Play Comics

Read transcriptVideo game licensing runs on a very simple equation: if a popular franchise exists, and a handheld system exists, someone will eventually put a game together and slap on a release date. That’s probably the story behind Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour, with Konami treating the whole affair with the enthusiasm of checking a box on an extremely profitable to-do list. It was the franchise’s first outing on the Nintendo DS, arriving with the confidence of a company that already knew the math worked. The pitch itself barely needed a pitch meeting: take the actual Duel Monsters card game, cram in over a thousand cards, and let the DS’s two screens do what a real card table always wished it could, which is render your monsters in flashy 3D up top while the actual decision-making, deck construction, knowing what a Trap Card does, happens down on the touchscreen below. The story loosely resets you into a remixed version of a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament arc, because apparently even a game that’s essentially “trading card simulator” still needed somebody to kidnap somebody, and wireless dueling and card trading rounded things out for anyone who wanted to bankrupt a friend without leaving the couch. Making the trip through Battle City with me is The Gaming Anthropologist, who’s been out in the field studying gaming culture the way some people study a subject that actually pays. So build your deck, set a face-down card of your own choosing, and let’s find out whether Nightmare Troubadour actually captured what made Duel Monsters worth dueling over, or whether “the license existed and so did the hardware” was doing all the heavy lifting. Learn such things as: Is Yu-Gi-Oo the Madden franchise of anime and manga based games? How hard is it to go play a game with a different set of rules than you’re used to? Are we setting a record for games where you don’t even play as any of the characters? And so much more! You can find The Gaming Anthropologist @the_gaming_anthropologist on Instagram and Threads, her Patron page, and of course her website The Gaming Anthropologist. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. Play Comics is also part of Art Comedy Pop-Culture Network, which is a long-standing creative organization spawning from a love of Adult Swim. Be sure to check them out for all sorts of entertainment news, commentary, and just plain fun stuff. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to D’ohmance Dawn and The Monsters that Made Us for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who believes in the heart of the cards, but not the liver or the kidneys. Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptBy 2005, Konami had made three TMNT beat-em-ups based on the 2003 animated series, which is the kind of commitment usually reserved for tax filings or long-term relationships. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare landed that November on GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and Nintendo DS as the trilogy’s closer, and Konami sent it off in style by giving it the series’ first E10+ rating, as if four years of shell-based violence had finally crossed some invisible threshold of Too Much. The game loosely adapts the show’s third season across four “Episodes,” which means the Triceratons invade Earth, Agent Bishop kidnaps Splinter for reasons that presumably made sense to somebody in a government facility somewhere, and Shredder shows back up to remind everyone that retirement isn’t really a thing that happens to ninja warlords. Along the way you can pour experience points into skill scrolls, transform into a Dino Turtle or an Ultimate Turtle depending on the mood, and, if you clear the first Episode, unlock a modified version of the 1991 arcade classic Turtles in Time, which is Konami’s way of saying “here’s the good one, in case this one doesn’t land.” Joining me to sort the Triceratons from the Foot Ninjas is Pierce Lydon of Spawnography, the podcast where he and George Marston work through Todd McFarlane’s entire Spawn mythology one hellish arc at a time. Pierce has already survived one trip through the Play Comics gauntlet with me on Spawn in the Demon’s Hand, so they know exactly what they signed up for this time: showing up, being extremely knowledgeable, and getting talked into yet another licensed beat-em-up nobody asked for. So grab a ninja scroll, pick a turtle, any turtle, and let’s find out whether Mutant Nightmare sent Konami’s turtle trilogy out on a high note, or whether the Triceratons should’ve just stayed home. Learn such things as: When is it appropriate to make a game without the most iconic villains? How much can you cram into a game when you know it’s your last one? What magical things can you find at your public library? And so much more! You can find Spawnography on BlueSky, and Instagram, and of course those Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify places. Or you can find Pierce as a wonderful human on Instragram @lapsed.punk. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Glitterjaw Presents and Byrds Eye View Comics for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who knows the difference between ooze, slime, and muck. But doesn’t want to tell us what the difference is. Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptIn 1986, King Features looked at its stable of unrelated newspaper strip heroes and decided the responsible thing to do was throw them all in a blender. Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and the Phantom. A spaceman, a stage hypnotist, and a guy who lives in a skull-shaped cave and inherited his job from his dad got drafted into a single Saturday morning cartoon called Defenders of the Earth on the apparent theory that if the Avengers could do a team-up, so could three guys who had never met before that year and shared nothing except a syndicate contract. Then, because nothing from the ’80s was allowed to stay just a cartoon, Defenders of the Earth became a video game in 1990, courtesy of Enigma Variations, for the exact kind of home computer that made you type a magic incantation and wait: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, and, for the three people on Earth who owned one, the SAM Coupé. You play Flash, sneaking through Ming’s castle dodging security cameras, occasionally calling in Mandrake or the Phantom to open doors, because apparently that’s what magic and jungle-honed strength were for in these days. Helping make sense of this glorious pile of licensed heroes is Ryan Estrada, who’s written comics for Star Trek, Popeye, Garfield, and, fittingly, Flash Gordon itself, having contributed to Papercutz’s newer Flash Gordon Adventures line. Ryan’s also built a reputation for tucking real hidden puzzles and messages directly into his comic pages, in plain sight, daring anyone paying close enough attention to find them. Which feels like exactly the right skillset for an episode about a security system that apparently only a few specific comic strip disciplines can defeat. So track down a joystick you no longer own, adjust to a universe where Flash Gordon answers to a management structure that includes a professional hypnotist, and let’s find out whether the Defenders of the Earth earned their game, or whether Earth would’ve been just fine handling Ming on its own. Learn such things as: Is it really a team game if you only get to play as one member? Why should you learn another language that uses a different alphabet? What are some of the special rules with making licenses comics? And so much more! You can find everything you could ever want to know about Ryan on RyanEstrada.com. Let’s see if anyone can pick out my favorite part. I’ll give you a hint, it’s on the home page. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 Mutant Nightmare, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Xandar Radio and Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who exclusively wears red jackets with embedded speakers so there’s always a soundtrack. Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Garfield has spent I don’t want to think about how long being terrified for our entertainment, and somehow this is only the second time we’ve noticed. Today we’re looking at two occasions Jim Davis’s laziest creation got shoved into a horror plot he absolutely did not sign up for: Garfield’s Nightmare on the Nintendo DS and Garfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt, the Flash game that lived on Garfield.com back when “Flash game that lived on a dot-com” was still a sentence people said out loud. Helping us make sense of not one but two instances of “cat, but afraid” is Dee Parson from Supr Dee, the syndicated cartoonist behind Rosebuds. A guy who, by his own account, actually learned to read on Garfield comics, which means this episode is less “guest booking” and more “the student returns to grade the source material’s video game output.” So lock the pantry, keep an eye on the Scare-O-Meter, and let’s find out if either of these games earned the right to scare a cat who once ate an entire sandwich made of other sandwiches. Learn such things as: What horrible real world things can Garfield save us from? Is there anything scarier than having to face your own existence and mortality? Can lasagna solve all of the world’s problems? And so much more! You can find the guest on Instagram @Suprdee2 and his website Supr Dee. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Gimmicks and Distant Echoes for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who wants nothing more in this crazy heat wave than to take a nap on a block of ice. Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.Read transcript

Read transcriptSuperman Returns came out in 2006 and asked audiences a very sincere question: what if Superman, but sad? Brandon Routh brooded his way across the big screen, lifting improbable objects and pining for Lois Lane, and somewhere in a boardroom, someone decided this emotionally complex theatrical event needed to be a video game on four different platforms. Five if you count the Game Boy Advance version, which is technically a different game but we’re counting it anyway because we <del>paid good money</del> decided that we just needed to talk about it. The PS2 and Xbox versions let you fly around Metropolis, absorbing explosions with your face in service of a health bar that belonged to the city rather than Superman himself, which is either a genuinely clever design idea or the most passive-aggressive mechanic in superhero gaming history. The Xbox 360 version turned the whole thing into an open-world showcase for what next-gen hardware could do, which in 2006 meant “look at those buildings.” The DS version was a side-scrolling beat-em-up. The GBA version was something else entirely. Superman Returns contained multitudes, is what we’re saying. Joining me to dig through the whole sprawling, melancholy, city-defending mess is Adam Williamson, real-life friend, frequent Play Comics guest, and owner of a podcast idea that has been marinating for what I can only describe as a concerning length of time. Adam, I say this with love: at some point you’re going to have to actually make the thing. In the meantime, he’s here, the knowledge is flowing, and we’ve got a Superman game across half a console generation to get through. So settle in, try not to let the city’s health bar drop to zero, and let’s find out whether Superman Returns deserved better — from Hollywood, from the games industry, and honestly, maybe from all of us. Learn such things as: Did we finally crack the secret on how to make a good Superman game buried somewhere deep inside this one? Are real estate moguls the true evil in today’s society? Are you a deadbeat dad if nobody besides you knows that you’re the father? And so much more! You can find Adam on BlueSky @effectnotaffect and absolutely nowhere else except for on Play Comics where he writes comic reviews and appears on other episodes. Of particular interest to listeners of this episode are The Gimmick #1 and The Job #1. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Garfield’s Nightmare and Scary Scavenger Hunt, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Big Game Saga Issue 2 and DC Specialcast for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who just wants the Supergirl movie to be good. Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptSomewhere out there is a piece of Superman history that almost nobody remembers exists. Not because it was bad. Not because it flopped. It just… vanished off the internet one day, like it got caught in a Phantom Zone projector aimed at a server farm. That’s the story of The Multipath Adventures of Superman, and we’re about to dig it back up. The whole thing started life as a CD project dreamed up with actual comic book writers, including Louise Simonson and Steve Englehart, before publisher Brilliant Digital Entertainment decided the format worked better as an ongoing online series. So you got Menace of Metallo on disc, and then a sprawling, branching, multi-arc saga that lived entirely on the internet, complete with a villain who time-travels just to make everyone’s life harder. And then, because this is the late ’90s internet we’re talking about, the entire thing quietly vanished. No re-releases, no remasters, just a bunch of dead links and a handful of people insisting this was real and they didn’t dream it. So yes, this episode is a little bit of a cheat. We usually stick to games you could buy off a shelf and put in a console. This is software, distributed on a CD-ROM and later piecemeal over a dial-up connection, that you had to install a special plugin just to run. But it’s a piece of Superman history that’s basically slipped through the cracks of the internet entirely, and that felt worth breaking the rules for. Helping me dig through the wreckage is Chris Baker from SuperHero.vg, who has spent decades working on actual superhero games at places like Marvel and LucasArts and literally wrote the book on this stuff with WRONG! Retro Games, You Messed Up Our Comic Book Heroes! If anyone can tell us whether this lost relic deserves to stay lost, it’s him. So load up the B3D Projector, brace for some early-internet voice acting, and let’s see how many ways Metropolis can end before lunch. Learn such things as: What happens when a piece of officially licensed Superman media just disappears off the internet? Is watching a Choose Your Own Adventure even a game? Is anyone at DC kicking themselves now since there’s probably dozens of people who want to see this? And so much more! You can find Chris over at  SuperHero.vg or @cbake76 on BlueSky or Threads. Or both. And if you listened all the way to the end and want to read the review that Chris shared with me, here’s the link he mentioned. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be [Episode Name Here], so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Gimmicks and Infinite Earths Guide for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who definitely does exist even though I’ve never seen physical proof with my own eyes. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptLook, at some point you have to respect the audacity of putting the entire Justice League on a Game Boy Advance cartridge. Not one hero. Not two heroes doing a buddy-cop thing. The whole league. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the works. All crammed onto a handheld that also had to share shelf space with Hamtaro games. That’s ambition. That’s vision. That might also be a cry for help, but we’re not here to judge. Justice League Chronicles was Ubisoft’s love letter to the animated series, which means it had genuinely great source material to pull from and a screen roughly the size of a Post-it note to work with. The Justice League animated series was the kind of show that made you sit down and watch it with your kids because it was actually that good, and somehow that energy had to survive the trip to a device that ran on two AA batteries. Here to help make sense of it all is Doug Adamson from The Monitor Tapes, a man whose podcast is literally named after the thing the Justice League uses to watch for trouble. Which means he was cosmically destined to appear on this episode whether he wanted to or not. So pull up a chair in the Watchtower, try not to touch anything that looks important, and let’s talk about a DC animated tie-in that had no business being as earnest as it was. Learn such things as: Does it really matter if you end up fighting against someone else’s villains? Does it really matter if you can’t pick how you’re going to pair off the League members? Does anything really matter when you’re getting to play one of the best cartoons ever made? And so much more! You can find Doug on BlueSky @themonitortapes.com, Threads @themonitortapes (although it might actually be DC Dave running those, I don’t know), his podcast The Monitor Tapes, and whatever else they decide to release over on Brick Crisis Network. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be The Multipath Advantures of Superman, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to The Earth 2 Podcast and The Last Comic Shop for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who would probably be the IT guy up in the tower who’s actually making it possible to pull all of this world saving stuff off every episode. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptThe year was 2006. The Game Boy Advance was winding down, the Justice League animated series had wrapped up, and someone at WayForward Technologies looked at a tiny handheld screen and said, “You know what this needs? The Flash. Running very fast. On a cartridge the size of a business card.” And honestly? Bold decision. Justice League Heroes: The Flash took the Game Boy Advance, the beloved animated series, and a Justice League comic run and asked the eternal question: how many Rogues can you stuff into a handheld beat-em-up before the whole thing starts wobbling? This episode, we’re finding out. We’re covering the comics, the game, the cartoon connections, and whether Barry Allen or Wally West gets more respect in a world that keeps giving them both the speed force and zero chill. Joining us to run this whole thing down is Marrilee O’Neil from Fear Coded, who brings exactly the right energy for a conversation about a game that moves fast and expects you to keep up. So strap in, try not to blink, and let’s do this before the Flash gets impatient and reruns the episode himself. Learn such things as: Why couldn’t this have just been part of Justice League Heroes? What is the best way to experience time manipulation? Does it really matter if you get to play as Wally or Barry here? And so much more! You can find Merrilee being the main driver of the Fear Coded account on BlueSky @fearcodedpod.bsky.social on her podcast Fear Coded. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Justice League Chronicles, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba and The Monitor Tapes for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who already did that thing you wanted to get done and you didn’t even see it getting done because it got done too fast. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptAt some point in the early 2000s, someone looked at the Dragon Ball Z manga and anime, a story full of screaming men who power up for entire episodes, hair that defies physics, and villains who monologue long enough for the protagonist to reach a new power level, and said, “Yes. This. But make it a fighting game. On two, and only two, consoles.” And thus, Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2 arrived on PS2 and GameCube, ready to let you spend an unreasonable amount of time unlocking characters and pretending you know what a Fusion Dance is supposed to look like in real life. This episode, we’re going Super Saiyan on the whole thing. The game, the manga, the anime, the drama, the capsules, the questionable story mode decisions. All of it. And joining us to power up the conversation is Russell Moran from Kaiju ComiCast, who brings exactly the kind of kaiju-sized enthusiasm this franchise demands. So take a deep breath, squeeze out every last drop of ki you’ve got, and let’s get into it. Your hair may or may not turn gold by the end. No promises. Learn such things as: What’s worse than taking a risk and totally failing? What’s keeping us from getting the epic Toriyama Universe fighting crossover event that we all want to badly? Can you really say that the roster has 50 different characters when 10 of them are different versions of the same dude? And so much more! You can find Russell on BlueSky @kaijucomiccast, Instagram @kaijucomiccast, and of course at his podcast Kaiju ComiCast. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Justice League Heroes The Flash, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to “Fun” and Games and Anime Field Guide for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who only does things at levels of 9000. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptIf you’ve ever wondered what would happen if professional wrestling, superhero nonsense, and a generous helping of “did they really just do that?” collided in a PS2-era video game, congratulations you’ve found your people. This episode dives headfirst into Galactic Wrestling Featuring Ultimate Muscle, a game that asks the important questions, like how many absurdly named wrestlers can fit into one ring and whether flexing harder is a legitimate combat strategy (it is). Along the way, we’re joined by Josh “Anoriand” Fagundes. Yes, that Anoriand from Twitch. He brings his streaming-honed wisdom and an appreciation for delightful chaos. Between the manga roots, anime flair, and a game that absolutely commits to the bit, there’s plenty to grapple with here. So lace up your boots, oil up your… everything, and get ready for a match that’s less about winning and more about how spectacularly weird the journey can get. Learn such things as: How do you make a sequel to a game and not have it on the same console? What happens when the humor and moral values of such different societies don’t really match up? Does this game have anything surprisingly good in it, and does it even matter if it does? And so much more! You can find Anoriand on Bluesky @anoriand, TikTok @anoriand, YouTube @AnoriandGD, and Twitch @anoriand. And he was on Super Deluxe GamesCast but as this is getting published, it was announced a few days ago that they’re changing the name to Maximum Hearts and I want to make sure that this horrible timing is saved for prosperity. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Lee Carvallo’s Podding Challenge and Peace Down and Down for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who would probably have a glitch somehow as a special move. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Read transcriptSomewhere in the mid-2000s, a group of developers looked at the Justice League and said, “What if we made a game where all your favorite heroes team up… and then we just kinda vibed with that idea instead of sticking to any specific comic storyline?” Which kind of works actually because they got Dwayne McDuffie to write it but that’s not the point. So anyway, Justice League Heroes burst onto the scene for PS2, Xbox, PSP, and Nintendo DS like a Watchtower alarm that nobody remembers installing. This week on Play Comics, we grab our capes, charge up our vaguely canon-adjacent superpowers, and dive into a game that absolutely has Batman, Superman, and friends… ummm, friends are definitely there I promise and sometimes they have to be there because of contractual obligations. And sometimes even the best version of those friends if you’re lucky and the best version of that hero had been invented already. Joining the adventure is Gavin Mevius from The Mixed Reviews and The Q Division, bringing along just the right blend of insight, chaos, and “wait, was that ever a comic plot?” energy to help us make sense of it all. So get ready for teamwork, button mashing, and a Justice League game that is just kind of meh, especially considering the story that it had to work with. Learn such things as: When you can have Justice League adventures without Batman or Superman Why you don’t need a 100% comic plot line to have a good comic plot line. What the world was like before micro transactions got involved with everything And so much more! You can find Gavin on BlueSky @shhhitsgavin, Instagram @gavinmev, and of course on his podcasts The Mixed Reviews (a monthly film review show taking a deep dive into a subject, actor, director, or something else along those lines) and The Q Division (a monthly deep dive into James Bond). If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Galactic Wrestling with Ultimate Muscle, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Gimmicks and Spawnography for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, whose super power is always knowing exactly where to find that file you’re looking for. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.

Buckle up for a PS2 heist where Lupin III swaps manga mischief for blocky stealth antics in Treasure of the Sorcerer King, that 2004 gem channeling Monkey Punch’s rogue into disguises-gone-wrong and treasure hunts that test more patience than finesse. Joining the vault-cracking crew this time is Robbie Sherman from Conversations with Robbie Sherman, dishing on how the game stacks up to the source chaos of Jigen’s aim, Goemon’s blade ballet, and Fujiko’s inevitable backstab. So grab your best disguise and let’s see if you can sneak the treasure out of this one. Either way it’s going to be a blast. Learn such things as: When does homage become IP theft? Does it ever work to retcon multiple unrelated characters into a single one and act like it’s not weird at all? Do you really need those side characters? Can’t we just get rid of all of them and follow the main character exclusively? And so much more! You can Robbie on BlueSky @convoswrob and his podcast Conversations with Robbie Sherman. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Justice League Heroes for the PS2, Xbox, PSP, and Nintendo DS. So get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Another GI Joe Podcast and Campus Comics Cast for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who might have been here the whole time without me realizing it. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.Read transcript

Read transcriptSometimes a game says it’s based on a comic. Sometimes a movie says it’s based on a comic. And sometimes a game says it’s based on that movie that says it’s based on a comic, and suddenly we’re three layers deep in adaptation lasagna. This week, we’re cracking open Over the Hedge for the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox—a game that definitely follows the movie’s lead and only politely waves at the original comic strip from across the yard. Expect sneaking, snacking, and more suburban chaos than your average HOA meeting can handle. Joining the show is Doug Fink (Walloping Web Snappers, Falling with Style, Novel Gaming, and Skreeonk) to help sort out what happens when animals, energy drinks, and licensed games collide in one very busy backyard. Grab your energy drinks and questionable life choices. I hope you don’t get pinched by the exterminator. Learn such things as: Is the key to all of this the friends you bring along the way? Are humans and urban sprawl the real villains here? Do you actually need to base a game on a thing to have it be based on the thing? And so much more! You can find Doug on BlueSky @ickybooley and of course all of his wonderful shows on the Glitterjaw Queer Podcast Collective, Walloping Websnappers, Novel Gaming, Falling with Style, and Skreeonk. If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in. The next episode is going to be Lupin the 3rd Treasure of the Sorcerer King, so get your thoughts ready and over to me if you want to hear them in the show. If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store. Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix. You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website. If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out. A big thanks to Carnival of Glee Creations and Distant Echoes for the promos today. Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who definitely wasn’t feeding the animals yesterday and I have no idea why they keep following him around. Support Play Comics by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/playcomics Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-89f00a for 40% off for 4 months, and support Play Comics.