Press B 10: The good, the bad, and the fugly?

Remember that one game that despite how terrible it looked was
one of your all time favs? How bout those games as beautiful as
can be, yet somehow flaming trash heaps in gameplay. This episode
we give our personal picks for best of the worst, and the worst
of the best.





Episode Transcription:
The below is a machine based transcription of this episode. Sorta
like Skynet if it was 2 years old, and wanted a cookie. Take it
with a grain of salt.


Jake 0:01
Episode 10 the good, the bad, and the ugly Today on


Wulff 0:07
peski


GP 0:28
Hello and welcome everyone to press B to cancel. My name is Guy
friend. And with me today we have our usual days of rapscallions
to my left is where we'll say hello werewolf. Hello werewolf


GP 0:44
apt


GP 0:47
also with me today sick Jake


Jake 0:49
here buddy glad to be here


GP 0:52
and of course, Polish 109


Palsh 0:56
Whatever happened to polish runaway nevermind


Wulff 1:00
Yeah, we had to let him go.


Palsh 1:03
Yeah, a


GP 1:05
lot of turnover in the police departments, there can be only one.
There can be only at pulse post is the equivalent title to
Highlander if you're Canadian.


Jake 1:16
Alright, so that's a worldwide sensation. I'm sorry, everybody in
every country loves Highlander.


GP 1:22
That's true. That's true. Okay. Alright, so today, we're going to
be discussing kind of a variety. It's a little bit of a different
show tonight. Typically, we just take one game or one series, and
we discuss our experiences, our likes or dislikes. Tonight, we're
going a little bit different. The title of the episode
tentatively was called the good, the bad and the ugly. If you
don't know what fugly means, have one of your ugly friends
explain it to you. So essentially, the idea of this episode is
that we can all acknowledge the great Games, they look good, they
play good, the sound is great. And we can all acknowledge the
crap games, they look horrible. They sound horrible. There are no
redeeming qualities. So tonight we're discussing the ones the
games in between games that either look gorgeous, but are
otherwise devoid of anything meaningful. We will call those
Travolta's or the ugly games that have a lot of heart. We're
going to call those quasi motos. Okay, so those are the two
categories today. I'm going to start us off and then we'll
discuss and you know, go around the table as we always do, but
we're going to start off with the ugly but great or quasi modo
category. And I tell you what, guys, let's just go through
different video game systems. We'll start with the eight minute
video games. For me it's any s, which is going to be Bionic
Commando. Okay, so I love this game. I played it on stream
recently, and I'm always reminded about how much I love it but
truly Fully the color palette is obnoxious. There's not the
greatest animations between your character or the bad guys that
you're trying to kill. And it's repetitive as hell. So that's
kind of the idea here. Let's talk about Bionic Commando. And if
you guys agree, let me know if you disagree. Let's have that
conversation. werewolf. What do you think?


Wulff 3:20
You know, I've actually not played a lot of Bionic Commando. I
think the last time I played it was, gosh, I was seven years old.
So almost 30 years ago. Good grief. So I can't say much to it.
But I can say that from what I've seen people play on Twitter
recently. It's not a pretty game. But I do see a lot of people
playing it on Twitter recently. So that must be some somewhat
test some testament to its quality.


GP 3:51
Sure, yeah. Okay, so it's a popular enough game. It's not always
the best to look. So if you're going to watch Bionic Commando


Unknown Speaker 4:00
A beer to first


GP 4:02
beer or do you first got


Jake 4:04
Yep. enhancer


GP 4:07
Okay, sick Jake. Paul What do you guys think about Bionic
Commando?


Palsh 4:12
We go I'm sick regoing sick Paul shirt Jake 109 Who's going
first?


Unknown Speaker 4:18
we merge together we are one


GP 4:21
yeah give us that sexy fusion voice yeah


Wulff 4:23
that trunks fusion voice


GP 4:31
Alright, so I guess we'll go with Jake first.


Jake 4:34
What do you think about Bionic Commando supplying commando? I
played this quite a bit as a kid. I'm just trying to struggle how
much variety was there in the enemy's


GP 4:45
will as far as the enemy sprite goes? All of your entry level
guys are pretty much the same. They were maybe one or two like
older throwers or you know rocket launcher guys, but otherwise
Yeah, all the same.


Jake 4:56
Yeah, like none of them stand out to me. In hindsight when I kind
of Going back to that game, I don't remember anything notable
graphic wise, I remember that. I remember the back color palette
like you mentioned, for sure. It's poor choice. They're all they
really remember but graphics is the main character. As a kid, I
thought he's got a doc rip off with that weird mechanical arm.
That's all I got from the game graphic wise. Nothing memorable at
all. I didn't care for Gameplay wise, it was actually quite fun.
I mean, mechanics were solid.


GP 5:27
Right? Yeah. And I think that's exactly right. I think the
biggest mechanic or the biggest saving grace of this game would
be the mechanics, no jumping, just extendo arm. And also I to me,
I love the sound. This is for me one of the rare games where the
not just the soundtrack. But the the, the noises of the game.
Were so perfect. And for me they invoke such a strong nostalgia,
but I mean yeah, that's I think that's exactly kind of the heart
of what the category is. So post, what do you think about
commando


Palsh 6:01
I, it's pretty much the same as Jake is like, I don't remember a
lot. But the things I do remember that kind of stuck in my brain
like I remember not being able to jump and always wanting to
swing like Spider Man basically, ever since now I was like, Yeah,
I want to do this I remember playing the game and I think this is
so cool. But I never thought it was amazingly good luck and I
just thought that was the coolest idea. So I think sure yet looks
was no, but you know, gameplay was I thought it was fun. So I
agree with you.


GP 6:36
It's got that heart that addictive quality that after you leave
the game, like if you haven't beaten it, you know you're wanting
to go back and continue or you know, just pick up where you left
off. Yeah. Now I'll say this. I don't have this for every
category, but the eight bit ugly but great category. I have an
alternate or an honorable mention. And I'll say this real quick,
Final Fantasy the riginal a bit Final Fantasy not a pretty game,
but damn it was amazing. I no no no you guys know I love Final
Fantasy. And it was great for what it was and what it sparked.
But going back it is it is dated.


Wulff 7:16
Yeah those those tiny backgrounds and battle with just four
characters in a box and a little background and then the rest of
its black


GP 7:27
it's it's a sexy older sister, I guess technically the sexy
younger sister of Oregon Trail,


Jake 7:34
which,


Wulff 7:35
I mean, the game was based on d&d, so it was leaps and bounds
from pen and paper numbers, but they still hadn't found their
visual groove yet by any means.


Jake 7:51
Of course, but the enemy sprites and the boss sprites that game
were extremely detailed and there's a lot of variety and the
monsters you face because I thought about This game is well for
my list. I didn't do it because of the variety of monsters on the
graphics, the sprites.


GP 8:05
Yeah. Okay. See, I could definitely concede to that. But you
know, to the point of it was inspired by or trying to invoke
d&d as a great point because d&d requires a lot of good
imagination to fill in the gaps visually and I think that is the
point to Final Fantasy that I'm trying to make is there's some
cool ideas there. But with the limited motion and animation you
really have to use your you know, theater of the mind as it were
to to fill in those those gaps.


Palsh 8:37
That's pixel or a nutshell for me, so I agree. But you can get
some effing cool pixel art that said, Okay,


GP 8:45
I don't know No, no, that's good. Actually polish. Let's go to
your what's your quasi modo game, the ugly


Palsh 8:52
but great game, this one stuck out to me and just because it I
was felt like it looked like an entire game to me. Kind of That
meant that made it with an any s game and it still had kind of
elements of mostly Atari boys blob, because the graphics were
really great. But the whole premise this game was hard, I still
won't touch it because I'm just I don't have the fear of failure.
But the fact that you could, you know, give them like 40
different jellybeans and have all these different things like you
could turn your blog into a trampoline or a ladder or a friggin
rocket you know, it's it's really cool but the graphics didn't
keep up but I thought considering how ugly it was it still was
pretty fun. And so that's that's just what stuck out for me.


GP 9:44
Yeah, I I own a boy and his blog and I have started a boy this
blob but I think the graphics and I hate to say it this way
because it makes me sound so shallow. But I think the graphics is
prevented me from really getting into it. So I think that It's a
bit of a home run for choice there. But I can't speak to the
greatness of the game just to the just to the ugliness as far as
the sprite quality. And you know the image quality in general.
Yeah, everything is


Wulff 10:15
the design choices as far as the characters, they're very ugly.
Yeah, there's not a lot of detail. However, they're really
smoothly animated for how ugly they are, which I always found
kind of odd.


Palsh 10:28
Yeah, and I think that's part of it, too, because they ended up
it was so simplistic. I think they ended up getting a little bit
more leeway when it came to animating them.


Wulff 10:37
Yeah, but yeah, that that game is definitely a favorite of mine.
I had that growing up. I don't know what happened to my copy. I
don't remember getting rid of it. But I don't know if it got lost
in a movie or I did eventually trade it in or something. That is
a game I put far too many hours into as a child. Oh my goodness.
Like, I can probably still remember What most of the jelly beans
do. That's how much I played it. Catch up a catch a pole.


Palsh 11:07
Yes.


Wulff 11:09
That is licorice ladder root beer rocket.


GP 11:13
I had a root beer rocket one


Jake 11:17
I think I agree with GP on the terms of the graphics is what
probably turned me off in the game as well. I didn't really
finish it. I spent I made it to the offworld section and that was
interesting. But you spend majority of your time on the ground
and there's such a limited palette of colors down there. It's all
brown and black. I found it extremely dull.


Wulff 11:36
Yeah, they're their color choices definitely reflected what they
went back to in the early 2000s just with less bloom. Right?
Yeah.


GP 11:44
Well, Jake, what What game do you have for us? Ugly but lovable
for the eight bit?


Jake 11:52
I mean, I mean, some guys know me. If I'm not complaining about a
game on I don't like it. And they'll go on game I complain about
all the time is our type for the master system this game is
brutally hard for me. It took me forever to beat it and I had to
use a continue code to do it. It's great The gameplay is classic
to me the bosses are awesome. There's also mechanic where if you
don't be the boss is fast enough to take away from you. There's
you know, upgrades. It's a great game, poured it on literally
everything. But the matches is the one is the one I played the
most. But the thing that makes it ugly is there slow down
constantly, there's flickering every other level. There's one
level I want to say it's the third one where the background is
this organic, pulsing like red color. But that's fine, but the
enemy shots are also red. So because of the poor choice and
colors of the background, the enemy bullets, you can't see where
the bullets are half the time in addition to all the flickering.
So like the graphics are just terrible, terrible. I've seen this
game in arcades and it looks 10 times better. It's a shame
because it's a fantastic game gameplay. It's plays well for me in
any system. I know of the Master System and I love it there but
the graphics on that system just can't keep up.


GP 13:06
Gotcha. Okay, so I hear you saying that you've only beaten it
with the continue code. So what you mean is you've never beaten
it. Little bit of shady games each other


GP 13:30
sick burger.


GP 13:33
Wolf, what do you got for us for ugly URL now? I'm sorry. Let's
not do that yet. A portion where what do you guys think about our
day?


Wulff 13:40
Um, I've never been a fan of shoot 'em ups and bullet hills. So
our type was one I didn't really get into. They


Palsh 13:49
kind of blend together for me. Not that I'm saying it was a bad
game or anything, but I can't tell the difference between
archetype and Gradius. And anybody who's a shoot 'em up fan
right? I was probably wanting to strangle me so I apologize but
either way, honestly, you're not wrong. There are very few
shooters that pull me in.


GP 14:09
Yeah, I'm with you. I think the only one that really stood out
for me was like life force. And that's that's really the only one
I paid attention to. I'm kinda like you guys with that so I will
have to take sick Jake's word on this one. Yeah, but I believe
especially I mean, yeah, I've never heard of anything like that
where the bullets are the same color as the background. Obviously
that is a horrible design


Wulff 14:35
that's that's a controllers are are right there.


GP 14:38
Yeah.


Palsh 14:39
It ends up being any s heard.


Jake 14:42
It belongs in any as hard but different system.


Palsh 14:44
Yeah. Gotcha. Master Cisco. doesn't have the same ring to it.


GP 14:49
doesn't roll off the tongue as much. Yeah.


Wulff 14:53
Alright, so what do you got for us on your quasi game, the game
that everybody is familiar with. The Ninja for Master System but
this game, the gameplay is an absolute blast. You're running
around you're throwing jerkins at people you get upgrades to your
stuff like movement upgrades, weapon upgrades, special attacks,
all sorts of crap the enemies there's all sorts of enemy types
they have different a eyes the levels get mixed up summer like a
lot of them are just you know, go from the bottom scroll upward.
Occasionally it's like scroll from right to left but they've got
like the river level where you're trying to move from log to log
and kill enemies before they get you stuff like that. They did a
lot of creative things with the game, but boy did it not look
good at all. There were a lot of sprites and they were a lot of
ugly pixels. That the colors like they use really bright colors,
their eye catching colors. But there's so much of one color that
covers the screen at a time that it just it fries your eyeballs a
little bit. That that bright neon green grass.


Palsh 16:11
Yeah, everything looks green afterwards. It's like you're wearing
you must be wearing like some like tinted sunglasses afterwards


Wulff 16:19
Yeah, there's there's almost there's really very little detail on
any of the locations in the game. You got to use your imagination
a lot. But that game is so much fun. And it's it's a hard one. So
it's one of those ones that's like punishing and you want to go
back.


Palsh 16:38
I didn't even know that was for Master System. The first time I
actually played was on like a bootleg 31 and one NAS card and I
had no idea that this is bootleg up until like, a few years ago
so I was like, This is amazing. Oh, nevermind.


Jake 16:53
Spiders in that you also picked a Master System game. Do you
think it's something to do with that system and that just
couldn't put out The solid graphic power to handle those games
because there's a few other games that are also not that great
graphic was


Wulff 17:05
no because there are some actually really pretty Master System
games to the the Master System graphically had superior
capabilities to the ns but you have to remember they were a lot
more companies pumping games out on the IDS it's like it's it was
the platform that was supported versus the platform that wasn't
it doesn't matter how much power it has if people don't know how
to make use of it.


Jake 17:30
Like I'm just thinking of the Sonic games, and some of them are
really terrible. The slowdown is ridiculous lots of flickering
like it is. It's disappointing because there aren't great games
on the system is one of my favorite systems.


Wulff 17:41
Well the Master System. The Master System is just a Game Gear.
It's it's a Game Gear Fit to TV resolution, or rather, at the
Game Gear is a Master System fit to a smaller resolution. They're
they're the exact same architecture. That's why all the emulators
run both of them.


Jake 18:00
Interesting. Okay,


GP 18:01
okay, so that's our that's our time for a bit games. Let's move
on to 16 bit if you guys are ready for that, is that good? Sure.
Holy cow. Is that that claw?


Palsh 18:14
Yeah, we'll call the


Wulff 18:17
next bit


GP 18:22
is one of those rare occasions where I wish I had worn pants now?
Well, I'll tell you what wolf blitzer with you 16 bit ugly but
great. What do you think and start race effects?


Palsh 18:34
Yeah.


Wulff 18:36
Not absolutely good. It had a lot of character in the graphics,
but it was not pretty at all. The, for whatever reason, I'm
pretty sure those What is that? gas. That gas station with the
chevron? Pretty sure those Ever on cars were inspired by this
game.


GP 19:03
Or vice versa. But it's a good


Wulff 19:06
Yeah, I've I you know what, they dropped it on the switch this
week. And I went back and played it. And I had so much fun with
it. Oh my goodness. It was a lot of fun. And I used to play it a
lot to player which I mean, you can play two player races against
the AI as well. Which is pretty taxing on a Super Nintendo. Which
I'm pretty sure that killed the frame rate big time, so it made
it even uglier. It was still somehow playable. And it was a lot
of fun. I really really enjoyed that one.


Jake 19:41
Yeah, I was gonna say the only time I saw framerate that bad post
mariokart the switch was after watching stunt racer x like, it's
like three FPS. It's


GP 19:52
you know, that brings up I mean, we'll have to see how the rest
of the show plays out but I've had in the back of my mind like
that. This big question mark of the two categories today, how
many sports games or how many racing games ultimately are going
to be referenced? So we're going to chuck that down as you know,
the first one I suppose for, for racing, but that's, that's
interesting to me. I think that's a good pic. Absolutely. But I'm
glad you chose that because, well, that was on my short list of
like five games. I was so hesitant to pull out as a racing game
or a sport themed game. Because those really didn't hit their
stride until you know much later. But I like that one pulse. What
do you got for us


Palsh 20:34
on 16 bit mine is pretty much the 16 bit argument all over again
from from a pit I've got a game that was hard that I loved, but
the same kind of problem lemmings and I hate saying it because
let me look terrible Lamine, but they're, you know, like they're
like six pixels each. So you can't really complain too much, but
the idea behind it again, was so cool like you could make one guy
stop everybody else Another one would start digging and other
woman started digging upwards and whatever. So game itself was
just great. The music is probably one of the top five for like
Super Nintendo for me for for soundtracks. But I just remember
and it never bothered me about the graphics I'm just saying it's
just that they don't look great.


GP 21:26
I tell you what I appreciate here is Forgive me for saying it
this way. This shame in your voice when you said lemmings? It's
almost like you know, it's 3am I've had a few drinks I'm lonely.
I'm going to call lemmings and not tell anybody about it the next
day, so I love that See, that's why I love this. This idea for
the for the episode. You sneak that Kelly? Yeah, you got me good.
No, I love that. I think that's a great choice. And I think we've
all done that with either lemmings or a game like lemmings were
like ah I just want to want to save my appetite but I'm not proud
of it let's let's play lemmings


Wulff 22:05
yeah that's good. What do what do you guys think about lemmings?
That's actually another game where despite the ugliness of the
palette, and you know, the little tiny characters that you can
barely make out, they were really smoothly animated and they can
eat a lot of information with what 15 pixels.


Palsh 22:22
Yeah, that here but what they were doing


Unknown Speaker 22:26
that's pretty impressive.


Palsh 22:28
Yeah. So they, they definitely went for function over form. And
they I think they succeeded. So I mean, that's that's saying, Oh,


GP 22:38
yeah, it's, it's a great game. It's that argument again, it's got
a great personality.


Jake 22:45
Okay, all right. The backgrounds, okay, granted, not all the
backgrounds are your hot redhead, okay? But a lot of them look
fine to me. There's one I played on the Genesis so 16 bit and the
one level or there's couple levels with the forest theme. I
thought that looked amazing. And the fact that you could dig
through the leaves of the tree and everything looks great to me.


Palsh 23:08
Yeah, I can see your point there.


Jake 23:10
Plus the intro was funny. I thought the intro was well animated.


Palsh 23:13
Yes, true.


Jake 23:14
I like six pixels. What are you going to do, right? There's only
so much you can do with six weeks one character.


Palsh 23:19
And now you see why I feel guilty even saying it because it's
like, there's so much charm to this game. And considering what
they've done with it. So


GP 23:27
I think it's a great game that conveys exactly what it needed to
but you're right. There's not much frill to it outside of like
visually, it's not arresting in a positive way.


Wulff 23:39
Yeah, it's not something that ever made me stop and look when I
saw it on a screen anywhere. But playing it I could not put it
down.


GP 23:48
Yeah, it's a game you play in your own home. Like if you had gone
to Walmart and got on the display, you'd be like not here
lemmings. We can know each other but nobody can know I'm going to
sound like a jerk


Palsh 24:04
Just you wait I'll get you back


GP 24:07
okay all right so polished one or nine with lemmings subject.
What do you got for us? 16 bit


Jake 24:14
16 bit So you mentioned earlier about racing games and this is
technically a racing game. It's unit racers for the snice Oh man,
I


Palsh 24:21
forgot about that.


Jake 24:22
So I don't know if you guys have played this game before. cycles


Palsh 24:26
Yeah, I was like yeah, just cycles without right.


GP 24:29
Yeah, I remember


Jake 24:29
Yeah. It's the weirdest concept for a video game I've seen in a
while. But I love the hell this game I got it at a US store for
like 10 bucks. Graphic wise. Literally you do you guys said it.
You're just a unicycle no writer. And the tracks are basically
this candy stripe. You know line that loops around and goes left
to right. There's not much going on graphic wise but Gameplay
wise the tricks system in it. There's like a dozen different
tricks you can do with your your bike. You know flips and
cartwheels, all kinds of crazy stuff. And you need to do those
tricks in order to build speed and momentum. And you kind of get
tied up in the different modes. Like some of the modes are
focused on doing the stunts, and the ones are about speed. Some
are just like, you know, marathon and length. There's a lot of
variety, and tracks in the game. The game plays outstanding. The
only problem is, it's a lot of them with the same precursor to
Tony Hawk's


Palsh 25:23
Pro Skater. And a lot of ways


Wulff 25:26
Yeah. Now that you mentioned it, yeah, that game did a ton of
stuff for being a 2d side on racing game.


GP 25:34
Yeah, but I think when you can make the argument that if Marble
Madness makes you look like a chump, then Okay, you know, yeah.
Well, they might be but you can't tell because there's there's
just no way no, no, I think that's a good and you're right, like,
that's that's their kind of racing thing as well. So that's,
that's interesting. I remember the game I don't remember much of
playing it though, but I can see it in my mind. And yeah, I
agree. I think that's a good good entry. What


Wulff 26:06
do you guys think? I would agree that that game was not a whole
lot to look at, like it was cleanly animated. But there was a is
literally, you know, the track is just a candy striped bar on the
ground that moves around. And then you're a unicycle no character
on the unicycle. You're just a unicycle doing stunts and tricks
and jumps and bouncing around and zooming along. So it was it was
a limited presentation type of game. I wouldn't say


GP 26:38
yeah, but werewolf the way that you just described it, like the
you're a unicycle going around doing tricks and bumps and jumps.
I if you said that to me, I would actually I would want to pick
that up the way you just presented that actually had me
interested. I'm like, Oh shit, maybe I should play this again. It
was an absolute blast. It really was. I played the crap out of
it. Good. I mean, that's, that's the heart and soul of this, this
category, so that's good. I'll jump in now with my 16. But I was
torn between two. So I'm going to pick the little, the one that's
a little bit more controversial, just because it'll be a better
discussion, but I was thinking about doing Starfox but I think we
can all agree it did not age well it was not great, but it's a
fun game. I know. Jake loves it. But what I'm gonna I'm gonna,
what I'm what I'm gonna officially state is the original Mortal
Kombat. Now I love most Mortal Kombat. It's, you know, in the
series, but if you look at the first Mortal Kombat, and when I
first played that I played it around the same time as Street
Fighter two. So comparatively Street Fighter two, crisper
cleaner, brighter, smoother. And to me Mortal Kombat, though I
enjoy it. The first one was very clunky you hear how stressing


Palsh 27:56
though I enjoyed, you know, he's he Doing this right


GP 28:00
because I Well, there's there's points coming in later polish.
Their Mortal Kombat will make other entries in the future. I you
know, starting with Mortal Kombat two, great franchise. And if
you look at this disparity between how poorly the first foot
looks and plays, compared to MK two, that's kind of the crux of
my argument for Mortal Kombat. If they ended the Mortal Kombat
series with the first one, it wouldn't have made the list but out
of all of it, yes, MK one. Not that great, in my opinion, fun to
play, but just pretty ugly.


Palsh 28:38
You know, I can get beyond that. I thought it was really cool to
see Street Fighter two, and had all the way smoother animations
and stuff but I mean, they weren't taking, you know, real life
models and trying to digitize them. So the the motions and the
animations were so much more fluid because you're working with
the cartoon versus real life. So it was fun. Don't get me wrong,
but, you know, I thought it looked pretty bad.


GP 29:05
Yeah, it's the video game equivalent to spawn the live action
movie. Yeah. Yeah, it didn't necessarily look that great. Also,
some of the acting was hit or miss. But in the end, there's
something about it that I still love. But yeah, well what do you
think about that Mortal Kombat? Ugly but great or just a game?
What do you think? I think


Wulff 29:25
it's just a game. I was never drawn into Mortal Kombat. Like all
my friends were a I mean, I was in the initial rush of it. Yeah,
it was like, Oh my gosh, they're just brutally bashing each
other's skulls in and there's blood and Oh, man. But at the end
of the day, I was still kind of like well, street fighters more
fun and prettier. Pen over this. I granted my experience with it
was a neighborhood full of kids who had the Genesis so it was
even more limited than the Super Nintendo one. So I'm kind of
colored by that memory. Everybody I knew had it for Genesis,
because of course more blood.


GP 30:04
Right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Jake, how about you?


Jake 30:09
I've been I hate disagreeing with you guys on every game. It's
not that but Okay, look, you're right Street Fighter is
definitely not


Palsh 30:16
garbage say it's a game.


Jake 30:18
It's not it's not lukewarm garbage at best. Okay? You microwave
me on


Wulff 30:25
the garbage?


GP 30:27
If your argument against me here's it's not that bad. Okay


Unknown Speaker 30:33
then it's kind of that bad.


Jake 30:34
All right. The color palette is a bit limited, I give you that.
But the digitized actors was revolutionary and they look pretty
good. In fact, I wonder if you compare the frames of animation in
Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter? I bet you they have the same
frames. The only difference is not as colorful. And like you're
right when you mentioned later entries, the series that kind of
expand on that. Moral Kombat three is one of my favorite fighting
games and the color Pelletier is amazing, but just watching Keno.
That rapscallion thrusting his fist in somebody's chest and
pulling out their beating heart. That looked great. I thought
that was hilarious as it was good looking to me at the time. I
like to look at the game I also love subzero team some zero I
will be for life. I thought the sprites and the characters were
well done. all agree Street Fighter looks better, but I think
brutal combat is not as bad as you think it is. It's no clay
fighter but that way. Okay,


Palsh 31:30
basically, Jake feels like Cora when he got punched in the nuts
in the first movie.


Unknown Speaker 31:36
That's true.


GP 31:38
And the rest of us feel like Johnny K. Yeah.


Palsh 31:41
hundred dollar glasses, glasses. So


Jake 31:45
last all this before or after the discectomy I'm leaving that
one.


GP 31:50
Yeah, glass, all for the wind. Okay, I like that. Okay, so um,
next is going to be the 32 bit category. Let's start with Paul.
Tell me Whoa, and let's, let's, let's clarify this. This tier is
3264 bit because we're


Wulff 32:05
Yeah, it's the same generation


Palsh 32:08
so we can switch it up. Okay. So I'm going to name a game. And
I'm going to tell you guys what the game and I want you to tell
me if you think that I think it's ugly but amazing, or if I think
it's terrible, but beautiful.


Palsh 32:22
Okay. Okay.


Palsh 32:25
Castlevania Symphony of the Night.


Jake 32:31
Okay, if you don't think that's a pretty game, there's something
wrong with you.


Palsh 32:33
Yeah, that was just trolling. I was hoping. For more.


Wulff 32:38
See, I was in on that one. Otherwise, I probably would have laid
into pause What the fuck is wrong with you?


Palsh 32:46
Know, that one I can't say anything bad about so. That's the
joke. So anyways, continue forward.


GP 32:54
No, now you have to give us a real game. Yeah, I believe a
beautiful 32 or 64 Doom 64 Okay, okay, tell us about that. Why
why why do you hate that game so much?


Palsh 33:06
It would look great. I remember seeing magazine ads, I remember
playing it or not playing it wanting to play it. And then finally
I went out on vacation, came back and had a copy of it my hand I
was like it was this or Duke Nukem. 64 I was already playing Duke
Nukem 64 I was like, okay, so I need something new for me, my
friends. So we can just lay into this game. And I tried it. I was
like, This looks so cool. And then I realized this, like, this
game is crap. I was so disappointed with it. It moved well, like
the graphics look great. But it other than that, it just felt
like a little bit better version of doom to me like, and I can't
play the original Doom anymore or give it headaches just from the
motion. So it looked better. But I was disappointed because I
thought it was, you know, the 64 and it just meant it was for 64
and I thought it was going to be the actual Doom with better
ground. Fix. Now it was completely different. Like they made
their own game and I was just I wasn't ready for that
disappointment. You've you've given me a bit of a revelation here
and agree or disagree but let me know. Would you say no?


GP 34:16
Okay, moving on. No. Would you say that video game commercials
and box art and descriptions? Were the back in the day preteen
equivalent to Tinder profiles.


Palsh 34:32
Never thought about it now.


GP 34:33
Yeah, they show up and you're so excited because their profile
and then they show up and you realize this is not what I thought
it was going to be


Palsh 34:40
at all. Man, sir.


Jake 34:43
Well, you are thirsty and hell.


GP 34:46
Oh, God, thirsty for that video game. Yeah.


Palsh 34:51
I didn't care about girls back then. I just cared about more
video games. Just thinking about that power of


GP 34:57
the power of what was your favorite position back then? 64 cut
that out.


Jake 35:05
Nope. Three hands on the stick.


Palsh 35:08
That's my joke on you need three hands to play an M 64
controller.


GP 35:13
Yeah, we saw that name then way nowhere. Okay, so Doom 64.
werewolf. What do you what do you think? agree disagree?


Wulff 35:22
That's one I don't know much about unfortunately. I thought it
was just gonna be Doom for in 64 so I didn't bother with it.


Palsh 35:34
PC Okay, shut up.


Wulff 35:36
No literally like I thought it was Doom like because I played it
on. I think I played it at a friend's house on PC and then I had
played it on Super Nintendo. So I was like, well, I played it on
a couple of platforms. I don't want to play it again. So I didn't
play it for in 64


Palsh 35:53
Yeah, well that's that's exactly why I bought it because they'll
say Oh, man, like it's a better version. No.


GP 35:58
Wrong That's brilliant wrong. Was that Charlie Murphy? Wrong?


Wulff 36:05
Or the tigers in Wow, wrong? Yeah.


GP 36:10
Okay, but see like how great of a pic was that pulse bought the
game because of two words. Doom 64 did not buy that game because
of two words. Doom 64 I swipe left so


Wulff 36:26
hard.


Palsh 36:30
Man. I practically hit super like all right.


GP 36:35
I don't get that reference. I don't know super late.


Palsh 36:38
I'm very single. We'll put it that way.


GP 36:44
Okay, so, Jake, what do you do? I'm 64


Jake 36:49
I'm actually not a fan of doom. I actually don't like the series
at all. Although the recent PC ones that came with the reboots,
those are okay but the classic do my never really cared for and
there's a series of games on the 60 That kind of tried to bring
over to the PC stuff. There's Duke Nukem and hexen. And I think
XM XM hex n. That's a word was the better of those type of games
that 2d sprites in a 3d world? I didn't care for Doom 64 at all.
I did rent it. I played a little bit. I couldn't care for it at
all. It is ugly. I'll give you that. I just also think it's a bad
game.


GP 37:23
Yeah, and I think Doom 64 was one of those games, where I watched
my cousins play it. And I loved watching them like I could keep
up with it. If I was watching somebody else, but the first time I
tried playing it, it was like I completely forgotten what it was
like to look at the game and could no longer keep up with it. So
I played maybe 30 minutes of it and realize this is not for me to
play. But it was entertaining to watch other people run and gun
and blow up stuff. So I like it and the visuals are okay so long
as I am not guiding the visuals. But that's that's just me say
Take what do you ever is for this category? Ugly but great 32 or
64 bit? Okay.


Jake 38:07
Hear me you Final Fantasy seven. I love this game.


GP 38:11
I think that's a great choice Yeah,


Jake 38:13
everybody loves family seven or at least people who were in that
generation love probably seven. Today it doesn't hold up for sure
I mean the pre rendered backgrounds and in the CGI very pixelated
very under rez for today's time but even back in high school I
played this game originally, the sprites and the overworld and
the exploration areas like cloud looks like some kind of peanuts
character mutated into 3d polygon. And there's no textures
anywhere to be found any of the enemies practically It is one of
the ugliest first gen 3d games I've ever seen. Like I'm talking
marrow 64 Meg's father's sevens cloud look like fucking the Mona
Lisa. This game is the only reason people like this game. is
because of the FMV The video is very cool. And I love that story.
I love the music, and the gameplay is fun. But it's ugly as hell.


GP 39:09
No, I think I think that's, that may be one of the best because
that's exactly right. And I think part of the reason Personally,
I was so let down by the graphics is because the commercials that
came out back in 97 for the games pretty much only showed the FMV
it's the one so your hype for this and you're like, Oh my god,
considering the last Final Fantasy with six leaps and bounds and
you play it and you're like you said you're just playing to get
to the next video. But somewhere somewhere in there you fall in
love with it. That's probably like the earliest version of you
know, people getting mad because of, you know, not showing
gameplay, you know, because that wasn't the practice back then.
You know, everybody just played the game because there weren't
cutscenes like that. And now it's like the cutscenes look
awesome, but let's see what the gameplay looks like you know, so
you have gameplay trailers besides you Know the actual trailer?
Well yeah, it's the video you ever been catfished by a video
game? That's the idea right? The whole dating thing around again?
Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I think that's a great
observation and that is the cultural and historical significance
of the Final Fantasy seven commercials. But if you go back and
still because I did this recently if you YouTube the original
Final Fantasy seven TV commercials I still get the same feels


Jake 40:28
Oh yeah, the atmosphere is amazing and and said jump from snez to
PlayStation you just so hyped that the game is going to look
amazing and that we all love family six I think of this podcast
and just yeah the sprite work and there's great the bosses look
I'm awesome. It's graph as graphics are amazing because 2d, so
you just really hoping that for the jump to 3d would be something
amazing. And what they show you the commercials. Looks great. But
that's maybe about 10 minutes of FMV the entire game.


Palsh 40:56
Yeah


Wulff 40:58
that's true. Wolfie what do you what do you think? Final Fantasy
seven okay I'm probably in the minority here to where I'm not a
huge fan of Final Fantasy seven that's not to say I wasn't when
it came out I played 200 hours probably in that first go through
where I did just about everything I think except killing Ruby
weapon I even made a second Knights of the Round so


GP 41:25
so I'm hearing you say you never beat Final Fantasy I'm playing
I'm playing I'm playing


Wulff 41:33
now I I even made like I I enjoyed that game so much that time
that I even made a friggin anime music video and I am V out of it
back in the day with VHS like that was time consuming first I was
dedication.


GP 41:49
Yeah,


Wulff 41:51
I still that's the only one I did. Oh no, that's not true. I did
one with Resident Evil as well, but I really enjoyed that game
the first time and then every time I've tried to play since I
can't put more than like three hours into it before I'm just
bored and walk away the game. Like even when I tried to play it a
second time back then I was just like, man, I can't. So, to me
the game, it hits some notes the first time other than that, I
can't agree with that. It's an amazing game. I feel like it's
just been overhyped so much. And I think it's also the fact that
it wasn't my first Final Fantasy, a lot of people who love it, it
was their first Final Fantasy, and that's often the case, but I
will agree the game didn't look quite as good as I was hoping.
But then I had spent all summer plans so he could n and Wild Arms
and compared to Wild Arms. It was damn gorgeous.


Palsh 42:47
Wait, you mean it's not pronounced suikoden


Wulff 42:49
crap? No. But yeah,


GP 42:53
it's pronounced Wild Arms that


Wulff 42:57
that jump from sprites. It makes It with those backgrounds and
everything it even though they weren't pretty polygons by any
means for the characters, it was still an exciting change of
presentation that let them tell the story in a different way.


GP 43:12
And I feel like with Final Fantasy seven they overcorrected the
ship when they came out with Final Fantasy eight, with seven, the
backgrounds looked more lush and detailed than the characters.
And then they came out with eight. And the background was kind of
put on the backburner, so they could focus on the sprites and the
overworld for the main characters. So at least they paid
attention and corrected a lot of people's biggest complaints. But
yeah, I think that was a good good entry there. Were all four do
you have for us in this category? 32 to 64 bit ugly but lovable
Bushido blade? Yeah, we couldn't Bushido blade.


Wulff 43:53
I'm not gonna lie. I was kind of a square fanboy back in the
PlayStation era. So I was getting all their stuff. Like it I had
bought total number one nobody got total number one, but I got
Bushido blade and it's it's not what I expected it to be and I
had so much fun with it. And my friends and I we would just sit
there and play Bushido blade for hours just because the combat it
was so intricate for as limited as it was, I mean you injure your
opponent, but if you got a killing stab that was it that that
match was over with. There was no health bars, it was injury or
death. And you can even mess up your opponent by like throwing
sand in their fat face like a dirty rapscallion and then taking
advantage of it. It it was it was so much fun and even just
unlocking it. The the I think it had a couple of hidden
characters. It was totally worth it. Just there was a lot of
nuance to the game. Play that you don't see in a lot of fighting
games.


GP 45:03
I'm sitting here I'm trying to remember exactly which one Bushido
blade was. So it was it was a fighting game.


Wulff 45:09
Yeah, to a degree. It was a weapons fighting game. And I think
you actually got to choose between a few weapons to if I remember
correctly. Yeah, you're right. What the cover looks like I'm
sorry, I'm trying to remember this one is black and white with I
think a big big red splatter on it is like a black and white
pencil drawing or ink drawing of somebody and then a big red
blood splatter blade


GP 45:39
I'm also Yeah, I google image that endure. Yeah, I do remember
now. I'm sorry. Thank you.


Wulff 45:44
But yeah, the the character models were not pretty that the
locations are not very pretty. They weren't even very detailed.
It was like one of them was a big courtyard of cherry blossom
trees. And it looked like they just copy pasted the same square
aware of the arena over and over and over and over the lawn from
one end to the other until they got to the opposite wall.


Jake 46:05
There was a wonky camera and that came for sure used to zoom way
out or like really get really close


Wulff 46:11
yeah cuz it let you run away from the your opponent pretty far
right? Which of course just made the characters even more
unreadable?


GP 46:21
Yeah, yeah more obscure. But yeah, I'll be honest that sounds
like a piece of crap well done that's not a good entry sick Jake,
what do you think about that one?


Jake 46:33
I love the game to me. We talked about this before the podcast
procedure plays one of my favorite games of the PlayStation
because it's not that many I played on that. The combat that one
on one combat. I just love how most weapons strikes will like
outright kill your opponent if they connect but there's all about
the Perry system. And that's pretty unique for its time and
there's not many games these days that have that same you know,
do or die combat system. But I just love it when you thank you
Nick's amazed leg that dropped to the ground. But they weren't
dead. They still kept fighting while they're on the floor. I
thought was hilarious. I love


Wulff 47:07
Yeah, they'll they'll like drag one leg while like trying to walk
with the other leg with this horrible limp and it's great.


Jake 47:15
It's like Black Knight fight, right? Yeah,


Wulff 47:18
you break their arm and it just falls limp. They should have made
the


GP 47:23
Black Knight like an unlockable character.


Jake 47:26
I'll know your polygons off. It's great. I love it.


Jake 47:31
The backgrounds I agree are bad. But there was a style to it
though. Like the bamboo forest, the cherry blossoms it kind of
felt like that martial arts, you know trope that's set up in a
deserted field. A courtyard has been cleared away to warriors
that battle. It had the style, but yeah, you're right. It did not
have the graphic power and the textures to back it out.


GP 47:54
And then in the background, you see just the opening scene from
Ninja Gaiden taking place.


Palsh 48:00
As long as that music from ninja guidance playing I'm down for
it. I love that game.


GP 48:07
Okay, so Polish What was your? No You got us at the beginning.
Sorry I got Castlevania joke. Yes. And the wolf goddess with
Bushido blade. Jake What do you got?


Jake 48:21
We went seven man


GP 48:24
that's right that's how forgettable of a game that is.


Wulff 48:28
Bomb.


GP 48:30
I know I'm just I'm drinking drinking my haterade tonight No, I
The reason I'm selling is because I've got so many honorable
mentions for this category for 32 to 64 ultimately, I've settled
on one but Metal Gear Solid has not aged well. This is not my
These are my my honorable mentions. Such a great game, full of
story and a lot of amazing twists and turns, but even playing
that way came out. The graphics took me out of it. Mortal Kombat
mythology sub zero. The fighting in that I don't know if you guys
ever played that the graphics were bad. The fighting style was
decent, but the platforming was abysmal, but it was still oddly
charming because it's sub zero in an open world type setting. But
ultimately, I think I have to settle for ugly but with a lot of
heart, Nintendo 60 fours, GoldenEye. It was going to be that or
Superman 64. And ultimately, I just don't care enough about
Superman 64 so GoldenEye because I love that game. I don't know
how much of the actual game or campaign I ever played through. I
know I've watched it wire to wire with my older brother, but the
four person you know, challenge mode was my entire experience
pretty much with the 64 like that and Mario 64 and not much else.
But he did great Yeah well but I mean even if you guys ever
played like the giant head hack or you know code for golden it
came on game was so yes DK mode so incredibly ugly but so much
fun and it for me it was one of the first multiplayer you know
games like that What do you guys think about golden I polished
let's start with you know you summed it up


Palsh 50:23
I really can't add to it because it's just I want to say I loved
it when it first came out but at the same like for graphics was
but I think it was more just how you could shoot people in the
crotch and they grab their crops and then fall over dead you know
or it would tell you like give you the tally of headshots arm
shots leg shots torso other you know other was always the crotch
shot so right yeah, but I mean the graphics as much as I want to
admit I thought they were amazing. I think it was more the
gameplay itself so


GP 50:59
no slough Rizzoli. I'm still still playing that from an
unfinished game that we started back then. That's impossible.
Well, what do you think about GoldenEye? Ah,


Wulff 51:11
yeah, a, it didn't have a whole lot of texturing I think the
majority of the the texture quality went to the characters faces,
but not their models. So the game itself though, was an absolute
blast. It wasn't a whole lot to look at, which is probably for
the best because it I think it helped it run a little smoother.
There were a lot and 64 first person games that made me gave me
headaches or made me dizzy, something like that. Man, I spent so
many hours in that game with friends after school. We just go to
somebody's house and play for like two three hours that day and
then do it all over again. The next day. It was crazy.


GP 51:54
Well, and it was just good enough of a game to make you want to
hate your friends. Oh yeah, only for a short for short amount of
time because like you said the next day, you're fine. Or if you
were mad at somebody, you were only mad until you shot them in
the crotch and then you were square


Wulff 52:10
that that Mario Kart 64 games that end your friendship for the
day. Yep. And but it's fine tomorrow.


Palsh 52:18
Yeah. And then you started all over again with the next match.


GP 52:20
Yeah, we should we should set up a multi person. tournament or
like cast of if we can figure out a way to do that either like
Mario Kart or


GP 52:30
golden I think would be a blast. There's a PC version. I think
actually, if GoldenEye


Wulff 52:34
And isn't it awful?


Jake 52:37
Okay, just like


GP 52:42
Okay, cool. So Jacob, what's your take on GoldenEye


Jake 52:45
wolf said I pretty much nail on the head with the low character
Polly's or low Polly's link character models, the triangle shaped
heads, it reminds me of that music video Dire Straits money for
nothing. We're just Bismillahi low polygon models and it's just
terrible plusses against 64. And hey, I love the system. I love
Nintendo but they had the fog problem like the jungle level and
the Russian level it just the design to get around the graphic
failures. They brought in more fog, just more fog. And they do
that all these games and it's just does not work for the game at
all. But it's a fun game. I used to play multiplayer like
everybody else. Proximity mines is my favorite weapon. I love
that. Yeah, I love the game and I love playing it but you're
right. It's it's ugly as dirt.


GP 53:31
Yeah. Do you know who I killed more with proximity mines than
anybody else yourself? Yes, me. I find my short term memory man.
I try.


Palsh 53:40
I tried to lure people into it without setting it off myself. And
was very unsuccessful.


GP 53:46
Shit went to the to the point of the fog. And to kind of again,
put this all in the same packaging as the Tinder and the dating
things. They do the same thing in nightclubs. You know dim the
lights a little bit and put into more fog, it'd be fine. So we've
all fallen victim to that it's okay. Alright, so on to the other
side of that coin. Let's now examine the beautiful games that are
completely without any other merits. Next time, well maybe not
next time but in the upcoming episodes on presby to cancel. Let's
go around and restate our names a group of rapscallions and tell
everybody where they can find us. Jake, you want to start us off?


Jake 54:33
Sure I'm sick Jake, you can find me on Twitch and Twitter. And I
guess here


GP 54:39
Wonderful. Thank you


Palsh 54:41
push. You can find me here most of all, and I also stream very
sparingly on Twitch as well under pulse 109 pls h 109.


Wulff 54:52
Okay, very good. And well. You can find me streaming on Twitch or
here or occasionally posting on Twitter. werewolf w ar EWLFF


GP 55:04
awesome and I am guy prime. You can find me here on Twitch under
the retro therapy or on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter as the
retro therapy, everybody until next time, thank you so much for
joining us.


Jake 55:21
Special thanks for music go to Arthur, the ancient found on
Soundcloud or the last ancient on YouTube. For more episodes,
please visit our website presby to cancel.com as well Feel free
to like or subscribe at Apple iTunes, Google podcasts or anywhere
else you'd like to listen to your favorite shows. As always,
thank you. This has been


Wulff 55:42
a do again


Special thanks to Arthur The Last Ancient on soundcloud for our
podcast theme.


For updates and more episodes please visit our website
www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on Twitter @pressbtocancel and
Instagram @pressbtocancel.