S4E07: Alien Storm -or- Bustin Makes Me Feel Good

Mike (0:00): I don't know where my Genesis could be. I haven't seen my Super Nintendo since 2003. That's alright.

Jaymo (0:27): Who you gonna call? The old switcheroo, where we're talking gaming retro with Mike and J Mo. I'm Mike. And I'm J Mo. Join us on our Epic Quest research and review all 300 plus games in the Nintendo classics catalog.

Jaymo (0:40): Today, we are detonating our torsos and picking up our heads with Alien Storm on the Sega Genesis, an episode we are calling Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good. If you like what you hear, don't forget to like and subscribe and, of course, play along. Mike, you know what they say about the family that bust together?

Unknown Speaker (0:57): I think that's illegal.

Unknown Speaker (1:00): Hey. Come on. Talk about alien busters. Everyone, welcome back to the show. Everyone's favorite big daddy.

Unknown Speaker (1:08): My older brother, Justin. How's that dad life treating you?

Unknown Speaker (1:12): It's pretty good. And this is Kayla. He's a kitty.

Unknown Speaker (1:15): He's got a cat in his arms. And the Strauss family circus wouldn't be complete without my younger brother, Jonathan. Say some say your favorite thing about me, Jonathan.

Unknown Speaker (1:23): It's how you like to bust while playing alien storm.

Jaymo (1:28): I think you guys are forgetting that they're called the alien busters.

Unknown Speaker (1:31): Are they really called that? I think everybody on Earth has forgotten that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:38): So, since we last recorded, the Strauss family grew, for the first time in forty years. My brother, older brother, had his first son affectionately named, Pooh is Pooh? It's a nickname. Can say Pooh. Is that Poohb?

Justin (1:51): His name is Kieran, but his nickname is Poohb. Somebody else. His real name is not Poohb. No.

Unknown Speaker (1:56): Is that Poohb Goblin, though? What is where's the origin of Poohb?

Unknown Speaker (1:59): I mean, the the actual origin?

Unknown Speaker (2:02): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (2:03): Because when he was first born, I called him I I called him a bunch of different stuff, but boobula was one of them. Ah. And that eventually evolved into into, I think, boobily, and then that just turned into boobily.

Jaymo (2:15): Yeah. Because you're not sleeping for days straight. So it's

Unknown Speaker (2:18): like Poobily, boobily, poobily, and then poobily.

Jaymo (2:21): That's the etymology of poop. Yeah. So he's notorious for dancing along to K pop demon hunters. Has he watched you game? Like, is that, like, a thing?

Justin (2:30): I mean, no, because he won't let me. He takes the controller.

Unknown Speaker (2:34): He takes the controller?

Unknown Speaker (2:35): Yeah. He demands to have it. He wants my game, dino straws boy.

Unknown Speaker (2:39): But is he He

Unknown Speaker (2:40): demands to have it, and then he just tries to purchase every game on on Xbox. Maybe Yes. Genius. Or if it's the Switch, he just pulls the Joy Cons off and parades them around.

Jaymo (2:52): And, Jonathan, I can't remember if it's Wednesday or Pugsley that interrupts you when you're gaming usually.

Unknown Speaker (2:57): Both? They're cats. Whenever

Jaymo (3:01): I'm trying to play my Switch, Atticus, like, nudges it out of the way so he can have my attention.

Unknown Speaker (3:06): Yeah. Yeah. Probably does that more than Wednesday.

Jaymo (3:09): Right. So, guys, without be further ado, the People's Laboratory aren't gonna save themselves. Are you guys ready to run out of energy prematurely?

Unknown Speaker (3:16): The hell?

Unknown Speaker (3:17): I mean

Unknown Speaker (3:18): Yeah. I guess so.

Unknown Speaker (3:19): It's 2026. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker (3:21): Is this is this gonna be a continuing theme throughout the whole No.

Jaymo (3:27): We're talking about Alien Storm on the Sega Genesis released in 1991. As described on, quote, unquote, Nintendo classics, when a vicious alien species invades Earth, it's up to the fearless alien busters to stop the threat. Two players can get in on the action at the same time and bust together and choose from three heroes to take out the aliens ravaging the city. Garth, the bazooka wielding

Unknown Speaker (3:57): And then there's Garth and Karen. Wait a minute.

Jaymo (4:00): Karen, the lone wolf with a flamethrower. Imagine a Karen with a flamethrower. And Scooter, the robot with an electromagnetic whip. Throughout the stages, you'll swap to a first person view where you can blast away at enemies in buildings. You'll also per pursue enemies in

Justin (4:17): per high speed must look at the enemies in high speed scrolling segments. Yeah. I

Jaymo (4:20): don't High speed scrolling segments that add some extra thrills to the fight. This is a port of the popular arcade game from the team behind Golden Axe.

Jonathan (4:28): Alright. We're gonna hold right there. Do it. In the manual I looked at, their names are Gordon, Carla, and Slammer. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (4:37): That's way better than Gordon. The Japanese ones.

Justin (4:40): Yeah. Scooter. I do remember Scooter because I remember thinking that was a really stupid robot name.

Unknown Speaker (4:46): Pretty cool robot name. I love that Scooter, the robot, is super deadly. That's fun.

Unknown Speaker (4:50): That's like what was the robot movie that was really popular? Short circuit or something like that? Yeah. It's like they wanted to name Scooter after that or something.

Unknown Speaker (4:59): See it? Yeah. They want, like, the hell, he's funny, but horrible. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (5:03): And also the kids like that movie.

Unknown Speaker (5:05): I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (5:06): Don't buy the games. They like it.

Jaymo (5:07): Let's look at his box art since it's often people's first impressions. Our hunky hero Garth what'd you say, Mike? Garrett? Gordon. Gordon.

Jaymo (5:16): Oh, like Flash Gordon. Oh, okay.

Unknown Speaker (5:18): Gordon Freeman.

Jaymo (5:19): Gordon slash Garth and his robot buddy are squared off in a street fight against two aliens disguised as mailboxes. Jonathan, do we like this box art?

Unknown Speaker (5:27): Where's Karen? Yeah. Could easily have fit her over there as well. And what? A scooter's just sitting there watching.

Unknown Speaker (5:35): But it is only two players, so that is fair to only have two of Alright. I like it.

Jonathan (5:39): The robot's just silver shredder. Right?

Unknown Speaker (5:41): Yeah. Well, it kind of is. Ish.

Jaymo (5:44): I just feel like his pose is kinda stiff. Like, I like the like, there's some fun detail.

Justin (5:48): Yeah. Like like, the He was added after. Look how different he appears from the dude too. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (5:56): I think he really was. Like, maybe that's because he's metal, but I don't know. I think they were like, we need another one of the characters in here. And they were like, okay. We'll put the robot in there.

Unknown Speaker (6:05): I like that even though it's supposed to be, like, the weird electric whip thing, it looks just like he has a weird torch because he's just kinda holding it up. There's not really a sense of motion.

Unknown Speaker (6:13): No. He's just he's been

Jaymo (6:15): You can't tell if he's whipping or, like, twirling his wrist. You know what I mean? But I I think it's interesting. I feel like Justin totally called the shot because they probably had just Gordon, but they're like, it's a two player game. Can you add in a second character?

Unknown Speaker (6:28): And they're like, well, the robot's easy to draw. We don't have to do a facial expression at all. I'm just standing there.

Jaymo (6:34): So has anyone seen the Japanese box art before?

Unknown Speaker (6:36): I don't think so. Show us.

Jaymo (6:38): Pretty dope. You have this really dynamic wraparound image. The front

Unknown Speaker (6:44): of the looks just as bad.

Jaymo (6:46): No. He's got like, he's lunging with the whip this time. I mean, you got Karen slash Carla in there. She's looking good.

Unknown Speaker (6:56): She's arch arching her back, obviously. That's how you fire

Unknown Speaker (7:00): a flamethrower. You have to arch

Unknown Speaker (7:01): Oh, yeah. That's yeah. It's a Push your chest on a flame. You know?

Jaymo (7:05): But I do love that this is a wraparound image because on the cover, you have the aliens attacking the customer, and it's kind of evocative of the first person shooter scenes. And then as the image wraps around to the back of the box art, you have our three heroes who are, like, firing at the the the front cover. So it's almost like they're trying to save the cuss I think this is cool.

Unknown Speaker (7:23): Yeah. It's way better than the other one, but the the heroes look like they were drawn by a kid this time.

Jaymo (7:29): Mike, what's your take? I feel like they try

Jonathan (7:31): to do far too much, and it ends up way too cluttered. Like, there's even bits like so in the game, the logo is the alien storm on some I don't even know what it's supposed to be on. Metal or rock or something. Probably metal. Space wreckage.

Jonathan (7:47): Yeah. And, like, there is a little corner in that that if you're if you pay attention to it, like an eye kind of blinks. Yeah. Which is a neat touch to realize. Like, I did not even notice it the first time I was on that screen.

Jonathan (8:00): But this also has another, like, massive brain with an eye poking out through it kind of thing. Yeah. The final boss. And it just feels like, okay. It's that same, oh, it's a surprise eye to be unnerving is twice on the cover.

Jonathan (8:18): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (8:20): You're right. I thought that was the final boss.

Unknown Speaker (8:22): It is the final boss. Yeah. But I get what he's saying, though. You know, maybe it's thematic, Mike. Maybe it's a motif.

Unknown Speaker (8:27): Right?

Justin (8:27): Surprise eye. Maybe that's the final boss's eye in the original sign.

Jaymo (8:33): I do think it's funny, though, because knowing that this came from the people who worked on Golden Axe, and I imagine maybe even some of the box art because, like, the little heads are totally fantasy here. They're like skulls, but in the game, they're very fleshy. It's almost like this looks like something out of Golden Axe. Am am I alone? Because that's not how they look in the game.

Unknown Speaker (8:50): Yeah. They should just not be there.

Unknown Speaker (8:51): They clearly threw one and then copied it twice and made it really busy, like Mike said.

Unknown Speaker (8:56): Well, I think it's fun.

Unknown Speaker (8:57): Just three.

Jaymo (8:58): In the early nineties, Sega split its into different teams called amusement machines where they would compete with one another internally to see who could develop better games. Alien Storm was developed by a m one. That's why the little little Easter egg here, the warehouse in the

Unknown Speaker (9:13): first place. Yeah.

Jaymo (9:15): We'll see them again when we cover Altered Beast column, the shinobi series, and we also enjoyed the work back in Jonathan's first switcheroo episode back in season one when we covered golden axe one and two. Sweet. Yeah. That game's sweet. I still gotta go back and beat golden axe for the podcast.

Jaymo (9:32): Like, I mean, Golden Axe too, I I mean. So on that same note, the arcade version of Alien Storm features a fun cameo from dwarven warrior Gilius Thunderhead. In the game overs, he ranks your performance as a part of a panel of judges. Justin Johnson, you guys never played it in the arcades. Right?

Unknown Speaker (9:46): Nope. No.

Unknown Speaker (9:48): Yeah. I never. And, Mike, you never saw it in the barcade or anything?

Jonathan (9:51): No. I've never heard of this.

Jaymo (9:53): Okay. So you're going in you're going in fresh. In addition to extra boss fights and greater graphical detail, the arcade version also features a fun opening cutscene in which our three heroes are running an alien burgers food truck. When duty calls, they close their shutters, and they flip the logo from alien burgers to alien busters.

Unknown Speaker (10:13): I don't think I'd wanna eat their burgers. That looks really terrible. Ugly. Like, why don't they buy an ugly burger?

Jaymo (10:20): The logo for their food truck is an alien looking hamburger that's pretty disgusting. But it's actually kinda fun because if you look at the menu, takoyaki is an item, and that's fried squid. So it almost implies that they really are killing these aliens and serving them to people because, like, they're

Unknown Speaker (10:35): Isn't that the octopus ball?

Unknown Speaker (10:37): Yeah. Yeah. But you can also put it on, like, a roll as, like, a sandwich.

Justin (10:40): Yummy. Yeah. Takayaki is either really good or really bad here in America.

Unknown Speaker (10:45): I just feel like Men in Black is kind of I mean, I guess Men in Black is just borrowing from the conspiracy of the Men in Black, but it's just kind of this whole, like, we're secret alien busters thing.

Unknown Speaker (10:54): I don't know.

Jaymo (10:55): It's kinda fun. Little extra storytelling. The game also has a couple of fun real world collections. In the aforementioned game over screen, the sort of advertisement in the background displays the phrase Genesis does. Do you guys remember this advertising campaign?

Justin (11:11): Yes. I remember it. Yeah. What's what's the rest of the phrase? People remember it.

Unknown Speaker (11:16): Genesis does what Nintendon't.

Unknown Speaker (11:19): Yeah. That was never a good one.

Unknown Speaker (11:21): I mean We should base a whole pun around that.

Unknown Speaker (11:24): Yeah, Mike. Maybe we could get a good idea from you didn't think I made that up, did you?

Unknown Speaker (11:28): No. I know I I know you didn't.

Jaymo (11:30): Yeah. And then, also, this a game was made into a 2024 movie starring Tom Arnold and Kevin Sorbo.

Justin (11:39): But you made the AI made this.

Jaymo (11:42): Okay. No. It has no connection to the game, but this is a real film that you can watch on Tubi. So Mike's gonna check it out for sure.

Jonathan (11:49): Do you do you have any any idea how much bad trash that is still worth it I have before I get to something like that?

Unknown Speaker (11:55): I don't know. The name connection I thought would be fun. Yeah. No. Not to be confused.

Jaymo (11:59): This is not an Alien Storm movie. So before we get into the joy pros of enjoy cons of Alien Storm, what is our history with this game, and how far did we get? So, Mike, you mentioned you didn't know much about it, but you were doing decently last on the the old Twitcheroo. How'd you do?

Jonathan (12:19): So I when going through the manual, mentioned that there's, like, eight levels to this, and I presume that's possibly accurate. And I had poked around a little bit to get an idea of how long it takes because I was gonna be on compressed time for this. And amusingly, I stumbled in onto a Reddit post of someone asking, like, how to beat this game. And someone's like, oh, yeah. It's real hard to do on one credit, unlike the really easy port they made.

Jonathan (12:47): And someone's like, well, is embarrassing. I'm asking about that one. And that person had a couple helpful tips. And so I kept that in mind. And when I played this and used the difficulty settings to my advantage, The furthest I got was the eighth mission.

Unknown Speaker (13:04): Okay. That seems pretty far.

Unknown Speaker (13:05): Yeah. The final level. Not bad. Guys, did we ever beat it without Game Genie?

Unknown Speaker (13:11): I don't think so. I don't remember. Probably not.

Unknown Speaker (13:15): Alright. Well

Unknown Speaker (13:16): We were pretty bad at games when we were kids.

Jaymo (13:18): Yeah. Well, I know we beat it with Game Genie because I distinctly remember fighting the final boss. But using rewind and save states, I intend to beat this game last

Unknown Speaker (13:27): night. Oh, that doesn't count.

Unknown Speaker (13:33): What? Rewind and save states?

Unknown Speaker (13:36): Yeah. If you're using that. That's how he does it. That's the whole thing he does is

Unknown Speaker (13:40): I thought it's

Unknown Speaker (13:40): my whole thing. Rewind. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't count as beating it.

Unknown Speaker (13:44): Well, I played the sound effect, so too bad.

Unknown Speaker (13:47): I mean, that just lets you anticipate exactly what's coming up every two seconds. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, I That's right. I don't fault you because it saves you a heck of a lot of time.

Unknown Speaker (13:56): And when you're old, you got no time, but it doesn't count.

Jaymo (14:00): I do it so I can speak to the entirety of every game. But speaking to the entirety of this game, you curmudgeon, Justin, what is cool about aliens? I asked if you wanna record this. It took no convincing.

Unknown Speaker (14:11): Oh, what what do I think is cool about alien storm?

Unknown Speaker (14:13): What do you like? I wanna go with you first.

Justin (14:15): It's freaking hilarious. It's definitely made by some folks that wanted it to be kind of scary.

Unknown Speaker (14:25): Yeah.

Justin (14:25): But then when they started making the game, they'd realized they didn't have quite the skills to make it what they wanted it to be. Okay. And so they were just like, screw it. We'll just go with what we got. Like, everything goes too fast.

Justin (14:37): The front shooting stuff is you know, it it I imagine they wanted it to be like a hunt down the alien scary jump scare stuff, and instead they just have a bunch of aliens running around. And, yeah, and it it it it definitely feels like there was a different intention to the game in the end, which is why it all comes off so funny because it's really serious images and activities combined with just absurd levels of energy. I guess so. It has

Jaymo (15:06): really funny details, like when you get swallowed by an alien, like, feet kick out for a little second. You know? And, like, there's as Jonathan said, there's a hilarious part where an alien tries to run past you clearly disguised as a little boy, but it's obviously an alien. So I I I think there's a sense of humor about it. I really love the animations in this game because it's like a beat them up, but instead of just punches and kicks, like, each hero will use a variety of weapons.

Jaymo (15:30): So it's like, you start with your thunder bazooka, which is just a really cool name, and then he, like, pops a cap with, like, his gun, holding it sideways, Mike, because it looks so cool. Like, there's some real style to this. I I think it was fun. Mike, I feel I feel like you were digging on the animations.

Jonathan (15:48): It does have a good visual look to it. There's a lot of influences. Like, it's really easy to see the thing in there or it's to see a lot of sort of eager influences in this.

Unknown Speaker (16:00): Mhmm. Feel the rope thing. He took his leg off.

Unknown Speaker (16:03): So it's for just, like you just made an a the alien from alien pink.

Unknown Speaker (16:07): Yeah. Which is awesome.

Jaymo (16:11): But John is referring to is my favorite character to play, which is Scooter slash Slammer the robot because when he's attacking, he uses, like, every part of his body. So, like, he'll shoot orders from his shoulders, and he'll just rip his leg off, use it as, a rocket launcher, and then put the leg back. And his his super attack Mike, did you ever use his super attack? Yes. Yeah.

Jaymo (16:32): It's fun. They he detonates his torso, and so Jess' head is left on the ground. And then a new body runs up, takes the head, puts it on and does the fight where it left off. I was like, that's that's fun. That feels like something you'd see in, like, a really good, like, Marvel fight scene.

Jaymo (16:46): And I also I also totally agree. I think the enemies are kind of gross and unsettling and kind of satisfying. Do you guys remember the this shot, Jonathan? Justin, what

Unknown Speaker (16:59): are you looking at? What what what do you mean? The nose that's coming off the side and the

Unknown Speaker (17:03): Yeah. Describe it for our listeners.

Unknown Speaker (17:04): Sounds like a goblin shark.

Unknown Speaker (17:06): This is the beginning of the final level.

Unknown Speaker (17:08): Is it? Oh, do you get swallowed by that thing?

Jaymo (17:11): Yeah. There's this this giant mouth that swallows you like Yoshi style, and it's got, like, a very clear giant booger in the nose.

Unknown Speaker (17:18): Right. Yeah. You end up fighting inside it, don't you?

Jaymo (17:21): Yeah. And you have to make your way through its innards. It's, like, the only level that's, like, a maze. And Oh, yeah. At this point in the game, you're running out of resources, so it's kinda stressful.

Jaymo (17:32): And if you do take a wrong turn, it'll display a map of the alien's internal, like, architecture. It's just like, okay. This game is keeping it fresh.

Jonathan (17:41): I was prepared for this, and I never reached it because I think the advice I had was that you always take the right one.

Unknown Speaker (17:47): Yeah. If you stay right the whole time. You know? Because that that get well, because, I mean, if you look at the map of the alien, your goal is to get from its mouth to its brain in the back of its body. And so if you just Right.

Jaymo (17:59): That's the gonna be the shortest number of trips and the easiest monsters to fight on the way. But, Mike, on the on the Twitch stream, you said that the game had, like, a good variety to it. Could you mind speaking to that? Because I think that's something that made it more fresh for you.

Jonathan (18:13): Yeah. So I I went into this expecting basically Golden Axe, but sci fi. And that's mostly because I believe you explained to me that this game is basically Golden Axe, but sci fi. Yeah. And time wise, much of it is, but it throws in two other kinds of levels in there.

Jonathan (18:32): So a lot of this is side scrolling, mash your attack button in front of an enemy, move to the next enemy, repeat. Golden Axe. Yeah. But the other two parts of this oh, and I'll say and also, I think starts the levels with the same screams as Golden Axe.

Unknown Speaker (18:49): Yeah. The civilians. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan (18:52): I haven't gone back to check. I'm like, like, it's it that I'm like, this sounds like it might actually be the exact same screens, not just similar screens. I guess it'd be weird if you had a whole library of screens ready to go.

Unknown Speaker (19:04): Yeah. You gotta make a phone call at that point.

Jonathan (19:06): But yeah. So the the other two things that it does, one are running levels where you're constantly running, and you can move a little bit on where you are on the screen, but your character is always running to the right. And so you're having to do a little bit of jumping over hazards and avoiding hazards and shooting things. And then there's also these scenes in rooms where you're basically panning left and right, and it's a first person angle. And it reminds you a lot a lot of like a rail shooter or something that has those levels where you're just panning to one side and things are running out from areas.

Jonathan (19:41): And as you shoot and destroy everything, you'll find items.

Jaymo (19:45): Yeah. It's like destructible environment. So, like, when you're when you're at a grocery store, you can shoot the sodas, and the all the cans will burst. And sometimes there'll be energy, and sometimes there'll be, like, med kits. Mike, you and I played last night.

Unknown Speaker (19:57): Did you catch how I was trolling you in these levels?

Unknown Speaker (20:01): No. Jonathan, know I'm talking about? You were

Unknown Speaker (20:03): doing it directs, weren't you?

Unknown Speaker (20:04): No. You were doing a little strolling on your friend Mike, like stealing his battery.

Unknown Speaker (20:09): Jonathan, how do you steal the batteries, though?

Unknown Speaker (20:11): You gotta shoot it.

Unknown Speaker (20:13): Yeah. Oh, I was intentionally not grabbing those because you were complaining that I was wasting my energy, and so I figured you had a better use for them.

Unknown Speaker (20:21): Jeez, man. Glory. Yeah. Little passive aggressive

Unknown Speaker (20:24): Jeremy like that.

Jonathan (20:25): No. Because I I was never out of energy. So I'm like, okay. Maybe if this stays up, that'll do something. I'll let him deal with that.

Unknown Speaker (20:32): Sounds like you're being micromanaged. But

Jaymo (20:38): it is a fun mechanic, though, because it's like, you don't really interact with each other much in this when you're playing two player mode. It's not like the Simpsons arcade game where if you walk up to each other, you can do a special attack or you can throw each other. In the first person shooter segments, when you get a power up, it starts to slide down the screen towards that player's health bar. But if the other player shoots it, you can take you can take it. You can steal it, and you can shoot it back, and you can fight over a power up.

Jaymo (21:04): It's kind of a fun little like, they didn't need to be there, but it definitely made things more fun. What do you guys think about the run and gun, though? Mike mentioned it kinda mixes it up. I think they're pretty silly.

Unknown Speaker (21:14): Yeah. It doesn't really add too much because you're already going left and right anyway. It's just Yeah. Faster. Like, it's not nearly as cool as the FPS as wonky as it is.

Unknown Speaker (21:23): Although Justin did Justin and I did enjoy the giant leap over the canyon.

Justin (21:26): Like, you really become, like, superheroes. They're not they're not that long, so it's not that big of a deal. Yeah.

Jaymo (21:32): It's it's kinda this game's equivalent of, like, the turtle hoverboard mission.

Justin (21:36): Yeah. If it was any longer, it would have been a problem for sure. But Yeah. Yeah. When they just take up, like, a minute or two here and there, I feel like it's fine.

Jaymo (21:45): I did like that that one of the boss fights was in that mode. Like, you have the the UFO ship, and you have to, like, make it crash. Yeah. And that's kind of what I like most about this game is that it just mixes things up in a way that like, I didn't mean to play with Mike last night, but I was watching him on Twitch, and I was like, I wanna play. Like, there's there's there's something about this game that makes me just wanna grab the controller.

Justin (22:07): They did the smart thing of all the sections are are none of them are very long, the main portions or the two side bits. So you're not feeling like you're stuck in one one mode for too long.

Unknown Speaker (22:18): Yeah. I think with the lack of enemy variety because a lot of the game, you're just fighting color variants of the first two enemies you see.

Unknown Speaker (22:24): That's a kind of enemy variety.

Jaymo (22:26): Yeah. I know. But it's just like, I do agree with Justin, though, that if this game had updated Falcom, that would have gotten it would kinda suck the wind out of the game a little bit, especially also, like, how you reuse the first boss fight. But it's like, it only reuses it, like, once. So you know?

Unknown Speaker (22:40): I mean, that's a staple of games in that period for, like, every single one of them. Like, you're guaranteed to fight every boss at least twice. Not true. Sonic.

Unknown Speaker (22:50): No. I'm Sonic. Sonic different every time. So did anyone check out the dual mode, Mike? I know you played this one.

Jaymo (22:58): I thought it was kind of interesting, but I I I feel like there were some potential here that was sort of missed. Did you like dual mode where it's like a horde mode and you have to get through waves of tougher and tougher enemies?

Unknown Speaker (23:08): Not really because they're all obnoxious.

Jaymo (23:12): Okay. You don't like fighting these enemies, so you're gonna save that for

Jonathan (23:17): the Joy Cons. I think it's more it's just having just that has, like, nothing going for it because it's it's removed the more interesting parts.

Jaymo (23:28): The the intermissions. Yeah. I guess so.

Unknown Speaker (23:31): You think that wasn't an enemy test mode that they just decided to make a game mode?

Unknown Speaker (23:35): It's actually a pretty good theory.

Unknown Speaker (23:38): Yeah. Probably.

Jaymo (23:39): Never really thought about that, but someone's like, hey. We could just turn this into a mode. Yeah. And then also, you know, in this one, you can't use your super attacks, so there's even less variety than the regular game. So I agree with that.

Jaymo (23:51): I thought and maybe this is because they kicked us. Sorry. Sorry. I swore, Mike. I I creamed Mike in versus mode.

Jaymo (24:00): Did you Javan, don't look at that face. Did you guys try two player versus?

Unknown Speaker (24:06): Yeah. I didn't get a single hit on this guy. I'm never playing that again. You owe me money. The the the fact that you got it lined up so perfectly makes it pretty poor.

Unknown Speaker (24:15): I couldn't hit you. Yeah. Because I lined up perfectly every time, right, when you weren't shooting.

Unknown Speaker (24:20): This makes me wanna fight Rex in two player versus because, like, I also you know, let me I mean, I know I'm talking trash right now, but, like, Mike barely touched me. So I wonder if Rex and I went.

Unknown Speaker (24:28): Oh, no. I was defeated in this game, but you never played till yesterday, and you played since childhood.

Jaymo (24:33): I never miss a chance to talk shit. Like, you know that. But, yeah, but I found it surprisingly fun. I think because this game, the movement is so fast compared to Golden Axe and, like, Streets of Rage. Having a roll instead of a jump, I like a lot.

Jaymo (24:48): Because, like, you can roll if two enemies start to flank you, you can roll out of the way. You can roll behind a big slow moving enemy. I I mean, I know Justin said, like, they were kinda going for something spooky, and they sort of couldn't achieve that, so they went for this instead. But I really like this game's speed. I feel like it's hard to go back to Streets of Rage after Alien Storm.

Unknown Speaker (25:08): No? Okay. Just me? Could be just me. I think the combat in Streets of Rage is, like, way better.

Unknown Speaker (25:16): It feels like you actually are doing what you want to do. Okay. Like, forget the speed. I just wanna know that I can hit the enemy I'm intending to.

Unknown Speaker (25:24): Yeah. I

Justin (25:24): think the the speed makes up slightly for the complete lack of aim and the fact that you have such narrow lanes to hit things. Like, if it was slow and really bad to aim, then, yeah, that I would probably never played this game more than five minutes.

Unknown Speaker (25:40): But That's true.

Unknown Speaker (25:41): And I wonder I do I wonder if maybe they sped it up a bit knowing that because they were like, oh,

Unknown Speaker (25:46): this is going too long. Interesting.

Justin (25:49): Everything feels like the they just put the the internal game clock a little bit faster than it should have

Unknown Speaker (25:55): been. Okay.

Justin (25:57): Because all the all the animations feel like they're just, like, double speed.

Unknown Speaker (26:02): It's it's frenetic. Yeah.

Justin (26:04): Yeah. And it doesn't feel like that was necessarily intentional.

Jaymo (26:08): Interesting. Yeah. Because it does feel hard to control at times. Well, we're we're dangerously approaching Joy Con territory. So do we have anything else we wanna praise about the game before we start to complain?

Jonathan (26:19): I appreciate that you cannot shoot civilians. Well, you can in

Jaymo (26:23): the in the first person shooter mode. You can shoot them and lose life. Okay.

Unknown Speaker (26:26): Well, I failed to do that.

Unknown Speaker (26:28): So He's a good boy. Might as great trigger discipline. That's funny

Unknown Speaker (26:33): though you say that because I was actually thinking that that would have really added tension and been a cool little gameplay moment is if there were parts where, like, you could accidentally shoot civilians and you had to stop and, like, aim well, I guess Justin said the aim is maybe not good enough to support this idea.

Jonathan (26:46): That's exactly why where it was, like, it was finicky enough that, like, if I had to avoid that when I already felt like I didn't have good control, it would have been really frustrating.

Jaymo (26:55): I do think, though, that some of the animations of the civilians that kinda add some fun drama to it, like you see civilians get swallowed or Riri pointed out the absurdity of one alien just chewing on the corner of a house just endlessly.

Unknown Speaker (27:08): There's there's

Jaymo (27:09): a part in level two where you walk up on a mother and child, and they're both like, ah, ah. These aliens are just slashing at them, but you can just stand there for, like, ten minutes and just watch them meet or, like so, yeah, kind of unintentional humor. Well, before we get into the Joy Cons, I wanna do a quick mini game minute we're gonna call AI for detail. What?

Unknown Speaker (27:32): One of the one of

Jaymo (27:33): the more fun aspects of Alien Storm is the way your enemies will enter the screen disguised as either civilians or pieces of the environment or trash cans. Sometimes the purpose

Unknown Speaker (27:44): is trash to can.

Unknown Speaker (27:46): Like, what was that a reference to?

Unknown Speaker (27:49): Captain e o.

Jaymo (27:50): Wow. Oh, okay. Yeah. I remember that now. So sometimes they're perfectly disguised, and other times it's hilariously obvious.

Unknown Speaker (27:58): So I don't know if there's a problematic thing, but I used AI for this segment. In the spirit of the body snatchers, I'm gonna present you guys with two images. Little fascism bot. We can cut we can cut this segment. I don't know.

Jaymo (28:11): But the idea is I'm gonna show you an actual image and an AI image. Can you guys tell which one was genuine and which one was created using AI? And this is like an alien, you know, facsimile.

Unknown Speaker (28:25): That didn't do an alien storm. What are you talking about?

Unknown Speaker (28:27): Well because the aliens disguise themselves. And, you know, sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's not.

Unknown Speaker (28:32): The bottom one is AI. Yeah. Look at them.

Jaymo (28:35): I'm showing them two pictures of Pedro Pascal from The Last of Us. One is AI generated and one is an actual set photo.

Jonathan (28:42): You realize we're gonna have to flag the video if we do if we do this. Right? I didn't realize that.

Unknown Speaker (28:48): Yes. So you gotta flag it as AI generated content included.

Unknown Speaker (28:52): Yes. Alright. Well, we're gonna play my game, Mike. We don't have

Unknown Speaker (28:56): to put it in. And

Unknown Speaker (28:58): I have a game for you. It just skips the nice thing.

Unknown Speaker (29:01): He can cut out me mentioning

Unknown Speaker (29:03): called alien storm. Let's go play it on the Switch.

Jaymo (29:06): Well, you know what? Most AI video is getting a lot of clicks. Okay? I'm getting a lot of crap here right now. Justin thinks the bottom one is AI, but, Justin, for the listeners, maybe.

Jaymo (29:16): What makes you say that?

Justin (29:17): There's way too much detail. Like, AI goes way hard on the tiny details.

Unknown Speaker (29:23): Okay. Jonathan, you agree?

Unknown Speaker (29:24): Yeah. He's got and he's got that fake old smile. It's the same thing that you same problem you have with all the modern CGI stuff. It's like real life actually isn't that detailed. Okay.

Unknown Speaker (29:37): Yeah. It's like I'm seeing

Unknown Speaker (29:38): it a thousand k or whatever. I I yeah. I don't like I don't actually see every single pore on your face when I look at you. I think this

Jaymo (29:45): is an interesting experiment, Mike. Do you

Jonathan (29:47): agree that that's the AI one? I'm not sure. I would suspect that be slightly more suspecting of the top one because I think it would need more prompt to have the bottom.

Jaymo (29:59): Ah, like the blank background's making you suspicious.

Unknown Speaker (30:02): At least somewhat. But

Jaymo (30:04): Alright. Well, that point goes to Rex and Stub. The bottom one is in fact the AI. Okay. So now we got Norman Reedus in Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker (30:13): Okay. So we start with

Unknown Speaker (30:14): I can barely even see this.

Jaymo (30:15): We start with an actor in a game movie. Now this is an actor in a game, and then we'll end with just a game in a game. So Norman Reedus in Death Stranding. Simone, do you think is AI?

Unknown Speaker (30:26): What? What are you talking about? The second one is even from the game.

Unknown Speaker (30:31): One of these is a screenshot of the game, and the other one is AI trying to make it look like a game.

Unknown Speaker (30:36): Yeah. It's the top one for sure.

Unknown Speaker (30:38): Is AI generated?

Unknown Speaker (30:40): Yeah. I just played this game. It's not that good, by the way, and it does not look that good. It looks like the bottom one.

Unknown Speaker (30:46): Alright. Jonathan says the top one is the alien faker. Justin, agree?

Unknown Speaker (30:49): No. It's gotta be the bottom one. Why is his head so giant? Because he's a freaking little Does he really have a giant

Unknown Speaker (30:55): head like that? Not that giant.

Unknown Speaker (30:58): Look at his head. His head is just as giant in

Unknown Speaker (31:00): the top. Also, what's why

Unknown Speaker (31:01): is the baby dancing in there? Do do you know how weird who what's the name of the guy who makes these games? Kojima or something like that?

Unknown Speaker (31:06): Yeah. Kojima.

Unknown Speaker (31:07): The theme is just strange because it's Kojima. This is very normal. Did the baby do that in the game? I never played it. The baby does all sorts of stuff.

Unknown Speaker (31:15): The baby can give you likes. They can push the media likes. Yeah.

Jaymo (31:20): That's what's holding us back, Mike, the likes. The the baby likes. Okay, Mike. So they're split. Which one are you siding with, Jonathan or Justin?

Jaymo (31:26): Do you think the top one or the bottom one?

Jonathan (31:27): On a certain level, this is here are two computer generated images. Correct. Yeah. Which one was computer generated by a computer generating it?

Unknown Speaker (31:38): Yes. Twice twice removed from humanity. Because I

Jonathan (31:42): don't really know the game. I get it. But I think there's a point to be made that I I think I would go the bottom is the real is the real fake whatever.

Unknown Speaker (31:56): The one from the game.

Jonathan (31:57): The one from the game because I would think the AI would be bad at would over detail a com a computer game's background.

Jaymo (32:09): Okay. Okay. Well, Mike is right. The top one is AI generated. Justin is wrong.

Unknown Speaker (32:14): That is just a screenshot from the game. Alright. So last

Unknown Speaker (32:17): I never played this game.

Jaymo (32:20): I understand. I understand. This is an experiment to see how attuned we are to detecting computer generated things. They're both computer generated.

Unknown Speaker (32:30): It's difficult to

Unknown Speaker (32:30): detect. Understand that. But, yeah,

Justin (32:32): I mean, it doesn't really completely count since, yeah, they're both computer generated.

Jaymo (32:37): It's a thought experiment. Get on my level. One more.

Unknown Speaker (32:39): I feel bad for the team now.

Unknown Speaker (32:42): Which one is a screenshot? Jonathan's looking at a screenshot of Super Mario Sunshine. Jonathan, which one is AI?

Unknown Speaker (32:49): What's even coming out of the top of his head on the top one? There's, like, a bunch of stuff that doesn't make sense in that.

Unknown Speaker (32:54): So you're saying the top one there?

Unknown Speaker (32:55): Sunshine makes sense? What's even happening behind him? There's, like it has to be the top one. That makes no sense.

Unknown Speaker (33:00): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (33:01): Just There's words behind him aren't even words. I don't think that's even, like, any sort of kanji. Sure. I'll go with the top one. It has to be the top one.

Unknown Speaker (33:09): Look at it. Why are there two toads just observing him in the distance in the bottom one, though? Where's his does he have another arm, or is the sun blinding so blinding that we can't see his The sun is so blinding is because he's picking up that thing. It's definitely the top one. Look at this.

Unknown Speaker (33:24): How ridiculous is this? Yeah. I mean, it's probably the top one. But The shadows aren't even all correct on the top one. The shadows are coming from two different angles on the top one.

Unknown Speaker (33:33): Okay.

Unknown Speaker (33:33): And see you see the palm tree behind him is is shadowed, like, the wrong way. Oh, yeah. It is. Or there could be another palm tree off to the side. No.

Unknown Speaker (33:42): What? That's not how light works.

Jonathan (33:44): There's no such thing as a second palm tree.

Jaymo (33:47): Alright. So, Justin, you are I but are you agreeing the top one is AI?

Unknown Speaker (33:52): Yes. Like, does Mario even have five fingers? Does he? I don't know. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (33:58): He does, does he? Because he's supposed to be a human.

Unknown Speaker (34:00): I think I would also go the top one.

Unknown Speaker (34:03): Alright. Well, you're alright. So pull this club. Answer.

Unknown Speaker (34:06): Was ridiculous.

Unknown Speaker (34:08): Making this game, I ran out of image generation credits. I was

Unknown Speaker (34:10): like, well,

Unknown Speaker (34:11): I guess I'm going with that one

Unknown Speaker (34:12): because it's the last one I can do.

Jaymo (34:14): Alright. Well, Jonathan is officially the best at detecting the imposters. He has won AI for detail. And, know, Mike, we could always just not show the video. Like, we could just talk about it.

Unknown Speaker (34:26): I'm sorry about that. But you might have to flag it just talking about it. You think so? I don't see why. Flag it just talking about it.

Jonathan (34:32): No. The the the flag is especially the if you are showing images of real people that are not real images.

Justin (34:41): You chose. What if you AI altered Jamo's voice for that segment? What if Removed.

Unknown Speaker (34:48): I said real people.

Unknown Speaker (34:49): Woah. Jesus Christ. I don't think I deserve that. Okay. Well, Mike, since you've clearly got some alien tentacle up your butt right now, why don't you tell us what you don't think about alien storm?

Justin (35:00): Wait. Wait. But first, J Mo, that picture of that naked dancing person behind you is very mesmerizing.

Unknown Speaker (35:05): It's a painting. That's a Monet.

Unknown Speaker (35:07): Is it? Well,

Unknown Speaker (35:09): whatever it is.

Unknown Speaker (35:09): A painting is a kind of picture.

Jaymo (35:11): Well, she's not dancing either.

Justin (35:13): She's Monet might have had artificial intelligence. We don't know.

Jaymo (35:17): It's true. It's true. Maybe this is all simulation. Ons are, did you guys hear that, like, if simulations are possible, chances are we are in it? Yeah.

Jaymo (35:25): But did

Unknown Speaker (35:25): you also hear that as a nonsense? Like, the entire theory is, like There's also, like, a different possibility. Thing happened, then it did. It's like, well Yeah. Do you have to say?

Unknown Speaker (35:33): Anything? There's an equal possibility that I am God, and I'm just dreaming all of this. Like, okay. It it means

Unknown Speaker (35:40): That that makes him pubis then.

Jonathan (35:44): I remember one of the one of those times, like, you wake up and you realize that you've just dreamt a day because you realize, wait. No. I did none of that happened. That whole thing was what I just dreamed a boring day of nothing of note.

Unknown Speaker (35:57): Oh my god. Have you I'm

Unknown Speaker (35:58): very sorry, Mike. Have you have you guys have you guys

Unknown Speaker (36:01): seen friendship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd?

Unknown Speaker (36:04): No. No.

Unknown Speaker (36:05): Oh, you guys have to see it. It is hilarious, but anyone who's watched that movie knows how great the subway scene is. I won't say

Unknown Speaker (36:11): anywhere We're, like, nine degrees away from Alien Storm right now. What's going on?

Jaymo (36:16): So get so get us back on topic then. Okay, Jonathan? What do you not like about Alien Storm?

Unknown Speaker (36:21): The combat, not very good. What?

Unknown Speaker (36:24): Yes. It is.

Unknown Speaker (36:25): So good. Not good. You have to it's a regular line for the pixel. Fax. Fax.

Unknown Speaker (36:30): Fax. Fax. Right.

Unknown Speaker (36:31): So it's sloppy. It's just too sloppy.

Unknown Speaker (36:33): Very sloppy. Yeah. That was like just now playing it, was like, oh, this is worse. I remember it. Like Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (36:39): I mean, that's I would not play that game on my own time. Is that a port problem, or is that the original game problem? It was probably original game problem. It's probably original game.

Jaymo (36:47): I don't think it was ever that purse of a game, and it's probably exacerbated by playing online together. When Mike and I played last night, I, like, ruined his Twitch stream because we got down to, like, two frames per second

Unknown Speaker (37:00): of lag. It was

Unknown Speaker (37:02): wild. But okay. So I don't know anything about electronics. Okay? So before people start dumping on me, I'm admitting I don't know if this is stupid or not to ask.

Jaymo (37:10): But I was using the wrong power cable for my Switch two. I couldn't find it, so I just used, like, whatever one for the Chromebook or whatever. Is there any chance that that would affect how well it's performing online if it's hosting the game? No?

Unknown Speaker (37:22): No. That affects the charge.

Jaymo (37:24): But doesn't it right. Because I could just play it in my hands. Okay.

Justin (37:28): I mean, I think their USB cables have the chip that makes it recognize when it's not the proper one or something like that.

Unknown Speaker (37:34): So, Mike, why was it so much bet it's just because Jackie wasn't watching the pit in the next room? Like, why was it so much better today?

Unknown Speaker (37:41): That was probably it. You gotta talk to your Internet service provider too. Could've been throttling you. Yeah. They were probably throttling you because you were using a streaming service.

Unknown Speaker (37:49): Oh, I get that guy. Dude, you're watching this out.

Jonathan (37:52): Fully sure. I think it's probably also something that my suspicion here is that in setting this up for online because we've talked about this before where that this is being basically run on the switch that's hosting.

Unknown Speaker (38:07): Right.

Jonathan (38:08): And I think what it may be doing is that it is sending pretty close to full video to the second player.

Unknown Speaker (38:17): Probably. That make sense.

Jonathan (38:19): And the contrast to that is what a modern game would do is it sends enough information that the additional players can basically run things locally.

Unknown Speaker (38:32): Right.

Jonathan (38:32): And so you only have, you know, you only have to provide the information of this character has moved, and that's a lot less information than what's the entire screen look like. And I kind of wonder to what extent that's been optimized. Okay. And if it hasn't yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan (38:48): If it's if it's not at all or not much, then we get what happened there. And then it's just it also goes into I have said this before, and it has always been a Mike's just blaming things for not being good, which I feel is not the case because I own up to being not good a lot, which is that on some of these two player things, when I am playing where someone else is hosting it and I'm like, this is going worse for me than it did when I played single player because it feels like there's a little bit of delay. Yeah. I finally have video evidence that it does that.

Unknown Speaker (39:24): Okay.

Jonathan (39:24): And I think that's just because I think it's sending full video and that is actually a lot of data, especially if it's not being compressed well. And so I just think it's not optimized for that. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (39:36): Yeah. That wasn't surprising in the slightest. It's sending all the control inputs to your Switch, running it on the emulators if it's one system, and then, yeah, just porting the image back. That makes a lot of sense.

Jonathan (39:46): Yeah. That's from the development side, that's easy. That's relatively easy. Yeah. To actually have something where things are being run-in both places is a lot.

Jonathan (39:58): Like that's a lot of work that you would have to do for every game. So I'm not surprised that it's not been done.

Jaymo (40:03): But I do think that they deserve some credit because, like, Riri didn't even know that, like, you could play any of these classic games with a friend via online connection. And, like, in the terms of retro gaming space, we've been talking about this a lot because of my appearance on Super Wall Jump. But, like, what differentiates this from emulation is that, like, if we want to play aliens, we would have had to wait till Justin visits from Colorado. You know what I mean? Like, that's a really cool thing that we can just have this nostalgia hit.

Jaymo (40:32): And, yeah, it's not the best, but it's a lot better than nothing. And there's no way they would have, like, customized the online connection for all these games. I think they did something really cool. But if you expect to be, like, high quality, you're gonna get a bad impression of it.

Jonathan (40:47): Yeah. Basically, to do that in a way that was actually designed for online play at that level, you are remaking a game.

Unknown Speaker (40:56): Yeah. Exactly. Because you have

Jonathan (40:57): to go into the code, whereas what they're doing now is ultimately still a surface level thing. If you're changing where the inputs come from and where the outputs go, but you're not you're not changing the codes. So, like, I understand it, but it does mean that that shows up, and it makes me wonder how it decides how to how to sort of constrain the output. And, like, we we've we've seen this with other games with the Switch that just don't handle online play well. What the heck's the the mod the the the one that parodies, like, every action movie that I'm blanking on the name of, the the the modern game.

Jonathan (41:34): Broforce? There we go. Yeah. Remember that we hit weird issues playing that online where, like, one person would be out of sync with everybody else. Yeah.

Jonathan (41:44): And that's the exact sort of situation that you're avoiding is, in that case, it's working the way it's supposed to in that everyone's doing their control inputs, and it kind of goes out to everybody. And everything's supposed to stay in place, but as soon as something gets out of sync, you end up with you know, someone is stuck somewhere else or can't see something that everyone else can see. Yeah. And you get those kinds of problems because all of that's happening within the game.

Unknown Speaker (42:09): So getting back to Alien Storm as a game, because, like, if you had a cartridge of this, those would all be a moot point. Justin, I don't like the energy system. Do you the fact that you need to get the batteries?

Unknown Speaker (42:20): Mhmm. I mean, it's the same as every game at the time.

Unknown Speaker (42:25): It just didn't really add anything to me. It would just add to this, like, extra annoyance. I mean, I guess there's, like, the idea of, like, oh, you can't just swing like crazy. You have to pick your moment to not waste the energy.

Unknown Speaker (42:34): Potions of golden axe. Yeah. It's just the potions again.

Jaymo (42:38): But it's like when you run out of energy in this game, you are so hamstrung because you have this melee attack that has zero range and bears any damage. Or if you're in first person shooter mode, your rate of fire drops so low that you can't even defend yourself.

Justin (42:51): It's also hampered by the absolute lack of accuracy in the side scroller.

Jaymo (42:57): 100%. Yeah. But, like, I wish that, like, it would have been interesting if there was a way to purposely do the when I'm trying to conserve energy. You know? Because if that's an option, let me use that on, like, smaller enemies that I know aren't a threat and then use my weapon on the bigger ones.

Jaymo (43:11): I feel like that would have been little split second decision making. It would have gone a long way. I don't know how you do that. I guess maybe you'd press both buttons at the same time to melee. I don't know.

Jaymo (43:20): Mike, I feel like so you played this with a six button controller, and I kinda feel like you had a harder time. Do you think it was more difficult because the old Sega controllers are not as form fitting as the newer controllers?

Jonathan (43:31): I'm not sure I follow the premise of why would have had a harder time with the controller. The only part of it that I had an issue with, and I think this wouldn't be controller specific, I I did not I think the d pad was overly sensitive.

Unknown Speaker (43:45): Yeah. That's what I heard you say.

Jonathan (43:47): And that made aiming on the first per person stuff really frustrating Yeah. Especially for the the smaller, more annoying enemies.

Unknown Speaker (43:55): Yeah. The d the d pad not gonna be as good as a joystick for the first person shooter segments.

Jonathan (44:00): But yeah. So there's a sensitivity thing, but, like like, I otherwise, that controller works fine. I don't see the modern controller as better. Okay.

Unknown Speaker (44:08): Yeah. I don't know. It's just something when I try to go back to old Genesis and it's, the three buttons in a row, I'm like, I can't reach.

Jonathan (44:15): There was one problem with that controller, and that's one of the extra buttons that they put is on the top. Then I would accidentally hit that because that's where my hand is already. Oh. And so it would hit the button when I'm trying to I hit a different button that's basically effectively the part of, you know, closing down to hit one button. The other part of my hand hits that button a few times.

Jonathan (44:37): That was annoying.

Jaymo (44:39): Yeah. I I saw you opening up the home menu accidentally, and, and I picked alien soldier accidentally, like, three times when Mike was streaming. I kept up the wrong game. It's because it's it's all just word pasta. Does anyone else have anything to complain about alien storm?

Jaymo (44:56): Because Rex said it's Rex says not that scary. Jonathan says it's sloppy. Mike says he wants better online connectivity. More continues.

Unknown Speaker (45:04): More continues? Is there any way to increase it?

Jonathan (45:07): No. And and it's a thing where since it's only three continues and first of all, it's frustrating for anything that's like, oh, we have an arcade mode. And it's like, no arcade was like, no. You can't give any more money.

Unknown Speaker (45:18): Yeah. They want your money.

Jonathan (45:20): Yeah. It's like part of the benefit of things that are pitching themselves as that usually are like, I can keep continuing, and I'm I'm good with that. But, also, when you then do two player, I feel like it should be more continues than it would have been.

Unknown Speaker (45:35): Right. Other person should run their own set of continues.

Jaymo (45:38): Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. I wonder why we died so quickly because I was also continues. That's really funny.

Jaymo (45:46): You know the one game that actually got it perfect? Do you guys remember Target Terror on the Wii? Target Terror. It was like a really cringey, like, lethal enforcer style shooter with, like, interns filmed. We played this a lot back at Bro Town.

Jaymo (46:01): But this is

Unknown Speaker (46:01): remember it. This game?

Unknown Speaker (46:03): Was this the one I killed myself with?

Unknown Speaker (46:05): Yeah. You put the light gun up against your chin and fired and, like, went limp. Jeez.

Unknown Speaker (46:10): The part Wait.

Unknown Speaker (46:10): This is on my second series.

Jonathan (46:12): That was great was because that was after after it had ended was I didn't know it would play the audio of the shot.

Jaymo (46:18): Wait. So this is gonna be great for the podcast, but I'm gonna I'm gonna pantomime one of the death of the characters. So, Mike, I need you to pretend

Unknown Speaker (46:25): to shoot me. Okay? Bang.

Unknown Speaker (46:28): Bang. Do remember? You have to say we didn't see any of that because you have to say something or else it just stays on Mike when he says it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (46:38): And he gets laid down on the floor.

Jaymo (46:40): Yeah. Like, he he gets and then he gently lowers himself into his death pose. But that's not as good

Unknown Speaker (46:47): as arcade or something?

Jaymo (46:48): It was in the arcade. It was one of those raw thrill games. But, anyway, my point though is that this was an arcade game, but every time you went through and got a game over, you got three more continues for your next run. And I love that because I hate when a game is arcade style and you get infinite continues because then you go blow through it in one sitting, and then you're like, well, I paid, like, a lot of money for this, and I've seen everything it has to offer. This is kind of a bummer.

Jaymo (47:13): So like that system, and I would rather Alien Storm have not enough continues than too many.

Jonathan (47:19): I would like infinite continues. And if you don't wanna use infinite continues, don't.

Unknown Speaker (47:24): Yep. I gotcha. You got me? It's an access

Jaymo (47:26): it's an accessibility thing. Always favor inside of accessibility. I like that. Alright, guys. Well, I think that brings us to the moment of truth with the Joy Pros, the Joy Cons, and every bit in between.

Jaymo (47:37): Now it's time to declare today's game as a Nintendo or a Nintendo don't. Jonathan, can we start with you?

Unknown Speaker (47:44): I'm gonna do a rare Nintendon't. What? If you've played it before, you can revisit it. But, like, just now playing it with Rex for a little bit, I was like, this game sucks. I wouldn't play this if it wasn't for this

Unknown Speaker (47:54): podcast. No.

Unknown Speaker (47:55): It was just, like, sloppy and kinda dumb. Like

Unknown Speaker (47:59): That's me. That's me in a game.

Unknown Speaker (48:01): Like, it's special because I played it before, but it didn't feel special at all coming to it again. Like, I couldn't even tell you, like, what music was playing in the background of the level or something like that. There's you can just forget it. Like Oh. Other things that play that are better.

Unknown Speaker (48:15): I was like, ugh.

Unknown Speaker (48:16): Oh gosh. Okay, Mike. Let's let's throw it to you next. Oh, actually, let's do Justin next.

Justin (48:21): Okay. I'll say, ugh, Nintendo, but just as a try it out briefly. Like, you're not gonna play this more than five minutes. It's kinda it's kinda fun to see that jump. You'll get to it in your first playthrough, and then you you you're okay.

Justin (48:37): You can stop.

Unknown Speaker (48:38): I played it for three hours preparing for this pug shot.

Justin (48:41): You loved it. Yeah. Wow. I don't know how long I'd last having to line up every shot as badly as you do, which I do wonder if that's just a a what you may call it, a port issue.

Jaymo (48:54): Alright. So, Mike, I think you're high on this one. Where are you landing?

Jonathan (48:59): Well, I think as kind of was covered, you know, this is just Golden Axe with a couple extra things. Golden Axe, I enjoyed, and this criticism has been made that this is, as a port, overly easy compared to whatever the arcade game was. You can set the difficulty to easy. You can set the energy to easy, which I don't understand as a setting, but it says easy, so I'll use it.

Unknown Speaker (49:21): But what do you mean? It just gives you your attacks take up less energy.

Unknown Speaker (49:24): Okay. I didn't know. It just says easy, and I'm like, whatever. Whatever that's doing. I don't know if that gives me more energy.

Jonathan (49:31): I don't know if that makes less go away. I don't care. Okay. And so sort of setting all those things and then just going into a game that I'd never played before and just had, like, a couple tips from one guy on Reddit who had some advice.

Unknown Speaker (49:45): And hopefully watching this episode. Like, we should get the one

Jonathan (49:50): I got to, like, the sixth mission the first time through. Yeah. And I'm not sure there's a part of me that is heavily driven to go back in part because there's, like, say, one boss shows up at least twice that is just obnoxious. Like, the boss battles were frustratingly unsatisfying because you have a melee attack, and they are large, and you don't want to be near them. So there's definitely an element to to that that hampers me wanting to play a lot more of it, but I had fun for the part that I did, and I'm totally content being like, well, I entered the last level, and that's it.

Jonathan (50:27): But it's definitely from all that, it's it's an intend do for me, slightly above gold Golden Axe.

Jaymo (50:33): Okay. That's funny. I wonder if you also ranked it the same as I did. I am so sad that Jonathan is so low on this game. Justin is, like, a reluctant Nintendo because I adore this game.

Jaymo (50:44): I've weird goes a long way with me. I will always forgive sloppiness as long as creativity is the end result. I think tonally, this game is super fun. It's fast. I feel like it's really satisfying to blow up the aliens and watch them catch on fire, and you're using all these super powerful weapons.

Jaymo (51:03): And it's one button for all the different weapons, so it's very turn your brain off kind of fun. And I'm big on that. But then also, I think there is a certain depth to it. I think that, like, distancing yourself from the enemy to trigger certain attacks, I thought the versus mode felt really satisfying and fun. I still wanna play Justin afterwards if he has time because I'm curious how we go toe to toe.

Jaymo (51:26): But this this is, lord, help me. I think this is a super Nintendo for me. So good. I I love alien storm. I love, love, love it.

Jaymo (51:37): So let's segue into our and standings where Mike and I take our rankings and mathematically combine them to find the space in between. Mike, where did you rank this?

Jonathan (51:48): I put it thirty second, right between Kirby's Adventure and Golden Axe.

Jaymo (51:51): Better than Golden Axe, but not as good as Kirby's Adventure. Okay. Jonathan's making a face like he doesn't agree.

Unknown Speaker (51:58): It's not

Unknown Speaker (51:59): a Golden Axe.

Unknown Speaker (52:00): Who's got Golden in the name? I

Unknown Speaker (52:02): also put it right above Golden Axe, Mike.

Unknown Speaker (52:05): What? Okay. There's something wrong with both of you. That's for sure. You need to switch that to a Nintendo, Jay Strauss.

Unknown Speaker (52:11): I

Unknown Speaker (52:12): think a big part of

Jonathan (52:13): it the the other gameplay modes kinda kept things a bit more fun, whereas Golden Axe hits a part where I'm kind of like, I get it. Yeah. I'm never gonna get to see an axe. I'm just gonna keep, like, hitting people.

Jaymo (52:25): Yeah. There's a repetitive repetitiveness that sets in with Golden Axe that this game never really suffers from. And then mine was right below Mario, which also a really sloppy, wacky game that I like a lot. So I think that's pretty appropriate. So that means that for our official and standings, the ranking of Alien Storm is, if I can spell alien properly, 23 out of out of over a 100 games actually, let's just give you the exact number.

Jaymo (52:56): Out of a 100 games

Unknown Speaker (52:58): This is the hundredth game you've reviewed.

Jaymo (53:00): Every game we've reviewed, this is the 100 and well, actually, it's gonna be different because we record out of order a little bit. Anyway, this game is ranked twenty third just below Tech but just above Breath of Fire two. How's that feel for you? I don't think these guys have played Breath of Fire two or maybe even Tech Mobile.

Unknown Speaker (53:16): No. Nope. Is is alphabetically, would this be the first? Would it? I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sort it and screw

Unknown Speaker (53:23): up Mike's algorithm. He'll get real mad at me. That's so funny, though. First in alphabetical list. Mike, I'm okay with this.

Unknown Speaker (53:32): I I think get Breath of Fire two, and I think Technopool might be slightly better. And this does appear to be

Unknown Speaker (53:38): the veritable artwork of games. Explain. It is indeed alphabetically first. There you go.

Unknown Speaker (53:47): Can't take anything away

Justin (53:48): from that. Alien soldier.

Jaymo (53:50): That's right. He's right. And if you deliberately start it instead of accidentally, like, kept doing a mic stream last night. Guys, we're gonna call that game over for today. Rex Stubb, it's been awesome having you guys.

Jaymo (54:06): And everyone join us next week. Do guys want to plug anything? You don't. Right? No.

Unknown Speaker (54:11): I didn't ask you out of them. Jonathan, do you wanna plug something?

Unknown Speaker (54:13): A really good breakfast sandwich this morning. Add hash browns to it over the sriracha mayo.

Jaymo (54:19): Okay. Well, guys, the sriracha mayo sounds n e. Excellent. Everyone join us next time. We'll be questing for Camelot with Quest for Camelot on the Game Boy Color.

Jaymo (54:30): We will also be reviewing the film. It is the only game, Farrar, that has a that is based on a film. So we're gonna be covering both of those, and it's going to be so exciting. I am stoked. Mike, have you ever seen that movie before?

Jonathan (54:43): Yes. I own it somewhere. I got it, like, a year ago for Christmas.

Jaymo (54:49): Mike, we busting up the DVD. And I hope that you bust out the website www.theoldswitcheroo.com. There you can find links to our Spotify, our Discord, YouTube, TikTok and all the social medias you can shake a joystick at. Big thanks to Crystal Fields for our incredible intro song. And please, dear listener, don't forget to like and subscribe.

Jaymo (55:08): Every click means so much, and you mean so much to us. Until next time, this has been the old Switch Aru. We've been talking gaming retro with Mike and J Mo.

Unknown Speaker (55:16): Ivan Mike. And I've

Unknown Speaker (55:18): been J Mo. Game on, everyone.

Unknown Speaker (55:45): Wait. What is Rex doing? Did he show his belly? Don't know.

Unknown Speaker (55:47): He's

Unknown Speaker (55:48): showing all flesh. Oops. All flesh.

Unknown Speaker (55:54): I really hope, like, Mike has, like, family over in, like, the background. It's just when he's doing the edit. Justin, do you have any or or both of you actually, do you guys have any, like, hard outs?

Unknown Speaker (56:06): No. But pops is coming over a little bit to we're getting he fixed some furniture for us, and we're gonna feed him the meatballs.

Unknown Speaker (56:12): That's fun.

Unknown Speaker (56:13): What a great time.

Unknown Speaker (56:14): Dylan makes meatballs, or do you make meatballs?

Unknown Speaker (56:16): I just definitely do not. They're Swedish meatballs.

Unknown Speaker (56:19): Those are so good. I like that Mike comes back, and we're just having the most innocuous conversation about Swedish meatballs. It's like and that's all that happened while he was gone. Hello, Mike. Welcome back.

Unknown Speaker (56:31): That'll be

Unknown Speaker (56:31): an interesting thing to revisit. You

Unknown Speaker (56:35): gave it away, JMO. You should have said anything.

Unknown Speaker (56:38): I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker (56:39): J Mo ruined everything?

Unknown Speaker (56:41): I mean, I'm pretty sure he has no idea what's coming.

Justin (56:45): But still, now he knows it's coming, so he's gonna be on guard.