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Friday, February 26, 2016

B6: Bats in the Belfry


Josh and Emily break the 60-minute mark at this week's dungeon meetup for two reasons. For one, they get really carried away chatting about zombies. But for two, they serve up a bunch of special segments -- including a brand new one that Josh coins on the air. Get comfy on the flagstone for a while and enjoy the surprises!

Click above to listen or subscribe.  Click below for the usual direct download.



This episode was made possible by:
Game Track Title Composer(s)
Resident Evil Outbreak Main Title Theme Akihiko Matsumoto
M.U.S.H.A. Theme of Musha Aleste Toshiaki Sakoda
The Secret of
Monkey Island
Title Screen Michael Land, Barney Jones, Andy Newell

18 comments:

  1. I still play that game with my three year old on our NES. He used to think I was smelling the cartridge before I put it in the system. I vaguely remember my friend's mom getting to level 4 when I was a kid but I'm starting to think that's not possible. Such a difficult game

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    1. That detail about his thinking you were smelling the cartridge is SO FUNNY. How adorable.

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  2. When the original Resident Evil was brand new, I fell asleep watching my friend play it. Late into the night, he shook me awake: "Dude, you've got to see this!". He had reloaded a saved game just before the zombie dogs jump out of the windows. There I am rubbing my eyes, trying to focus, when...... CRASHHHHH!!! I nearly jumped out of my skin!

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    1. I played Resident Evil 1 and 2 a bit, but my main RE memories were about Code Veronica for the Dreamcast. I had to stop playing it somewhere in the middle, because even though it was an amazingly beautiful game for its time, it was the most thoroughly hopeless, depressing game I've ever played.

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    2. That moment with the dogs was mentioned in the game magazine I have. I knew it was coming, but not when. The worst part is when you realize you have to go back through that hallway later, though. You just kinda stand in front of that door for a while, mustering your courage.

      Nathan, we didn't finish Code Veronica either -- we only had one disc. I've been meaning to go back and finish it myself. That game breaks all the rules, though! It's so stressful! I remember the first time a zombie followed me up a flight of stairs, I started screaming at the television, "NO! NO!! You are NOT ALLOWED to do that! Do you HEAR ME?!?!" before I unloaded into it.

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  3. That Monkey Island theme sounds like the MT32 version:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEn7XNDKwlw

    For my money, Curse Of Monkey Island is the masterpiece. Graphics, writing, voice acting, humor, and of course, the music. It's pretty much the most lavishly produced Lucas Art's adventure. Check out the title theme you haven't heard it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMoxWi-9zpA

    And of course, you can't miss out on the sea shanty singalong, "A Pirate I Was Meant To Be:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-9my0tsutw

    LOVE IT!!!!

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  4. I just wanted to add that Sam And Max Hit The Road, is my vote for funniest Lucas Arts adventure. I find the game to be hysterical. After I solved it, I would to play through it everyday, from beginning to end, just enjoying as if it were a cartoon. I did this for about a month. I did this for all of my favorite adventure games. During the 90's, I played the genre almost exclusively for about 10 years.

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    1. Rasp rasp rasp!

      My friends and I still quote this game to each other, too. :)

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  5. First off, excellent choices in music guys. There is a lot to talk about in this episode, so bare with me! First off, the Monkey Island series and Lucasarts adventure games as a whole, tend to be some of the most witty and relatable games of all time. The writing work of Dan Gilbert & Tim Schaeffer are monumental and craft some of the most vibrant and lovable worlds in the industry. I remember my first experience with Monkey Island being on the Sega CD, having rented it. The game had some truly inspired puzzles, but alas did have some of those dreaded obtuse ones as well. How can you go wrong with insult sword fighting!? You fight like a dairy Farmer!!

    On the topic of Resident Evil Outbreak, it was an online game yes, but did not allow for voice chat. The key to the game was everyone working together and using their abilities to overcome the obstacles. The problem was that, if the max players weren't present, AI bots would fill the rolls and they were pretty incompetent. The game itself was extremely ambitious and I wish they revisited this offshoot series again with modern technology. It would love it.

    As for Resident Evil in general, I was a lot like Emily in so far as I was the wingman in survival horror games. I remember lending my Sega Saturn to a friend with Resident Evil and, when he neared the end, invited all of our friends over to watch him attempt to beat it. He ran out of ammo at the very end and put himself in a real pickle and was unable to beat the game. Still, his attempt went down into the legend.

    Another great game that I was wing man to was Enemy Zero on the Sega Saturn. A good friend of mine was an avid gamer, but was not really good at video games. Regardless, Enemy Zero was THE game for him and he mastered it. I remember spending countless hours watching him play and helping him out as he listened intently to the horrifying dings that signified the direction and distance of the invisible monsters that were hunting us. Those were intense times. Even now, I can't do that genre service, always opting to be the wingman and voice of support as others played. We are talking about a guy who gets sweaty palms watching other people play mario, so it is always entertaing for me.

    Animal Crossing talk, WOO! Being the guy who recommended the previous episode's Animal Crossing Track, I have spent so much time playing the series and introducing others into the series. When you guys talked about the integration of the game into the real world, I couldn't help but relate. I would always skip a beat on saturday nights when friends wanted to do something and I would be like, "But....K.K.'s playing!" only to shrug off my desire to get a bootleg copy of his music and instead go to the arcade or something.

    Lastly, BURGERTIME!! My wife absolutely adores this game and every time we stop at the arcade she has to set time aside to play it. You would be surprised how little game compilations feature burgertime on consoles. There is something really special about playing a traditional arcade game. Enemy patterns and strategy are crucial and there is just a layer of pure skill involved in being able to overcome the challenges. I am a person who more drifts towards story-based gaming nowadays, but there is and always will be a special place in my heart for the raw, evocative thrill ride that comes with the pure gameplay of arcade games.

    Keep up the good work guys and loved the Karaoke! You all rock!

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    1. Okay, Enemy Zero sounds terrifying.

      And thanks for the clarification, Bogus! I definitely goofed a bit on the Outbreak description. I meant to describe it as "online multiplayer," but even then, I'm not sure how common or uncommon online multiplayer was on consoles at that time, despite my claim that I thought it was rare. The problem is that I have a big ol' blindspot in my video game knowledge right around the reign of the PS2.

      I mean, I know the Dreamcast had the capability built-in, but I didn't know if any of my friends were using it. Phone lines were precious commodities in those days.

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    2. Enemy Zero had its corniness and the cg characters looked somewhat simian, but man that game was freaky at times. The main conceit was that you couldn't see the enemy. Your gun only shot an energy pulse a few feet, so you'd have to wait until it was almost on top of you before you'd shoot. Every time the beeping would start, my heart would start racing.

      Nobody's yet mentioned how in Animal Crossing, the music changes every hour. Every hour of the day has its own track, so depending on when you'd play the game, you'd hear an entirely different soundtrack. I never played the game, but VGMpire did a really good episode on it a while back.

      Burgertime.......That was another one of the great many games my friend Darwin was good at. I sucked at the NES version, but he could beat it, or flip it, or whatever. I probably have him to thank for my interest in RPGs and action adventures.....they were the only games he didn't much care for, and I couldn't beat him at anything else! :)

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  6. Great Episode as per usual, guys! I loved the Karaokapologies very much. Speaking of Karaoke, Emily and Josh, I have a few I'm working on. They may be a bit technically challenging for a first try, but I'm going for it. I also love the songs I picked for their own merits, so I'll probably request them as well.

    That reminds me, I was listening to another VGM podcast recently, and they played the ending track to Bare Knuckle 2. I could not hear it without hearing Emily singing "Pluto Baby". That song has been forever changed for me, and for the better.

    Lastly, the language they speak in the Panzer Dragoon series is not German, but an imaginary language that's derived from German. Having said that, I can understand why most people just assumed they were speaking Japanese, because the voice actors have a very obvious Japanese accent, inflection, and cadence when they're speaking their lines.

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    1. Thanks for the extra notes on Panzer Dragoon, Nathan. Back when we played the track, the recommender (BogusMeatFactory) had correctly stated that the language was made up, but I'd gotten confused because I'd found a "translation" of the words on the internet; I incorrectly assumed this meant the translation was from Latin, or a Japanese/Latin mashup, into English.

      And about Pluto Baby: Ahahahahaha. That's hilarious. Thank you. Pluto thanks you, too. <3

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  7. Lots of love for Point & Click adventure games here! LucasArts made some great stuff, but I was really partial to Sierra Entertainment (King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Gabriel Knight, Laura Bow Mysteries, etc).

    Possibly the most awkward video game story of my life was my mom somehow finding out that Leisure Suit Larry was 1) a game I owned, and 2) somewhat sexually explicit. This was pre-internet, and she can barely use the internet now, so I still have no idea how she found out. I got it in a 10-CD-ROM multi-pack without really knowing what I had.

    She took the CD-ROM away and hid it in her room after telling me I couldn't play it anymore. This was Leisure Suit Larry #1 - In the Land of the Lounge Lizards, mind you...made in 1987 (though I may have had the '91 remake). We're talking pretty old school graphics. Even the most explicit scenes would have just looked like a bunch of pixels...but oh well.

    The second most awkward video game story in my life was when I got older and asked for the CD-ROM back. She gave it to me, no questions asked.

    Ah, youth.

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  8. #BurgerTimeTime!!

    I think I got to level 4 or 5 on NES Burgertime. Level 4 is insanely hard as I recall.

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