Episode 462: Nerd Rage

Jonah discusses his renewed views of Mass Effect: Andromeda after his long, long rant last week. It fits in with the theme of nerd rage in the news items, as well as some new games coming out. TJ and Scott talk about the games they’ve been enjoying in the past week as well, as the latter is burning through Pillars of Eternity so he can play Torment: Tides of Numenera and the eventual Pillars of Eternity II.

This week’s news includes:

  • Planescape: Torment 4K remaster comes out April 11
  • First Star Wars Battlefront 2 trailer dated for April
  • World of Warcraft has changed how enemies scale, and players are very angry
  • Destiny 2 officially announced, teasing the fall of The Last City

Let us know what you think.

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Episode 435: Happy Birthday PaulEpisode 435: Happy Birthday Paul

This episode was delayed a few days thanks to some acting work for Jonah Falcon. The podcast moving forward will be recorded on Wednesdays, partly because videogame releases are on Tuesdays. The guys also discuss the disaster No Man’s Sky has been.

This week’s news includes:

  • EA strongly hints that Mass Effect games will get remastered
  • No Man’s Sky’s PC patch is out now
  • NPD: 3DS, Xbox One, And GTA V lead brutal July slump

All this and Listener Feedback, too.

Users Pwn MetaCritic Review SubmissionsUsers Pwn MetaCritic Review Submissions

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.

Does Sony Need M.A.G and God of War 3 This Year?Does Sony Need M.A.G and God of War 3 This Year?

There is a bit of confusion regarding the release dates of both M.A.G and God of War 3 for the PlayStation 3. Initially people believed 2009 was the target drop for both titles after a Sony press release mentioned great games being “ushered in” this year following Killzone 2.

godofwar3The “year” Sony may be talking about is fiscal year 2009… which rolls into March 2010. Although Sony hasn’t tagged either title with an ETA, it’s being assumed that we’re talking 2009 until spring 2010. Given most games launch in the September and October time for the holiday season that leads us to believe it will either arrive for the holiday or slide to 2010. If the title isn’t ready for prime time by the holiday season, can you wait a full year for these games?

More importantly, can Sony?

The best way to build up momentum for the console is to release some hot long awaited titles, M.A.G and God of War 3 seem to be just that product. We now have LittleBigPlanet, KillZone 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4 which were three big hopefuls for the console it would be a huge smash in the face of Microsoft to follow that up with two more one-two punches.

A year seems a bit too far to deliver the blow to their competition. What game are you waiting for on the PS3 and believe will kick unit sales into high gear?

(Thanks, 1up)