Retronauts

The Retronauts East crew (Jeremy Parish, Ben Elgin, Benj Edwards, Chris Sims) don their peril-sensitive sunglasses and attempt to escape the planet before the Vogons arrive in this real-time playthrough of Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The full content of this episode is exclusively available to Patreon supporters at the $5/mo. level and above. Retronauts is crowd-funded by liste...

Since the dawn of the medium, humans across the globe dreamed of wearing video game representation on their bodies—a practice that's only become commonplace in recent years. We've come a long way since the days of too-large or too-small pre-order t-shirts as the rare video game wearable, to the point where just about any character or logo can be found emblazoned on a well-fitted shirt, hat, or the...

The Retronauts East crew offers a (very) loose overview of Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer series as a lead-in to Jeremy Parish's interview with Woodwest founder Louis Castle on the creation of the original game (among other topics).

It's time once again to head to the Retronauts cabin in Parts Unknown for yet another look at a video-game-adjacent Christmas thing! We've worked our way through quite a few video game cartoon Christmas specials over the past few years, so this time around we're going to switch gears and explore another medium entirely. The late '90s/early '00s Pokemon Boom brought us many cheap cash-ins, so of co...

Hide your wallets: Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Chris Kohler, and Steve Lin discuss the pricing perils, pitfalls, and occasional perfidy surrounding the rarest/costliest/most non-existent video game collectibles in history.

Just in time for the "conclusion" of the Star Wars saga (sure, whatever), take a look back at the franchise's cinematic high point (and all the related games) with Jeremy Parish, Benj Edwards, Ben Elgin, and Chris Sims.

Take a look into the genesis, classic inspirations, and development of Sabotage Games' double-retro indie hit The Messenger as Jeremy Parish speaks to creators Thierry Boulanger and Martin Brouard.

Two decades ago, Sega summoned into the world the mightiest of its consoles: The Dreamcast. And then, almost as quickly, it took the poor thing into the woods out back and ran it through proverbial the wood chipper. Dreamcast died too young, but its sudden demise wasn’t the end. We pick up the story 20 years later, exploring the ways in which Dreamcast represented Sega’s spirit at its finest and h...

We put together a classic Retronauts lineup (Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, and Chris Kohler) to discuss the history of an all-time arcade classic: Donkey Kong. (And also its lesser ’80s sequels.)

It’s the ultimate metroidvania showdown as we settle once and for all which was truly the greatest, the most ambitious, the most influential work of the genre: Nintendo’s Super Metroid or Konami’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night? Strong opinions will be expressed! Harsh words may be exchanged! Blood might even be spilled (only to be absorbed by a dhampir ensorcelled by Dark Metamorphosis)! Pane...

Jeremy speaks to retrogaming curators Artemio and SmokeMonster about their efforts to help preserve and improve the state of classic gaming through projects like MDFourier and MiSTer.

Our informal LucasArts miniseries rolls on with another episode exploring the developer's adventure game output! This time, we focus on 1991's Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, the second entry in the Monkey Island series, and one that marked the departure of creator Ron Gilbert from LucasArts. Though it only came one year after the original game, LeChuck's Revenge expands on this formative adve...

Jeremy Parish talks to Josh Fairhurst and Douglas Bogart of Limited Run Games about the company's growing line of classic game reissues, and the behind-the-scenes details of selling new retro game releases.

Jeremy Parish, Benj Edwards, Chris Sims, and Ben Elgin wrap up some unfinished business by tackling the year that got away: 2009. Yeah, 2009 is retro now. Sorry, we don't make the rules. Actually, wait... we do.

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Kat Bailey, and Shane Bettenhausen celebrate Death Stranding by revisiting the game that allowed Hideo Kojima the luxury of spending millions of dollars on name-dropping self-indulgence in the first place: Metal Gear Solid.

Over two years ago, we sat down to gush about The Legend of Zelda's underappreciated Game Boy installment, Link's Awakening. And once again, time has made fools of us all, as the Switch remake of this classic game stands as one of Nintendo's biggest fall titles—so it's safe to say Link's Awakening is FULLY appreciated at this point. But does Grezzo's very literal remake improve on the original exp...

Jeremy Parish summons the eldritch forms of Castlevania experts Kurt Kalata, Rob Russo, and Kevin Bunch to discuss the enigma that is... Castlevania games that don't fit into any other specific grouping, like Haunted Castle and Bloodlines. Spooky!

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, and Nadia Oxford get equipped with opinions about the latest entry in the Mega Man series and how it upholds the franchise's lengthy legacy. This one's been in the vaults so long that Mega Man 11 is almost retro now!

Live from Long Island Retro Expo! Jeremy chats with Rob Russo and Kurt Kalata from HG101 about loving unpopular game systems, then muses on the means and philosophy behind playing old games with VGHF's Frank Cifaldi and MLIG's Coury Carlson.

For a little over a decade, Castlevania keeper Koji Igarashi cut his own path with the famous side-scrolling series by backing away from its traditional hardcore action and platforming, and leaning more towards RPG elements and exploration. The result was what we now know as the "Metroidvania," a genre that thrived for the ten years Igarashi found himself away from the style of game he and his tea...

We're coming back to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this year for another live appearance! When: Saturday, October 19 at 9:00pm Where: Auditorium A at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo What: Our latest live panel, "When Celebrities and Video Games Collide!" For more info, check out the official PRGE schedule , or the official website . We hope to see you there!

Retronauts East (Jeremy Parish, Benj Edwards, Chris Sims, and Ben Elgin) returns to the ’30s to evaluate the failings and successes (mostly failings) of Indiana Jones's most Problematic-with-a-capital-P adventure—and its impact on games, of course. Frickin' mine carts....

As Lucasfilm Games began to refine their philosophy of fairness, designer Brian Moriarty doubled down on this concept with his idea of a video game expressly designed to be completed. This would eventually take the form of Loom, an adventure game far different than anything that would come before or after it. With no inventory, no verbs, and music as your only means of interacting with the world,...

Finishing out our patron request series on roguelike role-playing games, Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Jason Wilson, and John Harris explore latter-day roguelikes and how we got to the weird, wonderful world of Spelunky.

Jeremy Parish, Bob Mackey, Ray Barnholt, and Shane Bettenhausen use the Konami Code to tackle the challenge of recapping the Contra series, just in time for the latest entry in the franchise.