Content that'll quench ya!
Dim the lights, set the stage – it’s gaming’s biggest night! After Sam swipes right on Nintendo’s clumsy first year in smartphone gaming, David rolls out the red carpet for Cybermania ‘94 – one of the industry’s earliest attempts at an Oscars-style game awards show. There’s surprise star appearances, incredibly stilted comedy bits, and the secret origins of gaming’s strongest warrior, Geoff Keighley. A gala ripe for the picking.
Now the biting makes sense! Unleashed once more from their cellophane wrapping (and accidentally spilling off a bit under the table), Gamer Era RETURNS with a chock-a-block confectionary themed pod! David brings the crunch with a hard-shelled punch-up on the inexplicable M&Ms game “series”, before Sam chews over the surprisingly solid gaming history of Kyoro-chan – the Japanese marketing juggernaut that became so huge he was directly parodied by Nintendo. Chow down, Gamers!
Have you tried blowing on it? As we wrap up this first run of Gamer Era, Sam and David take turns sharing stories around the pixelated campfire, reflecting on editing woes, the emotional gamble of a nostalgic hit, and various highs and lows of producing the show so far. It’s a much smaller and looser episode than usual, but a necessary one as we regroup and prepare to return with a whole new slate of eps in a couple of months’ time. Look forward to it!
You mean the Walkman guys?! Okay, good luck… Sam invites on fellow Nintendo community alum Dylan (@DekuDeluxe) to chat all things PlayStation, and specifically the golden age of creativity in the PS2 days. There’s examinations on Team Ico, Japan Studio, the EyeToy, and big-name executives “doing backflips down the corridor”. There’s also lamentations on what the hell Sony have become in the years since, and our prods and nudges on where they perhaps go from here. Contains no more than the medically-advised dosage of Jim Ryan patter.
The truth is out there… waaaaay out there. Our newest guest, Lucy, is released from the lamp to share the most secret treasures of the venerable Shantae series, before David gives the debrief on some of the world’s oddest cryptid myths, coloured by the tale of the even stranger developer behind the X-Files tie-in game on PS2. It’s all brought together by perhaps the most inexplicable connection on the show so far – and we don’t mean Sam!
Sometimes, the greatest fears come from within… sometimes, you have to know when to stop looking. Join us, on our most noble of expeditions, as we whack through the metaphorical forest brush in search of segment gold. David sticks a big combat knife into the table as he details the acute difficulty in devising a segment (while accidentally creating [REDACTED]), before Sam swoops in to relay the comic book origins of Acclaim’s notorious arrow-slinging mascot, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There’s also a report from the London Gaming Market, and absolutely nothing cursed happens otherwise. Promise?
You’re a kid now – you’re an arachnid now?! SOMEHOW, David has returned… and he brings along tales woven of “spiders-men” and “played stations”. It’s as much of a celebration of the web-slinger’s chequered history as it is a classic rant, true believer! Sam also invites experienced splatmate Kit aboard the good ship Era to talk about the slippery world of Splatoon and the evolving ambition of its single player campaigns. ‘Nuff squid.
WOAH-SHI – it’s a double Yoshi exploshi! David’s taken a step out for this episode (something about “unfinished business”…?), so Sam calls in long-time friend and resident Yoshi expert Muz (@MuzYoshi) to run through all things Munchakoopas. There’s a particular focus on his N64 outing, but we also take the time to run through all the attempts to follow it up in the years since – and where we think it might be headed next. Forgotten details and lore drops abound!
When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city… to see the marching band… or rather, “vaguely aspirational hero characters from the mid-aughts that were marketed to boys of about our age”. Cough. Plenty of deep cuts this ep: David frames a discussion on the titular Action Man in musings on plastic capitalism, while Sam beams a computer-generated spotlight at the BBC’s long-buried kids’ multimedia outfit, Ace Lightning. There’s also our essentially live reactions to the now-infamous “Willy McDuff” scandal from a couple of weeks back. Let the truth be heard that we bought stock early in The Unknown!
It was a day like no other – the winds of trouble blew into my office like a nightmare, and it’d take one hell of a pinch to wake me. The case was double dutch all the way down; pages and pages of total madness. Our first informant, Sam, re-briefed us on one hell of a bad memory from ‘93 – the disastrous alliance of the Philips and Nintendo families. Then, the vigilante David turned the tables – promising us they could finally bring down the Hollywood Noire syndicate with one unassuming link. Could these two crazies have a point? Would it be worth risking it all in the pursuit of justice? What’s that old saying – “where there’s smoke…”?
