Jonah Falcon is finally back from PAX East 2017, and related his experiences at the convention. Somehow, T.J.’s musings on Dune and the origins of Mini-Me come up during the discussion. Among the games discussed are Snake Pass, Earthfall, Dauntless, and Yonder.
There’s also some news discussed:
Let us know what you think and post in the comments!
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).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This is the final episode of 2025, and the guys discuss the games they played that was the best, the games they played that was their favorite, and the older games they’ve been replaying.
Also, the new Videogame Crash of the 2020’s.
Let us know what you think.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The news items include: EA and NFL extend Madden license til 2030 – NFLPA still far apart, former Battlefield 6 campaign boss calls out EA for leaving him and other developers out of the credits after closing his studio in 2024, Ubisoft has come up with a new way to avoid saying the word ‘layoffs,’ with a ‘voluntary career transition program’ offer that some employees won’t be able to refuse, ‘Pacifist Battlefield completed’, Palworld studio Pocketpair says its new publishing division won’t handle games that use generative AI: ‘We don’t believe in it’, Two Point Museum gets Vampire Survivors content in free update.
In addition:
Let us know what you think.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
