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 – September 3, 2015
While Kanye is running for president in 2020, the only one that’ll get our votes is President Ronnie. Are you a bad enough dude to save him? Prepare for the onslaught of political news with this much more appealing vidya game news:
– The aptly named Steven Lebron of Vice Sports has a lengthy interview with Tim Kitzrow, the voice of the NBA Jam series. Among the neat facts in the piece? He only got paid $900 for his initial voice work.
– The final tally for the first sale of Atari 2600 cartridges from a New Mexico landfill? About $107,000, according to Jacqueline Devine of The Alamogordo Daily News. The lot up for sale was 881 games, with the biggest earning being a copy of E.T., which went for $1,535.
– On YouTube, the iBookGuy has a cool series about how graphics and sounds work in older systems. This week’s topic was Apple and Atari, and you can see it here.
– Are you near central New Jersey at all? Cool! Then you can attend A Video Game Con – AVGC – which is being put on by Paul Solomine. The video game-focused event will have more than 60 vendors and 100 merchandise tables, as well as pretty much every old school console. Chuck O’Donnell of MyCentralJersey.com has a full article here.
– Jaz Rignall at US Gamer has an article on one of those obscure consoles you probably haven’t heard of, the Amstrad GX4000. It also gets into the odd European market, which was not dominated by the NES.
– In celebration of its birthday, Uproxx’s Nathan Birch has a long piece on some of the trivia aspects of the Super Nintendo. Amongst the tidbits: Nintendo never wanted to make a follow-up to the NES, most N64 games started as SNES projects, and yes, the system turns yellow over time.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Pretty much zero games of note came out in America, unless you’re really into NFL Head Coach 09 or Blade II (2002). And if you are, well, it might be time to reevaluate your life and your priorities.
– In Japan, the awesome cult game The Magic of Scheherazade came out in 1987. It didn’t hit American shores until December 1989, but it was a cool game that mixed adventure and RPG elements. And oh yeah – some game called Metal Gear Solid came out in Japan. It became kind of a big deal…
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.
Episode 017 – Smash TV (1992)
Episode 017 – Smash TV (1992)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we’re shooting through hordes of baseball bat swinging mooks for the chance to win a year’s supply of good meat! From 1992, we’re playing the Super Nintendo’s Smash TV, also sometimes called Super Smash TV. (It’s kind of a thing for games on that system – more than 70 have ‘super’ somewhere in the title.)
You can manually download this week’s gore-tastic podcast here, or subscribe to the show via the iTunes store. To manually subscribe, use this link in the device / podcast player of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
As always, if you like the show, support us by buying from Amazon! You can use this link to go to Amazon, and any purchase you make will kick a couple bucks to the show, with no extra cost to you. It’s a win-win!
Want to have an email or comment read on the air? Send us a message on the ole Twitter or Facebook, or, shoot that mail to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro.
- 49:30 – Emails. Todd explains his absence from last week, and the guys talk scary vidya game experiences.
- 1:05:00 – The return of the ToddBitSkit!
- 1:08:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– There are plenty of good videos on Smash TV on the Internets! Here’s a speedrun in 28 minutes, and a longer play of more than an hour.
– According to Price Charting, Super Smash TV is about $16 for the loose cart. If you want the manual and box, the price shoots up to $40, and new or perfect condition copies run $115 currently. There are also inferior home versions available for the NES, Game Gear and Genesis, all of which run for $6 to $8.
– As mentioned on the show, Smash TV used to be available on the online stores, but it was taken down after Midway went bankrupt and got sold in 2010. It is available in Midway Arcade Origins, a compilation disc for the PS3 and 360 released in 2012. Although some of the games in that collection have iffy controls, Smash TV is still pretty solid. It’s available used for about $10, new for $20.
– The “sequel” to Smash TV is called Total Carnage, although it’s more of a spiritual successor as opposed to a straight continuation. It’s not nearly as well-reviewed or popular though.
Vidya Game News – August 20, 2015
On the East Coast, it’s been too damn hot to do anything but play vidya games, and to read about vidya games. Here are some of the highlights from the past week:
– Holy smokes, the Mortal Kombat movie is now 20 years old! Hollywood Reporter has an awesome oral history of the movie, by Aaron Couch. The biggest ‘trivia’ aspect is probably that Cameron Diaz was initially cast as Sonya Blade, before being replace by Mrs. Pete Sampras after breaking her wrist.
– As mentioned on many sites and on the Playstation Blog, there will be a nifty Playstation 4 bundle available in November that will come with a Star Wars theme and a Darth Vader chest panel. Included are the latest Star Wars Battlefront game and four classic games, like the Super Nintendo’s Super Star Wars.
– The Sega Blog has a multi-part interview with Sega staff on today’s release of 3D Gunstar Heroes. It’s an upgrade on the cult classic from the Genesis era.
– From Kotaku Australia, Kevin Wong tries to defend Mario Is Missing. It’s a #hottake to me, since I’ve played it and not been impressed.
– Freelance artist Brooke Luder apparently did some pitch work for Crazy Taxi 4 and The Sonic Classic Collection, which is summarized here at the Sonic Stadium. You can find Luder’s portfolio here.
– Sega will be releasing Puyo Puyo Quest in the states, under the title Cranky Food Friends: A delicious drop and match RPG. The news was on Pocket Gamer and other sites. If it looks and sounds familiar to you, it’s because it came to the U.S. way-back-when as Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine.
– A neat roundup from Marc Morrison on 411Mania, in The 8 Ball column, which has the top eight worst 2D platformers, mostly from the eight and 16-bit eras. Some of the selections aren’t surprising, and they’re mostly correct: Home Improvement, Captain Planet, Bebe’s Kids…
Who has the largest Nintendo collection in Australia? Sam Crowther possibly, according to WA Today.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– The only game of real significance released today, short of updates to sports games, is One Must Fall: 2097. It was a cool fighting game for the PC, which featured fightin’ rowebuts that you could upgrade. Man, August can’t get over soon enough…
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.
Episode 016 – Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (1994)
Episode 016 – Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (1994)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we’re throwing down dunks for fire basketball power-ups! From 1994, we’re playing the much-forgotten Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, a SNES-exclusive from Electronic Arts. Today’s special guest is Steve’s buddy Dale!
You can manually download this week’s wonderful podcast here, or subscribe to the show via the iTunes store. To manually subscribe, use this link in the device / podcast player of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
As always, if you like the show, support us by buying from Amazon! You can use this link to go to Amazon, and any purchase you make will kick a couple bucks to the show, with no extra cost to you. It’s a win-win!
Want to have an email or comment read on the air? Send us a message on the ole Twitter or Facebook, or, shoot that mail to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – The intro, which is not The Police, but is from a stage in the game.
- 1:00 – Todd’s not here, man.
- 46:00 – Emails. There could be foul play involved with this week’s show, and not enough video game questions.
- 60:30 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, a copy of Chaos in the Windy City costs about $7 for the cart itself. If you want a new copy, or just one with the box and manual, it’s around $20 to $40.
– For a play-through of the game, with some commentary, check out this YouTube video. The speed run video is around 44 minutes, and available here.
– There isn’t much info on this game available on the web, since it isn’t “so bad it’s funny” like Shaq Fu. (And hey, reminder – We reviewed that one too!) However, as mentioned on the show, this game was the first one designed by Amy Hennig, who would go on to design and develop some much better games.
GUEST REQUEST
For next week’s show, we’re covering Smash TV! If you’d like to participate, shoot an email to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com. Recording time will be 11 p.m. EST Wednesday.
Vidya Game News – August 6, 2015
Super Breakout (Atari 5200)
Hey, it’s August finally! We’re getting closer to the magical fall and Christmas seasons, the actual times when video games are released. The best times. The greatest times. To tide us over until then, here is some vidya game news:
– A Nintendo Game Boy from 1990 survived a bombing in the Gulf War. Click here for the photo and story from Twinfinite.
– Another neat thing on Kickstarter is The Story of the Commodore 64 in Pixels by Chris Wilkins. For more info, click here.
– BBC News’ Kim Gittleson has an interview with Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari.
– Per MCV reporter Christopher Dring, Nintendo will soon be offering a monthly box of goodies, tentatively named The N-Box.
– Looking for a free, good, classic game to play? Super Breakout, an Atari paddle ball puzzle game, is free currently. It’s the Spokesman-Review’s Tech Deck featured game.
– Looking for a not-free, but new, classic NES game? Star Versus is an indie NES game, and you can purchase it here.
– Unofficially, a new Ducktales cartoon series will be CG-animated, per Brandon Smith at Rotoscopers. Kim Possible and Darkwing Duck are also being considered for remakes.
Star Ocean: The Second Story (PSX)
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 1999, Star Ocean: The Second Story came out for the Playstation. Confusingly, it is the first game to reach America, despite the name. It’s a neat action RPG series, heavier on the RPG than some other games, and the fifth main series game (Integrity and Faithlessness) is due out later this year.
– It was only two years ago, but Dragon’s Crown came out from Atlus for the Playstation 3 and Vita. It’s a cool side-scrolling throwback to games like King of Dragons and Dungeons and Dragons: Chronicles of Mystra though.
– Past show topic Secret of Mana came out (in Japan) in 1993 today! You can listen to our episode on that fantastic game here. In another significant Japanese release, Metroid came out for the NES in 1986.
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.
Episode 014 – Contra (1988)
Episode 014 – Contra (1988)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are fighting our way through jungles, the tundra and H.R. Giger styled bases to strike at the heart of the alien invasion! That’s right, we’re playing that classic run-and-gun shooter from 1988, Contra! With special guest and Contra virtuoso Backsack! (He got to the ice stage without losing a life!)
You can manually download this week’s wonderful podcast here, or subscribe to the show via the iTunes store. To manually subscribe, use this link in the device / podcast player of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
As always, if you like the show, support us by buying from Amazon! You can use this link to go to Amazon, and any purchase you make will kick a couple bucks to the show, as no extra cost to you. It’s a win-win!
Want to have an email or comment read on the air? Send us a message on the ole Twitter or Facebook, or, shoot that mail to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – The intro, which features music from video game music cover band The Minibosses.
- 44:15 – Emails. The gang talks guilty playshures games.
- 1:02:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– As mentioned in the timestamps, the main theme this week is by video game music cover band The Minibosses. Besides Contra, they do a lot of other cool tunes that you should check out. The sound effects from Contra were gotten from this nifty site.
– Amazingly, some people can play Contra even better than Backsack! There are various speedruns on YouTube, such as this one in 10:11, which seems to be the world record as of 2012. It tends to be a popular pick for charity gaming sessions and what not.
– The resemblance between the heroes of Contra and 1980s action movie heroes has not gone unnoticed over the years.
– While we spoke briefly about all of the weird post-Contra Contra games out there, we didn’t talk about the cost of the game. It’s actually somewhat pricey on eBay, with the cost ranging from $25 to $40 for just the game itself. The box and the manual ups it to $70. There is a similar price range for the NES sequel Super C. It oddly has not had a re-release on the Xbox or Playstation stores, but it is included on various Konami classic releases for the Nintendo DS and PC.
– Clu Clu Land was mentioned several times by Backsack. You can read more about the game on its Wikipedia page. Or, see it in action on YouTube!
– The weird video game simulation series Steve was talking about, GameBiz, can be downloaded here. There are three installments out, but oddly, they each add and subtract good things. The first is the best at single game development. The second adds the ability to train staff (which is very annoying to do) and multiple game development. The third lets you also develop hardware (which takes forever).
Vidya Game News – July 23, 2015
The original box art for the Sega CD version of Night Trap.
Man, July is almost over! Where does the time go? Quicker than the final quarter in a game of NBA Jam! Anyway, here is this week’s news post:
– Dave Voyles is a sturdier man than most, since he’s taken on the technical challenge of turning the infamous Night Trap into a playable online game. For more information, check out his post on Gamasutra.
– There is an awesome new documentary project on Kickstarter, called Insert Coin: Inside Midway’s 90s Revolution. If the project hits its goal of $75,000, it plans to cover all the games of the era: Smash TV, NARC, WrestleMania, and of course, NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat.
– On past episodes, Steve has mentioned how much he liked the book Console Wars by Blake J. Harris, which really covers the rise and fall of Sega. The Mary Sue’s Dan Van Winkle has an interview with Harris here. (And hey, if you want to buy the book, don’t forget about our Amazon link!)
– From Chris Arrant of Newsarama, details on the deal between Atari and Dynamite to publish items on the gaming company’s deep back inventory of items.
– The latest effort from Honest Trailers? The Super Mario Bros. movie!
– A United Kingdom company is now offering retro game mural wallpaper.
– Via Riley Little of Game Rant, a dad has turned his child’s nursery into one with a Mario Kart 8 theme.
– Business Insider has an unwrapping of the new $500 Nintendo Entertainment System. (Warning: Video will autoplay!)
– David Nield of Motoring Research has a list of the best retro tech of the 1990s, which includes the Super Nintendo and the Game Boy Color, amongst other devices like beepers, point and shoot cameras, and Nokia phones.
Box art for Max Payne.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 2001, Max Payne came out for the PC. According to Wikipedia, the three games in the series have now sold more than 7.5 million copies. It was known for introducing Matrix-style “bullet time” to games.
– And since it’s July, almost nothing else came out. Womp womp womp.
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 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.
Episode 011 – Secret of Mana (1993)
Secret of Mana (1993)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are playing one of the highest-rated RPGs of the 16-bit era, Square’s Secret of Mana! Follow along as we lavish praise on the fighting system and music, and do our best to overlook the truncated dialogue in the fight against ebbing mana.
You can manually download this week’s podcast here, or subscribe to the show via the iTunes store. To manually subscribe, use this link in the device / podcast player of choice. You can also follow us on Twitter, or ‘like’ us on Facebook.
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Want to have an email or comment read on the air? We’d love to hear from you! Send us a message on the ole Twitter or Facebook, or, shoot that mail to parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com. We’re also looking for future show guests, and future show ideas! You can leave those in comments here, or on Facebook or Twitter.
TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – The intro, which features music from the flying portions of the game.
- 47:40 – Emails. More dark thoughts from Butterscoot.
- 54:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– We don’t get into heavy story spoilers for Secret of Mana, since the iOS and Droid versions are still good, and thus, hopefully some of you will be interested enough to give it a try. Basically, any story aspect we talk about comes up within the first five hours (about 10 percent) of the game. However, it should be said that at one point, you do get to save Santa.
– We somewhat on the development history of this game, which is pretty interesting and has been written about several times. In addition to the always-reliable Wikipedia, 1-Up has a column about how the series actually began in 1987.
– As far as the translation specifically, Wikipedia has a transcript of a September 1994 interview with Ted Woolsey, the poor bastard who had to do all of Secret of Mana in 30 days. In the 1990s, he was a controversial figure because his translations really morphed the intent of some text and plot, but opinion has softened on him over the years as people have become aware of the programming and time limitations he faced. He did the translation work on Mana, Final Fantasy 3, Breath of Fire and Chrono Trigger. He has his own page on TV Tropes, Woolseyism, and now works for Microsoft.
– On the show, I (Steve) said that I thought I could probably work my way through this game in 10 hours or so. Well, on YouTube, there is a speed run done in about 3 hours. Ye gads.
– Also on the show, as usual, we talk about how much the game costs now. As mentioned several times, the iOS version is well-reviewed, removes some translation errors and only costs about $10. On eBay, loose carts go for about $30 to $70, and complete packages (game, box, map and manual) go for around $100 to $200, depending on condition. There are also tons of Secret of Mana 2 carts on eBay in the $45 to $60 range. These are not official though; they’re simply the fan translation dumped on to a cart. They’re still playable on your SNES, though.
– We talk briefly about Secret of Evermore, which plays a bit like Mana, but is otherwise completely unrelated. We might cover it more in-depth on another show. Via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, Super-NES.com has a great interview with Brian Fehdrau, the lead programmer for Evermore.
– Hat tip to co-host Todd Brisket, who found this story about the newest boss additions to the Japanese-only Vita game, Rise of Mana.
Your Parents Basement 