Press B 259: Sinistar's Bottom 5

This week in Press B tradition we ask Sinistar to give us his five least favorite video games of all time. Does he secretly hate Bard's Tale? Has it been an act all along?!

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00:00 --> 00:04 These games suck. According to Sinistar. Today on.
00:25 --> 00:27 Don'T stay silent over the intro.
00:29 --> 00:44 It's easier to do when there's just two of us. My goodness. Once there's four of us, you get the chaos element and it's uncontrollable. Right today. Welcome back to another episode of Press B to Cancel. Today we are talking about Sinistar's bottom five, and it's just the two of us. How are you doing tonight, Sinistar?
00:45 --> 00:59 I am doing well. We are recording this one. I've been relaxing all day. It's been great. I'm working on my replacement placement for my Sisyphean game. No, it's been good. How are you?
00:59 --> 01:04 I am good. Been playing a little game myself today. Having a good time. It's a good one.
01:05 --> 01:06 Excellent. Excellent.
01:06 --> 01:14 All righty. So do you have anything you want to talk about before we jump into this? Or shall we just jump into it? Do you have a method to your madness and what you picked today?
01:15 --> 02:04 My method to my madness is I quit games. I dislike so rapidly that I had to struggle to come up with my list. So basically I went back and, I mean, my method really was through, like, Moby games, a handful of different, you know, systems, DOS and SNES and etc. Etc. And kind of looking at a. Just kind of a list. I actually started on the highest rated list to see if there was anything that called out my name as something like, why did that get. Why did that get such a good rating? Because I hated it. And then of course, I went the other direction as well and looked at the lowest rated games and sort of worked my way up. So I think it's kind of a mix of both when you look at my list.
02:05 --> 02:25 Yeah, I remember for my list, it was very much a. I know these games are not the worst of the worst, but they were the ones that offended my sensibilities as to. In regards to what I expected from them up front. Like, they were the most offensive for what they could have been and weren't. Right.
02:25 --> 02:34 Right. I have at least one that is described almost exactly like you just described. So, yeah.
02:34 --> 02:37 All right. So do you want to go ahead and give us your number five?
02:38 --> 02:50 Yeah. Okay. Number five is a DOS game from 1992, a point and click adventure called the Dark Half.
02:50 --> 02:52 I don't think I've heard of this one.
02:52 --> 04:31 Okay. It is a point and click adventure. It is based on a Stephen King novel. And it's kind of to give a little background. Stephen King had been writing a Number of books under the pseudonym of Richard Bachmann. And he got called out. Like, somebody discovered he was Richard Bachman. This wasn't one of those things where it was just like, hey, I want to write some different types of books and I'm just going to use a different name. This was. I wanted to, like, not be this person. And so when he got called out, he decided to write a book about essentially someone that had two personalities, kind of. So the book, the premise in the book. And Centrist will probably watch this later and be like, you got that? Like, I don't know, 60% or something. Because I've never actually read the book, but I've read synopsises and I played through most of this game, so. But the premise is person is being blamed for crimes that this person didn't commit. But all of the evidence is pointing to this person. And it turns out. Spoilers, sorry, folks. That he had a conjoined twin in utero that he absorbed, partially absorbed, and then later on, they ended up having to actually remove portions of this absorbed twin surgically. And so there's. There's like a very memorable scene in this game where it's like they've opened up the brain. They've got the skull open and there's the brain and there's an eyeball, like, looking out from inside the brain.
04:31 --> 04:32 Oh.
04:32 --> 05:00 So. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, okay, so that's the backstory. So here's why I struggled with the game. This is 1992. This is the heyday of point and click adventures. You know, Sierra is ruling the skies. LucasArts is ruling the skies. Westwood is making their, you know, theirs as well. Point and click adventures are all over.
05:00 --> 05:01 Yeah.
05:01 --> 05:08 And. And really, they were just essentially printing money. Right. Well, Capstone figured out a way to.
05:08 --> 05:13 Ruin that in this game as capitalism can do.
05:14 --> 05:16 Yeah, sorry, Capstone was the. Was the creator.
05:16 --> 05:23 No, no, but I'm saying they were like, okay, we got a way that we could do this for as much money as possible and as little work as possible.
05:24 --> 06:48 Right, Right. So basically, like, I should have known this going in. Luckily, I didn't buy this game, but a friend of mine, his, his. He was like, he had like every point and click adventure game. This was like kind of the way that his mom showed love was she bought a video games. And I went over and I was like, oh, Stephen King. It looks gruesome, it looks gritty. I'm all in. Let's do this. Right. And so I ended up spinning up the cd. I think it was on CD and getting the initial visuals, which include that brain scene with the eye and the whole thing. And I'm all in. Well, I should have realized looking at the back of the box, looking at the back of the box, how this was going to go. Because I looked this up, because I remembered this. I didn't remember the exact verbiage, but I looked this up on Moby Games. I looked up the back of the box. Okay? This game, its features, the feature list, cinematic animations with spine tingling VGA images. There was nothing spine tingling. Digitized sound effects in 1992. Digitized sound effects graphic inventory display of over 33 items.
06:48 --> 06:59 Oh, that's never a good sign once you're giving like specific counts of things in the game. I never found that to be an indicator of a quality game.
06:59 --> 07:06 Right, right. And then let's see, what were the other ones? Because there's one that was just the blatant one.
07:06 --> 07:10 Unique interface with point and click ease. Is that the one?
07:10 --> 07:32 That's the one. Okay. 1992 LucasArts has been producing games where the bottom section, you have the mouse click. You know, look at, et cetera, et cetera. This has a typewriter with those exact fucking things on it. So like it was not unique in any way.
07:32 --> 07:34 Yeah, yeah.
07:35 --> 08:35 So that's just right up the. Right up front. Just, you know, I should have realized it, but I spun it up anyway, the. For the listeners and the viewers, either do yourself a favor or do yourself a disservice. I don't know which this is. Go watch at least a couple minutes of the dos. The dos long play. Because the music is bad, the visuals are bad. And then I remember there was a. I mean, it was laden with bugs. And there was one bug I remembered where you end up sitting down at a counter or a table or something like that. And if you bring up the menu, I think it's bring up the menu or click something in the menu. You get a duplicate of yourself on the screen. Not interactable, but there you are. You're just hanging out with yourself.
08:36 --> 08:39 Okay, I have a question for you. I'm looking at the back of the box.
08:40 --> 08:40 Yeah.
08:40 --> 08:43 Does this game have like filmed cutscenes?
08:45 --> 08:49 No, not that I remember. I mean, maybe because there's a.
08:49 --> 08:58 There's a little square right next to the title on the back of the box that says actual movie scene. Unless there was also a movie and they tried to base it on that.
08:58 --> 09:03 Okay, yeah. In fact, I think the movie was. Was Tim Robbins.
09:03 --> 09:13 Oh, I see. Okay. Because it shows actual movie Scene and then it says detailed graphics based on the movie help set the scenes.
09:14 --> 09:36 Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. This, this was literally somebody looking at a point and click adventure with the source material. And from what I remember, the source material was more the movie than the book. Looking at the source material and basically being like, how do we crap all over this cash?
09:36 --> 09:37 Grab the game.
09:37 --> 10:14 Yeah, yeah. So I did not complete this game. I tried. One of the things I remember in the interface was like, sometimes you had to interact with multiple things on the same screen and instead of having hotkeys like a lot of adventure games did, so you could be like, repeat the last thing I did or I have like a pickup key, like a P or something like that. No, you are literally going down to the interface, up to the screen, down to the interface, up to the screen. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, that. With 33 items.
10:15 --> 10:20 Yeah. My goodness. Deal with 32 guys, why don't you?
10:20 --> 12:00 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this, this game I, in the, like, I have so much love for so many adventure games. You know, there are some I've probably never talked about on the, on the, the podcast here that I absolutely love, that I would love to talk about someday, like Willie Beamish or. Oh, I can't remember some of the others. I think I mentioned this in an episode we're recording, so I don't know when this is going to come up, but I did mention an episode, Legend of Karandia, specifically Legend of Karandia. Three great games from Westwood. Obviously, lucasarts. Lucasarts basically looked at Sierra and said, sierra wants to kill you in every way possible. We just want you to enjoy the game. And so they've even put jokes in their games where it's like, hey, in another adventure game, this may have killed you. Like, you know, so, but, and of course, I absolutely love so many of the Sierra properties. You know, the Space Quests, the King's Quest, the Heroes Quests, I guess Quest for Glory. They couldn't call themselves Heroes Quest after a while. But. But yeah, so really there's even, there's even a, A, A couple Star Trek adventure games that are, they're not great, but they're at least playable and enjoyable. Oh, there's the Indiana Jones games. I mean, it's just. It was a heyday. It really was a heyday.
12:00 --> 12:01 Yeah.
12:01 --> 12:07 And then you get this piece of trash. Yeah, so.
12:07 --> 12:10 So yeah, that's Capstone.
12:10 --> 12:14 Yeah, Capstone, which I don't even know what else they did.
12:15 --> 12:16 Now I'm curious.
12:16 --> 12:19 Yeah, take a look. Look in your mind palace, as it were.
12:20 --> 12:43 Yeah. Let's see here. Dark half capstone. Let's see if I can find information on this company through Wikipedia's help video game add. Okay. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Capstone Software. Yeah, they did search for the Titanic.
12:44 --> 12:45 Okay.
12:45 --> 12:49 The big deal Bridgemaster. They did a Terminator 2 game.
12:50 --> 12:53 And not. Not the one I know.
12:53 --> 12:56 They did Terminator 2, Judgment Day, chess Wars.
12:57 --> 13:05 Ah, I have played that game. I have played that game. That's actually. I mean, it's. It's one of those cool, like animated chess games. It's cool.
13:07 --> 13:21 They did a. Let's see what we've got here. Miami Vice game. Exotic car showroom. Is this what I think it is?
13:22 --> 13:25 Oh, did you find an NSFW one?
13:30 --> 13:47 No, but I found one. This is from. What year is this? 1989. It's called Trump Castle. It's a series of games based on the Trump's Castle Hotel casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
13:48 --> 13:51 Well, there's a claim to fame that you don't ever want anymore.
13:54 --> 13:55 They made three of them.
13:56 --> 13:56 Wow.
13:58 --> 14:02 All right, well then they really were after the quick buck, weren't they?
14:03 --> 14:05 Yeah, yeah, it seems like it.
14:06 --> 14:09 William Shatner's Tech War. I feel like I've heard of that one.
14:09 --> 14:11 That was a TV series.
14:12 --> 14:14 Ah, that's why I've heard of Tech War. Okay.
14:15 --> 14:17 Yeah, yeah, that was a TV series.
14:17 --> 14:34 They also did a Bill and Ted game. Wow. Okay. Most of those suck too. All righty. Yeah, that sounds like a massive disappointment.
14:35 --> 14:48 Yeah. You know, as I said, I wanted to get my hands on every single adventure game that I could, and I got punished for it at least this once.
14:48 --> 15:00 Yeah, I've done that in the past with I think metroidvanias and RPGs. Alrighty, okay, well, let's. Let's go ahead and hear number four.
15:01 --> 15:25 Okay, here's a game I'm gonna. I. It's been nice being on the podcast, this game. It's been nice. It's one of those. That is one of the highest rated games of all time. Uh, oh yeah. It's a little known game called Super Mario rpg.
15:29 --> 15:33 Wow. Yeah, I don't think I need to do any digging on that one.
15:34 --> 16:04 Yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. So I. I had a Super Nintendo back in the day. It's one of the few consoles I had before modern times. And I remember seeing. I rented it at Hollywood Blockbuster, something video. And I remember seeing an RPG with this cool, you know, graphics that looked like. Well, looked like Donkey Kong country.
16:04 --> 16:05 Yeah.
16:05 --> 16:28 You know, and I was like, and it's a square product, Right. I mean, it's. It had all of the. All of the signs that should have pointed toward. I love this game. Here's the problem though. It had 3D platforming.
16:29 --> 16:35 Yes. And it didn't have shadows, right?
16:35 --> 17:11 No, not that I remember. Yeah. So, okay, so it had 3D platforming. That's its first failure. The second failure is I got so absolutely tired of the music. I got like, it was. It was ear bleedingly tired of the same. I make this joke, it's probably more than four bars, but it was like the same four bars over and over and over and over again. Like, I got. I actually got to the point where like, I was a little terrified to go into battle because I knew I'd have the battle music all over again.
17:14 --> 17:16 Please, no more, please.
17:18 --> 17:18 Right.
17:18 --> 17:28 I don't know if you just got the image. I don't know if you remember that show. You can't do this on television. You might have been a little older, but they had the segments with the kids strung up on the wall.
17:29 --> 17:29 Yes.
17:30 --> 17:31 The prison underground.
17:32 --> 19:42 Yep. Yeah, I. I watched. I watched Alanis Morissette on that show. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the other thing is, is that the story never. I know it's a Mario. I know it's a Mario. But the story never hooked me. This new character, Smithy, a giant weird looking sword with weird eyes, just never grabbed me. The other characters that you play with that are not Mario characters. So you know, Mallow and Geno. Geno, they just never grabbed me. Some of the story elements that I know people love, like there's that part where you're trying to hide behind the. The curtains or whatever. And that guy's like got his minions going up and like opening him up and the whole thing. Like, I just looked at that and I was like, am I playing a game for six year olds? So I did complete this game. I actually completed this game on stream. So, yeah, I can, I can claim that I have played through this game. It just never. It never. It never grabbed me. And as I said, I was a little. I was a little burnt out on the music. Okay. Another game we've talked about. Paradise City. Burnout. Paradise City. To this day, I can't listen to Guns N Roses Paradise City anymore. Because. Yeah, because it's not like it's just in the track list. It's when you first start the game, you get that darn near. You get that guitar. And I'm just like oh, enough is enough. Like. So. I don't know. There's. There's definitely something to be said for. For repeated audio getting tiresome.
19:43 --> 19:49 Yeah. Especially when it's not something that's designed to be mellow and ambient.
19:50 --> 19:50 Yeah.
19:50 --> 19:59 And it's just short and abrasive. I'm going to come in a little on the other side here. This game came out when I was 13.
19:59 --> 20:00 Yeah.
20:00 --> 20:10 I really enjoyed it. I didn't really care about the music. There were, like, two tracks in the whole game I really liked, and that was kind of it. Booster's Tower was a really good track.
20:10 --> 20:11 Okay.
20:11 --> 20:16 And then, of course, the other one is you're fighting a Final Fantasy boss, so you get Final Fantasy Boss music.
20:17 --> 20:19 All right. All right. Yeah.
20:19 --> 20:26 There's a secret boss that's a final Final Fantasy boss. He doesn't actually appear in any final fantasies, but he's got the four crystals and.
20:26 --> 20:33 Right. I never. I never beat that boss. But I did. I did go for that boss and try to beat that boss.
20:35 --> 20:54 But, yeah, like, the gameplay itself, the 3D platforming could be frustrating. I was 13, so I. I had more patience for games then. Especially since, you know, you had what you had, and that was kind of it. Not like today, where this game sucks. I have 800 more in my Steam library. I can go play instead.
20:55 --> 20:57 Right. Right.
20:58 --> 21:07 But. So I was patient for it. But I also did not. Like, I didn't care for Mallow or Geno. Like, I just didn't care about them.
21:08 --> 21:08 Right.
21:08 --> 21:50 I wasn't playing a Mario game for these characters who were wholly unrelated. I. I was playing to see the interactions with Mario and Peach and Bowser and Toad and the references to Metroid and Zelda that were tucked away in there and getting the Yoshis and things like that. There were some things that were kind of up your alley. Like, up my alley at the time, because it was the time. Right. Again, I was 13. You had the Axum Rangers. I was a Power Rangers kid when that came out. I liked it, so that was cool. It kind of tugged at my, like, oh, cool. But. And they were doofy and villains and all that. But, I mean, all in all, I feel like the game has not aged well.
21:50 --> 21:51 Right.
21:51 --> 22:24 And it had sort of a prime audience at the time. I don't personally get the amount of love it gets. It. To me, it falls into that kind of, like, Final Fantasy 7. It gets a lot of love. And I don't completely understand why. Like, it did some things, but I don't think it Was a nine out of ten. Right. It was more like a six or seven out of ten for me. Still fun, still enjoyed it, but it had lacking things. So I get.
22:26 --> 23:08 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, and here's the thing. As much as I have trashed this game both on people's streams, when they're. When they're into it, I don't just jump into people's streams and be like, I'm going to come trash Super Mario rpg. No, I. And as much as I've trashed it on this. On this podcast, I will absolutely 100% admit that it created some absolutely glorious mechanics that have continued through things like Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi games, which are fantastic games.
23:09 --> 23:31 Yeah. And like, you're not wrong. The Mario and Luigi saga, I love those games. They're comedically out there, which is kind of what Mario RPG tried to do. I feel like the Mario and Luigi series really nailed it. I never got super into Paper Mario except for Super Paper Mario, and that's the one that's not an rpg, so.
23:32 --> 23:33 Right.
23:34 --> 23:42 I can't speak to those, but I do feel like both series that branched off from Mario RPG are far superior to Mario rpg.
23:42 --> 23:55 Absolutely. And so for that much, I mean, even though this is on my bottom five and it's not. It's not my least favorite game ever. Um, it. It deserves that credit. It deserves that credit.
23:55 --> 24:04 It is. It is. It. You expect something Mario and then you get this. And I can understand the disappointment.
24:05 --> 24:05 Yeah.
24:05 --> 24:24 Plus, the Mario music is designed to be great and just get you every time. Like, I saw a video this morning where some guy was like, I know I moved into the right neighborhood when I saw this booze truck going by every day at 5pm Playing the Super Mario Brothers theme.
24:24 --> 24:25 Yeah.
24:25 --> 24:29 Like, you know, you hear that tune and you're just like, ooh, yay. You know?
24:29 --> 24:35 Yeah. I was just gonna say, I don't even have to think about it. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.
24:35 --> 24:35 Yeah.
24:35 --> 24:49 You know, or for the longest time on my cell phone, I had did a little as my. As my ringtone. So, you know, I mean, so many.
24:49 --> 25:09 Mario games have such iconic tunes, and for this game to drop the ball so bad in that aspect is disappointing. And I mean, I get the platforming. It's a Mario game. They wanted it to be platforming. They wanted it to look like Donkey Kong Country. They wanted it to play like an rpg. There's only so much they could do with the Super Nintendo, but it fell on its face.
25:10 --> 25:16 Yeah. They merged. They try to merge three things together and got there mostly.
25:17 --> 25:17 Yeah.
25:19 --> 26:01 And. And I honestly, I really can't understand the love for this game. I can understand plays it play, you know, the battles play like a Square Enix game, plus kind of that cool like Mario button, you know, timing, et cetera, et cetera. You know, you have the power ups for Mario. I mean, I understand. I understand the value of this game. It just. It never worked for me. And. And kind of after a while, I got tired of certain aspects of it and I was like, okay, I'm done. Even though I beat it. I was like, all right, I'm already in enough. I'm going to go beat it. But after that, I'm just done.
26:01 --> 26:09 I think that's absolutely fair. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, so we got the dark half and we got Super Mario rpg.
26:09 --> 26:10 Yeah.
26:10 --> 26:11 What do we got at number three?
26:12 --> 26:19 Oh, here's another one. I'm going to get run out on a rail. Parasite Eve.
26:20 --> 26:28 Oh. Oh, my heart. Okay, let's hear why. I think I can guess why, but let's hear.
26:28 --> 27:09 Okay. So I decided to kind of go through some, I guess, iconic PS1 games that weren't Final Fantasy 7. Right. And I wanted to do some RPGs. And so a recommendation. I went and looked at the top lists, and on nearly every single top list is Parasite Eve. And I spun up Parasite Eve. And you get that intro cinematic and it's energetic and it's. It's in your face and etc. Yeah.
27:09 --> 27:12 It feels like a blockbuster movie trailer, right?
27:12 --> 27:18 It does. And then you play the game, they.
27:18 --> 27:23 Hype you up, and then it's like, okay, you can. You can run at about 2 miles per hour.
27:24 --> 28:02 Yeah. And. And on top of that, like, I was like, okay, it. They're. They're trying. They're trying to track a Resident Evil game in an RPG because, like, you're constantly going back to the same places over and over, especially the police station, etc. Right. I mean, so. And then. And then the story. And I understand this is the 90s. What was this? This was 1998. I understand. But all of a sudden, mitochondria is revolting.
28:03 --> 28:13 Oh, my. That word. I think I did that in my YouTube short, actually. Just, it's. You've never heard a word so much in your life.
28:13 --> 28:14 Oh, God.
28:14 --> 28:17 As mitochondria while playing through Parasite Eve.
28:18 --> 29:00 Yeah. And here's the thing is. And maybe this doesn't help, by the way, there's a light coming through my blinds. It's highlighting. Yeah. I come from a family of doctors, so I know what mitochondria is. Right. And the minute that they're like, mitochondria have a mind of their own, I'm like, oh, dear God, somebody read somewhere that we hijacked another organism called mitochondria for our. For our. You know, our cells and our blood cells. And they're like, oh, this is a story. No, it's not.
29:01 --> 29:28 I do have to wonder. I have to wonder, because I get what you're saying. It was based. So they licensed a Japanese novel to be this game. So it's based on a novel that got a movie, and so they tried to adapt the novel as well. So I have to wonder how much of it was bad adaptation and how much of it might have been bad translation as well.
29:29 --> 29:30 Yeah.
29:31 --> 30:07 But, yeah, I totally get what you're saying. The game is also a bad bummer. Like, it's. It's so cool. And I. I've told this story on the podcast before, I think, but I got the stomach flu while I was playing this, and after a couple of days, I was feeling better, and I was, like, in the middle of this game, so I was finally feeling, like, good enough to be up and doing things. So I was like, I'm going to play some parasite Eve. About an hour and a half later, I was just so bummed out by this game that I felt like shit again. And I went back to just being sick again for, like, another two days.
30:08 --> 30:08 Oh, no.
30:09 --> 30:11 That's how much of a bummer this game is.
30:12 --> 30:31 Yeah. Okay. Honestly, I think. I think really. I think really, it's a product of the time that I played it. So to be sorry to come back around to why I didn't like it, I think if I played this in 1998, I probably would have enjoyed this a lot more.
30:32 --> 30:32 Yeah.
30:33 --> 31:57 But like, in the. In the mid to late 90s, plotting RPGs like this were kind of the staple. Right. I mean, and. And the problem is I played this once again. This was another street stream play when I was streaming, and it just got so tiresome, just plodding and plotting. And the battles. I mean, honestly, the. In the sewers, the bats. The bats kill me. They kill me inside with their little screech that they do. And all of that. It just kind of. It just. I was just like. I was finally looking at it. I'm like, I am so bored. I am so bored. And really, what I should probably do, because I. Here's the thing. The cinematics in this game are great. You know, there's the opera scene. The opera scene is. Is absolutely epic. If you haven't watched the opera scene, just go watch the opera scene, you know, and it's an opera. Right. Or it's. It's something. It's a. It's in a theater anyway. But yeah, this game. This game is plotting. So really what I should probably do is get myself a walkthrough and just go A to Z and just get it done. Right.
31:58 --> 31:59 Yeah.
31:59 --> 32:13 But, well, but I really think it was really a. I played it in. In early 2000s, so I don't know, maybe even 2020. And I just, you know, you look at it in comparison to RPGs today, and it's just. It's boring.
32:15 --> 32:28 Yeah. But, yeah, if you compare it to then like, for me, and I can completely understand because I've never been able to go back and play it again. I played the crap out of it. I did a lot of the Chrysler Tower extra stuff.
32:29 --> 32:29 Okay.
32:29 --> 32:35 But starting from the beginning, I've never been able to go through it again because the game is painfully slow.
32:35 --> 32:36 Yeah.
32:37 --> 33:03 And again, like I said, a bummer. But up against things from that year, even just from Square, we're looking at what, final or. Yeah. Xenogears, Bushido, Blade 2, Brave, Fencer, Musashi and Air guys all came out that year. Not necessarily in the US but that was the lineup that year, like their major ones. So.
33:03 --> 33:05 Haven't you talked about our guys before?
33:06 --> 33:17 I have. And Final Fantasy 8 came out about a year later, so Even Final Fantasy 8 was a little clunky as an RPG. Don't come for me. Don't hate me. It's true.
33:18 --> 33:22 Yeah. Come for Chard if you're gonna come for somebody for Final Fantasy viii.
33:23 --> 33:29 But, yeah, like Parasite Eve, it had an absolute amazing soundtrack.
33:29 --> 33:32 It did. It did. And the cinematic.
33:32 --> 33:39 I'm trying to remember her name. Yoko Kano, I believe, was the composer.
33:40 --> 33:40 Okay.
33:41 --> 33:53 She did the. She did Legend of mana for the PlayStation. She did the Kingdom Hearts games. So she's. She has a great sound. I love her scoring.
33:53 --> 33:54 Yeah.
33:54 --> 34:13 And I. I have the Parasite Eve soundtrack on cd, and I still listen to tracks from it. I love it. But, yeah, the. The combat is clunky. The combat is slow. Getting around places is slow. It's a lot of user interface interactions and inventory management in Parasite Eve.
34:13 --> 34:13 Yeah.
34:13 --> 34:35 And honestly, the only thing that probably kept me going through that game when it came out is the fact that it was like X Files. Right. I was a huge X Files kid. And so this was like, this is the closest we've got to an X Files game that's not point and click because that's the only thing X Files games were at the time was point and click.
34:35 --> 34:35 Right.
34:36 --> 34:47 So this was something different and I was, I was there for it and I haven't been able to since. So I get this one as well. I can appreciate your putting it on your list of the bottom five.
34:48 --> 35:08 Yeah. So I think really, as I said, it's the era and then really, I think the thing that nailed the coffin put the nail in the coffin on this one. This game actually made it so that I never wanted to stream our like long RPGs ever again, so.
35:08 --> 35:09 Oh man.
35:11 --> 35:44 Yeah. Anyway, I can see the value in this game once again. I, you know, my first game, Dark Half. No, nobody should play that. Just go watch somebody do a long play just so you can see like the weird brain I thing I get with my last. With the last two. So Super Mario RPG in this one, I get the value. I do. And, but, but these just, you know, they just hit me either at the wrong time or the wrong place. Right.
35:44 --> 35:56 And so yeah, these are games that were very much games of their time. And you like, they didn't just. They just didn't meet the hype you had been told about for them.
35:56 --> 35:57 Right, right.
35:58 --> 36:01 And so that left them, you know, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I get it.
36:01 --> 36:18 Yeah. Yeah. And there have been just. Just kind of around that. I don't want to say that like this era is like a non starter for me. I. Oh, I streamed earthbound and I loved every minute of earthbound. Like in this. That's this era again, you know.
36:18 --> 36:25 And you enjoyed the majority of Chrono Trigger. You just had like that one moment and the very beginning to get past and that was it. Right.
36:25 --> 36:52 Yeah. The fair. The fair just bored me to tears. And the golem almost bounced off the Gollum Twins. But otherwise, no, Chrono Trigger is. I mean, there are some tricks to the Gollum Twins that you guys helped me out with. If you haven't played it, I know we're talking my bottom five, but if you haven't played Chrono Trigger, that's a game you need to do yourself a favor.
36:53 --> 36:53 Yeah.
36:55 --> 36:55 Yeah.
36:55 --> 36:56 So, alrighty.
36:57 --> 36:59 So Mitochondria Uprising. Let's go.
36:59 --> 37:04 Mitochondria. Mitochondria. Mitochondria. Sunday. Sunday. Sunday.
37:04 --> 37:05 That's right.
37:06 --> 37:10 All righty. So let's go ahead and hear your number two.
37:11 --> 37:24 Okay. I don't Think I'm going to get run out on a rail for this one. But you brought up, you brought up that you have the soundtrack for Parasite Eve and you throw it in every once in a while.
37:24 --> 37:24 Yes.
37:24 --> 37:56 This next game of mine has a banger soundtrack that I still listen to. In fact, I went through my garage and found. Because I. I still own this game, I found the CD and ripped it so I could listen to it. I was like, one day, I'm like, what about that? Okay, so the game came out in 1994, all right? And nobody's going to know the name of it. Lawnmower Man, Cyber War.
37:57 --> 37:59 Lawnmower Man, Cyber War.
38:00 --> 38:05 It's actually generally just called Cyber War, but it is a spin off from the Lawnmower man movie.
38:08 --> 38:11 Huh. Okay. Cyber War video game.
38:11 --> 38:13 Yeah, 1994.
38:13 --> 38:18 94. Is this made by Sales Curve Interactive?
38:20 --> 38:34 Wow. Okay, so first, first off, I want to admit I actually like the Lawnmower man movie. Now, hold on.
38:34 --> 38:43 I did too. And I get. I can see the problems with it, but I enjoyed the movie for what it was, not necessarily as an adaptation of the book.
38:44 --> 42:56 Well, and really when they released it on V or on vhs, because this was during the era of vhs, when they released it on vhs, they released a director's cut. And this is one of those times when there was never director's cuts that came out. So I was like, what the hell's this thing? And I ended up, okay, I'm going to admit this blockbuster. I'm going to finally admit this. I rented that because I couldn't find a place to buy the director's cut, and I never returned it. Anyway. Okay, so. But the extended cut, the director's cut, actually makes a lot of that story make a lot more sense. And so I'm not gonna say it's good. Now, I haven't watched this movie in, I don't know, 30 years probably. But back 30 years ago, when I saw this director's cut, I was like, wait a minute. They actually made this movie make sense and it was good. So, okay, so this game, Cyber War is basically somebody looked at all of the cyber 3D portions of that movie and were like, we want to make a game. Basically what it is is it's a series of, I guess I'd call them mini games. Kind of all like Warioware or something like that, except a lot more polish to it. But some of the mini games are quick time events. Some of the mini games are launching a cannon or not launching, launching stuff out of a Cannon at the enemy, etc. It's got this really cool for 1994 graphics. Like it's all ray traced, you know, 3D graphics but. But that's kind of where. And the soundtrack is an absolute banger. Go, go listen on YouTube to the soundtrack when you have a chance. But that's really where the good goodness ends is there. The quicktime events are just bad. Like there are portions where you have to. It's the little like flying parts from the movie in the 3D effect and you have to like, you know, you get a little cinematic and then it'll like load the next part which is going to be like I have to dodge left up, right down something. And it is literally like frame accurate in a, in, in a horrible way because everything was basically played off of the cd. So this is kind of like the original laserdisc games, but this is like, you know, and so like. And the load times were just horrible. It just, it just was. And I. Here's the thing is I wanted to love this game. I bought this game. It was, it was on a shelf at the game store. It had three CDs and an audio CD and that was labeled on the back of the box. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm in three CDs in 1994. This is a three CD game. Plus plus the soundtrack. Yeah. So I really wanted to love this game and it just, I've never beaten it because it's tough as balls. Even though when you're doing like one playthrough, if you go and do like the, the, you know, the bike through the city part and you have to quick time event left and right and forward, you can learn the pattern. But the problem is is after you beat that one, there's an aspect of random that you select the next level and so you don't know what the pattern is for the next thing coming up. So there's just no way to learn the pattern for the entire game ever. Right. And it's. And it's quick time events, it's patterns. So.
42:56 --> 43:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, I feel like there was also a console Lawnmower man game and there probably was. Those were also bad and there were like multiple ports and they were all based on the virtual reality aspect. But yeah, I don't think any of those reviewed well. So the fact that Cyber War isn't even called Lawnmower man officially on the right is wild to me, but. Oh man. Yeah.
43:36 --> 43:57 And. And here's the thing. If it, Kay, if you have the time. There's a couple YouTube videos that will show you there's a little death animation that's the same every single time you die. And it's the weirdest death animation. It's. You go to like cyber hell or something like that.
43:57 --> 43:58 Whoa.
43:59 --> 43:59 Yeah.
44:02 --> 44:03 That's bizarre.
44:04 --> 44:50 Yeah. Yep. And. And then there's always this at the end of this little animation, like you come down these stairs in cyber hell and there's this like, you're seeing a first person view from some beast and you look, it just jumps over toward him and then it like cuts to credits. So, yeah, anyway, so Cyber War. But the soundtrack is stellar now. It's kind of that, like mid-90s techno coming off of 80s the sound. You know, if. Did you ever see any of the Mind's Eye videos that are like the 3D animated videos with like, music to them? Thomas Dolby actually did the sound for one of them.
44:51 --> 44:56 I don't recall. It doesn't sound familiar the way you're describing it.
44:57 --> 45:13 Well, it's. It's basically kind of that. And so it kind of came around in that era, and I just love it because it's these. It's these synths, you know, techno synths and everything. So. Yeah. But yeah, the soundtrack's a banger.
45:14 --> 45:27 All righty. Yeah, so that. That leaves us. Oh, my gosh. I've already forgotten. Your number five was Dark Half. Dark Half. That's right. Your number four.
45:28 --> 45:29 Super Mario rpg.
45:29 --> 45:39 Super Mario rpg. Your number three was Parasite Eve. And your number two was Cyber War in Quotations. Lawnmower Man.
45:39 --> 45:42 Yes. Huh? Yep.
45:42 --> 45:49 All right, let's. Let's. Let's hear your. Your number one bottom most game. What is it?
45:49 --> 46:04 Okay, okay, so I kind of. I kind of. I'm serious about my number one, but I'm also laughing about my number one because how can I have a top five or a bottom five list without having a bard's tail on it?
46:05 --> 46:07 Oh, no. Is it. Okay, can I guess.
46:08 --> 46:08 Yes.
46:09 --> 46:18 Is it the Bard's Tale remake? The one that was like, not a direct remake of the original, but like the third person overhead RPG?
46:18 --> 46:22 Yes, yes. The 2004.
46:22 --> 46:24 2004. That's what it is.
46:25 --> 46:27 It's called the Bard's Tale.
46:28 --> 46:28 Yeah.
46:30 --> 46:42 Yes. So here's the thing. Brian Fargo, I think you know the name Brian Fargo, you know, he.
46:42 --> 46:42 He.
46:42 --> 48:24 He created in. In Exile. He originally. What was he originally? He was. Oh, his other studio. He ended up getting bought out anyway. Interplay. Yes. So Brian Fargo, now Brian Fargo actually has a True claim to fame as having credits. I think in Bard's Tale 3, like one of the original actual Bards Tale games that plays like a Bard's Tale. And then in 2004, I don't know what got into his head. He created this game called the Bard's Tale. And I want to point out that the Bard's Tale is one of the original hard as nails 80s RPGs. Like when you talk hard RPGs from the 80s, you talk wizardry, you talk Bard's Tale, you talk ultima. I'm talking. As far as like PC goes. Right. Those were like the. The list of like RPG, core RPG, hard RPG. Well, this game in 2004 is a comedy. It is literally a comedy. Like I. There is a promo that you can find. There's a promo that's got the Bard running up toward a. Toward a fork in the road. And on the left it says save the world. And on the right it says coin and cleavage. And he's running cleavage. Yeah.
48:25 --> 48:30 Yeah. It's even on steam right now called the Bard's Tale arpg.
48:31 --> 48:31 Yes.
48:31 --> 48:33 Remastered and re snarkled.
48:33 --> 48:44 Re snarkled. Yes. Okay. I want to say this though. As far as a game that didn't have this name, I would have liked it.
48:46 --> 48:49 So this is the Zelda 2 paradox.
48:49 --> 48:56 It is. I played through this and I actually enjoyed it. It is voiced by Cary Elways.
48:56 --> 48:57 Ah.
48:58 --> 49:11 And Tony J. And Tony J is the narrator and Cary Elways is the Bard. And they break the fourth wall all the time and talk to each other. It's great.
49:11 --> 49:17 So it's not that it's a bad game. It's a bad Bard's Tale because it doesn't Bards Tale.
49:18 --> 50:20 Right. It should have been called something else. Plus, I mean, it doesn't Bard's Tale in that it's. It's a. I know it calls it an arpg, but it's barely an arpg. I don't even think it has a leveling system. You basically get items that give you abilities. I don't think it has a leveling system. Maybe it does. I don't think it does, but it's. It's more akin to like the Dark alliance games than to an actual like core rpg. So. And there. But. So as far as a game itself goes, it's enjoyable. It's. It's fun. It's funny as hell. The narrator and Carrie always going back and forth are great. There's a scene where zombies sing the beer, beer, beer song. It's Great. But it's not a fucking Bard's Tale.
50:22 --> 50:23 And so I can get that.
50:24 --> 50:51 I struggle because Brian Fargo, Brian Fargo did this and then Brian Fargo went and did Wasteland and he kickstarted Wasteland 2 and then he did Bard's Tale four barrows deep. He kick started that and he brought about the remaster and remake of the original three Bards Tales. I don't know what he. I don't know what got into his head.
50:52 --> 51:03 Yeah, I don't know. That's. That's wild. Also, I'm now seeing that if you get this on Steam, you also get the original trilogy.
51:04 --> 51:08 Is it the remake? Is it. Is it called the Bard's Tale trilogy?
51:08 --> 51:11 It says includes original classic trilogy.
51:11 --> 51:12 Okay.
51:12 --> 51:17 So that's probably, probably just like a dosbox emulation of them.
51:18 --> 51:57 Yeah. Which I think is worth playing. And I've done it multiple times, even in modern times. But if you're going to play the original three, do it with the remaster. So anyway, so. And here's my biggest. Here's my biggest pain point. This is why it's number one on my, on my bottom five list. Because every time I tell people my favorite game of all time is the Bard's Tale, I have to, I have to add a caveat.
52:00 --> 52:00 What?
52:00 --> 52:07 I have to go 1980s Bard's tale. Because otherwise they think this, this thing.
52:07 --> 52:09 Yeah, yeah, I get that.
52:12 --> 52:14 So, yeah.
52:16 --> 52:42 Yeah, that's. That's one of those things. Like, I can actually think of another game. Well, no, because that's different. Yeah. I. There's got to be other games out there that have done this. I can understand that though. You, you're like, yeah, the Bard's Tale. I'm ready for this. And then it is something so starkly different from, from anything you could have even imagined it being.
52:43 --> 52:43 Right.
52:44 --> 52:46 That you're like, this is not Bard's Tale.
52:47 --> 52:59 You're right. Right now, as far as a comedy game goes, I think it's great. I don't know if it holds up anymore. I mean, you know, the world's changed since 2004.
53:00 --> 53:06 Yeah. It's been 20 years. And I mean, what, Riches and cleavage was the option he chose?
53:06 --> 53:08 Yeah. Coin and cleavage.
53:08 --> 53:12 Coin and cleavage. It's very much a 2004 thing to do.
53:12 --> 53:12 Hello.
53:12 --> 53:14 Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
53:14 --> 53:28 Right. Yeah. So anyway, it's only on my list because it has. When I try to explain what my favorite game is, people see something else.
53:29 --> 53:29 Yeah.
53:29 --> 53:33 And I have to, I have to over explain what my favorite game is.
53:35 --> 53:55 See, I, I I will admit that for a long time when I saw this, I thought it was literally because I didn't know anything about the original Bard's Tale games other than they were first person dungeon crawler. That's literally all I knew. And when I saw this come out, I thought, oh, it is a. Since they were calling it a remake or something.
53:56 --> 53:58 Something. Yeah, just.
53:58 --> 54:17 Just calling it the Bard's Tale or whatever. I assumed it was like an ARPG version of that experience and then like just leaning into the comedy because I figured that kind of comedy wasn't going to be present in a game that was a, you know, something heavily fantasy from the 80s was not going to be comedic.
54:18 --> 54:18 Right.
54:18 --> 54:20 As far as games go. Right.
54:21 --> 54:33 Yeah. The original Bard's Tale, the. The town that you're in, Scarabray, has been surrounded by ice by an evil God wizard. Right. I mean, this is not a funny concept. Right.
54:34 --> 54:42 Yeah. So this is. I remember thinking that's different, but I didn't know how different.
54:45 --> 54:56 One of these things is not like the other. Yeah, we all can sing that song, so. Yeah.
54:56 --> 54:57 Oh, man.
54:58 --> 55:02 But I can't have a top five or a bottom five without having a Bard's Tale on it.
55:03 --> 55:12 That's fair. Yeah, yeah. Were the originals not called the Bard's Tale? Were they just called Bard's Tale?
55:13 --> 55:28 No, I think they were called the Bard's Tale, although I think the original was supposed to be called originally Tales of the Unknown, but it became the Bard's Tale and then in colon, Tales of the Unknown.
55:29 --> 55:29 Okay.
55:30 --> 55:35 Yeah. So I mean, I guess I could always say Bard's Tale, Tale of the Unknown.
55:37 --> 55:42 Oh, I see. Tales of the Unknown, the Destiny Knight and Thief of Fate.
55:43 --> 55:43 Yes.
55:44 --> 55:54 And then this one was just the Bard's Tale at the time it came out and the the was on like a weird scroll or something. Choices were made with this game.
55:55 --> 55:56 It totally usurped.
55:58 --> 56:16 I want to say it was 2005 or 2006. Now, I don't know if anybody else has ever heard of this game. I've not even been able to find a trace of it online. But I know it existed because I looked at it with a friend at Gamestop and it was absolutely making fun of World of Warcraft and other RPGs and MMOs, but it was a single player RPG.
56:16 --> 56:17 Okay.
56:17 --> 56:35 I don't remember what it's called and I've scoured the Internet trying to find this game, but it was literally just a spoof game because everything being spoof at the time was popular. We had all the movies, and there was a game that did it, and I kind of wish I had bought it, because I think it was only like, 20 or 30 bucks.
56:35 --> 56:36 Huh.
56:36 --> 56:48 It was just. It was heavily leaning into making fun of World of Warcraft and Everquest, but, like, gory and slapstick and all these other things at the same time and profane.
56:49 --> 56:52 It was the. It was the scary movie trope.
56:52 --> 56:54 Yeah, it was that.
56:54 --> 56:55 Yeah.
56:55 --> 57:02 But I have no idea what it was called, so that. That would be something I would like to find, but I'm sure I'd also be disappointed if I actually played it.
57:07 --> 57:57 Yeah, Yeah. I. As I said, I played through this. I enjoyed the comedy. There's a. I mean, you can get the comedy right at the beginning. Like, there's, you know, there's the trope. You go into the. You know, into the dungeon to take on, you know, giant rats. Right. And you think that the giant rats are giant rats. You know, it's kind of that thing where, like, there's that trope that they took, and then as the narrator's talking to you at one point, like, the main character, Carrie Elway, says, hold on a minute. And starts talking back to the narrator. And it just. I mean, if it was. If it was named anything else. Yeah.
57:59 --> 58:04 Like, they could have even gone as, like, Tale of the Bard or something. Like, throw it on its head a little.
58:04 --> 58:04 Right.
58:05 --> 58:11 So I get that. I can follow your logic on this and see how this is just a huge disappointment.
58:11 --> 58:18 And the fact that it's Brian Fargo. Like, come on, man. So, yeah.
58:19 --> 58:20 All right.
58:20 --> 58:29 And I want to point out I have two Stephen King items on my bottom five. Dark Half and Lawnmower Man.
58:30 --> 58:36 Yeah, Yeah. I mean, just give it a couple years. We'll have a bad Dark Tower game.
58:37 --> 58:40 There you go. Sorry, Dark Half. Yeah, Dark half.
58:40 --> 58:48 But, yeah, no, no, but I'm saying Dark Tower because we're going to get a TV series soon. So I'm sure somebody's going to be clamoring for the rights for that.
58:48 --> 58:53 There you go. Speaking of that, I have hope. I have hope because it's Flanagan that's doing it.
58:53 --> 58:54 Yeah.
58:55 --> 59:00 I have hope because he seems to be able to do Stephen King adaptations.
59:02 --> 59:05 So he does. He's also. He just does good things.
59:07 --> 59:12 Agreed. Agreed. So if you haven't watched Oculus.
59:13 --> 59:14 I have not. Yes, I shall.
59:15 --> 59:19 That's fantastic. And it has Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica in it.
59:19 --> 59:20 Oh, nice. I like her.
59:20 --> 59:27 Yeah. Yeah. Katee Sackhoff. And then it also has what's her Name that played Nebula in the MCU movies.
59:28 --> 59:38 Oh, I can't remember her name. I know what you're talking about. She was also in that show selfie with the guy and Doctor from Harold and Kumar.
59:39 --> 59:40 Yeah. And she was in Doctor who.
59:41 --> 59:42 Karen Gillan.
59:42 --> 59:43 That's it.
59:43 --> 59:44 And to get there.
59:45 --> 59:52 Yeah, yeah. Oculus is great and terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. So if you're in the mood for a horror, watch Oculus.
59:53 --> 01:00:15 Alrighty. Well, with that we got our bottom five out of Sinistar. We've been trying to do this for a while now. It's here. Yeah, I like to be fair, I honestly don't even remember mine. I did it like four years ago. So if I picked today, it would probably be a little different. But I can imagine one game that would be on the list that it was probably there then.
01:00:17 --> 01:00:18 Which one are you thinking of?
01:00:19 --> 01:00:27 Blaster Master 2, if I remember, falls into that same thing. Like it's not a Blaster Master. It's not good.
01:00:27 --> 01:00:31 Right, Right. Awesome.
01:00:32 --> 01:01:32 All right, well, thank you for doing this. This was a lot of fun. This is pre recorded, so I think we're coming out with this in a couple of weeks. So as you guys are watching it now, it's probably 4th of July or just past or whatever. And yeah, check out our website. Tell us why you hate Sinistar's picks or why you agree with them. Tell me how I'm wrong for seeing his perspective. I don't know, but leave a comment, leave a. Like follow the podcast. Come check out press fcancel.com it points to all our socials, it points to our discord. So you can come join the conversation there. And also go check out the SuperPod network at superpodnetwork.com There's a lot of good podcasts on there, bunch of gaming podcasts and I think adjacent as well. And yeah, thank you guys for checking us out. Have a good one.
01:01:32 --> 01:01:33 Mallow sucks.
01:01:33 --> 01:01:34 True.
01:01:45 --> 01:02:10 Sam.