GWJ Conference Call Episode 542

Night in The Woods, Blackwake, Phoning Home, Mystic Messenger, Console Launch Memories, Your Emails and More!

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This week Shawn, Cory and Elysium talk about games you avoid playing, outmoded game mechanics and who would win in a podcaster fist fight?

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind.

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Comments

I went and made the Blackwake Alpha Catch-Arr.
Join us!

Hello guys, love your podcasts. Just fyi, the "click here to download" link downloads the podcast from 22nd of February.

00:01:12 Night in The Woods
00:16:28 Blackwake
00:20:00 Phoning Home
00:23:05 Hearthstone
00:25:50 Mystic Messenger
00:30:56 Console Launch Memories
00:52:34 Your Emails

Imbacil wrote:

Hello guys, love your podcasts. Just fyi, the "click here to download" link downloads the podcast from 22nd of February.

Fixed, thanks!

The comment about laughing at the PS2’s launch games intrigues me because I have diametrically opposed memories of it. For me, the PS2 launched with a great line-up.

I experienced that launch because a PS2 was purchased by a fellow fraternity member on or abouts launch day in October of 2000 and I recall the entire house being amazed by both Madden and SSX. In a 2000 context, both those games were such a huge leap over any other football, or any other ski/snowboard, game that everyone was super impressed.

We quickly started a whole football league with the entire house playing an entire season against each other in Madden. I didn’t personally care for football games so I wasn’t part of that, but it was big and people where blown away. I’ll never forget this one guy deciding to have his team auto-play an non-human opponent because he so overmatched them and him being FURIOUS over the auto-play loosing.

For me though, it was learning all the tricks in SSX and competing against each other in races that were unlike any game I had ever played that really impressed me.

Now it was in a truly unreproducible place in space and time for me (tons of free time, living feet away from tons of friends) so it’s not really fair to coma pare in some ways but no launch will ever beat my memories of the launch of the PS2.

Wait, wait. Has Amoebic not seen the Short Circuit movies??
You are missing out.

Stood out in a line for the 360 and barely made the sold out cut-off point.

Launch day for the 360 was all about CoD 2!

lunchbox12682 wrote:

Wait, wait. Has Amoebic not seen the Short Circuit movies??
You are missing out.

Last time I saw it was probably in a matinee

The first actual good multiplayer game from Nintendo

Rabbit call your Alien overlords your fun processor is broken and needs to be fixed.

ccesarano wrote:
The first actual good multiplayer game from Nintendo

Rabbit call your Alien overlords your fun processor is broken and needs to be fixed.

Right? Mario Kart says hi. All the way from fricking 1992.

I want to start by agreeing with Amanda. Buying a PS4 just to smash it in front of a line of people who might not even get to buy one isn't performance art, it's trolling, and the people who do it are jerks.

As a habitual late adopter, I don't think I've ever bought a console at launch. Certainly not before the PS4, and I only got the PS4 because of Little Big Planet 3. I may have got a PS4 at launch, but there wasn't any fanfare about it.

That said, my wife is all a-flutter for the Switch. She managed to score a pre-order, which I'm hoping will come as promised but I'm not getting my heart set on it.

RE Rabbit's "wrong console" picks, tell me about it. My console history goes NES-Game Gear-Jaguar-N64-Dreamcast-PS2-GameCube-PSP-PS3-Wii-PS4-WiiU, so I seem to pick a winner about 20% of the time.

Funny, I had been thinking the other day that the Switch might mark the last full-on, brand-new console launch for the foreseeable future with Microsoft and Sony going the incremental upgrade route. That the lines between console generations are going to get a lot more blurred; for example, a regular PS4 will still run launch titles but at some point games designed for future iterations of the PS4 won't work with the first model.

Rat Boy wrote:

Funny, I had been thinking the other day that the Switch might mark the last full-on, brand-new console launch for the foreseeable future with Microsoft and Sony going the incremental upgrade route.

Hrm. I asked on Twitter the other day if it seemed like there was more Switch hype than usual for a new console release. Perhaps you're on to something here, as the Switch is more than just an iterative step forward. Even the PS4 and Xbox One were their predecessors, but with new operating systems and more powerful hardware. The features weren't really a big step forward. My PS4 is the PS3, but refined.

But the ability to play the same game at home or on the go is something I've been wanting ever since I became an adult. To take that game I was playing on my home console and keep on playing it while commuting or during lunch at work. More than that, it has the motion-control capability as well, and in a way that reinvigorates it just enough. With the Wii, motion-control was often forced. With the WiiU, the gamepad was emphasized and motion-control was minimized. With the Switch, it's whatever makes sense for the game.

It's familiar, but it's new as well, and very little of it has to do with the actual power of the console.

I guess I better understand VR hype now in that respect.

Thank you for the board game advice. I was being serious about the lack of tactical ability, despite playing a lot of board games. I shall take you advice on board about getting into people's heads to see if that works.

Amoebic wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

Wait, wait. Has Amoebic not seen the Short Circuit movies??
You are missing out.

Last time I saw it was probably in a matinee :|

Is anybody really missing out if they haven't seen Short Circuit?

Amanda, you totally get a pass on that (from me, at least).

By the way, your audio sounded great on the 'cast this week. I know you said you had made some changes in your setup and it sounds like it really paid off.

MrMetonymy wrote:
Amoebic wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

Wait, wait. Has Amoebic not seen the Short Circuit movies??
You are missing out.

Last time I saw it was probably in a matinee :|

Is anybody really missing out if they haven't seen Short Circuit?

Amanda, you totally get a pass on that (from me, at least).

IMAGE(http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfx9x8dQjl1qgipwuo1_500.gif)

IMAGE(http://stream1.gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/1002388_o.gif)

IMAGE(http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/3778284/moss-nope-o.gif)

It doesn't hold up as well as some other 80s classics, but it occupies a place of honor in this engineer's heart.

...also Fisher Stevens' Indian "blackface." That aged real well!

PaladinTom wrote:

...also Fisher Stevens' Indian "blackface." That aged real well! :cough:

Oh sure with your modern morals and standards and... yeah it was bad.
I just like robot animatronics.
The more recent version of this type of movie is Cody The Robosapien. My son loved it. There was a lack of Fisher Stevens, but that was probably for the best.

MrMetonymy wrote:

By the way, your audio sounded great on the 'cast this week. I know you said you had made some changes in your setup and it sounds like it really paid off.

My thanks to Julian, Jonathan for the heavy lifting, and to Shawn for gently reminding me to put my radio pants on.

Jonman wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
The first actual good multiplayer game from Nintendo

Rabbit call your Alien overlords your fun processor is broken and needs to be fixed.

Right? Mario Kart says hi. All the way from fricking 1992.

While Super Mario Cart was only 2 players max, it felt like more. It is technically multiplayer, but I usually think of 4 players fitting that bill. Such fond memories of playing the heck out of that game in college with my roommates. We rented a house with 8 people and played on a rotation basis in every mode, including time trials. Watching was nearly as much fun as playing.

bhchrist wrote:
Jonman wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
The first actual good multiplayer game from Nintendo

Rabbit call your Alien overlords your fun processor is broken and needs to be fixed.

Right? Mario Kart says hi. All the way from fricking 1992.

While Super Mario Cart was only 2 players max, it felt like more. It is technically multiplayer, but I usually think of 4 players fitting that bill. Such fond memories of playing the heck out of that game in college with my roommates. We rented a house with 8 people and played on a rotation basis in every mode, including time trials. Watching was nearly as much fun as playing.

This is part of the reason why I thought Double Dash was an awesome version of Kart. So great with 4 people. I could care less about the hardcode competitive types.

Got to the end of the podcast.

Aww, you folks are so kind.

I was there at the GREATEST console launch event in the history of console launch events:

November 18th, 2006 - The Wii Launch in Times Square

When Reggie took the stage at 11:40 to preach to the choir, he said over 3000 people were lined up, but they were prepared with over 4000 consoles (we'd heard over 5000 and even over 8000 from various insiders).

Wiis on Segways:
IMAGE(https://s.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2006/11/wii_nyc_launch---15.jpg)

Wiis on People:
IMAGE(https://s.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2006/11/wii_nyc_launch---23.jpg)

Enough Consoles for Everyone:
IMAGE(https://www.engadget.com/media/2006/11/wii-launch-final---20.jpg)

Bucket o' Zelda:
IMAGE(https://www.engadget.com/media/2006/11/wii-launch-final---25.jpg)

Obligatory Reggie:
IMAGE(https://s.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2006/11/wii_nyc_launch---34.jpg)

(images from the Joystiq article)

I love that while casting about for "Short Circuit" the best you could come up with is "Laser Lips". Also that I instantly knew what you meant when you said it.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ce2Olo9.jpg)

Alz wrote:

Obligatory Reggie:
IMAGE(https://s.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2006/11/wii_nyc_launch---34.jpg)

Was the event held at Madame Toussauds? Cripes, that is haunting.

Thanks, Amoebic, for being the voice of the cash-strapped gamer who may WANT to buy everything as soon as it comes out but can't justify it, budget-wise.

2 kids (especially, ludicrous Australian childcare costs, thanks Howard) have smashed a hole in my disposable income since 2011. Buying everything on release day is no longer an option.

On the plus side, it means I'm savouring the fewer games I have. On the minus side, I'm 2 years behind the curve (*cough* Witcher 3 rules *cough*).

As for games from 2007 that we still play today, CivRev came out in 2008 and is still on weekly rotation at my house.

Mainly a Pc gamer, but I've had several consoles at various points of my life, the only one I bought on launch day was the Wii, it was launched here on spain 2-3 months after the huge success on the US, so I just decide to bite the bullet and went to a nearby Toys'r'us the only place where they say you can reserve one for launch day.

I asked the guy how was going the reservations, and the said that it was going real slow, I was a bit puzzled, I was expecting after the US launch that reservations skyrocket but, seems not.

I've never heard any hype about the Wii until 2 weeks before the launch day, that was I guess when the marketing machine started, that day, I decided to go to the Toysrus at opening time, and there was about 100 people there around the shop, I was shocked, all these people have a reservation? this is gonna be a mess...

Then the shop opens, all we went into the video game section there was a employee there with THREE Wii boxes, he said, "Ok, I have 3 reservations, anyone here have one?" two guys an me raise the hand, we took the consoles and went home.

It was out of stock like in the US for about 6 months or more, these days still use it, we have it setup at my father in law house, so when my son goes there, he can play at it.

Also guys, listen to you make me feel young, at 44 with a 12 y/o boy

I too remember the hype for the Wii being AFTER launch, not before.

We were lucky for the Wii. On launch week, my wife called the gamestop near us and they had one left. So she headed over at luck and we had ourselves a Wii.
I doubt this would have worked outside of Vermont.