#FinalFantasyVIII #HalfLife #Ready2Rumble

Originally aired: Fall 1999.

In this iconic episode of The Electric Playground we kick things off with Zoe Flower in San Diego interviewing Gabe Newell and other team members from Valve about their brand new trailblazing, first person shooter, Half-Life!

Then at E3 ’99 in LA, Tommy Tallarico talks with game director, Takashi Tokita and producer, Shinji Hashimoto about making Final Fantasy VIII. Meanwhile Victor Lucas catches up with with Square’s VP of Product Development, Randy Fujimoto and Yoshihiro Maruyama, vice-chairman of Square EA, as well as the president and CEO of Electronics Boutique, Joseph Firestone, and Squaresoft CEO, Jun Iwasaki at the Stonestown Galleria store in San Francisco to talk about the financial and technical impacts of Final Fantasy VIII.

Afterwards Victor travels to Boss Game Studios in Redmond, Washington to talk with Colin Gordon, VP product development, Rob Povey, technical director and Todd Keller, lead artist, about World Driver Championship for the Nintendo 64.

Then at a party at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, Tommy connects with Greg Ballard, the CEO of 3DFX to talk about their new merger with STB, and Zoe catches up with Greg at E3 ’99 to talk about their 3D gaming and TV innovations.

Immediately following, Tommy’s at E3 ’99 in Los Angeles chatting with Emanuel Valdez, lead artist, Terry Bertram, senior programmer, Mike Cuevas, senior animator, Bert Earache, texture mapper & animator, Orpheus Hanley from Soundstation and Kevin “Jet Chin” Wang about Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. While Victor jumps in the ring with Matt Vella and Sean Wilson to chat about the game. And we get a cameo from famous fight announcer, Michael Buffer!

In Reviews on the Run it’s:

Jet Moto 3 for PlayStation
Pokémon Snap for Nintendo 64
Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun for PC
Ready To Rumble Boxing for Dreamcast

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