Question for Anthony: Being the connoisseur of artgames that you are, what would you consider as being the best effort from game publishers at releasing a retail artgame? I know that game publishers have a long way to go, but surely they have put up some kind of effort that you have noticed.

What game series do you think could make successful branching into different genres? Recently (Well, a long time, but it still sounds cool), I keep thinking of a Metal Gear Solid fighting game and how awesome it would be.

Or, alternatively, are there any characters in a game you think deserve their own spin-off game? For me, I think that The Boss from MGS could and SHOULD have a game about her.

Pancakes!

What was the last game that really got you emotionally?
So much that you were shouting at the bad guy because, yeah he's the bad guy and he did something terrible. Or because the good guy showed again why he is such a badass.
I'm not playing a lot of games but it is a long time ago that I did that.
Shouldn't that be a part of every RPG?

After hearing you guys go on and on about how amazing and artful shadow of the colossus is i decided to dust of my ps2 and buy the game. Well i start playing and the entire game was black and white with the image cutting out every so often for a second or 2.

And honestly i thought it was part of the game making a statement about the character seeing the world as black or white and the image cutting out things happening that the character would choose not to see to maintain his narrow view And that throughout the game more and more color would be added into the game world and the image would cut out less often as the characters views expand from the narrow spectrum he was seeing and choosing to see at the beginning of the game.

Well needless to say after a couple of hours it didnt change so i researched it and it turned out my video cable was no fully plugged in.

Now for the question what video game/console flaw have you expanded into an deeper meaning until you figured out it was actually a glitch/flaw?

Do you believe that Kotick's desire to raise prices, as seen with Modern Warefare 2's RRP in the UK, and Activision's stature in the industry will set a new standard for the industry that will eventually force out smaller developers and publishers and perhaps eventually create another crash?

How can gaming make a story based around character choices without giving it a feel of the old choose your own adventure books of the past? Without a subtle touch, the game could end up feeling shallow and almost linear. What are some of your ideas to prevent that?

Did any of you guys play the Fallout 3 DLCs? Did you not think that on the whole they were kinda below average, especially considering all the DLC together cost about the same as the original game? I just finished the Mothership Zeta DLC, was ok but it felt way too linear for Fallout 3 and kinda boring after a while. I wish that instead of these mini DLC packs they did one massive expansion like they did with The Shivering Isles for Oblivion.

Do you think console exclusivity could potentially lead to a game being pirated more frequently? For example I've got a 360 but no PS2 or PS3, and, not willing to to buy an entire console just to play one game, I decided to emulate Shadow of the Colossus on my PC instead. I know that this isn't a great example because the particular game in question spans console generations and may therefore be subject to reverse-compatibility issues anyway, but the idea remains.

If you sell every game you have ever owned, how much money would you have?

Oh shi---aww man

Here's a siegelpuntz (remember those) with a Billy Mays twist:
Any sports topics by Samit will make the rest of the crew Madden 10 seconds or less guaranteed!

Do you think Best Buy's price match experiment will actually work?

How awesome is it that WB has confirmed the return of Mortal Kombat to the big screen? Who should be cast as the leads?

What is your most highly anticipated game that will be released in the next six months for each platform you own?

Metal Gear Solid 4-style cutscenes or Half-Life 2-style "cutscenes"? Go!

Why isn't Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp more known? It's easily the best XBL Indie game.

Or, at the very least, the most fun.

Why are u covering for Jim? Just tell us he was taken out by the halo of greatness that comes from Robert patricks ballsack

I enjoy a good cutscene, personally I find people like revered anthony perplexing in the way that they bitch endlessly about how vidogames are above cutscenes and they should all be in game like Half-Life and Bioshock, but then won't say a thing about it in games like MGS4 which is Hideo Kojima showing just how much he'd rather be a movie director.

Also I think we need to look at how we define cutscene, because the way I see it is that even Half-life 2 (Half-Life 2: Episode 2 specifically has the most restrictive cutscenes in the series to date) has custscenes, your just capable of moving around while it happens and can't ever skip it if your replaying. A 'cutscene' as I've always interpreted it is a moment of exposition in a game designed to focus a players attention to an important event, character, or story moment. Examples include:

*SPOILER WARNING!!!*


Half-Life 2 Episode 2
When Eli Vance is killed at the end of episode 2, the player is literally pinned to the wall by an the alien telekinesis and is forced to watch and hear every moment as Alex watches her father die.

Call of Duty 4
After the Nuke goes off and you are allowed to stumble around for a few minutes, you have movement, but the restrictions upon you mean you have no choice but to sit back and study the mushroom cloud and ruined city.

Portal
Once you enter GlaDos’s chamber, you have total freedom of movement, but absolutely nothing to do besides fire the gun at the walls, You can’t go back, can’t go forward, and can’t skip GlaDos’s dialogue until the pod falls off.

*End Spoilers*

With these in mind, why do we still insist on only calling a MGS4 style event a cutscene while other developers get off the hook for the same thing, but a different perspective?

In regards to the games-as-art debate:

Which strategy has been/will be more successful, A.) using games as a medium for exploring real world issues and human themes or B.) exploring the art of games-as-games and dealing with the aesthetics and mechanics and history of computer games. In other words, if games are art, should they be realistic art or abstract?

What do you all think about Metal Gear Solid Rising and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker. You've probably already discussed this but i can't remember.

Recently I've found myself not enjoying any of the games I had been playing. They were mostly big titles, but it started to feel like I was just going through the motions, and I even began to hate old classics as I replayed them on my SNES. However, yesterday I purchased the excellent Steam Indie pack and was enthralled. I fear that I have contracted something from Anthony through listening to Podtoid that is causing me to dislike normal titles, even epics such as Aaron Linde's BonerQuest, and skew my play time towards small indie games.

Is there a cure or should I off myself immediately?

Note: When listening to RetroforceGo I do not yet feel the need to duel Chad, so I think that I am not so far gone as to be hopeless.

You have the choice to kill one remake or series reboot. Which one do you send to its gwave? You can apply this retroactively if you so desire.

@TheRedScorpion
"Jim can't make it"...Haha did you even read what Anthony wrote?

The cost problem arises when companies shit out clones of popular games and then expect the full $60 for their "work". Having said that, is there a way to filter out the crap to help control pricing or is this another "vote with your dollars" scenario, where not buying these "products" is the best way to send publishers a message?

I'm glad to finally know that my art is NSFW enough to not even be mentioned this week.

Am I the only one who gets mildly pissed when games switch to higher quality FMVs for certain cutscenes? Why can't the whole game consist of graphics like this or just not at all?

We all knew G.I. Joe was gonna be a shitty action movie the second we saw Marlon Wayans [insert verb here] in the first trailer. However, what really pisses me off is how every lazy-ass movie critic continually uses the "like a videogame" simile when reviewing every God awful film that runs on tits and explosions. Is the journalism of ignorance to blame for these ill-suited comparisons, or is there something as an industry (and community) that we're doing wrong?