Welcome. It's so good to see you.
Welcome. Welcome.
He's the warrior of the star.
He's the Warrior of the Star. Wait, who is this gracing this
wonderful podcast? Star Warrior.
Donkey Kong, what Dave is trying to say.
Yes, what am I trying to say? He wants to be the very best.
I want to be the very best like. No one ever was.
Like no podcast that there ever was.
That this was this was originally similar to what
Virtual Cop was, which was which is constantly brought up in the
development that this was an on rails shooter at first, which I
had no idea. I guess it makes sense based on
technology and time and everything, but like I I just
can't even imagine that being this game or even a game like
that on the 64 at that time. It feels like it was like that
for so long in development too, which is so crazy to me.
Totally. Yeah, It was really, this was
the one thing about the development process that I got
really mixed answers from the guys about.
They really had trouble remembering when it came off the
rails. Some of them said we always
wanted to put it off the rails and others said, you know, we
didn't decide for sure that we're gonna take it off the
rails until after Super Mario 64 came out and we saw how fun and
open world was on the N64. I mean, part of the problem is
they didn't have an N64 for the vast majority of the development
process. They didn't have the controller.
They didn't know it was possible.
They didn't know what the console was really be able to
do. Yeah, they were so committed to
the Virtual Cop model that they would go to the arcade and bring
big bags of coins and sort of sit there and feed the machine
coins and and really learn Virtual Cop.
One of the the first artists hired on the game, Carl Hilton,
was giving some advice to his friend Brett Jones when Brett
was applying to be the next the second artist on the game.
And Brett Jones had never played a video game before.
He was a a real talented artist and he knew a lot about James
Bond. He was a huge James Bonder, but
he didn't play video games. So Carl Hilton told him, listen,
in your interview, just make sure you talk a lot about Virtua
Cop. It's really important to Martin
and Brett did and the job. So yeah, yeah, there's, there's,
I mean, I mentioned this in the book, but there's, there's
footage of it on the rail still all the way up through, I mean
like within maybe 6 to 9 months of it coming out.
Yeah, I think I wrote down that it was it was still last minute.
It was E 396. It's you wrote in the book that
that it was still technically on rails.
And that's when Mario 64 and Goldeneye were shown.
And it's like that's. It's just crazy.
I don't. And there's still, there's
still, there's still definitely levels that show that influence
rights. Like the train level really
feels like a rails level. It's very linear.
You know, you're, you're just shooting guys as they pop out.
But the fact that then you can also have levels you get lost
in, you know, maze like levels or, or levels where you can
really have a different strategy approach depending on I mean, it
just it, it made the game, the fact that it's open world.
And so, yeah, huge, huge decision.
Yeah, I I can't believe that. I can't believe it.
I just can't. I it blows my mind.
Sorry. What what blows my mind is the
fact that they didn't have a dev kit.
They didn't have any. I remember reading that.
I'm like nothing, Like no, nothing.
How do you design something for something you have no idea how
It's like, I know. That's wild.
Yeah, it's it's, it's wild. And it definitely led to a lot
of challenges in their process, whether it was the the musicians
trying at the last minute to, you know, basically they were,
they were told the N64 could do a lot more than it ended up
being able to do. So that meant the artists were
screwed on, you know, the, the size of some of their images and
files. They do a lot of work
compressing and cutting and, and shrinking things.
Same thing with the musicians. And I do think that, you know,
the, the thing about the N64 controller is that, you know,
it's, I guess, like according to legend, the controller was
really designed for Mario 64. It's, it's a controller that
plays really well for that game. But then the golden eye guys,
you know, it's, it's a horrendously sort of horrible
controller for a first person shooter.
However, if you play with one controller in each hand and and
you know you you have one control stick for Amy and one
for movie and it technically is the first dual analog control
stick. Shooter, right, which is also I
I honestly, I don't know how how long have have we have, you
know, nerds like me or us been on the Internet?
I did not know that was a thing until I think less than a year
ago. I had no idea.
Solo crazy so awkward and I I I feel like now that the game has
been re released for Xbox and switch, which it wasn't at the
time that my book came out there were rumors about it right, but
it hadn't happened now you know I don't know about you guys if
you've played it on on those consoles, but I cannot get used
to it. I cannot get used to doing old
night with dual analog. I kind.
Of have yeah, I have my Xbox controller still sitting beside
me 'cause I just I opened it back up and played like the 1st
2:00. Stages together.
Cool, cool, cool. How did it go?
So I, so I have, I have the cartridge, I have a switch and I
have it on, on Xbox 'cause I have game pass.
So I, I dabbled in all of them, but I think I'm just too
tailored to playing with dual, dual sticks now.
So yeah, so I, I think, you know, I'm, I'm kind of the, the,
I'm talking about this game that's 25 plus years old and yet
here I am playing it with an Xbox and an Xbox controller.
I, I think for me, I just my mind now works where I have a
separate joystick to constantly look around as opposed to, you
know, not relying on auto aim. But auto aim is obviously
something that is, that is big in, in, in the original and, and
on the switch as well. It works almost exactly the
same. And having to press R and look
around and stuff is, is fine 'cause you don't always have to
do it. But I found I was like, looking
like I was doing this and I was walking in weird directions and
stuff. Which is cooler?
Yeah, it's, it's it just feels a little bit awkward.
And I don't know if that's because it's what it always was,
but I don't remember it feeling that way.
But it's interesting because me and Jiggy just played Jet Force
Gemini, and it works almost exactly the same, except that's
technically third person. You know when you have to kill
all of the all the enemies in order to unlock a door there?
The door wasn't unlocked, but I couldn't see an enemy anywhere.
But I could hear one every once in a while.
And every once in a while, the little red indicator on the left
or the right of my screen would go off to tell you that one was
like around the corner or just out of sight or whatever.
And then I would throw a grenade at like, the corner of the wall
where that sound was kind of coming from.
And then I would just see the green blood come out and it
would die, and then the door would open.
So that happened a couple of times, Yeah.
So it just got stuck in the wall.
Yeah, so it spawned into the wall.
It wasn't shooting at me, which is interesting.
It's not like it was, you know, seen through the wall.
It just, and I couldn't see it. It's not like I could see the
antenna or its foot or its gun sticking out of the wall.
I could just hear it and see the indicators and that's it.
And because, and the guns wouldn't do anything because the
wall was in the way. So I used grenades in order to
get an explosion, and one or two grenades later I was like, OK,
the door's unlocked like. Yeah, that's pretty wild.
Yeah, nothing like that happens on the 64, at least not to me.
But I will say it was kind of annoying when you do kill all
the enemies and then one is like laying on the ground just.
Oh, spasming. Yeah.
Then there's just, there's just, it's just a matter of time
before they just perish. But for some reason they add
that detail and they sit there for like 10 seconds and you're
like, why isn't this door opening?
And then you turn around, see it on the ground, and then it
starts to disappear and you're like, oh, OK.
And then the door opens. You hear the flies buzzing.
That's how you know that that's on the ground.
Yeah. Which Which is like another one
of those details of the game that is like extra gruesome in a
game that is sort of sort of light hearted and sort of like
not family friendly, but sort of like geared towards maybe
slightly gamers, but also not. And I'm just like, is this game
supposed to be violent or is it not Like I don't like I know
they're just bugs, but. But at the same time, at the
same time they give you guns that can like explode things
like giant rockets and these bugs, they explode and there's
blood everywhere. There's like bug blood
everywhere. And it's clearly like trying to
push push that rating. It's it's teen, right?
I think it's teen. I don't have it right in.
Front of me it is. Yeah.
Yeah, it is, Yeah. Which which makes sense.
That's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that,
right? I think that makes sense.
But it's. But like those, those weapons,
the gruesome stuff, the sort of like, and like when you have
like a bunch of enemies that say, throw a grenade and it's
just like, I'm overwhelmed. I got to throw something.
And even if they don't die, the blood splatter is just like.
It's like it's all everywhere. It's.
Everywhere, the sound effect doesn't stop.
Like it's just all these details.
Yeah, it's green. They're bugs, like I said, but
there's something about that that feels this like, yeah, this
mix of attitude and mix of tone that this game, I don't know.
I don't know what kind of balance they're going for here.
Like I've seen a couple of like clips and interviews and you
know, things like that from even like 15 years ago when people
were talking about this game and it was only 10 years old and
being like, yeah, we wanted to strike this balance and stuff.
And I, I don't know if they struck the balance or if they
should have just gone to the full teen or mature side or
should have just dumbed it down to be a little bit more child
friendly. So I it's stuck somewhere in
between. I think playing it is totally
fine for the way that works. But that balance I think was a
little bit off depending on what mission and what area you were
in and and what weapons you were using.
I think that's also mattered. Yeah.
And so getting getting into it, we're kind of we're kind of like
crossing the line of the game play, yeah.
Yeah. Oh yeah, let's do it.
So so the game play, it's kind of I'm not, I'm not it's not
bad, but it's not great either. It's kind of it's kind of in
between and I don't know, again, I don't know what it is on the
rare replay. Like if you can, you use twin
sticks. Is that like?
No, So what happens is, and I wrote yeah, so it so that, so
that's one of the reasons why we'll we'll get to this, you
know, eventually, like we're gonna, we're gonna be playing
Golden Eye on here 'cause obviously we are.
Yeah. That the version of that on the
Xbox, not on the Switch, but on the Xbox is twin sticks.
It's is is modern controls and it's great and it feels great.
The game is the same game, but it plays even better.
Chika, do you have experience with this game or doom in
general? Do you have a history with with
doom? Nope, really.
Oh, you know what you know what it is is.
I think it's the age difference. I feel like that's probably what
it is. I don't know how how old Matt
is, but I this is a game that I definitely was not allowed to
play when I was a kid, right so. Right, fair enough.
So is this. I will, I will, I will go even
further than this like conquer. Maybe if I pushed hard enough, I
could have gotten them to like, like that was that was teetering
the line 'cause it was like it was rated M.
But the, the box art so cute. You know, Doom, my mom will be
like, we're going to church for just looking at that box art,
you know? And so is this your first Doom
game ever play you've ever played?
No, I did play the not eternal the one before Eternal.
Doom, 2016. Yeah, the the, yeah, I did play
that one, not all the way through, but I did play it.
Nice, so you the as far as the old school dooms, the sort of OG
dooms go, this is it. Damn, that's.
I've always seen it. I've just been like, oh, why
would I play this when I have what I have now?
I mean that that's, that's fair to in a, in a number of
franchises, I would say, you know, I, I kind of, I kind of
understand that. I I.
I would I would play it if I had it easily accessible.
I'm just not going out of my way to to go play it.
Right, which is one of the things that Matt was mentioning
is the fact that there was this particular version of Doom was
not accessible really at all for what 15 years or something, you
know, at least, if not more like almost 20.
The original Doom has been available on everything,
including tractors. So like, you know, you could do
what everything, right? So this this has not been played
on a John Deere. So I'm not sure if that makes it
elite level yet or not, but but it's close.
It's close so. I still play plenty of
platformers today so I'm still thinking I would love the
experience as much. Well, it depends.
There are some things about it that I'm like, I don't know if I
can handle it anymore because that game, there was some
challenges with it for sure. What?
What stuff stands out or what stuff do you remember like that?
What? What?
So, so the game. So I don't know if you you
haven't beaten the game yet, but.
I did. I did finish it.
Oh, you. Did I did?
Yeah, I did it, Yeah. OK awesome.
So there's there's these gems you have to collect and in each
stage there's gold gems and they're either hidden or whatnot
very well. They're harder to get, yeah.
They're so much harder to get, but with the bosses, you have to
defeat the bosses without getting hit.
And that part really, I don't know if I have the patience
anymore when I'm like 13 years old.
Yeah, I had the patience, I had the skills, I had the reflexes
to dodge missiles and whatever they're thrown at me.
And let's be honest, you had the time.
The time and the time too. So, you know, that part really
is not the most appealing to me. I used to be more of a
completionist and now that I'm a lot older, it's you know what,
let me just get through the game.
But also a part of the game is you have to get all of the gold,
the gold gems in order to see the complete ending of the game.
And so that would bug me so much that I would get all these gems
and I'm missing one. And I don't know what happens at
the end, right? I do know what happens at the
end, but I'm just saying like as a a, an adult, like it'd be nice
to see. Yeah, so, and so I, I completed
it and I was going through the game not knowing this whole gem
situation. I didn't so for me, 'cause OK,
so here's the other thing about, about doing shows like this and,
and playing games, you know, either through emulation or on
just a cartridge and stuff. I, I, I'm sure I could go and
find the manual of this game online and flip through it and
it would tell me, it would give me some information, but I, I
tend to forget or I don't do it 'cause I'm just like, I'm just,
I'm just gonna jump into the game and just experience it, you
know, sort of like, hey, I'm, yeah, like I'm renting this game
from Blockbuster and I'm just gonna play it for the week.
That's kind of how I approach some of these, especially if
it's like a single player platformer like this.
I'm sitting there going, how complicated?
Good. This, I got this, I got it
right. So that's, yeah, sure, at least.
So I told myself and, and that's what I did with this.
I was like, you know what, it'll be fine.
I'll, I'll figure it out. I kind of remember playing this
at a friend's place. I think I told you earlier that
like, you know, one of our friends, family friends, she had
a 64 and she was the only person.
This, this is the same person. If if anyone listens to the
Yoshi's Story episode, it's the same person that had Yoshi's
Story and this game and she has. Phenomenal tastes.
Right. And and it was it's, but it's
the only, it's the only person I knew that had those games
outside of the typical Mario Kart and Zelda.
And like, those were sort of like her her side games or
whatever you want to call them, like sort of like next tier down
or whatever. Anyways, I play them at the same
household and that's the only experience I have with this
game. And I was like, OK, I kind of
remember these early levels. Like I remember the shake,
shake. Of course.
Like, how could you not? Yeah, how could you not?
Times throughout the game, right?
Exactly. So like all those things, I was
like, OK, I, I, I got this and, and I, I went into it and I
found a couple of those gold gems and I, you know, picked
them up and like, oh, it's giving me a bunch of health.
Great, cool. They're sort of like getting 50
coins at once or something. That's kind of how it feels,
right? Exactly.
Yeah. Did I know that it had anything
to do with the ending or the bosses or Nope, I had no.
Did I know that it was counting how many I had?
I had no idea. I didn't know there was like a
an overall tally. I was just like, sure, I got two
of them on this stage. Great cool.
I found it so when I and then the bosses like no chance I'm
going without getting hit. Like no, no way, right?
Exactly, that was like top tier get good gaming back then, like
I'm not and I did it and it was like one of the achievements of
my damn life. I got all the gems in this game.
I know the ending. I thought you knew the ending
'cause you looked it up, I said. No, this is a personal
experience. Oh my God.
Team Funko was really good at this.
I mean, it took blood, sweat and tears, a lot of tears, but I got
it. But if I were to do it now, no
way. You know, I I really like the
ones. Where Where's the one here?
I'm trying to find it. I think it is.
I gotta, I gotta find it. If you have one, go for it.
I'm gonna find the name of the one.
That I have two. I have two.
That I feel like I. Mean we we can pick a top three
if you want. We can pick a top three if you
want, OK? OK, I do have a top three.
I do have a top three. And so number one for me I think
is crazy cutters, which is where you ride the little jackhammer
and you do the out. I'm doing the motion and you do
the outline. I love I.
Love what? Everyone can hear it but they
can't. Like if they're not watching,
they can't see it. I'm watching I.
Understand, yeah, you, you cut the outline of a character,
usually an enemy like a Boo or something, and just whoever gets
like the best stencil wins. And I've just always really
enjoyed that. It's fun #2 I don't know what
it's called, but it's, it's a Bowser face and it makes a weird
face and contorts. And then you have to try and
like Mario 64, like that opening with the Mario face.
How you adjust the the segments and areas of his face.
You have to do that and make it stick and just make it morph
into the contorted face in the middle of the screen.
That one's also a lot of fun. And then the third one could
probably flip around a little bit.
But the one that came to mind was there's a there's a
skateboard one in the I know it's in the first one for sure.
And you like ride the skate the end and you have to like keep
keep speeding up and jumping over.
Blocks and stuff. Yeah, escape from the lava.
I'm looking at the one right now that might be in the second one,
but I know what's exactly what I'm.
Positive. It's in the first.
One in the first OK. Yeah.
It's like, it's like ramp, like ramp something or.
Oh, platform peril. Here you go.
That's what it is. It's cool.
Yeah, that is a good one. Oh no, that's not with the
skateboard. That's just jumping.
No, a platform is jumping. Yeah, it's like the sky.
It's a skateboard. I'm gonna look it up right now
because. OK, so while you do that, I
will, I'll tell you what mine is.
My favorite is the one that you mentioned.
It's called facelift. It's the one where you basically
contort the face of the picture. Yeah, that's cool one.
It's fun because at this point almost everybody played Mario 64
and spent like an hour just messing with Mario's face.
So that's basically what this is.
It also adds a lot of variability because you you can
be pretty far off or think you've got it, but someone just
has that slight percentage sort of advantage to you.
So I like this one. It's not super stressful, but it
also takes some skill for sure. So I like that we played in
Mario Party 3, we played this the rock and Raceway, the the
horses. We rock back and forth and
you're kind of going around the track or whatever.
Yeah, that one's up there for me.
I really like it. Yeah, I really like it.
I, I like, I like the the fact that you have to manage your
ABAB and your energy and stuff before you spin out.
And I kind of like the fact that everyone's, you know, I just, I
like the aesthetic of it and stuff.
There's that. Well.
You beat me in that every single time so.
Maybe that's what it is. Yeah.
And then we have another shared one, the crazy cutter one is
great. The sort of tracing around it,
it's so simple, but it's it's a lot of fun.
And again, it's it's similar to the facelift 1 where you could
feel like, oh, I got this, 100%, I got this.
But that tiny little extra Polygon or pixel that you may
have missed could make the difference between that and I
think that is great. And the fact that Mario Party
won. And I think a couple of these
are also in two. The fact that that is in the
first game, those two games that we both share between those two
shows that the simplicity of the first one and the ideas that
they came up with just on the first one and kind of dropped a
couple games later are actually pretty damn good.
And that I, I think that's, that's impressive.
I find that pretty impressive. I, I, I enjoy that.
And then there's the boss check and then you have the
construction yard, then you have an alleyway, then you fight the
slime and then you finally make it to AL's toy barn and it's a
real it. I just like how there's like
this what could have just been like this non like cohesive
level structure turns out to be really well structured and also
visually really interesting. That extra extra thing is
fucking awesome. Yeah, it is.
It is so I so I'm currently like this lined up so perfectly, like
unintentionally. But on my YouTube channel I'm
currently doing, I do a series called analyzing everything
where I like look at every aspect of a game.
I'm looking at the graphics, the music, the sound effects,
everything and that I'm currently playing through Toy
Story 2. So I just lined up with this
podcast and I'm just like that Etch A sketch menu is so
creative, It's so unique and it's one of the best level
select menus of any game I've ever seen because it's just so
and it's it's interesting because it's a license from
Hasbro, right? Because there's that weird
Disney Pixar, Hasbro toys connection.
And like some of the characters in the game are actual like
Hasbro toys and things like that.
So just that that connection and the liberty to use the actual
like Etch A sketch, like I think it's a one off.
I think it's the only time you're ever going to see that
kind of a menu, and it was so unique and just really cool.
Yeah, it it's, it's a great way because with such a large cast
of characters in Toy Story, like it's that Bugs Life, like
especially a lot of these, I mean, most, most Pixar movies
are kind of like that, especially like Cars and things
like that. Later on, you know, if you make
a game or, or another TV show or something other another medium
outside of the movie, you want to kind of bring these
characters in any way you can. You know, Rex is used as sort of
like a hint guy or whatever. OK, wait, wait, we just need to
say how annoying he is. He's in the yeah.
Like you're like, Oh my gosh. Doesn't stop time.
Yeah, if you're in his proximity, he will not shut the
fuck up. It's all this screaming bars
over here bars. I love him, though.
I love Rex I I like Rex 'cause he's this endearing character,
but he can go die in a ditch in this game I.
He doesn't shut up me. He doesn't stop I I like all the
other characters do that too. It's not just him, but his voice
like it. Like if you.
His voice stands out above the din of.
Yes, it does. It really does.
Everything else, it doesn't it, it feels a lot clunkier than
your average fighting game, which is not something that you
want in a fighting game. And it's pretty.
I don't think it runs very well either.
It's pretty. It's pretty clunky.
Like it it it is like it does. It honestly does feel like
there's pieces of clay moving. Like.
Like they're, they're a little sticky, you know, they'll stick
to the ground a little bit too much.
Like I don't, I doubt that's intentional, but probably not.
But maybe it's so it's interesting because I played
mostly Sculptor's Cut just because it's the one that I had
loaded up for the most part and whatever I played that it's
interesting that you say that for 63 and a third.
Like as much as the combo system and the fighting seems to is
probably better there because it has that killer instinct combo
system. But you still felt like it was
kind of chunky a bit. Sculptor's Cut is very chunky.
It's so weird 'cause the changes that they made, they're like,
oh, we made a killer instinct like game.
Let's take that away and make a Street Fighter like game so we
don't have the same type of combos and stuff.
And Street Fighter's just faster, smoother, snappier.
So sculptor's cut well, and, and also the like the camera is
different. So like in the sculptor's cut,
like you're showing right now, like it's, it's that more zoomed
out Street Fighter look, whereas in 60 and a third is a little
bit more zoomed in kind of closer, like killer instinct
where you don't see as much of the arena.
And it's, you know, I mean, it also even is like semi 3D at
times cause the it'll rotate like when you're fighting and
it'll kind of move like this and you'll get different angles of
stuff. Yeah yeah, kind of like some of
the rooms kind of have some corners you go around or
whatever. Yeah.
Some of the rooms, the places have like transitional things
right where you like hit, hit the enemy, they go flying
through the wall, they go flying through the doorway.
And I actually, normally I would love those, but in this game I
disliked those. Oh, how come?
Because they were like you. You would hit it, you'd bounce
into the other room. It would like stop the gameplay
for a second to do that, and then you'd be on the other side.
You could accidentally hit them back and keep them in the cycle
of going through the doorway. This happened to me.
This legitimately happened to me in the in the Laffy laffy taffy
guy, whatever he is. Yeah, in that like, candy
factory in that room. I was fighting the clown guy and
I like punched him and he went through the door and fell.
And then I was on the other side.
I punched him again, he went through the door and fell.
I did it like three times in a row.
And I was like, I stopped fighting and backed away so I
could get out of that corner so I would be able to continue the
fight. Well, it just, it looks like, it
looks like the sculptor's cut has some of that, a little bit
of that 3D camera 'cause it looks like even in this arena,
like you're kind of going around it, even though it's still
trying to stay two-dimensional. It kind of goes like that.
It's a little bit less so than the original, but it's still
pretty similar. It's still there.
You're still technically fighting on a 2D plane, but the
camera kind of just like swerves in a circle is kind of what it
is. They still have the transition
things. And part of the problem jiggy
with like the transition stuff like in other fighting games,
it's like, OK, that's cool because it does extra damage or
now you're in a new area and you can do new things and but it
doesn't really do anything in this.
And the problem is too, if you knock someone through a door,
for example, or through a wall or something like that, and you
keep knocking them back and forth like you said you were
doing, you're gonna do like no damage.
It's not a significant move. It yeah, it sucked.
It actually kind of sucks. Yeah.
But I will say that my guy didn't have as much cutting
action as yours seem to. I was I was definitely like a
blunt force kind of a thing. I did like an AAII want to say
AAB, like I did that combo lot or ABA and he did like this like
sweeping kick kind of a deal that could potentially like
knock them off their feet. But it was it was like my
strategy for this game was especially when I see those Big
Blue ogre looking guys, I just ran in and I just tap the
buttons and I would like pin them to a wall and just keep
going. And then whenever I felt like,
OK, that's enough and I would stop.
They would still be moving and be fine.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh. And so I just basically just had
a rule. I'm like I just have to lay the
hammer on for like 30 seconds straight and just hope they die.
Yeah, well, what's interesting, so those Big Blue guys are, are
like one of the first enemies that you see, Like I, I
mentioned off the top of my like sort of goofy comment at the
top, it was like this giant Blue Man Group.
Like it's just this giant hulky and looking thing that is just
blue. And I don't know what the hell
any like, unless it's a zombie. I don't know what the hell any
of these things are supposed to be.
And that's right. Doesn't really matter.
Don't you don't have to explain it.
They're monsters. This Crowley or Crowley guy is,
I don't know, launching monsters across London because evil
person. And those things are funny
because they take so long to take down.
Sometimes I like, I would be hammering away at this enemy for
so long, and the only way that I knew that I defeated it was
because my adrenaline meter, that blue bar on the other side,
went up a notch. That's the only way I knew that
I killed it. Yeah.
Oh, here's a question for you. How did you fare against?
Because the bane of my existence was actually the aerial based
enemies like gargoyles and things with wings that move fast
because you get into a fight and they'd like, jump around, right.
So you're almost in like this little zone.
Think of it like in Zelda Ocarina of Time when you lock
onto an enemy, except you don't control when you lock onto an
enemy, it does it automatically. Or what the camera does for the
most part. Or yeah, the camera does, but
like the enemy will be hopping around you and you'll be trying
to attack and you'll be hitting forward, they'll move behind
you. It makes it very easy for them
to dodge. And even worse when you get into
an area with multiple enemies and they're attacking like I'm
the type of person I'm locking onto an enemy, I'm ignoring
everyone else, I'm going to defeat that enemy, then move on
to the next one, you know, and this was like this.
It did not allow you to do that. They would get in, they you'd
just be missing that person and then another enemy would hit
you. And that, I feel is just a
reflection of the way they chose to do the gameplay.
So it's it's very the best way to describe how the camera
works. If you've ever played Croc, this
is exactly what it's like. It's.
Oh, is it? Kind of it's locked behind you
and you move the joystick, you move left and right and it's
it's stays behind you sort of, but it also mostly.
Mostly, yeah, but not. Always mostly, but it tries to
account for enemies on screen and stuff so sometimes it gets a
little wonky and pulls back. I would say it definitely was
hard at first, but it gets easier as you get used to it.
It's it's kind of that situation you need to play through a few
levels and it gets a little, it gets easier.
You know, it's still not ideal. And This is why I was saying
earlier, why did they throw attacks into the C buttons?
Because you don't use the C buttons really, other than you
can jump with them. But you could have easily put
the jump button on anything else.
I mean. Like.
I mean, it's I don't. Know like even just.
Limit it to the down C button as a jump or something, I don't.
Yeah, yeah. The positioning of the C buttons
doesn't make sense. Why is down which the jump?
Maybe you don't use a ton, but somehow it felt like it was more
intuitive for down C to be the jump button and yet it is left C
and I don't understand that. Yeah, I like, I don't.
So it found. It didn't feel right.
I, I won't, it didn't feel right.
The jump isn't really like for those expecting that it's a
platformer that you're jumping, it's not.
It's kind of like. It's a hop.
I'm trying to. It's a little hop.
You know how in Zelda you hop over a gap and it automatically
does it for you and you just kind of it's not a jump per SE,
so much as you're skipping? That's basically what it is.
You're not jumping. You have, you have momentum, you
move forward, you're always moving forward and it's left C
button. It it doesn't.
It's not the worst thing I've ever felt, but it certainly
could have been better and thought out a little more.
I would have loved to see the down C button being the jump.
OK. And then using the left and
right C buttons to change the camera angle, because this game
kind of desperately needs that ability.
Yeah, because it's I, I'm the type of person where on these,
on any sort of third person action game that isn't a shooter
where you're pretty much always behind your character because
the reticle and all that kind of stuff, I'm the person who always
wants the camera or for the most part, unless it's a certain
traversal element, wants the camera behind my character.
So in some ways I was OK with this.
Like some people are OK with, oh, every once in a while I'll
just sort of, you know, be fine if I'm to the left or the right
or whatever. And I just pretty much just
always want it that way. Like even in racing games, I'm
not playing first person, I'm playing behind, you know, I want
to play a third person version of my vehicle, one, so I can see
my vehicle. And two, I just, I don't know,
it just feels more like a video game that way.
I think you get give it a Dynasty Warriors treatment.
Let's just have tons of enemies running at you at the same time.
Oh. Shit.
OK, let's give Superman all his powers accessible at all times.
There's no, there's no limit. I I don't know why they would
ever do that. That was dumb.
But if you treated it like, you know, like a Dynasty Warriors,
like hack and slash, just like every level and he gave you
plenty of space to to work right, I think that would be a
lot cooler. Yeah, like you said that you had
a lot of fun with like the practice mode because it was
more sandbox like and when you mentioned that that Xbox game
that that sounds like a great idea to me.
Superman is definitely something that would work better in a wide
open space. Why is he flying through under
underwater tunnels? It doesn't doesn't jive with me.
But if it's open sandbox and you're just dozens of mooks
coming at you like mobs, henchman, that makes sense.
Cause the enemies in this, I don't wanna say damage sponges,
but they take a few hits and again, you're Superman.
Why do they take more than one punch, right?
It doesn't make a lot of sense. The, the, it was on the footage
that you had Dave, but there's a scene in like the first part
where you go and there's like 4 enemies lined up and you just
stop. And 1st off, Superman's like
punching animation is just silly.
He's just like uppercut like. Also his run.
His run is hilarious. His body doesn't move, just his
arms, all arms. Yeah.
Looks looks like a like a, a mole Walker.
That's what he looks like. Like it's.
Just a great. Posture.
Great posture though. Great posture a.
Nutcracker. A Nutcracker.
That's it. Yeah, Yeah.
But yeah, you're. But you punch him, right?
And they're animated hilariously when you punch them, they're
like, yeah, like fly off the screen.
And it's so satisfying to just go down a line of them and just
punch, punch, punch, punch. They're one shots.
They go flying. That's what Superman is.
That's what it should be. Or, or you fly into them and
just knock them all down like they're like they're bowling
pins. Like, yeah, that's what it
should be. Yeah.
That'd be so much fun. It doesn't, you know now
obviously they. Fly them up in the sky and just
drop. Them.
Oh my God, that'd be great. Be great.
There's the one stage where you have to fight dark side.
I think it's dark. Yeah, it's dark side.
And you, you go, you have a small skirmish with him.
You punch me a few times. He he falls flat on his back,
which does not make sense, but then you're picking him up above
your arms and you're walking down the hallways.
I think you're supposed to take him to a cop car.
I think it is to get him arrested, which this is like
this is like one of the new gods, one of those powerful
super villains in their mythos. And you're picking him up over
your shoulder, getting stuck on the ceiling 'cause you know,
Superman 64 geometry and he's getting arrested by the cops.
This this is the the battle. This is what's in Lex's
simulation. Like that's the other thing is
this is all so so the ring thing, all of this stuff that's
happening is supposed to be a simulation.
It's. All a game.
It's all it's literally all a game.
Do you want to play a game like it's just it's what it is.
No, I definitely do not. This is the is this the dark
seed level? No, it's not.
Hold on. I'm trying to change it over so
we can see it, but it's it's like, Oh my God, it's moving so
clunky. What is this person playing this
thing on? So this is the stage where
there's destructible walls. And if you're in the area of
those, the frame rate tanks, like it's a cool concept,
destructible walls that they ruin the frame rate.
And right. One of those things where I wish
they could have performed it better.
Yeah. Like that's these, these, these,
the shadow figures. The shadow hench men.
They look like like just a punch.
Hey, there goes the wall. Oh, wait.
There he goes. Look.
Look at the physics. Look at those physics.
Oh, I love it. Oh man, I am insanely
disappointed the sound is not working.
Well, you know what? The sound is really great and
instead what I'm going to do is I'm going to insert the music
right here, guys.
Wasn't that beautiful? Wow, it was.
So. Beautiful.
You heard it. It was great.
It was so. Great.
I really love the the really stupid ones that I love are the
the third and fourth goal ones for like when you finish a race
in like third or fourth place, they're so they're so chill and
then like they're just so, so good.
Like so it's so funny because the guy that's commenting is
like, oh, you're in second, you're in, you're 10 seconds
behind, you're 4th, you're 3 seconds ahead or whatever.
And then when you come in like third or fourth, he just goes
try harder or he's not even close.
Oh, too bad. All right.
Like he like insults you. He just goes from being like you
said, he goes from being like kind of friendly and like
encouraging to what the hell is wrong with you.
Race better essentially. OK, OK, OK, OK, OK.
Going zipping through checkpoint after checkpoint on the fortress
place. Dude Oh my God.
Oh yeah, that's. Right.
OK, OK, You let everybody die. Max Power.
Yeah, also then let you hear the engine Rev too.
Just. Yeah, dude.
Feel it. You feel the power.
It's, it's, it's definitely, I think it definitely enhances
the, the game though, Like I, I do think that the, I do think
that the, the music and the sound effects and stuff are, are
pretty good. I do appreciate that, that they,
they kind of made sure that that was a good solid part of the
game. You know, it's not, it's not
this massive soundtrack. It's not like you have a million
different sounds or whatever, but like they could have easily
just done wave noises and the, the engines very basic and then
just called it a day 'cause that's kind of what a lot of
stuff at that time was doing anyways, right.
So. Yeah, you could have licenses
that like holy shit, licensed it out and made like all, all Rob
Zombie all the time on this fucker like they did with
Twisted Metal four or some shit Instead.
Yeah, Nintendo was like, no dude, they fucking with the sick
fucking soundtrack for this and even like Blue Storm, but they
they did a really, really fucking awesome job on on these
games in the soundtrack. Like bring it back.
I'll. Fucking choke whoever I need to
to get this goddamn. Serious back, dude, it's so fun.
Yeah, I'm going to try. I'm going to try this sound and
see if it works OK. No, no.
Drag you love. Come on.
Through the ditches. Do you imagine like ripping
through these fucking checkpoints?
Drag you love? That would be amazing.
There's only one perfect band for this, though, and it's
Nickelback. Oh God, oh man.
Don't drag my photograph. Don't drag the Canadian
embarrassments into this. Creep creep, Can you take the?
Effort of having that band, like having an actual band and they
make their lyrics like they they change them up so that they're
related to what's happening in the game.
So it's it's about jet skis or something, right?
It's like can you Rev me higher? Look at.
This jet ski waves where the score lines are, something like
that, I don't know. Oh my God, never made it as a
jet ski. Couldn't cut it as a jet ski
Then. This is how you jet ski?
Holy fuck. Cut that part out, don't leave
it in. Are you kidding?
There's no way that's that's not staying in.
It is. You know what?
Actually, I think I found the new theme song for the entire
show. When you get to Sector Z, she'll
show up and actually help you hit the missiles, which is
welcome because it's actually helpful, you know?
So when they're helpful like that, it's awesome.
Like if you help Bill and all of them and Cortana, then he shows
up later. I don't remember what stage off
the top of my head. Solar, he's he shows up in Solar
and he just like helps you kill a couple of enemies so you can
get some help. And then in sector X he helps
you to unlock the gates so that you can go into NO.
That's what I was, yeah. Yeah, and Kat will show up in
just shows up once, right like or or sorry, she will show up in
both of the level I think. I don't think she just shows up
in Z. She'll show up and and help you
if you go the. Other way too.
I think it's Macbeth. And she just.
Shows up near the beginning and takes down a couple of enemies
and then disappears. The problem with her?
The problem with her showing up in Z is that if you're looking
to get the medal for C, she automatically takes down one of
the missiles. So that's you're basically
locked out of getting the medal when she does that.
OK. Oh, OK.
Oh no. Oh man, it's gotta be quick.
That that sucks. Gotta be quicker than her but.
That's it's hard, right? Because you're paying attention
to five other things, yeah. Right, Like the enemies in that
stage are very aggressive and they will take down your team if
you don't help them. Yeah.
And without her, it's a pretty difficult stage.
I think like it's, it's definitely for me, it was at
least anyway from when I was replaying them.
But I, I like yeah, I like it when their friends show up.
Yeah, I think it's fun. I like it when other animals
show up and say dumb animal noises and, and like they they
talk about their history or whatever, like, you know, yeah,
it's fun. I I think it's about their.
History. They, they create this little
narrative and like, you start wondering like, like, oh, Bill
and Fox were friends in elementary school or something.
You know, I'll go get what's going on there.
Because like when you're a kid like you, you think about that
crap because because you have like you're playing this game
all the time, like, OK, well, I wonder what is is about these
people. And like, I think it's so crazy
that like Nintendo just they had something like like this could
have been huge, like they could have done story or something
with this and or had these characters that people just love
and Revere and still reference and like are in the pop culture
and they just did nothing with it.
That's true. They they sort of let.
It in they explore it in the game that nobody played right
and and command for DS you have a bunch of different branching
paths that you can take and that's where they explain.
Oh and Andros had a nephew who hated him and not a nephew a
grandkid that hated him and wanted to kill him.
Fox and Crystals explained more. And Falco and Kat and Bill and
Fox and all that stuff. But so we gotta get a re release
of that then that's what I gotta play, yeah.
'Cause I'm what? Like OK, here, here's the thing,
let. Me, it's Fire Emblem Starfox.
It's awesome. Oh, I said it again though.
Enough. Yeah, like it's one of those
games. It's enough gimmicks.
I still prefer, like in my mind, I, I love Starfox 64 and I got
Starfox Command being like, Oh yeah, it's going to be Starfox
64. It's the new, it's the new
Starfox 64. It's on my DS.
It's going to be amazing. And then it was like, it was, it
had those moments, it had that, a little bit of it, but it was
different. It was fundamentally different.
And it wasn't bad. I think I'd appreciate it now
more than I did back then, because back then I was like, I
this isn't Starfox 64. Yeah, you know.
Well, that's what you want. That's what I would have
expected too if I if I had it at the time.
Dude, thanks again. Thanks everyone for listening
and watching. If you've been watching us,
thank you for being with us. We will talk to everybody next
time. I remember 64.