DLC -

Episode 304: Heart of the Swarm GiveawayEpisode 304: Heart of the Swarm Giveaway

April 3, 2013| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 9:46 am

Despite being recorded on April Fool’s Day, the podcast has no pranks, just a long political discussion and has Paul demanding no one say anything about BioShock Infinite. Speaking of that game, the crew announces the winner of the BioShock Infinite contest. This week has a Gaming History about the development of XCOM: UFO Defense.

This week’s news includes:

Cruel April Fool’s Joke posts fake Half-Life 2: Episode Three Steam page (see image below)
Path of Exile to feature yearly major expansions
Gamers want Assassin’s Creed every year, states UbiSoft Montreal
Former Diablo III director states the auction houses were a mistake
EA prez Gibeau: “DRM is a failed dead-end strategy”

There is a ton of feedback, plus a new contest to win a copy of Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm. The rule is the same as BioShock Infinite: listen to the podcast and comment on what is discussed.

Gaming Podcast 117: Grinding My Neighbors Pug?Gaming Podcast 117: Grinding My Neighbors Pug?

April 7, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 4:23 pm

This week we’re taking a stroll down memory lane of Deus Ex, hitting up some information about Warren Spector and crashing through some good game news including:

New Guitar Hero Game a “best of” compilation.
Latest DLC for Fallout 3, not working so well.
New Linux based gaming console.
PS3 Outsells Nintendo Wii in Japan.
Sony Gets Snippy about DSi.
Rumor: Mortal Kombat Devs Leaving Midway.

Of course, we forgot our Question of the Week, so let’s ask it now: How many bad/buggy patches and content updates would you accept before you give up on the developer? Ton’s of great comments this week, hopefully you’ll remember to answer the question we forgot to ask in the show.

Also, check out the show if you’ve got a PS2 and want two volumes of Popcap’s casual games, as we’re looking to give them away.

Guitar Hero World Tour Day One DLCGuitar Hero World Tour Day One DLC

October 9, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 3:31 pm

How can Guitar Hero compete with Rock Band given Rock Band’s got early drumming and vocal adopters? By promising awesome content and enforcing that fact that they too, have downloadable content (DLC). Not only do they have DLC, but they’ll have DLC on launch day.

Of course, they could have tossed some fluffy songs out there for the first day or “promised” 20 downloadable songs which we’ve yet to get confirmation e-mails on using a big registration code. But, they’re starting out strong with a serious showing. We’re talking about:

Rock and Roll Band by Boston
Hot Blooded by Foreigner
Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield

With respect to these initial songs, it’s obvious their targeting the 30 somethings looking for some nostalgic feeling (more than a feeling?!) These are considered the Classic Rock Track Pack and you can buy them individually as well.

That same week we’ll get a few more track packs and songs including “No Rain” by Blind Melon which is an epic song for all instruments. We see this being well received and will spur some initial pre-sales now that we’ve got confidence we’re getting a rocking set list and additional content in the form of DLC that’s worth buying.

Read on for their full press release!

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Rock Band 2 DLC For WiiRock Band 2 DLC For Wii

October 3, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:03 am

Although it’s cute to say, the truth of the matter is this: Rock Band 2 for the Wii has DLC. We’re talking full online downloadable content matching the behavior of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Why is this significant?

The Wii has been the bastard child of rhythm music playing since its inception. If you’ve got the Wii and one of the other consoles (sans PS2) you’re probably more likely to purchase for the 360 or PS3 because you can extend the game with great downloadable songs. Breathing new life into your console one dollar at a time can be a life saver if you don’t typically buy a lot of games; let’s face it, Wii gamers don’t buy a lot of games.

This news also brings on the announcement of real online play like the other consoles. The Wii will have online play matching that of the 360 and PS3; without the ability to talk to your fellow band mates we’re guessing. Is it fun to play in a band with a bunch of mutes? Better than nothing I guess.

This begs the question, how will it store all the DLC? As a Rock Band addict I must admit to having several hundred megabytes of downloadabe songs. Will this be all resident on the SD card? We also wonder, will this allow us to play Rock Band DLC on our DSi sometime in the future?

(Thanks, Kotaku)

Rock Band 2: Free DLCRock Band 2: Free DLC

October 1, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:57 pm

If you purchased Rock Band 2 you’ll find you can download 20 free songs if you register at rockband.com. Unfortunately, for now, you can only register to get an e-mail when the offer goes “live.” This is one step more than we could do last week if we purchased Rock Band 2 and went to their website to register.

How do you know if you can register? It’s on the back of the instruction book… what, you didn’t know to look there? Well, it’s okay because you still can’t get your 20 free downloads. In the future, if you register, you’ll get an e-mail (someday) with the codes you’ll need to be able to get 20 free song downloads.

We’re still not finished the song tracks that exist in the game, plus our old DLC and we still haven’t exported (or purchased the “patch) the Rock Band 1 song tracks. So, for a few of us, knowing we’ll get 20 downloadable songs in the future is great news.

For those that didn’t know about this – check the back of the booklet and then go and register your e-mail address!

(Thanks, GameStooge)

Rock Band 2: Backwards Compatible DLC TooRock Band 2: Backwards Compatible DLC Too

June 30, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 8:09 pm

Harmonix, MTV Games and Electronic Arts has announced their next block buster killer app: Rock Band 2. First, the most important feature is backwards compatible downloadable content. They’ve surpassed 15-million paid downloads, we want our content and we want to keep all the awesome songs for future games, else we might as well stop purchasing now, right?

The question remains, will we want to upgrade our instruments? They’re saying we’ll have “more variety of instrument choices than ever before with new and improved drum and guitar peripherals, enhanced functionality and innovative new designs – all fully compatible with the original Rock Band instruments.” Will the enhanced instruments really want to make us go out and buy them?

If these new instruments are highly desirable or add any new features to the game (or make newer features ‘easier’) then we may be persuaded to look into new hardware…yet with Guitar Hero World Tour we’re already pressured into considering another drum unit.

So confusing, but yet so much desired. I guess that’s the love hate relationship of a gamer with a passion and a, slight, addiction!

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End of 100 Million Dollar Games?End of 100 Million Dollar Games?

June 25, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 10:11 pm

Gigaom had a great writeup about how Grand Theft Auto IV marks the end of “next generation” as we know it, stating, in more words or less, the game is a failure. GTA: San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies during its time on the shelf while GTA IV has sold roughly 9 million copies as of June 7th.

Granted, the game is still on the shelves and will still get sales, but the mass of “hardcore gamers” have had their fill and either purchased it or will not. The end result? A huge tapering of sales numbers for the graphically impressive game. Take-Two spent USD $100 million to develop the game which had great opening sales records but has gone down drastically since.

Imagine the title gains them USD $30.00 per sale in profit (considering distributors get the game for roughly USD $45 to $48.00 USD), taking into account shipping of the product, marketing and all the materials that go into producing a copy, they’d have to sell a large quanity of game titles to break even, which I think they have done.

Nobody is in this industry to break even. A block buster title should make block buster profits, right? Else, why bother to spend the 100-million when a Wii title can double or triple the profits with six months of development?

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