Digital Cowboys Film Club is a new project we’re starting with next week’s first episode. We were a Movie and Video Gaming podcast for nearly 90 episodes and since we switched to just games there have been many times we’ve wanted to talk about movies but couldn’t because we want to stay focused on games. We at Digital Cowboys have a commitment to excellence, so we couldn’t just talk about any old movies.

So we decided to go back and take a look at some films that made us love cinema in the first place. We’re holding off Star Wars, The Matrix and the other big franchises (at least for now) in favor of slightly more esoteric, unusual and challenging films. It also allows us to share some of the great pictures that may have passed by our audience over the years. We’re treating it like a club. We’ll give you all a heads up as to what film we’re doing next and you’ll have three weeks to get hold of and see it. Borrow it, rent it, buy it, but SEE it, because we’re going deep on these films and each show will be a spoiler-filled discussion. Sometime in the future we may do a film that absolutely sucks, but is such a train-wreck that it’s worth seeing, and sometimes we may have totally polarized viewpoints on a film.

Here are the eight rules of Film Club.

1. You do talk about Film Club
2. You DO talk about film Club
3. Everyone on the show has to see the film just beforehand
4. One show every three weeks
5. One film per show, gentlemen
   
6. No going “Er… I don’t remember that bit”
   
7. Shows go on as long as they have to
   
8. If you have an opinion on Film Club… you have to voice it

This is going to be great. Our first film is Fight Club and you should see it before Tuesday August 4th

Mr Maynard.

This week our guest is Zach Maynard of the Unknown Gamers of Saint Louis and Gamehounds Humpdate.

We reflect on the barrage of mail we had on last week's Room 101 Episode (Download it NOW) and accusations of our being soft on our guests. We talk with Maynard about his podcast and gaming, his podcast and which demographic is worse, the apathetic masses or the shrieking fanboys. We also do a few Room 101 entries of our own and end the show on an interesting bit of news about show expansion.

This is all following news from last week that Activision will be charging us in Britain an extra £5 for every copy of Modern Warfare 2, allegedly due to a weak pound, but more likely just because it's easy. For every outraged post on a forum somewhere screaming boycott they will have ten compliant buyers, which if you do the math works out about the same.

Thank you to everyone who sent us mail. If you'd like to do the same; mailbag@thedigitalcowboys.com

Room 101: Gaming Pet Hates.

Read this first.

This week represents the combined efforts of no less than twelve individuals. This is a guest-extravaganza like we've never had before, but we're not just doing a normal show so pay attention.

Room 101 is a fictitious place where all the misery in the world goes to die. It originated in Orwell's 1984 as a room which contained your worst fear and it inspired a British TV show where guests would come on and campaign to have things they hated put there forever. Sandals worn with socks, people who talk loudly in restaurants and lateness are the type of things that get submitted. The hosts job  is to attempt to form a counter-argument as to why that thing should stay out and free to annoy people.

We did this, with video games as the theme and guests from eight other shows. So you get...

1. Rob Borges from Gamers with Jobs
2. Cooper Hawks from Gamehounds
3. Daniel Floyd from Talking About These
4. Bobby Blackwolf from All Games Radio
5. Tim Wilsie from Gamehounds and GridCycle (Also the sorely myissed show The Widget)
6. Chris O Regan from The Superhappyfuntimeshow
7. David Turner and Michael Fox from Joypod
8. Chris and Kelly Brown from The Married Gamers

All of them came on for an interview, all of them put forward at least one loathsome aspect of video gaming to be cast into the fiery pit and we did our level best to keep them out. What it makes for is a damn good and often hilarious bumper episode. It's longer than normal so you might want to do this in two sittings, but do check out the shows noted above and  and have a listen (or a look in some cases). We wouldn't have them on if we didn't want to hear what they had to say. Many thanks to everyone involved. This was a long time coming, but it was worth it.

In case you haven't heard the podcast yet, we have a brand new website.

Go to www.thedigitalcowboys.com and marvel at the high quality work of Commander Tim of Gamehounds. We worked with him as he constructed the site and every response we've had so far has been very positive. It's a great leap forward for the show.

Enjoy.

Mike Oldman from Eidos.

Many of our listeners may remember him from our muffled interview at the London MCM expo when we talked about Batman: Arkham Asylum. We're very pleased to welcome back to the show proper; Mike Oldman - Community Manager for Eidos (The European development house behind Tomb Raider, Hitman and Kane and Lynch).

As it turns out, there's a lot more to Mike's job than simple PR and a lot more to the man himself. He's one of the most interesting guests we've had on in terms of where his career has taken him. It was great to get a fresh perspective from the other side.

We talk about Batman in more depth, looking at character portrayal, also Just Cause 2, Metacritic, the Eidos/Square Enix deal and where that leaves the company, plus Mike's answers to our classic eight questions. There's also the Battlefield 1943 online debacle, the summer of pricey XBLA titles, what we've been playing and reader mail. All that, plus a special announcement for something incredibly cool for us.

You can find the Eidos Website here. Mike's website here. His twitter here and most importantly an ancient pre-Red VS. Blue Halo machinima named Strykeforce here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCJTaccVeZk

This is our latest YouTube video. We really want this to spread about the net so send the link to everybody you know who knows about Milo and Project Natal. Enjoy.

Alex and Tony

On episode #113, recording tonight we have Mike Oldman, Community Manager for Eidos Interactive. Mike isn't just about PR, he's worked with THQ, run several gaming websites, written for Edge, Official Playstation, Xbox World and other magazines, and produced at least one gaming machinima series. So we're going to keep the angle away from merely shameless title promotion (although we want to know about Batman: Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2 just as much as the next man). If you have any questions for Mike about Tomb Raider, Hitman, Lane and Lynch, Battlestations, Chuck Rock or any other Eidos title, (or if you'd like to ask him about some of the projects he's been part of in the past, then post them beneath this article or email us at digitalcowboys@googlemail.com

The Married Gamers.

This week we welcome Chris and Kelly Brown AKA The Married Gamers. They've been podcasting several years, have a loyal and incredibly friendly fan community and are part of the same Platform Nation family as Gamehounds.

We got them on to talk about balancing relationships with video games. Not only do they lend their considerable expertise, but we found out a lot about them that we had not expected.

Not only did we have them on as guests but immediately afterward took part in their latest show (also weirdly episode #112) as guests ourselves, which was a first for Digital Cowboys.

We absolutely recommended you go check these guys out on iTunes or their website. You won't find a warmer, pair of married compulsive gamers anywhere else.

Their latest episode should be up Sunday afternoon sometime.

Written By: Alex Shaw

It’s hard to recall but this was one of the big PS3 releases, drumming up massive E3 excitement over the rolling demo several years ago. On first glance it’s just Godess of War, twin blades twirling, quicktime eventful and featuring an epic, mature, Conan-style fantasy storyline. To be absolutely honest, the first impressions aren’t too far off. This is every bit as action-packed as Kratos’ journeys, if considerably less gruesome. What sets HS apart is the level of elegance, both in the games heroine, and the design and flow of the game itself. Rather than just mashing the buttons and flailing the blades of Chaos, there’s a little more Ninja Gaiden-style switching of stances and timing of blows. Hammering square will get you blocked and killed fast. You have to time and counter. Nariko arcs about the screen, a lady-shaped death-machine, but each button-press has to be managed. There’s no hand-holding here. You have to earn your awesomeness.

The reason this game stands out in the mind, and why when you’ve finished it, it will stay with you and leave you wondering why other games don’t do it that way is the performances turned in by the mo-cap and voiceover actors. Gollum himself; Andy Serkis plays Bohan the tyrannical and brawny villain, injecting every line with easy, almost likable, poisonous charisma. He’s not some gloating D-lister with pretensions on being Emperor Palpatine, this is an award-winning actor at home in a digital role. He’s more like the terrifying man you meet in the pub and pray you’ll get away from before he snaps and you get a pool cue in the eye. The man who would be Kong also took up the role of dramatic director for the rest of the cast, and it shows. Every line is comitted to, every emotion feels true. If every voice director in gaming took this much time and effort to get his crew emoting then games would honestly be further down the road to being taken as seriously as films. Nariko, Bohan, Kai, Shen are all excellent characters, none of them stereotyped, all of them interesting, with strengths and frailties making them far more human than we’re used to in this medium.

Looking back on the game, it’s really a pretty slick but standard slasher. Golden Axe brought right up to date (and not like the atocity that was Beast Rider) but the reason to find this game again is that if you own a PS3 and if you’re looking forward to God of War III for reasons of story and character as well as action then you owe it to yourself to get this played in the meantime. It has some annoying sections involving crossbows and catapaults and the sixaxis controls, but a little perseverence, aiming first and keeping a cool head will get these completed. Criminally overlooked on release and not likely to see the sequel it probably doesn’t need, this stands alone as a time when Ninja Theory (They of Kung Fu Chaos) truly excelled and made an action game with a bit of heart and soul for a change.

Written By: Alex Shaw

If you recently sold your DS Lite and bought a DSi, sorry pal, you’re a sucker!

Don’t get mad at me, get mad at Nintendo. They promised you an upgrade. The ability to buy brand new mini games and a sleek form-factor with a slightly bigger screen. All they took was that useless old GBA slot that was taking up so much room. Unfortunately for you, that means you traded the best SNES games and frankly some of the best handheld games for Mario Clock, Mario Calculator and the ability to buy small, or “express” portions of other games. On consoles we call these demos and don’t pay for them (Yet… God I hope I didn’t jinx us) It was, in effect, a downgrade.

Tell me, with your hand on your heart that DSiware is what you hoped it would be right now. Obviously it’s early days, there’s so much Nintendo could do with this new market. But if you look at their track record for the past year of WiiWare, they’ve yet to even approach the signpost for the parking lot to the ball-park of quality that some of the titles you lose in this transaction equate to.
Here’s just the briefest of lists of games you can buy as GBA carts cheaply on eBay.

Super Mario Brothers 1,2,3, World and Yoshi’s Island (Advance)

Zelda: A Link to the Past and Four Swords and The Minish Cap

Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission

Golden Sun 1 & 2

Final Fight

Street Fighter Alpha 3

Warioware Twisted

PoKeMoN Ruby and Saphire

Fire Emblem

Final Fantasy VI and Tactics

Mario Golf

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

PLUS Guitar Hero on the DS

By all means add your own in the comments section. You may not want to buy games second-hand. If so, Nintendo loves you and you will probably be able to buy all the above again legitimately. You may also still have a GBA,  I have a GBA SP for when my wife’s using the DS, but the screen isn’t as bright. You may simply not care about these games. If that’s true of all the above, why do you own a handheld at all? Now in a year’s time, look back on this article and it may be that I’m dead wrong. I’m sure a few good games could come out. Nintendo could even pull some classics out of their magic hat to rival even A Link to the Past, and the others from both the shining days of the SNES and the quirkier inventive streak that the GBA development cycle represented, but let’s face it, it’s not likely.