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Podcast and Q4 Talk
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There is a new Podcast up. Our best ever. It includes our first Reader Mail segment, which is something we'll definitely be doing again, once we get enough mail. Hint, hint. Send questions, critiques, pranks, what-have-you to letters@gamegrump.com.
In other news: Q4 is here, snowing us under in great games. Just like Hollywood's year-end rush to the Oscar season, publishers cram their games onto shelves at about this time, grasping for the holiday dollars. Just off the top of my head, the games I'd love to be playing include: New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Left 4 Dead 2, Brutal Legend, Borderlands, Assassin's Creed II, and Beatles Rock Band. All of these will have to wait. Some of them will wait forever.
I rationed myself two games that I actually am playing this season. One is the game I wanted the most, the other is the game I wanted the least. The 'Most' is Forza 3, the best damn racing game ever created, bar none. I wax orgasmic on the podcast, and I'm sure I'll do a Feature article at some point, so I'll leave it at that.
The Game I Wanted Least was Modern Warfare 2, a.k.a. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, a.k.a. Call of Duty 6, a.k.a. the sequel to Call of Duty 4 (forget in-game violence -- parents should vilify the industry for its confusing sequel structure). Didn't want it. But I own it. The reason is simple: peer pressure. It's what the cool kids are playing. Them, and my friends online. I didn't like its prequel, but I caved because online play with buddies is worth it. And after the initial 'this game is bullshit I keep dying' phase, it actually turns out to be really, really good. So all is forgiven.
Well, no. Not quite all. The much publicized 'No Russian' sequence in the game is offensive, gratuitous, pointless, and completely devoid of the poignance that I'm sure they thought it had. But it is worth discussing, though not for the reasons that the developers probably intended.
I'll be posting my thoughts on that, too... but it will have to wait for another day. Enjoy the 'cast. Play Forza 3. Game Happy. Eat Turkey.
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Parry by Daniel Dujnic
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I have internet!I'd leave this till the next podcast but then I'd be abysmally out of touch instead of just merely late to the party: I just watched the 'No Russian' level on YouTube. Yes, it's awful, but I think we are becoming dangerously close to gratuitous use of the word 'gratuitous'.You are impudently vague, so I'll come out and say it: This isn't that bad when taken in the context of the game itself, and in the context of games in general. GTA will have your character do horrible things, and that is only slightly less lovingly rendered. They wanted something that would make the player uncomfortable and perhaps think about why they are playing this game in the first place. That's what they got, I'll bet this is the point in the game where many people said 'Fuck it' and went for multiplayer.This type of content is not new, but in TV or film it might be brushed aside and forgotten. People will say (and probably already have) it's different somehow because there is human participation in the gamer. This is laughable because feedback to a mass medium is part of the equation in everything from newspapers to flash videos. That is the whole point: To have your audience engaged and involved. Even though you might not be doing the evil thing on the movie screen, you are sometimes forced to feel as if you had. Video games have the bad luck of having literal inputs.
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'Podcast and Q4 Talk'
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#&rendershop#
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