In-Game Chat

We’re taking a crack at feeling better about things at this link.

The hot demo drops from last Thursday did all that they were expected to do for the show.  They alleviated whatever fears may have kept us from at least a couple of the games we’d sworn ahead of time to purchase and to love and to cherish for ever.  Killzone’s still a day-one pickup, Halo Wars still looks like the first Halo game with a well-drawn story and, incidentally, we find that it really is possible to love Burnout more with every minor tweak as easily as it is with every major content infusion.

It’s also quite clear that some prayers we hadn’t even bothered to utter have been answered with a clarion call from EA.  The Battlefield franchise in 2009 is active in more ways than we (err, I) could have hoped to see.  With Heroes in late spring, 1943 in the summer and the Bad Company sequel near the end of the year, there should be scads and oodles of BF’s brand of combat to be found across all platforms.  The one dark cloud in the sky – for PC diehards, at least – is the lack of any word about a proper Battlefield 3.  All we can think is that strong support for the lineup of today may well deliver the wish list of tomorrow.  One can always hope, right?

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We’ll try not to let you down at this link.

We’re a bit down on our uppers for this show, much like the poor child featured in the introduction.  Sadly, for us, we’re not head-lolling after a righteous dose of pharmacology, but are sick after the loss of yet another 360, and at the prospect of being dramatically mislead by our own hopes for quarter one games.  It would be horrible to see this anomalous batch of major brands suffer from shoddy craftsmanship – despite the volume of letdowns we’re sure we could endure.

But don’t mind the tone.  It’s the by-product of too much natural enthusiasm.  We’ve got more to look forward to than we have to keep us occupied during this one particular evening.  It’s best to read between the lines for what we intend to have fun doing in mere days.  Besides, the future of this episode is happening as I write this, and I can already tell that at least some of what we’re hoping for will come to pass.

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An unpardonably late episode of In-Game Chat is now available.

It’s my sacred duty following each episode to string together some of my own thoughts and pin them to the show file that Scott and Jeremy (and formerly Daniel) have made available before dumping the whole mess onto the webs.  This episode should have been ready for consumption many days ago, but catastrophic modem failure sent me to a dark hell of no internet for the entire weekend.  Other things also happened and so here we are.

In any case, what I’d have normally written in this space is irrelevant now, so I’d simply like to apologize for the delay, and for the bumper to bumper show delivery you’ll get this week thanks to the snafu.  We hope you enjoy what we brung you – a second shot at Mike Wilford, zombies of all sorts and a lot more attention for things that mattered last week.

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Wednesday’s episode is completely in your way at this link and won’t move, even if you tell it to.

Any release window with a title-density equal to that of the next six weeks is going to contain some real trash, either as a portion of one game’s content, or as a whole game unto itself.  We haven’t had to pick through anything terribly noxious just yet, but our ridiculous enthusiasm has been humbled all the same.

The first of the speed-bumps is the confirmation of quick and shallow gameplay in the Fallout 3 Anchorage campaign – quicker and shallower than was expected, and we were prepared ahead of time to be underwhelmed by its scope.  This will be a minor gripe in hindsight, but no sort of gripe is welcome at the moment.

The second, which I consider more of a speed-Himalaya to my personal enthusiasm, is the content and quality of the Resident Evil 5 demo. I should have maintained my belief that all games in the RE series are worthy of suspicion until they prove themselves worthy of devotion, as it was clearly a mistake for me to get so far out in front of the facts.

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The Sunday funny-papers edition of In-Game Chat is now on your doorstep.

The newest American President continues, in various ways, to deliver a brand of confidence at home and abroad that many feel has been sadly under-funded by our leadership in recent years.  But as the show, we’re most inspired by his own confidence in the domain of science.  Regardless what anyone may feel about government in general or policies in particular, it emboldens us to know the most powerful man in the world loves his technology as fiercely as we love our own.

The feature presentation of this episode recalls in part the moldy topic of console vs pc multiplayer, but we remember it this time without all the fireworks and folderol.  We find that what we miss most in the otherwise very respectable world of online console gaming is the dedicated server – but as a function of community, instead of performance.  Peer to peer systems work well enough for the business of matching player to group, but the “Cheers” dynamic is largely unknown.  

Visiting a named server is alike to visiting a known locale, with all of the rules and idiosyncrasies and (most importantly) personalities found to apply in that sovereign space.  We’re not offering suggestions on how to migrate a generation of hardware away from peer-hosting, of course.  We’d just like to give a nod to the differences, and to point out how nice it is when everybody knows your name.

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IGC’s late-middle-week episode is now online.

We’ve got a thing, you know, for relying on tangent conversations completely unrelated to the topic at hand to get us through an episode.  We grind our gears terribly sometimes, and tonight’s episode is different only in how much more frequently it seems to happen.  We hope all can be forgiven, since it allowed us to deliver our (now weekly) comment on the Wrath of Khan.

With fewer new releases occupying our time, we look to actual news for what to cover, and we’ve found a momentary source of rich stuff in the news feeds.  Kaz Hirai gets some attention, of course, but we’re just as happy to know that 5-dollar plastic nubs, the Presidential Inauguration, and Capt. Sully’s miracle Hudson landing all have reason to be together in a show about games.

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A very long episode can be found here.

Maybe it’s more than a little unfair to load the front-end of a new episode with tired talk about something so old, but I’ve been waiting these longs months to know where, precisely, Jeremy would come down on our newest Metal Gear.  I got what I came for, but I can’t promise the conversation will do anything for you, dear listener, though you’re welcome to subject the not-quite-goty to whatever mix of hot and cold emotions suits you while we keep you pinned to the memory.

Apart from their obvious role in consumer confidence, the endless nauseam of sequels seems to us to be a much greater drag than it should be.  Perhaps, we say, it would be better to label all but the strictest examples of continuity with a subtle title change in lieu of simple numbers – the numbers being a source of great anguish for some and, possibly, a great distraction for the stewards of games fortunate enough to spawn.  As always, these (and many other) comments were developed in real-time, right before your ears, and don’t represent any sort of forethought whatsoever.

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The final show of the year is now available for all.

The freshly diminished crew of IGC are offering an unexpectedly long year-end extravaganza tonight.  It’s a 2-hour show, which can either be halved and digested in parts for our brevity-loving listeners, or taken altogether if that happens to be your thing.  We’re as far from having a distinct topic as ever, but with a lopsided number of hosts available we’ve chosen to rest some of our weight on the familiar crutch of year-end/new year game topics.  

We are well pleased with the growth of our hobby of late, and we’re unanimous in our belief that 2009 will conspire to be as rich in gameplay as ’08 was before it, or ’07 before that.  Though what may be most difficult to believe is how quickly it can all get started again, because the time for pre-ordering or ear-marking for spring titles is just around the corner.  Our fingers are crossed that it’ll be worth the ride again.

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The penultimate episode for 2008 is available now.

If this week’s title had any relationship to the spirit of the holiday season, I can’t say we were aware of it.  This is our sole podcast offering for the week – Christmas-ey things having eaten up all of our available time – so we’ve let it run a bit long.  I’m not sure I can detail the topics discussed because they don’t make much sense to me in hindsight.  We’ve run clear through the fourth-quarter glut, and without a list of games to focus on our minds are invariably going to wander back and forth, as they’ve done here and before.  I can only really remember a passionate but inexpert discussion of Batman, and that when talking about Arkham Asylum, I clearly meant to compare it to a souffle and not a quiche.

Off-topic, but certainly pertinent, we say goodbye to two of our stalwart companions for these many months – Daniel, and Jeremy’s hair.  The hair had a price on its head of five thousand dollars.  That amount having been reached in the CoG Child’s Play charity drive, Jeremy followed through with his promise to chop everything off.  We have pics, so it definitely happened.  Less funny is that Daniel has been given marching orders by his boss The United States Air Force, so he’s leaving for Texas to learn how to do some other pointless thing at what I’m sure is a great expense.  He’ll be around in text format, and from time to time as our correspondent from the Lone Star state, but we’ve nevertheless got one more empty chair in the studio now.  This honestly makes things harder than you’d imagine.

Finally, stick around for the holiday-greetings community outro at the end of the program tonight. Thanks to everyone who listens and to all who contributed. We appreciate your support more than you can possibly know. Have a safe and happy holiday from everyone at IGC.

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And the winners are…

Well, there’s not much said in this episode that calls for elaboration. Our sole purpose for gathering tonight is to announce the winners of the Child’s Play charity drive raffle. There’s a predictable amount of screwing around, but for the sake of the winners we’ve kept things short and very much to the point. For those who can’t listen, or who simply can’t contain themselves, you can skip directly to the list posted in the Colony of Gamers news forums. Thanks to everyone, winner or not, who gave of time, money, or materials to make this year’s drive a success and its raffle prizes a reality.

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New episode now.

The miserable truth of Spike’s VGA show isn’t that it fails to live up to expectations, but that it very much does – the expectations being unspeakably low.  Those of us who spent any time in range of their programming this past weekend have made various claims that we had come for the video premiers, or to catalog the inevitable train-wreck or some such fig-leaf.  My own wretched excuse was to confirm media’s unwavering contempt for my beloved hobby.  In that respect I suppose it was entirely what I made of it, since you’ve got to be a fairly contemptuous guy not to have some degree of fun with silver bitches on rope-swings.

Regarding things completely UN-deserving of contempt, we are most happy to announce that the Colony of Gamers Child’s Play charity drive has reached (and exceeded) it’s goal.  The community has once again proven itself most excellent in its generosity, and has unlocked its gold sponsor achievement in the process.  Drawings for prizes of all shapes and sizes will commence soon, and live-air haircuts, as promised, will be yours for the mocking or cheering or what-have-you by next week.  Many thanks from all of us at the show for helping to deliver another incredible success.

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Our weekender is now available for download.

We drew our title from the recent blurb about a theoretically micro-payment supported KOTOR MMO, which, during the last moments of the show led us to discuss our general resistance to this idea in favor of a standard subscription model.  We can see it both ways, but naturally we see our own way much clearer.  Regardless, the real thrust of this show was the discussion of the awards system – awards shows (good, bad, and non-existant), the awards themselves, and what, if anything, they mean to the world.

There’s also a brief and somber reminder of what may develop for us in the show’s mid-term future.  There are no plans or contingencies at the moment other than to keep on keepin’ on, but we thought it prudent to keep folks in the loop.  Additionally, for those who care to listen past the hour mark, there’s some fairly useless bonus material that doesn’t even have the decency to be about video games, though it does offer some  deeper insights into the sorts of people some of us are off-air.  Not that you asked for that or anything, but there it is.

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Monday’s episode is now available for download.

Never let it be said that “the Mondays” aren’t a true and real condition suffered often at the end of a strong weekend – never mind how much we resent having it pointed out.  We’ve got a low-strung vibe as we ease into the program tonight, but good conversation always shakes out the cobwebs and lively banter often casts a light into the dimmest corners of our personalities, the only concern is in making it happen.  Of course, sometimes “what did you play?” matters a good bit less than “what do you think?”  We have our complement of both, so I suppose the Mondays weren’t so bad this time after all.

We’re clearly very positive about the new Prince of Persia, but the caveat is that it happens to suit our very particular tastes.  We can imagine any number of justifiably hateful reactions to its (perhaps) offensive difficulty, and to its general disdain for combat in favor of intricate puzzle/platforming.  But we believe it to be in the best spirit of what the Mechner himself intended, and we commend it for delivering a companion character who is, in almost every case, a joy and a benefit, where she could easily have become the achilles’ heel.

We would also like to point out that this is the final week of the Colony of Gamers Child’s Play charity drive.  Charitable giving is at an understandable premium this year, but for those who can and who choose to give through our preferred avenue this season, donations and raffle entries will end on Monday the 15th, so that the donations can be sent off to Child’s Play and drawings can be held for prize winners.

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