Episodes

  • Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]

    Game Players 83 - Resident Evil [S1E15]
    Oct 7 2025
    ISSUE LINK: https://www.retromags.com/magazines/usa/game-players-1993/game-players-issue-83/

    Here come the RPGs...sort of. Aidan and Ty revisit Game Players yet again, as the drumbeat for more RPGs gets louder across 1996 and 1997. The splashy cover art of Beyond the Beyond's Finn helped rook a young Ty into buying one of the most disappointing and frustrating games he's ever played.

    But the review is actually for the seminal Resident Evil, with the GP crew doing its level best to review a genre-shattering, brilliantly innovative game with a couple of truly nasty flaws.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Game Informer 47 - Carnage Heart [S1E14]

    Game Informer 47 - Carnage Heart [S1E14]
    Sep 23 2025
    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/game-informer-issue-47-march-1997

    ANDY MCNAMARA ON MY PERFECT CONSOLE: https://shows.acast.com/my-perfect-console/episodes/andy-macnamara-former-editor-in-chief-game-informer

    MATT MILLER ANNOUNCING GI'S RETURN: https://gameinformer.com/letter-from-the-editor/2025/03/25/game-informer-is-back

    We've been grinding XP and saving up MP for this one: Our first issue of Game Informer--
    though in 1997, the mag is years from its dominant Aughties peak, and decades from its shocking 2024 closure and its thrilling 2025 revival.

    Ty comes clean about his lack of history with the magazine, Aidan discusses having written for it; they both talk about how the PS1 library was chock full of brilliant, groundbreaking, unconventional, and nevertheless first-party (or AA/AAA-level funded) experiments of the kind that are so hard to get greenlit these days.

    And then...Carnage Heart.

    It was Ty's bizarre obsession, Aidan had never heard of it, and it was (and is) one of the most unusual, tough-to-talk-about games of all time.

    How did the GI staff handle it? Listen to find out!
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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.
    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 51 mins
  • PC Gamer Vol. 4, Issue 3 - Diablo [S1E13]

    PC Gamer Vol. 4, Issue 3 - Diablo [S1E13]
    Sep 9 2025
    ISSUE LINK: Video Game History Foundation Library | Collection: PC GAMER (US)

    More info on "Free Speech and Magic Money," Jillan E. Foley, PhD's forthcoming book from Harvard University Press: Book – Jillian E. Foley

    We enter the dangerously Adult world of PC gaming: Mail-order explicit games, game-deletion utilities to keep people from finding out you play explicit games, politicians fear-mongering about games being a "dirty, dangerous" gateway to Hell--and a very thorough and excellent review of Diablo!

    You know, a game about going to actual Hell!

    For one of our most-requested mags, PC Gamer, Aidan and Ty get personal about their history with PC gaming, the thrill of the illicit, and late-stage AOL's idealized business model.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 43 mins
  • Tips & Tricks Vol. IV, Issue 1 - Tomb Raider [S1E12]

    Tips & Tricks Vol. IV, Issue 1 - Tomb Raider [S1E12]
    Aug 28 2025
    ISSUE LINK: Tips & Tricks - Volume IV Issue 1

    GAME LOSERS T&T ARTICLE: A Comprehensive Oral History Of Tips & Tricks – The #1 Video-Game Tips Magazine | Game Losers

    We're the Tomb Raiders! Aidan and Ty teased Tomb Raider takes last episode, and here they finally are--and so is our look at a very popular game magazine that didn't (quite) have reviews at all, Tips & Tricks.

    Our hosts explain the appeal this magazine had (or didn't) to them at the time, flip out about the masthead featuring a very diverse staff working under Larry Flynt, and flip through the unique combination of in-depth strategy reference material with little-to-no traditional editorial.

    And then: we review their walkthrough (?) of Tomb Raider, and talk about how the game itself might have impacted it.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, the Video Game History Foundation, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • ULTRA Review Crew TEASER: Video Game History Foundation - Super Mario Bros. 1 [S1B5]

    ULTRA Review Crew TEASER: Video Game History Foundation - Super Mario Bros. 1 [S1B5]
    Aug 22 2025
    ISSUE LINK: Computer Entertainer, Volume 5, Number 3 | Video Game History Foundation Library – Digital Archive

    VHGF HOME: Home | Video Game History Foundation

    A pair of guests we've been dreaming about landing since before we launched the show, Frank Cifaldi and Phil Salvador of the Video Game History Foundation are two of the highest authorities on the planet on retro games, games media, and the culture around it all.

    The VGHF recently acquired the copyright to the 1980s game mag Computer Entertainer, and their contemporary review of Super Mario Bros. for the NES might be the only such surviving American professional written critique of one of the pillars of console gaming history.

    Unusually for one of our bonus episodes, we--as well as Frank and Phil--review it!

    As always, we thank all of you so much for supporting the show. If you dig it, please tell people! We'd love nothing more than to get more cool people in the ULTRA Lounge of our Discord server--and have the support we need to keep doing this show we love.

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    Computer Entertainer images and information are sourced from the Video Game History Foundation, under the Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

    Other sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    23 mins
  • Edge 16 - Final Fantasy VI [S1E11]

    Edge 16 - Final Fantasy VI [S1E11]
    Aug 13 2025
    ISSUE LINK: https://archive.org/details/Edge_Gaming/Edge%20Gaming%20Magazine%20016/mode/2up

    KEITH STUART EULOGY FOR JASON BROOKES: https://www.eurogamer.net/always-on-edge-my-life-with-jason-brookes

    We're going back to the future of interactive entertainment! EDGE magazine, the UK-made precursor to/sister publication of NEXT Generation, revolutionized games media way back in 1993. But the revolution wasn't televised, so to speak, in North America, and Aidan and Ty were barely aware of its impact until they were well into adulthood.

    But as much as Aidan and Ty love this magazine's quality, ethos, and production values, their year-and-change late review of Final Fantasy VI raised more questions than it answered.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    2 hrs and 6 mins
  • Game Players 92 - NBA Live '97 [S1E10]

    Game Players 92 - NBA Live '97 [S1E10]
    Jul 29 2025
    ISSUE LINK: Ultra Game Players No. 92 - Christmas 1996

    Mike Salmon's shot-calling review of NBA Live '97 stuck with Ty for almost 30 years—and it cuts to the heart of everything our podcast is about.

    For the first time ever, we revisit a magazine: Game Players, right after the "ULTRA" makeover that inspired the name of the very premium tiers you subscribe to! We take a hard look at the makeover, their 1996 year-end reviews, and Mike Salmon's refusal to give a major publisher's release a score it didn't deserve.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy, with set designer Gavin Verhey [S1E9]

    Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy, with set designer Gavin Verhey [S1E9]
    Jul 15 2025
    ISSUE LINK: The Duelist No. 21, January 1997

    ALLISON MCKENZIE'S TERRA PRINT: FFVI - Terra and Mog Print

    It's a bonus BONUS! Ever since the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy set dropped, our Discord's hottest channel has been #ttrpgs-and-card-games. Aidan and Ty decided that if it's all they could talk about, and all our most engaged listeners could talk about, then heck why not interview Magic: The Gathering design lead Gavin Verhey, who was the design lead for the FF set as well?

    Then Aidan dropped a bomb on us: A contemporary review of Final Fantasy VII in Wizards of the Coast's classic Magic mag, The Duelist!

    We not only had an amazing interview with Gavin, we had a great discussion afterwards reacting to everything he said, and discussing all the fun we've been having playing Magic--and in a sense all our favorite Final Fantasy games--at the same time.

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    Sources include the Internet Archive, Retromags.com, our original research, and our personal magazine collections.

    The FunFactor theme, and all other original songs, are composed and performed by Millennium Falck. Check out his work at millenniumfalck.com!
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    1 hr and 41 mins