This week’s episode revolves around the Nintendo Direct presentation. The guys also mock PlayStation fans and Geoff Keighley, and discuss Callisto Protocol and Vampire Survivors.
Aside from the Nintendo Direct, the news includes:
There is also some Listener feedback.
This week’s episode talks about Sony having issues, and that’s not even taking into account their pulling out of a convention due to the coronavirus scare. This week’s Gaming Flashback looks at the classic dark puzzle platformer Limbo.
As for the news:
This week’s Question of the Week: “What is your favorite videogame commercial or trailer?”
One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
Two more episodes, and Paul is no longer a regular podcast host. On a side note, there will be no podcast next week due to scheduling conflicts.
This week’s news:
All this and Listener Feedback.
Hi guys.
Thanks for the episode, i had the time to listen to it while i was driving to a concert 🙂
I hope all the Nintendo games, that are coming are going to be as fun as the look like. The remake is worth a try i think .. we will see 🙂
Star Citizen … puhh .. everyone is so hyped about it .. for me iots completly uninteresting .. i dont like the setup. Maybe if i will see my friends play it .. dont know.
And the Metroidvania game i meant was not Prince of Persia .. i will listen to the epdisoe (or the beginning) again and try to find out what name do you say.
So keep on with the good work guys, stay healthy and have fun playing games 🙂
Greetings,
Ralf