Wait, they made another one today on.
I like it.
Don't like it over the intro.
Don't appreciate over the intro.
My bad.
Howdy, folks. Welcome to another episode of Press B to cancel. We're coming up on a big number here. We're at 249. Pretty wild. Don't count the taps. Don't count them.
Nobody remembers those four years ago.
We should just wipe them. They're gone.
Wow, they're gone. They're stricken from the record. They're no longer canon.
We might do another fifth Tap B this year. You never know. We'll just throw it up there randomly.
Yeah, that could be fun. Anyway, we are talking about secret sequels tonight. Jake, Chard, how you guys doing?
Good week's over. It's Friday. Everybody loves a good Friday. So I'm happy to get into this weekend after this long week and staring down the barrel of April. Some good games coming up here in a couple months. Guys, we're not here to talk about that, but things to be excited about.
My wallet can't take any more good games, Jared. We've already spent a lot of money and it's only March and, well, bankrupt me like Monster Hunter Wilds.
That's all we've been playing.
That's true. It's a good one.
And Jake and I are both suffering from batteries being drained.
Literally, the amount of car trouble I've had this past six months has been awful. And I know from what you said today about your car troubles, it just cursed.
I mean. Okay, to be fair, here's our first tangent. To be fair, mine is literally just the battery needs to be jumped every time. And I got one of those stupid little, like, jumpers, the battery jumpers that you just have, like, hook it up to the battery, put the clamps on, hit the button, and it's got power. So, yeah, one of the times I had to push it, like a couple of times, I had to push it like two or three times for it to keep the juice to turn it on. But replacing the battery tomorrow. So anyway, car troubles be damned. We're doing an episode.
Soldier 4 soldier on.
Guys, since Jake, you're making the sausage. Who's going first?
Wolf.
Jared, you go first.
I go first.
All right.
Okay. Well, so I was telling you guys before we went live that we were doing a lot of digging and we. We'd had this discussion weeks ago previously about ideas to have for episodes, because every episode we end, we go, what are we going to talk about? Literally, for weeks we do that. So the sausage is being made a little bit there. But we had this great idea about coming up with sequels, so. But it was unknown sequels, not just sequels we liked, because of course Mega Man 2 would have easily been one of our three picks, I'm sure of it. But we wanted to do something kind of put a spin on it. So we were looking for more unknown in the title sequels you've never heard of or that you don't think about. So of course my ass goes with DuckTales 2 and Chip and Dale 2 to start. Because nobody's heard of DuckTales or Chippendales 2, and that's a lie. So I decided I wanted to be cool like Jake and Wolf, because they always have some really cool left field stuff. And I'm always sitting here going, but what about, I don't know, Bionic Commando 2? And I did some digging and I found a game that. This game is a pretty left field game. Now, it's. It's a. It's a sequel because it came out after the first one. But it's not a sequel per se. It is more of a prequel to the game going into it. Because this game then did have a sequel and then later on on another system, when they released this sequel on the system, this game came with it as a bonus game. So. And of all game systems to have this game on it, this one kind of is crazy. Like this whole setup. Why anybody thought that this would be a good idea for this particular system blows my mind. So great reveal. You guys know I love scary games. I went with Dead Space Extraction. Dead Space Extraction is a basically. I wouldn't say a spiritual successor, but it is a prologue about what has happened on the Ishimura before Isaac and his team gets there. For those of you who played Dead Space, everybody knows you show up on the Ishimura. It's a space horror game. You're an engineer, and everything's already gone to hell before you got there. Well, Dead Space Extraction kind of takes you along for the ride on how all the chaos became. I believe it was released. That was on. Okay, so it was released in about 2009, and it came out on the Wii of all systems. Nintendo Wii.
Oh, is that why it's first person?
That's why it's a rail shooter. This is not even a first person game. And it's a rail shooter set in the Dead Space universe. So like House of the Dead or Time Crisis or something like that. You use the Wii Remote and you shoot Necromorphs. Now, this game's a little janky to be fair. It's pretty good for a rail shooter if it's a rail shooter. But the problem with rail shooters is that there's always ammunition lying around, but you're never fast enough to pick it up because the camera just shoots by you. So the camera is the final boss of. Of extraction. So basically you start out on Aegis 6 which is the sorry, age of seven, my bad. Which is the planet where basically you pull the marker out and the chaos begins and you're kind of an extraction team that's been pulled from the planet. Then put on the Ishimura and the whole story just goes along with the crew of people that is on age of 6 or age 7 trying to get out and then people onto the Ishmura is kind of hits the fan. But it's a giant rail shooter that plays actually pretty well. I played this many, many years ago when I had a Wii and then I kind of forgot about it because it's such a random game to think about and to put it on a Nintendo system. The family friendly Wii, a game of this caliper. For those of you who play Dead Space, this is not a Nintendo friendly game to put on any of their systems.
Those who are watching the YouTube video, I just saw the. The person in this let's play or long play just popped the head off a guy like it was nothing.
It's happened a few times now and there's actual just.
There's fluid. I'm assuming it's blood. We don't ever know with Nintendo if it's blood or sweat. I'm sure that when you pop someone with your railgun or plasma cutter that they shoot sweat all over their body because that is. That's the standard for Nintendo. But the Mortal Kombat game that is this aggressive and this visceral on the Wii blew my mind to begin with. But later on.
Welcome to press me to cancel your favorite podcast about fluids. Fluids, your fluid experts, fluid and moisture.
It's a big topic of conversation between all of us. So this game came out on the Wii but later on in life they released Dead Space 2 which came out on on I believe the PS2 and Xbox Box 360 and eventually came out on on PlayStation 3. And when Dead Space 2 came out on PlayStation 3, this game came with it on the PlayStation 3. So you can play it with. Imagine playing this with a controller or you can play it with, I believe the PlayStation move I think is what it was called.
Yeah, that makes More sense. Yeah.
The one which was the same, you know, the sticks with the red glowing ball on it or whatever and you can do the whole thing. But I mean, the Wii obviously was designed to play a rail shooter because the Wii Remote is a perfect rail shooting gun. So I dug a little deeper into this game and watched some videos and reminded myself to play it. But the fact that they. And it looks pretty good for, for a, for a Wii game, this game is not. It's pretty good. I mean, it may not have aged well at this point in time. And we look back on it and we played Dead Space remake, which is absolutely gorgeous in all its bloody gory. But this game looks pretty good coming out for the Wii and, and Dead Space originally looked really good on the PlayStation to begin with. It was one of the games that really brought me into like a lot of more deeper horror type stuff. But it's got same musical stuff, same background noises, same exact Necromorphs. It's just on a rail shooter now. All I'd like to see is them to take this game and, and upgrade it a little bit more and put it on VR and that would be spectacular. I think this would be a great game in VR, personally.
Yeah. Honestly, looking at the gameplay, I wouldn't have known this is a we char. Except the, the reticul jiggles a bit like it shakes. And that's Telltale Sign in the remote for sure. Someone's trying totally see this as a VR game. Like I know you talked about the Aliens game that's on VR that came out not too long ago and I don't think I'm interested in that one. But this, this I would play in VR. This looks pretty neat.
You wouldn't play Aliens, but you play this. This is, I think would be worse than Aliens.
Okay. I actually think this looks all right.
Yeah.
But I know nothing about Dead Space. Like this is all new stuff to me. Is it all the same environment? Like are you all stuck in the space station type thing or.
Yeah, you're stuck in the, in the mining facility on the planet and then you get into the Ishimura a little bit later as you are extracted off the planet, but then find that the problem is up there as well. So obviously this game doesn't have a happy ending Because Dead Space 1, 2 and 3 then basically follow the story of Extraction. It was also another Dead Space game called Ignition, but we're not going to talk about that on that one. That one doesn't exist because that's trash. But this One specifically, this one had a really good feel to it for being a rail shooter. It just, it's designed really well and I think it fit very perfect with the storyline of what Dead Space is and what they were trying to roll with. It's just weird that. I mean, I get that the Wii had the. Had the controller set up to make it work how they wanted it to do it, but it just was so weird that Nintendo was like, hey, we'll put that on our system. And you're like, really? You guys aren't known for this kind of level of gore and this level of like extreme stuff to it.
So. But, well, but you know what? They. They can surprise you at times. Like, I know they're definitely the family friendly console. They always have been. Especially, especially the Wii. Right. That's the console everybody had when they're at their cottage or at least up here. But Resident Evil 4 was on the GameCube, right? And that's before the Wii. So they've. They've been. They've had violent games before on their system.
That's fair. I didn't think about that one. I forgot about Resident Evil 4 being on that one. But I mean it, it had re. It had returning people. It had Jason Graves and Don Becca, who are the composer and the audio director, which make Dead Space what Dead Space to me totally is. But unfortunately this game got a lot of poor sales and. And did not meet a lot of expectations when it came out. It got a little bit of a higher praise when it came back out for the PlayStation 3. Partnering it with.
It's.
It's. You get a free game when you get Dead Space 2, which. Dead Space 2 is a phenomenal game as well. But I think as it was translated into the debts into the PlayStation 3 era, people were still kind of balking at its low graphic quality because it's. You look at it, it's obviously very much more of the. The Wii standard, but it's for the Wii itself. Looks pretty good. Like, all things considered.
Did you look at reviews for this one? I just took a look at the Metacritic score. You want to guess what it is?
It's not high. I know it's not high. What do you think, 50s? I'm gonna go around the 50s.
Wolf, you want to guess?
Yeah, I think I'm in there about the 50s too.
Wow. How am I not winning, fantasy critic with these guesses that you guys make? It was 82.
Really?
Yeah. Generally favorable. 76 reviews. I don't know, graphic wise, it looks Great.
I'm just doing the Jake thing and picking things blindly off a name and EA Split fiction. I'm looking at you.
Fucking split action game of the year.
I guess I didn't consider. I tend to think in terms of Steam rankings. So it's player reviews, not critic reviews.
So in the same way from players.
It was probably not quite as well received as the critics because it was something new and different. It was basically like you said, it's an on rails game. But at home. We have On Rails game at home.
You know wish.com of Unreal's game.
We have Rails at home. Go home Nintendo. You're drunk. I can see if you're a player and you love Dead Space and then you played at a buddy's place and you have a Wii at home and your parents got you this for Christmas. Maybe you'd be upset. Maybe.
Right.
But I mean critic reviews are pretty good. Maybe if you take it for what it is. It's not like Resident Evil Survivor. Was that the first person umbrella game?
I think Umbrella something, I think is what it was called.
Something like that.
Yeah.
It was like. It was like a first person shooter. A Resident Evil game.
Oh yeah. Gun Survivor.
Gun Survivor. I know my uncle rented that and he was so upset when he rented it because he didn't have a gun for using the controller to play it and.
Right.
He was a huge Resident Evil fan to. So for that he was upset. So maybe similar situation with Dead Space franchise fans. And this is what you get. But I think if you take it for what it is at face value it seems pretty legit. This is actually surprisingly. I'm shocked at the graphics Jar. This looks really nice.
Looks good.
It's.
It's a good looking game. And this game is designed for rail shooting because it's got locational. The original game has locational damage. Right. You shoot off the limbs. You. You cut off their limbs to survive. So this is a perfect design to shoot multiple occasions and use precision in the game. You're just not worried about walking around like you are in the other ones. So I can definitely see not having the control of the character kind of losing people like. Like me who wants to control Isaac and move around.
This makes me wonder seeing this in action. How did we not get the Jurassic park arcade game on the Wii?
That game is great in arcade.
It really. The old one from like the late 90s. How did make it to the Wii? That would have been. That would have sold like gangbusters. Right? I know we're not Talking about that, but seeing this in action, I'm like, this. The Wii could have handled that game.
Could have done it. Right. It's almost. It's a hidden secret on the Wii. Like, it's really kind of crazy that we're looking at this going, this was a Wii game. This really was on the Wii. And it.
Sure, she was many shooters, like, did it. It didn't get. I mean, it didn't have Point blank, but. But did it get like time crisis or something?
I. I don't know. I don't know. It's designed perfectly to do it. I mean, what else you got The. The Zelda. The Zelda game. The shooter game that they have.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's like the best thing that they had out. Out there on top of Extraction.
Yeah, there was Red Steel. I remember Red. That one was pretty neat. I never actually got to play it, but I watched it. It was kind of cool. Conduit. Call of Duty four, Call of Duty. World at War. Yeah. Sin and Punishment.
No.
House of the Dead. Overkill.
I remember House of the Dead being on there.
Okay.
I remember that.
So it. It had a few. I like, I do really remember Red Steel and Conduit, though. Those are the ones that really come to mind when I think of that stuff.
Yeah. So. So, yeah, maybe not a direct sequel from the game. It's more of a prequel to Tell the Story, but it came after the first one and doesn't have a 2 on it. But I thought this would be. This would be a fun one to talk about on the. On the episode because it's such a. Such a weird game to put on the Wii. And all things considered, it's designed extremely well for what it was, but was not as well received by fans, maybe by critics, but not. Not by fans to begin with. And I think I kind of share Wolf's thought process of. I'm looking at what, like, if I would enjoy it as opposed to what some critic would enjoy. And that's the one thing that kicks my butt in Fantasy critic. Because I'm like, hey, this is going to be really cool. And then they're like, no, it sucks. But then I play it. I'm like, but it's fun. And it's got overwhelmingly positive reviews. What. What is wrong with you?
So, yeah, that's. That's how I thought. That's how I went into last year's Fantasy Critic. I was like, oh, yeah, this game's great. These will be great. And, you know, they rate better with players than they do critics, which. So this year I was thinking, all right, I'm going to be stuffy and I'm.
He learned, he learned, he learned.
I'm going to put a stick on my ass and pretend I write for a games journal. That's what I'm going to do.
Play the role.
I gotta do this like I'm a professional games journalist, not a podcaster. Because as a podcast, I want to love everything.
Right?
Yeah, it's true. We don't want to hate games. We're a very positive group. I never say anything bad about video games ever on this show.
Are you kidding? Like half the game we talk about at Marco Polo or Goatee Contenders for you.
They're either gonna.
Or they're trash.
Yeah.
When we do the episodes, I usually start off with my game sucks, but I'm gonna talk about it for 10.
Minutes and then you'll be like, all right, it's pretty good, but it sucks.
It's almost like you have to talk yourself through liking it. So you do it on the episode and by the end of the episode you're like, you know, guys actually talking about it. This is Game of the Year.
It's the best game ever.
Yeah, you hated it when you started. There should be a segment of Make Jake Love Something.
Wild. This is a good one, though. Honestly, I didn't know this one existed until you. You mentioned it. I mean, I. I knew about the mainline Dead Space games, but this is interesting. This is awesome. And it looks. And it actually looks great. That's not what I expected at all. Especially when you said rail shooter. When you say rail shooter, I keep thinking of that Resident Evil game that was not so good. Or. I'm thinking of. Well, because not this.
We don't tend to think of home console rail shooters as good things. Especially. What. Since the Wii, I don't think we've really had any. And the ones on Saturn and PlayStation were very hit and miss because you had to have whatever the light gun adapter was, which was rare and expensive and only used by maybe six games per console.
Wasn't that the little orange gun handle? Is that what that was? Then you put it.
There's a few different ones. There's. I actually really. I was looking into getting a. They're called Gun Cons are the ones that Namco used to make. And I. I kind of want to get one for the arcade machine behind me. But to do it nowadays, because it's not a CRT behind me, it's an LCD monitor. So you have to find, like, it's either a sensor bar, like it's a Wii hack, like a Wii sensor bar hack, or it's a white border around the screen, which looks kind of odd. Gotti. So I have to look at my options, but I. I've been kind of wanting to play, like, games like Point Blank or Time Crisis, that. That kind of thing for a while now. I wouldn't mind doing that. I have to look into that.
Jake should just come down to us, Wolf, and we can take him and go play Time Crisis five at. Insert coin.
Yeah, right.
There's the fifth one of those.
There's the fifth one.
They made five of those. They did. Speaking of unknown sequels, I. I've played the third one, I think in arcades. That's the newest one.
Fuck.
I love Time Crisis too.
Classic.
There's definitely been a lack of these gun games.
Yeah, I know it's not exactly the same, but, man, I miss playing Safari Hunt on the master system.
I remember that one that was built into the console.
No, not maybe yours. Mine had the snail game, the Snail Maze, didn't they?
Okay, yeah. I don't want to go off too off topic, but I thought it was built into the console.
Maybe it depended on the version release because they also added Alex Kidd and Miracle World in some of them.
Okay. All right.
All righty. So me next or you. You got the keys, you want, you can go.
I have both tabs open because I'm. I'm prepared this week. I don't have chart here to mess me up with my system. I just opened everything the. Did.
I know. All right, so Jesus throwing shade for.
Shade sake, man, I picked a good one.
No, your game is great. I think your game is better than mine, to be honest with you.
All right, so I'm coming in with not Parasite Eve.
Okay.
And let me explain this. Okay, so Parasite Eve. We all know Parasite Eve. Many of us know about Parasite Eve, too. There was a third game, but it wasn't called Parasite Eve. It was called the Third Birthday.
That's right.
Now, the reason it's called the Third Birthday and not Parasite Eve is because Square Enix didn't want to shell out the licensing money for it. Again, because Parasite Eve, it is a licensed game. Parasite Eve was based on a novel.
Oh.
Which was later adapted into a movie.
Okay?
So, yeah, so it's. It's. It was licensed from the novel, and then, you know, they took liberties with it, of course. But so it's. It's a fair bit different from the novel. But third birthday is just like, all right, throw all that out the window. We're going to get super wacky. We're not going to focus on the mitochondria this time. This time we're giving you amnesia and time travel.
Let's go. It sounds like Final Fantasy 8. I already hate it.
It's definitely a square ass fucking game. Time travel and amnes.
Yep, there it is.
So you, you play as Aya Brea, just like in the other two games, but she does not remember. So her personality is very different. And I think it's because they wanted to write the character differently. I think that's all it was.
Then what. At what point do you just say at square. What if we just make a brand new character in a brand new franchise?
Apparently, like, it started as they wanted to reintroduce Aya Brea to the gaming public again and sort of like get Parasite Eve going again. But they didn't want to shell out the money for the name. So nobody knew what the fuck the third birthday was.
Yeah, they said like they specifically told you what it was. That's crazy.
So, yeah, it's. It's a. It plays very differently. So. So in this, Aya Brea has new abilities. It's more of an action game now instead of, you know, the RPG that it was. It was. Because originally it was an RPG with like, I guess, survival horror elements because it was very tank control and you had to manage your inventory to a degree. This is more of an action game with RPG elements. So it's a little faster paced. Weird that they stuck it on a PSP to do that.
Isn't the second game also like more of an action game?
It's a little faster paced than the first one. That's about it.
Okay.
The battle arenas can be a little larger than they were in the first game, but it's still very similar to the first game. But the third one, yeah, they just threw everything out the window. They're like, we want Aya Brea to be grittier and have new powers so she can.
And have a birthday.
She could possess other people and creatures in this one.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So it's, it's. It's kind of a wild ride now. I have, I have not played this game. I have done reading on it. My buddy has it for the psp. He played through it. He actually quite enjoyed it. And apparently. So this, the way the story unfolds in this game is it's episodic, like a TV series.
So where did this episodic thing for a bunch of their games later on and I freaking can't stand.
Was episodic because it was originally going to be a phone game.
Gross.
Okay, so instead of being a phone game, it became a PSP game. So upgrade.
Okay, fair. Yeah, I was going to say phones back then were not the greatest that they are.
No, I'm going to play it on my Nokia.
But a lot of the base ideas for the story and mechanics and stuff are present in this that were going to be in the mobile game. So. Yeah, it's. It's really weird. Apparently the story doesn't unfold in chronological order. Things get told out of order and I'm sure that's on purpose to sort of keep the player being like, what the hell's happening? What's going on here? So they really took advantage of the episodic thing. And I guess in this the game begins with New York being destroyed. So I mean all that work she did in the first game for nothing.
Well, she has amnesia, so it's not like she remembers.
Yeah, she doesn't remember that. I guess. The creatures in this are called Babbles Babels. Like the Tower of Babel.
Yeah.
But I don't know much about them. I feel like I've seen this boss in another game.
I don't know.
Square like to use assets enormous.
It's huge. This is the PSP which I really liked my PSP when I had one. I was always surprised with how good games looked on it. Yeah, this is one of the nice looking games on that system.
Yeah, it's weird because like a lot. There's a lot of really good PSP games that you just can't stand to play them because of the controller. Right, right. The stupid little like analog nub.
Nub.
Shortest analog stick ever made.
Yeah, it just hovered.
Felt like there was my hand cramps so bad. Playing action games on the psp. I love Daxter, but playing it killed my hand.
I don't. I actually. This is one of the few times where I didn't mind the segmented D pad and it was on the psp. Some of the PSP felt good in my hands. I. I really like that system. We should actually do an episode on the psp. There's definitely a lot there to talk about.
My biggest issue with it is the analog nub and its placement. It's. If it weren't for that, if it were a little more ergonomically friendly, I would have absolutely adored my psp.
Yeah, PSP was Fun. I was. It was a kind of a sleeper type game. A type console out there that, like you said, had some really good stuff on. I mean, Crisis Core played really well on it and it looked fricking good. This looks really good for what it is, you know? Yeah.
Yeah.
But again, I think it suffered from really, really poor controller layout on how it was designed. But this is cool. This actually looks really cool. I'd like to see this on a bigger screen, like off the PSP and on a console or something.
I kind of want to give a shot on the Steam deck and see what it looks like. I am having trouble with the character and the premise of this though. Can you guys imagine if Disney were just to turf George Lucas all these years ago, but still wanted to make Star wars movies, but didn't want to pay him for the ideas? Just make a new. A new movie, call it wars of the Stars and cast a guy in a bathrobe who's also named Luke and has psychic powers and a laser sword. He just forgot like, kind of like, what was it? What's his name? The 300 director. What's that guy's name? Zack Snyder. Like Rebel Moon. Right? That's supposed to be a star. That was supposed to be a Star wars script and he couldn't get it signed off by Disney, so he did his own fucking Rebel movie.
Right, That's.
It feels weird that they just didn't pay the author for the license of the character or not make it brand new, fresh character. Like it's square. It's not like they've not made new silent protagonists before.
Right.
They were like, I got a great idea. Let's build something off a previous ip. But we can't call it the ip.
Leave the IP alone.
We'll use the name.
We could have the same name premise, but a totally different name. I don't know. Why couldn't they name it something like Mitochondria Strikes Again and. And then that way it might have made more freaking sense, you know, for people that liked Parasite Eve. Because I. I think this game might have suffered, like you said, from a title that nobody knew what the hell it was. I heard about Parasite Eve. I never played any of those games, unfortunately. I really want to, but, you know, you talk about third birthday. I'm not going to put two and two together. I have no idea.
Had you guys. Had either of you heard of this before I mentioned it?
A not. No.
I thought so.
If they call it Mitochondria Worm. You're right, Shard. That would have been a better name, right?
At least hit it nail somewhere on the head. I mean, it doesn't have to be exact, but at least hit the.
Does she have a birthday in the game? Like, is it birthday amnesia? Is that a thing?
I don't know.
Look up why it's called this.
Is she celebrating her third birthday?
Birthday discovered in 2010 with amnesia after the whole thing goes down and it takes place in 2012. So I don't even think it's three years after they find her with amnesia. I think the term third birthday is literally just. It's the third game and they thought that would be enough.
Okay, so someone had guardian forces in this light.
Spoilers. But it's called third Birthday because it's the third entry of the series.
Yeah.
And it's sort of. It represents a rebirth of the franchise, but it can't be a direct sequel like you said, Wolf. And it also ties into themes of identity, memory and renewal. That's still a stretch to call it a third birthday with nothing else.
Oh my God. I don't know what's. At least name it after the character.
It could be like third parasite. Yeah, like.
Or the birthdays of Paris. I don't know. Something.
What's weird is they still use the main character that they had from it, Aya Brea.
How do you get Liabrea?
And apparently Eve is in it. Like.
How'D the author not sue, I guess is the thing like you think? I mean, if we're in a world today where Nintendo can sue Palworld for copyright infringement, how did this author not step up and drop a lawyer on this thing?
They must. They had to. You know, Square Enix's lawyers must have been like, no, we can't do this. No, we can't do this. No, we can't do this. So I'm sure it got like bastardized to hell in the story writing process.
I mean, clearly it's crazy, but like.
Graphic wise, this looks better than the other two games. Like, I mean, the first game.
Yeah, this looks better than a PS2 game.
Yeah, like, this looks really solid if she.
Is she in Kingdom Hearts? Because that looks like right there. I'm expecting her to have huge feet.
And a keyblade. Is that in a Keyblade?
Yeah.
December 24th, 2013. Okay, there you go. So maybe it is three years after they find her crazy.
Just skipping through the gameplay. But yeah, this looks solid. This looks like a great game. I never did play the second parasite, Eve, and I've always wanted to Go back and play the first one. I have a lot of good memories of the first one. I'm always curious if that still holds up today because I know it was an rpg, but it was much more action oriented.
It's a slow play. I loved it. So let's go on a tangent here. A little trip down memory lane. Parasite Eve 1, the first time I was playing through it, I got sick. Okay? Completely separate. I just got really. A really bad. Like it was the second time I got a really bad stomach flu. Three months later I was playing this and got a really bad stomach flu again.
Did you get a parasite?
And like, the game is so depressing. On like the third day of my stomach bug, I was like, all right, I feel well enough to play a game. I started playing it and I just started feeling like shit because it was such a downer, bro. I had to put the game down for a few more days.
There's this. There's association with things when you're ill. And this is another tangent that I'll go on. There's a. There's an album that I was listening to many, many years ago, a punk rock album by Phoenix tx, and I got heat stroke really bad when I was listening to it. Like real bad. Like pulled over, threw up outside of the car. Heat stroke, real bad. Now, no matter what, it could be right now, this happened in 2002, okay? If I put that album on right now, I will get queasy. It's just my brain automatically associates me getting sick that day listening to that album. I cannot listen to it. So you may know you may never be able to play Parasite Eva again. You might just get sick.
I have tried playing through some of it. So it's. It's not that I can't play it, it's just the game is so like, you feel hopeless through most of the game. The music is all very pretty but sad sounding. The locations are all really dreary and empty. And just everything about Parasite Eve 1 is just like sadness.
Sounds like my type of game.
And Parasite Eve 2 is like, all right, let's do all that, but in the Arizona desert we're going to do that, but or Nevada desert or something like that. It's down in the Pacific Southwest, so it's like in the desert and that. But also Coca Cola, of course.
I was one of those.
Yeah, there's Coca Cola all over the place in that game.
Nice.
It's a healing item.
At least it's not Dr. Pepper, the super healer.
Yeah, no, you want to talk about. You want to talk about getting sick while playing a video game? You add some Dr. Pepper product placement and I'll be puking all over the controller.
Product placement in this episode. Every episode.
They don't pay us because you gotta crack open the thing of Beaver Buzz. We have to get that. That sponsorship deal. They're still around. They're still around.
This is a game I keep meaning to play. I even borrowed it from my friend at one point and just never fired it up.
Was. So was Parasite Eve 1 and 2 both on PlayStation 2 or was one on the PS1 and the other on 2?
Oh, no, they were both on PS1.
They were. Oh, they were both on PS1. Okay. Yeah. All right.
Yeah. That is a franchise where I'm. I was gonna say I was surprised they didn't. They never kind of continued that franchise. But it makes sense if. If they didn't want to pay the licensing for the characters. And this is, this is what.
But I mean, this is what they're.
Doing when they don't want to pay the author. I can see why they didn't do a fourth or fifth game. Right. I mean, I did like that franchise and it's quite a bit unique compared to other things that Square has done over the years. Like this is Final Fantasy doesn't get anywhere near this. I think in terms of gameplay, I don't know.
That's just a mentality I'll never understand. We want this franchise to run, but let's chop off its legs.
Yeah.
Imagine this. I can't imagine this is a phone game. It would have had to have been like a graphic novel type of game.
Yeah.
Like when did this come out?
This was 2012. Oh, was it 2012 or was it even earlier than that? Let's see. Third.
Birthday, release date 2010.
2010. Okay.
No, I guess it could have been a cell phone game. Then we had a. Square. Had a few games I think that were 3D models on the, on the phone.
Trying to think they were not PlayStation phone.
That was. That was. That. That was a thing, wasn't it?
Was it the, the Sony Ericsson?
Oh, yeah.
Actually they had the Ericsson Play or something. Right.
Yeah, I forgot. I was joking and completely forgot about that.
I thought it was Nokia, but yeah, there was a. There was a phone with the built in controller.
Yeah, the. Okay. The Xperia Play. That's what it was.
Xperia Play. Okay.
Wow. I had forgotten about that thing. I wanted one for a minute. Glad I didn't.
Nowadays you can buy gamer Phones I've seen, I see them on TikTok shop all the damn time.
Razer has a phone.
I could never buy one.
This close to buying a Razer phone, but I was like, why? I'm not going to use it. Some of the ones designed for, I don't play games.
One of the ones I've seen has a built in fan that belongs in a PC case. RGB to the nines. When you, when it ramps up to play, I guess what Fortnite on it. I guess the fan kicks in and it's loud like a jet engine. It's. It's wild.
You imagine taking a call with that fan on in a turbine. Hold on.
The RGB makes the signal so much more clear. Since I had Metacritic up. Do you want to guess at the Metacritic score for this one?
I'm gonna say 65. 70. I'm gonna go in there.
75, 71. So you guys are much closer this time. Much closer this time.
To be fair, this one, I kind of. I saw the reviews earlier and I saw that they were anywhere from like 6 out of 10 to an 8.5 out of 10.
Yeah, I'm looking at. Reviews have been mixed. Critics praise the presentation in several parts of the gameplay. Well, opinions were mixed about the story.
If a game reviews between 6 to 8.5, like there's probably. I'm probably gonna enjoy it. That's the way I see it.
Yeah. I always took it as range well. Yeah. But I always took it as if it's under. If it's above 5 and under, under a 7. If it's a genre or a franchise you're into, you'll dig it. That's usually the way I took it as a thing. Yeah. And if it's an 8, 8 and above. Even if it's a genre or franchise I don't like or I don't normally I'm into, I'll usually check it out because it's usually pretty. Pretty much a banger, but.
Right.
So. Yeah, nothing wrong with a 6 out of 10. There's. There's totally a place for those kind of games. They. They can't all be hits just like our episodes. They can't all be bangers. Right.
Every week or Trent Reznor.
Your favorite semi musical podcast.
All right, Jake, you want to tell us about your pick for this week?
Yeah. Can't get out of it now.
Yeah, I guess. I guess it's late now. Okay, hold on. So this is game. Actually, I think we talked about it a few weeks back. A little bit also done by Square, before they made Final Fantasy Square, had, I guess, a trying time making a few other games on the NES and other systems. And they made a game called 3D WorldRunner, which. It's not a good game. It's a trash game. I'm going to go back to that again. But what's surprising to me is it got a sequel, which is wild to me. I didn't think anybody liked 3D WorldRunner, although I think we should look at the Metacritic score, because now I'm curious. But 3D Worldrunner, for those who have not played it, you're a little dude and you're running across a checkered world of a planet and you basically only have one move, or at least I thought, which was the jump. And you're avoiding enemies, jumping over massive chasms in a 3D space. And the end of every stage, it kind of switches to a space harrier type mode where you can fly around and shoot a dragon type creature.
Yeah, it's very space harrier. But you're susceptible to gravity most of the time, right?
Yeah. And the gentleman who programmed this game, was it Nasir Gabier, I think his name was. We mentioned him in a previous episode. I think he did work on Rad Racer, I think it was. And he was hired by Square specifically because he had done some work on computer systems with 3D graphics. So that's why they hired him. And 3D Worldrunner was kind of his jam. So that game, I was aware of that game, I was aware of that one, but I did not realize it got a sequel. Now here I am thinking for this episode, okay, they did a sequel for this game maybe a year or two years later. No, the 3D world runner, the original came out in Japan in March of 1987. The sequel, which. Hold on, hold on. What is it called again? It is called JJ Tobadasi De Kansu Part 2.
Came out July. Yeah.
Japanese.
Came out in December of 1987. Nine months later, they released a sequel. So I was playing the. I was playing the JJ this week. And it felt so familiar to the original game. I had to go back and forth. So I was flipping between the two games. 3D World Runner and JJ, they're the same damn game. Here, let me pull it up real quick. Yeah, I was watching the video.
There's. Hey, this is a really cool fact about this game, actually. Both of these games that now I'm interested in. Guess who did the music for this game?
Yes. You pronounce the name because I'm going to butcher it.
Nobu Uematsu. Yeah, he did the music for this game. That's crazy. Yeah.
Okay. Like, I mean, this is. This is some of the earliest work he's done. Right. So before there's Final fantasy, there was 3D Worldrunner and JJ and it's crazy to me. And it's actually. I mean, he's an. Obviously he's a legendary composer for video games. Music here is pretty good. There's only three tracks, but they're pretty good. And they're actually very similar between the original and the sequel. They actually feel like they're companion pieces to one another, which is kind of interesting. So I was pretty impressed.
That's crazy. Yeah. They're saying here that the sequel, that JJ is sort of a darker version of the original game and increased the difficulty and has more of sinister art style and color in the use than the original. So it's almost like they released the second version. They were like, this is kind of what we were maybe trying.
Yeah. And that's why, when I look at the dates of release now, it makes a bit more sense. It's less of a sequel and probably a reimaging of it, a rebranding of it to sell it to a different audience. Because I know the original 3D Worldrunner didn't sell that well for them. So this is the grittier, darker version of it. Like the sprite, you're obviously like. You look like a colonial Marine compared to the, I don't know, the Chibi looking cartoonish character from the original game. It's still checkerboard world, which fits. But what got me though, is when I was playing JJ this week, and it's bullshit hard. It's NES hard. But going back to 3D Worldrunner, which is also a hard game, or at least for me, is how slow the original game is. Like, it's a plotting walk compared to jj, jj, you're flying through the levels. It's wildly different in terms of the speed. But what's neat about this game, though, this is when I realized you're meant to bump into the pillars. So this game, as you're going through the 3D space, there's a bunch of enemies that are rolling around the ground. You don't touch those pillars of fire, don't touch those giant chasms you gotta leap over. Fine. I didn't realize that. There's the pillars. You actually bounce into them and power ups will fall from them. And tried it in the original game. That's how it worked. In the original game as well. In fact, the power ups in this game are almost. Almost identical to the ones in the first game. I think. I think there's two levels of shield in this one I think you can get, whereas I don't know if that's in the original. So the whole idea with this game is you're supposed to purposely bounce into the pillars, get power ups, and one of those power ups is actually shots a gun. You can actually shoot things. I have played the original of this game off and on for decades. Like, this is 3D. World Runner is one of those games where I used to just, you know, spin it for five minutes and remind myself what a bad game looks like on the nes. That's what I used to do. And I didn't realize you could shoot so many. I've. I've put maybe a few hours in that game over the years and didn't realize you could freaking shoot a gun. That is crazy to me. It's. It's wild. I mean, you have a gun at the end for the bosses, but I didn't realize the stages are like that. But it's crazy. J.J. is interesting. I don't know. I tried it several times this week. It is definitely harder in terms of speed, but the layouts of the stages are a bit more forgiving, I find, over the original. I know the wiki says that this game is supposed to be harder, and I think that's exclusively the speed, because the jumps in this are not as. Not as punishing, because in this game, you have a stupidly high jump. If you hold the button, you can go flying to the sky, and then you have to make sure you time it to come down in time. And some of the pits are quite large in the original, and there'd be double jumps where it's a big, huge pit, and then you have a sliver of the ground to land on, and then you do another big jump. Right. Think like jumping over football fields. In jj, the jumps are not as tricky like that. And it's more of a game where you're dodging enemies or there's a lot more enemies on screen, but less punishing jumps. So that was. That was kind of interesting. So I don't know, it's. Now that I realize they're nine months apart, I think it's less of a sequel. It's just more of a. A rebranding of it, I think, is what it is. Yeah. I mean, I know there's other games I think you guys probably know of a Few where. Especially the NES era, where the turnaround time for games was pretty short.
Mega Man.
But I don't think.
Look at the Mega man games.
Yeah, well, how close was Mega man like? Well, 1 and 2 are probably a couple years apart. But 2 and 3, were they close together?
Let me see. I believe so. I believe like 2, 3, 4 and 5 were in pretty quick succession.
Were they? Okay, so.
Okay, okay, let's see. Mega man was 87, 2 was 88, 3 was 90, 4 was 91, 5 was 92, 6 was 93. So they were. They started coming out every year.
You got one a year?
Yeah, about a year. Yeah. At least for the Mega man games. The mechanics are a bit different. They always add something new to it. And of course the bosses are all unique. All the weapons are.
Yeah, I mean, but there's. All they had to do was like tweak the engine and add a mechanic like that.
Yeah, right.
That was. That was the back end stuff they had to do for it. Everything else was like level design and character design.
Right.
Yeah. Whereas in JJ and 3D WorldRunner, like, what got me is when I looked at the ending, when I skipped ahead to the ending of this game, it is the exact same ending as 3D Worldrunner. Your character comes onto the screen, a cartoonist version of the boss comes onto the screen and basically gives you a code to turn on hard mode. And then that's it. It's like Square says push B four times up and left. And then you get a little. The end screen. It's exactly the same ending as 3D Worldrunner. The only thing different is that you have the darker version of the sprite. And when I saw that, I'm like, that feels like a scam that doesn't feel quite right. So I don't know. It's interesting. I just found it interesting that here's a game that I played the original countless times and didn't realize you could shoot. I didn't realize there were power ups at all in this game. There's bonus stages I didn't realize till this week. Just a lot of interesting mechanics that I didn't give the game credit for. It's probably a game I probably should have read the manual, I think, before I judged it. But I'm glad I played JJ's. Definitely the tone of the game is more my style. I like the sci fi setting and I mean the music is great for what it is. I mean, how can you not like the composer? Right?
Right.
I don't know. Did you guys ever play 3D Worldrunner? You must have at some point.
Oh yeah, my. When I was around nine years old, my neighbors loved the crap out of this game. So there were two neighbor kids that were like two years apart. So one was my age and one was a bit older and they would play this like crazy.
Okay.
I can't. I've never played this game. I've never seen this. I would have thought this was Space Harrier and I would also thought this was on the Master System because it looks very similar. I wouldn't have even thought that this show, I guess.
Yeah, I guess I should say 3D world runner, not JJ, right, right. So JJ I didn't know about until you mentioned it a few weeks back, but 3D world runner, like. Yeah, I remember that one because that's the one where you. We thought it was so weird that you could pause it and then if you wait long enough, he'd like start a little fire and then start smoking a cigarette or something.
Wow, it gets dark. Well, when you're in a candy coated world, sometimes you got to smoke up. I guess that's what it was.
Yeah.
Bring you back to reality.
The original was neat because it was also one of those square games where they were pushing the 3D glasses. Much like Rad Racer. Right. A lot of the folks have worked on this, worked on Rad Racer. So they're really pushing the 3D glasses. This one, from what I saw, there's a website called Cutting Room floor and the 3D mode exists in the code of this game. You can game genie it and turn it on if you want. But they took it out for obvious reasons. Nobody was using those glasses for this game. But I appreciate the graphics. I think it's really cool. I think this would have done better in North America than 3D WorldRunner just because of the graphics and the tone. And I think it really does call out Space Harrier. At least the bosses do. But there's some interesting stuff going on. I don't know. It's a fun one. It's just nine months and it's the same game. I didn't realize that, I guess.
Well, I mean, we talked about how sometimes sequels in the NES Master System era got real quick turnaround. Even on the Genesis and Super Nintendo sometimes. But I want to go off on a little tangent here. Do you guys remember the DOT hack games for ps?
Yeah, I love at least the first one. I didn't play much outside of that.
But do you know those games released like every three to four months? All four of them?
No. Now, were they, like, episodic or was it actual standalone games?
Well, they, they were standalone games, but they told a continuous story.
Yeah.
Okay, so, like, the first one came out in June 2000, and these are the Japanese releases, but I'm sure the American releases were pretty similar in terms of how quickly they released. Because I remember going to GameStop and being like, there's another one. There's another one.
Yeah. I remember being on base going through the Power Zone section, going, wait, I already bought this game, didn't I? No, this is a different one. I just bought this. It's, it's. They came out super quick.
Yeah. In, in Japan. The first one came out in June 2002, the next one came out in September, the next one came out in December, and the following one came out in April 2003.
Yep.
That is really fast turnaround for four PlayStation 2 games.
I mean, the thing my thought process is, is they made the entire thing and then just cut it up and then released it, you know, every other month or whatever. So they spent all their time designing and making the full four games or whatever. And then. Yeah, that's piecemeal to, I mean, I.
Guess when they're all using the exact same engine and a lot of the similar assets, it's pretty easy to do.
Yeah.
Because, like.
Well, that's what.
Supposed to be six games long, right?
Six games. Okay. They only got, I can't imagine they reuse assets, right. Because we had, we had, yeah, like a Dragon, the, the two with Ichiban. But then also we have the one with Majima and the Pirates and stuff, and it's the same location. There's obviously stuff they've added to the engine and assets and whatnot, but they definitely reuse a lot of the assets from Hawaii like the last, what they've been doing, and it's fine. Yeah, yeah.
You've already got the framework, then all you got to do is. Yeah, throw that stuff, Throw that stuff in there. Yeah, just throw the spice in. Now, with zero knowledge of how programming works and how all that stuff goes down, obviously it takes time, but I feel like if you're a seasoned veteran, then you're throwing that out there. Right. So you make enough intensifiers like I do. You're, your turnaround times comes a little quicker. I'm just saying, I'm just saying.
No, I, I, I don't have an issue with reusing of assets, I think, and, and that's fine. I mean, that's what Final Fantasy 2 Rebirth and. And I'm sure the third game are going to reuse a bunch of assets. They'd have to. Otherwise you'd have, you know, 20 years of development time between the. The sequels. So that makes sense for some certain games, right? Yeah. Yeah. J.J. is fun. It's fun. Bullshit. Hard. In some ways easier than 3D World Runner, though. And it just. I was really surprised. I was really surprised it exists and really surprised about the power ups and how I completely missed the same mechanics in a game I've played for decades.
Fantastic.
Now I kind of want to go back and play like Adventure island and see if I missed any mechanics there.
Yeah.
Right now I'm wondering.
Going back.
Something I'm missing.
All right, nice. I've got some things to jump around and try.
Yeah, I. I really need to go back and try. Third Birthday, I had another game I wanted to talk about tonight, but I'll. Maybe we'll revisit this topic in the future and I can talk about it then.
And I'm not gonna follow.
I will play before we do that one.
I'm not gonna follow up 3rd birthday and JJ with chip and Dale too.
No. But it was a long time before I knew that there was a Chippendale too. I will say say yes.
Same with DuckTales2. I didn't know they existed. And like, this is post emulation world. Like, I played a bunch of Nintendo games on emulators for years until I saw that DuckTales 2 game. And it's.
Right.
Yeah, I never really gave it a shot. Mine would have been Tetris 2. I don't want to talk a full episode on it, but it's Tetris 2. For the record, there are three different versions of Tetris 2 by different companies. And there was one that was released here in North America, which was actually called Tetris Flash in Japan. But the Tetris 2 I got to play was part of the Digital Eclipse's Tetris collection. They had the Japanese version of Tetris 2, which comes with Bombless, which is a variant of Tetris. It's a solid version of Tetris on the nes. And I think it might be my second favorite Tetris game next to the Game Boy one. It's a really well done version of Tetris, but it was only in Japan, so that was kind of neat.
Nice.
They put Hatris on that collection. Or Word Truth.
Oh, I think. I think it's in there. Yes, there is a version. A couple of versions of Hatcherson. I was trying to think, wow, they've added a couple games to it, but they're mostly PC versions of Tetris. The problem, problem with that collection, as much as I love the documentary style of it, there's a lot of games that should be part of a Tetris collection, like the original NES one, the original Game Boy one, and they couldn't get the rights from Nintendo, which is a shame. So that's why we get obscure ones. Yeah, right. I know Nintendo. That's my thing. I really wish Digital Eclipse would. I swear this ties in the sequels, but when you play the Digital Eclipses collections, you get to see all those sequels that we never got in North America or we get to see the ones on the sequels and other systems that we missed out on. Like there's stuff coming out on, you know, ZX Spectrum or the MSX computer that we just don't know about over here in North America. So it's kind of neat to see these things.
Alrighty. Well, we are at about an hour. Wow.
Yeah. Told you we're killing.
Nice. Good job, fellas.
Hell yeah.
You let Chart talk about dead space. We're good. It's a good franchise.
I'm carrying the episode.
Alrighty. Thank you all for tuning in. This has been another episode of Press B to cancel. Do you guys want to mention anything? We do the full closeout. What you got going on?
I don't for once. I've kind of been hands full of work. It's been a. Been a really crappy season, but I'm mostly through the audit season. So I'm hoping to get some stuff done that I want to do my free time, if that exists for somebody with three kids. But we'll. We'll see. But no, not nothing on my plate.
I am. I'm playing through my playing through still wakes the deep. And I'm making videos of still wakes a deep playthrough. It's a kind of a horror, jumpy scare game. It's a good game. So far I've done about an hour playthrough. It's a short game. It's like four or five hours long. It's not. It's not insanely long. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna piece those together and do like an hour each episode playthrough and then maybe post that up on YouTube and might talk to the guys and maybe throw it up on here as well at some point. But that's kind of what I'm working on now. And A lot of Monster Hunter and waiting for Elden Ring Night Reign to come out and clear Obscura Expedition 33, which comes out next month. I'm super excited about. Super excited about.
Alrighty. And I mentioned my stuff last week, so I'm not going to reiterate it until I've actually got something up on the website on the YouTube. So once that happens, I'll, I'll mention it again. All right, you can find us at pressb.com pressbe2cancel.com or pressbee.org sorry, I was going to start with press b.org I don't know why. You can also find us as part of the super pod network@superpodnetwork.com you can also check out the other podcasts there. Jake is a lot more familiar with them than me. I've not been listening to even my usual podcasts lately. I've just been in a slump.
Music, such great shows as a novel console, a weekly video game podcast Bar Silence, a VGM podcast Find Time Gaming, Collecting Gaming and anime nostalgia podcast Geek Addicts. Press feed cancel. Oh, that's us. Remember 64.
That's us.
There's a bunch of shameless.
Ignore the sausage. Ignore the sausage.
Lots of great stuff there. I, I, I have been so off. Like I've barely been on TikTok. That's, that's where my, my, my free time has been. I haven't even had the five minutes of TikTok time. I just mostly been working and sleeping. So I'm looking forward to having some free time back. It doesn't help. Like chart. I've also been playing a whole lot of Monster Hunter Wilds, but I've actually, I'm almost done. I have 60 hours and I've almost done everything. So I'll, I'll have some free time again.
You haven't done everything yet. There's more stuff coming out next week. Yeah, it's like you're getting trapped again.
That's fine.
Gaming, freezing time I've had has just been consumed by gunfire. Reborn lately.
Nice.
I started playing that and then it was going to be just something I played with my buddy and we've both been like, yesterday we played and we were both like, I've been playing like, yeah, me too.
If you're admitting to doing when you're.
Both cheating on each other, it's okay. That's, that's how it works.
Like I've been playing some single player because I wanted to play more. Yeah, same. So no hard feelings.
I do, I do think it is important to announce that we do have a big number episode coming up here pretty soon. Most likely next Friday, barring any issues that come up. And we are very close to getting over 200 subscribers to the YouTube channel and real close to hitting 40 on Twitch over here. So tell your friends, tell your families, tell your people. We'd love to see US hit 200 for next week's episode, because that'd be a really cool celebration of a bunch of stuff that Presby has done, you know, even before I, me, and Sinistar joined the team. So let's get there. Let's get that number, guys. We're so close. We're looking at it right now. Let's hit that number.
I'll tell my daughter. She'll help out by unsubscribing and then subscribing again.
I swear to God, if we hit 200 and we go down to 199. You're getting an MP for me?
It's my kids. Yeah, it's okay.
Perfect.
All righty. Well, everybody, have a wonderful night. Thank you for listening. We'll catch you next week.