Game Players 92 - NBA Live '97 [S1E10]

ISSUE LINK: Ultra Game Players No. 92 - Christmas 1996

Mike Salmon's shot-calling review of NBA Live '97 stuck with Ty for almost 30 years—and it cuts to the heart of everything our podcast is about. 

For the first time ever, we revisit a magazine: Game Players, right after the "ULTRA" makeover that inspired the name of the very premium tiers you subscribe to! We take a hard look at the makeover, their 1996 year-end reviews, and Mike Salmon's refusal to give a major publisher's release a score it didn't deserve.

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Sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, of course I don't have a cold open because
I'm dumb.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
All right. They're the hardest part to write.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
It really is. Really every once in a while something
just pops right off.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, sometimes they will. Yeah, I have the same experience.
But then sometimes I'm like, what am I gonna write
for the cold open? This could be our cold open?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, this could be our cold open. You want this
to be our cold open? You've got fun Factor. Two
old gamers reviewing old video game magazine reviews. I'm Ty Shelter.
He's Aiden Moherk. We're two professional writers who grew up

(00:38):
loving the games and video game magazines of the nineteen eighties,
nineteen nineties, and two thousands. Every episode we take a
critical look back on the games media that, for better
and for worse, inspired us to do what we do
before anything else. Go to Funfactor pod dot com and
follow the show on your podcatcher of choice. Leave us
a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you
get your media. We'll read the best, kindest, funniest, and

(01:01):
most insightful ones on the air in our letter section.
Please consider becoming a member of fun Factor Ultra, our
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Shout us out on blue Sky at funfactor pod dot

(01:23):
com and everywhere else at funfactor pod Aiden. As we
sort of informally progress through nineteen ninety five, nineteen ninety six,
and into nineteen ninety seven, we're seeing games get more
and more expensive. Between the immense anticipation for hot new
Japan made consoles and games that would take months or

(01:44):
even years to arrive stateside and the Nintendo sixty four
sticking with first party manufactured cartridges, retailers and importers were
putting huge numbers on price tags. If you think eighty
dollars for Mario Kartworld is expensive and twenty twenty five kids,
try paying the same mount for Mario Kart sixty four
in nineteen ninety six dollars, So we're about double what

(02:05):
they are today. So by the end of nineteen ninety six,
video games were more expensive than they'd ever been and
maybe ever will be. I have a distinct memory of
being thrilled I got basically everything I asked for at
the big family Christmas, and then looking back at my
huge hall to see like a prim little stack of
like four music CDs, three PlayStation CDs, and a couple

(02:27):
of books, And as unimpressive as that looked, it probably
cost more put together than some of the big piles
of toys I'd taken home in prior years. But you know,
aiden at the same time, we're seeing these magazines and
the writers who work for them pushing back against their
traditional role of helping you decide what game is worth
the money they're charging for it. We're seeing longer, more
thoughtful critiques, complex scoring systems, explicit guidelines and rubrics printed

(02:53):
right alongside the scores, and very rarely no score at all.
But as much as the thought end of the audience
appreciated magazines editorial ambition here, we also still expected them
to tell us what games were worth our or our
parents' money. And the expectation of the game companies laying
out advertising dollars was surely that they'd at least avoid

(03:16):
popping the sales bubble of any major release. Do you
remember the first time you realized every game wasn't really
at least a seven or better. Yet the first time
you realized the reviewer who gave it a seven didn't
think it was a seven either.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I don't have any like specific memories of like a
you know, a light bulb glass shattering moment where I
realized that a lot of you know what actually fast forward.
And it didn't have anything to do with reading magazines
in the nineties. It had to do with being a
book critic and blogger in like two thousand and eight,
when I picked up the paperback copy of a book

(03:53):
Winter Birth by Brian Ruckley that I had reviewed on
my blog, and I was pleased and tickled to find
that there was a blurb from my review, quite a
glowing blurb from my review on the back cover. First
time that had ever happened to me. Nice, it was
pretty cool. Yeah, The problem was I didn't really like
the book very much. I found some things too like

(04:14):
about it, but I also had a lot of issues
about it, and I was like, oh, whoa, Like that's weird,
and so that like really crystallized for me, like the
divide between sort of criticism and marketing for products like

(04:35):
books and video games, because I could and you know, like,
and then throughout my career as a book critic that
kept happening. Sometimes I would write glowing reviews that would
get tons of traffic, and I'd be like, oh, this.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Is for sure a backcover quote.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
I would write backcover quotes into my reviews, like specifically,
I'd be like, this is a sentence that I'm writing
to appear on the back cover of this book. Gotcha,
and then it wouldn't show up. But I love that book.
And then I would read a book that I, like,
you know, was luke warmon, but you know, I could
recognize some of its qualities, and I'd write something in

(05:08):
the middle of the review without thinking about it, and
then that's what would be blurred. And so that really
kind of like showed me that like, oh, okay, there's
an audience for criticism, there's audience for marketing, and those
are going to get blurred depending on like the needs
or the wants of the person sort of like utilizing
that quote as well. So that for me is probably
where I really saw and started to understand this dichotomy

(05:32):
that you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah, it's got to be weird to be the critic
who like looks at the back of the book or
the movie poster and sees like quote a ellipses, fun ellipses,
brackets movie close, quote aid, and like, what okay, I mean,
I guess, I guess I did say those words in
that order with some other words in there, and like
I never.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Had a quote that was like misused or miss like
used outside of context in the way that you're describing, right,
you know, they were all things that like I did
like about whatever book because I often, like as a critic,
especially as I got better at it, did try to
understand what the creator was trying to do even if
it didn't work for me. So like I never felt manipulated,

(06:13):
but I definitely felt like, oh okay, like they are
cherry picking here, So I can't really trust any like
review blurb really, you know, I have reviews on Brandon
Sanderson books, and like I like Brandon Sanderson, but like
if you read my blurb on the back of it
was like which one was an Oathbringer or something, you'd think,

(06:35):
you know, I was a huge fanboy, whereas in reality,
I like Sanderson's book, but I find them very problematic.
And so the same thing kept happening over time, and
you know, it was like, yeah, okay, I did write that,
and I can see how that's going to like appeal
to people. You know. I was never upset by it,
but it definitely made me think about the other review
blurbs I was reading.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, well, I have a memory tied directly to this,
and it's the very review we're going to review today.
In this very issue, we're going to look at the
Christmas nineteen ninety six issue of Ultra Game Players. We're
about to get a great look at how magazines were
maturing and how their critique was evolving. But the North
American games market still revolved almost entirely around kids getting

(07:17):
these pricey games and consoles for Christmas. Huge chunks of
industry revenues have traditionally common Q four with holiday sales alone,
making or breaking games consoles and companies. And I think
this issue might be the starkest contrast we've seen yet
between editorial ambitions and like flat commercial endorsement. So just

(07:38):
look at the cover. It's all silver and white with
just a few stark hits of like high contrast red
and black. Game players had traditionally been as like neon
happy and color clashy as any other magazine, but these
like sleek graphics and light metallics I think really make
space for the big text and the key figure Lara Croft.
This might be the best looking Laura Croft cover from

(08:01):
this era. And I don't mean that in like a
Leary Gross way. In fact, part of what stands out
for me is that she's not being posed or clothed
extra sexually here, in contrast to like every other one.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
She's like her her boobs are half covered up, which
like honestly is sort of like notable for this period
of games media.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yes, and she's rendered in three D with like a
way higher poly count and extra call quality, certainly than
in the gameplay of tomb Raider one, which by the way,
is reviewed in this issue, and honestly, I think even
better than that game's cut scenes. Like I went back
and looked at I'm like, so, I don't even know
where this model came from. Even if you go look
at the tomb Raider two model, which presumably would have

(08:44):
been at least in concept at the time, it's like
way more sexualized than this, even just like the baseline
model used on the cover and in the cut seeds
and stuff. So I'm like super curious where this, like
how they did this, And she's got a Santa hat on,
but other than that, she's just wearing her regular outfit
and in like badass mode, blowing smoke off her just

(09:05):
fired gun next to the splash text smoking holiday issue.
The proximity of this to Jim Carrey and the mask aside,
I think this is a really well conceived and well
executed cover. And then just by her arm, we have
in all caps which.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
System is best PlayStation at sixty four PC or Saturn.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
And like it's just kind of like, okay, here's you know,
this is about as cool as I think a magazine
can make video games look in nineteen ninety six, and
yet it still promises to tell us which one company
we should tell our moms and dads to give all
their money to. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
I really liked this era of ultra game players like
it it visually as I was flipping through this issue,
it really like stoked law of memory. Yeah, and there's
always going to be that sort of like the console
wars were so important, you were always going to have
that on here, right, They have like previews for nineteen

(10:03):
ninety seven with Resident Evil and Fun, Fantasy seven and more.
It says, you know, they're really hitting you over the
head with like, hey, these are all the games you want,
and like, I'll be honest, I would bring issues of
magazines to show my dad when I'd be trying to
convince them to like pony up for a new game.
And like you say, games are so expensive that at
that time, like I get with my kids, like they're

(10:24):
constantly asking me and expecting me to download new games
off the e shop for them because they're like, you know,
I got Jurassic Lego Jurassic World for my daughter for
five dollars, you know, So like that's their expectation, Whereas
back then it was like we kind of needed to
be able to take a magazine to our parents to say, hey, hey, hey,
look at remember how I said I won a Nintendo

(10:45):
sixty four, like Ultra Gameplayers said it was the best
console out there, Like, you know, this is worth the money.
I'm gonna love this. It's an investment, yes, And that
was what games culture was like, like a bunch of
kids trying to like sell their parents on stuff, and
so I think that was probably part of what was
going on here too. I also just like that. Christmas
Nights gets say on the Saturn, which is like a

(11:07):
Christmas themed version of Nights, which which the Saturn's big
like Super Mario sixty four competitor gets a big splashy
thing along the bottom, Like you'd never see something like
that nowadays, you know, Yeah, you'd never spoil a Christmas
version of a game.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, spoiler alert, it's on the demo disc too. There's
a disc jumping and you get to demo Christmas Nights,
so we'll talk about that second.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I think it's a good look
and I like the like the white and black like
simple or sorry, like white and red with a little
bit of black, like simple text matching up with Laura.
Like I wouldn't call it like reserved or classy, but
it does feel like it's trying to be a little
more maybe grown up, like maybe not twelve year olds,

(11:49):
but like seventeen year olds sort of.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Okay, So in the Nintendo Power a few episodes ago,
you asked me if I trusted their editorial. I guess
I'll ask you, does this conflict between creativity and consumerism
impact your trust of the review we're about to read.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's a good question, and I think that's sort of
like the core question of this podcast. Really, you know,
so I don't have like a clear answer on that.
I trusted them implicitly back in the day, and now
I've worked in games media with a lot of great
like critics and feature writers and news writers and editors,
and I trust all of them, and so, you know,

(12:30):
I think the people creating the magazine were always making
the best choice they could within the environment they were
working in. I think that we've gotten a lot better
about talking about video games because they're not always viewed
as a consumer product anymore, whereas in these they were
often viewed as consumer products or like written about as
consumer products. But I think ultimately the answer is yes,

(12:56):
I think the people making the magazines were doing the
best that they could within the you know, scriptures that
they were handed by their parent company who was trying
to get advertising dogs right. There's always that dichotomy. I
think that's why worker owned websites right now, like Aftermath
or but Why though, are so important because there is

(13:16):
no conflict between how they make their money and how
they cover video games. That was impossible back then in
the mid nineties unless you were reading zines. But yeah,
I think they're mostly trustworthy, and I think as we're
about to see that, you're starting to see that represented
in the text a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yes, And I cannot say anymore until we get to
Ultra game Player's review of NBA Live ninety seven. So
I'm gonna get back from break. We're going to open
up the smoking cover and flip through this issue. If
you're not already a member of Fun Factor Ultra and
getting ad free episodes, Hank tight, we come back. We'll
flip through Ultra game Players number ninety two and their

(13:54):
review of NBA Live ninety seven. Welcome back to fun Factor.

(14:24):
We're two old gamers review old video game magazine reviews.
Of course we want you to review us. Do we
get a full of five point zero fun Factor? Leave
us a review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on YouTube,
and we will read the best, funniest, kindest, and most
entertaining ones on the air. Ultra game Players. And this
is the first time we're coming back to a magazine

(14:45):
we already covered. Of course, we did game Players number
seventy five in our second ever episode on Chronal Trigger,
but a little over a year after that, as you
came out, they got the sleek redesign for issue eighty
nine at the Ultra pre fixed to the name, and
you know, you kind of look at this mix of
like all caps and no caps fonts, this kind of sleek,

(15:07):
rounded graphics elements, cleaner overall pages, with a much more
futuristic feel. Especially flip open the cover, get to the
table at contents. Here you can really see what I'm
talking about. We've got these these futuristic fonts that are
mixed lower and upper case in weird ways, all kind
of round it and sleek, and it really looks like
wipe Out to me.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, it looks sort of like a sci fi computer interface.
Yes to me, you know, like you'd see this on
a Star Trek like panel and the yes yes.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
And it looks to me like the entire industry played
that game and meant, oh god, we've all got to
look a lot cooler.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, Wipeout was very cool. Like the vibes were off
the chart, so I can see why they were like, Okay,
we got to do that.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, Okay, So this is long, but Aidan and it's
actually from issue eighty nine, the issue the redesign a
few issues earlier. We're looking at ninety two, but this
was from a the new redesign. So can you read
this long excerpt? I'm sorry, I think it's all worth
it from editor in chief Chris Slate.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Why why completely change a magazine when it already has
scores of loyal readers? Why change when you're racing by
the competition in terms of both commercial and critical success.
Why change when the editorial is already well respected for
its quality and integrity. Why because even though we had
plenty to be happy about, we just weren't satisfied. We

(16:30):
felt that we could still improve in almost every area,
and we've never been ones to shy away from a challenge.
The world of video games has changed remarkably over the years.
Each new generation has taken us places we never imagined possible,
and this generation, with its thirty two and sixty four
bit consoles, is the most exciting ever. We're playing new

(16:53):
types of games, so it only makes sense that we
offer a new type of video game magazine. Simply stuffing
thirty and sixty four bit coverage in the old sixteen
bit format just doesn't cut it. Also, you won't find
biased opinions scandals or bought editorial and Ultra game Players.
Our philosophy has and always will be reader first. Let's

(17:16):
face it, Without you, guys, we're nothing. Will never do
anything to compromise our relationship. Drop me a line with
your thoughts on the new game players. I can't respond
to everyone, but I promise that I will read every message. Now,
let's get this thing going now.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
I'm not sure if Scores of Loyal Readers was like
a self deprecating joke or the still very young Chris
Slate did not know that score means twenty. But other
than that, damn, what a statement of intent? Does this
all ring true to you?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I was gonna joke about that as well, because i've
you know, does CE numbers for like EGM around this time,
and they're like circulation of EGM I think was like
eight hundred thousand or something like that, So scores is
definitely a little soft. The thing that stands out to
me is that they called it Ultra Game Players, which
was like the working title for the Nintendo sixty four.

(18:08):
It was the Ultra sixty fours for so long, and
it seems weird to take something that was like so
tightly tied to one of the consoles. Yeah, but it
sounds sweet. Is the magazine actually that much different in
structure and style? Not really than it was, you know,
back when we reviewed twelve issues earlier in episode two.

(18:30):
Is the writing a little more cutting? Probably, And so
I think there's maybe more like kind of editorial like
editorializing towards a new vision. And obviously it looks very different. Yeah,
and it absolutely has that thirty two bit sixty four
bit like style to it. Like we said, it looks
like wipeout or it looks like a computer panel from

(18:52):
a science fiction TV show or movie. So I think
it rings true. And I think he you know, fires
some shots too about like, you know, what I think
about biased opinions. I think that every piece of media
and criticism is a biased opinion, and pushing against that
ideas is wrong. As we're going to see as we

(19:12):
read through this review, Like, yes, these are not subjective
or objective reviews or subjective reviews, but I get what
he's saying that we're not nobody's putting their finger on
the scale to like impact or shape what we're writing about,
you know, and scandals and bought editorial like it feels

(19:33):
like he's taking a shot at other like contemporaries, which
is interesting. You know, does this kind of pressage some
of the stuff that we would start seeing as the
Internet took off and there were like, you know, the
console wars turned into like you know, which games media
site you liked or which message board you spent time

(19:53):
on and which ones you made fun of and stuff
like that. But but yeah, like you know, what he's
saying here reminds me of of what happened with game
Spot way back when, you know, when Gersmand left after
there was the whole like Canaan Lynch fiasco, which was
like you know, bought editorial and Gersman like pushed back
against that, and they went on to create Giant Bomb, right,

(20:16):
which is still one of the biggest sites out there. So,
you know, I do think those issues existed within games
media in some capacity, and for Slate to outright address
them in the magazine is kind of remarkable, I think.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, I think so. And the one format change
that actually did happen it comes through in the numbers,
and I don't remember feeling this at the time. Then
ombers it's the Holiday nineteen ninety six issue I'm pretty
sure there was a November issue and a December issue.
I think this was a separate like thirteenth issue, which
I think they did for a few years. One hundred
and fifty one pages of editorial plus several pages of

(20:51):
ads at the back and at the front. Actually sixteen
games reviewed for four systems and sixty f PlayStation, PC
and Saturn. And so I went back and looked a
year before. Again, this is Holiday ninety six. The last
issue we looked at was September ninety five, so just
over a year ago. That issue had twenty one full reviews,

(21:14):
seventy three capsule reviews, plus three reader reviews for ten systems.
So part of what makes ultra game players ultra is
that we are no longer messing around with handheld or
three D zero or Jaguar, And of course part of
it is also these these systems are like rapidly dying out,
you know. Virtual Boy I think had already come and

(21:36):
gone basically at this point, like it was still on
the shelves, and games are still on the shelves, but
I think the last one had already been released by
the end of ninety six, so they're just down to
the TRIPAA consoles plus PC and not that much PC.
So then I think handhelds like game Boy. No, yeah,
that's what I'm saying. There's none of.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
That, yes, wild yeah, interesting.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
And I don't know that no game Boy games were
reviewed in the run of Ultra game Players right or other.
You know, I was trying to think of what the
next major portable would have been kind of you know
in this.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Because I think, I mean it was game Boy until
two thousand and one, right, yes, Advance came out. Yeah,
so like this would have been like yeah, right in
the game Boys run, right, Yeah, So, like you know,
they weren't giving Pinocchio editors choice batches, but they would
probably end up covering like you know whatever Links Awakening,
something like that, Mario Games stuff, like those those big
heavy hitters for sure.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Then if we look go ahead a little bit to
the masthead, the names on the mask that haven't changed
a ton, but the mask thatt itself has, So I
was looking a lot cooler. We get bigger, better headshots
of the lead editors and writers and longer jokey or
bios of.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Each Yes, definitely, and like you know, they're having a
bit of fun. These are like professional headshots. They were
obviously in a studio altogether, like getting their head shots.
There's two different ones of Chris Slate, one for his
like edit, you know, like whatever, what is that called?
Letter from the editor? Yes, and then one for his
little bio where he's being a little cheekyer. But then

(23:09):
I even head over to like the full masththead and
we've talked about this on earlier episodes. One thing that
stands out to me is in the full Masthead you
have editor Chris Slate second person on here, which has
probably had the biggest impact on this new version of
Game Players, art director Debbie Wells, and so Debbie obviously

(23:29):
oversaw this dramatic re envisioning of what game Players looks like,
ranking ahead of managing editor Bill Donahue on the main Masthead.
But because she's not writing things in the magazine, she's
not getting that same level of like, you know, prominence
as some of just the staff writers even, And I
think it's just really important to, you know, acknowledge those

(23:51):
people who are putting in these massive amounts of work
and aren't necessarily recognized for that.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, with a hope and a prayer, I actually cold
messaged her on LinkedIn to ask, Hey, how'd you come
up with this Lara Croft asset? Like who you know? Yeah,
get babe, see if we could get, you know, get
an interview for votus episode. But she's had the same
job in the kind of the public sector for like
twelve years and probably doesn't check her LinkedIn, which is fine.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
No, yeah, yeah, my day job is in the public
sector and I do not go on LinkedIn ever. Yeah.
One other thing from the masthead before we move on
is as I go down, I see a little familiar
name as a web slinger, So I assume that means
like a web presence, because just below that's a web editor.
But the web slinger is Stephen Frost, who we talked

(24:40):
about earlier, and he went on to run PSM.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
I believe, Oh yeah, the PSM reviews editor, right at
least at that time, right, yeah, so, and I think
he moved down to the bigger roles after that too,
But yes, And it's always fun to see like familiar
names sort of pop up in these tertial roles and
then eventually you see how they sort of make their
way into becoming kind of influenced editors. And writers as well.
Last time, Jeff Lundrigan's personal at dot com dot com

(25:06):
email was the only published compact email address for the
whole magazine. This time, the whole staff. Like the whole
staff has their own company email printed underneath their names.
Plus there's an inbox we will overlook the at QM,
dot Imagine, Dashinc. Dot com domains still very early days,
but it's just in a year. The Internet has gone

(25:28):
from this is starting to creep in at the edges
to this is central to everything that's going on. My
favorite bit, there is a little pull out box for
contributors and not only names the contributors, but what roles
they have across the rest of Imagine Media. So you
have Christian Spenson, who's the assistant editor of next Gen Online,

(25:49):
credited here as a contributor to Ultra Gameplayers, Jason Bates,
assistant editor PC Gamer, And unfortunately there's one that I
thought was really interesting but turned out to be really
upsetting Jason Montez, web editor for Game Players Online. And again,
in the fall of ninety five, many of these magazines
had no web presents at all, and by the end
of ninety six they pretty much all have staff dedicated

(26:12):
to running their own website, and so when a name
or role jumps off the page, I look them up
to see how the rest of their career went, and
this time I wish I hadn't. Montes's life came to
a violent and tragic end in two thousand and nine
at the age of thirty three, and so did that
of his twenty five year old wife. I'm not going
to dwell in the details here, but it's another reminder
that the people who created these magazines were all human

(26:33):
beings who came from and went to all kinds of
different places in life, and they carried their talents and
troubles and virtues and vices with them at all times
and contributed to these creative works that we loved as kids.
And you know, now we have to deal with That's
that's still how this goes. But just a few months earlier,

(26:54):
game Players Online had been gathered into a collective with
four other websites run by publisher imagined Me. Together with
Next Generation Online, psxpower N sixty four dot com and
Saturn World, game Players Online was the foundation for the
Imagine Games Network or IGN. And if you don't know now,

(27:16):
you know all my favorite game magazines websites eventually became
what was not then and is not now my favorite
games website.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Hey, I've written for IGN and they're lovely. I'm yeah,
many eras of IGN, I'll say that. Yeah, oh absolutely,
And like you know, when I think of the web
wars and stuff, like I was a big one up
guy and like, you know, IGN was the enemy for
a long time, and now I look back on that
and I'm like, oh, that's because I was totally, like
you know, manipulated by this culture war between sites when

(27:47):
we should have all just kind of loved each other
and stuff. But it's wild to see the winding history
of how all of these games media pieces link together
and still exist in so many different forms.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Right oh yeah, yea. But hey, we are like a
half hour plus in and we're still on page two.
It's time for the flip through, and we only go
one page forward actually, because I want to stay right

(28:20):
here opposite the best head for just a second. We
have copy promoting the disc. Don't dare miss out. It's
the Magazine's new companion demo disc. And if you'd like
to know more about magazines and demo discs, join the
fun Factor Ultra Review crew. Check out our premium bonus
episode on Magazine Demo Discs with Epis Vox and Sean Shanson.

(28:42):
Note that Red Ray's fist logo and blazoned Ultra game
Players Holiday Special ninety six again extremely wipe out to me,
Like that looks like the phase our logo or whatever,
like on the side of one of those hundreds to say,
and can you read some of this promo text? Yeah,
so we have.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
It's a fairly sparse page with just a few big,
like you know, pieces of call out text, a little
image of the disc sleeve. But then in a sidebar
we have a few bullet points. And the first one
here is what would you pay for a single CD
ROM containing dozens of playable demos of the very latest,

(29:20):
hottest PC in Mac games and high quality movies of
new and still in development thirty two and sixty four
bit games. A zero because I was used to pay
zero dollars for a demo desk. Yes, you were not
getting sixty four bit games on a CD demo disc also,
but you know, I guess unless you're getting Jaguar CD games.

(29:43):
But I have a feeling six year Ultra Game Players
was not putting those on there the next Bullet Point.
Wouldn't it be cool if you could see and hear
world exclusive footage of the hottest from the hottest Saturn
and PlayStation games from around the world before most magazines
have even published a screenshot. Guarantee that never happened in

(30:06):
the existence of these demo discs. There's no way they
were getting builds before screenshots were out there. But it
felt that way sometimes, right, Yeah, imagine if that disc
also contained a ton of free Internet software. Free Internet
software has never got anyone in trouble and was stuck
to the front of the world's number one video game

(30:28):
and computer magazine. And then it goes on like that.
It's just like bullet Point's ramping up the idea of
a demo disc. Yeah, none of this is new.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
I want to emphasize the no. I want to emphasize
all the all caps, you know, spread throughout. But to me,
this is such a great example of the sort of
breathless self hype language these magazines deployed so well, so often,
and it just doesn't feel like this whole style is
just so like indelibly game mag like. It's like this
very specific, exhortative, sort of like maybe stan Lee writing

(31:03):
in Marvel, maybe, you know, hyping up make mind Marvel. Maybe,
But like for most part, this feels like almost all
of these games, like.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
The announcer voice from F zero sixty four or whatever,
you know, like all of them are written in a
voice of video games. For sure. My favorite part of
this sidebarber is right at the very end, they say,
we call it the Ultra game Players Disc Edition, but
Ultra Gameplayers is stylized in a completely different font, with
Ultra capitalized game Players not capitalized, but the whole thing bolded.

(31:35):
And it's funny how like corporate brand guidelines are sort
of intruding on the new visual language that they've come
up with for the magazine.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
I miss that, but you're absolutely right. They're using the
regular body font that's used throughout the rest of the
magazine for that Ultra game Players. It can't appear in
this this sort of currer. It kind of looks like Courier,
the font that they use for all this splitzy stuff. Yeah,
it's like consols. It's like the like aping a like
Unix readout type display, you know, like a like like

(32:04):
a terminal type thing. And then this is like, nope,
this is the same San Serah we used for the
magazine for Ultra Gay Players. Amazing. I I'm not sure
if I ever told you this, Aiden, but I strongly
considered running the fun factor of Blue Sky account entirely
in this voice, like as best I could, and like
almost immediately I was like, it's.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Notable, but it would be pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
No, no, all right, let's let's finally move on into
actual content. Page fourteen. The big feature the nineteen ninety
six annual Awards. Now, I think these were because they
have their Ultimate Award, which goes to any score ninety
or higher for any game. And then this Ultra Award
logo says Ultra Award, but it doesn't say it says

(32:48):
the nineteen ninety six Ultra Game Players Annual Awards. So
this feels a little all over the place in terms
of what these awards actually are called. I think they
realize they've been doing these awards annually and now they've
changed the name of the magazine, and so now they
don't know whether to change the name of the It
feels like it got kind of caught between two stools

(33:08):
as they say in England, the ultimate chronicle of the
year's best games. Okay, so what they're gonna do is
they are going to give out an overall basically game
of the year, says, Game of the Year, and overall
game of the year, four contenders listed basically capsule reviews
for all of them, and then they're going to move
on and do best for each mainline console plus arcade,

(33:31):
each of a couple three you know, honorable mentions, the
best in each of eleven genres, and contenders for those
seven PC only awards, which are like a mix of
genre and technical, and then three I guess we'll call
them the technical awards, but we will we will see
they are not all technical awards. So and I love

(33:53):
that they frontload this instead of awards traditionally backload. No
first page best overall game of the Year. Super Mario
sixty four. Correct this, you know we talked about this, Yes,
absolutely correct, And again they basically review the game all
over again. It gets almost a full half page. There's
some big graphics and a big render of Mario. Despite

(34:17):
its childlike appearance, super Mario sixty four is a game
that transcends expectations. It possesses that particular magic and whimsy
that allows it to touch the child in all of us.
The most immediate sense that communicates to the player when
he picks up a Nintendo sixty four controller can best
be described as we the sensation is a C. So
it's like, this is the superlatives, absolutely deserved, and it's

(34:37):
it's something that I think is important to go back
and look at the time, like what critics were saying
about these games at the time. Very interesting though. Let's
look at the contenders. Wavery sixty four Fighting Yeah, Banger,
absolutely love to see it here, Fighting Vipers for Saturn,

(34:57):
Resident Evil for Saturn. It's listed here, which is interesting.
And then best overall, another contender is tomb Raider, which
again they reviewed in this issue, so snuck it in
in in classic Oscar fashion. Oh yeah, get your game
of the Year contender in and you know, December just
so you can get it in there. So yeah, so

(35:20):
this is just really interesting that they would give this. Actually,
this is just a type of this is just wrong
because it says I'm like, I don't think Saturn got
a port of this for a while. Yet Resident Evil
has the distinction of being the PlayStation's first killer app.
So yeah, no, this is just completely wrong.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
You know what. So like if I in my book
Fight Magic Items, I have a typo like this that
kills me. And when I was doing the draft, I
just copy pasted a box for a game and forgot
to change the console. And it was as simple as that, right,
Like I just copy pasted and forgot to change the console.
So it says I can't even remember what game it was,

(35:59):
but it's like Eternal Sonata. It says it's on the whatever,
the Saturn, and it kills me every time I see it.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
So I'd be curious to know if Fighting Vipers got
on here because they're like, we need a Saturn games
in the.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
But sure, Fighting Vipers is fine. It's the odd one
out here, right, Like this list is good, Super Mario
sixty four, Wave Very sixty four, Residaval, tom Rader like
like foundational games, right and still nothing like Wave Very
sixty four. Uh, Fighting Vipers there was like if you
wanted a fighting game because they were popular back then,

(36:34):
Like was it better than Street Fighter Alpha two? Was
it better than a Virtual Fighter three? If you needed
a Saturn game, was it better than Panzer's Dragoons, Why,
I don't think so, you know, there's so many games. Yeah,
and if you wanted broader representation, Fighting Vipers definitely was
not better than Quake or Duke Newcomb three D or

(36:56):
Command in Conquer, Red Alert, Elder School's Daggerfall, like this
year was Crazy Nights is in here, wipe out Excel
like you know, so there's like, there are some big
games this year. So I just can't see that by
any metric that Fighting Vipers, despite being fine, really was

(37:16):
one of the top five games of the year over
basically any of those.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah. The only argument I can make is it's probably
the best three D fighter available for home consoles if
you're a virtue fighter type of person, because it's a
noted improvement graphics and mechanically. Plus it's got some fun
you know, character designs and whatnot and some riffs on

(37:42):
the you know, the caged combat, right, So, like I think,
and they also gave it the best Saturn game, right,
So I feel like that's what's ultimately happening here, is
they're like, we can't list four also, you know, honorable
mentions and not sneak a Saturn game in there. So
I guess the best Saturn but when they call it
the best Saturn game, so they did give it best

(38:02):
Saturn game, but in their little review they say Fighting
Vipers is even superior to the mighty Virtual Fighter too,
So like you can't I'm sorry, but like you can't
have an editorial saying there's no bias in our magazine
and then tell me that Fighting Vipers is better than
Virtual Fighter two, Like right, come on, right, maybe you
like it more, but yeah, I don't know, and which

(38:26):
is fine, Like, ultimately, I think it's fine to go
like off the board and have stuff that like hit
your particular group, yes, harder than other stuff that might
have been more obvious in hindsight, it doesn't hold up,
but you know, don't You just don't pretend that you're
being objective or unbiased.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
When you're making your magazine and then picking Fighting Vipers
is like top five game of the year in one
of the like craziest years for gaming ever. Oh yeah, yeah,
so like ninety six was wild for game releases.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah, we get that matured thirty two bit stuff. So again,
best PlayStation game does go to tomb Raider. I have
a whole Tom Rader Spiel we can do some other time.
There's little this game doesn't do right, so you know,
there's definitely foundational in a lot of ways. Resident Evil
is a contender. Wipeout Excel is a contender to Ball
number one sneaks in on this list, and again to

(39:18):
Ball number one. I think was mostly famous for its
Final Fantasy seven Demo.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Final Fantasy seven Demo was a fourth best PlayStation the
game of the year.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Uh huh yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Next up, we've got Nintendo sixty four and notably every
Nintendo sixty four game released to that point made the list.
You've got Super Mario sixty four, La Ray sixty four
and Pilot Win sixty four.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Yeah, yeah, oh that's so funny. And then for ultimates
for Saturn, street Fighter, Alpha two, tomb Raider, and Knights
Genre Awards, Best role Playing Game, Sweet Coda, and it's
review in this issue also which if we have time,
we can take a look at it. Lufia two gets

(40:05):
in there, Super nes Mario RPG gets in an Oasis
Legend of Oasis.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, I mean I have I could take Lufia to
Mario RPG or sweek it in from that that year.
Any one of those would be pretty good winners for me,
so I'm not going to argue as the RPG guy.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah. Best Action Platform Game Mario sixty four. Again, I
like that they're being consistent without going full GoldenEye and
Nintendo Power.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yes, we recorded an episode with Flashback sixty four where
we went over the Nintendo Power Awards for which year
was at ninety seven and golden I just got like
every award and it was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
I think literally like twelve of fifteen or twelve of
fourteen categories went to Goldsmild, Coming Up Nights, Crash, Bandicoot,
and Jumping Flash two gets in there as Best Action
platform Game, another game that we had so a lot
of games that we've ended up covering their reviews of
in this best even though they may not have been
the biggest releases at the time. Best Adventure Game goes

(41:06):
to Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Guardian Heroes from the
Saturn Man.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
What a Year, Right, What a Year?

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Ninete was Holy Fighting Game, Fighting Vipers. They give it
over to Ball Number one, Street Fighter Alpha two, and
Teken to waver Race sixty four gets Best Racing Game
over Wipeout Excel I was I was both I loved
so much about Wipeout Excel, and I was also I
also felt like there was something just a little off

(41:37):
with it, like from the spirit of the original. But
I overall, I think I think it's a big deal
that they made this call for Wavery sixty four, which
was a fantastic game.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
One of the best racing games of all time. So
I think you're right that, Like, I mean, this is
a magazine that, like, if you go back a page, uh,
there is a screenshot from Wipeout Excel, and you are
a spot on that the visual like language of this
magazine comes from like against that, like it uses that
same high techy like rounded font that you've been talking about.
So the fact that they still gave best racing game

(42:09):
to Wave RaSE sixty four is you know worth pointing out. Uh,
Rave Raced sixty four holds up, Like I said, nothing
like it. So they made the right call there instead
of the easy call, which would have probably been wipe
Out Excel.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, quickly sports game goes to Worldwide Soccer ninety seven,
which actually it was funny. I remember kind of poop
pooing that an intelligent gamer. I think that was the
one that.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Yeah, yeah, we're kogging on that a little.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
But I remember being like, I don't think this one
left that much of a mark, but it was the
best sports game of the year over gave Day ninety seven,
World Series, Baseball two and NHL Power Play. We'll get
to the state of sports games, yes, say, I think
we'll get into like the the uh yeah, the quality
of sports games in this part of the generation. Panthers
A Dragon two is why it takes best shooter first

(42:58):
person shooter goes to disrupt, which is interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
So this is all like they were limited to console games, hey,
because like Quake and Duke NUKEAC came out, so they
were not crossing over even in the genres.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Then flip a page PC Awards, they went PC only,
So this is really weird because they did PC and
then they did mostly genre. So Game of the Year
is Quake. Action game is Duke Nukem three D, which
to NFL fans will know this is the MVP goes
to the quarterback. Offensive Player of the Year goes to
the running back situation. PC wargame close Combat. I don't

(43:35):
remember that one PC wargame.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Is that a genre? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (43:39):
Well, because then strategy game is a different one and
it goes to command and conquer red Alert, so okay.
And then flight sim is H sixty fourty long Bow,
which that's a helicopter wargame. Others Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall takes
role playing game. And again, this is the thing I
point at when people are like, why did we ever

(44:00):
separate them into JRPGs and RPGs. It's like, Okay, go
look at Lufia two and then go look at Elder
Scrolls Daggerfall, and you tell me those are the two
same genre of game. They are not. We can quibble
about how and why the names came to be, but
they're describing what was in the nineties an incredibly real phenomenon.

(44:21):
Nobody is saying, oh, if you like Lufia two, you're
gonna love Daggerfall, or the other way around. I gotta
so into their technical awards.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Can I just sorry just to interject, like, I totally
played Lufia two and Daggerfall that year, well but not exclusively,
like and didn't beat Daggerfall, but.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, and I also played Wipeout XCEL and Mario sixty four.
They're not the same.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Game, right, very different Experiences.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Best Soundtrack and best intro sequence, wipe Out Excel, Best
use of sound Resident Evil. I like splitting that out,
but I want to get to uh okay. So this
is great because we get all the sexism and the
proto woke in the same shot. So you get best
video game ad. We'll never see in the US Destruction
Derby two, and it's like two dominatrices in like Vinyl

(45:15):
with whips and a guy and just driving a Destruction
Derby car. They don't make ads like they used to,
at least not in this country. You take a look
at the likes of what those cheeky English consider an
ad for Destruction Derby two. What do you scantily clad
women with whips have to do with video games? Who cares? Then,
opposite page, Best Video Game Babe goes to Lara Croft

(45:37):
and again, if you compare this to the cover shot,
you will see what we're talking about when we say
this the cover shot with so much more modest and bad,
acid refocused rendition of Lara but also fair's fair, we
get best video Game hunk chuji Wu from Toball Number
one go back. Yeah. The unanimous decision of our judges

(46:01):
was bestowed upon Chuji Wuve total number one fame. Juji
looks a little young, but his understated build and bold
hairstyle carried the day with our judges. Yes, and then
we get best ultra GP game idea Bear if you
were reading along at the time having reviews Bee by
a bear or a bear answering the letters section was
a great running gag. And then they like shark what

(46:25):
if bear? But it was a shark rogue cop sort
of virtua cop gay without any scruples, not outright evil
rogue cop, merely acts in his own self interest, feared
by criminals for his unceremonious collection of their profits. Law
abiding citizens should be aware that the game grants bonus
points for killing, innocence and hostage situations. Definitely a bill

(46:46):
kind of game. Yeah, lots here unpack best use of
blood Diehard trilogy. Yeah, oh man, it was a time.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
It was a vibe.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Blood just doesn't flow in this game. It explodes using
your windshield to wipe away the inwards of innocent pedestrians.
For your windshield to die Harder is one of the
great video game moments of all time. Unbelievable. Okay, given
that crackling little bit of writing. We're going to take
a break from that and read some of yours. When

(47:21):
we come back from this break, we will read your
reviews of our reviews of classic video game magazine reviews
right here on fun Factors. Hey, we've gotten mail. As promised,

(47:46):
we always review the best, funniest, kindness and most entertaining
five star Apple podcast reviews on the air, as well
as a choice YouTube comments and or kind messages on
the discord. Bonus points if you say who your favorite
host is and why, double bonus point. It's aiden.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
So today's first comment from our YouTube channel, which has
been kind of popping off. We love it. Thank you
everybody watching there where We have slides from the episode
so you can see on your screen what we're talking about.
Jason WFD says, Hey, Fun Factor, I've been loving your
podcast since the first episode, but I got to say

(48:23):
that this episode had a unique element to it that
was super interesting to me. I thought it was great
how you examined the different goals of the writers and
the relationship between the writers and the readers when it
comes to first party game review magazines as opposed to
third party publications. When I was a kid, I don't
think this ever would have occurred to me nowadays as

(48:43):
a middle aged man. I had a sort of subconscious
understanding of the difference between actual critique and glorified advertising.
To have that difference broken down and examine the way
you did for this issue of Nintendo Power really opened
my eyes to thinking about critique itself in a more
critical sense. And who knows, maybe this newly awakened awareness
of the interplay between various forms of games media and

(49:06):
its intended audience will give me insight into other related
things in life. TLDR, I learned something new today and
I had fun doing so. Thank you both for your
excellent work with Fun Factor. I appreciate what you do
and I look forward to each episode. Sincerely, Jason wfd PS.
Absolutely love the outtakes and bloopers at the end of

(49:27):
the episodes. Also great use of chrono drigger sound effects
to break up audio clips.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
What bloe person out takes at the end of episodes.
There's no bloopers or I'll takeoks at the other of
the first take every time right, every time, every time falls.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
This was a great comment and I think it fits
so perfectly on this episode of because it touches on
a lot of what we're going to look at in
the review later in this episode.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yes it does, Yes it does. Also, we had not
gotten a single note about this up until this point.
Three different people said they do not like the caption
style we've been using, with a kind of comedy comic
book font appearing as the words say. They call it
balancing texts. It's just appearing as the words say. But
we will make that cleaner and easier to read for

(50:11):
everyone and might go to the auto captions. I like
being able to edit the captions and the creation tool
that we're using versus just taking you know, like whatever
YouTube puts up. But we will clean that up and
make it just more functional for everyone rather than go
for like maximum style. But again, we really do appreciate
feedback like that. Any feedback like that that you've got,
absolutely let us know again, join our discord. The link

(50:35):
is on our website, fun factor pod dot com. Just
let us know in the discord. We absolutely love to
take the feedback, good and constructive criticism and whatever, because
we do this for you guys and hope to entertain
and lighten a little bit. And yeah, we have fun
doing it too. Okay, aiden banger of an episode, I

(50:55):
think so far. Ready to get back to the rest
of it. Let's go. We have been having five stars
out of five stars worth of fun today. We hope
you are too. Let's get into maybe we should we

(51:18):
review ourselves on the incredibly ornate and intricate Game Players
Review System. It's a little bit more ultra even than
before we have now because just like it was before
the Ultra edition, we weighted average of a set of categories,
each of which gets a one to ten score, now

(51:39):
with decimals also, but there are also more and better
defined categories. So instead of gameplay weighted by six, we
have interaction, balance and depth, each weighted by four. Extras
and presentation are new joining innovation. Each of these are
waited by one. Music and sound effects have been split

(51:59):
into two category. And then instead of plus minus bullet
points for these categories, we have a list of alternatives
so similar and we're similarly rated games along with their
overall rating from this magazine to give you a better
idea of taste. We'll get to taste in a second.
Just me now reading this, I'm like interaction, balance and

(52:20):
depth you know. So it says interaction. How well does
the game respond to your commands? How much influence do
you have over what's going on? Waited by four? Balance?
Is the game childishly easy one level than frustratingly hard
the next? Does your opponent have an unfair advantage when
you want to save? Do you have to walk an
hour back to the village? Waited by four? I ever
bought a game followed in love with it the first hour,

(52:40):
only to beat it in two hours. Great game will
take a long time to finish enough for plenty of
So it's like these all mean something. They are defining
this for sure.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Yeah. Uh, depth is just like replay value effectively? Yes, right,
and like yeah exactly, and like I get what they
all mean. Do you need I think the more granular
you get, the more trouble you get into. Yeah, anything
like this. But this is the part of the podcast
where I admit to not understanding how waiting things works.

(53:10):
When this is weighted by four, I don't know how
that works. They multiply it by four.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
And then it says rating the total sum of all
the category is divided by twenty three by twenty three,
because that's the at that's all the categories by their weights. Oh,
so like if you take graphics waited by four, music
waited by two, sound effects waited by two. So it's like,
you go, okay, if you give it an eight for graphics,
it gets eight eight eight eight, And if you give

(53:36):
music a seven, you get seven to seven because it's
waited by two. So it's effectively like okay, and then
you average that.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Man. Yeah, gosh, like I've got this magazine like tucked
in my math textbooks. Is too much, man, just tell
me if the games going. I do really like the
alternative idea though, that it shows similar ish games, not
just his recommendation, but saying, hey, like, you know this
game is like this, and here's how those other games

(54:04):
scored like, and it's like, here are the alternatores Warcraft
two Command and Conquered Warcraft, and here are the scores
that those games got kind of a neat way to
do to kind of contextualize what we're looking at. So
I mentioned Taste got to talk about Taste Sports line
the best sports video game coverage anywhere from gamers who

(54:24):
actually play real sports and Mike Salmon, who is I
forget his actual title because I think he got promoted
a couple of times in his like three issuear run
at game players, and then I'll get to it in
a second, his own little from the editor thing, because

(54:44):
they have a sports section now that's separated out, and
we've talked about other magazines did this or also did
this with RPGs, and so he's reviewing NBA Live ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
It's a full page review. There's quite a bit of screenshots.
Most of them are quite small. We have a very
funny if you look at the second screenshot along the
bottom row, the creator player. We have him creating himself
with a PlayStation one three D polygon model creator. It's
incredibly funny.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Go ahead, I got some Luca Donjit Yes, Matt Lakers jersey, Yes,
goatee Luca with a goate.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Very very weird proportions. Salmon was a game player stall
where he rose quickly to a senior editor role. Often
had handled sports game duties before they gave him like
this sports section. He went on to take over Imagine's
PC Accelerator magazine, which was eventually just called PCXL, and
then became editor in chief of the Official Xbox magazine.

(55:46):
Mike Salmon then moved on to consulting. From two thousand
and three through twenty eleven, he was president and co
founder of the Big Solutions Group, co founded and ran
highly respected global research and video game consulting firm provide
a guidance and feedback on concept, execution, positioning, Pierre texts
market blah bah, and then he started talking the talk

(56:10):
for real can the director of research and planning for
two K Sports? It just says two K right, two
K Publishing, but that we're making all the two K
sports games. So this is very interesting to me as
we get into the text of this review that he
basically went all right, let me do it, let.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Me let me hew Luke Smith like the Luke Smith
thing where he like went from like ragging on games
on the One Up Show to uh or one up
yours and then started making like Warcraft and Destiny and
all that kind of stuff like and then was really
good at it too. And I was like, oh, wait,
Luke was right about everything all along.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yeah, so let's get into the actual text. Aiden you
want to review this first little uh segment here?

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, So, well, if you're a longtime reader of sports Line,
you know that I chose NBA Live ninety six as
my Basketball game of the Year despite its poor sprite
based graphics. This year, EA has added polygons in an
effort to seal up the title again. Unfortunately, the gameplay
has suffered quite a bit in the process, with some

(57:13):
of the slowest gameplay in the series history. Remember NBA Showdown.
The polygonal players look incredible and the graphics are a
huge improvement over last year, but b ball fans know
that a nice package doesn't always mean a great game.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah, the subhead here NBA Live ninety seven is EA's
jumped to polygons, actually a step back. Is interesting, And
again we've had this conversation over and over again because
this is this eras we're jumping from sixteen to thirty two,
as we're jumping from pixels to polygons, right, And something
I've thought from the beginning conceiving this show, I've thought
I'd want to do a special episode on Madden ninety six.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Not shipping right.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
It was supposed to be for PlayStation and they ultimately
canned it, which was a donning upset. You know, Madden
was a juggernaut at the time, even before getting the
exclusivity deal, you know, and so for them to completely
whiff on a console generation, well, okay, here's the jump
from sprites to polygons for NBA, and apparently nailed the polygons,

(58:16):
but not everything else.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I think, like as you're saying, you know, we talk
a lot about the shift of polygons and how they
kind of chased new tech at the expensive gameplay in
a lot of instances, some games like Mario sixty four
nailed that and used polygonal gameplay to create something new,
something that worked and could never have worked with sprite
based graphics. But you know, Sam and here he talks

(58:40):
a lot about how the polygons look amazing and the
graphics are great, and like, in hindsight, they have not
aged well at all. Right, so they were impressive and
it was impressive new tech. But here we have an
example where making that transition before it was ready, before
the genre, before the genre was ready, compromise gameplay to
a point where it's just not a good game to

(59:04):
go back to it at all. It doesn't look good,
it doesn't look as good as you know, the sprite
based games that came before it, and it plays a
lot worse and so you know, like, at what point
should developers have been looking at, you know, what's best
for the gameplay instead of chasing like, Okay, here's what
Sony wants us to do or Nintendo wants us to

(59:26):
do with these new consoles. And that's why I also
admire the Saturn, which, like there's been like some apocryphal
you know, stories about his handling of polygons, and it
was a little better I think that it gets credit for.
But at the same time, like it knew that that
technology was not necessarily ready for primetime, and it put
a lot of effort into like fostering sprite based games.

(59:48):
And that's why you look at it's Japanese library and
it's one of the best consoles of all time. Yeah,
you look at its North American library and it's just
not it doesn't hit and it didn't hit. And I
think you can see that kind of like in what
Mike Salmon's writing about here.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
All right, this is the meat of the review for me.
This is the big things that made me sit up
in my game or chair at the time. Read the
second segment for.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Me, if you can get past the poor control and
slow play. NBA Live ninety seven is extremely deep and
beautiful to watch. Unfortunately, it's just not fun like it
used to be. I could easily give this game another
eight point six, but I'm personally not satisfied with the
state of basketball games on the market, and my scores

(01:00:31):
are going to show it. So if NBA Action ninety
seven comes up short, it'll get the same tough treatment.
I Applaudia's attempt to bring the polygons and its standard
gameplay together, but I think it's high time that the
standard of gameplay is improved upon instead of just the
game's graphics. The basic fact is that NBA Live has

(01:00:51):
lost its playability. The two player game can't even compare
to in the Zone two and the one player game,
while deep, is just too slow. I've personally been a
longtime fan of the NBA Live series because of their
commitment to being a simulation, and this game needs to
get back the fun it once had.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
There are so many bangers in this section for me
that stuck out, but number one, the one that really
got it was I could easily give this game another
eight point six, And I remember reading this and immediately
seeing in my mind this world where you go Okay, yep,
here's NBA Live. It's the EA game. It is the
best basketball game on the market. It is a big

(01:01:33):
jump forward in several important areas, and I'm gonna give
it an eight point six and those who know are
going to be able to read into the review and go,
if this game was actually graded be a nine point four.
Ye you know, like he's calling this phenomenon out that
I had like perceived but not even really put a

(01:01:54):
name to yet, you know, or even maybe not even
consciously perceived, but gone, if this were awesome, it'd be
nine point eight. But it's not awesome. It's an eight
point six. Okay. No, He's like, I'm not gonna throw
yea that bone. This game is not fun to play.
It's just not a good game as much as the
you know what, I ain't gonna hit him with this
six point five and they're gonna feel it. And it's

(01:02:14):
like he's writing directly to them in their PR department, like, hey,
then this is the next piece. I'm personally not satisfied
with the state of basketball games on the market, and
my scores are going to show it. I think that
is such a great line.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah, that's like a call shot for sure, especially when
you take into context like his career after this. Yes,
the thing that really stands out to me is I
could easily give this game another eight point six, right,
but the Ultra game player's scoring system is based on
weighted averages, oh categories.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
We talked about this in game players as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
You're working backwards, right, yeah, from the score you want
to give, and you look at the individual score. So
graphics eight, music eight, sound effects eight, interaction four, balance five,
depth seven, extras seven, presentation ten, innovation five. Only one
of those scored above an eight point five or an

(01:03:13):
eight point six right right, which was in a presentation,
So like he would have had to like fudge a
ton of those to get the math to work to
get that up two point you know, one points in
the rating, which I think is interesting too. And so
you know, what were those conversations like with an editor,
you know, how does that process look as they're scoring

(01:03:33):
and stuff like that. But I hadn't actually read the
review until I just read it live, and it's interesting
to see that he touched on some of the things
I did between the two review segments, which is, if
you make that switch to polygons. It has to make
the gameplay better, Yes, it has to make the experience better,
and compromising the like simulation aspects, making a less realistic

(01:03:55):
basketball game just to get polygonal stuff in there is
not a good decision, and a lot of games made
that bad decision.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
Or alternatively trying to preserve the simulation and going well,
it's gonna look great and it's gonna be accurate, but
it just can't be faster fun, right, you know that's
another yes, you know, like that's another thing where you go, okay, well,
like it doesn't matter how good it looks or how
like much oh NBA on TNT, if the game sucks

(01:04:25):
to play, I don't care that the cry on is
just the same as the NBA on TNT.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Right, That's why, like as much as people make fun
of fun factor and like you know in uh what
you know as a review metric and game pro oh
oh oh oh oh.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Not who's been being mean to us?

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Like you know, we you know, it's kind of a
meme that it's just a funny, silly thing to write.
But like, ultimately, isn't that the point?

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Like having fun? That's you know, our podcast is named
after that concept, and I think that my touches on that.
It's like, yeah, does this look cool? Like was that
impressed Gally? Yes? But it's just not fun. And when
we're playing video games so much of the time, it's like,
is the time we're putting into this valuable that? You know,
for me as an adult at least, it's all about time.

(01:05:12):
As a kid, it was like, is my hard earned
money if I spend you know, this is a PlayStation game,
so it's probably well, it's fifty five ninety nine, but
that would be eighty bucks now something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
Clo closer.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Yeah, So like if I was spending that and that
was the game I was getting for that half of
the year or that quarter, like and it's not fun
and then I'm just back to playing my old games again,
Like that's a big deal, and so like fun factor
is it for me at the end of the day.
The ones that feel the most is like defines what

(01:05:48):
feels the most worthwhile for my time, my attention, my money,
And I think Samon really touches on that and connects
those dots in this review. I'd say this is what
one of the best reviews we've looked at, oh period,
because it's a piece of criticism. It's not just like
a consumer guide style review. It's a piece of criticism

(01:06:08):
about the state of the industry, as you know, the
state of basketball games, the choices made by developers that
chase trends and technologies over like good gameplay experiences.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Yeah, and it's worth saying before we get the scores.
Here a couple of highlights from Mike's LinkedIn page. For
two K's the director of Research and Planning. It's part
of creative development team. Provide guidance and actionable insight to
developers and marketers through feedback on milestones, concepts, narrative features
and more. Business analysts and research consultant at Mosaic Research
Management go to consultant for hedge funds and investment groups

(01:06:41):
looking to capitalize on emerging trends in video game industry
or analyze buyout opportunities. And then finally, now again and
the GID leading the game team for one of the savviest,
most influential media and entertainment research based business strategy companies
on Earth. We are the voice of the consumer and
the home to courageous thinking and bold strategies. That deliver
not just big data, but data. It's about action, not reaction.

(01:07:03):
And you can absolutely see someone who is seeing video
games this clearly, and the state of the market this clearly,
and understanding the player experience this clearly going on to
becoming a very high paid consultant to understand player behavior,
game experience, and then on even bigger industry trends, company trends,

(01:07:24):
entertainment trends, and monetization and stuff like that. So it's
it's you can see it all here in this one page.
And again for one page, it's a good bit of text.
The screenshots are small, but they're there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Yeah, yeah, and it like it packs a lot into
what's probably how many words is that like for where Yeah,
it's dense, it's like concise. It gets deep into like
a complex point, you know, like a short period of time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
They also, I like this the part of the reason
the screencaps are small. They're then numbered can put all
the captions together in two chunks, so we get like one,
when there's a crowd on the paint, it's impossible to
see what's going on. Two the computer decides whether your
player is going to dunk or shoot. Three with the
player's names on the screen. Things get really jumbled. So

(01:08:13):
there's seven total screenshots like this numbered and you don't
have to like collide a bunch of screenshots and a
bunch of captions, right, so you get just a ton
of information on here. So I am going to give
this review ten luka donciks with a goatee out of ten.
That's exactly what I was gonna give it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
See e metric and everything. This is a fantastic review
about like head and shoulders above what we're usually reading
in these magazines, and that touches on really interesting industry trends. Yeah, exactly,
same place you're at.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
It's really cool that we're both in the same place
on this and this is exactly why we do this
show to me, because I got that sentence stuck with me.
I could just I could easily give this game another
eight point six, but I'm personally not satisfied with the
state of basketball games in the market, and my scores
are going to show it. And okay, yeah, like there's
a million YouTubers nowadays that would give that same take,

(01:09:10):
or people that pop off on x dot com the
everything app that same take, right, But who is saying it.
What is their skin in the game, Why are they
saying it? And immediately so if NBA Action ninety seven
comes up short, I'll give it the same tough treatment.
You know, it's like going in And this goes to
my thing is like, when you have that transparency and

(01:09:30):
that trust, you build your trust, you build credibility. You're
not just taking shots at things for traffic. You're going
This is why I made this call. This is exactly
how it fell short. And it's not because I don't
like EA. It's not because I don't like this game.
I've loved this game, but I know what I'm talking about,
and I'm telling you this is not a fun game.

(01:09:51):
And you you know it doesn't deserve the rating that
the market might just want me to give it to
justify going out and buying it again just because it's
the new NBA Live.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
I'm not mad. I'm disappointed, yes, which is pretty much it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
It's like he wants these games to be best because
he loves them, right, he wants them to continue to
evolve in ways and make the experience better. And that's
what he's written about here. And I just you didn't
see a lot of this in nineteen ninety six.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
Nah, you didn't, and it's stuck with me as a writer,
as a creator, as a critic, everything ever since then.
I wanted to shout it out and I am so
glad we got a chance to have this conversation. I'm
so glad that you're with me on giving it the
ten out of ten? But do you agree with ten
out of ten? Luca don Chicks with a goatee? Let
us know. Leave our review or review at Apple Podcasts,

(01:10:40):
post it as a comment on YouTube. We will read
the best ones on the air. Hey, go ahead and
pass this show around to all your friends like it's
third grade and we're on the playground. Shout us out
on Blue Sky at funfactor pod dot com or x
YouTube and TikTok at fun Factor Pod Special thing. Thanks

(01:11:00):
to Millennium for all our amazing original music. Check out
his work and his incredible Windows ninety five website at
Millennium f Alck dot com. Unlike the old magazines, you
don't have to wait a whole month for your next installment.
We're dropping new episodes every two weeks, so please go
to funfactor pod dot com to follow your show. To
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(01:11:21):
consider becoming a member of fun Factor Ultra, our premium tiers,
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up widget on our home page. If you do, you
and we will have a maximum score in fun Factor. A. Man,

(01:11:45):
it's so weird whenever I bring up YouTube channel while
we're recording and I get one of us going hey
Ty or Heyden and like like while we are talking
to each other, it's always.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
Like, oh, stop, my gosh, a thousand views.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Dang, all right, we are back. I started reading before
I actually got the script lined up to where we're at.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
I think it's the big thing that this is kind
of silly.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
But absolutely and so now again, uh all right, let's
let's finally move on into actual content. Page fourteen in
the link here.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Page and in the flashback sixty four up, So that
might have come up.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
But yeah, I'm trying to remember because that was no,
because that wasn't did that come to No, No, it
was a different it was a different soccer game, and
that's actually it's a page one fourteen, one fifteen, and
the text, Oh interesting, this is one sixteen. I'm looking

(01:12:55):
at the archive now and it looks like where I'm
looking at it says page one, one fourteen parenthesis one
sixteen of one fifty nine. So I in the in
the on the pages is printed one fourteen and one fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
So the actual review that only starts when you hit
page like one twelve. That's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Okay, yeah, anyway, okay, but I got.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
It if you can get past the pork and.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Wait, time out, time out, time out, time out. I
didn't finish editing this. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, my time
shout us out on Blue sky X. You tell good God.
I'm gonna jump ahead because we've been in an hour
already and I got to get to the actual review.
So let's just do that. I forgot to mark what

(01:13:42):
page it's on. It's like seventy something, yes, because that's where.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
I don't even think my kids have started having lunge
and stuff yet, So I'm not like in a super
duper rush. Okay, it's kind of a soft heart.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Oh,