We're back with another episode of our ongoing LucasArts miniseries, and this one's all about the 1993 classic Sam & Max Hit the Road! The canine shamus and hyperkinetic rabbity thing duo has quite a fascinating history going back to the 1960s, but it wasn't until the early '90s that the two entered the mainstream consciousness with starring roles in an official LucasArts release.
Unfortunately, due to a rushed production schedule and designers completely new at crafting adven...
2020-03-13 07:00:02 +0000 UTC
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We hear there's a huge game coming up next week, and we wanted to jump in and record a related episode! But we didn't have the right combination of people to talk about Doom, so we chatted about Animal Crossing instead.
Just joshin', of course. We've wanted to tackle Animal Crossing for ages, and we roped in some of the biggest Animal Crossing fans we know to help with with task. Mike even helped provide some fresh music! So chill out with us for the next hour...
2020-03-09 13:00:00 +0000 UTC
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March 4, 2000: Sony Cements Its Place in History with a Second PlayStation
by Diamond Feit
How many times can a company create a product that takes over the entire world? How many opportunities to capture the zeitgeist are enough? Xerox, Kleenex, Dumpster: These are all...
2020-03-09 01:09:44 +0000 UTC
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Our steady march through Final Fantasy's history (which we began, what, four years ago?) continues with this side excursion into a not-Final Fantasy game which is, at the same time, extremely Final Fantasy. And Chrono Trigger. It's swell, is what we're saying. And it involves opera and museums, too, so it's cultural! Parasite Eve contains multitudes. (Of mitochondria.) Thanks to Nina Matsumoto for the cover illustration!
By the way, if ...
2020-03-02 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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February 24, 2000: The Vs. Series Jumps the Shark with Marvel vs Capcom 2
by Diamond Feit
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is one of the biggest, most beloved fighting games of all time.
Ma...
2020-03-01 15:00:00 +0000 UTC
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This week's patron-exclusive episode is the first part of two—our look at strange and exotic controllers was so involved we ended up splitting the conversation into two shows (the second of which will show up... eventually). I'm a little buried in PAX panel prep at the moment, but I'll be posting a companion article soon to show off images of the controllers we covered this episode!
Also, editor Greg Leahy sent along the following notes on music selections this episode:
06...
2020-02-28 15:00:01 +0000 UTC
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In the not-too-distant past, the year 2000 used to signify the far-off future. But time makes fools of us all, and this mythical date has transformed into a distant memory, just as all years are destined to become. This week, we examine Y2K's fascinating gaming landscape, where the primitive Game Boy Color could compete with the cutting-edge PlayStation 2, immersive sims and life sims were new genres, and the Dreamcast still looked like it stood a chance. On this episode, join Bob Mackey, Jer...
2020-02-24 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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February 23, 1990: Code Name: Viper Straddles An Invisible Inspakuri Line
by Diamond Feit
Video game history is built on clones. Every hit game has opened the door to dozens if not hundreds of audience-seeking wannabes. In the 21st century, it doesn't even have to be a hit: A trailer for a unique video game concept will likely spawn a handful of imitation mobile...
2020-02-23 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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It's a suitably old-school Retronauts lineup (consisting of myself, Bob, Ray, and Kohler) that perfectly fits the old-school topic in store for this week: Mario on Game Boy. And Game Boy Color. And Game Boy Advance. Yes, we take a close look at the Super Mario Land duology (before Mario got replaced by Wario), Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, and the Super Mario Advance games. No DS! No polygons! Just old Mario games in sprite form. Learn about the importance of Super Ball...
2020-02-17 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
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February 12, 1990: America Does The Mario
by Diamond Feit
Since there is no point in me explaining what Super Mario Bros. 3 is to paying subscribers of a retro video game podcast, let us instead examine what Mario's journey was like in Japan versus in the United States. (European readers, please adjust the years to match your own t...
2020-02-15 21:45:56 +0000 UTC
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Thanks to the generous patronage of patron Bobby Najari, on this latest Patreon-exclusive episode we're digging deep into a series that gave a 21st-century Sega something to do outside of Sonic the Hedgehog: Yakuza. Though the series had a clumsy start in America with an incredibly late PS2 release and a clumsy (but expensive) dub, in recent years Yakuza has really caught fire in the West, with a new re-release of parts 3, 4, and 5 happening just days before this episode went live! So join Bo...
2020-02-14 08:00:02 +0000 UTC
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The latest in our media ’n games series; this one's kind of a companion piece to the episode on The Running Man we did last year. Henry Gilbert joins me and Bob to discuss the magic of RoboCop; and by "magic" I mean "bloody giblets and ultraviolence making a political point". A good time is guaranteed for all! Unless you live in Verhoeven's vision of Detroit, I guess.
Art by Amanda Pruitt, and editing by Greg Leahy.
2020-02-10 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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February 3, 2000: Resident Evil's First Escape
by Diamond Feit
The arrival of Resident Evil on the Sony PlayStation in 1996 brought a true sea change to video games as both a hobby and a medium. Debuting mere months after the system's U.S. launch, Resident Evil presented itself as a proper "adult" story with a frightening, violent tone that set it apart from anything available on the 8- or 16-bit systems that preceded it. For kids who ...
2020-02-08 17:00:03 +0000 UTC
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The last of my interviews from 2019's Game Developers Conference has arrived at last... with barely more than a month to spare before the next Game Developers Conference. Well. You already know the deal with the content backlog I'm juggling, so I won't bore you with the details. And this episode won't bore you, either, since it mostly consists of Paperboy co-creator John Salwitz talking about his time working at Atari/Atari Games in the ’80s. I never know how interviews wi...
2020-02-03 15:00:08 +0000 UTC
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SNK's Gals Panic on the Pocket
by Diamond Feit
The year 2000 was, for a lot of reasons, a very strange time to be alive. The ’90s had ended, and there had been no apocalypse, either biblical or technological. For many Americans, we were riding high, and everything looked great as we witnessed the dawn of a new millennium. ("There was no year zero" people, do not @ me). You think end-of-decade lists are silly, try to imagine how many end-of-century lists there...
2020-02-02 12:58:33 +0000 UTC
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This week's patron-exclusive Friday episode should be comforting and familiarly to long-time listeners. We may not have Virtual Console to dunk on anymore, but gosh darn it if Nintendo Switch Online doesn't fill that same unsatisfying void in our lives. Anyway, the Retronauts East crew finally gets to take part in a grand tradition here, and it is Good. As you can tell by all the banter.
Special thanks this episode to Greg Leahy and Greg Melo for editing and illustrating this episode, r...
2020-01-31 14:00:01 +0000 UTC
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We've got a real blast from the past for you this week—which is kinda the point of Retronauts, but our newest episode is a blast from the past in an entirely different way. We originally recorded this one on December 6th, 2015, exclusively as an episode for our Kickstarter backers, but now so much time has passed that we feel it's the right time to release this podcast to the general public. So join Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and special guests Steve Lin and Jaz Rignall as the crew...
2020-01-27 08:01:00 +0000 UTC
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January 1980: In the Legacy Wars, Rogue Won
By Diamond Feit
Consider for a moment the number of video game genres that existed in January of 1980. Pong had hit it big, so there were many paddle-and-ball games. Breakout went global, so there were many block-breaking games. Space Invaders was a success, so every company had their own space shooting games. And Colossal Cave Adventure had been so well-received that the text...
2020-01-26 17:09:22 +0000 UTC
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This week's episode title is a little deceptive. It is not a comprehensive overview of all pre-Atari-2600 consoles; instead, it's specifically focused on the Fairchild Channel F and the RCA Studio II. But they're not as well documented as Magnavox's Odyssey, so consider this a public service! Sometimes it's good to dig into the outliers, ya know?
Episode description: Jeremy Parish and vintage gaming expert Kevin Bunch turn back the hands of time to an era when the idea of t...
2020-01-20 15:00:01 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone! Jeremy here, announcing a new weekly feature that will be exclusive to patrons who pledge at the $5+ tier: Diamond Feit's "This Week in Retro" column. This is a little bonus in addition to the exclusive Friday bonus podcasts that should be running every Saturday, or thereabouts.
The idea is pretty simple: Each week, Diamond will look back at a notable game-related anniversary that fell in the preceding week and contemplate its significance (both its holistic and it...
2020-01-18 20:55:36 +0000 UTC
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Hey all—Bob here with a little note for anyone who recently joined the $5 exclusive episodes tier. Being that this is one of our fabled "every other" Fridays, you might be wondering where today's Patreon-exclusive podcast is. In case you missed the news, I dropped it a few weeks early as an early incentive for early subscribers to the $5 tier. (2020-01-18 00:49:19 +0000 UTC
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It's that time once again: Time to do the Revue. In keeping with our grand tradition, Retronauts once again takes a trip 10/20/30/40/50 years into history to mark the beginning of a new year, making note of all the important stuff that happened decades before the present. And, as you might expect, we did not get all the way through these years—despite the fact that almost exactly nothing of significance happened in 1970.
Or should I say, Nutting of significance. Certain...
2020-01-13 15:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks,
As of today, we're changing the Retronauts Patreon to a "charge up front" payment system. What this means is our Patreon now acts like every other business transaction you make on the internet: you pay for something, and then you get it. With our past system, a new patron could conceivably dip into the Patreon for almost an entire month, sample all of the exclusive content, and then duck out before it's time to pay the bill. (Not that any of our listeners would do an...
2020-01-09 03:11:11 +0000 UTC
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Since I decided to drop the Super Mario RPG episode two weeks early on a whim, resident Retronauts artist Nick Daniel was still hard at work on the cover when this podcast went live. Now that it's finished, you can behold it in all of its glory—oh, and the episode post has been updated with the correct art as well. Enjoy!
- Bob
2020-01-07 22:31:12 +0000 UTC
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No one can tell you what The Matrix is... unless you happen to listen to this podcast, wherein we do precisely that. This episode dives into the cultural significance and impact of 1999's surprise blockbuster, and (this being a video games podcast) it also digs into the games that were based on the film. Or rather, that were woven into the filmscape, it might be more accurate to say. As a bonus, one of this week's guests was actually in one of the films and can speak to what...
2020-01-06 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks—Bob here. No, you're not seeing things; I decided to post January's second Friday podcast WAY ahead of time as a special bonus to all of you early adopters of the new $5 tier, and to also give you a sense of the kinds of podcasts we'll be offering at this level. Thanks so much for your support! (Hopefully the episode appearing out of order in your feed won't drive you crazy.) This episode was originally intended to post on 1/17, meaning your next exclusive Friday po...
2020-01-04 04:27:37 +0000 UTC
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Hello, friends. This is the video version of Episode 271. It is also available in an audio-only companion post if you prefer!
If enough people enjoy this test pilot effort, we'll keep going with improvements, i.e. tidy up the recording space, arrange the crew so the wide-angle lens doesn't make me and Chris look enormous, maybe get a picture-in-picture close-up of the whiteboard going....
So let us know what you think about all of this!
2020-01-03 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Welcome to the first post of 2020 and, by a complete coincidence of timing, our very first patron-exclusive episode. I know our decision to offer patron-exclusive content doesn't sit well with everyone, but this episode neatly demonstrates what this move allows us to do. "List Inventory" is something I've been wanting to produce since the Zork episode cold opening, but the format wouldn't translate well to a pure podcast format. But by creating it as a patron-exclusive, we can create...
2020-01-03 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Hello folks, and welcome to our slightly revamped Patreon! As always, we greatly value your support and thank you for sticking with us. Let's get some important things out of the way first.
- If you want to access our twice-monthly Friday episodes from here on out, you will need to sign up for any tier that's $5 or higher. These episodes will be standard, numbered episodes ...
2020-01-02 21:37:57 +0000 UTC
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Hey folks, we've been getting a bit of feedback from those who signed up for the $5 tier after it went live last week. It turns out some previous episodes were missing for patrons accessing our exclusive RSS feed at the $5 level. I've went and checked all of our posted episodes against what's available in the RSS feed, and they should all be there now for $5 patrons. If not, please unsubscribe and resubscribe, and they'll appear in your exclusive Patreon RSS feed.
Just a few more things...
2020-01-01 04:58:33 +0000 UTC
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