Whee whee whee, all the way home.
This week saw the gang all back together which was nice. When you do the show every week it becomes easy to forget what each person brings to the table but the minute they're not there you instantly remember. Like if Todd's not there we don't get any 80's movie jokes, if Danielle's not there we don't get to hear about Mass Effect, if Bill's not there we don't get any anger management issues and if I'm not there Bill has no one to get pissed off at, a point we'll get to in a minute.
This was also the first week that our podcast hosting provider Libsyn migrated us to their fancy new publishing platform. I had read horror stories of the migration process so I wasn't looking forward to it but so far things have all gone smoothly. They did change the URL of all of our past shows but insist that old links will work. I'm too lazy to go back and check but if the download numbers drop off this week then I'll know that they're all filthy liars.
You should probably go and get the show before I start breaking it down. Go ahead. I'll wait.
- Jeff McAllister was our guest this week and Jeff is one of the most laid back dudes you'll ever talk to, as you can tell from the show. Part of his speaking style came from being nervous that Bill was going to yell at him. Wonder where he'd get that from. Jeff has wanted to be on the show since day one and we've been lazy in asking him to come aboard so I'm glad he finally got to be on. I liked the topic too, what with BioShock Infinite being announced that day.
- Speaking of BioShock Infinite, I think the response of the gaming press bugged me more than the announcement of a game that's two years out. The latter is something that happens all of the time so it's not a big deal but the former seemed to be a whole bunch of incredulity that people would dare be disappointed that Irrational is going back to the BioShock well. I get it, it's a new city and the theme is different but it's still a dude with a gun and powers. Does that mean the game won't be great? Not at all but for folks hoping to see a new IP from Irrational there are reasons to be disappointed. The "trust us, we've seen it" twittering that came afterwards bugged me even more.
- Monday Night Combat sounds interesting, but so do a lot of things that I end up not playing so that I can instead spend 45 minutes looking for bobcats to kill only to have one spawn on the roof in a Mexican hideout. True story.
- Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, hoo boy, we sure lit a fire under Bill on this one. I think my new rule is going to be to not play games that Bill is playing, or at least find out if he had issues with the game before I play it. If I'm not playing a game for critical purposes I tend to let a lot of things go, or at the very least just say "yeah, fuck this" and quit so my anger level doesn't really get too high (Dragon Age DLC not included as you'll hear in the outtakes). Can I be a better critic if I look at all games that I play critically? No doubt, but that seems so much less fun for some reason. Bill and I chatted about this one day and he likes seeing everything critically to the point where things like Bonnie jump out whereas I tend to want to just go with the flow and have a good time. For recreational games both approaches work, however when the time comes to be critical I have to flip a switch whereas he doesn't and I can't say that the switch always gets flipped as soon as it should. In reality, I fucking hate gaucho pants so I'm glad the bitch left.
- I also hate capri pants but that's a talk for another time.
- Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin is a hoot, if only because you get a score at the end of the day and can then hoard that over your kid for the rest of the vacation. Nothing like a seven year old driven to tears because only the high scorer gets lemonade. Suck it Timmy!
- My kid is not named Timmy, his name is Ben and I did not withhold lemonade. I'm just putting that out there.
- The Snoop Dogg game I was talking about was called Fear and Respect. Here's a link to a copy of the mag with Snoop on its cover. It's funny, but I remember a time when the review of a game would be on the cover, not a preview, but I also remember Zips and that makes me incredibly old. I think Jeff and Todd's point about coming up, saying "hey, we're making this game" and then leaving is an excellent one. Two years out, what else do you need to say? I do wonder if people cheered at the end of the Irrational reveal. I bet they did. Boo, game journalists! Boo!
- Here's a fun fact: Canadian Smarties are actually UK Smarties which are like M&M's and are not available in the US. US Smarties are small, sugary tablets wrapped in cellophane. With this knowledge, Jeff's comment makes more sense because I was originally thinking that Smarties are kind of lame and who gets that excited about Smarties, but if they're like M&M's in Canada I completely understand. Neither manifestation of Smarties explains why Bill doesn't know what they are. That level of candy ignorance is unacceptable in modern society.
