Retro Gaming Nostalgia and PC Classics

You are tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek Hello and welcome to Altered Geek I'm your

host Steve Megatron Phillips and in this episode

of the podcast I'll be talking about well I felt

it was fitting to talk about a little bit of

nostalgia of things that that I remember as a

kid That really impacted me or things that I

remember Now granted, there's things I don't

remember still, but I still thought it was kind

of fun to bring up some of the nostalgic things

that I did enjoy. And one of them is games. And

unfortunately, there's this point where you want

to go back and play them for nostalgia's sake,

just because you're like, you know, I've played

the games I care about that are out now. What

is there? to go back and play that I enjoyed

as a kid. And I don't own a game system. I don't

have any ambition to buy another game system.

For one, they cost too much and then the amount

of money you have to pump into these things just

for them to get replaced within three to five

years as opposed to something like the SNES where,

you know, theoretically you could get that and

still be playing a lot of the stuff on it. It's...

It's kind of tricky because I used to be one

of those guys that got a bunch of emulators and

I used to and I realized that they're not Technically

legal unless you physically own the original

cartridge or the the game itself because it's

technically like a backup So if you own it, they're

technically okay, but it's still a moral gray

area but I used to do a lot of that and I don't

so much anymore more so just because I don't

really want to have to go through the hassle

of it. I just want to be able to play the game

and that's kind of it. I dug up the 1999 Star

Wars Podracer game the other day. I still had

the disc. I was rifling through my desk a couple

months ago and I found it and I was like, holy

crap, I really miss playing this game because...

You can customize your pod you can go fast. I

had my my Xbox 360 controller in which was much

better than the Joystick in the game pad I had

way back in the day when it came out And it actually

controls a lot better with the Xbox 360 controller

plugged into my computer But no, I really enjoyed

it. I had to go to I Think it was a website like

game copy world which used to back in the day

used to have a bunch of like, you could get the

patches for games, you could get it so you could

replace certain files so you didn't need the

CD. So you could essentially dump your whole

CD to your computer and play it and not need

to pop the disc in every time you needed to play

because a lot of the time it would buffer or

lag as they would say in modern terms for online

gaming. I just I wasn't one of those people that

liked to have the CD and it just slowed things

down. So I often did that But no it I had to

go there and get a Patch for it so I could play

without the CD and I think I ended up having

to turn it into an ISO file On my computer so

that I could run it from the computer Because

there were some complications and the nice part

about the old games like that like the old pod

racer You don't have to install them Which is

kind of strange when you think about modern windows

you don't have to install them because they can't

connect anything so they just ultimately play

and So I was able to do that and I played a few

rounds of it. I really enjoyed it There was a

couple cheat codes which obviously don't work

To some capacity I have to figure out how to

get them to work. It's basically you just make

the money kind of pop out you know it just you

can put like four thousand credits uh per per

hit and then you have to like exit out after

you've saved and then do it again it was it was

a trick that we used to do so we could get unlimited

money and just upgrade our pods as much as we

wanted but it was a lot of fun and i i remember

playing that a lot another game that up until

about a year ago i played a lot still even after

it came out was command and conquer red alert

red alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge. Some of my favorites

strategy games are the Command and Conquer series.

I used to play Starcraft as well, but past the

first game of Starcraft, I never really got back

into it. I tried to play Starcraft 2 when it

came out and it just didn't hold the attention

for me, but I've also played that years after

it came out as well. But for me like the command

and conquer games like I don't need the cheat

codes. I've just got really good at the game

Red Alert and Red Alert 2 are by far my favorite

command and conquer games Another one I found

that I still had the CD to and I Had to try and

figure out how to get it to work was fury 3 There

was a couple of things I had to do to it to get

it to work in Windows 10 which I wish that the

game would get an update because it was such

an awesome game. I mean, there really wasn't

a lot to it, but it was a lot of fun to fly around

in the ship and then all the different things

you got while you were in it. It was just a really,

really fun flight and battle simulation game.

And I found a lot of enjoyment out of that game

over the years. My brother and I used to play

the crap out of it. But no, I mean, I've played

a lot of stuff like that. I'm still playing Star

Trek online as well It's it's one of those things

that I didn't play it when it first came out

but I started playing it a year and about a year

and a half ago at this point and Like really

solidly playing it and I still play it up to

this day. I don't really play Battlefield 4 all

that much. I've played that a little bit more

now. I haven't played Battlefield 1 in probably

eight months Maybe six months something somewhere

in there anyway It's kind of old hat to me at

this point. I'll go back to it eventually I I

kind of do that with a lot of games. I just recently

beat Mass Effect 2 But no I was going back through

some games, and I wanted to play like I don't

know if anybody remembers this it's a DOS game

Monuments of Mars and I really I really enjoy

a lot of the old DOS based games. Some of them

being like Commander Keen 4, like Secret of the

Oracle, then you've got like Descent, Desert

Strike, I used to play Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem

3D, Monuments of Mars was just, it was a fun

game, it was a side -scroller kind of in the

vein of like Mario, but it was like a one hit,

you're dead, and then you start over the whole

level. So like if you've used up all your ammo,

you could essentially kill yourself in the game

and then you would come back and you'd have everything.

Or you could save too, which was kind of revolutionary

in a sense for those old games. And it was only

like 200 and some kilobytes to play the game.

There's not a lot to it. But I remember beating

it once. and I played it all day, because I didn't

know I could save at the time. I figured that

out later on. But, no, it's a lot of figuring

things out. There's a site where you can actually

go, I think it's classicreload .com, you can

play a lot of the old Doom games, or not Doom

games, DOS -based games, and even some that aren't

DOS -based, you can play them on that website.

And it basically emulates it in like a flash

player type setup somehow Which is a lot of fun

to go back and be able to play these and not

have to install them Because they're kind of

freeware at this point where the the rights are

still owned by the original company But they

just don't really care that people are playing

them on there There was like adventure math where

you it's like a Mario Brothers meets math type

of stuff I used to play that a lot with my brother

and then Crayola Studio, Math Blaster, some of

the educational games, I used to play those in

my elementary school, which kind of dates me,

but the Putt -Putt games, The Backyard, Organ

Trail, Treasure Math Storm, Mahjong, Jazz Jackrabbit,

that was one I played a lot of, and then Jazz

Jackrabbit 2, very weird game. but it was fun

nonetheless. Tried playing Heretic, didn't really

get much into that. Played the Ultimate Doom,

Final Doom. EGA Trek, which is basically like

a Star Trek pre -simulator type thing. I also

have the 25th anniversary Star Trek CD -ROM game,

which is for DOS, Windows 95, kind of in that

realm. Can't play it now, but I still have it.

I still have the Beast Wars CD. that came out

in the mid 90s, CD -ROM game. And I used to have

an ISO of it on Predacon Empire when I had that

website, when I had the early Transformers website,

which I could probably dig some of that up again.

I have it on an external hard drive at this point.

I also own the CD though. And I had the patch

for it. So you didn't need the CD and it would

also upgrade part of the game game was stupid

Difficult in some areas just because it really

didn't give you any explanation of what you're

supposed to do There's no explanation of what

you're supposed to do in certain things and certain

scenarios And so oftentimes you would get stuck

in the levels and not know why They were very

blocky, pixelated, which is hilarious because

you look at the show and they're so smooth and

everything else. Then you go in the game and

the game looks like crap. They're super blocky.

It's like if you took the Beast Wars characters

and put them in the Combiner Wars and then kind

of gave them those jagged edges and kind of,

you know, more of the Transformers look than

a Beast Wars look. It's kind of that. And then

the voice acting was terrible in it. Some of

the aspects, they sounded like the actual actors,

but it sounds like it was just poorly imported,

or people that could vaguely do the voice. It

was terrible. But I wanted to go back and play

the game. And unfortunately, because Windows

10 doesn't give you the ability to play any of

those, I tried to set it up, I tried to play

it. I am trying to tweak the game to where, and

I think it's because it's so old, it's older

than Podracer. Podracer, there was a workaround.

This, I'm having more of a difficult time. Plus,

I remember you could play back in the day on

MSN Gaming Zone, and yeah, those days where you'd

log into MSN and play games, networked with,

you know, over the internet with people, and

you could only do like four players. But I used

to do that, and that was over dial -up, and it

was terrible. So I would take up my dad's phone

line like pretty much all day and night and I

would play Beast Wars Online against other people

and it was like a basically like a deathmatch

like, you know You stand in four corners and

then you just attack each other till you're the

last bot standing And you could transform and

everything else but I was insanely good at the

multiplayer of it I very rarely got beat which

is why it would be entertaining to go back and

try and play the game now. I know that it can't

connect to the internet, but it's still something

I want to try and go back through, play the game,

beat it, because I never got past the first level,

or first couple levels in the original map. And

when you lose a character, you're supposed to

be able to go in flight mode as Airazor or Terrorazor

and go recapture them and save them, and I could

never do that either. because I never got to

that point. I think maybe once I did because

I vaguely remember seeing it, but I don't remember

how to play it. But anyways, that's something

else I'd like to go back. No, but gaming is one

of those things where it's fun to go back and

play old games. Whether it's from the PC or not,

I still enjoy the occasional Mario Brothers in

Sonic the Hedgehog, you know, like Pac -Man,

depending on how I feel, the old Disney Aladdin

game from Super Nintendo, Super Smash Brothers,

always a favorite of mine in gaming, and I don't

know, there's just so many games, Mega Man X.

Yeah, Mega Man X was another one that I was really

good at. Played all the way through X4. And then

I bought X8 and beat that on the PS2. Galaga.

Like I said, there's just so many games that

I used to play. A lot of Dragon Ball Z games.

A lot of Ninja Turtle games. Crap load of Pokemon

games. So anyways... just kind of running about.

Gaming is one of those things where I'm really

enthusiastic to go through and go back and play.

And I know that other people do that as well,

whether it's teaching their kids about the old

games or just going back for nostalgia's purposes.

It's just the hard part is going back and finding

ways that you could play them. Remember even

back when DOS and 95 was something where they

had I don't know if you remember those hundred

and one best games CDs that used to come out

and They would have all these massive amount

of DOS games And you would run it either from

Windows or DOS prompt these are back the DOS

95 Windows 95 days and You could select any of

these games and a lot of the time a lot of them

were just terrible like they just they they just

were games that sucked but occasionally you would

find a couple gems in the in the The CD and I

had a couple of those those sampler disks that

that you could buy anywhere You could get them.

You know they'd have them at computer shows which

are kind of Obsolete nonexistent at this point

because of online shopping and computer shows

were awesome. I don't know, that's another thing

even, like going to computer shows. I don't know

if anybody used to do that too, but it was kind

of like a computer convention in a sort. And

I used to go, they used to have two of them a

month. They had one in one location, like our

sports arena in downtown Flint, and they had

another one in... the Holiday and Gateway Center

in Grand Blank, and I used to go to that one

too with my dad. And we used to go every time

there was a computer show. And they'd have raffles

on going in occasionally, like I think we won

something once. But we used to go in, the Gateway

Center one was significantly smaller, the one

at the sports arena, they just had you walk around

the outer. Part because you had the chairs and

everything else and they would be setting up

for some event down at the bottom But at the

top they would have all the computer stuff. It

would be like a Saturday Sunday thing all day

and we would go every Saturday to these things

and They would have these big racks of three

and a half inch or three and a quarter inch floppy

disks The the 1 .44 megabyte disks where you

can sit there and just Check them out and and

and You would have demos of anything like there

were Star Wars or Star Trek doom which was pretty

awesome you could it looks like the Enterprise

D somebody like remapped to the wad files and

You could you can install this or drag it into

your your doom game folder and it would it would

overlay everything to look Star Trek II and the

sound effects the the transporting elements,

the weaponry, it was a lot of fun to go through.

And I think it gave it like a Captain Kirk face,

even though it looked like TNG in a lot of it.

But no, I mean, that was one of the things I

bought. I mean, there was a Star Trek trivia

game, like a old version of it, like in Alcarz.

I bought the Star Trek Omnipedia database there

one time, and it was, It was kind of interesting

to get that. And you could haggle. That was a

nice thing, too, is if you didn't have enough

money for something, you could kind of haggle

with them, and they would kind of do it because

they were at the show and you could get a discount.

Oftentimes, I was like a dollar or two short

on some floppy that my dad was like, it's too

overpriced anyway on some of the stuff. And that's

way back then. And I would occasionally do that

and get something. He would go through look at

all the computer parts because you could you

could go there and have a computer built For

you while you're sitting there, and he often

time would do something like that Maybe once

or twice a year would would go through and just

buy parts to upgrade ours at home and It was

very Educational and in fun at the same time

and you get to see all the technology as it was

coming out because some some retailers would

have different like that was one of the first

time I'd seen a flat panel monitor or a DVD player,

like before I even owned some of this stuff,

and CD -ROMs, because we barely had one of those,

and they even had places where they had, I bought

my first controller there. It was like a $5,

$10 controller that looked like a Sega Genesis

controller, and then I bought another one that

was like an SNES controller. plugged into the

old game ports in the back of the PC before they,

you know, USB existed. Which it sucked because

if those things like popped out, you had to reprogram

your device. It wasn't a lot of fun to troubleshoot

that stuff compared to now where you just plug

it in and it works. That's the beautiful thing

of plug and play compared to back then. Everything

just kind of works. It was a struggle. The struggle

was real. So yeah, that was a lot of a lot of

the stuff that I used to see as a kid You know

aside from all the the television aspects that

kind of talked about in the last episode Of things

coming back and there were shows I missed when

I talked about it, but regardless it's not It's

not that much different even with games It's

harder to screw up a game than it is a TV show

because a game you can only really improve as

far as aesthetically and story But you could

also have things that turn into a dumpster fire

the entire time, and that's a problem with gaming

as well. But majority of the old 90s stuff, I

found a lot of enjoyment in it. It used to take

up a lot of my time. I used to sit there and

play a lot of that stuff. Didn't really have...

Well, I guess I guess something that was kind

of neat about back then with gaming even is is

you had demos of games Which I kind of wish we

still had today And they used to have websites

that had that kind of stuff now, but they don't

even put out games like that anymore It's you

can do it like a trial of the game if you download

it from somewhere So I mean in a sense, it's

kind of the same. It's just that they're handling

it themselves instead of outsourcing But they

try and hook you with the subscription model

for the demo, as it were, instead of having the

freely downloadable demos of games out. But I

kind of found that it was nice to have the demos,

because you could kind of sample what it is you're

interested in. But I guess that's where the subscription

model kind of takes place. So if you sign up

for EA Origin or something, or Steam, and do

some kind of a subscription -based system, and

do a trial... You can kind of sample some of

the stuff or if you keep signed on you can just

play the games that are in their service So I

don't know I think it translated well It's just

I I preferred the just being able to just download

it and have what I want and not have to pay anything

But I can see where that's not really feasible

in today's world compared to back then I used

to remember a lot of a lot of different websites

You could download stuff from that are no longer

existent anymore And then even looking at things

like, just nostalgia in general. It's fun to

reminisce and look back on the things. And some

of it you can, in hindsight, you can kind of

see where things failed and things could have

been better. But ultimately it's, innovation

has definitely helped a lot of these things.

It's definitely been something that, Nostalgia,

while it's great, can lead to better things in

the future. It's just when you come to things

with a storyline like TV and film, it doesn't

necessarily mean it's going to translate. But

things like gaming and innovation and technology,

it's definitely something that can help spawn

new and better options, as it were. So, I hope

you guys had some kind of fun, kind of reminiscing

over some of that. Let me know what kind of games

you guys used to play. I left off a ton that

I would have played on console. I made cover

console nostalgia at another time with a co -host,

but I found myself looking through some of this

the other day and I was going, man, I really

want to talk about some of these things because

a lot of these games are a lot of fun. And especially

when I used to emulate a lot of these things

and maybe maybe that would be something fun to

do is to sit on a live stream and maybe like

play some of these these games and Have have

commentary and just talk while While I'm playing

a game so I don't know maybe that's something

we'll do but Let me know what you guys had fun

playing in the 90s and your earliest experiences

with gaming and just let me know what you guys

think in the comments area. So you can get this

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