Jar Time w/ Jeff: Vegas Is A Jar-Free Zone 02/05/2014

"No, fuck you, you're an asshole, stop" - Jeff Gerstmann

Just a general question. How does everybody feel about using hotel drinking glasses. I saw this investigative report and found it concerning.

WORD UP

Edit: Wow, Dungeon Keeper doesn't look appealing at all.

I'll be the nut and say it then: Donkey Kong Country 2 is one of the greatest platformers ever created, and I'll play that over Super Mario World any day of the week. The Bramble Blast music is fantastic along with most of the other music in that game. DKC 1 and 3 are also pretty damn good.

All three of the Donkey Kong Country SNES games are great. Sure if you play it now the graphics look bad, but I have very fond memories of playing these games in the late 1990s. The graphics were great and the gameplay was tight. I also enjoyed Donkey Kong Country remake for the Wii that game is really fun to play and has pretty nice looking graphics as well.

@heatdrive88: Well since i just forgot the name but knew the song i cannot answer the question:)

I am 30 by the way so if anybody is getting old here its me;)

Phew, okay, that makes me feel better haha. I am too, for the record.

Jeff's description of the generation after the next one being just a fire that you stare at and throw money into is chillingly close to the dystopian future in Little Inferno.

This video player is much better! It works just as good as youtube. The old one had all sorts of time skipping problems, and didn't remember where I left off on a video. It was weird. This is a huge relief.

The next evolution of Jar Time is a cameraman following Jeff around public places as he walks around answering questions off his iPad.

@themasterds: Jungle Beat is maybe the best Gamecube game. But yeah, I don't get Jeff not liking DKC, they're great games. He has a whole lot of weird opinions like that, though.

@larrydavis: I'll be fair to Jungle Beat here. I did sort of like the gameplay and while at the time it was vile as part of the "Fuck Rare and everything they did" movement during the Post Buyout Era since then Donkey Kong Country, Diddy, Dixie, Rambi, Cranky, Squawks, Funky, Barrels, Barrel Cannons, Extra Life Balloons, Bonus Stages, basically everything short of Kremlings has Returned. That said in any case, whether one just played it and liked the gameplay or one played it and got very angry because they were a teenager at the time, it was still a massive bummer. The original trilogy blows it out of the water, as does DKCR.

Even if we pretend that it's not a black sheep in an otherwise sterling franchise, yo, that game is good at best. 4/5 stars tops. Have you not played Paper Mario Thousand Year Door? That's the best Gamecube game. How about any of the Prime games? Wind Waker? Smash Brothers Melee certainly would beat DKJB. I think Sunshine and both Pikmin games are better. Star Fox Adventures totally higher. Four Swords Adventure totally beats Jungle Beat. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle I'd rate higher than Jungle Beat and that game's not great. I'd probably rank Twilight Princess under Jungle Beat though. You have me there!

@themasterds: Metroid Prime and Smash Brothers are absolute trash. Prime controls like trying to direct Michael J Fox by throwing Parkinson's medication in the direction you want him to go, and it was filled with monotonous scanning and horrible combat. Why Nintendo refused to use the second stick on the controller is beyond me, but even in Trilogy, while better, they just aren't good games. At least 1 and about half of 2 aren't, I didn't bother past that. Smash Bros is fucking Smash Bros, an idiotic imbalanced clusterfuck of a game that's kinda funny at parties with people who don't usually play games, or small children. Sure, I liked the first game when I was 10 or whatever. I liked lots of awful games. Like Sonic Adventure.

Wind Waker was 2/3rds good, only with the recent remake was it turned into The Best 3D Zelda, narrowly beating out Majora's Mask.
Every other 3D Zelda is some distant place that doesn't even deserve mention.

I mean, yeah, Mario Sunshine is great, Pikmin is dope. Paper Mario 2 is alright, though I preferred the first. SA2 is hilarious garbage and I don't know why you're even mentioning it. It was, much like SA1, shit then and even shittier now. I'M THA FIGHTIN' FREAK KNUCKLES

Jungle Beat is wholly unique, there is no other game that controls like it. I don't know what the hell kind of circles you were running in where there was some sort of anti-DK movement but I was psyched for it. I already had the fucking Bongos from Konga so why not. They're still around here somewhere, too...

Basically I was agreeing with you about DK games being rad so I'm not sure what got you all riled up. Of course the first three games (and DKCR) are still better. But they're not on Gamecube.

@larrydavis: You're right. Here's the thing: Jungle Beat is to me as Yoshi's Island is to Jeff. It's okay and just that. A respectable 3/5. I wouldn't say it's the best on the Gamecube. That's not being fair to the rest of the Gamecube's library.

Seriously though you should consider thinking more of Thousand Year Door. Have you forgotten that in one chapter you become a professional wrestler? Or in another you solve mysteries on a train?

@themasterds: Thousand Year Door has some really great stuff in it, but I felt overall it just wasn't as good. Maybe it was because the first game had so much novelty at time or something. I should try playing it again, but at this point it would mean digging out the Wii.

You know what's not fair to the Gamecube's library? The Gamecube's library. Superior hardware to the PS2 and it almost always had far inferior versions of everything.

And, yes, dummy, I was somewhat exaggerating about Jungle Beat being the Best. That would obviously be Killer 7, unless you count its inferior PS2 version as ruining its exclusivity. Which I wouldn't, what kind of maniac would play that version? Probably the same type of people who usually played Gamecube ports of other games.

But goddammit. Jungle Beat is great. I would rather play through it 100 times than pretty much any of the other Gamecube games you mentioned once. Pikmin's probably the exception.

Actually, you know what? Ultimate Muscle: Legends Vs New Generation. Now there's a hell of a game.

Jeff is right about Yoshi's Island, though. I liked that as a kid but when I got the GBA remake I realized I had been wrong the whole time. I feel like sometimes he can be overzealous in his sacred cow roasting, though. Yoshi's Island is indeed a creatively bankrupt and poorly-designed game, but Majora's Mask is by far the most interesting Zelda, and even if it doesn't particularly play well enough to live up to its concept, it's leagues ahead of Ocarina, one of the most boring, by the numbers, pieces of trash to ever be put into an N64 cart. And I'm including Tonic Trouble.

E: Ocarina has good music though. Too bad every Zelda since has just kept using the exact same songs.

@larrydavis: I also think Yoshi's Island is only okay. I like Yoshi's Story though so maybe I'm crazy.

I'm with Jeff: Vegas is not my kind of city.

Came to watch this a 2nd time because I missed not having Jeff in the office this week. Also I appreciate him keeping us updated on what some people in the video game industry are thinking about during these times.

It's been fun seeing everyone plow through this week with reckless abandon, but it'll be nice to have Jeff back.

@themasterds: Nah, Story is alright. It focuses on platforming instead of having some new half-assed gimmick in every stage, from what I recall.

This.

THEY NEED TO MAKE BOMBERMAN CE DX

Video player works great. I finally get to watch subscriber content without 1/2 second stutters ever 3 seconds. So.. Annoying..

more jars are needed

@doctormatazawa: I'm glad someone else noticed that Jeff was literally describing the premise of Little Inferno. Arguably not a game, but I really wish I could get everyone I know to play it so they can stop respecting most mobile games. It's really effective satire, which you don't see too often in video games.