Game Club

AggroChat #132 – The Cthulhu Game Show

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Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen talk Blizzcon news, Guild Wars 2, and Dungeons and Dragons stuff

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Tonight is the tale of a game that we put off recording the show for weeks in the hopes of clearing up some technical difficulties.  So while we do talk about Cthulhu, the show morphs into a general discussion about the preservation of video games, and what happens to these older titles that don’t quite function as intended on modern platforms.  Additionally we talk a bit about emulation and how it might be the saving grace for especially the early cd based systems.  We talk about this weird time in early FPS games where folks were willing to take chances and make something not entirely in the Call of Duty model.  Given that this is the second of those games we have made a game club title…  it seems like there was something interesting happening that it would be awesome to see again.

Topics Discussed – Technical Difficulties – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth – Early FPS Titles – Early CD Rom games – Games Preservation – Emulation – December Game – Diablo II

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AggroChat #118 – The Cities: Skylines Show

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Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam, Thalen and Inky talk about Cities: Skylines the July AggroChat Game Club Game

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After putting it off a week due to folks travelling, this week we record the July AggroChat Game Club show for our title of the month Cities: Skylines.  In this episode we talk about just how deep the rabbit hole of simulation goes with this would be king of city and mayor simulators.  In many ways this show is the tail of many failed cities and a handful of successful ones.  It is also when we learn just how bad of a mayor Belghast would be.  This title is the heir to the Sim City lineage, so we ask the question how it stacks up.  We also ask the question if city simulation is really that fun?  Additionally we get into a side tangent about wastewater management.

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AggroChat #100 – The Undertale Mishap

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Tonight Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen…  run into our first massive issues with the recorded show

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Last night we recorded episode 100 of the AggroChat podcast, and also wrapped up our Undertale AggroChat game club show.  It signified our switch to a new way of recording the show… and is often the case with trying something new.  Things wen’t horribly wrong.  Essentially every voice by my own was recorded sounding great… and when I spoke it sounded like a voice scrambler.  At first I thought the show was a complete loss however this morning after copious amounts of edits I managed to get the show at least in a listenable state…. albeit my voice sounds like a hilarious chipmunk voice modulator.

So join us for a slightly screwed up show as we talk about UnderTale.  Several fans on twitter urged us to release this show in “as is” condition.  I posted a snippet of what it originally sounded like on twitter and I think it is a slight miracle that we managed to get it that listenable.  Thanks again for sticking with us through 100 shows, and especially being willing to deal with bizarro issues when they arise.

 

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Final Thoughts on Tron 2.0

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The most recent episode of Aggrochat was our discussion of Tron 2.0, which I had picked as our Game Club game for September. As it turned out, only Kodra and I finished the game, but everybody at least played far enough to form reasoned opinions and we had a good discussion about the game and about the evolution of the FPS genre over the past decade.

Overall I feel like my memories of Tron 2.0 weren't terribly inaccurate. There was a definitely a bit of nostalgia coloring them, but the annoyances I ran into were mostly things that I remembered from playing it when it was new. I do feel like playing Tron 2.0 and Wolfenstein: The New Order back to back highlighted a number of the changes that have taken place over the years in the genre.

Final Thoughts on Tron 2.0
Programs can get bored and fidgety too.

There were little things like using the scroll wheel for weapon zoom instead of the right mouse button, but also things that were still common in FPSs a decade ago that no longer are, such as jumping puzzles. There really weren't that many of them, but it's telling that jumping puzzles where what ended up making a couple of the others call it quits. Jumping accurately when you can't see your feet isn't easy. There's a reason you don't see it come up as much in modern games (Portal being the main exception that comes to mind).

I still think the mechanic of memory for your subroutines (weapons, armor, and general power ups) which changes when you enter a new system is pretty clever, especially combined with the ability to upgrade subroutines to both make them more powerful and make them take up less memory space. It's a little disappointing though that you don't get access to some subroutines until it's too late to reasonably upgrade them and use them properly.

Overall, I feel like Tron 2.0 remains a game worth playing both because it's fun and has an entertaining story, and for a look back at the kinds of experimentation that were being done in the FPS genre 12 years ago. I only wish it had a gotten a sequel that could have really polished the systems and made them all fit together just right.