The 8th episode of the Video Wizards Podcast is a huge one: we travel to a little bit over the middle of the mid 90s, namely the month of September in the year 1995. This is a real moment of transition, where 3D polygons start eclipsing 2D graphics in popularity, both in the arcades and in home gaming. Tekken 2 makes people take closer notice of painful looking grapples captured via different camera angles and the European launch of Sony’s PlayStation broadens the audience for video games considerably around these parts. But 2D games are still impressing arcade goers, as The King of Fighters ’95 by SNK and Guardians – perhaps the greatest scrolling beat ’em up of its decade – by the legendary Winkysoft, pull no punches and are very much alive and kicking. Meanwhile, Puzzle Bobble 2 is poppin’ like Orville Redenbacher and ex-employees of the by then defunct Toaplan find their way to Taito, Cave and Gazelle, for Gekirindan, Donpachi and Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon respectively.

With the early beginnings of internet at home as the backdrop, Oasis drop their insanely succesful sophomore album, while in the Hip-Hop world a chain of events is set in motion that would eventually result in the violent deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.. We find more grim violence in crime cinema highlights like Seven, The Usual Suspects and Clockers, whereas Showgirls is better described as a crime AGAINST cinema. How about them apples?

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.

Other music used in this episode:

• TV Theme Style (The Winner) – by Colin Thomson, 2018
• Fighter Select – by Yoshie Arakawa & Yoshie Takayanagi for Tekken 2, 1995
• Wild Beast Priest – by Yoshie Arakawa & Yoshie Takayanagi for Tekken 2, 1995
• Let’s Go to Pao Pao Island – by Kazuko Umino, Norihiro Furukawa & Shuichiro Nakazawa for Puzzle Bobble 2, 1995
• Pure Spirit – by Kazuko Umino & Koji Sakurai for Gekirindan, 1995
• Club M (Flute in the Blue Sky) – by Akihiro Uchida, Masahiko Hataya & Pearl Sibakiti for The King of Fighters ’95, 1995
• Stage 2 – by ??? for Guardians, 1995
• Gale Force – by Ryūichi Yabuki for DonPachi, 1995
• Messij – by CoLD SToRAGE for WipEout, 1995
• New York, New York (Instrumental) – by Daz Dillinger for Tha Dogg Pound, 1995
• Danger – by Blahzay Blahzay, 1995
• Last Dayz – by Onyx, 1995
• Ice Cream – by Raekwon, 1995
• More Human Than Human – by White Zombie, 1995
• (What’s the Story) Morning Glory – by Oasis, 1995
• Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me – by U2, 1995
• Kiss From a Rose – by Seal, 1995
• Shy Guy – by Diana King, 1995
• Gluttony – by Howard Shore for the motion picture Seven, 1995
• Return of the Crooklyn Dodgers (Instrumental) – by DJ Premier for The Crooklyn Dodgers ’95, 1995
• I’ll Be There for You – by The Rembrandts, 1995

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

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