Just finished episode 160: Memoirs of a Game Counselor and this may be one of my favorite interviews on Retronauts. The conversation was incredibly interesting and had me grinning almost the entire time. Jake Kazdal was great!
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Retronauts Podcast Thread
- Thread starter Dream Machine
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I finished this over the weekend as well, and I agree... what a fascinating interview! I love how he was rewarded for his hard work with random opportunities like running into the guy who did the Sega Rally voiceovers and mentioning that director from Macross Plus to Mizuguchi.
Its been awhile since ive listened to this podcast. Just listened to the Metal Gear Solid 3 episode at work yesterday and loved it. This show has always been great, and man do these episodes take me back. Cant wait for the Metal Gear Solid 4 episode. Im sure hes super busy these days, but I would love to see Shane Bettenhausen come back! But if he cant, Ryan Payton would be a really neat interview/co-host for the Metal Gear 4 episode (imo). Ryan did a great job with the Metal Gear Solid 4 Integral Podcast, I think he could bring a really neat insight into what it was like during that time.
Also listened to a bit of the DOOM episode. Hearing Jeff Green again on a podcast really took me back lol. I had been listening to the Masters of Doom audio book at work, and this was a really neat episode that was able to bring some new insight, along with hearing the journalist perspective around that time from Jeff Green.
I grew up with the 1up show, 1up Yours, Active Time Babble, GFW Radio, and of course the old Retronauts. Thank you JeremyParish so much for doing this podcast!
Also listened to a bit of the DOOM episode. Hearing Jeff Green again on a podcast really took me back lol. I had been listening to the Masters of Doom audio book at work, and this was a really neat episode that was able to bring some new insight, along with hearing the journalist perspective around that time from Jeff Green.
I grew up with the 1up show, 1up Yours, Active Time Babble, GFW Radio, and of course the old Retronauts. Thank you JeremyParish so much for doing this podcast!
The second most misleading 8-bit box art title presentation right after The Castlevania Adventure... I mean, Castlevania: The Adventure.
I always found lost levels to not be that bad. Leaning about hidden blocks, and which mushrooms were poisoness is no different then learning attack patterns in a shmup, or a boss fight.
Plus if you got a game over, you could continue from that exact stage.
Getting from 8-1 to beating 8-4 on 5 lives and getting to Bowser still big because getting past him small in 8-4 is fucking impossible is a million times harder then anything in Lost Levels.
It's not that much harder than save stating your way through on an emulator.
Plus if you got a game over, you could continue from that exact stage.
Getting from 8-1 to beating 8-4 on 5 lives and getting to Bowser still big because getting past him small in 8-4 is fucking impossible is a million times harder then anything in Lost Levels.
It's not that much harder than save stating your way through on an emulator.
Lost Levels was I guess a neat discovery at the time, but I've never really enjoyed playing it. Super Mario Bros 2, on the other hand, was always special. When I got my NES and somehow ended up just owning SMB1 and 3, renting or borrowing from neighborhood friends was the only way to play SMB2 for the longest while, so it ended up being one that I have a lot of nostalgia for just as something that was a rare treat that I only got to enjoy on occasion.
As such, this episode was great for all the good vibes sent towards the better game.
As such, this episode was great for all the good vibes sent towards the better game.
It might be nostalgia talking but to me there is no better box art in the world than Super Mario Bros. 2. I didn't get the NES until 1989 or 1990 and I got SMB/Duck Hunt and SMB 3 with it, so SMB 2 was the game I had to hunt down at rental stores and seeing that box on the wall just entranced me.
I never get tired of Doki Doki Panic jokes where the punch line is every game was called Doki Doki Panic in Japan.
Hey Jeremy & Bob: Are we getting an Octopath Traveler episode? It's begging for a Retronauts take.
Glad to hear that the official Retronauts position is the correct "Lost Levels is dumb Kaizoesque garbage."
(though I still look forward to the episode where you talk about said rubbish game in more depth)
(though I still look forward to the episode where you talk about said rubbish game in more depth)
great episodes recently! well, they are all great but....
The Jake episode was fantastic. Actually met him a few times (he told me he wrote the english text in Rez for the upper left corner when you are hacking) and I think he mentioned he thought Metroid Prime was sent from the future. Didn't know his backstory at Nintendo though, or that he went to Pasadena Art Center. Shmancy. Weird story no one will care about but I work with a guy who was at SoftImage for like 20 years and he went to Japan to train Sega folk on it, and he totally remembers there being one random American dude working there. ha
SMB2 felt like a copy of my mind as a podcast. I too somewhat (like 6 years ago) recently replayed it after downgrading it my mind, but the level design is top notch. My vivid memories are first playing it and not realzing the red thing was a door and being stuck on the first "area" for like ten minutes before pressing up. Also loved the falcon doors, feeding Wart veggies, the whales, the rocket (made me smile in Odyssey as well) and <3 Mouser. Thanks for the Gaijionare link, pretty interesting. Also, yeah I think my final tally when I beat the game as a kid was like toad for 15 levels, mario 1, princes 3, luigi 1 or something like that.
Also the mouse bombs thing... I've been exploring that and some other musine things....
The Jake episode was fantastic. Actually met him a few times (he told me he wrote the english text in Rez for the upper left corner when you are hacking) and I think he mentioned he thought Metroid Prime was sent from the future. Didn't know his backstory at Nintendo though, or that he went to Pasadena Art Center. Shmancy. Weird story no one will care about but I work with a guy who was at SoftImage for like 20 years and he went to Japan to train Sega folk on it, and he totally remembers there being one random American dude working there. ha
SMB2 felt like a copy of my mind as a podcast. I too somewhat (like 6 years ago) recently replayed it after downgrading it my mind, but the level design is top notch. My vivid memories are first playing it and not realzing the red thing was a door and being stuck on the first "area" for like ten minutes before pressing up. Also loved the falcon doors, feeding Wart veggies, the whales, the rocket (made me smile in Odyssey as well) and <3 Mouser. Thanks for the Gaijionare link, pretty interesting. Also, yeah I think my final tally when I beat the game as a kid was like toad for 15 levels, mario 1, princes 3, luigi 1 or something like that.
Also the mouse bombs thing... I've been exploring that and some other musine things....
Jeremy, regarding episode 137, Megumi Hayashibara voiced Rei in Evangelion, not Asuka. I demand a correction and apology in the next episode, else I will be forced to take down my "Superman wears Jeremy Parish pajamas" bumper sticker from my Toyota AE86.
Bob/Jeremy, some feedback: The advance notice so people can travel to them if they want and marketing/promotion(patreon posts, bumpers at the beginning of shows etc) of live events Bob and Henry do for Talking Simpsons is a million times better then what happens with Retronauts.
I really think you need to do a better job of that. You should probably be doing Patreon posts for Mailbag requests and other stuff like that as well. Your Patreon posts basically only have episodes in them, They should be posts with all the other stuff too.
I really think you need to do a better job of that. You should probably be doing Patreon posts for Mailbag requests and other stuff like that as well. Your Patreon posts basically only have episodes in them, They should be posts with all the other stuff too.
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Wow, I look away for a second and I'm 3 episodes behind.
The Jake Kazdal episode was really interesting. Dude seemed to get a lot of lucky breaks, but took advantage of all of them. Good for him.
The Jake Kazdal episode was really interesting. Dude seemed to get a lot of lucky breaks, but took advantage of all of them. Good for him.
I think Jeremy needs to stop ginning him up before every episode.
I haven't finished the episode yet, but I remember Leigh Alexander writing about Irrational, Bioshock Infinite, and rumors she had heard about the game for almost a year.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php
Like many things she was doing about back then, it's well written and prescient of things today in how we cover and talk about games. Some quotes as they pertain to Bioshock Infinite:
Also, I don't think I heard it when you guys were talking about what Levine is up to now, but he was working on a new version of Logan's Run before he was supposedly let go as the studio went and hired a new writer from The Hunger Games, so I imagine his attempt at screenwriting took up a chunk of time (sounds like he stopped working on it in 2015). The movie itself has been in development hell for a while.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211139/Irrational_Games_journalism_and_airing_dirty_laundry.php
Like many things she was doing about back then, it's well written and prescient of things today in how we cover and talk about games. Some quotes as they pertain to Bioshock Infinite:
Also, I don't think I heard it when you guys were talking about what Levine is up to now, but he was working on a new version of Logan's Run before he was supposedly let go as the studio went and hired a new writer from The Hunger Games, so I imagine his attempt at screenwriting took up a chunk of time (sounds like he stopped working on it in 2015). The movie itself has been in development hell for a while.
Finally listened to the MGS3 episode. Does anyone else love how they'll just talk about everything surrounding the game at the time (reviews, press, leadup, etc) and it's legacy? It's kind of like a history lesson!
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He's just giggly, and you guys talk about drinking gin occasionally.
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Well, I didn't mean any offense, and I don't dislike him. Just tried to make an on-brand gin joke.
Between the game counselor episode and me adding various SNES jrpgs to my SNES classic, I think that an episode on Enix's output in the west needs to be in the works. I get the Quintet stuff is probably its own show, but even outside of those titles, Enix was a more prolific publisher than Squaresoft was at the time. Its just their biggest franchise stayed in Japan (the SNES releases) and they've been paying for it since.
Hunh. I used to post this as counterpoint to the Kotaku Silicon Knights "exposé."
To that point, I thought X-Men: Destiny was better than X-Men: The Official Game (X3), Mutant Apocalypse, or Madness at Murder World, really.
Still not a great game, but hyperbole aside not the worst X-Men game. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Came here just to post this. Right at the very end I began to start being a bit bored but everything prior to that I was fucking hooked. His description of working at Nintendo as a counselor in the late 80s was fascinating as all hell!
wow not finished yet, but the interview with the wizardry guy is great. so was brenda romero a warg?
The plato stuff was fascinating, I've come across it before but only in regards to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnd_(video_game) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedit5 in my research into early (and pre!) rogue like games. Seems very ahead of it's time with the plasma, the display, the touch panel.
Not sure if DND was procedural actually..
The plato stuff was fascinating, I've come across it before but only in regards to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnd_(video_game) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedit5 in my research into early (and pre!) rogue like games. Seems very ahead of it's time with the plasma, the display, the touch panel.
Not sure if DND was procedural actually..
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Aw. It was nice to hear Ray on for a reunion Mario 2 episode. Did you guys know in Japan it was called "Doku Doku Picnic"?
I'll mind my tongue.
I can't remember if it was Electronic Games or Atari Age that finally provided the walkthrough to 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark. If Benj says it was EG then I guess so. I do specifically remember discovering a few things about the game entirely on my own, though, like how to get out of the "Temple Room" where touching anything zaps you into the little corner room (by running along the right wall), or where to put the hand grenade to open the hole in the wall, or that holding and playing the flute makes you immune to snake damage. For a kid at the time with no other adventure game experience, this game was a revelation.
For me, though, it was Atari Games' arcade cabinet of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that really got the whole Indy game craze going. I was so desperate to play the thing at home on my 2600 that I mapped out sprites and level design pages for how someone could fit the four stage game into the 160x120 pixel (not really, for vertical, but I didn't know that at the time) resolution of 2600 graphics.
It's still probably one of my favorite arcade games, but then I loved most of the sprite-based Atari Games output from the era: Peter Packrat, Road Runner, etc.
For me, though, it was Atari Games' arcade cabinet of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that really got the whole Indy game craze going. I was so desperate to play the thing at home on my 2600 that I mapped out sprites and level design pages for how someone could fit the four stage game into the 160x120 pixel (not really, for vertical, but I didn't know that at the time) resolution of 2600 graphics.
It's still probably one of my favorite arcade games, but then I loved most of the sprite-based Atari Games output from the era: Peter Packrat, Road Runner, etc.
The first 42 minutes of the Bioshock episode feels like listening to somebody's gossipy aunt snark about their neighbors. All of that could have been presented with a bit more maturity. It's all good to place games within historical context but much of that part didn't feel particularly relevant nor necessary.