Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 197

RUSE, Death Spank, NCAA 2011, Echalon Book II, Starcraft II, Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, League of Legends Season One, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn, Elysium, Allen and Rob talk games, reaching back to comforting tropes and old mascots. 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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Good Old Games

Eagle Transporter - What rabbit freaked out about.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

chandra - (b-sides) - workbench-music.com - 0:35:19
blink - (b-sides) - workbench-music.com - 0:51:02

Comments

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Rob's Back! Can't wait for some good old rage.

What? No orgy stories in the outtakes?

I totally had an Eagle Transporter, also had the die cast fighter from UFO. God, i loved those shows, so british and so not the mainstream, in those days. Except for Martin Landau, but whatever. I have such fond memories of Space 1999, I don't care if it doesn't hold up.

Love Pyroman on the show

Oh Shawn, were you referring to this horrible earworm?

Previously I asked a question about expressing your concerns through your purchases. I cited examples of Activision and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the PC as examples of entities treated as pariahs on forums and in conversations despite being incredibly successful financially. Moral: People who complain buy anyway. When I asked about this on a previous call Certis and others mocked the idea of leveraging your purchases based on concerns that you had.

Now, if I come across as a jerk in this post I really apologize, I was just hoping that maybe someone might help parse how my prior question and the discussion around it is different then the discussion on Ruse and DRM. The complaints about the Ubisoft DRM didn’t seem based on practical concerns (fear of losing connection), but really just a reaction to their draconian measures Ubisoft has put into place.

Thanks and love the show as always.

I can't speak for the guys, but as I recall what they were questioning in the previous show was the idea that one person's buying decision-- or even your typical Internet "boycott"-- will make any practical difference.

I don't have any illusions about whether my decision not to buy Assassin's Creed II on the PC will make the slightest bit of difference to Ubisoft's future plans or the future of DRM on the PC in general. I still won't buy it, however, simply because I don't want to support those types of practices. I don't want to be part of the problem. Will it make a difference? Maybe not, but it'll make me feel better.

Haven't finished the podcast yet, but was interested in your reaction to R.U.S.E., and was wondering if you were aware that a few weeks ago Ubisoft demoed Move support for R.U.S.E. on PS3, which seemed to work very well. Maybe this could be a valid alternative if you refuse to get the PC version. I'm personally very interested because Move seemed to be a good fit for RTS from the start, and now that you guys are so positive about R.U.S.E. I am starting to get excited for this title even more (my PC is now weaker than my PS3 and I've given up PC gaming altogether, so the PC version wasn't an option for me anyway).

Arwin wrote:

Haven't finished the podcast yet, but was interested in your reaction to R.U.S.E., and was wondering if you were aware that a few weeks ago Ubisoft demoed Move support for R.U.S.E. on PS3, which seemed to work very well. Maybe this could be a valid alternative if you refuse to get the PC version.

It's adding another factor into the equation, as additional hardware is required for that, unless it's an optional mode of control with controllers working as well.

If they actually released a Wii version of RUSE I'll buy that hands down. Or if they started releasing several strategy games with Move/Kinect, I might actually invest in one of those setups because that's a very compelling use of the tech.

demonbox wrote:

Previously I asked a question about expressing your concerns through your purchases. I cited examples of Activision and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the PC as examples of entities treated as pariahs on forums and in conversations despite being incredibly successful financially. Moral: People who complain buy anyway. When I asked about this on a previous call Certis and others mocked the idea of leveraging your purchases based on concerns that you had.

Now, if I come across as a jerk in this post I really apologize, I was just hoping that maybe someone might help parse how my prior question and the discussion around it is different then the discussion on Ruse and DRM. The complaints about the Ubisoft DRM didn’t seem based on practical concerns (fear of losing connection), but really just a reaction to their draconian measures Ubisoft has put into place.

Thanks and love the show as always.

I don't want to put words in everybody's mouth, but my reaction to your email was not "It doesn't matter" but "It doesn't matter to anybody but you". If you do not want to be complicit in an activity that a publisher is doing, don't give them your money. But do not expect the CEO of the publisher to cry himself to sleep at night.

DRM is one of my long-going struggles with purchasing games. I used to be pretty hardcore anti-DRM to the point that anything with online activation was completely out. I've gotten to more of a middle-ground place, though. My rule is that of all the companies that are on the market, reward the ones doing it better than everyone else (Steam, Stardock) and do not buy from the ones who are doing it worse than everyone else (Ubisoft). Put your money where you want the industry to go. Ubisoft is way worse than everybody else and if their sales don't pick up nobody is going to follow them there.

I think Ubisoft DRM also crosses a practical line, which is that if your internet connection goes down or if their servers go down the game is literally useless. Not feature limited, or "offline mode" but completely useless. That's a line I think most people simply aren't comfortable paying $60 to cross.

This was a fun conference call this week. It was nice to have Rob back. I think time away may have helped his demeanor. There was no rage to be found anywhere.

On the subject of comfort food games, I confess that I still pop open my netbook and play Master of Orion 2 from time to time when the mood strikes me. I can sleepwalk through the experience at this point, but it's still very fun.

Also, thank you for reminding me that Age of Wonders exists. I bought this game years ago because I used to adore Master of Magic. However, MoM hasn't aged too well, so I could never get into it in recent years. I'll have to hunt another copy of AoW down and give that a shot.

Lastly, I want to thank you for planting such odd modern-game crossovers in my head. My vote is for Cooking with Kratos or perhaps League of Legends Dating Sim (come on, you know some lonely geeks would dig on that).

Fun as always.

Arwin wrote:

Haven't finished the podcast yet, but was interested in your reaction to R.U.S.E., and was wondering if you were aware that a few weeks ago Ubisoft demoed Move support for R.U.S.E. on PS3, which seemed to work very well. Maybe this could be a valid alternative if you refuse to get the PC version. I'm personally very interested because Move seemed to be a good fit for RTS from the start, and now that you guys are so positive about R.U.S.E. I am starting to get excited for this title even more (my PC is now weaker than my PS3 and I've given up PC gaming altogether, so the PC version wasn't an option for me anyway).

I didn't hear that they had added Move support. That's really interesting. Might work well with Kinect too, which is something I hadn't expected to be saying.

garion333 wrote:
Arwin wrote:

Haven't finished the podcast yet, but was interested in your reaction to R.U.S.E., and was wondering if you were aware that a few weeks ago Ubisoft demoed Move support for R.U.S.E. on PS3, which seemed to work very well. Maybe this could be a valid alternative if you refuse to get the PC version. I'm personally very interested because Move seemed to be a good fit for RTS from the start, and now that you guys are so positive about R.U.S.E. I am starting to get excited for this title even more (my PC is now weaker than my PS3 and I've given up PC gaming altogether, so the PC version wasn't an option for me anyway).

I didn't hear that they had added Move support. That's really interesting. Might work well with Kinect too, which is something I hadn't expected to be saying. ;)

Give Kinect time, I seriously think it has the potential to be pretty big. Between Dance Central, exercise games and some strategy titles (if you can sit down) there is a definite potential for good content.

docbadwrench wrote:

This was a fun conference call this week. It was nice to have Rob back. I think time away may have helped his demeanor. There was no rage to be found anywhere.

I haven't listened yet, on my way home soon, but all I can say is

PyromanFO wrote:

DRM is one of my long-going struggles with purchasing games. I used to be pretty hardcore anti-DRM to the point that anything with online activation was completely out. I've gotten to more of a middle-ground place, though. My rule is that of all the companies that are on the market, reward the ones doing it better than everyone else (Steam, Stardock) and do not buy from the ones who are doing it worse than everyone else (Ubisoft). Put your money where you want the industry to go. Ubisoft is way worse than everybody else and if their sales don't pick up nobody is going to follow them there.

I think Ubisoft DRM also crosses a practical line, which is that if your internet connection goes down or if their servers go down the game is literally useless. Not feature limited, or "offline mode" but completely useless. That's a line I think most people simply aren't comfortable paying $60 to cross.

Good rule.

That practical line that Ubisoft crosses is an important one too. I have extremely crappy internet, not being able to play RUSE when I get home after a long day at work makes the game totally useless, even if it only happens once a week, and it won't happen that seldom.

I'm also finding that through Steam, and thanks to my internet, I am getting into small, easily downloaded indie games that I otherwise wouldn't have paid attention to. Triple A games are either too big to download, are too expensive, too demanding on my system or have too many restrictions to play.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I didn't hear that they had added Move support. That's really interesting. Might work well with Kinect too, which is something I hadn't expected to be saying. ;)

Give Kinect time, I seriously think it has the potential to be pretty big. Between Dance Central, exercise games and some strategy titles (if you can sit down) there is a definite potential for good content.

We don't need to start a Kinect thread here, but honestly I had been having a hard time coming up with what games would work well on it and really anything that works well on an iPad/iPhone could potentially work well with Kinect ... until your arms get tired of pointing at things.

Regarding DeathSpank and getting low on health, in addition to the visual and audio cues, the controller also rumbles, at least on the 360. I didn't have any trouble keeping up with my health, but that might be because I have my 360 on my computer desk hooked up to my PC monitor and speakers, so I'm a lot closer to the screen.

Also, my favorite weapon is the Poop Hammer.

Spoiler:

During one mission you have to use the Poop Hammer to hit animals (I want to say sheeps, but I'm not certain) and literally knock the sh*t out of them, then collect X piles of poop and return them to the quest giver.

EDIT: Forgot to say: welcome back Rob!

In my wildest of dreams, I envision Heavy Rain being ported to the kinect.

Great show this week. Lots of good laughs.

MeatMan wrote:

Regarding DeathSpank and getting low on health, in addition to the visual and audio cues, the controller also rumbles, at least on the 360. I didn't have any trouble keeping up with my health

I think the health notifications are pretty good too. My problem was that some of the mobs seem a little unbalanced. You run into large groups of weak enemies who are hanging around with one really powerful enemy, so you get a little over-confident and suddenly you're dead.

There's nothing wrong with your guys' idea for a new Gears of War game. Nothing at all.

Edit: Keep watching the skiies!

I bought a Sager laptop 3 years ago and it's still going strong, no problems with it (other than my carelessness).

I do recommend a laptop cooler for it though.

I'm having trouble with the podcast. RSS URL and the 'save link as' give me an empty file. Others are clearly getting the podcast.

Suggestions?

carljetter wrote:

I'm having trouble with the podcast. RSS URL and the 'save link as' give me an empty file. Others are clearly getting the podcast.

Suggestions?

Looks like the Libsyn server is down. I'll drop them an email!

Glad to hear talk about tropes. That word was sadly missing from the latest Three Moves Ahead 'cast with Levine.

Spaz wrote:

In my wildest of dreams, I envision Heavy Rain being ported to the kinect.

I thought that was happening.

wordsmythe wrote:

Glad to hear talk about tropes. That word was sadly missing from the latest Three Moves Ahead 'cast with Levine.

Spaz wrote:

In my wildest of dreams, I envision Heavy Rain being ported to the kinect.

I thought that was happening.

And RE5 is getting Move support. This is probably the only way I will ever play the game, since I was spoiled via RE4:Wii, which was a much better experience than the GCN/PS2 versions, which were great in and of themselves.

wordsmythe wrote:

Glad to hear talk about tropes. That word was sadly missing from the latest Three Moves Ahead 'cast with Levine.

Spaz wrote:

In my wildest of dreams, I envision Heavy Rain being ported to the kinect.

I thought that was happening.

It's getting ported to Move, very crappily it seems. But Kinect is Microsoft, so ....

Certis wrote:
carljetter wrote:

I'm having trouble with the podcast. RSS URL and the 'save link as' give me an empty file. Others are clearly getting the podcast.

Suggestions?

Looks like the Libsyn server is down. I'll drop them an email!

All good now! Thanks GWJers! Listening now....
Carl

Oh Certis, in ten years you won't need special software to slow your computer down enough to play Counterstrike. You'll just need to convince that little paperclip to run software it thinks is old and boring.

10 years in the future:
"We're playing Counterstrike. Dig out those keyboards if you can find them. If you can't find one there's a pretty good keyboard emulator for most vidcams."

Great show guys! I would like to say that I think a laptop or any electronic device only lasting 2 years is completely unacceptable. You guys kind of hit on this, but if you simply take care of the things you buy they will last longer. If something is designed to fail after a certain amount of time then the real reason behind this is the manufacturer simply wants to sell you another item later in time. I understand electronics fail, but five years is a more acceptable amount of time. One brand of laptop I would never recommend to anyone is Toshiba. I've had three now and they all have problems with the power supply connection. My last 2 were ones I rescued from being thrown out, and was able to repair. I am hoping to get a new laptop this Christmas and I am looking at the Macbooks. I have always owned Windows PCs and I really think there is a little more quality control at Apple versus the junk they sell at Best Buy.

I have 2 Apple computers. A 2003 desktop that is still kicking ass. And an early 2006 MacBookPro laptop. For transparency, the only games I played on them both successfully for fun was Unreal Tournament.

SO! When I get my next apple product, it will be by default very game worthy! I'll start the clock when this purchase happens. Who knows, maybe gaming taxes a system more and my Apple product will crap out like Shawn's did.

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