Ep. 387 - Ethical Banana Diamonds, with Brian David Gilbert
Brian David Gilbert of Dropout.tv, Unraveled, and his own excellent youtube channel joins our panel to cover Switch 2 preorders, Donkey Kong dating your friends, and the legendary Nier butthole. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, Brandon Sheffield, and Brian David Gilbert. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman.
1: Weâre recording this the day that preorders have gone live for the Switch 2. Whatâs the worst case youâve ever seen of Preorder Madness? (08:05)
I want to give a shoutout to @Taliesin_Merlin for reminding me of the word computerist in this forum thread. Good answers, itâs been years since Iâve heard someone say âSony ponyâ lol.
Also, the correct answer to the Cats question is that bizarrely terrible Gollum game from two years ago.
Iâm behind an episode or two right now so I canât even start this yet, but BDG rules. Love this guys work! But also, his breakfast sandwich recipe has become a staple for weekend brunch in our home, and I make pepcorn from time to time as well.
If youâre a breakfast food freak like I am, check out his breakfast sandwich video STAT.
Fun show, and nice to have the gang +1 back for a lot of laughs, learning and merriment!
Clocking a game! Very British slang there (at least I know English, but assuming it made it to other places) to finish a game I learned at school in the late 80s and early 90s which I still love to say. The phrase sort of stopped at the start of the 32bit era with the PS1 and Saturn, but I have fond memories of someone spending their weekend clocking a game, myself included. Then being at school and asking if you clocked it.
No idea the etymology, love the mystery of it and reminds me of the first game I remember clocking: Double Dragon on the Master System.
Obviously I donât engage in sincere console warring at my advanced age, but in my discord with friends we still say sony pony, Xbot, or Nintendrone if the situation calls for it
Very fun episode this week. Though a distinct lack of a horrible buzzerâŠ
Brianâs statement of âMario Kart is the Big Bang Theory of video gamesâ shows he 100% understands the point of Insert Credit. Amazing take there that I respect.
In terms of video game slang I bet there is some from early online games that has been lost to time, and arenât specific to that game being played. I wish I could think of some from back when I would do Diablo II ladders.
Didnât the Wii have preorder madness when it was going to come out? I remember a distinct lack of supply at the time, and I only got a launch console because my father waited outside of a K-Mart on launch day, was second in line, and a guy came out saying they had exactly two Wii systems on hand.
Also, I remember Amiibo being in short supply and not being able to get a preorder. Then with how crazy it was, stores stopped allowing preorders entirely, I believe. I remember lining up outside of Target to get the exclusive Rosalina Amiibo on launch day.
Lastly, for those who arenât that familiar with Brian David Gilbertâs work, here is my favorite Unraveled video he did.
Behind the scenes on this one: scheduling conflicts had us postpone this recording a couple months in a row, until we got to last week, where I was supposed to have been out of state. I booked my transportation specifically so I could have 1 day in New York between two other trips so that I could be here for this. Iâm already disappointed I had to miss Aaron Stewart Ahn, I wasnât going to miss this.
Oh yeah, my preorder madness thing I didnât get to say was I had preordered something⊠not sure what, one of those atlus games that gamestop only ever got two of per store. I went in to the store on the day of release and they were like sorry we didnât get any.
And I was like okay⊠then whatâs that - and I pointed to two copies sitting on their side on the counter behind the employee. He was like âuhhhh oh those are already paid for by someone elseâ and Iâm like okay but I got a notification that MY preorder was here. And he said there was nothing he could do etc.
Anyway those preorders got scooped by the employees lol. Later a guy I knew there (who wasnât present at the time) secured one for me from another store.
Aaaah! That was a fun one. BDG is such a pro. He should get on the forums if he ever wants to be a freak for a much smaller audience.
I was also a Zelda timeline weirdo on the internet. There was a LoZ fansite with forums that I went to just to participate. I took it way too seriously for a couple of years, then reached a point where I was like âweâll never actually know. Thereâs no right answer, so itâs fun just to speculate.â Then Nintendo released Hyrule Historia to commodify fan imagination, and it stopped being fun.
This likely has more to do with my age, but the time of the Gamecube was rough for me as a Nintendo loyalist in the 3rd battlion, 151st regiment. GTA III, Halo, and God of War were what my friends were all about and I had to find ways to defend Mario Sunshine and Crystal Chronicles. The reason I read so close into games like Metroid Prime, even today, is because of that time in my life.
Iâll admit that I havenât listened yet but on the subject of old game slang one that really stands out to me is announcing âDing!â (followed by stuff like âcongrats on the dingâ, ânice ding!â etc etc) for new levels in MMOsâcame from the leveling sound effect from Everquest iirc
My first experience of it was in EQ in like 2001/2 and because EQ was the mother of everything else it filtered into other MMOs and even into early WoW but I reckon itâs been lost to time
Itâs fun to have my Brian David Gilbert world and my Insert Credit world collide!
On lingo, multi-user would be cool. MUDs and MUSHes were once their own thing, and once multiplayer (and especially massively multiplayer) caught on, something cool was gradually lost. I canât hang out in multiplayer games quite like I could hang out in a multi-user space, shooting the breeze.
On Brian and the multi-cutscene sequence: is this Tetsuya Takahashiâs hallmark? Iâve noticed that since Xenosaga; the move to more cinematics for Takahashi feels like a move to more pulling out of the gameplay. As Brandon says, my way to cope in Xenoblade games is to make my character look goofy. The key upgrade in the Xenoblade games (especially 1 and X) is not just the open world system but the cosmetic options that allow one to move through serious story cutscenes looking like this:
