Backloggers Anonymous

Well, we finished Mirror's Edge, and like most titles we play on Backloggers, it has its flaws to be sure, but it's a fantastic game. Make sure to listen to this 'cast once you've finished playing through since we spoil the ending about 5 seconds into the show, and thanks again for picking this game for us to play and for the feedback if you left us comments. I hope to do another community pick again sometime soon, so be on the lookout for another Backloggers poll. 

Our next selection is El Shaddai, and we've got a special guest joining us for this one: Richard Clark of Christ and Pop Culture. Aside from the obvious familiarity with the source material, he's also a huge fan of the game and has written several pieces on it (which I won't link at this time due to spoilers.) So be looking forward to that one, and maybe hunt down a copy of El Shaddai if you're interested in playing along with us (it's not that expensive!) Thanks for listening!

Yeah, that's right, we went there. It's hard not to, really, what with the current drama unfolding around Dragon's Crown, the Tropes Vs. Women videos, and what's in Lightning's bra. We handled it as well as 3 dudes on a video game podcast could, I think, but it would be fantastic if we could get some civil discussion going in the comments. We could have a great follow up when we get to our conclusion episode.

Also, thanks to the PixlBit community for picking this one. It's certainly going to be a fun game to discuss, and with the recent announcement of a reboot / sequel, it's a very relevant subject too.

Like I said in the show, we really want to hear your feedback, and since you've selected it, I'm expecting a lot of comments - so have at it! Chris won't be looking at them so feel free to spoil stuff, just put an appropriate warning up for others who haven't played the game yet.

And for those who are curious, the blog Chris references can be found here.

So you may be wondering why it's been two months since you last heard from us, and I'd be happy to tell you, but first, go ahead and play this YouTube video. Trust me.

So, remember on the last episode when I discussed the shock curse? Well, over the course of playing this game we all had a ton of technical and scheduling difficulties which we discuss briefly in the show. Unfortunatly, one became apparent only after I recorded this episode; My headset broke while we were recording.

What this means for you guys, and I'm horribly sorry about this, is that I've had to edit this episode rather heavily. There's gonna be some popping and cutting in and out from my microphone, and sometimes a conversation may sound kind of awkward due to having to edit out a portion of it, but hopefully you guys still enjoy it, and hopefully I won't have to do another Shock game for a while.

Oh, something else I forgot, my first Xbox 360 went red ring on me while playing Bioshock for the first time, so yeah, I'm probably going to avoid these games in the future. They're starting to cost me a small fortune. At least it gave me an excuse to listen to this Stevie Wonder song again though. That's some seriously sweet bass.

So our next show will be our listener's choice episode covering Mirrors Edge! Be looking for that in a couple of weeks or so, and as always, feel free to post some questions or suggestions in the comments below.

So, funny story, I think Backloggers Anonymous is cursed when it comes to handling games designed by Irrational. The reason? Well, this is actually our second first recording for System Shock 2. The first one somehow disappeared from my computer after we recorded it, and the backup is gone too. I half expected SHODAN to email me something like I'VE DELETED YOUR PODCAST, INSECT, but that didn't happen, so I'm gonna chalk it up to the curse.

What curse you may ask? Well here's a little trivia for you. Originally, I wasn't the guy in charge of Backloggers. This was actually JD's idea, and he had the helm for our first series of podcasts. The topic? BioShock. Guess what, those are gone too.

Weird stuff.

Anyway, curse or no curse, we're soldiering on. This time I'm joined by Julian and our site director, Nick. We talk about the game's historical relevance, how it's aged, and why you should never trust someone with a face like this guy. 

Seriously, what is it with future people? If you create a super powerful AI, give it a name like Xerxes, and a face like that, you're just asking for trouble.

Anyway, we'll do our best to defy the curse and bring you another podcast in a few weeks where we'll discuss everything there is to discuss about this game. If you're playing along with us, or just have some questions you'd like us to address, sound off below unless it's got spoilers. If it does, send me an email at [email protected]. See you next time.

Final thoughts: Pigsy is a pig, Monkey is kinda like a monkey, and Trip is... kinda hot. What, you want to know more? Well listen to the 'cast!

The play button is over there ----->

What I did want to do is let you know about an upcoming poll we'll be hosting here where you, the listeners will be determining what games we play next. I've posted a blog about it, and quite a few of you have already sounded off on what games you'd like us to play. We have plenty to choose from, but the nominations aren't closed yet! If there's a game you'd like us to play, be it current gen or retro, let me know either there or in the comments below and, if it's possible for us to play it, I'll put it in the upcoming poll.

Contributers for this cast: Angelo @pixlaj, JD @AMythKnownAsJD, and Julian @Julian_Titus

We're digging into another game from our backlog:  Ninja Theory's Enslaved. We start by getting Julian's take on backlogged games from 2012, then we talk about what kind of a game Enslaved is.

Rather than bog you down with what we discuss in the podcast (which you're gonna listen to anyway right? right?) I figured I'd show you some of the stuff we talked about on the podcast. So here's a video of Super Monkey Daibouken:

Here are the bonus bosses from Mega Man: The Wily Wars along with the characters they parallel in the Chinese epic:

Buster Rod. G (Sun Wukong, the monkey king)

Mega Water. S (Sha Wujing, the water buffalo)

Hyper Storm. H (Zhu Bajie, the pig guy)

While I'm at it, here's Infernape, the pokemon JD brought up in the 'cast:

Also, there's this, just for fun:

Feel free to hit us up on Twitter or just reply in the comments below. We really want your feedback on stuff like this, and we're always looking for input about what games you want us to cover on Backloggers. I'm Angelo Grant (@pixlaj), and I'm joined this time by Julian Titus (@Julian_Titus), and JD (@AMythKnownAsJD).

I'm gonna keep this brief because frankly, I'm not feeling so great. We finished Darksiders. We had more fun talking about it than we did with the back half of the game. We get into some pretty weird things to talk about like sound effects and... horse physics. Maybe my fever started earlier than I thought.

Oh, I did manage to find a monkey that pulled off the tough guy thing better than War, so there's that...

Anyway, as we've already discussed, this is an out and out spolier 'cast, so make sure you've finished the game or given up on it before you listen to it. We pick up at the Ash Lands (the desert section) and play all the way through to the end. You have been warned!

One thing I fogot to mention and I feel horrible about, there's a zombie Mr. Peanut hidden in the game. I found him in two places, but apparently he has a few more appearances. He's actually pretty fun to fight as well, so hunt him down if you want to, and feel free to discuss him in the comments!

Also, suggestions! We do have the next two podcasts already planned out and will be playing Enslaved next, but we want to know what you want us to play. If you have any ideas, let us know, and if we think it's a good fit, will add it to our ever growing list of considerations for this podcast.

Great news! Well, for me anyway - I’m on vacation. What this means is we won’t be talking about Darksiders this week. Instead, I’ve decided to solo this podcast and talk about one of my favorite things about modern gaming: the music.

We’ll get started talking about the awesomeness that is Capcom, whose 8 bit chiptunes are in an elite class with the likes of Konami and Nintendo themselves. There’s a big reason why they were my favorite developer as a child, and a lot of that had to do with their music.

We won’t be stopping there though. What do Link and Gene Wilder have in common? What was the one redeeming quality about some of utter garbage Ocean crapped out on the SNES? It’s all here, so put on your headphones and start listening, because those lousy PC speakers aren’t gonna cut it this time!

I do have one bit of bad news. At the end of the podcast I promised a link, however, the creator's site is apparently down as none of the links to their MP3s currently work. Instead, here's a link to a YouTube video of another song from that album. From there, you can find out more about the author and listen to some more of their music, as well as see his channel and website.

Angst! Rage! Epic House Cleaning! It's all on this week's Backloggers Anonymous!

THQ is in the news yet again, and this time it seems like it's over for those guys. Jesse give us the lowdown, including who owns what properties after the auction, and we discuss this a bit before digging into the game proper.

We talk a little bit about the story, the combat, the soundtrack, and of course the dungeons. Believe it or not, as lacking as we found some of the story elements, we did find ourselves enjoying the characters a bit, and even finding some humor in how over-the-top War can be. Natrually, the star here is the gameplay, and it is solid, so if anybody out there was holding out, just know that after a slow start, the game does get fun once you get into that first dungeon.

Also, this is how I picture Jesse cleaning his house now:

We had some interesting things happen around this podcast, so make sure you stick around after the music for some outtakes, unless you hate fun or something.

Welcome to our little group. This time on Backloggers, I'm joined by Jesse and JD as we discuss Darksiders, and it's publisher THQ.

Before that though, JD tells us about his journey through Journey. We then discuss the videos he recorded and narrated for PIxlbit which I would encourage anyone who can't experience the game for themselves to check out. We then move on to the topic at hand.

Like Silicon Knights, the developers of Too Human, THQ has been in the news recently as well, and for all the wrong reasons to boot. Jesse has been watching this from the sidelines, and and explains what's going on in the confusing world of bankruptcy, asset acquisition, and sale of intellectual property. (Jesse's article, entitled THQ is not having a fire sale, can be found here.) We also speculate a little on what may become of THQ in the future. 

Finally, we talk about the game itself. What do we expect from it, what kind of game it is, stuff like that.

And these bad boys are darkSLIDERS. Get it?

Remember, the whole point of all this is for our listeners to give us feedback. We'd love to use some of your comments in our next episode, so tell us your thoughts in the comments.  For you PS+ members out there, apparently you can get the original Darsiders for free this week, so now even if this game wasn't in your backlog, you have no excuse not to play along with us!