Jake and Mike Videogame Show

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So lets be straight here people, we know that this podcast is amazing, you know this podcast is amazing and former democratic Arizona senator Carl Hayden knows this podcast is amazing……

BUT SOMEHOW WE TOPPED IT AND MADE IT EVEN BETTER!!!

How you ask? Well…we talked about video games. Yeah, I know that sounds like what we always do, but we do it way better this time.

We talk about Dead Space: Extraction, Uncharted 2 and we touch on Brutal Legend and Borderlands as well.

Give this piece a listen and hit up your hoe for some suck! (which is street for “Listen to our quality podcast, please!”)

-(MS)Mike out.

This game will be 2009′s biggest missed opportunity. Imagine the type of experience they could have brought to the world with wii motion plus, and a little bit of creativity.

I’ll just have to keep thinking about what COULD have been….*sigh*

-(MS)Mike out.

For a bit of comedic nostalgia, we bestow upon you this gamefly game review for Dead Space: Extraction, a game we didnt play. (As always, you can click for a larger version)

-Jake and Mike

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Here is the second part! Uhmm……What else is there to really say?

……….Jake digs blondes and I like Mexican chicks. Not everything has to be about Video Games.

-(MS)Mike out.

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Well, here we are, back in the saddle again! Huzzah my friends, huzzah!!

We’ve got a hell of alot of podcast love for you guys this week to make up for our wacky update schedule.

We talk about so many games, that I honestly don’t remember all the many, many things we talked about. I don’t know the order at all, but I know we talk about Wet, Scribblenauts, Mario and Luigi 3, Halo: ODST, Beatles Rock band, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and I’m sure a few other things that i’m missing. So just listen to them, and find yourself in a world of fantasy where your imagination is your car and hopes and dreams are the gasoline!

Also, I noticed that we say “When we were talking about it earlier” a shit load in our podcasts. This one is no exception.

-(MS)Mike out.

Normally, I try and update each weekday, but I’m a bit on games overload right now, so I’m having a tough time narrowing down one thing to talk about. I actually had to sit down with Jake, and we essentially had to make a diagram and timeline about when and how and what order we’ll need to play the games that are coming in the next 3 weeks because it’s soooooo freakin jam packed with goodness.

Hell, I’m actually PURCHASING 3 games within the next two days, on top of the 3 games I’m gameflying. So that’s the type of shit I’m talking about right now.

JAM PACKED!!!!!!

But yeah, I have no way to narrow down my thought process right now, so you can suck it.

I mean…Suck it, Friends <3

-(MS)Mike out.

Does that mean I also shouldn’t play any wii games, since they’re all so uniformly white?? No…you should not play any Wii games, because their aren’t any decent one’s coming out this month! BUT, don’t let that deter you, because black never goes out of style (in the metaphor, black will mean the ps3 and Elite 360) and there is plenty of stuff coming out in the near future for those two glorious beast’s. We’re knocking on the door of the big end of the year releases, and we’ve got some nice pre-meal appetizers to cleanse your pallet before you start (I guess is a food metaphor now too?)

I would say that this month, the big boys are gonna be Ultimate Alliance 2, Wet, Halo: ODST, GH5 and Beatles Rock band going head-to-head, and the new Need for Speed rounding things out for good measure. NOW, this isn’t to say that their aren’t some other titles out there that are at least medium profile things, but I think those are gonna be the ones to be watching out for. Soooooo, you’re gonna be wanting to expect quite a bit of news from us about the games were playing and the podcast being a bit more chunky over the coming week’s since we’ll be paying so much more!

Also, It’s important that all of you remember how addicted to drugs the two makers of The Cast that Never Was Kingdom hearts podcast are. Like, Its’ getting pretty bad that they’d rather sell their tv for a new fix, then to sit down and record another one of their quality podcasts. Its sad is what it is.

-(MS)Mike out.

I sent back Phantom Brave: We Meet Again and Real Heroes: Firefighter yesterday. I was not hooked by Phantom Brave for the few hours I played it and I didn’t even put Real Heroes into my Wii. I used to feel bad about doing this and by this I mean not giving games a fair chance. This has been something I used to think was pretty important, giving every game a fair shot and a good amount of time to really see if it is something I enjoy. I don’t really think that anymore. If a game can’t hook me in the first 3 hours or so I don’t want to keep playing. I don’t see a reason anymore, every week there is the next “big” game that comes out, not that Phantom Brave or Real Heroes were considered “big” games, but I think you get the point. There are so many games that come out now that I don’t really care if a mediocre game slips through the cracks. If a game does not hook me, forget it.

So I won’t have anything more to say about Real Heroes or Phantom Brave then what I said on the podcast this week. I just started playing a little Wolfestein… we will see how that works out. I will talk about it on the next podcast.

-jake

Every time Jake and I get into a discussion about games eventually being more downloaded and less bought at a store, at some point in time, I usually bring up the fact that the games should probably cost less but that I’m afraid they won’t. There is a reason why PC games cost 10 bucks cheaper for the exact same game then its console counter part. Theres a reason that 5-20$ is the sweet spot for downloadable titles.

Alot of people just think its because the games are from smaller studios or because that’s just how a dlc title works, but also, a large factor is because they don’t need to spend a ton of money on printing disc’s, paying to get box art done, paying to print manuals and manufacture or purchase cases and all that junk, so they can afford to give you a game for cheaper and still see a return.

Now you could use some of the few full retail games that Sony has released on PSN and attempt to say that, since the games were fully downlodable, that they were indeed cheaper, but I’m not quite sure if that can be 100% yet, because as of today, all the full retail games released on PSN have been online only games that normally have a smaller price tag to begin with, so that skews things a big. Not to mention that they both came with headsets in retail and but didn’t in the download only versions, which also throws off our ability to see if there was a standard as far as the games being cheaper. Then was the digital only release of the PSP exclusive Tekken, which released lower then some PSP titles, but higher than others, so again, no solid comparison in price can be made. Unfortunately, it seems like those are the only examples that I know of as far as any of the consoles offering up a full retail title in a new school way that had any type of price variance you could use to see where their head is at.

Sadly, as much as we all know that cost’s would be down with a digital release, I can’t really picture the titles costing one price digital and another retail. Knowing Microsoft, who I assume will be the first to make a major digital push for their normally retail only games (Aside from Sony testing the waters with the pspGO), I doubt you’ll see any price drop between the two. More likely we’ll either see something similar to Sony so far, where the price is less digital, and more retail, but the retail version comes with something extra, or  we’ll see a bigger push from them next generation rather than this one, and they’ll keep the 59.99 price tag for digital stuff and well see an increase in the price for retail purchases.

Either way, this is really all just musings and hearsay, but it will be interested to see how this road winds up and how successful each of the big three are with their respective takes on the idea of pricing for legitimate game releases in a digital environment.

-(MS)Mike out.

I have spent a decent amount of time with The Conduit recently and I can say that it was a real waste. I think I was waiting for this game to do something interesting, but it never did. The only reason someone would want to play this game would be if they only owned the Wii and even then I couldn’t really recommend it to anyone. It is bland and generic in every way besides the games controls and the only reason they are different is because it is on the Wii. This is the kind of game only a fan boy would like, they seem to like a lot of things that are only on one console. I could go into more detail but I don’t have anything to say that wouldn’t be just me trashing this game for a few more paragraphs. In short the control is not great, the enemy AI is often very poor (except the fact that sometimes they are like trained snipers), The weapons are boring, the graphics are not terrible but are very bland, the voice acting is not great, and the story is lame. If you have the opportunity to play this game… pass.

-jake

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Welcome back to turkey town you crazy chickens, We’ve got a heck of a podcast for you this week.

We talk a hell of alot of Battlefield 1943 and our love for going commando. We each bring up a few of the games we managed to play in a month that had no games to play in it and Mike touches on his VERY furst experience with an MMORPG.

Its touching, its thought provoking, its tear jerking, its laugh inducing, its fat burning, its a burst if flavor in each bite! Enjoy!!

Also, watch for Mike and Jake to Name drop CheapyD several times, they’re very tricky like that!

-(MS)Mike out.

A whole lot of gaming stuff in the world these days really seems like it should be judged by some type of standard or something. Back in the day when Nintendo had the Seal of approval, you knew that they meant business but we dont have anything like that anymore….Or do we? What if you could walk into a store and be like, “oh, this doesn’t have the Mike Steele Stamp of approval….I better move along”.

Well you’re in luck.

I have invented the Mike Steele Stamp of Approval screening process so that people can finally use me as the medium for whether or not things are worthy of liking or hating because I’m the only one that matters and you know it. Here’s some of the Stuff that currently has the Mike Steele Stamp Of Approval, and some other things that totally didn’t pass the screening process.

Things that are Mike Approved:

Steam

Starcraft, even after 8 years

Retro Adventure titles making a big comeback

The Nintendo DS

Pokemon videogames

PC gaming, oddly enough

Games with Co-op

The way you buy and download titles on the Wii and PSN

The amount of fighting games that have been coming out recently

Things that failed the quality assurance screenings:

Microsoft points

Microsoft XBLA pricing

Games developers confusing “annoying” with “challenging”

People not wearing a headset in Left 4 Dead

The Nintendo DSi store constantly releasing clocks and calculators

The amount of time I have to wait until I can play Borderlands

LucasArts trying to make new IP’s when they could just bring back Tie-Fighter and we’d all forgive them

-(MS)Mike out

I forgot to mention that I am working on a review for a new game that is coming out soon. It is called Daisy Fuentes Pilates. It is the spiritual successor to the Power Stone games I think. Look for that soon.

jake

PS Don’t ever read a PS. They are usually lame. If it was important it wouldn’t be a PS.

I just took a picture really quick with my DSi of this sticker I got at Game Crazy and it seems a stark contrast to Nintendo’s normal style of marketing. I’d say, feel free to come to your own conclusion but its awfully strange to me…

-(MS)Mike out.

I have an article I am writing on glitching or cheating or whatever you call it that I will have part 1 of up soon. I had to make this post to say that some really good looking games are almost out. Punch Out, Bionic Commando, Infamous, Red Faction, Prototype, Fight Night… the list goes on. This will be a good few months for sure.

I also wanted to say that I saw Star Trek yesterday. I can not explain in words how much I enjoyed that movie. It was amazing. I have never been a huge Star Trek fan, I was always about Star Wars. I can tell you though that this movie was so good that it made me feel bad about not loving Star Trek more. If the Star Wars prequels would have been this good I would have left the theater crying after I watched them. GO SEE STAR TREK!

Jake

So I made my way through final fantasy crystal defenders R1 for the
Wii this week, and it was pretty fun. I had not played any of the
crystal defenders games before this one so I didn’t really know what to
expect. I really enjoyed the time I spent with the game, unfortunately
there is not much time you can really spend with it. The game is
short. Surprisingly short. It has 13 levels in all, and each level does
not last very long. The game also gives you a new unit to place every
two levels, so it takes 10 levels to even have every “tower” at your
disposal. This does make the game feel even shorter, you finally get
all your units and you only have 3 levels left. I think for some
people the games length will be a big issue, however there was fun to
be had in the game. Lets talk about the game play a little. (continue reading…)

Now I know what you guys are thinking, “But Mike!!!! How on earth could the Micheal Jordan of game journalism not be very good?? How I ask you, HOW!?”

Believe me, I thought the same thing when I saw that the avid gamer-turned-writer decided to speak nothing but the truth about Resident Evil 5 and let everyone know how bad Resident Evil 5 was. Oh and did I mention that he’s also handsome and has a 13 inch circus penis?

As you might have noticed, I slowly made it apparent there that none of that is even remotely true. Ben Fritz is a writer for Variety.com’s blogged reviews section (and apparently a brain dead robot) and he wrote an article on the 16th for the website titled , “The five reasons Resident Evil 5 isn’t a good game.”, which I obviously disagreed with but I thought I should read before I judge it. I also wanted to see where we was coming from. I’m sure the only place he could be coming from now, is out from under the rock he must have been living under for the last 10 years. (continue reading…)

I think its really strange how easily tricked I am by video game labeling. Now by labeling, I don’t mean, like…box art or those stickers a game gets if it was an E3 game of show, I’m talking like the style of labeling that happens in high school and makes you not wanna join the RPG club. (but then do it anyways and do a bad ass job in the message board style notebook RP)

Read on, I’ll give you an example, because this is already become more complicated then I meant for it…

(continue reading…)