Console Aesthetics Tier List Part 1

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All right, we here at Corvair Home Technologies are about to break new ground.

We are about to innovate.

We are bringing the video arcade, the sensation of the 70s, home so people can attach it to their television sets.

It's going to literally change the game, and this is very, very exciting for us.

Well said, change the game.

That's how we should be thinking.

We're going to change the game with consumer electronics, with a TV that you can interact with.

I know that things are about to change when I hear these ideas, and I get more excited than I've ever been in my entire life.

And I am a woman who cannot legally get divorced.

I am excited.

I am excited about the 1970s.

We're, you know, it's very exciting.

It's very interesting and new for us that you're working with us as a peer, but we've gotten used to it.

Oh, you don't have to flatter me.

You don't have to flatter me.

I am not a peer.

I cannot get my own credit card.

I know where I sit.

You can with your husband's permission.

Yeah, that's true, but Johnny would never.

I am so excited to talk talk about these video games with you.

Yes, look,

this is neither here nor there.

We're going to focus on designing this new, what I'm calling a home video game console, the first one to market, the Corvair Home Entertainment Machine.

Home Entertainment Machine.

Here's my thought.

Okay.

This thing should be extremely heavy.

Consumers are going to feel like they're going to buying something substantial.

This thing should be really hard to pick up.

I think think that

a home entertainment unit should be heavy so that you know that it is serious.

Yes.

I also think that it should have spirally cords.

Because if there's one thing I know as the woman in the house, it is that a straight cord gets tangled.

A spirally cord just gets tucked away.

Yes, like we use with our telephone machines.

Yes.

Brilliant.

Tell me that this is too crazy.

I just know that, like, I have a lot of, there's like my car has wood paneling.

There's wood paneling in my home and like my den area.

TV box already got a little bit of wood on it.

I'm kind of thinking, maybe this thing should have some wood on it, too.

We'll slam wood on the side of it and on the top of it.

Oh, wood all the way around.

Why not?

Wood paneling all the way around a 30-pound box with spirally cords.

Also, many buttons.

This thing needs a shitload of buttons.

Are you saying, are you saying by many, do you mean more than three?

I was thinking more than than 10.

More than 10?

I love these buttons.

Just throw them all on there.

We won't know what their function is, but the consumer will figure it out.

They're going to spend so much time with this thing.

My only thought is that if there's too many buttons,

you're probably going to say

there's not enough room for knobs and switches.

There will be knobs and switches.

Oh, thank God.

Plenty of those.

I hope that the...

The way that you handle and operate this machine is similar to the oven in my kitchen.

And I say mine because Johnny Johnny does not go in there.

What are you planning on preparing for Johnny for dinner when you get home from your full-time job?

Oh, I already started.

I woke up at 5 a.m.

and I prepared a lasagna.

I par baked it.

And then when I get home, I'm going to stuff it right in the oven before he gets in the door.

Wow, that's very nice of you because, you know, your husband works very, very hard.

I know he does.

I know he does.

Could it be like a, I don't know, like, I feel like sometimes you see, you see dust.

You see all this dust all over the place.

Oh, yeah.

What if like instead of the dust being on the outside, like, there's a way for the dust to get in and stay in there?

Yes, some fans that pull in the dust, so it just kind of gravitates in there and collects there.

And then, you know, what the consumer is going to have to replace this unit, and that means more sales for us.

What about a dust collecting grill, like an unnecessary grill that is sort of like ground into the top of the machine in the wood paneling?

So it's hard to clean in there unless you've got like a wife with a q-tip and you're really angry.

This is actually like, can I just say, I know we were talking about how proud of your husband we are.

I'm extremely, and I can't believe it.

I think, I think.

Be careful.

This might be the first time I'm saying this.

I don't want you to get fired.

So watch what you're saying.

Don't tell my wife that I said this because she might think I'm cheating or something.

Okay.

I'm extremely proud of you for how far you've come.

You know, I just know that like men and women are just different and they're just not as good at stuff.

And you're actually showing that maybe that that's not even true.

I don't think that we need, we don't know.

You're going to You're going to have to go talk to HR.

What do you mean?

This is an HR issue.

You're going to have to talk with human resources.

I don't agree with you.

I don't stand by that kind of attitude.

I think that the sexes are separate and one is lower.

I just have one more request before I'm like maybe escorted out of here.

If it's that I could join you at McSorley's bar in New York, I can't.

Women aren't allowed in yet.

It's not that, but I guess it was going to be that.

But I'll ask my second question.

You're not thinking of running a marathon, are you?

Because that's not allowed.

Absolutely not.

I'll chase after you.

As long as nobody's trying to buy property without their husband or going to a doctor without them, I think we're in the clear here.

Yeah.

Could it just

look like complete shit?

Please, could it?

All right, you're back.

He's back.

We debate blocky versus curvy and black versus gray as we create our console aesthetics tier list this week on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Abodaka.

Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we are talking aesthetics.

Yeah, for an audio medium.

Perhaps a challenging topic.

Which console looks the best?

We're going to do a good job describing what they look like.

We paint with words.

This is radio.

It's a vibe as part of it.

You do a podcast about taste.

It's true.

So it's possible to like.

Interesting when he has none, my dear.

How dare you?

I was kidding.

You're a very fashionable and stylish man.

Wow.

Okay.

Pendulum just swung the complete opposite direction.

I love it.

That's what a real piece of shit that is.

Wow.

I could do this all day.

Who are you, my dad?

So we're talking aesthetics

today.

And we're not talking aesthetic.

We're talking aesthetics, which is different.

Aesthetic is slang.

Aesthetics is the way something looks and is designed and sort of like an overall visual vocabulary of an object.

I'm not looking at a definition here, and I'm sure there's a better one in Merriam-Webster, but we're not talking like, oh, oh, shit, you've got good aesthetic.

It's not that.

I didn't know this.

What?

That that's part of it.

And I'm glad that you're dialed in on what slang is.

I think that's good.

What, the sigma?

What the...

Like that?

What the sigma?

I looked at the,

I looked up Merriam-Webster just to see.

Aesthetics.

A branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty.

Oh, I love it.

That's nice.

I love it.

Or sometimes just, you know, JK, I hate it.

And more casually, just sort of.

Just sort of something that's pleasing in appearance is just kind of a more general way to say that.

I'm really excited to talk about this because I have tons of opinions.

Oh, I do too.

I think we all do.

Uh-oh.

This is going to be great.

This will be a good topic of conversation.

We should mention that our normal producer, Rochelle Chen Ranch,

is not here today.

She has been been exposed to COVID in her stead.

So get well, Rochelle.

Hope you stay.

Get well, Rochelle.

Yeah, well, hope you stay well.

Hope you don't have to get well.

Stay well, Rochelle.

Stay well.

And stay frosty also.

Can I say?

Yeah, you can say that.

Stay frosty out there.

We'll see how she reacts when she listens to this later when she's editing the episode.

Probably going to kick my ass.

We have a guest engineer in the studio.

She'll treat me like that Turkish fucking sharpshooter they sent to the Olympics.

We were talking as Heather was showing us this just before.

Oh, yeah, that wasn't on the podcast.

wait describe this for everyone because this was new new for me well um uh if you've been watching the olympics uh there was a very classy lady who set a new world record from south korea uh when she entered the shooting competition and she came kitted out with what looks to be kojima gear like she's got like specialized lenses and glasses.

She was wearing a really slick jacket with a backwards baseball cap.

She had a stuffed elephant hanging out of her pocket that her daughter gave her.

So she's like, she's also got like a mascot hanging off her.

And she's a mom.

And yeah, and she's a mom.

She keeps her hand in her pocket, as most of the shooters do, and she fires a gun and she sets a world record.

So everybody has been oohing and ahing about her performance.

And her aesthetics.

And her aesthetics over the last week.

And, you know, Kojima even retweeted it.

He's on the pulse.

But today

was the men's competition.

And the guy from Turkey who showed up didn't have any gear at all.

Like, not even

the headphones you wear to protect your ears.

He had nothing, no goggles.

I mean, he's wearing the uniform, but it looks like a t-shirt that just says turkey.

Yeah.

And the dude came in second.

Yeah.

And people are like,

well, did Turkey send a hitman?

Because he just looks like.

He just looks like a guy who would show up at your front door.

Right.

Yeah, like on behalf of someone else sending their regards.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's wearing booties and you're like, ah, fuck.

Oh, shit.

God bless him.

Win the silver.

How about that?

Yeah.

And he is.

And he is a silver.

He's got a, he's a silver fox.

Okay.

Look at this.

I think in general,

this podcast, we could stand to maybe we could be commenting on people's looks a little more.

You think we could just generally be hornier?

I think we could do that.

And I think maybe some sort of like, you know, maybe in a Wooga counter here and there.

Yeah, maybe a sort of

add in a,

can I bring back swing?

Yeah, maybe some old timey cow horn, like a car horn sound effects.

You want to toss those in?

Yeah, why not?

Maybe just.

Well, those get edited out often, so I guess we can just ask Rochelle not to leave those in.

Anyway, our guest engineer today with us, our new friend, Sam Rogic.

Hi, Sam.

Hey there.

Thanks for having me.

Sam, thanks so much for being here.

Happy to be here.

Sam, you are not a gamer yourself.

You've gamed in the past.

Yes.

But you are a shredder.

You play guitar.

I do.

Did you ever mess around with Guitar Hero?

Did you ever do that back in the day?

Yeah, I could do the highest level pretty good.

Yeah, I mean, I'll have to try it again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

Not even just, yeah, I played it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could whip your ass off.

He effectively was like, yeah, it's like based on me.

Yeah.

Bark at the moon on expert first try.

It was fucking easy.

Well, great to have you, buddy.

Thanks so much for being here.

And I guess I have a question about you being a shredder.

Non-Ninja Turtles, right?

Okay, never mind.

I guess that's the end of my list.

A shredder, not the shredder.

Okay.

So clear difference.

What's your favorite preparation of cheese then?

Oh, boy.

Hell yeah, let's go, dog.

Guys, I want to shout out a listener.

Please.

So, you know,

once in in a while, we'll get like a nice little gift package here at.

Not often enough, I'll say.

Not often enough.

Send stuff.

We love stuff.

Oh, boy.

You're going to get weird.

You're going to get

handfuls of crumpled up masking tickets.

What I'm saying is, the other day we were in the studio, you got this.

Nick got something, and I was sitting here on Christmas Day with nothing.

Nick got...

Didn't he get something from an advertiser?

No, I gave it.

Well, also, I gave it.

What the fuck?

What, you gave Nick a gift and then you got angry about it?

I just need to overcome it.

Do you want it back?

I don't want it back.

I just like, you know, it's like,

there's got to be something around here that I could have.

You didn't give me shit.

I should be the one upset.

Your day will come, Campbell.

What?

Stay frosty out there.

Stay ominous.

So I just want to give a shout out to Edgar, who is a Get Play listener, who sent me a Pokemon card that was graded.

Wow.

And I've never, you know, I've seen these online.

Like, you see graded, like, comics or, you know, NES games.

And it looks cool.

And you're like, oh, that's cool.

But you never expect to hold one in your hand.

But he sent me a graded Garbador

card.

And

it's a holo print, full art card.

Is that what you call them?

Yes.

Yeah.

It's gorgeous.

It's fucking gorgeous.

Garbador sitting on a mountain of trash, looking happy as can be.

And this is really fucking cool.

I've never, I played the Pokemon game,

you know, back in the 90s and gave all of my cards away, like a huge shoebox of fucking like packed full of cards to a little boy.

Cause I was like, oh, I'm not going to have a lot of people to play this with anymore after I fell out of my

circle.

And now I wish I hadn't done that because I bet that's like thousands of dollars worth of cards.

But this card, man, it is nice to see a Pokemon card again, and especially in such a cool little case.

Heather, I did the exact same thing with my MTG cards back in the fucking 90s, just got rid of all of them.

I gave them to a child.

Did you burn them or eat them or defecate on them?

Like, how did you, like, what did you, how did you get rid of them?

Gave the old Weiger special.

Didn't ritually dispose of them in some way.

No, I just, I just got, got rid of them.

I think I just gave them to, I can't even remember what I did with them.

I didn't throw them in a dumpster, but I think I gave them to like a goodwill or something.

That's nice.

Somebody got, hopefully got used to it.

Maybe I did give them to a kid.

I don't fucking know.

I'm going to say I gave them to a kid.

Hopefully you didn't because we know

you drew hogs on all of them.

And then the police showed up.

Well, hold on.

I didn't draw a hog on my Gaia's liege.

Okay, interesting.

I didn't even name a card.

I didn't name a card.

I wish I knew more about

Magic the Gathering cards.

I have a commander deck, but I like the way they look.

Yeah, I wanted to get back into it, and I did get a commander deck, and I was playing a little bit on

Magic the Gathering Arena.

Yeah, I was playing a little

arena and then I just sort of like fell off.

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following somebody around in the city and having a good time, and then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Anyway,

let's get into the podcast, eh?

Okay.

We should say before we begin our first segment that we are going to do a we play, you play this month.

We are going to talk about one game at length, and this is overdue.

This is something that we've been wanting to do for a while, and we're finally like, you know what, fuck it, this month is the time to do it.

This month's we play,

you play, is 16-bit JRPG Classic Chrono Trigger coming Monday, August 26th.

Wow, full episode.

Matt doesn't know what we're doing.

I'm excited to learn.

Man, what a great soundtrack.

It sounds good.

One of the best ever.

So I started, and I guess we're not in that segment yet.

So I don't, I mean, I'm just going to say, because this is not what I'm going to be playing.

Yeah.

But I am playing it.

Yeah.

And I start, as soon as you guys said, okay, we're on, I got out my analog and immediately fucking started playing.

Wow, right away.

Right away.

I'm really torn because I could play it CRT, Original Kart, in my Super NES,

but that would mean sitting in the dark a lot in a garage, which is hard to do in the summer.

It's kind of rough.

Yeah.

But it is your duty and you will do it.

God damn.

It is such a beautiful game.

It is such a beautiful game.

I'm excited.

I'm not sure what to play it on.

I have, I've,

as somebody who has a lot of little handheld emulators and things of that nature,

let's just say I have a lot of options.

Well, here's what I've learned.

I can play it on my Vita.

I've learned.

I can play it on my Vita.

I can play it on my Vita.

I have learned that it is, unfortunately, available in many ugly versions.

Yes, that's the thing.

I was like, should I just find the most

aesthetically unpleasing version?

Should I just find like the ugliest possible port and play that one just for the sake of it?

I also have it for I think the DS.

Yeah, yeah, the DS one.

It looks like shit on the DS.

It looks like shit on the DS, it's not available.

I remember the DS one looking all right.

It does not look great.

It does not look great.

I was really bummed out when I went because I was like, I dug out my DS or my 3DS and I was like, oh fuck, I'm going to play it on my 3DS.

Not a not a really beautiful port.

It never came out for the Game Boy Advance.

It is available for like

iOS.

I have it on my iPad.

I have it on everything that I can have it on.

But I think playing it on the Super NES emulator on an analog pocket is a way to go.

Okay.

It's really pretty.

Because I have a.

I always forget what it's called.

The RGX35.

Oh, yeah.

You could do it on that.

You could do it on your Steam Deck.

Yeah.

Steam Deck seems like overkill.

I might want to take this on the go, you know?

Steam Deck looks real.

I mean, like, if you've ever played a retro game on the Steam Steam Deck with scan lines, oh,

oh,

look, I have to, I got to sort it out quick because

we got to play this game.

Yeah, we got to play it.

We got to play it.

Uh, we are going to play it, yeah, and we will talk about it at length at month's end.

But right now, we should talk about some other video games we've been playing.

It's time for the question.

I always ask, what are you playing?

No, that's my question.

What are you playing?

It's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here to ask you guys what you're playing.

Resident Evil Merchant, thank you so much.

Yeah, I did not mean to say that I was taking your job from you.

I was more just so I ask it, I tee you up, and then you bring it home.

That's okay, that's all right.

It's kind of an alley-oop sort of situation.

Slam duck.

Ba-burr!

Resident Evil Merchant knows ball.

That's cool.

I do.

I ball.

You play a little ball?

I would imagine you ball.

You're very tall.

I am tall.

It would be kind of a waste of your height if you didn't.

I ball.

But so you think that, and I feel like I hear about this a lot, actually, where basketball players get into the game because they are tall, but they they like don't like it there are a lot of reluctant basketball players yeah even ones at very high levels who like don't really like the game don't really feel passionate about it but because of their genetic you know gifts they end up doing it anyway i'm super passionate about it

that's great i love it just uh be careful where you play uh i played at uh at the beach and the police were called and they were like you can't do that here sir and i was like

okay probably not a lot of places to

do that well.

A lot of sand.

The ball probably doesn't bounce in the sand very well.

There will be some concrete cores.

My ball is bouncing the sand just fine.

Okay.

That's what the police were upset about.

I see.

Okay.

I think we're at that stage.

We really don't need to pursue this any further.

It's crystal clear.

I don't even know what I was going to say.

I'm just upset that I heard that.

Resident Evil Merchant, you know, right now there is the SAG AFTRA strike order for the interactive media agreement.

Yep.

You are one of the most prominent video game performers i mean yeah did you do do you have any any thoughts on this this this uh collective action well i i don't know i can't speak to my replacement okay sure i don't know if that was a non-union hire or you know if it was that they were like well this guy's not in the union we gotta get rid of him and we may they made the whole game sag after i'm not certain okay I'm not union.

You, Resident Evil Merchant, are not union?

I'm not union.

I'm not pro-union, but i will not let me do a union got it yeah like taft heart lead or something i i don't know what that is i kind of don't know either actually

it's like a thing that i love i love that you took a swing though it's kind of right yeah it's kind of close but no i i fully support the union yeah and if i ever get a chance to get into a union oh they're never gonna get me out

but i am not in a union

Here, here's what I think we can say about this issue real quick, which is there is a rule not to work on these games, these these truck companies right now.

Um, there's not necessarily a rule not to talk about them, but I think we all, the three of us, we're just sort of collectively decided that in the spirit of strike, we're gonna try not to highlight uh games that come from these truck companies for the time being.

And I think uh sometimes that's going to mean that we um we lean a little bit into retro gaming as we are for this this month's uh we play you play

um but we'll definitely be tiptoeing around it as best we can uh trying to to support our SAGA AFTRA fellows.

And

yeah, just generally, I mean, none of us are also going to render work on any of these things.

Yeah, of course.

But I think we're not like,

it seems like this work order that came from the union is a little bit less doctrinaire than it was for the film and TV strike, where it was more like, hey, don't be, you know, try not to be promoting any media from these struct companies.

It feels like there's less of that, but I think we still kind of are like, just on our own, we're just kind of deciding we're going to try to, you know, just, just not focus on those things, which might mean some current AAA games or AA games maybe get a little bit

less focus.

But, you know, yeah, we, in addition to retro games, there's certainly indie games, games that come from boutique publishers that have signed the interim agreement

or are, you know, don't have

voice and motion capture acting.

And so they're just not not privy to this whole thing.

But anyway, just wanted to kind of get that prelude out there just so we can sort of talk about what, you know,

where things might be going over the next.

Hopefully, not hopefully a relatively short stretch when the stage gets together.

I'm playing gofish.

I'm playing old maid.

These are good games.

They have saying power for a reason.

Excellent games.

Yeah, very good.

Good design.

No judgment.

Maybe what's that?

What's that thing with the perfection?

No, no, that's a good game, too, but what the hoop and like the stick.

Like a hoop and stick.

Where you chase the chase the hoop?

I love that game.

Yeah, I'm more of a ball and cup guy.

Why does that hoop want to get away so bad?

Look, I'm trying to get this hoop to stay.

I don't know where it's going.

I just want to be friends with hoop.

Give me the hoop.

Yeah.

You should play basketball.

You're really tall.

I love ball.

I ball everywhere.

Ball in a McDonald's bathroom.

Oh, God.

Okay.

I ball in a Wendy's bathroom.

Okay, so that's.

I ball in a Burger Kick bathroom.

I just want to say, just as a...

Kind of the big three of fast food burger trains, but that's like I ball in a long gun silver's bathroom.

A little bit of a lower tier, I'd say.

If this were like the short form improv game new choice, I would say that those options were all kind of same choice.

Lateral?

Yeah, they're all kind of like A to A, sort of, you know.

I ball in a jiffy lube, is that what you're looking for?

I mean,

it's something else.

Yes, I will.

It's something different.

I'll do it after the show.

I ball in the back of a Trader Joe.

Heather, what are you playing?

I'm playing.

So I've been playing my analog pocket,

but I decided to dabble in the Visions of Mana demo this week.

Secret of Mana was one of my favorite games on the Super Nintendo.

Yes.

Again, we're talking about scores.

We're talking about soundtracks.

The Secret of Mana soundtrack is S tier, like one of the best of all time.

So every time a mana game comes out i will try it i'll be like i'll give this the benefit of the doubt i played the demo uh i haven't finished the demo and i gotta say there's too much happening it's too much

i don't need all of it i don't need all this stuff there's like

And maybe it's because they dump you off with like a full party in the middle of a fucking battlefield and you're just like, oh, shit.

And it gives you like splash screen after splash screen of like how the inventory system works and like what your ring menu can do.

And I'm like, these things are usually like stepped out a little bit.

But I feel like it's also got an extremely busy HUD.

I don't need all this stuff on screen.

Sure, yeah.

I don't need it.

Like Secret of Mano was so beautiful because it was so clean.

It was just like a really stripped down interface.

And yeah, it was a 16-bit game, but there are cluttered 16-bit experiences.

For example, Wizardry on the Wonder Swan has like mostly menus and very little gameplay.

But

anyway, it's a beautiful game.

It's gorgeous to look at.

The graphics are shiny and sleek and the character design is weird and playful.

And so far I'm really liking it, but I do wish there was a little less happening.

And I'm not saying that like a grandma.

I'm just like, guys, do we need all this stuff happening all the time?

I see, I see, yeah.

Like, wouldn't it be nice if you could just, that's part of the joy of Elden Ring

is that when you aren't like actively in a menu, it's a pretty blank screen.

Yes, that is,

it's a huge pet peeve of mine is that just is that there's so much clutter on screen.

And it's overwhelming, I feel like with a lot of modern games where it's like, I don't need a mini map with a bunch of, you know, different icons denoting points of interest.

Yeah.

Like, it just, it, like, it starts to feel like, like, hey, here's a bunch of tasks you need to complete versus, like, here's a world you're going to be immersed in, you know?

Yeah.

But I also, yeah, to your point, there's just like a quality of like the overall beauty of the thing.

It's just like, once you get too many UX elements on screen, it's just like it's, it's, it's conflicting with the, with the art of the characters and the environment.

Unfortunately, like the, I mean, I haven't looked at the art style of what the game actually looks like, but like the

image of like the

you know like the cover art for as it were looks gorgeous and like that's almost enough for me to be like I gotta see what the fuck this is pull up pull up some images

visions of mana and just like like look at that art style it's it's really inviting

and it doesn't look like the sort of I feel like Final Fantasy has become more and more gothic as time has gone on

and this is a is a bright

you know broad spectrum color palette it's a it's a pretty game to look at.

Yeah, it's kind of almost a watercolor sort of quality.

Almost Dragon Quest XI-ish.

Yeah, yeah.

It's in the neighborhood.

But yeah, I,

oh, there it is on the, we have it on our big screen.

Look at that.

Right.

That's pretty gorgeous.

It looks like, I mean, the cover art looks like it's a golden hour, like it's, it's shot during golden hour, like on a Wachowski film.

It's, it's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

But it also just looks like the era that it's trying to evoke.

Yes.

They don't really make covers that look like this anymore.

No, they don't.

They don't.

So I am going to continue forth with the demo.

I don't know if Visions of Mana was on my to-do list for our second half of 2024.

I don't believe that it was.

But

here it is.

I'm to doing it.

And so that's what I played this week.

You know, since you mentioned the Chrono Trigger DS port, my memory of it, and since it's also a JRPG, my memory of it is that one thing that was nice because of the two screens, and a lot of games would do this, it kept like the,

you know, like if you were in battle, like it, like, it was like that would, you know, have the one screen that was just like the play space and another screen where your menus were.

And it's nice that there was like a delineation there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know.

Obviously,

that's a unique piece of hardware, but

I agree with your overall point.

Like, Like, let's get this fucking clutter out of here.

Yeah, let us look at the game that you made.

You spent so much time making it.

Let us look at it.

But yeah, that's what I've been playing: the visions of Monodemo and my analog

pocket.

Nick, what are you playing?

You know, first off, that was terrifying.

Nothing.

It was fun.

You know what?

It was actually great.

All right.

I was just not ready for it.

I thought maybe you were going to go to Matt.

I'm balling a Starbucks.

That's like A to like A and a half, kind of.

I don't think you need to give the Resident Evil merchant notes.

I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

I'm trying to help.

I'm always looking to improve.

And also, I'm like, am I the guy to do it?

I don't know.

I ball in an office depot.

This is good.

Yeah, I like it.

I just like to visualize different places.

Yeah, I mean, but then when I think about what's actually happening, it's very not good.

I ball in a large tire on a farm.

See, now we're getting some.

So that's a third beat.

That's a third beat right there.

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All right, so, hey, you know what?

You ended up mentioning it, Heather, when you were talking.

Oh, I did.

Elden Ring, because that's what I've been playing.

Oh, yay.

I don't know.

I, you know, this is the thing.

With the

list of struct companies, and there was a search engine that SAGAFTRA has, but it seems like it's maybe being a little bit

skittish right now.

So I couldn't, this one didn't pop up as covered.

The convenience bargaining group, I read this last week in the podcast with whom SAGAFTRA is negotiating, includes Activision, Blindlight LLC,

Disney Electronic Arts, Vormosa Interactive, Insomniac, Llama Productions LLC, Take-Two, Voiceworks Productions, and WB Games.

I don't believe that Elden Ring is on here, but if it is covered in this agreement, you know, this will probably, this may be the last.

I'll talk about it for a while.

Anyway, it is all I've been playing over the past bit of time with my spare gaming time.

I think the last time I mentioned it was a couple weeks ago, and I just kind of talked about that.

I was dipping my toe back into it.

I have taken out Margot the Fell Omen, Godfrey, Ranala, Queen of the Full Moon, Star Scourge Redon.

I just got the mimic tier.

So

I'm just kind of cranking through this game pretty well.

Where does that put like a third of the way through it?

40% of the way through it?

I'm making tons of balance.

Not quite half.

Yeah, not quite half.

Anyway, the thing I'm doing, I'm playing a strength build, and I'm using a brick hammer, which is so fun because it's just like one of the dumbest-looking weapons.

It's a stick with a brick.

It looks so fucking dumb, and I'm going around killing gods.

It's so stupid.

Anyway.

And also my character just looks like complete shit.

He's just ugly and old.

He's got a bad mustache and he's wearing like all mismatch gear.

So that's really fun to just be like run around as like a hobo

with a with a big club.

I feel like it's hard to look good in the lands between.

Sure, yeah.

Because like you have to get if you're if you're playing

with an armor set that matches and goes together, you're gonna find better armor sooner.

Because like I feel like even the complete sets that you can find, those aren't gonna serve you for very long and often they're not gonna be tailored to your

wear this fucking hat or whatever, this helmet, this, this

suit of armor, these graves, these

boots, and then call it a day.

You look like shit all the time.

It sucks.

There's like one good-looking character in all of the lands between, and it's like Ronnie, and that's like it.

That's right.

What about Millennia?

Yeah, sure, yeah.

Look, tons of smoke shows in this game, okay?

But like, the armor,

the armor is kind of cringe, actually.

I feel like

I feel like if you're going to summon people in front of a boss,

that the weirder they look, more likely the better they are.

Yes.

I mean, let me solo her.

A pot on the head, diaper.

Yeah.

That's it.

Pretty good look.

I will just say,

it's been a while.

You know, when did this base game come out?

What was it?

2021, 2022?

2022.

Jesus.

So it's been a while.

Yeah.

But I'm surprised by how much of the main path I still remember.

But also, I think this speaks to what Heather was saying of just how elegantly you're guided through this game.

The guidance of grace just sort of like pointing you in a general direction without being like, here's a question mark on your mini map that you have to go and an objective in your,

you know, in the pause menu that tells you exactly what you're going to do in the quest line.

Hey, are you heading to the big castle?

Exactly.

Yeah, an NPC in your fucking ear barking at you.

Like it's, it's, it's just sort of like you just have a general sort of idea of where to go.

And so I'm just kind of surprised by how much I remember, but also I'm just like impressed.

Again, Itheia said this earlier, how well it is conveyed and how efficiently.

I'm also having more fun than last time.

Hell yeah.

I'm just saying something, guys.

I already love this game, but I think part of it is just I'm just a little bit more confident and competent and also just playing offensively.

And I think that's partly because I finished Sekiro since my last time I played Elden Ring.

I think I just like sort of got into, you know what, what, the way you have to tackle at least that specific game, but I think generally a from soft game is like, I'm going to play a little bit more aggressively and be a little bit more assertive and be a little bit less stick and move and wait and just wait for the perfect moment and be scared and be tentative and be a little bit more like, I'm going to take it to you and fight this on my terms.

I don't think I'm I'm good at it, but I think I but I am taking out bosses quite a bit faster than the last time.

And yeah, I just kind of feel a general sort of sense of overall improvement and just,

you know, just more, again, just also, I'll repeat myself, just more, more confidence in how to play the game.

So I'm really enjoying it.

It's a true masterpiece.

And I'm really glad I just committed to just playing all the way through it this time.

I'll let people know when I finish it.

I read an article about a way that you can,

a way that helps you beat the final Erd Tree boss.

And I was so delighted when I read the article, but I'm worried that it is a spoiler if I share it.

Okay.

But it's not a spoiler about the story.

Yeah.

It is a technique that you can use.

Interesting.

In a family of many techniques.

I think you can just say it.

Matt, you've beaten it.

I'm fine being spoiled in the room if it's a spoiler.

And then if we deem it too spoilerific, we will just cut it.

Okay.

Well, a lot of the attacks that the final boss of the urgery

DLC has are low to the ground, right?

Somebody has discovered that if you go in encumbered and you have the fat roll, that you spend longer

lower than his low attacks.

That's fascinating.

So if you go in heavy, you have an easier time dodging his stuff.

That's a really interesting.

I love when people figure out tech like that.

Yeah.

That rocks.

So not quite a spoiler.

I think you're fine.

I think we can keep running.

I think it's fine.

I think Teather spoiled the last boss of the urgent.

tree.

Shut up.

What does encumbered mean?

You dumbass.

You little dumbass little kid.

Yeah, you're dumb too.

Yeah, I don't know what that word is.

I guess you haven't ever been encumbered before, huh?

Fucking little dumb.

Mad at people we're making up.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

If I ever see you, it's on site.

A ball in a

cafes.

A general use dog water bowl.

I like when I see the bowls out for the dog.

Those are a lot of fun.

Because then it's like, hey, maybe the dog will show up and be thirsty.

Yeah, keep those doggos hydrated.

Yeah.

Matt, what are you playing?

Well, I'm playing

Baldur's Gate 3.

Nice.

And let me just tell you, last time I told you guys that I made to Act 2.

I'm in Act 2 as the last week, right?

Love to hear it.

Actually, guess what?

Scratch that.

I'm in Act 3 now, dog.

What?

And yeah, I'm just blazing through this goddamn thing, and I'm not doing stuff.

Yeah.

I'm just doing stuff, but I have.

You know what to do.

I know what to do, and to, you know,

speak to the confidence thing too I know what's going on and I know that I can get through these encounters I took

Balthazar down in one try wow in one in the first round of the fight I took him down that's incredible and then you have to deal with all his little goons and things like that

but

I was able to just focus all my attacks on him and just killed him first round of the fight.

I'd love to hear this.

And it was very exciting.

I've been doing a couple of little things a little different.

I i am going down the light path with shadow heart for example um

i tried to break up with uh laysale and she would not uh like she kind of scared me into it because um well and i also i i did a thing where i i got a dialogue prompt i meant to text you guys this but i knew i wanted to save it for the show i got a dialogue prompt in my camp from halson the druid who can turn into a bear that he was like hey like i want to f you like so bad

yeah he gets super horny at a certain point and i was like like, I opened up my menu and just hit quick save because I was like, I have to break up with her and see what this is going to be.

And I go over to Lazelle and she's like, I'm like, hey, so like, Austin's kind of down to like do this kind of like crazy thing, you know?

And she's like, oh, is he?

Because that would be the end of us.

And I'm like, okay, so I end it right there.

And then I go through it with the, with the

romance scene, I think is as it's called in

the game.

And he gets like so horny, he turns into a bear on accident.

And he's like, I'm so, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

That doesn't always happen.

And then, but then you have these options, and they are by far the horniest options I've seen in the game.

Yeah.

They're like, no, it's okay.

I like it.

And so he's like, really?

You sure?

And then he turns into a bear.

And then it kind of like, he kind of gets close to you and you guys, like it's about to go down and it pans away and it pans up into this tree and the squirrel has an acorn in his hand.

And he drops it and he's like, what the fuck?

It's so funny.

It is so funny and so good.

Worth seeing, like, worth even typing it into YouTube and just like seeing it.

It is legitimately very funny.

It's like the kind of joke that would be like the nutty professor, like the squirrel seeing people flocking and dropping his acorn.

It was so funny, but then, of course, I had to reload my save because I can't do that until Laser.

Sure.

But you did a little save scum in to see a cutscene.

I had to see, I just had to see what was what was going on.

But now we're firmly in

the main part of Act 3, where I'm having to kind of go to these two bad guys and

make some choices there.

And I don't know when I'm going to wrap this up, to be honest, but

because I know that here's the thing.

When you get to Act Three, that's kind of when the game starts.

There's so much in the City of Baldur's game.

Wow.

The whole, all of Act 3 is...

Daunting number of quests.

As long as one and two.

It is so much.

But I've been trying to do different things where I can.

Um, and I've been having a really, really fun time.

My party right now is myself, of course, who I named Matt.

That's fun.

Because I didn't do that last time.

I like it.

Uh, and I didn't make that much of an effort to make him look like me, but I was like, what if he was kind of like a

thud version of me with a mustache, kind of like a cool guy.

Uh, and my party is my girls.

It's uh, Lazelle, it's Carlac.

I could never, I don't think I'd ever play this game without Carlac.

I just don't know how you could do it.

Like, I mean, you did.

A great character.

But just a great character.

You played without Lazelle.

I mean, that's...

You're the one to talk.

And now I, the love of my life.

Yeah.

And I have Jaheer in there, too, because Jaheera wrecks house.

Did you say Bezell?

Yeah.

Nicely done.

I didn't invent it, but yeah.

Oh, well, okay.

Yeah.

Astera Bay.

Sure.

What?

A little bit more of a long walk, but you can at least claim credit for it.

That's mine.

Yeah.

But that's it.

That's it for me.

That's all.

I'm playing uh balder's gate three gonna lock that up and maybe next week i'll have started a different game to talk about that is like more of a

safer zone uh to speak about i'm just impressed by your pace you because you were that that game like i the second time i played through baldur's gate and you know i did play on tactician uh but i but i still wasn't like replaying the same encounters like tons of time.

It just like, it just took me even longer because it did more and more shit.

Like it didn't even like, I think once I started going towards the end game instead of being like, well, I should finish this.

I was like, oh, I'm going to clean up every single quest.

I think I did absolutely everything I could in my second playthrough.

And it was just like, I don't know how this game that took me 130 hours somehow took me 150 hours a second time through.

That's interesting because I guess with me, my first playthrough, I did, I feel like I did a lot more safe scumming and like to the point where I save scummed like.

10 hours back.

Like I would like do like I went back way far at one point because I read that I missed something or locked myself out of something that I was like, I want to see that.

I want to actually do that because I might not get to play this game again.

Little do I know, you know, less than a year later, I'm playing it again.

But

I would go back quite a bit and then I would also just make more mistakes on accident and like die a lot more.

And I haven't died once.

Like, I just haven't like had a complete party wipe the whole time.

I've maybe been downed, but like, I haven't lost an entire,

you know, fell to a boss or an encounter one time this round.

So I've just kind of, and I've, and I know the map pretty well now.

and I also just know like where stuff is and like the things that I didn't, if something seems different, I'm going to go toward that type of thing.

But if there's more like a, I've done this before, I might just kind of blaze through that part of it.

You're going to have me play this fucking game again.

It's really good.

You're going to have it once the next big major update comes in.

I'm going to have to play this in honor.

I might do it again.

Like

it's a really good game.

But also I am playing on the easiest mode because I'm not trying to challenge myself.

I don't got anything to prove.

I'm trying to

have a good time.

Yeah, that's all you got to do.

It's have a good time.

Play games however you want to play them.

These were the games that they played.

That's a segment and it's over now.

Okay, we talked about this before.

We are not paying you for songs.

We cannot

get it.

You can't just sing a song and be like, they have to pay me for this because I sing a song.

We can't do that and we're not doing it.

All right, well, maybe we'll renegotiate that at a future date.

It's not on the table.

It's not like a deal point that we're going to negotiate.

It's not even redlined.

It's no lined.

0.5.

I could be interested in a fraction, if I'm being honest.

0.5?

0.5?

What's that a unit of?

Of what?

You tell me.

You know what?

You have a deal.

All right.

That was the games that they

played.

What are you playing?

They've answered now.

For our main segment this week, we're doing Tears of the Kingdom, T-I-E-R-S, our tier list segment, console aesthetics.

So, are we just talking about, I guess the thing to talk about here, first all, off, we're just talking consoles, not handhelds, right?

Handhelds, nothing.

Consoles only.

Plugs into a TV.

Handhelds is a...

I made the choice.

That's a separate episode.

With virtual boy in S-tier.

We can't do all these things as one episode.

We got to do it.

I agree with you.

I'm just making sure.

Wait, what is a virtual boy

this is a good question it's a good question i because i because that there's also enough vr headsets where that could maybe be its own thing now too

but that's not it's not a vr headset either it's an abomination is what it is it's a it i think it's a console because you can't it's not portable

interesting we we can we can we can uh cross that bridge bridge when we get to it all right i'm not sure where exactly it factors in the other question i have are controllers a thing here or are we just talking about the box box?

You know, I think because we did a controller.

I think controllers are their own thing.

We did do it.

We're talking about the box.

We're just like, look at the box.

Do we like the box?

We're talking about the box.

Okay, great.

The machine, not the box that it comes in.

Right.

We're not talking boxes.

We're not talking like...

I've saved all my boxes.

You don't have to do that.

I want to clear your mind and you can just get rid of those.

No, no, no.

Just the console boxes.

Oh, the con like the wait.

So the machines?

No, no.

So the box that my Genesis came in, I still have.

Kind of a cool thing to have.

That is cool.

I have all of them.

They're flattened and they're in a big portfolio.

My thing with boxes is I'll keep them for as long as the warranty is active.

Oh.

And then once the warranty is out, the box is...

I have a dream of having them in a room of game stuff at some point.

That's, yeah,

I support it.

But I don't have that room.

So that currently they're just all in my hole.

Yeah, I have cats that are like, is that cardboard?

Give me that.

They go crazy.

I just get rid of everything.

I know you do.

I saw you, I saw you buy something and throw it straight in the trash.

It's an iPhone.

It's an iPhone, a new iPhone.

Okay, let's get into it.

We're going to try to go in chronological order going back towards the beginning.

of the first console generation back in the 1970s.

Where were we at?

1972, somewhere around there?

Looks like it.

We're going to go off of

what are we going off of?

We got 1972 first generation.

Yeah.

So we're starting off with the Magnavox Odyssey.

Is that what's up first?

What do we got here?

Magnavox Odyssey, yeah, it's first on the list here.

Okay.

So let's let's let's get let's look at the sum bitch.

Let's get a good long look at it and let's describe what we're looking at here.

So I have not used a Magnavox Odyssey.

This is a thing that I think I have seen in person,

but not in operation.

This basically is,

I mean, this is very like Trony, I feel like.

Yeah.

It's like kind of like a, you know,

it's got a wood panel quality to it.

The controller is very different than what we know as a modern game controller, and certainly versus even a...

Even a joystick.

Again, the controller is not the issue here.

It is mostly white.

It has wood paneling on the side.

And it also is a little Star Wars-y, I feel like.

it's like kind of like this black top to it.

Um, it kind of looks like a toaster without a slot, it's giving succession as well, kind of that sort of like the any vibe where they're in the have you seen not succession, what's that show?

Um, Severance,

I mean Severance, okay, the other S show, yeah, which those are the two, those are the two.

It has a retro futuristic look that um

it evokes a what Don Draper would call a video game machine.

Like it looks like a video games.

It looks like a black speaker that has been wrapped in white plastic and then given a wooden finish.

I do like the Odyssey logo.

I like the.

I love that.

I like the,

you know, just like the font is very much like, you know, first gen computing, just sort of typed out.

I like the, I like the colorway.

I mean, I like the white, the, the black, and the brown.

I mean, I, I don't know.

To me, this, this feels like this, this slot's in at a B.

b yeah

i'd give this a bass line b tier concept i happened to zoom in on the little controller and the i don't know how you would have used this but the options on the controller are reset vertical horizontal and english and

yeah i think this is i i i'm i feel like some of this stuff was just built into the hardware because it wasn't like there was a way to toggle it there wasn't like a shell and it wasn't individual games didn't have the settings right i also think the odyssey was just it wasn't like video games the way we know them it was shapes

i think it was just stuff that you it was like a kind of a interactive screensaver i don't even think it had other things on the system the original odyssey some of the yeah as it you know what like again we i wish i had done more research on this um but this is like

Yeah, some of those first, those, those super duper early consoles were just like, it's what's built into the box.

There's no way to swap in a cartridge or a card.

There's no way to get other things on here.

It just is what it is.

Anyway, I think that's fun to look at.

I like that thing.

It's a nice museum piece.

I can already tell that I'm going to be frustrated with my own lack of language when it comes to describing visual aesthetics.

It's going to be a real bummer.

I guess visual aesthetics is also stupid to say, like saying ATM machine.

No, I think so.

I think things going to, you know, I think

audio can have its own aesthetic quality.

is this the second console?

This is the second one.

Well, so this is a dedicated Pong machine.

I think this one kind of looks like shit, but I also don't know which one is the canonical.

Like, this was the original one that came out.

This was the home Pong version.

Again, this is a dedicated piece of hardware that did one thing.

Like, is this the right,

or is that, or is that like a reissue?

Was that like someone else's?

You know, this one was, it says here that this is Atari's home Pong console released through Sears in 1975.

Okay, so this is this, this is the one that was released at retail back in the day.

So this one has a

kind of

that ugly sort of like when they try to use

what the fuck kind of digital calculators.

Digital calculator let when they thank you very much, either.

When they try to use a digital calculator

to create letters instead of numbers, that's at the top of it.

The Pong logo is awesome.

The Tari logo is good.

Those are a little bit less centered in it.

This kind of looks like a set of stereo speakers.

It kind of looks like this has the paddles on mounted on them.

Because, you know, I don't know what that phenomenon is called, but you know, when you can, like, when you look at something and it looks like it has eyes?

Yeah.

It kind of looks like it has eyes and it kind of looks like Clippy the

little keyboard guy, the paperclip.

Paperclip guy?

The paperclip guy.

I think he looks like a frog.

It is a little froggy.

I'd say more frog than Clippy.

I'm going to say I hate this.

I don't like it either.

So I'm assuming that these two paddles come off of the base, that the base itself is just this singular central box, because I can't.

Yeah, is this two pieces?

How does this work?

I don't know how it works.

And I feel like one of those videos that they show of like a Gen Z person trying to look at a regular phone and being like, what is this?

Yeah, I love being as old as I am and still like having something that's so old, I can't wrap my head around it as a piece of tech.

So it only plays Pong.

Each of the panels has a turndial to allow you to move the paddles on screen up and down.

And that's all the system does.

It looks like something you would find

on the floor of your car.

I'm not a fan of this.

I give this a, what's our lowest?

Is it F?

F is the lowest, dude.

I give it a D.

Yeah, I think this is a D tier for me.

I will say,

if you look at it, just someone's photo in the wild, like I'm just looking through some other images search here, and you just see like this is on someone's just like coffee table with a bunch of like watted tissues and batteries.

It looks a lot better than that.

It looks a lot cooler in like normal light.

So that makes me that makes me that makes me think that like just like the publicity still or whatever is a little less flattering.

That's a much better look.

That might make me think more, that's more like a C.

The image you just showed us makes it look like an old-fashioned radio.

Yeah.

I like it.

It's a C.

I could put it in a C.

Yeah, why not?

Man.

There also were a few different Pong units is the thing.

So it's like, this is like, for instance, this is the super pong one that was issued.

This is that, this is an actual museum piece.

Oh, wow.

And that one's a little bit more, you know, it gets away from the

just the look is a little bit different.

It's got a little bit more brown, a little bit more wood paneling on it versus like the black and silver that dominates the main one.

But how fucking boring is this to listen to?

It's not boring.

This does suck, right?

No, no, this is this dog shit.

People, people wanted this to happen.

If you guys need me to do a segment,

like if you're if you're worried about being boring, I can spice it up.

Yeah,

we might be flailing here a little bit.

We'll see how this goes.

We'll check in with you if we need you.

All right.

I'm right here.

I appreciate you standing by.

I hang out until the end of the show.

Yeah, we're aware.

I suspect you're maybe bawling in the head gum bathroom.

No.

Okay.

I don't ball where I work.

Okay.

I don't want to get arrested.

I don't want to get kicked out.

Don't ball here.

Honestly, it's reassuring that you don't do that.

I'll ball in a street street drain, but I won't ball at work.

Street drain.

We got the ColecoVision up.

Is that what we're looking at?

That next one up is the Fairchild

Channel F.

Did we skip the Coleco Telstar?

The ColecoVision?

That's not till later, though, right?

Oh, that one comes later.

Okay.

I'm thinking of a separate thing.

The Coleco Telstar was a different unit.

Fairchild Channel F.

Boy.

It looks like a machine that you put dollar bills in to get coins.

It looks like

if your grandmother was a telemarketer, this would be on her desk.

Yeah.

It's got, it's a, it's a, I don't know, it's a wood paneled machine as often they were in this in the 70s.

It has five buttons on the front.

One is reset and then buttons one through four as labeled.

uh there is a cartridge slot it comes with two panel paddles that look like they distribute electroshock therapy.

Yeah, this looks like this would just be in the Fallout TV series.

Yeah.

Like this is like the, you know, this is, this is like what the future of computing was back in the 50s, you know?

This, this looks really, really dated.

It is kind of cool, though.

I think, here's what I think, Nick.

I like the boxiness of it.

I like that it's trapezoidal.

As we get into more familiar consoles, this will be less boring of a conversation.

Okay.

Because then it's.

I'm just not bored, to be honest.

I'm riveted.

I'm not bored.

Okay.

I'm not bored.

People wanted this.

They did?

I feel like we mentioned it one time and like, oh, we should do that.

And people were like, yeah, that sounds good.

I want to hear that.

All right, console aesthetics.

I give this a,

because it kind of looks like technology I saw in the East Germany

Stasi Museum.

I would give this a, or East Berlin.

I'm going to give this a D.

Yeah, I think this is a D tier for me.

Though I do wish these pictures were less

like showcase-y and more like what it looks like in a room.

Yeah, maybe as we're going here, Matt, if we want to also bring up some photos of just like it in society and how it was actually being used.

Should I type in fair child channel F in society?

Yeah, I think so.

I think it's the search term.

But yeah, my initial impression is it's not an F

because it is

It kind it kind of looks like

if you see it with normal light That's kind of a glossy sheen to it

No,

the controllers still are threatening Yeah, but the device itself now looks like an answering machine for an old 1990s telephone right it looks like you slot a cassette into the top and you hear hi.

This is the Fair Childs.

We can't come to the phone right now, so leave a message at the beep beep like that.

It looks like like a polygraph machine that you'd see in the rockford files

just like a very dated piece of technology who named it the channel f i i love the name the the the fair child channel f or sorry yeah fair child channel f i do like that the cartridges were yellow that's a high contrast cartridge what is that

what it is that you know what the f stands for right what does it stand for

fun of course

yeah the yellow cartridges actually do

bump us up a notch notch, especially because they really pop, and then they've got the one yellow button, which

works really nicely with it.

All right, I think this is a C tier.

I like the yellow.

I like that.

Oh, it's gone up to a C tier.

I can move this up a little bit.

Right, it's a C tier console.

There it is.

The Fairchild Channel S.

Atari 2600 is up next.

This is a console I'm familiar with.

My grandparents had one of these.

This was what video games were when I would go to visit them.

I have fondness for this machine.

I think it is like, you know, again, very dated looking.

This is the where these started using joysticks, uh, so a little bit more of a familiar control mechanism.

I do like the controller slot.

I like how it's angular.

It feels very Star Wars-y.

Uh, maybe more, maybe kind of vintage Battlestar Galactica.

Um, uh, it's another wood panel.

Another wood panel one piece of technology with uh black uh matte finish and a bunch of toggle switches across the top that evoke to me old synthesizer.

Yeah, yeah i forget what the fuck those what those were uh what those toggles all were for yeah i got a i got a nod i got a nod just then and yeah i felt pretty good about it damn it's making it up because there's an overlap between arp synthesizers they have the same names as the atari consoles oh wow at this time which is the arp is like they were it's like the the 2600 the 5200 the 7800 yeah that same sort of 600 and arp odyssey where they had like the patching the like the 70s synthesizer and they look the same kind of oh wow i was just looking it up because i did not notice that before Wow, how about that?

That I was, I was dead on.

That's the, that's the best nod I've ever received in my life.

Okay, pretty good to be validated.

I felt, I felt more validated

than any other time in my life.

I felt big, big feelings.

Um,

so uh, this feels,

this feels

very industrial.

It does not feel like a machine.

It feels like a machine that you would see in a,

I don't know, in like a business center.

It doesn't feel like

it doesn't, it's not like it doesn't, it's not playful.

It doesn't say, oh, you're going to have fun using this.

No.

It almost looks like a guitar foot pedal.

Like it's not, it's just not a,

it's, but it's also not ugly.

It's like this, this, this says like dad's VCR.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's like it's the dad watches his whole movies on this thing.

Yeah.

I

give this a C.

It's just a C

You can't.

I guess we're just, I mean, are we just going to cram this whole generation into C tier?

Is that was that word?

Because we got a B tier up there.

Oh, we B tier.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

We B tier.

Yeah, the Addison.

I almost just wonder if this is like...

Yeah, maybe it is just another fucking C tier.

What do you think, Matt?

It's not uglier than the Fair Child channel.

And I think if I was going to bump one of them down to D just to do it, I would probably move the fucking Pong machine.

I'm in favor of bumping down Pong, if I'm being honest.

Pong looked better on an actual table.

Yeah, we got to remember that.

We got to remember that.

I think they're all C-tier.

It's okay.

All right, that's fine.

It's fine at C.

How about the Intellivision?

Oh, the Intellivision.

Now, here's a home console that looks like two phones used on opposite sides of prison glass.

So this is a, yeah, it's got the telephone cords attached to the very cumbersome controller.

So, I knew someone who had an Intellivision.

The kid in my Boy Scout troop had it, and we played it at his parents' place, and it fucking sucked.

I remember it sucking.

I remember being like, because it's like you basically got just like a numpad, and that's what you're using for input.

It's a really, really inelegant way to play a game.

And then you've also got a paddle, like a thing that you can turn.

I will say,

on second glance,

with the cartridge with the, with the, with the screens slotted over that number pad, yeah that's a fucking iPod the way that yeah the way they're mounted it does look very iPod-y.

I got a question for you Nick.

Do you think it was worse for your friend that he had this or they had to entertain your ass?

I had to circle back.

Sorry.

So the

actual controllers for this

baffling system.

Yeah.

Look like little iPods.

They've got like a little screen where you slot in a card, I think, that like lays over the number pad to let you choose what buttons to press based on any individual game.

And then at the bottom, it has a turnwheel.

Yeah, there would be little overlays that you would get.

Yes.

So that would just say, like, oh, this is, you're playing this baseball game.

This button is what you do to throw the ball or whatever.

That being said, despite its similarities, this, it also just looks like an Atari.

It's got the same

wooden panel angled base,

but

God, it looks, I mean, it, this, it's a depressing little piece of machine.

I really don't like this one for some reason.

It looks better if you, the way when they had the, in some of the, the pictures, they have the controllers mounted in it and they're kind of vertical.

The way they're positioned there, it looks a little bit better.

Some of these photos are a little bit more flattering, but yeah, I think this might be a D tier.

I think this is a diagnosis.

It's a fucking D.

This sucks.

It's an ugly, like, compared, look at it compared to even like the colorway of the Atari.

Yeah.

Like it, it looks like shit.

This one looks like it's dirty.

Yeah.

It does look pretty dingy.

It comes dirty.

All right.

Do we have the Vectrex up?

That's one I want to talk about.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Nick wants to talk about the Vectrex.

If you've listened to the show since day one, you know that this will be the...

30th time Nick has talked about the Vectrex.

Look, the Vectrex is cool.

That's a cool piece of hardware.

It had a vertically mounted monitor that was integrated into it.

And it was a, it used vector graphics.

So it was just, you know, basically all lines.

Like, if you know that the old,

I think asteroid is a point of reference for a lot of people for like, this was a game that kind of just used line work.

Some versions of Missile Command kind of look like that.

Do we have any other shots of this we can bring up, Matt?

The Vectrex.

Vectrex with a C.

The Vectrex was

was available to play at that video game museum I visited last year in the Netherlands.

Here, bring up one of these ones with a game on it.

Look at that.

Isn't that fucking cool looking?

And it does.

And I will say,

it looked fucking sick in person.

That's a cool looking piece of hardware.

Yeah.

It also comparatively looks futuristic.

It really does.

Compared to the other machines that were out at the time.

Yes.

And like those machines, it had like little,

or like the in television, it had like little screens that you would put over the monitor so that you could get like different visual

gradients like that would kind of set up the vector graphics that you were looking at.

So if you're playing a tank game, the bottom of the screen might be colored green to indicate the ground and the top of the screen would be colored brown or red to indicate the sky so that it would it wasn't just black and white graphics.

Yeah, and specifically an overlay for like you were saying for the monitor itself, not for the controller.

So like yeah, it changes the

aesthetics of it.

I think it's a really cool design.

I think you're right that it actually looks looks futuristic.

It's also sleek and black.

It doesn't have the wood paneling of some of these other ones.

And I think just like it's like having this tape monitor that's kind of built in,

this

9x16, I guess, that it's the reversed aspect ratio the way it is.

I think it's really cool looking.

The thing that I love about it is that I can't really separate its...

TVs from a certain time had a certain shape and this is just that but turned the other way.

Like they didn't really like shape it a particular way to make it look different.

Is Is it just actually is it just a three by four on it?

Like it's just a four by three on its side.

It might be.

Yeah.

I mean, it's but anyway, I like the vertical form factor.

I think it's, I think it's cool.

To me, this is an A tier or maybe even an S tier.

Yeah.

Fuck.

I think it looks great.

You don't think this thing is cool as shit?

It's very, it's eye-catching.

If I saw this in person, I would be the most curious about it of the things that I've seen.

Compare it to everything else we got on this tier list.

Let's bring the spreadsheet up.

Look at that.

Look at that versus all the rest of these.

Come on.

I think it looks as good as the Odyssey.

I don't think i think it could be the odyssey i would i would

i can make peace with it being in the same tier as the odyssey all right put it in the b tier it goes in the b tier okay then how about we move over to the coleco vision coleco vision i kind of hate this fucking thing this is one i know i think i i do like the color logo but the rest of it i think is just so aggressively ugly it's not different enough than the intellivision to me This this machine looks bad.

Yeah.

So this is all basically black and silver except for the black and gray rather, except for the ColecoVision logo itself, which is has a rainbow colorway.

Honestly, very much like an RGB, like a modern PC hardware sort of look to it.

Yeah, it, it looks, uh,

it, it looks hollow.

I don't know how to, it looks like a toy.

No, right.

It looks like it weighs like six ounces.

Yeah.

I don't like this machine.

I don't like those phone cords.

Yeah, it looks cheap.

I don't like this machine.

This, I think, is pretty insightful.

I think this is a D or maybe even a fucking F.

Are we going to do an F tier?

Is anything going to mean?

There is an F tier, but

is the ColecoVision an F?

No, maybe it's a D.

Let's cram it in D.

It looks like that other thing.

Yeah, it can keep the other one company.

The Intellivision.

ColecoVision and Intellivision.

You both are a D.

That's what we've decided here on.

Get played.

Isn't Gil in The Simpsons trying to sell a Coleco to somebody?

You can't go wrong with a Coleco.

Trust Gil, old buddy.

How about the Atari 5200?

I also don't like how this one looks.

I think it's just so basic.

It feels like it has no identity.

It looks like what you...

It looks like a modem.

Yeah, it doesn't really matter.

It doesn't really interest me.

It has sort of a router feel to it.

Yeah, it looks like something that allows you to do something else.

Right.

uh all black with a strip of silver in the middle kind of bisecting it uh can we see what this thing looks like with some games in it yeah

i never messed around with the atari 5200 it was just the 2600 i don't think a lot of people messed around with the atari 5200 i think it was a bit of a flop yeah

Or was it the 7800?

Did the 7800 come back?

One of those two machines caused the video game crash.

Yes, yeah.

I think it was the 5200.

Yeah, I don't.

even when you see,

even when you see the Atari 5200 in like an environment that's recognizable, it doesn't look like anything.

The box there for the Atari 5200, what we're looking at is a photo of the actual box that it came in with the hardware in front of it.

The box looks better than the console itself.

I'll just play with the box.

Thanks.

It looks like something that is mounted on the, on the,

above your oven to fan your oven.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

You know what?

Let's F tier this motherfucker.

Oh, there it is.

R.I.P., dog.

Hate to see it.

The Atari 5200 is our first console in the F-tier.

Atari 5200, let's see what the sales figures were here.

Atari 5200 was the 2600 was released.

in North America in 1977, sold 30 million units worldwide.

Fuck that.

The Atari 5200 was introduced in North America in 1982,

was not released overseas, and peaked at 1,400,000 units.

So comparatively a huge flop.

I think we've got a big boy up next.

We got a big boy.

We got the NES and the Famicom.

So are we going to evaluate these as one thing, or are we going to do the Famicom separately from the NES?

I think the big ones was

for the Nintendo console, the 8-bit console in Japan.

They got to be separate, I think, right?

Yeah, I think so.

I'm going to

shock myself

and say that I think that the NES is a better-looking machine than the Famicom.

Well, the Famicom has a lot of red.

It's very toy quality.

It has a toy quality to it.

And the NES looks like something that you would have as part of your, you know, your home entertainment center.

Now, here's the thing I will say.

Functionally, the NES was a piece of shit because of its slot-mounting cartridge

input.

That thing would collect dust, it would malfunction.

What people remember from the NES is having the NES is the NES didn't fucking work.

I was the Famicom was top-loading, and it and so was the Super Nintendo and the Super Famicom that followed, and they worked a lot better.

Here's the back and forth, the A and B of this.

Famicom games, the physical games, look better than NES games.

Yes, they are like little pieces of candy, and you want to put them in the machine and play.

I like that the Famicom has

brackets to hold the controllers.

That's nice because if you were part of a family in the 80s, I'm sure that the controllers were always flopping about.

Huge problem.

Yeah.

And this is a monitor vacuum over those things.

God damn it.

Place where the games go, right?

When the Famicom colorway is available, say for the Game Boy Micro, it is my preferred colorway.

Yes.

Because the red and the gold is fucking sleek as shit.

But the base unit of the Famicom

doesn't

it doesn't invite me.

It's a strange, like,

I want to call it

evil NASA.

Sure, yeah.

Like, it's a,

you know how R2D2, blue and white.

Yeah.

Great.

You love him.

You love to see him.

In RDR4, you kind of don't know what his fucking deal is, right?

He's red.

You don't really know where he's coming from.

He's maybe bad.

Fucker breaks down.

Yeah,

I think that's what we're dealing with here.

Was it the R5 unit?

I think that was the R5.

So, so yeah, it's.

Don't yell at me.

I'm going to go my droidroller.

I don't dislike red electronics.

I don't like the giant paddle in the middle of the machine.

I don't.

I don't like how many instructions are on the machine.

Click on some of these, Matt, that have the compare the side by side, because that's interesting.

Not the two generations.

Yeah, it is noticeably slimmer.

Yeah, it's too late.

So it's little.

And that is, you know, I've mentioned this before on the podcast.

My brother, one of his closest friends, lived on our block.

His parents were from Japan, and he had a Famicom.

And that was because some of my first exposure to home console games was playing a Japanese Famicom before I played an American NES.

So I do like the system, and I do have fondness for it, and I do like the way the the controllers look, although we're not evaluating that.

I like the presence of the red.

I like that it's not as bulky as the NES.

I kind of feel like though neither of these is like all that great to look at.

You just have nostalgia for

what they represented.

And I think the most appealing thing of any of this is the actual NES controller, which we're not talking about.

I think I would put this these, I feel like both of these are maybe just B tier, maybe C tier.

I don't know.

Are these exciting things to look at aesthetically?

Yeah, I mean, we talked about evaluating them separately, but I do think that they might end up in the same one, kind of.

I really like, here's what I do like about the NES: I love the black accent stripe across the top of the machine.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you look at that, if you look at the machine and you imagine that stripe missing, right?

And it's just a gray box on top of a smaller gray box,

it's a less dynamic

visual language to look at that that at the NES that black accent stripe gives it personality I don't know that it gives it enough for me to be excited about it but

I like I like that stripe well it also has function because like that is where you will you would plug in your controllers so it's like oh that's and and in the back I believe that's where you would plug in the you know the power and the RCA or whatever your output it was

so yeah I mean I and then the then the way that it's interrupted with a little bit of

gray riveting there.

I don't know.

Yeah, but I still think these are, but what, maybe B tiers?

Is that even too high?

Let me look at that Odyssey one more time.

It's an uglier machine than the Odyssey, both of them.

Yeah.

I think that's the fucking.

This is the thing.

The Pong is fucking it up.

The Pong looks like shit.

Get rid of the Pong.

Let's put the Pong down.

Let's put the Pong down a tier because it should not be sitting side by side with the NES and the Famicom.

Agreed.

Pong goes D.

All right, put Pong in D tier.

Pongo's D.

We're going to be, we're very anti-first-gen here, but you know what?

A lot of those first-gen consoles suck.

All right, now let's look at it.

Is it better looking than the Odyssey?

No.

No.

Is it better looking than the

Vectrex?

Vectrex?

I say no.

I really don't like the Vectrex, but I'm glad you do.

Well, we can put it in the same tier.

I do think it's better looking than the what?

Those two?

I agree.

The fuck the Atari I think it looks better than the Atari and I think it looks better than the what was the other one I don't even know the name of that fucking system the Intellivision the Intellivision I think no that's not an Intellivision wait no Intellivision is lower yeah those are the phones that's the Atari and then that one I don't even

the Fairchild F.

Oh Fairchild, that's right.

We've got to be writing down what our tiers are.

This is going to be a pretty useless exercise at the end of the day.

I'm taking care of it.

I got it.

But for the exercise, I don't have that in front of me.

I think it's...

Here's what I think.

I really think that that the Vectrex is not as beautiful a machine as the Odyssey.

I don't think it's a B tier thing.

I think that it is a C tier machine.

And I think the NES and the Famicom follow it into C tier.

And I think everything else moves down a tier.

Wait, so you want me, what do you want me to do?

I think we've done too much so far to modify all these tiers.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to put it in, put them in C because I think

they, I think there's, there's just room for improvement.

And I even think the next generation.

I think we could put them in, I think they are maybe B tier.

I don't think they're quite.

They don't look as good as the Odyssey.

Yeah, but it doesn't have to be at the exact same level to be, you know, within the same sort of,

this is a general designation.

That's right.

I'm not putting my fucking foot down.

We can put it in C tier if that's better for me.

Do whatever you want.

Put it in C tier.

Put it in C tier.

Put it in C tier.

Guys, stop arguing.

I put it in B.

Okay, great.

It's in B for now.

It's B.

We have 30 more of these to get through.

This is

30?

Worth a 70-minute mark.

I think

there may be a part two coming because I feel like we're not going to get through every single generation.

Yeah.

Sega Master System.

So this one is an awesome looking machine.

It's a cool looking machine.

Look, this just looks better than the...

So some of these.

So that's the one I remember.

The one we're looking at here.

The database master system.

The black and red one.

I'm not sure if that was the same thing that was released worldwide.

This looks like a revision of it, a hardware revision.

Yeah, that's the Mark III.

Yeah.

So, and the Master System 2 was another hardware revision, which I don't feel like is nearly as appealing.

Agreed.

I think we're looking at the original Sega Master System power base.

I think it looks, yeah, I guess we should have established some ground rules of console revisions because there's a lot of console revisions.

Yeah, and also, additionally to that, like

the Master System was really, it's the Mega Drive in Japan.

Yeah.

It's a different machine.

Yeah, do we have images of the Mega Drive?

Let me see.

The Famicom, or not just the Famicom, the NES actually had a revision that was top loading.

That's a really serious piece of money.

No, the Mega Drive is the Genesis.

I'm wrong.

You skipped ahead of generation.

I'm absolutely wrong.

Well, we'll look at that when we get to the next one.

What was the Master System called?

Was it the Mark III?

The Master System.

I feel like it was the Master System.

I'll look this up, Matt, while you're talking about it.

It was called the Mark III.

Yeah, Sega Mark III.

Okay.

I think it's cool looking.

The original Master System is definitely.

It's very, very cool.

I'm not certain i've seen one of these before if i'm being honest i might i had this is another situation i had a friend who had a master system this was my first console wow

um

i think based on what we have so far it's fucking it looks it it is better looking than the nes and the famica i think it belongs in b i could see i could see this thing in b okay so are we gonna talk while we're talking about sega because it's generation

you know the the way it was at are we gonna talk about the the sg1000 which was their first home console?

Because that's really cool looking.

That is really cool looking.

I think I had it on the original list with like 60 console.

But there's just too many things.

We can't do that.

There's too many console.

Got it.

And I do think, as far as console revisions go, maybe we don't do it for this one, but for some of the other ones that do have them, we do do it.

Like the Xbox 360s don't functionally look that different from each other, but the valley between it.

We're not going to get to them in this episode.

No,

we're not going to get to the fucking Xbox 360.

But you know what I mean?

Like the PS2 and the PS2 Slim are so different that I think you count those as

fine.

Or the PlayStation and the PS1.

The Master System is an A.

Master System, I really like.

I also will say the Mark III, so that this is

the way this was named.

The SG-1000 was Sega's home console.

They iterated on a couple of times.

The Mark III was the third version of it.

The Master System.

That's where that comes from.

The Master System looks like the video game system of the Empire.

Yes.

It fucking looks evil.

Yeah, the Mark III, are we evaluating together?

Because I think the Mark III also looks cool.

It's kind of like

a palette swapped version of it.

It's a little bit blockier, a little bit boxier.

Kind of looks like Marty McFly's a little hoverboard, doesn't it?

It also looks like another thing, like a bit of Emperor hardware, like Empire hardware.

Yeah, it's like an Imperial console.

This is R2D2, the Mark III, and then the master system is that fucking mean BB-8.

Oh, you mean the evil droid from Rogue One?

No, there's a mean BB-8 that like fights with BB-8 in

thinking Rise of Skywalker.

These look, he's a mean BB8.

Where did those who built those fucking

star destroyers?

Come on.

This was the infrastructure that existed for the Empire.

I think if this is a fleet of star destroyers, this is a far-flung star system.

Where did they come from?

It's going from.

And somehow Palpadine is back and he has fucking a hundred star destroyers out of nowhere.

Do we have to do more Ataris?

The 7800 is fucking tired.

It sucks.

Let's just.

Can I play?

Put it in F.

Yeah, put it in F.

Put it in the d.

Look at that thing.

It looks like.

I don't like the way that looks either.

Straight to F.

Can I play?

It's another answering machine.

Okay, what about the TurboGrafx 69?

I like the TurboGrafx 1690, particularly like the PC engine as well, which we should also look at.

There's a two-up with a PC engine.

Yeah, that's a cool-looking console.

It's a little toy-like.

I don't like the PC engine.

Here's what I like about it: I like that it used cards, I like that tiny little slot.

I think that was kind of a proto of where, you know,

like getting away from cartridges and getting towards smaller form factors and stuff.

I like the way either of these systems look.

I kind of like them, but I'm not going to fight for them.

I think,

to me, they're D's.

They're just, they don't do much.

They don't do much for me.

The turbo graphics is the shape of the top of a toilet.

I mean, like the water tank.

Look, that's the lid for the water tank of a toilet.

I think the TurboGrafx logo is good.

I agree the PC Engine one looks a little bit cheaper.

The logo itself does as well.

These look like, and, you know, no disrespect.

Yeah.

These look like complete shit.

No, they.

Jesus Christ.

They put them in fucking D tier.

They look like you wanted something else for Christmas and you got this.

Well, I think that was the case because that was like for a lot of time.

I think that was like the budget-friendly 16-bit console competing with the Ds or Ds.

But there were some good games in the Turbo Graphics.

Like, if you told me that the TurboGrafx was like

that Spain made a console,

I'd be like, oh, really?

It feels like vaguely European.

Yes.

Like,

in a way that I can't identify.

Yeah, maybe that's why I don't love it.

Oh, no.

So now we're at the genesis.

Bonk's Adventure, Legendary Axe.

There were some cool games.

Everybody's still talking about the long tail of Bonk.

We can't stop talking about Bonk was cool in 2024.

We're going Bonk crazy

fucking system.

That's a cool looking system.

This is the Sega Mega Drive.

Yeah, the Mega Drive.

And the Mega Drive looks very similar to the Genesis.

I think this can be evaluated together.

I mean, these are S-tier consoles.

These are some of the best-looking consoles.

Well, that's the

revision, yeah.

Okay.

The Mega Drive

clearly is it comes from the same

visual language as the original master system.

It has that black and red colorway.

The Mega Drive has a big 16-bit logo on the front of it to tell you that it is the most powerful machine on the market.

I think the Mega Drive looks better than the Genesis, but the Genesis also looks fucking great.

Can you pull up the Genesis?

Yeah, I agree.

The Mega Drive looks better.

Yeah, the first Genesis.

It's like a little bit blockier.

There it is.

Yeah, look at that bad boy.

But it's still very, very sleek.

And the Genesis logo is really appealing.

Yeah.

That's a great, I mean, you, you see that and you're like, especially if you've been an NES household, you see that and you're like, oh, video games are about to get serious.

We were, so we were in it.

We were an NES household.

We were a Nintendo household.

And my,

another friend from Boy Scouts had a Sega Genesis, and that's where I played a lot of it.

And it was just like.

I got my friend Lord Dumps over here.

This guy had a bunch of friends when he was a a bunch of friends with different consoles.

What do you want from me?

Anyway.

You're popular over here.

Well, they were in Boy Scouts with me.

They kind of had it with me.

Anyway, so

you were right earlier.

So anyway.

But it is, like, yes, you're right.

The fact that it's black and that it's like, it's so sleek.

It's so, you know,

it looks like.

Yeah, it looks like a grown-up piece of hardware as opposed to, you know, a lot of the other stuff looked very toy-like or just kind of chintzy i i think this is an s tier i love how the genesis looks an s

where would you put it

man i only think there's one s tier console

um

i'll be curious to hear what it is i'll tell you right now yeah playstation 2 i i don't even think playstation 2 looks as good as this I think the PlayStation 2 is the only S tier console.

I think well, we're not going to see eye to eye there.

I think...

So are we putting this in...

You're saying S tier?

I think S tier.

If people wanted an A tier, we could put it in A tier.

Whose favorite console is the Sega Genesis is saying that it's an A?

Put it, I mean, put it in S.

Let's put it in S.

Put it in S.

I think S tier this motherfucker.

Okay, so our first S.

The explanation is

the mask system looks better than the Genesis.

I disagree.

Okay.

Yeah, I like the round, I sort of like the big bubble

round part of it there.

That's the Genesis and Mega Driver coexisting there.

They're taking up both slots.

Yeah.

Just like the meshes are.

Exactly.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

So the lore apparently is when Darth Sidious was cloned.

Nick, we don't have time.

We're at.

When Sidious

had his cloning experiments, he also proceeded, I'm reading this from the Wikipedia, proceeded to modernize the ancient shipyards, making them highly automated.

So the construction of a fleet of Zeiston-class starter sharpshooters.

Is that how you say it?

Zeiston?

Was underway by the time of the Galactic Civil War.

So the idea is that these were an automated construction facility that somehow out of all the materials was able to function like i guess purely driven by ai doesn't make it in order to build a huge fleet of ships but now that i sat idle for six movies but now that i know that it's in a way anti-ai it's actually kind of good

uh and i just want to circle back to this real quick the evil bb8 is bb9e

oh yeah i remember this guy and he has a nickname bb hate yeah he's quite rude this guy um anyway who was in last jedi oh he was in the last Last Jedi.

Okay.

I mean, next one up, this is a big boy, too.

So I think the Famicom looks better than the Super Nintendo.

Agreed.

But I think that, and I also like that it's got four colors instead of two colors.

But I do think the Super Nintendo,

the Boxy Boy that it is, is really cool looking.

I think this is an A-tier.

I think this is the one that's just like, this look really holds up.

I got the Super Famicom.

Super Famicom looks so awesome.

Gorgeous.

I have a radical take.

I think the Famicom is A and then the Super Nintendo is B.

I agree.

I agree.

The Super Famicom is done.

Like, it's stunning.

Yeah, it's a great looking piece of hardware.

And I like that it's the only other machine in A tier

with the Sega Master system.

Yes.

Because I'm, again, retroactively retconning that the Vectrex is in that category.

Oh, it's a B.

No, the Vectrex B.

I agree with all this.

Yeah,

this makes sense.

This all sits in.

Okay.

So right now with the Genesis is the only S tier, the A tier, we have the Super Famicom and the Sega Masters.

That's right.

The Famicom is so good looking.

You don't think that's an S tier console if you're putting the Genesis up there?

We can S tier it.

I could have a fucking fucking Famicom.

That's so good.

The Super Famicom is so good.

S-tier the sum bitch.

Wow, it's in the S.

That's incredible.

Beautiful.

I love that.

It looks both like a toy and technology.

It looks like maybe even an Apple device.

Yeah.

It's fucking stunning.

It's very, very slick.

It looks very intuitive to use as well.

Very, very good.

Yeah.

Moving on to the 3DO.

Oh, no.

Looks awful.

I hate this thing.

This looks like you would put it in front of a door to keep it open.

Yeah, it really does.

It does have a doorstop quality to it.

It looks like the base of a piece of architecture.

Like that a column goes on top of it.

Right.

Just in the interest of moving on, I'm just going to go ahead and put that all the way down here in F.

I think that absolutely belongs with those

awful Ataris.

Fucking sucks.

Yeah, that's really awful.

Honestly.

That is mega nasty.

That is dodge.

Nope.

Nobody who made it got rich.

No, no.

The next one is the Atari Jaguars.

Hold on, hold on.

It's a D.

The Jaguar is an F.

Yeah, you're right.

This one sucks way more.

Jaguar also sucks.

Yeah.

I don't think we need to elevate the

L.

But the 3DO looks a lot better than those other curvatures.

I guess the curvature is a little bit more appealing.

You can't talk yourselves into thinking it's good.

It's fucking a D, it's D.

It's a D.

that's not to make it good i just want to say too

i do think so far on the show this is the most we've yelled

we're actually i we're not mad nobody's mad nobody's mad at each other but this is the most we've yelled on the show i was a little frustrated a couple times i think i you know what we all kind of got there the jaguar for those of you who haven't seen it before is a baffling piece of technology uh it looks like a toilet

because it like it has the same horseshoe shape as a toilet.

Like you could sit on it and poop onto the top.

Yeah, sure.

The controller, which we're not.

You could poop on any of these.

Fair point.

What?

You could poop on any of these.

It's true.

We're not even talking about controllers in this.

But it is.

The controller has way too much going on.

Everything.

You have the numpad in addition to the three buttons.

It's really clunky to hold.

The font is fucking horrible.

So ugly.

Atari Med made aggressively ugly hardware.

They somehow topped themselves with this one, which was their big comeback.

And it was like, they'd sat out like two generations.

They're like, we're back.

Jaguar.

Atari Jaguars, fucking 64-bit system.

Here we go.

We're going to blow everyone away.

And then it came back and there were like maybe one or two decent games and it looked like complete shit.

Fucking sucked.

That's awful.

All right, put in an F.

That's in the F.

How about the Sega Saturn?

Oh my God.

I love the Saturn.

It's so pretty.

Especially the original white Japanese Saturn.

Yeah, this is one where they're just completely different colorways

in different regions.

So

the Japanese one was, was that the original?

Was that a revision?

I think that's a revision, but I do believe that the original Saturn was white.

Yeah.

But

the Mark I, the North American one, and that's the one that I knew.

That's the one that I'd messed around with in the person.

Yeah, there's the Japanese.

So the Japanese one is...

Yes, that's right.

I remember this now.

This one was more of of a

gray sort of treatment to it.

This is also really cool looking.

I like the shape of it a lot.

I like the disc slot.

I love this machine.

I think it's really, really pretty.

I think the Japanese Saturn looks better than the American Saturn.

I think the Japanese Saturn is A tier.

Yeah.

And the American Saturn is B tier.

I can absolutely live with that.

All right.

Built on Exegal in ancient times, the Sith Citadel was one of the earliest bastions of the Sith.

Constructed on the surface of the planet, the citadel was both above ground and subterranean in design, with the former section being a large upside-down truncated pyramid-like structure built out of black stone.

Below the surface, there was a large hall with massive ancient statues carved in the likenesses of the ancient Sith lords.

So the idea is this was effectively what, like, was this an inhabited world at a certain point?

We're on PlayStation.

Okay.

Dude,

I know you said we're not going to get to all these.

Should we stop here?

Is this a good breakpoint?

Should we stop at the...

I think we we go to the N64?

Yes, we'll go to the end of this generation.

Yeah, what generation are we on?

Uh, this is five, whatever, what is this, four,

fifth, this is the fifth generation, yeah.

All right, we're on the fifth generation.

We will take it, we will have it do a part two, um, where we will

go through the modern time.

I'm really sorry, everyone.

We had a lot of

sucked.

No, it doesn't suck at all.

It's fucking bad.

They're gonna like that we're mad.

Um,

so the PlayStation 1.

If the PlayStation 2 is not the only S-tier console, this is an S-tier console.

Wow.

I love how the PlayStation 1 looks.

I think it's really cool looking.

I also like the PS1.

I mean, it's like, you know,

it's cool.

It's not on the same level.

I also don't even know if we need to include it.

We can just talk, we don't have to talk about our Rachel.

I think we just talked PlayStation.

Yeah, I think the Rachel PlayStation is great.

It's fucking gorgeous.

I like that it's got this boxiness, but with like that circle that's so prominent in the center.

It's immediately identifiable.

I think the PlayStation logo is great.

I think the placement of the Sony logo is great.

The buttons are, I remember being very, very functional.

Yeah,

and I like the way that it's like the

memory cards are mounted above the controller slots, like the way all that sort of like fits together.

I think it's just really an elegant piece of design.

I like how the reset button is not centered.

over the power button but instead is left justified or left justified and it's smaller yeah it's great uh for how plain it is it is iconic you know what i miss a fucking open button god Give me a physical open button to open my disc slot.

You mean not just like something that you have to search on the PlayStation 5 to find?

Where's this thing?

How do I eject a fucking disk slot?

And then we turn it off and it's almost the same fucking button.

I do wish.

I wish consoles had actual...

Well, I don't know what you call it.

Tactility.

Tactility and actual buttons that you press in.

Right.

It's the same problem with cars now.

I just got a fucking touch screen.

I was like, this sucks.

Give me something physical.

How do you manipulate?

The one day where I pushed.

Yeah, I love that.

I love the play.

my key my my push to start too far what are you supposed to how do you start your car if the button don't work oh that sucks what do you do god that sucks what do you do is that true i mean i think there's like a there must be there must be a hole somewhere that you could put a key in but does the

and i know that like the key fobs have hidden keys within them or something but like We did, it was a problem we didn't need to fix.

Nobody needed that.

My truck doesn't even have a power button.

How do you turn that fucking thing on?

PlayStation is

about that.

I hate that.

I hate that.

That's awful.

PlayStation is,

I mean,

let's S-Tier it.

It's great.

It is Tier.

It's one of the most important consoles ever made, and it looks fucking great.

It looks like a million dollars.

And it looks like...

It looks like it's from the same design language as the Famicom.

Very much so.

Super Famicom.

Yeah, very much so.

And that tracks because it was a partnership for a short amount of time.

Okay, so apparently Exegol once had a fertile environment

until the Sith established their presence there and laid waste to the planet, just as they did all with other NXT worlds.

So it was kind of like a Garden of Eden that the Sith went in and ruined.

Yeah.

We're at the N64.

Here's the thing.

I don't like how I like the N64 as a console.

I think it has some really cool games.

Obviously, this was the last gas for cartridge gaming.

I just, I physically,

it's that period where things just got like very curvy and bumpy.

That Y2K aesthetic.

Yeah, and I find it just kind of unpleasant.

I don't love how it looks as a piece of hardware, purely from an aesthetic standpoint.

I love that curvy console.

I think the Nintendo 64 logo is awesome.

I think the logo itself is good.

If we're talking logos, that's a different thing.

But the console.

I also hate the controller, but we're not talking about it.

We're not talking about the controller.

I don't like that the footpads in the front of the machine evoke the 3DO.

Yeah, that's a good point.

It's very 3DO.

I'm going to say that I do like

the ports for the controllers.

Yeah, that's fair.

And also, including four, was a master's choice.

And I love that.

Yeah, there's something about them that's cute.

They're really cute.

You know, the GameCube ones are pretty similar to it, too, right?

But

I like that.

I like that

that's part of it.

I can go ahead and see this in the C tier, if I'm being honest.

I can see it in the C tier.

Because think about what's in B.

Right?

Think about what's in B right.

I think C tier is the right place for this.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, I agree.

With no disrespect to

Nintendo 64.

The N64 is a C-tier aesthetic.

But we're not talking about the output, right?

Exactly.

We're talking about

an A-tier console, but it's a C-tier aesthetic.

Yeah, I agree.

I think that's fair.

Wow.

And I'm stunned that I agree.

And we're not talking about the modded ones that have the sort of like

early 2000s

Apple, you know, transparent look to them or whatever.

No, we're talking the original system as it came out.

Yes.

All right.

Well, I think that concludes part one

of the console aesthetic tier list.

How about a segment?

Yeah, let's do a segment.

Okay.

All right.

It's time for a segment.

It's our Would You Rather segment, Would You Blathers?

And I've prepared some Would You Rather scenarios, and I'm going to ask them of all of you.

Sam, feel free to chime in as well.

And we're just going to see what we think about these here.

Here we go.

Would you, Blathers, have the ability to turn into a morph ball or the ability to double jump?

Okay, so these are specific

not necessarily Samus specifics, but the morph ball is very issued.

It's very Samus, yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not familiar with this kind of ball.

Okay, I meant everybody, it's kind of like part of the show.

I didn't mean, I didn't mean

well, in all fairness, a Resident Evil Merchant is part of the show.

I forgot.

0.5.

Yeah, 0.5.

We give them 0.5.

I would rather double jump.

Double jump is really cool.

The thing about Morph Ball is I feel like they get you out of a pinch.

But I think just like the ability to double jump, like that's the thing that just like it makes no sense.

Like that would just, that's just a party trick.

Yeah.

People would be like, what the fuck would you need to do?

I guess neither of them make any physical sense.

Yeah.

But

I don't want to be a ball.

I don't want to be a ball either.

I want to double jump.

It feels like it would be very nauseating.

It kind of feels like it would hurt.

I mean, you're used to it, but like, I feel like it would hurt to be in that position.

I'm going to take double jump.

Okay, double jump.

I think double jump is good because, like.

Could you jump up on the top of a building with a double jump?

It depends on how low the building is.

Sure.

You could hop over a fence probably pretty easily.

Yeah, it's like, am I getting like a moon jump or am I getting just like two of my regular jumps, which is like not that,

two of my regular jumps is not that high at this age.

I mean, it's like a video.

It's not a video video game double jump.

It's a video game double jump.

It's like, you know, you get a little jump and then in the air,

you can jump.

It's like torrent.

Yeah,

torrents jump.

No, it's one of the dumbest things that exists in video games.

It makes zero sense, but it's so awesome when there's a double jump.

Let's say you don't look both ways before you cross the street.

You're about to get hit by a car.

You can double jump out of the way.

Oh, you could double jump over a car for sure.

Also, just if you're playing ball, throw down a nasty dunk.

Oh, man.

It'd be so good in basketball.

Double jumps should be allowed.

Well, because you'd be jumping and they'd be like, I don't want to block this shot.

And then you take a second jump.

You fucking throw it down in their face.

Actually, I'm not done jumping.

I'm a poster.

Sam, you got a.

Are you familiar with the morph ball from the Metroid games?

Well, it's the same thing that Samus would use in Smash Bros.

Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, of course.

I was going to say Smash Bros without double jump would be a mess.

That would be impossible.

So I'm going to go double jump for it.

Yeah, it's a key mechanic.

All right.

This one's unanimous.

Unanimous double jump.

Okay.

Would you, Blathers,

live in the world of Pokemon and not have any Pokemon yourself?

Or live in the world of Baldur's Gate 3, but not as a main adventurer.

But just be like a guy?

Just a guy and not even a guy that you can talk to.

No, fucking.

Like an NPC without any dialogue.

Yeah.

Nope.

I'll take Pokemon World without my own Pokemon.

I'll do the Pokemon because I think I could have a nice life there, whereas in Baldur's Gate 3, I'm just going to be like killed by a goblin.

Like, I'm just like, that's just fucking, that's a miserable existence for most people.

Yeah, and I guess they're...

Or it's cursed by a hag or something, you know?

Like infrastructure, too, within the world of Pokemon, like there's toilets.

It's a fairly modern society.

I mean, you have to worry about sort of Mewtwo

running around.

You don't get the sense that like the people who work at a Pokemart have their own Pokemon.

Yeah, they're just kind of working there, huh?

Yeah, you could just have a nice, you could just have a nice life there.

You could just have, you just have to have a job.

And you'd see cool shit all the time.

You'd see them.

And you're like, oh, wow, that's a Pidgey.

Yeah.

Versus like, I'm like shoveling shit out of a fucking hay bale and their mind flayer like takes over my brain.

If you hear about somebody fucking a bear, yeah, exactly.

That's horrible, sucks,

like, I don't even get to play it.

Oh, they're doing some cool shit.

I don't get to do that.

Yeah.

Guys got like a big axe.

I don't get one of those.

What are you thinking over there, Sam?

World of Pokemon where you don't get one, or in the mythical fantasy world, like in Baldur's Gate 3, but you don't get to have any fun.

I'll be a janitor in Pokemon World for sure.

Let's fucking go.

Okay, would you Blathers have have to play a crafting mini game every time you wanted to make food or smash walls or items around your house to find food?

Crafting mini game.

That actually feels more efficient than like actually cooking.

Yeah.

But it's like long and like kind of boring kind of.

Yeah, cooking is kind of fun is the thing.

I do enjoy cooking.

I'd love to cook.

But I don't want to smash my own stuff.

I know.

I don't want to smash my own house.

And this is the only way I get food?

That sucks.

I don't know how to move.

Not really like a balanced question.

Yeah, i think i got to do the i i the i guess if i could just find it in the world but i think i could do the mini game mini game

what if you're hungry and you're out and you can smash something and then you can get like a plate of spaghetti that's useful if you generalize it to like anywhere i can just kind of smash a wall open and yeah there's just a floor chicken well could you then get say an amazon package And you like get like a book delivered and then you close the box, smash the box and it becomes food?

Yeah,

of equal or lesser value has to break.

It can't just be a box.

What is equal or lesser value?

Wait, it has to be substantial.

It has to be, you have to, like, I don't know.

What is the value of a plate of spaghetti?

Also, like, am I super strong or do I have to like get a sledgehammer to like bust open some drywall?

You can just do it in the way that, like, so I can just punch it.

You can just punch it.

Okay, got it.

So I'm also super strong.

Sort of sidekick.

I need to take that one because then I'm super strong.

That feels like a nice side benefit there.

You're kind of just like regular.

So I'm regular regular except for this one use case where i can smash a wall to get food yeah you're okay then i then i was taking the mini game i'm taking a mini game mostly because i i'd starve from not understanding my own rules

what about you sam i'll take the smashing one you know why not try it out

try it out i think i'm gonna try to smash something too because like the food's done That's true.

The food's done.

You can go back.

There's no food.

Yeah, there's just stuff.

Just whatever you want.

It heals you.

Okay, would you blathers?

take down alien hordes like in Halo or zombie hordes like in Resident Evil?

I'm more scared of zombies than aliens, even though aliens are probably more of a threat, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, they're certainly one of them is real and one's not.

What?

Are they Nazi zombies?

A good question.

Are they Nazi zombies?

I mean, some of them very well might be.

It depends on where you are.

It's aliens or zombies.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

I think I'm getting

killed by the aliens is the thing.

Whereas I feel like I might be able to outmaneuver the zombies.

You might be able to befriend them.

Well, I don't know if I'm going to befriend the zombies.

Why would I get along with the zombies?

What does that mean?

I'm going to choose.

Like they'd like a guy like me.

They'd love you.

Is the whole world zombies and just me?

Or is it like.

It's like your job.

Is what?

It's your job?

No, because like it's like, it's Master Chief's job.

That's his job.

He's not doing that because he has to.

Right, but there are that.

Well, I guess if you are like Leon Kennedy, it kind of is your job.

Yeah, it's his job.

Okay, so

that seems worse.

I think I'd rather be Master Chief in that situation.

I guess I'll take the aliens.

I guess they'd have cooler weapons if it was, and I feel like I'd probably have a better base.

That needle gun?

Yeah,

versus like some sort of bombed-out husk where I'm like trying to like, you know, camp and forage for food.

Yeah.

I think I'm thinking the Halo too.

These scenarios are awful.

Yeah, they're both bad.

They are awful.

I'm much more scared of aliens.

Because they're real, right?

But I think that the moment, I think if aliens invade, the nuclear power plants don't necessarily go offline here, right?

But if

a zombie apocalypse happens,

then the nuclear power plants go offline and we're we're surrounded by Chernobyl's.

So in the idea that human society would try to keep functioning i'm gonna go with aliens even though i'm more likely to personally die

that sucks fucking sucks you have to pick one i'll i'll pick i'll pick it i picked aliens sam alien zombies energy sword with aliens

the sword is good that is cool okay uh would you blathers

Be able to skip dialogue in real life?

Yes.

Or get long unnecessary info dumps every time you are trying to wrap up a conversation like in Metal Gear.

Ah, skip.

Skip.

Wait, why?

Skip.

That's skip.

Would you rather have somebody like this?

I came up with this today.

I had a busy day.

It's way more annoying or like super efficient.

But it's good information that you might like.

Skip.

Who are you talking to anyway?

Just get the info.

Yeah, it's true.

I'll take the info dump.

That's funny.

Who are you talking to?

Like talking to my mom, mom, wishing her a happy birthday.

She's telling me about the secret Apollo project.

What about this?

Maybe this one is better.

Yeah.

Would you, Blathers, be a silent protagonist

or have to use a dialogue tree in real life?

I could live as a silent protagonist.

I have, like, even though I'm someone who

talks for a living, I am fine being silent for long stretches.

I I think I can make do with that.

I'm also really happy when I'm silent for a long, long time.

For sure.

But my job and my livelihood are dependent on me being able to speak.

So it's dialogue tree is the other option.

Yeah.

And

I already feel like I have a dialogue tree happening in my head every time.

Yeah, honestly, that's just how I converse.

So just navigating it.

So I'm going to take dialogue tree.

Okay.

I'll take silent protagonist because I think the key element there is silent protagonist.

So you're like the song.

I am.

I'm still like, things are happening to me.

Hey, that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Sam, what do you think?

Silent antagonist.

I think let's cut it there.

That's this week's Get Played.

Wow.

Hey, thanks to Sam Rogitch so much for our guest engineering.

Sam, you got any plugs?

Anything you want to direct people to?

My band Guck has a new record coming out in a few months.

Listen for that.

That's about it.

Hey, look for Guck's new album.

Hell yeah.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, of course.

Our producers are Charles Chen Ranch.

Yard underscore underscore sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played.

We're going to find our entire pre-head gum back catalog, plus ad-free main feed episodes, and our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated.

Matt, what's up this week?

We're starting our journey with Violet Evergarden.

Violet Evergarden.

It's a hard one for me to say sometimes.

I keep wanting to say violent, but that's not what it is.

It's Violet Evergarden, and it's a different type of show than we're used to watching.

And

we're just starting it, so tune in and follow along with us.

Yeah, it's a show that's available on Netflix, so you can watch it while we talk about it, and then you can think about it while we talk about it.

Patreon.com slash get played for all of that.

I think the listeners got played this week because it's a two-parter and we didn't intend it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

The listeners for sure got played.

What's good about it, though, is that it's reminiscent of an old episode that we did with the Mario power-up rankings that was three episodes.

That's true.

And people did like it.

We did stretch that into a three-parter.

So they got played.

And because we're doing this again, we also got played.

Yeah.

That was a head gun podcast.