Episode 550: Kowtowing to China

Blizzard finds itself in hot water as it finds itself having to explain its actions in pleasing the Chinese government, in news that’s still hot and doesn’t look like it’s going to cool down anytime soon. It’s enough to overshadow even an official console announcement from Sony. There’s a Gaming Flashback, the embarrassingly bad FMV game Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties.

The news this week includes:

  • Blizzard is facing a boycott after removing a Hearthstone Grandmaster
  • PlayStation 5 launches Holiday 2020
  • Doom Eternal delayed until March 2020, Doom 64 goes multiformat

Let us know what you think.

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This week’s major news includes:

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  • Sony: Pre-owned game blockage “up to publishers” on PS4
  • Fans express outrage at offline/LAN play for console version of Diablo III
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  • GameSpy, UGO, 1UP say farewell
  • Activision to have “fewer” licensed games out in 2013

The Question of the Week is “What was the first videogame periodical or site you enjoyed?”

Episode 477: Fleeing IrmaEpisode 477: Fleeing Irma

This week is a week late due to various issues, but Hurricane Irma was not one of them, as Scott recorded his part of the podcast from Georgia, while Jonah and T.J. live far away from hurricane zones. In the meantime, T.J. goes from being disappointed with Destiny and being ecstatic with Destiny 2.

This week’s news includes:

  • Destiny 2 passes 1 million concurrent users
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  • American McGee is ready to make Alice 3
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This week’s Gaming Flashback is the original Assassin’s Creed. Let us know what you think of the game.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Free!

It is the 13th anniversary of the Command & Conquer Series, Red Alert, and Electronic Arts is giving away the original C&C: Red Alert as a download for free. Holy crap, how neat is that?

This is also a great marketing technique, Red Alert 3 arrives soon, so this will help you keep it fresh in your head prior to the new release. Maybe this also gives new gamers the ability to experience the old title before heading into the third revision.

“Download both the Allies and Soviets discs (each disc contained the single-player campaign for its respective faction), but the files are actual ISO images of the CDs themselves. That means that in order to play them, you’ll either need to burn the ISO images onto a blank disc, or use a Virtual CD program to load them.” (1up)

The free Red Alert game download will run on XP/98/Me/95 but no official Vista support. Now, you’ve got a chance to play Red Alert… what about Red Alert 2? If you pre-order Red Alert 3 you’ll get the second in the series for free as well- genius!

There is really no reason not to take advantage of this awesome deal if you’ve never played a Red Alert game and want to see how the foundation of early RTS style games started. Although this isn’t the first C&C in the game franchise it launched a few new advancements on the original C&C title so you’re really getting an RTS based on learning experiences from the first, at no price.

Heck, maybe we’ll download it again just because we can! Excellent.