Itunes and/or Chapter and Verse were being uncooperative this week, so let me know if the file isn't playing properly for you, and in the meantime, use the MP3 version.

Always wanted to play Scarface, I heard it was a fun open world game. The Godfather Black Hand edition was a great game, I keep meaning to go back to it.

Hey, The Legend of Zelda counts as an open-world game, right? I think that was already in a Retroactive though.


Good show. Enjoyed the answer to the localization question.

Elite is one game that created modern open-world and it is available (legally) on Nintendo system through emulation:

http://www.elitehomepage.org/nes/index.htm

It's funny, truly "Open world" games for Nintendo consoles, I'm coming up blank, with exception to Spiderman 2 on the gamecube, which i'd be happy to find an excuse to play again. 


Simpsons Hit and Run?

True Crime: Streets of L.A.! And what about Hulk Ultimate Destruction? No More Heroes on Wii? Aaaarguably Beyond Good & Evil, kinda, sorta, a bit~ish? ...Maybe Wind Waker? Are the Assassin's Creed games open world btw? Because those are on Wii U just like Watch_Dogs, though I've never played one.


EDIT: Of course Ultimate Spider-Man works too, which looks better but plays worse than Spidey 2.

I think one space where puzzle games aren't as devalued is on PC. Just this year we've had the moderate successes of The Witness, Steven's Sausage Roll and Quadrilateral Cowboy. The first two managed to raise a bit of an eye or their pricing, but overall the content and gameplay that existed justified the pricing.

Lego City Undercover is older than TWEWY was when that game got its retroactive which makes it worth considering, especially now that it's been re-released as a Nintendo Selects title.

Great show.

http://kirk.is/journal.aux/2001.10.23.runningman.gif

That's my Mario. Some of you gentlemen were a bit rough on my beloved Intellivision, lol. It obviously doesn't hold up now, but it was my favorite console of that generation. Collecovision had the best graphics, but I only knew a couple kids who had them, and they never seemed to own many games. I don't know if it was a function of a greater price or less availability, but it seemed a problem. The various Atari iterations were more popular, but I thought the Intellivision had a much better game library. Not only were the graphics and game play better; it had a diverse catalog of genres for that time. Some highlights:

For the time, AD&D Treasure of Tarmin was an excellent approximation of the tabletop game, and it was a legitimately rich CRPG. It included rudimentary character design options, giving the players treasure items that re-calibrated stats. This effectively enabled nascent magic vs. physical attack builds. It also included stat grinding that increased your chances of survival in the more dangerous levels. It was a glimpse into how much permadeath increases the stakes, because you could spend hours building a character, but it would still be vulnerable to high level monsters. It added a layer of actual trepidation to the encounters, which was accentuated by the death screen you where instantaneously switched to when you received the fatal blow. The sound effect and little tombstone marker on the map were brutal, lol.

AD&D Cloudy Mountain was a fun adventure game that presaged Zelda. The over world had obstacles that could only be crossed if the player retrieved the appropriate item from a dungeon. It had an open world aspect too, because players could make strategic decisions about which items to retrieve. Each item type was guarded by monsters of different difficulty levels, and the randomly generate maps rarely required you to retrieve every item to reach the final boss. So you could often make choices about taking a shorter path with more dangerous bosses or a longer one that required you to clear more dungeons. The other really cool feature was that the game gave your graphical and aural hints about the location of monsters. The confined spaces, coupled with the high speed of the monster sprites, created an environment that rewarded players who tracked their prey through these clues. You could set traps, strategically choose which room to attack from, and if I remember correctly, even use stealth tactics to draw monsters away. I found this gave the game huge replayability and a greater array of gameplay options than what other games offered at the time.

Utopia was a relatively politically sophisticated competitive RTS TBS game that pitted players against each other as rulers of competing banana republics. The game gave you a continuum of strategies from the militaristic to benevolent all of which had appreciable in game consequences.

In addition to the games above that I felt were ahead of their time, the Intellivision had some really fun action, multiplayer, and sports games. In order, Tron: Deadly Discs, Space Battle, Pittfall!, Nightstalker, Microsurgeon, Star Strike, Dragonfire, Atlantis,and Space Hawk / Sea Battle and Armor Battle / Skiing, NFL Football,and NASL Soccer were my respective favorites.

The final fun thing about the Intellivision was that adults played it. I remember going to parties with my parents where the adults would play Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and Horse Racing (with actual gambling on the side). It was kind of like the Wii era, but with a lot more booze and cigarettes. My uncle even competed in a NFL Football league that had a trophy and cash prizes.

Despite how much I loved and played them, it wasn't my early home systems (Intellivsion, NES, TI & PC games) that fomented me as a gamer. It was the arcade cabinets (which I played as much in pizza shops or bodegas as I did in actual arcades) that really sucked me in. The brilliant sounds and bright colors were just so exciting and fun and are what I have the most nostalgia for. I have a long list of cabinets I have very fond memories of, but Tron, Wizard of Wor, Ghosts n' Goblins, Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Punchout, Donkey Kong, Bezerk, Star Wars, Dragon's Lair and Spy Hunter were probably my top ten at the time.

Also worth mentioning, although it was terribly cruel in retrospect, was the arcade in NYC's Chinatown that had a live chicken you could plat tic-tac-toe against. I never beat it, but you could win a bag of popcorn if you did.

I will argue that PC is actually the platform where these games are almost as devalued as on mobile (because EVERYTHING is insanely devalued on PC due to Steam sales and bundles). The fact that so many mobile games nowadays go to PC after making rounds on mobile doesn't help.

These games are also 2d puzzle games wrapped in pointless 3d walking simulator to bolster a feeling of value.

This is a solid recommendation - load times are bad, but the rest of the game is pretty good.


I was going to recommend Toki Tori 2+ on Wii U eShop, but feel like much of the RFN crew have already played that game and remember them talking about it.  Open world puzzle games seem relatively uncommon though, and while this game was a bit dense at times it was very well made.

I kind of bet Lego City: Undercover would be the run-away winner in a retroactive poll for open world games, and the price makes it something most here could scoop up relatively easily.  I think the conversation will easily devolve into comparisons between this & GTA though, as it's basically a goofy, kid-friendly lego themed GTA game with a collectable focus.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe.


It seems like an interesting moment in the evolution of LEGO games though - with voiced content making everything more accessible and upping production values, the open world structure used with an entirely original world/story, and choosing to go exclusively single-player. It's also an interesting moment in the history of Wii U games - a rare third party exclusive that makes pretty strong use of the Wii U features and comes from a significant brand (even if LEGO City doesn't have a licensed property like most other LEGO releases). Pricing of the game was unusual for LEGO branded content, staying quite high until the recent re-release - which might have limited exposure as many people who I know consider LEGO games to be best suited for cheap co-op gaming.


Not sure that means there would be enough discussion to carry a retroactive session, but hopefully the conversation could go deeper than just comparing LEGO City Undercover to a family-friendly GTA clone.

It's been more than an hour. Where's Azeke to back me up on Toki Tori 2?
(C'mon... I know you love it.)