This weeks gaming podcast includes community feedback, game flashbacks to FX Fighter for the PC and gaming history about Hideo Kojima. The gaming news of the week includes, but is not limited to:
This week’s question of the week is pretty simple: What’s “the best” video game to movie that you’ve seen?
“The Grind”
With Wrath of the Lich King arriving last week it only made sense to jump into the new content “Lich King” style. Although we had initially reacted to the beta, playing the final content was much more fun with all of our guild and friends to play along.
It only took a few hours to get my new Death Knight to level-58 beyond the starting area and into the real world of Azeroth. Upon reaching the main city (Ogrammar as we’re horde) I picked up two new professions to make me a bit of dime: mining and skinning. This is where the beauty of the Death Knight fell apart…
A level-58 character has a few options open for exploration with the Burning Crusade content being the most desirable starting point. However, quickly it became apparent that my professions of mining and skinning were useless in Hellfire and other Burning Crusade areas. Why? Professions start with a value of 1. The last expansion requires your professions to be roughly 300 before you can utilize them.
My level-58 Death Knight has no experience in the ways of skinning and mining, what has he been doing all his life? Apparently killing innocent people in small villages throughout the Eastern Plaguelands. My anticipation with leveling my Death Knight died knowing I’d spend the next few days hunting mines and killing animals as if I where a level-10 toon.
There I was, a high level character trolling Crossroads and Thousand Needles hunting for copper and tin and skinning all the low level creatures I could find. Why didn’t Blizzard consider this when they allow you to create a level-55 character on day one? If we don’t go off and grind our way to a profession level of 300 we might as well not even pick professions at all.
I was not alone in these findings, along my path I found several Death Knights with skinning knives and mining tools looking for open opportunities to cut into the earth or the dead animals skins all around them. Sure, we can kill a cat in seconds flat but the “grind” is what we wanted to avoid, this is what characters spend their first twenty levels doing!
After three sessions of mind numbing grinding I’ve managed to reach a skill of 340 in skinning and coming upon 200 in mining. Mining is still too low for high level game content so I must whisk myself away to noobville every so often to catch a few mythril nodes and pray for a gold deposit along the way.
This may not be a bug in the Wrath of Lich King expansion but it sure is an annoying design flaw.
This weekend’s episode is two hours long, but due to some software recording issues, the audio sounds like it was recorded from the desktop. However, there’s a ton of discussion of news from around the industry, not just the two news items listed below. In addition, this week’s Gaming Flashback is Alan Wake, which was actually one of the news items back in Episode 252: “Alan Wake on PC because Remedy ‘a nagging little kid’ to Microsoft”.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Circuit City seems to have a problem paying their bills or so it seems, as Sony stopped their shipments mid-transit and returned them before hitting the distributors command center. In this unfavorable market climate, with the holidays around the corner, it seems bad for Circuit City to lose the trust of Sony.
Sony is afraid, “Circuit City couldn’t pay for the shipments” so the merchandise was turned around and returned home. Considering Sony, more than likely, wouldn’t have shipped the products to start with unless Circuit City was in good standing suggests things might have been “learned” after the shipment left the docks.
Circuit City’s been in some bad situations before, having a rough time dealing with competition in a very low margin, high volume, world of electronic retail. I’ve witnessed CompUSA disappear after the local Best Buy moved in and now Best Buy sits about 80 yards from Circuit City.
This is unfortunate because Best Buy can use some competition before they take over the bulk of this industry leaving only Wal*Mart and a few smaller stores to keep them in check. Considering I just purchased a 2-year warranty on my Rock Band 2 drum kit at Circuit City I’m fearing I’ll have to break the hardware sooner than later!
(Thanks, Gizmodo)
The best movie based on a video game would have to be “Resident Evil”, just a bit more than “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”
A lesser known game based on a video game is “Cloak & Dagger”, which was pretty meta in that the film was about a kid who loved the game so much that he had an imaginary spy friend (Dabney Coleman!)
There was a French film called “Karate Champ” about a young 13 year old who loves the game so much he pretends to be the character from the game. The squicky part is that he has an affair with a woman in her 30’s.
“Tomb Raider” got okay reviews. “TRON” doesn’t count because it’s a movie that video games were BASED from.
The best movie based on a video game would have to be “Resident Evil”, just a bit more than “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”
A lesser known game based on a video game is “Cloak & Dagger”, which was pretty meta in that the film was about a kid who loved the game so much that he had an imaginary spy friend (Dabney Coleman!)
There was a French film called “Karate Champ” about a young 13 year old who loves the game so much he pretends to be the character from the game. The squicky part is that he has an affair with a woman in her 30’s.
“Tomb Raider” got okay reviews. “TRON” doesn’t count because it’s a movie that video games were BASED from.
@Sony Thinking of Charging for PSN:
That’s why I hate depending on a service. Now here’s what will happen: people will complain, but only a few will drop. So Sony racks in the dough.
@Web Access To WoW Auction House:
Hmm, do I feel a trend here? This is the second service in the same podcast that increases costs.
Rant about subscriptions:
I hate it when the terms of subscriptions change after the user subscribed. It’s like changing a contract after signing it.
Now I know that a lot of banks have a contractual point going like “we reserve the right to change the terms bla bla bla”, but game makers? Since when game makers decided to use the same policies as banks?
@question of the week:
Mortal Kombat. Although Resident Evil was also good, I saw MK first, and that had more impact on me.
@Sony Thinking of Charging for PSN:
That’s why I hate depending on a service. Now here’s what will happen: people will complain, but only a few will drop. So Sony racks in the dough.
@Web Access To WoW Auction House:
Hmm, do I feel a trend here? This is the second service in the same podcast that increases costs.
Rant about subscriptions:
I hate it when the terms of subscriptions change after the user subscribed. It’s like changing a contract after signing it.
Now I know that a lot of banks have a contractual point going like “we reserve the right to change the terms bla bla bla”, but game makers? Since when game makers decided to use the same policies as banks?
@question of the week:
Mortal Kombat. Although Resident Evil was also good, I saw MK first, and that had more impact on me.
I believe the best game turned into a movie would have to be Final Fantasy: Advent Children. The movie is very EPIC. When Square Enix 1st started developing advent children the software wasn’t available to do the task @ the desired standard so as a software company they developed there own. Also the rendering in there PS2 game FF X look better than nearly any shorts I have seen on 360/PS3 games. One of the aspects of game development which is of most interest to me is the Art. I love it when the developers pay close attention to detail. For example HALO 3 is amazing, some of the landscape designs aren’t necessary but are amazing & you really appreciate the effort when you spend the time to notice. My love & appreciation for art is probably due to my old man being such a great artist.
I believe the best game turned into a movie would have to be Final Fantasy: Advent Children. The movie is very EPIC. When Square Enix 1st started developing advent children the software wasn’t available to do the task @ the desired standard so as a software company they developed there own. Also the rendering in there PS2 game FF X look better than nearly any shorts I have seen on 360/PS3 games. One of the aspects of game development which is of most interest to me is the Art. I love it when the developers pay close attention to detail. For example HALO 3 is amazing, some of the landscape designs aren’t necessary but are amazing & you really appreciate the effort when you spend the time to notice. My love & appreciation for art is probably due to my old man being such a great artist.
Any 1 watch D3ATH NOTE or the last Samurai Champloo, not games but epic shows =] (if you do watch Sponge bob death note on you tube just for laughs XD)
Any 1 watch D3ATH NOTE or the last Samurai Champloo, not games but epic shows =] (if you do watch Sponge bob death note on you tube just for laughs XD)
Incidentally, the company EA bought for social gaming is Playfish. They spent $300M on them.
Incidentally, the company EA bought for social gaming is Playfish. They spent $300M on them.
Hey, Thanks for the info on this material. I never knew there was so much in the world of Pc Gamming . This has been really helpful for me to understand the entire concept you have put in this article. Keep it up. I would like to hear more on PC gamming and tis stuff. I shall subscribe to your RSS feeds and keep coming back for more information. Thanks Again
Hey, Thanks for the info on this material. I never knew there was so much in the world of Pc Gamming . This has been really helpful for me to understand the entire concept you have put in this article. Keep it up. I would like to hear more on PC gamming and tis stuff. I shall subscribe to your RSS feeds and keep coming back for more information. Thanks Again