Episode 566: NBA 2K20 Is Awful

Jonah goes off on a virulent rant about NBA 2K20 and the decline of the series as a whole, while offering milder criticism of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. There’s no Gaming Flashbacks, but plenty of news.

The news items include:

  • Another leak points to new Tony Hawk game arriving later this year
  • Horizon Zero Dawn is coming to PC this summer
  • 2K returns to making NFL video games, but not a Madden competitor

Let us know what you think.

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Episode 378: Hilary 2015Episode 378: Hilary 2015

This week has a very special guest, former IGN editor and current Dog and Thimble podcast host Hilary Goldstein, as he teams up with Paul to razz Jonah incessantly, as well as add a certain amount of NSFW spice to this week’s proceedings.

The news items include:

  • Rock Band DLC hints at a comeback
  • Sony appears to have ‘abandoned’ its trademark for The Last Guardian
  • Final Fantasy 15: Episode Duscae demo detailed
  • Nvidia’s big March 3rd event – is it a gaming phone?
  • After raising $114,000 on Kickstarter, dev goes silent
  • BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has come back from retirement

All this and Listener Feedback.

Xbox 360 Silver Accounts, Free XBL Cross-Platform GamingXbox 360 Silver Accounts, Free XBL Cross-Platform Gaming

Microsoft has announced they’ll be giving Xbox Live silver accounts access to play some multi-player cross-platform games for free until the fall update. Recently, Microsoft announced free online play with Games for Windows titles, effectively giving PC gamers “gold accounts” to play online.

Most people agree the move to give gold subscriptions to PC gamers was done because PC gamers don’t care to play Games for Windows games online if they have to pay for it. The culture of PC gaming is much different than console gaming on XBL, gamers expect the online experience at no cost; they’re already paying an ISP for network access, paying for a match-making system with a yearly subscription is not desired.

Console gamers don’t have a choice, buying the 360 experience arrives with simple to play games (no drivers, no installs) but limited online choices: pay or go away. Now, silver members will get a little taste of network play, along side PC gamers in the cross-platform Games for Windows titles.

“Supported cross-platform titles include Universe at War, Shadowrun, and Lost Planet: Colonies Edition.” (gamespot)

We question the intention here… is this as a good faith move or are they wetting people’s appitite for XBL so they’ll want to upgrade to gold in the fall? Or, maybe there are some logistical reasons to doing this in the Xbox Live infrastructure to prepare for upgrades where making it free solves a few of their internal upgrade paths and, as a side effect, gives gamers some games to play.

Of course, we’ve seen few people playing Shadowrun or Lost Planet lately. Maybe this will re-popularize a few older titles as well.

Episode 480: PsychonautsEpisode 480: Psychonauts

As the episode title would imply, this week’s Gaming Flashback is Psychonauts, with Jonah revealing he’s a total fanboy and backed the sequel for over $800. He also has no idea what Oxenfree is, since he hadn’t played it yet. (He has, and realizes he was completely wrong about it being like Cabin in the Woods.)

The news:

  • Captain Falcon was almost the mascot of the SNES
  • Hackers have already infiltrated the Call of Duty: WWII open beta
  • Assassin’s Creed: Origins‘ non-violent discovery tour update wants to teach you history

Let us know what you think.