Episode 076 – The Horde (1994)
Episode 076 – The Horde (1994)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are cleansing the land of demons with horrible, hammy acting! From 1994, we’re playing The Horde by Toys for Bob for the 3DO.
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TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro, which has the introduction of the game’s hammiest character, Chronus Malor. (Note: Steve refuses to look up how to spell that correctly.)
- 41:00 – It’s the return of a popular segment! The Most Best Game of All Time!
- 50:00 – Emails! Why IS someone so handsome?
- 1:05:00 – A quickie Ask The Sweet Boys tonight, because we need to get some sweet rest.
- 1:09:30 – Snifferoo! Next week, it’s yet another Mario game!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, The Horde goes for $19.99 for the 3DO, game only, and $25.25 if you want the box and manual. It’s a bit cheaper for the Saturn, as only $10.97 for the disc.
– The Horde has so, so, so many “good” cut scenes. This YouTube collection from the Saturn version is wonderful, and Huell says to definitely check out minute 11, with Hordling theater!
– TV Tropes has a good page on The Horde here.
Vidya Game News – September 2, 2016
– IGN’s Alex Osborn has a great interview with Peter Moore, talking about why Sega failed as a hardware company. Understandably, the Saturn was seen as a turning point.
– From Mattel, via Polygon, Hot Wheels versions of Nintendo characters are coming soon! They actually look pretty nifty, so, congrats Nintendo. Thank you for successfully taking more of my money.
– Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey is available on Netflix as of Sept. 1. You can listen to our episode on the horrible vidya game here!
– Chris Schilling of VICE writes about how the Nintendo DS was his deepest love, when it came to vidya game systems.
– From noted video game journalism outlet InStyle, Christina Aguilera’s daughter had a Mario-themed party for her second birthday.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Command and Conquer, the first title of that popular series, came out on Aug. 31, 1995. The PC game from Westwood Studios became a staple of online RTS duels for years and years. It sold more than three million copies, and the series has sold more than 30 million units.
– An awesome character known as Crash Bandicoot had his initial release for the Playstation on Aug. 31, 1996. More on him Monday though.
– On the other end of the PSX spectrum… Released on Aug. 31, 1996, Beyond the Beyond terrorized Steve as a teen. He loved turn-based RPGs, but one of the main “features” of the game by Camelot Software was lugging around a cursed character for several hours. Fun, fun, fun.
– Guitar Hero 5 from Neversoft came out in 2009. It was the second-to-last hurrah for the series, as it was already starting to slowdown before Warriors of Rock came out in 2010.
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 – July 14, 2016
A sweet baby boy NES!
– Pretty much everyone shared this article with Steve on a mini-NES loaded with 30 games. My mini-review: Eh. It’s kind of steep at $59.99, and there’s no indication whether you can load more games on to it. (Note: Nintendo later told Kotaku that no, you can’t.) The HDMI hook-ups are nice, though. However, it feels like a missed opportunity for the Big N. By offering a viable alternative to emulators – like a device that allowed for game downloads, using your old carts and third-party support – they could have taken a nice chunk away from that market.
– A fox takes a Playstation controller from a house and drops it in a garden. Video!
– From Kotaku’s Patrick Klepek, and some other sites, the Saturn’s copy protection has finally been cracked.
– Tech Radar has an interesting list of the most disappointing games of the past 10 years.
– Because Nintendo needs more of your monies, there is now Mario-themed Hot Wheels cars. Read about them on Gaming With Swag.
– Ron Gilbert, the creator Maniac Mansion, talks to Deveop’s James Batchelor about his new game, Thimbleweed Park.
– Anna Pulley, the author of The Lesbian Sex Haiku Book (With Cats!), loves Duck Tales.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– WWF War Zone came out for the Playstation in 1998. Developed by Iguana West and published by Acclaim, it got pretty decent reviews, but tends to be overshadowed by other, better games.
– This was a popular time of year for NCAA Football games to come out, as 2005, 2009 and 2011 editions came out between July 13 and July 15. Unfortunately, the series is now defunct, as EA Sports couldn’t come to an agreement with some NCAA members.
– Tales of Symphonia came out for the Gamecube on July 13, 2004. It was later ported to the PS2, and then an expanded version came out for the PS3. Namco is now up to seemingly 700 different Tales games, by the way.
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 12, 2016
– A copy of Stadium Events that a guy got at a yard sale for $2 just turned into a $7,500 sale for him. This site has the story. (Warning! Autoplaying video.)
– Someone has hacked an NES with a custom modem to read Twitter. Read about it on Motherboard!
– From Reddit, and copied to a bunch of other sites, a user has developed a Virtual Boy emulator for Google Cardboard.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Super Mario RPG, a collaboration between Square and Nintendo, came out May 13, 1996. It turns 20 on Friday! Holy hell!
– The Saturn was released on May 11, 1995. With its release came console versions of Clockwork Knight, Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter. For a good, long retrospective, check out this piece by Jeremy Parish on US Gamer.
– Six years ago on May 11, 3D Dot Game Heroes by Silicon Studio came out for the PS3. If you’re a fan of Zelda-like games, it’s pretty good, and available in plenty of bargain bins!
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 21, 2016
– As you can imagine, there is a bunch of Star Fox content this week, because a new game in the series is coming out. (The initial reviews seem to suggest it’s good, but weird control-wise.) Kotaku’s Patrick Klepek has a good piece on why Star Fox 2 never made it out for the SNES, even though it was probably more than 90 percent done. Kat Bailey of US Gamer points out that the series has a long history of innovation – some good, some bad.
– Sega has announced that it’ll allow mods to be released via Steam for some of its old games. Polygon has the press release summary here. Sega hasn’t elaborated on the extent of what it’ll allow and won’t, but it could lead to some interesting creations.
– The latest YouTube Teens React video is on Super Metroid! Check it out here. Only one teen out of six (I believe) can manage to beat the second boss, the Chozo guarding the bombs. Also, if you missed it, we recently covered Super Metroid.
– From Chris Reed at The Cheat Sheet, eight SNES games you have to play!
– Sarah Gish of The Kansas City Star looks at some of the cool bars with video games in the city.
– There is a really cool looking Nintendo 64 anthology book on Kickstarter. Check it out here!
– From Jeff Grubb at Venture Beat, what’s the current status of Atari? Well, seemingly, it’s mostly a patent troll company. They’re claiming that they own the trademark for “haunted house” in video game titling. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and now, it only employs 10 people who mostly work to protect the company’s legacy value.
– Aubrey Sitterson of Geek.com has 11 games that “secretly made the Sega Saturn a great console.” While I wouldn’t agree that the Saturn was great, it was a good system, and it unfairly gets lumped into the Virtual Boy / 3DO / 32X graveyard sometimes.
– Breaking, important news! Video game henchmen plan meetup around explosive barrels! Read more here.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– According to Moby Games, Data East was founded on April 20, 1976. The company was one of the early arcade producers, making games like BurgerTime, Cobra Command, Joe & Mac and past YPB show topic Shadowrun. They also did more than a dozen different pinball games, most based on TV shows. However, by the mid-1990s the company’s popularity and series had faded, and their last game came out in 1999. (Revive… Sosei, an adventure game for the Dreamcast, was Japan-only in October 1999. Zombie Revenge, an arcade and Dreamcast release, was the last North American release, seemingly.)
– In 1982, Pitfall! came out for the Atari 2600. It was probably the very best game ever released at the time, and topped the Billboard charts for 64 weeks. The commercial also had Jack Black in his first role.
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 – September 10, 2015
Hey, you know what starts tonight? Football! Football, football, FOOTBALL! Tom Brady, football, Deflategate, FOOTBALL!!! #hottakes. Oh, and here is some vidya game news:
– The original PlayStation was released 20 years ago, roughly, as it hit American shores on Sept. 9. Mike Minotti of the Gamesbeat column at Venturebeat has a piece on the mediocre launch titles. “Highlights” included Ridge Racer, NBA Jam Tournament Edition and Battle Arena Toshinden.
– Similarly, Entertainment Weekly online’s Aaron Morales has a look at the Dreamcast’s super sweet 16.
– Project X Zone 2 is an odd, mash-up tactical RPG. Among its playable characters are Captain Commando, Heihachi Mishima from Tekken, and now, Segata Sanshiro from Sega Saturn ads. Sato at Siliconera has a summary here.
– Chelsea Stark at Mashable has grouped together 10 cool Super Mario Bros. music covers here. And in a video for Eurogamer, the developers of SMB talk World 1-1.
– In a great column idea, whodeyfans at SB Nation uses Tecmo Super Bowl to project games.
– From Reddit, a Super Mario Bros. video is used to announce a pregnancy.
– U.S. News and World Report has an article on moving out of your parents’ basement. Ugh, who would ever want to do that?
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Hey, some actual games of significance were released! You know, like Kid Klown in Crazy Chase for the SNES in 1994! Big time stuff! (JK on that one, but for reals…)
– Spyro the Dragon came out for the Playstation in 1998. It was an incredibly popular platformer, and along with Crash Bandicoot, the closest thing Sony had to a proper mascot.
– The third volume of the .hack//G.U. series came out for Playstation 2 in 2007. Entitled Redemption, it closed out the last console version of that games series, which has some intriguing elements.
– In Japan, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest came out in 1993. Oddly, this was an inverse of the usual practice, as the North American version came out in October 1992. The game tends to be viewed dismissively by Final Fantasy fans, but it’s a perfectly average RPG for the time, with surprisingly good music. Also released in Japan on this date in history: Mutant League Football in 1993.
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 28, 2015
“I love the Power Glove… I’m the only one. It’s so bad. Like you really can’t do shit with it.”
It’s the debut of a semi-new feature! We’ve scoured some online sites in an attempt to find some retro gamin’ news you might find interesting, to whet your appetite between shows. Except to see regular news posts on Thursdays for the next couple of weeks as we try this out. So, without further adieu…
– Remember how cool The Wizard was? Well… Not actually. But similar to that movie, there will be a 2015 Nintendo World Championships, as reported by Games Radar and tons of other sites. The entry rounds being held at eight Best Buy locations. For more info, go here.
– Just as a technical project, someone is porting Wolfenstein 3D to the Genesis. Like… they’re doing it now, in 2015. You can see a YouTube video here, and there is a message board posting about it here.
– For the Genesis and the SNES, there is a vibrant homebrew / indie scene. Example: here is a Kickstarter for a new SNES (and possibly NES) platform game.
– A port of Dragon Quest VIII is coming out for the 3DS.
– Sega is pulling a bunch of different games from its iOS offerings, per Pocket Gamer. Games removed include Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes, Shining Force and Sonic Spinball.
– On Reddit’s GameCollecting subreddit, someone managed to get their hands on TWO copies of DuckTales 2 at the same time! The subreddit itself has some other nice finds.
– A deep dive from Nintendo Life on the cancellation of Star Fox 2, from someone who worked on the game and played a completed Japanese ROM of it. However, a release and translation are probably unlikely, given legal issues with the now-defunct Argonaut Software.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– … Well, kind of. Super Mario Bros. the movie was released in 1993, and it bombed. Per Box Office Mojo, it only made $20.9 million on a $48 million production budget. It only opened fourth on its first weekend, behind “classics” like Cliffhanger, Made in America and Dave. It was out of theaters in about four weeks. The full movie is often posted on YouTube, and really, that’s a better option that expending any cash for that trash.
– Notable game releases: Mass Effect (2008), Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (1999), Crazy Taxi 2 and Dark Cloud (2001).
For the full list of history items, check out Moby Games.
Episode 001 – Super Mario Bros. + The Lost Levels
Episode 001 – Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels
Your Parents Basement is meant to be a fun podcast project, where some folks talk about their favorite classic games. Click here for our first episode on Super Mario Bros., as well as its way-too-hard counterpart, The Lost Levels.
Want to follow along to future episodes? Add this feed to your podcastin’ device: https://yourparentsbasementpodcast.wordpress.com/category/podcasts/feed/ We are absolutely looking for guests and game ideas for future shows! For both, please email them to us – parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com – as opposed to leaving them as comments. (Mystery is good for the rest of the listening audience!) You can also follow us on Twitter. Supplemental material for today’s show:
- The opening theme comes from this helpful YouTube video.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.
- Console Wars by Blake Harris, which was the first book I read that really focused on the rise and fall of Sega during the Genesis era from that company’s perspective.
- “The Secret History of Super Mario Bros. 2” from Wired, which talks about that game’s true origin.
- A deep dive on the failures of the Super Mario Bros. movie on Grantland. The movie rights changed hands in December 2014, suggesting that a second attempt might be coming soon.
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