YPB: Episode 084 – Space Jam (1996)

This week in Your Parents Basement, we are the looniest tunes in the bunch! From 1996, we’re playing Space Jam by Sculptured Software, and published by Acclaim, for the Playstation, Saturn and PC.

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TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 – Intro, which features a funny little snifferoo from Space Jam the movie.
• 32:30 – It’s the return of a favorite segment! While we didn’t like Space Jam, for others, it was… The Most Best Game of All-Time.
• 36:45 – This week, the boys actually get some Comments, Concerns and Questions.
• 39:45 – Emails! We learn about Teebs, but unfortunately, you can’t save scrum through life.
• 55:30 – We can’t help but help, in Ask the Sweet Boys.
• 1:00:45 – We’re playing another documentary game next week! This one is about space battles a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

SHOW NOTES

- According to Price Charting, Space Jam is really cheap, in the $7 to $13 range, depending on whether you want a case and manual as well. This is almost certainly because it sucks. In contrast, Looney Tunes B-Ball is the better game, despite being for the SNES, and costs $26 to $70.

- The Ringer’s Shea Serrano has an oral history on Space Jam here. By the way, it’s satire and completely made up.

- From Rolling Stone, the Space Jam website was one of the first for a movie on the Interwebs, and it’s STILL around. Read their piece here, and check out the website here.

- The 30 for 30 on the Space Jam game is incredible.

Inexplicable Video Game Review: Gone Home, a good non-game game for gamers

Warning: Light spoilers follow for Gone Home. While I’m not talking about the specific plot elements of the game, if you want to go in completely clean, you might not want to read this. (And if you are going in clean and want to know my general opinion, it would be – Hey, play the game! It’s short and interesting, although definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.)

Gone Home is an odd game, and not just because it barely qualifies as a video game. Rather, I consider it especially odd because the content of the game would appeal most to casual and non-gamers, but the gameplay itself and the conventions it uses are meant to evoke the usual responses from normal gamers. 

Gone Home is set in 1995, and you play as 21-year-old Kaitlin Greenbriar as she returns to her new family home in Oregon from an overseas vacation. It’s a dark and stormy night, and on the front door is a note from your little sister, warning you not to investigate what’s happened inside. From there though, the game twists with its plot, and surprises you with the narrative, despite lots of weird, creaking noises and light bulbs that mysteriously go out without warning.

There isn’t much “game” to Gone Home, which probably drives some of the more aggressive gamer folks nutty. In the game, you wander around the house and try to solve the mystery of where your sister and parents have gone, by interacting with objects and finding portions of your sister’s journal. You can’t really lose or die, and the puzzles are fairly simple to solve, as opposed to some of the stumpers in Myst.

Speaking of – Gone Home’s closest mate is something like Myst, which was similarly low intensity, but Gone Home contrasts vividly even from that because it’s a strictly modern and plausible game. The tone throughout is a bit eerie, like Myst can be at times, but more consistent throughout. It’s not quite as creepy as a graphical adventure like Shadowgate or The Uninvited.

I can understand why there is some criticism of Gone Home, between it not really being much of a game and its price tag at release, which was around $30. (Even now, a physical copy is $30.) Its available on Steam right now for $20. I’d consider it worth more $5 to $10, so pounce on it at that price. (My copy was “free,” since it was the freebie game on Playstation Plus in June.)

Want to support Steve’s blogging? Then purchase something via the Amazon clickthru link for Your Parents Basement, Steve’s other project! To read all of Steve’s past Inexplicable Movie Reviews, click here! For Inexplicable TV Reviews, click here! For Inexplicable Video Game Reviews, click here! And for Inexplicable Book Reviews, go here!

Kinda, sorta professional - Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Also always awesome - Top Cat.

Since I know everyone is probably still reeling from the awesomeness that is the Steve and Danielle tag team effort, I thought I would keep it simple tonight and just brag about myself. Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past couple months:

June 15 - Review - OurWorld - Gamezebo
June 14 - Review - Swords and Soldiers - Blast Magazine
June 8 - Review - Steal Princess - Blast Magazine

Later tonight, I'll also have a news post up, since it has been a while since I've done one. Sneak peek for the next two weeks: Entries on Hitchcock vs. Final Fantasy VII, the art of casting subtly hot chicks for commercials, how some of journalism works behind the scenes, and I'm currently in the opening stages of tag teams with two friends.

Kinda, sorta professional - Monday, June 1, 2009

Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past couple months:

May 27 - Review - Puzzle Kingdoms for the Wii (3.0) - Blast Magazine
May 22 - Opinion - What will happen at E3? - Blast Magazine
May 12 - Review - The Dark Spire for the DS (6.5) - Blast Magazine
April 14 - Review - Moshi Monsters for the PC (9.5) - Gamezebo
Feb. 16 - Review - MapleStory for the PC (6.0) - Gamezebo

Later this week, I'll have another Gamezebo piece done; I have no real clue why it has taken me so long to churn it out. Yes, I said churn - it needs to come back in usage outside of in connection to butter. Thanks.

News - Thursday, May 28, 2009

This A-hole was by far the most infuriating part of the original Punch-Out for me as a kid, even if he was only on soda pop and not vodka in the NES version.

- At this point, I'm thinking of robbing someone to secure fundage to buy the new Punch-Out! It has been getting good reviews from even the traditional newspaper sources, and the game itself looks slick. Click here to see it in action.

- I've always been a PC loyalist, possibly because they are all that I know. When I was growing up and much more into computers, back in the days of multiplayer gaming on Heat.net and Quake: Team Fortress tournaments, I always viewed Macs as, well, not an option. Most good commercial games didn't get released for them, and if they did, they often came many months after.

Of course, all of that changed with the rise of the iEverything of Apple products, which probably partly explains why Dell's profit has plummeted 34 percent, beyond the bad economy. The odd thing that has surprised me about the rise of Apple has been that all of its products are basically hype. An Apple doesn't get viruses because it is a weaker machine, just like a Toyota Corolla is probably going to breakdown less than a luxury auto. (A PC isn't really a Ferrari, and while I would like to compare it to a Lexus or Audi or Benz, I have no idea how reliable any of those are, making the analogy hard.) An iPod doesn't really offer many functional advantages over the majority of MP3 players, and likewise with the iPhone vs. most other cell phones. I agree with Maddox's take on it.

... Yet despite all of that, I just bought an iPod about a month ago. In my defense, I am a consumer whore, and it was only $30 on eBay. Still, in hindsight, I wish I had just gotten an MP3 player instead.

- Piggybacking on the previous paragraphs a bit, this guy sounds like a friggin' loon, but the idea intrigues me. Too bad that the project seems to be dead, since the last blog post there was in October 2007.