We have peaceniks in World of Warcraft, nude mods in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and more Black Mesa, but the Game Awards overshadowed all that. Of course, no one cared about the winners — it was all about the commercials.
The news includes:
Let us know what you thought of the Game Awards.
The episode is a little late in publishing, though it was recorded on time – you know, real-life delays. However, it’s worth the wait as the Gaming Flashback is Team Ico’s second title, a PlayStation 2 title called Shadow of the Colossus.
There’s also some of the meatiest news of the year, which includes:
The Question of the Week is “Should Nintendo partner with Disney?“
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:
All this and Listener Feedback.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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.
