Horror 101 Episode 6: Alien (1979)
By listener request (but also because they love the film themselves) Fred and Jam delve deep into the Nostromo to cover Ridley Scott’s Alien from 1979. Plenty of discussion about what separates the film from others in the franchise, why it’s considered a horror movie, and a slew of information from behind the scenes.
Podcast: The First Annual GH101 Game of the Year Awards (1996)
Everyone’s got a bunch of Game of the Year award shows starting around this time, but how many can say they are celebrating the titles that came out 20 years ago. Fred and Jam take a bunch of retro games, a bunch of retro categories, and make the award show we should have gotten in 1996 but never did.
Podcast: Celebrating 15 Years of Xbox
It’s about two weeks late, but the original Xbox is 15 years old now and we figured it was high time to celebrate. As the first attempted console/PC hybrid, there’s a lot to say and talk about surrounding the history, development, and release of the original Xbox. Fred and Jam go through all of it, including the launch titles and gaming enthusiast opinions, before finishing strong with a slew of notable games for Microsoft’s first console.
Horror 101 Episode 5: Thankskilling (2009)
This week Fred and Jam forego knowledge, class, and anything else to watch the trashy horror film Thankskilling. If you’ve never seen it, you should. If you’re feeling lucky, go ahead and give this approx hour long episode a listen as Fred filtered in plenty of the movie’s dialogue. It’s a blast, but one you should probably watch along with the film.
Cross Talk: Nintendo Has Completely Lost Touch With Retail, Black Friday Proves This
This sign was in several store windows on Black Friday in the KC metro.
Nintendo is on somewhat of a rebound this year. After putting the Wii U to bed both with a lack of releases and acting as if the console didn’t exist after the fall, Nintendo came out with the announcement of the Switch – its newest console slated for a March 2017 release – and a long Direct that detailed several other projects to release until then. Of those products one of the bigger announcements was a Black Friday only limited edition 3DS in both black and white colors that would be available at all major retailers for the low price of only $100. For those who haven’t pulled the trigger on the New 3DS but still want one and all those parents still glaring at the then $200 price point of the portable, this was a godsend. $100 is that sweet spot for many families in the gaming world where an item becomes a potential Christmas present. The fact that it would be so widely available and that the smiling faces of Nintendo as a whole indicated anyone who wanted one could have it this holiday season was great news. For most, however, it’s become a freaking nightmare. Why? Nintendo issued so little stock of these items that they sold out in minutes across the country on Black Friday and for most retailers I asked in the Kansas City metro, has become the bane of both customers and retail employees this holiday season.
Podcast: Mario Kart 64 vs. Diddy Kong Racing Game Club
Two notable racers on the Nintendo 64 are always compared: Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. While more than 6 months separated the games in the US (and even more in Japan), they basically came out together in Europe and have always been compared. Jam and Fred discuss the development and gameplay of each before jumping into the dangerous waters of comparing the two.
Click here to read Drew’s original post comparing the two.
Donkey Kong 64 Review
If Nintendo and Rare had an agenda through subliminal messaging then I present to you the game that is the king of repetition: Donkey Kong 64.
As always I like to delve into my personal history with this game. I got the N64 for my birthday as a surprise present from my two older brothers and I was a happy camper. It came with Banjo Kazooie and I was quite smitten with this game. The 3D levels and exploration where just fascinating and I had a fondness for the weird repetitive noises the characters made when their dialogue boxes appeared. Banjo Kazooie turned out to be a very evil game maybe even worse than smoking because it was probably my first venture into a collecting style game. Where in order to progress in the game you have to collect multiple items to get further and further until you finish the game and then you are left to go cold turkey, cold and shivering in the corner. Where do I go from here with my life? Why am I here? Sorry, I got distracted. So these collecting games were huge especially on N64. Mario 64 did this (even though I didn’t play this till a lot later). Over on the Playstation the Spyro series did this (very well in my opinion go listen to that podcast and read the review, please). Rare worked on Banjo Kazooie and I think they must have thought, “how can we take collecting to the next level?” and “what can we do with that Donkey Kong fellow?” Well along came Donkey Kong 64 which is a game that took the collecting concept and turned it up to the max and beyond. I brought this game (with the required expansion pack) and was expecting a nice casual collecting experience. Instead I ended up getting a monkey rap song in my head, which still leaves an imprint on my consciousness to this day and venturing on a collecting journey which took me well over a year to finish in its entirety. I left the cave that was my room with my first fully grown beard ready to return to reality and life again having never looked back since, until this game club. Now jokes aside I actually really liked this game a lot back in the day and it wasn’t the only one I played throughout the year. This was actually a common pattern for me oddly with N64 titles. Even Orcarina of Time took me over a year of on and off playing, I was just that type of gamer then. Donkey Kong 64 felt like a title I really got my moneys worth, not only because it was long but because I got the expansion pack which enhanced some of my other games like Turok 2 (any excuse to mention this game). Sadly I lost my N64 collection to one of my brothers who probably went on to sell the collection so I lost my original copy and my 101% save file. So to prepare for this Game Club I decided to go for the WiiU virtual console version and bravely start from scratch and try to finish this game in a month instead of a year. But that’s enough excessive babbling about my history its time to review this game today.
Podcast: Gameboy Top 10
As is per usual for us here at GH101, 40 games enter (20 from each host), and 10 leave. It’s nostalgic, it’s arbitrary, we may annoy due to the lack of Pokemon, but it’s our official Top 10 Gameboy games.
The Big PS4 Pro Analysis Post
Despite being a retro enthusiast, I’m also a massive tech fan as my side project has suggested. As such I recently picked up a Playstation 4 Pro and ran it thoroughly through its paces. I tested most things I could think of: different games, different hard drives, different TVs (yes, 1080p and 4K HDR), and I kept my launch PS4 to compare with everything. With that in mind, I think we should open with getting the simple decision out of the way for those that apply, because a majority of this post is about changes and upgrades for existing owners – which Sony is hesitant to admit is the true target for the Pro. If you do not own a Playstation 4 and want to purchase one this holiday season, the decision is really up to you. A slim is a rock solid purchase for anyone who doesn’t own a 4K TV (and possibly even for those that do) and it’s completely serviceable. I was pleased with my vanilla PS4. If you want to upgrade to Pro you simply need to consider how much that $100 is of value to you for potential future proofing (although Sony has vehemently sworn to not allow Pro exclusive games), the prospect of better performance with VR, support for 4K and HDR, and games can run/look better if support is added. Games press likes to pretend this is a no-brainer, but frankly $100 is almost two games (possibly 3 around the holiday season) and if you don’t plan on upgrading to 4K or VR, there’s little reason to pick the Pro if saving money or getting more games is your priority. I’d also like to interject that articles comparing the Xbox One S and Playstation 4 Pro are completely without value. I have both and they should not be compared. The Xbox One S upscales to 4K (but at no visual difference to games), adds HDR (and I have yet to see anything too impressive), and supports 4K Blu Ray, so in truth it’s an Xbox One that adds 4K Blu Ray support and HDR. The Pro is a hardware boost that makes games either run faster or look better (or both), improves resolution beyond 1080p before upscaling to 4K (more on that later), and adds a much more substantial HDR in games that have supported it. Astoundingly, however, the PS4 Pro does not support 4K Blu Ray movie playback. For that reason it’s not apples to apples, that comes next year with Scorpio. It’s also a weird time for PC gaming because not only is HDR almost devoid of this conversation on PC (4K PC monitors don’t currently support HDR), but I feel important factors for myself like surround sound and even quality of the port are a consistent issue on PC whereas this is much less the case on current consoles. With all that in mind, here’s my analysis of the Playstation 4 Pro.
Horror 101 Episode 4: Halloween II (1981)
As is often the case with horror movies, there are sequential movies that are all related to one another and we think it’s best to keep them together. In the case of Halloween, the sequel is so connected that it literally begins where the first movie ends. Jam and Fred discuss the sordid tale of why this film does not quite live up to the original, but why it is worthwhile nonetheless. Queue up your copy and join us for our running commentary of Halloween II.
Gaming History 101 