Warning: do not watch this episode while hungry. The CO-OP crew plays like it’s on the Food Network to show off some local San Francisco cuisine during the segment breaks, and it’s a little distracting. In the three gaming segments, a diverse group of guests explore some classics reborn, including Space Invaders Infinity Gene for the iPhone, the new Monkey Islands, and the recent Ghostbusters game.
Both the recent Monkey Island releases, the updated Secret of Monkey Island and the new Tales of Monkey Island, have received near-universal praise and CO-OP heaps more on as Matt Chandronait, Tiff Chow and 1up’s Justin Haywald revel nostalgia with the updated original and enjoy the new game. Looking at the episodic nature of Tales of Monkey Island, they think it proves that adventure gaming is the only succesful genre for episodic game delivery. But with the only other succesful examples being Sam & Max and Strong Bad, is it adventure gaming doing episodes correctly, or the developer, TellTale Games?
The last segment takes a late look at the Ghostbusters game, which came out in June and quickly got buried in a crowded release period. RebelFM’s Arthur Gies said on his show that he bought the game at release but only got past the security sticker on the box two weeks ago. With more time to play the game in the current game drought, the overall impression is a lot more positive on the experience than original reviews indicated. It’s great CO-OP can return to recent games and give them another look.
Living in the Mission in San Francisco has rewards beyond the cheap and the savory. We show you some of the best while our guests join us to talk about classics reborn.
Runtime – 33:27
One of the things that I really love about the Co-Op guys is that they don’t pretend to be experts or trendsetters in the video game press. They’re willing to take things that they’re interested in and give them some attention, which gives them the freedom to spend some time on older games like Ghostbusters. With this episode as a reminder, I think I’ll be moving GBs back to the top of my Gamefly queue.
Jon – Yeah, Ghostbusters went back into my queue, as well. For Co-Op, I think it’s interesting that they’re the only ‘post-1up’ group that became new company and publication/gaming resource. The other shows are still very personal and independent, whereas Co-Op is actually trying to support itself and its staff. It reminds me a lot of Giantbomb in that regard.
One thing that worries me about Co-Op, though, is that the interludes are getting pretty boring since they only have the same five or six guys every week. I’m hoping they can add more variety to those, or find a way to link them into the gaming segments a little more.