In the 24th episode of Video Wizards, we travel to a time close to the “mark of the millennium”, as we find ourselves covering the autumnal months of September, October and November of 1998 for yet another very substantial seasonal spectacular. Arcade games increasingly lose floor space to slot machines and the ones that don’t have specialised cabinets often see very accurate home ports. In that category we find the monumental 2D fighting game Street Fighter Alpha 3, Taito’s 3rd game in the “Ray” series of vertical shoot ’em ups, RayCrisis, and to some extent Gauntlet Legends by our good friends at Atari. Cave’s odd disco themed shoot ’em up Dangun Feveron DID get a home port, but that would come only 18 years later. And Neo Geo games like Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad being available at home as well is nothing new… if you had the funds, that is. On the other hand, we of course still get SEGA spectacle cabs, as we take a closer look at the zeitgeist friendly Star Wars Trilogy Arcade.

Gaming at home, then, is massive in the fall of 1998, with Half-Life coming out for the PC, Tekken 3 coming out for the PlayStation, Japanese import favourite Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter coming out for the Saturn and F-Zero X coming out for the N64. As well as a whole host of other titles. And with the U.S. president fighting off impeachment in the midst of an adulterous sex scandal at the background, we see everything from Google getting founded, Hip-Hop concept albums seeing the light of day, the rise of Nu-Metal, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker teaming up on the silver screen and Edward Norton taking a paycut for a defining role in the incendiary American History X to the first airing of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the UK and everyday people living our their odd sexual fantasies on Local Dutch National TV. That’s right, the world is getting ready to party like it’s 1999.

Get extra comfortable as this all makes for the lengthiest episode of our podcast yet. For the next 8 and a half hours we’ve got you covered with another riveting, uproarious and nostalgic audio journey, right back to the later half of 1998.

Show theme tune: NEON CITY, composed by Ed 「イートレム」 Tremblay for Mudprints Music and licensed exclusively to The Video Wizards Podcast, ©2019 Mudprints Music, all rights reserved.

Baller of the Month Jingle composed by Yuli Anna and licensed exclusively to The Video Wizards Podcast, ©2022 Yuli Anna, all rights reserved.

Other music used in this episode:

Episode edited by: Juli Reed & Michiel Kroder

And finally: our special thanks to テクノワールド奥州.

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