Old Games: The Old Games Show: 04/22/2015

The Star Wars Expanded Universe has a ton of stupid shit in it--like Jaxxon the rabbit. For awhile, at the inception of the EU, none of the authors seemed to know what they were doing, so a lot of that was really dumb or just plain bad--such as Trioculus, the three-eyed "son" of the Emperor (don't worry, the real son was a three-eyed guy name Triclops). However, once TImothy Zahn came in with the Heir to the Empire series, the EU got much better and, more or less, achieved a unified style and tone. I would never claim the Zahn and post-Zahn books are great, Tolkien-quality fantasy literature, but they're a blast to read when you're a 13-18 and love Star Wars. I mean, none of it--aside from the really dumb shit--is any worse than any regular-ass sci-fi/fantasy series. I'd even argue that Zahn's books--aside from certain missteps (see below)--are really well-written, fun space-fantasy stories. Zahn's Grand Admiral Thrawn, for example, is a damn interesting character, and if Disney chooses not to use him, they fucked up.

Sure, there's still some dumb shit, like Jorus C'baoth's clone Joruus C'baoth and Luke Skywalker's clone Luuke Skywalker, but the vast majority of characters and stories are far less ridiculous, despite how Brad portrays them (love you, Brad). Even Zahn realized how stupid those clone names were; he wrote a non-canon (I guess doubly non-canon now) April Fool's short story that mentions a third clone named Luuuke, whose purpose is clearly to mock the ridiculous naming convention.

@hammondoftexas said:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hohass_Ekwesh is that horse dude. He had split personalities, apparently.

Also, that otter thing is called a Selonian (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Selonian) and now looks like this in SWTOR:

Loving the retro gaming

I really liked Lemmings. It was like, original Minecraft or something. Made ya think it through...

All I want from Disney is to re-release the original three movies with an undubbed Darth Vader. It's the best thing ever, he sounds like Dark Helmet.

Really confused as to why this wasn't MK themed...no spec ops or shaolin monks? Lame...

Man does Quan Chi look like the one guy from The Shield.

Sweet TOGS brah!

Does anyone else agree that this is the best new feature on the site?

I agree, the only problem is it's too short. And yet, they insist on 4 hours of Mario Party

@crippl3 said:

@hammondoftexas said:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hohass_Ekwesh is that horse dude. He had split personalities, apparently.

Also, that otter thing is called a Selonian (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Selonian) and now looks like this in SWTOR:

We have guardians of the galaxy now with talking Racoons. I can't see why we can't have this super dumb star wars because I really want that now.

I don't know why, but I've always liked Quan Chi. I think his design is cool and any time I play a Mage-type character I usually make them look like him. I may also be biased towards fellow bald brethren. Also his fatality is MKX is one of the coolest/most disturbing, IMO.

Lemmings: "Cracked by Skid Row"

Holy shit, seeing that screen come up was mindblowing. I had no idea Skidrow cracks have been around since the amiga days - I remember seeing that name on torrents in just the past 10 years or so and it was always the fucking gold standard.

Which is not to advocate piracy of course, I'm not even into that stuff anymore now that I've got a job and now that everything is done through steam. But man, whoever Skidrow is, they're good at doing piracy and apparently always have been.

I played a lot of Lemmings back in the day, always loved it, but got stuck pretty early. Nice to see it again, though.

I also loved the Star Wars Trilogy games on the SNES and I still think they are at least decent games. A New Hope is clearly the weakest in the trilogy also.

Also, yes, a lot of the expanded universe stuff is stupid but there's also a lot of gold out there, especially in book form.

And that moon didn't drop on Chewbacca, it dropped on the planet where he was on. He died saving Han's children and it was actually an okay story.

Definitely with @brad as far as wanting the MK 2 - 3 announcer back in the MK games. The last time Steve Ritchie did Shao Kahn/the announcer's voice was MK Shaolin Monks, so it's been quite a while. Announcer now is ok but just sounds kind of phony to me. Plus it's cool to know that Shao Kahn and the (pinball) Black Knight are the same dude.

Every mention of the BLLSL gives me a boner. A BLLSLoner if you will.

Knowing old games, it'll be the theme of the series.

Quan Chi's line reads remind me HEAVILY of Calypso in the original, unreleased Twisted Metal endings. Which are...just the best.

Star Wars is and has always been for kids.

Not all kids. Some kids have discerning taste.

That Chewie crushed by a moon stuff I believe was written by our good friend Bob Salvatore.

@derek_davis: i like that it doesn't overstay its welcome, but it's also paradoxically really chill. Best of both worlds!

A horse piloting an X-Wing is ridiculous.

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The Sasquatch that hangs out with Han Solo and sounds like a dying donkey is much more acceptable.

This is super, super true. Everything in Star Wars is intended for a pretty young audience, which is why it stretches beyond its breaking point once you start analyzing it.

When I was a teenager I was a big fan of the EU novels, but as I got older I began to realize how silly the whole thing was. In addition to it being official fan-fiction like Jeff said, the books were all trying to one-up each other with ever-greater threats to the galaxy. It became this enormous mess of everyone falling to the dark side over and over again and new characters whose sole reason for existing was to be a plus-one version of the previous most powerful character. I think the only reason the EU was allowed to remain such a ridiculous train wreck for so long is that it was selling to a niche crowd that was mostly confined to its own circus.

Thank heavens it's being put down, but like Jeff and Brad I'm way too old to care about Star Wars anymore. Maybe someone could make a blog where they go through all the EU stuff and pull out the funniest material like the horse X-Wing pilot.

Wait just one minute. Jeff and Dan both don't like Lemmings 3D? That game is awesome (as long as you have a mouse for your PS1).

Play tie fighter already! You have been teasing it for YEARS now!

The stories from these and the times when Jeff is playing games out of his bedroom are the best times on Giantbomb. I love the quicklooks, reviews and such, but man... These old game sessions are just filled with a bunch of crazy stories and weird insight from Jeff on gaming history (and now Star Wars from Brad).

great episode

Shhhh, shhhhh at the beginning. I know you guys love MK and know so much about it, but I think most people haven't ever seen this game. Let me take the game in a bit before Dan and Brad go on tangents about the MK franchise. We've had plenty of that already.

Completely forgot about Pit Fighter until just now.

Mmm, mmm, mmm. That's some hot 90's FMV bullshit right there.

INSANE to watch Jeff play this after years of having not touched it, when Minotti's been playing it for weeks and still doesn't seem like he's learned a single thing about it