(upbeat music) - What's up, everybody? Welcome to a very special IGN Game Scoop. I'm your host, David Hatfield, and joining me this week are Sam Clayborn. - You know, he says it's special every week, but this one really is special. - This one really, it's extra special. Justin Davis is here. - Scoop. - And very special guest. Returning to Game Scoop, after I think 12 years, is the one and only Greg Miller. - Scoop! - What's up, David? - Greg, how the hell are you? - I am excellent. It's so nice to be back on Game Scoop with all y'all. - Well, there's a very good reason for Greg to be here. - Did the math 12 years? - Yeah, I think so. - Very good reason. - It would have been December 2015? No, 2014, right? - Yeah, December 2014 would have been my final episode. - Yeah, okay. There's a very good reason for Greg to be here. We'll get to in just a moment. We've got a great show for you this week. Lots of new games to talk about. Pragmata, replaced, and mouse, PI for hire. But first, ladies and gentlemen, scoop nation. Today, April 17th is my 20th anniversary here at IGN. - Wow. - Hey, congratulations, David. - Yeah. - No, we're at the confetti's not working. (laughing) - Yeah, April 17th, 2006 was my first day here in. And here I remain, here I remain. - Did you fly out for an interview? - Well, that's funny that you asked, Sam. Because if you'll indulge me, I wanted to take a look back at my time here at IGN, and how games have changed, the industry has changed, and how IGN has changed. And I wanted to invite Greg on to do some reminiscing, a walk down memory lane, if you will. So, if you'll come with me, cast your mind. Cast your minds back to early 2006. I know some of our listeners were probably still very young. Early 2006, 28-year-old Damon Hadfield is living in Chicago. Actually, let's go back even farther. Let's go back farther to a young Damon Hadfield. (laughing) - Capital G gamer for all my life. First kid in my school to have an NES when it was widely released in 1986. And then my extracurricular activities were at theater. I was in all the plays and musicals in high school, and I was in a band called Cool Guy Club number nine. We're pretty good. - Well, hold on, what was your high school of musical, or what were the two of them? - Well, we did South Pacific, we did guys and dolls. - Okay. - And we would have done one more, I can't remember the third one. - Yeah, I can't remember when. - I thought you were gonna say the music band and I was gonna be excited. - Was it Cabaret? - I don't know, it wasn't Cabaret. Anyway. - I was waiting for you to rail them. I wanna know more about who were you in guys and dolls. (laughing) - I was an extra in guys and dolls. - Or at all. - See, I was here in the horse. Come on now, I gotta speak it real. - Yeah, I don't think I had a named role in guys and dolls. That was my first musical in high school. Anyway, anyway, after high school, my friends and I all went to the University of Kansas, great school, Greg's favorite school. He wanted to go there but couldn't get in, so he went to Mizzou instead. - You know what's funny is that my dad teaches at Mizzou and my mom taught at KU until she retired in December. - Wow. - There you go. - So, Rival Schools. - Rival. - That's the job of you. - They buried the hatchet to have you. It's amazing. - Yeah, I know. - So they made a video game a better. - They did make a video game. My favorite fighting game. - Arch Rivals. - My favorite fighting game to this day. - Anyway, I graduated with two degrees from the University of Kansas, music and theater. Not musical theater, music and theater. All my friends and I move up to Chicago after college and we start a theater company. We start a sketch comedy group and I start a band. And that's one of the best times in my life. A top three time in my life. First time living away from home, really. On my, living on my own in Chicago, Greg, he can confirm Chicago. - Greg, you lived in Chicago for a long time. - Yeah, I was born and raised in there. The burbs out there. So Chicago is always us looking in from the burbs as young kids trying to get on the train and get out there. - Great city. I've got all these creative outlets and I'm just working an office job during the day, whatever. But after a few years, people start moving away and it starts to seem like our time in Chicago might be winding down. And I start to think about what might be next for young Damon Hatfield. And one day I'm reading my favorite website, IGN.com. And they posted an article that they were hiring a news editor looking for a news writer at IGN. And I sat there and I kind of stared into space for a little bit just thinking like, I think I can do that. Like I definitely, I think I can. I have the knowledge. I am a capital G gamer. I've always been a strong writer. My dad made sure of that. He was the editor of a newspaper in Missouri and he would give me extra writing assignments on top of my homework when I was a kid. So I was like, I think I can do this. So I applied. And then a couple weeks later, I got an email from Tal Bevan's, who is EIC at the time, editor-in-chief of IGN saying he wanted to do an interview. And my first interview was with David Adams, who was the new, the sole news writer at the time. - I think I ever worked with Dave. - I think no, I think he would have left 'cause he left within a year of me signing on. - Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, as you figure, I show up in March 2007, David was already gone. - I'll go out, I'll go out, he was already gone. - Yeah, so David Adams did my first interview and we were fast friends, we hit it off right away, we have very similar senses of humor, so that interview went really well. So they set up a second interview over the phone, not in person, and the second one was with Tal and David. That also went well and Tal offered me the job right there. I don't know this for sure, but I've always kind of felt that what pushed me over the edge was the fact that I was a musician and Tal always wanted to have an IGN band. (laughing) I think so. - I think 100%. - I think that's what pushed me over you. - Specifically a drummer, 'cause I think IGN had had enough guitarist and bass players like that. - Yeah, and I can bang out a beat on a drum kit. - I pair play keyboard, remember. - Pair is a keyboardist, yeah, and then there's just 100 guitar players at IGN. Tal would eventually get an IGN band. - Oh no. - No, good, good, yeah, okay, this is old stuff. That's a little bit. - Wait, but that's even in our second off? - This is our second off, yeah, this isn't even all the way back, yeah. - Crazy. - Tal would eventually get an IGN band, although I would not be part of it. I think it would be one Column Moriarty on drums in the eventual IGN band. - Oh, that's right, Trogdorch, it was that right? I think it was Trogdorch. - That was a very tal name, right? - It was something, yeah, it was something like that. Anyway, so there it is, it's April 2006, and I'm hired at IGN, and I start, I'm going to-- - Did they say you have to move out within your time period? - They didn't give me a time period, but I wanted to, I always wanted to live in San Francisco, for two reasons, Metallica and Faith No More. - I mean, two Bay Area bands. - Did you just find roommates, or did you know somebody out here? - I never had a roommate in California, which I always felt pretty good about, but it's because I lived in the tenderloin at first. Anyway. - Oh, nice, that's awesome. (laughing) - That's one way of putting it. - That did you know, what you were getting yourself into, were you like, this is the cheapest one? - Yes, it's so cheap. - I know, hold on, we'll get there, we'll get there. It's April, and I'm gonna move out, but I'm working from home in Chicago first. I'm a news and features editor for IGM. I'm working directly with David Adams, and then they also hired a second person, Kathleen Sanders at the time. She came from one up, and she was only there for about six months. She went to Xbox. I'm not sure if she's still at Xbox or not. So, and being a newswriter at that time, mostly meant rewriting press releases. That's what mostly we were doing. We would get a press release like, Half Life 2 is Gone Gold from Valve, and then we just rewrite it to give it some personality and context and that sort of thing. That's the most we were doing, and then we were on the hook to do a top 10 feature. I think every Tuesday, we did a top 10 Tuesday, but there wasn't a lot of oversight. It was basically whatever we wanted to do. Top 10. - You know, while you were doing that job, I was doing, I was the freelancer that took the press releases, and this is while you were doing this, 'cause I remember you being the person writing that is, I was taking the press releases and just putting them up that we didn't write. So we would just publish those press releases. And we'd have to like format them and like take all the caps out for, you know, when they're like, "Oh my God, this is the best new video game controller ever!" And then I would like put that up as a published article. - It was everything that was coming to like wired, or wiredigin.com, right? That was our newsletter. - Exactly that. It was wiredigin.com, and I got paid $500 a week for that. - Wow! - Wow! - Not bad. - Yeah, that was that out of college freelance gig that could last. - Yeah, that's legit. - So I was like, I was learning the ropes, learning about our CMS, which was networking a box back of the time, remember? - Yeah! - In a box new. - Yeah, it was. - Yeah, so I was surprised. We talked a lot about-- - Did you publish every page individually? - Yeah, we talked a lot about getting it up and putting it in the back end, I was surprised. So then in May, I fly out to do E3, my first E3 with IGN, and it's not my first E3 ever. I had a, you know, not snuck into E3, but since my dad was the head of a newspaper, I could just make myself my own press credentials to go to E3. So I'd been in like 90, it was either 97 and 98, or 98 and 99. But now, I find myself working E3 officially for IGN. And when I show up in LA, that was the first time that I met the wider group. So that was the first time I met Pear, Matt Kaffes, Simicina, Mark Boson, Craig Harris, Jeremy Dunham, Chris Roper, man, Hillary Goldstein, even like the video team, like Ty Rude, Craig Barretton, Eric Hartz, like I'd met everyone. And I want to stress that from the very first moment that I met everyone, everyone was super nice and welcoming. There was no one ever gave me a hard time, or there was no like hazing period, or anything like that. Everyone was just super nice and welcoming. I never had imposter syndrome. I just felt like I found my people, and I was where I was meant to be. It was great. - Yeah. I had a very similar experience when I was new. my god boy he's awesome.
all these guys are going to be really mean and intimidating and then everyone was very nice. I thought people were busy and intimidating and not mean but I never, I didn't feel like it was a warm welcome. Everybody felt really stressed out when I started that included Greg and Damon. Yeah. And you know by the time you got there Sam it was a real business we cranked away that a very similar one too. So it's E3 2006. The 360s out but the Wii and the PS3 were not out yet but this is when this is the big PS3 you know press conference where there's $600. Really great. Yeah. Yeah. $599 US dollars and the whole the air in the room just went everyone collectively got punched in the gut. Yeah. I was in the room for that as I think I've shared before they had very, very good food trucks. Yeah. They joked about gamers getting a second job to buy a PS3. Yeah. But I was able to play like I played toilet princess and Mario Galaxy at that, at that day three. So it was very exciting time. We worked it and then we all went out on Saturday afterwards and then Sunday morning I flew home with a top two hangover I believe. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow. Nothing's worse than flying with the hangover. First of all having a top two hangover when you're that young is crazy. Yeah. Because my hangover was just get worse by the weekend. Well. Yeah. You learn how your limits as you get older. Yeah. And especially when you're showing up to that group, that group at that time and the way we all drank back there when we were starting. Yeah. Yeah. I remember a lot of cigars being involved in the end of the E3 experience too and a cigar hangover on a plane is about as bad as it gets. Okay. So now it's time to move to San Francisco. I had like flew out one weekend and just looked at places and yes. I ended up getting a place in the tenderloin, which is not the nice area of the city. But my apartment was great. It was a studio apartment. Once you were inside the apartment, it was very nice. Way above the street. Yeah. Once you were inside the apartment. Yeah. Outside the apartment. Yeah. You go the door and you take your life into your hands. It's yeah. It's not the nice area. It was also famous then for really good and really reasonable food, even though the streets were grimy. Like, you know, there was like a lot of like Vietnamese sandwiches and stuff there. Yeah. Yeah. So when I went and hang out in the mission, that's where David Adams lived and we'd hang out there. But like, the tenderloin is like, it's, it's centrally located and it's easy to hop on the bar or immune and get to other places. So I didn't, you know, I didn't mind. I was happy. I was living. I was working by dream job, living in my dream city every morning, getting on the bar to Balboa Park station to get on the shuttle to go down to the Ijin office, which was in Brisbane. That fucking shuttle, man. Yeah. Every person on it was a journalist. Yeah. Every miserable. So mad to be on this shuttle that would break down and be late and everything would go wrong. Yeah. I remember one week looking around, everybody was playing pagol on a DS and I was like, what is happening here? Yeah. Everyone worked at IGN or they worked at, like, future was there too. Right? Yeah. Future right next door. Yeah. Yeah. And future was Nintendo Power at the time. Was it? Yeah. Or at least Nintendo Power, the, the, whatever it was publishing is Nintendo Power was on that bus because they published so many magazines. It was crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm like, in it, I'm working in the office with the, with the group and it's just like back then it was so great great. You can all attest to this. We're all in the office together. Everyone's playing games with their desk and see what everyone's playing. I've got great memories of Greg playing Lair on PS3. Oh my God. I remember that. And then we know. Yeah. I have a, I have a piece of Lair swag from the office. It was a Zippo lighter with the Lair, oh wow, very nice. Yeah. It's a good one. It sucked. Thank you, Sam. Thanks for backing me up on that one. I want to say Greg gave it a six. I don't know. I have a list of Greg. No, I remember I reviewed. I gave it 4.9. Oh my God. I remember that they were called factor five. So immediately the shops went out of factor 4.9. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of was the end of factor five. That was, they were very mad at me. Well, they should be mad at themselves. Yeah. Yeah. They made the game. Anyway, my role. But it had all the, it had a lot of tilty controls in this game. Oh, it was only six access. That was our whole thing. It was the only way to find the dragon it won't show. Yeah. This looks pretty good now. I mean, it looks very Lord of the Rings is right. Like this guy. At a glance, I think this is the Lord of the Rings game. Yeah. That's funny. I don't remember that. Anyway, my role is still news and features editor, but there's opportunity to other, opportunities to do other things because back then I generally reviewed every game. So Jeremy Dunham would be like, does anyone want to review the new bubble bubble on PSP? And I'll be like, yes. I do. I will review bubble bubble on PSP. This is before iPhone. So there wasn't that type of shovelware. There was only Game Boy Advance shovelware. Yes. PSP shovelware. Yeah. Handheld video game shovelware for sure. And then I start going to events because back then before the Nintendo Direct and PlayStation states of play, every publisher would have a event once or twice a year where they'd be at the mezzanine. Right? They'd be at the mezzanine in San Francisco. Ubisoft would be there. All of media would show up and there'd be games to play and you'd write previews. So a bunch of us would show up and we'd be assigned games. We'd go play them. Usually there'd be an embargo so we didn't have to rush home to write it up right then. Play the games and then we'd write up a preview to be published later on. But I'm also like, I start going to TGS every year for Tokyo Game Show and there's other events. It's awesome. Yeah. There's events in like Palm Springs and Vancouver and Las Vegas so I'm like, it's just crazy. Yeah. It used to be destination preview events. Just tremendous waste of money. Yes. That's true. And to ostensibly try to butter people up. Was the mezzanine in the place that was kind of under the one-of-one entrance by the Salesforce building? Well, since I don't know, no, it's not quite there. It's in Soma. It was, you know, it's a dance club that's in Soma. Everyone would have to convince them. Oh, that's down. I know. It was. It became Ruby Sky and now it's something different altogether. Oh, wow. Yeah. Definitely deep Soma. Yeah. But then, yeah, in, I guess it was, I guess I was going to say early 2007 but I guess it was March. A young, fresh young fellow named Greg Miller joined the team. I'm sorry. I still remember like, before you're there, Greg, there was a flyer hang up with your face on it saying that you were lucky for a roommate. Yeah. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could not find a place to live. And so in the last desperate attempt, I sent a flyer to Dunham to hang around the office. That was a photo of me screaming at the camera and it just said, I need shelter. I think you ended up moving in with somebody from IG. I did. Yes. But, you know, also tragically and luckily, Micah Seth, who was also working there on the news team with Damon, his roommate had a mental breakdown and dragged all of his pornography into the street and set it on fire and his parents had to come pick him up and that's the room I got for nine months when I first got there. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I remember after. So after. No further questions. Yep. After David left, it was me and Micah working news. And he wasn't there super long either. In the summer of 2007, and I think it was actually the Monday after E3, we made two significant hires. It was two Ryan's Ryan Gettis and Ryan Clements. And I, but I think there for whatever reason, their first day was scheduled to be the Monday after E3 when no one was at the office. So they show it. And it's even crazier that because Colin was there too. That was all of their first official full-time days and Clements showed up in a full suit and the people that were there, like, what are you doing? Dress for the job you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They showed up and there was no one there to orient them or whatever. That was funny. But then it was Ryan Gettis and I on the news team for a while until, you know, remember back then we had channel teams and Greg was on the PlayStation team. We had an Xbox team and Nintendo team. But then they decided the end of it, the teams would write their own news. So they put Ryan Gettis on the Xbox team and they just put me on the Nintendo team. So I was working with Casamacena and Boson and Craig Harris. Which was fine. Except at that time, I was just sick to death of the Wii's waggle controls and its ugly SD graphics, whatever. I was still into the Nintendo DS a lot. So I did that for a little bit. But then I moved into one of the roles that's still to this day, one of the most like gratifying roles that I've had. I heard IGN. That's when I was the downloadable games editor. Because that is at a time when Xbox Live Arcade was blowing up PlayStation Network and even-- We Were. So yeah, they wanted someone to have their beat be all these games that are coming to these downloadable services. And that was like a really exciting time. All of a sudden there was this whole new library of games from indie developers, who indie developers just hadn't been on consoles before that. And then also big posters were able to take risks with smaller, just weird different types of games. It's like that was cool. Like Pagle. Well, yeah. Sure. Like Pagle. Bionnet Commando Rearmed. That's Cap Company. That was a good one. Well, those were Summer of Arcade Summer Games. Yeah. Yeah. What was the Metroidvania from Epic? Shadow Complex. Shadow Complex, yeah. Yeah, that sort of stuff. Well, there was a free Metroidvania that was an underwater game that you could play on the Xbox. Xbox made it free for some reason. Weird. And it was like the only free game. It was like a full-fledged underwater exploration. Cool. Metroidvania. It made lots of good contacts with IndyDos because I was like the point of contact at IGN to cover all these games. Remember Horde, Greg? Yeah. That was a place that you never came. Of course. I'm a dragon. I gotta get all my gold. We love gold. It's like, it's so great. Anyway, that was a good time. Do that for a few years. And then it became, well, as video became more and more important for IGN, they needed more people to be on camera. And that just made sense for me to do, considering my, you know, I was already on camera a lot for IGN. very comfortable.
being on camera with my background and theater and all that so like that made sense for me to just become a host. And there wasn't a lot of video on camera accepting pretty as there's a lot of gameplay being produced at the time. But IGN wasn't known for having a bunch of stick mics and sets and stuff like that for people to work in. Yeah. I mean, they start up the daily fix. When we moved, we moved offices from Brisbane into the city, proper, into San Francisco, into Soma, which by the way, we initially shared an office with MySpace, if everyone remembers, because Fox Interactive Media. We were owned by Fox. Yeah. They bought IGN and MySpace at the same time, and so we ended up sharing an office with MySpace until, you know, MySpace became no longer relevant and moved out. I remember we first moved in and they had to send out an email of going, "Don't hoard the free snacks at their desk. They're free. Just get them." And then they now lasted another week and like, "All right, fine, we're putting them in a machine. Thanks for nothing." Yeah. Yeah. When we first moved in there, MySpace didn't let through. Like, the downfall was weird too, because MySpace had refashions itself as a streaming service very briefly. So upstairs for many years until we moved fully in up there. There was like band posters everywhere. Yeah, they're really going to be using a focus straight. That's what you would find old ghosts. You'd be in some supply closet and find some weird pile of like, you know, MySpace mouse pads and stuff like that everywhere. I remember in the in the Brisbane office, there were some executives from Fox came down to just do like a talk or like a Q&A or something. And someone, I want to say it was actually Eric Hart, asked about Facebook, which was, you know, gaining popularity at that time and then, you know, asking if they were like worried about, you know, Facebook. And they were very, the Fox execs were very dismissive of Facebook. It was just for college kids, whatever. Anyway, it's just funny because obviously, MySpace is no not relevant today. This is a great video we're looking at here for people listening. You should tune in to see some of these old videos. But this one has a bunch of people goofing around the office. And I just want to note that it's dark outside. She's just a weird vibe. Well, we lived in these offices. We were all living, I mean, this is the, you know, again, the downtown SF office. So this is even later in timeline. But like, I mean, you couldn't pry us out of the office, especially in Brisbane, where it was. We had that awesome demo room in the guitar hero and rock band parties that would go on and on all night long and sing. If this, if it's a dark outside here, this could be like a, the child's play marathon. Are we here all night? We did that. I know it was just that in San Francisco, the sun goes down at like 4.45, once you get into December because it's so far north. So I would walk home and dark, darkness until the time change. I just remember that being with that thing. Yeah. So I've been in a host position for a long time now. They started the Daily Fix, which was created as a vehicle for a desk at Chobot. But when they started, you know, we were shooting it in SF and she lived in LA and she didn't, you know, it took a while for it to move up to SF. So I hosted like the first 100 episodes on the Daily Fix and somehow I'm still posting it today, which is crazy. But I remember, I remember Sam joining in the Brisbane office. Was that 2008? Sam, do you think? Yeah, I was 2008 and you and Greg had done sun episodes of Game Scoop by then, definitely had. Oh, yeah. Because I was aware of the podcast by the time. I had listened to every episode, I think. I remember there's a bunch of in-jokes throwing gettis and stuff at that time. It was, yeah. It was very new, focused and inside joke. Yeah, he's made it. He's made of lava. No, I can, I can. And there was something called the Jeff Bell. Was that from that podcast? That's from Xbox. Jeff Bell was Xbox. Yeah, it was TRL. That was TRL. Yeah, Game Scoop was, we started Game Scoop in June. So it's not quite Game Scoop's 20th anniversary yet. We can do that at IGN Live because that same first weekend in June. That's fun. Yeah, we'll do, we'll celebrate Game Scoop's 20th anniversary at IGN Live. One thing that sucked up by the Brisbane office is that it was around a central kitchen kind of corridor thing. And then it was cubicles and a big kind of square around that. So where you and Greg were, it was actually really far from where like Mark Ryan and Colin and Stephen Engen I were. It was just like, it didn't feel like the same office in some respects. It was like, the game held very, it was just really far away. It felt strange. It's very different in the the Soma office where it's like, you just peak up, you could see literally everybody you work with. Well, I mean, you're looking, yeah, at the Brisbane offices here with how high these walls used to be. You didn't know what that was. That's right. That's the thing is on the other side of that wall where if you're watching right now is Guides. That was originally Jason and then it was Nate Aherne and Mark Ryan was one over and then obviously, but it was like, might as well be in the mood for as high as these walls were. But since we had expanded, I remember they put in Brian Altano and Scott Bromley right next to us when they came in. So I was definitely sitting next to them. Yeah, because yeah, that was when you're down over there. But they weren't at IGN. They were from where they, they initially weren't with IGN. They were with GameSpot. Game Xbox. Oh, GameSpot, you're right. You're right. It was GameSpot. That was the Brian's, but Scott, Scott was with IGN. Yeah. Okay. All right. And Greg, we're freezing here. Why? Because Ghostbusters game came out or something and you're that Ghostbusters, yeah, Ghostbusters, the video game had come out and the bit was that and I'd waited, you know, whatever it was, 18 years for a good Ghostbusters game. And I didn't know what another one would come. So you guys would freeze me for another one. And Damon, I want you to know, I want you to know we were this close to having an ad deal with one of the Ghostbusters VR games. And I pitched them unfreezing. Yeah, I won't do that. It just went together. I wanted it to happen so bad. Chris Ben. Recycled Ben. You have to go find that office. It's a student. I've thought about it. I'd love to go through there, even the old Soma office that when I go by and I see the fur least sound like, what if I just faked it? I just want to walk through there again. What if I was like, we're looking for an office. Damon, I don't know if you've seen this recently, but if that, that part of Brisbane is like a downtown city now, there's like, I don't know, what did you say? Great. 25 new giant office buildings. There are so many office buildings over there. It's ridiculous. They're all like three before. It's like Walmart, us, and Hitachi. Yeah. And now it's like every biotech for firm has a 20 story office building. I remember when they built the first one over there, you're like, that's a weird location. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. Cool. You're ahead of the game. This is like a GameCube news break that the video that we're looking into. Right. Yeah. What they became, which is we just do them whenever we felt like it. No one ever told me to do this. And Tyru would shoot them. And we would just have an idea. We'd say, hey, let's just shoot this video today. And we would just do it. Nobody told me to do it. Nobody told me not to do it. We're just doing what I want. I think that's the biggest thing, you know, to interrupt you on your trip down memory lane. Damon is that you're just not giving yourself enough credit for embracing the opportunities we were given. I, you know, people talk about me and IGN and like, well, what, you know, what was like, how did you, you know, break out? How did you become, you know, a personality of the site? And I was like, you don't understand. It was me and Damon. And we just wanted to do it. Yeah. I remember when we got there. And like, there's another video from like, I would say my first three months in the office that was Dave claim in playing Pac-Man Championship Edition. Me talking about reviewing one of the fantastic four video games. And it was tie had shot it. And at the very end, tie turns the camera and walks down the aisle and pair walks at him and goes, oh, shooting the head, putting the others on camera, you know, novel idea because he had said that. And that was the thing where Damon and I were tip of the sword where legitimately, we were like, we want to be on camera and do stuff. And they were like, we don't really do that. But okay. And then it would be, when we started finding success, I remember distinctly them saying, Craig Harris, can you come beyond this? And he goes, no, I got hired to write. I don't want to be on camera. Like it was the old guard was so like, we write. We don't want to do this. And me and Damon were like, we will do everything. Anything. And that was why where, you know, you self-starting and making Game Scoop what it was and inviting me into that and having that fan base that we would then go. I remember starting. And there was a Pax where Andre Seagars went. And he came back and he was like, dude, they hate us there. They hate IG. And I turned my badge around. It was like, oh, that's so weird. And I remember the first panel we went and did there. Just standing room only audience. People were so excited. And it was like, Damon and I were like, whoa, like we have something here. But that's only because Damon, and since he was first doing it. And then me fought to be on camera. And not even fought as much as just said, hey, can we do this? And nobody would stop you. They just go, yeah, sure, whatever. We don't see why that would work. But go for it. I replaced Andre Seagars. That was the person who I backfill. Would you, did you do Game Explain? Yes. He went and founded Game Explain, which is still around. Yep. Like these videos are making, like we're doing skits. Like we're doing little bits, right? Which is totally my background. Like it just everything worked out. Like I grew up doing theater and music. And I thought, well, I'd like to be an actor or maybe I'll write music for games. But whatever, I took those, I just went on a different path. And I'm here using, I'm perform every day. I get to be on camera and perform and just create things. And it just worked out perfectly for me. Yeah. You weren't even at the right place, right time. You're at the right trend of the industry. And I think a little bit ahead of it, right? Because it was us doing this and one up at the time doing the one-up show where I was like, here's like video content featuring personalities talking about video games. Yeah. Is that the park in garage? Where is that? Yeah, this parking garage. I was threatened to throw myself off. There's almost string cats living in there. You know, that Ghostbusters game was pretty good. It was. It was 8.0. I'd you get docked? Yeah, good game. I liked it a lot. Sam, you mentioned all the inside jokes in Game Scoop. That was by design from the beginning. My like inspiration and like hosting style is lifted directly from the Colbert report. Like I, it's recurring segments and inside jokes that makes the audience feel like they're like, you know, the part of something. They're in on some kind of secret. That's all by design. And Justin, I remember when you arrived at IGN, you replaced Levi Buchanan. Bye.
Who Levi never worked in our office. He always lived in Portland, but Levi came from Nintendo power, which so how cool is that? He at at at one time or another he was a retro games editor and then he was also a mobile Gaming editor and I didn't remember the mobile part of that. I only remembered the right. That's that's what Justin was brought in to do Yeah to replace him. So he must have been mobile editor when he left The retro was gone by the time he left He was only doing the mobile game stuff. And then I was the mobile games editor. So I reviewed Angry Birds space and Infinity Blade 2 and 3 and that was the that was the era like a really good era for the App Store actually Yeah, where's my water cut the rope? Yeah, who could forget infinity blade one was the one that we gave a 10 to? Yeah, no, I gave a I gave a 10 to infinity blade 2 and 3 I think I think Hillary gave the first one a 10 Yeah, so you know kind of boxed it on score there a little bit And then I did many hundreds of episodes of tech fetish with Scott Lowe and then subsequent tech editors Mark Ryan was on that podcast night I don't know. I mean I love the story and knows I don't know what my first appearance on Game Scoop was, but it was somewhere in the 100s and the thing that's crazy They like well, I mean it might have been 200, but like you know, we have photos like I have a firm memory of celebrating 250 and I'd already been on the show quite a bit by then so like that's probably how the math works out and like Yeah, I remember you know, where we at now to 800 and something. Yep, I think it's 8.53 8.53 and like I remember when I joined I'm like Game Scoop has been going on forever It has so many episodes and it was like you guys That was that was how it felt yeah, and I feel that way like I'm at in a couple months. I'm at 15 years IGN and like so that's half of IGN because IGN sculled it easy 30 this year But it felt like you know such a big Established story grand already by the time I came in yeah, and I was never in I was never in that résumé in office I was always on second street and it was um it was well by the time I started one up was already in the building But I know that it was like you know, there was a row of like one-up game spot IGN like all like a couple walks apart And a second second was like that for a long time. Yeah, yeah, you see you mentioned. Oh, go ahead Justin Just after mobile games are in features for a long time. It's like the main main gig and then what was the Xbox channel? We had called there's team Xbox team Xbox. Yeah Yeah, you mentioned 15 years for you Justin 18 years for Sam like I've been here 20 years It's it's very unusual for anyone to stay at a job that long But like there's something special about IGN like, you know pair our co-founders. I was freelance before that But but even with that it felt like you and Greg have been in the industry forever That's the field and I also heard by then what you know at least 52 episodes of Game Scoop Which is like you you start getting you know pair of social relationship developing like you think you know these people are Right, and then it's like that was like a very strange like I again, I think it was Not unfriendly, but just intimidating and Overwhelming to start at IGN by that point. It was just like there's a lot you guys had already started a lot and it was like I had a really like heads down job, you know, I just felt really different. Yeah I found the environment very welcoming and very friendly And everyone you know like I've never I had never done a podcast I had never done anything on camera and it was Scott Lowe He's like, hey, what are you doing right now? And I'm like, oh, I don't know nothing and he's like come podcast with me and I'm like I don't know. I don't know if I can do that. He's like just come do it. It'll be fine. And like that was how like that was it Yeah, like that was the that was the vibe was just you know, just do things which I actually still you know I mentor and coach a large staff now as do you Sam and like I coach a lot of people on like you know The culture at this company is like open the door and walk through it yourself. Don't wait for someone to open it for you Those are the types of people that seem to succeed and thrive best. Yeah It's self-activating as we said earlier. Yeah, yeah, I mean here we are. I still think of myself as an NBC cast member. Okay. This is just a guest gig. Yeah That was the first Craig had me on NBC all the time and then I hosted it for a long time. Yeah, so you know, this was just the side gig Greg to this day there is still more podcast beyond episodes because back in the day you and Colin were just religious about never skipping an episode ever So yeah, that was done to beat that into me on Gen 1 of podcast beyond and so then when we added in Clements and we added in Colin and it kept I guess Clements was a founder. We added in Colin. We added never else. I kept that mantra running Yeah, and since it was very much and I think that's the other thing about it You know what I mean is I'm just here to put over Damon of what and I don't I don't know the modern IGN how it is But like at least back then what an unforgiving role it was in what an unsung hero you were named it because I remember you and me once Not getting into a fight, but having loud words in a conference from once where it was that you were just like you We were going back and forth and I flaked on a game scoop as I did and so many of the other editors did do Beak or did I should say because it wasn't our job role So a review would come along or something else or whatever yeah, pull you away from going to do with this podcast that also at the time Management didn't really stress as this is important. We should be doing this. There was a lot of man hours conversations about Podcasts and I remember you was the VP who's like the pH views per hour But this is even before then when it literally was just there's no views. It's a podcast. Nobody's tracking them We're not putting ads and then we don't know what's happening But we had a conversation in heated terms at one point where you I flaked and you were mad at me because I'd let you down understandably And you just said I just feel like you know If you had to choose between beyond and game scoop you choose beyond and I was like well Yeah, I would because I'm the only person here with PlayStation in their title like I mean I'm now the only PlayStation editor and you were like oh and it sunk in for you what that meant But it also sunk into me what it meant for you to run scoop and how hard it was to herd chickens in cats That had a million other things going on and when we weren't told to take it seriously nobody else took it seriously It was a fun-lark. I remember you and me walking out of conference rooms after podcasting with solely as the AC You would it for an hour and look at each other that was great Can you imagine if this is all we had to do what if this was the job? I remember that jenga dream. Yeah, I still I still daydream about that 24-year you kept you kept the torch lit and kept moving and the fact that you're this far along and have this many episodes is Incredible and yeah, it was just the opposite. I think of that conversation galvanized What I already believed from Dunham stressing to me that there needed to be bought beyond every week So then when I was running and I made sure it happened But again at that point I probably had a PlayStation team or voices underneath it that made sense Beyond was a not beyond but the PlayStation coverage in general was in a really tough spot right then Because there is so like the ps3 was was kind of um Yeah, not great. Yeah, it was just like it had a slow it was like Nintendo It had just slow trickle of games and the 360 was just You know ascended it was just this weird time and it was like it got to the point where like the 360 team like you know became This kind of granted everything's gonna go easy for them team and then you had to make kind of a personality behind PlayStation and it being the underdog yeah, which then came into game scoop and I remember that being this like This great way of developing, you know fan space and camaraderie and connection with the audience When the only thing to cover was like a weird, you know downloadable game about hurting people as a superhero that I had the personality forward right like there was no other there was no other choice Yeah, it was commiserating I think right again It was that you had this audience that I had bought this very expensive thing and now they're looking for this silver lining on it Which again, I think is what then made it hard for Damon to keep game scoop going at a normal clip when it's just him And it is that I'm pulled in you know what tal or you know whoever my boss has done him at the time Hillary at the time Casey at the time what they wanted for it versus well, and there wasn't I should have contextualized There was an attempt at the time to make sure there was a PlayStation Xbox and Nintendo voice on this show Yeah, I was that was like a theme at the time and it's it's never really it's not it's not been that a really long time I mean, I remember distinctly when we were in the meeting and they were like all right cool We're gonna do channel podcasts game scoop spend doing so well and IG and AFK is still happening So we're gonna do channel podcasts now and I remember I think I was one of them are I was like what no Why are we doing that we have game scoop and they're like no, no, it'll make sense and then It was up and down throughout the years of maybe we should cancel all these except games We don't know how we're making money off of this that conversation is cyclical it comes around every so often What who it's no it's still to this day is a no one's job description to podcast at IGN But we do it. We're very passed on. Can I ask you a question Damon? Yep. Yep Talk to me about When you were like you know what I'm I'm gonna be here for 20 years because there's a distinct moment I think for me personally that I remember the first time Levi Buchanan ever came to visit when I worked there He took you me and get us out to eat and we were at the table and Levi of course always cool Was just like so gentlemen. I know IGN isn't the end of the line For all of you. What's next? I remember there was a beat of silence and you looked at me and said well, it's the end of it for one of us I was so vocal that I was never gonna leave IGN. I got my dream job. I'd die here. That's great. Yeah. No, I don't there wasn't ever a moment. I just
You know, like I was just talking about this, it's just been such a perfect fit for me. It's like, I don't know, in order for me to like go on to something else, like lightning would have to strike twice and I have to find something else that's just absolutely perfect for me. So, I don't know. I always tell people, it's been 20 years, I've never dreaded a Monday morning. You know, like I don't, I never get the Sunday scariest and like, oh, I got work tomorrow. I was like, no, I'm going to talk about video games on camera tomorrow. It's gonna be pretty cool. (laughing) - I think I would agree with that. I mean, I don't think it's a decision to like stay 15 years, at least in my case, but it's just a series. It's always a decision of like, you know, the work is still interesting. I'm never bored, you know, I'm fulfilled. I'm, you know, I'm challenged and, you know, we have a good culture of sort of allowing people to sort of stretch into new stuff and try new stuff. And it's like, you know, that's important to me in my work. And I'm like, okay, like as long as that stays the vibe, I'm happy to stay another 15 years. - Yeah. - I'll just add that like, it's nice to be at a place where, I think that we're always in a position where we're kind of at the top of things. And like, it's like kind of great to just be at a place where like, you know, we have the biggest best thing. And where am I going to go? - Yeah. - Like I should. - Like that, it makes sense to start your own business. Like Greg did, but I'm not going to ascend to a smaller site. It doesn't make any sense to me. - Yeah, it's interesting that IGN still here, you know, we used to, like back in the day, I'll be honest with everyone. We used to talk about GameSpot a lot back in the day. - Yeah. - We don't talk, it's what it's his name for Mad Men. I don't think about you ever. Sorry. - We don't talk about it. - We don't talk anymore. - But I do know people like Levi who wanted to make movies. That's just a completely different route, right? It's like what I want to do is this and where am I going to find the best reach in the hostability, right? - Yeah. - Do you feel like my wife is a schoolteacher and it's like, hey, you're not allowed to be a schoolteacher. You have to do something else. What do you do without missing a beat? She's like, architect, that's what I would do. That's what I like. Whereas I don't have, if you asked me that question, I'm like, this is it. I have no, I feel, I feel Taylor built for doing the exact thing that I'm doing and I have no plan B and no fallback of just like, you know, writing about video games and making this content. It's all I've ever done since I was a teenager and there is, there is nothing else. I guess development is another place that a lot of people we know end up going into 'cause they just, they're so interested in the craft that they want to go do it. - Oh yeah, for sure. If they have that artistic design background and that programming background, more power to them, but like that's not, you know, it's not everybody right. - Yeah, for sure. I do wonder sometimes like, how long can I keep doing this? My job is to be on camera, talk about video games and two things always come back to me. Like there's no, no one did this before us. There's no, no one came before us. If the job is to talk about video games on camera, we're the first to do it. So there's no precedent for like, we do it till this age and then you transition into this other thing. So who knows, who knows how long? But I do think a good analog would be like sports commentators. And I always see dudes are old as heck, talking about football and basketball on TV. So I don't know, maybe I can be old as heck, talking about video games. - It just matters if everybody's gonna be living in like a matrix that provides sexual pleasure and they don't use video games anymore 'cause they don't live in meat space. Then we'd be out of a job. But then we just got to bring back knocking boots. (laughing) - Ah, knocking boots. - It does have a sense like living in our lives on IGN. - Not, well, I guess some might-- - We live in the dark web, save there on the top. - I mean, the ones that we did on IGN are probably archived somehow. But you know, it moved on, it had a life of its own outside of IGN2 and those aren't going to just work. - Anyway, guys, that's enough about me. Come on, that's enough about me. (laughing) - Is she be the whole show? You got 20 years, Damon, that's crazy. What was your favorite game scoop TV? What was your favorite goofy bit we did or whatever? The show too, obviously. - We did one in Park City 'cause we were there for like a Sean White snowboarding event. (laughing) We were there with Nate Aher and we were making fun of the money hats. I don't know, where did the money hat even come from? People accusing us of having money hats. - He was calling us the money hat. - Taking bribes for giving-- - I said money hat around here the other day and nobody knew what I meant. I was like, "Oh, you're all young, you're all young." What has gone out of the parlance, huh? - Yeah, well, and it's also like the Park City thing. It's impossible to understate. I caught like the tail into this. It was already winding down. But just how insane the video game industry was for a while of like, you'd fly like Moscow and go to some rave in like, you know, a nuclear bomb shelter because the game had one level that was set in Moscow or something and it's like, it was all like, because the PR people also, it's like they're like, they just also wanted to go party in Moscow. It's like, let's just spend the company's money like while we still can. And like, it's in like, you know, it was under, like you said, they're just trying to buy people off or they think that it'll influence the scores. But the truth is that like, you know, come to Hawaii and play the game and then we're gonna go out on jet skis and it's kind of just play the game. I'm tired. - Yeah, we don't. - Do I have to go to Hawaii? Please just let me play the game in my office. Like, I don't need to go do this for a week. I have so many other things I need to get done. - Yeah. - It was a very wild time. I always, the one that I remember the most was the Sony E3 party for I think the God of War II. I think was coming out. It was in Dodger Stadium and Iqibis played and they were roasting. They were roasting whole goats on like a spit and they admit and women dancing in cages. I was like, this is insane. - What are we doing? - That might have been 2006. I can't remember now, maybe 2005. - Yeah. Yeah, what about the Park City one stood out though? - Thank you, David. - We were, Nate and I were making fun of the fact that these accusations that Igen was paid for reviews and we were showing us like, we were getting wine and dine and pampered by Ubisoft and then our review score kept going up for Sean White snowboarding. I, listen, I can, you know, I've been here for a long time, 20 years now. I can tell you, it's literally never happened. Igen has literally never been paid for review. It's just literally never happened. The people that make this claim. - Yeah, it's never even been a question. It's never even been set somewhat suspicious or compromised in any way. It's no. - Yeah, there was one time ever that there is a video game journalism review controversy and then it was a massive controversy and someone lost his job and it made the news and then it was all over, you know, that was like Jeff Grossman, right? Like, you know, like that. - We still get Jeff Grossman and Igen. It's like, no, that was not Igen. - Not even I was. - But Greg, my absolute favorite one is the rock band PSP one or Vita. It was the Vita one. - No, it was PSP. - It was PSP. - It was PSP. That's how old we are, yeah. We did a commercial for rock band on PSP, it's great. - Okay, but then they made the DS one. - No, this is for the game that they, this is them rock band doing rock band on plug down the PSP. We're making fun of it and I guess you know, - You have like a multiplayer. - There's no multiplayer of any kind. - That's kind of dumb too. - Oh, it's good. - It's like, it's like, are you sick of trying to carry your rock band instruments everywhere? - Wow, it's good. - Okay, this is crazy. - These glasses got, get big glasses Greg. - What are you doing? - Alex, it was a, it was a stylet. - It was the stylet. - Which was the stylet, it's time. - Yeah. - Okay. (upbeat music) - Okay, let's talk about some of these games. What is out, what's out? Pragmatta, Greg, one of the things we are recurring topic on games we've recently is that Capcom seems to be the only AAA developer that still knows how to make games. - Sure, yeah, they're having quite a run, aren't they? - Yeah. - Quantity and quality. They're the only ones that can do it. Like Ubisoft doesn't know how to make games anymore. Did you play Resident Evil Requiem, by the way, Greg? - I sure did, what a game. - God damn. - Yeah. - I played through it twice. The game, so nice, I played it twice. Anyway, Pragmatta got an eight out of 10 from IGN. I barely started it last night just to get a taste of it, but apparently this turned out well. After spending many years in development hell, I think this was revealed in like 2020, and then put on hold indefinitely, and then re-announced, and somehow they landed it, and it turned out okay. Sam, you've been playing a lot of this? - I love it. Yes, it is a, it's like when Dino Crisis came out alongside Resident Evil. It's the Ariane Gin. It has a lot of similarities. It's got this chill vibe, music into safe room. You go out, you do a bunch of like recon, then come back and level up, and you know, it's really, really, it has a little bit of, it has enough Resident Evil Capcom DNA, but then it has this like just fantastic little gimmick here where you just have to stop and basically cast a hacking spell by entering a little button code maze, and it warms you up to it really slowly, but then you're like, I wanna do more of this by like adding a bunch, and then all of a sudden you were able to add all these little nodes in to make it more complex, but you're already, you're all over it by that point, and you just feel powerful and great, and it's got this like layer of like it's set on the moon and it's crazy landscape, and then these like nuts, and this little girl is like, on your back, just like, shouting kudos the whole time, I just love it. It's just, it feels like, you know, the feeling of playing a 360 game, you know, in 2008 where you're like, wow, I just had so much fun for 12 hours, I recommend this game, everybody should play this, and then there's, you know, the year has 40 more of those. We just don't have so much more. - I know, that's how everyone describes this game in the best possible way. Like they say with love, like it's like that 360 era of like it's just very video gamey. - Yeah, in one year you'd get like, you know, the darkness and enslaved,
and Overlord, just like all these great games. So I'll come out the ones. - People taking chances, right? It's what we keep saying. Everything's got to be a sequel or some other IP. In fact, they were like, "Here's this weird thing. You want to try it, okay?" - Yeah. - Are you playing this, Greg? - No, so this week I was on Mouse and Tomodachi. So I have not done the demos for Pragmott Mata. And I'm very excited to play it, 'cause I definitely looked at him like, "Ah, this doesn't look like a great game." And then when I did that first demo and did that first hack, I was like, "Oh no, I'm gonna be into this." - Yeah. Yeah, it's got great exploration, great revisiting and like the environment's cool. So I, nothing that was shown about this game, even caught my eye. I was like, "I don't care about this. I don't know what it is. It's hard for them to get it across." And then I just sat down with it and it's just a totally great adventure action game that feels like Capcom made it after making a sequel. Like it couldn't be better to follow Requiem with this game. It just has so much in the DNA. - Yeah, it's great. We'll tell us about Mouse then, Greg. 'Cause I think that one got a six from IGN. - Yeah, we're in the low end of that. - We're in the low end, okay. - Yeah, but it's your right in the Wheelhouse set. I mean, I gave it a seven on the kind of funny scale, which is completely different than the IGN scale and not at all. Can't translate whatsoever. I call it good. Yeah, you know, Mouse P.I. for Hire is a black and white Rubberhoes animation, 1930s, you know, noir, detective noir film starring Troy Baker as a mouse talking to other mouse's. So it's got steam boat Mickey shoved together with this P.I. drama shoved together with a lot of cheese puns and wrapped into the genre of a boomer shooter. It is due to this quake. It is you running through just putting endless bullets into endless enemies. I think it's, I think it's good. I enjoyed it. What I said on the show for over a kind of funny was, if you look at any of the trailers or even here the description to go, oh man, that sounds interesting. Go play it, try it out. Because it is a game that I think for me, even as a fan overstays, it's welcome. But it gets better the more you play it. If that makes sense where it's like, I think you started off, you're like, oh, it's going to be very basic. It's going to be this. And it stays in that maybe an hour or two too long before it starts opening up with new abilities and new weapons and little twists and turns that make you go, okay, this is a lot of fun. So I enjoyed it. It's a fun one. Again, you're looking at like 13 hours. So we're talking about something you can get in and actually enjoy, not feel a giant commitment too. But guns feel good. It's funny. It's cool. It's a really good visual style. But that's not what a private investigator does, right? That was that was that was the IGN reviewer's issue was like, you know, like it's sort of story heavy and noirish, but then you're just murdering just everyone at the level. Like it's a shooter at heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100% it's a shooter at heart. And I think you know, one of the big failings of it is like, they just try to do too much in the story without ever making you care about the stakes. So like this, you know, the dissidence here of being a detective, but not doing a lot of detecting really didn't matter to me because it is shooting and Troy will make a funny joke about killing all the people he was supposed to be investigating. Okay. The reporter gets all mad at him and stuff. That wasn't one of my issues with it, but I totally get it. Yeah. He has a crazy accent to he's doing like a funny gun shoot. Yeah, he's doing it. Yeah. James Cagney that he's doing that. Yeah, what are you doing about this? I'm joking. Yeah. It's constant because it's narrated. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, look a bunch of this. Yeah. Well, the reason why I think I might check it out. I think like all the guns seem like clever and fun. Yeah. Like there's a bunch of like unique weapons, right? This hacking is great. Yeah. The hacking is really fun with your tail here. Oh, cool. Yeah. It's for me the only, so I really like to just like with Cuphead. I like seeing how they do the, you know, the animations for a typewriter or, you know, a bottle or a can or anything that's like that's my favorite part about the stuff and the style. And I think they actually successfully worked that into a shooter, which is like, you know, like happy. It seems weird. They make it harder to do environments. Yeah, it seems hard to do. But then like the death sequences, like you just saw the skeletons, the decapitations of anything. They're great. Yeah. It all looks really cool. I hate saying this about a game because this is so rare for me, but this one is visually trying and exhausting for me. Really? And I get, I get fatigue from the black and white, from the frame rate, which is good. And from the, you know, the kind of the contrast between the animations, I don't know, man, like, you're not wrong. I think what I love the style of it. And I think it's beautiful, especially on a giant TV, but like there's a lot, I feel like because of them living themselves to black and white, again, these characters you're meeting, these NPCs kind of run together. That was tough for me. I feel like it's really hard for me in the game playing it. I was like, where am I getting damaged from? Who is shooting me or what did I step in or what's going on? And it becomes, I think a gorgeous art style, but the longer you're in it, the harder it kind of becomes to differentiate certain things inside of it. Yeah. And that said though, I want to show everybody I know this game and be like, dude, look how crazy this is when you're playing this game. Like it is, it is kind of a masterpiece of like vision. It's just, it kind of hurts my vision. It's the usual, I mean, not even the usual. I mean, I guess the good thing when we're blessed with something new, right? Like looking at it going like, man, I really want to see what they do with the sequel. I hope they get to try it again, because I think if you tightened it up and did a few more things, you could have a really special game. And then there's Replaced, which Greg, I think this was revealed at E3 2021, which is was the finally three and wasn't even a really three that you and I hosted, it was just a digital in mind of him. I think Replaced was unveiled then. Of course, the developers in the Ukraine, and there's a very good reason why it's taken so long. But I think it's turned out pretty well. I've been playing it. Maybe it's not inside. We should specify that right up front. It's not inside. It's not. Go backwards sometimes. It's not as, well, I'm just going to say inside is much more of a puzzle game. This seems to be, they've spent so much time working on the presentation, which is amazing. It's visually, it's really, really stunning and breathtaking. And there's not as much to the gameplay. I don't think. Sam, is that what you found? You're like, you're deeper into it than I am. Yeah, you get to places where you backtrack and have a little side quest and do that. So that does change, but not in any extreme way. And then, you know, a lot of the combat is almost, it feels like, almost like Batman Arkham because you're constantly, like, luckily, it fills in a lot of the between animations to get between enemies. You're just kind of like punching backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. And that's kind of cool. But yeah, the game is just style. It's like mouse has style plus gameplay that you're familiar with. This is kind of style plus not really gameplay for a lot of it. A lot of it's just kind of holding right and jumping. That does change. I'm not saying it stays that way, but since it has such a long intro and then the next part you get to is not just running right, it's slowly exploring the city. And then the next part you get to is really combat focus. It is, it doesn't, it's just, it's hard for me to recommend it outside of people that I know, like, game scoop for the retro stuff. Yeah. It has a really cool cyberpunk ritual. Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy to just sort of like hang out and live in the world of the game and take in the visuals just because that's enough for me. But I totally get, I think some people are a little bit bummed with how light on gameplay it is. I don't know. Justin, have you tried that? That's exactly my feeling as well, like, it's a valid complaint if you're reviewing the game. You have to talk about the gameplay and the combat system and how, you know, maybe it's a little more shallow than you wanted it to be, but on an individual level, on a personal level, like, you know, style points, like that does matter, right? And like just being able to just let this wash over you and like, it does matter that this is maybe one of the most beautiful video games ever made, right? Yeah. And just, you know, you're rewarded, you get through one vignette and one scene and you're rewarded with another thing that's just, you know, so gorgeous to look at. Nothing's repeated. I mean, the enemies are repeated, but the backgrounds aren't. And you just keep going. And you're like, how did they do all of this in this style? It's so amazing. Like that feeling of like I would have every single one of these, any one of these on my wall as like a piece of art, it's like, it makes it hard to kind of evaluate and put like a score to because it's like, okay, like once you're sort of, once you're in review mode, then you have to say, here's what it does good. Here's what it doesn't do good. It's like, it reduces sort of just the artistic merits of just the, these scenes and backgrounds that they created. It's beautiful. Yeah. But, but, you know, the people that had a little bit more mixed sort of review perspective is like, that's also, you know, a very, you know, kind of valid, valid, overall opinion, I think. The same thing is that I played all three of these games a bunch this week that we've talked about so far, and I, I don't know what I'm going to keep playing, but except for I know I'm going to be pregnant. Like for sure. Out of these other ones, like, I'm going to try, I'm going to try to do as much as I can because I want to see. Yeah. I've done a bit of a replace through the previews and the demos and coming off reviews, it sounds to me like exactly what I want. So it's like, I'm still on, Sarah's right now in a redacted review. And so it's like, I'm so excited to get through those, not that they're good or bad, to get to this because just a, you know, it's from what it sounds like, it's a narrative platformer dripping with story and intrigue for what happened and why you're the AI in this. And I'm on such a sci-fi kick right now. I can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. I'm enjoying it. And I'm going to stick with it. Oh my God. Okay. I want to do a quick extra curricular activities. I know Justin has a hard out. We may have to dismiss him for 20 questions. We'll see. He was in Tokyo last week. Sam, thank you for hosting. It seemed like everything went well. Yeah. My pleasure. I have two stories I want to share from Tokyo. First of all.
In Asakusa, there's Sinsouji temple, which is one of the major temples. If you're looking at temples in Tokyo, you'll probably go to Sinsouji in Asakusa. But it's super crowded, lots of Gaijin there, and there's this like great big lantern, and then the temple is in the back, and in between are just these rows and rows of stalls selling junk. So, what people don't know, usually, is that behind the temple is an amusement park that's been opened since 1853. - Okay. - So, very, very old amusement park in Tokyo. The rides there that are operating today, obviously, they're not from 1853, but they're all old, but it's great for kids, 'cause everything's kind of old-timey and kid-friendly, so it's perfect. But I had, I went on one of the craziest rides I've ever been on there. So, we were trying to get on this ride that's like a caterpillar that goes in a circle kind of fast. That was the line that we thought we were in, the ride we thought we were in line for. (laughing) After waiting for a little bit, the line goes into a small house, and then before we can realize what's happening, we're sat in this like a wagon bed, where you sit facing each other, and then the door closes behind us. So, we're in this small room, and it just doesn't happen very often when you're on a ride that's about to start, and you have literally no idea what's going to happen. What happened, we look around the walls, and it's dumb-o-themed. Like, there's pictures from dumb-o, not from the Disney cartoon. Like, it's off-brand dumb-o. - Wow. - And a different big elephant with big ears. - Yeah, so the ride starts, a lock disengages, and the wagon starts swinging. It's like freeing out a swing. And then what happens next is the entire room starts spinning around you, like an old-time movie trick to make it look like Fred Astaire is dancing on the ceiling. - My God. - The room is spinning while we're swinging, and it feels so crazy. King goes eyes were wide. His tongue started coming out of his mouth. I thought he was gonna throw up. (laughing) It's crazy. But that's it. It just gives you the sensation that the room is spinning, and the ride itself is from like 1960. It's called like the strange room or the weird rooms. That's, this is the ride. - Wow. - It's crazy. (laughing) - So the room's spinning. - The room spins. - The room spins vertically. - Yeah. - Eyes picturing where it's on. - Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, it's spinning around you. - So you're not moving too much 'cause you're just rocking. - The rocking. - The rocking is going around. It's just totally insane. - It gives you a crazy dizzy feeling. - I can do it. - Yeah, it was. So that's good. I recommend that. - If you have that panic moment, you're like, is this going to be like dropping me from like a two-and-a-half or something? Am I going to drop at the end of this? - Yeah. - I wouldn't mind that, but Kinga would probably pass out. - Yeah. - I mean, you have your kid next to you. It's stressful. - You have to pedal to push that little helicopter ride. It's really fun. - Oh, wow. - Really, it's self-propelled. - Yes. - Save so much money. - I recommend the amusement park. It's like 10 bucks for a whole day pass. It's great. - Do you know what the park is called? - It's like Hanashiyama, something like that. It's in, if you just look up Asakusa amusement park, you'll find it crazy. It's good. I love that it's so old and kitchy. The other thing is that there's this hot new pizza pasta place in Tokyo. You have to wait like 90 minutes to get in. It's called Flower and Water. And I know the three of you will appreciate this. 'Cause there is a very well-known San Francisco restaurant called Flower and Water. This one in Tokyo has the same logo as Flower and Water in SF. So we were there with our, we were there with our friend who lives in Japan. - Oh, plus water. - And he was fluent and we had them ask, is it related to the one in San Francisco? And they said, no, but we get that all the time. - Okay. - They're like, no, please don't tell them. Please don't tell them. - So, Dan, and you're blowing them up here on this show. - It's saying like, you're doing the same thing as a restaurant in SF. You have the same logo, but you're not affiliated. Okay, okay, all right. - You can't, you can't just do that. - That's great. - It's like, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna Japan. I'm gonna start this website called IG. (laughing) - Yeah. I mean, it's 'cause they've got BlueBottle, which is a nest of coffee shop in Tokyo and they've got that, but they just made their own Flower and Water. Okay, I saw the Super Mario Galaxy movie. I know we talked about that when Sam had seen it. Greg, what do you think of the Super Mario Galaxy movie? - I saw it with Greg, by the way. - Okay. - We said, we held hands. - Yeah. - It was fine. You know, I mean, it's very colorful. It's a lot of cool. It's been yet put together, it's, you know, what everybody's said about it. Like, when I left the theater, I was talking to Ryan McCaffrey about it. He was like, man, I don't know. And I was like, listen, all in blessing in Tim, who are the biggest Mario fans, I know, loved it. And I know my son's gonna love it. So if Nintendo hit the target on who they were going for, and sure enough, I took Ben to see it and he had a ball. So it was enjoyable. It was an offensive. I haven't thought about it since I saw it either time. - Yeah, Kingo loved it. I think Bowser's Jr. is his favorite, like Nintendo character right now, so he just, he, he, he, he talks about it. - He's really lucky. 'Cause there's so much Bowser, Jr. - I know. - He talks about Bowser, Jr. all the time. He plays, like, he's Bowser, Jr. Before I saw it, Sam, you were saying it's just kind of like, it's a beautiful movie where just things just seem to happen and there's not much of a story and you're exactly right. That's what it is. It's just, it's just random stuff happening. Like the first movie I really like, I'm not gonna try to say that the story is some kind of masterpiece, but it is a story. And Mario and Luigi have an arc and they're different at the end of the movie than they were in the beginning. Who has an arc in the Mario Galaxy movie? Like, nothing changes or, they almost change Bowser in an interesting way, but then they immediately walk that back. So. - Mario lightly has a crush on Peach for the movie. - Yeah, yeah, but nothing happens with that. - No pay off to that, yeah no pay off to it. - Rosalena is, you know, more important than you think or something. - I mean, I, I'm fine with Peach and her being sisters. Like that, that's fine, whatever, but it doesn't really change anything. Justin, did you see it? We took the family to see Project Hail Mary instead. - Oh, great movie. - That is a great movie, that's great movie. - Incredible movie, so no, I have no. I will happily watch this when it comes home. - Yeah, it's, I mean, whatever, I had fun watching it. King has been asking to see it again, and I'll probably take him to see it again this weekend. But there is one major problem with the movie. You know what this is? So it's got all these characters from Super Mario Brothers 2, right? That's what we're seeing right here. Super Mario Brothers 2 was Mario's dream. Those characters don't exist. - They're not real. - Yeah, they're not real. - Although, the Mario lore, it's like shy guys have worked their way in other Mario games and stuff like that, so I don't know. - Maybe Mario is dreaming about something he experienced. - Okay, maybe. - We also, I'll tell you the one that my daughters, my daughters are both going to lose their mind for the Zelda movie. They're not, I mean, look, they like Mario, we play Mario Party, we play Mario Kart, but like, you know, Breath of the Wild and Two's of the Kingdom are the most played games by far. I'm so worried about that. - I asked my daughter, I said, do you think Link and Zelda are like a couple? And she's like, what? - No, he's just like, he's just like her protector. Like, why would you even think that? I'm like, well, you know, she lives in that house together and there's only one bed in that house. She's like, ugh, Dad. So anyway, she's got it figured out apparently. - Justin, do you mind if we spoil the final post credit scene? - No. - Okay. (laughing) So they introduced, so it's Daisy. Daisy just shows up. So Daisy will be in like the next movie or whatever, but isn't her introduction a little odd? Like they could have done anything to introduce Daisy. - Okay. - But Justin, what they have her do is punch a monkey. That's how they introduce her. - What is it? - That doesn't, like, like, and she also is not, and again, I really, really like Nintendo and Nintendo games, but Daisy is not a character. It's not like a post credit sting of like, like she only exists to like flesh out the roster in Mario Tennis so that girls have another girl that they can play as. Like that's it, like, she doesn't have a personality. - Yeah. - So finding characteristic about Daisy is the truth. - She's not too monkey, is this really? - Now that we're talking about the spoiler, I have a funny anecdote about a gender. So we had somebody see this really early, and they came back saying, you know, we're like, what are the post credit scenes? And, you know, it was like, I don't want to spoil it, but the last one has a lot of implications for the Mario years. (laughing) And I was like, wow, and I was just, I was thinking about this the night before. You know, I was like, what is this gonna be? And so I see it and I'm like, can't be fucking talking about Daisy. There's no fucking way. I bet we're all seeing different smash brothers characters. And that there's like, yeah, that there's like a different ending to each person's viewing and that it comes together. Nope, turns out I had a really good idea, but they did not and it was all Daisy. And I still don't know what unnamed person was talking about. - Well, I mean, you know, in the movie, of course, Luigi's like ask if she has a friend for me. So this is what, that's the implication. - Gross. - I did such a gross question and a gross answer. So, but there are other smash brothers characters, like littered, right? Like they do, they play to smash brothers in it from Star Fox onward. And if we're just spoiling it and they have Game and Watch. And it's like, you know, that's all funny. And like people were shouting right behind you, Greg, in the theater, when the Game and Watch thing was revealed. - Oh yeah, that was a cool thing. But not during Daisy. - I should have kept him for the end. - Yeah, exactly. That would have had implications for the wider universe. - I like that they did the bridge fight with Bowser from Super Mario Bros. 1. Like that was cool. - Yeah. - Cool scene that was fun. - Again, there's a lot of cool stuff in the film, right? Like I loved the overworld when they were going at the Hammer Brothers. - There was a whole like Super Mario World montage in there and it's like, well, I kind of think you should have done that before you did Galaxy. - I bet the movie came in just on that, yeah. - It's just a red coming up pile of bones and then that not getting reversed to us insane. - Yeah, nope, never reversed it. - That was a very crazy thing that happens in that movie. - The puppet show is very cute. Like that moment. - That's really good. The end is amazing. - Yeah, that's good. And then when they introduced Yoshi and Yoshi explains how he got there, that was the biggest laugh out loud moment for me. I thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, we have to say goodbye to Justin, I believe.
It's a good, yes, I got to go but give us a give us a good, a screen saver shot for yourself. I'll do my best. We're on such a 20 questions losing streak that we need Greg's help to kind of break a set of the run. Okay. See Greg, great to see you. See you guys later. Do you know anything about 20 questions last week, Damon? No, I didn't. I don't. Okay, so it was really fun because we had it's always this face. We had the meta a little bit. So I reached out to two people and had them submit stuff, but we actually got a submission by one of our stats, keepers, right. And he said, you know, Justin's always talking about black. Let's finally have you never had it before the PlayStation 2 shooter game black, right? Do you have it? Yeah. And then we'll, we'll, you know, put one over on Justin here and they didn't get it. Okay. Well, we'll see. Our suggestion this week comes from Nick from Newcastle Australia, who says every week, I eagerly hope someone recommends this game for 20 questions, but as far as I know, it's never come up. Considering how important this game is to me, it holds a special place in my heart and I figured, why not ask myself and be part of Game Scoop history? So with that, let the questioning begin. Game Scoop history. Yeah. Okay. All right. Is this from before the year 2000? Yes. Whoa. All right. Oh, an old timey. Is it on an Nintendo console? No. Wow. Never. Okay. Did this originally appear as an arcade game? No. Ooh, this is, this is, I don't like this, I don't want to burn questions. No, you can burn questions. I know. I know. Was this a, a, well, so it's just not Nintendo. I guess it could be Sega or, yeah, I should have been a question. No, no, no, that's the accurate. That's a great question to do. It's usually, well, how about this? Was this a console exclusive when it launched? Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Are we, do we ask about, this isn't for you, Damon. This is for Sam. Sam, do we ask about Sega? Or do we just play for, what do we, I suspect it's going to be Sega or PlayStation exclusive. So let's just eliminate one or the other. Okay. Damon, we'd like to know, is it on a Sega console? No. Is it on a PlayStation console? Yes. Oh. So if it's before 2000, it has to be PlayStation one. Correct. Okay. Okay. Does this have a score of 8 or above on IGN? I, I, I think so. I could, I could double check, but I, I would guess so. There's no way to know. Yeah. Is the developer Japanese? No. Interesting. Does this have sequels that are running to this day? Uh, no. I'm thinking maybe, maybe sports are racing or something like that, like a really western. Hold on. Is it worth that? Damon, don't listen. This is for Sam. Is it worth drilling into, doesn't have sequels period? Yeah. Damon, we'd like to know if it has sequels period. It does. That's 10. I'm sorry, this game did not score an eight or above. I was, I was very, very wrong about that. Okay. So it's on the bubble, Sam. It's a, it's a game. Damon would have liked. Yeah, that's the way she gave Damon would like from a western developer. Yeah. That's a good clue. It's a good clue. Um. Uh, how about a 3D graphics question, would that make sense? Are there enough PlayStation games that had 2D graphics or is it pretty 3D heavy? Yeah. I think it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it. I'm trying to think of one that isn't something tonight. It's not coming easy. So maybe we shouldn't ask that. Come. What about like talking a lot or the characters you play as there's things like that? Yeah. What point do you start worrying about genre is usually what this is the time? I would say like, you know, like, do you pilot a vehicle or, or, you know, we can also do a thing where we do is this a, is this a sports puzzle or racing game? And then if the answer is yes, you, you go from there if it's not that's good. That's good. That's good. That's good. For some reason, I'm feeling fighting. Do you feel fighting? Fighting. Oh, that's pretty good. And there's a bunch of like crappy western fighters. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, um, well, that came to other systems, I think, but there's like the street fighter, the movie, the fighting game. Sure. What should be relevant because of the street fighter trailer, too? Of course. Never forget. Speaking of a movie that's just about scenes and doesn't have a through plot line, we could be getting another one of those of that movie. Okay. So how about this? Is this the genre thing? Yeah. Is this a fighting, racing or sports game? No. No. And shooters weren't really a thing at this point, right? So we could do shooter platform or puzzle? Sure. Is this a shooter platform or a puzzle game? No. Okay. Some kind of, listen, we had RPG maker on this and it was impossible. So it was very, though, some kind of simulation, something like a sim city, some kind of strategy. Yeah. Strategy. Yeah. Tactical. So. Man. Yeah. This is a little bit. Well, maybe it's a licensed game. Like a movie or Marvel game or something like that, like Marvel Ultimate Alliance type stuff. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that came out for PlayStation 1. No, I did it. But you said like, I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah. Well, how about just the license question alone? Okay. Shoot for it. Is this based on a license? No. Oh. That always helps so much once we get to movies, TVs and comics. There's a lot of that in PlayStation, also. How many questions in every fun game? 13 questions in. Seven left. So genre is getting really tough here. But you brought up once a strategy, simulation, and music where their music games not. Did you do sports? Did you say sports? Yeah. Yeah. We eliminated sports, which is crazy, because I was hoping it would be like an extreme sports game. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Are we missing any bigger genre than strategy and Sim? Did we do RPG? RPG. There you go. Well, okay. That's probably worth asking. Is this a strategy, Sim, or RPG? No. I mean, I guess there's just action and adventure games, right? What's like legacy of Kane? What would you call it? Action, adventure. Mm-hmm. Could that be -- could this be that? Who made that game? Who made that game? It's like pre-uncharted, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. I think it meant the company. Is it not a dog? No, no, no. I mean, Amy had to work down one of them, if not all of them. Okay. But it's not. Yeah. What was it? It wasn't Ubisoft. Do you play as a republished him? Do you play as a human in this game? No. That's 15. It could be a vampire. Animal vampire robot is our question now. Ooh. Do you look like a human -- are you a humanoid type character? Yes. Yeah. I think it might be Legacy of Kane. Or is she for it? Because it's -- well, I mean, we don't need to guess it out. We just need to keep narrowing. But I don't know all of them. The question could be, is it Legacy of Kane? I don't know a lot of PlayStation 1 games. That's just like -- that's one that I know. Oh, so. Yeah. I mean, does this game deal with the realm of the undead and vampires? Well, the undead? Yes. Okay. Yes. Does this deal with the realm of the undead? Yes. Okay. So maybe it's not -- what's a zombie game? From PS1? Wasn't there one where you like play as a -- not stabs the zombie. But one where you like -- it's in the collection. It's in the PlayStation 50 collection. Not many -- maybe -- Yeah. I think it's an evil. Yeah. Is this in the PlayStation 50 collection or whatever that's called the limited, mini PlayStation? I don't know. That one doesn't count. All right. Oh, thank you. Is that what that game is, though, Greg? Do you just play -- I don't know that. You're a skeleton. You're Sir Daniel Fortescue.
- Okay, and that's like an action. - On a DNA level, that's a human. So that would be a mispronement. He would have let us astray on that one if that's the case. - Maybe it's an undead, doesn't count as human though. - Okay. - All right. - Do you play as an undead skeleton creature? - Yes. - Okay. - Is it medieval? - Yes, it is. - Who made that? Incognito? I don't know if that wouldn't, don't burn a question on that part. - Well, if we don't know enough about it, is there any other, any other thing that's just in that game that you would think of? - 'Cause there's probably is that, but we have questions to burn. - Oh, you have one question to burn. - Well, we don't have questions to burn. (laughing) - Oh, all right. - Was it? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, Sir Daniel Fortescue was in PlayStation All-Sars Battle Royale. So we could ask, is the main character in PlayStation All-Sars Battle Royale? Damon's too lazy to look it up if it is. - Damon knows that game like the back of his hand. (laughing) - Was this character in PlayStation All-Sars Battle Royale? - Yes. - Oh, fuck yeah, we nailed it then. - All right, go for it, Greg. We believe it's medieval. - It is medieval. - Yes. - Yay! - Which I wouldn't say you're playing as a human. You're a skeleton, but what? - He was a human. - He was a human of the DNA level. (laughing) - Wow, and Stan, let's take your every time I see it. It also looks fun. - Good job, Stan. - Is it a, well, yeah, good job, Greg. - Is this a Zelda-like kind of? - It's more, the pitch was Ghost and Goblins with Nightmare Before, 'cause Miss Art. - Oh, okay. - So it's like a hack and slash game. - Yeah, hack and slash. - Developed that Sony computer entertainment Europe. - Ah. - I wonder if they still exist. - I don't think so. - Absolutely no. - No? - Yep. - I mean, does Sony computer entertainment Japan still exist? - Even office. I don't think. (laughing) - It's a office there. - This is out in 1998. It got a sequel, and they got a two remakes, one of the PSP and one on PS4. - Okay, and then what did I gen give it? - Oh yeah, Chris Roper gave it a 5.6. - No, I was like, 5.9. I thought this, I thought people liked this game. - But Chris would have been reviewing this way later, right? - Well, yeah, you're right. 'Cause he wouldn't have been here in '98. - Probably the PSP version. - Maybe it was the PSP version, except it's just on the object page for the PS1 version, so I don't know, confusing. - Yeah, you're easy, I-G-N, you know? - Typical. - When it was the last time you heard an object page, Greg. - This is in a while. (laughing) - Well, nicely job. You guys, yeah. - Yeah, let me go. - That's great. - Thank you for the suggestion, who was this from? Nick from Newcastle, Australia. Viewers and listeners, if you have your own suggestions for a video game, 20 questions. Email them to me at the email address,
[email protected]. Greg, I've got your reviews page up here. - Oh God. - First of all, you were born to eat chicken wings and play video games. - I think this is every game you've reviewed. It's a very, very long list. - I appreciate that, thank you. - One of the very last games you reviewed was NCAA Football 14. - Yeah, whenever I click back through my profile and IGN for something that pops up, I'm like, "God, what a way to go out." (laughing) What a one before they were like, "You know what, you just do up at noon now and beyond." (laughing) - You did Dead Island Riptide? Was that a standalone game? Or was that like a- - Yeah, yeah, I was like modified expansion or whatever. - You did Persona for Golden? - You did Zombie You? Why were you reviewing Zombie You? - I love Zombie You know how it was. You're like, "Ah, here's a Wii U game, lunch game." We got too many of them. I think I also had to update my Batman review because they did Batman on Wii U. - Walking Dead was like the biggest thing in the world of the time, right? - It was, yeah. - Zombie You was kind of- - Yeah. - Man, I watched a modified hit. There was no way it would miss. - The, what's it called? The 28 years later, a second one, the bone. - Yeah, I watched that last night. It is so brutally disgusting. - Oh, really? - Well. - And it's just kind of hard to watch. Like it's not fun. And I like the first one of the 28 years. Like I thought that was pretty cool, but it's just pretty awful. - You reviewed Rock Band Blitz, which one is that one? - Yep. - Which one is that? - That was the one that came to consoles and was basically, you know, a lesser amplitude that you were going through and playing. - Or a Rock Band unplugged is what I would have called it on, it would have been the version of that. They tried to do DLC for it as well, the same way they were doing Rock Band. It wasn't supportive. - This is after Rock Band 4? - This is, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. - Man, Rock Band 4 had the piano. - Yeah, the keytar, yeah, never forget, never forget. - It had a keytar, I don't remember that. - You reviewed Gravity Rush. - I did, I love Gravity Rush, too. - Yeah. - So good. You did the Vita version of Plants vs. Zombies? - Yeah. - You were a Plants vs. Zombies, no, I remember. - Yeah. - Game went hard. - That was your mobile, or your downloadable editor. - Yep, exactly. - These cute little games that you could download. Remember when we walked around and be like, "Man, this is so great for a downloadable game." (laughing) - You did Dead Island, remember Dead Island? Remember how big a deal that first trailer was? - That trailer had everyone by the throat. - I think we all watched that in a room at E3 like on one of the conferences on a screen. I think that's how we all saw that the first time. - Yeah, I made it this room. - You did Fruit Ninja Connect. And then you reviewed Bastion, Greg. - I did review Bastion, isn't that crazy? - Yeah. - All of the back to the future episodes from Telltale. - Oh. - Oh yeah. (laughing) - That was before Telltale delivered big on Walking Dead and everything came up Telltale. - Yeah, that was always the big surprise. I remember that was where being the Telltale guy posts StrongBad. 'Cause I remember going to Telltale with the San Diego hum icon. It was literally a card table. And I had to do a StrongBad and I was like, I don't know this source material. No, no, I think I like this. And then yeah, they picked up Jurassic Park back to the future. I played both of those. These are so disappointing. And then they're like, hey, we got Walking Dead. And I was like, do not hurt Walking Dead. I love that. I love that comic book. I was just a comic book. - Yeah. - And then they nailed it. - Did you play Dispatch? - Oh yeah. Dispatch. - Love that game. - Greg, you did Dead Space 2. - Yeah, that was the one I discovered what Reddit was. Do you remember that? - No. - I reviewed Dead Space 2 and it went up. I was happy with it. About two days later, Bromley leaned over the wall and he goes, do you know that you're still on the front page of Reddit? I was like, oh, what's Reddit? And he sent me the link and it was, does anybody else think IGN's review of Dead Space 2 was written by a middle schooler? (laughing) And it was like just tearing me apart for my, the way I wrote it, what it was. And like the funniest thing about it was literally, I had sent my draft to Hillary like Friday evening before I went live. And he wrote back and was like, dude, this is exactly the kind of review I want us doing. This is exactly what Paris is talking about, putting our personality into it, doing this thing, and the audience just ate me alive. - Just destroyed me. - He's changing verb tenses, three paragraphs in. What is he doing? - Yeah, there was a cloud hanging over EA. At the time, they had been voted the worst company in the world at three years running to work. - And then that's the fact three came out. (laughing) You did, you did did rising too, Greg. You did all the zombie games back then. - You know, I love zombies, but animal about it still in. - You did naughty bear? - You remember naughty bear? - I do remember naughty, naughty bear. - I don't know too. - You were like a, you were a stuffed teddy bear, but you were naughty. - It's like Ted. - It's like Ted. - Yeah, you were like, it was like basically imagined like that gum drop teddy bear island thing except you were the teddy bear's been pushed too far. So you had a machete and you were an errand killing ghost. - A little bit conquerors bad for a day type thing. - Yeah, but it was like you're clipping through the floor and all this stuff and it didn't run well and yada yada yada. And it was one of the, at least at the time, the hot button like, do you have to beat a game to review it? 'Cause my intro was like, I've only played four hours in this game and I don't even waste any more time. - Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was always a debate. - Yeah, now we're in, we're in the days when all these reviews don't even have thumbnails. But you did band hero. - Yeah. - You did band hero, I think, band hero, I think is, yeah, the single band hero will always stand out to me for one reason where there had been that rock band or a guitar hero, guitar hero to rock band. This thing where at the office, none of us could get enough of it. We loved it so much and you smash cut to band hero where no one cared anymore, I was reviewing it and I'll never forget it. I was at my desk, middle of the day, my shoes were off, they were up on my sock feet were on my desk. I was laying back in the chair playing with a Kleenex boxes of pillow and Damon walked by and burst out laughter, came back and took a photo of me, he's like, this is rock bottom, like this is rock bottom for these games. - Yeah, yep. - You did Africa? - Right in the middle of the rock bottom. - Nobody but me, 'cause I brought that up recently, we were talking about a preview for some game coming up and they were describing, I'm like, oh, it's like Africa. It's like a super, he's like, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. - That was like a visual experience, super. - It was a photography same, you were in Africa and you had the camera, but it was, it was one of those classic vaporwares where like, when they announced that PlayStation console, they showed it and then like five years later, we were all like, where's Africa? - Yeah, yeah. - Greg, what review of yours featured the strap line? Behold the greatest comic book game of all time. - That is Batman, Arkham Asylum. - That's correct. - And it was mocked endlessly by, I was mocked endlessly by Clayman and Brenving for it. - I love my mind. - Because they didn't agree with it? - No, no, they thought it was a stupid strap line. They agreed it was a great game. It was like, what a weird strap watch. I thought it was all downhill from that game. I thought that was the best one. - Yeah, I agree with that. It was the best one. Greg, what review featured the strap line? More cushion for the push-in. - Fat Princess. - Fat Princess. - Yeah. - Fat Princess was really fun. I remember there was a really good one. - Like a preview of that.
- Okay, I'll princess. - Damnation, abomination. We're gonna more descriptive title. - Yeah, I was gonna say, I can't even tell you what damnation was. I don't remember that one. - Oh man. - It was more funny. I reviewed blood drive, which is a game. None of you should remember. It's just some stupid, running people over with a car, zombie, whatever. - My name don't lie. - Exactly. And I gave it some terrible score. In years later, I was out drinking with Lucio Bryant from IGN. And she's like, yeah, I actually wrote for a game once and I was like, yeah, what was it? She goes, blood drive. I was like, oh no, I hated that game. - Oh man, we're in the early days. It's jeopardy, it's TNA impact, it's Buzz Master quiz. - Oh yeah, you were a wrestling guy for a while. - I was, yeah, one of the things I cut my teeth out. But remember, Buzz was awesome because when they were trying to make Buzz a thing, they would throw, like, they would send over pizzas and we would just go into the demo room and play Buzz all day long. - Yeah. Hannah Montana Spotlight World Tour, okay. That's enough. Back to, back to Donald, we're reviewing everything. - We're reviewing everything. - Why? Well, there's only so many games that come out and I pay all of you to be here full time. So we were reviewing something today, okay. - Yeah, we took the weekly trip down to a GameStop, buy new games to review. Sam Moons, last time-- - Got three J's. - Yeah, he got a B.J.'s brew house and you'd be there three and a half hours, different work day. - Okay, well, good times, good times. Greg, thank you so much for joining us. How about we have you back for my 40th anniversary? That sounds awesome. I'd love that, Damon. - Let's do it, let's do it. That is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you for hanging out with me all these years. Let's keep it going. - That was a blast. - Let's keep it going. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Sam. Thank you to the ghost of Justin. Thank you to Joe Burt. We're getting behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IJ and GamesHoop. And we're out. (upbeat music) ♪ It wasn't the light, it's the sights of the city ♪ ♪ It wasn't the storms across the world ♪ ♪ It wasn't any place I ever had to ♪ ♪ It wasn't the sound I ever heard ♪ ♪ In fact, it was you on my way ♪ ♪ In fact, it was you all the time ♪ (laughs) Oh my God. Damon, have you had a cat? Nothing special, just a fact. Mickey Biscuits, it's all that love. When you did this, where record the music? At home. At the podcast? Oh yeah. That was just at home. I just recorded it at home. You used like, oh, but I'd have Greg and Craig record the vocals in the podcast room. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So you recorded some like Rajman tracks. I think Rajman was around then, right? Yeah. Yeah. I use the reason. Yeah. Okay. It's coming. Okay. I love to do. Thank you. Recently, not recently, but I don't know last year or two, remember? I don't know if you noticed when infograms came back. Yeah. And they're like, we're back or whatever. And I busted out the infogram song and made everybody here watch it. And like, it's just so classic you and me. We're like, you're so musically there. And I just don't have a beat. And I start early. And I'm like, oh. (laughs) But then, how have you even animated that part in? It's so good. Yeah. Do you not use this in the post show, but do you remember when?
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