French Mime Camp, not to be confused with German Mein Kampf.
Lusipurr, SiliconNooB, and Mel travel to France to interview French gaming developers from ActiBlizzard, including Peter Molyneux and David Spade, but are forced to settle for an afternoon at Ubisoft with Yves Guillemot and his pet aubergine. Bonsoir!
LegendaryAppleI have Transistor. It’s a great game with a great soundtrack. The battle system is fun and challenging, but it took a little bit to get used to. I held down the “hum” button for quite some time.
Oh, and you can set the voice of the sword to come through the speakers on the controller. Very surreal.
LusipurrGreat! Now I want it even more! ;.;
Ethan 'Ethos' Pipher@LA – I wish she could hum WHILE moving around, though. It definitely does take a while to get used to, but in a good way. It really rewards experimentation, so the more you put into it the more you get out of it. This is how you form relationships with people and gameplay through the unique medium of video games, Mr. Cage!
LusipurrDavid Cage is eating brie and cannot hear you.
koboldekoboldRegarding the conversation about physical versus digital game ownership, I find that my position is actually that I prefer both, but in different contexts. I don’t know why, but for a console, I would much rather have the physical game, but for my pc I am inclined to purchase through steam. I suppose it shouldn’t make a difference, but for whatever reason it does.
Lusipurr@KBK: I feel more or less the same, and here’s why I think that way (it may be the same for you):
1) I expect to play Console games again later. Much later, and many times. I cannot tell you how many times I have played Mega Man 2, Castlevania, or Final Fantasy VII after their systems were made obsolete.
2) I do not expect to play PC games again after they are superseded by another game. After UT2004 came out, we didn’t play UT99 anymore. After TF2 came out, I didn’t play UT2004 anymore. After Borderlands 2 came out, I didn’t (really) play TF2 anymore. After Starcraft II, I didn’t play Starcraft I. After Warcraft III, I didn’t play Warcraft II. Etc.
3) Part of this has to do with the kinds of games that I buy. As a rule, I buy things on consoles if I can, unless they are first-person shooters, RTS games, or MMOs. None of these genres ages well technologically. Moreover, they are all multiplayer-oriented, and the playerbase is typically strongest on the games for which there is current support and development. Trying to find operating UT99 servers would be difficult. Trying to find POPULATED servers would be very unlikely. This is why old games with core audiences usually have to do these things themselves (I’m thinking of XvT here).
4) Another part of this is that my PC games historically had problems working on later operating systems–the farther from the launch version of an OS, the less likelihood that it would work. This was pretty troublesome on PCs but it is even worse on Macs, where the old software was all Power PC stuff that simply *cannot* be made to function under current (and recent) versions of Mac OS since Rosetta support was removed entirely. Now, I *cannot* play the original Starcraft without installing Windows, where it will run (but with a host of problems). Hence, it is easier just to play SC2. And, as above, there are actually loads of people playing SC2.
5) Console support for downloadable titles has been historically terrible (for the short history that we’ve had). Nintendo pulled the plug on its Wii and DS support this month–that’s like, what, eight years of service? I have a LOT of games that are more than eight years old and to which I still desire access. Microsoft pulled the plug on its Xbox service and upset people; it’ll do the same with the 360. Only Sony has kept stuff ticking over. I hope they always do, but it’ll take a long time until I have that confidence because the standard for the console industry hasn’t been very good.
6) On the PC, Steam has been spectacular. Everything is available. Only in rare, exceptional circumstances are things taken down from the Steam store. Valve has put themselves in a position where people trust them to keep stuff available.
So I suppose if I reductively simplify this, the three differentiating factors are: Replayability, Persistence, and Support.
koboldekoboldI don’t think #6 on your list can be overstated. Steam is fantastic, and if a person is moderately patient, they can likely get a very good deal on whatever game they are looking to purchase (I remember being amazed back when I picked up Torchlight for $5 not too far from its release date, and Bastion is another fun game I got on the cheap).
Unrelated to that, I am very much on board with the ps1 classics on vita thing you mentioned on twitter. That would be outstanding.
LusipurrMany, but not all, PSOne Classics have made the transition. Especially annoying is that we *know* they have Vita-compatible versions of these games on the servers, because they’ve accidentally made them available on several occasions. Why they are not ‘officially’ available is anybody’s guess.
PSP Games are the same way, for the most part (Valkyria Chronicles 2). And then there are the PSP games that are not on the store at all (Crisis Core!). These significant absences were one of the major reasons for the failure of the PSP-Go, so one wonders how they failed to learn the lesson there.
It’s funny that you should mention Torchlight. I was thinking about that game this evening. Remember how the Mac version was originally scheduled for a day & date release with the PC version? Here we are some two years later and the Mac version has not yet been completed. Looks increasingly like vapourware, which is a pity: my wife bought me a Steam copy (Windows) so that I would have the Mac version when it was released. Seems unlikely at this point!
LusipurrAs I was travelling to St. Ives
I met a Guillemot named Yves.
All his devs had seven sacks,
In every sack were seven hacks,
Every hack had seven shills,
And every shill turned rumour mills.
Counting all: devs, hacks, sacks, shills, and mills,
Must we swallow these bitter pills?
DiceAdmiralINFO BLUE SCREEN!
I had the whole thing typed up and lost it to a system error. Sorry!
Will return to normal schedule next week!
FerchuDA- So that’s why. I thought you were still sick .
LusipurrDiceAdmiral’s Bi-Weekly InfoBlast!
DiceAdmiralI really am sorry about that. I try to be as prompt as prompt and regular as I can with the Info Blast, especially after being mentioned for it several times. It killed about 3 hours of time today to have my computer bomb out like that and the file didn’t recover when I finally got back to working condition. Again, very sorry LusiChaps. I will backup the Info Blast next time.
FerchuMy god the live podcast of Lusipurr and Ethos is going to be grand. It is going to change EVERYTHING we know a podcast should be, It’s going to be grand, so grand that people will comment about the podcast for years to come, such excelence, such talents that will converge in a unique time to give an spectacular show never seen before, surely the HYPE IS ON :D
Ethan 'Ethos' Pipherno pressure.
Ferchujust remembering about the glorius podcast to come has make possible to grow more hair in my back, THE HYPE IS ON
LusipurrNah, he’s not overselling it at all. Not even a little.
Ferchu
