Hey everyone, well looks like its Frank and Jimmy tonight. Dave is MIA (Actually at dinner with the family bah...) so looks like we are gonna do the two man show and believe me you are in for it That doesn't mean its bad just less of Dave and more of Frank!
Our first subject is race and gaming. Is the video game industry purposefully pursing white middle class kids to the detriment of creating a more diverse landscape in the gaming community or are video game publishers simply creating games for the people who buy their products? How could the video game industry bring in more customers than rich white kids (hint- Frank is going to claim it is all about the price of games). Have things gotten better or worse over time? http://kotaku.com/5325906/report-games-underserve-underrepresent-minorities http://kotaku.com/5327940/npd-says-half-of-all-americans-are-gamers
OK, This is a really rough test of doing a video version of the podcast. If you guys like it then I will work even harder next time to get the quality up even further. Let me know what you think by adding comments below. If this goes well then the next version will have moving video rather than just still. Also, let me know if you like the idea of commentary at the bottom of the screen, or if it is distracting.
PS- Anyone who knows flash and would like to make a video intro to go with our intro music would earn my everlasting gratitude!
You may notice that Overdos3 gives a lot of 2's and 3's from our 3 star scale. This is because we are average consumers whom are not given games to play for free, therefore we tend to buy games, DVDs and see movies that we are pretty sure we will like. It is a nice surprise, then, when a windfall trade in of older games from our parents house allows us to try out something we hope would be good, but would never buy with our hard earned cash in a million years.
With hope in my heart that the reviews were wrong, I bought a copy of Damnation.
Overdos3 is a new site with no real resources and very little time to truly deliver the content we could if this was a full time job, so we end up posting many stories that we find on the internet from other sites. Often the way we produce stories is to take these posts, reference them with a link of some sort and then offer up some form of commentary which puts the Overdos3 flavor on the piece so we are not just leeching off of another site.
This is not the optimal way to do things, but it is the best we can achieve at this point with no parent company or sponsors.
You would think, then, that if little sites like ours aspire to document and link our sources as diligently as possible, that the big guns like Kotaku would do the same thing as well.
I do say this is awesome. 16 episodes and still going strong. We have a new site and everything to go along with out great skills as podcasters... haha. Prepare yourself for a magical podcast filled with wizards, football, and space!
That is not meant to be me bragging at all. As a matter of fact I would say that spending the money I spend on Edge and Games alone is a bit ridiculous, and when you add in Play and Nintendo Power which I really only ever give a cursory glance then you really get game magazine overkill.
What is the biggest thing holding videogames back from reaching a truly mass market audience? Some might claim a number of factors as the main reason why the audience for videogames is still teenage to adult white males, but the biggest reason I see is the price of games.
The titular ship, the Narwhal, in"Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1" is a ship crafted from the jetsam that gets pulled into Flotsam Island, where Monkey main character Guybrush Threepwood is stranded. In many ways the Narwhal is also a perfect metaphor for the way developer Telltale Games develops their titles, which take their standard 'point and click' revival style play, adds an established brand, and combines to two together into a very palatable, but far from amazing snack of episodic gaming.
“Dude, your guys show rocks and is very informative. I watch the totally rad show over at Revision3.com but I tend to like your show better because you seem more like the type of guys I would have over at my house. Keep up the good work.” -Brad Shifflett
OK, we don’t 100% agree with that quote… but we think it is totally friggin’ awesome that he thinks that we are, so this week’s Overdos3 Podcast is dedicated to Brad! So hold on to what you’ve got Brad, this week’s show is yet another smorgasbord of entertainment, news and weirdness.
Our first story this week is Google, and the Google Chrome OS… Is it going to be Google FTW, or Google WTF? … that's Google For the Win or Google What the F#@k for all you non-dweeb speaking listeners. This leads to a talk on Windows 7, piracy and hackers. http://www.overdos3.com/2009/07/google-announces-chrome-os/
Movies comes up next with a very short discussion on Public Enemies. This leads to talk on the movies Yes Man, I am Legend, Star Trek: Insurrection and a little more on True Blood. http://www.overdos3.com/2009/07/public-enemies-review/
We end the show with a discussion of the top ways to quit your job.
This week’s awesomely bad song is “Landlord Blues.” Well, we are gonna call it “Landlord Blues” because the wowdemoblog does not give titles with these awful songs. http://wowdemoblog.tumblr.com/
Once the show is over you guys should totally go to Brad’s site Behindthecameratalk.com… and make sure to review us on iTunes!
In my review of the videogame for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I asked EA to quit killing their games by concentrating more on getting them out by a certain date rather than focusing on the quality they end up being. I had a little bit of hope that the delay of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince would lead EA to keep working on that movie's videogame. I was hoping they would make the control work better, on integrating story and game better, and do away with the jarring transitions from the last game that kept ripping away the immersion factor.
Well, here we are six months after the initial release date and we are left with probably exactly the same game we would have gotten six months ago. While the initial hour was much better designed that Orders mess of an intro, things quickly devolve into the same trial of 'go here, mix this potion, fight this duel, trigger this cut scene' that held back the last game from greatness.
I was not a big fan of turn based RPGs before playing Skies of Arcadia, and Arcadia's ability to stack attacks by pressing a button at the right moment ruined me for 70% of the RPGs I have played since trying this gem of a game.
Arcadia might have had way-too frequent random battles, but it also had awesome air battles in flying ships, a great since of exploration in a semi-open world, memorable characters and a involving story.
The fact that Sega has not tried to capture this formula again, but sees fit to whore Sonic out every chance they get really makes me question the sanity of this publisher.
Earth Defense Force 2017
Xbox 360
Publisher - D3
2007
EDF 2017 is one of those games that was so close to greatness, yet just far enough away that a sequel really could have gotten the mix perfectly... if only developer Sandlot would get of their asses and make one! EDF was almost a pitch perfect translation of old-school arcade style play onto the more modern consoles, yet a few major flaws kept it from being as good as it could have been.
All that really needs to happen to make this one of the most fun games ever is to add online co-op, fix vehicle controls, and add some more variety to the enemy types.
The Conduit is one of those games that some people are going to love while others point and laugh at them. It is distinctly old school feeling... meaning that it feels like it could have been one of the best shooters to come out 10 years ago. For me, a rabid fan of the Nintendo 64 masterpiece Goldeneye, The Conduit feels like a return to the classic 'corridor crawl' type shooters of yore... and I love it!
Have we moved forward from this type of shooter? For sure. Does this mean that there is no fun to be had from this time of game simply because it is very linear? Heck no!
The Conduit is one of those games that would never hold up when you try to compare it to its modern day competition, but what is does offer makes it the best FPS on the Wii next to Metroid Prime 3.
The set-up for the game is one of those generic 'government conspiracy mixes with an alien plan to take over the world' that has fueled more than a fair share of FPS games. Area 51- I am looking right at you. The enemy design is also completely ripped out of Metroid, Call of Duty and Halo. The voice acting is bad, and 100% driven by overacting.
People love to complain about the amount of sequels that come out every year. I, however, am a big fan of sequels that manage to not drop in quality level and add something to what has been established. Sequels to games are not exactly the same as making one for a book or movie. Advances in development techniques make it so that there is always something new cropping up that could be used to bolster an established intellectual property. I think sequels should be thought of more like when an artist creates a series of paintings. Often they do this to hone their craft and improve their art to perfection.
In that spirit I want to present games I think deserve a sequel. Many of these are older titles that were overlooked or just lost over time. Some are more recent games that will probably never see a sequel, but deserve one. There are also a few big name games in here that for some reason or another have never gotten the follow-up that they deserve.
General Chaos
Sega Genesis, 1994
Publisher- EA
This Genesis title doesn't get a ton of love from the classic games crowd, but my best friend Jimmy and I played this strategy/action hybrid more than almost any other genesis title. It had a playable, but rather unremarkable single player- but where this game really shined was multi-player. You chose a team of different mixed class warriors. There were Soldiers who were nimble, but had to be in the open to fire their machine gun which could spew bullets, but these bullets weren't very powerful. Chuckers could cause a pretty good area of destruction from afar with their grenades, but died pretty quick if not hidden behind cover. The guys with flamethrowers could kill an enemy very quickly, but they had to be right on top of them to do so. The best character was the guy with the rocket launcher, but he could only fire diagonally and was an utter sissy when it came to taking damage. All the action in this game took place on a single screen which was littered with rocks and debris to hide behind. You would tell your squad where to move by placing an X on the map where you wanted them to move.
General Chaos was a pretty simple game that would never need to see a full $60 retail release if you wanted to make a sequel to it, but a place like PSN or Xbox Live would be a great home for an online version of General Chaos' mayhem.
Next week for the Overdos3 Podcast we are going to talk about free PC games. To help you prepare for this episode I have provided links for the first sites we are going to cover for this new segment.
Don't forget to contact us or send emails to
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to let us know what you think of these games, and what free games you like to play. Your thoughts may just end up in this or a future episode of Overdos3!
Battlefield Heroes-
Other than the rather unfortunate song EA chose to introduce new players to this action packed and free First Person Shooter, Battlefield Heroes is a pretty amazing game. While you can spend money to change the look of your personal heroes, there is no fee required to play the basic game.
With team based play, lush visuals in the same vein as Team Fortress 2's animated look and a variety of classes (sniper, soldier.. you get the idea) to play as- Battlefield Heroes jumps right to the top of our list of free games to play.
That doesn't mean its bad just less of Dave and more of Frank!