2P START! Live!: The 20 Year Loop-De-Loop

Live!

RayWith the release of Sonic Generations, Ray finds himself in the same place he was 20 years ago, Tim berates plot holes in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, both discuss the eventual demise of Nintendo, Ray recounts the biggest blunder of his relationship, plus much more!

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37 Comments

  1. zeldadude says:

    First? Maybe!
    Anyways, about to listen. Eager to learn if ray has seen any MLP since my last comment. Equally eager for Tim’s response.

  2. ScopedShotgun says:

    Woah Tim, you sound like Morgan Freeman’s son

  3. JohnW says:

    Will listen once it’s up on iTunes! Looking forward! 😀

  4. Firethorn43 says:

    Great thoughts on Generations. I do want to note that the 3DS had its price drop 2 months ago to 170$, not 250$ anymore. And I was kind of hoping for some Skyward Sword thoughts or just upcoming games in general. I never thought on how dumb the girl in Apes was!

  5. Johnny Spade (D3vin) says:

    What about the Mario series? They have bunches of characters that they don’t use except for the spin-offs, like Waluigi, or even all of the Wario Ware characters. There is no reason for them to exist even in their own series.

    First people complain about having too many characters that either change gameplay too much (Like Big the cat) or are carbon copies of each other (like everyone in Sonic Heroes). Instead of getting rid of them, they have been shoved to a place where they can still belong, in the background. Hey, I’m still waiting for Nack the Weasel to come back fully. (He got a cameo on a Wanted poster in City Escape, so here’s hoping)

    I pre-ordered Sonic Generations from steam for only $30, and it is fun, although the PC version was relased 3 days after the Console version was. Although I wish I had a better gamepad for my PC. The top buttons get jammed too often and Modern Sonic keeps sidestepping off of cliffs, Especially in Planet Whisp.

    Rise of the planet of the Centepedes! Movie of the year! Especially if they look like this: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Venipede

    And the 3DS has been lowered to 169.99, so it is somewhat more affordable.

  6. Imaster says:

    Awesome to hear from you guys again! I don’t really have much to say about the podcast itself, but it was nice to have some fresh Ray and Tim conversation to listen to, and to hear about how things are going with the two of you. Thanks for continuing to bring us this content even after your site’s officially been put to rest– I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we appreciate it!

    I am worried for Nintendo’s future… at the same time, I feel like the answers to their worries are so obvious. I think they need to release their own smart phone… the NintenPhone! Honestly, how awesome would it be to have a smartphone with support for a ton of Nintendo games, past and present? Instead of Angry Birds, we’d get Super Mario, legend of Zelda, other NES and SNES classics, plus new bigger cartridge games that would cost a little more but keep hardcore gamers happy. As for their next console, it just needs to be freakin’ solid. Gimmicks are fine, but only after you’ve packed it full of the hardware necessary to give developers (including you) the ability to make whatever games they like, and at the very least port them from the other consoles. Beyond that, give us a great downloadable market with reasonably priced games (look to Apple, people) and we’ll be down.

    Hoo, didn’t mean to rant quite so much there. It just upsets me to see my favorite company make these missteps. Sometimes I feel like there’s such a disconnect between what we want and what they think we want. Listen to your fans, Nintendo! We’re not all that, but especially now that we’re getting older we know what a good gaming experience looks like and we want you to deliver! Let’s see more Country Returnses and Galaxies and less Wii Music and Animal Crossing clocks…

  7. Teengamer08 says:

    I just hope Skyward Sword can help Nintendo out of the gutter. 😛

    And the Wii U controller actually IS multi-touch, just thought you should know.

    Loving your voices! Keep the podcasts coming when it’s convenient for you!

  8. Retl says:

    Nice Podcast, Guys! A lot of laughs and fun moments were had. Gonna have to keep an eye on the Twitter for that SpinDash thingy podcast you mentioned though, Ray. Don’t own Generations. Thought about renting it, but most of the local rental places either don’t have it, or have closed out, and I canceled my GameFly some months ago. Hearing that it’s on Steam for $30 and that you’re giving it a pretty solid review has me ready to shell out by week’s end.

    Glad to hear you’ve got the house sorted out, Tim.

  9. blaster says:

    I have a different opinion in terms of creativity.

    I basically think Nintendo is not behind in terms of creativity.

    After all, there isn’t that much new technology for gaming now.

    Then there’s the games, if Nintendo develops a “cut the rope” like game, sure, it’ll be fun, but what we expect from them is Mario, Zelda, etc.
    Those company can make small games like that because they’re new.

    That brings us to that Mario is Mario because the games play the same way.
    Remember Sega’s experiment for different Sonic gameplay, werehog, anyone?

    Those tiny little games are fun on iPad, because they’re made for iPad.

    Sure, Pokemon (or Zelda) can work on an iPhone, but can you imagine Mario on it?

    Remember your BDA for Megaman 2 on iPhone?

    Maybe you can talk about 3DS on Spindash, too.

    For me, all nintendo handheld gives me some kind of consolish for me.
    Because their most popular franchise originated from console. (Except Pokemon)

  10. C.Olimar788 says:

    Certainly not a bad podcast, but the whole thing about Nintendo falling behind bothered me quite a bit.

    Certainly, the iPhone is taking away a handful of sales from dedicated gaming machines. However, people still want dedicated machines! You see it everywhere – dedicated eBook readers, normal iPods, and the 3DS are all selling quite well even though the iPad can do a bunch of the things they can. Nintendo is not going to die out any time soon as long as they keep their games exclusive. People still want to play Nintendo games, even though the mediocre Angry Birds of the world are cheaper.

    All this freaking out about Nintendo is just so silly to me. Sure, the 3DS didn’t do nearly as well as it could have but it still did better than the 360 or PS3 did at that point in their lifespan, and they turned out alright. And considering how few AAA titles are out on the 3DS even now, that’s a pretty darn respectable feat. If Nintendo had actually gotten some GAMES out, or just waited and released the console this holiday instead of in the middle of the Summer, things would be looking much better.

    And, just throwing this out there, I hope it never comes to the point that I can play Pokemon on an iPhone. It would be just depressing. Thankfully, I doubt it’ll come to that point anytime soon! 😀

    • CKcheeseboy says:

      I kind of agree. Here’s how I look at it: one of the main arguments is that phones are going to eliminate handheld game devices because they can do tons of different things including games. That’s a pretty good parallel to consoles and PCs, yet PCs haven’t eliminated the console market. Sure, nowadays consoles can do some other things (DVDs, Netflix, etc.), but their primary purpose is still games. I don’t think the “phones vs. handhelds” is that much different from the “PCs vs. consoles” that it would make that much of a difference.

      That’s not to say that the 3DS has been stellar so far. I just think that’s more to do with Nintendo than it is to do with cell phones, since cell phones didn’t have a huge effect on the original DS. But I still don’t own any games for my 3DS (not counting the eShop) and the ones I want aren’t exactly coming out in a flood. I think their problem right now is that they don’t have enough quality content to make it worth buying (which I think Tim and Ray touched on). If the content was there, people would buy it regardless of cell phones, but it’s not.

  11. roadjcat says:

    Okay, now that I just finished Sonic Generations today, I shall take a listen!

    • roadjcat says:

      Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve done this and so long so I’ve broken out my 2P Start! notebook. This is oddly nostalgic.

      – Love the “How dare you?” from Ray. Reminds me of the Rise from your Grave segment.

      – Tim, when you said “Oh yeah!” in that voice in the beginning, you kinda sounded like the Kool-Aid man. XD XD

      – Brain Age was mentioned…random side note: I actually recently became obsessed with the Professor Layton games and would recommend those over Brain Age. Really great games. I describe the story as Indiana Jones meets Fringe. XD Except significantly less dark obviously.

      – I actually got the last copy of Sonic Generations when I went to Best Buy on Tuesday to…wait that was yesterday. XD Go me. Okay so yes, it is a very short game, but the point is, it was relatively popular!

      – Sonic Adventure 2 still holds a a pretty big place in my heart….as cheesy as that sounds. I really like Sonic Generations, but I dunno if it beats SA2.

      – And I actually think Sonic Generations is good without knowing about all the games. The only stages in the game that I’d played before were Green Hill Zone, City Escape, and Seaside Hill and I still enjoyed it. I mean yeah, I knew who all the characters were but still.

      – Yay for Rouge being the first friend that jumped into your head Ray. XD

      – All the reviews said that classic Sonic was better than modern Sonic. While I’m in the minority, I very much disagree. Modern was so much more fun IMO.

      – I also agree that the different routes system was a great way to curb frustration. I am horrible at platformers and I never once got a game over on my playthrough. I lost a lot of lives, but no game over. Also, unlimited lives on the challenge stages was appreciated.

      – Also agree that the warning signs were very helpful

      – Here’s one of my complaints that you will not be surprised to hear: Would’ve like more Rouge involvement. 😀 Though the stage were she has to seduce the robots is pure gold. XD

      – Uh…Ray, you kept saying Press A to spin dash…pretty sure it was X. haha. Yay! My nitpickyness is back too! haha kidding.

      – I pretty much only used the spin dash when trying to get up a ramp…

      – Oh yeah, one other thing that irked me was that just getting to the challenge stages involved some annoying platforming…

      – And there are some times when modern Sonic has to slow down and do some platforming.

      – Okay so as I’m going through my notes, I actually have more subtle complaints than I thought I did. This one isn’t really well warranted, I’m just a fanboy: I wish there had been more SA2 levels.

      – And isn’t Sonic 4 Episode 2 supposed to come out next year?

      – I actually got Sonic 4. I’m at the final boss section and have 6 chaos emeralds. Beating the boss and getting the last emerald was getting on my nerves so I stopped playing…maybe I’ll finish later. But I didn’t think it was a bad game.

      – Oh and I’m with you with the cutscenes. I think the story could’ve been pretty engaging, but it just really wasn’t. Also what was up with Rouge’s voice? It was like they were trying to make her more sexualized than she already is.

      – OKAY WAIT! No killing off Sonic friends! I happen to like them. I think what we need to do is simply make them go away for a little while…just ignore them. No one’s gonna care where they went. But if there’s a story heavy game that involves something a side character would be involved in, bring them back in. For example…a game with heavy government/GUN involvement? Bring Rouge in. Honestly, I want a game really badly that gives Rouge some more character development because I swear she’s the only character that’s gotten some that isn’t horrible and I want to see more.

      – Okay I didn’t like Planet of the Apes much. I didn’t like any of the characters and it just made me not care. It trying to make a difficult decision for the viewers on who to root for, I just didn’t care about anyone. I actually liked the orangutan the best. x_x And I thought Tom Felton’s role was stupid too; I was thinking the exact same thing about his character. My biggest complaint was how unrealistic it got at the end. All of the sudden, the apes weren’t just smart, they were super human. It made no sense. Though I liked the end credits scene.

      – Okay I own a 3DS and the best game that I have for it? I honestly think it’s the Resident Evil Mercenaries game. I am very much in the minority, I know that, but I actually enjoy it very much. It’s not very polished, but it’s fun. Meanwhile, Ocarina of Time is boring the crap out of me…I’m like pushing myself through it just because it’s supposedly the greatest game of all time. I just do NOT get it.

      – Street Fighter is actually very good for what it’s worth. Sunk maybe 75 hours into it.

      – What Nintendo needs to do is stop freaking slacking. I’m sorry, but why are we releasing Star Fox? Yes, I hear it’s good and I’d like to play it but I can’t justify the $40 price tag right now. However, the point is…why are we releasing the remakes and not Paper Mario, Animal Crossing and Kid Icarus…the games people actually want!? AC and Paper Mario were announced way before Mario 3D Land was. So what gives? Why is it coming out first!?

      – I will probably be getting Mario Kart 7 some time and it looks like a good game. A system seller? Probably not, but hey I have a 3DS already so it’s not an issue.

      – More use of the AR cards would be good actually. Those things are fun.

      – I disagree about phone games. I just got an Android and haven’t found any games I’m really too crazy about. Yes Mirror’s Edge for the iPhone is fun and so is Scribblenauts, but I have the original of both and they’re better.

      – And no, Pokemon on the iPhone would bug me. The controls probably wouldn’t work very well and it would be incredibly dumbed down.

      – Also for what it’s worth, the 3DS only has one friend code so that’s good. Still not perfect, but a step in the right direction.

      – Well I mentioned Rouge enough above that I don’t need a separate comment for it, but in saying that, I just created one! XD

  12. Gamer Blue says:

    Wow. Three Sonics on the front of the home page. That must be a new record.

  13. shockwave527 says:

    Wow! Glad to see you’ve posted more, and glad I checked. This is not technically a Rise from Your Grave, but I accidentally commented before I checked the podcast, so I hope this is accepted. Anyway, I started reading Brawl in the Family and was soon redirected here, to my immense enjoyment. I have read every comic now multiple times and seen almost all the podcasts. I really hope you guys do more postmortem stuff, because you guys are really awesome. Say hi to sonic for me.

  14. blaster says:

    Just played some sonic generations, something confuses me.

    When you select “Start Over”, you lose a life. But if you quit stage and reenter, you don’t.

    • roadjcat says:

      Yes and it’s a huge pain. I’m trying to get the final Red Star Ring in City Escape and I keep messing up and it’s really annoying to have to quit…wait for it to load…wait for it to save…re-enter…wait for it to load. The lives system just needs to be axed period.

  15. Mr. Saxaphone says:

    I would say, “wow great podcast!” But i have been starved of the formal greatness of 2P START! live. Now in my feverish need for my 2P Start! gap in my life, any updates on the site are live sweet honey on my lips. I found this podcast to be a bit boring. It mirrored everything that they hated back when they were good. But, at least i got to sleep.

    This podcast used to be good. Like, two or three podcast ago.

    • I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree here. As much as I typically enjoy hearing Tim and Ray again, it just wasn’t that much fun of a podcast. The pair seem to be growing more and more cynical toward gaming and their discussion of Nintendo’s future contradicted some of their previous stances about DLC and having a dedicated gaming platform.

      I get that they both like their iPhones and iPads, and that’s great, but I think it’s narrow-sighted to say that such devices are the future of all portable gaming. It’s ironic to me that about the time they started down this line of thought is about the same time I decided to invest in a PSP because there were exclusive games for it that I wanted to play. As long as Nintendo and other developers create good games for these platforms, I think there’s room in the gaming market for both dedicated portable systems and phone/tablet-based games.

  16. Sebby19 says:

    I would like to know your opinions on Skyward Sword.

  17. shadowhog says:

    Hey, is it just me or is the website a bit buggy.

  18. Gamer Blue says:

    Yeah, so there’s actually SEVEN sonics on the 2P START! homepage. That;s a lot of sonics…

  19. Laelaps says:

    Sorry it’s taken so long to comment; I’m too lazy to have a password for this site, so I just reset it every time…which is time-consuming…
    Anyway, great episode! And wow Ray, I can’t help but think that that same group of friends goes out regularly…you were bound to have her as a waitress again…
    I can’t wait to play Generations myself once I get a HD console one day…
    I actually hate those die-if-you-fall-in-this-pit signs; they make it seem too controlled and contrived, like the developers couldn’t work it in naturally into the course. Something subtler could be better, like a pattern, e.g. those green hexagons from Techno Base in Sonic Advance 2 would only occur over bottomless pits.
    Well hey, the spindash sounds a whole rung above Sonic 4’s one-option spindash…
    And I think that in one of your expectations discourses you commented on radio voices…maybe that was someone else, but at any rate, I thought that you’d appreciate this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jb6-BfmPdY&feature=player_embedded

  20. vmk89 says:

    It’s amazing how close Ray’s “good Sonic plot” is to the Sonic/Megaman comic crossover.

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