This Week in Video Game History covers June 15th through June 21st — five releases and three deep-dive stories tied together by one idea: the day a game comes out is almost never the day that decides what it becomes.On the timeline: Among Us (2018), the InnerSloth social deduction game that flopped on release and became the defining game of 2020; Wrecking Crew (1985), the early Nintendo puzzle game where Mario swaps his jump for a sledgehammer and rival Foreman Spike makes his debut; Baku Baku Animal (1996), Sega's charming, forgotten Saturn puzzler; Final Fantasy Tactics (1997), Yasumi Matsuno's genre-defining tactical RPG and the birth of the world of Ivalice; and Shadows of the Damned (2011), the cult horror-action trip through hell from Suda51, Resident Evil's Shinji Mikami, and Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka.Then three stories worth slowing down for: how Disney animator Don Bluth quit the studio, nearly went broke, and was rescued by the 1983 laserdisc arcade classic Dragon's Lair; how the cursed Ghostbusters: The Video Game survived development limbo to reunite the original cast and become the third movie fans never got; and the quiet June 2000 morning Microsoft bought Bungie, turned Halo into the Xbox's killer app, and reshaped the console war.This Week in Video Game History is a weekly podcast and YouTube show covering notable game releases and industry history from the 1970s to today. Written, produced, and hosted by Doug Coleman. New episodes every Thursday. Follow for more video game history.00:00 -- Teaser01:46 -- Intro03:09 -- Among Us (June 15, 2018)04:36 -- Wrecking Crew (June 18, 1985)06:21 -- Baku Baku Animal07:48 -- Final Fantasy Tactics09:49 -- Shadows of the Damned11:31 -- Don Bluth and Dragon's Lair13:07 -- Ghostbusters: The Cursed Movie Tie-In14:54 -- Microsoft Buys Bungie16:54 -- OutroVideo Credits:1 Hour of Among Us Impostor Gameplay #1 - No Commentary [1080p60FPS] -  @mausser993 NES Longplay [206] Wrecking Crew -  @worldoflongplays Baku Baku Animal (Saturn) Playthrough -  @NintendoComplete Final Fantasy Tactics ... (PS1) Gameplay -  @10minGameplay1 Xbox 360 Longplay [109] Shadows of the Damned (Part 1 of 8) -  @worldoflongplays Dragons Lair (1983) [Arcade] --  @sharkyssharkade4050 Ghostbusters the game Xbox 360 walkthrough part 1 training HD --  @MrJTJP Halo - Macworld Unveiling -  @Bungie Evolution Of HALO [Beta Pre-XBOX] RTS & 3rd Person version --  @unseen64archive #gaminghistory #videogamehistory #retrogaming #gamingpodcast #AmongUs #Mario #Nintendo #FinalFantasyTactics #Halo #DragonsLair #Suda51 #SegaSaturn

This week on This Week in Video Game History, we cover June 8th through June 14th — a single week that gave us two of the most acclaimed games ever made and the strangest lucky streak on Nintendo's entire calendar.

We run the timeline day by day: Torn Banner's gloriously chaotic medieval brawler Chivalry 2 (2021); Radical Entertainment and Activision's open-world monster Prototype (2009); Hideo Kojima's farewell to Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PlayStation 3, 2008); HAL Laboratory's stylus-only Kirby: Canvas Curse (Nintendo DS, 2005); the Japan-only Famicom Golf: U.S. Course on the Famicom Disk System (1987), which ran a national high-score leaderboard over the Disk Fax decades before "online" meant anything; and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us (2013), released exactly twenty-six years to the day after that Mario golf disk.

Then three deep dives: the June 11 phenomenon (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS Lite, Big Brain Academy, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Game Builder Garage), the week Interplay almost died (the studio behind Fallout and Baldur's Gate), and the rise and fall of E3.

This week on This Week in Video Game History, we're covering June 1st through June 7th — a week that runs from 1984 Moscow to 2023 and hits some of the most fascinating stories in gaming along the way.

On the timeline: Super Mario Bros. 2 on the Famicom Disk System — the brutally difficult Japanese sequel Nintendo of America refused to release, later rebranded as The Lost Levels. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the first handheld Zelda, born as an unauthorized side project by Nintendo developers working off-hours. EarthBound on the SNES — Shigesato Itoi's genre-defying RPG, which arrives in North America in 1995 and sets up our second deep dive perfectly. GTA San Andreas landing on Xbox and PC in 2005, bringing the Hot Coffee controversy with it. The Sims 3 rewriting the rules of PC game launches in 2009. inFamous 2 closing out Sucker Punch's PS3 era. And Street Fighter 6, one of the best fighting game launches in years — dropping on the same date as Tekken 7 did in 2017 and Diablo Immortal in 2022.

Deep dives this week: the Cold War thriller behind Tetris — how Alexey Pajitnov created one of history's most important games in 1984 Soviet Moscow and didn't own a ruble of it for twelve years. The "This Game Stinks" EarthBound marketing disaster. And E3 2009's Project Natal reveal — the night Microsoft showed the world a controller-free future that half-delivered.

0:00 -- Cold Open
1:40 -- Intro
2:34 -- Smash Ping Pong - May 30, 1987
3:54 -- Zero Wing - May 31, 1992
5:04 -- Tokimeki Memorial - May 27, 1994
6:20 -- The Lion King (NES) - May 25, 1995
7:48 -- Worms Armageddon - May 31, 1999
9:14 -- Mario Kart 8 -- May 29, 2014
10:25 -- Deep Dive: Dragon Quest and the Strange American Journey of the JRPG
11:50 -- Deep Dive: Splatoon and the Console That Shouldn't Have Worked
13:14 -- Deep Dive: Super Mario Bros. The Movie, and What Happens When Hollywood Doesn't Get It
14: 28 -- Outro

Video Credits
Smash Ping Pong (Famicom Disk System, 1987) Full Game Session -- @NenrikiGaming
Zero Wing (E) - Intro Sequence [TTS] -- @Bot-ultracorp
Tokimeki Memorial ~ Forever With You Opening -- @TokimekiMedia
The Lion King (NES) Playthrough -- @NintendoComplete
Worms Armageddon Online (WormNET) | Intermediate 3 Players -- @OldNerdPlayingOldPCGames

#VideoGameHistory #GamingHistory #RetroGaming #NintendoHistory #JRPG #DragonQuest #Splatoon #MarioMovie #ThisWeekInVideoGameHistory #GamingFacts #GamingPodcast

May 11th through May 17th gave us the first E3, the birth of Guilty Gear, a Japan-only Fire Emblem that never officially left the country, Skate 3's unlikely second life on YouTube, and the story of Team Bondi — the studio that built L.A. Noire's revolutionary face technology, worked itself into the ground, and was liquidated five months after shipping its only game. Plus the press release that accidentally created Counter-Strike.

00:00 -- Cold Open
02:01 -- Intro
03:06 -- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (May 14, 1996)
04:37 -- Guilty Gear (May 14, 1998)
06:37 -- Skate 3 (May 11, 2010)
07:50 -- Invisible, Inc (May 12, 2015)
09:02 -- Injustice 2 (May 16, 2017)
10:52 -- The First E3 (May 11-13, 1995)
12:46 -- L.A. Noire and the Studio That Broke Itself (May 17, 2011)
14:42 -- The Mod that Changed Everything (May 11, 1999)
16:34 -- Outro

Every first-person shooter you've ever played started with one shareware floppy uploaded to a BBS in May 1992. This week we're covering Wolfenstein 3D, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, EVE Online, Red Dead Revolver, Plants vs. Zombies, Prey, and Resident Evil Village — plus three deep dives: how Capcom cancelled the game that became Red Dead, why E3 2006 was the most consequential trade show in gaming history, and the literal birth of practical computing in a Cambridge basement in 1949. The week of May 4th through 10th, across gaming history. So grab your controller, and press start to continue.

0:00 - Cold open: 1949

1:41 - Theme Song

1:49 - Intro

2:51 - Timeline Intro

3:13 - Wolfenstein 3D -- May 5, 1992

5:40 - Super Mario Bros. Deluxe -- May 10, 1999

8:04 - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrows -- May 6, 2003

9:55 - EVE: Online -- May 6, 2003

12:18 - Red Dead Revolver -- May 4, 2004

14:07 - Plants vs. Zombies -- May 5, 2009

16:07 - Prey -- May 5, 2017

18:39 - Resident Evil: Village -- May 7, 2021

20:52 - Deep Dive 1: The Capcom-to-Rockstar Handoff: How Red Dead Was Almost a Capcom Game

23:47 - Deep Dive 2: E3 2006: The Most Consequential Trade Show in Gaming History

25:09 - EDSAC and the Birth of Practical Computing

27:33 - Outro

New Episodes every Monday

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In this episode, we take a deep dive into the 2011 PlayStation Network outage, pay tribute to the Noble 14, and look at how Nintendo purchased a Legendary RPG maker for the cost of a house.

Timeline this week:

- Mario Kart Wii

- Grand Theft Auto IV

- Star Fox 64

- Nier

- Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

- Breath of Fire IV

- Bomberman Herof

A video version of this episode is hosted here: https://youtu.be/2XYl4GLfdLM

This week we are covering April 13th through April 19th — a week that gave us one of gaming's greatest cult classics that almost nobody bought, a DC Comics fighting franchise that redefined superhero games, the most beloved puzzle sequel of its generation, a neo-noir indie that took six years to make and became an instant classic, a shooter that had absolutely no business being on a Nintendo console, and a Japanese action platformer on a dying console that launched a beloved franchise. Plus — yes — the oatmeal people made Atari games.

YouTube Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/zt8Q7bZV0AE

Art done by MizTink

Music done by Shane Madani / GrandeWarlock

Check out his music on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/artist/3Jy9J5vNVFB3BuPUV0yYis

Find me on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/therobustone

This week in Video Game History looks at April 6 - 12. Some great games came out this week, and some amazing events that have shaped the gaming world happened this week!

0:00 - Teaser

0:43 - Intro

1:43 - Timeline Intro

2:44 - Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite

3:25 - Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes

4:15 - Kirby's Adventure

4:56 - Black & White

5:55 - Bioshock: Infinite

6:47 - Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

7:33 - Deep Dive: Resident Evil

10:35 - Deep Dive: Nintendo Holy Day

10:59 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

12:42 - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

14:42 - Gameboy Advance SP

16:08 - Outro

Video Credits

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Intro (1080p): @Z-Roll

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite - Opening - PSP: @PlayscopeTimeline

Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes - HD Remastered Opening - GC: @PlayscopeTimeline

Kirby's Adventure Intro Opening: @BasileousProductions

Black & White Introduction: @mdaabil

BioShock Infinite Beast of America Trailer: @GhostStoryGames

Bioshock: Infinite PC - Bring Us The Girl And Wipe Away The Debt (Booker's Apartment) 1080p: @Joe.Alvarado

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls Opening Cinematic: @Diablo

Longplay of Resident Evil (1996): @longplayarchive

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 100% Walkthrough Part 1 - Zelda's Rescue: @packattack04082

The Legend of Zelda 1, NES, Magic Sword, Power Braclet: @godofwar2masterR

A link to the past Getting the Master Sword: @SuikaNine

The Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker Title Screen Intro: @GhostDeath360

Now It's Personal | Zelda: The Wind Waker 100% Walkthrough "2/45" (No Commentary): @KrowsGraveyard

14 Minutes of Gameboy Advance Commercials from the 00s: @PixelSlayers

#gaming #retrogaming #videogames #nintendo #videogamehistory #xbox #PC #arcade #capcom #residentevil #kirby #gameboy #monsterhunter #diablo #diablo3 #metalgear

Art done by MizTink

Music done by Shane Mandani / GrandeWarlock

Find me on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/therobustone