Hey it's Derek! Damn, the delay on this one was ridiculous, and that sucks. 2023 was a really tough year, but then again every year is! So I'm sorry I let a lot of personal stuff get to me! I'm not taking any time off in January, I've got big plans for the new year! There wont be another 6 months between video again, I've already got several plates spinning, so stay tuned! Or ring that bell, to use a more appropriate phrase haha This fall we launched a new Patreon Exclusive show call Uncle Derek Underground! A monthly exclusive video series, all topics community voted by our supporters on Patreon! As a holiday gift I'll be posting our favorite episode for free on here just to give everyone a taste. Look forward to that! I want to thank SoberDwarf who helped edit on this video and every other Zeebo video we've made over the years. Adamnator edited a big chunk of this one as well and the help was very much needed! Cass from Bad Game Hall of Fame did a ton of the writing and research for other Zeebo videos. She also helped on a huge script earlier this year and I hope to make that a big video for 2024. And of course thanks to Producer Grace for helping with writing and research and being honest when I ask, "hey, is this funny / a good idea?" It's important to have people who will tell you "No, that joke is too dumb and that's a bad idea!" I've been doing this sixteen freaking years! I'm able to do it because you all support and believe in me. I really try to never take it for granted and make every video as good as I can make it. And I've still got so much I want to do, I'm not ready to retire yet! Y'all make this too much fun, so you haven't seen the last of Uncle Derek! -Stay Powerful!
Totally understandable, man! SSFF has not left my mind and suddenly seeing this in my feed made genuinely explode with joy! Your videos are a genuine comfort and something I can always share thanks to your incredibly friendly and welcoming nature to newcomers to retro games appreciation! Also, handsome!
I was fine waiting. Knew you'd be back when the time was right for you. Matt McMuscles and others in my UA-cam crew kept me occupied until you returned. I was very excited when I saw this video at the very top of my feed, and went to make a sammich to enjoy this hour long episode with. It was nice to have proof of life with the voice of Producer Grace in the background. Any plans for her to make an appearance on on of these several plates you have spinning?
As a former Zeebo dev, I still love seeing things like this video and its first part. As far as I am concerned, Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi were going to be straight Dreamcast ports. I don't remember exactly when and why they were cancelled (I had already been assigned to the CT team by that point), but it probably was due to the traumatic (and very expensive) experience of porting NFS Carbon. Virtua Tennis on the other hand was never meant to be a port of VT3, it was based on a Japan only mobile VT game. Working on it was actually the very first thing I did when joining them in mid-2008, and my job was to make it actually playable (the original game controlled horribly, didn't even register diagonals) and include a 2-player mode. The UI and menus had been entirely remade and the game was renamed as simply Virtua Tennis, but got cancelled anyway.
I heard horror stories from friends who worked at Tectoy that you either had Sonic at an acceptable speed OR you had a draw distance that you could actually see where you were going xD But that was because the idea for the ports probably started BEFORE they had to scale down the power of the console because of the chip manufactor problems
@@PlatyNews I don't remember Sonic Adventure getting to that point, IIRC the ports were cancelled in pre-production. But that's what would happen for sure. Regardless of being scaled down, the Zeebo chipset was expected to achieve near PSP-level performance. What became clear during the porting of the first games (specially NFS Carbon) is that it wouldn't happen. Qualcomm insisted in using the same BREW system of their phones, without any of the modifications that would be required to extract the most from the hardware. I'm guessing here, but I think that left us with 70 - 75% of what we thought we had to work with.
@@gustavogalembeck7711Do you know anything about the Quake / Quake 2 ports? How did ID Software got involved with the system, and how were the games localized? Because to date, Quake 2 for Zeebo is the ONLY officially translated and dubbed version of the game in existence. I'd love to learn more about it.
Seeing Monica's Gang mentioned here was a big surprise. I have met the creator of Monica's Gang in the past... The franchise is absolutely huge here in Brazil!
I worked on the Zeebo Extreme series as an env artist/level designer/UI designer(we were a few artists working on everything at once). Worked on billy cart, air race and floater. Those games were supposed to be a minigame collection similar to California Games. However, developing billy cart took way more resources than expected since we had to develop a whole game engine from scratch and tooling for it was precarious. Putting up content was very slow until we reached the Baja game. It would take too much time to develop all minigames, so it was decided to split them into different games... that's why it has so little content in each one. We were organized into two teams working in parallel to deliver those as fast as possible. Billy Cart took around 6 months, Air Race and Baja 3-4 months, Floater 2 months and Jet Board around 3-4 weeks. It was a mad rush. Whichever artists were assigned to one of those had to do everything, the character portraits, level design, environment art... so there wasn't a specific person that drew those same 4 characters over and over (that's why the art style is very inconsistent also). I did the Baja game char portraits, "Ouro Preto" track level design and art on Billy Cart, art and level design for "Caverna do Diabo" track on Floater, art and level design for AirRace, designed most of the UI that's reused on all games. Also did a lot of texturing work for characters and several levels. Had never worked with 3D before since I was hired to do 2D illustration and pixel artwork, so I was doing all that stuff while learning Maya and 3DMax. And nope, I wasn't very well compensated for it, lol Also did almost all artwork and animations on the Monica game by myself, but 99% of the illustrations and sound were provided by Maurício de Souza studios. I was tasked with assembling this bunch of artwork that they had on their database in usable game assets. It was a whole other nightmare. Crazy times, crazy times...
and by the way, thanks for all your work documenting Zeebo history! You did a great job, I always recommend your stuff when people ask me about Zeebo. It was a spectacular failure, but a very interesting one. I think it's worth preserving the history of this little Brazilian adventure of creating a game console. It was a nightmare to work on it, but I've met great people and it kick-started my career in games, so Zeebo will always have a special place in my heart.
I'm Brazilian. Throughout my entire life, I've only ever known ONE person who had a Zeebo. This kid at school got one... in 2012. I have no idea how that worked out for him, but he made his distaste for the console very clear to me. Nobody had this thing. Nobody even knew it existed. The PS2 was very strong up until 2014, and with the recent decrease in purchasing power, it's rising to popularity AGAIN. No room for Zeebo when that's the competition.
@@SetoKaiba342 Older consoles are popular in places like Brazil due to ridiculous import taxes. I actually know a Brazilian fighting game player through Discord... and his local scene seems to consist mostly of Tekken 5 and the 3D era Mortal Kombats! Get in the bin, Street Fighter 6.
@@SetoKaiba342 In Brazil it is cheaper to buy a plane ticket to the US or Europe, buy electronics there and come back than it is to just buy them here. Is not even that uncommon among middle to higher middle class folk to do just that. I'm currently planning a trip to the US myself because I want to buy a new PC
One thing about "Un juego de huevos (A game of eggs): The game was made to promote the Zeebo on its launch in Mexico, heavily promoted in mexican TV channels. The game is based on a movie, but the commercial is a reference to Huevocartoon (The creators of the franchise) early animated shorts! Huevocartoon story is pretty much the same as most of the og youtubers (Started on a website, then moved to youtube), their original animated shorts were about eggs doing random stuff. The commercial is a reference to the series called "Poeta huevos" (Poet eggs) which starts like the eggs doing something "innocent" like reading poetry or having a cooking show but each take they get progressively more drunk to the point of saying nonsense. Their early animations were not for kids but an investment company said "Hey this can be profitable for kids" and the movie was made
Monica's Gang is basically the Mickey Mouse crew of Brazil. They're HUGE over there, specially since they're original brazillian comic strip characters. They're also pretty big here in Portugal.
As a Mexican who grew up in Mexico I can tell you those egg cartoons were NOT for kids, they were primarily on the internet and clearly meant for adults, the whole joke is that eggs or "Huevos" is slang for testicles in Mexican Spanish. However the movie was made with more of a family audience in mind.
That "um jogo de ovos" pronunciation was pretty perfect, congrats! Edit: seeing uncle Derek experiencing Monica's Gang for the first time is something I did not realize was coming when the first part came out. Also I'm pretty sure they got the official VAs for everyone, I don't know why I'm impressed with that, but i am
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting In Portuguese we have something weird with vowels changing their sound based on whether the word is singular or plural. That's the only part that wasn't amazing in your pronunciation, but it was easily understandable. If you wanna check it out via Google translate, some words are ovo/ovos (egg), poço/poços (well), olho/olhos (eye) and porco/porcos (pig). I find it a nice linguistic quirk, but many Brazilians get these words wrong.
So the lore of the 4 main character of Monica's gang is this: Cebolinha (the Nelson looking character you mention) has a speech impediment (he can't say the letter "R" he switches it for "L"), Cascão (the boy with black hair and black marks on his face) hates water and never showers, Monica has super strength and Magali (the girl with the yellow dress) is a glutton, the four of them are friends, but Cebolinha and Cascão like to mess with monica by calling her buck-theeth and fat and by stealing the bunny, her response to that is usualy getting Sansão back and clobering them in the head with it. Magali usualy tags along for the food.
MONICA INFORMATION IS NOT DUMB AND IS ALWAYS NICE TO SPREAD THROUGH THE WORLD. Monica's comics were my introduction to comics and I learned to read with them . I will love them to death
(Note on 'it's weird a hack and slash dropped on halloween': We don't really celebrate Halloween in Brazil. There's some parties mostly geared to adults, and some peeps who'll watch a spooky movie, but it's not really a THING like it is in the anglosphere.)
I was worried you actually were sent to Brazil after the last video lol Thanks for sharing this piece of Brazilian videogame history with the rest of the world.
I've ignored Metallica since the mid-late 90s so I had no idea they actually had a song with the lyrics (chorus?) "my lifestyle determines my death style". OMG that's so bad! It almost makes "I Disappear" sound good and that's one of the worst songs I've heard.
There was a Zeeboid logo on the Monica game. It's entirely possible that when the servers were up it was possible for kids to make themselves then get punched in the face by a little girl with super powers and a stuffed rabbit.
I'm a total fighting game nerd and with Tekken being no exception, I can say that the game genuinely seems very accurate to the real thing in arcades and Playstation when it comes to gameplay. All the moves seem in order, frame data seems right, juggles seem to have accurate gravity... it's all there! With an actually usable controller, it is essentially the arcade game with a practice mode and survival mode. (The arcade game lacked any CG endings and just had that "congratulations" screen too.)
I loved Zenonia on DSi when I was a kid! I remember there was a random dog NPC whose dialogue line was "why do they call it doggy style?" and I was scared my parents would somehow see that line and I'd get in trouble
I'm Brazilian and I remember the zeebo being announced back then, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went. Honestly among all my friends at the time, barely anyone even heard of this console. Playstation was such a big thing so no one even turn their heads to look at the zeebo lol. Anyways what an incredible detailed and fun video! Thanks for making this!
Hey Derek and Grace, I want to say thank you. This channel has been a source of entertainment, information, and comfort for nearly half my life. Not only has it been a fun distraction, but it’s also introduced me to games, series, and genres that have become absolute favourites. It’s been there for me on my best and worst days, and I’m forever grateful. I know this has been a hard year for you, but I want you to know how much of an impact you can make on someone. I love you guys, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Tekken 2 on the PSX famously abandoned the Gouraud shading used in Tekken 1 and opted for flat-shaded textures, which resulted in blockier-looking models but sharper textures. It was a controversial choice, but it created a distinct look that is still pretty memorable to this day (for better or worse) The Zeebo version tries to one-up the PSX version with some anti-aliasing on the textures and the return of Gouraud shading, but what results is something that looks kind of... generic? Like, it's halfway between PSX Tekken 2 and PS2's Tekken Tag Tournament, which should be a good thing, but considering TTT came out in 2001... yeah. It's like if a very disinterested 3rd party studio ported it to the Dreamcast.
The visuals for Tekken 2 Zeebo really are bizarre. The way the lighting on the characters looks reminds me of the pre-rendered sprites you’d see on bootleg Wii plug & plays or the HyperScan, except in real-time 3D
@@johnclark926well this is why I was thinking the Zeebo version is actually an uprezzed Gameboy Advance version which is 2D sprites of 3D models. Like Killer Instinct 1 and Donkey Kong Country.
The commentary at 35:10 is correct, the zeebo should be a virtual console box (and work the controller to be better) but it was really important to have the game translated and localized. Maybe they wanted to have 100% translated games to stand the ground at a risk and it didnt paid. Why they did not worked on have all kind of games from the beginning will remain a riddle to everyone. I hope at the end of all the zeebo you got to learn some Portuguese. 90% of my English is from videogames and still working on it with new videogames.
Ok i'm here to say this: The Egg México thing is not for kids. Is an animated cartoon for teenagers and adults, actually the title is a pun, because "huevos" (eggs) is a word used in México to reference testicles and is also used to said something is very cool: "está de huevos". So eventually we got a movie: "Una película de huevos". In this country we are used to see drunk adults, because the adults drank beer during EVERY family reunion/party, so we take this type of jokes as family friendly.
I really love how respectful Derek are with those things. It's so easier to make fun of things, dump on everything. Like most people do instead of giving a honest opinion. That's what I love about you Derek. You teach a Brazilian the story of zeebo. And make me have so much fun while doing. I'm really thankful.
What impresses me the most is that you made content about Zeebo that you can't find on brazilian youtuber. And the guys around here love to tell how they are the "real deal" about retrogaming. Really awesome content, Derek. Hope your 2024 is way better!
I remember that in Mexico the Zeebo advertising was not about a new console. Zeebo advertising sold the product as an educational system for children at a high cost in those years ago. I have seen the console in Supermarkets and even on Sunday morning programs where you won a Zeebo by participating in the contests. We talked about that happening in 2009-2010.
Hi Derek, I'm a long time viewer of the channel and from Mexico. The game with eggs, are from a series of flash animations called HuevoCartoons, they were a big hit on the Internet in 2001. After the success of the flash animations, movies were made by the same creators of the animations and screened in mexican movie theaters; the game is from the first movie Una Pelicula de Huevos and is streaming on Netflix. As for the part of the eggs that get drunk with wine, they're poets reciting a poem and trying to film it on camera; the first take is the correct take on the poem but between takes they drink wine and get drunk every time they drink, from the second take the poem is changed ... Basically that's the intention of the joke, that the drunker they get they add more changes to the poem. Hoping this explanation helps with understanding better the egg games. Looking to more awesome content on the channel. Greetings from Mexico
The whole Ridge Racer corruption thing is so interesting to me! Imagine being such a poorly coded game that playing you is a threat to other games! Great to have you back, Uncle Derrick!
Stuff like that isn't entirely unheard of. The nasty bug in the PS2 demo for Viewtiful Joe 2, and the system issues caused by Anthem on the PS4 come to mind.
I remember how hard the advertisement for Zeebo was in Mexico, in my town for a while everywhere you could place an ad there was a Zeebo ad with the Huevocartoon characters. Also that gameshow was THE GAMESHOW, every mexican at the time knew what "En familia con Chabelo" was, and every family with small kids was probably watching every sunday morning. (RIP Xavier Lopez "Chabelo")
Also the Huevocartoon stuff is interesting, it started as a webseries directed to a teenage audience with gross and sexual humor ( i remember in one of the oldest shorts a character was literally a naked d*ck) but even the more kid oriented stuff is full of adult jokes with double meanings and sexual innuendos as in Mexico these kind of jokes might be a little more common and acceptable compared with other places.
I would definitely love to see a Zeebo corrections/fun fact video to close out this saga. This weird little machine has such a fascinating story and I'm glad you were the one to dig all of this up to share it with us. In my heart every year is a Stop Skeletons year, so I'm super excited to see what the whole team brings to us in the new year!
The Lars hit cracked me the hell up! Poor St. Anger... helped keep Metallica together, but will NEVER be left to peace due to that damned snare nightmare. XD
My favorite part of this video Derek, is ironically another popular UA-camr, Sam the -cooking- Guy, in those Qualcomm/Zeebo promo videos from back then (check your clip right after announcing Heavy Weapon, which sound like the TF2 update we never got). That is wild. How did he jump from doing press junkets for horrible game systems to making stoner food in air fryers? Now there's a mystery to unpack. Anyone else notice that?
I've been searching the comments for someone else who found it. The moment I saw him and heard the voice I'm like "holy crap that's Sam the Cooking Guy....what the heck is Sam the cooking guy doing in this video?" Now I need answers even more.
1:00:00 Ah, the Monica and Friends is a long-running comic book series from Brazil. I've read several of them. Localized, of course. Yeah, Monica is brutishly strong. The recurring gag is the boys throw mainly 3 insults to her: roly-poly, toothy and shorty. Most of the time the boys ended up get beaten by her.
You mention Sonic Adventure. It got me curious about the Zeebo's specs. 500 MHz ARM CPU, which is decent for the time. The GameCube had 486MHz PowerPC CPU. ATI Imageon GPU, not sure which version, since it could go anywhere from "as slow as 133 MHz to as fast as 950 MHz". My guess is that we're talking 133MHz. So, it seems like Zeebo was around a Gamecube in terms of specs and it had some good RAM in it, 128MB of it, which is double what the original Xbox had of 64MB. I think the big hangup on all these games is that the system was using an ARM processor, which is what is found in phones. That's what they were going for, a console that could easily handle these phone games. Though, as you said in the first Zeebo video, porting games turned out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated. If developers or Sega put in the work, they could have gotten Sonic Adventure up and running on this thing. Though I think Zeebo's lackluster sales probably had Sega thinking of looking for the exit.
1:10:10 the game show is called "en familia con chabelo" the actor (born in Chicago, recently deceased) was an institución in México, broadcasted every sunday morning from 1967 to 2005
Just a correction, 25:40 that Xtreme Sports box is actually Innerloop Studios' Xtreme Sports for Dreamcast. It was published by Infogrames in America, but Sega hammered their Sports brand on it in Europe. I'd be shocked if the plans of Sega titles included that, though.
I'm about to share a lengthy perspective from my Mexican viewpoint, so apologies in advance for any errors in my English. Here goes: In Mexico, the Zeebo was heavily advertised, especially in its early days. You can even spot it in some clips you used here, Uncle Derek. It was promoted on two major television networks during their flagship shows: "Venga la Alegría" (from TV Azteca), a morning magazine show that's still on the air today. More notably, on "En Familia con Chabelo" (from Televisa) featuring one of Mexico's TV legends, Chabelo, who holds two Guinness World Records for his show and character. This program ran for many years and was watched by multiple generations. Families and children had the opportunity to attend the show and win prizes, similar to what was depicted in the Zeebo video. Now, onto "Un Juego de Huevos." Let me begin by saying that back then and even now, there's a lot of content on TV that isn't particularly child-friendly. I grew up watching movies like Terminator, Robocop, Child's Play, Nightmare on Elm Street-all aired during prime time on open TV. In the 2000s, an animation studio started creating comedic flash animations centered around eggs. They were known as Huevocartoon, and although their animations weren't explicitly aimed at children, they were easily accessible and attracted a massive audience. Despite containing some adult-oriented humor, the animations gained immense popularity, even spawning recurring characters like the ones in the advertisement (such as the Poet Eggs, who got progressively drunker in each cut). As their popularity soared, a plethora of merchandise was released-stickers, pogs (featured in Frito-Lay products), and even a TCG called "Duelo de Huevos" (Egg Duel), clearly inspired by Yu-Gi-Oh!. Their next major move was releasing a feature film, targeted towards children but still infused with a significant amount of adult humor. The Zeebo game emerged from that movie, and the rest, as they say, is history. One last memory, if my memory serves right: the Zeebo was quite pricey in Mexico, almost comparable to the cost of a Wii or Xbox 360. However, it was marketed more as an educational game console. Even after its discontinuation, you could still find the Zeebo console and accessories at Walmart.
El tío Derek speaking good about Un Juego de Huevos was actually a surprise, specially with the Huevos Poetas clip. It is a really strange case, because the Huevocartoon animations were always for adult audiences, with dirty jokes, alcohol and gor3 with those eggs. But when it came the time to make a movie (the one the game is based of) they choosed to make one for all audiences, specially children. That's why it's featured in the long gone kids game show "En Familia con Chabelo", but also has comercial with those drunk eggs.
Brazilian here. - Rolimã is actually a kids play ( back when my dad was a kid, today it is rare to see rolimã in cities). - Floater: I don't even know what this is supposed to be, never saw anyone belly down in a boat before. Even more in a sewer passage. I don't know who had these ideas. And unfortunately, never seen a Zeebo in my life. But it was a joke here even before the release. But the target, I guess, was the parents and grandparents that did know about video games and could not afford a better one. Much like the "Polystation" ( Nes clone to fool parents to think it is a PlayStation).
I’ve really been looking forward to this and I was not disappointed! Thank you, SSFF, for doing God’s work and spreading the word of Zeebo to those of us who have never heard of it before you brought it up!
Hi! A mexican fella who loves your videos. The Ad from the Eggs Game on 32:33 its from a mexican web series where they use a lot of double meaning words to mock up a lot of stuff, even the game itself its a double meaning thing. Here in mexico we refer to the "Balls" as "Eggs", and if you say something is cool, you say "its an eggs thing" , the game is called "an eggs game" wich means "its an awesome game". So its not a kids show, however the web series went so popular that they made a movie (a lot of them actually, i think theyre on their sixth movie last year) and those were aimed for children. So the Ad was from the web series (for adults) but the game itself is based from the movie (for kids). Thats why theyre were drinking.
I crown thee the undisputed leader of the Zeebo cult. That being said I will not accept St. Anger slander. Don't become some kind of monster. In all seriousness, this was incredible. Kudos to everyone involved in making this. I'd love to see that 3rd video corrections video. Man, what a fascinating console and history. And as an unironic fan of St. Anger, the frantic reference was icing on the cake.
Can't believe Chabelo somehow got into an Uncle Derek video! To give some context to the mexican egg game, in the mid 2000s an online cartoon show called "huevo(egg) cartoon" got really popular. It had very raunchy/dark humor but it got popular enough with kids without supervised internet access that they got to make a whole movie (3 in fact) that was aimed more towards them. From what i remember, the characters in the movie and the webshow were different. So the ones that got wasted in the zeebo comercial were ones from the webshow but oddly enough, the character in the game was from the movie i think.
4:54 galaxy on fire was huge for java ME gamers back then, the sequel was goated and fish labs was a great dev that really pushed the boundaries of what a dumbphone could do with both this game and Deep 3D (my favorite).
On the Eggs games: Los Huevos Poetas were parto of a series of videos based on eggs that talked. The specific series of videos was based on a poem that the Poet Eggs rhymed on and then drank. The poem would get twisted as they got more and more drunk, which was the joke. The whole Eggs series was so popular, the movies were made in later years. "Una película de huevos" is actually based on a way of speaking in Mexico, which could be translated roughly into "An awesome movie", using "huevos" (eggs) as a reference to the internet series. (De huevos is actually used to say something is cool or awesome, amongst other meanings). Just a cultural FYI.
This was a great series! Really well researched, well written, just a great job overall, took a long time to finish, but it shows you made the best of it! If I were to point you one thing for your corrections video, is when you mention "summer of 2010": may I remind you, the seasons in the southern hemisphere are opposite, so what you call summer months are actually winter in Brazil. Aside from that, if you really want to boost your channel's view count, I highly suggest looking for other Brazilian games to review, even if they don't have their own weird console. Trust me, we Brazilians LOVE to look for pretty much ANYTHING people from other countries are talking about Brazilian stuff, it's actually a well-known social phenomenom around here!
Gosh, I got such a nostalgic feeling watching this video. I know what a failed console the Zeebo is, but I remember spending hours and hours on games like Zenonia (I think I have at least 110 hours on it alone), playing Tekken 2 and Zeebo FC Super League with my brother and my best friend, trying to climb the online rankings of Zeebo Sports Volei and FC Super League (I was even among the top 100 in the Zeebo FC Super League and funfact: this is one of the only games that uses Zeebo's achievement system linked to Zeeboids), following the Zeebo Club forum to see what the next releases and online events that TecToy was doing would be, I played a lot of Rally Master Pro (which is actually one of the my favorite rally games to date), Ranging Thunder 2 (which I thought was incredible that Zeebo could do graphics like those at the time), Um jogo de Ovos (which despite the silly name, was a great 2D platformer especially to play in co-op ) and several other games. I even spent hours on Zeebo just using the internet browser, because at that time it was just a PC for the whole family and cell phones with wifi (or even routers) weren't so common here in Brazil, Zeebo ended up being my main means of internet access to gaming forums and social networks such as Orkut ( the Brazilian MySpace ) and MSN. I know it's a strange console, but wow, I had such a great time with it, it's great to see more people getting to know this console and even it becoming an important collector's item.
When the world of youtube needed him the most, he came. Sorry to hear about the hardships, Uncle Derek but I feel I speak for all of us when we say that we love you and are always excited to see your uploads!
your content never disappoints, derrick! you have an infectiously enthusiastic personality. as well as a seamlessly informative way of presenting your videos. these qualities have only shined brighter over time. this video was well worth the wait!
1:02:00 Monica is a national treasure in Brazil. She and her gang are icons. Even the girl from the Mexico commercial made a little behind the scenes years later about it.
Man, the game of Eggs is something else. For context, Derek, that...was not really originally a children's IP. Eggs in Spanish is a word you can use as slang for testicles, so a LOT of the humor from that franchise(which started as Flash shorts) is double entendres, innuendos and thinly veiled raunchy jokes. In fact, saying something is "de huevos" (of eggs) is a rather coloquial crude way of saying it's the shit. "Está de huevos"=it's the shit. The movie the game is based on did tone down the humor to not be as explicit as the shorts, but you still can see a lot of double entendres(the main characters are two eggs and a piece of bacon, which were originally meant to be two eggs and a sausage) and even political jokes within. Sorry to unpack all of this, it's just so funny to see you covering this fucking IP of all things. Also, fucking wild to see Chabelo on Stop Skeletons From Fighting. That gameshow was THE GAMESHOW in Mexico, so to have that shit being featured on the show was a remarkably hefty endorsement.
man its so funny, I re-watched the last video with a friend literally just last night, so it was *wild* to see this uploaded today! Fantastic video, I love how much time and attention you pay to these weird, bad corners of gaming history that other people are content to just let be forgotten. Hope the next year goes well for ya
Great episode and great humor as always, but I have to say that my biggest laugh came from the disclaimer that none of the Data East games were translated (34:48). My Spanish is pretty rusty at this point, but I can still kinda read Portuguese, and the gist of it is that they did it "To preserve the games' in their original forms", and that they "Hope you appreciate this nostalgic experience"; those quotes aren't to suggest that this is a direct translation, but more to use them like the air quotes we use in everyday speech. This is "Dr. Robotnik's devious traps" to explain why Sonic FALLS THROUGH THE STAGES sometimes level of laying it on thick. And I agree: Bad Dudes has always been a little overrated; Crude Buster forever!
Your commitment to producing this videos is remarkable. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! You are some of the biggest and best content creators on UA-cam, with VERY informative videos, that deserve to be called full documentaries, and I can't express how grateful I am for you taking time, money and effort to make these. I mean... MORE THAN 2 HOURS WORTH OF CONTENT ABOUT ZEEBO! Not even the company that made it put on so much time on that console. You are the very, very best. (Alongside your pal Matt, of course). Thanks again.
32:44 Ok Mexican here: Try to explain HuevoCartoon (the franchise of A game of eggs) is at least a mess: First a quickly perspective of Mexican Spanish Language: Is repleted of sexual double meanings, like a lot, literally "Una Pelicula de huevos" can mean "A fucking Good Movie" due to "De huevos" means "Fuck Yeah" or similar meanings in english (and also is another double meaning to testicles). HuevoCartoon initially started on flash animation in the early 2000's and yes, were mostly adult oriented animations (with again a lot of double meanings and classic toilet mexican humor, they parody many things, from sports, tv shows, politics and many more, with the humor expected, they even made an sketch of Osama Bin Egg beating his wives and with clocks of NY were the minute hand is a plane and the 12 hours is the WTC, thats the kind of things you need to expect). But as many things of the internet underground in the early 2000...... they became extremely popular, they appeared everywhere: On tv, on pogs, notebooks for children. And tv networks as Televisa capitalize them on movies and merchandising. And yes, the eggs poets is one of their popular sketches, literally their schtick is getting drunk each shot passing.
Welcome back, my dude! We missed your content and hope you are well. Life is complicated and throws us a lot of bumps and obstacles; we learn, adapt, and do the besf we can. - You look great and I am happy to see you up with a new video!
I was just thinking of how much I missed hearing from SSFF and was making sure you were still kicking. So excited for a new vid, loved it and glad you're back!
I've been following you for 14 years now Derek. Time flies. Glad to see you're still doing your thing. 6 months is a little long, but this video has plenty of substance to make up for it. Hopefully 2024 will be a better year for you. It scares me that we're four years into this decade already.
The Egg game comes from a franchise where a lot of the humor is related to the fact that, let's say, saying eggs in spanish (at least in latam) is similar to saying balls in english.
I always wanted to know more about the Zeebo ever since I found out the first Crash Racing iOS game was released on it. These videos you made about the system were some of the most fascinating I’ve ever watched. Thank you Derek, it’s you Derek.
Dude!!! I was literally just telling my wife last week "I hope Uncle Derek is ok, he hasn't posted in ages." She said you were probably still playing Zeebo 😂❤
Everyone. Stop what you're doing, find your favorite Uncle Derek video and _share it._ Come on guys, SSFF should have millions of subs. Spread the good word!
If I think I know my weird gaming history, Derek comes out and comes around with weirder games and even more weird controllers. He always looks like he found gold and is extremely enthusiastic, love it
Thanks uncle Derek for this beautiful documentary about our beloved Zeebo, which is part of our history. I wish you guys a great new year, happy holidays for you too, and see ya soon!
i discovered this channel about 3 months ago and have watched almost all your videos since being hvgn and i absolutely love it! so great to see a new video and i hope you guys like making these as much as i like watching!
Hey it's Derek! Damn, the delay on this one was ridiculous, and that sucks. 2023 was a really tough year, but then again every year is! So I'm sorry I let a lot of personal stuff get to me! I'm not taking any time off in January, I've got big plans for the new year! There wont be another 6 months between video again, I've already got several plates spinning, so stay tuned! Or ring that bell, to use a more appropriate phrase haha
This fall we launched a new Patreon Exclusive show call Uncle Derek Underground! A monthly exclusive video series, all topics community voted by our supporters on Patreon! As a holiday gift I'll be posting our favorite episode for free on here just to give everyone a taste. Look forward to that!
I want to thank SoberDwarf who helped edit on this video and every other Zeebo video we've made over the years. Adamnator edited a big chunk of this one as well and the help was very much needed! Cass from Bad Game Hall of Fame did a ton of the writing and research for other Zeebo videos. She also helped on a huge script earlier this year and I hope to make that a big video for 2024. And of course thanks to Producer Grace for helping with writing and research and being honest when I ask, "hey, is this funny / a good idea?" It's important to have people who will tell you "No, that joke is too dumb and that's a bad idea!"
I've been doing this sixteen freaking years! I'm able to do it because you all support and believe in me. I really try to never take it for granted and make every video as good as I can make it. And I've still got so much I want to do, I'm not ready to retire yet! Y'all make this too much fun, so you haven't seen the last of Uncle Derek!
-Stay Powerful!
It's fine, at least the video actually came out but I liked the first one and can't wait to finish this episode
Totally understandable, man!
SSFF has not left my mind and suddenly seeing this in my feed made genuinely explode with joy!
Your videos are a genuine comfort and something I can always share thanks to your incredibly friendly and welcoming nature to newcomers to retro games appreciation!
Also, handsome!
We wish you the best of luck in 2024 and beyond. I am simply happy to receive part 2, no matter how long it took. *chefs kiss*
Thanks for the vids bro!!!
I was fine waiting. Knew you'd be back when the time was right for you. Matt McMuscles and others in my UA-cam crew kept me occupied until you returned. I was very excited when I saw this video at the very top of my feed, and went to make a sammich to enjoy this hour long episode with. It was nice to have proof of life with the voice of Producer Grace in the background. Any plans for her to make an appearance on on of these several plates you have spinning?
As a former Zeebo dev, I still love seeing things like this video and its first part. As far as I am concerned, Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi were going to be straight Dreamcast ports. I don't remember exactly when and why they were cancelled (I had already been assigned to the CT team by that point), but it probably was due to the traumatic (and very expensive) experience of porting NFS Carbon. Virtua Tennis on the other hand was never meant to be a port of VT3, it was based on a Japan only mobile VT game. Working on it was actually the very first thing I did when joining them in mid-2008, and my job was to make it actually playable (the original game controlled horribly, didn't even register diagonals) and include a 2-player mode. The UI and menus had been entirely remade and the game was renamed as simply Virtua Tennis, but got cancelled anyway.
I heard horror stories from friends who worked at Tectoy that you either had Sonic at an acceptable speed OR you had a draw distance that you could actually see where you were going xD
But that was because the idea for the ports probably started BEFORE they had to scale down the power of the console because of the chip manufactor problems
Is the Zeenix real, though?
@@PlatyNews I don't remember Sonic Adventure getting to that point, IIRC the ports were cancelled in pre-production. But that's what would happen for sure.
Regardless of being scaled down, the Zeebo chipset was expected to achieve near PSP-level performance. What became clear during the porting of the first games (specially NFS Carbon) is that it wouldn't happen. Qualcomm insisted in using the same BREW system of their phones, without any of the modifications that would be required to extract the most from the hardware. I'm guessing here, but I think that left us with 70 - 75% of what we thought we had to work with.
@@gustavogalembeck7711 Was the shift towards edutainment something enforced from the top and was there internal resistance towards it?
@@gustavogalembeck7711Do you know anything about the Quake / Quake 2 ports? How did ID Software got involved with the system, and how were the games localized? Because to date, Quake 2 for Zeebo is the ONLY officially translated and dubbed version of the game in existence. I'd love to learn more about it.
Seeing Monica's Gang mentioned here was a big surprise. I have met the creator of Monica's Gang in the past... The franchise is absolutely huge here in Brazil!
It’s Derek. It’s him. Derek.
He's Derek! It's him! DEREK!
Derek confirmed
He's the problem, it's him.
It’s Derek. It’s him. Derek. From Stop Dereks From Derek. (Caddicarus reference)
Dereko
I worked on the Zeebo Extreme series as an env artist/level designer/UI designer(we were a few artists working on everything at once). Worked on billy cart, air race and floater. Those games were supposed to be a minigame collection similar to California Games. However, developing billy cart took way more resources than expected since we had to develop a whole game engine from scratch and tooling for it was precarious. Putting up content was very slow until we reached the Baja game. It would take too much time to develop all minigames, so it was decided to split them into different games... that's why it has so little content in each one.
We were organized into two teams working in parallel to deliver those as fast as possible. Billy Cart took around 6 months, Air Race and Baja 3-4 months, Floater 2 months and Jet Board around 3-4 weeks. It was a mad rush. Whichever artists were assigned to one of those had to do everything, the character portraits, level design, environment art... so there wasn't a specific person that drew those same 4 characters over and over (that's why the art style is very inconsistent also). I did the Baja game char portraits, "Ouro Preto" track level design and art on Billy Cart, art and level design for "Caverna do Diabo" track on Floater, art and level design for AirRace, designed most of the UI that's reused on all games. Also did a lot of texturing work for characters and several levels. Had never worked with 3D before since I was hired to do 2D illustration and pixel artwork, so I was doing all that stuff while learning Maya and 3DMax.
And nope, I wasn't very well compensated for it, lol
Also did almost all artwork and animations on the Monica game by myself, but 99% of the illustrations and sound were provided by Maurício de Souza studios. I was tasked with assembling this bunch of artwork that they had on their database in usable game assets. It was a whole other nightmare.
Crazy times, crazy times...
and by the way, thanks for all your work documenting Zeebo history! You did a great job, I always recommend your stuff when people ask me about Zeebo. It was a spectacular failure, but a very interesting one. I think it's worth preserving the history of this little Brazilian adventure of creating a game console. It was a nightmare to work on it, but I've met great people and it kick-started my career in games, so Zeebo will always have a special place in my heart.
I'm Brazilian.
Throughout my entire life, I've only ever known ONE person who had a Zeebo. This kid at school got one... in 2012. I have no idea how that worked out for him, but he made his distaste for the console very clear to me.
Nobody had this thing. Nobody even knew it existed. The PS2 was very strong up until 2014, and with the recent decrease in purchasing power, it's rising to popularity AGAIN. No room for Zeebo when that's the competition.
How did ps2 last that long ???
@@SetoKaiba342newer consoles and such are super expensive in Brazil.
@@SetoKaiba342 Older consoles are popular in places like Brazil due to ridiculous import taxes. I actually know a Brazilian fighting game player through Discord... and his local scene seems to consist mostly of Tekken 5 and the 3D era Mortal Kombats! Get in the bin, Street Fighter 6.
@@THENAMEISQUICKMAN I honestly love that since I’m a retro gamer. Americans move on quickly.
@@SetoKaiba342 In Brazil it is cheaper to buy a plane ticket to the US or Europe, buy electronics there and come back than it is to just buy them here. Is not even that uncommon among middle to higher middle class folk to do just that. I'm currently planning a trip to the US myself because I want to buy a new PC
One thing about "Un juego de huevos (A game of eggs):
The game was made to promote the Zeebo on its launch in Mexico, heavily promoted in mexican TV channels.
The game is based on a movie, but the commercial is a reference to Huevocartoon (The creators of the franchise) early animated shorts! Huevocartoon story is pretty much the same as most of the og youtubers (Started on a website, then moved to youtube), their original animated shorts were about eggs doing random stuff. The commercial is a reference to the series called "Poeta huevos" (Poet eggs) which starts like the eggs doing something "innocent" like reading poetry or having a cooking show but each take they get progressively more drunk to the point of saying nonsense. Their early animations were not for kids but an investment company said "Hey this can be profitable for kids" and the movie was made
Monica's Gang is basically the Mickey Mouse crew of Brazil. They're HUGE over there, specially since they're original brazillian comic strip characters. They're also pretty big here in Portugal.
As a Mexican who grew up in Mexico I can tell you those egg cartoons were NOT for kids, they were primarily on the internet and clearly meant for adults, the whole joke is that eggs or "Huevos" is slang for testicles in Mexican Spanish. However the movie was made with more of a family audience in mind.
Came for the jank, stayed for the deep lore of Monica's Gang.
That "um jogo de ovos" pronunciation was pretty perfect, congrats!
Edit: seeing uncle Derek experiencing Monica's Gang for the first time is something I did not realize was coming when the first part came out. Also I'm pretty sure they got the official VAs for everyone, I don't know why I'm impressed with that, but i am
Thanks!! I tried really hard to get the difference between the “J” and “D” sound!
PETITION TO DEREK READ MONICA'S GANG AS A BONUS ON A FUTURE VIDEO xD
@@StopSkeletonsFromFighting In Portuguese we have something weird with vowels changing their sound based on whether the word is singular or plural. That's the only part that wasn't amazing in your pronunciation, but it was easily understandable. If you wanna check it out via Google translate, some words are ovo/ovos (egg), poço/poços (well), olho/olhos (eye) and porco/porcos (pig). I find it a nice linguistic quirk, but many Brazilians get these words wrong.
So the lore of the 4 main character of Monica's gang is this: Cebolinha (the Nelson looking character you mention) has a speech impediment (he can't say the letter "R" he switches it for "L"), Cascão (the boy with black hair and black marks on his face) hates water and never showers, Monica has super strength and Magali (the girl with the yellow dress) is a glutton, the four of them are friends, but Cebolinha and Cascão like to mess with monica by calling her buck-theeth and fat and by stealing the bunny, her response to that is usualy getting Sansão back and clobering them in the head with it. Magali usualy tags along for the food.
If I'm not mistaken the official english names for them are
Cebolinha = Jimmy Five
Cascão = Smudge
Magali = Maggy
@@maestroquebrado2259 I did not know that. Cool.
@@maestroquebrado2259 I want to know what is the logic behind Jimmy Five. This one is wild.
Deepest lore
@@theLikou15 strands of hair. Not sure why the name "Jimmy", tho
"based on the moment Tim Burton lost all credibility as a filmmaker" was a priceless line that got me
Tim Burton hasn't had any credibility since batman returns.
MONICA INFORMATION IS NOT DUMB AND IS ALWAYS NICE TO SPREAD THROUGH THE WORLD.
Monica's comics were my introduction to comics and I learned to read with them . I will love them to death
(Note on 'it's weird a hack and slash dropped on halloween': We don't really celebrate Halloween in Brazil. There's some parties mostly geared to adults, and some peeps who'll watch a spooky movie, but it's not really a THING like it is in the anglosphere.)
Whenever people say "it's halloween!" here in Brazil, I have to try really hard to not just roll my eyes. I'm on the "who the f cares?!" side...
@@ViniLdCff Honestly...you'll see a lot in the US doing it nowadays too
I unironically think you'd have a lot of fun interviewing a Zeebo dev/programmer, and it would be an interesting watch.
I was worried you actually were sent to Brazil after the last video lol
Thanks for sharing this piece of Brazilian videogame history with the rest of the world.
"I am no longer asking you to come to Brazil 🔫"
He's more than welcome to come.
I loved the St. anger reference. So accurate
I'm gonna need a 10 hour loop of that, it's so infectious
Literally the first St Anger joke I've actually chuckled at in years that isn't "durrr bad snare what is this St Anger?"
MY LIFESTYLE DETERMINES MY DEATHSTYLE
I'm convinced we need to get Derek and Anthony Fantano together to talk music
I've ignored Metallica since the mid-late 90s so I had no idea they actually had a song with the lyrics (chorus?) "my lifestyle determines my death style". OMG that's so bad! It almost makes "I Disappear" sound good and that's one of the worst songs I've heard.
There was a Zeeboid logo on the Monica game. It's entirely possible that when the servers were up it was possible for kids to make themselves then get punched in the face by a little girl with super powers and a stuffed rabbit.
I'm a total fighting game nerd and with Tekken being no exception, I can say that the game genuinely seems very accurate to the real thing in arcades and Playstation when it comes to gameplay. All the moves seem in order, frame data seems right, juggles seem to have accurate gravity... it's all there! With an actually usable controller, it is essentially the arcade game with a practice mode and survival mode. (The arcade game lacked any CG endings and just had that "congratulations" screen too.)
I loved Zenonia on DSi when I was a kid! I remember there was a random dog NPC whose dialogue line was "why do they call it doggy style?" and I was scared my parents would somehow see that line and I'd get in trouble
I'm Brazilian and I remember the zeebo being announced back then, but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went. Honestly among all my friends at the time, barely anyone even heard of this console. Playstation was such a big thing so no one even turn their heads to look at the zeebo lol. Anyways what an incredible detailed and fun video! Thanks for making this!
Hey Derek and Grace, I want to say thank you. This channel has been a source of entertainment, information, and comfort for nearly half my life. Not only has it been a fun distraction, but it’s also introduced me to games, series, and genres that have become absolute favourites. It’s been there for me on my best and worst days, and I’m forever grateful. I know this has been a hard year for you, but I want you to know how much of an impact you can make on someone. I love you guys, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Tekken 2 on the PSX famously abandoned the Gouraud shading used in Tekken 1 and opted for flat-shaded textures, which resulted in blockier-looking models but sharper textures. It was a controversial choice, but it created a distinct look that is still pretty memorable to this day (for better or worse)
The Zeebo version tries to one-up the PSX version with some anti-aliasing on the textures and the return of Gouraud shading, but what results is something that looks kind of... generic? Like, it's halfway between PSX Tekken 2 and PS2's Tekken Tag Tournament, which should be a good thing, but considering TTT came out in 2001... yeah. It's like if a very disinterested 3rd party studio ported it to the Dreamcast.
The visuals for Tekken 2 Zeebo really are bizarre. The way the lighting on the characters looks reminds me of the pre-rendered sprites you’d see on bootleg Wii plug & plays or the HyperScan, except in real-time 3D
@@johnclark926well this is why I was thinking the Zeebo version is actually an uprezzed Gameboy Advance version which is 2D sprites of 3D models. Like Killer Instinct 1 and Donkey Kong Country.
The commentary at 35:10 is correct, the zeebo should be a virtual console box (and work the controller to be better) but it was really important to have the game translated and localized. Maybe they wanted to have 100% translated games to stand the ground at a risk and it didnt paid. Why they did not worked on have all kind of games from the beginning will remain a riddle to everyone. I hope at the end of all the zeebo you got to learn some Portuguese. 90% of my English is from videogames and still working on it with new videogames.
Ok i'm here to say this:
The Egg México thing is not for kids. Is an animated cartoon for teenagers and adults, actually the title is a pun, because "huevos" (eggs) is a word used in México to reference testicles and is also used to said something is very cool: "está de huevos". So eventually we got a movie: "Una película de huevos".
In this country we are used to see drunk adults, because the adults drank beer during EVERY family reunion/party, so we take this type of jokes as family friendly.
I really love how respectful Derek are with those things. It's so easier to make fun of things, dump on everything. Like most people do instead of giving a honest opinion. That's what I love about you Derek. You teach a Brazilian the story of zeebo. And make me have so much fun while doing. I'm really thankful.
I've always loved Derek's passion for these kinds of systems.
I downloaded this just for something to watch on my flight. I always forget how much I enjoy Derek's chill game-loving vibe.
What impresses me the most is that you made content about Zeebo that you can't find on brazilian youtuber. And the guys around here love to tell how they are the "real deal" about retrogaming.
Really awesome content, Derek. Hope your 2024 is way better!
I remember that in Mexico the Zeebo advertising was not about a new console. Zeebo advertising sold the product as an educational system for children at a high cost in those years ago. I have seen the console in Supermarkets and even on Sunday morning programs where you won a Zeebo by participating in the contests. We talked about that happening in 2009-2010.
As a Brazilian, it was very soothing to hear uncle Derek talking about Brazilian cartoons
Hi Derek, I'm a long time viewer of the channel and from Mexico. The game with eggs, are from a series of flash animations called HuevoCartoons, they were a big hit on the Internet in 2001. After the success of the flash animations, movies were made by the same creators of the animations and screened in mexican movie theaters; the game is from the first movie Una Pelicula de Huevos and is streaming on Netflix. As for the part of the eggs that get drunk with wine, they're poets reciting a poem and trying to film it on camera; the first take is the correct take on the poem but between takes they drink wine and get drunk every time they drink, from the second take the poem is changed ... Basically that's the intention of the joke, that the drunker they get they add more changes to the poem. Hoping this explanation helps with understanding better the egg games. Looking to more awesome content on the channel. Greetings from Mexico
Absolutely excellent overview of this obscure console’s library. Entertaining as always, Uncle Derek!
The whole Ridge Racer corruption thing is so interesting to me! Imagine being such a poorly coded game that playing you is a threat to other games!
Great to have you back, Uncle Derrick!
Stuff like that isn't entirely unheard of. The nasty bug in the PS2 demo for Viewtiful Joe 2, and the system issues caused by Anthem on the PS4 come to mind.
I remember how hard the advertisement for Zeebo was in Mexico, in my town for a while everywhere you could place an ad there was a Zeebo ad with the Huevocartoon characters. Also that gameshow was THE GAMESHOW, every mexican at the time knew what "En familia con Chabelo" was, and every family with small kids was probably watching every sunday morning. (RIP Xavier Lopez "Chabelo")
Also the Huevocartoon stuff is interesting, it started as a webseries directed to a teenage audience with gross and sexual humor ( i remember in one of the oldest shorts a character was literally a naked d*ck) but even the more kid oriented stuff is full of adult jokes with double meanings and sexual innuendos as in Mexico these kind of jokes might be a little more common and acceptable compared with other places.
I would definitely love to see a Zeebo corrections/fun fact video to close out this saga. This weird little machine has such a fascinating story and I'm glad you were the one to dig all of this up to share it with us.
In my heart every year is a Stop Skeletons year, so I'm super excited to see what the whole team brings to us in the new year!
This was worth the half a year wait. So good. That metallica joke *chef kiss*
2:00 i know this is a 2009 port of a 1995 game made for Brazil, but the decision to not edit the Twin Towers out of the background is surreal
I'm assuming the reason we haven't seen a new video for a while is due to being far too busy preventing skeletons from fighting.
For someone whose year ended badly, I needed to hear your closing message. Thanks Derek, hope you have a better 2024 as well.
Sam the cooking guy at 1:21? Thanks for the top notch content Derek!
The Lars hit cracked me the hell up! Poor St. Anger... helped keep Metallica together, but will NEVER be left to peace due to that damned snare nightmare. XD
My favorite part of this video Derek, is ironically another popular UA-camr, Sam the -cooking- Guy, in those Qualcomm/Zeebo promo videos from back then (check your clip right after announcing Heavy Weapon, which sound like the TF2 update we never got). That is wild. How did he jump from doing press junkets for horrible game systems to making stoner food in air fryers? Now there's a mystery to unpack. Anyone else notice that?
I've been searching the comments for someone else who found it. The moment I saw him and heard the voice I'm like "holy crap that's Sam the Cooking Guy....what the heck is Sam the cooking guy doing in this video?" Now I need answers even more.
1:00:00 Ah, the Monica and Friends is a long-running comic book series from Brazil. I've read several of them. Localized, of course.
Yeah, Monica is brutishly strong. The recurring gag is the boys throw mainly 3 insults to her: roly-poly, toothy and shorty. Most of the time the boys ended up get beaten by her.
Wow, I never expected to see Chabelo here, but your here we are. Your reaction to the Huevos comercial was amazing. Una porra pal Zeebo indeed 😂
Derek. You may have made me remember a game I forgot maybe around 2014. YES IT WAS ZENONIA AND SPECIFICALLY ZENONIA 4!
You mention Sonic Adventure. It got me curious about the Zeebo's specs. 500 MHz ARM CPU, which is decent for the time. The GameCube had 486MHz PowerPC CPU. ATI Imageon GPU, not sure which version, since it could go anywhere from "as slow as 133 MHz to as fast as 950 MHz". My guess is that we're talking 133MHz. So, it seems like Zeebo was around a Gamecube in terms of specs and it had some good RAM in it, 128MB of it, which is double what the original Xbox had of 64MB.
I think the big hangup on all these games is that the system was using an ARM processor, which is what is found in phones. That's what they were going for, a console that could easily handle these phone games. Though, as you said in the first Zeebo video, porting games turned out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated. If developers or Sega put in the work, they could have gotten Sonic Adventure up and running on this thing. Though I think Zeebo's lackluster sales probably had Sega thinking of looking for the exit.
You sir must pay a fine for the 5 months delay! 😤
We missed you 🥺
1:10:10 the game show is called "en familia con chabelo" the actor (born in Chicago, recently deceased) was an institución in México, broadcasted every sunday morning from 1967 to 2005
Again, I've lived in Mexico and NEVER but NEVER heard of the Zeebo until I saw these videos.
Just a correction, 25:40 that Xtreme Sports box is actually Innerloop Studios' Xtreme Sports for Dreamcast. It was published by Infogrames in America, but Sega hammered their Sports brand on it in Europe. I'd be shocked if the plans of Sega titles included that, though.
I'm about to share a lengthy perspective from my Mexican viewpoint, so apologies in advance for any errors in my English. Here goes:
In Mexico, the Zeebo was heavily advertised, especially in its early days. You can even spot it in some clips you used here, Uncle Derek. It was promoted on two major television networks during their flagship shows:
"Venga la Alegría" (from TV Azteca), a morning magazine show that's still on the air today.
More notably, on "En Familia con Chabelo" (from Televisa) featuring one of Mexico's TV legends, Chabelo, who holds two Guinness World Records for his show and character. This program ran for many years and was watched by multiple generations. Families and children had the opportunity to attend the show and win prizes, similar to what was depicted in the Zeebo video.
Now, onto "Un Juego de Huevos." Let me begin by saying that back then and even now, there's a lot of content on TV that isn't particularly child-friendly. I grew up watching movies like Terminator, Robocop, Child's Play, Nightmare on Elm Street-all aired during prime time on open TV.
In the 2000s, an animation studio started creating comedic flash animations centered around eggs. They were known as Huevocartoon, and although their animations weren't explicitly aimed at children, they were easily accessible and attracted a massive audience. Despite containing some adult-oriented humor, the animations gained immense popularity, even spawning recurring characters like the ones in the advertisement (such as the Poet Eggs, who got progressively drunker in each cut).
As their popularity soared, a plethora of merchandise was released-stickers, pogs (featured in Frito-Lay products), and even a TCG called "Duelo de Huevos" (Egg Duel), clearly inspired by Yu-Gi-Oh!. Their next major move was releasing a feature film, targeted towards children but still infused with a significant amount of adult humor. The Zeebo game emerged from that movie, and the rest, as they say, is history.
One last memory, if my memory serves right: the Zeebo was quite pricey in Mexico, almost comparable to the cost of a Wii or Xbox 360. However, it was marketed more as an educational game console. Even after its discontinuation, you could still find the Zeebo console and accessories at Walmart.
I like to imagine that the sound effects for Tork & Kral were created by Tommy Tallarico.
“That’s ME screaming into an Xbox 360 headset microphone”
Evolving, over a year, to "It was Joey Kuras screaming into an Xbox 360 headset microphone - but it was my Xbox 360 headset microphone".
As a mexican, watching a Chabelo clip in your video made my day!
Chabelo was the amigo of all the kids
I randomly glanced over at my recommended videos and this video was there and I couldn't have clicked on it faster. In Uncle Derek We Trust.
And so the Zeebo's life ends like all great consoles... with a random sports game.
El tío Derek speaking good about Un Juego de Huevos was actually a surprise, specially with the Huevos Poetas clip.
It is a really strange case, because the Huevocartoon animations were always for adult audiences, with dirty jokes, alcohol and gor3 with those eggs. But when it came the time to make a movie (the one the game is based of) they choosed to make one for all audiences, specially children.
That's why it's featured in the long gone kids game show "En Familia con Chabelo", but also has comercial with those drunk eggs.
Brazilian here.
- Rolimã is actually a kids play ( back when my dad was a kid, today it is rare to see rolimã in cities).
- Floater: I don't even know what this is supposed to be, never saw anyone belly down in a boat before. Even more in a sewer passage. I don't know who had these ideas.
And unfortunately, never seen a Zeebo in my life. But it was a joke here even before the release. But the target, I guess, was the parents and grandparents that did know about video games and could not afford a better one. Much like the "Polystation" ( Nes clone to fool parents to think it is a PlayStation).
32:30 No Derek, the "Huevos" are not kid friendly. In fact, they are a pun for male gonads
I’ve really been looking forward to this and I was not disappointed! Thank you, SSFF, for doing God’s work and spreading the word of Zeebo to those of us who have never heard of it before you brought it up!
Hi! A mexican fella who loves your videos. The Ad from the Eggs Game on 32:33 its from a mexican web series where they use a lot of double meaning words to mock up a lot of stuff, even the game itself its a double meaning thing. Here in mexico we refer to the "Balls" as "Eggs", and if you say something is cool, you say "its an eggs thing" , the game is called "an eggs game" wich means "its an awesome game". So its not a kids show, however the web series went so popular that they made a movie (a lot of them actually, i think theyre on their sixth movie last year) and those were aimed for children. So the Ad was from the web series (for adults) but the game itself is based from the movie (for kids). Thats why theyre were drinking.
I crown thee the undisputed leader of the Zeebo cult. That being said I will not accept St. Anger slander. Don't become some kind of monster.
In all seriousness, this was incredible. Kudos to everyone involved in making this. I'd love to see that 3rd video corrections video. Man, what a fascinating console and history. And as an unironic fan of St. Anger, the frantic reference was icing on the cake.
Can't believe Chabelo somehow got into an Uncle Derek video!
To give some context to the mexican egg game, in the mid 2000s an online cartoon show called "huevo(egg) cartoon" got really popular. It had very raunchy/dark humor but it got popular enough with kids without supervised internet access that they got to make a whole movie (3 in fact) that was aimed more towards them.
From what i remember, the characters in the movie and the webshow were different. So the ones that got wasted in the zeebo comercial were ones from the webshow but oddly enough, the character in the game was from the movie i think.
4:54 galaxy on fire was huge for java ME gamers back then, the sequel was goated and fish labs was a great dev that really pushed the boundaries of what a dumbphone could do with both this game and Deep 3D (my favorite).
On the Eggs games: Los Huevos Poetas were parto of a series of videos based on eggs that talked. The specific series of videos was based on a poem that the Poet Eggs rhymed on and then drank. The poem would get twisted as they got more and more drunk, which was the joke.
The whole Eggs series was so popular, the movies were made in later years. "Una película de huevos" is actually based on a way of speaking in Mexico, which could be translated roughly into "An awesome movie", using "huevos" (eggs) as a reference to the internet series. (De huevos is actually used to say something is cool or awesome, amongst other meanings).
Just a cultural FYI.
This was a great series! Really well researched, well written, just a great job overall, took a long time to finish, but it shows you made the best of it! If I were to point you one thing for your corrections video, is when you mention "summer of 2010": may I remind you, the seasons in the southern hemisphere are opposite, so what you call summer months are actually winter in Brazil. Aside from that, if you really want to boost your channel's view count, I highly suggest looking for other Brazilian games to review, even if they don't have their own weird console. Trust me, we Brazilians LOVE to look for pretty much ANYTHING people from other countries are talking about Brazilian stuff, it's actually a well-known social phenomenom around here!
Gosh, I got such a nostalgic feeling watching this video.
I know what a failed console the Zeebo is, but I remember spending hours and hours on games like Zenonia (I think I have at least 110 hours on it alone), playing Tekken 2 and Zeebo FC Super League with my brother and my best friend, trying to climb the online rankings of Zeebo Sports Volei and FC Super League (I was even among the top 100 in the Zeebo FC Super League and funfact: this is one of the only games that uses Zeebo's achievement system linked to Zeeboids), following the Zeebo Club forum to see what the next releases and online events that TecToy was doing would be, I played a lot of Rally Master Pro (which is actually one of the my favorite rally games to date), Ranging Thunder 2 (which I thought was incredible that Zeebo could do graphics like those at the time), Um jogo de Ovos (which despite the silly name, was a great 2D platformer especially to play in co-op ) and several other games.
I even spent hours on Zeebo just using the internet browser, because at that time it was just a PC for the whole family and cell phones with wifi (or even routers) weren't so common here in Brazil, Zeebo ended up being my main means of internet access to gaming forums and social networks such as Orkut ( the Brazilian MySpace ) and MSN.
I know it's a strange console, but wow, I had such a great time with it, it's great to see more people getting to know this console and even it becoming an important collector's item.
When the world of youtube needed him the most, he came. Sorry to hear about the hardships, Uncle Derek but I feel I speak for all of us when we say that we love you and are always excited to see your uploads!
your content never disappoints, derrick! you have an infectiously enthusiastic personality. as well as a seamlessly informative way of presenting your videos. these qualities have only shined brighter over time. this video was well worth the wait!
1:02:00 Monica is a national treasure in Brazil. She and her gang are icons.
Even the girl from the Mexico commercial made a little behind the scenes years later about it.
The Zeebo is the gift that keeps on giving. truly one of the most bizarre consoles of all time.
Also, Yay Turma da Mónica!
Man, the game of Eggs is something else.
For context, Derek, that...was not really originally a children's IP. Eggs in Spanish is a word you can use as slang for testicles, so a LOT of the humor from that franchise(which started as Flash shorts) is double entendres, innuendos and thinly veiled raunchy jokes. In fact, saying something is "de huevos" (of eggs) is a rather coloquial crude way of saying it's the shit. "Está de huevos"=it's the shit.
The movie the game is based on did tone down the humor to not be as explicit as the shorts, but you still can see a lot of double entendres(the main characters are two eggs and a piece of bacon, which were originally meant to be two eggs and a sausage) and even political jokes within.
Sorry to unpack all of this, it's just so funny to see you covering this fucking IP of all things.
Also, fucking wild to see Chabelo on Stop Skeletons From Fighting. That gameshow was THE GAMESHOW in Mexico, so to have that shit being featured on the show was a remarkably hefty endorsement.
man its so funny, I re-watched the last video with a friend literally just last night, so it was *wild* to see this uploaded today! Fantastic video, I love how much time and attention you pay to these weird, bad corners of gaming history that other people are content to just let be forgotten. Hope the next year goes well for ya
That Alice game unlocked a weird memory for me, I remember playing a mobile game very similar to it, but I could t get very far.
Nothing as exciting as a new SSFF video. Also thank you for reminding me about Zenonia. That was like a nostalgia wave.
Same here, I hadn't thought of that game in forever, but I remember enjoying it on my phone way back in the day!
I hope I can find a way to play the whole series. I think I played 4 but it was awhile ago so I don't remember exactly
Great episode and great humor as always, but I have to say that my biggest laugh came from the disclaimer that none of the Data East games were translated (34:48). My Spanish is pretty rusty at this point, but I can still kinda read Portuguese, and the gist of it is that they did it "To preserve the games' in their original forms", and that they "Hope you appreciate this nostalgic experience"; those quotes aren't to suggest that this is a direct translation, but more to use them like the air quotes we use in everyday speech. This is "Dr. Robotnik's devious traps" to explain why Sonic FALLS THROUGH THE STAGES sometimes level of laying it on thick.
And I agree: Bad Dudes has always been a little overrated; Crude Buster forever!
Your commitment to producing this videos is remarkable. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
You are some of the biggest and best content creators on UA-cam, with VERY informative videos, that deserve to be called full documentaries, and I can't express how grateful I am for you taking time, money and effort to make these.
I mean... MORE THAN 2 HOURS WORTH OF CONTENT ABOUT ZEEBO! Not even the company that made it put on so much time on that console.
You are the very, very best. (Alongside your pal Matt, of course). Thanks again.
32:44 Ok Mexican here: Try to explain HuevoCartoon (the franchise of A game of eggs) is at least a mess:
First a quickly perspective of Mexican Spanish Language: Is repleted of sexual double meanings, like a lot, literally "Una Pelicula de huevos" can mean "A fucking Good Movie" due to "De huevos" means "Fuck Yeah" or similar meanings in english (and also is another double meaning to testicles).
HuevoCartoon initially started on flash animation in the early 2000's and yes, were mostly adult oriented animations (with again a lot of double meanings and classic toilet mexican humor, they parody many things, from sports, tv shows, politics and many more, with the humor expected, they even made an sketch of Osama Bin Egg beating his wives and with clocks of NY were the minute hand is a plane and the 12 hours is the WTC, thats the kind of things you need to expect).
But as many things of the internet underground in the early 2000...... they became extremely popular, they appeared everywhere: On tv, on pogs, notebooks for children. And tv networks as Televisa capitalize them on movies and merchandising.
And yes, the eggs poets is one of their popular sketches, literally their schtick is getting drunk each shot passing.
The fact that this is an hour episode. Thanks uncle Derek for this early Xmas gift 🙏🏽💯
Welcome back, my dude! We missed your content and hope you are well. Life is complicated and throws us a lot of bumps and obstacles; we learn, adapt, and do the besf we can. - You look great and I am happy to see you up with a new video!
YES! More jank! I've been waiting for an upload for so long! Thank you for keeping up the hard work. Have a good one.
I was just thinking of how much I missed hearing from SSFF and was making sure you were still kicking. So excited for a new vid, loved it and glad you're back!
I've been following you for 14 years now Derek. Time flies. Glad to see you're still doing your thing. 6 months is a little long, but this video has plenty of substance to make up for it. Hopefully 2024 will be a better year for you. It scares me that we're four years into this decade already.
That was a great quest on Zeebo land haha
Great work uncle Derek!!!
The Egg game comes from a franchise where a lot of the humor is related to the fact that, let's say, saying eggs in spanish (at least in latam) is similar to saying balls in english.
I always wanted to know more about the Zeebo ever since I found out the first Crash Racing iOS game was released on it. These videos you made about the system were some of the most fascinating I’ve ever watched. Thank you Derek, it’s you Derek.
someone who loves a zeebo is a zeeaboo
I am surprised Derek missed to overlap between Epyx Summer games and California games and their business model lol
Holy shit, that "UAAAAH" sound on Tork & Kral was insane.
Dude!!! I was literally just telling my wife last week "I hope Uncle Derek is ok, he hasn't posted in ages."
She said you were probably still playing Zeebo 😂❤
Everyone. Stop what you're doing, find your favorite Uncle Derek video and _share it._
Come on guys, SSFF should have millions of subs. Spread the good word!
If I think I know my weird gaming history, Derek comes out and comes around with weirder games and even more weird controllers. He always looks like he found gold and is extremely enthusiastic, love it
I have to say, your pronunciation of Um Jogo de Ovos was spot on.
Thanks uncle Derek for this beautiful documentary about our beloved Zeebo, which is part of our history. I wish you guys a great new year, happy holidays for you too, and see ya soon!
I NEVER expected to see Huevocartoon 🇲🇽 (of all things) on an American gaming channel. Only on SSFF lol
i discovered this channel about 3 months ago and have watched almost all your videos since being hvgn and i absolutely love it! so great to see a new video and i hope you guys like making these as much as i like watching!
I'd absolutely be down for a corrections video. I'll take any excuse for more Zeebo goodness.
Man this really is the happiest video game nerd
Please do a part 3, your Zeebo videos are awesome.