In-Game Chat

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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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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The final show of the year is now available for all.

The freshly diminished crew of IGC are offering an unexpectedly long year-end extravaganza tonight.  It’s a 2-hour show, which can either be halved and digested in parts for our brevity-loving listeners, or taken altogether if that happens to be your thing.  We’re as far from having a distinct topic as ever, but with a lopsided number of hosts available we’ve chosen to rest some of our weight on the familiar crutch of year-end/new year game topics.  

We are well pleased with the growth of our hobby of late, and we’re unanimous in our belief that 2009 will conspire to be as rich in gameplay as ’08 was before it, or ’07 before that.  Though what may be most difficult to believe is how quickly it can all get started again, because the time for pre-ordering or ear-marking for spring titles is just around the corner.  Our fingers are crossed that it’ll be worth the ride again.

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The penultimate episode for 2008 is available now.

If this week’s title had any relationship to the spirit of the holiday season, I can’t say we were aware of it.  This is our sole podcast offering for the week – Christmas-ey things having eaten up all of our available time – so we’ve let it run a bit long.  I’m not sure I can detail the topics discussed because they don’t make much sense to me in hindsight.  We’ve run clear through the fourth-quarter glut, and without a list of games to focus on our minds are invariably going to wander back and forth, as they’ve done here and before.  I can only really remember a passionate but inexpert discussion of Batman, and that when talking about Arkham Asylum, I clearly meant to compare it to a souffle and not a quiche.

Off-topic, but certainly pertinent, we say goodbye to two of our stalwart companions for these many months – Daniel, and Jeremy’s hair.  The hair had a price on its head of five thousand dollars.  That amount having been reached in the CoG Child’s Play charity drive, Jeremy followed through with his promise to chop everything off.  We have pics, so it definitely happened.  Less funny is that Daniel has been given marching orders by his boss The United States Air Force, so he’s leaving for Texas to learn how to do some other pointless thing at what I’m sure is a great expense.  He’ll be around in text format, and from time to time as our correspondent from the Lone Star state, but we’ve nevertheless got one more empty chair in the studio now.  This honestly makes things harder than you’d imagine.

Finally, stick around for the holiday-greetings community outro at the end of the program tonight. Thanks to everyone who listens and to all who contributed. We appreciate your support more than you can possibly know. Have a safe and happy holiday from everyone at IGC.

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And the winners are…

Well, there’s not much said in this episode that calls for elaboration. Our sole purpose for gathering tonight is to announce the winners of the Child’s Play charity drive raffle. There’s a predictable amount of screwing around, but for the sake of the winners we’ve kept things short and very much to the point. For those who can’t listen, or who simply can’t contain themselves, you can skip directly to the list posted in the Colony of Gamers news forums. Thanks to everyone, winner or not, who gave of time, money, or materials to make this year’s drive a success and its raffle prizes a reality.

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New episode now.

The miserable truth of Spike’s VGA show isn’t that it fails to live up to expectations, but that it very much does – the expectations being unspeakably low.  Those of us who spent any time in range of their programming this past weekend have made various claims that we had come for the video premiers, or to catalog the inevitable train-wreck or some such fig-leaf.  My own wretched excuse was to confirm media’s unwavering contempt for my beloved hobby.  In that respect I suppose it was entirely what I made of it, since you’ve got to be a fairly contemptuous guy not to have some degree of fun with silver bitches on rope-swings.

Regarding things completely UN-deserving of contempt, we are most happy to announce that the Colony of Gamers Child’s Play charity drive has reached (and exceeded) it’s goal.  The community has once again proven itself most excellent in its generosity, and has unlocked its gold sponsor achievement in the process.  Drawings for prizes of all shapes and sizes will commence soon, and live-air haircuts, as promised, will be yours for the mocking or cheering or what-have-you by next week.  Many thanks from all of us at the show for helping to deliver another incredible success.

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Our weekender is now available for download.

We drew our title from the recent blurb about a theoretically micro-payment supported KOTOR MMO, which, during the last moments of the show led us to discuss our general resistance to this idea in favor of a standard subscription model.  We can see it both ways, but naturally we see our own way much clearer.  Regardless, the real thrust of this show was the discussion of the awards system – awards shows (good, bad, and non-existant), the awards themselves, and what, if anything, they mean to the world.

There’s also a brief and somber reminder of what may develop for us in the show’s mid-term future.  There are no plans or contingencies at the moment other than to keep on keepin’ on, but we thought it prudent to keep folks in the loop.  Additionally, for those who care to listen past the hour mark, there’s some fairly useless bonus material that doesn’t even have the decency to be about video games, though it does offer some  deeper insights into the sorts of people some of us are off-air.  Not that you asked for that or anything, but there it is.

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Monday’s episode is now available for download.

Never let it be said that “the Mondays” aren’t a true and real condition suffered often at the end of a strong weekend – never mind how much we resent having it pointed out.  We’ve got a low-strung vibe as we ease into the program tonight, but good conversation always shakes out the cobwebs and lively banter often casts a light into the dimmest corners of our personalities, the only concern is in making it happen.  Of course, sometimes “what did you play?” matters a good bit less than “what do you think?”  We have our complement of both, so I suppose the Mondays weren’t so bad this time after all.

We’re clearly very positive about the new Prince of Persia, but the caveat is that it happens to suit our very particular tastes.  We can imagine any number of justifiably hateful reactions to its (perhaps) offensive difficulty, and to its general disdain for combat in favor of intricate puzzle/platforming.  But we believe it to be in the best spirit of what the Mechner himself intended, and we commend it for delivering a companion character who is, in almost every case, a joy and a benefit, where she could easily have become the achilles’ heel.

We would also like to point out that this is the final week of the Colony of Gamers Child’s Play charity drive.  Charitable giving is at an understandable premium this year, but for those who can and who choose to give through our preferred avenue this season, donations and raffle entries will end on Monday the 15th, so that the donations can be sent off to Child’s Play and drawings can be held for prize winners.

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The weekend edition of In-Game Chat is now available.

We’ve had a strong need lately for a unique northern perspective on gaming and worldly things alike and, thankfully, Canadia was kind enough to dispatch one of its chief emissaries in answer to our call.  The one-and-only Skwish joins us in-town and in-studio this weekend.  He was kind enough to bring ketchup chips and to participate in the usual cross-border discussions about the names of food and the color of money that we love so much.  In return we took him to eat at a place where they say yee-haaw! on your birthday.  Sorry bout that.

It seems we also had a strong need to let things run a bit silly toward the end of this hour.  There’s great stuff going on here about games and things – Fallout, ratings systems, Valkyria Chronicles, the usual.   We even find time at the end for the sadly neglected mailbag.  But it was strangely difficult to stay on track with a guest in the studio, though it may also have had something to do with the NyQuil.

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Monday’s episode, back from the holidays, is now available for download.

Our brief hiatus for sickness, terrorism and holiday merriment has left us with a lot of fuel to burn for the show.  We’ve covered a respectable amount of ground in each of our personal journeys through fourth-quarter software, and in some cases have found new ground altogether.  Though even if we hadn’t, the gaming news from the week past would have provided a surplus of talking points.

This episode is longer than our usual offering, thanks not only to the topics of today, but to some nostalgia for days, games and systems past. We hope the extra content is enjoyable, and that the extra time is of no great inconvenience. Barring any failure of self-control, we should be back on schedule and within our sixty-minute budget for the rest of the week.

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Monday’s episode of In-Game Chat can now be downloaded.

This episode was a bit like a run-on sentence for us.  We began with a small handful of good ideas and ended very far indeed from where we’d set out to be.  Satisfaction is high among the cast with Left 4 Dead, and we’re coasting through the final months of the year with the joy that comes of pawing through a bloated catalog.  But there’s a strong feeling that we’re entering the denouement of this year’s release schedule, or that we’re at the tail end of a passing storm – a strong one.   

We’re picking up the pieces now or pulling together the plot lines or whatever metaphor you prefer.  In any case we’re close to the end of another, unnecessarily crowded holiday schedule, with just enough time left in the holidays proper to gorge ourselves, purge, and gorge again before the new year, the resolutions and the discounts and sales.  The offerings  thus far have been more impressive than depressing, so we can only hope that sentiment will hold true when all is laid down for the final tally next month.

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IGC weekend edition is available here.

We throw around a lot of elbows in this episode, not so much due to any fundamental disagreements, but because its easy to get exceptionally irate about hardware issues when your beloved console starts rebelling against you.  The show suffered some unavoidable Mirror’s Edge lockups on the PS3 this week – a problem that was unresolved, but cleverly circumvented – as well as a constant stream of full stops on the XBox; problems almost certainly related to the new front-end.

While all of our issues have been corroborated by testimonials on the internet, it does our hearts no good to know that even a small percentage of the base shares our pain.  Our heads appreciate the statistic, though, and the thought that it may generate official support for our problems, however insignificant they may seem.  Meanwhile, we console ourselves with the ritual of trouble-shooting and problem solving that years of  PC ownership has made so familiar.  We apologize if our prickly tirade harshes anyone’s nxe-avatar-generated mellow.

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