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Welcome, mechanical marvels and atomic adventurers! This week on Play Comics, we’re firing up our reactor cores and diving headfirst into the absolutely electrifying world of Astro Boy Omega Factor for the Game Boy Advance – because apparently someone at Banpresto looked at Osamu Tezuka’s groundbreaking manga and thought, “You know what this 1950s icon needs? A portable fighting game experience where he punches evil robots directly in their non-existent feelings.”

Released in 2003, this 2D brawler took the mighty atom himself and somehow convinced an entire development team that what fans REALLY wanted was the chance to mash buttons while watching our favorite nuclear-powered pint-sized hero exchange haymakers with increasingly ridiculous mechanical adversaries. Sure, the original manga was about philosophical questions of robot rights and what it means to be human, but why dwell on existential dread when you could just… punch things?

Joining us for this high-voltage episode is Hamish Steele from Super Mario Moment – a man who knows a thing or two about platform and fighting game mechanics, though probably with significantly fewer isotope-based superpowers than Astro Boy packs. Together, we’ll explore whether this GBA adaptation captured the essence of Tezuka’s revolutionary creation or if it just left us feeling like we’d been on the receiving end of one of Astro Boy’s arm cannons.

So charge up your atomic energy reserves, practice your most devastating uppercut, and prepare for an episode that’s absolutely radiating with gaming chaos. Will this manga adaptation prove to be a shining beacon of handheld excellence, or will it fizzle out faster than Astro’s battery in a poorly designed dungeon? Time to find out if this portable pugilist belongs in the Hall of Mighty Adaptations or the scrapheap of forgotten GBA obscurities!Continue Reading

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Grab your time-traveling bow and arrow, folks! It’s time to dive into the prehistoric playground of Turok: Evolution, the game that asked, “What if we took a beloved comic book series and cranked the dinosaur-blasting action up to 11?” Join us as we explore this Acclaim-produced, multi-console extravaganza that had gamers questioning whether they were playing as a noble warrior or just a really enthusiastic paleontologist with anger issues.

This episode features the talented Frank Martin, comic writer extraordinaire and master of crowdfunded creativity. He’ll help us navigate the treacherous terrain between comic panels and pixelated landscapes, all while dodging raptors and questioning the logic of futuristic weapons in a world where “cutting edge” usually refers to a particularly sharp rock.

So strap on your loincloth, polish your plasma rifle, and get ready to explore a game that’s part Jurassic Park, part quantum physics experiment gone wrong. Will Turok: Evolution stand the test of time, or will it go extinct faster than you can say “Cease and desist, dinosaur!”? Tune in to find out!Continue Reading

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Turok was a big thing in the Nintendo 64 era. Big enough to get 4 games on the console. And I’m sure the fact that Acclaim controlled both the game and the comic. So of course you’ve still got all the super well connected aspects of the series.

Listen in as Mike O’Brien from behind the scenes of DC SuperSons as he comes to talk about the final Nintendo 64 entry in the series.Continue Reading

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You know what’s always fun? Dinosaurs. Seriously, who doesn’t like dinosaurs? Crazy people, that’s who. So if you can get dinosaurs and aliens and giant guns and it all actually makes sense? How cool is that?

Listen in as Billy who sometimes writes for Commander Cast comes to talk about Turok 2 Seeds of Evil. And cool guns. And the fun of having a comic property published across about a gazillion different publishers.Continue Reading

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I know, one of the problems with the show is that the handheld versions of games exist. And that if there’s a console version I tend to just ignore the hand held ones because, let’s face it, are they ever better than the console version anyway? Especially with a series like Turok that’s built around being a first person shooter on a screen that can show really good colors that’s also bigger than 2 square inches. That’s like 5 square centimeters for all of my listeners not in the US.
Blair Farrell from Comic Gamers Assemble is here to help me see if my thought process even has any merit to it as we take a look at 5 different Turok handheld ports and see how they actually play without having to worry about those pesky home console games that always hog the spotlight.Continue Reading

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Imagine a world with dinosaur and man existing together except there’s also modern weaponry and plasma rifles and, well, if you’re not convinced now that it’s awesome I’m not sure what’s wrong with you. Also it’s not the Savage Land.

Listen in as Patrick Hickey Jr from Review Fix comes by to talk Turok Dinosaur Hunter and really delves into some of the production behind this classic N64 shooter.Continue Reading