Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 131

theHunter, Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Aqua Art Styles, The DSi, Elven Legacy, Crowd Sourced Questions, Your Emails and more!

This week, in a desperate effort to remain relevant in these changing times, we turn to Twitter for our inspiration. All kinds of user submitted questions up in this ... hizzy? Hizzous? I'm sorry. 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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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"Luna Machine" (Benoit Casey) - http://www.cerebrimusic.com - 0:30:16
"George" (Benoit Casey) - http://www.cerebrimusic.com - 0:59:57

Comments

downloading now, yaay!

woot woot

Correction: theHunter is developed by Avalanche Studios, and published by emote.

Look what you made me do, I registered just to make that correction. But then again, now I am part of the community! Woohoo!

urbanlegend wrote:

Correction: theHunter is developed by Avalanche Studios, and published by emote.

Look what you made me do, I registered just to make that correction. But then again, now I am part of the community! Woohoo!

welcome!!

I posted a question on Twitter, tho my knowledge of Twitter is limited so I have no idea if it even got considered/seen (it was a reply to Certis)...

Great show as always guys =D

Speaking of games that are musicals, didn't Conker's Bad Fur Day on N64 have a hilarious musical number by a giant lump of singing poo?

WOW, this might the only gaming podcast that makes me wanna play a deer hunting game...

i wonder if i can mod the game and replace the deer model with an Osama Bin Laden model instead?

Sounds like Rabbit's back to his old enthusiastic self.

yoyoma wrote:

Speaking of games that are musicals, didn't Conker's Bad Fur Day on N64 have a hilarious musical number by a giant lump of singing poo?

Yes indeed it did! I even got screenshots of it into a piece I did on game humor for one of those paper thingies you read on the toilet. Remember those? Whatchamacalits?

rabbit wrote:

Yes indeed it did! I even got screenshots of it into a piece I did on game humor for one of those paper thingies you read on the toilet. Remember those? Whatchamacalits?

Quote of the day toilet papers?

Duoae wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Yes indeed it did! I even got screenshots of it into a piece I did on game humor for one of those paper thingies you read on the toilet. Remember those? Whatchamacalits?

Quote of the day toilet papers?

I'm pretty sure it was a monogrammed towel.

I stopped listening @ 1:20 when they said Cory wasn't on the show.

haha!

Speaking of steampunk, is anyone following Damnation?

IMAGE(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/02/damnation_preview.jpg)

Great podcast this week, guys. The marriage of cleverness and laziness in the format never sounded so good.

garion333 wrote:

Speaking of steampunk, is anyone following Damnation?

I kind of am. I thought it was pretty neat back in its incarnation as a UT2k4 mod, so I am cautiously optimistic about the retail version.

Also, that woman's outfit is hilarious.

My missing Rock Band artist is The Eagles. I think they'd be perfect.

Musical-style segment in a game: Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64! You fought a big pile of poo who sung like and opera singer. Granted, it was breaks in the action for the song potions, but they broke it out like 3 times throughout the course of the fight.

Someone please make a muscial-genre game. It could be so hilarious.

oh yea, for musical in games, i think you guys forgot about King's Quest VI. when you were in the Underworld, the skeletons suddenly did a full dance sequence which was awesome~!

Grim Fandango would have worked as a musical. As for steampunk I dont know why someone hasnt snatched up China Melveille's New Crobizon/Bas-Lag IP for that kind of thing.

yoyoma wrote:

Speaking of games that are musicals, didn't Conker's Bad Fur Day on N64 have a hilarious musical number by a giant lump of singing poo?

This is for me, as a trained vocalist, to this day still the single funniest moment in all of videogamedom.

I thought it was interesting how many times the phrase "you could do worse than to play..." was used; at least two or three times near the beginning of the podcast. Clearly you are all very passionate about the games you're playing right now

Good commentary on the Dad gaming with children issue, though. I have a 6-month-old so I'm starting to ponder this issue myself (as well as watch my gaming time shrink drastically ).

I played some of Damnation at last year's PAX. It was very pretty, but didn't really impress me beyond the setting. I only played it for 20 minutes, but in that time it didn't wow me as much as I'd hoped. I'm sure lots will change between that time and its release.

Also, may I be the first to say "let's hear it for METH!" Thanks, Certis. Your delightfully twisted - and downright wrong - comments have been sorely lacking from the last few weeks. Next week, I'd appreciate it if you could draw some comparisons between playing games and drowning puppies.

great job this week guys! as a HUGE rock band fan i think that they are should add more 90s stuff, as being born in the mid 80s and growing up inthe 90s. :o)

LiK wrote:

oh yea, for musical in games, i think you guys forgot about King's Quest VI. when you were in the Underworld, the skeletons suddenly did a full dance sequence which was awesome~!

That was a great scene in a wonderful game.

wordsmythe wrote:
LiK wrote:

oh yea, for musical in games, i think you guys forgot about King's Quest VI. when you were in the Underworld, the skeletons suddenly did a full dance sequence which was awesome~!

That was a great scene in a wonderful game.

I love that game. I miss that one and will have to find a way to play it again. Hopefully, I can still remember the items to give to the dwarves on the beach.

Here's the link to The Onion video (which contains a link to the "demo") for Point-Blank. You mentioned it in the podcast but it isn't in the show notes. I laughed out loud.

Minarchist wrote:
yoyoma wrote:

Speaking of games that are musicals, didn't Conker's Bad Fur Day on N64 have a hilarious musical number by a giant lump of singing poo?

This is for me, as a trained vocalist, to this day still the single funniest moment in all of videogamedom.

I thought it was interesting how many times the phrase "you could do worse than to play..." was used; at least two or three times near the beginning of the podcast. Clearly you are all very passionate about the games you're playing right now

Good commentary on the Dad gaming with children issue, though. I have a 6-month-old so I'm starting to ponder this issue myself (as well as watch my gaming time shrink drastically ).

Horray, I'm not the only one who laughed endlessly at that! I don't understand it on the same level as you minarchist, evidently, but still found it insanely entertaining, along with most of the rest of the game.
Actually Conker's Bad Fur Day and Mario 64 were the only 3D platformers on the N64 I liked. Conker moreso due to its excelent spoofing. I mean, the final chapter used material from the Matrix, Star Wars, Aliens, and I think more. And it did it all while still keeping it fun to play.

Part of the reason that some of the bands mentioned in the podcast, particularly the 80's bands mentioned by Rabbit, aren't in the Rock Band library is that they have non-standard instruments that are difficult to replicate with the guitar/bass/drums/vocals setup the game has. Taking one quick example, Echo and the Bunnymen's "Ocean Rain" would be difficult to translate into a Rock Band because it has multiple guitars, a number of overdubs, and no drums (the "Echo" in the band's name is their drum machine; they don't have a physical drummer). Likewise, the Human League and the Cure both use a number of synthesizers in their songs. This is also part of why you don't see popular indie bands like the Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah showing up in the game; how on Earth would you play some of those songs? You would have to abandon the idea of the guitar controller as a guitar replica and instead view it as a controller; I think that the developers at Harmonix are hesitant to break that sense of immersion in order to get certain songs into their catalog.

I have naval lint!

Podunk wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Speaking of steampunk, is anyone following Damnation?

I kind of am. I thought it was pretty neat back in its incarnation as a UT2k4 mod, so I am cautiously optimistic about the retail version.

Also, that woman's outfit is hilarious.

I saw a screenshot of that game where a cowboy was driving a motorcycle sideways on a wall while firing a six-shooter. That's the sort of thing that could make me fall in love with a title.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Horray, I'm not the only one who laughed endlessly at that! I don't understand it on the same level as you minarchist, evidently, but still found it insanely entertaining, along with most of the rest of the game.

I'm not sure it takes a lot of training to understand lines like "You're just an itty bitty sh*tty little tag-nut" :). I just threw that in there because it was so very well done, as far as style and technique.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
LiK wrote:

oh yea, for musical in games, i think you guys forgot about King's Quest VI. when you were in the Underworld, the skeletons suddenly did a full dance sequence which was awesome~!

That was a great scene in a wonderful game.

I love that game. I miss that one and will have to find a way to play it again. Hopefully, I can still remember the items to give to the dwarves on the beach.

This is well worth the miniscule investment, not just for VI but V and the rest of the great series. The skeleton scene was so amusing, in part because it was interesting to actually arrive at that location. I don't know about you, but by the time I got there I'd already seen that screen about a hundred times by throwing a rotten tomato at the minotaur or whatever other stupid idea I had...the realization of "hey, that's a real location!" was very cool.