Welcome to the last gaming podcast of 2008! This week we’re flashing back to Nobunaga’s Ambition, a classic turn based Japanese strategy game. We’ll take a look back at the history of FASA and hit up some gaming news, including:
This weeks soap box segement, we ask if the video game release cycle is too fast or too slow.
Due to a malicious trojan virus that infected my desktop, this week’s podcast is delayed, perhaps indefinitely. The podcast was recorded, but there’s no way to edit it while the PC is in this state.
Worst comes to worst, a new podcast will be recorded next week.
Gaming Podcast will be in hiatus this week and for the foreseeable future, due to personnel changes. Stay tuned for more info.
This week, Gaming Podcast is giving away free indie games: Dungeon Defenders and the Zeboyd 2-Pack including Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VIII. The Gaming Flashback includes the original Splinter Cell from 2002.
There’s also plenty of news items including:
No Question of the Week – just let us know if you’d like to win either Dungeon Defenders or Cthulhu Saves the World/Breath Of Death VIII.
In addition, this is the final week of Kickstarter funding. Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.
Derrick, that’s Shogun: Total War (it was the first Total War game in its series so the graphics aren’t that good compared to the recent Total War games). I liked that game too.
If you liked Nobunaga’s Ambition you might like Genghis Khan 2, also made by KOEI (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/505/Genghis+Khan+II+-+Clan+of+the+Gray+Wolf.html)
What’s your take in Valve’s concept of episodic releases? They explained that with that kind of structure they can easily take advantage of new technologies as they come up, and not have to hold back using new technologies until the next reiteration of their game.
The problems with long release cycles, taking it to the extreme, with Duke Nukem Forever (I think) the reason why it was so delayed was by the time they reached mid-development, their game, the graphics, the engine look so obsolete, so they bought a new engine, and by the time they reached back to mid-development, the then new engine they bought gets outdated, and the cycle repeats.
Something like this happened with Blizzard with their Warcraft Adventures (it was never released).
I think episodic structures work well for some games (Sam and Max), and long development cycles for others. So long as I get a game I can enjoy I don’t really care that much
Here’s what *I* think about it, underdog: They take way too friggin’ long. They keep changing the engine, when all you need to do is create levels.
Look at Telltale Games – now they do episodic content right.
@jonahfalcon: yeah I know, the wait is killing me for episode 3.
but from a developer’s viewpoint, improving the engine continually will do good in the long run since it’ll not only help with that game their making at the moment, but they can use it for their future games as well.
keeping the engine up-to-date with new technologies is always good. I’ve worked with commercial engines that, while popular, they start showing their age in that we couldn’t incorporate features we had in mind because of its limitations that could have been fixed with newer libraries