James Portnow on Games and Gamers/Brutal Legend/Scribblenauts

This week we welcome to the show; James Portnow - CCO of Divide By Zero games and accredited game designer. We're talking about the words 'Game' and 'Gamer' after an article on Gamasutra by Tynan Syslvester prompted us to ascertain if new words and descriptions could be used for them in the face of an ever-changing medium.

James lends us his considerable experience and expertise as we chew over public perception and how we cling to the idea that games are more than just frivolous entertainment.

After that there's some frivolous entertainment in the form of our Brutal Legend and Scribblenauts in-depth reviews. Two of the most hyped games of 2009. Find out if they meet expectation. Also discussed are the Beatles and Queen Rock Band DLC.

Check out James' work in conjunction with Daniel Floyd in brilliant animated lectures here.

The music at the end is Rain by Mark Tschanz from his album Blue Dog, since we talk about how important Heavy Rain is likely to be in the case of serious games.

Uncharted 2

Since we've both been playing it to death and it's one of the most important and critically acclaimed games of 2009 Tony and I decided to take a break from interviews and spend this week's show talking about Uncharted 2.

We explore every game element and argue the toss as to how this fits into the general evolution of the action-adventure game.

Even if you don't own a PS3, this makes for a great deconstruction of the genre and highlights what it takes to get a title like this so very right. Is it game of the year? Even game of the decade? Find out here.

Thanks so much to Steven Jones our Community Manager who helped us out in the background for this show.

Red vs Blue.

We welcome to the show this week; Burnie Burns and Geoff Ramsey from Rooster Teeth productions two of the guys responsible for Red vs Blue; a web-based animation series utilizing the Halo engine.

We give them a full 90-minute interview and discuss the show from it's humble inception as a five-part joke about pink armour all the way through seven series and three Halo engines to their close relationship with Bungie (they even contributed an Easter Egg moment in Halo 3).

If you've not yet experienced the show go here to roosterteeth.com and at least watch some of the PSA's first, if not the entirety of Reconstruction.

Many thanks to Burnie and Geoff for coming on, we've been long-time fans and this was something of a special occasion for us.

There are samples of their work in audio form throughout the show. The music is by Trocadero and comes from the RvB series.

Gamers With Jobs / Gaming With Kids / FIFA 10 / Need for Speed: Shift / Dead Space: Extraction.

In this weeks packed episode, first we talk for an hour with Sean Elyssium Sands and Julian "Rabbit" Murdoch of the seminal podcast Gamers with Jobs. Both of them have young children and we discuss the process of introducing games to your kids and where to go from there.

The review section features a run round FIFA 10, Need for Speed: Shift and a complete gutting of Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii.

For next week go to RoosterTeeth.com and watch the whole series of Red VS. Blue Reconstruction, because we're going to be talking to Burnie Burns and Goeff Ramsey about machinima. This is series 6 of Red VS. Blue but it's also a reboot of the story and a relatively serious movie in the process. It's filmed using the Halo 3 engine so fans of the series will be well at home.

The music for the end of the show is Happy by Mark Tschanz from his album Blue Dog.

We'd like to thank Sean and Julian again for coming on, they've been very patient and gracious and proved to be perfect podcast guests.

Preserving Games / Halo 3: ODST

Commander Tim of Gamehounds and The Widget joins us this week to discuss one of his specialties; the preservation of software and hardware, and what happens to our precious video games as the ravages of time render tapes unplayable and chips into soldered garbage. What's being done to keep these memories alive? Some surprising home truths come to light about the finite nature of our favorite form of entertainment.

After this we have a full review of Halo 3: ODST from Tony and I. Find out if it's over-hyped, under-hyped or actually worthy of being a full-price game. Along with this we have competition updates and my brand new game-related project for 2010.

Marian Call supplies the music for the end of the show with the particularly appropriate 'In the Black' from her album 'Got to Fly'.

Enjoy.

Alex


(NOTE: The original edit of this had some audio mistakes. I've rendered a second version which is up now.)