Welcome to the last gaming podcast of 2008! This week we’re flashing back to Nobunaga’s Ambition, a classic turn based Japanese strategy game. We’ll take a look back at the history of FASA and hit up some gaming news, including:
This weeks soap box segement, we ask if the video game release cycle is too fast or too slow.
This week we’re tackling a very small bit of E3 news because our recording occurs on Monday night. We did, however, get a bit of Microsoft E3 news and do not worry, we found lots of other great topics to discuss this week. We also tackle some great user write-ins and other crazy stuff.
Another PSP Coming: PSP GoThis weeks history: The Bard’s Tale and we’re taking a look at what Satoru Iwata has done for Nintendo and the shoes he had to replace. The question of the week is crazy this time around, if you played the Video Gamer class in an RPG, what attributes and abilities would you have?
This week’s Gaming Podcast gets down and dirty, with plenty of AAAA goodness. The Darkness II contest is still going on this week, and winners will be announced next week.
In the meantime:
All that, plus Reader Feedback.
Well, the fateful day has come on this landmark podcast, as Paul says farewell as a regular podcast host. We can all look back at Jonah’s debut in episode 200, with the knowledge that the next episode will make him the longest running host or co-host on the show – and that’s just scary. A former host leaves a message as well.
This week’s news includes:
The Question of the Week: “What’s the creepiest videogame you ever played?”
Derrick, that’s Shogun: Total War (it was the first Total War game in its series so the graphics aren’t that good compared to the recent Total War games). I liked that game too.
If you liked Nobunaga’s Ambition you might like Genghis Khan 2, also made by KOEI (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/505/Genghis+Khan+II+-+Clan+of+the+Gray+Wolf.html)
What’s your take in Valve’s concept of episodic releases? They explained that with that kind of structure they can easily take advantage of new technologies as they come up, and not have to hold back using new technologies until the next reiteration of their game.
The problems with long release cycles, taking it to the extreme, with Duke Nukem Forever (I think) the reason why it was so delayed was by the time they reached mid-development, their game, the graphics, the engine look so obsolete, so they bought a new engine, and by the time they reached back to mid-development, the then new engine they bought gets outdated, and the cycle repeats.
Something like this happened with Blizzard with their Warcraft Adventures (it was never released).
I think episodic structures work well for some games (Sam and Max), and long development cycles for others. So long as I get a game I can enjoy I don’t really care that much
Here’s what *I* think about it, underdog: They take way too friggin’ long. They keep changing the engine, when all you need to do is create levels.
Look at Telltale Games – now they do episodic content right.
@jonahfalcon: yeah I know, the wait is killing me for episode 3.
but from a developer’s viewpoint, improving the engine continually will do good in the long run since it’ll not only help with that game their making at the moment, but they can use it for their future games as well.
keeping the engine up-to-date with new technologies is always good. I’ve worked with commercial engines that, while popular, they start showing their age in that we couldn’t incorporate features we had in mind because of its limitations that could have been fixed with newer libraries