In this episode we bring in Max Scoville to go back and play Duke Nukem 3D, plus compare it to Duke Nukem Forever. We had 7 people on this time, making it probably the largest episode we've done before. We end up talking about pretty much every single Duke Nukem game even though the focus was supposed to be on 3D and Forever. Good times.

Hosts for this Episode:
Mike Moran (Wry Guy)
Max Scoville (Associate Editor)
Caitlin Cooke (Caiters)
Stephen Turner (Stevil)
Scott Goleniec (ScottyG)
Matt Kim (LawofThermalDynamics)
Ahtoh (Dr Rainbow)

Download Nostaljourney Episode 07
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00:00 - Canada is officially the most ridiculous country ever.

[ Grabbag from the Duke Nukem 3D OST ]

00:01:30 - Introducing the cast.
00:13:30 - Discussing Duke Nukem as a character, complete with Stevil's GREAT Duke impression.

[ Stalker from the Duke Nukem 3D OST ]

00:22:45 - The first Duke Nukem games and PC gaming back in the day.
00:28:30 - Max tells the story of how he first learned of Duke Nukem 3D.
00:30:00 - How 3D was a revolutionary game.
00:35:00 - 3D is HARD.
00:42:00 - All the spinoff Duke Nukem games.
00:45:00 - How seriously does Duke take himself?
00:47:00 - Final Consensus on Duke 3D: Tough as balls and pretty good!
00:50:00 - The PS1 / N64 era Duke games and the kids that grew up with 'em.

[ Preparation D from the Duke Nukem 3D OST ]

00:57:00 - Mike explains to Caiters why she liked Duke Nukem Forever.
01:00:00 - Explaining how hard Forever tries to have a story, when games like 3D still exist.
01:04:00 - Max makes his first awesome "real life comparison" to Forever.
01:13:00 - When Forever starts getting a little creepy.
01:19:00 - "I'm gonna reserve it and I'm gonna buy it, day one, just because it's coming out."
01:23:00 - Final Consensus on Duke Nukem Forever: Play it... just to have played it. That's it.

[ Missing? Impossible! from the Duke Nukem 3D OST ]

01:29:00 - What an asshole.

With Duke Nukem Forever already out, we've decided to tag along with Max Scoville and revisit Duke Nukem's glory days. Welcome back to Nostaljourney. For those of you who don't recall, Nostaljourney is a donation based podcast where we give games to community members who never played them, then use their fresh perspective to help determine if a nostalgic game has aged well. The nostalgic members of the cast bring forth the enthusiasm and the non-nostalgic members bring us the harsh truth.

Nostaljourney's a show that openly embraces sidetracking and talking about the good old times, because that's what nostalgia's all about. We are not the least bit formal and there's no real schedule when recording. Wry Guy will occasionally help direct the flow of conversation and that's it. Today we're looking for three members of the community to join our crew. If you're super knowledgeable about Duke Nukem 3D or if you've never played it before at all, we're interested in hearing from you.



Here's how you audition:

Introduce yourself to the cast. Tell us about yourselves and why you want to be on the show. There's no need to be formal. In particular we'd like to hear about how familiar you are with the game in question or why you're interested in playing it. At the end of the day the cast will talk about who they liked and pick someone to be on the show. It doesn't matter if you've played the game or not. We'll be looking for fun people that are both familiar and not familiar. If you're too broke to get a copy of the game for yourself don't let that stop you. If the cast likes you we'll make sure to give you a copy of the game anyway. In Duke Nukem 3D's case we would likely donate you an XBox Live copy.

You must have time to dedicate to playing or replaying this game.
Once everyone is finished. You need to be able to free yourself up on a single Saturday to record.
You will need a good headset and a Skype account. Gaming headsets work wonders.

In this episode of Nostaljourney Jonathan Holmes actually shows up to record! In HONOR of this we... HONOR him with a staged performance on the show. In anticipation of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City the crew plays the game that thrust survival horror games into the limelight, and we see for ourselves just how well it's aged. I fear the day we actually record a totally serious episode.

Hosts for this Episode:
Mike Moran (Wry Guy)
Tony Ponce (Associate Editor)
Jonathan Holmes (Associate Editor)
Stephen Turner (Stevil)
Mitch Carrow (smeagleton)
Ryan D (LK4O4)

Download Nostaljourney Episode 06
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Listen to the episode

00:00 - Something fishy's goin' on here.

[ The Front Hall from the Resident Evil 2 OST ]

00:01:30 - The crew performs a skit in honor of Jonathan Holmes.
00:06:00 - Introducing the cast. Jonathan Holmes has a day job!?
00:19:00 - The concept and story of Resident Evil 2.
00:24:00 - Stevil uses his real life police station experience!
00:26:00 - Resident Evil's "classical" gameplay mechanics.
00:38:30 - The best part about Resident Evil 2: The Scenario / Zapping System.
00:45:00 - Comparing Resident Evil 2 to the rest of the series.
00:50:00 - The absolute absurdity of Capcom games in general.

[ Secure Place from the Resident Evil 2 OST ]

00:58:00 - Jonathan's hopes for the future of the Resident Evil plotline.
01:05:00 - Tony's special experience with RE2.
01:09:00 - Stevil's import experience with RE2.
01:11:00 - Jonathan's naivety with RE2.
01:14:00 - Mike's experiences with RE2 IN MEXICO!

[ The First Malformation of "G" from the Resident Evil 2 OST ]

01:18:00 - Stevil's thoughts on Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.
01:23:00 - How do they REALLY use herbs in Resident Evil???
01:26:00 - Wrapping up our opinions on Resident Evil 2.

Final Consensus: Not as impressive as it used to be, but still pretty cool!

[ Escape from Lap from the Resident Evil 2 OST ]

01:33:00 - Oh, Suda51... there are no words...

Shadows of the Damned is such a weird, mixed bag that it's hard to even know where to begin. How's this for a start: There's one segment in the game where you use a giant stripper's cleavage as a bridge and one of your weapons is called the "Hot Boner." Yeah, trust me. You're not prepared for how blatantly weird this game can be. A lot of people would like to describe the game's humor as childish and there's definitely an argument for it, but the word weird is more all encompassing. Sexual humor is a dominant theme, but Shadows of the Damned is unusual in general. Unfortunately I didn't love the game as much as I'd hoped. Don't get me wrong. I love the idea behind this game and there will be plenty of people who love it. If anyone has rebuttals feel free to use the comments section to your advantage, but I can't help but feel the game was light on content.

I will say this game kicks off to a pretty sweet start. You're introduced to Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur, and he will carve his name into your flesh before you die. He's a badass Mexican demon hunter covered in tattoos, and he's manly enough to wear a purple leather jacket. He's foul mouthed, angry, and single minded. He's also a bit on the childish side, which is half the fun of his character when he chuckles at something stupid. His companion is a floating skull named Johnson. Johnson is a rogue demon that left the underworld and his body behind. Somehow he's able to transform himself into a variety of weapons and supports Garcia's demon hunting efforts by providing firepower and advice. Johnson is significantly more witty and intelligent than Garcia, but is also extremely dirty minded. These two characters are probably the highlight of the entire game. They're a fun, unique combination.

Shadows of the Damned makes no attempt to produce any serious backstory. All you know from the beginning of the game is that there is a real world, and there is an underworld. There are humans and demons. That much isn't even narrated; it's just kind of obvious. Garcia has killed one too many demons and the underworld has decided to make things personal. Flemming, the lord of the underworld has raided your apartment, beaten you down, and stolen your girlfriend Paula. Flemming makes it very clear that he plans to take Paula as his mistress, just to torment you. Garcia and Johnson chase Flemming down to the underworld, Johnson turns into a motorcycle and you ride the "highway to hell" while some rock music plays and you select your save file. It's a really cool moment. Too bad you never see that motorcycle ever again. It woulda spiced up the gameplay a little.



The story and concept of the game is pretty off the wall, but the gameplay is easy to explain. Shadows of the Damned is basically a straightforward third person shooter, very much so in line with Resident Evil 4. Shinji Mikami was a creative director on the game, so that much is no surprise. There are some light puzzle elements tossed in every once in a while but the game is very action oriented. Until you start getting upgrades there's not really a lot of variety in the gunplay, though. You get three guns; technically 4 if you count the "light shot" that you use to stun enemies and light hallways. You also get a single melee weapon, but its usefulness is pretty limited. Basically you have a pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun. Every time you beat a boss one of your weapons will upgrade itself somehow and by the end of the game your weapons are more interesting, but at the end of the day you still just have a more spectacular version of a pistol, shotgun and machine gun. Despite this the gunplay is absolutely solid. Just consider that this is not an especially challenging or complex shooter.

The gunplay isn't really the main attraction of the game, even if it's well done. There are some cool ideas that go into it, though. Collecting hidden red gems allows you to upgrade your preferred weapons. For example you can upgrade your pistol's ammo capacity five times. There's also this whole light and dark theme going on. Sometimes the game world becomes covered in soul sucking darkness. If you stay in the darkness too long you'll lose health until you die, but sometimes you need to be standing inside of that darkness to hit a switch or hurt a special type of enemy. It's a cool concept that demands you be quick to respond before you start dying.

I'd say this game really shines when it gets away from the gunplay, though. There's a certain spectacle to the game's more unique levels. Even though Shadows of the Damned takes place in the underworld it's not quite what you'd expect. More than anything else you're traveling through a sort of bizarro world. Everything is dark and sullen but oddly enough the demons still have villages, cities, clubs and a bit of modern technology. It's a little jarring because there's no real explanation for it, but it's still kinda fascinating to learn that the demons store light in barrels, that liquor restores your health, and that teeth are illegal. You'll find posters on the walls that give Johnson a chance to explain the underworld's oddities and you'll find storybooks about the game's bosses that Garcia and Johnson read aloud to each other. Because the first couple hours of the game only give you very basic versions of your weapons, learning about the underworld is what keeps the early portions of the game going. I'm a little disappointed they didn't keep it up. After a while they give up on that sort of thing, which is a shame because the game describes itself as a "road trip to hell" and all those little oddities were really interesting. The underworld itself is a little drab since it somewhat mirrors the human world, so without those little touches the setting doesn't feel as unique.

Likewise the game shines when it tosses normal gunplay out the window and tries something different, such as the level that pays tribute to the Evil Dead movies or the "Big Boner" sniper level. In this level Garcia is literally holding a huge shotgun to his crotch and sniping enemies while yelling at them to taste his boner. There's a certain sense of spectacle that you would expect from Shadows of the Damned, and it's specific segments like these that deliver on it. The rest, not so much. Again, the underworld itself is a little drab and Garcia doesn't have a very flashy set of attacks. The game only gets particularly fantastical at certain points, and there's not a ton of them.



Shadows of the Damned is unfortunately a game that I want to love, but would feel irresponsible about recommending too readily thanks to its lack of content. As I mentioned, the first couple hours of the game are fairly basic because your weapons don't become more complex until you start beating bosses. To top this off the game is pretty short. The first couple of hours are probably the first third of the game. The really cool levels are scattered about and do keep the game interesting, but I personally wanted more. The game's concept and setting are what makes it interesting, but it's reluctant to tell you much about it. After a while the underworld as a setting stops trying to weird you out and none of the game's characters ever really develop. Garcia and Johnson like I said are a great duo. I would have said this game is worth buying based on them alone if they'd spent more time interacting with each other to fill in the game's standard shooting sections. You literally learn almost nothing about Garcia, Johnson, Paula, or Flemming. There is actually more backstory revolving around the game's bosses via the storybook segments. The game doesn't even have much of an ending.

Some people like to argue that you weren't supposed to really learn much, but I think adding some more plot to the game would have helped round out the package very much so. Despite that the game does have a really interesting sense of humor and some of the game's more outlandish moments are arguably worth the price of admission. Make no mistake, the game is creative. If you have the money to spend on a relatively short game, I'd say do so just to support this company's attempt at giving us a different type of shooting game in a fairly military-driven industry. If you're a little strapped for cash though, I'd say give this game a rental.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is on the way and it looks pretty damn cool. In celebration of this we'll be playing and discussing Resident Evil 2, that game where the actual Raccoon City outbreak occurs. Welcome back to Nostaljourney. For those of you who don't recall, Nostaljourney is a donation based podcast where we give games to community members who never played them, then use their fresh perspective to help determine if a nostalgic game has aged well. The nostalgic members of the cast bring forth the enthusiasm and the non-nostalgic members bring us the harsh truth.

Nostaljourney's a show that openly embraces sidetracking and talking about the good old times, because that's what nostalgia's all about. We are not the least bit formal and there's no real schedule when recording. Wry Guy will occasionally help direct the flow of conversation and that's it. Today we're looking for two members of the community to join our crew.



Here's how you audition:

Introduce yourself to the cast. Tell us about yourselves and why you want to be on the show. There's no need to be formal. In particular we'd like to hear about how familiar you are with the game in question or why you're interested in playing it. At the end of the day the cast will talk about who they liked and pick someone to be on the show. It doesn't matter if you've played the game or not. We'll be looking for fun people that are both familiar and not familiar. If you're too broke to get a copy of the game for yourself don't let that stop you. If the cast likes you enough we'll make sure to give you a copy of the game anyway.

You must have time to dedicate to playing or replaying this game.
Once everyone is finished. You need to be able to free yourself up on a single Saturday to record.
You will need a good headset and a Skype account. Gaming headsets work wonders.

In anticipation of Deus Ex: Human Revolution we play and discuss the original game and have a hell of a lot of fun cracking jokes at the game's expense. Today's episode is particularly diverse and this may be the best episode yet. The cast includes a couple folks from Britain and the Netherlands, a Mega Man nerd that works at a beer factory, some chick and some jerk (the host, of course!)

Download Nostaljourney Episode 05
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Hosts for this Episode
Mike Moran (Wry Guy)
Caitlin Cooke (Caiters)
Stephen Turner (Stevil)
Tony Ponce (Associate Editor)
Maurice Tan (Associate Editor)

Episode Notes

00:00 - I'll show YOU how we start a Podcast.

[Main Theme from the Deus Ex OST]

04:00 - Jonathan Holmes is just too good for us.
05:40 - Already we're making fun of the acting.
09:00 - Introducing the cast.
21:00 - Tony's "Different Approach" to playing the game.
25:00 - The story and concept of Deux Ex.
28:00 - Your freedom to be a jerk and the game world in general.
37:00 - Sometimes this game is hilariously weird and broken.
45:00 - The approaches the rest of the cast took with the game.

[UNATCO Headquarters Theme #1 from the Deus Ex OST]

52:00 - The Conspiracy Theory theme of Deus Ex.
56:00 - The most useful skills and weapons in the game.
01:00:00 - How user unfriendly this game can be at first.

[Streets of Hong Kong Theme #1 from the Deus Ex OST]

01:04:00 - Discussing Deus Ex: Invisible Wars and Human Revolution.
01:07:00 - Tony compares Dues Ex to Johnny Mnemonic.
01:12:30 - Discussing all the high points of Deus Ex.

Final Consensus: Still very unique and cool even if it's aged poorly. Fun as hell to talk about.

[Yahtzee's version of the Deus Ex Main Theme]