Kinect for Xbox One coming to PC
Xbox One does not provide any built-in DVR capabilities
Xbox One increases friends lists to 1,000
Xbox One achievements dynamic, not limited to single games
Weekend Confirmed 81 - Rage, Dark Souls, television on Xbox 360
by Garnett Lee, Oct 07, 2011 7:00pm PDTBilly "plan B" Berghammer joins Jeff and Garnett on a show that sounds like it would be full of angst. Rage and Dark Souls both came out this week, and there's a lot to talk about, including how the guy who "loves loving things" takes to a game renowned for its bleakness. Microsoft's additions to the television offerings on Live also become a hot topic, but the group doesn't seem nearly as impressed as the press release would lead one to believe. The iOS update and iPhone 4S also spark some debate on how mobile gaming continues to grow, as does the news that Unreal Engine 3 runs in Flash 11. The rest of the news of the week, a few other games, and your feedback and questions round out the show before wrapping up with Finishing Moves and the weekend football tailgate.
Weekend Confirmed Ep. 81: 10/07/2011
Subscription Links:
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed in iTunes
- Weekend Confirmed is also available in the Zune Marketplace
- Subscribe to Weekend Confirmed via RSS
If you're viewing this in the GameFly application, you can play Weekend Confirmed Episode 81 directly.
Weekend Confirmed comes in four segments to make it easy to listen to in segments or all at once. Here's the timing for this week's episode:
Show Breakdown:
Round 1 00:00:00 - 00:30:20
Whatcha Been Playing 00:31:07 - 01:01:33
More Playing and the News 01:02:30 โ 01:29:12
Featured Music Break: 01:29:12 - 01:31:42 -- "Sun Dog" โ Thunderhead
Listener Feedback 01:31:42 โ 02:05:43
The Tailgate 02:06:25 - 02:13:34
Weekend Confirmed is brought to you this week by Random House Audio where you can experience books like you've never heard them before. That includes titles like the excerpt in this week's show:
Stand by Me and Star Trek: The Next Generation star Wil Wheaton reads Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours plugged into OASAIS, a virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be. When the OASIS creator hides a series of puzzles in the game, will Wade be able to complete the challenge and stay alive in the process?
Featured music this week comes from Thunderhead, a 17 year old drum and bass and soundtrack producer from Edmonton, Canada. Get all of his latest tracks for FREE on Soundcloud.
Original music in the show by Del Rio. Get his latest Album, The Wait is Over on iTunes. Check out more, including the Super Mega Worm mix and other mash-ups on his ReverbNation page or Facebook page, and follow him on twitter delriomusic.
Jeff Cannata can also be seen on The Totally Rad Show. They've gone daily so there's a new segment to watch every day of the week!
Follow the Weekend Confirmed hosts on Twitter! Garnett Lee @GarnettLee, Jeff Cannata @jeffcannata and Xav de Matos @xav.
Remember to join the Official Facebook Weekend Confirmed Page and add us to your Facebook routine. We'll be keeping you up with the latest on the show there as well.
Comments
Including myself, I have been softened up so much by modern games. And I might even enjoy it.
Once, not too long ago, games had genuine consequences. Real no-foolin consequences. If you died, you lost a life, if you lost enough lives the game ended, reset, finished. This resulted in genuine tension, genuine no-fooling tension, you'd literally be on the edge of your seat, sometimes sweating over just surviving or making it passed that difficult leap.
Now games treat us like toddlers. They fill the screen with hints, tips, tutorials and solutions to the puzzles and obstacles we face. We have an unlimited store of lives. We can try something as many times as we want without fear of any consequenses. If we die, no worry, we can just restart from a point shorty before. When we face a choice in an RPG there's no wrong choice, just an alternate reward depending on which path we take (which can be easily googled or we can save and restart).
The modern gamer wouldn't know what failure is, it'd probably give them a heart attack. We expect to play through every game beginning to end and watch the ending without ANY chance of failing. If we get stuck on a difficult section we blame the developer.
The modern video game is like a theme park ride. It creates a pleasant illusion of danger, the animatronic creature looms in front of us but we know it'll give way and let us pass. The theme park employee shouts and acts like it's real danger but it's all in good fun. There's never any real risk. Basically, when you play a modern video game you're never really in any real danger or at risk of failure, just the exciting illlusion that things are really exciting and dangerous.
But I have to admit, as a married man with kids, when I get home from work at night do I really want to fail at a video game?
Maybe, maybe not. I really do miss the genuine tension and fear of failing that only older games offered and the sense of actual challenge this created.
I'm torn.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 15 replies.
Half the reason I'm enjoying Demon's Souls and Dark Souls is because they actually let me use my brain and figure some things out for myself.
You must be logged in to post.