Episode 287: Dead Cats

This week’s Gaming Podcast is chock full of news and reader feedback. Rather than do a Gaming Flashback, a conversation about the middling sales of the PlayStation Vita is discussed, while Paul is anxiously looking for a black Wii U so he can play Epic Mickey 2. We also hand out the indie game prizes to our two winners.

This week’s news includes:

  • Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal, biggest crowd fundraiser ever
  • Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
  • Spector: Epic Mickey 2 takes “choice and consequence to new levels

This week’s Question of the Week: What was the best game you ever played that cost less than $5?

In addition, this is the two days of Kickstarter funding. Help the TD Gaming Podcast with its Kickstarter fundraising.

0 thoughts on “Episode 287: Dead Cats”

  1. @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed:
    “I didn’t ask for this” – Deus Ex guy (sue me, i forgot the guy’s name)
    “But i’ll take it… gladly” – Me

    @QOTW:
    I have a list…
    Cthulhu Saves the world (epic fun awesome RPG)
    Terraria (bought for 2.50)
    Space Pirates and Zombies (2.50 as well – all hail Ganben)
    I could go on, but these are the high awesomeness ones!

  2. Have not yet listened to the podcast, but I thank you very much for the games. Made my crappy day a lot better =D.

  3. Jordan, glad to hear about the job.

    @Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal
    Jonah, good point on stretch goals. If I ever ever come up with a project that requires funding, and if I put it on Kickstarter, it’ll have all the requirements mentioned, no stretch goals.

    @Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
    Ah, EA’s way of pushing Origin … just kidding!
    Still, gotta hand it to them the way they do their testing :P. You can test for server outages, bad network conditions, you can test that.
    What can I say, COD lost me at Modern Warfare 2. It became just waay too action movie like. Now, Medal Of Honor, that’s a modern warfare game that I liked!

    @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
    Meh … i liked Mortal Kombat, but that’s pretty much it on games turned into movies.

    @QOTW:
    Ib. Free game, no microtransactions. It went waaay above my expectations, becoming a point of reference for “story and characters beat graphics”.

  4. @Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed: Seriously, how many video game movies have been announced and then they run into problems? Just wait until you actually have finished something, and just announce it with a trailer because I’m getting sick of this. Halo, Uncharted, God of War, Castlevania, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock and Gears of War are just a few of the many that will probably never see the light of day.

    @Epic Mickey 2: Seeing as the sequel got pretty much the same reviews as the 1st one which I loved, I will probably end up playing this. Would be pretty excited to play it if I hadn’t like 6 new games which I would like to play.

  5. @Kickstarting the Party

    As fun as Kickstarter sounds, I stay away from it. I am very conservative about how my games are made and frown upon the Rise of Communism in gaming. I still think that Kickstarter is just a passing fad and will eventually wither away.

    @Patchy Black Ops

    Haven’t played multiplayer. Although I own the Xbox 360 version so I should be safe. People expect Xbox games to run well on-line because we pay the Gold Tax and are entitled on it. Maybe PS3 should have had a payed subscription. It’s on-line is a mess compared to Xbox 360. It’s not just Black Ops that runs bad.

    @Deus Ex

    At least it wasn’t Uwe Boll…

    @Taking the Mickey

    Jonah’s right. Epic Mickey 2 is taking a critical beating. It doesn’t matter how many endings you have if your AI partner puts all effort ensuring that you never make it to the end.

    @QOTW

    GunZ Online. I played it back in 2006 before it went freemium. Back then there weren’t that many free on-line games. Especially action games that weren’t MMORPGs. That made GunZ stand out and I sunk a good few life-times into that game. Occasionally I come back there but the smell of nostalgia is not enough to keep me interested for long. Better games to play these days.

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All this and listener feedback.

Ensemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In QuestionEnsemble Studios To Close, Halo Wars Future Not In Question

Ensemble Studios, owned and operated by Microsoft or, Microsoft Games Studios, has been targed to be dissolved. All employees will find new homes, a large quantity will start a new studio and continue maintaining the later released Halo Wars franchise.

Microsoft has chosen to close the studio as part of their growth plan of Microsoft Games Studios much like FASA was closed in the past. The difference, there is a new landing point for Halo Wars unlike the uncertain future of Shadowrun.

Commenting on the reason for the closure, Microsoft said, “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.” (gamespot)

Ensemble Studio’s folks will continue to work with Microsoft and will continue to support Halo Wars after its launch. It is important to stress their statement of continuing to support Halo Wars, there is no need to think the project will be done half-assed or without pride as the project will live on with a different studio name.

The only question is… what is causing Microsoft to close down studios with actively working real franchise projects? FASA went down, Bungie was let go on their own and now Ensemble Studios? There has to be something going on here… idea?