PODCAST · leisure
Retro Spectives
by rspodcast.net
Are classic games deserving of their praise? Or have the unwashed masses been blinded by nostalgia? On the Retro Spectives Podcast, we tell you why you're wrong about the games you love.
Episodes
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E142: Spelunky
Derek Yu’s Spelunky is, without a doubt, an all time indie classic. From its humble origins on PC in 2008, it exploded onto the indie scene as an xbox live arcade title, back when indie gaming felt new and exciting. Underneath its cartoony graphics and cheery music lay a brutal beast of a game…
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E141: Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos
Westwood Studios wasn’t always known for the command and conquer series. While 1992’s Dune 2 laid the foundation for the RTS genre as a whole, they were more famous for their dungeon crawling RPGS, usually associated with Dungeons and Dragons. So when they decided to develop a new IP with Lands…
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E140: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow sits tucked away in the middle of 30 different Castlevania games. First released for the Gameboy Advance in 2003, it takes strong inspiration from Symphony of the Night - yet is running on far weaker hardware. It introduced the Soul System - where killing enemies…
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E139: Catherine
Catherine is a game about relationships, infidelity and the shackles of love. It’s also a game about pushing blocks. Released in 2011 by Atlus, Catherine initially appears to be the odd duck in the Persona developer’s catalogue. Characters in their 30s, real-time gameplay and a sub-hundred hour...
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E138: Frostpunk
On the Retro Spectives Podcast we adore our survival games. Every year when we do a cheat episode we find ourselves drawn to the games that force you to live on the edge. Whether it's Pathologic, Rainworld or Resident Evil, we enjoy the pain and suffering of never having enough and managing those...
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E137: Mailbag 7
WIth the seventh year of the Retro Spectives Podcast officially done and dusted, it is once again time for our Mailbag Episode! Every year we take the time to answer questions from our listeners about old games and new, our favourite beverages and the nature of the podcast itself. Thank you so…
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E136: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Warcraft II is one of the most influential RTS games of all time. It brought the genre to the mainstream with insane sales, and set the standard for UI and tech trees for years to come. Blizzard had cracked the code on what made RTS games tick, and it laid the groundwork for the classics that…
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E135: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus
Yu-Gi-Oh!, along with Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon, is one of the original big 3 trading card games. Starting its life as a Manga, then a tv series, the story about the card game eventually became a card game. Since then Yugioh has morphed through many different iterations and is still going...
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E134: Perfect Dark
Released towards the end of the Nintendo 64’s lifespan in 2000, Perfect Dark was the culmination of several years of FPS development on consoles. After Rare released Goldeneye in 1997, they wanted to take another spin at the formula, but this time with an original IP. Enter Perfect Dark…
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E133: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is without a doubt one of the most influential video games ever made. Unlike some titles that struggled with the transition to 3D, Zelda absolutely smashed it, setting the blueprint for what successful open world level design looked like for many years to…
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E132: Parasite Eve
Resident Evil changed everything. When originally released in 1996, what was once a niche genre for enthusiasts was now a blockbuster staple in every second home. All of a sudden people were craving zombies, horrifying monsters and disturbing themes. It was so popular that Square, far more known...
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E131: Ico
Director Fumeto Ueda has been hailed by many as somewhat of an auteur of the gaming landscape. A creative whose style embraces minimalist desolation. Known best for his work on Shadow of the Colossus, Ueda's directorial debut took place in 2001 with Ico, a boy-meets-girl action-adventure released...
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E130: Vanquish
Third person cover based shooters were all the rage in the late 2000s. Unveiled in 2003 in Killswitch and later popularised with Gears of War, they became an essential part of most third person action games. Coming in 2010, Vanquish sought to revolutionise this paradigm by giving the player an...
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E129: Recettear
Video games usually place you in the role of the plucky adventurer. You are the wizard, the warrior, or the rogue, and it's your duty (and often destiny) to save the world. On your journey, one of the most important things to do is to acquire more powerful gear to make your character stronger.…
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E128: Baldur's Gate
In 1998 Bioware changed the gaming landscape with Baldur’s Gate, a Dungeons and Dragons inspired adventure. Taking cues from second edition D&D and the many stories written about it, Bioware wrote a low level adventure that jammed everything they could find inside it. They attempted to copy mage...
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E127: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
The Ace Attorney games were an insane success, far beyond what Capcom could have predicted. After 4 mainline games in the series though, it was time for something new, and creator Shu Takumi refused to do anything normal. With a desire to explore characters in a far deeper way than was possible...
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E126: Tachyon: The Fringe
Space Sims used to be a vibrant and well populated genre. Back in the 90s they command shelf real estate, right next to the latest and greatest RTS and Point and Click Adventure games. Coming at the tail end of this era was Tachyon: The Fringe, released in 2000 by Novalogic games, well known for...
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E125: Mailbag 6
With another year done and dusted, Pat and James crack open another batch of listener questions. After curveballs like Killer 7 and Deadly Premonition, these should be a breeze. Right..? On this episode, we discuss: What are the best - and worst - smelling video game levels? Can you tell us the...
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E124: Crysis
But can it run Crysis? This was the motto that surrounded every single PC build for literal years after the release of the game in 2007. Crytek were not satisfied with what they had achieved with Far Cry in 2004, and decided to push graphical hardware to its absolute limits with their brand new…
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E123: Resident Evil 2
After their magnum opus that was Resident Evil 1, Capcom were not going to sit on their heels. Coming out just two years after the first in 1998, Resident Evil 2 sought to have everything the original had and much, much more. It connected its two character’s stories in far more meaningful ways,...
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E122: The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda is perhaps the most iconic video game series of all time. Boasting 19 mainline entries, and an endless swathe of critical acclaim and awards, it's hard to find someone who hasn’t at least heard of the action/adventure story of Link and Zelda. It all began back in 1986 with the...
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E121: Killer 7
Killer7 is one weird game. Developed in tandem by Grasshopper Manufacture and Capcom and first released in 2005, its very existence as a game defies description. Within moments of starting, you’re placed into a world with talking bondage ghosts, a TV channel that drains your blood, and abstract...
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E120: System Shock 2
System Shock 2 is considered by many to be the finest immersive sim ever made. Released in 1999 in a coventure by Looking Glass Studios and Irrational Games, it sought to combine the classic 3D dungeon crawling of the original with pen and paper inspired RPG systems. While resource management and...
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E119: Gran Turismo 4
Over the years, we’ve played games from pretty much every genre under the sun, but there is one that is notably missing - the racing sim. We’ve dabbled with arcade racers like Burnout 3, and have played several kart racers - Diddy Kong and F-Zero GX to name a couple. But this is the first time...
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Episode 118: Hitman Bloodmoney
Hitman: Blood Money, first released in 2006 by Eidos, is considered by many to be the best Hitman game ever made. After the first few games played around with novel ideas and concepts to mixed success, Blood Money honed in on the formulae of specific, small and dense environments filled with...
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Episode 117: Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VII is a landmark title not only for the JRPG genre, but for all video games. First released in 1997 and developed by Square, it took the format of the previous games and brought them to life with 3D models and environments. Featuring an ambitious and creative setting, a complicated...
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Episode 116: Rain World
Rain World is a game that was released to very mixed reviews. With a whopping 59 on Metacritic, it was panned for its controls, difficulty, tedium and general obtuseness. But take a gander at the community reviews and you get a very different picture. The thing is, Rain World can at times be all...
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Episode 115: Mailbag 5
It's that time of year again! For most of our episodes, our format is identical - we play a game, then discuss and review it. Once a year, however, we take a break from the format at christmas time for our Mailbag episodes. These are some of our favourite episodes to do - we take a break from the...
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Episode 114: Age of Mythology
Ensemble Studios blew the world away with Age of Empires way back in 1997. It took a different approach to the RTS formulae than Westwood or Blizzard, and was rewarded heavily for it. Being able to advance your entire civilization's technology level was a heady drug, and balancing the varied…
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Episode 113: Blood
Blood, first released in 1997 by Monolith Studios, was the middle child of the big three Build Engine games, sandwiched in between Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior. Its combination of gory horror-inspired visuals combined with action filled FPS gameplay was a huge hit at the time of release, but has...
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Episode 112: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 2 was easily the most hotly anticipated game for the Playstation 2. The first game had blown everyone away, and the jaw-dropping graphics of previews combined with the quality of the animation in cutscenes seemed almost too good to be true. Luckily for fans everywhere, MGS 2...
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Episode 111: Rollercoaster Tycoon 2
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 was a staple of many people’s PC desktop screens back in the early 2000s. Nestled in between the big hitters like Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 you would find this odd game that straddled the line between simulation and video game. Developed by Infogrames Interactive, it saw…
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Episode 110: Metal Gear Solid
It feels like Metal Gear Solid barely needs an introduction. First released in 1998 for the playstation, it launched Hideo Kojima into the western spotlight and has been credited as a foundational game in the stealth genre. It combined a cinematic presentation with a larger than life cast of...
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Episode 109: Advance Wars
In the 90’s turn based strategy and tactics games were everywhere, but by the turn of the millennium the RTS genre was stealing its thunder. So it was a surprise to most when in 2001 Advance Wars seemingly came out of nowhere and presented a tight and refined dose of tactics to the Western world....
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Episode 108: Bad Mojo
Power fantasies are the norm for video games. We play them to blow off steam, to escape into another world where we can let our worries drop away. But Pulse Entertainment wanted to do things a little differently when they developed Bad Mojo in 1996. They wanted to put the player in the little…
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Episode 107: Luigi's Mansion
Luigi’s Mansion was the cornerstone of the Nintendo Gamecube’s launch in 2001. It sold more copies than any other launch title, received positive critical acclaim, and occupied prime place in every promo gaming machine in gaming and electronic shops everywhere. The game promised a charming take…
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Episode 106: Unreal
Unreal was the Crysis of its time. It pushed PCs to their absolute limits, with its advanced shader effects and enormous levels. It featured AI that was far beyond the stilted and simplistic enemies that people were used to. It built an alien world that managed to straddle the line between the…
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Episode 105: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
When Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers first released in 1993, it was not a crack commercial hit. It did however instantly earn itself widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its dark and disturbing story, foreboding atmosphere, and incredible voice acting. The game brought the...
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Episode 104: Arx Fatalis
Arkane Studios was founded with a dream: to create a sequel to the highly revered grandfather of immersive sims Ultima Underworld. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t quite secure the rights to the IP, and instead decided to make a game that was evocative of the original in every way. Enter Arx...
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Episode 103: Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Puzzles are like crack cocaine for their very special audience. Whether it be a crossword, a logic problem, or even a riddle, unravelling them shoots a heavy dose of endorphins directly to the brain. It is therefore no surprise that Professor Layton and the Curious Village was such a resounding...
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Episode 102: Homeworld
Relic Entertainment has a long history of innovating in the RTS space. Both Company of Heroes and Dawn of War are much beloved and respected titles that could hold their heads high even when compared to other goliaths like Warcraft, Red Alert or Age of Empires. But in many ways it was their very...
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Episode 101: Fable
Before Todd Howard’s promises about the climbability of mountains was Peter Molyneux and Fable, a game which promised a level of interactivity never seen before in an RPG. Have children (that could continue your legacy when you died), plant a tree and see it grow, and dynamic rivalries with other...
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Episode 100: Pathologic 2
The original Pathologic has long been regarded as a cult classic. Obtuse, frustrating, boring and unfriendly, it nonetheless captured people’s imaginations with its densely woven storytelling and mystical dialogue. It was a game that came at the art form from a completely different direction from...
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Episode 99.5 M4ilB4g
When we started this podcast nearly 4 years ago, we did so with a clear goal in mind. We wanted to play, review and critique games of the past from a perspective free of nostalgia. As the gaming industry grew, games changed, for both better and worse - and it is worthwhile to examine all those...
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Episode 99: Metroid Prime
The Metroid games are certified classics for a reason. Super Metroid, in particular, is responsible for inventing an entire genre, with a shockingly tight design that puts all other games of its era to shame. The 90s came and went without seeing a 3D metroid game, but in 2002 we finally saw the...
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Episode 98: Resident Evil 4
When Resident Evil first came out in 1996, it wrote the book on what 3D survival horror was meant to be. Fixed camera angles, a creepy atmosphere, tank controls and bizarrely themed puzzles - these were now synonymous with the genre, whether you liked it or not. And for the most part, people…
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Episode 97: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick, when it first released in 2004, was the definition of mediocre sci-fi schlock. Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, came across as a generic edgelord, and it seemed to lean into special effects and spectacle over anything more substantial. It's a direction that didn’t play…
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Episode 96: Drill Dozer
Gamefreak, on the rarest of occasions, takes a break from toiling away in the Pokemon mines. And when they do, sometimes they strike gold. Such was the case with Drill Dozer, first released in 2005 to mostly favourable reviews. As time ticked on, however, many began to look back on it with...
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E95: Mega Man X
Mega Man X, first released in 1993 and developed by Capcom, is a certified Super Nintendo classic. Widely considered to be one of the strongest entries in the entire expanded Mega Man franchise, it took the classic formulae of running and gunning and turned it up to 11. The graphics were more...
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E94: Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie
Peter Jackson made history with the release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but as far as he was concerned he was just getting warmed up. A mere two years later saw him remaking King Kong, with the marketing department splashing his name all over the place so there could be no doubt that this…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Are classic games deserving of their praise? Or have the unwashed masses been blinded by nostalgia? On the Retro Spectives Podcast, we tell you why you're wrong about the games you love.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Retro Spectives have?
Retro Spectives currently has 144 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Retro Spectives about?
Are classic games deserving of their praise? Or have the unwashed masses been blinded by nostalgia? On the Retro Spectives Podcast, we tell you why you're wrong about the games you love.
How often does Retro Spectives release new episodes?
Retro Spectives publishes regularly with 144 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
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You can listen to Retro Spectives on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Retro Spectives?
Retro Spectives is created and hosted by rspodcast.net.
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