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Episode 232 - Nintendo Remastered

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·41m 46s·held·Nov 9, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pinball news: Barrels hires veteran designer; American Pinball discontinues three games; Spooky rumor shared.

Summary

Episode 232 of Eclectic Gamers Podcast covers video game updates (Final Fantasy pixel remasters, Awesome Games Done Quick schedule) and pinball news including Barrels of Fun hiring Butch Peel, American Pinball discontinuing Houdini/Oktoberfest/Legends of Valhalla, and a rumor about Spooky's next game being non-revolutionary but superior to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The hosts play a speculative game about which older Stern/Data East games they'd like to see remastered with modern LCD technology.

Key Claims

  • Barrels of Fun has hired Butch Peel, an industry veteran who worked on early JJP games (Hobbit, Wizard of Oz, Pirates) and recently worked on Cactus Canyon remake and Pulp Fiction at CGC.

    high confidence · Dennis (host) provides this as recent industry news

  • American Pinball has discontinued Houdini (their first game), Oktoberfest (their second game), and Legends of Valhalla (the Riot Pinball contract game they reworked).

    high confidence · Dennis (host) reports these discontinuations as confirmed news

  • Legends of Valhalla did not sell particularly well, whereas Houdini was very popular with constant reruns.

    medium confidence · Tony (host) offers personal observation and market impression

  • Houdini was created with a very short turnaround by Joe Balcer from scratch after J-Pop left an incomplete diorama, and the game turned out quite good despite the rushed development.

    high confidence · Dennis (host) describes the development process from recollection

  • Spooky's next game is not revolutionary and will not introduce new pinball concepts, but in comparison to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, it is superior in every conceivable way (theme, layout, rules, art, displays, sculpts).

    medium confidence · Dennis (host) cites an unnamed source who has purportedly seen the game; explicitly labeled as 'Rumor Corner'

  • Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons Pinball Party are generally agreed to be the best Stern games from the pre-2010 era.

    medium confidence · Tony (host) offers this as community consensus

  • World Poker Tour is one of the last fun drop-heavy Steve Ritchie games, featuring an unusually high number of drop targets for his design style.

    medium confidence · Dennis (host) expresses personal opinion about the game's mechanics and Ritchie's design signature

  • AC/DC was the game that brought Stern back and introduced Steve Ritchie return to Stern, which was announced at an expo.

    high confidence · Tony (host) describes this as a significant industry moment

Notable Quotes

  • “They made a game that didn't actually work. Never, never so surprised. And that is an excellent transition because all right people have been whining and there no other way to describe it whining about wanting Rumor Corner.”

    Tony (host) @ N/A — Sets up the 'Rumor Corner' segment about Spooky's next game, using J-Pop's failed Alice in Wonderland design as a humorous transition

  • “The Fly. But what I have heard is from someone who has purportedly, seen this game that the next spooky is one not revolutionary in basically any way it's not going to bring something new to the pinball table... in comparison to DPX, PX, PX, PX, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the spooky game is better in every conceivable way you could think of.”

    Dennis (host) @ N/A — Core of the Spooky rumors; establishes what insiders may know about the upcoming game versus Alice's failure

  • “I actually prefer Data East Jurassic Park to the new Jurassic Park... I really liked its combination of ideas and shots and the way it worked And the gun, just like they had on the Star Wars you watch it and you shoot the Velociraptors.”

    Tony (host) @ N/A — Demonstrates designer philosophy preferences and preference for classic interactive gun mechanics in pinball

  • “Laser War... Completely never going to happen. Laser War. You've got the hit David Thiel music with the return to base. You're fighting a laser war. Bring that in.”

    Dennis (host) @ N/A — Shows enthusiasm for remastering the first Data East game despite acknowledging it's extremely unlikely to happen

  • “It's a game that a lot of people would like to they made a lot of them but i think a lot of people would like to see it come back... I really think you could fix a few little things with it... there were some mechanical issues that could be polished out.”

    Tony (host) @ N/A — Explains rationale for Lord of the Rings remaster suggestion, focusing on mechanical polish rather than layout changes

  • “If you want to put on the proper size, the real original size, you still have those... if they were going to remake Ghostbusters, you have to do the correct thing and re-theme it to the real Ghostbusters. Do it after the cartoon. All the cartoon art from the 80s.”

Entities

Barrels of FuncompanyButch PeelpersonAmerican PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyStern PinballcompanyData EastcompanyJoe Balcer

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Barrels of Fun hired Butch Peel, an industry veteran with experience on early JJP games and recent CGC work, signaling expansion of design capacity and expertise

    high · Dennis announces: 'barrels of fun makers of labyrinth pinball... they have hired butch peel... well known for having worked on some of the really early like starting jjp games um i believe hobbit wizard of oz i think he also worked on pirates and then um more recently he's been over with cgc chicago gaming company'

  • ?

    product_launch: American Pinball discontinued three games: Houdini (original flagship), Oktoberfest (second game), and Legends of Valhalla (contract remake), indicating market consolidation and potential strategic reset

    high · Dennis reports: 'american pinball... they've discontinued Houdini, which is their oldest game. But also Legends of Valhalla, which was the quasi-contract game'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Spooky Pinball's next game reportedly improves on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland across all design dimensions (theme, layout, rules, art, displays, sculpts) but is non-revolutionary in mechanics

    medium · Dennis in Rumor Corner: 'the spooky game is better in every conceivable way you could think of. The theme is better. The layout is better. The rules are better... However, in comparison to... Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the spooky game is better in every conceivable way... but it's not a revolutionary game'

  • $

    market_signal: Houdini was popular with constant reruns, while Legends of Valhalla did not sell well, indicating market preference for original designs over contract/reworked games despite similar design pedigree

    medium · Tony: 'I never heard that it sold particularly well... Whereas Houdini, I know, they've had constant reruns of Houdini. It was a very popular game'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.125

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, November 9th? 10th? 10th. Sunday, November 10th. You might have started the notes on Saturday. I started the notes on Saturday. That might have been the case. Yeah. It is episode 232. I am Tony. I am Dennis. I think this is going to be a much briefer episode. I do have a discussion topic for us when we get to the pinball section, but we're not ready for that quite yet. I do want to go ahead and thank Lore W for joining our Patreon, though. Always exciting for us to have a new Patreon. I don't know if it's exciting for Lore. I hope it's exciting for Lore. I hope it's exciting. I don't know. I've been sharing a meme every month now because I got rid of the babies first because they were getting too difficult. difficult to come up with and things got slow. So I've been doing more pinball memes where I take a famous meme and pinballify it. I don't know how long I'll keep doing that, but until we find a new, a new thing. Yes, maybe or nothing. I mean, it's, I don't, we're not, we're not very, we're not very good at, well, but we're not asking for like $25 a month. Right. So now I know you've been busy at least talking about a video game because people have been asking you questions and you have been answering said questions. Yes. I've mainly been playing Satisfactory for the last couple of weeks. So I've been, I don't know how much, because I played Satisfactory back when it was in beta, because it was early access. But I stopped playing it before they brought out their fifth major update, and the game is now out of early access and is live with their 1.0. and I think there were like eight or nine updates before they went, major updates before they went live so I missed a lot of it and I've been into it and been playing a lot seeing the changes getting built up, working on stuff but yeah, that's been my primary gaming driver for the last several weeks Okay I have not done as much gaming over the last couple weeks as I thought I might I just been busy with work and such, and I did a few things on my watch channel that required some time. So I did finish Final Fantasy three. I had just started it, I believe, when we did our last episode. So that is now done. And I have just started Final Fantasy four a couple of days ago. So Final Fantasy four is the one that was originally sold as Final Fantasy two in the United States.
2:44

Tony (host) @ N/A — Demonstrates how remaster discussions lead to creative design improvements and thematic choices

person
John Popadiukperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Riot Pinballcompany
Tonyperson
Dennisperson
Ben Heckperson
Keith Elwinperson
Steven Bowdenperson
  • ?

    design_innovation: Joe Balcer's Houdini demonstrates ability to create high-quality games with extremely short turnaround time despite J-Pop's incomplete foundation, suggesting skilled designer problem-solving

    high · Dennis: 'Joe Balcer came in and remade a – like from scratch a Houdini, and it was a very short turnaround, and the game actually turned out quite good... The turnaround – I remember that turnaround was like very short to then show it at shows'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Pinball pursuing remaster strategy with Metallica; hosts speculate multiple older Williams/Data East/Sega games likely candidates based on design quality and market demand

    medium · Tony: 'I actually think they will do in fact it would not surprise me if it's the next one they do and that would be ACDC... I think that one would also make a lot of sense'

  • ?

    community_signal: Community discussion reveals strong preference for remastering classic games with improved art, modern displays, updated code, and preserved mechanics over completely new designs

    medium · Tony: 'I would like to see a remaster of Lord of the Rings... the game would just warrant it... the art print quality that was done back then was terrible... but the rules themselves are pretty solid'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Tony expresses preference for Data East Jurassic Park over modern Stern version, citing superior combination of ideas, shots, and interactive gun mechanics, indicating designer/enthusiast appreciation for classic design patterns

    medium · Tony: 'I actually prefer Data East Jurassic Park to the new Jurassic Park... I really liked its combination of ideas and shots and the way it worked And the gun... Where you watch it and you shoot the Velociraptors'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Butch Peel moving from CGC to Barrels of Fun suggests ongoing designer mobility and potentially indicates growth opportunity or better role at Barrels

    medium · Dennis: 'more recently he's been over with cgc chicago gaming company he worked on cactus canyon remake and he's he did work on pulp fiction so now barrels has hired him'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Hosts clarify that Stern Pinball's true history begins with Data East (Laser War), not Stern Electronics, establishing genealogy for remaster eligibility discussions

    high · Dennis: 'Stern Pinball does not have a direct chain to Stern Electronics... Stern Pinball is not a continuation of Stern Electronics'

  • ?

    product_concern: Data East games discussed for remaster contain design flaws: Laser War had parts reliability issues (Ion Cannon cracking), Maverick had slow riverboat mechanic requiring fixes

    medium · Dennis: 'The Ion Cannon would constantly fall apart and crack apart on all the older versions... Maverick... the really slow, terrible riverboat... That needs to be fixed. That needs to be faster'

    • And, you know, I'll probably do an assessment on where all of them, assuming I can get through all six of them in the pixel remaster. about where I would rank them. But I will go ahead and say I completely understand why Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were not sold in the US originally. So there was a big step up when it came to Final Fantasy 4. So that said, 3 was good.
    3:11
    I've seen some other people's rankings now and not always, but a lot of times Final Fantasy 2 is dead last. And I completely understand why because I've already talked about how the weird leveling system worked and such. And so 3 is a job system where you can swap the jobs and anyone can change the jobs, kind of like Final Fantasy XI was. As you recall, you could go to your little mog house and change your job. Final Fantasy III has that, and as you go along getting more of the crystals, you get more and more jobs at your disposal. So that was great. The magic is back to Final Fantasy I's format, where you just get a certain number of casts of each level as you progress, which I don't love. I prefer mana points because otherwise you're like, well, I guess I'm just casting regular cure now. Cause I get 20 of those. And, and so, you know, you have to balance it like that. But the biggest frustration for final fantasy three easily is there are segments of it where they're like, no, you will use this job or you will not progress, but they don't tell you. They kind of hint at it. So there was a scene where I had to make the entire party dragoons, and I had no interest in playing dragoon.
    4:23
    But I was getting destroyed, and the only way to not get destroyed by the boss was to have everyone jumping so that they couldn't be targeted.
    4:31
    And then there was another spot where there were these enemies that would duplicate. Every time they got hit, they would split and duplicate and clone themselves. And so there were certain jobs that could deal with that or certain jobs that wouldn't trigger the splitting, so you had to use certain jobs. I don't want to have like 15 jobs to choose from and then you start telling me which ones I'm going to be using right you might as well just made me have care like Final Fantasy 4 where this is like here's here's Kane he is a dragoon you will now have him go forth and dragoon uh and another thing that they did in Final Fantasy 3 is they apparently got really excited with like using frog and mini and stuff and they started making you cast it on yourself just to go into places and stuff it was and then i would be out of mana so i couldn't undo it and if i didn't have enough items i'd have to go stay at an end to get enough mana to then unfrog myself and then go back to sleep so i could get my mana back it was just like guys this guys come on this is also where they started really uh figuring out how they could manipulate things to like have the dancers dance on the screen so there's these vast sections where people are just dancing around and i was like guys i get that You're really proud that you're figuring out how to program these things. But it's kind of like when you first learn PowerPoint animation and then everything is animated and it's just dripping. That's what it felt like. It was just like baby's first programming job sort of thing. And you know what's kind of sad about that is, as I recall, they did quality of life updates when they did the pixel remasters compared to what it had been. It was – I mean, yeah, it was – now, here's the thing. I read this. I'm already really nervous as I'm going through Final Fantasy IV. I read on a guide thing. It said, Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster has gone back to Japanese difficulty. I'm like, I don't want Japanese difficulty. I need Baby's First America difficulty. Don't give me Japanese difficulty. Japanese difficulty has been for Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II. I've had to go and grind another 10 levels to beat the final boss because all of a sudden I've hit this difficulty spike. Not even in the mobs in the room, just the boss. Just mysteriously, I am not remotely enough level to beat this guy.
    6:44
    So anyway, but it's been fun. So let's go ahead and move into pinball, which has nothing to do with Final Fantasy.
    6:53
    Until they make a Final Fantasy pinball game. You know, I don't think they ever will. Oh, God, no. I know. They can't even get Halo done. Can you imagine the ball times on Final Fantasy? I don't know. If you're not level enough, probably short. so this is a pretty light news week um but i do have a few little things for us to go ahead and go over um barrels of fun makers of labyrinth pinball a movie i never thought would get a pinball machine uh they have hired butch peel and butch butch's name might sound familiar to you i'd say if it does sound familiar it's mostly because he's well known for having worked on some of the really early like starting jjp games um i believe hobbit wizard of oz i think he also worked on pirates and then um more recently he's been over with cgc chicago gaming company he worked on cactus canyon remake and he's he did work on pulp fiction so now barrels has hired him so they have an industry veteran brought into the fold uh american pinball i think it might I think it's been on our last episode. I think we mentioned that. Maybe we didn't. Maybe it's something I'm remembering from the pinball show. But they've discontinued Oktoberfest. Yeah. Which, again, I mean, that was their second game. It's been a long time. Been a while. Well, they have now announced that they have discontinued Houdini, which is their oldest game. But also Legends of Valhalla, which was the quasi-contract game. I mean, I know Steve Bowden was working on the rules with it. But Riot Pinball had developed Legends of Valhalla. and for those that don't remember the story and i might be misremembering it myself i'm going to do my best to tell it riot pinball developed legends of valhalla years and years ago and it would have the plan was for it to go into production however they required 100 pre-orders before they would do that and they did not get to that level so they never made it fast forward they approached american pinball american pinball kind of took it on as a not necessarily as a contract game it was more like They were allowed to use the design in some capacity. And so then they made it. There were some tweaks, and Steve worked on some rules and things like that. And we've played Legends of Valhalla. We played it at a show at Texas Pinball Festival.
    9:09
    I have not heard that – I thought the game was okay. I never heard that it sold particularly well. Whereas Houdini, I know, they've had constant reruns of Houdini. It was a very popular game, which was interesting given just how much of a mad scramble it was to get that game built because this is not the J-pop Houdini. This is a dramatically – Joe Balser came in and remade a – like from scratch a Houdini, and it was a very short turnaround, and the game actually turned out quite good. Yeah. The turnaround – I remember that turnaround was like very short to then show it at shows. Mm-hmm.
    9:48
    But J-pop had left them a diorama that didn't even – But, like, again, I say again, after people looked at things with the original foam core of the Alice in Wonderland game, it's like the ball goes places where it can't un-go. It's like Paths to Nowhere was the joke, hence diorama.
    10:08
    Wow, J-J-P, not J-J-P, but J-Pop made a game that didn't actually work. Never, never so surprised. And that is an excellent transition because all right people have been whining and there no other way to describe it whining about wanting Rumor Corner So I will give them one Rumor Corner Okay
    10:32
    My weakness is undeniable. If they're right, Tony. Yeah. Okay, so this rumor corner is actually about Spooky, but that J-pop thing is going to tie in. So here it goes. Okay. I have heard Spooky's next game. I haven't heard a new rumor about what the theme is. Like, there have been a number of rumors playing around forever, Evil Dead and all the rest of it. I don't have any new rumor-y rumors about that. The Fly. But what I have heard is from someone who has purportedly, seen this game that the next spooky is one not revolutionary in basically any way it's not going to bring something new to the pinball table which i'm not really i'm trying to think if we've seen a lot of revolutionary things out of spooky and they're not coming to my mind yeah but all right so don't expect like a game changer in the sense that some dramatically new concept is unfit unveiled However, in comparison to DPX, PX, PX, PX, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the spooky game is better in every conceivable way you could think of. The theme is better. The layout is better. The rules are better. The art is better. Maybe not a shock there. The displays are better. I guess the sculpts are better. That's going to be the toughest one. And again, it's all subjective. but this person who is purportedly in the know says Spooky has that game beat on every front but it's not a revolutionary game that's your rumor quarter it's the blue and the gray they're making a pinball machine out of the movie the blue and the gray no well I mean maybe I don't know it's Gettysburg yes yes you know what glory that movie it could have had a pinball machine it could have but it didn't It did not. Gone with the wind. The pinball machine.
    12:45
    No one cares about it. You might as well do Citizen Kane at that point. That's getting up into the gawk. You know what? Just because it's a good movie doesn't mean it should be a pinball machine. Just saying. Just saying. So that's it. I have one pinball discussion item for us because obviously I knew this was going to be exceedingly light. And I think that's OK. People can just enjoy a shorter episode. But this has come up in my mind because of Metallica Remastered. We talked about that last episode. A lot of people were excited about it. And, of course, this, I think pretty much everyone agrees, is just the first salvo out of Stern Pinball doing a remastering of older titles. So by remastering, I'm thinking things that weren't with an LCD screen but are now being made with an LCD screen. That's like the difference between a vault and a remaster is dramatic changes, but still basically the same game. So here's what I wanted to ask you. We're going to play a little game here. We don't put them in rank order or anything. We can we can alternate. But what three games would you like? I'm not saying you would buy them. Just saying you would just like to see Stern actually remaster. So here are the rules. The rules are pretty simple. one do not pick an existing lcd stern game it has to be enough that we could remaster it so we can't say like oh i would really love to see a remastering of monsters no no that's too modern no spike two basically but you can do spike one like ghostbusters you could do spike one um it doesn't have to be a stern pinball game but it has to be in the their history chain So you could pick a Sega game. You could pick a Daddy East game. You cannot pick Stern Electronics. Stern Electronics is not a continuation. Stern Pinball does not have a direct chain to Stern Electronics. No stars. No stars. No cheetah. No, what was it, nine ball? No, all that stuff. All that stuff that the slam tilt guys like. No, you can't do any of that. That's not Stern Pinball is not a continuation of Stern Electronics and to pretend otherwise would be a lie. So I won't allow a lie to exist in this game.
    14:57
    So those are the rules. So for me, I will go ahead and start and I will say I would like to see a remaster of Lord of the Rings. So White Star title Stern Pinball, one of their most popular games. In fact, generally agreed with it and the Simpsons Pinball Party as being the best game that they came up with in the pre 2010 era. uh the game would just warrant it that that um ability to have movie clips in from the peter jackson movies because it is themed around the peter jackson version uh in on the screen i think makes a lot of sense the art print quality that was done back then was terrible it's very very you know blurry and such and it's it's pretty uninspired art um but the rules themselves are pretty solid they could be polished up a bit like the golem multi-ball mode could definitely be a lot better um you could keep the same call outs um just up the audio quality and such uh in fact maybe just ask john reese davis if he wants to do more call outs um but it's a game that a lot of people would like to they made a lot of them but i think a lot of people would like to see it come back i would like to see it come back and i really think you could fix a few little things with it again i don't expect the layout to change but there were some mechanical issues that could be polished out that were just, you know, that was not a great time for pinball. But it was a good game. And so I think it would deserve it. So that's one I would throw out. Do you have one in mind that you would suggest?
    16:30
    Well, Lord of the Rings was on my short list. But I will skip that one and go with World Poker Tour. Oh, the Steve Ritchie game. I like World Poker Tour.
    16:41
    I really think it's one of the last fun drop-heavy games. Yes I mean, I've never seen a game From Steve Ritchie with so many drop targets It's a very different layout for him It is, it's a very It was one of those games that when it was on Tournament routing I always enjoyed when I ended up on it Even if I didn't do good, I always enjoyed that game So, yeah I think The remake would most likely Have to be rethemed at this point does the world poker tour even still exist I have no idea I would get maybe but you know it was like a big fad and then it just kind of fizzled out I think that would be great yes I think that would be a fun one alright for a second one I'm going to name one that I actually think they will do in fact it would not surprise me if it's the next one they do and that would be ACDC that is another game that could really use an art rework really really bad however it's the game that brought stern back like that was the that was the game where they brought back in steve richie and it was a shock when he he like it was like an ad an expo or something and he indicated like he was back with stern and this was the game he was doing um it's a lot of fun to play uh there you know the bell and everything else again there might be some little mechanical hang-ups and stuff that could be sorted out but with a remaster version you could drop in concert footage which is the easy way to go but it would make sense you could add more songs and with more songs means more modes so you could actually have just like with metallica you could bring in one of their modern coders to go ahead and do some updates on the software uh to have some better rules with um with uh those new modes or rebalancing where some you know because that was always an issue with that game is because the what you needed to do varied by the song so some of the some of the modes i don't think ever got really as balanced as they should have been, but I think it is a really, really obvious one. They made a lot of them as well. I'd say it's probably even easier to get a hold of an ACDC than it is a Lord of the Rings, but I just think there's enough demand there with the revisions for it to actually go ahead and be done. So that would be my number two, would be Suggest ACDC. Right. I think that one would also make a lot of sense. I'm going to go ahead and jump back to one that would never happen ever for any reason at all.
    19:13
    Data East Jurassic Park. That was going to be my third one. Okay. So why Data East Jurassic Park? I actually prefer Data East Jurassic Park to the new Jurassic Park. Oh, don't tell Elwynn. I find it more enjoyable. Part of it is because of its kind of just classic and the nostalgic and everything. But I really liked its combination of ideas and shots and the way it worked And the gun, just like they had on the Star Wars Where you watch it and you shoot the Velociraptors Or the Stormtroopers in the Star Wars version And the Daddies and all those I really just find it a lot of fun So I think a modernized version using clips from the movie and not being like the not really tied to the movie like the modern Stern Jurassic Park, but just being a remake of the old one and using actual clips and stuff from the movie would be a lot of fun.
    20:11
    Yes. I really enjoyed that game. I owned one for a few years, and so that one was in my head. But I don't want to skip doing a third one. So given the scramble for this, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go way, way, way back. How about the first Data East game? How about Laser War?
    20:29
    That's right. Completely never going to happen. But Laser War. You've got the hit David Thiel music with the return to base. You're fighting a laser war. Bring that in. That is a game that definitely needs better parts. Like the Ion Cannon would constantly fall apart and crack apart on all the older versions The ramps themselves were pretty cheaply made So redoing all of that it an interesting layout you you up the speed of the kickouts and such to a more like total nuclear annihilation sort of pace I think that game could end up playing really really good I actually think it's a pretty fun shooter and so definitely needs a that would allow a complete rules revamp in terms of getting that to work a lot better in terms of trying to you know you collect a particular color set of targets um and i think you could do a lot more with the rules with a modern code depth it doesn't have to be a super deep game i'm just thinking about maybe getting it to about iron man level but i think uh given the uniqueness of the layout it's got a ramp that doesn't even direct feed to a flipper it dumps out and you have to kind of dumps out in front of the flipper something that uh you kind of saw from some of pat lawler's things i think laser war would be a very weird one to go. But hey, it's like bringing back the very beginning of their true history. You know, the non-stern electronics, starting with Daddy's true history, Laser War. Bring back in Feel to do some more songs for it and stuff. You still got to have the same end song, though. You got to.
    21:57
    But it's such a crazy sort of game. I think it would be a lot of fun. So that will be my third one will be Laser War.
    22:07
    Okay. What's your last? What have you chosen? Well, since you chose the first data east game i'll choose the last data east game oh no maverick oh maverick so what so what are you remastering with it with maverick i didn't i didn't really say what they'd have to do custom animations with laser work because that was an alphanumeric now maverick is dot so maverick is dot clips of the movie clips of the movie for sure uh because even And to this day, that movie has some lines in it that are absolutely hilarious.
    22:47
    A lot of fun. But as I recall, I'm trying to remember. I've actually not played Maverick in so long. It's been years since I've seen it. That's the one with the riverboat ball lock. With the really slow, terrible riverboat. It's slower than the reel in Fishtails. Yeah. Now, that needs to be fixed. That needs to be faster. Because that's what I was thinking. I'm sitting here thinking it's like, man, I recall that had the really slow river, the paddles. Yeah, that needs to be fixed. But, yeah, punch up the code, some more modern code styling, clips from the movie, and you get to see just have it be a fun, funny movie. It's a fun movie.
    23:31
    Okay. Well, those are our picks. So, I mean, I don't know what you guys have as picks. You can write in if you want to tell us what you would like to see remastered. I considered X-Files. I wondered if you would do X-Files. It was on my short list. There were a lot that we could bring up that could be fixed. Lost in Space could definitely use it. Yes. I don't know if it's a remaster at that point or a rebuild. Right. Lost in Space, rebuilt. All right, the first thing is it's going to be based on the TV show, not Joey from Friends.
    24:03
    You could keep Gary Oldman in for call-outs, but I want everything else modernized. You're not – I will admit the first time I saw that movie, I'd rented it, and as soon as it was done, I rewound the tape and watched it again, and it was 100 percent for Gary Oldman. Or another one could be Apollo 13. Make it so that the 13-ball multiball is fun.
    24:25
    Is that possible? No, it's not. But maybe – but guys, if L1 is on it, make him figure it out. Make it make sense. like feed them out slower or something so you could at least get a flip on all 13 i don't know um video games tony stage you could stage them i mean i i mean stage them so so you don't drop all 13 at once you drop them in like like groups of like yeah i want them to like fire all out off the left flipper so you get to shoot and the next thing you know the play field is just solid ball because that's what happens it gives you a warning and when the warning comes you just know to lock both flippers all the way up and then it rapid fires straight onto the flipper. I thought about suggesting Ghostbusters as well. With Ghostbusters,
    25:11
    some people have wanted them to remaster it and close the flipper gap, the flipper gap that supposedly wasn't supposed to be there. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I know people keep saying that Trudeau wasn't supposed to be there. I'm like, you know what? They got to production and that gap was there. It makes me suspect that that's just a shield at this point. So the way I would solve that, though, is if they were to redo it, is optional flipper back covers that extend the flippers just become longer. But if you want to put on the proper size, the real original size, you still have those. See, I was thinking just put a center post in. I said, well, yeah, I mean, you could. And then people who didn't want the center post could just unscrew it. Yeah. But if you were going to remake Ghostbusters, you have to do the correct thing and re-theme it to the real Ghostbusters. Do it after the cartoon. All the cartoon art from the 80s. Interesting. Another thing you could do with the remastering is take out the Sclery Brother. Drop targets that pop up. You take those out. That's like the one thing from Ghostbusters 2. And just like that movie, it was the one bad thing they probably came. I actually kind of like Ghostbusters too Just because of the baby The baby So video games Video games We're getting to the first of the year That means we're coming up on Awesome Games Done Quick They have released their schedule For the year Nothing too surprising I didn't see any dogs playing anything Oh my gosh good The They're going with one of their standard final games of a Metroid randomizer. Or a Super Metroid randomizer. Yeah. That's a pretty standard final thing. There are a couple fun ones I saw in there. They're doing a Super Meat Boy Any Percentage.
    27:07
    They're doing a bonus game of Breath of the Wild. Two players, one controller. Okay. So they're back to doing the whole, I've got the left, I've got the right. Those could be interesting. The commentary is good. They've got what I consider probably the worst block ever. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, 200cc, no items, 48 tracks. Wow. All the DLC.
    27:39
    48 200cc races with no items. It's like the absolute most boring possible way to play that it does it does sound it does sound fairly so they wanted to get rid of all the rng so it's literally just gonna be someone showing that they know how to easily beat a bunch of bots on the track right okay yeah it's it's it's just like why because mario kart in and of itself is not the hardest racer especially if he's just going against ai even at 200 cc it's not that hard right not without without items right okay i yeah without items it's just like okay it's a racing game it's the same reason that i've never understood the whole no items one-on-one smash bros the only way to show who's truly the best fighter you can't have that rng to me if there's less than four players and anything less than maximum possible items smash bros ain't even fun Well, okay. I don't know if they're doing Smash Bros., so you're probably fine. They're not. Okay. Building upon what can only be considered the great success of Fallout, the TV series, Amazon has gone ahead and begun working on their next game-related TV series. Halo.
    29:08
    Halo 2. I mean, no, but not far wrong. It's Mass Effect. Oh, that's my favorite TV on the Citadel. So it'll be. Amazon, I think, has shown that they have a good ability to convert games into fun stuff. They definitely didn't make Borderlands. That's for sure. so I think they could do a really good job with the Mass Effect based TV series I mean Mass Effect isn't as goofy as Fallout is or Yakuza which isn't out yet but at least I don't think it's out yet I haven't watched it yet but I didn't think it was coming out until December but that's a fairly goofy game series anyway but Mass Effect's pretty straight laced sci-fi they had comic relief characters Right. So we'll see what ends up happening and how that turns out. In a bit of interesting stuff, Sega is delisting 60 of their classic games from all the virtual stores, all of them. I mean, and when they were asked why they were delisting these games, they didn't say anything. They're coming out with a console.
    30:29
    And then the new product. The new product. My guess is that they're probably going to come out with big packs of games. Okay. That's my guess. But, yeah, all of their old classic games are getting delisted. Oh, that was what I forgot, and the Awesome Games done quick stuff. They're doing Crazy Taxi with the sound turned off because they're having a live band in studio play the music while they're playing the game.
    31:02
    I mean, it's better than the dog. I mean, yeah, probably. That's one of those things that I imagine sounded good on paper.
    31:11
    It's probably great if you're there. I don know if it going to mean very much to people watching online which is most of the people But whatever We see It fine But the reason is because Crazy Taxi is one of the delisted Sega games Oh okay Yeah I actually have that on one of the Sega little packs that they did. I got like a Dreamcast collection of like six games. That's where I got that Space Channel 5 with Space Michael. Chew!
    31:41
    I won that game. Chew! And they were Space Michael. You couldn't understand anything he said. Right.
    31:49
    Two. Two, two, two. Nintendo had a bunch of announcements about the upcoming successor to the Switch. Alarmo. It's not Alarmo. But they didn't call it Switch 2. They just referred to it as the successor to the Switch.
    32:09
    Switch U. they're still they're still planning or claiming that it will be out by the end of the or not out there will be an announcement an official announcement by the end of the fiscal year which for nintendo is march right um but they did say it will be able to play switch software but they wouldn't say whether it will be able to play Switch cartridges.
    32:42
    Okay. So at the bare minimum, if you have digital Switch games, you'll be able to download it onto the new Switch device or the Switch successor and play it. But they're not saying for sure that you could just, if you have the physical carts that you can put them in. Okay.
    33:03
    We'll see where that ends up going. Now, switch sales are down. That's not a surprise. Not really. Especially, there's been so much talk about the successor coming, but they're down 31%, and they've cut their sales forecast from 13.5 million to 12.5 million units for the year, which will leave them just under 150 million units total sold. Okay.
    33:27
    But in the most important thing, in the Alarmo news. Alarmo, yes. the alarmo has been hacked and it can run doom with no sound they really should let it play skyrim because the one device that's not on right skyrim can be played on my fridge why can't it be played on alarmo figure it out bethesda quit trying to quit trying to make starfield a thing Get this solved. Put it out now. Why don't you take people off of making DLC and just make more Eldritch, work on your next Eldritch Rules game like you should? Yes.
    34:15
    In Twitch news, which we've not talked about in quite a while, just ahead of the election last week, they put out a bunch of new rules stating that discussions of politics, sensitive social issues such as religion, various rights, military conflicts, national security matters, immigration, and others need to be labeled on the streams that they are those discussions taking place. They have since that announcement clarified that that label is only required for streams where those topics are the focus of the stream. So if it just like comes up naturally in the course of a stream, You don't have to put the labels on it. And my first thought is, does Twitch have a bunch of streams that would just be an open conversation about? I'm sure YouTube is probably where a lot of that would live. Right.
    35:15
    Okay. Are there a bunch of pool streamers in bikinis talking about social issues? Is that a... Welcome to the geopolitical hot tub. The geopolitical hot tub It just puts me in an image Of Nixon and Dick Cheney Sitting in a hot tub You got a hot tub And they got it divided and with the lights One side of the water is blue And one side is red And Jon Stewart Sitting in the middle Jon Stewart Oh Yeah Now I will say I didn't put this in the notes. It's not really video gaming related, but it is streaming related.
    36:01
    There has been a, one of those live streamer people who's well known for like doing streams while walking around and like causing trouble being a nuisance streamer. Okay. A nuisance streamer who did a bunch of stuff like in Japan. And then he went to Korea and he did the same thing. So he's now in jail and they're talking about jailing him for 10 years. Wow. Because he violated a bunch of Korea's rules because he didn't look at what the rules in the nation he was, what the laws were before he went in and started doing all of that.
    36:39
    So it could be problematic for him because he might be paying for his crimes. With time. What time do you think we have? He's already been knocked out. So because in Korea, yeah, in Korea, because part of his whole thing he was doing was was like, well, if you don't like the way I am, just come knock me out. I don't care. You're all too weak to do it. And he got beat on stream multiple times. Wow. So, yeah, didn't turn out well for him. And one last bit of Nintendo news that I'd forgotten to add to the section. Nintendo is coming out with their own music app on your phone. I did hear about this, yes. So they are pushing a music app so you can listen to your favorite music from Nintendo games, and you can download it and take it with you, and it's got playlists. You can put together a boss fight playlist or whatever, and they've even got AI-generated playlists for moods and all of that. But as part of this, and I verify this talking to my daughter because my daughter has a lot of Nintendo-based music in her music streaming from YouTube and everything. And it's all been vanishing for the last month or two. Well, yes, there's going to be time for some copyright strikes. Because Nintendo has been heavily copyright striking everything prior to their release of their Nintendo music app. because I know, like I said, my daughter listens to a lot of the Pokemon. Like, just the Pokemon region traveling music is like her. Oh, I'm just going to put on the Pallet Town music while I work on homework stuff.
    38:26
    So, but yeah, that is turning into a thing. I know there was on the Discord, we had a discussion, and it had come up wondering about the laws and the way the international, and I've not studied enough law to know. You were told to. I know, I was told to. I did not get into the law studying unless you count the fact that I finished a rewatch of the TV show Longmire. He's a sheriff, so that's kind of law-like.
    39:00
    I started this last week watching Columbo, starting with 1971, which is not the pilots, but the first season, yes. I remember watching a lot of Columbo when I was younger. I didn't, but I mean, they brand that show intermittently through 2003. Yeah. So interesting, interesting aside, because then I had to look up Peter Falk, who a double major, but political science was one of them. That was my major. And he got a master's in public administration from Syracuse, which is where I went and got my master's.
    39:34
    So, but apparently he said in his autobiography that he did not have the aptitude to work in the government. So he never actually went into the civil service beyond his – like he was in the merchant marine, I think, because he couldn't get in the Navy because his squint was because he had a glass eye in his right eye. He lost it as a child from one of those – forget the name of the illness. No, no. It was one of those retinal cancers that hits kids. So they had to take his eye. And so that's why that eye is always squinting is because he's got his glass eye in there. and as a totally unrelated video games aside apparently he had been he was still he was really active in sports in high school and i don't remember what which one it was it was baseball or whatever or someone had yeah he disagreed with the with the umpire or the ref or something and he got he said he got so mad he pulled his eye out handed it to them and said i think you need this sort of thing and he said apparently the other kids really thought that was quite hilarious maybe this will help you more sort of thing so anyway peter falk very fun uh he won a number of uh emmys for that role as yeah so yeah no because i remember watching columbia a lot when i was younger we watch it just one more thing so anyway well that's no more one more things for us no we've reached the end of this episode a lighter period but that is often how it is the calm before the video game storm of the Christmas buying season. It's going to get crazy. Until a couple more weeks. Yeah, about two weeks. Two weeks from now, we should be back. Yeah, about 10 days. 14 days. We're around. I don't know. We've got Veterans Day coming up. It throws off the math. It's 10 business days. Yeah, business days. We've got business days we've got to worry about. But until then, if you want to reach out to us, you can email us at CollecticGamersPodcast.gmail.com or available at Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. If you want to support the show, you can do that. It's as little as a dollar a month. It's over at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. I will say goodbye. See ya.