Vidya Game News – October 20, 2016
– Today has a crap-ton of current video game news. Nintendo says they’re releasing information on their new console, the NX, for realies this time at 10 a.m. EST. Likewise, Rockstar is releasing a trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 at 11 a.m. EST. What a time to be alive! (UPDATE: The RDR2 link has been updated with the trailer, which looks awesome, and the NX is now called the Switch, and most of the trailer is about friggin’ controllers.)
– From ESPN property FiveThirtyEight, the world record speedrun for Super Mario Bros. continues to go down. And hey, check out our first ever episode, which was on that game!
– Wired.com has translated a really good interview with Miyamoto done by a Japanese publication. Read it here!
– Did you ever wonder to yourself: “Hey, what if the Swedish Chef loved vidya games? And then he hacked passwords for them?” Well, you’re in luck! Bisqwit has a cool video on passwords for River City Ransom on YouTube here. Listen to our past show on that game here!
– The Chicago Tribune has a review of “Merge,” which is a play about the early years of Atari.
– The Verge, via a Nintendo social media account, post a treasure trove of old systems they found in a warehouse.
– Paste’s Jason D’Aprile has a good, long interview with Rand Miller of Myst fame. Check out our Myst episode with Jovial Jackee here!
– A very British dude, Daniel Ibbertson a.k.a. Slopes Game Room, has the complete history of the Shinobi series on YouTube.
ON THIS DAY (OR CLOSE TO IT!) IN VIDEO GAME HISTORY…
– Shining Force 2 came out for the Genesis at some point in October 1994 – the exact date is seemingly lost to time. The Shining Force series is Sega’s version of Fire Emblem, in that both tactical RPG series were ignored and not properly promoted for the longest time. And, well, Sega has kind of ignored it except for more Japanese releases.
– Konami released Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation on October 21, 1998. You can listen to the sweet baby boys and Dale talk about it here!
– Also in 1998, Xenogears came out. It tends to get a bit too much hype, but it’s still a pretty solid PSX RPG by Square. It tends to get more fame because of programming and localization issues.
– Borderlands came out for the PS3 and 360 today in 2009. The first-person shooter from Gearbox Software mixed RPG elements into a first-person shooter, and it had a distinctive art and humor style. It’s sold more than 4.5 million copies.
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.
Your Parents Basement 