Topic: Radio Free Nintendo: Episode 163

[Jonnyboy117]

We talk about Geist with Jeff Kalles, former Associate Producer at Nintendo of America. Amazing behind-the-scenes stories ensue.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/podcastArt.cfm?artid=20046

 Episode 163: Haunted Dog Food    

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This big episode starts with a diverse shot of New Business -- imported Goemon, MMORPGs, PlayStation 3 downloadable games, Microsoft's interactive game show, and finally, something recognizable: Professor Layton 2.    

Then we kick off the Geist edition of RetroActive, minus Greg (scheduling conflicts), but plus Jeff Kalles, who worked on the game as well as Eternal Darkness and several other notable titles for Nintendo of America. Jeff is a natural podcaster and gives incredible insight into Geist's development. We asked our questions and yours, as well as sharing our own thoughts about the game and getting some of Jeff's honest opinions too. And since he seems incapable of having a boring job, we talk about his current gig at Penny Arcade and some of the recent and upcoming events related to the world's biggest gaming comic.    

Still not satisfied? What's wrong with you? Well, maybe you will be after Listener Mail, in which Greg returns. We answer questions about Wii/DS connectivity and the best on-rails shooter this holiday season. We've also got Shout-Outs for Lego Star Wars and i-Ninja.    

We're always looking for great Listener Mail to read and discuss on the show, so please send your questions or comments! (We really love seeing your praise and feedback regarding the show itself; however, in the interest of time, we may edit your letter to be read on the podcast.)      Credits:    

This podcast was edited by Greg Leahy.    

Music for this episode of Radio Free Nintendo is used with permission from Jason Ricci & New Blood. You can purchase their newest album, Done with the Devil, directly from the record label, Amazon.com, or iTunes, or call your local record store and ask for it!    

Additional music for this episode of Radio Free Nintendo is copyrighted to Nintendo, and is included under fair use protection.  

[KDR_11k]

i-Ninja? Why give a shout-out to that when you could give one to Ninja Five-O?

[broodwars]

I've been tempted to get Flower, but without having a way to try it and see if I like it via a demo or whatnot I'm not dropping $10 on it.

[ShyGuy]

Jeff Kalles seems like a decent bloke.

[Jonnyboy117]

brood... take the risk. I bet you buy plenty of $50 games without playing them first.

[broodwars]

brood... take the risk. I bet you buy plenty of $50 games without playing them first.

True (and $60 games as well), but I usually have more to go on with them than screens and videos of flower petals spiraling around in fields.  Plus, I'm very wary about going after these "art games" after getting really turned off by Braid a while back, which had similar hype and I just found pretentious and not particularly interesting.  This just feels like a game that has to be played to really decide if you want it.

[Killer_Man_Jaro]

I haven't yet picked up Geist for the feature, but I'm more inclined to after hearing inklings about the real substance of the game. I had no idea the object possession ability was involved in all these intriguing puzzles, so I might get this second-hand as I'd quite like to try out the challenges associated with these poltergeist powers.

As for Flower, I'm somewhat dubious about that. After Jonny described the gameplay, I was left thinking "ugh, who thought this was a good idea for a videogame?". My fears were confirmed when I searched for a YouTube video of it - the one I picked had a 10 minute duration and I watched it for 1 minute before closing the window out of boredom. Once you get over the visuals, which I will concede are astonishingly nice, it seems that picking up petals would get dull extremely quickly. What I find most bizarre that Jonny used Flower to have a dig at De Blob, which kept my attention for its entirety and provided a lot of enjoyment. It obviously doesn't have the graphical finesse of the HD blades of grass, but it certainly appears to be a great deal more fun to play.

[Jonnyboy117]

Flower is nothing like Braid. It's not a puzzle game or a platformer, and the only text is the credits.

It's also not just a graphics demo. What you obviously can't get from watching a video is the feeling of controlling the wind with your movements, which is a HUGE part of the game and is done incredibly well.

I was hesitant to mention de Blob, because it's obviously a very different game in execution. The broad concept is similar, though, in that you are transforming and reviving a world where things have decayed. And Flower excels in the one area where I felt de Blob was a big failure -- controls. Of course, de Blob gets a lot of things right, especially the music and the story concept (not so much the writing).

[NWR_DrewMG]

Great interview, guys.  I'm still waiting on my copy of my game.  Really looking forward to playing the game. 

[GoldenPhoenix]

My opinion of flower was pretty much "ehhe", it was calm and charming but that is about as far as I would go. It is one of those games that seemed to full of itself, like Braid (which is too bad because it had some great gameplay).

[ShyGuy]

Once you're 'N' you can never get out

BWAHAHAHA

[broodwars]

Once you're 'N' you can never get out

BWAHAHAHA

That pun was so horrible, yet so awesome.  All we need now is for him to use "play it loud" (my personal favorite Nintendo PR slogan) at some point. 

[KDR_11k]

"If you had infinite jetpack in Shadow Complex you wouldn't need the grappling hook"

You don't need it anyway, any walljump refills your jump count and if a gap is really wide just build a foam bridge across it.

[D_Average]

Flower full of itself?  Huh???

[Plugabugz]

I sent off a question to RFN 3 weeks ago and it hasn't come up! Is it still coming up?

[GoldenPhoenix]

I sent off a question to RFN 3 weeks ago and it hasn't come up! Is it still coming up?

No it fell in the abyss with my question I sent in 3 weeks ago.

[Jonnyboy117]

One of the things about receiving a lot of emails is that, even doing Listener Mail every week, we can't read them all. Also, if all else is equal, I'm more likely to select a letter from someone we haven't heard from before. So thanks very much for your letters, and please keep sending them, but just realize that we can't read them all on the air. If it has been more than two weeks since you sent it, we're probably not going to be reading it on the show.

[D_Average]

I feel like every week I listen Adolf Vega gets a question answered.  On top of that, when you consider the fact that he also gets a question answered every week on GameScoop, its really unfair to the rest of us.  Liiiike.  Really unfair.   

[ShyGuy]

I'd like to take this opportunity to ignore D_Average and answer a question for Adolph Vega if he has one.

[GoldenPhoenix]

I feel like every week I listen Adolf Vega gets a question answered.  On top of that, when you consider the fact that he also gets a question answered every week on GameScoop, its really unfair to the rest of us.  Liiiike.  Really unfair.   

That makes it all the more depressing. Thanks a lot for bringing that up.

[broodwars]

I feel like every week I listen Adolf Vega gets a question answered.  On top of that, when you consider the fact that he also gets a question answered every week on GameScoop, its really unfair to the rest of us.  Liiiike.  Really unfair.   

That makes it all the more depressing. Thanks a lot for bringing that up.

Oh you are one to talk, GP.  You're probably the second most-answered person in the listener mail section, second only to Adolf.   

As for Adolf, geez it really does remind me of the occasional time when I'll tune in Shawn Hannity on the radio, and every single episode "Marty" always calls in without fail.  They even have a little theme song that plays for him in the background during his call.  Maybe we need one for Adolf.   

I'm not too bothered by the frequency of repeat-members in listener mail, as I've only written in 3 times and got read twice so it's been pretty fair enough to me so far.  I just find the whole thing funny.

[NWR_Lindy]

That pun was so horrible, yet so awesome.

I felt sort of guilty after using it, but also quite proud of myself.  I just kind of felt bad, because I usually only subject James, Greg, and Jonny to my terrible puns, and not unsuspecting guests.  It was like stealing candy from a baby.

[adadad]

I don't really think it's fair for anyone to pick on Adolph Vega - the questions are vetted, and against the odds, his are being picked because they are seen as being good questions! If your question doesn't get read/answered think of a better question. Based on my (very limited) experience of sending in Qs, it's the more indepth ones that bring up discussion rather than short, one-word-answer questions that get chosen for the show.

And yes I am still chuffed about the compliments for my question a while ago! It was to do with whether developers should be afforded more sympathy due to all the complications of game development/publication that're out of their control. In a way it's kind of relevant today as we're seeing more devs like WayForward and High Voltage progressing from crap, slapped together licenced titles to fully fledged, highly acclaimed ones. It just makes it more difficult for critics to call a developer uniformly **** now that it's becoming clearer that faults do not necessarily lie with a dev team's ignorance.

Uh oh I'm kicking off again.

[Jonnyboy117]

We pass on many of Mr. Vega's questions. It just happens that he sends quite a lot of them, and sometimes they are quite interesting.

Tips to get a letter read on the show:

- Ask something open-ended
- Bring up a controversy (gaming-related)
- Challenge one of the RFN crew on something we said or wrote
- Write about a game or company that doesn't get talked about much
- Ask for our opinions on a particular game or issue
- Give constructive suggestions about the podcast or website

Most of the people in this thread don't even need these tips, as we've read letters from all of you at least once! And we'll be happy to do so again if the topics are interesting.

[Plugabugz]

My last question wasn't even a question, but more about how i hate henry hatsworth now the difficulty spiked so quickly.