Episode 317: Is League of Legends a Terrible Game?

In this episode, Jordan’s son Allen gets in on the act, berating League of Legends despite being addicted to it. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the Sierra Online adventure game Police Quest, while the Gaming History is how BioWare prepared to develop their first Star Wars game, Knights of the Old Republic.

This week’s news includes:

This week’s Question of the Week: “What’s your favorite RPG of all-time?”

0 thoughts on “Episode 317: Is League of Legends a Terrible Game?”

  1. I like to think of myself as a provider of counterbalance between Jonah’s XBox bias (yes, it’s there 🙂 ) and Jordan’s pessimism as far as it comes to Sony products. Look here and tell me again that there are no Vita games, I dare ya! 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_Vita_games

    Sure, it is very possible that there will be few Vita-only games when PS4 comes out but we don’t know it for sure now and there really are games to play on the system now and there have been a steady flow of titles since it came out. There hasn’t been a moment when I didn’t have anything interesting to do with the system. Maybe I’m the perfect target for it but I really believe that when people get their hands on a Vita they see that it’s a great platform.

    @Diablo III – yaaawn. They’re gonna milk it till the cows come home, pardon the pun. Diablo never got me excited, I find it too repetitive and ultimately boring. Putting tens or hundreds of hours into it, hoping some amazing piece of loot pops up. No, that’s not for me. I enjoyed Borderlands much more because of it’s FPP nature although the basic idea is very similar. The humor and graphical style helped too. In short, I won’t be getting Diablo III on any of the platforms.

    @LoL

  2. @LoL – I was a semi-professional bridge player so I know a thing or two about unconventional sports 🙂 I don’t mind it becoming a professional sport although it may seem a bit silly. However, if prize money in the range of $1 000 000 is at stake, I see what the fuss is about. Let them at it. I don’t really know how the labor and tax regulations play into this but if it makes it easier for people to compete it’s even better.

    As far as the game itself goes, I tried playing the LOTR MOBA but I didn’t like the gameplay one and that’s how my adventure with the genre ended. Don’t really care (see Diablo III comments).

    @Sony appeal – It’s probably better to pay and let the stink finally disappear. It is strange it took them so long but better late than never. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen again and if it does, they handle it better next time.

    @MS family sharing – this is a great feature if it really works the way you described it. You buy one game and can share it between 10 accounts? Fantastic. It makes my wonder why Playstation now allows only two accounts to share a downloadable title and it used to be 5. Didn’t the publishers push Sony to decrease the limit because it resulted in less copies being sold? Did MS confirm that it applies to all games? Maybe it’s just 1st part downloadable titles?

    @Police Quest – I mentioned already that I love adventure games. However, I was a little too late for the Sierra title and only played some Leisure Suit Larry. By the time I discovered the Quest series, the graphics scared me away from them and I don’t think it makes sense to go back and play them now.

    @QOTW – There’s no other answer than Fallout! Is it a cop-out if I pick the whole series? I got the first Fallout for free with a video game magazine a long time ago. At first, I had no idea how to play it but once I figured it out it consumed me completely. I beat the first two games several times, several ways. I got Platinum trophies with F3 and New Vegas and I wasn’t bored for one minute. Amazing stories, fantastic character system. Perfection.

  3. I loved your gaming flashback to an old classic Sierra game. I played almost all of the various Quest games. They are a sorely missed company and am glad that some of them have gone to kickstarter to make their adventure games again.

    I will also be one of those that doesn’t buy a launch console I’m sticking with PC gaming.

    Yay at Jordan mentioning Suikoden! I loved this series with its epic world story telling. Also Sazh from Ff13 is not the only game character to sport a bird in his hair. There is also Faylon from suikoden 5 who had one as well.

    http://www.suikosource.com/chars/list/imageviewnojs.php?img=f/faylon01.png&char_id=617

    I don’t know why either of these characters has a bird in his hair. A google search brings up Nicholas cage with a bird hair too. It just seems like one of those strange random things and how appropriate to have ended the last show with White Rabbit to get to thinkin about why such strangeness exists.

    Qotw- even though I love Suikoden series I have to say my all time favorite is Baldurs Gate series. I loved having a group of characters I got to know. I also loved the iosometeric view I agreed with the computerized minis reference.

    Oh an Shadowrun was on Snes and Genesis. I remember playing the heck out of it on Snes and can’t wait to play the new version.

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New Australian R18+ Proposal DraftedNew Australian R18+ Proposal Drafted

A new draft of the R18+ classification has been released by home minister Brendan O’Connor through the Australian Federal Government. The new guidelines closely match those in place for Australia’s film industry. The new R18+ rating removes restrictions on bad language, drug use and nudity; in contrast, the current guidelines forbade the classification of any adult-themed games.

O’Connor’s draft claims that the R18+ rating will allow “virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes”, and violence in games “except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified.” As far as sex, the draft says, “Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is ‘simulation, yes – the real thing, no'”.

Of course, “standards of morality, decency and propriety” is still troublesomely subjective, while “simulation, yes, the real thing, no” is comicly inept for videogames, where everything is simulation. You may be able to tell when live actors are actually performing sexual acts, but when can you tell a videogame character is actually having sex?

O’Connor stated:

“The Gillard government wants to provide better guidance for parents and remove unsuitable material from children and teenagers. The introduction of an R18+ classification will help achieve that and will also bring Australia into line with comparable nations. This issue has been on the table for many years, without the necessary progress to make a change. We’ve recently seen several states publicly express their support for an adult only rating for games and I’m keen to reach a unanimous decision at the July meeting.”

Rather than banning games, why not punish stores for selling mature games to underage children? Or put the onus of raising children on the parents?

Episode 280: Episode 280: Full of Drugs and an XCOM ContestEpisode 280: Episode 280: Full of Drugs and an XCOM Contest

Jordan Lund can’t make Episode 280, but fortunately, Paul S. Nowak makes his triumphant return, albeit pumped full of medication. Enjoy his drug-fueled babbling as he waxes poetic on the virtues of playing social networking games while high.

He was lucid enough to discuss the following news items with the gang, however:

  • Cryptic calls for new MMO review system
  • BioWare Mythic “can’t make all Ultima fans happy” but hope they “enjoy nostalgia”
  • PS3 version of Black Ops 2 includes optional hi-res texture install
  • Wii U gamepad won’t be sold separately at launch

Gaming Podcast is also running a new contest to win a free Steam code for the hotly anticipated XCOM: Enemy Unknown remake. All listeners have to do is answer the Question of the Week in the comments section, “What is your favorite game from the 1990’s?”

PlayStation 3, March 2009 Price Drop RumorPlayStation 3, March 2009 Price Drop Rumor

With so many people wishing Sony would cut the PS3 price to something more reasonable, it’s no big surprise we see constant rumors about potential “price cuts.” This time, a March 2009 rumor “supposedly” came out of the Sony Annual Briefing in London where a butt ton of information was “rumored” to be leaked.

The anonymous source is running around with a bunch of neat rumors, such as a LittleBigPlanet release on the PSP but the one that may hit home most with gamers is price cutting. The PS3 has been around for a few years now and hasn’t budged on the price tag; they’ve had fire sales on obsolete products (smaller disk drives mainly) but no official drops.

Sony won’t comment on speculation, of course, but we’re sure they want to catch Mr. Anonymous from hiding in their meetings and giving away their information… if it is real. D+Pad published the rumor-mongers message saying the “SCEE will be getting more competitive in price from March 2009 onwards.”

Easter would be a fine time for a price cut, if the speculation is real. This upcoming holiday would have made the most sense, to consumers, but Sony apparently has no plans to reduce the price around the time their sales will be increasing anyway. As the PlayStation 3 is doing okay in PAL territories Sony is relying on them, it would seem, to kick up the numbers and show Microsoft they’re not the only second-place game in town.

The Wii continues to dominate and we’re sure a PS3 price drop won’t impact Nintendo’s sales strategy or gamers decisions on one console versus the other as a price drop wouldn’t bring it to a competitive Wii price.

What is your magic number? What price would you buy a PS3 at if you don’t own one already. For us? Drop it a bit and throw in a free LittleBigPlanet.