In-Game Chat

The live episode for Monday, October 20th is available for download.

Saint’s Row 2 and the lasting appeal of the World at War beta spoke for a large portion of our weekend gaming, but we did manage to come in just under the wire with a complete run-through of Dead Space.  Everyone could smell the influence of John Carpenter, System Shock 2, and Event Horizon (among many others) from a mile away, and we’re certain we can’t remember the last game we found so openly derivative. 

But, having borrowed so heavily (and often so heavy-handedly) from other properties, the developers managed the one feat that excuses their license: they made a fantastic game that is quite a bit more than the sum of its parts.  Sure, we’ve seen the story before, and while we were expecting to be fearful, we were barely ill at ease. At the end of things, though, the quality of the experience simply wasn’t in question, and Dead Space had proven itself a worthy competitor for even the most potent of holiday releases.

This week’s live show also sees the return of the newly-married man from his whirlwind tour of Orlando’s finest destinations and attractions.  Eight theme parks in nine days is more than reason enough for not having played a game in the last week and a half.  We’d all make the same sacrifice, to be sure.  And in our last minutes we take time to celebrate Scott’s thirtieth birthday on-air, and what better way to begin the examination of one’s own mortality than with butchered-barbie Dexter-themed cupcakes?  Red velvet, natch.

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Your Friday episode is finally available for download.

It goes almost without saying that show stopping computer problems would occur only after the man responsible for tackling them begins his vacation.  It’s for this very reason that the Wednesday show was late for many, and that the Friday show is late for all.  By now Jeremy will have applied the chicken entrails, read the runes and begun the necessary incantations to ensure timely delivery of future content.

As for the present content, it deals largely with the CoD: World at War beta; the inevitable comparison and contrast to last year’s CoD4 beta experience, and the surprising degree to which we’re satisfied by the offering.  Even without the cooperative campaign, we’d still be drawn in for a survey of the retail multiplayer maps and unlocks.  

And, as is the custom at the end of the week, we open the mailbag and sift among the worthy submissions for something we have the time and intelligence to address.  It’s at this point we realize the futility of trying to handle every question during the show, since they often elicit an hour-long discussion before the mics are even hot.  For any who may not have heard their suggestions echoed on the air, we can assure you they have echoed in the studio as well as our minds, so keep up with the supply.

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The Wednesday, October 15th episode is up and ready for download.

There’s a lot to be said for having one’s significant other take a keen interest in your video games.  Dana began with Yahoo and PopCap product, but in recent times has graduated to the sorts of things I leave sitting in my disc tray.  As much as I’ve come to love the change, it can hardly keep from being strange.  We begin this episode by discussing these oddities, among them my joy at learning that the girl was a closet “core-gamer”,  and the difficulty I sometimes have in explaining what I mistake for the obvious.

Additionally, we spend time examining not only the sorts of people we tend to be when a game requires a moral choice, but the sorts of people we expect to be. The future-juncture in question is the settlement of Megaton, a town on the outskirts of DC in Fallout 3, and the site of one major decision in what is sure to be a long chain of the same. How we each choose to deal with what is still a very theoretical scenario says more than we thought about the kinds of people we are. How well we match our own expectations when the time comes may say something else entirely.

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The new episode for Saturday, October the 11th is yours for the downloading right here.

Time flies when digesting news from both the Tokyo Game Show and BlizzCon simultaneously, and it moves especially fast when you’ve got less than an hour to transmute that news into a cohesive discussion.  We’re on track with the new Halo entries and Diablo 3’s wizard class announcement and other important things, but we can’t help savoring a recent and growing love of Peter Molyneux’s accidental PR genius.  He’s at turns absurd and inspiring; enigmatic and embarrassing, like the manic pixie dream girl of post-middle-age game developers.  Personally, I’d have hated the spectacle in the past, but now I find myself hoping for a similar show from the rest of the eccentric grognards in the industry.

Sadly, an unavoidable road trip during our normal studio time means your panel for this episode is well under complement.  Jeremy is honeymooning with the missus and Dennis is shackled to whatever terrible apparatus he tends for the man.  The show is always something less when a co-host is absent, but these two were particularly missed during this week’s mail bag segment.  We had several opportunities to clarify for the listeners our feelings about the Wii, but without the heart and soul of our Nintendo fandom present, we had mostly shrugs and apologies.  Thanks to the quality input of a remarkable listener base the present cast was able to handle some subjects in full, so keep it up with the emails and stuff.  You’re making us look good.

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The new episode for Wednesday, October 8th is available here.

Sometimes you just can’t see it coming.  You’ve got half a dozen game enthusiasts in a room filled with microphones, and their sole intention is to light upon a subject worth talking about in the hopes that it sparks a conversation worth listening to.  You reach for news items, you compare notes on recent games played, and if you’re lucky someone has done their homework and has a stack of timely opinions waiting just at hand.  And sometimes, during an edit break, someone suggests that we all take a moment to watch a 40-second clip of the new Punch Out.

Lively discourse follows, and it’s of the sort that reminds us how much we owe to our own diversity.  If the cast was five Scotts, or three Jeremys and a Dennis, then we’d never be able to deliver anything like what we bring you today.  You can decide for yourself if that’s a good thing, but whatever the case, we invite you to listen and we thank you, as always, for your time.

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The Monday, October 6th episode is now available here.

This week’s live hour begins with congratulations for the newly-wed co-host Jeremy, and marks the first point at which the married hosts outnumber the free ones.  We hope this won’t be a problem, but married people always seem to know what’s best for the single folk, so there’s no telling what’s in store for the unwed among us.

Sadly, this episode continues the recent (and hopefully short-lived) trend of bagging on Nintendo for the manner in which they’ve raised the new DSi as their “third pillar”.  Opinions on the show have long been split regarding the Wii, but we have a universal love for Nintendo handhelds, and would far prefer to cheer it to success than to use it as grist for the anger mill.   But take a note, Nintendo – region locking and points exclusivity don’t make friends.

The Bioshock demo on the PS3 gets the talk treatment, wherein we’re sad to confirm the reports of graphical footdragging, and we discuss our largely positive reaction to the news of how Deus Ex 3 may differ in some basic design categories from the beloved original. 

We also field calls from awesome fan Ravenlock, whose tastes clearly run akin to those of co-host Daniel, and equally awesome fan Virodeath, who leads us directly into the turbid waters of cross-platform MMO discussion. But fear not, we sail these waters often and come well prepared.

Thanks to all of our live listeners, callers and email contributors, and thanks to you dear podcast subscriber.  Your next episode is on deck for Wednesday, and your chance to guide the live talk comes again next Monday.  We’ll see you then, right here on In-Game Chat.

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The First Episode is live and available for download.

It’s hardly the sort of “first” you might expect from the title, as this is neither the first podcast we’ve produced or even our first show as In-Game Chat.  Regardless, our continuity experts have assured us that the easiest way to avoid confusion is to pretend the past doesn’t exist.  We’ve read the historical texts and we’re not sure we like this answer, but it’s a hard thing to deny when you’re looking to reinvent yourself.

Inside you’ll find discussion on the dissolution of our old affiliations and hints about the new ones, as well as plenty of reassurances that nothing will change followed by immediate discussion of the many exciting changes we have in store for the future.  We’d have liked to have been more overt, and you can’t imagine the painful self-restraint we brought to bear on ourselves this evening.  We can only say that we’re completely stupefied by the strength of our listener base, and we invite you to stick around.  It gets even better from here.

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Some of you may be familiar with the title of this episode. Those who aren’t will find out when they listen. Those who are…well, just keep in mind it isn’t all MMO/Warhammer talk that we do here. In fact, we discuss very little of that title. Why? Well, turns out a lot of things happened since Monday night. Actually, a lot of things happened the day we recorded this and you can bet we talk about them.

First up is the Spore DRM issue. We don’t really discuss it as much as we just recap the situation. After that….well, you didn’t really think we wouldn’t mention Jack Thompson’s disbarment, did you? And let’s not forget what Bungie did today.

We also touch on the Max Payne film’s rating, special editions and how publishers are doing it wrong, and Duke Nukem 3D on XBLA. Plus, we begin our Mailbag segment of the show, answering the emails sent to us each week (we don’t get much, actually, so send them in!), and we tell you who will be on Monday’s show (hint: he really likes Co-Op gaming).

Thanks for listening.

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As slow as news can be sometimes in the gaming world, it never leaves us without anything to talk about. There’s proof of that in this episode of Evil Avatar Radio. James wrapped up his time with The Force Unleashed and lets us know that sometimes a story can hold a game together better than the actual gameplay itself. That and the fact that the tutorial level of the game is simply the most fun. Not only that, he has ideas on how to improve a title like this with just the addition of Ewoks. I know…Ewoks, right?

Also in this episode we talk about Mega Man 9, Duke Nukem 3D, and we go over the releases due out in October. We hear from TrackZero about his time spent with FarCry 2, and Ravenlock calls in to tell us just how hard Mega Man 9 is and what he’s looking forward to on the Wii/DS side of things to come.

That’s all followed by uncensored discussion of our Demigod Beta contest, duel wielding GameFly accounts, November’s release schedule, Warhammer talk, more (well deserved) praise for Uncharted, and what we’ll all be playing this week.

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