Mission failed: John was annoyed.
Hey folks! This episode of Nerds Without Pants was recorded while Julian was on vacation, so this is a very mediocre endeavor. Anyway, on to the show!
This Stage Select was a mistake.
Oh, hi! Xavier joins us for another rip-roarin’ episode of Nerds Without Pants. This week, our listeners throw the Stage Select concept in the trash and opt instead for personal attacks on Julian and Justin. Also, is Digimon Survive the game of the year??? And, listen to Justin somehow not understand the concept of JRPGs.
No, no, no.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! We’re coming in a bit late this, time, because Julian got real dang sick after we recorded. Thankfully you won’t notice that in the episode, and it’s a pretty good one, even if we didn’t have much new to say this week.
Oh, Kenneth.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! We don’t have anything new to talk about when it comes to what we’ve played, but Justin rises to the challenge by debuting not one, but two new segments. We also begin the semi-finals of the Video Game Cage Match championship tournament. Spread it on!
The Street Fighter
Sometime in May 1986, Japanese arcades saw the release of a brawler called Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun (roughly meaning Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio in English). It stars Kunio- a miscreant high schooler fighting for a classmate being picked on by rival gangs. The game is notable for being the first brawler to feature an urban setting and introduced many trademarks common to the genre- a tough guy protagonist, themes of street justice, generic thugs, female villains, and so on. The game underwent significant revisions for its Western release and subsequent NES port, including a name change to Renegade and the story wholly disconnected from its source material.
It's the Clerks of horror.
It’s the spoopy time of year, which means it’s time for Halloween Havoc on Nerds Without Pants! We are once again joined by show co-founder and horror writer Rob Ottone to talk about game characters and creatures that scare us. Also: Resident Evil 4 takes on Dead Space 2 in the steel cage!
Gatsby, old boy, that's a fine go-kart you have there!
Welcome, to another Nerds Without Pants that, despite hardly having any listener interaction, still snuck past the three-hour mark. I don’t know, y’all. This is the reality you have created for yourselves. We won’t be held responsible. You fell in love in the first place.
A lot of parentheses this episode.
It’s another massive episode of Nerds Without Pants. Don’t blame me, this is all Justin’s fault. No time to get pithy, here we go!
Journey to the belly of the beast.
If you ever want to know how Konami became so successful, just look at their arcade history of the 1980s. Not only were the games entertaining, but there was also a good chance that their best hits would appear on NES and a wealth of other home consoles. Life Force was no exception. Released initially as Salamander in Japan 35 years ago today, the game came to America as Life Force and received an NES port two years later.
In space, it's always cicada season.
If you live anywhere in the northeastern United States like me, your space is likely being invaded by the periodical cicada brood this time of year. After experiencing the terror of having one smack me in the eye the other day, I realized that these critters share some interesting commonalities with the insects in the arcade classic Galaxian. They’re red-eyed, noisy in groups, and will eagerly dive-bomb you as if “Ride of the Valkyries” were blasting in the background. If you told me cicadas were the inspiration behind this game, I’d totally believe you.
