1UP with John from Alluvion

Riding high on their latest album is the Psych-Noise-Post-Toasties-Metal band, Alluvion.

You should really check out their latest album on BANDCAMP.

Apparently, the secret is out.

(Dad jokes)

When you think about a band that has all of these vastly different elements, obviously, you ask them about video games.

Get our your NES Max and let's do this.

Glacially Musical: My first system was a pong clone, the yellow and black Odessey 300. What was your first Console?

John: My first experience with a console was my father’s old Atari 2600.  I was very young, but I have clear memories of playing games like Joust, Asteroids, Pitfall and Qbert for hours.  

This peaked my interest for video games.  Then for my fourth birthday, my parents got me the original NES Mario and Duck Hunt bundle and at the time I was obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so they got me the original TMNT game as well.  

From that day forward, I’ve been an avid gamer.

GM: My stepdad was certain we'd destroy the TV playing Pong so we had to play it in secret, either when he was a sleep or when he was out of the house. Did you have to jump through any hoops to play games?

John: My parents were actually pretty generous with allowing me to play, within reason.  I grew up in a very rural area, with not much around but corn fields and trees.  

I got my fair share of outdoors play, ruining the local farmer’s days by making mazes in the corn fields with friends, but when I was indoors if chores were done I could usually fire up a game.

GM: What about hand held games? Is that something you ever got into?

John:  Oh yeah!  As I mentioned, as a kid I lived pretty far out in No Man’s Land, Virginia.  We had about an hour long ride into the city to shop for groceries and stuff, so I got one of the old huge, clunky original Gameboys to lug around.  

Tetris and Terminator 2 were my go to games then.  More recently I haven’t owned any portable systems, because I have kids and a wife and bills to pay.  lol  I balance owning no mobile consoles, by owning both an Xbox One and a PS4.  

I also just very recently got over the knee-jerk stigma of mobile gaming and have been pleasantly surprised by some of the games available on my IPhone now!

GM: The idea of not being able to play something drove me nuts, so I started playing games in their original Japanese. Did you ever get into imports?

John: I most definitely did in high school.  I have always loved JRPGs, ever since my lifelong love affair with Final Fantasy 3 (or 6.)  

As you know, Japan gets everything and usually most of the best, most interesting games never even make it across the ocean for us.  In high school I had a friend who was like our own local black market.

He always had crazy, rare things.  He had a modded Dreamcast (which is THE most underrated console in my opinion.  Phantasy Star Online for life!) with a binder full of burned Japanese games.  

I pestered him about it relentlessly until he offered to let me buy it.  My favorite of that bunch was Power Stone!

(Ed note: I own a Sega Sports Limited Edition Dreamcast with a modchip in it for Import Titles. My daughter is currently experiencing Phantasy Star Online offline on my also modded Gamecube.)

GM: What's your favorite sports game?

John: I’m an anomaly of sorts.  I have absolutely no interest in watching other men play sports and I really don’t understand the obsession with sports in general.  

I enjoy physically playing sports like Basketball, Soccer, and Football, but really the only Sports video games that I play sometimes are NBA and UFC (but Fight Night is so much better.)  

Where the hell is a new Fight Night game, anyway?!"

GM: Dragon Warrior got me hooked on turn based RPGs, something that's still happening. What's your favorite style of game and what was the first one you played?

John: Whoooaa. I haven’t thought about Dragon Warrior in years.  I got seriously overtaken by Dragon Warrior 3 for a long time in middle school.  

I tried one of the newer ones like 10 years ago, but it just didn’t do it for me.  To answer your question though, my favorite style of game is still RPGs, the first one I played was the original  Final Fantasy and my favoriteS are Chrono Trigger, FF3, Phantasy Star Online, Secret of Mana and 7th Saga.  

I do have to say that FPS games are a close second.  I held the 1st place globally on the Unreal Tournament 3 Conquest leaderboards for a few years, until I moved away from that game. I think I’m still sitting at #3 now... yes I still occasionally load the game up to check.  

I am also a cofounder of the UT3 club on Xbox and we have been organizing some really good games and tournaments there lately.

GM: Favorite system?

John: Hardest question ever... I like different consoles for different reasons.  I think that Xbox has a much better dashboard layout and streamlined navigation, as well as having a much better game pass plan than Sony.  

They have also made major power moves acquiring all of those studios recently and I’m excited to see what they do with them.  

On the flip side of that PlayStation gets all of the best RPGs!