Was 1998 Really That Great? | Single-Player

[00:00:00] The first fight I ever got into on the internet was about The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. I do not like Ocarina of Time. And everyone else does. So I fought about it a lot on internet forums because that's what you did when you're

[00:00:16] a young man in the early 2000s. You fight about stuff on the internet. And naturally, nobody agreed with me that Ocarina of Time was bad. Because why would they? I was all alone on that one.

[00:00:30] And around the same time, I remember seeing another post on the same forums where this dude got up there and said, 1998 was the greatest year for video games ever. And so I took a look at the games that he listed in this thread and I was like, what?

[00:00:48] No, it's not. Like 1998 is like fine. But what are you talking about? And yes, this cost me to have more fights on the internet, as was my destiny at the time. But all that was a long time ago.

[00:01:05] And this notion that 1998 is the best has persisted all the way to the present day. People still think this. And I'm here to say that it's definitely not the unassailable year that people make it out to be. At least it's not in my eyes.

[00:01:23] I think the legend of 1998 rings false. Want to find out why? I'll tell you, but first let's hear what happened previously on Fintime. People talk up this year. 2017 is one of the best years ever. And I agree it is.

[00:01:43] It's not like where people talk up 98 and that is not one of the best years ever. I think 99 is better. I think 2000 is better. I think 2001 is way better. Anyway, that's another conversation. I said that many months ago. And that time has now arrived.

[00:02:03] So sit back, relax and let's have a Fintime. Hello, party, people. It's your boy Dre. And once again, I'm here by myself. And you know exactly why I'm here by myself. It's because nobody else would dare speak ill of 1998, except me, of course.

[00:02:40] So I was destined to go at this one alone. The last time I was here by myself was to talk about how I can't stand the term metroidvania, another contentious topic that I'm clearly on the unpopular side of. So maybe that's what these solo shows are.

[00:02:55] Just my own unpopular opinions that I end up explaining in great detail. So with that, thank you for joining me for another one of these, this time taking on the year that is 1998.

[00:03:10] I don't just want to talk about the games, but the manner in how we got here, the reasons why people might hold this year in high regard. You know, and let's get a couple things out of the way before we start.

[00:03:23] Number one, I am only concerned with games that came out in North America in the calendar year 1998. This was obviously a time when games would take months, if not over a year to come over from Japan, if they came out here at all.

[00:03:42] So I'm only going to count the games that were on our shelves by December 31st, 1998. And of course, this doesn't include games that only came out in Japan, like Mega Man and Base or something like that. Just the games here. All right. Number two.

[00:03:59] No, of course, I can't prove, quote unquote, prove that 1998 was mid or whatever. This isn't about proof or being right. The point of this entire exercise for me is to explore the fact that not everyone's experiences are the same with this stuff.

[00:04:20] I feel like there tends to be a lot of homogeneity. Is that a word? Homogeneity? I have no idea if that's a word. There tends to be a lot of homogenous thinking when it comes to topics like this.

[00:04:33] And I want to try and crack that the best I can. Because I don't think wisdom should always be conventional. And with that out of the way, let me open this fresh can of hater aid right here. Let me. All right. I'm ready.

[00:04:57] It's time for me to be a big old hater. So whenever I bring up this topic of 1998 not being all that. Wow, I almost had all that in a bag of chips like it really is 1998. Holy shit. Whenever I suggest that maybe 1998 isn't that great,

[00:05:29] people always start listing off games at me with reckless abandon. Lists that they got from Google, of course, and not on their own. But we'll get to that later. And there's three games in particular on these lists that always seem to get mentioned without fail.

[00:05:47] And they are the aforementioned Ocarina of Time, Banjo Kazooie and Xeno Gears. Those are the big three. Not only do I not like any of those games, I think they are objectively not good on a game design level. I really do feel this way, and I always have.

[00:06:13] And I figure the best thing I can do is thoroughly explain why I don't like them or as thoroughly as I can in a podcast format while keeping it moving, you know, I guess I just hate saying,

[00:06:25] well, it sucks, which quite frankly is lazy and not interesting whatsoever. So with that said, let me start with Ocarina, because like I said at the top, I've argued about this game so much over the years. And over time, I discovered that there's a nice and concise way

[00:06:47] for me to summarize how I feel about this game. So here goes. I think the dungeons and Ocarina are fun. Yes, even the water temple. All of them are a good time. So that's the good part, right? Here's the bad part.

[00:07:05] I think everything else about this game sucks. Ocarina has the most boring, pathetic, lifeless overworld a Zelda game has ever had. Ever. And I don't want to hear the excuses. It was the first one in 3D year, then 64 could only do so much.

[00:07:33] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think so. Those excuses do not fly. I don't want to hear it. It wasn't good then, and it's certainly not good now. And that's the one thing fans of Ocarina always ask me for some reason.

[00:07:49] Did you play it at the time? You had to play it at the time. Yes, I played it at the time and I thought it sucked. What would it matter anyway if I played it after the fact?

[00:08:00] Because isn't that just tacitly admitting that the game is deeply flawed and you overlooked those flaws because Zelda? Which is fine. You do you. But let's not pretend that there's not something wrong here. Everything about this overworld is a complete miss. Death Mountain is a crappy little path

[00:08:21] that a couple of microwaved rocks fall down on sometimes, and that's it. That is pathetic. It is so embarrassing. Notice I haven't said anything about Hyrule Field yet, because what's to say? It's boring as fuck. Nothing to look at and nothing to do.

[00:08:40] The only cool place is maybe Lake Hylia, and I feel like I'm being generous even saying that much. Also, every side quest is totally obnoxious. Every boss is a guessing game. It's not a good game, and I've never thought so.

[00:08:57] I hated it so much and I was so pissed that I blew the little money I had on something so poorly considered. And look, part of the problem for me is that I'm an overworld guy when it comes to Zelda. That's the thing I like the most.

[00:09:26] Dungeons are cool. You know, they're fun, but that's not really why I'm there. I'm there for a big map to explore and weird shit to find. That's why I love Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom so much, because it's basically that overworld aspect of Zelda

[00:09:43] done to the absolute highest degree. Wind Waker has this big ass ocean and islands to search out and explore, and I loved it. Ocarina simply does not deliver in that regard. And honestly, I had a bad gut feeling about Ocarina of Time

[00:10:02] the whole time leading up to it. Seeing all the coverage in magazines for years before it came out, there was always this nagging feeling I had about it like I wish I could explain it better, but just something about those spreads

[00:10:17] and the magazines never sat right with me. It never instilled me with any feeling that the game was going to be good. But what I always told myself was, look, these are just pictures in a stupid magazine. It's going to be different when you actually play it.

[00:10:32] Like, come on, it'll be fine. It's Zelda. I would tell myself, you know. And because it was Zelda, one of my favorite series at the time, of course, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt because I wanted to believe.

[00:10:47] But sometimes you just kind of know. You just know when something is not going to be it for you. And that's why I completely skipped Banjo Kazooie. And as for why I skipped Banjo Kazooie, the answer is very easy.

[00:11:05] It's a platformer by rare where you have a million doodads to just collect, not earn through tasks like Mario 64 in Banjo, you just simply collect them. They're all right there for the taking. And unlike Donkey Kong Country, a series of games

[00:11:23] I'm mostly not fond of outside of the first one and Tropical Freeze, at least in those, I can ignore all the collectible doodads. But they're mandatory in Banjo. You have to do it. It's the whole point of the game.

[00:11:41] I know this is going to sound extremely rude, but like, I'm not seven years old and I don't have to put up with this shit. I can play something with a real level design that respects me as opposed to something that just expects me

[00:11:59] to care about its collectible trinkets simply because they exist. I hate presumptuousness in video games. And Banjo is nothing but presumption. Nobody will ever convince me that that's a good trait to have. It's simply not. And yes, before the absolutists come after me,

[00:12:20] I have actually played Banjo Kazooie because of Nintendo 64, Nintendo Switch Online. I would never come on here and talk shit about it if I haven't actually played it for realsies. All right. Because before that, I just played it at kiosks,

[00:12:36] like at Target and shit, just dinking around and finding this or that. And I'd get annoyed or bored at something within a few minutes and I'd put the controller down. That was always my experience with it before.

[00:12:47] I never found any gameplay hook to make me go, man, I got to get this. And honestly, the stereotype of millennial American YouTubers overrating the hell out of Banjo is completely warranted. Almost every video I've ever watched on Banjo Kazooie where someone fawns over it endlessly,

[00:13:09] it's always featuring someone who played it when they were between the ages of six and twelve. That's not a coincidence. I'm not saying every single person who feels that way about Banjo Kazooie played it at an impressionable age, but I feel like a large majority of them have.

[00:13:29] Nothing can convince me that's not just their nostalgia talking because it is. I'm sorry. And when it comes to talking about art, but especially about video games, I reject nostalgia. I have nostalgic memories, just as anyone else does.

[00:13:46] But I think those memories are fundamentally useless when discussing art. I don't think Mario 3 is the best game ever because I got it for my eighth birthday. I think it's the best game ever because it's the best game ever. You know?

[00:14:02] And the reason why I bring this up is because I was thinking about something that is easily one of my most vivid memories that's tied to a video game. And let's revisit that memory right now. So it was 1998. It was Thanksgiving and we were in L.A.

[00:14:27] visiting my grandfather on my dad's side, something we did only once every couple of years or so. So I really enjoyed going up there and it was a good Thanksgiving and everything. And it was a good Thanksgiving and everything.

[00:14:39] And the next day, he took me out to the mall, one of those old but fancy Los Angeles malls. You know, I feel like anyone who grew up in California knows exactly what I'm talking about. I remember seeing a live mannequin in a fashion shop window,

[00:14:55] you know, that would change her position every few minutes, like a goddamn robot. It was amazing. A very nice Black Friday in L.A., if I don't say so myself. Anyway, my grandpa inevitably starts asking me about video games

[00:15:10] because it's one of the few interests he knows that I have. So I tell him about this one game that I've had my eye on from the magazines that they said was coming out in November. But as you guys know, release dates back then were nebulous as hell.

[00:15:26] So what you actually had was a release month. You know, only the big name games got an actual release day. Everything else, you just have to show up at the store during the month they said it was going to come out and hope it was there.

[00:15:42] Of course, he asked me if I want to stop at the video game store at the mall and see if this game was there so he could get it for me. And it was there and he got it for me. That game was Xenogears.

[00:16:01] And all those nice memories I just shared have no bearing on anything because I think Xenogears sucks. It's so bad. It's so bad. I was so mad at it. Oh, man. As they might say in the 90s, Xenogears sucks out loud. It is so unrecoverably flawed

[00:16:25] because the game is simply not finished. Even its most ardent supporters will tell you it's unfinished. And no, I don't care that they ran out of time or money or whatever. I really don't give a shit what the circumstances were.

[00:16:42] There is absolutely zero excuse for releasing a game that's like 80 hours where the second half, the entire second disk, it becomes this endless linear slog of the slowest, driest cutscenes you'll ever have the displeasure of watching with this slow ass text

[00:17:05] that you can't skip or speed up at all. You have to take in every glacial sentence completely and fully, whether you want to or not. It's torture. There's not a game alive that anyone would make these kinds of excuses for,

[00:17:25] but somehow people find it hard to excuse this one. And I think it's bullshit. Xenogears was not done and it should have never been released this way. This isn't like Super Mario World, a game that's obviously a bit underbaked,

[00:17:41] but it delivered this fresh and wildly new Mario experience nonetheless. And most importantly, felt like a complete game. Xenogears was a scam. I genuinely felt ripped off. And honestly, even before disc two, the game's antics were already starting to wear thin on me.

[00:18:04] It wasn't just disc two that felt unfinished. The whole game kind of did. I didn't really like the characters that much. They were all a bunch of selfish assholes to me. The battle system was starting to grate on my nerves.

[00:18:17] You know, too much of the same thing too often. So maybe Xenogears wasn't the game for me anyway. But then they also didn't finish it. So whatever, I guess. Right. Actually, you know what Xenogears is like? You know what it's like? I have the perfect analogy.

[00:18:35] And since we're talking about the 90s, I'll use a 90s term. Remember when we used to call people fake deep? Like you would go see the Matrix with them and then they try to get all psychological on your ass with like,

[00:18:50] oh, this scene is allegory for Jesus being born. And this scene recalls this teaching of Allah or some bullshit. And you're like, bro, I think I understood the movie just fine. Thank you. Xenogears is your fake deep friend who just won't shut the fuck up.

[00:19:26] Anyway, I think I got to the last boss of Xenogears and I died a couple times trying to beat him. And I turned it off forever. I just gave up. Think about that. I actually got all the way to the last boss and I bailed.

[00:19:43] I was so done. I was so mentally drained by that game that I just didn't care. So I just walked away. That was the end of Xenogears for me. And let's face it, very few people have had the experience that I just described.

[00:20:01] Most people played it well after the fact. And in fact, they probably played Xenogears on emulators at double speed so they could actually get through the text in a timely manner. They got to fix the game and I had no such option. I had to suffer through it.

[00:20:20] I honestly do feel like most of the people who like Xenogears didn't actually play it at the time, but I really think that's the case. So if anyone holds up Xenogears as a shining example of the greatness of 1998,

[00:20:35] I'm just very inclined to believe it's this type of emulated aftermarket bullshit. But yeah, Ocarina, Banjo and Xenogears. If that's the best 1998 can do, you can keep it. Finally got that out of my system. Sorry I spent so much time on that, but I really wanted to establish

[00:21:15] that I do have legit reasons for not liking those games. And I'm not just being an asshole. Because I think that's important, you know, and on the flip side, I think it's important to also recognize when games are great, but they're not for you.

[00:21:32] Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart on PS5 is an incredible visual experience and a great example of current technology at the peak of its powers. I also don't really like it that much. And that's fine, because I can recognize it as this great thing

[00:21:50] and this great achievement, regardless of how I personally feel about it. You know, I'm capable of that. And 1998 has quite a few of those games for me. Like, for instance, Metal Gear Solid, not really for me. Borrowed it from a friend, played the whole thing.

[00:22:10] It's not for me. I just don't like stealth gameplay. Never have, never will. Do you guys know how bad I wanted to quit Wind Waker because it opened with a stealth section? Oh, my God, that was rough on me.

[00:22:25] Holy shit. Anyway, I obviously recognize the accomplishments of Metal Gear Solid, especially what it did for advancing cinematic storytelling and video games. But you know what else I really don't care for? Cinematic storytelling and video games. So, oh well.

[00:22:48] I was not and never have been a PC gamer, so I can't really speak to stuff like Starcraft or Half Life or Unreal. Yes, kids, Unreal started out as an actual video game, I promise. But yeah, I can't really touch on those myself.

[00:23:06] Real time strategy is one of my least favorite genres. So Starcraft is out and Half Life just seems like the kind of thing that would put me right to sleep. So I never really bothered. I probably would have bothered if that Dreamcast version didn't get canceled,

[00:23:21] but it did. So I never played it. 1998 also seems to have a lot of straight up nostalgia bombs for people. And I personally just find this really confusing because I don't know why that's the case. There appears to be some sort of voodoo magic

[00:23:40] about Gex enter the gecko that seems to make people remember it so fondly. It's now so ubiquitous that when people are talking about Gex, they're actually talking about enter the gecko and not the original Gex, a game not even considered anymore for some reason.

[00:23:59] But how did that happen? And why? Like, don't get me wrong, Gex is fine and all. I'm not trying to dunk. In fact, I was actually a big fan of the first one. And when I saw they were making a 3D sequel, I was like, cool.

[00:24:11] You know, and I got it at the time on PS1 and I enjoyed it. But how did it become this thing that people speak so highly of? It's got to be just the nostalgia talking, right? Because they're not that good.

[00:24:26] And then there's games where the appeal is only skin deep for me, as in like great on an audio visual level, but not really that fun to play. And the epitome for that for me is Brave Fencer Musashi.

[00:24:39] It had this cutesy funny voice acting, you know, that I thought was good and this chibi anime style that translated really well to the 3D models of the time, actually. But then you play it and it's just kind of a dud.

[00:24:55] I feel like that game single handedly made me hate stamina bars and also and look, I'm sorry, but I'm asking the tough questions right now, so I got to float this one. Is Resident Evil 2 really the best one? Or is it just the one people played?

[00:25:15] It's always held up as this pinnacle of the tank controls era. But is it really? Because I always like the original Resident Evil more. Is it because it hit certain people in a certain way at a certain time in their life? And that's just kind of it.

[00:25:32] Is Spyro the Dragon really that good or were you just a child? You know, I'm just asking. I really wish I understood. So OK. There's a part of the 1998 narrative that really annoys me and I can't ignore it.

[00:26:06] And I alluded to it a bit when I was talking about Xenogears. But I feel like the way people talk about this year now is a lot of revisionist history about a time that increasingly more and more people weren't actually around for.

[00:26:25] As I said earlier, the first time I encountered this notion that 1998 was so great, that was in 2001. So this dude was basically going like, man, that was a pretty wild lineup a few years ago, right? And even though I disagreed, he was just speaking from his own experience,

[00:26:43] the one that recently happened a few years prior. But that's not the case anymore. More and more, I'm finding people dramatically younger than me that also now have this opinion that 1998 is the best. And I don't think they actually played the games because it's like, come on,

[00:27:08] did any of you really play Grim Fandango at the time? Because I don't think you did. Some people did. But come on, that game wasn't popular. I haven't played Grim Fandango either for the record, but I'm also not putting it on a pedestal.

[00:27:25] And I know none of you have played Panzer Dragoon Saga. Like, get the fuck out of here. You know, I personally know exactly one person who has. One. And yeah, that's anecdotal too. But come on, are the people holding these games up as reasons why 1998 was great?

[00:27:45] Did they actually play them or are they just reading a list at me that they found on Google? And before I get accused of gatekeeping? No, of course, there's nothing wrong with retroactively assessing stuff, especially if you weren't born yet or too young to appreciate it or whatever.

[00:28:08] That's perfectly fine. I do it all the time for stuff I wasn't around for, especially music. But the way I talk about 1998 is because I was there and the games I didn't play, I don't speak on, just as I declined to do with StarCraft and Half-Life.

[00:28:27] I didn't play them, and I'm not going to pretend that I did. And as I said earlier, I would be embarrassed to be doing the show without actually having played Banjo-Kazooie, a game I knew I wouldn't like.

[00:28:42] But I did play it, and that's why I'm talking about it today. And I don't think it's gatekeeping to insist that somebody have actually played the games that they are citing as so good and so influential. If you weren't there or you didn't play them,

[00:28:59] I quite frankly don't want to hear about it. Don't tell me what Metacritic thinks. Tell me what you think. I'm talking to you after all, so that's the opinion I care about. Because quite frankly, citing these same games over and over from 1998 just feels like parroting.

[00:29:19] I feel like I'm just fighting against groupthink. Because if I say the year 2000 was mid, nobody is going to start shouting a list of games at me. That's not going to happen. Nobody gives a shit. But if you say 1998 is mid, people are ready with that list.

[00:29:39] They stay ready. And you know they're reading from a list, too, because they start saying stuff to you that didn't even come out here yet. Like Mario Party. That's the one that always shows up. Mario Party came out in Japan in December 1998, but it was February 99 here.

[00:29:58] I rented it when it came out, so I remember it distinctly. They don't remember it distinctly. So they're just reading the Google list at me that scanning Japanese release dates and I know it. They don't know it. And why do they do that?

[00:30:14] Why are they out here faking the funk? I'll let you decide what that reason is. So, yeah, I often don't feel like we're discussing someone's actual opinion of 1998. It feels like the thing people say because they feel like they're supposed to say it.

[00:30:31] So ultimately, unless you've played the games, don't talk to me about them. It's not gatekeeping. It's common sense. Whenever I get into this topic with other people, they inevitably say to me, OK, smart ass, what's better than 1998 then? Which is a very fair question.

[00:31:03] And I'll answer it right now. The easy answer is 1987. One of the most landmark years in any medium, not just video games. 1987 is fucking incredible when you go back and look at it. But really, you don't have to look too far from 1998 to find something better.

[00:31:23] Because I think 1999 is better. I think 2000 is better. And more than either of those, I think 2001 is better. 2001 is actually incredible, and that's the comparison point I want to use today, because that is truly one of the best years ever.

[00:31:51] Of course, the first thing I think of is the launch of the GameCube. So those launch window games like Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin and Super Smash Brothers Melee all come to mind. Just absolute titans in Nintendo's catalog, obviously. Sega also contributed Super Monkey Ball, another Stone Cold Classic

[00:32:10] and one of the best arcade ports ever. And then there's also Wave Race Bluestorm, which is without a doubt one of the now fuck that. It is my favorite racing game of all time. Wave Race Bluestorm, an absolute killer lineup over the span of what?

[00:32:25] Six weeks? Incredible shit. And that was just the end of the year. At the beginning of the year, Sega announced they were going third party, a landmark decision in the history of video games, to be sure. But the Dreamcast still had some life in it.

[00:32:40] And in January 2001, Sega unleashed Phantasy Star Online upon North America, which what can I say? Does that game need any introduction? Holy shit. 2001 also saw Ill Bleed, maybe one of the most unique games ever made. There was Sonic Adventure 2, Crazy Taxi 2, Virtua Tennis 2.

[00:33:03] Holy shit, that's a lot of twos. Yeah, it's not the Dreamcast lineup of 2000 because what is? And by the way, that Dreamcast lineup of 2000 is maybe the biggest reason why 2000 is also better than 1998 in my eyes.

[00:33:17] But yeah, 2001 was no slouch for Dreamcast, even though it was on the way out. And yes, let's address the halo sized elephant in the room real quick because I'm not a halo guy. But if we're going to play the retroactive,

[00:33:42] what was more influential game that people like to play with 1998? Halo was more influential than Half Life. I'm sorry, but it's true. Think about how popular games were shaped by Halo for the rest of the 2000s. It's just true.

[00:34:00] I would even argue that games were shaped more by Max Payne than they were Half Life. I know people aren't going to like that, but whatever. I think it's true anyway. I'll leave it there on 2001 because I don't want to go on too long.

[00:34:14] But just know that I didn't mention any games on PlayStation or PlayStation 2 or on Nintendo 64 or on Game Boy Advance or at arcades or anything else. All I did was talk about GameCube and Dreamcast. And just between those two systems, I think that's already better than 1998.

[00:34:37] And that's really the point I was trying to make is that it's not just I think the games in 1998 aren't what people make them out to be. It's also that the following three years outclassed the hell out of it.

[00:34:49] And people never seem to want to consider that perspective, which I find incredibly frustrating. They're just so locked into 1998 is the best 1998 is the best that it feels like nobody ever considers the stuff directly after it, because that's the kind of perspective that you have

[00:35:06] when you don't actually have any perspective. So there's one more thing I should tackle before I get out of here. And that's what I actually did play in 1998, because contrary to popular belief, I didn't just sit in my room and pout for 12 months.

[00:35:37] Although I probably did do a lot of that because I was 16 after all. But that's neither here nor there. I did have fun with games in 1998 because there's always something right. And there was a fair amount of stuff that I was really into.

[00:35:52] So one of the things that pisses me off now, I shouldn't say it that way. I was going to say it pisses me off that people always forget about the arcade when talking about this stuff. But honestly, by 1998, it was easier to forget the arcade than ever.

[00:36:06] The arcade scene obviously wasn't as robust as it had been in years past. But we still had plenty of stuff in 1998. For starters, there was Street Fighter Alpha 3, one of my favorite fighting games of all time, a game I sunk so much time into.

[00:36:23] I was an absolute fiend for that game. I mean, fuck, I probably never played a fighting game more than I did that one. I also played a lot of Dynamite Cop, which is wild because I couldn't believe they released a game in 1988 with goddamn Saturn graphics

[00:36:41] to the arcade that late in the game. But it had this goofy charm and it worked. Gauntlet Legends also happened in 1998, which is obviously a multiplayer arcade masterpiece that I never seemed to enjoy the same at home for some reason.

[00:36:56] Even on Dreamcast, where the port was really good, it didn't hit the same. I think I preferred the credits method at the arcade versus the way the continuous system worked at home, I guess. But anyway, speaking of console, there was plenty of stuff for me there, too.

[00:37:12] Turok 2 was a big one for me. Love that game. F-Zero X, incredible. Parasite Eve, incredible. Body Harvest was a huge one for me. If you don't know what Body Harvest is, it was one of the first games announced for the Nintendo 64 in like 1995.

[00:37:44] Nintendo was going to publish it, but stuff happened. It's a long story and they backed out. So then Midway picked it up and it finally came out at the end of 1998. Body Harvest was developed by DMA Design,

[00:37:59] known for a little tiny thing released a couple years prior called let me check my notes here. Grand Theft Auto. Don't know if you ever heard of it. Obscure little thing, really. But yeah, Body Harvest featured these large 3D open maps to explore

[00:38:17] and there were secret stuff to find and lots of vehicles to ride around in. Hey, where'd they get that from? And all of this is tied together by this like crazy 1950s sci fi alien invasion theme with like giant insects and bugs and shit.

[00:38:35] It's very, very cool and very, very fun. Body Harvest is my favorite Nintendo 64 game. It's not the best game, but it is my favorite game. And I have 1998 to thank for that. And there's plenty more man, like Hotshots Golf debuted in 1998.

[00:39:07] Einhander, a game I don't like nearly as much as other people, but still cool. That happened in 1998. There was also a little thing called Gran Turismo. You may have heard of it. Don't know if you have anyone to remember Heart of Darkness.

[00:39:23] I say anyone as if I'm actually talking to somebody here. It was one of those like super animated, I guess you could say cinematic platformers of the time, like in the style of like flashback or out of this world. You know that type that came out in 1998

[00:39:40] for PS1, super cool game. Oh, man, me and my friend spent hours playing Bushido Blade 2. I don't even know if that game was any good. But like, damn, we spent so much time playing that one. That was a favorite of ours.

[00:39:55] We used to go at that for hours. And the PS1 port of rival schools as well in 1988. Man, we used to play those. I also played a lot of Vigilante 8 as well because I was still in my car combat phase as any teenage boy of the 90s was.

[00:40:10] So see, I like stuff. OK, I promise I like video games. I liked video games in 1998, just like everyone else did. OK, but a lot of the games I mentioned here aren't going to be the ones you find in listicles about the year.

[00:40:31] You know, I mean, yeah, you're going to find like Gran Turismo and maybe like hot shots and stuff like that. But like, I don't know, is anyone really going to talk about Heart of Darkness or Vigilante 8? Maybe. But maybe they should,

[00:40:45] because I feel like that's how you really get the essence of a time period. Like, I'll give you an example. The top five highest grossing movies of 1998 were Saving Private Ryan, Armageddon. There's something about Mary, A Bug's Life and The Waterboy. Does that really encapsulate 1998?

[00:41:10] Like, kind of, right? But also not really. Because what about Rush Hour? What about Blade? What about The Truman Show? What about Mulan? Looking at a top list doesn't always give you those answers, you know? But do you really want to find it?

[00:41:45] And that brings me to my final point, and I'll leave you with this. Just because something is considered important doesn't mean that it's good. Just because something is a landmark doesn't mean that you will like it. Because at the end of the day,

[00:42:04] what does it matter if something was influential or not? What does that have to do with me or you? Nothing. That's what. I'm not saying we shouldn't recognize a game's influence or talk about it, but too often we conflate influential with this is good.

[00:42:23] If you don't enjoy playing Metal Gear Solid, who the hell cares about how influential it was? Aren't you here to enjoy games, not their theoretical value to the medium? Play the games you like because you like them. That's all this hobby ever needs to be.

[00:42:45] And the next time you're looking to explore an era that you haven't really explored yet, maybe don't do the Google searches and don't take the recommendations and all that and just try something. Just play anything. You might discover something you really, really like.

[00:43:04] Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.