The Video Game History Hour

Gaming historian and journalist Damiano Gerli shares the details of how exactly Nintendo marketed itself to the Italian consumer in the 80’s and 90’s as laid out in his article Selling Mario to Italians: the untold story of Nintendo in Italy. They really had their work cut out for them as they tried to bring…

Author Tim Lapetino joins us to discuss his new book, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon. After so many years, why are there still stories to tell about Pac-Man? During a time when shooting aliens was the hot gameplay on the scene, we find out why this game, with such a different experience, had mass appeal.…

GlitchCat7, competitive gamer/ROM hacker/full time streamer/Kaizo Mario historian of record, joins us to discuss his extensive blog post, The Complete History of ‘Kaizo Mario’. GlitchCat7 helps us understand how ‘Kaizo’ was born from exploring glitched levels, wall clipping, and ROM warping. These rearranged, and quite difficult, Mario levels provide a jumping off point for a…

Historian and documentarian Kate Willaert returns to the show, this time to discuss her recent article on “adult” games made under the Mystique banner for the Atari 2600: Porno Hustlers Of The Atari Age. Kate guides us through the very troubled history around these titles’ creation and release, including protests, legal suits, and attempted legislation.…

John Rairdin of Nintendo World Report joins us to discuss his ambitious documentary The History and Development of Star Fox Command (Ft. The Original Developers). He shares the previously undocumented history of this Nintendo DS title, its developers from Q-Games, and its many creators. As a side note: John has some pretty good ideas on…

We’re joined, once again, by Norman Caruso to discuss the history of a unique 1990 Nintendo Entertainment System controller, the U-Force. All the rage when it was announced, this hands-free controller uses infrared emitters/detectors to locate your hands in 3-dimensional space for game control input. In his recent video Don’t Touch: The Story of the…

To celebrate the Video Game History Hour’s 50th episode we’ve invited friend of the show, Chris Kohler, to join a thoughtful conversation all about game prototypes. What are they, where do they come from, and what part did they play in forming the Video Game History Foundation? How does the existence of source code affect…

Jimmy Maher, creator of The Digital Antiquarian, returns to the show to discuss his article on The Dig, a LucasArts point and click adventure. Jimmy takes us through the rich, but troubled, history of this title in a way that helps us understand how this project ever made it to the finish line and why…

Tomorrow marks the 22 year anniversary of the Dreamcast’s North American launch back on 9/9/99. To celebrate, we’re joined by Chase, one of the PR professionals charged with creating its memorable launch for Sega and who worked on the release of every single first party game for the console. We get a different perspective on…

In our final week of our three week hiatus, we’re going back to a conversation we had with David L. Craddock back in episode 33. We covered the Resident Evil demo that had come out and other upcoming games, how our gaming styles have changed as we’ve gotten older, and what styles of game reviews…