Episode 305: Duct Tape

Paul and Jordan realize the brilliance of duct taping a flashlight to a gun barrel, while more Doctor Who fodder was recorded for a future outtakes episode. Jonah and Paul also express amazement there’s no Sugar Race racing based on the arcade title found in Wreck-It Ralph. Finally, the podcast eulogizes Roger Ebert.

The news for the week includes:

  • Disney shuts down LucasArts, cancels Star Wars 1313, Star Wars: First Assault
  • Thief to feature “classic mode”, removing all assists
  • Microsoft has a clear path to developing Killer Instinct after an agreement with Fox
  • The Witcher 3 confirmed to be DRM-free
  • Bethesda confirms “new version of Doom 4” being worked on, Rage 2 cancelled

There’s also Listener Feedback, and the Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm contest is still open – a winner will be announced next week.

0 thoughts on “Episode 305: Duct Tape”

  1. 🙂 No, Jonah, I don’t have it (Heart of the Swarm). It’s just that I have a lot of things going against this game: first of all, Starcraft II requires constant on-line DRM. This is a big no-no for me. Big enough to not buy either Starcraft II or Diablo III.
    Add to that the fact that I have less and less spare time; so what’s the point of getting a game if I won’t play it? Better leave it for somebody who has the available time.

    @Thief to feature “classic mode”, removing all assists
    Props to that! I’d love to see that kind of approach used in more games.

    @The Witcher 3 confirmed to be DRM-free
    Talking about DRM never being an issue, to quote somebody from EA … I know, Jonah, you already mentioned the previous installments last week. Still, I find it amazing that nobody tries the same.

    @Bethesda confirms “new version of Doom 4” being worked on, Rage 2 cancelled
    Oh man … if only id could remain independent …
    Yeah, new Doom 4? What happened with the old Doom 4?
    Different kind of flashlight batteries? 😛

    Didn’t play Rage; Doom 3 felt a bit stretched – a bit too short of a story for the length of the game. While the choices of flashlight vs. weapon felt artificial, the overall shooting mechanics felt ok.

    As for South Korea not having nukes, it doesn’t matter that much, they have pretty much all western countries behind them.

    Jonah, get well. Your voice is still … erm … “sexy”?

  2. @Witcher’s great big sword

    For those who have not played it, Whitcher is a dating simulator set in the fictional medieval era staring an albino Ron Jeremy. The aim of the game is to have sex with every female species in the world, including (but not limited to) elves,princesses, vampires and sentient plants. To fill the time between plowing the fertile fields of Temeria there is a light RPG mechanic and combat side missions with some sort of a secondary quest of revenge.

    @Lucasarts

    Pity really. I enjoyed the Jedi Knight series back in the day. Although I didn’t care about their more recent games. Kinect Star wars was a special case. First time people could tell the game was crap just seeing it at E3. On a side note, it’s sad to see all these studios closing. I’ve spent so much time playing THQ and Lucasarts games. Not to mention Midway. Oh well. As long as the talent of the developers lives on and joins another studio it should all be fine. It’s people that count.

    @Doomed Rage

    Don’t know why anyone cares. Doom was the original FPS. But now we have Halo, COD, Half-Life and all those franchises. Doom 4 has no chance of competing and will most likely crash and burn on day one. Not unless it brings something innovatingly outstanding. Regarding Rage, there is a popular opinion that Bethesda should just stick to Elder Scrolls. Everything else they bring out ends being crap or overlooked (WET, Brink, Rage)

Leave a Reply

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

Related Post

Episode 670: Callisto UnpluggedEpisode 670: Callisto Unplugged

Jonah returns from PAX Unplugged 2022, while T.J. defends the maligned Castillo Protocol. Aside from the news, the Gaming Flashback is the Klei Entertainment’s stealth 2D platformer Mark of the Ninja.

The rest of the news includes:

  • Smash Bros tournament organizer Panda boots out boss following fan allegations
  • Harmonix rhythm game Fuser goes offline in two weeks
  • Half-Life: Blue Shift gets Black Mesa treatment
  • NVIDIA slashes GeForce RTX 4090 and 4080 prices in Europe

Let us know what you think.

Google Turns 14 Years OldGoogle Turns 14 Years Old

As those of you who might have noticed when going to Google.com, Google has turned 14 today. Back in 1998, who knew that it would become the premiere search engine, before branching out to pick up such sites as YouTube, and starting its own web browser?

Here’s to Google, which is in the midst of puberty. Salud.

Distributed Game Development Using ContractorsDistributed Game Development Using Contractors

Gamers around the world have noticed a large trend in the video game industry in the last 15 years, massive growth with massive projects and unbelievable costs, goals and sales. We’ve seen the impossible become achievable in epic projects like World of Warcraft and huge sales figures from Halo 3 but we’ve also seen game titles fall down in a burning wreck.

Each studio tries to beat the next studio with crisp realistic graphics, real time physics engines, life-like explosions all with huge costs. Does it all sound familiar? If you’re a movie buff you’ve probably seen movie studios cranking out the same style of movie, high computer graphic effects with talented high priced actors making longer and longer films.

The only big difference? A game studio hires most of their talent for full time positions and then has to figure out what to do with them when the project ends. Perhaps this explains Microsoft’s effort to remove game studios like Ensemble, Bungie and FASA, it’s all too much to handle when a high budget project ships and time frees up in the studio.

(more…)