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.
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 003: DuckTales (1989)
Episode 003: DuckTales (1989)
In Duckburg, life is like a hurricane – race cars, lasers, airplanes, it’s a duck-blur! You might solve a mystery, or re-write history. DuckTales! woohoo!
That fine hamlet of Duckburg is the subject of this week’s Your Parents Basement, as our third episode tackles 1989’s DuckTales for the NES. You can listen to the show by clicking here.
Like what you hear? You can subscribe to future episodes via the iTunes Store, or manually add this to your podcast listenin’ device: https://ypbpodcast.com/category/podcasts/feed/
We are absolutely looking for guests and ideas for future shows! For both, please email them to us – parentsbasementpodcast@gmail.com – as opposed to leaving them as comments. You can also follow us on Twitter.
Show notes for this episode:
- Jessica Nigri is the cosplayer that was the visual inspiration for Lollipop Chainsaw. OneeChanbara, the other chainsaw character mentioned by Todd, is barely able to link to. Here is the Wikipedia entry, because anywhere else you look on the web is pretty much NSFW.
- The snifferoo from last week comes from this YouTube video, which is the memorable Moon Stage theme. The remastered version is also quite good. The main NES theme can be heard here.
- Someone beating DuckTales in about nine minutes can be seen here. A more leisurely 30+ minute play is here.
- Want to buy DuckTales? The remastered version is your best bet, with hard copies in the $15 to $20 range, and digital copies ranging from $5 to $15, depending on whether there is a sale or not. As Todd mentioned on the pod, it’s currently on sale on Steam for $7.50, through Tuesday.
- The NES cart ranges from $5 to $20 on eBay, depending on what condition you want it in. And as with most NES games, you can up the price to around $40 to $60 if you want the box and manual.
- As mentioned on the show, DuckTales 2 for the NES is hard to find. A complete package of the box, manual and cart are going for $400. The cart by itself is in the $150 to $200 range. Just the manual is selling for $138. There don’t seem to be any plans in the works to give it a remaster or port treatment.
- An explanation of how DuckTales came to be remastered is on this message board.
Your Parents Basement 