353 · Total Recall

• HAVE A SAFE TRIP (YOU’LL NEVER MAKE IT ALIVE
• What is the Gameplay Loop?
• Side-scrolling action game. Clear each level.
• Beat-’em-up mechanics: Fighting enemies is essential, with hand-to-hand combat and some weapons introduced in later stages.
• Mini-games and varied levels: Includes platforming, car chase sequences, and puzzle sections, adding variety but sometimes unevenly executed.
• What are some Key Features of the Game?
• Each stage is different; players face street brawls, mutants, platforming, and even sewer navigation.
• 1. Free Life
• Extra Life Tip: Enter the Cinema at the beginning of Mr. Quaid’s Neighborhood.
• How to Earn It: Sit through all the credits for an extra life.
• Personal Note: Not a must-have for pros, but it’s a handy way to boost lives for the game’s tougher spots.
• 1. Skip Earth Levels and Jump to Mars
• Shortcut Tip: After seeing a message to “Hold A and B to get to Mars fast,” you can skip directly to Mars if you lose all lives there and restart.
• How to Access the Mars Levels Right Away: Start a new game, go to the Cinema in Mr. Quaid’s Neighborhood, and hold the A and B buttons while the credits roll.
• Bonus: You’ll also gain an extra life in the process!
• This code will work only if you lost all of your lives AFTER having reached Mars.
• Film Adaptation Accuracy
• The NES game follows the basic plot of the film, where Douglas Quaid, a construction worker, discovers his life is a facade and embarks on a quest to uncover his true identity and purpose on Mars.
• Many of the movie’s deeper themes—such as memory, identity, and corporate control—are missing, likely due to the constraints of NES storytelling and the need to streamline the story for action gameplay.
• In Total Recall, the climax centers around ancient alien technology on Mars that could terraform the planet. This subplot is entirely absent from the NES game, which instead focuses on generic enemy encounters on Mars without delving into the alien tech or the climactic planetary crisis depicted in the movie.
• In a tie-in with the NES game, the August 1990 version of Nintendo Power promoted the game for their well-known monthly mail-in contests, with the Rekall slogan of "Making the Impossible Possible" whereby first prize would be one of the Martian police uniforms along with a videotaped trip to Hollywood with a chance to meet Schwarzenegger. Years later, the magazine admitted that it was their worst promotion, as "our winner did not get to meet Arnold until late 1991, and even then only for a quick handshake."

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

00:00 Total Recall, have a safe trip, you'll never make it alive.

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 didn't we record this episode before? Ha. I get it. Ha ha ha. I feel like I should have saved that joke for our Deja Vu episode, but I don't know if that's like, I don't know if that's what that game is about. Deja Vu? Yeah. There's a game coming up down the line called Deja Vu.

00:50 And I've never- We can do it again, man. It's fine. Right. We'll be experiencing Deja Vu when I make the joke again. There you go. Perfect. But yeah, I think you should have saved the joke for when we inevitably, as a joke, re-release this episode one week from now. That's the kind of thing we do on this podcast. Oh, that's a good one, Joe. You know, it took me a second, but I like it. I like it. Uh, Total Recall is, um, a video game based on a movie. And before we talk about the movie or the game, just wanted to say, I'm very surprised as somebody who usually comes into these things pretty uninformed, both me and Sean decided to recently watch the movie.

01:26 And I will just- Well, you assigned it to me. And I didn't know you were going to do it. So you're kind of stealing my thunder here. I don't know why I did it. I won't say too much. I'll let you do most of the talking. I feel like I did it because deep down inside, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. And this is like, this was bothering me that I didn't see this movie that I've heard in the background. It was qualifying as like a blind spot for me too, I think.

01:48 And I think my tease was just going to be that like, okay, yeah, this isn't like, this isn't going into like identity, you know, themes in the video game compared to what the movie was doing. But like, it follows the movie pretty well, way better than Back to the Future was doing. I- Okay, so this game skips most of the movie. That's all I'm going to say. I think if- I can make an argument for each level and what scene it was in the movie, and I think that's all we need to get down to.

02:17 I'm glad to hear you guys say this because I have a lot of questions about like- Because having not watched- Yeah, all these little like cut scenes have to make absolutely no sense to you. Well, that and also the environments. I'm thinking some of these environments, I'm like, okay, this- the only reason this could be here is because there must have been a scene in the movie where he like walks through like an x-ray scanner and has a- Yes! I'm glad that you actually- Okay. That you- you got- gathered that.

02:44 Yeah, that was what- I was like, I was just the whole time I was- even as someone who hasn't seen the movie, I was like impressed with how much they followed the movie. But I was just guessing that that was true. But Joe, I'm glad you pointed out that x-ray bit because that is something that like, you know, you're now- it's enhanced because I watched the movie. It's like, I felt like a lot- very, very often you do not- and even for this game, probably, you didn't need to watch the movie to play the game, right?

03:11 Like there was no- there was no extra knowledge of like what's to come that helped you get along in the game. This isn't that kind of video game. But I did feel like knowing who I was, not just Arnold Schwarzenegger, this, you know, Jack Beefy guy, instead I was just, you know, playing the game from like the movie I had freshly watched and now I kind of want to do that with all NES movie games going forward, but I feel like they're not all going to be as good as Total Recall. Total Recall's a good movie. Oh, okay. Good movie, yes.

03:45 And that's Tron's Essential Games vote. No, it's going to be tremendously clear how we're voting on this. Sorry, but like, I think I just have a bone to pick about the whole like, how like, oh, this is like so close to the movie. Like, yes, it's like there are set pieces in this game that are as close to shot for shot that you can be on the NES, but they are so out of context and skip so many things that like, again, like with Joe, like I'm amazed that you gathered that it was an x-ray machine and not you just turning into a skeleton.

04:25 And that like, oh, there's a scene where like he puts the wet towel on his head and that has to make no sense to you. And like, go to the cement factory. Why are we going to the cement factory? Like, there's just so many things here that like lose the plot. Well, go to the cement factory was one thing, but I'll say that it had been a few days since I started the game when I read the opening and I had forgotten there was any mention of Mars. So go to Mars was a big, a big crazy thing for me, too. I was like, we're going to Mars now? They go to Mars in Total Recall? Yes, that is true. That's all he wants to do. I didn't know. I'd never do that. He wants to give his ass to Mars. All right. So I think that's enough about the movie.

05:08 Enough? Yeah. Did you want to give an actual? Well, you know, you can talk about it throughout the episode, but I meant like, did you want to give like a formal review? No. Okay. So going into the game now, Total Recall, side-scrolling action game, one of those ones where you just kind of clear each level. But it is interesting because there are like sometimes different objectives. Like it does have like beat-em-up mechanics at points where you have to clear everybody off the stage before you can progress. Other times it's like, you know, a little more platformery and you got to get, you know, like there's like a finger saying like, you got to go to this door and you got to figure out how to get to that door.

05:45 So there is a little bit of variety, but overall it's just a side-scrolling action game where you just have to get from point A to point B. There's also some vehicle moments. There is a vehicle moment where you're driving a, what kind of car is that? They had like, you know, they had like DeLoreans in this movie. Yeah. Okay. In the movie, there was a lot of like future cars that don't look like, actually this whole movies vibe is just like a future that can't exist anymore because it's old. Was that retro futurism? That is retro future now, but when it was released, it's just future.

06:21 Yeah. But did they have anything really that was like for 1990, like, you know, big ideas of the future other than that we could live on Mars? There was the idea that you could wear a mechanical head that would also change your voice and identity and for some reason would reduce the amount of words you could say. Remember that? I'm glad you brought that up because that's like exhibit A of the movie, though. The movie, pretty silly, right? Like at the end of the day, I don't think they're trying to hide it either. It's a Verhoeven movie, yeah. It's not a comedy, but it has funny moments and it is kind of over the top.

07:01 I kind of think the game is missing that element. Yeah, I agree. I think the game is missing like, and I don't know how you do it, right? If you're just mostly doing a beat them up, fight enemies kind of thing. But other than like the random dog who sometimes bites your leg or the hobos who only get mad when you like try to steal their fire. Strange thing to include in the game, by the way. Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. He doesn't kill a bunch of homeless people. Were there like homeless men that he has to fight? No. He doesn't. No. Okay. But overall, you're supposed to be, his name is Dennis Quaid, right? Dennis Quaid. Just Quaid.

07:42 Yeah. But really, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I don't know if they just missed on the design or if they weren't allowed to use his likeliness. They didn't get all the rights. Well, they certainly used it in the menu screen. It's definitely him.

08:01 No, I think like, I don't know. It's not Dennis Quaid, if that's what you mean. No, it's not Dennis Quaid. Is that what you're talking about, Mike? The menu screen? No, I was talking about it in the cut scenes, like with the towel head and stuff. It just feels like it doesn't really look like Arnold. And that's definitely not the best sprite for Arnold. Because if you game over, you get a very clear Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's like, hey, you died. Why'd you do that? But then he says, I'll be back. Why does he say that? I don't know. And there was another thing. And I can't remember what it was. There was another clear Terminator reference in this game.

08:32 And it's like, do they not know which movie this is? I get it with how much they skipped. They might not. It becomes an Arnold video game. It just becomes a, you know? Maybe that's their way of having that fun with it that you were talking about was missing. Yeah. By breaking the fourth wall and talking about the actor who plays this sprite. I do want to get back to the game itself. But like, just one second. Like, I just need to talk about, if we're going to talk about the actual adaptation portion of this. I just want to say one last thing about what they really are missing here. Is the whole idea, like the whole central theme of the movie is about like memory replacement. And they completely gloss over all of that.

09:16 There's, there's not, I mean, sure. Like, maybe there's no gameplay way that you can turn that into a mechanic or something. But it is so briefly mentioned in any of these little cutscene things that you would, like, the whole name Total Recall means nothing. Yeah. The only way to do it is, like, the way Braid did it. You know? It's Total Recall is like Braid, where you basically play the whole game in reverse and find out that you're responsible for it all, right?

09:45 Like, the big twist in the movie is that Arnold was the bad guy originally. And that's pretty freaking cool. Yeah. But that's absent from the game. Even, like, some kind of fun shadow fight against your old self. Some, you know, like, a familiar trope. Even considering that there is that, like, idea of duplicating yourself with technology in the movie.

10:07 So, yeah. It's funny. So, getting into the character, the controls of, I'm going to say Quaid, Arnold, whatever you want. I just feel like when I was watching the movie, I immediately don't buy that, like, you know, Mr. Universe, World's Strongest Man, just absolutely jacked Arnold Schwarzenegger, future governor, is going, is, like, is just an everyday guy, right? Yeah. That was the first thing I thought. Right. And, like, of course he's not, you know? So, it's great, right? It works, and we understand how he got into that situation.

10:40 But in this game, especially with the hand-to-hand combat, I don't feel like I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger as I try to take down, like, you know, to the point earlier of homeless people, right? It's like, these fights should be pretty, like, I should be a dominant force. And they're not even that, like, physically imposing homeless people. Right, right. Some of them are particularly small, too. And they do mostly mind their own business until you attack them. No, yeah. Once you start trying to steal their fire, they're really protective of the fire.

11:13 But, no, just even any enemy in this game, it's, like, another thing that they could have stole from the movie is that, like, even though Quaid thought he was, like, some everyday guy who has this, like, ambition to go to Mars, as soon as he, like, you know, sleeper agent wakes up, he has, like, all of his martial arts skills, you know? And, like, all of his, you know, all of the tricks and stuff that he knew beforehand are just, like, in his brain so he can do them. He's not even really understanding them.

11:43 But we're not given, like, this, you know, super powerful character. If anything, I feel like taking damage in this game is incredibly common, incredibly frustrating. And it's a game where a lot of the enemy's main strategy to attack you is to jump over you, something that would not happen to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

12:04 There's that, there's the, like, you're getting pot shots taken at you from every which direction, which I guess is kind of like the movie, but it kind of goes to your point of just the insane, like, amount of things coming at you at any one moment. Like, there's a, one of those, one of those set pieces that they take out of the movie is that fight in the room with your, Joe, that's your wife that you're fighting. That's Sharon Stone. They're shooting the gun at you that whole time? Yeah, that's Sharon Stone. That's your wife.

12:37 Broke my heart. So, I'm glad I could tell you. Like, there's that fight, and like, on its own, it's fine, but then, like, some dude blasts through the wall and, like, has an unlimited stream of bullets. And if you're playing that in any other way other than, like, I've played this over and over, and now I'm finding a way to cheese it, like, you're just not going to survive that encounter.

13:01 Yeah, I didn't understand that I did eventually have to just, like, run and, like, tank damage and run out that door, and then he's just gone. He, like, doesn't foul you, I guess. But I don't understand the situation at all because I did, afterwards, after I didn't beat the game, I watched a playthrough of it. And in the playthrough, that guy just wasn't there. He just fought the wife and then left. Did we just take too long? Maybe. I think that might be it. Like, you take too long and this guy shows up. But he showed up for me every time I got there. Yeah, that's funny because I definitely experienced him as well.

13:28 Weird. What do you have to do? I was, like, excited to see. I was, like, okay, let's see how this guy deals with this situation. And then he just didn't, he didn't have to. Okay, but wait, you know why he probably didn't have to, though, Joe? Why? If we're watching the same playthrough, which sometimes we are, so I'm just going to try and take a guess here. The playthrough I watched of this, he is, he kills Sharon Stone right as he's at the door.

13:50 Oh, so he, like, timed it out. He was speedrunning it. Yeah, he just times it out. So he shoots her, she's dead, and he just exits the door. I mean, maybe that is it. But for me, that guy showed up while I was still fighting Sharon. Well, then, yeah, then you probably just took too long. Yeah. Also, we should mention that Sharon Stone does not play herself in the movie.

14:10 She's also a character. I don't remember the wife's name. I don't either. I don't think you have to. She was evil. What's, like, the hard and fast rule on that? You know, you're watching a movie, it's only two hours, it's not like a TV show you've been watching for several seasons.

14:23 What responsibility do you have to know everybody's name by the end of the movie? Well, at a certain, I don't even think that that's really the argument here. I think at a certain level of fame, then that character is always Tom Cruise. Or it's always Sharon Stone. Or it's always Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right. Yeah, those are the levels. Like, when you get to a certain level, you are Tom Cruise, no matter who you are. Yes, exactly. And then Sharon Stone, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger. Robin Williams is right below Sharon Stone. Robin Williams, first role you think of. Uh, Patch Adams, no.

14:53 Good Will Hunting. Okay, yeah, and so what's his name in that? You would have no idea, right? I don't remember. I think it's Patch Adams in all the movies. In all of his movies. Yeah, I was gonna say, I was like, oh. I could remember his name. I could remember his name in Good Will Hunting. Donnie Flubber. The absent-minded professor.

15:12 Okay, nice tangent. Let's get back to the game. All right, so let's pretend that, you know, that the enemies aren't just constantly frustrating. Do we, can we get on board with that? Like, can you get on board with pretending that- I will pretend that they're not always frustrating. That they're not just always, like, on top of you, breathing down your neck, and that they, like, they make combat challenging because Arnold doesn't punch as long as his arms possibly could. Like, he's not extending the arms far enough. No, he's not. Yeah, he's doing, like, a little jab. Yeah, I don't know what that's about. Is he packing more power in a smaller punch? I don't think that's how that works.

15:50 But, finally, you will get a gun. And, I mean, like, that's just, like, that's not an interesting gameplay style either, though. Because now you're just- Now you're shooting at them. Yeah, now you're shooting at them from, like, but from a major distance, though, too. But you're just shooting, they're just shooting, or if they don't have a weapon, then it's kind of, like, whatever. But it's not, like, now it becomes a Contra-style game, you know, like a running gun. It doesn't feel like that. It still is, just like, it's like River City Ransom, but now with guns.

16:17 I think if there's any one moment in the movie that they should have found a way to make in a mechanic that just happened way more in the game than it ever did in the movie, it was using a body as a shield for, like, 50 rounds. Like, find a guy, and now this is your body shield, and you can go a whole level holding the same dead body.

16:40 We were robbed of, like, an amazing escalator fight. Yeah. There should have been an escalator- There's an escalator in the game, and he just stands on it. There's no urgency.

16:51 Is this movie just, like, how many set pieces could we have Arnold Schwarzenegger fight on? Pretty much. Well, for a bit. Yeah, the idea is to make an incredibly rewatchable movie where everybody just, like, gets the DVD and just keeps skipping to the next scene when their scene's over, and they're like, oh, okay, no, no, but this one's good. Remember this one? And so, you know, you're making your way through the game, and then, yeah, to Joe's astonishment, you get to Mars, where they've figured out a somewhat habitable situation. Like, you can breathe oxygen, but only in the areas where they've established that. So if you, like, accidentally get glass, get shot, and then you get sucked out of it, now you can't breathe.

17:35 And I will say that was, you know, that's, like, for a lot of people in the movie, that was a horrifying scene of, like, watching in the very beginning Arnold Schwarzenegger's- The effects in those scenes are crazy. Yeah, his eyes, like, pop, and his, like, neck gets really big. Would that happen? I don't know. No, definitely not. None of that stuff happens. Yeah. You die instantly, right? You just asphyxiate. Yeah. Okay.

18:02 But with this, like, moving to Mars, like, that whole transition from the, you know, the Earth city to now you're at Mars, leaving alone all the stuff they skipped, I really think it's funny that this is the first time I've seen a skippable cutscene, and also, like, a preamble, like a foreword to the cutscene, explaining to you how you can skip it if you want. And it's not even that long of a cutscene.

18:30 It's like, hold A and B together to get to Mars faster. Oh, oh. You know what? I honestly didn't know what it was telling me to do there. Guys, guys, this is big. It's not what it is. No? No. That's not what it is. Okay. This is amazing. Okay? I'm glad I get to reveal this. Sometimes doing your homework pays off. So, Sean, you are right. It is a skippable cutscene, and that is kind of funny that you read it that way, that, like, they're teaching you how to skip the cutscene that takes, like, all of five seconds to watch. But believe it or not, in the beginning of this game, and I can't believe we glossed over this. This should have been the first thing we talked about. But in the beginning of this game, there is a movie theater.

19:07 And you can go inside that cinema, and you can watch the credits for the game you're currently playing. And how is every Grand Theft Auto getting away with not having this feature? Every Grand Theft Auto should have a cinema that you have to sit down in and watch for, like, a trophy to watch the credits of the game roll by. And that's what happens in this. And it's kind of tricky because it's only a couple screens, and it does loop.

19:33 However, if you get to Mars in the same time that you, like, you haven't reset the console, you haven't powered it down, if you got to Mars, but then you get the game over screen, you'll start back on the first stage. So, if you go to the movie theater and hold A and B down, you will warp to Mars only if you were already at Mars in the same playthrough. So, it doesn't work on, like, if you just boot up the game. Do they explain that better in the manual? Because I didn't read that. Yeah, you know, I feel like, let's see, there's some vacation tips down here. That's cute, right? Vacation tips.

20:15 If walking past alleys makes you jumpy, there is a way to avoid getting by the enemy. Oh, that's funny, though. Do you see what they did there? Jumping? Yeah, if walking past alleys makes you jumpy. And, yeah, then you just got to jump over them. I do think that's funny because, like, in the movie. I don't need it to be written in riddles, Mike.

20:34 Right, but... And also, like, that's not, like, a hint. That's just, like, how you play video games. Yeah, but also, like... Jump over the enemy to avoid the enemy. No, but these enemies, and this will go over your guys' heads, but some of our listeners will get it. Like, these enemies act like Lakitu at the beginning of Super Mario 64, where, like, in Super Mario 64, the second you touch the bridge that leads to Princess Peach's castle the first time,

20:58 Lakitu will automatically, like, interrupt you and make you stop moving. You lose control of the controller, and he interrupts you, and you have this unskippable cutscene. And that's exactly what happens. Didn't go over my head, Mike. I get that. Okay, that's exactly what happens here in this game, is that they're not, like, constantly peeking out of the alleys.

21:18 There's just, like, there's just alleyways. You should jump over alleys to make sure that doesn't happen again. Right, right, but even if you just get the smallest... Which is what I do in real life. If you touch just the smallest crevice of the alley, they will grab you. You have to do, like, perfect jumps. In a game that, like, honestly, this jump is very frustrating at times. It's very much like Simon in the original Castlevania, where, like, sometimes you really do have to go, like, right up against the edge to successfully jump to the next platform.

21:48 And some platforms, too. There was one that I was like, I don't know if I know how to get to this. And then I watched a playthrough, and I was like, oh, you really just have to believe that you can jump that high. I just didn't believe that he would reach it.

22:03 But, like, these alleyway guys, like, they take you, what, to, like, the sewer or something? Where are you? I think it's just an alley. I think it's just a dark alley. There's just, like, so many pipes on the wall. And, like, all these, like, weird platforms and everything, and it's, like, really, like, it's all blue and... Which is the weirdest, it's the weirdest, like, mechanic of, like... Yeah. We're gonna take you to this place that you're... It's sort of, like, going to limbo, and you're doing it wrong. You're playing the game wrong if you end up here. Yeah, but also, like, what you do there is just what you were doing in the regular game anyways.

22:37 It's just making it longer, yeah. Yeah, it's just, like, added, like, a little more to that level. And then, like, to get out of those places, there's always, like, a different exit, but it's not clear where the exit is. Yeah, and the exit is only after you've cleared everybody, too, so it's not like you can, like, search for it as you're in there. You have to kill everybody first. And, you know, I mean, I'm just, you know, dogpiling on this one part of the game, but, like, also, these pipes, like, some of them, you can, like, jump on them, but they're not... They're clearly not on the same plane as the other things you can jump on. So, like, you wouldn't think you could jump on those. It was just a weird segment altogether.

23:14 Another hot vacation tip from the manual. Warning in all red. Warning. By the time Richter makes it to your apartment, it's probably too late for you to escape. So, yes, you do have to kill Sharon Stone in a certain amount of time. Or they just kill you? Or else he'll just be there. And they're saying, like, it's probably too late. Like, you're not going to be able to survive that stream of bullets. That's weird. That's a weird, like, gatekeep thing. There's also no, like, timer indication that that's going to happen. Yeah. There's a lot of that, though.

23:48 To your point about them just ignoring parts of the movie, the manual doesn't make it seem like they're ignoring parts of the movie. At the end, it goes, something's wrong here. Something's missing. And it looks like it's your identity. But you've got your youth and your strength. And you're going to make it to Mars if it's the last thing you do. And then in parentheses, and it just might be. On red hot Mars, you'll find out who you really are. Red hot Mars? Right? Because it's red, it must be hot and not freezing cold. Yeah. Isn't it significantly colder? Yeah. But, yes.

24:21 On red hot Mars, you'll find out who you really are. And while they'll go to any length to keep you from finding out. And it's like, but do you really in this game? Like, yeah, in the movie, sure. I like that they replaced, like, the rebel faction with actual skeletons. Yeah, that's a thing that did not happen in the movie, Joe. And I need you to know that.

24:41 Wait, wait, wait. There were no skeletons. There's a scene in the movie where, like, they go into, like, basically a burial ground for the first settlers. And instead of, like, having it be, like, oh, you're now talking with the rebel faction and, like, they've got all the mutants because there's mutants. It's like, oh, well, in the movie there were skeletons. So let's just make the enemies skeletons.

25:08 And I think right, is it before or after? I think it's before the skeletons. That's where you get to drive the car, Sean. But driving a car on Mars. To the brothel. That isn't the brothel. Driving a car on Mars is apparently a lot different than it is on Earth because they've created a whole sort of rules about to, like, I don't even know how to describe the controls for the car here because I wasn't sure if I was even driving it right. But a lot of it revolves around going in reverse for a second to be able to push forward. And I feel like that just doesn't make sense. Yeah, I couldn't really get a grasp on what I was doing either. I was just sort of accepting.

25:50 I didn't get to the car, I'll just say. Well, I would say that I didn't get to the car fare, you know? Ah, I see. Yeah. The car fare. I didn't get to the car. I didn't pay for the car.

26:01 Is it like a wind-up car? Yeah, like, I couldn't figure out why it's like, okay, so here's the problem, all right? So you're driving in, it's top-down, and you're in this green car, and there's a bunch of these, like, what I imagine are supposed to be buildings, but because it's top-down from very far away, these buildings just look like squares. But your car looks gigantic, and you're driving this thing in a way where you're supposed to avoid these squares and just continue to kind of, like, weave through both the traffic and the other enemies and these buildings. However, if you crash into one of these square buildings, you can't just, like, move to the, drive to the right or the left. Yeah, there's no turning animation.

26:45 You have to, like, back up, which sounds like it makes sense, like, in a 3D space. Like, yeah, of course, you'd have to back up. Your car can't just move to the right or left. But in this top-down thing, it kind of does feel like you should be able to turn a car that way, but you don't turn your car. You just kind of, like, the speed is all off. It's saved on the animation budget. You just, yeah, you just hit, like, a lot of buildings.

27:10 If you're me, you just hit a lot of buildings. What I'm watching right now, it looks like you totally just moved to the left or right without having to turn at all. Yeah, no, that's, yeah, that's exactly it. Okay, yeah. Yeah, you're kind of, like, weaving, but it's easier said than done. It's good stuff. No, it's not good stuff. It's great stuff. You said that was a, this is great. This is, this is, for me, this was painful because it goes on for a very long time, too.

27:35 Like, I can accept that the core game leaves something to be desired, but then when you add in a frustrating break in that element, relatively late in the game, too, to just make something that's even worse, it's like, oh, now you're really trying me. You really want to see if I can figure out what's at the end of this game.

27:55 But there is some good stuff at the end of this game. They have the, like, the driller boss fight. Against your taxi cab driver. Yeah, he's your taxi cab driver. Yeah, okay. He would be driving that vehicle. Yeah. Yeah, but you know what, though? What's funny is, is, like, I couldn't figure out, I should have been able to figure out. I'm not saying it's hard, but I couldn't figure out at first that, like, oh, when he pops his head out, you want to shoot him in the head. Like, makes sense, right? But, like, why is he able to take so many bullets to the face? Who cares?

28:26 In the movie, that's not how you fought this, you know? You got to grab, like, a drill of your own, and you had to, like, break down the... Are we Quaid in the movie? What do you mean? Are we Quaid? Well, you said in the movie, you didn't do this. In the movie, you did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In every movie, aren't you pretending that you're the main character? I was like, do you play this movie, too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it like an interactive movie? It's a figure of speech. I've never heard it before. Good. It's something new today for you.

28:58 You're getting wise. You kind of, like, you drill through the drill into the cab of the drill, and then you just, I mean, it kind of happens off camera, but you kind of turn his insides into goop with a drill. It's very visceral. That's not the final boss fight. It's not. And it shouldn't be, but the final boss fight is against your boss, the guy who is secretly behind, well, not secretly, the guy. Tohawk. Is that his name? It's like, I don't know. I was making a family guy reference, but it's like that. I'm just, yeah, I'm just forgetting everybody's names in the movies. I forgot his actual name.

29:37 Basically, he learns that, like, oh, yeah, so everybody else has figured out that you can jump over Arnold Schwarzenegger, so that's going to be my entire identity. And he just jumps the entire time so that you really can't hit him. However, he's really jumping because if you try to shoot him and you are facing basically the device that is going to make it so that oxygen is distributed to all of Mars so everybody can breathe everywhere equally, obviously a corporation wouldn't want that, but that's what Arnold wants. If you shoot at him and he jumps and you hit that, it will basically cause a game over because it destroys that machine,

30:22 the computer, and now you basically lose as a result without ever taking any kind of damage. So it becomes an incredibly frustrating final boss fight where it's nearly impossible to hit the boss. It's very possible to hit the only thing that can allow you to win the game. And so it just becomes, like, he's not really, like, yeah, he shoots a lot too, but it's not, like, an impossible thing. It's more just, like, an impossible precision thing. It becomes a game of being very precise and firing your shot. And even then, I still don't think I'm going to, like, hit him a lot because he's jumping very fast, sporadically.

30:59 So I hated this boss fight, and I destroyed that computer more times than I care to say. Yeah, it looks incredibly frustrating. I think the idea of going for something like that could be interesting, of, like, hey, this boss fight isn't about, like, hey, can you be stronger than the boss? But instead it's about can you properly control yourself and aim and think about what you're doing to hit the boss but not hit, you know, this machine. I like that conceptually. Yeah, like a non-standard game over is cool, and I wasn't expecting it in a movie game, especially when, like, again, I'm sorry to keep bringing it up, but, like, in the scene it was never like, oh, we can't let anything happen to the thing.

31:44 It was just, like, let me touch it. So it's weird. It's a weird idea, but I like the idea of non-standard game over. And I think that's the game in a nutshell, but I want to go back to the cinema

32:00 because to put the movie theater in the game, first off, it's not something you ever do again, right? There's not, like, an arms shop where you go and buy the weapons that you'll later fight, right? Like, you don't walk into buildings usually, so they programmed in just at the very beginning of this game. I was surprised when it let me go in, yeah. Right? Right? It's like, oh, is this the game?

32:22 Like, you'll be going in and out of buildings and, like, getting information. Like, you'll go to the recall. Well, because you go into, well, I think first what happened was I got pulled into an alleyway, and then I went into the movie theater, so it has now established that pressing up or, like, getting, you can go into other places on the map, so I'm like, that's what this game is going to be, and it just isn't.

32:45 But the game must start, like, right after, in terms of, like, where it starts in the events of the film, it must start right after you left Recall, Inc., right? Like, you... Correct. Yeah, because now it's, like, up, they know that you found out, so they're trying to track you down, they're going to try and kill you before you get home. You get home, your wife's now trying to kill you. Man, great day. What a great day. Yeah, really. Days go into the pits.

33:15 Yep. Turns out she was never your wife either. Yeah, she was the secondary antagonist who we never meet in the video games girlfriend. Wait, the secondary antagonist is Richter, right? Oh, wait, you do run into him. You're right. He's the one trying to gun you down. Yeah, but it's never really established that that's, like, a guy.

33:35 So you can see why I was praising the accuracy of the film adaptation earlier. True. You're right. I wasn't expecting them to get into, like, memory and identity and corporate control and stuff like that. Like, I guess I just meant, like, there are a lot of interesting, you know, like, oh, I remember that scene. And I do think that the skeleton thing is probably the best example. And maybe I got a little too excited. But it is cool to think that they did program that in a game that otherwise doesn't, like, feature that mechanic.

34:06 Like, I like that because it's very clear that most games present to you what they are, like, right away. And then they never deviate from that. And so it is nice when you get moments of, like, oh, you know, I could walk into the cinema. I wasn't expecting that. Oh, I turned into a skeleton sprite for a second. I wasn't expecting that. Oh, I'm driving a car that only goes in reverse. Oh, I wasn't expecting that.

34:30 I get what you're saying. I think I just would have been satiated if they just mentioned anything about identity in one of the cut scenes aside from putting a towel on your head. That's all I wanted. And I would have been okay with it. In an issue of Nintendo Power, they used the slogan that Recall Inc. has for making the impossible possible. And they had a contest where the first place prize would be a trip to Mars. No. That's what they should have offered, right? They're saying they're making the impossible possible. They should offer to send somebody to Mars when the technology is readily available.

35:09 But no, they chickened out. In little fine print. Yeah, yeah. They chickened out and they offered you a police uniform from the film. A police uniform? Yeah, it was like, who? Was he a cop? No, it was like, I guess it's like the federal colonial. From when they're on Mars? Is that, that's what I assume. Yeah. It was just like a leftover prop that they were like, we've got this thing. That's what they have access to. They're not going to give them anything good, right? But then here's where it gets good. That's just one of the prizes, okay? You get a, and this sounds more like a threat. You get a videotaped trip to Hollywood.

35:51 Why is it being recorded? Who's it going to be shown to? Do you go to Hollywood and it's videotaped? Or do you just get somebody's trip to Hollywood that has been videotaped? Oh, yeah. I think there's a type of like the... Okay, do you guys remember, and this might have just been a fever dream that I had, the idea of your parents ordering you... The Universal Studios? No. Ordering you a video that it's just like a bunch of like your head here, like your face here. And like they would, and the parent would send a photo of a child and they're like, put my child in this movie. I had a book like that. Okay. So it's like that.

36:34 I feel like it's that. Because that sort of fits the themes of Total Recall of like, oh, this is your trip to LA. Oh, yeah. Like here's a video. I like Joe's point, right? It's a videotaped trip to Hollywood and you just get to watch it to then have the memories of it without ever actually going there. Because that's what Recall is essentially offering Schwarzenegger at the beginning of the film.

36:56 They're saying like, yeah, we're going to send, we're going to download a great trip to Mars into your brain without ever having to pay to send you there because this is way cheaper. And I don't know. It sounds like a great idea, honestly. Anyway, moving along, the videotaped trip to Hollywood with a chance to meet the Schwartz himself. A chance? Now, the chance.

37:17 Like he might be there? Everything gets worse. So they've clarified now that you're not just getting a VHS tape of someone else's trip to Hollywood, but instead you are going to Hollywood, but only with a chance to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger. So whose chance is it? Like is it up to Nintendo or is it up to you to meet Arnold? No, I think it's just like, oh, Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Hollywood. We're sending you to Hollywood.

37:39 Chances are you might be on the same block as him at a certain point. I don't know. But could you imagine them? You're going with the Nintendo Power rep and they're like, hey, like there's a chance you might meet Arnold on this trip. And then at the end of the trip, the kid's like really sad and they're like, well, you didn't even try to meet him. Yeah, like every time I go home to Buffalo to see family, like I technically have a chance to meet Josh Allen.

38:05 I mean, even when you're not in Buffalo, you have a chance to meet Josh Allen. There's always a chance to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's not locked to that single geographic location. That kid didn't set foot in Gold's Gym once. How was he expecting to meet Arnold?

38:21 Anyway, there actually is some follow up on this. And that is that the prize was the contest was offered in August of 1990. And apparently they didn't get the chance to meet Schwarzenegger until late 91. And even then like 2008. No, no, no, I know. But it was only for a quick handshake. Wow. I feel like they probably just got like a bunch of other people who won similar contests to just like, you guys all go in a room. We have bottles of water. Arnold will show up later. And then like you wait like four hours. He shows up not trying to be a bad dude at all. Right. He has no idea that they've made you sit in this hot room with just bottles of water and hot dogs that are like rotating on a grill, but not really being grilled.

39:08 So they're rotating over a light just like a like a an orange light. Yeah. Or like they just the grill's not even on. So they are rotating, but it's like they're like, Is it an astronaut making these hot dogs? Yeah. In the Martian police uniforms. Okay. And this is you then have to take home.

39:29 Wow. So anyway, this wound up dominating a large part of it, of this conversation. But I just feel like it's worth noting that I was a kid who always wanted to win these into the power contests and didn't win a single one of them. Turns out, maybe that's for the best. Yeah. Maybe it was for the best that I didn't get a videotaped trip to Hollywood. Just like a really weird, like kind of voyeuristic tape, tape in a Hollywood, you know? And it's probably for the best that this podcast move away from this topic. And on to our next topic, the essential games list.

40:02 Man, I'm so glad I watched the movie. Not only because it enhanced the game a little bit, but because I don't know what the hell we would have talked about for so long. If only Sean watched the movie. It would have been Sean describing the movie to me and Joe, which I feel like is why it's better to either the three of us never see the movie or at least two of us see the movie because. Because me explaining things is probably the worst content available. It's just got to be the most like, what is he talking about? No, no, you're not that bad.

40:35 I guess I just would say that like for, for total recall, the actual NES game, no, this is garbage. It's a garbage game. And yeah, I used plenty of cheats to make sure I explored the game, all the nooks and crannies and everything, and still didn't really have much to talk about. I do like those features that I brought up, obviously, but they are not anywhere near like getting this in the conversation of the essential games list. This isn't even a play it. It's a very difficult game.

41:04 I feel like if you play it for five minutes, you'll experience what we're talking about when it comes to the enemies in particular. I think all enemies in this game suck, but it mostly just sucks that a, um, an action hero like Arnold Schwarzenegger was reduced to such a, uh, a weak, uh, character here. And I hope he gets redeemed in another action movie of his sooner or later.

41:28 Uh, we didn't play a Terminator game yet, right? I don't think so. Cool. Maybe there'll be a Terminator game. This kind of was the Terminator game. Oh yeah. Yeah. You're going to make the case for that now in your essential game list mode, right Joe? No, I have something else to say. Okay. At the beginning of this game in the first level, there is a small stretch of the, of the stage that is a picket fence with no door and no visible way in that has holes drilled in it. And as you walk by it, people's, I'm hoping arms poke, poke out at you and punch you. Um, so not essential. Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I agree. Uh, is it my turn? I usually do say Sean, but yeah, I'm,

42:07 I've been trained Pavlovian, you know, um, I really liked the movie and I'm glad that the podcast forced me to finally, uh, color in this blind spot of mine, but the game is bad. I, I said that at the top of the episode, sorry, I have a knack for not even trying to hide my disdain for things. Um, but it, I, I do think that some of the, the, the set pieces were at least funny. Like the way that they tried to recreate the set pieces and, and trying to put myself into Joe's shoes and trying to piece together what's actually happening from the cut scenes. It was, was amusing.

42:48 So yeah, not essential. Uh, I do think you're right though, Sean, about the movie. And I just want to also, uh, chime in and say it was great. And I would argue that anytime you were thinking about spending with the video game, you would be better off spending with the actual movie. There's plenty of ways to watch this thing. I was kind of surprised, but if you must watch it one way,

43:05 um, please watch it on Paramount plus, uh, because me and Joe want to keep our day jobs. This is, this is a conflict of interest. Yeah, it really is. It's not even like an ad, right? Cause I guess I could say, you know, it's like a, a mountain of entertainment awaits you on Paramount plus. How come we were in those Paramount mountain Superbowl commercials? We really should have been nostalgia involved. Yeah. Uh, well, cause technically we're not like a, we're not a subsidiary, right? Yeah. But like, but we've got like the degrees of separation. I do not work for Paramount. I watch it on Amazon prime.

43:40 You rented it. I bought it for five bucks. You bought it. Hey, that's the way to do it too. Uh, but one thing that, uh, we didn't talk about, this is an R rated movie, right? Sure. So like, I don't know. Is our kids, the market, like our kids on the playing the NES, like a lot, a lot of classic eighties action movies are rated R.

44:01 Yeah. We had that Rambo game, right? That's true. And then I feel like there have been others too, but I just never dawned on me. Like, yeah, like a lot of kids, kids are playing this game. They aren't even allowed to see the movie. Yeah. This is the way that they get to experience the movie that all their, uh, older brothers are talking about. Yeah. That makes sense. Sans nudity, Sans off color jokes, Sans blood, you know, this is the way to experience total recall. I cancel my previous vote. Yeah. I cancel my previous vote.