Join host Matt Miller in an enlightening conversation with Jed Shaffer, co-host of First Gen Gamers, as they delve into the fascinating evolution of video game consoles. From the groundbreaking Magnavox Odyssey to the cutting-edge systems of today, Jed and Matt explore the rich history and innovative advancements that have shaped the gaming industry.. Sit back, relax, and get ready to embark on a nostalgic trip down memory lane as they discuss the pivotal moments and technological marvels that have made gaming such an integral part of our lives. Don't miss out on this informative and entertaining discussion that's sure to captivate both seasoned gamers and newcomers alike.

Welcome to the podcast everyone today I'm talking a video game history with Mr. Jed Schaefer. He's the cohost of first gen gamers podcast where he and Ashley talk about video game history. Welcome to the podcast, Jed.

Thank you, Matt. Pleasure to be on. Love talking about video game history and celebrating the crazy history of video games.

Yeah, there's quite, man, there is quite a lot of it and we get more and more by the month. It seems like now, look, Jen, looking a little bit at your bio, you have twin boys. I have twin daughters. So.

Those are my oldest two. Ooh. So you know the twin struggle.

So, we got a little, yeah, my, my twins are 19. How old are yours?

They just turned 18 in April.

Okay, there you go. Similar minor. Just they just ripped out are the are yours. Did they graduate or graduate? Were they seniors?

They will be graduating in the fall. They had some COVID set them back. So yeah, they'll be graduating. They have to do like a semester in the fall and then they'll be good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, I'm going to pause real quick. Let me fix my light. It seemed dark for some reason.

Okay.

here we go. Yeah. I don't know. My light just, just decided to go dark for a second.

Yeah, I noticed it went dim and then, I don't, who knows?

It was like a light switch. Yeah. you're right about COVID and affecting students. it wasn't much, I teach elementary music and so, but my girls were, they were in high school when it hit and, a lot of their, a lot of their colleagues, struggled quite a bit. There was a, it was, it was weird. with how they handled everything we could, you could have a whole podcast series just on that.

See?

yeah, absolutely. Years of discussion.

Ugh.

my God. so do your boys play video games?

yeah, the whole family is both the older boys, my younger boy. My wife is pretty much only games on her phone, but she has played on console games. But yeah, we're every boy in the house is a gamer of different. We all have different tastes as well.

Right.

Yeah, my my

Yeah. My first, my, my first twin, my first born, she's the gamer. She plays quite a bit and, my son plays quite a bit, but my other, my other daughter, not so much. And then, yeah, my wife is just on her phone, but she won't touch a console though. But I'll tell you what she loves. If the game has a good storyline, my wife will just sit and watch, whatever somebody's playing. She did that when we were going through last of us.

And, and just watched, cause it was, I mean, it was so good with the mix of gameplay and storytelling sort of, you know, all woven together. It was almost like watching a movie the whole time.

Yep. I, before, before we rearranged everything and, and I, in the house and I had, and I moved all my consoles into an office, they were down in the main living room, for the longest time. And sometimes my wife would sit there and she would get engrossed in, you know, a very story heavy video game. And she would even kind of co -pilot, you know, I would get stuck in like a puzzle room or something and she'd go, have you checked?

Yeah.

Right, right, right.

Have you checked out that corner, that ledge over there? It's glowing.

All right. Backseat driver. Don't tell me what I'm doing. so one thing I like to do is, I like to Google my guests and to see, what other judge Schafer's are doing in the world. I don't know if you've ever Googled yourself to see what others, so the first few, there was a documentary filmmaker and a photographer and, there is a.

I have.

a newly graduated, football player from slippery rock high school. He's a running back and you were number five on my Google search. So congrats on being like on the first page. Yeah. I don't, I went through myself today and I don't know how many more choices, more choices, more choices. I kept hitting. I never did find me.

alright.

Woohoo!

There's so many Matt Millers, as you might as well call me, John Smith. there's a ton of us out there.

Yeah, I have the benefit of having an unusual spelling of my last name and an unusual first name just straight up, so.

Right. Yeah. But I was like, wow, he's number five. I was like, what do I gotta do to get like this in the top 10? It's like, I'm going to do a lot more. Cause there's a Matt Miller that, the spokesperson for the state department or department of defense. And there's a Matt Miller on ESPN. He's an NFL analyst and those two jokers, they are, they're like the top four things that come up. It's just all their stuff. So.

I was sitting here going, I know a Matt Miller. Where do I know a Matt Miller from? I think it's the, yeah, I think that's it.

Yep. Probably ESPN.

Yep. He's an, he's got a, he's got a podcast with ESPN. He's got, he's an analyst. So he's on sports center and shows. He pops up during NFL season. Yeah, man. He's so I was like, well, I got to do a lot more. I have to hopefully get famous for good reasons and not bad reasons. My name will pop up.

I can attribute mine to having a couple of podcasts and for having written for a wrestling website for about a decade.

Right. All right. It's Jed. So I always like to start at the beginning. So where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born 1977 in Oregon. Little tiny town called West Lynn. It's just a suburb of Oregon City. So in the north northwestern area. Grew up there for in Oregon and in that surrounding area for about 24 years. Met my wife in 2001 over AOL instant messenger.

Wow.

my goodness. He was matchmaking before it was popular. Wow. Yeah.

Yep. and it was a random find too. She found me. It was just one of those, you know, back in the day when you would find a profile and you would just chat someone up for, you know, for the fun of it. one. Yeah. And one thing led to another. we, we first talked in March of 01, I came out to visit her in Michigan in June of 01. She came out to visit me and.

when there was no rules.

August of 01, where I proposed, I moved out to Michigan the next month. Been here ever since, about a half hour north of Detroit.

Wow.

Well, when you know, you know, that's for sure. My wife and I, we were high school sweethearts. So we've been together for quite a, for a little minute, but, yeah, before, yeah, before the dawns of the internet. So that's probably what saved us. So let's talk about your podcast a little bit, before we get into games, you're not new to podcasts. You've, you've done a little bit already, but your current podcast is called first gen gamers. what?

Yeah?

Hehehehe

Yes.

What made you decide to get that one started?

So, obviously, I'm a lifelong gamer. I've been gaming since the early 80s. I follow a lot of video game medias, as dedicated gamers tend to do. And one of the things that I noticed that was really common, whether it was website or whether it was a YouTube channel, a lot of content revolves around lists, which is not uncommon to any, you know, movies, music, fashion.

Top 10 lists are the currency of journalism on the internet. But what I noticed was that a lot of the lists gravitated towards the modern. So if you said top five action games, it would be like God of War, Tomb Raider, Last of Us, and then thrown in there at the end would be like, and Castlevania. And.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Right, right.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, right.

The old man in me was like, but there's so many good games that this is overlooking. There's so much history and you're celebrating like the last decade? Yeah. And so that got me thinking. And I came upon the idea of the best way to represent history would be rather than going a top five or a top 10 list would be to pick a topic, but go generation.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

console generation by console generation. So if you say best action game, start with the second generation. You know, you're Atari and you're in television and stuff like that and pick one from that generation and then move on to the next and then and so on. And that I find that gives a more broad view of history. It gives a more it gives more of an opportunity to find some hidden gems and things that may have been overlooked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, as I was developing it, I was like, do I want to do this as a YouTube channel? Do I want to do it as a podcast? Do I want to write this? And podcasting just became the, the, the, what I felt like was the best method. Cause I could debate it with someone.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great stuff. And, your, your episodes are great. I love all the stuff you give you and Ashley get into your cohost. What can listeners expect to hear on one of your episodes?

It's all, I mean, we never get heated. it's, it's friendly banter because this is, I mean, even if the topic is negative, because gaming isn't always a positive thing. there's definitely darker moments or just failures or whatnot, but nevertheless, we are always looking at video game history from start to finish. And when we nominate a game, so, you know, the format we do, whatever the topic is.

I'll pitch my idea, Ashley will pitch her idea. We talk about it a little bit. We don't like settle on which one's better. It's just more of a here's our pitches. The listeners are, you know, inclined to, you know, if they want to email us or follow us on social media and comment on it, that's perfectly welcome. but it's friendly banter. It's, it's giving a couple of nominees and, and justifying them, not just going.

Right, right.

Super Mario 3 is the best platformer of the Nintendo era. It's why is this nominee, you know, trying some of it's going to be emotional, some of it's going to be subjective. But, you know, if there's objective things that you could bring that we can bring to the table, we try and bring that to it's it's the topic really dictates a lot of the course of the conversation.

Yeah. Why is it right?

Right. Yeah. So if you are a fan of video games and you like hearing other people talk about video games and not just the current ones, but, but back in the day games as well. First gen gamers is your place to go to, to get all that good history and maybe learn some stuff you may not have known, beforehand. how often do you and Ashley, post up episodes?

So Ashley has been having some challenges with recording. So we haven't had a regular schedule since she came on yet, but she's getting, her runway is gonna be cleared here very shortly. I think at the start of July, we'll be able to get on a regular schedule and the plan is to have episodes every two weeks.

All right. I love it, sir. So let's start getting into some video games here. So this is going to be fun because you sound like you're going to just destroy me with your knowledge here. All right. So let's pull our gamer cards out and see how they match up. How old were you when you got your first console? And what was it? And what was your favorite game on it?

Hehehehehe

All right.

I was four or five, somewhere around there. first console was the Intellivision.

Yep.

If you haven't played that console, there are compilations available for all of the major modern consoles. Don't feel bad about not having to use the controller from the Intellivision. It was a monstrosity. It was ugly. It looked like a phone. It didn't have a D -pad. It had this weird dial that you kind of pressed.

Yeah, it was really big.

I had a, yep, a dial you would turn and press and yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's very awkward. Favorite game on the Intellivision?

man, I can't even, I'm struggling to think of games from back then, probably something like Pitfall.

Yeah. Yeah. Mine was an Atari and I think I had, I think my brain remembers the 4 ,800. It wasn't the 2 ,600. I think that was the first one, but maybe would be the following. Yeah. I had a second generation Atari and my favorite on there was a dig, Doug. And, and I think there's a game on there called burger time. I really liked it.

5200 would be the would be the follow -up. Yep.

I love Dirt Dump.

Yup! Love me some burger time!

Yeah, we have the guy that would have to knock the blocks down and make the patties. And I think there are some bad guys that followed you around. You had to avoid or something.

Yep, little pickles and for some reason eggs, like a sunny side up egg and a hot dog. All natural things you find on hot dogs, on hamburgers.

Yep. There was an egg that chased you, wasn't it? Yeah, that was weird. Yes.

Yeah. But man, I really did love some dig, duck. I played that a ton. Just trying to see how far I could go and get there. All right. so yeah, you beat me with the Intellivision. That was a one of the that and Atari were the first two that came up. do you know the name of the very first, home console video game system?

You and me, you and me both.

if we, if we're not counting pong consoles, because those are kind of those were part of the first gen, but those were, that was one game built into a unit. So I, and there was like a hundred, everyone made a pong console, like Sears made a pong console. if so, if we're talking one that had interchangeable games, the first one would be the Magnavox Odyssey.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Right.

Yep.

Yes, you got it, sir. I had to, most of this I was learning as I was researching for us today. I was like, I've never heard of that. I just had to look up pictures and see what it looked like.

I've never been able to play one. I've always wanted to. I mean, I know that...

Video games are weird in that, like, when you compare them to anything else, the medium, not only does the art form grow, but the medium in which you use it changes. Like movies, movies are movies. You could watch, you could watch Jurassic Park and you could watch a Charlie Chaplin movie and you do it the same way. And they both came up, they both come out in the same, you know, the input and the output are both the same.

Yes.

Yeah.

Same, yes.

Video games aren't. So the Odyssey is like so prehistoric and so different from anything that came after it. It's like cave drawings compared to Leonardo da Vinci. It's just, it's so archaic.

Yeah. No. Yes.

Yes.

and to have, to have the, the mechanics that still work to play that game. And then the level of adapters you would need, if you wanted to have a real Magnavox as it was meant to be played, and define that old technology to play it on, that would be a little tough.

yeah, you'd need to CRT TV. I don't know that there's like, I know that for a lot of the more popular retro consoles now, there are homebrew solutions for adapting to like HDMI or there are third party companies that make like an aftermarket recreation of the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo stuff like that. But no one's doing that for the Odyssey. So it's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

You either find the original hardware in working order with a CRT TV or you're out of luck.

Yeah.

Yeah, no one's, I don't, I haven't heard of anybody, bringing those games back and putting them on a little pocket system for you to play at home.

No. And if there's an emulator out there for it, I would be surprised. That would be a very niche interest.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Colecovision.

Mm -hmm.

My neighbor down the street got a Nintendo. I lived in California at the time. I'm in North Carolina now, but his parents got him a Nintendo. And when I saw duck hunt, my mind was just blown. I was like, what? You can point, you can shoot and it works. How does that happen? That's magic.

I had a buddy that got the Nintendo the year that it launched, 85. I didn't get mine until 86. I made so many excuses to go over to his house to play, to play Duck Hunt, to play Mario Brothers. His parents got him the $179 deluxe pack. So it had robbed the robot. Yeah, it had, so he had...

Yeah.

Yeah, I was like that too.

Yeah.

I didn't know that one.

What was the game that came with it? I think it was Gyromite. He never wanted to play it. I was like, dude, just set up the robot one time. I wanna try this. He would never set it up.

Yeah.

right man they did have a lot of like adaptive controllers for different games too nintendo did that first time around there was a bit if i remember right yeah

yeah, they video games just went so crazy. The business exploded so fast and everyone wanted to get a piece of the action. So they were everyone so many different tech companies, toy companies, random companies that you wouldn't think had anything to do with video games or trying to get in on the action. So you had stuff like the U -Force, which kind of looked like electronic battleship. And you theoretically like.

Yep.

Yeah.

punched in front of it and it was supposed to censor your movement. It didn't. It was terrible. The power glove, legendarily.

No, yeah, I bet so.

Hard. I remember the power gloves. Yes. That looked awesome, but it was probably awful. Yeah.

yeah, it has no it is so unresponsive. There was one controller called the rolling rocker. Do you remember Pogo balls? It looked like.

Yeah, FSA.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. no. Now I know. I remember it now. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, looked like a pogo ball that you stood on and you rocked back and you rocked forward to move up or forward. Down, left, right. It was so like, it became an exercise toy. It was just terrible.

Yep.

Yeah. They're trying, they're trying to make, trying to make haptic suits before they even knew what those were. yeah. My was, 87, I think when I got my Nintendo, my parents, they moved us out here to North Carolina. And I think they felt bad with that culture shock from going from Los Angeles to a small town in North Carolina. They blanketed me with presence. I was like 11.

Right?

I remember that year I was like, you know, I was like, what is this? I was like, I legit almost asked him if they're getting divorced because it was that many gifts down there. I was like, what's going on? That never happens. yeah. But that first Nintendo, I played the mess out of it. did you play through and finish, Mike Tyson's punch punch punch out.

Hehehe

No, not only did I never finish it, I wasn't able to beat Mr. Sandman until my mid -30s.

that was like the hardest thing. I would get to like, I don't even know who the fourth guy was, but that was about, if I got to the fourth guy, I was doing good.

What's really interesting is to watch speed runners. Go on YouTube and watch a speed runner of Mike Tyson.

Yeah.

I saw somebody doing that. It's crazy.

Yeah, the people who do that have broken down the game into such a fine science. Like they are frame perfect with their movements and their timing. They know that one punch, I want to say the right punch is one frame shorter than the left punch. So if they're going for speed, the right punch is better for speed running because it saves frames, you know, accumulative over time. It's...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It is amazing to watch them, but also at the same time, at the same time you go, you could have put that time into something else.

And that's what

Right. But now those people, man, they can make, they make a living off of doing that and doing it live on any kind of social media and stream it. People watch it's a, it's crazy how all that's kind of shifted around now. after Nintendo, we had Sega in 1989. That came out. That's where we got, Mortal Kombat and Sonic the Hedgehog came from them. I never had.

Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Nintendo, the first Nintendo was the only system I owned until I was an adult. My parents, you know, we went back, we only had the one year of mega presence. And after that, it was down to the bare minimum. So, I would have to go to friend's house to see other systems and other games for the longest time. But I remember Mortal Kombat, just being shocked at like the finishing moves. That was crazy. For the day.

yeah, the blood code. I think it's ABBACAB, if I'm not mistaken. Hadagenesis, got it. It launched late 89. I got it Easter of 1990. So within six months of launch.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Then we got mega, yeah, loved it. It was, it had a lot of, a lot of hits on it, especially Sonic that has such a long following to it.

absolutely loved it.

For the 2D consoles, I'll say for pre -2000 consoles even, because I think that's got like a nice clean delineation point that you can make. The consoles after 2000 are just of a different breed. They're more refined. The ones before that were more experimental and honing the craft. For pre -2000s, Sega Genesis is my console. That is...

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Your go -to.

Yeah, if I want to, if I, I mean there's, there's a ton of games on NES, there's good games on the Atari, there's good games on other systems of that era, but if, but usually if I'm feeling in a retro game mood, my brain first jumps to Sega Genesis.

Yeah.

I worked for a video store in the 90s and we would rent out game systems for people to take home and we had a Sega. It was the next level Sega. I'm trying to remember what it was after Genesis. Saturn maybe. Yeah, we had a Saturn that we would rent out. That was pretty popular too.

Saturn.

in 93, we got the mega Genesis. we, yeah. Okay. hold on. I'm getting ahead of my list here. I almost forgot 1990. The super NES came out, Nintendo new version. and then we all got introduced to Mario cart came on that one.

Hehe.

and hate it and got into so many fistfights because of that.

Yes, my neighbors got it and I swear we'd go over there and it was like, it was like fist fights to get a turn to play. Cause there was like six kids in that family and I was like, come on man, let me in, let me in.

And then as you're playing, you know, you get the one kid who's throwing a blue shell. You're like, if you throw one, one, blue shell.

Loved it.

right yep or knock you off right at the end yeah there was a lot of fights off of mario karts that's for sure mega genesis in 93 and i don't know much about the mega genesis did you play one

Mm -hmm.

I'm not familiar with Omega Genesis.

That was in the notes here that I got. But then in 95 though, we got PlayStation, CD games, loads, better graphics, more complex, longer playing games. And it took over the market by, by storm. I remember the video store PlayStation was, I was by far the leader in games. We would run out.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep, I started that generation with the Sega Saturn. That market -wise speaking, I was definitely backing the wrong horse. The Saturn had great games, but it was poorly marketed, poorly supported by both Sega and third party. I didn't get a PlayStation until 97.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah.

but I mean, yeah, it was, it was the system. It was me and my buddies all had one. We all, you know, if he had a game that I didn't, we would trade sometimes we would, you know, we would go over to each other's house. I have so many memories tied to that. like NBA live 97 was a big game for me and my buddies. We would, we would turn off all the rules, no goaltending, no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right?

No out of bounds. So basically it was basketball plus Street Fighter. And we would just blitz. We play as teammates and we would win like 400 to 12.

Yeah. Love it.

That's awesome. Yeah, man. PlayStation just had bonkers number of games to come out with it too. I mean, just it was a slew of games.

Yeah, it is. I mean, there's so many there's so many franchises that either got got their start there or got turbocharged, you know, whether it was Final Fantasy going crazy with Final Fantasy seven Metal Gear becoming Metal Gear Solid Castlevania with Symphony of the Night, you know, becoming pretty much founding the Metroidvania genre like the the PlayStation, the original PlayStation is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Yes.

It is a landmark console.

Right. For sure. Nintendo 64 comes out to not wanting PlayStation to take everything over. golden eye was their flagship game for that. I remember playing a ton of golden eye in college. Cause at a 96, I was in college then. yeah, we played a ton of golden eye. That was a big one for sure.

I couldn't play GoldenEye. Something about the perspective and when they would move there would be like tracers or like, you know, or like mouse trails kind of. That game made me motion sick. So I, yeah, I couldn't play it.

Yeah.

my goodness. My problem was, is it was like the first game that would split your screen in the four, you know, which was great. Cause you could play with buddies, but, most of us had small screens, right? The, the bit, it wasn't the dawn of the big screen TV. Like everyone's got a huge thing now. so we're all like, you know, on a 13 inch thing, all huddled up and you got just a little square trying to look in it.

Mm -hmm.

It's like trying to play - Right, it's like looking at a matchbook for a video game screen.

Yes. right. So it was fun, but, yeah, not a lot of other games to the split screen stuff until later, I think just because of that same reason. Now I got my notes. Go ahead.

Yeah, it, yeah, no, it was, it only did that split screen co -op thing only lasted for so long and partially because the internet would eliminate the need for it in about, you know, six, seven years.

yeah, yeah, pretty, pretty much. and then I got next, there wasn't much going on that was sort of 64 and PlayStation sort of riding the market. Tell one, when we got the X -Box comes in, Microsoft decides it's going to jump in there and get a little piece of the pie. And first online play with X -Box.

Yep.

And I remember that being huge. People get an X -Box and playing with folks from wherever. halo, the met the flagship game for that. I had an X -Box. It was the first thing I, one of the first systems I bought as an adult, we had an X -Box and I didn't play halo though. I got it because of rock band and we'd sit and play everything. Yeah, we did it. They give play rock band. I was teaching.

Hey, I love rock band.

high school marching band. And at the end of the year, when it's like exam time, but you know, it's marching band, we're not taking exams and marching band. So, kids would come in. I had him bring in game systems and we'd set them up around the room and people would play, but we played Xbox on the big projector screen. I had my room and, we put rock band up there and the band would all get around and take turns playing. And I thought that was so great.

So much so that he get one for my house and get it with the family.

We have, we still have our copy of Rock Band, Rock Band 2, one of them for the, for the Wii. I think we, over time we downloaded something like 80 additional songs. We even tried, there's a challenge called the ultimate playlist where you have to play all whatever it is, 82, some 90, whatever, all the songs that come on the disc.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have to play them all sequentially, no pausing.

That's forever, man. That's a long concert. Yeah.

yeah, we, we failed. We got, we got three or four songs away from the end, but we had friends over so that we were like cycling out. No. Yeah. Cause you know, this person's throat gets tired. This person gets tired playing the drums. You got to, you know, got to freshen up. But, people just started falling asleep. Cause we, it was like three, it was.

Take it turns. There you go.

Yep.

Do you still have the equipment for rock band?

Yep, down to the basement.

Yep. I don't know how many of those, the drum pad setups like are on the side of the road, people tossing out and cleaning out.

Right? Thing is, if you go to a secondhand store, they go for quite a bit of money because a lot of people did just get rid of them. So there's not as many of them as you think they were. They a guitar hero guitar or rock band guitar, the drum set. You're looking like a hundred dollars a piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. you're not made anymore. So you gotta, you gotta deal with what's left out there, man. There's a limited supply.

Yep.

All right. So Nintendo comes out with the cube. It's been a minute since they had a new system. I don't think the cube was a big hit for Nintendo. If I'm trying to remember. Yeah.

No, it was actually, as of now, it is their second lowest selling console. I love, the GameCube's got a great library. No, it, Nintendo made several mistakes that generation. It just, it wasn't strong enough to keep up with Xbox or PlayStation 2. They went with a proprietary media format that,

Yeah, I remember at the video store, we didn't do a lot of cubes. Yeah.

Yeah.

DVDs were really starting to explode at that point and not embracing DVD technology was just stupid. Yeah, it was so they just made some design choices that handicapped the capability of the system, which is a shame because the system's got, it's got a surprise, it's one of those libraries where it's not deep, but it's wide, you know?

Yeah, let's set them back. Yep. That's set them back.

Right.

It's not 2 ,000 games strong, but the games that it has, the ratio of knockouts to bad games is way in favor of the knockouts. There's so many great games on.

Yeah. the Xbox three 60 comes out and proves it's online play. I skipped over one, after the cube PS two comes out. and what's great about the PS two is you can play all your old PS one games on it. That was very smart, very smart by them. and so that continues it's run. Nintendo comes out with the DS and,

Mm -hmm. Yep.

They've had the market on the portable gaming for, for a minute. Then the DS was, was super, well, the game boy was good. I didn't put that on here, but, the Nintendo DS was very popular. I had a ton of high school kids that had DS is all the time getting taken away because they'd bring them in. Try, try to bring them in and play in the middle class or something like that. Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

I believe it. Absolutely believe it.

If you look at the console sales charts, if you take handheld consoles into account, the DS and the variations thereof, the DS, the DSi, the 3DS and the 2DS, all of those, the DS is either the second best -selling console or the first best -selling console. I can't quite remember, but it moved so many units. It was ridiculous.

Yep, there's a lot.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. cheaper than a regular at home console, but could play just probably about as many games as well. Super popular. And you could buddy up with them too. If I remember right to the DS is you could hook them up or something with a friend or something and play side by side.

Mm -hmm. Yep.

The first DS I think required a link cable. After that, starting with the DS, the revision that was the DSI, that was when they introduced online capability with them and you could just link them that way online. And from then on, that's all you needed. You could do game share with that. So, you know, like if I had a sports game and you didn't and, you know, we were sitting right next to each other, you didn't need it.

Yep.

link them that way. Yeah.

You could play as second player without it because it shared the game quote unquote just by just by you linking up to mine and sharing the game.

Nice.

Nice. That's smart too. Smart too. Yeah. Xbox 360 comes out, better online play wireless controllers. That was a, probably a huge, huge selling point for that. call of duty, the flagship game for that in five. I got a story of my neighbor across the street. he,

My, his kids and mine born at the same time. So my girls were over at his house playing with his daughter. And I'm going over there to go walk across street and go pick them up. And I can hear them playing. Ka 'ila always played call duty and I could hear him yelling, cussing, screaming, you know, at the TV. So he's playing I'm knocking on the door and I can see in and he's just on the couch. He's, you know,

shaking his fists and yelling at people and I'm knocking on the door. Finally, I just walk into the house, the doors open and he's on the couch. He's got no idea. I'm standing right behind him. And I looked down the hall and there's my kids playing. I'm like, all right, time to come home. He has no idea what's going on. I'm literally like two feet behind him, just right there. He never, he never even knew we came in with me and he had no clue.

That's...

Sadly, that's common now. Like, I can go into my basement and I, and you know, one kid is earphones on, nose in his laptop playing Roblox or something. And the other one is same thing, but he's playing Rainbow Six or Call of Duty or GTA Online. And I could throw a hand grenade down there and they wouldn't, you know. Scarlett Johansson could walk through there in a bikini and they'd just be.

Yeah.

Yep. Nope. Nope. Yeah. I thought that was like, man, I could have robbed your whole place and you would have never even known. I bet I could have moved furniture and you had no idea. That was so funny. so after that, Nintendo Wii comes out in 06. We had a Wii at the house. it was probably one of the worst decisions I ever made because my son became

that pans on controller, not paying attention.

Yep.

Matt Miller (40:10.996)

My son became addicted and the, we had this feature. well, you could like talk to people through the controller and whoever you're playing with online. I need to get so mad at other people. I ended up having to just take that thing away, man. He could take it, but we did, but we did enjoy my girls would play on the Wii games. It was like sword fighting with the controller. they used, I thought my daughter.

I remember.

was going to punch a hole in the TV screen because she was every time she swung, she get a little closer, a little closer. And then she was right there at the screen.

So the first time I tried a Wii, a buddy of mine had gotten, he had managed to score a Wii launch day.

Wow.

He comes over, he's like, hey, I've got something, I'm going to come over, I've got something to bring over, something you're going to be interested in, and pops out the Wii. Okay, cool, let's give this a try. And so we plug it in, and all he's got is Wii Sports, which is not a knock on Wii Sports because that game is, it's still infinitely playable. And so...

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah.

You know, this is the first time playing with motion controls. We don't know any better. So they're over at our house five, six hours, and we played that Wii for probably four or five of it. And we're, you know, when we're, we don't know any better about the motion. So when we're doing, we're playing tennis, we're, you know, like, we are making a full motion to serve.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yes. Yep.

or to swing. When in bowling, we're bringing an arm all the way back and throwing it all the way forward. Baseball, we're full pitch motion. By the time we were done, my wife and I could not lift our right arms. We were like, how did we get tennis elbow from playing a video game? It wasn't until later that we learned that you could just flick with the wrist and you would get the same effect.

Right? Yep.

Right? So tired.

Right?

Too much, too much exercise.

Yep, he just do other things.

But there's no fun in that. It's fun to do the full motion.

No.

And we had just dance us and the family. We'd all do the dance moves together. There's a fun video of me. We had a neighbor over and we're having a dance off pops up on Facebook every year. those were good. we did enjoy the Wii, but we did have to wind up taking it away that I never could figure out how to turn off that online talk back and forth thing. That was nuts. PS three comes out the same year as the Wii.

and they had a free online network. You didn't have to pay to use it, but I heard it was terrible though. Yeah.

yeah, at the beginning it was just... it was not good. Even when it was... even when it was... when you had to pay it, it was... it took a long time for it to get to the level that Xbox Live was.

Right, right, right. but it's PlayStation still coming out with the killer games, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Red Dead Redemption, all with that all knockout still, you know, game after game after game with that system. and then that was an six and then there seems to be a little sort of calm before another system comes out. I've got.

discs or cartridges but was the Xbox one the first one you could like download and store a game on?

No, let's see the Xbox 360 had a hard drive The PlayStation 3 did The Wii had a very small library that you can expand or a hard drive you can expand it with an SD card Those would be the first ones but then yeah the next generation like Xbox one and such it those

Yeah, yeah, I remember.

That's still a problem that's going on today is that consoles release with far less memory than is really practical for a video game console. Even the PS5 and the Xbox series, whatever they're called, they still launched with, considering the size of games now, they launched with not nearly enough memory.

Right, right, right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, that makes you have to what by their cloud or something, I'm guessing that's there's got to be a purpose to it for sure.

Either that or you get like an external memory expansion.

Yeah, for sure.

And the Xbox and the Xbox one had other problems launching because Microsoft tried to put in a number of policies that were very unpopular. They wanted the console to be always online or else you couldn't play it, even if it wasn't an online game. Yeah, not online and even single player like you're playing just Assassin's Creed by yourself. They wanted you to have an online connection.

What? Yeah, you can't do that.

Mm.

Right.

They also had instituted a policy that, or they were going to where you couldn't, once you put the game in your system and loaded it, there was a file that was associated with that disc that it checked for it. And if it didn't find it, it wouldn't let you play that game, which meant, which meant that you couldn't loan the game to a friend and you couldn't buy used games.

that's stupid.

Yep. Yep, that's stupid.

Sony dunked on them so hard at that year's E3 with how to share games with your friends. And it's got a guy, he's holding a game and he just turns to the other guy next to him and hands him the game. It was, in that one moment, it was a bullet in the Xbox One's head. Like it just, it was so embarrassing.

Yes, they... Yeah.

Hehehehehe...

Yeah, I bet so.

Yep. PS4 comes out that same year. VR capabilities. Hittis, have you done any VR gaming? I have not, I have not done that yet.

Very very little. I have a buddy who has Not the PS VR. He has the oculus. I think Yeah, I tried I tried the oculus at his house I'm not really good with first -person perspective to begin with like I Don't play doom. I don't play halo. I don't play anything first, but you know in fallout I play it as a third in third person mode because I I

Yes, that's the Facebook thing, right? Metagame. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep. I always do that too. I use pull the camera back.

Yeah, I just, I find first person perspective limiting and a little disorienting and everything about VR is supposed to be first person. So it just, it's not. Me and VR are just not made for each other.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, I, I feel like that we're going to get way more of that stuff down the road that we've just, just barely scratched the surface of it.

Eventually, but it's still kind of niche. Like, yeah, it's still the investment cost of the upfront cost for development is just so cost prohibitive for VR. And it's so difficult to make that money back. I mean, the newest.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the moment.

Right.

or the last was the last Grand Theft Auto game had a public or a development budget of $500 million. And that game was made on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. That's like almost 20 years ago. Imagine what a game like that on VR would cost. It'd be in the billions. It would, the install base for users is just not there to support that kind of.

Wow.

Yeah.

Unbelievable. Yeah.

Yeah.

that kind of budget and that kind of return on investment. So will it grow? Yes, it's going to take a long time.

Yeah, it'll take a minute. That's for sure. let's see. PS, PS four comes out. That was the system that kind of reintroduced to me to gaming was the PS four. my son, we got one for Christmas and that the whole family just sort of would like, if he wasn't playing it, other people would take turns using the PS four.

That was the one that got me back in the game that really did it for me was ghosts of sushi.

I've not played that yet. I need to try that one.

man. Do you need to try that one? I, as a podcast, I was listening to, and the guy was, you know, as you were talking about lists before he was doing his best games for that year that he played, this was his number one. And so I was on, I guess Christmas break from school and I was like, let's try game over break. And I got that one. It is spectacular. I just replayed it.

I'm -

here recently went through the game again it's great really really good

I've heard nothing but great things about it. I don't know, I can't give you a solid reason why it slipped off my radar. Cause it looked...

Well, I can, because there's like a million fun games you want to try to play. Yeah.

You know, that's probably the best reason. I mean, right now, I've got at least a dozen games that are waiting for me to try, plus, you know, another... And that's just on the... I have three different consoles. That's just on one. That's not including games on the Switch. That's something... I've still got unplayed games on the PlayStation 3. So... There's just only so much time in the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, yeah, that's for sure. And I'm the kind of guy that I won't flip between games. If I'm playing one, that's what I'm playing until I knock that thing out, man. And I'll just play it until I finish. And then I go to another game. I can't toggle back and forth.

I do a variation of that. So there are certain games I have that I call my dropping games. Games where I can just bust out around, play it real, you know, play 15, 20 minutes, play a half an hour. I don't have to have story commitment to a story or to a narrative arc. It's just like Diablo, Diablo three, WWE wrestling.

Yes. Yeah.

NCAA football, things like that, where I can drop in, play, leave nice and easy. Those, those are always in circulation for me. But as far as a narrative game, I'm with you one at a time. I, yeah, I have to focus on that one because if I try and split my focus, I'm going to lose track of one or I'm going to get the control schemes mixed up. I'm just, I'm yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

One at a time.

That's what I'll do. Get the controls games mixed up. Yeah. For sure. I remember, like goes to Tsushima, played that. And then I jumped to something else and the controls were all different. And I was like, I'm done. I'm not playing this lame game. It's I'd spent so many hours and days on one. I was like, that's too fast to switch something else. I got, I need a break.

Yep, on the PS5, so they released God of War Ragnarok. That was one of the launch titles, which was one of my most anticipated games. That was one of the big reasons I wanted a five. So I played it. That was the first game I had because it came with my system. First thing I played, beat it, set it, and I was done. So I started moving on something else, played Ratchet and Clank and then something else. And then Sony goes, yeah, we're

we're releasing DLC for Ragnarok. We're going to have this new part of it that's a roguelike. So now it's constantly resetting levels, but there's a whole new extra narrative chapter. I'm like, great, I've got to go back and learn, relearn the control scheme because I'm three games down the road now. I can't remember how to play that.

Yes.

Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, I agree, man. I definitely agree. let's see. So, so after PS4, Xbox answers back in 16 with the one S and they include streaming and 4k abilities. PS4 says, you know, hold my beer. We can do the same thing. Release the same system, but

but all that same stuff. It's probably cheaper not to have to reinvent the whole wheel, just make your wheel better.

Yeah, that's really all it was.

Yeah. Yeah. Nothing new. Nothing new. but in 17 Xbox one X, upgrades even more and they're processing abilities. but still kind of the same thing, just making it better and better and better. but then we get the Nintendo switch and that was one system that we did get in the house. My kids were super excited about getting a switch.

And I was like, what do you want like a portable device for? And I was like, don't you want something you can like play on the TV? you can do that too, daddy. I was like, what? You can carry it around or play it on the TV. And so we got one and we play Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and I was sold, man.

The Switch is probably the biggest moment I have as a gamer where I stuck my foot in my mouth all the way up to my head. I remember when that thing got announced and they went over the details of it and how it would work, how you could plug it into the little cradle and boom, it's on the TV. You could take it out of the cradle, boom, it's in your hand. Seamless transition. And I looked at it and went, who'd want that?

Yep.

Yep.

What what market are they trying? What non -existent market are they trying to hit? This makes no sense. well, it's only like the second best homes, you know, selling home console of all time. I guess they found their market and I'm one of them. I ended up getting one. And yeah, that being able to play on the go, like I had an appointment earlier today. I took it with.

Right?

Yep. Right.

Yep.

sitting in the waiting room, sitting in the car, get in a quick round of Super Mario Wonder. Nintendo has finally figured out, and especially with the Switch, it is much better. Let Xbox and PlayStation slug it out for the hardcore gamer, heavy air quotes.

Right.

Let them slug it out on that battlefield. Let them go, we've got this much horsepower. we've got that. And Nintendo can go, look, we've got this game system that fits into your life in this way and offers games you won't get anywhere else. What do you think of that? We may not be the strongest, but we've got the best curated experience and we've got characters that you grew up with. What?

Yep.

Yes.

Do you want that? And everyone just goes, yeah, cool. Give me. It's brilliant. It is an absolutely brilliant marketing strategy.

Yeah. Yeah. We, we definitely got one here at the house and everybody was playing stuff on it. And, and my daughter, there's something else that's coming out for the switch that she was excited to get. I don't remember what a game it was. I'll have to, I'll have to ask her about that. Cause right now.

There's all, I mean, there's all sorts of stuff coming up for now. Even though they've, even though the switch to is supposedly coming out next year, Nintendo just had a pre there, a Nintendo direct, which is like their periodic press conference of look what the games that are coming out. and they, they announced a new Mario RPG game. They announced a new legend of Zelda game where you play as Zelda for the first time.

Yeah.

I think that was it. I think it was the Zelda game that she's she's a big Zelda fan. Yeah.

It looks so charming. Like, I'm not a huge Zelda fan. I like a couple of the old games, but I'm not a big Zelda fan. But this one looks so interesting. They announced a new Metroid game. They went out. They were like, this may be the final year, but we're going out guns blazing.

Right, right, right, right. the second Zelda game, my daughter really liked it. I had a hard time getting into it. It was too, too puzzle oriented for me. It was too much how to figure out how to go here and take this and move that and make these and get all these little puzzles to go. I was like, I just want more bashing heads in man.

You're talking about tears of the kingdom Yeah, my my problem I'm not this is not knocking the quality of either game because both games are amazingly crafted the imagination and the freedom that those games allow you is mind -boggling like those are the though when when someone says open -world genre that game those two games really

Yeah, tears the kingdom. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

to capture the idea of an open world because you can do anything in any order at any time, no matter what. That's my problem. I need. I need structure. I need a storyline. I need to know you go to point A, then point B, then point C. The story progresses thus. I can't do open world. It just there's the freedom. Is too much. I end up wandering so.

Yes, they do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. If you got a good bit of ADD, the open world games are going to take you twice as long.

Yeah, it's the same reason I couldn't get into Skyrim. I haven't even bothered with Witcher 3. I haven't bothered with Grand Theft Auto V because it's too much. Just, yeah, just give me a narrative to follow.

to open.

Yeah. That's what I liked about last of us on PS4. It felt open world, but it wasn't you still, you had a path. You weren't going to get lost. You weren't going to wander too much. so I really appreciate it felt like open world, but you, it wasn't though you had, you had an area to wander in.

Yeah, I think the most like. If there's a little openness, I don't mind it like the Spider -Man game. I haven't played the sequel yet, but Spider -Man and Spider -Man, Miles Morales are just open enough where. You feel the openness makes you feel like you're in a real location, but it isn't so much that I need to look at every building and I need to do, you know, I need to go everywhere. It's there's still.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yes.

Right.

There's still a story that you follow and the side missions are elective. You don't feel like you have to do them, but you can if you want, but it's not here's 300 side missions. It's it's here's four.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Right. Here's your main storyline. And there's these three side things you can do. I really love spider, man. That was a lot of fun. I haven't played the second I've got the second one, but like I said, I got to do it. I can't, I got to finish one before I start another.

yeah.

Yeah, Spider -Man 2 is next on my list. I'm working on a game right now. I can't start Spider -Man 2, same as you. I can't start that one until I finish the one I'm working on.

Yep. And then last, and 2020 PS5 releases. and it's got all kinds of stuff added onto it besides being the fastest loading console. You got your mic is, no more. You don't have to wear headphones. It's right there. And your controller, it's got all kinds of wireless stuff going on. And we have three PS fives in the house. If you can believe that.

I never thought I'd see today we have, but we've got my, my daughter, my son and myself all have one. So there's no sharing.

I've got a PS5, my kids have PS4s. My youngest got my PS4 when I upgraded. And he's perfectly happy with it right now. He's not like, I need the five because frame rate or whatever. He's just like, I've got a PS4, awesome.

You're right.

Right. A lot of stuff to play. He hasn't played yet. Probably.

Yeah, it's his first PlayStation, so he's just, he's over the moon with it. The older two want to upgrade and we've told them, they're $500 consoles, you're 18, go get a job.

Yeah.

Yes. Go get a job. Yep. Yeah. My daughter bought hers. She works. She bought one. wait. And I take that back. Me and her sister bought her one for Christmas. We split the cost for that. And my son, yeah, with that one was like a, that was a Christmas present too. That was like a grandparent combo kind of gift.

And then I just bought one myself because that's what I, I unfortunately do too much, but I just get something cause I like it.

Yeah, I same, you know, every console that I've had, like the last console that my parents bought me was the Sega Saturn. That was I was about turning 18. That was a Christmas gift. After that, I have bought either I have bought every console or my wife bought it for me for Christmas or as a gift of some kind, which still comes back to me buying it. It's just she's spending the money. So.

Right.

Right. Yeah.

So I don't feel bad telling them, no, you go get a job. You go do it.

Yep. Go get a job. I love that. Yep. so what do you think is going to be controllers in the next 10, 15 years? Where do you think they're moving to?

What do you think's the next big change?

I think the next big change... Okay, so let's partition Nintendo off because Nintendo is the quirky kid. And I have no idea what they're doing. Nintendo... and I love that fact. Nintendo is always full of surprises. I don't know what the Switch 2 will do. I'm very curious to see. But as far as the other two...

Okay.

Yes.

and PC gaming to an extent, but more, I'm a console person. So I think that.

That is more headed in a direction that I really don't want it to, which is more embracing cloud gaming. I really don't like that idea. I like ownership. I like saying my, I can't say 50 bucks anymore, no games 50 bucks, my 70 bucks equals this copy of whatever, that's mine. Now I don't...

Yeah.

No.

Right.

I get the appeal of something like Xbox Live. Ten bucks and you get a lot of Netflix of games. If you have the time to play all those, hey, good for you. I don't. It's not a value proposition for me. But I see the value in it for people who can make the most of it. But I don't like the idea of games moving towards that more and losing tangible ownership.

Right. Yeah, sort of a subscription -based gaming.

But yeah, but unfortunately I think that's where it's headed.

Well, I think they're all, they know they'll get more money that way. Cause somebody might save up for however long it takes to pay 70 bucks for a game. And they can only do that every once in a while, but, you can pay $30 or $25 or $20 a month every month. And you can have access to all kinds of games like a Netflix.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, and I, as a business, from a business standpoint, I totally get it. It is casting a wider net. It is lowering the price point. Completely understand it from a business standpoint. It's just something I'll never be able to embrace. I will, I will.

Yeah.

Well, it's the same thing with like CDs. Like I threw away all my CDs. I was like, they're all on my phone. I don't need a physical CD anymore. Music is now cloud -based.

I'm so old school. Here's my iPod.

Yep. No, nice. I love it.

I refuse to stream music. I just, I want, I want to buy the album. I want to have the album on something where I can go, okay, I want to hear Nirvana right now. Boop, there smells like teen spirit. That's just, again, it's a tangible thing. Like I don't have streaming audio. I don't have an e -reader. I just like that physical connection.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah, but I think you're right though. That's where it's all gonna, it's all moving in that direction.

Yeah. And I admit fully, I'm the dinosaur in this. I'm the Luddite. It is what it is. World's going to change whether I want to or not.

Yep. Right. Everything moves. All right. so that was a good going through the timeline. Let's do a little fun questions. what's one of your favorite old games? And I mean like eighties games. What's one that you remember that this was like your favorite thing to play way back when I'll tell you mine.

Matt Miller (01:08:22.676)

Mine was Temco bowl, was a football game on, on Nintendo. And I don't know what it was about that, but we would play Temco bowl forever.

Mm -hmm.

Okay, so mine is also a full, I'll go with a football game as well, actually, because it's, even though there's probably a lot better, more classic games, a game that I can play over and over mindlessly, just to have a lot of fun with it is called Mutant League Foot.

It sounds fun.

It was on the Sega Genesis. There's a remake of it that came out about six, seven years ago. It's so there's trolls and skeletons and robots and super humans and aliens and werewolves. And you can win a game by killing too many of your opponents team players and they have to forfeit because they can't feel the roster.

I love it.

Yeah.

Hehehehe

You know, the ball can be a time bomb. There's fire pits that people can fall in. It's just, it's cartoonishly stupid fun.

Nice.

Yep.

I love it. I love it. what is, what was your favorite console to play?

Pre -2000 Sega Genesis, just so many memories tied to that, so many classic games tied to it. Post -2000 for like the 3D era, PlayStation 4.

Yeah.

Yeah. the four definitely has like a monster amount of content to go with it. That's for sure. Just a ton of mess. what's a popular game that you hated? Like everybody loved it, but you're like, no, that's not me.

Mm -hmm.

Okay. Getting out the flame shield. Final Fantasy VII.

Heheheheh

Final. Yeah. Well, I mean, seven, there's like final fantasy, 236. There's all kinds of versions of it. I got, I got lost in final fantasies. We've in college. My buddy was just loved final fantasy. And I was like, w which one is this? And he was like, final fantasy four. And then, then he was playing five and it didn't seem like much later he was playing six. I was like, just one after the other.

There is.

Yeah, seven.

Seven's a very, it's a very wordy game and it's tiring how much word, how, it's a wall of text that you have to read without anything going on on the screen to like get you into it. I've never, I know that Final Fantasy Seven fans love the graphics. I think all the characters look like Popeye. They'll have like these, they'll have like these stick, the, the,

Yeah.

The bicep area, that part of the arm is a stick and then the forearm looks like a balloon. I never cared about the love triangle. I was annoyed about, they killed Eris. it's so sad. Okay, yeah, well, that plot twist was done seven years ago on Phantasy Star 2 and it was done better.

Right.

Ehh...

Yeah.

I just, I, there's so many things about Final Fantasy VII that just drive me nuts. Even the fan base, like, just won't -

They treat the game as this precious idol. It's like, it's just a game guys. There are games that I love. I don't build a religion around.

Right, right, right.

Tell that to star Wars fans. for me, it's not necessarily a game, but I have issues with anything that has like, like life, real life violence in it. Right. Right. If it's like real people, real violence, like, you know, it looks like every real violence. There's no kind of fantasy.

dear God. No.

Those always seem to bug me a little bit. So I don't really play any of those, but I mean, that didn't stop me from playing Red Dead Redemption two. And that's kind of, but I guess it did bother me because it, cause it was old.

that's me Rockstar Rockstar puts so much Rockstar puts so much into creating a world so I can kind of I get where you're going with that like I I had the same the open world issue struck again with Red Dead Redemption 2 for me I just it was too much freedom but I appreciate the the amount of work like when they went so far as to make

Yeah.

the horse's testicles shrink up during the cold. Like you put, yeah, they put in, they went into overdrive with the level of details with that game. And I could see that kind of papering over the real world, the realistic violence of it, because it's just, everything else is so immersive and it's the old west. Like we're not, that wasn't the land of Oz.

There was so many details.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right, right, right, right. what is, what do you consider the hardest game that you finished and completed? What do you think was the hardest one for you to get through?

Without question, Ninja Gaiden on the original Nintendo.

Ninja Gaiden.

God, that game took a year of my life of practicing and refining and repeating levels over and over again. And when I finally beat it, I set the controller down. I'm like, that was an amazing game. I'm never playing that bleeping thing again.

Yeah

I consider it among my, even to this day, and I mean, I beat that thing 35 years ago, at least, you know, late 80s. That's still probably among my top gamer achievements was being able to put that thing to bed.

Yeah.

Nice. have you ever completed a game to a hundred percent? Like you did, you did everything you could possibly do in that game, all the side quests, everything.

Yeah, a few times. Assassin's Creed 2 was one of them. Marvel's Spider -Man. Yeah. Normally, I don't 100 % things, but especially with the advent of the last few consoles and the trophies or achievements that they, you know, where you can mark things off and you can go, hey, all I've got to do is that.

Yeah.

That was a lot of stuff. Yeah.

Yep.

I got so close with Spider -Man and Assassin's Creed to the platinum trophies, I'm like, okay, now I got it. If it just takes this one stupid little task of collecting the, you know, what was it in Assassin's Creed? There was like a hundred feathers sprinkled around the town that he had to find. I was like, okay, this is the dumbest thing on earth, but I will download a map and I will find all the feathers if that's what it takes to get the platinum. And I did.

Now I just want this.

Ugh.

Yeah.

or Spider -Man taking all the pictures, the tourist pictures and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was like, all right, I'm not gonna bother finding all these pictures. By the time I'd gotten to the end of that game, I was like, I'm not gonna worry about those last 10 pictures. Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

I was, again, it was, you know.

Again, it was the platinum. It was like I have so very few platinum trophies. I was like, I want that platinum trophy. I have one trophy away from getting it. I've just again, download the list. OK, I've got it. I've got to go to the Chrysler building. OK, go to the Chrysler building. Take the stupid picture. Yeah, I got the trophy.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yep. What is a game that most people dislike, but you really liked?

So funny enough, we did an episode, two episodes ago was a split topic. It was a game you love that everyone hates and a game you hate that everyone loves. So I will pick one of the games from that episode and it's from the PlayStation 2. It's Playboy The Mansion.

Right.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

And I do not like it for the obvious.

Hehehehehe

Believe it or not, this game is actually a fairly deep business simulator. You have to build up the mansion, improve its furnishings, improve its staff, and at the same time, you have to start the magazine, and you have to build up the magazine, which means you have to hire staff for it, you have to hire, which is like photojournalists and reporters, you have to...

Yeah.

set the advertising rates, you have to decide how much of the magazine will be advertising versus content, what the subscription price is, what the rack price is. You have to schmooze with celebrities to get them to appear in the magazine for interviews. So there's also a social aspect of it. It is bizarrely deep and strangely addictive.

Right?

Wow.

There is also the component of taking pictures of topless women.

right.

whatever. You know, I'm not 14. Digital boobs don't do that. Don't, you know, that that's not a thing for me. It's just a function of the game. But the

It was in the year of PlayStation 2 though, that's for sure.

But, yeah, back then I was like, wow, nudity in a video game? But yeah, it is a lot better than people give it credit for. It's biggest notorius because of the name, and people wouldn't know it if it wasn't that, but it wouldn't be any, like, if it was Time Magazine, no one would care. No, the game would have sunk without Trace.

Right.

No one would yeah yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.

Yeah, it would have just been a fart in the wind. But by being Playboy, it gave it more notoriety, but it also gave it a stigma. So...

Yes, that's for sure. I don't, I don't, ⁓ I'm trying to remember if that game, we had a lot of PS2 games, a lot of ones, a lot of twos at the video store. I don't really know if there was a, remember if there was a Barbie mansion, there were so many games on that wall. So I remember I'll have to, that's funny. what is the video game world you're living in right now? What game has got your attention?

So Death's Door is the game I'm playing right now. It is an indie game. It's very much like the top -down Zelda game. So the original Zelda, Zelda Link to the Past. You play as a crow, like a bird, and in this world crows are reapers. Like...

Yeah, yeah.

right?

Like they work for death and they collect souls. And in this world, something has gone wrong with the doors that go between the world of the living and the world of the dead. And souls aren't getting through and the chief door is locked and the guy who, the entity who controls it doesn't really seem to care. So you are now tasked with finding these, what are they called? Giant souls, I think they're called.

which means going to find these dungeons and beating these massive bosses. All as a little crow, a little sword -wielding crow. Plays like a Zelda game quite a lot, so there's that whole aspect of go to a dungeon, dungeon has puzzles that require this item, you find this item in this dungeon which allows you to unlock puzzles and then allows you to solve puzzles in the real world. Next dungeon, same thing. So, you know...

Wow.

Gotcha.

Cute little game, very, you know, it's not a big, it's not a long game, it's like 10 hour game tops, but it's just, it's cute, it's fun, it's funny playing as a crow. Yeah.

I am currently doing, the Harry Potter legacy on PS five. You would hate it. It's very open world. I find my ADD kicking in. It's like, all right, I'm supposed to go here and do this. And, but then as I'm flying through the world, it's like, look, there's this over there. There's that over there. And I'm like, and then I'm like, my God, I was never doing the first thing I was intended to do in the first place. Getting distracted. I was like,

Yup.

Stay on task, man. Stay on task.

God bless games that have quest logs because if it wasn't for that, I'd never get back to the mainline.

Right?

At least I can just hit a button and see, okay, where am I supposed to go again? Okay. I got it. And what I like about Harry Potter is if you're, if you're on a quest, they show you how to get there. Right. You don't just wander aimlessly trying to figure out something. So that one's good. If I had to just make, have I had to make my own way with no kind of like guide on how to maneuver, dude, I'd be wandering forever. So it is helpful.

That's awful.

yeah, I'm with you there.

All right, Jed, we're getting to the end of this thing. I asked, the same six questions to each guest when they come on. So just rapid fire right off the top of your head to shoot out your answer. what is your favorite smell?

Okay.

Vanilla.

What's your favorite sandwich?

Ooh, I've really started to like Rubens lately, so Ruben.

Yeah, rub it. I haven't had a rub in a long time. What's your favorite kind of drink?

Lemonade.

Especially here in the summertime, lemonade is a good, you can't go wrong with a good lemonade.

Especially like cherry lemonade. Like the blend of flavors.

Yep. I'm good with cherry anything, man. But yeah, lemonade. That's great. What does a dream vacation look like for you?

Ooh, Ireland. I've always wanted to go to Ireland.

That's good. I bet it's not as hot in Ireland. It is right now. It's cooler. Who's the most famous person you've ever met?

God, I hope not.

Mario and Dreaddy.

that's a good one. That's a good one. What is a memory that you're never going to forget? Like besides your kids being born and all that stuff, everybody says their kids being born, but what's a memory that you've had that you're never going to forget?

Moving across the country.

Yep. we did that too, when I was 11, moving across country.

We, I did that the week of September 11th.

Jed (01:24:29.94)

Kicked off on September 10th. Stayed across the street from the Boise airport that night. Woke up going, this is the quietest airport. What is going on? Flick on the TV. We're like,

Wow.

Right?

You ain't flying today.

We weren't flying anyway. We were we were driving, but it was it was just. It was just the sudden shock of that's why the planes aren't going anywhere. OK, well. We gotta get on the road.

Alright.

Right? That's why it's quiet. No one's there.

Yep. Yeah, that, yeah, that would be eerie. That's for sure, man. Jed, it's been fun having you on the show, man. I've enjoyed our video game talk. you are a plethora of knowledge, sir. You've got mounds of it to give the per.

Thank you. It has been fun as well. I love talking video games. I mean, obviously, because otherwise I wouldn't have a podcast about it.

Right. I was about to say you are the best person to have a podcast of games. You, you know, your stuff, sir. And, if I ever get any questions or need reviews, I know who to email now. Right. folks, be sure to check out Jed's podcast, first gen gamers. I'm sure you can find it anywhere where there's a podcast at, you can look them up. if the video games are your niche.

Sounds good. I'm always available.

they are a good podcast to find. You will enjoy it. remember folks find out what makes you happy and get to it. There's a lot of life out there to live. So make it a good one. Be kind, be nice, be good. And everyone have a good week. Thanks for coming on Jed.

Thanks for having me.