Podcast 11-9: Dead and Loving It

Photo of Robert Allen Robert AllenDecember 2, 2012
83 3,760 Less than a minute

This week the full crew forms into a giant, game-loving Voltron. Amongst the Robot Lions, there are impressions of Far Cry 3, LittleBigPlanet Karting, Halo 4, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Lollipop Chainsaw, and as this week’s art suggests an extended, spoiler-free discussion about The Walking Dead game series. As always, we offer responses to reader mail and our typical dose of gaming trivia.

Don’t forget to send your questions for our next mailbag, and subscribe to the Tech-Gaming Podcast on iTunes. Leaving a review would be an awesome thing to do and keep us from begging for feedback every show.

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Photo of Robert Allen Robert AllenDecember 2, 2012
83 3,760 Less than a minute
Photo of Robert Allen

Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

83 Comments

      1. Looking at the high line as I listen to you guys talk/argue over planets.

        Nice to hear a new podcast.

      1. For Robert I pick the author Robert Lewis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island, but also attributed all his literary work to a troupe of tiny actors who invaded his dreams.

    1. I think so? I mean, it’s who I was thinking of, anyway. Probably who DEagle was thinking of as well. I mean, she’s a pretty apt comparison to Sage.

    1. I got it on Steam for 3.99, or something like that.It was a thanksgiving/black friday/cyber monday special. It’s currently 9.99 on steam, but if that’s too high, keep an eye on it around Christmas time as they may run the special again.

      1. I could remember Saturn, but I couldn’t remember the word “Served.” For some reason, I replaced it with “Made” in my head, and started wondering if I had forgotten some M-named planet.

    2. The drop stayed in the final edit? LOL. Ah well.

      I wasn’t bugged so much by the order of the planets, but by the fact that the content of our solar system has CHANGED since we were little. And dinosaurs. I guess I didn’t really keep up.

      My favorite mnemonic device is for taxonomy (ordering biological organisms).

      Kate Pissed Cleanly Off Father’s Giant Surfboard
      Kingdom, Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species

      🙂

      1. “Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can’t Handle” for the carpal bones is my favorite.

        (Nursing student here)

  5. Downloading now. The site isn’t crashing though and I’ve even getting a decent DL speed What am I doing wrong?

  6. A podcast and a review at the same time? This is sorcery!

    Glad to hear Sage is back. Can’t want to see Sektor’s comment.

  7. You guys write pretty intelligently, but you don’t know about the order of the planets or dinosaurs. For shame, really!

    Oh, I guess you knew Faulkner, Dickens, and Cussler. I’ll let it slide 😉

  8. Sage and Sean are back. I’m usually a lurker, but I’m going to have to express my joy with this comment.

    Sounds like a good show from what I heard so far.

  10. You guys and your Sundays night shows. Who do you think you are 60 minutes? Speaking of not quite investigative journalism, where’s Des interviews? I miss those.

  11. Yeah! Shout out in the first 15 minutes!

    Sage, you didn’t do into specs for your rig!

    For the rest of the host- you guys are awesomesauce as well. Des sounds especially giggly this week.

    1. Hi Sektor!
      Since you’ve asked, here’s some of my rig’s specs for ya (again though, I can’t really take credit cuz I didn’t build it):

      Motherboard:ASUS M4A87TD/Usb3

      CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 (3.4 GHz before OC)

      RAM:4GB G.skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 Memory

      GPU:HIS IceQx ATI Radeon 6850 1GB GDDR5 VRAM

      Sound Card:SoundBlaster X-Fi titanium Fatal1ty edition

      Case:ThermalTake Level 10GT

      Monitor:Samsung SyncMaster PX2370 LED

      Keyboard:Logitech G510–Maybe the most amazing gaming keyboard i’ve played with, though I’m not a tech expert

    2. Saw a guy on the train this morning with a skateboard that said “Sektor” on it. Wanted to take a picture, but he was selling drugs to a middle-aged woman in a santa hat. Thought it might be safer to sit that one out.

    1. Yeah, it was a little too unorganized for you guys. I like your usual style. Tell Sage to prep a little.

    2. I had been wanting to get that dinosaur and solar system stuff off my chest for a long time. Hope it wasn’t TOO odious! 😛

  13. I’m used to a bit more structure from you guys. Sage’s Universe bit was all over the place. Glad the rest of the crew just kept it on gaming.

    1. This is for Erik, Odin, and Earl Grey–>
      I can’t help it that the guys wanted to talk about space and dinosaurs. I mean…the final frontier is quite a vast topic you know. Sheesh. Plus I’ve been bogged down in the books and it was a miracle I was able to get in any gaming at all. give this future legal adviser for the TG crew a break. :p

      1. Counselor, I’d like your client to explain WHY he thinks exhibit A is glowing under black light.

          2. If I had $150 or so that I had no idea what to do with, I’d have the complete Sailor Moon body pillow collection on my bed. Morning wood 100% guaranteed!

    1. Yeah, at $15 I wanted to get it (or even $30 at GS) but I didn’t want to deal with the Black Friday crowds.

  15. I didn’t quite love Walking Dead as you but I do think the series offered one of the best experiences in a long time. Maybe a spoiler cast in 2013?

  18. I saw the ending to Walking Dead spoiled as well. I feel your pain. I also am not a fan of Kenny but not for the reasons mentioned.

  19. It’s a crying shame that LittleBigPlanet Karting and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale have received little to no hype.

    Beyond a few reviews from the big sites, no one talking about both. I’d love to see the teams get to do sequels, but as long as Sony is shooting themselves in the foot, that’s not going to happen.

  20. IMO, the biggest fail of the show was not talking more about Black Friday pick-ups. That should have been the main subject!!!

    Also: Maybe Black Friday trivia happen Des.

    1. I actually get really depressed about how much attention Black Friday purchases get on podcasts. I worry sometimes that the “core” audience for videogames has become more interested in buying things than playing them. I would much rather listen to folks talk about the experiences they’ve had playing a game than flexing their “look-how-rich-I-am” muscles.

      1. Stay away from Gaf’s look at my BF loot haul thread then. For that matter, stay away from Gaf….

        1. I dunno man, this is why I stopped playing TableTop games – people were more interested in buying the next army coming out than they were about playing a game with the ones we already had. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “sorry, I can’t game right now. I’m selling off my in preparation for the release. Have you seen their new dreadnoughts?!” Every time I’d try to talk to someone about strategy or lore, it would eventually wind down to conjecture and rumors about GW’s next big codex release. I couldn’t figure out what was so wrong about buying a bunch of Space Wolves and sticking with them.

          I don’t like that the gaming community has gotten to be the same way. In the eyes of the enthusiast, a game has a shelf life of exactly 1 week. After that, you have to go out and have your picture taken buying the next $60 trophy so you can put on a shelf and never get around to playing. Why bother making a 50 hour RPG when 90% on your audience is only going to experience the first 5 hours before tossing it to the side and plopping in another epic? It’s the same part of me that cringes when people proudly tell me about their backlogs of unopened games. I just think “why would you spend so much money on things you KNOW you’ll never play?”

          1. ugh, I forgot I can’t put things in brackets. Should have read “sorry, I can’t game right now. I’m selling off my -army that I just finished building- in preparation for the -shiny new army- release. Have you seen their new dreadnoughts?!”

          2. If that’s how you feel, they why do you talking about impressions of new games instead of just talking about retro games? Or even have everyone play the same game (like you used to sooo long ago)?

            Why the new releases lists? I hate to say it, by Doctors, heal thyselves.

          3. Of the Apple cult. Every new hardware unveiling I have friends who line up and throw their money at Apple. Half of them don’t used any of the new functionality of an iPod or iPhone beyond stuff you can’t ignore (like retinal display). They buy to buy. It gives them something to talk about, something to do, something to believe in and support.

    2. I’m pretty much burned on Black Friday.

      A few years ago I went to the stores, but I’d always feel pretty misanthropic after the experience. Fights, stampedes, pushing and fighting for shit people will probably forget about in a year or two. You might have heard about the lady who pepper sprayed people at Wal-Mart last year- that was at my local store.

      This year I went online, which means I don’t have to deal with people. Instead online retailers have let me down. Cancellations from Microsoft, Fry’s, Toys R Us. Literally, more than half the thing I bought were cancelled or still in limbo. I just can’t believe that retailers don’t have tighter inventory control.

      So, getting back to Sean, games are what have given be the great experiences lately. Shopping for games has been a disappointment.

      1. Damn dude. That’s some bad luck. Of the 6 games I bought online this year 4 have shipped, one’s on it’s way and only one got cancelled.

        1. TRU is the worst online retailer. TONS of people on the Consumerist are complaining about them.

  21. By the way, my call dropped, but it used to be My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto… but then they decided that Pluto isn’t a planet

  23. I’m glad you guys talked about Halo 4, which I think is getting overlooked by critics. Spartan Ops is really fun and ads a ton to a great SP and MP experience. 343 nailed it.

    1. Really a shame about Sony. I heard LBP Karting sold sell than 100,000 worldwide and that’s at a discounted rate. I know there’s a lot of games out there, but c’mon Sony try to compete.

  24. Ok, you guys were the first I heard to complaint about Sony PR. I thought It just might be you.

    Today I heard the new CAGcast. They give you another shout-out and also seem totally surprised by the new Ratchet and Clank game. Giant Bombcast mentioned that Sony PR was lagging as well.

    So when guys who cover game don’t even know that a game is coming out until it shows up on a new release list, Sony is screwing themselves sideways.

  25. As a Xbox 360 owner, I’m enjoying watching PlayStation all-Stars die a horrible death. I think my Target and Wal-Mart stores haven’t sold more than 2 or each. meanwhile Halo 4 is killing it.

    Nice knowing ya, Sony.

  26. You know why they are complaining about Sony? If Sony does poorly NIS does poorly, because all their games are for Sony systems. If NIS goes under watch Tech Gaming sink like the Titanic.

    1. Most of my Facebook friends and Twitter followees are PS3 owners. That said the amount of talk about PS All-Stars, Karting, and Ratchet and Clank has been minimal. Except for LaMont, of course. Be brings the Sony talk likes he’s getting paid for it.

        1. I’ve heard that they are advertising that pretty heavily in Europe.

          Even here in the US, I’ve at least SEEN Wonderbook ads on TV (on Cartoon Network, where they belong) I’ve even seen a few Playstation All-Stars ads, but LBPK? Not so much.

          2. “Hitman: Absolution has been held from the top spot in this week’s UK all-formats chart. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 continued its reign on top despite an 87 per cent drop in sales from last week.

            Absolution can console itself with earning the best opening week sales of any game in the series to date. It beat the previous best (2006’s Hitman: Blood Money) by a factor of three.

            A cavalcade of other new releases last week was headlined by the excellent Lego Lord of the Rings, which debuted in sixth place – behind chart stalwarts FIFA 13, Assassin’s Creed 3 and Halo 4.

            Other new releases fared less well. Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two flopped into the chart in 34th place, ahead of Activision’s Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse in 35th.

            Lower still was Sony’s Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, placed in 38th.”

            38th!

          3. The Tester winner said it all:

            “You have to wonder what the hell PlayStation was thinking laying off more than half of their software PR team going into the holiday season,” Powers tweeted. “In typical fashion they’re sending titles out to die, because they have no PR support — LBPK, Sports Champions 2, Wonderbook.”

            Powers added that the Foster City PR team was “already under-staffed,” and would be under a significant amount of pressure now that the San Diego team’s responsibilities would be shared between that PR team and the company’s external PR agencies.

            Source: http://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/9/24/3383590/sony-confirms-closure-of-san-diego-pr-department-former-employee

        1. I won’t actually hit very much though. I had trouble really rocking and rolling with it at Killzone 3. I should give it another shot though!

  28. Sorry guys, I think SPASBR is a technical fighter but not a very fun one. Unlike Jeremy, I feel fighting doesn’t do enough besides build your meter. At the least the developers should have had the option for more of a regular fighting experience.

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