The Dude Wait What Podcast- Episode 4: Silly Flailing About

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Did you know that in Chinese culture, the number 4 is associated with death and bad luck? That has nothing to do with this week's episode, unless you die and break a mirror while listening to it.

In that case, our apologies.

We actually talk about:

- What our listeners are looking forward to

- Elder Scrolls 5: Oblivion 2

- Time Lord (Not Matt)

- Sword and Baseball bats

- Musical Break (Tekken 6 OST)

- Microsoft Natal and Playstation Move

- Combat knives vs. Assault Rifles

- The Nintendo 3DS and other jerk moves

- Throwing rocks at space carriers

- How's your riot shield, Moon?

Listen to us and send us listener questions for next week. We'll pretend to care this time, I swear.

The Heroes of the Games. Super Mario part 1

From time to time people have always had disputes over who is the better video game hero. Now I don't mean the best player, but the best character in a game. Let's start with who most people think was one of the 1st and that is Mario.

Mario started in Donkey Kong. He was the guy trying to save the girl from Donkey Kong. From there he want onto Mario Bros. Game in which he and his brother had to fight monster that where coming out of pipes. These games where basic jump and kick games and the only weapon you got in Donkey Kong was a hammer. Then this home gaming system came out called The NES or The Nintendo Entertainment System,and Super Mario Bros. was born. The NES was an 8 bit gaming system which gave more play and better graphics. This gave the programmers more room to give Mario better skills and abilities. In the 1st Super Mario he was given POWER UPS such as a mushroom that made him bigger ;) a flower that gave him the power to shoot fire ball at his foes,and last but not least the star that would make him invincible for a short time. The story of this game was that Mario and his brother(who I will discuss later on) must save the princess form the evil KING BOWSER,why are they there who knows and who cares. The game to this day is still very playable and fun. His story went on in Super Mario Bros.2. This game was not a true part to this story line,because Japan had a part 2 that the US developers thought was so close to the 1st game it was not released to the USA system so we got what we know as Super Mario Bros. 2.

Super Mario 2 did give you a choice of playing as Mario,Luigi,Toadstool or The Princess,in which each one had unique abilities,Mario had his fire power,Luigi had a faster run,Toadstool was a fungus..lol and The Princess could fly in short distances. I would try to explain this game more but some people agree this game little to no sense. It was very random and the monster could be used as weapons after you jump on them and pick them up.

The next part of this series I will talk more on Mario in two more games Super Mario 3 and Super Mario world for the Super NES.

Until next time, My name is Shawn and this game token is on me.

We're Out There...

*stands up and looks around nervously*

Hello everyone! My name is Jennifer, and I am a gamer chic...

In a predominantly male gaming world it's not unusual for me to get the occasional look of disbelief, or sarcastic eye roll when somebody learns that I've got big love for a little thing called the video game. It's nothing for me to spend an entire day off in front of my 360, or whittle away at the wee hours of the morning questing with my guild mates on World of Warcraft. I will, with few exclusions, play just about any game on any gaming console.

For me it's the challenge of solving a puzzle, unlocking an achievement, exploring an engaging world with beautifully done graphics, or playing with charismatic and endearing characters. Then there are those times when, lets face it, you gotta just get on and give somebody the ass kicking of a lifetime. Or, in my case, depending on the game, be the one at the receiving end of said ass kicking... Either way, very rarely do I ever go an entire day without playing some sort of game.

I was posed the question: What is it like to be a female gamer in a mostly male dominated gaming world? Let's, for example, explore my adventures with Rock Band or Guitar Hero. When I do really good against somebody, and I mean when I totally nail a face melting solo against a male player, more often than not I get asked the question, "Are you really a girl?"

*face palm*

The usual answer is, "Are you really a moron?" Then on to the next match I go. On the other hand, if I play against a fellow female player and I do well, I usually get a "good job" and a request to do battle again sometime. This is not always the case, but it's what I've experienced on several occasions.

A couple of weeks ago two of my managers and a few other guys from work were standing around discussing the first Bioshock. When I spoke up and said that I couldn't wait to get my hands on Bioshock 2, they all looked at me like I had suddenly transformed into Cerberus right before their eyes. They were stunned that I played. One of my managers was totally down with it. Score for me because he brings me games all the time, and talks to me about different games when we should be working! The other one still pokes fun at me a bit, but he's coming around. It's okay though, because mine's bigger than his! Gamer score, you guys...head's out of the gutter please.

All in all, it ain't bad being a girl in the gaming world. It's not like you boys don't accept it, you just don't know what to do with us sometimes. By now, though, we're used to that! Besides, according to The ESA (The Entertainment Software Association), us ladies are responsible for forty percent of the gaming community. Better watch out boys, the gaming world could soon become a woman's world!

*excuses herself to go harvest her crops now*

Episode 3: It Did What It Did

GET THE EPISODE HERE: http://dudewaitwhatpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-19T16_40_09-07_00

This episode we talk about our favorite games of all time. An hour, yes an hour of baseless fanboy gushing and half-assery.

In this episode-

- Lost is the greatest/worst TV show ever

- Combine = Covenant

- Touya agrees with everybody but Shawn

- Jamie: Stealth guest

- Moon leaves for pizza halfway through. Can you tell when? Fun drinking game!

- Sami knows big words. In japanese. Ehh? Ehh? Yeah.

Tune in. Disagree with us. What do we care? You never call, you never write. Sometimes I think you don't love our podcast anymore. We need to talk.

Game design 101: Batman vs. Juggernaut

About five years ago, my ex introduced me to the game known as Heroclix. Heroclix, if you didn't know, is a boardgame in which players form teams of superheroes and using a system of rules, battle it out. One of my favorite moments of the teaching game she played with me was having her stealthed Batman perched atop a semi, flinging batarangs at my lumbering Juggernaut who could not for the life of him find the Batman. According to the game rules, Juggernaut could not target a character who is stealthed and Batman could not harm Juggernaut once my dice rolls stated that he was in the clear. What followed was me and my ex laughing uproriously at the scene we had created.

*Plink* "Dammit" "Huh?"

However, that same weekend, she would take me to play with a group of folks at a comic store in Portland OR. Now these guys got together and gamed almost every weekend, but they weren't what you might consider competitive. Even so though, there was none of that story-building in their sessions that my ex and I had experienced during the course of our game, these fellows were far more concerned with building an optimal team within the limitations of the game rules and did not consider character personality paramount when playing their turns. Moments that I found hilarious, like the Hulk flinging Spiderman into battle only to have him crash through a glass window on his way there elicited not even a smile from the player, but an inquiry as to whether or not Spiderman's agility would allow him to move further.

I'm not saying either way to play is right, but it does beget analysis. How is it that the same game with the same rulesets can elicit two wholly separate methods of play, even when the goal is the same? Is it also possible to achive such a balance in computer and video gaming?

Games like the Sims and Spore and nefarious for being procedural with storytelling, this much is true. No set script is produced and the story elements are produced out of the player's

interpretations of mostly random game events. On the other end of the spectrum, take almost any story driven game, let's grab God of War and Halo for two disparate markets, and see that the narratives of these games are driven by a focused and directive prose. The ability to create a story is taken away from the player but it allows them to still experience a crafted story while contributing in the form of progression of the main character's skill sets and perhaps a modicum of significant choices or branching pathways. Thus playing the game relies not on building upon the established narrative but on the manipulation of the games rules and resources to progress and reveal more of the narrative.

Have we seen any games that lay in between? Heavy Rain seemed to be unable to make up it's mind which it wanted to be. The overarcing story was a fine example of pre-disposed narrative, but the minor actions and everyday minutae seemed to want us to be so involved with them as to tell our own stories. I could, for example, brush my teeth agonisingly slowly, simply to express my character's world-weariness and lethargy. On the other hand, Half Life 2 surrounded the player with a focused narrative, but gave them an arm's length of sandbox and physics with which to experiment with. I could tell you a story about running out of bullets in Ravenholm and being forced to do brutal combat with the crowbar, but you probably never had that happen because you were too busy raining explosive barrels upon the zombies.

My point is simply this, these are two ends of a spectrum of game design. There is meeting place for them in the middle, and for me at least, that seems to be a sweet spot that engages me

emotionally with story and intellectually with gameplay mechanics. Other players may find one end or the other of this spectrum to be more palatable, but as a whole, the industry needs to take

notice of this dichotomy and start exploiting it accordingly, for the good of the player.

*Plink* "Dammit."

Apparently only right handers play videogames

It's not very often that I get excited over XBLA releases, however my lust for this one was almost palpable. Perfect Dark, the N64 classic was released today for the Xbox 360 as a downloadable title and no sooner had I risen from slumber this morning than that bad girl was in my download queue. One race in Pure later and I was firing up code and ready to go!

Let's see, yes, yes, options, start, singleplayer, hmm....that's annoying...options...controls....

Yes folks....no left handed gameplay support.

That is to say no support for swapping the sticks. There were control method alternatives, sure, but they seemed more geared towards moving the buttons around ever so slightly in order to make the game play more like your favorite FPS ("Spartan" and "Duty Calls" indeed, Rare, you have earned a single guffaw).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm left handed but not militantly so (if such a thing is indeed possible) and I did play through all of Bioshock with nary a swappable stick option in sight. What does irritate me however is that lo those many years ago I spent at a friend's house playing Perfect Dark, I distinctly remember there being not one but at least two options for left handed controls...and this was on a SINGLE ANALOG STICK CONTROLLER.

I get that porting a game is no small task, especially when it requires redoing a good amount of the graphics, but one has to account for a significant portion of the populace simply not being able to play your game because of this decision. It's not as though it's a life choice we can simply overcome, our BRAINS, our very engines of emotion and function are wired differently and an option to make things simpler for us would have been appreciated, especially since it USED to be there!

I'm continually mystified by developers who leave out left handed options or customiseable controls on the whole, particularly when Microsoft themselves have taken the pains to hardwire support for it into the console itself (your profile options on your Xbox allow you to set action games to left handed swapped stick support) and I was incredibly thankful for the "bumper jumper" setting in Halo 3 which eliminated my one hurdle at becoming good at the game. You ever try pushing forward on the RIGHT stick while pressing A? Task and a half, lemme tell ya.

I'm also confused by developers who don't count on the hardware supporting such a feature. Attempting to play Lego Batman with my niece garnered some initial confusion upon loading up the game when I was only allowed to move Batman around with the D-Pad or Right Stick. Switching my Profile setting to right handed allowed me to play the game normally, but there was NO in game option to select my preference.

Perhaps preference is too lax a word? Mental routing? Orientation? No, I think that one's taken.

All I'm saying is, game developers, we're here, we're Leftys, get used to it. And let us swap sticks if we want. S'all.

The Retro Rewind EP1