Episode 052 – Spider-man: Web of Fire (1996)
Episode 052 – Spider-man: Web of Fire (1996)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are web-slinging our way through entire stages! From 1996, we’re playing Spider-man: Web of Fire by BlueSky Software for the 32X.
You can manually download this week’s spidey-sense tingling 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 god awful, tinny title theme from the game. And somehow, it’s not the normal Spider-man theme! (For that awesome track, go here.)
- 41:15 – Emails! The boys talk steampunk, Blade Runner and casual games to relieve stress.
- 1:09:00 – Snifferoo. Next week, it’s an anniversary celebration!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Web of Fire is one of the costliest games that was available commercially. The loose price is $207, or $405 for the box and manual, and up to $575 for a “new” copy.
– The full list of 32X games can be seen here. For more on the system, go here.
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 – April 7, 2016
– On Polygon and a bunch of other sites, Sega announced that it had finalized its acquisition of Atlus. As of now, operations aren’t supposed to change at either company as a result, except for Atlus helping in some North American localization for Sega games.
– Now Gamer has an interesting piece on the failed development of the M2, a follow-up to the 3DO, that never saw the light of day. Panasonic still spent $100 million on it though, and its tech made its way into some Arcade games. Read the piece here.
– Micah Mertes of The Omaha World-Herald has a neat story on a tech museum that had a “petting zoo” display for April 1, featuring old systems, typewriters and Tamagotchis.
– Mike Matei of Cinemassacre (home site of the Angry Video Game Nerd) has a video on the top 10 obscure NES asshole enemies. Check it out here! It’s NSFW and frustratingly accurate.
– From IGN and a bunch of other places, there is now a 24-carat gold NES available. (Warning: Autoplay video.)
– Jimmy Maher of The Digital Antiquarian has a great long read on how the NES muscled its way past the 1980s computing industry, thanks to a focus on fun games.
– Ryan Gibbs of The Young Folks reviews Atari Vault, the 100-game Atari collection that recently came out for a bunch of different platforms.
– From ABC News’ Avianne Tan, a grocery store created a Super Mario Bros. display from soda boxes.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– To circle back to a news roundup item… Not many games have historically been released on April 7, buttttt, Atlus was founded in 1986. If you’re into RPGs, you know them as the developers of Persona and the Shin Megami Tensei series of games, as well as quirky stuff like Etrian Odyssey and Radiant Historia. And, Rockin’ Kats! (And by the way, the director of Radiant Historia would love to make another one, per Siliconera.)
– Per Moby Games, in 2005 VIS Games filed for bankruptcy. Their most prominent games were a very bad version of Earthworm Jim 3D for the Nintendo 64, and State of Emergency, one of the few Rockstar Games that wasn’t a smash hit. However, it did inspire this awesome Lewis Black rant.
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 049 – Maniac Mansion (1987, 1990)
Episode 049 – Maniac Mansion (1987, 1990)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are pointing and clicking our way through a creepy house as we try to save our girlfriend with plastic fruit, exploding hamsters and a Weird Edsel! From 1987 and 1990, we’re playing Maniac Mansion by Lucasfilm Games (the predecessor to LucasArts) for the PC and NES.
You can manually download this week’s weird 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 tentacle and Edison family theme from Maniac Mansion. You can find a full soundtrack on YouTube here. And also, for today’s show, we’re joined by special guest DJ!
- 44:45 – Emails! What’s our favorite Tetris piece? Who would write our theme songs? What about games based on TV game shows? Altavista???
- 1:11:30 – A snifferoo from next week’s show, which is another LucasArts game! Huzzah!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Maniac Mansion has held its value well, as a cult classic. Loose carts of the NES version go for about $19, with the price swelling to $80 for the box and manual, to $222 for “new” copies. The PC version starts at around $30, although it’s also available in digital-only formats for much cheaper.
– Also, as mentioned on the show, the sequel, Day of the Tentacle, has been re-released. It’s going for about $15 on the PS4 and PC. The game does have a really neat Easter egg though – The original Maniac Mansion is playable in full on a computer in the game.
– Also also as mentioned on the show, the Japanese Maniac Mansion looks like a weird tech demo for the NES. Check it out here. And, the TV show is viewable here.
– Wanna read one of the oldest things on the internet, kind of? Wired has an article from Douglas Crockford, who worked on Maniac Mansion for LucasArts. It’s the longform article DJ was talking about, and you can find it here. It’s a really interesting read on what they had to take out of the game.
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 048 – WWF WrestleFest (1991)
Episode 048 – WWF WrestleFest (1991)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are putting our enemies in the Perfect-Plex, the spike slam, and the Million Dollar Dream before dropping the leg on them! From 1991, we’re playing WWF WrestleFest by Technos Japan for the arcade.
You can manually download this week’s slam-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 – The intro, from one of the most famous wrasslers! Plus, special guest Dale! WOOOOOO!
- 50:00 – We check the ole email bag!
- 1:15:00 – As we say our goodbyes for this episode, a bit of a musical interlude and kind words from Hulk Hogan.
- 1:18:00 – The snifferoo from next week’s game! It has tentacles, but is not pornography.
SHOW NOTES
– There is one console of WWF WrestleFest available on Amazon, refurbished, and it costs about $2,500. That doesn’t include roughly $500 to ship it. Circuit boards for the game are available for about $80, if you know how to install them and what not.
Vidya Game News – March 24, 2016
– Kyle Orland of Ars Technica has a good piece on why developers need to embrace emulation to preserve gaming history.
– Mike Fahey of Kotaku has a good read on how a planned Superman game instead sunk a game studio, Factor 5, the one behind Rogue Squadron.
– Steve Tilley of The Toronto Sun has a look at Batman games vs. Superman games, with the movie soon to come out. He comes to roughly the same conclusion that YPB did, in that Batman games are way better.
– Looking to signify to everyone who visits your home that you’re a massive geek? Check out this nifty Retro NES Shower Curtain!
– Atari has revealed the list of games in its upcoming Atari Vault collection. The 100 games can be seen here, on IGN.com.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 2003, Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker came out for the Gamecube. It got universally great reviews, although some did gripe about the sailing aspects.
– The Playstation Portable came out in 2005. Amazingly, it was technically supported by Sony until being discontinued in 2014, and sold 82 million units worldwide. While it’s maligned because of its weird game format and somewhat flimsy nature, there are some good re-releases of the Persona and Final Fantasy series available for it.
– Speaking of the PSP… Crisis Core, an action-RPG prequel to Final Fantasy VII, came out for the system in 2008. It was actually a pretty solid game! Unfortunately, it did further complicate the timeline for the original game, which is now a mess.
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 
