The Ringer-Verse - The PlayStation 30th Anniversary Draft | Button Mash

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Even after 30 years, 'Button Mash' is still not underestimating the power of PlayStation. Join Ben Lindbergh, Steve Ahlman, Matt James, and Rob Mahoney as they assess the legacy and influence of Sony���s first game console, reminisce about their personal PlayStation experiences, and then draft the best games from the classic system across several categories (33:17). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Steve Ahlman, Matt James, and Rob Mahoney Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers here and we are back for another season of OffGar. Me and my guy, Pasha Giggy, are hitting your podcast feeds every Monday and Thursday talking everything hoops. Austin is bringing that 11-year NBA veteran perspective and of course keeping you guys entertained throughout the season. Make sure you tap into OffGard with Austin Rivers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow everything we've got going on social media. The OffGar podcast, Ringer NBA, and of course check us out on Ringer NBA's YouTube channel. We're getting better. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Trimphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur.

Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiatoradio.com. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business.

They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. How do you know PlayStation is not a normal game system? It carries these telltale signs.

Scientists say its effects are mind-bubbed. Users lose all sense of reality and enter another world. Here we have a normal, healthy young man. And here we have a fellow who's been experimenting with PlayStation for only a few minutes. Proof that we saps must be on our guard. Remember, do not underestimate the power of PlayStation. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the redesigned and relaunched Ringer.

I have been hosting Ringerverse Video Game Podcasts for almost two years, but I spent almost 36 years on this earth before I found that calling, which qualifies me to speak from lived experience about the topic of today's episode. The 30th 30th 30th 30th, 30th, 30th, anniversary of Sony's first video game console, the PlayStation, the PSX, the PS1, the last of which was technically the name of the redesign model, but never mind that.

Whatever name you know, this classic console by, it is now no longer in its 20s, and to discuss what made that system so special, to reminisce about personal PlayStation experiences, and most important, to conduct a draft of the greatest games to grace the PlayStation, I have assembled an army of millennials who have also long since left their 20s behind,

longer in some cases than others. Now, as you may recall, the original PlayStation had only two controller ports, So if you wanted that four-player action, you had to get yourself a multi-tap adapter. So here's who's multi-tapping in with me today. First, the youngest among us, the bloom of youth has not yet fully faded from his face. A senior audio producer, emphasis on the senior. A midnight boy, junior mint, still resting up from Mint Vember because he just can't recover

from those marathon recordings as quickly as he used to. Steve, old man, Allman. Just don't give me lower back pain. Also with us, the ringer's deputy art lead, a man who's been pushing more pixels than the PlayStation push polygons to get our website relaunch ready, and who has already dropped untold dollars copying PlayStation anniversary merch. Matt, the elder Matt Lenniel, James.

Wow. Actually, you know, I was very reasonable. I only got the regular controller of the 30th anniversary. I didn't get a portal. Yeah. I didn't get a PS5 Pro. I'm proud of myself. Treat yourself.

You powered that redesign. Go get yourself some other merch. And finally, a ringer senior staff writer. There's that word again. A man who jumped at the chance to come on today because he knew he'd have the chance to drafts Squalianhart for the second time. Let's go. And the first since our Final Fantasy draft, he's Rob Mani.

My hips. My back. Mahoney. Boo. Boo hiss, but also more truth of that than I would like to acknowledge. I will draft Squalianhard a second time. I'll draft him a third time. If you let me, keep giving me eligible categories,

and I will rep for Final Fantasy 8 long and hard. I'm pretty sure we will let you. It's a stacked. It's a deep draft board today. So I think you can have your pick of Final Fantasy 8 if you want it. You're playing mind games with me. I know you guys want this so bad. and you're just trying to talk me out of it.

But I will not be deterred. So this is why we're not on video today, not just because we've been up all night prepping for this redesign, but because we're just so haggard, why would anyone want to stare at our visages? Is that how you say that word? We've just aged so much

since the PlayStation first came out since we first helped that dual shock in our hands. So we will not make you look at us. You can listen to us. But in the grand scheme of things, we've still got it. What we may have lost in reaction time we've gained in veteran know-how. We're still spry. We still have our faculties. We still have our hair. Matt, I can't confirm that in your case because I've literally never seen you without a hat on, but let's just say there's

hair under there. Yeah, it's like Schrodinger's cat. Schrodinger's cap, if you're always wearing it, who can say how much hair is under there. That's the point of the cap once you attain a certain age. But the point is, we were all around on December 3rd, 1994, when the Sony PlayStation launched. Now, to be clear, it didn't launch in North America until September of 95. So if you're saying to yourself, has it been 30 years already? Not quite. It's only been 29 years and two months, probably, unless you were living in Japan at the time. So maybe that helps.

But why are we doing this draft? Because this is a landmark console. The 30th anniversary of the Sega Saturn was a couple of weeks ago. we didn't do a draft. Maybe we should have. Hey, no shots at Panzer Jagoon and Virtua Fighter and Knights into Dreams, a great system in its own right, but it was not the Sony PlayStation. So I want to hear from you guys about your PlayStation memories when you got a PlayStation, when you first laid eyes and laid hands on a PlayStation, which one of you was the first to possess a PlayStation? Because I know it was not me.

I'm going to say from the first time that I had experienced a PlayStation was in the wonderful like Best Buy kiosks that had all of those great demo discs. Oh yeah. That were like it would be glass display, plastic encasing of some sort of circular fashion that would have been either at a Best Buy or McDonald's. And you would play Ape Escape, you would play a bunch of Crash Bandicoot and a bunch of other games meant for kids. and I had desperately wanted one and I want to say

this was my seventh birthday. No, not my seventh birthday. My seventh Christmas when I first got a PlayStation 1 and I won't say what game that I got because that may or may not be on the draft board today. It was gecks.

Listen. Don't spoil it. What year that was to date yourself. I can say that was 1997. Okay. Okay. Can anyone predate Steve's acquisition of a PlayStation?

I don't think I can. Matt, are you able to predate that? I believe I got my PlayStation in 1999. I did not get it anywhere near launch. I ended up getting my PlayStation secondhand from a friend at school who was trying to offload his when a certain game that I will also not name came out. But I didn't have it at lunch. One major friend want to offload it? That's a great question and one that I didn't ask. Well, let's get him on the pod. Let's get a phone of a friend in here. Let's call him right now. I think I got it for like a hundred bucks or something in 1990. It was a good deal. Seems pretty good. The PlayStation was always a good deal. That was one of the things that it had

going for it relative to a Saturn, relative to a 3DO, heaven forbid. If you had that kind of cash. Yes. They're breaking up for last time. Hey, it's inflation. We got to adjust for inflation here. but the PlayStation one was a steal, given all that you got for it. And I definitely didn't predate Steve. So, Steve, I think you're the youngest member of this podcast, and you are the longest time PlayStation owner. How about that, turn in the tables on us? Because I also got one secondhand much later,

because I was kind of a Nintendo kid and also a Dreamcast kid. And it wasn't that I was anti-Playstation. It was more that my mom was anti-my, possessing more than one console at a time, or even one for that matter, but I managed to finagle that much. So I just didn't have one in the prime PlayStation years, but because I was deprived of a personal PlayStation, that only enhanced its appeal. It was the forbidden fruit. It was the green light at the end of the dock that I watched across the water. And so I probably spent more time playing other people's playstations than some of those people spent playing their own PlayStation.

So I was very much the moocher, can I come over and play your PlayStation. And maybe there'd be a console exchange. You can play my N64. I'll get some PlayStation time in. But that was how it worked back then. If you didn't have everything, you had to just sort of have a kind of cultural exchange program. And you had to have a network of friends so that you knew I can go over to this guy's house when I need to play this game. Any console renters in the house?

The only time I remember doing that was for the Sega Saturn. I played it in a similar kiosk. That's a good decision. It was specifically knights that did it. And I was like, blockbuster video, let's rent this thing for an exorbitant sum of money. My parents were like, you can't do that because it's a terrible deal. It was awful. It was legitimately an awful deal.

I had a good video game system rental. Yeah, that's probably the perfect system to rent, though, the Saturn, right? Because you didn't have enough games, really, to need to have it for longer than you could rent it for. Yeah, when you floated the idea of a Saturn draft, a second ago, and I'm like, there are literally three games to the Sega Saturn. I don't know what you're talking about. I rented virtual boy. Oh, that's another 3D Nintendo system that was only red and black.

Yeah. Another kiosk legend, too. Yeah, because if you owned it. I genuinely thought that's what the Meadow Quest was. Like, I was going to be the MetaQuest, and I was like, oh, no, this is just like maybe a Game Boy. Yeah. That thing could screw up your eyesight probably permanently if you owned it. So best in short doses, I would say.

rental decision there. And so because I didn't have a PlayStation, it was just I was always sort of snatching PlayStation sessions until eventually I got it. But the thing about the PlayStation was it spanned essentially our adolescents were not all the same age. But because they made that thing for so long, I was, what, seven or something when it came out. And I was well into college by the time they stopped manufacturing the PlayStation. That's how successful that console was. They made those things for 11 years or something, which at that time was longer than we'd been alive before the PlayStation came out. So if you didn't get one at its peak when it was the new hotness, then you could pick one up for cheap when there was a PS1, when they had that combo system

with the screen on it. Remember that? When you could just like have a screen on the back of your system, that was the height of portability back then. And so eventually you could get yourself a PlayStation. There was no excuse for you not to have a PlayStation at some point during its life cycle because its life cycle lasts it so long. Any favorite memories once you did get one and you had it at your disposal full time? Matt, did you make up for lost time? What was at the top of your list once you finally, you copped? I did make up for a lot of lost time. Much like you, I had a lot of friends who had a playstation. I didn't say I had a lot of friends, to be clear. I guess I just assumed.

It was entirely transactional relationships just based on who owned which console. And also my cousins got one pretty close to launch. So I did get to experience those launch titles, which was nice. But yeah, I definitely made up for lost time as soon as I got one. There was already just a massive backlog of PlayStation games that I hadn't played and that a lot of my friends had gone through a long time. ago. So it was pretty easy to borrow games from friends back then when you got one late into the console cycle and just tear through all of these things that you had not had access to before.

Yeah. That's really the best way to go about it if you have the patience. If you can wait and deprive yourself, then you can pick up every game for cheap and you can only play the best ones and you can just marathon them without waiting for them to come out. The only problem is the agony of having to wait before you actually get it. And by that time, there was a PS2. There were other consoles out, so you're behind the eight ball already. Rob, any sentimental reminiscences from you about the PlayStation? So many.

I'm going to withhold most of them to not reveal my draft priorities. But I was the first time that I remember going into a store and trying to purchase a video game. And the person across the counter being like, so is your parent here? because I need to check in with them about this game you're trying to buy to me it's like and relevant to our purposes is old and washed people on this podcast

the true advent of mature gaming right like there were actually titles on the board that I was not allowed to play or that just literally were not for me as a person trying to play a console video game which I felt like it was a pretty new experience so I think just like the capabilities

from a theme and dialogue and polygonal violence on screen perspective had reached a point with the first PlayStation that like the guy at shout out to microplay video games now out of business in Plano, Texas. That dude just like would not let me buy Grand Theft Auto, right? Like just like would not let me purchase some things as like a 10 year old. And shout out to him. That was probably some responsible storekeeping. And frankly, I don't think he was, he didn't need to do that. No. I mean, there was kind of like the soft M on the cover at that point where like it's advised that you're a certain age, but who really, who really cared? And who in the

broader society would even clock that, oh, a video game could have controversial material in it. Having said that, I don't think that there's a single thing. It evokes like the parental advisory sticker on albums because I think my parents were a bit more judicious when it came to music with a parental advisory sticker. Then it came to M-rated video games. Thanks, Tipper Gore. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Even when GTA3 came out and I was still not old enough to buy that legitimately, I just resorted to extraordinary lengths, whether it was recruiting upperclassmen at my school. You know, like the classic, like getting older kids

to buy you a beer or something, no. No interest in that. Buy me GTA3. Buy me a game in which I can buy a beer. Yes. Yes. And do far worse than that. Or go with my well-meaning,

but basically oblivious to game parental ratings, grandmother to pick out games for Christmas or a birthday. and she would oblige by getting whatever I wanted, which was just wonderful. So you had to find a way around these things. And I think you're right, Rob, because, of course, in the earlier console war, Genesis versus NES, S-NES, S-NES.

Sega was sort of the edgier, more mature company, and that was the branding. But we're talking like Sonic versus Mario. We're not talking. Well, Mortal Kombat, you have to remember. That's true. It's true. Yes, it's true.

But a lot of that, was kind of like edgy for a teen, not so much actual mature, whereas the PlayStation was very much marketed toward adults and successfully so, and many millions of them bought it. And that's why it was in some sense, maybe the first mainstream console, which is, I think, a big part of its impact. And I think we should probably talk about that briefly before we actually get to our draft. Why was this thing so significant? Why was this such a landmark console? Beyond the fact that it had a lot of great games, which we're about to get to, Matt, what stands out to you about why was this thing so influential? What is the legacy of the PlayStation? Well, for me, I think there are two things that really cemented its victory in that particular console war. One was that the Sega Saturn came out at $400. Yeah. And that's without even taking into account inflation. Like, that number was just completely ridiculous when it came out.

to the point where, like, I will always remember that it was $400. And no Sonic Extreme. I was like, there's no way I can get. And I, obviously, I was like, well, that's the one I want. It's the Sega system. I don't know what Sony's doing here, right? But I knew I would never get a Saturn at $400. And secondly, you know, and you touched on this a bit too,

It was definitely marketed as for an older, more mature, edgier generation. If you look back at the gaming magazines from that era, the PlayStation games had consistent marketing tone of this obnoxiously, like slightly horny, gritty, violent tone that like you would have advertisements for games were like, it didn't even show you a screenshot. It didn't even say what the game was. It was like, there's a lot of very successful marketing going on to say, hey, this is not a toy. This is like an exciting, edgy, new thing.

And mostly marketed to dudes. Mostly marketed to dudes. Right. Scat, women, Lara Croft, et cetera. Really the Carl's Jr. school of advertising, I would say. Yes. Not particularly inclusive, but even so, 100. million or more people bought this thing.

Rob, what stands out in your mind? What makes PlayStation special? I mean, I think it is the word of mouth for a lot of those titles. You can't believe how violent this game is or how adult this game is. Like, taking those sorts of marketing campaigns and putting them out into the world in a way that I think it made it at the time spread like wildfire. If you're at school or if you're at college, if you were at any kind of social group that would be playing these games, people are tapping into them trying to get you to, like,

trying to show you this latest thing. And a lot of that comes with during this era, the rise of survival horror, the rise of this gratuitous stylistic violence, the rise of like, you know, the attempts at actual, actual sexuality they were talking about in the games. You know, it may seem ridiculous

looking at the sharp edges of Lara Croft now, but like that was a thing and a part of this whole era. That was what we had at the time. Completely. And I think, speaking to the like long shelf life of the PS1 era that you mentioned, Ben overall, like I think about this as like the first postmodern video game system.

The first system that really played with the idea of being a video game and being a console where you're not just stretching out all the graphical capabilities of what the PS1 can do over time. You're playing games that are telling you unplug your controller in the middle of the game. You're playing games that are saying switch your memory card slots, take out the disc and put in this other disc that isn't this game at all. We started playing with the idea of being a game. And I think some of that comes with just having enough time of consoles in people's houses where that felt like an okay thing to do and an exciting thing to do. And just the existence of the disc at all. That was huge.

I mean, Saturn is well and there's Sega CD and all of this. But of course, this was the first really successful blockbuster console that switched to disk. And there was no going back unless you were Nintendo. And then you put out the Nintendo 64 anyway. But mostly, there was no going back. So this was the wave of the future. and it was pretty clear that it was going to be. So this is switching from cartridge to disk.

That alone renders this a pretty significant system. And there are all these what-ifs and Sony and Ken Kudragi, the father of the PlayStation, you know, all of these scenarios where they could have allied with Sega, they could have allied with Nintendo. They did for a while. And then ultimately they decided they were spurned. They said, let's just build this thing ourselves.

And once they did, then you sort of, of cemented what we have now. Of course, Microsoft hadn't entered the ring yet, but Sony established itself as the dominant player in a single generation. And then there was no looking back. And of course, the PS2 sold even more and established its dominance even more. And I've owned every PlayStation since the PlayStation one. So that really just changed the paradigm of the market, just the contours of the console wars, such as they were, such as they are. Steve, what stands out to you? I think the thing that would have stood up to me,

I wasn't really there for the level of like marketing one-upmanship when I was seven or eight years old and kind of like exposing myself to the beginnings of a video gaming culture. But the real thing that came with owning a PlayStation at that young of an age was the idea that my parents or people that I found older than, than me actually taking interest in the level of technical achievement that came with games. Yeah. The idea that when my dad or mom that played Gallagher and Pac-Man could look at what I'm doing

and they're like, that's a video game, that looks like a photograph that I had taken a picture of a car once. Like, that's not like, I can see where Pac-Man came in or I can see where Mario, the thing that I'm used to, and Pong, and they started to talk about like, okay, well, you, it, you, you, used to just be like a bar on a screen for us. And now you have fully fledged articulating things in 3D that to me, I took for granted then, but then I actually got to understand like a bit of a legacy to know that like this is in the middle of something that is considered bleeding edge for the time. Yeah. And we look back on it now and it still kind of is because it's the first to really

look at, okay, we can do things in 3D and you can go forward into the screen rather than just across something. You have different vertical planes. You can actually, again, play around with the idea of using one disc, putting in another, interacting with the machine itself along with the game. And I think that is something

that was very illuminating to get even as a child and then immediately grow up with for the rest of my life to know that that's kind have been the precedent that's been set. Yeah, that goes hand in hand with just the general advancement of technology and the switch to disks, but moving from 2D to 3D, and it was awkward. There were growing pains. They had to figure out how that worked. It was wobbly and wavy, and it could give you a headache staring at those early 3D PlayStation games long enough. I was trying to refresh my memory on why that was that quirk of the PlayStation, but it was just wobbly on the screen. And according to

how-to geek, and I quote, PlayStation 1 lacked flops due to not having an FPU, no Z buffer resulted in small errors and visible polygons, a fine texture mapping caused warping. So, there you have it. I assume that answers

all of your questions. Yeah, I thought so. But this was just kind of a quirk of personally, but. This was a quirk of the system that it didn't look great. Certainly in retrospect, it didn't look great, but in the moment, it was mind-blowing. And I know that Saturn did that too, shout out to Virtua Fighter,

but to see that on PlayStation as painful as those first steps into the third dimension were, that was another case of, well, there's no going back from this. And I had forgotten until I looked up the sales stats, just how dominant PlayStation was in that generation over the 64 and over Saturn. But all time to that point, there had never been a system that had sold nearly as many units

as the PlayStation, which eventually got up to 100 million. I think the NES was barely over 60 million, and that was the most successful home console to that point. Game Boy got over 100 million if you count the Game Boy Color, which came out after the PlayStation. So there was just nothing in the realm of just the sheer market penetration of the PlayStation. And it just converted a lot of people who weren't gamers or weren't home console gamers to lifelong gamers, people who were just in the PlayStation ecosystem.

for good. And all the game franchises that it established, the dual shock, we're still essentially playing with a dual shock. It's called a dual sense now. It has really cool, you know, motion and tapping and haptic feedback, but it's still the same basic template that we were holding on to 30 years ago because why mess with success. So do you guys think that there are other consoles that can claim to be more influential than the PlayStation. We're not going to rank all of the consoles right now, every console ranked Go. But what other consoles do you think even have an argument to say this was more momentous? This was more meaningful in the long run than the PlayStation 1.

This might be a time we'll tell thing, but I think the switch is going to make an argument for that. I think transferring every system into a portable endeavor, which is kind of what the switch has brought on. feels like it's going to be that sort of seismic shift, but we're still so early. And I think we already have a better sense of what the PS1 did, which is a fuck ton for the industry, for the overall direction of gaming, for the market of who a video gamer is.

I would tweak that take only slightly and say the Wii in contrast to the Switch, because if the PlayStation 1 is the technological marvel that you can not only show off to your friends, but your family and get them involved in gaming, the Wii made that influence as easy as possible. Anybody in your family and everyone in your family was going to play Wii Sports. Everyone was going to try bowling or tennis or play a Harry Potter game

where you can try to flick a wand and make things happen. And as variable as the translation to a remote controller could have been, that was the easiest of onboarding things that you can do. that you can just simply point at your TV and know what you're doing. But as far as the PlayStation is concerned, I think the, like, you know, the crown jewel of the achievement

and its legacy in the history of gaming could be is the fact that this is a thing that you can show off to your frame. Every time that I think Sony wants to make a statement of where it is in the world of gaming, it's because of how technologically advanced they can be and showing off what games can do. And I think that is starting with the PS1.

I was going to say, I just have a different take about like the influential systems. I mean, if you look at the Atari Jaguar, I mean, there we go. Do I have to? Do I have to look at it? So many buttons. I mean, no, what you're saying about the Wii and what you're saying about the switch, I feel like most of those things can also be applied to the original Nintendo entertainment system. Yes. You know, I was barely old enough to kind of register it at the time.

But the Nintendo Entertainment System had pretty much almost as big of a cultural impact as the Wii or the Switch. I mean, I remember, like, my dad would go to work, and there were, like, five other people at his work that had Nintendo's, and they would just trade games. Like, I played The Legend of Zelda because my dad brought it home from work. Like, everybody seemed to, there were a ton of people who were getting into video games for the first. time because you had actual compelling games like Tetris, like Super Mario, beyond, you know, what, Steve, what your parents were talking about, just lines on the screen, like little bleep blops and everything. And we called it E.T. Which I had. Yeah. And yes, it helps the whole industry bounce back from the post-E-T crash. So I don't know if there's really an alternate history

where we just never recover from that crash. And we're not doing a video game podcast because there's no such thing as video games. I doubt that happens. It's just kind of a life will find a way and video games probably will too. But would it have happened as quickly? Would the bounce back?

Would the rebound have happened when and how it did? If not for NES, which was my first system. And just, and yes, you know, Nintendo becoming synonymous with the idea of video games for years. at that point, and just establishing Mario and Zelda and Metroid and all of the incredible franchises that got their start on that system, at least at home. That's what I was going to say that probably, and yes, just because of the role it played in propping up the industry would be one that I would put ahead of PlayStation, but I'm not

sure that anything else would. One other thing that I was going to mention as a PlayStation contribution is maybe popularizing the idea of backward compatibility, because you kind of need. needed that for PS2 because there was such a built-in, you know, appetite and audience for PlayStation. So many people had the original PlayStation and games for it that they didn't want to get a whole new system if they couldn't continue to play those games. And so the SNES wasn't really compatible with the NES. There were cartridge adapters and everything, but not natively. And so for the PlayStation 2, I guess we could really credit the PS2 with this more so than

the PS1, but the PS1 made it an imperative that, okay, we have to support. those games, and that remains, to some extent, the expectation even today. I think we have the disc technology to think for that, too, right? The idea of a singular form and size that a game is going to come in. The disc giveth in that sense, and I think they take it the way a little bit in the sense that it was the first time I remember being able to actually physically wear out a video game. Like, the cartridges just had a staying power that throwing a, you know, your 10-year-old friend throwing a disc on the entertainment center and just leaving it there for a while,

has a corrosive effect on your ability to actually finish playing this game. All right. Have we gassed up this system enough? Have we justified our draft here? Anyone have anything else nice to say about the PlayStation

before we go draft a bunch of great games? Okay, let's do that then because I think that is as big a part of its legacy as anything else, just the number of franchises that are still with us today that got their start on the PlayStation. Before we get to our draft,

quick programming teases coming up later this week, Friday on the Ring Reverse feed, Mint Edition, including one Steve Allman and Jomey and Daniel Chin will be handing out their animation awards as well as covering Creature Commandos. I don't know if there will be a two-for-one. You could just give an award to Creature Commandos, but I don't know if it deserves it. We have to wait and listen to Mint Edition. And Steve and Jomey and Daniel will tell us.

On House of R, there will be one more episode coming this week if Mal gets some sleep at some point after almost single-handedly pulling off the redesign. She would not say that. She would give credit to everyone else on the staff who has helped, but she has been a beast when it comes to seeing that thing through. She will presumably also be there for the skeleton crew episode one and two deep dive. And I will also pop in for a little Star Wars lore. And then coming up next week, Button Mash will be back already as we cover Indiana Jones and The Great Circle. And also the new anthology show video game adaptations on prime video secret level. So that's what's in store, including upcoming coverage of skeleton crew,

Dune Prophecy, Craven the Hunter. Yes, it is almost that time. You can contact button mash at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming.

You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's. New wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli.

Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurt today for two weeks and see if you feel a difference.

With billions of probiotics and 20 years of size. scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. All right.

Shall we draft? Are you all ready? As ready as I'll ever be, this is a deep catalog to parse. It really is. A deep and complex catalog. We did some haggling over the categories for this one specifically because of that. Where did we end up in?

Like, what exactly are we drafted today? I'll tell you. Well, you can't claim that you're not prepared because you've had 30 years to study for this thing. Wow. To get your draft board ready. No pressure. Yeah. So this didn't exactly sneak up on you.

But I understand what you're saying because there's such a wealth and a depth and a breath of games. I found conflicting figures for how many games were actually released on PlayStation. I've seen 4,000 cited. I've seen almost 8,000 cited. It's a lot of games, is the point. and thus we are going one extra category. Usually six categories suffice, but this time with PlayStation,

this one goes to seven. We had to add an extra category in recognition not only of how many games there are, but also just of how many genres were prominent then, some that probably if we were drafting this current generation's systems games, we would not elevate to the level of needing their own category,

but back then you did. So here's what we settled on. Shooter. Now, again, this was the infancy of the 3D on consoles. Doesn't have to be first-person shooters. Can be third-person shooters, can be side-scrollers, can be bullet-hell, shoot-em-ups. Any game that involves shooting, if you want to make a case for it, part of the drafting, the strategy, is actually sneaking some games in in categories where people might object.

But if you can make a case and convince people, go for it. RPGs, an incredibly deep category for the PlayStation. We could just probably say square RPGs alone, and we would have plenty to draft from here. Platformers, which again is one that sadly we would probably not need a dedicated category for today, but back then we absolutely did. Similarly, fighting games. This was a big time for fighting games. This was not that long after the arcade heyday.

this was when it was still amazing that you could play arcade fighting games in your living room, and there were a lot of ports that PlayStation took advantage of. So fighting games is our fourth category vehicle, which is one we've used before, I think, for our remake draft,

and that basically involves any game with some means of conveyance other than walking and running. Is that too broad a definition? If you're on something, if you're steering something, It could be a plane. No bipedals allowed.

It could be a car. It could be a cart. It could be a skateboard. I don't want to give anything away. No spoilers. But anything where you're sort of steering, if it meets the technical definition of a vehicle, we'll let it slide.

If it slides in the game, then it counts in the draft. Stealth slash survival horror, we're kind of combining those categories there because they're sort of aligned. You're sneaking around in each one. And this again was a big period for not only survival horror, but stealth, but sneak it around. This was a really big platform for that. And as always, we have a wildcard category where you can draft anything. So seven categories and the other stipulations that we hashed out here, and you can help me out if I forget anything,

we want this to be games that are distinctively PlayStation games. So it doesn't have to be exclusives, but the parameters are that it has to have come out on a home console either first for PlayStation or simultaneously for PlayStation and some other system. And, you know, there were more exclusives and fewer multi-platform releases back then. But basically we're saying it cannot have come out on another home console prior to the PlayStation. Did I sum that up accurately? Perfect. Okay. We are allowing arcade ports, however. Again, if it's the first console version of the arcade game, Rob, in the moments before we started recording, also stipulated what, that it has to be the first arcade port in North America. I'm just trying to make sure that my bases are covered here. Okay. I think, you know, for as deep a pool as this is, there are a couple categories that are making me a little bit nervous if the top titles start going off the board, especially because of the,

the versatility of some of those titles. So I just want to make sure that my deep cuts are all above board, that we're all on the same page here. Yes. Yes. So you're splitting hairs, but I'm sure it'll come into play at some point. If there's an arcade port that came out for a Japan-only console,

that is still eligible if PlayStation was the first console on our shores that was accessible to us. But, for example, MDK is a PC game I was considering, and then I realized, oh, no, that was a PC game. That was ported to PlayStation. Doesn't count. Chrono Trigger, right? S-N-E-S game ported to PlayStation.

Chrono Cross, fair game. Chrono trigger. Oh, thank God. Off the board. Just got to get your chronos straight. You can't be too quick on the Chrono Trigger. So the only other caveat here, I think, is that once you have drafted a game from a franchise, the rest of that franchise is off limits to you.

But not to everyone else. Now, Rob argued that once a game from a franchise was drafted, no one else should be able to draft any representative from that franchise. Correct. He was voted down. You guys are real soft for this one. I got to say, I thought we would have like a really bloodthirsty draft if we started doing like franchise independence.

That would have happened. You would have taken Final Fantasy 8 first overall and Final Fantasy 7 would have gone. This is my plan. You are correct. You know what? I think part of the reason I brought it up is because this is such a sequel heavy system, there are so many good sequels that are available. And while they are all deserving of acknowledgement in this draft in their own ways, it also gives us some easy outs that I'm sure I will be taking advantage of as much as anybody in this draft. Yes. I had a hard time on my draft board deciding where to rank certain sequels over the original stuff. I could go either way.

It's nice to have a fallback plan. Okay, so no one drafter can double-dip on a franchise. I think we have covered it. Producer Devin, do you have a draft order for us? I do. We're going to start with Rob. Okay, squall is yours. We're doing it in real time.

Steve, you will be following, which means there are two left. And we're going Matt, which means Ben, you are. Bringing up the rear. Sadly, but maybe not. I get to draft on the turn. We're snaking, right? That's how we do things here? Yeah.

Okay. We simply must. Okay. All right. Rob, you're on the clock. Despite the fact that some other categories do make me nervous, I'm going to go very chalky. One of the best individual video games ever made, for my money, the best single game on the system. I'm going to take Metal Gear Solid.

I'm going to take it in shooter. Oh, okay. All right. Interesting. Obviously, it could play in stealth. For me, I actually had a lot more of fun playing a lot of the other stealth than survival. horror games on PS1 than I did shooters overall. So I'm going to take it there.

Completely innovative game. A lot of what I was saying earlier about the ways that games on the PS1 played with the form and played with the hardware, a lot of that comes from the Metal Gear Solid experience. I will literally never forget being told that I need to jockey my control report from one to two to fight Psycho Mantis successfully and avert having my mind completely controlled. I think Metal Gear Solid has a somewhat complicated legacy because it brought about the rise of a very kind of mature, very spying, espionage heavy, but also sort of

like nonsensical storytelling. Yes. The first one, I would argue, is probably the most successful version of any Metal Gear solid game. The gameplay clearly evolves over time, but as a more compact, finite product, and in terms of a style of game that opens your brain to, oh, my God, you're allowed to do that. I just don't know that there's ever been any other game for this system that had that kind of effect for me. Yeah. All due respect to Kojima-san, he should be allowed to do whatever he

wants to do. But yes, some of the more elaborate, harder to parse, harder to follow plotting of subsequent Metal Gear games had not really taken off by this point when you had Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 and then Metal Gear Solid. It was still reigned in enough that it was kind of under control. that you could follow it without reading an explainer or messaging Justin Charity to ask him to be your human explainer. Sadly, he was not able to draft with us today. I was very much looking forward to what wild off-the-board picks he would have. That was the game that I got my used PS1 for, by the way.

Deservingly so? That was the one. Smart of you to take it in shooter just because of positional scarcity, kind of controversial. Obviously, I think in spirit, It is very much a stealth game. It's the epitome of a stealth game. The better you are at it, the less you shoot, in theory.

I am terrible at all stealth games, so I shoot quite often in all stealth games. But in theory, you should be sneaking around inside your cardboard box. We should have had a cardboard box category. Yeah. But you do shoot. So I think it's allowable here. And I can't quibble with this pick. I think the only quibble would be over time.

you do have a portion of a game you're playing now with an unskippable stealth section. Metal Gear Solid is probably to blame for that ultimately. So take that out on it, if you will. Yeah, but then it's up to them, it's up to those other games for it to be good. Oh, certainly. It's kind of the reason why those things are good.

To think that a game where you're actually not engaging with an enemy that much and actually hiding and that you're still considered a badass and there's a power fantasy at play, that takes skill to make a game like that and actually feel engaging and good. And that was probably the height of what Kojima and Metal Gear achieved.

And that game looked pretty incredible because that was a few years into the PlayStation lifecycle when they figured out how to extract more out of the system. And that was why the system was so powerful, not that I know this from personal experience, even though I'm pretty read up on flops at this point. But it was just a system architecture that was very easy to program for, which, whereas you needed some sort of advanced degree to make a game for Saturn. And so that's a big part of the reason why PlayStation was so successful.

It was relatively easy to make games for it, and thus the third-party support. Another factor we probably should have mentioned earlier, whereas Nintendo often, at least until Switch, really, until we maybe had issues with third party and ultimately was reliant on its own first-party stuff, PlayStation was just a big tent, a wide umbrella, and there was never any shortage of great games coming out

just because it was more convenient to make games for that system, especially once it had this built-in install-based. So by the time Metal Gear Solid came out, they had really figured out how to make these games look good. And so it was none of this SNES-faking 3D perspective mode 7 nonsense and none of the wobbly, warbly stuff. It looked really great by that point. Steve?

An amazing start. And I think I have to pick, from here. Essentially, nothing short of kind of a cultural juggernaut for not only video gaming, but the popularization of like a multitude

of things that is in one package. In the vehicle category, I'm taking Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Wow. I didn't see that pivot coming, but yeah, makes sense. No, I genuinely don't think that you can find a more indelible legacy for a sport,

a person, a genre of music and a genre of gaming that all starts with one, not so much one game, but the second iteration of a game that takes, not only like a cultural impact, but like it galvanizes an entire industry behind it. You know who Tony Hawk is by this game. You know who like probably, you could probably name like five or ten famous skateboarders. Chat to Bob Bernquist. Bob Burnquist.

Rodney Mullen, my goat. Randy Mullen. Yeah, like, the fact that you now know an entire annal of a sport because of this, let alone that they've propped up X games, they've gotten to the Olympics, you know like five different songs from this soundtrack that are all bangers, and you know that the gameplay that has come from this has echoed through to this very day. and ultimately has not changed that much

because I think the formula might have been perfected, if not here, within sequels in spitting distance to it. I don't think that I can think of a more influential start to a PlayStation legacy than Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, too. It's a strong pick. Google's AI overview, which I thought I had disabled, but somehow it's back, is trying to tell me that a vehicle,

typically with wheels and an engine, now there's no engine. The engine. The engine is Tony Hawk. The engine is the dual shock controller. Yes, that's true. We provided the momentum and the force. So yes, I think that counts.

It's a strong pick. All right. Matt. For Rearverse purposes, too, is this not the Tony Hawk game where you could play as Spider-Man? Yes, it is. Okay. So as eligible as one could be. Yes.

Yes. The actual Spider-Man game still on the board. Wow. All right. All right. Easy. I was prepared to take that with the fourth pick. if I was going forth.

I feel like there are four top tier games on PlayStation that would be the top point three four. I'm ultimately ignoring very big ones for this pick, I understand. I don't fall to it. I totally agree. Just generationally important game.

Well, that leaves me to do something very easy and uneventful, and that is, I'm going to take in the RPG category, Final Fantasy 7, Oh, no. Are you sure about the Roman numerals on that? Mm-hmm. Not eight.

Guess what? I still don't really, I'm still not really that locked in on which Roman numerals or which because of Final Fantasy. For real, like, truly, I don't. That's a pretty important distinction. Is it before the V or is it after the V? Oh, my gosh. If that's your thing, Final Fantasy taught me Roman numerals.

Exactly. Yeah. I don't know that you even need to justify this pick, but feel free to. I don't think so. I mean. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, definitive PlayStation console seller. It was the turning point in video game history that said, hey, an RPG can be a blockbuster hit at the cutting edge of technology.

And it also had characters that are memorable to this day. I mean, we're in the process of remaking the whole game and the modern era right now over three different games. Obviously, the cultural impact of this cannot be, overstated. So I don't really have a choice. I had to pick it. Yep.

And I think I'm left without a choice for my next pick, which I was worried that you might take, Matt and maybe you would have if Final Fantasy 7 had not been out for. I absolutely was planning on it. I will be selecting Castlevania Symphony of the Night. There we go. Yeah, which because there's no whip category,

granted there's a variety of weapons available in this game, but I'll take it under Platformer, which is, It's a deep category, but I think that's in the spirit of things. It's one of the best games of all time. It's a game that came out at the height of the 3D mania, and people said, 2D, get out of here with this 2D garbage. Why are you giving me two dimensions?

Why are you taking a dimension away after you just gave us a dimension? And then they played Castlevania Symphony of the Night. And they said, you know what? Actually, that's okay. We don't need a third dimension. This is quite enough dimensions because they essentially, perfected T2D platforming. And essentially, I don't know if you want to say this pioneered.

I mean, not single-handedly, the Metroidvania genre, clearly a combination of multiple franchises, but Castlevania Symphony of Night had as much to do with the Metroidvania genre as anything other than Super Metroid. And that's still as present today as anything. Sadly, Castlevania, perhaps not always as present as we would like, but the descendants of Castlevania and Symphony of the Night are still very much with us. Matt, if you want to add anything, I know you love this game too. I do. It's one of my favorite games of all time in probably my favorite genre of all time.

And the explosion of Metroidvania's in recent years among indie game developers is impossible to miss. In fact, one of my favorite games of this year, Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, one of the best Metroidvania's ever. This is a genre that was largely established by Symphony of the Night that years and years later is still really, really fun for a lot of people. It also kind of broke my brain in that like urban legend video game way. Like the first time somebody told me that you could play the whole inverted castle after you play through Symphony of the Night.

I'm like, that sounds fake. But sure enough, we're in Clock Tower. You're right up there, let's go. Real, my uncle works for a Nintendo type of... Completely. You can just lie. It sounds like a lie. But it's so fun.

And the fact that the whole game plays well upside down is just an incredible testament to how tightly constructed this whole thing is. Yeah, this was maybe the last gasp of the playground gaming rumor. Before it could be debunked easily by going to game facts or whatever before we had... I have one more on my board that has...

Okay. That's a very salacious rumor. All right. Well, I get to pick twice as compensation for picking last. And I think in my mind, there's almost a big five when it comes to games that have a case as these are on the short list of the greatest games of all time. And this is not a category that's near and dear to my heart, full disclosure. And so there's part of me that wants to wait on this, except that I think it is the clear number one. and I think it's a thin-ish category.

And so I think I've got to go with Tekken 3, which is still hailed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest fighting games of all time. And again, you know, fairly deep fighting class on this console, but this was the one, not the first home console port of an arcade Tekken, but the one where it was just perfected. So many of the sequels, two great games in this generation,

we're just like, let's add a ton more stuff. Let's give you way more characters or courses or stages or whatever it was and we'll refine what was there. Because this, again, is the era where you're cranking out sequels every year, right? Which was eventually the undoing of some series like Tony Hawk, unfortunately. They just couldn't keep up that cadence. But when you were expected to get them out the door that fast, then you just loaded them up with as many options as you could and you just added whatever refinements and graphical

improvements that you could. And Tech and three felt like the moment where this was not even sort of a second kind of a consolation for being in the arcade, just the convenience of it and not needing to feed all of your quarters that you possessed in the world into this thing to keep playing, but also where it just felt like this is perfectly replicating the experience. So there are a number of ways I could have gone here, but to me I think Tech and Three is, if not head and shoulders, at least head above the other options in this category. Do y'all have the same kind of tribal experience with fighting games that I have where I've never been a Tekken guy for reasons I cannot articulate to you.

It was like somebody put another genre in my hands first and therefore I was bound to that genre forevermore. And so Tekken has this incredibly outsized footprint. This is a beloved game. And I don't know that I've ever played Tekken 3 before. It's weird because I didn't find Tekken until I had played Virtual Fighter. Yeah. And to me, that was just like, it was like playing a Lamborghini of a game where just like everything is so smooth and everything you can just move quicker.

And by comparison to Tekken, it's just like, oh, wow, this is like crunchy and like we're punching with like potato sacks for fists. Yes. And there's going to be hit sparks that look like, you know, like Troy Yukins all the time. Yep. But as far as like Tekken is concerned, I think that was when I first encountered like the idea of like, lack of a better term, sweats. like the ones that like really took gaming seriously and had to like like to levels that I could not even parse as a kid and I would see teenagers like do elegant combos and like incredible juggles in Tekken that like it would break my brain and I'm like I'm just going to go over here and find my like you know spiky-haired hero that's going to maybe catch an ape I don't know yeah Virtua Fighter on Saturn A the frame rate was a problem but also You could count the polygons, basically. As trailblazing a game as that was, and just to have it 3D at home, the characters were a series of triangles stuck together to the point that you could essentially do the polygon count by I.

So it was still special, but Tekken was a leap forward. That's my pick, and that means that we're back to Matt. That's a great pick. It seems to forget. that Tekken was at the top of like the fighting game pyramid for for a little while back there. And as someone who didn't have a PlayStation through most of the generation, that was the kind of game where you'd go to your friend's house. They'd put Tekken in and they own Tekin and you didn't own Tekin.

And they would just absolutely wipe the floor with you. You got to own that. You got to put your time in at the lab for that way. Absolutely. Like the best you could do. And that was that was the game where everyone learned what Capoeira is. because Eddie Gordo was the most fun character to play in Tech and Three and would give novices like myself a chance because his movements were a little bit hard to read.

So shout out Eddie Gordo. And by the way, meant to mention before I forget, there is a listener participation component to this, as there is with all of our drafts. I should have mentioned this up top. But we will. Jomi, of course, will put our social graphic together, and it'll be on the Ring of Her Social channels, Instagram, Twitter,

wherever else, and you can go and you can comment and you can vote, and you can decide on who wins. So this is for bragging rights and dunking rights. And so there's a lot at stake. And that gave me pause with Tekken just because I wasn't sure would the people support me? Would they remember what that game meant at that time? You've got to pick from your heart, Ben. I know.

Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, with a fighting game, it's just not as near and dear to my heart to begin with. So I kind of curried favor. I went for the popular appeal. What a sellout. I know. Well, if that was your intent, I feel like you made a mistake

because my next pick is in... This should come as no surprise to you. It's coming in the survival horror genre slash stealth. I'm going to pick Resident Evil 2. There you go. Yeah. I was hoping you might be made it into taking the first one somehow,

but you made the right choice. Yeah. I mean, I have a huge love for the first one. The awful voice acting. the I mean, it's a historic moment in gaming Resident Evil. It started a genre, really.

It made something that worked even with those tank controls. But Resident Evil 2 was the perfection or at least the severe evolution of that formula. I had a great story. The gameplay was much better.

The voice acting was marginally better. Couldn't get much ways. I was amazing. They could put voices in games so it didn't matter. Oh, it mattered in Resident Evil One. Oof, man.

Yeah, no, Resident Evil 2, and they remade it recently. It was one of the best stories told on that console and an exciting new genre that sprung out of this generation. It's a great pick. All of these picks are great. We're still in the range where all of these are classics. Steve, what you got? I think I find myself, at least with my second pick,

still picking like a cultural shift board rather than like games that I find personally the best. But like I don't think that I can't go any farther without mentioning Tomb Raider. Yeah. That was a game that like I think that that you mentioned the last of the like playground video game rumor mill. I don't think that there was ever a more discussed game in my lifetime as a child than Tomb Raider. to the fact that I hadn't been able to play it for years because all of the adults in my life straight up thought it was pornography.

Oh, yeah. And the fact that it still looked like it was an amazing fun, 3D exploration exercise that still is not, has never held up. And I don't think has at all until it's been modernized

by the things that it's been referenced by with other games, uncharted and the like. but I think that this is a big, big moment not only for the marketability of games, but also like the kind of establishment of a proto-action adventure genre that you can see the bones of to this day. And I think the importance of this game

outweighs its rough patches, I think, by far. Yeah, you live with the tank controls because of everything else it gave you. and having the female heroine, even if her proportions were not anatomically possible, it was at least someone maybe you could identify with if you were looking for a non-male action hero. And yeah, this is one of those cases of this spond a franchise that is still with us and still very vital 30 years later, not just in games, but in TV, in movies. Tomb Raider is resurgent, and it all dates back to the OG.

Exactly. And this will be in Shooter, by the way. Okay. All right. We're stretching. Is it a platformer? Does she not have guns? She has, famously, she has guns.

So, yes. Okay. I think it's a lot. It's a lot. All right. Mr. Mahoney, two picks from you. One of them, again, is going to be pretty easy because we've basically already talked about it. I am very concerned about vehicle to the point that I tried to get this category eradicated

from the draft. So I am going to take the original Tony Hawk's pro skater and vehicle. Everything already aforementioned about the cultural import of this game. But look, I got the first one. And most importantly, I have Goldfinger Superman, so everyone else can kick rocks. Now, are you making the case that this is superior? Or are you just saying, I'm settling for the inferior Tony Hawk, but it's still superior to every other game in this category.

Between us among friends, I am taking this because I am panicked about what is going to become of this category by the time that the state comes back to me. That's fair. That's fair. But for our podcast listeners who are going to be voting on this draft, clearly this is the superior game. Oh, absolutely not. There's no question for the purposes of me winning this podcast that Tony Hawks Pro Skater is better than Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to, look, you simply cannot have one without the other. So I don't know why you would vote for the sequel when you vote for the original. This is a manual, Rob. Some of us value the manual. That's right. Let's value the manual.

Look, hugely impactful game. We've already discussed it. I'm going to take another impactful game on the mechanics of not only PlayStation play, but console play for years and years to come. In Platformer, I'm going to take Ape Escape. Introduced to me the idea that, oh, my God, I'm supposed to operate two joysticks at once. How will I possibly do such a thing? Really did kind of make first appropriate use of the Dual Shock technology.

It has a very special place in my heart. heart, just like one, an all-time, puzzly platformer, no guns required. I just want to swing my giant net at a bunch of apes and have fun all day doing it. I think from a character design standpoint, the idea of putting a little siren on an ape's head is a strike of minor genius and one that I think should be acknowledged on this podcast. Yeah, I grew up with Super Monkey Ball personally, so that was sort of my primate of choice as a more of a dream cast guy, more of a second guy.

As opposed to a human who catches primal. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I guess more relevant than ever, right? Apes are still escaping constantly. I know. Not necessarily. Ape escape. I don't mean to lump all the primates together. Ape escape, when I looked back on this, I was like, man,

Astrobot really is a graveyard of uncapitalized Sony potential. Because I'm like, how have we not in the modern era had a single ape escape game that couldn't have been any level of fun? All I know is that Sony will still allow me to pick the ape with the siren. as like my avatar for PlayStation Online. Frankly insulting. So look, at least someone there acknowledges what's going on with Avescape. Yes, but don't mention Bloodborm.

Steve. All right. I think I've got to go with a personal classic and a, I think a one that like is, as far as IP is concerned, like an absolute slam dunk that not only will ensure its success, but it's a miracle that this will. was as fun and engaging as it was. I'm taking in platformer Marvel's Spider-Man.

I don't think of a game that I've played more on the PlayStation as a kid than this. It perfectly illustrated everything that I've ever wanted in a video game when I was a child. I wanted to be Spider-Man. I wanted to swing on buildings. I wanted to web up bad guys. I wanted to collect little comic books and costumes. And not only that, but you have Stan Lee introducing every single level. I don't think that you could have gotten better magic that captures

my eight-year-old heart than this. And I think anybody that had ever had the privilege of playing that game would agree. And not only that, but it's genuinely hilarious. Like, if you want to talk about great voice acting, this might be the first one where we've actually had an amazing voice cast. You have the voice cast of the original Fox cartoon doing this game.

And it was incredible. It's a great pick. Yeah, I was thinking when we were selecting the categories that we would have actually, adventure as a category now. But relatively few games really fit into that box neatly as I was sort of scanning and preparing my draft board. This would be one of them.

But clearly there's a lot of platforming involved in being Spider-Man. So this is fair. I guess it's hurt for me somewhat just because I think of Spider-Man 2 as the one where they nailed the web swinging and slinging for the first time, just like completely captured that in the way that I wanted it to. I would only disagree because if you ever talk about nailing the swinging, that's PlayStation 2 Spider-Man 2 territory. Yes, absolutely. And as far as gameplay is concerned, and the bones of what a Spider-Man game is, that starts with one.

And I think it's improved upon in two, but I think that that special sauce was in one. Very strong case for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 over Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Steve. I appreciate you making the argument for me. Spider-Man didn't get to the Olympics. All right. Matt. Okay. A, well, it's PlayStation.

I'm going to pick a Crash Bandicoot game. Yeah, it's pretty simple. Someone had to. Crash Bandico warped. Hell yeah. That's the one I'm picking. Okay. See, this was a tough call.

As I was ordering the Crash Bandicoots on my board for not, because I then took Castlevania. I had a hard time ranking two and warped, and I think I would have had two on top. I feel like they're pretty close. Yeah. It's a negligible difference to me. It was really close.

I just think that it's important to have some crash representation here because at the time when PlayStation was coming up, it was almost something that was holding PlayStation back, that they didn't have their Mario. They didn't have their Sonic, right? And this is something that PlayStation is to a degree, like, you know, never wanted to have, like, one iconic character that represents the whole system.

Sure, they're happy to have lots of really, valuable IP, but they were never thirsting for it the way that most video game fans were. And when Crash Bandicoo came out on the PlayStation, that was it. That at the time was the mascot of PlayStation. And he was aloof. He was kind of edgy a little bit as much as you can be as a cartoon mascot. The games itself were fun, especially once they evolved beyond the first one, which could be pretty frustrating. I just think you can't think about the PlayStation one

without thinking of Crash Bandicoot. So Crash Warped is my platformer. Can I ask a question just for science? What is a bandicoot? Like, literally do we know? I'm honestly asking. If we looked it up right now, and if I showed you a Google image of this,

he's a cute little guy. Cute little guy. But Crash is not really a cute little guy. Yeah, but he's got pants on. And I like it. Marsupials? Crash does not really resemble a real-life bandicoot, as far as I can tell. We're taking some liberty with marsupials when it comes to crash.

And neither do they spin notoriously. But neither does a Tasmanian devil. So, you know, we can take liberties with that as we were. They don't wear pants, turns out. Shoot, and their sisters don't have laptops. Man, I've been lied to for a long time. Warped actually was the very first game that I rolled credits on when I was a kid. Congratulations.

I was like, I didn't know that they had credits like movies. I just thought you said game over, but like in a happy font. Yeah. Okay. Gosh, a wealth of option still available to be with two picks to make here. I'm going to take a shooter. I'm shocked that a shooter hasn't been taken to this point because I view it as one of the weaker categories. Technically, too, have been taken.

Oh, that's true. I forgot that you guys cheated. They were just both a stretch. That's not cheating. There are guns. They go pew, pew, pew. There are so many guns. I'll be taking a legitimate shooter in this category, and that is one medal of honor,

which I see is not only a great game in its own right, but a landmark game in making sure that we would never be without a wealth of World War II gaming options for the rest of our lives. And Rob, I know you just took part in a big picture draft of World War II movies. I did. Also an interest of mine, also something I hope that we are never without. And similarly, we could do a top five of World War II games right now, and that could be a draft all on its own. In fact, maybe it should be the next time a good World War II game comes out. But Medal of Honor, the original, I would say you could credit it with popularizing that trend, the Steven Spielberg Magic. You have the historical accuracy, quote unquote, to an extent, by video game standards.

you had the creativity of the OSS missions, the precursor to the CIA. So this wasn't just running and gunning. This wasn't allied assault and the Normandy landing, though that was mind-blowing in its own right when that came along. And I don't want to shortchange Medal of Honor Underground, which is still on the board, by the way. Another rare female protagonist of a shooter from that era. But the original Medal of Honor from the mind of Steven Spielberg, who saw his son play Golden Eye and said, we got to get in on this and we can bring our Amblin magic that skeleton crew is trying to recapture. We will sprinkle that on Medal of Honor. There's very

little Amblin ethos in Medal of Honor. But a wonderful game, nonetheless, good death match mode, good multiplayer, just really a broad range of missions, which I really appreciated. And I think this is why we are still swimming in World War II games 25 years later. It's an understanding. It's an Deniable Pick, I just want to know from you, Ben, like, how you feel, ethically speaking about making yourself a part of the military industrial complex. Because you did not, you did

not launch the dad gaming genre with Metal Gear Frontline because that didn't happen with the movies. It's true. But look, this is, it's a just war, Rob. It's honest work. This was a righteous cause.

We're going after Nazis here. This is not a modern-day call of duty, kind of uncomfortable with the jingoism. This is, this is 1944, 1945. This is the sweet spot where you don't feel morally compromised while you're shooting people in your shooter. So, given that there weren't that many actual legitimate first-person shooters, at least on PS1, I think this is the cream of the crop. So for my next pick, see, I think vehicle is quite a deep category, and yet probably the best game left on the board. is in the vehicle category,

at least when it comes to reputation, but not really a personal favorite of mine either. So maybe I'll take an RPG off the board right now. Oh, Rob. I'm legitimately shaking in my boots. I'm going to be honest with you. You're good, Rob. Don't worry.

There are a few Final Fantasies still left on the board here, plus a few other square games that I could claim here, but I think I am going to go. I don't know if this is off the board or not. I'm a little nervous again when it comes to the popular appeal because this is kind of in the cult classic category,

and yet its reputation has only been burnished by the passing of the years. This is one of those games where you go to the Wikipedia page and it says it has been cited as one of the greatest games of all time, which might mean that one person cited it as that, but I think probably many more people did. And that's Final Fantasy Tactics.

Damn it. That was my next pick. Not a numbered Final Fantasy, but Final Fantasy Tactics, the tactical RPG. Probably the goat in this category, which I know is kind of a niche category. What category? I mean, in kind of like the tactical RPG. Well, okay. Tactical?

I'll give me tech. In TT RPGs, sure. It's one of the, yeah, it's a crown jewel for sure. Yeah. So, you know, more of a narrow audio. for this category potentially. And maybe I'm costing myself, but I'm also getting maybe the best ever made.

And at the end of the day, I don't feel bad about that. I would say a somewhat narrow audience relative to a behemoth like Final Fantasy 7. But the people who love Final Fantasy tactics will love to tell you how much they love Final Fantasy tactics and we'll corner you at a party. Yeah, yeah.

This is you, Matt. Grab, can me here for a second? Yes. Can I talk to you about this? Spread the gospel. Spread the gospel here. Mike Brown games. I'm generating turnout here.

because all the Final Fantasy tactic heads, like there will be a petition, people will drum up support to vote for me. Yeah, because they didn't listen to the pod, and they don't know that you just picked it for broad appeal. No, there were more broadly appealing Final Fantasies still on the board, I would say. So this is a pick from the heart. Okay, all right, okay.

Well, I'm going to pick a vehicle game. Yeah, go for it. This game was just kind of iconic, and it was in some ways one of the only PlayStation games that captured the multiplayer magic that was so common on N64. I'm going to pick Twisted Metal 2 in vehicle.

That is the correct twisted metal to pick here. Weirdly, my parents would let me play that before Tomb Raider. It's very state of America allowing that to happen. Yeah, this game, I don't know that it stands the test of time, But at the time, you know, vehicular combat games, there weren't too many of them.

And I don't think that any of them really had the attitude. More than there are now, I think it's safe to say. The attitude of Twisted Metal 2 was unmatched. It was weird. It was somewhat mature. And it was a lot of fun. Great multiplayer experience on PlayStation 1. A system that, again, N64 ran away with the in-the-room multi-year.

player gaming and Twisted Metal 2 is one of those PS1 game. For controller ports, no multi-tap adapter needed. Yeah, that's right. Really hold its own. I do think it illuminates the console distinction to the vehicle combat on PlayStation is Twisted Metal 2. Vehicle combat on N64 is ramming your cart against Donkey Kong so hard he loses a balloon. Because we can establish violence on this new era of PlayStation gaming.

Yeah. We've got quality cart racing still on that. the board here. Again, deep category. Okay. Steve. All right. For my RPG, I'm going to go with a pick that's just for my giga chads out here because I remember when, I remember when Final Fantasy 7 came out,

and it seemingly was like two, four discs. How many was it? It's three, right? Three discs. And I was like, I don't want to play that. Like, I'm a kid. And I just want to have a fun Saturday. And that's when one of my friends came to me, and he's like, Final Fantasy 7, for babies. What you need to be playing

is vagrant story. Oh, yeah. And this was like, oh, this was like a huge, like, graphical upgrade just for a PlayStation to PlayStation generation of like understanding character design and understanding like a

like sweeping story with intricate puzzles and like grand scope battles. I get that Final Fantasy does all those things and frankly I would obviously pick it if it were my choice. But vagrant story, is something really special that hasn't really been done. It's easy to get swept up in everything that Square was doing

with the success of Final Fantasy, but Vagrant Story is something that hasn't been really revisited for a very long time. And it's a gem of a game. In an era of turn-based RPGs, it was sort of like an action RPG that was really unique. It was a very good and interesting game. Yeah, it's a bold pick.

It's a good pick. Even if we excluded the Final Thing, Fantasy Square would have a strangle hold over this cast. True. And this character's hair does not count as a vehicle, Ben. I will say that. Okay. Rob, back to you, back to back to you?

I don't want a Tony Hawk twice in one draft. So I'm going to not take the original Resident Evil in stealth and survival horror. What I am going to do is take Silent Hill. Son of a bitch. All right. A game which I think is the epitome of a PlayStation 1 game in that it is appropriately scary in a way that console games could really be for the first time. It's also appropriately uncanny and weird because the technology is not quite good enough

in a way we haven't really been able to replicate since. Like when we're talking about weird voiceover, weird mechanics, still to dialogue and translation, all that stuff for Silent Hill contributes into it feeling so unsettling and so strange. And this is one of those like opening cinematics that is seared into my brain for some reason. So classic. This kind of like trailer approach that the game opens with is just something that was really kind of pioneering

in the video game space at that time. I immediately understood the difference between Silent Hill and Resident Evil when those two things hit the scene. Silent Hill is moody. It's very much based on vibes. And it ultimately, to me, was a lot scarier because your player character is inherently weaker. He's not some gun-toting action hero.

You're not special ops. You're a guy who's wandering in the fog. and finding monsters. And that, to me, was a lot scarier as a kid. It's an immaculate pick. Fog is the key word, because this was really peak fog, out of necessity, but also turned into an aesthetic choice. And now we're bringing it back with Crow Country and all these other kind of cozy,

retro-looking horror games that are going for that sort of PS1 blocky aesthetic. This was the real thing. So it's a great pick. RPG, as we've discussed, is one of the deepest categories. in this draft. But I feel like I've talked enough about Final Fantasy including Final Fantasy Aid.

So I am going to pivot. Ben, you made me super nervous because you name-checked this game earlier and then you wind up to your last pick. I thought you were going to select my selection in RPG, Crono Cross. We love a sliding doors scenario

here at the Ringer. What if you made an entire fucking game out of a sliding door scenario? Sure. I love Chrono Cross. I love the unwieldy cast of characters. For my money, one of the greatest video game soundtracks ever made.

And I think we've never gotten an RPG quite like it because you have this sort of twin universe mechanic. If you've never played Chrono Cross before, the main character either dies or almost dies, depending on what universe you're in. And there's this whole kind of butterfly effect as far as what that does to the world. You take your characters from universe to universe

and you get to take them to visit alternate versions of themselves. You get to take them to like uncanny valley versions of places they know. And it takes the J-I-Berry. RPG formula. It takes everything you love about a turn-based game like that and the story and the sprawl and kind of the epic feel, but it makes it feel, it

tinges everything with this kind of regret and longing and this sort of tension between these two worlds. I fucking love Chrono Cross. I'm so glad I get to pick it. I'm so glad it's here. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I'm glad that someone picked it. I would be ashamed if none of us had picked it.

We had to. The game's absolutely incredible. And as you said, that soundtrack is one of the great, at the time, it might have been the greatest one. I don't know. It's just incredible. That opening, the opening of that game gives me chills every time. It really speaks volumes about the quality of

Krono Cross that you left Squall on the board in order to make this pick. Well, look, Wild Card's still there, you know? There's no room for me. It's true. Okay. Steve. All right, we're back to me. So, at least my clear and present picks for horror are almost all gone.

So thankfully, this is also stealth, and horror. So in stealth, listen, Metal Gear Solid, a revelatory, like, way of encapsulating

cinematics and stealth and power fantasy and espionage thrillers. Was this game as good as it? Absolutely not. Oh, no. Was this game as fun as it? Absolutely not.

Does it have a story? Absolutely not. I don't know if you got me. Oh, I thought, I thought you were going down the chain with Metal Gear Solid. I thought you were going straight VR missions here. No, no, no, no, no.

No, I'm going Tenshu, stealth assassins. Okay, yeah, it's a good pick. Okay, it's a good pick. It was actually number two on my board, so you made me very nervous, but it's a great pick. Oh, okay, shit. All right, well, no, I dug it because it was just really fucking cool. Yeah. I loved being a ninja, and it, like, it emulates almost, it tries to emulate almost everything that Metal Gear Solid did.

And was it perfected in its PS2 sequel? Absolutely. But Tenchu is a really endearing thing that, again, echoes through from Soft's better intended works. Like, we have things that make Securo things that are echoed from Tenchu. And I think legacy that you can easily see influence from comes from that first game. It's tough to beat ninjas. It's just tough to top them in the stealth category. Mark of the Ninja, probably my all-time favorite stealth game.

So I was seriously considering this pick. It's a good one. They're cool. Matt. All right. I'm going to pick a shooter, finally. And this is one of those, if you know, you know, picks. I'm picking Mega Man Legends 2.

Hey. Okay. This game, it was so much, the Mega Man Legend series was so much better than anyone expected it to be. A lot of people never got around to these games, but they were some of the best games on PlayStation. They were so much fun. I have such fun memories of these games. I'm really happy to be able to pick Mega Man Legends too.

I'm happy for you. And I'm also happy that it's now my turn. Because what I will be doing with these two picks, you know what? I'm going with my wild card right now. Wow. And it's a game that could only fit in the wild card category. And so there's just no reason really to leave this category open as a contingency.

I know you're picking. I will be selecting. Parapa the rapper. There it is. Yeah, buddy. If Charity were here, I think this would have been off the board sooner,

but it had to go at some point. This is, I don't know if it's fair to call it the original rhythm game, but you could make a case, the first true rhythm game, the one that all the rhythm games that have come down to us since

maybe owed a debt to, all the guitar heroes, all the rock bands, all the beat sabers, without Parapa of the rapper, I don't know, we have those. It's yet another game on my roster here that I get the Wikipedia several publications listed as one of the best video games survey. I'm just collecting those testimonials here.

A game that was weird, that had character, that had an incredible soundtrack, that really led to, I think, all of the harmonics just sort of set the template for an entire genre and was a great game in its own right. I mean, that's another one where you can't think of the PlayStation 1 without thinking of Parap of the Rappap. Yeah. Iconic. Okay. I would have accepted if you put it in fighting for the record.

I think there's a lot of lyrical violence in that game. It's true. Yeah. Rap battles. It kind of counts, maybe. But since Steve just made me nervous with the stealth category and because I'm not really a horror guy, you know, you still got Resident Evil on the board. You still got Parasite Eve. And it's cool.

I understand. I understand. Yeah. But I can't in good conscience. select them. And so I'm going to go with, I think, probably the best, you know, stealth. I mean, I guess it's debatable, how much stealth is required. I think it qualifies. I am drafting. Certainly could be a shooter, but I'm going with siphon filter. Yeah. Yeah, fair. Yeah. It's a spy game. It's stealthy enough. And I don't like a stealth game that actually requires me to be

stealthy. So this is a bonus, if anything. You just said. You just said. Seinfilter, I think, has been forgotten, and that doesn't bode well for my performance in the public participation portion of this draft. But I think poor Gabriel Logan had the misfortune of being sandwiched between Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. And so it was kind of right in the middle, you know, between Snake and Sam. and does anyone really remember Gabriel Logan? But we should remember, Gabe, because this game had a story, and it was a little derivative. I will cop to that. This was a game that built on the foundation of Metal Gear and Golden Eye.

And you know what? That is a solid foundation to build on no pun intended. And I think in some ways improved upon aspects of those games, again, I kind of debated Seifun Filter, Seifilter 2. But I think the original, not just because you don't have a sequel without the original, but maybe just a better game overall. We should remember Seifen Filter. I'm surprised that no one has brought back Seifin Filter.

We haven't had a Seifin Filter game in 17 years. What is going on here? They did make like six of them, didn't they? They did. Look, I'm sure they'll stop making Horizon games at some point. It's time. This is a dormant franchise. This is gold.

IP just sitting there for someone to, reboot Siphon Filter. I'm sure you'll get a Lego Siphan Filter game soon on the SWIF. Yeah, with Siphon Filter 1 on the PlayStation. I'm proud to rep it on my board. Cool. All right. Well, I got some tough thinking to do here.

I got to pick a fighting game. Yeah. Because I think most of us do. Yeah. And that's why I have to pick one. We got to eat our vegetables here. Yeah. So I'm not going to overcom.

I'm going to pick Marvel versus Capcom. Fuck. Not Marvel versus Capcom, too, obviously, which was a whole other level, but my God, this game still absolutely ripped. Just being able to see some of these Marvel characters alongside all the Capcom fighting guys that you knew. It was just, man, it was a moment.

Absolutely was a moment. And it was the genesis of so many more, like something versus something fighting games. and I don't know. It's just an alt-timer. I think you can really judge a lot about somebody by who they picked in Marvel versus Capcom. For the record, I am a strider, spidey combo.

You know, it's just like a whole personality test in itself. This may be like astrology for dudes in a lot of ways. So I would love anyone who's listening. Shout out your character combos from any iteration of Marvel versus Capcom. I would love to hear them. I have a very unpopular character that I played a lot of. I played a lot of Ken. I mean, Ken's great.

Not Rio. No, no, no, no, Ken. You got to root for the underdog, you know? Ken's superior. Plus, this is an America first podcast, as we discussed. Amen. Steve, you've got Snipes with Marvel versus Capcom. So where are you going to go?

Well, then I'll go right to fighting as well, and I'll pick Street Fighter Alpha 3 because that was one of the first, like, oh, I saw this in the arcade, and it was really good. and then I can say, oh, PlayStation has this. And I immediately tried it out. And that's when I first discovered the great fighting character, Akuma, and then that was my main for pretty much my entire life because he's got a cool symbol on his back. And then his special is just, you don't even see it.

It's just black screen, pow, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, and then they're on the ground. So you're just cheesin in this game. Yeah, man. I can float. I don't know. I think Alpha 3, again, introduce mechanics that I didn't even understand as a kid. Yeah, definitely. Meter management, like, the ways that I can actually, like,

the fact that I could actually learn a fighting game began with Alpha 3 for me. Because, like, that's when I can first be like, all right, so I can use the analog stick to actually make those joystick combos, and then I can use square and triangle. Like, to hold it like an arcade pad, very crude, didn't work that well. But I tried, and it was worth it. And then I turned it off and went to Tony Hawk, too. But we tried. We tried.

He did it. Alpha three. All right. Robert, are we completing the run on the fighting game category now? I mean, we might as well. Again, I could Tony Hawkett. X-Men versus Street Fighter is right here at this point. For my money, like a slightly inferior version of Marvel versus Capcom effectively, so I'm not

going to do that. I'm going to take an extremely PlayStation 1 fighting game, which is Bloody Roar. Are you guys up on Bloody Roar? Yeah, baby. What if Tekken, but all of the characters, turn into animals a la animorph. Yeah. Turns into a great fighting game experience.

This was a very formative, like, I first got a PS1. We bought like five games that were either on sale or highly regarded. This was one of them. I played the absolute shit out of Bloody Roar. You know, we had it so good. We didn't even know how good we had it. This was like the last era where fighting games could be sold on the rule of cool. Yes.

And it's like it didn't actually have to be good. It just needed to have a cool thing. and Bloody Roar is a perfect example of that. It's like, can you turn into a cool animal? Great, I'll try it out. Like, you can sell a million different versions of a fighting game where it's like dudes who look kind of interesting with a headband on punching each other,

a la Virtua Fighter, a la, obviously every street fighter clone in existence. I was close to choosing rival schools, which is another great street fighter. Hell yeah, rival schools. I love rival schools. But I want the distinctive texture of Bloody Roar. I want the hook ultimately,

because it is so dated, it is so weird, and I had so much fun with it. If I had picked from the heart, I would have gone with WWF Smackdown 2 Know Your Roll. Wow. Jeez. I believe the bestselling sports slash sports entertainment game on PlayStation 1 at the height of the attitude era with the rock on the cover.

Wait, did it, wait, was that? I remember that cover. There was no mercy on N64. Yeah. Yeah. This was, yes, Smackdown 2. I was tempted to go with that. I also seriously considered

Bishito Blade, which I appreciate because this was less of a button-mashy game, even though it would be on brand for me to select a button-mashy game. I'm not necessarily good at them. This was like the body damage system

where it was kind of like a tactical, strategic strike. And we left a few good fighting games on the board, dead or alive, obviously. Capcom versus SNK Pro still out there. But we can only take four. Ischito Blade?

was really fun. Yeah, but shoot a blade too. Rob, you have one more pick to make? Wildcarter is always a struggle for me, because, yeah, I could take the aforementioned Final Fantasy 8 here. I could take any number of great titles that we've discussed

that are either sequels or prequels to other things that have been on the board. I want something that encompasses the true spirit of Wildcard. And for me, I'm going to take Dance Dance Revolution, Homepad Edition. Mother! Oh, my God.

My first actual experience playing DDR. Is this why you asked the Clarifference? question about the Japan versus North American release? Actually, that was an X-Men versus Street Fighter clarification. I just wanted to clear up top. Home DDR,

not the best way to play it, but it is the way I played it first. It is what sparked 12 and 13-year-old Rob's deep love for playing DDR in arcades. And plus, you get to watch like your awkward uncle attempt to do it. So what is really more rewarding

than that? Did you ever need to use the bar in the arcades? No, I'm a no bar purist. Damn. I know that's like, if you look at the highest level DDR players, that is what they do. You know what? That's not real dancing.

Well, if you look at the highest level of DDR players, they use both mats. I'm not up like that. I could play a little bit back in the day. It's not really working for me so much these days anymore. Yeah, we're at the 30th anniversary for a reason. The bones are a little too creaky. The planter fascia are not responding well to slamming your feet. No, absolutely not.

But part of this rhythm game revolution if we're going to cite Parapa the Rapa, part of the arcade port revolution that's coming to PlayStation, and just like one of the more singular overall video game phenomena of this era in time. Greatest soundtrack that I can't name a single song

off of that. Shout to Hollick, shout to Butterfly. Damn, all right. Candy with the star, not the heart. There's some real bangers on there. Steve, what do you have left? I got to go straight for the heart. I only have Wildcard left.

I go for something that is solely for me, and I don't care if anybody else doesn't like this, know this or would know, yeah. It's all for me. I love puzzle games when I was a kid. Oh, no. No. And I'm going with IQ intelligence cute.

I don't even know what this game is. It's the weirdest, deepest cut for me because it's basically you play as a little man on a, like, on an infinity board, and it's basically Tetris blocks coming at you, and you have to, like, eliminate those blocks as the little man. I played this game for hours,

and I loved it. It is such a good game. I don't know why it has ever been iterated on before, but it was one of my absolute favorites. It was so, so, so good. This looks like the visualization of a computer system from a movie in 1983. It's so good.

It really is because it's just like, this is like, we don't have the budget for Tron. Yes, but you're in like death cubes. Yeah. What a cut. Yeah, IQ Intelligence Q. What a cut.

You scared me. Not what were you worried, Steve would select. Mr. Driller? What was you? What did you think? My wild card pick, puzzle fighter 2 turbo. Oh, boo.

I was so mad because it wasn't a fighting game and I wanted it to be a fighting game. I don't know. I think this one went under the radar for a lot of people. This is one of the most incredible, competitive puzzle games of all times.

It's good. It is good. It is good. So action-packed and exciting when you're playing against people. Every character has their own combo of the way that tiles drop on the other person. It uses existing characters that you already love. This game, we would just stay up for hours late into the night, just yelling at each other, completely dialed in.

It's an incredible game, incredible game. Were you also playing Ken in Puzzle Fighter? No, he sucked in that. I got to win. I'm here to win. I'm not here to make friends. Well, I'm here to make my final pick, which will be in the vehicle category.

And I can't believe this is still on the board. It's boring. I will be selecting. Do it. Do it. We dare you. You're seconded me out here. Get it in the actual vehicle.

Get it with a one person that gets in a car. I will be. I will be selecting in a Subaru. Tourismo, too. which is arguably the greatest racing game of all time. This was one of the cases where I waffled between the original and the sequel, because Grintorismo was, I believe, the best-selling game on the PlayStation system. And Grand Tarismo, too, had a little bit of the, it was rushed out,

and it wasn't completely perfect, but it was still better than the original Grintorismo, and there was just so much more to do in it. And so it was the superior game, I think, on the whole. and how can you tap this with a last pick on the board? You guys are taking puzzle games. I'm here snagging Grand Turismo 2. You don't even like this game. No.

Name a car. I would rather play Ridge Racer type 4. For a dollar, name a car. Ridge Racer type 4. Yeah, wipeout 2097 still on the board. Crash Team Racing. Ace Combat 2. Jet Moto.

Yeah. Driver. You are the wheelman. We were the wheelman in driver. we are. Historically important game driver, which was important to me. In real life, I'm never the wheelman.

I don't have a driver's license. And driver put me in the driver's seat and said, you are the wheelman. And that was very empowering for me. Don't you wish you were? Real quick, about Grand Charismo. I hadn't really gotten like into it, into it until I had played it on PlayStation 3.

And to me, like, I don't mean to shit on all of the driving enthusiasts out here, but like, that carries itself with the level of pretentiousness that I just cannot respect. It's the idea that we're just like, oh, yes, the timing of the gear shifting was intricately studied.

And we had to, like, listen and record every single car to make sure that they sound. I'm like, get out of here. Can I go real fast? Yeah. Oh, oh, you're wanting me to go 60 miles per hour in a fucking dodge that you just, like, meticulously,

render, no, get out of here. It's like Grand Turismo spawned out of this era where all of a sudden there is such a focus on realism. And they were incredible with that. They were absolutely like blazing a new trail in that regard and they are

incredible games. They are incredible games for a certain specific niche gamer. And for those people, they have hated listening to the past three minutes of this, no doubt. I apologize. I know that you're right. Shout out to all those guys that I know that I'm wrong.

That are actual cars that are like shifting like actual. Like you could probably drive a car like that for real, dude. I respect that. I think those guys have been yelling for the vast majority of this podcast. Like when we're talking up top about there being four or five kind of definitive games to take in the first round. Yes. I'm sure there's a huge portion of the playing population. They would argue Grand Tresmo is one of those games.

And guess what? I would call Tony Hawk's Project Ride a vehicle because I stood on a plastic board and tried it. There you go. I was tempted by Driver because I do appreciate a driving game as opposed to a racing game. I much prefer sort of a mission-based driving game. And as a non-driver in real life, I can't really appreciate the finer points of Grant Grimus' accuracy because it's all fake to me. And Driver 2, which probably is not as good a game as Driver, but beat GTA 3 to Open Worlds,

essentially, by a year. You could just get out of the car and walk around the city. So that's a special series. Just shout out to Driver, even though none of us drafted it. Any other little smuggles here? Any of you want to mention anything that's on your board, just so that people are less mad at us? I've got a few, but anyone who wants to shout something out?

I got an honorable mention. I got to get out. Please. Is Front Mission 3. Speaking of tactical RPGs, that is one of the most underrated games on the entire system. I just didn't have room for it. But Front Mission 3, right behind FF tactics in my mind of one of the greatest

tactic space RPGs ever. We left Final Fantasy 8 and 9 on the board, not to mention Zeno Gears, sweetened end two grand-y-Gs. Yeah, we're lunar silver star story complete. There's some bangers on. Shout out to the original Spice World video game on PS-1. My sister corroded a lot of my. TV time with that one.

Yeah. I got that for a dollar and I brought it back to the common room and just left it to see what would happen. Yeah. And people were playing it a lot.

Yeah. My sister couldn't get past the menu. Looking at all of the avatars from the original Spice World game, horrifying. Really? Yes. Really bad game.

The depth of the library, the catalog here is incredible. I feel like we could have had twice as many picks and no one would have made it to the end of the pod. It would have been house of our length, but we wouldn't have had to water

down the quality all that much. There is another great Medal of Honor game. Underground, lots of like R-type Delta, Einhender kind of

shoot-em-up, bullet-hill games. Time crisis. Time crisis. I loved that time crisis. And the plug-ins. You literally should not be allowed to play

time crisis without an arcade cabinet. Yeah, it's true. The magic is in that arcade. It is a little bit. There is that thing where, I don't know if you've had this experience where you've ever been in an arcade

where there's some kind of special going on and they, like turn off the fact that you have to pay. It's like unlimited play during this period of time. And if you try to play a time crisis in that setting, it is, like there are no stakes. It is impossible. Like if there are infinite continues,

it ceases to be fun. My man becomes John Wu and I dual wheel. And I just like press the, yeah. We left quality crash games on the board here. I mean, crash team racing, right? And then also platformers and odd world.

Yeah, that's a big one. Multiple Spiro games. Oh, Spiro, yeah. Oh, man. Overlooked. So many snubs. Reson Evil, the original parasite Eves. Yep.

Dino crisis. Legacy of Kane. Harvest Moon. Back to nature. We could have kept going. What a... Can I give one shout out to like... Brain Fencer Masashi, right?

Oh, my God. One shout out to a kind of midgame that I played a hell of a lot of, in part because the multiplayer was so fun. Star Wars Episode 1 Jedi Power Battles? Oh, man. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much.

It's not perfect. No, it's not. I don't care. So what is more important than that? Holy shit, I forgot about that. Wow. Well, Devin, we have placed the heavy burden on you here by making 28 picks. Are you in a position to recount them?

And if so, can you go drafter by drafter? By the way, Dev, are you just reading off words that you don't identify with at all when you look at this draft board? No, some of the, I mean, I, like, grew up with Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider. I guess I'm as old as the PlayStation. Oh, wow. I'm a 95 baby, so it was around, but my brain development was not quite there to be playing when it went out. But I do remember Tony Hawk, Tony Hawk, too, Spider-Man,

when I got a little bit older. But no, we were a big console family. So these were all games that my siblings played. I was a Spyro fan, so thank you for the acknowledgement of Spiro. Next year, we can do the Devin Ronaldo 30th anniversary. draft and just draft your favorite games. It's true. Absolutely.

Look, we'd be here for a very long time. All right. So Rob Shooter, Metal Gear Solid, RPG, Chrono Cross, Platformer, Ape Escape, Fighting, Bloody Roar for vehicle, Tony Hawk Crow Skater, the OG. For stealth and survival horror, we had Silent Hill. And Wildcard was DDR Homepad Edition. Amazing right there. Thank you. Amazing, amazing pick.

Matt. came in hot, shooter, Mega Man Legends 2, RPG, Final Fantasy 7, platformer, crash bandicoot, warped, fighting, we had Marvel versus Capcom, vehicle, twisted metal 2, stealth horror, resident evil 2, wildcard puzzle fighter 2 turbo. Steve came in with a wonderful pick of Tomb Raider for shooter, RPG, we had vagrant story, platformer, Marvel Spider-Man, Fighting, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Vehicle, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, another great pick. Stealth and Survival Horror, we had Stealth Assassins, and for Wildcard, we had IQ Intelligence Cube. And to close us out. Last but first.

Exactly. Shooter, we had Medal of Honor. RPG Final Fantasy Tactics. Platformer was Castlevania Symphony of the Night. For fighting, you chose Tekken 3. For vehicle, Grand Turismo 2, stealth and survival, we had siphon filter. And for Wildcard, one of my personal favorites, Parapa, the rapper. I like the lineup, but we draft, you decide.

Thank you, Devin, and thanks in advance to Jomi for collating all of this, making a pretty graphic, putting up on the socials so that people can do their gladiator, thumbs up, thumbs down, and let us know who won this thing. Thanks to all of you for joining me, even though maybe this made you all feel old initially, as it did me. Hopefully we got in touch with our inner children during the course of this podcast, and it brought us back to when we were not old and decrepit. I still feel pretty old. I'm going to be honest with you. Catcher's knee is popping right now. Thank you to Devin for producing this episode. Thanks to Arjuna Rem Capal for his senior podcast management.

Stay tuned elsewhere on the Ringerverse feed and on House of R for coverage of Skeleton Crew and Dune Prophecy and also the Mint Edition Animation Awards, Creature Commandos. Next week, Buttmash will be back with Indiana Jones and The Great Circle and Secret Level reactions. Hope to hear from you at Ringervverse Gaming at gmail.com. And remember, never underestimate the power of the PlayStation. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label.

It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families, it's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk.

Relax and let Ralph's Delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. And right now, enjoy free delivery on orders over $50. WALPS, fresh for everyone.