The GamePapas Episode 10: Gaming Magazines + Game Informers Top 100 games of all time(2009)

0:00 Music. Hey everybody, welcome to a brand new episode of The Game Papas. That's right, The Game Papas are back. As we like to do it here, I feel like you and I always kind of go on these. And mostly it's because, you know, we get really busy. Both life and not life and the regular show. You know, there's a lot going on, but we're happy to be back.

0:41 That is right, those also told you here are mine, that is Uncle Dad. And with me as always in this show is the man, the myth, the legend, the one and only Retro Gaming Nomad. Hello everybody that caused your computer to freeze for a second, you don't like gloria estefan and the miami sound machine, that's just that uh what's up uh rgn how you doing i'm doing all right man kind of still celebrating i don't know if you know why i know you know this because it happened to you a couple years back and you were rooting for the enemy in my opinion but my celtics won their 18th championship so i am doing fantastic got to see that i've seen the celtics win another one.

1:29 And yeah really proud of that man they finally did it your celtics won and what better way to celebrate 18 wins than episode 10 right of the game papas that sounds like a match made in heaven maybe i don't know i'm trying too hard yeah it's a little stretch but i'll take it i'll take it and today's episode is a very special one a very fun one because i feel like it's a medium that we don't talk about no more we don't really experience as much they do still but they're not as around they're not as around obviously as before the internet if you will that is magazines but specifically gaming magazines now you know no man i know you know know all about that you know you're a little older than i am so i can only imagine like you've seen the transition from and not to go into too much detail yet but you can you've seen the transition from like the og mags to the mags with cds to the mags with even like digital content into the mags that are now existing right yeah very few mags still exist a lot of them you have to they're like more like designs if you will but yeah man i i've seen it from the very beginning where there were like little teeny tiny magazines that had maybe 18 pages to in their you know high the popularity early to late 90s where they were you know you're looking at 30 40 pages thick now they are pretty much all digital so yeah the transition of that and the.

2:51 The morphing of it has been pretty crazy. Yeah. And to really get people to understand this too, like this, that was the only way you could really get any news about gaming, right? Like now you have, I mean, I know you know this, you have massive conferences, you have massive, you know, showcases about gaming news, right? And then you'll get that news the next day or back in the, you know, even go far back mid seventies to the eighties. I mean, you had to get that magazine. You had to wait an entire, like sometimes not even a month, like an entire like quarter to get the next news, right? Right. Yeah. If you weren't in the industry, especially, you know, you're just a fan. Unless you knew somebody that was in the industry, you literally had to wait for, you know, these magazines to come out.

3:33 And every magazine had, you know, pretty much different content. They kind of pride themselves on, you know, hey, we're going to we're going to have this, you know, as our as our cover, you know, this game on our cover. While the other magazine had a different one on the cover. And God, I remember going to bookstores, man, and flipping through all of them, because like you said, that was pretty much the only way you got it. Other than word of mouth and hanging out in the arcades and, you know, you would talk to some people that, you know, had seen a game some other place in some other part of the country. That was really the only way you got it. We're talking like, you know, pre Internet or even, you know, early stages of Internet where it just it just wasn't there. It was still considered a geek nerd following, and there just wasn't a lot of coverage on it, man.

4:18 So it was it was very scarce. And, you know, it just it ultimately came to the point where you were buying games literally off the cover and what it said on the back, because a lot of these games were not covered at all. So you took a chance on a lot of that stuff, you know, and it's crazy because a lot of those games now the value has skyrocketed because there was such a low print. It because you know a lot of people didn't know about those games it was all word of mouth, oh for sure and you know throughout this episode we'll dive into some of those famous covers because you know there's definitely a few real famous covers right uh but i gotta kick it off sir with the first one now do you know what the first video game magazine is i don't i would say it was probably called video game magazine you would think that right that sounds like the most like Like, but when you back in the day, though, did they call arcades?

5:11 They called like video games like an arcade had a video game. That's what they called it, right? They didn't call it an arcade game, did they? Sometimes. I mean, it was called different things. A lot of it was actually called a video arcade, you know, or a video arcade game. Yeah. But yeah, arcade, we all knew what that meant. okay so 1974 this magazine was founded by editor ralph c lally the second and he created are you ready for this play meter magazine playing meter magazine was the american trade magazine focusing on coin op amusement arcade industry and this wasn't just arcade games my sir it was also jukeboxes so you can get reviews on jukeboxes too which let's be honest what is that like.

5:54 Yeah yeah because i mean other than the features of the jukebox you know the interaction with it you know they played records you know what i mean they played 45 records 45 45 is all day so i mean how different can they be i mean i guess i guess that would be kind of cool because i i have seen a bunch of different you know old jukeboxes a couple of my friends have some i've always wanted one never got it but i'm of the era so i remember yeah different style of jukeboxes and how you know you know how much fancier they've gotten over the years so yeah i i guess i could see that and i'm always fascinated with jukeboxes just the way they work and you know the grabbing of the disc and just watching it go on that on that on that plate on the turntable and and that needle coming down it still excites me to this day when i see it yeah it's like having a little robot in the box you know i mean when you look at it like a little yeah it's pretty cool oh yes so play meter came It came out in 1974, but here's what I thought is pretty crazy.

6:53 Let me ask you this. When do you think the last issue was? Oh, you said 1974? It's an arcade. This sounds like a trick question, so it probably lasted a lot longer than I thought. I'm going to say up until... Street Fighter is still big. I'm going to say 97. I think that's a pretty good guess, personally. But the year will surprise you. The last issue came out June 2018. No way, dude! That has got to be one of the longest-running magazines as far as fan magazines. We're not talking Playboy and Penthouse and your favorite, Juggs.

7:35 Well, Playboy's gone anyway, so that was gone before 2018, I thought. Yeah, I mean, of course, digital. So we're talking about physical. That's crazy, man. Yeah. So here's the importance of PlayMeter. So PlayMeter is the first example or the earliest example of what video game journalism would be. So it established practices such as individual game reviews, and it also established the 10-point assessment scale. So basically, if 1 to 10, they were the first ones to do it in that world of game reviews. So, yeah, they have a pretty crazy history. I really recommend you look it up if you don't know about that magazine. But I bring it up, too, because not only is it obviously one of the earliest things, but Uncle Dad, Uncle Dad Talks, my main host.

8:18 Mike is from Louisiana, New Orleans. This magazine is actually from New Orleans, so it all starts there. Wow. Crazy. Yeah. Because you would think something like that would be more of a Northern California thing with Silicon Valley and how big arcades were. I mean, I guess arcades were big kind of everywhere, but I would never have thought New Orleans. I would, you know, don't get me wrong. It's a major city and, you know, the sweetheart city of the United States. But yeah, when it comes to, you know, arcade and tech and the nerd culture. Yeah, that's I would not have thought that at all. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And what's even not really crazier, but what's also interesting is that they were literally the headquarters was four blocks away from when the levee broke in New Orleans. Oh, man.

9:08 Yeah. And think about that. That was 2005. So that means the magazine still existed after 2005 to 2018. Isn't that crazy? That's pretty impressive. Yeah it's super impressive so i really recommend go checking it out guys and just to kind of give you some more trivia no man there was actually also a number of special issues and what those issues were they did a buyer's guide they did an equipment pull issue a new products by monthly special and of course the annual rank the games so they you can definitely tell they definitely were setting up standards for what would be the video game magazine i guess traditions if you will, now do you know if they put their buyer's guide in other magazines or was it only in theirs.

9:51 I don't have that information so i can't tell you because i remember a lot of buyer's guides in the back and now that you say the name of that magazine it kind of it kind of rings about maybe i saw before but maybe i'm misremembering but yeah buyer's guide was another thing that was huge in these magazines that that sometimes that's the only way you can freaking get some of these games man oh for sure for sure i remember that for sure because i remember not to go too far ahead but i remember that i think nintendo power had one and i remember just like circling everything i wanted on that like giving it to my parents yeah yeah we used to highlight we used to highlight stuff and just you know my wish list or whatever and you know never came true but yeah there was a lot of those a lot of those games man especially the not so well-known consoles you know the ones that weren't supported that well you you couldn't just walk into you know say like at at that time you know a store like federated or or or a certain city and buy you know a turbo graphics game or an atari jaguar game you had to go sometimes to these mail orders to get that stuff because nobody supported those platforms it was it was really hard to find and if they did support platforms, you know say it was like babbage's or electronics boutique or something like that it was It was very scarce, like how many games they had.

11:11 It was just a handful of games. So a lot of that stuff was mail order, man. So keeping with that era in the 70s, let's go past a little bit. What's a magazine that stands out to you from that time? Because you, were you, I mean, I don't mean to put you on blast like that, but you were already, you know, you're like, what, 10 around there, right? Yeah, maybe a little bit older, but I, wait, what year? If that's 74 let's just go a little past that okay what's what 80s let's go to 80s early 80s, A lot of that stuff was you had to subscribe. So I had like a I had like an Atari magazine that was sent to my house that I was an Atari age.

11:56 Yeah, I had Atari age and I had to subscribe to that to get it sent to my house. Because, again, you can just go anywhere and just pick that up. It was really hard to find. And there wasn't really at that time in my in my neighborhood. There wasn't really a like a bookstore or a magazine store. You had the liquor stores and stuff, but they didn't carry stuff like that. You had to go to a specialty store to get that. And there just wasn't really any in my town to get it. So I had to subscribe to it. And I subscribed to, God, I forgot what the magazine was for TurboGrafx, but I did them too. The NEC magazine. I did that as well for a little bit. But yeah. And then, of course, early Sega stuff with Sega Visions.

12:37 That was in the 80s too, early 80s. Well, let's talk about Atari Age since we're kind of dabbing in that. That atari age do you remember how you became a how you how you subscribe to that the way i subscribed was i did a mail order for a game and when it came in it had the little pamphlet inside to say hey join our magazine atari age and i filled out that stuff saved up my money uh gave the money to my dad he wrote me a check to send it in and then yeah i think it was probably like Like six to eight weeks later, I got my first issue. And honestly, man, I remember my first issue. It was all black and white.

13:20 Yeah, yeah, I believe it. I believe that for sure. Do you remember what was on the cover or no? I don't know. I can't. God, I want to see. Let me see if I can find it. I want to say it was an asteroid. It was a centipede. I don't know if I have the first one. I don't think I have those anymore. I had the later ones. I kept them. But my early ones, I think my mom tossed all that stuff. Really? Because they're always worried about, yeah, fire hazards. Probably used to stack those things up. I think I might have one or two stored away in my garage. But no, I don't remember the cover.

14:00 Well, it's a trip. I keep trying to find it, and it keeps just giving me the second one. But basically, the first cover isn't anything unique. And the reason why you're thinking all these different things is because it had a bunch of different pictures. It had asteroids. It had Superman. It had combat. It had breakaway. All those on there. Yeah. I don't think that one. I think the one that I had had a, I want to say it was Senate Beat on the cover. And when Pac-Man came out, I remember they had a big thing on Pac-Man. And I, you know, in one of our previous episodes, we talked about that one. God, that game sucked on the 2600. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was freaking disappointed on that freaking game, man. Now, do you know how many issues existed for Atari H? 12.

14:45 Close, 11. Yep. 11. I know there wasn't that many. I know there wasn't that many because we got the letter saying, hey, this is our final issue. And I was like, what? Well, I was upset because I paid for an entire year and I didn't get 12 issues. Oh, yeah. What do you do in that situation back then? You probably can't do anything, huh? Well, you're going to sue Atari? They already went bankrupt, man. What are you going to do? That's right. So with Atari age, you know, it's one of those – they didn't really – to me, they didn't do a lot for the gaming magazine world. but they did do a lot in the sense that it was like that packet, right? Like the solo magazine for your game system that you loved, right?

15:26 Now the first one, if people don't know this, it isn't actually Atari. It was actually a Japanese one called Family Computer Magazine. Ooh. That was technically in 1985, but this was actually a full-blown magazine. Not like Atari, where it was like... Because Atari wasn't like that many pages, right? Where a full computer magazine is a full... Magazine and that was beginning 1995 and it was solely focused on i'm sure you know nintendo family the famicom yeah yeah and now do you do you have that i are not, no in fact i don't have i don't have i think i might have one nintendo power issue but i was i wasn't a nintendo kid growing up i was i was definitely atari and then after that i got real huge in the Sega, but I never really did the Nintendo magazines.

16:20 And then later on, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but just real quick. Later on, when Nintendo Power came out, I used to read their reviews and they were just way too biased, man. And I get it. You're trying to push your product, but this is not Nintendo. Sega's was like that. Atari's was like that, too. They're rating the stuff like super high. And then you get the game. You're like, God, this game. No way. like they'd rated you know eight out of ten and i was like dude i'll give that game maybe a five you know it was just like it was just a bunch of fanboys and yeah just uh just really biased and i'm glad later on that the uh multi-platform magazines came out and kind of shot you straight for a little while but you could tell even later on they got biased oh for sure and we'll touch in more about nintendo power because i would love to say about some power as well so i just want to talk about more of the early days first because i feel like how many people are talking about this subject and how many people are talking like when i'm sure most podcasts do not reference you know atari age or maybe atari age but definitely not family computer magazine.

17:26 After that after that time era we go early on you said that there was another magazine that you were into was it was it the eight it was it i'm trying to say this wrong remember that company asc2 yeah ascii yeah i call it ascii yeah okay they had a magazine called login do you know about that one or no no never never knew about that one no okay we don't have to get into that one too much because that's just all the ascii products which i don't not really too familiar what about their products are do you know what their products are or could you speak confidently about that or not well ask yeah i know ascii more was at the time that i knew them they made more like peripherals for games. Gotcha. So there was more like, you know, controllers, fight sticks later on.

18:11 You know, different kind of little one-off add-ons for consoles, but I never knew them for a magazine at all. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, well, let's keep going. We're in the mid-'80s now. What's something that stands out to you magazine-wise? For the mid-'80s, I mean, I got to say EGM was huge. Was that the—huh? EGM was the 80s? Yeah, I want to say—well, I don't want to say mid-'80s. I think it was probably the late 80s. So if mid 80s for me was was probably Sega's magazine, Sega, Sega Visions. All right. Definitely down to now and then, because I know you got a lot to say about that. Yeah, I got a lot of Sega Visions.

18:53 I really love there because, again, the master system at the time wasn't, you know, very popular at all. So when you saw something that reviewed something that that you had that you liked, it was like something to grab onto. To you know what i mean so i was like oh my god it's got afterburner on the cover you know i still have mine afterburner shinobi was on the cover there's one like you know and you can order stuff you can order like posters so i still have my posters of like afterburner and space harrier and all that stuff on there and it was like really cool that there was a magazine dedicated to. A console and the games that i like the games that i played in the arcades the games that i have at home that weren't as popular because everybody at that time you know it had was on nes man everybody had nes and and you know everything was all mario and and luigi and yoshi and princess and peach and all that and i was yeah i was more you know of you know alex kid a miracle world and and and psycho fox and wonder boy monster land all that kind of stuff so to find a magazine that covered that and again they were biased as well don't get me wrong but it was just really cool to have that and read about it and they had a buyer's guide in there and And that's where I got some of my games, too.

20:07 Because, again, you couldn't just go into a store and say, hey, where's your, you know, Master System collection? They would look at you like you're freaking nuts. Yeah. For sure. Really fond memories of that one, man. And I remember marking off, because they would have the games list, like, hey, released. And they had all the game releases that were out. It was maybe 28 games. And I would check them off and I would put, you know, mastered. I remember I used to go, when I finished a game, I would call it that I mastered it. And so I would check them off and I would literally go down the line and like, hey, what game is next and save up my money to go get that game. But yeah, really fond memories of Sega Visions, man. So I just want to make sure we always are 100% on this show.

20:50 And so we were actually wrong about the year it came out. Sega Visions came out in 1990. No way. It came out in 1990 and then EGM came out in 1988. 88 yeah so late 80s so i was pretty close on that one yeah for sure but i just wanted to make sure it was like oh well that's the 90s i didn't realize that came out so so wait so here's some you know what now i think about it yeah you're right because now i think about it, there was a magazine that sega did but it was probably more of a buyer's guide but it was kind of a magazine and it was before big visions dude i can't remember what it was called and i know i have a couple of copies of that okay okay but you can find that let me know or post it and we'll tag it in there yeah i'll figure it out but here's a little some fun facts about this really quickly when do you think it the final issue came out what year for what for segavisions.

21:47 95 perfect yep 95 total 25 issues and it finished in september 1995 Do you know who took over the magazine in 1992? I don't. So originally it was a Sega brand thing, then it was published by the Commune group, but then it was taken over by the International Data Group, who also published GamePro. Oh, wow. And can you name, a little trivia here, can you name the comic book character that was a part of Sega Visions? Oh, yeah. I'll just give you a hint real quick Cause it wasn't It wasn't Sonic No, so here's the hint, okay He was a teenage boy Miles Close, very close, very close, change the letter.

22:40 Niles niles that's right yeah i was close though i knew it yeah yeah yeah niles his name was niles nemo yes nemo yes you're right yep i remember that man i was close i was close yeah i give you that and he was a boy who wore glasses sunglasses and he loved people and everything sega so he was a quintessential 90s 90s kid at that point yeah i remember that dude i i have that yeah so i was close i remember that was miles but yeah you're right it is now yep awesome and one last little trivia for you because i think this is kind of fun do you remember what was on the cover of the first issue sigavisions yes sir for sure i want to say shinobi was number two well technically Secondly, you'd be right. It's also in number one. It's multiple characters.

23:36 Okay, so Shinobi, Afterburner, Outrun. Oh, no, no. No. Wow. Surprisingly, from what I see, it's not really Sega exclusives. I mean, I guess, well, it might have been. I might be misremembering, but I guess. Which one? Space Harrier? Nope. Strider? Nope. Oh, Mickey Mouse. Nope. I'm going to tell you. Do you remember? So Shinobi's right. That one is right. The next one, I'm going to go in order in which I see it. You're going up or to the left. It's basically like a... So let me explain the cover to people. It's a silver cover. So it's Sega Vision in the Sega font. In the center of the cover, you're going to see a brick wall and like a magazine breaking open.

24:20 It's very 90s. It's like a graffiti. I have that. Thank you. Golden Axe. Golden Axe is in there too. Yes. I remember that, dude. Joe Montana football. Yep. There you go. It's coming back to you. I have this one, yes I have this It's very 90's, very Street Fighter-esque Was it Eternal Champions on there too? I believe so I believe that's the one I can't make out Yep I have that one You still got three more Oh shit. Come on big dog, I know you got this Oh my god This is hard A Phantasy Star? No, not Phantasy Star Shining Force 3. So actually, I think that's what that is instead of... Oh, wait, hold on. King Chameleon. Nope. No!

25:09 The other three, I'll give you hints, are other IPs. They're other licenses. Wonder Boy? Rampage. No. All right. I can't sit here and have you guessing, so I'm just going to give you one more. Rambo! I give up. The other three that you're missing, I won't go with from left to right from how I see it. Left is going to be Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. Of course. Number two is going to be, it doesn't specify which one, but it's the Ghostbusters emblem. So I think just the, I don't know what it says came out in 1990, but that would have been the Master System one, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Master System was the 90, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Which, by the way, is garbage. I did not like that game at all.

25:53 Whoa. Oh, coming from Ghostbuster209. Don't say that, dude. Come on. Hey, if everybody wants to know, Uncle Dad's email used to be Ghostbuster209. Okay, thank you. At least you didn't say the ad. Thank you. No, I'm not going to do that. Because I know you still use it. Yeah, I still use it. That's how I'm being mic-taught. You've seen your resume then. Exactly. So the last one, and actually, I bet you if you have this issue, it's probably worth even more because of this particular character, because I'm pretty sure I know the art. It's Spider-Man. Yeah. I have this issue.

26:35 Because it's got the silver grid, right? It has like a grid in the back. Yep. Yeah, I have that one. Awesome, dude. I love it. Yeah, so that's Sega Visions. And let's just do a quick little look. How much do you think that's selling for on eBay right now? $100. Really? I think it'd be more. I haven't looked yet. So, oh, I guess we're both wrong. It's averaging about 50 bucks. Yeah. Nah, it shouldn't be that much. But yeah, going back to Spider-Man. So the Spider-Man, and we talked about this in another episode too, if you play the original version of Revenge of Shinobi, because they made, I think, three or four different variations of it. But the original version of Revenge of Shinobi has a bunch of characters that they had to change because of the lawsuits.

27:18 Suits so they actually have the terminator in that game they have rambo in that game they have spider-man they have batman and they have godzilla whoa i just replayed it i just replayed it a couple days ago no joke because i was just going through my games i was like yeah i kind of kind of i'm ready for like a new shinobi game hopefully you know i'm getting excited about the new one that's coming out uh eventually and i popped in revenge shinobi and i have the original one and And I was telling my girlfriend, I was like, hey, come check this out. I'm fighting Spider-Man. And she's like, what the hell? And I was like, yeah. And there's no trademark or anything in the very first cartridge. They didn't put that in until the second variation.

28:00 And then by the third variation, they had to change Batman to a gargoyle. They changed Godzilla to, they just changed his look a little bit. And they changed Spider-Man to... God, I forgot exactly what he was. He kind of morphed a little bit. It was completely different colors. It was a trip. And then Rambo, when you're playing the game, he's not a boss, but he's in the middle of the game. But they took away the red bandana, changed the color of his skin, so he's a lot more brighter. I think they gave him a flat top. They gave him hair. And then. Was although in terminator they got rid of his like red eye that you can tell but when you're starting to starting to kill him he's starting to get beat up or whatever he and his his flesh comes off and he turns into a robot they kind of changed him up a little bit not as much as the rest but but yeah the original one had all those characters in it man it's a trip that's funny man all right so since we're in that same era that's we gotta talk about the the heavy hitter electric gaming monthly when that was probably one of the magazines right that was like i've been reading that too like i mean it lasted for so long and believe it or not it's technically still running but only as an online only thing now uh and it was re-read in 2019 so it's not the same but but it's still around now you know i'll dive into my thoughts but please you know you were there probably from the beginning so what does that game magazine mean to you i mean it must have been something big right yeah it was something big because they were the first magazine that i know of that really delved into

29:35 categories so they had your platformers you know that platformer section. They had they talked about the shmups and they and they went they were the first ones to kind of like talk about import games like overseas games like this is what's hot in japan right now, wait for our audience can you tell them what a shmup says because they want to know what that is shmups it's a shoot them up so uh arcade shoot them up stuff like like raiden i'm not to talk about the mortal combat rating like the raiden shooting games ray force uh light lightning force darius darius guidance you know stuff like that so just like like a like a space shooter usually vertical shooters were the were the big ones our type our type is a shoot them up and it doesn't always have to be like a like a space vessel shooting and there's other shoot -em-ups, you know, that used.

30:28 Characters, like stuff like Commando or Heavy Barrel. Those can be considered a shoot-em-up, too. But you're essentially just shooting bullets, and then later on came the bullet hell that we all know of, like Gunbird and all that stuff. But. Yeah, so they had shoot-em-ups, but I was really interested in the import scene, man, and what was big in Japan, because that catered more to me and to my likes, because I was a big arcade rat. So that stuff coming out, yeah, EGM was one of the only and very few that covered that stuff for a while, because everything else was, oh, this is released in the States, this is released in the States. And I just remember that whole section, man, of the import scene and the arcade scene. They cover arcade stuff too.

31:13 So I was really interested in that and coming soon. And I think they were the first magazine to actually publish the codes, like the cheat section. And I forgot what they called it. Yeah, I have it right here. Give me a second. While you think about it, I remember I had it right here. I don't want to call it the code zone or something like that, but it was something like that where they had all the codes that you could put in these games to cheat. I think it was the first time they printed the actual official Konami code. I think it was in that magazine. Oh, really? I think so. Yeah, that I did not know. So let's do some facts here for you. So what do you think the first issue, who the cover was? What was on the cover, you think? The BGM?

31:55 BGM 1. Mega Man? Mega Man 2, yeah. Yep, I have that one. Now that issue goes for a lot more money. It sells for about $300. Oh, well, I'll sell it to you right now for $400. Because I totally care. But with EGM, before social media was social media, I don't know if you felt this way, but I felt like the editors, I guess you call them, or the writers, they were almost mini influencers before that was a thing. Absolutely. Some of those guys were gods. And you would you would I would follow certain ones because they had the same taste that I did.

32:38 So at the end of the at the end of the magazine, they would have the reviews of what they thought, you know, in their top 10 or whatever for the for the week for the. Well, they said the top 10 for the month, but they would have reviews like there. You know, they would each cover a game. And I remember just finding the one that I kind of connected with. And I will always read the reviews, man. Yeah for sure i mean for me a lot of people i remember during my era of reading that magazine which would have been like the late 90s early 2000s would have been everybody talked about sean baby you know i'm sure you remember sean baby right yeah i remember sean baby mine mine was. Oh, man, I can't remember. I can't remember my guy. Shit.

33:19 I can't remember his name, dude. If you said it, it would come to me. But let me think about it for a while. It will definitely come to me in a little bit. But, yeah, I love that magazine, man, for a while. Yeah, and another thing that they did kind of first before other magazines did, and we'll talk about that magazine later, is they also did an April Fool's variant of the series. and the biggest one that they were known for was for Street Fighter 2, The World Warrior. I know. Yeah. I know Shang Long, dude. Dude, before the internet? I mean, come on. That Shang Long was legendary, man, because we would go to arcades like, oh, I know how to unlock Shang Long. And I was like, that's bullshit.

34:05 But didn't they bring Shang Long in the latest Street Fighter? Oh, I have no idea. I have no idea. I think they actually made him. That's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. So let's talk about Game of the Year. These magazines also were very big in that too, right? We were always excited to know what the Game of the Year was, right? And the first year that it was published was 1988. What do you think they picked as the Game of the Year of 1988? Ooh, it's got to be something Nintendo. What came out in 88? I mean you were there Was it a Final Fantasy game? No When did Chrono Cross come out? That didn't come out until later That was nice, God, man. 1988. I'll give you a hint. It's a beat-em-up. Oh.

34:56 It's gotta be Final Fight. You think so? Final Fight. Because I don't think Streets of Rage was out at the time. Okay. You're wrong. Don't tell me bad dudes. I wish. Don't tell me bad dudes. It wasn't Vigilante, was it? Or Renegade? was it renegade nope it was, arguably a classic in its own right double dragon okay yeah I'd go with that hell yeah, let's just kind of I'm not going to run through them all because there's too many I'm going to pick a random year that's 95 what do you think the game of the year was um 95, and for those at home feel free to play along think about it what do you think it is um 90 Mortal Kombat 2.

35:47 No. Are you ready? It is. Twisted Metal. Twisted Metal came out in... I guess I did. Yeah, because PlayStation 1. Yep. Let's go down to the new millennia. The year 2000. What do you think the year 2000 was? That was the biggest game in 2000. I realized this game in 2000. I feel it had an awesome soundtrack. It did. You're right. Philly was sports your club very close and i feel it was made by a team called never soft, did you look that up or did you know that no i know this one i know this one that was tony hop two tony hop prosciutto two but you know what though i don't know if i agree with that but also i understand the impact that game had right like that game that game was everywhere every anybody who played games played that damn game yeah it didn't matter if you were a sports guy it didn't matter if you were a skateboarding guy if you just wanted to play a game that you could socially connect with somebody with dude that was the game that was the madden madden yeah uh tony pro skater 2 for sure blew up and i agree with you i i don't know i don't know the games that came out in 2000 off the top of my head yeah i'm sure there's Halo was a one.

37:20 So, yeah. But I think Tony Hawk 1 was the game changer, man. Oh, of course. But I think 2 had the... Yeah, exactly. They killed it, right? Like, they added everything you needed for that game to be great. Yep. All right. So let's go down 10 more years. 2010. EDM's Game of the Year for 2010. What do you think? 2010. And 2010, that wasn't ground to the ground. In fact, for those who have been listening to this show, at this point, you and I are working together at a gaming retail store. So I was with you when we did a midnight launch for this game.

38:02 Well, we did a bunch of them. Sure, yeah. Can you give me the genre? Say, if I say, I'll say OpenWorld. That's the best way I can do it. I'll say Corent. It wasn't Corent because Corent came out, I think, in 07-08. And I'll tell you this, you're near the ballpark. Red Dead Redemption. There it is, yep, Red Dead Redemption. And I remember, I remember that with working that with you, and I remember giving that game, not giving it away, but selling it. And I'll never forget that it came in this really cool little velvety red slipcase, and now I'm sure some people still have it. I'm sure you have it, but so many people do not have that slipcase.

38:43 Because remember, it came out as a special edition. You know what I still have for my Red Dead Redemption? I do have the slipcase. You know what I still got for Red Dead Redemption? The first one? What's that? I still have the dominoes. Oh, I remember that. I remember that. Wow. It came in a little wooden box. Yeah, I do remember that. I still have that. But I don't think that was a pre-order bonus, right? That was just if you worked there, right? Yeah, you're right. Right. It was a retail, what do they call it, retail sales pack, like marketing, whatever. Yeah, but I still have those, dude. They're red. Awesome. That's super cool. And of course, at that point, the magazine was starting to fade off. It got shut down in 2014, but there was a weird reboot of it online.

39:26 Now it's still running. So 2022, on the online version of EGM, what do you think is game of the year? 2022 so this is only a couple years back what got the biggest hype god man it's not I still remember how big this hype this game was, I want to say Ghost of Tsushima but it wasn't Ghost of Tsushima was before that it wasn't The Last of Us 2 that was before that I'm going to go with, dude everybody's on the thumb software kick so I'm going to go with Elden Ring there it is baby No way, dude. No way. Yeah, Elden Ring, yep.

40:08 Yeah, Elden Ring was 2022 EGM Game of the Year. Now, I'm sorry, everybody, if we went too much into that, but there's just so much that EGM offered because it was one of the most popular, most long-running magazines out there, and I know you agree with that. Yes, and they had EGM 2. They did have EGM 2, that's right. Yeah, one of their magazines had a secret. Yeah, yeah, one of their magazines, exactly. EGM 2, I was like, what the hell is this? And I remember who the artist Shu Han Shu or whatever was like the artist Dan Shu Dan Shu there you go Dan Shu was like the artist yeah yeah I remember that he was dope and here's a. Fact no it wasn't the egm it was game pro we'll wait till we talk about game pro okay well that's going to be next because when i think about we kind of left the 80s right we're going down the 90s we'll get to nintendo power but i remember game pro also being like a huge one for me like i'm sure you agree too like i there was three magazines in my opinion in the mid 90s to 2000s that were the one for me at least it was egm game pro and nintendo power yeah but but i wouldn't count a ton of power because it was just exclusive for it so if one that did all gaming then i would say game performer and i think we can't you know we have to talk about those four i think you know clearly you and i have more talk about magazines than we realized so i don't want to spend too much time on everything but let's talk about game pro first game pro what was your memory of it and And do you think how much different to you was it?

41:37 How different from EGM was it to you? It was more visual. I remember getting my first game pro because I got it free, man. I want to say it was packed in with my, I want to say it was my, was it my Sega Saturn or my Nintendo 64? I forgot what it was, but I got a free, I got a free issue of it. And after that, I just started, you know, going and buying. At that time, Barnes & Noble, I think I was working at the mall at that time, and they had, I forgot, the Walden Books, I think it was, and they had the GamePro magazine. So I would check them out. And I thought they had really good illustrations and stuff. I thought that the writing at EGM was deeper and more sophisticated by far. But I liked GamePro.

42:24 It was an easy read. I agree. Yeah, and I think it celebrated the games more. Whereas I think EGM kind of, they did the details more, but GamePro was more about all the fun of it, you know? And they just made it fun. And I liked it. I liked EGM. I want to say... And I want to say EGM because I remember some friends that told me they're from the Bay Area. And they're telling me the GamePro headquarters was up there. I want to say they were in Oakland, California. So I live in Northern California. So I remember it was like Oakland.

43:05 And then GamePro just blew up. But I remember fondly of that magazine. And I have a lot of issues of that one. I do have their first one because I remember it was a bunch of generic art, but you knew who the characters were. You knew who the games were, yeah. Exactly. So really quickly, I'm glad you brought up where they're from. As those who listen to Uncle Dad Talks, they know that me and Mike are based in North Carolina. Not Northern California as well. He's out in Sacramento and I'm in the Bay Area. and funny enough you you are technically right but you're technically wrong at the same time so they went to exactly yeah so they went to three bay area cities they started in redwood city from 1989 to 1991 then they went to san mateo from 1991 to 1998 and then go from 98 to 2002 and then very much to the end of their their lifespan which i don't have it or it was in Oakland, yeah. Yeah, it was 4-6.

44:06 It was Oakland, yeah. Hey, keep her rent, man. Especially at that time, I'm sure. So, yeah, let's talk about GamePro. So, GamePro, you brought up the cover. You're right. It looks like the cover. It looks like maybe like a Joe Montana. It has a star on the football player, so maybe it's like a generic Dallas Cowboy. But the colors, to me, look more Oilers. Remember the Oilers? Oh, yeah, dude. I got hella Oilers. I love the OG Oilers. I'm not a Houston fan, or they're a fan of all, more of a Moon fan for sure. Yeah. Love the oilers colors dude i think they had some of the some of the the best uniforms man they're white with a with a baby blue and the little red pinstripe you know outline on them dude those were dope i have hella oiler hats man but i remember i remember it having like a generic like golden axe dude on it say that yeah i mean he's like a little like like golden axe but like what do you call it like a barbarian like a generic barbarian yeah yeah but you could tell No, it was basically a Golden Axe character, I think. Yeah.

45:11 Because he definitely wasn't Arthur. You know, he wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He looked like a Tom Selleck. Yeah, so he looks like the guy you're talking about looks like Tom Selleck was hired to play the lead character in a contra movie. I got to look up this cover. Hold on, dude. Hold on real quick. I need to look at this cover. Oh, dude. That's freaking Snake Plissken, bro. I'm selling mustache right yeah oh for sure dude hell yeah oh that's funny uh so yeah let's talk more about game pro so game pro you know kind of went they started in 1989 they lost that when do you think the final issue came out god quickly though they didn't last as long as egm because EGM technically still runs.

46:01 Game Pro's not even digital? No. Oh, man. And they started 89? Was 95 uh no come on okay uh 2005 uh last issue came out winter 2011 uh magazine and the website was defunct 2011 oh man yeah it was known for its pro tips which i remember a lot yeah uh which was you know how to how to do certain things right they also had secret codes just like they called it the code vault wow so when i talked about egm i said i don't know if it was code corner or some of that code vault that's what i'm thinking about yes and then they would sell that in a separate issue game pro presents code vault yeah do you remember that yep cheat the cheat magazine yeah, yep yep and then you know with with them they kind of like you know same thing as egm they have their whole little like sections and whatever but i'm looking for if we have any game of the year nominations on here no they don't but they also made from 2003 to 2007 2007 game pro international and it went into australia australia there was an australian game pro and uh that ran for 2003 2007 so there you go and let's see game pro mate they all what did you say i said game pro mate oh they should just call it game mate, you know how to make a really good uh australian accent how just say razor blades.

47:28 Razor blades razor blades that's funny, and GamePro also did what EGM kind of started was the April Fool's Day issues or satirical parts and they call theirs Lame Bro and their rating scale was only to 5 right it was only to 5 it was only like 5 little heads do you remember that? Yeah but I definitely remember Lame Pro because wasn't on Lame Pro. I mean, so really quickly, audience doesn't know these, these satirical ones that we're talking about are basically a two to five page little excerpt inside the magazine.

48:11 That's like a second magazine in the magazine, but it's all jokes, right? It's all like a, almost like a mad magazine of gaming inside your magazine. Yeah. I, were they, were they the one that, that released president evil? I don't remember. I think it was them. I think it was them that, that president. And I remember because I was I was kind of in the industry at the time lightly. But I remember people asking me about like some of these games. I'm like, dude, that don't exist. That's a joke, bro. Like it's an April Fool's. No, man, look right here. I'm like, that's a that's a joke. It's April Fool's joke, man. Like these games don't exist, man.

48:52 And I remember President Evil and it had and it had freaking it was a it was a it was a morbid picture of Abraham Lincoln. And I don't know if that was GamePro, but I kind of think it was. I'm trying to find it online. I can't seem to find anything. But hey, anybody listening, if you guys have that issue and you have that excerpt, please send that to me on Instagram at UncleDadTalks or at RetroGamingNomad. We would love to see that, right? Yeah, man. I remember when GamePro, that was hella funny. That's funny. All right, so let's keep it going after GamePro. We got to talk about, because we already did EGM, right? We did GamePro.

49:33 We did, what did we do? We did Sega Visions. We did Atari Age. We did the first one I talked about. So now let's just dive into the one that I think you and I have a very strong tie to, Game Informer. Yeah, but before we go to Game Informer, I got to give props to a couple of magazines that I absolutely love. Let's do it prior to prior to game informant i think and this was and this was right before the 32-bit era hit this is like they they actually reviewed i i still have my issue where they actually reviewed the original playstation which was an add-on to the super nintendo it was the it was the cd to the super nintendo they were the first one to talk about it was called next generation next generation magazine was the first one to really have in-depth coverage of the The upcoming Super Nintendo PlayStation, which, again, was a CD add-on. It wasn't its own console at the time.

50:30 And Sega Saturn. They covered Neo Geo stuff on there, which almost got no coverage at the time because nobody could afford a Neo Geo AES. And I believe they were the first ones to talk about the Atari Jaguar. Oh, wow. But, yeah, so I got to give props to Next Generation Magazine. Magazine and prior to game informer and i still think it was the best magazine i've ever read they had the best illustrations the best layout they would have they would have art in there, that you can tell they made for you to cut it out and frame it and i have some of those in my game room to this day because the art was so amazing was game fan game fan i vaguely remember that let Let me look that up while you talk about it.

51:19 Game fan was an incredible man. Yes. Wow. I vaguely remember that. But yes, I remember seeing, I'm looking at Donkey Kong issue right now. Wow. Yeah. They're okay. Their art and their coverage on, on these games, next gen import, import, european stuff the different variations of the consoles they were the first they were the first ones to really inform me about the different peripherals that were released in places like japan and europe and brazil that were never that never came stateside and i was like oh my god i want to i want to get that like that's the first time i read about the nintendo satellite for the NES, and then they were the first ones to really cover the.

52:05 Nintendo 64 disk drive, which actually has a version of Animal Crossing on it, which a lot of people don't know, which later was released, of course, for the GameCube. But, dude, game fan. If I still have all my copies of game fan, I will never give those up. And like I said, I got a lot of their art on my wall in my game room, my arcade. If you guys can look at some of those illustrations, man, if you ever get your hands on one of those just look at how how pristine that layout was their their their car stop like their the the pages were thicker than any other magazine i mean this magazine was heavy dude and you could just tell the quality and you could tell the the you could almost feel the the passion in this in this magazine man it was it was incredible and i was really really sad when they killed it, I think they relaunched it like an Oh nine or Oh 10 for a little bit.

53:04 I don't know if it's still available digital, but those mags, man, they, they hold the real close to my heart to this day, man. Game fans. So according to their Wikipedia page, they officially just stopped in 2000 and that was it, man. Yeah. They stopped in 2000, but whenever we talk about something, we always want to be honest here. And they, Did you know there was some controversy, like some racial controversy? No. What happened? There was an issue in September 1995 of Game Fan where they printed several derogatory comments about Japanese people. Racially derogatory. I'm not going to say what the term was, but basically specific derogatory terms because of Ace Combat. What?

53:51 The text took place on one of the paragraphs of one of the sports games names, or views. The article discussed a Namco combat flight simulator called Ace Combat. So in that... Ace Combat was actually called Air Combat. So was it Air Combat or Ace Combat? It was Ace Combat. Oh, okay. But regardless, they called Japanese people, again, I'm not going to say it, but derogatory, racially charged insults. Well, you're not saying it. Just say what it says. Well, I'm not going to say that on there. Dude, I've learned my lesson about that. But if you want to find out, go to their wiki page. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah.

54:31 So little blank bastards. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, you still didn't say it. So there you go. So fuck off. Well, you won't. I'll say it. Oh, no, no. Anyways, yes. Okay. Well, yes. So I wonder, because I feel like there's a market for that. I bet you that issue has more value than most issues, because that probably got pulled pretty quickly, right? Yeah, it probably did. I know I have it, because I have every issue of GameFan, so I know I have it somewhere, so I'm going to have to look that one up. But I also give them props, because, you know, of course, me being a Sega fan, they released Megafan in Japan.

55:12 It covered the Mega Drive which is the Sega Genesis here in the States and I that was the first time I found out about importing. Magazines and able to import video games at the time again a lot of them were mail order but if it wasn't for their information that they had in their magazines I would have never known love love of game fan and you know too bad on the editors for letting that pass because yeah that's ridiculous you sure yeah there's no need for that in any any you know situation but especially if you're if you're printing it like that and you know you you obviously cover in video games and majority of the video games at that time were yeah created and and and developed by you know japanese developers geniuses you know still in their own right right now but to to make that comment right that's ridiculous dude that that kind of puts a dagger in my heart man because i love game fans so much now it's they just dropped they dropped a little bit on the uh on the pedestal yeah for sure yeah so you know really quickly and also i just wanted to point us out ace combat we don't have to dive into the new world but ace combat's fucking amazing by the way.

56:30 Yeah, man. So Ace Combat, again, the first one was actually called Air Combat. PlayStation 1 blew my mind because I never thought 3D graphics could get that good at that time, that detail. Oh, yeah. And then when Ace Combat 2 came out, I was fully involved. Like, from that point on, every single Ace Combat game that came out, I got the flight stick. Pack in with it so i have i have probably eight six to eight different flight sticks but every single one after that the one that pissed me off though talking about ace combat, they brought ace combat 3 electrosphere to the states and they completely chopped that one up what was it called it's called electrosphere ace combat 3 electrosphere Oh, who was the guy?

57:17 Well, they chopped it up, man. So in Japan, it was a completely different game. It had, you know, you're able to get the flight ticket and all that stuff. But I believe it came with two discs. But yeah, there was a bunch of missions missing from that one. And they took out the system link, I believe, that was available in the Japanese one. So in the original PlayStation model, there was a little port in the back that you can link up the system to another one. And you were able to dogfight, like one-on-one dogfight. I don't think there was a co-op. I can't remember. But you're able to, yeah, dogfight on that one. I believe in the American one, they dropped that, which really, really pissed me off.

57:59 So I end up chipping my, you know, at this time I'm already involved in importing Japanese games. And a lot of Namco stuff, almost all of their stuff is in English. So a lot of people are like, oh, no, it's all in Japanese. No, the text might be a little bit in Japanese, but all the menus and all that stuff. Is in english a lot of the language is in english so it's absolutely playable and yeah i remember importing that one man and just like being blown away and then eventually when ace combat 4 came out game over still one of the best one of the best all time to this day i don't want to call it a sim because it's not really a sim but just flight fighter fighter pilot game dude still to to this day, man. Incredible.

58:46 It's the closest thing to a legitimate awesome Top Gun game. Oh, man, dude. That game is so good. To this day. You can pop it in your PS2. It still hits, man. It's so good. So good, man. I completely agree with you on that one, for sure. Alright, let's keep it going. I want to end with two magazines here. Do you want to do Game Informer first or Nintendo Power first? We'll do Game Informer real quick. We all know about it, so let's start with that one. Realistically game informer was is very much you know i don't want to sound like a dick but very much a copy of everything else right yeah yeah you know they started later they started in 1991 egm had already been out game pro had already been out right it was made by gamers and you know that's great but you know ultimately for those who don't know funcoland was the one who started publishing it in-house and then funcoland was bought by gamestop and then basically if you If you have been to a GameStop in the past, what?

59:43 How many years, Lou? Sorry, how many years, Nomad? Somewhere else? 25? Yeah, 25 years, maybe? I don't know. If you've been to a GameStop for the past 25 years, you've had somebody by the counter say, Hey, do you want to join our membership so you can get our magazine? Yeah. And without that, to me, that magazine would not be as big as it is. Oh, for sure. As it was. Because I think it's still running, right? Yeah. It's all digital now. If you have a subscription, if you got GameStop's rewards program, it's now sent to you digital. You can still get the physical ones, but it's a separate charge now. But they do. Yeah. Yeah, they still do a physical like if you go into your local GameStop, I'm pretty sure you can still buy like older issues.

1:00:30 So, yeah, it's still print. But if you're subscribed to it now, it's all digital. You can again, you can get the physical one, but it's a separate charge that you have to give Game Informer directly and they will send you the physical copies. Yeah. So it's still print. OK, it's just a little bit harder to get. Not as easily accessible. So, you know, again, they really did have much the same features as every other magazine at that time. But, you know, for somebody who's been a big part of that, and, you know, just like I was, that was a part of those 10 years of my life I was part of. So before I say mine, I'm curious about yours. You must have some sort of fun memories with that magazine. believe it or not not really.

1:01:10 Okay yeah not really I have a lot of them and they're cool I think the writing's fairly generic I do like their. Demon farcer section which is hilarious and maybe president evil came on that one I don't know, I'm still thinking about president evil I thought that was hilarious but my fondest memory is in Game Enforcer and they were reviewing, and this is my thoughts exactly, they were reviewing a Dynasty Warriors controller. Controller? Yeah. Keep in mind, this is Game Enforcer.

1:01:52 Okay. So they're like, new controller coming out, designed specifically for Dynasty Warriors. And I think you know my thoughts on Dynasty Warriors. Thank you. And the okay and the controller had had the d-pad or analog stick whatever you want and it had two buttons and they were labeled sword and the other one was not sword and i thought that was so fucking hilarious because that game is such a button masher dude and it sounds like crazy like people it's like and there's so many different variations like they'll do dynasty warriors and Dynasty Warriors Dash, Dynasty Warriors 2, Dynasty Warriors 2 Extreme, and then Warriors Orochi.

1:02:40 It's the same game, dude. It's just a big butt-matching game. So when I saw that freaking controller, dude, I lost it. That's my fondest memory of Game Informer is freaking Game Enforcer, dude. But I think the magazine's cool. Don't get me wrong. I think it's cool. But they are way, way too Nintendo biased on there. You look at their top 100 games, you could probably throw 80 in the Nintendo direction, and the top 20 are probably 19 of them are Zeldas. You know what I mean? It's like, come on, dude. I mean, I like The Legend of Zelda, I like their games and all that stuff, but you can tell the generation that's making these games, like, dude, did you play anything else?

1:03:26 There's no way your top 10 games are five zelda games and if they are you don't branch out enough you i just i don't know i just so i have a i have a story about this real fast so my memories are two of them and the first one i don't i didn't i remember bring it right away because you brought this up i'll never forget this this is something that because your passion and your your gumption about it was just so it was just it really reminded me how much you love gaming even though you didn't really game as much as you used to and you called me it was probably like at 9 or 10 p.m and it was this issue came out 2009 so that was a long time ago and you called me and you go did you read the game reformer 100th issue about the top 100 and i was like i haven't really got through it i think i like whatever and you were like okay i need you to grab it and i need you to look at it right now and i was like what what do you mean because look at look at number one and it was and i'm looking at the list right now it's here it was yeah they're the top 100 games of all time number one was legend of zelda and i remember you lost your shit about that it was it was which one it was n64 right legend of zelda ocarina so that nes one oh that's right.

1:04:48 But the conviction that you had in your voice you were like i can't believe they didn't put the you know but i don't know it's like when i say this too i don't mean to make it sound like you're saying a fanboy but you were like uh president orta or yeah with osagas that's something top 10 dude saga wasn't even on the top 100 and that's what okay he's like okay legend Zelda. Yeah, good game. It wasn't that great, dude. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to tell the fanboys, it wasn't that good of a game. Ms. Pac-Man is in the top 10. Which one? Ms. Pac-Man. I really like Ms. Pac-Man. I would not put it in the top 10. I think a lot of times they take it as not just the game itself, but its influence on the gaming culture. Okay.

1:05:36 I get it, but even on NES games, I wouldn't put that one number one, I would probably put Super Mario Brothers above Legend of Zelda. Okay, yeah. So, you know what? Let's just do this real fast. Here it is. Here it is. Game Informer's top 100 games. Not all 100, but the top 10 of that list. You're going to piss me off right now. Go ahead. I love it because this is what I remember. This is why this... Because it was so endearing. Because I think at that point, you and I were friends, but we were still... I don't think we were that close. And you just called me, and you just let it all out. And it was very sweet. So thank you for that. and so because i always looked up to you because you were such you were very into gaming i love that about you and that really reminded me that you were a gamer 100 first and foremost and i think sometimes you lose that when you work at a retail store you know what i mean oh you do you absolutely lose that but this moment that moment that happened reminded me like yeah this dude is a legitimate gamer uh so anyways here is the top 10 number 10 final final fantasy 7, overrated. That's a motherfucker right there, dude.

1:06:40 That game is overrated as shit. Go ahead. It's not a bad game, though. You can't say it's a bad game. No, it's not a bad game. It ain't top 10. Okay, okay. Number 9, Ms. Pac-Man. Nah, I wouldn't put that there. But go ahead. Number 8, Super Mario Bros. 3. That's a really good game. I'd put that one in the top 10 for sure. I would too. I don't know about 8, but definitely maybe 10 or 9. Yeah, I agree. Number 7. Final Fantasy 3. No. No. Number 6. I don't know if I agree with this number, but I do agree it should be in the top 10. Metroid. Yeah.

1:07:23 Metroid above zelda yeah i would too metroid is a much more established smarter game i think and and see a lot of people don't understand they know they know and we talked about this in other episodes they know now that samus is a female yes imagine playing that game the whole time, and yeah all the heroes at the time all the video game characters they were male they were they were they were they were boys or you know or or men that you controlled and you got to the end of that game and you realize that she was a female dude that was like mind-boggling dude that was crazy at the time it was unheard of, yeah and people don't understand people do not understand the importance of that because you know again like you said it was a very male dominated thing and then to have like a female and a character who arguably is one of the most badass in gaming right more about it I'll tell you this name me two name me two more female protagonists Lara Croft no during that era, Well, then I guess you're right. I don't think I know of any.

1:08:27 Legend of Kage? I mean, that's Miss Pac-Man? I didn't know that. Was that a girl? Legend of Kage? Yeah, she was a female. Miss Pac-Man? That's her, dude? Yeah. So could you imagine? Imagine also what that game did for women in game development. Could you imagine doing that? Like, yeah. So anyways, yes, I agree. Speaking of women developers, we got to give it up to, I forgot her name, she developed one of my, I put it on my Instagram, one of my all-time favorite games. And it's just shmup. And she's a female developer in an era where there was not any female representation at the time.

1:09:10 And it was a game called, for the Atari 2600 and later on for the 1500 and all that. But it was River Raid. oh yes yeah i saw that post yeah riverade and the developer was carol shaw and she was the only person that developed that game all by herself so carol shaw props to you female gamer og right there riverade but go ahead okay so number five now i'm gonna be honest with you you might not agree with this one but i absolutely agree with this being in top five because in my opinion this game moves motherfucking mountains it is by far one of the most influential of all time and it's still fucking timeless and that's, motherfucking Doom yeah.

1:09:57 Doom was Doom yeah for sure Doom was a game changer man even more because Wolfenstein was dope but Doom took it to a whole new level and then and then with the deathmatch and the whole BFG, and then, of course, Doom 2 took it to a whole other level, too. But yeah, I remember Doom... So, playing Doom... And, oh, I got to go back to Game Informer. Remind me about Game Pro later on. Okay. My friend Marvin, I remember we got Doom and installing it on his computer, and it came out floppy disk. And I think, like, five floppy disks, dude. And he had to, like, load each and every one. But once we got in there, that was the first time I ever did the keyboard and mouse combo with a first-person shooter. And it was just the control.

1:10:45 Amazing, dude. Amazing. and i couldn't wait to get my my hands on a copy of doom and it wasn't until i think i got it for the atari jaguar because i didn't have a pc but yeah doom for sure is up there jaguar the jaguar doom actually isn't that bad either it's not great it's it's pretty good the only thing that's missing is a lot of the music but you can you can if you have the jag cd you can kind of manipulate the music and by putting something in there there's a little trick but no doom on the on the jaguar was sick yeah i mean obviously you couldn't beat the pc version of the time right up until So up until now with the collections and whatever, you know, really, it was so hard to get like the PC version of it. Perfect. But yeah, I, that game, dude, doom, I can go on and on for it.

1:11:27 And maybe we should, maybe for Halloween this year, we should do a doom episode and talk about all the dooms. That'd be fun, man. Cause the doom means a lot to me. I know you dig it a lot and then, you know, there's a new doom coming. So yeah, I can't wait. but anyways all right number four this game it was interesting about this one is that i don't feel like it deserves to be in top 10 but i definitely deserve it feels to be top 25 and that is tony hawk's pro skater 2 yeah i i agree 100 very influential great game everybody played it massive but i'm just speaking for myself and probably for a lot of people overall top you said at top five? No.

1:12:11 No way. This next one, I think it'd be hard to argue with its prominence and its importance, and that is Tetris. Yes. Yes, because Tetris I think was the first game that. Generation played. It didn't matter if you were, you know, you just got your brand new Game Boy with a spinach green screen and you're playing it in 1989, or you downloaded it on your computer and you're playing it in detention like I did. Yeah. Or, you know, the illegal Sega Genesis version made by Tengen. Yeah. Yeah, dude, Tetris was everywhere.

1:12:53 It was everywhere. And for the developer, I forgot his name, I'll screw it up. The Russian guy to only get paid... It's Alexey Pachinov. Yes, Alexey. For Alexey to only get... God, what'd he get? Like 50 bucks or 100 bucks or something like that from Nintendo? It was Nintendo. I thought it was Russia that didn't give him the money. That's why. Yeah, well, yeah. But they wanted to pay him, and then Russia's like, no. There's a whole story behind that. But he didn't get paid anything for that game, dude. And it's worldwide known to be one of the greatest games and simplest games to ever be made. And it's still being made to this day.

1:13:33 You know, Tetris 99, Tetris Puyo Pop. It's still going, dude. And do you remember what his next game that he made was? No. It was Picross. That was his? Yeah, he made that too. Picross is cool, but it's not as good as Tetris. Tetris is legendary, man. I can't hate on Tetris. I'll definitely put Tetris in the top 10. Not top 5, though, huh? I don't know if I'd put it top 5, but definitely top 10. All right. Number 2, Super Mario Bros. Yeah. I can't deny it's greatness, man. People play it to this day.

1:14:14 I'll pop this in, you know, and people will come over, like, hey, you got Super Mario Bros.? I'll put in number 1, man, and they'll play that more than number 3. definitely more than number two which i mean honestly wasn't really a super mario game it was it was a palette swap or whatever but yeah you can still play that game to this day dude i played that game the arcades man i still think maybe disagree i think number three is better than that one in my opinion a lot of people do yeah a lot of people do but i think if you were to put them side by side everybody knows the original mario brothers you know it's like tetris you the original Tetris, because it's just so easy to pick up and play. It's simple, but it had its Easter eggs, it had little glitches to exploit, but that was part of it.

1:15:01 And everybody can play that one. So yeah, man. Number two? Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'll put that in top five for sure. And then, of course, number one, Legend of Zelda on the NES. Nope. Now we don't now let's link to the link to the past was a way better game dude i i fear i i i i understand it's it's influenced same thing like tetris and all that stuff i get it but that game wasn't that good dude i'm sorry man i i was there when it first came out i played it when it first came out and it was cool it was fun it was you know a little dungeon crawler if you you like but it didn't grab me man link to the past grabbed me when i played that one i was like oh this game to say i can play that i can play link to the past to this day do you play the original legends all to this day no and if you say if you say yes you're fucking lying here's the thing i absolutely agree with that because everybody talks about oh i love the old school legends that's fine i get you what you do and that's fine but so many people still do not not pick that game up they really don't or they'll play it and they stop after like two hours yep I don't know anybody actually sitting there and running through it because it wasn't as I, again, it's a great, it is a good game.

1:16:22 Like I'm not gonna argue that, but it's not a game changer. Like, I mean, I guess at a time maybe, but link to the past is just, I mean, dude, and then link to the past is phenomenal. And then when you get to orc area time, it even blows that out the water. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. I just, I know that is not number one, man. And, and again, going back to. The the kind of the kind of bias in there man i mean at the top 10 how many are like you know, nintendo games eight blonde yeah a lot of nintendo in here a lot of nintendo i mean we go through more of them but uh a lot of it all right let's do let's do this real quick what's 11 going back okay going back to game pro i gotta say one of my friends jesse very very talented artist he would draw these mini characters or we call like super deformed characters now but he did a little one with the more we're big mortal kombat fans when it came out in arcades that's all we played and we used to kill people until we got killed ourselves and then we got better but we used to win tournaments go to tournaments we actually got pseudo endorsed by midway kind of to play their arcade games and when mortal kombat 2 came out we were able to kind of test it before the final version but anyways he made he made a comic kind of illustration because you able to send your art in to game pro and sometimes they would you know put it in there artists of the month and he got it and it was for him oh well yeah it was for his mortal kombat character line and it was dope and like there were so many comments on it later on people you know in

1:17:54 the next issue you're able to comment on some of the art and some of the issues that they had with certain reviews and on the next magazine. Yeah, man, so props to Jesse on that one, man. He did it. He still has the original piece, and yeah, he did a fantastic job on this. I'll show it to you one day. It's really good. Number 11 from Game Reformers 2009, 100 top games of all time was Legend of Zelda Orca Arena of Time. Wow. Wow. Number 12? Number 12? And I would argue this game is better than Orca Arena of Time. Super Mario 64. Ooh, I don't know if I But yeah, yeah. Did it occur to you at the time? Yes. Yes, absolutely.

1:18:36 Number 13, Contra, the original one. Not my favorite Contra, but yeah, okay. I'm okay with that. Number 14, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. Nope. In my opinion, maybe you disagree. I don't think it really should be on top 100, in my opinion. Sorry. I'd give it top 100. I wouldn't give it. Really? Yeah. I'd give it top 100. Top 100. Close to like 80 yeah i don't know i i it's not a bad game but i played it not recently not that long ago and to be honest man it's i don't know it doesn't i understand the influence obviously and what it did all i get so with that but i cannot see myself playing that game for more than like five minutes yeah i don't know number 15 and this one gets me a little upset to think that it's behind mike tyson's punch out is chrono trigger yeah yeah because if you played chrono trigger and you're into rpgs i mean come on yeah i mean some would argue that chrono trigger is better than final fantasy you know what i mean 100 agree with that a thousand a thousand percent agree with that number 16 is golden eye 007 very influential influential game change the first change the first person genre and the control scheme for first person shooters and you had the split screen man the four player split screen game changer in my opinion kind of did what doom did you know what i mean like it changed the first person shooter yeah yep that i doom golden eye and halo for sure changed the first version yeah 100 and

1:20:09 golden eye got to give props to the the menu music man some of the best ever oh heck yeah heck yeah number 17 now even though i know you're gonna say some shit about this i want to make it very clear to you. I love this game. You know that I do. But I don't think it deserves to be... Well, I take it back. I do believe it deserves to be in the top 15. It definitely deserves to be after Mike Tyson's punch-out, and that is Metal Gear Solid. No, too late. Metal Gear Solid. That's number 17. Metal Gear Solid. What do you think? Which... The PlayStation, right? PlayStation version. Yeah, the original PS1 version, yeah.

1:20:50 I'd put that above a lot of those games on the top 20. We talked about, for those who haven't heard, if you go back to our, I think our last episode or the episode before that, you and I did a whole deep dive on Metal Gear Solid. Yeah. And we talked about the influence on that game. Metal Gear Solid 1, and again, we don't want to repeat that, but I'll just say for those who didn't hear that, go listen to it, because really, it changes. That game changes everything, man. Yep. Changes the presentation of the games. It was so creative. The way Kojima did the control scheme. Go back to our previous episodes. We did a complete deep dive in its influence and the way it changed the way games were presented and made and more movie-like.

1:21:35 That was the first movie-like game I've ever played. Number 18, Castlevania Sympathy of the Night I can't hate on that one, man That one deserves top 20, I think Again, it should be not next to fucking, not next to Mike Tyson's punch out or whatever, Number 19, Galaga Yeah I completely agree with that, because Galaga is one of my all-time favorite games Another game that you could turn on I can tell you Galaga I have game room. I have arcade games in my game room. Yep. I will turn them all on. And somebody always playing Galaga.

1:22:18 100%. It's like Pac-Man. Yes. Well, probably Pac-Man was cool when I gave it was the first one, but Ms. Pac-Man was way better. But yeah, Galaga. Absolutely. Dude, that deserve to be up there. This next one. I don't agree with it all, but whatever. I'm dumb. Is the NHL PA 93. Oh, NHL 93 was freaking awesome, dude. Yeah. Top 20. No, no, no, no, no, no. I put that bottom 50 or lower. I would say, yeah, bottom 50 or lower. But that was, yeah, that game, that was one of the best sports games ever made.

1:22:59 That game was so freaking good, dude. But top 20 now. All right. So now I'm not going to go through all of them because we'll be here all night. So I'm just going to hit some pinpoints here. So I'm a little, like, basically every five or ten. So number 25, Warlords. Atari 2600. Nope. Yeah, I don't... Even the arcade version's better. Nope. Number... Number 30. Number 30 is Super Mario Bros. 2. I'm sorry, dude. When you talk about the Super Mario games... Nobody is putting Super Mario Brothers 2 in their top three.

1:23:39 No, none. Not even top ten, I would argue. How is it? Come on. It's not even a Super Mario game. Like I said, it was a Palette Swap game for, I forgot what it was called. For a joke. Yeah, yeah. It's not even a Super Mario game. It's like they changed it for that game and then they went back to the original formula after that. It's not even a Super Mario game, dude. Dude, again, this list is so Nintendo-biased, dude. You can tell these people never had any other console. For those who want to see this list, I'm actually going to link it to the episode, because I think this is a big part of the episode now. This is going to piss me off, dude.

1:24:20 And then two above it, just two above it, number 32, which I would argue is a better game than Super Mario Bros. 2, is Mega Man 2 at number 32. Yeah, dude, Mega Man 2 is way, come on, Oh my god, dude. How is Mega Man 2 below fucking Super Mario Bros. 2? In what communist world are we living in right now? Remember, this was in 2009. They're wrong then, they're wrong now. Alright, let's keep going. Let's go number 40. Number 40. We'll do 40. Number 40 is Final Fantasy 2. Oh my god. Dude.

1:25:03 Is there any TurboGrafx game in there? Is Bomberman for TurboGrafx up there? Ninja Spirits? Is there any Sega game in there? Can we get a Shining Force 3? Can we get... Dragon Warrior? What did you say? Akari Warriors? Oh, Dragon Warrior. Yeah, there you go. Where's Dragon Warrior? Dragon Warrior is in the third. Hold on. I'm thinking of Dragon Force. No, Dragon Warrior is... Come on, man. Okay, let's keep going. Let's keep going. All right. Let's do number 45. Final Fantasy Tactics. I like tactics, dude.

1:25:43 I love tactics, too, but here's what's funny. From 45 to 40, right? You have 40 is Final Fantasy 2. 43 is Final Fantasy 9. 45 is Final Fantasy Tactics. Dude, come on. Okay, so here's the thing. Final Fantasy Tactics borrowed. We're talking about influence. One of the first strategic games ever brought to America was Military Madness and then best one as far as role-playing was Shining Force. Is Shining Force 1, 2, or 3 anywhere above that? Let me see.

1:26:26 I'm scrolling through here, buddy. Okay. Still don't see it. These motherfuckers never had a Sega console, man. And that's what's killing me, is they're rating the best video games of all time, but what did you have? You had a PC, you had NES, and a Super Nintendo. You had nothing else. There's no way, dude. There is some Sega games, so we'll get to that in a second. Let's just keep going up the list in this crazy order here. So 45 did that, so let's go to 50. 50 is Virtua Tennis. There we go. One of the best sports games, battle games, four-player onslaught.

1:27:07 We lost so many hours of sleep in virtual tennis. It's insane. We lost friendships all over that game, dude. Top 50, you think. That good? It's that good. Virtual tennis is that good. It's long on steroids, man. It's that good. And what they did, because it was an arcade game, but when they brought it to the Dreamcast, they put a single player kind of like challenge mode in there which grabs you and makes you better and the fact that you can play that game just looking at the VMU if you wanted to the game is so good man such a good sports, wait hold on is that the first same game I'm gonna have to go to the back again sorry it's a it might have been yeah from 50 to 1 right goddamn embarrassment these boys and, NHL PA-93 was the Sega game it was on. No, it was on Super Nintendo 2.

1:28:03 Okay. You're telling me Panzer Dragoon, Zwei, Saga isn't up there? Top 50? Are you kidding me? Streets of Rage 2 isn't a top 50 game? That's actually, you're right. That's the, that's technically the only, like, 50, or the only, like, Sega game. I mean, dude, not even Sonic isn't in the top 50. That's what I'm saying. Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic 3 I mean even though I'm not the biggest Sonic fan but you gotta recognize you know the influence on it they're still making these games to this day one of the best selling games on a Nintendo to this day and they're not up there like come on man, but then here's where it gets where it's a little interesting and again we don't have to go detail on everything but 51 and 52 51 is a Ridge Racer that's awesome them yeah but top 100 I don't know for me I don't know.

1:28:58 Number 52, Lode Runner. That's a wild one. Yeah, it was fun in the arcade. I have it on my links, I think. Yeah. I know some fans. I know a friend of mine, Dylan, is a huge Lode Runner fan. But yeah, no, I'm thinking Stun Runner, not Lode Runner. Lode Runner? Yeah, that was a little platformer. Good game, but out of the top 100? Really? I don't know. But this next one, I really like, and I think it does deserve to be top 100. Maybe not necessarily 54. 154, maybe... I think top 75 would make sense. Tenchu, Stealth Assassins. Yeah, Tenchu was a game changer, for sure. And here's the thing, people always tell me all the time, oh man, did you ever play this game called Tenchu Wrath of Heaven?

1:29:43 You know what I mean? Well, a lot of people don't know this, but Sekiro was actually gonna be the next Tenchu, and it was titled Tenchu until the very end. They changed the name to Sekiro. Because From Software bought off the rights to, from I think it was Activision at the time, they brought the rights to Tenchu after the Wii version. Oh, yeah. But yeah, if you play Sekiro, it plays very much like a Tenchu, but the game was so hard, but it was so precise. It wasn't just about hacking and slashing. It was very strategic. I love Tenchu, man. I'm going to come back. Number 60, Donkey Kong. See, I think the original Donkey Kong, I think it needs to be higher.

1:30:25 I would agree, too. Especially if you're basing this based upon influence, which clearly you can tell some of these are based upon influence. You're going to put Super Mario Bros. 2 above Donkey Kong. My app. Dude, you're going to put Mike Tyson's Punch-Out above Donkey Kong. Yeah, no way, dude. No way. And then here's your Sega. Number 61 is Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Such a great game. Yeah, such a phenomenal game. Alright, let me just scroll some more here. I did miss a bunch obviously, but we're not going to break through all these, man. Number 74 is Soul Calibur. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, the home version blew away, was it Soul Blade in the arcade? Yep.

1:31:11 And one of the most beautiful games ever made. I remember seeing that thing in action the first time and I was like, wow. Graphics are never going to be better than this. You know what I mean? When you first saw you're like oh my god dude that the strings coming off their gi or whatever they're wearing their hair flowing the different camera angles deep fighting like you could button mash if you wanted to but if you knew somebody if you fought somebody who knew what they were doing knew how to counter without a parry you were dead dude you were you were 100 dead. And here's where your anger readers are going to go up. Number 78, Panzer Dragoon Saga.

1:31:53 Let's just cut off the podcast right now. Because for that game, that phenomenal role-playing game that used to be a shooter, a rail shooter, for them to change that up. And to this day, RPGs utilize some of the techniques and gameplay tactics that were made in that game. And if anybody wants to look at the legacy of Panzer Dragoon Saga and the developers, the tragedy that happened to a lot of them, a lot of people just died. It was just like weird, dude. They lost the original code. So that game will probably be never made again. And again, it was a game that, yeah, I think they made less than 20,000 copies.

1:32:34 That's why it's so expensive. If you try to find. Dude, they made less than that. I'm looking at it right now. How many? It says they only less than 6,000 copies. Yeah, I have three of them. Yeah. Yeah, and you're sealed, right? Yeah, well, I had four. I gave one away. Two sealed and one open to play. But anybody who played that game, and I had a friend who was a huge Final Fantasy VII fan. And I said, you should give this game a try. He goes, yeah, I heard about that. And I don't know if it was Game Fan or Game Pro, but they had their RPG of the year and RPG of the month. And there was a couple of them that put Panzer Dragoon above Final Fantasy VII. And there was a bunch of people talking shit like, no way, dude. I was like, have you played it?

1:33:15 No. Yeah. Because you don't have a Saturn. And that's my point. It's like, if you're going to put, you know, try to compare games, play them both. And the random battles in Final Fantasy VII just killed it for me. Yeah. It was just, it was super repetitive. Not saying it wasn't a great game. It was a great game. But Panzer Raguna Mi blew it out of the water when it came to a role-playing game. The story, the language that they used, the art, just the whole world just sucks you in. And the way they tied it in to number one and number two and then eventually order comes out and we'll not even talk about Crimson Dragon but and they made a they made a pocket version of it for the for the game for the game gear, do Panzer Dragoon saga I think I put that, for sure in my top 10 of all time sure yeah for sure I think we should do a Panzer Dragoon episode one day oh man you know it's gonna be a fucking podcast dude I mean we're already at two hours here so fuck it, weren't we supposed to only go 45 minutes yeah well there this is too good to let go right now this top 100 but think about this my sir, Mike Tyson's punch out is still higher than President Groot's saga.

1:34:35 I'm so distraught right now. I know. I'm going to start drinking heavily. Oh, you're so insane. All right, let's get to it. We're almost near the end. Number 80 and number 81 are interesting because they're PC games. I would actually argue number 80 should be in the top 50, and that is The Sims. I'll give it top 50. I know you probably weren't into it, but you know what that game did for Casual Gamer. Oh, my gosh. The Casual Gamer and the Female Gamer. The Female Gamer. The Female Gamer. Yeah, the Female Gamer. And we're talking the older generation. Moms played it. Yeah. And, yeah, it was one of the best simulations as a life sim.

1:35:16 You know, this is before, you know, Animal Crossing and all this other stuff that kind of borrowed from it. But, yeah, just a, you know, if you were to tell the execs, hey, we're going to make a game about life. Like, what are you talking about? Like, the game, board game life? Like, no. Like, living your life. Like, you know, upkeeping your house and getting a job and doing this remedial tasks and changing your clothes and falling in love with somebody. Like, what are you talking about? And it worked. Yeah, it worked. And not only did it work, it became this phenomenon, right? Very few games can become a phenomenon like that. I remember there was a point in time there was going to be a movie produced by Fox and it was going to be entirely in Simlish. Wow.

1:36:00 Actually, in one of our episodes of Uncle Dad Talks, we actually interviewed, she was the voice actor. She did all the kids in The Sims, the original Sims, and she was also the lead voice director for Sims 2. Did she ever play Panzer Dragoon Saga? No. Should ask her hey but whatever fancy dragon saga beat that that's good right i got that little feather in the cap but now this number 83 i would say right now i don't i don't even believe this game deserves to be in top 100 controversial choice i'm sure kid icarus no not top 100 again, these people go on nes it's obvious yeah it's obvious they played a shit ton of nes and that's And that's their memory games that they love, I'm sure.

1:36:53 If I were to take these editors and give them my top 100 list, they would flip out as much as I'm flipping out right now. Sure. Come on, dude. I think Kid Icarus, in my opinion, is one of the most overrated NES games of all time. Agreed. I think it's not that great of a game. It really isn't. You go up, you shoot, move left to right. Meh. I could care less. All right let's keep it going number 86 this is an interesting one i would also argue this should be a top 50 is the original tomb raider yeah yeah the original tomb raider you know we talked about female protagonist you you brought up lark loft yeah and and there's a lot of hype for the you know the the remastered ones one two and three i believe are coming out yep yeah i think they actually did tomb raider like digital yeah yeah digital tomb raider, yeah i put tomb raider top 50 now this next one i know you have a lot to say.

1:37:51 Because i believe it should be up for a sports game should definitely be in top 25 you played this game way more than i did nfl 2k5 no but we already passed that it was somewhere else i'm not gonna get into that but another one close to your heart number 87 hot shots golf oh Oh, hell yeah, dude. Hot shots. Oh, man. Still, now it's called Everybody's Golf, which it's always been called that, I guess, in Japan. Okay. So deep. And I know Tire Woods was the big golf game here. Before that, it was like EA Sports, PGA Golf. But people could not get over the look of the characters, the cartoon characters, the super deformed big heads.

1:38:33 But when you play the game, the game was so incredibly deep and skillful that if anybody really got into it, I will guarantee you they'll be playing that more than any Tiger Woods game. Everybody always talks about arcade golf games and they talk about Mario Golf. Well, Mario Golf is good. Hot Shots Golf destroys it. Yeah. And the first Mario Golf was made because Clap Hands does the Hot Shots game. But the very first one, I believe, was Camelot. And then Camelot did the Mario Golf before Clap Hands kind of took over. And there's a bunch of people that came from that development team to do the Hot Shots Golf series. And Mario Golf is really good. Don't get me wrong, but it came from Hot Shots Golf.

1:39:16 Yeah 100 100 all right number 90 also another one i would argue to be top 50 super bomber man oh hell yeah dude uh super bomber man that was a super nintendo version right i believe so yes so i would put the sega saturn version above that one i'd even put, the turbo version because turbo version was the first one that was the first four player on the turbo graphics it was just bomber man at the time super bomber man very good again i think they're nintendo biased because although super bomber man you could play the four i think you could play five player four player satellite with the extra controller plugged into the other port i believe you could do five the sega saturn version you could play 10 on one screen oh yeah i remember that i remember that that's right 10 people and one of them and you can unlock a bonk to play as uh one of the characters wow yeah and we're talking about intro music listen to Saturn Bomberman's menu music.

1:40:18 So good. I put that up there with Goldeneye, man. So good. Again, it was Nintendo players, but Saturn Bomberman was way better, dude. So, as we get to the end of this list, again, I'm skipping some, but please, everybody, go check this list out. Go click the link in the description of this episode. You'll see it, and you can follow along. Number 94 is going to piss you off. I know it. I know it. Fantasy Star, The first one? The first one. I'm glad it's on the top 100. Yes. I'd probably put it in the top 75. I wouldn't put much higher than that. Because I think the other Final Stars that came out, two and three generations, were a better game.

1:41:06 But a lot of people don't know that that game, when it came to America, was one of the first, you know, quote-unquote 3D, first-person kind of role-playing games where you went through dungeons and with the menu fighting and, you know, able to build relationships with your other characters, the PAL system, if you will. This is one of the first games to ever do that, way before its time. I don't really mind where it's at. I'd like it a little bit higher, but I'm just glad they recognized Phantasy Star as one of the best RPGs ever made. All right. So as we get to the end, I'm going to do 97 to 100, okay? Yep.

1:41:50 97. Mortal Kombat 2. Okay. I put Mortal Kombat 1 above number two only because it was the granddaddy. It was the one that started it. But I know Mortal Kombat 2 fought a lot faster and people liked that one a little bit more, but I still find myself playing number one better. More. Number 98 i really believe needs to be in top 25 maybe you disagree but i mean literally countries dedicate themselves to this game and that is starcraft starcraft i believe should be in the top 50 not top 25 huh i wouldn't put it top 25 only because of warcraft, uh they're two different games though uh yes and no wait you say warcraft you mean like warcraft Not World of Warcraft, right? Not World of Warcraft, no.

1:42:40 Okay, you mean just Warcraft. Gotcha. Okay, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Warcraft or Warcraft 2 maybe, because without that, I don't think you have StarCraft, but I think StarCraft started the whole... That was when the internet was getting going and people were starting to have the PVP. Yeah. So yeah, Starcraft definitely needs to be higher. This one also, I agree. Things should be top top 75. This next one, not 99 house, the dead too. Oh. Yeah. I'm dude. Is that the first, well, you would have to go over the whole list, but I'm thinking light shooters. Is that the first light gun shooter? It's the only light shooter. Yeah. Oh man. Man, so I'm not propagating on that one, dude.

1:43:24 Still a blast to play to this day, no pun intended. Oh, there's no way you can... Lightguns in general. Actually, go back to our old episodes. We do a whole episode on that, too, Lightgun Games. Yep. And we talk a lot about House of the Dead, yep. Yes, that's right. Alright, and to finish this off, number 100. Number 100 is Apex Scape, which I would not even put on my top 200. I would not put I would not put Ape Escape in probably my top 400. Are you serious? That's what kicks the list off is episode 100. I'm sorry. Ape Escape is number 100. Isn't that insane? There's no Shining Force 3 or Dragon Force, but there's Ape Escape.

1:44:07 Okay. Yes. Yes, I know. I know. Well, there might have been. Remember, we didn't do the whole list. There's probably not. At this point, these guys have probably put away their Super Nintendo and started playing PlayStation at this time. You know what we're going to do? Because I really enjoyed this. I'm going to tell you right now. Next episode. So this is the first of their top whatever games, because this was the 100th issue, right? So they do it again for issue 200. I think you and I, next episode, should do just issue 200. I guarantee you, their top 200 doesn't even have I've had to skip on it.

1:44:48 You did take it off? Oh, yeah. I think they realized, oh shit, we were 13 and we played Epikun and we loved it. And it was... Dude, no. I hate this game. So, I'm going to say it right now. I'm going to say it. The next episode we're going to do a deep dive, and this time we'll do all 200 games on the episode. What do you think, sir? Do you see Parappa anywhere in the top 100? See I didn't think I didn't really see that many PlayStation games to be honest they put Ape Escape above Parappa.

1:45:28 Yeah I don't see it fuck no dude no way. And then it probably gets even harder for 200, right? Because this is 2009. So that means somewhere around probably 2017 or between 2015 and 2020. Or no, way before that. 2015 and 2017 probably was the 200 issue, right? Yeah. So it'll probably even be harder. So you're not going to have games like Bioshock on there. You're going to have... Actually, wait a minute. Bioshock came out already, right? Yeah, Bioshock was out. I was going to ask you on it. I'm looking at my games right now, and I'm like, dude, where's Bioshock? I mean, but there's like no... I mean, there's got to be Street Fighter 2 on there, dude.

1:46:09 And just looking at the fighters, like Tekken through... Again, I know you didn't go down the line, but I'm just saying, like, all these games I think should have been mentioned. Capcom, SNK 2. You know what I mean? So, Street Fighter is on the list. I did see it. The other game you mentioned was on the list. Not Capcom, SNK. Or Capcom 2. That's not all there no but like what i'm saying is like we let's be honest everybody listen we did not intend to do to do this but i'm glad we did because i really think i want to start what i'm going to call right now you gotta deal with it mr nomad this is going to be our summer trilogy, we are going to trilogize we're going to do this is episode one of the trilogy where we rip apart heart and talk about Game Informer's top 100, 200, and 300.

1:47:03 So get ready everybody. This next episode is going to be complete. It'll be from 200 to 1. 100%. How do you put Super Mario Brothers to be above Super Metroid? Super Metroid's not even on this list, just so you know. No way. That's the end of the episode. I'm done. Well, Well, in all good fun, I really had a great time with this episode with you, Nomad. I think it was a lot of fun diving into the magazine memory. But what we were talking about, the top 100 issues, the top 100 games, right? That was the whole point of buying these magazines back then. Yeah, 2009, the internet was still there, but it still wasn't what it was today.

1:47:46 I mean, this would have been your social media rant, right? You would have tapped on it. You would have posted about it. You'd be like, can you fucking believe it? Right? You know, like this would have been it. and that that that ability to do that yeah you can still do it in list but there was something about getting that magazine you waited months for it and then you open it up and you're like oh my god right yeah. Get out there if you can find these issues check them out there's so much it's like it's like every magazine you find especially in the later the later years right like a game informer a late game informer game a game fan or what you said nintendo power any of those right they're like going into a little bitty time machines and just remembering what because even the ads we can talk about the ads remember like how ads were so of the era you know yep so go check those out and i And I will definitely tag this link into the description of the episode. Yeah.

1:48:40 You guys just found, or this episode just found, our first ever event series. Because we do that in Uncle Dan Talks quite often. But I think we're going to do it for this. So next episode, me and Nomad will dive Game Informer's top 200 from 200 to 1. Are you ready for that, Sean? Yeah, I am. And we could talk about the cigarette ads that used to be in Video Game Magazine, too. That's right. Yeah, that's right. They have Newport ads, and they're like, what? Right, that's right. That's like old comic books, too, had that. All right, everybody. We officially hit exactly two hours. So, thank you guys for listening. As always, you can find my co-host, Retro Gaming Nomad, you can find him on Instagram, and your Instagram handle is what, sir?

1:49:24 Retro Gaming Nomad, all one word. Yes, go check him out. He posts a lot of great stuff. And of course, you can follow us at Uncle Dad Talks. And the main show, of course, you can always find on our main stream. Good stuff. We have some fun coming up, too. We're going to be at StocktonCon. This episode will be released before that. You might even get to see Retro Gaming Nomad. He might be hanging out with us, so keep an eye out for that. And yeah, StocktonCon this weekend. Go check it out. StocktonCon is going to be at the Stockton Arena on July 13th and 14th. We'll see you then. All right, everybody. uh remember even though we all got worked up today we just remember one thing peace love game on see you all next week game on so.

1:50:08 Music.