This week’s Gaming Podcast gets down and dirty, with plenty of AAAA goodness. The Darkness II contest is still going on this week, and winners will be announced next week.
In the meantime:
All that, plus Reader Feedback.
This week revolves around Nintendo’s upcoming console. Otherwise, there isn’t much to speak of in terms of shocking news. However, there is a lot of it this time around.
The news items include:
Question of the Week: “Ever play any console ROM hacks?”
Paul Nowak is on hiatus from the podcast, but former podcaster Dan Quick is stepping in to fill his shoes. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the expansion Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.
As for the news:
All this and listener feedback.
Nobody is perfect. When it comes to creating an epic story arc, awesome pre-rendered movies and a fully fleshed campaign Blizzard has done well. Now, Blizzard speaks of Starcraft 2 and the world shuts their mouth and listens to each and every word. What’s the word?
A Trilogy.
We’re not talking about the Lord of The Rings style trilogy, but three games with full stories which all end with the gamer being satisfied at the closure, not cliffhangers.
The three standalone games will be (says GameStooge):
Gamers are probably thinking, “so, I can play multiplayer with only one race?” No! The campaign is split into three separete games, not the races and multiplayer features. Although, each title is sure to introduce something new to the game engine, Blizzard has said:
“Nothing changes for multiplayer or skirmish mode. All three races are fully implemented from the get go. Each campaign will feel like an epic story – not a cliffhanger into the next one. They will each have separate arcs that have a clear start, middle, end – and you will feel like you’ve really finished *something* at the end of each game. More content than we’d previously planned – many more Movies, Missions, etc.” (games.on.net)
From our perspective, it seems Blizzard is itching to release the multiplayer system to the world sooner than later, considering some countries use Starcraft as a professional league, but they don’t want to rush out fast to market campaigns just to satisfy this multiplayer desire.
Instead, they’re going to take their time, in usual Blizzard style, by releasing the game as they finish it… per races story. This should give us a less watered down storyline or having one or two races with a piss poor storyline while another has a kick ass storyline because it was done first.
End result? Multiplayer gamers will be happy in the end while those that play Starcraft for the story will need to wait for each game to be completed. We know Blizzards release schedule is “when it’s ready” so we can only imagine how long it will take to reach that third game in the trilogy.
Paul is back!
@Analyst predicts 66M iPad sales in 2012
The nasty thing about extrapolating numbers to make predictions can fail. I mean Sony Vita sold ok initially, then to simply drop rock bottom immediately after.
Oh man, I sure loved Paul’s comment with Harry Potter 🙂
Ah, you gotta love the planned obsolescence. As for PC games, you get better graphics for the extra performance requests.
@Diablo III gets May 15 release date
It makes no sense to delay the launch for Russia. It will not increase sales in Russia or anywhere else. I say that 3-4 days after Diablo 3 gets released in US, pirated copies will show up on torrents sites.
@Next gen console launch titles will probably use Unreal Engine 3
Well, the rendering can be expanded to cope with DX11 hardware. As far as I know, it can already cope with it (Aliens vs. Predator 2010).
As for it being the only game engine, it implies that only Epic is aware of the API for the new consoles. Careful there with the statements, Epic …
@ looking for executive producer to work on an “AAAA” Xbox title
I think they simply need a fresh idea … the team that produced Halo would do the job just fine … oh wait! They dismissed them a while ago. Smart move!
Lol, Paul, that was a great interpretation. Hmm … maybe I’ll start roleplaying my comments 😛
Family show, right… You can bleep out as many swear words as you like, this will never be a family show.
Well, there weren’t any interesting news stories this week, so I’m not going to comment on them.
Paul, you should read Reader Feedback comically more often! And I do agree that the Flying Beetle in Skyward Sword is a great item because you can use it to scout pretty much everywhere. I also think that Koloktos (the one with the six hands and huge scimitars) is the best boss in the game.
@Episode 255 comment: The theater was sort of packed, and my roommate sat in front of me with the other half of our party. He sort of deserved the head kick, though, so it’s all good.
@iPad Sales: I had an iPad 1 at my last job and liked having it around to browse the Web and look at other content on the couch. But since I had to give it back (the company folded), I haven’t missed it. Only the money I spent for The Daily (peeyoo).
@Unreal: I get the Game Developer trade publication, and Unreal always has an advertorial touting its wares. If it looks good and is easy to develop with, why not?
Thanks for another damn good fucking family show, fo shizzle.
hmm i dont know if my friends dragged me to the movies to see something like alvin and the chipmunks i might have another reason to kick there ass in the theater .
oh forgot to mention last week either version is fine.
also i never got the reasoning behind the serah palin movie. she lost the race but the celebrate her as a great victor? i guess you just do things diffrently in america
oh i forgot to mention that the mgs2 ending was scary because it became alot like eternal darkness on the gamecube but it came so out of left field in what was a normal game up until that point.
66M iPad Sales in 2012? – I wrote something maybe too evil for this show regarding this news piece, so I’ll just say this. I don’t like Apple and I like Paul just a little bit more now that he has shown his hate for Apple as well. I like ya Paul, stay classy.
AAAA Title by Microsoft – Why? Why would Microsoft claim to have a AAAA title? Doesn’t that just completely destroy the point of the game rating system. Now KOEI is going to announce they have a AAAAAAAAAAA title: Dynasty Warriors 231. I’d like to believe all developers/publishers think highly of there games, but it seems sorta cocky to go off of the scale because you believe this game is better than any other title ever put out, and does not deserve the lowly “AAA” spot. But that’s just what it seems like to me.
As always guys keep up the good work. Hope you all are doing well, can’t wait for the next episode.
(to Paul to read, and please in british accent, if possible, of course)
as an answer to the previous podcast, one shall improve his english skillz, i mean, proficiency!
@66 million iPads sales in 2012
those poor bastards, wasting their money in an overcharged piece of eletronic equipament that shall not bring any major improvement over the previous iPad
@Diablo III 15th of may
One shall not leave the presence of one’s personal computer while one’s equipament still works (not fry out into oblivion)
@AAAA microsoft title
thou shall be amusing to see such game when announced right after Call of Duty, n00b warfare 4 (let’s hope CoD just die now, before that happens).
Mr. Nowak, is this better (insert trollface)
one hopes the TD gaming podcast trio (hopefully) understands this message as a form of entertainment, or if you gentlemen prefer, a joke
always wishing the best!!!
*@beggining: “*for* Paul to read…”
and i mean hopefully a trio, not hopefully understand