Flashback
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Flashback
Gaming Memories: A Christmas Special
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The glow of a CRT. The weight of a six-button pad. The moment you realize your parents somehow nailed the one thing you wanted most. This Christmas special is a joyride through gaming’s warmest memories—ours and yours—and the consoles, cartridges, and discs that turned holidays into legend.
We start with the SNES Mario All-Stars bundle and the instant upgrade from tape-deck patience to plug-in play. That spills into the classic “SNES vs Mega Drive” current—Street Fighter 2 at one house, Streets of Rage at the other—where friendly rivalry made the rounds feel bigger. Then we time-warp to an 8-bit Christmas with a ZX Spectrum 128K and a light gun pack for Operation Wolf, the kind of living-room spectacle that drew in half the street. Donkey Kong Country gets its due as the game that restored SNES swagger: pre-rendered art, mood-soaked music, and challenge that still sings on a winter afternoon.
Your stories make the season. A GameCube with Double Dash and Return of the King. The Mega Drive 2 controller that swan-dived into the dog’s water bowl. The PS4 and Until Dawn that transformed “always a generation behind” into the best surprise. We salute the parents who braved game shops, got upsold on strategy guides, and made our day anyway. We also hit present-day cheer: a turquoise Switch Lite with Luigi’s Mansion 3 rekindling that new-console energy, plus Nintendo Switch Online turning the couch into a time machine.
And for the perfect holiday vibe, we crown Batman: Arkham Origins as a definitive Christmas game—snow, neon, and a city that feels alive on a quiet night. We close with the memory that started a lifelong conversation: teaching a family member the stealth section in Ocarina of Time, then talking games for hours until those calls became a podcast. If you love retro gaming, Christmas nostalgia, or just a good story well told, you’re in the right place.
Enjoy the episode, share it with a friend, and tell us your favorite Christmas gaming memory. Subscribe, leave a review, and drop your story on our Discord—let’s keep the tradition going.
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Cheers gamers!
Welcome & Christmas Nostalgia
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Flash Play. The games you loved, the stories you forgot. And this week is our Christmas special. And it's me, RGT. And as always, I am joined by my special little Santa's elf. It's Georgie Boy. How are you doing, George?
unknownHello.
SPEAKER_05Hello. It's uh I won't do that the whole episode. It's Christmas time. Yes. Dather round. If we didn't celebrate it on the main show until we forgot five minutes from the end that it was Christmas. Uh we're gonna do it now. Yes. This is where you come. Christmas really all about nostalgia, RGT, isn't it? Let's face facts. No one ever looks back on Christmas is coming, they all look back on Christmas is gone from their childhood. While it'd never be as good as it was in 1988. It's a magic gone. Well, guess what? We've bottled not only our own but your nostalgia, and we're selling off your memories cheap. Gum gum. Um, yes.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Yeah, well, like George was saying, this is uh this is our 12 games of Christmas. So we've got six gaming memories each from Christmas. We've got a few little splattered in of our Discord members over on the Unoffish Controller podcast Discord um of their Christmas memories, and uh yeah, we thought this would be a nice little nostalgia trip back to uh some of those gaming highlights we had back in the day, and some of them are even more modern memories as well, especially from myself as well.
SPEAKER_05But when when gaming was real, yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is this is from them sort of memories where you know, especially when you're younger and you there was something you always wanted, you'd circled it in your little woods catalogue or the Argos, and you were thinking, Oh, am I gonna get that? Am I gonna get that? You're looking at a different presence under the tree, thinking, Oh, that could be that Sega, that could be that Nintendo, and yeah, did you get them or not? This is the thing. And when you did more often than not, no.
SPEAKER_05No, but when you did, it came home hard.
The 12 Games Of Christmas Setup
SPEAKER_03Yes, and when you did, it was absolutely wonderful experience. I mean, one of these as well, one of my best memories. I wasn't even expecting it, I didn't even know that my parents had uh had got it for me, so that was an even bigger surprise because that wasn't something that I'd actually asked for. So yeah, brilliant. But um before we do that, how you been, George? Me?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, doing well. Um lurching between recording one show and then the next show.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Uh I feel like a little bit like a punch drunk boxer. Uh you know, I don't know enough about the modern game to be able to really quote anything. So that's that. Probably Mike Dyson, Chris Eubank, Frank Bruno.
SPEAKER_03Bouncing from one show to another.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, who am I?
SPEAKER_03Exactly. I'm feeling like that myself at the moment.
SPEAKER_05No, I'm doing well, mate. I'm quite excited to record this. It's Christmas doesn't begin until someone at the UCP talks fondly about childhood memory with some gaming device. Uh so I guess once this is over, I can cover myself in cranberry sauce.
SPEAKER_03The usual tradition in the uh George household.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. The basin of cranberry, as we call it.
SPEAKER_05And then I take a little bit of a dip off in a self-indulgent double cream pouring. Uh just kind of slosh it into my armpits a little bit. Wow. Christmas is different out of your way. Get a little pool of it in my hand, sparing my head in that pool of m uh cream and just sort of into it.
SPEAKER_03Nice. A little bit different in our house, but yeah, still nice to see your traditions.
SPEAKER_05Well, celebrate Christmas or don't celebrate Christmas, RGT. You keep sort of fannying around. Get in the cranberry, get it done right, and sort of mocking about.
SPEAKER_03Right, I'll bear that in mind. I've made notes, so uh industrial-sized Vatican is on the way to the RGT house out.
SPEAKER_05Don't forget to wear the Christmas themed life preserver. I've got a ring this year with Rudolph's head to the front with a little hastily assembled Chinese bit of architecture, probably electrocute me to be fair. Little cell battery for its nose to flash red. Uh, and then for some reason, probably because they had spare wire. And let's face it, when you're assembling one of these things in a Chinese factory and you don't really know what a reindeer is, it makes sense to make its tail light up in the same fashion, because then if you get it assembled the wrong way around, it's still gonna flash.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SNES All-Stars Christmas Morning
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Oh wow, well, that's uh I'll look forward to the pictures on Discord. Um right, shall we crack on then with our first memory? I'm gonna let you go first. Let's let's go deep into your first memory. Christmas nostalgia.
SPEAKER_05Okay, okay. And I was gonna do these chronologically, and then I wrote them down as they fell out of my brain. Uh, and then I lost that list, so I've done this. So my first memory is um let's go with this. Okay. I can't remember exactly the year, but I'd have been absolutely gunning desperate for a Super Nintendo or any form of console. You're talking to the kid that grew up with uh Commodore Vic 20, which was like a predecessor to the 64. I got the VIC-20 as the C64 was dying, so that was that was great. Um maybe not when it was dying, but certainly when it was more the prevalent machine, and the Vic 20 was dead. Um and then I got Notarias T, which is a great machine. I have lots of memories of that, really good memories. But everybody else was playing on these consoles, everybody had, and it was the time of the arcade as well, you know, Super Nintendo, all that sort of uh Street Fighter 2, all that sort of stuff going on. I felt like I didn't have a slice of that, even though I had Street Fighter 2 on the Atari ST, one thing that could be said for that is it felt like there was a disc per character, uh, and there was a disc per stage, and there was a disc per song. So that was a lot of disc swapping just to play your game. The loading alone was enough to make reduce a small boy with zero patience to tears. So unwrapping a Super Nintendo Mario All-Stars pack on Christmas Day was enough to blow my mind. Suddenly, I was not on the fringes of the cool kids, I was right in the middle. In fact, I was maybe the coolest kid. Unwrapping all this, obviously, I wasn't a stranger to reading gaming magazines, especially for machines I didn't have in the news agents while waiting for the bus. And yeah, I'd already seen the previews and the reviews of Mario All Stars. I was pumped, I was hyped, I wanted a slice of this NES journey. I wanted a piece of what had made all the Mario Brothers cartoons that I watched on Channel 4 feel special, like I got the joke all of a sudden. I wanted to feel like I was cruising around Hyrule or being involved. I wanted to be running around my bedroom, jumping off like Captain N. And the Super Nintendo came at just the right time. All of a sudden, all this talk of these games that I saw on shows like Bad Influence and Games Master. I wasn't hanging on to see them talk about the Amiga and then hope that there was some sort of cross-reference to the Atari ST. I wasn't watching a whole episode of Bad Influence, literally nearly in tears, hoping the word Atari ST would get mentioned. They did every now and then passing, but a lot was talked about the Super Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Mega Drive, Mega Drive. And I've spoken before, I think the Mega Drive would have been like although my parents for once actually probably listened to the person in the shop saying, This is the most powerful machine, this is the one you want to get. If I'd have unboxed a Sega Mega Drive 2 with Mega C D on that Christmas morning, I'd have been equally hawned up. But the gaming gods took my fate on a different journey. One where I ended up praying at the Mario altar during my formative years. Um not much more I can say about that. I mean, the that iconic yellow starred box art of the Mario All Stars console tie-in was freaking iconic. I remember reading the manual and looking at all the sort of hand-drawn, sort of ninety art in there of all the different characters during their animations and different bits of bobs, and I would tear through that manual the same I used to look at the Super Nintendo and see the little pal logo where it looked like Mario's eyes, the rainbow eyes with the two eyebrows above it, and be like, Oh, it's so cool that they've got this history with this character, they've hidden his face in the in the in the logo. And the eject button was felt awesome, you know. That whole Super Nintendo, all of a sudden I had a control with six buttons on it straight out the gates. The primary school colouring didn't really bother me because although we look at a SNES pad now and it maybe looks a little bit uh archaic, maybe to a modern gamer, when the Super Nintendo pad was new and concurrent to its time, that thing felt like you were holding, I don't know, keypad to Book Rogers' B-Day. It was incredible.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it added the shoulder buttons on. I mean, that's the first time we'd ever had shoulder buttons. Yeah. You know, I I I remember didn't know they were there, and I remember my fingers leaning on them on my friend's Super Nintendo thinking, what's these? He's like, Oh, they're shoulder buttons. I'm like, What's a shoulder button? Never heard of them. I mean, Super Nintendo was I mean, we spoke about this before because I'm currently playing, you know, illusions of time, but the games and adventures, even now, still stand a test of time, what they had just on cartridges, you know what I mean? It was it was a hell of a system that was superbly backed with so many games, and I you know, my friend had Super Nintendo, I had Sega Mega Drive, but I I never remember it being yes, in the playground with people, you'd have a bit of rivalry with Nintendo and Sega, but I never remember it being between me and him. I had the Mega Drive, he had the Super Nintendo, and we'd taking turns going around each uh other's houses, so we'd always play Street Fighter at his because he had the six-button pad, so it was easier to do the moves. Well, I only had the three-button pad on my Mega Drive, so it was always harder to play it on there. But then he would like to come around and play Streets of Rage, for instance, you know, because you you tended to have those beat-em-ups and the Mega Drive being that bit more edgy, you know, you had the blood and you had the bits and pieces, so we tended to play like Streets of Rage or Sonic at mine, and we'd play FIFA or Street Fighter 2 at his, and because of the pad, you know, and you know, Mega Drive certainly felt like the 18 plus console.
SPEAKER_05The games were on the Super Nintendo, I think the only one that ever really had any cutbacks was Mega Drive 1 with the Green Blood, uh Mortal Kombat 1 with the Green Blood, yeah. And but it that was enough to establish the Mega Drive as the bigger boys machine, the place to go play your video nasties that had RoboCop and it had this and it had that, and it didn't necessarily, but it was enough of a gesture to kind of flip the narrative. The little black sleep number was the adults machine and the Super Nintendo, and this is kind of how I remember it was a bit more sort of teen kiddy, and it was a bit like uh I'm a bit bats Captain N and the treasure planet now. Anyway, I still knuckled down and enjoyed it, and I bought so many games with my hard-earned uh chicken money for that.
SPEAKER_03Uh unbelievable. Like you were saying about the pad as well. I'm currently using an original pad, you know, still, you know, the one for my Super Nintendo. Um, it's still a very good controller, you know. It's it plays very well. The D-pad is superb, the buttons are good. I mean, it does exactly what they want. It feels super light now. Yeah, it does, definitely does feel light.
SPEAKER_05And in a way, it feels maybe even lighter than the Mega Drive pad, and I don't know why that's possible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it is strange. I know it's slightly smaller. Mega Drive pad is a big chunky boomerang, innit? But it's it is, yeah. But yeah, I know what you mean, and especially I think as we've been a bit spoilt with later controllers, you know, especially with battery packs and you know, like the dual sensors of modern controllers that's got all the gubbins going in as much as the smart car has. You do what I mean, as they're heavy bits of kit, but yeah, still a very good pad. And also, I think out of all my retro consoles, I think my Super Nintendo pads, I've never had to do anything with them. I've never had to clean them, I've never had to take them to bits, I've never they still work completely fine. Whereas a few of my Mega Drive ones have broke and I've had to repair and clean and that.
SPEAKER_05So it's Mega Drive's slightly older, and I just believe like the Mega Drive it feels like as from a second hand user's point of view, it feels like the Mega Drive had a lot harder life. Every Mega Drive I picked up has been kicked and thoroughly used. Yeah, the Super Nintendo's I've acquired since, much like my one, have been kind of picked up with gloves and put down. Yeah, don't get me wrong, you see some beat-up snazzes, you do, and you see a lot of yellowed Snazzes, you do. But generally, they've been actually physically well looked after.
SNES vs Mega Drive Playground Wars
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you don't you don't have to repair them very often, not from what I've seen. I mean, my Mega Drive I've had recapped and my mega CD recapped and Mega Drive 2 and Mega C D 2 recapped. I've never had to do it to my Super Nintendo.
SPEAKER_05Maybe something I should actually think about doing because it's getting an old system now, but yeah, I mean that and I've looked at this recently, you don't quite realise how much of a difference new caps make in an old console until it's done.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it does, yeah. I know everyone used to tat the Vicky out of me on on Discord saying, Oh, you're always recapping stuff, but me and my Mega C D1, when I had that recapped, didn't think it even needed doing, but I'd done it anyway. Guy said one of the caps had leaked, it was very close to then contaminating the board. He replaced them all, the colours then popped on the screen. You didn't realise how much difference that made to that console. You suddenly thought, ah, this is how I saw it back in the day, not how I was seeing it now. Um, but yeah, brilliant. Yeah, great memory. Super Nintendo, yeah, you must have felt an absolute boss when you unwrapped that Christmas.
SPEAKER_05Felt like I just embraced it that day, I'll be honest with you, and just went full in on it.
SPEAKER_03And the thing is as well, this is the time before, you know, texting your friends. We didn't have phones then, so you're you're you try you want to contact your friends and say, I've got a super nintendo, but you can't till you see them next at school or in the holidays.
SPEAKER_05I just I just bottled up the I just bottled it up and just sort of farm or farmed myself. I just lived on it. You know, I'd look at the box if it wasn't playing it, uh, I would handle the cartridge, I'd stare at the controller. I think I think to be honest with you, that Christmas, I don't remember that as much as I thought I would do because I think I was just that wrapped up in the moment that I didn't actually press record in my brain.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's just that's one of them as well where you're so excited at flies by, don't it, a day, and you're just you're in the moment there and then, you know. And yeah, brilliant memory. Well, for me, um I I said this story probably two or three times on um on our other uh show, Unofficial Control Podcast. Um I actually had to get a few details, so I actually rang up Mummy RGT last night just to try and get some details on this. Um so we sort of roughly worked out that this was 1989 Christmas, 11-year-old RGT. Um, this is the one I mentioned before that I hadn't asked for this. They knew I'd played one before, um, but I think from talking to my parents last night, because of my favourite arcade game at the time, every time we went to Great Yarmouth, um, which we did quite regularly because it's not too far from us, um, this was the game I was made a beeline for, and they saw that this had it packed in, and this was why they bought me the system. So my mu my parents bought me um the ZX Spectrum 128K. This was obviously in the Amstrad era, so you had the Amstrad on the screen rather than Spectrum. Um, so this is when old Alan Sugar had bought bought the rights. Um, but that was with the action light gun pack. Um and with this, you had um let me think, one, two, three, four, five, you had six games packed in on one cassette, a white cassette. You had three on one side, three on the other. Um, but the reason my parents bought it to me because on the back, when you looked at the games, um, I think they might have bought it from Dixon, somewhere like that. Operation Wolf. That was my favourite RK game. This is the one I said before. The guy used to always get me a milk crate out, and I'd stand down and hold the Uzi on the screen where you get the recoil on it, and that used to rattle the glasses off my head, and my daddy supplying the other gun, because I always made a bead on that, and this had a port of Operation Wolf in. Yes, it's a spectrum port, but and anyway, in in that box there was Solar Invasion, which I played to death, which was basically a um, you had sort of a board around a screen, but you had these big sprites coming down, and even if you look at it now, graphically, it was very these games, all on their packing, they were they were done well, you know, they were individual colours and bits, and as these alien things would scroll down from top to bottom, you'd shoot them with your light gun and try and get me and my dad with tat in turns on the highest score. Um, then obviously you had Operation Wolf. There was a game called Rookie, and I don't know, I've I'm I think I played it a couple of times and couldn't I didn't really know what I was doing because I was a bit young and I didn't really go back to that. But then there was robot attack, which was like you had different levels, we had a different robot on the left-hand side, and as the enemies come down, you'd shoot them and get the pieces to build the robot up as you went. That was good fun. But the one that we had all Christmas evening on and boxing day was ballseye, you had ballseye built in, and I even said to Mum, I had a flashback of a memory last night. We had a we had an old Ferguson TV set which we had the spectrum on in in the living room, and I remember I went out, I don't know if I went to get a drink or whatever I went to do. When I come back in, I caught my dad putting the light gun against the TV screen so he could get the highest scores all the time. So I'd explain to him, no, you're just cheating, you need to come away from the screen and aim the gun. But I always remember the gun being I mean, this is probably Rose tinted spectacles here, but I always remember it being fairly accurate, being good fun. Didn't remember any problems.
SPEAKER_05I think I think that sort of light gun technology, although it's like really rudimentary, really. And then didn't change all the way up until we had to do something different because the TVs changed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05They were always relatively accurate.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, playing Operation Wolf at home on my TV was unbelievable. I saw my friend out there.
SPEAKER_05Let me just insert there. You played that, albeit on the ZX Spectrum, with a light gun and had an absolute time. Yeah. I played that on the Atari ST with a mouse. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Wow, with a with a mouse.
SPEAKER_05I mean, you're dead eye dick with the mouse. There's no doubt about it. It's exactly where you want it to be. But yeah, I bought that game off the back of loving it in the arcade. But the crossover experience of the mouse was pretty arse.
SPEAKER_03I must try and find a photo because of playing Operation Wolf. And like I said, I've said this story before. I saw my mate out in the street. I think he'd got a new rally burner, and he was riding up and down, oh, what did you get? You know, what Father Christmas bringing? I was like, Oh, I've got a Spectrum 1 to 8k, I've got Operation Wolf on. He's like, Oh, you got Operation Wolf on your TV. Well, before I knew it, there's six kids in the living room. Because I had this, yeah, I've got a picture of us all sitting around the TV, one with a light gun, and um it was just unbelievable. And because I wasn't expecting it, I had I had a uh family friend's son who had a 48k, which I used to be bemoozed by. It was amazing. I remember playing Transformers on it, and I think that because it was the next incarnation of Spectrum, my parents had said that they'd said this had the Operation Wolf on and put two and two together and they bought it for me. I hadn't even asked for this, so unboxing this on Christmas, this huge box for an 11-year-old. You want and I was like, oh no way, and because we couldn't even load the tapes, we didn't know what to do. Um, we had an American airbase near us, and and my neighbours next door were Americans, and and the lady worked in IT on the base, so she came round on Christmas Day to show me how to do J Load and put the tape in to load the tape, yeah. Because I didn't have a clue, but I'd never used one before, I didn't have a clue to do it. And once you shoot me how to do that, I that is it, I was away.
SPEAKER_05Thing is, that's the sort of thing that you'd be shown. You'd take it up, and your parents would be like, they'd nudge each other, but yeah, told you, he's at the cutting edge of this computer revolution now, our son. He's like that guy out of war games, yeah. And it wouldn't have maybe been said, but it would have been implied with like nods and nudges, and it'd be like, Yeah, I told you it's a good idea to get this. Look at it's specky now, it's like Doogie Houser.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he even knows how to do capitals. Look, oh, he's done a capital letter on the screen. Yeah, and Br and then because that then that then spy.
SPEAKER_04Let me ask you this question.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Did this did this machine come with any traditional games, or did it just rock up as a light gun simulator for the whole of the Christmas period?
SPEAKER_03Um, light gun simulator, but I got some money. Yeah, I got some money for Christmas. So then two or three days after Christmas, we went to see the sales, and um, I think I went in Woolworths um and I bought a space harrier simulator, which was so complicated I didn't I just kept crashing into the floor. And then I bought which was arguably one of my oh, so a Harrier flight simulator, yeah, yeah, yeah. Harrier flight simulator, yeah. And then I also bought Double Dragon, which was actually turned out to be the first game I ever completed. Um, and I still have as clear memories of completing that game, getting to that final boss when he had a gun and dodges, but had beaten him. And I was I remember just running downstairs, I'd ripped my cheetah joystick out of the port because it was still in my hand. Mom, I completed a game, and I just didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Oh completed Double Dragon. And I still remember it's like you go back and look at Double Dragon on the Spectrum, you think how the hell I even got through it? The colour clash, you don't even know where your character is. Looks terrible, but I did, you know, I got through the five, six levels and completed the game.
SPEAKER_05I've looked at games that I thought were graphical powerhouses in the day. And now, as you say, they're barely decipherable, which is shocking, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03I just remember I even get I even told my friends I was completed double dragon, they were like, Yeah, whatever, chinny wrecking. And I was like, No, wow. I was like, No, it ought to be you had no proof in them days, did you? But yeah, that's my uh my first memory set exercise. That's a great one.
Recapping, Repairs & Retro Hardware
SPEAKER_05That's a one to eight K absolute banger. Well, I am not one to I'm like a memory vampire, if I'm honest with you. And for this show, we asked people to message him with their Christmas memories, and I'm gonna feast on these memories of other people because you know I get some sort of enjoyment out of it. First person I'm gonna suck on off or whatever it is, is Digital Munkery. He says, not one that I had, but the former Miss's Digital Munkery. It was the former it was the first Christmas uh together. So 2003, she got a black gameke for Christmas, she got it with Double Dash and Lord of Lord of the Rings Return of the King. We spent most of Christmas Day playing Lord of the Rings together, and much of our early relationship was spent playing Double Dash, which we completed in its entirety in co-op and Super Monkey Ball, especially Monkey Target, very good and happy times. Well this is a this is a great memory, mainly because it's uh Lord of the Rings on Christmas Day. I don't think there's a better feeling than Lord of the Rings at Christmas.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Getting that on a GameCube, I and also this this nudged a little bit of nostalgia for me, not for the GameCube, not for Lord of the Rings, not for anything like that. This is something I don't I very rarely get now. I get it with the odd game, but it's that feeling of that new console that you're excited for, and you get a couple of games with it, and you sit and you just have your day playing those games because you're so excited for that new console and the buzz is fresh with it. And I don't know if I get that anymore. I get it with games somewhere.
SPEAKER_05Let me ask you this, RGT. Let me ask you this. Yeah. What value would you attach to this experience if I said to you, listen, RGT, I know you're a big gamer, I know you enter all that, I know you like it, mainly for the nostalgia for a time when you felt loved, cared, and protected. But regardless of that, you now as an adult, you've got a penchant for collecting this stuff, curating this stuff, even playing the new stuff. I've captured this little tablet that you can take that gives you the feeling and the experience of getting a new console in a range range of your choice, but we'd suggest pre-secondary school. And it's the feeling of unwrapping it, popping the seal, opening it up, the smell of the baggies, the little twisties, it all comes pouring out, the leaflet that you don't understand that says something about warranty, but you don't really know what that is, but you still protect it like it's a holy relic. All comes tumbling out that smell, that feeling, that excitement as you cast your eyes across what's technically the cutting edge of technology, and especially to a kid, this is like wha how much is this tablet worth to you?
SPEAKER_03Oh my god, priceless, absolutely priceless. That would be you know, I can still you you've actually just made me flash two memories there that I'd put out of my mind. I don't know why these come in. It was these a bit random, it's to do with a spectrum. The first one is I remember when I went to bed on Christmas evening, I had to have the light gun pack box next to my bed. So as I went to sleep, I just kept touching the box thinking, yes, I've got to be playing Operation Wolf in the morning. And the other one was I had a little racer bike called a Rally Clipper, and I remember riding up and down the street playing with my mates with the Spectrum Phaser wedged in the front of me trousers with the cord wrapped around tied up around a handle because I thought I was in the A team.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Well not Christmas memories, but I'll just be.
SPEAKER_05I came early as well, didn't I? Didn't I? Listen to memory was too soon. You wrote this beautiful script, you even decided my memories to remember, and I I didn't know it's not acceptable.
SPEAKER_03Freestyle, I'll go on to the next use uh listener memory. Um Rosepace.
SPEAKER_05Hey, wait, should we do that now or should we we can net we could actually now pepper them all the way through if we did one at a time?
SPEAKER_03We can do, yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, so if we do you want to go on to our second memory then? Do you want to do yours or would you like me to start this time?
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, you start this time. Let's mix it up for the listeners.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so uh this one um again I had to speak to Mummy RGT. I think this was round.
SPEAKER_05What's she doing, by the way?
SPEAKER_03Uh very well, yes, very well indeed. Yeah, very good. Um this brought back some memories for her as well, so it's quite funny. We were giggling on the phone, remembering little pudding bass and RGT as well. Yeah, because it's yeah. Yeah, but we'll leave that there. Um yeah, so we think this is about 1990, we think Christmas 1990, maybe 91. I think it might have been 91, but anyway, I got we all know the infamous story of this with me, but this was my Master System 2 that I got. Um dear. Yeah, this is the infamous Alex Kidd and my unique ability to be able to unbox a console, play said console, replace console back into box to where parents didn't know to where actually when I unwrapped it at Christmas, I'd already completed Alex Kid.
SPEAKER_05Before you say any more, you don't have to map what you did across too many sort of interactions in human life before one of them is an absolute crime. Yes. It would see you banged up for quite a while.
SPEAKER_03Alright, it's a bit harsh, but but yeah, that is a big regret of uh finding that, and yeah, that was I was just at the age where they would pop out, so I'd have you know half an hour on my own, so I'd quickly slip it out, portable TV plugged in, duh du plan Alex Kid, and then oh cars pulled up, put the little twisties back bag. How close were you to getting caught? Oh, once I had to put it under the desk, it was against my feet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
ZX Spectrum Light Gun Christmas
SPEAKER_03My mummy RGT would have gone ballistic, unbeknownst to this day. She still doesn't know. Sorry, mum, if you're listening. Um, she doesn't know like I had that mass system against my legs covered. Are you coming down now? I've got your snack and yeah, I'll be down.
SPEAKER_05Let me let me tell you one thing. The way that you would have been red-faced, the way that you would have been looking like you shouldn't you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing, the way that you look sort of flustered as she walked in the door. Now, to you, you'll sat with your feet atop what feels like you know the Italian job. You've got your feet on a few hundred bullion, right? And there's a there's a Italian guard right at the door. But let me let me suggest to you that the inverse image to mum's ERGT was one of like, oh crikey, he's growing up quick.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, probably. Yeah, because I didn't want to leave the room and I was just wedged in my desk, and she's like, Come on, you coming down. Um, yeah, I'll be down in a minute, mum.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, goes down your dad's like, is he not coming down for tea? Oh, little soldiers at attention at the minute, daddy RGT. Just give him a little minute to put them at ease, and he'll come.
SPEAKER_04He's playing with what's he doing playing with them? We're getting him a computer game for Christmas, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Playing with no, no, Daddy. No, oh he's come of age.
SPEAKER_04Oh god, oh god, oh god.
SPEAKER_02Time for the chat.
SPEAKER_05That's my copy of Razzle Gum, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03But yeah, so that was that was very close to being caught, and um I look back now and I I do regret it because um my dad worked a lot of hours at the time. Um, and this is something I'd asked for, so that we'd worked bloody hard to save up and get this, and yeah, I feel a bit guilty that I'd ruined it. But you know, I you know, I mephadacked it on Christmas Day and was absolutely blown away.
SPEAKER_05But yeah, yeah, another one of those technological moments where they thought they had some sort of whisky in their mitts because you know, I I remember I remember Christmas, do you when he came around and he started he learned how to hack the mainframe? Oh, I do, Daddy. Yes, I remember that. Look at him now. He's just he's just waltzing through this, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's not he's played it before. But I remember getting uh games as well. I remember getting. Oh yeah, we should have got him the Neo Geo.
SPEAKER_04We can't afford the Neo Geo. Well, this is nothing to him.
SPEAKER_03Well, I also remember getting the Mars System Phaser and I got Operation Wolf on there as well.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03Difference between Oh, just night and day. The graphics going from the colour clash single monochrome, like yellow or green screen with just black outlines to an eight-bit colour palette. I was just this is the arcade in my bedroom. On a 14 14-inch Orion colour TV sitting there with the light gun at the desk. It was just, yeah, that was brilliant. I also remember having Aztec Adventure, which is like a Zelda rip-off clone.
SPEAKER_05Did you say it was the two or the one?
SPEAKER_03Two. I had the two. Really? Yeah, yeah. I went into the two. I didn't have a one.
SPEAKER_05Um the one could my friend had a the one looks so good compared to the and also having those. The one is the bag.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and it had that. It was do you know what it remind me of? It was some sort of it looked like some tech you'd see in Red Dwarf, Mars System one, and it had that card slot.
SPEAKER_05So I've got a couple of slot, even if you never used it, it just looked like it was some sort of scanner for a spaceship, didn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And you just you know, and you'd you'd you'd have I had a friend who when he first got the mass system, he said, Oh, I've got a Sega Master because we all thought the Mars System was the better console, because the other one was a mega drive. We thought the master system meant that that was the best one. Oh, oh yeah, and it took me a little while to discover that, hence I got a mega drive later down the line.
SPEAKER_05But um my friend Do you think that do you think that if social media existed in that time, do you think there'd have been a video of little RGT speaking down, main splay mansplaining almost to his kid kids playing to this kid in the car in the playground? It's like, no, I've got mega card.
SPEAKER_04No, it's better, it's 16 bit, and you're like, no, what do you don't understand, Reggie? Reggie. Yeah, what you don't understand, Reggie is it's the master system. Master system, that's why it's top of the tree. It's got card and cartridge. You can put both and he hasn't got he's like, he's just getting boomed like cards for the reader.
SPEAKER_05He's like, oh he doesn't know where to be. He knows that his console is better by a long short bit in the playground. He just can't get a leg in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that was pretty much what it was like. And then that was just I was telling everyone this in the classroom, and then it's just one of my mates who was always he had their parents that were always that one step ahead. Do you know what I mean? They'd import stuff, they'd buy him stuff early, and he had a mega drive, but I didn't call it mega drive because I'd only seen it in the Littlewood catalogue, or was it no, it was Gratton catalogue, and I called it the 16-bit. Have you got a 16-bit? He's like, Yeah, I didn't know what 16-bit meant, and he was like, Yeah, yeah, that's that's a mega drive, it's twice the power of that. I was like, What? No, I've got a master system, that's not the master of Sega, and he was like, he was like, No, no, no, no, no, and then you we read up a bit on it, bought uh we bought a uh Sega magazine, read up and I was like, Oh mum, for Christmas, can I have a mega drive?
SPEAKER_04Did you apologize to Reggie?
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah, did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And what did that look like?
SPEAKER_03Um, well, I sort of blamed it on Sega for advertising it wrong.
SPEAKER_04Of course you did.
SPEAKER_03I s I said they should have called it the 8-bit.
SPEAKER_05Oh wow. The 8 bit. Was it like don't worry about it? Was like I told you.
SPEAKER_03Well, because then he had Streets of Rage and he took me around used to play Streets of Rage on his mega drive, and I was just like, Oh my god. Okay. Yeah. And this controller's massive, and it's got three buttons. I'm like, okay.
SPEAKER_05Mum, can I have a friend round? Reggie, you never ask a friend, who is this? No, Mum, I'm gonna cut to the chase here. Um he's gonna speak like this because he's obviously so much more mature than you. Look, Mum, we're gonna cut to the chase. This little grifter at school, absolute grifter, right? He's got a master system. So last year, Reggie, I know. And he was telling everyone at school that Master System was the master, and therefore it was better than the Mega. I mean, can you imagine? Oh god. So why are you bringing this Neanderthal round? I want to scold him, show him, mummy, exactly what the Mega Drive could make sure you show him Streets of Rage, Reggie.
SPEAKER_04Yes, tell him to come round. I'll put the best tea on. Yeah, what do you want? Alphabet? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Papa Vill Grey and the entrance to Streets of Rage.
SPEAKER_05No, he wants to show you how he can live, mate. He's gone full turkey dinosaurs. You've got there, and mum's put out a couple of full-price mars, not even penguins.
SPEAKER_03You don't realise how close to the truth this is. Not even realise how close because he had this it if you remember, there was like the in the like at late 80s, early 90s, there was this cool sort of desk you'd get black desk with red handles on it. Black and red was all quite cool. He had one of those, he had this lovely big size portable, he had a mega drive. When I went around his bedroom, he had lot of posters up, he had the Ferrari poster, Testerossa, and all this on his walls, but they were framed posters, right? Oh right next to his desk, right? He had little speakers for his TV as well for Streets of Rage, and next to his desk, he had a pair of original one Michael Jordan boots. He had next to his, and I just thought, his living the life is his kid's living the life, he's got everything. He's got Michael Jordan's, yeah, and then because Streets of Rage went telling the stories that scrolled up all the time. It's not being in the cinema.
SPEAKER_05Did you end up getting rage for the master system?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. I mean, that was I went home and just looked at it and thought, you absolute piece of crap.
SPEAKER_05I'll see you rage by this point in time. You had rage. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I was just like, right, I I need to get a job and get a mega driver. I need this now. Night and day. Wow. Even when I got my mega driver, I didn't have a setup like him. I'd run a little white desk and still had my little Orion T. I've got a photo somewhere of that, but I still I was still still had my spectrum at the time, and every man in the street.
SPEAKER_05I just want to go speak for a moment of that setup though. I mean, it's got like shades of adult to it, hasn't it? Do you think daddy was involved? Because the stereo speakers, that's another level for a kid.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that I mean I mean uh I knew his dad as well. I mean, I don't know if his dad was so much into it. I think he had an older brother who would die there.
SPEAKER_05Is the family still around your local area?
SPEAKER_03Uh sort of, yeah. Some of them still are, yeah, but some of them still gone.
SPEAKER_05We need that mega drive in the show for the museum. You need to go to their house, you need to track them down, you need to find out. And if that desk is still kicking around, we need that as well.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that would be amazing. So I can I can see that as clear as they use. Well, you went in his bedroom. That's the first time I've been in his bedroom. You opened his bedroom door, right? And that was these posters around the wall. He had his bed on the left of the door, and to the right, I looked around. There was this desk with this big tube set on there, black, black desk, red handles on. He had the stereo speakers either side of the TV. His Jordan sat down beside it, and I'm I'm still rocking a pair of goalers, you know. And I'm like, my god, he's got like 70 pound trainers. Um I've got like 9.99 goalers where the bits are cracked all on the top, but I've been playing five aside. I'm like, oh my god, this this guy's living the life, he's living the life, and then that Streets of Rage come up, and I'm like, Yeah, my bedroom looks a bit MFI out there.
SPEAKER_05What other posters did he have, do you think?
Friends Pile In For Operation Wolf
SPEAKER_03Um, he had the Ferrari Testerossa that said Tesla Rosa in the font underneath, framed. He had a Streets of Rage one framed. He also had the tennis lady scratching her bum. It's my ultimate retro room. Yeah, um, he had one from I can't think it looked sort of a magazine thing, but that was that sort of 90s font where that was all sort of jazzy lines and stuff. I can't, I think it was from a magazine, that must have been a Sega magazine or something he had. Um, and then there was one more. I think it might have been Chicago Bulls because he was into his basketball. I think it was Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan Duncan, I think, on there. And then he had like real cool carpet, sort of a dark carpet with jazzy lines going through it, like you'd sort of see in the mate.
SPEAKER_05What not not no dough, be gentle, but almost like the intro to movies, games, and videos.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, not far from, not quite as colourful, but yeah, that was this guy.
SPEAKER_05I want to marry him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he he he had the setup, he was the connoisseur of the Mega Drive, so then after that, he was like the guru.
SPEAKER_05Let me tell you now, Reggie makes Terry Blow look like a loser, and I didn't think that possible.
SPEAKER_03Well, I used to like you'd because he'd get games regularly as well. Do you know what I mean? He'd he he had a job as well, he worked, so he'd he got good money at the time for his job, so he bought games regularly. So we'd be like, What are you playing now in your mega drive? And he'd be like, Oh, just picked up uh RPG called Fantasy Star. So uh I've been working my way through that, and then you'd just like and then he'd be on to something else and shining force or NBA Jam. Did he play that? And he had a little yeah, NBA Jam was his game. He was good at NBA Jam. But he'd have a little shelf next to the unit and they'd have the games set up like videos. Well, I I'd have one at a time, which would take me a year to save up$39.99 of doing my advertiser paper round, of which I got£1.32.
SPEAKER_05When and if I build a retro room, it will be a tribute to this kid's room.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was he even had like can you remember? I I know I'm going into detail. I'm sorry I'm waffling on here, but he even had his bed to the left, his bed spread had that sort of dark grey and black again with them 90s lines on. Used to get them in, used to get the bed set, like jazzy 90s bed set. So that was sort of arcade looking almost. It was yeah, he had the room, he had the room. I had a little white MFI desk, it was a bit wonky, so you had to put it in the corner so it didn't fall.
SPEAKER_05What was the rest of the house like? I know we're going off track now, but I need to know what the tech. I mean, if he had that set up in his room, what did his parents' living room TV set up look like?
SPEAKER_03The actual house is a standard sort of late 80s, early 90s house, you know, a few brown carpets, that sort of thing. It was a standard sort of setup, but they always had like the TV was the latest TV, you know, their hi-fi was a stack system with the glass lid vinyl in, one of the first ones to get a CD player, you know. They were that sort of, you know, oh yeah, my dad's just putting the C D on. I'm like, what's a C D? Never heard of a compact disc? No, come here, son. Yeah. He's put like money for nothing in on a on CD, and I'm like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_05What if you if you knew him a bit later on, what console did he get after the mega drive?
SPEAKER_03Um did he just flirt away from it and that was him done? No, he went to Mega C D. He got mega C D, he was right to Mega C D. And then I do believe I might have got this wrong, so don't quote me on it. I think he got a 32X, and I think he had the Tower of Power next to his TV. I think he rocked out for a while, but then we with school and that we sort of lost contact. I think he's still local, but we lost contact a bit, and I don't know what he went on to after that. But yeah, he had Sega all over.
SPEAKER_05I want him. Do you think he's still cool now?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I reckon, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I think you should ask him if he wants to come on for an episode of Flashback. That'd be amazing. We should do that. Yeah, you'll have to call him. What's his what's his first name? Because I called him Reggie. Let's call him by his real name. Jamie. Jamie. He do you mind if I call you Jim? Too familiar? Okay, Jimothy. No, if you don't mind, I'll call I'll call you. I'll call you Jamie.
SPEAKER_03Hello, Jimothy. Do you mind that? Yeah, well, I've I'll have to uh see if I can find him again, but yeah, that was brilliant. But yeah, that was we went a bit off topic there, but Mars System was from second memory. Um just a few games of note here that I liked playing on. Like I say, Aztec Adventure was Zelda clone fantasy zone. I played to death on there. The music, I'd you know, it's what people would probably call a cute em up nowadays, but you know, this is the OG, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_05And I'll tell you what, the song about Fantasy Zone that looks great. I've I think I've played that version, I've got it on the master system, I've played that version on there. Yeah, great game, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And the music was superb, the brilliant game, it controlled really well, and that was the first time, one of the first times I remember in a game of upgrades. You knew when you I'd save my coins up and get that real strong weapon, and you're like, Oh, you feel the boss. I know it was even I know they were chimed weapons, but do you know my takeaway of that game?
SPEAKER_05What it's one of the only Mega Drive games that's kind of got that washed-out colour palette of the SNES. Yeah, that's instead of being the bold colours, it's kind of like a little sort of opaque tint like toned-down version, and it seems to be very still colours more, yeah. That's the correct terminology. It's a similar pastel colours to this the ones that you see in the backgrounds of Mario, and for that reason, I think that game sort of stands out and and in a way looks a bit a little bit timeless.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, great game. I'd like to say I played that to death, absolutely loved that. You know, I'd played obviously from my incarnations through Space Invaders and how it got me into gaming and um early Pac-Man games, having a shooter again was brilliant, and having the one so different, you know, and yeah, that was great fun. I loved that game, absolutely brilliant. But yeah, so that was sort of most games. I think only one more I remember having. I did have Streets of Rage on the Mars system back in the day, which was decent enough, you know, to get that Streets of Rage. It you just didn't quite get that music. He's still they had your little plonky plonk music, whereas obviously on the mega drive around Jamie's with the stereo speakers, that ripped on the I am thinking that uh Jamie's the new flashback co-host.
SPEAKER_05He's got way more skin in the game.
SPEAKER_03He's probably forgot all this. That's only me this kept it launched in it. Yeah, but yeah, what about you? What's your uh second nostalgia trip then, George?
Listener Memories: GameCube & LOTR
SPEAKER_05Um, so linking into the Super Nintendo, the aforementioned Super Nintendo memory. Uh I'd got the Super Nintendo. There was a lot of talk about, you know, as a Super Nintendo where I owner where I was from, even the year this game came out that I'm gonna mention, I felt a bit on the ropes. You know, Sonic 2 was big, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Blood, all the talk of like the differences, you know. The Mega Drive still was the bigger boys console, it was like the little engine that could with the Mega CD add-on and all that sort of stuff. And you know, I felt a little bit maybe intimidated. I needed something as a Super Nintendo owner that I could say, actually, this isn't much powerful console. And that game came in the form of something I unwrapped this Christmas morn. It was Donkey Kong Country, it was the hot game of the moment. It was a game that used famously uses the silicon graphics machine to generate the pre-rendered graphics, which were then scaled down quite considerably, one may add. Um to the point where it'd be nice to see that original art that whole game remade with the original pre-digitized anyway. Uh before we get distracted and go on a another side ramble. This game looked a million dollars in the magazine stills. Any footage I saw of it in adverts or previews on any TV show I could get my hands on, I was it was hard to believe what you were seeing and understand it was on the Super Nintendo because it felt a graphical leap to where we imagined maybe 32-bit games would be. So, because we didn't really know what was coming or what it would look like, so we just expected it to be a better version of 16-bit. Well, this was it in our eyes, in our hands. Now I got the launch version, it came with the CD soundtrack that I had for the longest time, that now has sort of disappeared into the edges of forever, I guess. Um the game itself, from the minute you put it in, turn it on, you see Cranky Kong, and you're like, this is something else. This I didn't expect this, and then boom, all of a sudden, Christmas morning, I'm up in the bedroom playing this game, really getting a bit blown away by it, enjoying it, knowing that it was a challenge, even to sort of 16-bit indoctrinated George. I knew this game was a a little bit of a it was beautiful, but it was also brutal. Um but just the wide-eyed wonderment of walking back in the little doorway of your tree house, and that's where your banana stash was, and it's like, oh, it's really interactive because it's like oh no, it's like all your Kong bananas are gone. The way you can kind of climb back upstairs into your bedroom from memory, into your tree house, and get an extra life and muck around in there. Although there was nothing to really do, you could really kind of roleplay being Kong in this universe because it was it was quite a nice little universe I created. The reimagining a Donkey Kong, uh something that was synonymous with the early arcades and graphically looking a bit weak, was all of a sudden um looking very strong in the playground. He certainly gave you a bit of gravitas again. It played well with the controller, jumping on the animals was unique. That felt very different, very fresh, very cutting edge. Smashing through the uh gaming level infrastructure into the small bonus areas, collecting the little Kong things, kind of walking behind the scenes. Don't get me started on the music, the music literally blew me away from the start, and and the first level as well, must be said, where you kind of transition from night into sort of darker as you go through, and then the rain. Absolutely brilliant. The music for me, I've got the Nintendo Music app, and I will often put on the underwater level music. And the great thing about the Nintendo Music app is you can set it to make an hour-long version of that song. Oh really? So it will stretch it out. I think you can tell it to make it infinite, and it will do it. It kind of uses an algorithm or something to it will just I'm not gonna be un butchering it, but you know the one. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely brilliant. Um obviously you've got the great one thing that really blew me away as I progressed through the game was I think in one of the mine levels there's some lights that swing and they kind of light the level up from being dark or underlit to being really brilliantly lit, and that graphical effect, I remember just thinking like this is this looks real to me. Now on the now, yeah, you'd be like, George, really, but bear with me on a CRT, especially in the day when there was that was as good as it got, that certainly looked incredible to me. That that whole game had me salivating. The only thing that made me a little butthurt about the whole experience was it was tougher than I wanted it to be. Getting through that game. One little little last mention, and it's not really very Christmassy, but it's about the game. Is the um the map as well. That was uh also iconic. It was almost again photorealistic of this stupid Kong Island, don't get me wrong, but seeing the little characters and the little surf shack and uh all the little details. It was really, really great. And I I will be playing that on completion of this.
Master System Sneak Play & Alex Kidd
SPEAKER_03I'll play it on Switch Online, admittedly, because I'm not going in the loft of that, but I I well I think yeah, that people you know who weren't of that generation will look back and not think too much of Donkey Kong Country, but back in the day if you look at a standard 2D side-scrolling platformer or a Mario game, anything like that from that era, then look at Donkey Kong Country. You see what Rare did. I mean, I remember my friend getting it saying, Oh yeah, yeah, I thought he didn't, you know, he didn't call it the correct terms, but he was like, Yeah, I thought they use like real characters, that's all like real, real things. And I'm like, What are you on about? Watched watched him play the game, and I was like, Is this on your Super Nintendo? He's like, Yeah, and I was like, How are they doing this on a Super Nintendo? The iconic music, the sound effects, the way they were rendered just looked absolutely, like you say, iconic and proved that you could still increase games graphically by using still a base system. And because obviously Super Nintendo went on with the FX chip and managed to actually put chips in the cartridges to improve the games, which I think Sega did later on with you know Virtua Race and that sort of thing. But they learned that rather than doing the console, you can do it through software, through the cartridge, and yeah, I've I was blown away by Donkey Kong Country.
SPEAKER_05Well, talk to me about because I was I was obviously a super nintendo owner feeling a bit sort of butthurt because I still felt like I had like not the bigger boy console, so I was yearning for something that was weaker but had more kudos in my eyes. Yeah, you had the machine with more kudos, and then obviously were all was aware of Donkey Kong Country, so you didn't have a Super Nintendo, as far as I'm aware. No, how did you feel as a Mega Drive owner seeing this thing take hold?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think there's me and my friend, I think we we we knew that there were certain titles on either of our consoles that you knew the other one either wouldn't get or couldn't do. So, for instance, he used to envy Streets of Age and Streets of Rage 2 because it was more family-friendly to Super Nintendo. You didn't I know you had your Mortal Kombat on there, but there was that toned down, like you say, Greenblood, that sort of thing, you know, it was all toned down. So he, you know, where a Streets of Age was a rough city and an area, and that was all dark, and you were fighting your way through these critical ships, dude. Yeah, you know, yeah, dodges, explosions, all the rest of it. So he that was his sort of envious eyes on my system. Now, me looking at him, there was games like I always remember the games, there'd be Donkey Kong Country because you looked at that and thought the Mega Drive isn't doing that, that isn't running that. Then you'd look at things like Star Fox, even Mario Kart, because you looked at Mario Kart and that sort of sudo 3D they done where the screen returned, and you'd looked at that and thought, yeah, I don't know if I'm getting that on my Mega Drive. So there was them titles, but Donkey Kong Country was always one of the ones where I thought I can't see them doing anything on my Mega Drive like that. That looks super. Almost to me reminded me of it was which it literally was, but it was animation. It was like you were playing a really good animated cartoon, you know, rendered cartoon. It was, yeah, brilliant, and light years ahead how they done it, and you know, it's unusual as well because there was a certain way to make platformers in that time, and rare are just like, no, we're gonna do it this way, let's make it work this way, and then actually pulled it off. And yeah, superb, yeah, brilliant memory. What a game, as well. As one of them, there's very few a lot like this, but timeless. Donkey Kong Country is timeless. You go back now, it still plays well. Yes, it is tough as nails, but you go back now, it plays well, it's great fun to play, it still looks so ahead of its generation, it's unbelievable. Um, yeah, brilliant game, absolutely brilliant. Um, I think we'll move on now to next one of our listener comments. Yeah, do it. Um this is from uh Roe Space Monk, um, our Dreamcast legend from the UCP Discord. Um and his book, I think I've may have shared this before, but I remember one Christmas me and my brother getting a Mega Drive 2 with mega collection including Streets of Rage and Golden Axe. As soon as we opened the box and I pulled out a controller, um, it slipped out of my hand and fell right into the dog's water bowl. So I had to sit and watch my brother play while my controller sat drying on the radiator. I mean bless him. How guttered would you be as well?
SPEAKER_05I do believe we've definitely I feel like I've heard that story, so it must have come up in one of the early um Christmas specials over on the main show on the UCP, um, where we've done you know, maybe something similar to this before with the nostalgic Christmases, but every single time it gets me. Um it's that brutal hardship of being a young kid, isn't it? Sort of learning, and these things aren't just laughable laugh-offable as they are as an adult, although you'd still be a bit embarrassed if oh god, PSI controller just landed up in a dog ball. Oh that's me. That's me paying little Johnny 70 quids to his dad on the way out the door so he could get a new one. But you know, these are the days where you could dry these things off, mate.
SPEAKER_03So it's not too harm done, but you know I could I can just feel I I can't think of a memory. I remember the Feeling, I know I've done something similar. I've I think I had a a tandy radio control car, it was a Beetle. My mum and dad couldn't afford the Tammy as so they got me like a tandy one, which is like a radio chat, but it was still pretty quick. And I think with I was using it after about three days, I hid it into the neighbour's garage and broke the front suspension, and we tried all different ways of fixing it, and I was just so gutted because I'd had I was so excited for this car, it was so fast I was driving up and down the road to stacking it in again, and just that that complete drop in my attitude was just like no, absolutely gutter. And I feel like this for poor old Roe Space Boat because you've got that that you know exuberation of getting this mega drive and that controller, yes, and then just you can just imagine watching it in slow-mo. And then your brother gonna, well, that was your controller, you've done that. I'm carrying on playing. Yeah, what have you done? But yeah, bless you. Yeah, thanks for his face.
SPEAKER_04Crying as well, they would have been crying, wouldn't they? Like, oh god.
SPEAKER_05Sat there watching through tears like a simpering little bottom lip as the aces golden acts in one shit.
SPEAKER_03And his brother sitting there going, Oh, this is probably the best game I've ever played. Oh my god, this is amazing. Oh, that's a pity you can't play, it's just unbelievable. Yeah, is your controller droid it? No, okay, you can have a go later. You'll be alright. Have a go later.
SPEAKER_05Are you ready for another Christmas memory? Yeah, do you want to start this time? Yeah, I mean this one. I I don't know why, but I went to the locker for Christmas memories, and they're they're not really I never really unwrapped much stuff at Christmas. I probably just had already, you know, acquired it or or was having to have a different present or or whatever it is, you know, a taste change, don't they? I remember getting a Green Bay Packers coat one year and like, yeah, I'm someone. Yeah. Um, but this memory is for the original Xbox. I was um very excited for this game, and it's one of these things. I included this because it's one of those times. I've spoken about this on the main show, but uh over on the UCP. But uh it's one of those times where I also thought of my mum in the Christmas shopping pal battle pal battle of it all, the confusion, the the upselling techniques, the bolt-ons, the when you're at the till, have you thought about these moments? So the memory is Halo 2. I remember asking for it. Uh I was an adult here at this point, certainly a young, young 20 anyway, in 20 something year old. And um went over to Mum's's to unwrap the go over for uh you know Christmas lunch and all that sort of stuff, and opening it, and there it was, Halo 2 came with the guide. Uh so it made the you know, I got handed a wrapper a parcel. I thought, what's this? Uh and it felt like a book, and then it was the guides, like the Brady Guide or whatever we call them over here of it. So um that was a memory, and the um obviously I went home and enjoyed the game. I think I felt a little bit underwhelmed by it, but really the core memory here is this somewhere in a shopping area, retail shopping area, Mumsy entered into what would have been uh a quite intimidating and unusual place for her, but on a quest to get little Georgie exactly getting her grown son a kid's toy, as requested, for his Christmas present. Never one to let down this spoilt frat. She obviously entered this unusual arena the gaming shop. Now I've got a feeling it probably would have been game or maybe it would have been game possibly at that time. In she walks with clutching a list you know with other adults on the list wanting things like a pair of socks or a new sturdy coat or maybe a new briefcase for work or possibly some new tools. George, kids toy, aka Halo 2. She looks around, scared, a little bit timid, like a bird on a spring morning looking for that little worm when there's nothing else to eat. Oh boom, boom, Halo 2. She sees it on the shelf. Okay, we're in, we're out, she's thinking. I've still got to get that briefcase and that sturdy hardy coat. Boom. She grabs Halo 2, she cues, she's trapped between probably another frightened mum, uh, a grown man, uh, and then in front of that a teenager with body odor so rank you wish she were dead, but she's gonna endure it. She's gonna she's gonna endure it. Any other time she'd walked out? Not this time. Georgie needs his kids tour. She gets to the counter, flustered, her senses overwhelmed. Sight, smell, sound. She doesn't know where to be. Maybe even a little bit of taste. That smell of that cardboard, fresh tack cardboard at the till for the impulse purchase for the parent that doesn't quite know what to put in their teenage kid that they don't really know anymore's stocking. Some random tat gamer related boom. I'll take it. Panic's in. When the panic sets in, I'll grab anything. Okay? So mum's is there. She's locked eye to eye with a guy. He sees she's clutching Halo 2. He also sees what he can only recognise as his prey.
SPEAKER_01He's the animal that he feasts on more than.
SPEAKER_03He's on commission and he feels a bonus covered.
SPEAKER_05On the Sahara of this games thing, this whole game shop, to him, he knows every nook and cranny, he knows every sinew and wrinkle on the customer's face. To him, he sits atop like a lion on a rock, in walks. Can only describe as a timid-looking antelope. And he knows there's his next meal. Or at least the 10% commission from a copy of a Halo 2 Brady Sales guy, which is probably about 40p. But he, goddamn you, will have it. He leaps to the front. Hi, can I help you? Friendly, yet non-threatening. Her senses drop immediately. I'd like this. Brilliant game. I'd recommend the guide. If you get it with the game, it's half price. What's half price look like? 20 quid. She blinks, she books. Does he need that R to unlock the full value of the game?
SPEAKER_03Your mum comes out looking like Master Chief. Yes. Helmet on the lot.
SPEAKER_05Blind, confused, she throws over the credit card, and hell damn, that assembled pile of paper wrapped with some card ended up being almost three-quarters of the price of the game. She doesn't know what's going on, but at least it pads it out because getting a little DVD for Georgie, although it's a little kid's toy he wanted. He doesn't look that great. Bundle it with this, all of a sudden, the gift just got supered.
SPEAKER_03He's also told that when you buy a game, you have to buy the strategy guide. Oh, yeah, he won't understand it. He needs the guide. He needs the guide. Yeah, you have to have them together. Otherwise, you won't be able to use it.
The Mega Drive Guru’s Ultimate Setup
SPEAKER_05Georgie would be so happy Christmas morning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's cool, though, having the old strategy guide. I love strategy guides. I've got loads of them. They're brilliant.
SPEAKER_05I have. I was thinking the other day, do I need to clear some of these out? But then at the same time, I put I pulled one out and used it in the game.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, you know, brilliant. Oh, that's awesome though. Halo 2. So you got Halo 2 and you got the Halo 2 strategy guide together. Oh, brilliant. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_05And I think it was in an era where gaming felt a little bit kind of mature as well. Halo getting a sequel, uh, OG Xbox, maybe having those more PC grown-up games as well. So it felt quite cool, systems too. Uh at the then by that point in time, PS2 starting to show its legs a bit as well. So yeah, it was it was a good time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and also we've got to remember as well, mums and dads back in the day. I mean, this was when gaming was evolving to what we know now. So going in a game shop was very alien to him. You know, it was like you just see these walls of games, you don't know what system plays what or what's going, you don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_05Well, to some parents as well, with the controversy of some games like Mortal Kombat and the um Grand Theft Auto and these sort of sort of video nasty things, the shootings that happened in America that were traced back to Doom and things like that. But and let's face it, some of these games almost had like a satanic edge to them, a little bit like people speeding towards like video nasties and dungeons and dragons back in the day. And so you're almost, and this is where you get your fix for your kids. So you're almost like going to your kid's drug dealer. It would have felt a little bit kind of like oh display. This is where people come to get these games that get into these vile things, and I'm buying it for little Johnny.
SPEAKER_03You can always imagine your mum being in there, but thinking, Oh, I shouldn't be in here, shouldn't be in there, looking around, and then Barbara from down the road sees her in there and looks at her like, oh my god, she's gone to the dark side, she's in the game shop. That's all right. Oh no, see how you that's not what you think, that's not what you think. I was just getting one for little George, that's all. I was just getting a game for little George. Oh, I love it in here. It's amazing, isn't it? Straight down the road, you wouldn't believe it. She was in the game shop. She's gone. We're gonna have to look, yeah. Don't don't ask her down to the meeting next week.
SPEAKER_05We're in there.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I was. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What's your next Christmas memory?
SPEAKER_03Um, this is quite a modern one actually. Um and I believe this was 2019, so six years ago, I believe. I think it was 2019. Um this is another one I had no England for, hadn't asked for, didn't know. This is Mrs. RGT. Now, Mrs. RGT has a bit of a knack of getting me game and presents and game and related presents that one are always awesome, and two, stuff I haven't gotten, quite unique at times. Um, for instance, when I had my big collection in my shed, she would go through and see systems and games and find out what were rarer games or more highly rated games and work out which ones I hadn't got, and then she'd pick them up for me for Christmas. Very, you know, time consuming, but very clever with the presents. Um, but this was 2019. Um, I didn't own a switch or anything at the time. Um, it was you know, still on my PS4 Pro. Um you know, on the switch light had come out. Um, and I think I'd only just said one time, oh, switch light's pretty cool where you can have it just as your handheld then, you know. But PS4 Pro was my main system. Didn't think nothing of it. And then Christmas Day, she was just handing me this little box, owned up. There it was, turquoise switch light, um, with Luigi's Mansion 3. She bought me as well. Um, and that was one of the times I mean, yes, I was in my 40s, but that was that excitement of having a new console and game, and that really took me back. So I was just like, Oh, yes, I've got a switchlight, I've got Luigi's Mansion 3, which looks awesome, and I spent my Christmas band this switch light, absolutely brilliant. It was the colour I really liked, lovely bit of kit. Really, I always thought the switchlight looks really, really nice. You know, it had that um pastel colours, but just where they were like uniform analogue sticks and buttons with the one colour. Looked, I always think they looked quite classy, almost a nod back to sort of Super Nintendo controller with the lovely colours and the grey. It is um and I was just blown away because I just wasn't expecting it, you know. I wasn't expecting a big present, you know. We were saving up at the time as well, so I wasn't expecting anything big. But then to get that, I was just absolutely blown away. And she's done this in the past for me as well when I was collecting as well. She'd like bought me a Game Boy Advance for my collection and sourced one out and a couple of games, and you know, she really goes into depth to try and find me stuff. And I was yeah, this was just I know it's a modern console, and you know, it's this flashback, but it was just what a great Christmas memory it was, and you know, and then it got me into the Luigi's Mansion games, which if you listen to UCP, you know I'm now playing the original one on Switch Online, but uh I then went and got this second one from the 3DS and blah blah blah, and it was just yeah, absolutely superb, and then got me into the switch ecosystem, which I'm still in today with the Switch 2. So, yeah, brilliant memory and a very, very thoughtful present. But yeah, absolutely brilliant.
SPEAKER_05That's nice, mate. I think as you say, there's something about that the form factor of the switch light, there's something about the colours of the switch light, there's something about the just the portability enforced handheld use of the switch light. That um I've got one in the house somewhere kicking around. Yeah, sure I have. And um they're just fun little things, aren't they? They give the switch back that sort of handheld element that it kind of lost when it became the switch when we when they stopped producing the 3DS and their traditional handheld range. I think that little console just gave them the leg back in that fight. And uh not that there is a fight because of what whatever that scrap going, but uh yeah, impressive little machine, lovely little thing. You know, it's got that nice Christmas chill vibe to it, hasn't it? It's got that has and also sofa bill around.
SPEAKER_03She also got me Nintendo Online, which then, as we know, has evolved, and you've now got that, you can get that Christmas feeling volved with it with nostalgia because you've got your Mega Drive, you've got your Super Nintendo on there, you've got your Nintendo Entertainment System, you got your GameCube, and it's it's so good because you can now you know jump on your Mega Drive and play Ghouls and Ghosts, but in your little handheld version as well. And it does give you that nostalgia trip. Such a great little system with a great little online. It's uh yeah, it's really opened me up to I wasn't even thinking of I'd sort of dabbled with the thought of getting a switch, but didn't then. But then obviously I had that for a while, and then I got an OLED and switch to and all the rest is is history, but yeah, absolutely brilliant, absolutely love that. Um do you want to do uh another readout, George, of one of our listeners?
SPEAKER_05Sure do. Uh that would be oh no, what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_03You can just say that normal on here.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I see. Protect flashy bee at all costs. Yes. I see all this is a hang coming in like a Christmas cracker all over the place. Uh tone-down version for you there, sir. Now, he says, I don't have many Christmas gaming memories from my childhood, as I always tended to get console or computer hand-me-downs from family members. I was playing Acorn Electric games in 1993. Thoughts and prayers of Fatzang Geef. I've always been at least a generation behind in my gaming journey, even into adulthood. So it was a massive surprise when on Christmas Day in 2015 I opened a brand new PS4 complete with a copy of Until Dawn bought for me by my missus. We've never spent that much on each other for Christmas, and I was completely gobsmacked. I this is fat side. He I love that woman, so he loves his he loves his missus. Um that is amazing. That's a great we love you and her too. Uh, and that as a memory, as a feeling of always being that kind of kid that was always one gen behind. You make some wrapping, I don't know, a snares, and you're unwrapping a NES, you know. You make some wrapping a PlayStation, and then you finally unwrap that snares. I mean, that's yeah, I think I've seen this talked about in the Discord. Yes, it means you've then got a massive library of games to talk into, but you're kind of always gonna feel like little bits on on the DACA down, you know. Finding enjoyment in things in a way because you have to, which is a nice way to enjoy a generation of console, but to wake up uh feeling like the kid, the cat that got the cream that morning, feeling understood, heard, and seen by your significant other in a way that no one's ever seen saw or had you before. Uh, not even your parents really got quite the idea of you wanting to just get on the white hot razor's edge and surf the tip of the biggest gaming wave in a long time. And there he is, Christmas morning. Can you imagine? I've talked of it before, but there he is, the iconic blue box as the wrapping tears back the slit of the circular seal on the top, and then the pull and the pull, the lift and the pull of the safety of the safety cardboard retention mechanism, and then the pullback and the display of its crystal white inn of the box as you smell what can only be described as fresh Japan just as it breathes into you, the very air, the essence of the place, this thing probably a backstreet in China. But to you it's indecipherable from that smell. Don't come at me, it's to paint a picture. I don't this is flashback. We don't we're not caught in controversy here, not really. Anyway, the smell of the child labor washes across you like a pungent sort of I don't know, gut kit. You're like, oh wow, you're like, oh my god. So then she's like, Oh, hold on, because you want to get up and start playing with it all, but then you also know that you've got to do the significant thing of saying, and here's yours, knowing that you've just bought a pair of socks or something, and you've got BS or something, oh I misjudged it this year. Also, in the same time, while worrying about this, also thinking, Oh yes, oh yes, but then also the panic, I've got nothing to play on this. She's been so generous, but then it's gonna be the awkward, like uh uh uh it it's you know, menus gr great, and then boom, here's your gift DVD would probably be the usual tat, it's probably you and McGregor and Charlie Bauman crash. The stunning realisation you got a new game for your console, but then the stunning realisation that you're about to hand over a gift that will now be seen as an insult. Like the world's best husband mug or something. That'll be fine. You grab it in a panic in like debonums or something on the aisle. It's like it's it was dirty, but you can wipe it down, it's kind of picked up, it's like the last survivor. Like that'll that'll that's a great joke. She'll get that. Rapid in it, no panic. Suddenly you're sat there with a PSO and a copy of until dawn, sweaty just full on the agrifalls coming off the top of your hog. So that's a great memory.
SPEAKER_03It is and it's it's just thought, you know, it's one of them that's you know a lot of say about bizarre GTS, the thought that goes into it. They know that you would love this, and it's the research, the money, and the cost as well, but getting you that he's uh you know can I say 2015 the combination of a PS4 and Until Dawn would have not been an unsignificant amount of money? No, no, and Until Dawn as well. What a great game that looks fantastic on that general.
SPEAKER_05What a great game to consolidate the purchase as Mrs. Zangeef uh, we'll just yeah Mrs. Fat Zangeef sits down on the sofa. Mrs. Rip Zangef sits down on the sofa next to her beloved and he says, Oh, what she says, oh what's this? Pays a bit of interest. It's this oh it's this horror game, we're gonna play it together. And maybe he doesn't think at first he's gonna play it together because it's quite a new concept, but they end up playing it together. Yeah, I want to know what episode two looks like of your PS4 journey with you and Mrs. Rip Sang Eve sat down. You don't have to do that every time. Playing that. Have you read the contract?
Donkey Kong Country: SNES Redemption
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but this is flashy B as an extender, so this is just uh wanted to pay for that here as well. Oh god, yes. Okay, fine, okay. I'm joking, but no, brilliant memory there. Saying Geith, great. Um, brilliant PS4 as well. What a present. Until dawn, yeah, absolutely superb. Um, right. Well, I'll start on the fourth one then. Um this is still fairly modern, I'd say I think I can't remember the year exact, I think it's about 12 years ago. Um had um we had Mrs. RGT's family down, um, and I had no inkling on this present whatsoever. Now she's really good at getting me stuff and just keeping it all quiet. I didn't realise anything at all with this, which still surprises me to this day because this thing was in the box about nearly as big as a tumble dryer box. So how she hid it or where she put it, I have still to this day, I don't know. But anyway, it was Christmas time, and we were we had all, you know, there's up seven, eight of us there, all round the Christmas tree, doing the presents, a couple of drinks, you know, all having fun. Um, and then I just remember Mrs. RGT saying to my brother-in-law, can you go and get it for me? Because I obviously can't lift it up. And I was like, Well, so out to the utility room we went, come back with this massive wrapped box. There you go, there you go, mate. That's your present. I'm like, What? She's like, yeah. Anyway, I opened the paper, generic plain cardboard box.
SPEAKER_05I'm like, you were thinking this is another blooming sex late.
SPEAKER_03Hoping. Um, I opened the box up, opened the box up. Lo and behold, I see R-type marquee. I'm like, what the hell? It's my bar top arcade. She had it custom built by Paul's custom cabs. Black, I've got it sitting next to me here, black, blue pipe and round the edge. She had R-type's my favourite shooter, so she had a lit lit up banner of R-type put on two joysticks, but they're all got seven buttons on each, but she had them blue backlit buttons in um just to give it that that glow. Um, and I was just blown away, and I just thought I had I loved, I'd always wanted me an arcade machine. Never thought um I'd ever get one, and hadn't, I don't think I'd even hardly mentioned getting an arcade machine, but she'd sourced this guy out, he was from Blackpool. She got him to build me this machine, got it shipped down to me. She had it built with at the time it had God of Game on, so it had 900 games. Um, and I was just in shock, I just couldn't believe it. Um, similar to the Spectrum days from when I was younger, I was like, had my friends around. We were playing on this two players because you can play two players on. Um, one of my best memories, um, absolutely brilliant machine. Still got it now, it's upgraded a bit now to Pandora's box. I've got it on now, so it's about 1300 games on, but it's got you can use it for HD, you can add your own games on SD. Um, but yeah, just absolutely blown away. One of the best presents because not only was it gaming, it was retro gaming, it was an arcade machine, but not only that, custom built for me as well, which was just one of the best presents ever. Um, still one of the prides in my uh collection, and uh absolutely brilliant machine. Um, definitely recommend get one if you ever want to get one, but brilliant, yeah. So uh arcade machine. I think it was about 2013, something like that. But yeah, absolutely brilliant. Love that machine, so good.
SPEAKER_05I tell you what, in 2013, that's one hell of a cutting-edge sort of gift to receive. Uh you know, your own arcade machine at home loaded like that, comes affectionately adorned with your favourite as well, the marquee from R Type. I mean, it this lit as well. I mean, this is quite the gift, quite the symbol of Mrs. RGT's misplaced love.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's brilliant, it is brilliant. Um, and like I say that after a few years, about six, seven years, maybe a bit longer, the board went, the board broke, contacted the guy, and he said, Right, here's a link. You can buy this straight from Japan. I think I paid£28 delivered for my Pandora's box board. And literally just unplugged, screwed that in the back, fitted up, wired it all back up. You got 1300 gains and the SD card slot to add whatever you want to it, and a S HDMI if you want to go down that route. But I got it on VGA on a four by three screen. Um, it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. You get that arcade buzz from it. Um, there's all the games you want, all sectioned off from shooters to you know, your retros to fighters to you know, beat-em-ups, everything's on there, puzzle games, the lot, brilliant. And it's just again that Christmas, I didn't I've got a bar top stand for it now, so it stands on an arcade machine with shells in which I bought from an arcade company supplier, but originally I didn't, so I had it to standing in on the dining room table, and that was just that Christmas, you know. It was like going back to Spectrum days, friends go around for a drink at Christmas. Oh, what did you get? Oh, Donald's had me this arcade machine. There we were, a beer each, playing through uh uh Cadillac of dinosaurs or brilliant, brilliant, brilliant fun. Um, and still love it to this day. Absolutely awesome machine.
SPEAKER_05It's a good job. This is flashy bee, because I've about to I'm about to sort of literally my tongue's been bit off.
SPEAKER_03I gathered that when I was you know just putting out my heartfelt and there wasn't this RGT.
SPEAKER_05I tell you the first thing that triggered me is is what's the what's this? What's this? No, what's this?
SPEAKER_03The light up buttons. Yeah, that's a dead one of these. Yeah, you you changed it straight over. What's this? That's a good job. This is audio only.
SPEAKER_04It's a dead one of these.
SPEAKER_03But no, brilliant.
SPEAKER_05That must be a Christmas memory for someone.
SPEAKER_03Probably. But my Christmas memory was the bar top, so uh beautiful, beautiful machine, brilliant, love it, and very personal as well, so that will never be earned anywhere, that machine. That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_05She keeps rocking up these stellar gifts. I hope she's doing a podcast about all the podcasts, all the gifts that you got her.
SPEAKER_03Well, the problem is I don't know if you can really do a podcast about nine bottles of talc. I mean, one was a double size one, so I mean, you know. Talc or talc? Yeah, talc, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Don't forget it's flashy b. Okay, so my Christmas. This is more an era of a feeling, uh, a true season of feeling. Now, this feeling is based around Ocarina of Time, and it's also based around OG Tom. So I was a young spunky uh felony lad. He'd acquired himself a job, he had wages, he had disposable income, I'd got myself a copy of Ocarina of Time, um, and I was playing it sort of over the holiday period into Christmas, loving it. For me, that game will be tied up with Christmas just for time memorial, really. Now, the reason why it's here is because at this time I'd always knocked about with OG Tom played with you know, played with him as we know what you mean.
SPEAKER_03Wrong show.
SPEAKER_05Play together, yeah. Uh there was an age gap, and you know, so there was a little bit of drift sometimes, uh, off doing bigger boy things and whatnot. And one day we were out and about somewhere, uh, I think we were bush feeding actually. And so me and OG Tom would have some time and we'd be talking about this, that, and the other. And I can't remember if he had an N64 or he had asked for one, and we got talking, and he says, 'Oh, have you got one?' And I said, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, I've got one of those.' He said, 'What what what game are you playing?' I was like, 'Oh, I'll tell you what I'm playing.' Operina of Time. What's that? Oh, Tom. Oh mate, if you don't know what this is, you're all out of touch, sunshine. So, this game, you this, this, this lad, this warrior, you go through this journey, you've got to do all this stuff, you've got to fight, you get into this big open world, and you're then out there fighting all these different creatures on there at night, and then at daytime, what's night and day? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, all that. Oh my god. So you ride your horse. You can ride a horse, oh yeah, you've got to kind of train it first, but you can summon it with this whistle. Oh my god! Like, oh yeah, yeah. And this this my retelling of what Ocarina of Time is or could be must have blown little Tom's socks off because that night, and it was it must have been maybe early November, he must have rushed to a panic mumsy and said, I need Ocarina of Time. She's probably thinking, Mmm.
SPEAKER_04Good job about doing the Christmas shopping yet.
SPEAKER_05Uh anyway, Christmas morning. I can't remember what I got, probably some grown up gay grown-up jeans or t-shirt, probably from John Rosh. Uh a safe place for mummy to go into. So that's kind of on brand. There's a name attached to it. Boom. I'm here, might as well do it. Bam bam, till done, out, job sorted, getting a belt on the way out. Awesome. Um, but upstairs I was playing Ocarina of Time, living my best life. Anyway, we went to my Nan's for Christmas, as we would do. Now I can't remember if I took the N64 and my TV with me. I maybe didn't, uh, because I probably drove home that night so felt it unnecessary. Uh, but while we were there, set up in the corner of an area was uh OG Tom struggling to get through Hyrule Castle. There's a little stealth section early on where and who who who we choke about it now, who would have thought there's me educating him on stealth, who's now like quite a proficient stealth player, and there's me walking in like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a full budget 80s movie with Uzi in each hand and probably a couple of berettas on my ankles, looking like a one-man map. Oh, you know, Texas Pete walks into town. Um, anyway, he was struggling to get through the section where you've got to wait for the guards to stop moving, and you kind of crawl, you know, you walk through the garden behind their backs and behind hedges and different bits and bobs in a kind of an isometric uh sort of pergola for want of a better word, that you kind of view it through. It's a bit of a strange concept, but some of the inner uh areas of Hyrule Castle were kind of in this locked-in view. And on doing as as I taught him, there was this almost passing of knowledge, there was this Obi-Wan to Anakin this relationship development between me and OG Tom, where he kind of looked up at me. And I I don't know if he looks up to me now, probably looks down at me, probably hates me. Uh most people hate me to be fair. But um see, it's true. See initial response, like yeah, most people probably hate you. Anyway, I'm not here to be loved, but I want to be liked. Um there was this this this sort of passing of the guard, this passing of the torch. My my experience travel of the high rule enabled me to kind of guide him through the early tentative.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. I bet you felt a master as well.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I did I yeah, because that obviously from there you get a little bit further and harder and deeper into the game, and it kind of unlocks a little bit from there, so then he was sort of thrown out into the to the full scope of it all, and uh yeah, I I felt good, but in a way that I'd kind of shared this hobby for the first time, you know, properly with a with a family member.
SPEAKER_03Um it was a yeah, it's probably unusual as well because you don't normally within the family, you didn't really I had the same thing, you didn't my sister wasn't into that, so you didn't really have anyone to discuss gaming with, so you're all sort of on your own, but now you had a a young Padawan that you could show through Ireland Castle.
SPEAKER_05Exactly that, and it was the kind of game that I was in, it was in that moment, it was in my full zeitgeist, it was the game I was thinking about all the time. You know, if I wasn't at work, I was thinking about this game. Uh, it's amazing now to look back how much of my life it took over and how much I played it and enjoyed it and just explored it, and it there was always something around the next corner, it was never too difficult, but it was always a challenge. That's one thing I remember about that game. Played really well into the N64 strengths with the controller, all of that good stuff. So, yeah, a great, a great time, RGT.
SPEAKER_03Super wonderful memory, yeah, and obviously of a game that you love as well. Do you know what I mean? That's a game that you is so fond in your memory, is one of your your I would imagine is one of your greatest games of all time. Not only so you're sharing that with someone who also loves the game as well.
SPEAKER_05So there's that joint memory of and and not to say that Tom didn't have the passion before, but on completion of that, he 100% did have the passion in the same way that I had the passion, brilliant the same passion to ingest and digest the games in the same way that I did as well, which made it even more special.
SPEAKER_03Fantastic, yeah. That's a great one as well, because it's it's not only a game, but it's like I say, the process of you being good at the game, you sharing with him, and then you now got that that joint nostalgia trip for Rock Arena at time, which is brilliant.
SPEAKER_05May I may I add that iconic a moment that is that the genesis of the unofficial controller podcast? Because from there I started to ring Tom on the phone, so I'd have to ask her his mum, his mum would answer. I was like, Is Tom there? And I'd be like, Is Tom there? She's like, Oh yeah, probably like, oh, there's the the elder cousin, you know, doing that guiding hand. It's just not so bad, you know. So he would come racing downstairs or take the little handheld phone up to his room, and we'd be we and that was when we started then really. I think it started then and then developed further and further. We'd gas on for hours, and we didn't know what podcasts were, but we would start, hey mate, what you been up to, what you've been playing. That's kind of what we would say. Like, when you talk about this game, and I'll talk about a game I've been playing, and then we'd talk about how I wish it had this or that or the other, and this is where some of my rants about where I say, Oh, game, and I'll I on the show on the main show a few times. I've kind of invented games as I've gone along. There was a lot of that going on with me and Tom. There's a lot of times at the end, in like even 2002, even where we'd be like, We should record these, yeah. We should record these. Uh, and that's when I said to him one day, we we should do a podcast. He's like, Wait, so we already do it, Tom. We've been doing it for years. Yeah, UCP unplugged, UCP unplugged just for each other's own personal delectation, yeah. So there you go.
SPEAKER_03So there's uh that's the precursor to it all.
SPEAKER_05The progenitor. Yeah, pro Magnum man. The first true episode of the UCP. Yep, started rock, greener a time, a walkthrough guide.
SPEAKER_03Record that.
SPEAKER_05Oh mate. Thing is, Tom's dad was real handy with the camcorder. I don't just mean there's lots of family moments that Tom's dad's captured, and he's really good with the cam as well. He's he made he frames the moments, and there's some of Tom opening up like uh I can't remember what it was, maybe a PS2 or maybe the N64, maybe Rockerine of Times. So there is almost concurrent footage that if we were to do like a stitching or life, we could probably get the footage and stitch it in, yeah. For sure. That would be incredible.
SPEAKER_03That'd be incredible. Yeah, brilliant one there. Um, we'll jump on to another listener uh memory. Uh this is from our good friend Harvey Retro. Um from over on our UCP there on our Discord. He said, I remember getting Street Fighter 2 Special Champion edition on Sega Mega Drive for Christmas in 1992, and it was the first time I was aware of the price of a game being high and surprised my parents bought it. It was£59.99, and that's around£177 in today's money, which is mental when you really think about it. It is, it is, you know, and I we used to, you know, I know a lot of people moan about how price the price of games have gone up. I mean, I remember a I had a friend who used to um I think he had a NTSC Super Nintendo, I think, and he used to import games, and they were£70, 80 pounds then to import them, you know. So yeah, it's game prices have been quite stagnant for a lot of years, really.
SPEAKER_05And I mean whether it's I don't know whether it's I'm sort of numb to it or or not, but you know, I've I didn't I don't know why, but I never walked in a shop and saw that number back in the day and thought, oh my god, that's too much.
SPEAKER_03No, no, I didn't. I didn't.
SPEAKER_05To me, it was just the gateway to the j to the joy.
DKC’s Design, Music & Impact
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I'm not and I came from Spectrum, so I was paying 199, 299 for Mastertronic games and stuff, you know. So then to jump to a mass system where I was paying forty pounds.
SPEAKER_05I know we I know we have to account for interests and the rising cost of money and the cost of living, etc., in some of these calculations. But to me, sometimes I think, yeah, that you know, when you see a chocolate bar, you think oh Yeah, you know, that's gone up in price. But then you look at video game, and it's just almost like it almost feels like that's always been like the circular price.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that's weird. Yeah, it is. But then when you put with the rate of inflation, you put it to£177 a day, you realise how lucky we are when our parents bought us these things.
SPEAKER_05But it didn't feel like you were blowing the equidistant version of£177 quid though, did it? It felt like you were blowing£50.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. It is weird. You know, even though probably back, you know, 1992 you're probably paying£1.50 for a pint of beer, which is now about seven, eight pounds. You know, you don't think of it like that, do you?
SPEAKER_05Well, I think one thing that could be said for that is that those items like chocolate, like a beer, like sweet drinks, uh, have been taxed. Yeah. Uh taxes are to make us not want to use them. I don't imagine a world where anyone wouldn't want their kid to have a little bit of chocolate or themselves on that cold rainy day. But we've got to pay a sugar tax because there's probably one in four million people have at themselves to death, which I find hilarious. Video games so far, apart from value-added tax, have escaped any kind of associated sort of demon tax. Uh which let's face it, they've probably swathed very hard towards as they've as the industry has skirting controversy over the years. Yeah. Uh so maybe that's one thing that's kept the price of gaming pretty locked in. Everything else has been deemed to be dangerous to us. But video games, albeit labelled as dangerous to us, yeah, actually good for us, could be argued.
SPEAKER_03Definitely. And I mean, what a game, Harvey, as well. Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition as well. I mean, you must have felt more speaking out.
SPEAKER_05I'm not even joking, but that is that game is a significant, like, yes, Street Fighter. A lot of people had that. But although it was just the next version out, to have that version on your shelf was almost like a mark of honour, even if you never played it, that suggested to people that came round that you were a hyper champion. Yeah, it was almost on that next level of like it's like having a PS5 and the PS5 Pro. What you got Street Fight, darling. No, not only do I have that, but I've got the hyper 4400 Fighting Stink version. Oh, oh, bloody hell, darling. I mean, that's and that was when that meant something as well in that in that era, you know. Street Fighter 2, it was almost like the next iteration, the sequel of it. It was the it yeah, nice. And only Harvey Retro would have that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly, exactly. The the ultimate edition of it.
SPEAKER_05The ultimate edition.
SPEAKER_03Should we do um should we do one more each? Do you think?
SPEAKER_05Um, yeah, I mean I've I've gone to down to town, I've got a smattering of others that I could do.
SPEAKER_03Well, why don't we do one more each? We can always do some more for keep some more for next year's one.
SPEAKER_05Well I'm gonna lob I'm gonna lob up four the titles I've written down, and then you choose one.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_05And then we'll take that one. Uh so it's one more each or two more each?
SPEAKER_03I'll do one more each.
SPEAKER_05Okay. So my titles that you can choose from are No Mercy Christmas Bells, Christmas in Gotham. Shoot out the OAP Corral. I'm making these up as I go, by the way, based on the what they are. Or father son Avengers team up. No, father daughter Avengers team up.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna have to go Christmas at Gotham.
SPEAKER_05Christmas at Christmas at Gotham. Not that long ago, I can't really remember when it was. I think it was during the pandemic, so it would have been the Christmas of 2020. I on the main show, the unofficial controller podcast, on my what you've been playing section of it, had stumbled into Batman Arkham Asylum on my beloved PlayStation 3. Now I'd played the original games through, uh enjoyed them. Um but I pick up Batman Arkham Origins, put it in the machine. I think it was maybe at the end of November, beginning of Christmas, and I start playing this game. I had dabbled with it before, but it never really stuck. All of a sudden, for whatever reason, this game stuck and it stuck hard. It was the Christmas theming. I had some um sort of coloured Christmas lights in the room at the time, which are very sort of reminiscent of the lights that you see in the game. Um I don't normally drink, very rarely, if at all, probably never, but this Christmas I'd got in um some little 330 millimeter cans of JD and Coke and uh Jim Captain Morgan Rollman Cokes. Uh maybe only like maximum eight and a mixture of those two across those cans, you know, nothing heavy, nothing heavy. And I would get a little tumbler of glass, a couple of bits of ice, decant one of these cans in there. I'm one of those people as well, though, the 330 can didn't fit in the glass, so I'm someone who poured as much in as he could and then just basically schooled what was in the corner. I would do that now, pushed it and then just bounced it in the bin. Um, and then I would go through, set the glass down, fire in the corner of the room, burning away, console turn on, there I was, and instantly I was transported, and I've never had a a Christmas themed game. Hits a hard, works a hard, and just feels so perfect. I do believe I think I put the I throat chopped this around sort of like Christmas Day, boxing day. I think I maybe pulled the the drawstring closed on my playthrough as well, and it was just it was perfect in every single way a Christmas memory you could ask for. It was a bit selfish, it was a bit self-indulgent, I have to admit, looking back at it now. Um, but everyone was happy in the house. I was happy. Oh, I had all day to myself pretty much, and yeah, what a great, great, great little memory.
SPEAKER_03And and I remember you saying to me when we first got to know each other, um, and I remember you saying to me about Origins, um brilliant Christmas game, one of the best Christmas games ever, to the state where I thought, right, I'm gonna have a go at this at Christmas, and you are so bang on with that game. It certain games have a feeling of Christmas, and everyone's an individual, everyone has their own games. But this is one that was shared, and I started playing it at Christmas time and just thought, you are so right. This is almost feels like watching like a home alone at Christmas, it's what you do at Christmas, and this game has that feeling, it does, and I'll tell you, it's so good.
SPEAKER_05I didn't remember this, uh and it was only a couple of nights ago. Me and Rachel sometimes put a movie on to fall asleep while you know, or go to go to bed and put a movie on, turn it off as we're you know getting sleepy or whatever. And um, we watched the original Batman 1989 Batman, and then we've moved on to Batman Returns, and mate, that's a Christmas movie. I totally forgot, it's never talked about as a Christmas movie, it's never mentioned as an aside, it's not in the same pantheon of like die hard or any of that, but it's a movie set at Christmas, and as soon as they were doing the Christmas tree thing where the penguins sort of come in and start messing the town up, and you've got Selena Carr walking around with the snow on the floor, and Batman comes in, and there's a toys for sale in the window, and it's all framed up with Christmas. I was like, Yeah, Batman is a dish best served at Christmas, and there's something you've got me button to play at now, actually. I've got me. I mean, I'm like, I'm off to go play Donkey Kong Country, I'm off to go fire up Batman Arkham Origins, see if I can get Rachel off interested in it, get the fire lit, the Christmas decks are all up.
SPEAKER_03I mean let's dine out, darling.
SPEAKER_05Let's let's have a mince pie, let's have a little bit of old wine, let's settle into Christmas. The wrapping's done pretty much, baby. Snow is falling all around you. We're in the zone, people play in Christmas games with tinsel and all that good stuff. Yeah, dad's asleep and granddad's dead. It wasn't an old age, but choking on bone.
SPEAKER_03You took it that different route then.
SPEAKER_05Not story for you in your home. Christmas memories with damn in the zone. RGT, bring it home, bring it home.
SPEAKER_02Snow is falling all around me. George is playing Batman Origins. He's in the corner with a mould wine. Rachel's getting a mince pie. How's that?
SPEAKER_05That is perfection personified, and almost a the perfect way to see out the show. Unfortunately, we've got your memory to do, so we went early. Maybe if you're in the editing suite, you can mix this up.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if I'm that good at editing. Um I've got two choices for you. Yeah. I've got a really recent one. We've got going for gold, or we've got bargain of a lifetime.
SPEAKER_05I love a bargain, as do our listeners, and that's why my ears are peaked and I'm intrigued for mate. And let me say to you this now. This had better be a ZX Spectrum version of you getting Matthew Kelly's going for gold quiz game, or I quit Flashy B.
SPEAKER_03So so which one you want Bargain of a Lifetime?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. No is going for gold, Matthew Kelly.
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05In so for the future of Flashback, I choose Bargain of a Lifetime.
Listener Memories: Dog Bowl Disaster
SPEAKER_03Right, well, I've said this story before, I think, on um UCP a couple of times, but this was um uh one Christmas we were up in Cumbria at my indoors. Um I can't think of the year when that would have been 2000, something I can't think when it was, but anyway, um I'd had some Christmas money for Christmas, people didn't know what to get me, so I built a bit of money up and we went into uh local town to do a bit of shopping on Boxing Day, and I went into Game Station. And while I was in Game Station, I suddenly realised I had enough money to buy myself a PSP, and it was a PSP 3000, which is obviously the model you want at the time. Um and they had the glorious red PSP in there, and I thought, hmm, this seems a good deal. It was a PSP 3000 with funnily enough Batman the Dark Knight movie and Motorstorm uhpocalypse, I believe it was on there. Um and I think I even got uh Arctic Edge. Arctic Edge. Oh, and and there was also I forgot this until I found it the other day. I never mentioned this when I said the story before. There was a case with it as well, you know, a little hard flip case that you popped in, which I still got. Um not a Sony one, just a game station one. Anyway, and this was all advertised for£80. Brand new£79.99. And I was like, wow, I can I've got enough money left over here, I can buy some other games as well from a PS3, whatever, you know, blah blah blah. So anyway, bought the system when I got to the till, the lady said, Oh, this should have been£179.99. And I was like, Oh, but the manager in there had said, No, we'll we've got to honour that because we've advertised it at that price, so we'll honour that$79.99, but make sure we change that display. So I got I got the system$79.99, red PSP, the case, Batman, um, Dark Knight. I got uh Motor Storm Apocalypse, and uh, there was something else as well in there. I can't remember what it was, it was something else I had to do with it. Arctic Edge, Arctic Edge, sorry, you're not apocalypse, Arctic Edge, that's it. Yes, um, so I got an absolute bargain for it, and then like I said before, everyone's like, Oh, what is that little thing you got? You know, it's quite expensive. What is the little thing? Then started showing and putting the dark night on, and everyone was like, Wow, that's you can play a movie on a little thing like that. Unbelievable, yeah. And then, and then because being up at my indoors for a week while I was up there, you know, people you know, either be watching their movies or stuff that I weren't interested in. I'd have had it on charge in the corner, I'd play a bit more motorstorm on it. That's it, I got headphones with it, little Sony headphones, popped them in as well, playing away on on motorstorm, and just was blown away by the system. Um, instantly got this love for a system that I thought and still do think looks very classy, uh, very sort of media driven in your pocket for your movies and your music and your and then to have then to be I I think uh I don't know if that was that time I was away, but I remember buying Vice City Stories, putting that in, just thinking this is a this is a PS2 in my pocket. This is unbelievable that I've got that that small, and the screen looks so good. The cloud the resolution, especially on the 3000, was amazing. Um and I was just blown away by it, and that just started a love for the PSP, really, and and you know, such a well-supported handheld um with so many titles you can play, you know, you could have that as a main system. If you had that as a main system, you wouldn't be disappointed because you had RPGs, you had racing games, you had games just exclusive for that system as well. Um, absolutely brilliant. And to get it at that bargain price as well was just unbelievable. Yeah, till and I've always kept it mint until last year when I broke the screen. I was absolutely gutted. I was taking it away, I put it in a side and bag, something lent on it, and just enough to push those, you know, like the that's why you're not allowed nice things, yeah. And I've there isn't a mark on this. There's always been a macro. I need to get a screen replacement for it because I love that system so much. I need someone. If if you know anyone that repairs PSPs, please look because I'm not taking it to bits because I'll butcher it. It's a bit too complicated for me. But yeah, that was uh that was my game and bargain and a great memory of having an uh awesome little handheld.
SPEAKER_05Got a couple of decides for you there. I was playing for research purposes last night, Agent Under Fire on the PS2. Got it down from the shelf, opened it up, and I remembered when I acquired this game second hand. In it was the receipt for Agent Underfire, but also folded up in a nice neat little square was a concurrent 2002 GameStation Carrier bag.
SPEAKER_03Oh awesome. I had a similar thing when I bought my Atari Jagger. I bought it online, the guy had opened it, not played it, and then just still had the cellophone on the box, but opened if you know what I mean. And he sent it to me in the John Menzies bag that he bought it in that still had his receipt in from when he bought it from John Menzies. Unbelievable. Yeah, bro. I love little things like that.
SPEAKER_05So that bag is technically big enough because I've got a I think I've got a PSP 3000 in red, which I believe is the console you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do believe I've got a box for that. Oh, so I could pop it in that game station bag with a copy of Motorstorm Arctic Edge, a copy of Dark Knight on PSP U and D. Uh now that to me is quite the money shot to end the show with.
SPEAKER_03That is absolutely definitely. I mean, I'll just do a few honourable mentions. Um, friends and family have always been brilliant. Um, my mate, you probably know him, Bull Border, over on um our Discord. His uh he was always brilliant at presents, is another one that would, you know, when I first started collecting, I mean, he saw I had an N64, so he thought, right, he needs golden eye, bang, got me that straight away. Nice. And it'll find he used to find me um he'd you know, do research and find good games, a bit of hidden gems on on the PS2. He got me like um splashdown rides gone wild, and next year he got me splashdown two Ride Gone Wild, you know, the second one. And he'd get me these little curio games that people hadn't heard of, or get me a steel book for the PS3, you know, and things like that. Real thoughtful, they know what I love, but do they have to research it to find it? So, yeah, I'm always very appreciative that that when people make the effort with you. Even my mum and dad are the same, you know, and they'll look into retro stuff, or you know, even just from a one year bought me a little Game Boy Keyring or Game Boy Watch, or you know, those little things that they know that I like. Yeah, brilliant things like that. So that was brilliant. Enjoyed that. Oh, I've got to tell you before we go, we've got one more um listener comment.
SPEAKER_05Well, before we uh do that, I just want to say thank you to all the listeners that got in contact. Uh it's these stories that really bring alive the games you loved and the stories you forgot. Well, it's a good job that you remembered this time because they've really added some colour to the show, RGT. If they want to interact with the show going forward, how and uh how would they do that? How did these listeners interact with the show?
SPEAKER_03Um well that's over on our other show, Unfished Control uh podcast Discord. Um we have a section in there for flashback. So I sent a little uh little cry of help out there saying, Look, we're gonna do a Christmas show. Do you guys want to be involved? Give us a Christmas memory and we'll chuck them in, which is what we've done. Um if if you ever want to go onto our Discord, um, on our Instagram and things like that, you have a link tree. You can jump on the link tree, get the link, jump into the Discord. There's various different sections on there, but it's very friendly, brilliant people on there, great gamers, um, and it's a great fun place to be. But yeah, definitely check it out. If there's any other information you'd like or anything you'd like to know about, questions at unofficial controller podcast.com, give us a contact and um yeah, we can point in the right direction of Discords or questions or being involved. And we've also got a uh website coming very, very soon. So hopefully we'll be pushing that soon, and you can jump on there, and there'll be links on there to Discord and shows, and we'll get a flashback section on the Unoffish Controller podcast website.
SPEAKER_05It's only taking us 300 episodes to the website.
Halo 2, Strategy Guides & Moms At Game
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, actually, it's take it's taken me probably 298, and then someone with a bit of intelligence like Captain Scarlet to actually knock it out in about three weeks and done an amazing job, by the way. So, looking incredible, yeah. So uh yeah, any anything like that, just come and say hi. Come and join us. Thanks for uh you know enjoying the show. Thanks for the downloads and the listens and people who are pushing us on their social medias. Keep it going 'cause it's brilliant. It really helps us with the algorithm and bits and pieces and gets us there.
SPEAKER_05Flash and bees performing great across all platforms. Very pleased with it. I think it's just the nice words that we're hearing as well. So obviously we're ticking a few nostalgic memories, we're rose tinting some spectacles, RGT, and we're helping people remember those times of yore. And what I love about Flashback is we we uh we you use concurrent news articles that really sort of frame up that when we say stories you for games you love and stories you forgotten, we r we really mean it. Uh this this week's been not throwaway, but you know, a heartfelt nostalgic memory for us. But normally RGT, those sort of articles that you dig up in the time machine from the time, they frame up the playground narratives. They kind of remind you of those little mini battles or mini sort of development hell cycles or console launch memories that I have to say really been enjoying this flashback series and long may it continue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, brilliant, thank you very much. Yes, we've been loving doing these. Um looking into maybe doing some specials next year. Um so hopefully um, you know, if if you're interested in us doing specials, let us know. Um we've got a few ideas bubbling under the surface, but yeah, we'll hopefully get them going. Um I'll leave us with our last uh listener um interaction, which is actually from Mrs. RGT. And she said, getting my ZX Spectrum here. No getting my ZX Spectrum at Christmas and playing Manic Minor and Jet Set Willy. Also typing in the code provided to play Hangman, get one game and then it ended, so it had to be retyped in again, and that took an absolute age bless her. But yeah, she had a 48k back in the day of her brother and um yeah, brilliant jet set willy, manic minor, classic games for the spectrum.
SPEAKER_05You know, absolute classic games even now. You talked earlier about games that have stood the test of time. I know that they are older looking games, I know that they are uh probably a little C Fax graphics to some people now, but uh what I would say is you could still get fun out of playing those games.
SPEAKER_03You could it was there was a lot of us, that was our entry into the game and world. That was where it first kicked us off, you know. And I remember I had my spectrum, I the first game I typed in was I had I had a Shake and Stevens cassette tape and it had a game printed within the inlay of the cassette tape on the back Shaken Stevens Stevens game, and I spent a day typing this on all semicolons and commas, bits and pieces, done it all, and there was an error. So I'd obviously put a colon wrong somewhere and I had to trace it back and I could not find eventually I tried again at a later date and got the game plan and it was absolutely terrible. You just moved a little brick round to the middle of a square and that was it. But to me, I'd made that game. I'd made that game.
SPEAKER_05No, and I'll tell you what, that I never actually managed to get one typed in, but I think if I had and then I'd seen the game working and I'd actually considered the component things I've typed to get to that point, that possibly could have started what my parents had hoped for is it is in my programming journey.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Didn't happen.
SPEAKER_03I've done a few from the magazines, I used to type them in from Crash and stuff. Um and I got some of them didn't work, some did, because sometimes they accidentally misprinted them. So they were never gonna work, but I got a couple to work, and I always wish I'd have carried that on because you never know, do you? But you know, it's uh yeah, it was it was great fun at the time. But yeah, so we'll we'll we'll leave it on that one. Uh love this show. Sorry it's gone on a bit longer than usual, but it's been brilliant Christmas special. Love this nostalgia trip, love these memories. Um, been great fun, not only repeating my memories, but here in George's as well. Some I hadn't heard before, so that's brilliant. Hearing your memories, cut the singing, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Or nail it on at the end. Put it out and nail it on at the end to play us out. No good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you couldn't. You could do that. You overestimate my uh my ability, Ed and you underestimate your power. But thanks for everyone as well for your memories and for interacting with us and putting them in. It was great hearing from PS4s to Super Street Fighters to yeah, everything. Absolutely brilliant. Um yeah, so I think we'll leave it there. So thanks, George, for joining us on a Christmas special. My pleasure. Thank you to everybody.
SPEAKER_05Merry Christmas, special thanks to everybody that helps us make the show. You are very special. Uh named you on the main show, but a little nod to you all there. Yeah, thank you very much. Merry Christmas to every single one of you that listens and supports us in any way. Enjoy yourself, be kind to yourself, and make some special time for the family. Don't just be a complete gamer weirdo. Be a complete gamer weirdo, but maybe the old hug.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Or just do what I do, just scream when they're too loud.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that that haunts me.
SPEAKER_03No, seriously, no, yes. Uh I'll back that up by saying Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you all have a great Christmas. Hope you get loads of gaming goodies and gaming gifts. Have a great time with your family. Um, thanks for listening. Thanks for uh your sharing and your downloading. That just leaves me to say, flashback, the games you loved, the stories you forgot. See you next time, George.
SPEAKER_00See you, this is a good one.