Rising like Godzilla from Tokyo Bay after a long 1,000 year slumber, it’s Kotaku Splitscreen! Yes, Splitscreen is back with both a brand-new cast and the blessing of the old one.
(And by the way, if you’re missing the old crew, check out Maddy, Kirk, and Jason’s new podcast Triple Click.)
For this new iteration of Kotaku Splitscreen me (I’m Ash) and my co hosts Nathan and Fahey will be doing things a little differently. Instead of a general gaming podcast in which we talk about what we’re playing and current happenings, we’re going to get into the nitty-gritty, deep-diving into key topics of interest. Each week, we’ll come up with a handful of segments to explore the matter at hand, whether it be hot takes, fast facts, or maybe even a quiz or two. But no matter what, expect the three of us to get painfully detailed. We’re nerds, yo.
For this week’s Splitscreen, we’re getting a little meta and discussing reboots, remasters, and remakes. After all, considering we’re rebooting the podcast ourselves, why not talk about video games and their constant need to reinvent themselves?
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Check out the MP3 here or read an excerpt below!
Fahey *in his sexiest radio voice*: I’ve been our resident quizmaster for years, but just never had a call for it. I’ve been waiting in the wings, and now it’s time to unleash me. I have a quiz today called Reboot, Remake, Remaster. It might be very easy. It can be a little confusing; it depends on how you define a remake, a remaster or a reboot.
Reboot’s pretty clear—we’re starting over. Remake and remaster gets a little cloudy. I have nine entries here because I don’t believe in 10, it’s not a real number, and I don’t have to do it. So we’ll start with number one and this one’s pretty simple: Bomberman: Act:Zero, from 2006.
Nathan: Aw man. Oh what a game that was.
Ash: That was a game?
Nathan: Yeah. Oh gosh ok. So first we gotta briefly touch on what this is. Bomberman: Act:Zero was like an edgy reboot of Bomberman. So you know bright, happy little guy who throws bombs, has circles for hands—or orbs. I don’t know what his hands are. But yeah so they took that and put it into this like… Fahey, wasn’t the setting like some sort of dystopian skyscraper megatower type thing you had to escape from?
Fahey: Well first of all you said it in the opening, it is a gritty reboot of the colorful Bomberman series. The bright and happy, colorful and cartoony Bomberman series and they’re like, “You know what, it’s not edgy enough. People obviously love this for the bombs and not for the cartoon people so let’s make the bombs more realistic.” And it was a dystopian world, released for the Xbox 360 in 2006. No one liked it. No one liked it. The Japanese hated it. The Americans hated it. It was a universally hated game. And it was bad and it was a reboot. So there we go, part one.
Expect that and much more in the full episode of Kotaku Splitscreen. Expect new episodes every Friday, and don’t forget to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. Also, if you’re so inclined, leave a review, or you can always drop us a line at [email protected]. I hope you enjoy our first episode! We had a lot of fun recording it, and look forward to sharing more with you in the future.