Home Alone – PA141

30 years later the film Home Alone remains a holiday classic. The games, not so much. The success of the first two films spawned a spate of 13 cheap cash-in games from 1991 to 1993 across just about every mainstream game system. Co-hosting alongside us, friends and longtime listeners Norm and UtopiaNemo join in what could be considered a holiday episode. We share some joy and laughter at the music that ranges from forgettable to miserable, with a few genuinely great songs in there for good measure.

2020 has been an exceptionally hard year for many of us, and we hope that you can find some joy in listening to the music of Home Alone as we close out our last show of the year. Whether you’re just joining us or have been listening for a long time, we at Pixelated Audio wish you all well.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:23:42 — 115.0MB)

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Satellaview – PA140

In the last installment we talked about Treasure Conflix, and today we’re talking about the platform itself, the Nintendo Satellaview. The Satellaview was created as a partnership between the broadcasting company St.GIGA and Nintendo’s R&D2 Division, the team responsible for the original Super Famicom. It was released as an add-on in 1995 and was a somewhat unique approach to an online service.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:12 — 55.3MB)

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Treasure Conflix – PA139

In early 1996, Squaresoft released Treasure Conflix and three other exclusive titles for the Satellaview Broadcast Satellite system, an add-on for the Super Famicom. The soundtrack was written by longtime composer Junya Nakano. The game is an aerial combat and RPG hybrid where you split your time between fighting other airships in real time and traveling to small caves and towns to find upgrades for your airship. It remains untranslated but it isn’t some long lost classic; the gameplay is serviceable and it can be beaten in just under 2 hours.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:57 — 50.9MB)

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Aworg: Hero in the Sky – PA138

The most interesting thing about Aworg: Hero in the Sky is that it was released on Sega Meganet, an early online service and precursor to the Sega Channel. Released in 1991 by Sega, Aworg is a short and fairly unremarkable action game where you traverse a maze in a robotic suit that can fly around, dash, and push enemies away with its jet stream. The game is short, and can be beaten in about 20 minutes with practice.

The music is credited to “Bambi” whose real name is unknown, but they were most likely a member of Sega’s in-house sound team. It largely features early 90s piano house styled tunes and is more groove than anything, but catchy nonetheless. Enjoy what is perhaps our shortest episode ever.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:51 — 26.0MB)

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1500DS Spirits: Igo – PA137

 

Nothing beats Go on the go, and that’s exactly what you get with 1500DS Spirits Volume 10: Igo! Game developer and cosmetics company Tasuke put out a number of these budget titles for the DS and DSiWare around 2007-2008, consisting mostly of board and card games. They’re similar to the more well known D3 “Simple” series of budget titles. Igo is the 10th and final game in the 1500DS Spirits series, released in May of 2008.

We weren’t able to find a composer for the game but it’s another short episode with a nifty traditional Japanese soundtrack. Sit back and enjoy, and share your favorite Go strategies.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:43 — 40.9MB)

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WonderBorg – PA136

In the late 90s, programmable robot toys were becoming popular and WonderBorg was no exception. Released by Bandai in 2000 for the WonderSwan and later for the PC, WonderBorg was a kit that included a programmable beetle robot and a application called Robot Works which allowed you to send basic commands to it.

The WonderBorg featured a number of sensors to give it some awareness of the world and it was capable of some moderately sophisticated conditional programming. It featured a simple code-free graphical condition builder and a few different modes like training, and even a Tamagotchi style “pet” mode in the Japanese release.

Sadly we couldn’t find the composer of the music to give them proper credit but kick back and listen to some crunchy percussion and dance beats in this short episode. We hope you like it.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:38 — 43.6MB)

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