We cover a ton of news this week!  It’s almost like we’re returning to the days of yore.

First, though, games, and even Sam has something to contribute this week.  Sam put Shadows of the Damned in, and almost immediately wanted to take it back.  Alex and Jonathan may have convinced him to give it a second try, though.  Jonathan’s played more Mario Party 9, and also finally given Assassin’s Creed Recollections a try.  One’s more of the same, and one he doesn’t enjoy at all.  And Alex had an interesting Easter experience in Gears of War 3, and a great time with multiplayer Splinter Cell.

Headlines!

• Homeland Security wants to hack your Xbox!
• GTA V might launch in October!
• The PS3 might hit $200!
• Activision Blizzard might have to settle a lawsuit!
• Gamers are looking forward to Halo 4!
• Resident Evil 6 Platinum Edition is really expensive!

Finally, we wrap up the show with a topic discussion.  That’s right, folks!  Games, headlines, and a topic all within an hour!  It’s a ChristmasEaster Miracle!  What’s better for social network gaming?  Asynchronous or synchronous gameplay?  And can you really have a game that only includes one or the other anymore?

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First: Sorry this episode is late.  Sam’s week got insane, and then my week got insane too, then Alex got sick.

Second: Sorry for the state of this episode.  Thanks to all the insanity and sickness, there’s no way we can get an edited episode out this week.  If it’s really bad, we’ll see about editing it when things calm down.

In the actual episode, we get Luke on to talk about the games we’re not playing.  If you love Gears 3, League of Legends, or Rocksmith, this is the episode for you.  We also spend WAY too much time talking about the GTA trailer, Human Revolution, and the new Space Marine multiplayer mode Exterminatus.

Next week, we should be back to our usual level of mediocrity.  Thanks for tolerating our issues this week.

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We take a break from our Seven Sins of Gaming series this week to discuss whether reviewers should compare games to one another or not.

Jonathan (as usual) has been swamped with school.  He’s still playing Dead Island, though going solo is ridiculously depressing.  He’s got a bunch of games waiting for midterms to finish, including the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus HD remix, Knight’s Contract, and Another World HD.  In lieu of games to talk about, Jonathan instead talks about what happened at Archon before Archon happened.

Alex and Sam then pull out a massive amount of wankery about Space Marine and Gears of War 3.  Gears is growing on Alex, but has only succeeded in making Sam appreciate Space Marine more.  Jonathan, as usual, has nothing to contribute to the wankery.

It does lead into our topic, though, which revolves around a reviewer’s personal experience, and whether or not they should be comparing a game to others (such as Space Marine vs. Gears) or if a game should be reviewed in a vacuum.  This is wankery Jonathan can contribute to.

Finally, Sam breaks out the final round of Name That Game!, and one of the hosts does really well.

Next week, a Space Marine review!

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The boys couldn’t get their schedules to synch up this week, but rather than inflict more Catherine talk on you (yet, anyway), we decided to experiment with asynchronous podcasting.

Sam’s finished Space Marine and put more time into Dead Island.

Jonathan surprises Sam with his opinion on El Shaddai, and has also been putting time into Dead Island.

Alex succumbs to peer pressure and picks up Gears of War 3 and lets a copy of Culdcept slip through his fingers.

In our Seven Sins series, focusing on Pride, we take aim at Sony, Peter Molyneux, and achievement whores.

Finally, we even attempt an asynchronous Name That Game!  You’ll have to let us know how it works.

Next week, we take a break from the Sins Series to talk about the ethics of game reviews.

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Jonathan wasn’t available to record for episode 72, so we invited the esteemed Luke from the Podgecast to join us. The conversation immediately turns to the Gears of War 3 beta, since none of the WotG crew got around to actually booting it up. Then the talk turns to Frozen Synapse, and Alex reveals that he’s getting creepily obsessed with it. When the subjects of waypoints, field of fire and server problems are exhausted, Sam reveals his latest thoughts on L.A. Noire, Duke Nukem and Batman: Arkham Asylum. Are we still talking about Batman? Hell yes, we are.

Then the boys get down to the nitty-gritty: E3 predictions. The talk includes speculation on new consoles for all the major players, the need for a hardcore shooter for the Kinect and what form that may take, giant robots, tiny hats, sandwiches and honey badgers.

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You’ve heard of commentary podcasts.  You’ve read tech conference liveblogs.  We at the Way of the Game has mushed them together to create a commentary track for Microsoft’s 2010 E3 Press Conference!

You’re going to want to pull up the press conference video for this one, folks, otherwise it could be really boring in spots.  We used the official feed from Microsoft (which has been redirected to GameTrailers.com), and started the video at 31:30.  We also provide a bit of description of what we’re watching as we’re watching it, so if you get your feed from somewhere else, you’ll hopefully be able to sync up with us.

Let us know what you think of the press conference, our comments, or the commentary experiment in general in the comments below or our forums!  And be sure to join us tomorrow when we give Nintendo and Sony the same treatment, hopefully in quicker order.

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