I already forgot what we talk about in this one.
Welcome to a (relatively) short news edition of Nerds Without Pants! Julian was on vacation when we recorded this, and is still in “away” mode as this goes up, so please excuse the brief show notes this week
30 years ago today, Sega's blue blur made his debut.
By 1990, Sega was enjoying newfound success with their new 16-bit Genesis system. It quickly became a competent competitor to the NES with popular titles like Golden Axe, Phantasy Star II, and Revenge of Shinobi. But despite the rising success of the Genesis, the platform didn’t have a brand character that could rival Super Mario. Tasked with creating such a mascot, character designer Naoto Oshima came up with Sonic- a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog was released on June 23, 1991- two full months ahead of the Super Nintendo’s debut in America. It was a big summer for Sega, and today marks the 30th anniversary of the moment that made them an icon in the home console gaming space.
Edging for fun and pleasure!
Welcome to another episode of Nerds Without Pants! This week, we talk about our favorite edgelords in video games! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been edging for the past two weeks and I’m about to pop. Wait…that’s not what edgelord means? Oh. Oh no. Um, we also have Joey aka Superstep on and determine who wins when Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon takes on Brave Fencer Musashi in the steel cage.
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.
Or: super late E3 predictions.
Welcome to a weird episode of Nerds Without Pants! Due to scheduling issues, this episode was recorded a week before E3 2016, but you are listening to it after that event has taken place. Don’t think about it too hard; time is wibbly-wobbly, as the Doctor would say.
