WEBVTT - The Worst Video Games of All Time (Update) 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.440 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from house 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:14.200 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.319 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Vocalbam. And you know, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.480 there's a news story that broke not too long ago 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.160 that relates back to stuff we've talked about on the 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.480 show before. I'm talking, of course, about one of the 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.240 most important archaeological projects of all time outside of an 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:33.279 Indiana Jones film. I'm talking about going out to the 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.720 desert in New Mexico and digging yourself up some E 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.960 T and many other Atari games. Yeah. So, for those 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.400 who do not remember, we've talked about this, Like I 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.960 said multiple times, back in n you had a little 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.760 bit of a a glut in the video game market, 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.760 and as a result, Atari had some some extra um 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.640 inventory on its hands. Yeah. Okay, So, so there's been 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.800 this longstanding rumor, elevated to almost myth status in the 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.400 video game industry that that Atari, while it was struggling, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:10.080 dumped thousands of video games in this New Mexico landfill. Um. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.240 The New York Times even ran a short piece on 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.560 it in September three, and it's it's a short piece. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:17.319 So I'm just gonna read it out because it's a 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.319 really explains the story and is super indicative of what 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.400 the industry was doing at the time. So here we go. 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.760 With the video game business gone sour, some manufacturers have 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.319 been dumping their excess game cartridges on the market at 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:33.480 depressed prices. Now, Atari Inc. The leading video game manufacturer, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.720 has taken dumping one step further. The company has dumped 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.319 fourteen truckloads of discarded game cartridges and other computer equipment 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.760 at the City landfill in Alama Gordon, New Mexico. Guards 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.760 kept reporters and spectators away from the area yesterday as 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.640 workers poured concrete over the dumped merchandise. And Atari spokesman 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.640 said the equipment came from Atari's plant in al Paso, Texas, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:55.920 which was used to make video game cartridges but has 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:00.080 now been converted to recycling scrap. Atari lust three d 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.960 in ten point five million dollars in the second quarter, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.040 largely because of a sharp drop in video game sales. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:11.760 That's yeah, point five million dollars in a quarter. That's 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.000 not that's not a yearly loss. So yeah, as you 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.400 can see, this was a huge deal for Atari, and um, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:18.840 you know, there are a lot of different things that 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.320 went into this. We've covered it before, but just as 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.080 a quick kind of refresher, the things that that led 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.519 to this decision involved too many games on the market, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.720 too many consoles on the market, so you had you 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.280 had way too much product out there. Uh, and way 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.600 too many poor video games that had been kind of 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.760 scrapped together really quickly, right and and and then with 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.800 the the ET cartridge in particular, which is often cited 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.120 as not only the worst video game of all time 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.560 but also the reason for the video game crash. That's 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.520 that's a little too simplistic, but it did big contributor 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.040 because that license cost millions of dollars to Atari, and 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.760 they produced millions of cartridges, something like five million copies 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.000 of this game, and they didn't sell out at all. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.400 They had they had millions left over. So you just 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.639 had a no win scenario. I mean, no one wanted 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:11.920 the cartridges. They kept getting marked down and down and 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.760 down in the discount bins at your local toy stores. 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.119 I mean, I remember these days because I had an AT, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:23.680 I had ET the Extra Terrestrial. UM, so I had 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.519 the two games that are constantly referred to as being 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.520 the ones that led to the video game Crash, where 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.959 the licensed versions of pac Man and ET the Extra 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:38.560 Terrestrial on the I had both of those, so I 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.440 can tell you they both were terrible games. They were 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.240 not good representations of their licenses and uh and so 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:49.360 they both really did contribute. So uh. Anyway, we had 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:53.680 this big myth about the you know, this huge dumping ground, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.600 and there was conflicting information for the longest time, like 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.400 is it actually out there or is it is that 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.080 just urban legend? Well, and since concrete had been poured, 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.040 no one was really sure. It made me think for 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.160 a while that maybe the guy who made that decision 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.800 at Atari used to work for the mafia. I want 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:11.280 it dead. I want to bury it in the ground. 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.040 I want to concrete foundation board over it. How it 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.200 how it goes off in my head anyway, I mean, 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.440 maybe he just really hated it that much. But Yeah, 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.839 we ended up discovering very recently as the recording of 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.640 this podcast, as it turns out that there was truth 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:31.200 to the yeah myth confirmed. Okay, so in April, hundreds 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.200 of old Atari games, including the infamously terrible ET We're 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.240 We're found in this landfill in New Mexico. The dig 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.560 was part of a documentary series. It's being done by 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.359 director Zach Penn in affiliation with a couple of media companies, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:51.839 Fuel Entertainment and Lightbox Entertainment, along with Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studios. Yeah, 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.840 what's what's funny is that Major Nelson, who is part 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.479 of Xbox Lives. He's like one of the kind of 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.039 a community liais on type guy, So a lot of 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.880 information from Microsoft comes through him and then his communicated 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.760 to the fans. He was actually on the dig site too. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.440 And uh, I'll talk a little bit more about that 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.720 in just a second when we get to the super 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:18.480 silly part of the story. I'm not sure which part is. Yeah, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.719 there's so many, but this one in particular because it 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.880 all has to do with the way the man wears 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:28.560 a construction hat. Okay, alright, So so some interesting interesting 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.240 little factoids around this dig. The AP was out there 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.560 and they were talking to folks um and and according 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.200 to them, James Heller, a former Atari manager who's also 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.359 on site for the dig at the invitation of the 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.919 production team, Um said. James Heller said that he was 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.160 charged with finding a cheap way of disposing for seven 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:51.120 hundred and twenty eight thousand game cartridges. That's that's a 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.280 lot of cartridges. That's more than I had by by 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.000 a long shot. Uh. And he said that after a 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:01.239 few local kids scavenged games, um, and he started getting 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.440 calls from the media about it, that's when he decided 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.440 to pour the concrete, right, because otherwise you have you 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.000 have a recipe for disaster, and that kids could be 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.920 coming out to a landfill get hurt lawsuits. Yeah. No 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.200 one wants e T on top of being the worst 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.279 game ever to be the most deadly game to have 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.880 caused like tetanus and things like that. Yeah, that would 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:24.120 have been a terrible, terrible, pr nightmare. Yeah. He's also 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.840 said that he wasn't aware that there was any kind 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:28.960 of controversy about it, and that he's never come out 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.520 on the record about it because no one ever asked him. Huh. 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.119 Clearly someone who does not go to the big video 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.800 game forums. It's clearly not from the internet. Um. Uh. So, 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.160 So the city that houses the landfill is giving up 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.839 tofty of the cartridges to the team, and we'll be 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.960 selling the rest. So if you would like your own, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.760 you can get some real New Mexico dirt packed in 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.400 with your your various cartridges. They're they're apparently still playable, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:56.320 some of them, I mean some of them are crushed. Yeah, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.799 I know that. When they first found it, they tested 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.200 one out almost lee and then said, we're not going 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.120 to tell you whether or not it worked. We're going 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.040 to save that for the documentary. But but but these 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.760 are these are hard, hardwired cartridges. I mean they're not 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.360 They're not optical discs or anything like that. So as 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.560 long as you haven't had too much detritus get into 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:22.520 the cartridge, which we all know how to solve that problem, yeah, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:24.960 and then you're good. Yeah, as long as that's not 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.040 the case, then it should work. And I understand that 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.000 there was another person who was talked to about this 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.960 whole thing, a man who may you might say, was 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.720 burdened with terrible responsibility. Uh So the ap for for 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.520 this article that they did also called et S game 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.920 designer one Howard Scott Warshaw about the entire debacle um 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.240 and he said that he actually doesn't mind his game 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.840 being called the worst game ever. He said that he 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.720 was only given five weeks to design, right and test 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.680 this game after legal matters held it up in production 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.040 of for Getting That Life since and the holiday shopping 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.560 deadlines began looming. He said furthermore that it's and I 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.000 quote a tremendous honor that, you know, even though it's 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.320 the worst video game ever, that's still being talked about. Well, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.760 he also was the guy who made the biggest selling 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.840 original game for Atari, which was Yars Revenge. Uh so, 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.720 Yours Revenge was a kind of crazy little game where 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.000 it's almost impossible to explain. Back then, video games were 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.040 not nearly as simple in a way, like even though 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.280 the the graphics were simple and the gameplay was simple, 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.640 the concepts were really high concept crazy things. And these days, 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:41.240 you know, when you see video games, they tend to 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.719 be variations on very similar themes, like it's a sandbox 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.480 game like Grand Theft Auto or the Saints Rose series, 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.920 or it's a racing game, or it's a gun game 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.640 like those are shooter and adventure you know, right back 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:59.440 in the days of the early arcades. Well, first you 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.360 play as a donkey who's out delivering pizza such what, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.240 but that was normal. So anyway, Ours Revenge hard to 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.200 explain it easily, but um, anyway, one of the most 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.160 popular games of atari ever. So it's kind of interesting 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.360 that the same guy was behind both titles. Um. Yeah. 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.280 The other thing I wanted to mention, we're going to 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.600 we're going to have a nice little flashback in a minute, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.400 but before we do that. Uh, something else I think 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.959 is really entertaining is that there's some conspiracy theories around this, 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.079 Like there were some things popping up on the Internet 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:37.320 suggesting that perhaps this whole dig was a manufactured story 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.880 and in fact, no one had gone to New Mexico 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.760 and no one had actually found the cartridges because they 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.760 were never really put there in the first place, and 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.360 the whole thing is just a complete cover up. Yeah, 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.800 there's like a tari truthis now. This is great. Yeah. 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.680 So uh, And there was a picture of Major Nelson, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.640 this is what I was referring to earlier in the podcast, 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.160 who was at the site and wearing a hard hat, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.960 and the hard hat, you know, sat pretty high up 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:02.560 on his head, which led some people to say, oh, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:04.600 it's been photoshopped on top of him. He was clearly 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.160 this was a picture of Major Nelson that's been placed 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.800 so that it's on a desert background and he's got 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.480 this hard hat photoshopped on because it's not saying flat, 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.600 you know, snug against his head. But here's the thing 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.920 about hard hats. They actually have like a little kind 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.400 of harness that sits on your head, and they're raised 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.920 up over the harness so that if something does impact 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.560 the hard hat, there's that shot. Yeah. So it doesn't 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.680 kill you, you see, just having something hard. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.120 I mean it doesn't. It doesn't help you if you're 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.559 wearing something hard on your head if the force hitting 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.200 it is still enough to cause you injury. So uh, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:39.840 it's you know, it may have been that the little 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.400 harness part was a little small for Major Nelson's noggin. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.600 I don't know, but I don't know. Personal Yeah, it doesn't. 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.360 I'm not going to call him a fat head, No, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.320 neither am I. But but it does mean that I 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.520 think some people mistakenly, either mistakenly or perhaps jokingly. It 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.720 could have been that they were joking about it being 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:03.560 photoshopped and and other people proportion in the internet is 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.880 oh sure sure. And also some of the very first 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.400 photos that came out of the dig site um were 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.920 taken on you know, low quality cell phones, and I 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.880 think that everyone I mean, I mean, I was reluctant 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.839 to believe the story until I clicked a few links 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.240 through and really checked around about it, because I was like, oh, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.040 that's fake. Yeah, well there's so many stories. I assume 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.640 that everything on this fake on the internet except the 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.800 hell stuff works where everything is amazing. But yeah, no, no, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.080 I totally understand what you where you're coming from on 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.000 that one. So we wanted to take this opportunity to 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.920 actually have a little look back on an episode that 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.520 that was recorded years ago, back in two thousand eleven. Yeah, 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.320 so so of course Chris Palette is going to be 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:49.240 joining us from the vaults of history, right, So this 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:52.280 is this is what some people would call a rerun, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:56.280 because we wanted to talk about the discussion that kind 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.520 of led into this whole thing when we asked our listeners. 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.800 This was like crowdsourced episode, which we haven't really we 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:04.680 haven't done many of those. We've asked for a listener 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.760 mail and gotten responses, and we've done some episodes based 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:10.920 upon suggestions, but this was purely crowdsourced where I put 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.800 out the question what's the worst video game of all time? 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.360 And then we had our listeners, right, in and we 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.720 tabulated all the votes and it was it was wide open, 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.160 and this is the result. Uh and spoiler alert, the 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.480 video game that we just talked about being Dug Up 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.560 in the Desert, ends up being number one. So but 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.600 it's an entertaining episode. Listen to it, and we'll have 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.760 a little bit more to talk about once the episodes 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.280 over with some other kind of bad video game wrap up, 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:48.439 so enjoy. So, hey, guys, you know you might remember 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.520 that Chris and I wanted to do a crowdsourced episode 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.840 where we asked our listeners to submit to us the 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.480 worst video game of all time. And uh, we didn't 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.600 give an real parameters about that. We said it could 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.280 be on any platform, it just had to be a 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.080 video game. And because of that, it meant that our 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:14.880 listeners could literally, uh nominate any game ever made. So 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.880 it's a miracle at all that we had enough votes 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.680 for any particular title to have this this podcast. But 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:26.320 we actually have the top ten or perhaps bottom ten 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.760 worst video games as voted on by you the listener, 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.319 So please keep in mind this is not the opinions 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.360 of Jonathan and Chris, although maybe we'll talk about some 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.480 of the bad games we've played in the past two 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.320 This isn't our opinion, this is your opinion. We're just 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.720 reporting it. Well, I have to say that one one 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:50.800 person did right in and ask us why we would 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.720 bother recording an episode on this, and uh, the simple 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.400 answer is because it's fun. Yeah. This was actually really 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:00.280 a lot of fun. It was a lot of work 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:04.120 because we had to collect votes from multiple sources. We 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.560 collective votes from email, Facebook, Twitter, and people left votes 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.880 on my Google Plus account too, so um, I actually 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.559 did separate out all the votes in a big spreadsheet, 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.320 so I knew how many votes came in from which, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.160 uh particular source and that that actually was kind of 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.280 interesting too, just to see, you know, what our listeners 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.520 prefer to use in order to get information to us. 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.680 That was pretty fascinating. That was not my intent, by 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:31.440 the way, when I came. I came up with this 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.280 idea on the spur of the moment and sprung it 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.000 on Chris just before we started recording, and Chris was like, 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:39.440 do I have to do I have to record all 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:40.920 the votes? I said no, He said, all right, let's 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.520 do it. So you know, I'm easy like that. Let's 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.760 let's start off with what would be number ten, but 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.200 actually it was a tie for ninth place. So the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.440 first two games we're gonna talk about received the same 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.560 number of votes, and the first one that we're going 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:01.600 to talk about is dragons Lair the arcade games specifically, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.000 So for those of you who, uh who missed out 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.120 on the early eighties and the great arcade culture of 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.400 the early eighties, you may not be too familiar with 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.400 this game. But it was groundbreaking. Yeah, it was. It 0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:21.120 was a an innovative way of presenting a video game 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:26.120 that had not been attempted before Dragon's Layer. Yep. Yeah, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.520 Previously we were talking about the different well the difference 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.400 in in vector and raster graphics and and you know 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.000 there was there were blocky graphics for the most part 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.360 at the time, and they had limited animation, limited sound um. 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:47.240 But but Dragon's Layer actually featured uh, animation from one 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:52.160 of the industry giant animators, Don Bluth, former Disney animator 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.760 UM who has gone on to you know, with his 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.280 own company, to do many many other titles. In fact, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:02.120 I have Don Bluth title on my iPad. Yeah, which 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.800 one the new version of Tapper features Don Bluth artwork. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.160 So yeah, because he Also you may know some of 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.800 his work from from movies like The Secrets and the 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.880 Secret of Nim Yes, and Before Time series, Before Time 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:21.400 it was was it the Five Old Movies too? Yes? Um, 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.440 those were Don Bluth films, so somewhere out there, yes, 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.600 thank you. So Dragon's Lair was featured animation from Don 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.480 Bluth and it was published by Cinematronics. Yeah. Yeah, But 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.280 but but how you might say exactly was this great 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.680 leap in graphics and sound? Because the sound was awesome too. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:41.880 How how is that possible? Because you know, you're looking 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.840 at other games like Donkey Kong, which you know I 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.680 loved Donkey Kong, but you would not call the graphics 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.520 advanced or state of the art. Well for the time, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:55.800 they were, but not now ye crazy? Yeah, well they 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:00.480 they accomplished this by using the laser disc video format, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.160 which we've talked about before. So the entire game was 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.480 on laser disc, and there was an actual laser disc 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.199 player inside the cabinet of this arcade game. Now, the 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.160 fact that there it was on laser disc was both 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:18.200 its its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. The weakness 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.679 is that you couldn't create too much interactivity for the 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.919 player and the game. The you know, you couldn't have 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.560 complete control over the main character who do you remember? 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.760 The guy's name Dirk the Daring, and he was rescuing 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:39.280 a princess Daphne from a dragon named Singe. And so 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.159 you couldn't just control Dirk the Daring, You couldn't just 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.879 make him run around and jump and stuff. Instead, what 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.800 you would do is you would initiate a video sequence. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.800 Because again this is recorded on laser disc. There's only 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.320 so many variations of Dirk's movements that can be recorded 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.159 on a single laser disc. So what your input into 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.320 the arcade Sheen would translate to is, was that the 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.000 correct button to press or direction on the joystick to 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.439 push in order to trigger the next sequence to further 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.600 the storyline. Yeah, so you, for example, you might be 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.360 having to jump, and you did have to jump at 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.760 one point, and if you, you know, move up, that 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.520 might be the right thing to do. If you move left, 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.840 you die. If you do nothing, you die. If you 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:29.560 if you push the sword button, you die if you 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.360 push Yeah. So, in other words, there'll be one correct 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.479 response to a particular moment in the story. And sometimes, uh, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.639 there'd be like a little flash that would indicate this 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.920 is when you do something. So for a lot of 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.960 the game, you're you're just watching, You're just you're you're 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.680 watching a movie. And then occasionally in the movie there's 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:49.240 a moment where you have a chance to put in 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.280 an input, and if you put in the wrong one, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.720 the movie's over. And so that was probably what cost 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.320 a lot of people to vote for Dragons Layers, that 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.000 it almost feels like less of a game and more 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.360 a film. It's just a film that you don't get 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:04.399 to see the end of it unless you happen to 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.000 shift in your seat at just the right moment so 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.840 the film will continue. And also I would like to 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:11.840 point out this was one of the first games I 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.919 can remember that cost two credits or fifty cents to play. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.000 And also remember that a lot of them had two 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.920 monitors because they were so popular that people would try 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.280 and gather and cram around the system. Because if someone 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.480 knew how to play it, if someone had memorized the 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.520 sequence of movements they had to do to get through 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.760 a particular part of the game, you know, most people 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.720 didn't have the time or energy or change to learn 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.160 all that, so they just like to watch the game, 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.399 because again, it was like a movie. I saw a 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.359 lot of our kids that would put a second monitor 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.520 that was mounted on the top of the cabinet so 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.160 that you could see what was going on without having 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.480 to be right up on whoever is playing the game. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.800 So anyway, that was tied for ninth place. Uh. And 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.679 the other one was a game on the Nintendo Entertainment 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.919 System which was Back to the Future. And I have 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.199 never played this because I didn't own an any s. 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:17.120 From what I read, we're going from beautiful graphics and 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:23.960 and and sort of poor gameplay to horrible graphics. And yeah, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:26.480 Back to the Future is just one example of a 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.840 licensed title, and by licensed, I mean it's something that 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.240 already existed that a video game publisher purchases a license 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.159 from the license owner to be able to create a 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.000 game based on that. And as far as Back to 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:45.639 the Future goes, the basis was really pretty uh difficult 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:47.840 to spot, especially in that first stage. Like in the 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.320 very first stage, you are going down a street, and 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.160 the way the view is it's an over the head view. Um, 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.240 the street is laid out so that the top of 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.840 the screen is where your head to the bottom of 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.280 the screen is where you are and you're moving your 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.160 your character around Marty McFly. You're moving Marty McFly down 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.719 the street. You're trying to avoid enemies and pick up 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.200 little alarm clocks and it's only by picking up enough 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.760 alarm clocks that you're allowed to move to the next stage. 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:19.879 And so you're also you also have a timer, so 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.000 if you don't pick up enough alarm clocks within the 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.639 time limit, then you lose. If you get hit by 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.320 an enemy, you lose. If you run into an obstacle, 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.320 you lose. Um. You would eventually be able to pick 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.920 up a bowling ball, which would let you shoot enemies 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.280 because of course you remember that great scene and Back 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.560 to the Future where Marty McFly picked up a bowling 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.640 ball and then shot someone with it. Um, who could 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.760 forget that scene that never happened, uh, And then you 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.080 could also get a skateboard, which at least that was 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.879 featured in the film. But with a skateboard, what that 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:52.840 would mean is that you would move through the the 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.080 you would move through the level faster, which meant the 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.600 poor gameplay became excruciating. The poor gameplay because you're going 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.800 so ask you can't even react um, and then if 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.000