Vidya Game News – May 26, 2016
– The best read of the week, and one close to my heart, is a long piece from Ernie Smith of Tedium on commercial mascots and their video games. Featured prominently are the Noid and M.C. Kids, of course, along with other lesser known items like a Doom-engine Chex game.
– Hardcore Gamer’s Marcus Estrada has a neat, informative little piece on the Doctor V64, which was a knockoff Nintendo 64 development kit. Read about it on their site.
– Live in Arizona, and want to play classic video games? You’re in luck! The Daily Courier has a business profile on Black Box Gaming, which allows you to lounge and play vidya games. Read about the cool little store here, in a story by Max Efrein.
– Now on Merchoid! Nintendo-themed bikinis.
– Boooo: Sounds like an automated FOX filter to take down their content on YouTube “accidentally” took down a clip of some dudes playing Double Dribble. Why? Well, because Family Guy used that clip in an episode. And, the show didn’t credit the brothers either. Read about it on IGN.
– Alan Young, the voice of Scrooge McDuck on Duck Tales, has passed away.
– Nintendo has released some trailers for its latest Kirby game, Planet Robobot, for the 3DS. Check them out via Siliconera here! And give a listen to our past episode here!
– These dudes tagged us on Twitter, so how can I not give them a plug? There is a music remix project for The Guardian Legend, which we’ve covered in the past. To check out their tracks, go here!
– I forgot to post this last week, but it’s still a really good read! From Eurogamer’s Wesley Yin-Poole, the rise and fall of Lionhead, creators (in a way) of Fable and headed by Peter Molyneux.
– Also from Eurogamer: Keith Stuart has a fun piece on how he was blacklisted from early Sega releases, even though he was running a magazine about the Dreamcast.
– Ron Gilbert, the creator of Maniac Mansion and Money Island, wants to buy back the IP from Disney. The mouse acquired the titles after buying the Star Wars empire for $4 billion in 2012. (And hey, check out our Maniac Mansion episode!)
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Historically, May 26 hasn’t been especially great for games, but the first installment in the inFamous series came out on this day in 2009. The Playstation-exclusive series combined open-world gaming with superhero powers, and it was generally well-received.
– The NES version of The Lion King came out only in Europe on May 25, 1995. Yes, new NES games were still being made in 1995! Although, this was indeed the last release for Europe. It’s probably for the best, as Westwood Studios’ effort wasn’t all that good.
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 19, 2016
– As Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett types in his write-up, Sega’s game testing training videos were peak 1990s, right down to Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails background music.
– From Polygon’s Allegra Frank, a remake of cult classic Wild Guns is coming out for the PS4!
– In unnecessary video game movie adaptation news… A Tetris movie is in the pipeline, according to Deadline. And not a documentary about the game’s interested and tangled history, but a science fiction game. A discount film studio has picked up the rights to Atari’s Missile Command and Centipede, also per Deadline. Also, confirming long-standing rumors, Nintendo said it would look to re-enter the ole Hollywood business.
– What was the code name for the biggest heroin bust in Delaware’s history? Operation Duck Hunt, of course. Read more via The Sussex County Post.
– Nintendo Player has an awesome long read on the recently-unearthed Happily Ever After, a Snow White-based NES game from the early 1990s. The game itself is a generic, Nintendo Hard affair, but the story behind it is fascinating. Plus, the ROM has been made available for free online!
– From several sites, a retro 8-bit version of Monopoly, featuring Super Mario Bros., now has a sale slug on Amazon.
– Per Gamasutra and several other sites that got the press release, mod support for older Sega games caused them to sell 350,000 copies on Steam since April 28. For the details, click here.
– For James and Mike Mondays, the guys play Doom 64, which Steve remembers somewhat fondly from his childhood! If you didn’t have a high-powered PC back in the day, it was a fairly easy way to play the ole game. Also from that site this week, Mike and Bootsy play Pinball for the NES!
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 1997, Eurocom released the Midway arcade game War Gods for the N64. Because the system was so starved for games at various points, it was hyped for months in Nintendo Power, but it ultimately was just a mediocre fighting game.
– New Super Mario Bros. now isn’t, as it celebrated its 10th year on May 15. (Note: It’s still an awesome platformer for the DS, though.)
– For a brief history in time, people thought they’d get in shape via vidya games. On May 21, 2008, Nintendo came out with Wii Fit and the Wii balance board. Both the balance board and the Wii are now probably in your closet.
– The year after Wii Fit, Next Level Games dropped a remake of Punch-Out!! for the Wii. While it was well-received, it wasn’t the iconic game that the original was.
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 12, 2016
– A copy of Stadium Events that a guy got at a yard sale for $2 just turned into a $7,500 sale for him. This site has the story. (Warning! Autoplaying video.)
– Someone has hacked an NES with a custom modem to read Twitter. Read about it on Motherboard!
– From Reddit, and copied to a bunch of other sites, a user has developed a Virtual Boy emulator for Google Cardboard.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Super Mario RPG, a collaboration between Square and Nintendo, came out May 13, 1996. It turns 20 on Friday! Holy hell!
– The Saturn was released on May 11, 1995. With its release came console versions of Clockwork Knight, Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter. For a good, long retrospective, check out this piece by Jeremy Parish on US Gamer.
– Six years ago on May 11, 3D Dot Game Heroes by Silicon Studio came out for the PS3. If you’re a fan of Zelda-like games, it’s pretty good, and available in plenty of bargain bins!
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 5, 2016
– Of all the things Sega could license… A movie adaption of Shinobi could be coming soon, per Variety. It’s a solid game, but when it comes to story-based ninja games, it’s no Ninja Gaiden.
– Also, Sega has allowed modding to its games on Steam. As you can imagine, this has led to all sorts of fun, like Kirby starring in Sonic The Hedgehog and difficulty hacks for Comix Zone. Zack Kotzer of Motherboard has a good summary article on some changes.
– From Carl Batchelor of Niche Gamer, NES dungeon crawl game Shadow Brain has gotten a translation patch.
– Ryan Shoptaw of Gaming Conviction says a prototype cart for DuckTales 2 is now for sale.
– Nolan Bushnell, the original vidya games guy for Atari, is now working on cell phone games.
– Over on Cinemassacre, Mike and Bootsy play the NES hack Luigi’s Chronicles 2, an ultra-tough remake of Super Mario Bros. 3.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– In 1992, Wolfenstein 3D was released for the PC by id Software. You play as William “B.J.” Blazkowicz and shoot down a ton of Nazis, and it was as awesome as it sounded at the time. It was the FPS game that popularized the genre.
– On May 6, 2001, Mario Party 3 came out for the N64. Yes, there were three Mario Party games for the 64! It was also the last Mario game for the system.
– Konami released Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in 2003 for the Gameboy Advance. It is one of the excellent Metroidvania games in the series. (And hey, check out our episodes on Castlevania and Super Metroid!)
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.
Episode 052 – Spider-man: Web of Fire (1996)
Episode 052 – Spider-man: Web of Fire (1996)
This week in Your Parents Basement, we are web-slinging our way through entire stages! From 1996, we’re playing Spider-man: Web of Fire by BlueSky Software for the 32X.
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TIMESTAMPS
- 0:00 – Intro, which features the god awful, tinny title theme from the game. And somehow, it’s not the normal Spider-man theme! (For that awesome track, go here.)
- 41:15 – Emails! The boys talk steampunk, Blade Runner and casual games to relieve stress.
- 1:09:00 – Snifferoo. Next week, it’s an anniversary celebration!
SHOW NOTES
– According to Price Charting, Web of Fire is one of the costliest games that was available commercially. The loose price is $207, or $405 for the box and manual, and up to $575 for a “new” copy.
– The full list of 32X games can be seen here. For more on the system, go here.
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 – April 7, 2016
– On Polygon and a bunch of other sites, Sega announced that it had finalized its acquisition of Atlus. As of now, operations aren’t supposed to change at either company as a result, except for Atlus helping in some North American localization for Sega games.
– Now Gamer has an interesting piece on the failed development of the M2, a follow-up to the 3DO, that never saw the light of day. Panasonic still spent $100 million on it though, and its tech made its way into some Arcade games. Read the piece here.
– Micah Mertes of The Omaha World-Herald has a neat story on a tech museum that had a “petting zoo” display for April 1, featuring old systems, typewriters and Tamagotchis.
– Mike Matei of Cinemassacre (home site of the Angry Video Game Nerd) has a video on the top 10 obscure NES asshole enemies. Check it out here! It’s NSFW and frustratingly accurate.
– From IGN and a bunch of other places, there is now a 24-carat gold NES available. (Warning: Autoplay video.)
– Jimmy Maher of The Digital Antiquarian has a great long read on how the NES muscled its way past the 1980s computing industry, thanks to a focus on fun games.
– Ryan Gibbs of The Young Folks reviews Atari Vault, the 100-game Atari collection that recently came out for a bunch of different platforms.
– From ABC News’ Avianne Tan, a grocery store created a Super Mario Bros. display from soda boxes.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– To circle back to a news roundup item… Not many games have historically been released on April 7, buttttt, Atlus was founded in 1986. If you’re into RPGs, you know them as the developers of Persona and the Shin Megami Tensei series of games, as well as quirky stuff like Etrian Odyssey and Radiant Historia. And, Rockin’ Kats! (And by the way, the director of Radiant Historia would love to make another one, per Siliconera.)
– Per Moby Games, in 2005 VIS Games filed for bankruptcy. Their most prominent games were a very bad version of Earthworm Jim 3D for the Nintendo 64, and State of Emergency, one of the few Rockstar Games that wasn’t a smash hit. However, it did inspire this awesome Lewis Black rant.
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 – March 10, 2016
– Cyan, the makers of Myst, have released a teaser trailer for their new game, Obduction. Check it out on their YouTube channel.
– There are a bunch of new screenshots and tracks released for the new Toejam and Earl game, per TechnoBuffalo.
– Amazingly, you can still play Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast! Well, if you’re willing to buy some modded games and/or systems. But, hundreds of people still do, and Jason Evangelho has the details on Forbes.
– Atlas Obscura’s Eric Grundhauser has an awesome read on the “treasures” offered in an old Atari contest for Swordquest. It’s long, but good. (For some of the neat-looking ads, including the one on this entry, go here!)
– Today’s “Shut up and take my money!” moment: Nintendo plans to open up a theme park at Universal Studios Japan. The Telegraph in the U.K. has a good write-up here.
– Bryan Cranston has been in a lot of commercials, including one for the Atari 2600 game MegaForce. Zap2It has a listicle here.
– From Allegra Frank at Polygon, and a bunch of other sites, the Coleco Chameleon is now dead.
– Per some mod makers, Microsoft wanted $500,000 to license Shadowrun for an X-Com 2 mod. Niche Gamer’s Carl Batchelor has a summary of the Twitter stuff here.
– On Kotaku Australia, Jason Schreier has a 20-year retrospective on Super Mario RPG.
– From The Wrap and a bunch of other sites, DuckTales is getting a revival! The first image is out, and it doesn’t look bad. Hopefully, it will lead to more splendid video games to review…
– Are you going to SXSW? (Sweet baby boy Huell is!) Well, they’re having a bunch of video game and tech-focused panels! Check out the list here.
– In re-releasing news, the rumored Valkyria Chronicles Remastered is now a reality for North American audiences! Per Sega and Sony, it’ll come out May 17, and feature upgraded graphics and full trophy support.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– On March 11, Mega Man & Bass came out for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, which is close enough for our purposes. It was the only main series game for the GBA, and was generally well-received.
– PlatinumGames’ MadWorld, an incredibly ultraviolent game, somehow came out for the Wii in 2009. It’s one of the few Wii games that is not kid or family-appropriate, as it is about a murder-related game show. Think of Smash TV, but gorier, and more of a beat-em-up.
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 – February 18, 2016
– Nintendo is finally bringing some classic games to the 3DS in North America, per Destructoid and other sites.
– From Gamespot, a dream of a producer from The Lego Movie would be a similar project with Nintendo characters. Unfortunately, no such project is in development… yet.
– A Chrono Trigger tribute album is now available.
– This week on Steam, Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage 2 are free for download! More games are also supposed to be unlocking. For some details, check out this piece on Fortune.
– Next week, the neat Gameological column on the A.V. Club is devoting itself to The Legend of Zelda. However, it has started out this week, so be sure to check out the link!
– From The Sun Sentinel, a southern Florida museum now has an exhibit on video games. Exhibits include Piftall!, Space Invaders and Super Mario Bros.
– Although it’s been mislabeled on a bunch of websites, Hat-Loving Gamer has made an animation of what Super Mario Kart would look like with 101 racers. Check it out on his Facebook page.
ON THIS DAY IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Historically, it’s a weak day for game releases. In 2009, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II came out for the PC, which might be of interest to one of the SBBs of YPB. (Huell.)
– Dark Chronicle, better known as Dark Cloud 2, came out for the Playstation in 2003. It was very well-received and a cult classic for years, and it’s now out for the PS4.
– Coming out in the same year was Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, which got a so-so reception. As a result, the series pretty much went dormant. Per Wikipedia, the sixth installment is coming out next week in Japan for PCs and cell phones, with no news of a translation.
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 