A Question of Morality.

We’ve brought in Daniel Floyd once again, this time to discuss the topic of his latest animated lecture, based on an article by James Portnow on the challenge of designing games with ambiguous moral choice.

The situation so far has been Renegade/Paragon; being a total arsehole or a goody two-shoes and somewhere in-between an under-powered and frustrated player of games trying hard to make decisions that seem realistic. Portnow’s article argues that it’s possible to achieve more and in this episode, we look at the supreme design challenge that this represents. We also assess the difference between problems in a game and choices and how rarely the latter ever show up.

Many thanks to Daniel for joining us and adding his usual brand of classiness and incisiveness and also to Mr Portnow for the inspirational article. More people like these please.

Stay tuned at the close of the show for a fantastic Tim Minchin song and a cherry on top.

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Live Twittercast.

This evening we decided to open up the floor to our community and let you guys pick our topics. Edie Sellers of Gamehounds joins us to field your questions on Twitter and the forums.

We cram into 100 minutes all of your questions about what’s coming up in 2010 including Natal and the Sony Gem, 3D technology, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, new handhelds and many many more.

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My Generation.

Since the Xbox 360 was launched in 2005 we’ve all come to embrace the many changes that it brought to us, along with those of the PS3 and Wii, launched a year later. But now that we’ve become complacent with the advantages and internet connectivity they delivered, we can barely imagine a world where we can’t see what our friends are playing every time we’re online and never find ourselves unable to walk further than two meters from the television with our controllers.

Tonight, let us explore that world by looking back on just what innovations we’ve been party to that would be impossible to abandon now. To chat with us, we have Dan Illson, a man with close links to Some Other Castle. We finish off with what we’ve been playing over Christmas; many RPG’s.

Note: During the show I call Final Fantasy XII “Ugly”, I realise that this clearly isn’t the case, it’s quite beautiful in fact, but that statement does speak volumes for how inured I am to HD gaming. -Alex.

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End of Year Awards 2009.

To close out the year, we look back on the last twelve months of game releases and name our nominations in a multitude of categories. Every nominee is a winner and deserves your attention.

To give us a balanced perspective we’re joined by Neil “Xibxang” Brooks and Leon “Ratso Albion” Cox of GamerDork.

To close out the show we announce the winner of our T-Shirt design challenge. The lucky entrant will receive a $40 gift voucher for Casually Hardcore, purveyors of fine geek, nerd and gamer-friendly clothing.

Happy New Year to all our listeners.

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Christmas Video Gaming Quiz.

To celebrate the holiday season we’ve thrown an inter-podcast quiz on the subject of video games. Tony is quizmaster (and a very strict one) and I’m competing against Chris O Regan from Superhappyfuntimeshow, Ratso Albion of Gamerdork and Sinan Kubba of Big Red Potion.

Find out who among us is the king of gaming knowhow.

Also as a special treat we had a bit of a Christmas sing-song at the beginning, the video of which can be found here.

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Xbox 360 Explored / Borderlands

This week we continue our console focused episodes in the run up to Christmas and take a look at the Xbox 360. So that we don’t come off like fanboys we tear into its flaws first, before taking a look at the strengths that make it worth buying.

Following this we give a full review of one of the sleeper hits of the year; Borderlands. If you haven’t played this yet then find out why you should. If you already have then enjoy the warm, fuzzy feelings associated with people saying nice things about a game you like.

But how do you follow up on an episode where you get to interview Dominik Diamond? It’s almost impossible folks and I will tell you truthfully now, that this episode was one of the hardest to edit in our long run of shows.  The original recording was 135 minutes long so rather than giving you a boring, long show I cut it to the bone and then, inspired by the podcasts of Robert Ashley and Kevin Smith I filled every inch of it with interesting, mood-setting music, employing a few unusual editing styles along the way. The result took me more than ten hours to edit, twice as long as the average show, so you may love it or hate it, but I won’t be doing it again.
There’s an Easter Egg at the end. I hope I made this show worth the wait.

Alex

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Dominik Diamond on Gamesmaster.

We’re immensely honoured this week to bring you Dominik Diamond, presenter of the greatest show about games ever to grace television screens; Gamesmaster.

For nearly seven years (barring one brief hiatus) Dominik presented this classic British production with a mixture of wit, charm and innuendo sending challengers, both unknown and celebrity into gaming tasks set by a techno-wizard played by Patrick Moore and commentating on their progress as though it were the most exciting sports action ever. The formula worked and Gamesmaster consistently drew audiences from the 16-Bit era all the way through to 1998 when the Playstation held full sway.

Dominik has been a journalist, and a DJ for XFM simce then and has moved to Nova Scotia; Canada with his family. He very kindly gave us two hours of his time to reminisce about his experiences, and the interview we now have here is probably one of our favourites in all our long years of podcasting.

You’ll definitely find out some things you didn’t know, learn behind the scenes tidbits and see how Dominik got in and out of the show. For those new to it, YouTube is a vertitable treasure trove of clips and if you’d like to see shows recommended by Dominik himself, that followed in Gamesmaster’s footsteps, check out Consolevania and Video Gaiden.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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