you're very, very good. Yeah.

But, you know, the thing is, if you lose that second ship, you've lost a life. So there's a huge sort of give and take with that game. The patterns of enemies are very dynamic and energetic. And it gives you this great sense of movement. If you're good, you can, like, wipe out just about the entire enemy armada, before it actually gets into formation. But that gets harder as the game goes on because they start bombing you

or breaking off from the formation as they come in on the screen. It's just such a great evolution of the Space Invaders concept through Galaxian into Gallagher. And Namco's created lots of sequels and spinoffs to Gallagher. And none of them have had

just that purity that Gallagher does. And I am actually going to buy one of those arcade one-up machines that has Galaxia and Galaga. Have you played? $300 is a lot to spend on games that I can play on other platforms, but having an upright arcade version of Gallagher is something I've always wanted, and I'm willing to pay for that. And they're going to do a strider machine, too, and by God, I'm going to get one of those, and then I'm calling it quits. My parents just got a machine that has Gallagher because I was introduced to it through my mom.

My mom's really, really big into Gallagher, and would tell me stories of playing in the bowling alley or whatever. And so when I visit them, I'm like, I'm going to disappear for 30 minutes. and beat my last high score on this machine. My mother's game was always Centipede. So I got, it was sent a review unit of one of those, like, foot and a half high, or one foot high centipede arcade machines. It's like a perfect replica. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with her because I think she'll really enjoy it. That's awesome.

Have any of you played the world's largest Gallagher in that there's more than one? And I don't think it's actually the world's largest. But it's a new version of Gallagher. In Japan? No, it's in America. I actually played it in Portland. It's probably there too. But it's like, so the screen is probably the size of that back wall, maybe a little smaller.

And you're just playing a very big version of it. I played something like that in Japan. Okay, yeah. I think it actually... It makes the game a lot harder. It makes a game a lot harder. There's Pac-Man and Gallagher. I think they're usually on the same machine, but it's like it does make the game a lot harder, but it's kind of fun novelty.

I don't know if you've played it before. But they're in barcades. There's one in quarter world in Portland, if you're there. We'll be there soon. So check it out. All right. So, yeah, that's my Namco story, and I'm sticking to it. Game that I liked at first a little bit, but then gradually came to appreciate in really long.

So, Nadia, what's your final entry for this episode? Well, my first, sorry, my last entry is rare. Yay. Wow. Yeah, except I kind of have some loser answers here because the first rare game I played was Wizards and Warriors. Oh, me too. You too, yeah, yeah. It was like, it was one of those games again.

that was at like a sleepover, and I thought it looked really cool. I liked the soundtrack, and that was David Wise, I'm not mistaken, isn't it? I don't know. It might have been. I don't think it was Tim Fullen. I know that David Wise composed the game that really made me fall in love with Rare, and that was Iron Sword, which is also kind of a loser game. It's impossible not to get hit in that game. You just kind of have this really weak-ass sword that you hope pokes into the enemy as you go by.

and I just loved it. It was one of those games where you know it's not perfect and you go back to it now and you're like, oh my God, what the hell? But again, that soundtrack has really drew me in and I love the, you have like these four kingdoms, like the mountain kingdom and the, you know, the fire kingdom and you could like talk to a dragon.

So this was Avatar the video game? Yeah, it kind of was, wasn't it? It was David Weiss. By the way, it was David Weiss who did the soundtrack. Okay, yeah, because it was pretty incredible. but yeah I remember getting really really stuck in the last kingdom and I never found the final treasure that you needed to pass by this angry mole because in the game you had to like give treasures to the animal kings of that realm so that you could proceed like talking about the dragon you had to give him a crown the eagle wanted an egg and the stupid mole wanted like some sort of tankered for some reason I can never find that tankard and so I pretty much got stuck there and I never really never really got stuck there and I never really finish the game and I was angry at myself for a very long time over that but yeah that's uh I love rare's games for the most part and uh I loved iron sword and that is my story

Bob, where we end on this tale for you. Oh, well, I don't know if it's legal to talk about these games anymore because people are uptight and they made up a meme that's not real. I will talk about Demon Souls. So, From Software, I believe their first game was Kingsfield. I'm almost positive it was Kingsfield for PlayStation. And I don't think I played any of those games, but I believe one of the first From Software games I played was Armored Core. And I didn't like those games. I never really did.

It was just the game to play. But I was working at Atlas, and if you're working for Atlas, you can get a discount on games, and they had extra Demon Souls. So I bought one for 15 bucks. And this was a little bit after it came out. I remember the hype before the game came. came out in English and how it was this great Japanese game where a lot of it was in English, people were playing in talking about how good it was.

And, yes, I fell in love with Demon Souls first. And that was what led me down the dark path of being a big Soulsborn fan. And I'm outraged that Jeremy has not played any of these games because they're all made for him. Oh, my goodness. You haven't played enough, Jeremy. They're all made for you and you'll love them. But I mean, yes, yes. You like Kowazu, you're going to like a game that's punishing but also well-designed.

It's very rewarding. Yes, very rewarding. But I have to say, I mean, I don't know if I need to belabor this because this has been written about a lot. But it's safe to talk about Souls games. You can make comparisons to Souls games because they're very good and they make good decisions. But I feel like they, Demon Souls came out and Dark Souls was a major refinement of Demon Souls. It's a better game. And it was around that time when the trajectory of game design was starting to turn around.

And I think things in 2011, which I consider a very much. important year for games. So 2011, Minecraft was starting to come into a fuller form and things like Skyrim and Dark Souls were coming out. And before that, it was like, everything needs to be safe. Everybody that plays the game needs to be able to finish it.

But, that's my bet. But I got too excited. But that wasn't the case with Demon Souls and Dark Souls. You could potentially buy the game and not finish the first stage. And that was like a refreshing feeling at the time,

especially Demon Souls was much more unfriendly. And the idea of not being able to just like you on your way to the end was something that I was like, oh, yeah, I remember when games used to do this. And they're actually very fair games, but they give you a lot of responsibility that I think that we're now just getting back into in video games. And they were the first games to remind us of what games used to be. So I credit Demon Souls and Dark Souls, everything to follow with making people make better games. And we owe it all to Etrine Odyssey. Sure. All right.

So finally, Callie. The one that Jeremy's actually here for. Yes, I'm here for this one. I picked Bethesda Game Studios with a little bit of an asterisk. So I was very late to Bethesda Games. I think the first one I played by Bethesda Game Studios was Skyrim. I agree that 2011 was a very important year for games, but also was a very important year for myself with games because I had fallen off from games a lot just because of the SAT.

and studying and AP tests and then trying to get into college. And then when I got to college, it was like, now what do I do? And so I built a PC. Play video games. Yeah. And I played a lot of video games. And I got Skyrim. And I think I put 80 hours into it in a week.

Wow. Two full-time jobs and college. I don't think I went to class that week. I'm not going to be honest with you. But I just, I don't know. It was a game that I've always been interested in RPGs, and I've never really had time for the genre from, you know, after elementary school. And so there are very few RPGs that I get to play. And it was just so refreshing to make the time for a game, perhaps an ill-advised amount of time.

But I really put a lot into Skyrim, and I had so much fun. kind of like re-specking myself and making new characters and I love the thieves guild with my whole heart. I after that,

I paid a lot more attention to Bethesda in general and I so I mentioned earlier that I kind of considered putting ID software on here because of my history with Doom

but I'm using Bethesas as the caveat that Bethesda games now I'm pretty much in love with pretty much everything that they put out. I really enjoyed prey last year, for example. I know that was kind of a divisive one for some people.

I am very excited for further Elders' Crows games, and I really, really enjoyed 2016's Doom a whole lot as a kind of a revitalization of that series in a lot of ways. And I think it did a lot of things really right. So Skyron was the game that made me really pay attention to Bethesda, and everything worked out because I got a job in video games. And it doesn't matter that I didn't go to class that week. It's all good. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that wraps it up.

And I was a little sad that we didn't include a call for listener mail, but we wouldn't have had time for it because this lightweight softball topic ended up being pretty time-consuming. We all had a lot to say, which I guess is, you know, makes sense. These are our favorite games. So, of course, we have things to say about these influential games, even though. you have heard my anecdotes and Bob's anecdotes to death. You got to hear them again with some fresh anecdotes from our guests. So guests, introduce yourselves, you know, sign off and let us know where we can find you, Callie.

Yeah, I'm Callie Plaggy. You can find me on Twitter with a very confusing username. It's Inky-D-O-J-I-K-K-O. And I'm the reviews editor at GameSpot. GameSpot, not GameStop. I'm sorry. It's okay. It took me about six months when I started working there.

And so I am the keeper of all the reviews, and I write a lot of reviews, so you can find a lot of them there. And Nadia. Hi, everybody. Thanks for listening to me. I am Nadia Oxford of usgamer.net. And you can find all my writing there. I'm a staff writer, and I do a lot of the writing, that's for sure. And I also do the Axel of Blood God RPG podcast with Cat Bailey every week.

And we talk about all things related to RPGs, big and small, short and tall. and you can find me on Twitter at Nadia Oxford. That's all one word. I am currently fighting a suspension right now, but by the time this podcast goes up, hopefully that will be rescinded. Yeah, I hope so. And then for us, I'm Jeremy Parrish.

You can find me on Twitter where hopefully I'm not suspended as GameSpite, not Spot. Oh, boy. Yeah, boy, it's just a rabbit holiday. Was that a parody of GameSpot? Yes. Your name?

The name, I feel like I've explained this, before. The name GameSpite, originally when I worked at One Up, I was kicking off a cartoon, like a comic strip, webcomic that was based on sort of the people I worked with, like very obvious parodies, all working at a website called GameSpite. I forgot about that. I briefly had to use, well, what happened? My website was Toastyfrog.com, and then something happened with the registration, so I switched over to GameSpite until I could get Toastyfrog. back and that was also when I started up my Twitter account. So it was GameSpite rather than Toasty Frog which would have been the obvious choice for people who knew me back then and now people are like

anytime I say something negative about games they're like well of course he's GameSpite. The producer of the Lego you know the Lego Dimensions game. Yeah. I kind of reamed that when I reviewed it because it's very expensive and not very good

and he took it. It was like He's like a multi-millionaire executive who couldn't give a crap. But he got really mad because I reviewed the game. And I was like one of three people who reviewed it for Wii U. So it destroyed the Metacritic for the Wii U version. And so he went after me and was like, he was an inappropriately game spite. Anyway, I'm not smart. I actually really like video games as listening to this episode should demonstrate to you.

So that was a digression. But anyway, Retronauts. You can find Retronauts at Retronauts.com on iTunes, on the Podcast One Network, and other places where podcasts digitally transmit into your earholes. If you listen to us for free, as you may be doing now, you'll hear advertisements in the podcast. But if you give us $3 a month on Patreon, you can get the episodes a week early with higher audio quality and no advertisements. That's three bucks a month at patreon.com slash retronauts. It's how we feed our families. So please consider contributing.

But if you don't, that's okay. Just listen to us, tell your friends about us. Give us reviews, comment, critique, et cetera. This is your favorite podcast fanfic. So just treat it appropriately. Bob. Hey, it's Bob Mackey, that is. Excuse me.

And you can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. I have other podcasts, by the way. I live with three podcast lifestyle. One of those is Retronauts. Jeremy told you how to support Retronauts. But, of course, I have two other podcasts. Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon. Talking Simpsons is a chronological exploration of the television show The Simpsons.

And what a cartoon is an exploration of a different cartoon from a different series every week. Those are both free wherever you listen to podcast. But if you want to check out my Patreon that I do with Henry Gilbert, that is patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And at the $5 level, we have so many bonus podcasts, bonus miniseries, interviews, monthly community podcast, season wrap up, so many stuff. So much stuff is going on there. And we really want you to be part of it. So check it out at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. That's how I live for the most part.

And I steal a little from Retronauts every month. Wait, what? I squirre a little off the top. Is that what's in your cheeks? Yes. It's all quarters. But check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Thank you.

All right. Well, that's it for this episode. Thanks everyone for listening. If you enjoyed this format, please let us know and we'll revisit it. If you did not like this format, please let us know so we'd know not to revisit it. In any case, there will be another episode in a week. and it will not be this format. So look forward to that.

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Valid at participating locations only for offer details. Visit mattress firm.com slash sale. The Mueller report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House if special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officer started shooting at a robbery suspect last week.

Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear knowing that your choices will directly affect. the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.