ironSoap: Recent Episodes

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In this episode Nik and I reflect on two months of podcasting and wonder if we’ll have any inclination to continue once the baby is born. We also follow up on the great Blue Toilet Seat Mystery with some new information courtesy of Dr. Mac and then we discuss our 36 week OB appointment in which we discover that both doctors in the group are pretty much the same sort of no-nonsense practitioner. We then dive into a conversation about how rude people can be, likely without even realizing it, when they interact with a sensitive woman in late-term pregnancy. Wrapping it up in That’s Entertainment we see the Next Food Network Star begin to draw to a close and talk about how unsurprised we were to see Jameka get the axe while simultaneously scratching our heads as to how Debbie managed to avoid her fate for another week. Music this week from Spoon.

Show Notes Total running time: 38:08

• [00:00] Intro: “The Underdog” – Spoon
• [00:20] Welcome; Month Two
• [02:21] Interlude: “Two Sides/Monsieur Valentine” – Spoon
• [02:37] The Great Blue Toilet Seat Mystery Revisited
  • Medical Journal Excerpt
  • Chromhidrosis
• [06:54] Interlude: “The Delicate Place” – Spoon
• [07:18] Baby Talk: 36 Week Appointment
• [13:05] Interlude: “I Turn My Camera On” – Spoon
• [13:31] Baby Talk: Rudeness vs. Pregnancy
• [24:55] Interlude: “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” – Spoon
• [25:20] That’s Entertainment: The Next Food Network Star
• [37:14] Outro: “I Summon You” – Spoon

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Apparently we still don’t quite have our timing down, but if you use the nebulous “weekend podcast” description, we’re totally on point this time around. While we’re at it, we’ve got a fully packed episode in which we recount our surprising but thoroughly enjoyable late-pregnancy concert experience. Then, in Baby Talk, we go over our birthing class, the 35 week OB appointment and the subsequent ultrasound to check the baby’s size. Finally, to make up for last week’s shorter ‘cast, we catch back up on The Next Food Network Star in That’s Entertainment plus we touch on a couple of movies we’ve watched: Baby Mama and Valkyrie. Appropriately, this episode is packed with music from Coldplay.

We want to be sure to thank everybody for listening and ask that you do us one of the following favors (pick only one):

1. Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, if that’s your digital music player of choice so you never miss an episode.
2. Rate us and write a review for our show on iTunes if you’re already a subscriber.
3. Send feedback: constructive, critical, embarrassingly earnest, any kind of feedback is fine, to ironcast@ironsoap.org.
4. Tell one friend about the show.

I realize that’s asking you to help us out but think about it this way: We don’t interrupt our podcast for advertisements and we don’t have any way of building a base of listeners except through your efforts to improve the show and get the word out a little bit. So if you want ironCast to be better and keep getting made, pick one favor and you will have our eternal gratitude and we’ll send you a check for $10.

Just don’t try to cash it until after the 1st.

Of October.

2028.

Show Notes Total Running Time: 01:04:55

• [00:00:00] Intro: Coldplay – “Viva La Vida”
• [00:00:55] Welcome: Coldplay Concert
• [00:18:28] Interlude: Coldplay – “Talk”
• [00:18:47] Baby Talk: Birthing Class, Okay?
• [00:29:30] Interlude: Coldplay – “Green Eyes”
• [00:29:43] Baby Talk: 35 Week OB Appointment
• [00:37:30] Interlude: Coldplay – “Shiver”
• [00:37:56] Baby Talk: Size Check Ultrasound
• [00:47:51] Interlude: Coldplay – “42”
• [00:48:10] That’s Entertainment: Baby Mama and Valkyrie
• [00:56:03] Interlude: Coldplay – “Clocks”
• [00:56:18] That’s Entertainment: The Next Food Network Star
• [01:04:24] Outro: Coldplay – “Life in Technicolor”

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Did I say Monday morning? I meant to say Tuesday evening. It’s practically the same anyway. Well, it’s an abbreviated podcast this week: During recording my allergies were acting up so we struggled to get decent sources to begin with what with all my sniffling and wheezing. However I did discover a method for reducing the number of annoying artifacts like that and in the process found that I can also remove a lot of the awkward “ums”, stutters and pregnant pauses that accompany the furious spinning of the hamster wheel in my brain. I think it makes the whole thing far more listenable.

The downside is that it’s much more labor intensive for the editing portion so I’m not sure if it isn’t more effective to just learn how to, you know, speak clearly and confidently. Either way, we’d appreciate if you let us know if this is more to your liking. All told we ended up with about half an episode, which doesn’t really make up for the four-day delay but at least we can say we’ve produced one podcast per week even if the release schedule is a bit dicey. We do manage to chat a bit about our 4th of July including awkward family reunion barbecues, ill-timed power outages, and then we discuss Nikki’s funny walk and talk about our Infant CPR class where we learn what sort of work Tolkien’s halflings can get in the health care field, how to speed up the transition from Heimlich Maneuver to CPR (hint: Give the baby to the pregnant lady) and find out exactly how resilient infants can be. Plus we have music by the Smashing Pumpkins chosen by my adorable co-host.

Oh, and if you missed the previous memo, we’re now on the iTunes Store where we would love if you rated us or wrote a review of our podcast.

Show Notes Total Running Time: 29:18

• [00:00] Intro: Smashing Pumpkins — “Hummer”
• [00:25] Welcome: 4th of July, Barbecues, Power’s Out
• [11:36] Interlude: Smashing Pumpkins — “Mayonaise”
• [11:57] Baby Talk: Walking Funny (SPD), Infant CPR
• [28:43] Outro: Smashing Pumpkins — “1979”

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With a month of podcast experience under our belts we present to you a new, more professional ironCast. No, I’m kidding of course. We learn nothing. However, we do talk about frozen yogurt, Nikki’s baby shower, homemade gifts for Calliope, and how diaper cakes are something that diapers are in rather than something that is in a diaper. We also discuss in utero hiccups, flippant OBs and my convoluted scheme to solve the Great Blue Toilet Seat Mystery.

Then in That’s Entertainment we chat about Pride & Glory and catch up on The Next Food Network Star before exchanging some banter about reading including our thoughts on books we’re currently working on like Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There and the Baby Bargains book. All that plus music by The Shins? We may not be professional, but we are givers.

Sorry for iTunes users who were disappointed last week. I’ll try again and see if I can get it going this time. Don’t forget we’d love to have feedback, just drop us a note at ironcast@ironsoap.org and we’ll get your comments on the air.

Show Notes Total Running Time: 54:50

• [00:00] Intro: The Shins – “We Will Become Silhouettes”
• [00:41] Welcome: Frozen yogurt, frozen tongues
• [02:53] Interlude: The Shins – “Phantom Limb”
• [03:04] Baby Talk: Baby shower, 33 week OB appointment, baby hiccups, blue toilet seat chemistry plan
• [24:18] Interlude: The Shins – “Pink Bullets”
• [24:42] That’s Entertainment: Pride & Glory, The Next Food Network Star, GoodReads, Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson, Baby Bargains by Denise and Alan Fields.
• [54:09] Outro: The Shins – “New Slang”

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This week Nik and I get self-conscious about our verbal tics and take advantage of my weird work schedule to get some chores done. Along the way we have our second pediatrician interview, talk about eating—for three?—while pregnant and get completely baffled by a blue stain on our toilet seat.

Then in the second segment we chat about entertainment again, discussing the latest to get the boot on The Next Food Network Star and following up on The Real Housewives’ reunion shows. We wrap it up with some talk about Dollhouse, Alias, features we wish were available on TiVo and why we can’t (or won’t if you talk to Nik about it) get rid of cable. This week’s music by Neko Case.

Also, we have an official podcast email address now, send your topic suggestions, feedback or questions to ironcast@ironsoap.org and we’ll incorporate your mail into a future segment on the show. Finally, if all goes well this will be the first week you can get and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. How official!

Show Notes Total Running Time: 52:19.

• [00:00] Intro: Neko Case – “Hold On, Hold On”
• [00:31] Welcome: Verbal tics and weird schedules
• [02:31] Pediatrician Interview #2
• [13:26] Pregnancy Eating
• [24:09] The Blue Toilet Seat Mystery
• [32:01] Interlude: Neko Case – “John Saw That Number”
• [32:16] That’s Entertainment: The Next Food Network Star, The Real Housewives of New Jersey Reunion, Dollhouse
• [51:50] Outro: Neko Case – “Thrice All American”

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In this week’s episode, Nik and I are late to the party but that doesn’t stop us from discussing Slumdog Millionaire. Plus we dive into The Next Food Network Star, chat about Chopped and Nik schools me on the ins and outs of The “Real Housewives” of New Jersey. Then we get into a conversation about how our relationship may change once Calliope arrives, how pregnant women are like a dangerous sorority, and what Nik plans to do to help those yet-to-be pregnant women once her stint is over.

Thanks to those who helped us pick a name!

Show Notes * Episode #3: Ominous Warnings * Total Running Time: 53:11 * Music: Switchfoot * Segment 1: That’s Entertainment (Marker: 02:13) * Segment 2: Baby Talk (Marker: 36:25)

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This week we discuss our new barbecue grill, expanded belly sizes, games of patty cake in utero and the quest for Calliope’s pediatrician. Music by The Decemberists.

Also, please help us name our podcast. Our current contenders:

• The ironSoap Podcast
• ironSoap Radio
• ironCast
• You Can’t Marry a Pirate Podcast
• You Can’t Marry a Pirate Radio
• H-Town Review

Or, we’re totally open to suggestions. Comment below, or send feedback to paul@ironsoap.org.

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It was many months in the making and, well, it doesn’t really show. But at long last Nik and I have recorded a podcast and we present it to you for mockery and scorn. However, it is the only place you can learn the not-so-secret name of our daughter-in-utero, so if you’re not big on the heckling you can listen for that reason.

We had fun making it and we’ll probably do some more now that we kind of have the process figured out. This is a trial run, so bear with us.

Also, we haven’t decided on a name yet. Obviously we could go with something like ironCast or ironSoap Radio, but I also still have the youcantmarryapirate.com domain floating around so I thought we might do the You Can’t Marry a Pirate Podcast. Let us know what you think works and if you have suggestions, we’d love to hear ’em.

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Briefly I have a few things to touch upon.

Tee to the Vee I’ve caught a few of the new shows for this season and so far the best is (by far) Heroes. I admit that Ali Larter’s Niki Sanders character is either really lame or she’s just a terrible actress (maybe both); Adrian Pasdar plays the same exact character he always does (good guy/bad guy… who can tell?) and the cliff hanger commercial breaks were rarely ever thrilling. But still, this is a show that has something a lot of shows never have: Promise. Consider another show I caught the premiere for: Smith. A show about the other side of the law. I’m thinking Goodfellas. I’m thinking Heat. I’m thinking high-tech Sopranos. But instead it’s more like Desperate Housethieves than anything cool. Too many personal stories. Why does he have to have a respectable alter-ego? I don’t understand why someone would go through the hassle of trying to maintain a dual identity (complete with respecable sales job) if they were either that good at being a burglar or if doing their theiving would compromise their family. I mean, either you can support yourself without breaking the law or you can’t, right? It doesn’t make sense that someone would even try to do both.

At least on the Sopranos they made that part of the story.

I also caught the Shark series premiere which I enjoyed quite a bit despite it being only a shade more intriguing than would be if Sam Watterson were given the whole show (Law & Order), primarily because James Woods is fun to watch pretty much no matter what he’s doing. Although, I got the impression from the premiere that Woods was going out of his way to be all Emmy worthy. Like he was trying too hard or something. Still interesting but it did break the spell a few times.

I also caught the premiere of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which was basically not very funny and not very dramatic and therefore not very good. It seems very much like a show that the writers really wanted to do, but it turns out that watching the creative process behind the shows we watch each week? Not very interesting after all.

The only thing I’m still waiting for is The Nine and I missed the first episode of Kidnapped (but it looks like they’re re-airing it on Saturday). Other than that the few shows I’m holding onto from last year is all I’m anticipating so I have a feeling that since they usually cancel the shows I like, I’ll probably have nothing to watch in a few months.

Sporting Bads * The 49ers are a better team than last year, but they still managed to showcase their patented “Sieve Defense” on Sunday versus the Eagles. Here’s something I was wondering for some of you older-school Niners fans: I recall Joe Montana only as being the dominant, clutch-thriving QB that earned him a bunch of championships in the eighties. But it occurs to me that he must have had some sort of career prior to that time. Was he always good? Did he dominate in college? Was he a solid NFL QB right out of the draft? What I’m (probably obviously) driving at is, can we even hope that Alex Smith was the right guy to draft or is his so-so performance thus far indicative of a long term trend of not living up to his hype? * I guess the Giants are officially out of the playoff race this year. Big surprise when your starting rotation starts serving up whiffle balls on the most pivotal road trip of the whole year. So now people are starting to talk about next year. I guess nearly the whole team is up for contract renegotiation. I don’t know if you remember but back a couple years ago when the Giants choked in the World Series an East Coast radio personality and lifelong Giants fan had a screaming rant after they bowed to the Angels about how difficult it was to be a Giants fan. I’ve talked about this before because while the Indians and the Cubs have longer streaks without championships, it has to be easier for fans of those clubs because they have had a lot more crummy teams that can’t win the World Series (like, big surprise). The Giants reserve a special brand of torture for their fans by actually fielding good teams… who can’t win the World Series. Anyway, the guy from the East Coast (Chris Russo) got on the horn this morning with one of the local SF sports talk stations and had some pretty spot-on opinions.

Basically he thinks that the management of the Giants has made a bunch of bonehead moves in the last few years and I agree. I mean, let’s compare the two Bay Area teams. On one hand we have the revolving door of the Oakland A’s where each year is a new crop of random youngsters and league no-names. But they’re built to be a team and somehow they keep having legitimate chances at winning stuff. Oh, and they do it with no money but having a rich farm system and focusing on things like winning games versus breaking pointless records and having recognizeable names. The Giants have a decent payroll which they squander on has-beens. San Francisco has become like the pre-retirement community for the Major Leagues. I don’t want to go to the park and watch a bunch of washed up geriatrics struggle to make basic plays, I’d rather watch a bunch of kids who have something to prove run their butts off and make stupid mistakes. For every A’s game I watch where I see some rookie get caught in a stupid rundown or something because he tried to stretch a long double into a weak triple I see two games where Bonds can’t score from second on a stinking double or Morris forgets his bifocals and walks six batters in a row. Forget these old codgers. Let’s set up a farm system, let’s get a real game plan that is more in depth than “let’s get people on base and then bring Bonds to the plate!”

Come on. Bonds has been on the team for over ten years (since 1993) and (as Russo points out) they haven’t won with him. This year he’ll play maybe 132 games and he’ll have the lowest HR total in a season since he was a Pittsburgh Pirate which includes 1999 where he barely got in 100 games. I don’t care about the steroids thing. I don’t care about Babe Ruth’s home run record. You know what I care about? The Giants doing something that makes me glad I’m a Giants fan. * I was glad the Saints won last night, even if the second half of the game was pretty much snooze-fest. I wanted New Orleans to win for the same reason I’m guessing most non-Atlanteans did, although ESPN’s incessant badgering on the Katrina angle got really old after about oh, the first quarter, But I had ulterior motives as well: My opponent in fantasy football had both Michael Vick and Warrick Dunn going last night and needed them to help him make up about 30 points. Not insurmountable for a running back and a QB, but both of them sucked last night which was just fine with me. Thanks, Saints!

And the Rest of It * I know we just came up big time on a new-to-us 36″ TV, but the lure of HD is strong and my will save vs. techno-geekery is like -8. Thus it was with rapt attention that I followed the announcement and ensuing hullabaloo regarding the release of the TiVo Series 3 HD DVR. Of course to take advantage of such a device I would need: 1. A HD-capable TV. 2. HD content, probably in the form of cable television we cannot receive or an XBox 360 I can’t afford. 3. Some place to put it and/or our existing equipment. 4. $800 for the TiVo3.I have been looking at HD TVs for some time now. Remember that the Trinitron acquisition was more of a kind blessing from HB and Gin than something we sought. I keep seeing a very nice one at places like Best Buy for what I consider to be pretty reasonable (roughly $1,700 for a 42″ Sony Plasma) but then I recall that we don’t have any way of really getting HD content and we can’t afford it and we don’t need it. But like I said, I can’t resist. Stuff like this usually helps some and reminds me why, though I may be a covetous geek-tard, my patience for technological foulery is far, far too thin to be a true early adopter. * We’ve played a couple of sessions of a pretty fun large-party game called Werewolves of Miner’s Hollow. It’s kind of like the old elementary school rainy-day recess game “Heads Up Seven Up” where players close their eyes and someone is randomly chosen and they have to guess who picked them. This slightly more sophisticated version uses a series of phases that last through the “night” (the time when players have their eyes closed) during which various different people get to open their eyes and perform tasks. Primarily, the werewolves (determined by randomly distributed cards) look around and choose a townsperson to kill or remove from the game. The remaining players try to figure out which of those left in the morning (when all players open their eyes) is the werewolf in their midst through debate and discussion. Eventually they all must choose someone to “lynch” or remove from the game through democratic voting. Sometimes they pick correctly, other times they kill an innocent. There are a lot of other special townspeople like the Mystic who can examine one player’s card during the night and the hunter who can take someone down with him if he’s killed during the night. It’s a good game for parties because it doesn’t require a lot of set up and it encourages people to interact. We played it for Whimsy‘s “surprise” 30th birthday party last weekend and I think everyone really enjoyed it. It’s also fun because the individual rounds don’t last that long (maybe fifteen minutes) so players don’t get stuck doing the same thing and you can play through several dozen rounds in an evening. There is a very comparable game that uses similar mechanics but with a few variations that Nik and I purchased called Lupus in Tabula. The main difference between the games (from reading the Lupus instructions) is that in Lupus you don’t reveal the dead players’ identities until after the game is completely over which would probably work well to increase the general tension and paranoia since you don’t necessarily know (if you’re a regular townsperson) how many allies you have left at any given point in the game. * There is a new poll up. In case you were interested.

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So after last week’s exercise in compiled statistics, I decided I wanted to build my own top 30 Video Games list. As you may have gathered from the commentary on the other list, I’ve played a lot of video games in my life. However, no one can play them all so there will be gaps where games you think were slighted off my list are nowhere to be found. That’s why it’s my list. You want your own list, we gots a comments section where you can do just that. Oooh. Technology.

The List We’ll have to do these in reverse order… because that’s how everyone else does it. I guess it increases suspense? Anyway, from the bottom up…

30. Gauntlet – The first four-player arcade game I remember seeing… selectable characters in the most moster-packed dungeon crawl ever. If you didn’t scream like a little girl if you were the Fighter and you saw Death coming… you weren’t playing it right. “Someone join as the magic user! Someone join as the magic user! Aagh!”

29. God of War – Platform/brawlers have been around for a long time. After the 16-bit era when 3D graphics became the norm they kind of faded because developers struggled to figure out how to make it work in three dimensions. Finally someone got it right with God of War. Relentlessly violent and darkly comic, scratching past the surface reveals that indeed platforming/jumping and fighting can be done with modern consoles and done very well.

28. Goldeneye 007 – Before Halo perfected first person shooters with console controllers, Goldeneye came as close as you could come. The one-player mode was deep and engaging, the multiplayer was inspired and the total package made for something that was a system seller. It hasn’t aged too well, there has been a lot of improvement with FPS on consoles and four-player spilt screen has been usurped by online multiplayer with four times that many players simultaneously (or more), but it still stands out as a classic.

27. Mario Kart DS – Mario Kart games are staples. The fun, addictive gameplay is better than the most realistic Gran Turismo or Project Gotham Racing and the controls are simple enough for kids but deep enough for more experienced gamers to find challenge as well which makes it a great family game. I chose the DS version only because it is the only one with online multiplayer (wonderful fun) and retro courses from previous iterations. Could easily be replaced by DoubleDash on the GameCube which is just as fun but lacks online multiplayer.

26. Contra – Few games impacted my formative years like Contra. Being good at Contra was being king with my peer group: If you could beat the game without using the famous Konami code, you ruled, plain and simple. Even now the game offers a solid level of challenge and a decent variety plus it’s one of the best games to play co-op, ever. All games should be easier when you have two players. Except, of course, when they jump-scrolled you to death in the Waterfall level.

25. Star Wars: TIE Fighter – X-Wing brought awesome action flight sim goodness but TIE Fighter made the requisite improvements and took the extra step of letting you play as the bad guys in a remarkable story-driven campaign. Why this game hasn’t been remade recently completely escapes me.

24. Silent Hill – I’m a sucker for scary games, and they don’t get much more terrifying than Silent Hill. While Resident Evil went for the obvious startle-shocks, Silent Hill ground into your psyche with atmosphere and tension that ratcheted up and stayed taut leaving players with the ultimate question: Keep playing into the night or go to bed while you still might be able to fall asleep?

23. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem – Good games are memorable games. Ones that stay with you… like Eternal Darkness. The game’s sanity effects that show blood running down walls, distorted perspectives, simulated program glitches and a whole assortment of freaky occurrences that suggest the game is playing you as much as you are playing it results in a game that sticks in your mind long after the credits have rolled. Multiple endings, a deep and engaging story inspired by Lovecraft’s mythos and strong gameplay round out the checklist of one of the best “adult” titles on the GameCube.

22. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance – I admit to a weakness when it comes to turn-based strategy games. Standing tall among them is this gem for the GameBoy Advance: As deep as any disc-based game with a stellar combat system (with just enough randomness built in due to the Judge system) and a near-perfect class system that encourages all those OCD-inspired traits borne by role-playing gamers and strategy hounds. Any criticisms that could be leveled at this game stem from the so-so storyline and relatively bland characterizations. Still, among the best Final Fantasy games released in the last five or six years.

21. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings – The second-best Real-Time Strategy game ever isn’t the most perfectly balanced game in the world but it offers depth galore with scores of available units and upgrades across a huge selection of civilizations. It’s got surprisingly good multiplayer, timeless graphics and a clean interface (a must in the RTS genre).

20. Counter-Strike – Who knew a side project based on a second generation game engine could conquer the world of online multiplayer? Well, when you work in such subtle innovations as real penalty for death, team-based modern combat that actually encouraged teamwork, reward for skill and a development model that lent itself perfectly to being adaptable maybe it shouldn’t have been such a shocker.

19. Pac-Man/Ms. Pac-Man – From the opening theme diddy to the simple but addicting play and the iconic characters, Pac-Man may not have the claims to fame that Pong or Adventure carry, but it was the first video game that people remember actually enjoying. It’s kind of curious that the game is really no more than those little mazes you followed with your pencil in Kindergarten, but to this day it’s one of the few arcade machines I have a hard time passing up when I see it.

18. Castlevania III – Previous Castlevania games were very good: Creepy and atmospheric (for their time) with cool weapon upgrades and lengthy, tough adventures. CV3 added additional characters, much higher production values and just the right amount of maddening challenge that kept me occupied for months. Besides, who doesn’t want to be a whip-wielding vampire hunter?

17. Metroid Prime – To say I was skeptical about this game that took a beloved side-scrolling action/adventure franchise and dared to make it not just 3D but first person is putting it mildly. But Retro Studios captured the essence of those original games precisely and made first-person platforming viable for the first time that I can recall. The sense of solitude and wonder that permeates the game is uncanny and the little touches like Samus’ face reflecting in her face shield when a bright light flashes or the droplets of moisture that mist up the screen when walking through waterfalls are just tiny examples of a game that was very good to begin with but elevated to brilliance through attention to detail. Plus it boasts one of the most challenging but satisfying final boss encounters I’ve ever played.

16. Final Fantasy VII – Okay so the graphics in the non-cutscene segments are kind of hokey and the final chapter is an aggravating epic. That doesn’t change the fact that this game defined next-gen role-playing games (for better or for worse) and perhaps for the first time showcased really what could be done with disc-based media on consoles (similar to what Myst did for PCs). The quest is perfectly legendary, the characters are mostly memorable and the plot is actually intriguing enough that a novelization of the game wouldn’t be out of the question. Not the best Final Fantasy game ever, but pretty close.

15. StarCraft – What Age of Empires II offers in depth and sophistication, StarCraft trumps with perfect balance and a truly engrossing single-player campaign. StarCraft also offers a healthy dose of the coolness factor with some quality Science Fiction-y units (including a Human faction that is actually as fun to play as the less mundane alternate choices, Protoss and Zerg) that seem to have drawn some inspiration from Warhammer 40K. Not many games boast opportunities as impishly satisfying as rushing an opponent’s base with dozens of Zerglings followed by a swarm of Hydralisks spitting acid.

14. Eye of the Beholder – Classic PC role-playing with the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons license. Dr. Mac, Scott and I spent practically an entire summer listening to Metallica’s black album and fighting our way through swarms of giant spiders and kobolds trying to unlock the game’s secrets. The first-person perspective added some much-needed immersion to the D&D licensed games and the old-school dungeon crawl setting was perfect for passing a slow summer afternoon—provided you’re a pasty geek like me.

13. Galaga – This is the the game I can’t pass up in an arcade. Perpetually 25 cents to play, it’s like Space Invaders without all those sissy shields. Oh, and the aliens dive-bomb you and don’t just drop weak little slow-moving bombs on you. Plus the Galaga spaceship is roughly 400 times cooler looking than the boxy little turret thing from SI. It’s one of those games that has to be experienced in a dark pizza parlor game room (square footage: 4) with a pocketful of quarters and a determination to nab the high score spot. Initials put in when you achieve the goal? P-O-O, of course.

12. Planescape: Torment – The crazed, surreal role-playing game that everyone harkens as among the best of the isometric D&D licensed family is one I picked up on a lark: It was like $10 at Fry’s and had an interesting cover. Plus it said Dungeons and Dragons on the cover so I figured, “Why not?” But this isn’t some Thief/Mage/Fighter/Cleric dungeon romp: This is an intricate and dark tale of an immortal main character with no memory and a cast of increasingly bizarre traveling companions (including a floating skull and a burning corpse) trying to figure out nothing more than what the heck is going on. If not for the sometimes frustrating combat, it would be a role-playing masterpiece.

11. Baseball Stars – If only—if only—they made baseball games this simply fun and ceaselessly entertaining as Baseball Stars these days. The semi-role-playing elements of stat boosting and team tweaking was ideally balanced. The lack of any kind of license actually worked in Baseball Stars’ favor. If only the battery save feature hadn’t been quite as cantakerous I might still be playing this game. Oh, and did I mention that the actual baseball game was incredibly fun as well? Modern baseball sims might get closer to the real game, but none touch Baseball Stars with a ten-foot pole in terms of raw enjoyment.

10. Twisted Metal II – Ah, Twisted Metal: The fighting game for people who don’t like memorizing hundreds of obscure moves. Nevermind all that boring fisticuffs hooey: How about getting into a heavily armored car and racing around virtual cities, lobbing homing rockets and power missiles at your unsuspecting foes? Semi-destructible environments, crazy deep gameplay and the best split-screen multiplayer in any game makes for a game that has yet to be matched in terms of time consumption. Nothing brought more band practices to a grinding halt than someone firing up Twisted Metal II: And no one really complained. No wonder we didn’t get signed.

9. Bionic Commando – “What do you mean, ‘I can’t jump’? Look at all those platforms! How else am I supposed to get up there!?” This is the brilliance of Bionic Commando: With nothing more than a funky physics scheme that made a grappling hook seem like an appropriate replacement for the genre-standard jump button, Capcom created a game that stood head and shoulders above it’s copy-cat relatives (Strider, anyone? Anyone?). A long, challenging quest with hints of open-ended play, varied gameplay, a great item system and the second-most memorable boss fight (“Dude! It’s Hitler! And his face just exploded! Sick, dude!”) ever: It’s a certified classic.

8. Metal Gear Solid – I suspect that the old Metal Gear games from the 8-bit era were ahead of their time. They encouraged sneaking past enemies rather than killing everyone in sight (“Whaa?”) and offered so many power ups and weapon choices that most people just kind of scratched their heads when they tried to play the game. But the Playstation allowed the game to work in a way that made sense for what the Metal Gear series was trying to accomplish. The stealth-based gameplay was new and, surprisingly, exciting. But what made MGS so great was the subtle touches: Snake’s laser scope filtering through the fog; footprints left in the snow that alerted guards to your presence; the Sniper Wolf battle; the frequency key on “the back of the CD case” and, of course, the Psycho Mantis fight. As I played it I kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe I’m doing this!”

7. Resident Evil 4 – For all the things that Resident Evil did for gaming, it always had a little something holding it back. Whether it was the control scheme (pretty bad for most of them), the unlikely puzzles (RE:CV), terrible voice acting (I’m looking at you, Resident Evil 1), pointless story (ahem RE3) or unconvincing characters (RE0), it was usually very much worth the playthrough, but never a spectacular experience. RE4 fixed all that and added a healthy dose of extra gore, a strong story, engaging (and involving!) cutscenes, phenomenal graphics, sharp puzzles that never got too puzzle-y and plenty of extras to make it not just a great play but a great buy.

6. Final Fantasy VI – If you thought FFVII was epic, you missed out on FFVI/FFIII. I mean, what other game has an apocalyptic, literally world-altering event happen halfway through the game? This is the fantasy role-playing game that made people realize what was possible on consoles. The only bad thing about this game is the fact that its epic story was so popular that later Final Fantasy games (and actually later console RPGs in general) began to think that story could trump gameplay and we ended up with stuff like Final Fantasy VIII and X. Still, you can’t hold that against FFVI which did everything that it possibly could just right and did so without the aid of fancy 3D graphics or even non-game engine cut scenes. The impact of this game can be summarized with Kefka’s mocking, braying laughter.

5. Super Metroid – Everything that was good about the original NES Metroid remained in the Super Nintendo update. In fact, if they had only bothered to remake the original game with the new 16-bit graphics, plenty of fans (probably myself included) would have been perfectly content. Instead they expanded the game, added new power-ups, introduced a more complete storyline and laid out the game in such a way that 2D platforming/adventure reached its pinnacle early. This game stands testament to how to do a sequel right (stick with what worked the first time, know when to tweak or refine and give ’em more of what they want) and even without the pressure attached from two previous, popular 8-bit adventures (Metroid II came out for the original black and white GameBoy) Super Metroid would have been a brilliant game.

4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Like a lot of people, I was disappointed by the recent Star Wars prequels. I didn’t hate them, but they left me wondering, “Was my delight in the world of Star Wars merely a product of my young memory applying a sense of wonder that eventually became nothing more than simple nostalgia?” Playing through KotOR is direct evidience that there actually was something to Star Wars to begin with: It wasn’t just nostalgia. That Lucas lost track of what made Star Wars good to begin with is a topic for another time but fortunately the team at BioWare tapped into that sense of awe with a prequel to the prequels which draws the player into the world of Star Wars like no other Star Wars licensed property since Timothy Zahn’s novelized adaptations of what would have been episodes VII, VIII and IX. KotOR gets Star Wars perfect, blending enough new with the familiar and incorporating a wonderfully engaging and open-ended story into a huge experience. There is so much here to praise: The Light/Dark paths through the game that make it one of the few role-playing video games that is actually re-playable; PC-style dialogue trees and detailed character interaction—on a console!; a smooth, good-looking combat system based on d20; really stellar character progression including Jedi powers that are introduced at just the right moment. I could go on. The bottom line is that if you like role-playing games or if you like Star Wars or if you like games that make good purchases (value-wise) and you haven’t played this game, it’s worth the price of the XBox alone.

3. The Legend of Zelda – Other than the classic sound effect you get for iscovering a secret door, the other thing that will always stand out in my mind about the original Zelda game is that surreal TV commercial they put out for it that featured a freakish guy looking paranoid and shouting out the names of some of the game’s enemies. “Octoroks!” But the game itself had so much to offer: From the gold colored cartridge to the battery save feature to the detailed quest that was the first I’d ever heard of that didn’t actually require going through entirely the way the designer intended. People would talk about beating Ganon with just the wooden sword. “Insanity!” I thought, but it was certainly possible. Like Metroid, Zelda offered not just places to go but things to acquire: The “collector” gamer was born with these types of games where your avatar increased in ability as the game progressed rather than remaining more or less static and simply offering new ways to use the same basic abilities available at the beginning of the game. That so much game was crammed between two buttons, a directional pad and the questionably useful “Start” and “Select” buttons is still amazing to this day, as is the fact that this game remains nearly as playable 20 years after its release as it was back in the day.

2. Super Mario Bros. 3 – There was a time when all the cell phone stores you see anywhere that could even be remotely referred to as a shopping center weren’t peddling cell phones. The ubiquitous storefront venture of the late eighties was the Mom and Pop video rental store. This was before the big corporate chains crushed everyone out of business, and they were everywhere. In the little shopping center down the street from our house when I was kid there was one of these stores and they were renting something else: Nintendo carts. Someone who worked there must have either been a gamer or was just really ahead of their time because they not only carried video games for rent before most other people were even considering such a wacky notion but they also had a handful of imported titles from Japan. Among them was this insanely anticipated forthcoming title named Super Mario Bros. 3. Following up the fun but unusual SMB2 (which was actually a Mario-ized facelift of an unrelated Japanese game), SMB3 was hyped everywhere, including getting feature billing in a feature film so having a chance to play with it (albeit the text was in Japanese) ahead of its release was spectacular. The game was everything players wanted back then: Reminicent of the original console-bundled classic, offering plenty of new challenges, loads of secrets to find and perfectly tuned platforming gameplay. I rushed out and bought the game when it was finally released in the US and I’ve played through it probably ten times including several times after getting the facelift for Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES. It’s a timeless classic and deserves all the praise it gets.

1. Half-Life – Ever since games started, timidly at first, trying to tell stories along with providing opportunities for play they have struggled with how to do this effectively. If you stop the game and show the story you interrupt the real reason for turning it on in the first place: Essentially you inject a bit of movie into the game. For most designers this was an acceptable compromise. Reward the players with a bit of a break as we throw some exposition at them between boss battles (or whatever). This wasn’t much of a problem with older games which were always third person and whose graphics were generally anything but lifelike. Then came first person games with Wolfenstein (and others) putting players into the protagonist’s shoes. 3D graphics from Quake and a steadily improving market for video accelerator cards started making things look semi-realistic and this presented a problem for the story-in-game people: Players live through the action in this character’s shoes, do we pull them out of that state to show our movies? Half-Life solved the problem like no game before or, really, since: Don’t pull the player out of the character’s shoes. Somehow the writers of Half-Life managed to present a silent protagonist that didn’t strain the suspension of disbelief and using scripted events and a few load-time tricks they delivered the most immersive, emotional and enjoyable experience of any game I’ve ever played. I was literally frightened at times while playing this game… wandering through dark corridors with nothing but a flashlight to guide my way made my palms sweat. Each time I fell into any water my phobia welled up, rationalized by the inevitable Ichthyosaur attack. The conspiratorial tone led by the G-Man’s creepy presence was timed perfectly with the X-Files craze and the attention to detail was such that even later expansions like Blue Shift and Opposing Force fit perfectly within the game’s story and carefully crafted world. When the game was over there was always Counter-Strike which made this game the only real must-purchase PC game for a period of almost ten years. Half-Life stands alone as a game that does what so many others attempt to do but fail and in doing so didn’t forget that above all else it was still supposed to be fun to play.

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