Demo Derby: PlayStation Underground: Volume 3 Issue 1

Hey yo! Your resident PlayStation Underground historian here. Despite saying "Winter," this issue came out around March 1999. If I recall correctly, the WCW footage was shot backstage during Starrcade '98, which was in late December, and WCW/nWo Thunder released in early January. This also means that by the time anyone watched these videos, The Giant was no longer in WCW and had already debuted in WWF.

Gallery

Project Wormhole was intended to be a 1-year project, but it actually ended up spanning nearly two years. Much like Underground in general, it was a cool thing that was ahead of its time.

This disc may be the only version of Gangway Monsters that was ever even partially translated into English. I've had several people over the years send me a PM asking where I got the screenshots.

The TV that was destroyed by The Giant (Big Show) in the WCW Thunder segment was purchased that day with the plan being to have a wrestler destroy it in some way. Sorry for breaking kayfabe here.

Finally! A new Demo Derby!

This is either a very good 4th of July, or Jason's deck is accurate.

yes

HAPPY 'MERICA DAY

This is my jam.

I'm still waiting for Jeff to show up on one of these discs.

CENA WINS

Aw yeah!

Octagon is my favorite Metal Gear character.

@marino: Thanks for providing that added backstory!

The threads commercial is how they should advertise new GB shirts.

"PlayStation Underground Radio Network, that's me!":

Videogames.com welcomes you to the PlayStation Underground Radio Network, an all-new source for the best in PlayStation news and information. Each week we'll bring you PlayStation news, previews, reviews, interviews, tips, exclusives, and a few surprises, too - all in a dynamic, multimedia format you won't find anywhere else.

Your host is David Lawrence, who will be joined each week by videogames.com Executive Editor Joe Fielder, Reviews Editor Jeff Gerstmann, and Strategy Editor Ryan Mac Donald, along with special guests from around the world of PlayStation.

[...]

Top Ten reasons the PlayStation Underground Radio Network is better than radio:

10.You can listen to it AND watch it.
9. You can do # 10 while at the office and you'll actually look like you're working.
8. Interviews you won't find anywhere else from the people who make your favorite PlayStation games.
7. Hot, fresh codes hand delivered 24 hours a day for no extra charge
6. Short attention span? Mind wanders? No worries. You can go back and listen to what you missed again. And again. And again.
5. No strange static when you drive under bridges.
4. Your friends will NEVER come to your house just to listen to the radio.
3. No Emergency Broadcast Service tests--ever.
2. David Lawrence is your host, and if you can handle it, the guys from videogames.com are there to tell you first hand what it's all about.
1. You'll never have to sit through a crummy pop song to find out what cool thing is coming up next.

Edit: Octagon, the most famous of the MGS characters.

Edit 2: Jeff's info from around the same time:

Reviews Editor Jeff Gerstmann secretly runs your life. He knows when you are sleeping, and he knows when you are going to take your last breath. Currently 22, Jeff tends to enjoy sitting down, sleeping, and staying out all night to cruise the streets of Petaluma, CA in his Mustang with a sawed-off shotgun on his lap.

Jeff's reading of the playstation comments had me laughing really hard

I didn't ask for this.

That TBWA/Chiat Day hit was gold, wonder what influence they had on this as I would expect better from them.

So apparently if you finish the original Metal Gear Solid on the easy difficulty, some character named "Octagon" gives you stealth camo. Maybe it's like a UFC thing? Or a geometry thing?

Is that George Woods narrating ~7 mins?

It's sad to see this feature has moved away from talking about the content in the demo and instead reminiscing about random topics over game footage. I still love you guys.

I'm surprised Jeff didn't sound off more on Circuit Breakers; any time that game comes up he usually voices his disdain for that game.

(For mine, I quite liked the way it played, but the AI and rubber banding meant you couldn't fuck up at all, and that quickly squashed any enjoyment. Micro Maniacs, on the other hand, I played the shit out of.)

Side note: Parts of the menu music sound like they came from a Gremlins movie.

"You know, I was actually playing Sewer Shark last weekend" is the literal story of Jeff's life.

The narrator here is Chris Colon. He did a lot of voice over stuff (among other roles) in the 90's.

"I just played/held ____ yesterday/last week" - Jeff

@marino: Got it, thanks!

Hal "Octagon" Emmerich. Also yeah that tip was entirely wrong; you get the stealth camo from Otacon if you submit during the torture sequence, but you get the infinite ammo bandanna if you don't.

Happy Fourth of July!

I really want to hear some of these PSUR episodes

time actually stops every 24 hours, and jeff is cursed to play through all the games he owns and hold each piece of his gaming collection before it proceeds again. Which explains his insanity.

I bought RR Type 4 from a Blockbuster for a couple of pounds. Much, much later, must have been around 2008. I have no idea why they still had it! Still a cool game even then.

I love these! Keep pumping them out, maybe do some PC disks too!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-nelson-865a816

A young mind's imagination is a hell of a thing, because I will swear on my life PS1 games did not look like the muddy disasters showcased on this demo disc.

I wanted to disagree with Jeff's dismissal of Acclaim so I looked them up and..man. I used to think of them as a major mid-tier publisher, like THQ last gen, but...those first couple Burnout games were great and I loved Aggressive Inline, but they put out a LOT of trash. A LOT.

I kinda feel like I just got kicked in the childhood.

@hippie_genocide: They were always hideous swimmy messes. I remember being lukewarm on the PS1/N64 generation throughout (though of course there were some great games) and being super happy when the Dreamcast was released because finally there were some polygon graphics that actually worked.

I think that's a large part of Dreamcast nostalgia. It was the first console* where most of the 3-D games actually looked good.

*Note that I was also playing computer games at this time and computer 3-D got there way before console did.

@ripelivejam: It's the result of Jeff's tampering with time from his Time Trotter days. He no longer exists in time the way the rest of us do. This is his curse.

Jeff likes wrestling moves that come out of nowhere....RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!

REVIEW WCW THUNDER!!

No seriously, don't. Those games fucking sucked.

The best tunnel shooter is Space Giraffe for sure.

@drewbert "Wasn't there a show..."

First thing I thought of was Crush Gear and not Beyblades for Gangway monsters

I was dying waiting for them to think of Jet Set Radio, but it never happened.

There are 5 main series Wild Arms games. The first three are some of my favourites ever made. We don't talk about the other two.

I don't know what it says about me that I knew Kalisto made Nightmare Creatures, and didn't have to look it up.

Pokemon X and Y has you using roller blades when you press the "run" button.

Final Fantasy 8 on the PC had the Pocket Alpha game as a separate executable. It was a thing where a Chocobo was doing something and you could get items in FF8.

Oh. Oh no.

oh man, I haven't thought about Legend of Legaia in probably over a decade, I remember really liking the battle system at the time

In my mind, Type 4 is one of the most stylish racing games ever made. No idea if that's still true, but when I think of that game I think of a very distinct look and feel.

And man, thanks for digging this up. @stordoff said:

Awww, no love for Silent Hill? What was going on in SH is the entire plotline of the series: there's an extremist, Old Testament cult known as "The Order" that has existed around the town of Silent Hill for centuries (there are also allusions to ritualistic drugs cultivated in the region, as well as aboriginal lore). Before the timeline of the first SH game, the remaining elements of the Order were attempting to bring their Heaven (or the original paradise) to the normal world, which was more or less what is perceived as Hell. Anyway, they tried to do this by ritualistically sacrificing their kids (specifically Alyssa) and they ended up botching the job. There's definitely a lot more to the story but that pretty much sums it up. The most interesting aspect of the SH story is that there really are a lot of real towns throughout the Americas built around secretive and bizarre cult backgrounds.

Crap, I don't own that WCW game. Hollywood Hogan is going to bust me up real' bad.