Vidya Game News – July 14, 2016
A sweet baby boy NES!
– Pretty much everyone shared this article with Steve on a mini-NES loaded with 30 games. My mini-review: Eh. It’s kind of steep at $59.99, and there’s no indication whether you can load more games on to it. (Note: Nintendo later told Kotaku that no, you can’t.) The HDMI hook-ups are nice, though. However, it feels like a missed opportunity for the Big N. By offering a viable alternative to emulators – like a device that allowed for game downloads, using your old carts and third-party support – they could have taken a nice chunk away from that market.
– A fox takes a Playstation controller from a house and drops it in a garden. Video!
– From Kotaku’s Patrick Klepek, and some other sites, the Saturn’s copy protection has finally been cracked.
– Tech Radar has an interesting list of the most disappointing games of the past 10 years.
– Because Nintendo needs more of your monies, there is now Mario-themed Hot Wheels cars. Read about them on Gaming With Swag.
– Ron Gilbert, the creator Maniac Mansion, talks to Deveop’s James Batchelor about his new game, Thimbleweed Park.
– Anna Pulley, the author of The Lesbian Sex Haiku Book (With Cats!), loves Duck Tales.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– WWF War Zone came out for the Playstation in 1998. Developed by Iguana West and published by Acclaim, it got pretty decent reviews, but tends to be overshadowed by other, better games.
– This was a popular time of year for NCAA Football games to come out, as 2005, 2009 and 2011 editions came out between July 13 and July 15. Unfortunately, the series is now defunct, as EA Sports couldn’t come to an agreement with some NCAA members.
– Tales of Symphonia came out for the Gamecube on July 13, 2004. It was later ported to the PS2, and then an expanded version came out for the PS3. Namco is now up to seemingly 700 different Tales games, by the way.
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 – March 17, 2016
– Hey, the NCAA tournament starts today! While there was a lot of fanfare when the college football series by EA ended, the NCAA Basketball series went with a whimper in 2010. It kind of sucked, since the 2K series was better, but even that ended in 2008. Amusingly, even though it’s not a great game, NCAA Basketball 10 now goes for more than $30 because it’s the last one. (NCAA Football 14 is in the same boat, with prices staying at $25+, although that’s a much better game.)
– Matt Peckham of Time.com, which apparently used to be a magazine, has an interview with Miyamoto on Star Fox Zero.
– I Am Setsuna is the latest new RPG series from Square Enix, and according to IGN, it’s inspired by Chrono Trigger. Nice!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– We’re finally getting to some decent historical release dates! On this day in 1994, Castlevania: Bloodlines came out for the Genesis. It was the only ’Vania game released for the Genesis, and it was very well-received. (The photo comes from this website.)
– Also for the Genesis in 1994, there was Streets of Rage 3! It was more of the same – basically, that system’s answer to Final Fight – but still good.
– Legend of Legaia, a perfectly average PSX RPG, came out in 1998. From the developer Contrail, it had a sequel in 2001, but otherwise, it hasn’t been prominent.
– Last year, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD came out for the PS4 and Xbox One. It was based on an old Playstation Portable game, and it shows with the weird, frenetic gameplay. Steve just bought it last week for $10 and says it’s pretty passable.
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 – July 16, 2015
Now this looks PRETTY legit.
It’s way too friggin’ humid in New England, but despite the condensation, we’ve prepared only the best news for you to enjoy today! Here are some of the stories about classic games and series we’ve culled from around the Interwebs:
– In last week’s “Four of a Kind” feature on Purple Revolver by James Brookfield, they cover bad celebrity endorsed games. The finalists? Shaq Fu, Chuck Norris Superkicks, Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, and William Shatner’s TekWar, which apparently exists!
– Looking for some classic game recommendations? Nicholas Bitonti of The Detroit Metro Times has some good recommendations. While I don’t agree with all of them, they’re more obscure and interesting than the usual ones you see floating around the web, and cover a variety of systems.
– For the upcoming release of Pixels, Chauncey Alcorn of The New York Daily News has a ranking of his favorite 10 arcade games of all-time. Spoiler alert: Tekken 4 is way too friggin’ high, and while it’s nice to see Virtua Cop get some love, there is no Time Crisis on the list, which is just silly.
– Continuing with controversial #hottakes: Lizzy Finnegan of The Escapist has an article, “When the sequel is worse than the original.” Unfortunately, her examples are The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania, and I’d say that only the latter is actually bad.
– IGN.com’s Cam Shea has a good, longer read on the downfall of the SEGA Rally Championship game series. Warning though, a video autoplays from that link!
– On the Gradius episode, we mentioned that it was seen as Konami’s response to Namco’s classic Xevious. It’s probably for the best that an Atari 2600 port of Xevious never saw the light of day, because the recently unearthed prototype copy is pretty horrible. (Via Kotaku Australia’s Mike Fahey.)
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Again, it’s a fairly crappy day for video game releases, because it’s the summer. The Game Boy Color version of Dragon Warrior III came out 14 years ago. The original was an incredible RPG that featured multiple classes for the first time in a Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior game, and even better, you could change at-will once you reached a certain point in the game. However, it originally came out in Japan in 1988, and in June 1991 in North America, and didn’t have much of an impact in the states. On Amazon, GBC prices range from $19.99 (used) to $149.98 (new). Want a boxed copy of the NES edition? It’s only $1,499.95, with used copies starting at $47.95.
– One major studio game released in the summer back in the day: NCAA Football 2004, which came out in 2003 on July 16 for the Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube. The cover athlete was Carson Palmer, who is now 35, and the game sells for $1 or less pretty much everywhere in the god damn world.
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 