Flashback
Take a walk through gaming history as we pick a random date in gaming history and bring you the news from that time as if it was now , different era every week - covering all of gaming history
Flashback
A look at gaming in March 2009
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Time travel with us to March 2009, a month that captured the best kind of gaming whiplash: Halo tried real-time strategy, Killzone 2 doubled down on heavy, cinematic gunfights, and Xbox Live Arcade turned Wednesday drops into must-play events. We trace how Skate 2’s analogue tricks changed sports controls, why Resident Evil 5’s co-op still divides players, and how Grand Theft Auto IV’s expansions—Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony—set a gold standard for meaningful DLC.
We also give the handhelds their due. Chinatown Wars brought a bold top-down twist to GTA on DS and PSP, complete with smart mini-games and punchy style. Resistance: Retribution quietly bridged PSP and PS3 with connective features and DualShock support, hinting at cross-device design long before cloud gaming became a pitch. JRPG fans get their moment too, with Star Ocean’s portable entries reminding us why long-form storytelling thrives on sleep-mode play.
The headlines from the time frame the stakes. Microsoft shrugged at a late PS2 price cut to keep momentum on Xbox 360, while Sony filed “PS Cloud,” foreshadowing streaming’s future. And BioWare announced Mass Effect 2, promising a sequel that would synthesize RPG depth with tighter shooter combat. Looking back, it’s a snapshot of a medium mid-pivot—where AA studios still took risks, stores were curated, and bite-sized digital hits like Peggle and Shadow Complex sat comfortably beside blockbuster experiments.
If you remember the hum of a UMD, the thrill of XBLA leaderboards, or the feeling of lining up a perfect analogue flick in Skate, you’ll feel right at home. Subscribe, share with a friend who loved the 360–PS3 era, and drop your 2009 standout in a review—what game defined that month for you?
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Welcome To Flashback
SPEAKER_04Hello and welcome to Flashback, a UCP production. Now, if you're a UCP listener, you've probably heard this format before, but if you haven't and you're new to the show, this is our new our new show, which is Flashback, which we go back to a random month of a random year in gaming history. And as the tagline says, the games you loved, the stories you forgot. And it's me, RGT, and I am joined by the UCP legend, founder, CEO himself. It is George. How you doing, George?
SPEAKER_06Stingray. Yeah. Well, sounds quite hard for looting there, but you know, multi-channel show, multi-channel production now, which is great. So I'm very excited to dig into this first episode of Flashback. Uh, first proper episode, as you said at the top of the show. We've had a pilot which snuck out in the main show and also formed our Trojan horse-like attempt to uh infiltrate all the main providers, which I think is ongoing. If you're hearing this, I think RGT would say it worked, right? Definitely.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_06Very good. I'm I'm oiled up and ready to hit the 2009 like gym. We were just I just decided before we went on air to show RGT a picture of me in 2009 just so we could visualize the man he's dealing with. How does that feel time travel wise?
SPEAKER_04Um, incredible. Absolutely incredible, yeah. I'll I want that picture sent to me. So every time I do a flashback episode, I just want youthful George.
SPEAKER_06Well, we'll try and find a picture of me from each time. Uh if the people clamour for it enough, and obviously there's within the unofficial controller podcast Discord, there is a flashback subsection where you can all go and we want episode ideas. If you know of a month or date in gaming, uh we want you there giving us the suggestions. And if there's enough clamour for it, I'll and I will probably enforce RGT or any host of flashback as we move forward, will have to post a picture of themselves in that moment.
SPEAKER_04Wow, and there'll be just some disturbing pictures, I can assure you.
SPEAKER_06It's a little bit of extra fan insight, isn't it? Uh yeah. Go for it, RGT. Let's let's go.
Format, Community, And Show Plan
SPEAKER_04Well, like I say, if you're if you're not listened to uh Unofficial Controller podcast before, um basically it's going to be similar to how how our show used to run on there. So we will be like I say, this this time we're discussing episode one, which is March 2009. Um we'll be looking at what games we we would have been playing or games we'd have liked to have playing uh played in that era. We'll also be going through free news articles from the era, um, looking back and um discussing them in in in a you know a modern vision and you know see if everything panned out as as they said in these articles. Um and we'll be finishing up with um what we'd be hoping to play with a bit of Stingrays boot as well. So um yeah, it's it's uh it's it's a UP uh UCP show uh with a retro take. Um and yeah, we're hoping you will all uh join us on this journey. This will be a weekly show. Um and uh yeah, join our Discord, jump in the flashback section if there's any years or months or particular things you either would like us to uh do a show about or you think things we've missed, and jump on the Unoffish Controller Podcast Discord and uh join the family.
SPEAKER_06You've lit the fuse in my brain for a name for the PC and Indie show that we may or may not be doing. And I do I do believe it's called UCP Presents UPC. UCP presents UPC. Wow, that's gonna get a mouthful. Get working on it. Uh not with your mouth. Um as you were.
March 2009 Games Overview
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's left me on a cliff edge. Um right, and we'll go on to uh what we could have been playing. Well, we look back over these, there was plenty of games, you know. We've sort of gone from um a couple of months back, so games you probably would have had round about this March era. Um I won't read them all out, there's quite a few there, but we can pick a few out that would interest us, like for instance, Saints Row 2 was coming out for Windows at the time. I mean, there was always a big push for puzzle games and quiz games, so there's like deal or no deal. Mirror's Edge, another one released for Windows at the time.
SPEAKER_06You don't realise how big Deal or No Deal was in 2009. It was, yeah. It was a juggernaut dude, yeah, and that coming out on the Wii just kind of gives a nod to the fact that uh it's the mainstream machine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and also if you know, at the time that was probably a good game to have on the Wii because you know families bought Wii's, you know, and your parents had it just to have a bit of bowling. But if they could play their favourite game with their favourite bearded host on there, then then I was away. That's that's right up in their street.
SPEAKER_06If I was a blue tit, I would live in his hair.
SPEAKER_04You probably could, and raise a substantial family in it as well.
Wii Era Mainstream Hits
Halo Wars And Console Rivalries
SPEAKER_06For the uh for the worldwide listener, because obviously we we're listening to worldwide. Uh, we're referring to the gentleman, the British presenter called Noel Edmonds. Um, swerving things back onto gaming and something something that's got worldwide recognition RGT, Halo. Uh interesting timing here. Uh, Halo Wars came out for the 360, not a mainline Halo title by any stretch, but Halo Wars is a game I want to take a moment to talk about. But then followed February 27th for Kill Zone 2. So wow. Uh you want to see the console wars unfold in front of your eyes, it would be interesting to see the sales metrics between those two. Now, Halo Wars, that's a game I poured a lot of time into. RGT. I love that. It's uh obviously a real-time strategy game using the Halo assets. At times, you know, it it really felt like you were in that you were literally in that universe. Everything was so well branded. Um way the missions unfolded, everything. I absolutely love that game. Um it's been a wee while since I've played it. I know it got re-jigged recently, so it'd be interested.
SPEAKER_04It's one I always RTS, is it?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I've never played it. Never played it.
SPEAKER_06It's a it's 3D, but it's presented in like what you're I would remember as almost like an isometric viewpoint.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, top down, new view sort of troops around, pelicans come in, all that sort of stuff. It's just great.
SPEAKER_04I've never personally really got into RTS games. They're never really something I played back in the day and would never really sort of tickled my fancy now.
SPEAKER_06But didn't you bust through all the halos recently?
SPEAKER_04I've I'm on four, number four. I'm on.
SPEAKER_06So now would be a great time to to dig out Halo Wars and have a go on it. So um if you haven't got that in that rather you have got that in that rather embarrassing stroke burgeoning collection, uh that'll do you some good. Uh the other game stroke embarrassment. It is what it is.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, um I'll own up to that, yeah.
Killzone 2’s Style And Challenge
SPEAKER_06Hey, I I don't live amongst mine, but my depth of depravity is equally as deep. Um Kill Zone 2, nice to see coming out. Obviously, a little bit controversial at times, kill zone two, but uh certainly what we got in the end, actually impressive graphically.
SPEAKER_04Um yeah, I don't think it ever, I mean, it did look very good, whether it was what they were hoping it was gonna be.
SPEAKER_06Oh, it's definitely nothing like a Halo killer, if that's what you're gonna say. No, no, that's it's not it's it's not those big open battlefields, is it? It's tight, almost corridor-driven, very killzones are very different game. Like, I've never known an enemy take so many bullets in an FPS as the um played it really zone too. It's it's unbelievable, and it adds to a an almost what I would say fear of the hellgast in the game. It does work in the game's advantage where you know when you're getting a tight experience with them, you are actually you're nervous, you have to take them seriously because you're just not gonna get away with a shotgun blast of the face with a hellgast, it's just gonna laugh at you. Quite intimidating anyway. So, in these darkened corridors, those orange eyes, it's it's a lot. It's not a Halo killer, but it certainly is a very competent game in its own right, but it rows a very different boat. I mean, if if you were gonna roll out a halo killer, none of the supposed Halo killers ever did those big open battlefields on PS3, especially that would take advantage of the hard drive, which I always thought a bit weird. We never quite got the only time the PS3 kind of got those Roman open vistas that you'd see on 360 would be if you got Oblivion or Skyrim or Fallout or New Vegas. Um Halo had a little bit of a weird niche in that regard. They're not massive levels, but they feel big, don't you?
Saints Row 2 Vs GTA Tone
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think that they do mix it up a bit in Halo, and also I think from the very first game they had that massive movie style production of you are in a big sci-fi adventure and story, and and even just because of that, if you long as you played that first game, you always had your foot in with Halo and Master Chief, and you know, the spin-offs that was that that pulled you in with that brilliant story. And I just I just don't think many other uh FPS story-driven games have done that, you know. I agree so that you always had your sort of base lovers of that game that would always get the next instalment. Um for me, I mean Saints Row 2. I mean, obviously it shows I knew it's released on Windows, but I think Saints Row 2 for me was I didn't play the first one. Um I played the second one because I think the first one was a 360 exclusive, I believe.
SPEAKER_06I played the first one on 360, and it just felt like everything. I I haven't played it since, but even at the time, I remember thinking this just feels like everybody's made out of jelly, in nothing GTA Hear Me Out, it's it's grounded in reality and it's caricaturised faces, even today in the modern sort of 3D era, HD 3D era that we're in. But Saints Row, I just I struggled with it, and I think two that you're talking of now, as a result of that, I think I maybe got it, just bounced straight off it. I just can't take it seriously. Um, I know a lot of people love it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean uh like I was saying I played Saints Row 2 basically because I was waiting for GTA. Um, I think it was GTA 4, I was waiting for it at the time.
SPEAKER_06I think it was, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um and so I I wanted to I was just so into that sort of style of game. I thought my mate played at first and said, Do you play the Saints Throw? And I just dismissed it. No, it's a clone, it's a copy, that's not the real thing. He said, just give it a go, it might be a stopcat. I played it, got in the first few missions, and I actually really enjoyed it. It was almost like a whimsical pea take of GTA.
SPEAKER_06It was a bit of a there's a C to something good in there, don't get me wrong, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_04I I've I think they realize once they done uh number three, um then they span off on this get out of hell, and it all went a bit random and a bit I know people love them games.
SPEAKER_06I couldn't mate for me the rot started in two. I do believe two is the first sort of visual science of the dildo. And I'll be honest, I what I find so egregious about Saints Row is it kind of tries to pass off all of its stuff as a pastiche, and it's like no, in the first game you really tried so hard. Don't make out like it was all a joke that we didn't get because it wasn't. Saints Row 2 is that, yeah, great, hilarious. Big purple thing around the face. Who's gonna argue with that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and then you sort of get to their very last game they've done, they've almost done a full circle and tried to go back to being a bit more, but obviously it didn't work.
SPEAKER_06But I think a few people got by the time they'd gone the full circle with Saints Row, dude. It was it was pretty outrageous.
SPEAKER_04It was it it gone down, yeah. That was a proper fever dream when you play through them games in order, but yeah, but I did enjoy two at the time, um, and I didn't even realise at the time I had a Windows port, but um I noticed one for you here, George. Now it'd be interesting to know if you played this or something you'd want to play, and that was MLB front office manager. Now I thought that being your wheelhouse.
Sports Games: MLB And Baseball Memories
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but it must be a US thing, and obviously it's quite niche, so I need to do some research on that after the show. It's the first time I've ever seen a game like that. Swerving it back to baseball, though, a game I do own, uh Major League Baseball 2K9, obviously when the franchise was split. 2K games, the baseball games are always beloved. Uh I'll be honest with you. I came to them after MLB, so they're the second runner to me. Um, and I was already so ingrained in MLB that you know it was game over, really. But we talk of MLB, 09, obviously, because it's the year and it's the start of the season. We see uh MLB, the MLB09, the show coming out on PS3. This is cross-gen for your baby, PS2 and PSP. So I don't know if I've got a physical pop copy of it on PS3, but I've definitely got a physical copy of 09, the show for PSP. Um she's showing her age a bit, bless her, but uh still can have a relatively competent game of baseball on that. It's uh yeah, it's the commentary's there, all the bits that you know are there, especially if you played the PS2 version concurrently. Um but yeah, games moved on a hell of a lot in many ways, not only in the game itself, but the the sport, but the actual product of MLB as well. I think it's a shame that football's lost this as well in FIFA not really having a stable mate to keep it honest. Yeah, and MLB obviously when 2K faded into the background, I think maybe what keeps MLB honest now is the fact it's on everything, so there's nowhere to hide. And it although there is no other choice, there's a lot of voices there that could say this is garbage. I do see the product being sort of co-opted in ways that I don't like, but it's a game for everybody, so whatever. Have you seen um Tom on March 6th as well? We've got Tom Clantz's Hawks coming out, which is a game I've always had a little bit of an eye on, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think I do believe my brother-in-law really enjoyed it. Is that the fighter plane one?
SPEAKER_06It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I don't he really enjoyed that, I think.
SPEAKER_06And then I also see a little earlier in the year in February. Um is that Valentine's Day? Nice to see 50 Cent Blood in the Sun came out and PS3 360 Dead Rising chop till you drop on the Wii. But the game I'm here for is Tom Clancy's End War on Windows. I think I've got that hidden away on PS3 somewhere. I think now now I think that is a real-time strategy as well. Um really? I do believe it is. Yeah, again, we're only going off O Georgie Boy memory cells here, so I could be way off track, but uh yeah, if memory serves, that's what it is. And a game I got at launch on 360, if memory serves, uh a game I want to talk to you about, RGT, Resident Evil 5.
SPEAKER_04You ever played that? Yes, I played it through online co-op. Oh, nice, because that's obviously yeah, we done five and six together. We played through online uh a few years, about ten years ago now. We played on the PS3 and played them right through. And yes, I know everyone, Resident Evil hardcore fans. Oh, they're not proper Resident Evil games, blah blah blah. No, I can understand that. I can understand the different route they went, but as a co-op online experience, brilliant fun. I preferred five to six, but still very good.
Tom Clancy Flight And RTS Experiments
SPEAKER_06I don't hold a single candle of blame on them for Resident Evil 5 when everybody went so nuts about four, when the whole world was FPS crazy, they had to experiment with it, and everyone was crazy for online as well. Every game, even if it wasn't even appropriate, had a multiplayer section bundled in on it as it was dead at launch, right? So Resident Evil 5 tried to embrace the future with its mouth wide open, but sadly, uh history is not too one question yeah does it have a couch co-op option or not, or is it only online?
SPEAKER_04I've got a funny feeling it's only online. I think it's only online.
SPEAKER_06It's a monographically intense game.
SPEAKER_04I might be wrong on that. Like I say, I'm going from 10-year-old memory here, but I'm pretty sure you I don't think there's there's split screen on that. I think you have to play you have to play online.
Resident Evil 5 Co-Op Debate
SPEAKER_06So you might need uh I wasn't I wasn't offended by it when it came out, and if memory serves, the magazines also reviewed it relatively favourably as well. Um they were very into the zeitgeist of online, they're very into the zeitgeist of FPS. Resident Evil 5 came and reviewed okay at the time, really. Um there was a little bit of fur, probably the internet was a lot quieter then. Uh the amount of people that used it was smaller, and the amount of people that could be bothered to log in and say something was in was infinitesimally small, wasn't it? So it didn't kick off too much. If that game came out today, I think there'd be a lot more noise. Yeah. Um, but whatever, I enjoyed I quite enjoyed it, and you did as well playing through Broad Border.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's if you if you play um like I say play co-op together, get your headsets on. It's actually a good bit of fun helping each other out, getting some ammo, getting backed in the corner and fighting your way out. It was they were good fun games, they didn't overstay their welcome. Um, and at the time I think they still are now they're not an expensive game. I think you can even get them on PS4. Did they do them on PS4 again?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think you did. Yeah, you could get four you can get five and six. You can get five and six undoctored as they are on the wit on the switch.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, yeah, I forgot about that.
SPEAKER_06So there's if you want to play two and three, I wish I'd bring out classic two and three. Um, but if you want to play OG, if you want to play the modern remake of two and three, you've got to do it on the cloud version on there, which is not the best, although although this isn't the main show, so I'll shut up. Um Res 5. Yeah, one thing I want to say about that though is at the time I remember playing it one player, admittedly, but I did find some of the moments where you were swamped actually quite scary at the time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, no, there was some especially I found um there was more obviously five was more, you know, it was that brown sort of PSV uh free ear event, right whereas whereas six was a bit more uh darker and night and city and based, you know, it was a bit different look, but I did find six quite creepy at times, um yeah, with the spaces you're in and dark controlled places, but yeah, I I I enjoyed those. I know you know it's not for every Resi fan's taste, but I enjoy as a as a two-player experience, really good fun. I also noticed on here a couple of star ocean games, which I want to talk to you about. Star Ocean Second Evolution on the PlayStation Portable PSP.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I saw that. I might have that, but I have to admit, I've not played it.
SPEAKER_04I thought I had that, but I can't find it. I've I thought I had that game, um, but I was quite interested, and also Star Ocean The Last Hope, which on here came out on Xbox 360 on February the 19th, 2009, and obviously later on then came out the international version, I think it was called, which had a little bit more, but I don't think there's a lot of difference, but a little bit more on a PS3. Um, I have dabbled recently on Last Hope. Um, have you?
SPEAKER_06Any good? Is that the PS2 one?
SPEAKER_04No, it's PS3. Um it was like it was the 360 game originally.
SPEAKER_06I think it might have been a timed exclusive, and then it came over to they were paying for a lot of Japanese RPG exclusivity to try and push the needle in Japan. It didn't obviously it didn't work. They had an old they had a whole initiative which did bring some games over here, but yeah, sadly it was a good idea.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean I enjoyed what I played of it, but once I got to the planet, I thought this could be a bit grindy, a bit um time consuming.
SPEAKER_06You love that now, but you ran like a scared child from it then.
JRPG Corner: Star Ocean On PSP And 360
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so uh something I would like to play again though. I I mean graphically it looks quite good, um, you know, some big maps on there. Um a lot of a lot of it is exploration, you know, there's a lot focused in on um exploration, and you have to discover the map by going round and finding it yourself and open that map up, you know. Um but yeah, I've always been intrigued by the um PSP Star Ocean, second evolution, um that always seems quite popular. Um and I always think that'd be a you know, Star Ocean always seems really I don't know why, but them sort of RPG, JRPG, especially that space side of it, always seem right on a PSP. I don't know why, but they seem right on a PSP.
SPEAKER_06I've you know there's something nice about a little JRPG on a portable, something that you can just slip in your pocket, and and the sleep function helps as well, because if you hit a bit of a brick wall halfway through it, sleep, hold, pocket, done. You know, the PSP, if we're in era, the PSP was great, you know, a great product for that sort of thing. I've been chucking through I lobbed in Breath of the Wild through and um Breath of Fire 3 the other day, um, and started just sort of burning through that on PSP, quite enjoying it. I think that's of era. I think it was quite early on in PSP lifecycle. Um, but yeah, I I've just you know when you first sent me the script and I looked through there and said, Oh, you know, just not really that much on there, I can really remember. Now we've sat and looked at it, and I've I've one particular game just sort of triggered almost like a full-on regression in me. Now there was a moment where one of the hottest tickets in gaming, and I this is not an exaggeration, this isn't a Georgie moment. We're giving you lenses from our memory through to a time where Xbox Live Arcade was almost a system seller in terms of it's very quick to play games, very affordable, and there's a lot of indie support there. Um, there was a lot of kind of iOS puzzle games that kind of had a bit of a cross path with Xbox Live Arcade, and and vice versa. One of the games that sticks out to me that was quite big on there, Peggle.
SPEAKER_00Hmm.
Portable JRPGs And PSP Sleep Magic
SPEAKER_06There was quite a few PS3 owners that would look over with envious eyes at an Xbox 360 owner ripping the living snot out of Peggle or Uno with the chat cam. OG Tom had oh, we need to get him on for confessions of an Uno player during the 360 Xbox Live Arcade era. I tell you what, it was uh it was the Amigo of the time. I'll give you that if that's what what's that is that what that thing's called where people go on and they do the random chat things, chat roulette or whatever. Yeah, I know what you mean. Omegle probably does the mortgages for mobility scooters or something. But yeah, I get dis I I get distracted. Um but there was um Heroes of Catan, there was Ticket to Ride, there was um Jeff someone or other a rare sort of space game where you had to pick up Rocket Defender or something like that that would been a spectrum game in the past. Um we got absolutely uh Jet Set Willie. No, it wasn't that one. It was where you go along as a little rocket guy, you pick up the base of the rocket, you add it, you get something else, and then you blast off. I can't remember what it was called, but I spent hours on that on Xbox Special.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, I got it on the spectrum, yeah. Yeah, brilliant.
SPEAKER_06Um and and the redo made it so much easier to play with the 360 controller, everything about it was just a thing of beauty. That's Xbox Live Arcade was the first host to oh what's that game that's got the voice actor from Uncharted in it, um, and it's a 2D Metroidvania.
SPEAKER_04Oh yes, I've got that.
XBLA’s Golden Moment: Peggle And Beyond
SPEAKER_06We've talked about in recent Shadow Complex. I think you might have done it as a hidden gem. Yes, absolutely great game, got its origin on Xbox Live Arcade. When I say Xbox Live Arcade was looked upon with envious eyes by other gamers, it absolutely in this era of 360. Microsoft were querying absolutely everything that was brilliant. They had a lot of good will. And the the PS3's late arrival had prompted a lot of sort of disjointed PS2 owners to book that console and the wait for the PS3 and move across to 360 to give it a go. And straight out the gates, they're rewarded very quickly with Gears of War, Project Gotham Racing. You know, there was a lot going on on that early 360 that was phenomenal, launched pretty much with Oblivion as well, which was uh PS3 owners jumped up and down, and that became a launch game. There's the game of the year version for the PS3. Uh, those it was almost like no, we'll wait for our version, and then it ended up being a bit broken as well. So it was uh yeah, it was uh quite a strange time for Sony, and Xbox navigated it well. One thing as well, I've noticed on here that I think might be worth a moment of discussion, which would go unnoticed in a long list of games because how we look at it now, but Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars. Now there's a few uh Nintendo DS owners that were probably wanting a bigger boy game. Uh does Chinatown Wars scratch that itch RGT, do you reckon?
SPEAKER_04Um I've played both versions, DS and PSP. Yes, yeah, which obviously resolution-wise a PSP is is the better game. Um if you go into it thinking you're gonna have an open world vice city over-the-shoulder third-person game, you're gonna be very disappointed. If you go in thinking you're gonna have a modern take of a real classic GTA top-down game, it's it is quite good. It is pretty good.
SPEAKER_06I mean it The mini games alone make it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, when you pinch Carlocks and uh yeah, it's it's very stylized. I love that sort of hand-drawn, cell-shaded sort of sketchbook. They obviously knew they weren't going to try and go for realism on the systems they were putting it on. So, right, let's let's do our own sort of frozen cutscene, you know.
SPEAKER_06Really good in gameplay, it's very reminiscent to me. Precinct's a stretch, but American Fugitive, I think it's got that kind of it's that angle, it's that look. It's not on the DS, I have to admit, the the 3D does look a bit it's not it's not age well. I think the PSP probably equally as gross to look at as well, if I'm honest with you.
SPEAKER_04I think it's just at a slightly better resolution on the PSP. It looks a bit crisper, it still looks at a little bit better. Whereas on a DS, the the the screen was a little bit you look back now, it's a bit frosty, a bit pixelated.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I get that, mate. But gone off bacon smells like gone off bacon, whether you're viewing it through 4K or whether you're viewing it through 240p. Uh it's the same thing. It it kind of had that kind of look to it where it kind of felt like the 3D was flexing the models apart a bit. It kind of felt a bit it felt a bit stunt race effects bizarrely, but it was the art style lent itself to it. The mini games were interesting. It certainly probably made a few bigger boy PSP owners go, Hey, what's that? Well, it's not Libby City stories, is it? But the same token they're watching the mate pick a car locker or unscrew a stereo or cut the wires and it uh hot wire a car, it's like maybe I mm nah. Um I don't know how that was handled on the PSP version. I guess it was just reduced to button press mini games, I guess. I guess I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it was, yeah. Obviously, DSE stylist, didn't you? But on the screen.
SPEAKER_06Which was its USP, which is what made it cool. Yeah. While we've got uh teeth and our heads and we're talking handhelds, it's nice to see that uh March 17th saw resistance retribution drop on the PSP.
SPEAKER_04I've got that, but I haven't played it yet. Um because I'm I'm sort of into two at the moment, resistance two, so one of them it might be resistance two.
GTA Chinatown Wars On DS And PSP
SPEAKER_06This game is a literal counterpart to it. If you plug a PSP with resistance retribution into a PS3 and tell them and then Start resistance two or three, I think it's two, on the PS3, it will allow you to use a load of extra functionality on the PSP version. I do believe, including using a dual shock three to control the gameplay, you and then enables you to use the dual sticks, which makes the game infinitely more playable. Um, and I do believe it's it it corrupts your version in a in universe. When I say corrupts, I don't mean that it breaks it, but it corrupts your version of resistance on the PS3, and then your PS3 version on the your PSP version then gets corrupted, and the name gets changed to something slightly differently from memory. So to anyone out there that's tried that, or if you're living in 2009 and you get any news for our 2025 podcast, you're doing well for yourself. Uh let's let us know in in the Discord. Definitely sure it's that game.
SPEAKER_04Um I'll look into that and have a look. We'll come back next week and see where I've gone with that.
SPEAKER_06It might actually make your journey through resistance retribution a little bit more fun because I do believe the alternative way to do the fine aiming is through the face buttons, you know, the the icons.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And to a modern game, uh that's that's a tough landing, that is. You get used to it. I've been playing a lot of PSP lately, and you get used to it, but and that nub, that nub, I'm not I know I'm not playing a brand new out of the box PSP, but I'm playing one with very little hours on it, and I tell you what a game of the era by City Stories or Liberty City Stories, just getting your car to drive straight down the road is it is tantamount to a miracle. You've got to drive like you're driving Miss Daisy in that game. If you want to preserve your car, I have no I have no care for any of the vehicles I get because I know within probably two corners or one button press, they're done. Smoke, fire, flames, and I'm dragging someone else out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's when they said it came with an analogue stick, it's not really an analogue stick, it is literally a sliding little nub, which is I've recently the the PSP I'm using is a PSP 1000, and I still yeah, stumbled across it's beautiful though, it's a Japanese import, so the buttons are reversed in the menu.
Resistance Retribution And PSP Quirks
SPEAKER_06Uh I know, I know, I know. Just work with it. Am I gonna mod it? No, I'm not. Uh I've got also a set of um PSP lanyard, you know, wrist thingies, and if you kind of pull that tight and hold it almost like a horn of a joystick, you know, the ergonomic bit that goes into the palm of your hand, you can get onto the nub a bit better.
SPEAKER_04Sounds like a if you're joining now, it's not what you think.
SPEAKER_06It is not near what you think it is, but if you get right on that nub with your thumb in a certain in a certain way, it's still not what you think it is, but you get a little bit more kind of finite control. You can make your character walk, not run all the time, you can make your car kind of steer, but you you end up holding it in in such a way that if you if you took a picture of me and then used Photoshop to remove the PSP, I've I I'll be honest with you, you'd probably think Mum had had a probably at least a couple of tablets of phyldomide. Um so yeah, it's not a great look, I'll be honest with you, in terms of like uh ergonomics, and it gives you serious bit of crampage. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04I had uh I had a um a grip for mine, which is perfect. It might it turns it into a big controller. The problem is um that sleek little PSP that you'd slide into your pocket is now like a ugly brick with two bits sticking off.
SPEAKER_06And and and and uh yeah, to that point I kind of I when I was holding it that way, I was like, oh maybe I could get a grip. And I was like, no, George, you're rocking a mint PSP 1000 in nothing but the original little felt bag it came in. You're absolutely not gonna add stupid accessories to this. You've got the guts to run this as it is. Although not that long ago, I went on CX, wondered how much a PSP would be, thinking it might be 20, 30 quid.
SPEAKER_04No, no, yeah. I've uh I've been looking lately and thought, hmm, yeah, they they've gone up quite a lot.
SPEAKER_06A hell of a lot. They are ridiculous. They are, yeah, they are. I mean, I guess I still use it to watch UMDs on the amount of people that do that now, gotta be measurable on one hand across the world, one would imagine, right? Unless they've like just downloaded movies onto it. I'm talking discs in the back of it. I guess they're moddable. I guess that's what's pushing the price. I don't really know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe. Um, but getting back the games again, uh I noticed on here uh a fantastic game that I put many, many hours into, and that is Skate 2, which came out on January the 21st, 2009, on PlayStation and Xbox 360. Now, for those of you who haven't played Skate, Skate tried to change up a bit. You'd had Tony Hawks, Tony Hawks was on a bit of a slump then. The games they were knocking games out left, right, and centre, nothing was getting traction. I think they'd peaked and they were going off, so they thought right. EA thought, right, let's let's change it up a bit. So basically, on this, rather than button controls for your uh skate controls, you used your right analogue stick. So straight pull straight down and straight up is your Ollie, and then once you start moving. Now, this sounds tricky, and to start with, I was just like, Oh, I can't be done with this. We just want X Ollie, we want triangle grind, blah blah blah. But once you get into it and that teaches you the movements on that stick, it it was very good, and that did take the skateboard game on to the next level. We'd had skate one, skate two is even better. Skate three is a fantastic game, of which people are still playing and still uploading clips to this day. Um, and we've got skate four on the way, which at the moment I doesn't don't think as early play testing is going that well at the moment, but anyway, skate two, um skate one had been a bit of a didn't realise that was gonna be as big as it was, then skate two took it to the next level again, and it was a really addictive, brilliant skate game.
SPEAKER_06Well, a couple of things to say about skate, um, which is EA from memory, is it not?
SPEAKER_04Yes, yeah.
Skate 2 And The Analogue Control Revolution
SPEAKER_06Now they had a big push at the time for taking all the controls to like an analogue place. I think off the back. Now, this correct me if I'm wrong, but this rot stuff not rot, but this trend started in Tiger Woods kind of 04. Yeah, bang on, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where the control all of a sudden it wasn't stopping the movie icon within the box at the top and then catching it at the bottom within a certain little window for the perfect shot or to hook or slice. No, no, no. You were to pull down on the controller and then flick forward in a smooth fashion to execute your shot or hook or slice as you did. You give the player control and agency, a feeling of real involvement in it. I think the next time I took notice of it was in the Fight Night series, uh Fight Night round three, I think, was the first game on 360, did come to PS3 a bit later on as well. Uh they had moved towards the left stick to control the boxer's uh rotation from his hips, and then the right stick, I think, was used for memory to launch the con launch the punches, either round to the left or round to the right, or jab forward and backwards for your punches and your and your movements there. Um it added a little bit of something to it, I think. And I think that next evolution again saw it there. Um quite clever, I suppose. And I think that the ability to flick down and up to Ollie aboard or to control the board in that more infinite way gave it that more realistic feeling of the impressions that your feet were making on the board, which I think got it a lot of good favour in terms of uh teaching people maybe a little bit more about the intricacies of giving it a go themselves, or seasoned players could probably have a bit more respect. You've got to remember that Tony Hawks is a flying gawk show at this point where you could start on the ground and still have a combo going as you were spinning around on the top of the Eiffel Tower, dude. Uh that's slight exaggeration, but not that much. No, and then you could jump off there 360 and land it, I don't know, on a French baguette.
SPEAKER_04They would they were absolutely rinsing the name by this time, and the games were yeah, the game seed I'm about at the right time, it really was.
SPEAKER_06The seed of Tony Hawks, as it was executed on the PlayStation 1, Dreamcast, whatever it was, N64, even the seed of that game, especially when you first play it in that warehouse level level, the area won. The skateboarder had weight, he had fluidity, his movements were never overly extended beyond a realm of possibility in Tony Hawks 1 or 2. There was a little bit of silliness in there, but it wasn't ridiculous. By the time we'd walked through the PS2 era to the 360 era, as I say, Tony Hawks was a car wreck, and that's being polite to it. It was still infinitely playable, and the seeds of it were still there. But as I say, by the time you've 360s on Santas Hat on top of the statue at his workshop, where is this new level that you've unlocked? You gotta be asking yourself what's going on here. Skate was back to the streets, it was dirty, it was grimy. You were finding spots to skate rather than being dropped into a skateboarder's paradise. Um, you know, it'd be nice to stumble across an empty pool and then go in there and feel like Lords of Dogtown or something, you know. It had that real cool vibe to it, did skate. Um, Tony.
SPEAKER_04Sorry, I also had that where there'd be your missions and your tasks to hit, and there'd be one which would be like do this move and combo into this move, and you had to get that analogue precision on that right stick, yeah. And sometimes it would take you half an hour to get it, and then when that when that pinged and you're done at the sense of completion, and you're just like, Yes, gosh, you know, and they had that you want to keep trying, not oh, this is too tough, ridiculous, because you knew damn well that if you weren't doing it properly, it's because you weren't doing it properly. It wasn't that the game is unfair, it was it wasn't that that was dodgy controls, the controls are very precise, and I remember one you had to sort of pull down and roll round the side, and I couldn't do it, so I actually watched myself on the controller when I done it, and now that was me. I was I was way off, I wasn't on the edge, and then when you try it by looking, then you were right round the edge of the rim of the uh the uh analogue stick, bang, in, done, brilliant.
SPEAKER_05Oh wow, is it time for the news?
GTA IV: Lost And Damned, Ballad Of Gay Tony
SPEAKER_04Um well, I will just go one more game before we do the news. Oh, good god, Grand Theft Auto 4, lost and damned, February 17th on the Xbox 360.
SPEAKER_06Oh, we scrolled straight past that, did we? Yeah, um my apologies now.
SPEAKER_04Alright, alright, we can do it. Oh, they got pretty saw it! Yeah. Um GTA 4 was um it's still a big game, but I still think underrated in the GTA series. I think GTA 4 is I've played it recently, um, to conclude.
SPEAKER_06I don't know, mate. Critically, it's still the highest-rated game they've ever made.
SPEAKER_04It is, but if you speak to gamers, yes, a lot of them are quite controversial about GTA 4. Oh, I love it. Yeah, but if you you're you and you were bang on with it because you said to me that's probably the best game in the series. Now everyone's oh no, four weren't that good, blah blah. Go back and play it. Believe me, go back and play it. Because it is absolute quality that goes, stick away. Good quality.
SPEAKER_06So stick an SSD in your PS3 and go stick GT GTA four in it, dude. And you you honestly, it's transformative.
SPEAKER_04And and obviously, but lost and what a game. Lost and damned and the balladigate only. This was when DLC came on discs.
SPEAKER_06So I know we're saying nice things, but Lost and Damned wasn't that nice.
SPEAKER_04Did you not like Lost and Damned?
SPEAKER_06It's it's okay, all right. It's cleverly made, it's clearly made. It's cle do you know what? Let me tell you now, it's a thing of beauty. The pack riding looks great, the colour palette because you're in a you're in that grimy sort of world, it's brilliant. Some of the riding mechanics start to fall apart towards the end of the Lost and the Damned, they don't hold together well enough, they're not strong enough. Um, some of the biking elements aside, it's a bit weak. Character as well, the I don't know. It it's good. Uh standalone products, it's totally fine. Holding next to GTA 4, I've got a bit of an issue with it. I've always saved Balladagay Tony though for a rainy day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Balladagay Tony is a great game, and then if you haven't, I mean, I don't think I can probably spoil it, but the the the three games cross over, so there was a main mission where you will play from each side in that mission and you'll cross over to where you were in the other games, was ingenious at the time.
SPEAKER_06It was the peak of DLC in my mind. And it's also it wasn't overly priced, it was very well put together, and it was one of those moments where you're like, Well, if this is what DLC is, right, and I hate to you know, I I wasn't the canary in the coal mine to be fair, if this is where DLC is, I'm happy. Yeah, suddenly it's not that anymore.
SPEAKER_04No, um but there is like also bits where you could be in Balladigatoni, and if the dates matched up, you would see Nico Belek doing a mission that you would have been at at that time when you played GTA 4 in the city. There's things like that, and you thought they didn't have to put that in. No, they didn't, but they did, you know, that really immersed you. So yeah, I did like Lost and Downed. I liked Balladigatoni even more. Um, I think that was a you felt like you were playing a new GTA game, but you knew you're in the world of four. It was very cleverly done. Um, but yeah, brilliant. Love, love those games. Love looking back at them. Um, seeing ones I wanted to play, ones I didn't play, ones I did play. Um, yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_06Quick, quick shout out to Prunny. Can I be the real hero on PSP? Uh go check it out, guys. It's a it's a fun, novel, kind of platformy concept, but it's not it's not anything like you think it is. It's great though. Uh so shout out for that, RGT. That was a great selection of games that I didn't think was very good until we got into it.
SPEAKER_04And then yeah, once you start looking into it and suddenly realize there's ones you've played or ones you've been in here.
SPEAKER_06The first three months alone have left you bereft of money.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, we don't get that nowadays, do we?
SPEAKER_06Not including is this not Vin Diesel's the Wheelman experiment on PS3 Windows and 360 coming out in March as well.
News: PS2 Price Cut And 360 Strategy
SPEAKER_04The wheel man, yeah, I remember that. Oh dear. Yeah, I did try that. Not for long. Um, well, that leads us on to uh something that you'll all be very familiar with, and uh leaves me to say we've scoured the very darkest region of all the gaming magazines and the interweb to bring you this week's news first up. This comes from Eurogamer. Um and this is I've just noticed this is written by Ellie Gibson. And for you, any of you who would know Ellie Gibson, she was on um the game show Go 8 Bit. She was uh one of the uh not one of the judges, she was an expert on there, Ellie Gibson. So she's obviously been in the industry a lot of years. Um and she writes PS2 life cycle, is it an end? Says Microsoft. Exec executor uh reckons Xbox 360 is the future. Yeah. This was written in March 31st, 2009.
SPEAKER_06Oh, he's got surmise in him, hasn't he? My God.
SPEAKER_04So Ellie goes on to say Microsoft boss man Chris Lewis has shrugged off suggestions anyone will care about the PS2 price cut announced for the U US and Europe. This move from Sony at the end of the PS2's life cycle is not unexpected, said Lewis. We believe, however, that the future lies in the growth of current generation consoles and Xbox 360 as the fastest growing games console last year, with sales up over 80%, will continue to drive the market. Then there's some stuff about blockbuster games, connected entertainment. But quite frankly, you could fill in the gaps yourself in the time and it would take us to cut and paste it. As announced earlier today, PS2 will shortly cost USD of 99.99 in the States and uh uh 100 euros in Europe. There is no price cut for the UK though, where it will continue to retail at 99 GBP.
SPEAKER_06Wow 2009, a PS2 brand new, slim, no doubt, at that point for 100 quid. Uh it's not a bad way to keep the kids entertained, is it?
SPEAKER_04I kind of I'm thinking a library as well. I know the time's moved on, yes, moved on, but um yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_06Out of the box, you can't do that with a 360, can you, Chris?
SPEAKER_04No, no, and having that, you know, and yeah, Chris get the little slim one, put it on the kids portable in the bedroom. They got a DVD player, they got games that they can pick up for you.
SPEAKER_06You're a lapsed gamer from say the Mega Drive era or Master System era, you're a bit of a dad, you go in the town, you've got some money for your birthday, you grab a PS2 so you can watch Gladiator in bed. Hey, I'm just thinking like a 2009 guy, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're spot on though, you are spot on.
SPEAKER_06Maybe a bit of matrix, depends how much that is. Not blowing the money on it, and then you can grab, I don't know, copy a FIFA 09 or something and still feel fat, gorged, and happy. Like, look at his graphics, Maureen. Look at this, PS 200 quid. Yeah, that looks that looks a bit like him, I suppose.
SPEAKER_04I'd have scored from 30 yards, Mike Lowen.
SPEAKER_06Come have a look, look. Mike Lowing. But is John Barnes still playing in this series the greatest living footballer of all time?
SPEAKER_04No, no, not 2009, I don't think.
SPEAKER_06It was a loss of football, yeah. It was a loss for the UK, to be honest. He wants to put the world in motion, does John?
SPEAKER_04And uh in his time he did. He did, yeah. Um yeah, I think this was, you know, Xbox were going in aggressive then, weren't they? Do you know what I mean? You don't need that. This is what you this is the future of game, and not that old thing. You don't need a thing sold 140 million.
SPEAKER_06I was about to say, you don't go after the best-selling console of all time with any sense of decency and tell people that the future's here when your competitor so you you're arguing for your competitors' last product being dead when the current competitor's main product is out. Uh and history will prove they didn't take it seriously, and although PS3 crept past them, you know, very slowly, in the end they did get there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and also I think I mean nowadays, you know, recently Xbox had done the opposite and put a price hike on their consoles. But I mean, Sony don't come out and say, Oh, well, don't buy that, it's too expensive, buy our console. That sort of thing nowadays isn't really we don't they don't seem so aggressive nowadays.
SPEAKER_06I'll be honest, mate, to give a moment of the time, you've got to frame this up at the time, 2009. Xbox had the dander up, they were at the time bulletproof. Everything they were doing, everything they did, especially in 2009, made sense. The exclusivity on the um G uh Grand Theft Auto, I think they had as well, or some exclusivity on the DLC, or some sort of semi-exclusivity deal going on. The Gears of War moved the needle, big time. Uh, that game looked incredible, and you know, obviously by then they'd probably had a sequel. Halo Wars was out, they're experimenting with games like Viva Pinata, Kinect was on the horizon, but not yet a reality, which probably killed most people. Stone dead. Um, there was a Fable, there was a Fable 2. Um, there was a lot going on in the ecosystem, Forza, PGR. There was a lot of good faith, and it was all I'll be honest with you, Microsoft products of that era were very solid products. You could put PGR, you could put PGR 4 on now on a TV in the corner of the room, and people would think it would look impressive. They'd take a car out for a spin around a lap and they'll be like, Wow, that's great, feels great.
SPEAKER_04I think yeah, I think the only reason for me, I think why PS3 eventually got a foothold and just slowly overtook them was the the system launched better.
News: Sony Patents PS Cloud
SPEAKER_06It launched of HD at start, whereas 360 didn't it launch with a Blu-ray player, 360 went HD DVD, which was a bolt on, you know, and well 360 going early, which enabled them uh um to really co-op the lead they had with the disgruntled sort of current gen owners were looking for something fancy, PS3 was still some way off, you could go now and get the 360. The 360 OG launched in an era where people didn't even know what HD was. The gambit between what connectivity do I have in the back, the Microsoft was capable of doing it. I had mine hooked up to an HD telly, and they had a synergy with Samsung at the get-go to show people how to connect these things up together to get the best out of them. But we were launching into an era where CRTs were probably still the main gaming screen. So they I think so.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I bought a PM3 and I had to buy a new TV, I had to buy an HD flat screen to put it on. So I had to buy both.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, the good news to Sony is they got to ride in on the horse that the 360 had to literally break to get there. 360, if you remember, there was all the fur during the 360s launch era of HD ready and HD televisions, and the two labels. I mean, this is very 2009, we're getting very deep down the rabbit hole, but let's give people a sniff of what the scene was like. You could go buy a telly, and I did have one that was HD ready, which I think was the lower end of compatibility, and it didn't work very well with the 360. I then splurged out and got a HD TV that could do, I think, 1080p, but most of the time these consoles would stuff the 360 did attempt 1080p, but mostly let's face it, we're a 720p in that era.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the odd 900 weren't it? It looked horrible.
SPEAKER_06It looked good enough, really. And if you get an in-era TV plasma or what have you, uh maybe something a little bit more exotic, an LCD or something, and you wire it up to a 360 or a PS3 studio reference screen, it's still that's the best way to play those. I know I have mine hooked up to a big modern screen, and so do you, and it looks great, but some of that sort of graphical it's a little bit like a CRT, you miss the pixelation, which hides it on some of these games like Resistance, as an example that you've played through recently. If you'd played that on a darker plasma, a one that was not HDR, that maybe used the shadows more on its benefit, because I know a lot of these games end up looking very because when you do the slider on a modern telly, yeah, you have to knock it down to get the shadow to come back, if you see what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_04I know what you mean. I'm lucky because that new TV I've got is is the AI TV, so it it it it's obviously been set up and formatted for most consoles, so it recognised straight away that's a PS3, and I could dink and that change it to the best picture. So it does interesting. So then if I take that off and put it just straight through that modern um OLED display, whatever, it looks very bright and gaudy. But if you put it through the AI, it almost downplays it back to what it should have looked like, and it does look like that.
SPEAKER_06I think it also plays back to a different taste of colour palette in terms of the overall presentation as well. I think because everything now is 4K, there's nowhere to hide. Whereas even we'd gone to HD, and yes, everything bloated, and yes, the staff enlarged at the developers to make up for all the extra detail they're having to do, but there were still lots of places to hide within the shadows, you know, where lesser detail is seen. We can ramp it down a little bit. Photo mode hadn't took hold in that era either, not really. So there wasn't the ability for the player to get the camera and zoom right in on Kratos' left thumb as an example. Oh, he hasn't got a skin tag where he's been biting it in the last scene. That's not very realistic. Oh, Jesus guys, chill out. Yeah, I just want to pulverise somebody.
News: Mass Effect 2 Announced
SPEAKER_04So that to see a PS3 or a 360 on an era correct plasma or an L C D or something like that is when it's at its best to make I think also um I can still remember uh my mate worked at um a uh uh TV outlet and entertainment place, and he said, We've got a batch of PS3s coming in, we're one of the first in the country. We've got the I believe they were the 60 gigs coming in. Do you want me to reserve you one? I can get you one. And I was like, Oh, I don't know, I like my PS2, I'm still playing PS2, and he went, it's got a Blu-ray player in it. And I was like, Yeah, alright. And I thought now I look back and I think they're done the same as what they did with the PS2, make it an affordable bit of tech as well as a games machine, yeah. And then got not only an HD games console, they've got a Blu-ray player. Obviously, Xbox went with the HD player, which you had to purchase separately to add on to the 360, but as time went on, obviously HD died.
SPEAKER_06I hate to say this as well, but a little bit like VHS versus Betamax, where Betamax was the better product, it actually transpired. I went down the rabbit hole of this the other day. Blu-rays are super fragile. In fact, your DVDs are gonna outlast them. I think Blu-rays are falling apart already, first gen ones for sure. And it's like, wow, hang on a minute, what's going on here? Oh, what's HDDVD? Bulletproof. HD D V D literally bulletproof.
SPEAKER_04If you look back, if you look at where I don't know if anyone watches Linus Text Tips on YouTube, if you watch one of his videos, he goes through and he he puts all the high definition formats together and to see the same film on screens and see what comes out the best, and it was actually HD video, if anyone remembers those. The last changeover that you had an HD video recorder and HD VHS, and that looks a lot better than a Blu-ray, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_06It was uh I've I think Techmo did something similar, but we digress a bit. I mean, we do.
SPEAKER_04Yes, you know, this was Microsoft, they were they were on a crest of a wave at the time, and they were basically saying, Look, yeah, you could drop the price of PS2 at maybe the best selling console there's ever been, but at the moment, do you want that or do you want this?
SPEAKER_06Well, I I also want to chuck out there that and they lost this very quickly, but at the time, the 360 management and sort of influencer sphere, for want of a better word, Major Neils and people like that. They were trading off an edgy sort of Sega vibe, you know, Nintendo's, you know, Sega does what Nintendo. They never said it explicitly, but it was definitely they were like, if you're into wrestling, they were with the green branding and everything, they came across very much like a DX kind of up yours in your face with 360 with disruptors, or they were actually attached to the world's biggest corporation, but with the disruptors, we're doing crazy stuff, we're gonna, you know, and they were they were flipping the script.
SPEAKER_04They were, yeah, like you say, Xbox Live arcade, you had the online and people playing Halo and stuff online, you know.
SPEAKER_06They were jumping in early on everything. Yeah, in that moment, they had every right not to go in hard against the PS2. I'd have actually preferred to have seen an historical story where that guy went in hard against the PS3, as in these are the reasons why people should drop the PS3, or if they're sitting on the fence and they're wondering which console to get behind. I'd love to have seen his These Are the Reasons. I think you know, initially, I think it would be um PS3 struggled with backwards compatibility. Xbox big did a big noise about that, so they'd be talking about current and next gen catalogue. They'd be talking about the HD DVD movies, the media remote, that sort of drivel. Um the chat cam, as we mentioned earlier, that's used for slightly salubrious reasons, one would imagine. But yeah, they were they were doing stuff, dude. They were so yeah. Shame they decided to kick the older sort of wheezy guy in the corner rather than the guy with this the big roided dude at the bar with a PS3 t shirt. Oh you're kicking my daddy? Uh uh uh no
SPEAKER_04Yeah, brilliant. What's this next bit of news then, George?
SPEAKER_06Oh, I've got a speaker. Have I? Okay, brilliant. Well, that's a bit of news from 2009. I'm not quite sure exactly what article this uh comes from. It's from gamesindustry.biz uh an article by James Lee published on the 31st of March 2009. There's your explicit window you were looking for. Sony Patents PS Cloud, internet video game streaming service, registered within 24 hours of on live debut. I think there'll be some things here we'll know and some things we might have to look into. But Sony Computer Entertainment may enter into cloud computing. The operation of services from a remote server, according to a filing at the US Patent and Trademark Office. The electronic giant's Japanese office filed the patent for PS Cloud on March 24, a day after the GDC debut of OnLive, the online game streaming service. The filing unveils early plans to make the service available to handheld game devices as well as consoles and details PS Cloud as providing entertainment services, namely providing online video games that users may access through the internet. According to Sony's filing, PS Cloud could also offer streaming music as well as electronic books and magazines, if only it did. Sony's fledgling streaming service, one that I think I might have tried one afternoon by mistake and then came off it because I didn't know if I bought the game or what was going on. I think I dabbled a little bit with the cloud on Vita. I think there was a little moment where it worked on there if memory serves. I can't fully remember, but uh one has to wonder but uh you know definitely eyes on the future here, Sony, but um yeah, I don't remember it working very well.
SPEAKER_04No, I mean this is their early sort of dabbles, and they're always behind Microsoft as you know, when it came to online and streaming and bits and pieces. I mean, I can even remember seeing on my PS3 just when the store was on added on and just ignored it for months and then just said to my mate, What is that PS store? He said, Oh, that's where you buy games and what and I deliver them to you. And he's like, No, you buy them digitally and download them on your console. I was like, What? Didn't just blew my mind. It went on this store. Now, I mean, I don't even know if you can get on it now. I mean, I went on it a couple of years ago and my PS3 store, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, get on it.
SPEAKER_04It's slow, it is slow.
SPEAKER_06They've cut they've I'll be honest, just to give you an update on where the PS3 stores are, they've cut a load of content out of it. There's not that much on there.
SPEAKER_04Well you can't they still want to sell me FIFA 14, but yeah, but what you can what you can access now it's been slimmed down.
SPEAKER_06It might be the SSD, I doubt it, but it's it's very snappy now.
SPEAKER_04Oh really? Last time I was on it, it was painfully slow.
SPEAKER_06But the choice, all the pages are cut down. Obviously, all the wallet stuff takes place outside on your mobile. You top your wallet up to give it funds so you can make the transaction. I haven't transacted out the PS3 store in its current iteration, but uh yeah, I'd I've checked out the Vita store in the current iteration with a loaded card, and it was easy.
SPEAKER_04Oh, brilliant. So, I mean, this this um PS Cloud, was this all to do with that like PS Home they done where you'd have your own No, no, no.
SPEAKER_06I think PS Cloud is their first step in the realms of uh I think they even called it PS Cloud. PS Now um became is that I believe that's all that is.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so this was the early iteration of streaming games to play.
SPEAKER_06That was my take on it, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I mean I remember having I had PS Now for a while on my PS4, and some games would run, but some were oof, they were yeah, that was that was a tough sell to play, that the latency, and that was terrible. But there you go. I mean, we all have to start somewhere, and you look at how online is now with PS5 and Series X, Series S and PC.
SPEAKER_06They all had to start somewhere, I suppose, and this was this was well done for finding that bit of news because I just googled PS Cloud and the first two pages on there were just talking about portals, so I don't know where you pulled up that old fossil, but it's an interesting insight.
SPEAKER_04Somebody took some finding, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I just thought it's an interesting insight, and I think that's literally the foundations that they were laying here because it does refer to online the launch of online, the online game streaming service. Suggests to me that you know you host a game, PS Cloud is you know the next iteration of that. It's PS Now, it should become rolled into PS Premium, is it? I'm sure someone will message in and correct us if we're way off the mark, but I think we're pretty close.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06What's this next piece of wonderful looking news, you sexy son of a gun?
Stingray’s Boot: 2009 Releases Pickups
SPEAKER_04Well, this comes from um Games Radar. Um this is this was a bit of an early one, 17th of March. Um this is Mass Effect 2 scheduled for early 2010, and this is by uh Henry Gilbert. Now I think this is quite interesting because Mass Effect has a massive following and people love these games, and I think this is interesting because it's that's that your tough second album, you know. They've done the first game. Where were they gonna go with this second release? Yes. Um and that's quite nice because you're now we're now gonna be reading this article looking through you know the eyes of people that hadn't even played this game yet, so I just find it interesting seeing it from before rather than after. Um as a special St. Patrick's Day present, EA and Bioware officially announced Mass Effect 2 today with a release planned for early 2010. You know that that trailer you saw a couple of weeks ago. Well, that's just a teaser. Now this shoot is official. Here's the here's the uh said teaser in case you missed it, so you you can actually go and check online and still watch this. Um, although they haven't said it won't be on other uh possibly Sony platforms. Oh yeah, that's interesting. Um Mass Effect 2 has only been confirmed for 360 and PC. As for the release date, it's a little curious. The first Mass Effect was a big seller and one of 360's three major holiday 2007 releases. God, I didn't realise that was that early. Mass Effect along with Bioshock and Halo 3, yet the sequel is planned for post-holiday time. If we had to guess, and we do, there are probably two big factors in this choice. One has to do with the game's publisher, EA, having a not so merry holiday season, with their big titles like Mirror's Edge and Dead Space not being the hits that they could be in such a crowded season. Weird, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06Sorry to cut in when you're doing that, but like, oh no, it didn't do what we thought it would do. Mirror's Edge and Dead Space are now like viewed not only as absolute pillars of games, like critically renowned Mirror's Edge, the first person um parkour parkour game, and then Dead Space, which was like which is a which is a pinnacle of space horror, some would argue. Yeah, she even got a remake. Who wrote this article? Who wrote this article at RGN?
SPEAKER_04Um, this was by Henry Gilbert.
SPEAKER_06Okay, Henry, you'll be remembered fondly, friend. Uh thing is he's not wrong in that moment, and that's the weird thing about these articles.
SPEAKER_04Be over disappointed with their sales, you know.
SPEAKER_06This is the good thing about flashback RGT. I love it. You we get this is what separates it. You get in the wheat and chaff, but you weren't getting there via the articles of the moment. And the thing is, they report of the moment. History remembers very different things. They always say the the victor writes to history, and in a way, that's correct because this little factoid totally lost to time. Yeah, unbelievable.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's crazy. Um, I'm glad I got up this morning. Yeah, you're always up in the mornings. Um, perhaps this is EA dev Glenn Schofield's statement about rethinking release dates in action. Um the other possible reason that comes to mind is that Bioware is pretty damn busy right now, aside from the gargantuan undertaking of creating the old Republic MMO. They intend to finish and ship Dragon Age Origins this fall. Yeah. Even for a big studio like Bioware, shipping Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 in the same time frame would almost certainly hurt both titles. Um in spite of all this wild speculation um on our parts, we can't wait to get our hands on it in about a year from now. And if this winter of Street Fighters, GTA bikers, and Resident Evils has taught us anything, a triple A title at this time of the year is never a bad thing. So obviously a lot of early anticipation for Mass Effect 2. Um, and like we we jumped in on there, hearing things like EA being disappointed with Mirror's Edge and Dead Space is crazy.
SPEAKER_06Thing is though, maybe they maybe still are. I mean, critically in this gamers.
SPEAKER_04Maybe the sales figures weren't what they hoped, you know.
SPEAKER_06Massive think of the money that they must have put into Dead Space and the game, the quality of the game that it is, that they actually I do remember they were very careful to make sure it was as good as it could be. Um it's a great game, performed very well, remembered very fondly. Uh but maybe it just didn't do anywhere close to what they thought it would do. I mean, if you played Dead Space in a dark room and someone said to you, is this going to be the next big thing? You would turn to them and you would say, absolutely, with no doubt, absolutely, this is unbelievable. This is game changing.
SPEAKER_04And maybe, I mean, Dead Space was a new IP, maybe a people weren't sure of it, and maybe when Dead Space 2 came out and people jumped on board, they went back and then bought Dead Space, so then I've got to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_06I was about to say, dude, hang on a minute, it got a trilogy, it got a trilogy on multi format as well.
SPEAKER_04You know, it might have kicked off later because people then once they saw a second one out, they probably thought, well, this is obviously doing well, what's this all about? And then went and bought one.
SPEAKER_06So the weird thing is they say they're saying that at the time that Dead Space 2, not Mirror Z, surely, but Dead Space 2 was in development. So they've got the boss man saying, Yeah, it didn't do very well. You're like, Wow, dude, thanks, thanks for that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, crack on though, you know, make sure that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_06I just want to I won't I want mine a moment because in many ways the 360 felt like it was a console built for me. I'd got the original Xbox and late, admittedly, uh towards the end of the PS2's lifespan, or maybe the middle of it, I kind of went over to grab a bit of Halo and PGR because they were the kind of game. PGR was the spiritual evolution of a game I loved on Dreamcast, uh Metropolis Street Racer. Still probably one of my favourite games of all time. Come at me, I I'll fight you off every single step of the way. Uh, PGR was the evolution of that, not quite as good in my humble opinion, but still great. Oblivion as well. I'd played a lot of Morrowind on the original Xbox, and you know, that was a game I was I was big into. And then the 360 came out pretty much within the launch window, you got Oblivion, which was the next obviously evolution of the Elder Scrolls games. So to me, that was like wow. I mean, are people for the first time in the history of my life is all making a console and games for me alone? Uh it it felt good, and then obviously, we got obviously here we got the first Mass Effect, which was without a shadow of a doubt, a genre-defining moment. Uh, an Xbox exclusive as well, and uh we talked about moments where Xbox controlled the zeitgeist. That was one of them. Um that game made everybody turn round and look. He made every PS2 gamer probably go to game the next day and try and find something that would give them even similar to a similar experience, and the hope that the the mighty PS2 couldn't be shook in such a way as this. Uh I mean we've got black. Come at me. Uh but you know, we're talking Mass Effect. The it was the first time I think many of us have been exposed to relationships in gaming, uh the adult themes, and we're outside of Leisure Suit Larry, dude. I mean, I'm talking where it's treated as a as a grown-up scenario within the plot. I mean, Mass Effect did there is a bit of token bonking in there to use the British term, to be fair. I I think it's a bit it's a bit messy now. When I've played it back, it it feels a bit clumsy, but at the time it it it did feel actually very beautiful if you played it right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it was a massive game. I mean, not only was it a space adventure, it was an RPG, it was very in-depth for the time, like you say, with relationships and your paths, your decisions, and how the ending would go, depending on what you done in the game. This was a b you know, this was ahead of us time massively.
SPEAKER_06And if you think as well, if if you'd been an Xbox user and you'd been sort of deep into the bioware ecosystem with Knights of the Old Republic one and two, Jade Empire, all using a similar battle mechanic, Mass Effect 1, the original, not the remastered version, none of that, played so much more similar in terms of the way you fought and engaged the enemies as Knights of the Old Republic 1, 2, and Jade Empire style of engagement with the enemies that passed itself off as a cover shooter. Now, retrospectively it got revisited with the Mass Effect 2 styles, and therefore you can play the trilogy three with a concurrent sort of over-the-shoulder boulder-holder sort of roadie cam gears of war, really influenced style of gameplay. So Mass Effect 1 launched into a clumsy battle mechanic, but won a hell of an RPG that probably lent more towards RPG gamers because the the gameplay was more strategic in the first Mass Effect. It was slower and a little bit more.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I don't think it was it didn't feel too fantasy. It felt like it was the future of the human race. It felt very serious and very, you know, it was.
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SPEAKER_06It was very grounded, it felt very the ships and the uniforms all had that sort of United Nations from the from the Earth um participants for sure, but of a like an evolution of NASA, the Normandy itself, it was very far-fetched, but there were people sat at machines controlling what looked like radar bits and bobs, you know. It it felt futuristic, but it still felt human and grounded. Because you know, it had like star oceans and things like that, but they were very, you know, they're very fantasyful, they're very you've always got a you know, a random creature, that's a lot of talking horse or let's face it, I I don't want to get controversial here, but basically Mass Effects it's basically a Star Trek RPG, for want of a better word. It's not Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic was exactly that. He said that on the tin, they got the franchise. Mass Effect is it's Star Trek, uh, it's more Deep Space Nine, but it's got elements of like the remake Battlestar Galactica, it's got that mature. I'm telling a strong story, Earth's come this far, the human race is doing this, we've got this tech. You're right, it was framed up in a almost like a not a documentary style, but it was realistic. Um, the conversations you had on the planet. I went back and I played Mass Effect 1 uh recently, and there are times where some of the side missions that feed to the main missions do feel very garbage now. Uh, but at the time they didn't, they felt like very real. They were very, you know, a very realistic insight to the to the drama that was unfolding. Don't forget when I play Mass Effect now as well, it's not the first time I played it, it's not the first time I've heard Matey Go on about the generators, it's not the first time I've heard Matey Go on about the water supply, blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, you know, so it some of that's been lost to me, but the first time I played it, it was special. Now, Mass Effect 2, I was excited for because obviously there was uh the teaser trailer was interesting, you had these sort of figures, uh the guy and I I don't quite what know what I can't remember what they call him in the Mass Effect universe, but I'm gonna call him the smoking man in this instance. There was a lot of sort of cloak and dagger stuff going on, and one thing that must be heralded really. I know these things did sort of happen in in previous generations, but this was one of the first times properly, and I mean properly, where you could carry over your concurrent save and then continue your story in a way in Mass Effect 2. I I threw some caveats in there because it's not uh maybe as simple as it seems, especially if you're trying to do it on PlayStation 3 on the trilogy on there, because Mass Effect never got a vanilla launch on PS3. So the only way you can do it is through if you only want to play it on PS3. Obviously, if you modern modern machinery, you'd definitely play the remaster. Um, but yeah, the PS3, if you want to play it on there, you've got to play it through in that special box set, and I do believe that's why it's probably quite I think it's probably took a kick in now because of the remastered trilogy, but there was a time where that was quite pricey. Um but Mass Effect 2. I don't know what your experience is of it, but there's obviously without ruining what's what getting on for a 20-year-old game, believe it or not. Um there's the element at the beginning of getting the band back together. If you if you're aware of the game, I'm not gonna I'm not I'm playing loose broad strokes here because I don't want to ruin it because I know a lot of people probably haven't played it, and I just implore everyone to go and play these games. Um they they do feel a bit empty now, one does, but two sort of addresses that element and I think just builds on the game. You said at the start of this that difficult second album, I agree, they had a lot of distance to cover, and as the insight of the time shows, they were juggling a lot of balls. There was as much hype for that Dragon Age game, although I bounced off it because I'm probably more primarily a lasers guy than I am a Swords and Dragons guy, but I still like Swords and Dragons, don't get me wrong. But Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, they had a lot going on. Um, they had the MMO, which I didn't realise about, which a great great insight again. RGT, absolutely unbelievable. Uh they weren't big, they were they probably felt to themselves like big studios at the time, but let me tell you, compared to modern day studios, there's probably barely anyone there, really, if you think about it. Yeah, yeah. So getting those games out with all the voice acting, the localization, the multiple plot trees that are involved in a bioware game as well. Because it's alright making a game where you have a choice, but how does that play out at the end when you've made this choice and that choice? And yeah, you may you played 70% of the game as a good guy, but then at the end you turn into an absolute arsehole and start just killing everybody and raging everybody. How does that play out? Oh well, that makes that not working. Oh, right, okay. So that would seem a bit weird from a plot point of view. Yeah, it'd be very odd, right? Okay, so we've got to rewrite this whole section. Yeah, well, we want to give players choice, right? Okay, and what would happen if he was dating so-and-so? Well, that would also look a bit weird, wouldn't it? Like, yeah, it would. So hang on a minute. So you've got to think about these interweaven narratives, they are pretty simple now when you we have the benefit of hindsight and you can you can see the plot points laid out, and if you want to see maybe uh if you want to see how these dialogue trees go, obviously, your best place is to go either grab a guide or go on IGN or GameFacts or whatever it's called these days, and and go through it, because then you can see the dialogue trees. If you were to write those out, there'd be a lot of choices there, RGT. So, yeah, if you it's amazing the influence these things have. I recently said I was just playing Mass Effects 1 through, and um I did actually dig a guide out this time because I thought what what would happen if I didn't do that? Or what would happen if I did all right, let's have a look at this. So, yeah, actually, that's that's quite interesting because I think Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 was maybe a bit guilty of this. I don't know if you remember. Um, it didn't really matter what you chose, the voice dialogue. Although the game admitted that you had chosen something different, the voice dialogue was kind of the same no matter what you chose.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_06So there was a bit of smoke of mirrors going on with the Mass Effect franchise in the terms, but I think the game did recognise that you had physically chosen a different option, yeah, but just had one maybe two lines of dialogue to cover the three or four choice tree you were given. Yeah. So it was kind of a generic because sometimes I'll be like, Yeah, I want to help them, and be like, Well, we'll have to see how it goes, won't we? I was like, No, I selected we would help. Yeah, exactly. I did select we would help. So why did he what was that bad paragon or was that?
SPEAKER_04I did notice that myself, yeah, recently when I had to go on Mass Effect One on the remaster, and you just sort of thought you'd it it was a it'd give you an answer to select, but a very sort of he'd come out of a generic response that covered two or three of the answers that were on there, and you sort of thought but almost delivered it an arsehole way just to cover off that well, if he doesn't say it like this, then it's not going to work for the bad guy.
SPEAKER_06It could just sound like he's having a bad moment as a good guy, yeah, yeah, just record it as an asshole, get that bit done, move on. Yeah, uh but yeah, mate. I mean, I've spoke quite passionately and probably quite some extreme length about my enjoyment of Bioware up to this era, especially the games that they've been involved in, especially their synergies with the Xbox brand as well. They're almost unofficial for official stable makes, which was quite beautiful as well. And that was some of these sort of weird alliances that are built off the Xbox One certainly started to make the you know the PlayStation owners a bit nervous. Obviously, no one with a PS2 batted an eyelid that I was playing Morrowind, which is basically a low reservation of Oblivion on an Xbox and having like one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had in an RPG game. I was hyped for Oblivion. I'd say a lot of people probably didn't really know what it was. Um, but it was it was one of those moments where they had the title of Bethesda that felt strong and and special, exclusive, really for want of a better word, off the back of the PC love they'd shown each other, no doubt. This bioware tie-up and a few of their own things going on with epic games with um Gears of War and stuff. You know, again, going back to the the Microsoft at the time they had yet to fumble. Some would say they had a couple of fumbles, but they had yet to fumble. Um I really don't think the Red Ring of Death had really it was an issue, but it wasn't a massive issue at this point as well. So they were looking they were looking golden.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, definitely without a doubt. Yeah, it's interesting looking back on these articles and you know, before the games had come out and what people were thinking of them then and as to what we know now, and you know, everyone you know if you talk to someone now who's been playing games for 20 years and you sort of say, Oh, you remember Mass Effect, you're like, Yeah, yeah, I remember Mass Effect. But you look at these articles and you realise how hyped people were for this game. Do you remember Mass Effect? Exactly.
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SPEAKER_06You you remember games, I think sometimes you remember games like oh yeah, I remember that. But if if you were to take yourself back into the moment, the palpable excitement of queuing at midnight, the the fevered, you know, pre-internet that you could trust magazine scans for a one-inch by one-inch new screenshot that you'd not seen in N64 Warrior or you know, Kumquat 64500 issue one or something with a free lollipop on the front of it. There were so many pretenders then wanting a slice of the crown, and you would be picking through them in a news agent, you might see half an article, you think, Well, I'll buy that because I've not seen that written before, get home and realise it was, but it'd just been written in a slightly nicer way. Damn it. You know, some guy just fleshed it out and used his own imagination to make you more excited, but basically just talked about the same standard features you were disappointed about a week before, but now you'd had it hyped up by a guy, you kind of think, Well, maybe this game isn't gonna be complete garbage for a change. Oh wow, and you know, you'd scan and you'd look for moments and this palpable excitement. We as I say, you you pass them off. Oh, yeah, I remember Mass Effect, yeah, it was great. But when you were playing it for the first time, and again, I think this is the joy of flashback. We want to take you back to those moments where you're peeling the cellophane off Mass Effect for God's sake. This isn't just like a oh, I remember that. This is like a oh my god, this is do you know that you're about to take part in history? Do you know you're about to put in your console probably one of the greatest games that you may ever play, and probably one of the games that's gonna go down in the pantheon of the greatest games of all time? It's these moments that you don't realise you're involved in, but you're putting your foot in greatness, and I think flashback just takes you back to that moment, says no. It wasn't quite like that though, was it? No, EA thought they'd completely shot their bolt because Dead Space and Mirror's Edge were a complete disaster zone. Bioware were nervous to even think about what to do next because Mass Effect's been great and thought Mass Effect 2 was probably going to be an absolute car crash. They'd already signed up to do Dragon Age. What the hell were they doing with that MMO? No one would remember that. Absolutely. If you're tuning in now, welcome, sit down, stay around a while, because this is great stuff.
SPEAKER_04Brilliant, yeah. Well, I think that um draws a line under the news this week in episode one. I think that was quite eventful, three different stories, a bit of uh bit of uh Mass Effect news, a bit of PS Cloudlet before that even became PS Now, um, and a bit about Xbox absolutely slating the PS2 Slim's price drop.
SPEAKER_06Um picking on the old boys like hang on a minute, what did I ever do for you?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. Um but yeah, brilliant stories and a little little picture in time there from 2009. Um, but leads us on to um time we now call Stingray's boot. What's nestled between some counterfeit nappies and a dodgy cotton of bat battle for indoor is some of the new releases for March and April 2009. So these are probably games that we would have been looking forward to. These are games we would have we'd have been thinking, do you know what?
SPEAKER_06Hang on uh hang on uh is flashback PG? What's flashback?
SPEAKER_04Well, it depends what you're gonna say, Sam.
SPEAKER_06Hang on a minute.
SPEAKER_04I don't know if I trust you.
SPEAKER_06Hang on a minute.
SPEAKER_04What the hell do you think you're doing? What do you mean? What do you hell do I think I'm doing? You're coming here? You invoke You invoked him. Someone needs to bring him back. He's back.
SPEAKER_06He's out of the car. What's he looking like? What's he smell like? What's he got? What's who's with him? What's going on? What's the car look like? What have we seen come up the drive? Well. Is my medication gone? Are we not doing that skit now? Or is it just Ray, straight Ray?
SPEAKER_04Well, I think, I mean, if if you want me to say what I I see as a 2009 Ray, right?
SPEAKER_06Yes, let's do the era correct Ray, I like it, yeah.
SPEAKER_04He's still got the bluebird, right? He's got a cherry bomb on the back. So it's got a bit of a that's got a deep, a very deep burble to it as he comes up.
SPEAKER_06He's got that from pit stop garage. Yes, yes, goes, next to cars.
SPEAKER_04It's exactly where he got it from. He got it out of the skip because it came off an old metro, but it's on there, he's welded it on, he's got a mate, do a bit of welding on the side, that's on there. It's lowered a bit, it looks like a bit of a low rider, but it's a bluebird. But also, when he gets out, still rocking a mullet, because Stingray has a mullet. Right? He's got a moustache now, but you can just see the early growth of a goatee. He wants a bit of goatee, he wants a bit of he's changing his character a bit, a bit like Mass Effect 2.
SPEAKER_06A bit stone cold, sting lost it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. He just smashed two cans of cherry cola together and done them both. Yeah. Sugar rush. T-shirt is gonna knockoff Mass Effect 2. It's a bit on the wonk of Mass Effect 2, and it's slightly blurry.
SPEAKER_06So he's he's I don't know where he's got that from, but most t-shirt official t-shirts at the time look like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so it's it's unofficial official. Um Denham. Right? Denham. Lower part is Denham, and he's he's just got a batch of these baggy jeans that were about popular in about 1995. He's found some in a warehouse somewhere, so he's got his spliffy jeans, massive baggy ones, and a pair of sliders.
SPEAKER_06Well sit down, 'cause I'm about to break the fourth wall, we're going You wanna know how I see rain 2009? I'll be honest with you. He's pulled up, he's wearing some reddish pink cords worn out at the knees, held up by a belt that's I'll be honest with you, it's m about on the edge of the leather. But it's worn as well. It's a dirty black belt. Uh it was leather at some point in time. But now not. Um, he's got uh a rugby shirt, but he don't fit him very well, and he's got a bit rotund round his waist. Being at the ale, he has a real ale down the railway, yeah. Being had to stop. Railways his boozer, by the way. His t-shirt's pulled out and his sort of belly buttons hanging out the bottom, you know, that sort of awkward thing. He's got a load of white stainage on his midriff just on top of his belly. It's nothing untoward, unfortunately, this time round with Ray. It's just where he docks his ash when he's having his Siggy. Uh got a bit of a bit of a white stain, the old boy. He's wearing a gile, uh, only because it was free. Uh I think some farmer gave it to him. It's got some animal feed on the front of it. The mull it's long gone, dude. There's barely a lot going on up top. There's like three or four strands covering scullet. Yeah, I don't know. I there's three or four, there's a bit going on at the back.
SPEAKER_04You could say bit of uh William Shakespeare.
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SPEAKER_06Mmm uh when you say party up fr, you know, business up front, party in the back for a mullet, I would say it's a little bit more like absolutely nothing up front, and probably a small gathering of about one or two people at the back. He's trying. There's something going on there. Slight wind though, and he'd be, you know, he'd be Dunkin' Goodye at best. I d I don't know what he's got going on his face, but the once sort of uh youthful visage of Ray in the eighties and nineties is he's gone in 2009. It's uh sort of an aged grey look where sort of laughter lines have sort of crept in round his face. Um it's probably one of those moments oh and he's wearing a neckerchief as well, mustard colour, it doesn't match anything.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it goes with a gile, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_06It kind of is. He's he's not he's not but he don't he don't call it a gile.
SPEAKER_04He calls it a giller.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, he he rarles against the French. He it when pushed in certain corners, he'll call it a body warmer. Um I'll be honest with you. The bluebirds the bluebird's a distant memory, dude, and he's got a very clapped out Subaru Forestier.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow.
SPEAKER_06Well he is, yeah, he's he's when I say it's very eccentric, it's on the bones of its arse, it's done.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he sort of dropped suspension at the back, so he's sort of dragging exhaust over the ground.
SPEAKER_06Very much. He's worn, it's a bit dodgy in keeping the stuff in the boot these days, because he's worn through the spare wheel carrier. Spare wheel went spare wheel went pop on the bat straight, on the bar straight.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Thought he'd run something over, but it just obviously worn through.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's quite a sad story here and right on that. And if you've this first time, if it's the first time you've listened to one of our shows, Stingray's that guy that in the 80s would come round with a bootload of uh knockoff got stuff, knock on your back door and say, do you fancy uh fancy of having a look in the boot, see if there's anything you want?
SPEAKER_06Uh it was a sex stud as well, he was, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, he was, yeah.
SPEAKER_06But you wanted what he was in 2009. I know he's like this godlike figure that normally just has this youthful vigour, but you wanted it as it was. I gave you as it was. Sadly, it's not what you want it to be. Well, he's his boot anyway.
SPEAKER_04Well, so he he always brings us the releases from that era every week. Um, I'm gonna I'm just gonna rattle off some names here. Do you want any siggies?
SPEAKER_06Do you want any siggies? No, I'm okay at the moment. Ray says, You got any rolling backy?
SPEAKER_04He's got some Bambert and Lutler. So yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yes, he's got some Lamberts as well, if you want them. Oh, he's he's also because he gets them off the truck drivers when they come across on the channel. He's got he's got he's he can do you two crates of Bier Dior.
SPEAKER_04I'll tell you what I yeah, I'll have those and I'll tell you what I will have. He's got one on him extra large tins of cafe creme.
SPEAKER_06He has he does.
SPEAKER_04I love a little puff. Um we'll go It takes one to know one.
SPEAKER_06These games we've already read. So we haven't the one we haven't talked about now. No, no, these are these are different.
Wrap-Up And Community Invite
SPEAKER_04Oh, are they? Yeah, these these are from the last ones are up to March. This is March and April. What we would uh probably been looking at the lists to see what we would have wanted. So you got things like Empire Total War, King of Fighters 98. It's always King of Fighters 98, isn't it? Piers 2. Uh Sonic and the Black Knight on the Wii.
SPEAKER_06Okay, I'm I'm down in April. I feel like this is a safe place we need to hang out.
SPEAKER_04Oh boy, you got MLB09 the show, Pierce 2. Yeah, well we talked about that.
SPEAKER_06We we talked about then a documentary style at the top. We raise it now, and I just want to get someone out of his boot.
SPEAKER_04I mean um what else takes your fancy? I mean, all I'm down in April's air peggles there.
SPEAKER_06No, I I'm down. We've talked I'm down in April. I'm down in April.
SPEAKER_04Calm down, fella. Calm down.
SPEAKER_06I'm taking the Godfather part two, the game. I'm very very excited for that. I think that could be good. Uh if it wasn't out on 360 already, I'd be taking Braid, uh, which is out on Windows. Uh April 15th sees the release of Outrun Online Arcade on Xbox Live Arcade. Talked about in the top of the show.
SPEAKER_04Also, sorry to jump in, but you look at these lists, you realise how much how much stuff they did release on Xbox Live Arcade, didn't they? At the time. Genuinely they XBLA, XBLA, XBLA.
SPEAKER_06They were people didn't like the I don't quite know when the Avatars came. I think they were firmly here by 2009. I I do. Um, but the dash, everyone likes the blades. I love the blades. Long live the blades, F in the chat for the blades, they were great. But what came after it wasn't so terrible in its first incarnation, and the highlight that it put on game stuff, RGT and I talk about on the main show, um, the unofficial controller podcast, about how we want modern storefronts to be uh create uh curated and stuff pushed to the front more because Xbox Live Arcade was still relatively new and online stores were relatively new. This was the this was curated the hell out of, and it looked so fresh and new and sexy and everything had that. It was it was nice. It was nice.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was. And I mean also noticing how much stuff was being released regular on PSP. You've got Guilty Gear, XX Ancient Core Plus, you've got Hammer and Hero, you've got Dragon Ball Evolution, you've got um where's the other one I saw there somewhere?
SPEAKER_06You could argue it was was was it in his golden era now? You could argue it was. I mean it came out in what 2013, 2014, something like that. Was it earlier? 2012, maybe so this is prime PSP wheelhouse.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and people always say PSP, you know, it struggled up wasn't a great success. I mean, there's 88 million consoles sold. It was you know, all right, compared to Game Boy and DS.
SPEAKER_06Both of my own devices, am I going and getting an original Game Boy out? Am I going and I've got all these? Am I gonna go get the game gear out? No. Am I gonna go get out of the Game Boy Pocket? DS, 2DS, 3DS. Even the Switch, but that I like my Switch, but let's just wait there. I'm not getting out of the Neo Geo pocket, I'm getting out, I'm not even getting out of the Vita anymore. I'm getting out of the PSP and playing it stock with UMDs in it. I don't know what it is about that ecosystem, but it is sexy. The only thing I wish I could do RGT is get it online. The frustrating thing is it's got this old Wi-Fi technology in it. Win thing, I don't know what about two or three, maybe a little bit more, maybe about two or three years ago, there was one little bit of functionality on a router, the older router that I had that would let you in with the PSP, and it was it was great, but that's now gone, and it some of the functionality on the PSP feels a bit dead for that reason. There's a lot of the stuff going on in the menu that's just pointless now.
SPEAKER_04And I still remember buying my first PSP, it was a PSP 3000 in red. But I still had one like that. Yeah, I still and I bought I bought it in Cumbria in um uh would have been at the time, I would imagine. Uh wouldn't it have been EB, yeah, it would have been Game Station, I would imagine that was at the time.
SPEAKER_06Game Station, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And they had a bundle with a couple of games. I think I got uh Motorstorm Artic Edge and something else coming.
SPEAKER_06And I need you to find out the game.
SPEAKER_04I got no, I'll tell you what I got. I didn't get a game, I got Motorstorm Artic Edge and I got Batman Dark Knight on UMD with a so I could go to the cupboard and recreate your launch experience.
SPEAKER_06What went first? What went in first?
SPEAKER_04Motorstorm or was it the I wanted to see what the films are like. So in the car on the way back, I was up seeing my in-laws in Cumbria. I popped in, popped in Dark Knight on the way back, and I was like, I'm watching a movie. And everyone's gone, what were you watching a movie on? Oh, my games console, new games console, yeah, watching Dark Knight, turned around and show them at play and I was like, Oh my god, I was like, Yeah, I'll watch movies on the go. This is unbelievable, and then put the game in, and I just the rest of that week just that it honestly blew me away, probably more than what any other console has done, because it was sleek, it looked classy, again it played to insert myself into that moment, and I've been doing a little bit of a little bit of dry research on the PSP because I thought this might be more in the wheelhouse of the era that we're in, and it kind of is here, yeah. That is, yeah.
SPEAKER_06But the PSP, you've got to take yourself to the moment, you've got to read the articles of the time, you've got to look at the reactions of the time. Like towards now, the PSP, it looks a bit tired, you know. The games, the ones that haven't chose a specific art style as an example, look tired, like GTA Liberty City Stories looks not that great anymore. You know, it I'm not here to say it's not an absolutely unbelievable game that's totally playable, but it doesn't look as outstanding now as it did at the time. Now, if you inserted yourself in that moment in the time, it felt like you were holding a work a miracle because it in that moment, really to your mind's eye, because we didn't have YouTube in our pockets. Well, by now we did, but it wasn't really used for this, there was no visual difference between what you were looking at on that screen and what you were looking at on your PS2 in terms of playing GTA 3. Uh you know, so this thing was like literally, as you say, you were turning round to show someone a movie on your phone now, you even would see your own grandmother be like, You're being silly. But in 2009, as an example, to turn around and say, I'm watching Batman on my phone on this thing, and then go, Oh my god, is a perfectly of the time reaction where people's eyes would be on stalks at the technology of it, and it's like, oh my god, I can't believe that the Zamu, because you know, everyone else, a movie at best to them was on a VHS. Maybe to the more salubrious older person, it might be on a DVD, but there's nowhere DVD fits in that thing.
SPEAKER_04So I also I know UMD's. I'm looking at witchcraft, yeah, and even I know UMD's now not the best quality, but at the time it it looked really good on a small screen because it didn't have to blow up the resolution so much. And I remember even showing my my parents when I got home, and um I mean you know, I wasn't a young guy at the time either, but I remember showing them to saying, Oh well, I've got this, you know, and oh what's that? It's a games console. Oh, it's a lot of PlayStation, yeah, plays movies. You are plays movies. Same again, put Dark Knight in, shoe him the at a playing. Oh my god. So anyway, went to football with my dad, sees his mate, it's like boys got a new console, it's one he puts in his pocket, a little handheld one, and he plays movies on it. And they're like, no, yeah, yeah, he can watch movies on it, like on these little discs and little plastic things, put them in the back, he's watching Batman earlier. Like, really, yeah, and I'm like, I can't believe it. And that just that knock-on effect of everyone thinking, how's this tiny little thing playing movies, playing almost console look games? Yes, yes, that's just in your pocket. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_06I think I think mate, uh, let me correct you there. I think at the time, I think at the time of PSP in era, you could argue they were console quality. Yeah, you could, and also it's it's that analogue feel in the PS2 era, yeah, with the game like Liberty City Stories, they have no right on planet Earth to launch.
SPEAKER_04That's something that small, and it had that analogue feel. You put that UMD in, you close it like a beta max, and then you hear it go it's actually reading physical media. It was yeah, brilliant, brilliant. My favourite handheld console.
SPEAKER_06If you used it fully, you could have two or three CDs worth of music on there, which at the time would have been a lot because you're taking a disc win, you're not going to take more than two CDs unless you want to walk around with a wallet, and you're either a walking theft target or a slight embarrassment of yourself, to be fair. Uh, so you've got your PSP tucked in your pocket. One thing I've been sort of messing around with is the orchestration of how it goes in the little pockets and then how it would go in your pocket, and the way it's designed to go in there with a little cutout where you would put your headphone jack in so it's uninterrupted and then goes into your pocket. Obviously, PSP we don't really use them these days, but PSP launch with some mini headphones, yeah. An inline remote control that then connected to the PSP itself using a little bit of what I would have got a Sony mini disc of the area that uses exactly the same input. So obviously, they've been able to call on the other Sony divisions to get this nailed, so then you can sort of control the tracks from without needing to get this thing out of your pocket, which again was something else. So you've got movies, music, there's a comic reader on there. If you really want to go down that road, you can look at your photos on there. This is a time as well before people really had i like I say iPhones, but sort of modern phones. Uh kind of 2009 probably feels a bit BlackBerry-ish pearl to me in that sort of era. Um, maybe very early iPhone 3G or whatever it was. So, you know, even in 2009, the PSP looks incredible. Have to say, mate, I've been watching I've got a 1000 and a three couple of I've got a lot load of 1000s, but I've got a very nice cherry red, as you describe, 3000. And in amongst all the chaos of moving and whatnot that we talked about on the main show, I've been lying in bed and watching the Simpsons movie on that 3000. You try and convince me that's not Blu-ray HD quality because it looks so crisp on that 3000 screen. Every single line that you see of animation is crisp, every detail that you see on there, that 3000 screen with the bat light on it, it just pops. Obviously, I was watching it in bed with the lights out, but it looked so rich with the colours. Um, The Simpsons is a great example because a lot of the movies that are in dark, like I was watching Aliens, and obviously it's a film of the 80s, but Simpsons is very much a movie of that moment as well of the 2000s. So it was obviously captured at the very highest format, it could be captured at and then moved to the PSP at that very highest capture, probably very much like Dark Knight. Looks oh good. Yeah. Uh there's a we went on a PSP love in there, dudes, but I don't think it matters.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'll read no, not at all. PSP is superb. We'll um I'll read a few more games that were coming out. We had like Ninja Blade on the Xbox 360, Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena, which was PS3 Windows and Xbox 360. We had things like Dragon Ball Evolution on the PSP again.
SPEAKER_06I did see that, dude. That Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena on PS3. I can't batch for the 360 one, but it came with the original Chronicles of Riddick game, included free on the disc. Oh, super Escape from Butcher Bay, it did, yeah. Yeah, which had been remastered from its Xbox original launch.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and we had things like Dark Spire on Nintendo DS, uh Dokupon Journey on a Nintendo DS, Dr. Mario Express on DSI Wear. That's when you're downloading games on your DS there, Dynasty Warriors, Gundam 2, PS3, PS2, crossover title and Xbox 3.
SPEAKER_05Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_04Um, but yeah, so what you always like you say, you even had Braid on Windows there, but go on, pick pick yourself a mummy mummy, the one that if you were gonna be crazing your mum for, what would you?
SPEAKER_06Oh well, when I first came down here, I got a bit giddy about Braid, but that's on Windows. I don't know as I count that necessarily because it doesn't feel like the I think it came out earlier on 360 again on Xbox Live Arcade. I got a bit giddy about Godfather Part 2 because I've been playing Godfather 1 on PSP. It's it's not it's not the open world game, much to my annoyance. I found out about halfway through it. I was like, where's all the bits where I drive around the town? Yeah, you don't do that on that. Not on PSP. What a waste of I thought I'd going through all of this drivel to get to that bit. Uh so Godfather 2 piqued my interest. I can't remember quite how that was received critically, but I know the first one kind of did okay. I think two got received okay as well from memory.
SPEAKER_04I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Um so it for me personally it'd be a toss-up between because bizarrely, I've also um I had a me and Rachel had a PS3 night, and we went through some sort of big games when I put the hard drive in the in the slim, and Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena went in the console. Um so uh I think just that a pure novelty factor, and if we go in full flashback on it, I think I'm gonna go Godfather part two, the game. Uh and if I was if we're sticking tradition for the Ray as a little cobra to him, I think he needs the money. He's drank far too much port, and I think he's got a touch of gout if I'm looking at him. As I'm looking at him. Uh so I'm gonna take a VHS um home with me. Uh no, in fact, he didn't do those in 2009. He's got like just badly written on the like DVDs from Tesco's. Uh so I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Phoenix Nights right. Alright.
SPEAKER_04Oh, classic.
SPEAKER_05I'll take I'll take the box. I'll how many discs is it? Jesus Ray. Alright, the V C D's. Alright, how many is it?
SPEAKER_04Recorded from the ABC in a high street on a camcorder. Twelve per episode. Whatever, Ray, put them in the bag.
SPEAKER_05What is Ray on about?
SPEAKER_04Um Right, well, I am gonna go with I think I'm gonna go with Ninja Blade or an Xbox 360, because I remember always really liking the look of that game, but I I wasn't an Xbox 360, I didn't own one at the time, unlike now.
SPEAKER_06And I was that was a tenpole title for the brand, that was.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I was thought, yeah, I really fancy playing that game, but obviously never got the chance to play it. So I reckon I'm gonna go with Ninja Blade, and as for my movie pick, there's only gonna be one movie I can pick now, isn't there?
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_04It's gonna have to it's gonna have to be Dark Knight on UMD.
SPEAKER_05Of course it does.
SPEAKER_04Because it is, because it is, it can't be anything else.
SPEAKER_06Ray Ray's just standard you what looks like a vinyl record. That's a laser disc ray.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, that won't fit in the PSP.
SPEAKER_05He says it will.
SPEAKER_04Oh. Oh okay. I don't quite know how I might have to struggle the shape out, yeah. It will work, you know.
SPEAKER_06Um yeah, so I'll tell you my takeaway from today's episode, RGT.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_06Do you know what it is?
SPEAKER_04What's that?
SPEAKER_06Do you know what? At one point in time it made sense for Xbox to focus on its exclusives and its and its USPs.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_06And when they did, look what they did.
SPEAKER_04They did, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Even when I meant dangerous, mate.
SPEAKER_04When I first started collecting for the original Xbox, and you go through the games, the amount of exclusives they had on that on that console, it's just a joy to collect for because you you've never, if you hadn't had an original Xbox, you haven't played Half At Library. It's just brilliant, and you just think, yeah, things have changed a lot.
SPEAKER_06Look at the foundations that they laid. I had an original Xbox, as I say, towards the middle to end of the PS2 life. I got an Xbox and uh or had uh an X and I'd played uh Elder Scrolls and things like that. They set us up for those exclusives that are now like everywhere. These were systems, this was a reason to own a 360 and to book the other consoles so you could play this game.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, things have changed in game and a lot from then, but I think me personally, 2009, we were at a peak of the amount of games being uh released. I mean, just looking at these lists, now now you're waiting six months for a game here, you could probably pick 20 off that list. You went into electronics boutique or game station, you had no problems picking a game.
SPEAKER_06I think I think there's an argument in there to say that we we are mourning the loss of the the double A developers, without doubt. You know, me and Seb got into this, he was talking about how Indis filling that gap, triple Eyes, double I's was his new terminology for it. And he do you know what? It's absolutely true.
SPEAKER_04What we're missing is those double A games that kind of like branched us between the bigger games that are in our wheelhouse, and we weren't concentrating on 4K and ray tracing and 150 million blockbusters that take 10 years to make, we were concentrating on yes, they were still take that cost millions of pounds, they were still pushing the systems, but they were achievable within the times you know constraints. Like we said with Bioware, they were doing Dragon Age, they were doing um Mass Effect 2, they were doing MNOG, they were doing all these in one go. Nowadays, you're doing one game and it's taking you years. For instance, as a recordingist, they've even said about uh Elder Scrolls 6 now being delayed for god knows how long, you know, that game's been being made for years. So, yes, I know that's sort of jumping out of the 2009 era a bit, but yeah, it's it's a shame. Um but I hope everyone has enjoyed this episode, our first episode of Flashback officially. We've done a pile-up before, which is there. If you haven't listened to that, that'll be on there. Download that as well and have a listen. Um if you're interested in in chat and all things, flashback. Um obviously we're under the Unafficial Controller podcast wing. So if you haven't listened to Unafficial Controller Podcast, please do. Nearly 300 episodes deep, we are on there. So jump on there, jump on our Discord. We've got a near we've got a little section for flashback. Come and say hi. And um, you know, we have people who are modern gamers, PC gamers, retro gamers, people only play Mega Drive, who got a bit of everything on there, collect us a lot. So come and join us, come and say you've listened to flashback, and that's where you heard of us, and and jump in and say hi.
SPEAKER_06Um, your countries now RGT, you know, near down near 4,000 cities.
SPEAKER_04So yes, it is uh yeah, it's unbelievable. Um, we love every one of you for listening and downloading and joining the community, and uh yeah, it's absolutely brilliant. And this is just another extra show to say, yeah, you're getting two shows a week now, not one show a week. So beautiful. Hope you like the format. Hope you enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_06Um if you got here via the UCP, welcome. If you got to the UCP via flashback, welcome.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Yeah. So if you're into retro, you're covered. If you're into modern, if you're covered, if you're into indies, you're covered, because we do a bit of everything on there. So um, yeah, it's been really good, really enjoying it. Just like to say thank you, George, for taking part in in this first episode.
SPEAKER_06Um my absolute pleasure, dude. It's been great.
SPEAKER_04It's been brilliant. Um, very nostalgia trick. I just want to, you know, I'm finishing this now. I want to turn that PSP on, watch Dark Knight, then then then get on with uh Resistance 2 on my PS3 because this era has been absolutely brilliant to chat about and oh it's so good, mate.
SPEAKER_06It's so many good memories that are still kind of like obviously RGT and I are of a certain age, and some of the older consoles are very much kind of obviously you can dig them out now and play them, and you're like, Oh, I remember this, but the memory of it is it's there, but it's very faded. Whereas 2009, I can step back into that moment, especially when you got those articles up and and start to take myself back to the excitement of the of what was going on, and it's so good, it's that sort of window into it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, 360 PS3 are 20 years old now. To me, they're not 20 years old, they're still a current console, which I love playing. They both are, they're both brilliant in their own right. And both for me, it was a real pinnacular gaming at the time how they were battling for top spot and the the exclusives they had, the different ways they went down to systems and and the and you know, HD to Blu-ray. It was just a fantastic time, and I hope we've brought a bit of that back to you now and a little bit of memories for you, everyone listening to this. And uh yeah, so thank you, George. I've enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_06Um thank you for uh thank you for having I don't know one. I don't know, you know.
SPEAKER_04That's all right.
SPEAKER_06Thanks for letting me in.
SPEAKER_04And it just leaves me to say, flashback, the games you loved, the stories you forgot. See you next week, guys. See you later.
SPEAKER_05See you guys.