196 · Track and Field II

• FORGET THE GOLD, AND GO FOR THE ENDORSEMENT BUCKS
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • I genuinely have no idea what that back of the box was supposed to mean. Now I’m interested in a game where you play as an athlete who’s main objective is tom make money at any cost.
• Gameplay
  • What’s new?
    • Choosing a country for the player to represent
    • The power meter?
      • Build up by rapid pressing A
  • Fencing
  • Triple jump
  • Freestyle Swimming
  • High Dive
  • Clay Pigeon Shooting
  • Hammer throw
  • Taekwondo
    • First year for the olympic sport
  • Pole vault
  • Canoeing
  • Archery
  • Hurdles
  • Horizontal Bar
  • Hang Gliding (bonus event)
  • Arm wrestling in Versus Mode only (in Exhibition against a computer in the Japanese version)
  • Gun Firing (bonus event; not available in the Japanese version)
    • played with either the NES Controller or the NES Zapper.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
• EGL
• Next week - TMNT

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Track and Field 2, forget the gold and go for the endorsement bucks.

00:20 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And what is the back of that box? So thank you. Thank you. Because that's literally my first talking point is like, I genuinely have no idea what the back of the box is trying to tell us. Because I guess I'm interested in that game, right? A game where you play as an athlete whose main objective is just to make money at any cost and skill is just secondary to how big of a contract they can land. Yeah, but it's not this game. That's definitely not this game. There's no, there's no management. You represent your country in what we know as the Olympics.

01:02 And, and you just, you just either win gold medals or you don't, you don't gain money for winning those gold medals. I guess they're just, uh, they're, they're saying you should imagine all of the, uh, prospective opportunities for advertising that you would get, um, had you got, gotten these gold medals. I feel like they're talking to the wrong market though. I feel like the, you know, the, the kids that are likely buying this game are, don't care too much about endorsement deals. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure every, I wanted to be a Nike boy. I wanted my own pair of air, air Sean's.

01:42 Maybe it's marketed to you. Maybe they should imply that though. Like, uh, you know, like at the end of the Olympic mode, there should be a thing where it's like, uh, you just signed a major contract with insert made up, you know, or just Konami in general. Like, you know, they're the ones that made the game. Like now you signed a lucrative deal with Konami because you're so good at sports. Like I would be appreciative, uh, or understanding a little more of the back of the box, but I am genuinely confused.

02:13 However, that's not what we're going to focus on. We're going to move on into track and field. You know, this is track and field to TF2, not to be confused with team fortress two, but track and field was an NES game that we played kind of like maybe I want to say almost a hundred episodes ago now, uh, maybe even more. And that was, you know, kind of the same thing as what track and field two is. Track and field two, of course, you know, bigger, better, better graphics, uh, more, more modes to play and everything like that. But really, really though, what is new? What makes track and field two, uh, what's the call to attention for you guys? Why all the new games, Mike? Such as Sean?

02:57 Well, you got fencing, um, which I don't think we've seen before. Never. You've got archery, which I think we might have seen, but maybe, maybe not. You got hang gliding like that's, that's crazy. Uh, and then you've got some other stuff that we've kind of seen in one form or another. Uh, okay, but forgive me, is hang gliding an Olympic event?

03:24 Um, I, well, they say in the manual that it's an exhibition, uh, which means that it's not really graded or, or, or a competition. It's just like, Hey, look, this guy can hang glide. Isn't that interesting?

03:37 Um, and then you do that. I guess that's fine. You know, track and field two is because track and field was a game too, that never really presented itself around the Olympics. So I guess the Olympics conceit here is why I'm questioning things like hang gliding, uh, or even arm wrestling in the versus mode. There's an arm wrestling, uh, mode. Uh, you know, sure. Like these things could be Olympic sports one day for all we know. So maybe Konami is just thinking ahead of the time, but Joe, is there anything else that makes this like more enticing than just like track and field? But with more mini games?

04:10 I mean, I think that it seems like the intent was to make it a little more robust, at least as far as the controls and, and, um, you know, the, the graphics and just the overall presentation.

04:24 Uh, and I think it's like some extent it, I want to say it succeeded. I'll admit that I did not go back and play the original track and field. So there's some, some, not all, but some of these, uh, events surprised me with like being, uh, like being more, I don't know, more involved and more, um, I don't know, doable, I guess.

04:51 Some of them. Then, then I remember other games like this. I can't remember if I'm specifically thinking of track and field, but other games like this that we've had with like several sporting events. Like world games and, and yeah, the original track and field, like the one thing that I associate with these is that they're all some variation on hit a button really fast to, uh, accumulate like, uh, speed or stamina.

05:15 Um, and that sort of like, is the, the main conceit of the game where as that still exists in track and field too, but like some of them like canoeing, like there's actual like navigation and, um, it's not just a button masher in that sense. And, uh, there's a little bit more to these games than in previous sporting competition NES games. Yeah. Well, one thing I remember from the original track and field is that was, that was a game that felt very polished to me. If, if not just, you know, maybe too basic.

05:52 Um, and again, that has to go to, you know, the, the controls being limited at the time. I do think the solve here in track and field too, uh, you know, to, to make the button inputs a little more like involved. You know, I think I look at like even triple jump, right in triple jump. That could just be a thing where you just like tap the A button really fast and then press up on the D pad to jump and then jump again and then jump again. But they managed to make it like, you know, a little more, um, there's a lot, there's a lot more that you're required to do to land these things without fouling or without breaking your momentum.

06:27 And I think like these kinds of games need something like that, right? They need to be a little more involved because there's only two buttons on this controller. So you got to thread the needle between being like too easy and it doesn't even matter to like go back and replay it or, you know, being too hard. And then it's like figure skating, uh, on winter games where it's like, I don't even know if I'm actually doing anything. Like no matter what I do, she falls on the ice.

06:54 You know, it was like this game manages to make each one of these mini games, something that is like a completely different challenge from the ones before it, even the way they space them out in the Olympic mode. Right. You're not, you're not just like doing all the running events at once and then all of the shooting events at once. Like they, they do space it out nicely and it makes for, um, you know, it makes it like, okay to do poorly in like a particular event and then make up for it in the next one. And there's something exciting about that where, you know, you're not out of it.

07:28 If you, if you don't do something a hundred percent, you can, you can come back like, oh, I, I messed up my triple jump, but now I'm going into freestyle swimming and I feel better about that. You know, I'm not saying that that's true, but that could happen in this kind of game. And so I think the, the constant requiredness of just, you know, your, your ability to react to the new games as you're learning them, but then even going back to them, it's like you have to reset your brain each time and try these new games that it doesn't feel so much like a bunch of separate mini games, but more like one giant Olympic contest.

08:01 Yeah. And there's also the, like the element of, you know, trying to translate, trying to translate something that in real life I imagine is very difficult. Like the triple jump in the, in the Olympics would, you know, be very tough to do that to a, to a control pad with six buttons. Like it's almost inherently going to be easy on the NES.

08:21 So like you need to add in those little, like those little like complicated, uh, like rules to it that, that you were talking about a minute ago to kind of make it feel, feel more challenging and, and give you like a reason to, to have to practice to improve. And I feel like most of the games are like that.

08:42 Like none of them are just like, like, I don't think any of them are super, super counterintuitive to a point where it's a negative, but none of them are like so intuitive that you would think like the way you would think of other NES games. Like you get into the canoe and it's not like, okay, A is to go forward and you press left and you turn left and you press right and you turn right. There's like more to it than that because actual canoeing is not that easy.

09:04 You know what I mean? So it gives you a reason to like have to practice each event. I think that the one thing that, that makes it a little different is that if you're in the Olympics, you're not doing every single one of these events. So, so if you want to do well at this game, you need to practice, you know, what, like 16 events and get good at them, which probably would take some time.

09:22 But, uh, but yeah, you really, you really do need to practice because like you, you, you mentioned Mike that like none of them are too easy, but, but also none of them are too hard. I'd say that while the, the concepts you're, you're trying to grasp in any of these aren't all that hard. Some of them are incredibly difficult just from like that button mashing that I mentioned earlier, like the, the, the speed at which you have to button mash it in some of these modes is kind of ridiculous.

09:50 And, uh, you will like sort of, if you're playing the Olympic mode or the career mode where it goes, it goes through them in order and you, and you don't do well enough in like the triple jump, like you have to, you have to start over like from the beginning. Um, so it's not really that, um, uh, I wouldn't say it's, it's very forgiving in that sense. Well, that being said, it does have like a practice mode where you're basically playing the same thing.

10:19 Uh, it's not, it's just not like a sudden death situation. Um, and you should probably use the practice mode quite a lot if you're trying to be good at this game, but, uh, a lot of it requires some obscene finger speed that might break some controllers, I think. Or might have in, uh, when, when this game was popular.

10:41 Yeah. I wonder about that power meter, uh, that's built into this game. I, I've never really met anything like it, uh, since, you know, even in Mario party games, there's nothing where like you tap the A button as fast as I think. I'm thinking I'm a pretty fast tapper. I never saw this thing go to a full bar. And I'm wondering like, is that by design? Is that supposed to be that like you, you can't max out this power bar? Did you guys have any luck at maxing out that power bar? And did you find that maybe a little effective that it had this like threshold that like, even though you're going so fast, you still see that you're not using all out power. Was that an effective, um, measurement for you as you're playing the games?

11:22 Well, uh, yeah, I will say that I, I was, I would be impressed with myself if I got it even close to like three quarters of the way to the end. Like it, I'm not even sure I ever got it to three quarters, but like definitely never got past that. And definitely never, well, I should say in most of the events, I think there was one or two events where I was able to fill up that bar. I think, um, I think, uh, the hammer throw, which you're not just rapidly pressing one button. You're pressing like four buttons in consecutive order.

11:49 That one I got closer, but for the most part, it was like really, really difficult. Um, and I, it does make you feel like you can always go faster. So, I mean, I, I wouldn't be surprised if it was by design that it's like, maybe, maybe not even that it's like coded in there to be like impossible for it to get to the end. But maybe it's like actually just physically impossible to hit the button enough times a second to get it to go to the end. Yeah, I think you definitely need a turbo to, to do that consistently.

12:16 Um, and, uh, what, one thing that I'll say right off the bat is that the, the power meter or like just the, um, how fast you, cause it isn't the same sort of stamina thing. Um, as it is in some other modes, but, um, the, the freestyle swimming, I, when I was playing the sort of career mode, like that's where I had to tap out and move over to practice because I could not for the life of me, uh, qualify for that mode. Uh, because of just like the intense amount of button mashing you have to do. Uh, it's, it was, it was insane.

12:57 Yeah. You're not alone there. I couldn't even come close in the freestyle swimming. I mean, the guy would laugh me every time that the opponent, I did get to a point where he would like, I was competing with the opponent. I won. I, I, I beat him twice and it was still, it was still slower than the qualification. It was, I don't know what it wanted me to do. Beat him by a, by a lap.

13:21 There's something I'm sure, I'm sure you've done this too. If you beat the computer though. Um, when you enter the pool from the, uh, you know, from the gun going off, you can choose which kind of, um, swim style you want to do. And I believe you have a choice between the, um, freestyle and the, is it butterfly?

13:42 Is that what it is? Yeah, there's butterfly. And then I don't know if it's freestyle, but it's a, it's the more standard, like what you think of when you think of swimming. Um, right. Okay. Yeah. Um, and yeah. I don't know what that's called to be honest. I forgot it's in the manual, but yeah, the one is faster, but it depletes your oxygen faster as well. So you have to have more careful timing with that. And it didn't seem to matter like which one I use. Like if you, cause if you use the butterfly, you're really playing with fire because you can just run out of breath. And if you run out of breath once you've lost.

14:15 So, uh, there was, it's a very tough unforgiving mode. Right. Which is weird to go up against, uh, you know, something like that where you have before that you had fencing and triple jump that I'm not saying they were easy. You know, like fencing is something that theoretically, like if you're not, if you're just pushing buttons and spamming attacks, like I'm, I'm certain that the computer could take you down. You'd have to think about it a little bit. And with the triple jump, it's not easy to, uh, you know, jump super far, but the qualifiers aren't like so ridiculous that you don't make it through.

14:51 Yes. So, so it is weird to have that, um, with the swimming requirement, but I think for the most part, you know, even if you just, even if you only played through each event, like just, you know, thinking about today's and like how much time we have and stuff like that. If you only played these in practice mode and just selected a few of them, right. The ones that you like, or the ones that we feel respond. Well, I, I don't know if like all 16 of these have to be perfect for me to consider this like a good game.

15:27 Well, well, here's, here's my question. How many of these did you find yourself having a great time with or a good time? Like how many of these did you have like genuine fun with? I, I'm a little biased here. You know, I did like track and field. So, uh, you know, I, I, I enjoy these, these little tests of strength where, uh, you have to master the inputs a little bit. I would say that outside of probably the freestyle swimming, high dive, maybe archery. I think the other ones, I, I think I enjoyed them for the most part. Really? Archery is actually one of the ones that I, that I liked quite a bit. Yeah. That's actually one of the ones that I would say I had a lot of fun with.

16:05 I think I just had problems with the, the power meter and rapidly tapping a and releasing. Um, I think I just had problem with that for me. Like it was a little more involved than the way that it works for say triple jump, but. Were you aiming up when, when the, when the target got further away? When it was getting further away. Yes. No. Yeah. When it was, yeah. When it was further away. Absolutely. It's just also, I couldn't quite tell.

16:31 Sometimes my arrow looked like it was at least on the, you know, like it was parallel with the final, you know, where, with the board, but it just said miss, you know, like it didn't, it didn't connect for whatever reason. And I didn't think that like I could be too far to the left or right. I was wondering if anybody else experienced that, uh, not that it went over or didn't connect with it. It looked like it almost went through it and it just said, maybe that is a missing on the left or right sort of thing. Yeah. Uh, to, to anyone who has not played this game, archery, uh, is basically just like lining up an artillery shot. Um, and that's, that's pretty much it. Uh, that's, that's how I would describe it in terms of how it controls.

17:17 Yeah. But then you, you rapidly have to press a, in order to pull the bow back or whatever. Yeah. And, uh, and like that gives you your power. So it does that same thing where it starts to max out after a while when you can't pull any further. And I think it actually does like a, a, a good balance of like how difficult it would be to, cause like, you know, I did okay until I was like the, what is it? 90 meters was the last one. And that was the one where it was like, okay, now it's really challenging. Like 70 was giving me some trouble. 90 was really challenging. And that was the last one. So I felt like it was like a pretty good, um, like scale of difficulty.

17:52 Yeah. So which other events would you call out Joe that you didn't like? I mean, look, I don't want to go as far to say I didn't like all of these other ones. I mean, some of them I enjoyed while I was doing, but I'm not like thinking like, wow, that was fun. I would like to do it again. You know, it was like, oh, it was cool to kind of learn it to Matt, to like master it or not, and then move on. But like, uh, like, all right, Taekwondo.

18:18 Taekwondo is jank. It was cool for a second until I realized I could just kick the hell out of the opponent just over and over again. Just no, with no consequences at all. Like if you just hit the kick button, the straight middle kick over and over again, you win. So that, that was kind of broken for me. I was getting some random trips when I did that. I don't know. Yeah. I think like once in a while he would hit me from doing that, but for the most, like, but like for every, for every five times I would beat him, he would knock me down. So like I would win regardless.

18:51 Um. I wasn't sure like what qualifies enough of like a depletion for them to, for them or you to be knocked down. I felt like I was doing a pretty good job and then all of a sudden they would connect like one hit and I'd be like down. And I don't think you, you have any control over like getting back up.

19:09 Um, I tried rapidly pressing buttons and stuff like that. I'm not entirely sure. It's one of the, it's one of the mini games that seems to have like the least amount of, uh, feedback. Like everything else, not everything else, but, uh, most of these games are so systematized that you, you, you have like perfect information. You know what you're doing, you know what you're doing wrong most of the time. But, uh, and even in the, the other, uh, the competitive game where you're actually playing against an artificial intelligence, um, fencing, like it, it's pretty clear when you've been struck. Uh, whereas with Taekwondo, uh, it's not even just that you've been struck. It's also that you've been struck hard enough to fall.

20:00 And then it also doesn't really give you any indication of like what, um, what's keeping you from getting back up. Uh, so it's just a very, it's, it's a much more foggy game mode than the rest of them. Um, yeah, it feels like they probably should have put like all of their effort into developing fencing and then not worry about making another game that's kind of too similar because it feels like they tried to make it different enough and make different, you know, make different like rules to it and it, and it just didn't end up working. But I'll say real quick that I think that, um, the triple jump, freestyle swimming, high diving, Taekwondo, uh, the, maybe the pole vault, uh, all were not particularly fun for me.

20:45 Like, like, like a lot of those would be like, oh, it was fun to, for me to like, oh, I figured it out. I got the timing down and I'm like, well, do I really, now I got the timing down. Like, I don't know, is this fun? And for me, those were not, they were either frustrating or boring. The other ones were a mix of passable and some that I actually really liked.

21:05 The pole vault was close for me, Joe. Uh, I, I hated that at first. Um, it just takes some time to figure out getting that pole in the exact spot. You know, I, I wish they would have opened up the window on when you can first stick the pole up because I feel like the rest of that, like once you're up there and like how much you bend it and how much you choose to go over it and when you choose to, to release, like that's all cool. And actually pretty authentic to like the things that matter in pole vaulting. So I was on board with it. I wish they would have opened up that window a little bit, but once I nailed that timing on when to, to put down the pole, I felt pretty good about that particular mode. I felt the same way with the pole vaulting.

21:44 Once I figured it out, I was like, oh, okay. It was satisfying for me to figure it out. Now I'm like, now this makes sense. But like, I just didn't find it like repeatable fun to me. Even once I had figured it out, just like the button mashing. I do wish that, that pretty much every game in this, in this didn't have to involve button mashing. Like it's a little, a little much, like I get it. You need to, you need that skill. But like that button mashing, like honestly kind of, kind of wears me down after a while. I'm like, I'm sick of button mashing. Yeah, I think like in terms of the button mashing, if they just change it to like, I don't know,

22:17 like a rhythm kind of thing, like you do had to, you had to still have some precision and still have some speed in how you were like repeatedly, repeatedly hitting a button, but maybe you have to hit it in the, like the right rhythm so that like each time you hit that consecutively, you get a bit more power so that it's not just brute strength, uh, or who has a turbo button that can actually do these things. And it would, I think it would be more interesting if it was like that instead of just going, but I don't know. Right. I feel like a lot of these button mashing games probably benefit more from, um, you know,

22:57 the, uh, what's that called? The, the NES controller that looks like an arcade controller. Um, the advantage, the NES advantage. Like if you had that, I feel like almost all of these modes, even think about fencing or Taekwondo, like I feel like they would benefit from it too.

23:12 There's something about, well, at least what I do with a controller when I'm doing these button mashing games about laying it down, you know, and, and having more control over mashing the buttons than just using your particular thumb, like being able to strike with your index just feels good. But then the D-pad doesn't feel as good. So that's why the advantage probably would have came into, uh, a little more use there because then you have more control also over, uh, the, the D-pad inputs, which for something like hammer throw would have went a long way, right?

23:41 I mean, spinning around in a circle on the D-pad to, to get your character winding up and, and being prepared to release the hammer would have been great with an analog stick. Yeah. I actually switched to a PlayStation controller and use the analog stick and then it was much, much, much easier. I had to put all the, uh, inputs for the D-pad onto the analog stick. You were just emulating an NES advantage. That's all. Yeah, exactly.

24:12 All right, but let's talk for a second. Let's get away from the breaking down the individual games here. I feel like this is presentationally and, and specifically graphically one of the best looking NES games we've ever seen.

24:28 Yeah, I'd say I really liked the look of some of these games. I don't know about like best ever. Um, maybe, maybe in terms of like, uh, the detail of, uh, the characters in it, then, then yeah, you're right. These are pretty well done. Um, but, uh, yeah, especially the, uh, the, this, this rubber, not rubber.

24:54 What's the thing that you're shooting? The clay pigeons, uh, that, that game or that mini game, like was probably the best looking, uh, it had like some parallax action going when you're moving left and right. Uh, there, there was a sense of depth with, um, even your reticle as it was moving around. I really liked the look of that one. So yeah. And that was a fun one too. That was that, you know, anything that, anything that makes me think of duck hunt is always fun. And one where using the D pad to, to be your, you know, like your zapper in that particular, it wasn't weird. Right. And I think that was in the original track and field. Wasn't it something similar that we didn't hate also?

25:36 I believe so. So tried and true. Uh, you know, what's funny though, is there is another, um, gun game in this. I think it's only, uh, it's only a bonus event, but, uh, that one lets you use the controller just like how you can use it for the clay pigeon shooting, but it also lets you use the NES zapper if you have one plugged in. And I wonder why, and maybe, maybe it does. I just didn't check it out because the manual didn't mention it. I wonder why they didn't also make it possible for clay pigeon shooting to also have the, uh, the zapper be compatible.

26:08 Huh? Yeah, that would have been, that would have been a nice, a nice touch. Uh, and I will also say about the, uh, the gun firing little bonus game. I'm pretty sure this is not an Olympic sport in which you're just like on the streets of New York and a bunch of like shady looking criminal people come out with guns and you actually shoot them. There's like an open trunk of a car in the background.

26:29 Yeah. I'm not sure what they were thinking with some of these, uh, exhibitions and bonus modes, but you know what? They're fun and they're harmless, right? Uh, at the end of the day, it's Konami just, just tapping into their silliness a little bit.

26:39 Going back to presentation for a moment, you know, like, you know, it's great that we highlighted some of the, you know, the graphical prowess of it. And it is weird that, you know, certain mini games have like maybe more detail or, um, look better than other ones, but humans do look really good in this one. And it is funny. I know you guys said you didn't go back to track and field, but if you do go back and just even put like two screenshots side by side, the, you would think they were on different consoles. Yeah.

27:10 I'm looking at it right now. Yeah. Just so rushed, I guess, to, to get that onto the NES. And now they had time with track and field too. It's, it really is, it really does make the NES seem more capable in terms of what it can do, uh, against, I guess, like, you know, the, the Sega Genesis is now, um, coming out in late 1989.

27:32 So maybe, maybe like now graphics are on people's minds because Sega is advertising 16 bit, but even just, even just like the idea of like your plane pulling up and every, and like the, the details of that and the, the jumbotron with the, um, opening ceremony and you see the faces as they're like on the parade, the, the typewriter that types up your results. I mean, I know that like, it's just text for the most part, but that typewriter is beautiful. I'd play a typewriter game on the NES if it looked like that. You know, I take it back.

28:05 I, I kind of like doubted you when you were saying that this is one of the better looking games we played. You're right. Uh, but looking at like, even on the jumbotron and you get, um, each of your, I don't know if it's like unique to, I know that you're playing as a different person in each game. Uh, but is it the, is it a different portrait also depending on like your nationality? Like it, it, that all of those different portraits are really cool looking to with like the, um, um, limited color space that they have. Um, they're very dramatic looking.

28:43 Yes. And it highlights like the name of your, you know, like the United States fencer. Yeah. Like each, each one has like its own individual identity too, which like, even though it doesn't mean much, right. I don't think the country you choose, uh, performs better at events that maybe they historically performed, uh, well at. That would have been interesting to add like another layer of depth. I don't know if we needed that given how many, how much of the game relies on like how good you are at putting in inputs.

29:10 I don't think we needed any like additional skill barriers depending on which country you pick to be added, but you bring up a good point, Sean, of like, there is some form of identity, even if it is just being able to choose a country. Remember, you weren't able to do that in the original track and field. So having choice over, over a good amount of, of countries, but also being able to like see them in the opening ceremony and, and, um, and follow that through a court, uh, across the, um, I think it's eight days of the Olympics. I don't remember how many days it is, but, um, seeing that across, it feels a little bigger of, of an adventure.

29:45 Yeah. But I think, I think you didn't notice the graphics because it's not something that you can really pay attention to in this game. You're spending so much time putting in inputs and looking at the manual to make sure you remember how to do the mini games and then you're doing them. I don't think there's enough time to soak in say the, the, the background of the like Taekwondo action and watching people in the audience, right?

30:10 In the audience, we're used to just seeing little heads, uh, maybe different dots. If we're lucky, sometimes this one has like, you know, uh, people of different, you know, different colors and different, uh, different outfits. And, uh, one guy I think is like either selling popcorn or carrying popcorn. It's like, you know, like that, I like these little touches. Yeah. They're very nice.

30:32 The crowd that has like the USA signs, which like, it took me a second to realize what was going on, but yeah, they're all holding it. Yeah. I thought it was sort of glitching out. Me too. But it's just people holding a sign that spell out USA and good old USA purple.

30:54 I know we kind of got away from, um, the, the, the negativity, uh, but I kind of want to go back to the negativity again. Um, because, uh, I think that the, uh, the high dive, um, is probably one of the least impressive, uh, things that you can like, nothing that you do on the high dive looks particularly graceful at all. It, it looks like you're just sort of spasming out. Um, and, and it's sort of like the actual method of play isn't too far away from like that wrestling game where you have to like select a move in like a turn-based mode. And it just seemed really, really, uh, janky to me. I don't know what you guys thoughts were on the high dive.

31:45 Yeah. I mean, I hated that one. That was, that was like the same, uh, feeling I had about it too, where it just, it's too complicated. Yeah. I can read the manual and it tells me what to do, but it's like a lot to remember and a lot to do all at once. And like, none of it really looks cool or like the feedback is not very clear. And it looks like you're always belly flopping as you go in. Yes. I have no idea how to line up. I was looking for a way. Yeah. Is there a way to like enter the water nicely? I wasn't sure if that was, if that was even possible. There is a way, there is a way to enter the water nicely.

32:18 And, and to be fair, you have to sacrifice some points by the amount of, um, the amount of moves that you do in the air in order to do that. But keep in mind, the score is based primarily on those two things. One, the tricks that you do in the air and two, you're landing. So you can't like, you can't do either four tricks and try to get a perfect dive, but it will affect your score if you do like four whatever tricks and then land in the water

32:45 with a big splash because they're going to take those points away from you anyway. So the, the best circumstance is to do like maybe, you know, two tricks, three, if you're lucky and then focus on making sure that you balance yourself out so that you're, I don't want to say you're like, you won't, you won't be a pencil per se, but your splash will be noticeably smaller and you'll be rewarded for that. I got as high as like 8.8 sometimes.

33:07 So that is something I thought that there was only one like splash effect and it didn't matter whether you completely flopped or if you got as straight as a pencil, it was always going to be this like really angular splash. But now you're telling me that you do see it differently. So, cause there were like certain times where I was like not even focusing on moves. I was just trying to land correctly and it always looked like I was doing the same thing at the end and getting different scores. So maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention to like the visual cues.

33:44 Well, I think it's also like, you know, if you can do enough different movements in the air, that also might be worth more points than say, uh, doing something, doing some relatively simple movements and then just landing, uh, sticking a nice landing. Uh, I, I couldn't exactly say that I mastered this one because I feel like it just depended on, it depended on like how I took off, you know, it's almost like if you, if you get it right from the start, maybe there's a good chance you're going to land, but I'll be honest, my scores ranged anywhere from like 5.5 all the way up to, I think I got like 8.8 at one point, which felt nice. I was getting some force too. So your floor is better than mine.

34:25 But it's like, you know what I mean? There, there is almost a level of like, and maybe this is true for divers. Like, you know that if you didn't have necessarily like a great takeoff, like it's not, it's not happening today. Yeah. But maybe that's the same thing as what happens in a lot of these performance, uh, style mini games across all of them too. Like not, not just track and field too, but in most of these games where it comes down to a performance or score based thing, it seems like it's almost not clear enough between the judges, what you need to be doing, how much you should be doing and, and also the various different types of things you can do. Like I wish I knew is a tuck worth more than a jackknife.

35:08 Like that would, that would help inform, I guess, some of my decisions. I guess it is up to experimenting. Yeah. But since I don't get this perfect every time, there's enough like variability for me not to be sure. No, exactly. And I think that like, that isn't really the, the crux of the problem I have with the mode. I do like the sort of ambiguity that comes from, uh, having simulated, uh, judges, uh, because, you know, in real life when you're watching the, when you're watching the Olympics,

35:38 like you, that's also a thing just like, what the hell are they even looking at or seeing differently? So that's not really my issue with it. I guess it's, uh, but again, it's another one of those mini games that doesn't have as perfect information, uh, at least in terms of like how to like improve, uh, a little bit for me. So I don't know. Again, I just feel like each of these games, right? I'm not so certain that they suck. You know, I feel like it's almost up to the person.

36:10 It's like for me, I hated archery, but you guys say, you know, you guys said you had a good time with it. Like, I don't think that means that it's one way or the other. I feel like it just comes down to maybe what, what you enjoy or what you don't enjoy about the particular inputs that you're being forced to do in the, in the, in that game.

36:28 Yeah. I mean, to that, to that point, I mean, I think most of these games like work. So it is just like, yeah, what you're, what you feel like, what you feel is fun, you know? And I, and I think it can hit some of those and it could, it could miss, but, um, but yeah, you're right. It could be contingent on the player.

36:44 Right. Which again, like is really going to break the game though, too. Cause as Sean mentioned, like freestyle swimming comes up so early that if you, if you suck at that particular event, which it's a pretty easy thing to suck at, um, that could hinder your, uh, your want to go on and continue and play. Yeah. Uh, as time goes on, you know, if there's enough of those, that's almost like what makes this game. It is the game.

37:10 Just right. Yeah, exactly. It makes the game for, for a particular person, right? It's like, some people will say this game was great for X, Y, Z. And somebody else will say, no, it was ABC. And then other people say, no, it wasn't great. You know, it's like, I feel like there's enough going on here that it's a, it's a little more nuanced than just saying this particular mode ruined the entire game.

37:32 You know, like sometimes we have that with, um, with other genres, you know, where like, Oh, if they just would have changed, uh, the, the, the way that the character jumps, right? This would have been a much better game, but because he jumps like a, you know, like in slow motion, it sucks. And all the enemies come at you in this particular game. It's just that it's just a selection of mini games.

37:55 So at the end of the day, you either like that kind of thing, or you like some of those things, or you don't like any of it. Whoa. If you have had enough of track and field, this is the last one that we're getting on the NES. Um, I'm sure it's not the last Konami sports game. They owe us probably a lot more sports games. Did you notice that Konami is coming in pretty hard on like the amount of sports games they're giving us. And, uh, I'm, I'm thinking like, are we going to get sports games from Konami? Uh, cause I, I really don't know when they stop because you know, the Konami sports game doesn't really ring a bell in like the modern age.

38:36 Right, right. I don't think of them as a sports developer, but they gave us a double dribble, uh, blades of steel. I mean, I think it's still the wild west, you know, everyone's getting their footing. Yeah. Everyone, everyone's trying everything.

38:50 But this wouldn't even be Konami's last attempt to track and field. Uh, it wouldn't be until May 31st, 1996 when track and field was released for the PlayStation as international track and field. Wow. Uh, I guess maybe a step down from the Olympics, but still like with the world scale of international track and field, not just, not just localized national track and field. I think they should have done a regional track and field. And it's only like NCAA track. Yeah. It only is like track and field in like Michigan and, uh, Ohio and Illinois. It's like all that. Yeah. I think, I think they should have just sold like your hometown's high school track and field for every hometown.

39:36 All the hometowns. Yeah. Every hometown that there is where you get the wiki. There's an appeal for international track and field in the sense of like, oh, it's early 3D. Like, I'd really like to see their take on like how to do these track and field mini games in early 3D world, right? Like 1996. That's not for me. You guys know I hate this early 3D area of like PlayStation 64 games. Right. Cause I have no taste, but like, you know, you could say the same thing is happening with these NES games, right? Like to go back and be like, oh, I want to see what early 2D mini games were like. I don't think too many people fit that bill.

40:15 I don't think too many people are actually wishing for that kind of thing. And they probably wouldn't try something like track and field two because of that. Right. Like there are some barriers that no matter how good the games may be, there's just not enough there to convince people to go back and try them out. I don't know. I mean, mini games are a specific subset of video games that I think like the simplicity of the graphics sort of complements the simplicity of like the game itself. I mean, like people play like WarioWare titles and of course those are much more constrictive in terms of like what you can do in five seconds. But those are usually very simple looking as well.

41:06 So I don't know. I think like with a game like this where it's trying a bit more simulation-y and it's not the most extreme like popcorn kind of mini game experience. Maybe it's not the same, but I think there's enough similarity there.

41:25 Yeah, I could see a game like akin to this being like a mobile game today and being popular. I mean, obviously it had to be tweaked quite a bit for mobile, but like something with the same DNA. Like I think that this kind of thing, you know, I think if anything, I mean, the most obvious and biggest reason that people don't play this is just because it's on this hardware, this ancient hardware. Yeah. But if it were... Flash games. You know, if some... Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the most recent release is new international track and field back when people were just throwing new on everything instead of just saying, you know, instead of just taking the original title and just pretending like it never existed. No, super. That would be a...

42:03 No, yeah, super. But you know what I mean? Like nowadays you would just get it track and field again and they just would... It'd be like a reboot of the series. You know, that's like the new thing that's in. But what used to be in around like the Wii and DS time was just putting new in front of everything. So this was new international track and field, which came out for the Nintendo DS, not made by Konami, but published by them, I guess, because they own the track and field license, which I think would actually be impossible now that I say that out loud.

42:34 But whatever. You know, if it's part of their series. The thing here is they got rid of the button mashing and everything, you know, that we're used to. That's out of favor now because even the PlayStation 1 game still like had you mashing buttons to mostly perform the events. This one says, now we've got this touchscreen. It's going to be all stylus minigames, baby. Like everything is for stylus motion set to the rhythm of your character across 24 different events. We thought Dragonfield 2 had a lot.

43:06 New international Dragonfield brings 24, but a lot of them don't seem that much different. I guess they just have like more, you know, like different, like they have the 100 meter sprint and then the 400 meter. So it's like, it's kind of the same thing. Like just longer distance, the long jump and the triple jump. It's like, okay, one's one jump, one's three jumps. But sure. Like, let's count those as different games. Let's break out the Wii, baby.

43:34 Sean, would you appreciate a chance at like using a stylus to do these games instead of button mashing? You had some complaints about the button mashing. I mean, I would attempt that game. I would, I would play around with it and see what, um, what it feels like. I mean, I kind of think that some other kind of input is necessary. Like if you play a golf game, like you're not button mashing to try and get a longer drive. So, uh, I'd like to see a different rendition of like how to, uh, how to like conceive power in a game. Um, but would it ruin it for you if I told you that every character in the game is like chibi style with big heads? Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. So then, yeah, you would not play this. Probably not. Joe?

44:25 I'm in for a, for a stylus, stylus or even like Wiimote or, or yeah, like anything that's not just that same one button mashing. And if two or three of these games were button mashing and then other ones were stylus and then other ones, you know, were, were, you know, like a, a golf game type, like timer bar that you gotta get the, you gotta get the, the line in between two other lines or whatever. Uh, anything that's going to bring it some more variety, I I'd welcome. And I don't mind chibi, chibi style. Sean, this just in. Are you ready? Yes.

45:00 Solid Snake is in new international track and field. So if you ever wanted to see what snake. Chibi Solid Snake? Chibi Solid Snake is in track and field, uh, internet, new internet, new international track and field. And, uh, if you ever wanted to know what he'd look like throwing the discus or running the 400 meter. All right. You've resold me on the game. I'll play it. Joe, what did you say? He doesn't do any of that in Metal Gear, the Metal Gear games? No, there's no discus in Metal Gear. Oh. Is there any clay pigeon shooting? You can shoot birds. There you go. It's like the same thing. Real birds, birds of clay. Have your, have your. Birds of prey, birds of clay. Ooh, birds of clay. Time for the essential games list.

45:44 All right, Joe, you kicked off the essential games list. So why don't you go first? What's your vote for track and field two? Okay. I think as far as these, these games that we've played that are, you know, several mini sport based mini games. This is probably my favorite. And don't quote me on that. Maybe if I went back and played them all, I'd remember one that I liked better. But off the top of my head, I can't think of one that I had a better time with than this. But I will say that I think that there's a reason that most games don't have 16 different control schemes, complex control schemes that you have to memorize or look up between every game. Also, this game doesn't even let you pause it between games to look at the manual.

46:26 So that I think is a major flaw. Like, I don't think that it's necessarily a great idea to have these different complex control schemes have literally, I think, what? I think it's 16 of them for the different games.

46:38 That just makes it confusing. And if you compare this to something like Wii Sports, which similar, it's a bunch of mini games, but that has somewhat intuitive or pretty intuitive controls. And I think games that are successful that do this kind of thing just go the extra mile to make everything more intuitive so you don't have to focus on how complex everything is. And I think that just in the end, this is a jack of most trades, master of none. I won't even call it a jack of all trades because I think some of these games do miss the mark. So I'm going to say not essential. Sean. Yeah, I agree. I do. This is a very pretty game.

47:23 And some of the mini games are fun. But this is just one of those genres that unless something really blows me out of the water in the next several hundred episodes, it's not going to get on the essential games list.

47:37 So that's it for me. And I'll just wrap this whole thing up by saying that, yeah, it's not going on the essential games list. I think it comes down to, you know, honestly, probably just the controls of the game. Like, I know it sounds like it's like a giant complaint, but it really could just be that if they would have figured out a system where like maybe all running across all the different

48:02 games was handled the same way and all, you know, all things were maybe a little more uniform so that I wasn't constantly referring back to the manual between games and relearning these things across the 16 different games. That's a big ask. It's a big ask to have that kind of thing. But also there's a little bit of imperfectness to all of the games. So I don't think something that flawed could go into the essential games list.

48:25 I will move my play it from the original track and field over to track and field two, though. I do feel like track and field two is, you know, just an improvement in every way over track and field. That same track and field is still like, you know, the same simple fun, good time for like, you know, 15 minutes that this game probably also offers you in the practice mode.

48:46 So you're not losing anything if you like track and field one more than track and field two or track and field two more than track and field one. I think this game just really does put the actual like sequel game to work here and create something that is an improvement on the predecessor. Good. So, yeah, middling. I think we're all like in agreement. It's like we played this game and you can play it.

49:11 You can. You have every right. You may. To play it. You may play this game. You have our blessing. I like that, Joe. Yeah, that's what we should do. Instead of essential games, we should just give people permission to play certain games and not others. Right. We're not legally allowed to tell people that they must play games. We got into a huge lawsuit over that last time. We're not sponsored by Konami, so why should we tell anybody? In fact, I don't think anybody is sponsored by Konami anymore, right? They're like delisting games at this point. They're like, you're not allowed to have Metal Gear Solid anymore.

49:44 Yeah, and if you want to know which games in the future will be essential and will we play it, you can find all of our scripts on the libraryofbabble.com. You just got to look hard for them. But go on libraryofbabble.com and everything we're ever going to say is on there. Everything you're going to say is on there.

50:03 If you want to know the real results of the essential games list, you can Venmo us. If you tell us which ones you want on there, we take Venmo and we'll just put them on there. It's no secret that every game that's currently on the essential games list was bought. Yeah, we are easily bribed.

50:21 Anything from $5 to $5,000 is acceptable. Even higher, I would say. Yeah, but nothing less than $5. No, everything less than $5 is insulting and take your money elsewhere. Yeah, and I feel like most people probably think like, yeah, these guys aren't going to take a bribe. But I feel like most people would be surprised to think that it takes very little to bribe. I mean, any bribe, we're flattered. We'll do whatever you want. Very easily bribed. Yeah. In fact, starting next week, the show won't even be about NES games anymore because we've been paid enough to represent Sega. Yeah. So we're going to do Genesis games. And Raycon. I'm doing reviews on their earbuds now.

51:08 Okay. You got me with that one. Everybody, I hope, knows that we are joking. It's all in good fun. We're going to do baseball stars next week. More baseball. Who doesn't batter up? I'm ready to swing. Put me in, Coach. You're a big baseball guy. I didn't know. Yeah. Now I know. Put me in, Coach. I'm ready to play. Brought to you by Louisville Slugger. Look at me. Baseball bounce. Gotta be center field. The world. The world. Hmm Hmm