The gaming podcast this week includes a little reaction on PAX East and a bit of history on Vanguard. For the news, this week, we’re busting through a few key news stories:
- Sony taking out “other OS” feature
- DSIWare games not transferable to DSi XL
- Nintendo announces Nintendo 3DS
- Sony thinks 3D belongs on consoles and not hand helds
- Major Nelson’s gamer tag was hacked
Derrick explains a bit about his opinion of PAX East and how such an event might not be exactly built for him. We’re also busting through some great community feedback. Special thanks to the community of 2old2play.com, Wombat from Cheap Ass Gamer and Lady J of SFX 360 for the PAX Panel.
This weeks Question of the Week: “Everyone loves shoot em ups. What was your favorite shoot em up? Xevious? Space Invaders? Galaga? Ikaruga?”
10 responses so far ↓
1 Herr_Alien // Mar 31, 2010 at 2:22 am
@history section: ah, you big babies :D.
@PS3 other OS: thing is, you can fix all those security fixes for the proprietary PS3 software and still leave the ‘install other os’ feature. I mean the security fixes are for it’s own software, not for whatever other OS is installed there.
From what I read you could use PS3’s as some sort of cloud computers. You would need to run another OS rather than the Sonny software in order to do that.
@DSIWare games not transferable to DSi XL
It’s not the same with Steam … with steam you buy the game once, and you can install it on any number of machine and OS-es. Granted, you can’t log in on two machines at the same time (to avoid piracy), but still, you buy the game, you own it, no matter what platform, as long as it has Steam on it.
Steam is such a clear good example to me, I cannot belive no other big company sees this.
@Nintendo 3ds:
It’s said to use Sharp’s parallax barrier lcd:
http://ds.gamespy.com/articles/107/1079428p1.html
@HD TV, 3D TV discussion:
How about SmellTV? I bet you nobody would like war movies / horror movies then …
@Major Nelson’s gamer tag was hacked:
Derrick, you’re right. It’s much easier to track the money instead of DNS records.
Lol! So it’s good if hackers target your account, eh? That’s an interesting view on the whole thing.
@comments and EA’s twitter comments:
“DRM fail.” This guy must be one of your fans 😀
Krud, is that you?
@QOTW: kind of unfair having FPS-es not counting as Shoot-em-up.
Anyway, among shoot-em-ups: the tanks game for NES, the one in which you need to defend an eagle from AI controlled tanks.
2 Onyersix // Mar 31, 2010 at 5:19 am
QotW : The only shooter I played in the Arcades was Raiden 2 (which I would later buy as part of the Raiden pack on PS1).
It had a huge appeal to me for 2 reasons. Every time you killed a wave, a coloured orb would drop. They cycled through colours before trailing off the screen, but this meant that you could either keep powering up the same weapon or switch to a different one (which would switch in at your current stacked power level).
This was the 2nd draw. The weapons were normal fire, which would upgrade to double and triple shot, then spread then ultimately a near 180-degree spread fire pattern.
Next was a beam, which would just get wider and wider. This pretty much nailed anything in front of you, but left every other angle on the screen to get hit from!
Then there was my favourite, which was the electricity weapon. It started as a rapid fire gun, but hold down the button and the bullets would merge into a beam of purple lightning which would flick across the screen like a snake’s tongue and lock on to a target as you moved. The trail back to your ship would also writhe about dealing out damage to anything it clipped.
Of course, the dream was shattered for me when I got the PS1 game, and eventually found out it was one of those games that NEVER ended.
My next favourite would be original Starfox, just for what it did to revolutionise the SNES.
3 Jonah Falcon // Mar 31, 2010 at 7:51 am
Starfox was not a schmup – that was a rail shooter.
Don, I think it sounds like you’re thinking of either Galaxian or Gyruss.
4 Jonah Falcon // Mar 31, 2010 at 7:53 am
As for Jeff Green, I posted that in news suggestions. I know Green personally – he was the editor in chief of Computer Gaming World (which became Games for Windows Magazine), and he sheepishly confirmed the twitter report. In his Twitters, you might notice he sounded more like a magazine editor than an EA employee. Old habits die hard.
5 Ivan // Mar 31, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Hey Podcast & Co
Thanks for calling me the gaming diplomat of Australia that was nice, if only i could get that title in wow.
Now as 4 the QOTW
Generally brain-dead shoot em ups (high-score games) aren’t usually my thing, I tend to look for games with amazing story, level/character design, & some originality. But yes there is a But there was this one game in recent times that was a simple high-score shoot em up game & I loved it. The game was Geometry Wars 1 & 2 on the Xbox Live arcade. I guess it was the combination of Great music , visuals, & fun. The game gets really addictive for a while for such a simplistic game. The game is like a Super version of the old game Asteroids, video arcade game released in 1979 by Atari Inc. Geometry wars added many new game-types & multiply enemies with all unique AI. As an end result the game starts like a simple shoot around to the music & Then as the difficulty increases the game turns in to an epic fight for the unachievable survival, leaving you sweaty mess on the edge of your couch. (maybe just me =p)
Conclusion: Geometry wars is a pretty cool guy.
6 Jonah Falcon // Mar 31, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Geometry Wars isn’t a shmup. It’s a multidirectional shooter like Robotron 2084.
7 Ivan // Apr 1, 2010 at 6:01 pm
@ jonah
Wouldnt GW being a multidirectional shooter just be a style/type of Shmup. But give me more insight if im wrong.
Wiki Below
Shoot ’em up (also known as shmup) is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot ’em up, the player controls a lone character, often a spacecraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what design elements constitute a shoot ’em up. Some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement; others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives. Shoot ’em ups call for fast reactions and for the player to memorise levels and enemy attack patterns.
8 Jonah Falcon // Apr 1, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Because you’re shooting in all directions. A shooter is shooting chiefly in one direction. Scrolling shooters have up to 4 way shooting.
Multidirectional shooters like Robotron 2084 are an entirely other beast (ie. Smash TV, etc.)
9 Onyersix // Apr 2, 2010 at 9:39 am
So, if I can’t choose Starfox, I would have to chose R-Type.
And you’re being very picky if you call that a multi-directional shooter!
10 Jonah Falcon // Apr 2, 2010 at 1:09 pm
R-Type fits. It’s a horizontal scrolling shooter.
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