Vidya Game News – December 1, 2016
– The new Pokemans games have sold 3.7 million copies in two weeks, making them the fastest sellers ever for Nintendo, according to press releases given to Polygon and other sites. You can listen to our Pokemans show here!
– In other Big N news: Although they announced a Japanese partnership with Universal for theme parks last year, the effort has spread to the U.S. now too, per Den of Geek and other sites.
– In other, other Big N news… The NES Classic Edition is still impossible to find, but ThinkGeek is doing a sweepstakes for some. They might also have some for sale this week. Huzzah!
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– November 30 is a popular day for PC releases. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness came out in 1995, Diablo came out in 1996, and Baldur’s Gate and Starcraft: Brood War came out in 1998. You can listen to our shows on Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo here, here and here.
– November 30, 1999 was also popular for RPGs. Koudelka and Vandal Hearts II both came out on that day. They’re both considered cult classics, and Koudelka continued on via the Shadow Hearts series, which is for the PS2 and awesome.
– Quake III Arena came out on Dec. 2, 1999. While it wasn’t horrible, it was a bit of a misstep by id Software, as Unreal Tournament was generally more popular.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – October 28, 2016
– Kyle Orland has a good interview with Sid Meier, of Civilization fame, for Ars Technica. You can read it here! And check out our Civilization show here.
– Speaking of Orland, he had a cool link in his weekly newsletter to an older piece about how insider leaks happen. (If you’re not subscribing to Orland’s weekly newsletter yet, you should! That is, if you love vidya games.)
– On Engadget and other sites: A prototype for a SNES version of Rayman has been found.
– In honor of Halloween, Justin Carreiro of The Young Folks has a look at Maniac Mansion. You can listen to our show on it here! Also, Ryan Gibbs of The Young Folks once talked SimCity with us here.
– Pokemon Sun and Moon, which release Nov. 18 for the 3DS, are Nintendo’s biggest pre-ordered games of all-time, per a release by the company published on Polygon.
– Nathan Grayson of Kotaku summarizes some of the issues hitting up mod support for Sega games on Steam here.
– The USgamer team ranks all 30 games in the NES Classic here! Games we’ve covered on YPB: Bubble Bobble, Castlevania, Punch-Out, Tecmo Bowl, Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2.
– On Polygon and other sites this week… The official Sega employee song from the 1990s.
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– The PlayStation 2 came out on October 26, 2000. It was pretty popular.
– In 2002, a little game called Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out. It was pretty, pretty, pretty popular. Almost exactly two years later, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out, and it was also pretty, pretty, pretty popular.
– Another lil game, Fallout 3, came out on October 28, 2008. Again, it was pretty popular.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – October 7, 2016
– Visiting Portugal anytime soon? You might want to sleep in this Super Mario Bros. themed Airbnb room, then! Story comes courtesy Thrillist. And, check out our past episodes on SMB1 and SMB2!
– Fans are desperate for Nintendo to release some info, any info, on the upcoming NX console. So much so that they’re now speculating a Papa John’s news release could be about the console. Polygon pokes fun at the phenomenon here.
– Nintendo executives and ads sales people might be losing their collective minds though, judging from this (really loud) commercial for new colors on the 2DS. Starring Luigi!
– Gamasutra has a really good blog entry from John Szczepaniak on the dark side of the Japanese gaming industry’s work practices. I found that article in The Game Beat Weekly, which is Kyle Orland’s awesome weekly email about the gaming industry. Subscribe to it here!
– From Geek.com, a Commodore 64 has been running an auto shop for 25 years. Read more here!
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– MORTAL KOMBAT! … was released in the arcades on October 8, 1992. The gory fighter from Midway Games was hella popular, thanks to its mixture of Street Fighter 2 mechanics with bloody combat.
– Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber came out for the N64 today in 2000. Quest’s follow-up to their earlier games was a bit more accessible than the originals, but still just a niche title that’s now a cult classic. (And speaking of, Tactics Ogre came out on October 6, 1995 for the SNES in Japan.)
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – June 30, 2016
Image from MobyGames.
– The Nintendo 64 turned 20 last week, which led to retrospectives from plenty of places, like Nerdist and Tech Insider.
– The fine folks at Shmuplations are dong the lord’s work, as they’ve unearthed an old interview from developers on Super Mario Kart. You can read it here.
– The new Toejam and Earl game has gotten more funding, and it’ll see a console release! Read more about it in a piece by Brandon Orselli from Niche Gamer. And, check out our episode on the original!
– RZA will be doing some music inspired by old Atari games, which actually sounds kind of cool. Read more on Billboard here.
– Good news, everyone! Adventures of Mana, a 3D remake of the old Game Boy game Final Fantasy Adventure, is now out for the Vita. Read the release from Sony here. It’s the first game in the Secret of Mana series, which we covered in the past.
– From MCV, via Famitsu, the new Harvest Moon game for the 3DS is #1 on the Japanese sales chart. It’s scheduled to come out in America at some point in 2017.
– It’s short notice, but Nintendo is hosting a festival in Montreal this weekend! For more details, go here. And if you’d like to head Down Undah, there is an 8-bit festival in Melbourne later in July, according to Time Out Melbourne.
– Yougurtland is partnering with Nintendo.
– A Final Fantasy VII version of Monopoly is coming out in April 2017. It’s by Merchoid, and you can read more on Examiner.com here.
– A Kickstarter campaign has been launched for a “complete remake” of System Shock. Read more on the project page here.
– The producer of the Tetris movie now claims it’ll be a three-movie series! Yikes. Read more on Empire.
– The Angry Video Game Nerd re-visits Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES, 10 years after he first covered it. Check out the video here. For James and Mike Mondays, they played Alex Kidd in Miracle World.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Star Fox 64 came out this day in 1997. And hey, we reviewed it! Check out our show here.
– On June 29 in 2000, Icewind Dale by Black Isle Studios was released by Interplay. It was a well-reviewed game based on Dungeons and Dragons.
– In 1996, Bruce Jenner’s World Class Decathlon came out for the PC. It was 20 years ago Jenner won a gold medal in the decathlon, so, that was kind of weird.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – May 26, 2016
– The best read of the week, and one close to my heart, is a long piece from Ernie Smith of Tedium on commercial mascots and their video games. Featured prominently are the Noid and M.C. Kids, of course, along with other lesser known items like a Doom-engine Chex game.
– Hardcore Gamer’s Marcus Estrada has a neat, informative little piece on the Doctor V64, which was a knockoff Nintendo 64 development kit. Read about it on their site.
– Live in Arizona, and want to play classic video games? You’re in luck! The Daily Courier has a business profile on Black Box Gaming, which allows you to lounge and play vidya games. Read about the cool little store here, in a story by Max Efrein.
– Now on Merchoid! Nintendo-themed bikinis.
– Boooo: Sounds like an automated FOX filter to take down their content on YouTube “accidentally” took down a clip of some dudes playing Double Dribble. Why? Well, because Family Guy used that clip in an episode. And, the show didn’t credit the brothers either. Read about it on IGN.
– Alan Young, the voice of Scrooge McDuck on Duck Tales, has passed away.
– Nintendo has released some trailers for its latest Kirby game, Planet Robobot, for the 3DS. Check them out via Siliconera here! And give a listen to our past episode here!
– These dudes tagged us on Twitter, so how can I not give them a plug? There is a music remix project for The Guardian Legend, which we’ve covered in the past. To check out their tracks, go here!
– I forgot to post this last week, but it’s still a really good read! From Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole, the rise and fall of Lionhead, creators (in a way) of Fable and headed by Peter Molyneux.
– Also from Eurogamer: Keith Stuart has a fun piece on how he was blacklisted from early Sega releases, even though he was running a magazine about the Dreamcast.
– Ron Gilbert, the creator of Maniac Mansion and Money Island, wants to buy back the IP from Disney. The mouse acquired the titles after buying the Star Wars empire for $4 billion in 2012. (And hey, check out our Maniac Mansion episode!)
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Historically, May 26 hasn’t been especially great for games, but the first installment in the inFamous series came out on this day in 2009. The Playstation-exclusive series combined open-world gaming with superhero powers, and it was generally well-received.
– The NES version of The Lion King came out only in Europe on May 25, 1995. Yes, new NES games were still being made in 1995! Although, this was indeed the last release for Europe. It’s probably for the best, as Westwood Studios’ effort wasn’t all that good.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – April 28, 2016
– From Ryan Divish and Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times, Nintendo is selling its majority stake in the Seattle Mariners. The valuation is $1.4 billion, and a follow-up story on how the deal was struck is here. The initial purchase price? Around $100 million, according to a January 1992 New York Times article by Lawrence Malkin.
– Kotaku has an excerpt from Alyse Knorr’s book on the making of Super Mario Bros. 3, and it’s an awesome read! Check it out here.
– Now out: Sega 3D Classics Collection, for the Nintendo 3DS. Games include Power Drift, Puyo Puyo 2, Fantasy Zone II and II W, Sonic the Hedgehog, Thunder Blade, Galaxy Force II, Altered Beast and Maze Walker.
– Pretty much every site on the ole Internet had a piece about the new NES adapter that lets you use some modern controllers.
– Nintendo has a Humble Bundle available until May. Highlights include Retro City Rampage and Citizens of Earth.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Historically, nothing prominent has come out on April 28, so… On April 29, 1998, Tekken 3 came out for the PlayStation. Released by Namco, it’s considered one of the absolute best games for the system, and one of the best fighting games of all-time.
– A little game called Grand Theft Auto IV came out on April 29, 2008. It made a bazillion dollars for Rockstar.
– Similarly: Mario Kart Wii came out in 2008 as well. It was a pretty good day for games.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – February 25, 2016
– The BBC has an awesome story and interview with Howard Scott Warshaw, and the headline says it all: “The man who made ‘the worst video game in history.’” And by that, of course they mean E.T. for the Atari 2600. You can read the story here. It gets into some of the troubled development, and also that Atari paid $21 million (!!!) for the rights to the game. (And the awesome image on today’s post comes from that story. They definitely don’t make game ads like they used to.)
– Reddit user dolopodog has posted a list of the banned words for the 3DS.
– This week, the IGN show Nintendo Voice Chat covers the 10 awesome games that never left Japan.
– The co-creator of the Atari Lynx and a programmer for the Amiga, Dave Needle, has passed away, according to a Facebook post.
– From a translation of a YouTube video, Geno of Super Mario RPG was considered as a DLC for Smash Brothers.
– Nathan Birch of Uproxx has a good beginner’s guide on retro gaming and collecting. Of note is that it’s focused on the systems that are the best to collect and play, not necessarily the ones that hold their value the best.
– TechTimes has a link and write-up to one of the old commercials for The Legend of Zelda. It features rapping. It’s ridiculous…ly awesome.
– From JackTech on YouTube, it’s an autopsy of a Game Boy! Also on YouTube, a SNES Counter Console, via Nintendo Enthusiast and Rerez. It was used to test broken systems.
– The Mega Man Legacy Collection came out this week for the 3DS, so there are some reviews of it floating around the Internet, like on Kotaku. There are frame rate issues, just like the original games! Huzzah!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Pretty much nothing of significance came out today. Sorry! Tekken 5 came out on Feb. 24, 2005 for the Playstation 2, so that’s about the best I can do.
SHAMELESS PLUGGING
Steve is selling a bunch of video game stuff on eBay; mostly older, cheaper stuff for PS2, XBox, and the 360. Check it out here!
Vidya Game News – February 5, 2016
News is short today!
– Eurogamer, citing sources close to Nintendo, reports that a proper localization for Mother 3 – the Game Boy Advance sequel of Earthbound / Mother 2 – is underway. Read their news item here. A fan translation has been available for a few years, and it’s not bad.
– Capcom is now developing a Mario Party arcade game, according to the Anime News Network.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Paper Mario, a spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG, was released for the N64 in 2001. There are now four games in the series, with the last being Sticker Star in 2012 for the 3DS.
– In 2007, Final Fantasy VI Advance came out. The re-release of FF6j/3e added a new bonus dungeon and a couple new espers.
– Devil May Cry 4 came out in 2008. Steve hasn’t ever played any of the series, but he used to have a “hand me down” cat named after the lead character.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – January 8, 2016
Oh man… We took a bit of a news break the past few weeks, because of The Holidays and what not. And also, Steve is sicker than the Noid after eating Pizza Hut. Regardless though, he’s powering through to deliver the first vidya games news of 2016!
– Brad Fuller, the composer for classic games like Tetris and Donkey Kong has passed away. Develop’s Matthew Jarvis has the full story here.
– A Reddit dude posts cool images from his collection of odd gaming systems. Check it out on Imgur.
– Super Metroid is a lot of fun, and you can self-impose new difficulty challenges via sequence breaking. But if you’re a complete masochist, a new hack tilts the game on its side.
– Also in bizarre hacking news: Windows 95 now works on the 3DS.
– This week’s game for James and Mike Mondays (Angry Video Game Nerd) is Killing Time for the 3DO. As one of the 20 people who own a 3DO, of course I’m linking to it.
– From Nerd Reaction, you can buy your own Star Fox statue for “just” $79.99! Story is here.
– Ken Griffey Jr. was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week. His SNES game was weird, and Tech Times’s Jason Serafino has a rundown here.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Much like the motion picture industry, January can be a dumping ground for the vidya game industry. The most significant releases? Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law came out in 2008 for the PS2, PSP and Wii, and Total Eclipse came out for the 3D0 in 1994.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – October 8, 2015
“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man whose gonna burn your house down – with the lemons!”
Here’s some news to go with them lemons:
– The lead designer from Earthworm Jim says he would be open to doing a sequel. That, and more, are in the linked Reddit AMA.
– Also on Reddit: Is it possible for Scrooge McDuck to swim through the gold coins in his money vault? Probably not.
– Via Twitter, Sega has announced there will be a Game Gear theme available the 3DS, which would have seemed impossible in the early 1990s. (Then again, so would the 3DS, and smartphones, and the Internet…)
– Cassidee Moser of IGN.com has a heads-up about this Reddit user, who’s turned an old NES cart into a working NES.
– From Kotaku and several other sites, there is a really cool box art book coming out for the Super Nintendo. It’s from this guy.
– The 8-Bit Guy has a YouTube video about how the music was made on the NES and Commodore.
– Good times, good times! From Destructoid, a guy pawned a Genesis, not knowing there was meth inside.
– WDRB has a story on getting out of Your Parents Basement. Ugh, why would you ever want to do that?
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– NBA Live 2003 and NBA 2K3 game out for the Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube in 2002, oddly enough. Of course, NBA 2K3 was better.
– Although they’re not classics, Beyond: Two Souls and Disgaea D2 came out in 2013.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Your Parents Basement 