Staring at Screens.

Shiver me timbers! Avast, ye landlubbers — nope, I can't do it. I can't in good conscience do this hackneyed piratical voice. Let's try this again.

In this week's episode, Lisa talks about the first episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, the result of Feminist Frequency's highly successful Kickstarter and that super-feel-good story about the father who hacked Donkey Kong so his daughter could play as Pauline; Vick is introduced to the excellent (and very "jin zhang") Uncharted 2; Dave does a bunch of collecting in the form of trinkets in Tomb Raider and ridiculous fish in Ridiculous Fishing; and Joel tries out the innovative platformer (of course it's a platformer) Snapshot and reports a growing annoyance with SimCity.

Given the recent furore over the always-online nature of SimCity and the growing public perception that this design choice is DRM-motivated we thought it would be fitting to discuss the motivations behind Videogame Piracy and Anti-Piracy countermeasures over the years. For the record, Staring At Screens does not condone video game piracy, but if you have a differing view or an interesting perspective on piracy, DRM, or anything we discussed in this episode, write to us at [email protected] or tweet us @StaringScreens.

Also, you wouldn't steal a car. Would you?

Links

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Why Mike Mika hacked Donkey Kong for his Daughter

John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

The IndieRoyale Thoughtful Bundle

Trailer for Snapshot

This week Dave hunts animals in Tomb Raider and then gets distracted by SimCity, Joel hunts people in Crysis 3 and only stops for SimCity, Vick develops a conscience about letting bad things happen to Sims in SimCity, and Lisa rounds out the discussion about SimCity with still more SimCity. Yes, Dear Listener, if you haven't already figure it out we have SimCity on the brain this week!

If you'd like to weigh in on anything SimCity-related write to us at [email protected] or Tweet us @StaringScreens. Also, Will Wright, if you're reading this and you remember meeting an 8-year-old SimEarth-obsessed Dave in Taiwan 22 years ago, please feel free to contact us to corroborate his fantastical claims.

Did I forget to mention we played a bunch of SimCity?

On this week's episode, Dave gets his JRPGame on in the form of more Ni No Kuni and Persona 4 Golden, Vick discovers her latent ability for racing games in Real Racing 3, Joel finds a use for horse armor in DLC Quest, and we all get creeped out by Swedish folklore in Simogo's masterpiece Year Walk.

We also discuss the bygone age of Expansion Packs, the maturing of the DLC era, and hint at the advent of the In-App-Purchase dynasty. Along the way we point fingers at The Sims, Warcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, the Mass Effect games, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands 2, the Professor Layton games, and Batman: Arkham City. Name drops abound in this segment.

Then in the mailbag section we get carried away and end up only having time enough to answer one question about predictions for the next generation of consoles. Even more name dropping ensues: Steambox, Ouya, PS4, Xbox Durango, Wii U, and even the Barbie games get a mention. Whut. If you have anything to add to our discussion or if you'd like to hijack our train of thought, send us an email at [email protected] or tweet us at @StaringScreens and we'll do our best to lose focus for you.

We're back from a one-week break! Did you miss us? We certainly missed you! Now we've got lots of catching up to do, so let's skip the topical discussion this week and jump straight into the games we've played. First up, we finally get our grubby paws on Ni No Kuni: Wrath of The White Witch for PS3 and everybody's got an opinion on that. Then Joel discovers Minecraft anew on an OMGeek Tekkit Lite server, Dave gets creative with DrawQuest, and Lisa gets destructive with Little Inferno.

Let's also talk Gaming News. How about that PS4 announcement, huh? Huh? What do you think about that feature-packed controller? Do you want your console experience to be more social? And what about those exciting upcoming games: Deep Down, The Witness, Watch Dogs and Diablo III? Okay, maybe not Diablo III. Tell us what you think by writing to us at [email protected]! In other news the perennial Plants Vs. Zombies is free for a limited time on iOS!

Finally we want to give a big shout out to all our new listeners and those who found us via our Swagathon or via our 15 minutes of fame on /r/Gaming. Welcome, Redditors, and we hope you like what you hear enough to stay. Forever.

Some links:

• Didn't wake up early to watch it live? Here's the PS4 Announcement Abridged to get you caught up quick.
• Okay, that was a joke, but here's a serious article about mitigating your PS4 expectations despite the post-announcement euphoria.
• Indie Royale Chosen Bundle where you can get the short but very funny DLC Quest (Not long to go! 2 days left at the time of posting.)

Gong Xi Fa Cai! We ring in the lunar new year with the critically acclaimed indie hit from Playdead — Limbo, the tongue-in-cheek adventure-platformer from DoubleFine — The Cave, and that highly addictive iOS tap-athon from LambdaMu — Pixel People. Special Mention also goes to the upcoming DLC for Assassins Creed 3: The Tyranny of King Washington and the inexplicable Hitman movie reboot.

And because it's also Valentines Day this week, our topic of the week is Video Game Characters that We Would Consider Dating. Find out who in the SAS crew would date royalty for the perks, who could stand to make better life choices, and who has a thing for busty ladies. (Spoiler-alert depending on your KOTOR in-game choices: "Bastila-dies". )

Now if you follow us on Twitter @StaringScreens (How are you not yet following us on Twitter??) you may have seen some photos of our hot-off-the-presses swag in action. That's right Dear Listener, if you haven't already figured it out, the sticky things we teased in last week's episode are… Staring At Screens stickers! Here's a photo of the full sheet. See if you can name all the games we referenced!

Want one? Here's how to get in on the action. Tweet about our podcast to one or more of your followers and link them to http://www.staringatscreens.org/ and put our Twitter name (@StaringScreens) in there for good measure. For example:

Or if you don't really use Twitter, you can still participate by telling your Facebook friends and sharing the website link with them, like so:

Then send us an email ([email protected]) and attach a screenshot of the deed, as well as your name and snail mail address, and we'll figure out a way to send you your swag! While stocks last, so don't delay!

Also please be reminded that we will be taking a short one-week break, so no episode next week! But we'll be back the week after, so stay tuned to Staring at Screens!

On this week's episode we have news for you! Namely Nintendo ruling out any Wii U price cut in the near future, Sony's highly anticipated 20 Feb announcement (read: PS4), rumored PS4 specs (no backwards compatibility!) and the release dates for SimCity and GTA V. In other news, Joel also waxes lyrical about 17-Bit's Skulls of The Shogun, Lisa educates us about Pixel People by LambdaMu Games, and Dave introduces us to Ryan Evans' fishy masterpiece Cod of Duty.

The topic of the week is the Global Game Jam 2013 and a few of the games that caught our eye. There's that viral (geddit?) hit Surgeon Simulator 2013, the promising FTL-like platformer Noel, the surprisingly polished bubble-eater Arrhythmia, and that creepy and slightly mystifying game The Watcher. That's all we had time on the show for, but there's a whole gamut of interesting games birthed from this event that you can (and should) check out on the GGJ2013 website.

Just want to take a moment to give a shout out to our friends at OMGeek.net (pronounced "Ohm-Geek") — HELLO!! Check them out. They're cool. Finally don't forget to write to us ([email protected]) or tweet us (@StaringScreens) and get as many of your friends as possible to follow and listen to us! If you do, we'll send you something… sticky. ;)

In our most puerile episode to date, Joel reveals that he doesn't know anything about DMC: Devil May Cry, Vick tries to convince us to start playing Candy Crush before it's too late, and Dave apologizes for maligning The Blockheads which as it turns out, is a pretty good game! Oh and Lisa has a blue hat.

This week we examine the topic of in-game Tutorials. Along the way we make reference to Temple Run 2, Zookeeper and Half Life to name a few. We also highly recommend watching Egoraptor's seminal (hurhur) work, Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X.

What do you guys think? Are in-game tutorials really necessary? Can we live without them? Tell us what you think via email or tweet us @StaringScreens. Don't forget, if you get your friends to listen to the podcast and follow us on Twitter, we'll send you something awesome. /InvisibleCarrotDangle

Links:

The #Objectify event planned by Leigh Alexander and Ben Abraham…

… and why they (rightly) decided to call it off.

This week, Vick gives us her first impressions of Temple Run 2, Dave feels dirty about the half-hour he spent on The Blockheads, Joel finally takes the plunge and starts a game of Civilization V, and Lisa… slurps her drink loudly. Aaand that's it for the new games we've played this week. Sorry guys, it's been a busy week. You know how it is. (Read: Awesomenauts. Ahem.)

The topic of the week is Games and/or Game Mechanics that have not stood the test of time. I mean, what were we thinking when we voluntarily subjected ourselves to these things back in the day? It's not all bad news though; we also give a shout out to Games and/or Game Mechanics that have aged well, and would still be eminently playable today. Here's a non-exhaustive list of name drops we make along the way: Tamagotch(i), Duke Nukem Forever, Retro City Rampage, Who Shot Johnny Rock, the Leisure Suit Larry series, the Mario Kart games and Virtua Tennis of all things. Damn, we're old.

If you know of some well-aged/putrid old Games/Mechanics that we've missed, tell us by dropping us an email or tweet us @StaringScreens. PS. We're sorry for making fun of Star Wars; it was disrespectful to the dead.

Links:

Leisure Suit Larry Kickstarter (it's been successfully funded btw)

YouTube video of some of the wacky minigames in Virtua Tennis 2009

This week the Staring At Screens gang didn't attend CES 2013 in Las Vegas, but we did read the same stuff you did on teh interwebz, so in the podcast we talk about the things that intrigued us most. Prepare your ears for inCESsant namedropping in the form of upcoming Android gaming devices like the Nvidia Shield and the Ouya; Valve's Steambox prototypes like Xi3-developed Piston; and about the Razer Edge, which oddly enough, might just be the first true Steambox device that consumers can get their hands on.

In other news, Vick tells us more about Guardian Heroes on iOS and Fable: The Journey for Xbox360 (Kinect required) and Joel spends way too much time on Far Cry 3. We also talk about some videogame-related movies that we recently watched, namely Wreck-it Ralph and Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. Keep those tissues handy, folks, because it's an emotional episode of Staring At Screens.

Links:

Minecraft: The Story of Mojang

The Verge's interview with Gabe Newell

Time talks about Xi3's Piston prototype

Android Authority compares Android gaming devices

CNet's CES article on the Razer Edge

Dont forget now that Joel has Gunnar specs, he wants to make more friends! You may contact him, and the rest of us at [email protected] - oh, don't forget to throw us some questions, comments, and feedback too!

"So intense!"

On this episode of Staring at Screens, Dave and Lisa tell us more about the online competitive play in Awesomenauts and Joel explains the fiddly manual map building in Legend of Grimrock. Along the way we make reference to DOTA, Gunbound, Soldat, Clash of The Clans, and Ultima Underwear Underworld.

It's still the beginning of 2013 and we're making new year's resolutions! Specifically, resolutions to finish some unfinished games that have been gathering dust on our shelves/Steam libraries. We also examine the reasons behind the phenomenon of not finishing games that we start, or in Vick's case, her reasons for finishing every single game. If you have any games that you resolve to finish in 2013, or have reasons to add about why people finish/don't finish games, write to us at [email protected] or tweet us @StaringScreens! We love to hear from our listeners, so tell us what you think!

To round up, here be links! To that cool site that does an analysis of your Steam Library, and the app that was mentioned in the mailbag.