Tales From the Bargain Bin #20 - M.U.S.C.L.E. (NES)

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to episode 20 of Tales from the Bargain Bin, I'm Bill Tucker

[00:00:19] And with me today is a gentleman who hasn't been on the show in a while

[00:00:24] He's been hidden in mystery

[00:00:26] He's been shrouded in darkness, I guess, I don't know

[00:00:30] Mr. Bobby Tucker returns to talk about a game that we had as a kid

[00:00:35] Bobby, how are you sir?

[00:00:37] Good, thanks for having me back

[00:00:39] Yeah man, absolutely

[00:00:40] We're here to talk about Tag Team Match Muscle

[00:00:44] Muscle being an acronym

[00:00:47] And we for the Nintendo Entertainment System

[00:00:51] Developed by Bandai in, looks like 1986, this was like a launch game

[00:00:58] This was a launch game for, or close to launch game for the original Nintendo

[00:01:03] It's a wrestling game as noted

[00:01:06] So Bobby, what's your familiarity with this game?

[00:01:09] I remember playing a lot of this as a young person, I'm assuming you did too

[00:01:14] I did too, yeah, I liked it

[00:01:18] But it was kind of obscure to me anyway

[00:01:21] I only remember it as Muscle, I don't even remember the Tag Team part

[00:01:24] But Tag Team is a big part of the game

[00:01:27] And I don't know where it came from

[00:01:31] I just remember it appearing one day

[00:01:33] It really did just appear one day

[00:01:35] I have to assume this was again an Aunt Nancy

[00:01:39] Or I would even say Grandpa Tucker

[00:01:42] Maybe

[00:01:43] Selection, our grandpa used to also get us games, you know

[00:01:46] I just wonder if maybe like a friend like lent it to you

[00:01:50] But I can't remember if like you got to keep it

[00:01:53] I had that hazy memory too, I thought was this a borrow from a friend that never went back?

[00:02:01] I have a history of this, I have borrowed things from people

[00:02:04] And then just never returned it, which isn't really stealing

[00:02:08] It's just forgetful borrowing

[00:02:11] And if nobody asked for it back, you can't really say you stole it

[00:02:16] I don't think

[00:02:17] I don't know if I have any video games like that, I definitely have a few DVDs that were borrows

[00:02:22] And then never returned

[00:02:24] I have a copy of the Orange Box

[00:02:27] Which is Portal 2, sorry Portal and Half Life 2

[00:02:32] And Team Fortress 2 for the PlayStation 2

[00:02:36] It's the PS2 version of the Orange Box

[00:02:38] No PS3, I'm sorry, PS3 version of the Orange Box

[00:02:41] And I borrowed that from a friend 16 years ago maybe at this point

[00:02:47] 16 years ago probably

[00:02:49] And still have it

[00:02:51] I don't even remember the person's name, it was a person from work I think

[00:02:55] She's like here I'll let you borrow it

[00:02:57] And evidently that's actually worth some money nowadays

[00:02:59] Not like I would get rid of it or anything

[00:03:01] But yeah, I borrowed it

[00:03:04] I used to do that to our friend Drew Gilchrist all the time

[00:03:07] Drew had a very intensive DVD collection

[00:03:11] He would let me borrow DVDs from him

[00:03:13] And I would just not return it

[00:03:15] The famous one was my cousin Vinny

[00:03:17] I borrowed my cousin Vinny from Drew

[00:03:20] And it sat in my car for 6 months after I finished watching it

[00:03:24] It just sat in the back seat as happens

[00:03:27] And it was all damaged and warped so I had to buy him a new copy of my cousin Vinny

[00:03:31] Because I felt bad, I was like oh I'm sorry

[00:03:34] Let me buy you a copy of this movie

[00:03:37] I was over Brian Parks' place

[00:03:40] This was years ago

[00:03:42] And I saw it by his TV, he had a copy of The Wrestler

[00:03:46] And I said oh you've been wanting to watch that

[00:03:49] He's like yeah

[00:03:51] Did you like it?

[00:03:53] He's like well I haven't watched it yet

[00:03:55] I'm like oh cool, alright

[00:03:57] He's like you know that's your copy Bobby

[00:03:59] Oh he's like do you want it back?

[00:04:01] I went no, watch it first

[00:04:03] Apparently you can keep it apparently

[00:04:05] I didn't even know you had it

[00:04:07] I also have a copy random story

[00:04:10] I don't even want to cut this

[00:04:12] He's a stand up comic now

[00:04:15] But Mike Racine lent me a copy of his

[00:04:18] The short lived HBO show Lucky Louie

[00:04:22] Which is actually like a rarity now

[00:04:25] And I remember trying to give it back to him

[00:04:28] But he's a comic so he kind of like gave me crap for it

[00:04:32] He's like yeah right, I want my copy back

[00:04:36] I went okay and I kept it

[00:04:39] And to this day it's still sitting in my collection

[00:04:41] Like that's Mike's copy, I should give him a call

[00:04:44] Give him a call, give him a sign or something

[00:04:46] He's making a name in the comedy world I think right?

[00:04:49] Yeah, yeah, he tours

[00:04:51] He's got some pretty popular friends

[00:04:55] He's in good company at least for sure

[00:04:57] Excellent, excellent

[00:04:58] Yeah, she gave him a sign

[00:04:59] Hey man do you want to sign your copy of Lucky Louie

[00:05:01] That I currently own?

[00:05:02] No, then he'll just give me more crap

[00:05:05] It's not worth the ribbing you would take

[00:05:08] About how boring this last five years

[00:05:10] Yeah

[00:05:11] When you have friends who work in comedy

[00:05:14] It's like you know where the line is

[00:05:17] Unless you want to start riffing on each other

[00:05:19] Yeah, unless you want to get into something

[00:05:21] It's like getting into it with you is not my job

[00:05:25] It's your job now, it's not my job

[00:05:27] Got to be in the right head space

[00:05:29] Yeah, exactly

[00:05:30] Anyway, but I feel like this was a copy from

[00:05:34] The muscle game was a copy from a friend

[00:05:38] But I don't know if it was a lent or he just handed it to you

[00:05:40] You know what?

[00:05:41] I'm not quite sure

[00:05:42] There's a couple of situations where I borrowed games

[00:05:45] And took forever to get them back

[00:05:47] Castlevania was one of those

[00:05:48] I borrowed that game for a while

[00:05:50] I had people who would borrow games from me

[00:05:52] And take a long time to return them

[00:05:55] Mom would get really upset by that

[00:05:57] She would get so mad

[00:05:58] They're expensive, they're not cheap

[00:06:00] $50 for this game

[00:06:02] Yep, yep

[00:06:03] And it's a game I think is kind of fun

[00:06:06] So Bobby, would you please tell the fine folks

[00:06:09] Fine listeners

[00:06:11] What is this game?

[00:06:13] What do you do in muscle?

[00:06:15] It's like the Nanny S game baseball, right?

[00:06:19] It's just the packaging tells you everything

[00:06:23] You play as one of eight

[00:06:25] I think eight or ten wrestling characters

[00:06:29] And you pick two because you're a tag team

[00:06:32] And then you go through rounds of wrestling

[00:06:34] Collecting trophies

[00:06:35] I don't even remember if there's an ending

[00:06:37] I think it just keeps going

[00:06:39] There is no ending, it just loops

[00:06:41] It just loops

[00:06:42] And the first and second

[00:06:45] I think the first level, the rings loop

[00:06:48] The first one's like a normal ring

[00:06:50] The second one I think might be like a sliding ring

[00:06:53] And the third one has electric ropes

[00:06:56] And I always remember that being tricky

[00:06:58] But it's stripped down, but it's fun

[00:07:01] And once you learn its crummy controls

[00:07:05] It actually becomes, you know, once you adapt

[00:07:07] It becomes a really fun game

[00:07:09] What really, I think I play it as every character

[00:07:12] Because every character is like a special move

[00:07:15] You would get like these orbs thrown from the side

[00:07:18] I assume it's your trainer

[00:07:20] Yep, it is your trainer

[00:07:22] He throws you an orb and then that gives you the ability to do your special move

[00:07:27] And part of the strategy is keeping the other

[00:07:30] The opponent away from tagging when they're about to go down

[00:07:34] So if they throw like an orb

[00:07:37] You may not want to get it because you have them on the ropes, if you will

[00:07:40] It can become kind of intense

[00:07:44] But, and that's what's so funny about muscle though is that

[00:07:50] What I have is at face value, right?

[00:07:53] It's just these

[00:07:55] I already know if the characters had names

[00:07:57] I think they were in the manual, but they're not in the game

[00:08:00] They're not in the game

[00:08:02] And you just kind of do it visually

[00:08:04] I think I played as the knight a lot

[00:08:06] And that was sort of my go-to guy

[00:08:08] But I did eventually play as everybody

[00:08:11] I don't know, I had a lot of fun

[00:08:13] I would always over time like in waves pop it back in

[00:08:16] And just play it for a couple hours

[00:08:18] I think I could probably still do that now

[00:08:20] Come back to me very quickly

[00:08:22] It came back to me very quickly

[00:08:23] You can actually play this in a browser

[00:08:25] Oh really?

[00:08:26] Yeah, you search for muscle NES

[00:08:28] And you can play this in browser

[00:08:30] You don't even need the emulator

[00:08:31] You just play it in Chrome

[00:08:33] And I did for about 15 minutes this morning

[00:08:36] That's all I needed to get my skills back

[00:08:39] I had to use the keyboard for it

[00:08:40] And he couldn't plug the controller in

[00:08:42] But even with the keyboard it's very straightforward

[00:08:44] It's very straightforward

[00:08:45] You can do a variety of very simple jump moves and punches

[00:08:48] And bouncing off the ropes is very fun

[00:08:51] There's a mechanic where you can kind of push your opponent into the ropes

[00:08:53] And slam into them

[00:08:54] There are a lot of neat things you can do in this game

[00:08:57] The sprites are nice and big and fun

[00:09:00] Got a lot of room to maneuver on this giant mat

[00:09:03] Compared to the character size

[00:09:07] Is it on archive.org?

[00:09:09] No, I forget

[00:09:10] No, it was on something else

[00:09:12] I can't remember what

[00:09:13] A lovely catalog of old games on archive.org

[00:09:17] I'll put a link in the show notes that will direct you to it

[00:09:20] So you can take a look at it at your leisure

[00:09:24] But muscle is actually like all like probably anything in that era

[00:09:30] These are actually real characters from a real manga and anime show

[00:09:37] And I swear to you Bobby

[00:09:39] I was trying to get this done beforehand

[00:09:41] I could swear we had some of these little characters as toys

[00:09:46] Oh, interesting

[00:09:47] Yeah, I don't remember that

[00:09:48] I'm going to do some searching while we talk here

[00:09:52] And this is going to be tough

[00:09:53] Muscle toys

[00:09:54] Yes

[00:09:56] We did have these things

[00:09:58] Okay

[00:09:59] I'm going to send you a link here in the chat

[00:10:03] Okay

[00:10:04] In our fancy new

[00:10:05] There we go

[00:10:06] And see if these little characters spring to mind

[00:10:10] We had these dumb things

[00:10:12] Oh, wow

[00:10:13] Yeah

[00:10:14] You remember these dumb things

[00:10:16] So I just sent Bobby here

[00:10:18] Okay

[00:10:19] A picture of a link that is a bunch of toys

[00:10:24] These little characters are probably an inch tall

[00:10:27] And they're all basically flesh colored

[00:10:30] Yeah

[00:10:31] And they are all these little wrestling dudes

[00:10:35] They look like pencil erasers

[00:10:36] They look like pencil erasers

[00:10:40] And this is we had these damn things

[00:10:44] The idea was you collected them as much as possible

[00:10:47] I think we had like one little collection of them

[00:10:49] There's a toy commercial

[00:10:50] I'll put the toy commercial trailer right here

[00:10:53] Editor Bill put the toy commercial right here

[00:11:26] So we had these things Bobby

[00:11:27] So maybe I had them

[00:11:28] Maybe you didn't

[00:11:29] That's very well

[00:11:30] This could have been lost well before your time

[00:11:32] Yeah

[00:11:33] I mean like I do remember your toys

[00:11:36] But these guys don't ring a bell

[00:11:37] I did remember though when I was watching some gameplay footage

[00:11:42] People did have like in the comments like oh yeah

[00:11:44] I had these toys

[00:11:45] And I went I had no idea

[00:11:47] That's the beauty especially in the 80s

[00:11:50] And the 90s when we actually played this

[00:11:52] We really didn't have like the internet as we know it today

[00:11:55] So something that came from Japan like this

[00:11:58] We only have what's in front of us

[00:12:00] Right

[00:12:01] And so to me it's just it's just this game

[00:12:03] But before it was this whole cartoon and toy line

[00:12:06] I had no idea about

[00:12:08] So when I played muscle

[00:12:09] So the idea is you build a tag team like you said

[00:12:12] And there's eight characters to choose from

[00:12:14] And the two characters I always choose

[00:12:16] There are either six

[00:12:17] He's only six

[00:12:18] Six or eight

[00:12:19] Oh

[00:12:20] And I don't forget which

[00:12:21] And I always use the character that would look like a monk

[00:12:24] But his special move was he threw an axe

[00:12:26] Oh yeah

[00:12:27] As soon as the axe touched you

[00:12:28] The opponent they would freeze and fall over

[00:12:30] Yeah

[00:12:31] And you could just spam that insanely

[00:12:33] And just destroy the character and your opponent in three hits

[00:12:36] Yeah

[00:12:37] I also use the blonde haired

[00:12:40] I guess the best you can say is the blonde haired white guy

[00:12:43] And the little blue speedos

[00:12:44] He kind of remind me of Bob Backlund from wrestling

[00:12:47] Like he was like they just wrestler.exe

[00:12:51] You know just standard wrestler

[00:12:53] Wrestler.jpeg

[00:12:54] It might have been what they were going for

[00:12:55] Maybe I don't know but he was

[00:12:58] He had a move where he kind of like did a suplex

[00:13:02] Like a slam move that he ran into you

[00:13:05] And it was fun

[00:13:07] And yes you're right

[00:13:08] The little character on the sidelines that gives you your power

[00:13:11] That character's name is I believe it's Meat

[00:13:15] Oh boy

[00:13:16] They have names

[00:13:17] In the show his trainer Meat Alexandria

[00:13:20] And that is your trainer who gives you your special power

[00:13:22] I think that's a really fun way of kind of spicing up the gameplay

[00:13:25] Because that's a great way of turning the tide

[00:13:28] If he throws something at you and you're at like two power

[00:13:31] Because another neat thing the game does is

[00:13:33] As your character loses power you slow down

[00:13:36] You slow down

[00:13:37] You can't jump as high

[00:13:38] You lose stamina

[00:13:39] Lose stamina

[00:13:40] So the idea is you got to go back and tag in your partner

[00:13:43] Which creates that fun like rush

[00:13:45] You know like that rush to get to the end

[00:13:49] Very very neat game

[00:13:51] And you're right there's nothing else to it

[00:13:53] It's three rounds and then it just repeats

[00:13:56] Just repeats

[00:13:57] Repeats the three rounds over and over again

[00:14:00] The second one he says a blue it's like sliding

[00:14:02] It's like an ice level

[00:14:03] So imagine if you do a jump and a slam

[00:14:07] Your body goes across the ground

[00:14:10] That's what happens there

[00:14:13] So the manga this was created off of is called

[00:14:17] I'm going to screw this up

[00:14:18] I don't speak Japanese

[00:14:20] I've never taken the time to pronounce these things properly

[00:14:22] I apologize in advance for the friendly folk who are listening

[00:14:25] Kinikuman

[00:14:29] Literal translation muscle man

[00:14:32] The Japanese manga series created by the duo

[00:14:35] Yoshinori Takai and Takashi Shimitamata

[00:14:40] Known as Yuritamago

[00:14:42] Now somebody out there I'm sure is a huge fan of this

[00:14:45] Somebody out there I'm sure celebrates the entire franchise

[00:14:49] I apologize if I've ruined it but yeah it is about

[00:14:52] A interstellar group of wrestling people

[00:14:58] Yeah

[00:15:00] These are actual characters from an actual thing that existed in Japan

[00:15:04] That's right

[00:15:06] Have there been any games since?

[00:15:08] That is an excellent question let's see

[00:15:11] Let's see characters

[00:15:13] There's not much in the wiki for this one Bobby

[00:15:15] There's not a ton here

[00:15:17] Yeah I did

[00:15:19] Go ahead

[00:15:21] I did find a season of the cartoon

[00:15:25] On the internet archives

[00:15:28] And I watched about five minutes of one of the episodes

[00:15:31] That's all I could take

[00:15:33] That was it

[00:15:35] Well let's see that's a very over the top kind of like

[00:15:38] I don't know shouting type of anime

[00:15:40] I don't know what else to call it

[00:15:42] Everything is the same volume and tone

[00:15:46] I don't know anything about anime

[00:15:50] It's one of the things in life I've never explored

[00:15:52] People have recommended anime for me to watch

[00:15:54] Like oh no you need to watch

[00:15:56] Nier Evigenilon or whatever it's called

[00:15:59] Neo

[00:16:01] Yeah whatever

[00:16:03] And I'm like okay eventually then I realized I have limited time on this planet

[00:16:07] Yeah I've dabbled

[00:16:10] I've watched a few series and movies

[00:16:14] Yeah the stuff that I like is great

[00:16:17] And then the stuff that's not so great

[00:16:21] You know kind of falls in the other categories

[00:16:23] I guess I watched some more of the adult oriented stuff

[00:16:26] Because I'm an adult

[00:16:28] I guess that sounds worse than it does

[00:16:30] No no I'm sorry

[00:16:32] Not just like nude or whatever

[00:16:35] But you know violence and content

[00:16:38] Like the Street Fighter anime that kind of stuff

[00:16:41] Gotcha

[00:16:43] I got into it way late

[00:16:45] But I think there's fans of anime who got into it from when they were kids

[00:16:49] And their vision of anime is like Pokemon or what's it?

[00:16:56] Dragon Ball Z that's a big one

[00:16:58] And that style is like that's what they think of when they think of anime

[00:17:01] What I think of I think of like Akira or Perfect Blue

[00:17:07] That kind of stuff

[00:17:09] So that's not for children

[00:17:11] No that is not

[00:17:13] So I've dabbled

[00:17:16] I also work for a Japanese company

[00:17:18] Side note

[00:17:20] I wonder who I can chat up with about this

[00:17:23] Next time I'm in the office

[00:17:25] We have a lot of expats

[00:17:27] I'm curious who I can...

[00:17:29] Yeah see if anybody knows Kinikuman

[00:17:32] From the other games

[00:17:35] There was a Famicom game called Jump Hero Retsuden

[00:17:38] Which is from the same I think family

[00:17:40] Although it doesn't look nothing like it that could be wrong

[00:17:42] There was an Ultimate Muscle Legends vs New Generation

[00:17:46] Which is the same characters on the Gamecube

[00:17:50] That was released in 2003

[00:17:52] Oh for the Gamecube

[00:17:54] Yeah

[00:17:56] Galactic Wrestling which looks pretty similar to this

[00:17:59] That was released on the Playstation 2 and PSP

[00:18:03] See I want to play a semi-current Muscleman game

[00:18:06] This sounds great

[00:18:08] Ultimate Muscle Legends vs New Generation might be up your alley

[00:18:11] Because that was localized

[00:18:13] That was in North America

[00:18:15] Nice

[00:18:16] You have a Gamecube

[00:18:18] I do

[00:18:20] See this might be your next couple weeks

[00:18:22] Let's see if we can find you one

[00:18:23] There might be spiders living in it

[00:18:25] I'm kidding

[00:18:27] Let's see if we can find one for a decent price

[00:18:29] Oh no

[00:18:31] No these are expensive

[00:18:33] There's one that's here for $93

[00:18:37] See there's a $50 one but this case only

[00:18:40] No game

[00:18:41] See some of these games are out of print

[00:18:43] Are you out of your mind?

[00:18:45] $149 for a no manual with the game

[00:18:50] For an obscure Gamecube game

[00:18:53] Yeah yeah yeah

[00:18:55] I tell ya I got the first three Silent Hill games in their original format

[00:18:59] I gotta put them in a safe

[00:19:01] You need to insure them at this point

[00:19:03] I gotta get them validated

[00:19:05] Or my copy of Lucky Louie apparently

[00:19:10] Lucky Louie not available anywhere to stream I don't think

[00:19:13] No maybe

[00:19:15] Maybe Lucy K's website

[00:19:17] I haven't checked

[00:19:19] But yeah so this is a small little franchise

[00:19:22] A weird little piece of the world

[00:19:24] The game itself is a lot of fun though

[00:19:26] It's a very enjoyable 15-20 minutes

[00:19:29] Yeah and I think this is a very like

[00:19:31] This show is called The Bargain Band

[00:19:33] But I think this is like an overlooked gem

[00:19:35] Yeah

[00:19:36] And the franchise is like probably pretty overlooked

[00:19:39] I bet they have a cult following like you said

[00:19:41] But sure

[00:19:42] But nowhere near this in the conversation with like

[00:19:45] You know Dragon Ball Z heads and people like that

[00:19:49] So I'm curious there's like a Kikoman fan base out there

[00:19:55] I bet they exist

[00:19:57] Yeah the manga series has received several awards

[00:20:00] And sold well during both of its 1980s serialization

[00:20:03] And it's 2010's revival

[00:20:05] Hence those new games I guess

[00:20:07] Well yeah

[00:20:08] Huh

[00:20:09] And this game was sort of like the gateway

[00:20:12] Into other like wrestling games we would play

[00:20:16] I was never a huge wrestling fan

[00:20:18] I think you and Joey watched a lot of wrestling

[00:20:20] We did

[00:20:21] But I kind of just absorbed whatever you watched through

[00:20:24] You know just by proximity

[00:20:27] Yeah

[00:20:28] But then we would go on to play like Royal Rumble

[00:20:31] And like the other N64 games

[00:20:33] Those would lead

[00:20:35] I never big wrestling fan but I played a lot of wrestling video games

[00:20:38] Yeah

[00:20:39] And I feel like muscle started it

[00:20:41] That's probably a very fair assessment

[00:20:43] I would say that probably did

[00:20:44] I think so

[00:20:45] Yeah and I've been playing a lot of this game

[00:20:47] Yeah muscle and well punch out but that's boxing

[00:20:50] But yeah and you know the mechanics are all there

[00:20:54] Jumping off ropes and doing special moves you know

[00:20:57] Grappling and all the rest of it

[00:20:59] Royal Rumble is a great game

[00:21:01] And just remembering like Royal Rumble

[00:21:03] One of the few good LJN games by the way

[00:21:05] Yeah

[00:21:07] And yeah how like what a big jump that is from muscle

[00:21:11] I don't know how much my mind was blown playing that game

[00:21:15] But yeah and to this day wrestling games are still you know

[00:21:20] They do really well

[00:21:22] Yeah they really do

[00:21:24] Obviously the WWE games

[00:21:26] My neighbor actually worked on WWE 2K24

[00:21:31] Nice

[00:21:32] So he's worked on those

[00:21:34] He was a freelancer for a while

[00:21:36] Actually I know somebody who does another podcast

[00:21:38] Who is huge into character creation

[00:21:40] In that game

[00:21:42] Evidently in the WWE video games

[00:21:45] Character creation is a really big deal

[00:21:47] And he knows how to wheel that engine

[00:21:50] Like a master swordsman

[00:21:53] That's amazing

[00:21:54] And he's like now known in the community for being one of the premier

[00:21:58] Costume skin makers in that game

[00:22:00] What a cool niche

[00:22:02] It really is

[00:22:03] Some people really find their calling in the smallest of paths

[00:22:08] It's really amazing

[00:22:10] It's really cool and he's this unassuming dude who just all of a sudden

[00:22:13] He was posting all these different skins

[00:22:15] Because you can do that publicly once you create them

[00:22:17] And he started getting to the point where the new game comes out

[00:22:20] And people are like hey when are you releasing skins for this new game?

[00:22:22] And now he's at the point where he goes I don't want to do this as a job

[00:22:26] This is not a job

[00:22:27] I'll do it when I do it

[00:22:28] I'm always amazed by mods

[00:22:30] Just like what you can stuff into a game

[00:22:33] Yes, me too

[00:22:35] I love that whole thing

[00:22:37] I can never do it

[00:22:38] No idea

[00:22:40] What would I like to be the beneficiary of?

[00:22:42] It's Justin Ham from Stage Select Podcasts

[00:22:46] If you want to know

[00:22:47] He's had a brand new podcast just started up

[00:22:50] Formally of Nerds Without Pants

[00:22:52] So definitely check out their show

[00:22:53] Here's a little plug for my pals over there at Stage Select

[00:22:55] Well then we know what needs to happen is that your pal needs to make Muscle Man skins

[00:23:01] Yes

[00:23:03] For the upcoming

[00:23:04] Hopefully there's no Kiko Man copyright issues

[00:23:07] But we'll sort that out later

[00:23:10] See if you can make the main guy with the mohawk

[00:23:15] The skin colored mohawk by the way

[00:23:17] I forgot to mention that

[00:23:19] I'm looking at that toy

[00:23:20] I'm like wow it's a flesh mohawk

[00:23:23] It's bizarre

[00:23:25] It is rather strange

[00:23:27] Yes it is

[00:23:28] Kinikuman

[00:23:29] I'll be like hey can you look up some Kinikuman skins there on WWE

[00:23:34] I keep saying Kiko Man

[00:23:36] Like the soy sauce

[00:23:37] Kiko Man is the soy saucer

[00:23:39] I'm way off

[00:23:41] Oh boy

[00:23:43] Yes but he needs to make skins

[00:23:47] I'm telling you this is going to renew interest in this series

[00:23:53] It breathes new life into this series

[00:23:55] I want some credit darn it

[00:23:57] Yes indeed

[00:23:59] Another wrestling game we played a lot of of course was as you just alluded to WCW versus NWO

[00:24:05] That was the one

[00:24:06] On the N64

[00:24:07] N64

[00:24:08] Which was great

[00:24:09] That was a great game

[00:24:10] That's a great game

[00:24:11] Yeah I played a lot of that

[00:24:13] Yep yep yep

[00:24:14] And it was cool because you had the characters and it wasn't random anime characters we didn't know

[00:24:19] Yeah they were real characters yes

[00:24:22] Hey Royal Rumble did too

[00:24:24] Royal Rumble

[00:24:25] Who the Undertaker was

[00:24:27] He had some well known ones like the Undertaker

[00:24:30] I don't think Hogan was in that one

[00:24:33] Was Ric Flair

[00:24:34] Probably

[00:24:35] I think so

[00:24:36] Sean Hitman Hart was in that one I know that one for sure

[00:24:40] I think Shawn Michaels had been in there too

[00:24:41] The Undertaker

[00:24:43] I'm sure if only we had the device that could tell us everything we need to know about everything

[00:24:48] Wasn't there a character named Doink

[00:24:51] Was a clown

[00:24:53] I don't remember that

[00:24:54] There's a killer clown wrestler

[00:24:56] And Razor Ramon I know he was in there

[00:24:59] Oh yeah he had a cool soundtrack

[00:25:01] His theme song was good

[00:25:03] But it's funny you mentioned about met mods

[00:25:05] Have you watched the Fallout series yet Bobby?

[00:25:08] You probably don't need to because you're not a Fallout fan

[00:25:11] Well I've never played Fallout to be fair so I wouldn't say I'm a fan or not

[00:25:15] I can't comment on something I know nothing about

[00:25:18] But from what I've seen and I like Bethesda's work so I'm going to say it's probably good

[00:25:23] Is the show good?

[00:25:25] Yeah it's actually real good

[00:25:26] Jamie and I just finished it last night

[00:25:29] It's eight episodes got through pretty quick

[00:25:33] I like it a lot

[00:25:36] I think it looks very as a big Fallout fan

[00:25:39] I just like how it looks

[00:25:41] They got the look of it perfect

[00:25:43] It's got the Bethesda humor and the silliness with all the very serious undertones

[00:25:49] It's extremely violent in a cartoon goofball sort of way

[00:25:54] Which Fallout is

[00:25:56] It can be very violent

[00:25:58] Fallout series is good

[00:25:59] There's a great Easter egg at the end that made me so happy and giggly

[00:26:02] I was literally jumping up and down like a child

[00:26:04] It's good like the video game players

[00:26:06] Oh yeah

[00:26:07] It teases the next because there's already announced to be a second season of this already

[00:26:12] They already announced I could do a second season and it all ties into the next season

[00:26:17] And I'm not going to say anything further about it because people should watch it

[00:26:20] It's a lot of fun

[00:26:21] You were talking about modding

[00:26:22] Yeah the modding community for Bethesda games is great

[00:26:25] So because of the Fallout series my wife was now like

[00:26:28] Hey maybe I should play one of the Fallout games because she really liked the series

[00:26:34] Now I'm like oh great so I redownloaded Fallout New Vegas

[00:26:38] Which is my favorite Fallout game

[00:26:40] It might be a top five favorite game for me of all time

[00:26:42] Nice

[00:26:43] And I went to modding because the funny thing about these Bethesda games

[00:26:49] Fallout 4 is getting a resurgence online because of the series

[00:26:54] Everyone's like replaying 4, replaying 3

[00:26:57] Boy are we nice people could just play Fallout New Vegas because you can't

[00:27:01] Like you know it's so buggy and so broken on modern hardware

[00:27:07] You need to mod the game insanely to get it to run

[00:27:12] There's a whole thing out there if you want to play New Vegas

[00:27:15] There's called Viva Las Vegas I think it is

[00:27:18] Viva New Vegas

[00:27:19] The website it gives you step-by-step instructions on how to mod the original mod New Vegas

[00:27:26] It will take you about an easy six hours worth of time

[00:27:31] To download these mods, install these mods, configure these mods

[00:27:36] Because Bethesda doesn't fix their own games the community does it for them

[00:27:41] And then Bethesda goes we love our modding community

[00:27:44] Of course you do because they fix your games for you

[00:27:48] You can play New Vegas on your modern machine

[00:27:51] But you need to jump through an insane amount of hoops to do so

[00:27:54] Or it might be available on like maybe Xbox past or one of the pasts I don't know

[00:27:59] But I spent a good portion of this weekend redownloading mods

[00:28:04] And reinstalling my copy of Fallout New Vegas

[00:28:08] Hopefully for my wife and I to play on stream at some point

[00:28:12] So keep an eye out for that

[00:28:14] And that's the only way you can play it on modern systems now?

[00:28:18] Because the server doesn't exist?

[00:28:21] No, it's not because the server exists

[00:28:23] Bethesda games are notoriously buggy when they first release

[00:28:27] They're just notoriously buggy and New Vegas is a buggy mess

[00:28:31] But it's very hard to play what they call vanilla New Vegas

[00:28:35] Because there's so many quality of life

[00:28:37] There are tens of thousands of mods released for New Vegas

[00:28:43] And I think I have 124 of them running

[00:28:47] If I turn on New Vegas right now, 124 mods start running

[00:28:50] Cleans everything from character AI to stuttering to frame rate locks to fixes these bugs and that bugs

[00:28:58] It's wild, there's content

[00:29:01] The people have created their own quest lines and their own 20 to 30 hour storylines fully voice acted

[00:29:07] Fallout 4 has a lot of really good fan made mods that are quest mods

[00:29:13] At the end of the day I played one last week that was a 5 hour DLC style thing

[00:29:19] They have one that's like 20 or 30 hours and fully voice acted

[00:29:23] Full branching past the whole thing

[00:29:26] I ran into a similar issue that meant a much older game

[00:29:31] I finally played the sequel to Wolfenstein

[00:29:34] It's called Return to Castle Wolfenstein

[00:29:36] How was it?

[00:29:37] I loved it, it was a lot of fun

[00:29:40] And very ahead of its time as far as the way you do stealth and stuff

[00:29:46] It was very cool

[00:29:48] But the version I bought on Steam is like the version that's available to anybody

[00:29:53] A lot of modern systems have problems playing it

[00:29:57] The developer never really went past a certain year for certain Windows 10 systems or whatever

[00:30:05] And there's community codes you can put in to fix the scaling issues or whatever

[00:30:11] After an hour I was like, I'm just going to return this

[00:30:15] And then in a last ditch effort a community mod exists on Steam for free of the whole game

[00:30:22] You don't have to do any fancy work, just download it on Steam

[00:30:26] And it's called real Return Castle Wolfenstein

[00:30:30] And it's the whole game fixed for modern computers

[00:30:34] You can play it, it has a widescreen version

[00:30:37] It's fixed for widescreen monitors and 1080 TVs or whatever

[00:30:42] And it just works perfectly

[00:30:44] And I went, oh, I still want to return the one I bought

[00:30:47] Because this free mod is perfect

[00:30:50] They really did a great job

[00:30:52] But it's just so funny, some games

[00:30:55] It depends on the market or demand for it

[00:30:58] They want to future-proof it, it depends

[00:31:03] It's amazing how in the weeds you can get with computer gaming

[00:31:09] Especially reviving old games

[00:31:12] And it's funny because Fallout now with this new resurgence

[00:31:16] Because of the show, which is very popular on Prime right now

[00:31:19] Then they should be jumping on this

[00:31:21] You would think Bethesda would be like, oh hey, let's make it so that when people buy New Vegas on Steam

[00:31:25] They can run it if they have an AMD graphics card

[00:31:28] Because guess what, friends?

[00:31:30] If you have an AMD graphics card in your computer

[00:31:32] You cannot run Fallout New Vegas

[00:31:34] Don't even try

[00:31:36] Hard crash as soon as you start playing the game past the first cutscene

[00:31:40] Hard crash, because that's what happened to me

[00:31:42] I'm like, oh dang

[00:31:44] Because the drivers didn't update

[00:31:46] They haven't updated, it doesn't support the new drivers

[00:31:49] And I look up hard crash New Vegas

[00:31:51] It's a big thing, yep

[00:31:53] If you have 2024, roll back your drivers to 2023

[00:31:56] Which will break all your other games

[00:31:58] Unless you want to install this mod

[00:32:00] And then I was like

[00:32:02] I almost gave up a couple of times to Bobbie

[00:32:04] I was like, I can't sit here and install all these mods

[00:32:07] But for some reason it became a mission

[00:32:09] It does, I know that feeling

[00:32:11] It became a mission

[00:32:13] I'm like, I am going to make this damn thing work

[00:32:15] And sure enough, I now have

[00:32:17] Last night I was able to get it fired up

[00:32:19] Runs beautifully, runs in beautiful 60 frames

[00:32:22] And just hums along lovely

[00:32:26] Anyway, I'm not sure how we got from Muscle to Fallout

[00:32:30] But if you are listening

[00:32:32] This is a series, yeah

[00:32:34] If you are listening to this

[00:32:36] My wife and I, we might start streaming

[00:32:38] Fallout New Vegas

[00:32:40] She'll be playing, she's never played a first person shooter before

[00:32:43] So she's now interested enough to give it a try

[00:32:47] This could be a one episode test

[00:32:50] She may see all the crazy things you have to do

[00:32:52] Like the management of Fallout

[00:32:54] Like there's a lot of RPG elements to Fallout

[00:32:58] And she may go, nope, real fast

[00:33:00] It could be a very quick nope, we don't know

[00:33:02] But we're going to give it a shot and say

[00:33:04] So Bobbie, when we think back on Kinnikuman

[00:33:08] Otherwise known as Tag Team Wrestling

[00:33:10] Muscle as an acronym

[00:33:12] To which there is no inclination by the way

[00:33:15] Of what that's an acronym for

[00:33:17] I can't find what that is an acronym actually for

[00:33:21] Yeah, and it never did either

[00:33:24] So we're just going to say it is Muscle

[00:33:27] But Bobbie, do we keep that in the bin

[00:33:31] Or do we take it home?

[00:33:33] We take it home

[00:33:34] Yeah, I take that home too

[00:33:36] Yeah, totally

[00:33:37] Absolutely

[00:33:38] Yeah, it's a lot of fun

[00:33:40] I love the fact it's on a browser now

[00:33:42] So I will have the link to the browser-based game

[00:33:45] In the show notes

[00:33:47] And Bobbie, you did talk about an upcoming

[00:33:51] You seem to think there was another game coming

[00:33:54] Or another show coming

[00:33:56] There is another Kinnikuman show

[00:34:02] Slated to premiere in July of 2024

[00:34:06] Oh wow, we caught the wave early, Bill

[00:34:10] I'm sure it did

[00:34:11] Let's see those numbers go up for Muscle

[00:34:14] I'm going to have to put in parentheses Kinnikuman

[00:34:16] Just so I don't know, it gets Missy O going

[00:34:18] As the keyword

[00:34:20] Oh my goodness, we're going to have to do

[00:34:22] Reaction episodes

[00:34:25] Yeah, exactly

[00:34:27] Awesome, man

[00:34:28] Well thank you for joining me on this little escapade

[00:34:32] Through little people wrestling and kicking and punching

[00:34:35] And thank you for giving this show a listen

[00:34:37] And hanging with the show

[00:34:38] I'm BobbieD, the host of Final Fantasy

[00:34:40] If you enjoyed this, there are 19 other episodes

[00:34:43] The game looks at 40 tales from the bargain bin available

[00:34:46] If you're a YouTube user

[00:34:48] Who isn't a YouTube user these days

[00:34:50] I am on YouTube now

[00:34:52] The show is on YouTube

[00:34:54] Why?

[00:34:55] Because it's so easy to do

[00:34:57] I just put in the link

[00:34:59] And it populated YouTube with all my stuff

[00:35:01] It was great

[00:35:02] I did no work

[00:35:03] As a result, I have playlists for all the tales from the bargain bin

[00:35:06] And if you want to see the other 19 episodes

[00:35:08] You can go to YouTube

[00:35:09] Go to A Gamer Looks at 4040

[00:35:11] Playlists and Tales from the Bargain Bin

[00:35:13] There's also a playlist for the Zelda series

[00:35:15] For the Final Fantasy series

[00:35:16] And for other series as well

[00:35:18] Thank you for checking out the show

[00:35:20] And Bobbie, thank you sir for joining me

[00:35:22] And until next time

[00:35:23] Just be kind to yourselves and each other