Show Note: Our site is still down. We’ll keep you posted on the progress when we make some. Eventually.

Show Note Note: No show next weekend. And maybe the weekend after. But we’ll DEFINITELY be back on May 2nd. Regardless, absolutely no show next weekend.

I need to make an apology to a long time listener of the show. Daniel writes to us from time to time and, in fact, did so THREE times this week. I had every intention of answering him live on the air for this episode, but completely forgot to do so. I am so terribly sorry. Especially given near the end of the show I talk about running out of things to talk about when I had your emails right there.

To make up for this, I plan to do a special video to answer those emails but do so while playing some pinball (the questions were pinball related, you see). Look for that video soon.

Finally, let me thank all of you for sticking with us during this time of…whatever this is. It’s weird and different and strange and sometimes uncomfortable. But you all keep coming back to us for a show and so I promise you that we will all do our best to keep bringing you a show as often as we can.

Thank you! And we’ll see you soon.

Show Note: We’re having issues with our website and it’s being looked into but as no one is getting paid and this is being done on favor-work, it’s not getting rushed. We’ll get it fixed, but please bear with us while we do so. The episodes can still be found on YouTube and the audio is always where it has been if you know how to work the url. Our apologies at this time. On with the show post…

We’ve come to a point in time now where, for the foreseeable future, I’ll be the only one actually doing the show. This isn’t for any other reason than because of the current situation in the world, and our state, at the moment. I explain the whole thing within the first 10 minutes or so of this episode. It amounts to the whole state-wide stay-at-home order going on and while I have the means to show I’m employed as an essential person with the radio station I work for…everyone else on the show, sadly isn’t. And yes, it may be fine for them to make it to the station and likely won’t see anything come of this as far as the police are concerned, I can’t, in good faith, ask them to put themselves in that position.

Anyway, it’ll be a while like this and I’d rather not run replays for weeks on end until this is over, so you’re going to be getting a whole lot of me for the next few weeks or more. We’ll all try to make the best of it as we can.

That being said, it was nice to hear from some folks in this episode that we haven’t spoken with in a while and also to get some idea of how the rest of the world is handling this – even individually. And we still try and talk about games as well for a little bit too.

Look, as much as I hate these precautions and not having my friends on the show with me, I understand it has to be done. And this is just a small part of it and I hope you’re doing your part as well to keep yourself and others safe during this time.

We’ll…I’ll see you next weekend.

We try to go over just exactly what was revealed on the new consoles this week. It’s mostly a lot of technical stuff. The guts of the systems. And while that’s always good to have and gives you some idea of what we’re getting with these machines, it doesn’t really give us much of an idea of anything else. On paper, with stats and everything, Microsoft seems to pull ahead here with power. So, there’s that, but you can only go so far on power if there aren’t any games to use it with. And there will be, but the decision on buying a console doesn’t come from stat sheets. It comes from price, availability, and games available. We’re pretty much in the dark on all three of those at this point.

Things happen fast. No sooner had we finished our broadcast when news broke about the change in GameStop’s operations. This was less than 30 minutes after being off the air. So keep that in mind as you listen to us talk about it towards the end of this episode.

Also keep in mind that we won’t have a show next week. In case you’re curious it has nothing to do with what’s currently going on in the world. It’s just a simple break, that’s all.

We all hope you and your family are staying safe during this time and doing what’s needed to keep yourself and others safe as well. Our hobby goes a long way in helping that happen or to at least pass the time while doing so.

From last week with an abundance of topics, or at least having topics with plenty of discussion to be had…to a show with very little to be discussed. We do, in fact, run out of content well before the end of the show.

The dominating topic is, obviously, the one that’s currently dominating all discussions. Locally, here in our state (and city) where our broadcasts originate from, we’ve only started dealing with the effects of COVID-19 since Friday with our first confirmed case being that morning. It’s grown since then and as all of you know, it grows hour by hour. Either in cases found or new closings or shut downs to prevent the spread.

And that’s a little bit of where gaming steps in. After so many other cancellations or postponements, the really big show of E3 finally made their choice this week to cancel. This leaves so many windows open as to what will happen. A few companies were kind of on a timeline to reveal some pretty big things and now they aren’t. Now they all get to pick when to have their E3 moment.

It’s an interesting time, to be sure, and could become MUCH more interesting in the months ahead, even past that of June. Like pretty much everything and everyone else, we’re just going to have to take it day by day to see how things play out.

Leave it to some survey to bring out a topic that could last us an entire show. I mean, it doesn’t last the whole show, but we easily could have squeezed an hour out of discussing video game movies. And we were just talking about ones that haven’t even been made yet much less the talk we could have had on the ones already out there and upcoming.

I’ve been recently getting back into DOOM from 2016. It’s fun, of course, but there isn’t much to say about it outside of that. I could say it’s all style and no substance but that wouldn’t be correct either. It’s got both, but not much of either. It isn’t a bad game at all. It does pretty much one thing and it does it well. I mean, it’s practically the best at what it does, but I can’t go much further than that. I’m not very far into it, actually, so maybe I’m being a little too hasty with the comments and this thing will blow my mind in a few levels, but so far…it’s DOOM. Again, let me stress, it’s not bad. It’s not boring. It’s absolutely fine and fun and enjoyable. There’s just, so far at least, not much to it.

So, what’s the appeal of DOOM Eternal? I honestly haven’t looked much into it and that’s something that will change here not long after I post this, but I’m guessing it’s just more of the same and, really, for a game like DOOM – that’s all it has to be.

Video gaming confession: When a game lets you pick sides of good or evil (Mass Effect, Infamous, etc.), I have ALWAYS taken the good path first.

There is always the intention of going evil on a second play through, but there is rarely ever a second play through. I may dip my toe in the evil waters for a bit to start with a second time, but it almost never ends up that I play the whole campaign again.

And honestly, I feel like I’ve missed out. I’ve talked about this before but the evil side of things is usually the more fun play through. In Infamous, I’m too concerned about collateral damage when playing as a good guy, yet when going the evil route – nothing matters. And honestly, that’s more fun for me. Or maybe it’s more fun because I just spent days and hours being so cautious as to what I was doing that finally having that off my shoulders just makes it more fun.

An example for Mass Effect would just be that you put an ungodly amount of time into that game that going back to it isn’t all that fun of an idea. Maybe years down the line you may take another look, but the investment is so great it isn’t the most exciting idea to be starting over.

Someone once said, and I guess they were right: Evil will always triumph. Because good is dumb.

I know we’re going to be getting new consoles this year, but that’s about all I know. There’s details on each, yeah, but the things like a release date and price are yet to be determined. And while normally we’d expect these things at E3, that hasn’t always been the case. And especially now with Sony saying they won’t be at E3 or even have a press conference, it puts their reveal up in the air.

I’m okay with this. They’ll do it on their own time and that’s fine. Microsoft has done this as well, so to speak. I think we got a ton of details about the Xbox One at a special event in May of that year (boy did they push that whole TV aspect) before E3 and then they used E3 to highlight the games. I’m not sure Sony has ever done anything like that but it seems this will be the year they do, since they won’t be at E3. Now the fun part is when. Who shows their hand first? Release date isn’t so much of an issue as price. Being first on the shelf doesn’t really mean anything if you aren’t the cheapest on the shelf. And honestly, if ANY of these companies are looking at a five hundred dollar price tag, Nintendo is going to look awfully good at $300 come the holiday season for parents. Which, by the way, is all I’m considering here. The die hards and enthusiasts, they’ll be out in full force for the console of choice they want and price be damned. But the holiday season and sales, when the kids are asking for a new game console and parents look at the options – that five hundred dollars will NEVER win over something less than that. I get that Nintendo is an outlier, but five hundred may be a bridge too far for a lot of families.

Five hundred, so far, seems to be the cap on a price people are willing to pay for a gaming console. But that’s hard to tell, really. When the Xbox One was released it was five hundred and Sony was four. People went the cheaper route. Had Sony also been five at the time, I don’t know what would have happened. The first SKU’s of the PS3 were in the six hundred dollar range and that was a disaster.

This part of the new console release cycle is always my favorite. Who pulls the trigger first and what happens when they do?

And now, pardon my rant. I spend FAR too much time in this episode discussing E3 and probably retreading over ground I’ve already spent far too much time on in the past. Even worse, I could have continued on were it not for the need to take a commercial break. In a way, I’m thankful we have those so it can pull us off one track and set us on the path of another.

All that time spent on E3 kept us from getting to something else I could have ranted on and that’s the price of the next generation of consoles when they release later this year. Sony has already seem to let slip their issues with keeping costs low but I have plenty of thoughts and ideas on that which will have to wait until next week because, again, spent far too much time on E3. More than E3 should get, to be honest. Anyway, yeah, I’m just retreading it all again if I tell you here but I do try to explain some of it in the episode and, more than rant, I try to find possible solutions to whatever it is I’m complaining about. Something I wish more people would do, actually.

I don’t mind the complaining, but at least try and find something constructive to give back. Even if the folks at E3 won’t listen.

They never do.

Pardon our delay. It was completely unexpected but as you can tell from our little video on twitter last week, I was still in no condition to run the show. Thanks for sticking around, however.

Given the situation, the discussion leads into the kind of games we play when we just aren’t feeling all that well. How do you handle it? Obviously, for some and depending on just how bad you feel, no gaming is a valid option. But, for me, I could easily stand to play…something…just so long as it didn’t require a whole lot of work on my part. A city sim, or something ultra casual without a timer or quick reflexes and I was good. And a “timer” could be anything…just so long as it didn’t put some sort of needless demand on my part. Tower defense would be another good genre to play with while out for the count with a cold or something. We all have different ideas of what that is for us and I’m curious what it might be for you.

We try to catch up on the past few weeks of missed news, but just catching up with ourselves pretty much takes up the time. Still, we give a quick rundown of what’s gone on lately – even if we have very little to say about it.

Mainly because I was totally under the weather something horrible.

Thankfully, Plague, Inc. was there to comfort me.

Games Done Quick wrapped up last night after the show. If you aren’t familiar with that it’s a gaming charity where people raise money while playing games as fast as they can, usually with exploits and glitches. And oh man are there glitches. I’ve watched a few speedruns from time to time, but this was a marathon of speedrunning and it was insane to see some of the things pulled off. If you have a chance, take a look at some of the highlights from this year’s runs. Also, look for anything with TASBot – especially the run for Super Mario Bros. 2. That’s a game I hadn’t given thought to in a very long time but was blown away by the speedrun of it…and done by a robot no less.

Ultimately GDQ raised over 3.1 million dollars (a new record) for a cancer charity and I couldn’t be more proud of the gaming community for doing so. Seeing this all come together last night reminded me of just how much gaming gives back. There’s a stereotype of gamers and the gaming community and some it is, unfortunately, spot on while some of it is also completely insulting and has no basis in any sort of fact at all. There’s charity gaming events throughout the year that raise millions of dollars for all kinds of great causes. Extra Life, Child’s Play, GDQ twice a year, and plenty of others. Currently there’s been a lot of gaming devs and publishers who are selling special in-game items with all the proceeds going to the Australian wildfire efforts.

The whole point here is – there’s a lot of good in gaming. And if you’ve chosen to believe those negative stereotypes or for whatever reason look down upon the hobby, try finding the good in it, because it’s there. And you might be surprised.