The Paunch Stevenson Show trip to the Digital Press video game store!
In this episode:
- singing hobos in Newark, NJ,
- graffiti,
- memories of our horrible practice recordings in mid 2005,
- auto racing and kart racing,
- the Digital Press video game store in Clifton, NJ (www.digitpress.com),
- terrible Super Nintendo Entertainment System games (Street Combat, Batman Forever, Pit-Fighter, etc.),
- good Super Nintendo Entertainment System games (Super Punch-Out!!, Super Mario Kart, Joe & Mac, etc.),
- Data East,
- Bad Dudes inside a Rush ‘n Attack cartridge,
- the trade-in value of Baseball for the Nintendo Entertainment System,
- the Kiss video game Kiss: Psycho Circus- The Nightmare Child,
- outlandish Transformers (2007) movie prop auctions on eBay,
- new reality TV shows (Hey Paula, Scott Baio Is 45…and Single, etc.),
- and Willie Aames.
Download this episode:
30 minute MP3 file – 13.7 MB (right-click to save)
Listen to this episode:
Ahh. Bad Dudes. How can a game be bad when the opening screen
states. “The president has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a
bad enough dude to rescue the president.” Batman Forever was
terrible too. I couldn’t get out of the circus when I rented it from
Blockbuster. Battletoads was a great NES game, however it was
hard as hell.
It’s interesting how some video game developers consistently produced polished, well produced, fun games and other developers continually released glitchy, unplayable garbage. How did those companies manage to stay in business for so long? Why didn’t they hire talented, creative people?
I’m glad Acclaim/LJN and Data East are both out of business now. There were a handful of good video games made by them (Side Pocket, Joe & Mac, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion), but the vast majority were a waste of money.
Acclaim released some decent stuff post-NES (NBA Jam, Burnout, wrestling games).
Their work on all those licensed NES titles was terrible, but at the time, there wasn’t much of a push for quality games. If the games sold X amount, that was the barometer. By licensing those movies, they were guaranteed a certain amount of sales. Remember, back in 1987, anything on the NES was considered impressive, given 10 years almost of Atari 2600 for most people. I don’t think you can get away with that anymore. Then again, try playing Terminator on Xbox.
PS: Funny how driving to the store, I said there was no chance you’d find Castlevania IV there, and then that is what you bought. D’oh on my part.
“PS: Funny how driving to the store, I said there was no chance you’d find Castlevania IV there, and then that is what you bought. D’oh on my part.”
The good news is, Super Castlevania IV was actually Super Castlevania IV, unlike my experience with Rush ‘n Attack/Bad Dudes.
The bad news is, you bought Rad Racer for the NES, but couldn’t get it to work. It’s rare that an old cartridge doesn’t work, especially after cleaning it. Another case of the Paunch luck!
Well, the store was nice enough to give me one which did work, but yes that is rare. I’ve come across old Atari cartridges where the innards of the cartridge were broken. Only once have I had a game board that didn’t work, and that was my original Donkey Kong for 2600, which strangely just quit working years ago.
I really liked the feel of this episode. I guess it was the podcast equivalent of a road trip/buddy movie with you two together. It was like I was in the car with you guys. Maybe it was the low swooshing of the air outside the car in the background that gave this a real live feel also. Most of the time when podcasts hit the road it’s an audio disaster but this sounded great.
i’d love to hear out-takes and practice recordings – i think that would be really funny and interesting.