This week’s episode is three hours long — Jonah’s mic was moving in the first minute, but after that, it’s ok. There’s no news, just discussion of each of the press briefings that preceded E3, as well as some of the games that Jonah got hands-on time with. TJ is sad that he didn’t get to attend this year, while Scott is getting E3 swag.
Next week, back to news items!
[This episode was reposted due to being corrupted when the site went down.]
This episode is heavy on remasters and expansions, some bad, some good, some questionable. There’s even a sequel in there.
The news items include:
All this and listener feedback!
This weeks Gaming Podcast comes out a bit early due to some travel plans and an upcoming trip to Popcap’s Bejeweled Twist launch party. This week in the news we took a look at:
We also take a look back at Pitfall! and cover yet another DRM issue on our soapbox, asking the question, is online gaming the DRM of the future? Our history segment does a bit of history on Popcap games.
Our NFS: Carbon and Saints Row contest has ended, the gang names are in, and we’re giving away the games to the winner. Next, we’re going to give away Project Gotham Racing 4.
Microsoft has come out and validated some earlier rumors about Xbox 360 Avatar’s and their 3D dashboard design. Apparently, this is to build more of a community and bring a bit of the Mii-like influence from the Nintendo Wii to the 360 hardware.
It seems Microsoft is taking some of the concepts from the Nintendo Wii which were poorly implemented due to the lack of any real network community and bring them to live with a more integrated useful system. This proves Nintendo was on the right track but shows off their lack of integration and fear of bringing people together.
“Create, share, and have fun with all of your friends… but avatars are just the beginning. The new Xbox is tailored for the living room. Here we are at the community channel — instead of a list of friends, you actually see them.” (joystiq)
Nintendo’s cute little idea of Mii’s and sharing them with friends was fantastic, a great bullet list feature, but rather useless. Typing in friends codes gets old way too fast and there really isn’t anyway to vocally chat with people on your friends list anyway, so who cares?
Microsoft has proven to know a bit about the community space, has parental controls and a fairly reliable LIVE system for making it all happen. Although Nintendo should look at this with a bit of pride, given duplication is the best form of flattery, they could learn a few things about how to work a community into your console too!
Great podcast! Talk about information overload. I learned a lot, but liked it anyway.
CyberPunk 2077 looks pretty awesome, but now that you guys all gave it the seal of approval I’m extra psyched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2kIfS6fb8
Thanks for the heads up about the free trial of Unreal Champions. That offer was extended through this weekend so there’s still time to pick it up on Steam. It is a ton of fun. plus cool NIN music.
Keep up the good work, cyberpunks.
HI guys.
Thanks a lot for this huge episode! was a little bit work to listen to it, but was very informative 🙂
I want to look at all the shows from every single publisher and figure out, which game i will spectate (is this the right word?). I pre-ordered BF5, becausei want to play it with my friends. In addition i will pre-order Kingdom Hearts 3. My friends want me to pre order Cyberpunk as well, but i did not even play Witcher 3 to know if i like the engine and graphics .. but i love cyberpunk / steampunk 🙂 …. let´s see …i will have some months before the games come out 🙂
My friends also backed this Star Citizen game 2 years ago …. so their decisions are not always the best ones 😀
So, thanks again for this huge work on this episode 🙂
Your loyal listener,
Ralf