Call me queen!
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! This week, we are joined by Danny, a former Gamefellas coworker of Julian’s, and a very knowledgeable classic game collector. We have a packed show for you this time, so let’s get to it!
The Backloggers return for more Castlevania.
Backloggers Anonymous returns for a special Halloween episode featuring Super Castlevania IV. Join us as Casey and Catherine create a theory tying everything to wall meat, while Blake explains his beef with this game.
The dark, gritty reboot of Halloween Havoc!
Holy pumpkins, Batman! It’s the 100th episode of Nerds Without Pants! How the hell did that happen? How are we still doing this? How are people still listening to us? That is one of those unanswered questions, like how candy corn is still a thing. Join us for…well, a pretty standard edition of Nerds Without Pants, if we’re being honest!
Take a walk on the fringe!
Welcome to a spooooky special edition of Nerds Without Pants! Okay, actually not that spooky, but Julian is joined by Jordan Bonaparte, the creator and host of The Night Time Podcast. Jordan produces an incredible show that deals with the fringe, the weird, true crime, and more, and Julian has a great time talking to him about a ton of different topics.
Switch vs. Smach
So it's a pretty safe assumption that you've heard about the Nintendo Switch by now. Nintendo is finally combining their handheld and console hardware into one risky gamble for their next platform. With this comes discussions on how it will compete with the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and mobile platforms to carve its own niche, but did you know there is also another dedicated handheld releasing in Spring 2017? Yes, even though Sony may or may not release another handheld, there is a new contender to take their place with the Smach Z, a handheld dedicated to playing Steam games, as well as other PC titles with some troubleshooting. So why not see what new ventures gaming on-the-go will bring us this next year?
Capcom’s strange, yet strangely compelling series returns.
“Well Mr. Wright, would you care to explain how the witness could been at the crime scene during this time?”
The key to the future of Mass Effect is in its past.
We are fast approaching November 7, which in recent years has been marked as “N7 Day” by EA and BioWare, and is usually a celebration of all thing Mass Effect. We’ve done things for N7 Day in the past, and I’m sure we will this year, as BioWare is set to finally show off the upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda in a big way. Considering that the game is expected early next year it’s a little worrisome that we have seen so little of it by now. With that being the case, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at my favorite game in the series: the first Mass Effect. That game had some serious issues, but instead of fixing those issues for Mass Effect 2, BioWare’s solution was to throw most of them right out the window. So let’s take a look at some of those problems with the original Mass Effect. I will identify the major issues, explain what BioWare’s solution was, and provide an alternative fix that I hope makes its way into Andromeda.
The Nintendo Switch will debut in March 2017 and offers a hybrid, cart-driven console that can be docked or played on-the-go.
We can rebuild it. We have the technology.
As video game enthusiasts, we tend to want sequels to be these huge shifts from the previous iteration of a series, sporting tons of new features and locations while retaining the core concepts that made the game fun in the first place. It’s a tall order, and obviously some sequels nail this formula while others miss the mark entirely. Then there are games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which is “just” more of the same mechanics and progression as seen in 2011’s Human Revolution. While there is little to set Mankind Divided apart from its predecessor that isn’t a bad thing, is it?
I channel my inner '90s mascot attitude and explore a recent troubling trend.
At last year’s PAX East I attended a panel hosted by one of the marketing magicians for Sega of America in the '90s, Al Nilson. At that panel I got up to ask a question about the NEMO project he worked on in the late '80s, but before I did I told this quick story about the time I borrowed the first Sonic the Hedgehog game off my friend when it was first released: While I was at home being blown away by the technical achievement of Sonic Team’s new baby, my friend called me and said his mother was mad he lent out his new game and was making him come by in a couple hours to pick it up. Since my time was now limited to how much of this amazing new game I was going to be able to play, I decided to hunker down and try to beat the game before he came to get it. I focused and played as carefully as I could. I ended up beating the game without continuing and with all the Chaos Emeralds. I had the honor of telling Al Nilson it was one of the best "Gaming Zen" moments of my life. He appreciated my story and my love for Sonic.
