You guys need to double check the Lindy toggle before you start from now on.

Jonny: It's funny you mentioned the Filmspotting podcast because I unsubscribe to them today. I cant stand their pretentious, elitist views on film. Actually, my negative review on itunes was mentioned on their podcast three or four episodes ago. You mention how you're open minded to a wide rage of films: from mainstream (Iron Man, A-Team) to small indie films (Moon, Salo or 120 Days of Sodom - I am kinda interested to hear their opinions on that film.) The problem with Filmspotting is that they only like "indie" films. They spit at anything that is mainstream. A good film is a good film. Like you said, "You should be able to like something on just an enjoyable level." Well, it was something like that. I'm listening right now as I'm writing this and I don't want to go back to hear what you exactly said lol.

So I've already passed Lindeman in my Mario Galaxy 1 party? AWESOME!

Though I can see why he jumped out at 15 stars - I nearly quit after the first surfing and ball rolling sequences. I think now that I'm through the first 3rd of the game it's picking up now. (I meant to play through 1 before playing 2 but somehow managed to lose my copy and wasn't able to find it until after 2 launched).

The Now Playing segment wasn't that bad, unless I missed something.

I'm also one of the people who sides with Rock Band in the plastic instrument arms race, but that's largely because I'm looking for a straight music game, with none of the boss battle stuff Guitar Hero introduced after Harmonix jumped and seems to be bringing back for Warriors of Rock. That and Raining Blood. **** that song.

Rock Band did put out track packs, but with the exception of the AC/DC one they were all compilations of DLC and - most importantly - $20. Any urge I had to get back into Guitar Hero was lost when they launched Aerosmith at full price - same reason why I'm not buying Green Day until it gets to $15 on Amazon. And yes, Lego Rock Band was a WTF moment, but the Lego part was kinda fun and it had The Final Countdown.

Edit: I just want to make sure the rules for the contest are right.
The Noodle Incident recently bleeped involved the following: Jonny, Karl, Mike, Neal, Lauren, and Jon finished the Drunkcast, some indy developer gave the group a gift related to a game discussed with Karl recently and a catchphrase discussed in the same episode. Whoever comes up with Greg's favourite story that explains the Noodle Incident and e-mails it to rfn@nintendoworldreport.com gets an autographed-by-James copy of King of Clubs, and the incident is un-Noodled assuming a sufficient number of entries.

I think judging is either the "best" or the "most accurate."

And yes, that's pretty much the scope of the contest.


As for the new playing, I assume Greg edited it.  It was a disaster when we recorded.

Who keeps saying "Lords of THunder" in a deep voice on this show?

As for Rockband and Guitar Hero, I have never been able to get into those games very well because I do very bad with them even in the lowest difficulty setting. I have never been very comfortable forking over $150 for a game and a bunch of goofy plastic perepherals. I have actually seen several Raockband drum sets at a couple of thrift stores for like ten dollars. Although I would be interested in playing DJ Hero if I had the chance.

Jon, as for God of War 3, this game is so massive and kicks so much ass. I played the first two games, but the third is by far the most visually breath taking of the series. One question, is there anything that Zelda wii can borrow from such a game as God of War 3?

Does the RFN crew ever think that mature third party games will ever be able to flourish on the wii, or any future Nintendo home console? All the mature games that have been released so far have been fairly good and yes, even Madworld was good despite its flaws.

I don't remember anyone saying "Lords of Thunder."  I'd say it's either Jon or myself, and I don't remember doing it...so

I believe that it is Jon Metts that does it and I have heared it several times and never had the chance to ask until now.

Oh, well we've all done it at some point.

I have to disagree with you, Jonny, about the visual quality of Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time.  Sure, it doesn't look as good as God of War 3, but many games can say as much and still look just fine.  IMO, the game sports excellent art design and runs incredibly well at 60 FPS despite a lot of stuff happening on-screen (mobs of enemies, hundreds of bolts flying through the air, etc.).  The game looks as good to me as that art style can look before going into cel shading.

I do agree with you on the writing, though.  Outside some humorous lines by Captain Quark and Dr. Nefarious, it does often feel like the game is trying too hard to force a laugh.  You might want to keep an ear tuned to your ship's radio as you fly around the outer space overworld, though.  There's some good material in the various "news reports" and "commercials".

Regarding the story contest for Ep200: Shaymin has everything just about right, though to be clear, the bit of indie game swag involved in the story was received by someone among the NWR party during PAX East but before the post-Drunkcast chaos, and it then played a pivotal role in that soon-to-be-infamous tale. The "catchphrase" that punctuates the story can indeed be found towards the end of this episode that we recorded with Karl, while the indie game itself has been referenced on RFN a few times in the past, but not specifically in that show. Hope this helps, but once again, accuracy is not a prerequisite for achieving victory in this contest! 

Oh and about Now Playing -- there's about three times more audio from the Now Playing recording in the stinger than there is in the segment itself, ergo it most definitely is the worst Now Playing ever from the editor's point of view!

I'm not sure if I want to hear it now. My mistaken linking together of words without thought ended in disaster.

Has Jonny ever in the history of the show enjoyed the humor of a video game?

Lords of Thunder

I think we can all agree that funny games are rare at best. But yes, I have enjoyed some games' humor: Portal, Mad World, WarioWare (various), Secret of Monkey Island, Retro Game Challenge, to name just a few. It's just that I have extremely low tolerance for Disney Channel-style humor like that in Ratchet & Clank.

As for Filmspotting, they certainly do focus on smaller films and are often disappointed by blockbuster releases, when they do review them. I don't think they are averse to mainstream films, however, and could give you a laundry list of huge movies that they enjoyed or even loved. If they crapped on recent movies like Robin Hood, Iron Man 2, and Prince of Persia, maybe it's because those films aren't very good? Even when I disagree with them (and they openly court dissenting opinions), I like hearing their arguments and getting a different perspective. If you don't like the show, don't listen to it. But if you are generally upset by opinions that don't match yours, consider why that is the case, and what harm there can really be in polite disagreement and contrasting viewpoints.

I agree with you, but they make an effort to dislike mainstream films. Have you heard their revew on District 9 and Avatar? It's cringe worthy. Not every film has to have deep meaning!!!!!! some are just for fun, and that is something Filmspotting does not understand! Why do you think they get so much hate mail? They go into a film like Avatar and can't enjoy it for what it is. Yet, they praise a crap film like The Fountain or Elephant! Who likes Elephant? That film is horrible, it's a fact! I do like that they sometimes read hate mail, but their still a bunch of elitist snobs! Go to the IMDB boards, and if someone hates an "artsy" film and they explaine why they hate it. What is the response? "Go see Transformers" or "you just don't get it." That's what they are, they judge you by the films you like.

Elitist snobs should get no respect!

That reminds me, is Evan going to make an appearance in episode 200?
http://instantrimshot.com/

BUUUUUUUURN!

Damn it...John wasn't a big fan of the first Galaxy (like me, he found the opening galaxies to be tedious), but really likes this one.  James, too.  I may have to look into Galaxy 2 if it really improves upon the first Galaxy so much.

I love Galaxy 2. However, nearing the end, I feel like too many of the stars feel TOO short. Dont't get me wrong--I believe in focused game and level design over superfluous padding. But I've garnered more than a few stars in; like, a minute on my first try. It's just a little weird, that's all.

Contest is wrong. Lauren wasn't a part of said event. She stayed in the room because she was tired. Everyone else was probably too ripped to notice. :P

You'll get used to it.

I just finished the episode. My God the stinger stuff.

I was glad you guys pointed out that Rock Band is not from some mom and pop game. Harmonix is owned by National Amusements (it's a long chain, Harmonix is part of MTV Games, which is owned by Viacom, which is owned by National Amusements). National Amusements is far bigger than Activision Blizzard. As for The Beatles: Rock Band, they probably did lose money. The MINIMUM in royalties that MTV Games had to pay was $10 million (with that amount increasing up to $40 million based on how well it sold). Add in the development cost, advertising costs, etc., and there is a good chance they did not sell enough to make a profit (and why they stopped with DLC, maybe they weren't selling enough DLC to justify the costs to make it).

*continues waiting*

It was mentioned before Vudu comes in here and sulks. The pledge requires me to.

I want to congratulate Jon; we got Mario Galaxy 2 at about the same time, yet he's still played it more than I have.  Bravo!

Thanks for answering my question about Fragile.  If you wanna go more in depth about it feel free to PM me.

I meant to respond to this earlier but got distracted with other comments in the thread. Now that I've played both on the same TV, I can say confidently that Super Mario Galaxy 2 looks better IN EVERY WAY than R&C: A Crack in Time. God of War III obviously looks better than everything, and that's its selling point.

To each their own, I suppose.  I have 2 TVs in my house: one's a large 40+ in. SD-ish (I'm not sure what kind it is considering it can hook into my computer, yet doesn't have HDMI input) and the other's a 24 in. HD LCD.  I use the former to play Wii games since that's the TV Wii games look best on, likewise for my PS3 on the LCD.  So far playing through Mario Galaxy 2 on the 40 in., the game honestly doesn't look that hot (which surprises me because every other Wii game looks very good on that TV and not-so-good on the LCD).  Ratchet & Crank, though, looked phenomenal on my 24 in.  Maybe it's just the TV, but I can't agree that Mario Galaxy 2 looks any better.

Put them on the same TV and then we'll talk.

Well, the 40 in. can't play PS3 games because of the lack of HDMI input, and Wii games don't look good on the HD LCD (very visible aliasing and pixelation) so somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

I laughed so many times to Greg's "this is my Waterloo"

Express...his...love...for the big ape

I actually have a 27 ich RCA television that I use for my wii games and the quality of the picture looks pretty good. Although the Playstation 2 quality is slightly blocky. Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Monster Hunter 3 are visually stunning, but the TV screen takes a few minutes to reach its maximum brightness.

The PlayStation 3 doesn't have to play on HDMI. Any TV with composite or component video will support the system too.

Yeah, I knew that already, but to play a PS3 with anything less than HDMI is practically a crime.  Besides, if you want to compare how two games on two different systems look, you want both to be played on setups where both games look their best.  A PS3 on component (or especially composite) is certainly not that.

Besides, I test PS3s with composite/component video as part of my Day job, so I'd rather avoid that in my After-hours gaming.  :P: :

Super Mario Galaxy (and I'd assume Galaxy 2, which I haven't started yet) is one of the best looking games this generation on any platform. I'd say that it looks as good as any 360 or PS3 game that I've played.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is perhaps the best looking first party wii and Monster Hunter 3 is most likely the best looking third party wii game. Between I would have to go with Galaxy 2, but Monster Hunter 3 is a close contender for the title, atleast in my eyes. The fact of the matter is that wii games are getting better and if it continues the wii may no longer be considered a last generation console like some people think.

I recently read Nintendo Magic, a book written a year or two ago by a Japanese journalist that was translated this year, and it goes into a lot of Nintendo history like Game Over, but it also talks about the switch from Yamauchi to Iwata, and the development of the Wii and the DS. I recommend it to every Nintendo fan. It's like $13 on Amazon.