Ep. 211 - George R. R. Binks the Time Sweeper

esper

Ep. 211 - George R. R. Binks the Time Sweeper

The panel covers Youngen Ring, the popular opinion of Souls games, and whether we can get Phil Spencer on the show. Original music by Kurt Feldman.

Questions this week:

Jenna Stoeber asks: What’s the worst (or most out of place) sound effect in video games? (03:44)
On its 20th birthday, what are our memories of the original Xbox? (08:46)
Aren’t the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Remasters Rockstar’s greatest heist of all? (14:04)
Are there some things in video games it took you a while to understand, but you finally get now? (18:29)
What will be the Game of Thrones reference in Elden Ring? (21:54)
Dirtbag Kiko asks: What are the best and worst moments of horse death in video games? (27:50)
How do video games use spite as a motivator? (33:38)
Is Bobby Kotick a singular evil dunce, or are all C-level executives this slimy? (38:25)
What are the Neuromancer and Snow Crash of video games? (43:26)

Recommendations and Outro (47:31)

A SMALL SELECTION OF THINGS REFERENCED:

Recommendations:
Frank: Stop tying physics to framerate, stop using The Final Countdown in media
Brandon: Check out Europe’s first two albums, use any Visa gift cards you get at physical locations to get the full value

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gsk

esper How do video games use spite as a motivator? (33:38)

Gacha games are not only engineered to hook whales but also to extract money from the subset of people who put inordinate amounts of time into min-maxing precisely when and where to spend money in order to get the maximum benefits for minimum spend, as if they’re the ones doing the manipulating.

kory

esper Warner Bros. SmashWarners

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot would actually be a pretty cool riff on Pokémon trainer.

I decided to go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole re WB properties, and there’s a gold mine here. To wit:

Free Willy
Blade Runner
The Mask
The NeverEnding Story
Ocean’s XX film series
Police Academy
Willy Wonka
Dumb and Dumber
Harold & Kumar
ALF
et al.

There’s a non-zero chance that some of these are already represented, but I will not verify this

Syzygy

Phil Spencer calls on industry to support emulation,

promptly delists Xbox 360 first-party games to promote current packaged remakes

NoJoTo

on horses:

unpleasantly surprised that nobody made a ‘beating a dead horse’ joke (or someone did and I forgot it)

hellojed

The covid booster shot of videogames (not something we thought we’d need, but is actually necessary) is probably the N64 expansion pak, imo.

Wondering what the internal conversation was like when Rare realized it couldn’t release Donky Kong 64 without the Pak and thus required the game to be bundled with it to work.

vlct

The mention of the XBOX launch reminded me of how Fabian Döhla (at that time editor of a games magazines, later PR of Sega Germany and today PR of CD Project Red) revealed the design of the XBOX in the very first live broadcast of Giga Games on NBC Europe on 30 November 2000. Microsoft terminated its cooperation with Giga on the very same day. That was fun.

GigaSlime

I’m GigaSlime and my main in WB’s Multiversus game is going to be Big Pussy Bonpensiero from The Sopranos

esper

GigaSlime buddy of mine suggested Larry David as the game’s Dan Hibiki

LeFish

Jenna Stoeber asks: What’s the worst (or most out of place) sound effect in video games? (03:44)

Number 6

Excellent episode. Overjoyed right from the start.

Punzai

Hooray! Tim’s back!

Boo! He rags on The Last Guardian, a game I really enjoyed and finished :)

Girard

The impactful horse death Tim refers to was one of the low points of that game for me. Not because I love horses but because it was so poorly implemented my horse died several times in an unacceptable way that led to a game over (requiring a 20-minute trek back to that point each time - because the games minimalist documentation never actually mentioned that save points existed), before finally triggering the cut-scene horse death that was acceptable to continue the story.

Girard

Girard
… and I unpause the podcast and learn that Tim wasn’t actually talking about Shadow of the Colossus.

Paul-Stalter-Pace

I must say in regards to Charles Martinet, while his performance of Mario is more sound effects with than voice acting, he actually IS a voice actor, doing commercials and cartoons. He’s voiced Paarrthunax in Skyrim and has been in other franchises like Ratchet and Clank. Even some live action stuff, as a working character actor before he hit gold with Mario.

He absolutely could make a sane and palatable Mario voice if they wanted him to, though it would be weird to have him giving Mario with a completely different performance.

DaveedNoo

Some of my favorite sound effects are from Gungrave. If you walk into a room and surprise some guys they sometimes shout “He Can’t!” in the most garbled junk noise possible and its hilarious. I can’t find it, so maybe I need to borrow a ps2 and snatch all those noises.

yeso

I take it none of the IC hosts have had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Martinet in the role of Orestes in a traditional staging of Aesychlus. There is such a thing as life outside of video games lol

tapevulture

Haven’t listened yet but right away the episode title is very powerful

Jaffe

I just feel like if you got Charles Martinet but he wasn’t doing the voice then the whole time people would be asking “Why isn’t he doing the voice??” And if he was doing the voice it would be “Oh god he’s doing the voice.” It’s a no win scenario.

Moon

Neuromancer = Doom
Snow Crash = Duke Nukem 3D

exodus

Moon violent take right here

fridgeboy

Moon Wow this is harsh bro

I get what you mean tho lol

yeso

martinet’s acting reel is on youtube and starts with him getting immediately murdered with a silenced pistol