Episode #93 - Pokemon Stadium

Pokemon Stadium North American Release Date - August 1, 1998

Another Pokemon game. Kind of.

Every time we talk the monsters of pockets and their games, I get a little nervous. I know how passionate the die-hard pokeheads out there are, and one little mix-up or slip of the tongue can result in days of "actuallllllly" tweets and messages. 

Mark McCue is my guest this week, and we decided to talk about the Nintendo 64 behemoth that was Pokemon Stadium. This game blew minds back in 1998, and it took those little blobs of pixels we called pets on Game Boy and made them giant blobs of pixels on TV. This game actually looked pretty fucking good for it's time, and I didn't realize just how many copies of Stadium had sold until I started working on this episode. We all played this game one way or another, and it damned well deserves it's moment in the Remember The Game spotlight. 

If that's all you're here for, skip to 14:10. 

Or listen to the whole thing (what else do you have to do?) and hear me share my thoughts on stuff like the losers out there using computer programs to buy up the world's Nintendo Switch reserves and the Mario Maker 2 update and whether or not it'll convince me to buy a copy of the game. I also touch on the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X news that's allegedly coming, our Patreon is back, and I'll tell you about all the games I've been playing between naps over the last week!

Stay safe, clean your controllers, and enjoy this week's podcast!

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Episode #81 - Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie North American Release Date - June 29th, 1998

This week, I share my thoughts on Byleth being announced as the final Smash Bros DLC character (for now at least), touch on the greatness that is Witcher 3 on the Switch, and I'm finally playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Oh yeah, and Mark McCue and I talk about a bear that keeps a bird trapped in his backpack. If you just want to hear about that, skip to 14:50.

And toss us a follow, pleeeease? We'll follow you back!

Twitter - @memberthegame

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I missed out on Banjo-Kazooie back in the Nintendo 64 days. As I've (infamously) made clear on the show, I'm not a huge fan of old-school 3D platformers, and it just never jumped out at me back in the day. I always thought it looks colourful and nice, but I never really had a crazy urge to play it. Luckily, I have a friend named Mark McCue that wouldn't stop badgering me to give Banjo a shot, and for the sake of this show, I finally did.

And it was absolutely delightful.

I can't even explain how impressed I was with Banjo-Kazooie, although I'll give it a shot on the podcast this week. To be fair, I did play the Xbox Arcade remastered version and not the original Nintendo 64 release, but from what I've been told, that's the way to go. The game SCREAMS retro gaming, from the graphics, to the music, to the gameplay, it took everything Mario 64 did and did it better. And that's from a life long Mario fanboy. This game is fucking awesome, and if you haven't played it, you really should.

We'll tell you why on the show this week. Mark McCue is a Banjo-Kazooie super fan, and I'm a junkie in training, and if you're not already one of those things, we're gonna change your mind over the next hour or so. Enjoy the podcast!

Episode #78 - Perfect Dark

Perfect Dark North American Release Date - May 22, 2000

**Game talk starts at 16:55**

When a majority of people think of first-person shooters and the Nintendo 64, Goldeneye 007 probably comes to mind. And while it's unquestionably an iconic video game (we covered it all the way back on episode 11!), Perfect Dark is better. At everything. 

From the additional weapons, to the insane multi-player options, to the great story telling (Elvis for the win), Perfect Dark was a masterpiece. I'm not sure how well the Nintendo 64 version has aged - that controller is such a monstrosity - but the fantastic Microsoft-centric port is absolutely the definitive way to play anyways. And it's still worth firing up all these years later.

I'll be honest, I don't have a ton of memories when it comes to Perfect Dark. I wasn't a huge shooter fan, and after Goldeneye I moved on from the genre until Halo got it's claws in me. But after playing it on my 360 a few years ago, I regretted that choice whole-heartedly. This game was one of the swan song titles for the Nintendo 64, and it really pushed the console to it's absolute limit. Rare and everyone involved should be proud of this game, and its about damned time we gave it a chance to step out James Bond's shadow and shine.

My pal David Rae is my first guest of 2020, and we're looking back at the iconic Perfect Dark. It's a *perfect* way to start the year! See what I did there??

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Episode #72 - Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart 64 North American Release Date - February 10, 1997

**Game talk starts at 13:50**

I can't believe it took us seventy-two episodes of the show to cover Mario Kart 64. I mean, it's Mario Kart freaking 64! If you're listening to this show, you've played this game. 

I'm a Nintendo fanboy through and through, but the Nintendo 64 is admittedly, not one of my favourite systems. I don't think games from the 64/Playstation era have aged particularly well, and a majority of them just irritate me when I try to play them today. But not this game. The memories I (and I'm sure most of you) have of multi-player MK64 is the stuff gaming nostalgia is made of. 

Super Mario Kart was fun, but Mario Kart 64 is the reason this franchise is still so massive over twenty years later. The tracks are bigger, the characters are cooler (Wario!!!!!!), Battle Mode is better, and you could play with four players at once. Just that last fact rocked my socks. This game featured some insane tracks; Toad's Turnpike is still to this day one of my favourites in Mario Kart history. Add in Wario and the fact that you could listen to Toad yell "Wooo hooooo!!", and it was the perfect package. 

I legit smile just thinking about all the good times we had playing this game when we were kids. I would (and hopefully will) buy a Nintendo 64 Classic someday just for this game. Forget your Ocarina of Times and Super Mario 64's; Mario Kart 64 is the king. I love this game. So does my pal Miklos. Have a listen and let us remind you why you probably do too. 

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Episode #61 - Pokemon Snap

Pokemon Snap North American Release Date - June 30, 1999

**Game talk starts at 13:00**

The fact that we haven't seen a Pokemon Snap re-release, remake, or sequel on smartphones, the Wii U, or the Switch is almost mind-boggling. 

And then you remember it's Nintendo...

We all played this, right?? I remember this being one of the few games I could play with my brother and not fight (much). Pokemon Snap. You're on rails, and you can't die. You just take photos of Pokemon. Might sound silly in 2019, but holy hell this game was a big deal twenty years ago.

Outside of the cartoon, we hadn't really seen much of Pokemon outside of their pixelated Game Boy iterations. Getting to see all of our favourites (and that loser Charmander) out in the wild was pretty damned cool. Being able to throw apples at them to make them happy or angry was even cooler. And flipping through your roll of film to find your best photos and using them to impress a weird old man? The coolest. 

That's all Pokemon Snap was. Try to get Pokemon to react to something you did, so you could snap killer photos of them. The better your photo, the better the score. That's it. No fighting. no bosses, no real drama or story. It didn't need it, though. There was something so addictive about constantly trying to get a better shot. You could play levels over and over looking for secret paths or different ways to cause the pokemon to do things you could get new photos of. And obviously, the biggest hook (for me anyways), was constantly exploring in hopes of finding a new pokemon. I don't think all original 151 were in here (which is very weird), but enough were there to justify running the levels or and over again. This was, in 1999, the closest we'd seen to Pokemon in real life. 

This game SCREAMS for a sequel or remake with today's technology. Being able to spin around with your Switch, take photos, and then post your best ones online would be fucking awesome. Because admit it, when you got a killer shot of a Charizard looking all pissed off, you wanted to show it to everybody. Anybody. Someone other than that stupid old man Oak...

This wasn't the deepest game in the world, but it didn't matter. It was huge. We all loved it (whether we admitted it or not), and my buddy Andre and I had a hell of a time looking back at it. Give us a God damned sequel, Nintendo!!!

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Episode #58 - WCW/nWo Revenge

WCW/nWo Revenge North American Release Date - October 26th, 1998

Remember when World Championship Wrestling was the hottest thing on the planet?

In the late '90s, WCW was giving the WWF the fight of their lives. The nWo(s), Goldberg, Sting, DDP, Raven, Bret Hart, Ric Flair; that wrestling company from down south had one of the most ridiculous rosters in the history of the business. Pro wrestling was white hot. If you weren't watching wrestling on TV, you were playing a wrestling video game. And there wasn't a better option than WCW/nWo Revenge.

The THQ/Nintendo 64 wrestling games are the stuff of legend. I don't know if there's a video game series I've spent more hours of my life with than the four horseman of 64-bit wrestling. WCW World Tour was the first one, and it planted the seeds that would eventually blossom into it's sequel; WCW/nWo Revenge. I wasn't the biggest fan of WCW's TV product (I was a hardcore WWF guy), but I couldn't get enough of their video games. The WWF had video games - War Zone and Attitude specifically - but as much as I tried to like them, they just weren't that good. The graphics tried to look real and didn't, and the controls were a disaster.

WCW/nWo Revenge was the first "perfect" wrestling game. The graphics were bright, colourful, and a little cartoon-ish (it worked great), and it had the most iconic control scheme of wrestling game history. It didn't have things like individual wrestler's entrance music, create-a-wrestler, or a decent career mode (all things that would be added to the later THQ wrestling games), but it was finally a wrestling game that felt fun to play. Being able to play it with 3 of your friends was mind-blowing. And being able to change each wrestler's name and wardrobe added a surprising level of depth. I remember drafting a roster of wrestlers to go up against my friend Shawn's, we'd assign all of our wrestlers a certain shirt, and battle for HOURS.

If you hold a conversation about the greatest wrestling game of all-time, the two runaway answers are WWF: No Mercy and SmackDown! Here Comes The Pain (both covered in our archives, FYI!). And while those answers aren't wrong, they wouldn't be options without WCW/nWo Revenge. My favourite memory of World Championship Wrestling isn't anything they did in the ring, it was this video game.

My buddy Brad returns to the show this week, and man oh man did we have a time talking old wrestling, old wrestling games, and old Nintendo 64. Enjoy!

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Episode #50 - Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 North American Release Date - September 29th, 1996

I can't believe we've made fifty episodes of this train wreck of a podcast! And speaking of train wrecks, today we're talking Super Mario 64! (Just kidding!)

Kind of. 

I won't lie to you, loyal reader/listener/fellow nerd. The core Mario series is my favourite in all of gaming. But the first foray into the world of 3D just didn't grab me. I remember getting this game as a kid, and yeah, I played the hell out of it. But it never took over my life like it's two dimensional brethren did. I was way more into Mario Kart 64, which we got at the same time. I struggled with the camera, the controller, and just didn't enjoy it as much as I did Mario's other adventures. 

Having said that, I came into this podcast ready to rip Mario 64 a new ass. And I just couldn't do it. I think that's a true testament to the genius of this game and just how groundbreaking it was. I wanted to spend an hour trashing it, and every time I tried I found myself bringing up something it did right. Watching clips of the game in preparation for this episode, I was mesmerized by the music and the world Nintendo created for the launch of the Nintendo 64. It's truly a masterpiece. I want to hate it, I think I hate it, I'll tell you I hate it. But....I don't.

Super Mario 64 is one of the most important video games of all-time. I thought it would make a perfect topic of conversation for the 50th episode of "Remember the Game?", and I brought my buddy Mark McCue with me. 

Thank you so much for listening to the show. Whether you've listened to all 50 episodes, cherry picked the ones about games you know, or this is your very first one, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. 

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Episode #37 - Paper Mario

Paper Mario North American Release Date - February 5th, 2001

In early 2001, the Nintendo 64 was running out of gas. The Playstation was in full swing, and Nintendo was looking vulnerable for the first time. Their new console, the Gamecube, was only months away. The 64 was about to be left behind. But before that happened, it had one last hurrah. And that hurrah was a gorgeous RPG called Paper Mario. 

Not officially a "sequel" to the beloved Super Mario RPG on the SNES, Paper Mario was our favourite plumbers second foray into the world of role-playing game. Borrowing some elements from it's 16-bit cousin - timed hits/defending in combat and top shelf writing, to name a couple - Paper Mario managed to hold onto the Nintendo charm and approachability, while still remaining a deep, competitive RPG.

The combat system isn't simply a matter of tapping "A" and coasting through battles. Attacking in this game requires some form of action if you want to cause maximum damage. Little things like tapping a button at the right time or pulling the joystick to the left and then swinging it to the right help break up the monotony of combat that a lot of RPGS struggle with. Each battle feel fresh and fun.

Your attacks do various types of damage to your opponents, too. In a standard Mario game, you have to jump on a Koopa Troopa before you can pick it up and use it. They managed to transition that style of gameplay into RPG combat with Paper Mario. It's an RPG that still feels a lot like a platformer/action game. There's also NO RANDOM ENCOUNTERS!!!!! How all RPGS haven't adapted that approach by now is a frustrating mystery that may never be solved. Ugh.

This game is charming, gorgeous, and it's a blast to play. The writing is clever and funny. The paper art style looks great, even by today's standards. I feel that games from the 64-bit era haven't aged well cosmetically, but this game looks as good today as it did eighteen years ago. And the most important thing, in my opinion, is that it's just as fun now as it was when it launched. If Nintendo ever does release a Nintendo 64 Classic, I'd buy one just to play this game again. It's that good. 

My buddy Mark McCue agrees. He's my guest on the podcast this week, and damned if we didn't have a hell of a time revisiting Paper Mario. I hope you enjoy this one as much as we did. 

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Episode #34 - WWF Attitude

WWF Attitude North American Release Date  -  July 31st, 1999 (Playstation & Nintendo 64)

Pro wrestling is probably the only thing on the planet on par with retro video games when it comes to making me feel nostalgic. Being a teenager during the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude Era was something special. If you liked wrestling in those days (and who didn't?), you know what I'm saying. Combine the Attitude Era with the Playstation and the Nintendo 64, and you have nostalgia overload. 

Enter WWF Attitude.

When people talk wrestling games from the 90's and early 2000's, the instant focus falls on THQ. WCW/nWo Revenge, Wrestlemania 2000, and of course, WWF No Mercy are all absolutely incredible. But before the WWF got in bed with THQ, Akklaim was in charge of bringing Stone Cold and friends into the world of video games. And while WWF Attitude doesn't have anything close to the legacy WWF No Mercy (or even SmackDown does), it doesn't deserve to be overlooked like it usually is.

A lot of features that are common place in wrestling games today began with WWF Attitude. Things like super deep rosters, in depth create a wrestler, and even the ability to create an event all started with this game. While the THQ titles were taking the game in an "easy to approach and simple to control" direction, Akklaim focused on trying to make their wrestling games a more complicated, simulation type of experience. And while it's easy to look back on some of their decisions and laugh - and believe me, we do on the podcast this week - I think the powers that be behind this game deserve a little bit of credit for trying something different. It may not have worked all that well, but they helped lay the groundwork for what wrestling games would become. 

My guest this week is fellow wrestling nerd and podcast host Kyle Shaw, and we had a great time sharing stories about not only playing video games, but watching wrestling as well. Enjoy the podcast!

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Episode #17 - Do We Want a Nintendo 64 Classic?

Nintendo 64 North American Release Date - September 26, 1996

The NES Classic was a license to print money. At least, it should have been. But when Nintendo rolled out their mini console, they produced a ridiculously small number of units. Scalpers scooped up most of them, and Nintendo continued to send out obscenely small shipments periodically. People were left out in the cold, begging Nintendo to take their money. The supply might not have been there, but the demand was. People (that could get them), loved the NES Classic. 

The SNES Classic followed. Nintendo produced a more respectable number of consoles this time around, and people ate them up. I don't know how much money Nintendo made per unit on these things, but they were certainly profitable. They sold out as fast as they were made available. And we live in a "monkey see, monkey do" world. Other companies, including Atari, Sega, and Sony (unfortunately) followed suit, to varying degrees of success. But none of these units sold like Nintendo's classic duo did, and people have been clamouring for what should be an obvious next step; the Nintendo 64 Classic. 

But is that what we really want?

Rumours have been circulating for months that Nintendo's next mini console will be arriving any day now, and the internet is full of people posting their dream lineups for the N64 Classic. On the other hand, there's an argument to be made that these games haven't aged very well. There's also the issue of the gigantic controller. Does an N64 Classic make sense? My buddy Mark is back this week, and we set out to answer that question.

This is a little different than most of our episodes, but I really had fun working on it. I hope you like it too. Search for 'Remember The Game' on your favourite podcast service, on Youtube, or just check it out right here:

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Episode #14 - WWF No Mercy

WWF No Mercy North American Release Date - November 17, 2000

Di-Di-Diggity! Di-Diggity-Dog!

The Nintendo 64 is a controversial video game console. People can point out (correctly, I might add) that it was a huge misstep by Nintendo to use cartridges instead of discs, and that this was the generation where they relinquished their strangle hold of the gaming world. You can certainly argue that the 64's controller was a disaster. The games haven't all aged particularly well. But if there's one thing most gaming pundits can agree on, it's that the Nintendo 64 played host to arguably the greatest wrestling video game library in history. And the Heavyweight champ of that library? WWF No Mercy.

No Mercy is wrestling video game perfection. THQ's control scheme was spot on (many wrestling games are still compared to it today), and the gameplay was addictive and fun. It came with an insane career mode, that featured full fledged storylines with various branches and endings, which was a huge improvement from the traditional "beat 9 wrestlers and win the title" career modes seen in most games. Every WWF Championship was up for grabs, each with it's own angles, and you could defend the titles in exhibition mode! 

It certainly helped that this game released while the WWF was the hottest thing on TV, too. Everyone watched wrestling around this time. The roster of wrestlers that appeared in this game was an absolute all-star cast. Remember that this was before 2K came along and started putting 350 wrestlers  in each game. The Rock, Stone Cold, Mankind, Triple H, Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit (I know, I know), The Hardys, The Dudleys, Edge and Christian. So many memories....

The create-a-wrestler feature was deep and flushed out, too. My buddies and I were deep into our backyard wrestling days when this game came out (Cold Lake Championship Wrestling FTW!!), and we would wrestle all day, and then go inside and play this game all night. And in addition to most of the standard match types, you could have ladder matches! (I'll argue to this day that the ladder matches in this game still handle better than modern wrestling games). You could wrestle backstage! You could hit your opponent with a giant brick of cheese, for God's sake!

WWF No Mercy has a permanent home on my favourite games list, as it does for most wrestling fans. My buddy Andre is my guest this week, and we spent half an hour marking out over the peak of 64-bit wrestling. Enjoy!

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Episode #11 - Goldeneye 007

Goldeneye 007 North American Release Date -  August 25, 1997

Before there was Call of Duty, before there was Overwatch, before there was Halo; there was Goldeneye 007.

Was there a better multiplayer experience in the late '90s than Goldeneye?? The single player game was fantastic, but that's not what people remember about this game. You remember sitting on the couch with your buddies, swearing that you're not looking at each other's screen (even though you totally were), and just spending hours running around, shooting each other. Every group had a favourite way to play, too. Our preferred setting was License to Kill (one shot kills) and pistols.

The thing I loved the most about the Nintendo 64 was the ability to play with four players at once. It's common place now, but I had never owned a console like that before. The 64's legacy is absolutely with it's multiplayer outings - Mario Kart, wrestling games, Mario Party, and of course; Goldeneye 007. How many hours of your life were wasted running around the Facility??

And every group had someone that insisted on being Oddjob when you'd play, and they're probably in jail for tax fraud or something now. If you were the Oddjob kid, you're a cheater, and you should be charged and prosecuted. Fuck you.

My friend Kevin is my guest this week, and man oh man did we have a great time remembering the game Goldeneye 007. I hope the music in this episode makes you feel as old as it made me feel. Thanks for listening!

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Episode #8 - The Mario Party Franchise

Mario Party North American Release Date - February 8, 1999

I think there's a solid argument to be made that local multiplayer gaming peaked with the Mario Party series. There's probably an equally solid argument to be made that few franchises have lost their way as badly as the Mario Party series. Say what you will about the recent iterations of Mario Party, but the fact remains that, at least at one point, these games were as fun as anything you could play sitting around with your friends.

I have some phenomenal memories of playing these games with my buddy, starting with the original 3 on the Nintendo 64. Who didn't burn a small hole in their hand trying to palm that little joystick around as fast as they could?? I thought it took a great leap onto the Gamecube as well. It was on the Wii where I thought Mario Party really started to lose it's way. As the game shifted away from skill based competitions and more toward luck of the board and "bonus stars", many of it's hardcore fanbase abandoned it. The games still sold like hot cakes, though. Older gamers may not have liked that the series began steering toward a younger audience, but Nintendo clearly thought it was the way to go. By the Wii U version, it hardly felt like Mario Party anymore. Hopefully, the upcoming Switch edition of Mario Party finds it's way back to it's roots.

For this week's episode, we did something a little different. My nephew Ben is my guest, and we take a look at the Mario Party series as a whole, instead of focusing on one specific game. Ben is twelve years old, and incredibly well spoken. I think the generational gap between us makes for any interesting conversation, and I hope you do, too.

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Episode #4 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time North American Release Date - November 23, 1998

HEY! LISTEN!!!

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. If you're listening to this podcast, you know this game. Ocarina of Time is one of the most critically acclaimed video games in history. Link's first foray into the world of 3D is considered by many an absolute masterpiece. Until the release of Breath of the Wild, a lot of people named it their favourite Legend of Zelda game. Many still do. It's one of the highest rated games on Metacritic after all these years, and alongside it's sequel; Majora's Mask, and Super Mario 64, the primary reason people want to see Nintendo produce a Nintendo 64 classic console.

All that said, it has it's faults. 

Admittedly, I'm a crotchety old man who prefers his Nintendo games in 2D. Mario, Metroid, Zelda; my favourite game from each series lives on the SNES. When Ocarina of Time came out, I was excited. We all were. I remember my buddy Mike and I getting a ride to go pick up our collector's editions when it came out, and I was so excited to get home and fire it up. And I did. And I played it quite a bit. But, do you want to know one of my deepest and darkest gaming secrets.....?

....I never finished it.

I never finished Ocarina of Time. Many years later, I did finally complete it on the virtual console. And it was fun enough. But I stand by what I thought as a teenager; this game is slightly overrated. Monumental? Sure. But overrated.

My pal Mark is the biggest Zelda nerd I know, and we had a great chat about Ocarina of Time and it's legacy. You can hear it, if you like.

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