Arrggh! A Video Game Podcast from The Waffling Taylors

With the invention of the Raw with Jay series, I thought I might throw my hat in at creating a segment, I decided to go with a topic that is a demon of my own creation.

The Cupboard of Shame

I know that time and effort are needed to make any game, I am in no way saying each game is bad or indeed shameful... Just out of the ordinary for me to have purchased them.

I will be aiming to cover one game in each segment, giving the reasons for not only buying it but also how much playtime I gave the game in question.

Best to just say that I'm going to give this a go and see where it leads, so with that in mind cue the intro, please.

I'm going to take you on a journey into the games that I've put into my cupboard of shame. Cutscenes, graphics, controls, and overall views of the game, as well as anything else that I can think of, will be covered.

Iron Man the Movie Video Game (2008)

Oh boy...

So this title was released for all three formats, back in May of 2008. It's a title based on the Marvel movie of the same name and was released at the same time as the movie. Three of the film's stars used their voice's to portray the characters in the game, too.

Things were looking good for this movie tie in-game.

Haha... I'm back sucker... Tag me in! I'm ready coach!

I thought I left you with the blogs? Great now he's got an actual voice.

Anyway, so after movie tie in games like Star Wars Phantom Menace in 1999 things could only get better, right? Superior hardware, a more action-packed movie to base the game on, and the inclusion of actors from the movie itself lending their voice talents. What could go wrong?

Hahahaha! Seriously do you want me to take this?

Crude as ever I see. No, I'm good.

Well if I start by telling you that it won an award from Gamespot for "Worst Game Everyone Played" in 2008, that should give you some sort of indication of what I'm about to cover.

Box Art

Well, from the box art it looked really good: the front cover, screenshots, and info you get on the back were really enticing.
The box stated that you are a "One Man Army", letting you go between ground and air combat at any time, dynamic combat on open battlefields, and that "your suit is the ultimate weapon".

This had my interest peaked, and I was very excited to get the game home and bang it into my Xbox 360 for some Mech-Suit-flying-bringer-of-justice-to-the-bad-guys kind of action.

They saw you coming a mile off didn't they?

Cutscenes and or graphics

With other games that I played at the launch of the Xbox 360, like Dead Rising and Gears of War, I knew full well what the console was capable cutscene-wise and was looking forward to a good movie tie in.

The cutscenes were a bit flat for me and didn't really set up the story or the next level well. That did dull the experience for me from the get-go, even though I was excited to play it.

Cutscene-wise I thought it was a case of shooting for the moon kinda thing.

And missing it by ramming into Mars! Next stop, The Nebula cluster, it boasts a prime holiday destination as well as the cleanest fuel sources in the known galaxy!

I'm not going to be that harsh myself, but after playing the already mentioned Gears of War I was disappointed; albeit only slightly.

I knew that I had played games in the past where the graphics and in-game cutscenes were lacking but made up for it in gameplay. So onward I marched towards the gameplay.

Controls

Ever feel like you needed three hands to play a game that WASN'T on the N64?

I can share part of that. With having played third-person action games and flying games before, I thought the gameplay, combat, and controls were going to be easy to pick up and I could get to the Justice bringing already.

It was going to be a fair few years until, for example, the simple flying controls - like those in games like Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 - were more of a standard of sorts.

Iron Man's controls were hard to use and after a few hours of gameplay, seemed like a chore to get used to.

Chore!? Try this... Every wondered what battling a bag full of badgers while dangling off a cliff in a high wind was like? Well, now you do.

I don't think they were outright terrible though. For what they were, they worked.

They weren't game-breaking controls, and with enough patience, I figured out how to get places and started blasting things as a One Man Army.

It just seemed, at the time, like a steep learning curve. At the same time, I was trying to battle with the controls, and not fly straight into trees, or headfirst into the ground.

Twin-stick flight controls with the two left shoulder buttons for flying forward and altitude control, up close QTE button-bashing bits and fast incoming projectiles on the first flight mission alone made it hard to concentrate on what was going on let alone surviving.

And on top of that all that, I had rockets and bullets to dodge.

This leads me nicely to the next point:

Combat

With main missions and submissions being standard throughout this game, unlockable suits with different strengths are a nice touch.

Wow different skins and a slightly better bang-bang-shooter for quicker kills!

The combat flows well enough to keep people engaged. And for the time, zipping through city and desert landscapes was a big deal. Indeed the big open battlefields had lots of detail to them.

But...

Come on, rip it apart!

After the initial training levels are done, with me bouncing off everything in sight, the game starts proper.

And here's the thing, the game started to lose its shine for me when the missions started. You have to dodge missiles and fly from one end of the map to the other to get different mission points. And that was followed by what could sometimes be lengthy boss battles that made the game lose its shine for me.

Overall

Come on get your claws out

My claws are staying firmly in, thank you.

I think like a few other games that I have played in the past, this title was very ambitious and tried to bring a whole bunch of gameplay mechanics to the table, in one big melting pot. Clearly, they hoped to produce something that would tie into the movie quite nicely.

For my money it had good points to it: it did try to melt a lot of things and push what could be expected for movie video game tie-ins.

But I do think I suffered from a case of trying too hard with too many things. With enemies being both mid-air and ground-based, all shooting at the One Man Army at the same time, was a bit much to take in some times.

Long flying sequences, overwhelming fight sections at times, and having to wrestle with the controls as well as the camera sensitivity.

On top of this, the game kept crashing out for me, which hindered my progress through the game. Leading me to only having played about six missions before sticking on the shelf - one that would later turn into The Cupboard of Shame.

Didn't realise you struggled so much with it!

So to answer the question I asked at the beginning: why did I buy this game?

I had just gone to see Iron Man at the cinema and with the knowledge of how good the graphics, gameplay and cutscenes were at the time for Xbox 360 games, I thought this game could finally get rid of ...

This is a new type of shorter episode that we'll be putting out each month, called "THE LOOK BACK!". In these, we'll be looking back at the previous month's episodes and giving you a rundown of them. That way, if you somehow missed one, you can get the low down on what you missed. Pretty handy eh?

We'd still recommend that you check out the podcast proper. And if you haven't already, then look for us on your podcatcher of choice and subscribe. It's 100% free to do so, you know.

Episode 115 - Raw With Jay: Graphics vs Gameplay

This past month - May 2021 - we put out four brand new episodes. The first episode was a Raw with Jay about Graphics vs Gameplay. You can think of the Raw with Jay episodes as either a series of rants, or things that he wants to cover outside of the rest of the show. There's nothing stopping us coming back to them, but he wants to take a whack at them first.

This episode was actually inspired by a tweet by friend of the show Jason Maddison where he had said that most gamers these days are focussing on features that Jay would call secondary, if not completely unimportant. This one tweet took Jay on a journey of wanting to ask listeners, and journos, and the majority of gamers what _THEY_ think Ray Tracing is. According to them it's a super important part of the gaming experience, right?

Pro tip: it's not.

So Jay spent this episode outlining why he thinks that, whilst graphics can be impressive, they aren't required in order to enjoy a gaming experience.

Episode 116 Catching Up With The B - Part One

Next was a two part discussion with The_B. We'd felt that it had been a _very_ long time since we'd had The_B on the show - in fact, it had only been a few months, as his last appearance was in January. In this first part of our conversation with him, we wanted to find out what he had been playing recently; and he delivered in spades. In those 50 minutes, we mentioned 25 games in total - most of which aren't the games he'd been playing, but they are related.

Other things that we covered were the fact that we're now two years into the launches of the  PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, the so called CMOS "timebomb" which is present in all of Sony's consoles from the PSP and PS3 onwards. And of course, we talk about Nightdive's Shadow Man remaster.

One of my favourite parts of the episode was when The_B started talking about '90s TV adverts and said "REMEMBER GAME GEAR'S MAN!" Nothing like a bit of "old man yelling at cloud" to brighten your day.

Episode 117 Catching Up With The B - Part Two

While part one of our catch-up with The_B was all about what he had been playing recently, part two was almost dominated by talk of Nightdive Studios. We started by talking about what happened when Acclaim went belly up and this inspired me to come up with a completely new segment as we were recording:

Which games should Nightdive remaster next?
- Squidge

This reminded Jay of the story of the original source code for Prince of Persia being found in a garage, and how it took months to read the data off of the floppy discs. This, he reckons, will happen more and more over the next few years because games devs in the '80s and '90s weren't terribly great about keeping the source code for their games safe. Which lead to us trying to figure out how Nightdive keep finding the source code for the games that they remaster.

The discussion on which games Nightdive should remaster next lead to The_B setting us up and knocking us down within one sentence: Nightdive haven't done anything with The Operative: No One Lives Forever (aka NOLF) and me asking whether Cate Archer is a Disney Princess now.

One of my favourite parts of the episode was when I stole all of The_B's ideas for Nightdive Studios remasters. Seriously, I listed all the games that he was going to mention before he had the chance.

Coming up This Month

We thought we'd give a little teaser on what's coming up this next month (June 2021); you heard it here first.

We have another Raw with Jay, but we're keeping the topic close to our chests at the moment. You'll have to subscribe (FOR FREE!) so that you don't miss it. After that, Squidge brings back a previously used segment for his first solo episode - that's right, Squidge has a solo episode.

And after both of those episodes, The_B joins us again; this time we talk about the fact that 2021 saw the Tomb Raider series hit 25 years old. Tomb Raider was arguably one of the biggest games of the '90s, and we wanted to pay homage to Lara Croft's adventures by discussing our favourites in the series. We also have some amazing artwork for this episode by twitter user MAD-C, and we cannot wait for you all to see it.

We think you'll agree that this coming month's episodes are looking and sounding great. Keep an eye on the podcast feed, or our YouTube channel for the trailers when they drop.

Wrapping Up

So that's what we put out in May. Keep an eye open for more of these retrospective episodes each month, that way you'll know about the episodes that you may have missed.

Music Credits

All music included in this episode is fully licensed and remains copyright of their creators/publishers. The music used was (in order of appearance):

• Abstract Vision #6 by Muz Station Productions
• Casual Arcade Track #3 Muz Station Productions
• Among The Stars by Muz Station Productions
• Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)

Did you catch all of our episodes in May? Which was your favourite? Do you have any favourite moments? Do YOU remember Game Gears?Did you stick around and listen to the bloopers? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or try our brand new contact page.

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcas...

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

The B returned, and we wanted to talk about what happened to Acclaim's IPs after they went belly up. Squidge also wanted to do a round-robin on the games we'd love to see Nightdive Studios produce a remaster of. We also pondered precisely who the rights holder to The Operative: No One Live Forever (aka NOLF) is, whether Agent Cate Archer is a Disney Princess, and we talk about just how good PC gaming was in the 90s.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Show Notes

We jumped directly into part two of our discussion with The B - here's a link to part one in case you missed it - by discussing how some of Acclaim's properties seemed to keep going after the death of the company. As part of that discussion, we ended up listing a large number of Acclaim's greatest hits, too:

• Mortal Kombat
• Alien3 (on the Mega Drive/Genesis)
• WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game
• Mortal Kombat & Mortal Kombat 2
• Turok

But what's important about that, is that we noticed that Nightdive have finagled the rights to a lot of the Acclaim games from the mid to late 90s. But Jay really wanted to know where they got the original source code for Shadow Man from. Seriously, the content in the remaster has not just been upscaled, there are whole sections that were originally cut from the game, but put back in for the remaster - it's safe to say that Jay is a fan.

And this brought to Jay's mind the story of how the original source code for Prince of Persia for the Apple II was found on a series of 5.25 inch floppy discs, in someone's garage. Jay also brought up that the original source code for Crash Bandicoot is also on GitHub, but it has since been taken down.

Then Squidge comes up with a new segment:

What Should Nightdive Remaster Next?

And what an idea it was. A round-robin style discussion on which games Nightdive should take a whack at next. Squidge started us of with the (unfortunately difficult) The Operative: No One Lives Forever (or NOLF, as it's sometimes known). Why might it be unfortunately difficult to remaster? Because no one really knows for sure who owns the rights to it - as is the case with a lot of video games from the 90s.

So Agent Archer is a Disney princess, now?
- Squidge

The B then gets us all excited about a NOLF remaster by telling us that Nightdive Studios had filed trademarks for a number of different NOLF related terms. But The B then destroys our hopes by telling us that the trademarks were filed in 2014, and that Nigthdive have done nothing with them since.

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Which games do YOU think Nightdive should have a crack at next? Is Cate Archer a Disney Princess? Are the three of us old fogies for being upset about how old the PS2 is? What about the Pikachu FujiFilm printer case?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• The_B on Twitter
• The B’s current (at the time of the episode’s release) writing gigs
  • VideoGamer.com
  • PlayStation Trophies
  • Xbox Achievements
• Prince of Persia Apple II source code
  • Write up of the game by the original developer
• NO ONE LIVES FOREVER - Trademark Details
• Tweet from Monolith about NOLF and Nightdive
• Official Nightdive Studios discord server
• A story on the FujiFilm Printer for the Switch

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

It had been ages since we last had a proper catch-up with The B, so we invited him back on the show to talk about what he's been playing recently, get distracted by food, and talk about Nightdive Studio's Shadow Man Remaster. Along the way, we discuss the Sony "timebomb" built into all PS3, PS4, and PS5 consoles, Xbox GamePass, and how this year's E3 will be different

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

Towards the end of the second half of the episode (around the 33 minute mark), we discussed the games that Jay had been playing. He had been playing the Nightdive Studio remaster of Shadow Man; this is a very dark game, and the content that we discuss for this game is very dark in nature. We would recommend that you don’t let little ones listen to this part of the episode.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

It had felt like ages since we last had The B on the show (but we’d last had him on at the start of 2021 - for episode 99) so we invited him back and had a bit of a catch-up. But that had to wait until after Jay had forgotten the feed like for Squidge

Hello Squidgey! How are you Squidgey?
- Jay

And of course, The B starts yammering on about how much he loves a certain Portuguese chicken restaurant (something something cheeky nindos). To be fair, we would not turn down a free Nindos (yes, the typos are intentional).

We wasted no time at all in getting to the heart of the matter, and that was:

Recent Games

The Recent Games segment will not be new to listeners, but in case you're new to the show here's how it goes: we go round the table and discuss one or more game that we've been playing recently, and whether we think it's worth the listeners checking it out. We continue to do this until we've run out of games to discuss.

The B's Recent Games

• Call of Duty: Warzone

The B said that he had started this one “more out of curiosity” than anything else (I wonder whether that was "curiosity about whether he had the hard-drive space" - Jay)

• Outriders

And from his description, this seemed like a fun game with a forgettable story (SPOILERS! - Squidge). But it’s not something that B would be happy calling “Square-Enix’s take Destiny 2” because

I’d like to say "Square-Enix’s take on a Destiny game." Although they did, kind of, have that with The Avengers - once you get through the main story. Because Avengers has a very similar thing.
- The B

But how forgettable was the story?

Barely a week from completely the story, and I couldn’t really remember most of it
- The B

That’s harsh! But possibly true.

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Have you played the games we have been playing this month? Do you agree with The B's assessment of Outriders? Have you played the game that Squidge had played? What about the one that Jay has been playing?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

Links

Here are some links to some of the things we discussed in this episode:

• The_B on Twitter
• The B’s current (at the time of the episode’s release) writing gigs
  • VideoGamer.com
  • PlayStation Trophies
  • Xbox Achievements
• Sony is Reportedly Working on the CMOS Problem That Will Brick All PS4 and Digital PS5 Consoles
  • This is something that will affect all PS3, PSP, and PS vita consoles too
• Tim Haywood's BandCamp page
  • He wrote all of the music for Shadow Man

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page.

Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

Graphics vs Gameplay

Graphics or gameplay, which is "more important" (hopefully you can hear the bunny quotes there)? Is a shiny veneer more important than an engrossing gameplay mechanic? Can't we just have both? What if we have neither? All of these questions, and more, will not be answered in this episode of Raw with Jay.

Series Intro

This is The Waffling Taylors Raw with Jay, a series of shorter episodes of indefinite length. These episodes will cover shorter topics which don't really fit well within the scope of the show, or topics that I want to cover in my own way. That's not to say that we won't cover these topics in the main show, but I'd like to take a whack at them here, first.

Anyway, let's get to it.

Graphics vs Gameplay

Firstly, this episode/rant/whatever was inspired by a tweet from Twitter user PlaySushiUK. Those who have heard our bonus episode with the folks behind lock-on - there'll be a link directly to it, in the show notes - will recognise PlayShushiUK as Jason Maddison, one of the folks behind the upcoming gaming journal.

It just feels like all I see is this exercise in mental masturbation and dick waving to try and prove a point as to which chosen console of yours can achieve this and that in terms of performance. What about story, mechanics, animation, collision detection, trigger events, etc?
- Jason Maddison

He was referring to a tweet by another user who had posited that:

It's bizarre nowadays, that alot of people I see who play a game are highlighting 4K, 60 fps, graphics, better textures, any technical jargon you can throw basically instead of talking about gameplay, story, characters, music first. There are some who do but we're in the minority
- Akira

Check the show notes for links to those tweets, by the way. And if you're not already following Jason, then you really should be.

This is another example of an age old argument which goes back to the playground at school - unless you're a long-in-the-tooth gaming journo (and by that I mean from the 80s, at the least). Remember when I brought this up in the previous [Raw with Jay on Gatekeeping?

And it's an argument which worked back in the day because each console had a completely different architecture and completely different graphics hardware. This meant that the games which were ported to different consoles naturally had a different graphical experience - go look into the differences between the original Resident Evil on the PlayStation vs the Sega Saturn version, for instance.

But since modern consoles are, effectively, PCs running Unix-like operating systems, that argument has been nullified. I mean, let's take a look at the PS5 vs Xbox Series X graphics hardware for instance:

In the white corner, sporting black trunks with white stripes is the PS5; weighing in with a Custom AMD RDNA 2 with 36 CUs @ variable frequency up to 2.23 GHz. And in the black corner, sporting white trunks with white stripes...

Seriously, the official brand colour guidelines even use the same colour pallet, THAT'S how similar they are

... Is the Xbox Series X; weighing in with a Custom AMD Radeon RDNA 2 architecture with 52 CUs @ 1.825 GHz

Let's take a look at some of those terms because we don't want to get lost in alphabet soup.

First, both GPUs are created by the same company: AMD, with them both being the AMD Radeon RDNA 2 architecture. But even that argument is nullified by the fact that both are custom designs, so they don't match anything on the PC market.

Both GPUs sport a number of CUs - or compute units; technically

and mean technically

the more of these you have, the more things you can compute. But with the PS5 having fewer but faster CUs than the Xbox, they almost even out.

Full Show Notes

A full transcript of this "raw with Jay" episode is available over in the full show notes - because there are loads of books you can read, and web resources.

Do you prefer graphics or gameplay? Did you know what ray tracing was for before listening to this episode? Is ray tracing important to your gameplay experience? Did you know that the PS5 and Xbox Series X are essentially the same hardware? Would you like to hear more rants... I mean Raw with Jays?

Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, leave a comment on the show notes or try our brand new contact page.

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

This is a new type of shorter episode that we'll be putting out each month, called "THE LOOK BACK!". In these, we'll be looking back at the previous month's episodes and giving you a rundown of them. That way, if you somehow missed one, you can get the low down on what you missed. Pretty handy eh?

We'd still recommend that you check out the podcast proper. And if you haven't already, then look for us on your podcatcher of choice and subscribe. It's 100% free to do so, you know.

Episode 111 - Raw with Jay: Let's Ditch the Gatekeepers

This past month - April 2021 - we put out four brand new episodes. The first episode was a Raw with Jay about gatekeepers. You can think of the Raw with Jay episodes as either a series of rants, or things that I want to cover outside of the rest of the show. There's nothing stopping us coming back to them, but I want to take a whack at them first.

This episode was all about why I think gatekeepers exist in the gaming space, where I think they came from, and just how stupid the whole idea of gatekeeping really is. Pro tip: it all goes back to when we were kids. Also, who cares about how, where, or why you play. Let's just all play together. Right?

Episode 112 - Wonderfully Dizzy With Philip Oliver

Next was an interview with Philip Oliver (one of the creators of Dizzy) and one half of The Oliver Twins - a legendary UK games development team. Both Philip and his twin brother have around 40 years of game development experience, EACH. And they were at the helm of some of the best games of each decade.

 A game about an egg, or so it may seem, from eventual success with games spanning decades to the humble beginnings in their childhood bedrooms. Philip takes us through his journey in game development from the 80s up to the 2020s.

One of my favourite parts of the episode was when Philip dropped the bomb that, back in their peak, both he and his brother were creating new games at the breakneck speed of one per month.

Episode 113 - Parasite Eve - Let's Learn About Wigglies

Then we released another "Waffling Taylors goes to the Movies" episode; this time with a twist.

WHAT A TWIST
- Russel

We focussed on a movie of a book, which itself was the basis for a game (the book that is, not the movie) : Parasite Eve.

We've done seven of these movie episodes now, and we're planning on doing a _lot_ more. We'll be slowly iterating towards what I think is the only good video game movie, but I'm keeping the name of that one close to my chest.

Unlike when we recorded our Resident Evil Apocalypse episode, we didn't commit the cardinal sin for movie discussions - we kept the episode well under the length of the movie, coming in at 50-odd minutes shorter than the movie itself.

But for the Parasite Eve episode, we managed to go into as much detail as the Resident Evil Apocalypse episode without going over the running time of the film - probably because there isn't that much happening in this film, to be fair. We even found the time to talk about the nu-wave of Japanese Horror of the 90s and early 2000s - which I expanded on in the show notes.

Episode 114 - Alien vs Predator with Jane Whittaker

After we had a lot of fun interviewing Jane Whittaker. Jane was one of the folks who worked on Alien vs Predator for the Atari Jaguar. We talked about what Jane had been playing, what they would take with them to the Thunder Plains.

Wrapping Up

So that's what we put out in April. Keep an eye open for more of these retrospective episodes each month, that way you'll know about the episodes that you've missed.

Music Credits

All music included in this episode is fully licensed and remains copyright of their creators/publishers. The music used was (in order of appearance):

• Abstract Vision #6 by Muz Station Productions
• Casual Arcade Track #3 Muz Station Productions
• Among The Stars by Muz Station Productions
• Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)

Did you catch all of our episodes in April? Which was your favourite? Do you have any favourite moments? Do you think you know which Movie Jay is referring to as the "only good video game movie"? Did you stick around and listen to the bloopers? Let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or try our brand new contact page.

And have you left us a rating or review? We really like to hear back from listeners about our show, so check out https://wafflingtaylors.rocks/our-podcast/ for links to services where you can leave us some wonderful feedback.

The Waffling Taylors is a proud member of Jay and Jay Media. If you like this episode, please consider supporting our Podcasting Network. One $3 donation provides a week of hosting for all of our shows. You can support this show, and the others like it, at https://ko-fi.com/jayandjaymedia

★ Support this podcast ★

Remember that you can always get in touch with us on our Facebook page, on Twitter, or with our Contact page. Don't forget to check the chapters tab in your podcatcher. This is a thing we're doing now, so keep an eye open for those.

We caught up with Jane Whittaker to talk about their remembrances of working on the Atari Jaguar's Alien vs Predator and ask questions about their upcoming projects.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Show Notes

We were joined by Jane Whittaker for this episode. Some folks will know Jane by another name: Andy Whittaker. Jane had previously identified as Andy, but has left that name behind them. We didn't see that change in identity as relevant to our conversation, so we didn't bring it up.

Why did we want to talk to Jane? Well, it's because they were part of the development team behind the Atari Jaguar's killer app: Alien vs Predator - which Jay has written about before.

We'd asked Jane to come into this interview focusing on AvP and to bring a little silliness. And Jane did just that.

Side note: Jane and MobyGames

For those who don't know, MobyGames is a great resource for learning about who was behind some of your favourite titles, and it works a little like IMDB. As Jane has changed the way they identify, sites like Moby Games need a little time to update - as they aren't automated services.

Recent Games

As we do with all of our guests, we'd asked Jane to share with us what they had been playing recently

You've got to play games to make games
- Jane

And, of course, we shared ours too. Would we recommend the games that we've all been playing? Or course!

Jane's Recent Games

• Valheim

Which is another great example of a wonderful game created by a small team - just like Minecraft and Super Meat Boy.

It also lead to a short discussion on our episode with Philip Oliver (of The Oliver Twins) which was released a few weeks prior to this episode - here's a link to that - as they had also worked in the 8-bit era of video games development, and Philip talked about a one month turn around time. That was a turnaround time for a full game, however, and Jane had mentioned creating conversions - these days, we'd call that a port - in a week.

Squidge's Recent Games

• Torchlight 3

Squidge had picked this title up on the day that we recorded with Jane, so he didn't have a huge amount to say about it; other than that he was enjoying it so far.

Jay's Recent Games

• Astral Chain

Whilst it's a button basher -and there's a strange side quest involving a "Toilet Goblin" -it has a wonderful anime / futurism aesthetic.

• RetroMania Wrestling

Another button basher, but this time as a pro-wrestling game. Seriously, this game is a _lot_ of fun.

The Thunder Plain Games

For those who are new to the pod, we have a section called "Thunder Plain Games" which might be vaguely reminiscent of a [certain programme on BBC Radio 4 - but for copyright reasons, it is completely different.

The usual rules of the Thunder Plain Games are:

• You have been trapped in the Thunder Plains
• You will get help, at some point in the future
• Before you are sent there, you can pick a number of video games to take with you
  • You can have an Internet-connected game if you wish
  • But you cannot tell anyone that you are stuck in the Thunder Plains or ask for help

We challenge all of our guests to come up with a short list of games that they would take with them, in order to keep themselves busy whilst waiting for help to arrive.

Jane's Choices

• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• A Legend of Zelda title
• Tempest 2000
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Train Simulator

If it brings you joy, and it makes you happy, what's the problem?
- Jay

Full Show Notes

Make sure to check out the full show notes for more discussion on the points we raise, some extra meta-analysis, and some links to related things.

Have you ever played Alien vs Predator on the Jaguar? If so, did the first time that a facehugger "got" you cause you to jump out of your skin?

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