The time has come to put a bookend to keeping up with Kevin Smith with today’s entry focusing on his latest film, 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (trailer). Before we get there, I feel obligated to say I was a huge fan of his first half of his career, primarily of his old ‘View Askew-niverse’ days when he first started off with affable stoner characters, Jay & Silent Bob being carryover characters in his first several films. I think I saw Clerks and Mallrats at least five times each and feel safe in saying those two would stand the test of time, especially Clerks. I dug Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when they originally released in my teenager days, but cannot help but think I outgrew Smith’s style of verbiage and humor he honed in on by that point, and have a feeling I would cringe at going back to them. I think I would like Zack & Miri and Clerks 2 more if some certain scenes got nixed. I thought Jersey Girl and Copout were not among his best, but both solid studio comedies and a nice way to mix it up from his regular output at the time. Red State felt like a hard left turn for Smith, and some parts I detested, but it kind of came together towards the end. Tusk however was absolute dreck and upon hearing how his follow up Yoga Hosers was an all-in spinoff of Tusk caused me to avoid Yoga Hosers at all costs and casually back away from the Kevin Smith fandom.
This brings us to Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The sequel/reboot to 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. 18 year-old Dale, eagerly anticipated Strike Back, rushed out to see it opening weekend and poured through the DVD in multiple viewings of it and all its extras in the weeks after it hit home video. 37 year-old Dale however ignored Reboot during Smith’s nationwide tour where the only way to see it for several months was when Smith was touring it to boutique arthouse theaters and doing a Q&A afterwards for around $50-80. I only reluctantly picked up Reboot a few weeks after it hit video when I noticed it was on sale for half off and thought for that price I could get my fill out of it with some expected callbacks and cameos that were a big standout in Strike Back and I hope would save Reboot….and that is essentially what happened.
Reboot kicks off with Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) up to their old shenanigans loitering outside the Quick Stop, until they are promptly arrested, but saved in court thanks in part to their attorney. The attorney then informs he just tricked them into signing away their names to big budget Hollywood studios who want to reboot the Bluntman & Chronic movie Jay & Silent Bob failed at preventing in Strike Back. Worst of all, the reboot will be directed by Kevin Smith who is advertising fans to attend a fan fest in Hollywood to audition for a cameo! This leads to the duo condemning Kevin Smith, and travelling across the nation to stop Hollywood once again. Conflicts arise during their journey when they run into Jay’s old flame, Justice (Shannon Elizabeth) who informs Jay that he is now a dad. He soon meets his daughter Milly (Harley Quinn Smith), who brings her friends to tag along in order to win that cameo spot in the movie contest.
I do not want to be a downer, but the actual core movie I did not care for that much. Jay’s potty-mouth humor had me in stitches in its small doses when he was a side character in the early Smith films, but it is agonizingly overkill here. There are the occasional gags that landed, like a certain free bonus a cab driver offered that appeared a handful of times throughout and Kevin Smith is legitimately good at portraying a kind of over-the-top grating version of himself at the fan convention. Jay eventually putting in an earnest effort at being a good dad in some of the final scenes culminated in some touching moments with Milly. These core parts of the movie that I enjoyed though are only peppered throughout, but what wound up saving Jay and Silent Bob Reboot was the avalanche of cameos littered from beginning to end.
There are some expected cameos from Jason Lee and Ben Affleck coming back as their former View Askew-niverse personas as Brodie and Holden, respectively. I feel safe saying that is not a spoiler since those two had extended cameos relative to the core plot in Strike Back and more-or-less do the same in Reboot. However for the rest of the film, well….I think Kevin Smith dialed in a lot of favors because this is one of the most impressive deluge of cameos in a film yet. Some play amped up versions of themselves, while others are quirky shillers for Funko Pops. During those struggling first two acts of the film, the saving grace was seeing who would pop up next and what Smith had in store for them. There are countless blink and miss it callbacks and references to other View Askew lore and Smith fandom throughout, especially at the convention in the end.
I remember Kevin Smith’s early movies being loaded with extra features, and while there is a fair smattering here, it is comparatively lackluster to the deluxe sets from yore. I was stunned the BluRay omits a commentary track which are usually present in most of Smith’s home video releases. I do not blame him since he re-watched it dozens of times on his nationwide tour, but……hold on scratch that after a quick Google search it appears a month ago Smith released a special quarantined-themed commentary track for the film for free on YouTube that can be found right here. Good on him for that! Actual extras on the BluRay are highlighted by a near hour-long bonus merely titled ‘Cast Interviews.’ It is a barrage of two-to-three minute interviews from nearly all the major and minor/cameo players from the film. Lots of good little anecdotes in there and well worth your time! Following that is a half hour extra where Mewes and Smith interview a variety of the cast and crew which a third of is dedicated to….one major cameo I shall not name here. I will give props to Mewes for randomly getting quick interviews from some of the behind-the-scenes crew to make sure they get their proper due. Wrapping up the bonuses is the requisite blooper reel that does not disappoint and a two minute Hair Reel which is solely of Smith and Mewes adjusting their hair between takes.
Part of me wanted to say Reboot was the ideal farewell film of Kevin Smith to watch, but I see he has Clerks III in the pipeline, so I will ultimately have to cave and check that out too. Regardless, if you are a lapsed Kevin Smith fan and wanted one last trek with his style of comedy you grew up with, you kind of get that here and you also get why you left that in the past too. Regardless, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot does have its moments, and the cameos make it well worth riding this out until the end….including all the bonus shots/alt footage in the credits, lots of gold in there too including one last cameo I did not anticipate.
I am back with another videogame anniversary special this week. In last week’s flashback on the Saturn & Virtual Boy I ran down all the other platforms that had milestone anniversaries this year. Of course I realized I neglected one days after posting it, and realized last month marked the 15th anniversary of the PSP in North America. I was originally going to combine my PSP memories with the PSone as we approach its 25th North American anniversary, but as you will soon see, I have quite a lot to say about the PSone, so it looks like the PSP will be touched on in the near future. With that said, hopefully I can grant you a brief reprieve from the real world times we are in if you indulge me while I reflect back on Sony’s unforgettable console debut in the gaming world.
I will start off with the PSone, which was originally abbreviated to the 1990s stateside gaming press as the PSX. When the PS2 hit in 2000, Sony retroactively changed the PSX branding into the PSone with the requisite late-gen slim design having that official branding. The PSX was later a whole separate PS2 variant only available in Japan, so the PSone labeling helped clear up any potential confusion with the Japanese PSX. As I mentioned in my flashback last week, I was initially not on board with the dawn of 32-bit systems after the initial polygonal games like Star Fox and Virtua Racing appeared ugly to my then 11 year-old eyes, and after trying the Saturn and PSone at retail kiosks shortly after their launches, I was bamboozled at the concept of ‘loading’ and being forced to wait for gameplay after not experiencing that on nearly all 8 and 16-bit games. The only bright spot I can recall in the first couple years of the PSone was having fun at my cousin’s blasting each other to bits in the excellent combat driving game, Twisted Metal.
For the first few years of the PSone’s lifecycle in America, I easily dismissed it and stuck with my NES, SNES and GameBoy in those early years of the PSone because that was all my family had back then and they understandably did not want to cough up a few hundred more dollars to upgrade to a whole other platform. For the Christmas of 1997, after enough pleading with them to upgrade to a new gaming system I made my case for the N64 and was delighted to see it awaiting under the Christmas tree. That was due to my gaming preferences at the time and it being a four player powerhouse that worked ideally with my family and friends and also due to not getting my first job late in that console cycle it lead to me siding with it as my preferred console that generation. I do not regret it, but I did not miss out entirely on the PSone during this era as I had a couple friends around this time that got PSones instead and I wound up playing a fair amount of Sony’s first console hanging out at my other friend’s households.
The early NFL GameDay and Madden titles were the first big PSone games I played regularly against a friend. This video does a nice quick job explaining how the two were fierce competitors in early years of the PSone.
In 1998 my friend Rich upgraded to a PSone and the bulk of my PSone playing the next two to three years wound up being at his place. We played a ton of 16-bit Madden in the years preceding, so naturally the first PSone game that was our go to was Madden NFL ‘97. It only looked like a slightly touched up version of the 16-bit games and still stuck with marginally bigger and detailed sprites (or incredibly weak looking polygonal footballers, it is hard to tell when looking at videos) when compare to the 16-bit Madden titles. I recall us then switching the football games up with Sony’s NFL game, NFL GameDay ‘98 for a little bit of variety, and being impressed with its superior polygonal graphics. That all changed a few months later when Rich got the then-brand new Madden NFL ‘99 that holiday season. That was a landmark game for the series, and it righteously blew us away when EA Sports delivered a brand new polygonal graphics engine to compete with GameDay, and its graphics and gameplay blew GameDay away. Madden NFL ‘99 also debuted the multi-season Franchise mode that is a staple in single player Madden features today, and was revolutionary back then. Rich and I played Madden NFL ‘99 regularly and it was our new favorite pigskin game that gen.
Rich and I would play a lot of other competitive multiplayer games over the next couple of years. I have good memories of us renting games on a weekend night and tearing each other up in games like Knockout Kings 2000 and NHL Rock the Rink. After I got my first job the next year I would occasionally purchase a PSone game I wanted to try to bring over to play. The N64 AKI wrestling games we played to death, and I wanted to try out what the PSone grapplers brought to the table. I recall us detesting the unplayable trash that was WCW Nitro (minus its laugh-riot of character select screen taunts), but having a pretty fun time with the deep roster and gameplay options available in the first WWF Smackdown game. I remember getting really into ECW after discovering their first wave of DVDs in 2000, and eagerly picked up ECW Anarchy Rulz. Looking back, that aging game engine from Acclaim was barely playable, but we managed to have a blast with the absurd gameplay modes available at the time like barbwire and brimstone deathmatches. After hearing how the gaming press was giving it game of the year-caliber buzz, I took a chance and picked up Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on PSone after I could not track down the harder-to-find Dreamcast version, and it worked out for the better because that game became an institution with Rich and I as we played countless bouts of Trick Attack and HORSE against each other. I could not hold a candle most times against Rich, but could care less since the gameplay was that lethal combo of accessible and fun, and that THPS2 had one of the all-time best licensed soundtracks, with a few selections like “Bring the Noise,” “Blood Brothers” and “Guerilla Radio” that remain in my running playlists today.
I know, I know, you probably do not want to read entirely about sports and wrestling games, but for most of the 90s that made up a majority of what I consumed, but rest assured I am now moving on to some of the acclaimed single player titles the PSone is renowned for. My friend and podcast co-host Chris is a big fan of RPGs and I would chill at his place and enjoy watching him play through the story of Final Fantasy VII, Star Ocean, Grandia and Final Fantasy Tactics. Chris tried to help me wrap my head around them and guided me through first couple hours into FFVII and Tactics, but I did not have the attention span for those steep learning curves of their complex battle systems, especially Tactics. I recall watching my brother get wrapped up in FFVII and Legend of Dragoon and will never forget his anger at repeatedly failing against Seipheroth in the final FFVII boss battle, but will equally never forget his glee at finally conquering him. I finally made an honest effort at putting time into a new FFVII playthrough a couple years ago on my Vita, and I managed to make it out of Midgar which I considered a huge accomplishment. I only made it a little ways past that however and never got past that tall creature in a marsh I later found out was one of those battles you were not supposed to win. Speaking of FFVII, I played the demo recently for the newly released FFVII Remake and it looks dazzling and it sounds like that first installment of the Remake is getting high marks all around, which is great to hear for one of the most identifiable and best-selling games on the PSone.
I re-uploaded this podcast from my archives where we breakdown nearly all RPGs on the PSone. Brought on a lot of RPG-vets for this episode which yielded one of my favorite episodes in our near-200 episode run!
I remember hearing the legendary FFVII vs. FFVIII fan debates over the years. For the first couple of years after its release, Final Fantasy VIII was almost universally panned by gaming mags and the newly emerging online gaming media at the time before it slowly built up a vocal contingent of defenders similar to how Luigi’s Mansion got its fanbase once the ‘it is not Super Mario’ hubbub at the GCN launch gradually died down. I remember when my brother finished FFVII and with his birthday approaching understandably wanting to play the next one right away and him pleading with my mom for FFVIII for his birthday. This was a year or two after it was already out and I remember warning my brother it was not received that well, and he blew off my warnings and persisted with his birthday wishes for it. He eventually procured Squall’s journey for his birthday, and I will never forget it asking him several days later for his first update on it and him furiously responding, ‘That game sucks, I already traded it in to Gamestop!’
To put a bow on RPGs on the PSone, I would like to nudge you towards another podcast I recently uploaded from my archives in time for this flashback where we did a multi-part history of RPGs special, with the PSone getting its own episode since it had so many highly-rated RPGs. As you have read by now, I am no expert at this genre, but Chris and a few other friends I brought on are and it lead to a thorough discussion breaking down nearly every major and minor RPG on the system! It was a fun roundtable I will never forget with the first half dedicated to passionately dissecting all the Final Fantasy titles on the system to the back half making sure nearly all other PSone RPGs get their due. I have embedded it in this article for your convenience, or you can click or press here to queue it up for later.
Another multi-episode special of On Tap saw us focusing on the history of comic book games. I brought on longtime friend and comic book expert Matt for the perfect co-host for this series. He took his research for this line of episodes remarkably seriously and tracked down and bought any comic book games he was missing for each system to fill in any gaps and by the time we wrapped up our comic book games history series he purchased nearly every comic book licensed game there was. When it came time to cover PSone and Saturn comic book games we spent a weekend trying out many of these games Matt tracked down online. With the exception of the excellent Marvel-licensed fighting games by Capcom and a handful of other titles, a vast majority of the rest were a dumpster fire of barely playable platformers. I vividly recall Fantastic Four, The Crow: City of Angels, Blade and Hellboy: Asylum Seeker standing out as the cream of the crap. We suffered through a lot of dreck that weekend, but it was worth and it culminated in an episode where a lot of ragging was done on some atrocious games. I do not have that episode re-uploaded from the archives as of this writing, but I plan to eventually and will embed it here soon so you can experience our pain!UPDATE 6-23-2020 - I finally uploaded the podcast covering PSone comic book games to my YouTube channel; it is embedded at the bottom of this special, or you can click or press here to check it out!
The primary reason I never got a PSone during its lifecycle was because when I landed my first job in 1999 and finally had disposable income, it was either announced or much-rumored by that point that the highly anticipated PS2 would have backwards compatibility with the PSone library so I held off on getting the system. I would however purchase a handful of PSone games in the year leading up to the PS2 launch knowing that they would work on the PS2. I loved SNES Street Racer, so PSone Street Racer was one of my first PSone games, and it had a nice bump up in visuals and somehow pulled off split screen multiplayer for up to eight players! The 3DO version of Road Rash got a nice performance boost on the PSone, but like the 3DO version also does not have support for its killer licensed soundtrack during gameplay. Sadly the PSone’s exclusive follow up, Road Rash: Jailbreak failed to deliver, and the beloved franchise has rarely been seen from since. Street Fighter Collection: Volume 2 was how I first experienced the turbo speed and hyper combos of Super Street Fighter II: Turbo that I fondly remember doing regular match-ups against my classmate Josh!
The wrestling nut in me experimented with a couple other exclusive wrestling games on the system. Power Move Pro Wrestling was a decent early polygonal wrestling game, which I could have seen being addicted to if I played it when it originally released in 1996. WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game and WWF In Your House were mildly entertaining Mortal Kombat-esque takes on wrestling games, but needless to say I stuck with the N64 for my main wrestling games fix during this era. I loved both Destruction Derby titles on PSone back during this time, but I revisited them briefly in prep for this flashback and am sad to report they have not aged the best and I forgot how loose they controlled and how some inadvertent spinouts could lead to a quick demise. Another oddball title was the Kurt Warner backed Arena Football Unleashed. It is Midway taking the Blitz engine and giving it an Arena-rules makeover, but with more vicious hits and tackles that the NFL would not endorse in their games.
I want to make sure to get a couple other quick props to a few other assorted PSone memories. Loaded was a fun overhead two player action title to mindlessly blast away in coop. I was impressed with Blizzard’s port of Diablo and how well it surprisingly handled the co-op action with not too many performance hiccups. Another PC hit series my brother and I dug, Delta Force did not make as smooth of a transition to PSone with Delta Force: Urban Warfare being a bit of a choppy mess. The hit multiplayer series Worms I first discovered on PSone with Chris introducing me to the series with Worms 2 and I instantly became a fan of its fantastical weaponry like Banana Bombs and exploding sheep. One of the scant few times I got my mom to play games with me was knocking out several rounds of Jeopardy 2nd Edition where it was then impressive to hear every question…errr answer audibly read by studio host Johnny Gilbert. On one of the annual 24-hour Extra Life charity drives I participated in, a friend brought over one of the strangest PSone titles ever in Incredible Crisis, to begin to describe its zaniness would be impossible, so I will point you towards this video instead.
The aforementioned Capcom Marvel fighting games you cannot go wrong with, but a decent alternative was the pair of X-Men: Mutant Academy fighting games from Activision.I remember they had Professor X as a hidden character and going to town dishing out damage with his array of wheelchair attacks! I never got into the hardcore sim Gran Turismo titles, but it was another title that I would be fine watching Chris show off its then best-in-show graphics and presentation of realistic cars and driving physics. Finally, the Tekken 2 and Tekken 3 were in regular rotation at friends. Like Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn they proved that polygonal fighters were here to stay, and I remember being stunned how good Tekken 3 looked when next to its arcade counterpart and how Namco squeezed everything they could out of the PSone with that title.
It was a different time for WWF games in the early years of the PSone as this video elucidates how a Mortal Kombat take on a wrestling game came to be.
PSone and PS2 owners were spoiled with a constant supply of demo discs courtesy of OPM and Playstation Underground. I remember Chris keeping up with the demos and him constantly popping in the latest one whenever I swung over. The Playstation Underground discs especially stood out since they were essentially a virtual magazine, complete with mini-documentaries and interview features, cheat codes and content unlocked save files. I have been able to experience these again with Giant Bomb doing an exquisite job regularly reliving this era with their ‘Demo Derby’ video series I give a high recommendation for everyone to check out. I also remember the final years of PSone’s lifecycle that introduced the concept of the $10 budget game that saw dozens of low-budget games release brand new for at that price point. A lot of these were utter trash like All-Star Slammin’ D-Ball where I discovered it is possible to screw up a dodge ball game, but there was an occasional gem sprinkled in there, and it was part of the fun chancing one when randomly perusing the racks at Best Buy on a routine payday visit back then.
My last dive into PSone gaming was downloading the various PSone classics released digitally on PS3. According to good ‘ol reliable Wikipedia, there were 265 PSone Classics released for PS3 download in North America. I downloaded around 30 of them. Most of them were $6 each, with a few multi-disc games going for $10 I think, but they frequently went on sale for half off and it was a great way to track down games I always wanted for a bargain, and having most of them being cross-compatible on the Vita was a handy bonus too! I booted up a few of them prepping up for this, and a big standout for me were the five volumes of the NAMCO Museum catching my eye with their impressive explore-able museum filled with all types of fan service that made me get a lot more than I expected when revisiting arcade classics like Galaga and Pole Position. One day I will make time for the other downloaded PSone Classics in my PS3 library I have long neglected and heard nothing but great things about like both Mega Man Legends titles and the pair of Suikoden games.
Speaking of PSone Classics, that brings me to Sony’s entry into the console-mini market a couple years ago with its critical and commercial flop, the PSone Classic. I love my NES, SNES and Genesis mini consoles, but I avoided Sony’s version with its surprise amount of issues that are far too numerous to breakdown here. From what I understand, a lot of it can be resolved by modding the system, but ultimately I prefer having my PS3 be my own personal PSone Classic. My PS3-slim model still plays all my PSone discs, and combine that with my own curated PSone Classics I have downloaded on it and I see no need to upgrade to the PSone Classic and its Dual Shock-less controller.
I will wind down here by stating how I went until three or four years ago unexpectedly stumbling into procuring a physical PSone. I was helping a longtime co-worker move an old couch, and afterword we were having a quick breakfast when she suddenly had a lightbulb-turned-on look dawn on her and she exclaimed, ‘hey, you like games, right?’ I responded that I do, and she went on to say how her son left a couple boxes of games in her closet and insisted I take them for helping her out. I felt it was a bit much for moving a couch, but she persisted and double checked with her son after a quick text. Upon opening up the couple of shoeboxes when I got home I discovered it wound up being the PSone-slim, with two controllers and about 20 games mostly of the Crash Bandicoot and alternative sports variety which was fine by me!
The PSone/Saturn/N64 generation I remember being a crazy ‘fanboy war’ era. Aside from the standard lunchroom verbal jabs that were exchanged, that generation in the mid-to-late 90s was when the Internet, online forums, boards and messenger programs became ubiquitous and only fueled the fire. As stated above, I remember sticking by the N64 during this time, but over the years as you have just read, I came around on the PSone over the years. I may have touched on an unorthodox lineup of games compared to what people that were playing the PSone during its active retail timespan, but I do not regret any of the PSone ‘classics’ I experienced one bit. Please check back here later this year for more Sony platform flashback specials on the PSP and PS2, and if you want more retro gaming flashbacks then please take a look underneath here for a list of my previous flashbacks!
Here is the podcast I did covering all of the comic book games released on the PSone, along with other systems from that era like the Saturn and N64.
After the deluge of wrestling-themed entries for WrestleMania month this past 30 days, I have been pining to do another videogame anniversary special. Looking up which platforms have major milestone anniversaries this year, I noted six that stuck out. Four of the platforms (NES, Xbox 360, PSone, PS2) I have an extensive history with and they will get their own respective flashback treatment from me when their anniversaries draw nearer later this year. The other two platforms have all had lackluster or outright abysmal degrees of retail success and both I have only had limited histories with and never played on a consistent basis. Nevertheless, the time I did have with them I considered unique and I do have some fond memories of my experiences with each platform. So let us get on with this flashback special as I celebrate the 25th anniversaries of two consoles that each hit in 1995: Sega’s Saturn and Nintendo’s Virtual Boy.
I want to begin with the platform I have played the least of these two, the Saturn. Yes, I played my Virtual Boy and its daunting 14 game library more than the Saturn. In 1995 I was still lagging a generation behind on the latest consoles. All my family had was an NES at this point and I recently got a GameBoy for Christmas of 1993 so in 1995 I was getting a lot of mileage out of my GameBoy and my parents were still hitting up garage sales for bargain price NES game for me. By the time the Saturn and PSone hit in mid-1995, I was a year away from getting a SNES which I desired more so the Saturn and PSone were not even close to making my wish list. I read about them looming in magazines like Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly, but truth be told I was not all that excited for the future of disc-based platforms and the advent of polygonal graphics that were about to come into fruition with 32-bit consoles.
As a naïve 12-year old, the first major 3D polygonal games that hit on SNES and Genesis in the early 90s like Star Fox and Virtua Racer looked butt-ugly to me, and from trying out demo kiosks of PSone and Saturn at stores the impatient kid I was back then was furious at this newfound ‘feature’ of the latest systems having loading times. Combine that with my family having no desire to chunk down several hundred dollars for another gaming system and I was left with no cravings for the Saturn and PSone when they both hit in 1995. I had no clue of Sega’s surprise Saturn launch announced at the first E3 in May of 1995. For the unfamiliar, it was when going into that E3 it was known that both the Saturn and PSone were slated to launch within days of each other in September of 1995, but at Sega’s press conference they said right then and there the Saturn is out right now at a handful of select retailers. In 1995 the Internet was only around for a few years and not even the slightest bit ubiquitous. Computers were still a couple years away from coming down to more reasonable family friendly prices, so at this time I got all my gaming news from my monthly subscription to Game Players.
Here is the podcast special on the Saturn I originally recorded way back in 2008. Check it out if you want to know even more about the history of the Saturn and its games.
I wound up largely ignoring both the Saturn and PSone for the first few years they were out, maybe occasionally trying out an occasional store kiosk demo and that was about it. I remember the magazines at the time putting a lot of hype into Sega’s arcade ports, and console exclusives like Panzer Dragoon getting cover stories of having mind-shattering graphics, but I was not buying it at the time and stubbornly remained loyal to my 2D sprites. For the Saturn, I finally got my first real experience with it in April of 1997. I remember shortly before this time the Saturn was being pushed aggressively on TV with a special 1996 holiday bundle packaging it with Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop for $199. I had no idea at the time why this ridiculous deal happened was because Sega was getting killed in sales at this point in the PSone/Saturn/N64 era and they were desperately trying to play catch-up with a hell of a value considering several months earlier in 1996 it was clinging onto its dooming launch price of $399.
Flash forward a few months later in April of 1997 and my hometown got hit with a huge flood that forced a mandatory evacuation of the entire town for a couple weeks until the waters receded. For a couple days our family stayed at a nearby air base hangar. I believe we were planning on hunkering down there for several days until a couple days in my uncle from St. Paul surprised us and showed up and ‘volunteered’ on taking us in and refused to leave without us coming with him. My siblings and I were delighted to get out of the crowded hangar and spend time with our cousins for what ended up being a week before we were able to get back home. My cousin Royce, who was within a year of my age at the time wound up getting that Saturn three game bundle for Christmas a few months earlier and we played those three games along with the demo disc that came with the system almost every day.
We must have played through Virtua Cop at least a few times, and I remember finding it a big step up from previous light gun games I was accustomed to. Daytona USA at the time did not really click with me, and while I was impressed with the graphics at the time I did not come around to checkpoint-racing games yet and was more turned off by their enforced time limits back then. On the demo disc our family got a lot of fun competing against each other in the home run derby mode available in World Series Baseball. The standout game of the pack was easily Virtua Fighter 2. It blew me away and for me it was the first game that proved not only for fighting games, but for games all together that 3D polygonal graphics and gameplay could be viable and damn fun. I knew I was a couple years late to the party by this point, but by 1997 polygonal graphics were no longer the crude, non-textured blocks and rectangles on the SNES and Genesis, but actually had some depth and style to them. I loved Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat at this point, but Virtua Fighter 2 proved to me that 3D fighters could coexist with 2D ones.
That week with my cousin was my proper introduction to the 32/64-bit era. It would be over a decade though before I got more serious hand-on time with the Saturn. Not many friends of mine had the Saturn back home, or if they did we rarely busted it out. My friend and former podcast co-host, Matt has a mammoth collection, and I only recall us turning to the system once or twice all these years to play the charming platformer SCUD. Another friend and podcast co-host of mine, Chris also has a Saturn in his equally mammoth game collection, and until 2008 I only recall us powering it on a couple of times to play the fun co-op action platformer, Three Dirty Dwarves, which had a nonsensical, grungy vibe to its destruction.
In 2008, we were a couple years into doing our videogame podcast and we loved doing console retrospectives, so we decided it was time to do one on the Saturn. I just uploaded it to YouTube and integrated it into this article for your listening pleasure! Chris knew about my limited Saturn hands-on time at this point so we decided to spend literally a whole afternoon, about four to five hours of ‘research’ playing a good chunk of his Saturn collection. About 10-15 minutes for each game for a quick refresher for what each game brought to the table. There was one though we played for about two hours straight. That was the rare Panzer Dragoon Saga Chris had a copy of. I knew about it being a collectible at this point and heard the acclaim for it being an ahead of its time RPG and professed to Chris to hope to spend a little more time with it to see what the hype was all about. I remember digging its rail-shooter action the first two games established while simultaneously mixing in RPG style mechanics and exploration. I think we both got wrapped up in it, and stuck with it a bit longer than anticipated. Suffice it to say, those opening hours stood out to me all these years later and I can see why Panzer Dragoon Saga became a hot commodity.
Jeremy Parish did an excellent line of videos with deep dives on every individual Virtual Boy game released, including Japanese exclusives. Here is his take on the Wario's exclusive Virtual Boy game as of yet to be re-released, Wario Land.
In my TurboGrafX-16 flashback, I wrote about how I procured the system at a gaming community meet-up event. At that same event there were several gaming systems hooked up for play throughout the night, and one of them was the Saturn. One of the highlights of that night was someone bringing enough multi-taps and controllers that we were able to get plenty of rounds of eight player Saturn Bomberman in. I am a fan of classic multiplayer Bomberman, but never played more than four players before, and was surprised to see the Saturn pull off an eight player version with a micro-sized map and characters in order to fit everyone on screen. It was a Bomberman experience that nothing will likely ever stack up to. I dug up a photo from the event of all of us gathered around the TV so you call can see the tech in action!
Sadly, I never got anymore hands on time with the Saturn after this. It is one of the few major consoles that I do not own. For years I remember seeing the system for sale at our local retro games shop for around $30, but I always hesitated on it. The games I enjoyed on there Sega released better sequels on other systems, and I later got to check out some of its top ranked games like the Capcom fighting games, Guardian Heroes, Nights Into Dreams... and acclaimed shmups like Radiant Silvergun on enhanced re-releases on the Xbox 360 and PS3. There remains games exclusive to the Saturn that I always wanted to try like Die Hard Arcade, World Series Baseball ‘98, Fighters MegaMix, Burning Rangers and Shining Force III, but with retro game prices continuously going up, the time to start a Saturn collection has come and gone in my book unless I happen to stumble upon a steal of a deal. I do have one Saturn game in my collection however, and I will give props to Matt once again who gifted me his extra copy of Bug!.
While Sega pulled the plug early in America on the Saturn, it comparatively fared much better than Nintendo with the Virtual Boy. It launched in America in August of 1995, and sold so poor right out of the gate that Nintendo could not have abandoned the platform any faster. Its last game, 3D Tetris, hit North America in March of 1996, only seven months after it launched and with a total of a meager 14 games officially releasing stateside. I remember seeing the hype leading up to the Virtual Boy’s launch in the magazines, and like with the initial wave of polygonal graphics, I was not sold on the concept of virtual reality. However, a couple months after that same flood hit in 1997 our local Wal-Mart had unsold Virtual Boy inventory it was desperate to get rid of by selling the system itself for $20, and games for $5 each. This was one of the first times as a kid I recall my dad abstaining from his garage sales-only videogame rule and realized the steal the system was going for. We walked out of that Wal-Mart with the system and the copy of Mario’s Tennis it came bundled with, along with copies of Golf, Mario Clash and Nester’s Funky Bowling.
I was in the midst of spending summers on a farm at this point in my childhood for several years, and that was the summer of Virtual Boy with my siblings. I played the crap out of all four of those games. I abided by the recommended break alerts that popped up every 15-30 minutes seriously because I recall the gaming mags at the time reporting on the Virtual Boy causing eye strain after consistent use. Even with all that heavy duty play of the Virtual Boy that summer, somehow I am the only one in my family that does not have glasses. All four games we had were solid, but not mind blowing. Mario Clash I thought was a nice, fully-featured take on the classic original Mario Bros. arcade game that fleshed out that style of gameplay with about 100 stages and got so difficult early on I did not come close to finishing it. Golf was a good simulation of the sport, but it only had one course so I did not revisit it that often. I remember enjoying Mario’s Tennis a lot, but this being the debut version of that game it was more of a tennis sim with Mario characters, and had less of the wacky mini-games and power-up attacks associated with the franchise today. My siblings and I played a ton of competitive Nester’s Funky Bowling. There was not anything that funky about it other than the occasional cheerful animation from Nester and his twin sister Hester whenever you scored a strike or spare, but it was a functional enough bowling game that we had plenty of fierce rounds of over that summer.
After that summer we and I got our fill of those four games and the Virtual Boy found itself in the closet for many years. Eventually I randomly dug it out and found the tripod busted, and the pack that hooked up to the back of the controller that contained the plug-in for the AC adaptor was missing. With no means of powering on the Virtual Boy, it sat in a bag forgotten in my closet for well over a decade. I will thank one Jeremy Parish for renewing my interest in Virtual Boy with his excellent line of Virtual Boy Works videos. For those that are unfamiliar with him, Parish is one of most credible members of the retro gaming press, with him hosting the renowned retro-game podcast, Retronauts since 2006 and going on to write countless books and producing chronological video series on nearly every 20th century Nintendo platform. He averages one video a week, which usually highlights one or two games and does a deep dive into its development history and then proceeds to review the game. A few years in he has already covered almost all the games released from the first years of the SNES and the first two years of NES and GameBoy.
Throughout 2019 Parish took a detour from those three systems to focus on going through the entire VirtualBoy library, including its several Japanese exclusives. His surprise love for the platform shined through his thorough coverage for each game. It is a well-produced series and fantastic history lesson for this blink-and-miss-it platform that I highly recommend checking out by click or pressing here, especially now to learn about the first major attempt at a virtual reality platform with VR now having a modicum of success with the PlayStation VR and the Oculus Rift having made legit waves these past few years.
Virtual Boy Works inspired me to track down a few more Virtual Boy games to my collection which were surprisingly going for not that much on eBay. I wound up getting Galactic Pinball, TeleroBoxer, Virtual League Baseball, Vertical Force and Wario Land. I also tracked down a replacement AC Adaptor hub and tripod stand which resulted in my Virtual Boy powering on once again! I tested out all these games briefly. I love me some videogame pinball, and Galactic Pinball has some nifty 3D tricks up its sleeve. TeleroBoxer is like Punch-Out meets Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots or Real Steel for the younger readers who need a more contemporary reference. Vertical Force is a competent shmup, and I wish I put more than a few minutes into Wario Land because it is a legit top notch platformer and went down as one of the few highly rated games on the system. I swear to one day make it through Wario Land!
Thank you for joining me on this two part 25th anniversary special for the Saturn and Virtual Boy! Got a favorite Virtual Boy or Saturn memory of your own? I would like to hear how it compares to my tale so shoot me a line on Twitter over @Gruel. If you enjoyed this journal-style flashback special, than I encourage you to check out the links below to the specials I wrote for the Dreamcast, GameBoy, Genesis, TurboGrafX-16 and yes, even the 32-X. Thank you all once again for indulging me!
Who would have thunk it that the Nintendo Power mascot, Nester would get his own titled videogame. He also appeared as a newscaster in NES Play Action Football and named as 'Lark' in Pilotwings 64.
As of this writing, WrestleMania 36 is set to air in two days, and due to the fallout from the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, will be airing taped from an empty arena a couple weeks prior, and over two nights. I have been advocating for two night ‘Manias since the WWE Network era of PPVs have caused WrestleManias having bloated cards and lasting nearly SEVEN hours when factoring in the pre-show matches. Since it is WrestleMania week, I am here to continue my annual tradition of watching the previous year’s installment on BluRay and break it all down here. I broke up watching the nine-ish hours of BluRay content over a few days, which lead for a more non-overkill experience, and I ended up enjoying the overall show exponentially more this way as you will soon read on.
Now even though the BluRay has around nine hours of content on the disc, the cumulative total of content the BluRay unlocked for me was about 12 hours by including a digital copy of not only the PPV, but also a digital only copy of the Hall of Fame ceremony that preceded WrestleMania a couple days prior. For the second straight WrestleMania BluRay, the Hall of Fame is not included on the disc, and is instead replaced with the following night’s RAW in its entirety, which here is just over two hours when taking out all the ad breaks.
The Hall of Fame ceremony this year saw Jerry Lawler replaced as the host with Corey Graves & Renee Young, complete with grimace-caliber jokes of the stereotypical award show variety. The 2019 ceremony also saw a different setup with a ring in the center of the arena where all the speeches were delivered, and while it provided a nice visual, it also made it easier for an overzealous fan to run in and attack cancer and stroke survivor, Bret Hart during his speech. I recall getting the faintest look at the guy before cameras cut away and at first thinking because of the goofy hair that it was Enzo again up to shenanigans a few months after dancing in the front rows of the crowd at Survivor Series, but was then further perplexed to find out minutes later that Enzo and Cass did a worked shoot run-in at the G1 Supercard concurrently taking place. It turned out it was a fan with mental health issues, and obviously WWE cut out the run-in on the final Hall of Fame video cut, and the only thing apparent of something happening is that after a cut to the crowd, Bret Hart’s hair is suddenly tangled up. If you have not witnessed that brazen fan run-in, click or press here for fan-phone footage of proceeding to get pounced by countless wrestlers almost instantly.
Bizarre fan attack aside, it was a much brisker ceremony (only three and a half hours!) thanks in part to no Hillbilly Jim speech this year (which was deservingly poked at this year), and a couple inductees not having inductions either, and the ones that did must have had strict time limits because I do not recall an inductor going longer than five minutes. Honkey Tonk Man set the stage with the fun-gimmick from the Rock ‘n Wrestling years, with a groovy entrance and exit, complete by singing his song on the way out and doing a noticeably better performance than Double J the year prior. Torrie Wilson’s speech felt more of a Ted Talk, but still heartwarming and inspirational and I will give her all the benefit of the doubt considering her father and former on-screen talent and Dawn Marie love interest, Al Wilson passed away two days prior. Also pleasant was seeing Stacy Kiebler break her 13-year WWE absence by inducting her.
The legacy class of 2019 had another ten inductees with brief 20-30 second video pieces on each. Most of them are more classic pre-cable TV era wrestlers, but some are more recently noteworthy and remembered like SD Jones, Bruiser Brody and Luna Vachon and in my opinion more deserving of traditional inductions. I hope if WWE keeps this up they will at least have a family member do a separate video induction and include it on their website for a more proper way to remember these legacy stars. The Hart Foundation was the next inductee, with Natalya accepting for her father, The Anvil. Bret and Naddie gave the successful Rock ‘n Wrestling era tag team a fitting induction, filled with classic stories from their days in one of the most successful periods of tag teams in WWE history.
Brutus Beefcake gave a surprisingly good speech for his induction, as did the Hulkster for inducting him as he laid out how he broke Brutus into the business. Kind of surprising it happened considering the recent disparaging comments between the two with Brutus’s tell-all biography from a couple years earlier, but maybe it ‘was all a work brother!’ Props to Brutus for giving the Doctors who saved him from his terrible parasailing accident their kudos, and for calling out Shawn Michaels for still owing him for his barbershop window! The Warrior Award went to Sue Ajtheson, a backstage WWE official who is largely responsible for their Make-a-Wish efforts. Dana Warrior and John Cena gave heartfelt, genuine inductions for her, and Sue was a gem enlightening us about her philanthropic accomplishments.
Harlem Heat got inducted next, and after Booker T gave his brother Stevie Ray an outstanding tribute, it was then time for Stevie Ray sharing several stories of the trials of Harlem Heat breaking in before they finally found success in WCW. D-Generation X headlined the Hall of Fame, and as expected it was lengthy with X-Pac, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, Shawn Michaels and Triple H all giving speeches. They unleashed some vintage DX humor to start off with. Other highlights include giving Chyna her proper acknowledgement, Billy Gunn getting razzed for being with the new competition in AEW, X-Pac getting super jittery in his sea of notes and all of them busting out Super Soakers and dousing their colleagues in the crowd, especially Baron Corbin.
Now onto the 16 match WrestleMania 35 card (guys….I am sorry, thank you so much for sticking with me!). If you have yet to watch WrestleMania 35 then before reading this recap, I recommend breaking it up into a two part watch, and give this strong recommendation of preferred matches for each night to make for a better experience that I guarantee you will not struggle to stay awake through:
WrestleMania 35 – Day 1 Watch Order: Tony Nese vs Buddy Murphy, WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal, Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar, SmackDown Tag Titles Fatal Four Way, Miz vs. Shane McMahon, Triple H vs. Batista, Elias/John Cena ‘Concert’, Finn Balor vs. Bobby Lashley, Kofi Kingston vs. Daniel Bryan
WrestleMania 35 – Day 2 Watch Order: Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins vs. Revival, Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton, Women’s Tag Titles Fatal Four Way, Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre, Samoa Joe vs. Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin, Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch
Four of those matches were on the pre-show and are included on the BluRay as extras. In a rare move, WWE had the local have a feel good moment with Tony Nese winning the Cruiserweight Title from Buddy Murphy in a nice hybrid of strong style and high-flying that got the crowd hot by the end. In the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal, Carmella played the surprise last second sneak-in card to eliminate Sarah Logan and win the ‘prestigious’ hip/leg trophy. In a surprising second feel good hometown hero story, Curt Hawkins snapped his 269 match losing streak when him and his fellow bro-ski, Zack Ryder won the RAW tag titles from The Revival when Hawkins got the surprise inside cradle for the electric pop! In the final pre-show match, Braun Strowman won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal by eliminating celebrity entrants, SNL’s Colin Jost & Michael Che. A lot of hype on RAW built up the SNL stars, but the two hid under the ring until the end of the match in their failed efforts to surprise eliminate Braun.
In the official WrestleMania opener, Seth Rollins won the Universal Title from Brock Lesnar. Their follow-up match at SummerSlam is leagues better, because all there is to this is Brock getting an early attack on Seth and brutalizing him outside the ring for a few minutes, and then only a couple minutes into the actual match Seth low blows Brock and hits a few stomps for the victory. Last few years something about Randy Orton has made his stock rise higher for me. I appreciate his ring IQ and psychology that allows matches to breathe, and Orton’s skills blended perfectly with AJ Styles with some convincing sequences before Styles hit a Phenomenal Forearm for the win. The first of two four way tag title matches occurred next with the Usos, The Bar, Rusev & Shinske Nakamura and Aleistar Black & Ricochet vying for the SmackDown straps. All four teams brought it, and did not appear they were there for an easy payday with the creative spots they unleashed with an innovative tower of doom spot and Cesaro’s countless swings to the crowd’s approval until the Usos hit their double top turnbuckle splash on Sheamus for the W.
I loved the buildup for The Miz and Shane McMahon’s Falls Count Anywhere match. Miz gradually won over Shane’s trust all in the name to win his dad’s precious approval, only to then see Shane turn on Miz and attack Miz’s dad! I was not disappointed with how they got Miz’s dad involved in the match with Shane shaming Miz’s dad’s ability to fight. The two had a pretty solid brawl all over the arena that ultimately saw Miz deliver a suplex from the tech area scaffolding onto a crash pad, but saw Shane conveniently laid out barely over Miz to nudge out a three count for the fluke upset. The newly established Women’s tag titles were on the line with Sasha Banks & Bayley defending against the Iconics, Nia Jax & Tamina and Natalya & Beth Phoenix. A lot of controversy was reported on the champs throwing a tantrum backstage hearing they were losing the titles, which happened when Billie Kay stole a pin with a blind tag on Beth Phoenix after she hit a top rope Glam Slam. Minus a handful of moments, Sasha and Bayley’s main roster runs have been beyond disastrous compared to their rise up the ranks in NXT.
‘KofiMania’ emerged when Kofi Kingston vanquished that vile do-gooder, Daniel Bryan to become the first full blooded African American to win the WWE title in its near 60 year history. There were a couple of extended hold sequences in the front half that overstayed their welcome, but the back half amped up big time with some creative reversals, near-falls and clever use of the New Day and Erik Rowan on the outside. I was just as happy as the WWE locker room shown celebrating for Kofi after he hit the Trouble in Paradise to win the championship. He had a killer half year run as champ….until Brock Lesnar waffled him in seven seconds for the gold and Kofi immediately went right back to the midcard in his happy-go-lucky pancake thrower days of yore and acted like his championship run never happened.
Samoa Joe finally got his overdue WrestleMania debut match against a recently returned Rey Mysterio. I presumed the two had an epic match lined up, but Rey got hurt the RAW before and was only capable of performing for about a minute before Joe locked in his trademark Kokina Clutch for the submission victory. Roman Reigns was up next in his first singles match coming back after overcoming a second bout of Leukemia for the heartwarming win against Drew McIntyre. I recall dreading the buildup for this because Drew had a variety of ‘you may have conquered cancer…’ type promos and hyped himself up as deadlier than cancer, when naturally everyone knew Roman was going to win, and that is exactly what we got in a formula Roman match. The read in the ardent fan crowd throughout the match was readily apparent, they were no longer booing Roman out of the building like they normally would, because what kind of person can boo a cancer survivor (please do not answer that)? However, there was no overwhelming crowd going wild reaction either, but more of a tempered, altruistic applause instead. That has primarily been Roman’s reception for coming back since, and that is kind of how I feel too.
Elias performed a one man ‘concert’ next complete with other hologram Elias projections playing in conjunction with him until John Cena interrupted. John came out in throwback Dr. Thugganomics form and laid down some rhymes before hitting a F-U to the crowd’s approval. The presumption going in by most was that Undertaker would make his requisite WrestleMania appearance here, but 2019 marked the first time since 2000 that Undertaker did not appear or wrestle in any form on a WrestleMania. Strangely enough, Undertaker did interrupt another Elias performance the next day on RAW. Triple H and Batista squared off in a No Holds Barred brawl next, and I recall being burnt out by this point in the card and nodding off throughout it. Match held up incredibly better on second viewing with the two busting out a wide variety of weaponry in too many gruesome spots to dissect, other than that grotesque nose ring spot that reverberated throughout everyone in the crowd. The finish saw Triple H hitting probably the slickest looking sledgehammer shot ever with some added trajectory by leaping off the stairs, and following it up with the Pedigree for the pin.
Kurt Angle hit the end of the line in a few months of ‘farewell tour’ matches against Baron Corbin here. I was worried for Angle as his previous few matches saw him struggling to go through the motions, but a few weeks of added rest benefitted him here with him looking remarkably better and capable of several of his vintage suplexes and throws, and even busting out an impressive moonsault….that missed and lead him walking into an End of Days that netted Corbin the pinfall. Finn Balor faced Bobby Lashley in the penultimate match of the night, and the two delivered a short, but high energy match to help inject some energy into the understandably deflated crown by this point. Balor hit his Coup de Gras for the pin.
The 16th and final match of the night saw the women headline WrestleMania for the first time ever with the Women’s titles for both RAW and SmackDown on the line in a triple threat between Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. All three laid it in strong style in easily one of the hardest hitting women matches I have ever seen. All three were decorated with battle scars, especially Ronda’s leg! However, one significant botch tarnished the match, and unfortunately it happened right at the finish when Lynch countered Rousey’s Piper’s Pit slam with a crucifix for the pin. Rousey inadvertently popped her shoulder up during the pin, and the ref did not restart his count and continued with the controversial three count. Even the announcers did not turn a blind eye to it and questioned the ref’s call, and it turned out the ref was later fined for blowing the call.
I am not going to recap the following night’s RAW, but I did watch it and will give a couple key takeaways since the RAW after WrestleManias are notorious for returns, and unpredictable fan reactions suffering from wrestling burnout. Rollins and Kofi teased a winner takes all title match, but it quickly morphed into a tag match after The Bar interfered to the crowd’s rightful disgust! The controversial Lars Sullivan debuted on the main roster, Sami Zayn returned and turned heel after nearly a year away from double rotator cuff surgery. Dana Brooke and Mojo Rawley both deliver bizarre backstage promos. There was the aforementioned Undertaker attack on Elias and finally Dean Ambrose’s final televised WWE match that did not officially get started because he brawled outside the ring with Bobby Lashley before getting sent through a table. There is one last BluRay bonus that has footage from after RAW went off the air, where Rollins called out Roman and Dean and brought them to the ring for one last curtain call from The Shield.
That puts a wrap on the yearly monstrous WrestleMania recap. Once again I give my heartfelt gratitude for sticking with me the whole way through this. It was a chore to get through the whole show live in one shot, but it definitely helped spacing it over a few days this second time around. Again, if there is any upside with WWE having to switch up their WrestleMania plans with the global pandemic currently happening, it is that them having WrestleMania transpire over two days will make it vastly more watchable, and decrease the burnout of trying to watch wrestling for seven hours straight. Throw in the wild cards of the empty arena and undisclosed filming locations for the gimmick matches, and well….check back with me here next year to see how it all played out.
