Big thanks to Karl for editing this.  I don't know how I would have managed catching up on 112 and getting this out this week without going crazy.

Heeere I cooome to save the  DAAAAAAY!

I'm so proud of this episode title.  Anyone who has played to the end of Indigo Prophecy should get a good chuckle out of it.

Are there any Indigo Prophecy spoilers? I just got it yesterday.

Big props to Karl! Wish you could have made it to PAX. :(

No, I don't think we said anything that could be considered a spoiler, because we encouraged people to go check it out.

Sweet. It's too bad Greg wasn't available, but at least you got a great substitute. :)

Nice try, but the Bangai-O sound transfer didn't work for me, maybe Nick can upload it and post the link in the future? I also liked the feature about story driven gameplay I like the concept and I'll check out the games too.

great show as always.

I really enjoyed Eternal Darkness I was low on money and I sold it to buy Meteos for DS. I felt so bad, but at the same time I didn't play that game in forever. I still miss it. ( This was back when Meteos originally released)

How I would change up Eternal Darkness.

1) Remake, not sequel ( I heard it sold terrible so why make a sequel )

I would make every color you choose, you would have 3 different sets of insanity effects. So with each color you get different ones that way it stays fresh, and with Wii they can do some amazing stuff to really throw you off. (have the low battery announcement come up but be a LIE)

Obviously clean up the FMV which was compressed. Maybe change the set up for levels with different colors like you would play the entire level in 1st person if you pick green, but red is 3rd person like normal.

Throw in some different levels here and their for different colors and you got yourself one great package. I really loved the insanity effects so i was disappointed they sometimes recycled them.


Is Greg in Denver or St. Paul? I assume Denver, but since you guys frown on talking about politics talking about what region of the US can be a clue.

I'd like to make a comment about the firmware on PS3. On 360 I believe it's just a patch on the existing version of the software however on the PS3 it does a full system flash so each PS3 firmware could be at least 100MB big.

Jonny should not be allowed to talk about WiiWare.

Seriously, Wild West Guns may not be the best WiiWare game on the service, and it's not, but it's fun, and certainly not anywhere close to in the same league as Pong Toss. And since he ignores what I have to say on the subject (and really, why should you listen to the opinions of someone who plays a lot of WiiWare games on the subject of WiiWare games?) I'll link you to the 6.8 from IGN and the 7 from WiiWare World. Also, for the record, Midnight Pool: 7.0 from IGN, 8 from WiiWare World.

Yeah, I regret mentioning Wild West Guns in that context, because I have seen a couple of decent reviews for it.  But I find it hard to be interested in such a game, regardless of its respectable quality, when there are so many other things like it already on Wii.  And the same goes for Midnight Pool -- it may be okay, but who really cares?  It's time we saw some actual originality on WiiWare, you know, like Nintendo promised when they announced the service a year and a half ago.  And Nintendo itself is hardly leading the way.

There's a difference between not being interested in something and bashing it. I liked the shooting gallery and billiards portions of Wii Play but would rather have them immediately available to me as channels than on a disc so the two games are perfect for me.

I don't think you can blame Nintendo for the lack of originality on the service apart from the lack of Nintendo-developed titles. Thanks to Nintendo's policy of letting anything on the service as long as it won't brick your Wii, shopping for WiiWare games is like shopping for retail games; there's going to be a fair amount of crap and a whole lot of mediocrity in addition to the good stuff.

Well Jonny I highly doubt Nintendo wants to be the big fish in the Wiiware pond, I think Nintendo would rather have indy developers have a good foothold in at least one area of where they could get a chance of their games being out in the market. So in this space I think Nintendo would like to see indy developers leading the way, quite frankly with some of the Wiiware games whether they are good or bad there are some interesting ideas that you would normally see absent from retail games.

Wiiware games also go through a Q&A check to see if there are no major bugs, when I bought castle crashers on XBLA for 1200MS points which is $15 me and a friend wanted to play co-op online but guess what? The online mode causes either 3 wonderful things 1. Kicks every player from the game and into the main menu when it tries to launch a game 2. Kicks everyone out right before a boss or in the middle of a level 3. Same as number 2 except freezes the entire game to a point where you need to do a hard reset of the console.

Yo Greg, you should have told me you were coming to Denver, I could pointed out which CO beers to indulge in!

I'll see about getting the proper cables to post that Bangai-O level online.  It's AWESOME, and my creativity should not be wasted.

The panning camera has been done in a few third person action games, I suppose the only difference is that in these games the camera is fixed behind your character. For instance, RE4 on the cube lets you use the c-stick to pan the camera, likewise you can do the same in metal gear games. It is certainly an interesting idea that could be really cool with some development.

Excellent episode guys. Loved the intro and outro Karl. :D James continues to make me laugh and he's not even talking about Ubisoft!

That Indigo Prophecy discussion got me really excited to play it, since I just bought it recently. Some people may gripe that there wasn't enough Nintendo talk this episode, but I think it's good to look at other games, especially ones that were overlooked. It's not like there is a lot going on outside of downloadable games for the Wii right now.

Hey I loved the part about King of Clubs so much I edited it down and posted it on youtube. I put some pictures up occasionally too so its a little different

Part 1

Part 2

We're being pirated!

SWEET

I am a true Internet celebrity!  Actually I was laughing at the various boxarts.  Good work!

hate to burst your bubble, but I contacted Johnny and he gave me the ok.

I was considering putting video clips of the game, but decided against it since the audio is the star of the show the video is just something to keep you busy.

What episode was the "man beam" discussion with Cho Anike releasing in europe. Months after that podcast I remember it well, boy that was some funny stuff. I'll post that. I was thinking about posting all the times I sent mail and you guys answered it, but I got lazy and to many episodes.

I wanted to send an email in for the next episode but I can't think of anything to ask. :(

Ask something that will start a new podcast segment, Jon Lindemann's Crazy Anti-Nintendo Rants.

Did Lindy really say that no Wiiware game should cost $15? Really, so I suppose Braid isn't worth $15 because I really doubt it had huge development costs. Or better yet if a new full length Mario Bros. game comes out, that wouldn't justify $15? Lindy, Lindy, you confuse me sometimes. :(

Ya Lindy was a snide snide man the whole epi. Just like here on the boards!

At least he's consistent.

consistently wrong is still wrong. ;)

Yeah, and it's not as hilarious as inconsistency can be, like if he were to continue on like this and then do a 180 and give Wii Music a 9.5 review.

That's not a 180, that's just crazy.

No, it's both.

I hate you podcast people, now I have to get and play Indigo Prophecy. Looks like it is backward compatible with 360 so maybe I'll get to play my FIRST backward capable 360 game.

The problem I have with paying $15 for a WiiWare game is that it's using old tech.  At least the games on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network need a little more development time (and cost) to be put into HD, have more intensive visuals, and are typically larger games in terms of size and scope.  Therefore, I'll begrudgingly pay the extra cost, but I'm not a huge fan of paying $15 for Braid either.

This is the same problem I have with $34.99 and $39.99 Nintendo DS games...there's nothing you can do on the DS that would get me to pay more than $29.99 for a game, no matter what it is.  I won't pay $39.99 for a PSP game, let alone a DS game.

Says Lindy who paid $20 for Space Invaders and a Paddle controller.

I didn't pay more than $29.99 for the game though, did I?  Peripherals are in a different class entirely.

Even at 19.99 you are still talking about a "primitive" game even for DS. So flip that around and put a fully fledged Mario platformer on the VC, how is that not worth $15?

A games value is dependent NOT on development cost unless you want to get into super goofy and incoherent territory or the system it is on. It depends on what the user gets out of it and what they FEEL it is worth to them which can range from replayability, production value, story, visuals, length, creativity, and above all us, how much they feel the FUN they are having is worth. It is obnoxious to state that X game should be X price based on something as silly as development cost or the "hardware it is on".

This kind of ties in with the podcast in the discussion over Indigo Prophecy? From most accounts the game was not that visually attractive and didn't have super big production values that took full advantage of the hardware, so would that mean it wasn't worth full price?

I guess my $10 price point comes from the investment that I've already made in the console, and the price of other software.  And besides, like you just said, it's how I feel.  I don't feel that any WiiWare game will be worth $15.  I have yet to be disproven, but I'd love to be.  Most Wii games aren't worth $50 to me, either.

Wow, no offense, but you REALLY come off as a graphics whore here. I can understand the WiiWare argument--the games so far seem very limited in scope due to file size restrictions and a general lack of effort. But I can't follow your DS comment. Portables have ALWAYS been "old tech," due to battery life and portability restrictions. I'd argue the DS's touch screen makes it "newer tech" than the PSP in terms of what it can lend to game design. Anyway, the DS (and even the GBA) are more than capable of providing a full-featured gaming experience (online gaming notwithstanding, I suppose). Even some GB(C) games can compete with 8-bit and 16-bit console classics in quality and depth. So unless you've never been OK with spending $35 on a portable game, and you can't enjoy games without whiz-bang graphics, your statement is bogus.

Funny I feel the exact same way about most PS3 games! ;)

Don't get hung up on the "old tech" comment; I'm not disparaging the DS.  I just feel that due to the relative simplicity of its hardware and what I feel must be the lessened development costs involved, most DS games are overpriced at $29.99, let alone $34.99 and $39.99.  Instead of $29.99/$34.99/$39.99, I think the range should be $19.99/$24.99/$29.99.  If I'm paying $39.99 for a game, it might as well be a full-blown console experience.

Well I don't buy 39.99 dollar games for the DS either. I think usually Nintendo tacked 5 dollars onto the standard price if the game has WiFi but thats about it.

Overall, that should make the PSP worthless, and it is.  But I don't pay for tech. Just you do, Silks.

I remember a time when you spent money on games you thought were going to be good, not what was technically superior.

Ya sorry, some of us, including myself started asking for more.

I don't subscribe to the techno blah blah group, I believe there is a balence though and I will damn well always ask for more from the market. It's my harsh love, really.

DAaaMan and Lindy on the same page...CONFIRMED

I would really hate to be someone who judges a games merits solely on the technical aspects of the game when determining value. Guess that means I should hate Boom Blox. Heck I might as well say "Mario Galaxy should be 19.99 because Xbox 360 has better graphics!"

Thats a far stretch from what I said.

They way I see it, gameplay over graphics, of course. again something I shouldn't have to be saying, but I can always demand nice graphics and I love to see them.  How I love me the market, but it is but sad harsh love.

That is fine if you are talking about graphics on the same system. What Lindy is saying is that a Wii game (or in his example a WiiWare game) is of less value regardless of its depth or even the work put into it than a 360 Arcade game.

Personally, I'd pay $20 for DWARF FORTRESS.

If I can have fun with a game and the price fits that fun, I don't care if it's on the PS3, DS, or Dos 3.1.

Heck, I went and bought River City Ransom for $15 at a Funcoland around ten years ago just because that game is an amazing brawler/RPG combo (with co-op!). God I love that game... totally worth it to plug it into my NES. Old technology? Bah. A unique, fun, experience.

... Oh, and uh... I'd pay $50 bucks for the Monkey Island games if they ever rereleased...

James' King of Clubs rant was fantastic.

Kairon makes a good point, what about those classic games that sell for $50-100? I mean that is the ONLY way to get the CD-I Zelda games. ;)

I WOULDN'T pay for those, and most of the market wouldn't. I think thats why there isn't a large market for these high priced games ;).

I'm amazing how many 60 dollar 360 games and PS3 games people buy.

I'd pay $50 for Dragon Quest IV if I wasn't (probably) going to get it for free to review.

I currently own four Xbox 360 games but only paid full price for one of them (GTAIV).  I got Crackdown for $15 used, Burnout Paradise for $20 new, and Call of Duty 4 for $40 new.  I've also played through Gears of War and Assassin's Creed through GameFly for the equivalent of $5-10 each.  I think the $60 price tag for HD games is too high, and it's one thing keeping people from buying those systems (but the hardware price is a much bigger issue).

It's not that I'm arguing that people won't or there isn't a market for that, I just won't pay that much ;)

I tend to thing that game systems and games that cost that much are niche anyway.

I never pay $59.99 for normal games (I pay premium prices for Collector's Editions, but that's expected).  I keep daily tabs on CheapAssGamer.com and typically get new games in the sub-$50 range.

I really think the $60 price point for 360 and PS3 is borderline retarded. It is hilarious when you get a BETTER version of most of those games on PC including better technology for $10-20 less.

True, but I'd rather game from the comforts of my home theater...
http://www.winkk.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/what-your-cyber-mate-may-really-look-like.jpg

yes I agree and for us linux users the persuasion goes even deeper. I also hate installing stuff or wasting anytime configuring.

Which is why it is the gullible fee. ;)

PLEASE stop quoting that photo!

I am more than happy to buy the PC version of a game under two conditions:

1) Doesn't require a console-style game pad, because I don't own one.  Plus, I would probably rather play that kind of game on a console.
2) The developer/publisher is known for quality PC versions.  Some companies like Activision and Capcom do release their games for PC but in crappier versions.

That is true from time to time regarding ports to PC but it seems it is rare. DMC4 and Lost Planet from what I understand are great ports to PC and since I have a 360 gamepad I have no control issues.

Regarding 1), I bought a game pad for my PC, and it paid for itself after three game purchases, but I thought I heard the 360 controller works with a PC out of the box.

2) What are you referring to, exactly?  Performance issues?  Missing features?

this topic has gone to hell. and it wasn't my doing. HA HA if anything i added to it with my youtube movies.

I wouldn't mind paying 1500 Wiipoints for a game as long as its a fantastic game.

I had no problem playing $12 for Sin and Punishment for Virtual Console and my friend and I only played it once, but it was really really fun few hours. even if it was only 3 hours I had no problem paying for Lost Winds for $10.

The mental block is set by the fact you can buy 2000 points cards. So $15 is the Vast majority of that card is what 90%. yes you can buy more points online with debat/credit card (30-50 range) but I tend to only buy 2000 points from that anyway since i don't buy games on that all the time so the points usually stay on my wii until something seriously peeks my interest. So the question pops up is the game worth the majority of points i have? 
Not only that do I have space for that?
Like said in the podcast, I don't want to go threw the BS of deleting games. If the file is to big.

It does not.  There is a version 360 controller for PC.

Personally, I've got a USB adapter and drivers that let me use my old Xbox 1 gamepad with my PC.

Of course, the offset for cheaper PC games is the additional money one puts into a truly quality gaming rig versus any of the consoles.

Yeah, the extra money for console vs. pc games is a "convenience fee" of sorts.  One that I don't mind paying.  If I really want a game for PC (e.g. Oblivion), I'll wait until the Game of the Year Edition is released, and then get that for as cheap as I can.

As a general rule, yeah.  It's like how I expect to pay more for a PSP game vs. a DS game...because there's more development overhead involved on PSP, I can understand being charged a bit more for the end product.

The corded version of the 360 controller works with the PC out of the box.

On the subject, I liked Karl's bookends. Let's have him edit every week!

This is an view of end-pricing driven by the cost of making the product, as opposed to a view towards pricing a product according to how much the end user wants it, and what the market can bear. Both are probably applicable, though I personally believe the market-oriented approach is and should be more dominant.

True, MS sells a PC-branded 360 controller for ten dollars more.  It's EXACTLY the same as the corded 360 controller.  But I have a wireless controller, which doesn't work on PC.  In fact, all 360 SKUs now include the wireless controller.

As for inferior PC versions of multiplatform games, there are numerous examples ranging from Madden to Spider-Man.  Publishers usually dump the PC version onto a small dev studio with little quality control.  That trend may be changing... as more companies now don't even bother releasing PC versions.

It seems there's a receiver available for the PC.  Now that I think of it, though, it's kind of useless.  If I had a 360, I'd buy those games for my 360 so I wouldn't need to use my 360 controller on my PC.  Since I don't have a 360, I'd have to buy both the controller and the receiver separately if I wanted to use a wireless controller, and that's ridiculous.

As always, it was a pleasure to sit back and listen to an episode of RFN that is not blighted by my own presence. It was also fun to hear Karl's bookends, though it did remind me a bit of those old-fashioned intro-outros for horror movies on TV - Karl is our Vampira, confirmed. Look forward to our forthcoming RFN feature production starring Karl, Plan 103 From Tallahassee.

D_Average, I'm afraid my days were so full due to travel time (from Aurora where we were staying), various convention-related appointments and associated hanging around for things to begin that I had practically no downtime in Denver at all. It was all pretty gruelling in its own way, but it was certainly a very worthwhile experience nevertheless. In any case, I appreciate the thought and regret that I didn't get to see more of the city in my time there.

Also- I actually prefer Halo's pacing to the more twitchy shooters. It's more strategic; more about what you do once the shooting starts than who gets off the first, most well-aimed shot.

So how awesome was America, Greg?

I think the ideal price would be a balance of the two.  The consumer wants a markup that's reasonable, while the producer wants to get as much money for the product as possible regardless of production cost.  I guess what I'm saying is that there's a tipping point where the consumer thinks that the markup is unreasonable, and the producer is just being greedy.  That tipping point for me with DS games is $30.

Of course, even $30 is arbitrary...I might be getting screwed at that point too, but it doesn't feel like it because $30 has been the "magical" price point for portable games for a long, long time.

Makes me want to go out and read a book on how companies determine the price points for their products.

Well glad to hear you made it out and back alright!  Did you at least bump into John Oliver?  He had some pretty good interviews while he was here.  I've been listening to The Bugle per your recommendation, great show!

Sadly I did not bump into John Oliver at the convention, that would have been funny. However, I did see a great number of recognisable faces both inside and outside the political sphere, one of whom you'll hear me mention in the next episode of RFN (a shameless--and probably entirely ineffective--tease there).

This trip was my fourth to the United States, and I've enjoyed myself there immensely on all four occasions, so yes ShyGuy it was predictably quite awesome. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get out there again and catch a Bills game sometime (although I could also do that in Canada now, sigh).

Edited for coolness

Hate to tell you this, but I just picked Detroit to win over Atlanta in Survivor Football....

My mind agrees with you.  My heart rails against you.

I'd make a Michael Vick joke but we had him first...

I feel your pain, I'll relive the Bears Super Bowl lose Sunday night as they take another beating from Indy.

Just picked up tickets for the game at the Georgia Dome this Sunday, so I'll be able to see Matt Ryan get injured and put out for the season live and in color.

I have a feeling that Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson are going to run WILD on those young Falcons cornerbacks.

But to make this a somewhat on-topic post, it's great to have Greg back.  NWR's favorite Chocobo farmer for sure.

That's interesting. I was about to argue that $50 was a magical price point for console games, but maybe the rise of used game purchases has lowered the expected price that some gamers pay for games? Or maybe a rise in budget games and value-priced re-releases (Player's choice, for example) has also degraded consumer expectations in terms of prices?

$50 is the magical choice because metacritic says PC has the best games in the WORLD and the other systems don't have that many good games. ;)

eh eh eh

OMG DEFINITION WARZ

Something tells me Crimm is back on editing duty...

He's probably dancing with an angel: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=DgDWAmO0_Ok&eurl

MMMAAAATTTIIIILLLLDDAAAAA

I laugh every time I see that scene.  But no, I'm playing something else this week.  Also, I'm editing right now.

Full, badass, trailer.

Is Monday going to be podcast day now? :(

We'll be doing it on Tuesdays now.  It's NFL football season, after all.

Speaking of which, the Falcons surprised the crap out of me.

I bet Greg is happy, and I'm not talking about what the Bills did today.

BTW: I'm encoding the MP3 now and I've pretty much done all the pre-work for AAC.  It will be up in an hour or so.

After listening to Jonny and Nick talk about Indigo Prophecy, I can safely say that the game is not for me.

I'm the type of gamer who absolutely must do everything.  I feel the need to collect every coin and star bit in Mario Galaxy, even though they don't do much.  I can't not kill a zombie in Resident Evil (even when I know they're just going to come back as a Crimson Head later in the game).  When playing Phoenix Wright I have to see all the dialog options, even if it means loading up the same save file four times because I accidentally select the correct answer the first time.

I would lose sleep over this game.

Hmm... Unlike Vudu above me, it sounds like a great game/movie. I know it has a replay value to it to try to choose diffrent paths, but as long as one way through last a good while (more then a hour) I sounds like fun! Kepp up the good work guys! (and gals)

P.S. What the h... what is with all of the sonic avitors? I have nothing againts sonic nor sega, but is this just a acident? Or are you guys feeding hipnotic sound waves through your podcast telling people to use sonic theme avitors... I know Jonny has the capibilities...

I will find out one way or the other...

The Mafia game in the Funhouse (Mockingbird Pies Server ITT) has a Sonic theme.

King of Clubs is so worthless they are literally GIVING IT AWAY with a Wii at Sam's Club.

Great deal overall too.