Episode 644: Nintendo At It Again

Jonah considers Elden Ring too grind-y, and talks about the name of an infamous handheld console.

News items include:

  • PlayStation 5 owners report online issues following system update
  • Mass Effect Trilogy co-creator returning to science fiction
  • Bungie says last week’s Destiny 2 video takedowns were ‘fraudulent
  • Nintendo takes down scans of 1996 Super Mario 64 Strategy Guide

Let us know what you think.

0 thoughts on “Episode 644: Nintendo At It Again”

  1. Hi guys.

    As usual: thanks a lot for your effort and work to bring us this and every other episode 🙂

    I am not able to say so much to this episode because I don’t know all the games you talked about ?
    I played a lot of Magic Arena as usual, some WoW and since it is released some days ago: Itorah, a hand drawn Meteoidvania Indie Game.
    But some things I can say sth about:
    Dorfromantik: I own this game and it is really relaxing and I can play it over and over again. You can’t loose in some way so it’s not frustrating 🙂 I really recommend it 🙂
    PS5: I am happy i gut a PS5 some months ago, but sadly I did not play so much with it. I only played some hours God of War with the 4K HDR Upgrade.
    Gizmondo: I owned this console and yes it had a SIM card in it 🙂 I never played with it, it was only a nice upgrade for my retro gaming collection. I sold
    It for way to much money in my opinion, but because of the fact that it is rare and I owned the packaging box, manual and all that stuff it was a nice catch when I bought it 🙂
    Super Mario Guide: why is this a topic? Such an old game and now it is a topic? ? but I think some collectors or hardcore fans are really interested in this thing. The game is still played a lot by speedrunners, afaik?
    Switch Topic: I really love my switch. It doesn’t need any upgrade, because the games for this console should not be such graphical monster games in 4K HDR… I like it for the simplicity. You can play the games even if you don’t have that much time, they are easy to understand, easy to solve or finish and you can can get back to them after weeks and are in to it after some minutes. No need for an epic storyline which is hard to follow. But for sure that’s my opinion and I understand every person who wants complex storys, hardcore mode and complicated as hell 🙂

    Sorry for late commenting, but I wanted to drop the lines to make you know, that I am still a listener and follower even if I don’t comment every episode 🙂

    Guys, that’s all from my side. Please keep on the good work, stay healthy and enjoy whatever you do 🙂

    Greetings from Germany,
    Ralf

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This week’s news items include:

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This week’s Question of the Week: “Are you ready for VR?”

Retro FlashBack: DragonFire (Atari 2600)Retro FlashBack: DragonFire (Atari 2600)

Now here is another interesting video game for the Atari 2600, the game Dragon Fire consisted of two game screens, one which you ran across a bridge while fireballs were shot at you, you had to duck or jump over the fireball. This screen was a side-scroller style screen (although it doesn’t actually scroll), at the other end of the bridge was a castle door which you’d enter to get to the next screen.

The second screen was more classic “overhead but not really” screen where you ran around this black screen picking up treasures while a dragon at the bottom shot fire at you from below.

As the game increased in level jumping fireballs became more challenging (on the first screen) as you ran because they would come quicker, more often. The second screen would get very difficult very quickly as the dragon would increase in speed and fireball spitting. You could tell how hard the dragon would be as it would change colors from lighter to darker black as you progress stages.

When you finished collecting all the treasure an exit would pop up in the corner and you had to run to it without being burned by the fireballs, that dragon would turn from left to right nearly instantly too! Then, you’d jump into the exit and be back on the bridge again, but this time it was harder. You could die up to 7 times before the game was over (just to show you how hard it is, they gave you a bunch of lives).

The game was tough, frustrating, hard to replay because you were just so nervous and jittery from the last attempt. Graphics were “okay,” nothing to rave at but it was, after all, the 2600.

You can hear all we had to say about DragonFire for the Atari 2600 on Episode 79 of the TD Gaming Podcast!