[PlayerOneCJ]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Csj7vMKy4EI[/url]

This week the lads discuss old timey arcades, favorite pinball tables, things you miss about the olden days of gaming, and the games they were playing this week. That just so happens to include Uncharted 2, Bayonetta, White Knight Chronicles, The Saboteur, Madden NFL 10, Assassin's Creed, and more!

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"Ana Ng" by Nestrogen



Direct download: 02_08_10-Episode172.mp3

[Kirbutashi]

Should have played Tecmo Bowl instead of Madden. Much more exciting and anger-inducing.

[FewCube]

I feel the same about how toys r us used to be. I remember getting yoshi's island for my birthday there, and it just felt nice and special getting the paper slip and going to where they had all the video games. Such a nice experience. I love a lot of pinball machines but if I was going to own one it would be Simpsons pinball party or Twilight Zone. Hilarious podcast.

[demonicmurry]

These are pretty similar to the tickets I remember in Toys R Us back in the day. I remember staring at the tickets dreaming I had the cash to own the console to buy these games. Greg's Consumers Distributing catalog shopping reminds me of the Sears Wish Book. Ah, simpler times...

Also, I was totally with you guys about letting your Xbox Live subscription laps. I barely play online, but I keep it for Netflix (though I have a PS3) and my friends were pretty annoying back in the day when I didn't have a gold account as they kept telling me to play online with them (even though I hardly ever do). But I find waiting on deals for the 12 month XBL cards are the way to go. I usually wait till I see a nice drop to $30 or even better a $25 deal. That way I don't have to worry too much as I feel that I'm not paying a yearly subscription, even though I fully aware I'm just lying to myself.

This post has been edited by demonicmurry: 08 February 2010 - 01:25 AM

[levitynyc]

Yeah, the Toys R Us things were awesome back in the day. I'll never forget the feeling of hopelessness of going in there for over a month and not seeing Zelda 2 slips in the envelopes as the game was always sold out. Was there a shortage of that game back in the day?

[mik]

Alternate episode titles:

Blimp, Zeppelin, whatever
Ready to Yeti
Cartridge Blowin' Lips

The Toys R Us in these here parts still use the yellow slips in the video game department. I wasn't aware they had changed that in other parts of the civilized world.

LOL @ Greg saying he refuses to think about the animal-themed games on the DS. You keep telling yourself that, father of a daughter.

[Kirbutashi]

Phil, did you ever get to try Splosion Man post-patch?

[PlayerOneCJ]

While searching YouTube for vids to include with this episode I thought about this one...



Which has a funny blimp/zeppelin moment at the beginning. And then of course there's the Hindenburg video which has a BURNING Zeppelin (hey just like in The Saboteur!). But I decided against that one.

[mik]

Oh, the humanity.

[mik]

BTW, the chat about your character in White Knight being essentially useless (except online) reminded me that every time there's a cutscene with your character lingering in the background, it makes me think of this:

[PlayerOneCJ]

Fox has decided to block that content. Damn them!

[eg atol]

The way you guys feel about naughty dog is the way I feel about Insomiac.

[gamer812]

I laughed a bit at the Toys R Us slips when you said you would hide them in your pocket. I used to do this thing at Blockbuster where I would hide a high profile game under a box that no one would pick up.

As for arcades, I think I remember Galaxy World. Is that the building with the levels? Also, did you ever go to Aladdin's Castle at Yorktown Mall or Enchanted Castle in Lombard? Those were my two main arcade hangouts.

[levitynyc]

gamer812, on 08 February 2010 - 01:21 PM, said:

I used to do this thing at Blockbuster where I would hide a high profile game under a box that no one would pick up.

This

[LiK]

to answer your question boys, most of the TV ads for ME2 are from the actual game. so yes, it looks that damn good. it's on par with Uncharted 2, imo. BEAUTIFUL game.

[PlayerOnePhil]

Kirbutashi, on 08 February 2010 - 07:12 AM, said:

Phil, did you ever get to try Splosion Man post-patch?

I just heard that it has been patched yesterday. I need to try it out again.

gamer812, on 08 February 2010 - 10:21 AM, said:

As for arcades, I think I remember Galaxy World. Is that the building with the levels? Also, did you ever go to Aladdin's Castle at Yorktown Mall or Enchanted Castle in Lombard? Those were my two main arcade hangouts.

There were a couple Galaxy Worlds in the Chicagoland area. The one that we were talking about was in Naperville. It only had one story, though.

When we worked in Lombard, the magazine crew was constantly eating lunch at the Yorktown Mall, so yeah, we were at that arcade a lot. That's where I developed my love for Namco's relatively obscure game, Numan Athletics. We would occasionally make a trip to Enchanted Castle, too, but usually only if there was a new game on test there. That's where I played Street Fighter Alpha and the Mega Man arcade game for the first time.

[Kirbutashi]

If you're looking for someone to give it a go, I'm always around. Online was a mess when I tried it at launch, but playing the whole thing via local multiplayer was certainly not an experience I regret. The levels where your partner's life hangs by a thread until you can help them progress are the best. I haven't had any luck in getting anyone interested in playing it after the patch.

[I AM JOHN!]

Oh hey, my Twitter post got read! Yay!

EDIT: Greg, how can you not have a favorite pinball table? Come on, man!

[ness08]

Toys R Us, those were the days. I remember when me and my brother finally saved up enough money to get a Genesis and we went to Toys R Us. Both of us went running over to the videogame aisle and grabbed a slip and then started fighting over who would actually take the slip to the front. Finally I just grabbed it and started to walk up front with it. Those slips used to be so great.

Then a few years ago I got a job at Toys R Us and all those bikes have those damn slips. Really got pissed off at all the people that would take them and not buy anything since I would have to do inventory to make sure we had enough slips for bikes and one of the managers would randomly check a few every night, ensuring that next time I worked with him I would spend a couple hours printing tickets.

[Ondore]

So was that the longest outro ever, or am I crazy?

Also, was the arcade with the sit-down Daytona machine Sparkles, or am I in the wrong mall?

[PlayerOneStewy]

It was, indeed, Sparkles. The one at Bayers Road. Though I think the one at Mic Mac had the sit down machine, too.

[Reivax]

We've had a Toys R Us in this part of Canada for as long as I can remember. I can recall going there in the mid 80s.

I remember seeing a "win a shopping spree" sign there once and would always map out my route whenever I was there, just in case I ever won.

[levitynyc]

Ondore, on 09 February 2010 - 09:03 AM, said:

So was that the longest outro ever, or am I crazy?

Also, was the arcade with the sit-down Daytona machine Sparkles, or am I in the wrong mall?

I've never see Daytona Arcade in anything else other than sitdown machines. Mostly I've seen 2 machines linked, but I have seen up to 4 with cameras showing other player's faces.

[Outlaw Moogle]

I wanted to reach into my iPhone and shake CJ during his Sonic 4 argument.

[PlayerOneStewy]

There should be an app for that.

[PlayerOneCJ]

You really think people are still going to be excited about Sonic 4 when part 2 arrives? Were people as excited about the Part 2s of any episodic game that's come out so far? 'Cuz that is putting some mighty huge pressure on Part 1 to be good, otherwise the subsequent parts aren't gonna sell for shit. And what's the likelihood that Sonic fans will be disappointed by this game? Pretty likely. I'm not saying "judge the game now" or "this is sure to fail" or anything but this is a large gamble. Sega's made many disappointing/bad Sonic games in the years since Sonic 3.

[PlayerOnePhil]

PlayerOneCJ, on 09 February 2010 - 08:33 PM, said:

You really think people are still going to be excited about Sonic 4 when part 2 arrives? Were people as excited about the Part 2s of any episodic game that's come out so far? 'Cuz that is putting some mighty huge pressure on Part 1 to be good, otherwise the subsequent parts aren't gonna sell for shit. And what's the likelihood that Sonic fans will be disappointed by this game? Pretty likely. I'm not saying "judge the game now" or "this is sure to fail" or anything but this is a large gamble. Sega's made many disappointing/bad Sonic games in the years since Sonic 3.

I was equally excited for all five episodes of Monkey Island. As were a lot of people.

And people keep buying Sonic games no matter how many Shadows and Sonic 2006s Sega throws at us. Sonic sells no matter how crappy the games are.

[Wenny]

PlayerOnePhil, on 10 February 2010 - 12:03 AM, said:

And people keep buying Sonic games no matter how many Shadows and Sonic 2006s Sega throws at us. Sonic sells no matter how crappy the games are.

While this is true, Sonic has been selling the best to a younger market...which isn't the most active demographic with the download services. Maybe Sega's new strategy is these 2D games for us older fans, and crappy 3D games for the kids and baby gamers like me?

[PlayerOneCJ]

I'd say it works with Monkey Island and Sam & Max because that's telling a complete, compelling story, and the point of the game is the story. But -- personal opinion here -- I'm not playing Sonic for the witty humor, the engaging story, the character drama, etc. Unless they've got a really interesting yarn to spin this time because I don't think their track record on adding plot in a Sonic game has been too terribly successful.

[Outlaw Moogle]

PlayerOneCJ, on 09 February 2010 - 09:37 PM, said:

I'd say it works with Monkey Island and Sam & Max because that's telling a complete, compelling story, and the point of the game is the story. But -- personal opinion here -- I'm not playing Sonic for the witty humor, the engaging story, the character drama, etc. Unless they've got a really interesting yarn to spin this time because I don't think their track record on adding plot in a Sonic game has been too terribly successful.

You don't think Sonic being sucked into an alternate universe with storybook versions of all his friends is interesting?

[probune]

What, all you fuckers are excited for that travesty of a game Sonic 4 besides CJ? God damn. I'm not going to enjoy listening to this episode

[PlayerOnePhil]

probune, on 09 February 2010 - 10:22 PM, said:

What, all you fuckers are excited for that travesty of a game Sonic 4 besides CJ? God damn. I'm not going to enjoy listening to this episode

The "travesty" that we've not even seen a screen shot of yet? I'll remain cautiously optimistic for now, thanks.

[levitynyc]

Probune hates everything.

Cautiously optimistic is the best way to describe my feelings towards Sonic 4. Being episodic will give them a chance to tweak the future chapters in response to buyer feedback. That is a good thing.

[probune]

PlayerOnePhil, on 10 February 2010 - 02:59 AM, said:

The "travesty" that we've not even seen a screen shot of yet?

There's like a half second of gameplay and it looks terrible. Just the graphics. I don't know how it'll play, but I'm 95% sure it'll play badly because Sonic games have been bad for 10 years now.

But the real reason I'm hating on it is because it's episodic.

[Wenny]

And probune says that I'm an asshole just to be an asshole! ;-)

[mik]

I'm sure it will be different this time. THIS TIME Sega won't come home drunk and smelling of rented pussy and beat you senseless. Besides, it's kind of your fault anyway. I mean, you DID burn the casserole. And they've been under so much pressure at work--you can't really blame them.

[LiK]

Sonic 4 will disappoint all of us, in some way or another.

[Owozifa]

mik, on 10 February 2010 - 07:17 AM, said:

I'm sure it will be different this time. THIS TIME Sega won't come home drunk and smelling of rented pussy and beat you senseless. Besides, it's kind of your fault anyway. I mean, you DID burn the casserole. And they've been under so much pressure at work--you can't really blame them.

Bah, any time Sega came home like that, I locked his ass out. He can sleep in the street for all I care. He knows the rules. So far he hasn't gotten in when he's behaving like that.

If he can speak like a reasonable human being this time, I won't turn him away, though. Maybe he finally went into rehab and it stuck, maybe not. We'll see.

[SickBoy]

On the Canadiana -- I think Toys R Us moved into Canada in the mid 80s... and they did have those tags forever. I thought that was super cool. Prior to Toys R Us there were always other alternatives for toys and video games. Sears was great for toys (I remember getting some fantastic Star Wars stuff there) and a lot of places you hardly think about for games these days actually had some decent stuff. I remember always trying to get a go on the demo Vectrex system they had at the Bay in the mall nearest to our house, for example.

Consumers Distributing was awesome. I think the Sears Wish Book existed here, much like it did in the States, but the Consumers catalogue was so much better that it was forever the basis of our Christmas lists... with hundreds of toys that looked amazing in pictures and probably sucked in real life. I also remember that for months they had a huge bin full of Yar's Revenge cartridges for 99 cents. I always thought it had the coolest cover, but we were a Commodore family (our first dedicated game console was an NES).

[BeauRosser]

I completely forgot about the glass cases at Toys 'R Us with the systems displayed. That was legit.