Pie Factory Podcast...

[S1500]

I played Future Spy, and it's much more managable. Kind of cool how it shows the "strike zone" for enemies shooting flak into the sky where you have to avoid it being hit. No odd-angled projectile sprite to dodge.

[Inky]

UP with a new Ep!

[Inky]

Uh huh huh

[S1500]

I remember when klov was just a text file. I read through it on a Zeos palmtop while in college. Those were the days.

[Chris++]

I don't remember saying that B&B glorified stupidity. I believe it, though. It sounds like something I would have posted from atop one of my several soapboxes a few years back, before I learned some semblance of tact. Maybe it was just one of those days on which I'd heard too many attempted impersonations.

 

There's a different reason for which I've never found the show funny -- which is an inapt way of wording it, as I made it through half an episode in the '90s and haven't watched it since. The greater part of my school days were spent in Albuquerque, where the guy who came up with the characters is from. I sat near Beavis and Butthead for years. They might have changed names and faces several times, but the familiarity was too great by the time the cartoon arrived. Mine can't possibly be the only city with such guys, of course. You know: skinny metal-heads whose parents won't let them grow their hair long. Those cats always wanted to hang out with me, because I had a band pretty early on, and they thought we were rocker brothers or something. Their dialogue usually consisted of the future cartoons' "Yeah! Heh heh heh." I didn't say anything because I was a quiet kid, and also didn't want to hurt their feelings, in case that was actually possible. (Frankly, I find your impersonations on the show funnier than any actual B&B snippets I've heard over the years!

 

I enjoyed the episode, though, because I find prototype histories fascinating. Superb job, as usual.

 

 

[Inky]

I don't remember saying that B&B glorified stupidity. I believe it, though. It sounds like something I would have posted from atop one of my several soapboxes a few years back, before I learned some semblance of tact. Maybe it was just one of those days on which I'd heard too many attempted impersonations.

 

There's a different reason for which I've never found the show funny -- which is an inapt way of wording it, as I made it through half an episode in the '90s and haven't watched it since. The greater part of my school days were spent in Albuquerque, where the guy who came up with the characters is from. I sat near Beavis and Butthead for years. They might have changed names and faces several times, but the familiarity was too great by the time the cartoon arrived. Mine can't possibly be the only city with such guys, of course. You know: skinny metal-heads whose parents won't let them grow their hair long. Those cats always wanted to hang out with me, because I had a band pretty early on, and they thought we were rocker brothers or something. Their dialogue usually consisted of the future cartoons' "Yeah! Heh heh heh." I didn't say anything because I was a quiet kid, and also didn't want to hurt their feelings, in case that was actually possible. (Frankly, I find your impersonations on the show funnier than any actual B&B snippets I've heard over the years!

 

I enjoyed the episode, though, because I find prototype histories fascinating. Superb job, as usual.

 

 

Thank you drive thru please.

 

Seriously, I recall you having said something to that effect many, many moons ago, but I believe it was during your soapbox days. The fun we had then, eh? lol

 

I still maintain the show is a clever satire on today's society, or at very least evolved that way. Obviously Dauber and I enjoy the show immensely, otherwise we wouldn't beat the impersonations into the ground.

 

"Huh-huh. You said beat."

 

This game has a very interesting history, and we're trying to dig more up on its creation. The other games Atari did at this time - Freeze, Primal Rage 2 (the Primal Rage games are about the only fighting games I like) - share quite a bit of the history. I firmly believe that PR2 and B&B would have been huge hits for Midway had they let development to continue.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Inky

[maibock]

I notice the boys are branching out from their podcast ventures

 

http://www.jimmygsteaks.com/

[Inky]

I notice the boys are branching out from their podcast ventures

 

http://www.jimmygsteaks.com/

Damn, you caught me.

[Dauber]

Possible sponsor?

[S1500]

Now I felt like I should have tried out B&B at Midwest Gaming Classic, just to say I tried it.

[Inky]

Now I felt like I should have tried out B&B at Midwest Gaming Classic, just to say I tried it.

For a prototype, it's pretty good. I'd say it was about 3 months away from release.

[Inky]

New episode! The Simpsons and Road Runner!

[Chris++]

I went from thinking, "Well, that's flattering...they included my post" to "Controversial? Oh, no...what opinionated cogitations did I type this time?" You got me good. That was hilarious!

 

I love Frenzy. I think it's superior to Berzerk (gasp) and even better on the ColecoVision than in the arcade (double gasp): http://www.orphanedgames.com/articles/Frenzy/Frenzy.html

 

(Rivingtons, Trashmen and Cheap Trick references in the same episode! I'd suggest you change your show's name to Retro Obscura, but it seems to be taken.)

 

 

[S1500]

That reminds me, I should try to find a copy of K-Razy Shootout for the 5200. Like I'll ever find that in the wild.

[Dauber]

FWIW, the Rivingtons/Trashmen thing isn't too far a stretch, given that "Surfin' Bird" is a medley of two Rivingtons songs.

[Cynicaster]

I’m always a bit dumbfounded by the amount of veneration that gets heaped on the Simpsons arcade game, so to hear a critical review of it for once is kind of refreshing.

 

With TMNT, even if the game is a mindless button-masher, at least the IP and the play mechanics make sense together. The Simpsons doesn’t even have that going for it.

 

In retrospect, to stretch the Simpsons skin over a beat-em-up engine feels opportunistic and lazy. Instead of the ludicrous notion of an 8 year-old girl beating up grown men with a skipping rope, it would have been cool to have a collection of skill-based mini-games centered around each of the main characters, along the lines of, say, Circus Charlie. With 1991 audiovisuals, some creative game design, progressive difficulty, and a scoring system that is not completely meaningless, a game like that could be fun, not to mention a lot more timeless in its appeal.

 

But, alas, the business case just wouldn’t have been there to do a game like that. For one, it’s a lot more cost effective to retool an existing game than it is to design a whole new one. And by the time 1991 rolled around, the classic skill-based arcade game paradigm was already dead and buried, supplanted by the simultaneous multi-player quarter guzzler.

[S1500]

I've always been soured by "fight & go right" games, since it seems like no matter what you do, the mechanics of the game are stacked against you. I played in 6-player X-Men with all players being used, and still there were some enemies that would be guaranteed to knock health off of you. Just seemed like I was going through the motions, where superior skill in said game would make zero difference. Not really anything to record for Twin Galaxies.

 

Compare this with Gauntlet, where your health runs down so fast, you won't find enough health power ups to keep perpetually playing. It's a nice coincidence that adding more money gives you a boost of 500 health. heh.

[Cynicaster]

I've always been soured by "fight & go right" games, since it seems like no matter what you do, the mechanics of the game are stacked against you. I played in 6-player X-Men with all players being used, and still there were some enemies that would be guaranteed to knock health off of you. Just seemed like I was going through the motions, where superior skill in said game would make zero difference. Not really anything to record for Twin Galaxies.

 

Compare this with Gauntlet, where your health runs down so fast, you won't find enough health power ups to keep perpetually playing. It's a nice coincidence that adding more money gives you a boost of 500 health. heh.

 

^^ exactly

 

They design the games to be, for all intents and purposes, impossible. It's kind of a scam, really.

 

I know the argument could be made that it's not a scam, because regardless if the game is made to be "impossible," you still receive a few minutes of entertainment in exchange for your quarter. In this sense, the arcade company is holding up their end of the bargain. In the context of the day, I agree, and that is probably why I enjoyed those games at the time--I was getting the chance to play games on cutting-edge hardware, in exchange for the whole of my allowance.

 

But when it is viewed through the retro gaming lens all these years later, when there is no business relationship between the game and the player, it's much different. As retro gamers, we're just looking to enjoy some old video games at free-play arcades or on MAME rigs, simply because we enjoy the lost art of those games. Yet, the unsavory artifacts of the "business" side of the transaction are still baked into the game code, killing you every few seconds. At that point, the curtain falls to reveal these quarter-guzzler types for what they are, and we as players find ourselves mashing the "coin up" button almost as vigorously as the "attack" button. Lameness and disillusionment ensue. And then, a move over to the Bosconian machine.

[Dauber]

Hey, uhh.....psssssst.....new episode is out.

[S1500]

What's the "waiting" music? It's so adorably 8-bit.

[Dauber]

It's the music from the Coleco Adam version of Jeopardy!. The Commodore 64 version uses the exact same music but more of a twangy sound in the melody. I don't know about the Adam version, but the bizarre thing about the C64 version is that the actual "Think Music" theme from Jeopardy! is nowhere to be found in the game, but it's on the PC version, which actually came packaged with the C64 version. Go fig.

[S1500]

IIRC the SCTV skit was when the Russianst took over the channel. Was it the sketch where it was to see what other countries can fit in Russia?

[Inky]

IIRC the SCTV skit was when the Russianst took over the channel. Was it the sketch where it was to see what other countries can fit in Russia?

Maybe. It's been a long time since I've seen it.

[Dauber]

Say, uhmmm...if you download episode 33 *before 7:00AM CDT on Friday, June 24* but have *not* listened yet, please re-download it. There was a brief audio issue (not affecting the actual *content* of the show, unless you just can't have a show without "Love Theme From Addenda And Errata") that our wonderful sound engineer Hyde St. Pièrre fixed after it was brought to his attention.

[Chris++]

And here I was going to praise the John Cage-inspired version of "Love Theme from Addenda and Errata"!

 

Anyway, in case you guys don't get time to read the article (understandable), and in case anyone cares to hear about a Frenzy fanatic's concern with minutiae (unlikely), the reason the ColecoVision version is better than the coin-op, according to me, is that you can disable the ARM (Automated Robot Maker?) by shooting it, thus rendering it incapable of creating further enemies. The arcade ARM, on the other hand, is indestructible.

 

Also, of course, the CV conversion isn't ludicrously difficult!