God Damnit.

What're ya buyin'?

Which recent canceled remake are you guys more disappointed about? Road Rash or Mutant League Football? Also, why does EA mock us so?

Also, when will the games industry get it's own "Street Fighter: The Movie"?

Well, I'll ask (though I'm sure you'll talk about it earlier in the show): what's your take on Brutal Legend (and the relatively low score it got on Destructoid)?

Is it getting too much hype based on Jack Black, Tim Schafer and the heavy metal theme? I mean, I'm meh on Jack Black, didn't play much of Psychonauts (though I understand the importance of it), and I don't like heavy metal, so I had no interest in the game beforehand. It seems like the gameplay fails to deliver much to attract me if I don't really care about those three things.

I just read Nick Chester's review on Brutal Legend and it's pretty much the opposite of the other reviews I read. The game seems to be very polarizing in a very "love it or hate it kinda way"

What's the most polarizing game you've ever played?

Can Podtoid just do a riff on The X Files episode 'First Person Shooter' instead?

It's the one where Mulder and Scully have to enter a rubbish VR game to stop some murderous AI program. It's probably the worst TV episode I've ever seen about fictional videogames.

Do you feel that many developers out there have their hard work overlooked when they develop of certain platforms? I'm considering this as I play through Uncharted 2, and notice that the most impressive thing about it seems to be its animation, which has more to do with blood, sweat, and tears of artistry and the engine beneath all that than with the hardware it's running on, yet so much credit is given to the platform rather than the developer.

Oh god damn.

If you could eat a videogame character made of pancakes, which would it be?

And more non-randomly, are there any retro or generally old games that were 'bad' than could benefit from a modern day remake?

Psychonauts has a metacritic of about 87 overall, and Brutal Legends' is hovering around 86, without Dtoid's review. Though I hate using scores to compare things, do you think, just like Psychonauts, no one will play it now, then everyone will reminisce fondly later?

What is Brad Nicholson's shoe size?

What kind of features would you like to see implemented in games that you haven't seen much or at all?

I wish you could go back and forth through more games if you've completed them like with boss battles or certain levels that you can't replay once you've done them without playing through the whole game again.

Why does itunes hate Topher?

Something I've been thinking about; I got in an argument with a friend about whether or not he was a gamer. His point was "I play Call of Duty, I play Wii Sports. These are games, therefore I equal gamer. QED." Mine was, "You play games, but you play them casually, and thus you are a person who plays games but not a gamer. That'd be like someone who occasionally goes to the movies calling themselves a film buff, or me calling myself an audiophile because I sometimes put on the radio." What we ultimately agreed upon is that while, yes, he is by no means a gaming connoisseur, or into the medium in any significant way, 'gamer' as it stands simply means someone who plays some games sometimes, with no other necessary qualifications. Like in the case of television, because of whatever artistic biases, there is no word for the person I'm describing other then a "hardcore gamer" which has other rather unfortunate connotations.

So it got me thinking, what could we passionate few call ourselves, (game buffs? videogameophilles? game worms?) and what might prerequisites be for someone to fir that profile? Do you need to appreciate the classics (retro games?) Play games for the story? Dabble in a wide breadth of genres? (Would a super dedicated gamer who only plays FPSs be considered such? What about the same for Jrpgs? Puzzle games? Sports games?) Is there some games you HAVE to have played (like Citizen Kane for films and Crime and Punishment for books) and what would those be? And what other thoughts do you have about this notion? (Sorry for the absurd length of this >.<)

THE MASTER WILL NOT BE PLEASED WITH THIS. NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST.

Question:
Do you ever look around you and imagine the world as nothing but pixels and sprite? Like this morning when I was looking at myself in the mirror I popped this zit right and out came the most pixelated and beautiful puss I have ever seen. Seriously, I was like, fuck that would have been amazingly ugly had it been in polygonform. Luckily for my mirror, it wasn't.

IF YOU'RE STILL READING I HAVE ANOTHER ONE.

Is there any point in playing the current gen games on an old not-hd-ready tv? I get the feeling that I wont get as much out of the new uncharted game as I should without a crisp spanking 1080p plasma tv to jizz over... Especially as those douchebag developers start making the all the text in the game incredibly small, like in Dead Rising.

I THINK THESE ARE GOOD QUESTIONS THAT YOU SHOULD ANSWER. DON'T BE DISCOURAGED BY ME ENCOURAGING YOU. Reverse psychology is totally not cool.

Why isn't Bayonetta black?

Uncharted 2 has been getting a whole lot of love, from Mr. Chester's review, it has several moments that could have been cutscenes, but weren't. I want to hear how you think this did in terms of avoiding QTEs, and do you think more games will follow suit?

Creative writing exercise:

Can you guys think of what healthcare reforms would be demanded in the videogame world? For example, I imagine individuals would want the option of buying insurance across dimensional lines to save money, and an elimination of coverage restrictions for those who fought in all 37 instances of World War II.

By the end of Uncharted 2, how SICK were you of bridges, ropes, rocks, and vehicles you were on collapsing, breaking, crumbling, or exploding?

We've got nothing but honor for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves!

Are there gameplay flaws that grate on you more than others? Are some more forgivable in relation to the overall goal of a game?

How do you respond to allegations of hypocrisy? You said "As games writers, we're not responsible for changing the way the rest of the world thinks about games." yet thats all you do.

Guys, please don't talk about Uncharted 2 on podtoid this week.

Do you feel the acclaim Uncharted 2 has received is warranted in the long term? I personally found the shooting mechanics much improved, but the controls overall still seemed dodgy and imprecise, and some of the level design made it difficult to tell which set of red/yellow bricks you were supposed to climb to next without the Hint messages coming up.

I'm not trying to say the game is broken, by ANY means, but when I see an action adventure game receive universal acclaim, I expect it to have responsive controls. The messy cover mechanic killed me at least 40 times alone.

Could Demon's Souls been a game about "Beserker" the anime? I don't know if the near absence of story in Demon's Souls adds to the experience, but I couldn't stop thinking of the similarities and the possibility of a decent Beserker game. Maybe that could make it a bit better of a game, although the visual styling of the anime tends to override the story. Could have something like that done something for the game? Suck or be more Awesome?

P.S. DOES the game have a story or just hints here and there where you kind of make your own?(I don't know, haven't played it but am gonna buy it.)