#matt mcmuscles

[howlingday]

Cinder: To test the skill of this "threat" approaching Salem, she sends her best agent to deal with you.

Yang: And because Salem couldn't find them, she sent you instead.

[pizzamafiaart]

An animation i've been wanting to make for YEARS and I finally had the ability to make it in my Multimedia class. I'll always be a fan of SBFP.

[brutish-impulse]

The development history of Other M is kinda fascinating for all the things that didn't happen. A long-time director of the series goes and makes exactly the game he wanted to make, without executive meddling, budget issues or any other major problems.

The game he wanted to make just wasn't very good.

[phons0]

Here is some work I did for Matt McMuscles in 2018. Had a lot of fun making these!

[aamitmorthos]

me for last couple of years like

[pleotca]

Made a few fake Thumbnails dedicated to Matt Mcmuscles’ wuh happun series

[knightscanfeeltoo]

Was watching some Videos by Matt Mcmuscles like Demon’s Souls and thought, “What if he does Cartoon Shows from Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network too, starting with The Loud House maybe?”...

(i do know he would put lincoln loud on the “what happun” loud house thumbnail instead of some random character like rocky spokes, which is fine...)

[saiyef]

OH MY GOD! I THOUGHT THIS VIDEO WAS GONE FOREVER! THE PERSON WHO REUPLOADED THIS IS THE BIGGEST HERO!

Video originally created by @leomodesto

[songue85]

Killing Zone

One of my first fighting games in the Playstation 1, and it is... not good - but I played for a good amount of time.

Here, Matt McMuscles explain it better: 

[goombasa]

Youtube Recommendations: Wha Happun?

If you've been around gaming youtube for any length of time, you've probably come across a few videos by one Matt McMuscles, a Canadian youtuber who is mostly known for covering and showing off a lot of more obscure games, primarily fighting games, beat-em-ups, and occasionally RPGs. He was also a part of the (now discontinued) Super Best Friends Play channel, and collaborates with Maximillian Dood and Justin Wong on the fighting game focused Triple K.O. Podcast. The guy does a lot in the video game space on youtube, and is genuinely entertaining with a level of passion and giddyness that I think is kind of missing in a lot of other gaming-centric youtube channels. He's not over the top or anything, but his more down to earth demeanor, combined with actual experience in the industry (he worked as a QA tester for many years) gives him a fun perspective on what he covers.

And among many of his other projects, he's done some informative and investigative work into the industry, talking about the history of certain series, doing deep dives into a single game where he simultaneously walks you through the experience of playing it, start to finish, while also telling you a bit about its development history, and my recommendation today, his investigative show ‘Wha Happun?’

Anything on his channel is worth watching, in my opinion, but Wha Happun is my favorite. It's a series of investigative videos, focusing on a single subject, and taking you through the development process that led to it being, well, either cancelled or not very good. He's covered a lot of heavy hitters like the exhaustive, constantly changing development of ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and the lie-filled terror of ‘Aliens: Colonial Marines’ (the reveal that the broken AI of that game was basically due to a single missing letter in the game's code in particular made my eyes pop), but he also has covered more obscure or cult games as well, such as “Four Horsemen," “Vex,” and the original version of “Prey 2”, recent high profile disasters like the remake of ‘Saints’ Row' or the GTA collection or ‘Gollum’.

From games to movies to consoles, whether it turned out good or not, Wha Happun goes through the history and minutae that led to it being the way that it was, and what it took to get there, paying specially attention to how the various high profile names on the projects behaved, and how the staff was treated during its development. A lot of his ire in the ‘L.A. Noir’ is directed at Brendan McNarmara for his constant and consistent abuse of his staff while shifting blame away from himself at every turn, for example. And he goes out of his way to get information and quotations from people who worked on the game at the time, which helps to lend the videos more authenticity rather than just grabbing quotes from, say, Wikipedia.

What I think I love the most about this series is that it really hammers home just how freaking hard it is to get these things made. Whether it's making a game, a movie, or a console, and then doing it all over again and again, there is always something that could potentially hold it up or ruin it, whether it's working with unfamiliar technology, unpleasant people, small budgets, or just unchecked ambition, it's a miracle that this stuff ever sees the light of day, even if the final product isn't what anyone wanted. And sometimes, it doesn't even get that far.

Wha Happun has been running for a long while now (over 200 episodes uploaded over the course of 6 years) and I guarantee that there's at least one episode in that spread that is going to cover something you either care about or have always been really curious about. You can find a full playlist of all the episodes here if you're at all interested, and I'd very much recommend that you peruse it when you have the time. You can also find the link to Matt McMuscles' main channel up at the top of the post, and I'm also going to link to his let's play channel Flophouse Plays because his off-the-cuff  stuff is just as fun as his scripted content.

Recommending Videos

Predator: Concret Jungle: At the time I write this post, this is the most recent video and a good starting point for the typical format that most of the videos follow, walking you through the history of the development of the game, the history of the developers, and the major names that were involved in the development. This one in particular is interesting because of its timing and the license chosen.

Sega Saturn: This isn't the first video done on the troubled history of a particular console, with both the Atari Jaguar and the 3DO being covered before, and the Gamecube being covered just a few episodes later, but I have a bit of a bias for classic Sega, and the Saturn itself is just such an interesting topic, and I think McMuscles explains its history wonderfully.

Daikatana: A lot of the earlier episodes in the series are a lot lighter on details, and also quite a bit shorter. Daikatana however, I feel, is an early episode that is worth going back to because the story of this game is so weird and wild, and its creator, John Romero, is just as interesting to observe as the game he was trying to make.

The Super Mario Brothers Movie:Ho boy, if you ever wanted to know why the 90's Mario movie turned into a bizarre science fiction story, this video lays it all out and discusses at length the various cancelled versions of the movie that we could have had before really get into just what a horror show the filming of the movie was.

Metroid Prime: This is a great example of how even games that are fantastic and beloved can still have had a rough time getting made, and watching this, it really makes you appreciate all the more how good a game like Metroid Prime managed to come out.

TimeSplitters: This is one of the longer episodes, at just under a half hour, but is a great example of how Matt can get really passionate when talking about something that really means a lot to him, or when he's covering something he's particularly disappointed by.

[howlingday]

Yang: Oh, and in case a few of you Star Wars try to correct on there no longer being a "galactic senate" or whatever at this point in the franchise, believe me when I tell you I don't care.

[brutish-impulse]

Die like your father, you pin-headed son of an ice cream maker!

SNK localization team channeling Monty Python.

[randomhoohaas]

“Whoever made this game was having a fucking gas!”

[lunchtiger]

Provable and Real things I have said while crossfaded: (in reference to the song "Nookie") "Fred Durst is one of the Poets of Our Time!"

[tauntjetupper]

This week’s episode of Triple K.O. was great, as per usual. The topic was Fighting Game Design, and this episode featured special guest Adam Heart.

If you don’t know Adam Heart, he’s one of the minds behind Divekick and the new age Killer Instinct after season 2. Heart’s current project is Rumbleverse, a fighting/wrestling game inspired 40 player battle royale with a focus on platforming.

Max, Justin, Matt, and Adam all provide insights into the design process that goes into making fighting games and how suddenly these ideas can become real.