This is the first podcast of 2021! It was also recorded a day before people decided to invade the US Capitol. How weird is that, hearing us blissfully unaware of insurrectionists who thought they could terrorize the US Senate?
Anyway, this week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think at the Facebook comment site.
In an interesting interview this week at 1up.com, Peter Moore, now at Electronic Arts, believes the skillset that Rare holds is a bit dated for our gaming industry. Moore, best known in his role of VP at Microsoft in their Interactive Entertainment Business division, understands how great Rare and their games once were but seems to believe the industry has passed them by.
Looking at their latest Microsoft titles, mainly Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata and Kameo: Elements of Power, it’s not hard to believe his statements as fact. None of the titles have blown away a market full of Grand Theft Autos, Halo’s and other top selling titles. None of their games hit the epic review scores of Bioshock or Crysis. It’s not all first person shooters are taking the big sales numbers; Spore was given rave reviews by online review sites (sans Amazon) and that’s a completely different style of game.
Popcap’s Peggle has had more fame and glory than some of the bigger titles from Rare, probably made with less money. Is Rare a dying breed of developers with no good direction to react to the changing ways of the game industry?
It’s the beginning of 2026, and the crew discusses their favorite and best games of 2026, and the Gaming Flashback is none other than Pokemon Go, which is still alive and well 10 years later.
Here is Episode 431: Pokemon No! for our discussion of some disturbing Pokemon stuff.
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This week, Paul is not around, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund discuss the latest news, which includes pandas. Lots and lots of pandas. That, and a Gaming History profile on David Crane.
The news this week includes:
With that is Reader Mail and the Queston of the Week: What was your favorite Atari 2600 game?
