Episode 251: The New Crew Returns

After last week’s special appearance by Derrick and Jennifer Schommer along with Don Dunn, the regular crew of Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Paul S. Nowak return, and they find themselves with some fascinating news items.

The news items include:

  • Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard
  • Sony passed on Demon’s Souls because it was “crap
  • Sony credit rating downgraded, “strong recovery in earnings unlikely”
  • Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game
  • Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime

Paul is also running a contest to earn “Pixie Diamonds” currency for Disney’s Pixie Hollow social networking MMO, with the prize going to the person who can answer, “Who is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 251: The New Crew Returns”

  1. 😛 You can do a flashback for AvP2, it was launched in late 2001.

    @Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard:
    Hey, as long as the difficulty can be selected, sure, go apeshit.
    I used to play games on the highest difficulty, because I liked the challenge, so I can understand people wanting more difficult games.
    I will repeat myself: as long as the user can select it, it’s fine.

    @Sony passed on Demon’s Souls because it was “crap“:
    😀 Erm, I see a pattern here in decision making … Cure: change the decision maker.

    @Sony credit rating downgraded:
    Congrats to the podcast crew for the selection of news items. It is a true lecture on the principle of cause and effect.
    Granted, turning down a game is only one cause that triggered the effect of Sony’s credit rating downgrade.

    @Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game:
    I think this is also due to the name (thanks for confirming that later in the show).

    @Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime
    Moore’s law might change. Ok, you can estimate how many penta flops are required in order to generate visuals. These estimates are ok and valid (the human eye won’t change in time, at least not in the next 1000 years).
    But to assume that the rate of growth in computers will not change, well, as you already realized, that’s an ASSUMPTION.
    If I were Tim I would limit the range (in time) for my predictions.

    Regarding the 6 people on the show, well, taking turns/directing the podcast is … meh. I’ll take surprises and improvisation any time.

    @QOTW:
    Erm … Scrooge McDuck? 🙂
    Ok, not quite a prince or hero, but I liked the cartoon. The NES games only made it even more charming.
    I think the fact that he was quite determined (in the cartoon at least) in finding what was at the root of the episode’s mystery that made him my favorite.

  2. @Blizzard brags Diablo III will have difficulties that are harder-than-hard: To me, they can make as many ultra-hard difficulties as they want, as long as they make a normal difficulty.

    @Tim Schafer raises $1.6M (and counting) to develop an adventure game: This may be good news for Tim Schafer, but it’s not good news for any of the other developers. Like so many other sites highlighted, this only happened because Schafer is well-known and almost universally loved as the underdog of the industry.

    @Epic’s Sweeney: Lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime: I’m not much of a graphic whore, but better graphics definitely make me appreciate the game more and maybe even enjoy it more.

    @QOTW: I don’t care much for Pixie Dust, but I would guess Paul’s to be Peter Pan?

  3. @sony credit rating downgraded
    I don’t really know if sony gets most of its sales from gaming but they sure are failing when it comes to gaming this year
    @ lifelike graphics will come in our lifetime
    Well I’m mostly appreciating the graphics we have today and besides lifelike graphics is equal to more expensive hardware ,…. At least that’s what I think
    @qotw
    I would say peter pan coz he’s like immortal and he never grows up and he treats everything childsplay and he could fly whenever he wants to. Maybe I could play pixie hollow and get addicted I dunno but I could use the prize If I ever get addicted or I could just use cheat engine.. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!

It is the 13th anniversary of the Command & Conquer Series, Red Alert, and Electronic Arts is giving away the original C&C: Red Alert as a download for free. Holy crap, how neat is that?

This is also a great marketing technique, Red Alert 3 arrives soon, so this will help you keep it fresh in your head prior to the new release. Maybe this also gives new gamers the ability to experience the old title before heading into the third revision.

“Download both the Allies and Soviets discs (each disc contained the single-player campaign for its respective faction), but the files are actual ISO images of the CDs themselves. That means that in order to play them, you’ll either need to burn the ISO images onto a blank disc, or use a Virtual CD program to load them.” (1up)

The free Red Alert game download will run on XP/98/Me/95 but no official Vista support. Now, you’ve got a chance to play Red Alert… what about Red Alert 2? If you pre-order Red Alert 3 you’ll get the second in the series for free as well- genius!

There is really no reason not to take advantage of this awesome deal if you’ve never played a Red Alert game and want to see how the foundation of early RTS style games started. Although this isn’t the first C&C in the game franchise it launched a few new advancements on the original C&C title so you’re really getting an RTS based on learning experiences from the first, at no price.

Heck, maybe we’ll download it again just because we can! Excellent.

Episode 590: Microsoft and Epic Tag TeamEpisode 590: Microsoft and Epic Tag Team

This week has Microsoft backing Epic against Apple, Nintendo telling people they don’t have controller drift and apologizing for controller drift, and some new games.

The news includes:

  • Level-5 has reportedly halted nearly all operations in North America
  • Microsoft sides with Epic in its fight with Apple
  • Nintendo is reducing the price of Switch Joycons in Japan
  • Torchlight 3 leaves Early Access

Let us know what you think.

Episode 393: Pepper II PaulEpisode 393: Pepper II Paul

Paul’s not in this episode due to sickness, so it’s just Jonah and Scott, the former who berates the latter for the lack of any listener feedback. There is a Gaming Flashback this time, with the classic 80’s arcade game Pepper II.

The news includes:

  • China ending restrictions on gaming console sales
  • Capcom is sorry about the Street Fighter V beta
  • Video gaming organization to start testing gamers for drugs
  • Not even “a s—load” of Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Editions is enough for the world

The Question of the Week: “What makes a good expansion?”