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Episode 417: One In, One OutEpisode 417: One In, One Out

March 16, 2016| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:03 pm

This week is a celebration of the 250th episode of the Videogame Roundtable, and Dan Quick is back for the special edition, joining fellow PolyCaster Scott Dirk. However, TJ Denzer was at the bowling alley, so he wasn’t available. There’s a lot of Cards Against Humanity and Town of Salem talk, as well as a lot of long-missed byplay between Dan and Jonah Falcon. Unfortunately, Paul Nowak couldn’t make it.

The news this week includes:

Bethesda working on a “bleeding-edge” RPG
Diablo II gets first official patch since 2011
Forza Motorsport 6: Apex won’t crossplay with Xbox One version
Nintendo explains why only the New 3DS plays SNES games
U.S. DoJ increases hostility towards Apple in latest court filing

Let us know what you think.

Episode 390: Counting DownEpisode 390: Counting Down

July 3, 2015| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 5:00 pm

As Paul’s departure as a regular host is in 10 episodes, Jonah rants about the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight and talks about the painlessness of Fallout Shelter‘s micro-transactions. The other part of the podcast is them talking Heroes of Might & Magic II, and discussing what makes a good expansion.

The news items include:

Lack of female character choice in The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes explained
Australian government bans hundreds of mobile and Web-based games
Nintendo has no problems changing franchises, despite fan outcry
Apple pulls games with Confederate flag imagery

All this plus Listener Feedback and Paul’s indignation.

Episode 351: Explicit LyricsEpisode 351: Explicit Lyrics

May 23, 2014| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:26 pm

This week’s episode is shockingly adult, so the warning about explicit lyrics is up. Aside from the dirtiness, the episode features the following news:

Apple refuses to allow an educational app on female stimulation
Zenimax announces lawsuit against Oculus
Sony may be working on newer PS4, PS3 models
PS4 game pre-loading will begin with Destiny
External storage coming in Xbox One system update in June
Blizzard is suing Starcraft 2 hackers for profiting off mods

This plus Listener Feedback and the Question of the Week, “What is your favorite party game?”

Episode 332: Blue Light UnspecialEpisode 332: Blue Light Unspecial

November 20, 2013| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 9:59 pm

Gaming Podcast is back after a week off, as Jordan talks about playing games on his brand-new PlayStation 4, while Jonah is anxious and worried about the Xbox One launch this week.

There’s also a ton of news this week, including:

Unlucky PlayStation 4 owners face ‘blue light of death’
Report: Apple in “talks” to purchase co-creators of original Kinect tech
Ubisoft explains why launch games underwhelm
Xbox One launch official broadcast available through Spike, GameTrailers
Survey: only 1 percent of gamers want a Wii U this Holiday season
Ken Levine defends BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 1‘s length
World of Warcraft not going free-to-play, stop asking
More Fallout 4 evidence pops up with trademark registration

And the Question of the Week: “What was the best budget game you ever bought?”

6,200 Reasons To Buy iPhone/Touch Games6,200 Reasons To Buy iPhone/Touch Games

March 8, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 10:30 am

The iTunes App Store is jam packed with video games! There are 6,200 games in the App Store to take advantage of, with 23% of those games for our puzzle gaming friends with arcade following a distance second place with 13% App Store market share. In that bulk of games, 1,485 are free download games but we’re not sure how many are “lite” versions of pay-for-games in the store, with limited game play. If you too are looking for ways to optimize your phone, see here the plans available at Circles.Life mobile.

chart-app-store

Apple could cut down on that clutter if they let developers publish one game with a demo/shareware release and a full release, perhaps than we would be able to wade through a realistic amount of game titles. Of course, Apple isn’t exactly the most friendly of companies when it comes down to allowing us to share our thoughts and opinions of their closed box products.

Unfortunately for the new game developers, they’ve got a few games to compete against in the App Store space. While great games should rise to the top like cream in your coffee, it’s obvious that 6,200 items can clutter up an otherwise friendly space. iTunes tends to have a very unintuitive interface and isn’t really built for great online game shopping experiences, we’re sure they can exploit many of the great games in this archive of titles if they had a bit of a re-design.

You’ll find plenty of educational games in the 6,200 titles, matching if not exceeding that of the strategy genre.
(Thanks, kotaku)

Apple, The Great Casual Platform?Apple, The Great Casual Platform?

October 31, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:22 am

Apple’s iPhone and iPod platforms have been great stages for launching some hot casual game titles. Besides the slick sexy look the platforms play games well, have great user interface features and, as developers are concerned, offer great support and turn around speeds.

While Nintendo and Sony own a lot of the market in terms of hand-held devices, Apple is growing in the space and offer developers an easier time getting their titles to market. Ironic considering Apple has never been a huge gaming platform for their primary computer architectures.

Although Apple is the upcoming shining star in this area, it’s important to remember they’re the underdog. It’s often in the best interest of the “little guy” to kiss up to developers and make their migration to the platform as easy as possible. Once Apple becomes the top dog in the industry, will they forget the “little guys” that made their platform so great and become just another big company in the mobile game space?

Hopefully Apple won’t forget about those developers that are making their platform great by turning their back on them once they’ve become a market leader. We don’t need another Montreal Screwjob.

Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?

September 17, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:36 am

Does the console market need any more competitors? We’ve seen record sales in the game industry for titles like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV along with huge expectations for Resistance 2 and some new Sony PlayStation 3 projects. Yet, the tiny little Wii product holds best sales records around the world as the heavy hitter, Microsoft and Sony, compete for the most awesome spectacle show of graphics.

Competition is a great way to drive down costs, drive up expectations and give consumers new innovative products with better quality. Imagine if Apple got into console development and produced a new highly sexy product with the hype and consumer desire of the iPhone or iPod.

“Apple has the infrastructure in place through iTunes to create a real value proposition for those that want to extend the capability of their console beyond gaming and has the cash — about $20 billion — to not only invest in the best components on the market, but in an online gaming experience that could rival Xbox Live.” (kotaku)

Apple’s showing a huge surge in recognition and sales thanks to the iPod and growing desire for Apple hardware competing against Microsoft’s Vista operating system. As more consumers turn to Apple for their music and mobile gaming needs, Apple must see windows of exploiting the gaming market further.

More importantly, nobody can pull off digital rights management (DRM) and locking consumers into a product line like Apple all while they beg for more. Consoles are little boxes of DRM waiting for happy consumers to buy into the concept all while avoiding the hacking and bittorrenting like you’ve been seeing on Spore in the last few weeks. Had Spore been released on a console this DRM fiasco would have been avoided because gamers don’t even realize (or care) that a console locks them into playing and, more importantly, buying the game for the hardware.

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