Patrick Hickey, Jr. (Phoenix FearCon 2020)
Hey kids! Now, Top Kvlt comes in word format! Introducing our first ever website exclusive written interview. This will be the first of many! We're honored to have interviewed Patrick Hickey Jr. in association with Phoenix FearCon. Horror! Wrestling! Japanese Secrets! Games Galore! We hope you enjoy reading about the mind behind The Mind Behind the Games.
Top Kvlt: Patrick Hickey, Jr., welcome to Top Kvlt's first ever website interview!
Patrick: Thanks, guys. Happy to be here.
Top Kvlt: Of course, and we're happy to be presenting this in association with Phoenix FearCon. We wanted to go over a bit of your background first. You’re a lecturer of English and an assistant director of the journalism program at Kingsborough Community College.
Patrick: Yeah, I've been doing that for about 15 years and I'm 37. So I got into academia super early, like right after I got out of school and while I was still in school. So it's been a great run. I'm probably going to do it until the day that I die. It's a great full time job — great benefits, great flexibility. And it allows me to do crazy stuff like write books about video games, be the voice of a main character in a horror video game and all the crazy stuff that I'm doing now. So I love working with my students. I love seeing them grow up. But it also allows me to grow in a sense. I mean, your average full time college professor only works 4 days a week, so it's great.
Kyle: You're also the founder and editor in chief for Review Fix. When did that start? How did you get that going?
Patrick: So what happened was the *In Don LaFontaine voice* true story. The real story. So what happened was I was —
Kyle: I'm sorry, but I'm going to need you to go ahead and narrate my life a little bit.
Patrick: Absolutely. *In Don LaFontaine voice* As he touched his beard and made a Terry Funk reference — so this was May of 2009. I was in a relationship for about 6 years. And it was one of those relationships where it was just stagnant. And then after a while, we ended and I just needed something to invest my time in. So at that time, I had a bachelor's degree in journalism and I just started teaching. I was only teaching for like a year at the time. I was editor-in-chief of two college newspapers. I had done a ton of entertainment writing. So I was just like, OK, what I'm going to do just to start is take all the entertainment writing that I did for those college newspapers, throw it up on this website, and then I'm going to start pitching film, video game and record companies and tell them send me stuff and I'll review it. People started answering. So then I started bringing other writers aboard. And that was like 12 years ago. It's been a lot of fun. I write significantly less reviews than I did back then, because now I'm focusing on writing books and doing all the video game stuff. But I've published over 300 people and I have 7 or 8 people that write consistently for me, or do podcasts or videos on YouTube. We have a steady 5 to 8 pieces a day going up on the site. So you know, some people have classic cars in their garages, and I have a site. So that's kind of how it worked out. it's something I work on every day.
Blaise: That's great though, to have a site where you can really focus on all the things that you love and bring different fandoms together like that.
Patrick: Oh, yeah, we do. Absolutely. We do pro wrestling stuff on there, video games, theater. We used to do food, but now, Covid kind of killed that. Theater, too, but there hasn't been a lot of theater coverage on the site. But lots of video games, lots of music, tons of professional wrestling, tons of comic books. So it's geek heaven.
Kyle: You were also a national video game writer at Examiner?
Patrick: Yeah. That was…that sucked. That was great. But sucked at the same time. I was an editor at NBC and teaching. I was an editor at NBC for like 2 and a half years. I covered 2 Olympics, 2 and a half seasons of Saturday Night Live. I had a fantasy football column, I did national hockey coverage. I did a ton of video game stuff. I loved it there, but it would either be super busy or super slow. So when it was super slow — I probably shouldn't be saying this, but who cares? I don't work there anymore. When it was super slow, I would just play Pokemon. So this is like 2012, 2013. I would play Pokemon and I would also write for Examiner, or I would be on the train coming home and Examiner would send me all these free games, so I would play them on the train and then I would bang out reviews. After six months, I was the most read video game writer on that site. It worked out great. It was like a little side hustle that just completely manifested itself. And then I'll never forget it — one day, I got an email from Examiner that said, "As of August 28th, Examiner is no more". And it was like thousands of articles. I even eventually became a wrestling writer on there also. I interviewed Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler, Rey Mysterio, Jim Ross — tons of people. And then it was just like, all that stuff's gone. So I ended up transferring it to Review Fix, which was good since I own the site. Thank God. But for so many super solid writers that were either just getting started or were looking for something to have that was a side hustle, all their writing was gone. So that's actually one of the reasons why I started this, because I said to myself, if you're a writer, you want to be a Highlander, you know? You want to be immortal.
Blaise: They just wiped it one day without any warning?
Patrick: All gone. So, after that happened for probably 6 or 7 months, I was kind of like, what's next? And then a couple of people just put me in a situation where I was like, you know what, it's time to do me. And I started the books. By next year, I'll have 6 books out in the series. And it's awesome because now I have more ownership over my creativity. And the first book led into the voice acting. The last 3 years have been completely crazy, but in the best way possible.
Blaise: It’s so much more rewarding when you start to work on things that mean something to you. I’m sure it was great working at Examiner, too, but nothing compares to building something yourself from the ground up. So let's talk about The Mind Behind The Games. You've written 5 books so far and have been conducting interviews with cult and classic video game developers. What are some of the most fascinating interviews you've been a part of and what are some of the great facts you've picked up along the way?
Patrick: So before I started doing this — I mean, I have over 3,000 video games across like 30 consoles. I have a ton of video games to the point where the first time my wife saw my collection, you know, it was like 40-year-old virgin. I love the medium. And I was one of those people that thought that I knew a ton. I never say that I know everything, because that's impossible. But I thought I knew a ton. And after every interview, I ended up finding out more stuff, and it's just like brain explosion every single time. And it's hard for these people because many of them haven't gotten the notoriety that they deserve. You could be in Starbucks with Mark Turmell, the guy that created NBA Jam. That's a game that made a billion dollars in the arcades in its first year. The guy's a rockstar, and you could be in Starbucks with him and have no idea who he is. It's crazy. So, these guys have been so forthcoming and I've been told amazing stories over the phone, through email, through Facebook, and face to face. After every interview, I just kind of have to go like, oh my God, you know? These are some of the best stories! To try and relate it a little bit to horror, Night Trap is considered to be like one of the worst games of all time, right?
Kyle: You're just...blowing through our questions here.
Patrick: Haha, sorry.
Kyle: No, don't be! That's one of the benefits of interviewing a journalist.
Patrick: So Night Trap is considered one of the worst games of all time. I don't think that's a fair moniker. It was on Sega CD. Basically, it's an 80s slasher film that you feel. A bunch of kids are having a slumber party and I think it's the girl from Diff'rent Strokes, the blonde?
Blaise: Did they just remaster this a couple of years back?
Patrick: Yes, they did. And the crazy thing is they remastered it probably 2 weeks before my manuscript was due. So I contacted the people doing the remaster and I was like, "I need to interview like today.” And I got it in the book, which was excellent. The thing is, it's one of those games where you see the cover and you're like, "that game's shit.” That's what the average person does, but being able to talk to the creator and the programmer and the guy that did the audio, only to find out that the game was originally supposed to come out in 1985? Yeah, it came out in 1992. So 7 years in video games is like 40 years in our lifetime. The difference between 1985 to 1992 is like the original Mario Brothers vs. Super Mario World. Huge difference in gameplay. So if Night Trap comes out in 1985 instead of 1992, it could have affected the video game industry in a huge way. Being able to find out all that background made me judge the game differently because it was supposed to be for a completely different time period; for a completely different audience. And then when it came out in 1992, it was basically banned in the United States because the politicians saw this game and they were just like, "this is reprehensible!” Ugh! So my research process for this chapter was to listen to like 8 hours of Senate Congressional Hearing.
Kyle: Hahaha, that sounds amazing!
Patrick: It was hilarious at the same time, because listening to Joseph Lieberman talk now is funny, but watching him talk in the 90s when he had more hair — I'm just imagining Huey Lewis in the background, and he's doing the Clinton thumb thing, saying, "a good parent does not buy their child Night Trap for Christmas." And I'm just like, damn. So without Night Trap, you don't get the rating system that video games have. Now, it's one of those games like Doom, Primal Rage, Mortal Kombat, Lethal Enforcers that helped the video game companies say, "listen, we need to learn how to police ourselves, or else all these dumbass politicians are going to try and ruin our game." The guy that programmed Night Trap, his name is Rob Fulop, and he was the guy that programmed Space Invaders on Atari 8-bit, Missile Command on Atari 2600 — like legend. Legend. So when Night Trap comes out, the reception is so bad that his girlfriend at the time leaves him.
Kyle: That's amazing.
Patrick: And she's like, "yeah, I can't be with you.” You've got this guy that's created some of the greatest games of all time and now he has this black mark on his resume. So now he says, "you know what, fuck this. I'm going to create the cutest game of all time." So he creates this game called Cats. Then that turns into Catz and Dogz and then that becomes Petz and these games sell like 40 million copies across the PC, and the Nintendo DS. Without these games, you wouldn't have Nintendogs. Nintendo basically stole the premise from Fulop.
Kyle: Poor guy.
Patrick: It's OK, he made his money, you know? So he designed these games on PC and he allowed you to copy your pet to a floppy disk, then bring it over your friend's house and give them your dog or your cat and whatever. Like he's a genius. He's a genius. Finding out that Night Trap not only should have had a completely different legacy was important, but then finding out about the man and how this one game changed his life so dramatically, that's probably one of my favorite stories. And that's in the first book in detail.
Kyle: That's very cool. Fascinating. So why do you think it is that directors are celebrated, and there's a celebrity involved in the people behind all these different mediums of creators, but it's somehow lost on video games?
Patrick: I have this conversation with people all the time. And I say, "that's the reason why I do these books", because if I say, “who wrote Romeo and Juliet?” It's an easy question. If I say, “who sings Thriller?” It's Michael Jackson — or if you're really cool, then you say, Fall Out Boy you know? It's most people that play video games, they just want to play the game and they want to relax and have fun. They don't see it as the budding art form that it is because it's still relatively new. The video game industry really is only like 40-years-old. If we were having the same conversation about film in the 1930s, we might be having a very similar conversation where people don't know who directors of important films are. Another thing it might be is that the video game industry is also extremely close knit and very protective. So still to this day, there are some games where you're like, “oh, who created this game?” And it'll say on the instruction manual, ‘Phoenix Rie’ and you're like, "who the hell is Phoenix Rie?" I know who Phoenix is, it's Rieko Kodama. I've interviewed her before, but the average person doesn't know.
The average gamer doesn't say, "I wonder who that person really is," you know? And the thing is, the video game industry did things like this because let's just say Sega makes a game with Phoenix. They don't want Nintendo, Capcom, Sony, or Microsoft to know who that person is either, because if they like Phoenix's work, then they'll go and they'll poach them, and bring them over to their company. There's so many stories in my books like that, especially when Electronic Arts first started. They would find games that were good and companies like Accolade used to get poached all the time by EA. So Accolade made the Hardball baseball series, which was really cool. One of the producers, Sam Nelson, he basically went to a San Francisco Giants game with somebody from EA, and after the game was over, he was working on Mutant League Football and he got poached like that. So all of these companies are very protective of the people that work with them so we don't find out all of the people involved. It's a whole bunch of things.
Activision now is considered one of the most important video game companies in the world. They started because Atari refused to put the names of their developers on their cartridges. So you have David Crane and all of these amazing game developers that were working for Atari and making them millions of dollars. And they were like, "can I have my name on my creation?" And Atari was like, “…no.” So they were like, "OK, we're going to go and start our own company.” And then they did. Then, Atari started to give more credit to their developers. But that was 1993. And that's in the United States. The Japanese companies still to this day are very protective. Some of the interviews I've gotten that were the most difficult to get were because the Japanese developers are just so hard to get a hold of. And then when you get them, they have this sense of honor that they have to protect the industry and they don't want to tell you the secrets behind the game. They don't want it. They don't even want to tell you what they were doing with their lives at that point, you know? So it's super, super hard. I've had a lot better luck with European and American developers than Japanese developers. Because still to this day, there's that level of secrecy — it's almost like professional wrestling in a way, you know? There's that layer.
Kyle: Protect that kayfabe, brother.
Patrick: Yeah, absolutely. So that's the biggest problem. That's the reason why people only know the big, big names in the video game development industry, and that's been one of my jobs, I feel, is to show you behind the curtain, like to pull The Wizard of Oz. I'm Toto. I'm the 6'4, 250 lbs. version of Toto — just going by and grabbing the curtain, pulling it out and showing you what went on behind the scenes.
Kyle: So I think what you do also with these books is you allow people to actively, or rather force them to see video games as an art form.
Blaise: What do you think is the step beyond just presenting it to people and saying, "look at all of the work that goes into this?” Because let's face it, a lot of people are stupid about this stuff. If you want to talk film and effects work, CGI is usually a lazier, less effective way of creating something. A lot of the time, particularly in horror, practical effects are a way more impressive and realistic outcome. But to explain that to somebody and mention a FX artist like Tom Savini, that's not going to really resonate with most people. So what do you think is the next step in making people accept video games as that art form? Is it people showing up who are recognizable actors? Like, is it Norman Reedus showing up in Death Stranding?
Patrick: I mean, that's definitely going to help. But see, that's the thing. Professional athletes, celebrities have been involved in video games for years.
Kyle: Right. 50 Cent was in that Iraq game.
Blaise: Riiiight! And Fred Durst was in Fight Club.
Kyle: Hahahaha, so good!
Patrick: You have Bruce Willis who was in Apocalypse.
Kyle: And also that Fifth Element game!
Patrick: Yup! So that definitely helps. I think you just have to find a way to make video game history more fun. And I'm going to be totally honest: books to a lot of people aren't sexy. They're not fun, and when you hear that a college professor is writing books about video game history, you could kind of roll your eyes, you know? But the thing is, it's like you said, I've written for Examiner and I run my own site. I write in a very fun, digestible way. My nephew is 11, my other nephew is 18. They've read my books. They've enjoyed them. I've had people in their 50s and 60s read it and they enjoy it. So that's what I think is important, trying to make it as palatable and fun and immersive as possible. There's that new Netflix series that's called Level Up that's all video game history. And there's a bunch of great documentaries that are out like King of Kong, as well as Atari: Game Over. I feel like the industry is beginning to gain more steam. Covid, in a way, was an amazing thing for the video game industry, because you have people buying Nintendo Switches and other systems that would have never bought them before, because they’re home now and have all this extra time. And now they’ve started playing video games and new games are still coming out. I'm working on 4 video games right now with 4 different development teams and we have not stopped during Covid. Theater is dead. Film is just starting to put the pieces back together, but video games haven’t skipped a beat.
Video games are already the highest grossing form of pop culture in the world. They've been that way for about 5 or 6 years. As they continue, people will start to see them more as an art form. It's just going to take time. It's funny, I tell people this all the time — I know that I'm writing books that are going to mean a lot more in 25 years. The first book came out in April 2018, I sold a copy 2 days ago on my site and the person didn't even know who I was. And I'm like, “that's great because I can introduce you to the second book, and the third book.” But books and video games kind of have that slow burn where a game could be out for 6, 8 months; a year sometimes. And all of a sudden, people start to get interested. The first book's been out for 2 and a half years and it's still selling consistently, and I'm constantly trying to spread the word and get to as many people as possible, because I feel like people need to know these stories. People can connect more to this art form if they understand that it's more than just fun and games. That people have lost loved ones. Some people have died doing this, you know? Because this is so stressful. But some people have transitioned into different careers doing this, or some people have left existing careers to get into this. It's an amazing art form. And I just feel like more people need to know about it. So I'm just trying to do my part to make that happen.
Kyle: I think you're doing it well, man.
Blaise: It bums me out that you say that — a lot of people don't think that books are sexy and they don't read. Last weekend, we spoke with the host of Phoenix FearCon, Jay Michaels, and we were talking about how cool it is that the convention isn’t just screenings and panels. It's all these different things. You specifically are doing a workshop. I was saying how refreshing it was that Phoenix FearCon wasn't only about fanboy stuff and Jay mentioned how he's glad that he doesn't have to go up there and just say something like, "OK, well, when they stabbed you in this movie, how did you feel?" There's elements where if someone is an aspiring voice actor or looking to get into video game development, they can attend a workshop that dives into those realms. So that was something that I found interesting and super unique. Tell us about your involvement in Phoenix FearCon.
Patrick: When Jay asked me to do the workshop, I said, “I'll do my best to show people the steps that I took to get to the books and to get to the voice acting,” because it's not your prototypical journey. It's very different from the way the average person gets into it. I don't have an agent, I don't have PR, I do everything myself. And I've hired people to do stuff for me. After a couple of months, I'm just like, "I do a better job of this myself.” But yeah, everything just kind of happened super organically and I feel like it worked out great.
One of the things that I want to talk about at the workshop is just the essence of horror. Putting someone in a situation and forcing them to think of all of the possibilities; all of the things that could happen. That's extremely scary. You know, you're in a room and it's dark and you don't know where the door is — that's some scary shit. And for me, I was 33. My wife was 5 months pregnant and I had a master’s degree and closing on getting tenure, but I wasn't completely happy with my life. There were other things that I wanted to do professionally and that was really fucking scary. And I just decided that I had to do all the things that I wanted to do. The first thing was to write a book, because if you're a writer and you haven't written a book, then you're like that person that sits in Starbucks on their MacBook all day. You're writing just for people to see you writing. And you want to tell people that you're a writer, but you're not a real writer, you know? So I wanted to get that out of the way. And then I just fell into the whole Padre thing. I mean, it's a crazy story. All of a sudden, I'm voice acting, and it's a snowball inside an anvil inside a snowball. It was just crazy the way everything happened. And I can't imagine my life any different than it is now.
Kyle: So we wanted to ask you about all those voice acting tokens you've got going on. You've dipped way more than a toe into the pool of voice acting. So The Padre is on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One from Shotgun with Glitters. What was that experience like?
Patrick: Oh, my God. So what happened was I just finished my first book and I went back to writing for Review Fix. And one thing is, I never stopped writing for Review Fix. I was writing the book and still managing the site every single day, while taking care of my daughter and my wife and working. So it's like, “oh, my God, never ends.”
One of the big things that I do at Review Fix is I interview indie musicians, indie theater — indie everything. So I go on Twitter a lot and I look up hashtags. One of the hashtags that I like to look at a lot is #IndieGames. I see this game and it looks kind of like Minecraft, but it's a Catholic priest and he's walking in this dark graveyard. The lighting is really solid — the shadows, and it's scary. And then this tree just comes alive and slaps him across the screen. I thought, "that's pretty cool". So I emailed them and said, "have you guys done any interviews about this game?" And they replied, "oh, well, we haven't been developing it that long. Maybe like 5 or 6 months." So I interview them. We do a Q&A through email, they friend me on Facebook and we start talking and they're like, "do you want to play the game?" And I say, "sure, I'd love to". It immediately reminds me of Alone in the Dark, which is one of the first ever survival horror games, but it's a point and click game, so it's text heavy. So the game starts off and you're in this Catholic priest's bedroom. He wakes up, a little note goes under the door and you've got to look over and read the note. And that's when the journey begins. But the first line in the text is, "it's been a WEAK since the disappearance of Cardinal Benedictus.” So week, w-e-e-k. You don't have to be a fuckin’ rocket scientist to know how to spell week. But they spelled it w-e-a-k.
Kyle: Oh no.
Patrick: They're from Bulgaria.
Kyle: OK, fair.
Patrick: So I'm immediately drawn in by the game’s music, and by its visuals. But now it's text heavy and I saw a typo and the college professor in me is just like, "alright.” I stop playing and I message them with, "listen, if you need somebody to go through every line of dialogue and clean this up, I'll do it.” And they're like, "well, how much?" So we agreed on a price and that day, I edited around two thousand lines of dialogue. I gave it to them the same day. A week later, they sent me a new build of the game and all of my corrections are in there and I'm like, "this is really cool," and they thank me. Then a couple of minutes later, I get another email with more dialogue. I thought It was just going to be a one time thing. And they're like, "no, you're the story editor on the game now.” So that was my first paid gig in video games.
Then we're getting ready to go to Kickstarter with the game. So they're like, "we're going to write the Kickstarter, but obviously, you're going to have to edit the Kickstarter.” And I'm like, "oh my God.” That's a lot of pressure. I have to edit the entire Kickstarter page. You have a month to prepare the Kickstarter and then it's live for a month. Two weeks before we're going to launch, the creator, Bence Zilhaly, messages me. He's amazing. He says, "we're fucked." So I ask, "what happened?" And he tells me the voice actor just quit. So without even a hitch, I say, "well, he wasn't that good". And he's like, "what are you talking about?" And I reply, "he sounded like Russell Brand. You don't want that. It's supposed to be a horror game, and he sounds, *Silly English accent* oh, you know, like a wacky Englishman, you know.” And I tell him, "it's not scary."
Kyle: Right, You lose the atmosphere with that.
Patrick: Yeah. So he asks, "what are we going to do?" So I tell him, "I could do something.” And he's like "Really?" "Yeah." Then I go in my man cave and I'm just like, "what the fuck did I just do?" So I'm a 90s kid — I grew up listening to the Jerky Boys. And I can do voices, and I've always had fun at other people's expense with prank phone calls, the whole nine yards. So I've always been good at the Don LaFontaine movie trailer voice. You know, *Don LaFontaine voice* "In a world... One man, one tortilla. Robert De Niro is Tortilla." I'm like, I can't do that voice for this game. Because that would just be ridiculous. It's supposed to be a scary game. And they wanted this priest to be English. So I went to my man cave and thought, "how do I combine the Russell Brand and that deep baritone?” So we came across this dark English voice. *Padre voice* "My name is Alexander and I'm The Padre. And as I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I sing Coolio and, you know," and they loved it. Then they asked me, "can you do all the dialogue like today?" And I'm like, "yeah, I can.” And I remember when I was done, my throat was on fire. I coughed up blood and it was because I wasn't there. Like I couldn't find it. Now it's just like, *Padre voice* "hello, my name is Alexander, The Padre.” It's right here. I can feel it.
Then we don't get funded on Kickstarter, which sucked. But eventually, we got so much buzz from people that we ended up getting to make and release the game on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Now I've done all my VO already for the sequel and it should be coming out sometime next year. The first game is like an ode to Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. It's very adventure oriented, where you have a gun and there's zombies, but it's more about finding the secrets in the house. The second game, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell is more like Contra meets Smash TV where you're just running around and shooting everything. Oh my God, it's so much fun. After this, I didn't want to be a one hit wonder. So I started throwing my hat in with other games. That's how I became the narrator in The Kaiju Offensive, as well as trailers for Relentless Rex. Those guys messaged me because they saw the Padre stuff and asked, "what could you do for us?" So I'm the narrator in that game and basically the voice is the narrator from Smash TV. It's a very over the top kind of thing.
Relentless Rex was really cool, because I was watching that game on Twitter for a long time, and it looked so pretty. It's basically a side scrolling runner where the bad guy chases the good guy and you have to finish the level without getting caught. I play the big T-Rex chasing this little dinosaur across the level. But this guy, Kevin Wynns — an amazing artist, and super talented — he wanted to get the guy that did the voice for Candyman, or Kevin Michael Richardson. But I thought I could totally sneak in and do something really cool. So I annoy the shit out of this guy. I'm like, “let me do the voice,” and he was just like, "oh, I would feel bad if you auditioned and you didn't get it.” And I'm like, "no, don't feel bad.” Because at this point, I did The Kaiju Offensive and The Padre and no one had said no to me. So I'm waiting for my first no to tell me what I'm not doing well enough. This way, I can get better. So I ended up auditioning. And he likes Kevin Michael Richardson's Shredder from the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. I don't want to rip that off. So I kind of added like an Austrian accent to the Kevin Michael Richardson Shredder. And they they eat it up. For the Kickstarter, I did the whole trailer and YouTube videos of Relentless Rex Rexplaining. And it was so much fun. Eventually, I ended up doing podcasts with Kevin Wynns and we had a full conversation with me as Rex the entire podcast.
In just a year, I was part of three games: the main voice, with one failed and one successful Kickstarter, so there were a lot of learning experiences. Also, I'm the narrator in RDR (Run Die Run Again), and that's the traditional Don LaFontaine voice. Tony Barnes, the creator of that game, has also done Strider on PS4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Xbox, Star Wars: Episode III on Xbox and PS2, Desert Jungle and Urban Strike on the Sega Genesis. He’s a legend and I've interviewed him for my books. And just to have him trust me enough to do voice on one of his games is like the realization of everything. The only other game that I could talk about right now is this game called KROOM.
Kyle: Right, KROOM! You're writing the story for that also, right?
Patrick: Yes, I wrote the story. What happened was I got a message on Facebook one day from Pete Paquette. I'm a nerd. And he's like, "Is this Patrick Hickey, the author of The Minds Behind the Games?" And I'm like, "Is this Pete Paquette, the animator from Bioshock: Infinite?" And he's like, "yeah, how the fuck do you know who I am?" And I'm like, "how the fuck do you know who I am?" That was basically the conversation verbatim on Facebook. So he's like, "I have a podcast if you want to come on.” It was very similar to this — cool people. We ended up having a conversation and at the end of the podcast, he's like, "if you want to do more in video games, let me know.” And I'm like, "I'm letting you know.” Two weeks later, he contacts me and he's just like, "listen, I have this idea for a game and I want you to name all the characters, and I want you to fill out all the law.” But wait, I'm a nonfiction writer. I interview people, I'm a journalist. This is fiction writing. And he's just like, "but you've interviewed all these developers like you. You've played thousands of video games. Pat, you could do this.” I must have lost like 50 pounds that week. But I did it.
Kyle: Was this one of the most challenging things for you, having to create a weird, fictional world in sci-fi and having to develop all of it?
Patrick: Absolutely. But it happened. It happened. And I'm super happy with the story. Basically, the pitch I was given was that this planet is being invaded by an alien force, and the brightest scientist on the planet creates a robot to fend it off. I'm like, "so it's like Terminator had sex with Megaman" and he's like, "yeah.” Then he explained that there's this 80s board game that him and his brother used to play called The Omega Virus. And he wants to add parts of it to the game. So I ended up playing that board game, reading a whole bunch of other stuff, and I came up with the idea that this planet; these invaders, are basically sterile. They cannot reproduce, so they scour the universe to find a planet that is genetically compatible with them. So what they want to do is invade this planet, steal all the kids and leave, and then try and find another planet. But there's this whole other backstory where not only are they sterile, but there's also a disease that's ravaging through them that is highly contagious. I wrote all of this like two years before Covid. So as it's happening, I'm like, "son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!" But there's a lot more to the story, too. There's definitely some horror elements. You've got a whole infected alien force trying to infiltrate this whole planet. So there's some scary moments in there and this robot ends up being far more human than any of the people on this planet. There's lots of Robocop in there also when you think about it. If you grew up in the 80s, you'll definitely connect with the story. The music is so good. If you love games like Metroid and Castlevania, and all those old 8-bit scores, it's a treat.
Kyle: We'll look out for that, that sounds great!
Kyle: I think there's no better segue into horror games. I want to know, what were your favorite horror games growing up?
Patrick: Growing up — Maniac Mansion, that game was pretty scary to me, because when the bad guys caught you, you would always jump a bit. And even though it was a point and click game, you didn't want to get caught by these guys. So when you knew they were coming, you were like, "holy shit, they're two rooms away!" And the cut scenes were so good that you kind of felt it. I think that's the key to a great horror game. Getting somebody to feel while they're playing. So in spite of a lack of technology, a game like Maniac Mansion did a great job of getting somebody to feel. The original Resident Evil, the first time that zombie Rottweiler jumps through the glass — if you don't shit yourself a little bit, then you're like MacGyver. But what they did for storytelling, that's what was great. And then I've reconnected with a lot of great horror games like Sweet Home. Have you guys ever played it before?
Top Kvlt: No, no, no.
Patrick: So Sweet Home is basically the grandfather to the Resident Evil series. It only came out in Japan on the NES, and it's the same kind of premise. You're stuck in this house and you find out that there's this whole backstory. That game is scary as hell. Also Splatter House. If you've never played it, that's a really scary game. The intro to that game, the music, and cinematography, it reminds me of Sleepaway Camp in a way. It's just really creepy. One of the scariest games that I've ever played though, The Suffering is extremely scary. Naturally, if you're talking about horror games, you have Resident Evil, you have Clocktower, and Silent Hill. But The Suffering belongs up there, too.
The Suffering was really cool in the fact that you basically play as this guy that has been put into prison for killing his wife but you don't know if he's innocent or not. What happens is the prison that you're at has this whole backstory, too, and there's a slave ship behind things and a lot of crazy shit that happened on this island. The thing is, everything that you do influences the direction of the game. So there's multiple endings. The great part about the game is if you play the sequel and you have the save data from the first game, your game continues into the second game. Now, this is like 2004, 2005. So these guys were totally ahead of their time. But you could do crazy shit in this game. It was also how the prison was lit. That's the thing. Lighting in horror movies is key, and in video games it's very similar. And now in every game, even like fucking Tony Hawk, you're able to increase or decrease the lighting in the beginning. But you couldn't do that in The Suffering, so the game is extremely dark, and shit just pops up out of nowhere. So you're in a prison with these monsters, but then you're in prison with other inmates, and the game keeps track of how many innocent people you kill, which affects your ending as well.
To me, one of the best elements of horror is the ability to decide, and sometimes not liking or not agreeing with the decision that you're making, but making it anyway. Not being able to avoid your flaws — that's horror, that's scariness. If you run around the game and you're just killing people willy nilly, you're going to get one ending. And then if you try and preserve life and just solve all the puzzles in the game, and try to get to the end of the game as clean as possible, then you get a different ending. So I really liked that game for not only the storytelling, but also how dark it got. I knew the creator of it. He was actually influenced tremendously by The Wire, which you would never think. The sequel ends up taking place in Baltimore because the character escapes from prison, and he goes back to Baltimore and he's trying to put the pieces back together of his life. It's basically like The Wire and Candyman had a baby.
Blaise: As far as your favorite horror game now, is that a similar story?
Patrick: This is crazy. So my favorite horror game now was actually never released.
Kyle: Can I guess this? Because I had a whole section on this. Is it P.T.?
Patrick: Absolutely.
Kyle: I yell about it every year.
Blaise: We replayed it recently and were very worried that we were going to lose the download when we were finished. I didn’t grow up with a console. I grew up PC gaming. I didn't get my PlayStation 2 until I was like 13. So I had a very different experience with video games growing up. So now with Kyle, we have the PS4. A little while back, we decided, "OK, it's time for me to play P.T.” And then we made sure that we looked for the torrent so that, God forbid, it got erased at the end, we'd still have it, because Kyle had been saving it on his PS4 all this time to play one more time. What a fucking masterpiece.
Patrick: I mean, when you think about it, it's a thirty-minute gameplay loop, but it's so effectively done. It's just like little things, like talking to the alarm clock, keep pressing the button. And then it starts talking back to you. Or then looking at the little crack of the door and just pressing the button a bunch of times, and then that triggers something else.
Kyle: Or the ball that turns into the head. There's just little things everywhere that make it so people have different experiences completely dependent on what they find and what they miss, and I feel like that could have revolutionized gaming forever if it just fucking came out. I don't forgive you Konami. I will never forgive you.
Patrick: Absolutely. I remember when it got released as a demo. I have the demo. I will never delete it.
Kyle: Same. I played it immediately when it came out and was just completely blown away. Spilled an entire glass of whiskey all over myself playing that.
Patrick: It scared the shit out of my nephews. To this day, when my nephews come over the house, like, "you want to play P.T.?" "Fuck you, man. No, no." It was so good. I have other favorite horror games from that era. Gabriel Knight is a great horror series. It's more detective, but there's some scary shit going on there. If you look at the box art for the game, it's actually a man being hung. They don't have box art like that anymore. And the writer for that, she's amazing. She's done a ton of literature since. So you've got this really great horror point and click that's written by an amazing writer. It's just great, great stuff, but P.T. man…ugh.
Kyle: Nothing like it.
Patrick: Nothing like it.
Kyle: And now there are a lot of games that are trying to take that build and do something else, like Layers of Fear and Allison Road? There's a lot of these games that are really taking that model, but they still don’t have that tension, that dread, that confusion, that atmosphere. It's just you need that visionary to handle something like that. Without him, you don't have it.
Patrick: And we've talked about this before, how people don't know the names of video game creators, but it's like Kojima. That's somebody that everybody knows, you know, Kojima, Jaffe —
Kyle: He's a rockstar.
Patrick: Right. He's a rockstar, and the thing that I'll say is you never, ever know what it will take for someone to blow up like that.
Blaise: Let's dive into horror, shall we? What's your favorite horror movie?
Patrick: Ugh, that's impossible! I mean, I mentioned before, Sleepaway Camp. I love that movie. I think it's great. I love the build towards the end, and the reveal is amazing.
Kyle: They'll never do it again. Not in this climate.
Patrick: But yes. Sleepaway Camp, definitely. I love John Carpenter. I love They Live. It's one of my favorite movies ever. And I hate talking about politics. I've unfollowed so many people, not because of their political opinion, but I will unfollow you because when I go on Instagram, I want to see lots of video game shit, lots of pop culture shit, lots of fun shit. Facebook, too. I want to see pictures of people's families, happy moments. I don't want to see people enjoying other people's sorrows. I don't want to see the left attacking the right, the right attacking the left. I don't want to see any of that shit. But man, They Live. That film is so important and that's what's going on now. Staying with John Carpenter, The Thing is great. I also have a really soft spot for some of the really shitty Stephen King movies like The Stand. I love The Stand. Rob Lowe as a deaf mute guy, like, holy shit. And Molly Ringwald. I'll watch anything that she's in. That's like my fourth wife. Lots of Troma stuff. I've interviewed Lloyd before. My dad's old fire inspector office was in Long Island City. Troma's office was a couple of blocks away. So we would drive by there. My dad actually used to inspect their building, and we used to get tons of free shit. So I'm like 10, 11 years old, walking around with a Toxie shirt. Like a really bad, cheap Toxie shirt, because everything from Troma is cheap, but it's awesome at the same time. I Love SGT. Kabukiman NYPD so much.
Kyle: Toxie 4 is insane! You need to see it! Oh, man. It's a return to form, but with modernized effects. It's as gross and wild as Troma has ever been.
Patrick: I just wish that stuff had a bigger fan base. It's so niche now, you know, but I love that shit. Another favorite of mine, it's not the best movie, but the first two minutes of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Kyle: We love it. Like, as good as Gary Oldman is as Dracula, that's how bad Keanu Reeves is as Jonathan Harker.
Patrick: I would love for him to do it now.
Blaise: We were just watching Horror of Dracula, where Jonathan Harker goes in with a completely different intention of killing Dracula. And that would be perfect for Keanu Reeves now.
Patrick: Man, Gary Oldman is so good in that movie. But the first two minutes, when you find out like this whole genesis of Dracul, it's so intense. I love the book. Now, when I reread it, I just see Gary Oldman. I don't see Keanu Reeves though. That's such an underrated movie, truly.
Blaise: We have a lot of video game adaptations to film and of course, there's obviously a lot of movie references in video games. But what's a movie that you would like to see a video game take influence from?
Patrick: Oh, I tell people this all the time. What you have right now in the video game industry is a lot of genre blending. You have a game that's a shooter, and then it's a shooter RPG. Think about Fallout. Fallout is a first person shooter with RPG elements, so now that's what every game tries to do. It melds two or three different genres together. I actually pitched a game like that two months ago to a developer. It was three genres mixed into one. We're actually talking now, so I can't talk too much about it. But one game that I've told people about — I've put it on my Instagram before and I even did the box art for it — I'm like, "yeah, I could make this video game.” There's a movie that Rob Lowe was in, with Patrick Swayze. It's called Youngblood. It's a hockey movie. Rob Lowe is the main character, and he's Dean Youngblood, but he's basically like Wayne Gretzky. He's this amazing hockey player, but he starts playing in this league that is extremely violent. Like people getting their teeth knocked out. It's a great movie. It's totally 80s. If you want a crash course on cinematography, watch the first two minutes of that movie. It's Dean Youngblood shooting the puck from all of these different angles and hitting the net, or skating backwards and forwards. But it's just his feet and the lighting is amazing.
So the game would be a hybrid, because he's finding his way and he's learning how to fight. But he's also sleeping with the coach's daughter, and they're going on dates, trying not to get caught. He's like 17, 18 years old. And then he's living at this woman's house, because that's how it was if you played junior hockey when you were a kid in a foster family. So I would love to have it be like a NBA Jam style hockey game with fighting and brawling mechanics. But then in between the games, it would be like almost Metal Gear, where you're in the movie theater with this girl and you can't get caught on your date. So there would be stealth action involved in it, but it would be totally 80s with tons of great music and cut scenes. My second answer would be They Live because they made a Thing game —
Kyle: It was so good! Completely underrated! And the AI at the time also? It was so well crafted. It was really an incredible experience.
Patrick: It's one of the greatest video game adaptations of a movie ever. I love it.
Kyle: It's lived in my mind and I used to think that the graphics were incredible. And it's so weird going back. I was just looking at pictures of it, and I was like, "that wasn't my game.” But just incredible gameplay.
Patrick: Yeah. So if you could make a game of The Thing and you can make a game of The Warriors, why can't you make a They Live game? You have that eight minute fight scene and that needs to be recreated in video game form. I made a cover, because I make fake covers all the time on Instagram. I made a cover and I tagged Rockstar. I was like, "why haven't you guys done this?"
Kyle: If you can make a fake cover for a Tusk video game...
Patrick: Oh, wow. That'll be cool. Alright, I'll work on it for you. I'll e-mail it to you.
Kyle: You're the best.
Kyle: So in our research of you, we noticed that you happen to be a pretty big wrestling fan. Who takes the belt off Mox and when?
Patrick: This is the thing — I love MJF. I think MJF has that early Ric Flair, Nick Bockwinkel classic shit talking. He has that almost Jeff Jarrett quality — like you want to see this guy get fucked up so bad, but he always finds a way to squirm his way out. The thing is though, I'm not convinced that MJF could have a five star match with Jon Moxley.
Kyle: OK, so maybe not in the Japan sense, but storytelling wise, like an Undertaker vs. Triple H kind of thing, I think both are fully capable of creating magic together.
Patrick: Sure, it could definitely work. I think they could do it. But I just don't think MJF is ready to be champion JUST yet. Eventually, yes, absolutely.
Kyle: Fair, but he's like 24-years-old and he's already stupid ahead of his time. Nobody has shared the screen like that with Jericho since Kevin Steen. And honestly, there hasn't been somebody even before Steen that I can really remember in a long long time.
Patrick: And I think that scene two weeks ago when they were having that little back and forth — just beautifully done. Beautifully done. That's Jericho saying I invest in you. And if somebody like Jericho invests in you, then you know you've got it. What I'm saying is I think that MJF eventually becomes world champion. Absolutely. And I think Wardlow definitely plays a role if he beats Moxley. And then I think Wardlow is almost promised a face turn at some point.
Kyle: Yeah, he's got that Batista turn brewing.
Patrick: Mhm, and the thing is he's not that big. He's 6'2, like 260 lbs (look at me say that's not that big). Um…so I don't know who beats Moxley. I mean, I love Brian Cage and think he's one of the best pure athletes in all of wrestling. And I feel like he was just starting to really click on Impact. He was the face of Impact.
Kyle: Well, I used to go to California once a year for PWG and would see Brian Cage there as part of the Unbreakable Fucking Machines. And he was so over and just ripe for the picking. I think you really need creative minds behind him though to keep his character unique.
Patrick: Yeah, you do. So I don't know. That's a great question. I mean, to be honest, I would love for Jericho to beat Moxley. He doesn't need to have the title. He probably doesn't even want the title. But I think Cody and Brody Lee are going to have a nice feud for the next couple of months. What I see is MJF eventually winning the title, but then MJF and Cody have unfinished business, and I think that will be interesting. Bottom line is AEW has done incredible foundation work. Their midcard is extremely well developed. They have an excellent tag team division. They have an extremely underrated women's division. Brit Baker is amazing.
Kyle: Just a great heel. And you know, everyone was talking about how great she'd be as the face of the division, and then she showed something that I don't think anybody knew that she had.
Patrick: The first couple of promos that she cut when she first went heel weren't that great, but AEW was smart enough to stick with her and put Tony in there. But if you watch WWE, Retribution had that awful promo and they haven't been on TV since. So it's like WWE won't stick with somebody and AEW, they at least trust them. They trust their employees enough to say, “you know what? The first time and maybe even your second time, no good? Let's try and do this differently.” And I feel like the next year or so, there are going to be some amazing stories told. They've been so smart that they put the title on people that are just consistently solid. A bad Chris Jericho match is still ten times better than somebody else's bad match. And what Moxley does is brings intensity in a match where he doesn't have to do a lot, but you feel a lot is being done.
Kyle: It's the things between the moves — where you're not having move, move, move, where it looks like a wrestling video game. It's Mox throws somebody down, sells the back, says something to the crowd. He's always doing something interesting.
Patrick: I always feel like when I watch Jon Moxley wrestle, he has like a nasal infection. Because he's always breathing heavy and breathing through his nose. But what that is is pure emotion — like the crowd can hear each of his breaths, and it makes them connect with him in a way. It makes him so approachable and so human. He also sells a lot for people, the same way Jericho does. We're not talking about Brock Lesnar here. We're not talking about Roman Reigns. They don't sell for just anybody. Like the match that Jericho had with Isaiah Cassidy this week on AEW, he made Cassidy look like a rockstar. I mean, we knew what was going to happen. We knew he was getting the old Judas Effect, but he made that kid look like a rockstar.
Blaise: What's been your experience as a pro wrestling fan? Like, where did this all stem from?
Patrick: Probably from being a little kid watching World Championship Wrestling on TBS on Saturday nights with my grandfather on his lap. Ernie Ladd would come out and my grandfather would be like, "that guy is a piece of shit.” And then Ric Flair would come out and my grandfather would be like, "see that? That's a man right there.” And I'm just like, "Ernie Ladd's 6'8’’! He's like a killing machine!" And my grandfather would be like, "no, watch this guy. The poke in the eye, the low blows, see? That's the way you're supposed to fight.” And I remember just connecting with it so much. I've always loved WWE. Always did. But I would be a tremendous liar if I said that I wasn't sad the day WCW closed its doors, because Diamond Dallas Page is my favorite wrestler of all time. I've had the honor of interviewing him. But guys like DDP, Billy Kidman, Raven, Chris Kanyon, a lot of those guys —
Kyle: Haha, Raven was my idol growing up. I actually had to drive him from Queens to a show in Jersey during my stint in Professional Wrestling. So I got to just sit in the car, talk comics with him and get yelled at when he made us late to the show, because he wanted to stop off at Carvel out of the way to buy us both ice cream, since I wasn't being paid.
Patrick: That's great. Super smart guy. I'll never forget — I was editor-in-chief of my first college newspaper and I wanted to interview him. So I sent him a pitch and he was like, "I don't really have anything to talk about. I wouldn't want to do the same interview that I've done a million times with other people. Maybe when I have something to talk about, we can reconnect. And by the way, your girlfriend's pretty hot." And I was like, “oh, my God. That's typical.” Scott Levy, you know? But back on topic, I loved all the things that WCW was doing. And then I feel like they had a real turning point. 1999 was so bad for WCW; it was awful. Then 2000, they had all these young guys come up from the power plant and they were shit, but they had promise. Like Shane Helms and Chuck Palumbo. And then it's the beginning of 2001 and it started to feel good again. And I'm like, “maybe these guys could do something.” And then they ended up selling, and a lot of those guys went to WWE and had really successful, lengthy careers. It's just the ‘what-ifs,’ you know? Like, if Owen Hart had never passed away, he totally would have been in WCW by the time it was over. Because they were ruining his character with the blue blazer. That's a world class athlete. And you have him jumping around like an idiot. But I've always loved professional wrestling. My masters thesis was actually on how people go from being somebody that loves wrestling, to getting into the indies, to becoming a professional wrestler. I interviewed like 50 professional wrestlers. I went to Johnny Rodz at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, New York.
Kyle: I trained there.
Patrick: There you go. I was there for a couple of weeks, hanging out with the guys, taking pictures, and I took a couple of bumps. But I remember the first day that I went in there and I introduced myself to Johnny Rodz. I was like, "I'd like to interview you." So he invites me into his office.
Kyle: "Pa, come on in."
Patrick: "Hey, Pa!" Mhm. And I go to turn on the recorder and he goes, "you don't get to turn on the recorder until I say that you're ready to turn on the recorder, Pa." And we talked for like 3 hours and he was quizzing me. He's like, "who did I tag with in NWA, California?" And I'm like, "Roddy Piper and Abduallah the Butcher." And he's like, OK, you know your shit. But I'll never forget the question he asked me that he allowed me to turn the recorder on after. He says, "what's the most important part of a match? Is it the winner or the loser?" And I was like, "it doesn't matter who wins or loses a match." And he's like, "well, what do you mean?”
Kyle: "What do you mean, Pa?"
Patrick: Yeah, "what do you mean, Pa?" And I told him flat out, "Stone Cold/Bret Hart Survivor series.” Stone Cold loses, but he never taps out. He's got his face to the camera. The blood is dripping. He didn't tap out after that. Bret Hart was the face for that match. The next night, he was the heel. Everyone fucking loved Stone Cold because he didn't give up. He takes no shit. So he lost the match, but he got over. So I told him it was about getting over. And he was just like, "OK, Pa, you could turn on the recorder." That took three hours and then we talked on the record for like an hour.
Kyle: I've lost full days of training there because he just brings you in and he'll just talk to you and you're like, "oh, I'm not going to train today. Got it."
What's your favorite angle in history? This could be WWE, Smoky Mountain, PWG, ECW, AJPW, NJPW — anything.
Patrick: Oh, so hard. Um, wow. My favorite angle. So I'll say right off the bat, my least favorite angle is the DDP/Undertaker one where DDP is a stalker. That was a complete waste of one of the greatest faces in wrestling history.
Kyle: It wasn't Katie Vick?
Patrick: Katie Vick is awful, too. But see, that's the thing. I love DDP, so it was just awful seeing him wasted like that. But one of my favorite angles which not a lot of people are familiar with is when DDP lost the United States title to Bret Hart because the Giant got involved. This was like the Giant's last feud before he left WCW. So he cost DDP the United States title and he ended up slamming him through the Nitro set up. So they end up having a grudge match at Slammiversary VIII, and the Giant is just shitting on DDP this entire match, and throwing him all over the place. The Giant was also smoking a cigarette during the match — you know, shit that would never get done today. So it's like '98, I was 14 years old. If Kevin Nash was wrestling, I would run into my room and put on my Wolfpack shirt. If DDP was wrestling, I would run into my room and put on my DDP shirt. That's how hardcore I was. So man, I was so pissed off, because this is my guy and he was getting his ass handed to him. And Giant sets him up in the corner for a super chokeslam off the top rope, and in mid-air, DDP reverses it into the diamond cutter. No one had ever seen that variation before and he wins. That was one of the coolest moments for me as a wrestling fan like ever. Later that night was when Goldberg's streak got broken after Scott Hall used the cattle prod, and the next night is when you had the finger poke of doom. So within the span of 36 hours, my entire life as a wrestling fan changed, because I remember I was happy that Nash beat Goldberg. Goldberg was like Superman. He's like a fucking Boy Scout, and Nash was so fucking cool. He was only able to do the three moves, but he was able to tell great stories. Hogan is an amazing storyteller and he's the shittiest wrestler in the world outside of Japan. But it's about his facial expressions, and his body language, charisma and energy. My favorite storyline is that whole period of the nWo, and eventually the Wolfpack. The end of 1998, beginning of 1999, is such a special time. People look at it with rose colored glasses now and say how great it was. Some of it was great, but some of it was just heartbreaking. That finger poke of doom was heartbreaking, but great at the same time. It's like Voldemort from Harry Potter. Terrible, evil, but great, you know?
Blaise: OK, so we like to send our interviews home with a very random, completely removed from everything Lightning Round. So here we go!
Question 1: If you were a superhero, but every time you went to save someone you stubbed your toe, would you still do it?
Patrick: Sure, absolutely. I tell my students all the time — when I used to hold my daughter when she was younger, I would feed her with a bottle. She would be very free with her feet and she would just kick me in the balls all the time! To the point where it was just like, "oh, my God, I'm going to hold her, and she's going to kick me there, and it's just going to hurt so much." And then after a while, you're just like, "whatever, I'm going to get kicked in the balls. Whatever I need to feed my daughter.” I love my daughter. Her eating is more important than me being comfortable. And I tell my students, "sometimes, you have to do things that you don't like, because the end result makes you a stronger person.” So if I have an opportunity to save somebody and I'm going to stub my toe, I'm going to stub my toe.
Blaise: Question 2: Kevin Hart and Kevin James are both falling out of a window and you can only save one of them with a giant net. Which would you save?
Patrick: So I love Kevin Hart.
Kyle: I love Mark Normand also.
Patrick: Well, yes. There you go. I think the real Kevin Hart is kind of a hypocrite in a way though. He talks about how he does all this activism, and talks about being a good parent. Meanwhile, everyone knows he's cheated on his wife several times. Being in a monogamous relationship, and being a dedicated husband and father, I know that I could sell a million books and I would never cheat on my wife. I don't have respect for people that do stuff like that. So as funny and hilarious as he is…I love King of Queens. I love Paul Blart. All that stuff is terrible, but it's terrible in the Adam Sandler way, where it's terrible, but it's still Adam Sandler, so it's great at the same time. So I would totally save Kevin James TWICE before I would save Kevin Hart.
Kyle: The time has come for the final question. And we've been waiting to ask you this all night. Raw 2. You would set things up and you’d attack people backstage. There would be a meter for how much someone would hate you. And if someone's meter was in the full red, they'd run out, interfere in your matches and beat up your opponent every time, instead of touching you!
Patrick: There's a ton of bugs in that game. There ABSOLUTELY are a ton of bugs in that game. But see, the thing is there were no patches back then. This happens all the time. There's an update to your game on PS4. That's because they found a bug. And they go in after the fact and they fix it. Games are rarely ever finished when they're released now. And before this, some of the greatest games of all time have bugs in them that change the game entirely, like NHLPA '93. It's one of the greatest hockey games of all time. They screwed up the math, so players that are skinny can knock over people a lot easier than people that are heavy. So the heavy hitters in the game don't knock over anybody, and the little guys hit them and they go flying. But the thing is, you would use those things to your advantage. In the case of Raw 2, I love that game because there were great ideas, and I have a lot of respect for the developer Anchor, because they did PRIDE Fighting Championship on PS2.
Kyle: Oh my God, so good! So good! Ugh, we'll have to talk about that another time.
Patrick: I've actually interviewed the producer of of PRIDE Fighting Championship. He also did WWF: No Mercy, Wrestlemania 2000, and WCW/NWO Revenge. He wrote the afterword to The Minds Behind Sports Games — the one that just came out. He's amazing. You'd love him. Sanders Keel is covered in tattoos. Mega cool guy, but raw too. I must say that I spent 90.9% of that game in exhibition matches with custom created characters, because you could upload your own music. So what I did was put all the WCW guys in there and I would just play exhibition matches in that game. I didn't really play any of the story. I didn't like to do any of the "Road to Wrestlemania" storyline stuff. So I didn't experience the worst of that game, but I've read up a lot on it and there's a lot of game crashing bugs in there. Another funny thing I found out was there's probably like 8 or 9 wrestlers in that game that have bootleg versions of their theme songs in there because WWE didn't want to pay the licensing fees to get the real music. Some people like Al Snow, I think in that game, don’t have music. They also ended up releasing the game early, so there's wrestlers like Scott Hall and Jeff Hardy that didn't even make it into the game.
I would love to interview the developers of that game because there was a lot of shit that went wrong there. In The Minds Behind Sports Games, there's 4 wrestling games in there. There's WWF Raw and WWF Royal Rumble on the SEGA Genesis, WCW/NWO: Revenge and Showdown: Legends of Wrestling, which was the last one. That has a great backstory, because that could have been one of the greatest wrestling games of all time. Acclaim just screwed it up so bad. They shortchanged that development team so bad. The development team were basically like, "we don't want to use anything from the old Legends of Wrestling games because we think it's shit and we want to just start from scratch.” And Acclaim was like, "no, just take all the assets from the first two games and then do what you want with them.” And they're like, "no, no, no! We need to start from the ground up.” And Acclaim really fought them on it and then cut their development cycle in half. So the fact that the game even came out and it's playable is a real tribute to the team.
Top Kvlt: Patrick Hickey, Jr., thank you so much for your knowledge and your time. There's so many games that we've all come to just shit on with a common knowledge that they're the worst games ever made, but with your insight, we've grown a newfound understanding of all the intricacies involved in putting them on the shelf. The true stories and minds behind the games are as fascinating as the games themselves. Everyone should do themselves a favor and pick up copies of these books now at www.reviewfix.com/books-by-Patrick-hickey-jr/.
Thank you again Patrick for being Top Kvlt's first ever website exclusive interview. Tune in to Phoenix FearCon for more workshops and screenings all through November into the end of December!