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Episodes

The Wasted Herbs Episode

Wednesday’s episode is completely in your way at this link and won’t move, even if you tell it to.

Any release window with a title-density equal to that of the next six weeks is going to contain some real trash, either as a portion of one game’s content, or as a whole game unto itself.  We haven’t had to pick through anything terribly noxious just yet, but our ridiculous enthusiasm has been humbled all the same.

The first of the speed-bumps is the confirmation of quick and shallow gameplay in the Fallout 3 Anchorage campaign – quicker and shallower than was expected, and we were prepared ahead of time to be underwhelmed by its scope.  This will be a minor gripe in hindsight, but no sort of gripe is welcome at the moment.

The second, which I consider more of a speed-Himalaya to my personal enthusiasm, is the content and quality of the Resident Evil 5 demo. I should have maintained my belief that all games in the RE series are worthy of suspicion until they prove themselves worthy of devotion, as it was clearly a mistake for me to get so far out in front of the facts.

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Episodes

The Dedicated Server Episode

The Sunday funny-papers edition of In-Game Chat is now on your doorstep.

The newest American President continues, in various ways, to deliver a brand of confidence at home and abroad that many feel has been sadly under-funded by our leadership in recent years.  But as the show, we’re most inspired by his own confidence in the domain of science.  Regardless what anyone may feel about government in general or policies in particular, it emboldens us to know the most powerful man in the world loves his technology as fiercely as we love our own.

The feature presentation of this episode recalls in part the moldy topic of console vs pc multiplayer, but we remember it this time without all the fireworks and folderol.  We find that what we miss most in the otherwise very respectable world of online console gaming is the dedicated server – but as a function of community, instead of performance.  Peer to peer systems work well enough for the business of matching player to group, but the “Cheers” dynamic is largely unknown.  

Visiting a named server is alike to visiting a known locale, with all of the rules and idiosyncrasies and (most importantly) personalities found to apply in that sovereign space.  We’re not offering suggestions on how to migrate a generation of hardware away from peer-hosting, of course.  We’d just like to give a nod to the differences, and to point out how nice it is when everybody knows your name.

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Episodes

The Non Sequitur Episode

IGC’s late-middle-week episode is now online.

We’ve got a thing, you know, for relying on tangent conversations completely unrelated to the topic at hand to get us through an episode.  We grind our gears terribly sometimes, and tonight’s episode is different only in how much more frequently it seems to happen.  We hope all can be forgiven, since it allowed us to deliver our (now weekly) comment on the Wrath of Khan.

With fewer new releases occupying our time, we look to actual news for what to cover, and we’ve found a momentary source of rich stuff in the news feeds.  Kaz Hirai gets some attention, of course, but we’re just as happy to know that 5-dollar plastic nubs, the Presidential Inauguration, and Capt. Sully’s miracle Hudson landing all have reason to be together in a show about games.

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Episodes Interviews

The Maw Episode

Your weekend dose of gaming conversation begins now.

It isn’t often that we interview many game developers without having played their game, much less without their game even being released yet.  But that’s just what we do with a couple of guys from Twisted Pixel, developers of next week’s Xbox Live Arcade release, The Maw.

Due to their schedules (flying out to LA for a G4 taping) and our schedules (Jeremy having a previous engagement and James having to work), I was the only one available to talk to Mike Wilford, producer of The Maw, and Josh Bear, creative director of The Maw. And while we talk about the game itself, we also bring up the subjects of how The Maw came to be, the importance of the PAX 10, working with Microsoft, and what’s next for the Twisted Pixel team.

It’s not a particularly long episode, not that it needs to be, but we hope it tides you over for the weekend and as always…thanks for listening.

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Episodes

The Ad Nauseam Episode

A very long episode can be found here.

Maybe it’s more than a little unfair to load the front-end of a new episode with tired talk about something so old, but I’ve been waiting these longs months to know where, precisely, Jeremy would come down on our newest Metal Gear.  I got what I came for, but I can’t promise the conversation will do anything for you, dear listener, though you’re welcome to subject the not-quite-goty to whatever mix of hot and cold emotions suits you while we keep you pinned to the memory.

Apart from their obvious role in consumer confidence, the endless nauseam of sequels seems to us to be a much greater drag than it should be.  Perhaps, we say, it would be better to label all but the strictest examples of continuity with a subtle title change in lieu of simple numbers – the numbers being a source of great anguish for some and, possibly, a great distraction for the stewards of games fortunate enough to spawn.  As always, these (and many other) comments were developed in real-time, right before your ears, and don’t represent any sort of forethought whatsoever.

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Episodes Interviews

The 1UP Episode

The first episode of 2009 is now available.

There wasn’t supposed to be an episode for you this week. Scheduling conflicts and sickness among the group just caused too many problems.  Then Tuesday evening happened.  And we really wish it hadn’t.

The news of UGO buying 1UP had been rumored for some time and along with that the end of EGM. There were, however, no proceeding rumors of the massive cuts that ended up being made that night. One of those cuts happens to be a very good friend of ours. Philip Kollar, the former news editor for 1UP, joins us tonight and gives us some insight into just what exactly happened, how it happened, why, and what’s next.

It’s safe to say that after our talk with Philip we’ve got no worries about his future and we’re equally confident  with everyone else involved as well. It’s never good when things like this happen, but when they happen to a group of people like this, there can be nothing but good things for them in the near future.