This week is shortened due to Thanksgiving and Black Friday, but there’s still some fun to be had, especially when the Gaming History is about The Legend of Zelda cartoon series.
The news:
The Question of the Week: “When do you start your holiday shopping?”
We’re back! This week we’re hitting some fun news articles and kicking it back with a little gaming flashback about Columns. We also break the news about our brand new console that we purchased last week before vacation and touch on KOEI in our gaming history. This weeks news includes:
Portable Xbox Device Coming?This weeks question, we’re wondering what your break point is for purchasing a console or a video game, is there a magic number where you finally break down to buy it?
Electronic Arts has announced SimAnimals, a game where you play the godlike hand and control the lifestyle of over 60 animals. In the game you’ll play the role of a disembodied hand which moves around and life animals, pick flowers and interact with the environment much like a past Lionhead Studios game: Black and White.
EA’s not exactly being the most creative with this Wii and DS game based on the sounds of it so far, as it clones a lot of the features in Black and White, including how “animals react” when you treat them a specific way. However, we’ve not had this style of game on the Wii or DS, both very “touchy” in methodology.
Black and White had the touch sensitive control scheme using tactile feedback with the mouse implemented with Immersion technology. This brings the style of gameplay to a new level, but nothing we’ve heard thus far makes us think originality. Cute and cool, perhaps but it’s nothing new. Of course, who said it had to be new?
We know old gaming concepts sell well at this point!
Depressingly, sexual harassment in a development studio is once again the lead news item this week, and from a studio most gamers would never think it could happen. That, and major seismic shifting in the power structure of the digital storefront landscape.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
A great nostalgic episode, I do enjoy gaming flashbacks, keep them coming.
@Nintendo Game boy emulation: I do hope this means they will port more of their games to other platforms. I do remember the Bleem! Emulator for Sony games but that ended up getting sued for it. As for Nintendo I can only hope this will lead to more access of their games legally.
While we are on the subject of Nintendo I was thinking we could really have explored more of the Greco-roman games, not just Kid Icarus but also Battle of Olympus another side scrolling game from NES days. They seem afraid to try to push new IP’s and just stick with their tried and true ones. Which I think tends to make them feel stale. When Paul was discussing the end of the Zelda Cartoon and how Link and Zelda had to team up to find her father, I thought ‘Well that would have been a fine game right there!’
@EA: I guess they can’t be all that bad if they really are equal treatment. They HAVE had a long history of games with LGBT relationship options. I remember in Sims 2 there were apparently hidden stats you had to use an external program to see. One of these stats was a persons attractions tendencies, a score both for male and female, which ever ranked higher the character tended toward. I just thought it was neat that they went to this extent to make a character unique and even a little beyond your control.
@Sony Settles: I do remember those ads and I was tempted by them. Boy would I have been PISSED to find I would have to buy the game TWICE. I thought the whole point was that any game bought on the main PS3 could be transferred and played on the vita.
QotW: I started my shopping in November, but not on black friday or cyber monday.
First I want to apologize for not commenting much, but I tend to be too shy to comment much (and I didn’t get your podcast because I have been with my family doing a vacation-type thing for a few weeks). I feel like your commentaries on this, though have garnered my responses.
About Nintendo:I feel like they are trying to make a bit of a fuss over something that was not a very big fuss in the first place.
About EA: I have a number of friends that work for EA here in Orlando (mostly they worked on Tiger Woods games back in the day and now work with Madden games). I love that ya’ll commented on this and brought it to light to your followers. I really like that they truly care about their employees. I think you missed the nail when you say that you think Bioware was inclusive before EA was invloved.
On Sony Settling: Those ads were quite frustrating to understand as a consumer and, luckily, I was not willing to buy their pitch. Deutsch was quite poorly represented before they even posted those twitter comments. Barring them from repeating the exact point – I feel – doesn’t exactly prevent them from doing the same thing again: something I feel like they may do in order to make more money. You really do nail it when you say they only “got caught.”
On a side note: I think Jonah is incredibly insightful in general.