Player One Podcast

As I’ve mentioned on the show before, I rather enjoy Telltale Games’ adventure games. The ol’ point ‘n’ click was my genre of choice back when I first started getting into PC games (in the early ’90s), and it’s great to see this once dead gameplay style revived.

The first episode of Telltale’s Tales of Monkey Island is due out in a couple days, and time is fast running out to pre-order the entire season and score a bonus DVD of the game. Of course, the “get the DVD copy with purchase of the whole season” is the standard Telltale incentive, but the Tales pre-order DVDs have an exclusive cover painted by Sam & Max creator (and original Monkey Island cover artist), Steve Purcell.

I was reminded to pre-order my copy today when I opened up my mailbox to find a package from Telltale Games inside. It was my DVD copy of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People from when I pre-ordered that season ages ago.

Here’s an official pic of what the cover looks like:

It’s certainly a bright, eye-catching cover, but the design isn’t anything too special. I busted open the package to check out the innards and was mildly amused by the manual (made up to look like a composition notebook) and the DVD (with “Sharpie” writing claiming that it contained the original source code).

The real treat was when I went to put the manual back. I noticed an odd bit of color coming up through the holes by the little, clippy manual tabs. Did Telltale sneak in a reversible cover?

Oh, you betcha they did.

OK, sure…the recent Venture Bros. DVD set makes this a bit of an old gag, but who cares? Atari 2600 homage!

Homestar Runner, Strong Bad, Video Games Atari 2600, Homestar Runner, PC, Strong Bad, Telltale Games, Videlectrix

This week! Games! Including Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta, Castlevanias on the DS, The Conduit, Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires, Ghostbusters The Video Game, InFamous, Red Faction Guerilla, Castle of Magic, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and much, much more. Plus, we’ve decided to do the Genesis version of Moonwalker for our next Game Club game (so get playin’).

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

The dancing baby
As the Kitchen Sinks

Running time: 1:19:42

Direct download: 06_29_09-Episode140.mp3

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In the long-awaited second installment of my journey through one of the greatest game libraries of all time, we take the Dark Knight’s second (!) Sega CD adventure for a spin.

First, some background. Batman Returns on the Sega CD is one of the greatest Batman games ever made. There. I said it. And this is due in no small part to the inclusion of some amazing Batmobile segments that really put the peripheral through its paces. They put the SNES’ sheet-of-paper Mode 7 effects to shame (unless you were an EGM editor back in the day…). Pure sex.

The followup is based on the awesome Warner Bros. cartoon featuring Batsy and his acrobatic sidekick. This would be cool enough on its own — after all, the SNES and Genesis games based on the cartoon were both great. But on top of that, it uses the same engine that powered those amazing Batman Returns driving segments. The lead programmer is even the same dude from Batman Returns. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything!

First of all, basing an entire Batman game around driving stages alone really doesn’t make for a lot of variety, though I will admit the developers tried to get a bit creative. The Riddler’s virtual reality level in particular is a nice change of pace.

The bigger problem, though, is the ridiculous difficulty right from the word go. You press start, and you’re immediately dropped into traffic that would put rush hour on the LA freeway to shame. And these aren’t cars you can shoot. They’re civilians…you have to avoid them at all costs. And there’s a very unforgiving time limit. So you have to drive fast, you can’t hit anything, and you’re not allowed to shoot anything? Sounds almost as awesome as it plays!

The Sega fanboy in me is desperately searching for something positive to say about this mess. Oh! The visuals are pretty darned impressive for a 16-bit game. Considering how fast everything is moving, and how many sprites are on-screen. Yeah! This is a great tech demo! Just never, ever pick up the controller and try to play it, and you  have one of the best Sega CD games ever made.

Actually, there is something very unique and kind of cool about this otherwise unplayable disc. It features around 25 minutes of completely original animation. So you could technically call this a lost episode of the Batman & Robin cartoon. And it features just about every villain, including the Joker as voiced by Mark Hamill himself. And thanks to the magic of the internets, every bit of that animation canbe found on Youtube.

So far my foray into the best the Sega CD has to offer has turned up two of the worst games on the system. But hey, there was a fair bit of crap on this system. And while I  can promise installment #3 will arrive a bit quicker than this one did, but I can’t promise the quality of game will get any better.

Batman, Sega CD, Video Games

This week! Game Club about Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus, plus Ghostbusters, InFamous, The Maw, Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta, and more.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Direct download: 06_22_09-Episode139.mp3

Episodes, Game Club

Once again, we’ve put off doing our Sly Cooper game club to talk about other stuff (Sly will be talked about next week, we swear). This week! Post-E3 thoughts, Project Natal, Angry Barry, Lost Planet 2, Beatles Rock Band, InFamous, The Legendary Starfy, Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, Scribblenauts, DJ Hero, Invisible Tiger, Assassin’s Creed 2, Lips, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Saw, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Punch-Out and more.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Direct download: 06_15_09-Episode138.mp3

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I work in the same office as one-time PSM editor Stephen Frost. He’s about as hardcore a Sony fan as I’ve ever met – but to his credit, he never talks down the other systems. He simply makes it clear that his favorite systems have always had the word “PlayStation” in their name.

We stood in line together outside of the (now closed) Sony PlayStation store at the Metreon in San Francisco to buy our PS3s. The wait was more than 48 hours…. that’s right, two nights sleeping outside like a bum, just to get our hands on the new machine. I bought it with Resistance, and after all the hype and waiting, found myself underwhelmed. The graphics of Resistance paled in comparison to Gears of War, there was no in game XMB, and all of my friends were on Xbox 360. Adding insult to injury, third party games tended to run more smoothly on Microsoft’s box.

Which meant… since launch, if I’ve had a choice, I have always purchased the 360 version. But now, things are changing.

First off, Sony has almost entirely fixed my issues with how their online service works. I can now access the dashboard at any time, and it’s easier to jump into my friends’ games.

Second, the first party games are really connecting for me. I was really impressed with Killzone 2 (still pushing through it), and I LOVE Infamous… that’s the type of game that I’m thinking of when I’m not playing it. And to top it off, I thought the most exciting game of the E3 show – by far – was Uncharted 2. I can’t wait.

Finally, the third-party games are really starting to show some juice. I just pre-ordered Ghostbusters and Batman Arkham Asylum on PS3 (gotta play as the Joker).

Finally, the PSN store rules. FFVII on PS3 and PSP? Awesome. Truly innovative games like Flower and Fat Princess? Kick Ass.

I still have an affection for Xbox 360, but I’m really starting to like living in PlayStation land.

Uncategorized

It’s an early show this week but it still counts as Monday’s episode. This week CJ, Phil and Greg (Sewart) discuss the press conferences from the big three hardware manufacturers. From Project Natal to Project M and everything in between.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:34:35

Direct download: 06_08_09-Episode137.mp3

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We talk about many things in this episode, but not Sly Cooper. That’s right, this was supposed to be our Game Club episode on Sucker Punch’s first PS2 endeavor but instead we rambled on about other things for an hour and a half so we decided to push it two more weeks. But we did talk about InFamous, Buzz Quiz TV, Wallace & Gromit Episode 1, Penny Arcade Episode 2, Punch Out, Prince of Persia, Sonic the Hedgehog iPhone and Pokemon Platinum, among others. (Prince of Persia spoilers start at 56:30 and run through 1:01:40.)

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:32:39

Direct download: 06_01_09-Episode136.mp3

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It looks like CJ never got around to whipping up a proper Sly Cooper Game Club blog post, so I’m gonna take care of it.

First a quick announcement: This Game Club was originally scheduled for episode #136, but we have pushed it back until episode #138. We rambled a little long when we recorded #136, and we didn’t want to do a half-hearted Game Club discussion by cramming our Sly Cooper discussion in afterward. So what does this mean for you? Well, if you’ve not done so already, there’s still time to get some playtime in and leave us your comments!

With the recent release of Sucker Punch’s Infamous, we wanted to turn back the clock and revisit one of the developer’s earlier titles, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus for PS2. This was the company’s second game, and its first one developed for a Sony system (its first was Rocket: Robot on Wheels for N64).

Can this (slightly) older game stand up to today’s best platformers? Give it a try and let us know! You should be able to find used copies of the game at just about any GameStop for the low, low price of $5.

Be sure to leave us your comments here, in our Game Club forum, via e-mail, or on our voicemail line (713-893-8069).

YouTube Links:
Tutorial
Tides of Terror – Part 1

Episodes, Game Club, Video Games game club, PS2, Sly Cooper, Sucker Punch, Thievius Raccoonus

This week the usual suspects discuss: Punch-Out!!, Raiden Fighters Aces, Dead Space, Zen Pinball, Demon’s Soul, Super Stardust HD, Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars, Peggle Dual Shot, Klonoa, ART STYLE: Pictobits, and Metroid Prime Trilogy, amongst other things.

Next Game Club game is Sly Cooper and the Thievious Raccoonus for the PlayStation 2 Computer Entertainment System. Used copies are available cheaply (five bucks) at Gamestop locations nationwide. Start playing now! We’ll be discussing the game NEXT WEEK on Episode 136.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. You can leave us a voicemail by calling 713-893-8069 or you can send a comment via MP3 to our email address, playeronepodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Running time: 1:24:58

This week’s links:

Castmedium / Podcasters’ Favorite Podcasts (Player One)

Direct download: 05_25_09-Episode135.mp3

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