Matt's links:
https://www.facebook.com/mattblairmusic/
https://www.twitch.tv/mattblairuk
https://twitter.com/themattblair
Get ready to press play on a nostalgia-packed episode with the multi-talented Matt Blair, as we venture into the captivating world of gaming. Matt, revered for his comedy, film enthusiasm, and music, offers enthralling tales from his time on the Games World show. This is not just a trip down memory lane; it's an inside look at the evolution of gaming, the emotional rollercoaster games can put us through, and the hefty price tag that often accompanies our love for the game.
Brace yourselves as we begin by unearthing some long-buried memories from the Games World tryouts. Sit back and enjoy as Matt and I reminisce about our first meeting on Game 12, where I finally conquered Big Boy Barry. Further, Matt, with his signature wit, relives his journey from the PS1 era, his rediscovered love for gaming thanks to God of War (2005), and the trials and tribulations of completing the Shadow of the Colossus temple during the pandemic.
Finally, prepare to chuckle as we delve into the comedic aspects of modern wrestling and explore the world of remakes, streaming, and Twitch and Discord for game updates. We wrap up this jamboree with a fascinating discussion on the possibility of remakes for classic games, and the power of laughter in intensifying serious moments. This episode, brimming with laughter, nostalgia, and insightful discussions, is an absolute must-listen for gaming enthusiasts and Matt Blair fans alike.
My Details:
🕹️ - http://www.twitch.tv/meanmachinedean
🕊️ - http://www.twitter.com/meanmachinedean/
📷 - http://www.instagram.com/meanmachinedean
💸 - http://www.ko-fi.com/meanmachinedean
Want to see more of my videos?
Please subscribe & click the stupid bell for notifications of my next upload!
If you would like me to review your game or tech, or to be on the podcast: mail@meanmachinedean.com
Matt's links:
https://www.facebook.com/mattblairmusic/
https://www.twitch.tv/mattblairuk
https://twitter.com/themattblair
Get ready to press play on a nostalgia-packed episode with the multi-talented Matt Blair, as we venture into the captivating world of gaming. Matt, revered for his comedy, film enthusiasm, and music, offers enthralling tales from his time on the Games World show. This is not just a trip down memory lane; it's an inside look at the evolution of gaming, the emotional rollercoaster games can put us through, and the hefty price tag that often accompanies our love for the game.
Brace yourselves as we begin by unearthing some long-buried memories from the Games World tryouts. Sit back and enjoy as Matt and I reminisce about our first meeting on Game 12, where I finally conquered Big Boy Barry. Further, Matt, with his signature wit, relives his journey from the PS1 era, his rediscovered love for gaming thanks to God of War (2005), and the trials and tribulations of completing the Shadow of the Colossus temple during the pandemic.
Finally, prepare to chuckle as we delve into the comedic aspects of modern wrestling and explore the world of remakes, streaming, and Twitch and Discord for game updates. We wrap up this jamboree with a fascinating discussion on the possibility of remakes for classic games, and the power of laughter in intensifying serious moments. This episode, brimming with laughter, nostalgia, and insightful discussions, is an absolute must-listen for gaming enthusiasts and Matt Blair fans alike.
My Details:
🕹️ - http://www.twitch.tv/meanmachinedean
🕊️ - http://www.twitter.com/meanmachinedean/
📷 - http://www.instagram.com/meanmachinedean
💸 - http://www.ko-fi.com/meanmachinedean
Want to see more of my videos?
Please subscribe & click the stupid bell for notifications of my next upload!
If you would like me to review your game or tech, or to be on the podcast: mail@meanmachinedean.com
Hey everyone, welcome to Meemachine Talks. This has probably been a podcast that's 30 years in the making. I say this every podcast, but today's guest is probably one of the most special ones I've had Our paths crossed by the way of YouTube. He lit up my little face with a comment in one of my videos. But to explain a little bit more about my guest, which is Matt Blair, he classes himself as a musician, a comedian, a film fanatic, an idiot which we can go into, and also a coffee lover, which is something that we can definitely talk about. He also has his own podcast, the Geek Apportium podcast, but I'm sure he'll come onto all of that. Matt Blair met me 30 years ago on Game 12, when I was very small, and he was slightly smaller but slightly more taller than me. But what a pleasure it is. Welcome, matt, to Meemachine Talks, a podcast. I never thought would happen, but here we are. How are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm good. Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely to see you again after 30 odd years. Yeah, it's lovely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very surreal moment. I've been thinking about this since I first invited you to the podcast because I just didn't know what it would be like, because I mean I was casting my memory back and I mean there are snapshots that I remember of Game 12. I remember the important parts I guess you could say, but I don't remember. Yeah, exactly, well, winning that part. I didn't win the Grand Final, unfortunately, but anyway, that's for another time. But I did beat Big Boy Barry recently. So have you not seen that video?
Speaker 2:No, I haven't.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you about that story in a moment. So most people know that I had this picture taken in 2019, before the world went to shit and that was just after I beat him at the game that he beat me out at Games World so well that's lovely, that's cool there we go the Games World Reunion.
Speaker 1:There we go. So, yes, I mean, I remember honestly very little about our show. I think there are certain snapshots in my mind that do appear back. But one thing I wanted to know because it's very interesting to hear everybody's input was how did you get invited into Games World and how did you get onto the show?
Speaker 2:So this would involve telling you a little bit about myself. It might feel a little, not like a huge downer, but at least like it might feel a little bit of a downer. But it's not meant to be, it just is. So it was mainly through my dad. He helped me out a lot, and so I'm going to now ask you, because you might be like I don't know Do you know who my dad is?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:The clue is in my surname. My father was the late Fantastic Lionel Blair.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:And he kind of. So I found out that they were doing like auditions, like sort of like tryouts for Games World, and I have a feeling that, because of my dad and his presence there at the tryouts, I feel like they probably just let me through. Like if he wasn't there and I played on my own merits I'm not 100% I would have got through. But the guy that I ended up having to play against I remember it was a fighting game and I did tear him apart in it, but I don't know whether when I look back at it and it was being like I must have been 11, 12 years old or something like that it's hard to tell whether they were just being nice and letting me win or if I was genuinely, and the further away I get from it, it's like they definitely let me win.
Speaker 2:There's no way that the guy the works for the tryouts of Games World and so easily loses, like, listen, I've always been a gamer and I've always loved playing games, but I've never been amazingly good at games. I just enjoy playing them. There are some games I am very good at, but most of them I don't care that much. But I have a feeling that this guy just let me through, and then that was sort of it. I'm trying to, I desperately try to remember exactly where those tryouts were held, but I can't think for the life of me where they were. I think it was like Bromley, maybe I don't know, though I'm just picking that name out of the air.
Speaker 1:So the only thing that I, at first of all, I can't believe I'm talking to Lionel Blair's son. That hasn't quite sunk in yet, but I'll let that marinate in my mind for a minute. But yeah, the only thing I do remember was the actual Games World set was in a old Sarsons vinegar brewery which I think was in East London. As for the tryouts, do you know what I think? Do you know what I'm going to do? Live on the air.
Speaker 1:I'm going to message my brother because he came with me, because he had the trial as well. He actually got into the show and got kicked out in the first round. Sorry, brother, Let me just ask him now Do you remember where the Games World tryouts were in London? This is going to be fantastic, because he's normally got a memory elephany. You just remember random facts. I'm fascinated to see if he's going to get back to me. But yeah, I definitely remember East London Sarsons vinegar brewery because I remember my dad talking to one of the backstage staff about it.
Speaker 1:But I firmly remember the tryouts being on like some second or third floor office type space and there was like a waiting area and there was like consoles at the back and you kind of got caught up and stuff like that. I think the beating up they had or, sorry, the fighting game they had running I think was Super Street Fighter 2. The only reason I remember is because it had the new characters and as a kid I was like, oh, new characters, this will be cool, completely forgetting the fact that you know you're meant to be here for a flipping trial, didn't have a clue of any of the movesets and was getting absolutely massacred. And I met my brother going pick re who you mug and I was like, oh yeah, we have it for a tryout. And then something started winning. So yeah, I'm amazed that your Lionel Blair son. I honestly had no idea all those years have passed. That's absolutely insane.
Speaker 2:But you didn't come to the actual recording of the show. That's the thing. He didn't come to that, right, I see.
Speaker 1:I see, yeah, he said he can't actually Damn. Do you know what? I know a man who would Alex Berry, big boy Barry, this guy, he wouldn't know. I'm going to hit him up off the podcast and find out where that is.
Speaker 2:It's kind of interesting because another friend of mine like one of my best friends ever, he actually went to school and I've forgotten his name, but he went to school with the kid who played Master Moriarty.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay.
Speaker 2:And I went to see him do a school play. My mate and Master Moriarty was also in the school play as well, like it was. Just it was a very surreal moment seeing like my best friend and this other like kid from TV.
Speaker 1:It was very weird yeah it's small world kind of thing, you know yeah it's been very it's been very weird for me because I've been on podcasts where Rick Henderson, the Violet Blade I've known him for pretty much since Gameswell, to be honest, and speaking to him after all these years and obviously seeing Alex after 30 odd years and stuff, it's just, it's it's like a disjointed family that whenever you meet, everybody suddenly got all these connections to different people that you know, that they know and other people know. It's a very surreal moment. But Lionel Blair's son Well, I've really, I've really hit the high point now with this podcast. There we go Right, so we'll come on to Gameswell later. But what I normally do is open up the floor to my guests to talk about what they do. So I will let you plug anything you want for as long as you want, and then we'll get back on track.
Speaker 2:Okay, the floor is yours. I mean, wow, what to tell you about myself? So before, before everything went to crap with the pandemic and everything, I've been working as a comedian, cabaret musician, gigging like in Europe. When we were allowed to, when I was allowed to freely work in Europe, that was, that was a good time. That was a good time. Can't do that now. And, yeah, we're doing gigs, we're doing festivals, glastonbury, download, latitude, all sorts of nice little bits and bobs. Sometimes I'd be playing drums, sometimes I'd be playing guitar, sometimes I'd be doing stand up. But I was part of this double act but, like 2021, that came to an end, the double act I've run. Now I've run a monthly comedy night in Chiswick at the Spacakville Park course, which is, which is lovely.
Speaker 2:And I do Twitch streaming. Twitch username Matt Blair, uk, if you want to. You know I do mainly at the moment, mainly music on Twitch, but I do. I do do games, but at the moment it's just music, because I'm sort of in the middle of a move and it's all been a bit like chaotic and I can't really settle with a game, if you know what I mean, because I like my story games and I like to play out the stories. I'm not one of those streamers that sort of grinds a particular game for a very long time. I mean I have done that on Twitch, but that's not my main thing. I like stories, so you know. I like Guardians of the Galaxy game, which was superb, shadow of the Colossus, last Guardian, no sorts of things, other stuff that I do.
Speaker 2:At the moment I work for Roland, which is pretty nice I like. If you know who Roland are, they make keyboards and electric drums. I work mainly for the guitar department, which is boss, boss pedals and stuff like that and what this is guitar product specialist, which is quite a nice title. I quite like that and other bits and bobs. You know I just do as much comedy, guitar playing and gaming as I can. That's really my life, that's. That's. That's the stuff right there. In terms of games, if we want to talk games, is that what we're going to do?
Speaker 1:Well, we can talk about anything. I mean, you've got your podcast as well, so feel free to talk about that Well it's actually has ended now. How dare?
Speaker 2:you, I know no, that we. So it was called the Geekitorium and it was it was. We did it. We started it during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:It was my great friend, rick Caranza, and he's a fellow comedian and we'd wanted to work together for ages and he already had the podcast but he wasn't really doing anything with it and he wanted a co-host. And then I was like I'm right here, dude, I'm right here. And he was like I was waiting for you to offer, so I didn't have to ask, which was a very weird thing. But then we did that and it became, because the whole point of the podcast was we would watch nerdy things or read nerdy things and then talk about them in sort of spoilery detail and all that. But then he had a kid and I was working again because things opened up and it became harder and harder to keep the podcast going consistently.
Speaker 2:It just was really, because a lot of people don't realize it's not just sit around, talk and put it out there. There's the editing, there's the artwork and promotional stuff and making clips to promote and it's. It's a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. It doesn't earn you any money, so you kind of have to try and justify it and when you run out of ways to justify it, it was like we kind of need to stop the podcast and it's a shame because we miss talking to each other on that weekly basis, but we don't miss the admin. So it's tricky stuff. It's tricky stuff. So, yeah, but you can listen to the old episodes, the geeky tour, what's on Apple and Spotify and anchor and all the other places. So you know, check it out. If you want to hear us talk about episodes of TV shows that were finished two years ago. You know, if you want to hear our views on She-Hulk and our views on Picard and Obi-Wan, yeah, you can. You can listen to our podcast.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, there we go, there we go. It's going to sound like a really weird question to us. Have you always lived in Chiswick?
Speaker 2:I don't live in Chiswick. Oh, I'm going to be night in Chiswick.
Speaker 1:Oh, ok, interesting Because Chiswick isn't a million miles away from where I live, so oh, OK, no. I'm in.
Speaker 2:Chiswick every week because I also I write host pub quizzes in Chiswick, which is every Wednesday at the same place. I'll pack halls. So if you like a pub quiz, you can come along, because, yeah, I put together a pub quiz. It's it's, it's a bit of fun. It's only a couple of quid person. So, yeah, it's it's, it's, it's good. And yeah, I just run a comedy night there. I live sort of like near Wimbledon, so I'm sort of South London. I'm South London and I work in central London, so I'm very London based. But yeah, no Chiswick. I've been doing the quiz at Chiswick this is 2019 and been running the comedy night there since September, so last year.
Speaker 1:So I will definitely be trying to make my way there now. Now I know you're there, so now I've got to do, now I've got no excuse to come and see you now, so so, yeah, I mean it sounds like you've definitely kept your gaming head on since all those years ago, but there was a patch where I wasn't.
Speaker 2:There was a patch where I wasn't sort of. I basically kind of stopped gaming during the PS one era. I just, I just didn't, I just didn't. My friends did know would play when I was at theirs, but it would normally be a Virtua Fighter or Tekken because, you know, because friend of Mars had a had a Dreamcast, so that's where we played Virtua Fighter stuff. And then I just, I just I was more sort of focused on guitar and music, college and things like that. So I didn't really game that much.
Speaker 2:It wasn't until I got a PS two, because I just sort of thought I needed a DVD player and I thought if I'm going to get a DVD player, I may as well have it be multifunctional rather than just this one little device. So so that's, that's, that's, that was my thinking. And then I slowly got back into it. You know I had the odd wrestling game and I had a Rayman game, but the games that really brought me back into gaming and it might seem I don't know at the time it was different. Now it's like oh, it's like flavour of the month kind of thing, but it was God of War 2005. And you can't see properly behind me. I do have a.
Speaker 2:Kratos picture on my wall behind me. I love those games. I love those games so much. But it's also because one of the gameplay is fantastic and for the first three games the gameplay didn't change. So it was very easy to just move on to the sequel just so easy and it was just. It just felt like DLC as opposed to, you know, a new game, few bits and bobs here and there were different couple of mechanics, but otherwise it's virtually the same game with a new story. But the story is what I came back for. I loved that story because I have a fascination with Greek myth and those games. Obviously, of course, they play fast and loose with the, the, the, the actual story of Greek myth. But it was great. They really, really got me into the games again.
Speaker 2:And I had these friends. They were PC gamers, you know. They, they, they, they would. I'd spend nights. You know we'd get wasted on things I won't talk about, but we got wasted. I would watch them play Halo for hours and it was great.
Speaker 2:And then then I eventually got. Well, I got a PSP. I went, I got, I ended up in hospital. So I got a PSP, but the PSP ended up being faulty so I took it back, got the money back and got an Xbox 360. And then got into games like because I had friends that would point me in that direction, I got like oblivion, elder Scrolls, oblivion. That was sort of my first foray into that kind of into that kind of game. Bio shock loved that. First bio shock. Second one not too good. Third one amazing. I really liked the third one, but that first bio shock was absolutely incredible. What are the games that I play on the 360? In a hit man, you know, I did a bit of the stealth stuff but again none of the story stuff was hitting. But oh no, I by passing some stuff on PS2, actually Shadow of the Colossus I have now bought three times. I got it when it first came out. Do you want?
Speaker 1:to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I got the PlayStation 3 remaster and then I got the full remake and I've, I've, I've played all multiple times and it wasn't until the pandemic, it wasn't until lockdown, that I actually could be bothered to try and climb the temple. It took that long. It was like, ok, I think I played this enough. Now I think I can do this. I tried maybe a couple of times back in the day, but but never actually made it. But during the pandemic I was like this is look, we've got nothing to live for at the moment. I've got this. This is, this is going to be my, my task, this is my mission right now. And I did it, which was which was great.
Speaker 2:The other games that really, you know, I feel some. I'm a bit what's the word? Basic in some respects, but I love the Arkham series as well, like the Batman Arkham series, like that. That was some proper, proper, amazing gaming and also brilliant storytelling. I agree, I love that whole storyline of the Arkham series. Really, really did I had. The thing is I haven't played Gotham Knights. I heard it was terrible, so I just didn't bother. I have not played Gotham Knights, so I don't. Maybe I'm wrong, someone correct me, I don't know, but it just bothered me that it wasn't really connected to that main storyline, because I still feel there's more to be told with that, because that weird ending when you 100 percent, it is not really an ending.
Speaker 1:It's great.
Speaker 2:It's annoying. So what other games, what other things about I mean now? Now I do have the PlayStation 5 and I'm very much into like again, I did the Dead Space remake. I'm actually very OK with them doing these remakes. I'm really OK with it because do you know one game that I'd like to see remade? I don't know, Did you play station two person or were you?
Speaker 1:absolutely, absolutely I was yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you ever play the suffering?
Speaker 1:Yes, fantastic game.
Speaker 2:I loved that game and I played it and got every ending, because you got the neutral ending, the bad ending and the good ending, all depending on how often you use the. Well, let's call it the Hulk. He was a sort of a weird skin tone, flesh tone Hulk. But yeah, I loved that game and that would be a great game, remade, I think. Suffering Ties, the Bind, that was disappointing, very disappointing, because that was just Fight Club. Yeah, I agree, it really was. But yeah, the suffering I'd really like to see remade.
Speaker 2:I'd never really got into Halo. I got Halo 3. I enjoyed playing Halo 3, but the thing that Do you know what? The thing that I liked about Halo 3 more than anything was I liked the being able to play back the mission and watch it back and then move the camera around so you could actually see the level played out from the bad guys' point of view, and being able to pause it like, and you could create these great sort of shots and save them, and that was a really cool thing. I have not seen any game do anything like that since, where you could play the level back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know what? Think about it. I can't actually think of a single game that does that. There's games where, obviously, you can take decent screenshots, but nothing where you can play the entirety of it.
Speaker 2:You can do selfies and play the level back and see, because if there was a moment you're like, oh, that was brilliant, let's see it from this angle. When you watch the whole level thing, like this looks great, it's like watching your own movie. It's like you shoot a movie and then watch it back. That was so cool. But yeah, I don't recall any other game that's ever done that, or at least talked about it, or it's been a big deal. Maybe it uses too much memory, I don't know who cares, but I'm trying to think now of what other games came. The God of War series will always be particularly special to me, though. Oh, last Guardian, I need to add Last Guardian. Did you play Last Guardian?
Speaker 1:I did yeah.
Speaker 2:Were you annoyed with it because of the controls? I know a lot of people were very annoyed with it because of the controls.
Speaker 1:Initially, yes, but I think I just adapted myself to it and then learned to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:There was maybe two or three times I had to restart the console because Trico wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing and I knew that that's what he was supposed to be doing. It was so obvious. So you'd restart it and then load it, and then he does the thing that it was like okay, there was clearly something glitching or a bug of some sort, you know. So what happened was I'd been playing it and I got stuck at a point and I looked up a walkthrough. Yes, I look at walkthroughs. I don't care, I'm the same.
Speaker 1:If I get really stuck, it's the only thing. It's that, or YouTube videos. I do the bit I'm stuck at it and then I go away. I'm like right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but what happened was I looked something up for Last Guardian and when I looked at it I was like, oh, there's only like three sections left after this. I'll probably be able to complete it tonight. At this point it was midnight.
Speaker 1:I can see where this is going.
Speaker 2:Cut to 5am and my girlfriend comes in from the bedroom to the living room to see me there and I'm just looking at her going. I know, okay, I know I need to finish this. I didn't have to be up the next day, I didn't have to tell, it was no big deal, but it was like I know, I know I'm just going to get this done, and I think maybe it was a combination of being tired and the journey and having played such a long stretch of it, because it really gets you in the heart, this game. It really gets you. And then there's the bit I won't spoil it in case anyone's listening that might want to play it but there's a bit at the end where you have to do a command to do something, but before that command, something in the background is happening. That is really harrowing and hard to watch.
Speaker 2:And I am not ashamed to say I didn't just well up, I didn't shed a tear, I ugly cried like proper, like face wrenching, like I was just distraught with what was going on. But, as I said, I was also very tired. But this point is about quarter to six in the morning and I'd been playing it for about seven hours straight at this point. So I was like, oh my God. But the thing was after. It was like okay, it's all done. I went onto YouTube and I'm like I'm going to see other people's reaction to the end of this game, and everyone was also ugly crying. It wasn't just me, okay, good, it wasn't just me, thank God.
Speaker 1:I am one of them. This is good, I am human after all.
Speaker 2:But still that there's not many games that like I. There's the bit in Shadow of the Colossus where aggro the horse sort of falls down that cliff and I remember being a little bit emotional about it, but I didn't well up or cry or anything like that, it was just actually I think I got more emotional when aggro came back limping and then I was like, oh my God, it's okay, but there's no other game that's really given me that much of an emotional reaction. As to that one, I think I don't know the Darkness. That was a good game, the Darkness. I liked the Darkness. That had some emotional beats in it as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, the bit when you see your girlfriend being killed.
Speaker 2:My God.
Speaker 1:I remember my friend being like you might want to brace yourself for this because it's pretty intense, and I was like I've seen some of the comics, I know what to expect. Oh no, I was not ready for that. I was like what?
Speaker 2:I mean, I loved it as a game. I did try and replay it recently on the PlayStation now stuff, but it doesn't hold up as well as I'd have liked it to, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:I must say the second one's actually not too bad. It did take me a bit of finger poking to get it running through steam because obviously old tech versus new tech and it kind of just was like I don't know what to do, so I kind of poked it with a stick and eventually it worked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's graphically obviously better. Obviously it's not as advanced as modern titles, but I think in terms of the gameplay and if you've not played any of the previous games, you can still enjoy it for the I don't want to say basic game, but I guess in modern terms, the variety of the gameplay to have that darkness element, so you've got to make sure you turn out the lights, and then there's one eats hearts and this one does this, and this one opens a black hole and there's, like it was, an interesting.
Speaker 2:they gave you a variety of ways of disposing of enemies, which was which was great, which is another reason why I like the Guardians of the Galaxy game, because you had a big variety in one. You had a big variety of enemies and then a variety of ways of disposing of them, and that's, I think that's what's important in games. It's not. That's why I don't often play a lot of the Call of Duty and modern warfare stuff, because it's just guns. It's just guns and grenades.
Speaker 1:I must say I was very much in that way. I think, because you touched on Halo I used to I mean, I loved Halo 2 all the way up to reach. It was the last one I played yeah, and a lot of it was down to the multiplayer, because the multiplayer was just fantastic in those games.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then kind of moved on to the battlefields and cards and stuff. And the problem was is as much as I was playing with friends, the novelty wore off incredibly quickly, incredibly quickly, and I just got bored with it. It was like, oh, we've had to like be incredibly, like controversial to make people be aware of our game. You know the shoot out in the airport. You just mow people down them like if you have to turn to controversy to try and make your game good, that's a big warning sign. And the problem is, is every one of those games yeah, okay, there's memeable bits in those games and stuff like that but the actual core component of those games not that great? You know, warzone was a huge hit during lockdown because there was nothing else really out at the time and I think everybody jumped on it no pun intended for a bit, but even so, you know that level of commitment to play. I mean, you saw this huge spike and then just slowly take it off until it.
Speaker 1:Just I'm sure there are people are still playing it, but I'm sure it's nowhere near as much as it was pre pandemic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember getting called duty to on 360. The reason why I bought that was because some friends had it and I won a game of poker and I just thought I'm going to use this money to buy. Call a duty to. Why not? Why not? It's not my money, it's their money. That I just fantastic and and and that was good and it was sort of my first sort of proper foray into first person shooter because I wasn't really a FPS kind of guy. And then again a group of people who I'd hang out with and and you know, wasted with. We would, we would, we would play the zombie levels in. I can't remember which one it was, but the zombie levels were great fun, like you just have to do wave after wave after wave. That was called of duty black black ops.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was the. It was one of the earlier one warfare.
Speaker 1:possibly it wasn't a warfare?
Speaker 2:No, because it was still World War Two.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:It was still World War Two, so I think it might have been three, it might have been three, and it was just like a couple is one where you're just in a shack and you just take waves after wave and then eventually you have to go upstairs and take wave after wave and it was just how far can you get? How far can you get? And we had full on strategies and it was great Like. And it was like Okay, now we'll get this and we get enough money to get this gun. We have to make sure we get that gun and we just had these great strategies and that element was fun.
Speaker 2:I'm not much these days of a multiplayer person. I don't. I like my single player immersion kind of thing. It's the only game I really, really enjoy these days and I say these days like it's an old game. It's about five years old now. I guess. Star Trek Bridge Crew is such a great multiplayer game. Obviously it's better if you're all into Star Trek, but because then it will make sense, then you know your roles and, as it turns out, I would not be a good captain. And oh no, no, I admitted it and I was. There's this one of my favorite clips of being on Twitch is just like guys, I don't think I like being captain. There was like no, we don't like that either. Just after we said it is like I don't think you're a good captain either side, and then a friend goes We've just lost shields. It was like oh no, we're about to die.
Speaker 1:It's all gone wrong. It's fine. We've accepted defeat, now Just let it happen.
Speaker 2:It's fun so so, yeah, that's the only right real multiplayer game I'll play. You know, jagbox is fun, but it's not really. It's not really. It's a good game to play with your viewers on Twitch, but yeah. Yeah, I'm trying desperately to think of all the games, because my first console was the Atari 2600. That was that was, that was what started it.
Speaker 1:all bit of sense peed, but sense peed and dig dug which, which 2600 that you have, that you have the wooden one, or the more the wooden one, the wooden one with the joystick and the orange button.
Speaker 2:So that was. It was like centipede dig dug and the terrible, terrible ghostbusters game and that was sort of it. Then I had the Nez, and I love the Nez. Listen, listen, I'm not. I know this is going to be sort of having to sort of make excuses for myself. I know I grew up in a time like where not everyone was able to have all of these things. That's one of the things I can thank my dad for, because there were times where I had the Nez, I had the Super Nez and I had the Mega Drive, and then I mean actually that that was sort of it.
Speaker 2:But being able to have the Super Nez, and the time was like sort of an unheard of thing. At the time I had the Super Scope.
Speaker 1:I actually got one of those bots somewhere up here, so it's probably worth quite a bit as well. Well, I mean to be honest, it was shit, but it was disappointing.
Speaker 2:The gun though. The gun I didn't like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the problem was is it was just it was just overly complicated. I mean, I remember I didn't have the Super Scope like from I guess what would be class. That's new. So I remember getting it and being super excited and I remember setting the whole thing up and about 10 minutes into it going it's not as good as I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2:No, exactly, some of those, some of the levels weren't, weren't like not levels, but that they never really made good games for it, which was a shame. It did work, but it was like shoot the fireworks. Great, great, this is the best you could come up with shoot fireworks.
Speaker 1:Guys, guys, we need to, we need a story for this. Bazooka tanks, no Rockets, no fireworks.
Speaker 2:Now you're on to summit. There we go. We'll take that. The graphics aren't good enough for this at the time. Really they're not. They're really not good enough. And then so the Super, the Supernails. I played, you know, the Aladdin game. I liked movie tie in stuff. So I had the Aladdin game, alien three, the game which was, which was nothing like the actual story of the film, but it was it was. I never really made it past the first two levels. I always that's, that's what would happen every time Do you know why?
Speaker 1:I saw this on a video recently, I think it was. I think a guy was actually going through. I think it was all of the alien games who had gone back through, like spectrum games, where there was actually a really what back then it would be deemed quite a terrifying version of aliens, even though it was on a spectrum. But yeah, that particular alien game going well, I've only seen the first level because I couldn't get any further. And then I looked at a walkthrough and I still didn't get any further. So let's move on to the next alien. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one. That makes me feel a little bit happier about life.
Speaker 2:It was hard. But the thing was, though, at the same time it's like I loved, like the Sonic the Hedgehog games, but I've never been able to complete them without doing like the level select cheat Apart from Sonic 2, like I got that Christmas and on Boxing Day I made it to the Death Egg Zone. I didn't complete it, wow, but I made it to the like. I was a dedicated Sonic the Hedgehog player. I love Sonic the Hedgehog and I like Sonic and Knuckles.
Speaker 2:Like that was just one of like, because that felt like it was really building up to something. Like it just there was no real story, but you got the sense that there was something going on. But also the manuals, which they don't do now, but the manuals helped fill in the gaps of the story. So that was always something really, really cool. But my biggest problem with playing all of those old, old games like Alien 3 and the Sonic the Hedgehogs and the Marios and all of those games, my biggest problem is, I realized later in life I've been playing them completely wrong, because in my head what you had to do was kill every enemy on the screen. It never crossed my mind that all you needed to do is just go from left to right and just get to the end.
Speaker 2:I thought the whole point of them being there was to kill them all. So I'd spend, I would spend time doing that. So that's why, like Alien 3 the game, I'd try and find the aliens, to kill them as well as rescuing the others. I didn't think that you'd just run away from things, like it never crossed my mind. I thought that was not the point of the game. Well, I put the bad guys there. I've just got to go from one place to another if there's not the obstacles in between to take out. So it wasn't like when I was watching things back going oh, I have been playing video games completely, completely wrong and I felt stupid. I felt really stupid. So, like now, I recently just played and I'd never played it when it came out the Last of Us Great game. Great game.
Speaker 2:Had it not been for lots of stealth in like the Batman and Spider-Man games of late and I've got Twitch viewers who encourage me to do more stealth I barely killed anything in the Last of Us. I mean, I killed, and there's some sections you have to, you have to. But that last level, when you're going through the tunnel and there's like three or four bloaters, I stealthed. That whole thing, didn't have one encounter with a bloater. I snuck past every single one of them and I was pretty proud of myself and was like so this is how you play video games, ok, ok.
Speaker 1:I think my old-school mentality of just running guns sometimes gets me into more trouble than I would like to admit, because I've done lots of streams where I've been like, yeah, I can just go into this room and shoot everything. Oh, you died.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like, will you use that same?
Speaker 1:strategy again. Oh, I've died again.
Speaker 2:Maybe this is not the strategy I need to go for it's the same Batman where it's like, ok, I've done stealth and I get bored. I'm like, ok, I've stealth, killed like three people, now can I? I'm just gonna, you know, I'm just gonna go for it. And oh no, they got guns and I did. Ok, yeah, all of that again.
Speaker 1:I had that exact same thing the first time, but I think it was Arkham City or Arkham Knight, I can't remember. Now, the first time you meet guys with guns, I'm thinking I'm Batman, I'm gonna do nothing. Bang oh, oh, bullets, do kill it. Now I learn.
Speaker 2:Very quick, and in Spider-Man as well, it's like oh Christ, it's just very, very quick deaths. And don't get me wrong, I understand it's realistic. Sure it's realistic, fine fine, but it's not fun.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, exactly. I mean, you watch films and stuff and you see like bullets being shot at Batman, they're pinging off him. You're thinking ha-ha, no problem oh no, he's dead. Oh, but yeah, they're going for headshots, not body shots. This isn't what was in the script, you liars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's always the things that always annoyed me in video games, like in Sonic and Mario and all that. It's like when Like a section of a bad guy touches you and you die when you move your rings and all that, but you're just like that's a piece of their hair or that's like the side of their shirt. How does touching their shirt kill me, for whatever reason? How does that? That makes no sense to me.
Speaker 1:The guy who was the guy who was carrying that was an absolute bastard. He was like what's the hitbox going to be? Everything, everything, everything. How are they?
Speaker 2:She likes this. Everything, every pixel, right. If the edge of, if the rim of his glasses, if the bad guy with glasses, if the rim of their glasses touches you, that's it, it's over.
Speaker 1:If he breathes everything like OK, fine, yeah, I'm trying to remember a game I played recently. That was like that. It was definitely something that we streamed. It was one of the rare times when I nearly Ducktales was like that.
Speaker 2:Ducktales was like that. Oh my God, yes, Bad guys like that.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was like oh, I've hit Noah Heaven. Oh, they've killed me on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, wow, I mean Ducktales one of the best games and one of the most consistent things that was ported. Like cos, you played the Game Boy version of Ducktales. It was the same as the NES version. Agreed, it was exactly the same. And that was another one of those rare things that never happened. Like cos, yeah, I had the Game Boy. I loved the Game Boy Super Mario World. When I completed that and that was without level select, I did complete that. That felt like a full-on achievement. Completing, like that fucking airplane level was awful, but, but I did it. And, like, wario Land was a great game. Being able to save on a Game Boy, what a novel feature.
Speaker 1:I remember getting was it Six Golden Coins? The Mario Game, super Mario World 2? Yes, and that save feature blew my little brain apart. I was like what I don't have to like indefinitely pause this game and hope that the batteries last. This is amazing. And then it had like three different save areas. I was like hang on, I can have three individual saving areas. What?
Speaker 2:is this about? Yeah, it was incredible. What other Game Boy games did I play? Well, obviously Tetris, because who didn't? Er? Oh, I had the Amazing Spider-Man. That was a good little Game Boy game that was fun.
Speaker 1:I liked that was the. Let me just remember, it was like the quarter-sized screen of Spider-Man where you could swing and I think in between it had like little comic strips explaining the story. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Kind of Well, the one that I had. It was you could swing, but you'd use up your web if you did that was it yeah? And the first level was Mysterio. So you'd like fight people in the street and there'd be people throwing stuff out of a window and all of that. You'd fight Mysterio. The Mysterio would disappear. Then the second level was climbing a building.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then there'll be barrels.
Speaker 2:all yeah, barrels will be dropping and then you get to the top and then it was chasing the green goblin over the rooftops and then after that level it was fighting Venom on top of a train. Er, and that was, I think, as far as I ever got, was Venom on the train. I don't think I ever got as far as that. I think Venom always killed me.
Speaker 1:That brought back some memories, christ up at Farty, many hours and time into that game. But that was the thing like and I've always said this. Like you know, games back then cost a fair whack, you know. I mean, I always go back to the fact that, ironically, the year I went on Games World, my dad bought me NBA Jam, which I ended up playing on the series, oh well, and I've left the sticker on there because he got it from Blockbuster Video and he's got a 59.99 sticker on it. Yeah, exactly, which back then was a lot. Yeah, and I've left it on there as a point to remind myself of, a, how much these things cost, and B, obviously you know my parents spent a lot on me, so it's always a reminder.
Speaker 1:But the thing is like I can pick that game up right now and play it and still have the same level of enjoyment then as I did now. And you know, I think games, especially in the last three to four years, the costs have started to go back to those levels with the justification of larger game sizes and stuff. But again, the fundamental problem that I find is you'll get a title, you'll finish it and that's it. There's absolutely zero replay value in a lot of the titles that come out, which is fine if it's a longer game. I think that's fine if you want to go back and redo it, but there's just something about that niche of old games where you can just pick it up and play and enjoy it exactly the same way as you did back then.
Speaker 2:Part of me agrees. Another part of me is like I'm old now and my reaction times are not what they were.
Speaker 1:Agreed.
Speaker 2:And I have you know I can't always defeat Bowser at the end. You know, the Princess may be in another castle, but I'm dead, so she can just wait, that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I'll be back in a bit. Love you, look after Bowser for a bit.
Speaker 2:So yeah that's. I do enjoy the retro stuff, but I don't think I could ever complete it. Another game series that I never mastered, like I was just the worst at it and I wanted to be good at it. I was all right. I was better at the Game Boy than any of the other versions. But Mega man, they were so hard, those Mega man games. I was better at the Game Boy than I was in anything else. But I recently tried to play like Mega man X and I was like nope, after 10 minutes, just no, this is too hard, just can't do it. I don't have the reflexes 100% agree.
Speaker 1:It's been one of those series Like I had friends who would obsess about it. And the thing is it's like I joined the bandwagon I was like, yeah, mega Man's great and I remember playing it, going I'm just not good enough for this game. Like I'm just not good enough for this game. And I remember even going back to the NES ones and being like how did anyone get past like any level in this game?
Speaker 2:Like instant reactions of trying to yeah, the levels themselves, let alone the bosses like the levels themselves, were ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Insanity. And the problem is is when I stream, if I plug in a you know a particular console or something, or if I'm not using one of my many retro devices, whether it's the MISTER or the Raspberry Pi there's still that added bit of lag put in. So if you're trying to play a game like Mega man, just with that added bit of lag and slow reflexes is a pure recipe for disaster. Yeah, wait, that happened.
Speaker 2:I've got the recall box. This is what I've got. It's like, it's like some of my 20,000 games on it. It's just amazing. But the thing that I love about it, it's got arcade games. Yeah, so I was able, because you don't have to put coins in, so I can always play that Turtles arcade game and make it to the end and I don't have to worry about the coins. Although, although saying that, where we used to me and my family, we used to holiday in this area of Spain and they had a Turtles arcade machine, nice and but we found a glitch in this particular machine where if you put your finger in the coin where the coins get returned into the change slot, if you hit it, it somehow counted as putting coins in. So we would just put in like 30 quids worth of coins and just play it. So I actually completed that on an arcade, but then the owners of the establishment found out about it and unplugged the machine.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, because we were there for hours and they were like, wow, we're making loads of money. They made nothing. They made absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:I can just imagine how gutted the guy is like aha, these kids. They've been on this for hours. What.
Speaker 2:Yep, not a single penny. That's brilliant. Now I'm going to mention something because I'm not going to like shout his name out because I don't want him to get in trouble. But one of my viewers is someone who works for Sony Creative and he did twice. Now he did something wonderful for me. He knows how much I loved like the God of War series and all of that and he worked on things like. He worked on like the art for the health bars and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Wow, and this is the thing I wanted to sort of mention like back in the day, maybe teams working on games they weren't huge, there'd probably be maybe ten people working on like one game. Now you know you've got several art departments. Like you've got a department that's just doing like the health bars, another one that's just doing the weapons, another one's character design, but sometimes different people will do different character designs and they've got to somehow then communicate with each other like same with costume designs and well-set designs, music design, all of this stuff. And this is why, look, I understand why games are 70, 80 quid. This is a lot of work. They look like movies, they look amazing. There's a lot of work that goes into it. They're not cheap. They're not cheap to make, there's a lot of labour and yeah, so the fact that he worked on this sort of thing and he came onto my stream during Christmas time, I was like I'm surprised you're not playing God of War, because what I was doing at the time was 100%ing the Arkham series again, right, and I was like, listen, I thought I'd be done by now. I was like I thought I'd be done by now. So I'm doing this and then I'm taking a break for Christmas and then in January I'm going to get God of War, ragnarok, as a treat to myself.
Speaker 2:About five minutes after I said that on stream, he sends me the code and just goes here, go have God of War right there. Oh, wow, I was like, thank you so much. You just, how old, neaved me 70 pounds, thank you so much. And then, when the last of us thing was, we're talking about the TV series and I was saying I don't know whether to get the remastered version or just a normal version. I want the remastered version because it's remastered and it will look better, but it is more expensive than the other one. And then he just sends me a code and goes here, here you go, have the remastered one, wow. And it's like thank you so much, can I have you? Just basically just choose what I play on my streams, just send me codes, because he also sent me Ratchet and Clank, the multi-verse one.
Speaker 2:I forgot what it's called. I forgot what it's called, anyway, because he was really just saying, like you've got a PS5, now this is the best-looking game with a PS5. And he wasn't wrong. It was a beautiful-looking game, but I played it for about an hour and went. I'm not the target audience for this. This is a children's game. Sure, this is. And don't get me wrong, I'm not above playing children's games. You know, the other day I sat down and watched DC Super League of Pets just because I thought yeah, let's, why not?
Speaker 2:I'm fine with watching kids' films. You know because sometimes they're quite funny. But Ratchet and Clank, I was like, yeah, this is a kids' game. So, and plus, also, the back of my head is like kids' games are hard because kids, as I said, they have better reaction times. They have much better reaction times.
Speaker 1:Do you know what there was? What was it? I want to say it was one of the LEGO Star Wars games, Something like that, and I was just getting massacred at it and somebody was like oh, you need to react quicker. I'm like what You're saying because I'm old. This is the downfall of me in a LEGO game.
Speaker 2:I had the same thing with an Avengers LEGO game and it was like I was fine, fine, fine. And then all of a sudden the difficulty curve. It's not really a curve, it's just a wall, it's just. It's like oh, now it's impossible. And it brings back to the original point of If it's not fun, why bother? I understand make things challenging, but if it's not fun, why bother? I loved the concept of alien isolation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Loved the concept of it, but if I have to play for two hours, then unfortunately die and because I didn't get to a save point, I have to do those two hours again, that's not fun. Yeah, it's not fun.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. I've never agreed with hard save points. I think we live in a world where pass codes are a thing of the past. But even that would allow you to at least skip back to where you were. And a lot of people are like, oh, I don't like quick saves, well, save yourself. But yeah, I agree Having those moments where you're thinking, crap, I've got to now replay that entire portion, and this happened to me a few times on stream where I'm like, oh, I've died. And then the game's like ha, remember that entire point that you've just streamed. Well, tough luck, you've got to do it all over again. Oh, great.
Speaker 2:I can't be dealing with that. And also at the time, do you have PlayStation 5? I do, yeah, did you have or do you still have a problem with Drift on the controls?
Speaker 1:Do you know what? I've never had it, never had it.
Speaker 2:I had it really, really badly playing Alien Isolation. It was one of the reasons why I stopped playing it. There was a section. There was a section I saw an alien dropping down from the ceiling. I ducked, I crawled under a table, slash gurney, and I was like, ok, I'm fine. And then I stopped moving. But the control kept on walking. And there I go, just standing up in front of the alien, and I was like that was not my fault, it really annoyed me.
Speaker 2:So now when I stream and I play with the PlayStation, I just Because I've done all the updates and all of that sort of stuff I even have two controllers now Both controllers were doing it, so now it's hard-wired in. Apparently, what it might be and it's just to do with the way I stream is because when I stream I've got Essentially I've got two MacBooks and an iPad and my phone and there's all this Bluetooth going on because I've got the Bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth mouse, so apparently it's an interference thing with that, and because I'm surrounded by other Bluetooth devices, there's nothing I can do about that. So well, I can hard-wire everything in, but unfortunately MacBooks just don't have enough ports to plug everything in. They just don't, and hubs are very expensive if you want good hubs.
Speaker 1:I agree, I love Apple, I like their products. But when it comes to things like that, when they're like hey, be really creative, do everything you want, okay, so well, oh okay, so I need a Bluetooth that, and then they're okay. So I need a Bluetooth that and then the. Okay, so that's going to run on Bluetooth. What if I want to just plug this in oh well, you've got to buy that hub, sir. Oh right, how much is that? Well, it could be anywhere between 150 to 200 quid and some more. Oh, to plug in a USB stick.
Speaker 2:It's a really unexciting purchase as well. A USB hub, it's like. It's like you're going to spend 200 pounds on a USB hub. It's the sexiest USB hub you ever did see.
Speaker 1:It's funny where I work and I'll tell you where I work off string because I don't want anyone knowing, but for obvious reasons that will come apparent after we come up for the air. It's only for yeah, it's only fans. Yes, yeah, you can sign up to that. I'll give you a discount code.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's all I was about to say. Hold on.
Speaker 1:Well, you've been waiting 30 years for it. So Exactly, oh no.
Speaker 2:Definitely waiting until you're older than 18, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh Christ.
Speaker 2:You were 12 when we met, weren't you?
Speaker 1:That took a hard left turn. It was nine actually, so it didn't work.
Speaker 2:You were nine Wow we need to. After your point now we'll have a chat about the actual day of Games World.
Speaker 1:I've actually just forgotten what the point was I was going to make now.
Speaker 2:It was about Apple products. Oh, that was it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Ah, that was it. So at work they've now gone away from Macs, but the entire department bought these brand-new MacBook Pros with the touch bar and all this stuff and they've got external drives and things that they plug in and video equipment and everything like that. And I remember the creative director just going fuck really loud in the office and I was like what? And he was like we've just spent £12,000 and I can't plug in this USB hub. So the next day he had to literally walk over to the IT guy going so you know, we just spend all this money. Well, we need to buy some hubs.
Speaker 1:And they bought these like massive hubs and they were the most ugliest things I've ever seen. You know, I can describe it like. It looked like a vertical conch shell with just cables that came out of it and I was like that is one of the most disgusting products we've ever seen. They were like this is the only one that works at the rate that we need to transfer files at. And I was like how much did that cost? And they were like oh, there were about £150 each. There's 12 people in that department, wow, wow. So, yeah, that was fun. And then a year later they were like, yeah, I'm getting rid of Max now I'm having winners instead. It was like what so?
Speaker 2:the thing with Max, though. They do last. You know, touch wood when I say that, but they do last. I've got one here that I've been using for about 10, 12 years, something like that. It's ridiculous. So you get what you pay for.
Speaker 1:I agree, I think the build quality of late has been very poor with regards to the laptops, but I think the era between, I'm going to say, 2010 to probably 2015 was probably the glory days of those laptops and jobs was actually still alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and the thing is is when you you see people take those apart, if you take yours apart, you see, even the screws are not more than the thread. It's just enough thread to tighten it up, that it just closes it enough, and all the cabling is is just enough to fit into there.
Speaker 2:And it's all meticulously done and well, here's another thing that's quite fun on one of the old when they did like the black Mac books and things like that. So there was a couple of screws that were in the side of it that didn't hold anything in. There was no purpose. The only reason why those screws were there was because there were screws on the other side and they wanted it to be symmetrical. They had no other purpose.
Speaker 1:We're doing this, there we go.
Speaker 2:That's best. He's got to do something with him.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine the port in terms like when does this go in there? What does it do? Nothing Brilliant. So, yes, well it's. I mean, I'm still. I've had so many WTF moments. I mean, first of all, learning who your father is, which is blowing, and then obviously it's been so long and out of interest how many nine you were, nine I was.
Speaker 2:I must have been 12. What year was?
Speaker 1:it again Nine. Well, it's funny enough. I was having this discussion with my mum, I think it was 93 going into 94. So I think from 11.
Speaker 1:So I think it was filmed at the back end of 93, because I remember it being winter and it being really effing cold, and then I think it got broadcast. I want to say it was like four months later and then the rest of the shows that I worked was on further than went into the rest of 1994. So yeah, it all kind of started in 93. Yeah, it's even looking back at some of the footage and now it's just it's so funny because people are like, oh wow, that studio must have been so big. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:So so many TV shows that I've been. I've been in audience for things like QI and Penn and Telepholis. I've been in the audience for those things and they are so much smaller than you think and like when you get there you're like, oh my God, and it was like that backstage area and again we were freezing cold. I remember being really cocky because I was complaining about being cold and one of the runners or producers working on the show was just like, do you want to wear the championship jacket? And I was just like, no, I'll wear it when I win. But it was, it was fine.
Speaker 2:Like the thing is, because I've got clips from it, because basically the video you uploaded to YouTube, I've downloaded it. I played it on Twitch. I played it without telling anyone that it was, because I was just like look at this 90 show, look at this, and oh there, I am, there you go. And it was so it's. And then, because there are some fun clips for me in there, like I love the bit where you hear the guy going like Matthew wins. And I'm like, yes, that's a clip on Twitch, they can do that. There's me to try to do like proper, like shit talking, just like he's got two chances slim and none. I'm just like this little shit and I was wearing the backwards baseball cap and, oh God, what an absolute nerd. I mean, we all had to wear the backwards baseball cap, didn't we? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Do you know what? I don't really want to talk badly about him, but I've always had a how can I word this without it being controversial a skewed view of Dave Perry, and even from the time when I met him at Games World, there is one thing that stuck out in my mind, and I don't know if you remember we were in the area that was meant to be the pit, when we were all sat in the chairs and he kind of feel he was filming walking back and forth.
Speaker 1:I remember he walked past I wasn't exactly a big kid by then. I made up for it now. I wasn't a big kid back then and I remember he trod on my foot and I was like I could say something. But I'm like, well, he's Dave Perry, it'd be a bit bad. And he just called off what past me and was like, did you try to trip me up? And I'm like, and it was kind of ironic that he had the whole debacle with Games Master and everything else, because then I thought calm as a bitch in it, son.
Speaker 2:That came first thing like he really did not take that prank. Well, like it was, like it was a prank dude, it was a prank Right, just let it.
Speaker 1:Let it go and ironically, I was on a podcast with with him and Rick and a few others, not not that long ago. Actually, it was just before the turn of the year and my opinion of him still hasn't changed, so yeah, I was in the audience for a Games Master episode once. Oh really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one where they filmed them at the prison. It was a Dexter Fletcher series, right, but it was. I remember the guest was. What was her name? Moni Love, I think, was the music guest at the time.
Speaker 2:I remember the first like half of the day because they wouldn't let us go to the toilet, and I was desperate. Desperate to go to the toilet because they'd done this thing, that it made sure that all of us wear white T shirt and blue jeans because they wanted everyone to look like prisoners, because that was, it was filmed in a prison. That was. That was actually was like an old prison. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I was just just being desperate for the loan, just the relief of just like, can we finish the filming so that we can go to the toilet. And now, what was the game? That was my first time really seeing cool spots being played, nice, so that was it. That was. That was an interesting product placement of a game, wasn't it? But the, the filming of. I remember being freezing cold during when we did Games World and I remember being really put out by the fact that they made everyone film there. Yeah, I'm going to win after we'd already lost.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're absolutely correct. I remember that because they were like oh yeah, you've got to say this, this and this, and I'm in the back of mind, I'm thinking what are you doing?
Speaker 2:I know that our TV shows are made because you know, listen. You know my dad is like I grew up learning about that thing in order. That's fine, but in this case, where you've got children who are already now, at this point, been demoralized not all children are actors, for crying out loud.
Speaker 2:You're making them pretend that they're to say I'm going to win, I'm the best, when they know in their heart they have already lost. It was, that was, it was a thing that kind of tarnished my actual experience of the whole thing, because I felt a bit used at that point. You know it was, it was, it was. That was the only thing. The rest of it you know, and we can talk about the fact that you know, at the time now I don't care, but at the time, that whole thing because I lost, I lost to a girl Now I don't care, I really don't care.
Speaker 1:I won the first get thing.
Speaker 2:I won the first thing. It was a penalty shootout.
Speaker 2:I won that I won that, but it was during the game it was it and it in the end ended up being between me and her, gemma, I think it was yeah, and I gave the, the, the, the virus to her and then, like the last three seconds, gave it to me and then that was it and I was gone. It was. It was kind of devastating because it was just like that, that last three seconds, and I just remember standing there like no, no, this is, this is the game that beat me. Was it the game that no one had ever played before? Because it was a world exclusive, because it was no? Did they ever release that game?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. Do you know what I'd actually like to speak to to Alex, because I think he's still got contacts from Hewland International? Someone must have a copy, because I think, if I remember correctly, games like cash dash it and I think the snipers alley the game with the bullet. At the end you had to shoot.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they were made on the Amiga and obviously if there is one then I could probably replay them now. Someone out there must have a copy of those must be one kicking around some. Agreed, agreed.
Speaker 2:Because also, it's, it's, it's. It's just a really easy online game. It could be done on your mobile. No, it could be like among us. It remastered. There you go.
Speaker 1:There you go. There you go. Hewland International, get on it. Keep us in copyright here, but, as I said, there are certain, there are certain snapshots that I remember from especially that particular day games world, and I remember, after I'd got the jacket, sorry to rub it in the over it now, well, well, if I meet you in Chiswick I'll bring it down and you can wear it there you go, I'll host the night wearing it.
Speaker 1:Now, that would be brilliant. So I remember get obviously wearing the jacket and it was so dumb because, like, they put it on your shoulders and you had to turn on the spot. I did that five times. They're like oh, you didn't you turn too quick. Oh, you turn too suddenly it's a fucking code. Everybody seen it. What difference does it matter? Yeah, so after doing that, I remember we went back up to the production room and everyone was like oh, so great. And then they were like can we have the coat back? And I'm like what? They were like we've only got one. What do you mean? What do you mean? You've only got one? They were like well, we've got others on order, this is the only one we need. And I was, and my mom. I remember my mom was like he's taking it and he's taking it to school and he's showing all of his friends. And they were like well, as long as you can promise to bring it back, then we'll let it go. And it was like trust me, this thing is not coming off my shoulders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh God, yeah, yeah, I understand their mentality Absolutely. You get that Like I imagine, obviously. Yeah, I can imagine being a kid at the time. I don't know how I would have reacted if I was told that.
Speaker 1:Do you remember this thing that you just want? Yeah, fuck you, you can go and get some else.
Speaker 2:You peasant like, hang on a minute Did you just basically do a sticky at school because it was during a school week, did you?
Speaker 1:know. So what actually happened was. The story is hilarious. I think I actually uploaded a video about it and obviously we got. Obviously we were meant to be at school and I was still in primary school back then and I remember my parents had to go and speak to the headmaster like this is a really weird situation. But they explained to me and they were like, yeah, that's totally cool, as long as when, if he comes back, we'll show it at school.
Speaker 1:If he comes back, if he comes back like I'm going to Vietnam or something like that you weren't there, man.
Speaker 2:you weren't there, man.
Speaker 1:You weren't there. Um, so, uh, so yeah, obviously I came back and, um, the ironic thing was my dad was like I've got to take a day off work to come and drive you all the way to East London. And then, obviously, once I won, he was like that's great son, now I've got to take another day off work. I'm like, oh, I'm so. I'm so sorry, dad.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, I remember going back and I didn't tell anyone what had happened. They were like, all right, you must have just got knocked out. I didn't tell anybody and I remember the night the episode came out and literally going to school the next day and everyone was like what? And I was like, yes, so yeah, it was, it was just a crazy, crazy ride. And then obviously to to play the video is was just again. It was just a very weird experience and, thinking back as a a nine year old boy, to have that level of pressure put on my shoulders and it was, I mean, it really did get to me at one point and I think the tipping point you've probably seen it was um, or maybe you haven't seen it was. There's a point in uh, beat the elite when Violet Blade comes out and assaults this guy with a baseball bat.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:They didn't tell me they were going to do that. So so imagine, as a nine year old kid, seeing a man dressed as a pirate with a baseball bat come on stage. Bob Mills pulls me in. I'm like huh, seeing a big boy, barry, get smacked in the stomach with his baseball back, and then frog marched off with him and I'm just like that's going to be that's going to be.
Speaker 2:some literally control me right there In 10 minutes just tears.
Speaker 1:And then everyone was like what's going on? And I'm like, uh, he just got hit. They were like, no, no, no, it's all pretend. And then, like Rick Henderson and Alex came out of Violet Blade and big boy Barry and they was like, oh, you're fine. They were like, yeah, it was all pretend. I'm like why didn't you tell me that You're the mugs? That's all you had to say yeah. And I and from that moment on my head was just obviously completely, you know, complete mess at that point. But again, it's still great memories and it's nice to be part of history.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I don't think the thing with games world was at the time it was only on sky and not everyone had sky at the time, so it wasn't really certainly at my school it wasn't as as known a thing, and also not everyone was really that into gaming at my school, so so so it was really just this very sort of small but dedicated and like enthusiastic community. You know cause? I loved all that stuff. I used to buy all the gaming magazines as well. I remember what was the gaming magazine, but every week was, or every month, they would have fan art and basically the fan art would base only be just really horrific images of Mario and Sonic maiming each other. I can't remember what the magazine was. Do you remember that at all, do you?
Speaker 1:remember. Do you remember that? I'm trying to remember, but now you said that it has brought back a few memories of some of those. I'm trying to remember what?
Speaker 2:that's like Sonic the Hedgehog turning himself into a saw blade and cutting off Mario's head, and it was. It was all pictures like that, but drawn with colored pencil, so like crayon almost.
Speaker 1:I'm genuinely trying to remember what magazine that would have been, so I'm just cast my mind back, because you have things like Mean Machines magazine. There would have been the official then 10 day magazine, games Master obviously being one as well. Edge, I think, was around then. Cool, I'm trying to remember some of the others, but it just it always, it always.
Speaker 2:Just like that. I sort of weirdly look forward to seeing what horrible images were in this week, but that was the thing. So, like with Games World, like you were sort of part of this community, but it was very, you know, because no one really talks about Games World anymore it was very hard, excuse me, it was very hard to find your video, but, oh man, you should have seen my face. When I found it, though, I was streaming on Twitch for a while and I just forgot that I had done it. I had forgotten that I had been on James Weld and then, while I was streaming on Twitch, I went oh yeah, I did that thing once. I should probably look that up because it's quite relevant to Twitch. I should probably try and look it up. And it took about a couple of days worth of looking like, because I couldn't remember the year. I obviously couldn't remember the episode, but the thumbnail. I found the thumbnail and I recognized your face.
Speaker 1:That little shit, I remember it Like well this has got to be the episode.
Speaker 2:So then when it eventually, when I saw it I literally I was on my own. It was like the middle of the night and I was on my own in my living room, but like fist pumping in the air, kind of like, yes, here it is, my utter humiliation on television. What a weird thing to celebrate. But here, we go. So yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny because I've still got the video footage and I was half tempted to actually see if I could attempt to upscale it to 4k just to see what would happen and then re-release the whole lot. But I don't know, that's a project for another day and another time. But yeah, it's still weird sometimes even looking back and remembering those days Because now it's so long ago, but some of those memories are still so vivid and fresh in my mind.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. I remember, as I say, I remember vividly how cold it was. I remember how nice the soldiers were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were awesome, they were so nice those guys.
Speaker 2:They were really, especially looking back on it and with my dad and being a performer like myself I've done acting and I've done that kind of thing where it's sort of what's the word I'm looking for, it's sort of like roaming performer at festivals and stuff like that. I don't know if you've ever done that as a job. I haven't. You're in character and so you're not being yourself, you are being someone completely different and that's sort of what they're doing. So when they're sort of dropping character and just being nice to you, and I'm realising when I look back they're just jobbing actors. That's all they were.
Speaker 2:It was just a great show that they put on. You can't fault. Yes, it was very 90s, but they made this effort to make it have this atmosphere and this character. I think they really because the game's already used to be a bit dry and that season where they made it apocalyptic and all of that they gave it some more character. Yeah, I agree it was really cool. I think they tried too hard by doing like the big boy Barry sitcom and stuff like that. I think they tried to milk something, which was a shame, although it did introduce the world, I think, to David Walliams that is correct, 100% correct.
Speaker 2:But I just I appreciate the fact that it existed because I don't think like these days there isn't really something on television for gaming. I don't, unless I it's something that would be great for Netflix or Amazon Prime or it's something like that. But I'm not saying bring back Games World, I'm just saying I guess YouTube and Twitch kind of have made it unnecessary.
Speaker 1:There's something about a TV production type event around gaming. You know even something when you think about EVO championships, the fighting game tournaments in Las Vegas, like watching those and even watching documentaries about those, you can't help but get caught up in the hype. You know, and I think that was kind of what the atmosphere was, especially with Games World and Games Master. I mean, I get people from all over the world come to some of my streams and they're like we never had anything like that in our part of the world, especially in South America or certain parts in Europe. So we were incredibly lucky in the UK to have, you know, shows like Bad Influence came around as well.
Speaker 1:So many other hugely influential you know kind of gaming related or computer related things and I guess, realistically going all the way back to probably the what? Early or late 60s, early 70s, you have like the BBC movement of getting people into programming and getting computers at home. There would be a dedicated TV show which I think is actually in the BBC archives on iPlayer, where you can actually see like, oh, here's how you own a BBC micro, here is how you load a disk, here is how you do stuff, and this was a broad a broadcasted TV thing, so people would actually sit down and watch these things. And then we've come all the way to being able to click on Twitch and watch someone instantly broadcast something live, which is it's. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:But talking to Alex about his introduction to Games Master, getting into Games World, as you mentioned, the spin-off series working with David Walliams it's just if you drew a Venn diagram, it would be endless, with just people being interconnected with each other. It's just the more people I talk to from either Games World or Games Master, it just it makes me so honored to even be part of, I guess, gaming stroke TV history, but also just how interconnected and how small the world really is. As you said, the entertainment industry. You're never that far away from someone else who's connected to someone else, and that's certainly how it was.
Speaker 2:The cliche phrase of six degrees of Kevin Bacon, six degrees of Big Boy Barry.
Speaker 1:That needs to be a T-shirt. I'm going to speak to him and see if we can get that. Well, I mean one of the things that Alex did mention. Obviously we've had the revival of Games Master. Apparently they are looking at doing a new series based on the relative success of the trial period. I said to him is there the potential of a Games World series? And he said let's just say I've pitched it and they've not shot it down yet. My win, I see.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you a bit of 90s stuff that I've been involved in over the years as well. I completely forgot about this. Do you remember Nightmare? Yes, side step left, side step right, that sort of stuff. I was involved in bringing it to live a few years back in 2013. Wow, 10 years ago now, jesus. But yes, so I was working with this double act, but then that double act sort of broke up and then I became part of that double act, but I also started working with the other one, on Nightmare, and I ended up doing the music for Nightmare Live, as it was called, and that was a no daunting task. It was to be just like OK, recreate the theme to nightmare Easy, that'll please everyone, that'll be easy to do. A version that will please absolutely everybody knowing, because at the time the internet existed. So I was like I know what the internet's like. And now Jesus, and there were some comments were just like well, it just sounds like MIDI. And you're just like yes, I'd love to be able to afford an orchestra. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1:And now on stage film mocking orchestra. Come on down, Jesus.
Speaker 2:But so, yeah, I ended up doing some sound design and music and then I was basically the sound engineer and lighting technician for it for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013. And then we brought it to London and I was essentially like technical director of but it was all sort of Paul Flannery's like brainchild, because they wanted to do Funhouse.
Speaker 1:They wanted to do.
Speaker 2:Funhouse, but it would cost them like 100,000 pounds just for the rights.
Speaker 1:Or is that just for the twins?
Speaker 2:Who weren't actually twins. No, they were, they were. I think there was a room that they weren't actually twins but they definitely were. But the but with nightmares is a lovely story. He emailed the creator of nightmare and said I would like to do this. Can I get your blessing, and is it going to be okay to do it? And the response he got from the creator of nightmare was welcome to level one.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's awesome that is awesome, so sweet.
Speaker 2:I got to meet Tragar and it was cool. It was a really cool time to be involved in that.
Speaker 1:You mentioned about remakes. I mean that is a perfect example where I think if you go with the right mentality and the right heart and the right reason, the whole thing works together. There's a lot of remakes that are done for a quick cash grab or just to hit the hype train that's going around at the point. But in that example I mean that is a beautiful story of just how passion and enthusiasm with the original person I mean you can ask for a better acceptance. Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a really what's the word? I'm also blanking on the word, but it just was just a humble response, just really just like. It was almost like saying thank you as well as getting permission. It was like thank you for doing it kind of thing, and it was great and to be involved in that. At the same time they did do a quick like few episodes of like Nightmare, but with other comedians like playing it as well and having the original Tragar for that. I don't think it did well enough for it to like fully come back. Unfortunately, the stage show did great. The stage show toured and was like selling out. It was a great thing. I just, as going back to that point of I just would like to see something like Games World again, like competitive gaming on television again in some way or another.
Speaker 1:I pitched this idea to big boy Barry once and by the time I'd finished his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and he said there's any one problem, the budget and basically it was gaming meets professional wrestling. So like the showmanship, the whole performance, entrance stuff of professional wrestling meeting professional gaming just in an arena like the O2, with entrances and pyrotechnics or anything, that would be something like that.
Speaker 2:I mean not entirely that, because it's a different thing, but the part of your concept exists, but it's movie trivia. Yeah, it stops now. Did you ever watch the movie?
Speaker 1:trivia show now.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 2:And I loved the movie trivish mode. I stopped watching it during pandemic because I couldn't be bothered to watch any more zooms chats. I couldn't watch the zoom chats anymore. I just got so done with zoom chats is like I've got to deal with my own now I've got to watch other people. Zoom chats no, yeah.
Speaker 1:The last thing I want to do is watch people do the thing that I've been doing for two years Now. You're okay. So it's the person who's filming a podcast, but that's fine.
Speaker 2:Hey, that was the one zoom chat that I, you know, like doing, doing the podcast. I'm glad with this because I don't have to do any recording or editing.
Speaker 2:So I'm very happy with this scenario right now. But yeah, I got very done with that. But I like that idea. I like because I don't watch wrestling anymore. I've really done. I used to love it and I got to see it live a couple of times, like I. Actually I saw hacks or Jim Duggan live once, which was, which was really cool. British Bulldog Hulk Hogan saw him live, I think it was an L was caught arena or something like that, which was, which was really really fun. But I like the because wrestling is so fake. But when it's done sort of like for comedy because I don't think wrestling is really done for comedy, sure, excuse me. I think wrestling kind of is done for comedy but it takes itself kind of seriously as well. It's Italy. It tries to do something serious. Fun fact do you know who they got in once to help people with their acting in wrestling? Freddie Prinze Jr. He worked for the WWE for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Really, that's insane.
Speaker 2:He's a big wrestling fan and worked for the WWE for a bit to help with some of their performances. He didn't laugh very long, it's like six months. He was like doing stuff for them. But yeah, freddie Prinze Jr was sort of behind the scenes and WWE for a bit.
Speaker 1:I just can't imagine him and Vince McMahon sat in the same room. That has brought my mind apart. That is hilarious. I mean I dabble, I guess, with modern wrestling, but I've seen a few moments where something that's meant to be very serious, where someone has said something, the crowd has caught wind of it and it has broken the moment, where just everybody is dying and they're trying to hide the laughter. But it's made the whole thing so much better that it was meant to have been and it was just. And again it's that comedy, deliverance of when it's done right for completely the wrong reason. It's a brilliant moment. I'll see if I could find one of them and send it to you, because it is absolutely hilarious. And to see them try and fight the moment and they clearly can't and then slowly start to lean into it makes it brilliant.
Speaker 2:As someone who's done their fair share of breaking the character on stage and things like that. Audience is kind of like that more than anything else, and to the point where what we ended up doing we would do it on purpose. In the end, we would basically add a bit where we broke character as a scripted bit because it ended up getting a better reaction than the original bit that we wrote. Sure, so we do a bit where I would start laughing at something when I'm not supposed to be laughing air quote, not supposed to be laughing at that but I would start laughing and that would make the audience laugh because there's that thing of it makes them feel like they're seeing something new and special. Exactly, and I hate to say, if you ever saw me with my act used to be called Ray Guns, look Real Enough.
Speaker 2:If you ever saw our act and you saw that scene where I start laughing because I made a joke about Emos and it doesn't get a big laugh. So I start laughing at the fact that it doesn't get a laugh and then the audience is laughing at me, laughing at the fact that it didn't get a laugh and it ended up being a very scripted bit, even though it came across as unscripted, sure, but it's a very interesting thing to sort of play on that fourth wall breaking. It's very Deadpool kind of thing. So there's, there's something to be said for for that sort of thing. So I can understand why that would work in the wrestling environment, because wrestling is ridiculous. It is like the, not not the actual wrestling itself. That's impressive because it's it's some proper physical effort going into that and they're not. Well, yes, they're hitting each other with closed fists, but they're still big dudes hitting each other with closed fist. You're still going to be to be dead If you don't get hit by those guys.
Speaker 1:I mean as much as I know each other with a chair.
Speaker 2:They're really hitting each other with a chair. It's work as well.
Speaker 1:As much as I'm not a huge fan of Logan Paul, I mean the fact that he's recently been involved in the WWE and has seemed to just take to it like he's been a natural his entire life Because he's a performer.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I would say to an audience where a lot of other wrestlers don't really know how to do that at first he took to it like a Dr Walter, because he already know you had to interact with an audience.
Speaker 1:There is one video and I showed it actually not that long ago in my stream where there's him and another guy and they literally jump off the ropes at each other and collide in the middle of ring and land and you think most people would take years to try and execute that. I mean he's been in there for a few months and does it seamlessly, but the landing they both took, yeah, I mean he just sort of look and go wrestling's fake. But my God, that landing was anything but fake and you kind of see it both like we probably shouldn't have done that, but that reaction was worth it. We're just going to kind of squabble off now and let someone else take over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh God. Well, luckily we didn't have to do that at the ages.
Speaker 1:No, no, we didn't have to jump off the off the top of balcony area or try and throw people down the pit.
Speaker 2:So imagine if it was just like. Well, no one won the game of it, so now you will have to wrestle each other. It's now become a Royal Rumble over the top rope, you go. Poor Gemma, yeah, poor Gemma, may she rest in peace, Although she did.
Speaker 1:she did beat the guy who was apparently like was it 16th in England at gaming or something I remember she absolutely.
Speaker 2:Oh, what in that first round game?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she absolutely massacred him in Street Fighter and I remember Bob Mills tearing that poor guy a new asshole and sort of me being backstage being like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was good at that. He was good at that. I actually have met him since then.
Speaker 1:Oh hey, in comedy, in comedy, he's a stand-up comedian.
Speaker 2:He didn't talk about it that much, but I just I said that I was a contestant and because he is a large man in all aspects of the word, like I'm not like being mean, like in oh sure, he's a large frame, but tall, yeah, very tall, and when we were kids, like he was a giant, yeah, an absolute giant of a man, he was one of those people. He was like he was rude, but he was allowed to be rude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agree.
Speaker 2:And I don't know why you liked him, Like when he, when I got off, he was just like so I hear you're an expert at boogie boarding. I feel very, very embarrassed about that whole thing, by the way. But where he says you're an expert at boogie boarding, Now what a lot of people here might be thinking is what's a boogie board? The thing is, we're never going to know, because take him away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like oh, cheers, bob, thanks for ruining, my life, mate Cheers.
Speaker 2:We're killing your children's self-esteem.
Speaker 1:I've just locked. Thanks, kick me in the bollocks again, why don't you? No, thanks a lot. Oh, would you like another one? Here you go. Here's another one.
Speaker 2:Oh, just like kicking you in the back as you're walking away, just three, three hundred-style, booting you in the back down a pit, kicking you. What's that scar on your back? Bob Mills foot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm gonna put a tattoo next to just Bob Mills. His foot was here.
Speaker 2:I should know I'd be quite good, I might get that yeah there you go, if I'm looking again. Get him to sign my back so I can get it back rude.
Speaker 1:That's a brilliant idea. When did you get that Games World?
Speaker 2:You won't have heard of it. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Next to the tattoo is a QR code someone could scan. That takes you to the exact to the exact moment when it happens.
Speaker 2:Can you believe QR codes are still a thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but do you know what I find is hilarious? Because I remember when QR codes first came out and everyone was like, oh, they're really cool, and then it just faded into the oblivion, and then all of a sudden, it was like QR codes are cool and I'm like they've been around for ages. It's like, why are we getting super hyped up about it? And it was like but you can make them colourful and you can put your logo in the middle. And I'm like, yeah, you can always do that.
Speaker 1:Scan this and it takes you to a website. Yeah, I know, I get how it works. It's just really old tech that's now come back. It's very weird, very, very weird. But then again, we've had revivals of stuff like that, even like record players, right yeah?
Speaker 2:vinyl, vinyl. Yeah, very much back yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't believe what year it was. I think it was 20. I want to say it was 2018, where there was more sales of vinyls than DVDs, blu-rays and CDs combined, or something insane, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.
Speaker 2:One of my mates became an avid vinyl collector. I've got some vinyl Like I've got. Do you know what I've got on vinyl? I've got Space man, Babylon Zoo on vinyl.
Speaker 1:Look at that.
Speaker 2:To the point, because one of the reasons why I wanted to get it on vinyl was because I wanted to play it and then hold it to slow it down, to hear if the beginning did sound like that slowed down bit in. And it did, it did. It was like ah, science, I like this.
Speaker 1:This actually works yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm one of the only people in the world that actually kind of enjoyed their first album. Their second album is Hot Garbage. It is absolutely just some of the worst music you have ever heard. That first album has some actually quite good tunes on it. I don't care. I quite like that first Babylon Zoo album. I don't even mind the slow down bits of Space man.
Speaker 1:I quite like it. I probably have to go back and have them cut their back out.
Speaker 2:No, don't, don't, it's not that good. It's not that good, but I quite liked it. But I've got very poor taste in things.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, brilliant, oh well. Well, I think we're going to leave it there, but that has been an incredible journey I think through. About Matt Blair, that's for sure. You've blown my mind in many different ways, but it's just incredible to be able to talk to you again after all these years.
Speaker 2:No, genuinely thank you One. Thank you for putting the video up. Thank you for inviting me to do this. Thank you for this conversation. I've had a wonderful time.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to be here. I know I like to hear, but for anyone who is listening or watching, all of Matt's details will be down below. There won't be links to Babylon Zoo, but there will be links to everything that he does. I'll make sure you go give him a follow-on switch, such as I have. I'll have to pop by your streams at some point. What days times do you normally stream at?
Speaker 2:Sorry, at the moment I'm actually on a break because, as I said, I'm in the middle of moving, but usually Thursdays I tend to do trivia nights. I do the pub quiz, because my pub quiz is on a Wednesday, and then I just put the questions up on Twitch. There's no prizes, it's just, you know, thursdays and Sundays are usually a definite Thursday. Thursday and Sunday evenings Occasionally a Tuesday, if I can. But I'm about to change things up a little bit because I'm going to be doing some like music, looping streams, ok, as well as games. I'm waiting. I need to get Jedi Survivor and I need to get Aliens Dark Descent. Those are two games I really want to play, but when Spider-Man 2 comes out, I'm definitely going to be playing that. So you'll just have to Like. If you follow me on Twitch, then at some point ask for an invite to the Discord, and the Discord is where I post all of my upcoming streams.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, there we go. That is all the details. Stay on the line, Matt, but it's been an absolute pleasure. I've learned things about you that I've waited 30 years to know. But, yeah, I mean again, it's just been an absolutely incredible journey and the start of a new friendship revives, I think, is probably I think so, I think so.
Speaker 1:Well, I certainly hope you keep in touch. Anyway, and for anybody who is watching or listening, please make sure you go and check all of the places where Matt does all of his amazing things as he strokes his guitar. Is that the name of the next album? Matt Blair Strokes a Guitar.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, I was actually. I'm actually feeling to see how rusty this string is.
Speaker 1:I thought that's what you were doing, but I was trying to cover that up, but it's fine.
Speaker 2:Hold on, is this rusty? Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is Never mind We'll have to get that restrung and get it on Twitch. But anyway, from Mimi Machine Dean and from Matt Blair, a very, very very good evening good afternoon or good morning, wherever you are, and thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye, I'll see you now if you want. I might play some comedy music over this, I don't know.