Join us for a celebratory crossover episode with our old friend Brett Elston, who joins us fresh off the 100th episode of VGMpire for a Top 5 about games that pushed the hardware of dying systems to remind us that our old consoles still had legs. Then it’s on to talk about Mario Maker, some confused outrage over Nintendo’s apparent nervousness about 3D, and your most-cherished PlayStation games.
Question of the Week
What’s your single favorite moment from the entire Mario series?
SUPPORT LASER TIME ON PATREON
Theme song by Matthew Joseph Payne. Break song is Angels With Burning Hearts by Naofumi Hataya, as sung by Dennis St. James. Raccoon break music is Laser Time Theme 8-Bit by Matthew Tucciarone and dotflist. Haunting and beautiful New Releases Theme by David B. Cooper.
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If ya haven’t checked out the Laser Time YouTube channel, here’s something swell you might’ve missed!
UPCOMING VIDEO GAME PRE-ORDER BONUSES
Fallout 4 *New*
Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection *New*
-Pre-order for early access to the Uncharted 4 beta, as well as The Nathan Drake Pack, which includes: Uncharted Drake’s Fortune Drake skin, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Drake Skin, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Drake Skin, Wetsuit Drake Skin, Nepal Drake Skin, Golden AK-47, and Golden 92FS.
Mighty No. 9 *New*
-Pre-order Mighty No. 9 to receive the Beck Retro Hero DLC, an Artbook, and Poster; Plus Special Offer for PlayStation 4 Customers
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
-Pre-order for early access to the Black Ops III beta.
Star Wars Battlefront
-Pre-order and get early access to 2 map packs, including one based on The Force Awakens
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
-Pre-order for FREE guaranteed Beta Access
Holy shit, new mobile site! Looks awesome guys, can’t wait for the episodes!
I have NEVER heard the burning rangers song before! jeeeeezuz! that song is incredible!
so 90’s bad. so SO 90’s bad. honestly, I’ve listened to the japanese theme and something tells me the weirdness of the english one stems from literal translation. it’s just too weird NOT to be.
X3 I want to marry that theme song. I want to have its baby.
yes.
Yes, that theme is so horrible I love it. Such cheesy goodness, even more so than NiGHTS, which I love for the same reasons.
I just finished playing it today, actually. The game is so sparse that theme is like, almost the only song, but boy what a song. Man, this game shoulda been higher on the priority list of saturn XBLA ports like NiGHTS and Guardian Heroes. The bad controls and other things makes the game scream “REMAKE ME”.
Thank you VGA for introducing me to this; I’m so glad I played it and will be giving the theme song a permanent spot on my playlist.
YAY FOR BRETT BOT!
Do you know how happy I was to hear an extended discussion of Vectorman? That was my favorite game on the Genesis, and I feel like it never gets the praise it deserves. It still looks gorgeous, even by today’s standards, and was a really fun hybrid of Contra-style shooting, level exploration, and platforming. Great bosses, too. Anyway, great show.
My favorite Mario memory is getting the wing cap for the first time in Mario 64. To this day I still imagine of jumping off of high places and slow gliding to the ground with a magical hat. Also how ripped off I felt after 100 % completing new super Mario bros for Wii and getting absolutely nothing for it.
Clarification regarding Marty O’donnell:
Marty founding member of Bungie, not just an employee. The shares that Bungie and Activision tried to terminate were his shares as a founder. I’m no lawyer, but that seems super shady to me.
As one of the few remaining original staff, I think Marty felt obligated to stand up to Activision when they demanded Destiny’s early release, and wanted to make so many changes to the game itself. It’s a very sad situation.
Ugh, sorry I missed a few words there. I’m writing this at 2am after spending the night working on a programming assignment. Hopefully you understand me as well as my beloved machines do.
QOTW:
Super Mario Bros. – Lost Levels on SNES
As Chris knows from last week’s stream, there are some stupid, insane levels in Lost Levels. In particular, the lettered levels after 8-4, A-1, A-2, etc., all the way up to D-4, another ultra-hard Bowser castle.
While I don’t recall the circumstances exactly, it boiled down to my brother and I taking turns to beat D-4 while waiting for the family to get in the car to go somewhere. We were playing recklessly because we’d probably have to turn the system off the moment my mom yelled for us, so we were going fast, dying a lot, and not really caring. You learn a lot about the level’s labyrinthine weirdness by falling in lava again and again.
It happened to be my turn when my mom told us it was time to go. I still wanted my last shot. She told me we had to go and threatened to rip the SNES out of the wall if I didn’t comply. It was a common threat. She usually followed through. My SNES doesn’t work anymore.
Before my mom could act, something weird happened: my brother bet me $20 I couldn’t beat the level on that turn. This somehow gave my mother pause, as if she wanted to see my (older) brother put the money on the table. My brother produced the $20 bill. I was 8 years old and had never been so motivated in my life. Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, Jesus, none of them mattered, now that pillowy clouds had parted and MONEY because an obtainable prize in life.
A capitalist was born that day.
This was a world-stopping moment for my family. My siblings and parents stopped what they were doing (remember, we were kinda packing up in a rush a minute ago) to watch me beat this unbeatable Mario level.
And I did. And did my brother pay up? Well, with that many witnesses, he did.
And that’s how I earned enough money to buy my OG Game Boy off my brother, which he then borrowed whenever he wanted and — oh my God, I got scammed out of my $20…
The fist time I booted up my 64 to play Mario 64 and saw Mario in all his polygon glory. That experience will forever stand as one of my best memories of vidjagames.
Hey, did someone say Gravity Rush on PS4?
Sony clearly heard the podcast and put Gravity Rush HD and Gravity Rush 2 into production just in time for TGS. Super hyped for February!
QOTW: My favorite Mario moment was probably when I first started playing Mario Galaxy and had to put the controller down and stop playing so I didn’t vomit all over myself due to motion sickness from the game. That might sound kind of shitty, but I was thrilled by it. That’s never happened to me before or since and it was what I built my pro-Wii argument on when people scoffed at the console.