Category: Episodes

You’re right – this episode here should have been available last week.

Clearly you should have gotten another episode long before now, but the show’s infrastructure suffered a debilitating series of body-blows over the course of the last two weeks, and its personnel haven’t fared much better.  We’re still intact, and everything is more-or-less as it should be for our operation, but the demands of meatspace have put us in a bind more than once lately, and on-time delivery is always the first thing to go.

With those reasons out of the way, we’re going to deliver this episode to you without the usual synopsis, and without even its usual bookends of hand-picked music.  The content will have to stand on its own, we’re sad to say – squeaky chairs and all.

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I have no clue why we used that name for this show, but the answer is bound to be somewhere behind this link.

E3 is just a few short days away, and at the time of this recording, none of the early news items had been distributed through the usual channels, so we’re left with plenty of editorializing and very little solid information.  Fortunately, our twitter and email correspondents have given us everything we need to fuel a second hour of the program.  Apologies all around for the garbled responses or for any questions that weren’t directly answered.  You’ll find yourselves at the top of the pile next week, we swear.

Scott’s LA itinerary is complete, the news tickers are filled with fresh tape, and we’ve all sheltered our own personal hopes for expo announcements even though we refuse to mention them on the air for fear of being horribly wrong.  Once they hit the feeds, however, we’ll be glad to say we knew it all along.  And, sadly, the one drawback to having a passenger on the hype-train is that we won’t be recording our program next week.  Scott is sure to have plenty to say during the show and more when he returns, but his absence makes our usual get-together unlikely.

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A full helping of IGC, somewhat late to the table, is available at this link.

Much like the traditional preparation of beef tenderloin, this episode of In-Game Chat is both classy and succulent. In addition to your standard host assortment, we offer a side order of Matt and Dave – the very best the Air Force has to offer – and we invite you to join us in laughing at the antics of people you seriously don’t even know.  

We’ve spent just enough time with this week’s terrible games to confirm their terrible gameplay, and just enough time looking into the bright-light future of E3 to believe that there’s real salvation to be found on the show floor next week.  There are solid games from the recent past that still demand our attention, and the promise of some seriously polished gameplay in the near future, but we’ve always had a weakness for the sound and fury of E3, no matter how little it may actually signify.

We’d also like to note in this space, as we have in the episode itself, how much we enjoy it when the tweets drop during our recording.  We’re quite good enough at going on for hours on our own, but it’s nice to have an unexpected course correction at or around the 45 minute mark to keep us keen.  Much like the listener mail, this will become something we can’t live without.

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We’re all out of bubblegum at the following link.

The hosts, much like the subjects in any given Star Trek plot, often find themselves trapped deep in the past.  For the trekkers there is often a desperate struggle to return themselves to their natural timeline and the space-time continuum to its natural shape.  For us, however, the goal is more and more often to lament the past we’d like to live in.  Or, more accurately, to paean for the future that damn well should have been.  In both cases, at least, technology is entirely to blame.

Duke Nukem had long been a part of our past, and was forever going to be a part of our future, but the hope is almost certainly gone following the collapse of 3D Realms, and with it go the sad memes and tired punch-lines of a generation.  If pending litigation happens to work in gamers’ favor, DN may well reappear in the future like a slain soap opera villain.  In the mean time, we’ll exercise our ability to disagree on points regarding Duke which even the internet saw well enough to leave alone.

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The scraping of claws and gnashing of teeth can be clearly heard at this link.

We’ve always been quick to nurture a preoccupation with licensed games and the terrible gulf in quality they display in comparison to the source material.  Wolverine is very much at a distance from its big-screen counterpart, but has the wonderful distinction of being the superior product in almost every regard.  

That a comic book movie could fail so spectacularly is no great shock, and that the game in question has done quite well by fans and critics is now a fairly old bit of news, but our surprise at this fantastic inversion is something we can’t quite repress.

We’ve finally had our Jeremy returned to us, and he’s made time after the welcome-backs to point out some terrible inaccuracies in our previous two recordings – at least the ones that pertain to him, which, given the tone of what had been said, I can’t blame him for doing.

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In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit.  These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade and clicked on this week’s new episode link.

At some time in the past, likely years ago at this point, the quality of the Lego Star Wars games led the hosts to suggest that the combination of Lego and any beloved series was a natural path to joy and success.  Putting aside the fact that we were completely wrong, we’re tempted to repeat that claim where Mr T is concerned, and we’d do it based solely on the strength of a single, meme-tastic game announcement.

Once again we have to point out the sad lack of our Jeremy for this episode.  He has a bountiful family, and those things come with birthdays and other wondrous obligations of kinship.  What we have left here are the misers and hermits with no obligations and no ties that bind.  We’re sure someone out there understands.

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New episode now available at this link.

We’re in an awful hurry this evening, and we’ve contracted our usual schedule in an effort to flee the studio as soon as possible.  Minutes before our recording began we learned we had access to an NDA-restricted beta gameplay session, and that the session in question would expire in short order.  We’re nothing if not childish idiots where sneak-peaks are concerned, so we’ve opted for the John Moschitta school of podcast delivery.  (Not really)

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Disturbing innuendo involving edged weapons can be found at this link.

By far the most electrifying news for the cast this week was the proper announcement of Assassin’s Creed 2, complete with all its bona fides and with enough preview information to keep us in thrall until the moment of release, or at the very least until the Electronic Entertainment Extravaganza force-feeds us all the media we can stand.  And by far the most disturbing image is of where UbiSoft might situate the inevitable “third blade” for the protagonist of AC3.

Show favorite topics “MMOs” and “digital delivery” feature heavily again near the end of our time, and in skimming the episode before posting it occurred to me that beside the point of certain ideas being timely or important, we have a tendency to abuse our favorite subjects and wail our opinions like they’re some kind of prayer or plea.  It’s as if talking about what we love most or what we’d most love to see in our future could bring it to pass that much sooner, or could deliver it to us when there’s no hope of it being real.

There’s certainly no shame in wanting it, but there’s sometimes an awful lot to be found in sharing it to no good end.  I can’t speak for others, but the reasons for my own love affair with the MMO are made pretty clear here, and I could swear that I’d never talk about it again if only each of my friends in the world would play what I wanted them to.

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Last Thursday is now available for download.

We’re paring back to a single episode per week starting just about now, so in an effort to sync distribution with production, we’ll give you a week-old piece of IGC today (which is typical), and a relatively fresh one tomorrow.  There’s more than enough to talk about, but we’re speculating and ruminating a lot without the hard facts and solid press we’re sure to be swimming in after the E3 season, and our studio time has been further eroded by other people’s useless commerce.

So it’s two-ish hours once a week now instead of one-ish twice, right?  You won’t notice much of a difference what with how we’ve been running things, with the exception of a more consistent lineup of our studio friends, and the subject matter of our show not being quite so far behind the times.

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In-Game Chat is rushing the flag at this link.

“Never mind maneuvers,” Lord Nelson said “just go right at ’em!”  I’ve been a fan of this doctrine for some time where objective flags, capture points, gold crates and things of that nature are concerned – though I’d like to think the admiral wouldn’t begrudge me the occasional bunny-hop or circle-strafe on the way to my goal.  It’s not a suitable behavior for everyone, but it’s the only one that’s brought me any success, and, as with so many other things, I’m (unforgivably) appalled more people aren’t doing it my way.

You’ll be listening to this no less than a week after the launch of the DSi, but as of the recording it had been only 48 hours.  This presented us with the opportunity of unboxing a freshly purchased handheld, with news and commentary and the usual shenanigans woven into and throughout the account.  We apologize for the undertone of sweet chimes and optimistic ditties emanating from the device, but we were too drunk on the new-toy smell to notice.

Finally, yes, it has been some time since we published a show.  It’s all Scott’s fault.

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New IGC now available for download.

The Game Developers Conference was still much in the news during this session, and even now the last filaments of related forum threads are being tweezed.  We’re flush with the excitement of expected and surprise announcements alike, and are suitably frustrated by the ludicrous amount of time we have to wait to play the things with which we’ve been teased – ludicrous referring to any amount of time greater than “right now”, of course.

This episode’s out-of-game epilogue is devoted to a fairly acidic and cathartic release of the Battlestar Galactica energy that’s been collecting in our systems over the course of the last 5 years.  There are really no universal pronouncements to be made, and the series finale has at the very least done the job of being thoughtful and provocative.  We’re glad to have seen it, but are even happier now to be shed of the burden of caring.

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Recent opinion can be found at this link.

Rest assured, despite this episode’s title, our conversation is very much about the here and now – except where it isn’t, in which case it’s just show and tell.  It’s hard not to find yourself rooted to the moment during the week of GDC, browser-refreshing your way through the day looking for headlines from the people who make the news, and forum commentary from the people who analyze it.

But it’s just as hard not to live a little bit in the future, as well – the future that’s far more than suggested by developers, but is often nearly insisted upon.  They tell us wonderful stories about both harsh and ideal circumstances, and we’re ready to believe nearly anything they want us to about how we’ll be experiencing the games of tomorrow.  There are simple untruths, like anywhere, but the delivery is so earnest and optimistic you’ll forgive us for being somewhat transported.

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Two-for-one IGC available at this link.

We’re offering both of our most recent recordings together this week, but at the usual low price of two hours of your time.  There’s some continuation between the two acts, but the combination had everything to do with our schedule, and little to do with the content.  In fact, the two performances vary quite a bit in tone – as much as we could make them do without diverting the subject away from games.  But games are what we like, so whether it’s high-spirits and big groups or something more subdued,  we clearly have something to say on the matter.

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