Thanks to a screwup with recording, Episode 307 will have to be redone next week. However, this doesn’t mean there won’t be any show.
Instead, the second Dr. Who Special Episode is in its place, with outtakes taken after the show with Jordan, Jennifer and Paul discussing Dr. Who in the past four weeks. In short, they feel the quality is starting to slip.
Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.
It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.
The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.
The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).
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Part of this long episode was recorded live from the LA Convention Center floor at E3 2015, where Jonah and Paul were fresh off waiting in line for Disney amibos. There were some news items covered there, while a few more news items were recorded here.
Rather than list all of the news items, we’ll just relay the Question of the Week: “If Nintendo isn’t revealing a new console, should they skip E3 altogether in 2016?”
All this and listener feedback, too.
This week follows the stunning announcement over the closure of Telltale Games and the repercussions of the shuttering of one of the most influential companies in the industry. There’s also Scott continuing to gush about Dragon Quest XI and Jonah enjoying the 2008 version of Prince of Persia again. That, and Fallout 3 headlines the Gaming Flashback.
News of the week include:
Let us know what Telltale Games you were hoping to see in the future.
Haven’t listened to it just yet, but I do agree that the quality has slipped slightly, even though that always happens with a new companion. However, I do believe that the most recent episode “Hide” is one of the best, if not the best, episodes of this season.