r/gaming • u/danny2300 • 1d ago
Walked past the pub in Wallingford that has ecco the dolphin as its sign
A trip down memory lane
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u/Sequenzer9 1d ago
“I’m going to go grab a pint at the Tides of Time.”
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u/nogeologyhere 1d ago
I'm popping down the Vectorman
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u/DingusBarracuda 1d ago
Taking a ride in a Crazy Taxi to Saturn and back just so I can Gain Ground with a pint of The Ooze before the Golden Axe pub gets a bit too loud and rowdy with people going Sonic & Knuckles and Locking-On to one another while taking to the Streets of Rage when they could go Beyond Oasis for an Ecco of whatever they're Dreamcasting.
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u/mooreinteractive 1d ago
This bar is like a portal to space.
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u/Sequenzer9 1d ago
It’s always underappreciated how insane the Ecco games are. They look like warm wholesome family games but in reality are like hard sci-fi Giger nightmares.
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u/mooreinteractive 1d ago
Im working on my own game and Ecco definitely is an inspiration that lead us to set our 4th chapter on the moon.
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u/Zedekial 1d ago
Pre AI art theft. Amazing!
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u/mysterious_levi 1d ago
Proper old fashioned saga art theft
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u/Zedekial 1d ago
I miss simpler times, like the Sonic Pub in Westchester.......
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u/imnotpoopingyouare 1d ago
Nah I like a proper dive, like the NK Knuckles down the street.
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u/Kodamacile 16h ago
You ever been to the Rouge strip club, in Manchester?
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u/imnotpoopingyouare 16h ago
Nah I haven't.. just the Rogue strip club in Goldshire but all the performers were hiding in the shadows.
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u/ICC-u 1d ago
Greene King are a pretty big pub chain, 2nd largest in the UK iirc.
Ecco the Dolphin is being rereleased this month.
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u/Gelloa 1d ago
It's much older than that.
I grew up near Wallingford. This has been around for a long time.
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u/thehatteryone 1d ago
This particular artwork on the sign has been around for ages, or just the pub/name ?
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u/Gelloa 1d ago
The artwork.
I dont remember exactly when, but it wasn't recent. I remember it from when I was a kid out drinking in Wallingford, it being from Echo was a local bit of trivia. In more concrete terms, Here's a reddit post from 12 years ago.
It isn't in response to the remaster.
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u/Wadarkhu 1d ago
Nature is healing <3
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u/Zedekial 1d ago
Careful, AI bros are everywhere :O
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u/TerrribleFunn 1d ago
Yeah, they’ll find you anywhere
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u/Zedekial 1d ago
I made the mistake of commenting on a few ai discussion posts on here and they are fucking rabid. It's exhausting. It's like they have made it their personal mission to push AI like it's a religion everywhere they can......
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u/MadeByTango 1d ago
The agentic c-suites are spending millions on a PR campaign for that exact purpose; they have whole armies being paid on Discord
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u/Zedekial 1d ago
Explains so much. I'm always like, why are these random people so fucking invested in AI? Their arguments always follow the same beats too
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u/JidderS2 1d ago
The fact that they have a decent enough resolution to make it that big is Amazing.
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u/Tasty_Gingersnap42 1d ago
Careful, If you jump too high in that bar everybody will get sucked up into the sky.
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u/squesh 1d ago
Is the pub really confusing, so confusing you never end up buying a pint and just leaving?
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u/balmut 1d ago
No one knows, everyone that's ever entered got abducted by aliens.
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u/konnerbllb 1d ago
I've played that game
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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago
Ecco's lore involves both aliens and time travel.
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u/meltymcface 1d ago
And a sentient DNA strand if I remember rightly?
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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago
Thats the guardian of the ocean. Its some kind of large helix. Its why ecco has to time travel, you go get one of the missing spheres and then thr gaurdian gives you upgrades like infinite air supply
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u/bootymix96 1d ago
Running around and long jumping like a maniac also seems to be a popular thing here for some reason
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u/ICC-u 1d ago
You send the first half an hour trapped in a small room with fish. Once you realise that's not the main pub you immediately have to dodge flying pint glasses and avoid touching the floor. Then a timer starts and you're running out of air so you need to go out the room to breathe. This continues until you die. There is no escape.
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u/seadcon 1d ago
Ha this is a misconception! And judging by all your up votes, a major one too! I had this same feeling towards the game back in the day, but when I played it very recently, it actually was all really straight forward and logical.
So, either kids really struggled with it for some reason, or it was ahead of its time and a more seasoned gamer revisiting it now could and would find it very easy.
It's a funny one!
There's a new Ecco game announcement expected later this month too, incidentally.
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u/BenTheMotionist 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm in for a pint love, at THE HARDEST BATSHIT CRAZY GAME EVER CREATED
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u/DigitalTomFoolery 1d ago
Not to brag but I beat this at 11 years old. Took weeks! I tried playing it again a year ago and gave up when I got to the artic, I had alot more patience when I was young.
People refer to any challenging game these days as souls like but most games back then we're tough!
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u/Percolator2020 1d ago
A fucking game where you play a fish which can drown, genius!
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u/spez_might_fuck_dogs 1d ago
Dolphins are, famously, not fish.
If this is some kind of pop culture reference, than woosh.
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u/Kasrkin84 1d ago
Instead of a bouncer they have a big blue crystal that you have to sing to before you're allowed in.
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u/wutImiss 1d ago
Sorry, that song doesn't work at this pub, it belongs to the glyph at the pub across the street. The glyph song inside that pub allows access to this pub 🥴
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u/EnigmaT1m 1d ago
Tradition is fine and all but I do kinda wish more pubs did this. Have the owner reference their favourite media.
'Just off for a quick pint down the Terminator'
'Taking the kids to the Ratchet & Clank for Sunday dinner'
'Right lads, we'll meet for some drinks at The Blues Brothers before heading to that new club, Hot Fuzz'
And yeah, sure, copyright. But I do feel that in things like that, small business etc., it should slide. In an ideal world at least.
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u/Newone1255 1d ago
Except Greene King isn’t a small business it’s the largest pub conglomerate in the UK and partially responsible for the declining pub culture
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u/VagueSomething 1d ago
They really started going downhill and then got brought out by a Hong Kong company and turbo charged their decline in quality.
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u/_Clem_Fandango_1 20h ago
The Ratchet and Clank is an incredible name for a pub.
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u/viziroth 14h ago
if you didn't use art from the game, you could still name a pub that since it's a different industry. you might still get sued, but you'd win if you didn't have a completely incompetent lawyer.
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u/TheKanten 1d ago
Then over here in the states you have Buc-ees suing anyone with an animal inside of a circle or just a beaver period.
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u/Comicspedia 1d ago
There's a bar in Tokyo called Deathmatch in Hell, where all the drinks cost ¥666, there's horror movie stuff all over the walls, three TVs always playing three different horror or sci-fi movies, and the owner's name is Wayne. Which you'll never forget because he has long black hair and wears a Wayne's World hat (and glasses like Garth) at all times. When I went, he had Total Recall (1990), Tokyo Gore Police, and Evil Dead 2 on.
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u/T_raltixx 1d ago
You end up getting lost because you can't get out of the toilets and you don't know what to do.
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u/C-LonGy PlayStation 1d ago
Greene king is a poison on good pubs. They turn them into generic crap with crap beer and bleh food 😭😭😭
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u/theonedownupstairs 1d ago
I was in one once, asked to try all their beers til I found one I liked. Ended up just getting a Guinness.
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u/Hoid_Dragonsteel 1d ago
I walk past the Dolly every time I go to Wallingford’s good pub (The Town Arms). Never have I felt the urge to go in, even when I brought along mates with Greene King employee discounts
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u/Ironclad686 1d ago
"Hello. Sega? You're gonna want to see this"
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u/ShutUpAboutCanon 1d ago
Can't imagine Sega would care.
If it were a Nintendo property, on the other hand...
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u/cause_of_chaos 1d ago
Correct, I used to work at SEGA and they didn’t often go for little things like this. If you copied their music, they would chase a lot harder lol.
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u/skippermonkey 1d ago
It’s been like that for years.
I always wondered how they got away with what seems to be an image from a computer game.
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u/dkb1391 1d ago
What do you mean, got away with what, copyright?
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u/skippermonkey 1d ago
Yeah, it’s clearly Ecco the Dolphin.
But it’s been like that for years. I wonder if they bought the artwork from the artist that did the game or something.
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u/ChudSmasher69420 1d ago
That's almost certainly what happened. The original artist is Boris Vallejo, who presumably kept the rights to the artwork and has since licensed its use. There's at least one other pub in the UK that use this exact piece of art for their signage, the Dolphin Hotel in Plymouth.
It's also worth noting that the image used in both pubs' signage differs from that of the Ecco box art, with them lacking Ecco's signature star markings.
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u/RegionalHardman 1d ago
Nah, someone would have to report it to Sega which is unlikely and then they would have to care. The game is decades old at this point
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u/ztomiczombie 1d ago
Probably well below Saga's radar.
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u/Branden798 1d ago
Does the pub go as hard as the final level of Ecco?
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u/itsameluigi1290 1d ago
I saw the same art on a box of brandy I saw in a Korean market once, wish I could share images here
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u/JonnoEnglish 1d ago
This is my local dive pub. Breakfast in the morning is incredible, but stay away in the evenings, local yokel central.
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u/Exodias 1d ago
Funnily enough, me and a friend of mine briefly worked behind the bar at the Dolphin for a few months, like a decade ago. It's a great pub. The previous owners were very cool. We were allowed a free half-pint during our shifts. The regulars would often buy you drinks for after your shift ended, and the cougars would hit on us at the bar. My friend once had one of the cougars make out with him (unwillingly), then the next day he saw her do some shopping with her grand kids. Fun times. We went back last year with some friends and got quite drunk, had a great night.
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u/murderedbydeath2 1d ago
Maybe it's just the brain rot, but I can't help but read the two signs as one name a la "Shoshan the Elegant, White Tiger Kiiiiiing."
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u/lordlaneus 1d ago
That jingle made me sleep on Netflix's Tiger King for months. Anytime I came across discussion online, my brain would just start singing "Shoshan the Elegant!.. White Tiger kiiing..." And then I would move on without actually processing what people were talking about.
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u/ValentrisRRock 1d ago
Thoughts on Dolphins (2026)?
Lanterns(2026)_screenshot_with_Ecco_and_Kitnee_photoshoped_in.jpg
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u/boxing-boxing 1d ago
Now I'm annoyed my local never did this. The 'Tides of Time' bitter basically names itself.
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u/IncidentOk1123 1d ago
I wonder if they know that’s what they got. That is legit the whole title screen minus text.
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u/Dervelian 1d ago
They still do day trips to the coast, like on Only Fools And Horses.
Decent pub to be fair.
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u/KratChick 1d ago
They should have kept the stars. Removing (just) them is not enough to reliably prevent IP litigation, and leaving it is a important part of wink to John C Lilly.
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u/Wrecklessinseattle 1d ago
Got real confused for a second cause I live in Wallingford and I feel like I would have noticed pub using Ecco the dolphin for their sign.
Then I was like “Oh wrong sub, wrong Wallingford”
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u/Androo77 1d ago
This is my hometown, it's been that sign for a while but used to be a generic jumping dolphin. They do a good breakfast tbf
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u/EriclcirE 1d ago
You need to walk in there and start in on the bartender.
"The Dolphin? No, that particular dolphin is actually Ecco, and you need to put some respect on his name."
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u/DingusBarracuda 1d ago
Taking a ride in a Crazy Taxi to Saturn and back just so I can Gain Ground with a pint of The Ooze before the Golden Axe pub gets a bit too loud and rowdy with people going Sonic & Knuckles and Locking-On to one another and taking to the Streets of Rage when they could go Beyond Oasis for an Ecco of whatever they're Dreamcasting.
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u/prossnip42 1d ago
I actually played this relatively recently when i bought a Genesis with like 20 games for it at a yard sale for a little over 100 dollars (Absolute steal by the way, genuinely have no idea what the fuck the owner was thinking) and when i tell you i was not prepared for the utter batshit insanity of this game. The cover art does not do this game justice AT ALL
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u/NootNootFruitShoot 1d ago
Random but Wallingford is where Agatha Christie supposedly wrote some books. Weird seeing it on a gaming sub.
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u/JimmyBallocks 1d ago
That was my dad’s local. Haven’t been there in years. Used to do a decent pint. And roast. And fry up.
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u/Radiant_Fondant_4097 1d ago
Do you have to communicate to the bartender by echolocation who responds in vague anecdotes?
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u/spez_might_fuck_dogs 1d ago
Ecco has stars on his head, that's just a dolphin doing the Ecco TikTok challenge.
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u/PloppyTheSpaceship 1d ago
The second level gave me PTSD. First level - fine, some light puzzling, frolicking about as a dolphin, nice and fun. Second level - underground maze of death with frequent drowning, spikes and bastard puffer fish zooming in from everywhere, set to the sound of a thousand dolphins screaming in torture.
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u/rlnrlnrln 1d ago
You sure about that? Because I saw this exact image on a post just a few days ago.
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u/bigersmaler 17h ago
Awesome premise and art style. But I don’t need confusing underwater mazes tied to rapid oxygen depletion. Hating this game made me sad as a kid, because I loved the depressing vibe.
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u/JoopahTroopah 1d ago
Vice have an article about it
https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-is-ecco-the-dolphin-on-british-pub-signs/
There’s a hotel in Plymouth with it too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_Hotel,_Plymouth
The owners of both seem to be largely clueless about how the choice of the image came about
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u/Expert_Edge_4329 1d ago
They did this because Ecco the dolphin is SO OLD that they thought they could get away with it......I played al lecco games (even the dreamcast one) when I was a kid.....Am I ancient history now....does anyone have that matt Damon aging meme handy for me?
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u/Alarming-Chemist-755 1d ago
SEGA does what Nintendont: going after anyone and anything using their intellectual property.
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u/Harvey_Squirrelman 1d ago
Nah there’s no stars on his his head. That’s just a dolphin. Don’t make Lisa Frank get involved here.
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u/superbuenobros 1d ago
this is literally the cover of the game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_the_Dolphin_%28video_game%29#/media/File:Ecco-cover.jpg
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u/Harvey_Squirrelman 1d ago
Nope that dolphin doesn’t have the stars to save us from an alien invasion, I see no relation.
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u/crossy1686 1d ago
Sega are not going to like this one bit