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The Negative World Podcast celebrates its tenth episode by doing nothing special at all! Celebrate with us in much the same way by listening to it!

Warerare starts us off by asking what E3 represents for us. We are discussing not so much the even itself as we are discussing how we feel about it. Yes, grown men talking about their feelings. The Negative World podcast has taken estrogen and is liking it.

Guillaume, who DOES know the proper pronunciation of Cthulhu thank you very much, discusses licensed games simply to have an excuse to use the music from the moon level of Duck Tales as a transition.

Finally Paleo flat out asks us to justify paying for the Virtual Console when it's so easy and so free to get these games elsewhere. Is the answer "just because"? Listen and find out!

As usual, the music comes from Negative World's owner and dictator, Zero.

Comment on the topics, the podcast, the guests, the host, etc. on Negative World! Or, be a weirdo and post them on Facebook or Twitter instead.

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@roykoopa64
@Guillaume

I heard the "S-Word" twice..

Posted by

Mr_Mustache

on: 06/01/11, 09:53

A lot of those old Disney games were cool. My favorite was probably the lion king. Aladdin had two separate games for Snes and Genesis that were completely different and fun.

I liked those PS1 Spiderman games. They probably didn't age too well though.

It was a beat-em up, but Maximum Carnage ROCKED!

Ultimate Alliance was asked about. Yeah it was the successor to the Xmen Legends games. Fun Baulders Gate clones. They have some issues, but the fanfare makes up for it.

And now that I think about it... There has been some great Dungeons and Dragons games too. That counts right?

Posted by

Nikola_Tesla

on: 06/01/11, 09:58

Edited:

06/01/11, 10:00

bumping, so I don't forget

Posted by

gamewizard65

on: 06/03/11, 15:20

@Zero
Astro Boy: Omega Force is pretty much the best licensed game ever. It even made me more interested in a license that I previously didn't care about! Licensed companies used to be good, because they were made by good companies. That is seldom true these days. The Spidermantroid games by Griptonite are great, though.

I heard that the new Darkwing Duck comic book is actually supposed to be excellent. I wish there was an excellent new Count Duckula comic!!

Posted by

Anand

on: 06/03/11, 19:20

Edited:

06/03/11, 19:22

@Anand Same here! We sat through a ton of episodes of the show (although I can't say I was particularly impressed) and I have an Astro Boy action figure now.

...there is a new Darkwing Duck comic book? WTF? Someone should make a game out of it!

Posted by

Zero

on: 06/03/11, 19:21

Yeah, I'm still not really an Astro Boy fan, but I remain semi-intrigued.

There were a bunch of different Astro Boy series. The old one from the '50s (the 'first anime ever') is actually kind of fucking crazy. Like everything from that era.

Posted by

Anand

on: 06/03/11, 19:26

@Zero

Theres also a new Ducktales comic, both are being done by Warren Spector.

Posted by

warerare

on: 06/03/11, 19:51

Warren Spector? Really? Crazy.

But those old Carl Barks comics were enormously influential. I know that Spector grew up on them.

Posted by

Anand

on: 06/03/11, 20:19

It seems Darkwing isn't being written by Spector but DuckTales is, both are set in the same universe though and will see crossovers at certain points.

Just checked my post and it seems my pre Nintendo conference entertainment has arrived.



Can't wait to play this after all these years, can't wait to hear the Moon Theme again through crappy TV speakers

Posted by

warerare

on: 06/03/11, 20:28

Edited:

06/03/11, 20:32

Listening to it now. I was staycationing when you released it, so that explains my lateness. Anyway, my thoughts.

First topic: E3

What a badass accent you've got, warerare! (Actually, this podcast is a bouquet of cool accents. Get down with your bad self, World Gaming Culture!) I dig your E3 rituals, too. I feel like I'm missing out by not celebrating it in a similar way. I wonder if the timing is a big part of why I don't, though. Usually I'm working during the conference, so there's no chance to really plan around it.

I guess I have mixed opinions about E3. On one hand, it's absolutely the Superbowl of gaming. E3 is incredibly exciting and anyone who denies that is just flat-out lying. But I've also heard stories about how E3 disrupts the development cycle, forcing teams to focus on their E3 demo when maybe they'd rather put their attention elsewhere. And there's no question that companies spend a lot of money on it - money that maybe could be allocated to development or advertisement or making plush dolls of Wario. I'm not sure how big those issues are, really, but they're are some complaints I've heard that I think resonate. It sucks to think that a game might ship that lacked that last little bit of polish because some developer needed to pay their booth babes.

Then again, the very fact that companies like Nintendo have to face the music when they have a poor E3 conference might have some strong advantages, too. I'd be interested to hear developers talk candidly about that. Does getting burned at E3 help a company's perspective?

Game I most want to see at E3? A Cafe Starfox game that is really going for it. The Arwing shooter to end all Arwing shooters.

Second topic: Licensed Games

I'd have to really dig in to make any points beyond what you guys said. You covered it well. I tend to think of the late 80s as a golden age of licensed games, but I also wonder how much of that is just Capcom's classic Disney games pushing the numbers up. If you take them out of the equation, I wonder if it still looks like a golden age.

Anyway, DuckTales is great and it's nice to hear it getting love on the podcast.

I do wonder how many of the AVGN's games are licensed games... Karate Kid, Fester's Quest, TMNT, etc...

Yeah, I liked the King Kong game. At least the few hours I played of it.

Popeye's a great licensed game that's worth talking about. We were thiiiiiis closed to having Popeye starring in all those Mario games.

Third topic: VC vs. Emulation

I see how it is, Guillaume. You cut out all my talk of pinball emulation and then this is a topic the following week!

I think the case against emulation is almost entirely moral, not really about the quality of the experience. The VC is nothing more than an emulator, really, and it's surely cheaper to set up a similar VC experience with your laptop than to get a Wii and then buy all the games you want on the VC. I think the VC would make a stronger case to the people who emulate if the pricing structure was more open. 5 bucks is worth it for an NES classic, but not for a lesser game.

I like the point Guillaume makes about how the VC helps us to "vote with our dollars" to show Nintendo what we want.

Tesla rocks. Cool to hear his views. Some good points there.

Great podcast, guys. I think the 3 person format is working out better than the fatal 4 way approach. It's easier to keep track of who's who.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 06/04/11, 00:30

Edited:

06/04/11, 00:33

@kriswright

Haha, yeah, sorry for my inconsistency. I guess the thread of only having 2 topics made me cave in.

Posted by

Guillaume

on: 06/04/11, 00:36

@kriswright

When you come from the same place as Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Anthony Hopkins you have to bring it with the accent

Posted by

warerare

on: 06/04/11, 00:45

That's a Welsh accent? Really? Well, that just shows how little I know. I thought you sounded more Northern. I guess I always assume people in Wales sound like Dawn French's take on Catherine Zeta Jones. Which is idiotic considering I come from Texas, where the perception around the world is that everyone sounds like this guy.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 06/04/11, 00:52

Edited:

06/04/11, 01:03

@kriswright

I live in the South Wales valleys, near where Tom jones grew up but I work in Cardiff which is where Shirley Bassey grew up. Both areas have very distinct accents and mines is kind of an amalgamation of the two, it can sound very Liverpudlian at times which is probably which is probably why you think it sounds Northern. I also lived in Middlesbrough for a year so I don't know how that affected things.

Posted by

warerare

on: 06/04/11, 01:02

Yeah, I thought I heard traces of Liverpool in there, but I wasn't sure. It's a really cool accent, though. Not kidding about that. Didn't hear any Boro in it, inasmuch as I'd be able to notice, anyway.

Mine is kind of "US Television Watcher's accent with accidental sprinklings of Texas Redneck" mixed with "Some dude with a head cold." Not anywhere near as awesome.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 06/04/11, 01:10

Edited:

06/04/11, 01:12

@kriswright

What would mine be?

Typical American accent with a slight southern twang? As far as I can tell, I'm one of the few people who were born and raised in NC that doesn't have a very strong southern accent, but american accent, yeah.

Posted by

Paleo_Orca

on: 06/04/11, 01:18

@kriswright

Well the talk on Pinball was enough to get me addicted to something I haven't played in about 15 years, I even sought out a pinball table (Simpsons Pinball Party - found at a local bowling alley) for a good few sessions when playing Marvel pinball on 360 got a bit tiring. A great one for work has been Tiki Quest Pinball nice little timewaster when things get quiet.

Posted by

warerare

on: 06/04/11, 01:21

Edited:

06/04/11, 01:22

Nah, that's a Southern accent, my friend. It's not, like, a super in-your-face Matlock accent, but there's no mistaking you're from somewhere in the Deep South. No one's going to say, "You know, I'll bet that Orca's from Iowa".

The upside is you've got a respectable accent. It's a Southern gentlemen's accent. That's where you Eastern southerners are lucky. We Texans don't sound like gentlemen. We sound like crazed lunatics who have 3 brain cells - one for shooting, one for boozing and one for calling complex football plays.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 06/04/11, 01:25

@kriswright

lol, well that's good to know.

I'm a 'southern gentleman' apparently.

Posted by

Paleo_Orca

on: 06/04/11, 01:31

Well, that's just my interpretation. I didn't mean to set myself up here as the sole arbiter of everyone's accents or anything.

Posted by

kriswright

on: 06/04/11, 01:45