Episode 31 features Andy Spiteri, Editor-in-chief of Zelda Dungeon and host of The Champions’ Cast, Omega Metroid, and Virtual Theater, who joins me to discuss video games; why we like them, why they are important, and how things have changed, to name a few.
During the episode we cover:
- Why we like video games
- Skies of Arcadia
- Learning from games
- Communities
- Online Forums
- Playing old games
- Free to play and microtransactions
- Camping
- And much more…
Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode
Music created and provided by Henno Heitur of Monkey Tongue Productions.
–End Show Notes Transmission–
–Begin Transcription–
00:00:00:01 – 00:00:20:02
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com Mexico City expands Berlin games outcome to set up London match. Nine holes with the legend of Bagger Vance and I’m still holding on to the hope I spoke about at the end of the last episode. This is The Palmer Files episode 31 with Andy Spiteri, editor in chief of Zelda Dungeon and host of The Champions.
00:00:20:02 – 00:01:04:55
Agent Palmer
Cast. Omega, Metroid and Virtual Theater, who joins me to discuss video games, why we like them, why they are important, how things have changed, and much, much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.
00:01:05:00 – 00:01:29:51
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 31st episode is Andy Spiteri, whose passion projects make him the perfect guest to discuss video games with, as he is editor in chief of Zelda Dungeon and host of the champions cast, which is the Zelda Dungeon podcast. Omega metroid and Metroid podcast, and Virtual Theater, a video game movie podcast.
00:01:29:56 – 00:01:52:32
Agent Palmer
Our connection is Diamond Dave Maier, who with Andy and others, started a podcast that then led to Dave’s one time podcast, Empire and it’s where Andy got his start to get him behind the mic, where he now resides on three different shows. But at the core of those three shows is video games, and that is what the episode is about.
00:01:52:37 – 00:02:20:00
Agent Palmer
We discuss a lot of things, but most precious to me about this episode is that Andy takes my side in an ongoing discussion about Skies of Arcadia, and if podcasts aren’t about finding people to say you’re correct in feuds with your personal friends, then what are they for? All kidding aside, it’s not like I expected Andy to say those things, and it was fun to have someone else voice my side in a better way than I have.
00:02:20:04 – 00:02:55:50
Agent Palmer
But that’s just one area where video games overlap with every other entertainment medium. Well, we can all see what the objective is or what the objectives are. We don’t have to agree on how to get there, and with video games, we can get there in different ways, but they can also bring us together. Because while my friend Chris Hughes may not agree with my Skies of Arcadia love, we did team up in college to win a super Smash Brothers tournament, so clearly we’re still on the same team.
00:02:55:55 – 00:03:22:23
Agent Palmer
Before we get to it, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen thereafter, you can tweet me at Agent Palmer. You can tweet the show at The Palmer Files or Andy at Battery 316 Nats at Spirit 3316. You can hear him on the champions cast. Omega, metroid and Virtual Theater on your podcast app of choice, and you can check out Zelda Dungeon Net for all your Zelda needs.
00:03:22:28 – 00:03:39:50
Agent Palmer
Email can be sent to the show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. And don’t forget, you can see all of my writings and rantings on Agent palmer.com. So without further ado, let’s press play.
00:03:39:55 – 00:03:45:17
Agent Palmer
Andy, why do you like video games? Let’s just start out there.
00:03:45:22 – 00:04:09:19
Andy Spiteri
Oh, man. That’s a that’s a loaded question that you can go in a lot of different directions with. Okay. To, to take it way back. Way back when. I mean, I think everyone’s answer would be that they like video games because they’re fun and they, you know, as a, as a kid, like when I was a kid, I would sit down and play Super Mario World, and I was like, yeah, this is this is really fun.
00:04:09:19 – 00:04:33:21
Andy Spiteri
This is great. I’m I’m bouncing around. Is this little plumber dude, I’m, I’m getting some coins. I’m fighting. Koopa, this is fun. And that answer as I grew up evolved into I like them because they are an escape from, you know, the real world. You can you can be anything in a video game. You can be, you can be the hero saving the world.
00:04:33:21 – 00:04:52:19
Andy Spiteri
You can be, a master thief. You can be a racecar driver, an alien, whatever you want. Right? Like you could be James Bond. And that can also branch into, you know, I, I like video games because, again, they keep on evolving and now they’re art, like, I mean, you go and see some of the best laid out stories of all time.
00:04:52:19 – 00:05:01:47
Andy Spiteri
Art taking place in video games. You look at, you know, Final Fantasy nine or, skies of Arcadia. Like, these are.
00:05:01:47 – 00:05:02:09
Agent Palmer
Hold on.
00:05:02:09 – 00:05:03:21
Andy Spiteri
Hold on stories.
00:05:03:21 – 00:05:09:10
Agent Palmer
You literally that by far my favorite game of all time, really.
00:05:09:10 – 00:05:10:05
Andy Spiteri
Skies of Arcadia.
00:05:10:07 – 00:05:12:10
Agent Palmer
I love that game.
00:05:12:15 – 00:05:21:00
Andy Spiteri
Oh, dude, I that’s so awesome. I don’t see enough people talking about that game. It’s it’s probably one of them. It’s probably like my number two favorite game ever. It’s so good I.
00:05:21:00 – 00:05:21:16
Agent Palmer
I.
00:05:21:16 – 00:05:21:56
Andy Spiteri
So good.
00:05:21:56 – 00:05:52:50
Agent Palmer
I have a save on a memory card that is me. It’s, it’s vice and I can only, they haven’t beat I haven’t beaten the first temple yet. And I was just me leveling them. And right now they’re probably at level 35 or 40 themselves. Like they’re maxed out as much as they can be. Now, I maybe made a mistake because obviously you don’t have all the stones and colors at that point.
00:05:52:50 – 00:06:15:26
Agent Palmer
So it’s only the 2 or 3 stones that I’ve got maxed out. But my point was, it was kind of like, oh, I’m listening to a podcast, I need something to do. And it was before this podcast started. So I’ll, I’ll just level them as much as possible. So when I eventually sit down to write a review of the game, I can just play through it, right?
00:06:15:26 – 00:06:35:12
Agent Palmer
Like I’m not going to have any trouble with vice at level 45 early on. And then like at a at a certain point, I figure it like I’ll get close enough to a point where I’ll be where you are early enough to like the least amount of levels you can be. And that’s where I’m going to start. And I’ll just be able to breeze through the game.
00:06:35:12 – 00:06:54:58
Agent Palmer
Like just having some fun, right? Especially because I’ve unlocked acres like multi-kill. So even like just traveling around like the random monster generator, like I won’t have any issues and I, I’ve not gone back to the game. I just know that it’s waiting there for me.
00:06:55:03 – 00:07:00:33
Andy Spiteri
Oh, dude, you got to finish that game. It’s so good. Yeah. Like you really? You haven’t even got to like, final.
00:07:00:33 – 00:07:27:06
Agent Palmer
No no no no no no no no I mean I know they’re coming right. Like I’ve been in the game 4 or 5 times. It’s just I’ve got this one save that’s going to be you know, just for enjoying the story. That’s it. Now that particular game is a point of contention for one of my good friends who was on this show recently, Chris Hughes, Triforce D&D 1984 on Twitch.
00:07:27:10 – 00:07:45:46
Agent Palmer
Nice plugs for friends, right? But he hates that game because you lose to the red giga the first time around and he’s like, this isn’t what video games are about. You’re supposed to always win. You’re supposed to overcome anything. And I’m like, yeah, but that’s the point. You’re sometimes you lose.
00:07:45:51 – 00:08:12:19
Andy Spiteri
Oh, I yeah, I completely disagree with that. I think that like that that sets the story. It builds you up for like even spoilers to anybody that hasn’t played Skies of Arcadia. But, I mean, at one point you have an option to fight Ramirez, and Cena is begging you not to fight him. And if you do, do you get your butt locked and then you fight him again later in the game and you fight him again and again, he kicks your ass.
00:08:12:19 – 00:08:31:56
Andy Spiteri
And then, like, by the final boss fight, when you finally beat him, it’s like you finally are overcoming all the odds. Man, I love the I love that skies of Arcadia does that. Actually, I think that it’s such good storytelling, man, because it’s just like, it’s kind of like you got to like, you got to build up your bad guys so that you, you know, it means something when you beat him finally.
00:08:31:56 – 00:08:32:33
Andy Spiteri
Right?
00:08:32:38 – 00:08:41:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And it’s probably because I didn’t have a Dreamcast, so I didn’t get I got the skies of Arcadia when the remake hit Gamecube.
00:08:41:53 – 00:08:42:29
Andy Spiteri
Me too.
00:08:42:31 – 00:09:12:51
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And the thing about that was, I got that around the same time I got Wind Waker, and they were my first console games that were kind of open world. Because you can get lost in Wind Waker for hours without bothering to move the story along. And Skies of Arcadia is kind of similar to that in that you can just wander around, fly around in your airship as a pirate.
00:09:12:51 – 00:09:38:59
Agent Palmer
Like, why not just kill stuff, but it’s not what I grew up with not to take away from where you were going. But like when I grew up and I didn’t grow up with consoles, I grew up with PC, but it was a lot of linear games. And when I finally got a Gamecube and got away from like, sports games, it was like, there’s there’s no, there’s there’s no move left to move.
00:09:38:59 – 00:09:54:35
Agent Palmer
Right. You know what I mean? Like, there’s no right. Yeah. Like just go. It’s like, well, you can go wherever you want. It’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s it’s a different way to play games because that’s life. You don’t always get that linear storytelling in life.
00:09:54:39 – 00:10:09:40
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. I think that’s one of the reasons that like Metroid is, is a series that’s near and dear to me because like, if that’s a series, again, like, you kind of really just make it what you want. Like there is a certain sequence of events that you probably should follow to get to, you know, at the end of the game.
00:10:09:40 – 00:10:28:49
Andy Spiteri
And there are some people that can beat that game in a stupid, time. If they beat it in like 45 minutes. But like, you can also just get lost and, you know, explore the world and it gets sucked up in the ambiance of that. Yeah. Man, I, I think that, like Skies of Arcadia Legends for the Gamecube is one of my favorite games ever.
00:10:28:49 – 00:10:47:15
Andy Spiteri
I actually, this might be blasphemous for me to say, but, I think that it’s like, way better than Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, just in terms of its world and stuff. I think that the like, the world that they made in Skies of Arcadia is just like, it’s so good, it’s so smart. There’s so much to do, but it’s not big for the sake of being big.
00:10:47:20 – 00:11:15:56
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, it’s it’s just incredible. It’s an incredible game gameplay wise. It’s incredible. Story wise, character wise. I think vice is like one of the all time great, like, leads. In a, in a video game, maybe just like in general, he’s very, like, inspirational. Dude. You were mentioning you have a C if I have a C file on my old Nintendo Gamecube memory card where it’s like, you know how if you made all the right decisions and if you got all the treasure chests and if you did all the stuff, you got the title, like vice, the legend.
00:11:15:56 – 00:11:29:36
Andy Spiteri
Yes. So I finally got that and I was like, l yeah, like, I’m saving this and I’m never deleting this, and I’m going to hold on to this to make sure that, like, I don’t know, like 20, 40 years, I can pop this in and be like, ha, good job. And you, you’ve got to the vice, the legend.
00:11:29:36 – 00:11:31:04
Agent Palmer
So yeah, I yeah.
00:11:31:04 – 00:11:35:34
Andy Spiteri
I love that game. It’s nice. It’s nice to see someone else that’s like, you know, showing it some love to.
00:11:35:36 – 00:12:04:26
Agent Palmer
It’s a that’s but that, that piece of it is one of the things I love about it is like your decision making or even early on like you can it’s it’s still a fairly linear story, but like your decision making has huge impacts towards where you end up and who you are. And the just like, yeah, I don’t know, I could go on, but I want to get back.
00:12:04:26 – 00:12:23:51
Agent Palmer
So you have kind of parlayed your love of video games into like passion projects in all of the podcasts and, and the writing and the like, just the amount of content you put out from them. Is that like the dream job?
00:12:23:56 – 00:12:46:00
Andy Spiteri
Oh, yeah, man, like, I, I would love to do to do something like that as, like a as, like a full time thing, which I don’t maybe I’ll try and work towards. I haven’t seriously considered that, but, I mean, I love doing it so much that maybe I should and just work towards doing that, but yeah, I mean, I do like, a lot of, a lot of writing for Zelda Dungeon.
00:12:46:05 – 00:13:04:26
Andy Spiteri
Actually, I do less writing now and more so just kind of managing the, the writers that we do have. But, yeah, I do a lot of that. I do a lot of, like you said, content that, you know, we we do the Zelda podcast, the Champions cast and the Metroid podcast, Omega metroid. And, that’s those are weekly shows.
00:13:04:26 – 00:13:25:06
Andy Spiteri
So it’s kind of like a never ending cycle of like, what the heck are we going to talk about this week? And like, we, a buddy of mine, and I have another kind of spin off podcast as well called Virtual Theater, where we talk about video game movies. So not quite video games, but close in, that that one’s a pretty, pretty good time, too, because historically those have had not a great track record.
00:13:25:06 – 00:13:41:02
Andy Spiteri
But yeah, I, I, you know, it never it never feels like work like three podcasts a week is like it definitely is a lot and there’s a lot that goes into them. But yeah. Like if you what’s that cliche? If you love what you do, then you never work a day in your life, right?
00:13:41:07 – 00:14:05:00
Agent Palmer
Absolutely. And I, I, I have to say like you’re, you’re setting yourself up for the, enviable position to be qualified when somebody’s like, yeah, we’re going to make a sports center for esports. Who should we get to host it be like, well, I’ve been talking about video games for.
00:14:05:05 – 00:14:19:21
Agent Palmer
I mean, because we’re there and I, I mean, I, I look around at competitive e gaming and I go, I should have kept playing more video games, right?
00:14:19:21 – 00:14:41:55
Andy Spiteri
Like, you know, I actually so my, my co-host on Omega met Dakota Lasky. He is, a voice caster. He, he’s called some, Overwatch before. I think he’s done some Rocket League, maybe some smash. I Overwatch was his big one. So I know that he’s pretty big into that scene. You know, I, is as awesome as I think that e-sports are.
00:14:41:55 – 00:15:06:08
Andy Spiteri
And I love that they’re a thing. They’re not really my thing, but I really like that it’s getting bigger and bigger, and people are recognizing, you know, e-sports is like the legitimate thing now. Like you, you sell out buildings to watch people play gaming at that at the highest levels. And I think that that’s awesome. But yeah, I, I’ve always been more of like the, the single player kind of immerse yourself type of gamer, go at my own pace kind of thing.
00:15:06:08 – 00:15:21:29
Andy Spiteri
I don’t think I’d be very fun to watch playing video games, but, yeah. No, I mean, I love that, I love that it’s like this big, this big deal now where, you know, 20 years ago, maybe even ten years ago, that would have been laughable.
00:15:21:34 – 00:15:43:25
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I it’s but it’s not far from where we came. Like, when you go back to, you know, for me it was PC, but like, there were only so many people, right? Like early on, I remember we had, like, networked computers for quake and that was for players, like, because we couldn’t figure out how to network 6 or 8.
00:15:43:25 – 00:16:07:03
Agent Palmer
Right. And if we did, it was diminishing returns. And, you know, where do you put all the CRT? But like, there were more than four people in that room and people would gather, gather around and watch and watch you blow up your friends. And it’s no different than if there were three people in a room with an NES or, you know, any of those early consoles before 64 where somebody is watching.
00:16:07:08 – 00:16:43:02
Agent Palmer
It was just the nature of, of of play and I don’t know, I, I feel like games like I treat games as an escape. But they were we could always learn from them. We learned from these games and the I don’t think they get enough credit for that part of it. And unfortunately, maybe the one downside of gaming is that the winning becomes a bigger, the winning becomes bigger than the journey.
00:16:43:07 – 00:16:57:58
Agent Palmer
When you get to that point. I think that may be why I enjoy Skies of Arcadia and you enjoy the games that you’ve already mentioned, because we can enjoy the journey as much as or more than the end.
00:16:58:03 – 00:17:13:34
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that games of like, it depends on what kind of games you like to write. Like when when you ask, why do you love video games? It’s just like it’s such a loaded question that you can go so many different directions on, you know, my, my, my buddies. I mean, you know Dave, right?
00:17:13:34 – 00:17:37:42
Andy Spiteri
Dave. Yeah. Diamond Dave, he, he enjoys video games because that’s how he plays or that’s how he hangs out with his friends. Like, he, you know, he just moved down to Texas and, like, he’ll, I don’t even know what they play now. Maybe, maybe Apex Legends or something like that. But anyway, so they, they’ll fire up that and they’ll just kind of play in whatever, but they’ll mostly just be chatting, and whatnot.
00:17:37:42 – 00:17:52:25
Andy Spiteri
And I know that that’s true for a lot of people. They just want to hang out with buddies and that’s, you know, playing the games is secondary. So like, you know, their answer, why do you like video games? Could be because it’s the social aspect of it. And yeah, I mean honestly even that even that answer rings true for me.
00:17:52:25 – 00:18:18:52
Andy Spiteri
Like I love video games. Like I love The Legend of Zelda now, even more so than I did before, specifically because it’s introduced me to so many dear friends that I’ve made through this website. And it’s like, you know, it’s without video games. It’s none of it’s really possible. Right? So, yeah, I mean, there’s so many different answers about that question or to that question that you can be you can be right with all of them.
00:18:19:05 – 00:18:52:02
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And there are obviously Twitch is one aspect of this. And your website is kind of the other side. And there are ones that straddle it. But video games have become hubs for community building. Did did you I mean, you were a part of that community before you became like integral to the site? Were you an active participant in the in the dungeon community before, before you, like, got on the inside or were you just like kind of one of those?
00:18:52:07 – 00:19:12:10
Agent Palmer
Look, and I want to say this because it’s, it’s the equivalent of people who listen to a podcast and never tell you they’re listening. Lurkers are fine. Not like, oh, yeah, and I’m not, I’m not, I’m not judging. But like, what was your kind of I mean, that’s a big community. Where were you before you got on the inside?
00:19:12:15 – 00:19:37:45
Andy Spiteri
I didn’t really follow them a whole lot, to be honest. I follow them on Facebook. Zelda, Zelda in fourth. So was a really. I’ll try to make this a quick little history lesson. Zelda informer and Zelda dungeon. What used to be two separate sites. The owner of Zelda Dungeon purchased Zelda Informer, so they merged the sites.
00:19:37:45 – 00:19:57:52
Andy Spiteri
But we still have two different social media. Wings, I guess one is Zelda dungeon, one is Zelda Informer, because they were already at, like one of them was, like 900,000. The other one was at 500,000. And you can’t really mesh. Sure. Facebook pages. Yeah. So I, I followed Zelda Informer because it had a lot of the news, all the time.
00:19:58:06 – 00:20:30:02
Andy Spiteri
I followed Zelda Dungeon because they had memes, and I followed another site called Zelda Universe. Just I mean, I just followed a lot of Zelda stuff, right? So, originally back in like 2014, I saw a post that they were looking for, people to join their team. And at this time, Diamond Dave, myself and two of our friends had started this podcast called The Cool Story Show, which was, an awful, awful podcast.
00:20:30:07 – 00:20:49:46
Andy Spiteri
But I was just like, hey, you know, I’d love to join your team as a podcast host. I have this great podcast, but maybe I could plug and, we could do some cross-promotion and, like, there’s this giant website that didn’t need any cross-promotion with the shitty podcast from four Canadian dudes. So they’re they didn’t even email me back.
00:20:49:46 – 00:21:07:49
Andy Spiteri
And they were I’m sure they were like, get this guy out of here. But then, a couple of years later again, that I saw a posting for, for they were looking for writers. And this was, this is right before breath of the wild was coming out. So about three months before breath of the wild at the tail end of 2016.
00:21:07:54 – 00:21:26:06
Andy Spiteri
And, you know, I was telling you before, we went on air at that, at that time, I had been laid off. So I was like, okay, well, I need something to do. And like, this is this sounds as good as anything. I have a lot. I’m very opinionated, so I might as well, you know, write about my Zelda opinions.
00:21:26:06 – 00:21:54:31
Andy Spiteri
So I, I applied and I sent in some writing samples and whatnot, and then, yeah, they were, they were good enough to bring me on the team and, you know, get me going and, man, when I was there, I just, like, fell in love. I got to know everybody, and everybody was like, so awesome. And, you know, it was also the excitement of, like, breath of the wild coming out to you because that was such a game changer for for Zelda and like for Nintendo really in general.
00:21:54:36 – 00:22:17:16
Andy Spiteri
But yeah, man, once I was in, I was hooked. But I wasn’t really in a whole lot before that. Like, I haven’t, I never used forum like, I shouldn’t say I never use them. I haven’t used forum since I was like 12 or anything like that. So I wasn’t, and I was hooked when I was younger, but I had, but I, I never used them since then, so I was just kind of like a casual, like, Facebook, follower.
00:22:17:21 – 00:22:25:56
Agent Palmer
So d I, I want to go back. What forums are you, like, can you say, like, what? Do you remember? What? Oh, yes.
00:22:26:00 – 00:22:50:24
Andy Spiteri
You betcha. Yeah. You betcha. 2002 Gamecube land X-Com. Run by a guy named Matthew out of California. It was the small, shitty Gamecube site, but it was very fun. I would go in there all the time and chat with people, and, like, that was back in the day when it was like, fuck Xbox. Gamecube is the best.
00:22:50:24 – 00:23:12:10
Andy Spiteri
It has all these games and stuff like that. So I would go in there and, and hang around there and eventually, I think eventually the site got shut down because, I think the owner just didn’t want to pay for the site anymore or, I don’t know, something. And yeah, from there I went to like game facts.com which, which is still around.
00:23:12:11 – 00:23:18:27
Agent Palmer
I mean, game Facts was a lifesaver for for free stuff dude.
00:23:18:27 – 00:23:41:05
Andy Spiteri
So I mean there is and every single game on every system has its own message board there. So like there is a thousand message boards on that, website. So I went to I don’t know if you remember this or not, probably not. But like back in like 2002 or 2003, game facts used to have these poll of the day contest was like it was like an NCAA style video game character contest.
00:23:41:05 – 00:23:41:16
Andy Spiteri
Yeah.
00:23:41:16 – 00:23:42:53
Agent Palmer
Like no, I remember that you have.
00:23:42:53 – 00:24:00:59
Andy Spiteri
Like link fighting cloud and stuff like that. So yeah, I was like, I loved that. I was and I went into the, the boards and I was like talking about the contests and ended up just staying there. And, yeah, I don’t know, I eventually I didn’t go there anymore. I don’t really know why, but man, I used to like I used to post all the time back in the day there.
00:24:01:01 – 00:24:28:44
Agent Palmer
I don’t think well, I don’t think the behavior is any different than a video game. Right? Like if you go back through your history, I’m sure there are games you played religiously. Then all of a sudden you didn’t. And it’s not necessarily because the new one came out. You know, life happens and you get out of rhythm and then like, oh, I’ve, I got to finish that game or like just I’ll just get the next one or whatever.
00:24:28:44 – 00:24:46:42
Agent Palmer
But I you’ve name dropped a ton of Nintendo. So I do need to ask like is it your console of choice and do you cross pollinate like do you have or have you had an Xbox or a PlayStation?
00:24:46:46 – 00:25:09:51
Andy Spiteri
Well, Nintendo is definitely my console of choice for sure. It’ll always be my console of choice. You know, it took a long time, but, eventually when I got, my Gamecube, I was just like, okay, this is awesome, but I needed a DVD player as well. And, because everything was starting to go to DVD, so I was like, okay, well, it’s time to buy a PlayStation.
00:25:09:51 – 00:25:33:50
Andy Spiteri
So I bought a PSA and, yeah, like I had there’s so, I mean, there’s so much good stuff on on PlayStation, Xbox. And I’m a Nintendo gamer first and foremost, but like, man, like you get PlayStation. And then I was like, okay, I’m gonna finally try this Metal Gear Solid game I’ve been hearing about or I’m going to I’m going to go back and play like Final Fantasy seven or 8 or 9 and like Final Fantasy nine is one of my favorite games ever.
00:25:33:50 – 00:25:56:32
Andy Spiteri
So is Metal Gear Solid and, yeah, from there I skipped the PS3, but I got Xbox 360 and I mean, now I have, I have everything, I have an Xbox, PS4, and switch. I had 3DS, which just died an unfortunate death, probably the only major video game console I haven’t had in the last, like ten years.
00:25:56:36 – 00:26:01:11
Andy Spiteri
He’s been the, the Vita, which, wasn’t really my thing, so.
00:26:01:11 – 00:26:01:29
Agent Palmer
But yeah.
00:26:01:29 – 00:26:04:46
Andy Spiteri
I definitely I definitely cross-pollinate now for sure.
00:26:04:51 – 00:26:43:57
Agent Palmer
So what do you show you are like Switzerland. So I can ask you this question. The console wars as we knew them. Sega versus Nintendo are gone. But now we’ve got this. Now we’ve got this three headed battle royale going on with Nintendo, Sony and Xbox and just from a guy who’s like, I just want to play games sitting there and watching the do you do you laugh as you see like, oh, Xbox and PlayStation waited until the last.
00:26:44:03 – 00:27:03:51
Agent Palmer
They wanted to see who would blink before they came out with prices and specs and like, is it is it hilarious? Because I, I’m, I’m only like a passive gamer, right. Like I got a presentation to also because I needed a DVD player. And that’s the reason I got a PS3 was because, like, I should probably get a Blu ray player.
00:27:03:51 – 00:27:06:11
Andy Spiteri
It’s a Blu ray player. Yeah.
00:27:06:15 – 00:27:37:01
Agent Palmer
But like, I, I’m not invested, right? Like, I’m, I enjoy a lot of my sports simulations, but those are on any platform you want them to be. So I’m not beholden to any of them. But as someone who enjoys all of them, do you laugh? Like, is it funny? Especially when there’s these people that are factions that are like, there are people on all three sides that have drank the Kool-Aid and are like, nope, it’s this or nothing.
00:27:37:06 – 00:28:04:20
Andy Spiteri
I definitely, you know, I think go back on what you said. Actually, it’s I think I would equate it more to it’s actually a two headed race, and Nintendo is like kind of this tail or like it’s some other ligament or something. They’re they’re not. I wouldn’t consider them like necessarily the same kind of competition as Microsoft and Sony or I think Microsoft and Sony appeal to the same kind of gamer.
00:28:04:20 – 00:28:29:57
Andy Spiteri
And Nintendo would, if they put out different stuff. Right? Like they put out, they don’t put out the highest technology specs, machines, consoles, whatever. They they have a different type of game. I think that if you were to ask those people that buying Nintendo consoles, they would say that I’m buying Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games, whereas I think for the PS4, three, Xbox three, 60 era.
00:28:30:01 – 00:28:50:12
Andy Spiteri
You wouldn’t necessarily say like I’m buying PlayStation or I’m buying a PlayStation to play Sony games. Like maybe you would add it there, but I don’t think it’s as many people as like that would say that about Nintendo. So like, I think that like the people that are into Nintendo or like the closest to like that kind of Kool-Aid cult or whatever, and like, I’m, I’m part of that cult, so, you know, whatever.
00:28:50:17 – 00:29:19:28
Andy Spiteri
But, I think that there’s definitely some, some competition between Sony and Microsoft. I mean, you saw Microsoft buy Bethesda for like $7.5 billion yesterday, which is a huge, huge, industry shaking move. But yeah, I mean, I feel like Nintendo, if Nintendo, Microsoft play well together, they have, you know, games from Microsoft available on Nintendo systems and, Microsoft characters and Smash Bros.
00:29:19:28 – 00:29:44:57
Andy Spiteri
And stuff like that. So, yeah, but I mean, like, I think that competition is good. Rake is like, you have competition. It kind of forces everybody to up their game and to put out the best possible product that they can, and try new things because like, you know, it’s if you don’t have if you don’t have, like someone breathing down your neck for your, for your spot, like then you get complacent.
00:29:44:57 – 00:30:07:40
Andy Spiteri
Right? And you kind of saw that with Nintendo and Sega. Nintendo was complacent. Sega came up, overtook them for a little bit. So Nintendo got better. Nintendo got better, but it wasn’t good enough. Sony came in and they took the throne. And then, you know, eventually, Microsoft came out and their 360 Xbox outsold the PS3. But then you had Nintendo making this weird wee console, which is like unlike anything anyone had ever seen.
00:30:07:40 – 00:30:21:04
Andy Spiteri
It’s like all that competition makes for like, really good. Like it’s really good for people like us that consume, you know, the consoles and the games. So yeah, okay. It’s kind of it’s it’s part of it’s kind of funny. But also it’s, you know, I like it.
00:30:21:09 – 00:30:46:56
Agent Palmer
Do you still go back and play classic games? I’m not even asking by console, but like classic games, like, for example, because I, I will, I will, I will come forward, right? I, I, I, I love the original first person shooters so you can find me at any point now or in the future playing the original Duke Nukem 3D or the original quake.
00:30:47:01 – 00:31:07:02
Agent Palmer
Those two will. Oh, I will always have a PC that can run both of those games. Never will there not be a time that it’s just it just happens. The original Diablo. Love it. Warcraft two Tides of Darkness. Love it. These are games I make sure I have an old PC that works and still boots so I can play these.
00:31:07:02 – 00:31:17:01
Agent Palmer
I always go back to them. Are there games from the past that you always make sure you have access to?
00:31:17:06 – 00:31:43:26
Andy Spiteri
Oh yeah. Yeah. I just, I, I’ve probably put 50 hours into Super Metroid this year alone, just writing a guide about it, replaying it for Omega metroid. Man, I, I, I love the there’s an app on the Nintendo Switch where it’s like, you can play all the old Snes games and the NES games and, I play the hell out of that.
00:31:43:30 – 00:32:07:51
Andy Spiteri
I’m actually, after we’re done this, I’m probably going to go upstairs and fire up Donkey Kong Country two did his conquest. Nice, which is such a sick game. But yeah, like, I, actually. So one of the things that I did in 2020 was I decided that, I was going to rebuild my Gamecube collection because, when I was 19, somebody broke into my apartment and stole all my fucking games, which was a real bummer.
00:32:07:51 – 00:32:23:28
Andy Spiteri
And I was always like, no, I’m going to get these. I’m going to rebuy all the games. But it was just so expensive. But this year I was like, nope, I’m doing it this year. So, I’ve been playing a ton of Gamecube games this year. Actually, I just played like Pokemon and Pokemon two. I did a little F-Zero.
00:32:23:33 – 00:32:27:33
Andy Spiteri
I did some Paper Mario Thousand year Dori. I mean, like.
00:32:27:37 – 00:32:28:21
Agent Palmer
When they took.
00:32:28:22 – 00:32:29:04
Andy Spiteri
My old games.
00:32:29:04 – 00:32:33:02
Agent Palmer
When they took your games, did they take the memory cards as well?
00:32:33:07 – 00:33:01:37
Andy Spiteri
No, no, this is actually pretty traumatic. So, like, it is really weird. So somebody busted into my apartment when I was 19 and, they stole they stole my Gamecube games and my two games, but they left my Wii games in my DS games, they stole my DS, but then they didn’t steal my Gamecube or my Wii. They stole my my cousin.
00:33:01:37 – 00:33:10:58
Andy Spiteri
I was living with my cousin. They stole some of his stuff, but they, they didn’t really have vastly I don’t know, it was. It was weird. It’s not a very well planned robbery. They didn’t get full bang for their buck.
00:33:11:01 – 00:33:37:27
Agent Palmer
Okay. Are there you’ve talked a lot about going back, especially when you broadened and went to the other consoles. But are there games from the past that you somehow have still missed that you’re like, no, like there’s this list I have. I’m not going to call it a bucket list because I feel like that’s not. But like there’s games that like, oh no, like that’s one I, I always meant to get to that one.
00:33:37:27 – 00:33:42:21
Agent Palmer
I’ll get to that one. But like, do you have those in your head.
00:33:42:26 – 00:34:03:26
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. There’s like the, the early PlayStation games. I never played those because I didn’t have a PlayStation. So like all the early Tomb Raiders crash Spyro. I never I never got those. And now it’s just like, do I want to play those? Like, or would they hold up if I don’t have those rose tinted glasses?
00:34:03:33 – 00:34:21:46
Andy Spiteri
This is it’s worth it. No. I mean, even on the Super Nintendo, there’s a lot of really good stuff that, you know, I really want to play that. I have an act. Razer. Is is is one of them, Final Fantasy five? I had never gotten around to playing. I think that was the Japan only one.
00:34:21:50 – 00:34:46:46
Andy Spiteri
I’m sure there’s there’s more, but, yeah, those ones, there’s even, like Kid Dracula, which is kind of this funny, like Castlevania light game. I thought it would be really cool. Yeah. I mean, there’s tons of stuff that I would love to go back in and play. I might, like, dip into the crime story, actually, and modify my Snes classic and get some of those games on there and, fire them up.
00:34:46:46 – 00:35:10:54
Agent Palmer
Do you find it? I mean, we grew up with these older consoles, but do you find it hard to go back because you’re talking about playing a Gamecube, which, I haven’t said it yet this entire show, and I applaud myself for that, because for me, the wave bird was the perfect controller and there will never be a greater controller.
00:35:11:08 – 00:35:24:12
Agent Palmer
But those controllers like the Gamecube ones and the the from PS2 on an Xbox, do you find it hard to go back to a B and D-pad?
00:35:24:17 – 00:35:59:33
Andy Spiteri
No, no, not at all. Okay. No, not at all. At all. To be honest, there’s something beautiful about the the simplicity of, you know, the four buttons on the Snes controller. Yeah. No, I don’t have a problem with that at all. I know that some people, have a problem with, the N64 controller, because it’s especially if you’re going back to play like GoldenEye or Perfect Dark, because your natural instinct is to use the, the C stick as your, as your dual analog camera.
00:35:59:38 – 00:36:15:33
Andy Spiteri
And to be honest, that’s, that’s even been thrown me for a loop a little bit. I’ve been playing 3D All-Stars, Mario 3D All-Stars. But once you kind of I remember like, oh, yeah, this is how it was done back then. It’s not really a big thing. So. No, I, I don’t mind playing on old controllers at all.
00:36:15:33 – 00:36:17:04
Andy Spiteri
I love it, actually.
00:36:17:09 – 00:36:19:34
Agent Palmer
What is your favorite controller then?
00:36:19:39 – 00:36:43:16
Andy Spiteri
Oh, Gamecube would be, would be up there for sure. Let’s see. I mean, the PlayStation controller is so solid. It’s just like it’s there’s nothing flashy about it, but, the two controller, which is basically the PS3 and the PRS for controller. Yeah, is is super solid. You know what I’m going to say?
00:36:43:16 – 00:37:04:35
Andy Spiteri
I’ll give you a little Asterix here. I love the Joy-Cons because, like, you can just like I laze about when I’m playing and I kind of have one arm here, one arm there, and I’m kind of doing my thing. So I love the idea of the Joy-Cons, but I think that they’re terribly made because I’ve had to take my Joy-Cons back twice now because they’ve had drift.
00:37:04:40 – 00:37:13:45
Andy Spiteri
Which which sucks, but I love the idea of the Joy-Cons. So yeah, I don’t know. It’s hard to beat that Gamecube controller, though, man. Like, it’s that’s a good controller.
00:37:13:50 – 00:37:14:39
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I.
00:37:14:39 – 00:37:17:07
Andy Spiteri
There’s a reason they still use that in Smash Bros.
00:37:17:12 – 00:37:43:05
Agent Palmer
Oh yeah, I mean, I, I, I haven’t gone further than a Wii as far as Nintendo and it’s really just time, like, I, I, I don’t have the time to play these games, so I’m not going to invest in a console. But yeah, when I invite people over to play like Kart or Smash, I’m like, oh no, I’m, I’m just going to use this old controller over here.
00:37:43:20 – 00:37:47:12
Agent Palmer
Does this thing. Oh, it’s the only way.
00:37:47:17 – 00:38:08:48
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. The, the one of the worst controllers ever was the Wii U. You definitely weren’t missing much by by not getting that. That was the junky best controller Nintendo has ever made. It was this awful Fisher-Price toy that felt like it was going to break. Every time you hold it, you press a and you hear a rattle on the other side of the controller, thing.
00:38:08:48 – 00:38:16:41
Andy Spiteri
I’d like an hour of battery life. Oh, it was horrible. Horrible controller. The original Xbox controller wasn’t great either.
00:38:16:52 – 00:38:40:24
Agent Palmer
No, no, I actually so, through being a guy who people just give all the electronics to, I, I have an Xbox and I think I’ve played a few games on it, like I played the original Halo because I was like, I kind of like curious, like, what’s what’s this all about? Oh, it’s just a first person shooter with a plot.
00:38:40:29 – 00:38:50:07
Agent Palmer
Okay. Like I, I didn’t buy input like that controller especially coming from the Gamecube. And the two was like this thing’s huge.
00:38:50:11 – 00:39:09:19
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. Dude it looked like you were going to play Whac-A-Mole. That big X in the middle is just a gargantuan. Yeah. I don’t know when I, when I first played Halo and held that controller, it’s just like, what the fuck is this? This is like, I need a baseball glove to hold this thing, right? This is insane.
00:39:09:24 – 00:39:21:19
Andy Spiteri
But I will say that I think they released a, a second Xbox controller that was like, a little bit more compact. And then the 360 controller was awesome. That’s a great controller.
00:39:21:23 – 00:39:42:55
Agent Palmer
When I think I know the answer to this. And it’s kind of a softball, I guess, but if you were going to play a game, you have a choice. It’s going to be multiplayer. You can play in the same room with up to three players, or you can play online with 20. And I’m not I’m not specifying the game.
00:39:42:55 – 00:39:53:53
Agent Palmer
I’m just saying like it’s going to be a multiplayer game of some sort. Would you prefer to have them in the room, or is online, or does it not matter? No.
00:39:53:53 – 00:40:25:56
Andy Spiteri
I’m an old soul man. I like to, I like to have the people in there, like some of my some of my favorite, like, memories or just, like, sitting on the couch playing smash with with my buddies and like, or like playing rock band and doing your, your drum solo or whatever. I don’t, I don’t play a whole lot of online games, actually, just because like, maybe it’s because, like, most of my friends aren’t into the same kind of games that I am and like to, to play like online smash with someone is usually awful because it lags and it’s, it’s just junky.
00:40:26:00 – 00:40:35:27
Andy Spiteri
So, yeah, I, I would take, I would take like same room gameplay, multiplayer all the time. Yeah.
00:40:35:32 – 00:40:47:03
Agent Palmer
Yeah I, I, I agree, but I have a different reason. I feel like if you can’t push somebody and try and jostle the controller to mess them up, like you’re not trying hard enough.
00:40:47:08 – 00:40:57:42
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Pull the old, like, iron for your hand in front of their eyes. Like, oh, you can’t see now. Yeah. That was, that was a good move of mine that I used to use all the time.
00:40:57:46 – 00:41:18:06
Agent Palmer
There was also something about trying to focus on your quarter of the screen. Depending. Yeah, like, especially, like I remember in college, we had, we had an N64 that for some reason, the game of choice for our crew was Cruisin World.
00:41:18:11 – 00:41:20:31
Andy Spiteri
Oh, yeah. And that’s a classic.
00:41:20:31 – 00:41:49:58
Agent Palmer
And just trying to not to. Look, I know it’s just a, it’s not even like a racing simulation, right? It’s just a racing game, but just trying to focus on your quarter of the screen and not trying to see where your friend is or like, what flips he’s doing or whatever. Like, that was, a level of concentration that I feel like people who have never played split screen games don’t appreciate.
00:41:50:02 – 00:42:10:41
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, well, it’s also kind of like like I remember playing GoldenEye multiplayer and, you know, you’re in temple and you’re just like, there’s some has proximity mines, like, where is he going? So you’d watch his screen and you’re just like, you could, you can kind of see where your buddy’s throwing the proxy mines. You’re like, okay, don’t go down that hole or whatever.
00:42:10:41 – 00:42:31:04
Andy Spiteri
Right. So it was also kind of like an extra added element of strategy. I mean, I’m not going to say that I think that like, split screen is better than, you know, playing your screen and like whatever, like online certainly has its conveniences. But, it was definitely his definitely fun. To do that and just kind of, mess around with your, with your friends.
00:42:31:04 – 00:42:42:23
Agent Palmer
The idea of yelling, are you camping to to somebody through a headset versus, I can see you, you haven’t moved in five minutes is it’s.
00:42:42:28 – 00:42:50:07
Andy Spiteri
The classic, classic camp spot. Someone in the, someone in the bathroom upstairs. A facility in GoldenEye for the N64.
00:42:50:11 – 00:43:03:35
Agent Palmer
Man, I and I look, I, I, I will I will guiltily say I played GoldenEye, but then I went on and played every single one of those other bond games. Every single one did.
00:43:03:35 – 00:43:04:12
Andy Spiteri
Yeah.
00:43:04:17 – 00:43:30:07
Agent Palmer
I in fact, I may still have all of them. And it’s as weird as it is. Aging Under Fire might have been one of the best of all of them. If you discount the From Russia With Love remake, which was good, but if you’ve watched the movie enough, you don’t even need to be good at the game, right?
00:43:30:12 – 00:43:49:10
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, I never, I never, played any of the other bond games. I remember actually, like, there is there is a bond game that was called, I think it was based off of Tomorrow Never Dies and that was on PlayStation. And at the time I was just like, oh, this sucks. Like, I can’t play the sequel to GoldenEye.
00:43:49:21 – 00:44:13:58
Andy Spiteri
Not realizing that it, like, didn’t have anything to do with GoldenEye other than just being James Bond. But, yeah, I, I actually really, really loved Perfect Dark, which was kind of, the spiritual sequel to GoldenEye. It was made by the same developer, kind of the the same everything, but just an original story. I sunk like, a stupid amount of hours into that game as a kid.
00:44:14:03 – 00:44:46:00
Agent Palmer
So I don’t. I’m sure you can answer this, and I don’t want the actual number, but, like, top three games, you’ve sunk in time into by time, you know what I mean? Like, I can tell you, for me, it’s probably, quake, Diablo and then, maybe I don’t know what the third one would be, actually. And that’s just because I keep replaying them over and over and over and over.
00:44:46:11 – 00:44:59:57
Agent Palmer
So I know that the hours are just up there, astronomically. But but do you know, I’m not? And again, I’m not asking for time, but. Yeah, just taking a guess at like, what is up there for you.
00:45:00:01 – 00:45:08:45
Andy Spiteri
I think that there’s two sets of answers. So one is, is like kind of multiplayer like time wise, I could almost for sure say that Smash Bros.
00:45:08:45 – 00:45:10:18
Agent Palmer
Brawl or okay.
00:45:10:18 – 00:45:17:00
Andy Spiteri
For the Wii would be a contender, because we played it every day for like a year.
00:45:17:04 – 00:45:18:58
Agent Palmer
Who’s your go to character?
00:45:19:03 – 00:45:45:00
Andy Spiteri
Oh, dude. Marth ness. Falco. Lucas. Actually, Lucas was a good one of mine. Yeah. Rock band two for we as well was another one that’s up there for multiplayer. And maybe, what else did we play? A lot of? Definitely a lot of smash. Definitely a lot of rock band. Maybe those are my top two multiplayer, top, top single player.
00:45:45:00 – 00:46:03:10
Andy Spiteri
I would say perfect dark would probably would have to be up there. Breath of the wild is, is a contender for sure. I think I have like 400 or some hours into that, which actually is nothing because there’s some people with like 2000 hours into that game. So that is pretty crazy.
00:46:03:10 – 00:46:11:01
Agent Palmer
Now, now is that are, are, are those hours one playthrough or two? Okay. All right.
00:46:11:01 – 00:46:33:21
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, I did too. But my first playthrough is about was about 300 hours because okay, like I, I went did everything right. And then the second one I actually completed not that long ago, we’re, we’re kind of getting ready for some breath of the world themed episodes on the champions cast. So I was like, well, I better play breath of the wild and get familiar refamiliarize.
00:46:33:21 – 00:46:53:04
Andy Spiteri
Right. So, yeah, that would be one. And, probably, probably Super Metroid would be up there, or Ocarina of Time actually would be up there. I played that game at least a couple times a year, especially for the last couple years at, at the Zelda Dungeon Marathon. I’ve been playing that. So, yeah, those are probably be there’s a top five instead of a top three.
00:46:53:04 – 00:47:30:50
Agent Palmer
No, I yeah, it’s, multiplayer. I mean, I look, there is a downside to gaming and it hasn’t really moved into console games yet. And I say yet because I feel like we’re we’re on the cusp of it. A friend of mine and I got addicted to, a mobile game, and we when I say addicted, I mean, we actually spent money on a mobile game, which, by the way, I know there are developers out there that make a living off of this stuff, but you should never spend money on a mobile game.
00:47:30:55 – 00:47:58:21
Agent Palmer
So we got burned because we spent money on this game. I’ll call it out. Futurama Worlds of Tomorrow. Because we were huge Futurama fans, so. Yeah. And then, you know, it went belly up and that was that. And then that became the model for everything. So like, I got back into playing magic through Magic Arena and it’s like, no, I learned my lesson.
00:47:58:21 – 00:48:26:53
Agent Palmer
I’m not spending any money on this. And now I see friends playing Fortnite and Rocket League, and it’s like there’s these passages and it’s like, I, I know where this is. I know what this leads to. Do you enjoy that model? Because obviously you’re going to you can’t be in gaming and ignore the fact that that is now one of the business models.
00:48:26:58 – 00:49:02:40
Andy Spiteri
Oh, yeah. No, it’s horrible. It’s horrible. I think that I think that it’s already in, in console games, actually, to be honest, like a couple of years ago, EA sports came out with, what was it, Star Wars Battlefront or Battlefront two or something like that. And the whole game was one big loot box where, like you, if you paid extra, you could unlock all the best stuff for like, you could level up your character faster, etc., etc. and like, everyone shit on it because it was so obvious and so glaring that, you know, this is such a it was a money grab and so, no, I mean, I think that’s horrible,
00:49:02:40 – 00:49:27:55
Andy Spiteri
that stuff, it’s it doesn’t help anyone. It’s not good. You know, you could make a good Star Wars game and it’ll sell, which they did last year. But yeah, I mean, it’s like the whole pay to win, loot box thing, I think is, is really silly. I think that there, there can be a way to do free to play games because free to play games that offer you in-game purchases.
00:49:27:55 – 00:49:48:02
Andy Spiteri
I don’t think those are inherently bad, but it’s how you it’s how the developers choose to like what they choose to put your money towards. So like I remember when Pokemon Go came out, I, I was like, I’m not spending money on this. Like, I’ll play it, sure, but I’m not going to spend money on it. And then eventually I was like, you know what?
00:49:48:02 – 00:50:14:37
Andy Spiteri
I I’ve been playing for like six hours with my buddies tonight. I’m going to spend 20 bucks because, you know, if I’m not spending 20 bucks on this, we’ll probably be at a bar or doing whatever. Sure. So I remember I remember spending money on that. But like, the thing about that and maybe the weird point, I’m making is like, when you spend money in a game like that, it doesn’t give you Pokemon, it gives you like a Pokeballs, which which helps you catch them, but it doesn’t hand them to you on a silver platter.
00:50:14:37 – 00:50:42:20
Andy Spiteri
It’s like you still have to work for it. And I don’t mean to sound like I’m defending Nintendo here, but it’s like it’s kind of how you use those microtransactions and like what you use them for because, like, if you’re if it’s literally a model where it’s like, if you if you pay me money, we give you like, for example, if if Pokemon Go is like, you know, if you pay ten bucks, you get the really rare Pokemon Dragonite, and if you pay eight bucks, you get the really rare Pokemon Venusaur.
00:50:42:33 – 00:51:09:07
Andy Spiteri
You know what I mean? Like that. That sucks, I think. Whereas like you can there is a way to do that. And I understand that a lot of developers make, you know, that’s how they make their money by offering in-game purchases. But I always think that it should be like superficial stuff like, let’s take Fortnite, for example. Like if you are playing Fortnite and you want to pay to unlock like a cool, like custom suit for your dude, or like custom stuff for your base, like esthetic kind of stuff.
00:51:09:12 – 00:51:39:33
Andy Spiteri
Sure. I think like, why not? But yeah, like if you’re paying, you know, 20 bucks and then you can unlock more like better weaponry or like something like that, I think that’s ugly. I mean, on the whole, no, I don’t I don’t really care for that at all. I think, like, you know, say I’m probably just a Nintendo apologist, but like, say what you will about them, but like, they charge you your your 7999 Canadian for the game and you get the game that’s there’s nothing else in there.
00:51:39:48 – 00:51:43:45
Andy Spiteri
You have it and that’s, that’s it. And unfortunately a lot of games will do that.
00:51:43:50 – 00:52:19:52
Agent Palmer
There’s an argument to be made, especially now because we’re in uncharted streaming territory and we don’t know what like that having the physical game is important and maybe now more than ever, because, like, look, I expect that Netflix isn’t going anywhere and Amazon Prime and Hulu and all the rest, HBO Max are not going anywhere. And, by the same token, I expect that Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft will be around as well.
00:52:19:52 – 00:52:46:42
Agent Palmer
But if I’m not connected to the internet, I can still play a game if I own the physical disc. And yeah, I can play more games because I’m not limited by the space that I have on my console. And the same thing goes for movies. And you know, owning whether it’s Vinyl’s resurgence or a CD for music, we we don’t know anything about digital ownership.
00:52:46:46 – 00:53:08:31
Agent Palmer
And I know that that’s kind of a separate conversation, but we do not know anything about it. So like, I applaud you for going back and replenishing your Gamecube collection, because, sure, there might be a way and it’s probably not that far off where Nintendo will allow you a digital download for some of those Gamecube games. But do you really own it?
00:53:08:36 – 00:53:21:06
Agent Palmer
I, I don’t know, like, it’s basically you’re paying for access, but if you owned the game, if you owned the disc, that’s something. And I, I feel like it gets lost in the shuffle on some of these things.
00:53:21:11 – 00:53:41:43
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. I mean, that’s you know, you’re right. That’s the future of games. You see it with with Xbox and Microsoft already with Game Pass, which is basically like Netflix for video games. You pay your monthly fee and you get access to all these titles, and that’s great. But yeah, I, I, I buy physical every single time.
00:53:41:43 – 00:54:02:50
Andy Spiteri
I actually, and part of a, like a collector groups that I like to collect, like just old cartridges, old games, stuff like that. So yeah, whenever, whenever possible, I will always buy physical and like, you know, the, there is great arguments to like publishers making their titles available digital only, which is basically like it cuts the cost in half.
00:54:02:56 – 00:54:03:44
Agent Palmer
Sure. Yeah.
00:54:03:46 – 00:54:30:23
Andy Spiteri
To the consumer, which is great. And I, I wouldn’t necessarily discourage anybody from buying like digital, but like, like you said like it’s just like it’s nice to know the like if you’re I don’t know if, if you’re switch breaks and something happens to it and maybe you didn’t have a Nintendo Online membership or it’s not backed up or your account is compromised or something, I don’t know, I just feel safer having that little, little cartridge.
00:54:30:23 – 00:54:55:50
Andy Spiteri
Right. And I, you know, I’ll usually pay like, double, unfortunately, is usually the cost of what, a physical cartridge is, but I’ll usually pay doubles to get a game from, like, a video game publisher, like limited run games or super rare games or something like that, which, are actually they’re pretty cool operations. That that’s basically their mission is to make sure that, like, stuff is preserved in a physical form.
00:54:55:55 – 00:55:06:52
Agent Palmer
As far as like classic consoles, what do you have and how many? Because like, I just I just imagine somewhere you have a closet with like four nesses, like.
00:55:06:57 – 00:55:13:59
Andy Spiteri
Well, I can show you this. I don’t think that anyone, listening to this is going to be able to see. But if you look, I got my webcam right now.
00:55:13:59 – 00:55:14:15
Agent Palmer
Yeah.
00:55:14:21 – 00:55:34:30
Andy Spiteri
Right above me is an NES. Yep. There’s an snares with a copy of Super Metroid in it. There is a, a green, Nintendo 64 is Ocarina of Time in it, and there is a PlayStation two and a super Gameboy, which is a cool little, cartridge thing for the Super Nintendo. So those are at my desk downstairs.
00:55:34:35 – 00:56:02:13
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, upstairs there is, let’s see, upstairs there’s a PlayStation four, there’s a Xbox 360 and Xbox One. There is a Nintendo Switch, there is a Nintendo Wii, there’s a Gamecube, there’s, we you, there’s a 3DS, there’s a DS, there’s the Snes mini classic, there’s the NES mini classic. And I think that’s it. I think there’s a lot of video game stuff.
00:56:02:13 – 00:56:11:52
Agent Palmer
Yeah, yeah. All right, I, I just let me ask you this if if you came across another NES, would you buy it?
00:56:11:57 – 00:56:28:39
Andy Spiteri
Probably not. I don’t like, I’m not a crazy collector like that. Like, I have a buddy who by he has, like, like ten nieces or whatever, and he just has them because he I have I don’t know why. I don’t know why. It’s ten. And he says I can’t make up a reason, but, he, he hasn’t.
00:56:28:44 – 00:56:32:56
Andy Spiteri
It’s but yeah, I have one. So that’s, that’s probably it’s probably good enough for me.
00:56:33:01 – 00:57:06:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah I have, I have a few cartridges somewhere around here of like games I remember, but I don’t, I don’t have any of these. Like it’s just like I, I there’s a classic in my house. My partner, she bought it and we played it a little bit and that was it. Like, I, I like the idea. I guess I like the idea of the NES classic, but it probably wasn’t worth the purchase because we played it twice.
00:57:06:48 – 00:57:33:42
Andy Spiteri
Like, yeah, yeah, definitely. I, I’m with you. Actually, I think the Snes classic for me was one that I was a lot more excited about. But yeah, the end. The NES classic, I was I kind of just wanted it as like a collectible, actually. Yeah. Rather than like, to play the games because I played I think I played, Zelda two for like an hour, and I was like, I am done.
00:57:33:42 – 00:57:43:26
Andy Spiteri
Like, I’m not playing this anymore. Like, that’s enough. And the, the controllers that they gave you had like a three foot cord, which also was ridiculous. Yeah, I yeah.
00:57:43:32 – 00:58:03:39
Agent Palmer
Like like I get like I, I will say I will give them a props for the three foot cord because we’re not playing on 16 inch CRT televisions anymore. And you don’t want to be that close to your, 42 inch television, whatever it is. Right? Like, yeah.
00:58:03:41 – 00:58:05:09
Andy Spiteri
It was horrible.
00:58:05:14 – 00:58:14:36
Agent Palmer
I remember you and I are supposed to be blind because we sat as close to the TV playing video games as possible.
00:58:14:41 – 00:58:25:55
Andy Spiteri
I will tell you for sure, dude, that I am blind. I am, I’m wearing contacts right now. Okay, my eyesight is awful. I mean, I’m awful, awful, awful.
00:58:25:55 – 00:58:32:38
Agent Palmer
I’m wearing glasses, but I’ve stared at a computer screen for the better part of the last 30 years.
00:58:32:43 – 00:58:35:20
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, well, you got. Yeah, you got me there. Me too.
00:58:35:32 – 00:58:48:20
Agent Palmer
Like it’s. Or TV, I guess. You know, I mean, this is a good question for you. What? What do you do to unplug? Do I how.
00:58:48:20 – 00:58:49:27
Andy Spiteri
About just in general.
00:58:49:28 – 00:58:55:02
Agent Palmer
Do you unplug?
00:58:55:06 – 00:59:14:41
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. I mean, like, I don’t, to be honest, like to put that in context of, like, what do I do to unplug? Like what I think of is like, you’ve had kind of a rough day. You can you just want to go home and, like, chill out, like video games is my thing to just kind of like, relax and wind down or whatever.
00:59:14:46 – 00:59:46:18
Andy Spiteri
When I, I mean, like, now that I am, that I’m older and, you know, working it’s you don’t get as much time to play video games. So by definition, you’re not doing that for for a whole lot of time. But, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, like, is it most of the time, like when I, when I get home unless I have like work to do on the computer specifically like in an open like I’m just shutting it down and like, whoever else can wait, if it’s really important, they can direct message me and I’ll try and get back to them.
00:59:46:18 – 01:00:08:25
Andy Spiteri
But like, yeah, I, I it’s usually close when I get home and, you know, I feel like it’s a different thing to unplug from, like, staring at a computer than it is for a video game. So, like, it sounds stupid, but, like, I sometimes play video games like, unplug because, like, during the day I work with, like, WordPress and other site stuff most of the day.
01:00:08:30 – 01:00:12:42
Andy Spiteri
And by the end of that I’m like, dude, I just want to play some Super Mario or something like that, right?
01:00:12:42 – 01:00:18:24
Agent Palmer
Like I want pixels that will move and not because I scrolled. Yeah, yeah.
01:00:18:24 – 01:00:19:24
Andy Spiteri
Pretty much.
01:00:19:28 – 01:00:45:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, that’s fine. I you know, in the last few years I’ve made a concerted effort to like, read more physical books to, to kind of cut down on the screen time. But I get the idea, like, I’ve been slightly addicted to Minecraft, although I’m coming out of it, I am I was doing some massive builds that aren’t even done that.
01:00:45:00 – 01:01:06:49
Agent Palmer
I’m like, yeah, I’m alright. Because I have that. I’m not going to say addictive personality, but like, I can get addicted to a video game like and it, it happens to be Minecraft now, but like go back a few years and it was something else and go back a few years before that. And it was what was the big one for me, like not too long.
01:01:06:51 – 01:01:34:22
Agent Palmer
Oh, Dragon Quest eight, I think was, I was huge. Oh, yeah. That one, and I was like, well, I got to collect all the monsters. Like, I just have to collect all the monsters. So, like, I have those those moments, but, like, I’m with you, like you, you you spend time, especially in the back end, staring at any kind of cmms or CRM.
01:01:34:22 – 01:01:40:31
Agent Palmer
And all of a sudden, all you want to do is shoot things and kill stuff that’s.
01:01:40:36 – 01:02:16:30
Andy Spiteri
You know, I, I’m kind of like, I’m kind of on the same page as you or, like, I, I like, I’ll sync like, let’s see breath of the wild as an example. I mean, I’ll sync like 400 hours into that game and I love it and like, I’m like so into it like, yeah, I mean, but like borderline addicted to that game, but I never, I never got into, like, the games that, were kind of like they just continued, because, like, for me at least, I was like, I had a bunch of buddies back in the day that were, like, really big into World of Warcraft and stuff like that,
01:02:16:30 – 01:02:34:26
Andy Spiteri
and StarCraft and even, I think they made a Star Wars game, The New Republic or something like that. Yep. Where it was like kind of an online MMO, and those ones never really kind of were my jam because like, like I can sink like 400 hours into a game, but it has it has to have a definitive start and end.
01:02:34:26 – 01:02:45:50
Andy Spiteri
So like when I hit the end, I’m like, okay, I’m done. Which is which is why I’m not like super into games like that or even like Animal Crossing, which is like, a massive game, you know, today look or massive series.
01:02:45:54 – 01:03:15:45
Agent Palmer
I, I graduated from college in 2004, but when Animal Crossing, the first one came out and hit that campus, like, that was crack, no one left their room. There were there were so many dorm rooms with multiple game cubes because you and multiple TVs because roommates didn’t want to wait for the other one. So I was not going to buy another console just to get addicted again.
01:03:15:45 – 01:03:19:14
Agent Palmer
Like, I know what that game can do to you.
01:03:19:27 – 01:03:43:38
Andy Spiteri
Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, look at Animal Crossing New Horizons, man. That’s like, that’s the game of our times right now. And it’s kind of like the perfect the perfect thing that we were talking about. Like way back at the beginning. Like that’s the escape from everything, you know, everything. So it’s it’s, it’s a thing. I mean, like, some people are, you know, some people are pretty intense into that, and it can be to their detriment.
01:03:43:43 – 01:03:44:36
Andy Spiteri
It’s just too bad.
01:03:44:41 – 01:04:04:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I think I think everybody you find that thing like, in that moment, like, go back on campus for me in like 2003 or whatever. Like that was all we wanted to do in hindsight, I can be like, oh no, we were absolutely addicted.
01:04:04:53 – 01:04:21:58
Andy Spiteri
Yeah. I mean, yeah, he nailed it. And those luckily, like I said, like for me, like those games don’t really kind of appeal to me because it’s like, I need to have a start and I need to have an end, and there needs to be a purpose to what I’m doing. And, if there is thing, then great.
01:04:22:03 – 01:04:39:14
Andy Spiteri
I’m in, but, yeah, those ones never really hooked me, and I. And I think that’s why is is because of, like, if you can’t see the end goal, I’m just kind of like, yeah, maybe I can, like, just not do this.
01:04:39:19 – 01:04:43:45
Agent Palmer
You.
01:04:43:50 – 01:05:08:43
Agent Palmer
Just like, you can have your favorite comfort food classic album or go to movie, you can totally have a comfort video game or even more than one. But video games tend to get more of a bad rap than other forms of media do. To me, there’s no difference between a passive medium, like putting on a movie and an active one, like fortifying your Minecraft stronghold or losing to a boss on purpose.
01:05:08:43 – 01:05:30:50
Agent Palmer
And skies of Arcadia. Andy and I discussed the positives of gaming, but as is the case with our mutual friend Diamond Dave, those positives will differ from person to person. Are you up to the challenge? Do you want to be a hero? Do you want to just shoot things? Or are you just looking for an experience that lets you hang out with friends?
01:05:30:55 – 01:05:54:51
Agent Palmer
The idea of gaming has changed. Years ago, it meant sitting on the floor close to your family or friends, only separated by the cords of your controllers, or by avoiding sitting on that weird spot on the carpet. And of course, you couldn’t sit too close to the television. That kind of gaming isn’t gone. It’s just changed and gotten its own term.
01:05:54:56 – 01:06:24:00
Agent Palmer
They call it couch co-op. Today, if you can believe it. You know, it’s it’s what the kids are saying. But that doesn’t change the fact that the game remains as a means to escape. You might not find your escape from a game. Perhaps you do get it from a book, a movie, an album. But if you can understand and the escape you get from any of those, then you can understand what people who escape with games know.
01:06:24:05 – 01:06:54:18
Agent Palmer
Sometimes it’s better to get out of your own head and experience something out of this world, or just something different. What are your comfort games? And for that matter, what are your comfort movies? Comfort albums? Comfort books? I’m all in on all formats and you should be too. Also, thanks for choosing podcasts as a way to escape. And as always, thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 31.
01:06:54:23 – 01:07:19:07
Agent Palmer
As a reminder, all links are available in the show notes. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can tweet me at Palmer, the show at The Palmer Files and Andy at Spiteri. 316 that’s spit 3316. You can hear more of him on the champions cast.
01:07:19:07 – 01:07:41:27
Agent Palmer
Omega metroid in virtual Theater on your podcast app of choice. And you know, check out Zelda Dungeon Dot net for all your Zelda needs. Email can be sent to the show at the Palmer Files at gmail.com. If you have any feedback on this or any previous episode, or if there’s a topic or guest you’d like me to consider.
01:07:41:32 – 01:07:55:41
Unknown
You.
01:07:55:46 – 01:08:07:48
Unknown
Me.
01:08:07:52 – 01:08:12:46
Unknown
Me.
01:08:12:51 – 01:08:17:43
Unknown
Me.
01:08:17:48 – 01:08:21:10
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Me.
01:08:21:14 – 01:08:25:36
Agent Palmer
All right. Andy, do you have one final question for me?
01:08:25:41 – 01:08:44:57
Andy Spiteri
I do. Did our mutual friend Diamond Dave Meyer ever force you or ask you to listen to our podcast from way back in the day, the Cool story show? And if he did, what did you think of that bullshit?
01:08:45:02 – 01:09:15:24
Agent Palmer
He he did not actually. And, I haven’t, and I will tell you why. It’s not because I don’t want to. It’s actually more in line with the fact that, the show that brought Dave and I together was Seven Days of Geek, and I went back and did there and and I got into seven Days of geek around episode 90, and I did the entire back catalog dive.
01:09:15:24 – 01:09:48:58
Agent Palmer
And then I found out that there was a show that existed before that called tops. And I did that dive of like 70 some episodes. And at that point I vowed I was never going backwards into a show like that ever again. I was just going to listen to New things. And Dave had talked about the Cool story show, but he only ever brought it up in the context of like, how he got to Podcasts Without Borders, right?
01:09:49:03 – 01:10:12:24
Agent Palmer
And I do know, and this is where it’s gone from my memory. I remember Dave talking about it on an episode of the podcast Digest where he was found because of the cool story show, and I think he’s one of the few people that have been on that show, like five times, because Dave came on once for each podcast.
01:10:12:24 – 01:10:14:37
Agent Palmer
He had. Yeah. I.
01:10:14:37 – 01:10:37:43
Andy Spiteri
Remember actually him and I met Dan from the podcast digest in like 2014. And yeah, he originally asked all four of us to come on the show, but only Dave and I could make it for whatever reason. And, I remember Dan had, like, this really deep, manly voice, and I felt so intimidated by him. I was just like, oh my God, this this guy’s, this guy’s like legitimate.
01:10:37:43 – 01:10:53:56
Andy Spiteri
I’m just some some doofus with, like, a microphone, in my laptop here. What am I doing? But yeah, the cool story show was absolutely horrible, but I’m glad that it kind of got Dave and myself into this, this podcasting world. But it’s it’s so cringe to look back from where you look.
01:10:53:56 – 01:11:16:34
Agent Palmer
Look, I as the cliff notes version of this, I started as a proxy caster. I started as a guest on everyone’s show and didn’t want to launch my own, mainly because I didn’t know what this show would be at the time, and it was so much fun to just show up and talk on other people’s shows and never have to worry about like, promotion or anything, you know, like editing.
01:11:16:34 – 01:12:00:59
Agent Palmer
Yeah. But, I will tell you, the first show I was ever on was an episode of The Stranger Conversations with Grant Marcum, and I will tell you that it took me. I mean, look, look, that was like a 90 minute or a two hour episode. Like, those episodes were long. It takes me less time to edit completely and maybe even record these episodes that I’m doing now that it took me to listen back to that first episode because I was on, I talked to Grant, and then he released it and I think I listened to it in like 10 or 15 minute increments, followed by like an hour of not listening to it because
01:12:00:59 – 01:12:05:23
Agent Palmer
I was like, I don’t want to listen to my voice, like, just like.
01:12:05:23 – 01:12:05:50
Andy Spiteri
No or.
01:12:06:05 – 01:12:28:55
Agent Palmer
Oh. So that was the cringe worthy thing. Like, I don’t even know what I said because I like it was such a like it was a conversation. But I listened to it’s so disjointed that it just. But now, it’s it’s not a problem, but you grow and that’s but yeah. No, I thank God that’s not it. That doesn’t exist anymore.
01:12:29:00 – 01:12:36:10
Agent Palmer
So no one can go back and find that, I do have a copy. I’m just just saying.
01:12:36:10 – 01:12:58:10
Andy Spiteri
I think that our stuff I got, I don’t even know if I should say is I think it’s still on YouTube. It’s it’s super. It’s it’s bad. It’s bad stuff. If you want to see, like, a bunch of losers singing kiss from a Rose at the top of their lungs or like, talk about their worst dates, I’m, I’m sure that it might be on YouTube somewhere, but I would not in good conscience recommend anybody go and find that.
01:12:58:10 – 01:13:04:49
Andy Spiteri
But yeah, so that was my question to see, if you if you’d ever told you about our humble beginnings.
01:13:04:49 – 01:13:06:21
Agent Palmer
I mean, I know about the beginning.
01:13:06:26 – 01:13:09:05
Andy Spiteri
You did the right thing and probably didn’t.
01:13:09:10 – 01:13:25:30
Agent Palmer
I mean, I know about the beginnings, but he never was like, listen, you have to listen. But Dave’s always good about moving on to the next thing, maybe even too quickly. So there’s there’s never time to go back and listen to the old stuff. There’s always a new thing.
01:13:25:35 – 01:13:29:25
Andy Spiteri
Yes, I love it. I love that you said that. Yes.
–End Transcription–
This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).