Episode 252: DuckTales

This week, Paul can’t make it, so we bring on a Paul substitute, Dan Quick of the PolyCast podcast – and the show doesn’t skip a beat thanks to Dan behaving like Paul without realizing it. This week’s Gaming Flashback explodes like a blood sausage with Wasteland.

This week’s news items include:

  • Dashboard update gives Indie Marketplace more visibility
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 outed by Amazon France
  • Skyrim DLC won’t follow same model as Fallout DLC
  • Electronic Arts terminates “free Battlefield 3 for preordering Mass Effect 3” deal early
  • Alan Wake on PC because Remedy “a nagging little kid” to Microsoft

In addition, we have Reader Feedback for Paul’s Pixie Diamonds contest – the winners will be determined next week. The contest’s Question of the Week remains the same: โ€œWho is your favorite Disney Prince or Hero, and why?โ€

0 thoughts on “Episode 252: DuckTales”

  1. Interesting, the dynamics of the group didn’t change a lot.

    @Wasteland: Fallout as the spiritual of Wasteland? It makes a bit of sense; when you started to describe the game I scrolled up again: I initially thought you were describing the wrong game ๐Ÿ™‚

    @Dashboard update gives Indie Marketplace more visibility
    I wonder, is it that the indies managed to pull enough money to actually deserve the extra visibility? And by ‘deserve’ I don’t mean the politically correct version of deserve.
    If you ask me, the answer is yes, they do manage to pull in cash.

    … :O Baby Makers Extreme had a sequel?!

    @Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 outed by Amazon France:
    Activision canceled advertising campaigns on that site? Really? Didn’t the tabloid stars teach them that is bad to f**k the press?

    @Electronic Arts terminates โ€œfree Battlefield 3 for preordering Mass Effect 3โ€ deal early
    Hmm … I bet it is an exploit. Dice is just the developer, it’s the publisher that calls the shots on what and how gets sold, so I don’t think it was Dice who got upset.
    I say it is an exploit.

    @Alan Wake on PC because Remedy โ€œa nagging little kidโ€ to Microsoft
    Hmm, lemme guess, they [devs] caved in and opted for an XBox exclusive for a little extra cash from Microsoft. Now they ran out of that said cash and they need to make more sales …
    I liked the Max Payne games and I was quite excited about the game when it was announced. Now … meh … bad decisions have their consequences, and I think the devs will feel that. I mean there is a reason why others release their games AT THE SAME TIME ON ALL PLATFORMS, not two years later.

    Regarding the question of the week, I’m not in for the pixie diamonds.
    The Duck Tales games for NES (both of them) are very good. They even kept the TV series theme song in the first game (thanks for that ending, by the way).

  2. It really was like Paul never really left! I guess you don’t need even need him after all! Paul kind of annoys me sometimes, especially when he’s whining about something.

    About Mass Effect 3, I was actually playing the multiplayer demo while I was listening to the podcast and I think it is great. About the animations and such: I noticed them too, but what do you expect out of a demo! I also noticed some improvements over Mass Effect 2, but most of them were minor.

    -.- Pixie Diamonds, whatever. (No offense, Paul)

    Oh and by the way Paul, I was kidding, it wasn’t actually hate mail at the beginning.

  3. It’s been ages since I’ve commented, but that was a really great show! This episode and the original crew episode are two of my favourite eps in a long time… and neither of them featured Paul! Isn’t that telling? (How’s that for hate mail?) ๐Ÿ˜›

    I happen to be a fan of Polycast, so hearing Dan on the show was a very nice surprise. It’d be great to have him on again sometime! (Btw Jonah, I seem to recall you making a guest appearance on Polycast a while ago. Am I remembering correctly?)

    @Alan Wake on PC due to Remedy nagging Microsoft
    I always find it interesting to hear details of the relationship between a Dev and a Publisher. I find the Retro Studios/Nintendo relationship quite interesting, since although Retro are a very successful and acclaimed studio, Nintendo seems to be very controlling of them.

    But even more interesting is the Rare/Microsoft relationship, given the Rare staff leaving and speaking out against Microsoft, etc. It’s sad to see what Rare has become these days though ๐Ÿ™

    @QOTW
    To be honest, Disney didn’t feature that heavily in my childhood. I do love Pixar though and they’re part of Disney. They don’t really do ‘Princes and Heroes’ though. So maybe Aladdin then? He was a hero I guess and pretended to be a Prince for a while too!

  4. thank you Paul for not showing up in this podcast, i was away from internet connection for roughly a month and when i heard the 1st VGRT contest i was very sad because i didn’t got the chance to answer and now i got a 2nd chance. TY

    @indie dashboard XBL
    microsoft fixed the problem because indie games are money makers. simple as that. the proof is baby maker extreme 2, you just said that

    @Mass effect + free bf3 no more
    idk if it was a exploit on the buggy origin software but bf3 is still selling as crazy (unlike the Vita – you stopped giving weekly selling numbers, i was amused by that…) the “useful selling time” of bf3 is yet to be reached.

    @QOTW (oh boy, must acquire fictitious currency)
    the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
    he is awesome dude!
    he might have been friendzoned as hell but he is the king!!!! not only because he s the king, but he has the atributes to be the best king with includes a pure heart even after a public humiliation from the entire kingdom, just, no heartfeelings bro Q.Q
    he is epic

    @Duck tales
    when you mentioned duck tales for the NES, this came to mind instantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPkhhLC1tf8
    MOON THEME EPICNESS AT IT FINEST

  5. ops almost forgot!
    Derek, Jennifer, DonDon, nice to listen to your voices again! good ol’days back
    my heart is with you and your son in the battle against cancer!!!

  6. I just wanted to mention that there are games for XBLIG that are excellent besides I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1. One of my very favorite games from last year was Escape Goat (an excellent puzzle-platformer with very nice pixel art) and there’s also Curse of the Crescent Isle (a Mario 2 style platformer), T.E.C. 3001 (a 3-d freerunner with a very professional presentation and addictive gameplay), as well as many others. Yes, you do have to wade through countless flash game knock offs such as the baby launching game mentioned on the cast, but there are genuine gems to be found.

Leave a Reply

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

Related Post

Episode 601: Street Fightin’Episode 601: Street Fightin’

A lot of this episode revolves around the 30th anniversary of the classic fighting game in this week’s Gaming Flashback, Street Fighter II. The episode also looks at a lot of the hot news around the industry.

The news includes:

  • Microsoft plans to merge ZeniMax into a new Subsidiary called โ€˜Vaultโ€™
  • Electronic Arts to decide fate of Anthem
  • Terraria creator cancels Stadia port after being locked out of Google account
  • MP bill takes aim at PlayStation 5 price scalping

Let us know what you think.

Users Pwn MetaCritic Review SubmissionsUsers Pwn MetaCritic Review Submissions

Although we’ve found Metacritic a userful resource for game reviews, many folks have gone on a user submission rampage to discredit games that haven’t even launched yet. Their first attack was on LittleBigPlanet followed by Resistance 2, now their hitting Gears of War 2.

While Gears of War 2 has a Metacritic score of 94/100 the user’s have reviewed it to be a 3.5 out of 10, with a bright red box around the user review due to its low nature we’re sure. Although users are free to give their own honest representation of the game from their perspective, Gears of War 2, as of the review dates, hasn’t been released yet – these reviews are bogus.

This style of attack was popularized in Spore, when Amazon got nailed with poor reviews of the game because Spore’s “Draconic” DRM made people angry. However, it’s more reasonable for people to voice their opinion on a known issue with a game; Gears of War 2 review spamming is just mean.

We use Metacritic as guidance when we do our gaming podcast to understand what games are rated in the industry, but we don’t use user reviews as our main guide. There are plenty of folks out there that may utilize these reviews in more seriousness because they may feel journalists reviews are tainted by advertisers or “the man” and want the common gamers opinion.

The common gamer cannot possibility be reviewing Gears of War 2 before the title has arrived. This is bogus. Metacritic has this to say:

“My advice for our faithful users is to focus your attention on the Metascore for this game and not the thousands of user votes, most of which have been submitted before said users have played the game. This is a gaming community, and if people want to stuff the ballot box, there’s not much I can do at this point. When we upgrade the registration requirements for participation on the site in the near future, this type of thing won’t happen. We’ll post the full legitimate user reviews upon the game’s release. As always, thanks for using the site.” (1up)

So, to those looking for holiday gaming gifts, keep this in mind while you start hunting down games you’ll want to buy.

Episode 645: Brought To You By the Swedish MafiaEpisode 645: Brought To You By the Swedish Mafia

There’s a lot of PlayStation news this week, good bad and indifferent. In addition, there’s some Gundam’s coming your way. This week’s episode features a double whammy of a Gaming Flashback highlighting Mass Effect 3, and the Gaming History of the infamous Gizmondo.

The news item this week:

  • Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart lead writer claims work has been “erased”

Let us know what you think.