Episode 020 – River City Ransom (1989)
Episode 020 – River City Ransom (1989)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are trying to rescue one of our girlfriend’s by fighting through hordes of high school gangs and potentially murdering them! From 1989, we’re playing River City Ransom by Technos Japan.
You can manually download this week’s weapon-fueled 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!
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TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro. This is a sweet cover of the “Boss Theme” from River City Ransom by Sergio Elisondo. He also does a cover of past YPB topics Contra. You can find our episode on that game here.
- 49:20 – Emails. The gang talks motion games (and mostly slags on them), and the past games from 20 years ago, in honor of Show #20.
- 1:05:00 – Snifferoo.
SHOW NOTES
– Todd Brisket mentioned that he does Twitch from time to time. You can find his account here, which has the benefit of providing some peeks at his play sessions for past and future YPB games.
– Patrick Klepek of Kotaku had the most recent update on the sequel, River City Ransom: Underground, in October. Although the status of the game was up in the air after Arc System Works acquired the rights for River City Ransom and Double Dragon, the only thing unknown now is when the sequel will actually release. Siliconera had the original article on Arc System Works acquiring the licenses.
– Juese Cutler submits a piece on Cultured Vultures about the demise of X-Strike Studios, which had planned video game adaptions of things like River City Ransom. It’s very… long, but hey, maybe you’ll find it interesting?
– River City Ransom is available for $4.99 on the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS, Wii and Wii U. At least according to most reviews, it’s faithful to the original NES version, and not the Game Boy Advance version that changed a few aspects here and there.
– According to Price Charting, actual carts for River City Ransom are fairly pricey. The game itself for NES runs between $25 to $40. The box and manual ups the price range, $60 to $80. The Game Boy Advance version, which isn’t held in such high esteem, goes for $15 to $25 for just the cart, but the box and manual only ups the range to $20 to $40.
– The list of prominent games from 20 years ago can be seen here on Wikipedia. There is also this REALLY long list here on IMDb.
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 – June 11, 2015
The weekly news post! Good times, good times. It’s a bit shorter this week, because we’re all still decompressing from traveling, and Steve either has a sinus infection or black lung or the plague. Looking around at classic video game news and tidbits…
– Eight Bit Cinema presents… Jurassic Park.
– Via Destructoid and some other sites, there is the “Fake Nintendo releases at E3” generator. My best results? Yarn Splatoon Party and The Legend of Zelda: Disgusted Appendix.
– Ars Technica’s Kyle Orland has a fascinating article on the long, twisted path it took for Chip’s Challenge 2 to see the light of day, more than 15 years after it was completed.
– Kotaku, via iRetroGamer.com, has video of a kid opening a SNES on launch day in August 1991.
– A cool story about a guy buying some of the garbage from the infamous Atari 2600 cartridge and E.T. dump in New Mexico.
– Exactly what it says on the tin: Watch Teens Fail Hard At Contra.
– The usually stoic Washington Post actually has a neat story on how to play the first six games inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. (Oh, you wanna know the games? No big surprises – Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom and World of Warcraft.)
– Bloomberg says that leaving your parents basement is good news for the economy, which seems like hogwash to us…
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 1983, Capcom was formally established.
– The Legend of Dragoon, an RPG that was not Final Fantasy 7, came out for the Playstation in 2000. It is a somewhat mediocre game, with a MetaCritic score of 74, although it has its fans.
– The Game Boy Advance came out in 2001. Although it was only out for three years before the DS came out, it still sold 81.51 million units.
Your Parents Basement 