I didn't own this back in 1980 when it came to the U.S., but my next door neighbor had one. I spent a lot of time over there playing with him and all the other 13 year old kids that came over.
During my temporary work layoff, I've sometimes visited a museum or game store/arcade. Here's the story in pictures.
I got several Batman Gotham Knights comics recently and found them loaded with game ads from that time, early 2000s. Here are the pics:
Way back in 2019 when I went to PAX West in Seattle, I saw a new handheld console called the PlayDate. It was simple, yellow, and had a black and white screen. And a crank you turned on the side! And it was just as charming as heck and I wanted one for some reason! Well I finally got one, so let’s take a look at it!
Welcome to the Pac-Man Museum+! My name is Cary, and I’ll be your tour guide today. Oh man, wouldn’t it be cool if there really was a Pac-Man Museum and I worked there? I’d be in heaven. Anyway, Pac-Man Museum+ is a collection of arcade and console games featuring Pac-Man. Kind of like the Namco Museums, just with Pac only. It’s available on most current consoles and PC, but I got the PS4 version because it was cheapest at 20 bucks. Plus it was a physical version, which I always like. Although I’m tempted to get it on Switch as well so I could have all those games portable. And I hear it’s also on Xbox Game Pass as of this writing, so if you have an Xbox One or X/S, check it out! All right, so come along with me on the tour of the 14 games on this collection!
Finished the second movie's worth of Lego Lord of the Rings the other day. There's an interesting mechanic where you can quickly switch to another set of characters in a totally different location. For instance from Frodo and Sam in Mordor to Aragorn and Legolas in Helms Deep.
In the summer of 2000, I needed a new game to play. At that time, I was still a PS1 gamer. Being a RPG lover, my two choices were Square's Chrono Cross and Valkyrie Profile, a game from a resurgent Enix and Tri-Ace, makers of Star Ocean: The Second Story from a year prior. Of the two, Valkyrie Profile looked more interesting, so that's what I went with. And while I did later play Chrono Cross, I wasn't too impressed by it. But Valkyrie Profile went on to become one of my favorite PS1 RPGs, and considering how many of those there were, that was pretty impressive.
The 1980s was a decade with no shortage of TV action/crime dramas featuring a suave loner with a high-tech vehicle on a crusade to champion all that is good. At the top of the pile was Knight Rider. Each week, David Hasselhoff hit the road to stop criminals with the help of KITT- a super-advanced Pontiac Firebird Trans Am voiced by William Daniels (aka Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World). A popular show in syndication by 1988, Knight Rider was the perfect candidate to get a licensed video game on the even more popular Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). So now, sit back and join me on this shadowy flight into a dangerous world of a man who does not exist.
I've gotten in the habit of checking the new releases on Game Pass every week. When Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master (also known as Taiko Drum Master) appeared, I had to try it.
Sometime in May 1986, Japanese arcades saw the release of a brawler called Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun (roughly meaning Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio in English). It stars Kunio- a miscreant high schooler fighting for a classmate being picked on by rival gangs. The game is notable for being the first brawler to feature an urban setting and introduced many trademarks common to the genre- a tough guy protagonist, themes of street justice, generic thugs, female villains, and so on. The game underwent significant revisions for its Western release and subsequent NES port, including a name change to Renegade and the story wholly disconnected from its source material.
Welcome to another banger of an episode of Nerds Without Pants! We hope this episode pushes all of your buttons, because that’s the topic of the day: BUTTONS! It will make sense when you listen to it, we promise. We also cover a handful of recent releases, and Serious Sam steps into the cage with Turok Evolution!
It’s the spoopy time of year, which means it’s time for Halloween Havoc on Nerds Without Pants! We are once again joined by show co-founder and horror writer Rob Ottone to talk about game characters and creatures that scare us. Also: Resident Evil 4 takes on Dead Space 2 in the steel cage!
...a wild variety of games as I complete Game Pass quests and try and clear my hard drive going from smallest file size to largest. Sometimes I even add a new game or get a new addition on Game Pass just because. Makes for a chaotic but fun and hyper game session - just how I like it.
This is a games convention local to me here just outside Philadelphia, PA. It’s usually in a big expo center but this time it was in a Hotel with very limited space. There were no celebrities, no stage for a cosplay contest, and a very limited room for game playing with no arcade cabinets, only consoles. But it was better than nothing. I bought some stuff shown below.
By 1990, Sega was enjoying newfound success with their new 16-bit Genesis system. It quickly became a competent competitor to the NES with popular titles like Golden Axe, Phantasy Star II, and Revenge of Shinobi. But despite the rising success of the Genesis, the platform didn’t have a brand character that could rival Super Mario. Tasked with creating such a mascot, character designer Naoto Oshima came up with Sonic- a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog was released on June 23, 1991- two full months ahead of the Super Nintendo’s debut in America. It was a big summer for Sega, and today marks the 30th anniversary of the moment that made them an icon in the home console gaming space.
I'm something of an anomaly when it comes to fighting games. Okay, I'm something of an anomaly when it comes to a lot of games. Anyway, a new version of my favorite fighting game of all time was released last week. I speak, of course, of Sega's Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, which came out on PS4 and is currently free to PS+ subscribers.
When Pac-Man finally took off in popularity after its introduction to the US in 1980, it spawned a lot of competition; after all, Pac-Man is still the single most successful arcade game in history. While some were straight up clones of Pac-Man - Atari took Magnavox to court over K.C. Munchkin, their Pac-Man clone for the Odyssey - other games tried to come up with unique twists.
