Unprofessional Fridays: 04/18/2014

Sandwich jail is this way. Please follow me, sir.

Love the Ninja Turtles menu music. So damn good.

Also people who actually say "Sness" and "Ness" are the fucking worst.

Oh yeah? I had to stop temporarily after about a hour. I should have known chat might get to him. ha.

@voodoopc: Good for them. We're overworked and underpaid in the US.

Also it's N.E.S. and S.N.E.S. None of this sness and ness nonsense. We don't call AT&T "ATT" or I.B.M. "ibem".

Fun fact. If you speed up the Gamecube menu music 16 times, it's the same music as the menu for the Disk System.

that case of famicom disks look hella sweet.

I also can't wait to watch this. GB rulez.

@beard_of_zeus: Hey man, sandwich making is an art. Don't shove your interpretations down our throat!

"N-E-S"

"Super N-E-S"

People who say "snes" are like people who say "lawl".

Did CRT's mask a lot of flickering? Or is it due to old systems / carts? I don't remember noticing it so much in NES games.

@drewbert did you make the thumbnail by picking and choosing frames when the other guys had their eyes closed, or is that an unedited freeze frame? Either way, it's amazing/hilarious!

Original rant above, but you can pretty much ignore it.

EDIT: Onto real talk and things that actually matter, though: I agree with @jeff and @rorie with regards to no sauce on sandwiches. I want to taste the flavour of my meat, yo. When absolutely pushed, I might put some ketchup on a chicken burger or something, but otherwise...

EDIT 2: After, you know, watching the actual show, I realise that most of you were probably kidding in response to what Jeff said. Mostly. Probably. ;)

I think there's plenty of evidence for both sides of the argument. We also don't sound out each individual letter of OPEC, NASA or AIDS, for example. I think the examples you give can be explained by its similarity to a very common English word and the lack of an obvious way that it could be pronounced as a word, respectively. (Not having a word that begins with a vowel later in the full title really hurts pronouncing IBM as a word as there's no hint how to transition from the "b" sound to the "m" sound.)

I really liked the show, since I'm always go for NES and SNES is stuff, but do we really need the same discussion about it's pronunciation every single time?

I love it when Jeff Gerstmann unloads his pent-up videogame knowledge all up over me.

@quantris said:

CRT overscan certainly helped, yeah. And the interlacing through 480/576i (with hardware even lower native resolution) meant that certain effects that appear flickery on progressive displays had a sort of smooth transparency going on. I think developers banked on this for some Mega Drive/Genesis games in particular.

Sorry, sorry. I couldn't help myself. ;) If this ever comes up again, I'm just going to stay out of the fray.

It was cool to see some R.B.I., though! We barely saw much of it where I live. I was the only NES owner out of a couple of friends who all had Master Systems and Alex the Kidd... PAL territories were weird, y'all.

Brad's lack of baseball awareness in even the most peripheral way as an american male is pretty staggering to me.

Also, I can't take the blasphemy about TMNT being a bad game.

Finally... Milon's Secret Castle is kind of Spelunky.

"Which enemy is this? Blaster?"

@young_scott: (it's not a big deal, just fun to tease about)

I know it was an off the cuff comment but laser eye surgery is worth every penny Matt, had it done a few years ago and I still have close to 20 -20 vision. I'm not sure what the situation in the U.S is but is cost about $4000 for me at the time (this is from Australia).

How was your vision before the surgery? I've thought about it, but I'm severely near-sighted and have heard them -- OK, "them" as in poorly-written websites -- say laser surgery might not be that beneficial.

Jeff has a Pusswhip Banggang shirt!!!

The camera tricks at the end Drew was pulling off were almost to much for my hungover body

I loved the part where Brad played Gradius II without anyone on the couch not realizing that it isn't Life Force.

Both games are awesome, though, so whatevs.

I'll chime in here: It depends on what your optometrist feels is right. I had toyed with the thought of corrective surgery, but my doctor made sure to clear up some misconceptions:

A) It depends on your eye "defect": sometimes, laser surgery will prove ineffective.

B) Laser surgery is not a "cure"; if your vision is degenerative, it will still degenerate. Laser surgery may restore your sight to 20/20 vision, but as you age, your vision defect will return.

C) There are several different techniques now, some less invasive than others. Make sure you learn which is best for you.

@mason20:

When were these "whole days"? Also, what have you got against the NES?

My heart sank when Jeff couldn't reach the boss fight.

Jeff hating mayonnaise as much as me makes me super happy.

The best thing about baseball is Buffalo Bell

Wonderful episode.

Just holidays most companies don't take off. Veteran's Day. Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday. Columbus Day. George Washington's Birthday. Barely real holidays!

i feel like i've been way too hard on mustard and way too easy on mayonnaise as i grow older.

I guess I'm the only one who gets kinda bored watching them play old video games for hours at a time. I know it's like sacrilege to say so but meh, least I'm honest.

When you take out the nostalgia factor these just kinda bore me. I personally think people are a bit crazy when it comes to nostalgia sometimes... It's only a select few old games like Windjammers that have kept me enthralled, the rest I've just seen too much of and are often just unevolved, though "pure", versions of modern games which were amazing in their time but I feel no need to revisit.

I will say it is amazing how much these guys remember about games they played 20+ years ago, I barely remember many of the details of games I played a few years ago, much less the ones I played in childhood, guess my memory sucks.

Lynch me if you will, only some interesting conversation kept me from falling asleep. Ironically, Brad seemed far more awake and interested than usual.. I guess he's the opposite of me lol. To each his own, glad everyone else enjoyed it.

To be fair, Jeff hates a lot of food.

Hating sauces/mayo on sandwiches makes no sense. It's like not liking salt.

You don't put mayo on a sandwich because you specifically want to wetten it up. It's on sandwiches by default because pretty much nobody likes a dry-ass sandwich.

the way she keeps getting closer and closer to the camera is terrifying

A lot of these were simply bad games. Times have not been kind to them either. So effectively you're watching people play pretty awful games for 2 hours at a time, and no amount of interesting banter can save that. Mix into the fold bad sport games and it's a deadly combo. I couldn't care less about real life baseball, not to mention modern baseball games. Oldschool baseball games? That's probably my breaking point.

Thank you very much for the information. When I go into my optometrist later this year for my annual exam, I may discuss this with her.

rbi baseball music is driving me insane

Damn Alexis, you're all right!

Hey man. GET BOPPED. Are you calling Jeff and myself nobodies?!

I dunno, that Formula 1 game looked way better than R.C. Pro Am. He should've gone into the Pit, though.

Also, the Disk System sound isn't all that impressive, to me personally. Castlevania 3 used an additional chip on the cart that made it sound different. Some people prefer it, me included, though I do have a soft spot for the simpler Western versions, considering that's what I grew up with.

every UPF needs to have a giant brad olmec head thumbnail now <3

Man that Famicom version of Castlevania 2 sounds like trash

OMG! I laughed so hard I cried:

SNEZ!

Bloody Tears sounds good in every other version I've ever heard, EXCEPT THIS ONE. I don't know how you mess up that amazing song, but wow.

huh. that's basically the same music as was in Super Batter Up. is Super Batter Up just a snes-ified re-release of this game?

The smile that appears on Jeff's face at 21:50 when he realizes he can sneak a run in is priceless.

I don't share the same love for all these NES and SNES games, but the happiness on Jeff's face throughout was outstanding. Like a child in a sandbox.