Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 120

FEAR 2, Dominion, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, LOTRO, Mario Party 8, Mona The Assassin, Your Emails, Voicemails and more!

With next week's Rabbit-Con show rapidly approaching we tackle extra emails and voice mails to catch up on the backlog. Gaming triumphs, losing yourself, the Zune revolution and much more. If you want to submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563!

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. You can also submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563!

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Comments

Atomicvideohead wrote:

I heard "Zune we still love you" in an Ike Turner voice.

I just worry they consider the Ipod the mp3 player for the masses... that would truly be tragic.

Gaald wrote:
Lucan wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Hey guys. I toyed with the pan a little more in this episode. Julian and I are off center just a little more I left both the Shawn and Sean dead center. Let me know what you think.

Awesome. Now all we need is a little map of the setup for each show. Put guests on the right?

Well that is something I will have to decide during each edit, depending on who is on the show. I am glad people like the pan.

If only for me, please leave everything in mono. I listen at work while I sort medical records and I have GWJ in one ear and the other for hearing my coworkers.

Snaggle-Toof wrote:
Gaald wrote:
Lucan wrote:
Gaald wrote:

Hey guys. I toyed with the pan a little more in this episode. Julian and I are off center just a little more I left both the Shawn and Sean dead center. Let me know what you think.

Awesome. Now all we need is a little map of the setup for each show. Put guests on the right?

Well that is something I will have to decide during each edit, depending on who is on the show. I am glad people like the pan.

If only for me, please leave everything in mono. I listen at work while I sort medical records and I have GWJ in one ear and the other for hearing my coworkers.

I can only hear out of one ear, so don't worry about that too much. It will always sound fine on one speaker.

Certis wrote:

I can only hear out of one ear, so don't worry about that too much. It will always sound fine on one speaker.

If you had stereophonic hearing, just think of how much more you'd hear "Certis is awesome!"

I'm willing it would be at least a 5% increase.

That was funny about the whole genre defining games thing, you were all talking about Halflife Two and Myst and I was thinking, Akalabeth!!! Then Sands chimed in with it! Thanks Mr. Sands!

The reason Elysium doesn't like PuzzleQuest is probably that it cheats.

Mean Red Worms wrote:

I listen on the Zune and it's pretty fantastic for podcasts. Thanks for putting your podcast on the Zune Marketplace it saves me some clicks to go find it.

Shhhhh.......don't let them know you listen on a Zune, or they'll ban you from listening to the podcast. Or, at least get an umbrella so you can avoid the streams of urine as they piss all over you.

Certis wrote:

I can only hear out of one ear, so don't worry about that too much. It will always sound fine on one speaker.

Oh cool, he outed himself. Now we can make completely disability insensitive Certis' mom jokes.

Birthday cake to best one in the next 24 hours.

FenixStryk wrote:

Good show.

To be honest, I would have no problems if every show was like this; what you're playing, followed by an hour of e-mails. If only it was two hours...

What are you saying? I would have serious problems with that, the discussions on specific topics make up a big wodge of my enjoyment of the podcast.

Also it seems that Rebel FM have just discovered Gravity Bone. I'm glad GWJ is my primary podcast.

I have a really good friend from college that's deaf in one ear. Our favorite thing to do was stand on either side of her and have conversations in low but clear voices.

Rob and Karla (Carla?) should spend an entire day mouthing words at Certis to convince him his other ear has finally failed.

rabbit wrote:

Birthday cake to best one in the next 24 hours.

Funny, his mom didn't have any hearing problems the other night.

I heard "sparkling personalities" and my mind immidiately went

Certis in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.

...

Help.

Rat Boy wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Birthday cake to best one in the next 24 hours.

Funny, his mom didn't have any hearing problems the other night.

Oh! Oh! I know!

My ears were still ringing this morning, though.

Spaz wrote:

If you had stereophonic hearing, just think of how much more you'd hear "Certis is awesome!"

I'm willing it would be at least a 5% increase.

5% more than 0 is still 0...

Oh, I also listen on my Zune.
I love the CC so much that when the great Zune disaster of Y2K9, I dug out my wife's ancient 1Gig Creative Zen Nano to listen.

I hate to be that guy... Actually, no I don't. I revel in the opportunity to correct you smart bastards:

"pe⋅nul⋅ti⋅mate
   /pɪˈnʌltəmɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [pi-nuhl-tuh-mit]
–adjective
1. next to the last: the penultimate scene of the play."

Citizen Kane is not the penultimate movie.

Citizen Kane is not the penultimate movie.

Wait, who said that, and why didn't I immediately kill them?

I hate people who misuse penultimate almost as much as I hate people who misuse decimate. It means reduce by a tenth, you clowns!

Elysium wrote:
Citizen Kane is not the penultimate movie.

Wait, who said that, and why didn't I immediately kill them?

I hate people who misuse penultimate almost as much as I hate people who misuse decimate. It means reduce by a tenth, you clowns!

It was Rob. I heard it to, and cringed a little, but I was going to let it slide.

It was me! Speak the good English.

Yeah, I was like, "Why are they using penultimate like that?"

Oh well...
Glad you guys spent a little bit talking about game mods. As someone who in the past has not found much luck in mods, its good to hear some talk about some good ones. Given that this week, there wasn't much new to play, that's probably why they got air time, but I'd be happy to hear about more, even if they're not for games I have/play.

You don't really need to play Mount & Blade in windowed mode unles you need to actually see your other windows. This is one game that allows alt-tabbing really easy without much delay.

EDIT: My first double post!

FenixStryk wrote:

...looks like you need to get with the times, friend.

Oh no

Haven't listened to the whole podcast yet (1 hour in), but I have to say, I just picked up my first XBox 360 a little over a week ago (got a Jasper, luckily) and I am also having a great time with Crackdown. It's just tremendously well designed. I'm hoping I can find some folks to run around in co-op with after I get my Wireless Adapter (currently I'm using my laptop's wireless connection shared through WinXP, which is kind of a hassle), since I'm sure it only gets better with others.

Other game I'm loving for the first time: Burnout Paradise. I was planning on waiting for the PC version to arrive before I knew I was going to end up with a 360, but $20 was just too nice a price to pass up. Great game, a steal at twenty bucks.

Other games people would recommend I check out for cheap on the 360? I already have on the PC: Assassin's Creed, GTA4, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia. I have no interest at all in Halo, and minimal interest in Gears. I'm very keen to try Fable II, but I can wait for the price to come down (or get lucky and get my Goozex request for it to go through).

EDIT: Oh yeah, Ravenlock80 is my XBL / GFWL tag. Feel free to "friend me up", as it were.

Elysium wrote:

I hate people who misuse decimate. It means reduce by a tenth, you clowns!

Googled it....

Dictionary.com wrote:

dec⋅i⋅mate [des-uh-meyt]
–verb (used with object), -mat⋅ed, -mat⋅ing.
1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: "The population was decimated by a plague."
2. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

...looks like you need to get with the times, friend.

[size=8](I think the current score is Fenix: 1, Not-Fenix: 1)[/size]

Ravenlock wrote:

Other games people would recommend I check out for cheap on the 360? I already have on the PC: Assassin's Creed, GTA4, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia. I have no interest at all in Halo, and minimal interest in Gears. I'm very keen to try Fable II, but I can wait for the price to come down (or get lucky and get my Goozex request for it to go through).

Braid in XBLA. It's still $15, I think, but it's a complete experience and not a glorified arcade game like a lot of other XBLA titles. Castle Crashers is also good but will get a bit repetitive if you're not a brawler fan.

Also, search the forums. There are a few threads about recommended Xbox 360 games.

To your question about WiiWare, as a previously Wii-only console gamer, I can tackle that. World of Goo is certainly the highlight of the year, but I would also recommend without hesitation:

Tetris Party - A really solid Tetris implementation (yes, another one) that has some clever new play modes like a Tangram-esque "fill the shadow" mode that has you making shapes with Tetris blocks and a "climber" mode where you have to let a little guy climb up to targets on the screen without crushing him. Also has very addictive local multiplayer (which my wife and I play almost nightly), including co-op. If you like Tetris at all, definitely get.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King - Part city-builder, part RPG management. You run a city, placing buildings down for your adventurers who then go out and do Final Fantasy-esque stuff like run quests, delve dungeons, etc. Build armories for them to buy weapons in, inns for them to regain health, etc etc, hire new adventurers, hand out rewards for quests you want done, and so on. Feels a little like Majesty on the PC for anyone who remembers that. Very "one more turn" quality to it.

Lost Winds - Very inventive side-scrolling action puzzler where you use the Wiimote cursor to control the wind, which becomes your character's jumping ability, his attack against enemies, and an environment manipulator to solve puzzles (blow fire around to burn things, water to grow plants, etc). Not very long, but visually gorgeous and inventive. I hope it gets a sequel.

Toki Tori - Side-scrolling puzzler which feels a little bit like The Lost Vikings except that you have only one "Viking" and he's a little yellow bird thing. Use items, push blocks, trigger traps and avoid enemies while rescuing other little birdies. Some devilishly clever level design, and a very cute aesthetic. If you like puzzlers, you'll probably enjoy this.

Mega Man 9 - I still haven't beat Dr. Wily's castle, but I don't care. It's new-old Mega Man, and it feels great. This one, of course, is also on XBLA and PSN, so you can get it anywhere, and you should.

I also hear good things about all of the Strong Bad Episodes, which are made by the same guys who do the new Sam & Max games, and those are great, so I suspect that's all true. Space Invaders Get Even is supposed to be good too, though pricey if you get the extra downloadable levels.

So yeah, all in all, there's actually a decent amount of cool stuff on WiiWare, though you're right, they're terrible at advertising it. I'll shoot this to you guys in an email so that who knows, maybe you'll list 'em off on the next episode.

The problem, of course, is that until Nintendo fixes the damn storage space problem, you'll probably only be able to store maybe 2 or 3 of these on your Wii at a time without shuffling them around to an SD card, which is almost disincentive enough to make a person not want to buy them. Some of them are really huge in terms of "blocks", and even if it would be money well spent, some days you just don't want to deal with deleting crap off your over-full Wii to download something new.

Ravenlock wrote:

The problem, of course, is that until Nintendo fixes the damn storage space problem, you'll probably only be able to store maybe 2 or 3 of these on your Wii at a time without shuffling them around to an SD card, which is almost disincentive enough to make a person not want to buy them. Some of them are really huge in terms of "blocks", and even if it would be money well spent, some days you just don't want to deal with deleting crap off your over-full Wii to download something new.

Can't you re-download WiiWare titles at any time for no additional charge?

Can't you re-download WiiWare titles at any time for no additional charge?

I think so, but who would want to listen to that dam coin noise every time you downloaded the game again.

Gaald wrote:
Can't you re-download WiiWare titles at any time for no additional charge?

I think so, but who would want to listen to that dam coin noise every time you downloaded the game again.

Very true. I usually mute my TV while I download. Who thought that was a good idea?

Ravenlock wrote:

Haven't listened to the whole podcast yet (1 hour in), but I have to say, I just picked up my first XBox 360 a little over a week ago (got a Jasper, luckily) and I am also having a great time with Crackdown. It's just tremendously well designed. I'm hoping I can find some folks to run around in co-op with after I get my Wireless Adapter (currently I'm using my laptop's wireless connection shared through WinXP, which is kind of a hassle), since I'm sure it only gets better with others.

I played CRACKDOWN when it first came out (I actually bought it for the game and not the Halo 3 Demo), and loved it. A few friends at work were also playing it and we'd trade stories each day of some amazing thing, or Achievement, we'd managed the previous night.

Justin