Shortbus/Eragon/Tonying

The X-Treme Edition!

This week, the Cowboys take a break from the big stuff and discuss the oddball little things that have caught their attention during the long, hot summer minutes.

00.00 Firstly some sad news. Between the three of us weâve owned five Xbox 360âs and two of them have died. Last week another went. We wonât spoil the surprise as to whose.

06.00 Shortbus. The three Cowboys review this odd, quirky and incredibly explicit sex comedy from director John Cameron Mitchell.

17.00 Alex reviews retarded, uninspiring, cheap-ass dragon-plodder Eragon in one minute, although three words sum it up far better.

23.00 Grand Theft Auto IV has been pushed back. The Cowboys discuss why.

33.00 Alex brings up two very daft products he saw at the Supermarket and Woolworths.

41.00 The show rounds off with a discussion about ‘Tonying’: the little known practice of immediately playing your new video games all the way through as soon as possible.

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Transformers/The Simpsons Movie/Sicko/Guitar Hero: Rocks The 80s

In our longest episode ever, we’ve jam-packed info into this weeks episode. First Alex talks to Canadian correspondent Mat Lo about Michael Moore’s newest documentary about the US health service, Sicko.

Then Alex, Paul, Tony and Tom discuss firstly Transformers and then The Simpsons Movie, two long awaited TV shows turned movies. Both get the thorough treatment that befits projects of this magnitude and by the end it’s clear that not every Cowboy loves both films. Sparks fly!

Then Guitar Hero: Rocks The 80s for PS2 makes a much anticipated appearance. We’ve squeezed into our sequined jumpsuits and feathered our massive haircuts just for the occasion. Find out whether our appetites for tasty riffs and blinding fret-work will be sated until the holiday season.

We round off with a look at two new PS3 items: the Heavenly Sword playable demo and real in-game footage from Metal Gear Solid 4 – Guns of the Patriots.

At the very close of the show is a last minute update of a couple of previously discussed issues.

The show is getting more fun to produce every week. Keep on downloading us and thank you in advance for telling all your friends to do the same.

Also the website link on our iTunes page is fixed so you can now click on it and be taken here, rather than being sent to a bunch (completely unrelated) Cowboys of the Digital variety.

00.00 Sicko
16.00 Transformers
35.00 The Simpsons
54.00 Guitar Hero: Rocks The 80s
1.04.00 PS3 Demo Focus
1.18.00 Round off and update

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Harry Potter OOTP/Serenity & Firefly

This week, the Digital Cowboys are all about magic and space cowboys.

First there’s a review of the most recent Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix. Then Alex fesses up to rediscovering (and loving) Firefly and the movie Serenity.

Then we talk about a few things that have changed in the gaming world since last weeks E3 and Tony reviews Halo 2 on the PC.

As requested, our Gamertags on Xbox Live are…

GHOST WORLD (Tony)
Stans Labyrinth (Alex)
PlexShaw (Paul)
III Jambo III (Jamie)

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E3 2007 Special

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (now known as the E3 Media and Business Summit) is the biggest trade show for video games every year.

Until recently, anybody who knew a guy at a video game store could seemingly get in. The result was a whooping cacophony of fanboys, booth babes (not that we were complaining) and heady Vegas-style razzmatazz. This year, however, they decided to make it much smaller and more exclusive to keep out the riff raff. This was intended to get the show focussed once more on games themselves, with only gaming insiders, publishers, retailers and journalists admitted.

The Digital Cowboys have checked out the results and this week they discuss the ramifications to the gaming industry of the conferences from the big three: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Also: Rock Band, and why it’s going to rock you like a hurricane!

00.00 – Microsoft
18.00 – Sony
43.00 – Nintendo
01.05 – Rock Band

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Star Wars: Best and Worst/The Darkness/Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence/Captivity/Vacancy/Colverfield Trailer/Die Hard 4.0

It’s a packed episode this week. Alex starts with a lengthy reeling off of the 20 worst and 20 best moments in the Star Wars saga, as this year all wannabe Jedi’s will celebrate its third decade of world domination.

Tony reviews action-packed comic book adaptation video game The Darkness from Starbreeze Studios (The Chronicles of Riddick – Escape From Butcher Bay).

Alex plugs Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (NOT the regular version, Snake Eater), a game that has consumed his life for weeks now, and needs a special mention.

Paul discusses the three grimy movies he watched this week that are either torture porn (Hostel 2, Captivity) or snuff related (Vacancy) and tries to sift out the best of the bunch.

J.J. Abrams new project, 01-18-08 (AKA Cloverfield) gets thrown into the ring. Not much to debate: just download and watch it right now from: http://www.davestrailerpage.co.uk/

And we round off with a group summery of Die Hard 4.0, possibly the least rubbish of the Summer sequels so far. Roll on Jason Bourne to snatch that tarnished crown away from Willis’ bald head.

Our audience is growing, but we always need more, so let all of your friends know about us and email us here digitalcowboys@googlemail.com

Even better, you could review us on iTunes. It only takes a moment or two and we’ll get loads more listeners if they can read the feedback themselves.

We love you long time: Alex, Paul, Tony and Tom.

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Room 101

WARNING: this episode contains VERY strong language.

Since we’ve been so nice in recent weeks, the Cowboys felt like venting for a change. We’ve got together and fixed upon the eight most rancid, horrible things about video games and movies which are bothering us at the moment and took turns submitting them for dismissal, destruction and obscurity in the bowels of Orwell’s Room 101. This is the premise of an amusing BBC show which has run on and off since 1994, originally presented by Nick Hancock and then Paul Merton.

The sorry task for the three hosts not pitching is to defend the wretched things in order to keep them from their grisly fate. Who shall be saved?

There is more bile, venom and cursing in this episode than ever before, so the faint-hearted should steer clear. However, those with an axe to grind about having their time wasted by cinemas and their digital possessions highly priced and badly managed should find much here be tickled with.

Spread the word about Digital Cowboys. We want as wide an audience as possible to listen to our fevered rantings. Email every single one of your friends. Tell the world of our exploits. Post comments on this blog page. Email digitalcowboys@googlemail.com and tell us what you think. Request themed shows. Send us pictures. Get our name branded on your behind. Talk about us ’til the cows come home with everybody you meet…

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PS3 Focus/Manhunt 2/Video Game Controversy

Part 1: Seeing as we’ve been so fabulously rotten about the PlayStation 3 from our first show onwards, we decided to spend a good portion of this show bigging it up. So the first bit is all about the good things that are coming out on PS3 soon.

Part 2: Focuses on the recently UN-released Manhunt 2 on PS2, PSP and Wii. We talk about why everyone from the BBFC to the ESRB have decided to make it pretty much impossible for anybody, mentalist or otherwise, to get hold of a copy of this grisly Rockstar escapade.

Part 3: Discussion about controversial video games in general, and why when you look at the content that people are making a fuss over, it seems to be by and large infantile, tawdry or just really poor taste, rarely connected with any real games of quality, and, when it is – like the infamous "Hot Coffee" incident – it could lift right out of the game without issue. Apologies for our screenshot this week, it was simply too gruesome to miss sharing with the world.

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Sequels and why they suck!

This week, we figured we’d take a look at the mass of new sequels emerging onto the big screen this year and why if you examine past efforts it is in fact statistically unlikely that a sequel to a great film will match it, and if it does, the likelihood of a third or fourth being any good at all is almost nothing.

Alex examined 57 trilogies and quadrilogies and found that there were only five that were consistently excellent, six more that lasted to two great films in a row, three that returned to form after a poor second movie, thirteen that only managed one great showing and a remainder of thirty that never even managed that final accolade. If you include all 57 trilogies, this gives a whopping 87% likelihood that a sequel will be worse than it’s predecessor. The pie chart above represents only the trilogies which have at least one great chapter.

We cover most of the classics and some of the oddballs and make a few predictions on upcoming threes and fours.

If you’ve never listened to Digital Cowboys before, this is a great one to start with, as far as putting across the group dynamic goes.

Drop us a line at digitalcowboys@googlemail.com

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The Hi-Def Special

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray/Forza Motorsport 2/Ocean’s 13

For over a year, the public have had access to movies in the high definition formats HD-DVD and Blu-ray, but most people aren’t too familiar with them. The bulk of our show is Alex, Paul and Tony discussing what HD discs mean to the movie-going public and which format might win the war. If you love seeing movies at their absolute best, this show is essential listening.

Part 2 is Tony’s review of Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360. Fans of serious driving simulators will be salivating over this one right now.

We round off with a brief review of Ocean’s 13, because it doesn’t deserve a long one frankly. We also discuss other things you could buy with your Â7.50

OPPO DVD players, as mentioned in the show, absolutely ROCK and can be found here: 
http://www.crtprojectors.co.uk/

Digital Cowboys are of course not affiliated with either company, we just like ‘em a whole lot.

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The 80s Special/Guitar Hero sequels/Favourite 80s movies/Marie Antoinette

The imminent release of Guitar Hero: Rocks The 80s, coupled with an increasingly acute sense of nostalgia as they near their third decade has left the cowboys in a bit of an 80s mood today.

So after discussing what hot and tasty riffs they want to hear in the new installments of the oft-vaunted, jam-centric video game series, Alex, Paul, Tony and Sam chew over their favourite movies of the 80s and debate whether all the best of them were aimed at kids.

After this, Alex’s wife Sharon makes a special appearance to discuss Sofia Coppola’s latest cinematic offering, Marie Antoinette. Will the air-headed, pastry-munching, bewigged, despot measure up to Scarlett Johansson hanging out with Bill Murray and examining their unfulfilled aspirations in the perpetually jetlagged Tokyo nights of Lost in Translation? Let’s face it, it’s not bloody likely!

Listen out for special 80s musical treats.

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