Welcome to Overeducated and Underemployed. I'm
Fedden, and this is the last part of our three
-part series on nostalgia and how it's used in
different mediums. I started off talking about
music, reunion tours, and things like that specifically.
The last episode, you'll remember, we talked
a lot about the role of nostalgia in marketing
movies and the shift from focusing on actors
and actresses to intellectual properties. And
we ended up talking about Indiana Jones quite
a bit. And I ended the episode talking about
the game that just came out and how it was a
way to be able to make something in the same
spirit of an old movie without having to compensate
for the fact that actors have aged and settings
might be hard to come by. You spend the first
part of the game in Vatican City, which I've
been there. pretty accurately recreated from
what I can remember. That being said, there's
a lot of places that you go in the Vatican City
in the game that is not accessible to the public.
So I'm sure a lot of areas had to take a lot
of liberties. I don't know what kind of access
they had, but definitely feels like the Vatican.
So the mix of realism and fantasy in this game
is really interesting. There's a lot of... homages
to scenes from the original trilogy there's a
lot of things that are explained that didn't
necessarily get addressed in the original trilogy
i don't want to say plot holes but plot gaps
the reason i bring this game up is because it
i think it represents one of the best video if
not the best video games based on a movie franchise
ever made it used to be a joke back when I was
younger, that all games based on movies were
terrible. They were cash grabs for intellectual
property. Sound familiar? The thing is that as
gaming has gotten more popular, technology has
gotten better, and movie studios have gotten
a little bit smarter about using games as a medium
to tell stories rather than just make money off
of games based on movies, I think that we're
actually seeing... intellectual property being
used in the best way possible when it comes to
video games. And that's always been the case.
And I think there's pretty distinct reasons about
the medium for that. And I'll talk about that
in a second. But if you think about the history
of Nintendo, Nintendo has used the same intellectual
property through all of their mainstay games
for the last 40 years. And they've been very
successful at innovating each generation of game.
In fact, that's what they're known for, right?
They're known for their innovation in gaming.
And I think that leads to what I think is unique
about video games is there are so many variables
in the medium and there's so much innovation
still happening that having a kind of a staple
or an anchor like the intellectual property like
Mario or Zelda Link is what grounds them. We've
talked earlier about how constraint can be...
I'll talk in other episodes, whether it's been
in this series or with interviews, about how
constraint can actually be a blessing to creativity
sometimes. I think when developers use the same
intellectual property, completely new set of
rules that they can use to make the game, it
still grounds them in a way that makes both them...
able to make something comprehensive and cohesive,
and gives the player enough familiarity to where
they aren't completely lost right away. And even
when you're not talking about intellectual properties,
you're still talking about game types, and typically
the mechanics from one game to another within
one type of game are the same. Another example
of intellectual property being used successfully
and reinventing itself is the Civilization series.
Civilization was one of the earliest, Civ II
was one of the earliest multiplayer PC games,
but Civ I was, if I'm not mistaken, one of the
earliest strategy games that was really popular.
And if you've never played Civilization, think
of it as something like Risk, only far more complicated
because there's all the equations and rule sets
that can go on in the background. But think of
it as something, the mechanics of the basic gameplay
is something like Risk, where you take turns,
or even just like a complicated chess, where
the game board is a planet, or a map of a part
of a planet, however you want to describe it.
Those are all settings you can choose to, depending
on how large you want the map to be. But the
point I'm making is that the intellectual property
there is human history. And so they've been able
to do anything and everything with it now the
mechanics of the game remain essentially the
same in the sense that it's still a turn -based
strategy game but i think the big difference
is that there can be a lot more of variation
as the technology advances just like films have
reinvented themselves as CGI and things like
that. Disney's remaking all these movies of their
animated classics. They're calling them live
action versions of their movies, but they're
not. They're just really detailed computer animation.
And the concept isn't much different when it
comes to games. They're just taking the latest
technology and taking their game and applying
that technology to it. But I think the difference
is like the interactivity creates a lot more
variables just in the foundation of the medium.
But the other thing is the technology in gaming
has advanced a lot quicker in our lifetime than
the technology of film. And even if you look
at the earliest films and the latest films, I
think that it's pretty clear the difference between
the earliest films and the latest films is much
less than the difference between the earliest
video games and the latest video games. It took
40 years for games to even start to look realistic,
where as... It depended on what you were filming,
whether you needed special effects at all. Just
getting humanoid creatures to look realistic
without falling into the uncanny valley has been
one of the biggest challenges for gaming. If
you look at the difference between Pong and Indiana
Jones or Starfield, the difference is so much
more drastic than the difference between... the
1933 King Kong and Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Like, the difference is just astounding. For
one, I think films had their foundation in hundreds
of years of stage plays and sets and things like
that, whereas computers of all kinds were completely
new. Yes, they had their foundation in games,
but once again, the lack of constraint made it
so there were some really terrible games that
were made, especially early on in gaming. But
let's go back to Nintendo for a minute. I think
Nintendo is a really good case study for what
I'm talking about here, where an intellectual
property like Mario, who started as Jumpman in
Donkey Kong, by the way, and then had his own
game with Mario Brothers. And then it went from
there. They've used him in all kinds of different
games. And so he's the anchor. But the gameplay
between Mario Kart. and Mario RPG couldn't be
more different. The gameplay, even between some
of the Mario games themselves, the platformers,
like Super Mario Sunshine with the water pack,
it is a completely unique game in the Mario world.
But the thing that's the same is that there's
always unique power -ups in each game that give
Mario different powers to do different things.
And that's how new power -ups in a movie is a
lot less exciting than... new power -ups and
abilities when you get to perform them as the
character in the game. And the mechanics and
the controls. Nintendo has innovated controls
over the years as well, right? In fact, it's
like they do probably more than anything. They
don't really focus on graphics as much. They're
known for not really being a driving force in
technology when it comes to that, but they are
a driving force when it comes to innovation.
And the Wii is what brought gaming. to grandmas
because all they had to do was pick it up, swing
the tennis rack, or throw the bowling ball. That
type of motion control innovation is what has
contributed to the motion controls in virtual
reality being something that wasn't something
they had to build from the ground up. Gaming
has moved towards virtual reality. If you think
back to something like the Virtual Boy, which
is not... virtual reality and probably ruined
people's ideas of it for a very long time in
a similar way that phone vr may have been neat
for a minute but it ultimately was very gimmicky
made a lot of people sick and made a lot of people
just not want to mess with vr whereas now even
in 10 years or so the technology has gotten so
much better to where both like things like motion
controls are possible in vr and things like tracking
to where When you move your head, the environment,
it reacts just as if you're moving your head
in the real world. So that gets rid of a lot
of the motion sickness. The tracking has gotten
fast enough to where there's no delay in your
head movement. That's going to make you nauseous.
Just the technology catching up has made VR so
much better. And I think earlier attempts to
make it, the public would want to do long before
it was ready for public consumption. And it still
might not be really ready for public consumption
in some aspects. Just because the cost to get
something small enough to be something that people
are willing to wear on a long enough basis to
play games or whatever still might not be there
yet, right? But the point I'm making is there's
no nostalgia attached to VR gaming inherently.
Nobody looks back at their younger years and
is like, oh, I remember playing VR and how much
fun that was. No, it's actually the opposite.
If anybody has memories of VR from the past,
they're probably not very good ones. You're probably
not nostalgic for those things. So why do I bring
this up? Because I think nostalgia is one of
the things that VR excels at for a multitude
of reasons. One can, again, reimagine classic
games even without the intellectual property
attached. You can have games that are very similar
to classic games. But even porting classic games
like Resident Evil 4 got put into VR and that
was a GameCube game. And so that game was like
very nostalgic for me. And I remember hanging
out with my friends late at night and having
to turn the game off because we got too scared
at one point. And now getting to be in the game
is very nostalgic and also new. But the other
thing that VR can do successfully is recreate
things that don't. I went to Universal Studios
quite a bit when I was a kid. And if you have
been there in the last 10 years, 15 years, 20
years, I don't remember when it changed, but
you've probably seen the Simpsons ride. But that
ride used to be a Back to the Future ride. And
instead of being in the car that you get in in
the Simpsons ride, you would get in DeLorean
time machine and you'd go back in time. And if
we'd be trying to chase you down and you'd end
up getting eaten by a dinosaur. To be honest
with you, I don't even think they changed the
movements and the mechanics of the ride when
they rebranded it to The Simpsons because the
moment that Lisa sticks you in her mouth like
you're a pacifier is almost identical to the
moment that a T -Rex eats you and then eats you
back out in the original ride. So I really think
they just re -skinned the ride entirely with
new cars, essentially the same movements, new
videos. I digress. First of all, that ride, the
Simpsons ride, is probably pretty nostalgic for
a lot of people that grew up watching the Simpsons.
But I grew up going on the Back to the Future
ride. And somebody has got a hold of the videos
that were used to make the ride and really insert
them into a... They've recreated the entire Back
to the Future ride in VR. You can go ride it.
It's amazing. One of the places I would prefer...
stepped up comedy in virtual reality quite a
bit was a recreation of a place called the Brainwash
Cafe that was a real laundromat and coffee shop
that had comedy nights. And I believe San Francisco.
Yeah, it was in San Francisco. It's permanently
closed now. If you go look at the photos of this
place that are up online, they look a whole lot
like the virtual reality version of the place.
that I've performed several times. So the point
is that during COVID, that place closed. People
missed it. Worldbuilders, which are essentially
like a game designer, but they're building like
a room that's interactive usually, or a world.
It's not typically a whole game. It's usually
just an environment that might have some interactive
features. But they designed a recreation of the
Brainwash Cafe in VRChat, and they still hold
comedy in VRChat. what feels like exactly the
same place. So nostalgia can be a very powerful
tool. They've also, and I don't want to get into
this too much because I will be talking about
the therapeutic benefits of virtual reality and
other episodes. Used virtual reality to take
elderly people with Alzheimer's to their neighborhoods
that they grew up in and it triggers memories
for them and helps recover things that they had
forgotten. and put them in a place of remembering
again. And it can also make them very happy.
And you can actually access Google Earth. You
can go back into the time jump feature and go
back only a certain number of years. But as time
goes on, that library will grow and you can essentially
go back in time to your own neighborhood as it
is now or a few years ago. But think about the
ability to do that in the future. The technology
changes so fast and the interactivity creates
so many variables. Having something like the
same intellectual property can be comforting
and an anchor, or having the same location that
you once had can be comforting or be an anchor
or be something that is a self -imposed constraint
by the developers to make sure that they don't
go too far off the rails with the location. And
I think maybe if we continue to look at Nintendo,
the Wii U might be a good example of this, where
it felt like... If you look now at where Nintendo
ended up with the Switch and started with the
Wii, the Wii U looks like a prototype that was
like halfway between the two that didn't quite...
And they really probably should never have launched
it. I think they would probably agree with that.
It failed pretty well. So much so that they've
released several games that were originally on
Wii U only. On the Switch, just because not enough
people had a Wii U in order to play them in the
first place. The gameplay, it's always been more
about the gameplay, and they lost. The Switch
2 was recently announced, and if you look at
it, it feels, if you look at the Wii, and then
you look at something like the DS, and they clearly
tried to merge them as much as they could with
the Switch. I think the difference is, it took
a step backwards with the motion controls, the
Switch, from the Wii. And so I think the motion
controls for the Switch 2 look very promising
to where I think they might. There's a reason
we haven't seen a lot of Wii games remastered,
because the Switch is not precise enough to recreate
the motion controls, but I believe the Switch
2 will. So I think we're going to see, once again,
a whole generation of games get remade, maybe
essentially being the same game that they always
were, but truly for a new generation and truly
for... a new innovation of controls and because
it have the ability to have these games in 4k
they have remastered several of these old games
just because they don't remake the gameplay doesn't
mean that they i think about the remake of link
to the past zelda the gameplay was essentially
the same but they completely redid the graphics
and it was a much more pleasant experience and
i might be i'm trying to remember yeah it was
linked to the past they recreated for switch
and i'm thinking about the metroid prime i've
been playing the metroid prime remaster for switch
recently i really do like it without the motion
controls because i think they've done a good
job of making them translate well to the modern
controller because partially just because like
controllers have become more and more set up
for shooters in the way that metroid controls
like metroid is not a shooter in the traditional
sense but If you're playing it on a console without
motion controls and the first person view, your
movement and everything and shooting is, it's
a shooter, but it's a Metroid games of their
own thing. But I think what's really important
to remember about Metroid is that it has always
innovated its gameplay from being a side scroller
to being 3D to having motion controls. Now the
fourth one is going to have mouse controls. And
from what I'm hearing, the mouse controls on
the Switch are really quite good. One common
theme that's... happened throughout all three
of these episodes is that typically nostalgia
cannot carry something on its own. Something
can be nostalgic, but it still has to be good.
You know, it's going to fall pretty flat. People
are going to see through that, poke holes in
it pretty quick. And you find that a lot in gaming
with these classic gaming collections. Really,
some of these games are terrible by standards.
One thing that I think is true for games, less
true for movies and television. and almost non
-existent for music is their ability to age based
on technology. Don't get me wrong, music is always
innovating with technology as well, but I don't
think that techno music makes blues music sound
less appealing or less interesting. Maybe I'm
wrong about that to younger folks, but to me,
as someone who just loves music and all genres
of music, I don't sit there and listen to Robert
Johnson and be like, With a full drum kit or
with some distortion on the guitar or some horns
playing or like with a sick beat drop at the
end. Whatever it is that he didn't do because
of his constraints at the time isn't something
that's missed. Things that I've talked about
in some of these interviews is like the organic
version of a song is usually what people are
most after. I talk about that with J. Roddy Walston
and I talk about it with a few other people as
well. is like just getting to the essence of
a song sometimes is really great and you're not
hiding behind anything but sometimes having a
lot of interesting sounds and noises is really
cool too and i think there are a lot of classic
games that are good i think it's harder for movies
and television to age and i think it's even harder
for games to age than it is for movies and television
too and i think for the same reasons that We've
talked about in terms of relying on innovation
change to be the driving force in being the reason
to recreate something. And I think that's true
with music too, right? But I don't think that
someone covering the Beatles makes somebody less
likely to like that Beatles song or even the
original, even if they like to cover a lot, right?
Whereas it's really hard to take a step backwards
in gaming sometimes. some classic games are really
good and stand the test of time and that's why
like of the recreation of link to the past didn't
really need to change the game much but when
you look these big collections of classic games
that have just sometimes 50 100 games in them
and like percent of them are garbage it's like
why did you even put that on the cartridge why
not just give me like the 20 games that are here
that decent right that do stand the test of time
And Atari's found a way around that. And maybe
it's the historian in me and the museum curator
in me, but Atari has done these things. So Atari's
done these things called the, it's Atari 50,
and they think they put out the base game and
then they put out an expansion or two. But essentially
it is a digital archive and museum of the history
of the company with videos and interviews, the
original flyers for all the games in the arcade
and for the home system. And so... You're not
just blindly playing all these crappy games,
and some of them are still good, but even makes
the crappy ones enjoyable because you're playing
them with a bunch of context and you're understanding
how they contributed to the history of gaming.
You get the marketing materials so you can maybe
understand what the game was about back before
they were able to show you in the game everything.
You had to use a little bit more imagination,
suspend some disbelief, and I think the marketing
materials that... don't typically come with those
collections really help you put yourself in that
mindset. But also just like listening to the
developers talk about the games, even if you
only play the game for 10 or 15 minutes, there's
still a ton of games in this collection. So even
if you spend 10 or 15 minutes playing each game,
you're still going to get dozens of hours because
there's documentaries and interviews. Whereas
I think with the context that the Atari 50 collection
provides, You can really put yourself into the
context of the game from both the historical
context and, like I said, the suspension of disbelief
sometimes to where even if the game sucks, you
understand what was appealing about it at the
time, why, and especially when you do the Atari
50 thing in kind of chronological order. I think
it really helps, too, because each kind of generation
of games, you can see the technological advancements
in them. and then they also took a handful of
the classic games and remade them for the modern
era which kind of illustrates exactly what i'm
talking about now just with modern controls and
graphics didn't completely reinvent the wheel
on any of these games nostalgia being a big part
of gaming and working i think is demonstrated
really well and you can if you have any interest
in the history of games or really just the history
of technology and the Atari culture too. It was
a pretty interesting company. There's a lot of
really interesting stories. I highly recommend
that Atari 50 collection. Like I said, not all
the games are good, but even the bad games, when
you have the context there, I think it really
makes them a lot more forgiving and makes it
a lot more forgivable. So I highly recommend
that. I really, I've enjoyed just rambling about.
how nostalgia is used in both like creating and
marketing these three different types of mediums.
I'm sure this will come up again. If you've got
this far, thank you so much. I really appreciate
you tuning in to overeducated and underemployed.
Make sure to check out my website, fedin .net.
I've got updates about what's coming up on the
podcast. Got updates about where I'll be live.
And of course, there's always a place to donate
if you want to contribute. I do travel to conduct
some of these interviews. So if you want to help
me able to do that more, that'd be greatly appreciated.
I really appreciate you tuning in. I'm Fedden,
and this has been Overeducated and Underemployed.
And remember, if you want me to answer a question
on the podcast, go ahead and send it over to
FeddenXR at gmail .com. That's F -E -D -D -U
-N -X -R. at gmail .com.