Gaming Podcast 116: We Can’t Get To The Cloud!

This week’s gaming podcast covers a wide variety of news, we also argue a bit about the Wow restrictions on taking donations and cash (again) and touch on some gaming history involving The Sims and the history of Infocom. For news, we’ve tackled

  • podcast-200x200EA Leaves SecuRom out of Sims 3
  • Sony Enticing Independent Developers to be Exclusive to PlayStation Network
  • Steam Makes DRM Obsolete
  • Blizzard Rolling Out New Game Franchise?
  • OnLive to Kill off Consoles as we know them?
  • PS3 Rumors and Price Drops

This weeks question, is the Nintendo Wii killing off gaming as we know it?

0 thoughts on “Gaming Podcast 116: We Can’t Get To The Cloud!”

  1. Regarding Infocom, they were and are awesome. Planetfall will still make you cry when Floyd died and you sung a sweet song to him. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was worked on by Douglas Adams himself alongside Steve Meretzky, and Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It is one of the most devious, puzzling wordplay games ever made.

    Interactive fiction still has a community, and there’s software for anyone to make a text adventure – and you can make a good one if you put some elbow grease into it.

    With the power and size of hard drives, I wonder how complex someone could make a text adventure now – after all, a game’s immersiveness isn’t judged by graphics.

  2. Regarding Infocom, they were and are awesome. Planetfall will still make you cry when Floyd died and you sung a sweet song to him. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was worked on by Douglas Adams himself alongside Steve Meretzky, and Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It is one of the most devious, puzzling wordplay games ever made.

    Interactive fiction still has a community, and there’s software for anyone to make a text adventure – and you can make a good one if you put some elbow grease into it.

    With the power and size of hard drives, I wonder how complex someone could make a text adventure now – after all, a game’s immersiveness isn’t judged by graphics.

  3. “Lost Vikings” is the game you were thinking of Don:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Vikings

    I think it was a popular game back in the day. I know I loved it and must have rented it for the SNES like 5 times. Don’t think I’ve played the second game though.

    These guys made an appearance in World of Warcraft too, in the Uldamann instance (of course they were dwarves in the game I think). The above wikipedia articles mentions it too.

    +++++

    OnLive. I think it’s a really interesting idea, basically the game is run on their servers/cloud and is only sending you the video feed of your session, and all you send them is your controller movements.

  4. “Lost Vikings” is the game you were thinking of Don:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Vikings

    I think it was a popular game back in the day. I know I loved it and must have rented it for the SNES like 5 times. Don’t think I’ve played the second game though.

    These guys made an appearance in World of Warcraft too, in the Uldamann instance (of course they were dwarves in the game I think). The above wikipedia articles mentions it too.

    +++++

    OnLive. I think it’s a really interesting idea, basically the game is run on their servers/cloud and is only sending you the video feed of your session, and all you send them is your controller movements.

  5. Regarding jonahfalcon’s comment about text adventures: I’m still waiting for someone* to make a truly intuitive (perhaps even a learning) text parser. Maybe combine the best of Infocom’s complex command setup with some of the “lifelike” AI chatbot routines they’ve got now.

    (* – I tried making one myself, but I’m just one guy, with minimal programming expertise.)

  6. Regarding jonahfalcon’s comment about text adventures: I’m still waiting for someone* to make a truly intuitive (perhaps even a learning) text parser. Maybe combine the best of Infocom’s complex command setup with some of the “lifelike” AI chatbot routines they’ve got now.

    (* – I tried making one myself, but I’m just one guy, with minimal programming expertise.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Sierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into HistorySierra’s Franchise Titles Fade Into History

One of the great downfalls of an acquisition or merger, in the game industry, is the loss of great franchise titles. Sierra, or Sierra Online, once stood on its own as a company with great gaming titles but later fell into the depths of Hades under many different company names.

Sierra’s last stop on the acquisition highway was Vivendi, years after much of Sierra’s steam had slowed. Now, they’re part of Activision Blizzard so we had high hopes they’d find a great use for some of the old Sierra properties long since collecting dust. Space Quest, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and especially Gabrielle Knight were some of our favorites, but times have changed.

“We are retaining only those franchises that are a strong fit with our long-term strategy including Crash Bandicoot, Ice Age and Spyro, as well as Prototype and a second game that has not yet been announced. We will not publish any other titles that previously were part of the Vivendi Games portfolio and we are currently reviewing our options regarding those titles,” says Activision Blizzard (joystiq)

This is unfortunate news, Activision Blizzard now has a large set of franchises on their hands, many of which have collected dust for years. Those dust collecting franchises could rise from the dead and reinvigorate their old fan base… or be dropped to the earth as unwanted scrapes after a big hunt with the vultures awaiting their take (sorry, too much watching of Animal Planet)

A reworked Kings Quest or Gabriel Knight could have seriously awesome potential in this time and age, imagine a dark comedy version of Gabriel Knight or a huge scaled world in King Quest using todays graphic engines. Although, these titles could also go the way Atari has gone and taken a well remembered franchise and made mud of its great name (*cough* Alone in the Dark).

Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the distance an old franchise could go in this new world. We’ll have to pull out an old copy of our prized posessions and remember just how great they once where.

Episode 679: E3 WaningEpisode 679: E3 Waning

A lot is going on with Twitch, as the company continues to be terribly run. Microsoft is also making sure the Activison-Blizzard acquisition goes through, and Resident Evil 4 is fun.

The news includes:

  • Life By You is coming for Sims 4, with early access confirmed for 2023
  • Respawn opens third studio as it targets 10-15 year lifespan for Apex Legends
  • Ghostwire: Tokyo is getting an expanded campaign, a roguelite mode, and a dodge button
  • Microsoft confirms it won’t have a show floor presence at E3 2023

Let us know what you think.