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Episode 244: Goodbye 2011Episode 244: Goodbye 2011

December 21, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 9:15 pm

It’s the final podcast of 2011, as Jonah, Jordan and Paul will not be podcasting next week. However, there’s plenty of news, reader feedback and a Gaming Flashback of the terrible PlayStation One game, Irritating Stick.

The news for this week includes:

EA selling virtual car for $100 in NFS World
Modern Warfare 3 beats Avatar
Naughty Dog: Move to next-gen is “terrifying“
Star Wars: The Old Republic sales could already be 1.5M
Man sues Sony for ToS update forbidding suing
Nintendo only showing E3 Wii U demos at CES 2012

The question of the week is “What game are you most interested in for 2012?” Let us know what you think, and see you in 2012.

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Episode 242: All Nude PodcastEpisode 242: All Nude Podcast

December 7, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 12:00 pm

Since Paul is not in this week’s episode, Jonah and Jordan do the podcast completely nude, to help boost ratings. While being naked, rather than a Gaming Flashback, this week is a Gaming Preview, and Jonah and Jordan discuss the recently announced South Park: The Game, developed by Obsidian.

The other news covered includes:

Electronic Arts responds to expiring Online Pass issues
Bethesda: Divided memory pool causes lag for Skyrim PS3
Sony claims Uncharted series has 13M sales lifetime
Skyrim Creation Kit landing in January
Sony: PlayStation Network now has as high a “world-leading security system” there is

There’s also some Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week is “Have you ever taken a console with you on vacation (not handheld)?”

Episode 241: Air QuotesEpisode 241: Air Quotes

November 30, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 9:48 pm

This week features a long podcast, as there’s a ton of news to report. Jonah tries air quotes on a pure audio podcast, while Paul refuses to believe The Legend of Zelda: Skyword Sword failed to hit the top 10 in software sales.

In addition, the Gaming Flashback checks out the JRPG Ys.

This week’s news includes:

Ubisoft polling gamers for next Assassin’s Creed setting
Electronic Arts bans a user for saying “badass”
Newell: Piracy is “almost always a service problem” and not price, DRM agitates
Christwire makes mock petition asking Pres. Obama ban Skyrim
Holiday shopping madness sees woman pepper spraying for 360
Microsoft refunds victims of Marketplace phishing scam

All this, and a bunch of reader feedback, as well as the Question of the Week: “Did you buy videogames as holiday gifts for friends and family?” Let us know.

Episode 240: ThanksgamingEpisode 240: Thanksgaming

November 23, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 10:47 pm

It’s the episode just before Thanksgiving, and both Jordan and Paul have new jobs, as the latter settles into his new Los Angeles home. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the Atari 2600 game Kaboom!

The guys also discuss the following news items:

EA targeted for class action suit over Battlefield 3 PS3 bait and switch
Modern Warfare 3 makes $775M in 5 days
Square-Enix officially opens Montreal studio
Blockbuster has “ramped up the rental” of games, getting an “awful lot of support”
Rockstar eager to return to Bully IP

The question of the week: “How do you buy games most often these days: retail, online retailer, or digital distributor?”

Episode 239: This Episode is DRM-freeEpisode 239: This Episode is DRM-free

November 16, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 3:32 pm

This week, Paul is too busy unpacking in his new home in California, so it’s just Jonah and Jordan, as the news mainly deals with DRM. The Gaming Flashback this week is the Activision racer The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, while this week’s Gaming History doesn’t focus on a video game company or developer, but a fictional character instead, Mario’s favorite mount, Yoshi.

The news this week includes:

EA forum bans cause game bans
Research film states piracy’s up 20% in past 5 years
GOG sez customers hate DRM
Steam user database cracked
Uncharted 3 launches with 1.1M sold in first week

All that plus Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week, “What DRM would you tolerate?”

Episode 238: No Free PornEpisode 238: No Free Porn

November 9, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:06 pm

This week’s episode is also abbreviated, as Jordan is somewhere in Pennsylvania looking for a gingerbread house while Paul is still trying to pack his entire NES library into a single suitcase. Jonah and Paul still got in enough time to do a Gaming Flashback on Thief: The Dark Project, and the following news items:

Steam forums hacked
Xbox 360 failure rate down to 10%
Sony revamps< PSN sharing policy
BioWare and EA send cease-and-desist order to NeoGAF over Mass Effect 3 spoilers

All this and Reader Feedback, too, as well as a new Question of the Week, “If you have the opportunity to read or view a highly anticipated game’s story months before it was released, would you do it or would you deliberately turn it away to preserve yourself from spoilers?” Let us know!

Episode 237: Half a ShowEpisode 237: Half a Show

November 3, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 12:59 pm

This week’s episode is abbreviated due to Paul’s move to California, and various Halloween delays. That’s not to say there’s no great stuff in the show, as there are some big debates about privacy and bugs.

The news this week includes:

Electronic Arts insists that Origin is not spyware
Rumor: Grand Theft Auto V to be download only?
Dev: Sword of the Stars II is a “turnip“

All that, and Paul feels older thanks to the Reader Feedback.

Question of the Week this time is non-videogame related: What’s your favorite vacation spot?

Episode 231: Plus One PaulEpisode 231: Plus One Paul

September 14, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 7:24 pm

Paul has some angry comments, Jonah has some angry comments, while Jordan just chuckles and makes a Freudian mistake. In between complaints, the Gaming Flashback looks at the Amiga classic Syndicate, and the following news items:

The Lund Report: August 2011 NPD
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 PC controversy rages
THQ: Next-gen consoles will be discless
Quantic Dreams claims they lost 10M euro on used games
3DS sales jump 260% following price drop
Syndicate reboot finally confirmed and unveiled by EA

Finally, the Question of the Week: What was the most disappointing remake or reboot of a game you’ve played? All that and Reader Feedback, too.

Episode 222: Gorilla LoveEpisode 222: Gorilla Love

July 13, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 7:44 pm

This week is a big episode, as it is chock full of surprising news this week, as well as some long, long reader mail. If that weren’t enough, we take a look back at the IntelliVision game Maze-a-Tron, deal with too much love for Paul, and the mystery that is the popularity of gorillas.

This week’s news includes:

Electronic Arts buys Popcap Games
Microsoft: Only Master Chief in Halo from now on
PlayStation Vita dev costs closer to PSP
Netflix takes aim at usage based billing
Expert glitcher hired to clean up Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer
Skyrim ‘less confusing’, not ‘more accessible‘

There’s no Gaming History this week, but the Question of the Week is: “What old game do you most want to see remade?” There’s no contest behind it, but you can always take heart in the fact that your question was probably the most awesome.

Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?Rumor: EA Buying Popcap?

June 23, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:08 am

Tech Cruch is reporting that Electronic Arts is about to acquire casual games giant Popcap Games for a cool $1 billion, which would exceed EA’s market cap by over 13%. If true, this would be EA’s definitive entry into the casual games market, a field they broke into 7 years ago.

Despite consuming a significant chunk of EA’s reserves. buying Popcap would bring them IPs such as Bejeweled, Plants Vs. Zombies, Peggle, Zuma and Bookworm.

We’ll keep an eye on this deal as it happens.