WEBVTT 00:01.839 --> 00:06.960 Stephen Jondrew: I'm Stephen Jondrew from Better Podcasting, a podcast about podcasting, part of the Gonna 00:06.960 --> 00:12.325 Geek Network. Just like the show you're checking out now, shows on the network are individually 00:12.384 --> 00:18.000 owned, and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find fantastic geeky shows at gonnageeknetwork.com. 00:56.080 --> 01:00.865 Chris Osborne: And welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a 01:00.945 --> 01:05.985 comic property and how well it represents that source material. Today, we get to prove that 01:05.985 --> 01:12.680 I am either an idiot or a hack and a fraud because we're looking at X Men Next Dimension. We'll 01:12.680 --> 01:18.705 get into more of why that proves that I'm horrible about this later. But first, I am here talking 01:18.705 --> 01:23.825 to Lex from Wednesday Toast, formerly from the Wednesday poll list, but I like toast better 01:23.825 --> 01:28.260 than poll lists anyway. So I think that's a good change. Lex, how are you today? 01:28.640 --> 01:30.580 Lex W: I'm doing well, man. Thanks for having me. 01:30.880 --> 01:34.080 Chris Osborne: I know. I've been looking forward to getting you on the show for a while, so I'm glad that we 01:34.080 --> 01:36.115 could finally get this one worked out. 01:36.415 --> 01:37.235 Lex W: Yeah. Same. 01:37.615 --> 01:44.350 Chris Osborne: So when you looked at the list of games here, instantly jumped at 2. But the one Uh-huh. That 01:44.350 --> 01:49.790 I heard first, I think, was X Men, specifically Next Dimension. What was it that drew you to 01:49.790 --> 01:50.665 an X Men game? 01:50.745 --> 01:58.665 Lex W: Bro, I have a complicated relationship with the X Men. I have been known to, not be a fan of 01:58.665 --> 02:06.780 the X Men movies or not as much of a fan as the majority of the old X Men animated series. So 02:06.780 --> 02:12.155 it's strange because I do it sounds like on paper that I don't like the X Men, but in fact, 02:12.155 --> 02:21.240 I do. And specifically, the whole video game era of the nineties early 2000, I was obsessed 02:21.540 --> 02:27.705 with the first two versions of this game, Mutant Academy 1 and 2. And I just remember playing 02:27.705 --> 02:35.645 it for hours, and and and the same with Next Dimension, but mainly with the first two. And so 02:36.200 --> 02:42.760 when I saw the list, it it just immediately pulled out to me because it had me just taking back 02:42.760 --> 02:47.935 on getting my butt kicked numerous times by this fighting game. Because I'm terrible at fighting 02:47.935 --> 02:51.535 games, but I love fighting games. So it's a double edged sword. 02:51.535 --> 02:52.460 Chris Osborne: Welcome to the boat. 02:52.620 --> 02:53.440 Lex W: Yeah. Right. 02:54.140 --> 03:00.160 Chris Osborne: The movies, I can understand not being a fan of. The cartoon, are you just a monster or what? 03:01.135 --> 03:06.735 Lex W: Alright. I love the cartoon. There is a lot of things to like about it. I made the mistake of 03:06.735 --> 03:12.130 watching it recently, And I don't know. I think maybe it's because everyone loves it so much 03:12.130 --> 03:17.650 that I watched it with a, this isn't so good. But the real reason is that the last season is 03:17.650 --> 03:24.435 so bad. They shipped off the animation, and it it's just an eyesore, and it ruined the entire 03:24.435 --> 03:31.130 experience for me. But I do still in enjoy it for the most part. I just like to play contrarian, I guess. 03:31.510 --> 03:36.090 Chris Osborne: I can totally understand that that last season. It's certainly a thing that exists. 03:36.615 --> 03:37.575 Lex W: Yeah. For sure. 03:37.575 --> 03:41.114 Chris Osborne: What is it that has drawn you into the comic side of X Men? 03:41.815 --> 03:48.870 Lex W: I think that it it definitely was sort of my first Marvel or DC book. I mean, Spider Man for 03:48.870 --> 03:53.590 everyone. Everyone watches and reads Spider Man, but x men were the first books that I really 03:53.590 --> 04:00.745 dove into on the Marvel side. I was always a huge Ninja Turtle fan. The terminology of mutants 04:00.805 --> 04:04.870 was an ease as a, you know, as a kid, it was an easy, like, oh, well, I like these mutants. 04:04.870 --> 04:08.310 This is what they have to offer. I'm gonna pick it up because they're also mutants. And then 04:08.310 --> 04:14.155 it just sort of carried on through the years, probably boosted from the show that I that I like 04:14.155 --> 04:19.935 to bash so much, but, definitely, it was of my main Marvel reading in the nineties and early 2000. 04:20.154 --> 04:25.870 Chris Osborne: Currently, I'm basically grabbing a bunch of the side books and not the main book because I'm a weirdo. 04:26.250 --> 04:27.630 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. 04:28.004 --> 04:32.085 Chris Osborne: I don't know why, though. Like, it I don't really have anything against the main one. It's I 04:32.085 --> 04:36.140 think it's mostly just because my poll list is way too big, and some of the people working on 04:36.140 --> 04:37.920 the side ones are amazing. 04:38.780 --> 04:46.195 Lex W: I'm I'm currently the same way mainly because I fell too behind on big Krakoa era stuff. And, 04:46.735 --> 04:53.770 a lot of the side stuff, while it is tied into it, it's still more, I wouldn't say newer reader 04:53.770 --> 04:58.810 friendly, but more of the, like, casual reader friendly. Like, you could still if you have if 04:58.810 --> 05:04.665 you understand the gist of what's going on in the Krakoan age, you can jump in on a tie in book 05:04.665 --> 05:06.285 and enjoy it for the most part. 05:06.505 --> 05:09.085 Chris Osborne: So which books are being your favorite right now? 05:09.620 --> 05:18.819 Lex W: Oh, right now? Anything to do with, like, I love sync, so I pick up anything with that character 05:18.819 --> 05:25.365 in it. Yeah. And and a lot of the X Men books are at the bottom of my to read pile because it's 05:25.365 --> 05:31.099 like, I'm not gonna get to that right now. It's just there's too much. I'm waiting for the reboot. 05:31.479 --> 05:35.720 I'm waiting for it to reset. So, usually, if I see something that's syncing, then I'll pick 05:35.720 --> 05:41.155 it up, and that's really the the main X Men reading I'm doing right now, not a than before I 05:41.155 --> 05:46.180 really think about it. Or if I hear, like, a you know, if I see a coverage, total cover buzz, 05:47.139 --> 05:51.620 trial of Magneto, all of that stuff with the resurrection of Magneto. That picked all that up 05:51.620 --> 05:53.300 just because I'm a huge Magneto fan. 05:53.300 --> 05:59.685 Chris Osborne: According to this before Ultimate X Men comes out, but it'll probably get released after. So 05:59.685 --> 06:06.070 maybe editor Chris will pop in and do a little update here. But you've seen the covers for all those. Right? 06:06.530 --> 06:08.450 Lex W: Uh-huh. Yeah. Peach Momoco covers. 06:08.450 --> 06:09.750 Chris Osborne: How do you make a decision? 06:09.889 --> 06:14.295 Lex W: I know. I'm I'm really interested in it. It seems so out of left field compared to the other 06:14.295 --> 06:19.530 ultimate books that we've gotten so far. So I'm really, really interested in in what they're 06:19.530 --> 06:24.650 gonna do. It seems like armor is gonna be the focus, and I just don't I just don't know. Yeah. 06:24.650 --> 06:30.925 I really just don't know. I have really enjoyed the ultimate book so far, so it's definitely 06:30.925 --> 06:34.305 gonna get a read, but I really don't know. 06:34.525 --> 06:38.890 Chris Osborne: My cover decision for that series, at least for the first issue, is yes. 06:39.590 --> 06:44.790 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a that's been a dangerous problem for a lot of these books so far. Spider 06:44.790 --> 06:49.975 Man that first Spider Man came out, and I was just like, one, if you can find the cover, if 06:49.975 --> 06:54.535 you didn't preorder every single one of them, finding them was the real challenge. And then 06:54.535 --> 07:01.400 2, it's like I how do I just pick 1? I want them all. So definitely with Peach Momoco doing, 07:02.180 --> 07:07.405 the main covers, that's an easy buy for me, but it's really, really a slippery slope getting 07:07.405 --> 07:12.525 into the variant covers. I always tell myself I'm not gonna do it, and then I leave with more 07:12.525 --> 07:13.824 than I planned on getting. 07:14.100 --> 07:20.580 Chris Osborne: I think that's a curse that we're all falling victim to these days. Mhmm. Nominally, at least, 07:20.580 --> 07:26.574 this game is coming off as a sequel to Onslaught. More specifically, it's coming off as a sequel 07:26.574 --> 07:28.435 to Operation 0 Tolerance. 07:29.375 --> 07:29.875 Lex W: Mhmm. 07:29.935 --> 07:36.500 Chris Osborne: That's something that, number 1, I realized way too late. Out of my sources were just saying not anything. 07:36.960 --> 07:37.760 Lex W: Yeah. Same. 07:37.760 --> 07:42.255 Chris Osborne: But are you familiar with that storyline at all? Because mostly, I'm just familiar with Onslaught 07:42.255 --> 07:44.195 being a a giant clusterfuck. 07:44.975 --> 07:53.130 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I was I loved the character design of Ocelot when it came out. This was 07:53.830 --> 07:59.794 late nineties, I'm gonna say. And I was obsessed with because I love Magneto, so I was obsessed 07:59.794 --> 08:04.730 with the actual character design. But when I go back and read the story, it is a huge cluster. 08:04.730 --> 08:10.110 And, you know, everyone knows that it was to try to boost sales or for some of their underselling 08:10.410 --> 08:17.095 characters. But operation 0 tolerance was cool because it started this little bastion era started 08:17.555 --> 08:24.240 before on to lot, and then carried over after Ontellot. I don't know how you successfully did. 08:24.240 --> 08:31.065 I don't know if I don't remember if they did or not, but it was cool. I liked Bastian as a villain, 08:31.765 --> 08:37.610 and, and it's just the it was the same old X Men stuff. You know, he's having his version of 08:37.610 --> 08:43.130 sentinels. He's having his plan to eradicate them, you know, from there were takes pushed them 08:43.130 --> 08:48.644 to the brink of extinction. It's the just a rehash of classic X Men turmoil. 08:48.865 --> 08:55.330 Chris Osborne: Of course, it gets into all of the fear and hatred of mutants, which you can turn into an allegory 08:55.330 --> 09:00.130 to social issues and stuff, which, hey, guess what? The Mexican were doing that in the nineties 09:00.130 --> 09:03.490 because they were doing that in the eighties and the seventies and the sixties, so nothing new 09:03.490 --> 09:09.714 there. Yeah. As you go through this, I read the first like, 2 of the first three issues because 09:09.714 --> 09:17.190 finding so I didn't anything from just adjective list X men on Marvel Unlimited was a little 09:17.650 --> 09:20.230 more than my brain could handle earlier today. 09:20.665 --> 09:22.125 Lex W: Yeah. It's a lot. 09:22.425 --> 09:26.345 Chris Osborne: Reading through that, it seems like something I'm definitely gonna go finish. I can go through 09:26.345 --> 09:31.399 and read all of these recaps and stuff, but I started it. I wanna finish it. 09:31.620 --> 09:35.139 Lex W: Yeah. I get that way too. I thought about doing this morning, but then I was like, I don't really 09:35.139 --> 09:41.235 wanna get into the rabbit hole, especially because I wanted to watch the cut scenes from X Men 09:41.295 --> 09:46.360 Next Dimensions. And then that turned to me watching the cut scenes from X Men Mutant Academy 09:46.360 --> 09:52.600 and X Men Mutant Academy 2. And then I was like, how do I play these games again after all these 09:52.600 --> 09:58.105 years? And so then it went down a rabbit hole of getting on eBay and trying to find these old 09:58.105 --> 10:01.270 games. So, I ran out of time. 10:01.430 --> 10:04.010 Chris Osborne: At least that's productive. I'll give you credit for that. 10:04.390 --> 10:04.890 Lex W: Alright. 10:05.830 --> 10:08.810 Chris Osborne: Who has been your favorite X Men character? 10:09.585 --> 10:14.625 Lex W: So I really like as I mentioned earlier, I really like Sink. Sink is a character that was introduced 10:14.625 --> 10:20.130 in generation x in the nineties. He's just a completely overpowered character. They didn't they 10:20.130 --> 10:26.825 didn't really start using him until recently. So if I had to say, like, throughout my X Men 10:26.825 --> 10:34.200 journey, weirdly, Havoc is up there for me. He's probably my favorite if I'm if I'm not taking 10:34.200 --> 10:39.160 the, you know, Magneto. Everybody loves Magneto. I would have to say Havoc. I loved him in the 10:39.160 --> 10:48.264 second game. I loved his nineties suit with with the jacket. It was such a cool character. And 10:48.264 --> 10:53.500 he's like, he was the opposite of Cyclops. I I like Cyclops. I know a lot of people think he's 10:53.500 --> 11:00.285 a boy scout. I think he's a very complex character. But Havoc was just cool. He was like the 11:00.285 --> 11:05.485 cool summer's brother compared to the quote, unquote boy scout of Cyclops. And so he's always 11:05.485 --> 11:06.704 been a favorite of mine. 11:06.879 --> 11:12.740 Chris Osborne: For me, it changes up a lot. Right now, I'm really feeling rogue. I honestly have no idea why, 11:12.959 --> 11:15.040 but it's a good choice. I'm gonna stick with it. 11:15.040 --> 11:16.705 Lex W: Yeah. She's a cool character, man. 11:16.945 --> 11:21.345 Chris Osborne: Just something about having to stay away from each other, but not wanting to stay away from 11:21.345 --> 11:25.685 other people and get too close. It just hit it's hitting with me right now. 11:26.100 --> 11:29.480 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. And she's definitely a cool character. 11:30.340 --> 11:35.565 Chris Osborne: Well, with this giant roster of potential picks we could have had in mind, We're gonna take 11:35.565 --> 11:38.685 a break so I could drop some promos for a few other shows, and then we'll come back and talk 11:38.685 --> 11:39.585 about the game. 11:39.645 --> 11:46.250 Scott Niswander: Hey, everyone. Thanks for checking out this podcast. It's probably Not. Aliens. This is a podcast 11:46.310 --> 11:51.189 where we talk about ancient astronaut theory and the show Ancient Aliens, and we talk about 11:51.189 --> 11:55.475 how exactly right they are about everything that they propose. Right, Tristan? 11:55.615 --> 12:01.600 Tristen Johnson: Yeah. Then I go insane and try to show why it's not aliens, but it is extremely interesting 12:01.600 --> 12:04.660 history and archaeology that you'll definitely find interesting. 12:04.800 --> 12:10.345 Scott Niswander: Yeah. Okay. So basically, Tristan's job is to ruin our fun by teaching us about history and 12:10.345 --> 12:12.204 interesting facts about ancient civilizations. 12:12.345 --> 12:13.324 Tristen Johnson: Sorry about that. 12:13.545 --> 12:19.050 Scott Niswander: My name is Scott, and my job is to sit here and be a surrogate listener like yourself taking 12:19.050 --> 12:22.650 in all this information and occasionally making jokes that people groan at. 12:22.650 --> 12:27.324 Tristen Johnson: You will definitely groan, yes. But we do have a really fun time. We do learn a lot about this 12:27.324 --> 12:31.697 amazing world we live in, and we sometimes get really sad about the injustices of the world. 12:31.697 --> 12:33.498 So if that sounds like your bag 12:33.755 --> 12:39.710 Scott Niswander: No. Don't don't lead with that, Tristan. We it's a very fun podcast for sure. Absolutely no 12:39.710 --> 12:43.815 sadness here. Can't can't think of a episode that ended that way. 12:43.815 --> 12:49.495 Tristen Johnson: But if you wanna check it out, we're gonna be on iTunes and all the other places where podcasts happen. 12:49.495 --> 12:54.390 Scott Niswander: Yeah. Please, please subscribe. Please follow. Do all the things. We have new episodes every 12:54.390 --> 13:01.405 single week, and we get to talk so much about the aliens that once visited us and left clues 13:01.405 --> 13:03.665 for us to solve their alien mysteries. 13:04.045 --> 13:09.025 Tristen Johnson: So come check us out, and remember, the truth is out there, probably. 13:12.220 --> 13:17.340 Ryan Drost: Welcome to the world of Stealth Hammer, an all ages superhero adventure comic set in a world 13:17.340 --> 13:22.915 of high-tech gadgetry and supernatural mythology. In issue 1 of the comic series, we learned 13:22.915 --> 13:28.779 of Stelthammer's origin. In issue 2, we discovered her legacy. Now in issue 3, we find how an 13:28.779 --> 13:34.300 elf from a faraway land helped in her journey. All issues are available on Kickstarter now just 13:34.300 --> 13:37.205 search for Stealthhammer. Available through May 7th. 13:48.860 --> 13:53.095 Chris Osborne: Those are some great shows to check out, but first, let's finish up with this one. So, Lex, 13:53.095 --> 13:59.915 as we've said, we kinda spoiled the surprise here, I am a dummy, a hack and a fraud because 14:00.180 --> 14:03.080 this is kind of the 3rd Mutant Academy game. 14:03.220 --> 14:10.495 Lex W: Yeah. It was weirdly, like, if I remember correctly, it wasn't marketed as that, but it was 14:10.735 --> 14:19.100 it feels the same. It it looks the same, relatively upgraded graph graphics for the time, but 14:19.560 --> 14:24.220 it wasn't called Mini Academy 3. I'm not sure why, and I don't know if you did. 14:25.215 --> 14:28.815 Chris Osborne: Because they're weirdos, I guess. I don't know. That's the only thing I could come up with. 14:28.815 --> 14:35.310 Like, it was a couple years after the previous one. They didn't have a movie to tie it to. Ones 14:35.310 --> 14:42.685 kind of were. It's just kind of a game out there by itself, which is fine. I wish more places 14:42.685 --> 14:49.519 would make a game that's not tied to a movie or a comic arc or anything that's actively happening 14:49.519 --> 14:53.380 because then they have to worry about timing a couple of things from very different mediums. 14:54.160 --> 14:54.660 Lex W: Yeah. 14:54.880 --> 15:02.985 Chris Osborne: This is a game released in 2002 on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube, put together by Activision 15:03.285 --> 15:10.800 and Paradox Development. Except on the GameCube. It was also Exact Entertainment, I believe. 15:12.300 --> 15:17.315 Oh, they ported it over. It happened weirdly with a lot of things back then. They would super 15:17.315 --> 15:22.915 specifically make it for 1, probably get it handled the same team to a second console, then 15:22.915 --> 15:25.130 a third one just kind of does their 15:25.670 --> 15:26.410 Lex W: thing. Yeah. 15:26.790 --> 15:32.710 Chris Osborne: But I think the obvious first place to start here is the roster because this is a pretty stacked 15:32.710 --> 15:33.850 roster of characters. 15:34.615 --> 15:41.255 Lex W: That's yeah. I didn't remember it. I also didn't remember it being so forge heavy, but, he's, 15:41.255 --> 15:45.910 like, one of these is the focus for the beginning of the game. But, yeah, this is a huge roster, 15:46.209 --> 15:54.045 and I think there was the only one Xbox exclusive character, which seems like such a weird character 15:54.045 --> 15:58.685 to have for Xbox twos and just a weird exclusive character. I don't know if that would be a 15:58.685 --> 16:05.490 pull for me to be like, I have to if I have an Xbox now, I have to get it because pyro is specifically 16:05.550 --> 16:06.370 in this game. 16:06.830 --> 16:13.115 Chris Osborne: Yeah. If anything, I would go the PS 2 version or I'm sorry, the GameCube version that has Spider 16:13.115 --> 16:18.975 Man because most of your heavy hitters, everybody you'd expect to see in the game are in this. 16:19.490 --> 16:22.070 Lex W: Yeah. So I didn't even know Spider Man was in it. That's crazy. 16:22.450 --> 16:25.350 Chris Osborne: It's really weird because you see his grave right there at the beginning. 16:25.889 --> 16:31.053 Lex W: Uh-huh. I remember that. You get to you see Tony Stark, Spider Man, Ben Grimm, and then there's 16:31.053 --> 16:35.809 another one. I can't remember who it was. But, yeah, that was pretty cool. I always love little 16:35.809 --> 16:37.130 teases like that in games. 16:37.210 --> 16:40.270 Chris Osborne: Yeah. It doesn't matter because it's just a trading simulation anyway. Right? 16:40.810 --> 16:43.470 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Cool Easter eggs. 16:43.770 --> 16:47.975 Chris Osborne: But as you're rolling through this game, of course, you've got Cyclops and Wolverine. I mean, 16:47.975 --> 16:51.755 I'm not gonna go through and list everybody. You can check the show notes for that. But 16:52.214 --> 16:52.535 Lex W: Yeah. 16:52.694 --> 16:58.790 Chris Osborne: Seriously, everybody that you would think would be in a game right now is in this game, and 16:58.790 --> 17:02.889 it's maybe professor x because having him fight for a wheelchair would be a little weird. 17:03.345 --> 17:06.325 Lex W: Yeah. Was he ever in any of the fighting games? 17:06.545 --> 17:08.405 Chris Osborne: Not that I have noticed. 17:08.785 --> 17:13.190 Lex W: Yeah. Maybe it was a mod that I'm thinking of. I'll have to look that up. 17:13.190 --> 17:19.529 Chris Osborne: Oh, he's in there, like, as an NPC a lot of the time Yeah. Not as a playable character. 17:20.115 --> 17:20.615 Lex W: Yeah. 17:20.755 --> 17:27.315 Chris Osborne: This being a fighting game, it has a story. The story basically doesn't matter, and we find 17:27.315 --> 17:29.780 no fault in that here because it's a fighting game. 17:30.020 --> 17:38.975 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weirdly, I loved the weirdly back then, I would get these fighting games and 17:38.975 --> 17:43.775 be completely invested in the story even though the story is usually nothing. But I would be 17:43.775 --> 17:50.320 completely and I think this one even had, like, an alternate ending, depending on if who you 17:50.320 --> 17:55.220 lost with in the end. Like, there's, like, 3 battles at the end, and depending on who lost, 17:56.105 --> 17:57.485 there was an alternate ending. 17:58.105 --> 18:05.090 Chris Osborne: Yeah. Exactly. I think this game had a lot of nice touches. It had that. It had a story mode 18:05.090 --> 18:09.330 where just the same character throughout the entire thing. You had certain battles where you 18:09.330 --> 18:13.905 had to be a certain character. I think that's a nice touch because it's always kinda weird when 18:14.045 --> 18:18.785 it is fighting a battle that really should be Storm, but it's not. 18:18.970 --> 18:24.330 Lex W: Yeah. I didn't realize this roster was so stacked, man, but it it really is. You got characters 18:24.330 --> 18:30.775 that you wouldn't even think would be in the game, like Lady Deathstrike. And just that's it 18:30.775 --> 18:34.855 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. 18:34.855 --> 18:39.930 Chris Osborne: In a lot of ways, you know, it it's a fighting game that's coming off of Mutant Academy, so 18:40.390 --> 18:47.815 there's only so much you can say. Also, it's X Men, and it has so much packed into it that there 18:47.815 --> 18:50.475 is a ton of things to say with it. 18:50.695 --> 18:55.950 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And especially since they I don't remember if it was marketed as being 18:55.950 --> 19:01.650 a sequel to this, comic book event, but it feels like a miss misstep if it did if it wasn't. 19:02.030 --> 19:07.105 And coming off with something like that, that that seems like a cool attempt to, like, bring 19:07.105 --> 19:13.040 it back to comics when the first two games were loosely based or loosely connected to the movies 19:13.040 --> 19:14.420 or based off the movies. 19:14.960 --> 19:19.760 Chris Osborne: I can kind of understand them not wanting to tie it to an event that it started about 5 or 6 19:19.760 --> 19:26.625 years ago, and it was 20 issues across multiple books, so it wasn't that long. But also, you 19:26.625 --> 19:31.710 had another X men movie coming up, so this really could have easily been a bridge between the 19:31.710 --> 19:36.130 two movies and spend more time tying it to the previous games. 19:36.555 --> 19:37.835 Lex W: Yeah. That would have been really cool. 19:37.835 --> 19:38.955 Ryan Drost: I mean, the they I think they 19:38.955 --> 19:45.435 Lex W: did something like that with the X2 game, X2 Wolverine's Revenge. I can't remember which one 19:45.435 --> 19:49.799 that was. I might be making that up. But I thought they had a a game that they try to do something 19:49.799 --> 19:54.380 like that with that kind of bridge the 2 movies or 1 of the 2 of the movies together. 19:54.725 --> 20:00.164 Chris Osborne: It's been a long time since I've seen any of the movies. And at this point, like, the games 20:00.164 --> 20:04.010 I haven't played anyway, I'm kinda waiting until it's showtime to play them. 20:04.330 --> 20:05.950 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 20:06.170 --> 20:11.210 Chris Osborne: Activision had worked on a ton of games so far. Basically, if it was a Spider Man game or an 20:11.210 --> 20:16.575 X Men game, they had a hand at it as far as things that have worked on the show before. Paradox 20:16.575 --> 20:21.410 Development, the only thing they had worked on that we've looked at here is those Mutant Academy 20:21.410 --> 20:26.210 games. I didn't even think to look up Exact Entertainment. I I can't imagine they've done much. 20:26.210 --> 20:28.070 I haven't heard their name for anything. 20:28.815 --> 20:33.455 Lex W: Yeah. No. Me either. I don't know. I'm actually looking at it right now, and there's only, like, 20:33.455 --> 20:40.400 10 games on here. And they're you and they're all either GameCube ports, Wii, or for the iOS 20:40.460 --> 20:44.220 is their 2 most recent games. So not much. 20:44.220 --> 20:48.034 Chris Osborne: It sounds like they found their niche though. Port things over to Nintendo stuff at Apple. 20:48.034 --> 20:48.774 Lex W: Yeah. Right? 20:48.835 --> 20:53.635 Chris Osborne: As you're going through this game, I had to watch playthrough videos as most of my stuff is 20:53.635 --> 21:00.610 still packed up. I have a copy of this game somewhere. I can't remember if it's GameCube or 21:00.610 --> 21:06.405 PS 2. As you're going through this game, the main complaint I was seeing from everything is 21:06.405 --> 21:09.544 just how slow everything moves. 21:10.409 --> 21:10.909 Ryan Drost: Mhmm. 21:11.450 --> 21:16.970 Lex W: Yeah. I could see that. It looks like it, like the character models look like an upgrade from 21:16.970 --> 21:23.405 the previous 2 games, but it did look way slower than even the even the second one or the first one. 21:23.405 --> 21:29.240 Chris Osborne: Which kind of breaks my heart a little bit because the PS one wasn't dead yet. You still could 21:29.240 --> 21:34.040 have put it on there. Like, Xbox didn't have anything older. You weren't really gonna get this 21:34.040 --> 21:40.345 on 64. Could have had a really well refined PS one version of this, and it just never happened. 21:40.345 --> 21:46.360 Lex W: Yeah. I guess it came out at a weird time. Because I was still playing the first 2 probably 21:46.360 --> 21:52.735 the first two versions of this game. I mean, I was obsessed with these 2 games, with the first 21:52.735 --> 21:59.615 two games. So it would would have been a really, really well polished PS 1 game, like, one of 21:59.615 --> 22:01.680 their last ones. That does suck. 22:01.680 --> 22:06.720 Chris Osborne: Refusing to go look up PS 2 release dates right now, I know that by the time I graduated high 22:06.720 --> 22:13.665 school in 2005 that I went to college with so they could have the DVD player and the game console. 22:13.665 --> 22:19.765 Lex W: Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I graduated the same time, and I definitely that definitely rings true. 22:20.190 --> 22:22.289 I remember people doing the exact same thing. 22:22.510 --> 22:26.830 Chris Osborne: What are the other things I noticed with this game was just the environments that they get you 22:26.830 --> 22:33.405 in. Having all those interactable environments versus just, like, a skin on a background, I 22:33.405 --> 22:35.664 think, is a really nice touch for this kind of thing. 22:35.965 --> 22:42.310 Lex W: Yeah. It had the the breakthrough, like, super moves in this one. Right? Where you could do, 22:42.310 --> 22:49.145 like, a hard punch, and it would knock you into another, another map or another fighting area. 22:49.145 --> 22:54.025 I've always loved that in games, especially when they first really started doing it. And to 22:54.025 --> 22:59.540 the reskin, it just gets boring. And you I'd like to think about these games at the time, like, 22:59.540 --> 23:05.855 not compare them to games that come out now. But at the time, I remember just anytime they would 23:05.855 --> 23:12.095 add any sort of, improvement to the environment, little things like that would just would just 23:12.095 --> 23:13.315 take the cake for me. 23:13.559 --> 23:18.919 Chris Osborne: All of the special moves that people had, just having Wolverine be able to heal himself during 23:18.919 --> 23:25.045 the fight, having Cyclops be able to shoot all the way across the screen with that optic blast, 23:25.105 --> 23:32.930 having Nightcrawler be able to teleport around, it's all just so perfect. Mhmm. 23:33.070 --> 23:37.390 Lex W: Yeah. And it goes back to, you know, what you're saying. The it seems like they put a lot into 23:37.390 --> 23:43.655 the game, especially on the character level, and it does suck that it may may have, hurt the 23:44.115 --> 23:50.940 speed and fluidity of the game. But you can definitely tell that there was a lot put into it. 23:50.940 --> 23:58.305 And and I don't know if it was a product of the time that it came out or they just had to to 23:58.305 --> 24:03.925 cut where the focus was, but you could definitely tell there was a lot of focus put on the characters. 24:04.600 --> 24:09.500 Chris Osborne: It's an unfortunate thing that happens at the beginning of every console's lifespan. You have 24:09.559 --> 24:15.315 developers trying to figure out what they can do with that console. Not wasting their time on 24:15.315 --> 24:20.855 the older console because everybody wants the new thing instead of being able to use what they know works. 24:21.600 --> 24:29.915 Lex W: Yeah. True. And sometimes at the beginning of those new game eras, sometimes the studio is trying 24:29.915 --> 24:35.355 to do both. So they're trying to make a game that works on, you know, not PS 1, but having a 24:35.355 --> 24:41.970 lot with the PS 3, PS 2, PS 4, PS 3 is where they tried to have a game with both versions. So 24:41.970 --> 24:55.655 they were trying to make it to where it works on the PS 2 and on the PS 3. Obviously, they would have I 24:55.840 --> 25:01.460 Chris Osborne: I think the PS 2 and PS 1 crossover there should have been easier. 25:02.080 --> 25:02.560 Lex W: Mhmm. 25:02.560 --> 25:04.020 Chris Osborne: PS 2 could play both. 25:04.605 --> 25:05.085 Lex W: Yeah. 25:05.085 --> 25:07.665 Chris Osborne: It's just a missed opportunity, I think. 25:08.125 --> 25:08.945 Lex W: Yeah. I agree. 25:09.245 --> 25:17.840 Chris Osborne: Everything about this game to me screams, we know our history, and we want to make a good game 25:17.840 --> 25:24.825 for the fans to them pulling moves basically straight from Marvel versus Capcom for some of 25:24.825 --> 25:30.570 the characters. So you got to use things that you are familiar with. You have the multiple endings 25:30.570 --> 25:37.770 that actually make sense with what's going on with them. Like, this entire game is just a labor 25:37.770 --> 25:41.155 of love from people who couldn't quite pull it off. 25:41.535 --> 25:46.895 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I always think, like, what these games would look like now, and I I know they would 25:46.895 --> 25:52.799 probably make them too complex. But I don't know. You can like, we talked about it. You can 25:52.799 --> 25:59.105 tell that they put a lot of care into a lot of the aspects of it, but it just didn't pull pull, 25:59.105 --> 26:03.505 you know, pull together at the end. I don't know. I don't remember I'm gonna look down the side 26:03.505 --> 26:07.505 real quick. I don't remember what the reviews for this game were. Like, do you know if it was 26:07.505 --> 26:09.990 generally well received or was it sort of middling? 26:10.690 --> 26:16.485 Chris Osborne: Midlane is what I'm remembering, like, around seventies somewhere sticking in my head. 26:16.804 --> 26:21.385 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I got it pulled up. That is right. Pretty much middle all the way through. 26:21.684 --> 26:22.905 That makes sense. 26:23.205 --> 26:28.400 Chris Osborne: Which honestly seems a little bit crazy because if you have a game that's like that, you've 26:28.400 --> 26:35.515 got a game that is pretty solid. Not a ton of things wrong with it, but everybody sees that 26:35.655 --> 26:39.835 70, 80 score and completely freaks out because they think it's a super horrible game. 26:40.350 --> 26:48.190 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a weird thing with rating systems. Yeah. I don't remember personally having 26:48.190 --> 26:55.195 any real problem with it. You know, those the the graphics at the time, like I said, for me, 26:55.195 --> 27:01.519 was a upgrade. This was the games that I loved, but it looked better. I don't remember it playing 27:01.519 --> 27:06.159 super slow, but now that I, you know, I've watched some playthrough today and definitely looks 27:06.159 --> 27:11.505 like it does. And I haven't played it, and I couldn't even tell you when the last time I played 27:11.505 --> 27:13.665 this game. But I want to. 27:13.665 --> 27:15.925 Chris Osborne: I'm definitely gonna pull mine out of the box. 27:16.559 --> 27:22.160 Lex W: Yeah. Watching all the videos and stuff made me wanna play it. So it wasn't like I watched the 27:22.160 --> 27:26.804 playthroughs and the cutscenes, and I was like, blah. No thanks. I still I would actually play 27:26.804 --> 27:27.924 it right now. 27:27.924 --> 27:33.705 Chris Osborne: This is definitely a game I think that you have to experience, and the reviews just don't do it justice. 27:34.559 --> 27:36.259 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. 27:37.039 --> 27:42.000 Chris Osborne: Normally, I'd ask here what this game got right and wrong compared to the comic, but I feel 27:42.000 --> 27:49.115 like we've really been upfront with that the entire time on here. Is there anything else to 27:49.115 --> 27:52.495 you that jumps to mind from either end of that spectrum? 27:53.110 --> 27:59.270 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 27:59.270 --> 28:06.335 concept to make this sort of a sequel to a comic book event as someone that was reading a lot 28:06.335 --> 28:11.059 of X Men at the time. You know, and maybe that's, you know, part of the problem. I can't remember. 28:11.059 --> 28:17.139 It wasn't so heavy, though. It wasn't so, tied to the comic that you had to read it to know 28:17.139 --> 28:24.565 what was going on. I think it's cool that they tried to do something like that, and, it wasn't 28:24.825 --> 28:29.650 you know, it wasn't detrimental to where you have to pick up x men dimensions to know what's 28:29.650 --> 28:36.635 currently going on in comic books either. So, I really dug it, and it fit, you know, even though 28:36.635 --> 28:41.755 we you know, as you mentioned, the story isn't anything of in-depth or that you even really 28:41.755 --> 28:47.740 need in this sort of game. But, I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I think it did a really good job 28:47.740 --> 28:49.120 as a companion piece. 28:49.500 --> 28:55.255 Chris Osborne: I wish more things would follow this example and do something directly related to a comic run. 28:56.034 --> 28:56.914 Lex W: Yeah. Same. 28:56.914 --> 29:03.250 Chris Osborne: Do something a little older side plot kind of thing, because I would hate to have I I would 29:03.250 --> 29:08.985 think that a writer would hate to have to write around a game that may or may not actually happen 29:08.985 --> 29:10.924 the way that they're being told it'll happen. 29:12.265 --> 29:21.180 Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so it's so up in the air as far as the games throughout their development 29:21.400 --> 29:26.760 life that it would be probably be a nightmare to try to focus your run around that. It would 29:26.760 --> 29:34.245 have to be like a yeah. I agree. The doing it off of, like, a well known older story would serve 29:34.245 --> 29:37.030 it better. That would be cool. 29:37.030 --> 29:43.035 Chris Osborne: Ignoring every other X men game that exists, if you knew somebody who wanted to get into X men, 29:43.115 --> 29:46.015 would you hand them this one as a bit of a primer course? 29:46.875 --> 29:54.029 Lex W: Probably you know, honestly, I think it would work. You know, I was gonna if I'm ignoring the 29:54.029 --> 29:59.805 rest of the games, I think it would work because it's not so tied to I don't even remember if 29:59.805 --> 30:03.985 it's tied to the first two games at all. I think they tried to make it a standalone thing. And 30:04.445 --> 30:09.870 you can jump in without played the first two or actually reading operation 0 tolerance. You 30:09.870 --> 30:16.025 get the the plight of the X Men. They're wanting to be or people wanting to exterminate them. 30:16.025 --> 30:18.365 So, yeah, I think this would be a solid jumping on point. 30:18.585 --> 30:24.419 Chris Osborne: I think it's those cut scenes that really make it for me. The slowness of it might actually 30:24.480 --> 30:26.259 be a good thing at that point. 30:26.480 --> 30:26.879 Lex W: Agree. 30:26.879 --> 30:31.755 Chris Osborne: Get somebody who's not really good at fighting games, and they don't have to be so super fast with it. 30:32.215 --> 30:34.315 Lex W: Yeah. So, yeah, that was me. 30:35.495 --> 30:41.060 Chris Osborne: I just get my butt kicks. I mean, I I love them, but I can't go online and play at all. 30:41.200 --> 30:45.520 Lex W: And, like, when PlayStation 2, PlayStation it was really PlayStation 3 for me getting online, 30:45.520 --> 30:51.434 and and I thought I was good at fighting games before and then getting online and realizing 30:51.434 --> 30:56.970 that wasn't true. So I now I just put them on easy and enjoy them for what they are, unlocking 30:56.970 --> 31:02.970 all the extra skins and alternate, you know, learning all the super moves and get the joy out 31:02.970 --> 31:04.670 of that and call it a day. 31:05.355 --> 31:14.720 Chris Osborne: If you had somebody who wanted to get into X Men, what would you show them as a different comic, 31:15.260 --> 31:21.279 not from the X Men universe at all, to tell them, you know, X Men is kinda like this? 31:22.405 --> 31:31.029 Lex W: That's a good question. I would do something like, I would say, Umbrella Academy for me, would 31:31.029 --> 31:37.590 be a good comparison to what it is. You know, not exactly like it, but if you were to read Umbrella 31:37.590 --> 31:41.925 Academy first and read X Men, I think you would be able to sort of put the 2 together or Doom 31:41.925 --> 31:49.259 Patrol. But Doom Patrol gets way wackier than the X Men do. So I don't want people to some people 31:49.259 --> 31:53.279 get kind of turned off by how zany the doom Doom Patrol can get. 31:53.580 --> 31:55.120 Chris Osborne: I can see both of those, though. 31:56.154 --> 31:56.654 Lex W: Yeah. 31:57.034 --> 32:02.475 Chris Osborne: Just all of that people forced into being together and forced into being a team like that. I 32:02.475 --> 32:08.240 I think both of those will work really well. Alex, it has been great talking to you about this 32:08.240 --> 32:14.145 one. I have a feeling we're gonna talk about something else soon enough. Until then, if people 32:14.145 --> 32:16.804 wanna hear more from you, where else can they find you around the Internet? 32:17.345 --> 32:23.150 Lex W: I am usually so we have our social media accounts for our show, but that's usually just, like, 32:23.150 --> 32:29.170 update stuff. But if you want to connect with me, I am simply Wednesday poll on all the socials, 32:29.445 --> 32:34.325 and you can check out our show. It's called Wednesday Toast, a podcast about comic book stuff 32:34.325 --> 32:38.790 where we talk about all kinds of comic book related stuff. So check it out if you get a chance. 32:38.950 --> 32:42.490 Chris Osborne: That's a nice big umbrella there. I'm assuming it's on purpose. 32:43.750 --> 32:50.325 Lex W: Yeah. So our our old show, as you mentioned earlier, the Wednesday full list was strictly we 32:50.325 --> 32:55.205 would read a, comic book trade, and then we review it. And then it got to the point where we 32:55.205 --> 33:01.019 were just it didn't feel like a job, but it was sometimes, instead of just enjoying a book for 33:01.019 --> 33:06.414 what it is, we would have to, like, find points of contention. We would have to find things 33:06.414 --> 33:13.220 to, like, oh, we didn't like this because x, y, and z. And we didn't wanna do that. And anytime 33:13.220 --> 33:19.460 we would wanna review a game or a movie that came out, our, you know, our numbers would dip. 33:19.460 --> 33:24.655 So we wanted to create a new show where we just talked we just this is it. If we talk about 33:24.655 --> 33:28.335 all kinds of comic book related stuff. So if you're coming to listen to the show, it's gonna 33:28.335 --> 33:35.200 be something, Whether it be a comic book review or a game review or we're talking about a topic 33:35.200 --> 33:40.485 that was funny on social media that week, we just wanted to open it up and have a little bit 33:40.485 --> 33:41.445 more fun with it. 33:41.445 --> 33:45.765 Chris Osborne: It's been a fun show so far. So everybody who hasn't listened to it, you should fix that and 33:45.765 --> 33:46.745 go listen to it. 33:46.899 --> 33:47.559 Lex W: I appreciate 33:48.100 --> 33:52.019 Chris Osborne: that. As always, if you wanna hear more from me, you could head on over to playcomics.com, and 33:52.019 --> 33:56.975