Beatles Rock Band and Big Red Potion

We're joined this week by Sinan Kubba and Joe DeLia of Big Red Potion a particularly distinguished and intelligent gaming podcast associated with The Game Reviews and The Unified Gamers Network. We discuss with them genres that we have extreme difficulty getting into and which games might help us get into them, why AAA titles with fantastic review scores often leave us feeling annoyed at their minor shortcomings and how ridiculous that is. We also launch a streamlined quickfire version of our eight questions, now down to just five.

We have some great news about expanding and maintaining our community, and it's something you can all take part in. We also announce the results of our part in the grand Platform Nation MAG beta code giveaway contest. Who will the ten lucky PSN ID's be? All that plus details of how you could win a big old bag of our PAX swag; including T-Shirts, codes, rare promotional items and full games, plus for the next week we're giving away even more shinies every day. We ask you, what other podcast treats you so well?

Finally we devote 45 minutes to a thorough review of Beatles Rock Band. Find out if we feel it's worth the wait, the money and the hype.

Story and Narrative in Games / Batman: Arkham Asylum

We welcome back Daniel Floyd to the show. YouTube legend and animated lecturer Mr Floyd makes for a fantastic conversational guest, bringing his insight and clarity to the show, which this week is about the way story, script and narrative have progressed in the thirty year history of video games. We reach some surprising conclusions about the nature of interactivity and how far we've come when held against movies and literature.

The competition segment in the middle explains how you listeners can get your mitts on a MAG beta download code (this immediately afterwards expanded into a full ten available codes so get cracking PS3 owners), with the winners to be announced next week. A Digital Cowboys MAG game night will be on the cards. This is all part of a massive 128 code giveaway brought to you by Platform Nation.

After that there's a full dedicated 40-minute review of Batman: Arkham Asylum. We leave no stone in Batman's grim and gothic world unturned exploring this surprisingly high quality comic-book license. There's a spoiler section at the very end with full warning so those playing know when to spin on.

At the close there's more music from Jonathan Coulton, a song which as it so happens was on one of the very first podcasts Alex ever took part in. (It wasn't Digital Cowboys, it was Joinee Radio episode #21 - 22/04/2007 DC completists may like to check that one out and thus pay their respects to the man who taught me how to podcast; Mr Matt Fowler.)

Daniel Floyd can be found at his blog: Talking About These. And definitely check out his series of YouTube lectures, especially the one that tonight's subject is based on: Video Games and Storytelling.

Jonathan Coulton's site also features a comprehensive MP3 store. As always, we heartily recommend you take a listen to a few of his songs.

There is a bit of poor sound quality at Tony's end for the first half, our apologies, and it does get better for the Batman section. We'll try to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Next week: The guys from Big Red Potion and we review Beatles Rock Band.

The Final Word on PAX 09

This is a full look back on our PAX experience and we've brought in Chris and Kelly Brown The Married Gamers who were there with us. We talk about a boat-load of upcoming top titles that we got to play and then pick over our favorite memories.

As of next week we'll return to normal with a Game Club episode focusing on Batman: Arkham Asylum. There will still be plenty of interviews and articles about what we saw at PAX on the website. Also a ton of swag needs to be given away to our lucky listeners starting with one particularly rare item we're offering up on tonight's show.

Many thanks to Chris, Kelly, Elaine, Edie, Kevin, both Dan's Steve, Bobby, Mike, the Gamer's Pub and everyone else we met out there and to Lizz and Paul for their unending patience with what was essentially two kids in their own personal candy store.

Roll on PAX 10.

This is the live podcast we took part in on Sunday the 6th of September, the third day of PAX 2009.

It was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating for the first time broadcasting live and also a first being sat next to each other in the process.

Other guests include Steve Artlip on production duties, D'Juan W. Irvin from Gaming Truth, Chris Brown from The Married Gamers, Troy Warner from The Gamers Pub, ConArtistic of Xbox Ambassadors, Dan Rosethal of Stratics and Jamie Cheng; CEO of Klei entertainment, (Who was talking about one of the hottest indie games of the show - SHANK!).

Enjoy the rawness, because we're doing it pretty much on the spot. Games of show are discussed, as is our journey from the UK to PAX.

We're back from PAX but sick as dogs. Tony, Lizz and Paul caught the PAX-plague so we're holding back on the podcasting until at least Tony is feeling up to it. In the meantime one of the highlights of PAX for me was getting to interview Jonathan Coulton alongside Edie Sellers of Gamehounds (Who, by the way turned up unexpectedly after claiming she was going to be at Burning Man, which was one of the nicest surprises we got).

Jonathan is one of the brightest stars of nerdcore. His folksy take on office romance, passive-aggressive robots and evil geniuses who have no luck with the ladies is instantly charming and as affable as the man himself. This is also in video form on the website, but on here, you get a little of his music too, just to whet the appetite of those who haven't heard him before (Outside of the Portal Song; Still Alive) and also to make it even more special for die-hard fans, which after the concerts we saw him at, Tony and I now are.

Edie pretty much had control for the first ten minutes, but I DO eventually step in with some good stuff. We'll be back in a few days with a huge multi-hosted PAX podcast. Meantime, check out the main site for written articles and updates.

This is the first of our mid-week shows where all we talk about is what we've been playing. This allows us to properly discuss the massive amount of games coming out this Christmas without it dominating the other elements of the main show.

This week Trials HD, Shadow Complex and in fact every single game from Xbox Live's Summer of Arcade gets dissected. This is going to be heavily community-based so we need your feedback to guide this part of the show in the way our audience wants.

Also our Shatter on PSN code-winner is announced so tune in, because next week's show it could be you. We've just acquired a UK-compatible code from the very helpful folks at Sidhe Interactive so now everyone can compete.