Radical Reggie – Interview

Radical Reggie is probably the most chilled out retro gaming YouTuber to ever grace our screens. He’s come a long way from his humble beginnings guesting on MetalJesusRocks channel and is now one of the most recognisable faces in the community. His love for the original PlayStation is well documented, and no doubt he has inspired some of you to play some great classic Survival Horror games for the system.  

I was lucky enough to chat with Reggie and get to learn a bit about his gaming journey, his awesome collection, and more. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank him for devoting his time to this interview.

Disclaimer: This interview is paraphrased from the spoken word. Whilst not verbatim, we feel that we have accurately conveyed the answers. 

What’s your earliest gaming memory?  

My earliest memory was probably watching my brother play games. One specifically was Track & Field for NES, which was really hard for me as I didn’t really know how to play it, but watching my brother play that game I was amazed at how he got through the events. Just watching him tap the button really fast on the 100m dash, I was blown away, I knew I needed to try to do that. I got good at games by watching him play. 

He also used to take me to his work at a pizza shop, and they had an Punch Out arcade machine there. I remember grabbing a chair as I was like 3/4 years old at the time, so I couldn’t even stand up at the arcade cab and see what was going on. People were actually watching me play and they were cheering me on, and when you’re a little kid getting cheered on by teenagers and adults it really pumps you up. That was one of my fondest memories as well, my brother was in the background smiling, laughing and happy for me, so that was a really good experience when it came to gaming and I would say that was my first big experience and inspired me to look more into games.

What made you decide to start creating content on YouTube?  

So, I didn’t actually want to create content for YouTube, I was pretty much against it. I just wanted to appear on Jason’s channel (MetalJesusRocks) when he asked me to, and just show up here and there. What happened was, people really liked me on his channel and they sent me a lot of heartfelt letters asking me to create my own channel. It actually took me 2.5 years to get motivated to start one, and when I did, it was a nonchalant channel where I would do pickups, the camera and lighting were bad because I had no idea what I was doing.  

As I went on, one of my friends Joe edited a video for me and it looked so good. We did a show called Interracial Gamer, and when he edited it, that actually pumped me up and made me think that I needed to make some good content. It really inspired me to see what I could do because he actually edited the Interracial Gamer episode on his phone. 

When he did that, he would show me how to do it. At the time I didn’t have a working computer or laptop – my computer at the time was basically falling apart, all I could do was like transfer files so you couldn’t edit a video on there or it would probably blow up. So, I was editing on a phone and I got good at it, I could make the videos look somewhat professional and I was really proud of myself and a lot of people were really happy with it. I kept going with it and a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon, and it started from there. 

I really started taking it seriously when I decided to start doing reviews, and to keep me motivated to do the channel I opened a Patreon. I feel like if I didn’t have the Patreon, I’d pretty much just do videos whenever I wanted, and people wanted videos from me all the time so I figured I’d look at it like a little part-time job. Ever since then I have kept it going and everybody’s been happy so far. 

How do you manage to balance your gaming and content creation with day-to-day responsibilities?  

To be honest, it’s been really hard. I still manage to do it but I have to do it in small spurts because with daily activities and responsibilities, games are put to the side because I’m doing the YouTube channel and creating content for people. What I usually try to do is be ahead of the game, like I’ll try to knock out five videos that I can spread out within a two-week period. I try to keep the editing to a professional point so that people will have interest in them. I don’t want to do a video that has no editing or gameplay footage, so I really try to put my mind into editing something nice that people will want to watch, and it takes time, a lot of time. It takes time out of my gaming time unfortunately, but I don’t mind, as long as people are enjoying the content, I enjoy doing it. 

What would you consider to be your go-to genre?  

My go-to genre… it’s changed over the years to be honest, it’s really changed a lot. When I was younger and when I was a teen, it was mostly JRPGs and Survival Horror, and I would say Survival Horror still is to this day. When it comes to JRPGs, I go back and play the old school ones like Legend of Dragoon. Today, mostly I would say I’m into platformers, you know, they’re something easy for me to get into, get out of. I really enjoy them and they’re just a lot of fun.  

I want to get back into almost every genre of game, but right now I just don’t have the time. Survival Horror will always have a place in my heart, I had a great time playing games like Silent Hill and Dino Crisis, and Secret of Mana is the game that really got me into RPGs. I had a lot of fun with those games and I’ll never forget them. 

RPGs have changed a lot and it’s to be expected – times change. I thought I was burnt out on RPGs to be honest with you, but when I go back and play something like Legend of Dragoon or Star Ocean, I was still blown away. I just think times do change with certain genres, and that’s why I’m not into them anymore. I’m not saying that new RPGs are bad or anything like that, I just consider the PlayStation era the golden years for RPGs. 

I could probably also say that for Survival Horror games as well, because there’s not many newer Survival Horror games that really stand out to me, like there’s Evil Within and The Evil Within 2 (which is probably my favourite Survival Horror game of all time), and we’ve had the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes which are great, but outside of that nothing has really impressed me to this day.  

Are there any genres you actively dislike?  

I don’t want to say there is a genre that I dislike.  I try to like everything but I guess something that I don’t really like too much is maybe puzzle games. Puzzles just really kill the pacing for me, I think it’s because I see a lot of puzzles mixed into certain genres that kind of slow the pacing of a game so you don’t beat it too fast, I don’t like that. I would say that puzzle games throw me off, I’ll move on to something else if I get stuck on a puzzle for too long. It wasn’t always like this when I was younger, but as I’ve gotten older my patience wears thin sometimes. I would definitely say puzzle games. 

You’ve got two hours to yourself to game, which console do you switch on?  

The console I would turn on if I had a couple of hours to myself… it really varies. It’s either between the PS3 and PS4, as I’m trying to catch up on certain games that I might not have finished køb viagra. Though I do feel like I’ve caught up on a lot of games, I play those systems the most as there are some games I need to just knock out. Right now, I’m playing a game called Dark Void, and although a lot of people said the game was wack, I’m actually really enjoying it.  

What’s the rarest game/system in your collection?  

The rarest game system in my collection as of right now, I’d probably say the developer system PS3. I also have a test system PS2. What these systems do is, the test system PS2 is actually a region-free PS2 which is pretty awesome, doesn’t play DVDs but it can play any region’s games which is nice and also backups, so it comes in handy to open myself up to more titles. 

The test system PS3 does all that and more. It can push a lot of older games to 720p definition which is nice, and there’s just a lot of stuff to that system. If I had to choose something besides those it would probably be the Amiga CD, but I would definitely say the PS3 test system is my rarest system. 

What’s the weirdest game/system in your collection?  

The weirdest game system in my collection is definitely the Amiga CD. That controller is something else and it really is an oddball system. It’s hard to find games for it but they actually still make games for it. I would’ve really enjoyed it back in the day, when I was younger as t would’ve been a lot easier to find some of the games for it, but I’d definitely put it up there as my oddball system. 

Do you find yourself able to play military-themed games after your time in service? How has it affected playing them if you still do?  

As far as military games go, I enjoy them a lot but some of them are really deep in terms of story. I want to tell you about one that really affected me in a way, as it talks about post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a big thing in the military, a lot of people get it – and even I have it myself to a certain degree. Spec Ops: The Line really talks about that kind of stuff for people who are in the military, and I don’t want to spoil it for you but I would say that game really affected me and how I look at stuff as well.  

I have no problem playing military games though, I think they’re really fun and some of them are just silly, but they’re all action fun. I think they make them like that to get people to want to join the military.  

What’s the craziest fan experience you’ve had?  

It’s really hard to choose a fan interaction that really stands out because they’ve all been really good, but I’d definitely have to say the one where I went to Missouri for the MoGameCon and the hospitality those people showed us was fantastic. It was unbelievable. It was really fun and awesome and they showed us and around and were really nice to us and it was just a really good experience for me and that’s one of my favourite events to go to, I’ll never forget it. 

If you had to pick just one, which lesser-known video game would you recommend, and why? 

There so many lesser known video games that I always mention as nobody really knows what I’m talking about usually because I dig deep for titles that are really good that I’ll enjoy, but to this day, probably my favourite game of all time, that nobody has ever heard of is Steambot Chronicles. 

It’s one of the most hilarious games I have ever played and it’s fun, the voice acting is great, it has multiple endings. It’s just a really heartfelt game and it really moved me when I played it, I really enjoyed it and didn’t want it to end. Definitely Steambot Chronicles. 

You can support Reggie at the following links: 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/icon770 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ReggieRadical 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Radical_Reggie 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theRadicalReggie/ 

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