Hoskat

The guys sit down and talk about some classic game show hosts, game show cheaters, and some obscure shows they enjoy watching.

The guys sit down and talk about some classic game show hosts, game show cheaters, and some obscure shows they enjoy watching.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE TO YOUR COMPUTER The guys bring in a special guest expert, Matt’s wife, Jenny, to talk about their memories with Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. *Note* We picked an interesting time to talk about MJ. When we decided to record this episode we were not aware of the new allegations and documentary that have come out in recent weeks. Our goal of this podcast is one of nostalgia, we are here to talk about our memories of MJ and what made him the greatest pop star of all time. We are not trying to change anyones mind and we are not downplaying the serious accusations against him. We just want to remember the time when our heroes were heroes and nothing more. Jenny and her friend Allison perform the Thriller dance around Europe. Jenny and Allison perform the Thriller dance at MJ’s childhood home. Lexington, KY Thriller Parade Some of Jenny’s MJ MemorabiliaMore MJ memorabilia including a framed ticket stub from a concert that never happened. Jenny trespassing on Neverland RanchJenny and Allison performing Thriller at MJ’s childhood home.Jenny at a tribute wall at the O2 Arena in London the day she was supposed to see MJ in concert.Jenny’s 12th birthday cake.Jenny in full MJ Zombie gear for the annual Thriller parade.Jenny meeting Jermaine Jackson at a Jackson’s concert in Atlantic City, NJ. View the full article

The guys sit down with Matt's wife, Jenny, who is a Michael Jackson super fan to talk about what Michael Jackson meant to them growing up.

The guys sit down with Matt's wife, Jenny, who is a Michael Jackson super fan to talk about what Michael Jackson meant to them growing up.

Genre: Racing Publisher: Mindscape Total time played: 3 Hours Short review: A racing game with a twist, you have a gun and each level is like a puzzle you must solve to complete. Interesting links related to Full Playthrough (Arnpoly) (1hr 25min) Written Review (Arnpoly) Soundtrack Guitar Hero Syndrome Years ago I was obsessed with the Guitar Hero series of games and would play them for hours on end. I eventually was good enough to play through almost all songs on Expert. The one major side effect was that after playing for a while my eyes would create an optical illusion and everything would feel like it was floating upwards. It could be pretty disorienting. Roadblasters does the same thing to me. Each stage has two similar colors in the “off road” area that alternate back and forth to create the illusion of driving along a road. It is almost like a strobe effect and it can be disorienting. Those alternating greens may cause epileptic seizures. How To Play The game is pretty simple. The goal is to reach the end of each of the 50 levels without running out of gas. This is a race, but, not against other cars, just against time, and by time I mean your gas tank. But, like a lot of NES games, there is a little more strategy under the hood (pun intended) that will help you along your way. Built In Level Select When you start the game you have the option to play level 1, level 4 or level 11. There didn’t seem to be any benefit to playing through all 50 levels so I started at level 11. After beating around 5 levels you come to another stage select screen. This happens several times throughout the game. Skipping to the farthest level allowed each time means you can beat the game only racing through around 20 of the 50 stages. Each Level Is A Mini Puzzle In each level you start with a set amount of fuel and the enemy vehicles always appear in the same place. Because of this you can learn which enemies carry the extra fuel and start to learn where level hazards appear. In the later stages (45-50) the levels become more puzzle like. One stage only features road hazards with no chance for fuel pickups so you must drive extra carefully. One level starts you with almost no fuel so you must learn which cars contain extra fuel. I wish all of the levels were as puzzle like as the last few, if that were the case I would have gladly played through all 50. Power Ups Throughout the course of the game you will pick up some power ups. They are listed below: Green Ball: These are littered along the racetrack and replenish a small amount of fuel in your main tank. Brown Ball: These appear after defeating certain enemies (almost always the orange car) on the screen and replenish more fuel than the green ball. The catch is, you have to be traveling at full speed (212mph) to catch them. if you slow down or crash they will zoom off never to be seen again. Uzi Cannon: Dropped by a plane that appears in certain levels. This is a rapid fire gun that doesn’t affect your score multiplier. If you crash you lose this gun. Electro Shield: Dropped by a plane that appears in certain levels. Gives a few seconds of invincibility. You get three of these, if you crash you lose them all. Nitro Inject: Dropped by a plane that appears in certain levels. Increases your max speed from 212 to 298 for a few seconds. You get three of these, if you crash you lose them all. When in nitro boost mode you do not use fuel. This is a necessity in some of the later levels (like level 49) Cruise Missile: Dropped by a plane that appears in certain levels. This is by far the best weapon in the game, it completely wipes out all enemies on the screen and can be used up to 3 times, or until you crash. This is the only weapon in the game that can get rid of the mines and the Command Cars. Enemies and Road Hazards Stinger Car (Orange): Easily killed with a single shot from your gun, UZ Cannon or Cruise Missile. Command Car (Blue): Can only be destroyed with a Cruise Missile. Since Cruise Missiles are rare, most of the time you will just have to drive around them. Cycle: Can be killed the same way as the Stinger Car, the only difference being they are much smaller and require a more accurate shot. Rat Jeep: Luckily these don’t appear too often, they quickly drive in from the bottom of the screen and swerve in front of you. They are killed in 1 hit from any weapon but require very fast reaction time. These things travel in packs, you never see just one. Gun Turret: These guns line the right and left side of the screen. I found them to be the most annoying enemies in the game as they are very hard to shoot with your gun or UZ Cannon so your best bet is just to avoid the bullets they shoot at you. The bullets are small so it is easier said than done. Mines: Mines appear on the road and must be dodged unless you are equipped with the Electro Shield or clear them out with the Cruise Missile. Your dashboard will flash and you will hear a beep when you are approaching mines in the road. Honestly, the notification didn’t help me avoid them. Rocks: Luckily I only saw a few of these in my play through (level 35). They look similar to the Orange Car from a distance but you can’t destroy them and a lot of times I found myself not realizing it was a rock until it was too late. Oil Slicks: When you hit an oil slick your car rotates 360 degrees in the road. The slicks don’t really seem to effect your steering or speed, the only negative I found was that you can’t shoot any oncoming cars when your car is rotating and facing the wrong direction. Reserve Fuel This is the only part of the game that requires luck, strategy and skill that carries over between levels. The only way to earn reserve fuel is at the end of a level. The amount of reserve fuel is determined by your score multiplier. The score multiplier starts a 1x in each level and goes up by 1 every time you kill an enemy. If you shoot your gun at an enemy and miss, the multiplier goes down by 1. The maximum score multiplier is 10x meaning you have to kill 10 enemies throughout the stage without missing a shot. If you end the stage with a 10x multiplier your reserve fuel fills up completely. If you finish with a lower multiplier it doesn’t. The amount of reserve fuel you have determines how many times you can crash in a stage. Think of the reserve fuel as extra seconds on the clock. You probably could beat the game without ever using reserve fuel, but, you’d have to play perfectly. Because you don’t want to miss when shooting at an enemy you may end up not shooting when you have the 10x multiplier and hoping you can just dodge enemies which increases the difficulty of some sections. The UZ Cannon is great for these parts as you can wildly shoot and mow down enemies without risk of losing the multiplier. Score Dashboard I found this kind of neat, the dashboard you see as you race just raises up to fill the screen and show you the stats at the end of the race. A simple but neat effect. Also, after some stages while your score is being tallied you will see hints like “Sensors Detect Fuel Globes”. This is the earliest game I can recall giving in game hints that are common place today on modern generation games load screens. Final Thoughts Roadblasters isn’t great but it isn’t horrible. The stages all look pretty similar with the only real difference the different colored grassy areas around the road. The enemies are the same throughout the game and it isn’t until the much later levels that you really need to develop strategies to win. The graphics and sound are both mediocre and I imagine most people would get bored by this game pretty fast. But, it is playable and has tight controls so it isn’t all bad. I should note…I am also high score “A” I just hit the start button before I could put in my initials on that run. View the full article

The guys sit down to discuss the biggest TV shows and events of 1997. Matt and Luke count down their top 5 while Jason goes off script and talks about shows he wishes he watched.

The guys sit down to discuss the biggest TV shows and events of 1997. Matt and Luke count down their top 5 while Jason goes off script and talks about shows he wishes he watched.

Genre: Action Publisher: Sofel Total time played: 3.5 hours Short review: A simple side scrolling action platformer that features a neat gimmick where you can turn into a dragon. Interesting links related to No Death Playthrough by Shadowserg (27min 07sec) Soundtrack Written Review (Take On the NES Library) Windfall Back in 2013 I got a new job and when I left my old job I got to cash in all of my unused vacation time which amounted to about 6 weeks of time. With a portion of that money I decided to buy some rarer NES game to add to my collection. The two standouts were Panic Restaurant and Dragon Fighter. I popped in Dragon Fighter the day the game showed up in the mail and immediately died in stage 1. I tried a few more times with the same result and very quickly decided the game was too hard and put it on the shelf until the time I had to play it for the blog. Altered Beast Knockoff When I received a Sega Genesis from Santa Claus it came with Altered Beast. My brother and I played the game over and over, collecting the orbs, turning into werewolves, dragons and the like and hearing the “wise fom yar gave” (rise from your grave) at the start of each level. Dragon Fighter, which came out a few years after Altered Beast is in a lot of ways the better game. The two games technically aren’t related at all but have enough similarities that I just wrote this paragraph. How to Play? The game is quite simple, there are 6 levels that require you to walk to the right fighting enemies until you reach a boss. When you defeat the boss you collect a staff that increases your life bar slightly and go to the next level. Upon a deeper dive into the game there is a little bit more to it, not much more, but enough to make it interesting. Stage 1 snowstorm Items Defeated enemies may drop one of the following: Small Vase: replenishes a small portion of health Large Vase: replenishes a larger (but still small) portion of health. Ring: immediately kills all on screen enemies. Conveniently dropped when there are very few or no enemies on screen making it mostly worthless. Dragon Head: First off, this looks more like a computer chip to me, but, it fills a portion of your dragon bar. Stage 3 Powerups Beginning in stage 2 you will see strategically placed items on the ground that feature one of 3 letters. Picking up one of these changes your character’s color and provides you with different dragon and sword powers. When not in dragon form you can hold B for about 3 seconds on the controller until your character is glowing and then release B to unleash an attack. The attack is based on the color of your character. G: This will turn your character green and allow you to charge your sword and shoot a green fireball in a straight line that travels about halfway across the screen. This is the default powerup that you start the game with. B: This will turn your character blue and allow you to charge your sword and shoot a heat seeking blue fireball that is attracted to enemies. It is not very strong but I found this the most useful weapon in the game. R: This will turn your character red and allow you to charge your sword and shoot 3 fireballs in an arched a pattern into the air, they will then fall and stick on the ground for a second before disappearing. From what I could tell this was the most powerful weapon but was hard to aim. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this, but, I didn’t realize the holding down the B button charge attack existed until I had played the game for a couple of nights and was consistently getting to stage 4…halfway through the entire game. Stage 5 – thankfully the giant skeleton is just there for decoration. Dragon!!! The first time I played this game I didn’t realize you could turn into a dragon. I took the title to mean you fought dragons but it turns out you are a dragon who is a fighter. For each enemy you defeat with your sword you earn a single bar on your dragon meter (located under your life bar). Once the bar is about halfway full you can tap and hold UP+A on the controller for a short time to turn into a dragon. When in dragon form the screen auto scrolls and the dragon meter begins ticking down. When the meter runs out or you hit UP+A again you turn back into a man. Green Dragon: Shoots a 3 way shot that is actually pretty useful Red Dragon: shoots a heavy fireball that quickly falls to the ground. It is useful if you can drop it on an enemy from above. Blue Dragon: heat seeking fireball that isn’t powerful but doesn’t require good aim. Blue dragon vs the stage 5 boss. Strategy I found myself attempting different strategies to get through the stages. Even though the game is very straight forward some trial and error is involved. Here are my keys to success: Always make sure you have a full or close to full dragon meter when you get to the boss. I found all of the bosses very difficult to fight in human form. When in dragon form you can only attack towards the right, there are enemies that spawn behind you so being a dragon during the stage is only useful in a few spots. I found the blue power-up with the heat seeking fireball to be the most useful power-up in both dragon and human form. I played around with the red power-up some but didn’t have much success. I found the green power-up to be worthless in human form. Using the charge shot in human form makes going through the levels easier but you do not earn dragon power by killing enemies with the charge shot. Most enemies will re-spawn, find a safe spot with easy enemies in each level and spend some time filling up your dragon meter. Then, use the charge shot to easily get through the rest of the level. Slow and steady wins the race. Stage 6 Change Up After 5 stages of the same thing the sixth and final stage turns into a side scrolling shooter that has a scrolling background that makes you feel like you are flying a million miles an hour. The final stage is played completely in dragon form. I am not sure that I would have liked a full game like the final stage but it was a breath of fresh air after the slow and steady 5 stages before. Ending the game at break neck speeds was fun. Luckily the enemy spawns on the final stage are the same every time you play so it wasn’t too bad to learn. There is one enemy, a flying man, who shoots a thin laser beam that is hard to dodge because it nearly blends in with the background, but other than that the stage isn’t too bad. I was impressed by the size and design of the final boss. So Close I utilized the save state feature on my Retron 5 to practice the last two stages as they were a bit tougher than the first 4. After I felt comfortable beating both I started the game over and made it to the last boss without dying. I almost beat the game deathless, and I’m sure I could with a few more attempts but there are too many other games to beat for me to keep trying. I should mention, you get 1 life and it is game over, only 3 continues and no way to earn extra lives. The game is brutal in that respect but it is also fair and beatable. Final Thoughts The music is some of the best music on the system that I never hear anyone talking about. The controls are tight and responsive even if the charge shot and dragon transformation are not intuitive at first. The game is tough but fair, the stages, enemies and bosses are varied. And, even though the game is simple there is a bit of strategy involved. It isn’t quite in the “Classic” tier of games but it is close. View the full article

The guys sit down and have a discussion about the music from 1982 that they still listen to 37 years later.

The guys sit down and have a discussion about the music from 1982 that they still listen to 37 years later.

In the first episode of 2019 (and the first episode of season 2) the guys get back together after a short holiday break to talk about the movie of 1991.

In the first episode of 2019 (and the first episode of season 2) the guys get back together after a short holiday break to talk about the movie of 1991.

Genre: Action Publisher: Konami Total time played: 1.5 Hours Short review: By far the weakest of the NES Contra game. It shows signs of intelligent game design but is ruined by slow down and some poor design choices. Interesting links related to Contra Force Soundtrack Live Speedrun (17min 32sec) Written Walkthrough Where Did I Get This Game? At some point over the past 25 years I picked up Contra Force but I have no idea where. The fact that I don’t remember probably means it was cheap or free. However, I am still haunted by what I did after getting my mint condition copy along with the original box and manual, also in mint condition. In 2008 after the stock market crash I was laid off from my job. I immediately went into survival mode and started restricting my spending and selling things I didn’t need. One of those things I didn’t need was a box of video game boxes. I decided I would never own all NES games complete so there was no reason to keep the 200 or so boxes and manuals I had. I ended up selling them all for $35 on Criagslist. Of all the things I sold, the mint condition Contra Force Box and Manual and complete copy of Rockin’ Kats are the ones that bug me the most. Just those 2 things are worth close to 10 times what I sold the boxes for. Oh well, live and learn. Contra? What happened? Contra and Super C are both Konami and NES classics. They are fast paced, have great guns, responsive controls and interesting levels and bosses. Contra Force was clearly not supposed to be a Contra game. It feels like this was going to be a stand alone game and at the last minute the developers slapped the Contra name on it to increase sales. Based on how expensive the game is i 2018 I am guessing they didn’t move many copies. Sometimes Less Is More I don’t even want to get into the initial character selection menu where the up, down, left and right directionals buttons on the control seem to move the cursor in random directions. I’m not going to go into how each character has multiple weapons with an upgrade system similar to Cobra Triangle, Life Force or Gradius. Just know, I have complaints about all of those things too. I want to talk about the multiple options you have in game for controlling two characters at one time. Sorry for the crappy image quality, it’s the best I could find online and honestly the image quality sums up how useful these options are. Pause Menu On the pause menu you can use any of the 4 characters at any given time. You start with 3 lives for each but if any one character gets a game over the whole team gets a game over. Luckily there are unlimited continues. Notice in the above image that Smith is set to 1Player. You can select any player to be the one you control, in fact, the game lets you set any number of players to 1Player, you just can’t unpause until only one player is set to 1Player. You can set a secondary character to any of the 6 options from the screenshot above. This will provide you 5 or so seconds of another character helping you out. The only problem is, you NEVER need the help and even if you did having an extra character on the screen slows the game down so much it is basically pointless. It was a good idea, but it just isn’t executed well so instead of being innovative it just becomes an option that you will never use bloating the game. Weapons Each of the 4 characters has some combination of these weapons. I found the only useful weapons to be HM (Homing Missle) and FT (Flame Thrower). Some of the weapons were so useless I would take an intentional death just to get rid of them. 5 Levels Everyone knows a good Contra game has to have 8 levels, this one only has 5. I will give the game a little credit that in those 5 levels there is quite a bit of variety including 2 overhead and 3 side scrolling stages. The stages are all pretty large and the side scrolling stages give you the ability to move up and down as well, in fact, there is almost a chance you can get lost in the last level as there is no clear direction where to go. Wing Walking in Level 4 Level 4 has to be the highlight of the game though. You get to walk across the wings of a plane, and, when you get to the end another plane flies by and you have to jump across to the wings on that plane. The level even features wind, if you aren’t moving the force of the wind will force you right off the back of the plane. Glitchin! As cool as Level 4 was the other 4 levels are not cool at all. There are some funky hazards and platforming required that are nearly impossible. Stage 3 features a bunch of chains you have to hang from and jump between but not being able to gain momentum between jumps meant I spent a lot of time getting through this short section of the game. That was until I found an interesting glitch that made that section really easy. If you hold down the jump button and pause the game and then unpause the game without ever letting go of the jump button your character jumps again in mid air. Using this technique I was able to jump right past this section of rope jumps. Final Thoughts The game wouldn’t be that bad if it had more polish. My biggest gripe is how slow the game is and how clunky the controls are. It wouldn’t be that bad if the 2 Contra games that came out first didn’t have such incredible controls and speed. The secondary character mechanic is definitely a nice touch, but it wasn’t implemented correctly. There shouldn’t be a time limit and it shouldn’t cause the game to slow down so much. Having the ability to switch between multiple forms of help that were needed to get through specific sections of the game would have added a nice bit of strategy. Instead we get a feature that isn’t needed at all to beat the game. Because of the games sub-par programming I had to rate it 2 stars, with another month of polishing and cleanup of the code and maybe even removing the Contra name which provides insane expectations this could have been a game people remembered. View the full article

Genre: Arcade/Puzzle Publisher: American Softworks Total time played: 40 Hours Short review: It starts off as an arcade game and very quickly becomes a puzzle game that appears to be more luck than skill. Well known to be one of the most difficult games on the NES. Interesting links related to The Mutant Virus Forum post where a community is attempting to master the game. Full Playthrough part 1 – TheMexican Runner Full Playthrough part 2- TheMexicanRunner Video Review – Only Level 1 This Random Game Selection… After finally beating Destination Earthstar I was hoping the NES God’s would throw me an easy game. Instead I was presented with a game that if it weren’t for the website NintendoAge.com I would know nothing about. What I learned reading about the game is that it is hard and there doesn’t seem to be a consistent strategy to beat the game. In fact, this post is keeping track of all people on the site that have beaten the game, to my knowledge it is the only game on the site that is tracked this way. As of this writing in 2018, only 7 of the 30k+ members of the site have beaten the game. I’m sure the game has been beaten by way more people than this, but, let’s just say, this information really intimidated me. What is the game about? The game is about a computer virus that is taking over a computer. Your job is to shrink down, go inside the computer and kill the virus. Blue is good, green is bad and the black dots are what causes the virus to expand. If This is True it is Super Cool When trying to find a pattern for the way that the virus expands I ran across a video about a 1970’s computer program called “The Game of Life” where a programmer named John Conway made a program that showed how it would be possible for non-intelligent life to expand with just a few simple rules. After watching the video I am pretty sure the game designers for The Mutant Virus used that program for inspiration. The virus spreads so fast that it would be impossible to test the theory without using an emulator to slow down the frame rate, but, either way, the use of this 1970’s program and thought experiment makes the game way more interesting. Controls B button – Acts a thruster, propelling you forward in whichever direction you are facing D-Pad – rotates your character in place if you aren’t moving, changes directions if you are moving. A button – this shoots your gun, holding the button acts as a rapid fire. B + Up – Turbo boost which moves your character forward at a high speed B + Down – Slows your character to a stop almost instantly Select – Rotates through your weapons (see below for more info) Start – Pauses the game Weapons SF – Short Fire – shoots your weapon just a few feet in front of you. Handy to use if you are directly on top of the virus. LF – Long Fire – shoots your weapon across the screen for attacking virus that is far away. AU – Auto something?? – Seems to shoot across the screen until it comes in contact with a virus. Seems to be more handy than SF and LF. SG – Super Gun – you won’t get this until level 3. This gun is incredible, it bounces off of walls and seems to clear out the virus much quicker than other guns. But, if you lose a life you lose the gun. CM – Counter Measure – These weapons are scattered throughout rooms in each level and are displayed as horizontal tubes with 0’s or 1’s on them. These act as a bomb that continually ejecting antidote to fight the virus. Some explode vertically, some horizontally, some at an angle. I never got comfortable with which color/number combo did what. These can be dropped a single time by pressing A+B with the CM weapon selected. The bomb will pulsate antidote continuously where it is dropped. Even if you leave a room and come back the CM weapon keeps blasting out antidote where you dropped it. Puzzle Game? Each stage has a number of rooms. Each room has a virus that expands in both a random and predictable pattern. Each room has a virus epicenter where the virus is pumped into the room. This epicenter is not always easy to see as the virus spreads so fast and chaotically it is hard to tell from where it is originating. The CM’s are absolutely necessary to defeat certain rooms. If you drop a CM in the wrong location you might as well die and start over as it will be near impossible to beat the stage. The farther into the game you go the more rooms there are to clear and the more possibilities you have for using the CM in the wrong place. To my knowledge no one has successfully mapped out a consistent way to beat each stage so there was a lot of trial and error. The Difficulty Spike is Insane After hearing horror stories on how hard this game is I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the first level was. It gave me a huge confidence boost. At the beginning of level 2 I was humbled almost instantly. The virus expanded much more quickly and my gun seemed to do much less damage. I took dozens of attempts before I started making progress. I would say that the difficulty spike between level 1 and 2 is greater than the spike between Level 1-1 and Level 8-1 in Super Mario Bros. 3. It could be the highest difficulty spike I’ve ever experienced in a game. You won’t believe this, but, level 3 is even harder. You do gain the super gun in the first room of the level, but, if you die you lose the gun making the level near impossible to beat. How to Die If you hover on top of the virus you will hear a ticking sound that means your health is being drained. If you hover for too long you will lose a life. This isn’t a big deal as you have 5+ lives with each continue. But, if you are carrying a SG and die you lose the weapon until you get a game over. Some rooms have a giant hole that opens/closes and spits out a white fire/ghost thing that flies in a straight line until it hits a wall and then ricochets off the wall. It doesn’t move that fast but it does kill you in a single hit and based on how your character floats as if he is in outer space this thing will kill you a lot. Good news, there are infinite continues so losing a life doesn’t cost you anything but time. If you are brave enough to leave on your NES for weeks you could beat the game and never have to replay older levels. I did this, but, in the 21st century way. I used my Retron 5 to create a save state at the start of each level. So, I was virtually pausing the game. Plus, it gave me the ability to practice a particularly hard room over and over. But, I did eventually get good enough to beat each level with a single continue. Retron 5 Failed Me!! After 50+ attempts I finally beat level 3, and right as the game was transitioning from the final room in the level to the cut-scene before level 4, the system froze. I was devastated because of how long it took me to complete. I took a couple of weeks off as I didn’t have the motivation to continue knowing it would take dozens of attempts to replay through that level. I decided to play on the original NES instead of the Retron-5 to minimize the game freezing. I even took apart the game cart and hardcore cleaned the pins inside to make sure it wasn’t a dirty game causing the errors. Game Genie to the Rescue Since the game has infinite continues and I had been attempting to beat the game on and off for 3+ months I decided that I would just use game genie codes to start on level 4 until I beat it and then use a game genie code to start on level 5. This would mitigate any issues with lost power or leaving the NES on for weeks at a time. But, much like I learned there were no cliff notes for Gone With the Wind the day before the test in high school I learned there are no level select game genie codes for The Mutant Virus. I emailed my friend Arnpoly from Take on the NES Library to complain about my predicament only to learn that he knows how to create game genie codes from scratch. Less than 48 hours later he emailed me the following codes: Confidence was restored thanks to these life saving Game Genie codes. Now, I could start on level 4 each night after my daughter went to bed instead of suffering through the first 3 levels again. Level 4 Thanks to the guys on Nintendoage.com for making this handy map. There are 7 rooms in level 4 and 2 SG’s (super guns). That means if you die with the SG you don’t have to restart the game, you can keep going. But, if you die two times with the SG you might as well start over. I learned that if you are holding a CM and die you don’t lose it. Also, you cannot hold a CM and a SG at the same time. So my new strategy was to exchange my SG for a CM when my life got low. Then, when I died I could just pick up the SG again after I re-spawned. This is easier said than done but at least it was one way to improve my gameplay. I had no problem clearing all 7 rooms, the problem was that I could never clear them all in a single attempt. I’d play through once and one room would be a piece of cake and easily beatable in a couple of minutes, but, the next attempt the room would be nearly impossible. I had a lot of confidence when I had cleared 5 of the 7 rooms and still had both SG’s. I felt that I was finally going to beat the level and then the game froze again. It seems the game itself is glitchy as I couldn’t blame the Retron-5 or a dirty game for the issues. The next serious attempt I made the game froze again almost in the same spot in the same room. I switched up my strategy and went to the room where the game kept freezing first meaning I wouldn’t lose a half hour of work if it froze again. Eventually the stars aligned and I finally took down level 4. Stage 5 – The Final Countdown Thanks to the guys on Nintendoage for making this handy map. I took a short break after level 4 as the holidays were fast approaching. It was probably two weeks after beating level 4 I actually gave level 5 a shot and I died very quickly. I did a bunch of research and watched TheMexicanRunner’s take down of level 5 multiple times and I read through the NintendoAge strategy thread until I had it memorized. I ended up using GuitarZombie from NintendoAge’s strategy to take down the level. Due to the random nature of the virus outbreaks I had to make some on the fly adjustments but this was the general order: – Start in room 1, take blue 0. – Go to room 3, use blue 0 between VSs, clear it. – Go to room 4, clear it, take green 1 – Go to room 2, use the green 1 on the bottom, clear room. Grab green 0 – Go to room 6 (room 2 to 5, to 7, to 6) use green 0 on Virus Spitter, clear room, Take SG – Go to room 7 (clear room?), take blue 1 – Go to room 8, use blue 1 on virus spitter, clear room. I actually took down level 5 in around 10 attempts, much faster than every level except the first one. Even though it took fewer attempts each attempt took at least 30 minutes because the final level featured 8 rooms to clear, the biggest number yet. The virus in level 8 is ruthless, it kills you very quickly and even when you think your blue wave of antidote is making good progress the virus can take back over very quickly. You don’t seem to earn points as quickly meaning you don’t earn extra lives that often. This is the only level where I consistently got game over because I was out of lives and not because I lost my SG and needed to start over. The thing that makes the last level a nightmare is that every few minutes one of the rooms flashes and you are presented with an audio warning and a message that there has been a virus outbreak. If this happens you have to stop what you are doing and go immediately to that room to get it under control. The virus outbreaks always seemed to happen when I had a room 90% cleared and was battling the virus for that last 10%. If you leave a room and come back you are pretty much guaranteed that your progress will be erased. On the run that I finally beat the game I would stay put if I was close to clearing a room and hope I made it to the outbreak before it was too late (if you are too late it is instant game over). The one saving grace in the final level is that there is a SG that you can pick up that never goes away. That means if you die you don’t lose it. The bad part about this is that it is buried deep in the level and I had 3-4 rooms cleared before I was able to pick it up. I technically could have gone to the room holding the SG at the start but then I would lose several minutes of virus clearing time and give more rooms the opportunity to have an outbreak. I Did It! I would say The Mutant Virus is 90% luck and 10% strategy. No matter how much you play the game if the computer doesn’t want you to win you aren’t going to win. I have been playing The Mutant Virus since August, making it’s 5 months completion time the longest of any game I’ve finished so far. Part of that time was me dreading playing the game and not playing for weeks at a time. That is why I beat Baseball in November, I needed a confidence boost and wanted people to know I hadn’t quit the blog. I would say I did play the game for around 40 hours over that 5 month period. If it hadn’t been for Arnpoly and his game genie code creation I don’t know that I could have beaten this one. Our house lost power 2 times during severe storms since August. If I had chosen to leave the NES on I would have twice had to start over. I know some game playing purists would say that I cheated using the level select code on game genie but I gained no advantage by doing this. I did save a bit of time but I beat each level fair and square and felt the greatest sense of victory I have ever experienced playing an NES game. With this game in the rearview I feel unstoppable. I’m sure I’ll change my mind whenever the next broken, slow, boring, or super hard game appears on the list. View the full article

The guys sit down to talk about their favorite Christmas memories from childhood. Matt gets distracted and goes off on a million tangents. Don Knotts stops by for a visit.

The guys sit down to talk about their favorite Christmas memories from childhood. Matt gets distracted and goes off on a million tangents. Don Knotts stops by for a visit.

The guys sit down to discuss their favorite and least favorite Christmas songs and go into a little bit of history on the classics. James Brown and Don Knotts stop by for a visit.

The guys sit down to discuss their favorite and least favorite Christmas songs and go into a little bit of history on the classics. James Brown and Don Knotts stop by for a visit.

The guys, and special guest, Lauren, get together to talk about some history, fun facts and favorite memories regarding board games.

The guys, and special guest, Lauren, get together to talk about some history, fun facts and favorite memories regarding board games.

Genre: Sports Publisher: Nintendo Total time played: 45 Minutes Short review: The first baseball game on the NES which was probably revolutionary in 1985 but has not aged gracefully. Interesting links related to Baseball Playthrough (The Mexican Runner) Video Review (CGRundertow) Soundtrack First This is the first of 20 baseball games released on the NES and while it is almost unplayable in 2018 it did set the foundation for every single baseball game that came after it. Something To Be Proud Of The game is very very thin, here are some things that would be inexcusable in a current baseball game. Teams don’t have names, they are represented by a single letter. Players don’t have names Players don’t have stats There are no substitutions Pitchers never get tired You cannot be hit by a pitch (at least I never did) You don’t control the players in the field There is no season, a single game is all you get. The game moves painfully slowly With all of that said, in 1985 creating a baseball game that actually resembles the game was a very admirable thing to accomplish. What was set as a foundation in this game was used in every other game on the system. Think of this as a V1 beta release of a baseball game and the Baseball Stars game as the final version. Things It Got Right The pitcher animations are pretty decent, including him shaking his head at the catcher’s signs. You can steal bases and the pitcher can attempt to pick off the runners. Although, stealing bases is tough, I never successfully did it and the pitcher attempts to pick off the runner way too much. Sometimes he would attempt a pick up 5 or more times before throwing a pitch. The batter can move around in the batters box Homeruns are rewarded with fireworks. Another Random Game It has been a few months since I’ve beaten an NES game because the game I randomly drew to play is a nightmare, I’m 60% of the way through it but felt I needed to build some confidence and add another game to my beaten list. So, I drew another random game and it turned out to be this (thankfully) short and simple game. Sure, it took a few tries to finally win a game but it was worth it, confidence has been restored. Final Thoughts It is really hard to play a game that is 33 years old as if the hundreds of better baseball games that have come out since don’t exist. The best I can say is that the game was innovative for the time but there is no reason to play it today. It is slow, boring, simple, and the fielding controls are so bad I was never sure if I ever had control of the players. It doesn’t take much time to see everything the game has to offer, but, with over 600 NES games left to beat sometimes a short and simple game is just what the doctor ordered. View the full article

The guys sit down to discuss the video games of 1989 and what makes them so great. The 2013 short film "The Curse" the guys wrote and starred in about a particular video game of 1989 is also discussed.

The guys switch up the format for this seasonly appropriate episode. Instead of discussing their nostalgic view on a topic they take a deep dive into the zeitgeist of the American collective and how the fears of the day shaped the horror trends of each decade.

The guys (and special guest Suzy) sit down to talk about their favorite non-mainstream horror movies as well as a classic film that today's generation may have forgotten about. Matt tells the story of the Halloween night he was almost murdered by a real life Michael Myers