Episode 268: Fake Maple Syrup

In this episode of Gaming Podcast, Daniel Quick discusses how to become a true Canadian, while Jonah Falcon talks about making blond, green-eyed characters. There’s no Gaming Flashback this week, but plenty of news items.

This week’s discussion:

  • Nintendo announces XL version of Nintendo 3DS
  • Dev claims Microsoft killed XBLA version of Stranger’s Wrath
  • New users must now pass “review process” to unlock full Diablo III
  • Dragon’s Dogma getting sequels after shipping 1M
  • Valve and Cartoon Network collaboration hints at Team Fortress 2 show

All this, and the Question of the Week is “What weird rituals do you do when playing videogames?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 268: Fake Maple Syrup”

  1. @Nintendo announces XL version of Nintendo 3DS: No surprises there. It’s kind of a given that they make new versions of their handhelds after it has been proven very profitable for them.

    @New users must now pass “review process” to unlock full Diablo III: All this makes me wonder is, how much higher would the number of sales be if there hadn’t been all this stupid DRM on the game? Don’t know why they feel the need to punish their customers. It seems that only Valve knows that the way to being a loved company is by being loyal to its customers.

    @Valve and Cartoon Network collaboration hints at Team Fortress 2 show: After I’ve seen what can be done with the “Meet” shorts, I can say that I’m interested to see what they come up with.

    @QOTW: Nope, not really. Apart from making sure I have proper lighting and heating/cooling, I don’t do anything special.

  2. Jonah, no rush on Mission Impossible. I can come up with other weird NES games 🙂

    @Nintendo announces XL version of Nintendo 3DS
    I’m curious if this has to do with the pixel size as well. When the console was announced (display size and resolution) I crunched some numbers to find out the view distance to fully use that resolution. It came up as about 8 inches. That’s too close.
    A bigger screen would also mean a bigger view distance.

    @Dev claims Microsoft killed XBLA version of Stranger’s Wrath
    This is so odd. What’s it to MSFT if the game gets distributed or not on XBLA? Normally a publisher would not care that much as long as some quality standards are met.
    I mean it’s not like they’re worried about shelf space, we’re talking about a digital distribution channel.

    @New users must now pass “review process” to unlock full Diablo III
    *clears throat* Ahem!
    Bwa ha ha ha ha 😀 😀 😀
    And I thought that online DRM was the worst thing that could happen to a single player game. Boy, was I wrong!
    And if this doesn’t ramp up piracy, then I don’t know what will.

    @Valve and Cartoon Network collaboration hints at Team Fortress 2 show
    Dunno … they’ll have to move outside of the game in order to make it happen.
    We’ll see.

  3. @steel battalion poor reviews:

    well to be fair the problem doesn’t seem to be its complexity its that as per usual with kinect it just doesn’t interpret your commands correctly 75% of the time.

    and hey ubisoft press conference had more than watchdogs ….rayman legends looks amazing. =p

  4. What is this place? Why am I writing this? Who are you people? Must…save…Skyrim. VAMPIRES ARE EVERYWHERE!!! THE DAWNGUA OK I am back in the real world now.

    @3DS XL
    Enjoy not having any games to play in greater resolution. Good point made by Paul: it’s not the size that matter’s. It’s the way you use it.I bought a DSi because it was a massive improvement over the original DS in terms of hardware and software. 3DS XL is just a bigger brick with bigger screens. A premium brick is still a brick.

    @Oddworld: Strangers Wraith
    I loved the game. It was a very interesting twist on a first person shooter. An adventure FPS with an interesting story and fun gameplay. As far as I remember, EA killed it by not advertising it. When it came out there was not a single mention of the game in media. And you had FIFA 2006 adverts posted on every bus, wall and toilet roll in London. Thanks a lot, EA.

    @Diablo 3:
    Que Blizzard: “No you can’t play the game offline. No, you can’t play it online either. Just give us your money, sit down and shutup. We made the game. We decide who deserves to play it and you clearly don’t unless we perform a full criminal record check and ensure that your credit card is American Express Mega Gold Platinum X”

    To follow up a point made last week, just out of quriosity, if you have an opportunity to customize your game(i.e. create a character or change his name) do you personalize them and give them your name (or nickname) and your likeness? Or do you leave default settings? I tend to try and represent myself as much as I can in an MMO or Skyrim, but usually leave default settings in games where they are definitive of the series. All of my Zelda characters are called Link and my main Mass Effect character is the front cover Shepherd as he is on every media advert on the planet.

Leave a Reply

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

Related Post

Episode 461: Messy Effect: AndromedaEpisode 461: Messy Effect: Andromeda

This week’s episode, which has been posted a little late due to life interruptions, has Jonah ranting about Mass Effect Andromeda, which T.J. and Scott pine for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wind.

This week’s news includes:

  • Report: JoyCon wireless issues caused by “manufacturing variation”
  • There is a way to transfer Switch save data, Nintendo just doesn’t want you to know
  • Alexander the Great will lead Macedon in Civilization 6

Let us know what you think.

Circuit City Denied Sony Shipment, In TransitCircuit City Denied Sony Shipment, In Transit

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)

Nintendo DSi – New Features, Same LookNintendo DSi – New Features, Same Look

Nintendo finally came out and announced the Nintendo DS redesign, called the DSi. This product will have an SD memory slot, a 3.25 inch screen (bigger than the last) and a 3 megapixel camera.  The DSi is 12% smaller than the DS Lite and will have a matted gray and regular white finish; no colors upon launch it seems.

Conveniently the DSi has an SD slot for saving photos from the 3 megapixel camera so that you can transfer them to the Wii and use their Photo Channel. The Wii already has an SD card slot so now both devices can work together via the sneaker net.

The DS redesign looks much like the typical DS in looks and layout, a bit sad in my opinion. I was hoping for something a bit more “sexy” and awesome – the Apple way of doing things. Alas, nobody has a design team like Apple so we’ve got what we’ve got and that’s the DSi.

How did the alter the networking? They’ve created a store system much like that of the Wii and will be renaming Wii Points to Nintendo Points to show its more generic versitile nature to the new DSi hardware. You’ll be able to download games to an SD card making the portable device more acceptable to storage size increases, unlike the standard DS hardware.

Nintendo never really mentioned the MP3 concept, using the “audio” more for crazy reasons such as slowing down the speed or increasing it, which may suggest it as another tool for language learning tools.

Any takers? SD card slot is a nice addition and a little more integration with downloadable content would be well accepted by all communities and cultures.

(Thanks, 1up; Image via Kotaku)