Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 56

The Witcher, Ratchet & Clank Future, Guitar Hero 3, Conan, Scary Games!, A Special Halloween Treat, The Rock Band Contest Winner, Your Emails and more!

Welcome to a spooktacular Conference Call this week as we celebrate Halloween in style! We have a special treat for our faithful listeners penned by our own Karla "Brennil" Andrich, some music by Jonathan Coulton and our contest winner in the "Name Our Band" contest! Get to downloading!

Want to support the show? Hit the Digg link just above (it's fast and easy to register) or review us on iTunes! Read on for show notes.

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. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"Re: Your Brains" - Thing A Week Two (Jonathan Coulton) - 0:33:12
"Bloom Fugue" - Provenance (Ade lun sec) - 0:53:30

Comments

I thought I was being so clever with the "tracks" and completely missed the "lan" pun. That's just awesome.

Oh, hey! I won something for once! (I didn't realize until you announced my e-mail handle that I'd forgotten my handle on here...oops). PM incoming, Certis.

Boooooo!

Boy, it sure is soothing to hear Rabbits voice on this early Wednesday morning.

subaltern wrote:

Boy, it sure is soothing to hear Rabbits voice on this early Thursday morning.

Wait... Thursday?! (That would have been a good time for an interrobang if I knew the unicode for it)

Wow, I screwed that one up pretty bad. I have a ton of things to do on Thursday so I guess I just have Thursday on the brain.

I like the Halloween banner.

Just to prove to you that we do exist, I am from Oklahoma City and now go to college in Norman, Oklahoma at OU.
South of the Mason Dixon but still a Union territory, representing Oklahoma!

Ha. Fine! You can call me Sew-Crates. I get that a lot

Scariest game: Fatal Frame. :O

This is going to sound weird, but I also found SWAT 4 to be very creepy and tense at points.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I also found SWAT 4 to be very creepy and tense at points.

You just made Ken Levine very happy.

Scariest game? Thief. At least before yuo get the hang of the system. The terror of a guard, and probably certain death, getting closer and closer was like nothing else. And then once you get comfortable, they threw haunts at you. System Shock 2 seriously freaked me out as well, first time I had annelid worms gnawing at my feet I was physically repulsed.

Also, I just finished Bioshock for the first time, on hard. Take that you wusses! :p You can hardly complain about the game being too hard when it gives you free infinite respawns everywhere, although I only used them a couple of times.

Should opine more on it somewhere else, but Yahtzee was so right about it I need time to figure out what else to add.

Also, also: Heterosexual Pillow should have won the band name contest.

For some reason this morning I can't download from the link on the homepage. If anyone who has the podcast could mirror it I would be very grateful. I miss rabbitcave.

By the way Certis, your Resident Evil spoof was very very convincing. You card read good.

Gumbie wrote:

For some reason this morning I can't download from the link on the homepage. If anyone who has the podcast could mirror it I would be very grateful. I miss rabbitcave. :(

Does it play in the player on the left side of the page? Libsyn is the new file host and they tend to be pretty quick. Download link is working ok for me.

LobsterMobster wrote:

By the way Certis, your Resident Evil spoof was very very convincing. You card read good. :D

Oh god, I was awful. We had two takes to bang it off before we did the show proper and I couldn't even listen back to it so I could tell how wooden I sounded. Ah well, Rob is talented enough for two

Certis wrote:

Does it play in the player on the left side of the page?

What the?! Great show guys but this was the first time i realised that thing existed!

Certis wrote:

Oh god, I was awful. We had two takes to bang it off before we did the show proper and I couldn't even listen back to it so I could tell how wooden I sounded.

I could visualize the entire scene, Rob as the monster

IMAGE(http://www.armchairempire.com/images/Reviews/gamecube/resident-evil/resident-evil-2.jpg)

Certis as the intrepid adventurer

IMAGE(http://www.catnapin.com/MartialArts/Training/mj5mod_small.jpg)

Jeeze. I never want a hug from Certis.

Certis wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

For some reason this morning I can't download from the link on the homepage. If anyone who has the podcast could mirror it I would be very grateful. I miss rabbitcave. :(

Does it play in the player on the left side of the page? Libsyn is the new file host and they tend to be pretty quick. Download link is working ok for me

Negative. It's stuck on waiting for libsyn. It's strange though because I can get to libsyn.com with no problem, and until today I've never had a problem downloading from them before.

EDIT: Just tried again and it worked.

For the scariest game I would have to go with either System Shock 2 or of all things the original Clock Tower for the SNES, that game just had the right atmosphere to scare. Just the fact that the game starts you off in a creepy mansion, alone, and the game has no music, just your footsteps.... slowly.... walking, the noise of a shower running in a room getting louder. The only complaint I had about the game was that music does play when you are chased. As for System Shock 2, will not mention the exact moment I love, just it is one of the first things you see in the game.

One of the best moments that could have been was the Big Daddy in BioShock. "Could have" because I knew about them before I bought the game. Marketing wise it was necessary to show them and the little sisters, but just imagine what that first moment seeing them would have been like if you didn't know they exist. Just you lying on the floor, unable to move, then the heavy footsteps getting closer, the little sister talking to you, and then he appears, a thing almost from nightmares.

I just update Itunes. Done.

BTW Gumbie and I are both gamers located in the south. Of course I haven't sent in any emails or audio requests yet.

I live in the south, but I'm not a southerner.

<---- Transplanted from California way back in the day.

Gotta say I love when you guys do the spoofs and such during the breaks. Keep em comming!

I thought Zork was pretty scary. Grues!

Have the Goodjers had the great Flood v. Headcrabs debate yet? They're largely interchangeable in my mind. The only real difference is that you don't automatically regen in HL like in Halo if you just let them hit you.

One of these days I'm going to enter a contest besides the donation drive. Promise.

The first plasmid in Bioshock was interesting, because I remember there being some sort of reason to do it when I played the demo, but I feel like I either didn't catch it or didn't trip the trigger when i played the full game. Hacking I'll admit was silly, but it was fun enough. I also admittedly used it a couple times as something to do to calm my nerves in the middle of a messy fight.

I didn't realize Puzzle Quest was just a fancy version of Bejeweled until I played the demo. That's why I tend to play demos first. They demonstrate what the game will be like so that I can better determine the game's subjective worth.

Why did the hybrid discussion of Guitar Hero + dating game make me think of Ephemeral Phantasia? I barely remember what that game was about. I do remember thinking it could have been better realized.

But yes, all games are better when you can play them with friends, whether it's truly co-operative play or not.

wordsmythe wrote:

The first plasmid in Bioshock was interesting, because I remember there being some sort of reason to do it when I played the demo, but I feel like I either didn't catch it or didn't trip the trigger when i played the full game. Hacking I'll admit was silly, but it was fun enough. I also admittedly used it a couple times as something to do to calm my nerves in the middle of a messy fight.

I think the trigger, which I skipped both times, would have been trying to get through the door before being able to zap it with your power. They probably could have worked that small section a little better so that it made more sense, but in the overall scheme of things I could have cared less. I loved that game.

The Cortana flashes are there to give you something to do while the game loads -- that's why it slows down your movement at the same time. In Halo 1 and 2 you would just have a one or two second hiccup when passing from one area to the next, but in Halo 3 they decided to give you a little piece of backstory each time they needed to load.

Ha! I thought the sketch was pretty funny. I wouldn't mind more.

For me, the scariest game was indeed Clive Barker's Undying, but only for the first two levels or so.

And I'm one of those that went out and bought a guitar thanks to guitar Hero. =)

Good show.

People keep questioning why Bioshock's main character would jab a needle into his arm without a second thought, I ask why are the players doing so? Nothing forces you to pick up the syringe. The behavior that seems weird was not supplied by the developer, but by the person playing the game.

zeroKFE wrote:

In Halo 1 and 2 you would just have a one or two second hiccup when passing from one area to the next, but in Halo 3 the decided to give you a little piece of backstory each time they needed to load.

Yeah. Lucky us.

Scary games: System Shock 2. I develop chest pains and had to stop for fear of actual death. In real life.