Category: Ramblings
A very special show as we reach episode number 50!
Admittedly it should have been about episode 60-ish, but details-schmetails!
This week we covered this lot:
Episode 18 is becoming the second season’s most elusive episode. So far we’ve attempted to record this episode twice and on both attempts we have been thwarted by technology.
First time round Duncan’s PC decided it was time to meet its maker. The second time round Windows 7 decided not to play ball even with Paul and Phil attempting to get it going properly. It wasn’t until about 11pm that evening that we finally worked it out! It was a tad late for our loyal listeners though.
However, as it stands, we’ll be back on air this coming Friday night, 20th July. We’ll hopefully have Duncan, Paul and Phil online. With three weeks of news to catch up on it will be a very busy show. Hope to see you in the chat-room!
It has to be said, the old website was looking a little raggedy. We still had reviews up on the sidebar, the slider was showing posts from last year and everywhere you looked it referred to us as a podcast – in some places it still does. And, as you may know, the clean up has been in the works for a little while.
Well, here it is. All shiny and nice-looking – at least we think so. We brought in the three wise men, improved the navigation and brought the sidebar a little more into the style. The main posts now have a bit more text before the break and each post has a nice little banner image above it. Everyone say awwwwwww.
Home is where the website is!
We’ve been a little quiet here over the past few days so we’d just like to drop a quick update for everyone.
Firstly, our new website is so close to being finished and ready for release that we can almost taste it’s coded loveliness….does that sentence even make sense?!
It will end up offering you our wonderful visitors a much easier way to see what is going with us, pick up on previous episodes, get a flavour of recent twitter and Facebook happenings and listen to our recent shows right on the website. Phil is busy working on a few other things to build up the offerings but more will be revealed on that when we can talk about it.
This past week has seen us receive a huge amount of attention with new listeners coming in all the time, which is part of the reason we’ve not posted much here. We’d like to say a massive thank you to Spreaker.com for their support!
However we want to reach more people, so we’re going to ask a little favour. You can help us massively by sharing episodes of our show on Twitter, Facebook and Soundcloud, as well as doing retweets and post shares from our social media efforts. If you can drop a like on the Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter too that would be massive!
We don’t expect anyone to do any of this but if you do enjoy what you’ve heard so far from us, doing one of the above or just posting and talking about our show can help. Seeing genuine positive responses from you guys really does spur us on to develop what we do, and the more folks who tune in, the bigger and better we can make the show for you in return.
We have a number of plans that we want to bring to life, using different media, in addition to our core show, but also for spin-off broadcasts too, all of which we can start to bring to life with your help and support.
Enough with the pleas for now, but anything you can do will really help, and thank you to all of you who have already taken the time to share/post/tweet/status update about what we do; you’re all fricking awesome!
Have a great weekend everybody!
We love our listeners, but we need your help!
We know this start sounding a bit sycophantic but we just had to take the time to show our appreciation for the brilliant feedback we’ve had!
If we’re honest we didn’t expect more than single figures for listening numbers on our first show given that we effectively come from nowhere for a lot of people, but we have wholly smashed that idea out of the park; and now we want to try to grow our numbers more and more as the weeks roll on.
We want to use that support and give something back, so if you have anything specific about the show and its content, do please email us, show@thegamescast.com. Whether it be something you’d like to hear us include every week, a one-off, or maybe even an off shoot from TGC, we’d love to hear it all.
Naturally we have our own ideas, and over the coming weeks and months we hope to make some of them a reality, but our main focus is bringing you guys the show you want to hear.
As well as email you can always get us on twitter or Facebook and of course the comments section right here on this article.
We also mentioned a call for help, which isn’t actually for us, but for some good friends who run The Lolocaust. They explain the whole problem in this post but in essence they are about to lose their online identity, namely lolocaust.co.uk. We’re bothered here at TGC because way back in the day (this site has been going for around five years so is no “flash in the pan”) Duncan, Paul and Phil were all involved in it.
We would hate to see this awesomely irreverent site have to suffer the pain of a name change as in recent weeks its popularity has begun to soar and rightly so as they have some brilliant content and deserve the attention. If you can offer any help at all drop a comment on the article, or get in touch with the curator of The Lolocaust @bouncybhall.
I can remember back to the early days of the new Xbox Live Arcade, when it really hit the big time. I waited for each and every Wednesday to come round to see what was going to hit – ready with my trial request I’d play each new game before deciding to buy. Granted, most of the first batch of games were poor, simply aimed to get something on there, but after a while the good titles started to come through. Bring in the annual Summer of Arcade and the titles grew in both number but also in quality.
The awesome Shadow Complex is nearly two years old. Peggle, a game that continues to be enjoyed, is over two years old, released on XBLA in March 2009. Titles such as Uno, Zuma, Geometry Wars, Marble Blast Ultra, Trials HD and Castle Crashers are all great games delivered by an exciting service. It wasn’t just new games though, with classics such as Sonic, Doom, Street Fighter 2, TMNT, Worms and Outrun it enabled us to all relive our younger years, albeit through the rose tinted glasses of upscaling. By January 2007, just 14 months after it first came online the service had delivered over 20 million downloads.
It would be very difficult to try and summarise the service in just two paragraphs, especially as everyone will undoubtedly tell me I’ve forgotten their favourite game. A look through the most recent Top Arcade Chart from MajorNelson.com shows that a lot of the games we would call “classic” arcade titles are still there being purchased and played today. Which leads me onto the point of this post. What has Xbox Live Arcade done recently? Have we burnt out the new and exciting titles?
The most recent title, Trenched, isn’t even available in the UK. In fact the only place to have it is the US. I’ve not heard anything about it. It seems that these days Arcade titles just appear with little or no fanfare. Why? Has the Indie marketplace stolen all the good ideas – which is a shame because the Indie area of XBLA is so difficult to find many don’t bother.
So, really, my question to you all is two-fold. What was the last XBLA title you bought? And do you think the service is losing its edge?
Mine was Toy Soldiers – though I could have sworn I’d already bought it.
Here are some of the first pictures of the new Xbox Dashboard, due to hit our 360′s in this years Autumn update.
Personally I love the new look. It looks a lot easier to get to to games and content, but what are your thoughts?
Click on the thumbnails to view the full image.
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- It’s on the social page
E3 2011 is now just a little over three days away and as ever the rumour mill is on full speed ahead; expectations are as high as they will ever be. That is, of course, as long as no-one suggests that MS or Sony will debut their next-gen consoles – we all know Nintendo are, don’t we.
For most gamers the E3 week is like a whole bunch of Christmas Days all rolled into one massive week of highs, lows and disappointments, with maybe a phew “whoops” and high-fives included for good measure. It’s also a week of face-palms, general embarrassments - like Zelda not working properly during last years Ninty presentation – and general awkwardness after the presenter builds up your hopes to almost breaking point, only to find some half-dressed clown in an ice-cream van.
Here’s a round up of all of the rumours currently circulating the interwebs.
Ninty
After last year’s big 3DS reveal (and I use the word “big” in a sarcastic tone) it’s down to Nintendo to do something massive this year. Sure, everyone loves Kirby, but it’s not the big crescendo of your E3 presentation normally is it. Only when the line up is weak do you leave it to a ball of string to round off the presentation. Anyhow, here’s what the rumour mill has on our plumbers parents.
- Project Cafe, aka Wii 2 (not really a rumour as it’s been confirmed)
- A new Mario 3D game for Project Cafe
- A new Mario 3D game for the 3DS
Sony
It’s been a very bad lead-up to E3 for Sony so they’ve got some ground to make up. The freebies have gone some way to make up for the lengthy PSN downtime but it’s hope Sony can revitalise their fans and reassure them enough to stop the loss of customers and give the brand some much needed optimism. I hope they can. I really do.
- Sony NGP titles to include Uncharted, Killzone and Wipeout
- Sony NGP price tag and release date to be announced
- PSP Go 2 (Cough)
- Metal Gear Solid 5
- Grand Theft Auto 5 Exclusive to PS3
Microsoft
The Redmond boys (and Seattle guys too, and gals – jeez, this is a PC nightmare this sentence) have a tough act to follow from last years E3 winning presentation. We’ve mostly all got Kinect and the 360 Slim has been sat here quietly for just under a year, so what are they going to pull out of the hat this year? I fear that this year’s presentation is all about the software, much like Sony’s last year. Don’t get me wrong, software is great but E3 wins only really come about with new hardware – it’s got to be a mighty fine presentation to win it based on release announcements.
- A new tier for Xbox Live
- Kinect games
- More kinect games
- Even more kinect games
- 360 Dashboard redesign using WinPhone 7 tile look
- Full on 3D firmware update
- Milo on Kinect
Game Developers
We all know the new Assassins Creed game will be revealed at E3 but what about these bad boys below (okay, on some of them, I’m taking the preverbial)
- New Splinter Cell title
- HALO: Combat Evolved HD
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Mass Effect 3
- A new Mirror’s Edge
- Bioshock Infinite (This has to be there)
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4
- Call of Duty: Covert-Ops
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 5
- Call of Duty: Photo-Ops
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 6
- Call of Duty: Co-Ops
- Call of Duty: Just give us your money.
If you have more rumours then add them to the comments below and we’ll post them here and keep the rumour mill flowing!
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