Getting to Know MazGamingUK

Players

Squidge

Jay

MazGamingUK

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Show Notes

We had the amazing Maz Gaming UK on the show because he is amazing. If you are a fan of the DreamCast Junkyard Podcast, or have seen any of his YouTube videos then you’ll know exactly who he is. But if you have heard the DC Junkyard pod, or watched any of his videos, then I’d recommend going and taking a look.

We’ll wait.

… We can wait almost all-day

Done? Good!

And of course, we started the podcast as we meant to go on: with some silliness and stupidity

and a shout out to our friend Unaffiliated JZ

because we couldn’t start the podcast any other way.

And Jay starts us off with a story from the (at the time) recently released Friend’s Reunion episode

which, if you’re a fan, I’d recommend watching - Jay

And just as extra proof of when we recorded this episode:

Getting to Know Maz

Maz first lets us know about his YouTube channel

seriously, have you subscribed yet?

which has some amazing content already, but is going to be having a bit of a shake up soon.

Maz:

you’ll see on our channel that our last video was December [2020], and that’s because we’re going in a completely different direction at the moment… which is an initial series of six incredibly different videos, all with a different topic.

One thing which is a really nice piece of serendipity - as Jay points out - is that almost everyone we’ve met through the podcast was at EGX 2019

in the before times

we just didn’t get a chance to meet many of them in person. To be fair that’s not a huge surprise though, as EGX is the biggest video gaming expo in the UK.

Squidge mentions the tattoo that he got at EGX, and you can see that tattoo in the following image:

He got this tattoo on our third day at EGX, - when we met Beckski, Stoo Cambridge, the folks from Arcade Attack, and the folks from Adventure in Aellion you can see the original tweet about it here.

Maz compares the difference between fully planned out interviews to those which are organised on the fly. It really isn’t as easy to run on-the-fly interviews which have been arranged with a moment’s notice, so our collective hats are off to those who can run them.

Recent Games

The Recent Games segment will not be new to listeners, but in case you’re new to the show here’s how it goes: we go round the table and discuss one or more game that we’ve been playing recently, and whether we think it’s worth the listeners checking it out. We continue to do this until we’ve run out of games to discuss.

Jay:

I love to hear what everyone’s been playing, and whether they would recommend it.

And, of course, we shared ours too. Would we recommend the games that we’ve all been playing? Or course!

Maz’s Recent Games

As is tradition, we asked our guest to go first.

• Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown

Maz:

You can’t go wrong with a Virtua fighter game… and they’ve rebuilt it in the Dragon Engine, so you can imagine how sexy it looks

Mention of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown lead to Squidge sharing a story from our childhood: that of playing the Sega Saturn version of Virtua Fighter, but with the official Sega Saturn steering wheel accessory - i.e. one of these:

Which reminded Maz that you can play Soul Calibre on the DreamCast with the official fishing rod accessory.

See?

• Two Point Hospital

Maz returned to Two Point Hospital shortly after the announcement of Two Point Campus, and has been playing it since then

Maz:

I’m not sure how Two Point Campus is going to work, because I’m not used to a hospital which doesn’t have ten or 12 ghosts in it.

Squidge’s Recent Games

• Resident Evil

A few days before we recorded, Jay had found out about the Classic REbirth mod from Apple of Eden. It allows you to play the original PC release of Resident Evil (as in the 1996 game) on windows 10, with a number of bug fixes and quality improvements.

Squidge:

After five failed attempts, I was able to completed it in under three hours [without saving once]

Jay drops some knowledge from Alex Aniel’s book “Itchy Tasty: An Unofficial History of Resident Evil” about the dialogue used in the original game. A lot of people make fun of the original game for its very bad dialogue, which was delivered rather badly. But the dialogue was perfectly written for the Japanese audience.

we interviewed Alex not so long back about his book, and you can listen to it here

Maz drops similar knowledge about Corey Marshall - voice actor of Ryo from Shenmue. Apparently, he was specifically asked to give a more wooden delivery for the Japanese market.

Jay’s Recent Games

It had been a super light load for Jay recently, as he doesn’t get to play many games these days

so why’s he on a video game podcast then?

• Shadow Man Remastered

Jay has been playing this since it came out and has completed the remaster several times. In fact, each time Nightdive release an update (roughly every two to six weeks), he has started playing it again from scratch. This is because each update unlocks new restored content, or changes the game in subtle ways.

It’s a very big favourite of Jays, and he has written about the first game across two blog posts

The Thunder Plain Games

For those who are new to the pod, we have a section called “Thunder Plain Games” which might be vaguely reminiscent of a certain programme on BBC Radio 4

but for copyright reasons, it is completely different

Imagine that you are in Final Fantasy X, and the Thunder Plains is a place that you get banished to. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to open a portal to the Thunder Plains and, very nicely and politely, boot you through it. You will get help, maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe it will be in a week, maybe it will be in an hour.

To stop you from getting bored, we’ve said that we’ll keep the portal open and we’ll throw through up to three video games and everything you need to play them - including an Internet connection. The only rules are that you can’t ask for help, because help is on the way, and you can’t tell anyone that you’re in the Thunder Plains.

So our question is: were we to do throw, boot, or yeet you through the portal, which games are we throwing through with you?

Maz’s Choices

• Phantasy Star Online

But Maz would claim both the OG version and Version 2 (both on the DreamCast), meaning that he has access to all of the extra drops and features.

All three of us love Phantasy Star Online, including the soundtrack which was way ahead of it’s time. Seriously, how amazing is this:

• Shining Force II

Another wonderful J-RPG, and Maz’s most favourite J-RPG of all time.

Maz:

it’s the best game on Mega Drive and it gets overlooked.

Since Maz has copies of it for his phone, Mega CD, his Nintendo Switch, and his Sega Nomad, Jay wanted to know which format he’d be taking Shining Force II on. You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out which.

Discussing Mega Drive games brought up the fact that Maz only ever used to play them on the Power Stick

Which lead Squidge to tell us that he is a HUGE fan of arcade sticks, collects them, has completed the original Resident Evil 3 using one, and looks back fondly on using the NES Advantage Stick

And Maz shared a horror story, something he hasn’t brought up on any other podcast in the past. You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what it was though.

MWA HA HA HA! etc. - Jay

• Streets of Rage 4

It is almost criminal how good this game is.

Maz:

that game is far much better than it has any right to be.

We all agree that this is a sign for SEGA to sit up and take notice of the fact that games developers can do wonderful things with their older properties, if given the correct support and change. It wasn’t long after this episode was recorded that the House of the Dead remake was announced.

Jay:

Can you imagine a Golden Axe remake… or a Comix Zone one?

And Maz’s theory of what SEGA could do with Golden Axe is just spot on. Again, you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what it was.

Get Control of Yourself

This is a segment that we like to do every so often, which is based on a tweet from SinceSpacies - who is an absolutely amazing person, by the way. Seriously, go follow him on Twitter

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

The idea here is that we want to know which is the best and which is the worst controller of all time.

Maz’s Best Controller

One of Maz’s best controller is the original Duke controller for the Xbox. This is the controller which had to be downsized, as it was seen as one of the reasons why the Xbox didn’t sell well in Japan

that wasn’t the only reason, but it was one of them

And the other favourite controller of his is the DreamCast controller - which was eerily similar to the Duke, just a little smaller.

Maz:

The VMU is and was amazing, and adds so much to the game.

Talk of the Duke controller made Squidge bring up the fact that he has one of the Hyperkin re-releases of that very same controller. The only difference being that the central XBOX logo is now an OLED screen which plays the original console boot animation when you press it.

Also, here is a photo of it next to Squidge’s Nintendo Switch.

Maz’s Worst Controller

We agree with Maz, and we’re huge fans of the Jaguar.

Maz:

you look at this controller … and you think that Atari were dying at this time, and THAT was the best that they could come up with … even the buttons say "CBA" even the buttons can’t be ar$ed

External Links of Interest

• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Maz’s things
  • Maz on Twitter
  • DreamCast Junkyard Podcast
  • YouTube videos
  • Maz on Twitter
• Classic REbirth mod for Resident Evil
• We were on DreamCast Years

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Among The Stars, from the Cosmos Music Pack by Muz Station Productions
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Breath Deep Breath Clear (Wu Chi) by Siobhan Dakay
• Hero Dance Party - Chiptune/8-bit
• Epic Victory Music - MUSIC4VIDEO
• Mother Earth of Dishonesty, Pt.1 - Fumie Kumatani, Phantasy Star Online OST © Sonic Team
• Creepy Background Music - LonePeakMusic
• Thunder Plains - FFX OST © Square-Enix
• Outro Music is I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)