Swapgame / Mario Wii / Assassin’s Creed 2

This week we’re privileged to interview Marc Day; CEO and founder of Swapgame.com We discuss the ups and downs of game rental by post and how over the years it’s expanded to a successful trade-in plan. Tony and I have both used Swapgame for a long time now and can honestly  recommend it to all our listeners in the UK.

After that Tony talks Mario Wii and Alex discusses Assassin’s Creed 2 in-depth after a week each of hard gaming. Find out if the worlds most famous plumber lives up to the rose-tinted memories of his 2D era peak, and if Ubisoft can deliver another killer blow. The music at the end of the show is Jonathan Coulton, whom Tony and I (along with Plex, Lizz and Sharon) saw live in London for the second time this year last week. The song is about cybernetic enhancements and is called “Better”.

Many many thanks to Marc for the interview.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Modern Warfare 2.

This week, following the release of what may be the fastest selling game of all time we take a deeper look into Modern Warfare 2.

You all know what it is, so we focus on the details and the sparking controversy surrounding its release, but also the mechanics of the game and its strengths as well as its flaws. This is a candid and unflinching look at a title that follows a tried and tested formula and despite the slick delivery, there are definitely some sore points worth talking about.

The last section is a clearly flagged spoiler zone filled with plot details so make sure you’ve completed the main campaign before you finish listening.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Nintendo Wii Special

This week we launch our first of three console-specific episodes in the run up to Christmas where we will be exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the big three and whether they will be worth buying for our listeners.

To assess the Wii we employed the expert opinions of James Batchelor, staff writer for MCV and veteran of The WiiDS podcast. We asked him why we or our listeners should consider purchasing a system so often dismissed as casual.

After that Alex reviews Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony and Tony talks about how a game aimed at tweenage girls has stolen his heart this week; Band Hero.

You can find James’ podcast here at www.wiids-podcast.com and we’d like to warmly thank him for coming on and giving our show a long-needed dose of Nintendo perspective.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Last week Tony and I were guests on Big Red Potion. Hosts Sinan Kubba and Joe Delea have been on our show before for Episode #123 when we talked about game genres and reviews for AAA games.

On their episode #29 the four of us debated the Grand Theft Auto series andwhether it’s really matured over the years. In the wake of The Ballad of Gay Tony being released, is it now showing it’s age and will it ever be free from the media shit-storm that always follows a GTA release?

You can listen to it here, and we do thoroughly recommend you checking out BRP on a weekly basis. Also we hope Sinan gets well soon, as he’s been suffering from the Shingles., which is like Super-Chicken-Pox

Written By: Alex Shaw

I’ve been running over Episode #128 of Digital Cowboys in my head all evening. In that show we talked with James Portnow about what we should re-brand the term game with. Today I watched the new Daniel Floyd video on Video Games and Facing Controversy (Which is excellent as usual), made in conjunction with Portnow, discussing how our industry needs to stop quailing in the face of criticism when we attempt anything controversial even in the pursuit of artistic merit. He stated that we need to drop the term game in the same way as comic books became graphic novels in the 80’s and gained respect with work like Watchmen and Maus.

But as we said in the show, all the new and suggested terms seem unwieldy or pretentious, smacking of desperation to be taken seriously or suggesting some incredible new medium when it’s really just the same games we’ve been playing for years but which have evolved far beyond Pong and Space Invaders. Spielberg’s Interactive Entertainment or “I.E.” springs to mind. Interactive movie is no good either as we immediately think of Metal Gear Solid, sporadic moments of control amid hours of cut scenes and that specific kind of experience, which excludes games like Braid or Grand Theft Auto IV.

So I got to thinking, what is the one thing that games have that stands them apart from all other media? Reading is passive, as is watching films or listening to music, so it’s the interactivity that’s the difference.  I’d suggest we get rid of the modifier and simply call them what they are… an Interactive.

Wait ten seconds before you respond. Think hard. Set your mind thirty years into the future to some Demolition Man future where everybody is relatively content and what we now know as games would seem as primitive as Defender does to you now. Those people, when stepping into the heads of characters created by Hideo Kojima Junior, won’t just be playing games. Whatever you conceive that they will be doing, it’s unarguable that it will be interactive in the way that film, books and music will still not be, unless of course they are cross-branched into Interactives with the evolutions of Heavy Rain and Rock Band. It’s a word in common use today, but used in a new context, it’s one that describes in just four syllables exactly what you’re doing, the variations being entirely thematic.

Now in the real future of 2038, that word is unlikely to be the name for what we now call games, but my point is that it could be. I believe we do need re-branding because one of our biggest barriers to evolution of the medium is an inability to change general public perception of the term game. It is kind of like trying to give yourself a nickname in school, I grant you, but if we don’t think about it and discuss the possibilities then we’ll be living in the pixelated shadow of Pac-Man forever.

In this week’s packed show we talk to Jamie Cheng; CEO of Klei Entertainment. We get some insight into the creation of the game he’s currently overseeing; named Shank. I got to play it at PAX this year and since then I’ve been dying to get Jamie on the show to talk about it. The project is still shrouded in secrecy but we do get to know a little more about the thought processes that went into it’s design, some info about the team behind it and some of Jamie’s gaming opinions. You can find out more about Shank here on the official blog.

http://shankgame.com/

As well as that, Tony reviews DJ Hero in-depth and we assess whether it’s worth the hefty asking price. We also discuss our time at the Eurogamer Expo in London. The games of note are Alien vs. Predator, and God of War III. We finish off with an appraisal of the Heavy Rain presentation we attended, hosted by David Cage and how we felt when we got our hands on the updated demo.

Many thanks to Jamie Cheng for the interview and Carolyn Carnes for arranging it. We hope to hear more as Shank’s development continues.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending the Eurogamer expo in London. We saw a lot of games we’d already seen at PAX but got hands-on on several we hadn’t yet witnessed. There was also a particularly fascinating keynotes address from David Cage; Director of Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit.

In the evening we finished off with a round table discussion podcast hosted by Kropotkin of Superhappyfuntimeshow, Elmo and Michael of Joypod were there to lend their particular expertise. You can find and listen to the whole show here on the SHFTS website.
Many thanks to Krop, Joypod and everyone we met and worked with, including old Cowboy Paul and DC listener Mr McFluffin who we played a little Beatles Rock Band with on stage.

Hey all

For the month of November we’re having a donation drive in support of DC. We’re hoping to raise enough to pay for three things…

* Commander Tim for the space we’ll be using on his servers throughout 2010
* The purchase of our domain name for 2010
* Any extra we get will be used to pay Libsyn for our monthly bandwidth fees

I’ve done the maths and worked out a final figure that would be very good for us. If every show listener throws in a pound or a dollar then we’ll be more than sorted. There’s a Paypal donation button in the right side bar . You’ll be able to donate all year round but we won’t mention it outside of November when we’re going to be having the drive.

Many many thanks to those who have donated donated already.