retronauts

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  • Retronauts, 1UP Show celebrate Mario

    by 
    JC Fletcher
    JC Fletcher
    11.05.2007

    The eternally excellent Retronauts podcast returned last week for a Mario-centric episode. In our opinion, Retronauts is the best retrogaming podcast on the Internet (the best podcast on the Internet? Maybe!), and is rarely worth missing. The panel in this episode is especially great, as it consists entirely of snarky, animated people who happen to know everything about games, ever. Of course, the availability of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the VC and the upcoming release of Galaxy have us all in a Mario mood, so we can all enjoy this episode even more (if we can hear it over our own hyperventilating, a symptom of Mario Madness).If that's not enough Jeremy-Parish-talking-about-Mario, check out the latest 1UP Show video (easily accessible at the top of this very post), which features, in addition to Super Mario Galaxy video footage and a ton of discussion, a brief West Side Story-esque musical interlude from Parish about receiving the game in the mail.

  • Parish's rejected Pokemans review: Let us show you it [update 1]

    by 
    JC Fletcher
    JC Fletcher
    05.03.2007

    For a change of pace, 1UP's Jeremy Parish sometimes submits reviews in webcomic form. He tried to do just that thought of doing that for his review of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, and was denied, but went with the more traditional approach in the end. Luckily for us, personal blogs face no such content approval process. But rather than scrap the idea altogether, Parish has drawn up part 1 of his Pokemon review comic on both his 1UP blog and his personal blog GameSpite, with a promise to continue the story of ... well, of a guy reviewing Pokemon.We're big fans of Mr. Parish-- we listen to his 1UP podcast Retronauts every week, just like every sane person should. Not only that, we continue to be enthralled by anything that makes use of the "Pokemans" meme. So there was no choice but to post this comic when we saw it. Our hands were tied. What do you think about "alternative" review formats like this one?Update: Changed to reflect the actual circumstances of the strip's creation, thanks to a correction from Mr. Parish himself.

  • Retronauts! We choose you!

    by 
    JC Fletcher
    JC Fletcher
    04.06.2007

    We depend on 1up's Retronauts podcast to help get us through the long, painfully silent hours of our lives. Most of the time, we'd rather be thinking about Castlevania than doing schoolwork anyway, and Jeremy Parish and his cadre of gaming scholars help us keep our attention away from what we're actually supposed to be doing.This week, in anticipation of the upcoming Diamond and Pearl, Retronauts focuses on the Pokemon franchise, focusing on the history of the franchise and some off-the-cuff theory about why the games remain relevant despite not having changed in any appreciable way in the last ten years. Oh, and they do a lot of cursing about terrible games, but that's to be expected.

  • 1UP's Retronauts go to Japan for NES classics and profit

    by 
    Jared Rea
    Jared Rea
    02.13.2007

    We used to import games from Japan through shady specialty shops and mailing lists; creepy retail ads from the backs of magazines pleading for your American dollars. With the rise of the internet, it became a more legitimate form of shopping. And now that we're all old and bitter we just skip all that rubbish and go directly to Japan for our ancient video games.Or at least that's what 1UP's Jeremy Parrish and Game|Life's Chris Kohler do. For a rare glimpse of a weeaboo in its natural environment, 1UP's on-going video series of Retronauts takes us to Tokyo's Akihabara district for some vintage video game shopping. The duo try to land some choice picks to feed to the eBay masses while musing over just why a copy of the original Super Mario Bros costs so much over there. Special guest appearances by Hot Slots and the Dragon Warrior III original soundtrack ... on vinyl.

  • The Symphony of the Night we won't get

    by 
    Andrew Yoon
    Andrew Yoon
    02.06.2007

    Some gamers may feel jaded about the lack of improvements the PSP version of Symphony of the Night will feature. If Rondo of Blood can get the full 3D makeover, certainly this beloved PS1 classic can also receive some extras? Well, more isn't necessarily better, as seen by the Saturn version of this beloved adventure game.1UP showcases the horrors of the Saturn version, filled with unnecessary extras that actually detract from the experience more than add to it. This episode of Retronauts shows you the horrors of a great game ruined by an overly ambitious port design. Let's be glad that our version of Symphony of the Night won't be as horrific as this.