[PlayerOneCJ]

In the first half of this episode, we talk (mostly) new games. Mega Man 9, Metal Gear Solid 4 (spoiler talk begins at approximately 12:00 and end at 29:30), Snatcher, Battlefield Bad Company, Air Zonk, Burnout Paradise, Ticket to Ride, Mega Man Star Force II, the Nintendo World Championship 1990 reproduction cartridge and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

In the second half, we switch gears and talk about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1/XBLA/PSN/PSP). We did this section of the episode live on TalkShoe to experiment with a little more listener participation. Depending on how well it's received we may do future episodes like this too.

Running time: 1:56:04

Direct MP3 download: http://media.libsyn.com/media/playerone/06...8-Episode88.mp3



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Show blog: http://www.playeronepodcast.com
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[probune]

I already know my favorite part of the show is the Game Club.

[levitynyc]

15 minutes in.

CJ u suck

and Phil and Greg, you can just beat the shit out of the Gecko by using rockets.

The end of Act 4 was LOUD oh so LOUD

[Guy Legend]

Looks like I'll have to skip around 17 minutes of the podcast...

[Rigby]

Good show, I am looking forward to more live shows. Doing them for Game Club is great, though maybe if you guys decide to continue to do them maybe alternate live shows between Game Club and normal shows. It would be cool to call in and talk about stuff the is happening currently (especially for E3!). Example

Live show: game club SotN
Normal Show
Game Club
Live Show: regular
Game Club
Normal Show
Live Show: Game Club

[probune]

Great show again this week even though I'd already heard half of it.

I'm writing down time stamps in all the episodes for the P1P Greatest Hits, and with the Shadow Moses Island bit, I've already got a collection of "LOL CJ" quotes. And I've only gone through the first six episodes.

[dr3up]

Listening to it now, The whole Shadow moses thing was lol worthy.

[lawblob]

The Nintendo Power Championship 1990 discussion was very cool. I actually participated in that, and met 'Thor.'

One month before the Nintendo Power Championship came to Houston, where I lived, my local Children's Palace toy store held a gaming competition, with the winner earning free tickets to the Nintendo Power Championship. I won the store competition, and my parents and I attended the big show one month later.

Thor was also from the Houston area, and he actually played in every time-slot that was held througout the day, just to improve his score. Those who attended will remember that first you played standing up at a long line of about 20 televisions; and then the top 10 or-so of those players would then play on a large stage; the person with the high score from the 20-man line would sit in a large red throne on the main stage, with their game broadcast on a huge monitor.

In my time-slot, Thor had the highest score, about 1,500,000 points, and I had the second highest score, about 400,000 points. But Thor graciously allowed me to sit in the red throne, which was totally amazing for me. I think I walked away with a hat and some coupons and stickers at the end of the day, but I did not finish in the top 10 for the Houston area. I was a damn good Tetris player at the time, but in retrospect, some of those other players were insanely good. I think my main problem was that I was too young to have figured out a good strategy, I probably spent too much time in Mario and Rad Racer.

I remember reading in Nintendo Power a few months later that Thor had won the entire championship, and that his prize package included a Geo Metro... which at the time seemed totally bad ass! To this day I wish I kept the schwag from that event.

Overall, the Nintendo Power Championship was one of the highlights of my youth.

[mik]

GameClub Live™ was awesome. Y'all have a winner there. Excellent episode, gang.

[marshallbanana]

Re: board games:

All these board games, while indeed obscure, are very popular with the geeks at my university - a group that conveniently overlaps well with the people who have 360s.

Ticket To Ride is quite a bit more obscure than Catan or Carcassone. I received it as a Christmas gift this year when I asked for the old 70s board game Rail Baron. I was very pleasantly surprised though, as I think Ticket To Ride is a better game than Rail Baron, and I have played it quite regularly with family and friends.

I only wish these games were available for PS3, or even PC for that matter since I don't have a 360. Microsoft is missing a huge opportunity by not making Live Arcade games available on their other "platform"...

[Bacon McShig]

To set the record straight, the Burnout Paradise update coming on July 10th is the first one that actually adds new content into the game, the first update was only general bug-fixes and such. The new islands are still a few updates away.

[Casual PC gamer]

marshallbanana, on Jun 30 2008, 11:33 AM, said:

Microsoft is missing a huge opportunity by not making Live Arcade games available on their other "platform"...

Steam?

I voted "Terrible, never do it again." I'm gonna listen to it when I get home and see if I was right.

[Enchy]

Greg/Phil: I killed Vamp probably over 30 times. I had about 1100 rounds in my m4 at the start of the battle and was near empty once I figured out the syringe trick. I had to call Otacon a few times too.

[GUNBLADER]

CJ cut out Probune's call (where he gave me a shout out)

But Phil did say my name during one of the calls!

(and the thing about shadow moses island was hilarious)

[probune]

GUNBLADER, on Jun 30 2008, 04:44 PM, said:

CJ cut out Probune's call (where he gave me a shout out)

Yeah, he said he was gonna do that. Next time I'll be ready and I'll call in with stuff to say!

[I AM JOHN!]

Live Game Club was awesome.

[levitynyc]

Did any of you guys try to switch the controller port during the Mantis fight? It was very funny.

[PlayerOneStewy]

levitynyc, on Jun 30 2008, 07:59 PM, said:

Did any of you guys try to switch the controller port during the Mantis fight? It was very funny.

Yeah, I did. Really nice touch.

[Indy aka Rex]

I didn't, I will later.

Oh and Greg... you are such a puss for not owning up to your Mega Man 9 haterading.

TELL THEM THE TRUTH.

MM9 sucks balls, looks like Phil's fan-game sequel and it should be on Xbox 360 with full 5.1 audio.

[GUNBLADER]

levitynyc, on Jun 30 2008, 03:59 PM, said:

Did any of you guys try to switch the controller port during the Mantis fight? It was very funny.

There are some great "codec moments" during that fight.

[levitynyc]

No I will not choke it up and deal with it!!!!

LOL

[Gameshark]

Man being able to hear myself on P1 was awesome..... I should be the 4th chair, I can bring lots of hate.

PS: So far you don't own me 10 bucks, but we'll see.....

[Indy aka Rex]

Guys since we're on a PS1 kick... why dontcha make the next one Mega Man Legends or Jumping Flash?

[marshallbanana]

Vaxadrin, on Jun 30 2008, 11:05 AM, said:

Steam?

Well exactly, they're just rolling over and letting Steam have everything. Don't get me wrong, I love Steam and nothing MS does with Windows Live can change that now. That said I would love to buy some of these Xbox Live Arcade games on the PC if they were made available.

If you listen to the most recent 1Up Yours you can hear Shawn Elliott talk for a few minutes about the latest Games For Windows press event. At one point he straight up asked them what they were doing to combat Steam's community features. The guy just replied "we are not in digital distribution at this time" which of course did not answer his question. However the next question I would have asked is "why?". MS has half-assed GFW and Live anywhere since they announced it, and they have no excuse for it. They can only blame themselves that Valve has taken over what could have essentially been their platform.

At this point all they can do is share the pie with Steam, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't do it. As long as they don't do something ridiculous like charging for Live on PC I think that the PC gaming community will welcome the competition - and I could have my Catan and Ticket to Ride.

[Casual PC gamer]

Microsoft should just make Steam Points for retailers. Gamestop would love that.

[Wenny]

The Board Game Nerd in me feels compelled to point out that the "German" board game Ticket to Ride is designed by an American and published by an American company.

[marshallbanana]

Wenny, on Jul 1 2008, 12:14 PM, said:

The Board Game Nerd in me feels compelled to point out that the "German" board game Ticket to Ride is designed by an American and published by an American company.

True, but there is a German version of Ticket to Ride that has a map of Germany instead of the US and adds the concept of passengers. It's pretty fun but I like the original better.

[PlayerOnePhil]

Wenny, on Jul 1 2008, 10:14 AM, said:

The Board Game Nerd in me feels compelled to point out that the "German" board game Ticket to Ride is designed by an American and published by an American company.

Well, according to the always-accurate Wikipedia, he was born in England (although he does live in the U.S. now). And his games are described as "German-style board games." So we were almost right.

I still contend that XBLA needs more board/card games that Americans (who aren't in the limited demographic of board game enthusiast) have actually heard of. Something like Monopoly or Scrabble would certainly sell better than, say, Carcassonne.

[Dreaded Gazebo]

PlayerOnePhil, on Jul 1 2008, 02:01 PM, said:

I still contend that XBLA needs more board/card games that Americans (who aren't in the limited demographic of board game enthusiast) have actually heard of. Something like Monopoly or Scrabble would certainly sell better than, say, Carcassonne.

I'm perfectly content with all of the awesome German style board games. I have zero desire to play Monopoly. Ever again in my life. I agree that they'll probably have some good mass market appeal, but I couldn't care less about the mass market... I care about me!

If anyone wants to set up a Ticket to Ride night, I'm in. Also looking forward to whatever other awesome board games hit Live. I'll probably grab them all just to help support the trend.

My dream? Twilight Imperium 3 on XBLA. It'll never happen but man that would be awesome

[Tigerriot]

Good show this week guys.


It would be nice though if you stopped trying to bait me into commenting each week, by saying things like "See, we just complained about the Xbox 360 there". It's not too hard to guess you're directing such jokes towards me, and I can only hope you're not truly thinking those minor quips here and there about the 360, are somehow equal to 5 minute rants that have occurred over the smallest of issues related to the PS3 in the past.

[Rigby]

Scrabble would be sweet.

[PlayerOneStewy]

Tigerriot, on Jul 1 2008, 05:48 PM, said:

Good show this week guys.
It would be nice though if you stopped trying to bait me into commenting each week, by saying things like "See, we just complained about the Xbox 360 there". It's not too hard to guess you're directing such jokes towards me, and I can only hope you're not truly thinking those minor quips here and there about the 360, are somehow equal to 5 minute rants that have occurred over the smallest of issues related to the PS3 in the past.

Looks like it worked this week

[Tigerriot]

PlayerOneStewy, on Jul 1 2008, 07:01 PM, said:

Looks like it worked this week

I guess so.

[drasle]

voted terrible.

all day at work i talked to people in Rigby's voice.

[Indy aka Rex]

Calcifer, on Jul 1 2008, 06:32 PM, said:

voted terrible.

all day at work i talked to people in Rigby's voice.

Would you rather it was Kirbu's?

[Wenny]

PlayerOnePhil, on Jul 1 2008, 03:01 PM, said:

Well, according to the always-accurate Wikipedia, he was born in England (although he does live in the U.S. now). And his games are described as "German-style board games." So we were almost right.

I still contend that XBLA needs more board/card games that Americans (who aren't in the limited demographic of board game enthusiast) have actually heard of. Something like Monopoly or Scrabble would certainly sell better than, say, Carcassonne.

There is a small movement afoot in the board game world to call them Euro-style games, since many designers aren't German and the number of publishers outside of Germany is growing. And Alan Moon himself has argued for calling them "designer games" (to differentiate them from Parker Brothers style games where the designers name doesn't appear. I'm fine just calling them games...

I agree with you. I like card and board games of all types and would love to see more, more, more! I think the reason why we're seeing these designer games showing up is that they're from companies smaller and more mobile in their decision making than the behemoth that is Hasbro. They also (at least the larger German publishers and Days of Wonder) have a good history of making quality computer translations of their games.

I just want whatever is next to be better than Lost Cities and Ticket to Ride. Both were lackluster compared to the excellent Carcassonne and Catan translations. The PC version of Ticket to Ride - that was coded by one dude - was not only better playing, but a lot nicer on the eyes. Ticket to Ride looks like ass. It is ripe for DLC though since there's the Europe map which adds a few new rules, the new Swizterland map, and the Marklin edition. That one may not show up though since it would need to clear the license with the model train manufacturer.

[Outlaw Moogle]

Indy aka Rex, on Jul 1 2008, 06:01 PM, said:

Would you rather it was Kirbu's?

The only person that enjoys hearing Kirbu is Kirbu.

[Rigby]

Calcifer, on Jul 1 2008, 07:32 PM, said:

voted terrible.

all day at work i talked to people in Rigby's voice.

Is that bad? Do I sound like a hippy or something?

[Indy aka Rex]

Rigby, on Jul 1 2008, 08:09 PM, said:

Is that bad? Do I sound like a hippy or something?

You sound like you came right off the boss in your hemp sandals, with your tie-dye shirt, plaid over-shirt, dirty jeans and a bandana... in dreadlocks and smoking hasheesh.

[Rigby]

Indy aka Rex, on Jul 1 2008, 09:16 PM, said:

You sound like you came right off the boss in your hemp sandals, with your tie-dye shirt, plaid over-shirt, dirty jeans and a bandana... in dreadlocks and smoking hasheesh.

You forgot to mention huge sideburns. But I don't have hemp sandals, a tie-dye shirt, dreadlocks (used to) and I don't smoke. So there!