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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: John Than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio and I love all things tech. It is time

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Speaker 1: for a classic episode. This episode originally published on May four.

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Speaker 1: It is titled the Worst Video Games of All Time

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Speaker 1: parentheses update close parentheses. Um. Obviously, since we've had a

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Speaker 1: few more contenders, I know some people would probably put

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Speaker 1: Cyberpunk seven way up there. Uh, depending on your point

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Speaker 1: of view. They're they're defenders of that game who say

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Speaker 1: that there's a very good game there that was marred

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Speaker 1: by a rushed release. Um. And there are others who

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Speaker 1: disagree with that assessment entirely. So I'm sure I will

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Speaker 1: have to do yet another update. So maybe at one

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Speaker 1: point I'll do the Worst video Games of All Time

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Speaker 1: updated update. But for now, let's listen to this classic

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Speaker 1: episode from Enjoy. So there's been this longstanding rumor, elevated

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Speaker 1: to almost myth status in the video game industry, that

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Speaker 1: that Atari, while it was struggling, dumped thousands of video

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Speaker 1: games in this New Mexico landfill. Um. The New York

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Speaker 1: Times even ran a short piece on it in September,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's a short piece, so I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: read it out because it's a really explains the story

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Speaker 1: and is super indicative of what the industry was doing

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Speaker 1: at the time. So here we go. With the video

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Speaker 1: game business gone sour, some manufacturers have been dumping their

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Speaker 1: excess game cartridges on the market at depressed prices. Now,

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Speaker 1: Atari Inc. The leading video game manufacturer, has taken dumping

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Speaker 1: one step further. The company has dumped fourteen truckloads of

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Speaker 1: discarded game cartridges and other computer equipment at the City

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Speaker 1: Landfill in Alama Gordon, New Mexico. Guards kept reporters and

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Speaker 1: spectators away from the area yesterday as workers poured concrete

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Speaker 1: over the dumped merchandise, and Atari spokesman said the equipment

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Speaker 1: came from Atari's plant and I'll Passo Texas, which was

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Speaker 1: used to make video game cartridges but has now been

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Speaker 1: converted to recycling scrap. Atari lust three and ten point

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Speaker 1: five million dollars in the second quarter, largely because of

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Speaker 1: a sharp drop in video game sales. That's yeah, point

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Speaker 1: five million dollars in a word, that's not that's not

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Speaker 1: a yearly loss. So yeah, as you can see, this

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Speaker 1: was a huge deal for Atari, and um, you know,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of different things that went into this.

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Speaker 1: We've covered it before, but just as a quick kind

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Speaker 1: of refresher, the things that that led to this decision

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Speaker 1: involved too many games on the market, too many consoles

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Speaker 1: on the market, so you had you had way too

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Speaker 1: much product out there, uh, and way too many poor

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Speaker 1: video games that had been kind of scrapped together really quickly,

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Speaker 1: right and and and then with the the ET cartridge

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Speaker 1: in particular, which is often cited as not only the

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Speaker 1: worst video game of all time but also the reason

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Speaker 1: for a video game crash. That's that's a little too simplistic,

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Speaker 1: but it did the big contributor because that license cost

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars to Atari, and they produced millions of cartridges,

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Speaker 1: something like five million copies of this game. And they

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Speaker 1: didn't sell out at all. They had they had millions

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Speaker 1: left over, So you just had a no wins scenario.

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Speaker 1: I mean, no one wanted the cartridges. They kept getting

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Speaker 1: marked down and down and down in the discount bins

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Speaker 1: at your local toy stores. I mean, I remember these

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Speaker 1: days because I had an I had ET the Extra

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Speaker 1: Terrestrial um so, oh, yeah, I've never played. I had

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Speaker 1: the two games that are constantly referred to as being

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Speaker 1: the ones that led to the video game crash, where

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Speaker 1: the the licensed versions of pac Man and ET the

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Speaker 1: Extra Terrestrial, and there I had both of those, so

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Speaker 1: I can tell you they both were terrible games. They

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Speaker 1: were not good representations of their licenses and uh, and

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Speaker 1: so they both really did contribute. So uh. Anyway, we

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Speaker 1: had this big myth about the you know, this huge

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Speaker 1: dumping ground, and there was conflicting information for the longest time,

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Speaker 1: like is it actually out there or is it is

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Speaker 1: that just urban legend? Well, and since concrete had been poured,

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Speaker 1: no one was really sure. It made me think for

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Speaker 1: a while that maybe the guy who made that decision

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Speaker 1: at Atari used to work for the mafia. I want

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Speaker 1: it dead, I want to bury it in the ground.

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Speaker 1: I want to concrete foundation board over it. How it

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Speaker 1: how it goes off in my head anyway, I mean,

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Speaker 1: maybe he just really hated it that much. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we ended up discovering very recently as the recording of

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Speaker 1: this podcast, as it turns out that uh, there was

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Speaker 1: truth to the yeah myth confirmed. Okay, So in April

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Speaker 1: hundreds of old Atari games, including the infamously terrible et

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Speaker 1: We're We're found in this landfill in New Mexico. The

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Speaker 1: Dick was part of a documentary series. It's being done

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Speaker 1: by director Zach Penn in affiliation with a couple of

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Speaker 1: media companies, Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Entertained, along with Microsoft's

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Speaker 1: Xbox Entertainment Studios. Yeah, what's what's funny is that Major Nelson,

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Speaker 1: who is part of Xbox Lives. He's like one of

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Speaker 1: the kind of a community liaison type guy, so a

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Speaker 1: lot of information from Microsoft comes through him and then

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Speaker 1: as communicated to the fans. He was actually on the

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Speaker 1: dig site too. And uh, I'll talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about that in just a second when we get

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Speaker 1: to the super silly part of the story. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure which part is. Yeah, there's so many, but this

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Speaker 1: one in particular because it all has to do with

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Speaker 1: the way the man wears a construction hat. Okay, alright, So,

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Speaker 1: so some interesting interesting little factoids around this dig. The

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Speaker 1: AP was out there and they were talking to folks

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Speaker 1: um and and according to them, James Heller, a former

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Speaker 1: Atari manager who's also on site for the dig. At

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Speaker 1: the invitation of the production team, UM said. James Heller

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Speaker 1: said that he was charged with finding a cheap way

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Speaker 1: of disposing for seven and twenty eight thousand game cartridges.

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Speaker 1: That's that's a lot of cartridges. That's more than I

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Speaker 1: had by by a long shot. Uh. And he said

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Speaker 1: that after a few local kids scavenged games UM and

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Speaker 1: he started getting calls from the media about it, that's

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Speaker 1: when he decided to pour the concrete, right, because otherwise

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Speaker 1: you have you have a recipe for disaster, and that

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Speaker 1: kids could be coming out to a landfill get hurt, lawsuits. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: No one wants e T on top of being the

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Speaker 1: worst game ever to be the most deadly game to

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Speaker 1: have caused like tetanus and things like that. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: would have been a terrible, terrible, pr nightmare. Yeah. He's

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Speaker 1: also said that he wasn't aware that there was any

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Speaker 1: kind of controversy about it, and that he's never come

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Speaker 1: out on the record about it because no one ever

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Speaker 1: asked him. Huh. Clearly someone who does not go to

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Speaker 1: the big video game forums. He's clearly not from the internet. Um. Uh. So,

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Speaker 1: so the city that houses the landfill is giving up

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Speaker 1: to the cartridges to the team, and we'll be selling

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Speaker 1: the rest. So if you like your own, you can

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Speaker 1: get some real new Mexico dirt packed in with your

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Speaker 1: your various cartridges. They're they're apparently still playable, some of them,

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Speaker 1: I mean some of them are crushed. Yeah, I know that.

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Speaker 1: When they first found it, they tested one out almost

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Speaker 1: immediately and then said, we're not going to tell you

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Speaker 1: whether or not it worked. We're going to save that

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Speaker 1: for the documentary. But but but these are these are hard,

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Speaker 1: hardwired cartridges. I mean they're not they're not optical disks

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. So as long as you haven't

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Speaker 1: had too much detritus get into the cartridge, which we

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Speaker 1: all know how to solve that problem, yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: you're good. Yeah, as long as that's not the case,

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Speaker 1: then it should work. And I understand that there was

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Speaker 1: another person who was talked to about this whole thing,

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Speaker 1: a man who may you might say was burdened with

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Speaker 1: terrible responsibility. Uh So, the ap for for this article

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Speaker 1: that they did also called eat S game designer one

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Speaker 1: Howard Scott Warshaw about the entire debak um, and he

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Speaker 1: said that he actually doesn't mind his game being called

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Speaker 1: the worst game. Ever, he said that he was only

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Speaker 1: given five weeks to design, right and test this game

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Speaker 1: after legal matters held it up in production of for

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Speaker 1: getting that license and the holiday shopping deadlines began looming.

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Speaker 1: He said furthermore that it's end I quote a tremendous

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Speaker 1: honor that, you know, even though it's the worst video

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Speaker 1: game ever, that's still being talked about. Well, he also

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Speaker 1: was the guy who made the biggest selling original game

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Speaker 1: for Atari, which was Yours Revenge. Uh so, Yours Revenge

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Speaker 1: was a kind of crazy little game where it's almost

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Speaker 1: impossible to explain. Back then, video games were not nearly

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Speaker 1: as simple in a way, like even though the the

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Speaker 1: graphics were simple and the gameplay was simple, the concepts

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Speaker 1: were really high concept crazy things. And these days, you know,

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Speaker 1: when you see video games, they tend to be variations

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Speaker 1: on very similar themes, like it's a sandbox game like

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Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto or the Saints Rose series, or it's

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Speaker 1: a racing game, or it's a gun game like those

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Speaker 1: are poor and adventure. Right back in the days of

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Speaker 1: the early arcades, like well, first you play as a

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Speaker 1: donkey who's out delivering pizzas. What But that was normal

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Speaker 1: So anyway, Ours Revenge hard to explain it easily, but anyway,

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Speaker 1: one of the most popular games of atari ever. So

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Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting that the same guy was behind

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Speaker 1: both titles. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention,

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Speaker 1: we're going to we're going to have a nice little

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Speaker 1: flashback in a minute, but before we do that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: something else I think is really entertaining is that there's

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Speaker 1: some conspiracy theories around this, Like there were some things

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Speaker 1: popping up on the Internet suggesting that perhaps this whole

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Speaker 1: dig was a manufactured story, and in fact, no one

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Speaker 1: had gone to New Mexico and no one had actually

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Speaker 1: found the cartridges because they were never really put there

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Speaker 1: in the first place, and the whole thing is just

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Speaker 1: to comple cover up. Yeah, there's like a tari truthuris

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Speaker 1: now this is great? Yeah. So uh And there was

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Speaker 1: a picture of Major Nelson, this is what I was

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Speaker 1: referring to earlier in the podcast, who was at the

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Speaker 1: site and wearing a hard hat, and the hard hat,

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Speaker 1: you know, sat pretty high up on his head, which

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Speaker 1: led some people to say, oh, it's been photoshopped on

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Speaker 1: top of him. He was clearly this was a picture

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Speaker 1: of Major Nelson that's been placed so that it's on

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Speaker 1: a desert background, and he's got this hard hat photoshopped

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Speaker 1: on because it's not saying flat, you know, snug against

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Speaker 1: his head. But here's the thing about hard hats. They

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Speaker 1: actually have like a little kind of harness that sits

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Speaker 1: on your head and they're raised up over the harness

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Speaker 1: so that if something does impact the hard hat, there's

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Speaker 1: that shot. Yeah. So it doesn't kill you, you see,

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Speaker 1: just having something harding. Yeah, yeah, I mean it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't help you if you were wearing something hard

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Speaker 1: on your head if the force hitting it is still

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Speaker 1: enough to cause you injury. So, uh, it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it may have been that the little harness part was

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Speaker 1: a little small for Major Nelson's noggin. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: But I don't know. I'm personally, Yeah, it doesn't I'm

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Speaker 1: going to call him a fathead. Neither am I. But

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Speaker 1: but it does mean that I think some people mistakenly,

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Speaker 1: either mistakenly or perhaps jokingly. It could have been that

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Speaker 1: they were joking about it being photoshopped and then other

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Speaker 1: proportion in some way. I know the internet is oh

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Speaker 1: sure sure. And also some of the very first photos

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Speaker 1: that came out of the dig site. Um were taken

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Speaker 1: on you know, low quality cell phones, and I think

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Speaker 1: that everyone I mean, I mean, I was reluctant to

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Speaker 1: believe the story until I clicked a few links through

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Speaker 1: and really checked around about it, because I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's fake. Yeah, I mean, well, there's so many stories.

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Speaker 1: I assume that everything on is fake on the internet,

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Speaker 1: except the hell stuff works where everything is amazing pertly.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, no, no, I totally understand what you're where

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Speaker 1: you're coming from on that one. So we wanted to

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Speaker 1: take this opportunity to actually have a little look back

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Speaker 1: on an episode that that was recorded years ago, back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven. Yeah. So so of course Chris

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Speaker 1: Palette is going to be joining us from the vaults

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Speaker 1: of history, right. So so this is this is what

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Speaker 1: some people would call a rerun because we wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk about the discussion that kind of led into this

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Speaker 1: whole thing when we asked our listeners. This was the

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Speaker 1: crowdsourced episode, which we haven't really we haven't done many

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Speaker 1: of those. We've asked for a listener mail and gotten responses,

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Speaker 1: and we've done some episodes based upon suggestions, but this

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Speaker 1: was purely crowdsourced where I put out the question what's

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Speaker 1: the worst video game of all time? And then we

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Speaker 1: had our listeners right in and we tabulated all the

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Speaker 1: votes and it was it was wide open, and this

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Speaker 1: is the result. Uh and spoiler alert, the video game

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Speaker 1: that we just talked about being dug Up in the

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Speaker 1: Desert ends up being number one. So but it's an

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Speaker 1: entertaining episode. Listen to it, and we'll have a little

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Speaker 1: bit more to talk about once the episodes over with

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Speaker 1: some other kind of bad video game wrap up, So enjoy. So, hey, guys,

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Speaker 1: you know you might remember that Chris and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to do a crowdsourced episode where we asked our listeners

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Speaker 1: to submit to us the worst video game of all time.

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Speaker 1: And uh, we didn't give any real parameters about that.

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Speaker 1: We said it could be on any platform, it just

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Speaker 1: had to be a video game. And because of that,

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Speaker 1: it meant that our listeners could literally, uh nominate any

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Speaker 1: game ever made. So it's a miracle at all that

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Speaker 1: we had enough votes for any particular title to have

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Speaker 1: this this podcast, But we actually have the top ten

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Speaker 1: or perhaps bottom ten worst video games as voted on

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Speaker 1: by you the listener so please keep in mind this

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Speaker 1: is not the opinions of Jonathan and Chris, although maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of the bad games we've played

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Speaker 1: in the past two This isn't our opinion, this is

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Speaker 1: your opinion. We're just reporting it. Well, I have to

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Speaker 1: say that one one person did right in and ask

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Speaker 1: us why we would bother recording an episode on this,

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Speaker 1: and uh, the simple answer is because it's fun. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this was actually really a lot of fun. It was

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Speaker 1: a lot of work because we had to collect votes

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Speaker 1: from multiple sources. We collected votes from email, Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and people left votes on my Google Plus account too,

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Speaker 1: so um, I actually did separate out all the votes

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Speaker 1: in a big spreadsheet, so I knew how many votes

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Speaker 1: came in from which uh particular source and that that

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Speaker 1: actually was kind of interesting too, just to see, you know,

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Speaker 1: what our listeners prefer to use in order to get

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Speaker 1: information to us. That was pretty fascinating. That was not

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Speaker 1: my intent, by the way, when I came. I came

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Speaker 1: up with this idea on the spur of the moment

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Speaker 1: and sprung it on Chris just before we started recording,

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Speaker 1: and Chris was like, do I have to I have

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Speaker 1: to record all the votes. I said no, he said,

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Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. So you know, I'm easy

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Speaker 1: like that. Let's let's start off with what would be

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Speaker 1: number ten. But actually it was a tie for ninth place.

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Speaker 1: So the first two games we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: received the same number of votes. And the first one

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Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about is dragons Layer, the

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Speaker 1: arcade game specifically, So for those of you who who

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Speaker 1: missed out on the early eighties and the great arcade

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Speaker 1: culture of the early eighties, you may not be too

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Speaker 1: familiar with this game. But it was groundbreaking. Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was a an innovative way of presenting a video

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Speaker 1: game that had not been attempted before Dragon's Layer. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Previously we were talking about the different well the difference

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Speaker 1: in in vector and raster graphics, and and you know

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Speaker 1: there was there were blocky graphics for the most part

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Speaker 1: at the time, and they had limited animation, limited sound. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: but but Dragon's Layer actually featured animation from one of

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Speaker 1: the industry giant animators, Don Bluth, former Disney animator who

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Speaker 1: has gone on to you know, with his own company,

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Speaker 1: to do many many other titles. In fact, I have

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Speaker 1: a Don Bluth title on my iPad? Yeah, which one?

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Speaker 1: The new version of Tapper features Don Bluth artwork, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: because he also you may know some of his work

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Speaker 1: from from movies like The Secrets and the Secret of

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Speaker 1: Nim Yes, and the Lame Before Time series, Before Time

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Speaker 1: it was, was it the Five Old Movies too? Yes? Um,

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Speaker 1: those were Don Bluth films, so somewhere out there, yes,

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Speaker 1: thank you. So Dragon's Lair was featured animation from Don

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Speaker 1: Bluth and it was published by Cinematronics. Yeah. Yeah, But

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Speaker 1: but but how you might say, exactly is this great

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Speaker 1: leap in graphics and sound? Because the sound was awesome too.

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Speaker 1: How how is that possible? Because you know, you're looking

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Speaker 1: at other games like Donkey Kong, which you know I

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Speaker 1: loved Donkey Kong, but you would not call the epics

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Speaker 1: advanced or state of the art for the time, but

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Speaker 1: not now crazy. Yeah, well, they they accomplished this by

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Speaker 1: using the laser disc video format, which we've talked about before.

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Speaker 1: So the entire game was on laser disc, and there

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Speaker 1: was an actual laser disc player inside the cabinet of

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Speaker 1: this arcade game. Now, the fact that there it was

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Speaker 1: on laser disc was both its its biggest strength and

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Speaker 1: its biggest weakness. The weakness is that you couldn't create

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Speaker 1: too much interactivity for the player and the game. The

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Speaker 1: You know, you couldn't have complete control over the main

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Speaker 1: character who do you remember? The guy's name Dirk the Daring,

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Speaker 1: and he was rescuing a princess Daphne from a dragon

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Speaker 1: named Singe. And so you couldn't just control Dirk the Daring,

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Speaker 1: You couldn't just make him run around and jump and stuff. Instead,

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Speaker 1: what you would do is you would initiate a video sequence.

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Speaker 1: Because again this is recorded on laser disc. There's only

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Speaker 1: so many variations of Dirk's movements that can be recorded

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Speaker 1: on a single laser disc. So what your input into

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Speaker 1: the arcade machine would translate to is was that the

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Speaker 1: correct button to press or direction on the joystick to

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Speaker 1: push in order to trigger the next sequence to further

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Speaker 1: the storyline. Yeah, so you for example, you might be

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Speaker 1: having to jump, and you did have to jump at

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Speaker 1: one point, and if you, you know, move up, that

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Speaker 1: might be the right thing to do. If you move left,

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Speaker 1: you die. If you do nothing, you die. If you

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Speaker 1: if you push the sword button, you die. If you

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Speaker 1: push Yeah, so in other words, there'll be one correct

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Speaker 1: response to a particular moment in the story, and sometimes, uh,

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Speaker 1: there'd be like a little flash that would indicate this

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Speaker 1: is when you do something. So for a lot of

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Speaker 1: the game, you're you're just watching, You're just you're you're

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Speaker 1: watching a movie. And then occasionally in the movie there's

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Speaker 1: a moment where you have a chance to put in

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Speaker 1: an input, and if you put in the wrong one,

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Speaker 1: the movie is over. And so that was probably what

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Speaker 1: cost a lot of people to vote for Dragons Layers,

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Speaker 1: that it almost feels like less of a game and

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Speaker 1: more of a film. It's just a film that you

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Speaker 1: don't get to see the end of it unless you

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Speaker 1: happen to shift in your seat at just the right

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Speaker 1: moment so the film will continue. And also I would

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Speaker 1: like to point out this was one of the first

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Speaker 1: games I can remember that cost two credits or fifty

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Speaker 1: cents to play. And also remember that a lot of

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Speaker 1: them had two monitors because they were so popular that

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Speaker 1: people would try and gather and cram around the system.

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Speaker 1: Because if someone knew how to play it, if someone

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Speaker 1: had memorized the sequence of movements they had to do

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Speaker 1: to get through a particular part of the game. You know,

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Speaker 1: most people didn't have the time or energy or change

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Speaker 1: to learn all that, so they just like to watch

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Speaker 1: the game because again, it was like a movie. I

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Speaker 1: saw a lot of our kades that would put a

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Speaker 1: second monit he that was mounted on the top of

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Speaker 1: the cabinet so that you could see what was going

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Speaker 1: on without having to be right up on whoever is

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Speaker 1: playing the game. So anyway, that was tied for ninth place. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the other one was a game on the Nintendo

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Speaker 1: Entertainment System which was Back to the Future. And I

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Speaker 1: have never played this because I didn't own an any s.

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Speaker 1: From what I read, we're going from beautiful graphics and

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Speaker 1: and sort of poor gameplay to horrible graphics and gameplay. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Back to the Future is just one example of a

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Speaker 1: licensed title, and by licensed, I mean it's something that

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Speaker 1: already existed that a video game publisher purchases a license

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Speaker 1: from the license owner to be able to create a

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Speaker 1: game based on that. And as far as Back to

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Speaker 1: the Future goes, the basis was really pretty uh difficult

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Speaker 1: to spot, especially in that stage. Like in the very

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Speaker 1: first stage, you are going down a street and the

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Speaker 1: way the view is it's an over the head view. UM.

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Speaker 1: The street is laid out so that the top of

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Speaker 1: the screen is where you're you're headed to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the screen is where you are, and you're moving

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Speaker 1: your your character around Marty McFly. You're moving Marty McFly

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Speaker 1: down the street. You're trying to avoid enemies and pick

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Speaker 1: up little alarm clocks. And it's only by picking up

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Speaker 1: enough alarm clocks that you're allowed to move to the

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Speaker 1: next stage. And so you're also you also have a timer,

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Speaker 1: so if you don't pick up enough alarm clocks within

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Speaker 1: the time limit, then you lose. If you get hit

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Speaker 1: by an enemy, you lose. If you run into an obstacle,

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Speaker 1: you lose. UM. You would eventually be able to pick

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Speaker 1: up a bowling ball, which would let you shoot enemies

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Speaker 1: because of course you remember that great scene and Back

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Speaker 1: to the future where Marty McFly picked up a bowling

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Speaker 1: ball and then shot someone with it. Um, who could

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Speaker 1: forget that scene that never happened. Uh. And then you

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Speaker 1: can also get a skateboard, which I least that was

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Speaker 1: featured in the film. But with the skateboard, what that

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Speaker 1: would mean is that you would move through the the

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Speaker 1: you would move through the level faster, which meant the

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Speaker 1: poor gameplay became excruciating the poor gameplay because you're going

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Speaker 1: so fast you can't even react. Um. And then if

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Speaker 1: you got through that, you would hit a mini game.

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Speaker 1: And some of the mini games included a dinner stage

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Speaker 1: where you're behind the counter and Biff and his bullies

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Speaker 1: are coming in after you and you have to throw

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Speaker 1: milkshakes at them to stop them. But it was really

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Speaker 1: hard to line up your character so that you were

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Speaker 1: throwing the milkshake at the right plane in order to

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Speaker 1: hit the enemy. Like the enemy is coming at you

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Speaker 1: from the left side of the screen. You're on the

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Speaker 1: right side of the screen, and you've got a bar

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Speaker 1: between you and the enemy. You just have to figure

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Speaker 1: out exactly where, like vertically you need to align yourself,

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Speaker 1: and you you'd be like, oh, that's clearly, that's it.

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Speaker 1: That's that's the sweet spot, and you push the button

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Speaker 1: and the milkshake flies like three ft over the bully's

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Speaker 1: head and he reaches the bar and throws you against

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Speaker 1: the wall. Um. It was a little rough. And then

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Speaker 1: there was another stage where you had to block kisses

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Speaker 1: that were sent to you from Lorraine because you're playing

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Speaker 1: Marty McFly and his Marty's mother. You know, he's back

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Speaker 1: in time and he's met the teenage version of his mom,

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Speaker 1: and so you would have to block her kisses to you.

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Speaker 1: And then there was another one where you had to

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Speaker 1: position a guitar just right so that you were playing

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Speaker 1: music so that Lorraine and George, your your mom and

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Speaker 1: dad would actually kiss. And the very final stage involved

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Speaker 1: driving the DeLorean, the time travel device, through the street

429
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: at night, dodging enemies, dodging obstacles, trying to get up

430
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: to eighty eight miles per hour um. It looked awful.

431
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: Oh and Bob Gayle, who was a screenwriter for Back

432
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: to the Future, called it one of the worst games

433
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: ever made. Yeah, why do people keep saying this is

434
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: there's some problem with gravity in the future. So that

435
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 1: moves us up to our eighth worst game. Do you

436
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: wanna unveil what this one is? Well, it certainly has

437
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: a tough road to home, yes it does. But it

438
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: is extremely popular. It's something you may have seen once

439
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: or twice on Facebook, at least once or twice a

440
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,879
Speaker 1: minute on Facebook only if you follow people who play this,

441
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 1: And how could you not it's Farmville from Zinga. Now,

442
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,880
Speaker 1: Farmville has had a lot of criticism directed toward it.

443
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: It's one of those games. It's a it's a freemium game,

444
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 1: and that means that you can play the game for free,

445
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 1: but if you want to have the most advantageous stuff

446
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: in the game, you have to pay real money to

447
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 1: get it. Um and which is a perfectly valid business plan.

448
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: You know, there's no reason I'm not. I don't want

449
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: to say that that's a bad thing to do. I mean,

450
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: people should be compensated for the work they do in

451
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 1: order for them to make more work. Otherwise, no one

452
00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:55,119
Speaker 1: has any incentive to do anything. You know, well, you

453
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,479
Speaker 1: know it's it's got millions of fans, yes, um something

454
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: like I once heard a statistic that's something like all

455
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: people who use Facebook play this, and I have. You know,

456
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: I've played. I played it in some of the other

457
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: Zinga games, but I don't It's funny though, I don't

458
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: think of it as a game. I think if it

459
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 1: is more of a toy because there's no objective that

460
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: you're trying to accomplish to win the game. Basically, you're

461
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: trying to if you've never seen or or played it. Um.

462
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: The point is to grow your farm. So you know,

463
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: at some point you you add little plots of land

464
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: on which you can grow your crops, and you can

465
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: choose which crops to grow. Um. You know, each time

466
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: you plant something, you have several choices to you know,

467
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: you could say corn or tomatoes or you know, you know,

468
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: potatoes or something else. Um. And each crop costs a

469
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: certain amount of money and your you know, your fake

470
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:53,360
Speaker 1: gold money. Actually it's their their dollars, I think coins

471
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 1: farm coins and uh you also it's been a while

472
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: since I played. And each crop takes a certain amount

473
00:25:59,960 --> 00:26:01,880
Speaker 1: of time to grow, and if you leave the game

474
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 1: for more than that amount of time a reasonable amount

475
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 1: of time. Once it's grown, the crop will wither and die.

476
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: So the point is too, I mean, it's not just crops.

477
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: You also add you know, a fence around your your garden,

478
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: and you add a farmhouse and what kind do you want,

479
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: and you know, bales of hay, and you basically you

480
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: you add in size to the farm, and you add

481
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 1: different plots, and you upgrade your stuff. And there's also

482
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,199
Speaker 1: a social factor where you can interact with your friends

483
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: farms and they can interact with yours, which is why

484
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,640
Speaker 1: you see like all these notifications pop up on Facebook

485
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: until you get fed up with it and block them.

486
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean you can visit your friends farm

487
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: and fertilizer crops so they grow faster or unwier them

488
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,360
Speaker 1: when they've gone back and help them. You can send

489
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: them gifts and they can send you gifts, and that

490
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: that can be kind of fun. But the thing is, it's,

491
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 1: like Jonathan pointed out, uh, Zinga is really hoping that

492
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 1: you'll invest some actual cash into this and you can

493
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: get uh certain kinds of crops or certain kinds of

494
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,159
Speaker 1: decorations for your farm if you fork over some real

495
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: coin um. And that's kind of annoying for people like

496
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: me who are cheap and don't want to give them

497
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: any money. And the thing is, at certain point, the

498
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: game or software toy, it's like like I said, I

499
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: don't like to call it is sort of semi unplayable

500
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: because there's a point at which everything to make it

501
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: fun you really need to give them money for it

502
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: really doesn't change, and it's the point of whe you go, yeah,

503
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really don't want to do this, and

504
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: the game also encourages you to try and loop your

505
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: friends into the games. Yeah, so yeah, that's that's probably

506
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's why people voted for it, because it

507
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: feels almost invasive, um when you're on Facebook, unless you

508
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: you go so far as to block it. And we

509
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 1: had other Facebook games like games that are similar to

510
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: this uh nominated as well, but Farmville was the one

511
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: that actually got the most votes. And also I think

512
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: has been accused of sort of copying earlier game called

513
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: farm Town, Yes, that had very similar game mechanics. Some

514
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: people would say similarity to the point of identity. But well,

515
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: this this model has uh has extended across Facebook and

516
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: and other venues as well. I mean, there are some

517
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: iPad games um that I've you know, tried out on

518
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: my tablet that basically they're the same kinds of things.

519
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: Had your friends otherwise you're not going to get very

520
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,719
Speaker 1: far in this game. I'm like, I don't know anybody

521
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: else who's playing this. Plus I don't want to spam

522
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 1: everybody with email blasts saying joined my game. Yeah. I

523
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: mean if Jonathan's playing and I'm playing, then yeah, I'll

524
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: send Jonathan a note, Hey, send me a free chicken, right,

525
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: But I don't want to send that to everybody on

526
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: my list because you know it's annoying. Yes, it would,

527
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: So let's move on to our next nomination. Now, this,

528
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: this next nomination is interesting because it's a terrible, terrible

529
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: game that was designed to be a terrible, terrible game,

530
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: and it's called Desert Bus. Now, Desert Bus was actually

531
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: a mini game that was part of a larger package

532
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: of games for a product that never saw full production.

533
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: It was for the Sega c D system. Gosh, barely

534
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:19,719
Speaker 1: remember that the whole system was a failure, not just

535
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: this game, but it was a mini game that was

536
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: included in Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors. Um. A

537
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that was in Penn and Teller's

538
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: Smoke and Mirrors ended up being used in other Penn

539
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: and Teller products like Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends and

540
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: things like that. But this one idea, which supposedly came

541
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: from Eddie goad det Ski, who is a producer in Hollywood. Uh,

542
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: this one idea was to create an an ultra realistic

543
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: and by that I mean boring game in which you

544
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: drive a bus from Tucson in Arizona to Las Vegas,

545
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: Nevada in real time, and the buses top speed is

546
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: around forty five miles per hour. And there's no scenery,

547
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: there's there's no traffic, there are no passengers on the bus.

548
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: It's just you driving this bus to Las Vegas and

549
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: uh in real time. That takes, by the way, about

550
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: eight hours. And if you get all the way to

551
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, you get a point and then you have

552
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: to drive back. But what happens if you need to

553
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: you know, stop and eat dinner, go to the bathroom.

554
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: While the game does not have a pause function, so

555
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: the time would just keep going. Also, the bus, you

556
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: might say, why don't you just set it up so

557
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: that the bus drives automatically, like, you know, just put

558
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: something on the up arrow key on the gas pedal. Yeah. Uh, Well,

559
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: the bus also has a problem with its suspension and

560
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: it pulls to the right, so you have to constantly

561
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: adjust the bus so that it will it will be

562
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: on the road. Now, there is a port of this

563
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: game on the web. You can play a web based

564
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: version of Desert Bus if you want to. Now you

565
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: might ask why would you want to, Well, some of

566
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: it's just kind of like grousing slash bragging rights that

567
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: you know you actually bothered to take eight hours of

568
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: your life and get this virtual bus from Tucson to

569
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. But another group called Loading Ready Run had

570
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. UM that's a four person comedy group,

571
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: and they decided to hold a desert bus marathon session

572
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: as a fundraising effort to raise money for the charity

573
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: child Child's Play. Child's Plays a charity that gets a

574
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: lot of attention particularly around Penny Arcade Expo or Packs

575
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 1: because the Packs guys also hold um auctions for Child's

576
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: Play and it's it's providing video games and other kinds

577
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: of stuff like that to kids who are in hospitals

578
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:56,240
Speaker 1: and who are recovering or suffering from serious illnesses and

579
00:31:56,280 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: conditions as a nice charity, to do something nice for

580
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: the kids. Right. So, these four members of Loading Ready

581
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: Run took shifts at driving the desert bus UM they

582
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: ended up driving for more than four and a half days.

583
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: The first time, which was in two thousand seven, they

584
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: drove for around four and a half days and they

585
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: scored six points at four and a half days driving

586
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: the bus back and forth. Uh And since then they've

587
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: held the marathon several more times and have raised more

588
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: than four hundred thousand dollars collectively. Yeah for child's play,

589
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive. Um. But yeah, the game is online,

590
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: so if you just do a search for Desert Bus,

591
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: you can find a web based version of this game

592
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: and play it yourself. Well, we've got more to say

593
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: about the worst video games of all time, but until then,

594
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to do a little side quest here.

595
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: It looks like our princesses in another castle, so gonna

596
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Apparently

597
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: our number six game. It's also a game for people

598
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: who are into really not happy driving experience. Oh my gosh,

599
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: this game is probably it's amazing to me that this

600
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: game was ever released because it is. It is as

601
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: unfinished a game as I have ever seen. And I've

602
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: seen the reviews for this game, like I've seen video

603
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: reviews of this game that show the problems, and it's

604
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: you can't believe that such a product was ever released

605
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: to the public. I guess we should say what it is. Well,

606
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: racing games are so popular, and you know that you

607
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: can race just about anything in all kinds of video games,

608
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: so you would imagine that one that would allow you

609
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: to race tractor trailers would be fun, but big rigs

610
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: over the road racing for the PC for the PC

611
00:33:55,240 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: isn't It was a two thousand three third person racing games.

612
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: So you're outside the truck looking at the truck. Yeah,

613
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: and and let's see if we can figure out where

614
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: some of the problems of this game may reside, shall we?

615
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,399
Speaker 1: What's a racing game in which you don't really race

616
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: anyone else? Right? Well, first, the first problem is that

617
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: it was build as a game where the object was

618
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: that you were transporting illegal goods uh, and you were

619
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: being chased by police. So it was built as a

620
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: game where you had to drive fast and evade the cops.

621
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:30,439
Speaker 1: What cos right? So when you actually get the game,

622
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: it turns out there's nothing has nothing to do with

623
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: any of that. Instead, it was supposed to be, at

624
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: least once you've got the game going, it was supposed

625
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: to be a racing game where you're racing against other competitors,

626
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: but the game developer never actually bothered to put artificial

627
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: intelligence competitors in there, so they they never leave the

628
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: starting line. It's a race where all the other people

629
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: racing don't do anything. They just sit there. So you're

630
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: you're running and they're behind you and they don't do anything.

631
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: Beyond that, though, it gets worse than that. Well, what

632
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 1: about the realistic physics. Yeah, there weren't any Um you

633
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: could drive over anything like driving on the road or

634
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 1: driving off the road, or driving through a building. None

635
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 1: of that made any difference. You. You traveled at the

636
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: same speed unless you were backing up, in which case

637
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: you would accelerate infinitely until you let off the reverse button. Yeah,

638
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: I understand why. Again I didn't play this one, but

639
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: I understand too that stopping was hyper realistic too, Like

640
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 1: if you had perfect breaks, you just let up on

641
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: the accelerator and you stop. Yeah, exactly, you just go

642
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: to go to do that. Yeah, there's there's no sense

643
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: of momentum or inertia. You just the universe would would

644
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: would halt around you. Um, you could drive off the

645
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: edge of the map and into gray nothingness. So it

646
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: made it kind of a metaphysical philosophical game at that point.

647
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 1: I've done that before, and we've known plenty of metaphysical

648
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: philosophical truck drivers, and that's really not a dig. We

649
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: really do know quite a few of them. Um, but yeah,

650
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: it was just you know, collision detection to speak of. Uh.

651
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: There were five tracks listed in the game, only four

652
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 1: of them were playable. I don't know how that would

653
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,759
Speaker 1: be a disappointment considering how horrible the game was, Like,

654
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 1: oh great, you mean I can't play this other terrible

655
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: track that I would never love? And uh ex plays

656
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: Morgan Webb she she refused to rate this game because

657
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: ex Play has a rating system of one to five stars.

658
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: There's no zero, there's no zero, and she refused to

659
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 1: even give it one star, so she would not review it.

660
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: She played it, she just wouldn't give it a review.

661
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's pretty bad. So that was a

662
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:42,439
Speaker 1: that was a two thousand three game. But we're gonna

663
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: go a little further back for our next one, right right, Yeah,

664
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: this is a a port of a very popular arcade game. Um,

665
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 1: and for this is when I've played back on when

666
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: I had an Atariet Wall. Actually I still have an

667
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: Attar when I had it hooked up the TV, but

668
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: I didn't actually own this one. I did, Um, so

669
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: shall we Yeah this is fifth place, by the way,

670
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: for those of you keeping count, So in fifth place

671
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:13,800
Speaker 1: is pac Man. Yeah, pac Man, so reported the Namco Giant.

672
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: It's often called the worst coin op port ever. Donkey

673
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:24,400
Speaker 1: Kong wasn't great, Oh no, not, I don't just agree,

674
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: but pac Man was. Honestly, it was terrible. Yeah, At

675
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: least Donkey Kong remotely resemble the game that it was

676
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: based on. Yeah, pac Man. Some people have said that

677
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:37,759
Speaker 1: if it had not been called pac Man, if it

678
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,440
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been referred to as that, and it

679
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: had a slightly different appearance for the character that you play,

680
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: that people probably wouldn't be quite so hard on it.

681
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: Because the puzzle, the mazes were a little challenging to

682
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: get through, and you know, the gameplay worked properly, like

683
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: you know, you'd press left on the joystick and pac

684
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: Man would go left. You know. It wasn't like, you know,

685
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: Big Rigs what we just talked about, that a game

686
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:04,360
Speaker 1: that was just pure broken, right. There was no literally

687
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: no way to play that game. It end up being

688
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: like a weird sandbox game, but it wasn't intended to

689
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: be one. Pacman played the way it was supposed to

690
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 1: more or less. It's just that it was such a

691
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: poor translation of what a game that people were really

692
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: familiar with that it was it could be nothing more

693
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: than a disappointment to anyone who bought it. And in fact,

694
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: pac Man is one of the titles that people often

695
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: will use as an example when they talk about why

696
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,359
Speaker 1: the video game industry collapsed in nineteen in North America. Well,

697
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,879
Speaker 1: they made so many copies of this anticipating that people

698
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: would want to play it at home, but when they

699
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: actually got their hands on it and moved, I mean,

700
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: pac Man is a game where you actually need reflexes

701
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: and you need to pay attention to what's going on

702
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: in pac Man on the move so much more slowly,

703
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 1: and the graphics were poor. The sound wasn't as good.

704
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: I remember when it came out for the R and

705
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: it looked so much better except non centering joystick, which

706
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: makes playing in a four direction may is very very difficult.

707
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: So that just didn't help anything. Which is such a

708
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: huge flop at home, right, Yeah, it was. It was

709
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible game, And I completely agree with this

710
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: being on on a list for bad video games because

711
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: it you know, even if you even if you say

712
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: that the game play was okay, the effect it had

713
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: on the industry was so terrible that by definition it's

714
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,720
Speaker 1: a bad video game because it helped bring the industry

715
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: to its knees in nine and it wouldn't be until

716
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,439
Speaker 1: Nintendo launched the NES in North America that we would

717
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: see a recovery of that market. Um. So now next,

718
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: we have a tie for third place. You know, normally

719
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 1: we go from fifth to fourth, but we have the

720
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: same number of votes came in for our our third

721
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: and fourth place, so tie for third. And these two

722
00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: are more modern. Yeah. We we did an entire episode

723
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: about one of these, Duke Newcombe Forever. Now, we did

724
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: do a full episode about Duke nukemb Forever. So we're

725
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: not going to spend too much time right now talking

726
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: about it because now, Grant, when we did the episode,

727
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 1: it was before the game had come out hotly anticipated

728
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:18,839
Speaker 1: for a decade, more than a decade. Yeah, it was round. Yeah,

729
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:21,959
Speaker 1: it was originally announced as a title for the PC.

730
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: It was a a sequel to Duke NUKEMB three d um.

731
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 1: It was originally announced inn but it didn't launch until eleven. Yeah,

732
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: that's a long time for to wait for a video game, right,

733
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: I mean, award right up there with Dao Sex. Yeah,

734
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,360
Speaker 1: Wired gave it the Vaporware of the Year award multiple

735
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,879
Speaker 1: years in a row. In fact that it got discontinued

736
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,480
Speaker 1: from the voting because and then it was brought back

737
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just that it was vaporware. It was

738
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: that just when you were prepared to say Duke nukemb

739
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: Forever was never going to come out, there would be

740
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 1: some sort of rumble from three D Realms. They would

741
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no, no, it's really gonna come out.

742
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: And then you'd have to say, well, now we have

743
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: to put it back on the list, because you know,

744
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 1: we were ready to write it off forever, but they

745
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: say it's coming out, So of course they rights to

746
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:17,280
Speaker 1: the game passed into other people's hands. Three Realms collapsed. Yeah,

747
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 1: and they did. Yeah, they finished it. Um. They did

748
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: not receive wide acclaim when it launched, a lot of

749
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: people panned this game, which of course explains why it's

750
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: on our list and how many people voted for it. Um.

751
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,319
Speaker 1: A lot of the criticisms about the game said that

752
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: it was it just looked dated. It was it was

753
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: like a first person shooter designed for the late nineties.

754
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 1: You know, it didn't have the elements that you expect

755
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: in the first person shooter today and uh that even

756
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: even for one in the nineties, it would have been

757
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: great because like in the nineties, you would have a

758
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: lot of fast paced action and you would have a

759
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: ton of different weapons at your disposal. Duke Knew Them

760
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:03,439
Speaker 1: Forever was more plodding and uh, well, there's no way

761
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: for me to word this in a way that's not negative.

762
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: It was a slow, slow game. It could be boring

763
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: at times, it could be ages between one encounter with

764
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: an enemy and another, and you can only carry two

765
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: weapons at a time. So it took away some of

766
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: the stuff that made those games in the nineties so

767
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,280
Speaker 1: much fun and uh, and didn't replace it with anything better.

768
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: And also the juvenile humor in the Duke Newcomb series.

769
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: I think it may have worn a little thin. It's

770
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: just people don't find it as amusing as it used

771
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: to be, partially because we've had other games come out

772
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: that have much more biting satire and uh, and you know,

773
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: they're they're just as edgy as Duke newkemb was, but

774
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: they are more relevant. Like the Grand Theft Auto series

775
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,160
Speaker 1: is known for its dark humor, the Fallout three series

776
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: or the Fallout series in general is known for its

777
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 1: dark humor, and so you get to do Newcomb and

778
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: you're just like, well, this feels like you're in a

779
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: uh you know, you're in a locker room with a

780
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: bunch of really really immature guys, and that that's the

781
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,359
Speaker 1: level of humor and it just never gets above that.

782
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: And so I think all of those things contributed to

783
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: it being ranked on our list. But what about our

784
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: next game that's also tied for third place? You think

785
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: that a game written by um an Oxford professor of

786
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: bioethics might actually rank up there, But Bennett Foddy's game

787
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,919
Speaker 1: qw O P or wop um got a lot of

788
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: negative votes. Actually, I saw this profiled and wired before

789
00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: I ever tried to play it. Um, there's a need

790
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,479
Speaker 1: little article about him. Uh, and I do mean little.

791
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: It's very short, um. But basically, in this game, you

792
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: are using the keys Q W O P hence the name,

793
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: to move the legs of a runner on a track

794
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: ye a runner named quop for a hundreds And that's

795
00:43:58,200 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: important to know. It's not it's supposed to be a

796
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: limp runner on the hundred meter dash, and the Q

797
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: and W keys control the runners thighs, and the O

798
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,720
Speaker 1: n P keys control the runners calves, and you're supposed

799
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 1: to try and coordinate these movements in such a way

800
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: as to propel the runner down the hundred meters. By

801
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: the way, this runner has apparently no upper buddy control whatsoever,

802
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: and if if the runner gets even a little bit

803
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: off balance, it's time to tip over. And I have

804
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 1: seen so many people play this game and get negative

805
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 1: scores because they would just start tipping backwards almost instantaneously.

806
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,439
Speaker 1: And as soon as you touch the ground, that's where

807
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: you're that's that's your score. And uh, and we'll keep

808
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: in mind it's a hundred meter dash. Um. I've never

809
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: seen anyone complete this in fewer than twenty minutes. But

810
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: the furthest I've gotten is twelve point eight meters. Didn't

811
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: you send me a video somebody who had finished in

812
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: about four minutes. I think they sped it up. What

813
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: they what they ended up doing was they used it

814
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: so that they made Quop do a split, and then

815
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: they just kind of jimmied it. He finally like he

816
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: literally inched down a hundred meters and and at fifty

817
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: By the way, you are you are you encounter your

818
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: first obstacle hurdle, and at a hundred meters there's a

819
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: long jump, but you can go through the hurdle like

820
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: you don't have to. You don't have to actually jump

821
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: the hurdle. You can keep going as long as you're

822
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:24,919
Speaker 1: able to land on your feet or however you're getting across. Um,

823
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: you can you can pretty much ignore the hurdle and

824
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: the long jump is completely uh optional. Yes, if you

825
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: just have to cross that finish line. If you're if

826
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: your experience with video game running is track and field

827
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: from the nineties where you just had to pound buttons

828
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: as fast as you could. Um, you will not win

829
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 1: at this game. This game is. This game is really, really,

830
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: really hard, which I think is why it got a

831
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: lot of votes. It's it's frustrating, and it seems it

832
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 1: seems after you've played it for about a minute, it

833
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: seems completely pointless. Oh, we should say it's web based.

834
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: It's a web based so you can find it on

835
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: Foddy's side. He wrote this in two thousand and eight

836
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: and it's still up, so if you want to give

837
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: it a shot, go ahead. It's it's kind of and

838
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny. It also gives you an idea

839
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,720
Speaker 1: of how well your brain is controlling your walking movements,

840
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: because if you were trying to walk with your you know,

841
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: control your own legs with your fingers. You I don't

842
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: know that I would do it better, but it takes

843
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 1: a lot of coordination to be able to Like, even

844
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: when I got twelve point eight meters, it was mostly luck.

845
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: I was timing it just right. But even as I

846
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: was playing, I was like, oh, I should have I

847
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 1: should have let up on the calf muscle and continued

848
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: on the thigh muscle for a split second longer, and

849
00:46:36,239 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 1: I would have been able to get a little further.

850
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: I can never do that when I'm actually playing. Like,

851
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:42,399
Speaker 1: when I'm actually playing, I'm like, press these two buttons, now,

852
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 1: switch through these two buttons, now switch back to those

853
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: two buttons. And that's that's my tactic. It's probably why

854
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:50,399
Speaker 1: I've only gotten twelve points in Maybe you should get

855
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: onto a gurp Oh yeah, I've played that one too,

856
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: which is his mountain climbing game, and apparently it's very

857
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: very similar. It's actually that one I can play really well.

858
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: I've gotten pretty far in girp Um. That one makes

859
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,600
Speaker 1: more sense to me, I've got better coordination with that one.

860
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: But the but yeah, quop is really hard. So um,

861
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,760
Speaker 1: you know who's really good at controlling their legs? Who's

862
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: the he? But someone who doesn't have to use them?

863
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:19,839
Speaker 1: Is this going into our second place? Yes? Because I mean,

864
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: you know, if you can fly, yeah, then why would

865
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: you need to use your legs? Yes? Talking about our

866
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: second place. Superman the New Superman Adventures. Yeah, also known

867
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: as Superman sixty four sixty four It wasn't its official name, right,

868
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 1: It's good that it wasn't Superman the New Batman Adventures.

869
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: That would be really confusing. Yeah, like Superman Little Pony

870
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,840
Speaker 1: that it would be weird. It might have been a

871
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,480
Speaker 1: better game then though. This was released in for the

872
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 1: Nintendo sixty four and probably shouldn't have been. And again

873
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: this we're talking about licensed character you know all we

874
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: talked about with Back to the Future. There we're gonna

875
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:58,279
Speaker 1: make some money. The history of licensed characters, actually, we're

876
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: gonna get to that again very short. The history of

877
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: licensed characters in video games is a pretty ugly one.

878
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 1: There are a few games that stand out as being remarkable,

879
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: like truly good games that use licensed characters, but the

880
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb is that if it's a licensed

881
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 1: character game, it's it's got a good that the odds

882
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: are against it, right, just based on the number of

883
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: bad games that use licensed characters. Now, there are other games,

884
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 1: like you know, Arkham Asylum, which are fun. I mean,

885
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:31,839
Speaker 1: that's a Batman game, and that's a lot of fun.

886
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to bring up Golden Eye.

887
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: Golden Eye fantastic one of the best games ever made,

888
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: also made for the Nintendo sixty four, one of the

889
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:46,439
Speaker 1: top first person shooter games of that era. Fantastic game.

890
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: Superman not so much so. The story behind this game,

891
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: the actual story in the game, that is, is that

892
00:48:55,239 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 1: you play the part of Superman who has been tricked,

893
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: as he often is, I Lex Luthor to enter into

894
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: a virtual representation of Metropolis, and you have to complete

895
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: these different tasks and puzzles that Lex sets up for

896
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: you in order to escape and beat the tar out

897
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:18,240
Speaker 1: of him. Tank I needed exit. Yeah, so the first

898
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: test of your skills involves flying through a series of hoops,

899
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: because yeah, I remember his big battle with Doomsday where

900
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: he had to fly through about fourteen hoops before. No,

901
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense and I jumped through hoops

902
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: every day after that, you might have to pick up

903
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: a car and throw it, because again that's what Superman

904
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: would do in Metropolis. Is that you know, you're thinking,

905
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: like you're driving down with your family, You're having a

906
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: nice day out. You might be going to go see

907
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: the Metropolis Museum of Art, and the next thing you know,

908
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: some jerk has just flown over, picked up your car

909
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 1: and thrown at forty blocks. Yeah, that's that will ruin

910
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: your whole day. But anyway, so you would also have

911
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 1: to do things I fight famous Superman villains. But the

912
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: controls were really sluggish, the gameplay was incredibly repetitive, and

913
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: it has been ranked as one of the worst video

914
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 1: games of all time, not just by our listeners, but

915
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:17,280
Speaker 1: by other publications. I mean it has multiple I hesitate

916
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 1: to use the word awards, but multiple notifications of it

917
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 1: being the worst, one of the worst video games, and

918
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: in fact, in one ranking I saw, it was ranked

919
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: as the number one and our number one was number two. Hey,

920
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: we are almost through with our episode about the worst

921
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: video games of all time. Hope you're enjoying it. But

922
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: before we conclude, let's take another quick break so now

923
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:50,440
Speaker 1: I guess we should move on to what our listeners

924
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: have voted. And I'm sure you've already guessed it based

925
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: upon what has already been listed. But what yourur listeners

926
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:57,919
Speaker 1: have voted as the worst video game of all time?

927
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: And I should point out this received twenty nine percent

928
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,840
Speaker 1: of the overall votes we received. And keep in mind,

929
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 1: you could nominate any title at all, and and I'm

930
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 1: I have a small concern. That's because we've mentioned it

931
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: as a terrible game, that that you all thought that

932
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: we were coaching you to vote for this time, and

933
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,480
Speaker 1: we did. We have talked about this game being a

934
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: terrible game before, but when when we actually asked for votes,

935
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: I made sure we didn't mention any particular title. I

936
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 1: didn't want to change anyone's mind or put in a suggestion.

937
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: I'm sure that happened anyway based upon some of the

938
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 1: comments and everything. But our worst video game is of

939
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: all time, Chris, do the honors? E T the Extraterrestrial

940
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:49,720
Speaker 1: for the R two game published by Atari in about

941
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: ten minutes. Yeah, so keep in mind that Atari went

942
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 1: the route where they were allowing all sorts of developers

943
00:51:57,440 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 1: to create games for there. It didn't have to be

944
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: vetted through Atari, right, Nintendo had the whole certification process.

945
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 1: Atari did not. But this there's no excuse here because

946
00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 1: Atari was the publisher behind this game in the first place.

947
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, So then this game, you take the role

948
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: of e T. The Extraterrestrial from the beloved Steven Spielberg

949
00:52:22,560 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 1: documentary of the same name, and your task was to

950
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: locate three pieces of an interstellar telephone so that you

951
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:36,399
Speaker 1: could assemble them and phone home, which would summon a

952
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: spaceship that would rescue you. Uh. You did this just

953
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: like in the movie. I mean, we all remember that

954
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: scene in the movie where e T had to walk

955
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 1: into a field of pits, raise his head up, look

956
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: for the flash, and descend into the pit to retrieve

957
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: a piece of the interstellar phone. I mean you remember

958
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 1: that scene right, as probably no, that scene did not exist.

959
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: But in them, you would walk into one of the screens,

960
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: actually a couple of the screens would have several pits

961
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 1: on the screen. You push a button which would raise

962
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: ET's head and he would do a sound like this,

963
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: and then what if you were lucky, one of the

964
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: pits would flash, which would indicate that one of the

965
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: pieces of the phone was in that pit, and you

966
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 1: would walk over to the pit, fall in, pick up

967
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: the piece of phone, and then you would press the

968
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,799
Speaker 1: button which would raise ET's head wall and you would

969
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: levitate up the pit. Now, most of the game is

970
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: an overhead view, but when you were in a pit,

971
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: it was a side view like a cut and you

972
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: would you would levitate to the top of the pit

973
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: and then immediately fall in again because it was really

974
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: hard that once you got to the top of the pit,

975
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: the screen would change so that you were looking at

976
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:51,120
Speaker 1: the overhead view again and you had to manipulate ET

977
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 1: all over to the edge of the pit so that

978
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 1: you were on the ground again. Right, So you're you

979
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 1: go from a side view to an overhead view. And

980
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I fell down

981
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 1: to pit over and over and over again because I

982
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:04,800
Speaker 1: thought it was clear. But and every time you fall,

983
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:07,400
Speaker 1: and every time you use your powers, you use up energy.

984
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:09,839
Speaker 1: You have a limited amount of energy, and after you

985
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 1: use it all up, you die. Yeah, Well, you have

986
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: to find dots, I mean pieces. He had a little

987
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: square pixel which would be represent one Reese's pieces, and

988
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 1: you would eat that and that would give you a

989
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,879
Speaker 1: little more energy. They would also had doctors who would

990
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: walk around and if they found you, they'd pick you

991
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 1: up and move you to a different screen, and you

992
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 1: would lose a little time, or worse, you would find

993
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:32,960
Speaker 1: an FBI guy and he would chase you down and

994
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:35,600
Speaker 1: if he touched you, he would take away your phone

995
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: and he had to start over again. And so you

996
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:40,839
Speaker 1: would do this over and over again till you had

997
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: the three pieces of phone. Then you could go to

998
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: one part of the game, the one section where there's

999
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: an icon on the screen that tells you you can

1000
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: make your phone call here, and you had to find

1001
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: it because it wasn't always in the same place. You

1002
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: would make your phone call, and then you had to

1003
00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: make it to a different screen where the space ship

1004
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: would actually land because apparently you can't make a phone

1005
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:05,360
Speaker 1: call at the landing site. Oh no, that'd be too easy.

1006
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: So then you have to make your way to the

1007
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: other screen and get in the little spaceship and you

1008
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: would then start the game over at the same difficulty

1009
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:23,399
Speaker 1: level immediately. And this game was awful, terrible, terrible game

1010
00:55:23,840 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: so bad that people the word got out about how

1011
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:30,640
Speaker 1: disappointed this game was. That people stopped buying it, and

1012
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 1: uh Atari had produced thousands of cartridges because the movie

1013
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 1: was so successful. So Atari goes out and makes thousands

1014
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: and thousands of copies of ET. The reviews come in,

1015
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: people hate it, copies go unsold. Eventually, stores start to

1016
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: send their unsold copies of ET back to Atari, and

1017
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:58,360
Speaker 1: Atari grinds them up and then trucks them out into

1018
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 1: New Mexico and aries them. You know, um, you know

1019
00:56:03,520 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 1: what they did with that? What's up? They used it

1020
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 1: to pave a road and then you drive this bus

1021
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: right across the desert and you get one point every

1022
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: time you run over ET exactly. Yeah, it was, and

1023
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 1: then you fall in a pit and then physics in

1024
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: that game are terrible. But anyway, yeah, so that was.

1025
00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 1: This was again just like pac Man. This is another

1026
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:25,279
Speaker 1: one of those games that was pointed to as being

1027
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: one of the reasons the video game industry crashed in Now.

1028
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: You know a lot of the games that came out

1029
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: for they were these games made by independent developers that

1030
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,759
Speaker 1: were just terrible. But it was because you know, the

1031
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:43,360
Speaker 1: market was flooded with terrible games and Attari was not

1032
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: helping itself out by publishing some of them itself. Yeah,

1033
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:49,919
Speaker 1: I had some of those games too, and I had

1034
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 1: and you know, I've mentioned it before. I was actually

1035
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: surprise that nobody voted for the sword Quest series. But

1036
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 1: my guess is that Ataria was in such decline that

1037
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,439
Speaker 1: none of our listeners actually bought that but me, since

1038
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 1: they didn't even finish the last game on the series.

1039
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 1: But we didn't. A couple of people did vote for

1040
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: some games that were patently offensive. We didn't mentioned that before,

1041
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 1: and we didn't we weren't including those specifically because we

1042
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 1: were talking about games that were just horrible games now

1043
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: were offensive. These were games that were meant to be enjoyable.

1044
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: They didn't have an ulterior motive, right right, There are

1045
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: some of those two. But the games that had an

1046
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 1: ulterior motive where the whole purpose was to perpetuate hatred

1047
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: or to make a joke out of uh inhumane acts,

1048
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: we didn't include those because really, I mean, first of all,

1049
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 1: I refused to give them any more publicity than they've

1050
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 1: already had. And second of all, I I was the

1051
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: spirit of the thing was to think of games that

1052
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: were meant to be enjoyable, fun, games that just weren't

1053
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: for one reason, or another. Um, let's talk about some

1054
00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: of the really quickly, because we were already getting pretty

1055
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 1: far up there. But we have to talk about some

1056
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:06,200
Speaker 1: of the other games that got on got some votes

1057
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: that I was surprised didn't get more votes. But again,

1058
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 1: since you had every single game open to you, you know,

1059
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 1: one of those was Aquaman Battle for Atlantis. This game

1060
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 1: is nigh unplayable. It again had one of the worst

1061
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 1: reviews ever. Explay did an amazing hysterical review of this game. UM.

1062
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 1: I think they called it like Power of the Mullet

1063
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: or something like that in their in their review, but

1064
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 1: it was terrible. And games that, um, we're specifically designed

1065
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 1: to be marketing tools for for brands, so stuff like

1066
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 1: I actually had the kool Aid game for the Oh Yeah,

1067
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: oh No, and then they had the Avoid the Annoyed

1068
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:51,920
Speaker 1: game for Dominoes. There were all the Burger King games

1069
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:54,760
Speaker 1: that came out for the Xbox. There was a McDonald's

1070
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: game as well. We got we got votes for those,

1071
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: but they were it was usually like one yeah, like

1072
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: one vote for one of those titles, so there wasn't

1073
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: a lot of but I think that that deserves mentioned.

1074
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,919
Speaker 1: Games that are specifically just marketing employs tend to get

1075
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:15,160
Speaker 1: hate hated by gamers, which you know, that kind of

1076
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: makes sense, like gamers won a game that was designed

1077
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,480
Speaker 1: just to create enjoyment, be fun and challenging, not a

1078
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 1: game that's designed to make you want to go out

1079
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: and buy a pizza. Teenager Ninja Turtles also falls into

1080
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: that category. I'm just kidding. So and then there were

1081
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:30,840
Speaker 1: some of the games that were on the list that

1082
00:59:30,880 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: we were a little surprised to see votes for. Uh.

1083
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:36,040
Speaker 1: And in some cases, I think it's what people were

1084
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: voting on games that either they're just tired of seeing

1085
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: or they don't they are not particularly good at that

1086
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,120
Speaker 1: game and they find it frustrating, and other people like it,

1087
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: and that's why they hate it, because it's a game

1088
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: that they personally just don't get. Um. But some of

1089
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:54,040
Speaker 1: those titles include things like Angry Birds, which I think

1090
00:59:54,080 --> 00:59:57,280
Speaker 1: probably that's a saturation thing, right, It's just because it's everywhere,

1091
00:59:57,280 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 1: people are going to be tired of it. I think

1092
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: that was farm built. Yeah, Uh, we fit, we fit.

1093
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 1: I don't even think if we fit as a game,

1094
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:07,520
Speaker 1: And that's why I didn't really like that. That's not

1095
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: really a game so much I mean, there's a game

1096
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:12,040
Speaker 1: element to it, but it's not I don't call it

1097
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:15,200
Speaker 1: a game. Halo, which I think a lot of people

1098
01:00:15,240 --> 01:00:17,560
Speaker 1: would argue as one of the better first person shooters

1099
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: for a console system, keeping in mind that PC based

1100
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 1: first person shooters are much more sophisticated and require a

1101
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 1: totally different skill set than a console one. I've heard

1102
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: computer first person shooter players refer to console first person

1103
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: shooters as kind of dumbing down the whole thing, and

1104
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:36,440
Speaker 1: I kind of get that, but it's it's a different,

1105
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,520
Speaker 1: you know, kind of different mode. And I personally love

1106
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 1: the Halo series. I can see your Halo. Thank you

1107
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:47,280
Speaker 1: Pitfall for the ad. That was a classic title like that,

1108
01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 1: along with River Radar, two of my favorite DRED titles,

1109
01:00:51,800 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: But there were people who didn't like it because it

1110
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 1: had a repetitive gameplay activisions early days there Super Mario

1111
01:00:57,400 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 1: sixty four another game that got great review US, but

1112
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 1: we got some votes for that Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator,

1113
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: which again I don't really think of as a game.

1114
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: Flight simulator and flight simulators, by their very nature tend

1115
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:15,000
Speaker 1: to be very, very complex, and sometimes overwhelmingly so because

1116
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: they are trying to be so true to life, and

1117
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: yet you're using a different interface to control that vehicle

1118
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: than you would if you were in the cockpit, So

1119
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: there's an extra layer of complexity, you know. So that

1120
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:29,840
Speaker 1: the votes also we got some votes for Call of

1121
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: Duty and Modern Warfare, which that was kind of interesting. Um,

1122
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:37,840
Speaker 1: so not everybody agrees obviously on what is the worst

1123
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: game of all time? Although overwhelmingly ET ran away with

1124
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 1: this Like it was, there wasn't even close. ET have

1125
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 1: way more votes than all the others combined. But like

1126
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:55,200
Speaker 1: I said, all the votes that were we received for

1127
01:01:55,320 --> 01:01:59,320
Speaker 1: everything went to ET galloped everywhere he walked, did you Yes,

1128
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: it's true, Yeah, that's true. Did you have any game? Well?

1129
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: You mentioned the what was the sword Quest series? That

1130
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: was a pretty bad There was supposed to be a

1131
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 1: contest if he solved all four parts of it, and

1132
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 1: the fourth part never came out in the third one

1133
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 1: got limited distribution. But I couldn't see the point of

1134
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: doing what you were supposed to be doing, right, I mean,

1135
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 1: I just really couldn't follow the sequence. Yeah, I think

1136
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 1: I have to say that out of all the ones

1137
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:27,840
Speaker 1: I've I've mentioned, e T is probably the the one

1138
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:30,840
Speaker 1: I think of as the worst that I've ever personally played.

1139
01:02:31,640 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: I've played a lot of really bad games, but I

1140
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:36,360
Speaker 1: tend to forget them because I have access to more

1141
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:38,320
Speaker 1: games now, so if I play a really bad one,

1142
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:40,560
Speaker 1: I just switch and go to a good one so

1143
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: it doesn't leave as big an impression on me. Back

1144
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, my options were somewhat limited,

1145
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 1: and so I would play a bad game over and

1146
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,920
Speaker 1: over because it's what I had. Ah, you poor thing.

1147
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: I know here I am complaining about video games. Poor me,

1148
01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 1: I have played a game. Um, don't cry for me, Argentina.

1149
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:11,120
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy? That was what I told you to do? So, yeah,

1150
01:03:11,160 --> 01:03:13,000
Speaker 1: that was our episode on the worst video Games of

1151
01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: All time. You guys pick some doozies. Maybe someday we'll

1152
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: do another like follow up to that, because of course,

1153
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 1: there have been lots of video games releas since two

1154
01:03:21,440 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, certainly, and some of you may have very

1155
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:26,400
Speaker 1: strong opinions, like, wait, there was this other game that

1156
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:28,680
Speaker 1: was even worse than all the ones you mentioned, and

1157
01:03:28,720 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 1: you didn't talk about it, so, uh, we might try

1158
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: it again, I said at the time. Maybe we'll do

1159
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 1: a more concentrated approach, because when you leave it wide open.

1160
01:03:38,880 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: You get you know, five people responding, and a hundred

1161
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 1: of them all give a vote for an obscure title.

1162
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:49,400
Speaker 1: But that's one vote per obscure title, so they don't

1163
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: amount to anything. So we'll figure something out. But we

1164
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about some of the

1165
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 1: worst video games we've ever played. So, Lauren, you know,

1166
01:03:57,200 --> 01:04:00,720
Speaker 1: since you weren't available to talk about the video games

1167
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:02,480
Speaker 1: of all time, did you have any that you wanted

1168
01:04:02,520 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 1: to add to the discussion? Yeah, okay, So, so there

1169
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 1: were two that I've played personally that stand out in

1170
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:12,120
Speaker 1: my mind as being particularly terrible. Um. The first is

1171
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:16,040
Speaker 1: Back to the Future parts two and three for the

1172
01:04:16,160 --> 01:04:21,880
Speaker 1: n S. That's the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Um and okay,

1173
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 1: both of the things that I'm going to mention our

1174
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 1: uh film or otherwise, you know, other media titles that

1175
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 1: have been ported over, which is never really a recipe for. Yeah,

1176
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 1: there's only a few examples of ones like Batman Arkham Asylum,

1177
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 1: Like that's an example of a great licensed game, but

1178
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:41,840
Speaker 1: there's so few of those. Oh yeah, yeah, and okay,

1179
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,320
Speaker 1: So so this one was developed by Beam Software and

1180
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: released by l j N and it was rated unforgiving

1181
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: in game facts. Um, it was. It was just basically

1182
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:54,640
Speaker 1: impossible to play. The music was terrible, the graphics were terrible.

1183
01:04:54,960 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: There were some parts of it that were just just meaningless. Yeah. Yeah,

1184
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:01,160
Speaker 1: so let's see other one. The other one is the

1185
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 1: X Files game that's for the PC and or the

1186
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 1: PS one or PS X. Uh. Yeah, I remember seeing

1187
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: video reviews of that. I never played it myself. I

1188
01:05:12,560 --> 01:05:14,920
Speaker 1: want to hear more about your experience here, all right.

1189
01:05:15,080 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: So so this one was developed by UM and I

1190
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: think this is how you pronounce it, Hyperbowl Studios, not hyperbole.

1191
01:05:22,800 --> 01:05:26,440
Speaker 1: Not hyperbole, Yeah, hyper bowl that's how it's spelled. Um.

1192
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,320
Speaker 1: It was released by Fox Interactive. Makes sense of the

1193
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: twenty century Foxes doing the X Files in and or nine,

1194
01:05:33,440 --> 01:05:36,480
Speaker 1: depending on which system you bought it for. Um. So

1195
01:05:36,520 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 1: this was largely an f m v A full and

1196
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even starring Molder and Scully. Is the problem, Like,

1197
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:49,240
Speaker 1: because the actors were busy, you know, doing their TV show,

1198
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:51,320
Speaker 1: so they had to get this other dude to kind

1199
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:54,960
Speaker 1: of interact very occasionally with Molder and Scully, and the

1200
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:58,760
Speaker 1: puzzles were just terrible, Like it wasn't it wasn't thought

1201
01:05:58,760 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 1: out very well in terms of game design. Like I

1202
01:06:00,880 --> 01:06:03,640
Speaker 1: think the first puzzle in the game was you sit

1203
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:06,800
Speaker 1: down at your office being you, being this this this

1204
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,440
Speaker 1: other agent character, and the first thing you have to

1205
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:13,919
Speaker 1: figure out is what your computer passport is, as though

1206
01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:16,800
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know what your own computer I mean, actually,

1207
01:06:16,800 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: to be fair, I guess I forget my own passwords

1208
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 1: about once a week. But that's still that's I mean,

1209
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: how you can't be more secure, right, like you know

1210
01:06:25,800 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 1: your you know your system secure, when even you are

1211
01:06:28,080 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: not aware of what your passworts are. Wow. Yeah, I

1212
01:06:31,680 --> 01:06:33,720
Speaker 1: was trying to think of any others I want to add,

1213
01:06:33,720 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 1: because again, we recorded that first episode back in two

1214
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:38,520
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, and you know, I've played games since then.

1215
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:40,640
Speaker 1: But here's the thing is that the way I tend

1216
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: to play games these days, I tend to buy them

1217
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:47,720
Speaker 1: well after they've had their initial run, simply because I

1218
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:49,640
Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of time on my hands.

1219
01:06:50,040 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: So I'm often playing a game that came out, you know,

1220
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:58,040
Speaker 1: a year earlier earl or somewhere around that time. Uh

1221
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 1: still while other games are coming out, and because I

1222
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:02,800
Speaker 1: haven't finished that game, I don't just immediately jump on

1223
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 1: the other. So like Skyrim, I didn't get that till

1224
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: almost a year after it had come out, maybe maybe

1225
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: seven or eight months, and people have perhaps vetted the

1226
01:07:11,160 --> 01:07:13,520
Speaker 1: fact that it's worth your while by the time you purchase,

1227
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:15,800
Speaker 1: and yeah, by that time people have played it, I've

1228
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:19,040
Speaker 1: seen reviews, I've heard buzz about it, and I've decided

1229
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:21,680
Speaker 1: whether or not it's for me. It's very rare when

1230
01:07:21,680 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 1: I'll go out and get a game like the day

1231
01:07:23,640 --> 01:07:25,560
Speaker 1: it comes out. One of the examples of one where

1232
01:07:25,600 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: I did do that was a Grand Theft Auto of five,

1233
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't go the worst game of all time

1234
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:33,880
Speaker 1: or anything close to that. The actual single player experience

1235
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:37,440
Speaker 1: is pretty phenomenal if you like those kind of games.

1236
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 1: If you don't like those kind of games, obviously, obviously

1237
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:42,560
Speaker 1: you're not going. But I really enjoyed the game. I

1238
01:07:42,640 --> 01:07:47,000
Speaker 1: enjoyed the story, I like the characters. I didn't think

1239
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:50,720
Speaker 1: it was necessarily groundbreaking. It wasn't nearly as dark as

1240
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:54,000
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto four was, but uh, I enjoyed it.

1241
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:57,720
Speaker 1: But the online part, which was released two weeks after

1242
01:07:57,720 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 1: the game came out, you know, they had a lot

1243
01:07:59,760 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 1: of of promises of what was going to come, and

1244
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: some of those promises as of the recording of this

1245
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:08,400
Speaker 1: podcast have yet to be delivered upon, like being able

1246
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:12,560
Speaker 1: to do heists in multiplayer. Heists in the single player

1247
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:16,080
Speaker 1: game were fantastic. They were you had to coordinate between

1248
01:08:16,120 --> 01:08:18,599
Speaker 1: three different characters. You could swap between the characters during

1249
01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:21,519
Speaker 1: the highest each one is doing something specific, really kind

1250
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:24,360
Speaker 1: of complicated stuff like you could actually determine which of

1251
01:08:24,400 --> 01:08:26,599
Speaker 1: two pathways you would want to take, whether you wanted

1252
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:29,280
Speaker 1: to go the subtle route or just kick the doors

1253
01:08:29,320 --> 01:08:33,599
Speaker 1: open exactly. So it was really a fun, dynamic thing

1254
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:35,760
Speaker 1: in the single player game. So everyone's really looking forward

1255
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:38,120
Speaker 1: to it, but it hasn't come out for multiplayer again

1256
01:08:38,160 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast, and that has

1257
01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:45,120
Speaker 1: been a pretty big disappointment. So the single player fantastic

1258
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,160
Speaker 1: multiplayer was one of those things where people got tired

1259
01:08:48,160 --> 01:08:49,840
Speaker 1: of it. In fact, I don't know how many people

1260
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:52,800
Speaker 1: are still playing multiplayer. I know there are, but I

1261
01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:54,880
Speaker 1: don't know how many of them there are because a

1262
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:56,920
Speaker 1: lot of people just got they were able to do

1263
01:08:56,960 --> 01:08:59,600
Speaker 1: everything you could do, and you're like, well, between the

1264
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:03,200
Speaker 1: promise in the follow through and it was it was

1265
01:09:03,200 --> 01:09:06,519
Speaker 1: because it was really an ambitious project and just didn't

1266
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:09,120
Speaker 1: quite live up to it when it launched. Not to

1267
01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:11,519
Speaker 1: say that they won't eventually get there. I just wonder

1268
01:09:11,600 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 1: how big a population they'll have once they finally do.

1269
01:09:14,200 --> 01:09:16,639
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't have sadly don't have a whole

1270
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 1: lot of stories about terrible video games I've played. I mean,

1271
01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 1: even that's not really sad, that's that's kind of okay. Yeah,

1272
01:09:24,160 --> 01:09:26,559
Speaker 1: that wraps up that classic episode of the worst video

1273
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 1: Games of All Time. Something to always keep in mind

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Speaker 1: is that pretty much every case, no matter how bad

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Speaker 1: a video game might turn out to be, we should

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Speaker 1: remember typically there are people who are working very hard

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Speaker 1: on those games, and sometimes stuff just doesn't work out

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Speaker 1: for any number of reasons. But that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 1: those people who are working on it were in the

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Speaker 1: wrong or weren't skilled. Sometimes stuff just doesn't go well.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I wanted to put that out there because

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Speaker 1: a lot of the times when I talk about like

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Speaker 1: the worst of all time stuff, it sounds like I'm

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Speaker 1: slagging off on the people who are responsible for it.

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Speaker 1: But that's not always you know, merited. Sometimes it is

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Speaker 1: if people are like running a scam or something. But

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Speaker 1: in the case where people are genuinely setting out to

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Speaker 1: do something and they just fall short, I feel like

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Speaker 1: we should give them a little compassion. So just reminding

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Speaker 1: myself as well as you nice folks out there, that

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Speaker 1: compassion can go a long way. Well, speaking of compassion,

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Speaker 1: if you feel like that there's an episode I should

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01:10:34,760 --> 01:10:36,920
Speaker 1: be covering, you know, maybe there's an update I need

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01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:39,680
Speaker 1: to do, maybe there's a technology you want to know

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Speaker 1: more about, you should reach out to me, but nicely

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Speaker 1: over on Twitter the handle I use as tech stuff

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Speaker 1: h s W. Now I'll tell to you again really soon.

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Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: H