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[charlequin]

I wouldn't say they dropped the quality in the recent episodes. Wrestlenauts and Baldur's Gate ones are among the best IMO.

And I thought Harvest Moon was pretty good too.

My issue with Matsuno's episode is that they barely scratched the surface and they gave me the impression that they were just reading wiki articles & random facts about it, with little personal anecdotes/opinions.

Wow, I didn't feel that way at all. The discussions in the Matsuno episode brought me right back to the experience of playing these games. I loved the detail about Jeremy's Penelo being a katana-wielding murderer.

And I must protest: the original Tactics Ogre is better than the PSP remake which IMO screwed up many things (leveling system, crafting, the new job system, permadeath removal) and became too easy.

I could never see eye to eye with you.

 

[BocoDragon]

Wow, I didn't feel that way at all. The discussions in the Matsuno episode brought me right back to the experience of playing these games. I loved the detail about Jeremy's Penelo being a katana-wielding murderer.

I thought they went DEEP on Matsuno too.

I'm thinking Soulhouf is a hardcore Matsuno expert.

 

[pje122]

I'd be okay with Christian calling Tomb Raider "a piece of shit" on Insert Credit, or anywhere that could springboard into a discussion, but dropping it in a Retronauts about Parappa is just unnecessary snark. While I agree with most of their points on boxed retail games, they really went off the rails this time.

I reflexively yelled "F*** OFF" when he bestowed us with that little nugget.
Bad taste. Bad taste. Bad taste.

 

[Harlock]

Retronauts never was a deep talk. Is more a glorified wikipedia reading. What people can find strange is that the last episodes were about less know games.

 

[Talon]

My issue with Matsuno's episode is that they barely scratched the surface and they gave me the impression that they were just reading wiki articles & random facts about it, with little personal anecdotes/opinions.

I disagree entirely. Jeremy had the most to say of value, unsurprisingly.

Retronauts never was a deep talk. Is more a glorified wikipedia reading. What people can find strange is that the last episodes were about less know games.

Untrue. The adventure game episode and the horror game episode are pretty much the deepest dives you'll get on their respective histories. Not to mention the Chrono series episode.

The Japan episode has been the deepest dive of this series of episodes, and they've been pretty inside baseball with the 90s stuff, for example, or that strategy game (the precursor to RotTK from a few weeks ago).

 

[entremet]

Listening to Bob and Christian's personal issues with modern games was pretty painful. Wrapping yourself in so much 90's nostalgia that it causes you to pretend that every modern game is like Call of Duty or Gears/God of War is unhealthy.

In terms of games getting big budgets they're not too far off base. They seem to be more Japanese purists than seeking nostalgia anyway--this comes from years of listening to both across various podcasts.

 

[Jarnet87]

I've always felt like they go pretty deep into a topic when Jeremy hosts. With Bob it's much more broad, same with Ray.

 

[orient]

As much as I'd love every episode to be a crazy deep dive, it's also an unrealistic expectation -- they're only 3 people, after all (and the occasional guest) with their own tastes and experiences. Some subjects are bound to be a better fit than others. That said, I've really enjoyed almost every episode this series -- the ones I haven't are just down to my lack of interest in the subject.

This is an issue much bigger than Retronauts, but it bums me out when I sense people not speaking their mind 100%, qualifying everything they say or write with "I feel like..." and "In my experience...", in fear of being "wrong" and getting called out on it by a vocal minority on a message board. I totally get it -- the fear of being hated is a pretty compelling reason to guard yourself -- I just don't like negativity having that sort of power over people. Blows.

 

[turnbuckle]

Now I wish the Parappa episode came a few months later after this thread

As for the quality of episodes; I'm repeating myself but I feel like they've been really nailing it this season. I don't really listen to the pocket ones much, but the full episodes are mostly great. Even on topics that I have little or no familiarity with (Harvest Moon).

Got an email from Ray saying they recently recorded the episode I backed. I couldn't think of a game or series topic so it's anyone's guess how it goes but I really look forward to it.

Gotta agree on the other comments re: old man yelling at cloud. I get the cynicism for modern gaming, but mine is more targeted towards F2P and F2P elements creeping into the hobby. Between indies, handhelds, PC, and console gaming I'm finding a lot of quality and creative content to go along with shooty mans. And I like my shooty mans gaming sometimes, even if there is an overstauration of them. At any point in gaming history there was an oversaturation of the genre du jour. I do think it's worse now than it's been in a long time due to a fear of risk-taking, but more than anything it's the "games as a service" and other monetization of gamers' time that's plaguing gaming nowadays.

That, and releasing games that are broken only to be patched later. And games that, regardless of patches, still end up broken (Battlefield 4).

 

[Empty]

i enjoyed the parappa episode, as well as the matsuno and harvest moon. i like it when the try and put something in a cultural context, with 90s multimedia projects and the newness of 3d systems opening up possibilities helping form parappa, but god the comparisons to what they hate now grated. there's always been lowest common denominator games and across all the platforms out there there's always far more interesting games each year than i have time to play.

maybe this is different if you live and breath games by being closer to the industry but i doubt it. if anything i feel like the current market with steam/ios/psn/xbla diversifying the price range you can sell at is significantly more conducive to weird stuff like parappa and um jammer lammy which were always awkwardly priced next to more expansive games.

 

[turnbuckle]

My backer episode is up! I couldn't think of a specific game or series to discuss so I brought up the idea of old gaming magazines and websites.

About 30 minutes in and loving it so far. Thanks again to Ray, Bob, Jeremy, and Matt!

RETRONAUTS VOLUME III EPISODE 18: VIDEO GAME MEDIA

This week on Retronauts, the podcast about old video games… we don’t even talk about games! Or hardware! Or anything interactive! Instead, we talk about something just as retro: these floppy bundles of paper that would have information about games! (Yes, yes, har-har). From backer Daniel Turner we have nearly two hours of talk featuring a (very American) rundown of notable game magazines from the usual scope of Retronauts (very ‘90s). That means plenty of chatting about about GamePro, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Video Games & Computer Entertainment, and of course, DieHard GameFan, among many others.

We all enjoyed game magazines for different reasons, but one of the common themes brought up was that of personality — sure, for a while, it was great when magazines would shotgun previews and import news onto page spreads, but once magazines like Game Players transformed themselves into more jovial, freewheeling publications and made the editors seem like the regular people they were (are!), it’s like the clarity of our memories shot up tenfold. Go figure.

But we just don’t talk about magazines — tangents include tip-focused paperbacks and game company newsletters, as well. In the second part of the show, we talk about some of the earliest and most notable game websites (or AOL portals, depending), including a little site called 1UP. Returning guest Matt Leone is with us to help explain and share in the nostalgia-go-round that is this episode. And if you’re wanting to join us, you can find many of the magazines we talked about on sites like Retromags.

 

[Ninjimbo]

I'm still catching up on previous episodes. All the talk here has me thinking I'm going to be groaning a lot through the Parappa episode. Should I brace myself for misinformed Mackey opinions?

 

[charlequin]

I'm still catching up on previous episodes. All the talk here has me thinking I'm going to be groaning a lot through the Parappa episode. Should I brace myself for misinformed Mackey opinions?

Most of the complaining about modern games is Christian Nutt and it's like maybe 90 seconds total. People way overblew it in here.

 

[nbthedude]

Can someone tell me how the hell I add this podcast to my feed? I'm using a Shield (andriod app) and most podcast give me a clear link I can just plug into it to set it to automatically download but I spent 30 minutes on their site yesterday and could fine no clear link to plug into my podcast player. This seems like pretty bad website design.

 

[TheContact]

My backer episode is up! I couldn't think of a specific game or series to discuss so I brought up the idea of old gaming magazines and websites.

About 30 minutes in and loving it so far. Thanks again to Ray, Bob, Jeremy, and Matt!



RETRONAUTS VOLUME III EPISODE 18: VIDEO GAME MEDIA

That's actually a great topic. Going to listen now

 

[Brianimaniac]

I'm a big fan of the show, and I've listened to every episode since the beginning of the 1UP days, but damn, that Parappa episode made me wince. I know these guys make a lot of self-deprecating comments about how they're old curmudgeons, but this episode genuinely gave off a "get off my lawn" vibe.

Where to even begin...

Trying to make a link between "oh, those silly Japanese games!" and racism?

The rose-colored fawning over times past, followed by reductive dismissals of modern games, with both points being supported by poorly-considered generalizations?

Ranting about the pretention of modern games, then ten minutes later praising Um Jammer Lammy for not exploiting its Parappa connections because Matsuura is a "true artist!" and not some cynical businessman like all the monsters putting out games today?

And that was all in the first half of the episode!

Oy.

I hope everyone was just having a bad day, because I'd hate to see future episodes keep up that vibe. Let's channel some of that nostalgia for these cheery games you miss into making a cheery podcast, no?

 

[Imbarkus]

My backer episode is up! I couldn't think of a specific game or series to discuss so I brought up the idea of old gaming magazines and websites.

About 30 minutes in and loving it so far. Thanks again to Ray, Bob, Jeremy, and Matt!



RETRONAUTS VOLUME III EPISODE 18: VIDEO GAME MEDIA

I'm about an hour in so far.

Curious to hear them mention Electronic Games, but not go into it too much. I used to have subscription. I still remember the day "Home Video Magazine" arrived instead, when it ended.

Also missing was Atari Age. I used to have every issue of the official magazine of the Atari Fan Club, but my mom gave them away when I was in college, along with all those Electronic Games.

 

[takoyaki]

My backer episode is up! I couldn't think of a specific game or series to discuss so I brought up the idea of old gaming magazines and websites.

It's a great subject, thanks for kickstarting this episode, I'm listening right now. The last couple of episodes have been fantastic, does anybody know if they've said anything about a second season/kickstarter yet?

 

[ToastyFrog]

I'm about an hour in so far.

Curious to hear them mention Electronic Games, but not go into it too much. I used to have subscription. I still remember the day "Home Video Magazine" arrived instead, when it ended.

Also missing was Atari Age. I used to have every issue of the official magazine of the Atari Fan Club, but my mom gave them away when I was in college, along with all those Electronic Games.

Ray stated at the outset that we don't have a lot of personal experience with the older magazines (except me, but as mentioned that was basically me indiscriminately borrowing library copies of computer magazines to try and get Apple ][ programs to run on my Coleco ADAM).

It's a great subject, thanks for kickstarting this episode, I'm listening right now. The last couple of episodes have been fantastic, does anybody know if they've said anything about a second season/kickstarter yet?

We have a lot of commitments to work through yet before we ask for more funding/consider taking on new obligations.

 

[Imbarkus]

Ray stated at the outset that we don't have a lot of personal experience with the older magazines (except me, but as mentioned that was basically me indiscriminately borrowing library copies of computer magazines to try and get Apple ][ programs to run on my Coleco ADAM).

Fair enough, but I think my last opportunity to hear a discussion about Atari Age has come and gone. Sharkey may have had some experience in the area?

Still a great listen!

 

[takoyaki]

We have a lot of commitments to work through yet before we ask for more funding/consider taking on new obligations.

Makes sense, thanks for the reply. This has probably been my favorite kickstarter campaign. I'd pledge the same amount again, even without a T-shirt. In case you're interested in another season, there should be a good amount of happy backers like me.

 

[shouamabane]

The past several shows have been great.

 

[orient]

Latest episode was cool, even though my experience with game mags is extremely limited. I never subscribed to any of them but I probably read Official UK PlayStation the most -- I distinctly remember buying a few of them for the walkthroughs, although I'd try to use them sparingly and as a last resort. Good times.

 

[turnbuckle]

Ray stated at the outset that we don't have a lot of personal experience with the older magazines (except me, but as mentioned that was basically me indiscriminately borrowing library copies of computer magazines to try and get Apple ][ programs to run on my Coleco ADAM).



We have a lot of commitments to work through yet before we ask for more funding/consider taking on new obligations.

That episode was fantastic. Once I heard you guys start talking I instantly wished I would have done the "be a guest on an episode" tier. If you guys do another kickstarter I'm definitely backing it again. This kickstarter season has been phenomenal. The gaming magazine / website episode way exceeded my expectations. Matt Leone was a great guest, second choice or not

It's funny you guys were mentioning Bill Donohue - about a month ago I was looking to see what he was up to. Didn't find out much, didn't dig too deep. Just a funny coincidence.

Like you, it would have been cheaper for me if I subscribed to all the magazines I read than buying them one-by-one off the shelf. I had sort of a 1-2 magazine a month allowance, but luckily the local rental store had subscriptions to Game Players & Diehard Gamefan and they'd give me stacks of magazines every few months. It was odd, just a tiny little dumpy town in Michigan with older owners getting these less popular, but excellent magazines.

Oh man, I never got to read any of these. I would love to somehow get my hands on them.

It was mentioned in the podcast how I used to read my older brother's issues of Nintendo Power. I forgot to mention that he also had those Nintendo Fun Club newsletters. I should find out if he has them still. He probably had half a dozen of them and I'm not sure how it started. However he got them they must have been very effective advertising because he ended up getting most/all of the games on those covers.

It was Nintendo Power that got me hooked on Dragon Warrior.

Man, I'm nostalgiaing hard right now thinking about all this stuff. Thank you guys again!

 

[krae_man]

Yeah they still have a lot of backer episodes to go, they still need to ship out the DVD, and do a segment where they thank all 1200+ backers by name.

This magazine episode is great. I was never able to subscribe to any magazines as a kid. After you factored in the extra shipping cost and being forced to pay in US funds, you didn't save any money subscribing in Canada.

I remember working it out constantly. In the US the subscription was the price of like 3-4 issues usually while in Canada it worked out to about 10.

 

[Imbarkus]

Oh man, I never got to read any of these. I would love to somehow get my hands on them.

Go nuts, man. The internet truly is a wondrous place.

Atari Age Scan Archive

 

[turnbuckle]

Go nuts, man. The internet truly is a wondrous place.

Atari Age Scan Archive

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Oh wow, thank you for the link. That's fantastic.

 

[charlequin]

Makes sense, thanks for the reply. This has probably been my favorite kickstarter campaign. I'd pledge the same amount again, even without a T-shirt.

I would too, but the T-shirt is hella boss.

 

[krae_man]

I actually subscribed to some CD-ROM magazine not even knowing what it was. Somehow while using the internet at school I came across an ad for "Sign up for a 1 month free trial of our magazine" and I filled it out.

I got the first issue in the mail and was like "WTF is this? I don't even have a computer" and thought well I guess that was a bus.

Then they sent me another, and another and another. I kept writing return to sender on them thinking "Why are you sending me these? I only wanted the one month free trial". I eventually started getting very threatening letters demanding I pay for my subscription. The magazine probably went out of business before they could even send it to collections ha ha.

Ah to be young and stupid.

 

[CartridgeBlower]

Kind of found the new episode disappointing. I was excited to see the topic, but I feel they they railed into a ton of those magazines that I guess I look at with rose-tinted glasses. And then the last third of the podcast went to talk about the online websites that came from the magazines, which seems like a topic that's kind of been done to death. I love 1up, it's why we're all in this thread, but I don't think that stuff needed to be covered...again.

It almost came off like a lot of them didn't even like the magazines they were talking about, i.e. early EGM, all of Gamefan, etc. It's like the whole retrospective had a negative tone to it. Talking about how EGM lifted stuff from Famitsu, knocking Gamefan's cover art and style, digging into Gamepro for being 'cartoony.' That's probably all true, but I would have liked them to talk more about the positive things all those magazines did as well. They touched on them, but the whole discussion just seemed more heavily weighed to the negative.

 

[turnbuckle]

Kind of found the new episode disappointing. I was excited to see the topic, but I feel they they railed into a ton of those magazines that I guess I look at with rose-tinted glasses. And then the last third of the podcast went to talk about the online websites that came from the magazines, which seems like a topic that's kind of been done to death. I love 1up, it's why we're all in this thread, but I don't think that stuff needed to be covered...again.

It almost came off like a lot of them didn't even like the magazines they were talking about, i.e. early EGM, all of Gamefan, etc. It's like the whole retrospective had a negative tone to it. Talking about how EGM lifted stuff from Famitsu, knocking Gamefan's cover art and style, digging into Gamepro for being 'cartoony.' That's probably all true, but I would have liked them to talk more about the positive things all those magazines did as well. They touched on them, but the whole discussion just seemed more heavily weighed to the negative.

Hmm, I didn't think the new episode seemed all that negative at all. They talked about some bad magazine covers and things being lifted from Japanese magazines but I didn't take it as trashing them. Some of those GameFan and EGM covers were really hideous, some of them were incredible and their gaudiness gave them that extra "charm" or whatever. I definitely have rose-tinted glasses for game magazines and books of the past and I loved this episode. I'm probably biased since it was the topic I got to suggest via backer reward, but I felt it was wonderful. Certainly the best podcast on old gaming magazines I've ever listened to

 

[Man God]

Saving this episode for next week but I really enjoyed the last few minis and the Parappa episode.

I don't think they were off base with their complaints about the state of modern gaming at all and comparing it to Parappa. Console gaming has become all too serious with most of the games being giant budget spectacles of "gritty realism" and ultra violence.

The only semi recent episode I didn't really dig was Harvest Moon. They only skimmed the surface of the franchise and missed a lot of it, I feel. Most of this comes from someone who knows the series inside and out though so the episode wasn't really for me in that regards.

 

[krae_man]

Retronauts update

DVD's and other stuff are coming and we're going to get another crowd funded year!

Also Pocket 18: Nintendo merchandise

 

[Tripon]

Retronauts update

DVD's and other stuff are coming and we're going to get another crowd funded year!

Also Pocket 18: Nintendo merchandise

There should have been a segment on Club Nintendo.

 

[krae_man]

There should have been a segment on Club Nintendo.

That's not very retro(well for North America anyway).

 

[Rlan]

On the topic of Old Game Magazines, I run a Tumblr called OldGameMags, where I go through a lot of scans of old magazines and post interesting articles and advertisements, like these fantastic ones:

http://oldgamemags.tumblr.com/

"Video Games" magazine is great, if you can get to them. Some really awesome, candid interviews with people from 1982 and 1983.

 

[Rlan]

And on the topic of Nintendo merch:

 

[charlequin]

we will have done everything we said we would. Just… maybe a bit later than we had planned in some cases.

This is just funny to me since I've backed probably 25 gaming-related Kickstarters and this one is so far ahead on delivering what was promised on a reasonable schedule.

On the topic of Old Game Magazines, I run a Tumblr called OldGameMags, where I go through a lot of scans of old magazines and post interesting articles and advertisements

!!!

Bless you.

(I actually remember that Gameline ad!)

 

[krae_man]

.

 

[turnbuckle]

On the topic of Old Game Magazines, I run a Tumblr called OldGameMags, where I go through a lot of scans of old magazines and post interesting articles and advertisements, like these fantastic ones:

http://oldgamemags.tumblr.com/



"Video Games" magazine is great, if you can get to them. Some really awesome, candid interviews with people from 1982 and 1983.

Whoa, bookmarking that. Nice scans!

 

[LayLa]

talk in the latest pocket episode about early gaming scratchcards sent me a crazy nostalgia trip about Pacman

used to love these as a kid, they came with stickers, a stick of crappy bubblegum and ...

these scratchcard games!
also had a Pacman watch that no doubt annoyed the hell out of my parents on long car trips with its beeping sounds

 

[bigkrev]

Retronauts update

DVD's and other stuff are coming and we're going to get another crowd funded year!

Also Pocket 18: Nintendo merchandise

Best news I saw out of that is that Ray has a job- I thought he was living the freelance life still! Good job!

I hope they look at stuff to change if they are going for more crowdfunding though. I personally have not liked any of the Pocket Episodes- it always feels like at least one of the hosts has nothing to say on the topic, which leads to a really bad discussion. The idea of mini episodes can probably work, but I would like to see them change. Maybe make each episode a news/virtual selection show? Perhaps a deeper dive on one specific topic from the previous episode? (Sort of like the Ivalice episode after the Matsuo one?)

 

[Imbarkus]

talk in the latest pocket episode about early gaming scratchcards sent me a crazy nostalgia trip about Pacman

used to love these as a kid, they came with stickers, a stick of crappy bubblegum and ...

these scratchcard games!
also had a Pacman watch that no doubt annoyed the hell out of my parents on long car trips with its beeping sounds

Wow. Right in the remembers. I had forgotten all about these. Thanks for posting them.

 

[krae_man]

Speaking of scans, I came across this a while ago:

http://www.cdarchive.ca/UltimateVideo1996.pdf

Every kid in Canada was adding everything here to their Christmas list.

I don't know what being "most dimensional" means but I want it!

 

[bigkrev]

Speaking of scans, I came across this a while ago:

http://www.cdarchive.ca/UltimateVideo1996.pdf

Every kid in Canada was adding everything here to their Christmas list.

I don't know what being "most dimensional" means but I want it!

I always wanted an R-zone when I was a kid. It could play Toshinden for less that the cost of a PlayStation!

 

[krae_man]

New episode is up and is about Nintendo Power.

 

[krae_man]

Listener Mail show is up

Hey everyone &#8212; it&#8217;s your buddy Bob here with a minor disclaimer. Our audio equipment goofed up during the recording of this episode, and without the common decency to show any symptoms of its goofery. This isn&#8217;t a major problem, but Kat and Ray come off sounding little quieter than Jeremy and myself, and I had to perform the audio editing equivalent of open-heart surgery to make episode 20 as listenable as possible. And because I spent so much time fixing this one, I don&#8217;t have much left to write my standard overlong blog post, so I hope you can forgive me.

That said, this one is our listener mail episode, and our old friend Kat Bailey sat in to help us field some of your questions (and there were a lot of them). Oh yeah, and be sure to enter our new contest! Just write a review of Retronauts in the iTunes music store (an honest one!) by May 14 at 11:59pm PST&#8212;remembering to use the word &#8220;fandango&#8221; at some point within your text&#8212;and you&#8217;ll be entered whether you like it or not. All three winners will receive a free t-shirt, but our grand prize winner will have their topic idea made into an episode! Exciting!

Download

Don't forget code word:

When you write the review!

 

[Tripon]

Some shots were fired in this listening mail ep.

 

[krae_man]

Yeah that NeoGAF rant went on for a while there :lol

 

[mattp]

Yeah that NeoGAF rant went on for a while there :lol

ray's nintendo rant?

that one was funny to me because if anything, it's less a "neogaf" thing and more a "tech blog" thing. every fucking tech site on the internet has written an article or two about exactly what ray was saying.