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Podtoid 53: The Blogocube
by Reverend Anthony on May 15, 2008 +
Filed under: Podtoid    +    Link to this page

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You’re looking at one of two — count ‘em, two — variant headline pictures for this week’s Podtoid. Here, we have yet another face-punchingly funny drawling by Ashley Davis, who has now earned my eternal ire.
Head to the Destructoid post to see the other variant.

This week, Chad Concelmo and Topher Cantler dropped by to fill the voids left by Bastard McHatesOcarinaOfTime and Floozy O’Doesn’tPlayVideogames. In what may be the first ever episode of PodtoidForceGO!, Chad, Topher, Jim and I discussed the following:

Topher and Jim are best friends

A urine-soaked Miyamoto

Chad Concelmo: Next-gen ejaculator

Nobody agrees with Wardrox

Next week’s sonnet/illustration theme will be “Jim versus a Giraffe”

This week, KMCC won the $25 for his remarkably intelligent question concerning videogame sales and the recession. Just put your email in the comments to get your stimulus package.

Anyway, yeah. What are you waiting for? Listen. I apologize in advance, Droll.

 
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7 Responses to “Podtoid 53: The Blogocube”
  1. Qwayfe (it's Mick HI JIM) says:

    Quite exciting, this computer magic.

  2. kyus says:

    I’LL SUCK YOUR DICK

  3. Inso says:

    I sort of agree with the point about GTA IV, that the main character changes the tone, makes his actions a little more understandable, and the whole morality of the game being more subtle…

    BUT.

    The effect kind of wears off. At first, the way the game starts, I absolutely didn’t want to do anything wrong. I didn’t even deliberately run a red light for the first couple of missions. And then the game does a clever thing of gradually introducing the criminal element. You have to go crazy on the road to escape some loan sharks, then you’re defending your cousin, then some ass has you by the balls so you have to do a few jobs for him and so on. But at some point Niko stops being the reluctant criminal and quite jarringly just gives up all pretence of only doing what he has to do and becomes the same gun for hire that you play in all the previous games - except at some moments when the game reminds you of his better side.

    In other words, the gradual baiting that the game does at the beginning, drawing you into doing more and more things you don’t want Niko to have to do really works at the start …and then by around 20 missions in just completely falls apart like so many boom blox.

    I think this is a facet of the multiple personality disorder that the game has in general. It wants to have subtle choices, but there’s nothing subtle about some of the things you have to do in missions; it wants to be The Most Realistic GTA Yet, but also wants to be a cartoon parody of real life.

    (Oh yeah, and it wants me to have fun, but it keeps on making me do the same frickin’ drive across the city whenever I fail this stupid mission. In some ways I think this is the most flawed game I have ever LOVED.)

  4. Thaedron says:

    I was playing WoW while listening to this…

  5. Redeuxx says:

    The disease you guys were talking about in WoW in this episode was actually a bug. The last boss in the dungeon Zul’Gurub, Hakkar, has an ability called “corrupted blood” that would cause direct damage as well as damage over time and spreading to other players. When the raid kills Hakkar, people who ported out to the big cities would still have the effect and while survivable, lower level players would die. People didn’t live long enough to have any major effect, so I guess if it was a real virus, it would be a victim of it’s effectiveness not allowing it to spread and keeping the infection local.

  6. Zac says:

    When I hear people talk about “Oh, I love going to to the store and buying my preorder, and the anticipation of driving home with it and stuff”, I can’t help but think that this sounds like the same hipster douchebags who talk about “the warmth of vinyl” and the “delightful crackling and pops” as opposed to CDs.
    http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080413/ENT02/804130419
    It’s like someone who lived in the thirties saying “In my day, cars didn’t have automatic starters. You had to crank start it, and it was so much more ‘real’.”
    Digital distribution is better because it’s there right away. None of your nostalgia for the old days of waiting, or looking at some crappy box art is relevant. Get with the times.
    That said, am I fully behind digital distribution? No. Like others, I’m afraid of losing the games I’ve downloaded because of unforeseen issues. The reason is that companies cannot be trusted. If they think they can get away with making you buy a second copy of the game, they’ll do it. The music industry is already trying to do that. The RIAA claims copying music from a CD to your computer is theft.
    http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14480
    If you want to play a song in your car and in your house and at your work, and you’re too lazy to carry that CD around with you, the RIAA says you must buy a second or third copy. Obviously they’re insane.

    Want another example? Users could download baseball games from MLB.com. At some point, they switched from one DRM method to another. The old DRM server was turned off, and the games you’ve paid for are now useless. But customers can just redownload them under the new system, right? Nuh-uh.
    MLB customer support said that “purchases are all one-time sales and thus there are no refunds”.
    http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/07/mlb-rips-off-fans-wh.html

    This is the kind of shit I’m worried about from game companies who have already decided to make money off of micropayments of game content that should have been included in the first place.

  7. Scorpy2643 says:

    I know I’m a couple weeks late to the party, but I really took issue with something said in the podcast this week. It occurred during the discussion of “the gayer gamer”. I totally agree with most of the rant about how sexuality doesn’t matter any more in this day and age. gay? fine, have a good time. straight? cool, whatever makes you feel good. In 2008, it just doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no reason for people to even give two shits what your preference is. However…
    it really pissed me off that during something that you were so right on for you to make a comment about “in a non Fox News…” blah blah blah. It undercut your entire statement. It made you look exactly like the kind of broad generalizing douchebag that makes it hard for this guy to have his gamertag be Gayer Gamer. It’s people making broad generalizations that make the environment tough for people to leave thier bias and hate behind. As a conservative and a republican, I get DAMN tired of liberals making foolish, close minded statements like this. If I wanted your fucking political agenda bullshit, I’d listen to a political show, not a gaming podcast. I just discovered your show, and if close minded bullshit like this is the norm, I may not want to listen for much longer.

    Your comment undercut your entire argument, and made you look exactly like the kind of douche your were railing against. You think you are some open minded bastion of acceptence? Try again, you just hate a different group of people.


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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Podtoid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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