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.
Episode 051 – Super Metroid (1994)
Episode 051 – Super Metroid (1994)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are freezing metroids with our ice beam and blasting them away with missiles! From 1994, we’re playing Super Metroid by Nintendo’s Research & Development 1 division for the SNES. Friend of the show Backsack is subbing in for Todd Brisket, who unfortunately was tethered to his workstation.
You can manually download this week’s memory-filled 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, which features the spooky, minimalist title theme from the series. Also, we’re joined by Backsack this week, as Todd Brisket couldn’t get away from work.
- 23:30 – Some swearing! Fun times!
- 32:45 – “Hey Pete, you get any Metroid copies in?”
- 33:00 – The sweet baby boys talk about VHS tapes like Young Indiana Jones and Dr. Giggles, which leads Backsack to talk about his time managing a Petco and Holly Marie Combs.
- 53:15 – Emails! Brisket’s box is empty, Scooterbutt has a run-in with the Konami phone line, the boys talk about series they’d like to see return, apartheid, and our favorite spots to play in vidya game form.
- 1:12:00 – Snifferoo. Next week, we’re swinging through the air as a great superhero on a horrible system!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Super Metroid has held its value up well, as even the loose cart goes for $49. The box and manual shoots the price up to $134, and “new” copies go for $425, as discussed on the show. If you have a Wii, it’s available for digital download for about $7.99.
– Huell mistakenly played the JUSTIN BAILEY hack of Super Metroid for this week’s show. You can check it out on YouTube here.
– Super Metroid tends to be really popular for speedrunners and mod makers, because the gameplay is so good, and sequence breaking is easy because of Samus’ default abilities. For example, you can beat the bosses in reverse order, or the entire game in 22 minutes. Like the original, doing so grants you a look at Samus in various states of clothing. Or, you can just look at all of Samus’ suits here!
Vidya Game News – April 14, 2016
– The Tumblr account Super Mario Broth highlighted a rare Super Mario Bros. 3 animation this week – The Hammer Bros. suit sliding. You normally can’t slide in the suit in the game, so you have to do it in this one stage.
– Also in the category of Super Late Easter Eggs, a bald guy in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! reveals when to throw punches to knock out Piston Honda and Bald Bull. Read about it on Reddit here.
– In advance of the release of Star Fox Zero on April 22, there is a comparison of Corneria across the different versions. And hey, check out YPB’s Star Fox episode here!
– Nerdist and a bunch of other sites had the Player Piano cover of the moon theme from DuckTales. It’s the hot game that got one out of one DuckTale from Todd on one of our first shows!
– From TechTimes, Mark Lelinwalla looks at the five console generations Kobe Bryant has spanned. Also from TechTimes, Dianne Depra has a cool preview piece on a neat new book, The Art of Atari. Some really good images here!
– And again on TechTimes… Quinten Plummer has a cool article on how the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Illinois managed to revive a prototype Beavis and Butt-Head game that only had 12 copies made. The secret? Cannibalizing a 3DO.
– OC Weekly has a story on Sega Genecide, a cover band. Headline: “Sega Genecide eat, breathe and shit 90’s cover songs.”
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Not quite today, but on April 13, 1992, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past came out in North America. It continued the wildly popular series, and it was a bright, vibrant 16-bit game. Per Wikipedia, it sold 4.61 million copies, good enough for fifth on the platform.
– On April 12, 2001, Big Ape Productions released The Simpsons Wrestling for the PSX to pretty miserable reviews. Of course, if you’re looking for a good Simpsons game, or want to hear about some of the horrible ones, check out our previous show!
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 050 – Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993)
Episode 050 – Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are doing our best to save lives and to destroy zombies with water pistols! From 1993, we’re playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors by LucasArts for the Super Nintendo and Genesis.
You can manually download this week’s spooooooky 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, which is the music for the first tough level featuring the Chainsaw Charlies.
- 44:30 – Emails! We hear from some old friends, and make some new ones with Hollywood royalty, plus, talk about which games we could play professionally.
- 1:00:15 – Snifferoo. Next week, we are playing one of the classic SNES games, and probably, Steve’s favorite game of all-time!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Zombies has held up its value pretty well! The Genesis version goes for $30 for just the cart, and the SNES one is $37.50. The Genesis one is $66 new, while the SNES one is $270. Heavy cash!
– At Hardcore Gaming 101, John Szczepaniak and Sam Derboo have a good piece about the creations of Zombies, compiling some quotes from various sources. Read it here!
– The sequel to ZAMN is Ghoul Patrol, which we didn’t play for the show. However, you can check it out on YouTube here. It’s a direct sequel, with the same characters.
– Zombies Ate My Neighbors fanart is weird.
Vidya Game News – March 31, 2016
Yearly reminder: Friday is April 1, so any of these stories have a chance of being false in the future, unfortunately.
– From a site called MEL, Sam Stecklow has a great read on Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill, a cancelled video game for the SNES and Genesis based on the Clintons’ cat… OR IS IT CANCELLED?!?! There might be a Kickstarter campaign to get it properly released.
– Sam Machkovech of Ars Technica has a long write-up of some of the cooler panel talks at the Game Developers Conference. Among the revelations: Ms. Pac-Man began as a speed-up kit, and Diablo was originally going to be a turn-based game.
– Atlas Obscura has a good, long read from Eric Gundhauser on the non-rise and quick fall of the Phillips CD-i.
– Speaking of failed systems… Deuce of WRRV 92.7 and 96.9 links to a 30-minute Atari Jaguar informercial, which is crazy go nuts.
– And speaking of Atari, Joey Morona of Cleveland.com has a slideshow of their ads.
– Seth G. Macy at IGN has a neat piece on some trivia about classic NES games. Covered are The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Mario, Mega Man, Metroid and the Konami Code.
– In current events news, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has done about $193 million at the domestic box office, and $501 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. This means we’ll probably get more of them, despite the 29 percent rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Yaaaay… Esquire’s Tyler Coates has a piece that is titled perfectly: “How did Batman go from being fun and gay to sad and boring?”
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Depending on the platform, Lego Star Wars came out this week in 2005. It was the first of many Lego games by TT Games, and almost all of them have been well-reviewed. They’re perfect for your sweet baby boys and girls at home to get into!
– Although the SNES rightly gets a lot of credit for popularizing the RPG genre, the PSX probably remains the platform that just had the most “what the hell?” RPGs, and a surprising amount made it to the U.S. Such as… Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure, from Nippon Ichi, the makers of the Disgaea series. It’s the same sort of tactical, turn-based RPG game as later Nippon Ichi titles, but it came out in 1998, four years before La Pucelle: Tactics and five years before Disgaea.
– StarCraft came out for the PC in 1998. For way more on that game, check out our episode from November!
– In 1997, Doom 64 came out for, you guessed it, the Nintendo 64. While it didn’t get much attention, it is Steve’s favorite version of Doom because it adds some weapons and looks a bit nicer than some of the older PC versions.
– And oh yeah, Resident Evil came out in 1996. I guess it’s kind of a big deal, too.
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 047 – Batman Forever (1995) and Superman 64 (1999)
Episode 047 – Batman Forever (1995) and Superman 64 (1999)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are faster than a speeding bullet and also, the dark knight! From 1995, we’re playing Batman Forever by Probe Entertainment, and from 1999, unfortunately, we’re playing Superman 64 by Titus Software. Joining us, calling in from Krypton, is special guest Mattyboy!
You can manually download this week’s hero-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, which is the title theme from the 1966 Batman with Adam West. It’s real and incredible. We’re joined this week by friend of the show and frequent emailer Mattyboy!
- 6:15 – We have some technical difficulties, and have to reboot.
- 27:15 – We switch from Batman Forever to Superman 64 talk!
- 47:45 – It’s another installment of Vidya Game Theatre!
- 54:00 – Emails! This week, Mattyboy introduces them, and participates even more than usual.
- 1:07:45 – Snifferoo. Oh hell yeah! It’s Wrestlemania season!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Superman 64 only costs $6.95 for just the cart, but the price swells to $38 for the cart, box and manual, and $41 for a new copy. Batman Forever has a similar swing, at $3 to $7 for the loose cart, up to the $26 to $30 range for new copies.
– Batman Forever had a scary amount of commercials for all sorts of crap, like McDonald’s. Also, be sure to buy the VHS!
– As mentioned on the show, TV Funhouse and Saturday Night Live had a spoof of Superman called Wonderman. It’s semi-NSFW, but viewable here.
Episode 046 – E.V.O.: Search for Eden (1993)
Episode 046 – E.V.O.: Search for Eden (1993)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are hunting animals and literally trying to cause extinctions in order to survive and evolve ourselves! From 1993, we’re playing the cult classic E.V.O.: Search for Eden by Almanic and produced by Enix for the SNES.
You can manually download this week’s gimmicky 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, which features the excellent title theme from the game. (Note: Pretty much all of the music in EVO is wonderful! Check out this YouTube playlist.)
- 46:15 – Emails! A special friend wants to guest on the show (still), and we talk arcade economics again.
- 1:04:30 – Snifferoo. Next week, we’re focusing on VENGENANCE and SUPERHEROES (in trashy, awful video games).
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, E.V.O. is ridiculously expensive. The loose cart price alone is $207, which is actually down from a high of $252 in February 2013. Box-and-manual combinations are rare, but go for an average of $689 the past four years. There has only been one “new” copy sold in the past four years, and that went for $3,350.
– Huell mentioned some charts on Skype that helped with the game, giving various letter grades for evolution upgrades and showing the bosses. You can find them here and here!
– For that awful Bird Man Fort that Steve complained about, GameFAQs has a helpful map on its guides page. They also have one for the U.F.O. in stage three, which is similarly confusing.
– Steve mentioned an article on Cracked about professional arcade game players. You can read it here.
Vidya Game News – March 10, 2016
– Cyan, the makers of Myst, have released a teaser trailer for their new game, Obduction. Check it out on their YouTube channel.
– There are a bunch of new screenshots and tracks released for the new Toejam and Earl game, per TechnoBuffalo.
– Amazingly, you can still play Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast! Well, if you’re willing to buy some modded games and/or systems. But, hundreds of people still do, and Jason Evangelho has the details on Forbes.
– Atlas Obscura’s Eric Grundhauser has an awesome read on the “treasures” offered in an old Atari contest for Swordquest. It’s long, but good. (For some of the neat-looking ads, including the one on this entry, go here!)
– Today’s “Shut up and take my money!” moment: Nintendo plans to open up a theme park at Universal Studios Japan. The Telegraph in the U.K. has a good write-up here.
– Bryan Cranston has been in a lot of commercials, including one for the Atari 2600 game MegaForce. Zap2It has a listicle here.
– From Allegra Frank at Polygon, and a bunch of other sites, the Coleco Chameleon is now dead.
– Per some mod makers, Microsoft wanted $500,000 to license Shadowrun for an X-Com 2 mod. Niche Gamer’s Carl Batchelor has a summary of the Twitter stuff here.
– On Kotaku Australia, Jason Schreier has a 20-year retrospective on Super Mario RPG.
– From The Wrap and a bunch of other sites, DuckTales is getting a revival! The first image is out, and it doesn’t look bad. Hopefully, it will lead to more splendid video games to review…
– Are you going to SXSW? (Sweet baby boy Huell is!) Well, they’re having a bunch of video game and tech-focused panels! Check out the list here.
– In re-releasing news, the rumored Valkyria Chronicles Remastered is now a reality for North American audiences! Per Sega and Sony, it’ll come out May 17, and feature upgraded graphics and full trophy support.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– On March 11, Mega Man & Bass came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, which is close enough for our purposes. It was the only main series game for the GBA, and was generally well-received.
– PlatinumGames’ MadWorld, an incredibly ultraviolent game, somehow came out for the Wii in 2009. It’s one of the few Wii games that is not kid or family-appropriate, as it is about a murder-related game show. Think of Smash TV, but gorier, and more of a beat-em-up.
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 044 – The Simpsons (1991 and 1992)
Episode 044 – The Simpsons (1991 and 1992)
This week in Your Parents Basement, it’s the 25th anniversary of the sole early good game in a video game series based on a TV series! From 1991, it’s The Simpsons arcade game by Konami! We also play some of the low lights of the video games – Bart vs. The Space Mutants, Bart’s House of Weirdness and Bart’s Nightmare.
You can manually download this week’s cromulent 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, which features one of the best TV theme songs in vidya game music glory.
- 43:30 – Emails! We talk Christmas gifts and other important things.
- 1:04:00 – Snifferoo. We’re covering TWO games for next week’s show! One involves the Zapper. Pew pew pew!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, pretty much all of the games based on The Simpsons are between $5 and $20 for just the carts or discs. As we say on the show, most of them aren’t worth owning, except for Hit and Run, Road Rage and The Simpsons Game.
– The list of video games based on The Simpsons is really long. As is the list of video games on The Simpsons.
– Do you like luxury? What about a Jaguar?
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!
Your Parents Basement 
