Video Game Purists

This week we join the masses in our endless love for the one, the only, Ryan Davis.  Fred is joined by Trees and we discuss the career of Ryan Davis, including some off the wall discussions about Jeff Gerstmann's looks, and the end of the console team at GameSpot that gave way to the Giant Bomb web site.  After some kind farewells the boys talk about Ryan's other passion than gaming: movies.  Specifically retro games licensed from movies that they really enjoy and from there the banter takes the show off the rails.

Both clips for the intro and outro are from episodes of the Giant Bombcast.

This week Fred and Trees are talking about the Tomb Raider series and its busty protagonist Lara Croft that shadowed the video game as a pop culture icon in the late 1990s.  We discuss development, creation, and production of both Core and recent Crystal Dynamics' vision for Lara and her many adventures.

This week we have special guest Eli "Sodoom" (@sodoom) from Knuckleballer Radio on to celebrate Nintendo's world famous plumber.  Instead of discussions about the actual games we've all played, we delve into the snags in development, cultural significance, and multiple games that never saw the light of day.  Mario has a clean release record but plenty of care and scrapping of ideas went into his games.

Rob "Trees" O'Connor joins us on the most Irish of days, St. Patrick's Day.  To celebrate, we are discussing Irish video games of the past and because that only takes 5 minutes we're also talking special edition consoles.  Yes, those $500 editions typically exclusive to Japan that make our inner fanboy reach for the wallet every time we see a new ridiculous logo on something we already own.

Opening song: The Blood of Cuchulainn by Michael Danna (popularized in the opening credits of the movie The Boondock Saints)

Closing song: Irish Drinking Song by Dropkick Murphys

In honor of the release of several iterations of the Grand Theft Auto series releasing on various digital platforms and GTA V information slowly leaking out, I figured it would be a good time to dig into the vaults and re-release an old retro podcast I did with former Vault Reviews co-host Jamie (now known better as Ellie Clark).  We highly compressed the audio as a master track, so I apologize for the low bitrate, but that doesn't stop this great overview of the entire GTA series from being entertaining nonetheless.