In the ever-shifting landscape of video game development, there are major players and the scrappy underdogs. Kickstarter has given smaller studios a bigger voice, but back in the day before the Internet was a thing, which companies set themselves apart? And which ones have fallen apart since? Sean and Vinnk talk about their favorite publishers and developers of today, the classics of yesteryear, and ponder whatever the heck happened to them. Some evolved, some, disbanded, and some should be put out of their misery. Did your favorites make the list?

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/87

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Before EA, official sports titles were more spread out, and used in all kind of ways. Games like NBA Jam are hard to come by these days (barring updates to NBA Jam). Before annual installments of Year of the Same Game, you had crazy sports game ideas that were one and done. These weren’t simulators, like we have today, but imaginitive riffs on the sports to make up for any technical proficiency that hardware
of the time may have had. And that’s what makes them Rad Sports Games. Vinnk and Sean talk about their favorite titles, including the aforementioned NBA Jam, Punch Out, Bases Loaded (and a bunch of other weird baseball games), and even Scotti Pippen’s Slam City! If you’ve never played it before, why… it sure is something else. Will we ever see their like again? Aside from EA picking up the IP for NBA Jam from Midway, that is…

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/86

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Toy Fair 2014 has come and gone and we have put together some highlights of the MOTU Classics reveals. Read on after the jump for the full news about Rio-Blast, Club Etheria and more!

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Sometimes a game gets a second life on a new platform or console, typically with upgraded graphics, additional sound effects and/or voices, and additional Internet-enabled features only a Millennial could love. Sometimes a familiar name is slapped onto an entirely new game that
seeks to upend the status quo for the franchise and provide a clean slate — usually with a new developer, and sometimes a new publisher —
to begin totally anew. Sean and Vinnk compare video game remakes to reboots, decide which games deserved them, and which actually got them, and which ones they ended up playing and liking anyway.

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/85

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Phil Bond on the subject of f2p gaming: “When you make a game where paying any money whatsoever feels like cheating, that has to be a mistake — right?” Or, as Vinnk puts it, you can pay to play more, or pay to play less. Sometimes both in the same game. Just don’t say that Nintendo should follow this model, or… we’ll say something not nice, or something. Vinnk and Sean trade stories of their particular Free-2-Play addictions (Puzzles and Dragons, and Candy Crush, respectively), and their guilt over never paying any money for these games, leaving it to “whales” to support the entire system. And Vinnk may have inadvertently made his daughter into a gold farmer.

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/84

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While certain “Hardcore” gamers will forever debate whether or not tablet gaming is ‘legitimate’, games like The Room are deep enough for core gamers to appreciate while at the same time providing unique gaming experiences that have mechanics only possible in mobile gaming. The object of the room is to use clues and intuition to unlock a series of devices. You’ll tilt, scroll, and drag objects across the screen of your tablet as you unlock the mysteries of the strange devices you encounter. The game is short in length, although a sequel features even deeper gameplay, and sheds even more light on the secrets of the device.

Spearheading the revival of adventure games, Broken Age Act 1 was released last week on Steam for the Kickstarter backers (and press reviewers). A decision to black out reviews until later in January was reversed only a couple of days after the game came out. Broken Age is just that good. Even though we haven’t finished it (as of recording this episode), we wholeheartedly agree that it will become an instant classic. Sean and Vinnk talk about what killed the adventure game for our generation, revel in its revival thanks to companies like TellTale and Doublefine, and crowdsourcing for an explosion of indie games on websites like Kickstarter. We can’t agree on just what an adventure game is, exactly, but that’s part of the fun, right?

Leave your own voicemail at 608-492-1923, or just share your thoughts in the show notes at FamicomDojo.TV:
http://famicomdojo.tv/podcast/83

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Created by Indie developers Endless Fluff games, Valdis Story is the type of game that would have been a best seller if it had been released on the Playstation, or even the Super Nintendo. Valdis Story’s graphics and sound are a work of art, the story is intriguing, and the Castlevania: Symphony of The Night style gameplay isn’t bad either. Valdis Story began in 2007 as a free game on the developer’s website. The game was given a kickstarter for a full scale release, and the kickstarter was successful, with the game even being greenlighted for Steam this past October. In fact, you might have picked it up for cheap during one of those Steam sales.
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