This week, we talk about the past six months, covering the games we’ve loved, the games we’ve hated, and the games we don’t really care about either way.

Up first, Jonathan talks about how smart that Cracked.com writer was to call for a free-to-play model in the competitive gaming market, as Team Fortress 2, Tribes, and WoW all go the way of the microtransaction.  He also does a terrible job of describing Solar 2, although in fairness, it’s not an easy game to describe.  Jonathan’s also surprised to find that Yakuza 4 is more RPG than Beat-Em-Up, though perhaps he shouldn’t be.

Alex talks about Trenched, the latest release from Double Fine.  Given that Trenched is a variation on the tower defense genre, and Alex has little love for the tower defense genre, his verdict may surprise you (or not).  He’s also picked up the Captain America table for Pinball FX2, which he’s been very pleased with.  Finally, Alex went sales bin diving and came up with a copy of Daisenryaku VII Exceed, a modern military tactical strategy game for the PS2.

Sam played some games, but left no notes to remind me what they were when writing the show notes, so those’ll have to be a surprise.

Interesting tidbits from the topic:

• Sam gets it wrong about Portal 2 and L.A. Noire.
• Jonathan puts a bunch of weird indie games on his “Great” list.
• Sam praises a couple of sequels.
• Alex thinks Child of Eden is pretty, but not much more.
• Everybody’s less than impressed with Duke Nukem Forever.

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