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, there’s only one news item, but that’s because Jonah Falcon returns from PAX East 2012 to discuss the games he managed to check out and even play, including Assassin’s Creed 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, Max Payne 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, Borderlands 2, Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 3, Orcs Must Die! 2, Tera, Solitaire Blitz, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Mark of the Ninja and Code Hero.
The show does cover one news item:
Finally, a new contest: win a free copy of Civilization V Special Edition on Steam. To win it, just state what your favorite civilization in history is and why. All that and Reader Feedback and a special surprise at the end!
We just found out that my recording of Podcast #283 didn’t take on my end. However, there is a backup, so all that means is that you’ll have to wait til tomorrow for the next podcast. Sorry for the delay.
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.
Paul should stay because he loves Amibos and there’s nothing like collecting them. Can’t wait for Disney Infinity 3.0 and please, please, please stay, Paul. We need you!
Great long episode with many topics to respond to!
@Gamergate at E3: I agree with Paul women have been in gaming since their was video games. I’ve grown up with Rosella of Daventry, Laura Bow (From Dagger of Amon Ra and Colonel’s Bequest), Final Fantasy 6’s Terra and Celese, Crono Trigger’s Luca, Ayla and Nadia/Marle, Jill of the Jungle, Chell from Portal, etc. The list of characters goes on and there are many of those available online, not to mention all the games that allow you to choose your gender. So really there shouldn’t be any of this “worry” or “hesitation” when games with female leads do fine.
Also in Fallout 3 you can play female, here’s my daughter’s character Stella:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=469288564
I made an error on last episodes comments I meant that Fallout4’s Boston will be 2x the size of Skyrim and was commenting on Jonah’s feeling burned out on huge Open world games.
While still on the topic of Fallout Paul I’m sorry if you feel snubbed but you made your disdain of the series pretty clear, I didn’t think you would be interested at all.
I’ve never liked this mentality and have rebelled against the idea that hardware should be replaced after 2 years. I know my Nes and Super Nes lasted MUCH longer than 2 years.
@QotW: I think Nintendo should represent it’s self, I would still want to know what games they are working on for current hardware.
Great and entertaining episode guys!
This is the first time I’ve written in, and I just have to ask this of Paul: which are you more into, Disney or My Little Pony?