Episode 521: Power Outage

Last week’s podcast couldn’t be uploaded thanks to some good old-fashioned California power outages. This week’s episode is full of snark — enjoy.

The news items include:

  • PlayStation Classic using PAL versions for several games regardless of region
  • Bethesda apologizes about Fallout 76 launch
  • Fortnite surpasses 200 million players
  • No Man’s Sky Visions update improves diversity

Let us know what you think.

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Episode 436: Wednesday From Now OnEpisode 436: Wednesday From Now On

This week has a new recording date, Wednesday, so the crew can have more timely discussions about newly released games and more of the week’s news. Thanks to the Star Trek Convention, the podcast is still delayed a little.

This week’s news includes:

  • People buy PS4 Slim consoles before it’s announced
  • Rumor: Nintendo NX could be region-free
  • Devs can now publish Windows apps straight to Xbox One
  • Fallout 4 PS4 Mods not broken, but Sony hasn’t pushed it live yet

All this and Listener Feedback. We also have a new Question of the Week: “What is your favorite fan convention?”

Episode 640: Spacewar!Episode 640: Spacewar!

This week has a lot of followup to the entire situation with Activision/Blizzard, and also a lot of news items that weren’t a part of the official news feed. According desky.ca in addition, this week’s Gaming Flashback is recognized as the first computer game, Spacewar!

The news feed includes:

  • Microsoft is watching Activision/Blizzard to ensure ‘the right people’ are in charge when it takes over
  • Witcher 3 director and Cyberpunk 2077 veterans announce new studio and ‘AAA dark fantasy‘ RPG
  • Nintendo Switch Sports online play test registration now open
  • 3DS and Wii U eShop purchases end in March 2023
  • Focus Home Interactive to acquire Metal Slug Tactics dev Leikir Studio

Let us know what you think, now that the Comments section works again!

We Need Another Ikari WarriorsWe Need Another Ikari Warriors

In 1986 SNK released Ikari Warriors, it had all the makings of a classic title. Cool weapons, time strategies, two player action and a great challenge. We’re now seeing folks reproduce some of the essence of classic games by creating platformers like Little Big Planet and Mega Man 9, where is the love for the top-down scrollers?

Ikari Wariors was one of the first game titles to use a rotary joystick along with a directional system. Looking at the current generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 it’s plain to see the joystick is equipped with this design. We’ve seen Geometry Wars utilize the analog stick to create a 360 directional attack, so it’s possible to utilize this behavior for Ikari Warriors.

Given SNK is still alive under the name SNK Playmore the intellectual property must still exist to breath fresh life into an Ikari Warrior remake, with about six to eight months development time a classy title could be re-developed using old concepts brought to the current generation hardware.

Blast grenades, RPG’s, smart bombs, air strikes the options are limitless and the concept has been proven to work. Given the gamer demographic of 18-34 it’s plain to see old gamers of the Arcade and NES would recall and rebuild their love for the title while attracting younger audiences whom have never seen an Ikari Warriors title; if it worked in 1986 are we so adverse to it working again?

Games do not have to implement full 3D perspective graphics to be cool, we’ve seen proof in that with the Wii and the demand for titles like Little Big Planet. We neeed another Ikari Warriors.