First thing’s first, thanks to Jonathan’s new schedule, episodes will now be dropping on Fridays.  Now, on with the show!

Business this week: In theory, Sam will be moonlighting on another podcast, I Thought They Smelled Bad On The Outside.  That’s assuming, of course, that Scott doesn’t hear how Sam butchered his podcast’s name first and subsequently bans him from the show.

In games this week, Jonathan finished up his time in Skyrim and immediately began playing a game that feels an awful lot like Skyrim.  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, though, has a much greater focus on gameplay and character progression than Skyrim, though, so the similarities only serve to highlight each games’ distinct qualities.

Alex doesn’t have much by way of games to talk about this week, but he has been reading a book that kind of has to do with games.  Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, is about a the death of a billionaire, the contest to win all his money, and the video game full of the greatest hits from the 80′s that the billionaire built.  At least, that’s how Alex describes it.

Sam, meanwhile, continues to get his dance on in Dance Central 2, and is also still fully immersed in the world of Skyrim.  He’s gotten in some time lately on Space Marine, as well, and has been taking advantage of a service that probably only barely qualifies as a video game, GamesByEmail.com.  If you’d like to play copyright sterilized versions of some of Avalon Hill’s great strategy board games, just shoot us an email or hit us up on Twitter, and we’ll be happy to set something up.

We have two topics this week.  The first is inspired by Double Fine’s massive success with Kickstarter.  Is this the herald of a new age of video game development, or rare confluence of cult status fame and Internet savvy fans?

Our other topic revolves around a rumor about the 720, the NeXtBox, or whatever Microsoft ends up calling it.  Among wild tech speculation, the rumor also claims that the machine will include “some sort of anti-used game system.”  We have no idea what that means, but we sound off on what we’ll find acceptable or not, and also whether this is where the industry was destined to end up anyway.

Finally, we’ve got a bit of a twist on one of our games: Reverse Casting Call.  Instead of casting the movie of a game, we cast game characters in the roles of an awesome movie.  Sam and Alex cast the roles of Sarah Conner, Kyle Reese, and the Terminator from Terminator, and Jonathan gets some sweet revenge.

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Hey, it’s a normal-sized episode this week!  Of course, by skipping a week to talk about 2011, we end up with a lot of games to talk about and completely run out of time for our topic.  That said, we do talk about some great and interesting games in this episode.

PuzzleJuice:  Where Lexiv is a mash-up of Scrabble and SimCity, PuzzleJuice is a mash-up of Tetris and Boggle.  It breaks Sam’s brain just thinking about it, and Jonathan wishes it were just a bit less insane, but Alex has fallen deeply, madly in love.

Bulletstorm:  Sam got to the point where the game called him “dick-tits,” and knew that it was too juvenile even for him.  Jonathan got the game from GameFly, played for about half an hour, and confirmed every suspicion Sam ever had.

Dance Central 2 & UFC Personal Trainer:  Sam’s picked up a Kinect (leaving Jonathan the only holdout), and really enjoys getting his groove on (so long as no one is watching).  However, UFC Trainer doesn’t seem to do much actual training, much like Alex has already warned us.

Final Fantasy XIII-2:  Redundant cut scenes and hoochie clothes were Alex’s first impressions.  Moreover, the game seems to continue the trend of not really bothering to include any gameplay decisions for the player.  Despite all that, Alex is hooked.

Soul Calibur V:  Jonathan continues to confirm that the modern fighting genre isn’t for him.  SCV is very pretty, and probably very good, but it simply fails to inspire him to put in the time needed to actually play it well.

Syndicate Co-op Demo:  Sam has all kinds of issues with it.  Alex maintains a more neutral take.  Jonathan didn’t play it.

Kard Combat:  The exchange Jonathan and Alex have about this game may need to inspire a weekly column, “Correcting The Producer.”  Jonathan thinks the game makes for an interesting variation of Magic, while Alex believe there’s nothing to it but damaging and healing.

Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Tenkaichi:  Alex loves the way the game basically lets you direct epic anime battles.  Watching them in replay is like watching a fight from an episode of the show.  Unfortunately, every character plays exactly the same way.

And that’s it!  Next week, we’ll try to control our enthusiasm, and actually get into a topic.  There’s a rumor that the next Xbox will have some sort of used-game deterrent built in.  Do the hosts think such a move is inevitable, and will any of them support the console if it happens?

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For me, this is going to be a week to catch up on my unplayed games.  For the rest of the planet, Battlefield 3 drops and, unless you’re a hardcore Modern Warfare fanboy, Tuesday becomes a productivity-free zone.

That said, Kirby’s Return to Dream Land looks pretty impressive, if you’re into the platformers.  Also dropping are Dance Central 2, House of the Dead OVERKILL, Stronghold 3, a DS Harvest Moon, The Cursed Crusade, Back to the Future, Disney Universe and more.  (I refuse, though, to acknowledge the existence of the Centipede remake.)

So, maybe Kirby, but probably just a ton of Forza and Batman for me this week. What are you plans?