Vidya Game News – September 6, 2018
Another week, another roundup of news links!
- Attack of the Fan has a neat article on Micro Mages, a new game for the NES. It actually looks kind of neat! You can read more here.
- Ryan Smith of Chicago Reader has an article on Josh Tsui, one of the developers behind mid-1990s Midway games and Insert Coin, an upcoming documentary about the company.
- Mashable and The A.V. Club have a good bit of trivia about Bill & Ted – namely, that the first movie had Hitler in the first draft. We covered that bodacious game in, what else, Episode 69.
- Gizmodo reviews a conversion kit to make your SNES controllers wireless.
- Sony is finally ending support for the Playstation 2, per Kotaku.
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance came out 15 years ago. Some people love it, whereas others recognize it for the bizarre, subpar offshoot of a classic game that it really is. We reviewed the original game on Episode 144. Also, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge came out the same week for the GBA. Check out our show on the proper game here.
- Spore came out for the PC 10 years ago. While it was a fun little lark, it wasn’t quite the gaming revolution that game designer Will Wright had billed it up to be. We covered SimCity in Episode 55.
Video game history information comes from GameFAQs and Moby Games. When possible, we attempt to link to original sources for all reporting, and we don’t typically link to stupid multi-page galleries. And as always, if you’d like to support the show, do so via our Amazon link.
Vidya Game News – September 8, 2016
– So! Nintendo, as usual, has been aggressive pursuing fan games using their characters, with the latest target being a mash-up of Mario and No Man’s Sky. Those developers responded by turning it into DCMA’s Sky. You can read more on Polygon here.
– From The Dreamcast Junkyard, a great series of articles on their hunt to find a legendary barber from some commercials.
– The Couch Potato over at New Castle News has a fine personal essay on his experiences with Super Mario Bros. 3, the Super Nintendo and other gaming stuff. Read it here.
– Reddit and YouTube deliver this week with Midway’s pitch video to the NBA for a little game called NBA Jam. You can check out the video here, and listen to our episode on Jam here!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– A little deep, story-driven game known as Final Fantasy VII came out for the PlayStation on September 7, 1997. The indie darling sold a ton of copies, and it’s wildly recognized for popularizing RPGs outside of Japan. (And by the way, the PlayStation itself came out on September 9, 1995.)
– Parasite Eve, an oft-mentioned favorite of Steve, came out September 9, 1998. It was an odd action RPG with guns that spawned an incredibly underrated sequel, and an iffy PSP game with a completely indecipherable plot.
– Also from 1998: Spyro the Dragon! The little purple dragon started doing like, dragon stuff, on Sept. 10. By Insomniac Games, it was pretty popular with a wide range of gamers, including more casual folks.
– 9/9/99 for $199! The Sega Dreamcast came out on Sept. 9, 1999. God, it was such an awesome little system, but Sega eventually lost its stomach for the console business. It had a strong start that it ceded as hype for the PlayStation 2 ramped up.
– Ready 2 Rumble Boxing by Midway came out in 1999 for the Dreamcast, and then later for the N64, PSX and Gameboy Color. The colorful boxing came made people more nostalgic for better boxing games, but it sold well.
– Also for the Dreamcast in 1999: Soulcalibur! The fighter from Namco featured a heavy emphasis on weapons, and it was highly rated at the time and in ensuing years as the series continued.
– Final Fantasy Tactics Advance bastardized a great PSX game, but, well, it came out this day in 2003 for the Gameboy Adance. Some people like it. Those people are wrong.
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 – January 29, 2016
Hey, it’s some news!
– Marc Deschamps had a fun review, with pictures, of his time spent at a museum with a NES exhibit.
– It was all around the Internet this week, but the original story seems to be from a Huffington Post site: Michael Jackson did portions of the soundtrack for Sonic 3. Read more here by Todd Van Luling.
– PAX South is in San Antonio from today to Sunday. You know, in case you’re in the area. For more info, visit the event’s website.
– From mbgreen78 at DeviantART, it’s video game dioramas! Check them out here.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– The most significant game released was Phantasy Star Online in 2001 for the Dreamcast. It was pretty much the first online console game that had a significant impact, and it makes plenty of “best of all-time” lists as a result.
– Depending on what source you look at, Final Fantasy Tactics came out today or yesterday in 1998. It was a cult classic for plenty of years, thanks to its awesome storyline and neat, turn-based strategy gameplay. Nowadays, it has been re-released for several different (mostly Sony) platforms, and it’s still worth checking out. (And by the way, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is out this week for the Wii U Virtual Console, per Gamasutra.)
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 