No, no, no.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! We’re coming in a bit late this, time, because Julian got real dang sick after we recorded. Thankfully you won’t notice that in the episode, and it’s a pretty good one, even if we didn’t have much new to say this week.
Link’s 16-bit debut still sticks the landing 30 years later.
If there’s ever a time I dread writing a review, it’s when my subject is a highly favored game that has received so much praise over the years that it’s a bit hard not to sound like I’ve just hopped aboard the nostalgic hype train at this point. Check any top 10 list of the best Super Nintendo games, and you’ll be hard-pressed not to find The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past floating somewhere within the top five, if not the number one spot. It’s a testament to its staying power in the minds of the gaming community at large. When I sat down to play this game for myself, I only had one question- is the game really that good? Yes. Yes, it is.
Tactical Espionage Action
“Elevator” and “action” aren’t words that typically belong in the same sentence. But lo and behold, Taito released an arcade game in 1983 that would pair a mundane function with the trappings of a spy thriller in the game Elevator Action. You play the role of a secret agent that finds himself at the top of everyone’s hit list. Avoiding certain death requires cunning, skill, and riding a lot of elevators. It made a big enough impression to become a cult classic that people remembered fondly.
Pro tip: never let Justin DJ your wedding.
Well howdy, partner! Nerds Without Pants is back, and Mike Fallek as back. So you know what that means: a massively meandering show that loses control almost immediately. Enjoy! Also, why did I start this by typing “howdy, partner”?
Get in the banana boat!
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! This week, we hop onto our Email Banana Boat and read your emails! We also talk a lot about games! It’s…you know…a podcast.
We did it! We listed every PS2 game!
No, I didn’t forget that we have this last part of the Nerds Without Pants PS2 list special to release! I’m just…really lazy, y’all. But here it is! Not sure if we’ll ever do another one of these, but there’s something kinda fun about just going through an entire console library, so never say never.
Justin's sister has some THOUGHTS.
Well hello there! Are you missing the Nerds Without Pants? Well…we miss you. Why you gotta waste our flavor? Damn! Aaaanyway, it’s our annual music special, so feast your ears, and we’ll be back with live episodes soon!
It’s all downhill from here.
In 1996, UEP Systems released Cool Boarders on the PlayStation. It was one of the few pioneers of snowboarding games on home consoles. The popularity of extreme sports was steadily gaining momentum in the United States, as were releases of snowboarding titles from other game developers. So it was only natural that UEP Systems would follow up in 1997 with their sequel, Cool Boarders 2.
Mergeajuana.
Well hello there! This is the final standard format episode of Nerds Without Pants of 2021, so we decided to bring Mike Fallek on and recorded an episode so long that you won’t finish it until 2022. Yep, totally meant to do that. Wasn’t an off-the-rails affair from minute one. Nope.
The Street Fighter
Sometime in May 1986, Japanese arcades saw the release of a brawler called Nekketsu Koha Kunio-kun (roughly meaning Hot-Blooded Tough Guy Kunio in English). It stars Kunio- a miscreant high schooler fighting for a classmate being picked on by rival gangs. The game is notable for being the first brawler to feature an urban setting and introduced many trademarks common to the genre- a tough guy protagonist, themes of street justice, generic thugs, female villains, and so on. The game underwent significant revisions for its Western release and subsequent NES port, including a name change to Renegade and the story wholly disconnected from its source material.
