Rebel FM is intact this week, but sans-Jeff Green. The newly-unemployed writer is on a podcast tour but couldn’t make an expected appearance.
Matt starts the game talk with Civilization 4: Warlords. He’s got tips on how to win a cultural victory.
Anthony and Tyler have been playing a fantasy-themed Civ — Elemental: War of Magic. Circumstances converged to force it to launch broken, and it is so inaccessible Stardock are to patch in a tutorial. Despite its significant flaws, both are loving it.
Tyler calls Mafia 2 a “linear...
Even though I’m a couple weeks late due to poor living conditions and yes, pure laziness, Happy 5th Anniversary to DGR! Here’s to 5 more years if your livers last that long.
Moe is out this week so friend of the show RykerXL fills in quite seamlessly. A shorter than usual show kicks off as always with Drunk Dials and the mailbag. John and Hilden take the time to remind listeners about the Deathsmiles contest they have going on that they have received no entries for so far. A short games segment this week features City Builder for the...
First up is Civilization V and it is probably fair to say that Chris is totally into it (and of course he is– already towing the company line). He points to the overall tone of the game as achieving a grandness that is absent in almost all other games. Steve takes some time to talk about the forthcoming Bioshock 2 DLC that has been occupying his time recently, and then the conversation moves to the PSP.
StarCraft 2 talk is rampant again this week, but the focus is on the story and presentation this time around. The guys have a lot of good...
This week’s show starts off with a quick story about a Dance Dance Revolution competition between IGN editors and their readers. After that, things proceed into the Roper Report to talk about the announcement of Batman: Arkham City as well as the game’s beautiful Game Informer cover. Also in the news is the unfortunate news that Playstation Plus updates will be scaled back to a biweekly schedule, which makes it harder to recommend from even the most dedicated Sony fans. Regardless, Colin still finds the service worthwhile, with a year...
StarCraft 2 commands the first segment, with Ryan O’Donnell (Area 5) joining the regular crew. Everyone except Tyler has played and enjoyed it and they have little but praise for the Mass Effect-like breaks between missions, the accessibility, and the ambient occlusion.
After a break, they talk about the other games they’ve been playing recently. Ryan’s played a handful of iPad and iPod games — Osmos HD, Monkey Island 2, Helsing’s Fire, Aqua Moto Racing, and Archetype — all of which sound like they’re worth...
Mass Effect 2 has seen the release of its first paid DLC pack in Kasumi – Stolen Memory, and the final word is that it is just okay and not a great value proposition. After a bit of discussion about the lackluster moments in God of War III, the guys move on to Final Fantasy XIII and even more frustrations.
We now know that the reveal announcement of Gears of War 3 was meant to happen on Thursday night due to a reveal banner accidentally going up on Xbox Live on Friday morning. Someone forgot to flip a switch due to the change in schedule,...
Special guest, Billy Berghammer, kicks-off the game talk with Final Fantasy XIII and his opinions are in line with most people’s commentary. Jeff is excited to talk about the iPad, and Brian gets in on the discussion since he picked one up as well. They are both quite excited about Apple’s new tablet and they touch on some of their gaming experiences. This leads into a discussion about the prospects for Sony and Nintendo’s upcoming handhelds.
After a section about affordable games, the group moves on to a another new segment that...
Phil is out this week so it’s a 3 man show, with Greg Ford taking on hosting duties for the first time. Only a few games discussed this week as everyone has only played a couple each. Greg Sewart finished his Heavy Rain story, his thoughts from last week stand. He now looks forward to discussing the game with other people just to hear how their stories and actions differ.
CJ picked up Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing and by all accounts it’s a very solid Mario Kart clone.The nostalgia/fanservice seems to be a big factor too. Greg Ford...
With the UGO redesign over and his vacation complete, Mike Cruz finally returns to the Geekbox to talk about… Old Spice commercials and green screening. Fortunately, Burn Notice talk comes up next and Fitch deals some dirt on a potential steamy relationship with Michael Westen and a relatively new character.
Ryan Scott has been playing P.B. Winterbottom, a highly stylized puzzle game that is built upon time-shifting mechanics reminiscent of Braid. Running on Xbox Live for only 800 points, Ryan thinks the game is worth far more than that...
Get ready for some Olympics updates at the beginning because Mike has deemed at1UP “the official Winter Olympics podcast of 1UP.” The 1UP cover story this week is Final Fantasy XIII and Tina is on to talk about a contest to win a poster of art from the game. Matt Leone has released another episode of Backstage which covers the making of BioShock 2 and Game Night is delayed until Friday for some special StarCraft 2 action.
Travis finished Mass Effect 2 and proceeds to baffle Tina as to how a person can play “long” RPGs. Mike...
Sega’s Ethan Einhorn sits in for Greg Ford this week and as a result the show takes on a rather different format than usual, although that wasn’t the plan. An attempt to start the what you been playing segment leads to very brief discussion of BioShock 2 and Heavy Rain with much of the feeling from last weeks show being echoed.
Quickly however the show begins the first many tangents as the guys start telling stories from back in their Ziff Davis days. Tales of prank phone calls to Gamestop and funny stories about fanboy managers follow.
Most...
It’s a packed week for the Joystiq boys. Justin starts off with a complete trashing of Heavy Rain. He says the story is awful and the acting is equally bad. Chris and Ludwig haven’t played too much of it yet, but they aren’t disagreeing with his assessments. BioShock 2 is still on the guys’ minds and they are still positive on the game.
There seems to be some wonkiness with the Mass Effect DLC that causes problems when resuming games if you are not connected to Xbox Live. The StarCraft 2 beta and Civilization V garner no...
Week 2 of the live show brings a few changes as Area5 settles in to their new format. The packed couch is gone, replaced with individual chairs which still doesn’t feel quite right. Jay and Matt are up first to discuss Bioshock 2 while Ryan sifts through twitter questions to be asked at the latter part of the segment instead of lumping them at the tail end of of the show. As a whole, they don’t seem to have much negative to say about the game, citing improved sound, combat, and a changed environment. Matt does mention he wished the underwater...
A Hilden-less show again this week as he is off dealing with real life (read: his wife told him he had better things to do), and the show is a bit lacking in being a duo. Like last week, Moe and John had a bit of trouble with the audio equipment and share their adventures to start off the show. Voicemails are skipped so a few emails get things moving for real.
Blaster Master: Overdrive for WiiWare is first up in the reviews segment. John seems to enjoy it, but spends most of the time explaining to Moe what the original Blaster Master is all about...
CJ continues to play White Knight Chronicles, from the sound of it he doesn’t rate it too highly but he is having fun playing it online with friends. The Gregs and CJ checked out the Heavy Rain demo that was released this week. It sold the Gregs but CJ doesn’t like the idea of a game that is nothing but quick time events. Ford and Sewart think it will sell those who know what to expect but put off everyone else.
Everyone but Ford has put some time into BioShock 2, their feelings seem to be mixed. CJ faults it for not straying very far...
