Stream below or right-click and download here You can also listen on iTunes. Why not subscribe to us on RSS ?
0:00:18 Intro
0:01:56 News
0:21:26 What We’ve Been Playing (Resident Evil Remakes)
1:05:45 Phil’s Questions for Tom from Other People’s Podcasts
1:22:03 Outro
Transcript
WEBVTT
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Tom: I am one of two co-hosts, and the other co-host is the impossible-to-get rid of Phil Fogg.
Phil: And you are Tom Towers.
Tom: Yes, I am.
Phil: You should always open a podcast with big energy, big show energy.
Phil: I understand that you're bringing the energy today.
Phil: I drove over four hours to get to this recording today.
Phil: I was minutes early, and then stopped because a neighbour, a neighbouring farmer, had a errant cow that had escaped his property, and I couldn't help myself.
Phil: I said, I asked him, does he need help getting this cow back onto his property?
Phil: And of course, he graciously accepted.
Phil: So, if I don't have the big energy that I should have, that's why.
Tom: You were chasing after cows, apparently.
Phil: The chasing after the cow was actually more relaxing than the four hours of driving to get here on time.
Tom: You were coming in hot, apparently.
Phil: I was coming in hot.
Tom: Coming in hot the entire four hours?
Phil: Just coming in hot to the studio.
Phil: Yeah, so any...
Phil: But I do understand you've got the big energy today as well, so that's fantastic.
Tom: Yes, I do.
Tom: I've had, I believe, micro sleeps.
Tom: I'm not sure I've had any actual sleeps.
Phil: Yeah, I think for the first time while I was driving today is the first time where it's like, I might fall asleep while I'm driving.
Phil: Which would not be smart.
Tom: And all just so you could record a podcast.
Phil: Okay, so on with the news.
Phil: I've scoured all of the news that we aggregate at the VG Press, and I've just picked a few stories, most of the which I haven't heard people talking about elsewhere, because we may as well talk about something slightly interesting.
Phil: Now, this was a bit of a non-story, but Spec Ops The Line has been unexpectedly delisted from Steam.
Phil: It's still available in other places to play.
Phil: And you might recall that I think this was my game of the year when it was released.
Tom: I believe so.
Tom: Did it make it into our top games of the decade or generation as well?
Phil: I don't think so, sadly.
Phil: It was released in
Phil: So that's years ago now at this point.
Phil: And it was just really, I thought it was a weird news story because everyone just used it as an excuse to say, if you haven't played this game, play it.
Phil: And with one of the authors of the story, IGN calling it one of the most important games of the seventh console generation, which prompted me to reflect on my feelings about the game.
Tom: And before you continue, I'd just like to look up what score IGN gave one of the most important games of the generation.
Tom: And that was a classic IGN out of
Phil: And for those who haven't played it, I mean, it is an old game at this point, but it's based on the Heart of Darkness book.
Phil: And it was sort of a, I think it screwed around with story in a way that was novel.
Phil: I think that that was the thing that made it most novel to me beyond anything else.
Phil: I did enjoy the gameplay.
Phil: It is a shooter, a military shooter.
Phil: And there is a really good book that you can get.
Phil: It's a digital book that I'll link to in the show notes that talks about the guy who wrote the script for it and wrote the story in his time at Jäger Games.
Phil: It was the only other game that Jäger ever made other than the eponymous Jäger.
Phil: And his time at K.
Phil: And it is an interesting story behind the scenes as well.
Phil: What do you think?
Phil: Should I go back and play it again?
Phil: Do you think it will hold up over time?
Tom: I think it would hold up.
Tom: I don't think I was a big fan of the gameplay.
Tom: And for anyone out there listening who has not listened to our Spec Ops The Line big show that we did some number of years ago, I think that was some of our best work.
Tom: It might also have been one of our first big shows that we did.
Phil: I had forgotten that we had done a big show on Spec Ops.
Phil: I want to listen to that.
Tom: You know, that may actually be our first ever episode.
Phil: Okay, yeah, we have a spoiler class.
Phil: Episode is a spoiler cast for Spec Ops The Line.
Phil: Um, after years of podcasting...
Phil: Interesting.
Phil: I'm going to like that story.
Phil: And the name of the book was by Walt Williams.
Tom: I think I might actually remember the recording of that podcast more vividly than the game itself, because I recently discovered that automatically translated into Mandarin, Malgic encephalomyelitis is translated as brain fever.
Tom: And recording that episode, I remember, could best be described as the feeling of brain fever.
Tom: I don't know if that came across in the resultant show, but I do remember vividly what it was like to record that episode.
Phil: Okay, so the name of the book is Significant Zero by Walt Williams.
Phil: I had forgotten that the guy who wrote it was Walt Williams.
Phil: And I thoroughly recommend that book.
Phil: It's a trashy, easy to read book.
Phil: But yeah, go back and listen to episode one.
Phil: I would cringe to know what episode one sounds like now without our professionalism and years of experience behind the mic.
Tom: And if you want impressions of Significant Zero, you can listen to episode and
Phil: Oh my gosh.
Phil: So entertainment-wise, we've just carried everyone through to the Super Bowl.
Phil: I've got a week of Spec Ops The Line content from The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: And our podcast, what's our website?
Phil: gameunder.net.
Phil: So go over there.
Phil: Story number two.
Phil: Cliff Blazinski says Microsoft would be smart.
Tom: I've got to interrupt you there because it seems like we've made the same mistake that IGN and all other news outlets have made here.
Tom: Has anyone actually bothered to try and find out why it has suddenly been delisted?
Phil: No, it's just been mysteriously delisted and only from Steam.
Tom: Okay, because you think as games journalists that might be...
Phil: They might ask someone why.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Yeah, I know.
Phil: That's what I said.
Phil: It was a non-story.
Phil: It was just basically an excuse to promote the game.
Phil: So for reasons I don't understand, but that's okay.
Phil: Do you think a game like that could come out today?
Phil: Do you think K would publish a game like that today?
Tom: Why not?
Tom: I don't see any reason it couldn't.
Phil: Yeah, the controversy.
Tom: I think controversial games still come out pretty regularly.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: I mean, when it was released, it wasn't actually that controversial.
Tom: I think most of the press force pickups line came up a little bit after its release, as is demonstrated by the IGN out of
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, I don't know.
Phil: I think it was controversial at the time because basically it was a comment.
Phil: The game was in and of itself without spoiling anything, a comment on military shooters.
Phil: So I think it was good for its time.
Phil: It's made its comment.
Phil: I think we need something like that now as a comment on Battle Royale, maybe, or who knows?
Phil: Who knows?
Tom: Anyway, we're ready for shooters still.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: You ready for story number two?
Tom: I'm ready for story number two.
Phil: Gears of War creator Cliff Placinski has said Microsoft would be smart to enlist him to consult on the Gears of War franchise.
Phil: He says, Look, we've been over this millions of times.
Phil: I'm down to consult.
Phil: Give my two cents.
Phil: Crickets from Microsoft.
Phil: I understand that Gears will always be an enormous part of my legacy.
Phil: I appreciate and respect that.
Tom: Were you quoting Cliff Placinski here?
Tom: Or just Club Delusions of Grandeur?
Phil: I was quoting Cliff.
Phil: I pulled this story out because I thought, you know what?
Phil: Okay, what happened with him?
Phil: They went and did...
Phil: well, Boss Key Studios.
Phil: They released something.
Phil: I think it was a Battle Royale that was cancelled.
Phil: And then they did that online BMX game.
Phil: They iterated really quickly under that.
Phil: And since then, he's been wildly successful.
Phil: He's been wildly successful with some other things, like Broadway plays and comic books and books, things like that.
Phil: So I think he's fine.
Phil: But if you were Microsoft, wouldn't you have him come in and consult just so you can promote that Cliff Blazinski, the original guy, is back and helping us make the pinnacle third-person shooter?
Tom: Outside of marketing, I don't really see any point to it, but maybe as a marketing exercise, yes.
Tom: But by the same token, do you think that many people really care who Cliff Blazinski is these days?
Phil: Or what Gears of War is, for that matter.
Tom: That too.
Phil: Yeah, it could just be all irrelevant.
Phil: I would make peace with him and bring him on.
Phil: At least, you just don't know if someone like that, someone who could be a prima donna, could come on and then say, I've seen their development, they don't know what they're talking about, it's horrible.
Phil: And then just move on to the next thing he's doing.
Phil: So maybe the risk reward there isn't there for Microsoft.
Tom: Well, he has had success on Broadway.
Tom: So you may well be a prima donna.
Phil: And while he says that he is now, I understand that gears will always be an enormous part of my legacy.
Phil: I appreciate and respect that.
Phil: He certainly didn't when I tweeted him about that Broadway play.
Phil: The Broadway play was a courtroom drama or something.
Phil: And I went back on Twitter and said, oh, you should call it gears of law, right?
Phil: L-A-W.
Phil: And then he came back to me.
Phil: He's like, why?
Phil: Why?
Phil: Like, hey, the only thing I've known for is gears of war.
Phil: You know, give me a break.
Phil: So he put me in my place.
Phil: But I guess since then, you know, he's water under the bridge.
Phil: I read his book.
Phil: I would encourage people to read his book.
Tom: I think you should have come up with a jazz jackrabbit pun instead.
Phil: I believe I did at the time.
Phil: I believe I did at the time.
Phil: So, but anyway, Cliff Blazinski has released an autobiography, which I'd encourage everyone to read.
Phil: I thought it was definitely worth reading.
Phil: It was very candid in some sections of it.
Phil: Like his first sexual encounter was not perhaps voluntary.
Phil: Some old creep was involved there.
Phil: Yeah, and it's kind of like, wow, okay, that's a lot of information.
Phil: And I don't know what to do with, but everyone's got their story.
Tom: So it's more of a memoir, a serious memoir, than a games book.
Phil: Yeah, it's actually got a lot of games book stuff in there, behind the scenes stuff with his career.
Phil: And the thing that comes back to me about it was I was so amazed at how young and clueless he was at various stages of his career, where from the outside, you're like, oh, that's Cliffy B.
Phil: He's on top of it.
Phil: He's completely in control of his life.
Phil: But he's telling it from his perspective, and he's like, he didn't have it all together a lot of the time.
Phil: It was a very raw book.
Phil: But again, I'd recommend it.
Tom: I think it's to its credit that it has that sort of content in it.
Phil: Yeah, it was certainly much more raw than...
Phil: What's the fellow that does Civilization?
Phil: Sid Meier.
Tom: Sid Meier.
Phil: Kind of hard to forget his name when his name is in front of everything he's ever done.
Phil: Anyway, on to story number three.
Phil: Naughty Dog has concept for one more chapter of The Last of Us.
Phil: They say they don't have the story down yet.
Phil: He's just got a concept.
Phil: This is Neil Druckmann.
Phil: This to me was bad news, because I thought The Last of Us was sort of...
Phil: I liked Last of Us
Phil: I enjoyed Last of Us not fully, but it sort of dragged on a fair bit.
Phil: I had some difficulty with some of the story.
Phil: But I was kind of happy for them just to leave it at that and move on.
Phil: But apparently, they're going to do it again.
Phil: I would prefer to see something new from them.
Tom: I think they easily could have ended it with the first game, let alone the second.
Phil: Oh, absolutely.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely.
Phil: Now, it is interesting though, because he says, we haven't really got the story, I've just got a concept.
Phil: Well, does that tell you that maybe they're working on something else, and then they'll go back to Last of Us?
Phil: Otherwise, you wouldn't have a studio of, you know, people just sitting around while Neil Druckmann's kicking back in his office with post-it notes up on the wall going, now, if only I could get something together here.
Phil: But, you know, so perhaps it does mean that they are working on something else.
Tom: Do they need to have the story written before they start working on the game, though?
Phil: I imagine you could be having environment engineers and environment artists working on those kinds of things without having the actual story nailed down.
Phil: Character animation, you could be working on all of that sort of thing.
Phil: The gameplay, yeah, definitely, you could be working on all that sort of thing.
Phil: I mean, but you'd have to give some broad direction as to, okay, these are the kinds of biomes, my least favorite word.
Phil: These are the kinds of environments that we're going to be in so that you guys can design it.
Tom: I think you could do that with a concept, though.
Phil: Yeah, you probably could.
Phil: I mean, if you look at The Last of Us and Last of Us there were some different settings in there, for sure.
Phil: Mostly stuck to the Pacific Coast other than the parts where they didn't.
Phil: Yeah, maybe you don't need the story, but if, in fact...
Tom: Concept is a pretty broad term.
Tom: You could include settings and a whole lot of stuff in a concept.
Phil: Hmm.
Phil: Yeah, I just thought it was a bit more nebulous than that based on what he said, so...
Phil: Let me just pull that up here.
Phil: I don't have a story, but I do have that concept.
Phil: To me, this is as exciting as one or as exciting as two.
Phil: It's its own thing, yet this...
Phil: yet has this through line for all three.
Phil: So it does feel like there's probably one more chapter to the story.
Phil: So that, to me, sounds a lot more nebulous.
Phil: I mean, there's probably one more chapter to the story.
Tom: That does sound more like they're not necessarily working on it.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: But the next...
Tom: The only thing I would add to that is do Naughty Dog need to be working on something at the moment?
Phil: Well, you've got to...
Phil: You know, like I said, you've got a thousand people sitting there, getting paid.
Phil: They've got to be doing something.
Tom: I could just be sitting there.
Phil: You're a good boss.
Phil: You're a very generous boss.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: On to story number four.
Phil: Ken Levine says, What separates Judas is player choice.
Phil: So out of the Sony showcase, I'd say this was the most interesting game to me.
Phil: Have you watched the trailer for this?
Tom: I have, indeed.
Phil: And what are your impressions?
Tom: I was...
Tom: I can't say I was disappointed because I was expecting it to be just another Bioshock.
Tom: But I'm certainly in no way excited or anticipating it because it is another Bioshock.
Phil: It certainly looks a lot like Bioshock.
Phil: And what's wrong with it?
Tom: And the tagline is player choice.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Do you know anything else about this game?
Phil: Other than that it's what Ken Levine is working on?
Phil: And how far it is?
Phil: I mean, they've got a trailer.
Phil: That doesn't really mean anything, I guess.
Tom: All I know about it is the name that Ken Levine is working on it and that it has a trailer.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And the original Bioshock came out in
Phil: Incredibly.
Tom: How many years ago is that now?
Phil: More than
Phil: But less than
Phil: Hey, well, look, it says Judas is coming to PlayStation
Phil: So at least we know it's going to get released sometime in the next three years, I'd say.
Tom: I think the most interesting thing about this, to me, is something we touched on in the previous episode, which was about every game these days seeming to be very much putting itself forward as a nostalgia project in some way or other.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.
Phil: It's a lot.
Phil: It's a lot of retreads.
Phil: I'm trying to think like it, but you know, at least we have the Indies still out there, bringing some creativity.
Phil: Yeah, it is funny when I look at what I'm playing, and it's like, other than the Indies stuff, it's like, okay, here we are, we're up to Yakuza
Phil: I'm going back and playing games because they've been re-released, you know, games that are years old, this sort of thing.
Phil: Maybe it's just my fault.
Phil: Maybe I should be playing Roblox, and that's where it's at, you know.
Tom: Maybe we should play Roblox.
Phil: Yeah, maybe we should.
Phil: You want to do that this week, and we'll talk about it next show?
Tom: I think we should aim to do that, definitely.
Phil: It is The Game Under Challenge, we will play Roblox.
Phil: Finally, the last news story is from Eurogamer today, where a leaker, so this is not known for fact, but there is a leaker that said that there are five Resident Evil games in development right now, including one of them being Resident Evil
Tom: That wouldn't surprise me.
Phil: Yeah, I find it hard to believe that Capcom has five full Resident Evil games in development, though.
Tom: I can believe it.
Tom: You've got a main game series.
Phil: All right, nine, so that's one.
Tom: You've got the remake series.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: And then you've got a bunch of nebulous concepts that may never see the light of day.
Tom: Because you don't need to assume that any of these are necessarily going to go anywhere.
Phil: Or full games.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: So I think I'm just looking through the VG press.
Phil: There was someone who said, OK, RECode Veronica remake, Resident Evil remake remake.
Phil: I'm not sure that Resident Evil needs another remake, but it just got remade like what, four years ago, five years ago.
Phil: Oh, REremake, REremake.
Phil: So that could work.
Tom: Exactly.
Tom: It's not much of a stretch.
Phil: No, no.
Phil: If you're just talking about remakes.
Phil: Well, with that, let's get on to what we've been playing.
Phil: And we are now joined by a special guest, a fellow that ran a Resident Evil fan site for several years.
Phil: Someone who is probably more passionate than a Resident Evil franchise than I know.
Phil: Anyone else I know, rather.
Phil: Now, his audio is a little bit strange.
Phil: It does sound like he's calling all the way from the US, which he is.
Tom: From Raccoon City, even.
Phil: Raccoon City, yeah.
Phil: So, Dee Vado, welcome to the show.
Dave: It's been a long time.
Phil: What was the name of the fan site that you ran?
Dave: I won't say I ran it.
Dave: I was an administrator of it for a little while.
Dave: I helped with the forums and all that.
Dave: But yeah, that was Biohaze.
Phil: And is it still up and running?
Dave: Yeah.
Phil: Excellent.
Dave: I'm not involved with it as much, but it's still there.
Phil: biohaze.com, excellent.
Phil: And the reason why we brought you on here is because, Tom, you've been playing quite a lot of Resident Evil.
Tom: I have.
Tom: Last year, I played the Resident Evil remake, the Resident Evil remake, the Resident Evil remake, and Resident Evil and Resident Evil all back to back.
Dave: So the new generation of Resident Evil, basically.
Tom: Exactly.
Dave: What did you think?
Tom: Well, it's an interesting experience.
Tom: I think I played...
Tom: I don't think I've ever played that many games in a franchise back to back like that before.
Tom: And it was...
Tom: I played Resident Evil and Resident Evil and obviously Resident Evil but the Resident Evil and Resident Evil remakes were particularly interesting because I never finished either of those on the PlayStation, but I...
Tom: Even though I haven't finished them, some of my favorite games of all time, just due to the richness of the atmosphere, and with that being updated to modern graphics and all that sort of thing, I was worried that it would lose a little of that because a lot of the...
Tom: I mean, anyway, a lot of the, I think, atmosphere of the original Resident Evils and Silent Hill, for that matter, is actually in the lo-fi nature of the games because it just allows you to basically read in so much more into the atmosphere, which creates a much richer experience.
Tom: Resident Evil compared to the original Resident Evil games and Resident Evil remake of the original Resident Evil, all of them, obviously, in terms of gameplay, are amazing, but for me, I don't think any Resident Evil post-PlayStation comes close to that richness and atmosphere of the PlayStation games.
Tom: So I was a little bit disappointed in that regard, but they really captured the spirit of both of those games, even so, I thought.
Tom: They managed to have this wonderful mix of the both intentional and unintentional, ridiculous humor, as well as at times, I think, the slightly darker tone compared to Resident Evil onwards.
Tom: And the gameplay, it took me a little bit of time to calibrate the controls to something that I was comfortable with.
Tom: But once I did, it was a great mixture of very limited environments slightly limited controls, but a nice sort of dynamic movement to it.
Tom: The Malay stuff was very overpowered in Resident Evil but it also gave the combat a nice sort of punchy feel to it.
Tom: And where those two remakes fall down, though, I thought was in Resident Evil
Tom: The great thing about the Resident Evil remake was it wasn't just an action game.
Tom: It was a mixture of killing zombies, conserving ammo, solving puzzles, and exploration.
Tom: And none of those elements were kind of more important than any of the others, whereas in Resident Evil it became much more of an action game, and that was, to me, much less enjoyable.
Tom: It made the experience in general a lot more shallow and much more one-note.
Tom: The second game, you went through these great ups and downs from the beginning to the end.
Tom: The third is just basically action from the beginning to end, and the environments change, but what's happening in the environments don't really change that much.
Dave: Yeah, I totally agree.
Dave: Yeah, Resident Evil remake was handled by a different team.
Dave: Mwas kind of like their side team, and it shows something happened in the development of that game where clearly something would cut.
Dave: Because if you read a lot of the previews of Resident Evil before the main came out, they were talking about subway systems where you could travel across the city to different parts of the city, and it sounded like this big open game, and what we got was nothing like that.
Dave: We got a game that is pretty much a roller coaster.
Dave: You are on a track, you kind of just go forward, and it's just action scene after action scene after action scene, and it's fun, but it's very basic compared to Resident Evil or even the original Resident Evil
Dave: And the worst part of the Resident Evil remake is that the Nemesis aspect, which was a really interesting new style of a thing back in the PlayStation days where they randomly had this creature chase you, and it was randomly generated to always feel like you're being hunted, that was cut out entirely.
Dave: And it's just very scripted in the remake.
Dave: So in that regard, Resident Evil failed as a remake of the original Resident Evil in my eyes.
Dave: It's still a good game because it's just a fun action game, but it's the worst of these new Resident Evil games, I would say.
Phil: So with Resident Evil wasn't there something recently that came up where they basically talked about what had...
Phil: or they admitted that they had cut a fair amount from the game?
Dave: Yes.
Dave: I mean, also, if you just go by location, location, just how the story goes, they cut out the clock tower, which was a great old-schoolish Resident Evil location.
Dave: It felt kind of like the mansion a little bit, where you're in this old, dilapidated clock tower.
Dave: You got some zombies, and it's just a good location, very scary, and the Nemesis chase you through it.
Dave: They cut that out entirely in the game.
Dave: They cut out the entire final section.
Dave: They changed it from this place called the Dead Lab into something that looks like a Resident Evil lab.
Dave: And it felt to me like they just wanted to kind of use assets from Resident Evil
Dave: They kind of copied that.
Dave: But yeah, so you could see those shortcuts taken.
Dave: And the beginning of the game is a little bit more detailed than the final half.
Dave: It felt like they rushed.
Dave: So I felt somewhere along the line, they just ran out of time and money, and they're just like, let's pump this thing out.
Dave: And it shows that they cut corners, because that one got a hit.
Dave: Resident Evil was amazing.
Dave: Everybody loved it.
Dave: Resident Evil came out, and the reaction was, it was okay.
Dave: It's a fun game, but lukewarm, and we're wondering if the remakes are going to match, you know, what Resident Evil did, or is it going to be more just Capcom cashing in?
Dave: Luckily, Resident Evil learned from Resident Evil 's mistake, because the original Resident Evil was actually going to cut out the island entirely.
Dave: It was going to be a much shorter game.
Dave: And then once they saw the reaction to Resident Evil it kind of extended the development time for like an extra year, and they made sure that every single moment of Resident Evil was recreated.
Dave: And so the version we got, which I feel is fantastic, is part of those lessons learned from Resident Evil Remake.
Phil: Now, Resident Evil that was a PlayStation game, right?
Dave: Yes, yes.
Phil: And just thinking about where it fell in terms of the console launches, I'm just thinking that maybe Resident Evil came towards the end of the PlayStation cycle, and that's maybe why the resources got shifted onto something else, because it was kind of like, well, this console is wrapping up.
Dave: Well, yeah, the original Resident Evil that was the split between Resident Evil and Code Veronica.
Dave: So Resident Evil was a side game.
Dave: Resident Evil Nemesis was not supposed to be
Dave: That was supposed to be just Resident Evil Nemesis, a side project worked on by Capcom, while their main team is doing Code Veronica on the Dreamcast.
Dave: And Code Veronica was supposed to be Resident Evil
Dave: And then somewhere along the line, Capcom decided to keep all the numbered titles on PlayStation, and then we're going to name, you know, Resident Evil games on different platforms, a different code name or whatever.
Dave: So that's why Code Veronica got named Code Veronica, when in reality, Code Veronica is Resident Evil
Dave: And they got developed at the same time.
Dave: But most of the development money went to Code Veronica.
Dave: That was the next-gen game that had Wesker, Chris, Claire.
Dave: It was the next big part of the story.
Dave: And Resident Evil was more like a weird little side project.
Phil: That's fascinating.
Phil: Now, I remember when Resident Evil...
Phil: Tell me if I'm wrong, and then I'll shut up for a while.
Phil: But when Resident Evil came out, I seem to remember in the broader gaming community, that was kind of like, well, Capcom, you got to kind of prove yourself here because you're on thin ice.
Phil: Code Veronica was well liked and loved.
Phil: But it was a Dreamcast first game, and it had stayed that way for a very long time.
Phil: So I think a lot of the general community, the last experience they had with it was Resident Evil
Phil: Am I remembering things correctly?
Dave: Code Veronica X came out on the PlayStation about a year after Code Veronica.
Dave: So they did release it on PSas a newer version.
Dave: They added new cutscenes with Wesker in it.
Dave: And that was about the only Resident Evil game, PlayStation like original style Resident Evil game, because they all moved to the Nintendo, which was a big deal that happened where Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil, made a deal with Nintendo just to make Resident Evil games exclusive on the GameCube.
Dave: And that was a huge shift.
Dave: And eventually, it didn't work out, and Mikami left.
Dave: Part of the reason why Shinji Mikami, the creator, left Capcom was that deal falling through, because the GameCube sales weren't as good.
Dave: And Capcom pretty much saying, we need to put Resident Evil on PlayStation no matter what.
Dave: And they did eventually.
Dave: But yeah, Code Veronica did come out on PlayStation and that was about the only main Resident Evil game, a Resident Evil game on PlayStation till Resident Evil came out many years later.
Phil: That's fascinating.
Phil: Did you know that, Tom, about Mikami?
Tom: I think so, but not in that great detail.
Dave: Legend has it that in an interview, he said, I would cut off my own head before I allow Resident Evil to come on PlayStation
Dave: And well, it did come out.
Dave: And I don't know if that quote is for real.
Dave: It could be a translation thing or whatever.
Dave: There's a legend out there that he said that.
Dave: And once that deal fell through and Capcom said, we're just going to port Resident Evil everywhere, basically.
Dave: Yeah, he kind of left and made a move.
Tom: And they're still porting it everywhere today.
Dave: Oh, yeah, on everything imaginable.
Tom: So speaking of Code Veronica, that was actually I tried to play Code Veronica.
Tom: And Code Veronica, I've never got very far in it, but it's always been one of my favorite Resident Evil games because it's just got such a weird and different opening, setting, and start compared to any of the other Resident Evils in this foggy, dirty.
Tom: But I played, remember if it's on the PSor PSI think PSsorry, PSbut I could be wrong.
Tom: I tried to play the version on the PSthe official version, instead of emulating it.
Tom: And for some unknown reason, the PSversion does not have the correct aspect ratio of the game.
Tom: So it's got black borders on the screen, but they do not force it in to the right aspect ratio.
Tom: So you can try stretching it out to to and you'll have the screen stretched.
Tom: You can try moving it to and you'll have the screen stretched.
Tom: So in this version of Resident Evil Code Veronica, for some reason, Capcom decided it would be a good idea to make it so the game literally cannot be played without the image being distorted.
Tom: And I was just absolutely flabbergasted by this decision.
Dave: I don't recall that at least.
Dave: That's French.
Tom: It's not as bad as if you're stretching a to image to to or vice versa.
Tom: So I think a lot of people do play it nonetheless, but any sort of distortion of that type, to me, really annoys me.
Tom: So it's not as bad as it could be, but it is noticeable if that's something that bothers you.
Dave: So did you say you never finished Over on a Goat?
Tom: That's right.
Tom: I never got very far because I mainly played it at a friend's house because they had a dream cast and I didn't.
Phil: This is the section of the show where we talk about where Tom plays on other people's games at other people's places.
Tom: Well, Resident Evil Remake or Resident Evil Remake was played on Arnie or...
Tom: What's the other guy's name on the VJ Press?
Tom: Let me find it.
Phil: Yes, you go ahead and do that.
Phil: So in the news today, VEDA, we talked about how Capcom...
Tom: Terojo.
Tom: So all...
Tom: All of these games, all of these Resident Evil games, are played on Terojo or Arnie's Steam account.
Tom: Except for...
Tom: Let me just check which one.
Phil: This is fascinating.
Tom: It is.
Tom: This is the real impressions that people have come here for, is to find out whose account I was playing what on.
Phil: While you're doing that, the news story broke out today, a bit of a rumor that Capcom is working on five Resident Evil properties right now, one of them being Resident Evil
Phil: Resident Evil has to be a remake, in remake, right?
Dave: I mean, I'm going to assume it will.
Dave: Okay, I need to abstain from this question because I kind of know.
Dave: I have little birdies that tell me things.
Dave: I kind of know what's happening.
Dave: I can't really share it.
Tom: You can't give us an exclusive?
Dave: No, I can't do it.
Dave: I'm sorry.
Dave: The same people who are sharing that rumor I'm in chats with, and I kind of know what's going on.
Phil: Let me just say this, and you don't have to answer it, but are they really going to remake RE?
Dave: I do not know, and I don't think anybody at this point knows.
Dave: And if they do, that is definitely the end of the remakes, I would have to think, right?
Dave: You're not going to remake RE
Dave: Like REI get it.
Dave: REcould use a remake, because that game's a mess.
Dave: It's a fun mess.
Dave: I enjoy it, but that thing is an overblown mess of a game.
Dave: And maybe that game could use a big hacksaw to piece it together and make a more coherent action game out of it.
Phil: I've got to play it again.
Phil: I've got to play it again.
Dave: It has good action.
Dave: Actually, in terms of the combat system, it was pretty unique and fun to play.
Dave: But it is kind of all over the place.
Phil: So for me, like in my Resident Evil life, I started out with Resident Evil on the Saturn.
Phil: And then Resident Evil
Phil: And then I didn't play Nemesis.
Phil: I played all of Code Veronica.
Phil: But then where it hit its stride for me was and
Phil: I guess because that's more of the action type games.
Phil: But then I bought and it was so creepy I couldn't play it.
Phil: I still have it over there in the library, but I've just never been able to actually play it.
Phil: And it could just be because now I've got a kid around, and it's a bit more difficult.
Phil: Do you see, I mean, like, you'd probably look at, what sort of an RE gamer would you call me?
Phil: I'm kind of all over the place, but I'd be casual, right?
Dave: Well, I mean, no, I think you've gone through all the eras.
Dave: I see Resident Evil is split in three eras, basically.
Dave: There's the original PSkind of era, or the old school Resident Evil.
Dave: It kind of went into the GameCube, which was your fixed camera angle, classic, you know, run around, grab items.
Dave: Then it went into the action era, which is your
Dave: And then Resident Evil kind of made this new-ish era that's a mix of everything, and I think the best of everything.
Dave: We're right now in this really great era where every fan of Resident Evil is getting something good.
Dave: But since you've kind of dabbled in all those, and you did mention your action, you think action was your favorite part?
Dave: ?
Phil: Definitely, yeah.
Dave: Yeah, so you're probably, like most, I would say, is probably the height.
Dave: Right now, I think we're the best part of Resident Evil.
Dave: I think right now, you're in a really good spot.
Dave: But back then, was like the max point of the series before.
Dave: Like that was when it hit its height.
Dave: Resident Evil was a masterpiece.
Dave: It kind of fell into and was like the big blockbuster game.
Dave: And it was still the best selling game.
Tom: I said, is the one that had actually sold by far the most, isn't it?
Dave: Yes, yeah.
Dave: Well, it was going to be caught up by Resident Evil I think, just passed.
Dave: The remake just passed it, or going to pass it in a few months.
Dave: So Resident Evil remakes didn't pass it.
Dave: And the Resident Evil remake is going to pass all of them.
Dave: It's already breaking all the sales records in terms of how much it sold up to now.
Dave: So Resident Evil is the fastest selling Resident Evil game.
Dave: But Resident Evil was by far the top for a long time.
Dave: Resident Evil with like versions of it was kind of right there, but Resident Evil was the top for the longest time.
Dave: But I think a lot of fans are that action era.
Dave: And that's okay.
Dave: But I think if you dabbled in the old, played the action, and you're good.
Dave: You got it all.
Dave: You're an all around Resident Evil fan.
Dave: You might not be a diehard, but you're a fan.
Phil: Yeah, I haven't gone back to the remakes.
Phil: I bought them, but I haven't gone back to them yet.
Phil: And again, that's more to do with having a little kid around, you know.
Tom: I just got to interject here, something on sales I've been pondering is, we really need some way of quantifying sales in a better way, because given the ever upward rise of the popularity of gaming, it seems sometimes a little misleading comparing sales of new games or new versions of new games to old ones, just given that there were far fewer people in terms of gamers to purchase them in the past.
Tom: So if RERemake is outselling the original Resident Evil, for example, does that mean it's more popular today, or does it not, considering there are simply far more people to buy?
Phil: Well, I think, Tom, what you're looking at, though, is the kind of thing that happens with sports statistics as well, right?
Phil: So rules have changed, people are bigger, they're more athletic.
Phil: I don't know that you can balance out, this guy got so many steals in baseball, and then these days the kids are not getting as many steals, but then they change the rules that make the bases bigger and all the rest of it.
Phil: So I just don't know that you can compare overall sales to that extent.
Tom: It should be simpler.
Tom: You just need to do it in a per capita calculation based on the number of consoles or something to that effect.
Phil: Yeah, the number of available gamers, I guess.
Dave: There's also the pricing, because now games are and back then they were and so you're paying a little bit more per copy, but then they drop in price too, and then they sell for many, many years at a discounted price.
Dave: You never know where most of the sales are coming from.
Dave: You know, is it mostly your release?
Dave: You know, you get a good three, four million right at release, but then the next six million are like at bucks.
Dave: It's...
Dave: So it's...
Dave: The way I would say it is, look at the company.
Dave: You know, they have an expectation for how much it's supposed to sell to meet their goals, and if it exceeds that, then that's a success for them.
Dave: And right now, Resident Evil seems to be doing very well for Capcom.
Phil: Isn't it great that Capcom's just stuck in there for year after year, not just with Resident Evil, but, you know, there was an era during the Dreamcast era and Nera where Capcom was my favorite developer and publisher, and they're still going at it.
Phil: You know, they're still going at it strong.
Phil: It's just fantastic to see that sort of legacy and still being alive and relevant.
Phil: So Tom, what was the overall impact on you, like playing all these Resident Evil back to back to back?
Phil: I mean, did it jade you to Resident Evil?
Phil: Did it make you more interested?
Phil: Obviously, if you were sick of it, you would have stopped at some point along the way.
Tom: Well, I got...
Tom: I almost got sick of it and wanted to stop when I played the Resident Evil Zero, the PC version.
Tom: But by the end of Resident Evil Zero, that ended up becoming one of my favorites in the series.
Tom: So the reason that was inspired me to continue on with this whole experience.
Tom: So the reason that was such a roller coaster ride was a few things.
Tom: The first is it's got one of the absolute stupidest design decisions in any game I've ever played, and that is there is no magical story box, storage box in it, unlike basically every other Resident Evil.
Tom: So what you need to do to manage your inventory is basically select a part of the map where you're going to be dumping all your fucking shit, and you'll be going back and forth between this spot as you're exploring when you need to top up your ammo or get some healing items you suddenly need.
Tom: I just do not know how anyone thought this was a good idea, yet at the same time, as much as it annoyed me throughout the entire game, something about it was charming just by the very fact that it was so monumentally stupid and bizarre.
Tom: And there are a few other things like this too, like there were these leech enemies in it which appeared, and you could technically kill them, but they required you to use up so much ammo unless you had fire weapons like Molotov cocktails or fire grenades that the majority of the time, you'd just be sprinting past them.
Tom: So that was an interesting experience.
Phil: Which game was this?
Tom: This is Resident Evil Zero.
Phil: They didn't give you the storage locker?
Tom: That's right.
Phil: That's funny because that reminds me of playing Morrowind in the old days.
Phil: They had the same sort of thing, so you just go find a place that you think is sort of hidden and then just dump all your gear there on the map.
Tom: Someone's house.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: So you were doing that in Resident Evil Zero?
Tom: Basically, yes.
Tom: And then the funniest thing is, so they don't have the magical story boxes, but when you move from one area to the next, all your shit gets magically transferred to the next area and dumped on the floor there.
Phil: Are you kidding?
Phil: That's funny.
Phil: That is funny.
Tom: That's why I ended up enjoying that aspect of the game as incredibly annoying as it was to actually deal with.
Tom: You don't come across just weird shit like that in games very often.
Tom: And there might be a good reason for that, but it's still, once you get used to the suffering, makes it an interesting experience.
Tom: But the other reason, or the other really disappointing thing about it as well, was it has some of the worst bosses in Resident Evil history.
Tom: Most of them are just, here's a giant version of something, and the gameplay basically just consists of, you've got to pretty much know where to stand so that you're not going to get hit and shoot at the right time.
Tom: And that's pretty much it for the majority of the bosses.
Tom: So it's some of their least creative bosses, both in terms of gameplay and character design.
Tom: But the thing that makes it interesting, other than the totally bizarre item box bullshit, is it's almost as much fantasy as it is science fiction.
Tom: It's got an operatic cutscene in it.
Tom: The main enemy is this leech shape-shifting dude.
Tom: And the settings are also some of the most interesting, although they're not really fleshed out compared to other Resident Evils.
Tom: But the train is a real highlight of any Resident Evil.
Tom: So it just ends up being, I think, one of the most unique Resident Evil experiences.
Tom: And as painful as it was to play at times, it's definitely become one of the most memorable Resident Evil experiences I've had.
Dave: Yeah, that's my least favorite, I would say, easily.
Dave: Zero marked the moment where I realized this series needs to change or it's done.
Dave: And thankfully, Resident Evil came next, and they knew it.
Dave: They knew, like, they ran.
Dave: That was it.
Dave: That was the end of the old formula.
Dave: Resident Evil was, we're out of ideas.
Dave: This is it.
Dave: You know, we're going to take away an item box, and that was a horrible idea.
Dave: It didn't really work.
Dave: We're going to put two people that you control at the same time.
Dave: That's interesting.
Dave: They had a few puzzles where you have to control both, but it was an annoying game.
Tom: Absolutely.
Tom: If anyone says it's terrible, I'll accept that.
Dave: I don't think any Resident Evil game is terrible.
Dave: It was easily the worst of those, you know, one through zero from the original grouping.
Dave: I thought that was easily the worst of those.
Tom: I think that's fair assessment.
Phil: Yeah, Vader, how long have you known Dusk Golem?
Dave: Dusk Golem, just from the forums and stuff like that.
Dave: I've never met him or anything, but we chat in like a little Resident Evil chat room and stuff.
Dave: But yeah, I've known him.
Dave: It's been, what, six years or so?
Phil: I was just trying to trick him into saying something he shouldn't, Tom.
Phil: That's the name.
Phil: That's the fellow that released this information.
Dave: Yeah, he loves just sharing stuff.
Dave: He probably shouldn't at times, but he does.
Phil: He likes doing that.
Phil: All right, Tom, anything else you want to say about your Resident Evil experience?
Tom: Well, there's still the REremake and REand RE
Phil: Oh, well, okay.
Phil: Well, this is the best part, I guess.
Phil: This is the part we should charge people for, but go ahead.
Tom: Do we want to start with REor RE-?
Phil: I'm happy to talk about RE
Tom: We may as well, given we've all been covering what are technically remakes or re-releases so far.
Tom: So this is one game where I really wish I had notes for it.
Tom: But I'll do my best without notes.
Tom: So I think the first thing you have to say is they were given a very difficult, if not impossible task.
Tom: Many people say Resident Evil is the greatest game of all time.
Tom: I would certainly not say that.
Tom: I think where I hold Resident Evil is very different to a lot of people.
Tom: It's a game I love.
Tom: Is it a game that I think you can say is one of the best, sorry, the best contender for the best of all time?
Tom: I don't think so.
Tom: I think it does some things better than any other game or as well as any other game.
Tom: The pacing in it and the way the pacing works is, I think, totally unique.
Tom: I can't think of any other game that has a similar sort of pacing because the fascinating thing about Resident Evil 's pacing is it ends up having this perfectly streamlined feeling to it.
Tom: Yet, if you look at what's actually happening moment to moment, it's all over the place.
Tom: You'll be literally having this completely quiet downtime walking along with no build up, and the next section, next second, you'll be beset by enemies in this massive action set piece, which will be followed immediately by a puzzle or some random shit like that.
Tom: It doesn't have like normal crescendos and doesn't normally build up to things, and doesn't give you expected moments of downtime.
Tom: It's all over the place, all the time.
Phil: I think that's what makes it good, because you just don't know, yeah, it puts you off center, yeah.
Tom: Exactly, I can't think of another game that does this.
Dave: I agree.
Dave: Well, I'm one of those that think it's one of the greatest top three games ever made.
Dave: But yeah, and I do agree that's part of why.
Dave: It is the pacing.
Dave: To me, well, to this day, I have never found a game that for as long as that is, because it is a long game for an action game, hours.
Dave: To have that level of just every moment is something different and new, and you have no idea what's going to come up.
Dave: And it's always a unique twist.
Dave: Like, no room is the same.
Dave: It's just they keep the encounters unique every single time for that long and that intense.
Dave: It's amazing.
Dave: And every game is spoiled, because every game I kind of compare, all these action games, I'm trying to compare it to it.
Dave: And to me, nothing matches, because most games do have a flow that is kind of predictable and does have highs and lows.
Dave: Whereas before, to me, it was just constantly one-upping itself over and over and over and over again.
Phil: It was my number one for a long time.
Phil: It's probably in my top five right now.
Phil: And I think it is exactly that, because it's something new, like constantly.
Phil: And it didn't feel like a long game at all for an action game when I was playing it.
Tom: The only thing I can compare it to in terms of pacing is an action Bollywood blockbuster.
Phil: But does the remake change any of that?
Tom: That's the original that we're talking about.
Tom: And I think the other important thing about the original as well is of course the mechanics.
Tom: Some of the most satisfying third-person shooting mechanics in any game.
Tom: I think that's another area where you can say it is up there with the best of anything.
Tom: For me, the areas where maybe it falls down a little bit, and the areas that don't live up to those two main...
Tom: They are of course...
Tom: Those two things are the core of the game.
Tom: They're the most important thing.
Tom: But the areas that perhaps don't live up to it as much for me is I think some of the encounter design and some of the environmental design I think doesn't have the same level of interest and unpredictability and chaos as the pacing or detail and depth as the mechanics.
Tom: So those were the sorts of areas that I thought would be interesting to see if they were able to improve on at all in the remake.
Tom: But really, the main area that I was worried about the remake was in terms of the feeling of the pacing.
Tom: And it's not just that it's all chaos and random, it's that throughout Resident Evil one of the things that makes it enjoyable to me anyway is there's always a sense of friction, even if that's just due to what's happening in the narrative or if it is just due to these really neck-breaking changes in pace, there's always this sense of friction to whatever you're doing.
Tom: Even if you're in a fight and you've got shotgun shells and you know it's going to be nothing, there's still this sense that it's this life or death situation where you could die at any moment, even if that isn't the case.
Tom: And modern games are very much the opposite to that.
Tom: They're all about removing as much friction as possible, making everything feel not necessarily like it's not a life and death situation, but always like there's a way you can figure things out and fight your way out of something if you have enough grit.
Tom: And that was what I was worried might occur, because Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil remake, they still have friction in them, but compared to the original games, they're obviously a completely streamlined and fictionless experience in a good way.
Tom: But if they were going to remove that from Resident Evil you're removing the soul of the game to me.
Tom: And I was shocked and very pleasantly surprised.
Tom: They absolutely did not do that.
Tom: I feel like the shooting mechanics in it, they don't feel as heavy as in the original Resident Evil
Tom: They don't feel as unique as in the Resident Evil
Tom: It's much more in line with something like binary domain, less so vanquish, because it's a lot slower.
Tom: But it's something you can see has some comparison in feel to great third-person shooters of today, whereas Resident Evil was totally unique.
Tom: And I don't think any games til this day really feel like it.
Tom: So that's perhaps somewhere where they're not quite as good as the original.
Tom: But it's got exactly the same sort of feeling to the pacing, which is an amazing achievement for a game that is released in...
Tom: Was it in ?
Tom: I think
Tom: So that, my major fear was thankfully avoided.
Tom: And I think you can make an argument in some ways that, like, a lot about the merch and how the merch works is streamlined, but in a way that it makes the experience better.
Tom: Because other than my only enjoyment of the merch in the first game, I was the character himself.
Tom: Dealing with the way the system worked wasn't particularly enjoyable to me, so I think that's one area they improved on as well.
Tom: So I think they took what was potentially an impossible task and somehow pulled off making a game that was, some people say it's better than the original.
Tom: I don't agree with that because I think the pacing is up there with the original, but the feeling of the combat is not quite there.
Tom: The one important change which makes it into a much more dynamic thing is the way the belay system works.
Tom: It's much more dynamic, and from what I can remember of the original, it's much more important and powerful compared to the original.
Tom: But that's not enough for me to say it's more enjoyable because that kind of makes it more in line with other third-person shooters today.
Tom: So all in all, to me, it's not as good as the original, but it is a similarly incredible experience, and it keeps the soul of the original, which is a pretty amazing achievement.
Tom: And it's also worth playing if you played the original, which is, for a remake, another incredible achievement.
Phil: Vader, what did you think about the remake?
Dave: Hey, you kind of summed up how I feel.
Dave: I think it's an amazing achievement to take such a masterpiece.
Dave: Like, that's daunting.
Dave: To ask a new team to be like, through Resident Evil you're like, what?
Dave: Like, that's a perfect game.
Dave: Like, that game is still plays today.
Dave: Today, you could play that game and be like, wow.
Dave: To do that and say, make it again, like, make it newer.
Dave: What?
Dave: And they did it.
Dave: And it managed to feel as exciting, as fresh.
Dave: Well, not as fresh, but it is as exciting, and the mechanics are updated.
Dave: So this is where I think people are going to split.
Dave: I think there are a lot of people that think this new one is better, simply because they can't go back and play a game where a guy has to stand still and shoot, which we could have a debate for all time.
Tom: I don't like realism.
Phil: Let me just say that as someone who has a gun license and shoots, right?
Phil: Standing still while you shoot is an important thing if you want to actually kill things.
Dave: Absolutely.
Dave: But for a video game, everybody is trained to move and shoot and do a dual analog stick movement.
Dave: And so I see that as a barrier for a lot of newer players that go back and play maybe Resident Evil and they're like, well, I see how it's fun, like they encounter their fun, but I can't play the game.
Dave: I've seen that so many times from younger players.
Dave: And this new one kind of gives them that.
Dave: It allows them to play this game with modern controls and experience that fun roller coaster ride with the same amazing encounter design.
Dave: It's just intense from start to finish.
Dave: Yeah, it's an amazing game.
Dave: And there's a few things that it does better, like set pieces are more bombastic.
Dave: There is, I think, I think it's a little bit harder, honestly, or maybe I've just got really good at Resident Evil and I kind of forgot, you know, like if it was any difficult.
Dave: But this one feels like they were a lot more aggressive with you.
Dave: They will come and charge at you, and they will hit you, and like damages feels more visceral in this game.
Dave: And they also like they fall apart in like new ways, like you can shoot them.
Dave: There's certain enemies that limbs will come off, and they keep coming.
Dave: Those, the church guys that have that tentacle thing that come out of their head, like that thing is brutal to kill.
Dave: Like in the original, you just kind of shoot them a few times, but here, they're like tanks, and like they didn't just...
Dave: It's so well done.
Dave: It's a fantastic game.
Dave: It's missing a few encounters from the original.
Dave: Like they cut a few things.
Dave: It's okay.
Dave: Resident Evil is huge.
Dave: It's a huge game.
Dave: But so because of that, I will still pick the original.
Dave: And also the original was not just a great action game.
Dave: It was revolutionary for its time.
Dave: And this is not that.
Dave: You know, as cool as this game is, this has all been done before.
Dave: This is just a very refined experience.
Dave: But it is one of the better action games I played in years.
Phil: Revolutionary and influential, because obviously it went on to inspire Gears of War, which went on to inspire hundreds of other games, like Cent Blood on the Sand.
Dave: Yeah, so I never expected Resident Evil Remake to beat the original, but it came close, and that's a lot more than I thought it would.
Dave: So I am just pleased.
Dave: I love this remake.
Dave: I've already played it like five, six times.
Dave: It is fantastic.
Dave: And I don't know how many of you played, but the separate ways Ada add on is brilliant.
Dave: It is not like the separate ways that came out for the other one.
Dave: This is like a missing chapter, and it has the missing boss fight, which was that it creature that was in the original, which was that thing that had the...
Dave: that chased you in those big shipping containers that you're up in the air, and then it was chasing you, and then you battle it.
Dave: That creature is in the expansion.
Dave: So they brought back the one missing boss fight, basically, and it's just a fantastic expansion.
Dave: Amazing.
Tom: I've not played it, unfortunately.
Dave: Yeah, it's good.
Tom: There are actually two things I forgot to mention.
Tom: One, the QTEs were removed, which is a great improvement.
Tom: And the other thing, I think, that was both a disappointment but also kind of worked better sometimes was the way they handled the story.
Tom: I think they made Louise into a more interesting subplot, but they certainly self-censored some of the more questionable lines in the game, which I think removed a lot of the charm from the story.
Dave: Yeah, I think the original Resident Evil storyline was like a tongue-in-cheek joke at American action movies.
Dave: And they even said it.
Dave: Dylan mentioned, you think you're in an action Hollywood movie?
Dave: You think you're the hero?
Dave: And it was kind of like a play on that.
Dave: It was tongue-in-cheek, kind of serious.
Dave: It struck a great balance, where this remake does try to go really straight with everything.
Dave: Like, hey, we're telling a really...
Dave: Like, it has its moments, because Leon still does have some good one-liners in this game, but it's not like the original game, where the original played the line a lot closer to kind of making fun, kind of being cheesy, kind of being all s-style action movie.
Dave: This one's a little bit more serious.
Dave: It does have better characterization, like you said, with Lewis.
Dave: I think Ashley is a more fleshed-out character, but is missing some of that charm.
Tom: And it's a lot less pervy.
Dave: Oh, yeah.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Okay, great.
Phil: Well, thanks again, Veda, for coming on the show.
Dave: Absolutely.
Dave: Glad to be here.
Phil: Well, that was fantastic.
Phil: We've known Dee Veda for a long time, and it's good to know that he knew the guy that got that rumor out there today about Capcom.
Phil: So, yeah, we'll definitely have him back on perhaps next show to talk about REand REbecause that's some of the games that we didn't get to talk about today.
Tom: But if you want more Dee Veda content, you can listen to Episode Episode and Episode
Phil: Okay, that was a good conversation.
Phil: Now, before we close out the show, I've got questions for Tom.
Phil: These are questions for Tom from other people's podcasts.
Phil: I wasn't satisfied with the answer, so I brought them over here.
Phil: First question.
Phil: Parker from Houston writes, Do you think achievements as a meta-liar in games have been used to their full potential?
Phil: It really seems like achievements are challenging, unique, and interesting all at once.
Phil: I feel like the system could be used to encourage players to engage with the game system in unique ways, but these kinds of achievements seem rare.
Tom: Did you just say a meta-liar?
Phil: A meta-layer.
Tom: Meta-layer.
Tom: A meta-layer.
Phil: I guess the only time I've seen achievements used on a meta-layer is like, what if it was the name of the guy with the British guys talking to you the whole time?
Phil: The protocol?
Phil: Stanley Protocol?
Tom: Yep.
Tom: I think there have been a few games that have done that.
Tom: That is one that comes to mind, but I'm sure there are others as well.
Phil: It's definitely underutilized, though.
Tom: It's definitely rare, that's for sure.
Tom: But by the same token, I think beyond jokes, is there a particularly interesting way to use them?
Phil: Well, the writer Parker says he wants achievements to be challenging.
Phil: Okay, well, I think you've got that down, because, you know, collectathon.
Phil: Unique and interesting.
Phil: He wants achievements that are unique and interesting.
Phil: That's a hard call, though, unless you get jokey with them.
Phil: What I would probably do, like if I had to think of something unique and interesting, but it's still probably pretty jokey, is that after you get five achievements, it unlocks all the other achievements in the game.
Phil: Or something like that.
Phil: Like, if you unlock five, they give you ten.
Phil: You know, if you unlock ten, they give you, you know, fifty.
Phil: Just some...
Phil: And so that you'd have that ping of achievements coming up and up and up, you know, like, for two minutes.
Phil: That's probably been done to some extent before.
Tom: I think another satisfying and rare and more interesting than usual form of achievement is when you are playing a game that allows for some degree of creativity in the gameplay, and you do something that's a random combination of things that you think wouldn't have been thought of and it results in an achievement.
Phil: Yeah, that would be good, but you know who, that would piss off completionists, because they'd be like, how do I get this achievement, you know?
Phil: Yeah, but if you did a unique enough thing...
Phil: Those are the achievements I always like, is the unexpected ones, where you've done something, and they're sort of acknowledging, hey, you know, you've done something cool here.
Phil: Tough to engineer, though, I imagine.
Phil: And for the developer, I'm imagining that achievements are pretty low on the list of priorities for them.
Tom: I don't know, they do get quite a lot of importance.
Tom: Maybe not to the average player, but given the number of forums and internet posts devoted to achievements and trophies, there has to be a pretty large cult following that would probably be seriously considered in the development of a lot of games, I would think.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: Moving on to another one, Brian from Nebraska writes, When Gabe Newell leaves Valve, will it change?
Phil: That's an interesting question.
Phil: What's the importance of Gabe Newell to Valve, I guess?
Tom: I think Gabe Newell exists as a cult of personality, not necessarily within the company, I don't know if that's the case or not, but within the broader internet and in terms of gamers' conception of Valve.
Tom: I think without the existence of Gabe Newell, people will be a lot harsher about Valve.
Phil: Isn't that interesting?
Phil: Because he's basically made his millions at Microsoft and then went out and created Valve.
Phil: They went and got the Source engine to Doom from the guys at id Gaming, which I think is why the Source engine is called the Source, because they just basically were given the Source code for free.
Phil: I think Gabe has reached a legendary kind of level, and I think for us who came up with Steam, first hating it and then accepting it, and then, okay, this is actually a pretty good way of doing this.
Phil: There was always that, oh, well, we don't...
Phil: Because people say, well, what happens if Valve goes away?
Phil: And people will be like, oh, well, Gabe said that he will give you the ability to download these games to be used in perpetuity, which of course is impossible, because those are rights that as the merchandiser, he does not have.
Phil: He can't just give us all of these games for free.
Phil: And everyone sort of sees him as the patron saint of digital gaming, I think, and that when a big personality like that leaves a company, we don't know what the inner workings of Valve are, obviously.
Phil: They're a very unique company.
Phil: Probably the closest thing next to it would be obviously GOG, because they're still developing games like The Witcher and Cyberpunk, whereas Valve doesn't really publish games anymore, or very rarely.
Phil: Yeah, I think definitely Valve will have to change when Gabe leaves, because to a certain extent, in terms of a small company's politics, there's going to be things that people don't even propose right now, because they know that Gabe would not be for it.
Phil: Once Gabe's out the door, it's only natural that people would go, you know, we've never really talked about doing this before, but what if we do this?
Tom: Maybe they'll develop a game.
Phil: Yeah, maybe they'll develop a game.
Phil: And, you know, it could be positive or negative, or will be positive and negative when Gabe leaves Valve.
Phil: But, yeah, I guess we just can't know.
Phil: Okay, on to Adam, who writes, who will be the person memorialized for bringing games to the mainstream?
Phil: Miyamoto?
Phil: Carmack?
Phil: Gabe Newell?
Phil: A lot of Gabe today.
Tom: Reggie Philzane.
Phil: Reggie Phil-Feeza-Me?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Um, who's the person memorialized for bringing games to the mainstream?
Phil: What is the mainstream?
Tom: He's the person I associate with the Wii.
Phil: Yeah, okay, but, you know, before that, you had the Atari, right?
Phil: And the Atari was definitely a mainstream, uh, you know, fad, the way that the Wii was.
Tom: The reason I say the Wii, and maybe this also occurred with the Atari, but until the Wii, I think normal people did not play video games, at least not in Australia.
Tom: If you played games pre-Wii, you were a nerd or in some way negatively looked down upon by the broader population.
Phil: Yeah, do you think that's still in play today, though?
Tom: I don't think so.
Tom: Not at all.
Phil: I think there's still...
Phil: Look, I mean, I hate to say this, but is it Steve Jobs, because of the invention of the iPhone in that's brought gaming to the mainstream, right?
Phil: I mean, because you've got demographics of people that would never consider playing games, playing games on phones.
Tom: Well, this is where you have to define what games are, whether you mean literally games or you mean games in the sense that gamers use the term games, because there's a big, I think, split between those two spheres of existence.
Phil: If you look at the game that you play, though, The Sky, Children of the Sky, is that what it's called?
Tom: Children of the Light.
Phil: Children of the Light, Sky, yeah?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: I mean, that's a game that...
Phil: Is that a mainstream game?
Phil: Probably not.
Phil: But there's a broad demographic of people that play it.
Phil: It's not just people you'd think of as gamers.
Tom: Well, that's one of the most interesting things about it is the broad selection of people playing it.
Tom: It consists of people who also play console and PC games, people who play very casual mobile games or no other games, and people who play more traditional style games on their mobile phones as well.
Tom: But that's not, generally speaking, the case.
Phil: Would you...
Phil: Okay, so I think the contenders are Atari Dude.
Phil: What's his name?
Tom: Nolan, right?
Tom: Nolan Bushnell?
Phil: Nolan Bushnell from Atari.
Phil: I think the second one would be whoever was in charge of Nintendo at the time when they produced the Wii.
Phil: Reggie?
Phil: Well, Reggie was Nintendo of America.
Phil: Who was a nice fellow?
Phil: Satoru Iwata in Japan.
Phil: I think we've got to acknowledge Nintendo of America is basically a publicity arm of Nintendo rather than a development arm.
Tom: That's precisely why I'm picking Reggie, because the question is who brought it to the mainstream.
Phil: Right, right, right.
Phil: Yeah, okay, you got an argument.
Phil: I still think, and I am not an Apple dude, but you could make also an argument for Steve Jobs.
Tom: I think that's a good choice too.
Phil: I don't think that you can say Notch with the creator of Minecraft, or Epic as a creator of Fortnite, or Satan as the creator of Roblox.
Phil: I don't think any of those get a mention, because those are still gamey games.
Tom: And the interesting thing about those games is they're sort of a throwback, because if you think about Minecraft, not really Roblox, but Fortnite to some degree, the media presentation and general perception of those games is that they are some sort of weird other outsider phenomenon that has broken through to the mainstream.
Phil: Yeah, right.
Phil: Yep, I agree.
Tom: So in a sense, despite their huge popularity, they're in a sense not mainstream.
Phil: Right, right.
Phil: And you can say the same thing about John Carmack and Doom and Quake and all of those ones, because they never broke into the mainstream in any way possible.
Phil: I don't think we're going to settle this today, but I think we've got at least the starting ground of a good conversation there.
Phil: I think, yeah, I would say Atari because that was really broad and wide on the basis of the arcade scene.
Phil: It's undeniable and unquestionable that it probably had the same thing, if not slightly more, than mainstream.
Phil: And then whether or not we want to count mobile gaming as something or not, I would certainly say that it is.
Phil: I think those are probably the three.
Phil: We haven't forgotten anyone else, have we?
Tom: I think those are the three most logical choices, I think.
Tom: But the first two options we both went for, I do have to point out, I think they're based not so much on logic, but purely our respective ages.
Phil: Yes, and experience and knowledge.
Phil: Now, I'm not saying when I was playing Atari when I was a young person, by then the fad had already gone and died, right?
Phil: By the time I was doing it.
Phil: And certainly here in Australia, it was certainly a thing where uncles were buying them.
Phil: You know what I mean?
Phil: The demand wasn't coming from kids.
Phil: And look, someone could also say, what about the NES?
Phil: Well, yeah, the NES was very popular and brought console gaming back, but I don't think it broadened it out to the mainstream.
Phil: So how many more questions you want to take here, Tom?
Tom: It's up to you, Phil.
Phil: Okay, well, I think we'll just close out with this one.
Phil: Scott writes, Prince of Persia The Lost Crown returned the series to its D roots.
Phil: What other franchise do you think would benefit from this D treatment, either for the first time or back to how it used to be?
Phil: So the obvious other example would be Mario, Super Mario Wonder.
Phil: You know, Nintendo does this all the time, going backwards and forwards between D.
Phil: But what other franchise do you think would benefit from the D treatment?
Tom: I think it's hard to pick many franchises that did not return to the D treatment at some point.
Tom: Donkey Kong will be one that immediately comes to mind, but that has had a return to its D roots at various times.
Tom: So I'm trying to think of a more interesting choice here.
Tom: Maybe Doom.
Tom: I think that could be interesting.
Tom: I think a two-dimensional classic style Doom developed by the present Doom developers could make for an exceptional game.
Phil: It's funny that you should mention that because I have been playing a Sirius Sam D game, Top Down Shooter, which is very, very cool.
Phil: I forget what it's called, but it should be pretty easy for people to find.
Phil: But yeah, it is fantastic.
Phil: It plays like RoboTron.
Phil: So you know, a top-down, and you're basically...
Phil: It is top-down in a way, but he's side on D, and it's all pixel art.
Phil: I was going to say Yakuza, so they could go back and do it like a double dragon type beat-em-up.
Tom: That could work very well.
Tom: You lose a lot of the exploration, potentially, though.
Phil: What about Gran Turismo?
Phil: Like, what if you took those physics and then applied it to a D...
Phil: a top-down over the, you know...
Tom: Isometric.
Phil: D racer.
Phil: Not isometric like RC Pro-M, but just like Spy Hunter, you know.
Tom: I think those physics would be a little bit awkward, but it does work more complicated physics in Art of Rally and Absolute Drift, so it could work.
Phil: Yeah, I think there's lots of opportunities there for all sorts of games.
Phil: Grand Theft Auto, Chinatown, China Wars, whatever that one was called, for the DS, was a fantastic return to what it was, but obviously much better.
Phil: Okay, well, thanks for that, Tom.
Phil: Thanks for answering those questions.
Phil: You did answer them better than the original podcast, so that's fantastic.
Phil: So with that, thank you for listening to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: You can visit our website, gameunder.net, where we occasionally post contact, but as Tom has pointed out, it's also a great place.
Phil: We have a fantastic search engine on there for you to go back and find any game that you're actually interested in, because we are Australia's longest running video game podcast.
Phil: I have been Phil Fogg.
Tom: And I've been Tom Towers.
Tom: And I'm giving you, Phil Fogg, some homework to do between now and the next episode, and that is listen to all of the previous episodes, as I'm getting the impression you don't remember anything about any of them.
Phil: No, no, but I guess our real actual homework is for me and you to play Roblox before the next episode.
Tom: So I was hoping that would have been another thing you'd forget.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: Thanks, Tom.
Phil: Uh, let me tell this junko.
Tom: Craig to piss off How do I do this off?
Phil: Yeah, how do I do that?
Phil: I don't want to kick him, I don't want to ban him.
Phil: How do I get the chat back?
Tom: General, maybe?
Phil: Oh, yeah.
Phil: You know all the shit.
Dave: Bye-bye.