Player One Podcast

It’s a live episode straight from San Francisco with regulars CJ, Phil and Greg Ford plus Shane Bettenhausen and another mystery guest who pops in halfway through. This week we chat about GDC, Nintendo and what we’ve been playing, which includes Punch-Out, Excitebots, Batman Arkham Asylum, Terminator Salvation, Henry Hatsworth, Noby Noby Boy and much more. You’ll just have to listen and find out.

Plus, in an upcoming episode we’re doing Ys Book I & II for our Game Club. You can find all the information here.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:37:18
Direct download: 03_30_09-Episode127a.mp3

This week’s links:

FF to 2:45 for the bitch slapping

Ghostbusters/Pac-Man shirt

Once Upon Atari

Chris Johnston Episodes, Uncategorized episode, podcast

Ys, the ideal utopia. Once a country so peaceful and prosperous, a country where children were as free as the wind. A country where harmony blew through the hearts of all men.

Ys, a kingdom ruled by the wisdom and charity of its six powerful priests. An empire watched over and blessed by the enchanting aura of its two beautiful goddesses.

Ys, the seemingly tranquil paradise, suddenly pulled from the height of its civilization to the empty abyss of infinite isolation.

How could such a land of promise simply vanish from the face of the planet? How could such prosperity be forgotten?

The legend has been silenced for over seven hundred years. And now the mystery unfolds.

After our Beyond Oasis Game Club, we’ve decided to keep the action-RPG train going with Ys: Book I & II (for the record, it’s pronounced “ease,” not “whys”). This was one of the very first console games to be released on CD in the U.S. back when it came out for the TurboGrafx-16. The series has earned a lot of fans over the years, but will newcomers to the series enjoy the simplistic “run into enemies to damage them” combat system? That’s what we wanna find out.

Since most of you probably don’t have a TurboGrafx to play the original on, your best best is to get the game through the Wii’s Virtual Console (only 800 Wii Points, and you can now play it straight off an SD card!). Atlus also recently released a graphically updated version of the game(s) for the Nintendo DS under the title Legacy of Ys: Book I & II. You won’t get the true old school Ys experience playing this version, but if that’s all you got, then go for it.

We’ll be discussing this game in episode 131. In the meantime, get playing and get us your comments and/or memories. As always, you can post them on this blog, in the forums, drop us an email, or leave a voicemail (713-893-8069).

Ye Olde YouTube Links:
Intro Sequence
Gameplay Footage

Phil Theobald Game Club, Video Games Falcom, game club, RPG, turbografx, Virtual Console, Ys

This week! Format change! We switch things up a bit and do feedback (including playing a voicemail line call–GASP!), news and the tried-and-true What’cha Been Playing segment. Games we talk about include Resident Evil 5, Killzone 2, Street Fighter IV, Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid Touch, Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, Phantasy Star Portable, Final Fantasy III DS and Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:49:46

Direct download: 03_23_09-Episode126.mp3

This week’s extras:

Chris Johnston Episodes episode, podcast

UPDATE: Been over a week now. My repair request is still in line to be processed.

Greg Sewart Uncategorized rrod, xbox

In this episode! Games! Games! Games! But not really much talk of Resident Evil 5 and Killzone 2 (sorry). No, instead we’ve got Peggle, Gradius ReBirth, Street Fighter IV, GTA IV Lost and the Damned, Kameo, Major League Baseball 2K9, Phantasy Star Portable and more!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:20:46

Direct download: 03_16_09-Episode125.mp3

Chris Johnston Episodes

Quick update here on a Sunday night. There’ll be a slight delay on episode 125. I’ll be uploading it tomorrow night instead. Sorry, was traveling this weekend and haven’t had a chance to edit this week’s show.

Chris Johnston Uncategorized delay, episode

Over the years, I have developed an odd relationship with the Rare-produced, Nintendo-published NES game, Anticipation. As longtime listeners of the show know, that game was the catalyst that led to me going on an angry, youthful rant against my mother in January, 1989. This story was chronicled way back in episode 41 (skip forward to the 1:06 mark to hear it), and I later followed that up with a formal apology to my mother in episode 114 (skip to the 1:19 mark).

On my birthday in 1989, this is what I saw staring up at me.

Long story short: I really, really wanted the NES game Blaster Master for my 14th birthday. With the newly released Blaster Master sold out everywhere, my mother instead got me Anticipation. When I upwrapped my birthday gift, which I had assumed was Blaster Master, I was livid. And by “livid,” I mean “an assholish junior high brat who chews out his own mother.”

Twenty years later, Kirbutashi and some other listeners made me this birthday present.

Sure, it made me a terrible son, but it makes for a funny story. If CJ has his Bubsy 3D, I have my Anticipation.

Just when I thought that all the Anticipation jokes had been made, the mailman knocks on my door today and drops off a package for me. I had not ordered anything from eBay in a while, so I was a bit confused as to what this mysterious box would contain. Then it hit me.

Weeks ago, one of our lovely Player One listeners, a fellow who goes by the hacker alias ness08, contacted me to tell about a “present” that he had for me. Could this be it?

Opening the box, I found a note that read (in part):

“(I) know you said you collect Nintendo games, and heard you like this game, so hope you enjoy. Please keep up the great podcast!”

I began tearing through the layers of bubble wrap and quickly realized that ness08 had sent me a boxed copy of Anticipation! Curse him! Must this game follow me to my grave?! Still, it was a pretty funny gesture. Since I do collect NES games, I did eventually get another copy of the game, but it was just the cartridge–I don’t own the game’s box. Now I do. That’s pretty funny.

It wasn’t until I stripped off the final layer of bubble wrap that I got the real joke. This wasn’t just a boxed copy of Anticipation. This was a sealed copy of Anticipation! As is unopened. As in brand-spanking, straight-out-of-1989 new. As in still-has-that-little-hangy-tag-on-it. Where did he find this thing?

Amazing. I must have laughed for a minute straight just looking at the damn thing. Amazing.

In the little world that I’ve created for myself, I like to imagine that this is the very same copy of the game that I made my mother return all those years ago come back to haunt me once again. I know that the odds of this are somewhat low, but there’s always that chance.

Kudos to you, ness08. You have certainly made my day. I’ve already got the game up on eBay, and I will be using the money I get from the sale to buy a sealed copy of Blaster Master.

I’m kidding, of course. I would never part with this thing. It’s the surest way to keep anyone else from ever having to play it.

We really have the best listeners. Thanks!

Phil Theobald Video Games Anticipation, birthday, Blaster Master, NES, nintendo

It’s a long episode this week, but hopefully you’ll find it entertaining. Kenneth “Slim” Miller joins the lineup of CJ, Phil and Greg Sewart this week to talk about Street Fighter, arcades, Watchmen and video games. More specifically, we discuss game tapes like Street Fighter IV, Bomberman Live, House of the Dead Overkill, Peggle DS, Top Trumps: Doctor Who, Watchmen The End is Nigh, Legacy of Ys Books I & II, Mass Effect, Star Ocean 4, Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop, Phantasy Star Portable (or more specifically, the PS3′s AdHoc Party app) and more! Plus we’ve got a Game Club segment all about Beyond Oasis.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 2:20:06

Direct download: 03_09_09-Episode124.mp3

This week’s music:
“There Are Only 152 Pokémon” by PlayItLoud!
“Leviathan” by Falco Lombardi
“…..Its OK You’re Safe Now” by Falco Lombardi
“The Dine and Dash” by morgieporgie

Chris Johnston Episodes, Game Club episode, game club, podcast

Maybe you’ve noticed in the past month or so that the New Xbox Experience has been hit with a case of lag. It can be pretty bad, and I’ve found that it’s most noticeable right when you power-up the system and either try to bring up your friends list (say, so you could join them for a game of Street Fighter right away) or launch one of your recently played games from your Quick Launch menu.

Tonight I decided to make a little YouTube vid of the slowness I’ve been seeing in the NXE. To preface this, I’m using the Microsoft-produced Xbox 360 wifi dongle (hooked up through the HD-DVD drive’s USB) which communicates to an Apple Time Capsule wifi router that’s hooked directly to my Comcast cable modem.

Chris Johnston Video Games nxe, Xbox 360, youtube

[NOTE: Since CJ has been slowly republishing previous posts from his personal blog here, I figured that I would do the same. I'll occasionally be posting some of the more interesting entries from my now not-really-used 1UP blog.]

Despite having plenty of competition in the form of the Sega Genesis, the name Nintendo was pretty synonymous with video games back in 1990. Thanks in no small part to Super Mario Bros. 3, the Nintendo Entertainment System was still holding its own against Sega’s 16-bit machine.

Helping to keep the Nintendo hype train going that year was the Nintendo World Championship, a massive video game tournament that was held in over two dozen cities across the U.S. Nintendo nerds would flock to the event to check out tons of NES games (including some titles that hadn’t been released yet), enjoy some Nintendo-themed activities, and potentially compete in the big game competition. For a kid back in those days, this event was a little slice of heaven.

As we were big Nintendo nerds, my friend Jim and I attended the Chicago NWC. Since we were only 15 at the time, Jim’s mom had to drop us off at the event, but admittedly, a videogame tournament isn’t really someplace at which you need to worry about looking cool. The only games I remember playing at the show are Pinball Quest (which I recall enjoying significantly more at the show than when I rented it months later) and Wrath of the Black Manta (which I quickly deemed as not nearly as good as Ninja Gaiden).

I also remember having a 5-10 minute conversation with a Nintendo Game Counselor, one of the good folks you would call when you needed tips on beating a game (I had to call for advice on beating Judge Doom at the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). Like most kids, I was fascinated with the concept of “playing videogames for a living,” and grilled this poor guy about how I could go about getting such a dream job. In my youthful naiveté, I’m pretty sure I asked him what I would need to study in college to land that Game Counselor gig.

He was quite a nice guy, and he seemed genuinely pleased to be talking to a bunch of kids that wanted his job. He was also nice enough to not bother explaining that we really didn’t need a degree to flip through giant binders so that we could tell kids that “Dodongo dislikes smoke” means to throw bombs at the things.

Of course, the main attraction of the NWC was the tournament, which you actually had to pay extra to compete in. At the time, I didn’t want to waste my money competing because I knew that I wouldn’t win. Now, however, I wish that I had dropped the $5 or whatever the cost was just for the experience. Jim entered the contest, though, so I was able to do a little cheering from the sidelines (he lost anyway).

The contest consisted of playing a timed version of a special NES cartridge. The game began by making the player collect 50 coins in Super Mario Bros. and then completing a race in Rad Racer. Once those were finished, the players ran out the clock by playing Tetris. When time ran out, the scores from the three games was tallied up, and the highest scorer moved on to the next round.

The interesting part of all this is that the semi-finalists in the contest were given a copy of the NWC tournament cartridge. The carts are the standard NES gray with a black and white label and a small hole cut into it where you could access a few DIP switches. The switches allowed you to alter the amount of time that you had to play the three games. There were 90 of these carts given out to contestants, and 26 more carts were given out to winners of a Nintendo Power contest. The Nintendo Power carts had a fancier label and were housed in a Zelda-esque gold cartridge.

Not surprisingly, these NWC carts (especially the gold ones) have become incredibly valuable over the years. When one shows up for sale, they go for thousands of dollars. This, of course, puts them well out of the price range for your average gamer, but thanks to the good folks at RetroZone, anyone can pretend that they’re competing in the Nintendo World Championship.

The company has created a reproduction cartridge of the NWC cartridge, complete with adjustable DIP switches, and it’s being sold for only $55. Sure, it’s a bit expensive, but it’s considerably cheaper than what you’d pay for the real deal. The game even comes with a box and an instruction book featuring high score tips from NWC finalists, Rich Ambler and Thor Aackerlund.

To insure that no one tries to pass off this repro cart as a legit version, the cart is housed in a snazzy, clear blue shell. The DIP switches are even located in a different position than on the real cartridges.

The repro cart has been around for a while now, but RetroZone seems to manufacture small numbers of them in bursts. They’ve been out of stock for ages now, but the other day, they put more up for sale on their site. I quickly ordered one, and it arrived a couple days ago.

As an NES junkie, I’m very pleased to have this goodie in my collection. Sure, it’s not as impressive as having an actual NWC cart, but I’m not so nuts that I’m gonna drop a few grand on truncated versions of games that can be bought for a couple of bucks each. This version will do (for now). Special Bonus!!! - On my first attempt at playing the game (using the official NWC time limit of 6 minutes, 21 seconds), I scored a whopping 223,790. Considering that the highest score during the finals was 2,809,995, it was probably for the best that I didn’t enter back in ’90…

Phil Theobald Video Games NES, nintendo, RetroZone, Thor Aackerlund, World Championship