After many discussions and bitchslaps we deciced that "the escape pod(cast)" was not only a silly name, it was also already taken.

Therefore, we decided to change the name. How we came up with the new name? Listen to the second episode of "your princess is in another podcast" to find out.

The episode also features a real live russian to discuss modern warfare 2 and russians being villains in a lot of games. It also features discussions about the best game ever - which is it? Does it exist?

I do want to apologise about the volume of my microphone, but I never have anything interesting to say anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Listen to it here:
http://www.destructoid.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15358

A couple of weeks ago me and my buddy Bjorn started a podcast. It was basically just us two talking shit. We called it "The escape pod(cast).

That name sucked.

With episode 2 recording tonight we have not only found our third member, but also a new name.

"Your princess is in another Podcast" episode 2 will feature a real live russian to comment on the now famous "no russian" chapter of Modern Warfare 2, a discussion about the best game ever and sexjokes.

Have you missed the first episode?

I'm not saying that you missed much, but here it is:
http://www.destructoid.com/forum/showthread.php?p=445572#post445572

I just wanted to tell you guys that I have started a youtube channel where I review movies.

Right now I am doing a Jackie Chan Marathon and I am working on the third part as I am writing this.

Here's the second part:



If you like it please subscribe since I will be doing these ones quite a bit from now on.

So scribblenauts has been out for a couple of days now. At least where most of you are. Me, I'm from sweden and we donät get the game until early October.

So yeah, I downloaded the leaked version. Calm down, I WILL buy it when it comes out! If only to support the developers for being brave and trying something different. Doesn't really matter cause my version just freezes after the tutorial anyway.

But I did manage to fuck around some with the start screen, combining wierd objects and see what happens - a kind of preview for me since I still have to wait 21 fucking days for the game.

So just a quick question - what wierd stuff have you cooked up? Got Bigfoot to hang out with a couple of aliens trying to figure out what to do with a pizza?

Tell me! I want to hear all about that shit!

This post is going to earn me a lot of angry comments and Jim Sterling himself might come to my house and rape me. But why are everybody so goddamn surprised that Sonic games have sucked the last years? In my opinion, Sonic has never really been all that good. People who loves Sonic games but at the same time thought Mirrors Edge had a lot of issues should probably rethink this a little bit.

Let me explain.

Sonic the hedgehog is all about speed. A person who claims that the Sonic games are about percision platforming was probably high when controlling our blue friend with an attitued and a voice of a 7-year old - sorry, that didn't happen until later, I wont mention this again in this post, promise. My point is - on the Megadrive (or "Genesis" in your country - the US of A) Sonic was programmed in a way that he started out real slow and the longer you were running, the more speed he gained - pretty basic, but vital to my point. This made him pretty clumsy when trying to jump from plattform to plattform furthermore proving my point that Sonic is all about speed.

Going back to Mirrors Edge. That game recieved a lot of mixed feelings among gamers. Some applauded the games daring approach towards first person gaming, others thought the pace of the game was way too bumpy for it to be a great game. Most people though the parts of the game containing large, angry men hunting you with guns slowed the game down way too much. The last room of the game, containing about ten of these angry men, was -according to many- the most anticlimactic ending ever - since the rest of the game is all about speed.

Back to Sonic. He's running. He's Running fast. DAMN he's fast! So fast, he runs straight into a fish jumping right into his face... death. What? This is the first time I'm playing this level... how was I supposed to know that? The area before was completely empty with enemies which led me to believe I was supposed to start running for an upcoming loop, jump or something like that. Instead it was a fucking trap. The Sonic games are full of these. If the Sonic games are about speed, why make obsticles so impossible to avoid when at full speed? Why make a game made about running, if it makes you slow down every five seconds?

Here is where I see similarities between Sonic and Mirrors edge. The only difference is that the cute enemies from Sonic have been replace with angry men with guns.

"But Sonic is about trial and error, the levels become really fun and smooth when you know them." I almost beat the XBL record on the first levels on Mirrors Edge on Time Trail. I have played through the game over ten times and know every level by heart - Mirrors Edge is about trial and error, the levels become really fun and smooth when you know them. WHOA! That was creepy...

Seriously though. I digress too much. My point...no... my QUESTION is this: Is the fans love to Sonic a lot about nostalgia? When it came out I can understand why people loved it - it looked amazing, sounded amazing and Sonic himself was much cooler than Mario. But was the gameplay really that great? Didn't the progammers realize their game wasn't perfect? Why not zoom out a little but, put sonic further to the left so you could see the level in front of you when running? The game could still be made challenging, but maybe the challenges could be more speed-related? How? How the fuck should I know? You got any ideas?

If you are a Sonic fan I would love if you could show me what I do not understand. Tell me what is so great with this blue hedgehog with the voice of a 7 yeFUCK!

I am an adventure gamer. This does not mean that I exclusively play adventure games and refuse even spending a buck on the occasional rpg or shooter. I do not sit alone in a corner mumbling something about cancelled Full Throttle sequels while my fellow gamers discuss the new class featured in Diablo 3. I am simply one of the lycky people grew up with masterpieces like Monkey Island, Day of the tentacle, Broken Sword and other games that ignored the 3d-hype for many years. I am simply one of the lucky people who today can walk around with a big, ridiculous smile on my face knowing that we finally got our fifth Monkey Island game (kind of).

Sure, we adventure gamers are now finally getting our sequels and remakes we deserve, but still not everything is right in the universe of point-click-and-huge-pockets. I have a confession to make. I sometimes use walkthroughs. THERE! I SAID IT! The first step towards getting help is admitting that you have a problem, right? But am I really the one with the problem? I talk to a lot of cigarr-smoking, whiskey-sipping people in their 40's who play nothing else than adventure games. Even these people, people who grew up playing the Zork-games only dreaming of seeing their actions acted out with graphics, used a strategy guide when playing Gabriel Knight 3.


Get a mustasch to get past this guy!


In a sense, this is a problem pretty unique to the adventure game genre. I play a lot of shooters, and there is mostly only one reason to use a strategy guide or walkthrough while playing these games - design flaws. The designers simply did a bad job of hinting where you should go next. This is mostly resolved by throwing yourself at every door you can find, resulting in you finding either an item that will open that locked door in the other room or an area you missed where you will be greeted by random henchmen or minions screaming "SURPRISE!", but with bullets. If you get stuck somewhere else in the game it is often simply because of an enemy or boss, which is often resolved by trying different tactics until you successfully exploit the flaws in the coding of the AI by camping in a constant blind-spot.

The only way to get stuck in an RPG is to encounter an enemy that you simple cannot defeat. The solution to this is hours and hours of grinding through hordes of nameless enemies either resulting of you sailing through the rest of the game without any challenge or you throwing the disk out the window.

My point is simple. Most adventure games have only one solution, meaning there is only one way to proceed to the next part of the game. On paper it is hard to understad why adventure games are as popular as they are when presnted with this fact. Luckily, this fact have never stopped the genre. You could compare this to a crossword or a puzzle - yes, the kind your grandma solves on the kitchen table, not the digital ones. There is only one solution there too, but people all over the world still enjoy these kinds of puzzles every day. It's because of the satisfaction you get when finishing the puzzle, it makes you feel smart.


You and your grandma.

This is the reason adventure games have survived all these years. But what about us that never got to experience that feeling in Gabriel Knight 3? What about us that never got off the first island in Myst? Will we never get to experience the rest of the story? Just because we couldn't read the developers mind?

There are a lot of obsicles that stand in the way of me and finishing these games, but one bothers me the most - new areas. Developers, on the other hand, seems to love these, because they fill them with everything in the WORLD. Ten thousand new rooms, each filled with fifty thousand items and one million characters with ten billion lines of text each. This often results in information overload for me. I talk to all the characters, examine all the rooms and pick up all the items - what now? I am now presented with about one million puzzles, all right - lets stop the exaggerations to get this in perspective. I am presented with three to five different puzzles and problems. I probably picked up about ten items and discovered six new locations and talked to four new characters. Where do I start? Where is the first piece of this puzzle? These situations often result in me trying to give every item in my inventory to every character I meet hoping for a positiv reaction.


I don't know what to write... DAMN i just got the munchies for cheese!

I am not asking developers to delete the situations all together and present you to puzzles room by room, that would be boring. These situations simply need adjustments. A good example of this made right is the recently released Tales of Monkey Island chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. After solving the first puzzles on the boat you arrive on an island. After talking to a couple of characters it becomes very clear what you have to, and after picking up a few items you can even figure out in what order. Some people argue that the first episode was way too easy but I disagree. It was simply very well designed.

Don't get me wrong. I love a challenge. I have finished a lot of adventure games without the help of a walkthrough, I don't consult Gamefaqs everytime I hit a little bump in the road. I am simple asking you, my fellow gamers - should I rather leave a game unfinished than consulting a guide? Should I have to consult a guide? Are adventure games too hard?

Let me know what you think.