A Few We Missed

On the last episode of the podcast we talked about our game awards for the year. Personally I wasn't extremely prepared for this show, and although I feel I mentioned most of the games I felt were worthy of discussion, here are a few I may have missed.

Best Game Value: The Orange Box
No contest really. AAA all around the board. Five games and pretty much all are worth the price of admission alone. If I made my top 5 gaming moments of the year, 3 or 4 would probably fall somewhere in this package. An inspired multi-player game, a classic retouched and revisited, a fantastic new entry into the Half Life 2 series, and one of the best games I've played in years. Each part may have been mentioned, but since all this can be had for 60 dollars, it deserves special mention.

Best Downloadable: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Xbox 360)
A game so good Microsoft changed their rules for the Marketplace. This is truly one of the best ever and now it has Achievements. Pretty awesome.

Biggest Dissapointment: Lunar Knights (NDS)
This Kojima Studio's game is the spiritual successor to the cult hit GBA series Boktai. Although there is no light sensor in the game this time around, Lunar Knights is often considered a blend between 2d Zelda and Castlevania. Kojima, Zelda, and Castlevania all appear in some form on my top 10 games of all time yet I really do dislike Lunar Knights. The combat and controls were way clunky and imprecise. To say I was disappointed is kind of an understatement.

Best Game No One Played: Worms: Open Warfare 2 (NDS and PSP)
It's pretty obvious why no one bought this game. Open Warfare 2 was very very bad. Terrible actually. A different developer worked on this version and it's a shame they didn't give the game a new subtitle. Many consider this the best Worms game on a console since the PS1 titles. It's classic Worms gameplay with all the strategy and humor remains intact. The online play is also great. If you are even remotely a fan of the series you must pick up this game. The PSP version looks nice, but the DS version has some really cool touch screen games modes that surprisingly don't suck.

-Brad

Podcast #043 - The 2007 Awards Show

Brad's finally made it to Austin and and to celebrate that we had our 2007 Awards Show. Granger and Nick join in for some pretty meaningful and un-meaningful conversation. We talk about the what we're playing and our awards for the year. Tune in to find out who wins game of the year, We promise it's not a first person shooter or is it?

[Podcast Archive]

Thanks for listening,
We'll see you next year for the 2008 Preview Show.
David

Fenix Wong - *Spoilers* Maybe?

So I've really liked the Fenix Wong series. I loved the first one all though the last DS only add-on case was entirely too long and complicated. I've been playing the second game now on and off all year. I'm on the final case and I just want to put the game down. Even if I end up finishing this one, I don't see myself wanting to pick up the next Fenix game ever. I love the story and the characters. I even picked Fenix and Myah as one of my favorite duos. But the trial and error game play has no room for growth. I can't see where there's any room for improvement in the series. The first few missions in both games were fun but still made you think. I could see that being the case in the third one. But the last mission I could see just being a headache. I understand that the difficulty in games have to ramp up. But how can you effectively make logic more difficult with out making it confusing or frustrating? I wish there was just more than selecting a choice and then being told whether it was wright or wong.

I'll try to give my example without spoiling the story here, if you are worried about spoilers then skip this part. I'm basically in a case where I have to delay the trial until valuable evidence arrives. I don't know what the evidence is but I know it will help me somehow. Unlike reality, me delaying the trial does not have anything to do with actual time, so I don't really feel like I'm delaying anything. It's cool that the developers tried to use this mechanic to freshen up the the game play but it's turns out just being a perfume to mask the fact that you're actually just doing the same thing you've always been doing. It's tricky cause your witness is on a radio testifying (don't ask me how this is even legal in a courtroom). If you badger him too much or say something he doesn't like, he'd going to take off and that's basically the end of the trial but you need to get the truth out of him as well. So it becomes a game of question A, yes or no. If you select the correct answer, you move on to more yes or no questions. If you select select the wrong one, start over. Again, there's multiple point in his testimony you can do this and eventually you have to present evidence which I have no clue which one to do.

I've come to the point where I just want to finish the game. Whenever I hit a small hiccup I just want to look up the answer and move on, even if I can work it out by thinking about it. If not for Granger giving me the video game integrity speech, I'd be finished and wouldn't be posting this. As you can see from my last two post, I've been up pretty early so maybe I'm just cranky from lack of sleep. Plus my bowel movements are all screwed up. So I guess thanks for listening.

David

PS - One question that came to mind. Is the series this confusing in Japanese? I mean maybe all this makes sense in Japanese. Certain things can't get translated perfectly so they just have to do the best they can and that's where some of the difficulty and confusion sets it?

Randomness

1.) So if you didn't already know, there is going to be a Live Action Street Fighter Movie, apparently Smallville's Kristen Kreuk is going to play Chun-Li. Lame.

2.) The trailer for the new Resident Evil CG movie looks rather interesting. [Link]

3.) Why are people so fascinated with posting footage of people playing Guitar Hero/Rock Band on Youtube? I just wasted 5 minutes of my life watching a this guy get 99% on Tom Sawyer on drums on expert. Yes, it's nice you got 99% but it's honestly it's not impressive when you compare it to Neil Peart the actual drummer from Rush actually on drums. Drums Zero vs Drum Hero. See what I mean?

4.) Konami is working on a new Arcade Rhythm game called Jubeat. It's very cube shaped. [Link]

5.) I don't like how the new Street Fighter looks.

6.) January looks to be a slow month for games, which is good cause I'm already way behind.

7.) Looks like my Import PS2 is having Disc Read Error problems. F'ing Fantastic. Sony, you are amazing. I was going to order the Guitar Freaks Arcade Replica Controller for the PS2 but looks like theres no reason is my PS2 isn't working.

That's all for now,
David

Podcast #042 - Nick's Christmas Special

So we just got done with Nick's Christmas Show. Overall we had a lot of fun. It's been a great year and I'm really glad to have Nick and Granger on the show. Plus Brad is coming up this week so it'll be interesting to see where next week's End of Year Awards show goes.

This we we talk about Final Fantasy XI, My Sims, Phoenix Wright, and the future of East vs West.
Check out the Archive for the new show.

David

On the Eve of Our Christmas Show

So here I sit, 24 hours until our much talked about Christmas podcast which has somehow transformed into "Nicks's Christmas Eve Show". David and Elle both seem to have something up there sleeve... this has me worried. So the question is, what can I do to retaliate against whatever crazy gift he has planned? I'm not sure, but I will take some notes out of David's "Gift Giving Guide" post and see where it takes me. Mwa ha ha... Tomorrow will be one weird show. I can't wait.

Peace!

Nick

Top Five Video Game Duos (Part 1 of 3)

So I've posted my top five video game duos. It's good to get that section back up and running again, I hadn't realized it had been long since we did one. Check the Top Five link to the side to read up on it. Hopefully we'll start putting these out every week again. Nick and Brad's top fives should be up by the end of today.

Thanks,
David

Reviews?!?!

Yes yes, we haven't given up on the review sections. Now that we're on holiday from school Nick's been a good little boy and wrote up some reviews. You can find them in the review section under Nick's section. Thanks for the hard work Nick!

We'll be sure to give you a great Christmas Gift.

Podcast #040 & #041

Without any more further delays, here are the two new shows from this week.

Show #040 - Nick's Christmas Eve Show

Show #041 - The No Music Show

[Check the archive]

Thanks Guys,
David

PS - Tune in next week for the Nick's Christmas Special

Multiplayer is an Art

I spent most of my day today playing multiplayer. I started with a good 3 hours of Final Fantasy XI that allowed me to jump from level 5 to level 7 and obtain some pertinent information and items. After that, I moved on to playing Call of Duty 4 for a good 3 or 4 hours with my roommate. This is actually my second time playing COD4 online but the first time, the game didn't last very long. Todays excursion however, allowed me to jump from level 3 to level 11. COD4 has really got me to start thinking about multiplayer as an art form. Let me say this, Halo is ok... but Call of Duty 4 is an example of what a good, wait... make that great, multiplayer experience should be. Most games stick with the normal deathmatch and team deathmatch but COD4 makes those very basic modes so fresh and new that it is hard to dream of playing anything else. Infinity Ward did an amazing job of improving on a very old, tired formula. For those who haven't played, let me explain. COD4 allows the player to create their own classes by allowing them to select a primary and secondary weapon along with 3 perks. Perks are additional abilities and advantages such as claymores, faster reload times, deeper bullet penetration, etc. Some of them are really amazing such as the last stand which basically allows you to drop to the floor on your back and draw your pistol for a last chance at killing your attacker before you die. When I first started, I sucked but this game is crafted in such a beautiful way that after several games, you start to realize the importance of your radar and picking your shots. If you fire a gun without a silencer, you will actually appear on your enemies maps as a red dot so it is wise to think before you shoot. Of course, IW also added more by allowing players who have achieved multiple kills to either unlock better radar or an airstrike which are incredibly satisfying considering the fact that you receive credit for every kill your helicopter or jet fighter gets. On one last note, IW did an absolutely amazing job at designing their maps. Their aren't too many right now but they are all awesome in their own way. Overgrown, Downpour, and Backlot are among the most detailed multiplayer maps i have ever seen. Anyone who wants a seemingly flawless multiplayer must play this game.

This leads me to one more topic. Multiplayer has become an art form now a days by challenging developers to bring as much originality to the table as they do in their single player modes. Eidos had something with Kane and Lynch despite the fact that the game turned out to be a flop. Their bank robber scenario was fresh and original and probably would have turned out to be a lot better had they left the game in the "proverbial oven" a little bit longer. Like I said before, Halo is good but why can't every game released have a multiplayer just as impressive as Halo and COD4? What lies ahead for multiplayer in the year 2008? This really makes me want online multiplayer for other games that so far show no signs of having any. Some games that I am really excited about seem like they could translate to really original, really cool, multiplayer modes. Games like Ghostbusters have great cooperative multiplayer potential. Another game currently in development is The Bourne Conspiracy, based on the character in Robert Ludlums famous spy novel and the big budget hollywood trilogy. The movies do an amazing job of creating intense chase and fight sequences which would could make for really cool multiplayer experiences. Imagine if one player was Bourne while the other 3 or 4 players were other assassins and the object was to chase Bourne through a detailed map until you finally catch him and engage in an intense hand to hand or fire fight. These kinds of original multiplayer modes would really take online gaming to whole new level and give me a profound new respect for multiplayer gaming in the future.

Peace!

-Nick