Go Back and Play

Episode 50! Join Nate, Sebastian, David, and Jordan as we discuss eight games we've skipped over in our journey so far, with special bonus pre-recorded segments from Ryan and Kari! Our extremely disorganized conversation covers: E.V.O. - SEARCH FOR EDEN ACTRAISER TERRANIGMA DONKEY KONG COUNTRY WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO? FINAL FANTASY LEGEND III XCOM: UFO DEFENSE ULTIMA V: WARRIORS OF D...

Nate, Sebastian, and David are joined by new guest Andrea to discuss EARTHBOUND, a Super Nintendo RPG unlike any other. We discuss sentient piles of vomit, terrible ad campaigns, a man who becomes a dungeon, Canadian whiz kids, and whether dogs are an essential part of the American Experience. Andrea explains her childhood obsession, Sebastian draws comparisons to The Blob, David gets teary-eyed r...

Nate and David sit down to unpack THEME PARK, Bullfrog Productions' amusement park management simulator. Nate explores the limits of his tastes in games, David explains his curious predilections for order as a child, and they both recoil in revulsion over the tasteless game over cinematic. Come for the unpacking of a unique sub-genre of videogames, stay to find out who Nate calls "a cross between...

Nate and Sebastian are joined by Ryan and David to discuss SUPER METROID, the seminal space bounty hunter adventure from 1994. We discuss the birth of the "Metroidvania" sub-genre, sequence breaking, and some things that games can do in ways that other media can't. Warning: Nate says "Heavens to Super Mergatroid" once, which seems inadvisable. Due to user error, Sebastian continually refers to Kra...

Nate and Sebastian are joined by Lucy, who knows more about basketball than the two of them put together (which isn't saying much), and Ryan, who recorded his audio in his bathyscape at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, apparently, to discuss NBA JAM, Midway's extreme basketball extravaganza from 1993. Listen in to discover who is on fire, who's heating up, who's making shots FROM DOWNTOWN, and wh...

Nate and Ryan are joined once again by Em Marko of Abnormal Mapping to take a look at the most influential game ever named after a throwaway line in a Tom Cruise movie: DOOM. We discuss WADs, deathmatch, and Ryan's deep love for Star Wars: Dark Forces. Come for the discussion of how a couple dudes in Texas revolutionized the way we interact with virtual environments, stay to find out what the heck...

Nate, Sebastian, and Jordan sit down for a brief dissection of VIRTUA FIGHTER, Sega's ground-breaking 3D fighting game from 1993. We talk about the metaphor of a game "camera," Jordan's "ground game," and getting a "ring out." Being "wrung out?" Look, I'm no fighting game expert. I just mash the buttons and hope I flip somebody. 

Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan gather to discuss RIDGE RACER, Namco's arcade racing game from 1993. Or, maybe not. We talk about arcades, early polygonal games, and the ushering in of the 32-bit era (a little ahead of schedule). Nate tells the story of how he got his PlayStation, Sebastian and Ryan learn about the theme song to Daytona USA, and a special guest appearance is made by William, age 2. SHOW...

Nate, Sebastian, and David are joined by special guest Em (of Abnormal Mapping) to discuss Cyan's seminal adventure game MYST. We talk about escape rooms, linking books, abandoned places, and terrible FMV acting.    SHOW NOTES: Em's playthrough of Myst: https://t.co/RZRiXVF7Gu Abnormal Mapping (support their Patreon!): https://www.abnormalmapping.com/      

Nate and Sebastian are joined by Jordan and Ryan to pay respects to the late, great SEGA GENESIS, a console which was otherwise going to be given short shrift by our episode schedule. Come for Sebastian's effusive praise for Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, stay for Nate's attempt to describe the physical appearance of Vectorman. We touch on the trend of environmentalism in Genesis games and Nate g...

Nate and Ryan go mano-a-mano to discuss MORTAL KOMBAT, the 1992 arcade game from Midway and Acclaim that introduced the world to Fatalities and spearheaded a moral panic about the state of the medium. Nate endures the filmic adaptation, Ryan calls Sub-Zero a "frost wizard," and Kari manages to put the baby to bed long enough to pop in to tell a story about how her mom put the kibosh on her brother...

Nate, Sebastian, and David gather to discuss SUPER MARIO KART. Nate plays the contrarian, David advocates not drinking and driving, and Sebastian marvels at yet another early-'90s TV spot. Nate proposes a new podcast specifically dedicated to kart racers, and Sebastian claims that racing is "boring" and "not fun." David hits him with a red shell. SHOW NOTES: Super Mario Kart TV spot: https://www.y...

Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan sit down to discuss WOLFENSTEIN 3D, the grandfather of the first-person shooter. We talk schlock, grindhouse aesthetics, and how deeply ingrained genre-specific controls have become in gaming. Sebastian refers to musical stylings as "tang" for the second consecutive episode, and Ryan watches too much History Channel. Nate gushes about Bj Blazcowicz's soft voice. SHOW NOTE...

Nate, Sebastian, Ryan and new guest Kari tackle 1992's THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST, the most delicious(?) game we've yet encountered. We talk about the advent of lore and world-building in games, "canon," and whether the impulse to arrange all the Zelda games into a coherent timeline is reasonable (Nate: no, Ryan & Kari: absolutely).  SHOW NOTES: Illicit scans of some Zelda comics: htt...

In our last episode of 2017, Nate, Sebastian, Ryan, and David all gather to discuss ANOTHER WORLD, or OUT OF THIS WORLD as it was titled in the American market. We talk about how games borrow the language of cinema, games made by a single creator, and failed science experiments from our youth (stay for the story about boiled hamster brains).  SHOW NOTES: GDC post-mortem talk w/ creator Eric Chahi:...

Nate, Sebastian, and Jordan gather to discuss SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, the debut game of Sega's mascot who was custom-built to take down a certain mustachioed plumber. Nate and Sebastian discuss being on the Sega side of the "console wars," Jordan dunks on the battery life of the Game Gear, and Nate gushes about the musical stylings of Masato Nakamura. Also there are some technical difficulties.

Nate, Sebastian, and Jordan sit down to discuss STREET FIGHTER II: THE WORLD WARRIOR, the game that started uncountable arcade brawls and heralded the arrival of a new genre: the fighting game. Hear us try to sort through the nine different iterations of the game, find out who's "the Taylor Swift of Street Fighter," and discover which classic combatant Jordan feels comfortable comparing to Eeyore....

Nate and Ryan sit down this episode in bat and mist form, respectively, to discuss 1990's CASTLEVANIA III: DRACULA'S CURSE, the most fun you can have with a whip without bringing Devo into the picture. Hear discussion of Universal movie monsters, find out which host loves the Netflix Castlevania and which hates it, and discover the secret love that binds two men together (it's manticores).  SHOW N...

Nate, Sebastian, David, and Jordan gather to discuss LEMMINGS, the 1991 puzzle/herding game from DMA Designs. Hear Nate's frustration at trying to play the game with a controller rather than a mouse, David's defense of actual lemmings (the animals), and Sebastian's theory that the Lemmings are Fraggles who have joined a cult. Also, we ponder what "Lemmings: Tactics" might look like.   SHOW NOTES:...

Jordan returns to join Nate and Sebastian in discussing SUPER MARIO WORLD, the flagship title of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and one of the best side-scrolling platformers ever made. Come for the discussion of SMW's elegant level design, stay for infighting about the console wars and banter about swears. Jordan tells us about nightmarish ROM hacks, Nate tells a story about mushrooms in...

Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan gather to discuss THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND, a piratey point-and-click from LucasArts that still stands up as one of the funniest games in the medium. Nate discusses his love for interface jokes, Ryan seethes over a particular kind of gag, and Sebastian tells some heinous lies about episodes yet to come. Come for the discussion of comedy in videogames, stay for the rubb...

David joins Nate and Sebastian to discuss FIRE EMBLEM: SHADOW DRAGON AND THE BLADE OF LIGHT, the Japan-only title that first blended the delicious chocolate of tactics with the peanut butter of JRPGs. Nate laments the lack of kissing in this first entry, David wonders about abstraction and scaling, and Sebastian takes every opportunity to turn the conversation toward SHINING FORCE, the tactics RPG...

Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan gather to discuss JOHN MADDEN FOOTBALL, the 1990 game for the Sega Genesis. Join us as we discuss how football is a hybrid real-time/turn-based strategy game! Mourn as we reveal the childhood trauma caused by being Cleveland sports fans! Hear a story about Sebastian's job interview!  SHOW NOTES: Madden NFL 18 - "Longshot" trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZwjP6Mp...

Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan all gather - in one place this time! - to discuss SIMCITY, the revolutionary open-ended city simulator by Maxis Games. Come to hear about the bias inherent in the simulation, stay to learn which one of us compulsively added island prisons to his cities as a child.  SHOW NOTES: SimCity at the internet archive: https://archive.org/details/msdos_SimCity_1989 "Micropolis": ht...

Nate, Sebastian, and David gather to discuss POPULOUS, the progenitor of the God Game. Thrill at the raising and lowering of land! Hear Sebastian shout "Volcano!" several times! Find out whether we think its creator, Peter Molyneux, is a visionary or a huckster! Discover what it means to "Shoot the Hooch!"   SHOW NOTES: GDC Postmortem on Populous featuring Peter Molyneux - https://www.youtube.com/...