Jake: Dumpster diving for Trash or treasure. Today on Trash. Welcome by another episode of Press Speed to cancel your favorite retro podcast. At least it's my favorite podcast. Hopefully it's yours. This week we got a fun topic. We're going to be talking about dumpster diving or Bargain Bin games. We all know bargain bins. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, you're at the local Walmart or Target, and you see that bin of Wi games that's like ten to $20 just stacked up, begging to be bought by somebody like those poor animals, the animal shelter or those poor, poor orphans. So come with us as we talk about our Bargain Bin games that are actually good. We got three good games here to talk about. But I'm not alone today. No, of course not. I'm joined by werewolf. How are you doing this week?
Wulff: I'm doing pretty well, thank you for asking.
Jake: Right. Also joined by Citistar. How are you this Friday?
Sins: I am extremely tired of buying Bargain Bin orphans.
Jake: They're all stacked up at Walmart. I don't think that's quite legal. At least it's not Costco doing this.
Sins: That's right.
Wulff: Welcome to Costco. I love you.
Jake: All right. The idea, I think, for me in this episode was I distinctly remember buying cheap ass Wi games back in the day because there's certain consoles that just pumped out the games one after another, even long after the system was replaced by the next system in line. So that's where I got the idea for this episode. But I want to start with Wolf, your pick first. What was your Bargain Bin game that you want to talk about and what.
Wulff: System it was for? PS Two.
Jake: Good choice.
Wulff: Let me set the stage for you a little bit. It's 2006, summer 2006. Let me remind you guys what games came out that year. So I was at GameStop a fair amount. Major releases are burnout Revenge. Final Fantasy. Twelve Elder Scrolls four oblivion. Okami. Stuff like that, right? So I like to go to the game, stop a lot on my way home from work or whatever, just see what's going on. And while I'm there, one day I come across this game. I'd never seen it before, never heard of it before. It was $20 new. It had just come out called Rough Trigger. And yes, it's a pun. The main character is a dog creature, humanoid dog, and he's a bounty hunter. So the full title is Rough trigger the Vanacor Conspiracy.
Jake: So is this for Dog the bounty hunter? Got his inspiration? Is that what we're thinking?
Wulff: No, this was a knockoff of Jack and Daxter Ratchet clank style games.
Sins: I was going to say this sounds like trying to gain some traction from Jack, Ratchet and clank.
Wulff: Yeah. And since I liked the Jack and Daxter games, I was like, hey, I'll try this. It looks like Jack and Daxter. My brother loved Ratchet and clank. We've talked about it before I've not played any of them. But, I mean, this looked up my alley because let me read you a little bit of the back of the box here real quick before we get into it because it's something hairy jobs require a rough hero. And if you can imagine a pun on the back of this, it's there. As the best bounty hunter and top dog at the Boss Pi agency, rough Trigger is always up for the toughest jobs in the galaxy. That's why he's on the hostile planet Endust, rescuing cute little pets called piglets. What Ruff doesn't know is that the piglets are the catalyst for an evil plan to take over the galaxy.
Sins: So we're on end. Not Endor.
Wulff: We're on Endust.
Sins: Cool.
Jake: Now that's hilarious.
Wulff: It's weird because certain aspects of this are really fluid and really good, and certain aspects of it are super clunky. And I don't know whether to attribute that because I don't remember 2006 that well. As far as 3D platformers, I don't know if it's a PS Two problem or this game problem, right?
Jake: But this point, if it's 2006, you said so that's ten years, right after Mario 64. So that's enough time for the companies to have got a handle on the camera and the movement and everything. So it should be okay.
Wulff: The camera is one of the biggest problems in this game. Before I jump into the bad sides of this, let's talk about the good sides. Because for $20, especially in 2006, decent game, right? Had this been $60, I'd have been pissed, but for $20, I was quite happy. So you play as this character who is he's kind of a sarcastic jackass, but he doesn't convey that directly to his employer, who's the one he's always gearing this stuff at. He waits until the call with his employer is over and then he has a cocky comeback because he doesn't want to get fired. He wants his job, of course. Oh, my goodness. It's very interesting because it drops you on this planet just like, you got to go collect these piglets. We've been hired by a vanacor to go collect these piglets. They really want them back. Go get them. Okay, boss. So you go land on this planet and it starts you on like a tutorial level to sort of get you accustomed to everything. So you've got melee combat and ranged combat with weapons that you buy as you progress in the story. You get what they call rank ups, which is kind of like level ups. You collect metals as you're running around, and those allow you to buy higher tier stuff, whereas there's also money, which just allows you to buy the stuff that you are able to buy. There's an armor system so you can buy armor to prevent damage before your health bar starts taking hits, which is kind of cool. And they introduce it in a terrible way. But you unlock a werewolf form which I'm sure was one of the things that sold me on this game, because that's me. But when you find that in the first level, the dude rough. He just comes across this open canister of vials of liquid that are green. There's, like, no major story connection to it or, do this thing and this will happen. He just looks at it, picks up a vial, sniffs it, and chugs it.
Jake: Line on the ground for anybody to grab at any moment's notice.
Wulff: Yeah. And I think he actually says, what the hell is this? And then sniffs it and chugs it. And then he turns into a friggin werewolf.
Sins: Well, you say this like, this isn't how real life works. I have been known to drink many a glow stick when I've been raving really hard.
Jake: I don't know when I'm going through the forest and I see wild mushrooms, much like Mario. I eat them and I get special powers.
Sins: Sure, you feel big.
Wulff: Yeah, I saw that and I was like, wait, that's not safe playing with my kid. Don't teach him bad habits.
Sins: Right?
Jake: Don't eat strange don't drink strange liquids on the sidewalk. It's just not good health.
Wulff: But it's actually got decent combat mechanics. You hold the button to actually shoot instead of melee attack, same attack button, and then you can hold another button once you start shooting something and you'll lock onto it, for the most part, that lock on likes to dance around. Sometimes it'll just fall off. I don't know why. It's not super common, but it happens. But it's really annoying when you're shooting at something that's scary as hell and a little spider comes running over, gets closer, and your lock on is like, oh, that okay. So now you've got this big thing that's killing you, and you're shooting a spider.
Sins: So the lock on is distance based?
Wulff: It sounds like it seems as such. Yes. Distance based as far as like it's also got, like, a cone of, like, only within this parameter in front of your character. So it's not the direction your camera is facing, it's the direction your character is facing along with the camera. They have to be lined up for the lock on to really work well. Okay, so it's a shortcoming.
Jake: How many weapons in this game do you remember?
Wulff: Three.
Jake: Okay. Graphic wise, it looks pretty good. I like the character design.
Wulff: He looks pretty good.
Jake: The graphics look pretty good, especially for PS two.
Wulff: Yeah. Graphically, it looks decent. It's got nice. It actually has lighting effects and stuff. I appreciate what it's got going on. The move sets are interesting because you actually have combo attacks. You can do that. You can change up how you're attacking based on what's around you. So if you just want to focus on right in front of you, you can. If you need a combo that'll hit everything around you, you can. And then in werewolf form, all those things get bigger and meaner. Right. But I find that unless you're using melee, the werewolf form sucks because using the werewolf form's ability is really slow and janky, and it's a ranged, like light beam that you shoot out of him, but it's so much slower than the gun that you usually end up taking damage and missing.
Jake: That's a classic wearful ability.
Sins: Lightning for light, beams for medicinal.
Wulff: Yeah, I think it's supposed to be like moonlight or something. I don't know. And the game also has a sort of day night cycle that has no discernible impact on the gameplay whatsoever. It's just a neat change to the atmosphere as you're playing. So while you're playing through a level, you might see day and night, like, four times. It's like a three day stage.
Sins: So while you're talking good stuff, I have a question on whether this is a good bad like, give me if this is a good thing or a bad thing. While we've been talking, I looked at how long to beat, and it looks like it's 6 hours. 6 hours of gameplay.
Wulff: Oh, is that it?
Sins: That's what it says.
Wulff: Okay, so when I played it the other day, I probably played through about a quarter of it.
Sins: Okay, obviously 6 hours is probably a decent amount for $20. But do you feel like the game was I mean, with some of these design decisions and maybe the six hour mark, I kind of wonder if maybe this had grandiose designs. Did it feel unfinished?
Wulff: I wouldn't say it felt unfinished. I would say it felt a little rushed instead, like they were really trying to meet a deadline. And when I look at the game was developed by a company called Playstos Entertainment, and based on what I'm seeing, it looks like they had a lot of games come out over a seven year window. So it seems like maybe they bid off more than they could chew as a studio, and we're just trying to pump stuff out and meet deadlines.
Sins: Got you.
Jake: I'm actually looking at list and rough trigger. It looks to be their first game in 2006. And then they had a couple another PS, two game Iridium runners, and then it's a lot of mobile and iPad games. So I'm wondering if this game might not have done so well for them.
Wulff: And their final game was real world racing for PC.
Sins: Not.
Wulff: A big budget studio probably at all. And from what I understand, it's Italian. But I think another thing that sold me on it is it was published by Nazamay, which, you know, at the time I definitely knew of for Harvest Moon.
Jake: Right.
Wulff: So I was like, all right. Harvest Moon is a decent franchise. This looks like it could be a fun game. So I picked it up. But some of the things on the back, I think I knew what I was getting myself into when I read the back another thing on here, it says, play as straight shooting rough or run amok in werewolf form. Another thing that it says is take a dizzying speed Cycle ride with pilot Cecily. And if you show my video at all, if you go to the hour and eight minute mark, you'll see that I think it's the only stage in the game that does that. They say Take a ride, right?
Jake: Literally a ride just once.
Wulff: That is a Zoom motorcycle ride. And I mean, it looks pretty, it.
Sins: Runs well, but it's the pod racer moment.
Jake: It looks good, though. I'm watching it right now. That's the neat looking motorcycle rate segment, though.
Wulff: I think this looks yeah, no, I agree. But it looks funny that that's the only one.
Sins: I feel like that motorcycle is, like, four sizes too large for rough.
Jake: Batman, sir. You tell that cycle this is what this reminds me. Big ass tires.
Wulff: His pilot is also on there. She's in front of him. She's the one driving it. She's a cat.
Sins: Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
Wulff: Flirting, no less.
Sins: Mass hysteria.
Wulff: The sexual future before the bike ride was off the charts.
Sins: Wow.
Jake: This reminds me of there's an N 64 game with cycles, and this reminds me of that. In a way. This looks good. I actually think this looks like a great game. The reviews I'm seeing were like six to six or so out of ten, which is a bit low, but I think this looks pretty rad.
Wulff: It's funny because apparently it has a ranking on Ebay as well, and that's four out of five. The game is not bad. The problem is the gameplay can be extraordinarily slow. And the reason for that is there's lots of destructible objects that usually contain money. So if you're running around breaking all the items to get money out of them so that you have enough cash on hand at all times, the levels are a real slog. If you're not doing that and you're just rushing through, I'm sure the game is a lot faster. So it's sort of like pick your poison, right? Either you may not be strong enough or have enough money to get the goodies as you progress, but the gameplay flow will be really fast. Or you break everything and you're constantly ready for whatever is sold to you. But the gameplay is really slow, so it's one or the other, right? But the bosses were actually kind of interesting. The first boss is the end of the tutorial area, and it's a fire breathing dragon. It's not a giant dragon, but it's like maybe three times the size of your character, and it's just off in the distance. So it's like avoiding the fireballs and shooting at it, right. It's very simple mechanics to get in the flow of things. And then the next boss you fight is this giant thing that you're just beating the crap out of and trying to get it to get zapped by a shock fence on the edge of the platform you're on. So the encounters and the enemies, they don't feel boring or samey as you progress, which is nice. A lot of times you'll see that in cheaper games where the enemy variation is limited or the level design isn't great. The level design in this is actually pretty interesting, at least from what I've experienced.
Sins: The names have been changed to protect the different boss people.
Wulff: But I mean, if you ever find it at a garage sale or something for a couple of bucks, maybe grab it, it could be worth it. It could be some fun.
Sins: So you mentioned good things. What are the bad things about this game?
Wulff: Like I said, it can be a slog if you're trying to get everything. The levels can be kind of long and hidden sections are I hesitate to say this as a complaint, but the hidden sections are very hidden, so it's easy to miss the little creatures you're looking for. And there's so many in each stage. The stages can get long if you miss a couple going back to play through the stage again, it's a long stage.
Jake: Right, I was going to say about that, actually, that reminds me of Spyro the Dragon, right, where I like Spyro, but the levels in Spyro also feel like a slog if you don't get all those gems and collectibles and inspiral. You kind of have to get all the collectibles if you want the good ending. This game reminds me of Spyro in that way, but with more abilities, more power ups and stuff. And I think when you say, yeah, 6 hours to beat the game, 6 hours is Spyro is about that, I think. Anyway. Maybe six to 8 hours to beat Spyro. So this seems to be about the same length as other games.
Wulff: No, I don't think a six hour game was out of the norm in 2006, unless you're talking about RPGs, in which case some of them were 5100 hours. But an action platformer, nobody expected more than maybe ten out of hours out of an action platformer at the time. So it's a good length, it's not bad. And the upside is the only collectibles are the little piglets, right, the little creatures. And they bark when you're nearby, so even if you don't see one directly. And some of them can be invisible. They're genetically altered and they're literally invisible. So I actually ran up on one at one point and just barely caught the little distortion on the ground and it barked and I was like, oh, hey, what are you doing here? Right? But they bark when you're in the vicinity, so even if you can't see them, you know, okay, there's a piglet nearby, I need to look a little harder.
Sins: Got you.
Wulff: So at least you get an audio cue for there's a collectible here, come looking for it.
Jake: Which is good for this kind of game because a lot of these mascot, 3D platformers, the Hunt and Finding of collectibles can be real slog. Right? Like banjo go zooie. I remember having issues with that one, for example, or Donkey Kong 64. Finding all the hidden stuff can be a bit of a pain in the ass. So having like an audio cue is a good move. I think this game is actually pretty underrated. I got to play this one, actually. I have a big gap in my retro history. I've barely touched PS Two games, but looking at this one, this one looks like a one to play. I'm actually interested in this one.
Sins: There are some gems on the PS Two, for sure. There are some gems.
Wulff: Yeah. PS Two had a massive library, and I'm sure there's a ton of games that a ton of people have just never heard of. Right. And then they're actually worth playing.
Jake: And like, from a studio that basically did two PS Two games and then switched to Mobile and disappeared. So that's kind of interesting. I'd actually be interested to find out the main designer of this game and see where they're working now, because this is pretty cool, actually. I like this.
Sins: Excellent.
Wulff: Yeah.
Jake: Anything else for rough trigger?
Wulff: I don't think so. I was looking at reviews on Amazon, and I think the reviews are a little lopsided against the game. And I mean, if you're buying it now and expecting something like PS Three, PS Four, PS Five quality, you're not getting that. Don't expect that. But if you buy it expecting to have a little fun and actually pay attention to the game's mechanics, you should be fine. Like, one of the bad reviews that gave it one star was complaining about not being was complaining about something dumb where they basically just didn't figure out how to use a mechanic properly. From the tutorial I'm like, it spells everything out for you. It makes you use everything at least once before you get out of there.
Jake: Right.
Wulff: As long as you don't play it like raptor from game grumps, you're fine.
Jake: Yeah. This game generation, like PS Two, PS One and 64, it can be hard to go back to those early 3D titles in this decade. I was reading an article where people kind of considered the Dreamcast era, as, if you're going to go back to a 3D engine, that's the engine you can go back to, the era you can go back to. That still looks good even today. But it can be tough to go back to PS. Sarah but I mean, you have to appreciate what it is for the time, right. Sitting with Xbox. But this looks I mean, to me, this looks good.
Wulff: Since Drew and I same generation.
Sins: Yeah. Sincerus and I, we played on stream a number of PS Two games, like on physical hardware, in particular, the Balders Gate Dark Alliance games. But won't MUV. What's that?
Wulff: It won't muve.
Sins: Yeah, sorry.
Wulff: It's the elf. I remember playing through those games with a buddy of mine, and we still quote that game to this day.
Sins: Great couch co op game, for sure. Anyway.
Jake: Really? I didn't know his co op. Okay.
Sins: Yeah. Balder skate. Dark alliance one and two. Couch co op.
Jake: Interesting.
Wulff: And I think if you got it on Xbox instead of PlayStation, it was up to four players.
Sins: Probably. I know. Pretty sure there was the Xbox exclusive DND Legends. That was definitely four players.
Wulff: No, these were specifically for players on Xbox. I remember, because if you try to find them online now, the Xbox version is far more expensive than the PlayStation version.
Sins: Yeah, and sorry, DND Heroes, that was the game on the Xbox. I love that game. It felt like a continuation of the Balders Gay Dark Lions series to me, anyway.
Jake: Okay. All right, well, I guess I'm going to save sinister, your pick for last, because it's a bit different, so let me go with mine. So, PS Two, great example, Wolf, in terms of the bark and bin idea, going to Walmart Target, there's like, the bin of DVDs, right? For $510. A bin of PS Two. And there's also a bin of Wi games. I love the wi. Nintendo Wii was fantastic. It was one of those systems where even family who are not traditionally gamers could get into it and play. It's one of the systems where yes, mark it on your bingo card, sinister, just point to the Wi on a shelf. And it's a system like the PS Two. The Wi had a really long life. Even when the Wi U came out, people were still playing the Wii. Even today, my kids want to use the Wi remote and breakout punch out on the Wi, for example, or the Wi Balance board. Beth likes, my wife likes playing the Wi Yoga game. So there's a lot of fun stuff on the Wii. Even to this day, it's still good to play. But back in the day so my wife and I used to look at games that were out of the norm, usually, right? So games like Guitar Hero, we used to do that. Or wi sports. And then in the bargain bin, we came across one game that had very cartoonish graphics, 2D only. And it's one of my favorite games in the system. And it's a series that I don't think has had a recent entry. And it's rhythm heaven fever So let me pull up that video real quick. But this game, it's a rhythm game, much like the title. And, I mean, the Wii was always famous for its very limited controls, right? We've complained about the Wi remote in the past, how it's mostly motion controls and there's A and B on it. This is not a motion control game, but it's just A and B. And there's 50, basically, minigames in this collection and they're just completely, all completely different. And the music is catchy, the graphics are cute, the characters are charming. It's a really fantastic game. And the closest we have to it today, maybe WarioWare, I was about to.
Sins: Say, with 50 minigames, I was about to say, is this a warrior lookalike?
Wulff: Yeah, this looks a lot. Was this released after wario wear? It must have been, right?
Jake: Because I think the first this came out in 2012, which I think was before Wario Wear, if I'm not wrong.
Wulff: I thought the first Wario Wear was before that was it.
Jake: So this came out 2012, 2011 in Japan. There was a follow up on the DS and I think that was it. I want to say. So it really never had a sequel. Sequel. Not on wi. U. And didn't want to have one. Obviously didn't want to have Switch. Like when I keep talking about games that I want to see on the Switch release, this is one of them for sure. I'm going to see if I can skip through this minigame because screw golf.
Wulff: Wario wear started in 2003.
Jake: 2003. Oh, okay.
Wulff: Yeah. I wonder if it's the same studio, GBA and GameCube. And then it came out, another one came out on Game Boy Advance and then DS, and then we and then DS again.
Sins: Whatever this mini game is, is fantastic.
Jake: So for the audio listeners, we're looking at a mini game where there's basically two short, squat, oval guys on a seesaw. And in the game, you're basically hitting A and B to bounce off the seesaw in time with the music. And there's parts of it where he flies up into the air and does like a Dragon Ball esque fireball back down on the seesaw and suddenly other guy flying up the air. The graphics are simple, but they're very charming. There's one minigame where it's your reporter and there's like a wrestler. And as the music is going, you either have to hit the button, a button to make him do a bicep curl, or you have to do one where he does both arms at once in time of the music. And the reporter has these lines as part of the songs. And one of the lines is like, rub it up and up dub and then do the photographers take pictures? If you do, it a perfect timing, and if you don't, they boo. And that's just like one of the 50 minigames. There's one of the hardest ones in the package. And one of the reasons why I fell off this game originally, I've beaten it since then is monkey Watch. Literally a watch zoomed into the screen and there's monkeys all around the watch. And as it's ticking to the music, you have to clap. The monkeys have to clap the arms of the watch. The timing is very difficult in that minigame, but that's what this is. It's all timing to the music. And the music just nails it every single time. The one we have up now for listeners is there's two golfers in a hole and a couple are in a date on this park bench and the boy has to kick away these balls to the time of the music. And the soccer balls bounce differently than the footballs, for example. They're just a wild collection of games and the controllers are so simple. A and B. That's it. But it's the timing and how they're slightly vary between the different minigames makes this great. There's different tracks of minigames and at the end of each one, you have a special remix where they take the previous games and put them all together in an extra song. A remix, that song that's extended it's a couple of minutes long. Quite challenging and just really fun to play. This game came to me recently because there was somebody who was actually doing runs of this game blindfolded, using just the music and memorization. He beat all of these games, all 50 of them in a row, completely blindfolded. And it was epic to see. I'm going to see if I can put the video in the description for people to watch.
Sins: I have to say, when I've been on dates on park benches, it's normally my balls that are getting kicked and not random balls that are moving up toward me.
Jake: Sorry, hopefully not in rhythm multiple times.
Sins: Yeah, no, I keep watching this and there's a line in my head that keeps going through and that's kick, punch, it's all in the mind.
Jake: Yes, very much. Right. I love Peropathy rapper and this kind of feels like that, but just so much more. But I mean, I would love to play the music live, but I can't. But for anybody who loves rhythm games, this is very easy to throw on your computer and emulate because you don't need the motion controls, you can just use any controller. It's literally two buttons and it's charming as all hell, right? Like there's one where there's a monkey with the tambourine. You have to do it matching in the monkey's motions, Simon Says style. There's another game with a samurai fending off ghosts and spirits. Just every single one of these games is absolutely fantastic. And every time you finish a track and you have the remix of that song, which incorporates all the mini games, the planning to combine it all together is very clever. And whoever the musician is for this game is just really fantastic. And it bothers me that WarioWare is not bad. I have a couple of those games and they're fun, but they don't have quite the same charm as this game, I find WarioWare's Minigames are too short. They're micro games. They're like 2 seconds long. Right.
Sins: That's the point of I mean, you're right, that is a definite difference, because the point of a Wario wear game is that two to five second mini. Game, micro game, right? I mean, charred books is play freebird.
Jake: 17 minutes of rhythm game. This to me is like one of the just the peak of Wi games, right? Where it's just you have Guitar Hero, the rhythm game, you have the sports games like the Balance board games and all these games are kind of out there and outside the norm. I mean, obviously we had its Mario Galaxy and it had its games there. But this is so interesting.
Sins: It's the clock. I saw the clock one.
Jake: So this is a remix one where they did Monkey Watch but on the Tower of London, which is wild. And so they do change up the graphics in these as well. But yeah, this is a game that I hope a lot of people play. I know there's a few folks I've seen on Twitch who stream it and this is like always a favorite. So I don't know what else to say about this one. It's a wild collection. Like there's just another example, one where you're building robots and there's some are tall, some are short and you got to hit the button at the right time to screw their heads on with fun music. Another one where you are a fork and there's flying peas shooting at the screen and you have to plunk the peas in time with the music. Just wild. Crazy. Couldn't be more Japanese if it tried style of game.
Sins: It's just one of those things, wild and wacky stuff.
Wulff: So I looked it up. It is the exact same development studio as the WarioWare games.
Jake: Okay. And that lines up. Yeah.
Wulff: And also Metroid other M.
Sins: A well known micro minigame rhythm game for sure.
Wulff: Maybe that M was not great because it wasn't their format. That's crazy. You know what this reminds me of? There's this new game I've seen a few trailers for this year through all the summer of game stuff, right, called Headbangers where it's a bunch of pigeons in a rhythm game.
Jake: Yes, cockbirds.
Wulff: It looks a lot like that. Yeah, they do look a little bit like penises, don't they?
Jake: They totally do. And that's me a selling point. I'm telling you right now, cockbirds break.
Wulff: In my voice like I'm a teenager.
Sins: Soon on only fans we're getting this game.
Jake: So that's interesting that the studio made Wario Wars for sure then because WarioWare is actually getting a new game on Switch, I think later this year. It was part of the Nintendo Direct last week. I hope they would do these ones again. I guess maybe Wario's got the brain recognition. I don't know, maybe people like those better. But I find these minigames a lot more fun than Smooth Moves and the other micro games.
Sins: Personally, Jake. I have been waiting an eon for another paraphra. The rapper. So there you go.
Jake: Yeah, we only forgot the two, right? Prop the rapper and Jamie Lammy, I think it was.
Wulff: No, it was PaRappa and paraphra two. And then I'm jammer Lammy.
Jake: Oh, those three. Okay.
Sins: Yeah. But I'm still waiting.
Jake: The only concern, I wonder why maybe they haven't done this is because of the latency with modern TVs. If that's why they don't do these kind of games anymore. Because we was back when before HD. Right.
Sins: Well, except for I played it on my LCD TV and you did the whole, like, show the bar with the clap or whatever. And you'd get the clap.
Jake: You sync it up.
Sins: You would sync up your TV. Yeah. My brother says, I think the Wi was 720, probably. I definitely had the RGB, the composite or component I had the component input for my Wi.
Jake: I thought the Wi was 480. Still.
Sins: No, I think if you got the component adapter, it could go up to 727 20.
Jake: Okay. All right. Because I remember retro talk where it's like this is like the before HD. That's why people consider it retro. That whole definition of retro, which is wild.
Sins: Yeah. Rocksmith or whatever. They accounted for all of that. You just set the timing based on your TV. Right.
Jake: You're right. Yeah.
Sins: Nice. And and remind me the name of this game.
Jake: Yeah. This is rhythm heaven fever So this is definitely one everybody should try. Very easy to get into. And this is one where my kids like to watch or play along as well, because it's just easy to pick up. Like a lot of we games were.
Wulff: Oh, this wasn't even the first Rhythm Heaven then.
Jake: No, there was one. Yes. And then this came out. And then there was another one, the DS, like you mentioned, and then that's it.
Sins: And then Metroid other M, which couldn't.
Jake: Be a worse pivot for a company that makes rhythm games. Honestly, I don't get it. How does Nintendo take a studio that does this and the micro games and say, you know what? We want you to take one of our fan favorite franchises and fuck it up. Yeah, just do that. Just do that for us.
Sins: Anyway, I like the rhythm game of slapping spiders. I like that.
Jake: Yeah, keep the candy. Slap the spiders. That's how it works in the office environment. Yeah, I know. I do that in the office all the time. All right.
Sins: No, you let the spider join the podcast is what you do.
Jake: Well, I mean, we have to when Charge been on break and GP is away for a while, so we need that guest. Although, thankfully, he hasn't been around lately, but we'll see.
Sins: All right.
Wulff: Okay.
Jake: So that's my pick. And then, I guess, sinister. I want you to talk about yours because yours is interesting. Yours is not necessarily going to be, but it was definitely a part.
Wulff: Mine is sinister. Hold on. Before you say, I want to mention to everybody that Sinister, as he often does on this show, definitely thought outside the box for this one.
Sins: Look, it's a hidden gem. It's a hidden gest.
Jake: Nobody's played this one.
Wulff: Never seen before.
Sins: No, actually, what's kind of interesting is Mine before I say what it is, mine is actually kind of an inverse bargain bin game. Like, it actually started as a bargain bin game, and today it's not my game.
Wulff: It's a multibillion dollar franchise.
Sins: It is? Well, according to a list I found, as of 2012, it was the 6th highest selling game of all time. As of 2012. Yeah, Chardmuck, you're right. It's eldon ring. We are going with Eldon ring. That hidden jet started out bargain bing bin game. No, my game. Thinking outside the box. My game is minecraft. Here's the thing, I got in on it when it was either $10 or $15. I don't remember which. It was either the beta or the alpha or whatever. When Mojang had come out with it.
Wulff: I believe the alpha was $10 and then the beta, it was 15.
Jake: Yes, that's right.
Sins: So I think I got in a beta tier, and by the time I got in on it, I think they had sold like two and a half million copies at this point. So minecraft hidden Gem. Absolutely. Hey, look, I'm channeling my inner GP. So, yeah, basically it's one of those games where this kind of was before the concept of Steam, early Access, maybe even Steam. I don't know the timing for Steam, but maybe Steam looked at this and said, hey, we could profit in the same way that Mojang did without ever producing this through a studio. Or even like, they were selling it on their own marketplace, like their own website. Right. So, yeah, this game, Susan Star is going for that title. Yeah, nice. But no, it was a bargain bin game. It was absolutely a bargain bin game. I have hundreds of hours in this senstress, and I and a few other people would sit down and play this. I ran multiple servers at different times. There was even a point where Brother of Sin 3D printed an area of the map that we had built a base on. There was a product that you could get that would take your map, you could take a section of it, it would essentially create it for 3D printing. So I still think I have that somewhere. But absolutely a very interesting game, because you look at it, there's no discernible goal, at least at the time that we got in. Yeah, there wasn't even an end game. There wasn't the ender area, there wasn't the nether area, whatever you call it, where you could go take on the ender dragon and all of that stuff. But how many hours you guys have played this? I'm sure. How many hours have we wasted? And I spent $15. Right?
Jake: Yeah. I love this because when my kids a couple of years ago asked, hey, we want to get Minecraft, I'm like, I already have it. And they're like, really? On the switch? No java on the PC. And they wanted the other version, which is fine. This is special to me because there's a web form. I don't know if they're still around, but it was Tig, the source. I used to lurk that form quite a bit back in the day. Yeah, TIGSource. Because the guy who did what's the game, not La Milana, but the other one, rogue like, oh, it's going to bug me now. Isaac, with the bombs. The bombs and the ladders and the ropes and you're underground with Splunky. Thank you. So the guy who made Splunk, you yeah. Yes. So TIGSource was his form, his part of his website. So I used to lurk that because back in the day, I used to mess around with indie game engines and whatnot. I mean, I never really did anything with it, but it was fun to play with and tinker with and there's lots of influence and inspiration on that form. And back then, Notch was a member of that form. And I remember there was a thread talking about this proof of concept called Infiniminer, I think it was called, and it was the whole idea of voxels and blocks and stuff. So he had taken, I guess, that idea. Or did he make it? I can't remember.
Wulff: But he put together a he didn't make Infiniminer. He used it as inspiration.
Jake: Inspiration.
Wulff: But before Minecraft, he had worked on Worm online with another studio. You can see a lot of overlap between minecraft is basically a marriage of infinite miners. Look and worms. Playstyle interesting well.
Sins: And then he also, according to Notch, he also took the building portion of it. It was inspired by Dwarf Fortress as well. And in fact, according to the history, minecraft was originally a project that he had called Ruby Dung. So there you go.
Wulff: Didn't know that.
Sins: Yeah.
Jake: I don't want to dive into Notch too much because he's got some issues, but the idea of Minecraft and to be there at the start of it and see the demo, he threw up and it's just like, oh, 1015 bucks. Like, I didn't get alpha either. I think I got on board with the beta and even with the beta, I put in hundreds of hours just making with it. When you could do online with folks, the thing love to do is everybody was doing their own personal builds and castles and things. I would be the guy who would go around building roads to freaking everything, whether they wanted a road or not. I would build a road to everything so you could travel across things. I used to do that all the time online.
Sins: So this is carried over to Valheim?
Jake: Actually, yes, because in Valheim, I do the same damn thing. I have to link everything up. We must be a town, we must be a civil society. I'm going to join everything together and literally that's because of Minecraft.
Sins: One of the things I adore about Sinstrus, my wife, is anytime we or she plays Minecraft, her goal is to flatten mountains. Like, she will spend hours switching from the pickaxe to the shovel to this to that, and just clearing mountains and just making these level zones. It's great.
Jake: Yeah. And there's nothing quite like Minecraft even today. Like, there's games that it gets similar. Valheim has obviously some elements of it, but it's totally different.
Wulff: There are plenty of games that have been released that imitate Minecraft, but none of them have ever saw success.
Sins: I argue that this game is still the defining member of the genre of sandbox games. I argue that it is the defining member. There are groups that have come along. Arc arc tries to be another one, but it doesn't play like Minecraft. Yeah, sure, I go and have fun fighting dinosaurs and riding dinosaurs, but you know, it's not Minecraft at the end of the day. Right?
Wulff: Yeah. There's definitely something to the simplicity of Minecraft in that. All the building structures, it's cube based, right? It's simpler than Lego. Right. It's literally just every single block has six sides. So you can build north, southeast, west, up or down from what you're attached to, and it makes everything very accessible, even for children. Like, my Minecraft account is no longer my Minecraft account. It became my kids, like, four or five years ago because he expressed interest in it. And he was like, hey, can we get this? I was like, I got it. He's like, what? Can we play? I'm like, Well, I only got one copy, so no, but you can have it. So I gave it to him. So my account is now his account. We changed the name on it and everything. He has adopted it. But this is a game. I bought it back when it was an alpha. I got to see the horrendously broken online when it first released. We broke servers like we paid for online servers to play on. We broke servers by burning down trees.
Sins: Oh, yeah.
Jake: Yes.
Wulff: The fire would just never go out and then it would just attach to everything and eventually the server would just crash and then you'd try to log back in and you couldn't because everything was still burning.
Sins: I remember doing the same thing with TNT, right? You would set these big mountains of TNT and you would explode them and the thing would slow to the point that you would disconnect.
Wulff: Right?
Sins: Yeah.
Jake: I remember one online server I built a giant world tree, something that would have been straight out of Avatar, and some ass set it on fire and brought down the server and just it was a massive tree. I was so proud of that tree. And building it by hand took forever, but, yeah, he set it on fire. I have a lot of members of this game, and it's neat to look at this game, how I played it, and to see that my kids are playing it. But the version they play today is a lot different. When they first came to me and said, can we get Minecraft coins? I'm like, what are you talking about, coins? There's a currency in this game now. It's nuts.
Wulff: Well, it's a microtransaction currency. That's how they monetize it after purchase. Right.
Sins: And you guys joined early enough that you probably had the same experience that we did, where we were literally watching the release cycle and we were tracking like, oh, they've added new shadowing and new lighting and they've added powered tracks and they've added blah and the whole what is it? The redstone.
Jake: Redstone, which is amazing.
Sins: And then the first thing we did is we built before there was redstone and actual powered we built tracks that had a second rail that the cart would end up pushing you from the other rail through an actual bug in the game. Right. We figured out this bug that if you built a track in the same way that are close to each other, it would actually launch you and censorous references. We came up with ideas that were like, hey, let's go build a rail as far as we can and see how long it'll go. And we had a rail that went an entire day and night cycle in game. You could just ride the rail. We built glass around it, we built everything around it. That was I think when I fell off was when they went from creating I don't know what I would call creative, to creating the endgame items. And I know it's not an end game, but the whole Ender Dragon and all of that stuff. And to me it was like, okay, we've gone to just a regular RPG instead of, hey, they've introduced this new mechanic, how can we break it in the best way, right?
Jake: Yeah.
Wulff: Well, I think the End, as it's called, where the Ender Dragon is, I think that was introduced with the final release, right?
Sins: Yeah. Before I think it went to Microsoft, I think before it went to Microsoft.
Wulff: Yeah, I think that was a 1.0 thing. But I played the crap out of it well before that and then somewhat after that. But I remember my introduction to this game. I don't know if I've shared this story in the podcast or not, but I always think it's fun. I was playing World of Warcraft and one of my guildmates was on and it was late at night, so I'm just running around, I'm mining, right? And I see her on, she's quiet for a while, so finally I'm like, hey, what are you up to? And she goes, I'm playing minecraft. And I started laughing. I was like, oh, me too, because I was running around in World of Warcraft mining, right. I thought it was a joke.
Sins: Nice.
Wulff: And then she was like, really? I was like, yeah, I'm running around mining. You're running around mining? She's like, no, there's this game called Minecraft where it's this and this and this. And I was like, oh. So for me, I thought it was a joke. And then I went and looked into it, and I initially played it on the website where it was literally just creative with, like a dozen blocks and a spider, I think, or something.
Sins: Maybe the creeper at this point. Probably maybe.
Wulff: Yeah, I was the creeper. So it was the creeper. It was a lot of, like, brick, grass, stone. That was kind of it, right?
Sins: That creeper still haunts me.
Wulff: I got in very early, but I found myself playing enough of that to where I was like, $10. All right, I'll buy the actual game because that sounds like it's got a lot more going on than this. And I had a lot of fun with it for a long time. It was definitely worth the $10.
Sins: And then to get back to kind of the point, it was a bargain game, but kind of what I, you know, thinking outside of the box right, is it's no longer a bargain game. And I've gone back to it a few times. I jumped on a friend's server, and he had all the mods that had the magic and had the ability to set up these automated systems, et cetera. All of the mods are crazy. If you look at the mods you can install, honestly, I don't know. For me, I think the simplicity, but also chasing kind of like the development cycle from simplicity to more complex was the joy for me. Right.
Wulff: Yeah. It was really cool to see the game grow and expand what it was.
Sins: Yeah. But I don't know how much it is today. It's probably a $50 or $60 game, honestly.
Wulff: No, it's actually still $30 for the pair of Java and Bedrock Edition. So it's not expensive, but it's also not like a bargain game. It's just like, high indie game price now.
Sins: It's a high game.
Jake: If you're like me with kids, I had to buy it two additional times. And then if you have kids, they want the damn coins. And those coins, they can add up. So, I mean, you don't have to spend coins, but it's all cosmetic stuff. But when they first said, hey, I want Minecraft coins to buy skins in game, I'm like skins. Used to be you used to do them yourself. They were free. But the Bedrock Edition can you can bedrock Edition is more monetized than the Java version is, I guess, is what it is.
Wulff: Well, in the Bedrock Edition version go ahead. In the Bedrock Edition, you can actually it's convoluted to do you have to actually log into Minecraft.net to upload your own skin or no, that's only for Java. Now, in Bedrock, you can find skins and you can pull them up through bedrock, load them up from your computer so it's not super convoluted. But what the actual skins in the game let you do is sometimes they have extra layers or something that you can't access from just a basic skin. So there's some customization to it. A lot of times my kid will be like this and it's $5. And I'm like, Dude, no. And sometimes he'll find one where it's a really cool skin. The whole thing is like $3 for the whole body, and it's like flowing RGB. And I'm like, all right, that's fine. I get it.
Jake: Well, there was how to Train a dragon mod pack or something that I think I picked up for the girls. And that was fun. I mean, they had the dragons in the game, the characters there, the story and the environment map was made, was cool. I mean, I get it. It's neat. And I'm happy with them to play Minecraft over some of the other stuff that's available out there, rather than play Minecraft than Roblox, for example. So I've been fine with it, but it's definitely not the $1015 bargain bin it used to be, which is really interesting. When you had mentioned following the development history of this game, I immediately thought of no Man Sky. To me, no Man's Sky is a similar arc where it was just like this very basic thing when it released and then just what it is today is almost unrecognizable from when it first launched. And Minecraft, to me, is that.
Sins: Sinceris and I lucked out, our kids being the age that they are, we were able to get them Minecraft purchases for the beta price as well. Anyway, I think at $30, it's still a value. Is it a bargain? No, but I think it's still a value at $30.
Wulff: But they I mean, they know their market because even the newer Minecraft games, they never exceed, I think, $40.
Jake: Minecraft Dungeons is the new one, I think, where it's like a Diablo clone. I think it has the same graphics style, not nearly the same gauntlet. Yeah. That I think is $40, or it's on game pass. I think that's how I played it, 30 $40.
Wulff: But it has DLCs upon DLCs.
Jake: Right.
Wulff: So the base game is relatively inexpensive when you figure AA game, because that's what it is. Now minecraft is. AA. Games.
Sins: Sure.
Wulff: Because it's Microsoft. Mojang has all the might of Xbox Studios behind it. Right, right.
Jake: Like when Microsoft paid 2 billion for it. I mean, there's a good reason, and they put Full back into that game. So it's an interesting story, for sure. All right.
Sins: Absolutely.
Jake: That's a good pick. I like that one.
Wulff: Yeah.
Jake: All right.
Sins: Awesome.
Jake: All right, well, and that was our Bargain Bin games, I think all three that are worth to check out. And anything else on Bargain Bin games before we move on to finishing our business?
Wulff: No, I don't think so. It's funny because you talk about those bargain bin games at Walmart, but those were there a long time, buddy. I remember seeing Saturn and PlayStation games in those things.
Jake: Before that, maybe, but for some of me in the disc era of video games, it seemed to be really big bins of games. I know there's always cheap Nintendo game cards back in the day, but for me, that memory of just piles of discs not even on a shelf, just thrown in a bin, and Walmart's like, please take it. Please steal this. Like, honestly, just take it.
Sins: I swear, Best Buy still has those bins.
Wulff: Oh, probably, yeah, you still see them at Walmart, but now all they have on them now is DVDs and Blu rays.
Jake: Yeah, no, games. Games. Games don't have that. Are there even bargain games now? I mean, there's indie titles and it's usually you buy those digitally, but I don't know if there's cheap discs anymore. Nintendo stuff never goes on sale.
Wulff: Yeah, that's the thing is, back then, there was no indie publisher, right. You couldn't publish your own thing and set it on a storefront for super cheap. You had to go through a publisher like Rough Trigger. It's not so May. Not so May was a decent sized publisher at the time, so that's how it happened. But it was such a cheap game to make, I'm sure that they figured, okay, $20, we could sell this for $20. We could sell this many for $20 and make our money back.
Jake: Right?
Sins: Yeah. Censors points out, and this is absolutely true, we got Bloodborne for $20 at the Target bargain bin.
Jake: Oh, really? Okay.
Sins: Yeah.
Wulff: I've not seen a bargain bin at Target. It's more like a bargain end cap.
Sins: I think it was a bargain end cap. It might have been a bargain end cap, but yes.
Wulff: That doesn't call Target end caps.
Jake: Cheap games thrown in. Yes, literal pile of games.
Sins: That's what I want.
Wulff: No, well, that's what they do just on an end cap. It's a pile of games.
Sins: Yeah.
Jake: Once a week, somebody comes with a dumb truck and just tosses them on the asphalt and have to shovel it into a bin and bring it to the store.
Wulff: The funny thing about those target end caps, usually they're just loaded with, like, clearance games, right? Sure. But sometimes you'll find a game in there that you're like, OOH, cool. And then you look at its price and you're like, $60. It's because it's like, their last one or two copies, and they don't want to sacrifice all that shelf space for it anymore.
Jake: Actually, you know what? I can bet you I can name a bargain bin game for today. Kind of. And that's crash Team Rumble just came out a couple of days ago, and it's $30. And people are saying it's fun, but there's been no marketing behind it, and people didn't even realize it launched this week. But it's $30, and apparently people are having fun with that one. So Crash Team Rumble looks to be an interesting one. And it's $30. Maybe there still is the spirit of.
Sins: Bargain bin games if we're talking games that feel like they were priced very well. Metroid dread. Right?
Jake: That was a full priced game, though, right?
Sins: I think it was $40, wasn't it? Was it 60?
Jake: Yeah.
Sins: Never mind. I take it back.
Wulff: Primary mastered was 40.
Sins: That's okay.
Jake: Yes.
Wulff: Wrong Metroid.
Sins: Yeah. Not the other M. The other M.
Jake: You know, I've never played other M. I hear so many bad things about it. I haven't bothered.
Wulff: I have it back there somewhere. I haven't either. I've been meaning to.
Sins: It has story that has value for the Metroid universe.
Jake: I'll read the manga.
Sins: There you go.
Jake: All right. We got business that tend to we are doing, for those who don't know the press, b Top 100. The top 100 games that you need to play, you must play according to us. So each week we're putting forth a nomination for that top 100 list and then the future episode, we're going to rank them in some fashion. We still got to sort that out. I'll start off because I actually have Mine ready to go, and then we'll pass on to the other two guys. Mine is for the N 64, and it's a game that has never gotten a remaster, a sequel. Well, maybe it got a rerelease on the Xbox, but never a sequel. And it's from rare and it's blast corpse. I'm amazed that this game has not had a sequel. It blows my mind. For those who don't know, Blast Corpse from Rare is basically an overhead real time puzzle game as you have to demolition or destroy various buildings and objects while a truck with a nuclear warhead on it is moving toward the map. And if it hits anything on the map, it explodes. That's the story. They've called in the Blast Corpse to demolition things in the path of this missile until they can dear it. It's a wildly fun puzzle game, very frantic when you are in the clock, and it's not a physical clock. It's literally the nuclear missile slowly rolling on this truck toward the goal, and you have to break these buildings. But there's like a dozen vehicles in the game that you can use. Everything from mechs and robots flying and tumbling to dump trucks and tractors. Even the Ateam van is in this game as a vehicle. It's just a wild assortment of vehicles in this game to play with wildly fun. Tons of levels, lots of secret levels. There's a few secret levels where you go to outer space, you go to the planets, so you're demolitioning on the moon, for example. Wild stuff. Just so many levels. Fun music. It had a little bit of speech, which is rare for the N 64, I think. Just surprising it never got a sequel. So for. Me. Blastcorps belongs in the top 100.
Sins: Nice.
Wulff: Yeah. I remember playing the crap out of this when it came out and it got so much magazine coverage, but I looked into it and apparently the reason it never got a sequel, the game's director felt like the whole thing had been explored and they didn't really need to explore the mechanics any further.
Jake: They released how many awful Donkey Kong country games, rare. And they feel like they've explored all of Blascops. Really?
Wulff: Yeah, that's apparently the reasoning. But you were right, it did get released on Rare Replay, which was on Xbox One, and that was back in 2015. So it's been a while, unfortunately. It feels like a game that's sort of been lost to time, even though it was a massive success and honestly, the journalists wouldn't shut up about it. Right. It made so many covers, it had so many multi page spreads in various magazines, and that was a one off.
Jake: It's so weird and, like, unique gameplay. Nothing quite like it, I think I've ever seen since then. Like, nobody's tried doing a Blast Corpse, like, for example, and just yeah, very unique.
Wulff: Hidden Gem.
Sins: Hidden Gem?
Jake: I'd call it Hidden Gem, but it was so popular when it came out. I guess maybe it's Hidden Gem now, but it's no file fuzzy tactics, really.
Sins: I just saw GP in our chat, so I had to bring that up.
Jake: IGP IGP who wants to go next?
Wulff: I will go next. I am once again skirting very close to our cutoff date, and I'm going with Halo Two. Halo Two? When does that come out in my mind? November 9, 2004.
Jake: Fuck off. That's like right before 2005.
Wulff: That's what I'm saying. I'm right within that cut off. Okay, but you cannot deny that Halo Two is definitely up there. As far as games, it was so big that the games like, that's the only midnight release I've been to where it was just massive crowds at little nowhere towns, right? It wasn't just like, La, New York, Chicago, that kind of my town. Friggin redland san Bernardino. There was line all the way around the Friggin parking lot. People were ordering pizzas and having them delivered to the line. Cars were just like it was like this weird sort of mix between a block party and a tailgate party. But in the Game stop parking lot, right outside the Walmart. Right? It was so weird. But everybody was just having fun, having a grand old time, waiting for the release, and then everybody went home. You met people in line that night. What's your gamer tag? Let's play when we get home. So it's like three in the morning. You're still playing with people you just met that night on Live. Just shooting the crap at each other, blowing each other up, having a great time. This is a game I played for years. I played this at my freaking bachelor party. Nice I whipped out a bunch of Xboxes and 360s, had everybody bring their copies of Halo Two. I installed the map pack on all the machines. We had four TVs set up and we played like seven player Halo Two.
Sins: That'S awesome.
Jake: Seller for Microsoft. This is the reason you wired your team Xbox back in the day was because of Halo. Everybody loved Halo and the eyeline. The online component is just iconic. Right. How weird to say. Online play is retro, though.
Sins: Well and realistically for me, it was the four player split screen and then you add other Xboxes in. That was what hit me. Right.
Wulff: Local land parties. That's what I was doing.
Jake: Yeah.
Wulff: Halo night, right?
Sins: Yeah.
Wulff: I'm going to my buddies for Halo night. Not game night.
Sins: Not Halo Two. Jeremy's cousin in law, I think my brother Jeremy used to have these Halo games. And I remember I brought my Xbox, I showed up and they had enough players that it was like a couple people, like four people on one Xbox, four people on another Xbox. And then there was a TV, so I didn't have to share the TV, I didn't have to split screen. It was great.
Wulff: Awesome, man. Yeah. This is a game that it really shaped what console shooters were for a long time because it improved on the first one dramatically. It was kind of the face of online shooters for consoles for years. I don't think Halo Three came close when that one was the online multiplayer for that. Halo Four, Halo Five, they've all kind of petered out. Halo Two had some massive staying power for a long time. And then as far as the actual main campaign goes, it really upped the stakes of the story and introduced the flood, which we now think of as like the biggest, meanest thing in Halo. It started in two, so there's a lot of aspects of two that I think make it the best of the Halo series and maybe one of the best, at least console shooters ever made.
Sins: Yeah.
Wulff: And honestly, it was on Windows as well.
Sins: Sure.
Jake: Although but on Windows, you had other PC shooting games. Yeah, you had other online shooters on PC because there's a whole other different culture of Quake and whatnot online on PC. But for consoles, it was Halo. It was really just halo. Wasn't the whole red blue machineima thing. Was that? Halo two. I think, where that started with no.
Wulff: It started with Halo One and then it got the graphical bump with Halo Two where they ended up in the future.
Sins: Okay, excellent. Good choice.
Jake: All right, Sinister, how about you?
Sins: All right, so, funny enough, I referenced that in 2012, minecraft was the 6th greatest selling game of all time. My pick today in 2012 was the second highest selling game of all time, and that is StarCraft.
Jake: Okay, good choice. Yeah.
Sins: Not only did it have some of the best tactical strategy multiplayer, but the campaign was epic. Like Kerrigan, all of that stuff that stemmed off, right? It took what Warcraft and Warcraft Two had, and Command and Conquer and Red Alert, and it kind of boiled it down into, in my opinion, now you have to add in the expansion pack, brood war, but it kind of took all of those pieces and created a very cohesive, very balanced game. I mean, balanced, really, from day one.
Jake: Well, you have just three sides, right? And even though there's three drastically different sides to play in the game, whether the Zurglings, which are basically aliens, and then you have the protos, which are high technology, and then they have the humans. But you're right, they all felt incredibly balanced. That is not an easy thing to design a game around. To have three separate sides are so drastically different.
Sins: Yeah. Incredibly different tactics, right? Humans, it was about military power, right? Zirglings it wasn't about military power. It was about overrunning your opponents and spreading as far and fast as you could. Right? How many times were you chasing? Adding more creep, right? Adding more creep. Adding more creep. And then the protos, protos slow, but has shields from the beginning, right? And as soon as they had their power, blimp death, we called them blimps. What are they called? Carriers. We called them blimps. Blimp death, right? You had a squadron of Blimps fully loaded with the fighters, and you just rolled the board, right? And then how frequently if you played this game and you were playing against the Terrans and you heard nuclear launch detected, how much did you shit your pants on that? Right. You're looking for the little red dot for the ghost, right? You're like, where's the red dot? And yeah, every race had their power weapon, but, oh, man, that nuclear launch detective was epic and like, how much.
Jake: Of a legacy this game has, right? Like when we say Zurg rush in games today, it all goes back to StarCraft, right? The idea of rushing the opponent was Zurgs back then, but it still applies today. The character designs is something that when you say Kerrigan, I think wasn't Kerigan one of our we had a bracket episode of villains. I think Kerrigan was shortlisted to be one of those characters. I think she didn't make it into.
Sins: The list, but we'd shortlisted her. Yeah, I used to play this game enough that I would dream tactics. I would actually dream and come up with tactics. And I remember one day I woke up from a dream. It wasn't a glorious tactic, but I was chuckling when I woke up because I basically figured out or in my dream, I was like, I'm going to set my waypoint. I was going to play Zurg, and I was going to set my waypoint in their base and just make as many Zurglings as fast as I could. And just like, it was literally, you looked at the little map and there's the little colored icons for your items. It was just like ants coming from my base to their base. It was great. So, yeah, I love that game. I love that game. It's been a couple of years, but we still play it. StarCraft Two is okay, but you can still buy and play StarCraft One on Blizzard's site. That's great.
Jake: I know they did a remaster not too long ago that wasn't as well received of it, I think. Yeah.
Sins: I think it was not well received because everybody expected additions. I think it was literally just slapping paint on it.
Jake: But yeah, StarCraft is one of those franchises where it's one of the pillars for Blizzard. Right? You have warcraft, you have Diablo and you have StarCraft. Really? That's what they got. I mean, I know they recently added overwatch to the mix, but it's not nearly as impactful as those other three. And I know they've tried to do StarCraft stuff since then, since Two, like, Ghost has been in development hell forever, and I think they've given up on it. But the idea of taking those characters into different genres, they've tried, I think here is the Storm has some StarCraft units in it, for example. But I'm always curious to see what Blizzard does with StarCraft. It's been long enough. I'm surprised they haven't announced something is in the works with StarCraft because it's been a long time now.
Sins: Yeah.
Jake: No, I don't know.
Wulff: I never got into StarCraft. I couldn't do it for whatever reason. It didn't click with me. I was huge on warcraft. And warcraft Two. Warcraft Three didn't click with me either. I think I sort of lamented the loss of naval combat and StarCraft sort of had a similar thing where there was just space between land that you didn't really do much with unless you had aerial combat. And I felt like the naval combat was sort of between the land and the air combat, and I loved that aspect. So I was huge on Age of Empires. Age of Empires, too, so I was big on those. Never got into StarCraft. I had a lot of friends who did. They absolutely loved it. So much so that they would even play StarCraft 64.
Jake: That was a good version. I had that or I rented it. I like that one.
Sins: We played so many nights until four or five in the morning until we were just, like, falling asleep at our keyboards. We also, by the way, refused to call the expansion Brood War. We actually called StarCraft original Recipe and extra crispy. So we would always say, are we including extra crispy? You always have to include extra crispy.
Jake: Yeah. All right. Good choices for the top 100.
Sins: Yeah.
Wulff: Well, thank you, everybody, for listening.
Jake: If you like this video, drop us a like, yeah. Join our discord. Subscribe to the channel on YouTube. We're trying to make a push for subscribers on YouTube with some announcements that YouTube has made, like, upcoming changes. So I know that outside of the podcast each week we're going to look at doing some other stuff on the channel from time to time. So look forward to that. But yes, if you like the podcast, share with your friends, please. We really like doing the podcast, and you guys watching and being so supportive has been great to us. Anybody want to show anything or we're going to wrap it up.
Sins: I'm going to call out we were talking I'm going to call out that I'm probably done streaming on Twitch because Twitch has been a dumpster fire lately. And I'm probably going to start bringing things over here to the press b. I'm going to try to keep it around Monday nights when I can. And this is where I'll probably finish chrono trigger.
Jake: Okay. Yeah. Sisophane games seem to really fit more on press b, so when I do Battle Toads, it'll probably be on press b now.
Wulff: Yeah, I'm kind of thinking I'll probably start putting stuff up on the press b YouTube as well. I have not been streaming on Twitch for ages. I don't see the point in doing press b homework and posting it on my own YouTube channel. It seems like it would be better served on this channel. So that's what I'm going to do. It's all going to go to the press b YouTube now for me, unless it's me and my kid. So that way there's a little bit of defined content there, but anything that's just me I'm going to start putting here, I think.
Sins: Awesome.
Jake: All right, folks. Well, this has been another episode of Presbyter cancel. Thanks very much.
Wulff: Bears beats Battlestar Galactica.