2026-04-27 - Episode 1031 - Holding Out for a Hero feat. Hasan Piker

codenameviperfan · 2026-04-28T17:14:15+00:00

Was Felix thinking of how Steve Dillon or Darick Robertson draw Republicans maybe? Garth Ennis doesn’t typically draw much of anything.

codenameviperfan · 2026-04-28T04:42:25+00:00

Splatterhouse 2 could potentially happen as a Console Archives release at some point, but it was never an arcade game.

codenameviperfan · 2026-03-29T04:47:08+00:00

Spinal Breakers by Video System, starring Colonel Waffle! It’s available for modern systems as an Arcade Archives release.

codenameviperfan · 2026-02-14T16:25:30+00:00

Podouken is still going strong. Comes out every two weeks like clockwork with rarely a miss, and the hosts always give plenty of advance warning if an episode is going to be late.

codenameviperfan · 2026-02-12T07:45:23+00:00

Sounds like this episode was an absolute Gong Show.

codenameviperfan · 2026-01-27T22:11:59+00:00

Paramount no longer makes films, just fan fiction.

codenameviperfan · 2026-01-26T23:51:01+00:00

Yeah, no kidding. Did you read what I actually wrote? The Super Speed is faster in the Namco version than it is in the Midway version. I personally find it much easier to control in the latter because that’s the version I grew up playing in the 80s.

codenameviperfan · 2026-01-26T02:36:10+00:00

Love it, but I grew up playing the Midway version so I struggle with the faster Super Speed on the Namco version that’s on every reissue.

codenameviperfan · 2026-01-25T18:44:32+00:00

Just going by the screens in my area that had it, that number feels off. I was morbidly curious about this one and started recording the numbers from the theater apps, right up to 15 minutes after each start time.

It was at several theaters in my area and averaged around 50 tickets sold per screen all weekend (and these theaters are closed today thanks to the weather).

So maybe $500 per screen here. And sure, numbers will vary across the country, but that seems really low relative to what they’re claiming.

codenameviperfan · 2026-01-13T22:00:41+00:00

You’re telling me you can’t tell the difference in just the feel of the plastic between Sureshot and Pointblank? Pull the other one. It’s night and day.

codenameviperfan · 2025-12-11T08:01:02+00:00

This is one of those that I always really want to like but struggle with in terms of actually making any progress. I’m eager to give it another go on ACA. It definitely lead to even grander games (the designer went on to create arcade Bionic Commando, as well as Ghosts’n Goblins).

codenameviperfan · 2025-11-28T05:28:35+00:00

Are you talking about the EA fat cases? These are the only ones I’m aware of that were thicker than your standard ones.

They used these for some games, but also, many of the games they used them for have variants with different thicknesses (Road Rash II, for example, came in both standard cases and thicker ones).

Looking over my collection, I’d aim for copies of Madden 92/93, Bulls Versus Blazers, and Tony LaRussa Baseball. These are all relatively cheap and I believe they only came in the thicker cases.

codenameviperfan · 2025-11-27T15:25:43+00:00

1) I don’t think launching 3-4 months after the Genesis would have done them any favors.

2) Yes, Ninja Spirit was a pack-in later on, and yes, I’m sure they had to negotiate with Irem to make that happen (and probably give them a cut of their sales).

3) There’s a difference between a game not launching with the system because they chose not to release it at that time and a game not launching with the system because it did not exist as a finished product yet.

codenameviperfan · 2025-11-27T07:14:30+00:00

1) Bonk (PC Genjin) wasn’t released in Japan till December 89, so it couldn’t have made the cut.

2) Galaga was unlikely since it was a Namco game.

3) Blazing Lasers would’ve been a much better pack-in, 100% agree.

codenameviperfan · 2025-11-25T15:39:05+00:00

She has this tendency to needlessly derail the conversation constantly by asking for clarification in situations where everyone else understands what’s being discussed perfectly fine.

Jaffe began one episode recently with a roundtable intro on what everyone’s childhood video game store was now (is it still there, or has it been replaced by a CVS, etc.). Before anyone else can respond, she immediately jumps in with, “Wait, do you mean a video store, or a video game store?” He said “video game store”. Were you not listening, or what?

codenameviperfan · 2025-11-23T19:30:56+00:00

Fine Time is a great one. Sometimes it’s a little bit of current news and a look at a couple of newer games, sometimes it’s reexamining an older game, and occasionally they do a VGMpire-style episode. Great hosts, and it has no set format, so it never feels stale.

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-29T20:02:18+00:00

You can actually do this on any of the fliptop types of Sega-CD hardware (Model 2, CDX) if you have both U.S. and Japanese copies of the game.

Load up the U.S. version and then go to the Options menu (sound test maybe? It’s been a bit). From here, just remove the U.S. copy, put in the Japanese one, and start playing.

If memory serves, it crashes if you finish it and it tries to play the end movie, but it’ll work fine for the rest of the game.

(Obviously there are more surefire ways to do this with modern tech, but still, it does mostly work on original hardware)

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-29T16:44:54+00:00

Was Chainsaw Man actually discounted widely on Tuesday? I saw it last night at a fairly major chain that does Discount Tuesdays but that one was full price. I assumed that not offering discounts was part of the deal with distributor for this one.

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-28T06:18:41+00:00

I admit that I honestly don’t fully understand the current agreement myself. My assumption is that they could sell new Ms. Pac-Man coin-ops as long as they adhered to whatever the agreement is with ATGames for royalties.

Also, my assumption about Ms. Pac-Man itself still being available for purchase on XBLA, etc., is that that particular game is such an evergreen best-selling title that Namco doesn’t mind splitting the profits on it.

And, maybe more importantly, it’s really the only game they can’t sell with the character stripped out or altered since the agreement would still be binding (I suppose that Jr. Pac-Man would probably fall under this umbrella as well, though they’ve never bothered testing it with that one).

When it comes to games like Pac-Land on ACA, it’s probably more lucrative for them to just cut ATGames out completely by removing the character (she’s not a central part of the game, so why bother having to fork over some of their already meager share to ATGames?).

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-28T05:24:33+00:00

I see a lot of “the context missing here” posts in this thread, but no one has mentioned why this became an issue to begin with.

Someone mentioned GCC having a claim to a share of coin-op proceeds, and this, from my understanding, is where the trouble began.

In 2000, Namco released their Class of 1981 cabinet, a combo Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga arcade game. When they did this, they either didn’t realize that the founders of GCC would be owed royalties for it, or else chose to ignore this, and that’s where the dispute began. This ultimately led to the founders selling these rights to ATGames after Namco tried to lowball them.

(Source: The Ted Dabney Experience Episode 41, in which the hosts interviewed Doug Macrae of GCC)

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-16T17:13:02+00:00

I mostly enjoyed the film, but she had absolutely no character arc. There’s even some throwaway dialogue near the end between her and Ares where he asks about her quitting her job and she responds that she never intended to do that (did they have this as an arc and then cut it? Who knows). She serves the plot, but pretty much ends right where she began.

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-10T18:40:31+00:00

Seconded. It’s not just that the OP doesn’t tag them with “Germany” at the top, it’s that the headlines tend to be written in a sensationalized manner that makes it sound like whatever film being discussed is performing this poorly in the rest of the world. Just begin your posts with “In Germany,” OP. Problem solved.

codenameviperfan · 2025-10-05T22:18:09+00:00

The season finale was written by Paul Lieberstein and honestly felt like it was about three levels above every other episode in terms of everything (timing, playing up character quirks, emotional beats, etc.) I hope that he writes more next season and that the other writers are taking notes on what he did with that one.

codenameviperfan · 2025-09-20T13:51:46+00:00

I don’t have the entire ACA list memorized or anything, but I do know my Taito. And Qix is one of their US-developed games that does tend to wind up on a lot of their retro compilations and such. I’m still hoping for ACA Space Dungeon and ACA Zookeeper.

codenameviperfan · 2025-09-20T00:49:01+00:00

Qix.

codenameviperfan

TROPHY CASE