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Episode 646: Late April Fool’sEpisode 646: Late April Fool’s

April 11, 2022| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 6:58 am

[This episode has been re-uploaded due to technical issues]

This week’s episode deals with the fact it was published on April Fool’s Fool’s Day, and discussion of the games that have been floating the hosts’ boats. This week’s Gaming Flashback is the magnum opus of Telltale Games: The Walking Dead. The guys also discuss the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4 and whether anyone cares about it.

The news includes:

Digital games on PS3 and Vita are reportedly “expiring” and becoming unplayable
Ubisoft ends its NFT experiment in Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Konami details eFootball 2022 v1.0 update due next week
Blue Box: Abandoned has not been canceled

Let us know what you think.

Episode 617: Steam DeckedEpisode 617: Steam Decked

July 23, 2021| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 12:21 pm

The Steam Deck has been released, and TJ and Scott are just excited about it. They’re able to play indie games on a Switch-like device even though many of the same games on the Switch. Jonah already has Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and therefore already plays games with a controller on his cellphone.

This week’s news includes:

Some Steam Deck preorders won’t ship until September 2022
PES is dead, replaced by the F2P ‘football platform’ eFootball
Humankind dev pulls controversial Denuvo DRM from game before launch
Xbox Game Pass is about to have an unbelievably good month

Let us know what you think on our Facebook page.

Episode 407: Third Time’s the CharmEpisode 407: Third Time’s the Charm

December 23, 2015| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 7:46 pm

If you’re wondering where the podcast has been, it’s been in technical hell. Twice the podcast was recorded each week, and both times there were serious technical issues. This time, we’ve got it right, and even have Paul dropping by to discuss his new book, “Gaymers: the Difference a ‘Y’ Makes: How (and Why) to Make Video Games LGBT Players Care About“. Actually, it’s mostly dominated by a discussion of an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

Otherwise, the news items include:

Kojima end of Konami employment
French consumer advocate suing Valve over violating consumer rights
Ken Levine states gamers prefer open world to linear narrative

The Question of the Week: “Who is your favorite superhero?”

Episode 403: Jam and the HooligansEpisode 403: Jam and the Hooligans

October 26, 2015| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 6:38 pm

The episode is a day late, sorry about that, folks. In this episode, we wish Paul was with us to discuss what he thought of the release of Jem and the Holograms in theaters. The banter is strong, but not overstuffed like last week.

Lots of news this week, however:

Konami insists Hideo Kojima still works at company
343 Industries not ruling out PC port of Halo 5
Rebellion rescues Kickstarter backers from GRIN’s bankruptcy
Classic car combat RPG Autoduel may be making a comeback with inXile
Pete Hines: Entire game not on Fallout 4 PC disc
Vivendi seeking more shares of Ubisoft, board seats

The Question on the Week: Do you prefer first person or isometric RPGs?

Episode 384: Homestar RuinerEpisode 384: Homestar Ruiner

April 28, 2015| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 9:30 pm

This week’s episode has bad audio, but at least it’s short, due to Jonah’s lingering laryngitis. Paul insists Homestar Runner hasn’t been good in 15 years, while Jonah talks about the NES classic bomb Athena.

This week’s news includes:

Nintendo Virtual Store to start selling N64 and DS games
Tim Schafer recommends Broken Age players start over from the beginning
Silent Hills is officially dead

All this and Listener Feedback.

Episode 381: Nudity Next TimeEpisode 381: Nudity Next Time

March 22, 2015| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 10:22 pm

This week’s episode is full of pop culture references, again, as Inspector Gadget, Matthew Broderick, My Little Pony and The Garry Shandling Show all get some airtime. In addition, Paul discusses his frustration with The Sims Freeplay, and Jonah threatens that in the next episode, he’ll be naked and Paul will wear a silly hat.

The news includes:

Free Windows 10 for pirates
Kojima breaks silence over departure rumours
Atari to indie dev: Stop ripping off your own work on Tempest 2000
Xbox For Sale – the rumours just won’t quit
Nintendo’s next-generation console is codenamed ‘NX’

All that and a Listener Feedback.

Gaming Podcast 146: There is No CakeGaming Podcast 146: There is No Cake

November 3, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:52 pm

We’re looking back at Bubble Bobble and the history of Valve Corporation. In gaming podcast news, we’re kicking in a few hot stories with some great opinionated comments. Unfortunately, we had no community comments this week. This weeks news includes:

Nintendo‘s Profits are dropping
3G Coming to Next Nintendo Handheld?
Assassin’s Creed II Preorders better than original Assassin’s Creed
Final Fantasy XIII Experience System Explained
Konami Plans to Report Big Losses, Financially
PSPGo’s Day-1 Sales Mediocre

This week’s question of the week: How do you consume your television or movie media? Netflix, streaming, tiro, buy, theatre, hulu, etc.

New Castlevania Title For 360 and PS3: 2D or 3D?New Castlevania Title For 360 and PS3: 2D or 3D?

October 10, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:57 am

The Castlevania series was born in Japan on September 26th back in 1986. That knowledge in hand, you can imagine the demographic of 30+ year old gamers who would kill to get an old school franchise title on a new graphic intensive console.

We’ve had many new Castlevania releases since 1986 including releases on the Nintendo DS in 2006 with more titles arriving with the Castlevania branding. However, we’ve not seen a true “full blown” Castlevania title in some time. As a retro style gamer, I’d love to hear news that this would be a 2D game with “next generation” graphics.

There are far too few really great 2D side scrolling platformers for this generation of consoles. Outside of Nintendo, most side scroller systems become “arcade” titles in XBLA or PSN. Over the last fifteen years we’ve had plenty of 3D games with jumping and crazy camera work. Lately, we’ve had some new titles arriving that are 2D platformers like Little Big Planet and the recently released Mega Man 9.

More than likely, Konami will follow the flow and design yet another old franchise with new 3D graphics. Given the demographic for this franchise it would almost seem like a selling point to jump back to a 2D world view.

What would you like? A 3D or 2D Castlevania title on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3?

Exclusive Artist Deals In Rhythm Games Not Good?Exclusive Artist Deals In Rhythm Games Not Good?

August 16, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 1:19 pm

Rhythm games are the new FPS for a lot of gamers, a broader audience of gamers, and the market is thriving and demanding new titles. Harmonix and Activision are at the front of the battle with Konami following a bit behind but still contending (we think) very soon.

Each company plans to up each other with cooler instruments, tighter controls and new in-game options and multi-player fancies. It’s a business and each competitor tries to gain a lead by whatever means needed to win… or do they?

Harmonix stops short when it comes to purchasing exclusive rights to music artists, for now at least. Harmonix’s Eric Brosious went on blogger record saying, “We prefer not to sign exclusive deals with artists because while it seems like the competitive “business” thing to do, in the long run, it’s really not good for anyone. We think we should be working to get more music out to more people.” (kotaku)

As Marky Mark once said, we need “Music for the people” not for in-game exclusives making us choose between Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles. We’ve seen what EA has done to the football franchise by taking control of the NFL roster, money talks and the best game doesn’t always win.

If Activision decides to buy up a ton of great exclusive content and you’re a rock band gamer, you’ll lose out in a ton of great content. For some gamers, that might mean losing out in some artists you’ve never heard before which also means the artist loses out in new fans. We’ve seen younger gamers fall in love with the sounds of Boston and The Police, bands famous way before the birth of many of the Rock Band fan base.

You can tell Harmonix is a development group with roots in music while Activision is a development group with their roots in business. While exclusive access brings you an advantage, in terms of broadening the culture of music, it does very little. Harmonix may be in the right but will that matter in the end when business deals hit the table?

p.s. sorry about the Marky Mark reference, but it had to be done. Bringing out a bit of my own childhood there…

Konami Owns Musical Rhythm-Matching Game Patents?Konami Owns Musical Rhythm-Matching Game Patents?

July 11, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 8:55 am

Apparently Konami just realized Harmonix, MTV Networks and Viacom have made some game called Rock Band and want to take legal action. Konami has created some Japanese games involving karaoke called Karaoke Revolution. Why take legal action now?

Probably because Konami is working towards Rock Revolution, a title which puts together drums, vocals and guitar. How odd, don’t we have a game called Rock Band which has done that for awhile now? It’s much easier to be competitive in the market if you can squeeze your opponent out of the market by telling them you hold a patent on the entire concept…which you let slide for a year.

It seems a bit convenient to force a lawsuit, now, after Rock Band is proven successful and before you launch your own “clone.”

Its suit claims that Rock Band violates a series of US Patents registered in 2002 and 2003 relating to “simulated musical instruments” and “musical rhythm-matching game.” (gamespot)

Although the developers of Rock Band should have gone through some patents on the topic prior to make it (or maybe they did?), it seems a bit out of place to patent such a generic concept. As far as I know, Musical Chairs is also a musical rhythm-matching game but nobody put up any stink when Konami filed a patent for the same concept…