Episode 246: Computer Specs

CES 2012 is going strong, as Jonah and Jordan do tonight’s podcast without Paul, who is packing for a trip. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the notorious Custer’s Revenge, and a punch of intriguing news and rumors comprise this week’s topics:

  • Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
  • Pachter sez there’s “zero chance” of PS4 at E3 2012
  • Rumor: Next Xbox tablet-based?
  • Rumor: Kaz Hirai to return as president of Sony
  • Diablo III release held due to South Korea (from GameFront)

Plenty of Reader Feedback this week, which is good because we forgot to include a Question of the Week this time.

0 thoughts on “Episode 246: Computer Specs”

  1. No Paul again, you know the drill.

    Lately I’ve been ignoring all these articles just spewing out rumors day after day, hoping one of them will be right. First, IGN comes out with “Report: BOTH New Xbox and PS4 Will Be Shown At E3”. The very next day they wrote that an analyst said none of the consoles will be shown. And now yesterday, they came out with “Microsoft or Sony To Quit Console Race?”. Seriously guys, stop guessing and just wait for E3 for goodness sake.

    And also I hate when they say an “analyst” says so. Oh, it must be true then because this guy gets paid to “analyze”.

    @Rumor: Next Xbox tablet-based?: Even though the Wii-U will be sort of tablet-based, I think that Microsoft wouldn’t be able to pull it off and will just end up sucking.

  2. hey guys… hope you can read this before recording the 247th!

    @ps4 and 720: I hope they will be announced at this next e3 but i am ready for dissapointment. and yes, if the ps4 do not have some awesome co-funtionality with the vita, sony will be effectivelly killing the it

    @diablo auction houses: not only south coreia: you guys talked about south coreia and russia, but you did forget about the prisoners in china gold farming in WoW who are obligated to do it (a few months old podcast). sad stuff

    @SOPA: i am a brasilian gamer who has warned all american friends to help not passing this bill project because it will affect not only US but all the world. i like the machinima channel on youtube. SOPA would kill them

    @before last week’s QOTW: my only handheld console is my trusty dark DS lite and i play on it since it lunched and still love it!!! SO SHINNY

    my most played game of 2011 was CoD MW2 and BF3. i know.. the controversy…
    the most surprisingly fun game was terraria most preciselly after patch 1.1.
    most dissapointing is Black ops (not even 100h of gametime according to steam)

    LOVE YOU GUYS, KEEP IT UP!!!

  3. I’ve heard happier versions of Jonah before.
    @Gaming Flashback:
    Ha ha ha 🙂
    The game was mentioned before, but Jordan made this particular flashback entertaining. The other 9 games? Please make a list.

    @Fallout MMO rights belong to Bethesda as Interplay settles
    Well, I guess Interplay got what it aimed to get. Jonah, it’s not the ‘wrong people won’. When you sell your IP, you won’t be able to make games on it. They should have known that before selling out to Bethesda.
    Yes, they had some provisions in the contract allowing them to use the name for an MMO. That’s just not enough though. Interplay should have known better.

    @ Next Xbox tablet-based?
    No. They want to use PC-like hardware, so that they don’t have to worry too much about software. Plus, the more components (tablet, base station etc etc) the more expensive. So, no.
    They will make it more slim, I suppose. Heck, even add a touch screen front panel. But that’s it.

    @Diablo III release held due to South Korea (from GameFront)
    Erm … yeah, I guess it a bit more difficult to foresee all legal difficulties, especially when you need to keep an eye on all the countries you want to ship …

    @QOTW – hardware specs, as asked by your reader:
    My ‘modern’ machine is a single core Sempron 3000+, 1.5 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 4650. 🙂 Pretty ancient.

Leave a Reply

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

Related Post

TD Gaming Podcast 79: I’m Often WrongTD Gaming Podcast 79: I’m Often Wrong

This weeks gaming podcast we’re all over the rhythm matching games along with great gaming news and a bit of our early E3 coverage. We continue our RPG history and we also look back on Dragon Fire, and old Atari 2600 game.

This weeks podcasting news:

Jennifer wonders if the market is becoming flooded with music matching games and we’ve got to handle a big listener question: What holiday game would sell a console in 2008?

*Sony has recently cut prices on the 80GB PlayStation 3.

Gaming Flashback: River Raid (Atari 2600)Gaming Flashback: River Raid (Atari 2600)

One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.

This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.

The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.

A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.

Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)

Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)

All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.

Episode 310: Halo Makes You Feel OldEpisode 310: Halo Makes You Feel Old

This week’s podcast features a Gaming Flashback of Halo: Combat Evolved, one of the longest such game segments in the podcast’s history, encompassing a third of the podcast.

This week’s news items includes:

  • Blizzard decides against rolling back Diablo III servers following gold exploit
  • Defiance to get 5 major DLC packs in the next year
  • Report: Next-gen Xbox console called “Xbox Infinity”
  • Obsidian expresses desire to develop Star Wars RPG
  • EA to stop licensing with weapons manufacturers, will keep using branded guns

There’s only one reader response, but there is a Question of the Week: “What videogame genre are you completely burned out on?”