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:
Stay tuned for Part 2.
Episode 425: Paul’s Return Part 1
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Gaming FlashBack: Baldur’s GateGaming FlashBack: Baldur’s Gate
Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.
It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.
The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.
The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).
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Episode 242: All Nude PodcastEpisode 242: All Nude Podcast
Since Paul is not in this week’s episode, Jonah and Jordan do the podcast completely nude, to help boost ratings. While being naked, rather than a Gaming Flashback, this week is a Gaming Preview, and Jonah and Jordan discuss the recently announced South Park: The Game, developed by Obsidian.
The other news covered includes:
- Electronic Arts responds to expiring Online Pass issues
- Bethesda: Divided memory pool causes lag for Skyrim PS3
- Sony claims Uncharted series has 13M sales lifetime
- Skyrim Creation Kit landing in January
- Sony: PlayStation Network now has as high a “world-leading security system” there is
There’s also some Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week is “Have you ever taken a console with you on vacation (not handheld)?”
Episode 358: ChangesEpisode 358: Changes
The Gaming Podcast is back after three weeks of a forced hiatus as one former host has left the podcast for good. Otherwise, some of the news items are old, some are new, in this long episode.
There’s no Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but plenty of news, including:
- Activision won’t launch an EA Access-style program anytime soon
- Disney Interactive revenue up 45% in Q3
- Sony agrees to $15M settlement in 2011 data breach class action
- Yogscast: We have ‘no obligation’ to cancelled adventure game Kickstarter
- Warner Bros. nabs Space Invaders film rights
- Report: PC and console market will decline
There’s also some Listener Feedback. The Question of the Week: “Do you think consoles will start doing early access on games?”