The HotSpot - Episode 360

@puchiko: You can! Just hit that little RSS button and it’ll let you subscribe to a custom URL.

This is fantastic.

@cravennightsky: Thanks!

GB East has been amazing, but it's great to see Vinny reunited with these two regularly again. One of the brightest silver linings of this whole nightmarish time.

Lovin' that Midnight Brown intro tune.

Bring. Back. Ryan. MacDonald.

Jeff, do the port comparison show!!! I would enjoy that so much!

As someone not aware of the old GS show I was just happy to hear the gang talk MiSTer stuff for a longer period of time. If the intention is to continue talking about old (let's face it, the 360 is now officially retro!) games, I'd be glad to hear more. Plus when working from home, more podcast style programming fits my schedule better when either actually working or doing chores around the house. Good stuff, thank you.

This is some good shit, thanks guys.

Listened to this today. Gotta say, this was great. This had that old school Giant Bomb chemistry to it. Just some regular dudes who seem like they've been through the trenches together shootin the shit. Not just some casual coworkers doing their 9-5.

Brad needs to get his crap together because I'm tired of hearing about all this sweet stuff in this mythical parent's basement! It ain't doin no one any good down there! /shakefist Dig it up, make a vid, play with your stuff, feel like a kid again. That's why all this collecting stuff is fun!

Jeff should get a proper CRT (I think a 20" or 24" is just right for casual use. You can still move them around with relative ease and the screen is big enough. Get all up on that screen like the good'ol days of sitting in front of them on the floor! Whatever it is though, it needs RGB input. Whether you get a nice free CRT for someone to mod or get a PVM.

And in whichever case, do whatever it is that you find intriguing or fun about them. When I ended up getting a CRT some years back, it was because I found someone giving away (or was it dirt cheap?) the same model TV I had in '99-ish, a 20" Toshiba 20AF42, that I remember getting as a teen. I remember going to Best Buy with my Mom, not really knowing anything technical, but seeing them on display and thinking.. man that Toshiba looks good for some reason, even next to the Wegas. And it had component input which was like a big deal at the time for me. And so they checked in the back and it turns out they only had the display model, but it had a crack on the side plastic. I decided I still wanted it, they took a chunk ($100? I think it was a $300 TV normally) off the price and I got her home! I fell in love with that TV. I liked the design of it and the picture looked great. Eventually I upgraded and years later I passed it on to my friend who let his younger brother use it for years and of course it was destroyed from all sorts of burn in and mis-use. And over a decade later I still kinda fantasized about that little TV but it was long gone in the trash. Longer story short, I found that exact TV locally for $20, spent a ton of time and learning modding it to RGB with a SCART socket on the back. It was glorious. Later on, it turned out they made a 24" version of the TV with the exact same design.. so I scooped that one up. I did the mod again etc etc, skipping a bunch of fun details here, did a better job and recapped the whole board pretty much and it was from a newer version of the same TV so it had some more menu options.

Anyway, point is, because I'm particularly attached to this model CRT TV, even though it isn't quite as sharp or configurable as a PVM, I put all that work into it and learned all about it, it makes playing older games so much more enjoyable. It's hard to explain. I just replayed through all of Final Fantasy 7 on it, and I did it with my original PS1 copy. And I could listen to it proper old school through the TV speakers which is alright and feels legit, or hook up audio out to my receiver and get really nice audio while I play. I've got a Framemeister but that doesn't really get used since I got the CRT.

You dudes shouldn't feel so guilty or silly or whatever about your hobbies/collections. Vinny seems to have a good attitude about it. It's what keeps you sane and engaged. If you're not passionate about something in life, then what are you even doing.

People did know about Working Designs' difficulty changes back in the day, as Victor Ireland talked about them in interviews and manuals. I will say there's not much in the way of difficulty that got people really riled outside of paying for saves in Lunar: Eternal Blue; the discussion back in the day was all about the pop-culture jokes in their translations and the company's often-antagonistic attitude toward fans.

I have to say that the latter-day reaction to Ireland's attitude has robbed him of his rightful recognition as perhaps the defining trailblazer in localization. Working Designs' approach - keep only the skeleton of the plotline; dump the script near-completely and substitute a jokey script rife with pop-culture references specific to the region - was controversial back in the day but, for better or worse (worse. it's worse), is the default for localization today.

More please. Thank you.

Time trotters are real

Loved this show.

@physicalos: Boston

The game ports show sounds amazing, that is the type of content I subscribe for!

That intro brought back some feels I haven't felt for a long, long time.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THESE ARE NOT TEARS.

god this is just the best. thank you guys for embarking on this!

also i need an sgi pvm in my life right fucking now

Can't believe no one told me about this. Looking forward to catching up already. Only 4 minutes in and Brad has accused Jeff and Vinny of being Korn super fans.

Can't believe no one told me about this. Looking forward to catching up already. Only 4 minutes in and Brad has accused Jeff and Vinny of being Korn super fans.

I literally can't believe I missed this 6 months ago, The HotSpot was reborn! The HotSpot was the first podcast I really got into, Rich Gallup was such a great host. Those were the days. And starting back up from Episode 360 I just love. Long live the HotSpot!

I'm very late to the party (mostly due to the big C), but I love this show. Old stuff. So much better than new stuff.

Giant Bomb for me is a religion, and The Hot Spot is the *SONIC BOOM*

It's a pity that you can only watch with premium.