Well excuuuuuuse meeeee, princess!
Hey, it’s a Nerds Without Pants spoiler cast! We’ve only done two of these before (for The Last of Us and Batman: Arkham Knight if you’re wondering), but The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild is certainly deserving of its own episode. So that’s what we did.
You Say You Want a Revolution We All Want to Change Valkyria
I have very limited experience with the Valkyria series outside a bit with the second entry I mostly forgot about. I know past titles were turn based strategy that has to player take control of each soldier individually, where it controls more like a shooter. And I can say that Valkyria Revolution is nothing like that, instead going for an action RPG approach while still trying to hold onto its identity.
I made a terrible mistake coming here.
Welcome to our next (an likely final) special from E3 2017! Angelo steps out of the woods and hasn't heard a speck of E3 news, so the bulk of the show is Julian filling him in on everything he's missed. Enjoy the hilarity as Angelo reacts in real time to the Xbox One X, that odd Shadow of the Colossus remake, and the announcement of not one, but two new Metroid games.
Not much new at E3 2017, but maybe we didn't need it.
Let’s face it: while Microsoft has plenty of lost ground to make up for, Sony has been sitting pretty since the beginning of the 8th console generation. Even with the waves being made by the Nintendo Switch, there probably isn’t much that Sony needs to do to keep their position in the market secure. So their E3 presentation this year was a deliberate, measured, and comprehensive volley of games, even if there was little to surprise viewers.
Ninception
If you told me when I was a kid that Super Mario Bros. 2 was merely a localized version of a pre-existing game from Japan, I wouldn’t have believed you. But in fact, that’s precisely what Nintendo did for the US release of the next chapter in the Mario series. This was mostly due to the fact the original Japanese sequel was nearly identical to Super Mario Bros., only with slightly improved graphics. There was also concern that the game’s high difficulty would be off-putting for American audiences. The solution? Take Doki Doki Panic, swap out the main characters, slap a “Super Mario Bros. 2” label on that bad boy, and you’ve got yourself Nintendo’s best-selling game of 1988.
Remember when E3 started on Tuesdays? I do...
Welcome to the first Nerds Without Pants E3 special of the year! It's just Julian and Patrick tonight, and we've got a lot to say about the EA, Microsoft, and Bethesda press conferences!
Those sure are some pretty looking games...
There is no doubt that Microsoft has had a rough, uphill battle since they first showed the Xbox One at E3 2013. Between a misguided push towards an all-digital future and a higher launch price point than the PlayStation 4, the market penetration that MS had with the Xbox 360 seemed to vanish in just a couple short years. With Sony continuing to win with their console and so much positive feedback on the Nintendo Switch, all eyes were on Microsoft for their E3 2017 press conference. Would their widely hyped Project Scorpio hardware be enough to put them back into competition? Only history will tell, but for now, it may be a case of too little, too late.
Or: Cave Johnson: We Hardly Knew Ye
In the final Nerds Without Pants before E3, the Pantsless Ones get together for a slightly modified episode. We’ve still got our Stage Select and Chrono Crossing segments, but Consumption Junction is replaced with our E3 hopes and predictions. This is a fun episode with lots of surprises, so let’s get to it!
Get to the choppa!
Airwolf is one my favorite ‘80s TV shows. Originally airing in 1984 to 1987, the premise centered around a high-tech military helicopter capable of reaching supersonic speeds. In addition to the entertaining action sequences and interesting plot, Airwolf is perhaps best known for having one the most distinctive theme songs of the ‘80s (intro clip included below). Naturally, it was only a matter of time before we would see a video game conversion. There was an arcade version by a company called Kyugo in 1987, but the home console release was only for the Famicom. The NES finally saw its own version of Airwolf when Beam Software developed it with Acclaim as the publisher in 1989- 2 years after the show’s final season. Needless to say, this version had a lot to live up to.
Now It's Persona!
“Style over substance.” A term often applied to a work with strong aesthetics, yet an overall hollow experience. Yet Persona 5 could have offered a story written by George Orwell alongside gameplay deeper than Dark Souls and it still would have been a case of style over substance. The only possible way it could have added any more style points would be if Michael Jackson moonwalked his way to lend a hand in a fight.
