Player One Podcast

This week! Vita sales, Vita bundles, next-generation Xbox, Skylanders, 2D Marios, physical retail/digital download, Beauty & The Beast and a game club on Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath! It’s an action-packed episode that you won’t want to miss.

Check out Greg’s new web series Generation 16 (Episode 2 now available) – click here. And take a trip over to Phil’s YouTube Channel to see some awesome retro game vids.

Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.

Got an Android device? You can now download our app on the Android Marketplace. Find out all about it here.

Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/p1podcast.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Direct download: 01_30_12-Episode275.mp3

Running time: 1:12:00

Chris Johnston Episodes, Game Club, Video Games Beauty & The Beast, digital download, game club, mario, Skylanders, Stranger's Wrath, Vita, xbox

Listen up, pardners, it’s our 25th Game Club, and to celebrate, we’re tackling the most recent (although still seven years old) entry in Lorne Lanning’s Oddworld series, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath. It’s an (*ahem*) odd hybrid of first- and third-person shooters set in a whimsically bizarre version of the old west. You play as the Stranger, a bounty hunter looking to score loads of moolah by bringing in the orneriest outlaws in the land. Of course, there’s much more to the story, but to spoil it (and its twist) would be a disservice.

The game’s biggest gimmick is the literal “live ammo”–living critters that you must first hunt before loading them into your crossbow to use against the enemy. You also have the choice of bringing your quarry in dead or alive. You’ll earn a higher bounty if they’re still kickin’, but it’s usually more difficult to do this than finishing ‘em off first.

Originally released on the Xbox (and sadly not backwards compatible on the Xbox 360), we were lucky enough to get an updated version of the game recently. Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is currently available on the PlayStation Network for $14.99. The regular ol’ version of the game is also available on Steam for $9.99 (with a free HD update coming in a few months).

We’ll be discussing Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath in episode 275 of the Player One Podcast. So get playing and share your comments and/or memories. You can post them in this thread, in the official thread on our forums, on Twitter (@p1podcast), drop us an email, or leave a voicemail (713-893-8069).

Phil Theobald Episodes, Game Club, Video Games game club, Lorne Lanning, Oddworld, Oddworld Inhabitants, PC, PSN, Steam, Stranger's Wrath, xbox

This week! Get your capes and cowls ready ‘cuz we’re talking Arkham City (non-spoilery). And after that we take a quick tour into the disappointing Ratchet & Clank All 4 One. Plus: Bring Me Sandwiches, Need for Speed: The Run demo, Burnout Crash, Xbox 1 classics, Vita release date, new system rumors, good/bad demos, underrated SNES/Genesis classics, games of the year, and fire alarms.

Own an iPhone/iPod touch? We’ve got an app for that–the Player One Podcast player app is available now. Play shows new and old, read show notes, access the show Twitter, website, email, voicemail line and more! Plus, you’ll be able to access bonus audio and video content (soon, once we figure out what that is). Click here to download.

Got an Android device? You can now download our app on the Android Marketplace. Find out all about it here.

Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/p1podcast.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit our new web site at www.playeronepodcast.com. Don’t forget to join our forums if you haven’t already!

Direct download: 10_24_11-Episode261.mp3

Running time: 1:19:49

Chris Johnston Episodes, Video Games Batman Arkham City, Bring Me Sandwiches, Burnout Crash, demos, fire alarm, game of the year, Need for Speed: The Run, Ratchet & Clank All 4 One, Vita, xbox

It’s that time again! Time for another entry in our increasingly infrequent Game Club! As we discussed on a recent episode, we’ve decided to tackle Michel Ancel’s beloved Beyond Good & Evil. The game is currently available on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC. Ubisoft just released an HD port on Xbox Live Arcade for a measly 800 Allards (that’s only $10 in regular monies). It’s also coming to PSN, well, sometime later.

Beyond Good & Evil may not have set the sales charts on fire when it was originally released in 2003, but it received tons of praise from professional reviewers and fans alike. Why do you love this game so much? Let us know! Maybe–just maybe–this Game Club will convince Ubisoft to finish up Beyond Good & Evil 2.

We’ll be discussing Beyond Good & Evil on episode 230 of the Player One Podcast, so get playing and share your comments and/or memories. You can post them in the comments section of this blog post, in the official thread on our forums, drop us an email, or leave a voicemail (713-893-8069).

Phil Theobald Episodes, Game Club, Video Games Beyond Good & Evil, game club, GameCube, Jade, Michel Ancel, PC, PS2, Ubisoft, XBLA, xbox

UPDATE: Been over a week now. My repair request is still in line to be processed.

Greg Sewart Uncategorized rrod, xbox

I must be remembering the Xbox 1 era of gaming wrong. Because I thought that there were more than 20 games worth owning on the system, but you wouldn’t have guessed it by the games Microsoft’s been putting out via their Xbox Originals program. The Originals banner, which does not seem to imply any sort of quality standard or particular sales requirement, is frankly a joke of a program that makes you wonder how the hell Microsoft’s been lucky enough to be in second place this generation if this is the kind of software deemed “original” on the first Xbox.

The most recent example of which is Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Rare’s first game under Microsoft’s publishing banner and a pretty bad one at that. I remember spending a little bit of time with the odd analog-stick brawling control of the game and not being terribly impressed by it, but then again perhaps my utter and complete disgust with Star Fox Adventures colored my judgement of that one.

Frankly I think Microsoft should step up and establish the Originals banner as something other than a dumping ground. Really program the label with quality Xbox 1 games (and release something like Ghoulies in October to coincide with Halloween where it sort of looks like there’s a reason you put it there.) But then I think it’d be worth unifying the store as Apple has with its App Store. In the end, Originals, Arcade and Community games are all downloadable games — and what happens in the future if Microsoft begins offering full downloadable 360 games as Sony has done on the PSN with stuff like Warhawk and Burnout Paradise? There’s no reason to keep the “Arcade” banner if half the games released in there aren’t actually “Arcade” or retro games. Open it up. And give Community Games the kind of exposure and dignity they need to foster more and better titles by taking them out of the black hole that is the “Community Games” area on XBLM. Does anyone go in there? No. As Apple has on the App Store, let the iFart Mobiles mingle with the Sim Cities of the world on the charts.

Also, and I’ll really never get this…open up new releases to days other than Wednesday. And open the floodgates. I know that early on there were reports that Microsoft would say no to games of similar genre on Xbox Live Arcade. But screw it, man! Let the best version of Sudoku win (or what have you).

Chris Johnston Video Games Microsoft, Rare, xbox, xbox originals