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215 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 10 ratingsOne man's opinions and commentaries on happenings in the video game industry.
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Episodes
Power Button - Episode 316: The Tomb Raider Rises
September 11, 2020 16:45 - 74.6 MBPlayStation Plus offered Square-Enix's Rise of the Tomb Raider as a free download earlier in the summer and since my fiancee is an Uncharted fan, I suggested she might want to try it out since they have some similarities. She enjoyed it, got me into playing it, and that led to this week's podcast discussion in which we brief Blake Grundman on our experiences with the dry monologues, hunting animals with poison mushroom arrows, avoiding the gory deaths, and tracking a mythical witch. Good luck...
There Sure Are A Lot Of GameCube Controllers
September 10, 2020 18:17Some people collect video games, but other people collect video game controllers. Consider the collection of Nintendo GameCube controllers on display at The Controller Library as maintained by Carl Synnett, for instance. You're probably thinking that if you've seen one GameCube controller, then you've seen them all. How many can there be? I mean, there's your basic wired model, and then the wireless WaveBird, and then maybe a few different color variations, and you're done, right? You've got ...
Xbox Series X Price, Release Date Announced
September 09, 2020 13:20Microsoft and Sony have been playing a game of announcement chicken over the past months, each seemingly waiting to see what the other will charge for their next generation console. Microsoft moved first this morning, announcing that the new Xbox Series X will cost $499 at retail with a release date of November 10 in North America. Yesterday an early leak revealed a budget version of the console, the Xbox Series S, which lacks a disc drive and cannot output 4K video for a reasonable $299. The...
Lost <i>F-Zero: GP Legend</i> e-Reader Tracks Recovered
September 04, 2020 23:22Nintendo released a trio of F-Zero titles for the Game Boy Advance to diminishing returns internatio...
Power Button - Episode 315: A Celebration Fit For A Plumber
September 04, 2020 21:10 - 78.4 MBNintendo opened the floodgates on its Super Mario Bros. thirty-fifth anniversary plans and game announcements this week with lots of new products on the way to celebrate the occasion. On this week's podcast, we're discussing all of the news including the Mario Kart Live toys, Super Mario 35 battle royale game, Super Mario 3D All-Stars coming to the Switch, and so much more. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes ...
Power Button - Episode 314: Avengers Beta, Assemble!
August 21, 2020 17:59 - 75.6 MBHave you heard about this new Marvel's Avengers game coming out soon? We certainly have, and on this week's podcast we're discussing the beta version of the game that has been available on and off for the past few weeks. Corey is back with us this week to help us pick it apart, put it back together, and look ahead to the finished version of the game and beyond to the datamined list of future playable characters. Excelsior, and all of that stuff! Download this week's episode directly from PTB,...
Power Button - Episode 313: Paper Mario, The Origami Killer
August 10, 2020 19:47 - 105 MBWe can't resist a new Paper Mario title (except for when we do), so on this week's episode of the podcast we're discussing the first half of Paper Mario: The Origami King for the Nintendo Switch. There are lots of spoilers in here for the red and blue streamer areas plus a little bit beyond, so hold off on joining us for this one until you reach the Monty Mole village if you are concerned about spoilers. We'll pick up the second half of the adventure when Blake gets around to finishing it. Do...
<i>Williams Pinball: Vol. 6</i> Coming To <i>Pinball FX3</i>
August 04, 2020 15:30Zen Studios has gone quiet over the past few months when it comes to new pinball table announcements for Pinball FX3, but the company is back on track with the upcoming Williams Pinball: Volume 6 which includes three more classic Williams tables coming to the usual platforms Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows 10, and Steam. Mobile users can play through the Williams Pinball app on iOS and Google Play. This pack includes 1990's infamous FunHouse (with Rudy!), 1987...
PS5 To Be Compatible With Some PS4 Accessories, But Not All
August 03, 2020 19:00Allowing a previous console generation's accessories to be compatible with a new generation of hardware can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's great for players if those nice arcade sticks, steering wheels, and cameras bought last generation work with the next one because there's no need to replace perfectly functional equipment. On the other hand, forcing a clean break with accessories allows the console manufacturer to better control their messaging and draw a line in the sand r...
Power Button - Episode 312: Xbox Series X Xhowcase
July 30, 2020 16:00 - 93.1 MBMicrosoft broadcast a special hour-long look at upcoming games for its Xbox Series X console recently, so on this week's podcast we spend eighty minutes discussing the showcase and talking about which games interest us the most. We also dig into the console's Smart Delivery promises and touch on how Microsoft buying up a whole slate of developers is about to pay off for them. We'll leave a light on for you, Battletoads! Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player be...
Power Button - Episode 311: 2 Destiny 2 Furious
July 20, 2020 17:00 - 80.9 MBDestiny 2 continues to expand as developer Bungie recently outlined its revised roadmap for the ongoing development of its popular shooter, so on this week's podcast it's only natural that Blake Grundman would want to discuss it. I'm not a Destiny fan, but my fiancee is, so Corey is back for her second appearance on the show to talk all about Vex and the Warmind or whatever it is that goes on in Destiny. I'm glad they know what they're talking about because, in this case, I certainly don't. D...
Hedgehog Under Construction
July 16, 2020 18:00One of the best parts of the Internet gaming community involves watching fans of a beloved franchise dig into games and discover remnants from the development process. For whatever reason, Sega's 1990s archives of development materials is wide open to the right people and a bunch of unfinished versions of Sonic the Hedgehog titles have escaped to the Internet over the years. Over at Kotaku, Heidi Kemps showcases seven such prototypes that each show us something interesting about the finished ...
Hallmark NES Ornament Is The Real Deal
July 15, 2020 17:00Hallmark has done it again with its recently released Keepsake ornament of a classic Nintendo Entertainment System. I ordered mine last week when it became available and happily received it yesterday. Sculpted by Rodney Gentry, the little NES is incredibly detailed and includes tiny little video and audio ports plus antenna connector, channel switch, and power input. The control deck door even flips open to reveal a Super Mario Bros. game pak inside. Underneath the ornament is a small compart...
Power Button - Episode 310: The Big Borderlands Show
July 13, 2020 17:44 - 76.1 MBOn his fifth attempt to get into Borderlands, Blake Grundman is finally making progress on his way to open the vault thanks to playing the Borderlands Legendary Collection for the Nintendo Switch. Now that he's ready to talk about his experiences on Pandora, we brought in our resident expert vault hunter, my fiancee Corey, to join the discussion. We have an our of conversation about all things Borderlands for you, so catch a ride to Moxxi's bar and pull up a seat. Download this week's episode...
<i>Street Fighter</i> Begins
July 08, 2020 14:45Capcom's Street Fighter II and its various upgrades tend to get most of the attention in the gaming world, but when telling the story of the game that revived the arcade market in the early 1990s, it's important to go back to the very beginning. While the original Street Fighter hasn't aged well and doesn't have much replay value today, at the time it was the start of something big. Polygon is on a mission to chronicle all of the Street Fighter history over the next several months starting wi...
The Cats Of <i>Borderlands</i>
July 07, 2020 15:00My fiancee and I love Borderlands, we love artwork, and we love our cats, so of course we found a way to combine them all. Thanks to @Natashagalyaart we have commissioned artwork of two of our cats in Borderlands settings. First we have Moxxi the cat styled after her namesake, Moxxi the bartender. We even have a little Moxxi costume for her to wear for special events. Our local GameStop invited us to bring her to their Borderlands 3 release event last year and she was very popular. Next there...
Power Button - Episode 309: Not-E3 2020 Roundup
July 02, 2020 14:30In a normal year would have just come off of a June full of E3 announcements and news, but this is no ordinary year. News has still come in bits and pieces though, so as we leave this Not-E3 behind, it's time to take an hour and discuss some of that news. We have Min Min arriving in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo backing away from the mobile gaming world, Crash Bandicoot 4 on the way, and more. Join us and escape for a little while. Apologies for my poor audio quality this week. Skype d...
<i>Shakedown: Hawaii</i> Coming To Wii And Wii U
June 26, 2020 16:07Vblank Entertainment's delightful 16-bit-stylized Shakedown: Hawaii was released for modern gaming platforms such as the Nintendo Switch last year, but developer Brian Provinciano loves a challenge, so he's bringing the action/adventure title to a pair of older consoles just for kicks. Later this summer the game will launch for the Nintendo Wii and the Wii U. Why did he do this? Because he can. Here's how it worked out: While it still feels like yesterday, it's been nearly 14 years since the ...
Official <i>Mario Paint</i> VHS Teaches Digital Artistry
June 24, 2020 19:30Nintendo's 1992 release Mario Paint for the Super NES sought to turn the console's audience into artists and musicians with its suite of creative tools, and while the game came with an instructional manual, the learning curve could be steep if you didn't have a basic grasp on the concepts behind digital art and music. Nintendo published an official player's guide packed with stamp templates and basic tips to get you started on your creative adventure, but in Japan you could also get an offici...
Nintendo Backs Off From Mobile Gaming
June 22, 2020 17:45Nintendo believed it was poised to become a billion dollar force in the mobile gaming app market a few years ago when it announced its first game developed exclusively for mobile hardware, Super Mario Run, but as Takashi Mochizuki at Bloomburg reports today, the company is retreating from that market following a series of lackluster returns and a question of whether its worth continuing to pursue that market now that the Switch is so successful. As the article points out, Nintendo's mobile pr...
Mini-Review: <i>Evan's Remains</i>
June 17, 2020 18:00When a genius inventor named Evan Goldstein disappears, his last supposed location is on a mysterious island. Years later, a letter arrives asking that a girl named Dysis go to the island and find him. That's about where things are when we pick up the plot of Evan's Remains, a new indie game developed by Matías Schmied for the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The publisher, Whitethorn Digital, offered me a free download of the game to check it out, and since I'...
Power Button - Episode 308: Sony PlayStation 5 Revealed
June 15, 2020 15:30As the new next-generation video game consoles rev up for debuts later this year, it's Sony's turn to show off the PlayStation 5 and wow us with tales of things to come. Join us as we discuss the ups and downs of Sony's online presentation and cover which games we're most excited to try, which hardware features are the most intriguing, and some educated guesses as to a release date and price. Tell the affiliates that we're running long this week as we have nearly an hour and a half of convers...
New <i>Ratchet & Clank</i> Shows Off PS5
June 12, 2020 14:30Insomniac Games always likes to show off its technical wizard skills whenever possible and the company's developers are doing it again in the announcement trailer for the upcoming Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for the Sony PlayStation 5. The PS5's solid state hard drive will definitely cut back on the time needed to load new levels, so what better way to demonstrate that then with a game built around blasting into alternate dimensions during fast-paced action? Every new console generation boast...
Zelda 3 Lives On
June 09, 2020 17:31Those of us who grew up with gaming in the 1990s relied on magazines such as Nintendo Power and Electronic Gaming Monthly for our news on new titles, and often those titles were teased in print before they had official titles. Everyone was talking about Zelda 3 before it was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and, and before we bought The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time we knew it as Zelda 64. The thing is, these shorthand titles tend to stick. Clyde Mandelin discusses the staying power...
Power Button - Episode 307: Favored Endings
June 08, 2020 19:30We're looking at some of our favorite video game endings on this week's new podcast episode with a trip through our dreams with Super Mario Bros. 2 and The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, a long game of endings spanning the Mega Man X series into the Mega Man Zero series, Halo Reach's unhappy ending, Mass Effect 2's suicidal ending, Portal 2 ending with a song, and much more.Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTu...
Nintendo's TV And Movie Ventures Recapped
June 05, 2020 18:45Depending on which generation's members you ask you would think that Nintendo's only forays into the world of movies and television shows were either 1993's Super Mario Bros.: The Movie which is notorious for being... let's just say something else, or of course the juggernaut that is Pokémon. The company has licensed several other of its properties to film and animation studios over the years, and rather than let those slip through the cracks, Matt Paprocki writing for Polygon has put togethe...
Sega Announces Game Gear Micro
June 03, 2020 14:30Sega is prepping another mini console to follow up its successful Sega Genesis Mini, and while many fans have clamored for a Dreamcast Mini or Saturn Mini, the company is instead going even more niche with a tiny Game Gear. Coming in October exclusively to Japan (as of this announcement) is Game Gear Micro, an impractically small version of the company's Game Boy competitor that measures only three inches wide with a one inch screen. While that is adorably cute, it's much too small to play as...
Lost <i>Samurai Shodown</i> Sequel Shows Up
May 29, 2020 16:00Somewhere in the middle of the major Street Fighter versus Mortal Kombat fighting game wars of the 1990s was SNK with its fighting favorites such as Fatal Fury, King of Fighters, and Samurai Shodown. Each of these title led to several sequels and revisions in the arcade and home console markets. Samurai Shodown is set for a compilation re-release in June from the developers / archivists at Digital Eclipse, and in the process of working on the project they were able to snag a lost, unreleased ...
Lost "Puc-Man Fever" Variant Challenges Everything You Think You Know About "Pac-Man Fever"
May 22, 2020 14:00I know that you know all about Buckner & Garcia's famous "Pac-Man Fever" hit single from the 1981 album of the same name (seriously; it hit number nine on the Billboard Top 100 chart that year). After all, you have the original vinyl album, the cassette release, and even the 2002 re-recorded CD version and 2015 remix inspired by the Adam Sandler film Pixels. The poster is hanging on your wall right now, I bet. What you, the "Pac-Man Fever" superfan, are missing is an exclusive Japanese varian...
The Rise And Fall Of <i>Perfect Dark</i>
May 18, 2020 17:00When you develop a first-person shooter for a console that isn't expected to sell many copies but then becomes a colossal hit and redefines how the genre is treated on consoles, what do you do for an encore? That's the question asked of Rare's developers in the late 1990s after the company's GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 became one of the best games on the console and one that is still remembered and revered today for its multiplayer mode. The easy answer is to follow it up with a direct ...
Piano Pro-Am
May 18, 2020 13:02Times are tough lately and we can all use a pick-me-up. Start your week out with some peppy energy thanks to musician Rob "88bit" Kovacs and his piano rendition of one of the Nintendo Entertainment System's best racers, R.C. Pro-Am. Composed by Rare soundtrack master David Wise, these songs make some interesting use of the NES's limited sound channels. Rob explains: The opening title screen theme is one of the more unique NES themes in that it is saturated with triads, something you don’t hea...
Power Button - Episode 306: Leak Sneaks
May 14, 2020 20:00Major gaming leaks in the past few weeks have shown us the past and the future as Nintendo suffered a system breach that resulted in all kinds of trade secrets and information from the late 1990s through the 2000s posted online and Naughty Dog and Sony had to deal with fallout from spoiler-laden videos from the upcoming The Last of Us Part II were posted online. All of this talk of leaks and stolen data had us thinking of all of the most memorable gaming leaks that have happened over the year...
Power Button - Episode 305: 100 Hours
May 04, 2020 17:16Thanks to the pandemic lockdown I've recently clocked one hundred hours spent in Assassin's Creed Odyssey and still have lots more to do, so that's a natural jumping point into this week's podcast topic in which we discuss games we're spent more than one hundred hours exploring and enjoying. You'll find some expecting titles here such as Destiny, Borderlands, and Red Dead Redemption along with some unexpected entries including Crosswords Plus for Nintendo 3DS. Download this week's episode dir...
The Pirates Of Smuggler's Cove: An <i>Assassin's Creed</i> Mystery
April 28, 2020 19:53Thanks to the pandemic lockdown, I've had lots of extra free time to dump into a video game I've wanted to come back to playing for months, Assassin's Creed Odyssey. ACO is set during the era of Ancient Greece and sees the protagonist, Kassandra, wandering the Greek world doing all of the usual Assassin's Creed kinds of things. This time around there is an evil Cult of Kosmos whose members are all hidden away across the land and their identities kept secret. Over the course of the ninety hour...
Train Your Amiibo Right With <i>Figure Fight</i>
April 21, 2020 19:30Now you too can learn the secrets of the great amiibo fighting champions of the world and become a renowned figurine coach as you train your plastic buddies for ultimate domination in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! Or, at least, you'll learn what makes an amiibo fighter tick and discover the most efficient ways to turn them into little smashers. Yes, I'm talking about John Harris's new book Figure Fight which is currently available as part of the latest Story Bundle. You'll learn what amiibo are...
Power Button - Episode 304: Tribute To The 1988 Nintendo Buyer's Guide
April 17, 2020 16:00I recently fell down the rabbit hole of Retromags.com, the Internet's premiere archive of video gaming magazines from days gone by. I was inspired to look up the first gaming magazines I ever read, Game Player's August 1988 Nintendo Buyer's Guide and Game Player's August 1988 Nintendo Strategy Guide, which inspired this hour of discussion about what constituted a video game magazine over thirty years ago. We're essentially ripping on a dated publication that I'm sure was doing the best that t...
Sony Wants You To Play At Home
April 14, 2020 19:10How are you holding up during the pandemic? My fiancee and I are on Week 5 of isolation, only going out twice a month to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions. We get our groceries delivered and disinfect everything that comes into the house. Being immunocompromised can be tough on a regular day, but we all know that days lately are far from regular, so we're doing our best to stay home for our own sakes and for the sake of anyone we would come into contact with if we were to contract the vir...
First Look At "CD Sonic" Was Impressive
April 10, 2020 16:00Back before the Internet turned video game news into a daily content-generating operation, fans had to get the latest information once a month through the magazines of the day. In the early 1990s I was a subscriber to three of the big publications: Nintendo Power for my Nintendo needs, GamePro for strategy tips, and Electronic Gaming Monthly for glimpses of what was going on overseas. EGM was very much a fan of Sega's 1991 Genesis release Sonic the Hedgehog, so much so that it felt as if ever...
2020 Nintendo Hallmark Ornaments Revealed
April 09, 2020 17:30Nintendo and Hallmark have had a nice partnership going over the past few years in which the former licenses characters to the latter for its line of Keepsake Ornaments. That partnership continues this year with the reveal of new ornaments featuring Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, Yoshi and even tributes to game hardware with a Legend of Zelda game pak and the Nintendo Entertainment Console itself. Open your wallets and purses because this holiday season isn't going to be cheap. Recall hours spe...
Power Button - Episode 303: The Many Games Of Nintendo Direct Mini
April 03, 2020 17:32Nintendo has come to save the day during lockdown with a surprise Nintendo Direct Mini which announced a variety of new games coming to the Switch. Borderlands Legendary Collection, Burnout Paradise Remastered, a new fighter from ARMS for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and many more titles of interest were featured in the broadcast, and on this episode of the podcast we take an hour to discuss which announcements we are more interested in. Plus there's also a rumor floating around that Nintendo ...
Power Button - Episode 302: Guilty Displeasures
March 27, 2020 16:37Have you ever seen lots of people talking about a video game series that they absolutely love but you just can't see the appeal? On this week's podcast we're discussing games that everyone else adores but just aren't for us. From Animal Crossing to LittleBigPlanet to Borderlands to Persona, nothing is safe. Remember that we're not overly negative or angry people, so we fully understand that these games just aren't for us, and we're alright with that. Download this week's episode directly from...
<i>Borderlands</i> Coming To Nintendo Switch
March 26, 2020 15:40The Borderlands series has done very well for itself in the past decade, but surprisingly it hasn't come to a Nintendo platform until today's announcement of the Borderlands Legendary Collection which bundles the modern console remasters of Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel with all included expansions (minus Commander Lilith and the Fight For Sanctuary) and new optional motion controls. The physical game card version of the set will require a hefty download, too. It...
Go Under Metal Sonic's Hood
March 24, 2020 20:30Sega's Sonic CD is remembered today for many things including its divisive soundtracks and the time travel mechanic that turned every stage into three stages, but I would say that the most memorable addition to Sonic's world is the creation of Metal Sonic. Sonic's robotic rival gave him someone he could evenly spar against with speed versus speed. The character is designed to look menacing and just plain painful to touch with his sharp edges and glowing red eyes. What went into designing Meta...
Power Button - Episode 301: Remain Indoors
March 20, 2020 15:30As the world takes a lockdown pause to deal with COVID-19, this week on the podcast we're talking about self-isolating and spending that extra time on playing video games such as Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. This week has been such a long month. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be su...
Video Games React To COVID-19
March 18, 2020 19:23Out here in the real world people across the planet are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as the coronavirus has us all practicing social distancing, self-isolation, quarantine, and/or working from home depending on your circumstances. Traditionally packed highways are nearly empty, people are starting to lose their jobs as business close for an indefinite shutdown, and we're all left to stay at home and avoid public spaces and gatherings so as not to contract the illness. These are uncertai...
E3 2020 Cancelled Due To Coronavirus
March 11, 2020 23:04The coronavirus has been spreading around the world and inciting fear and anxiety in everyone who keeps up with the news of the pandemic, so while it's understandable that many video game players were looking forward to some escapism with the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, this year's E3 has been called on account of COVID-19. Yes, the latest major gathering of people to be cancelled because of the coronavirus is E3. Jason Schreier at Kotaku has the story. “After careful consultation w...
Power Button - Episode 300: 30 Years Of <i>Super Mario Bros. 3</i>
March 07, 2020 22:13On this landmark 300th episode of the Power Button podcast, Blake Grundman and I explore the impact of Super Mario Bros. 3 on its thirtieth anniversary launching in North America, and while that's all well and good, we start off with a sidequest into a long-awaited event that I'm excited to share with all of you. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregat...
Mini-Review: SEGA AGES <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i>
February 23, 2020 16:02Sega has taken an active hand in the past decade in keeping its popular Genesis titles available for increasingly modern platforms, both as part of multi-game disc collections and à la carte downloads. The latest game to make a return appearance is 1992's Sonic the Hedgehog 2, one of the best titles in the franchise and in which Sonic joins with his new pal Tails to take down Dr. Robotnik's plans of world domination using his Death Egg weapon. While originally meant to spur sales of its 16-bi...
Della Duck Rewrites NES <i>DuckTales</i> History
February 19, 2020 18:36ROM hacks of classic retro games have come a long way in the past two decades as fans have reworked old favorites into new creations. Capcom's 1989 hit DuckTales for the Nintendo Entertainment System is one of the console's classics, and while it was given a modern upgrade in 2013 for DuckTales Remastered on then-modern platforms, it remains based on the original game which in turn is based on the 1987 animated series. Now that the 2017 DuckTales reboot is solving its own mysteries, it's only...
Journey With The Doctor To <i>The Edge Of Time</i>
November 19, 2019 00:24I can understand why it's a challenge to make a video game based on Doctor Who that honors the spirit of the source material. The Doctor abhors guns, so a shooter is out of the question. You could make a platformer because the Doctor and his/her companions certainly do a lot of running, but there's not much of the show's soul in a jumpfest. Match-5 puzzle game? Well, now you're not even trying! Thankfully, the folks at the BBC, PlayStack, and developer Maze Theory have seemingly cracked the p...