Now that Final Fantasy XV finally has a release date 10 years after it was first announced, Gamespot editor Scott Butterworth joins the hosts this week for a look at five other games that had long and troubled development cycles, but emerged beautifully. Then we dig into Quantum Break and Mega Man Legends 2, marvel at Danny DeVito’s ignorance of Pokemon, and look at your favorite April Fool’s pranks of all time.
Question of the Week
With baseball season starting up, what’s your favorite sports game?
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QOTW: NHL Hitz 2003. As a Canadian I was probably legally obligated to try playing hockey games. This being the only hockey game, or sports game at all, that I ever got into. I loved playing as a team of dinosaurs versus a team of sharks while playing in a graveyard hockey rink.
Mikel thank you for mentioning The Revolution 1979 Black Friday! I had to pause the podcast to watch and the trailer. Now I need to wait for a console port because I doubt my laptop could handle that.
QOTW: What’s a sport?
Also great to hear Scott Butterworth a.ka. Leopold Margarine
YAY SCOTT BUTTERWORTH!!!
My favorite has to be Tecmo Bowl for the NES. This was the game my family and friends had weekly tournaments to see who was the best. Having 70+ Points in a games was very common with gridiron gods Bo Jackson and Walter Payton. The music was also amazing. I find myself humming it to this day.
Actually *adjusts glasses* it was Shawn Ashmore that was Iceman in X-Men. His twin brother Aaron is the star of Quantum Break.
Nope. I’m wrong.
Also I’m drunk. Druuuuuuuuunk. Woo! Ric Flair out!
Too many to list, but since Baseball season is starting up I’ll have to go with MLB Slugfest 2003. I loved how it was basically the NBA Jam of Baseball and would kill for a new installment. Also, as a Sox fan it was the last time I wasn’t forced to hate cover athlete Alex Rodriguez as he was still with the Rangers at the time.
Good gravy, this was the most TDar episode of VGA I’ve heard in awhile. Fantastic Top 5, too. And I remember how disappointed I was when they cancelled Prey 2. I just don’t understand how you can spend nearly a decade on a game, and not have enough to just shit something out. Are they afraid of damaging the illustrious “Prey” brand? Bethesda owns so many IPs that they are allowing to rot on the vine.
I also got that vibe. Between Butters and Brett’s drunkeness this episode is top.
Alabaster!
My favorite sports game would have to be Super Dodgeball for the NES. From the flicker of the characters, slow down on half the stages, and the glitch to launch people around the screen I love this game!
And when it showed up on the 3ds it was an instant buy for me.
It’s a shame the sequels were all not up to snuff.
Sorry, Chris, but fansubbing will always exist as long as there’s stuff that goes unlicensed. Dragonball Super hasn’t been picked up yet and Macross Delta probably never will be, to just name a couple of examples.
To keep my comment short and sweet my favorite Sports games are. . .
Blades of Steel (NES) and Major League Baseball Power Pros (PS2).
I doubt many people will remember this, but there was an Ubisoft published original Xbox game called Deathrow. They made up their own sport that was essentially ultimate Frisbee mixed with basketball. The game also had a light/strong attack system that allowed you to kick the living fuck out of the other team. You could win by either scoring more point than the other team, or KO the entire other team. The season mode also had you make moral choices about taking steroids and hiring hitmen (protip: always take steroids). The game was pre-Xbox Live and so, no online multiplayer. It did have system-link support and 4 player split screen, so you could fill an entire game using just 2 consoles. Loved it.
QotW: Virtua Tennis has to be my favorite sports game. I don’t particularly care for tennis but id play this for hours between classes at the local sub shop. I’ve always dreamed of owning the arcade cabinet to just play a quick match when i have people over or in the down time between doing adult stuff.
NHL ’94 for the SNES. I never watched much hockey growing up until I found myself transfixed by the triple-overtime Stanley Cup Final in 1996 between the Colorado Avalanche and the Florida Panthers. I picked up the game shortly after and played it so much that it shaped my appreciation of hockey to this day.
The game is so ingrained in my memory that I still find it weird to watch teams that have been added and see logos that have been redesigned over the past 20 years. But maybe I just miss Anaheim’s old duck-shaped hockey mask.
QotW: I would say NBA Jam, though my memory of playing is so foggy, I’m not even sure which system I played it on (SNES, or Genesis??). I just know I played ALOT of it. That said, the thing that sparked the most memories of the game for me was listening to an old K-OXM episode. Learning all of those years later that the strange man wearing bunny ears you could unlock was in fact my favorite voice of the show, Dan Amrich, was a pretty cool treat!
Guess I should say, new user / long time listener here, since around the middle of TDar’s lifetime. As it is with many, these podcasts have kept me sane on countless long drives to work / slow work days. Love all you guys, keep up the great work!
awesome episode!
QotW:
Tiger Woods Golf for the Wii. I’ve always wanted to play golf, but I can’t afford it. The Wii kind of sort of simulates it and that game has actual real life golf courses. I also enjoyed using the character creator to make custom golfers who looked like the result of generations of inbreeding combined with major drug and alcohol use by their mother, while they were in the womb. I would make my friends play as all of these hideous monstrosities, which just added to the fun. Golf is more fun when the golfers are the antagonists from the Hills Have Eyes.
Question of the Week: What is our favorite sports video game?
Before football.
Before rugby.
Before bubonic plague.
There was Pigskin 621 A.D.