If this is the first thing you think of when I say the name "Destructoid" then it looks like their plan is working!
Just for a second, let's pretend that you wanted to listen to a retro podcast but didn't want to sit around waiting for the notoriously unreliable Retronaut casts on the 1up Network. What would you do? Chances are you would seek out another audio podcast that dealt with these classic games. Unfortunately there aren't that many shows related to this niche on the major websites; there's certainly nothing like that on GameSpot, IGN, Joystiq or Kotaku. Dizzy from searching and thirsty for your retro fix, you're forced to check out RetroforceGO!, Destructoid's very own look at old school games.
Unfortunately RetroforceGO! has a tendency
Okay, maybe the RetroforceGO! kids aren't going to go THIS old school!
of getting stuff wrong ... not to mention dropping the "F" bomb at least once every sentence and constantly calling people they don't know "douche bags." But still, since there's nothing else out there for you, you download every episode in hopes of hearing some witty repartee between the hosts (which include several men and one woman all calling in from different parts of the country). Every week these four gamers sit down and talk for more than an hour about some of our favorite old school games and consoles, including the TurboGrafx-16, The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man, Full-Motion Video and the long-dead arcade scene.
There's just one problem, RetroforceGO! is constantly getting the facts wrong, so much so that Defunct Games has decided to fact check some of these podcasts and give you the right information. That way you can sit back and enjoy listening to a podcast about retro games and not go around giving out false information. We can't do anything about the non-stop profanity, but when it comes to clearing up misinformation Defunct Games should be your number 1 stop. So get comfortable and scroll down to watch Defunct Games fact check the RetroforceGO! podcast.
Neo Geo game that combines everybody's favorite SNK characters? I would have also accepted Neo Geo Battle Coliseum!
"Now, let me ask you guys. Cause kind of all of the Neo Geo fighters sort of blend together in my memory. There's like World Heroes, right? Then there's King of Fighters. Then there's Art of Fighting. And no, Fatal Fury. And also isn't there Art of Fighting, or is that a Fatal Fury ... Anyway, so all I know is that I think there's one of them that is a mixture of all of them, is that this one?" "No, I don't think it is."
Reality:
The reality is that for those who don't play a lot of fighting games it can be a tricky road keeping all of the different SNK fighters straight. As they said on RetroforceGO!, there's Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, World Heroes, and The King of Fighters. And they're completely forgetting about fan favorites like Samurai Shodown, The Last Blade and Waku Waku 7. For those with only a passing interest in the genre it's easy to understand how they could get all of these titles confused. But if you're doing a podcast and you know what the theme is, there's no excuse for you to make such a simple error. Even without the aid of Wikipedia, it would have taken the hosts no more than a minute to search and find the answer.
In case you're just as baffled as they are, The King of Fighters is indeed the fighting game that is a "mixture" of all of SNK's most popular fighters. The version they are referring to, The Kind of Fighters '94, was the first incarnation of the series. It not only featured characters from Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury, but it also offered them in teams named after their game. To make matters worse, one of the panelists asked if the game featured Terry Bogart (one of the main characters in both Fatal Fury and The King of the Fighters), only to be told that he wasn't part of this game. Either these podcasters aren't very observant or they didn't actually play the game that they are recommending, either way it certainly looks bad when you run a retro podcast and don't even know what The King of Fighters is.
Now that Capcom is bringing back Bionic Commando, Street Fighter and 1942, I can only hope that Rival School is on their short list!
"And I found a copy of Project Justice for the Dreamcast. Yeah, it's the sequel to Rival Schools, the one for Dreamcast. It also came out for PS2, I think, but it wasn't as good and it was crappy and I think it might have been released here. I'm not sure if it was or not. But the Japanese one is where it's at."
Reality:
Actually, Project Justice was not released on the PlayStation 2. While there was a PlayStation version of the original game (as well as an expansion pack-like disc), Capcom (the makers of both Rival Schools United By Fate and Project Justice) did not port this sequel to the PlayStation 2. And since we've established that the first part of his statement is wrong, we can also debunk the idea that it was released in the U.S. It wasn't.
More importantly, I think we can effectively brush off the notion that this fictional PlayStation 2 version was somehow inferior to the Dreamcast game. Look, I won't lie to you, I have a great deal of affection for the Dreamcast and there are a lot of games that I would rather play on Sega's final console than Sony's PlayStation 2. But as great as the Dreamcast is, there's no reason to disparage a game you clearly haven't played. There's no way the PlayStation 2 version could be "crappy", it didn't exist. The only thing crappy about this situation is the fact that it DIDN'T come out on the PlayStation 2, because maybe if it did more people would have discovered this gem and Capcom would still be making Rival School sequels.
While 3DO had its fair share of problems, it always had a unique logo that stood out from the crowd!
"They actually made two 3DO's, didn't they? They hand like a 3DO 2. Like the M2 or something like that. If it was a movie it would be called Box Office Failure."
Reality:
Okay, RetroforceGO! isn't actually wrong about this information. Unlike the rest of the statements found in this article, this 3DO-related comment is full of nuance and requires some historical context. First and foremost, there technically was a second 3DO called the M2, the technology was created, sold and ready to be turned into a killer next generation console that could take on the likes of the Dreamcast. But this product, which was developed by 3DO back in the mid-1990s, never actually saw the light of day. Sold to Matsushiba (known internationally as Panasonic) for $100 million dollars, the M2 was set to be a real contender in the video game arena. But for whatever reason (be it competition, money issues, etc.) the M2 just couldn't make it to the retail space. The games that were developed for the console (including D2 by Warp) were moved to other platforms and the technology ended up finding its way into plenty of non-game related products (including medicine, architecture and sales technology).
So yes, they did make two 3DO's ... but only one of them actually came out. What was completely left out of this discussion about the 3DO was the most obvious topic, the fact that multiple companies made competing versions of the hardware. You would think that with all this talk about a one-console future it would have made sense to talk about a company that actually tried something similar on a smaller scale.
No, not this Sega advertisement!
"Yeah, well, I mean, I hate to say it but in a way it could be ... yeah, [the "Sega Does What Nintendon't" advertisement] did work. And I think that maybe an alternative was needed at that time. Y'know, because it did seem like [Nintendo was for kids] mostly. Wow, you know what? God, though, if you think about it guys, let's see, what was time period of the Genesis that that campaign came out? Is that right? Because, if you think about it, at that time Nintendo probably had the most varied selection of games. Like, I mean, Chrono Trigger and, you know, all those RPGs that we love came out and that stuff. They had fighters and they had role-playing games and they had everything you could basically think of they had."
Reality:
On the surface this quote actually sounds about right. Colette Bennett (the only woman on the podcast) suggests that the "Sega Does What Nintendon't" advertisements were done during the Sega Genesis era, which is 100% true. The problem is that her timeline isn't accounting for a huge gap between some of the things she's talking about. For starters, the advertisement in question was one of Sega's earliest magazine commercials, used to spread the word of the Sega Genesis
Yes, this is the silly advertisement from 1989 that everybody is talking about!
right when the console was released. It featured games like Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, Super Monaco GP, Columns and E-SWAT ... all games that were released in and around 1989. This commercial wasn't attacking the Super NES; it's talking about the 8-bit NES. And Sega is right, at that moment in time Sega was able to claim that they were doing something that Nintendo wasn't.
But that's not the timeline Colette uses when talking about Sega and this silly advertisement. She suggests that this commercial was used at a time when the Super NES had games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III and Street Fighter II. But that's just not the case, Chrono Trigger was released a full seven years after this advertisement was published. Even Street Fighter II came out three years after this commercial, so it's completely disingenuous to suggest that Sega was somehow wrong to label themselves as the "hardcore" unit of choice. They were hardcore, if only because they were one of the first to release a 16-bit console.
The hand model is clearly a game play, why else would she be trying to unscrew the D-pad?
"They had a lot of hype for all the old handhelds, like do you remember the TurboDuo? Like the TurboGrafx-16 one. That thing was so expensive."
Reality:
Honestly, if you're going to talk about portable consoles you really should know the difference between the TurboDuo and the TurboExpress. For those that don't know, the TurboDuo was a TurboGrafx-16 hardware revision that combined the card unit and the CD-ROM in one sleek unit. The TurboExpress, on the other hand, was a portable console that allowed you to play your TurboGrafx-16 games (which came on credit card-sized HuCards) on the go. Regardless of the fact that both of these systems play the same games, there really is a world of difference between the ultra-expensive TurboExpress and the TurboDuo. To be fair, this is a simple mistake ... but I still say that when you're going to talk about retro portables you should do a little research before it comes up. Or maybe have some people around that would know the difference between the TurboDuo and TurboExpress. I'm just saying.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: When we posted this article we unfairly insinuated that RetroforceGo! couldn't tell the difference between the TurboDuo and the TurboExpress. While the above quote still stands, what mentioned is that this error was corrected several minutes later. The team did not catch the mistake when it was said and thus was confused about the difference between the two ... however, they did eventually correct the error. Defunct Games should have mentioned this when we original ran the article, we owe Destructoid and RetroforceGo! an apology. In the future we will make sure and only focus on errors that they did not rectify in that episode.)
