A look at gaming in February 2000

Trading an entire N64 collection for a Dreamcast sounds reckless, until you remember what that jump felt like in early 2000. We rewind to February 2000 and chase that exact feeling: firing up Sonic Adventure for the first time, getting pulled in by its speed and soundtrack, then laughing at the oddly empty human city sections that only a first-wave 3D game could get away with. It’s a nostalgia hit, but it’s also a real look at how fast games were evolving across Dreamcast, PlayStation, and N64.

From there we bounce through the stuff we actually played and talked about at the time: Sega GT as a flawed but addictive racer, South Park Rally as a kart game that belongs to a very specific moment in comedy culture, and The Sims as a genre-defining PC game before microtransactions were even a conversation. We also dip into Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2000 and Resident Evil Survivor, plus the Dreamcast “promise” of demo discs and the games that made the console feel like the future.

Then we pull from the magazines: limited edition Dreamcast consoles tied to Biohazard Code Veronica and the bizarre Seaman holiday bundle, a snapshot of Neversoft’s Spider-Man on PlayStation as Spidey ramps back up, and a sales chart dive into late 1999 where Pokémon absolutely dominates alongside Donkey Kong 64, Tony Hawk, and Resident Evil 3. If you love retro gaming history, Dreamcast nostalgia, and the stories behind the games, you’re in the right place. Subscribe, share this with a friend who lived through it, and leave us a review with the game you’d time travel back to play first.

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Transcript

Welcome Back To February 2000

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Hello, the games you love, the stories you forgot. This is episode 24, and this week we're in February 2000, our first revisit of the year. I'm RGT, and as always, I am joined by the guy who goes deep into the fort when thinking of aquanauts. I nearly screwed up with that one. Is the gaming clergy when talking to the OG was feeling very blue after purchasing a Wii U. CCP George, how are you doing? I was quite pleased with M ones.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Oh, that was great. Aqua Dort's was great. I've been there, it was all great. It's all true story as well. Oh, yeah. So I love it. I'm a little bit still crushed by you, but I'm willing to.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Oh, I've been through your bins a lot. Yeah. Just remember us, Flashback.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

I was just laughing about a text I sent you within the last 24 hours as a research I was doing. I was like, oh no. We're not making it, are we?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

No, uh probably best we don't. Not on this show, anyway. Good. Um, but yeah, so we are in February 2000. If you're new to Flashback, thanks for joining us. Um this is a show where we look back at a random month of a random year and we go through uh what we would have hopefully been playing at that time. Um, some of the news stories of that era, normally, you know, three or four, and uh we end the show with a bit of stingray and uh what we will hopefully be looking forward to playing. Um and as we're talking about that, why don't we jump right in then, George? And

Trading An N64 For Dreamcast

SPEAKER_01 2:18

what are you thinking you would have been playing at this this month from this massive list of games, actually?

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Well, I'll be honest with you, RGT, you sexy little human being. Uh decent sized human being. Um I I think it was around this time where I did one of my classic moments, and it's it's weird that you pick these intersects. I did one of these classic moments where I woke up one day and wasn't satisfied with my N64, so I decided to bundle it all up into a uh green Asda crate, which is the way, take it down to a local game shop at Porium, and trade my soul and everything within it for a console in one game. That console and one game around this time, I think, roughly, um, was Sonic Adventure, a demo disc, and I think uh a brand new or not long been owned Dreamcast which I brought home and was kind of blown away with. Now, Sonic Adventure would have been a game that I was playing around this time, but um oh I can talk about that briefly. I mean I didn't really know what to expect when I brought it home, but there wasn't really much else I recognised on the shelf of this middle of nowhere game shop. It was in Louth, Lincolnshire. If anyone wants to uh they ain't game shop there anymore, pal. And I think six months later it was also gone. So it was this miraculous window of time where I got hoodwinked for a pretty large Gen 64 collection, and in exchange got a Dreamcast demo disc, and much is the way, as you know, when you get a new console. Uh I think I was quite pleased with it though. I got it home, and it certainly looked a hell of a lot better than the Dreamcast. We had like audio as well, CD quality audio, really great, and obviously Sonic Adventure kicks in with a pretty ripped snorting uh guitar soundtrack if anyone's ever played it. I quite liked Sonic Adventure to be fair. It's hadn't played a Sonic game for a for a hot minute, and the Dreamcast did reopen my eyes to the wider Sega collection at the time. Um, but specifically, Sonic Adventure was, as you know, some really great curated, you know, set-pieced individual 3D levels where you bounce around at a million miles an hour, and then some really strange sections where you walk around a human city that's very sparsely occupied, getting trains to places and just talking to random people around the place about chaos. Whatever it takes, I'd say. Um, but some of my favourite music ever in a game is in the jungle section, just in the kind of free roam area. I just love it. Um, when I first learned how to download songs, that was one of the first sort of things I sought out was that sort of real nice sort of pan pipe man tune. Loved it. As for games on the list that you've provided, RGT. Um there's a couple of well, a handful of some great games. First one I'm gonna pick that I can speak about quite confidently that I enjoyed and played for some serious length of time was Sega GT. It was flawed though, from what I remember. It was a bit kind of broken in terms of its handling. Um, everything felt a bit weird within the game and kind of felt like you were driving around in a monster truck even when you were in like a really fast sports coupe. I think because the fact that the game had like a a myriad of tuning options as well, I think it probably felt it was probably quite hard to dial that in in a way that felt like you were getting things out of it, but it did feel a bit like a half-assed attempt at Gran Turismo, I have to admit. I played the wheels off of it because it it was one of the only games that I had that was like that. Um, but you know, we've often poured ours into games that probably aren't really worthy of our time, and I think the first Sega GT iteration probably wasn't really worth our time when it landed on um from memory was it X original Xbox or Xbox 360, Sega GT?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

2002 or something?

SPEAKER_04 6:34

Yeah, it was like a rehash. That was actually really quite sexy. But this first iteration of Rose Space Monk now is just sat straight up in bed, it's like, how dare you? But you know, over a cold beverage, you know, man to man. I think even he would admit that Sega GT is a little lacking. What about yourself? I've hogged quite a little bit of the limelight there, like a little Dreamcast piggy. What what were you doing in this era?

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Um

Sonic Adventure Highs And Weirdness

SPEAKER_01 7:00

one sprung up here. I spoke about this before, I can't remember it's on here on UCP, I think it's on here. Um, but Safe Park Rally.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

That's um What was that on for you?

SPEAKER_04 7:11

PS1?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yes. Um that was another one of them where Safe Park was sort of hitting us and getting in us prime, and we were at that age, sort of early twenties, where that sort of hit with us, and we thought that was a bit, you know, a little bit naughty show and quite funny. And then just happened to see this in a local game shop, picked it up, and it was just one of them that was was it a great game, not brilliant, but it was just funny because they they took that Mario Kart and then just made it a bit obscene, do you know what I mean? And the things you could do, and things were yeah, it's got some quite vile things in it, and that was that was half the fun of it by just getting a really sinny weapon or power-up that you could use and was totally non-PC and shouldn't be used, but it was just fun, and like I say, I don't I think if you went back to the phone.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

It was a different place, it was a different time, it was a different place. And yeah, to be fair, I South Park's never really hurt anybody, it's been a bit on the edge. It's been more than on the edge, to be fair. I mean, if you're of a certain sensibility and you were to watch that and were someone from one of the afflicted whatever it is that they've decided to kick into at that moment, you'd probably feel a little bit raw, but you know, what I'd say about South Park is everyone gets their time in the barrel and it's fair.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, and you know, and it was the sort of thing where if I remember rightly, questions at unofficial controller podcast have got this wrong, instead of like having an oil slick like you'd have in Mario Kart, you throw Mr. Hanky at them. So it hits my own. Oh wow. So that's that sort of thing. That's that sort of humour, and and some more sort of bit dodgy things you could do, but and that was just what it was. It was the humour, play a few games of Safe Park Rally for your head down the pub as a young man, and that's what it was all about, and just a really good laugh, you know, not not the best of games. Not so if you went back to it now, I don't think it's gonna be one of those carton games that go down in history for us great handling and graphics, but it it it it was just at the right place at the right time, I think, for for people to pick it up and have a bit of fun because obviously everyone knew Mario Kart was good. Well, you suddenly think, Oh my god, you know, you can have you can have a rally, you could play Mario Kart with Safe Park. And I remember the same with Simpsons when it was hit and run, and everyone went, Oh, you can play GTA in Simpsons, that's that it was that sort of thing, you know. But yeah, it was it was good, silly fun, I think. So what else you got on there and George?

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Well,

Sega GT And Racing Reality Checks

SPEAKER_04 9:35

I've actually mentally cast myself back to this time. Obviously, it's not long after the millennium, is it? So I would have also had a slew that crated up N64 that I took down moments before. I'd have been playing out on the way into the millennium party that me and OG attended. I'd been like ravishly playing Donkey Kong 64, and I do believe I'll still play in it to this time. Now, obviously, that is a great game, and you know, spoiler for the UCP show that's coming out, and obviously for a little bit of news, that's now finally made its way onto the Nintendo online offering, so I'm absolutely buzzing because it's one of my favourite N64 games. So, right up until the point where I chopped it in, I was loving Donkey Kong 64, and if I may, I'd like to no doubt it's gonna come in in a flashback in the future, but just to say, I bloody love that game. It and you'll hear me say this in the main show, but it was to me, it was like everything about Banjo Kazooie, but good. I loved it, I loved the amount of different Kongs you could have, all the different skills that they had. I like the fact that it played into Rare's kind of shooting history a little bit as well. So there was like shooting sections where you fired like different Kong guns and weapons. The fact that you could revisit a level that you thought you'd absolutely maxed out with one of the new Kongs that you'd found, and suddenly realised that there was a whole nother area that you never even knew existed because you hand slapped on the floor, and suddenly, boom, you can go to a whole different different section of it. It was a wonderment, really, and the freedom that it I felt that it offered me at the time was unrivalled. Obviously, looking back now, it it's not quite what you think, but um yeah, it was joyous. I love the music, maybe not so much the DK rap, but even this you know, looking back through rose tinted spectacles, I suppose, even I found a soft spot for that drivel. Um, I remember even thinking at the time, like, oh, you know, this is kind of cool, even though it was not. But um, I'll make excuses for the console I've got.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Well, I think with you know, rare, especially you know, at this level, they're in their prime, and even right back when that ultimate played a game on the spectrum, they always found whatever system, microcomputer, right up to consoles, whatever one they were on, they knew how to max it and do things more than what anyone else was doing. They knew how to get the most out of a system, and even I can even remember looking at their games on the spectrum back in the day and going, Whoa, gee, that looks how have they done that? You know, very clever, very good programmers, and you know, Donkey Kong 64 is he's one of them that way, you think, yeah, that's a rare game, all right.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

And I I think I probably recognize that. I kind of looked at what was coming down the pipe and really what was left in the N64's quiver, and there was just literally Perfect Dark and Majora's mask, and it's like, well, you know, Perfect Dark looks great and all, but you know, when I stack that up against this Sega console that looks absolutely flipping, let's face it, you see a oh, it must have been a leap as well, going from a 64 to a dreamcast. That just seeing like a walk-in demo of like Shen Meu or Metropolis Street Racer. I remember having this Metropolis Street Racer kind of rolling demo on this disc that I got, and I became maybe that's why I kind of got obsessed with that game in the later PGR series, because I put it in and it was almost a promise of what the console was going to give me when it got going, and it was like the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben, Queen Elizabeth Tower, whatever it's called, and there's these cars just screaming down this road, and it looked for the time, it wasn't photorealistic, but you thought, well, they can't ever really get any better than that. And I'm playing Sonic Adventure and then I'm putting this demo disc on, and I'm like, oh wow, I can't wait. And obviously, when MSR dropped, it was everything I wanted to be with the time zones and everything like that, but yeah, kind of those hard-up days of the rolling demo, it's brutal, innit? But yeah, so you know, I kissed goodbye to Donkey Kong 64. Like I say, there was nothing really left for the old girl, even I had the expansion memory in there, and even then it looked a bit tired. So I've got a few more that I could pick from Dreamcast titles specifically, but I might bundle them up into like a mini montage RGT mindful of time. So, what else have you got?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Um,

South Park Rally And Edgy Humor

SPEAKER_01 13:59

on February the 4th, uh 2000 was the Sims. Now, we all know where the Sims has gone now.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

Oh, you've got to give me at least half hour on this.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I don't think I'll quite be able to do that, but you will. This is really the only Sims I've ever played. I think we might have dabbled with Sims 2, but again, um, me and my best mate, we shared a house, and he I've I've probably told his story before, but he he was playing this and I come back, oh I sat he said it's a Sims. I was like, what a weird looking game. What do you have to do? He's like, Oh, well, you sort of you know, a sort of simulation, you you run their life, and and then I remember him getting a job and getting on the bus and things like that. So then started my own playthrough as well, and it was just again, I think it hits different when the IP or the genre is new, but so when you get this you know, I'd never played anything like this with that sort of isometric view where you can earn money, you can build a swimming pool, and we all know about the swimming ball trick, and we all know about the bricking up the doors and setting fire to the rooms that people used to do, the quite evil things. But you know, apart from that aside, I always found it so interesting that I'd come back from work and he'd be playing in his lunch break, and I'd be like, Oh, how are you getting on? Oh yeah, I just got a new job and I've now built this and got this in the bedroom and a new TV and all that sort of and it was nice to have a system where you didn't need microtransactions and you didn't need, you know, purchase shark cards or whatever it is now with GTA and stuff. It was something that you had to earn in-game currency and earn as you went through work and bits and pieces. Um and I just thought I remember playing my first time and then forgetting to shower my sim, and then suddenly you'd get like flies and that buzzing around you, and little things like that. And I just thought, wow, what a brilliant game, so unique. Yes, we all know where the Sims is now, and Sims 4's becoming a bit of a disaster zone at the moment, for which my daughter put thousands of hours in Sim 4, how long that's been out. Um, and it just wasn't the same for me. I like this more basic, original version of the game, um, and had hours and hours of fun with it. And it was another one of them games where if I was playing or my mate was playing, I was quite happy to sit in there watching a like a TV show, seeing them run their lives. It's almost like a big brother sort of thing, sitting from the outside watching them play, and oh, where you go now? Oh, I've got to get a bus and do this.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

That that explains a lot to me.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah. It was um it was very unique for the time. I'd like to say I'd never played anything like it again. Um and I just think they that whole new genre was something really fresh at the time, and uh yeah, really, really enjoyed it. Um what about you next then, George?

SPEAKER_04 16:46

What

The Sims Arrives And Hooks Us

SPEAKER_04 16:47

other ones are you gonna pick?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Um I have got well, I was just gonna do a little honourable mention to the old TW Tigerwood. TW TW And I was also gonna talk about Resident Evil Survivor.

SPEAKER_04 17:04

Will you do that, and then I'll come in hot and heavy with my montage. Well Tigerwood actually well, you know, you're the MC, so you you decide because I did actually want to ask you a question about a game that I've seen come up, actually.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Alright, well I'll quickly do these. So Tiger Woods, we've actually got about Tiger Woods in the past, about the different games. Again, 2000, um another one of those games where you suddenly that arcade golf really kicked in, and you and that you know, you didn't have to be a golf expert to play a golf game. It wasn't more of a simulator, it was opening the golf genre up to people who don't norm necessarily play golf, and yeah, it was really good fun.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

This era though was the one with the flames, though, wasn't it? Is this Tiger Woods 2000 one where if you belted it, it kind of set it on fire? Because I remember enjoying it on the floor.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, you get you get the perfect hit pool poop and that goes down on fire. Yeah, and you could do backspin and burn the the green.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Yeah, I remember thinking, Oh, crikey, this is not what I expected it to be, and there was no way to turn any of that off.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah, the thing I liked about that was though, it it opened that game up, and I know I talk about the age and living with a mate and sharing a house and having a few beers, but it was one of those games, and it's the only time it had normally happened where you'd come back from a pub and say, Do you fancy round a golf on Tiger Woods? No one else would ever say that. No one else would say you'd come back on your console and say, Do you want to play Mario Kart? Do you want to play something else? But come on back and saying, Do you want a game of golf? It just made it that more arcadey fun, quick golf as well. You could get round uh 18 holes really fast. And uh, yeah, I just I'd loved all the iterations of it. I loved them on the PSP when they came out later, they were really good versions, and uh yeah, great fun. But I won't go on too much about Tiger Woods. Um and the final one I was gonna talk about is um Resident Evil Survivor. Now I know it's not a very highly regarded game because of you know being a shooter, um sort of a spin-off. Um but again, my mate bought this PS1 with the pack with the little with the 9mm Beretta, is it? That's it, Beretta, the little wooden handle beretta in that you plugged in and then you went through. And we just thought at the time, I know a lot of say it's not thought of very well now. People think of but I just thought for the time for it made sense, you know, with House of Dead and bits and pieces to take Resident Evil into a light gun shooter. You know, light gun shooters were quite commonplace on on PlayStations and bits, and I just thought, why not have a go? And we picked it up and we had great fun with it.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

I'll be honest, I don't see it like a a light gun game per se, because I think Survivor has inventory management as well. It's not just a rip-roaring sort of black blat black blat black from start to finish, is it not?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

It's not no, not from what I mean, it's a lot of years since I've played it.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Uh so I think it's got more shades of something like Snatcher about it, you know, where the light gun kind of gives you that sort of from a developer point of view, it makes you it's probably a way to make you feel more engrossed, and it's also a way to Resident Evil, as much as we love it, in the early days, it did have a bit of a barrier to entry with the controls, even then. You know, it you couldn't hand it to a kid per se or someone, and then them not you know, tank controls, even at the time, weren't natural, you just kind of got used to it because there was no nothing else, and you had no other eye understanding of how you'd interact with a 3D game. You didn't the idea of doing it any other way with only a D-pad didn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

No. And I mean this was the people forget this was the first ever first person Resident Evil. People think that was Resident Evil 7, but it wasn't. Well, yes, true. This was the first, you know, the first first person one.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

But I can't remember though whether you controlled your four momentum in the game or not. I didn't know whether it was you could you even play it with a controller.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

See, I I might be wrong with this, and I think this might have been on Rails, but I had a funny feeling that you had a D-pad on the gun that you used, but I might be wrong with that. I might be wrong with that. Um but what they did do was you know, we straight away thought, oh, because their mate was a I've spoken about him before, he's a whiz at Resident Evil, he'd speedrun it, he could do it, blah blah blah. He loved it. Now suddenly thinking, hang on, we can actually shoot the zombies ourselves with a gun. I'm all over this, and they kept that they kept that Resident Evil um extent uh aesthetic, they kept the zombies, you knew straight away what you were playing. If you walked in a room, someone had a like game, you know, so you felt you're in the Resident Evil world, and it was just as a spin-off something different. I f I really enjoyed it. I thought that was great, and that had that like I say, had that mix of House of the Dead in a Resident Evil world, and yeah, really good. And I I would imagine it's probably quite collectible now. And I wish I'd have kept the original version, but um, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Yeah, you probably I think with the gun it was.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

I mean we we bought it like I say we bought it with a gun in the pack and it wasn't expensive at the time because I just don't think it hit very well and it was I think it might have been like a budget release to be fair. Yeah, and I think it was sort of late in the system and that and yeah, so yeah, but Resident Evil Survivor really enjoyed that. Um anything from you and then do you want to do that?

Tiger Woods Fire Shots And RE Survivor

SPEAKER_04 22:22

I wanted to ask you about Carrier.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Carrier?

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Hmm. On that list is a game called Carrier. I think it's a zombie game. It just you know when we do these shows every now and then, it came out on January 31st, 2000. Every now and then when we do these games, I get these little moments of like that reminds me of something, and I don't know why. Um, just looking at that and I feel like that's uh I don't know whether it was PlayStation 1 or Dreamcast, but Carrier, I remember it like obviously from the uh Dreamcast, that is. Yes, it's like a Resident Evil type clone.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, it came out late in Europe, it was 2001, but it was released February um near enough the same time in Japan and North America. Uh survival horror. Yeah. They did have a sequel for the PS2, but it was cancelled.

SPEAKER_04 23:11

Ah, interesting. Okay, well, there you go. It's what tickled my uh fans say. Um here's my little Dreamcast montage, then lover. So confidential mission. Um I don't think I had this the original time round, but I've had it since. It's a great little shooting sort of spy mission impossible, kind of light gun game, sticking to the theme of RGT's choice. There's also Aqua GT in this list you provided, which was a really great was it Midway arcade racer that they translated to the home consoles. Aqua GT uh looked fantastic. Uh already talked about Sega GT. There's a slew.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Um what was the other one? Thunder Hydro Thunder. Hydro Thunder give me that sort of vibe when I saw the screen.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

Yeah, I think they're similar. Um, I was never a big fan of either of them, to be honest, but I think I've owned both at some points in time. There's a slew of 2K games in here. There's the baseball 2K game. I think I saw a hockey 2K game, the Sega Sports series at the time. Um, they were great, I have to admit. I really love those series. We didn't get the football one over here, nor baseball. I didn't really like even though that was out, but uh you learn something new every day on flashback. Um, but um yeah, the what we got over here was hockey and baseball, um basketball. Both of those are fantastic and they look really great. That was another one of those games that you put got on a demo disc with Official Dreamcast magazine. George just was on the floor. I bought them just to look at them, to be fair. Uh, there's another game in there, Super Magnetic Neo. Um, that's uh a little sort of 3D puzzle platform game that I remember either having on a demo disc or one of my mates, missus, is having or something. I can't quite remember, but I remember it being quite a fun little game. I think I played maybe a demo of it. There's also Dead or Alive 2, uh Dreamcast game, which just absolutely stunning at the time and obviously arcade perfect as far as we were concerned.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Uh, and then sort of Zombie Revenge, which I was gonna ask you about because I remember that was sort of a 3D beat-em-up in the House of the Dead world, wasn't it? In the universe.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Like, I don't know if it was that per se. I remember it being like quite schlocky, it was almost like a it definitely felt sager-ish.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

It was like I think it's got a bit cult status now, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Zombie like Dynamite Cop, if that's the name, or Die Hard on Saturn, it's called Die Hard Arcade. Yeah, and then on the sequels actually called Dynamite Cop on Dreamcast. So it's got massive shades of those in terms of its controls, its aesthetics, it's graphics in a way.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Well isn't yeah, it is a spin off of House of the Dead.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

Oh, okay, but it's a 3D beat em up spin off of House of the Dead. There you go. Yeah, and it it's exactly what you'd expect. It feels like I tell you what it feels a bit like. You know that game that was meant to be the 3D Streets of Rage, is what did it get called?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Oh, not the bouncer. No. I know, I know which one you mean. Fight and force was that what's meant?

SPEAKER_04 26:21

No, it would come to me.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

It was like I know I know which one you mean.

SPEAKER_04 26:26

I tell you what, let's get interactive. Put it in the comments, let us know what it was. Um it feels like it always to me felt like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

So it that's not a ring in the I preferred Die Hard Arcade and Dynamite Cop. I had Zombie Revenge but didn't like it as much.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Oh well, you did have it as well back in the day, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Oh wow, fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 26:51

Or did I get it more after the fact? I can't remember. I think I did have it at the time, but I do have it now, and I also have Dynamite Copper too.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Oh, awesome.

SPEAKER_04 27:11

I mean, there's you can see that that was getting in a stride then, there's a whole slew of Dreamscast on here, Dreamcast games and Yeah, they were kind of like post-launch window games, just the kind of follow-ups to kind of keep you busy. Uh you know, I came a little bit after, I think I got on board around about now. I remember it being like a a cool, sharp day. Um, so it was February, March kind of time, it wasn't spring.

Dreamcast Grab Bag And Nintendo Link Gear

SPEAKER_01 27:38

And also see when here um obviously Pokemon Stadium came out twenty.

SPEAKER_04 27:42

Yeah, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

I wasn't gonna bring it up because Yeah, but people think quite fondly of that. Um sort of the photography one, innit, where you took pictures of no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Oh, innit? No, no.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

What's the one where you tap pictures of that's Pokemon Snap?

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Pokemon Stadium. Oh sorry, sorry. The N64 transfer pack did this game and take your Game Boy Pokemon into the Pokemon Stadium.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Ah, okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

So you took your specific whatever you'd built or raised or bred, championed on your Game Boy. There was do you remember that little kind of it's called an N64 transfer pack? I think it's the official name. Goes into the accessory slot of the N64, and then I think you could plug a Game Boy cartridge into that, and then from there you could take your save in to Pokemon Stadium, and your friends could then do that also, and then your guys could fight with you know a lot more graphical fidelity, and it was in this stadium. It was uh it was I don't know if OG had it. I don't think I've ever had it. I think maybe if I did have it, maybe my kids have like messed around with it a bit, but I I've I've not I've barred sort of what I know in terms of that, but I know it's kind of a Nintendo had they had a good spell, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Of interacting all their systems and trying to link them up, whether it was Game Boys and you know, even later on with GameCube and the and the Game Boy adapter you could put on, they always had that way of sort of interacting the systems, as yeah, it was very good.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Super Nintendo had the Super Game Boy cartridge to pop in there, and that actually, to be fair, the Super Game Boy would was doing the heavy lifting of like taking the games from black and white to colour, and then if they were Super Game Boy enhanced Game Boy cartridges, like I think Donkey Kong, one of the Donkey Kong later releases on Game Boy was a super Game Boy game.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

It's a yellow cart in it, I think.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

No, not that one, it was a classic Donkey Kong game where you were super jump man strike Mario going the ladders, yeah, which was cool on the Game Boy, but then when you put it in the Super Game Boy, it had like a whole set of like a big, totally different um board around it with all colours, and it was like a full, like more of a full colour game. So it would take a normal Game Boy game and make it look okay. If you put a Super Game Boy game in the Super Game Boy, it was Super Game Boy.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Brilliant, that's well, clever.

SPEAKER_04 30:08

I think it's a bad influence episode about that. I would imagine so, I reckon.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Um, is there anything else you want to give an honourable mention to on there?

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Um no, I don't think so. From first glance, I didn't think there was anything for me, and then on post glance I've just sicked up a load of games and some that weren't even on the list, RGT. So I don't I do apologize.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

No, not at all. It's all worth talking about. Um we just had things like chaos break on a PlayStation, Micro Machines 1 and 2, Twin Turbo, Ridge Racer 64. Yeah, Ridge Racer 64.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Did I see that? Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah, Odd World Adventures 2. So there was quite a lot coming out, Rainbow Cotton, various different genres and bits and pieces.

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Oh, I'm gonna shout out to Virtual Skipper as well. I've always wanted a sailing game. I just want a free roam sailing across, like a flight simulator, you know, where I can like fly a jumbo jet anywhere in the world. I want a sailing game where I can just sail a boat anywhere in the world, preferably in VR. If you're listening now, um hurry up. I want this game before I'm dead. Kiss you do.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Never a true word spoken about your mouth. As soon as you said sim and sailing, I knew exactly where you were going for that. Uh preferably VR, please make it. Um before I'm dead.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

So you've either got an hour or 30 years, it's your call.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I think that rounds up what we would uh hopefully been playing at that time. Uh

News Kicks Off For February 2000

SPEAKER_01 31:28

plenty of good games out in February 2000, um, Dreamcast and bits and pieces, but I think we better get on to the news. They scoured the very darkest back pages of the Game of Mags and even delve deep into the internet web to bring you what was the latest stories in February 2000. First up from Electronic Gaming Monthly. Did you want this one as you are the fanboy of the uh Dreamcast?

SPEAKER_04 31:53

Oh, I don't think I want to put myself out there that much. You know, I used to have knowledge, but it's all faded away, sadly.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Oh, yeah, that's still in there, that's still in there.

SPEAKER_04 32:01

No, mate. It's getting further and further the more we move forward. I'm gonna have to get all the Dreamcast gear out again, aren't I, to refresh myself, get that passion back in me. Anyway, here we go.

Limited Edition Dreamcast Colorways

SPEAKER_04 32:12

This is from Electronic Gaming Monthly, as RGT said in February 2000, and this news article is entitled Newest Colours of the DC Rainbow. Dreamcast is only a little more than a year old in Japan, and already it's got more coloured system casing than any other except the Game Boy. Capcom and Sega are offering two special Biohazard Code Veronica limited edition systems. Only 2,000 of these will be offered, broken down between 200 of the special Black Stars edition and 1800 of the Red Clare Redfield edition. Raffle entries for the machine will be taken in Japan beginning January 2000. The system will be available on February 3, 2000. The pack includes the game system controller and VMU. Sacred Japan is offering a special model, Seaman Christmas package, in December at HMV stores. Only 850 of these systems will be available and include a controller and VMU. Each of these special edition packages is available for 34,800 yen. That's about at time of press in 2340 US dollars, and they aren't available in the US yet. Um as I mentioned in the uh article, we've got the blue one with the Adorn Stars logo and seemingly just a blue VMU. We've then got the Crystal Red Claire Redfield edition with matching controller. Probably is if we could zoom in on a 400-year-old photo. And then the Siemen Christmas edition, which I'll be honest with you, I do not think outside of the month of December, I could honestly be using a Christmas themed device for the other 364 days of the year and not begin to detest it and Christmas simultaneously, especially when the power and eject buttons are yellow and green. This thing looks like the sort of thing you would spew up after a night on the booze and a cheeky and a cheeky curry.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

It's a rare colour, that in it. Yes. This interests me this article, because one I I knew obviously about the stars one, and I knew ones like the Hello Kitty and the Sega Sports ones, blah blah blah. I didn't know there was a Claire Redfield edition.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Um no, I think that might go under the radar a little bit because it's less branded, I think. Yeah. And there is more of them.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

And I didn't know there was a Semen one. I mean, especially how weird and st sort of cultish that game is nowadays with the microphone and bits and pieces. I never knew they'd done a special edition.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

I mean you leave it wide open. You you'd love Siemen.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Thank you. Um, but also I never realised how fewer numbers they released these in.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

No, me neither.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

I no wonder these are expensive when you see them. I nearly I did have a chance going back quite a few years, over ten years ago, of buying a Sega Sports one. And it wasn't too bad, but I didn't in the end because I just thought it was just good that's a lot of money for a shelf piece. I didn't really want to buy it.

SPEAKER_04 35:22

But they've got a penny in the States, though, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Are they?

SPEAKER_04 35:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Um, but the that Claire Redfield or that crystal deep red does look a gorgeous Dreamcast. That that is nice. I like that. And I did, you know, this sort of thing's coming back a bit now with aftermarket skins and stuff for controllers and consoles.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

But the you know, especially with PS5 with their plates and stuff, this this almost having a different console, a special edition console, is is all sort of coming back in the wings a bit now, and it and I well I remember when I was I don't know, and now this is where you might tell me this is where things have changed, but I think when I was like rapidly collecting for the Dreamcasts around 2012, it was a system that most people have just disregarded. And I wanted obviously I had all my Sega consoles plugged into the TV at that time, and the outlier was a Dreamcast in its grey, white, call it what you like. So I was like, I want a black one, even if I reshell a bad boy, I don't really care, but I wanted it official. But the only official one I could half get my hands on was the Sega Sports one, and I didn't want it to say Sega Sports, but I also didn't want to bring a console over, rip all its guts out, and then go at the top of it with a Magic Eraser to wipe off the Sega Sports logo, yeah. So I stuck with my grey one.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Yeah, I think probably now if you go on AliExpress, you could buy all different colour shells for your Dreamcast.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Absolutely, but they're not official, so I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. And I said reminds me, you work for the unofficial controller podcast, and I'm like, Yeah, but I only like official stuff. And he's like, that makes no sense to me. And I'm like, Yeah, I know I know.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 37:00

Um have you ever reskinned a console yourself? Because I've done a PSP, I've reshelled it.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

I remember you I remember when we were talking about you doing your PSP, and oh that that's a job. That is a PSP is not a place to start. There's a lot around in there. Yeah, that's fair play.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

Everything else now will be an absolute Well, to be honest, I looked at it the other day and it's sort of burgeoning belly. Looks like a little looks like a man at Christmas who ought to let his belt off a notch, I'll tell you that now.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I reckon that looks like um I bet it looks like old uh um ace rim as uh his little um what is that holographic pod when that was all hit and all the bits are coming out and wires hanging out the side and all can't quite fit in.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

It doesn't quite that grotesque, but yeah, it's definitely stretching its pants out a bit, mate. I'll tell you that now. If it sits down too on the shield screwdriver in there. Oh probably. Probably left half of the rest of the you know me, mate. Well, to be fair, I did end up with a box of screws, and I was like, where the hell do these go? Really? Yeah. So there was more to go in the bad boy. But I looked at pictures, I took pictures, I put everything back in that I found. I mean, the other thing was I had probably two or three consoles guts out, so that's maybe where the overburden came from. But uh see if you so what other coloured consoles have you got? Have you got any sexy special edition coloured consoles, or are you just a straight-up dude?

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Um most of my consoles are just the standard editions. I think you know, I've collected as you know later on. I've got like a Last of Us Part 2 PS4 Pro, I've got the Uncharted 4 PS4, things like that I've collected. But coloured ones from back in the era.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

You always your pro was always the last of us 2 no last oh I've got that as I've bought it separately as as an investment piece. Is that the one with the fern detail all over it? Yeah, yeah. And the control you don't need that.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Do you want me to send it to you, George? Oh, maybe my son would like it.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

And I'll look after it for him.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

In your display case.

SPEAKER_04 39:17

So it keeps dust free. I'm playing it.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

No. Yeah, that it's that in happening.

SPEAKER_04 39:22

Um I've got the I've got the I've got the I thought I was bad. I've got the dual matching sh I've got the sealed matching dual shock four to go with that.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

I haven't got mine sealed, I've got a I've got a mint one and I've got the PS5 Last of Us controller as well. So I've got the two Last of Us controllers. No.

SPEAKER_04 39:43

You know this. You know now where there is one.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Don't look good where there's a boxed one in a cabinet, you want it on display to see. Anyway, we're going off piece here. Um I've got things like Pokemon Game Boy, I've got like the Crystal Pokemon um Crystal Game Boy Pocket. Things like that I've got different colour ones of and PSDs, but but these ones back in. I think if I s I I know it's ridiculous and the cost would be out of this world, but if I had unlimited funds and I could start collecting again now the consoles I'm gonna play, I'd love to do it where I had a special edition of each console to use. So you had like the Claire Redfield Dreamcast, and you had like you know, limited edition whatever, you know, or reskinned, real smart looking NES, or you know, things like that. I'd love to have unique ones. I think that'd be brilliant. Get raw talent who we've had on a UCP show to do all the unique console on every one would be brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

When is he gonna take one of your dead consoles and make us a UCP special edition that we can get?

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Why is it one of mine?

SPEAKER_04 40:48

Because you've got them.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

I've got loads of dead consoles, that is true. I've got I've got that five PS fat PS3s, I've got I've already got one of them. Oh uh yeah, I need I need to start trading all these in.

SPEAKER_04 41:02

Anyway, uh what's this next bit of news, you swine?

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Right.

Spider Man Picks PlayStation

SPEAKER_01 41:08

This one is from Game Informer magazine. Peter Parker picks PlayStation. Done it in one. Why didn't he pick a pickleball? Oh, I can't say that. Peter Parker and his alter ego, Spider-Man, haven't exactly been uh tearing up the comic book scene of late, but it's another story when it comes to video games. Neversoft, maker of Tony Hawk, has released some incredible new shots of its Spider-Man game for PlayStation. These shots have been defin have have definitely got our Spidey senses tingling, and we're extremely eager to put the game through its paces. When will we see the game, you ask? We think it will appear at our door in the coming months, but it may not appear in stores until this summer. Activision is handling the publishing duties and is yet to set a definitive release date. Um I popped this in because reading this although small article from Game Informer, it almost seemed as though Spider-Man was not really in a popular place at the time. The comic books weren't good. I don't know how to put it really, it doesn't really seem to be um I mean you think of the later Spider-Man games, it just blown up and got so much more interest into Spider-Man, the movies and bits and pieces, but that they almost seemed a bit like shocked that they'd gone down this route as licensing a Spider-Man game.

SPEAKER_04 42:34

Oh mate, I totally agree. If you think about it, outside of the comic books, and in the UK that was hard to access, and I think globally, unless you're a Spider-Man fan, you probably weren't picking them up. Our only interaction with Spider-Man, other than that, and I had a beloved relationship with Spider-Man, was when I used to watch Spider-Man and his amazing friends when I got home from Playgroup when I was about three or four years old. That's not to say that I was that was the age group for it, that's what I was watching. I think it was definitely a child's cartoon. Excuse me. After that, my only other and I love that cartoon, I loved all the different friends that he had, Iceman, but it was all very much a lesson for the kids at home, kind of He-Man kind of style. It wasn't you know Batman animated Batman or anything like that. It was very raw early American animation, from what I remember. And then later on in the sort of mid to late 80s, there used to be on BBC Two a rerun of some made-for-tv movies or movies that were made that were adventures of Spider-Man. They were like an hour, hour and a half. Like, I haven't really thought about them outside of what I'm talking to you now to try and give you my lowdown on Spider Man history. But you know, as a UK nerd, for want of a better word, we s we knew the big heroes like Superman. Obviously, we'd had that run down our throat. Batman, we knew, Spider Man. Was on the periphery, he didn't have like a big movie that anyone could pin anything to. So then picking Spider-Man in this moment and leaning into the leaving in because when you play this game, super leans into like the comic history of Spider-Man and you know the full depths of the relationship with the characters in there and the way that they're presented is like in a real comic book style. I popped this on not that long ago, to be fair, on the PlayStation 1 version on a PS2 for all transparency. It looks pretty good. Obviously, it looks great on the Dreamcast, which this later came to, and its sequel I think was one of the last games ever ported to Dreamcast. I think the sequel's also on the PlayStation 1. Obviously, it's a lot of fog.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Um needed to be really, didn't they? Need to be. I think it does, yeah. I was gonna bring that up. Yeah, that uses Neversoft's Tony Hawk engine. And and even weird at the time to think Neversoft, who you just think of that eyeball with a dagger going for it on Tony Hawke's, then suddenly doing Spider-Man. If it were that's a bit off piece, were you in a Spider-Man? But they've done a great job of it.

SPEAKER_04 45:35

Um yeah, I think in one of the um Tony Hawks you could unlock Spider-Man as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yes, you could. Yeah, you could.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

I think so I don't know what came first, whether it was chicken and egg or what, but yeah, this ended up as a Spider-Man game, and I do think it kind of came out that kind of mashup of ideas where this how this game came about, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Well, I also wonder if because of not the great popularity of people really buying into Spider-Man at the time, maybe the license was a bit cheaper than what it would have been at its peak.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

So it was probably uh thousand percent, yeah. Probably I don't know whether it sat with Sony at the time. Um hundred percent, like the franchise was there. Obviously, they're saying here what that the games come into it, which is great, but later on their association with the game got even deeper. I don't know whether Sony had picked up the license at this point or not.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

But obviously, we know where Spider-Man went with later games, was you know, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 on on PS5 and PS4, great games. Um well rewind further than that.

SPEAKER_04 46:36

Obviously, we've got an even deeper relationship because on the PS2 we got the Toby Maguire movie tie-ins when I would say Spider-Man was planted himself firmly in the homes of that colourful cast of characters that you knew were superhero.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then they done on PS3, didn't they? Like the web of something or other. There was a few quite collectible ones on there now, aren't they?

SPEAKER_04 46:59

Yeah, and uh yeah, there is on the PS3, and I think maybe on the Xbox because no other access to a Spider-Man game. I think that's third Spider-Man, no, the second uh what's the other lad called that did a few of them.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Oh, Andrew Garfield.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

Andrew Garfield, the the last Andrew Garfield one. I think it came on Vita, came on PS3, came on Xbox on some of these consoles. Bizarrely, Vita, it's stupidly expensive. I bought it and it's barely playable.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Yeah, I was always intrigued by that. I remember when you said you had it, and I always thought, oh, I might just give it a go, looked it up and thought, whoa, that's said a little bit on the uh steep side. So uh I never did purchase it after that.

SPEAKER_04 47:44

I was playing a lot of Vita at the time, and I just wanted a little I was playing Spider-Man. I thought it'd be really nice to be able to have a version of this on the go. There's a Spider-Man game here, it's got a little bit of Sony lineage because their franchise on their console. This could be great. But you know, first of all, when I first started playing it, when you're in the building walking through, I was like, oh my god, what have people been complaining about? This is this is actually acceptable, looks half decent. You get in the open world, fella, and we are talking flipbook.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

Oh, frame rates are a bit uh early.

SPEAKER_04 48:22

I refer to it as a flip book because it literally looks like you're playing a flip book.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Oh well, I just looked it up. It's CEX has it as £55 if you wanted to buy that on the book.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

Oh, it's gone down.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Wow, yeah, okay. So I think garbage forces caught up with it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. The flickbook style of animation is uh killing it a bit.

SPEAKER_04 48:42

But it's such a shame though, because when it first loaded up, I was like, oh wow, this is gonna fulfill on the destiny.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

And even when you look at the cover of it, for the Vita, it just sits well with that little blue case and spider. You think this is gonna be a banger on here? This is gonna be brilliant, Spider-Man on the go.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

If I bought games to make Instagram pictures, mate, I would have all the spiders out. Yeah, boom, with a load of web on it, boom, 20,000 clicks. I'm sat doing nothing for dinner, I'm just having breakfast in a garden centre somewhere, like all the influencers. Instead, no, I'll probably clean that coal house or doing something else. That's gross.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Yeah, but yeah, so interesting there.

SPEAKER_04 49:24

Um well, we give Spider-Man a full dissection on all gaming platforms there, didn't we?

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Yeah, we did, but yeah, very interesting. That was then coming out on the PS1 and obviously brought it back to the uh sort of masses, I suppose, Spider-Man and and got in people's games consoles, and the rest is history, really. And we sort of had a we've had a steady slew of games ever since. Umright. But finally, as people quite like this from when we've done this before, uh, this is from Electronic Gaming Monthly again.

November 1999 Sales Charts Shockers

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Um every few months they'd do a rundown of the sales charts, but they would be the way that the game charts were counted at the time, they're from a few months back, so obviously takes the information to come through. So this was from November 1999.

SPEAKER_04 50:08

Are you gonna put your back into this boy or what?

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't need to worry about that. Um, so this is from uh obviously February 2000 of Electronics Game Monthly, but this was their their uh sales charts of November 1999, which is the latest ones they had, and there was quite some unusual ones on there, um, which surprised me quite a bit. I thought was quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Um, but do you want to start bringing us in at 20 there, George?

SPEAKER_04 50:38

Oh, yeah, because WrestleMania 2000. What the hell? Okay, all right, here we go. Welcome to the flashback, and here we are with the top 20 best-selling games of November 1999. In at 20! Crash Bandicoot warped. New entry, the PlayStation.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

In at 19, Driver Dan Stick.

SPEAKER_04 51:04

Screeching around the corner, Grand Charismo, 18, looters and places. Last week's number 12.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Minute 17, not tomorrow never does. Tomorrow never dies. New entry. This week's 15, two places in 17, Super Mario Bros. Place.

SPEAKER_04 51:38

In a 14, Spyro the Dragon. PlayStation. Plus week 16 is rising.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

In a 13, new entry. Okay, things too phasing for electronic art.

SPEAKER_04 51:53

Sliding in with a flossing 3360. Tony Hawk at 12 on the PlayStation. Plus week number 8.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

New entry, number 11, MBK, NBA 2K, voice up.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

Into the top 10 with Crash Team Rating 10 on the PlayStation with a noop noob noob.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

Amazingly, another new entry. In at 9, NBA Live 2000. Electronic art.

SPEAKER_04 52:27

DDT, it's way into 80 WWF WrestleMania 2000 on the N64 with a noo entry.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

In it number seven, the third entry of this creepy series. It's Resident Evil 3 Nemesis. And that is a new entry.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

You seek them here, you sneak them there, you see them everywhere. This week's number six is Pokemon Smack. On the N65, sliding down one from five.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

And an amazing new entry in a five. It's George's Well, one of George's favourite games of all time is Donkey Kong 64.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

Hanging in at number four, it's this week's non-luver, it's Pokemon Pinball on the Game Boy.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

In at number three, yes, it's another Pokemon game. Yes, it's stayed at number three, it's Pokemon Blue.

SPEAKER_04 53:24

Surprise, surprise at two, it's Pokemon Red, it's still at two.

SPEAKER_01 53:30

And this week, number one, still number one from last week, is Pokemon Yellow. Oh that was good, and I can't believe how many Pokemon games have just uh took up the top in the top ten there. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 53:45

Well this is what, November 1999, so it's just before Christmas, so everyone's gone, Mummy Daddy, please. Yeah, and they've delivered, they've delivered on everyone's Christmas wish. It's interesting to see some what I feel like older titles in here for the time. Um maybe because they're getting bumped up for Christmas, or you know, we saw Spyro coming out, so is that why we got Spyro 2? You know, it's these sort of questions that I have to ask, like why? I guess that's why. Um, like Gran Turismo. By this point in time we'd already had Gran Turismo too, had we not 2000, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Yeah. Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 54:24

Oh no, we hadn't no. It's 99. It's November 99.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Oh, oh yeah, Cuss, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah. Park it's not. Even so, I mean, still in the top twenty. I mean sales were good. I mean obviously James Bond was popular in Tomorrow Never Dies, you know, it was uh selling wells, you know, 17 play 17 on sales.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

I mean, there's a new I think it was still kind of living off the hype of like the heavy lifting that Goldeneye'd done, and everything after that was kind of diminishing returns. Those PlayStation games were a bit of a mixed bag, RGT, if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah, and I I also think as well, when we it's the second time we've done these these charts, and you look back, the variety of genres you have from boxing to skateboard and to Spyro to Super Mario to Gran Turismo to to a licensed game with um James Bond, and then you've got Driver as well, and then you've got Pokemon.

SPEAKER_04 55:21

Just think of it this way, mate. Within the top 10, you've got obviously some beloved Pokemon games. Then we've got Donkey Kong 64, which is an absolute rip snort. You've got Resident Evil 3 just coming out, you've got Pokemon Snap take it or leave it, you've got arguably one of the best wrestling games of all time, WWF WrestleMania 2000, and you've also got the just launched Crash Tag Crash Team Racing on the PlayStation as well, which is hallmarked as a banger, and even got a remaster within the last what four years? So, yeah, I mean some of these games didn't just come out then, they kind of came out and stayed around and then kind of never went away, you know. Within the within the next ten games, you've got Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which started absolutely started one of the most dominating franchises in in gaming. You've got Spyro, who became an absolute beast of uh game sales for uh the longest time. You've got Gran Turismo, start of an absolute legacy. You've even got like Driver in there. Uh you could argue it's the start of a franchise legacy as well. There's a lot of like you could rip through that and just kind of discount some of these were modernised, but little did people know at the time, you know. Obviously, PlayStation were putting out Spyro 2, and they're probably going, is this gonna live or die? Actually, do you know what ends up spawning a what a million other games and then a remaster set?

SPEAKER_01 56:48

So well, I remember I was talking to someone recently, especially with Driver. Um, it's always interesting me being as popular as it was, and I'll show them the YouTube clip of the the tutorial where you have to do the car park. Oh harsh, and and I was showing them and they were like, Oh, I'll bet people you know, I bet that bombed that game, bet no one bought it. And I was like, No, because then you just kept playing it till you've done it, till you got in the game. You just kept nowadays, because of the service we have with games, and you could just try it for 10 minutes, that delete it off your system and go and play something else. Do you know what I mean? Then you didn't, you just spent 40-50 quid on this game, so you played it until you got it. And I remember playing for hours trying to do that tutorial, and we eventually got there, but you know, that I don't know if that sort of game of a tutorial like that would stick nowadays, but it it did then, you know, and then right above it, you've got sort of the like you say, a start of a legacy with Grand Turismo with the more of the sim racing, which still to this day looks amazing on the system it's on. Um but yeah, such a slew of different games. I mean, Pokemon was killing it, Nintendo were killing it at the time. Um but like I say, Resident Evil is a new entry coming in, or Resident Evil 3 Nemesis coming in at seven, you know. But then you had your bit of your sports with your WrestleMania's, your NBA lives, um Tony Hawke's that you say, another legacy game to start it all off. But yeah, very interesting what was uh what was popular at the time, what was selling, and you know, what was doing well. And I mean for the for the um top five, they've even given their ratings on there, which is I mean, Donkey Kong 64 sort of averages out at a eight and a half, Pokemon Pinball's an eight, Pokemon Blue is sort of eight and a half, Pokemon Red, eight and a half, Pokemon yellow. It's actually it's not as well rated as the others. You're looking sort of averaging about a seven there. Um but for yellow.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Yellow came after and didn't really add much more other than that Pikachu followed you around. But the reason why it's an absolute rip sale sales success is because in the cartoon that everyone loves, you have a little Pikachu following you around all the time, right, don't you, on Unaventures? So it's an absolute slam dunk home run from them. Um but obviously the reviewers probably saw it for what it was.

SPEAKER_01 59:10

And also, you had so many Game Boy systems out there at the time, didn't you? So as soon as these games were released. Yeah. A lot of buying it.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

Adults review video games, not kids.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I hope you liked that. Um it was quite popular when we done them before, so we thought we'd uh we'd add another one in this time. And um yeah, very interesting to see what was selling, um, what was popular and what weren't.

Stingray Boot Picks For March 2000

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Um but it's now time that we affectionately draw Stingrays boot. What's nestled between some counterfeit mappies and a dodgy copy for Battle, but Endor is some of the new releases for March 2000.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Spring stop. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_04 59:58

OG once said to me, You can write this shit, George, but you sure can't say it. Do you remember I used to trip up every time on that on the original show?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Oh, yes you do.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

Still can't even say it. I remember what it is now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

And your pumbo funks.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

Mate, you know. How are you? How is Ray? How are you seeing in this week? Give me some inspiration. Because right now I can't even see him.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

Well, at the moment Ray is not of a salon, but of a bluebird. And he is three different colours. He's a bit of yellow. He's a bit of red, he's a bit of blue. And apart from he's hanging his whole body in this colour. And so you know that he's talking about Pokemon. Out of the back door, he becomes a little wing. He's been hanged with a Pikachu, and he is following Ray Around. Just like in Pokemon Yellow.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:10

How about you, George? It's funny you say that, because the door's just opened. And on the driver's side, Whitecliffe John has just got out. And he's singing Gone till November, gone till November. I see I'll be gone till November. I'll be gone till January, February, March, April, May. What are you on about? But you can't even pay. What are you on about? You don't keep a steady job. Where are you going? Whatever. Okay, let's look at the passenger side. Oh my god, things you didn't think you'd ever see. Okay. Wayne's got out, it's exactly his normal height, but he's shaggy. Mr Lobberlover! Ooh, Mr. Lubberlova. And it's kind of weird. It's like seeing a hobbit version of a pop star celebrity you know really well, but it's just packed into this tiny little package. I've never met Shaggy in real life, to be fair. He might be small, it's might be trickery to cameras, but how are you doing, little Wayne? Shaggy. Lover lover. Okay, let's have a look in the boot. RGT, save me from myself, because I don't know. What are you on about, Ray? Fine. Yeah, you've got to have these back by November. RGT, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

I was a bit worried, I was a bit oh well, pinched myself in because I thought I was in a bit of a fever dream then. I didn't know quite what was going on. Um and Shaggy had just come in my ears. Um but yes, I think I am going to kick. I think I am gonna go with Need for Speed, Porsche Unleashed. Um just because that was when that was then starting to catch my eye, need for speed, and then doing a sort of a Porsche licensed one. I think, yeah, hmm, that's a bit of me, the erasing game there. Is it really? It certainly is. Um You can have two choices, because I'm going to pick. What's your second one then? Um I think I'm gonna go with because this is exactly the sort I mean, we'll do a bit of a uh honourable mentions at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:32

Yeah, we have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

This is a really silly one, but this is probably what would have caught my eye at the time, and that is swing away golf. Which I think was called Different over here. Wasn't it called Golf Paradise over here or something, I think. But um I I bought a s this era I bought a slew of tennis games and golf games. Just there was so many of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:55

Oh mate, I've just had I I've had a moment I've seen a couple of games and I completely forgot about. I oh my god, I later in life we'll come back to those. Okay, so my choices.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:13

Oh sorry, I was just I was just gonna quickly say um I know swing away golf sounds a bit random, but I think it was a lot of a side project for me, eh? I think it was someone called um T and Esoft, which was a side sort of thing of EA's. I think it's actually not a too bad golf game because it's had a bit of backing, but yes, so sorry, carry on. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:34

Um I'm going to choose, and I did get this at launch. I remember reading official Dreamcast magazine getting hyped up for it. Resident Evil Code Veronica.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

Mmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:45

That game looked absolutely sumptuous, and it made you feel like, oh no, I wasn't wrong to get this. I wasn't wrong to get this.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

I suppose in your head as well, you're thinking of the PS1 original PlayStation graphics, and you load Code Veronica up on a Dreamcast and think, ooh, hang on.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

This is a step up here.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:04

You we you were just kind of waiting for a little bit of something to kind of prove the source, and then this came along, and this proved the source.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

That's a big, big game to have on a Dreamcast because that was sort of known as that arcadey machine, but you're suddenly getting this big survival horror banger on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:20

Well, we spoke off air. I always kind of tried, I was viewing it as a little bit of a kind of PC machine as well, in a way, but uh it had that vibe with the old Windows XE, whatever it was written on it, and it had that. I feel like a deja vu, I'll be honest. It's totally surreal.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Yeah. I'd be even weird if I said we hadn't spoken about this. That was proper deja vu.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:43

Oh god. Oh, that took me out, took me away. All right, okay. Resident Evil Cobra. That's absolutely great. It's just absolutely perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Did it make you feel like you had a little PC, George?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

Makes me feel like the show is. Heavily scripted, yeah, and I just forgot to read the last paragraph. Um, Resident Evil Code Veronica is sublime. The lighting effects in it were truly brilliant. The actual way it faded from movie to be in-game graphics as well was like, oh yeah. Um, yeah, I remember a few people coming around and me having this on, non-gamers as well, who were like, Oh crikey, what's this? Oh, it's Resident Evil Cape Veronica, maybe. Yeah, and it looked good, smelt good. Uh it was an interesting game to play. It had quite an interesting cast. Um, yeah, fun. The other game I'm taking, if I may be so bold, is Jedi Power Battles. God knows what format it's on, but it's here and it's begging to be taken, so I'm taking it. Um what movie are you choosing?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

Um, I have gone with this is a bit of a Stingray special, because this wasn't actually out in August, but uh Stingray gave me a little old elbow in the ribs and said, Oi, oi, I've got something you might like, fella. I hear you're a bit of a fan of the old Lockstop and two smoke. Bend over the wrong show. Lockstock and two smoke and barrel, son. And I was like, Yes, this is my favourite film of all time. Well, I've gotten a new one coming out, and it's not out till August. What's that called? That's called Snatch.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

I told you it was Bendover.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

No. It's Snatch. Brad Pitt and Finney Jones. Absolutely amazing film, and it is a stingray special, so thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:26

Amazing!

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Amazing. You got no fans! Yeah, so uh what are you picking film-wise then?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

Film that made its debut apparently in the UK in February 2000, it's Toy Story 2.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Oh god, was that too oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

Apparently, unless yeah, I I Googled it mid-show because I got in a hot sweat. I was like, oh cracky, I thought of a film. He normally says I normally take the Mickey and say, Oh, Ray's got me a cam copy of a film that's probably not out for 25 years. So I thought I'd do it in the spirit, and apparently it's Toy Story 2, so that's what I'm choosing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Amazing. Um I did sorry, you forgot to mention some honourable mentions on what was um we would have been hoping to play. You had things

Thief 2 And Force Commander Memories

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

like Metal Slug Second Edition Triple Play 2001, um by EA Baseball uh Last Blade, beyond Destiny Risk 2, Top Gear Hyperbike, never heard of that one. Siphon filter 2. Um so yeah, can I can I have a moment?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

I don't know. You got time for me to have a moment, Synes more.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Yeah, go on, have a little moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:35

Star Wars Force Commander and Thief 2 the Metal Age, two games that launched in March 21st, 2000. Little did I know, two years later, crammed in a geek shack of a Royal Navy frigate with no other games to play apart from Sea Dogs, Dingabell, Dingabell House, and Taff. He was my sea dad as well. I can't remember his last name, that's awful. Anyway, Taff. He had Thief 2 Metal Age and he Oh my god, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:13

Was it a PC game, was it?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:15

Yeah, they were all these were both PC games. Now I didn't have any games until me and um Bobby got me and Yoda got um sea dogs in Barcelona. So was this was this the computer on the ship you used that wasn't your own computers or no, no, we had to book time and share it. And I don't know, I don't know how, but Dinger and Taff seemed to just be able to book the Geek Shack 247-365, and they're always in there. Bit of a Delboy going on there, yeah, and he would like he would say to me, Come on, come, come now, boy, and watch me play a bit of Thief Two, and I'd be like, Oh, okay, and I'd go to the cam machine and get a bottle of pop. And I used to copy him even though he was younger than me, because he was like in charge of me, but he'd get like a can't remember what he'd get a chocolate bar, so I'd go down there with him and and he'd be playing Thief 2. And he taught me the whole kind of um in Thief 2, he found a way that if you either looked up or looked down as you jumped, you could jump just that little bit higher, and because you could see, you could like move your character forward to get on a ledge, and I'd never seen that before, and I was like, oh he knows what he's doing. Yeah, I kind of perfected it then, and then when I started playing the Morrowind games and sea dogs and bits and bobs like that, I was kind of invert, I was kind of I don't quite remember how because it doesn't really work anymore, but there was a way you could kind of get the camera down or up and do like this jump, and it worked on a few games.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:35

Oh, so did you look down, jump, and then move your camera up, and that sort of lifted you.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

Kind of yeah, yeah, something like that, and then you could look down and then it just gave you another second or two to just like get to these. And I was like, bloody hell, mate. I don't know how I went into a room and said, Oh, I gotta get up there. I was like, How the hell are you doing it? And I was like, and I was probably looking at the wall and kind of walking into the wall, and because this was like mouse and keyboard controls, and I was like totally new to it, and he was just like all over it like a rash, looking like a thief, hiding in the shadows. Boy, that's what you gotta do. It's not very good Welsh, but I'm trying. Anyway, so we had lots of fun doing that, hiding in the shadows, watching him play. I didn't get to play that much. Obviously, sometimes when he got frustrated with it, because it was pretty brutal. And then the other one was Star Wars Force Commander, which was Dinger Bellhouse's game. Uh, Dinger was some like Wakefield or somewhere. Years later, I bumped into him like a Tesco car park, and I think he's like an aircon engineer now or something. Top bloke, though, funny as all hell. He actually taught me if you're ever falling asleep and you want to stay awake, obviously, in the situation where you're in, you couldn't just go to bed if you wanted to. But if you wet your fingers and then wipe them across the back of your eyelids and leave them wet, let get a little bit of air blow on them, wakes you right up, absolutely banging. Saved my life so many times. If you're in the car and you're tired, I advocate that you pull over and you have a little snooze. But if that is not available to you, get that window down and get your eyelids wetted. Ignore me, pull over, have a rest, swap with your partner, do the driving, get a hotel, do the sensible thing, get a coffee, have a walk around the garage, don't do anything that I suggest ever. Um because Dinger's solution was also to chain smoke cigarettes. So you know I can't, I can't, I can't. You don't condone that. I mean no, we don't. It's flashy me. Uh anyway, he had Star Wars Force Commander, and that was like a really if I remember if it's this game, it actually I was like well into it. So I was like constantly, if Dinger was in there, I was like, oh, what's going on? Because the first level, he let me play it a few times, he lent it to me. The tutorial is basically you commanding the forces that are looking for the droids on Tatooine. So you send down you request from the Star Destroyer a search team to come down, and you first stumble across the um the uh retaining bolt for the droid, or the he says, Hey, look, sir, droids, you actually are the people that find that bit that's fell off C3PO. You find the escape pod, and then you get to the sand crawler and you kill the Jawas. Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

Oh, it's that like first person, or is it no?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:21

It's an RTS, real-time.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:22

Oh, sorry, I oh sorry, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:24

And it was I was like, oh wow, this was like hidden story that you know you never saw on screen, but it was the tutorial of how you moved your troops around and requested people to come down. I think you requested like some jubax to come down or something like that, and later on in the tutorial, maybe an ATST or an ATAC come down, or you and it it's really quite cool, mate, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

I like it when they write lore of movies, but the games are in that spin-off side, so the bit you don't see in the movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:55

I'd love it when they do that. And the whole game was like that from memory, and it like I say, I didn't have it. I got to you know, yeah, go on then. It was almost like you get out of my face and go play that Star Wars Commander for 10 minutes, sort of chop, you know. Um so I never really had along with it apart from watching them, and obviously my memories faded a little bit, but I just wanted to shout out a couple of really great games that I spent hours watching, but not really that much time playing.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

No, brilliant. That's again that's what flashback's all about, and it's not only the games, it's the memories you have of where you were playing them and why you were playing them. Exactly. Um, yeah, brilliant. So, yeah, there was quite a few there that we were would have hoping to have been playing at the time. Um, we'd done our film choices, didn't we? So we'll get on to our housekeeping that we always do at the end of the show. So don't

Housekeeping Discord And Reviews

SPEAKER_01 1:14:46

forget our the Mothership show, which is the Unofficial Controller podcast. Um, you could download that anywhere you want. You can check it out on YouTube, give us a sub, give us a comment, give us a like, as they all say, as the cool kids do. Um you can also listen to this on YouTube as well, because flashback is uploaded onto the UCP YouTube channel. Um check out our website, the unofficial controller podcast.com for anything that's been going on, our challenges, our hidden gems, uh what we've been up to as presenters and shows we've been attending. You can check that all out on there. Um if there's anything you'd like to chat to us about, ask us a question, give us a comment about the show. You can contact us at questions at unofficialcontrollerpodcast.com. Um yeah, let us know. You know, you can also contact us through your podcast provider. That'll say uh contact the show, you can do a little thing on there. Give us don't forget to leave your name or give you a little shout out if you want to do that. Um if you could give the show a review, we'd appreciate it. I've been seeing a few reviews cropping up and very much appreciated. Um that all helps with the algorithm in getting the show seen as it's still relatively new.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:52

Have we had enough reviews?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:57

We know what you gotta do, people.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:59

Never enough reviews.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:00

We don't ask for anything flashback, like nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:04

I sound like you're gonna cry. I feel like I'm gonna. You look like you're gonna.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:08

And so before you let's not make a thing of this. Let's just move on. But please, can you review?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:14

Yes. Um, also we've got our Discord channel, One official Controller Podcast Discord. If you want to jump on there, you can check out our uh Artificial Controller Podcast Instagram, go to Linktree, and you'll see the uh join in on our Discord there. You can check out me, I am retro gamer Thomas on Instagram, and you can see my Linktree and you can join from there. We're also like I say, we're on Instagram, we're also on X slash, as we all know it was Twitter. Um and I think I've covered That's very boomerish of you to say that.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:45

Boomerish.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:48

Um I think I've covered everything, yeah. Like I say, if there's anything you want to know or anything about the show or how to join the Discord or anything you've missed, questions at unofficialcontroller podcast.com. Contact us and we can set you in the right direction from there. Um I think that leaves us. I think we're about there, aren't we, George? I think February 2000's been well covered.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:10

I've I've had an a reawakening of my February 2000, thanks to you. Um I've had an absolutely great time. I hope everyone has who's listening, they've indulged me. So thank you for that. I I know it's a chore, but thank you for it. Uh thank you to RGT for an absolutely sublime selection of games. And what can only describe as a cutting edge of news articles in February 2000? Um, some great things covered there.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:37

I liked it. It was good. Just uh an apologies. The show is a couple of days late this week. Um, had a few things to deal with this week, so it is a bit late, but we we've always said we don't, unless it's a real emergency, we don't want to leave you without a flashback show. So we've we've released it a bit late, but we're we're that's out there. So uh yes, you burn me garlic bread. It's it is an emergency in my house. You know, you've got to get your priority straight. Yeah. Um, but yes, no, thanks, George, for joining me as always. My pleasure. Thanks for everyone who's listening. Thanks for downloading. Not to say, come and check us out on Discord or Instagram, whatever you want to do. Um, join in with us, come join in with a family. Um, and it just leaves me to say, flashback the games you loved, the stories you forgot.

Final Thanks And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 1:18:26

I'll see you guys next week, and I'll see you later, George.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

See ya guys, you can't see it.