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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from house

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Vocalbam. And you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a news story that broke not too long ago

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Speaker 1: that relates back to stuff we've talked about on the

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Speaker 1: show before. I'm talking, of course, about one of the

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Speaker 1: most important archaeological projects of all time outside of an

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Speaker 1: Indiana Jones film. I'm talking about going out to the

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Speaker 1: desert in New Mexico and digging yourself up some E

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Speaker 1: T and many other Atari games. Yeah. So, for those

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Speaker 1: who do not remember, we've talked about this, Like I

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Speaker 1: said multiple times, back in n you had a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a a glut in the video game market,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, Atari had some some extra um

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Speaker 1: inventory on its hands. Yeah. Okay, So, so there's been

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Speaker 1: this longstanding rumor, elevated to almost myth status in the

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Speaker 1: video game industry that that Atari, while it was struggling,

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Speaker 1: dumped thousands of video games in this New Mexico landfill. Um.

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Speaker 1: The New York Times even ran a short piece on

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Speaker 1: it in September three, and it's it's a short piece.

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Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna read it out because it's a

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Speaker 1: really explains the story and is super indicative of what

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Speaker 1: the industry was doing at the time. So here we go.

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Speaker 1: With the video game business gone sour, some manufacturers have

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Speaker 1: been dumping their excess game cartridges on the market at

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Speaker 1: depressed prices. Now, Atari Inc. The leading video game manufacturer,

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Speaker 1: has taken dumping one step further. The company has dumped

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Speaker 1: fourteen truckloads of discarded game cartridges and other computer equipment

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Speaker 1: at the City landfill in Alama Gordon, New Mexico. Guards

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Speaker 1: kept reporters and spectators away from the area yesterday as

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Speaker 1: workers poured concrete over the dumped merchandise. And Atari spokesman

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Speaker 1: said the equipment came from Atari's plant in al Paso, Texas,

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Speaker 1: which was used to make video game cartridges but has

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Speaker 1: now been converted to recycling scrap. Atari lust three d

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Speaker 1: in ten point five million dollars in the second quarter,

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Speaker 1: largely because of a sharp drop in video game sales.

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Speaker 1: That's yeah, point five million dollars in a quarter. That's

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Speaker 1: not that's not a yearly loss. So yeah, as you

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Speaker 1: can see, this was a huge deal for Atari, and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of different things that

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Speaker 1: went into this. We've covered it before, but just as

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Speaker 1: a quick kind of refresher, the things that that led

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Speaker 1: to this decision involved too many games on the market,

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Speaker 1: too many consoles on the market, so you had you

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Speaker 1: had way too much product out there. Uh, and way

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Speaker 1: too many poor video games that had been kind of

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Speaker 1: scrapped together really quickly, right and and and then with

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Speaker 1: the the ET cartridge in particular, which is often cited

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Speaker 1: as not only the worst video game of all time

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Speaker 1: but also the reason for the video game crash. That's

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Speaker 1: that's a little too simplistic, but it did big contributor

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Speaker 1: because that license cost millions of dollars to Atari, and

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Speaker 1: they produced millions of cartridges, something like five million copies

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Speaker 1: of this game, and they didn't sell out at all.

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Speaker 1: They had they had millions left over. So you just

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Speaker 1: had a no win scenario. I mean, no one wanted

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Speaker 1: the cartridges. They kept getting marked down and down and

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Speaker 1: down in the discount bins at your local toy stores.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I remember these days because I had an AT,

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Speaker 1: I had ET the Extra Terrestrial. UM, so 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 licensed versions of pac Man and ET the Extra

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Speaker 1: Terrestrial on the I had both of those, so I

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

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Speaker 1: not good representations of their licenses and uh and so

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 there was truth

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Speaker 1: to the yeah myth confirmed. Okay, so in April, hundreds

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Speaker 1: of old Atari games, including the infamously terrible ET We're

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

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

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Speaker 1: director Zach Penn in affiliation with a couple of media companies,

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Speaker 1: Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Entertainment, along with Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what's what's funny is that Major Nelson, who is part

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Speaker 1: of Xbox Lives. He's like one of the kind of

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Speaker 1: a community liais on type guy, So a lot of

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Speaker 1: information from Microsoft comes through him and then his communicated

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Speaker 1: to the fans. He was actually on the dig site too.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I'll talk a little bit more about that

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Speaker 1: in just a second when we get to the super

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Speaker 1: silly part of the story. I'm not sure which part is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's so many, but this one in particular because it

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Speaker 1: all has to do with the way the man wears

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Speaker 1: a construction hat. Okay, alright, So so some interesting interesting

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Speaker 1: little factoids around this dig. The AP was out there

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Speaker 1: and they were talking to folks um and and according

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Speaker 1: to them, James Heller, a former Atari manager who's also

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Speaker 1: on site for the dig at the invitation of the

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Speaker 1: production team, Um said. James Heller said that he was

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Speaker 1: charged with finding a cheap way of disposing for seven

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty eight thousand game cartridges. That's that's a

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Speaker 1: lot of cartridges. That's more than I had by by

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Speaker 1: a long shot. Uh. And he said that after a

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Speaker 1: few local kids scavenged games, um, and he started getting

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Speaker 1: calls from the media about it, that's when he decided

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Speaker 1: to pour the concrete, right, because otherwise you have you

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Speaker 1: have a recipe for disaster, and that kids could be

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Speaker 1: coming out to a landfill get hurt lawsuits. Yeah. No

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Speaker 1: one wants e T on top of being the worst

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: on the record about it because no one ever asked him. Huh.

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Speaker 1: Clearly someone who does not go to the big video

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Speaker 1: game forums. It'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: tofty of the cartridges to the team, and we'll be

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

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Speaker 1: you can get some real New Mexico dirt packed in

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Speaker 1: with your your various cartridges. They're they're apparently still playable,

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

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Speaker 1: I know that. When they first found it, they tested

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Speaker 1: one out almost lee and then said, we're not going

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Speaker 1: to tell you whether or not it worked. We're going

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Speaker 1: to save that for the documentary. But but but these

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Speaker 1: are these are hard, hardwired cartridges. I mean they're not

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Speaker 1: They're not optical discs or anything like that. So as

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Speaker 1: long as you haven't had too much detritus get into

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Speaker 1: the cartridge, which we all know how to solve that problem, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then you're good. Yeah, as long as that's not

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Speaker 1: the case, then it should work. And I understand that

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Speaker 1: there was another person who was talked to about this

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Speaker 1: whole thing, a man who may you might say, was

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Speaker 1: burdened with terrible responsibility. Uh So the ap for for

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Speaker 1: this article that they did also called et S game

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Speaker 1: designer one Howard Scott Warshaw about the entire debacle um

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

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Speaker 1: being called the worst game ever. He said that he

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Speaker 1: was only given five weeks to design, right and test

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Speaker 1: this game after legal matters held it up in production

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Speaker 1: of for Getting That Life since and the holiday shopping

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Speaker 1: deadlines began looming. He said furthermore that it's and I

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Speaker 1: quote a tremendous honor that, you know, even though it's

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Speaker 1: the worst video game ever, that's still being talked about. Well,

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Speaker 1: he also was the guy who made the biggest selling

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Speaker 1: original game for Atari, which was Yars Revenge. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: Yours Revenge was a kind of crazy little game where

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Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to explain. Back then, video games were

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Speaker 1: not nearly as simple in a way, like even though

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

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Speaker 1: the concepts were really high concept crazy things. And these days,

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

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

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Speaker 1: game like Grand Theft Auto or the Saints Rose series,

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

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Speaker 1: like those are shooter and adventure you know, right back

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Speaker 1: in the days of the early arcades. Well, first you

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Speaker 1: play as a donkey who's out delivering pizza such what,

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Speaker 1: but that was normal. So anyway, Ours Revenge hard to

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Speaker 1: explain it easily, but um, anyway, one of the most

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Speaker 1: popular games of atari ever. So it's kind of interesting

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Speaker 1: that the same guy was behind both titles. Um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to mention, we're going to

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Speaker 1: we're going to have a nice little flashback in a minute,

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Speaker 1: but before we do that. Uh, something else I think

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Speaker 1: is really entertaining is that there's some conspiracy theories around this,

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Speaker 1: Like there were some things popping up on the Internet

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Speaker 1: suggesting that perhaps this whole dig was a manufactured story

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Speaker 1: and in fact, no one had gone to New Mexico

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Speaker 1: and no one had actually found the cartridges because they

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Speaker 1: were never really put there in the first place, and

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Speaker 1: the whole thing is just a complete cover up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's like a tari truthis now. This is great. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So uh, And there was a picture of Major Nelson,

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Speaker 1: this is what I was referring to earlier in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: who was at the site and wearing a hard hat,

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Speaker 1: and the hard hat, you know, sat pretty high up

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Speaker 1: on his head, which led some people to say, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's been photoshopped on top of him. He was clearly

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Speaker 1: this was a picture of Major Nelson that's been placed

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Speaker 1: so that it's on a desert background and he's got

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Speaker 1: this hard hat photoshopped on because it's not saying flat,

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Speaker 1: you know, snug against his head. But here's the thing

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Speaker 1: about hard hats. They actually have like a little kind

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Speaker 1: of harness that sits on your head, and they're raised

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Speaker 1: up over the harness so that if something does impact

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Speaker 1: the hard hat, there's that shot. Yeah. So it doesn't

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Speaker 1: kill you, you see, just having something hard. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't. It doesn't help you if you're

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Speaker 1: wearing something hard on your head if the force hitting

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Speaker 1: it is still enough to cause you injury. So uh,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it may have been that the little

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Speaker 1: harness part was a little small for Major Nelson's noggin.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I don't know. Personal Yeah, it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to call him a fat head, No,

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Speaker 1: neither am I. But but it does mean that I

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Speaker 1: think some people mistakenly, either mistakenly or perhaps jokingly. It

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Speaker 1: could have been that they were joking about it being

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Speaker 1: photoshopped and and other people proportion in the internet is

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

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Speaker 1: photos that came out of the dig site um were

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: that everything on this fake on the internet except the

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Speaker 1: hell stuff works where everything is amazing. But yeah, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I totally understand what you where you're coming from on

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Speaker 1: that one. So we wanted to take this opportunity to

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Speaker 1: actually have a little look back on an episode that

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Speaker 1: that was recorded years ago, back in two thousand eleven. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so so of course Chris Palette is going to be

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Speaker 1: joining us from the vaults of history, right, So this

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Speaker 1: is this is what some people would call a rerun,

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Speaker 1: because we wanted to talk about the discussion that kind

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Speaker 1: of led into this whole thing when we asked our listeners.

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Speaker 1: This was like crowdsourced episode, which we haven't really we

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Speaker 1: haven't done many of those. We've asked for a listener

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Speaker 1: mail and gotten responses, and we've done some episodes based

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Speaker 1: upon suggestions, but this was purely crowdsourced where I put

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Speaker 1: out the question what's the worst video game of all time?

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Speaker 1: And then we had our listeners, right, in and we

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Speaker 1: tabulated all the votes and it was it was wide open,

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

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Speaker 1: video game that we just talked about being Dug Up

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Speaker 1: in the Desert, ends up being number one. So but

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Speaker 1: it's an entertaining episode. Listen to it, and we'll have

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Speaker 1: a little bit more to talk about once the episodes

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Speaker 1: over with some other kind of bad video game wrap up,

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Speaker 1: so enjoy. So, hey, guys, you know you might remember

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Speaker 1: that Chris and I wanted to do a crowdsourced episode

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Speaker 1: where we asked our listeners to submit to us the

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Speaker 1: worst video game of all time. And uh, we didn't

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Speaker 1: give an real parameters about that. We said it could

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Speaker 1: be on any platform, it just had to be a

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Speaker 1: video game. And because of that, it meant that our

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Speaker 1: listeners could literally, uh nominate any game ever made. So

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Speaker 1: it's a miracle at all that we had enough votes

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Speaker 1: for any particular title to have this this podcast. But

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Speaker 1: we actually have the top ten or perhaps bottom ten

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Speaker 1: worst video games as voted on by you the listener,

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Speaker 1: So please keep in mind this is not the opinions

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Speaker 1: of Jonathan and Chris, although maybe we'll talk about some

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Speaker 1: of the bad games we've played in the past two

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Speaker 1: This isn't our opinion, this is your opinion. We're just

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Speaker 1: reporting it. Well, I have to say that one one

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Speaker 1: person did right in and ask us why we would

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Speaker 1: bother recording an episode on this, and uh, the simple

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Speaker 1: answer is because it's fun. Yeah. This was actually really

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It was a lot of work

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Speaker 1: because we had to collect votes from multiple sources. We

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Speaker 1: collective votes from email, Facebook, Twitter, and people left votes

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Speaker 1: on my Google Plus account too, so um, I actually

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Speaker 1: did separate out all the votes in a big spreadsheet,

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Speaker 1: so I knew how many votes came in from which,

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Speaker 1: uh particular source and that that actually was kind of

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Speaker 1: interesting too, just to see, you know, what our listeners

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Speaker 1: prefer to use in order to get information to us.

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Speaker 1: That was pretty fascinating. That was not my intent, by

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Speaker 1: the way, when I came. I came up with this

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Speaker 1: idea on the spur of the moment and sprung it

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Speaker 1: on Chris just before we started recording, and Chris was like,

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Speaker 1: do I have to do I have to record all

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Speaker 1: the votes? I said no, He said, all right, let's

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Speaker 1: do it. So you know, I'm easy like that. Let's

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Speaker 1: let's start off with what would be number ten, but

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Speaker 1: actually it was a tie for ninth place. So the

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Speaker 1: first two games we're gonna talk about received the same

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Speaker 1: number of votes, and the first one that we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about is dragons Lair the arcade games specifically,

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Speaker 1: So for those of you who, uh who missed out

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Speaker 1: on the early eighties and the great arcade culture of

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Speaker 1: the early eighties, you may not be too familiar with

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

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

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Speaker 1: that had not been attempted before Dragon's Layer. Yep. 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 um.

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Speaker 1: But but Dragon's Layer actually featured uh, animation from one

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

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Speaker 1: UM who has gone on to you know, with his

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Speaker 1: own company, to do many many other titles. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I have Don Bluth title on my iPad. Yeah, which

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Speaker 1: one the new version of Tapper features Don Bluth artwork.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, because he Also you may know some of

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Speaker 1: his work from from movies like The Secrets and the

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Speaker 1: Secret of Nim Yes, and 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 was 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 graphics

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

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Speaker 1: they were, but not now ye crazy? Yeah, well they

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Speaker 1: they accomplished this by using the laser disc video format,

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Speaker 1: which we've talked about before. So the entire game was

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Speaker 1: on laser disc, and there was an actual laser disc

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Speaker 1: player inside the cabinet of this arcade game. Now, the

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Speaker 1: fact that there it was on laser disc was both

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Speaker 1: its its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. The weakness

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Speaker 1: is that you couldn't create too much interactivity for the

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Speaker 1: player and the game. The you know, you couldn't have

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Speaker 1: complete control over the main character who do you remember?

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Speaker 1: The guy's name Dirk the Daring, and he was rescuing

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Speaker 1: a princess Daphne from a dragon named Singe. And so

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Speaker 1: you couldn't just control Dirk the Daring, You couldn't just

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Speaker 1: make him run around and jump and stuff. Instead, what

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Speaker 1: 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 Sheen 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's over. And so that was probably what cost

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

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

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Speaker 1: a film. It's just a film that you don't get

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Speaker 1: to see the end of it unless you happen to

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Speaker 1: shift in your seat at just the right moment so

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Speaker 1: the film will continue. And also I would like to

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Speaker 1: point out this was one of the first games I

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Speaker 1: can remember that cost two credits or fifty cents to play.

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Speaker 1: And also remember that a lot of them had two

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Speaker 1: monitors because they were so popular that people would try

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Speaker 1: and gather and cram around the system. Because if someone

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Speaker 1: knew how to play it, if someone had memorized the

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Speaker 1: sequence of movements they had to do to get through

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Speaker 1: a particular part of the game, you know, most people

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Speaker 1: didn't have the time or energy or change to learn

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

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

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Speaker 1: lot of our kids that would put a second monitor

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Speaker 1: that was mounted on the top of the cabinet so

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Speaker 1: that you could see what was going on without having

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Speaker 1: to be right up on whoever is playing the game.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, that was tied for ninth place. Uh. And

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 and sort of poor gameplay to horrible graphics. And 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 first stage. Like in the

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

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Speaker 1: the 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 your head to the bottom of

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: little alarm clocks and it's only by picking up enough

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Speaker 1: alarm clocks that you're allowed to move to the next stage.

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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: could also get a skateboard, which at least that was

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Speaker 1: featured in the film. But with a 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 ask 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 diner 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 the 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

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

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

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Speaker 1: had to position a guitar just right so that you

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Speaker 1: were playing music so that Lorraine and George, your your

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Speaker 1: mom and dad would actually kiss. And the very final

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Speaker 1: stage involved driving the DeLorean, the time travel device, through

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Speaker 1: the street at night, dodging enemies, dodging obstacles, trying to

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Speaker 1: get up to eighty eight miles per hour um. It

430
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 1: looked awful. Oh and Bob Gayle, who was a screenwriter

431
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:31,680
Speaker 1: for Back to the Future, called it one of the

432
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: worst games ever made. Heavy Yeah, yeah, why do people

433
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 1: keep saying, is there's some problem with gravity in the future?

434
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,560
Speaker 1: So that moves us up to our eighth worst game.

435
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: Do you wanna unveil what this one is? Well, it

436
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: certainly has a tough road to ho yes it does.

437
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:54,359
Speaker 1: But it is extremely popular. It's something you may have

438
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: seen once or twice on Facebook, at least once or

439
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:01,400
Speaker 1: twice a minute on Facebook only if you follow people

440
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: who play this, and how could you not. It's Farmville

441
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: from Zinga. Now Farmville has had a lot of criticism

442
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 1: directed toward it. It's one of those games. It's a

443
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: it's a freemium game, and that means that you can

444
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,400
Speaker 1: play the game for free, but if you want to

445
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:23,959
Speaker 1: have the most advantageous stuff in the game, you have

446
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: to pay real money to get it um and which

447
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 1: is a perfectly valid business plan. You know, there's no

448
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: reason I'm not. I don't want to say that that's

449
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: a bad thing to do. I mean people should be

450
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: compensated for the work they do in order for them

451
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: to make more work. Otherwise, no one has any incentive

452
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 1: to do anything. You know, well, you know it's it's

453
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: got millions of fans, yes, um something like. I once

454
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: heard a statistic that something like ten of all people

455
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: who use Facebook play this. And I have. I played,

456
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: I played it in some of the other Zinga games,

457
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: but I don't it's funny though, I don't think of

458
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: it as a game. I think if it is more

459
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,640
Speaker 1: of a toy, but because there's no objective that you're

460
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish to win the game, basically you're trying

461
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: to if you've never seen or or played it. Um.

462
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: The point is to grow your farm, so you know,

463
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: at some point you you add little plots of land

464
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,639
Speaker 1: on which you can grow your crops and you can

465
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: choose which crops to grow. Um. You know, each time

466
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 1: you plant something, you have several choices to you know,

467
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: you could say corn or tomatoes or you know, you know,

468
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: potatoes or something else. Um. And each crop costs a

469
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 1: certain amount of money and your you know, your fake

470
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: gold money. Actually it's their their dollars, I think farm coins,

471
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: farm coins and uh you also it's been a while

472
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 1: since I played. And each crop takes a certain amount

473
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: of time to grow, and if you leave the game

474
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: for more than that amount of time a reasonable amount

475
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 1: of time, once it's grown, the crop will wither and die.

476
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: So the point is to I mean, it's not just crops.

477
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 1: You also add you know, a surround your your garden,

478
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: and you add a farmhouse and what kind do you want?

479
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: And you know, bales of hay and you basically you

480
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: you add in size to the farm, and you add

481
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: different plots, and you upgrade your stuff. And there's also

482
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: a social factor where you can interact with your friends

483
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 1: farms and they can interact with yours, which is why

484
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:21,880
Speaker 1: you see, like all these notifications pop up on Facebook

485
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: until you get fed up with it and block them.

486
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean you can visit your friends farm

487
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: and fertilizer crops so they grow faster, or unwer them

488
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,360
Speaker 1: when they've gone bad, and to help them you can

489
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: send them gifts and they can send you gifts, and

490
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: that that can be kind of fun. But the thing is, it's,

491
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: like Jonathan pointed out, uh, Zinga is really hoping that

492
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: you'll invest some actual cash into this and you can

493
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: get uh, certain kinds of crops or certain kinds of

494
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: decorations for your farm if you fork over some real

495
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:57,239
Speaker 1: coin um. And that's kind of annoying for people like

496
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: me who are cheap and don't want to give them

497
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: any money. And the thing is, at a certain point,

498
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: the game or software toy, it's like, like I said,

499
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: don't like to call it is sort of semi unplayable

500
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: because there's a point at which everything to make it

501
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: fun you really need to give them money for it

502
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: really doesn't change, and it's the point of which you go, yeah,

503
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really don't want to do this. And

504
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 1: the game also encourages you to try and loop your

505
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: friends into the games. Yeah, so yeah, that's that's probably

506
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's why people voted for it, because it

507
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 1: feels almost invasive um when you're on Facebook, unless you

508
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: you go so far as to block it. And we

509
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: had other Facebook games like games that are similar to

510
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: this UH nominated as well, but Farmville was the one

511
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: that actually got the most votes. And also I think

512
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: has been accused of sort of copying earlier game called

513
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: farm Town that had very similar game mechanics. Some people

514
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: would say similarity to the point of identity. But well, this,

515
00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: this model has UH has extended across face Book and

516
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: and other venues as well. I mean, there are some

517
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: iPad games UM that I've you know, tried out on

518
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: my tablet that basically they're the same kinds of things

519
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: at your friends. Otherwise you're not going to get very

520
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 1: far in this game. I'm like, I don't know anybody

521
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: else who's playing this. Plus I don't want to spam

522
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: everybody with email blasts saying joined my game. Yeah. I mean,

523
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: if Jonathan's playing and I'm playing, then yeah, I'll send

524
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: Jonathan a note, Hey, send me a free chicken. But

525
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: I don't want to send that to everybody on my

526
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: list because you know, it's annoying. Yes, it would, So

527
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: let's move on to our next nomination. Now, this, this

528
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: next nomination is interesting because it's a terrible, terrible game

529
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: that was designed to be a terrible terrible game, and

530
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: it's called Desert Bus. Now, Desert Bus was actually a

531
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: mini game that was part of a larger package of

532
00:28:54,520 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: games for a product that never saw full production. It

533
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: was for the Sega c D system. Gosh, barely remember

534
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: that the whole system was a failure. Not just this game,

535
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: but it was a mini game that was included in

536
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors. Um. A lot of

537
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: the stuff that was in Penn and Teller's Smoke and

538
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: Mirrors ended up being used in other Penn and Teller

539
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 1: products like Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends and things like that.

540
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: But this one idea, which supposedly came from Eddie Gorades

541
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: debt Ski, who is a producer in Hollywood. Uh, this

542
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: one idea was to create an and ultra realistic and

543
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: by that I mean boring game in which you drive

544
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: a bus from Tucson, Arizona, to Las Vegas, Nevada, in

545
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: real time and the buses top speed is around forty

546
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: five miles per hour and there's no scenery, there's there's

547
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: no traffic, there are no passengers on the bus. It's

548
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: just you driving this bus to Las Vegas. And uh

549
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: in real time, that takes, by the way, about eight hours.

550
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: And if you get all the way to Las Vegas,

551
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: you get a point and then you have to drive back.

552
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: But what happens if you need to you know, stop

553
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: and eat dinner, go to the bathroom. Well, the game

554
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: does not have a pause function, so the time would

555
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: just keep going. Also, the bus, you might say, why

556
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: don't you just set it up so that the bus

557
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: drives automatically, like, you know, just put something on the

558
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: up arrow key on the pedal. Yeah. Uh, Well, the

559
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: bus also has a problem with its suspension and it

560
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: pulls to the right, so you have to constantly adjust

561
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: the bus so that it will it will be on

562
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 1: the road. Now, there is a port of this game

563
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: on the web. You can play a web based version

564
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: of Desert Bus if you want to. Now you might ask,

565
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: why would you want to, Well, some of it's just

566
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: kind of like grousing slash bragging rights that you know,

567
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: you actually bothered to take eight hours of your life

568
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: and get this virtual bus from Tucson to Las Vegas.

569
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: But another group called Loading Ready Run had an interesting idea.

570
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,719
Speaker 1: UM that's a four person comedy group, and they decided

571
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: to hold a desert bus marathon session as a fundraising

572
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: effort to raise money for the charity child Child's Play.

573
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: Child's Plays a charity that gets a lot of attention

574
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: particularly around Penny Arcade Expo or packs because the PAXs

575
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: guys also hold um auctions for Child's Play and it's

576
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: it's providing video games and other kinds of stuff like

577
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: that to kids who are in hospitals and who are

578
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: recovering or suffering from serious illnesses and conditions as a

579
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: nice charity, to do something nice for the kids, right,

580
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 1: So these four members of Loading Ready Run took shifts

581
00:31:53,880 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: at driving the desert bus UM they ended up driving

582
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: for more than four and a half days. The first time,

583
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: which was in two thousand and seven, that they drove

584
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: for around four and a half days, and they scored

585
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: six points in that four and a half days driving

586
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: the bus back and forth. Uh. And since then they've

587
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: held the marathon several more times and have raised more

588
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: than four hundred thousand dollars collectively. That's impressive, yeah for

589
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: Child's Play, which is pretty impressive. Um, but yeah, the

590
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: game is online, so if you just do a search

591
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: for Desert Bus, you can find a web based version

592
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 1: of this game and play it yourself. Should you hate yourself?

593
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: Apparently our number six game. It's also a game for

594
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: people who are into really not happy driving experience. Oh

595
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: my gosh, this game is probably it's amazing to me

596
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: that this game was ever released, because it is it

597
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: is as unfinished a game as I have ever seen.

598
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: And I've seen the reviews for this game, like I've

599
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: seen video reviews of this game that show the problems,

600
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: and it's you can't believe that such a product was

601
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: ever released to the public. I guess we should say

602
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: what it is. Well, racing games are so popular, and

603
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: you know that you can race just about anything in

604
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: all kinds of video games, so you would imagine that

605
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: one that would allow you to race tractor trailers would

606
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: be fun. But big rigs over the road racing for

607
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: the for the PC isn't. It was a two thousand

608
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: three third person racing game. So you're outside the truck

609
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: looking at the truck and let's see if we can

610
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: figure out where some of the problems of this game

611
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: may reside, shall we? What's a racing game in which

612
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: you don't really race anyone else? Right? Well, first, the

613
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: first problem is that it was build as a game

614
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: where the object was that you were transporting illegal goods

615
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: uh and you were being chased by police. So it

616
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:59,520
Speaker 1: was built as a game where you had to drive

617
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: fast and evade the cops. What cos right, So when

618
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: you actually get the game, it turns out there's nothing

619
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with any of that. Instead, it

620
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: was supposed to be, at least once you've got the

621
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: game going, it was supposed to be a racing game

622
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: where you're racing against other competitors. But um, the game

623
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 1: developer never actually bothered to put artificial intelligence competitors in there,

624
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: so they they never leave the starting line. It's a

625
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: race where all the other people racing don't do anything.

626
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: They just sit there. So you're you're running and they're

627
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: behind you and they don't do anything. Beyond that, though,

628
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: it gets worse than that. Well, what about the realistic physics. Yeah,

629
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 1: there weren't any um you could drive over anything like

630
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 1: driving on the road or driving off the road, or

631
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: driving through a building. None of that made any difference.

632
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,879
Speaker 1: You you traveled at the same speed unless you were

633
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: backing up, in which case you would accelerate infinitely until

634
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,760
Speaker 1: you let off the the reverse button. Yeah, I understand

635
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: why again I didn't play this one, but I understand

636
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: too that stopping was hyper realistic too, Like if you

637
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: had perfect breaks, you just let up on the accelerator

638
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:08,799
Speaker 1: and you stop. Yeah, exactly, you just go to go

639
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, there's there's no sense of momentum or inertia.

640
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 1: You just the universe would would would halt around you. Um,

641
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: you could drive off the edge of the map and

642
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 1: into gray nothingness. So it made it kind of a

643
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: metaphysical philosophical game at that point. I've done that before,

644
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: and we've known plenty of metaphysical philosophical truck drivers, and

645
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: that's really not a dig. We really do know quite

646
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: a few of them. Um. But yeah, it was just,

647
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: you know, no collision detection to speak of. Uh. There

648
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: were five tracks listed in the game, only four of

649
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:42,239
Speaker 1: them were playable. I don't know how that would be

650
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: a disappointment considering how horrible the game was, Like, oh great,

651
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: you mean I can't play this other terrible track that

652
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: I would never love, And uh, explays Morgan Webb. She

653
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: she refused to rate this game because Explay has a

654
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: rating system of one to five stars. There's no zero,

655
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: there's no zero, and she refused to even give it

656
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: one star, so she would not review it. She played it,

657
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,919
Speaker 1: she just wouldn't give it a review. So yeah, that's

658
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: that's pretty bad. So that was a that was a

659
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: two thousand three game. But we're gonna go a little

660
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: further back for our next one, right right, Yeah, this

661
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,439
Speaker 1: is a a port of a very popular arcade game.

662
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: Um and for this is when I've played back on

663
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: when I had an a tart Wactually I still have

664
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: an at when I had it hooked up the TV,

665
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: but I didn't actually own this one. Um so shall

666
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: we Yeah, this is fifth place, by the way, for

667
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: those of you keeping count, So in fifth place is

668
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: pac Man. Yeah, pac Man, so reported the Namco Giant.

669
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: It's often called the worst coin op port. Ever. Donkey

670
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,760
Speaker 1: Kong wasn't great, Oh no, not, I don't just agree,

671
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: but pac Man was. Honestly, it was terrible. Yeah, at

672
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: least Donkey Kong remotely resemble the game that it was

673
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: based on. Yet pac Man. Some people have said that

674
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: if it had not been called pac Man. If it

675
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been referred to as that, and it

676
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: had a slightly different appearance for the character that you play,

677
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: that people probably wouldn't be quite so hard on it

678
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: because the puzzle, the mazes were a little challenging to

679
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: get through, and you know, the gameplay worked properly, like

680
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 1: you know, you press left on the joystick and pac

681
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: Man would go left. You know, it wasn't like you know,

682
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: Big Rigs what we just talked about. That was a

683
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: game that was just pure broken, right. There was no

684
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: literally no way to play that game. It ended up

685
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: being like a weird sandbox game, but it wasn't intended

686
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: to be one. Pac Man played the way it was

687
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: supposed to more or less. It's just that it was

688
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: such a poor translation of what of a game that

689
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: people were really familiar with that it was it could

690
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: be nothing more than a disappointment to anyone who bought it.

691
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: And in fact, pac Man is one of the titles

692
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 1: that people often will use as an example when they

693
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: talk about why the video game industry collapsed in nine

694
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 1: in North America. Well, they made so many copies of this,

695
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: anticipating that people would want to play it at home,

696
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:15,280
Speaker 1: but when they actually got their hands on it and moved,

697
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,320
Speaker 1: I mean, pac Man is a game where you actually

698
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: need reflexes and you need to pay attention to what's

699
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: going on in Pacman on the move so much more slowly,

700
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: and the graphics were poor. The sound wasn't as good.

701
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: I remember when it came out for the R and

702
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: it looked so much better except a non centering joystick,

703
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: which makes playing in a four direction may is very

704
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 1: very difficult. So that just didn't help anything it which

705
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: is such a huge flop at home. Right, Yeah, it was.

706
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 1: It was a terrible, terrible game. And uh, I completely

707
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: agree with this being on on a list for bad

708
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: video games because it you know, even if you even

709
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 1: if you say that the game play was hey, the

710
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: effect it had in the industry was so terrible that

711
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: by definition it's a bad video game because it helped

712
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: bring the industry to its knees in n and it

713
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't be until Nintendo launched the NES in North America

714
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: that we would see a recovery of that market. Um

715
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: So now next we have a tie for third place.

716
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: You know, normally we go from fifth to fourth, but

717
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 1: we have the same number of votes came in for

718
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,319
Speaker 1: our our third and fourth place, so tie for third,

719
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: and these two are more modern. Yeah, we we did

720
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:37,399
Speaker 1: an entire episode about one of these, Duke Newcombe Forever. Now,

721
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: we did do a full episode about Duke nukembe Forever.

722
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: So we're not going to spend too much time right

723
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: now talking about it because now granted when we did

724
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: the episode, it was before the game had come out,

725
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:52,280
Speaker 1: hotly anticipated for a decade, more than a decade, Yeah,

726
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, it was originally announced as a title

727
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: for the PC. It was a a sequel to Duke

728
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: Nukemb three d um. It was originally announced in seven,

729
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 1: but it didn't launch until twenty eleven. Yeah, that's a

730
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: long time for to wait for a video game, right,

731
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 1: I mean vapor awards right up there with DAO sex. Yeah.

732
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: Wired gave it the Vaporware of the Year award multiple

733
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 1: years in a row. In fact that it got discontinued

734
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 1: from the voting because and then it was brought back

735
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just that it was vaporware, it was

736
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: that just when you were prepared to say Duke Nukem

737
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,239
Speaker 1: Forever was never going to come out. There would be

738
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: some sort of rumble from three D Realms that would

739
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no no, no, it's really gonna come out,

740
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: and then you'd have to say, well, now we have

741
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: to put it back on the list, because you know,

742
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: we were ready to write it off forever. But they

743
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 1: say it's coming out, So of course they the rights

744
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 1: to the game passed into other people's hands once Three

745
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: D Realms collapsed. Yeah, and they did. Yeah, they they

746
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: finished it. Um. They did not receive wide acclaim when

747
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,760
Speaker 1: it launched. A lot of peo both panned this game,

748
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: which of course explains why it's on our list and

749
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: how many people voted for it. UM. A lot of

750
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: the criticisms about the game said that it was it

751
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: just looked dated. It was it was like a first

752
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,360
Speaker 1: person shooter designed for the late nineties. You know, it

753
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: didn't have the elements that you expect in the first

754
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 1: person shooter today. And uh that even even for one

755
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: in the nineties, it would have been great because like

756
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: in the nineties, you would have a lot of fast

757
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: paced action and you would have a ton of different

758
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: weapons at your disposal. Duke Knukem Forever was more plodding

759
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:38,359
Speaker 1: and Uh, well, there's no way for me to word

760
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: this in a way that's not negative. It was a slow,

761
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: slow game. It could be boring at times, it could

762
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: be ages between one encounter with an enemy and another,

763
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: and you can only carry two weapons at a time.

764
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: So it took away some of the stuff that made

765
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: those games in the nineties so much fun and uh,

766
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: and didn't replace it with anything better. And also the

767
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: juvenile humor in the Duke Knwcomb series, I think it

768
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,959
Speaker 1: may have worn a little thin. It's just people don't

769
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: find it as amusing as it used to be, partially

770
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: because we've had other games come out that have much

771
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: more biting satire and uh, and you know, they're they're

772
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: just as edgy as Duke Newcomb was, but they're more relevant.

773
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 1: Like the Grand Theft Auto series is known for its

774
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 1: dark humor. The Fallout three series or the Fallout series

775
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,279
Speaker 1: in general is known for its dark humor. And so

776
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: you get to do Newcomb and you're just like, well,

777
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,359
Speaker 1: this feels like you're in a uh you know, you're

778
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,319
Speaker 1: in a locker room with a bunch of really really

779
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: immature guys, and that that's the level of humor. And

780
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: it just never gets above that, and so I think

781
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: all of those things contributed to it being ranked on

782
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: our list. But what about our next game that's also

783
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: tied for third place. You think that a game written

784
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:58,839
Speaker 1: by um an Oxford professor of bioethics might actually rank

785
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 1: up there, But Bennett Foddies game QW O P or

786
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: wop UM got a lot of negative votes. Actually, I

787
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: saw this profiled and wired before I ever tried to

788
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: play it. Um. There's a neat little article about him. Uh,

789
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: and I do mean little. It's very short, um. But basically,

790
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: in this game, you are using the keys Q, W,

791
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: O P, hence the name, to move the legs of

792
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: a runner on a track. Yeah, runner named quap for

793
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 1: a hundred dash, And that's important to know. It's not

794
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be a Olympic runner on the hundred

795
00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: meter dash, and the Q and W keys control the

796
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 1: runners thighs, and the O n P keys control the

797
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,879
Speaker 1: runners calves, and you're supposed to try and coordinate these

798
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: movements in such a way as to propel the runner

799
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: down the hundred meters. By the way, this runner has

800
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: apparently no upper body control whatsoever, and if if the

801
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: runner gets even a little bit off balance, it's time

802
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: to tip over. And I have seen so many people

803
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,839
Speaker 1: play this game and get negative scores because they would

804
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 1: just start tipping backwards almost instantaneously. And as soon as

805
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: you touch the ground, that's where you're that's that's your score.

806
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:14,320
Speaker 1: And uh and we keep in mind it's a hundred

807
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 1: meter dash. Um. I've never seen anyone complete this in

808
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:21,239
Speaker 1: fewer than twenty minutes. But the furthest I've gotten is

809
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 1: twelve point eight ms. Didn't you send me a video

810
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: of somebody who had finished in about four minutes. I

811
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: think they sped it up. What they what they ended

812
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: up doing was they used it so that they made

813
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: Quop do a split and then they just kind of

814
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: jimmied it until he finally like he literally inched down

815
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 1: a hundred meters and and at fifty by the way,

816
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: you are you aren't you encounter your first obstacle hurdle.

817
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: And at a hundred meters there's a long jump. But

818
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 1: you can go through the hurdle like you don't have to.

819
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 1: You don't have to actually jump the hurdle. You can

820
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 1: keep going as long as you're able to land on

821
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: your feet or however you're getting across. Um, you can

822
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: can pretty much ignore the hurdle and the long jump

823
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: is completely uhum optional. Yes, if you just have to

824
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: cross that finish line. If you're if your experience with

825
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: video game running is track and field from the eighties

826
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 1: where you just had to pound buttons as fast as

827
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: you could. Um, you will not win at this game. Now,

828
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:21,959
Speaker 1: this game is This game is really, really, really hard,

829
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: which I think is why it got a lot of votes.

830
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: It's it's frustrating, and it seems it seems after you've

831
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: played it for about a minute, it seems completely pointless. Oh,

832
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: we should say it's web based. It's a web based game,

833
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: so you can find it on Foddy's side. He wrote

834
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: this in two thousand and eight and it's still up,

835
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:41,720
Speaker 1: so if you want to give it a shot, go ahead.

836
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of and it's kind of fun. And

837
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: it also gives you an idea of how well your

838
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: brain is controlling your walking movements, because if you were

839
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,399
Speaker 1: trying to walk with your you know, control your own

840
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: legs with your fingers, you may I don't know that

841
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: I would do any better, but it takes a lot

842
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: of coordination to be able to like, even when I

843
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: got twelve point eight meters was mostly luck. I was

844
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,919
Speaker 1: timing it just right. But even as I was playing,

845
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I should have I should have

846
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: let up on the calf muscle and continued on the

847
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: thigh muscle for a split second longer, and I would

848
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: have been able to get a little further. I can

849
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: never do that when I'm actually playing. Like, when I'm

850
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: actually playing, I'm like, press these two buttons, now, switch

851
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: through these two buttons, now switch back to those two buttons.

852
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: And that's that's my tactic. It's probably why I've only

853
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: gotten twelvets in. Maybe you should get onto a girp

854
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I've played that one too, which is his

855
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: mountain climbing game, and apparently it's very very similar. It's

856
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: actually that one I can play really well. I've gotten

857
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:38,479
Speaker 1: pretty far in girp Um. That one makes more sense

858
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 1: to me. I've got better coordination with that one. But

859
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: the but yeah, quop is really hard. So um, you

860
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 1: know who's really good at controlling their legs? Who's the he?

861
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,719
Speaker 1: But someone who doesn't have to use them? Is this

862
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: going into our second place? Yes? Because I mean, you know,

863
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: if you can fly. Yeah, then why would you need

864
00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: to use your legs? Yes, I'm talking about our second play,

865
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: Superman the New Superman Adventures yea, also known as Superman

866
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: sixty four. It wasn't its official name, right, It's good

867
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: that it wasn't Superman the New Batman Adventures. That would

868
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: or like Superman My Little Pony that it would be weird.

869
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,040
Speaker 1: It might have been a better game than though. This

870
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: was released in the Nintendo sixty four and probably shouldn't

871
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: have been. And again this we're talking about licensed character

872
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: you know we talked about with Back to the Future.

873
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: There we're gonna make some money. The history of licensed characters, actually,

874
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: we're going to get to that again very shortly. The

875
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: history of licensed characters in video games is a pretty

876
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: ugly one. There are a few games that stand out

877
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: as being remarkable, like truly good games that use licensed characters.

878
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:49,359
Speaker 1: But the general rule of thumb is that if it's

879
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 1: a licensed character game, it's it's got a good that

880
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 1: the odds are against it, right, just based on the

881
00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: number of bad games that use licensed characters. Now, there

882
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,760
Speaker 1: are other games like you know, Arkham Asylum, which are fun.

883
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a Batman game. And that's a lot

884
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:07,480
Speaker 1: of fun. I thought you were going to bring up

885
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:11,840
Speaker 1: Golden Eye. Golden Eye fantastic one of the best games

886
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 1: ever made, also made for the Nintendo sixty four, one

887
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: of the top first person shooter games of that era.

888
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: Fantastic games. Superman not so much so. The story behind

889
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: this game, the actual story in the game, that is,

890
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: is that you play the part of Superman who has

891
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: been tricked, as he often is, by Lex Luthor to

892
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 1: enter into a virtual representation of Metropolis, and you have

893
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: to complete these different tasks and puzzles that Lex sets

894
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: up for you in order to escape and beat the

895
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: tar out of him. Tank I need an exit. Yeah,

896
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: So the first test of your skills involves flying through

897
00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: a series of hoops, because Superman often that's yeah, I

898
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: remember his epic battle with Doomsday where he had to

899
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: fly through about fourteen hoops before. No, that doesn't make

900
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: any sense, and I jumped through hoops every day after that.

901
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:14,880
Speaker 1: You might have to pick up a car and throw it,

902
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: because again that's what Superman would do in Metropolis. Is

903
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: that you know, you're thinking like you're driving down with

904
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: your family, you're having a nice day out. You might

905
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: be going to go see the Metropolis Museum of Art

906
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, some jerk has just

907
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 1: flown over, picked up your car and thrown at forty blocks.

908
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: Yeah that's that will ruin your whole day. But anyway,

909
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:36,439
Speaker 1: so you would also have to do things like fight

910
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,239
Speaker 1: famous Superman villains. But the controls were really sluggish, the

911
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: gameplay was incredibly repetitive, and it has been ranked as

912
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: one of the worst video games of all time, not

913
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 1: just by our listeners, but by other publications. I mean

914
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,880
Speaker 1: it has multiple I hesitate to use the word awards,

915
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: but multiple notifications of it being the worst, one of

916
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: the worst video games. And in fact, in one ranking

917
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: I saw was ranked as the number one and our

918
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: number one was number two. So now I guess we

919
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,279
Speaker 1: should move on to what our listeners have voted. And

920
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've already guessed it based upon what has

921
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: already been listed, but what yourur listeners have voted as

922
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: the worst video game of all time? And I should

923
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: point out this received twenty nine percent of the overall

924
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: votes we received. And keep in mind you could nominate

925
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:28,840
Speaker 1: any title at all, and and I'm I have a

926
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: small concern. That's because we've mentioned it as a terrible

927
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,800
Speaker 1: game that that you all thought that we were coaching

928
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: you to vote for this time. We did. We have

929
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: talked about this game being a terrible game before, but

930
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 1: when when we actually asked for votes, I made sure

931
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: we didn't mention any particular title. I didn't want to

932
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 1: change anyone's mind or put in a suggestion. I'm sure

933
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: that happened anyway, based upon some of the comments and everything.

934
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 1: But our worst video game is of all time, Chris

935
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:03,920
Speaker 1: do the honors e T. The Extraterrestrial for the nWo

936
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:09,399
Speaker 1: game published by Atari in about ten minutes. Yeah. So

937
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 1: keep in mind that Atari went the route where they

938
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: were allowing all sorts of developers to create games for there.

939
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: It didn't have to be vetted through Atari. Yeah right,

940
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:26,399
Speaker 1: Nintendo had the whole certification process. Atari did not. But

941
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 1: this there's no excuse here because Atari was the publisher

942
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: behind this game in the first place. Uh yeah. So

943
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 1: then this game, you take the role of e. T.

944
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: The Extraterrestrial from the beloved Steven Spielberg documentary of the

945
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:46,480
Speaker 1: same name, and your task was to locate three pieces

946
00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: of an interstellar telephone so that you could assemble them

947
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 1: and phone home, which would summon a spaceship that would

948
00:51:54,920 --> 00:51:58,800
Speaker 1: rescue you. Uh, you did this just like in the movie.

949
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: I mean, we all remember that scene in the movie

950
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,280
Speaker 1: where Et had to walk into a field of pits,

951
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: raise his head up, look for the flash, and descend

952
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: into the pit to retrieve a piece of the Interstellar Phone.

953
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: I mean you remember that scene right as probably no,

954
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 1: that scene did not exist. But in the game, you

955
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:19,959
Speaker 1: would walk into one of the screens, actually a couple

956
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: of the screens would have several pits on the screen.

957
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 1: You push a button which would raise ET's head and

958
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 1: he would do a sound like this, and then one,

959
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: if you were lucky, one of the pits would flash,

960
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:36,359
Speaker 1: which would indicate that one of the pieces of the

961
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 1: phone was in that pit, and you would walk over

962
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 1: to the pit, fall in, pick up the piece of phone,

963
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:45,399
Speaker 1: and then you would press the button which would raise

964
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:50,600
Speaker 1: ET's head wall and you would levitate up the pit. Now,

965
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 1: most of the game is an overhead view, but when

966
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: you were in a pit, it was a side view

967
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 1: like a cut of and you would you would levitate

968
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: to the top of the pit and then immediately fall

969
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: in again because it was really hard that once you

970
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,120
Speaker 1: get to the top of the pit, the screen would

971
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 1: change so that you were looking at the overhead view again,

972
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 1: and you had to manipulate et all over to the

973
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 1: edge of the pit so that you were on the

974
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:13,319
Speaker 1: ground again. Right, so you're you go from a side

975
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: view to an overhead view. And I can't tell you

976
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 1: how many times I fell down a pit over and

977
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: over and over again because I thought it was clear.

978
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 1: But and every time you fall, and every time you

979
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: use your powers, you use up energy. You have a

980
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 1: limited amount of energy, and after you use it all up,

981
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,840
Speaker 1: you die. Yeah, Well, you have to find dots pieces pieces.

982
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: You had a little square pixel which would be represent

983
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:37,840
Speaker 1: one Reese's pieces, and you would eat that and that

984
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:39,839
Speaker 1: would give you a little more energy. They would also

985
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: had doctors who would walk around and if they found you,

986
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: they'd pick you up and move you to a different

987
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 1: screen and you would lose a little time. Or worse,

988
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 1: you would find an FBI guy and he would chase

989
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: you down and if he touched you, he would take

990
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 1: away your phone and you had to start over again.

991
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 1: And so you would do this over and over again

992
00:53:57,719 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: to you had the three pieces of phone. Then you

993
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: could go to one part of the game, the one

994
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: section where there's an icon on the screen that tells

995
00:54:06,160 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: you you can make your phone call here, and you

996
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: had to find it because it wasn't always in the

997
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 1: same place you would make your phone call, and then

998
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: you had to make it to a different screen where

999
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: the spaceship would actually land because apparently you can't make

1000
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:21,919
Speaker 1: a phone call at the landing site. Oh no, that'd

1001
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: be too easy. So then you have to make your

1002
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 1: way to the other screen and get in the little

1003
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 1: spaceship and you would then start the game over at

1004
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:39,839
Speaker 1: the same difficulty level immediately. And this game was awful, terrible,

1005
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 1: terrible game, so bad that people the word got out

1006
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 1: about how disappointed this game was, that people stopped buying it.

1007
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: And uh Attari had produced thousands of cartridges because the

1008
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: movie was so successful. So Attari goes out and makes

1009
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of copies of each The reviews come in,

1010
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: people hate it, copies go unsold. Eventually, stores start to

1011
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: send their unsold copies of ET back to Atari, and

1012
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: Atari grinds them up and then trucks them out into

1013
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 1: New Mexico and buries them. You know, um, you know

1014
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: what they did with that what's up? They used it

1015
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: to pave a road and then you drive this bus

1016
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:28,919
Speaker 1: right across the desert and you get one point every

1017
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:32,359
Speaker 1: time you run over et. Yeah, it was. And then

1018
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 1: you fall on a pit and then physics in that

1019
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,359
Speaker 1: game are terrible. But anyway, Yeah, so that was. This

1020
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 1: was again just like pac Man. This is another one

1021
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: of those games that was pointed to as being one

1022
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 1: of the reasons the video game industry crashed in Now.

1023
00:55:49,440 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the games that came out

1024
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:54,799
Speaker 1: for there were these games made by independent developers that

1025
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 1: were just terrible. But it was because, you know, the

1026
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: market was flooded with terrible games. Attari was not helping

1027
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: itself out by publishing some of them itself. Yeah. I

1028
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 1: had some of those games too, and I had and

1029
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:09,800
Speaker 1: you know, I've mentioned it before. I was actually surprise

1030
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: that nobody voted for the sword Quest series. But my

1031
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: guess is that Ataria was in such decline that none

1032
00:56:15,320 --> 00:56:18,880
Speaker 1: of our listeners actually bought that but me, since they

1033
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:22,880
Speaker 1: didn't even finish the last game on the series. But

1034
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: we didn't. A couple of people did vote for some

1035
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: games that were patently offensive. We didn't mention that before,

1036
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: and we didn't. We weren't including those specifically because we

1037
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: were talking about games that were just horrible games now

1038
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 1: that were offensive, and these were games that were meant

1039
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 1: to be enjoyable. They didn't have an ulterior motive, right right,

1040
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: there are some of those two. But yeah, the games

1041
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,799
Speaker 1: that had an ulterior motive where the whole purpose was

1042
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 1: to perpetuate hatred or to make a joke out of

1043
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 1: uh inhumane acts, we didn't include those because really, I mean,

1044
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: first of all, I refus us to give them any

1045
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,359
Speaker 1: more publicity than they've already had. And second of all,

1046
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,640
Speaker 1: I I was the spirit of the thing was to

1047
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:09,280
Speaker 1: think of games that were meant to be enjoyable, fun

1048
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: games that just weren't for one reason or another. Um,

1049
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:15,879
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the really quickly, because we're

1050
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 1: we've we're already getting pretty far up there, but we

1051
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: have to talk about some of the other games that

1052
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: got on got some votes that I was surprised didn't

1053
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: get more votes. But again, since you had every single

1054
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 1: game open to you, you know, one of those was

1055
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: Aquaman Battle for Atlantis. This game is nigh unplayable. It

1056
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: again had one of the worst reviews ever. Explay did

1057
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 1: an amazing hysterical review of this game. Um I think

1058
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 1: they called it like Power of the Mullet or something

1059
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: like that in their in their review, but it was terrible.

1060
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 1: And games that, um, we're specifically designed to be marketing

1061
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 1: tools for for brands, so stuff like I actually had

1062
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 1: the kool Aid game for the Oh Yeah, oh no,

1063
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:07,520
Speaker 1: and then they had the Avoid the Annoyed game for Dominoes.

1064
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 1: There were all the Burger King games that came out

1065
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: for the Xbox. There was a McDonald's game as well.

1066
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 1: We got we got votes for those, but they were

1067
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: it was usually like one, like one vote for one

1068
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:21,560
Speaker 1: of those titles, so there wasn't a lot of but

1069
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 1: I think that that deserves mentioned. Games that are specifically

1070
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: just marketing employees tend to get hate hated by gamers,

1071
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: which you know, that kind of makes sense, like gamers

1072
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:37,080
Speaker 1: won a game that was designed just to create enjoyment,

1073
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: be fun and challenging, not a game that's designed to

1074
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: make you want to go out and buy a pizza.

1075
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 1: Teenager Ninja Turtles also falls into that category. I'm just kidding.

1076
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: So and then there were some of the games that

1077
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 1: were on the list that we we were a little

1078
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:52,200
Speaker 1: surprised to see votes for uh. And in some cases

1079
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 1: I think it's people were voting on games that either

1080
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 1: they're just tired of seeing or they don't They are

1081
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 1: not particularly would at that game, and they find it frustrating,

1082
00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:04,600
Speaker 1: and other people like it and that's why they hate it,

1083
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 1: because it's a game that they personally just don't get. Um.

1084
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:10,480
Speaker 1: But some of those titles include things like Angry Birds,

1085
00:59:10,680 --> 00:59:13,480
Speaker 1: which I think probably that's a saturation thing, right, It's

1086
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:15,640
Speaker 1: just because it's everywhere, people are going to be tired

1087
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:20,520
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, Uh, we fit, we fit. I don't

1088
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 1: even think if we fit as a game. And that's

1089
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: why I didn't really like that. That's not really a

1090
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,919
Speaker 1: game so much. I mean, there's a game element to it,

1091
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: but it's not I don't call it a game. Halo,

1092
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: which I think a lot of people would argue as

1093
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:36,160
Speaker 1: one of the better first person shooters for a console system,

1094
00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: keeping in mind that PC based first person shooters are

1095
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:43,439
Speaker 1: much more sophisticated and require a totally different skill set

1096
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 1: than a console one. I've heard computer first person shooter

1097
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: players refer to console first person shooters as kind of

1098
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: dumbing down the whole thing, and I kind of get that,

1099
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 1: but it's it's a different, you know, kind of different mode.

1100
00:59:55,880 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 1: And I personally love the Halo series. I can see

1101
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: your Halo. Thank you Pitfall for the that was a

1102
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 1: classic title like that, along with River Radar, two of

1103
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:10,240
Speaker 1: my favorite titles, But there were people who didn't like

1104
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:13,479
Speaker 1: it because it had a repetitive gameplay activisions early days

1105
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 1: they're super Mario sixty four another game that got great reviews.

1106
01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:22,160
Speaker 1: But we got some votes for that Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator,

1107
01:00:22,200 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 1: which again I don't really think of as a game

1108
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 1: flight simulator, and flight simulators, by their very nature tend

1109
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:32,320
Speaker 1: to be very, very complex, and sometimes overwhelmingly so, because

1110
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: they are trying to be so true to life, and

1111
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: yet you're using a different interface to control that vehicle

1112
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 1: than you would if you were in the cockpit, so

1113
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:44,960
Speaker 1: there's an extra layer of complexity, you know. So that

1114
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 1: got the votes. Also, we got some votes for Call

1115
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: of Duty and Modern Warfare, which that was kind of interesting.

1116
01:00:50,640 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: Um So not everybody agrees, obviously on what is the

1117
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: worst game of all time? Although overwhelmingly ET ran away

1118
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 1: with this like it was it wasn't even close ET

1119
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:08,760
Speaker 1: have way more votes than all the others combined. But

1120
01:01:09,080 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 1: like I said, all the votes that were we received

1121
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,640
Speaker 1: for everything went to ET. He galloped everywhere he walked.

1122
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: Did you Yes, it's true, Yeah, that's true. Did you

1123
01:01:20,160 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 1: have any game? Well? You mentioned the what was the series?

1124
01:01:23,280 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: As that there was supposed to be a contest if

1125
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 1: you solved all four parts of it, and the fourth

1126
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:31,200
Speaker 1: part never came out in the third one got limited distribution.

1127
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:34,840
Speaker 1: But I couldn't see the point of doing what you

1128
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 1: were supposed to be doing, right, I mean, I just

1129
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,200
Speaker 1: really couldn't follow the sequence. Yeah, I think I have

1130
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: to say that out of all the ones I've I've mentioned,

1131
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:45,600
Speaker 1: e T is probably the the one I think of

1132
01:01:45,640 --> 01:01:49,360
Speaker 1: as the worst that I've ever personally played. I played

1133
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:50,880
Speaker 1: a lot of really bad games, but I tend to

1134
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 1: forget them because I have access to more games now,

1135
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: so if I play a really bad one, I just

1136
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: switch and go to a good one so it doesn't

1137
01:01:58,400 --> 01:02:00,920
Speaker 1: leave as big an impression on me. Back when I

1138
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 1: was a kid, my options were somewhat limited, and so

1139
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,280
Speaker 1: I would play a bad game over and over because

1140
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:12,720
Speaker 1: it's what I had. Ah. I know here I am

1141
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:17,919
Speaker 1: complaining about video games. Poor me game, Um, yeah, don't

1142
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 1: cry for me, Argentina. Did you enjoy? That was what

1143
01:02:26,120 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 1: I told you to do. So, yeah, that was our

1144
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 1: episode on the worst video games of all time. You

1145
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:35,080
Speaker 1: guys pick some doozies. Maybe someday we'll do another like

1146
01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 1: follow up to that, because of course, there have been

1147
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: lots of video games released since two thousand eleven, certainly,

1148
01:02:40,120 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: and some of you may have very strong opinions, like, wait,

1149
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 1: there was this other game that was even worse than

1150
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:48,520
Speaker 1: all the ones you mentioned, and you didn't talk about it, So, uh,

1151
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:51,040
Speaker 1: we might try it again, I said at the time.

1152
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do a more concentrated approach, because when you

1153
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 1: leave it wide open, you get you know, five people responding,

1154
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 1: and a hundred of them all give a vote for

1155
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:05,640
Speaker 1: an obscure title. But that's one vote per obscure title,

1156
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: so they don't amountain an evening. So we'll figure something out.

1157
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: But we want to talk a little bit about some

1158
01:03:11,160 --> 01:03:13,880
Speaker 1: of the worst video games we've ever played. So Lauren,

1159
01:03:14,240 --> 01:03:17,160
Speaker 1: you know, since you weren't available to talk about the

1160
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: worst video games of all time, did you have any

1161
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: that you wanted to add to the discussion. Yeah, okay. So,

1162
01:03:22,400 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 1: so there were two that I've played personally that stand

1163
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 1: out in my mind as being particularly terrible. Um. The

1164
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 1: first is Back to the Future parts two and three

1165
01:03:32,560 --> 01:03:36,760
Speaker 1: for the ne S. That's the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

1166
01:03:37,400 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 1: Um and okay, both of the things that I'm going

1167
01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 1: to mention our uh film or otherwise, you know other

1168
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 1: media titles that have been port which is never really

1169
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 1: a recipe for Yeah, there's only a few examples of

1170
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:54,560
Speaker 1: ones like Batman Arkham Asylum, like that's an example of

1171
01:03:54,600 --> 01:03:57,919
Speaker 1: a great licensed game, but there's so few of those.

1172
01:03:57,920 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah and okay. So so this one was

1173
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 1: developed by Beam Software and released by l j N

1174
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 1: and it was rated unforgiving in game Facts. Um. It was.

1175
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: It was just basically impossible to play. The music was terrible,

1176
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 1: the graphics were terrible. There were some parts of it

1177
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:17,120
Speaker 1: that were just just meaningless. Yeah. Yeah, So what's the

1178
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:19,479
Speaker 1: other one. The other one is the X files game

1179
01:04:20,040 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: that's for the PC and or the PS one or

1180
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 1: PS X uh. Wow. Yeah, I remember seeing video reviews

1181
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 1: of that. I never played it myself. I want to

1182
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: hear more about your experience here, all right. So, so

1183
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: this one was developed by UM and I think this

1184
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 1: is how you pronounce it Hyperbowl Studios, not hyperbole. Not hyperbole, Yeah,

1185
01:04:41,320 --> 01:04:44,480
Speaker 1: hyper Bowl that's how it's spelled. Um. It was released

1186
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:47,920
Speaker 1: by Fox Interactive makes sense of the twenty century Foxes

1187
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:51,080
Speaker 1: doing the X Files in and or ninety nine, depending

1188
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 1: on which system you bought it for. UM. So this

1189
01:04:54,080 --> 01:05:00,200
Speaker 1: was largely an f m v A full yeah, and

1190
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even starring Molder and Scully is the problem, Like,

1191
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:06,520
Speaker 1: because the actors were busy, you know, doing their TV show,

1192
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:08,600
Speaker 1: so they had to get this other dude to kind

1193
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,280
Speaker 1: of interact very occasionally with Molder and Scully. And the

1194
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:16,000
Speaker 1: puzzles were just terrible, Like it wasn't it wasn't thought

1195
01:05:16,080 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 1: out very well in terms of game design, Like I

1196
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:20,919
Speaker 1: think the first puzzle in the game was you sit

1197
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:24,040
Speaker 1: down at your office being you being this uh this

1198
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:26,680
Speaker 1: this other agent character, and the first thing you have

1199
01:05:26,720 --> 01:05:30,920
Speaker 1: to figure out is what your computer passport is, as

1200
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:34,120
Speaker 1: though you wouldn't know what your own computer I mean, actually,

1201
01:05:34,120 --> 01:05:36,280
Speaker 1: to be fair, I guess I forget my own passwords

1202
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 1: about once a week, but that's still that's I mean,

1203
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:42,960
Speaker 1: how you can't be more secure, right, like you know

1204
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:45,400
Speaker 1: your you know your system secure when even you are

1205
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:48,960
Speaker 1: not aware of what your passwords are. Wow. Yeah, I

1206
01:05:49,000 --> 01:05:51,000
Speaker 1: was trying to think of any others I want to add,

1207
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:53,400
Speaker 1: because again, we recorded that first episode back in two

1208
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and you know, I've played games since then.

1209
01:05:56,280 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: But here's the thing is that the way I tend

1210
01:05:57,960 --> 01:06:01,360
Speaker 1: to play games these days, I tend to buy them

1211
01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 1: well after they've had their initial run, simply because I

1212
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:06,960
Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of time on my hands.

1213
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 1: So I'm often playing a game that came out, you know,

1214
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 1: a year earlier or or somewhere around that time. Uh

1215
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: still while other games are coming out, and because I

1216
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 1: haven't finished that game, I don't just immediately jump on

1217
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:23,200
Speaker 1: the other. So like Skyrim, I didn't get that till

1218
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: almost a year after it had come out, maybe maybe

1219
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:28,440
Speaker 1: seven or eight months, and people have perhaps vetted the

1220
01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:30,800
Speaker 1: fact that it's worth your while by the time you purchase,

1221
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:33,080
Speaker 1: and yeah, by that time people have played it, I've

1222
01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:36,360
Speaker 1: seen reviews, I've heard buzz about it, and I've decided

1223
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 1: whether or not it's for me. It's very rare when

1224
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:40,920
Speaker 1: I'll go out and get a game like the day

1225
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 1: it comes out One of the examples of one where

1226
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:45,040
Speaker 1: I did do that was a Grand Theft Auto of five,

1227
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:47,960
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't call it the worst game of all

1228
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:50,640
Speaker 1: time or anything close to that. The actual single player

1229
01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:54,760
Speaker 1: experience is pretty phenomenal if you like those kind of games.

1230
01:06:54,760 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 1: If you don't like those kind of games, office, obviously

1231
01:06:56,840 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 1: you're not gonnathing. But I really enjoyed the game. I

1232
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:04,280
Speaker 1: enjoyed the story, I like the characters. I didn't think

1233
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:08,040
Speaker 1: it was necessarily groundbreaking. It wasn't nearly as dark as

1234
01:07:08,080 --> 01:07:11,320
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto four was, but uh I I enjoyed it.

1235
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:15,040
Speaker 1: But the online part, which was released two weeks after

1236
01:07:15,040 --> 01:07:17,040
Speaker 1: the game came out, you know, they had a lot

1237
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:20,840
Speaker 1: of promises of what was going to come, and some

1238
01:07:20,880 --> 01:07:22,960
Speaker 1: of those promises, as of the recording of this podcast,

1239
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:25,880
Speaker 1: have yet to be delivered upon, like being able to

1240
01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:30,120
Speaker 1: do heists in multiplayer. Heists in the single player game

1241
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:33,640
Speaker 1: were fantastic. They were you had to coordinate between three

1242
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 1: different characters. You could swap between the characters during the

1243
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 1: highest each one is doing something specific, really kind of

1244
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 1: complicated stuff, like you could actually determine which of two

1245
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 1: pathways you would want to take, whether you wanted to

1246
01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:46,880
Speaker 1: go the subtle route or just kick the doors open

1247
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:50,880
Speaker 1: and exactly. So it was really a fun, dynamic thing

1248
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 1: in the single player game. So everyone's really looking forward

1249
01:07:53,120 --> 01:07:55,440
Speaker 1: to it, but it hasn't come out for multiplayer again

1250
01:07:55,480 --> 01:07:58,320
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast, and that has

1251
01:07:58,360 --> 01:08:02,440
Speaker 1: been a pretty big disappointment. So the single player fantastic

1252
01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:05,439
Speaker 1: multiplayer was one of those things where people got tired

1253
01:08:05,480 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 1: of it. In fact, I don't know how many people

1254
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,080
Speaker 1: are still playing multiplayer. I know there are, but I

1255
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,160
Speaker 1: don't know how many of them there are because a

1256
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: lot of people just got they were able to do

1257
01:08:14,280 --> 01:08:15,960
Speaker 1: everything you could do, and you're like, well, it's more

1258
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:19,680
Speaker 1: between the promise and the follow through that kind of situation,

1259
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:21,880
Speaker 1: and it was. It was because it was really an

1260
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 1: ambitious project and just didn't quite live up to it

1261
01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:27,519
Speaker 1: when it launched. Not to say that they won't eventually

1262
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: get there. I just wonder how big a population they'll

1263
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,559
Speaker 1: have once they finally do. But yeah, I don't have

1264
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:35,799
Speaker 1: sadly don't have a whole lot of stories about terrible

1265
01:08:35,880 --> 01:08:38,000
Speaker 1: video games I've played. I mean even some of them.

1266
01:08:38,080 --> 01:08:40,599
Speaker 1: That's not really sad, that's that's kind of okay. Yeah,

1267
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:43,000
Speaker 1: I guess it is okay. I mean, it's just it's

1268
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: sad for podcasting because they don't have any great stories.

1269
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:49,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, so guys, we will do some more crowdsource

1270
01:08:49,560 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 1: kind of stuff in the future and just wanted to

1271
01:08:52,120 --> 01:08:54,719
Speaker 1: take this look back to kind of celebrate the whole

1272
01:08:54,760 --> 01:08:57,320
Speaker 1: et news. But if you have any ideas for things

1273
01:08:57,320 --> 01:08:59,839
Speaker 1: that we should crowdsourcely, maybe we should do an episode

1274
01:08:59,840 --> 01:09:02,360
Speaker 1: on what's the best video game of all time? We

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Speaker 1: talked about that we never did um, so it maybe

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Speaker 1: we crowdsource that, or maybe even something else, something like

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, what is the best computer or worse computer.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that people have something right right, like you know,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff like that. If you have any

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Speaker 1: ideas for something and you think, hey, you should pull

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Speaker 1: your your listeners about this subject, let us know. Send

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Speaker 1: us an email our addresses, text stuff at Discovery dot com,

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Speaker 1: or drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler.

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Speaker 1: Our handle us text stuff hs W and we'll tap

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Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands

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Speaker 1: of other topics, How Stuff works dot com