First Gen Gamers

With a topic as big as gaming's most enduring, most iconic character, you know it couldn't be done in one episode! Here's part 2 of our trip through every console generation and how Mario has grown from his humble roots in Donkey Kong to Super Mario Wonder. Check out Erik's podcasts here ! And follow First Gen gamers on our socials here !

There is no more enduring character in video games than Mario, the Italian who gets sucked into an alternate dimension and becomes the protector of the Mushroom Kingdom. He may have started as a humble guy trying to save his woman from a rampaging gorilla, but over the years, he's been a doctor, a sports star, a kart driver, and starred in so many different spinoff titles. On this, the first h...

Every gamer has different tastes in gaming. But there is one truth that unites every gamer: somehow, some way, we need a device to control the game. Controllers are what make a game a game, and they can either immerse you in the action by feeling like a seamless extension of you, or bury you under awkward design. On this episode of First Gen Gamers, Ash and Jed are looking at the best and worst ba...

Kellie from The Final Girls Podcast is the guest on this episode to talk all about women and gaming; what it's like to be a woman in the gaming sphere, representation, and some of our favorite female characters. We also talk a little about her podcast, which celebrates the final girls of horror, and get into what we've been playing recently. Check us out on social media ! Check out The Fin...

The word "underrated" gets tossed around willy-nilly. Anything that doesn't get at least a 9/10 has someone calling it underrated. So on this episode, Jed and his special guest Jamie Smith, a Principal Game Developer with Behavior Interactive, are making their choices for truly underrated games. Those games that live in bargain bins, that are black sheep of their franchises, or games...

Remakes are a touchy topic in all media. How much of the original needs to be retained to maintain the spirit? How much originality should there be so the remake doesn't feel like a retread? Should something that didn't hit the mark be remade so it has a second chance at life? Is there media that shouldn't be remade because it's too problematic? Are there games that are untouchable...

Perhaps no console has such a negative reputation as the Philips CDi. Released in the early 90's, it became the poster child for the awkward first-wave FMV games and its four infamous games based on Nintendo properties. But does it deserve its reputation? Could the Philips CDi be underrated? On this special episode, Yahel from Wrestling With Gaming, a self-admitted fan of the CDi, sits down wi...

Games are unlike any other media, in that new machines come out over time to replace the old, and a whole new set of media comes with. Sometimes, we're lucky and games get made available on newer machines. But sometimes, we're not so lucky. The worst case scenario is when a game only comes out once, and if you don't have that machine, you can't play it. On this episode of First Gen...

We all love to quote famous lines from movies and TV shows in our conversations. Video games have plenty of memorable lines, too, and not always from the main character. Sometimes, an NPC drops a line that is unforgettable, whether it's due to being genuinely well-written, a poor translation from another language, or downright weird. On this episode, Ashley and Jed talk about some of their fav...

Nintendo is the oldest player in the video game console market, and one of the most beloved and consistent developers, with an unparalleled treasure trove of iconic characters and franchises. But that doesn't make them above reproach. They've made mistakes. They've made some bad business decisions. And they've positioned themselves as the villain on more than on occasion. On this e...

There's nothing fancy about this episode. Ashley and Jed are pulling no punches, venting their spleens about some games they flat out hate. Games that let them down, games that ruined beloved franchises, games that refuse to be the best version of themselves ... it's all about getting out some venom.\ Want to get in touch with us on the socials? Here's how !

Sometimes, the odds are stacked against a video game right from the start. A bad release window, a flawed concept, a rushed design, trying to get in on a dying fad, or questionable source material can lead to a game being dead on arrival. On this episode of First Gen Gamers, Ashley and Jed talk about games that never stood a chance. Check out our social media !

Once video games proved they weren't a fad, it was inevitable they'd cross into movies and TV. But the average show couldn't just show footage of Super Mario or Sonic without paying rights fees. That's where fake video games come in. You've seen them, from comedy to horror, on TV and in the theater. And today, Ashley and Jed are talking about the most memorable fake games in po...

Nintendo is the oldest console manufacturer in video games, and one of the longest running developers and publishers of games alongside Activision. They are the house of gaming franchises that even non-gamers know about. With the recent official unveiling of the Switch 2, we thought it would be a good time to give Nintendo flowers for all they've done over the years. So this episode, Ash and J...

Ashley and Jed are having a little fun this episode, if making each other uncomfortable with difficult questions they have to answer is fun. Listen as they trade hand-crafted "Would You Rather" questions about gaming to each other, with only one rule: they have to pick one of the two options. Play along and let us know what you picked on social media! Links to our socials: https://linktr.ee/firstg...

Making a good product is only half the battle. It also has to be marketed. The best thing in the world can languish on the shelf if nobody knows it exists. Worse yet, sometimes the marketing does the product dirty; it misrepresents the product, or obscures it entirely with a stupid stunt. On this episode of First Gen Gamers, Ash and Jed take a look at when video game companies blow it with the mar...

While the gaming community can rally and close ranks when it is accosted by outsiders, it is remarkably quick to devour itself over the dumbest perceived slights. Within the game, on social media, on YouTube, or in real life, gamers can get exceptionally petty when they want to. On this episode, Ashley and Jed look at some examples of when gamers get petty; some are hilarious, some are ridiculous,...

What happens when Ashley is out sick for recording, but there's a schedule to keep? A guest host! Laceya Finley from Super Mega Crash Beyond steps into the cohost #2 slot, and since she's a lover of FMV games, that's the topic we explore. Where it all started with Dragon's Lair, the awkward 90's games that didn't know what to do, and how the genre has changed in modern day....

Simulator games started humbly. Run a city. Run an airport. Run a theme park. Somewhere along the way, they became something more. You can be a bee. A forklift operator. A goat. A gas station owner. A rock. The possibilities have become endless. In this episode, Ashley and Jed take a look at simulation games. Games they've played, the way the genre has exploded in recent times, and the disturbing,...

Gaming is full of licensed games. You might not think of Madden or WWE or Marvel's Spider-Man as licensed games, but they are. Licensed games have been around since the beginning, which means there's plenty of good ones, and plenty of bad ones. But it's way too easy to identify those. What about the weird ones? The ones that make no sense as a game? The games that don't seem to know what the origi...

2024 has been a heck of a year. It's been a bit since we dropped an episode. Where's First Gen Gamers this holiday season? What's the show got in store for 2025? Jed drops a quick catch-up to tease what's going on and what's in store.

What makes a fictional character scary? It's hard to say. Dracula is often portrayed as intelligent, sophisticated, even sexy, while Frankenstein's monster is hulking and brutish, but Dracula is somehow scarier. The AI-driven robot version of Chucky from 2019's Child's Play remake isn't scary, but when that doll is possessed by a desperate serial killer stalking a six year old, that's scary. It's...

Ashley and Jed had so much fun talking about boss fights last time around, they figured why not do it again? But this time, they're coming at it from the other side: the worst boss fights. Damage sponges, disappointments, pushovers, unreasonable difficulty, it's all here. Ashley and Jed are going Stone Cold Steve Austin on these bad bosses, and the only way to find out which crappy bosses get the...

Who doesn't love their boss? Okay, some of us don't. Okay, a lot of us don't. Most of us would love to go Stone Cold Steve Austin and beat up our boss. Instead, we have to settle for beating bosses in video games, and when it's done right, it can be the best part of a video game. Testing the culmination of your skills and abilities, the narrative building to a point and then the ca...

It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when it comes to video game art, sometimes, objectivity goes right out the window if the character looks like they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. On this episode of First Gen Gamers, Ashley and Jed are talking bad video game character design. The grotesque, the broken, the stupid, the confusing, and the cont...