Sam’s reign of terror as host continues for a second episode in a row.  Fear the moose.  FEAR HIM!

Before we get started on games, Alex talks about how The News and The Podcast intersected in his life.

Jonathan, meanwhile, announces the release of a new podcast, We Just Watched a Movie.  Join us as we watch the movies on Time’s All-TIME 100 Movies list (plus a few more), and then rank them against one another.  We’ve set up separate feeds for the two podcasts, which you can find in the links on the right, or you can stay subscribed to the main feed and continue to get everything we release.  Either way, we hope you enjoy it.

In the meat of the episode this week, we finally talk about games we’ve been playing.

• Sam gives us a treatise on the Resistance series.
• Alex gets emotional about Journey.
• Jonathan dislikes weird inconsistencies in The Last Story.
• Alex hates on the update process of the PS3.
• Alex fails to understand what’s going on in White Knight Chronicles 2.
• Sam has also completed Crysis 3, and has good things to say about that.
• Alex talks about Banner Saga: Factions, a PC strategy game with clever mechanics.
• Jonathan wraps up with a quick plug for Pixel People,
• a quick warning about Early Bird,
• and a quick complaint about Spec Ops: The Line.

Finally, we introduce a new game!  We’re still looking for a good name, but we’re placing wagers on the Metacritic score for upcoming new releases.  We’re picking games a couple weeks out, and then we’ll follow up and see who got closest.  Lowest score at the end of X number of weeks wins!

This week, we take a stab at God of War: Ascension.  Be sure to give us your predictions in the comments below.

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In our news segment, Jonathan has found a couple of articles that, taken individually, are simply interesting.  Taken as a sign of a trend, though, he’s concerned that Apple may have yet again painted itself into a corner.  First, Nvidia has announced a new, mobile, Android portable console that also plugs into your TV.  Second, Apple has rejected a game based on the real-life conflict in Syria.  As Apple tries to keep their software their own, and their store heavily policed, are they shooting themselves in the foot?

Games:

Jonathan:

• Mass Effect 2 – Playing the series continues, and the most immediate difference is that everything in this game is huge.  Second, it may have stopped being an RPG, and transformed into a 3PS with RPG elements.
• Spaceteam – A free iOS-based party game of yelling at one another and pressing random buttons.  It sounds weird, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

Alex:

• Far Cry 3 – After crafting a shark wallet underwater, suffering through a lousy tailing mission, and then photographing dead pirates, but only specifically dead pirates, Alex has Darksidered Far Cry 3.
• AssThree – Alex picked up Assassin’s Creed 3 for the multiplayer only (no, really, he gave the single-player disc to his neighbor), and finds he dominates the Animus.

Sam:

• The PS3 and Journey – Sam had a lousy time with the Sony UI, which seems to be standard fare, and then he was expecting something from Journey that it didn’t give him.
• X-COM – Alex has appeared in Sam’s X-COM game, and was horribly scarred by some Mutons, but Hands Holmberg saved the day from half the map away.
• Resistance: Fall of Man – Interesting weaponry mechanics and tougher-than-expected AI means Sam’s still enjoying this title.

The Apple discussion and the game talk ran longer than expected, so we’ll be saving our topic, a preview of 2013′s anticipated games, for next episode.  It’s not like anything decent is coming out this week anyway.

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We had some audio issues this week, delaying the show, but they’ve been worked out because we’re here for you, dear listener.  Enjoy.

News!

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Triple Ones! Oh yeah!

We enjoyed the quick-hit headlines bit we did last week, so we’re making it a regular feature.  This week, the uncomfortably expensive collector’s edition of Steel Battalion, and Free-to-Play makes its first appearance on a portable console.  Can home consoles be far behind?

Alex has gotten his grubby hands on Armored Core V early, and he’s in for the multiplayer but has reservations recommending it as a single-player experience.  Draw Something also invades the podcast via Alex, though OMGPOP hadn’t been bought by Zynga when this episode was recorded, if that’s of any importance to you.  Finally, Assassin’s Creed Recollection has sunk its hidden blades deep into Alex’s psyche, and it doesn’t look to let go anytime soon.

Sam’s been playing more Binary Domain and more Mass Effect 2.  Along those lines, he also inflicts upon us an audio-unboxing worse than any that has come before it.  And, assuming he can ever break himself free from Mass Effect 3, Shadows of the Damned and Kingdoms of Amalur may make a moose-like appearance in a future episode.

Jonathan only has one game this week, thatgamecompany’s Journey, but it’s a doozy of a game.  In fact, in just one short week alone with the game, Journey has set itself up as the expression of everything that video games are capable of as an artistic medium.  Yeah, it’s like that.

We close out the episode with a topic which we touched on briefly in Episode 109: Would gaming benefit by separating multiplayer and single-player into standalone products?  The hosts all have fairly different takes on what that would mean.

Next week: is Metacritic a valid method of handing out bonuses?

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