Vidya Game News – October 7, 2016
– Visiting Portugal anytime soon? You might want to sleep in this Super Mario Bros. themed Airbnb room, then! Story comes courtesy Thrillist. And, check out our past episodes on SMB1 and SMB2!
– Fans are desperate for Nintendo to release some info, any info, on the upcoming NX console. So much so that they’re now speculating a Papa John’s news release could be about the console. Polygon pokes fun at the phenomenon here.
– Nintendo executives and ads sales people might be losing their collective minds though, judging from this (really loud) commercial for new colors on the 2DS. Starring Luigi!
– Gamasutra has a really good blog entry from John Szczepaniak on the dark side of the Japanese gaming industry’s work practices. I found that article in The Game Beat Weekly, which is Kyle Orland’s awesome weekly email about the gaming industry. Subscribe to it here!
– From Geek.com, a Commodore 64 has been running an auto shop for 25 years. Read more here!
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– MORTAL KOMBAT! … was released in the arcades on October 8, 1992. The gory fighter from Midway Games was hella popular, thanks to its mixture of Street Fighter 2 mechanics with bloody combat.
– Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber came out for the N64 today in 2000. Quest’s follow-up to their earlier games was a bit more accessible than the originals, but still just a niche title that’s now a cult classic. (And speaking of, Tactics Ogre came out on October 6, 1995 for the SNES in Japan.)
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 – 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.
Vidya Game News – December 10, 2015
Not much news this week, so really, focus on some holiday shopping! Can I recommend our linkthrough via Amazon? It doesn’t add anything to your purchase price, and it kicks some cash to us. We promise to use the money on inappropriate gaming purchases, like Cool Spot.
– Geek.com and some other sites bring up that the original Super Mario Bros. theme DOES have words. Check them out here.
– From various fashion sites, there is now a Mario and Nintendo-themed Italian fashion line. Read more and check out some photos here.
– IGN’s Jared Petty has an interview with Shaq on Shaq Fu. Also, a new trailer for the game has come out. And as always, check out our past episode on Shaq Fu.
– From The Escapist, “5 Video Game Consoles That Almost Hit The Market.” Read it here!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 1993, DOOM was released, and pretty much became the first megahit for the first-person shooter genre. It expanded on the gameplay of Wolfenstein 3D, and features more weapons and more enemies to blow up real good! Thanks id!
– Breath of Fire 2 came out for the SNES in 1995. Steve was one of 10 people who owned this obscure console RPG! It was better in some ways than the first, since it had a town you could recruit people to, but there was soooo much level grinding, and the game would often leave you no clue about how to do things. Re-releases for the Game Boy Advance and other systems made it much more playable.
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 