The Gesture of Kindness Episode

[fishbang]

The penultimate episode for 2008 is available now (http://ingamechat.net/audio/IGC20081222.mp3).

If this week’s title had any relationship to the spirit of the holiday season, I can’t say we were aware of it. This is our sole podcast offering for the week - Christmas-ey things having eaten up all of our available time - so we’ve let it run a bit long. I’m not sure I can detail the topics discussed because they don’t make much sense to me in hindsight. We’ve run clear through the fourth-quarter glut, and without a list of games to focus on our minds are invariably going to wander back and forth, as they’ve done here and before. I can only really remember a passionate but inexpert discussion of Batman, and that when talking about Arkham Asylum, I clearly meant to compare it to a souffle and not a quiche.

Off-topic, but certainly pertinent, we say goodbye to two of our stalwart companions for these many months - Daniel, and Jeremy’s hair. The hair had a price on its head of five thousand dollars. That amount having been reached in the CoG Child’s Play charity drive, Jeremy followed through with his promise to chop everything off. We have pics, so it definitely happened. Less funny is that Daniel has been given marching orders by his boss The United States Air Force, so he’s leaving for Texas to learn how to do some other pointless thing at what I’m sure is a great expense. He’ll be around in text format, and from time to time as our correspondent from the Lone Star state, but we’ve nevertheless got one more empty chair in the studio now. This honestly makes things harder than you’d imagine.

Finally, stick around for the holiday-greetings community outro at the end of the program tonight. Thanks to everyone who listens and to all who contributed. We appreciate your support more than you can possibly know. Have a safe and happy holiday from everyone at IGC.

[Aggort]

I totally wrapped it up :)

PS: I love you Track... But not nearly as much as your mom ;)

[Kojak]

Oh man I'm so obviously Australian, why did I have to be wedged right in between all you Americans. Great episode as always. I too have pondered why certain games are not more or less expensive than others. The only answer I can come up with is this.

Because they can

$60 American ($110AU) is the limit at what they can charge people for games so that is why they are not more expensive than that. That being said excluding budget games generally they are not going to sell it at a lower price because people will buy it for $60 just because that is generally seen as the price at what games are sold.

As for the issue of Banjo Kazooie, lets not forget it was only America in which that game was cheaper. It was full price everywhere else. Its lower price is more a comment on American culture than anything else.

[Psykoboy2]

qWv5L9k02i4

[diablopath]

qWv5L9k02i4

Greatest video ever.
He took it better than I expected.

[MagGnome]

That video is great!

Thanks for the shout out to me in the podcast. I almost fell out of my chair when I heard it. I had to reverse it three times to make sure I wasn't hearing things. :)

[phoenyx]

So.. Do we get before, after, and post-professional cut pictures? :)

Poor guy, 4 years? I'm sorry, my hair drives me nuts after about a month, I have to get it buzzed short again. I just can't see with putting up with it for that long. You going to make some cancer patient very happy tho.

[Straximus]

Here you go:

Before
http://mouselook.com/~straxus/pics/beforefront.jpeghttp://mouselook.com/~straxus/pics/beforeback.jpeg

After
http://mouselook.com/~straxus/pics/afterfront.jpeghttp://mouselook.com/~straxus/pics/afterback.jpeg

Post pro cut
http://mouselook.com/~straxus/pics/pro.jpeg

[Mr. Murphy]

Pictures.

My girlfriend says "much handsomer with short hair".

[bapenguin]

My girlfriend says "much handsomer with short hair".

My wife literally said the same exact thing. Then I pointed to your post.

Congrats Strax!

[Mr. Murphy]

My wife literally said the same exact thing. Then I pointed to your post.

Congrats Strax!

Ohgeeze, I'm not seeing a married woman, am I??

[Straximus]

:D Give my thanks to the lady folk.

[Ravenlock]

Oddly, post-pro cut you look almost exactly like an actor I worked with for years in community theatre at Penn State.

He was a really good actor, too, so in the future you may want to take precautions to ensure he does not steal your identity. ;)

[MagGnome]

You look really nice with the short hair.

[TrackZero]

You look really nice with the short hair.

Agreed, Strax is "actionable" now. ;)

The best part of that video though was when Becky started grooming him just pre-pony tail. I actually started laughing out loud.

[Ravenlock]

Finally finished listening to this one while away from internets at my brother in law's New Year's bash. Good episode as usual; sad to see Daniel go. :(

A note for Scott - the Wii pinball collection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Hall_of_Fame:_The_Williams_Collection) is actually not all old tables; some of them are pretty primitive, but many of the tables are from the mid-to-late-80's (with two from 1990) and have all the ramps, spinning plastic doodads, and ball-eating hazards you could ask for. I haven't actually spent much time playing all the tables yet, but Taxi, Black Knight, Space Shuttle and PinBot are pretty awesome.

Might not change your mind at all, but you seemed to have a slightly different impression of it than what it is. (That also might not be true, though.) For the price - I paid something like $14 - it seems a no brainer for a pinball nut, though. Unless you sell the Wii, of course, in which case, no. ;)

Happy New Year, guys!

[Psykoboy2]

Taxi

Well, I'm sold now.

[Psykoboy2]

Okay, I apologize, and I'll try to remember and do this on the next recording we do as well...I had the VERY wrong impression of that game.

It has Taxi, which rejuvenated my love of pinball games when I worked at the movie theater in the late 90s.

However...it has FunHouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FunHouse) - the VERY first pinball game I ever played. The table that hooked me forever. I remember where I was and when I played that table for the first time.

Before that, my parents actually owned an old table (http://www.oldtimegames.net/ro_go_350.jpg) from like...the 70s...and that's all I knew of pinball until the age of 14 or so.

[Ravenlock]

No apology needed, man - sharing the love of great games is what we do, ya? :D

And your obvious affection for it will get me to pour some time into FunHouse, which I hadn't yet done. :)

[TrackZero]

Before that, my parents actually owned an old table (http://www.oldtimegames.net/ro_go_350.jpg) from like...the 70s...and that's all I knew of pinball until the age of 14 or so.

Nice, the first machine I used for some time was owned by a friend of my parents. I managed to track it down: http://www.basementarcade.com/arcade/auction/PW2004/Sky%20Jump.jpg

[Spigot]

Who's the hot chick in those first photos?

Oh wait...

*blarg*

I'm almost done listening to this and I'm right with you guys on the rant about pricing for games. There really needs to be a push for more $40-50 games. Between the brevity of a lot of games and the fact that I see price drops within weeks on a lot of other games, it's getting much harder for me to justify dropping $60 on a new game anymore. In fact, I am making a really concerted effort to only get 6 full price games this coming year. The rest of my gaming will be focused on my backlog or rentals. I just can't afford the investment anymore.

I'd have bought Mirror's Edge after playing it for $40 in a heartbeat. For $60, it's just alternately too frustrating (during the combat heavy sections) and too short to justify that cost.

Add to that the fact that a lot of the prices on games this fall were up around $65 or so PLUS tax, well, I wasn't terribly happy with that. Stupid economy.

Anyway, they need to bring down prices, esp. on non-AAA titles and short games. I know it's a dream, but I'm going to do my damnedest this coming year to try to make it come true via my wallet.