Episode 407: Third Time’s the Charm

If you’re wondering where the podcast has been, it’s been in technical hell. Twice the podcast was recorded each week, and both times there were serious technical issues. This time, we’ve got it right, and even have Paul dropping by to discuss his new book, “Gaymers: the Difference a ‘Y’ Makes: How (and Why) to Make Video Games LGBT Players Care About“. Actually, it’s mostly dominated by a discussion of an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Otherwise, the news items include:

The Question of the Week: “Who is your favorite superhero?”

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Whining Diablo 3 Fans Want Artistic Direction ChangeWhining Diablo 3 Fans Want Artistic Direction Change

We’ve waited years for a Diablo 3 announcement. Within days the Internet is afire with Diablo 3 news, theories, previews, screenshots and dialog about the next Blizzard Game. However, there are hardcore gamers that only see the Diablo cup as half full while the rest of us are simply excited to see gameplay footage.

What’s wrong with the upcoming franchise blockbuster? Apparently the art direction is making a few people upset because it’s too much like World of Warcraft. Holy crap, isn’t that a multi-million dollar hit MMORPG developed and maintained by none other than Blizzard?

“The main objective of this petition is to show Blizzard that there’s a significant number of players that dont agree with the current art style of the game, with this petition we hope to make Blizzard ear our voices, our opinions and our suggestions and we seriously want some changes in the artistic direction of the game so it could be more coherent and familiar with the Diablo universe.” (diablo 3 petition)

Imagine the developers and artist whom have worked, in secret, for years to bring gamers the next game in a series they’ve longed for? Not “thank you for making our dreams come true,” but “oh, c’mon, you can’t make the game I want?”

You must first understand the demographic of video game fans, especially those hardcore fans who will invest their (moms) time and money into the Diablo franchise. To many gamers the world actually revolves around them and all games should cater to their needs and desires.

The gameplay footage didn’t have enough “realistic world with realistic, dirty and muddy textures” and the game has too much “over-sized and exaggerated proportions like big shoulder guards.” The gameplay footage that we’ve seen is too clean, to “cartoony” and looks hand drawn rather than dark and eerie like the other Diablo games.

What? Is this a joke?

No, the internet gives voices to many folks, some folks whom we wish would stay silent. Instead, they start an online petition which will lead to no change, but alas, we can let them pretend.

Diablo 3 looks great, has a very nice direction and I trust that Blizzard will make it work. Blizzard has three key franchises and they work hard to perfect each one with the majority of gamers being satisfied customers.

(Thanks, actiontrip)

Episode 481: Portal’s Huge SuccessEpisode 481: Portal’s Huge Success

This week’s Gaming Flashback has no cake — instead it’s the history of Portal. The guys try to keep the podcast meme-free as they discuss Valve’s first person puzzle platformer.

There’s also non-Portal related news items, too:

  • Chris Avellone may be teasing a new Fallout game
  • Street Fighter 5 will finally get an arcade mode in 2018
  • The SNES Classic has been hacked
  • Telltale patch removes assassinated ambassador from Batman: The Enemy Within

Let us know what you think in the Comments section.

Episode 735: Long DiscussionsEpisode 735: Long Discussions

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There’s a ton of discussions, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming will reportedly let players stream any game in their library from November, Russia straight-up bans Discord for enabling ‘terrorist and extremist purposes’, Killing Floor 3‘s dynamic tech makes zed heads ‘flower’ when you shoot them, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will get a Nuketown map, Brazil lifts ban on X following Elon Musk’s compliance with Supreme Court orders, the DOJ may break up Google, Terrifier 3 (the indie horror film that managed to make 10x its budget while Joker: Folie à Deux flails in the water) is getting a videogame, the current head of Xbox Game Studios, Alan Hartman, is to retire at the end of November, with Rare studio boss Craig Duncan taking over and the official Nintendo Museum appears to be emulating SNES games on a Windows PC, which is slightly embarrassing.

The news:

  • Legendary game designer Jordan Weisman’s next project is an open world deck-building pirate romance tactical RPG
  • Red Dead Redemption coming to PC later this month
  • Former Bethesda and BioWare devs are making a Stardew-like with Redwall animals (from PC Gamer)

Let us know what you think.

The post Episode 735: Long Discussions first appeared on Gaming Podcast.