Would anyone be interested in hearing a retro gaming podcast?

[miketheratguy]

Hey everyone, my longtime friend and I host a retro video game podcast that we put up on itunes (as well as the first few episodes on Youtube). We grew up with systems like the Atari, NES and Genesis and each episode we spend around 2 to 2 1/2 hours delving into deep discussion of a single classic game. Some of the titles that we've covered so far are Mega Man for the NES, Bonk's Adventure for the Turbografx, The Secret of Monkey Island for the Sega CD, and Street Fighter II for the SNES. For each episode we independently play the game for a week, then get together for the podcast to describe our experiences "live on the air".

We stay pretty focused on the game at hand in each episode but we're also really big into nostalgia, so in every episode we also discuss what was going on in pop culture during the year of the game's release. We'll brush through some noteworthy things that happened that year, talk about a couple of contemporaneous movies, share some memories of music or toys. We keep things light (and swear frequently) but we're not particularly obnoxious or immature, we learned from listening to other video game podcasts that we prefer a mood that's humorous but informative, not panderingly comedic (we're also both 37 years old and are trying not to embarrass ourselves, lol). We're far from perfect but we have what we think is a casual and enthusiastic tone, and our primary goals are in-depth discussion of each game as well as enthusing about the past in general. My friend describes it as a podcast "by nerds for nerds", and I can't say that I disagree.

We've only been at it for about half a year (we began last February but stopped producing in the summertime, though we mean to get back to it) but managed to put out around 8 episodes. We don't have much of an audience - a few dozen people joined our accompanying forum but many of them are people we know from other places, so we're still really small time. We're okay with that, we know that getting a podcast off the ground takes a lot of time and effort and never expected any kind of fast success, and the truth is that we enjoy doing it anyway. All the same, when we can we check around to see if anyone else is interested.

I didn't want to provide the name of our podcast or the forum where we talk about it without knowing whether it would be okay first, I don't want to come across as a solicitor or anything. It's not so important that I want to step on any toes. If no one's interested or this isn't wanted here, that's cool. I understand. We're just always looking for people like us who like to live in the old days of gaming, toys and pop culture, and figured that maybe that would describe some of you.

[vice350z]

I'd be interested in checking it out.

[pmo1985]

I would definitely listen. Sounds awesome

[CaptainStarwind]

I wouldn't be opposed to listening to it. The pop culture talk itself would be awesome, let alone the game review.

[E-Day]

I would also be interested in this.

[miketheratguy]

Cool, thanks guys! Now that I know it's okay to post, here are Youtube links to our first three episodes. Our show is called "The Contra Code", and all the episodes that we've done so far are up on itunes.

There are obviously some growing pains in the first episode, we were just beginning to determine our groove and structure so it may not be the best indicator of our quality overall. My first microphone wasn't the best either, but for the most part I think that I'm pretty audible. In general we put forth an earnest effort and I feel that our rhythm and confidence only improved as the podcasts went along, so I'd say that if you listen to the first episode and don't rabidly despise it you'll probably enjoy the rest.

Constructive criticism is always appreciated, I won't take it personally if you don't care for what you hear but it always helps to understand why. Anyway that's enough babbling, I hope you guys like our scrappy little show!

Episode 1 - Mega Man:

Episode 2 - Kirby's Adventure:

Episode 3 - The Secret of Monkey Island:

[miketheratguy]

Not to bump an old post, but....uh.....did anyone wind up listening to any of these? If you hated it so passionately that you left the page and never came back, it would be helpful to me to at least know what went wrong.

[pmo1985]

I listened to the Mega Man one and i enjoyed it greatly. The only thing I would improve is maybe add a personal story playing the game (how you found it, how long it took you to beat it, spending time with friends palying it, etc.). If you do that, the stories and experiences would add more depth to the episode. Something to consider for the future. I subbed to itunes and youtube

[miketheratguy]

I listened to the Mega Man one and i enjoyed it greatly. The only thing I would improve is maybe add a personal story playing the game (how you found it, how long it took you to beat it, spending time with friends palying it, etc.). If you do that, the stories and experiences would add more depth to the episode. Something to consider for the future. I subbed to itunes and youtube

Hey, thanks a lot! I'm happy that you really enjoyed it, and glad to finally get some feedback on this. After that first episode we actually do start getting a little more personal - for example rather than rattling off movies that came out in a particular year we each choose one that's of particular interest to us and talk about it, sometimes telling stories of our first exposure to it as kids. The games sometimes get a bit of that as well, for example I think that the Monkey Island episode features a nostalgic tale of discovering the game in my youth. In Punch-Out Howard and I talk about how far we were able to get into the game as kids and which characters used to cause us trouble. The Street Fighter II episode in particular has us each describing the first time that we saw the game, our early experiences with it, and comparisons of how we feel about each character now versus how we felt about them back in the day. Coincidentally I told a lengthy story in that very episode that we chose to cut because it pertains more to Mortal Kombat, a series that we're going to have a LOT of anecdotes about.

It was actually something of a conscious choice not to talk too much about personal stories. We're all about general nostalgia and we definitely throw in lots of little memories as the conversation flows but there's always been a little hesitation about going into great length or depth. The reason for that is pretty straightforward: We just figured that people wouldn't be interested in that and would quit listening to the show if we did.

We're still really small time so we haven't gotten a whole lot of open feedback. What we have heard has been pretty much nothing but positive enthusiasm, and that's always great, of course (it really is, since we don't want to suck). But it's nice to hear comments about what someone specifically likes or doesn't like or would enjoy hearing more of. Your input is really appreciated and when we finally get things running again I'll be sure to keep it in mind whenever I'm worried that I might bore the listeners. Check out some more of our shows, we got more into the flow of things as we went along and I think that as our comfort level increased so did the level of our personal reflections.

Thanks a lot for listening!

[kitsunebi]

I just listened to the first ep. Really entertaining - I'll definitely be listening to the rest. Even better, I was able to listen while scanning and editing pages of an NES mag for an eventual upload here. Gotta love synergistic multi-tasking.

Especially looking forward to the Monkey Island episode. When I was a kid, I didn't call PC games "PC Games," or "computer games," or whatever. To me, they were "Sierra games," since Sierra graphic adventures were the ONLY games I played and pretty much defined my world. All of that began to change with the release of the first Monkey Island, though. It wasn't the first LucasArts adventure, but I think it was the first to succeed on every level and become something of a work of genius. Sierra adventures would never have quite the same luster again...

[Areala]

Gotta love synergistic multi-tasking.

I just threw up in my mouth a little...

*huggles*

Areala

[miketheratguy]

I just listened to the first ep. Really entertaining - I'll definitely be listening to the rest. Even better, I was able to listen while scanning and editing pages of an NES mag for an eventual upload here. Gotta love synergistic multi-tasking.

Especially looking forward to the Monkey Island episode. When I was a kid, I didn't call PC games "PC Games," or "computer games," or whatever. To me, they were "Sierra games," since Sierra graphic adventures were the ONLY games I played and pretty much defined my world. All of that began to change with the release of the first Monkey Island, though. It wasn't the first LucasArts adventure, but I think it was the first to succeed on every level and become something of a work of genius. Sierra adventures would never have quite the same luster again...

Thanks a lot kitsunebi! Really glad that you liked it. We're enthusiastic, passionate fans, but we never know how interesting our conversations will be to other people. It's nice to hear that you guys are enjoying it.

I love old graphic adventure games, cutting my teeth on Maniac Mansion for the Apple IIe. Never played most of the Sierra games (I simply didn't own my own computer during the heyday of those games) but they always looked like fun. The Secret of Monkey Island was something of a quest for me as a kid, one of the things that had the most influence on my desire to get a PC. But then it came out on the Sega CD instead, and I was sold. I bought the system JUST for that game (got some others too, of course, but Monkey Island drove the purchase).

Whether I felt that it holds up to my fond childhood memories of it, and whether my cohost Howard dug it as much as I did, I'll let you find out. I'll just say that the results are "interesting".

I just threw up in my mouth a little...

*huggles*

Areala

Throw up while listening to our podcast! Multi-task!

[kitsunebi]

Well, I imagine that you were going through the same thing I was listening to Howard's total apathy/hatred towards Monkey Island. I suppose graphic adventures are sort of a cult genre at this point for a reason, and someone who didn't grow up playing them would have a hard time finding them particularly exciting compared to more contemporary fare. So I can't fault someone who had never played a graphic adventure before for disliking it. Thank god you didn't start him out on a death-at-every-turn, unwinnable-walking-dead-scenario-around-every-corner, guess-the-correct-verb-text-parser Sierra adventure (which I loved, but might send your friend into fits).

I've gotta jump in and point out that it's clearly obvious that you guys come from an early background in video games, not PC games, though. It began to grate on me how much was focused on the relative lack of music and sound. As you hypothesized (correctly), this was the result of the game's PC origins. I bought the game for the PC when it was first released in 1990, 2 years before the Sega CD version you guys played. The original PC version was 16-color EGA, not the 256 colors of the CD version. Furthermore, sound was pretty much non-existent. PC sound cards were in their infancy, and while Monkey Island supported early cards such as the Adlib, very few people owned one, so most users only had the PC's internal speaker to provide all music and sfx. As such, the vast majority of all PC games made prior to 1991-1992 or so were usually played in stark silence with the occasional beep or bloop. Even after that, full score soundtracks were years away for most games. Sure, that sucks, but it was a limitation of the hardware, so continually calling out Monkey Island's limited soundtrack as "inexcusable" by comparing it to video games of the era that had dedicated sound processors got old after hearing it for the 20th or 30th time.

The Sega CD version is a port of the VGA CD version (also from 1992). And while you both rightly point out that the music that IS present is amazing, take a brief listen to what the vast majority of Monkey Island players were listening to in 1990, and you'll realize what a mercy it was to NOT have music playing through the entire game (btw, PCs back then generally didn't have volume controls on their internal speakers either, so turn it up to an unreasonably loud volume if you want the authentic experience):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cfPw3IL1sk

Don't get the wrong idea though, I still enjoyed the podcast. Btw, that seems to be the last episode on Youtube. I saw the Podomatic site as well, which has Punch-Out as the most recent ep (from September). Is that the last ep you guys released?

[miketheratguy]

Well, I imagine that you were going through the same thing I was listening to Howard's total apathy/hatred towards Monkey Island. I suppose graphic adventures are sort of a cult genre at this point for a reason, and someone who didn't grow up playing them would have a hard time finding them particularly exciting compared to more contemporary fare. So I can't fault someone who had never played a graphic adventure before for disliking it. Thank god you didn't start him out on a death-at-every-turn, unwinnable-walking-dead-scenario-around-every-corner, guess-the-correct-verb-text-parser Sierra adventure (which I loved, but might send your friend into fits).

I've gotta jump in and point out that it's clearly obvious that you guys come from an early background in video games, not PC games, though. It began to grate on me how much was focused on the relative lack of music and sound. As you hypothesized (correctly), this was the result of the game's PC origins. I bought the game for the PC when it was first released in 1990, 2 years before the Sega CD version you guys played. The original PC version was 16-color EGA, not the 256 colors of the CD version. Furthermore, sound was pretty much non-existent. PC sound cards were in their infancy, and while Monkey Island supported early cards such as the Adlib, very few people owned one, so most users only had the PC's internal speaker to provide all music and sfx. As such, the vast majority of all PC games made prior to 1991-1992 or so were usually played in stark silence with the occasional beep or bloop. Even after that, full score soundtracks were years away for most games. Sure, that sucks, but it was a limitation of the hardware, so continually calling out Monkey Island's limited soundtrack as "inexcusable" by comparing it to video games of the era that had dedicated sound processors got old after hearing it for the 20th or 30th time.

The Sega CD version is a port of the VGA CD version (also from 1992). And while you both rightly point out that the music that IS present is amazing, take a brief listen to what the vast majority of Monkey Island players were listening to in 1990, and you'll realize what a mercy it was to NOT have music playing through the entire game (btw, PCs back then generally didn't have volume controls on their internal speakers either, so turn it up to an unreasonably loud volume if you want the authentic experience):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cfPw3IL1sk

Don't get the wrong idea though, I still enjoyed the podcast. Btw, that seems to be the last episode on Youtube. I saw the Podomatic site as well, which has Punch-Out as the most recent ep (from September). Is that the last ep you guys released?

Lol yeah, Howard had a pretty miserable time playing Monkey Island. He references it several more times in subsequent episodes. I guess that the game was just not his style at all. While playing through it again I didn't love it quite as much as I did the first few times back in my teenage years (as you heard, I realized that the last section of the game was kind of a drag), but it's still always going to be one of my favorite games of all time. I was sad that Howard didn't like it but we both agreed that it made for an interesting contrast for the episode.

You're right, we definitely weren't early PC players. My first exposure to computers was at the local library in about 1984, where I played titles like Zork and Stickybear Reading on their Apple IIe. A few years later I befriended a kid in school who had his own Apple IIe (or at least the family did) and it was there that I experienced Maniac Mansion for the first time. I'll save the details of that one for whenever we get around to a Maniac Mansion episode but suffice to say the game blew my mind, totally immersed me and made me realize just how much potential PC games had. Beyond that early Apple IIe exposure, I didn't get my own computer until 1993 and even then I didn't use it for games, I just used it for art and writing. As for Howard, I don't think he had any real computer exposure at all as a kid. So yeah, we're lifelong hardcore gamers since the days of the Atari 2600. But early PC gaming? No, we're definitely not that experienced. Your details about the Monkey Island differences are pretty fascinating, it would have been cool to have someone on the show with your perspective to round everything out. To be fair Howard was the one who was really beating hard on the lack of music (I hope he's the one who used the word "inexcusable", I'd kick myself if it was me).

You know what, I actually really dig the IBM version of the soundtrack that you linked me to. It's actually kind of an impressive rendition, at least based on my strict familiarity with the Sega CD version. I can see though how someone who grew up with it, and then heard someone complaining about the superior version, would roll their eyes. The benefits of being old, eh?

Yeah the lack of more episodes on Youtube is actually entirely my fault. I could easily just upload all the episodes there (and to be honest I think that maybe I should just do that) but I really liked adding pictures throughout the video that correspond to what we're talking about. The thing is, that takes a ridiculous amount of time and effort (half the time the pictures get out of sync once Youtube processes the clip) so it became kind of a chore. I always intended to get around to it, but I think I mentally gave up on it long ago. Again, I think I'll probably just wind up posting everything to Youtube as is.

The last episode that we produced was TMNT: Turtles in Time (arcade) but during the fall we both got busy and it just kind of fell by the wayside. We intend to get back in gear as soon as that one's finished and uploaded though. So yes, at the moment, Punch-Out should be the last one that's on itunes. It's episode 8 or so, I believe.

Sorry that you found some of the Monkey Island stuff frustrating. I've definitely been there, listening to people talk about something that I have useful knowledge of but can't add. Hopefully it doesn't deter you from the rest of the episodes. So far that's the most sour that Howard has gotten.

[kitsunebi]

Oh yeah, not to worry - I wasn't put off. You did a pretty admirable job of not getting too upset at having something you liked fail so miserably in someone else's opinion (and no, it of course wasn't you who called the music situation "inexcusable").

I could see where Howard was coming from much as I suppose you could, so I couldn't fault his opinions at all. It's just funny to think that even someone who has played games since the earliest days of Atari could still be spoiled to a degree where being able to appreciate a decade's worth of PC games is difficult due to the PC's horrible sound capabilities.

I've actually already had tons of exposure to this kind of ranting, though, since I have recently read through my large collection of digital PC mags from the UK from this era. In the UK, the PC was almost a non-entity at the time (interestingly, the NES also failed to make much of an impact there), and everyone was using less expensive Amigas or Atari STs. The Amiga in particular had much more sophisticated graphics and sound than the PCs of the time, so whenever one of my beloved adventure games would get released in the UK as a simple PC port rather than with a complete graphic and sound overhaul, the UK magazine reviewers would tear into it mercilessly, overlooking any of the virtues of the gameplay and instead focusing on what to them was primitive, craptastic technology. They also seem to make an unnerving amount of comments about how repulsed they are by the puerile, unsophisticated sense of humor shared by ALL Americans, but that's an annoyance for another time.

[miketheratguy]

Oh yeah, not to worry - I wasn't put off. You did a pretty admirable job of not getting too upset at having something you liked fail so miserably in someone else's opinion (and no, it of course wasn't you who called the music situation "inexcusable").

I could see where Howard was coming from much as I suppose you could, so I couldn't fault his opinions at all. It's just funny to think that even someone who has played games since the earliest days of Atari could still be spoiled to a degree where being able to appreciate a decade's worth of PC games is difficult due to the PC's horrible sound capabilities.

I've actually already had tons of exposure to this kind of ranting, though, since I have recently read through my large collection of digital PC mags from the UK from this era. In the UK, the PC was almost a non-entity at the time (interestingly, the NES also failed to make much of an impact there), and everyone was using less expensive Amigas or Atari STs. The Amiga in particular had much more sophisticated graphics and sound than the PCs of the time, so whenever one of my beloved adventure games would get released in the UK as a simple PC port rather than with a complete graphic and sound overhaul, the UK magazine reviewers would tear into it mercilessly, overlooking any of the virtues of the gameplay and instead focusing on what to them was primitive, craptastic technology. They also seem to make an unnerving amount of comments about how repulsed they are by the puerile, unsophisticated sense of humor shared by ALL Americans, but that's an annoyance for another time.

Eh, I've known the guy for 30 years so I can't get too mad at him. I think it was just tough for him to play a game that, by today's standards, is kind of clunky and slow. Same with the music - having not played the computer versions he didn't have the knowledge or perspective to realize how much of a step up the Sega CD version was. Neither of us did, all I could do was guess. Glad to know that I was correct about that.

I can see how the relentless bashing that your PC games received would be really frustrating. It's always a bummer to hear someone knock something that you love. In a situation like that, in order to really do your job as a reviewer, you can't judge a port using the same criteria that you judge games that are specifically made for the superior system. The right thing to do is say "Okay, this port wasn't optimized, I'm going to factor the limitations of its native machine into my review".

They make a lot of derogatory comments about the puerile, unsophisticated sense of American humor? The same people who gave the world AbFab?

[kitsunebi]

I imagine that old-school graphic adventures are somewhat of an impenetrable genre for the uninitiated to enjoy at this point.

I experience the same thing when I try to play old-school games outside of my realm of experience. Everyone always points to Ultima as an all-time classic series, but having never played any of them as a kid, I can't for the life of me squeeze any enjoyment out of them when I try them today. The interface and gameplay just seem clunky and unintuitive to me, much in the same way Monkey Island must have felt to your friend.

Of course, PC games back then were often made cheaply by small groups of people (sometimes a single programmer), so many times their interfaces and gameplay WERE clunky and unintuitive. We just didn't have anything else to play, so we kept at it until we overcame the learning curve lol. Space Quest I (a Sierra adventure) was the first PC game I ever owned, and I must have owned it for two years and never gotten ANYWHERE before the gameplay finally clicked for me and I could enjoy the genre. Any complicated games made nowadays come with built-in tutorials to avoid hurdles like that.

Video games were always more of a mass market product, so their gameplay was usually simple enough not to be off-putting to the novice player. Thus, while a PC RPG or adventure game or whatever from 1985 really IS going to be an outdated relic unlikely to share many major design elements with current games in the genre, the earliest influential video games in a given genre are usually still a major design influence on the games of today. Platformers of today still share design elements with Super Mario Bros., JRPGs still share a lot in common with Dragon Quest, fighting games still owe their all to Street Fighter II, etc. etc. Which is perhaps why most retro-gaming sites focus on the console side of gaming, since old-school console games can usually be enjoyed not just by nostalgic fanboys, but by people too young to experience them the first time around, as well.

[miketheratguy]

Yeah, sadly graphic adventure / point and click games are kind of a dead genre these days. I listened to an interview with Ron Gilbert a few months ago and in it he laments the fact that the game industry (or perhaps audience) seems to have grown past them. Which is a shame because they were a lot of fun.

Heh it's funny that you mention your dislike of Ultima. First, because that's actually a series that I was going to specifically describe when talking about not judging modern games against ones that were limited by technology (in this case the NES version of Ultima III versus the computer version of the same). Second, I actually have a tattoo of the stylized ankh made popular in the game's fourth volume. I'm definitely a fan (the fourth game in particular introduced a morality system that, while very simplistic by today's standards, was actually a pretty novel and compelling concept) but I definitely understand why you'd have trouble getting into the series. The interface IS clunky and the dialogue system tedious. It's the kind of thing that I guess a person would be more likely to enjoy if they first played the games when they were new and hadn't yet been surpassed by advancements in technology.

While never much of a computer gamer until the last 15 years or so, I have somewhat similar thoughts regarding the accessibility levels between PC and console games. In particular Morrowind, the third game in the Elder Scrolls series. That game provided the bare minimum of a tutorial - how to interact with objects, access your menus, use a lockpick and...well actually that's just about it - before literally closing the door behind you and leaving you free to figure out what to do and where to go in its massive world. It told you where you could go to begin a quest but it was completely up to you to figure out the world. Is that thing over there hostile? Oh shit, I guess it is and now I'm dead. What happens if I steal this sword from the merchant's table? Uh oh, I'm being chased by guards. How do I learn spells and make money in this game? Guess I better find one of the towns and ask around. What's the difference between these various political factions? I suppose I need to join up with one and find out. The game was prettty hardcore, it dropped you into its world and said "Best of luck".

Skyrim, on the other hand (and as I complained in another thread) has dumbed down the experience considerably due to the series' increasing popularity with mainstream console players. Now the series is providing tutorial sequences that are twenty minutes long and tell you how to do everything but walk while convenient markers appear on your map to show you exactly where to go next. In Morrowind there was a complex leveling system that required proper prioritization of skill brackets to efficiently complement your character's chosen attributes whereas in Skyrim you just throw your points into whatever abilities you want. In the previous game you find the secretive thieves' guild by bribing NPCs for information and tracking down members who meet at a specific hour of the night. In Skyrim the leader of the thieves' guild literally walks right up to you- locking you into unavoidable dialogue with him- and spells out exactly what the guild is and how you can join. The point I'm trying to make with all of these comparisons is that you're right: Morrowind, which seemed to pride itself on its inhospitable world and general indifference to player bewilderment, felt like the hardcore PC experience that it is while Skyrim gives itself away as a mass-market console hit by being straightforward and easily accessible. Even as a predominantly console-based gamer I believe that there's a charm to the more involving PC games that's slowly being lost.

[Areala]

What's hilarious to me is the jump from Arena to Morrowind in terms of helping out the player felt just as massive as the jump from Morrowind to Skyrim.

Arena and Daggerfall have character creation systems that could take a new player literal days to even begin to dissect and understand. Morrowind nicely cut down on that aspect, dumped a number of skills to make it more simplistic (in the first two games, you could take languages like Daedra or Nymph, there was a 'Climbing' skill that let you shimmy up vertical surfaces, and while lockpick was a skill, it was essentially worthless since it was always faster to either bash the door open with your fists or hit it with an 'Open' spell which worked 100% of the time), and there were a whole mess of advantages, disadvantages, weaknesses and other custom options that Morrowind cut in favour of the birth sign system.

*huggles*
Areala

[miketheratguy]

What's hilarious to me is the jump from Arena to Morrowind in terms of helping out the player felt just as massive as the jump from Morrowind to Skyrim.

Arena and Daggerfall have character creation systems that could take a new player literal days to even begin to dissect and understand. Morrowind nicely cut down on that aspect, dumped a number of skills to make it more simplistic (in the first two games, you could take languages like Daedra or Nymph, there was a 'Climbing' skill that let you shimmy up vertical surfaces, and while lockpick was a skill, it was essentially worthless since it was always faster to either bash the door open with your fists or hit it with an 'Open' spell which worked 100% of the time), and there were a whole mess of advantages, disadvantages, weaknesses and other custom options that Morrowind cut in favour of the birth sign system.

*huggles*

Areala

Ah see, Morrowind was my first but yep, I hear that Arena and Daggerfall are even more involved and that Daggerfalll's landmass is somewhere around the size of Great Britain (comprised of a bunch of identical tiles and indistinguishable towns but still, that's quite a feat).

You must HATE Skyrim then, with its lame-ass 17 skills, enemy scaling and "put points into being whatever you want whenever you want" skill system.

[kitsunebi]

Even as a predominantly console-based gamer I believe that there's a charm to the more involving PC games that's slowly being lost.

I was equally heavily involved with PC Games and NES/SNES games as a kid (never owned a Sega system till the Dreamcast, alas), but I think it's that complex, archaic charm that causes me to remember my old PC games with more fondness at this point.

[miketheratguy]

I was equally heavily involved with PC Games and NES/SNES games as a kid (never owned a Sega system till the Dreamcast, alas), but I think it's that complex, archaic charm that causes me to remember my old PC games with more fondness at this point.

Which would make perfect sense. For me, because I grew up as so much of a console gamer and had relatively little experience with computers, the feelings are almost in reverse: I love the fun experiences that gaming systems have provided me over the years and look back at them with great affection and warm nostalgia (hence the podcast, after all), but spent most of my young life with the impression of computer games as this vast, mystical, forbidden other world of complexity and maturity. I had all kinds of exposure to that world in the form of reviews and ads and photos in the gaming mags that I used to read, and I'd often look at their amazing graphics and intriguing concepts and lament the fact that I could never play them. Because these classic computer games fostered such a sense of unsatiated curiosity and excitement, I've grown up to continue looking at them with feelings of reverence.

[Areala]

Ah see, Morrowind was my first but yep, I hear that Arena and Daggerfall are even more involved and that Daggerfalll's landmass is somewhere around the size of Great Britain (comprised of a bunch of identical tiles and indistinguishable towns but still, that's quite a feat).

You must HATE Skyrim then, with its lame-ass 17 skills, enemy scaling and "put points into being whatever you want whenever you want" skill system.

I don't mind Skyrim at all. In fact, I like it better than Oblivion and its pointless Deus ex machina ending to the main quest; after Morrowind it's my favorite Elder Scrolls game.

*huggles*

Areala

[miketheratguy]

I don't mind Skyrim at all. In fact, I like it better than Oblivion and its pointless Deus ex machina ending to the main quest; after Morrowind it's my favorite Elder Scrolls game.

*huggles*

Areala

Truth be told I love Skyrim as well despite how much I complain about it. On its own merits it's a great game, I just hate how much it's been reduced in comparison to its predecessors. That plus I simply dislike much of the landscape. Beyond the Riften surroundings and the Whiterun tundra there aren't a lot of areas that I really enjoy being in.

A lot of people that I've spoken to seem to like Oblivion the least, due in part to that game's "generic" cosmopolitan atmosphere and traditional fantasy landscape. I actually enjoyed both of those elements and find Skyrim to be the (relatively) dull and unappealing one.

[twiztor]

mike, someday i will check out your podcasts. i've been meaning to for a while now, but never seem to have the time when i think about it (and vice versa!)