Vidya Game News – July 16, 2015
Now this looks PRETTY legit.
It’s way too friggin’ humid in New England, but despite the condensation, we’ve prepared only the best news for you to enjoy today! Here are some of the stories about classic games and series we’ve culled from around the Interwebs:
– In last week’s “Four of a Kind” feature on Purple Revolver by James Brookfield, they cover bad celebrity endorsed games. The finalists? Shaq Fu, Chuck Norris Superkicks, Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, and William Shatner’s TekWar, which apparently exists!
– Looking for some classic game recommendations? Nicholas Bitonti of The Detroit Metro Times has some good recommendations. While I don’t agree with all of them, they’re more obscure and interesting than the usual ones you see floating around the web, and cover a variety of systems.
– For the upcoming release of Pixels, Chauncey Alcorn of The New York Daily News has a ranking of his favorite 10 arcade games of all-time. Spoiler alert: Tekken 4 is way too friggin’ high, and while it’s nice to see Virtua Cop get some love, there is no Time Crisis on the list, which is just silly.
– Continuing with controversial #hottakes: Lizzy Finnegan of The Escapist has an article, “When the sequel is worse than the original.” Unfortunately, her examples are The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania, and I’d say that only the latter is actually bad.
– IGN.com’s Cam Shea has a good, longer read on the downfall of the SEGA Rally Championship game series. Warning though, a video autoplays from that link!
– On the Gradius episode, we mentioned that it was seen as Konami’s response to Namco’s classic Xevious. It’s probably for the best that an Atari 2600 port of Xevious never saw the light of day, because the recently unearthed prototype copy is pretty horrible. (Via Kotaku Australia’s Mike Fahey.)
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Again, it’s a fairly crappy day for video game releases, because it’s the summer. The Game Boy Color version of Dragon Warrior III came out 14 years ago. The original was an incredible RPG that featured multiple classes for the first time in a Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior game, and even better, you could change at-will once you reached a certain point in the game. However, it originally came out in Japan in 1988, and in June 1991 in North America, and didn’t have much of an impact in the states. On Amazon, GBC prices range from $19.99 (used) to $149.98 (new). Want a boxed copy of the NES edition? It’s only $1,499.95, with used copies starting at $47.95.
– One major studio game released in the summer back in the day: NCAA Football 2004, which came out in 2003 on July 16 for the Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube. The cover athlete was Carson Palmer, who is now 35, and the game sells for $1 or less pretty much everywhere in the god damn world.
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 9, 2015
Holy crap, a Nintendo Playstation!
First, some important show-related news! You can now support us whenever you’re making a purchase on Amazon. Got something to buy? Do it via this link, and we’ll get a cut of your sale, at no extra cost to you. It can be for any goods, even non-vidya game stuff, and we’d definitely appreciate it! (Let us know if you make a purchase, and you’ll get a shout-out on the show. ❤ )
Surprisingly, even though we’re now in the dog days of summer, it was a great week for news. The biggest of which…
– A prototype of the 1991 collaboration between Nintendo and Sony on a CD-based system has been unearthed [right]. Polygon’s Brian Crecente had a good interview with the guy who found it, and that’s also where the picture comes from. That system eventually became the Playstation. (And to hype that Amazon thingy once again, there is an awesome breakdown of the rise and fall of Sega, and how Sony’s Playstation factored in, via Console Wars.) Some folks online aren’t convinced the prototype is real, but no one official has come out strongly to refute it.
– Speaking of failed Nintendo projects, Jon Fingas from Engadget details how Project H.A.M.M.E.R. became vaporware over the course of six years of painful development.
– Have you ever played Missile Command, Centipede or Asteroids and thought, “Man, wouldn’t this be cooler as a graphic novel???” … Okay, me neither. But hey, Dynamite Entertainment has you covered, via an article from UK Wired’s Matt Kamen.
– A neat feature, if you like readin’, from Matt Gander at Games Asylum. In “We’ve Got Issues,” he covers the Dreamcast magazine wars of the United Kingdom.
– I must begrudgingly give credit to Food and Wine’s millennial section for featuring “the ultimate bar setup for Nintendo nerds.” It includes Mario pipe shot glasses, Legend of Zelda ice cube trays and NES Zapper bottle openers.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– The Wizard’s Castle was released in 1980. Like many other games “featured” in this here blog in July, well, there really wasn’t much to choose from in terms of releases. However, the awesome CRPG Addict has an exhaustive review of the game available. It should not be confused with the wonderful Home Movies episode “The Wizard’s Baker.”
– Cryptic Studios was incorporated in 2000. They’re the makers of popular online multiplayer games City of Heroes and spinoff City of Villains.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games.
Episode 009 – Shaq Fu (1994)
Episode 009 – Shaq Fu (1994)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we study Shaqido. It’s a deadly and ancient martial art, dating all the way back to the 1990s. The history of this dangerous form of fighting in explained in 1994’s Shaq Fu, which was a real thing that happened, along with Shaquille O’Neal’s rapping career and him playing a god damn genie.
To download this week’s show, click here! As always, you can listen to this week’s show by downloading from the iTunes store – be sure to give us some starrrrssss! (In fact, you don’t even have to listen to give us stars, you know.) To manually subscribe to the pod, input this link to your device of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro, brought to you by the Wu-Tang Clan, followed by Shaq Fu chat.
- 41:30 – Tales from the Arcade with Huell.
- 51:45 – Emails.
- 1:07:15 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– For information on the Shaq Fu sequel, check out the website on it. Like we get into on the podcast though, there isn’t an announced release date, and it’s now been more than a year since the project was initially announced.
– The Shaq Fu Liberation Army seems to be mostly dormant now. But if you’re interested, check it out here. (Note: Sound.)
– Want to play Shaq Fu? It’s not especially tough, if you still have your old systems. Copies of the game range from $3 to $8 for cart only. Even if you want the box and manual included, the price ranges from $8 to $20, depending on condition. As we say on the show, the Genesis version is surprisingly superior to SNES, thanks to more character and smoother (relatively speaking) animation.
Episode 006 – NHL Series (1992 to 1997)
EA SPORTS! If it’s in the game, then it’s in the game. And this week, we played plenty of games in Your Parents Basement, as we did our best to tackle the many volumes of the NHL series by EA Sports.
While discussion mostly focuses on the two classics of the series, NHLPA 93 and NHL 94, we also do touch upon the other 16-bit editions. It’s possibly the longest running series between the two major consoles, with 95, 96, 97 and (surprisingly!) 98, the same year as the last NHL game for the Sega Saturn. (Sorry Sega, we don’t mean to give you so much shade.)
To download this week’s show, click here! You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes, or manually use this link. If you like the show, be sure to give us some starrrrssss. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
This week’s show notes are short, because all three of us were out ramblin’ this week. (That’s also why there wasn’t a news post – There should be one as normally scheduled Thursday though!) Here are three links though: Baseball Mogul, a fun baseball simulation, and Out of the Park, which is insanely complex and only for the hardcore sports simulation junkies. And the snifferoo from last week came from this YouTube clip.
Episode 005 – NBA Jam (1993)
In this week’s Your Parents Basement podcast, the gang tackles NBA Jam on the eve of the NBA finals! Like all good sports programmes, they use the game to predict the final of the series, and they also talk about their other favorite basketball-based video games, like Scottie Pippen’s Puzzle Challenge.
To download this week’s show, click here! You can also subscribe to the show via iTunes, or manually use this link. If you like the show, be sure to give us some starrrrssss. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
The show notes for this week:
- A download of NBA Jam for iOS devices is free this week. This is the On Fire edition we mention at the end of the game discussion. It’s quite splendid on my PS3, although I’m not sure how well it translates to iOS.
- At one point, Huell mentions a ranking of the “best” NBA Jam teams by Deadspin. You can find that here. It is humorously presented with absolutely no summary information for the decisions.
- Mike Iuzzolino’s NBA career was so short that his Wikipedia entry has a mention to his appearance in NBA Jam. It’s an unplanned career highlight!
- When NBA Jam was being remade for the Wii, ESPN.com ran a good interview with a producer from the game. He gets into how EA Sports procured the rights for making a new version of the game, which evolved from a prototype clone called Bounce. The Wikipedia entry on the series also has some information on the Midway and Acclaim split.
- Unfortunately, Scottie Pippen’s Puzzle Challenge and Space Jam Basketball do not exist (yet). However, Shaq Fu, Michael Jordan: Chaos In The Windy City, and Barkley Shut Up and Jam! do absolutely exist. They are varying degrees of “meh,” although Sir Charles’ game is actually kind of OK… it just features no other NBA players, so why would you ever want to play it instead of NBA Jam? And shockingly, Pippen DOES have his own video game: Slam City With Scottie Pippen on the Sega CD. It is not well-reviewed.
- Finally, a fun list from a blog: The 11 Current NBA Players Who Have Never Dunked.
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 004: Vectorman (1995)
Genesis does what Nintendont! Vectorman is hellishly hard, but it’s fun to turn from balls into a bomb and to explooodddeeee!
On today’s show, Steve, Todd and Huell are joined by their (non-British) friend Pip to talk about how impossible this game is, unless you’re using the Game Genie. (Yes, even save states aren’t enough to overcome Vectorman!) There is also talk of Genesis vs. Super Nintendo, and Vectorman vs. Donkey Kong Country. And of course, balls and Ballz.
To listen, click here! You can subscribe to future shows in the iTunes store – be sure to give us some starrrsss! – or by manually using this address: https://ypbpodcast.com/category/podcasts/feed/
Be sure to listen to the Snifferoo at the end, and if you’re interested in guesting on the show this week, send us an email at parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter, or Facebook.
Show notes for this episode:
- Vectorman can be purchased on Steam for $2.99, or as part of larger Sega classics packages for $7.50 or $29.99. Hard copies on eBay are going for about $5 to $10, and unlike some other games we’ve covered, the inclusion of the box and manual only ups the price range to $15 to $25. Vectorman 2 is in a similar price range.
- The Snifferoo from last week was the main theme from Vectorman, which can be listened to on YouTube here. The commercial that provides the opening music for this week’s ‘sode is here.
- Balls? No, Ballz!
Your Parents Basement 