Ghostbusters

Alright everyone, before you get all upset about us reviewing this game hear us out. Listen to the podcast to hear what we have to say and we promise it will not be a 30 minute defense of this game that has been given at best mixed reviews.

Ghostbusters are a retro topic that most people cherish. We all loved the movie and if you were like us you probably spent a considerable amount of time pretending to be Ghostbusters, running through the house with a proton pack (pretend or if you were lucky enough to have the toy version), catching ghosts, trapping them and making your house better to sleep in at night. So when Activision decided to make the game, most NES owning people were excited. However, for the most part the game missed the mark.

The game Ghostbusters seemed too short, too easy and too hard all at the same time. We all probably have memories of trying to achieve the impossible task of climbing the steps of Zuul and the seemingly easy task of catching ghosts throughout town. However, what stuck with us about this game? For the 2 dudes there was a deep sense of nostalgia that attached us to a game that was probably not worth sticking too.

All that being said, we hope you enjoy the show whether you liked the game or not.

Update (2/24/14): Since the airing of the Ghostbusters episode the great Ghostbusters actor Harold Ramis has passed. As most of you know he was the beloved actor  who played Dr. Egon Spengler in the Ghostbusters movie. We would like to honor the legacy of Harold Ramis by dedicating the Ghostbusters episode of 2 Dudes and a NES to him.

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Double Dragon

What better game for the two dudes to talk about than a game about two battle tested, gun showing boot wearing guys on a journey to save the day? Double Dragon, a game about twin brothers (a notion lost on the casting director of the ill made movie), on a journey to save Marian. Well, that was the idea at least. The NES version of the game had a bit of a change in the story. A story that is hilariously told by Michael on the show.

In the NES version of the game you play only as Billy and Willy is the final boss. This is a big difference from the version released in the arcade, where the cooperative mode showed the twin brothers as partners going to save Marian. The two dudes go into detail about the differences between the arcade and the NES version so I will save that.

One problem with the NES version of Double Dragon is the seemingly slapped together design of it. This is proven by the lack of the cooperative mode and other glitches and noticeable differences that are discussed on the podcast.

All in all Double Dragon was a classic that made for a difficult time for the two dudes trying to beat it. (Tune into the show to find out if we had any success)

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Pac-Man

What can be said about Pac-Man that hasn't already been said? When most quarter (hehe, get it? quarter?) to middle aged people think of arcades, Pac-Man is THE game. Of course, we're NES dudes so we want to know what the NES version is like. Well, it is basically identical to the arcade, which makes it awesome!

What we find most interesting about the NES Pac-Man story comes from the Tengen side of things. See, there were three different ports of Pac-Man for the NES. Two by Tengen and one by Namco (the original developer of Pac-Man). Whoever is in charge of the wikipedia page sums it up pretty well:

Tengen unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with Nintendo for a less restrictive license (Nintendo restricted their licensees to releasing only five games per year, and required their games to be NES-exclusive for two years). Nintendo refused, so in December 1987 Tengen agreed to the standard licensing terms. In 1988, Tengen released its first and only three cartridges licensed through Nintendo—RBI Baseball, Pac-Man and Gauntlet. Meanwhile, Tengen secretly worked to bypass Nintendo's lock-out chip called 10NES that gave it control over which games were published for the NES. While numerous manufacturers managed to override this chip by zapping it with a voltage spike, Tengen engineers feared this could potentially damage NES consoles and expose them to unnecessary liability. The other problem was that Nintendo made frequent modifications to the NES to prevent this technique from working. Instead the company chose to reverse engineer the chip and decipher the code required to unlock it.

What came of this? Those super cool black Tengen carts! Not exactly collectors items, but to an 8 year old they were pretty sweet.

Michael's high score on this episode was... 42,440! Beat that Billy Mitchell! Justin's high score was... too embarrassing to repeat. Anyway, another great podcast down.

Paku paku paku paku!

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Super Mario Bros.

Ah, Super Mario Bros. The game that started it all for most of us. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't at least played this game. Most of us remember it as the two-fold pack-in game Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt that came with most NES consoles. Originally released in 1985, Super Mario Bros. helped to launch the side-scrolling genre into mainstream popularity and was the best selling game for nearly three decades.There are many interesting facts about the development of the game lead by the man himself: Shigeru Miyamoto.

• The ability to have Mario change size was a result of basing level design around a smaller Mario, then intending to make his size bigger in the final version.
• Using Mushrooms to change size was influenced by folk tales in which people wander into forests and eat magical Mushrooms; this also resulted in the game world being named the "Mushroom Kingdom".
• Originally an idea for a shoot-'em-up stage in which Mario would jump onto a cloud and fire at enemies was to be included; however, this was dropped to maintain the game's focus on jumping action, but the sky-based bonus stages still remained.
• The "Infinite 1-Up" trick was by design, but the developers did not expect players to be able to master it as well as they did.

Super Mario Bros. has been ported to nearly every Nintendo console since its launch in some form or another. We thoroughly enjoyed our time recording this episode and replaying the game for the millionth time. Our special guest was one for the history books for sure. And for the record, Michael's current best speed run time is 7:59 and Justin's is 10:45. We encourage the listeners to attempt the speed run and challenge us. Give us another reason to return to the game and best you!

So long de Bowser!

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