Nuclear Monster

  • podcastGenerally when I look out on the surface of the Podcast listings on my iPhone I’m confronted with two things; NPR and Video Games. Neither of which are exactly expanding my listening horizons.

    Every so often though, I find a few that fit within those publishing categories but also expand my interest and thinking. Here are three episodes listed in order of least-to-most video-gamey.

    1. Fresh Air from 1/28/09:
      This episode continues the fine tradition of Terry Gross’ 30+ year tradition of excellence through interviews of cultural and intellectual icons. The recently deceased John Updike’s past Fresh Air appearances taking the place of the show’s usual format. I will admit to having never read one of Updike’s books, though after hearing this interview I am inspired to try them.
    2. What They Play from 02/03/09:
      The meat of this episode has little to nothing to do with the usual content of this podcast, which is why I find it so surprising. The usually chipper host John Davison surprises us by being boring and uninterested in his own show to start, and then he throws out a substantial bit of discourse with ngmoco‘s CEO, Neil Young. Complete 180 from a usual What They Play episode, but not entirely unexpected from John Davison. Listen to this show if you have any interest in the iPhone gaming market. Then go download ngmoco’s great games if you haven’t already.
    3. A Life Well Wasted Episode 1:
      Usually when you get to the most game-y side of discussion you’re prepared for unintelligible fart jokes and prattling on about the latest Gears of War in a round table format from a group of schmucks over Skype. I’m certainly no exception having contributed to that for a good while. Then along comes Robert Ashley to class the joint up without giving up any kind of personality. Though the subject matter of the first episode is kind of played out, it is a great example of what to expect from this new podcast in the future.

    There you have it, three podcasts to which you most likely haven’t listened. Enjoy.

  • Giant RobotJeff Buckland over at AtomicGamer has written up something that I wouldn’t normally dream of reading, a wish list for a game. However, this is one game that I happen to think was overlooked by many strategery fans for the minimal things in which it was lacking, instead of the greatness for which it is.

    So, What does Jeff want for Supreme Commander 2?

    For all of Supreme Commander‘s talk of epic scale and millions of lives hanging in the balance, we never saw a single one of those people we were fighting to protect. The whole battlefield was full of robots with humans only occupying the ACUs, and you never seem to fight in population centers or heavily inhabited areas. Other than what the story dictated to us, for all we knew we were just fighting with robots out in some field somewhere for fun. For the sequel, having fights in cities would be incredible, and would probably do a better job of showing off the scale of the units than the original game did.

    And that is a point with which I couldn’t agree more, the main thing that lacked in the first game was atmosphere and personality beyond robots. I didn’t care for the single player at all due to the restrictions placed on the tech tree throughout and  would have loved to have played some multiplayer missions through SimCity style cities as they’re pulverized beneath the feet of my giant robots.

    It is like that old science fiction trope of “What is the point to conquering the universe if you won’t have any sentient beings left under your control once you do it?”

    So what then is the point of having giant robots if there aren’t any squishies (and their dwellings) for the giant robots to trample underfoot?

    In any case, read the rest of Jeff’s article. Not because it talks about giant robots, but because it is written in the style of a real Supreme Commander fan instead of the generic “fan(s) of the genre” tone you might get on other sites.

  • realtriggers2Most people would probably expect the Dual Shock 3 to be the best of both worlds; the useless wobbling from the SIXAXISâ„¢ disaster, and the great design and heft of the Dual Shock 2. Unfortunately, someone at Sony forgot to fix the triggers (R2, L2) for first person shooters.

    Most likely they don’t understand why that is important for shooters.

    Well, that is all in the past now, and what we’re left with is terrible for shooters or anything else that relies on you to retain your grip on those triggers. Fortunately, some kind pacific rim company is popping out these accessories as depicted in the above diagram which repairs the issue. I’ve finally got a pair of the “Real Triggers” via amazon and can say they work as intended. Not sure they’re worth the $5 they go for on amazon, but they’re still good.

    Now the only problem is that some games refuse to let you rebind the button layout so you can use your newly repaired triggers. Battlefield: Bad Company I’m looking at you.

  • Linux Games Podcast 12