Would anyone be interested in hearing a retro gaming podcast?

[kitsunebi]

Oh wow, first time you ever tried that one?

Yeah, I never owned a Sega system till the Dreamcast, so I've only ever emulated the earlier stuff. I remember Toejam and Earl being talked about around school during its heyday, but none of my friends owned a Genesis, either, so...

[miketheratguy]

Yeah, I never owned a Sega system till the Dreamcast, so I've only ever emulated the earlier stuff. I remember Toejam and Earl being talked about around school during its heyday, but none of my friends owned a Genesis, either, so...

Yeah it was one of the more noteworthy releases for the Genesis but it also came out right when the Super NES hit so I think that any momentum that it may have gained was overshadowed.

What was it about it that turned you off?

[kitsunebi]

It was around 10 years ago, so I actually don't remember. I probably only played it for 5 minutes (one of the main differences in being an adult perusing a folder full of thousands of ROMS and a kid with only a few games to his name is the amount of time I'll invest in a game that doesn't grab me immediately.)

I admit I didn't give it a chance. Which is why I look forward to hearing about it.

[miketheratguy]

It was around 10 years ago, so I actually don't remember. I probably only played it for 5 minutes (one of the main differences in being an adult perusing a folder full of thousands of ROMS and a kid with only a few games to his name is the amount of time I'll invest in a game that doesn't grab me immediately.)

I admit I didn't give it a chance. Which is why I look forward to hearing about it.

We really are spoiled these days, aren't we? If I could go back in time to talk to my 13 year-old self, and tell him that every game he'd ever played, owned, or would touch in the next decade would be freely downloadable on something called the "internet" and fit onto a "memory card" the size of a quarter - he'd shit himself mad.

[jay]

I love a good podcast, I will definitely check this out when I get a chance.

[PhoenixVanguard]

Great idea. Listening to the first one. Sounds pretty good so far. You guys talk really well so the information flows pretty good.

Liked and subscribed on Youtube.

[CastleVanity]

I listen to podcast every now and then they do relax me when im gaming.

[miketheratguy]

I love a good podcast, I will definitely check this out when I get a chance.

I hope you do! I'd love to hear what you think. So far the feedback's been pretty good, so I'm hoping that you dig it.

Great idea. Listening to the first one. Sounds pretty good so far. You guys talk really well so the information flows pretty good.

Liked and subscribed on Youtube.

Awesome, I'm glad you decided to check it out, and that you enjoyed it. I hope you listen to the rest and if you do, that you tell me what you thought of them.

Thanks a lot for the likes and subs. We're still small-time so any attention is a huge help. It keeps us motivated, if nothing else.

I listen to podcast every now and then they do relax me when im gaming.

I listen to them while I play too. The Breaking Bad podcasts were great and lately I've been listening to a Star Trek podcast that's really decent. Check out ours sometime, you might find us relaxing as well.

[kitsunebi]

I try not to multitask while gaming. (He says with a straight face, as if he's had time for gaming at all in the last few months.)

However, listening to podcasts while editing scans is...well, not relaxing, per say, but more just a way to keep from losing my mind doing hours of what is essentially menial labor.

[miketheratguy]

I try not to multitask while gaming. (He says with a straight face, as if he's had time for gaming at all in the last few months.)

However, listening to podcasts while editing scans is...well, not relaxing, per say, but more just a way to keep from losing my mind doing hours of what is essentially menial labor.

I've found that podcasts and wrestling shoot interviews are great additions to long drives, plane flights, jogs, and video game sessions that don't have a particular emphasis on reading or number crunching.

[xisterm]

Yeah

Edited October 7, 2020 by xisterm

[psychopathetica]

I also would be interested in listening to a retro gaming podcast if you made one. I already listen to one all the time with pat the NES punk and Ian.

[miketheratguy]

Give it a shot! I seen a lot of Retrogame podcast, most of them suck. If you can do something that's cool and interesting I'll listen to it.

I also would be interested in listening to a retro gaming podcast if you made one. I already listen to one all the time with pat the NES punk and Ian.

We've got nine episodes in the can, with the 10th one in the editing process right now. Youtube links to our first few episodes are on the first page of the thread if you'd like to give them a look!

[twiztor]

finally (!) got around to listening to an episode. i checked out the Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! ep.

i rather enjoyed it. i will second the recommendation for you to check out "Over the Top" as a 'so bad its good' type movie. in addition to Terry Funk being in the movie, keep a look out for real life arm wrestling champion turned nWo-ite Scott Norton in the film.

i noticed the audio discrepancy between you two right away, but after a few moments it didn't bother me in the slightest.

in the podcast, you pondered what it would be like to visit this game for the first time nowadays. i can add some perspective for you. a couple of years ago, i had some friends visit from out of town. unsurprisingly, we started playing Nintendo and Punch-Out! came up. We made it a mission to play through and beat the game (something i had never done). Well, one of my friends had never played MTPO in his life. it was really fun watching him face these guys without knowing the patterns that are so ingrained in my brain. he was less into learning their tells and more into just bombarding them with punches tho. he was able to earn a lot more Stars than i was, although he took a hell of a beating to do so. We did end up beating the game late into the night, and the next morning bought Punch-Out! for the Wii because we had all had so much fun. we also went all the way thru the Wii version, which was fun as a group but hasn't been as fun when i've revisited it.

i totally had something i was going to point out to you or call you out on being wrong about, but the topic has completely slipped my mind. damn.

off-topic, where in the Illinois/Wisconsin area do you live? i'm in Dubuque, Iowa, which is the point where the three states meet. If you ever venture over this way, hit me up and let's play some games!

[miketheratguy]

Since I always try to avoid double-posting or bumping, I'm going to use this response to take the opportunity to mention that our newest episode (number 10, Toejam and Earl) should be live any hour now. I just posted it to Podomatic a little while ago and from there it should become available on itunes shortly thereafter. I don't have it on Youtube yet - that takes a wee bit more effort - but it shouldn't be overly long, probably within the next week or less.

So for any of you who have given the podcast a chance and enjoyed what you're heard, know that we're in active production and more are on the way, the first of which should be downloadable this very night.

finally (!) got around to listening to an episode. i checked out the Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! ep.

i rather enjoyed it. i will second the recommendation for you to check out "Over the Top" as a 'so bad its good' type movie. in addition to Terry Funk being in the movie, keep a look out for real life arm wrestling champion turned nWo-ite Scott Norton in the film.

i noticed the audio discrepancy between you two right away, but after a few moments it didn't bother me in the slightest.

in the podcast, you pondered what it would be like to visit this game for the first time nowadays. i can add some perspective for you. a couple of years ago, i had some friends visit from out of town. unsurprisingly, we started playing Nintendo and Punch-Out! came up. We made it a mission to play through and beat the game (something i had never done). Well, one of my friends had never played MTPO in his life. it was really fun watching him face these guys without knowing the patterns that are so ingrained in my brain. he was less into learning their tells and more into just bombarding them with punches tho. he was able to earn a lot more Stars than i was, although he took a hell of a beating to do so. We did end up beating the game late into the night, and the next morning bought Punch-Out! for the Wii because we had all had so much fun. we also went all the way thru the Wii version, which was fun as a group but hasn't been as fun when i've revisited it.

i totally had something i was going to point out to you or call you out on being wrong about, but the topic has completely slipped my mind. damn.

off-topic, where in the Illinois/Wisconsin area do you live? i'm in Dubuque, Iowa, which is the point where the three states meet. If you ever venture over this way, hit me up and let's play some games!

Hey awesome, I'm glad that you checked it out and had a good time! Your perspective IS interesting, I imagine that if I were playing the game for the first time I'd probably do the same thing (in fact that makes me wonder if that's how I played the game the first time way back in 1987. The Nintendo Fun Club newsletter was out at that time so maybe I had knowledge of how to play the game ahead of time). Did you guys explain to him what to do or did you let him figure it out on his own? And you guys beat Tyson? Man, I suck, lol.

If you remember what you wanted to comment on or correct, feel free to let me know. I'm a bit surprised (and flattered) that the feedback has been unanimously positive so far but I'm sure that there are still some things that we get wrong or could change. I myself am a bit bothered a bit by how rapidly I talk sometimes, which is unfortunately an old habit that developed naturally as a result of my anxiety issues. That should mellow out a bit over time, it just takes conscious effort and an awareness that I'm doing it.

We also both dislike the volume discrepancy which is caused by the fact that I use a microphone headset that's always right next to my face while Howard bought a mic that's more expensive but has to stay mounted on his desk. Neither one of us tend to be conscious of how we sound during the show because we're both loud and clear on each others' speakers, it's only when we listen to the episode during the editing process that we're reminded of the fact that the recording picks up on the differences in microphone distances. We've talked about it, in fact we actually spoke about it just before this most recent episode last week. Until Howard gets a different mic I think he might just need to remember not to recline the seat back too far, something that's easy to do when it's a habit and you're sitting in the same chair for three straight hours. I guess the sound issue is something that comes from us doing the show over Skype, 300 miles apart, but we're definitely aware of it and want to make it better. Also, we agreed that in our last 2 episodes (TMNT and Toejam and Earl) we talked about non-gaming stuff longer than we'd prefer to, so if you listen to those episodes and don't like how long it took us to get to the game you can rest assured that we don't either.

I'm in the middle of Illinois, kind of off-center and to the south of it in a nearly nonexistent town that no one in their right mind has ever heard of, lol. Unfortunately as broke as I am these days I don't get out much but hopefully that changes soon and when it does, if I wind up heading in your direction you bet I'll swing by for some games!

[twiztor]

Hey awesome, I'm glad that you checked it out and had a good time! Your perspective IS interesting, I imagine that if I were playing the game for the first time I'd probably do the same thing (in fact that makes me wonder if that's how I played the game the first time way back in 1987. The Nintendo Fun Club newsletter was out at that time so maybe I had knowledge of how to play the game ahead of time). Did you guys explain to him what to do or did you let him figure it out on his own? And you guys beat Tyson? Man, I suck, lol.

we did beat Tyson, but there were 4 of us. i've played the game countless times and it's a breeze until i get to Soda Popinski (like your partner in crime). i usually have a hell of a time with him, since his big uppercuts are timed *JUST* different from everybody else. i end up dodging too early and leaning back in just in time to get punched.

one of the other guys in the group has always been REALLY good at video games. i'm pretty sure it was him that beat Tyson that night, but it took a bit and we each had our turn to get KO'd.

as for my friend that wasn't familiar with MTPO, we tried to show him the patterns, but he just didn't care to play it that way. he preferred to just go out there, guns blazing. i was actually quite surprised at how often he could make that work. like i said, i'm more of a 'play it safe' type in this game.

i look forward to listening again, but when your episodes clock in at around 2 hours, my chances are rare of when i get an opportunity.

[miketheratguy]

we did beat Tyson, but there were 4 of us. i've played the game countless times and it's a breeze until i get to Soda Popinski (like your partner in crime). i usually have a hell of a time with him, since his big uppercuts are timed *JUST* different from everybody else. i end up dodging too early and leaning back in just in time to get punched.

one of the other guys in the group has always been REALLY good at video games. i'm pretty sure it was him that beat Tyson that night, but it took a bit and we each had our turn to get KO'd.

as for my friend that wasn't familiar with MTPO, we tried to show him the patterns, but he just didn't care to play it that way. he preferred to just go out there, guns blazing. i was actually quite surprised at how often he could make that work. like i said, i'm more of a 'play it safe' type in this game.

i look forward to listening again, but when your episodes clock in at around 2 hours, my chances are rare of when i get an opportunity.

That's exactly what happened to me with Soda Popinski. My memories of the game made it fairly easy to whip through the majority of the characters until I got to Soda, suddenly finding myself blank in terms of how to beat him since he'd always given me trouble as a kid. It was a struggle to get past him and then Mr. Sandman just killed me before I could finish the game for deadline. Lol I wouldn't think that just running out there and trying to box would be an effective strategy, but if he got some mileage out of it then I suppose good on him!

Yeah our shortest episodes are both about 110 minutes with the average being around 2 hours, maybe 2:10. Our TMNT episode was the longest because we had a lot of things to say about Turtle miscellany in general. I can understand that such time sinks can prohibit how often people can listen to them, which is a bummer. I'd obviously like them to be as convenient and unwieldy as possible. At the same time I'm a podcast listener myself and so few of the ones that I've stumbled across are long enough to really delve into the game - they're like 30 or 45 minutes apiece - that I wanted to be different by really providing a lot of commentary and content.

It's a tough balancing act sometimes but hopefully they won't be so long that they just become a pain, lol. Though I should warn you, the next episode is Mortal Kombat II and Howard and I are both crazy passionate about that game so that thing's going to clock 3 hours minimum.

[HowardBware]

This Podcast has too much Monkey Island!

[kitsunebi]

This Podcast has too much Monkey Island!

I eagerly await your podcasts covering the sequels.

[miketheratguy]

I eagerly await your podcasts covering the sequels.

I'd legitimately be curious to see what that would be like since the only other one I played was Escape and Howard would be consumed with irritation at having to do it again.

That reminds me of a good point that I wish I'd remembered during the podcast: While the special edition of the game doesn't have any new music or gameplay enhancements (that I can recall, anyway), it DOES have fully-voiced dialogue. That would have ameliorated at least a little of Howard's distaste for the suffocating silence of the game.

[kitsunebi]

I'd legitimately be curious to see what that would be like since the only other one I played was Escape and Howard would be consumed with irritation at having to do it again.

That reminds me of a good point that I wish I'd remembered during the podcast: While the special edition of the game doesn't have any new music or gameplay enhancements (that I can recall, anyway), it DOES have fully-voiced dialogue. That would have ameliorated at least a little of Howard's distaste for the suffocating silence of the game.

Escape? The worst one? You owe it to yourself to play Monkey Island 2 and the Curse of Monkey Island, even if you can't convince Howard to go near them. The same voice cast that began with Curse of MI was brought back to do the voices on the recent remakes of the first two games, so you'll have a consistent listening experience at any rate. I personally think Curse was the highlight of the series. It was one of the last great 2D graphic adventures before flagging sales convinced game publishers that the solution was to make everything in 3D because goddammit one more D has GOT to be better, hasn't it? I don't think it's a coincidence that the entire genre disappeared shortly thereafter, only resurfacing once indie creators started making games in the classic 2D style again.

Btw, on the topic of graphic adventures - I know you're a Maniac Mansion fan. Did you ever play Day of the Tentacle?

[miketheratguy]

Escape? The worst one? You owe it to yourself to play Monkey Island 2 and the Curse of Monkey Island, even if you can't convince Howard to go near them. The same voice cast that began with Curse of MI was brought back to do the voices on the recent remakes of the first two games, so you'll have a consistent listening experience at any rate. I personally think Curse was the highlight of the series. It was one of the last great 2D graphic adventures before flagging sales convinced game publishers that the solution was to make everything in 3D because goddammit one more D has GOT to be better, hasn't it? I don't think it's a coincidence that the entire genre disappeared shortly thereafter, only resurfacing once indie creators started making games in the classic 2D style again.

Btw, on the topic of graphic adventures - I know you're a Maniac Mansion fan. Did you ever play Day of the Tentacle?

Yep, since I only had consoles (and since the Sega CD was the only one to feature a Monkey Island game) I never played any of the others until Escape in 2001. I enjoyed it well enough, and appreciated the many references to the original, but in comparison I also found it less funny, less immersive, more obscure, and altogether less memorable. At this point the second one appeals the most to me because it seems so similar to the original, though I do hear a lot of people say that Curse was the high point. I liked the HD remake of the original game but not quite as much as I thought I would: being so used to the lines as they sounded in my head made the official spoken readings sound kind of odd and overly campy, and the music sounded "different" rather than "better". To me it was kind of a lateral move. So while I will play LeChuck's Revenge at some point, it's hard to say which version it will be.

I do love Manic Mansion - thoroughly, in fact; it's one of my absolute top favorite games of all time - and it's actually this love that's made me NOT play DOTT yet. When I was about 13 or 14 and heard that MM got a sequel, I was crazed with excitement. Then I saw photos. Where are all the other characters? Who are these new people? Why is the interface so sloppy-looking? What's with the wacky post-modern art style? I've heard some people say that DOTT is actually even better than Maniac Mansion, but it looks so profoundly different to me that it's always been difficult to work up more than even a passing interest in playing it.

[kitsunebi]

I do love Manic Mansion - thoroughly, in fact; it's one of my absolute top favorite games of all time - and it's actually this love that's made me NOT play DOTT yet. When I was about 13 or 14 and heard that MM got a sequel, I was crazed with excitement. Then I saw photos. Where are all the other characters? Who are these new people? Why is the interface so sloppy-looking? What's with the wacky post-modern art style? I've heard some people say that DOTT is actually even better than Maniac Mansion, but it looks so profoundly different to me that it's always been difficult to work up more than even a passing interest in playing it.

If you were paying attention to reviews back when it was released, I'm pretty sure you would have seen that everyone said it was better than Maniac Mansion (a quote, pulled from wikipedia but originally from Computer Gaming World: "Calling Day of the Tentacle a sequel to Maniac Mansion [...] is a little like calling the space shuttle a sequel to the slingshot". But you're right - it is pretty different, and I can see how the art style could be a turn-off. Also, full-talkie CD games were pretty new at the time, so some of the praise was bound to be influenced by the technical advancements more than the game itself. That said, I'm pretty sure that if you sat someone down who had never played either game, they would find DotT to be the better designed of the two, so far as story and puzzles go (which is really all this type of game is about.)

For someone with such strong nostalgic attachment to the first one, though, you might be better off skipping it, or else risk judging it unfairly for being too different from the original.

You should still play Monkey Island 2 and 3, though.

[kitsunebi]

Oh hey, I just saw this:

http://dott.doublefine.com/

Day of the Tentacle Remastered. Dunno how updated that site is. At the bottom it says "It’s coming to Windows, OSX, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in March 2016!" I don't follow new releases, so I have no idea if this is true or not. Looks to be a graphical improvement while being 100% faithful to the original. Seems like a win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kgj_rPON80

Edited March 2, 2016 by kitsunebi77

[miketheratguy]

If you were paying attention to reviews back when it was released, I'm pretty sure you would have seen that everyone said it was better than Maniac Mansion.

Well I wasn't, so I didn't.

I go back and forth. While I like the idea of a Maniac Mansion follow-up, and I'm sure that if the same creative team was behind it it must have been good, but so much of what I loved about Maniac Mansion doesn't even seem to be present in Day of the Tentacle, while a bunch of stuff that I'm NOT interested in is. The original cast of characters is all but gone for some reason, replaced by some bizarre combination of crazy chick and burnout dude. And rather than focusing on a 50s horror movie kind of plot, the characters....go back in time to interact with famous figures of history? ....Huh?

That's not to say that any of those things are inherently bad, just different. I liked Maniac Mansion BECAUSE it was just a straightforward exploration of an ominous house in which you avoid strange characters and try to figure out how to use all kinds of seemingly random items. Traveling to the past and talking to George Washington strikes me as so left field and stunningly boring that it's always been difficult for me to reconcile that the two games even have anything to do with each other. From an outsider's perspective it almost seems like one of those situations where someone designed a completely independent game and then the studio bought it and shoehorned in the license to make a faux sequel.

I grant that my knowledge of the game is pretty minimal and my perception probably way too harsh, and that the game could very well be amazing. I'm not against trying it sometime, and as a huge fan of Maniac Mansion I feel as if I should. But at the same time it seems so wildly different (and, in my opinion, aesthetically unappealing) that I wonder whether it has any of the elements that attracted me to the original game to begin with.

Thanks for posting the trailer though. I did watch it, and it looks like it's probably a quality game, but it didn't do much to give me a different impression.