This week, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain took everyone’s attention by storm. It is, by all accounts, a fantastic finale for the series – or at least the part of the series written by creator Hideo Kojima – and with the two-decade anniversary of the PlayStation’s U.S. release coming up on September 9, we decided to celebrate early as a way to revisit the console that first revived Snake’s career. Kicking off with our five favorite PlayStation games, we then swing into MGS V, Mad Max, faceplate-friendly 3DSes and your favorite boss fights of all time.
Question of the Week
If you had to pick your single favorite PSOne game, what would it be?
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Call of Duty: Black Ops III
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Star Wars Battlefront
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Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
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So happy to hear Tyler Nagata’s voice again. Glad to hear he’s still in touch with you guys!
T-NAG on the V-GAPS!
Yes T-NAG is back!!! Gonna be good to hear his voice again 🙂
Henry: “RE6 was all new women, but the dudes with the longest history. It was very sexist in that regard.”
This isn’t true. There was two new men, (Jake and Piers) one new woman, (Helena) two returning men, (Chris and Leon) and two returning women. (Sherry Berkin and Ada)
By this point in history you shouldn’t be surprised. Henry’s a liberal San Francisco writer, which is to say he’s willing to bullshit and skew facts to bolster a self-righteous agenda and justify his elitism, regardless of experience. That’s not to say that I don’t love him; he’s the MVP in my books, but he’s still an abrasive, social justice obsessed twat.
Fun fact – he may have just forgot the very forgettable experience that was Resident Evil 6…
To quote The Simpsons: “Oh, be nice!”
I’m not going to go that far but yes, that ‘observation’ confused me but I think DocSuave might have the real point here haha.
QOTW: When I got the PS1 as a kid, it came with two games: Spyro the Dragon and Disney’s Tarzan. I would say that Tarzan has to be my favorite because I’ve been feeling a lot of nostalgia for it lately and am wishing to play it again more than Spyro. Yes I’ve played games like FFVII, FFVIII, The Legend of Dragoon and such, but what impresses me to this day is how much fun I had with a semi-2D platforming game. Part of what made it great for me was that it had hidden items such as Tarzan’s letters and Jane’s sketches to find which would unlock bonus levels to get extra lives, making it not just a linear experience. It also controlled really well if memory serves right and is one of the rare movie-based games in my book that was great and worth my time.
QOTW: Crash Bandicoot was one of the first games I played on the PS1 and if the series had kept going strong, I probably would have ended up being a big Naughty Dog fanboy. But alas, 20 years later and I’ve never even touched another Naughty Dog game yet.
Yay Tyler!!
QOTW: I have a lot of great memories of sitting in my Dad and step mother’s house playing GTA 2 on the PS1 that we got from our grandfather who sent it to us from his prison cell where he was serving time for murder. I was a young lad at the time and I didn’t get the mission structure so I just went around picking up weapons, blasting every person I could get my sights on, and getting the coolest cars and running folks down. The humor of playing the famed “murder simulator” on my grandfather’s PS1 who was serving time for homicide was lost to me till fairly recently. On a lighter note I’m pretty sure the only reason we got the PS1 is because he had already upgraded to the PS2 or Xbox OG.
QOTW: If you had to pick your single favorite PSOne game, what would it be?
After much consideration I would have to say Final Fantasy Tactics. I borrowed it from a friend and continuously borrowed it for a year, I am sure they were convinced they were not going to get it back at some point. Nothing like a party of maxed out monks wrecking havoc all over the land!
QotW: Symphony of the Night. Castlevania was great before Lords of Shadow ruined it.
Oh man TNag! Is he still driving that sweet Mazda Protégé?
I met the Digital Extremes guys at an industry event a few years ago (Interactive Ontario). Great folks. Best of luck dude!
As a fan from the TDar days, it’s great having Nagata back again!
QOTW: Metal Gear Solid is the correct answer. aside from that I might be one of the 12 people who loves Chrono Cross more than Chrono Trigger. I’m a sucker for any game that has hokey time travel stuff or parallel dimensions. It was a weird game but it had some fun moments. Getting a pirate to smack the alternate version of himself for being a dick is not something you see in many games.
wooo! got some T-NAG up in here! it’s been a looooong time since we last heard his pleasant chuckle. I always think about the story Chris told about Tyler’s crippling borito addiction and how it lead to Chris being up to his elbow in poop. oh, those were the days.
QOTW: I have to say Valkyrie Profile stole so many hours. Playing Castlevaina and FF7 all the time, then having my friend tell me “it’s the platform RPG” I was hooked. Having simple but also precise battle combos, multiple characters, a fun platform game mixed with an in depth RPG levelling system and a cute 16bit esq animation to it blew me away. And the first introduction to one of the characters being a “get fucked” to his king made the teenage rebel in me feel great. It’s one of the forgotten gems of the system.
So good to hear Tyler N’s laugh on the Lasertime network! Love ya brotha!
Great to hear T-NAG, good luck at the new job!
Tyler Nagata was just a delight to have on. His laughter is infectious.
It’s a tough choice but probably Tekken 3. I loved the previous two but number three had so much more. I got an US import copy here in the UK which was a drama in itself. I played it so much with my brother, and cousin trying to learn and pull off every move. The arm brakes and 5 throw combos haven’t really been matched in fighting games since.
Did Henry honestly call resident Evil 6 sexist? What the Hell is wrong with him 3 of the 7 characters are women and a woman gets a solo chapter, I really hate when he’s on things he’s unfun and annoying I used to like him but I’m sick of him ruining everyone else’s good time it’s very annoying stop and learn to let things go and not derail everyone’s fun.
To clarify why Rockband 4 with 360 peripherals costs more on Xbox One:
The PS3 and PS4 both use bluetooth (common/standard form of wireless communication), which is why those controllers can be used wirelessly without an adapter on PC, and the DS4 can be used on PS3.
The Xbox 360 uses a proprietary wireless protocol, and the Xbox One uses a restrictive form of wifi direct, which is why both of those controllers require adapters to use wirelessly on PC.
So on top of Microsoft choosing to lock down peripheral connectivity on their platforms, they’ve changed standards between consoles. Hence the need for an adapter for old instruments.
Hope this helps.
Forgot to comment on this earlier, but shout out to Hank for calling Chris out for making huge generalizations about sports knowing full well he doesn’t watch them. One of my biggest pet peeves about the LTN, but I’m glad Hank at least tried to check Chris on it.
Wait, wait, wait! Is there still time? I have an answer to the QOTW:
*ahem*
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Do you like Uncharted? Shut up, of course you do! That’s because Amy Henig wrote all the dialog and scenario work for the Uncharted games, but did you know she cut her dramatic teeth developing a Shakespearean vampire action-tragedy, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver?
Soul Reaver rules real hard. Okay, so it’s Zelda, but you play as a defenistrated vampire-imp, Raziel, who had his wings ripped off by his jealous creator-king, Kain. Sounds BRUTAL, right? Because it is! It’s all blood-vengeance and fratricide, with reality-jumping and spirit blades.
And in the… THERE’S TIME-TRAVEL! Shut up, that’s not a spoiler!
Soul Reaver rulez! Get your hands off me, I’m not drunk.
Awesome hearing Tyler Nagata again. And Chris doing his Fred flintstone impression during the QotW made me burst out laughing
QOTW:
I think there’s too many rad JRPGs to choose a favorite from, and it would be cheating to choose FF Chronicle for Chrono Trigger. I think the one that made the most lasting impression on me was playing the port of XCom at my friend’s house when we were kids. Played it for dozens of hours, never made any goddamned progress, and still have a rock hard boner for it.
Best episode ever! 🙂