CUT! CUT! Little android man, born without a soul... Cut Man, along with Guts Man, Fire Man, Bomb Man, Elec Man, Ice Man... even the evil Dr. Wily himself... a long list of enemies for our hero, Mega Man, to defeat, on his way to saving the world. It's back to 1987 this time, for the start of a long-running series with blasters, androids, interchangeable weapons, and much to our hosts' chagrin, neither ducking nor sliding nor wall-jumping... just a classic early platformer with a weaponized twis...
Feb 08, 2022•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 7
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's... it's... a giant multi-colored, winged whale with a kaleidoscopic paisley pattern all over it, that's for some reason named the Wind Fish! Come on, how could you not see that? For this one, we're headed back all the way to the GameBoy, and checking in on everyone's favorite green-robed (in the COLOR version), pointy-hatted, jar-smashing, rupee-stealing hero, LINK! He's in need of some awakening, and who better to do it than Chris and Kat...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 6
“Bonk. Bonk. Bonk.” What’s that, you ask? Is it fate, come knocking? Is it a raven, rapping, rapping at your chamber door? Why no, in fact, it’s COMMANDER KEEN! More specifically, Commander Keen constantly slamming his (helmeted) head into the top of whatever was above him, as Hosts Chris and Katie pogo sticked their way through the levels of this 1991 classic, inflicting only a minor amount of CTE upon our dashing hero. From the creators of Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake, comes this 2D side-scrol...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 5
SALSAAAA!!! It’s in everyone’s top-5 favorite dips for tortilla chips, and it’s the very poorly-translated name of one of the lead characters in this episode’s game, FINAL FANTASY V! We continue our grand tour of the Finals Fantasy, and this is the very last one that will come WITHOUT a rose segment… VI and onward, and Hosts Chris and Katie have actually played them before… what a novel concept! This one was a struggle… not to beat (though neither did), but rather, to figure out how to pronounce...
Nov 17, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 4
What’s this? An episode of Games We Grew Up With… with NO rose-tinted glasses segment? With only HALF of the hosting crew? Yes, my dear friends, your wishes have been granted! It’s Host Katie, accompanied by Host Katie, with a dash of Host Katie for good measure, talking about Jak, Jak, and Jak again… because it’s JAK 3 TIME! With this new format, it’s more of a “quick-hit review” of a game, just chatting about it… no rose section, less about the publisher, and just “Hey, I played this game rece...
Nov 09, 2021•32 min
It’s that time again! Time to dive back into the archives and pull out another classic title to frustrate one, the other, or both of our hosts! This time it’s fire-blasting, boost-jumping, dragon-saving, key-fetching, and platform-gliding with everyone’s favorite winged protagonist, Spyro the Dragon! Back to platforming, back to the PS1, and with the added bonus of Host Katie’s favorite element, flying levels! (Note: refer back to episode 12, Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat, for more detail on just ho...
Oct 14, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 3
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a giant baby? Come to crush us? As we try to save our neighbors from giant worms, roaming zombies, and 6-foot-tall ants climbing over the hedge maze that we really shouldn’t have put into the backyard in the first place? I know, I know, everyone loves a first-person maze (particularly Host Chris), but maybe we should have thought about the zombie infestation in the neighborhood FIRST! This time around it’s a LucasArts classic from 1993, where Chris and Katie take...
Sep 15, 2021•55 min•Season 2Ep. 2
MEIN LEBEN! It’s the start of year 2 (Season 2? Are we doing that?) of the show, and what better way to kick off such a grand occasion than killing a bunch of Nazi scum, and destroying Mecha-Hitler with WOLFENSTEIN 3D, right? It’s time to go back to DOS, it’s time for some Shareware, and it’s time for Host Chris to share some of the great stories he just finished reading in Masters of Doom, about the game’s developer, id Software! Mazes, hidden push-walls, low-quality sound effects, dog food, a ...
Aug 18, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Happy Birthday to us… happy birthday to us… happy birthday, dear podcast… happy birthday to us! It’s episode 26! It’s episode ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! It’s a COMBO episode! It’s a SPECIAL GUEST STAR episode! It’s an EXTRA LARGE episode! Everything’s coming up Milhouse today… SONIC! THE HEDGEHOG! TWICE! And also Tails, I guess… if we have to (sorry, Katie!). In this episode, we have our great friend Tom from the awesome “Will Run For…” Podcast joining us, sharing his insights and thoughts, and agree...
Jul 21, 2021•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 26
It’s time! Final (final, final, final) Fantasy again! Maybe they should have named the series The Neverending Story. That’s not taken, right? Final Fantasy IV! Where, unlike the previous games, you have to… fetch the four elemental crystals? Deal with a sad backstory involving orphans? Fly in an airship that Cid gives you? Hmm, there has to be something new… oh right, ATB! You get to attack less often than the enemies! Well, as they say, repetition doesn’t spoil the prayer. Still fun, still exci...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 25
I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that… err, wait, wrong AI! This time it’s Guilty Spark, Cortana, along with the Flood, the Covenant, and everything else from 2001’s OTHER evil-space-computer-themed action adventure, Halo: Combat Evolved! This comes after the 24-hour birthday stream for Host Chris, during which the two hosts co-opped their way through the entire campaign in one giant (exhausted) marathon. Listen in and hear the trials, tribulations, caffeine, and fun of having everyone from the show ...
Jun 23, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Which way should we go now? I’ll give you a hint… straight to the “Play” button on this episode! Chris and Katie are checking into the haunted mansion of The 7th Guest for PC & Mac, and trying to puzzle (literally) their way back out again! Cake slices, lettered tin cans, first-person mazes, flipping photos, and a whole lot of dumb luck play into this classic that helped to popularize the CD-ROM drive back in the early ’90s… does it live up? Are the puzzles still hard? Or, as Stauf, the mans...
Jun 02, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 23
It’s a (fat) bird! It’s a (pink) plane! No, it’s KIRBY! And he’s a SUPER STAR! Here for an appearance in the final Super Nintendo game before the switch to Nintendo 64, in an 8-in-1 side-scrolling & platforming adventure, inhaling enemies and exhaling pure, raw, fluffy, pink power! Hosts Chris and Katie hop back in time and dig deep into their memory banks for this one, and at least one of them made it just about through the whole thing (two guesses who…) – but both had a lot of fun! Cutters...
May 19, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Round 21… PLAY! We’re headed to Japan! And Brazil! And Thailand! And, apparently, the U.S.S.R.! Why? Because it’s Street Fighter II time, and we’re flying all around the world to fun fight locales, dragon punches, yoga fires, and tiger knees! Across the arcade, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo, this game showed up across a LOT of systems, and defined the 90s for a lot of kids growing up with fighting games. Not to mention, an AMAZING(ly bad) movie featuring the talents of Raul Julia, and Jean-Cl...
May 05, 2021•58 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Like blind hogs looking for acorns, we’re back to look for the best Final Fantasy games! This time, it’s Final Fantasy 3… no, not THAT Final Fantasy 3, the OTHER one! The one that only came out in Japan originally, and only came out on the DS in North America. And you know what? It was pretty fun! It’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to play it when it first came out. Join us as we work through saving the world with a bunch of teenagers who were told to do so by… a crystal? Sure, why not! Floatin...
Apr 21, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Let’s a-go! This time we’re hitting the gas pedals on our 100cc karts and racing our way into 1997 and the game that took the Nintendo 64 by storm, Mario Kart 64! Hosts Chris and Katie hop in (both with Toad, they’re definitely siblings!) to join the Mario crew racing through Kalimari Desert, Koopa Troopa Beach, Wario Stadium, and of course, Rainbow Road! Drifting, drafting, blue-shell-ing, and failing miserably at finding the shortcuts through the tracks… it’s racing mayhem, and all that childh...
Apr 07, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 19
It’s time to go back to the past! Err… back to the future! Or… oh who cares, it’s BACK TO THE JAK! Chris and Katie are jumping into the pools of Dark Eco, picking up Precursor Orbs, and figuring out what’s new and exciting with the second iteration of the Jak & Daxter series. Taking a giant roll-jump forward from the first game in the series, Jak 2 adds flying cars, hoverboards, guns, time travel, politics, angry guards, and… let’s just say some new voices pop up! So hop into the speeder, ta...
Mar 24, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 18
“Do a barrel roll!” This episode, our intrepid hosts are hopping into the cockpit again for some classic space combat from 1997 with STAR FOX 64. In doing so, they answer some of the world’s burning questions like: What’s the difference between a barrel roll and an aileron roll? What really makes something an aircraft? And most importantly, what are “space meters”? Chris and Katie take a deep dive into this rails shooter, trying to make their way to the planet Venom to fight and defeat Andross. ...
Mar 10, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 17
GIMMEYOURWALLET! We’re stealin’ cars, throwin’ molotov cocktails, and… turnin’ gangsters into hot dogs? Well, it’s GRAND THEFT AUTO 2, what do you expect?!? Hosts Chris and Katie are hopping into the driver’s seat and rolling back the odometers of their memories to check out this top-down, crazy, violent, tank-driving classic that helped spawn an era of open-world sandbox games, even outside of its hugely successful franchise. Listen in and find out… can Katie drive a stolen car better than she ...
Feb 24, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 16
A big episode number calls for a big classic game… SUPER MARIO BROS! In this episode, Hosts Chris and Katie drop down the warp tube allllllll the way back to 1985, and give the OG of classic console games a run-through for the first time since it was near-new! Hundreds of tries on the last level for Katie, a surprise knockoff Mini console for Chris; this episode came with all sorts of surprises, on top of a HUGE hit of nostalgia, a deep dive down a cultural phenomenon that changed the face of vi...
Feb 10, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 15
It’s a very special NEW EPISODE DAY! Check out the first episode of our new bonus series, “Chris’s Tech Talk”! In these episodes, Host Chris will be joined by various guests to talk about the technology that goes into video games, and the challenges that developers face bringing their visions to reality! For our first installment, Chris is following up our Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat episode with a discussion on flight simulators and the nuts and bolts behind them. So hop in the audio cockpit and ...
Feb 02, 2021•55 min
HIYAAA! To quote Tank from The Matrix, “It’s a very exciting time!” This episode is the reason that GWGW exists in the first place, as Hosts Chris and Katie review one of their all-time favorite games from their childhood, Gunstar Heroes on the Sega Genesis! Jump in and take a listen as they break down the Clue-style cast of characters (Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Black… such creativity!) and have a lot of debates during the Rose-Tinted Glasses segment about how the game works (spoiler ale...
Jan 27, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Round One… FIGHT! It’s into the battle arena for Hosts Chris and Katie, as they foray into a fighting game for the first time on the show. Yoshimitsu pogo-sticking on his sword, Nightmare being a… well, nightmare, and Voldo being whatever the heck Voldo is. This one is more in Katie’s wheelhouse, and was a much larger part of being a game she grew up with, so it’s a chance for Chris to explore and experience it with fresher eyes (hey, after Chuck Yeager last episode, turnabout is fair play, righ...
Jan 13, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Our throttles are at 100%, afterburners are on, and we’re back with a special guest to talk about one of the best flight simulators of all time, Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat! This episode, we’re chatting with the host of a great retro gaming channel on Twitch, GamingAtTheEdge, who brings us a perfect background of video gaming and real-world flying to break down all of the great things about this classic. Unfortunately, we moved this episode up due to the passing of General Yeager, but we can celeb...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Donkey and Diddy! Cranky and Candy! The whole Kong crew! (And hey, don’t forget Funky!) It’s DONKEY KONG COUNTRY time, on the Super Nintendo! We’re rolling and jumping and launching our way through this jungle classic this week, and it’s barrels of fun (ba-dum-tss!). Swing on by as hosts Chris and Katie break it down, with a special guest-hosting appearance from Producer-Host (Prost) Lisa! Hear about her experiences and memories of it, and then the follow-up after all three played through the ac...
Dec 02, 2020•59 min•Season 1Ep. 11
It’s here! Episode 10! Double digits! And what better way to handle that than to dive into one of the greatest game series out there, right from the very beginning? It’s FINAL FANTASY, 1 and 2! For some reason, we decided it would be great to celebrate it by doing TWO different 25-hour RPGs and shove them into one big episode! These are classic games from a classic series, but… maybe not GREAT games. The basics of the Final Fantasy series are clearly laid here though, and as a pair of gamers tha...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 10
And now, for a very special episode of Games We Grew Up With… FINAL FANTASY! All of them! From Firion in FF2 to Cloud in FF7, Terra in 6 to Lightning in 13, and Tactics to the MMOs, Final Fantasy has been impacting the world of RPGs for nearly 35 years. As our Hosts Chris and Katie have played many of them over the years, they decided to do one giant “rose-tinted episode” about the series as a whole. What they remember, what they love, what they love a little bit less, and what it has meant to t...
Nov 04, 2020•46 min
“Ecco, PLEASE!” … for those who watched Host Katie stream this episode’s game, Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega Genesis, you heard that phrase MANY times. After many (many) weeks of putting it off, Chris and Katie are diving in and learning the ins and outs of this classic. The beautiful music and the playful graphics, of course! But also, the incredibly frustrating controls and lack of information to guide you through the game. There is a lot of great work done in this game, and a ton of creative ...
Oct 21, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Hit that skate, bro! Chris and Katie are back to take us on a nostalgic journey down the half-pipe and grinding the rails on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the absolute classic skateboard and skate-punk game for the Playstation 1 in 1999 (and the brand-new remake!). Going through the skate park, downtown San Francisco, Area 51, and more, they’ll break down the grab tricks, the kickflips, and all the other fun pieces to this game. But mostly… THE MUSIC! Skate punk, ska, and (to Producer Kyle’s dismay) P...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 8
The name’s Up With… Games We Grew Up With. It’s Episode 007, which of course means we HAD to revisit the absolute classic multiplayer shooter from its era, GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64! From Severnaya to the Facility, the Klobb to Proximity Mines, Paintball Mode to Golden Guns, hosts Chris and Katie dive deep into this game that took the world by storm in 1997. Sit back, relax with your favorite beverage (shaken, not stirred), and listen to this super-sized episode about everyone’s favorite ...
Sep 23, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Season 1Ep. 7
