Author: Scott

This feels familiar.

As though we did this just recently…like you don’t know what we’ll be talking about on tomorrow’s episode.

ArJay will be there and Matt makes his return to the show plus I think Jeremy will also be on hand as well as myself. The Xbox One is still in the box and I’ll be hooking that up after I post this to make sure it works and get the system up to speed.

Should it all go as planned and I don’t end up with a disc eater out of the box, we plan on bringing it into the studio tomorrow and hooking it up there while we broadcast. There won’t be much detail for you to see, but there will be plenty for us to say while we play around with the system.

This IS the discussion for tomorrow night. There’s no two ways about it. And as we learned last week, we’ll have a lot of you in the chat room asking us about the system. We like that, and so we invite you again to join us and bombard us with questions that we can demo right there live in the studio for you.

Remember, all the links you need to listen or watch the show live can be found just over to the left there. We’ll see you live in the studio tomorrow night!

I grabbed a new cam for the show (Logitech C920, by the way) and decided to test it out. I seem to have ended up making a video blog post. As it was my first time, I made the mistake of not checking my volume levels. It’s loud. You should adjust the level before listening. My apologies and I’ll make sure that mistake doesn’t happen next time. If, of course, there is a next time. This is a little weird, to be honest.

Right.

Like you don’t know what we’ll be talking about on tomorrow’s episode.

ArJay will be there as will James and myself. Currently, I have my PS4 and James has one. ArJay is holding tight until there is more on the system he wants to play. James, while having one, is still not sure he wants it. And I’ll be opening up mine just as soon as I finish writing this.

Should it all go as planned and I don’t end up with a dud out of the box, we plan on bringing it into the studio tomorrow and hooking it up there while we broadcast. There won’t be much detail for you to see (and we might try to fix that), but there will be plenty for us to say while we play around with the system.

This IS the discussion for tomorrow night. There’s no two ways about it. Also, I can’t go a show without mentioning Uncharted (and now probably Cyan’s Obduction too), so there’s that.

And you should probably have a good idea of how this post will look next week.

Remember, all the links you need to listen or watch the show live can be found just over to the left there. We’ll see you live in the studio tomorrow night!

The last system I can remember really being excited to get was probably the original Xbox or the PS2. Both of those, and the GameCube to some extent, marked my return to home console gaming after skipping Sony’s first effort and the N64. I can’t remember why I skipped those or what happened, but up until that point my experience of gaming at home was with my father’s PC and the SNES and Genesis.

By the way, those two systems were easily remembered as ones I pined over, and not because they were new systems like today, but because holy shit! A new Mario game! And damn…Sonic is all fast and has that attitude. Altered Beast?! I played that in some arcades and the guy turns into animals OMGWTFBBQ!!11eleventyone11!! I mean, really…those were games I desperately wanted to play and they came packed in with the system. Something I didn’t get with my PS2 & Xbox purchase. However, they were still driven by a strong desire to play their launch lineup. The Xbox, of course, had Halo and I had a slight urge to play another Oddworld as well. The PS2 had SSX, Summoner, Midnight Club, and FantaVision (shut up). As for the GameCube, it didn’t have much out of the gate, but I really wanted to play that Rogue Squadron game, and there was always the promise that a new Nintendo begets a new Mario game. So I was more in it for that than anything else.

Still, the Xbox and PS2 had a strong opening even though they were a year apart in release. I played a ton of Halo and loved that system dearly. Just as much as I’d come to love my PS2. Seriously, SSX was one of the most fun games I’d played at launch and didn’t feel like some kind of a stretch in filling out a launch lineup. It was just a damn blast to play. And I looked forward to both systems because of that reason – they had games I wanted to play.

I have a hard time saying that today with the impending release of the PS4 and Xbox One. Hell, I had a hard time saying that with the PS3 and Xbox 360 release. Advancing the technology is great and always a good thing, but the launch lineup for that generation was pretty lackluster and this next one is as well. Keep in mind I am only speaking for myself with this so let me explain a little bit about why that is. At the core of it is my PC. A machine I built just over a year ago and seems to only now be showing off what it can do with titles like BioShock Infinite, Batman Arkham Origins, and (probably) Assassin’s Creed IV. And that’s just this past year, to say nothing of what Titanfall and others next year will look like. The PC gives me these games at a cheaper price either out of the gate or, at the very least, faster than I’ll get them cheaper on the console. Currently it allows me to play these games at a max setting that the PS4 and Xbox One just cannot match.

Now that just covers the multiplat titles. The games I mentioned for the SNES, Genesis, PS2, and Xbox were all first party exclusive titles. And the first party titles for the Xbox One and PS4 just aren’t getting me excited. I’ve never been a fan of the KillZone franchise. It never clicked with me and has really remained off my radar for the most part. The last I ever saw of Knack was back in February with Cerny on stage talking up the system and his game. Sony hasn’t really been pushing that game and the media hasn’t been doing it either. The best I can hope for, personally, is Resogun, and that’s a PSN title! That doesn’t diminish the game itself but it’s surprising to me that your best launch title is on PSN (and free to PS+ members). Although, maybe that isn’t so surprising as I played a ton of Geometry Wars and Hexic HD on the 360 when it launched.

On the Xbox One side of the equation they have Dead Rising 3. I plan to check it out but I haven’t really been paying attention to it. I played the first Dead Rising during the desert of no games in the early first year of the Xbox 360. I haven’t played it or the sequel since. I like my racing titles, but I’m not a fan of the sim type of racing games that is Forza 5 (unless it has a DeLorean in it). RYSE has me curious but cautious, and, again, the best I can hope for comes digitally from Xbox Live in LocoCycle. Oh, and I’ve heard good things about Zoo Tycoon (or real life Viva Pinata, I guess).

The point I am making here is that the launch games aren’t driving me to buy the systems. I want them, but I can easily remember a time when I wanted a system to play the games that launched with it. Now…now it’s just some weird caveman instinct in me to own something right when it releases and be within that crowd of people who can talk from experience in owning the system and checking it out – even though I might not be playing much, if anything, on them. For now, at least.

I mean, even if I didn’t get either system at launch I’ll own them eventually. Naughty Dog will do what they do and release a game or 4 on it that I will WANT to play. And, hell, what if we see The Last Guardian show up – that’ll put a system in my hands for that title alone. On Microsoft’s side, Halo will release and I’ll want that, I’m sure. However, it begins to look a bit bleak there for their first party titles. They’ll have some surprises, sure, but at the outset I can’t see much in their future for me at the moment. I’m sure it’ll come though. Then we go to the third parties who usually will include the PC, but sometimes stick to just the home systems or delay the ever-loving shit out of putting their game on the PC. Rockstar will be there with something eventually and they made Table Tennis – something I spent $60 on when it released. Destiny seems to be destined for ONLY being on the PS4 & Xbox One (fix that Daniel…do it!), so I would have a system by then as well.

Eventuality, price drops, exclusives, form factor updates, system improvements, and holiday bundles would put both systems in my hands in the future. That part is inevitable. But man, I do miss that excitement of having a brand new game to play at launch on my brand new system. For now, we’ll just get the wedding over with and take a rain check on the honeymoon.

I don’t really like to get too personal on these posts. Usually about as far as I go is with my personal connection to some games and I’ll continue those, but this one is a bit more personal, but still has to do with the show and IGC as a whole.

As some of you may know, IGC isn’t a day job for any of us. It’s this thing we do around our day jobs and brings in nothing financially. Also, as likely most of you know, I work at and for the same radio station we broadcast IGC from. In June of this year, right after I got back from E3, I was informed I’d be let go from my day job. Immediately being informed of this my thoughts went straight to the show. Which still feels odd now, that I would be more concerned for it than I would be paying my own bills in the coming months. But I had just gotten back from E3 talking with publishers and developers and having lots of hope and promise for the show in the weeks and months ahead so my mind was focused on it. Plus, it felt like we were back on our feet again as a show.

Before getting back on the air regularly we’d spent a few years in a limbo like state of just doing the show when it was convenient for all of us, and from my couch no less. Hell, we’ve done more episodes this year being back on the air than we did in the past two years combined. I can remember in January of this year when I drove over to James’ house to drop off some yard tools or whatever and, as we normally do, we started talking of when we’d be doing another episode. He finally said what we were both thinking – it’d be really great if we were on the radio again. We talked it over a bit outside his house and finally decided that I would go in on Monday and ask if we could go back on the air. If we got the all clear for it then great! We’d take whatever time slot they offered and go from there. If they denied us, then we’d try to find a way to wrap this all up and get out of it. We enjoyed doing IGC, but we didn’t like how we were doing it or how it was being presented to you. So there it was, all out on the table. If we get a “yes” we continue and if it’s a “no” we end it.

To the surprise of all of us on the show and a few of you out there, they let us back on the air and the rest is exactly what you know of it and also brings us up to speed so far. I’d been told my last day would be the end of July and then I’d be paid for another 2 months of work and that would be it for me and the company. Except that isn’t what happened. Due to an overwhelming amount of support from coworkers, things shifted enough that I was able to stay on as an employee but the pay was drastically cut as were the hours. I was okay with this simply because it meant we’d still be able to do a show and I’d have a ton more time to devote to it. Again, the show came first for me in this scenario and this really worked out well in that regard. This set up the opportunity to get more time in with games, set up pre-recorded interviews with folks who just couldn’t join us live and, lately, start doing posts like these you’ve been seeing. It did not, however, work out very well for me on a personal basis since the money just wasn’t there to cover my month to month expenses as I thought it would be (contracts and auto-renewals are bastards, by the way).

It was looking bleak for a moment there. In the event I couldn’t find a second job or would have to get another full time job somewhere else, the ability to do the show at the radio station was in question. I felt it was very likely it would have to go away since I wouldn’t be employed there and would also not fall under any regulations of being on the air and operating the equipment. It would be more a rule/CYA situation for the company rather than anything personal between me and them. Keeping some kind of employment at the station was crucial for me so that the show could continue.

Like the last few minutes of a sports movie, the winning point was scored and due to specific circumstances, I was given my old job back. There were a few tweaks, but it was, for the most part, back to normal for me. However, as you may can tell from the lack of posts we’ve gotten out recently, my time for IGC has been cut back a bit. It isn’t anything drastic but there’s less time than what there was before. Incidentally, there’s more time now, however, than what there was before this all happened after E3.

Regardless, we didn’t lose the show. We didn’t lose the ability to do the show or come to the point where we’d have to stop doing the show. But we came pretty damn close. Twice this year. None of us like to NOT do a show. We all have jobs that can sometimes force us away from some episodes – Matt never likes having to miss an episode and wouldn’t if he could help it. Dennis is the same way and does a ton for us during the week in show prep because he can’t make it there on Saturday night due to his job. Jeremy has children. James and I don’t understand that part, but from what we’ve been told it’s…like a job. ArJay is hardly never there and usually when he isn’t it’s because of video game tournaments he takes part in. As for James, unless he’s deathly ill or has a prior commitment to his day job, he’ll be there. And, as some of you may remember from earlier this year, we’ll even reschedule ourselves so he can be there and do the show. We all love to do this, because this is exactly what we do when there aren’t microphones in front of us, and we are continually amazed by the support we get and the ever growing amount of people who enjoy listening to us.

I realize this post isn’t really going anywhere specific, if only to mention a few things that have happened that some of you may not know about and a reason or two in explanation of the lack of updates here and there. I suppose at the end of it all, what almost happened in losing my job made me realize what was bound to happen in reenforcing just how much IGC means to me and the rest of us. We’re grateful to be able to do this and to have the people like you reading this to do it for and have that kind of support. So, from all of us on the show, off the show, show’s past and show’s to come – thanks for emailing us, tweeting us, liking us, supporting us, promoting us, and as always…thanks for listening to us. Means a great deal more than I can put in any of these posts, I assure you.

The next time we post one of these we’ll be one console deep into the next gen, but for now, we’ll just have to settle for continuing our talk about it. Tomorrow night on the show it’ll be ArJay, James, Jeremy, and myself sitting down yet again and discussing what’s to come in the next two weeks. Obviously the PS4 is top of mind at the moment since it’s first out of the gate, but there’s still room for chat about the Xbox One and the ever consistent current generation of PC gaming.

While new information wasn’t available, there’s been more talk on why resolution matters – or at least questions as to why some of the gaming press doesn’t seem to want it to matter. Call Of Duty was released and didn’t sell as well as last years CoD title. Also didn’t score as well either for some outlets. It still has two more SKU’s to release, however, and could likely be the reason for the low sales figures – but those SKU’s aren’t likely to change the review scores.

To be perfectly honest, we have no idea what will be our opening topic for tomorrow’s show (or topics beyond that either). With one week to go before the release of the PS4, we feel like we’ve covered our ground on the next gen discussion until reality hits us next Friday…and then again the Friday after. Whatever the case, we have the four of us in the studio ready to rattle off words and string together thoughts and a chat room full of you to correct us, direct us, and keep it all interesting.

Remember, all the links you need to listen or watch the show live can be found just over to the left there. We’ll see you live in the studio tomorrow night!

Some recent events over the weekend mean the holidays are going to be a bit better for me than they were before this past Friday. Not in any kind of extravagant way, but it means I can now get both new systems without as much worry as there was before.

I was in LA for E3 when prices for the systems were announced and that’s all the retailers were waiting for before they started taking pre-orders. As soon as I could I called the local store in town to find out their supply and see about getting one ordered for myself. The only way I could get a system pre-ordered was doing so in-store. They would not accept them over the phone.

That’s when I called James and he got to the store after work and was able to get an Xbox One held in my name. Later that night when Sony revealed their price, James did the same thing and went to the store the very next morning and pre-ordered a PS4 for himself and for me as well – camera included.

Since that time, I’ve been pretty excited with the anticipation of the systems, but as the date drew closer, my excitement has settled. It’s actually quite mild, really. If I really give it some thought, I’m more excited for the future of these systems than I am for their launch. If I’m really honest, there’s nothing drawing me to the Xbox One or PS4 right out of the gate. If I had to choose, there’s KillZone and that is it. Even at that, I’ll likely rent the game and play it. It’s a title that if it were released for the PS3 right now, I’d do the same with or maybe even skip it altogether. Everything else on the PS4 and Xbox One is either not in my wheelhouse or can be played on my PC.

There are some digital titles I’m interested in that are exclusive to the systems like LocoCycle for the Xbox One, but even added into the mix that comes to one title per console that I have much interest in at all. So then why get the consoles?

Well, I know eventually I’ll be getting them. There’s just no way around that fact. One of these systems will have a must have title on it that I want to play. It’s a guarantee for the PS4 that I’ll want Infamous Second Son and ANYTHING that we see from Naughty Dog. On the Xbox side of things I can’t be as specific but they’ll bounce back a bit with some exclusives for their system that would eventually make me break down and buy one. However, the main reason is because of what we do every Saturday night. No one on the show is getting both systems. James was in the PS4 camp and that’s a maybe at the moment for him. Matt has a PS4 on pre-order. Jeremy isn’t jumping into next gen at the moment and will continue his course of gaming on the PC and current gen roads. ArJay will eventually get a PS4 but not at launch. In fact…none of us, even in the future, see ourselves owning an Xbox One.

Even still, I don’t feel like I am taking one for the team on this. The Xbox One is a system I know I’ll eventually own and I’m still going to try out some of the launch titles from it – none that I’m excited for, but I’ll still give them a go. Never hurts to try new things and they could easily sway me into liking something like RYSE or maybe even Dead Rising 3. I’ve never been a driving sim fan but if Forza has a DeLorean in it, well….

The truth of it is, I like to be a part of things like new console releases. I wasn’t there for the WiiU and, for me, it didn’t feel like what this currently feels like. I couldn’t look down the road a ways for the WiiU and see me getting that console for a game I really wanted to play. But here, I can afford it, and we can talk about it on the show, and I can say I was there when it released and I own a launch day system (something, by the way, I can still say for my PS3 launch day 60GB machine – not so fortunate with my 360, however). Six years from now it won’t matter. Hell, a year or maybe even six months from now it won’t matter, but it’s this weird thing for me – and it feels strange for me to think of myself not owning these systems when they release. I’m sure it has something to do with being spoiled as an only child or something like that – but whatever. This is what being an adult has always meant to me. As James once put it, I’m a 15 year old with the salary of a 35 year old.

Tomorrow night on the show it’ll be myself, ArJay, and James in the studio discussing this week’s recent topics. That, obviously, goes without saying, but you’d probably like to know what those topics are and…so would we. You see, we have an outline of topics to hit if we want, but we never have some determined script to get through. That said, some of the highlights on the list for tomorrow’s show are the PS4 FAQ released this week. We found out a lot of things the PS4 actually WILL NOT be able to do on launch. We’d also like to know if any of the info we found out this week with the PS4 has changed your decision to buy one – or skip it.

We also got an official statement concerning our opening topic of last week’s episode. Turns out Call Of Duty Ghosts will run at 1080p native on the PS4 while only 720p on the Xbox One, but upscaled to 1080p.

While we’re on the topic of the PS4, we’re set to have a Dual Shock 4 in the studio with us and you’ll get two live instant impressions of how it feels from James & ArJay. We also might play with the camera a little bit to give our live viewers some good looks of the controller while we broadcast.

I’ll have more to say about Batman: Arkham Origins while James has been putting in his time with Battlefield 4 on the PC. Speaking of Battlefield 4, we learned some more about the PS4 & Xbox One with some sites and their observations of the systems performance with the game as well as learning a bit about how sites might be reviewing games in the coming weeks on the next generation consoles.

Our guest this week is a big deal for me, personally, as we welcome Rand Miller to the show. Rand is one of the creators of my all time favorite series of games, Myst. He’ll be live on the show with us tomorrow night and we’ll be asking him your questions and talking about Myst, The Witness, and Cyan’s new project on Kickstarter, Obduction.

Remember, all the links you need to listen or watch the show live can be found just over to the left there. We’ll see you live in the studio tomorrow night!

So I’ll start by saying that I promise not to keep referring to previous posts for subjects of recent posts – this thing is only just a week old and that can’t last, nor was it my intention, but that’s how things have worked out. Also, promise not to just be me making these posts, either. Everyone on the show is welcome and invited to make posts, but since, out of all of us, I have the most time, I’m taking on most of the posting duties for the time being.

Now, with that out of the way, I want to go back to my first post about Batman: Arkham Origins. I’ve been playing it now since it release on Friday and it’s been nonstop. I haven’t wanted to play anything else and I’m a bit glad nothing else is out there at the moment for me to play (Battlefield 4, yes, and I’ll get to it, but I’m beelined focused on Batman currently). So here are my thoughts as of 25 hours of playtime (I’m an extremely slow player in open world games, by the way) and 91% complete with the main story for Batman: Arkham Origins:

If you are a fan of Batman you should be playing this game. If you’re a fan of the previous Arkham games, you should be playing this game. But…there’s a catch, and I’ll get to that after I gush over the game for a bit.

I love the combat in Arkham Origins more than I did in the previous games and yeah, they tweaked it. Some will say for good, others will cry foul – perfectly acceptable either way. But I’m doing better at the combat in this game than I did in the previous two. I also have a MUCH better understanding of the combat than I did before. My awareness of a fight is better and I’m easily able to pay better attention to the crowd of thugs, where to strike next, who to stun and leave for later, where my counter is and how many critical strikes I have, who has the knife, where is the ninja, and, just recently, can and should I activate my shock gloves. Seriously, the combat has all come together for me in Arkham Origins better than it ever did in Arkham Asylum or Arkham City. A side note here, I’m playing on the PC and was able to adjust the Field Of View. I only recently made that adjustment and it helps out a ton with the combat. The FOV adjustment only improved my already better understanding of the combat but I had been playing in the default FOV for the majority of the game – still like it better than the previous two titles.

I love the larger city and I really love seeing the parts I played around with in AC as they were before they got closed off as a prison city and flooded. Some have said the areas lack the personality they had in Arkham City and the reason for this is because a super villain hasn’t inhabited that section and made it their own. Interiors of certain buildings still hold true to the personality of the villain who is in that area, but the outside is pretty much void of those signatures. The city doesn’t feel “alive”, however, and EVERYONE in the city is a threat to you. The game explains this away by setting it on Christmas Eve and having a massive blizzard hit Gotham City – something it constantly reminds you with loudspeakers in the open world reminding citizens that a curfew is in place. The lack of pedestrians and the main plot of the story (bounty on Batman’s head from Black Mask who’s killed the current police commissioner in a gigantic prison break/riot at Blackgate) explains the city being overrun with criminals. Oh, and a note, it’s nice to finally fight regular criminals (and corrupt police) instead of orange jumpsuit after orange jumpsuit from AC – although, again, that situation fit in with the story of what was going on with that game, just as this one does for Origin.

Speaking of the story, before yesterday’s playing of the game, when I was at around 50% done, I would have made this a pretty short segment and said, “It’s a Batman game with a typical mass media market Batman story.” Something like that should tell you a bit about what to expect from the story. Anything Batman made for massive public consumption will always have a formula for what to expect. There will always be Batman. And he’ll always be fighting….well, you know who. It’s no secret Joker is in Arkham Origins. It’s been made a pretty big deal by the fact that both Batman and Joker had their voice actors recast from the previous games. More on that later. But yes, the Joker is in Arkham Origins and isn’t some side act or chance encounter. We essentially play Batman as he first meets the Joker in what has come to be called “The Arkhamverse” – meaning just the video games. The story for Origins takes place just about a year after Batman has started showing up in Gotham. You overhear criminals on the street talking about the myth of the Bat and retell stories they’ve heard from other criminals about what “it” is and if even the Batman is such a thing. So it’s early for Bruce Wayne as Batman, and it shows in his dialogue. It doesn’t come across as the older, wiser, and just generally smarter Batman we’ve come to know. This Batman is more aggressive and comes off expressively cocky and arrogant. At least more so than I’m used to from the previous games.

I really felt like the story wasn’t anything special. Becoming an excuse to bring in these characters (and kudos for them pulling a little from top, middle, and bottom shelf villains, instead of rehashing the AAA rogues gallery) and have Batman fight them. Then I hit the 50% mark and entered the hotel. I’ll stop there and just say the story progresses quick in this section, so much so that by the time I came out the other end and returned to the free roam aspect of the game, I was at my current completion percentage of 91% (as far as the story is concerned, full game completion sits at only 34% or so). That moment…and you WILL know that moment, stands as one of the BEST I’ve experienced in any of the Batman games so far.

While I haven’t finished the story yet, I’m really confused on those who mark against the story after that part I just described. It really does put to shame the other two games, although it had a bit of a leg up with how this one is set in the timeline. I also get a bit sadfaced when I hear people use the voice talent as part of an excuse to skip this one or that it is lesser in some way because of it. I mean yeah, the Conroy & Hamill connection is not here for Arkham Origins. It has been replaced by two other voice actors who do a great job with the roles. Roger Craig Smith voices Batman and I can easily tell you that you won’t miss Conroy’s voice as the Bat. He doesn’t replace the voice of Batman I hear in my head when I think of the character. Conroy owned that for 5 seasons and longer with the animated series (same with Hamill and the Joker), but as much as it’s been listed as a negative that those voices aren’t in the game, these guys aren’t getting their due. It’s fantastic work and really should be given a chance by any fan of the character. Same goes for Troy Baker as the Joker, but I have to nitpick a bit since he’s essentially doing a Hamill impression of the Joker. He nails it, by the way, and I was ready to end my thoughts on it there before I hit that section of the story I mentioned earlier. He does SO WELL as the Joker for that part of the game that it doesn’t become a Hamill impersonation for me anymore. Troy owns it here.

As for complaints of Origins just being a rehash of the previous games, I can’t really buy into that. There is similarity, but the art direction is different with the characters. I’m not even kidding that there is a HUGE difference in the hulked up Gears Of War looking Jim Gordon from Arkham Asylum and how he looks in Origins. The characters are different and seem less over the top in their design in this game as compared to the previous two. Also…the cut scenes in Origins outshine those we saw in Asylum and City, and by leaps and bounds at that.

Now, about that catch I mentioned earlier…it’s kind of a big one. For all the best parts of this game I still would say to hold off on buying it – for the PC anyway, but as forums posts have shown, it’s the same on the consoles. This game is Mayor Buggy McBuggington of Bug Town. I’ve had lock ups (2), crashes (1), moments in fights where an opponent floats to the other side of me as I’m attacking (1), missed dialogue (1), and a pretty damn big one that prevents me from finishing a characters side quest (Riddler). The game looks fantastic on PC, and I love playing it, but, in good faith, I can’t see these issues and still tell you to play the game. This should not have released when it did, but the pressures of getting in before the next generation hits store shelves, plus the other heavy hitters on the horizon (Battlefield 4, AC4, WatchDogs at the time, & CoD: Ghosts) meant this thing HAD to hit its release date and it has paid for that rush job in the amount of bugs seen throughout the game. Others have run across plenty more that are game breaking, but I only listed the ones I have experienced…so far. A recent patch was released but it fixed a lot of bugs people were experiencing on the Multiplayer side of things. Yeah…this game has multiplayer, but I have yet to give it a try.

This will be a great game to play for any fan of the previous games and if you don’t think the bugs will bother you, then by all means pick it up. Otherwise, keep an eye on forums and wait to see some patch notes to make sure this thing is running the way it should for a full completion of the game. Still, even after that, don’t let the small things like voice actors or a change in studio making the game sway you from playing it. It’s a fantastic Batman game that, even with 25 hours put in, has never felt like a chore or a task. It’s always felt fun and has been something I’ve looked forward to playing every day since it launched. Don’t miss out….you know, when they patch the bugs, of course.

There are many reasons we enjoy doing In-Game Chat. We’ve said before that what you hear on the show is exactly what we talk about on a day to day basis with each other. It used to be whenever we’d meet up for whatever occasion, but now with texts and IM’s, this happens every single day. So, it’s just a louder way for us to talk and more people to hear what we have to say, as well as have more input from those who can hear us and want to join the conversation.

So that’s one of the reasons we enjoy it. Another reason, surprisingly, has been the opportunity to talk to people working in the gaming industry. Those who’ve been listening for awhile know of the past guests we’ve had on the show. Some people who’ve had NOTHING to go with gaming, but we spoke with just because we were given the chance.

I wrote last week of some of the gaming companies I hold in high regard (which is just a nice way of saying I’m a total fanboy over), and over the years, one by one, the avenue of IGC has afforded me the opportunity to take that obsession to the next level and either speak with people from those companies or meet with them and visit their studios.

Well, this Saturday I can add another milestone to that list. Our guest this weekend on In-Game Chat is none other than Atrus himself, Rand Miller, Co-founder and CEO of Cyan Worlds as well as the designer and director of the original Myst (along with his brother, Robyn) and Riven, the sequel to Myst, Uru, and Myst V: End Of Ages.

I’ve been a fan of Rand’s work on the Myst series (and the series itself), along with his brother’s work on the soundtracks, plus the three books he helped author that expanded the lore of Myst. The Myst series has been the most dear to me among anything else I’ve been a fan of throughout the years.

Getting this opportunity to speak with my personal heroes of the industry is a massive dream come true and one I never really ever considered even in the early years of doing In-Game Chat. Hell, even when some of those did come true for me, I still never imagined I’d be given the chance to speak with someone who shaped my love of gaming into what it is today.

So, when you listen to this weekend’s show and hear the interview, you should know I’m doing my best to remain calm, but the excitement of such a thing will likely spill over into the interview and you’ll hear just how it sounds when a long time dream becomes a reality.

For the most part on Friday’s we’ll use this post to give you an idea of what will be coming up on tomorrow night’s show.

For instance, tomorrow night it’ll be myself, James, & Arjay in the studio (with a possible guest appearance from Jeremy) and we’re likely going to discuss what went on this week with CoD Ghosts possibly being shown in 720p on the Xbox One and 1080p on the PS4. This seems to be rumor and speculation, but there’s a lot of evidence pointing to this actually being true. Something we’ll go further into during the show tomorrow.

We also plan to discuss what we’ve been playing and what we will be playing – usual talk for us though you might hear a surprise or two from James – if his Steam activity is to be believed.

Finally, we have an interview scheduled to air that took place earlier this week with David Chateauneuf from Red Barrels Games. These are the folks who made the wonderfully creepy and scary OUTLAST. I spoke with him about the game and its future as well as getting a bit of insight into the very small team that makes up Red Barrels.

Not only that, but we’ll be giving away 2 copies of OUTLAST to some lucky listeners during the show tomorrow night. These are steam codes and they DO work outside of North America, in case some of you might be wondering. We aren’t sure how we’ll give them away, but we do know you’ll need to at least be listening to the show LIVE tomorrow and it would help to be in the chat room with us on Twitch.

Remember, all the links you need to listen or watch the show live can be found just over to the left there. We’ll see you LIVE tomorrow night!

Plenty of you are likely familiar with the regard in which I hold certain games and developers. There’s Criterion with the Burnout series and, of course, Naughty Dog and Uncharted. There’s a few others in there, but not many. The list grows very slowly if at all.

However, the first studio and games that I ever fell in love with started on the PC and they started with adventure/puzzle games. I vividly remember playing The 7th Guest on my father’s 486DX40…I think. I don’t even know if that’s how you write it out anymore and no clue on ANYTHING about the specs it had, but Dad said it was good and it ran the game, so I was happy.

While Trilobyte made me take notice of what kind of a world I could find on a PC and the puzzles waiting for me, it was another company that would fuel the obsession and forever remain my standard for adventure/puzzle gaming.

I’m not exactly sure what first drew me to pick up Myst from Cyan Worlds. I wasn’t following gaming news. About the closest thing I had was Nintendo Power at the time. It had to have been the box that made me buy it….or ask for it. Again, the details of how I came to own the game are fuzzy. I can only think that I walked into Electronics Boutique in the mall with my mother or father and looked at the PC section, noticed the box, the little banner on it claiming “WINNER OF 12 MAJOR AWARDS including 1994 GOLD MEDAL & 1994 WORLD-CLASS AWARD” and then either asked my Dad if his computer could play it or remembered what he’d told me enough to know it would and bought it.

However way I came to own Myst didn’t matter, once I played it I was hooked. I can’t remember how long it took me to finish the game, but I had notes upon notes during my journey through Myst island and the different ages. It was the hardest game I’d ever played at the time and for some time to come following. In fact, I likely didn’t get another challenge like that until the sequel, Riven, was released. I have that box, too, by the way. In fact, I have every boxed copy of a Myst game I have ever bought – double dips and all. I own the soundtracks lacking only Myst IV and Myst V. In fact, here’s pretty much everything of Myst that I own in some kind of physical form at the moment:

Soundtracks, digital copies, and eBooks aren’t shown, but I have those too

The bug had bitten me and I forever tried to reach back to that first feeling of visiting Myst island. Although, it only actually seemed to work when I played a Myst game. A few titles here and there came close. Syberia was one of those games, but as I played it, the game became its own thing and not something I ended up comparing to what Myst was for me. Myst has stayed with me since I played the very first game nearly 20 years ago. And I had long since given up on seeing anything new in the universe. Myst V: End Of Ages was the finale, and I had my doubts early on in the release of that game that we wouldn’t see a Myst VI or some kind of side venture, but the more I read about End Of Ages, the more I began to accept that the adventure was over.

Then, just a week ago (the day before my birthday, in fact), a project on Kickstarter sprung up from Cyan Worlds called Obduction. The first thing I did was look at the backer rewards for the boxed copy of the game (it’s at the $75 level). Done. Backed. Now, where’s the level that gets my name in the credits? Could they possibly have a level that gets me to provide input for the development of the game or maybe a visit to the studio? They have all of those and more and while some of the levels are out of my reach, I’m still getting a boxed copy of their game whenever it’s released. That’s, of course, assuming their project gets funded, but I really have no doubt in my mind it won’t pass its goal and become a reality.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a game from Cyan to look forward to, and it doesn’t really matter that it isn’t part of the Myst….mythos. It’s a new beginning from them. And maybe it doesn’t take a Myst game to bring me back to that first feeling of being on Myst island, maybe all it takes is Cyan to keep doing what they do best. That’s a project I’ll support every time they offer it. As was said to me 20 years ago in Myst by one of the founders of Cyan…perhaps the ending has not yet been written.

Seven years and we’ve barely ever used this space for anything other than an official place to put our shows. We gave it some thought and figured we should change that and give writing a shot and put our voices to…screen, as it were in between the times we do those shows.

I can’t guarantee we’ll do this as scheduled every day of every week (except Saturdays & Sundays). But we’ll try.

This past weekend both Batman games were on sale on Steam, in what I can only guess was a celebratory manner for having both titles stripped of the GFWL brand and soothed over with the cooling aloe of Steamworks. Not only that, but those who’d previously bought the two games on Steam had their copies upgraded (both of them) to the “Game Of The Year” editions with all the extra content added in.

All this did was remind me that since the time I’d bought these games on my PC, I’d recently rebuilt my machine and made the switch from an AMD graphics card to NVIDIA – almost for the singular reason of PhysX. I’d been with an AMD card for quite a few previous builds of my machine and had watched, almost with heartbreak for me, the videos of games come and go that were using the PhysX stuff in NVIDIA cards. Finally, I could play a game I have a distinct recollection of watching back when I didn’t have the proper equipment to see all of its bells and whistles with PhysX – Batman: Arkham City.

So far it’s been fun. The game that is. I’ve barely noticed the really great ways fog moves, curtains flow, and papers fly around when you walk over them. I mean, sure, they’re there and I’ll take notice occasionally, but for the most part, I’m just too focused on being Batman to really pay attention. Then again, I’m not very far into the game so maybe there’s more of it later on I’ll actually start to see. Still, it’s a bit comforting to know that whenever NVIDIA does release videos of upcoming games using their tech of physics, I’ll know I can play that game and see exactly what they are showing me.

That said, they’ve really been showing off what their cards and tech can do in the next Batman game releasing on Friday – Arkham Origins. The game hasn’t really snuck up on me, but my anticipation for it has. Just a week or so ago I knew it was coming out, but I was very…meh on the issue. Not disappointed or thinking it wasn’t going to live up to the previous games, but just, well…neither here nor there on it. However, since replaying Arkham City over the weekend I’ve gotten more and more excited for Origin’s release. I’ve been reading forums and subreddits, watching videos (even the most recent walkthrough done by someone who got their hands on an early copy), and I’m even listening to the soundtrack sample as I write this*. It’s rare I get this enthusiastic for the release of a game to drown myself in its media and hype, but here I am…wallowing in it, soaking it all up.

I’m not even really worried about the reviews. I’ve only played a bit of the game at PAX and it really plays EXACTLY like Arkham City. Yeah sure, it isn’t Rocksteady making the game, but the guys at WB Montreal seemed to have done a fantastic job mimicking their every move. I find that to be good and bad, in a way. This is good because it means they don’t stray too far from a formula that works and bad in the sense that they aren’t really carving a place for themselves. I mean, the sections of Gotham that were in Arkham City look very familiar, as they should, and it means the team had more time to work on other aspects of the game. Having it set yet again in the winter means most of the areas affected by the weather could go unchanged (that pool on the highrise is still frozen over). Setting it on Christmas Eve and added the element of a terrible blizzard and that keeps them from making Gotham as busy as a city like it would be on the streets – keep in the tone of a locked away prison playground as it was used in the game before. And maybe they don’t have to stand out for themselves. Maybe coming away with a win on a Batman game means they’ve shown they can make things work and build the confidence to work on their own stuff and not be held to a standard of another studio. Maybe. We’ll see when the game releases on Friday.

In fact, I think I’m going to finish this up and get back into Arkham City for a bit. Getting all the DLC in the recent PC upgrade from Steam means I have new content to explore. Speaking of which, I think I’ll stream my playthrough of the “Harley’s Revenge” DLC.

*Check out 10:14, 14:00, & 17:51 for my favorites so far