We just found out that my recording of Podcast #283 didn’t take on my end. However, there is a backup, so all that means is that you’ll have to wait til tomorrow for the next podcast. Sorry for the delay.
Podcast Delay
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Gaming Podcast 211: Short and SweetGaming Podcast 211: Short and Sweet
This week we had to cut some segments short due to some work we’re doing on our house that had us tied up. We’re just doing up some news this week and community feedback. This weeks news includes:
- Rumor: PS3 Pirates Unban Selves from PSN, Can Ban Others?
- Electronic Arts: We Drained Our Core IPs
- Bungie’s Next Game an MMOFPS?
- Diablo III Developers Love Torchlight
And, here is the story about The Boy Who Stole Half-Life II. Here is our Question of the Week: Will all MMOs eventually follow a free-to-play model?
Episode 497: Only Three More Til 500Episode 497: Only Three More Til 500
The podcast slowly inches towards the magic 500th episode of Gaming Podcast, representing over 11 years of yakking about video games. For a Gaming Flashback, the gang looks at arguably the last good Mario game, Super Mario Galaxy. They also discuss the phenomenon that is Fortnite.
As for the gaming news, this week includes:
- Atari reveals Ataribox, renamed Atari VCS
- Ys: Memories of Celceta will arrive on PC this summer
- Fortnite is already the second highest grossing game on iOS
- Top Fortnite streamer Ninja earns $500,000 per month
Do you play Fortnite? Let us know.
Gaming Flashback: SimCityGaming Flashback: SimCity
SimCity was released in 1989, was originally called Micropolis and was designed by the infamous Will Wright. For those that don’t know Will Wright, its suffice to say he’s one of the most popular and influential game designers of our time. SimCity, TheSims, SimAnt, SimFarm and Spore are a few of his hits and TheSims has taken many records since its original release.
Wright had trouble finding a publisher for a game in which you couldn’t really “win or lose.” Turned down by Broderbund, Wright eventually pitched the idea to Jeff Braun of Maxis. Maxis agreed to publish Simcity as one of its first two games.
When near complete, Wright and Braun took the game back to Broderbund to clear the rights for the game. Broderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw how addicting the game could be and signed Maxis to a distribution deal. Four years after initial development, SimCity was released for the Amiga and Macintosh platforms, followed soon after by the IBM PC and Commodore 64. On January 10th 2008, the SimCity source code was released under the GPL license as… Micropolis!
The objective of the game is simple, build and design a city. Though the player could focus on building a highly efficient city with an ever growing populace, it was by no means required. In a sense, open ended, the player was free to design the city as they chose.
Included in the city building experience was the possibility of natural disasters such as flooding, tornadoes and more. Pre-designed scenarios were also included in the game such as the Boston 2010 nuclear meltdown, or mass coastal flooding of Rio de Janeiro of 2047 … even a Godzilla attack of Tokyo in 1961.
In the years to follow, the SimCity franchise would continue to expand with greater detail as SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1999), SimCity 4 (2003) and a host of other “Sim” games and until the release of “The Sims” in 2000, the SimCity series was the best-selling line of games made by Maxis.
In Fall of 2008, EA will release the next child in the SimCity family, SimCity Creator for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems. And thus, history continues!
