Episode 273: Flinging Guts

This week’s Gaming Podcast is a fairly routine one, with no Gaming Flashback or even a Question of the Week. However, this week features a ton of great news and industry discussion. Paul also announces that he will be unable to do the podcast in a few weeks for an extended period of time due to surgery.

The news items for the week includes:

  • Yoshida admits absence of Vita at E3 was a mistake
  • Irrational Games now includes 85+ Metacritic game requirement for employment
  • UbiSoft patches UPlay rootkit issue
  • Paradox Interactive announces dungeon builder Impire
  • EA: Current CEO John Riccitiello’s job is secure

All that plus Reader Feedback, check it out.

0 thoughts on “Episode 273: Flinging Guts”

  1. Blah … I’m biased towards ATI/AMD, so GT, GTX, GTY all the same

    @Yoshida admits absence of Vita at E3 was a mistake
    Ahem! Ha ha ha ha ha :))
    Really?! You have a major event and you don’t make noise around your newest product?! Who’s in charge of the marketing there? Fire the dumb ass who decided that, if you ask me.
    Jordan, excellent point regarding the way the subject was shifted from PS Vita games to PS3 games. If you ask me, this was done because Vita doesn’t really have a games library …

    @Irrational Games now includes 85+ Metacritic game requirement for employment
    Erm, rating is not just about the game, it’s also about the rating agency. If you hire somebody, do that after you administer them some tests that are relevant for you.
    Paul, I’m with you on this one, it is crap.

    Oh, about good games (not sure how it rates on Metacritic :P), play Ib! (http://vgboy.dabomstew.com/other/ib.htm)

    @UbiSoft patches UPlay rootkit issue
    Ok, I don’t use it, I don’t care that much. Still, you don’t code a rootkit by mistake …

    Paul, I hope there’s nothing too serious. Get well.

  2. @PS Vita

    I complain a lot about the 3DS. Thank heavens I don’t have PS Vita. At least Nintendo is trying. I might pick up a PSP at some point. They are cheap as dirt these days.

    @Metacritic scores shaping industry

    I agree with Herr_Alien and Paul. It’s crap. Metacritic scores are an average. If they want them to be representative of the true quality, the game industry should have reviewing standards and guidelines. Without them, any critic can review however he sees fit. I use Gamespot a lot. Their reviews tend to rate games 2 or 3 points (out of 10) below IGN reviews. As far as I know both are part of Metacritic. There is the problem right there.

    @Impire

    Played quite a few of those. There is Crystal Chronicles: My life as a Darklord dungeon/tower builder on WiiWare if anyone cares. It has girls that look like 10 wearing S&M outfits with breasts the size of melons (Japan, you so silly). I’ll admit I find most of these games boring. Although I know how addictive they can get. Blasted RollerCoaster Tycoon.

    PS: good luck with the operation, Paul. I promise to write you hate mail so make sure to come back and read it.

    @QOTW
    Have you ever been overly attached to an NPC? A digital someone who would call up feeling of companionship? Someone you would feel bad for loosing?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…

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.”

Gaming Podcast 211: Short and SweetGaming Podcast 211: Short and Sweet

This week we had to cut some segments short due to some work we’re doing on our house that had us tied up. We’re just doing up some news this week and community feedback. This weeks news includes:

And, here is the story about The Boy Who Stole Half-Life II. Here is our Question of the Week: Will all MMOs eventually follow a free-to-play model?

PlayStation 3, March 2009 Price Drop RumorPlayStation 3, March 2009 Price Drop Rumor

With so many people wishing Sony would cut the PS3 price to something more reasonable, it’s no big surprise we see constant rumors about potential “price cuts.” This time, a March 2009 rumor “supposedly” came out of the Sony Annual Briefing in London where a butt ton of information was “rumored” to be leaked.

The anonymous source is running around with a bunch of neat rumors, such as a LittleBigPlanet release on the PSP but the one that may hit home most with gamers is price cutting. The PS3 has been around for a few years now and hasn’t budged on the price tag; they’ve had fire sales on obsolete products (smaller disk drives mainly) but no official drops.

Sony won’t comment on speculation, of course, but we’re sure they want to catch Mr. Anonymous from hiding in their meetings and giving away their information… if it is real. D+Pad published the rumor-mongers message saying the “SCEE will be getting more competitive in price from March 2009 onwards.”

Easter would be a fine time for a price cut, if the speculation is real. This upcoming holiday would have made the most sense, to consumers, but Sony apparently has no plans to reduce the price around the time their sales will be increasing anyway. As the PlayStation 3 is doing okay in PAL territories Sony is relying on them, it would seem, to kick up the numbers and show Microsoft they’re not the only second-place game in town.

The Wii continues to dominate and we’re sure a PS3 price drop won’t impact Nintendo’s sales strategy or gamers decisions on one console versus the other as a price drop wouldn’t bring it to a competitive Wii price.

What is your magic number? What price would you buy a PS3 at if you don’t own one already. For us? Drop it a bit and throw in a free LittleBigPlanet.