WEBVTT 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome to Overeducated and Underemployed. I'm 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:05.660 Fedden, and this is the last part of our three 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:08.619 -part series on nostalgia and how it's used in 00:00:08.619 --> 00:00:11.279 different mediums. I started off talking about 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:15.160 music, reunion tours, and things like that specifically. 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:17.440 The last episode, you'll remember, we talked 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:20.940 a lot about the role of nostalgia in marketing 00:00:20.940 --> 00:00:25.059 movies and the shift from focusing on actors 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:29.359 and actresses to intellectual properties. And 00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:33.420 we ended up talking about Indiana Jones quite 00:00:33.420 --> 00:00:35.840 a bit. And I ended the episode talking about 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:38.299 the game that just came out and how it was a 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:41.960 way to be able to make something in the same 00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:47.899 spirit of an old movie without having to compensate 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:50.859 for the fact that actors have aged and settings 00:00:50.859 --> 00:00:53.079 might be hard to come by. You spend the first 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:56.399 part of the game in Vatican City, which I've 00:00:56.399 --> 00:01:00.109 been there. pretty accurately recreated from 00:01:00.109 --> 00:01:03.070 what I can remember. That being said, there's 00:01:03.070 --> 00:01:05.609 a lot of places that you go in the Vatican City 00:01:05.609 --> 00:01:07.989 in the game that is not accessible to the public. 00:01:08.069 --> 00:01:10.409 So I'm sure a lot of areas had to take a lot 00:01:10.409 --> 00:01:13.950 of liberties. I don't know what kind of access 00:01:13.950 --> 00:01:18.530 they had, but definitely feels like the Vatican. 00:01:18.890 --> 00:01:21.290 So the mix of realism and fantasy in this game 00:01:21.290 --> 00:01:24.790 is really interesting. There's a lot of... homages 00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:27.349 to scenes from the original trilogy there's a 00:01:27.349 --> 00:01:29.790 lot of things that are explained that didn't 00:01:29.790 --> 00:01:32.450 necessarily get addressed in the original trilogy 00:01:32.450 --> 00:01:35.269 i don't want to say plot holes but plot gaps 00:01:35.269 --> 00:01:38.709 the reason i bring this game up is because it 00:01:38.709 --> 00:01:42.489 i think it represents one of the best video if 00:01:42.489 --> 00:01:46.689 not the best video games based on a movie franchise 00:01:46.689 --> 00:01:50.659 ever made it used to be a joke back when I was 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:53.040 younger, that all games based on movies were 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.060 terrible. They were cash grabs for intellectual 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:58.879 property. Sound familiar? The thing is that as 00:01:58.879 --> 00:02:01.799 gaming has gotten more popular, technology has 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:05.079 gotten better, and movie studios have gotten 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:08.560 a little bit smarter about using games as a medium 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:12.780 to tell stories rather than just make money off 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:15.659 of games based on movies, I think that we're 00:02:15.659 --> 00:02:18.659 actually seeing... intellectual property being 00:02:18.659 --> 00:02:22.780 used in the best way possible when it comes to 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:24.879 video games. And that's always been the case. 00:02:25.139 --> 00:02:27.680 And I think there's pretty distinct reasons about 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:29.300 the medium for that. And I'll talk about that 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.379 in a second. But if you think about the history 00:02:31.379 --> 00:02:34.599 of Nintendo, Nintendo has used the same intellectual 00:02:34.599 --> 00:02:38.120 property through all of their mainstay games 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:41.240 for the last 40 years. And they've been very 00:02:41.240 --> 00:02:44.680 successful at innovating each generation of game. 00:02:45.210 --> 00:02:47.050 In fact, that's what they're known for, right? 00:02:47.110 --> 00:02:49.330 They're known for their innovation in gaming. 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:52.349 And I think that leads to what I think is unique 00:02:52.349 --> 00:02:55.469 about video games is there are so many variables 00:02:55.469 --> 00:02:57.590 in the medium and there's so much innovation 00:02:57.590 --> 00:03:02.689 still happening that having a kind of a staple 00:03:02.689 --> 00:03:06.330 or an anchor like the intellectual property like 00:03:06.330 --> 00:03:12.629 Mario or Zelda Link is what grounds them. We've 00:03:12.629 --> 00:03:15.349 talked earlier about how constraint can be... 00:03:15.349 --> 00:03:19.330 I'll talk in other episodes, whether it's been 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:21.729 in this series or with interviews, about how 00:03:21.729 --> 00:03:25.629 constraint can actually be a blessing to creativity 00:03:25.629 --> 00:03:30.469 sometimes. I think when developers use the same 00:03:30.469 --> 00:03:33.889 intellectual property, completely new set of 00:03:33.889 --> 00:03:36.990 rules that they can use to make the game, it 00:03:36.990 --> 00:03:41.569 still grounds them in a way that makes both them... 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:44.539 able to make something comprehensive and cohesive, 00:03:44.939 --> 00:03:48.479 and gives the player enough familiarity to where 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:51.979 they aren't completely lost right away. And even 00:03:51.979 --> 00:03:55.560 when you're not talking about intellectual properties, 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:00.400 you're still talking about game types, and typically 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:04.479 the mechanics from one game to another within 00:04:04.479 --> 00:04:08.379 one type of game are the same. Another example 00:04:08.379 --> 00:04:12.000 of intellectual property being used successfully 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:16.279 and reinventing itself is the Civilization series. 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:20.180 Civilization was one of the earliest, Civ II 00:04:20.180 --> 00:04:23.000 was one of the earliest multiplayer PC games, 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:25.839 but Civ I was, if I'm not mistaken, one of the 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:29.740 earliest strategy games that was really popular. 00:04:30.019 --> 00:04:32.660 And if you've never played Civilization, think 00:04:32.660 --> 00:04:36.139 of it as something like Risk, only far more complicated 00:04:36.139 --> 00:04:38.959 because there's all the equations and rule sets 00:04:38.959 --> 00:04:42.189 that can go on in the background. But think of 00:04:42.189 --> 00:04:44.829 it as something, the mechanics of the basic gameplay 00:04:44.829 --> 00:04:46.790 is something like Risk, where you take turns, 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:49.970 or even just like a complicated chess, where 00:04:49.970 --> 00:04:55.449 the game board is a planet, or a map of a part 00:04:55.449 --> 00:04:57.629 of a planet, however you want to describe it. 00:04:57.730 --> 00:05:00.410 Those are all settings you can choose to, depending 00:05:00.410 --> 00:05:02.870 on how large you want the map to be. But the 00:05:02.870 --> 00:05:05.970 point I'm making is that the intellectual property 00:05:05.970 --> 00:05:09.750 there is human history. And so they've been able 00:05:09.750 --> 00:05:12.959 to do anything and everything with it now the 00:05:12.959 --> 00:05:15.899 mechanics of the game remain essentially the 00:05:15.899 --> 00:05:18.379 same in the sense that it's still a turn -based 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:21.879 strategy game but i think the big difference 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:28.959 is that there can be a lot more of variation 00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:32.680 as the technology advances just like films have 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:37.639 reinvented themselves as CGI and things like 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:41.180 that. Disney's remaking all these movies of their 00:05:41.180 --> 00:05:42.920 animated classics. They're calling them live 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:44.839 action versions of their movies, but they're 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.740 not. They're just really detailed computer animation. 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:50.939 And the concept isn't much different when it 00:05:50.939 --> 00:05:53.339 comes to games. They're just taking the latest 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:56.379 technology and taking their game and applying 00:05:56.379 --> 00:05:59.060 that technology to it. But I think the difference 00:05:59.060 --> 00:06:01.759 is like the interactivity creates a lot more 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.139 variables just in the foundation of the medium. 00:06:04.949 --> 00:06:09.089 But the other thing is the technology in gaming 00:06:09.089 --> 00:06:12.329 has advanced a lot quicker in our lifetime than 00:06:12.329 --> 00:06:15.029 the technology of film. And even if you look 00:06:15.029 --> 00:06:18.009 at the earliest films and the latest films, I 00:06:18.009 --> 00:06:20.870 think that it's pretty clear the difference between 00:06:20.870 --> 00:06:22.610 the earliest films and the latest films is much 00:06:22.610 --> 00:06:25.009 less than the difference between the earliest 00:06:25.009 --> 00:06:27.529 video games and the latest video games. It took 00:06:27.529 --> 00:06:31.970 40 years for games to even start to look realistic, 00:06:32.050 --> 00:06:35.990 where as... It depended on what you were filming, 00:06:36.209 --> 00:06:39.470 whether you needed special effects at all. Just 00:06:39.470 --> 00:06:43.290 getting humanoid creatures to look realistic 00:06:43.290 --> 00:06:47.930 without falling into the uncanny valley has been 00:06:47.930 --> 00:06:50.069 one of the biggest challenges for gaming. If 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:54.269 you look at the difference between Pong and Indiana 00:06:54.269 --> 00:06:58.910 Jones or Starfield, the difference is so much 00:06:58.910 --> 00:07:02.550 more drastic than the difference between... the 00:07:02.550 --> 00:07:05.490 1933 King Kong and Peter Jackson's King Kong. 00:07:05.649 --> 00:07:08.910 Like, the difference is just astounding. For 00:07:08.910 --> 00:07:12.170 one, I think films had their foundation in hundreds 00:07:12.170 --> 00:07:14.949 of years of stage plays and sets and things like 00:07:14.949 --> 00:07:18.529 that, whereas computers of all kinds were completely 00:07:18.529 --> 00:07:21.769 new. Yes, they had their foundation in games, 00:07:21.930 --> 00:07:26.709 but once again, the lack of constraint made it 00:07:26.709 --> 00:07:29.870 so there were some really terrible games that 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:32.459 were made, especially early on in gaming. But 00:07:32.459 --> 00:07:35.019 let's go back to Nintendo for a minute. I think 00:07:35.019 --> 00:07:37.139 Nintendo is a really good case study for what 00:07:37.139 --> 00:07:39.639 I'm talking about here, where an intellectual 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:43.959 property like Mario, who started as Jumpman in 00:07:43.959 --> 00:07:46.620 Donkey Kong, by the way, and then had his own 00:07:46.620 --> 00:07:49.040 game with Mario Brothers. And then it went from 00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:53.079 there. They've used him in all kinds of different 00:07:53.079 --> 00:07:57.420 games. And so he's the anchor. But the gameplay 00:07:57.420 --> 00:08:01.800 between Mario Kart. and Mario RPG couldn't be 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:04.339 more different. The gameplay, even between some 00:08:04.339 --> 00:08:07.860 of the Mario games themselves, the platformers, 00:08:07.899 --> 00:08:10.620 like Super Mario Sunshine with the water pack, 00:08:10.779 --> 00:08:14.819 it is a completely unique game in the Mario world. 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:17.860 But the thing that's the same is that there's 00:08:17.860 --> 00:08:20.300 always unique power -ups in each game that give 00:08:20.300 --> 00:08:22.720 Mario different powers to do different things. 00:08:23.319 --> 00:08:26.779 And that's how new power -ups in a movie is a 00:08:26.779 --> 00:08:30.269 lot less exciting than... new power -ups and 00:08:30.269 --> 00:08:33.070 abilities when you get to perform them as the 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:35.850 character in the game. And the mechanics and 00:08:35.850 --> 00:08:39.090 the controls. Nintendo has innovated controls 00:08:39.090 --> 00:08:41.509 over the years as well, right? In fact, it's 00:08:41.509 --> 00:08:44.110 like they do probably more than anything. They 00:08:44.110 --> 00:08:46.029 don't really focus on graphics as much. They're 00:08:46.029 --> 00:08:49.850 known for not really being a driving force in 00:08:49.850 --> 00:08:52.309 technology when it comes to that, but they are 00:08:52.309 --> 00:08:53.730 a driving force when it comes to innovation. 00:08:54.309 --> 00:08:59.309 And the Wii is what brought gaming. to grandmas 00:08:59.309 --> 00:09:02.769 because all they had to do was pick it up, swing 00:09:02.769 --> 00:09:05.850 the tennis rack, or throw the bowling ball. That 00:09:05.850 --> 00:09:08.350 type of motion control innovation is what has 00:09:08.350 --> 00:09:11.330 contributed to the motion controls in virtual 00:09:11.330 --> 00:09:14.750 reality being something that wasn't something 00:09:14.750 --> 00:09:16.750 they had to build from the ground up. Gaming 00:09:16.750 --> 00:09:20.169 has moved towards virtual reality. If you think 00:09:20.169 --> 00:09:23.090 back to something like the Virtual Boy, which 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:25.970 is not... virtual reality and probably ruined 00:09:25.970 --> 00:09:28.710 people's ideas of it for a very long time in 00:09:28.710 --> 00:09:32.070 a similar way that phone vr may have been neat 00:09:32.070 --> 00:09:34.769 for a minute but it ultimately was very gimmicky 00:09:34.769 --> 00:09:36.929 made a lot of people sick and made a lot of people 00:09:36.929 --> 00:09:40.389 just not want to mess with vr whereas now even 00:09:40.389 --> 00:09:44.289 in 10 years or so the technology has gotten so 00:09:44.289 --> 00:09:47.269 much better to where both like things like motion 00:09:47.269 --> 00:09:52.070 controls are possible in vr and things like tracking 00:09:52.070 --> 00:09:55.960 to where When you move your head, the environment, 00:09:56.159 --> 00:09:58.419 it reacts just as if you're moving your head 00:09:58.419 --> 00:10:00.779 in the real world. So that gets rid of a lot 00:10:00.779 --> 00:10:02.440 of the motion sickness. The tracking has gotten 00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:04.639 fast enough to where there's no delay in your 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.059 head movement. That's going to make you nauseous. 00:10:07.100 --> 00:10:10.080 Just the technology catching up has made VR so 00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.460 much better. And I think earlier attempts to 00:10:12.460 --> 00:10:15.340 make it, the public would want to do long before 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:17.580 it was ready for public consumption. And it still 00:10:17.580 --> 00:10:19.460 might not be really ready for public consumption 00:10:19.460 --> 00:10:23.240 in some aspects. Just because the cost to get 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:26.440 something small enough to be something that people 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:28.320 are willing to wear on a long enough basis to 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.620 play games or whatever still might not be there 00:10:31.620 --> 00:10:34.480 yet, right? But the point I'm making is there's 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:38.480 no nostalgia attached to VR gaming inherently. 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:41.500 Nobody looks back at their younger years and 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:43.779 is like, oh, I remember playing VR and how much 00:10:43.779 --> 00:10:47.159 fun that was. No, it's actually the opposite. 00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:50.909 If anybody has memories of VR from the past, 00:10:50.990 --> 00:10:52.870 they're probably not very good ones. You're probably 00:10:52.870 --> 00:10:56.049 not nostalgic for those things. So why do I bring 00:10:56.049 --> 00:11:00.269 this up? Because I think nostalgia is one of 00:11:00.269 --> 00:11:03.789 the things that VR excels at for a multitude 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:07.690 of reasons. One can, again, reimagine classic 00:11:07.690 --> 00:11:10.509 games even without the intellectual property 00:11:10.509 --> 00:11:14.029 attached. You can have games that are very similar 00:11:14.029 --> 00:11:18.100 to classic games. But even porting classic games 00:11:18.100 --> 00:11:22.600 like Resident Evil 4 got put into VR and that 00:11:22.600 --> 00:11:25.279 was a GameCube game. And so that game was like 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:27.860 very nostalgic for me. And I remember hanging 00:11:27.860 --> 00:11:29.840 out with my friends late at night and having 00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:31.740 to turn the game off because we got too scared 00:11:31.740 --> 00:11:34.759 at one point. And now getting to be in the game 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:38.980 is very nostalgic and also new. But the other 00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:41.740 thing that VR can do successfully is recreate 00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:47.000 things that don't. I went to Universal Studios 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.120 quite a bit when I was a kid. And if you have 00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:54.779 been there in the last 10 years, 15 years, 20 00:11:54.779 --> 00:11:56.659 years, I don't remember when it changed, but 00:11:56.659 --> 00:11:59.039 you've probably seen the Simpsons ride. But that 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:02.179 ride used to be a Back to the Future ride. And 00:12:02.179 --> 00:12:04.399 instead of being in the car that you get in in 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:06.279 the Simpsons ride, you would get in DeLorean 00:12:06.279 --> 00:12:09.860 time machine and you'd go back in time. And if 00:12:09.860 --> 00:12:12.399 we'd be trying to chase you down and you'd end 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:14.919 up getting eaten by a dinosaur. To be honest 00:12:14.919 --> 00:12:16.799 with you, I don't even think they changed the 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:18.879 movements and the mechanics of the ride when 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:21.679 they rebranded it to The Simpsons because the 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:23.980 moment that Lisa sticks you in her mouth like 00:12:23.980 --> 00:12:27.379 you're a pacifier is almost identical to the 00:12:27.379 --> 00:12:30.940 moment that a T -Rex eats you and then eats you 00:12:30.940 --> 00:12:35.200 back out in the original ride. So I really think 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.480 they just re -skinned the ride entirely with 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:41.600 new cars, essentially the same movements, new 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:45.879 videos. I digress. First of all, that ride, the 00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:47.840 Simpsons ride, is probably pretty nostalgic for 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:49.580 a lot of people that grew up watching the Simpsons. 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:53.740 But I grew up going on the Back to the Future 00:12:53.740 --> 00:12:57.019 ride. And somebody has got a hold of the videos 00:12:57.019 --> 00:13:01.500 that were used to make the ride and really insert 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:04.860 them into a... They've recreated the entire Back 00:13:04.860 --> 00:13:07.059 to the Future ride in VR. You can go ride it. 00:13:07.460 --> 00:13:11.679 It's amazing. One of the places I would prefer... 00:13:11.820 --> 00:13:14.840 stepped up comedy in virtual reality quite a 00:13:14.840 --> 00:13:18.820 bit was a recreation of a place called the Brainwash 00:13:18.820 --> 00:13:22.740 Cafe that was a real laundromat and coffee shop 00:13:22.740 --> 00:13:27.600 that had comedy nights. And I believe San Francisco. 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:31.139 Yeah, it was in San Francisco. It's permanently 00:13:31.139 --> 00:13:34.559 closed now. If you go look at the photos of this 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:38.179 place that are up online, they look a whole lot 00:13:38.179 --> 00:13:41.080 like the virtual reality version of the place. 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:46.500 that I've performed several times. So the point 00:13:46.500 --> 00:13:49.700 is that during COVID, that place closed. People 00:13:49.700 --> 00:13:52.559 missed it. Worldbuilders, which are essentially 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:54.840 like a game designer, but they're building like 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:57.480 a room that's interactive usually, or a world. 00:13:57.639 --> 00:13:59.720 It's not typically a whole game. It's usually 00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:01.820 just an environment that might have some interactive 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:05.899 features. But they designed a recreation of the 00:14:05.899 --> 00:14:09.879 Brainwash Cafe in VRChat, and they still hold 00:14:09.879 --> 00:14:13.179 comedy in VRChat. what feels like exactly the 00:14:13.179 --> 00:14:17.059 same place. So nostalgia can be a very powerful 00:14:17.059 --> 00:14:20.039 tool. They've also, and I don't want to get into 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:22.279 this too much because I will be talking about 00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:25.240 the therapeutic benefits of virtual reality and 00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:28.019 other episodes. Used virtual reality to take 00:14:28.019 --> 00:14:31.600 elderly people with Alzheimer's to their neighborhoods 00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:34.019 that they grew up in and it triggers memories 00:14:34.019 --> 00:14:36.720 for them and helps recover things that they had 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:39.360 forgotten. and put them in a place of remembering 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:41.980 again. And it can also make them very happy. 00:14:42.379 --> 00:14:45.259 And you can actually access Google Earth. You 00:14:45.259 --> 00:14:48.000 can go back into the time jump feature and go 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:50.240 back only a certain number of years. But as time 00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:52.879 goes on, that library will grow and you can essentially 00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:55.320 go back in time to your own neighborhood as it 00:14:55.320 --> 00:14:59.159 is now or a few years ago. But think about the 00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:02.240 ability to do that in the future. The technology 00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:05.820 changes so fast and the interactivity creates 00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:08.470 so many variables. Having something like the 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.029 same intellectual property can be comforting 00:15:11.029 --> 00:15:15.149 and an anchor, or having the same location that 00:15:15.149 --> 00:15:17.990 you once had can be comforting or be an anchor 00:15:17.990 --> 00:15:22.090 or be something that is a self -imposed constraint 00:15:22.090 --> 00:15:25.809 by the developers to make sure that they don't 00:15:25.809 --> 00:15:28.389 go too far off the rails with the location. And 00:15:28.389 --> 00:15:30.509 I think maybe if we continue to look at Nintendo, 00:15:30.669 --> 00:15:33.450 the Wii U might be a good example of this, where 00:15:33.450 --> 00:15:38.460 it felt like... If you look now at where Nintendo 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:41.559 ended up with the Switch and started with the 00:15:41.559 --> 00:15:45.259 Wii, the Wii U looks like a prototype that was 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:48.379 like halfway between the two that didn't quite... 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:50.620 And they really probably should never have launched 00:15:50.620 --> 00:15:52.279 it. I think they would probably agree with that. 00:15:52.379 --> 00:15:55.480 It failed pretty well. So much so that they've 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.759 released several games that were originally on 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:03.370 Wii U only. On the Switch, just because not enough 00:16:03.370 --> 00:16:05.950 people had a Wii U in order to play them in the 00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:08.490 first place. The gameplay, it's always been more 00:16:08.490 --> 00:16:11.190 about the gameplay, and they lost. The Switch 00:16:11.190 --> 00:16:13.210 2 was recently announced, and if you look at 00:16:13.210 --> 00:16:15.409 it, it feels, if you look at the Wii, and then 00:16:15.409 --> 00:16:18.309 you look at something like the DS, and they clearly 00:16:18.309 --> 00:16:20.509 tried to merge them as much as they could with 00:16:20.509 --> 00:16:23.789 the Switch. I think the difference is, it took 00:16:23.789 --> 00:16:26.269 a step backwards with the motion controls, the 00:16:26.269 --> 00:16:29.879 Switch, from the Wii. And so I think the motion 00:16:29.879 --> 00:16:32.059 controls for the Switch 2 look very promising 00:16:32.059 --> 00:16:34.340 to where I think they might. There's a reason 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:36.740 we haven't seen a lot of Wii games remastered, 00:16:36.740 --> 00:16:39.639 because the Switch is not precise enough to recreate 00:16:39.639 --> 00:16:41.279 the motion controls, but I believe the Switch 00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:44.620 2 will. So I think we're going to see, once again, 00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:48.840 a whole generation of games get remade, maybe 00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:52.799 essentially being the same game that they always 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:56.320 were, but truly for a new generation and truly 00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:59.649 for... a new innovation of controls and because 00:16:59.649 --> 00:17:04.849 it have the ability to have these games in 4k 00:17:04.849 --> 00:17:07.849 they have remastered several of these old games 00:17:07.849 --> 00:17:10.089 just because they don't remake the gameplay doesn't 00:17:10.089 --> 00:17:13.190 mean that they i think about the remake of link 00:17:13.190 --> 00:17:15.410 to the past zelda the gameplay was essentially 00:17:15.410 --> 00:17:18.869 the same but they completely redid the graphics 00:17:18.869 --> 00:17:22.509 and it was a much more pleasant experience and 00:17:22.509 --> 00:17:24.170 i might be i'm trying to remember yeah it was 00:17:24.170 --> 00:17:26.190 linked to the past they recreated for switch 00:17:26.190 --> 00:17:28.190 and i'm thinking about the metroid prime i've 00:17:28.190 --> 00:17:30.930 been playing the metroid prime remaster for switch 00:17:30.930 --> 00:17:34.910 recently i really do like it without the motion 00:17:34.910 --> 00:17:36.509 controls because i think they've done a good 00:17:36.509 --> 00:17:38.630 job of making them translate well to the modern 00:17:38.630 --> 00:17:41.430 controller because partially just because like 00:17:41.430 --> 00:17:44.549 controllers have become more and more set up 00:17:44.549 --> 00:17:47.890 for shooters in the way that metroid controls 00:17:47.890 --> 00:17:50.470 like metroid is not a shooter in the traditional 00:17:50.470 --> 00:17:53.140 sense but If you're playing it on a console without 00:17:53.140 --> 00:17:55.940 motion controls and the first person view, your 00:17:55.940 --> 00:17:58.920 movement and everything and shooting is, it's 00:17:58.920 --> 00:18:01.000 a shooter, but it's a Metroid games of their 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.940 own thing. But I think what's really important 00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:05.539 to remember about Metroid is that it has always 00:18:05.539 --> 00:18:08.240 innovated its gameplay from being a side scroller 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.380 to being 3D to having motion controls. Now the 00:18:11.380 --> 00:18:14.380 fourth one is going to have mouse controls. And 00:18:14.380 --> 00:18:17.019 from what I'm hearing, the mouse controls on 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:19.440 the Switch are really quite good. One common 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:21.529 theme that's... happened throughout all three 00:18:21.529 --> 00:18:24.289 of these episodes is that typically nostalgia 00:18:24.289 --> 00:18:27.089 cannot carry something on its own. Something 00:18:27.089 --> 00:18:29.829 can be nostalgic, but it still has to be good. 00:18:29.950 --> 00:18:31.589 You know, it's going to fall pretty flat. People 00:18:31.589 --> 00:18:33.950 are going to see through that, poke holes in 00:18:33.950 --> 00:18:36.190 it pretty quick. And you find that a lot in gaming 00:18:36.190 --> 00:18:40.009 with these classic gaming collections. Really, 00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:43.309 some of these games are terrible by standards. 00:18:43.750 --> 00:18:46.509 One thing that I think is true for games, less 00:18:46.509 --> 00:18:49.319 true for movies and television. and almost non 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:53.079 -existent for music is their ability to age based 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:56.900 on technology. Don't get me wrong, music is always 00:18:56.900 --> 00:18:59.799 innovating with technology as well, but I don't 00:18:59.799 --> 00:19:04.000 think that techno music makes blues music sound 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.019 less appealing or less interesting. Maybe I'm 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:09.660 wrong about that to younger folks, but to me, 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:12.279 as someone who just loves music and all genres 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.720 of music, I don't sit there and listen to Robert 00:19:15.720 --> 00:19:21.230 Johnson and be like, With a full drum kit or 00:19:21.230 --> 00:19:26.170 with some distortion on the guitar or some horns 00:19:26.170 --> 00:19:29.569 playing or like with a sick beat drop at the 00:19:29.569 --> 00:19:32.410 end. Whatever it is that he didn't do because 00:19:32.410 --> 00:19:34.950 of his constraints at the time isn't something 00:19:34.950 --> 00:19:36.970 that's missed. Things that I've talked about 00:19:36.970 --> 00:19:39.009 in some of these interviews is like the organic 00:19:39.009 --> 00:19:42.609 version of a song is usually what people are 00:19:42.609 --> 00:19:44.849 most after. I talk about that with J. Roddy Walston 00:19:44.849 --> 00:19:47.569 and I talk about it with a few other people as 00:19:47.569 --> 00:19:50.579 well. is like just getting to the essence of 00:19:50.579 --> 00:19:54.259 a song sometimes is really great and you're not 00:19:54.259 --> 00:19:57.460 hiding behind anything but sometimes having a 00:19:57.460 --> 00:20:00.880 lot of interesting sounds and noises is really 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:03.599 cool too and i think there are a lot of classic 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:07.519 games that are good i think it's harder for movies 00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:10.420 and television to age and i think it's even harder 00:20:10.420 --> 00:20:13.079 for games to age than it is for movies and television 00:20:13.079 --> 00:20:17.339 too and i think for the same reasons that We've 00:20:17.339 --> 00:20:20.039 talked about in terms of relying on innovation 00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:24.359 change to be the driving force in being the reason 00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:27.460 to recreate something. And I think that's true 00:20:27.460 --> 00:20:29.799 with music too, right? But I don't think that 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:33.000 someone covering the Beatles makes somebody less 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:36.599 likely to like that Beatles song or even the 00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:38.960 original, even if they like to cover a lot, right? 00:20:39.380 --> 00:20:42.880 Whereas it's really hard to take a step backwards 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:46.980 in gaming sometimes. some classic games are really 00:20:46.980 --> 00:20:49.759 good and stand the test of time and that's why 00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:52.920 like of the recreation of link to the past didn't 00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:55.720 really need to change the game much but when 00:20:55.720 --> 00:20:58.619 you look these big collections of classic games 00:20:58.619 --> 00:21:01.779 that have just sometimes 50 100 games in them 00:21:01.779 --> 00:21:04.980 and like percent of them are garbage it's like 00:21:04.980 --> 00:21:06.960 why did you even put that on the cartridge why 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:09.740 not just give me like the 20 games that are here 00:21:09.740 --> 00:21:13.420 that decent right that do stand the test of time 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:16.740 And Atari's found a way around that. And maybe 00:21:16.740 --> 00:21:18.740 it's the historian in me and the museum curator 00:21:18.740 --> 00:21:22.740 in me, but Atari has done these things. So Atari's 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:25.279 done these things called the, it's Atari 50, 00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:27.079 and they think they put out the base game and 00:21:27.079 --> 00:21:29.779 then they put out an expansion or two. But essentially 00:21:29.779 --> 00:21:33.359 it is a digital archive and museum of the history 00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:36.039 of the company with videos and interviews, the 00:21:36.039 --> 00:21:38.599 original flyers for all the games in the arcade 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:42.619 and for the home system. And so... You're not 00:21:42.619 --> 00:21:45.000 just blindly playing all these crappy games, 00:21:45.099 --> 00:21:48.119 and some of them are still good, but even makes 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:51.059 the crappy ones enjoyable because you're playing 00:21:51.059 --> 00:21:53.519 them with a bunch of context and you're understanding 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:55.519 how they contributed to the history of gaming. 00:21:55.799 --> 00:21:58.559 You get the marketing materials so you can maybe 00:21:58.559 --> 00:22:02.519 understand what the game was about back before 00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.599 they were able to show you in the game everything. 00:22:05.099 --> 00:22:07.339 You had to use a little bit more imagination, 00:22:07.579 --> 00:22:09.660 suspend some disbelief, and I think the marketing 00:22:09.660 --> 00:22:12.839 materials that... don't typically come with those 00:22:12.839 --> 00:22:17.460 collections really help you put yourself in that 00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:20.180 mindset. But also just like listening to the 00:22:20.180 --> 00:22:22.200 developers talk about the games, even if you 00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:24.940 only play the game for 10 or 15 minutes, there's 00:22:24.940 --> 00:22:27.900 still a ton of games in this collection. So even 00:22:27.900 --> 00:22:30.119 if you spend 10 or 15 minutes playing each game, 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:33.160 you're still going to get dozens of hours because 00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:35.539 there's documentaries and interviews. Whereas 00:22:35.539 --> 00:22:39.160 I think with the context that the Atari 50 collection 00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:42.599 provides, You can really put yourself into the 00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:45.259 context of the game from both the historical 00:22:45.259 --> 00:22:47.920 context and, like I said, the suspension of disbelief 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:50.900 sometimes to where even if the game sucks, you 00:22:50.900 --> 00:22:53.440 understand what was appealing about it at the 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:57.380 time, why, and especially when you do the Atari 00:22:57.380 --> 00:22:59.960 50 thing in kind of chronological order. I think 00:22:59.960 --> 00:23:02.559 it really helps, too, because each kind of generation 00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:05.460 of games, you can see the technological advancements 00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:07.960 in them. and then they also took a handful of 00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:10.480 the classic games and remade them for the modern 00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:13.440 era which kind of illustrates exactly what i'm 00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:15.640 talking about now just with modern controls and 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:18.039 graphics didn't completely reinvent the wheel 00:23:18.039 --> 00:23:22.019 on any of these games nostalgia being a big part 00:23:22.019 --> 00:23:26.599 of gaming and working i think is demonstrated 00:23:26.599 --> 00:23:28.839 really well and you can if you have any interest 00:23:28.839 --> 00:23:31.950 in the history of games or really just the history 00:23:31.950 --> 00:23:34.970 of technology and the Atari culture too. It was 00:23:34.970 --> 00:23:36.750 a pretty interesting company. There's a lot of 00:23:36.750 --> 00:23:38.809 really interesting stories. I highly recommend 00:23:38.809 --> 00:23:41.630 that Atari 50 collection. Like I said, not all 00:23:41.630 --> 00:23:44.490 the games are good, but even the bad games, when 00:23:44.490 --> 00:23:47.710 you have the context there, I think it really 00:23:47.710 --> 00:23:50.650 makes them a lot more forgiving and makes it 00:23:50.650 --> 00:23:53.529 a lot more forgivable. So I highly recommend 00:23:53.529 --> 00:23:56.190 that. I really, I've enjoyed just rambling about. 00:23:56.750 --> 00:24:00.630 how nostalgia is used in both like creating and 00:24:00.630 --> 00:24:03.730 marketing these three different types of mediums. 00:24:03.890 --> 00:24:06.869 I'm sure this will come up again. If you've got 00:24:06.869 --> 00:24:08.930 this far, thank you so much. I really appreciate 00:24:08.930 --> 00:24:11.450 you tuning in to overeducated and underemployed. 00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:14.569 Make sure to check out my website, fedin .net. 00:24:14.730 --> 00:24:17.750 I've got updates about what's coming up on the 00:24:17.750 --> 00:24:21.529 podcast. Got updates about where I'll be live. 00:24:22.269 --> 00:24:24.230 And of course, there's always a place to donate 00:24:24.230 --> 00:24:26.650 if you want to contribute. I do travel to conduct 00:24:26.650 --> 00:24:28.750 some of these interviews. So if you want to help 00:24:28.750 --> 00:24:32.470 me able to do that more, that'd be greatly appreciated. 00:24:32.670 --> 00:24:35.569 I really appreciate you tuning in. I'm Fedden, 00:24:35.630 --> 00:24:38.009 and this has been Overeducated and Underemployed. 00:24:38.049 --> 00:24:41.210 And remember, if you want me to answer a question 00:24:41.210 --> 00:24:44.470 on the podcast, go ahead and send it over to 00:24:44.470 --> 00:24:49.029 FeddenXR at gmail .com. That's F -E -D -D -U 00:24:49.029 --> 00:24:52.910 -N -X -R. at gmail .com.