This week’s episode is full of news that aren’t described below, as the games the guys have played get a lot of analysis.
The news, incidentally, includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week we’re reporting some news but we’re really raging on some World of Warcraft expansion rumors that raise the heat in the studio. Is it going to be worth it? Does it matter if you finished the last expansion? What exactly do you consider an expansion? So many questions. The news includes:
Quake Live Getting Subscription OptionThis weeks gaming flashback is a little adventure game known as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge and our question of the week is simple: Will the World of Warcraft expansion get you to re-buy into the WoW experience?
One of the greatest things Nintendo has done was allowing the DS to be unlocked for regions. This allowed gamers around the world to share their favorite games from all cultures and countries with just a click of the “buy” button at an online store.
The DSi loses this great freedom by locking it down to a region. “Nintendo DS software is region free so you can play any DS software on DSi from any region. You can also browse the internet on your DSi wherever you are in the world and exchange your photos with friends from around the world,” says Nintendo (CVG).
Much like the US Entertainment Industries need to lock down everything and contribute to global piracy, Nintendo follows suit with their hand-helds, tis a sad day indeed. Of course Nintendo reasons it all away by yelling parental controls and making it easier for regions to access their own content.
“DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit.”
Specifically tailored for each region is a nice way of saying that each region has to pay the penalty of not being “first” (second, or third) to get some cool new features. Although Nintendo could put emphasis on the region the gamer lives in with complete access out of those bounds if they wanted, they’ve chosen to use this as a crutch to lock users out of content.
Users will get their content, of course. It just means more home brews, software hacks, hardware hacks and workarounds for the system. If that’s what Nintendo is trying to inspire, then they’ve done their job right.
However, wouldn’t it be great if they could just come out and say “we don’t want certain people accessing specific content until we say you can.”
The gaming podcast this week includes a little reaction on PAX East and a bit of history on Vanguard. For the news, this week, we’re busting through a few key news stories:
Derrick explains a bit about his opinion of PAX East and how such an event might not be exactly built for him. We’re also busting through some great community feedback. Special thanks to the community of 2old2play.com, Wombat from Cheap Ass Gamer and Lady J of SFX 360 for the PAX Panel.
This weeks Question of the Week: “Everyone loves shoot em ups. What was your favorite shoot em up? Xevious? Space Invaders? Galaga? Ikaruga?”
