Stephen Jondrew: Stephen Jondrew: I'm Stephen Jondrew from Better Podcasting, a podcast about podcasting, part of the Gonna
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Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: And welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a
Stephen Jondrew: comic property and how well it represents that source material. Today, we get to prove that
Stephen Jondrew: I am either an idiot or a hack and a fraud because we're looking at X Men Next Dimension. We'll
Stephen Jondrew: get into more of why that proves that I'm horrible about this later. But first, I am here talking
Stephen Jondrew: to Lex from Wednesday Toast, formerly from the Wednesday poll list, but I like toast better
Stephen Jondrew: than poll lists anyway. So I think that's a good change. Lex, how are you today?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I'm doing well, man. Thanks for having me.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I know. I've been looking forward to getting you on the show for a while, so I'm glad that we
Stephen Jondrew: could finally get this one worked out.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Same.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: So when you looked at the list of games here, instantly jumped at 2. But the one Uh-huh. That
Stephen Jondrew: I heard first, I think, was X Men, specifically Next Dimension. What was it that drew you to
Stephen Jondrew: an X Men game?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Bro, I have a complicated relationship with the X Men. I have been known to, not be a fan of
Stephen Jondrew: the X Men movies or not as much of a fan as the majority of the old X Men animated series. So
Stephen Jondrew: it's strange because I do it sounds like on paper that I don't like the X Men, but in fact,
Stephen Jondrew: I do. And specifically, the whole video game era of the nineties early 2000, I was obsessed
Stephen Jondrew: with the first two versions of this game, Mutant Academy 1 and 2. And I just remember playing
Stephen Jondrew: it for hours, and and and the same with Next Dimension, but mainly with the first two. And so
Stephen Jondrew: when I saw the list, it it just immediately pulled out to me because it had me just taking back
Stephen Jondrew: on getting my butt kicked numerous times by this fighting game. Because I'm terrible at fighting
Stephen Jondrew: games, but I love fighting games. So it's a double edged sword.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Welcome to the boat.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Right.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: The movies, I can understand not being a fan of. The cartoon, are you just a monster or what?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Alright. I love the cartoon. There is a lot of things to like about it. I made the mistake of
Stephen Jondrew: watching it recently, And I don't know. I think maybe it's because everyone loves it so much
Stephen Jondrew: that I watched it with a, this isn't so good. But the real reason is that the last season is
Stephen Jondrew: so bad. They shipped off the animation, and it it's just an eyesore, and it ruined the entire
Stephen Jondrew: experience for me. But I do still in enjoy it for the most part. I just like to play contrarian, I guess.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I can totally understand that that last season. It's certainly a thing that exists.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. For sure.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: What is it that has drawn you into the comic side of X Men?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I think that it it definitely was sort of my first Marvel or DC book. I mean, Spider Man for
Stephen Jondrew: everyone. Everyone watches and reads Spider Man, but x men were the first books that I really
Stephen Jondrew: dove into on the Marvel side. I was always a huge Ninja Turtle fan. The terminology of mutants
Stephen Jondrew: was an ease as a, you know, as a kid, it was an easy, like, oh, well, I like these mutants.
Stephen Jondrew: This is what they have to offer. I'm gonna pick it up because they're also mutants. And then
Stephen Jondrew: it just sort of carried on through the years, probably boosted from the show that I that I like
Stephen Jondrew: to bash so much, but, definitely, it was of my main Marvel reading in the nineties and early 2000.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Currently, I'm basically grabbing a bunch of the side books and not the main book because I'm a weirdo.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I don't know why, though. Like, it I don't really have anything against the main one. It's I
Stephen Jondrew: think it's mostly just because my poll list is way too big, and some of the people working on
Stephen Jondrew: the side ones are amazing.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I'm I'm currently the same way mainly because I fell too behind on big Krakoa era stuff. And,
Stephen Jondrew: a lot of the side stuff, while it is tied into it, it's still more, I wouldn't say newer reader
Stephen Jondrew: friendly, but more of the, like, casual reader friendly. Like, you could still if you have if
Stephen Jondrew: you understand the gist of what's going on in the Krakoan age, you can jump in on a tie in book
Stephen Jondrew: and enjoy it for the most part.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: So which books are being your favorite right now?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Oh, right now? Anything to do with, like, I love sync, so I pick up anything with that character
Stephen Jondrew: in it. Yeah. And and a lot of the X Men books are at the bottom of my to read pile because it's
Stephen Jondrew: like, I'm not gonna get to that right now. It's just there's too much. I'm waiting for the reboot.
Stephen Jondrew: I'm waiting for it to reset. So, usually, if I see something that's syncing, then I'll pick
Stephen Jondrew: it up, and that's really the the main X Men reading I'm doing right now, not a than before I
Stephen Jondrew: really think about it. Or if I hear, like, a you know, if I see a coverage, total cover buzz,
Stephen Jondrew: trial of Magneto, all of that stuff with the resurrection of Magneto. That picked all that up
Stephen Jondrew: just because I'm a huge Magneto fan.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: According to this before Ultimate X Men comes out, but it'll probably get released after. So
Stephen Jondrew: maybe editor Chris will pop in and do a little update here. But you've seen the covers for all those. Right?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Uh-huh. Yeah. Peach Momoco covers.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: How do you make a decision?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I know. I'm I'm really interested in it. It seems so out of left field compared to the other
Stephen Jondrew: ultimate books that we've gotten so far. So I'm really, really interested in in what they're
Stephen Jondrew: gonna do. It seems like armor is gonna be the focus, and I just don't I just don't know. Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: I really just don't know. I have really enjoyed the ultimate book so far, so it's definitely
Stephen Jondrew: gonna get a read, but I really don't know.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: My cover decision for that series, at least for the first issue, is yes.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a that's been a dangerous problem for a lot of these books so far. Spider
Stephen Jondrew: Man that first Spider Man came out, and I was just like, one, if you can find the cover, if
Stephen Jondrew: you didn't preorder every single one of them, finding them was the real challenge. And then
Stephen Jondrew: 2, it's like I how do I just pick 1? I want them all. So definitely with Peach Momoco doing,
Stephen Jondrew: the main covers, that's an easy buy for me, but it's really, really a slippery slope getting
Stephen Jondrew: into the variant covers. I always tell myself I'm not gonna do it, and then I leave with more
Stephen Jondrew: than I planned on getting.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I think that's a curse that we're all falling victim to these days. Mhmm. Nominally, at least,
Stephen Jondrew: this game is coming off as a sequel to Onslaught. More specifically, it's coming off as a sequel
Stephen Jondrew: to Operation 0 Tolerance.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Mhmm.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: That's something that, number 1, I realized way too late. Out of my sources were just saying not anything.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Same.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: But are you familiar with that storyline at all? Because mostly, I'm just familiar with Onslaught
Stephen Jondrew: being a a giant clusterfuck.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I was I loved the character design of Ocelot when it came out. This was
Stephen Jondrew: late nineties, I'm gonna say. And I was obsessed with because I love Magneto, so I was obsessed
Stephen Jondrew: with the actual character design. But when I go back and read the story, it is a huge cluster.
Stephen Jondrew: And, you know, everyone knows that it was to try to boost sales or for some of their underselling
Stephen Jondrew: characters. But operation 0 tolerance was cool because it started this little bastion era started
Stephen Jondrew: before on to lot, and then carried over after Ontellot. I don't know how you successfully did.
Stephen Jondrew: I don't know if I don't remember if they did or not, but it was cool. I liked Bastian as a villain,
Stephen Jondrew: and, and it's just the it was the same old X Men stuff. You know, he's having his version of
Stephen Jondrew: sentinels. He's having his plan to eradicate them, you know, from there were takes pushed them
Stephen Jondrew: to the brink of extinction. It's the just a rehash of classic X Men turmoil.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Of course, it gets into all of the fear and hatred of mutants, which you can turn into an allegory
Stephen Jondrew: to social issues and stuff, which, hey, guess what? The Mexican were doing that in the nineties
Stephen Jondrew: because they were doing that in the eighties and the seventies and the sixties, so nothing new
Stephen Jondrew: there. Yeah. As you go through this, I read the first like, 2 of the first three issues because
Stephen Jondrew: finding so I didn't anything from just adjective list X men on Marvel Unlimited was a little
Stephen Jondrew: more than my brain could handle earlier today.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. It's a lot.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Reading through that, it seems like something I'm definitely gonna go finish. I can go through
Stephen Jondrew: and read all of these recaps and stuff, but I started it. I wanna finish it.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. I get that way too. I thought about doing this morning, but then I was like, I don't really
Stephen Jondrew: wanna get into the rabbit hole, especially because I wanted to watch the cut scenes from X Men
Stephen Jondrew: Next Dimensions. And then that turned to me watching the cut scenes from X Men Mutant Academy
Stephen Jondrew: and X Men Mutant Academy 2. And then I was like, how do I play these games again after all these
Stephen Jondrew: years? And so then it went down a rabbit hole of getting on eBay and trying to find these old
Stephen Jondrew: games. So, I ran out of time.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: At least that's productive. I'll give you credit for that.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Alright.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Who has been your favorite X Men character?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: So I really like as I mentioned earlier, I really like Sink. Sink is a character that was introduced
Stephen Jondrew: in generation x in the nineties. He's just a completely overpowered character. They didn't they
Stephen Jondrew: didn't really start using him until recently. So if I had to say, like, throughout my X Men
Stephen Jondrew: journey, weirdly, Havoc is up there for me. He's probably my favorite if I'm if I'm not taking
Stephen Jondrew: the, you know, Magneto. Everybody loves Magneto. I would have to say Havoc. I loved him in the
Stephen Jondrew: second game. I loved his nineties suit with with the jacket. It was such a cool character. And
Stephen Jondrew: he's like, he was the opposite of Cyclops. I I like Cyclops. I know a lot of people think he's
Stephen Jondrew: a boy scout. I think he's a very complex character. But Havoc was just cool. He was like the
Stephen Jondrew: cool summer's brother compared to the quote, unquote boy scout of Cyclops. And so he's always
Stephen Jondrew: been a favorite of mine.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: For me, it changes up a lot. Right now, I'm really feeling rogue. I honestly have no idea why,
Stephen Jondrew: but it's a good choice. I'm gonna stick with it.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. She's a cool character, man.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Just something about having to stay away from each other, but not wanting to stay away from
Stephen Jondrew: other people and get too close. It just hit it's hitting with me right now.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. And she's definitely a cool character.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Well, with this giant roster of potential picks we could have had in mind, We're gonna take
Stephen Jondrew: a break so I could drop some promos for a few other shows, and then we'll come back and talk
Stephen Jondrew: about the game.
Stephen Jondrew: Scott Niswander: Hey, everyone. Thanks for checking out this podcast. It's probably Not. Aliens. This is a podcast
Stephen Jondrew: where we talk about ancient astronaut theory and the show Ancient Aliens, and we talk about
Stephen Jondrew: how exactly right they are about everything that they propose. Right, Tristan?
Stephen Jondrew: Tristen Johnson: Yeah. Then I go insane and try to show why it's not aliens, but it is extremely interesting
Stephen Jondrew: history and archaeology that you'll definitely find interesting.
Stephen Jondrew: Scott Niswander: Yeah. Okay. So basically, Tristan's job is to ruin our fun by teaching us about history and
Stephen Jondrew: interesting facts about ancient civilizations.
Stephen Jondrew: Tristen Johnson: Sorry about that.
Stephen Jondrew: Scott Niswander: My name is Scott, and my job is to sit here and be a surrogate listener like yourself taking
Stephen Jondrew: in all this information and occasionally making jokes that people groan at.
Stephen Jondrew: Tristen Johnson: You will definitely groan, yes. But we do have a really fun time. We do learn a lot about this
Stephen Jondrew: amazing world we live in, and we sometimes get really sad about the injustices of the world.
Stephen Jondrew: So if that sounds like your bag
Stephen Jondrew: Scott Niswander: No. Don't don't lead with that, Tristan. We it's a very fun podcast for sure. Absolutely no
Stephen Jondrew: sadness here. Can't can't think of a episode that ended that way.
Stephen Jondrew: Tristen Johnson: But if you wanna check it out, we're gonna be on iTunes and all the other places where podcasts happen.
Stephen Jondrew: Scott Niswander: Yeah. Please, please subscribe. Please follow. Do all the things. We have new episodes every
Stephen Jondrew: single week, and we get to talk so much about the aliens that once visited us and left clues
Stephen Jondrew: for us to solve their alien mysteries.
Stephen Jondrew: Tristen Johnson: So come check us out, and remember, the truth is out there, probably.
Stephen Jondrew: Ryan Drost: Welcome to the world of Stealth Hammer, an all ages superhero adventure comic set in a world
Stephen Jondrew: of high-tech gadgetry and supernatural mythology. In issue 1 of the comic series, we learned
Stephen Jondrew: of Stelthammer's origin. In issue 2, we discovered her legacy. Now in issue 3, we find how an
Stephen Jondrew: elf from a faraway land helped in her journey. All issues are available on Kickstarter now just
Stephen Jondrew: search for Stealthhammer. Available through May 7th.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Those are some great shows to check out, but first, let's finish up with this one. So, Lex,
Stephen Jondrew: as we've said, we kinda spoiled the surprise here, I am a dummy, a hack and a fraud because
Stephen Jondrew: this is kind of the 3rd Mutant Academy game.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. It was weirdly, like, if I remember correctly, it wasn't marketed as that, but it was
Stephen Jondrew: it feels the same. It it looks the same, relatively upgraded graph graphics for the time, but
Stephen Jondrew: it wasn't called Mini Academy 3. I'm not sure why, and I don't know if you did.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Because they're weirdos, I guess. I don't know. That's the only thing I could come up with.
Stephen Jondrew: Like, it was a couple years after the previous one. They didn't have a movie to tie it to. Ones
Stephen Jondrew: kind of were. It's just kind of a game out there by itself, which is fine. I wish more places
Stephen Jondrew: would make a game that's not tied to a movie or a comic arc or anything that's actively happening
Stephen Jondrew: because then they have to worry about timing a couple of things from very different mediums.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: This is a game released in 2002 on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube, put together by Activision
Stephen Jondrew: and Paradox Development. Except on the GameCube. It was also Exact Entertainment, I believe.
Stephen Jondrew: Oh, they ported it over. It happened weirdly with a lot of things back then. They would super
Stephen Jondrew: specifically make it for 1, probably get it handled the same team to a second console, then
Stephen Jondrew: a third one just kind of does their
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: thing. Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: But I think the obvious first place to start here is the roster because this is a pretty stacked
Stephen Jondrew: roster of characters.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: That's yeah. I didn't remember it. I also didn't remember it being so forge heavy, but, he's,
Stephen Jondrew: like, one of these is the focus for the beginning of the game. But, yeah, this is a huge roster,
Stephen Jondrew: and I think there was the only one Xbox exclusive character, which seems like such a weird character
Stephen Jondrew: to have for Xbox twos and just a weird exclusive character. I don't know if that would be a
Stephen Jondrew: pull for me to be like, I have to if I have an Xbox now, I have to get it because pyro is specifically
Stephen Jondrew: in this game.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Yeah. If anything, I would go the PS 2 version or I'm sorry, the GameCube version that has Spider
Stephen Jondrew: Man because most of your heavy hitters, everybody you'd expect to see in the game are in this.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. So I didn't even know Spider Man was in it. That's crazy.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It's really weird because you see his grave right there at the beginning.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Uh-huh. I remember that. You get to you see Tony Stark, Spider Man, Ben Grimm, and then there's
Stephen Jondrew: another one. I can't remember who it was. But, yeah, that was pretty cool. I always love little
Stephen Jondrew: teases like that in games.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Yeah. It doesn't matter because it's just a trading simulation anyway. Right?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Cool Easter eggs.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: But as you're rolling through this game, of course, you've got Cyclops and Wolverine. I mean,
Stephen Jondrew: I'm not gonna go through and list everybody. You can check the show notes for that. But
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Seriously, everybody that you would think would be in a game right now is in this game, and
Stephen Jondrew: it's maybe professor x because having him fight for a wheelchair would be a little weird.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Was he ever in any of the fighting games?
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Not that I have noticed.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Maybe it was a mod that I'm thinking of. I'll have to look that up.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Oh, he's in there, like, as an NPC a lot of the time Yeah. Not as a playable character.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: This being a fighting game, it has a story. The story basically doesn't matter, and we find
Stephen Jondrew: no fault in that here because it's a fighting game.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weirdly, I loved the weirdly back then, I would get these fighting games and
Stephen Jondrew: be completely invested in the story even though the story is usually nothing. But I would be
Stephen Jondrew: completely and I think this one even had, like, an alternate ending, depending on if who you
Stephen Jondrew: lost with in the end. Like, there's, like, 3 battles at the end, and depending on who lost,
Stephen Jondrew: there was an alternate ending.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Yeah. Exactly. I think this game had a lot of nice touches. It had that. It had a story mode
Stephen Jondrew: where just the same character throughout the entire thing. You had certain battles where you
Stephen Jondrew: had to be a certain character. I think that's a nice touch because it's always kinda weird when
Stephen Jondrew: it is fighting a battle that really should be Storm, but it's not.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. I didn't realize this roster was so stacked, man, but it it really is. You got characters
Stephen Jondrew: that you wouldn't even think would be in the game, like Lady Deathstrike. And just that's it
Stephen Jondrew: was stacked. I can't I'm looking at it now, and I'm just like, god. Now it's all coming back to me.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: In a lot of ways, you know, it it's a fighting game that's coming off of Mutant Academy, so
Stephen Jondrew: there's only so much you can say. Also, it's X Men, and it has so much packed into it that there
Stephen Jondrew: is a ton of things to say with it.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And especially since they I don't remember if it was marketed as being
Stephen Jondrew: a sequel to this, comic book event, but it feels like a miss misstep if it did if it wasn't.
Stephen Jondrew: And coming off with something like that, that that seems like a cool attempt to, like, bring
Stephen Jondrew: it back to comics when the first two games were loosely based or loosely connected to the movies
Stephen Jondrew: or based off the movies.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I can kind of understand them not wanting to tie it to an event that it started about 5 or 6
Stephen Jondrew: years ago, and it was 20 issues across multiple books, so it wasn't that long. But also, you
Stephen Jondrew: had another X men movie coming up, so this really could have easily been a bridge between the
Stephen Jondrew: two movies and spend more time tying it to the previous games.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. That would have been really cool.
Stephen Jondrew: Ryan Drost: I mean, the they I think they
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: did something like that with the X2 game, X2 Wolverine's Revenge. I can't remember which one
Stephen Jondrew: that was. I might be making that up. But I thought they had a a game that they try to do something
Stephen Jondrew: like that with that kind of bridge the 2 movies or 1 of the 2 of the movies together.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It's been a long time since I've seen any of the movies. And at this point, like, the games
Stephen Jondrew: I haven't played anyway, I'm kinda waiting until it's showtime to play them.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Activision had worked on a ton of games so far. Basically, if it was a Spider Man game or an
Stephen Jondrew: X Men game, they had a hand at it as far as things that have worked on the show before. Paradox
Stephen Jondrew: Development, the only thing they had worked on that we've looked at here is those Mutant Academy
Stephen Jondrew: games. I didn't even think to look up Exact Entertainment. I I can't imagine they've done much.
Stephen Jondrew: I haven't heard their name for anything.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. No. Me either. I don't know. I'm actually looking at it right now, and there's only, like,
Stephen Jondrew: 10 games on here. And they're you and they're all either GameCube ports, Wii, or for the iOS
Stephen Jondrew: is their 2 most recent games. So not much.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It sounds like they found their niche though. Port things over to Nintendo stuff at Apple.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Right?
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: As you're going through this game, I had to watch playthrough videos as most of my stuff is
Stephen Jondrew: still packed up. I have a copy of this game somewhere. I can't remember if it's GameCube or
Stephen Jondrew: PS 2. As you're going through this game, the main complaint I was seeing from everything is
Stephen Jondrew: just how slow everything moves.
Stephen Jondrew: Ryan Drost: Mhmm.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. I could see that. It looks like it, like the character models look like an upgrade from
Stephen Jondrew: the previous 2 games, but it did look way slower than even the even the second one or the first one.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Which kind of breaks my heart a little bit because the PS one wasn't dead yet. You still could
Stephen Jondrew: have put it on there. Like, Xbox didn't have anything older. You weren't really gonna get this
Stephen Jondrew: on 64. Could have had a really well refined PS one version of this, and it just never happened.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. I guess it came out at a weird time. Because I was still playing the first 2 probably
Stephen Jondrew: the first two versions of this game. I mean, I was obsessed with these 2 games, with the first
Stephen Jondrew: two games. So it would would have been a really, really well polished PS 1 game, like, one of
Stephen Jondrew: their last ones. That does suck.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Refusing to go look up PS 2 release dates right now, I know that by the time I graduated high
Stephen Jondrew: school in 2005 that I went to college with so they could have the DVD player and the game console.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I graduated the same time, and I definitely that definitely rings true.
Stephen Jondrew: I remember people doing the exact same thing.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: What are the other things I noticed with this game was just the environments that they get you
Stephen Jondrew: in. Having all those interactable environments versus just, like, a skin on a background, I
Stephen Jondrew: think, is a really nice touch for this kind of thing.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. It had the the breakthrough, like, super moves in this one. Right? Where you could do,
Stephen Jondrew: like, a hard punch, and it would knock you into another, another map or another fighting area.
Stephen Jondrew: I've always loved that in games, especially when they first really started doing it. And to
Stephen Jondrew: the reskin, it just gets boring. And you I'd like to think about these games at the time, like,
Stephen Jondrew: not compare them to games that come out now. But at the time, I remember just anytime they would
Stephen Jondrew: add any sort of, improvement to the environment, little things like that would just would just
Stephen Jondrew: take the cake for me.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: All of the special moves that people had, just having Wolverine be able to heal himself during
Stephen Jondrew: the fight, having Cyclops be able to shoot all the way across the screen with that optic blast,
Stephen Jondrew: having Nightcrawler be able to teleport around, it's all just so perfect. Mhmm.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. And it goes back to, you know, what you're saying. The it seems like they put a lot into
Stephen Jondrew: the game, especially on the character level, and it does suck that it may may have, hurt the
Stephen Jondrew: speed and fluidity of the game. But you can definitely tell that there was a lot put into it.
Stephen Jondrew: And and I don't know if it was a product of the time that it came out or they just had to to
Stephen Jondrew: cut where the focus was, but you could definitely tell there was a lot of focus put on the characters.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It's an unfortunate thing that happens at the beginning of every console's lifespan. You have
Stephen Jondrew: developers trying to figure out what they can do with that console. Not wasting their time on
Stephen Jondrew: the older console because everybody wants the new thing instead of being able to use what they know works.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. True. And sometimes at the beginning of those new game eras, sometimes the studio is trying
Stephen Jondrew: to do both. So they're trying to make a game that works on, you know, not PS 1, but having a
Stephen Jondrew: lot with the PS 3, PS 2, PS 4, PS 3 is where they tried to have a game with both versions. So
Stephen Jondrew: they were trying to make it to where it works on the PS 2 and on the PS 3. Obviously, they would have I
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I think the PS 2 and PS 1 crossover there should have been easier.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Mhmm.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: PS 2 could play both.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It's just a missed opportunity, I think.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. I agree.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Everything about this game to me screams, we know our history, and we want to make a good game
Stephen Jondrew: for the fans to them pulling moves basically straight from Marvel versus Capcom for some of
Stephen Jondrew: the characters. So you got to use things that you are familiar with. You have the multiple endings
Stephen Jondrew: that actually make sense with what's going on with them. Like, this entire game is just a labor
Stephen Jondrew: of love from people who couldn't quite pull it off.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I always think, like, what these games would look like now, and I I know they would
Stephen Jondrew: probably make them too complex. But I don't know. You can like, we talked about it. You can
Stephen Jondrew: tell that they put a lot of care into a lot of the aspects of it, but it just didn't pull pull,
Stephen Jondrew: you know, pull together at the end. I don't know. I don't remember I'm gonna look down the side
Stephen Jondrew: real quick. I don't remember what the reviews for this game were. Like, do you know if it was
Stephen Jondrew: generally well received or was it sort of middling?
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Midlane is what I'm remembering, like, around seventies somewhere sticking in my head.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I got it pulled up. That is right. Pretty much middle all the way through.
Stephen Jondrew: That makes sense.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Which honestly seems a little bit crazy because if you have a game that's like that, you've
Stephen Jondrew: got a game that is pretty solid. Not a ton of things wrong with it, but everybody sees that
Stephen Jondrew: 70, 80 score and completely freaks out because they think it's a super horrible game.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a weird thing with rating systems. Yeah. I don't remember personally having
Stephen Jondrew: any real problem with it. You know, those the the graphics at the time, like I said, for me,
Stephen Jondrew: was a upgrade. This was the games that I loved, but it looked better. I don't remember it playing
Stephen Jondrew: super slow, but now that I, you know, I've watched some playthrough today and definitely looks
Stephen Jondrew: like it does. And I haven't played it, and I couldn't even tell you when the last time I played
Stephen Jondrew: this game. But I want to.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I'm definitely gonna pull mine out of the box.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Watching all the videos and stuff made me wanna play it. So it wasn't like I watched the
Stephen Jondrew: playthroughs and the cutscenes, and I was like, blah. No thanks. I still I would actually play
Stephen Jondrew: it right now.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: This is definitely a game I think that you have to experience, and the reviews just don't do it justice.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Normally, I'd ask here what this game got right and wrong compared to the comic, but I feel
Stephen Jondrew: like we've really been upfront with that the entire time on here. Is there anything else to
Stephen Jondrew: you that jumps to mind from either end of that spectrum?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: You know, I think the only thing I'll add is is that I think that again, I think it's a cool
Stephen Jondrew: concept to make this sort of a sequel to a comic book event as someone that was reading a lot
Stephen Jondrew: of X Men at the time. You know, and maybe that's, you know, part of the problem. I can't remember.
Stephen Jondrew: It wasn't so heavy, though. It wasn't so, tied to the comic that you had to read it to know
Stephen Jondrew: what was going on. I think it's cool that they tried to do something like that, and, it wasn't
Stephen Jondrew: you know, it wasn't detrimental to where you have to pick up x men dimensions to know what's
Stephen Jondrew: currently going on in comic books either. So, I really dug it, and it fit, you know, even though
Stephen Jondrew: we you know, as you mentioned, the story isn't anything of in-depth or that you even really
Stephen Jondrew: need in this sort of game. But, I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I think it did a really good job
Stephen Jondrew: as a companion piece.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I wish more things would follow this example and do something directly related to a comic run.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Same.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Do something a little older side plot kind of thing, because I would hate to have I I would
Stephen Jondrew: think that a writer would hate to have to write around a game that may or may not actually happen
Stephen Jondrew: the way that they're being told it'll happen.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so it's so up in the air as far as the games throughout their development
Stephen Jondrew: life that it would be probably be a nightmare to try to focus your run around that. It would
Stephen Jondrew: have to be like a yeah. I agree. The doing it off of, like, a well known older story would serve
Stephen Jondrew: it better. That would be cool.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Ignoring every other X men game that exists, if you knew somebody who wanted to get into X men,
Stephen Jondrew: would you hand them this one as a bit of a primer course?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Probably you know, honestly, I think it would work. You know, I was gonna if I'm ignoring the
Stephen Jondrew: rest of the games, I think it would work because it's not so tied to I don't even remember if
Stephen Jondrew: it's tied to the first two games at all. I think they tried to make it a standalone thing. And
Stephen Jondrew: you can jump in without played the first two or actually reading operation 0 tolerance. You
Stephen Jondrew: get the the plight of the X Men. They're wanting to be or people wanting to exterminate them.
Stephen Jondrew: So, yeah, I think this would be a solid jumping on point.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I think it's those cut scenes that really make it for me. The slowness of it might actually
Stephen Jondrew: be a good thing at that point.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Agree.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Get somebody who's not really good at fighting games, and they don't have to be so super fast with it.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. So, yeah, that was me.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I just get my butt kicks. I mean, I I love them, but I can't go online and play at all.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: And, like, when PlayStation 2, PlayStation it was really PlayStation 3 for me getting online,
Stephen Jondrew: and and I thought I was good at fighting games before and then getting online and realizing
Stephen Jondrew: that wasn't true. So I now I just put them on easy and enjoy them for what they are, unlocking
Stephen Jondrew: all the extra skins and alternate, you know, learning all the super moves and get the joy out
Stephen Jondrew: of that and call it a day.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: If you had somebody who wanted to get into X Men, what would you show them as a different comic,
Stephen Jondrew: not from the X Men universe at all, to tell them, you know, X Men is kinda like this?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: That's a good question. I would do something like, I would say, Umbrella Academy for me, would
Stephen Jondrew: be a good comparison to what it is. You know, not exactly like it, but if you were to read Umbrella
Stephen Jondrew: Academy first and read X Men, I think you would be able to sort of put the 2 together or Doom
Stephen Jondrew: Patrol. But Doom Patrol gets way wackier than the X Men do. So I don't want people to some people
Stephen Jondrew: get kind of turned off by how zany the doom Doom Patrol can get.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: I can see both of those, though.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: Just all of that people forced into being together and forced into being a team like that. I
Stephen Jondrew: I think both of those will work really well. Alex, it has been great talking to you about this
Stephen Jondrew: one. I have a feeling we're gonna talk about something else soon enough. Until then, if people
Stephen Jondrew: wanna hear more from you, where else can they find you around the Internet?
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I am usually so we have our social media accounts for our show, but that's usually just, like,
Stephen Jondrew: update stuff. But if you want to connect with me, I am simply Wednesday poll on all the socials,
Stephen Jondrew: and you can check out our show. It's called Wednesday Toast, a podcast about comic book stuff
Stephen Jondrew: where we talk about all kinds of comic book related stuff. So check it out if you get a chance.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: That's a nice big umbrella there. I'm assuming it's on purpose.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: Yeah. So our our old show, as you mentioned earlier, the Wednesday full list was strictly we
Stephen Jondrew: would read a, comic book trade, and then we review it. And then it got to the point where we
Stephen Jondrew: were just it didn't feel like a job, but it was sometimes, instead of just enjoying a book for
Stephen Jondrew: what it is, we would have to, like, find points of contention. We would have to find things
Stephen Jondrew: to, like, oh, we didn't like this because x, y, and z. And we didn't wanna do that. And anytime
Stephen Jondrew: we would wanna review a game or a movie that came out, our, you know, our numbers would dip.
Stephen Jondrew: So we wanted to create a new show where we just talked we just this is it. If we talk about
Stephen Jondrew: all kinds of comic book related stuff. So if you're coming to listen to the show, it's gonna
Stephen Jondrew: be something, Whether it be a comic book review or a game review or we're talking about a topic
Stephen Jondrew: that was funny on social media that week, we just wanted to open it up and have a little bit
Stephen Jondrew: more fun with it.
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: It's been a fun show so far. So everybody who hasn't listened to it, you should fix that and
Stephen Jondrew: go listen to it.
Stephen Jondrew: Lex W: I appreciate
Stephen Jondrew: Chris Osborne: that. As always, if you wanna hear more from me, you could head on over to playcomics.com, and
Stephen Jondrew: there's links to all the social media stuff and blog posts for these and show notes that I really
Stephen Jondrew: wish people would read. Please go read the show notes. I I I actually work on those. If you
Stephen Jondrew: wanna help support the show, then you can leave a review on some place like Apple Podcasts or
Stephen Jondrew: Podchaser. You can tell a friend about it. You can just shove it into their ear holes with consent
Stephen Jondrew: because you're not a monster. Or you can be like O'Nola class or Dan McMahon or Karl Antonovitz
Stephen Jondrew: and give money to the show because doing this does cost money, unfortunately. Although, it is
Stephen Jondrew: cheaper than therapy, so that's cool. Don't forget that Play Comics is a part of the gun and
Stephen Jondrew: geek dotcom network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of Shield, where you get to hear
Stephen Jondrew: me talk about xmid 97 for a few more weeks and get super excited about that. We were getting
Stephen Jondrew: super excited. I'm trying not to let the excitement overspill here because it's a lot. If you
Stephen Jondrew: like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of here, head on over to soundcloud.com/best dash
Stephen Jondrew: day to check out Best Day's music. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics,
Stephen Jondrew: and go find yourself a new favorite character.