This week on the podcast we're celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive by recapping the evolution of the hardware, sharing our favorite Genesis memories, and looking ahead to the release of the Sega Genesis Mini.  Join us for an hour of discussion.  You'll have a blast (processing)!   Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

In the days before Steam and the Epic Game Store, PC gamers would encounter new games in the form of shareware passed around for free via BBSs or for a small fee at your local Wal-Mart or Best Buy.  Gaming classics including Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Commander Keen, and Rise of the Triad all existed as games that offered the first episode for free and then, if you liked what you saw, you could send away for the remaining episodes of the game for a standard price.  Gamers were even encouraged to trade these free introductory episodes with friends; as in, share the software.  Shareware!  What a concept!  Over at ArsTechnica, Samuel Axon remembers some of the great classics from the world of DOS shareware including one of my old favorites that I hadn't thought about in years, EGA Trek, which is basically a Star Trek simulator with all of the Trek elements changed so as to not infringe on copyrights.

As the name suggests, one of EGA Trek's claims to fame was adapting the earlier Star Trek gameplay for the 16-color display format of the time. EGA Trek features a robust interface, a detailed, gridded galaxy map, a whole bunch of commands, and even a view window showing nearby ships, planets, and other objects of interest.

Your goal is to destroy all the invading ships from a rival space empire—a Klingon analog unfortunately called Mongols in this game. You travel between sectors, scan them, stop at starbases and planets for supplies, and battle enemy ships while managing your resources, redirecting power to the ship systems that need it, and conducting repairs.

I first encountered EGA Trek as a shareware download from a local BBS and then I later went on to buy the game on a 3.5" floppy disk from K-Mart.  None of those things exist anymore! All of the great PC games of the 1990s existed as shareware and people like me downloaded them over dial-up connections to try the latest titles from companies like Apogee and independent developers with a PO box and a dream.  The shareware model worked though.  I happily paid money for Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy after playing the shareware version of the game which encompassed basically half of the experience, but for every purchase like that there were also games that, for me, the shareware version was enough.  Duke Nukem 3D was awesome, sure, but I was happy with the three levels that the shareware version offered, so it was many years before I ended up buying the complete version on Steam.  There's still magic in those old shareware games, so check 'em out on modern digital distribution platforms where available or, hell, see if one of those old PO boxes is still open for business.

Namco and its partners hit it big with Pac-Man in 1980, but how do you take a maze craze and go larger for a new wave of success after the original experience starts to feel stale?  Hardcore Gaming 101 is chronicling all of Pac-Man's oddball sequels and spinoffs such as puzzler Pac-Attack and the educational Professor Pac-Man, but the game that you absolutely need to notice is 1994's Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures for the Super NES and Sega Genesis.  Dumping all of the maze stuff and focusing more on Pac-Man and his family as characters, Pac-Man 2 requires players to indirectly interact with Pac-Man and influence his behavior without directly controlling him.  It looks like a standard 2D platformer, but it's definitely not!

The actual gameplay would be best described as a point and click adventure, with one very important distinction. You don’t have direct control of Pac-Man himself, as he’ll wander around and interact with the world autonomously. You, the player, have control of a slingshot and a floating hand, which you’ll use to guide Pac-Man around the world. The hand is used to point left or right to get Pac-Man to move in that direction. The slingshot is used to get Pac-Man to notice specific objects, knock them over, or if you’re getting bored, to repeatedly pelt Pac-Man in the face with rocks. He doesn’t like that very much.

Indeed, Pac-Man’s mood and current opinion of you is a major gameplay mechanic, and determines how he’ll interact with the world around him. Various things around Pac-Man can occur to shift his mood, and he’ll often shift between several even without your input. Getting yelled at by the local farmer, for example, will sadden him, while having caterpillars fall on him will make him nervous of everything. There’s a variety of different emotions and degrees of which Pac-Man can feel, from ‘grouchy’, to ‘ear-steamingly, foot-stompingly enraged’, to ‘literally insane’, among many others.

Pac-Man lives in a well-defined world in this game and showcases a number of behaviors and animations far ahead of his time compared to other 2D characters of the era.  Sonic the Hedgehog gets a lot of attention for tapping his foot when he's bored, but Pac-Man spends this game swinging back and forth through a range of emotions from smooth confidence to optimistic joy to slightly miffed to downright pissed to shiveringly terrified.  Pac-Man isn't just a character on screen, he's your pixel pal, and working together the two of you are going to to share a grand adventure.  Treat him right (except when you need to make him mad to proceed) and you're in for a good time.

Everyone wants to believe that a worn copy of Super Mario Bros. may be worth big money someday, but as Chris Kohler at Kotaku recently reported, there's actually some value in familiar games as collectors from other markets swoop into the video game world to pay thousands for games that most people would pass over as common.  On this week's podcast, Blake Grundman and I discuss this new influx of interest in retro games and whether or not it's good for the gaming community at large.  Then we see if either of us has any hidden gold in our collections as Blake digs into his bins of old game cartridges and we find out just how much that used copy of Iron Man X-O Manowar Heavy Metal for Game Boy and a sealed copy of WipeOut 64 are really worth.   Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

In celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Nintendo's famous Game Boy, Blake Grundman and I spend this week's podcast discussing the iconic portable gaming system and remembering our favorite handheld memories.  From our own Game Boy origin stories to classic games such as Super Mario Land, Tetris, and Wario Land to underwhelming licensed games including Ren & Stimpy: Space Cadet Adventures and Home Alone, we honor the big gray brick and recommend a few games you may have overlooked in the past three decades.  Oh, and of course I'm going to tell you to play Bionic Commando.  You had to know that was coming.  And did someone say Pokémon?   Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes and Google Play, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way.