PRE3 Drives Us to DRINK!

This is so not my fault. Tony started drinking at 9AM and then just kinda showed up at my house, ready to record. Lucky for you all, I filled him full of caffeine and pain-killers, and we rolled this motherfucker out. We combed through our sources and the internet to find every potential game worth talking about, and assembled a 3-hour EPIC PRE3 show for you that hearkens back to the old days of Untitled Podcast madness. Gone are our recent attempts at concision and we lay out for you a plentiful harvest of information and correct opinions.

From Dragon Age 2 to Rock Band 3 to The Last Guardian to the final Nintendo 3DS specs, we have it all for you, and we tell you exactly what we're watching for, what's got us excited, and what the Cardinals were doing while we recorded this.

Explode your mind here!

Keep an eye on this blog, as each day, both of us will be carpet-bombing you with updates and opinions, be sure to keep an eye on both of our Twitter feeds for moment-to-moment reactions:

Blaine

Tony

PLEASE let us know what you wanna hear about from us, and also let us know what you think is going to be the hottest shit during the show!

I'll give you one teaser here. I'm gonna keep a sharp eye on Brink. It's being developed by Splash Damage, who I think are the absolute best when it comes to class-based shooters, and the mix of single-player and multi-player sounds amazing. Check it out.



That looks hot. I like how the cinematic trailer really gives you a feel for the type of gameplay they're shooting for. I trust the guys at Splash Damage, and can't wait for this one. Keep an eye out for it @ E3.

-Blaine

The FUTURE! (of Bioware DLC)

First, and most importantly, we did podcast recently, if you'd like to partake of our dark ... something or whatever.

That being said, I keep checking my damn RSS feeds because there is, for the first time in months and months, no forthcoming Bioware DLC announced. That's just damn peculiar. OR IS IT?

Words can't describe the disbelieving chuckle that fell out of mouth when their super-secret announcement a few weeks ago turned out to be the Bioware Bazaar. What the fuck were they thinking, hyping that up like that?

Anyway, I enjoyed both Stolen Memory and Awakening, as both showed promise, and teased some amazing characters, but I felt both fell short in fleshing those characters out as well as they could have. I'd like it if future Bioware DLC/expansions actually focused more on building characters (and less on sullying our HDDs with horrid platforming vehicles.)

Of course, I would argue that DLC is problematic for RPGs, unless it takes place after the core adventure. This isn't to say that it will never work properly, but I would've much rather had my first experience with Return to Ostagar be in the context of the initial playthrough, whereas much of it fell a little flat dramatically when played after the core game, when I knew that my warden was dead, and Alistair had ascended to the throne, and I was playing in some weird pseudo-context that existed outside of the actual game that I'd played.

Within the game, it works pretty nicely, After the game, kinda like Stolen Memory, it doesn't quite work. It's hard to get nearly as worked up when a) the world in which you're playing is in some weird 'frozen' state, and b) the overarching stakes are no longer raised.

Expansions, though, work quite well, even if Awakening totally dropped the ball on the dead warden import. Instead of being able to import your world, and start a new warden, they instead imported your dead warden as being alive, thus disregarding the great sacrifice he/she made.

Anyway, as I was saying, it's my belief that I'd rather play a 30-40 hour expansion with full characters rather than a mission at a time.

I do like the ME2 guns n' armor downloads, though.

Also, I should mention the Lost Odyssey DLC, Seeker of the Deep. THAT was an interesting way to do RPG DLC. While it could only be played in an active save, it was pretty much a balls-out hardass dungeon, and totally awesome in terms of challenge. It's the kinda shit that RPG vets live for. It got so insanely hard, I never finished it.

Honestly, when it comes Bioware games, I think I'd be okay with nothing but massive expansions a la Awakening, but I'd like them to be more fully integrated with the original world. By that, I mean, import the dead warden as dead, have the maps stitched together and allow movement between the worlds, import all the DLC stuff, etc.

What about you? How do you like your RPG post-release content?

-Blaine

New Untitled Podcast!

We talk about everything from God of War III to Final Fantasy XIII to Again to Mass Effect 2: Stolen Memory to just about everything that's come out in the last month that matters. We also make fun of Apple apologists.

Grab it now!

As always, thanks for listening, and please let us know what you think. Unless you're retarded.

-Blaine

TOPIC TIME!

Untitled Podcast: Collector's Edition returns tomorrow night, and due to the lack of meaningful releases and slow gaming news cycle, we're going topical again.

Personally, these used to be my favorite podcasts, back when we were weekly. Ah, such fond memories.

That being said, since we used to be weekly, we've exhausted nearly every obvious topic, so we're throwing up our hands, saying 'fuck it,' and asking you.

What do you want as the topic?
What news stories do you wanna hear about?
What new-ish games do you want us to discuss?

Let us know, and maybe your idea isn't so awful that it makes it!

-Blaine

Forthcoming Righteous Podcastness

Tonight, Tony & I will manning the mics in hopes to once again stimulate your mind's g-spot and make you think about games and life in ways that perhaps you haven't, and maybe, shouldn't.

We'll be talking about Dragon Age Awakening, God of War 3, Infinite Space, Metro 2033, Mass Effect 2: Firewalker, Final Fantasy XIII, the Nintendo 3DS, and anything else you demand. GET THOSE DEMANDS IN NOW!

Sorry about the lack of linkage, but I'm at work, so...long story.

We may try to sneak in some last minute PAX East stuff.

What else? What are we missing? Put it in the comments!

-Blaine

FINALLY! A podcast!

First, and most importantly, Tony & I will be recording again this weekend, talking about Dragon Age - Awakening, Mass Effect 2 - Firewalker, Resident Evil 5 - Lost in Nightmares & Desperate Escape, God of War 3, Perfect Dark, Final Fantasy XIII, and what the hell the Bioware countdown is all about.

Next, I finally got sick of trying to recompress the last podcast into something that would fit into Talkshoe's size limit, and just diced the fucker in two. It's not that their size limit is unreasonable, either, it's that we fucked up in not setting everything right on a fresh install of Audacity. Sorry. That won't happen this Friday.

Oh, and in case you forgot, our last podcast was all about Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, GDC, and some other random shit.

Anyway, you can grab part 1 here and part 2 here.

Let us know what ya think, and let us know what ya wanna hear about this Friday!

-Blaine

Flavors of RPG

So, the podcast is still sitting here on my HDD. It's still too big to upload, because Monday & Tuesday merge into one hellish day each week because I have so much I have to get done those two days. Well, I am free on Tuesday nights, but I'm so wiped out and angry by that point that I'm sure as hell not 'working' on something.

No, instead, I went all kindsa foaming-mouth mad for the new Dragon Age expansion, Awakening. More on that in a minute.

I do love it, though. What I've noticed is that the more someone in a forum post hates it, the worse they spell, so I think the problem may be that there is in-game reading required, and the retards/teabaggers get all sortsa mad about this, and spam-post in forums. I wish forums had a spelling test before someone was allowed to post at that moment. NO. A spelling/grammar test, so that their bile became readable. YES.

Anyway, I was instructed to write about Final Fantasy XIII, and I shall now do so.

Had you broken into my house and listened to the podcast, you'd know that the first point that I made was actually about the soundtrack, which I acquired some time ago. It's composed, rather well, really, by Masashi Hamauzu, and ONLY by Hamauzu-san. This is a first for the numerical Final Fantasy games, since even Final Fantasy XII, which was composed Hitoshi Sakimoto, still featured a handful of tunes from Nobuo Uematsu, who, until Final Fantasy X, scored every bit of music to ever appear in a numerical Final Fantasy game.

The fact that Final Fantasy XIII featured NONE of the classic Final Fantasy tunes told me everything I needed to know about this game. This was a new beginning for the franchise. They were really and truly, finally, severing ties with the past and moving on. I wasn't thrilled about that, but given how much I've enjoyed the game so far, I've let it go.

This game is perfect for people who do normal things in the Meatspace, like raise children, go to work, enjoy other hobbies, go to work AND school, go to work AND school AND raise children, go to work AND school AND raise children AND bribe the wife for sex, watch Lost, etc.

The sections in between save points are short without being microscopic, and let someone like me just sit down and place through as many of these sections as I'd like. If I were retarded, I'd refer to them as 'bite-size.'

What I've done is actually use these points as an excuse to dive head-first into the menus and get my 'nerd' on.

When I first started playing game, I like, everyone else, immediately noticed how streamlined a lot of things were. The battles can run with minimal input from the player, the areas and story are on a rail, so I was worried that my favorite part of any RPG would be gone, but (phew) one can still spend hours in the menus just dicking around with the Crystarium, customizing Paradigms, tweaking weapons and accessories, and on and on.

I'll be straight with you, though. I have found the linearity a bit stifling when I play for more than 2-3 hours at a time, I despise half the characters, and I don't like it as much I like the most recent Bioware RPGs.

Lemme talk about the characters right quick, though. Okay, Sazh and Vanille, you're cool, so you can go. Oh, wait. Wait. Vanille, I'd like you to stop having orgasms every time you make a sound. It's REALLY annoying, okay? Thanks. Bye, now. Hope and Lightning, please cover yourselves in this gasoline and go stand on the edge of that cliff. Closer. A liiittle closer. Little closer. Okay. Now, please set yourselves on fire and then jump. Thanks!

That pretty much sums up my feelings on the characters.

By the way, I really want to strat a petition that bans English-dubbed female Japanese-originated characters from having orgasms every time they make a sound. You know what I'm talking about right? These gals make a waterfall of non-word sounds OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER, but only in bad dubs, like this one. Know how I know it's a bad dub? The girls, with the notable exception of Lightning, who is too annoying to have a proper vagina, all act like they have vibrators in their panties every time they make a sound.

Whoah. Went on too long on that one.

Oh, and some people have had a real problem with the fact that one must read the Datalogs to have any clue as to what's going on in the game. I understand their position, and might feel the same way if I hadn't just gone and read the fucking Datalogs without having to be told to do so. Aside from the game telling me. And not spamming Twitter with all kinds of inane questions. Nope, I was that one smart American.

Anyway, it is an odd choice on the part of the developers to not provide an overt context for the events of the game, but it is all there. Also, if you hate reading, I have some Dragon Age 'fans' that you should meet...

As for the story itself, I'm intrigued. First of all, there's not a giant underwater thing that gently rocks boats instead of smashing them to pieces named Sin who is secretly the greatest Blitzball player ever and oh by the way Blitzball sucks ass and now that you mention it Final Fantasy X was pretty bad well except the battle system but the story and characters and dungeon design were so bad as to nearly be illegal in some countries.

Second, I'm not as into the story as I was in IV, VI, VII, IX, & XII, but it seems to be getting there. It just really hurts that (so far) two of the characters are so utterly detestable.

Oh, and for those who want to know, I'm currently towards the end of the animal sanctuary / bio-weapons development.

Also, some time, I want to elaborate on here about the discussion Laurance and I were having about the parallels between Final Fantasy XIII and Mass Effect 2, specifically pertaining to their mutual streamlining.

Now, I'm going to refuse to let myself play more Dragon Age - Awakening, and go play more Final Fantasy XIII and then maybe some Perfect Dark...

What about you? What do you think of Final Fantasy XIII? Or, why are you pigheadedly refusing to play it?

-Blaine

Latest & Greatest Untitled Podcast

I'm always loathe to do these posts the day after the recording, as it's sometimes hard to recapture a sense of 'what the fuck were we thinking?'

That being said, this was a truly great episode. We had a ton of games to get through, and just really kicked back, had a great time, laughed our asses off, all in the name of bringing you the most correct opinions in gaming.

Also, be sure to listen closely for your chance to win a free copy of Saint's Row 2!


GRAB IT HERE!

We talk about:

Star Trek: Online
Dragon Age: Origins - Return to Ostagar (review)
STALKER: Call of Pripyat
BioShock 2 (review)
Aliens vs. Predator
Heavy Rain (demo)
Resident Evil 5 - Lost in Nightmares
Killing Floor
Forza MotorSport 3 - Nurburgring
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
Mass Effect 2 (final review)

All that, plus our usual bullshit, and you have one of our greatest podcasts ever. Seriously.

Don't forget to try and win your free Saint's Row 2! Also, we'll be giving away another game soon, as well!

-Blaine

On the horizon! Look! It's a podcast!

OKAY. Real quick. I'm getting up in five and a half hours, and I promised I'd post this tonight, though it's now AM, so whatever. It was my first down time after 38 consecutive need-to-do-something hours, so...there.

Anyway, I snagged both Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth and Aliens vs. Predator today, which is awesome. AvP took over 8 hours to download, and that sucked, but it forced me to remember why I'm so in love with the Ace Attorney series. Having to really push my brain in a game is awesome, and getting to be with these characters again is like reuniting with old friends. I really dig the more investigative angle, and can't wait to play more.

I did spend about ten minutes with AvP, which I sat up and waited for, and gotta say...it's the best looking game I own. Crank that sucker up to 1920x1080 w/ DirectX11 and BLAMMO, it was surprising how great it looked.

Since it is a PC game, I still need to do some tweaking. It hung horribly on the cut scenes, but the in-game was perfect. I also had a ton of shit (iTunes, Firefox, Visual Studio 2010) running in the background, and I hadn't rebooted in over a day, so that may have hindered the cut scenes.

Anyway, aside from the gorgeous visuals, I was really struck by how good the sound design was. I paid particular attention to the control, since so many reviewers had been crying over their 360 controllers about how bad the control is in the console ports, and in very limited play time, the PC version seemed great. No, I didn't try the titular Alien yet, but I heard that was the worst offender in terms of control. Will grab more stick-time tomorrow.

Okay. Not so brief.

Tony and I are back behind the mic again this weekend, and we'll be talking about:

Ace Attorney & AvP
BioShock 2 review
new Resident Evil 5 DLC
new Forza 3 DLC
Heavy Rain demo
(insert random old shit that Tony's been playing)
final thoughts on Mass Effect 2
and pretty much whatever else you're willing to sit through

So, drop us a comment on anything above or whatever else you want us to read on 'the air.' Thanks!

-Blaine

Untitled Podcast: Mass Effect 2 Edition

Here is your new podcast!

We talk about our early impressions of Mass Effect 2 and comb through every little detail of it. From Cerberus to Zaeed to the Citadel to Omega, we cover every minor detail from the early parts of the game. We compare and contrast Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2, and talk about what we love and what we hate in the new game. If you are as much as freak for these games as we are, you will love this podcast!

Download it, listen in, and let us know what your opinions of the game thus far are!

-Blaine

Untitled Podcast returns!

Here it is!

We kick things off with some general chatter about what we've been up to, then talk about (gasp) games. We talk everything from Star Trek Online to Final Fantasy VIII to Killing Floor to God of War III to Magic: Duel of the Planeswalkers (huh? Yeah, I'm there with ya.) We then move into a brief overview of the gaming implications of what was shown at CES 2010 and then talk some gaming news, and then wrap it up with quick preview of Mass Effect 2's inventory and armor system.

Oh, and we came in @ 2 hours, so you can relax.

Download it, listen to it, then yell @ us in the comments about what ya think.

We'll be posting new blogs again on Monday, and maintain that, then we'll be back with our Mass Effect 2 blowout podcast on 1/30.

Thanks for listening, and let us know what ya think!

-Blaine

On the Road

So, yeah, I'm visiting the in-laws w/ the wife 'til Friday. It's good times, even without a wifi connection, which can be terrifying for one such as myself, who is ostensibly plugged-in. I'll talk more about that on this weekend's podcast, when we wrap up CES 2010 and all the tech/gaming goodness that's come out of it.

It's been a little tough keeping up w/ CES while in the remote reaches of northern Illinois, but I've been using my in-laws' much-improved, if still slow-as-hell-relative-to-my-fiber-optic connection (which freaks the fuck out if I connect a router to it).

Anyway, I might try to hijack their connection tonight w/ my gaming machine to get rolling on the Star Trek Online beta, but we'll see if that's even feasible. I also don't know how much I can talk about my experience w/ the STO beta, but I'll look over my agreement to see if there's an NDA.

I spent quite a bit of time with Final Fantasy VIII on PSP last night, and I kind of enjoyed it. First, I figured out how to resize the screen, and this should work for PS3, as well. It seems that with any PS1 download, if you hit the Home/PS button, there's an option towards the bottom of the screen to resize the screen, and you get many options, one of which is a manual resize. This helped things quite a bit.

Anyway, I played all the way from the Fire Cavern to just after the Dollett mission, and spent a ton of time drawing magic and level-grinding. I know that level-grinding can be ill-advised in FFVIII, but I really wanted to get Squall at least somewhat pimped-out before I reach the 'open-world' part of the game. I've got close to 2000 spells drawn, and I think I'm ready to start rolling, for real, in the game.

I think that one part of FFVIII that really doesn't jive with me is the way that I play RPGs. I craft each character to be a unique person that brings something different to the battle, and FFVIII punishes that by insisting that you only have three character loadouts that you swap to the three (or fewer) active characters, and will kill the shit out of you at times if you don't have every GF available in the battle. I like assigning a GF & magic to a specific character, and assigning them based on that character's personality and battle strengths, and just leaving them there. The game's designers find this approach to be anathema to their love of generic vessels that substitute for 'characters,' and have built systems into the game to take punitive measures against anyone 'playing it wrong.'

My mission is to thwart this hateful design and make this game enjoyable to someone like me, who has better tastes in games than those who nearly single-handedly toppled the greatest franchise in gaming history with this entry in the series.

More on this as it develops.

Remember, Tony & I will be back this weekend with a new podcast.

Now, some questions!

01 - What did you think of Final Fantasy VIII? How did you play it?
02 - Are you on the Star Trek Online beta? If so, lemme know how to hook up with you in the game!
03 - What do you wanna hear about from CES on this weekend's podcast?

Lemme know, and we'll talk. I'll be back tomorrow!

-Blaine

It's cold and I am bothered

As you undoubtedly heard on our most recent podcast this past weekend, BiowarEA has announced an expansion for Dragon Age, called 'the Awakening.' This is hot on the heels of their last-second announcement that they've delayed 'Return to Ostagar,' followed by a steadfast refusal to say why, which was followed 12 hours later by a quietly muttered, 'ya know, bugs n' shit,' kinda explanation.

I love Bioware, though the treatment I've been receiving at the hands of their owners has been less than kind. I've teased for a long time that I'm going to post the hilarious indifference that EA's tech support has shown toward their victims, and as soon as I have them all organized, I will. I'm still battling over EA's refusal to work with me on getting my Bioware profile to update with my Dragon Age game info, so I may wait until that is resolved, but we'll see.

Anyway, word on the street is that 'Return to Ostagar' is supposed to finally hit today, but I'm not holding my breath.

Make damn sure you read up on 'the Awakening,' because it sounds great, and I can't wait to see if we actually get to know 'the Architect' a bit, because he was a really interesting character in the most recent book.

So, I've got a few things on my mind that I was thinking about posting this week. One, my impressions of 'Dante's Inferno' or my gripes about 'things that lotsa gamers do that make us all look bad.' You pick.

Lemme know, and I'll post it in the next day or so.

-Blaine

Happy Frakkin' New Year! Here's a podcast!

It's a new year, a new decade so here's a new podcast.

We rap about all the games that are worth talking about in this new year (that would be 2010 for those of you keeping score at home.) We also wrap up our top games of the decade by revealing our #5 - #1. We also talk about all the old shit we've been playing this last week. You Fallout 3 apologists might be pleased.

Tony is blasting George Michael right now, so it's a little distracting.

Listen in, enjoy, and let us know what works for you, and what doesn't.

We'll be podcasting again on the 16th, to wrap up CES, and we'll be posting in the meantime.

Let us know if there's anything in particular ya wanna hear/read about from us.

Word.

-Blaine

Tonight! Tonight!

Okay. It's here! The first of the 'end of the decade' podcasts! Tonight, we'll be talking quite a bit our favorite games of this year, and #10-6 of our 'best of the decade,' as well as some games that didn't quite make the cut.

We need your help, though! What was your favorite game of 2009 and your favorite new release from between 2000-2009? Drop it in the comments, along with some quick thoughts on the games, and we'll read the best ones on the air!

Thanks!

-Blaine

Also, be sure to read our posts about games that didn't quite make the cut, but still get some love.

Forza (series)
Shadow of Destiny
Trackmania
The Witcher
Burnout Paradise
Plus, our extra special Christmas post