Episode 360: Gaming in the Year 2001

I'm the exact same age & Bob & Kat, entering college. All these stories involving Halo & Smash Bros. Melee... Must've been nice to have friends.

Jon Heiman

My 2001 was mostly spent still playing Perfect Dark with my friends, but the big 2001 games woukd be staples for me in high school and college. I did buy Smash Bros in 2001, but didn't by a Gamecube until Feb. 2002 (must have been a sale or something) and eventually that became my high school friends game of choice. I didn't get into or even play Halo until 2003 when I got to college. After a couple nights of lugging two TVs into one dorm room, I did a little research and suggested that we could just plug the Xbox into the ethernet ports on the wall and boom, campus wide LAN parties.

DarthObvious

I've been gaming on a PC since 1996 and it's usually my platform of choice. That said, 2001 wasn't a very notable year in terms of PC gaming, outside of Max Payne and Civilization 3, which were both mentioned.

Bob Mackey

There was a serious lack of PC gaming perspective in that episode, which is a shame because those were still the days where the PC and console gaming spaces were largely distinct from each other, and therefore going only from a console perspective only covers one part of the gaming experience of that era as a whole. Might I suggest that you invite at least one PC "specialist" in those episodes in the future?

hibikase

Great episode, really looking forward to all the episodes teased here. I'll mention that Pikmin really is something of a masterpiece. Not only is the gameplay great but it's a better character piece than people give it credit for. Captain Olimar is a really special character, brave and curious but also scared and reflective. The way the captain logs evolve throughout the game is very effective and do a great job of sneaking you into his mind. It's also an interesting inversion of Nintendo convention, as he's the only speaking character in the game, contrasting with silent protagonists like Mario, Link and Samus. And I'm also one of those people who really like Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. Not one of the series' great but after the relatively easy Symphony of the Night, Bloodlines and Rondo of Blood it's great to have a return to challenging stage design and demaning platforming, even if the item system is hopelessly busted.

Luis Guillermo Jimenez Gomez

Loved a lot of the reminiscing here, but there was one thing said that kind of gnawed at me. It feels like the PS2's launch lineup gets a bad rap like it did here for being "utter trash." While there may not have been a killer-app, there were plenty of genre-specific hits in there like DOA2/Tekken Tag/SFEX3 for fighters, TimeSplitters and Unreal Tournament for FPS, Ridge Racer V and the original Midnight Club for racing, and while I know sports games aren't popular here, it should be noted EA debuted their new NFL engine with Madden 2001 to acclaim which catapulted future Madden releases to being event releases. SSX was the surprise hit debut of the PS2 launch, so while there may not have not been a 9.5-10 rated game in the launch, there was plenty of quality titles to choose from.

I was uhhhh... 6 years old in 2001 and came to gaming pretty late (didn't get my first console, a GBA SP, until 2003), but damn; sitting down and playing Melee with other kids at birthday parties in first grade is such a visceral sensory memory for me.

This episode refuses to download via my RSS feed on my casting program Castbox . All others work fine...

Wood Duck

Great episode, I went into 8th grade fall of that year and I can confirm that the big ones were GTA III, Smash Melee, and Halo among my friends, I can’t even count how many hours I put into all of those, Smash in particular which, as Bob mentioned, is not so secretly an awesome Nintendo history game. I’m hoping you guys do a 2011 one too!

James Krusling

I remember being a criminally sheltered 15 year-old, completely unaffected by 9/11. Not understanding why a building being destroyed was such a big deal just a few years removed from the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh. My dad making me watch Bush's address that night when I just wanted to go back to playing Dark Cloud because at least I understood *that*. As an adult, I can see it as a more monumental event with a lot more weight than the farcical overextension of patriotism would have had me believe. But seriously, Dark Cloud was a rental, dad. That was precious time I could have spent advancing the story. What the hell.

Phoequinox

I can relate to Bob's story about getting paid in anime. When I first started writing for music magazines in 2006 they would just send me boxes and boxes of mostly terrible CD's which I would listen to and sell to the local second hand store for beer money.

They did have a drink that was the essence of smelly lan parties. It was called bawls.

Ipoop4U

Jeremy’s article on GTA3 was the “can you beat Mario without jumping?” Of its time. Always on the forefront of internet trends just like Kojima, that Jeremy Parish :D

Justen Brown

In the year two thooooousand (and one!)

Bob noting how stupid it was to think malls would be targeted after 9/11 really takes me back, as I was managing an Electronics Boutique at the time and mall leadership hastily put a plan together in case our middle American mall was the next stop for Al Qaeda. So, so dumb.

Joshua Evans

I'm delighted that everyone on the podcast apparently has a video game related where were you on 9/11 story

crystalhearts

I always thought Kat was older than me but we’re the same age. Maybe she’s just more mature... 🧐

Eric Plunk

We unfortunately can't do anything to help you on that end but it sounds like your issue will only be temporary. - Bob

Retronauts

I was 4 in 2001...

Missed opportunity.

Jamie Burcham

My podcast app, Pocket Casts is still showing the old version of the episode and can't seem to download it. Can't find a way to force reload the feed, but according to the Internet, it should eventually fix itself...

Thanks Bob, we love you.

Kormakur Gardarsson

Hmm, I can't tell... is something wrong with the episode? (Kidding, it's been fixed now) - Bob

Retronauts

I'm sure they are working on it and will update soon.

Normallyretro

I can't listen to the episode on my podcatcher. The link appears to be broken here as well. 😔

I don’t want to go to my 20 year high school reunion this year but I do want to listen to this podcast when it gets fixed.

Eric Plunk

Same here, episode will not play or download on my Podcast app

Paul

Same here. Unable to download.

Must be the Y2K Episode

SilverHairedMiddleAgedTuxedoMask

I want to listen to this episode. Please fix it!

I am also having trouble loading the episode.

frankie coleman

I'd love to listen to it, maybe it's possible to repost the link?

I'm also not able to stream or download.

Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff

Episode won’t play or download

Brian Hortin

Weird it's not loading.

Jordan Vickers

Wait, episode 360 *isn't* about the Xbox 360?!

littleterr0r