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Episode 243: Bashing MicrosoftEpisode 243: Bashing Microsoft

December 14, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:28 pm

The latest episode, which is on the short side after having a really long one two weeks ago, sees Paul returning from the flu with somewhat of a shady attitude this week. Meanwhile, the Gaming Flashback is the 1976 coin-op arcade game Blockade.

The news for this week includes:

Gabe Newell teases something for E3 2012 with a “3” in it
Richard Garriott working on Ultima successor
Microsoft includes “do not class action sue us” clause for Xbox Live
Bizarre circumstances surround GSC Game World

All that plus Reader Feedback and the Question of the Week, “What was your favorite handheld game?”

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 230: Zombie Nazi MonkeysEpisode 230: Zombie Nazi Monkeys

September 7, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 8:23 pm

This week, Jonah Falcon rants about the bosses in Deus Ex: Human Revolution while Jordan Lund expresses a desire for cold, rainy weather. This week’s Gaming Flashback is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, with the following news items:

Lord British wants to make another Ultima, EA not so much
Crytek rebukes “unlawful layoff” claims
Gabe Newell wants Steam on Xbox Live Marketplace
DICE addresses console “limitations” in Battlefield 3
Black Ops map packs hit 18 million sold
Sony targets teens with new PSP
Angry Birds PS Mini problems

The guys also read more reader mail, and pose this week’s Question of the Week: What was the worst game mechanic you ever dealt with in a game you liked?

Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?Evolution of RPG’s – Gamers Don’t Want an End?

January 31, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 3:51 pm

I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.

link Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?

You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.

Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.

Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.

Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.

Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?

Final Fantasy XIII Not Simultanious EverywhereFinal Fantasy XIII Not Simultanious Everywhere

July 16, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:00 am

It seems the promise of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 is a big “work in progress” as it’s not actually under development yet. Square Enix is fully ready to commit on a simultaneous release for Europe and North America but not every territory around the globe.

The reason is simple: there are just too many countries to perform language translations in the time of a release window. Final Fantasy, as many know, is very text heavy in terms of dialog and storyline. We’ve spoke at length about that in the gaming podcast which helps explain why certain countries get some releases of Final Fantasy at different times and why some sequels never make it out of Japan.

“We’re ready to start developing FFXIII for 360,” said Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto. “First, we will complete the game for PS3 in Japan, then begin localization for America and Europe while developing the 360 version simultaneously. The PS3 and 360 versions will be released at the same time outside of Japan — although, due to language and other conditions, the game may not be released simultaneously across territories.” (1up)

Their plan of attack seems solid and gives the PlayStation 3 a bit of an advantage in the Japanese market, but considering the lack of 360 presence in the land of the rising sun, this isn’t too surprising. What is surprising, still, is the concept of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 at all!

When it comes to E3 announcements, letting the crowd know Final Fantasy XIII was arriving on Microsoft’s console was a positive shock to the system. It may not be simply because yet another Final Fantasy game is in the works but to prepare gamers for the idea that they don’t have to run out and invest in a PlayStation 3 just to play the next big RPG.

The value to the Xbox 360 is growing and the need to collect all the consoles is fading. End of an era?

Gaming FlashBack: Baldur’s GateGaming FlashBack: Baldur’s Gate

July 2, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 3:23 pm

Baldur’s Gate isn’t too old, it was released in November of 1998, but that’s still a bit dated now. The gaming industry isn’t friendly to the years, often working in what seems to be accelerated “dog years” in terms of technological advancements. It figured this was worth covering because it’s one of the best selling and considered a top tier single-player RPG by most accounts.

It was also developed by BioWare, who, at the time, only had one other game under their belt from two years before called Shattered Steel.

The story begins just after a devastating event in the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign called the “Time of Troubles.” This was a great twist in the standard D&D campaign, it caused all curative magic (clerics) to lose their ability to heal unless near their deity, magic didn’t function correctly (I believe this is where the Wild Mage came from) and was unpredictable and gods walked the earth as mortals which caused magic to, in effect, die while the gods were away. Since the storyline starts slightly after this event, the game contains healing and magic but the storyline is impacted by prior events of course, people have trust issues.

The game was made great because it held “mostly true” to the 2nd Edition D&D roots so the learning curve for D&D player’s wasn’t so rough; some things were adjusted to handle the real-time effect of a video game RPG. You could party with up to six Non-Player-Characters (NPC’s) whom would swap in and out of your active party over time as part of the storyline (something also implemented by the US release of Final Fantasy 2).

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Diablo III: Confirmed and IsometricDiablo III: Confirmed and Isometric

June 28, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 10:14 am

We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.

Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.

We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.

The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.

Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.

Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!

(Thanks, Nukoda)

Classic Cinematics: DiabloClassic Cinematics: Diablo

June 21, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 11:37 pm

Diablo is a classic title with endings for each class you can play, but all give you the same result: hell and torment. You battle your way through a very difficult game, defeating legions of evils minions, piling their corpses upon the floor as you dig deeper into hell.

Eventually, you battle the essence of hell itself: Diablo. However, the ending does not give you warm fuzzies. The ending shows the results of a man with a burden and ends with the transfer of such burden.

Pure evil. Pure fun. Exciting and well crafted ending. For more talk on cinematic endings, listen to the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 75.

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Summoner GeeksSummoner Geeks

June 20, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:59 pm

One of the best “viral videos” of it’s time, Summoner Geeks shows people what D&D players are really like in the wild. The video plays upon many of the crazy scenarios in a typical Dungeons and Dragons session including the guy with no clue, the guy who changes his character sheet when it feels like it, that dude that argues about what their character did early when a problem arises now.

For those non D&D people, this is what it’s like being a true dork. Live it, love it. For our full rant on Summoner Geeks and viral videos checkout the TD Gaming Podcast Episode 74.

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