Nate makes a terrible financial decision, Sebastian loses it at a commercial for breakfast cereal, and Jordan reveals which terrible videogame console he owned as a child. All in the pursuit of a malevolent ape named DONKEY KONG. This episode is rated T for Teen, because Jordan says a swear.
Relevant clips from the 1983 Donkey Kong Saturday morning cartoon show:
The Donkey Kong cereal commercial:
Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan discuss the origin of interactive fiction, the efficacy of weasels as a rat-control solution, and whether Dolly Parton is a time traveler from the future. Along the way, they consider Infocom's seminal classic text adventure: ZORK. Join us as we dive into the Great Underground Empire, and stick around to see if anyone gets eaten by a grue.
Guest starring Kari as the voice of Zork.
LINKS:
You can play Zork online at the Internet Archive (Apple IIe version):
https://archive.org/details/a2_Zork_I_The_Great_Underground_Empire_1980_Infocom (Beware, to my knowledge you can’t save.)
You can also get the Lost Treasures of Infocom on the App Store here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lost-treasures-of-infocom/id577626745?mt=8 The original Zork is a freebie.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, courtesy BBC4:
Ryan extols the virtues of the first scrolling shoot-'em-up, Sebastian wonders about the morality of sacrificing the people you're meant to save rather than letting them become mutants, and Nate wonders if Defender is the origin of videogames' accessibility problem. Come for the historical context, stay to learn the title of Nate's hit R&B single from 1996.
Nate and Sebastian are joined by Jordan Fehr to discuss Missile Command, the premier mutually-assured-destruction anxiety simulator! Hear the boys talk about the fear of imminent nuclear annihilation, the angst of choosing between protecting soldiers or saving millions of innocent lives, and how nice it is to play an arcade game with a trackball.
Rated explicit because Jordan says a swear.
Nate and Sebastian wax nostalgic about terrible board-game adaptations, Ryan invents his own backstory for the ghosts, and everybody is just generally a hot mess in this examination (maybe?) of Namco arcade classic Pac-Man.
Our intrepid hosts discuss the Atari 2600 classic Adventure, a timeless story about a featureless rectangle and the mystical artifacts it discovers on its journey. Come for the discussion of the first open-world game, stay to find out which of the three dragons is the meanest.
Nate and Sebastian discuss Asteroids, the Atari arcade classic about... asteroids. We also discuss terrible Asteroids knock-off "Maelstrom," NASA missions, and whether or not Sebastian's dog is a Good Boy.
Ryan, who hates space, was too afraid to be on this episode.
Nate, Sebastian, and Ryan consider Space Invaders this week, the Taito arcade classic that swept Japan and created a shortage on the 100 yen coin! Maybe. Listen to the boys discuss the original cover shooter.
Nate and Sebastian consider the arcade driving classic Night Driver. They are joined by Ryan, who drives while wearing sunglasses at night so he can so he can... does anybody remember the next line from that song? I don't think anyone does.
In this episode, Nate and Sebastian discuss Pong, why Pong isn't an Olympic sport, and how Pong can bring us closer to our friends... and our enemies.
Nate and Sebastian kick off their trip through videogame history with the granddaddy of all space shooters -- Spacewar! Learn about the PDP-1 supercomputer and what it's like to fight a war... in space.