Episode #3: Nintendo Murder Resort

AVoCADo GamesCast

https://avocadogamescast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/podcast20320edit201.mp3

Featuring:
Merve
PT
Wolfman Jew
Lord Stoneheart
TheKappa

Editor:
TheKappa

Timestamps:
0:15 – Introductions
35:55 – Summer Games Done Quick
48:40 – Games We Would Speedrun
52:45 – A Rant about Super Mario Bros. 2
55:35 – Games We Would Speedrun Pt. 2
1:01:30 – Streamers and Let’s Players
1:11:45 – Other Game-Related Video Content
1:15:10 – Changing Games for Foreign Markets
1:17:45 – Video Game Budgets and Sales
1:20:20 – Control Schemes and the Bizarre Saga of Too Human
1:35:00 – Text-Based Let’s Plays, Other Video Content, and Walkthroughs
1:43:20 – Memorable Video Game Settings
2:00:15 – Let’s All Shit on Sonic and DreamWorks! Yay!
2:09:15 – Open-World Games
2:24:50 – Visually Interesting Settings
2:37:40 – Pokémon Settings
2:39:20 – Visually Interesting Settings Pt. 2

Download Link: https://archive.org/details/avocadogamescast_ep3

Linkdump after the jump.

Introductions (0:15)

• Wolfman Jew writes for Source Gaming. Go read his articles!
• Downloadable content list for Fallout: New Vegas. (Source: Wikipedia) The “Courier” DLC is Lonesome Road.
• A let’s play of the Foundry level in Doom. (Source: GameRiot)
• A Digital Foundry analysis of Doom’s Vulkan patch. (Source: Eurogamer)
• The Dolphin emulator for Gamecube and Wii.
• Pokémon Picross trailer.
• Hatoful Boyfriend’s true ending, called “Hurtful
  Boyfriend”. (Source: PressHeartToContinue) [Warning: contains spoilers]
• Go play Frog Fractions right now!
• The Frog Fractions 2 Kickstarter, complete with a $2 billion stretch goal to buy Oculus back from Facebook.
• We already linked to the now infamous “anime fan on prom night” trailer for Mighty No. 9 in the previous linkdump, so have an anime fan on prom night remix instead. (Source: Blue Renegade The Second)
• Overview of the Red Faction series. (Source: Wikipedia)
• Mike Cosimano’s review of Pokémon GO for Destructoid.
• Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s terrible Pokémon GO jokes. Please, make them
  stop. (Source: Destructoid)
• News story about Evolve going free-to-play. (Source: Engadget)
• Ryse: Son of Rome execution montage. (Source: John TheRenegade)

Summer Games Done Quick (35:55)

• The Games Done Quick website.
• YouTube archive of SGDQ 2016.
• Reddit user suudo’s links to Twitch archive timestamps for SGDQ 2016.
• SGDQ 2016: Magrunner: Dark Pulse by MattyIce3131.
• SGDQ 2016: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time glitch exhibition by Piticarus.
• SGDQ 2016: Bionic Commando by PJ.
• A tool-assisted speedrun of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door by Malleo.
• SGDQ 2016: Deus Ex by Heinki.
• AGDQ 2015: Banjo-Kazooie 100% run by Stivitybobo. (Awesome Games Done Quick is the winter version of SGDQ, benefiting the Prevent Cancer Foundation.) Grant Kirkhope, the game’s composer, calls in during the middle of the run.
• SGDQ 2016: Jak and Daxter by Bonesaw577. (It’s hilarious, but it’s a total shitshow.)
• SGDQ 2016: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger by Kythol. (It’s one of the rare SGDQ videos with more dislikes than likes.)
• SGDQ 2016: Super Metroid race by oatsngoats, sweetnumb, zoast, and Behemoth87.
• SGDQ 2016: Super Mario 64 race by Cheese05, Puncayshun, Biinny, and Simply.
• SGDQ 2016: The Goonies II race by Dragondarch and Darkwing Duck.
• SGDQ 2016: Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II race by Skavenger216, feasel, Gyre, and JamEvil.
• SGDQ 2016: Super Mario Sunshine by BounceyBoy.
• SGDQ 2016: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds by Ahamplan.
• SGDQ 2016: Demon’s Souls by saintmillion.

Games We Would Speedrun (48:40)

• HowLongToBeat, a website that tells you how long it takes on average to complete a game.
• The Portal speedrun world record is currently held by D14bl075 with a time of 8:26. Holy crap.
• SGDQ 2016: Jet Set Radio by Maxylobes.
• SGDQ 2016: Guacamelee by Grimelios.
• AGDQ 2015: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels by GameJ06.

A Rant about Super Mario Bros. 2 (52:45)

• The legacy of Super Mario Bros. 2. (Source: Wikipedia)
• Dying from a poison mushroom on the first level of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels in a blind run. That mushroom is a jerk. (Source: lecoffeebandit)

Games We Would Speedrun Pt. 2 (55:35)

• Apparently you can speedrun Madden. There’s even a world record run for it. (Source: Decon082)
• The “Sportz” comic by Penny Arcade.
• RPG Limit Break is a charity speedrunning marathon for RPGs that raises money for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
• RPG Limit Break 2016: Final Fantasy series relay race.
• I already linked to it above, but have the link to it again: AGDQ 2015’s Banjo-Kazooie 100% run by Stivitybobo.
• SGDQ 2016: Donkey Kong 64 by 2dos. Here’s where they jump into the multiplayer mode.
• SGDQ 2015: Banjo-Tooie by kaptainkohl.

Streamers and Let’s Players (1:01:30)

• The Twitch Plays Pokémon Twitch channel.
• The weird mythology of Twitch Plays Pokémon. (Source: The A.V. Club)
• Ben Kuchera of Polygon praised the sex scenes in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Rich Drummond of Gaming Tech United criticized them. Funnily enough, these pieces appeared one right after the other in the Google search results for “wolfenstein new order sex scene.”
• A let’s play of Lollipop Chainsaw. (Source: theRadBrad)
• A YouTube collection of Game Center CX videos.
• The Battletoads episodes of Game Center CX: Part 1 and Part 2.
• A YouTube playlist of Frank Cifaldi playing unreleased games.
• A let’s play of Deadly Premonition. (Source: TheSw1tcher)

Other Game-Related Video Content (1:11:45)

• The YouTube channel of Jeremy Parish (a.k.a. Toastyfrog).
• Playlist of Angry Video Game Nerd episodes.
• The Chrontendo YouTube channel by Dr. Sparkle. (Also includes Chronsega and Chronturbo.)
• Greg Sewart’s Generation 16.

Changing Games for Foreign Markets (1:15:10)

• Merve was somewhat mistaken. It wasn’t the Persona sub-series that faced localization issues due to religious references; it was games from the wider Megami Tensei series (Source: Wikipedia). In fact, many of them didn’t initially get released in North America, and the first two games in the series are only playable in English via ROM-hack translation (Source: GameSkinny). Wolfman Jew, however, was correct. In Revelations: Persona, the first game in the Persona sub-series, the character of Masao was made black and made to go by his nickname Mark for the English release. The PSP re-release reverted this change. (Source: Wikipedia)
• The real reason for the Skeleton King’s redesign is unknown. It might have to do with copyright issues, or it may be because of Chinese game censorship regulations. (Source: Gamepedia) However, there is no actual ban on the depiction of skeletons. (Source: Tech in Asia)
• 2016’s Ghostbusters was denied release in China. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
• Merve and TheKappa were a little misleading about Red Dawn. To be clear, the Red Dawn remake was about a North Korean invasion, but the original was about a Soviet invasion, not a Chinese one. What they meant was that originally, the remake was supposed to be about a Chinese invasion, but it was changed to North Korean so that the Chinese box office could be secured. (Source: Wikipedia)
• Changes made to Diablo III for Chinese release. (Source: Tech in Asia)
• The Warcraft movie did so well in China, it broke the record for #1 non-weekend opening in the country. (Source: io9)

Video Game Budgets and Sales (1:17:45)

• It’s hard to find actual figures for video game budgets, since companies tend to keep them secret, but Bungie’s devs have denied that Destiny’s budget was $500 million. (Source: Gamespot)
• Tomb Raider sold 3.4 million copies in its first four weeks, but failed to hit Square Enix’s internal sales targets. However, what exactly its internal sales targets were is
  unknown. (Source: Eurogamer)
• Though Mirror’s Edge was initially projected to hit around 3 million in sales, it sold just over 1 million by a few months after its release and has sold over 2.5 million copies to date. It was neither a major success nor a major flop. (Source: Wikipedia)

Control Schemes and the Bizarre Saga of Too Human (1:20:20)

• Metal Gear Solid’s bizarre control scheme. (Source: StrategyWiki)
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s less bizarre control scheme. (Source: Konami)
• Too Human’s control scheme. (Source: Too Human Wiki)
• Article chronicling the changes in Too Human over its decade-long development cycle. (Source: Unseen 64)
• A post-mortem on Silicon Knights. (Source: Neogaf)
• Some information about Precursor Games’ failed Kickstarters. (Source: Kotaku)
• Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance’s control scheme. (Source: StrategyWiki)
• Proposal for a better Too Human control scheme. (Source: GameFAQs)
• Control schemes for the Pikmin games. (Source: Pikipedia)
• Star Wars: TIE Fighter’s control scheme. (Source: StrategyWiki)
• Control scheme for MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat. (Source: GL-Chozo4’s MechWarrior Resource Depot. It’s an Angelfire webpage. I’m not joking.)
• AGDQ 2015: Batman: Arkham City by cojosao, who switches back and forth between controller and mouse + keyboard.
• Silent Hunter’s control scheme. (Source: SubSoWesPac)

Text-Based Let’s Plays, Other Video Content, and Walkthroughs (1:35:00)

• The Let’s Play Archive, which includes both text-based and video let’s plays.
• Doom secrets locations guide. (Source: Video Games Blogger)
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s cutscenes cut together as a five-and-a-half-hour movie. (Source: GLPtv)
• Achievement Hunter’s GO!

Memorable Video Game Settings (1:43:20)

• Bloodborne screenshot. An “interconnected world” in Wolfman Jew’s taxonomy. (Source: Fextralife)
• Deadly Premonition screenshot. A “novelistic setting” in Wolfman Jew’s taxonomy. (Source: Silent Hill Historical Society)
• Super Mario 3D World concept art. A “world explored through movement” in Wolfman Jew’s taxonomy. (Source: Gamespot)
• Wikipedia article on Columbo.
• Dragon Age Wiki article on Kirkwall from Dragon Age II.
• An A.V. Club article on the setting of Chrono Trigger.
• Earthbound Wiki article on the Nowhere Islands from Mother 3.
• Mass Effect Wiki article on the Citadel. The Asari were the first to discover it.
• News reports by Three Dog from Fallout 3. (Source: Vanadium)
• The Lord of the Rings Online website.
• People on the Division subreddit complaining about vendor dialogue.
• Dialogue from Diablo’s Griswold. (Source: NoobsourceReviews)
• Lord Stoneheart was referencing Lisa’s “catchphrase” from The Simpsons. (Source:
  ThingsICantFindOtherwise)

Let’s All Shit on Sonic and DreamWorks! Yay! (2:00:15)

• The “gotta go fast” catchphrase, which is now a target of mockery. (Source: Know Your Meme)
• Knuckles, the edgier version of Sonic. (Source: Sonic News Network Wiki)
• Shadow, the even edgier version of Sonic. (Source: Sonic News Network Wiki)
• The Game Grumps let’s play of Sonic Boom.
• A trailer for Shark Tale. Scroll down to the description to see how stacked the voice cast is.
• The Simpsons mocking DreamWorks with the fake trailer for Cards. (Source: Gresham Inc)
• Wolfman Jew’s piece on Sonic for Source Gaming. It’s a more coherent, better researched, and more detailed version of many of the things we were saying on
  the podcast. Go read it, you nerds!
• Super BunnyHop’s video essay on the first level of every major Sonic game.
• The Sonic Twitter account making fun of Mighty No. 9’s release.

Open-World Games (2:09:15)

• Sleeping Dogs map. (Source: Sleeping Dogs Wiki)
• Grand Theft Auto V map. (Source: iGTA5)
• Vendor extortion mission in Sleeping Dogs. (Source: theRadBrad)
• Interview with Sleeping Dogs developers about talking to Triad members and retired Hong Kong cops. (Source: Siliconera)
• Saints Row IV “romance” scenes. (Source: xPinrose331x)
• Saints Row Wiki article on Saints Row: The Third’s Steelport.
• Saints Row Wiki article on Saints Row 2’s Stilwater.
• Grand Theft Auto III map. (Source: Warl on the Steam Community)

Visually Interesting Settings (2:24:50)

• Screenshot of Killer7. (Source: Moby Games)
• Screenshot of Limbo. (Source: Steam store)
• Screenshot of Mirror’s Edge. (Source: Steam store)
• Screenshot of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. (Source: Steam store)
• Walkthrough with screenshots for Burmecia, Realm of Eternal Rain in Final Fantasy IX. (Source: RPG Classics)
• Screenshot of Columbia from BioShock Infinite. (Source: Steam store)
• Video footage of Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World. (Source: iThemePark)
• Screenshot of Rapture from BioShock. (Source: Steam store)
• Screenshot of Rapture before its collapse from BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea – Episode 1. (Source: Steam store)

Pokémon Settings (2:37:40)

• Mehdi Mulani wrote a program to put the entire world map of Pokémon FireRed in a single image. Here’s the result. (Source: Medium)
• Kalos from Pokémon X & Y. (Source: Bulbapedia)
• Alola from Pokémon Sun & Moon. (Source: Bulbapedia)

Visually Interesting Settings Pt. 2 (2:39:20)

• Trailer for Fract OSC. Please play this game so that Merve feels like less of a hipster.
• Screenshot of Just Cause 2. Panau is a wonderful “murder resort.”