Podcast Number Five!

It’s another podcast. Holy heckers! It’s sunny outside, but J.D. Richardson and Lewis Denby huddle around a microphone indoors to talk about games.  That’s what the summer’s all about, right?

Listen / download / whatever by clicking this bit.

00:00 Oh my goodness, it’s our new extra-special guest!
00:15 A more reasonable introduction. Isn’t the weather nice? Obviously, we’re inside talking about games.
00:40 A little bit about Thief. More later.
01:12 J.D.’s been playing Women’s Murder Club: Death in Scarlet. But not in his pants.
03:20 Games for a casual audience. Why can’t they still be exciting? Some of them manage!
07:30 Lewis has been playing so many games he’s lost track.
08:06 Lewis trying to get into Resident Evil? No way! Predictably, he hates it. But on the PC…
10:10 Playing PC games in a window. Is that a good thing?
11:27 So what /has/ Lewis been playing? Red Faction Guerilla, though he’s not allowed to talk about that ’til Friday. He talks about it for a few minutes anyway.
14:30 Merging into Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto.
15:20 Some things that annoy Lewis about some games.
18:30 Lewis quotes Stephen Totilo on the hideousness of the word “compelling.” Lewis is awful. Then talking about STALKER. As usual.
21:59 Eastern Europe makes bleak games. It also makes Stalin vs. Martians.
24:50 If art games can sacrifice user-friendliness for art, can comedy games sacrifice user-friendliness for comedy? Then talking about arty games.
29:30 We’d like to see more art in games. But we’d /prefer/ to see more Nazis and boobs. Then we inexplicably hype PC Gamer a bit.
23:24 What’s the appeal of games? Then back to PC Gamer, and Lewis gets very loud for a while.
32:56 Lewis is going for a wee. Special guest reappears.
33:27 We’re going to debate about Thief for ages, so there. Incredibly, Lewis doesn’t like it that much.
45:15 Lewis’ article about games just working not being good enough. So is it good that Lewis doesn’t like Thief?
46:33 The importance of Looking Glass Software.
47:22 Lewis also hates the word “gameplay.” Man!
48:00 Our special guest will soon save our legal arses.
48:46 Why we introduced our special guest today. Things get quite weird for a bit. Also, Dark Engine doesn’t work.
50:30 Lewis likes System Shock in a really low resolution.
51:46 Lewis regrets selling Shock 2 years ago. J.D. offers to blag a copy off his friend.
53:06 The Dark Engine(s). Doesn’t Shock 2 still look lovely?
54:37 Weird quirks that add to visual horror. Back to the original System Shock.
60:00 Back to Thief. Briefly.
63:06 Wrapping up. Our special guest says bye too.