Retronauts Episode 506: Retro Compilations
53% new footage!
Ah, video games. We love and hate them, you know? On the one hand they're fun for hours and hours on end, but on the other, they have a nasty habit of becoming obsolete at the drop of a hat. You might have spent money on a copy of Super Mario Bros at least five times in your life as old hardware falls out of fashion. You happily picked up Marvel vs Capcom 3 only to discover Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 a few months later. You dutifully built up a collection on the PlayStation 3, and then Sony revealed the PlayStation 4 wouldn't play any old discs.
Enter the compilation, the industry solution to a problem it created: Why maintain a robust digital marketplace of past releases when you can periodically remaster old games in a higher resolution or with new features and sell them all over again? Some companies go above and beyond expectations and transform a good-but-flawed game from the past into a slick, must-play revision. Some companies slap a ROM on a disc and say "$50, take it or leave it."
Host Stuart Gipp, forever on brand, hosts this episode which is really just a compilation of two separate conversations about the practice of re-examining and repurposing old video games for a new audience. First, Stu talks to Lewis Clark of SegaDriven.com about the general history of retro compilations, and then Stu interviews Mike Mika and Chris Kohler of Digital Eclipse about Atari 50, a loving tribute that Stuart Gipp of Retronauts dot com called "the greatest retro compilation ever made"
Description: Double feature! A ramble about retro compilations with Lewis Clark of SegaDriven.com, and an interview with Mike Mika and Chris Kohler of Digital Eclipse about their masterpiece compilation, Atari 50.
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Artwork for this episode by Amanda Pruitt and editing thanks go to Greg Leahy.
