Category: Episodes

We’re piloting our mechs all over the place at the following link.

Right, so mechs and titans. You could easily say most of the show was focused on big giant metal destruction, and it was, except for the 30 minutes or so we spent talking to Ben Ruiz from Team Colorblind. Their game, Aztez, involves no mechs or metal at all. But it does involve quite a lot of blood. If you’re curious to what the game is, find some videos, but then come back and listen to our interview to understand exactly what you’re watching and how it came to be.

As I said, the rest of the show is focused on mechs, from the Titanfall beta to our second guest of the night, Jason Hughes, from Adhesive Games talking to us about their game, Hawken – now available on Steam.

We really enjoy talking to developers, especially from places like Team Colorblind and Adhesive. You can hear in these interviews the passion they have for what they’ve created and what it means to them for you to play their games. We’ve heard it before from other small (and large) developers. It’s a privilege to speak with them and our hope is to only have more conversations with people like them. Having said that, if you know of a developer or someone working on a game you’d like for us to have on the show, let us know.

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We’re recording two hour broadcasts and selling them for $40 a pop at the following link.

First we have to thank Steven for calling in about his experience with the Titanfall alpha and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. Also, another big thank you to Mr. Angus for calling in and talking about his time at Criterion studios, and also for putting up with my gushing of their work.

We won’t tell you how to spend your money. We won’t tell you that it’s wrong to pay the asking price for MGS: Ground Zeroes. Because it isn’t. It is your money to spend as you wish and I’ve personally committed far greater sins in the amount spent per entertainment value department (kickstarter projects come to mind).

While we aren’t too troubled by what Konami is charging for the game because if people will buy it, then why shouldn’t they? We are a bit concerned that it might catch on and become a regular thing. Right now, for me, it has no effect and Matt doesn’t seem to have too much of an issue spending the money on a franchise he loves – but what is this was Burnout, Uncharted, or (insert your beloved franchise here)? What are you willing to pay?

Don’t worry though, our episodes are still free, though we might hold James’ return for ransom. After all, we’ve got an E3 trip coming up.

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We’re trademarking EVERYTHING at the following link.

The topic of the episode is “things that aren’t fun to talk about because there doesn’t seem to be any silver lining”. It’s a long title for a topic, but it seems to fit the subject matter: copyright law and skeevy things that should be illegal, but aren’t.

As I said, these kinds of things aren’t very fun to talk about, so I’ll tell you a bit about next week’s 300th episode. You should really try and make the live show. There are things being planned that you’ll miss out on if you aren’t listening to the live show…or at least in the chat room. I like giving hints and using wordplay to do so, but, really, anything I give you here would be WAY to obvious, and I’m not allowed to do that.

You’ll just have to trust us.

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It’s an honor just to be nominated at the following link.

We’re still harboring an awful lot of suspicion surrounding the early hype and imminent release of Titanfall.  It’s one thing to mistrust the wave of praise from reporters of various stripes who might well be overstimulated and over-handled at any number of media events, but it’s another thing entirely to mistrust the legions of regular gamers with access to this past weekend’s alpha test.  Try as we might, though, some of us can’t see our way past the pedigree of the developers and the incredible baggage carried by their previous franchise.  Jetpacks, wall-running, and not-mechs might not be enough to turn it around, but we’ll find out for sure in a few long weeks.

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We’re part of a well-balanced meal at the following link.

It’s looking less likely over time that we’re going to find love in our hearts for the Steam Machine.  We wish it well with whatever it’s trying to do, and we’re happy on behalf of everyone who finds it compelling.  We haven’t written the idea off completely, though, as the only thing we like more than being proven right is having our negativity proven wrong.

PlayStation Now, on the other hand, has (by doing nothing whatsoever) generated many lustful and love-filled thoughts among the hosts.  We’re perfectly aware of the limitations and restrictions we’re likely to encounter, but we nonetheless choose to dream sweet dreams of all games from all eras available at all times wherever the hell we want.

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What would you do with a drunken sailor at the following link?

I suppose it’s fitting to put last things first for this episode, as we offer beginnings and endings all together in a single show.  It’s a new year for everyone, and with that a chance to build new game-of-the-arbitrary-time-period contender lists (and to fight over them as if our lives depended on it), for platform-warriors to further entrench their positions, for outsiders to misunderstand what we love and for insiders to misappropriate it.  It’s a time for each of us to lift several nagging titles out of the backlog, and then to dig that backlog even deeper.  Keeping the past twelve months in mind, I’m not particularly optimistic about the next twelve.  But, in the spirit of renewal, I’ll wish us all — console and PC, indie and triple-A — a very happy and prosperous new year.

In light of his years of service, I’d also like to wish Jeremy a happy new year and rest of his life.  He’s decided the small matter of home life and child-rearing should take precedence over broadcasting and podcasting during one of his only free days, so we bid him farewell and hope that he will at least be kind enough to offer sideline opinions and technical support for the remaining manbabies with no actual babies to call their own.  Thank you very much for everything, sir.

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We’re ringing out the old at the following link.

We’ve yet to discover a good way to summarize a year in gaming, and we aren’t going to start now.  Even if we were inclined to do something other than follow the (sometimes unbelievable) progression of the year’s news events, we’d have a hard time reconciling our current state of mind with our memories and predictions from the previous spring and onward.  It’s been an ugly and uneven year in a lot of respects, and I’m not especially sad to see it gone.  I don’t know what there is to be optimistic about in the new year, but we haven’t given up hope for pleasant surprises for gamers, pleasant exchanges between gamers, clear backlogs, and a renewal of the childlike enthusiasm that dragged us into this hobby in the first place.

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We’re grinding through this episode at the following link

This episode should have been more about the Xbox One rather than about my problem with the Xbox One. Our plan was to do just as we did in the previous episode with the PS4 and comb over the dashboard and other features of the system and talk, at length, of its highs and lows. At least so far as in the amount of time we’d had to discover them. Except I discovered the lowest of lows. One that wouldn’t let us do any of that as we’d intended.

Still, without the aid of the console itself, we do our best to talk about the very short amount of time I spent with it and answer as much as I can from the chat room crowd. Plus, Matt makes his return with this episode and Jeremy has his first encounter with a next gen controller.

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It’s “bring your console to work day” at the following link.

Make no mistake about where our loyalties lie. We’re quite wrapped up in the grasp of the PS4 and the Xbox One, and we welcomed it with open arms. It’s this way with any new technology for us, but more so since it involves our prime pastime – though it’s more a lifestyle when shelling out 900 plus dollars in the span of two weeks for a “hobby”.

In the span of two hours, however, we exhaust our talk of the PS4 and go over the system as best we can audibly, and as much as we can visually. In most episodes you can watch or listen, but this one (and next weeks) work better when combined.

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We’re paid in full at the following link.

Every exit is an entrance someplace else, and we’re about to find out if leaving the old gen for the new is worth our time and money.  We don’t have much to offer now beyond recollection, lamentation and stupid stories of the last seven years of console gaming.  We’re honestly very tired of, and from, all the discussions about the transition from this gen to the next, so let’s just get with the transiting already.  There’s a thousand dollars of toybox hardware to pass judgement on this month, and we’re not getting any younger.

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