Nick, Justin and Kaz discuss the copius amounts of games they’ve played, then dive into games as a professional sport (and how silly that is). Metal Gear gets some positive discussion, Nick talks about his imports, Kaz and Justin do a post mortem on The Darkness (here’s a hint: don’t expect the multiplayer to be good), and Justin talks up The Bigs. The crew nerds out over small Smash Brothers news and discusses the possiblility of an Xbox price drop. Kaz was playing Planet Puzzle League the whole time this episode was recorded.
The Rumble Pack Posts
Nick, Kaz and Justin meet up to seriously discuss groping witches, Jack Black license games and games as an artform. Nick delivers his report from Otacon, he found interesting games in the midst of all the sweaty dudes dressed like ladies. Justin puts Nacho Libre to rest, and the rest of us ignore that fact. All three discuss the Roger Ebert criticism of games as high art and determine subjective concepts really do differ from person to person! Then the crew throws down on some tasty news tidbits. Remember, all the good little boys and girls get I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry DS in their stockings…(Editor’s Note: We refer to this as episode 4, we’re only human I suppose…)
Nick joins Kaz and Tom in Cleveland for this show. This special show is a departure from our normal format, we ignore movies and television this week in favor of talking exclusively about E3. Did any of the big 3 pull through? Were there any handheld games? What did we think was the best? Answers to these questions and many more are contained inside; in-between the Star Wars references. Discuss at board.therumblepack.com.
Random thoughts:
- My game of the show for E3 would honestly be WiiFit. I know that for many of our listeners, this “non-game” was not the announcement you were anticipating. While I certainly wanted a new IP or at least something more “hardcore,” this is exactly what Nintendo needs to promote its system and truly expand the market. WiiFit may not be completely original, as both Eye Toy Kinetic and Dance Dance Revolution promoted exercise, but this concept has a much better chance of succeeding on a console built entirely around unique methods of user input. I also think that it eventually will win over guys like Kaz and I, as it does have that Brain Age appeal. There’s nothing stopping me from attending a yoga class, but turning the concept into a video game with all of the bells and whistles is just more exciting. Nobody thought doing simple math problems would be fun, but Nintendo proved that their developers knew what they were doing. I expect them to do the same with WiiFit sometime this year or next. Prepare to shed some pounds!
- E3 was too FPS heavy for my tastes. I enjoy the genre, but it seems way too much attention was devoted to Halo 3, Killzone 2, Call of Duty 4, Haze, Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, Sequel to F.E.A.R., Metroid Prime 3 (now apparently more like Halo…BOOOOOOO), Blacksite, Quake Wars, etc. I know companies need to cater to an American audience, but this seems to be a bit much. If all of these games come out this fall, I think a few of them will get lost in the shuffle. Also, it should be noted that the Gears of War gray palette is getting visually bland.
Alright folks, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been paying entirely TOO much attention to E3 this year, even though we’ve said ourselves here at the rumblepack that this year’s conference would probably be pretty disappointing. Yet here I am, giddy like a schoolgirl who’s just made the cheerleading team. Thanks to news at E3, I’m pretty sure that in the next few months we’re going to see the best line-up of games across all 3 consoles that I can ever remember. Yippie-kay-yay, mother f*cker, get those controllers at the ready.
So instead of going through all the big 3 (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) and spouting what I like of each of them, I think I’ll just go through and list the things that I’m most excited for, starting with Adonis Golden Ratio review …
Release date SET!
DECEMBER 3, 2007!
Take off work, CAUSE HOLY GOD, IT’S FINALLY COMING!
Seriously Nintendo, 6 years is too long to wait for another smash.
(Btw, Donkey Kong’s back!)
Honestly, if that’s all of the information I got out of E3, I’d be thrilled. But we’ve got more.
A couple days before E3 Nick, Kaz and Justin got together to talk about the week’s news and to give some predictions about E3. If your name is Justin you should go see Transformers. Throw grammar to the wind and enjoy this pre-E3 podcast post-E3. Timely as always.
This week’s podcast was nearly sunk; mired in technical difficulties, the whole crew soldiers on. We pick up shortly into Justin’s list of recently played games. Four skins may give you seizures, but only if they have wild west rootin’ tootin’ themes. Grand Theft Auto manages to steal our attention (and cars). No movie discussion this week but it’ll come back next week. A healthy dose of news rounds out the podcast this week. Also, don’t buy Pokemon: Battle Waste of Money. Technical difficulties should lessen next week.
I think everyone above the age of 22 who’s held a controller in their hands has at some point thought to themselves “man, aren’t I too old for this?” The answer, unfortunately, is not something that I know for sure. The question itself, however, has become much more relevant to me since I graduated in May, so I wanted to spend a little time discussing it.
I find it extremely unfortunate that telling someone that you enjoy “gaming” puts you at risk of your maturity coming under question. People love games, no matter what the type – video games, board games, role playing games, card games, mind games, and sports. So why does someone fall under scrutiny if they list games, particularly video games, as one of their favorite past times?
The crew is back for the first new episode of the season and the first episode to be fully under the banner of The Rumble Pack. Everyone has a lot to talk about since there was a month long hiatus. The most important topic being the future of Manhunt 2. Is the fate of the games industry in the hands of the casual gamers? Cheap movie theatres are awesome! And the gang learns a little too much about what it takes to survive a long WoW session…way too much.