Episode 425: Paul’s Return Part 1

Paul returns to the show to drown his sorrows in the discontinuation of a game series he loved, and the podcast ran so long it has to be split into two parts.

The first half of this podcast includes the following news items:

  • Why Disney Infinity 4.0 was shut down
  • Microsoft kills Project Spark for Windows, Xbox One

Stay tuned for Part 2.

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Five Dollars Gets You 55 Original Rock Band SongsFive Dollars Gets You 55 Original Rock Band Songs

If you’re into Rock Band and love the songs you’ve played, you may want to migrate them into Rock Band 2, correct? For the price of 400 Microsoft points ($4.99) you’re now able to download an export “patch” to allow exporting of 55 Rock Band songs into the next version of Rock Band.

There are a total of 58 songs in Rock Band, you can export 55 of them with the patch, left out (perhaps due to licensing issues) will be: Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

For five dollars this isn’t a bad deal, definitely worthwhile if you’re looking to have a huge library of rocking songs for Rock Band 2.

Today, we’ve learned the PlayStation 3 will get the same export feature as DLC, if you’re into the PS3 and plan to get Rock Band 2 you’re in luck. Also included in the PS3 patch, you’ll now have the ability to use your Guitar Hero 3 Les Paul Guitar with Rock Band. Excellent news.

(Thanks, 1up)

Episode 326: Jordan’s BackEpisode 326: Jordan’s Back

Jordan is back, and even though he’s not 100%, he’s still well enough to do the podcast. He and Jonah discuss what things make them stop playing a game, while the rest of the podcast is all about Grand Theft Auto V. They also get into discussions about laserdisc players.

The news includes:

  • Microsoft: Women make up 40% of Xbox Live audience
  • Rumor: Steam Box announcement on Monday
  • Grand Theft Auto V hits $1B in sales after 72 hours
  • Dead Rising 3frame-locked at 30″ on Xbox One
  • Sony offers fix for GTA5 error 80029564 crashing system on install

All this and Listener Feedback, as well as the Question of the Week, “When will the current generation of consoles discontinue?”

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!