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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 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 232: Remember Pong?Episode 232: Remember Pong?

September 21, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 7:44 pm

This week, there’s no Gaming Flashback or Gaming History, but there is a ton of news and Reader Feedback as Paul is finally present to react to some hate mail.

The news includes some huge items, like:

No PSN unless you waive lawsuit
Netflix adds game rentals to Qwikster
DC Universe Online goes free-to-play
Xbox Live officially a part of Windows 8
Microsoft: Xbox TV this Fall
Rogers Cable ordered to stop throttling gamers
Nintendo and Valve say no to smartphone games

The Question of the Week: What was the very first home videogame you ever played?

Bethesda’s Hines: Don’t Shoehorn MultiplayerBethesda’s Hines: Don’t Shoehorn Multiplayer

July 23, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 12:00 pm

Bethesda Softworks vice president of marketing Pete Hines is critzing publishers and developers who shoehorn multiplayer into their games that doing such a thing is “a waste of time” and advises, “Just drop it, don’t bother…it’ll make for a worse game.”

In an interview with Next Gen BIZ, Hines states that using online multiplayer as a tool to prevent used game trade-ins and rental simply doesn’t work, and robs developers of valuable man-hours.

Hines stated:

“(People ask us) for a game like Skyrim or Prey 2, why doesn’t it have multiplayer? Well, our question is always the opposite when we talk to a developer. If you’re doing multiplayer, why are you doing multiplayer? What are you trying to accomplish?

“If you’re doing it just to check a box or because every other publisher says you’ve got to have multiplayer, then just drop it, don’t bother, it’s a waste of time, a giant distraction and it’ll make for a worse overall game.

“We want the best game possible. If that’s a singleplayer game that’s 15 to 20 hours, then make that! Don’t waste your time on features that don’t make the game better.”

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Prey 2 are two Bethesda properties that will lack multiplayer, but one of the tools to encourage games to keep both games will be downlodable content and, even more important, good communications with the game communities and nurturing the fandom for both games.

Episode 221: FireworksEpisode 221: Fireworks

July 6, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 10:08 pm

It’s the Smurfiest post-Fourth of July podcast ever, as Jonah Falcon and Jordan Lund look back at the ColecoVision classic Smurfs: Rescue from Gargamel’s Castle, probably the easiest videogame ever Smurfed.

If that weren’t Smurfy enough, Jonah and Jordan, working without Paul S. Nowak this week, also check out this week’s Smurfy news:

Xbox 720 with Halo 4 launch in 2012?
PS4 also in 2012, with embedded Kinect-like motion control?
Crytek says Kinect development is “really, really easy.”
Sony working on new PSN redesign?
Questions over alleged early close of Sony’s Welcome Back offer.

This week has a ton of Smurfy reader feedback, as well as reaction to Sony’s crackdown of Star Wars Galaxies shutdown petitioners. If that weren’t Smurfy enough, the Question of the Week is pretty Smurfy as well, as readers are asked, “What game that you can’t find anywhere anymore do you wish you could play again?”

As usual, hit us up on iTunes and leave some comments!

E3 2011 Preview SummariesE3 2011 Preview Summaries

June 19, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 4:45 pm

You might notice that I’ve been pretty silent on E3 2011 previews, despite hustling around the entire time. That is because I’ve been writing almost all of them for Strategy Informer.

So, those of you who are regulars at Gaming Podcast – and judging by hits, there are tons of you – here are excerpts of the previews I’ve written for Strategy Informer for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles, plus a link to the full article.

UbiSoft’s Pre-E3 Briefing:

At the briefing, they showed off the following games: Rayman Origins, Driver: San Francisco, Far Cry 3, Brothers In Arms: The Furious Four, The Adventures of Tintin, Ghost Recon: Future Warrior, Trackmania 2, Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking, Just Dance 3, Rocksmith, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. (Read more…)

Dead Island (PC, PS3, 360):

Getting back to the mood of the game, missions are similarly realistic and grim. Nothing in the game seems artificially tacked on; the flow and the suspension of disbelief are extremely well done. During a mission, sometimes you’ll rescue another survivor and they will have a mission for you to do right there in the middle of your current quest. You can opt to help them, ignore them, or even screw them by driving them off in their vehicle. This is survival, and sometimes, jjust sometimes, you may give in to temptations to make choices that will make you normally wince. It’s a zombie dog eats zombie dog world and in the middle of an apocalypse, sometimes you have to fortify your own safety at the expense of another. (Read more…)

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Gaming Podcast Episode 218: Introducing PaulGaming Podcast Episode 218: Introducing Paul

June 15, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 1:19 pm

The listeners of Gaming Podcast finally get introduced to the third member of the Videogame Roundtable podcast team, Paul S. Nowak, who only desires hate mail and more time playing Dungeon Overlord on Facebook. This week, the Gaming Flashback looks back at the Gamecube title mentioned by Jordan Lund last week, Eternal Darkness, and the guys respond to the reader mail from episode 217, and if you’re interested in other types of games such as escape rooms you can visit the Room escape games in Portland Oregon just for this.

The trio also discuss the following news items:

Microsoft: Halo won’t be a yearly franchise
Analyst: Kinect appealed to “more hardcore” than expected
2M users sign up for COD: Elite beta
Wizardry Online announced, will feature permadeath

This week’s Question of the Week: How much do you think the Wii U will cost? All this and more in this delightful podcast that will have you begging for more.

2M Users Sign Up for COD: Elite Beta2M Users Sign Up for COD: Elite Beta

June 14, 2011| Jonah Falcon| 0 Comment| 1:12 am

Activision’s Dan Amrich posted in his One of Swords blog that two million users have signed up Call of Duty: Elite‘s beta, who said the number “blew his mind” when “they hit that number in less than two weeks. That should give the dev team at Beachhead plenty to work with to kick off the beta, which officially starts July 14.”

“The official start of the beta is a month away, so there’s still plenty of time for you to sign up. When the studio head at Beachhead said this would be a live beta, he was not kidding — your participation really can make a difference in how Elite evolves,” added Amrich, “And don’t be discouraged by the big number, thinking you shouldn’t bother because they already have enough people — two million volunteers among 30 million Call of Duty players is a small amount. More would be even better. Once you’ve signed up, just watch your email inbox for an invite.”

The 2M beta applications aren’t necessarily an endorsement for Elite. Rather, users are probably curious to see the beta and if it pleases them. The paid subscription portion reportedly only represents 10% of Elite, anyway, and is aimed at more “professional” and “hardcore” gamers, aka clans.

Users can apply for the beta here.

Gaming Podcast 141: iPhone vs. Consoles?Gaming Podcast 141: iPhone vs. Consoles?

September 29, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:41 pm

This week, we’re looking at Unreal Tournament and looking back at Digital Extremes. We’re hitting up a few of this weeks top news articles including:

Apple cutting into console sales?
Tokyo Game Show Attendance down
Xbox 360 hardware not maxed out
Project Natal will configure virtual play area

Oddly enough, there wasn’t too much exciting news to talk about even given TGS. Slow week, but we had some great community comments and a new question of the week: what game do you recall playing that you felt maxed out the platform it released on?

Gaming Podcast 131: An Inner Ear ProblemGaming Podcast 131: An Inner Ear Problem

July 21, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:08 pm

We’re back! This week we’re hitting some fun news articles and kicking it back with a little gaming flashback about Columns. We also break the news about our brand new console that we purchased last week before vacation and touch on KOEI in our gaming history. This weeks news includes:

Portable Xbox Device Coming?
Summer Xbox Live Update features
Microsoft Limiting Indie Games on Xbox Live
The Best selling Wii games of 2009 are not from 2009
Dante’s Inferno not coming to the PC

This weeks question, we’re wondering what your break point is for purchasing a console or a video game, is there a magic number where you finally break down to buy it?