CAGcast #131: A Monstrous Choice

[img-l=1]481[/img-l][preview]Wombat may or may not say anything negative or controversial in this episode. Either way, we have discussions on downloadable games expectations and pricing, new releases, the latest video game industry and shopping news, your CAGbag questions and much more!

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[podcast]19[/podcast]
Download - 100 minutes, 40MB
[digg]http://digg.com/podcasts/CAGcast[/digg][/preview]

Show Linkage/Notes (click the button below to expand):



Bonus Picture!




By popular request, bjwoodruff's CAGs On News Theme Song
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/podcast/cagsonews.mp3

That pic remind me of Kratos from God of war. :lol:

YAY!!! New Episode

Why is it that I can never connect to the CAGcast voicemail box? I've been getting either "voicemail failed" or disconnects while recording every week since the first contest started. I'd like to be able to enter the contests someday!

Monday Cagcast! Alllriggghhtt.

CheapD looks like he's taking a shit lol ( don't hate me for saying it ^__^)

lol. you should have put on an eye patch, go shirtless and wear thai boxing shorts.

Somebody HAS to Photoshop Cheapy to look like Kratos!!!!

Yes... yes they do...



and...

I haven't listened yet but I saw in the show notes the link for the CAG game collection features. What I don't see in that list at all (in John's blog) is that there will be anywhere to store trade-in values. We need a replacement for the old CAG wiki to store all those trade-in values (in particular we have a lot of good data for Gamestop trade-ins since they've been running those promos recently).

Obviously this wouldn't be attached to the collections so much but I think that in any lists of games there should be fields for trade-in values at all the major trading places (GS, Gamecrazy, Blockbuster, FYE). Maybe these can only be changed by mods with the raw data coming as usual from CAGs who take advantage of trade-in deals.

In particular, I like the idea of including it in this part:

Game lookup bbcode for posts. E.g. [game]Gears of War[/game] posted anywhere on CAG will turn it into a contextual link - clicking it will display a panel containing essential stats about the game (e.g. CAG rating, "what it's worth" price, and a summary of people who are trading/selling the game.

Click to expand...

Along with that data there should be trade-in info with the date it was last updated.

pixel junk foreplay, rez vibrator, i guess sony products put mrs cheapy in the mood

nice photoshop work robot chicken.

The BCR music as opening was FAN-ING-TASTIC! I was going to go to bed soon but goddamn if this doesn't make me want to listen to the whole thing and be miserable tommorow...but at least I'll be humming this awesome song (no I won't, I'll be listening to the soundtrack on my iPod).

Glad to see someone else enjoys westerns. I really would like to see a new one.

I was surprised to see Wombat being called a PS3 hater last week because of his love of Ratchet & Clank, PixelJunk Monsters, and even prefering Oblivion on the PS3.

You should tell the Pizza Guy the next time you see or talk to him that to be a good candidate for the Darwin Awards that he needs to die a stupid death.

Castle Crashers isn't coming out this week, Galaga Legions is the XBLA release of the week, so I don't know why you were talking about that instead. I think the reason for the higher price is the amount of levels that it'll have, especially compared to the few levels that Alien Hominid had.

I find it funny that Wombat and Cheapy feel so much guilt for asking for free codes from PR guys that work for these publishers. It's their job to hand them out because they want the reviews and publicity that they can bring. I have no problem asking because I don't have all the money in the world to spend on these games, so any help the PR guys can can provide is great for me.

You should have tried out the NHL 2K9 demo on PSN, Cheapy, since I haven't seen it appear on XBL just yet. I know you were a big fan of their hockey games, but have since switched sides when they turned to crap.

Wombat's looking forward to the next Warhawk update? The next time he mentions it, he'll start his line with "The problem with Warhawk is..." :lol:

Should you not be buying the downloadable versions of retail games unless you're going to play it a lot? It would be a waste to download a game that you're not really interested in it that much.

Controversial Quote of the Episode: "There's no reason to own it." - CheapyD referring to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Uncharted got a trophy patch a few weeks ago, Wombat, so go get it now.

How about a CAG Foreplay: CAGcast Edition for next week with Wombat and Shipwreck doing a substitute CAGcast?

I'll be listening to the podcast a little later, but here's my amateurish handiwork with GIMP.



@ RobotChickenMk1 : The Sagat was pretty funny.

Be prepared to mention Castle Crashers next week as well.

Awesome picture CheapyD would be awesome with eyepacth

TIGER SHOT
TIGER UPPERCUTT
TIGER CANNON...

you just gota be a bit browner then ull look like him D:

YAY PIZZA GUY!@#!@#!@!@#!!@#!#@!@#!@# PIZZA GUY#!#!@#
It takes balls to walk around naked lol

Hmm you can get a greatist hit's title.. for like the same price for a xbox LA..
Lol nintendo putting wii motion plus.. It isnt even a good annoucement at all.. just another camera on the bottem..

-I applaud Wombat's boycott of LucasArts due to corporate conduct, and I appreciate the practice in general.

-Nintendo kept the MotionPlus a secret because they are deeply paranoid about leaks and also competitors. They probably should not have in this case, but I think the MotionPlus is a mistake anyway. It shouldve waited till next hardware cycle.

-Regarding the console wars, Cheapy is right in that market performance does not carry over from cycle to cycle. Completely new ball game. This is something that many developers forgot after the PS1 and PS2. I most likely wont be buying any home consoles next cycle though. I'm going all portable.

"Viva Pinata: There's A Hole For Everybody"


[quote name='tcolberg']I'll be listening to the podcast a little later, but here's my amateurish handiwork with GIMP.



@ RobotChickenMk1 : The Sagat was pretty funny.[/quote]

Whoa! That's awesome!

[quote name='KingBroly']Be prepared to mention Castle Crashers next week as well.[/QUOTE]

Doh I blame Shipwreck for not prepping Foreplay in time,

three cheers for passing the buck

hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray! hip hip hooray!

...now that man just needs a barcode on the back of his head and a crowbar in his hand to become unstoppable! you know, just like two turtles duct taped together.

downloading right away, listening this evening. thanks!

[quote name='rayee6']lol. you should have put on an eye patch, go shirtless and wear thai boxing shorts.[/quote]

He won't fit into Ty's diapers.

Edit please * i mean the new lara coft model* not the movie

[quote name='Slayzz']That pic remind of Kratos from God of war. :lol:[/quote]

you're not the only one thinking that...

Why would you guys feel bad about asking for prepaid Bionic Commando codes? Companies should be sending you review codes from the start. After all the positive coverage that you give Capcom, they couldn't send you a $10 code that would cost them almost nothing? You're growing more and more important in this industry. You guys should seek out as many freebie copies as you can, you are certainly deserving of them.

Hey Chapy, you got a name-drop on MajorNelson's show. Just wanted you to know. Don't worry, it was positive.

Great show as always. I'm always surprised at how not cheap CheapyD is when it comes to video game purchases. This is CAG after all. To be honest, games like Braid aren't worth $15 to me because you only play them for a few hours until you beat them. Can you honestly say you'll go back to it in a week, month or a year? To me, $10 is a better price point when the enjoyment is much less limited than a full release. If BC: Rearmed was $15, I would of had a harder time of picking it up. I've only put in maybe 5 hours and I'm at the end of the game already with only the challenge rooms after that. The game needs legs to warrent a higher purchase (DLC, online multiplayer, etc).

P.S. CheapyD doesn't get gifted games on the Wii because you're not able to to send gifts across regions. Sorry Cheapy.

[quote name='tcolberg']Why is it that I can never connect to the CAGcast voicemail box? I've been getting either "voicemail failed" or disconnects while recording every week since the first contest started. I'd like to be able to enter the contests someday![/quote]
I'm having the exact same problem... Cheapy, have any voicemails worked for the cagcast, or is it just us?

I don't get Wombat's reasoning of hating LucasArts. They obviously want to make fewer games in studio. Should they keep paying 100+ people $60,000+ a year when they don't need them just because that's the nice thing to do? It also wasn't random when they were fired. It was at the end of The Force Unleashed development.

If you look at LucasArts internal development's track record, it's not too good. The biggest hits for the publishers were from outside the company. The Indiana Jones game from E3 last year was no where to be seen this year, missing out on a lot of tie-in potential. So I can see why the bean counters shut them down. How they did it was kind of crappy, but I can understand it.

Sweet, Sagat is hosting the CAGcast this week.

Another quality CAGCast episode. After this episode I will never be able to look at Guitar Hero or truck stops the same again thanks to Wombat.

Lovin' the Photoshops of Cheapy Sagat and Cheapy Kratos.

I LOL'd at the pic Cheapy.

nice pic cheapy, anyways great CAGcast as always

While I understand Wombat's stance on Lucasarts, I don't blame them for being upset with Nintendo. They were kept in the dark about a product that could have improved the gameplay experience for a highly anticipated game. Well, it's not guaranteed that Lucasarts would have capitalized on it, but it certainly seems like it would have facilitated the development.

On a side note, it seems that Radiohead has crappy luck with weather in the DC area: http://www.farmfreshmeat.com/2008/05/radiohead-nissan-suckers.html

Hmmm, title on CAG for this episode is "A Monstrous Choice" but the mp3 is tagged as "That's Entertainment!".

[quote name='thorbahn3']To be honest, games like Braid aren't worth $15 to me because you only play them for a few hours until you beat them.[/QUOTE]

Isn't Two Worlds supposed to be a long game at 20-30 hours? Does that mean it's a good game?

Metacritic: Two Worlds

Whereas Braid is about 4-5 hours...

Metacritic: Braid

Games should never be judged solely on length or price. You have to take all the components into consideration. Games are all about the experience. Short games like Braid, Heavenly Sword, etc. worth playing just as games like Final Fantasy XII, Mass Effect, and Persona 3 are worth playing.

If you have fun playing the game, then who the cares how long it is?

The Japanese magnums question seems like a great opener to a race relations joke.

i.e japan = (stereotypically) small penis, guns banned
black people= (stereotypically ) big penises, guns

And I bet you felt really good when you couldn't put that condom on, huh?

Great show this week guys. Wombat, that fun house mirror comment about Cheapy's physique floored me, that was so funny.

Also Cheapy have you seen this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGm3ZuFB7rY

It's a video of your Spore creature on the official Spore youtube page. Pretty cool.

The whole problem about game pricing is that it's uniform across the board. 98% of the games always start out at $50 or higher nowadays. Does that mean those 98% of games are awesome? No.

You're seeing the same thing with XBLA, PSN and WiiWare where all games, no matter how bad they are, are the same price as the great ones (ex: N+ versus Mr. Driller Online or LostWinds versus Cocoto Fishing Master). It's pretty much the same problem on all platforms. And the lack of price drops on the downloadable front only makes it worse for the future of gaming.

I have to say that I'm quite honored to make the CheapyD Flickr album.

I love how Wombat CiFed himself a double cone.

I don't think Wombat was hard enough on Nintendo for the LucasArts / MotionPlus debacle. Even though Nintendo's occlusion of the new peripheral angered LucasArts, it hurt gamers more because it decreased the potential quality of an upcoming product-- an experience that gamers have been clamoring for ever since we heard the words "Revolution" and "motion controller".

This is not to say that Wombat's vitriol towards LucasArts isn't justified, everyone who gives two shakes about the game industry should consider only buying Force Unleashed used in reaction to LucasArts' terrible treatment of those who work for them. Then again, who hasn't seen this coming? I think LucasArts' last good game was either Tie Fighter Advanced CDROM or Grim Fandango, whichever came last. Albeit, I did enjoy Gladius. But even that game failed to escape the crappiness of LA's management, because the game was released only half finished.

Moving on, at some point, you guys mentioned wanting to "reward" the pricing of Viva Pinata 2. I wonder why we gamers don't apply the idea of "reward" to our purchasing process more often. We shouldn't just be looking for the "cheapest" game purchases, but rather looking for the ones that offer the best value and quality. Wombat and others may balk at the idea of pricing Braid at $15, but is the issue that the game is not of sufficient quality to deserve $15 or is it that you're just not used to the price? Or is it that you fear the trend of increasing prices for other, less deserving games? I thought that the recent article on Kotaku talking about how Braid has not yet hit profitability was an important read. That article was the reason I got out of my chair and queued up the demo.

The idea of rewarding quality games actually links up with the whole LucasArts ordeal. We gamers who care about good games should be putting our money where our mouths are. LucasArts stopped putting out good games because good games like Grim Fandango were big money sinks, but didn't sell. Similar stories are common throughout this industry. This is why we get dreck like those Wii shovelware / carnival games or those unworthy games that the developers of N+ called out.

I have to make one concession to the point (mostly due to KingBroly's comment) that some of these games cost too much, and that is that the Microsoft Marketplace seems to not have anyone with economics training working for them. What I see as the primary problem with the Marketplace is that it doesn't have price adjustments, that react to sales of the product. If a game underperforms in terms of sales, the price of that game should drop to a price point where they think would result in more sales. That way, a game could be sold to a much larger audience once it drops to that buyer's price expectation. That way, Wombat would be able to get Braid at that $12.50 point and the developers of Braid would get a lot more sales.

Thanks for a great show guys!

Cheapy and Wombat were pretty harsh on the progamer-in-training kid's parents. According to this article (http://www.newsobserver.com/2766/story/1155589.html), he's going to be home schooled by tutors. That definitely isn't the same thing as dropping out of school to pursue a career in competitive video gaming.

[quote name='Mahoney07']I don't get Wombat's reasoning of hating LucasArts. They obviously want to make fewer games in studio. Should they keep paying 100+ people $60,000+ a year when they don't need them just because that's the nice thing to do? It also wasn't random when they were fired. It was at the end of The Force Unleashed development.[/quote]

I'm guessing it was that they told (and I didn't follow this at all except what I heard on CAGcast) their developers, "Yeah, we're going to keep you - Don't worry," and then let them go a short time after. That's kind of weasely.

The same could be said of people who just up and leave their jobs (not LucasArts - just in general). They're not chastised as much for it because there's a certain sense of 'the big evil corporation' amongst Americans. I don't agree with it - but it's there (anti oil companies, Walmart, Microsoft - people forget that AT&T and IBM topped that list at one time, too).

To me it's just a business. Would you buy a crappy game just to keep someone employed? I sure wouldn't. I think people get mixed up in how they view jobs. Typically speaking they look at their job as something that is owed to them instead of looking at it as them trading their skills and labor for money (they're the one's selling their services to a company and the company, in turns, puts it together and sells it as a product to others).

All that being said, I think it's just as weasely to tell people, "Your fine," and then let them go as it is to be a person on a job and say, "See ya!" I think there's a certain level of honor/integrity that people ought to bring to the table.

[quote name='flux=rad']Cheapy and Wombat were pretty harsh on the progamer-in-training kid's parents. According to this article (http://www.newsobserver.com/2766/story/1155589.html), he's going to be home schooled by tutors. That definitely isn't the same thing as dropping out of school to pursue a career in competitive video gaming.[/quote]

It's still a lousy decision by his parents. Do you know what people think of that kid's family now? Removing the kid from normal society because "he wants to" play a video game for the rest of his life. Professional Guitar Hero player? Please. Ever heard of guitars that have strings? This is an example of bad parenting that will only lead to a bad future for that kid. Deciding to drop out of school to improve his skills in a fad that's going to fade fast is not the answer to a nagging child.

It doesn't matter what Nintendo does to the "hardcore gamer". As long as there is a new Mario, Zelda, and 15 games revolving around the Mario universe, the hardcore fans will still buy the next system. They're pretty much suckers and Nintendo knows it. I am not even considering buying a Wii. I will probably just skip it all together and wait on the next system, hope it's BC, and buy the handful of Wii games that I wanted to play. It seems like with every new home system I get less and less interested in what Nintendo has to offer. Ever since the PS1/N64 days I realized Nintendo couldn't keep up with the other console. I am not a huge fan of the Nintendo franchise games. I mean they are good, but I just got sick of all of them. It seems like the home console just gets worse and worse but on the portable side it keeps getting better and better.

That kid should pick up a real guitar and start a band. He has a better chance of making money and he'll get a lot of ass on the side too.

Cheapy and Wombat, you guys are assholes. I put the podcast on pause when I was ordering McDonalds at the drive thru. After I ordered I started listing to it and pulled up to the window. I noticed that for whatever reason their window was open. I started to look around for my wallet and money in the front seat, and than I heard Viva Pinata Animal Orgy, at the same time I heard someone clearing there throat and saying, "sir its $2.88". I quickley paused the CAGcast and the McLady had a grossed out look on her face. It was quit embarrasing and to make things worse she gave me a canadian dime back for change. So while I was waiting for my McSkillet Burrito, I was pondering what to do. I put the canadian dime back inside the window while she was getting my order. She came back and seemed to be in a hurry (after all if I had to serve somebody who is into "Animal Orgies" I think I would want to get the pervert out of the way as soon as possible) and quiclky handed the bag to me and was about to shut the previouse open window. "Excuse me!!" I said. "What is it sir?" she replied in a disgruntled unwaranted voice. "Can I get picante sauce for my burrito, and you uhh...gave me Canadian currency back instead of U.S. Currency, I would like a dime please." with that said she went to get the manager to open the register. The manager came opened the register, looked at me funny and said "Sorry about that sir".
So I know the McLady heard the Animal Orgy comments and was disgusted by them by her face and service. On top of that, I also asked for U.S. currency back (even though its 10 cents, its the moral that counts) wich made me look even weirder. It was completley aukward and I was in Minnesota and being from Wisconsin I always get a bad rap from Mudd-Ducks (MN equivilant to Cheeseheads) at work. So in perspective, thank you for making me look like a complete psycho to a very old McLady at a McDonalds Drive Thru.

Cheapy, have you seen that Wii Star Wars game? It looks fun, but LucasArts is being ridiculous if they're floating the idea that MotionPlus could easily or usefully be grafted onto a 3rd person beat-em-up. The whole game is obviously built around current remote technology, and I have a hard time believing that they'd be able to add anything meaningful before launch.

Hey guys good show as always but i have to interject and let you know the uncharted trophy patch has already been out for a while.