Our first segment, as usual, is brought to you by Electronic Arts and their very tarnished image, which they’ve managed this week to rub off onto Nintendo.  Then we spend a short stretch with a spoiler-free, qualitative discussion of Metro: Last Light.  In the second hour we talk with Jamie Fristrom of Happion Labs about his game, Energy Hook.

It’s the final time that you’ll be hearing us pre-taped as we recorded the show about six hours earlier. Next week sees us back live on the air again and, hopefully, with you in the chat room making sure we have our facts straight. In the meantime, we still cover some of the rumors concerning Microsoft’s next console, talk about what it means for EA to make games for the Star Wars franchise while Disney lords over their shoulders, and we try as best we can to tell you just what is happening with this whole Silicon Knights & Precursor Games situation.

Time is closing in on Microsoft for the reveal of their next console and that only leaves us with a few weeks left to predict and speculate on what they’ll deliver. It starts with going over game release dates, but like we always do, that spirals into a much larger conversation of how we’re taking the release of new consoles. Also, Jeremy took to Zeno Clash II this week and gives us his take on the “first person fister”. Outside of next-gen talk and what Zeno Clash II actually is, we cover the lawsuit filed over false advertising and our hopes (however unlikely) that it might change the way we’re presented with early game footage.

We’re not exactly sure how auctions work, or, more specifically, how the auctioning off of THQ works, but we know some of how Gearbox works and we haven’t yet come to terms with them holding onto the IP of Homeworld. Beyond the discussion of all the titles Nordic Games grabbed from THQ, we received an interesting email with an idea of a new mode developers could provide for gamers who want to get the experience of a game, but without experiencing the parts that exist to extended the length of one. It provides an interesting concept, and we’d be curious to know what you think in comparison to our thoughts on the subject.

Microsoft takes center stage for this episode. The first hour is covering their recent rumors of being always online, subscription model pricing, their media focus, and a number of other things pouring out of the mill the past two weeks. Still, Microsoft remains silent on the issue, but time waits for no one and soon…we should have a lot more to say on the subject with some amount of actual concrete facts. The second hour of the show gives us time to step into the mailbag and respond to some of it that has been piling up over the past few weeks or so.

A show note: This episode and the next few will be pre-taped. We record them live the morning of the show due to scheduling and then have it play back during its regular time slot. You can still listen to the episode as it airs, but it will also be available to download at the same time. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but hope you will bear with us for the next few weeks until our own personal schedules get back on track.

It’s been a long time since they were a driving force in gaming, but the passing of LucasArts demands acknowledgement and somber reflection, though not for more than half an hour, apparently.  We devote at least as much time to struggling with our feelings about Defiance; a game that far exceeds expectations, but has no right to be as fun as it is.  We also undertake a second, equally fruitless examination of Bioshock: Infinite, and can’t decide if a week’s worth of hindsight puts the game in a better light or a worse one.

God only knows what we’d do without you at the following link.

Tonight’s first hour is largely about GDC, very much against our original plan.  In any other year it would be our sole point of discussion, but it’s unlikely that any other year saw or will see the release of BioShock: Infinite this week.  Given our druthers, we’d talk about nothing but the game, but Matt was within spitting distance of the ending, so we broke protocol, sent him back home to finish, and demanded he come back around for the second hour of spoilers.

Sadly, and predictably, this doesn’t turn out as well as we’d like.  A single hour isn’t nearly enough time to compare notes on Infinite, and as two of us had only just finished the game before the program, there was no time for us to come to terms with what it all means.  As a result, we sound less like practiced critics, and more like moviegoers huddled outside the theater after an especially interesting film.  I expect we can form some honest questions and criticisms before we meet again.

We pass the first hour this week discussing the resignation and legacy of EA’s CEO John Riccitiello, the possibility of price hikes for games of the next generation, and the various available Bioshock: Infinite pre-order bonuses.  For the second half of the show, we speak with Kevin Saunders and Colin McComb of InXile Entertainment about the funding and development of Torment: Tides of Numenera.  We’d like to thank Colin and Kevin for sharing their time, and we offer special thanks to everyone who joined us live and offered questions for the developers and insights for the hosts.

EA’s feeble excuses for SimCity’s cockamamie server dependence continue to be the most interesting thing going in the news, which gives that story full rights to our first hour.  In the second half we’re back into the mailbag, waffling over a Bioshock Infinite preorder, and reaffirming our stance on mooks, assassins, and the fourth wall.

On this weekend’s show, we’re covering whatever it is that’s happening with EA and SimCity, as well as gushing about Tomb Raider, ingoring Assassin’s Creed 4, and swapping howdies with Ty Taylor, developer of indie puzzle game, The Bridge.

In addition to fielding live call-ins (which have yet to materialize), we’re also once again hosting interviews with developers, producers, performers, and other notable members of the games industry.  It’s a joy to reach out to the men and women who craft the intricate, beautiful, and rousing experiences we spend so very much of our time and money trying to absorb.  We like to think the interviews help our subjects in some small way, and that you enjoy them as much as you can, but we know for sure how good they are for us.  We greatly appreciate the time and attention of anyone who’s  given us theirs, and we hope to appreciate a lot more people in the future.

Thanks very much to Neil Sorens, creative director at Zen Studios, for joining us on tonight’s broadcast.

Bungie and Activision made a token effort to grab headlines, but Sony’s announcement of the Playstation 4 was the only story going last week.  We’ve tried hard to stay suspicious, to see past the marketing and to manage our own expectations.  This works for the most part, but there’s no sense in pretending we don’t have fun when new toys are announced, whether we’d like to own them or not.  This is doubly true for the sorts of toys that will influence the news for the foreseeable future, and the shape of our hobby for the next several years.

We had originally expected to treat Matt cruelly in this episode, ribbing him over his enthusiastic purchase of Aliens: Colonial Marines.  But the game – a tragic mess, apparently – seems to have done extensive damage on its own so we’ve decided to be supportive in his time of need.  Matt’s shame and disappointment are a matter of public record now, and we see no reason to prolong his suffering.  I can’t say this incident has put  me off pre-orders entirely, and there’s a good chance I’ll find myself in the same position at some point in the future, so cultivating a little good will might pay off when my time comes around.

I don’t exactly know how to preface this episode, since it’s the biggest single change we’ve ever made to our format, and we didn’t give much warning that it was on the way.  It will be familiar to anyone who was with us in our first years of broadcasting, and it will be a strange shock to everyone who tuned in at some point after.  Whoever you are, and whenever you chose to join us, we hope you find something to like about what we’ve made here.

This first episode of our 7th year wastes no time in getting into the speculation of what’s going on with new console releases and how the year is shaping up. In that part of the show where we talk about upcoming releases, there’s a void at the end of that calendar. A big chunk of nothing. We all know it’s coming. We don’t know what it will look like or what it will do, and, more importantly, what it will cost, but we know it’s coming. With the exception of Nintendo, the current consoles have been around as long as our show has and Microsoft & Sony are set to go head to head this year. They’ve had quite a long time to figure out how these things work and what NOT to do. Now we’re just waiting to see WHAT they do.

Welcome to Season 7. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.

There’s nothing much to say about this episode.  If you’re up to speed on news and happenings around the world, then this is sadly out of date.  But it’s funny a little bit, and it’s long, so we evidently had a  lot on our minds, or the listeners had a lot on theirs.  I can also promise (or apologize for) another round of backward-looking 90′s worship from a group too old to care enough about what the kids are getting into.  We’re hoping this will drop off soon with the arrival of fresh new games.  Of course, if those games suck (which they already do) then we’ll go right back to yammering about 1998.

We’ve spent a lot of time lately examining the past and discussing old things, so it’s only fitting that our most recent posting is, itself, a very old thing.  There’s no benefit to anyone interested in timely and topical discussion, but there’s still a good time to be had if you’re willing to wipe off the dust and push away the cobwebs.

A year or more ago I was perfectly happy to scoff at the future of free.  No doubt a handful of games would butter their bread with paid skin packs or xp boosts, and there’s a chance I’d have admitted the inevitability of a new payment model somewhere down the line, but I had never thought the idea would storm through so many hearts and minds and in such a short stretch of time.  I was so concerned with what I personally thought best or most likely that I couldn’t see the wall, much less the writing on it.  And I’m not convinced this development is absolutely here to stay, any more than the subscription and retail models it’s displacing.  There’s so much in our future we haven’t even considered yet, and it’s not as though what we want or what we know to be best has ever had any real bearing on what we’re given.

There’s not much that hasn’t been said about E3 at this point, but we like to think our point of view is still worth a little something, even after all this time.  We can at least revel in the energy that seemed to be everywhere right after the expo, as it seems to have vanished completely in the summer doldrums.  It’s on its way again, I’m told, but I’m cranky and impatient and I want another shot of new-release hype.  But I’ve already got what I need, I know.  There’s a substantial backlog of great games to deal with.  I’m running out of reasons to avoid them, and those reasons were never good to begin with.

A single show just won’t be enough to cover the full range of reactions and emotions provoked by Diablo 3.  The last several weeks haven’t even seen the game clear of the terrible launch dramas surrounding its release, and they certainly aren’t enough to paint a picture of its future.  We’re still not sure whether we love it or hate it, or which of the many different flaws will be sorted out in the near future, and which will linger like a disease.  It’s a leading topic, and there don’t seem to be any news items or new releases standing by to upset it.  Although, there is that one event coming up next week…

I’m not living in any of my imagined futures today, and I’m sure I never will.  I’m generally at peace with the way things turn out over time, but I’m still compelled to root for a future without precedent – a future without long-term contracts on my console purchase, without packet loss in a single-player game, and devoid of embedded ads or social media applications.  I’m not quite angry about what we’ve gotten, I’m just sorry I didn’t see it coming.  So many best wishes for the games industry have gone unrealized, and it’s a real strain on the optimism.

It took a lot less convincing than I’d expected to get Jeremy and Scott on board with Diablo 3.  I hadn’t planned to cajole or persuade at all, and I only suggested they play the beta weekend so they could comment on an experience that every other human in the free world was sharing at the time.  Neither of them is particularly attracted to the setting or the lore of Diablo, and there’s really nothing in the genre that turns them on.  They are, however, suckers for what may be the slickest, simplest, and most trouble-free multiplayer engagement we’ve every experienced as a group.  The fact that you’re playing with friends is often more important that what it is you’re playing, and usability can rank awfully high on our list of priorities.  There are now at least two preorders based entirely on that premise.  It seems that even in its current and very well-fed form, Blizzard still has some things to teach the rest of the world.

The Mass Effect controversy endures, but it looks like there might be enough time before the new endings are released for hurt feelings to mend, or for sharp memories to fade.  There’s no forgetting the embarrassing furor, and there’s likely nothing BioWare can do to mend the damage done to their image – time and the fickle memories of the internet are their best hope for that.  For most of us it’ll never do to dwell on an ancient, weeks-old disappointment.  We want now what we’ve always wanted: the next great game.  For as long as there’s nothing else to demand my attention, I might find space in my heart for a little more hate.  But I’m sure that somewhere, a few weeks from now, deep in my cups, deep in the second act of Diablo 3, or ankle-deep in Max Payne’s bullet casings, I’ll wonder what the hell I was so torn up about in the first place.

I really wanted to engage the topic of Mass Effect on our own terms.  I imagined we’d compare choices and consequences and how they sometimes failed to materialize, then move on to highlights and lowlights of narrative and character development, losses and gains of affection, plot twists, that sort of thing.  We’d wonder why so few words were being written about the multiplayer and why so very many were still being written about the ending.  We’d have our own opinions and insights on the travesty, but we’d feel better after having a whine and could focus in the long run on the details of what made the Mass Effect universe a place worth visiting.  All I can say is we talked about it.  We talked about it and I feel worse.