417 - Super Spike V'Ball / Nintendo World Cup

Och världens godaste börjare. Med keddar, picklade rödlök och en legendarisk skorsaken. Atlanta. Kanske med saftigt svenskt nötchet. Leverera direkt i bil. Välkommen till Max. Hej hej, och ska säga här. Äntligen är det dags att heja på våra svenska olympi. Väck dina italienska känsla med min version av Du Gamla Dufria. Från svenska spel, åldersklans 18 år. Super Spike V-Ball Nintendo World Cup. Bump, set, spike, pass, shoot, score.

And welcome to Nastalgia, a chronological exploration of every skew released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys we had briefly covered in last week's episode that uh the reason for this existing was the same reason as uh last week's episode, which was to sell Nintendo consoles in various bundles. This one being, hey, we publish two sports games that both have four player uh compatibility. Why don't we just sell four controllers?

and an adapter for those four controllers and an NES in this game and see if anybody will bite. And let's do it at the same time as we sell a different bundle that has an NES, two controllers, a a zapper and an NES power pad, which everybody wants, right? Everybody wants a power pad. Mm-hmm. But Since we covered that last episode, and there's really n not much else to say there unless just you know, maybe just real fast w sound like a deal to you, which one's the better deal?

Uh definitely last week's, right? I mean this is great, but I mean it's like uh it's like the uh a a sport that is not very popular or like not you know not like a one of the main popular sports which is volleyball and then soccer which is pretty popular you're worldwide but it's also like I don't know I feel like not

everyone's favorite soccer game or anything. It's just like the other one is like Mario and Duck Hunt, you know? It's like they're they're iconic. I'd say that even though they f kind of force you to dispose of that last peripheral. Like it's it's really just being like, and take this too. Even though you then have to throw that out and like

But deal deal with garbage day, uh it's still better value. Or if you're you know, in Joe's case you could just use it as a towel. Yes. Use a towel as it, yeah. Uh no no, or this time reverse it. Oh, all my towels are in use uh for being power pads, so I need to use the power pad as a towel. Yeah.

Uh, I agree. I I think it's a no-brainer that uh e even regard regardless of whether the power pad that comes with it works or not, the fact that you're getting Mario Brothers uh Super Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. And a working zapper and all that other stuff is just like it opens up more opportunity for you on the NES as opposed to this one where I really feel like these were these were fine games.

uh Super Spike V Ball and Nintendo World Cup. But I I know I personally would not have ordered this one. I wouldn't have asked for it for Christmas. It would be like To me, Joe, to like, you know, to your point, these are not the exciting sports I want. I want a baseball game, I want a hockey game, I would settle for a football game, and then eventually if I found out it was

uh techmobile I'd be really happy that it was a football game. But yeah, that's like where my head's at. And that's kind of what I wanted this episode to be about because we are always talking about since literally the very first episode, which was ten yard fight. Uh we have mentioned that like I don't know what it's gonna take for a sports game to be on the essential games list.

And rather than say what we think an NES game, uh, that could be on the Essential Games list as a sports game is or could be, or have set up rules for it, I just r more or less wanted to explore

sports video games in general that we think are essential games. Guy games that you Uh whether they were exposed to you at an early age for whatever console you had and you were like, Yep, I still think fondly of this game or if it's actually like yeah, it's still one of my favorite video games, even though it's a sports That's kind of what I wanted this episode to be, just to maybe color some perspective on why we don't vote these uh historically we don't vote these NES games as a set.

I mean we have with one, right? Yeah. I think maybe there there were two. Two? Yeah, there was baseball stars as well. Yes, yes. Okay. So but yes, there is there is a higher bar for these. And so just thinking about it, uh a lot of sports games for me that I am fond of, uh, is uh are mostly because I played them at a young age and uh they had the uh the roster that I enjoyed as a kid. They the the the superstars I looked up to.

And I don't think those are great criteria for a good video game, and I'm sure if I played some of those today, I would actually prefer maybe some of the more like bare bones gameplay that's happening here on the NES than on those games because the early three D era wasn't exactly uh uh, you know, the the the peak output. for any uh video game genre. I don't think any anybody would say that the best baseball game lives on the N sixty four. Yeah, I think uh the the the real turning point

was uh like the PS three era. I think that's when people started to see them as degrading in quality. Um so I would say that PS two, Xbox Those were when when most of the the great Sports games were coming.

Yeah. And I I I'll be honest, I think I'm I might be uh Not the best person for this uh for this experiment,'cause I was not a big sports game person. Both of my brothers, big, big into MLB and NHL and you know, I I definitely dabbled. But most traditional team sports games, I'm probably not gonna uh vote on the essential games list regardless,'cause it's just

Not generally for me, but I I I do have some thoughts. We'll we'll get into that. Yeah, well I I would actually like to start with you then, Joe, just to kind of get uh a baseline of when you think you know, greatest sports games that you've played. Obviously there's way more available than you've had access to. But like what comes to mind as your great sports video games? Well, so you know, as a kid it would always be like

I'd only be playing these games if it was like my brother or one of my friends, like they just needed someone else and I'm like, All right, fine, I'll play, you know, NHL or I'll play MLB. I mean, those are the the big ones. I never really played Madden much or anything like that, but um But those like

are the ones that I I would play here and there. I remember also playing a a Ken Griffey game where uh you could play like on the kitchen table and you'd like you'd the home run was like hitting it over the milk and stuff like that. That that was kind of fun. But I think for me it's more like If if you want me to talk about standout sport game sports games that I would call essential, they're not team sports games. They're Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or SSX tricky, things like that. And I spent

tons of time in in Tony Hawk and especially the first one. Um and it's when the remake came out more recently. Like that that that game holds up and it is I think for me what it is is that it's

Something that I can't do, you know. I I could get on a skateboard and go a couple of feet, but like I cannot really do anything that's happening in that game. And like obviously if I'm playing an NHL game, I can't play hockey like the people in that game, but I could like still play amateur, you know, backyard hockey.

Whereas I just like can't even do anything on a skateboard. So it's like m a little more wish fulfillment or a little more like amazing to me that I can like I think that's where the fun comes in where it's like I can do all this stuff that like I'll I'd have to work my whole life to be able to even come close to doing, uh, in reality. And I totally count those as sports games. Like when I'm thinking about this, uh, I would include

Uh ESPN NFL two K five as a s as the same sports game as Mario Golf, you know? Like they're achieving two different things, but they're definitely both sports video games. Yeah, but like I I think like they're and I don't wanna call'em sh subgenres, but I think that they are like Tony Hawk Yes, skateboarding is a sport in a way, but it it's it's not it's not the s it's not a sports game. Nor is anything that Mario does. Like if Mario got onto the gridiron and was like the quarterback of the uh

the mushroom kingdom mushrooms or something then maybe. Uh but I it I don't know. I it is still there was a Mario baseball game. Are you saying that that is is falling on the line? Yeah, I guess it depends. I've never seen it, so uh maybe golf games are like are I guess those

games. I guess it's just it it's whether or not you're considering it a team sport game or just sports games in general. Like like I feel like I get what you're saying. I I feel like the games that I normally think of when I think of sports games are team sports. Hockey, baseball, football, soccer, you know, things like that. Yeah, I I guess I can see it.

What I'm thinking is is that like on the NES we're considering all these games as sports games, whether they take golf as in the simulation realm or they try to be you know, have fun with it, right? Uh I I don't know if we're calling lunar pool a sports game, uh, but maybe maybe we should look into that. However, I I guess that's what I'm saying too, is like

d you know, it I totally understand that Mario Golf is not Tiger Woods PGA tour, but they both, you know, are like serving a a similar function. Uh that like I don't think people are playing Mario Golf Strictly because they love Mario. Like you have to have some interest in golf too. Yeah. Yeah, I think I I've shifted it to uh accepting that those are sports games. I'll I will accept. But is is something like Rocket League a sports game? No.

'Cause that's like an esports thing, right? That's like different. Yeah, uh and uh you know, because esports is really just talking about it's just a new way to say competitive video game playing. Uh I don't consider that a sport. uh maybe that like like Dota or League of Legends like these are video games with characters and abilities and it it just so happens that people play them competitively.

Uh I I don't know if I would say that that's a sport, but then I'm now we're getting into actual like linguistics and stuff. Yeah, right. I I kinda wanna like just for the heck of it, workshop that line, like where did I draw that line because I agree with you that yeah like League of Legends or something, like definitely not a sport even if it's an e sport or if it's good like competitive video game, but like Uh

Rocket League that does fall a little bit on like a line because it's like It's closer. It's not a real sport. Yeah. But it's like trying to be like a sport. You know what I mean? It's like a game about like a hybrid sport, but it is like you're trying to score a goal on another person, you know, like 'Cause then I wonder like if if there's there's that baseball game where you have like you can like turn into fire and charge the mound and stuff and like

Is that a sports team? It's baseball. Yes, yeah. Like it's baseball but also there's like you have powers and stuff like that. So it's like it's weird. I I don't know exactly where it's like very fluid.'Cause I don't know exactly where I would draw the line of like, no, that's just strictly an esport and this is a sports game. But like

Yeah, w do we think it has to be based on an actual real life sport or can there be a fictional sport? Is Quidditch World Cup a sports game or like you know? Well that's what I was gonna say is like uh You know, I think I draw the line on it not being a real sport because Joe, even your that game that we loved, uh, that's like the kickball game. Oh yeah. Kung Fu kickball. Kung Fu kickball, like that's not a sports game, right?

Yeah, I mean I wouldn't think so until now that you've challenged me on that. I'm like, well I I guess based on what I just said, it would have to be. So like I don't know. It can't be'cause then like Smash Brothers becomes a sports game. Like we're oh you know, I would even go as far as to say like Gran Turismo games aren't sports games. Those are racing games, and they're closer to like need for speed than they are to NFL Blitz. Yeah. I mean I guess.

The Yeah, and this is the loose line even as I'm thinking of it, but like the difference between like Smash Brothers and Kung Fu Kickball is that Kung Fu Kickball is Two people with a soccer ball trying to quote unquote score a goal on each other, whereas which is like very much seems like it's taken mostly from soccer with like a bunch of other stuff added to it.

Whereas Super Smash Brothers is like, here are these video game characters doing the things they do in their video games and they're all just fighting each other. I I I propose that the that that we go with the idea that the sport has to exist in real life for it to be a sports. Uh so NASCAR, those are sports games. Motorsport I guess counts. Um And NFL Blitz is a sports game, even though they don't that they they may

like, you know, turn on fire or whatever happens. I've I've it's been a while. Um They do. They do turn on fire. Uh turn on fire. Um But it's still based on football and uh but I don't think that like Rocket League, even though it's based on soccer, uh you are not a car.

in soccer. So I I accept your proposal. I think Joe gave us a good tangent there and now we can go back to the uh actual question and maybe get an answer from Sean this time around on like Sean Just some greatest of all time sports video games that uh are captured in your mind? Yeah, in in order. Uh I I'll say NBA jam when I was

Truly little. Um gotta be on uh gotta be on the list for sure. Yeah. So that would be when I had the the super NES, played that a lot. Uh then Uh i it was probably like I think it was NASCAR ninety eight, uh though I never really like treat treated it as a racing game. Like I don't think I ever completed a race. Like there was there was a code, um that you could input that gave you a basically like a BB gun that you could shoot like spheres out of the front of your car.

and you basically just turn it into like twisted metal on a racetrack kinda. Um so we me and my stepbrother would would would do that. Uh then Madden 08 I probably played a uh a franchise for fifteen, sixteen in-game years and move moved some teams around. It was really funny. I had a team in Mexico City, had a team in Calgary. Um Then uh And uh I think those are the three like formative sports games. Everything since that uh PS two Xbox era has just been kinda

Whatever. I think it's a I think it's a solid draft. And, you know, working off of what were you know, what what is a sports game, what isn't, and iconic ones. I I tend to pick as like my favorite sports games. Even even though there are actual simulation ones, like pick any year of the show probably, and I think it's you know, an amazing experience or uh we were talking about and we have mentioned so many times, NFL two K five. Uh that's the ESPN one where you can also like

build a house or an apartment. I forget which one it is. Yeah, like a crib. Yeah. Oh yeah. Decorate the house. Sure. But like, you know, you're you're doing that in addition to playing football. Uh the same thing with uh what is it? M V P baseball two thousand five. Th where you can just like set the price on concessions but also be the batters and play the game at the same time as running the franchise. All those things are fun.

But I think the best sports video games in my head, the ones that like I I go back to and keep playing, are the ones that make the sport more exciting than real life. Like the Sims stuff does a great job of making me feel like I'm in the shoe of those athletes. But it's one shoe. Just one shoe, yeah. I can't wear both shoes. There's just I'm not gonna pretend to be in both of Josh Allen's shoes. Right, right. Uh but maybe one shoe, maybe I'm cleaning it for him. Um

Just one stew still doesn't. These games though, like, you know, I'm I'm gonna throw out some crazy ones, okay? But like we sport Is is a is a sports game. And I Yep. And I think it's I think it's one that like I will go back to forever, especially with other people. It was the Introduction to the Wii motion controls and it absolutely nailed it and it makes those games fun. It makes bowling somehow more fun than bowling. Like it sucks when you go when you go bowling with someone who it who can't

Who just can't throw the ball, right? So they're just gonna keep getting gutters. They're just going to like no matter what they do, it gets halfway down there and then they just like lose momentum. And that sucks for them and that's not fun for you. And now you're just sitting there with some expensive beers and a pretty expensive pair of rental shoes. And it's just not working out. It makes the other person f it makes the other person feel very self conscious. I'll say I've I've recently uh

My my dad's having some some hip surgery and he needed me to take over for him for this season in his bowling league. And I've been I've been bowling and I'm like, wow, bowling is great. I didn't know you bowled. I d I don't. Like I've been bowling for like the last like once a month for the past like five months now. And uh I'm like, Yeah, this is like really fun. Uh so I don't know, I have to I have to wee bowl again and compare.

I guess what I'm saying is like I recently bowled like a one ninety four. So like I'm not I'm pretty good. Uh I'm not the greatest of all time by no means, but like I'm pretty good at bowling and I'm not disputing that the experience is fun. I'm saying I think we bowling captures it completely differently. I don't I I think like that's my point about the games I'm gonna list is like

We were talking about NFL Blitz, it's like, yeah, I'm glad that people don't turn on fire in real life. But it's such a fun phrase, Sean. Uh but I'm but I'm so excited when that happens in this game. I'm so excited when like after the play is over I just tackle the opponent and I'm just like, Yeah, screw you you know? Like the fact that you're allowed to do that, I would get in trouble for that in Madden. You would get in trouble. Or they just don't know.

Those are the games I keep looking at. Uh but even just the ones that like gamify. the sport. Like m Mike Tyson. We talk about how that's more of a rhythm game than a boxing game. It it manages to take Imagine thinking about being a video game first and then working in the sports element. And I think that's what I like about even backyard baseball. It's like such a uh a a feel good earnest take on on baseball, even though it uses like

real MLB stars and puts them as kids and the rules are like slightly adjusted and everything. It makes it this way, it's a it's really just like a fun

experience first and then you're like, Oh yeah, but this is totally a baseball game. Yeah, I get it. Uh I think that there's definitely like a demarc I mean like yeah, I guess there already is like is is it sim or is it arcade? These are all arcade versions of game of video of sports, so um that definitely is is still valid.

And it's fun to like it's fun to play the latest NHL, but it's probably more fun to actually feel like I have any sense of what I'm doing when I'm playing NHL ninety four. Like there's just too much There's too much to going on in in the sim games now where I feel like, man, can I just and thankfully we can. Can we just turn on NHL ninety four controls?

on these things and play them and they they do let you do that, which is very nice. Um and I think that that's true of like every NBA game should also have like an NBA jam mode associated with it rather than like the timing systems and and having to understand proper defense and stuff like that. Like some people just wanna have a quick pickup game. Well okay, so I don't know if like

Not knowing how to play basketball. But I never felt like I needed to know how to play basketball when I was playing NBA Jam. It was just fun two on two, you know? Yeah, but you need to know the rules of basketball. You don't necessarily need to know how to like Shoot. Yeah, and I think that's what I'm advocating for, right? Is like I don't wanna have to know defensive formation. Sure. Then yeah, I guess definitely play jam instead of Uh whatever the

What is it? What's the EA one? Just oh it's just it's just NBA. Isn't it just two K? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, two K. Wait, two K is EA? I thought two K. No no no. I I uh I forgot that EA hasn't th I think they took a few years off of NBA. Oh it's just been two K for a while.

Um Well, just certainly back to the Wii Sports thing, I w I wanted to throw a quick shout out to a game that probably nobody listening to this has played because I I don't think it was very popular, uh, which is the PlayStation Move Sports Champions. Which I do think was like actually pretty amazing. It's just every who needed it? Everyone already had a Wii and nobody uses their PlayStation to be a Wii. But like that had like it was like Wii sports. But with

It was like beach volleyball, bocce, there was like a gladiator duel and then uh oh frisbee golf and I think ping pong. And like I mean, you know, objectively, much better controls than the Wii. Ooh every I like. Yeah, because nobody bought like a PlayStation move. But my friends and I One time we all pooled our tickets together at Dave and Busters and got a PlayStation move and this game and then we would like

split it five ways, like every couple of months we'd give it to the next person and I think we all got like one turn with it before it was lost. But it was great. Lost, quote unquote. Yeah, I'm pretty sure You guys might be the first one to ever redeem anything at Dave and Buster. Oh, he had to pool all of our our tickets and I I'm pretty sure one of my friends whose name I won't name sold it without any without the permission of the rest of us and pocketed the money.

Wow. But you're pretty sure you're you're yeah, you haven't confirmed that? No, it's confirmed. Thanks for the fast closure. Yeah. We took care of it. Yeah good, as you should. I just wanna make it clear I'm not against the existence of sim game. Uh I I have a I dabble in them pretty often. I just think the more fun experience gameplay wise always comes from the ones that

add that video game twist. I do appreciate being able to understand just how hard it is to hit a baseball in real life when I play MLB the show. on the actual sim modes because once you see what a hundred and two mile per hour up and in fastball looks like, you'll stop booing your favorite players and just reli resign yourself to the fact that you couldn't hit that ball if you tried.

Well even then it's like y you know you're you're you're s even sim games are super simplified and being good at Madden especially it does not mean that you would make a good coach or anything like that. I was pissed to find out being good at Guitar Hero what didn't mean I was good at the real guitar. Didn't they eventually make one that was supposed to like teach you guitar? Rocksmith, right? Yeah.

Rock Smith is the one where you use an actual guitar and then but like i I think the the stepping stone there would be rock band, which instead of having five buttons had like the whole fretboard was buttons. That didn't happen. That happened. That did not happen with rock band. The whole fretboard being being buttoned. Yeah, it was just f it was still just five buttons. Well, there was a pro controller. Oh, okay. Well that might have happened all those

They charted all those songs again? I I'm almost positive. I m I maybe now you're making me doubt myself, but I'm almost positive. I'm like, man, one of them's gotta So I'm looking at it and the Rock Band Pro Guitar Controller is a real thing. 17 fret, 102 button peripheral. But n I just I guess like

How how the heck do they but how do they rechart those songs for all those frets? It's like they just do it. They were so they were but they were so simplified. They they turned every note in the game into just five buttons. They did it again. But that sounds awesome. But I wouldn't be able to do this anyway,'cause to my point, being good at five buttons doesn't make you good at a hundred and two. But also being good at a hundred and two buttons doesn't make you good at guitar. So it's also just

Uh a another step. I love the term being good at buttons. Like this is a good way to describe like being a good video gamer. This I'm good at buttons. That is like those. Don't you ever see those Nike hype videos where they show like LeBron James like pushing buttons really fast for his reaction times and like he's in the zone, right? And it's like that's what that's what it means to be really good at buttons.

True. I don't know if this commercial. Well, I I'm the commercial I'm referencing is probably way off the air by now, but you know, there's always that like you know, athlete in a training room kind of thing and they're at the top of their game, but we can't show them in the game'cause we don't own the express written consent of the MBA. That's true. That's true. So they have to wear a generic uh

generic red jersey with just our number on the back. Just the Nike swish on it. Yeah. Alright, so n now moving away from

uh the the question of great great sports games. Hopefully we Came to some kind of conclusion there. Uh what is the uh what is the opposite of that? What is like the the game that you played that turned you off the sport completely or made you like so frustrated that you gave up on like the the series or franchise or sport. Hmm. That is a good question. And it doesn't even have to be one of the, you know, one of the core four sports. Like it doesn't have to be a baseball sport.

could be a snowboarding game that was like, you know what, I'm done with snowboarding You know what, that might be that might be uh no. No. I I remember I I I rented a a surfing game and it was it was really dumb. Uh or wait, maybe that was wakeboarding. I don't know. The water water sports are hard I think it's just hard to make a good video game for a water sport.

Um uh like the the w the one wakeboarding game, you there was only one way to really do anything. Have you ever played this wakeboarding game? I d I'm trying to think of a wakeboarding video game. Yeah. There was wakeboarding in We Sports Resort. Oh, I see. That would be funny. They were like, Yeah, we got bowling, baseball, boxing, and wakeboarding. Yes, Wakeboarding Unleashed with Sean Murray. Oh, it's they even had a guy's name attached to it.

Um never n was never a big fan of the the BMX games that tried to like riff off of uh basically any extreme sports game that wasn't Tony Hawk, uh was was pretty lame. Um I did well I did play a cricket game once and that was that was fun because I couldn't understand any of it. Uh but Okay. Uh but yeah, there's never been like a really terrible sports game

that I would just never watch the sport again because of it. Yeah, I'm digging for an answer here. I'm not sure. Yeah. There definitely wouldn't have been one where I'm like, oh, this is this is what turned me off of this whole sport, like, in the real world.

I think just in general, I think just playing I mean honestly I think part of the reason and I'm not gonna have a specific answer for you, but what like part of the reason that I don't like sports games that much might hearken back to like when I was a little kid and my older brother really liked sports games and I wanted to play Mario, we'd have to like play you know, we'd have to play a game of Blades of steel first before I before we could play Mario. It was like the deal we'd make.

So that made me maybe just be like, Oh man, like this was feels more like a chore to me and then might have maybe that ingrained itself in me. But like I like Blades of Steel now, but back then, you know, I'd always be like, All right, let's get o through Blades of Steel so we can play Super Mario Brothers three. And I don't even think it has to be a bad game necessarily because my example would be uh Dirt Five, um, which was free on Game Pass when I had game.

And I was excited about it. Rally game, let me check it out. And it was a mixture of like too realistic for me, but also like I couldn't grasp the concept of like this kind of racing. Like I just wasn't the the fact that like the you have to like wear the headphones and the dr uh Your coach I guess. I don't know what they refer to that person who tells you when the turns are coming up.

But like they're shouting that stuff in your ears and you have to anticipate it and you're driving in the car and there's mud everywhere and I was like, This is incredibly impressive. I can't do any of it. I can't drive this car. I and it like pretty much turned me off rally games in general. I've tried a few other ones for two to three minutes and I realize this every time. I can't drive these cars. Uh now has that caused you to not be interested in rally uh as a sport in general?

No, I wanna watch rally stuff in real life. Uh yeah, just the games. I won't I I just know now that I'm not good at them and it's not worth pursuing, but I would wanna watch rally for the same reason I wanna watch the free solo guy climb buildings, you know? I'm hoping to see something really cool happen. Something really cool happened. Cool, huh? Yeah, something really cool happened. Something you don't see every day.

And I mean there's also the as you could tell from my uh attitude towards them, uh the realization that I have no idea how to coach a hockey team, uh, that like, you know, the NHL games kind of exposed me to being like a phony. Whereas like baseball I feel like I have an idea. You know, like when I play baseball games I I I'm I feel like I'm in control.

And I could manage the team and I can make the plays and I can call the plays. The NHL was the NHL games were like an eye opener where it's like, I guess I really don't know anything other besides offsides and I I'm not even talking about from like a rules perspective. I'm just talking about like a strategy perspective. Like I guess I really don't understand like skating formations and line changes and shit like that. Like I it just happens and we're lucky to see.

Uh my my problem with NHL was always just that like the the the when you change the difficulty, like Pro was just like You can just score any time you you put the puck towards the net and then all star or whatever the equivalent is, uh every goalie like would just read your inputs. So I could never find that middle ground where like I'd get realistic scores.'Cause it's does it's not fun to win seven to nothing or seven to two or whatever.

So I I think you've touched into something there, Sean, because tha tha that is how I feel about a lot of sports games in that N sixty four PS one era as well, where w once you figure these games out, it's very easy to just win ridiculous games. Like you your baseball games can be like nineteen nothing. And it's like, you know, that has happened.

But it doesn't happen every single time you play. And yet th that's what I was saying at the beginning is like that's some of the stuff that like the formative games. Like when I think about Wayne Gretzky's three D hockey or MLB uh featuring Ken Griffey Jr. Like those are two N sixty four games that I loved playing as a kid and I you know, I had kid like motor reflexes, so I wasn't winning crazy games or anything, but I was having so much fun. But on revisit like

Those games aren't even close to the greatest sports games of all time. They were just like for me, and now I remember the sounds and the music and the rosters more than anything else. Yeah, I feel uh uh especially in that area, like with PlayStation one at least for me, uh you just you can't take your eyes off of the how like choppy it is and it just doesn't feel it doesn't feel right anymore because you're trained on more modern games and I think like, you know, w with with

With a video game, like with an action game or like an adventure game, that that might not be as uh as big of a deal because like the game is the game. Like Mario is Mario, um uh Like it but then sports games, like you're basically playing the same thing year after year for decades. And I think it's just a lot performance and stuff like that become a big much bigger deal when it's the same basic gameplay that hasn't really changed over decades.

So to wrap up the episode I think we just have to quickly uh mention that Super Spike V Ball and Nintendo World Cup being offered together uh doesn't make uh it an essential game. Can we agree to that? Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I think it's funny though, it's like

If they release a combo pack of the Legend of Zelda and the Legend of Zelda 2 Adventures of Link, is it like, oh well, now it's on the Essential Games list conversation? Like I mean it's funny because like I just don't know even if even if it's like Super Mario Brothers three in the Legend of Zelda combo pack, I'm like, I don't know, that's not a game. Right, it's done. Yeah, this is an essential cartridge.

Us even yeah, exactly. We're covering cartridges now. Uh that that this has nothing to do with the games. Um these last I didn't I didn't play the music, I didn't do a fun lead in. I just wanted to get it out of the way that like putting them on the same cart doesn't make it uh

Any better of a package. But that's a question like should this have even been an episode? Yeah, but it has to be because it was officially released. But they're but we already covered the games, Mike. Right, but it's a product. It has a skew. Okay. Every product released in North America. Every SKU in chronological order released in North America. Maybe we should change the intro. Yeah, haven't you heard that me uh scanning the barcodes at the end of every episode?

Can I make a suggestion now? You should re-record your intro to say every skew released in North America and then it's no one will know what the fuck it meant until the end of the episode.