We have a topic request from a listener this week.  Yeah, we promised it many, many episodes ago, but an uncomfortable amount of stuff happened between then and now.

One of those happenings?  SausageFest!  This year was quantifiably better than the first two combined, and you can keep the awesome rolling by donating.

News!  Seriously, don’t joke about having sex with 14-year olds.  Also, don’t pirate Halo 4 and expect to keep your Live account.  Finally, no need to worry about finding a match in League of Legends because EVERYONE IS PLAYING IT.

Games!  Sam talks up a couple of board games, Power Grid and Pandemic, as he hasn’t played anything other than Angry Birds and Temple Run all week.  Jonathan picked up an awesome Werewolf variant at Archon in the form of The Resistance, and also busted out some Anomaly: Warzone Earth after getting home from Saint Louis.  Alex might’ve talked about Dishonored some more, but couldn’t because X-COM got in the way.

In the topic, listener (and one-time contest winner) Joe recalls Alex’s discomfort with Spec Ops: The Line, and wonders if maybe that discomfort was the point.  Can games be intentionally not fun?  Should we appreciate a game whose average gameplay is part of the message?  Is the medium capable of such nuances, or does its very nature forever doom games to be escapist entertainment?

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This entry was posted by The Holmberg, on Friday, October 19th, 2012 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Season 5, The Way of the Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.