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Hey Got Gamers! 

We have another entertaining episode of Got Game podcasted for you, and as always you can catch it in the link below this sentence.

On this week’s episode we started off by looking over the catergories for Spike TV’s Video Game Awards. We were not able to get to them all because of time limitations, but some of those choices caused a bit of heated debates between the members of the Got Game Crew.  

Later on in the show, we talked to a man who is trying to start up a museum for arcade machines, but we had to cut that interview down a little to fit in the show; therefore, if you’re looking for a little more information on the Replay Classic Arcade Museum, we suggest you check out the full version of the interview that Zack Cooper and Bryan Calhoun did with Gerald Darcy.

But before that we talked about a Japanese man who loves a video game character so much that he legally married her, and at that same time we promised to post the video we found of it on YouTube.  Here is that video we promised you.

And before we signed off, we reviewed Little Big Planet for the PSP and some DLC for that unexpected smash hit Bolderlands, but you’ll have to listen to the show to find out what scores we gave those games.

Check out all that, and more on this edition of Got Game!

On our November 29th 2009 show, we are going to have an interview with a man who is trying to set up an arcade museum here in Toronto. I won’t spoil the interview at all, but at the same time I have a small taste of the future(past) for you. About a week ago I had a chance to check out a couple of his museum pieces and it took my breath away.

To speak plainly, the history I experienced that night was beyond words. From the second I stepped into the room with these pieces, I felt like I had stepped back in time. Back even further then the creation of Galaxy Game. My trip officially started in the 1930s when I saw this piece, from that time, called “Peppy the Musical Clown.”

At one point in time, this piece of history would have let young children create their own musical performances by using the 4 blacks buttons that you see built into the front of the counter. Each button is used to manipulate an arm or a leg on the clown, and by doing so you could make the doll dance.

From there I stepped 4 feet to my right, and about 40 years forward in time to find this wonderful beast called Jet Rocket (released by Sega in 1970) standing before me.

Just like the Transformers, there is more to Jet Rocket than meets the eye. At first glance I mistook it for a early video arcade machine. However, this machine is like the magic show at your local shady bar. Instead of a video monitor, it uses lights and mirrors to entertain. It also has a giant carpet of blue, green and white carpet on a powered belt system that it uses as a map. When activated, the map would move in such a way that it would give you the impression that you were flying above a coastal town or city.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to see this beast in action; but from what I could understand of it, you would play as a bomber pilot and by using lights and mirrors the cabinet could show you targets on the ground to attack and the bombs/missiles you were firing.

Here is a picture of that blue, green and white map, and the powered belt system it rests on.

Now if you’re tastes lean towards having actual VIDEO in your games, then there was plenty to enjoy. Everyone probably remembers a cocktail table or two from their college years, and there were plenty of games loaded onto the 6 cocktail tables that were present that night.

And, if you were ever in an arcade in the 80’s, then you’ll probably remember Sinistar. However, the same can be said if you’ve bought the Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits, or any of the Midway Greatest hits collections (which is actually how I first played Sinistar). It’s not a hard game to find today, but in a world of XBLs, Playstation Stores, and Wii-wares it is easy to forget the simple thrill of having a cabinet in front of you and people you can impress behind you. However, I probably should mention that my Sinistar skills impressed no one that night.

Luckily for me however, I can redeem myself by pointing out the fact that I was able to impress many using this fully functional Spy Hunter cabinet. This was MY game when I went to my local arcade (back before it closed); and I was glad to see that after 5 minutes of using it, everything about how to play it came back to me.

After that I took a look at this big blue submarine game. I am not going to lie; I have no idea what it does or how to play it. It was one of a handful of cabinets that were there were, but not operational.

An believe it or not (in a room full of video game enthusiasts who averaged in their late 20s) this was the hands down greatest hit of the night.

The easiest way for me to explain it, is to call it a pinball table that stands up. In the center of the below picture there are about 8 pieces of metal that would rest in a series of V shapes; and the basic idea this game is to manipulate those pieces, and use them to get a ball from the top to the bottom of the machine. However, if the ball went to far left or right, it would fall out of the playable area and you would lose. It was also the hardest game there. I don’t remember seeing anyone beat it that night.

This game also has some of the most inventive controls I have ever seen. While playing you would mostly use the red valve to move those metal V-shapes around. The silver arm on the left was used to call a ball forth at the start of the game, and the red key shaped thing was used to control some sort of arm at the bottom of the machine. I’m  not sure how that one worked, because no one was able to get a ball far enough down the machine to use it.

Now if anyone was wondering, you too may one day have a chance to play such awesome pieces of video game history. The arcade museum does not exist yet; however, it could soon. If you want to know more about this then make sure to check out or show/podcast for Sunday, November 29th, 2009 as we’ll interview the man behind the push for an arcade museum.

HEY THERE GOT GAMERS!!!

How are you enjoying this busy video game season? It’s feels like a virtual wonderland for us on the Got Game crew. With the new Super Mario Brothers, Left 4 Dead 2, and Assassin’s Creed 2 all out this past week, it is hard to find much in this world to argue about at the moment.

However, we are pretty good at our jobs, so we found a whole episode worth of content to debate back and forth. But just between you and me, we like to call it the Got Game Podcast for Saturday, November, 21st, 2009; and as always you can find it below this sentence.

This week on Got Game:

• we break down 4 of the biggest titles of this holiday gaming season
• we continue to discuss terrorism in gaming
• and we ask the question: “would a subscription based model be a good thing for Sony’s PSN?”

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All that and more on this episode of GOT GAME!

Last week I had a chance to go to a pretty cool Nintendo event where I got to play “Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” ahead of its December 7th release date.

The game itself was fun, but more on that in a second. First I need to talk about the event itself.  All we were told was to be on the corner of Bay Street and York Street at 11am.  When I arrived Jeff Mcallister of GameShark.com was already waiting and Lori Dance of ACoupleOfGamers.com  arrived a few mins later.Awaiting us was an old timey 1930’s style TTC street car, which I thought was pretty cool since I’d never been on one.  I’d been on many street cars, but never an old school one like this one.

Once we got on board there was a Nintendo DSI with a copy of “Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” open at each seat.  We all got to sit down and play the game as the street car drove us around the city.  As you can see here Jeff and Lori had a great time playing the game.

If you think they are excited, check out the pic Lori snapped of me playing the game.  I think you guys will love it, you can find it on Lori’s site here

As for the game itself.  The storyline takes place 100 years after “The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass”.  Its difficult for me to say much about this game since I only got to play it for about 20 mins.  But from what I was able to partake in, I can say this: If you like Zelda games, you’ll like this one.

Nintendo is really good at the mantra: If it aint broke, dont fix it.  This game is more of what you are used too.  Link roaming through mystical ancient times in search of something and fighting off a bunch of bad dudes on the way.

One of my complaints about the game from the little I’ve seen is the same complaint I have about every Zelda game, TOO MUCH TEXT.  There is waaaaaaaaay too much text and not enough game play for my liking, but thats how I’ve always felt about Zelda games.

Thats really all I can say about the game play for now.  Hopefully as the release date gets closer I will get to play the game more thoroughly and have more to say.

I wanted to share my experiences, say they event was fun and there will be more to come about “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” in upcoming episodes of GotGame.   Stay tuned.

No no! Bad Bryan! We are not going to go there. American Pie references are great, but I don’t think that they will fit well on this blog. We are trying to keep everything PG-13 afterall; and as we all know, many gamers are still pretty young.

Anyhow, now that I am done arguing with myself, I should probably tell you about the reason for creating this post. It’s a little event called Gamercamp.

What is Gamercamp? We’ll you’ll have to listen to this interview I did with the event’s co-organizer Mark Rabo to find out.

If you’re unsure where to find this place, you can find directions to their event on their website gamercamp.ca (which seems to be viewed best on the Firefox internet browser).

Hey Got Gamers!

How are things going? Well if you own an Xbox360 then it’s probably been an interesting day so far. That’s because today is the day that Microsoft launches a number of new features on Canadian 360s everywhere. So what’s new? Well a quick list of the new features includes:

1. Facebook – According to Microsoft you can, “update your status to share what movie, game or entertainment you’re enjoying, connect with friends and view their Facebook stream, status updates and photos on the big screen – all seamlessly integrated and custom-built for the Xbox 360. You can even compare your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends lists to see which of your friends are on LIVE.”
2. Twitter – Twitter seemed to be the exact same thing as what you’ll get on the computer. The only real difference is that you’ll tweet on the 360 using a Xbox360 controller.
3. Zune – The Zune Video Marketplace is basically the old marketplace with a number of improvements. For example, everything on the Zune Marketplace will now stream instantly (no pre-downloading required); and if you’re internet connection is good enough, then you could stream those videos in 1080p HD with 5.1 channel surround sound. There is also a major addition to the type of content that you’ll be able to get in the Zune Video Marketplace.

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Want to know more? Well, I sat down today with Glenn Purkis of Canada’s Xbox Live service to chat about these new additions that are coming to Canada, and you can find that interview below this sentence.
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Also, incase you are wondering, the prices for the TV shows in the new marketplace are pretty comparable to other downloading services like iTunes. For a single episode of a show, in standard definition, you’ll be looking at about $2 per episode (but that’s a 1 time fee & you’ll always own the rights to that episode). If you can get that same episode in High definition, then you’ll be looking at about $1 more per episode.

Oh, and don’t forget that this week is the season premiere of 1 vs 100 Season 2. You’ll be able to play this virtual trivia game show starting November 19th.

Hey Got Gamers!

If awesome was made using only sound, then we think it would sound a lot like the Got Game Podcast for Sunday, November 15th, 2009; and as always, it can be found below this sentence.

This week on Got Game:

• Momin talks about his trip on Nintendo’s tracks to see The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks; and while we are speaking of that trip, Momin took a bunch of pictures that day, but none of them were as epic as the pictures that Lori Dance took of Momin. Therefore, we’d like to direct you to Lori’s website so that you can see these awesome pictures of Momin for yourself.
• We also talked about Microsoft getting ban happy recently. We ponder if this is really the right thing for them to do.
• Ubisoft’s claims that their new Prince of Persia film will do just as well at the box office as the Pirates of the Carribean film. We toss around the idea to see if they could pull in that much cash.
• In a world overflowing with plastic instruments and music games, we ask does the world really need Drum Hero?
• And we give you our review of Call of Duty Mordern Warfare 2.

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All that and more on this week’s Got Game.

Oh and if you haven’t seen them yet, take a minute to watch Part 2…

…and Part 3…

…of Assassin’s Creed Lineage.

These 2 parts (along with part 1) makes up a 45 minute long film that shows us how events unfolded before the beginning of Assassin’s Creed II. Specifically, these films focus on an assassin named Giovanni Auditore da Firenze, father of Ezio (one of the main characters in Assassin’s Creed II), as he investigates a conspricy to overthrow the government of 16th century Italy. If you consider yourself a gamer, then you really owe it to yourself to watch these.

Hey Got Gamers!

Ready to get your game on? I hope so, because another pun filled episode is right below this sentence (this week though it is not me making the puns). As always you can find the podcast version of this week’s show right below this sentence.

This week on Got Game:

• We ask the hardest question we’ve ever put forth: is it OK to play as terrorists in video games? Or is that subject so sensitive that it must be kept off limits? We’ll tell you what we think, and those ideas may shock you, but shocking or not you’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear them
• We’ll push more boundaries with our review of Fairytale Fights? A game were your favorite fairytale characters come to life to kick the stuffing out of everything within arm’s reach. However, is it worth you’re time, or does it only hurt your memories of those fairytales?
• GTA 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony is also in our crosshairs; is this new installment enough to keep the story going? Or is this the game’s final swan song?
• And Momin goes one on one with Nintendo Canada’s Matt Ryan about the new Super Mario Brothers game. Is it good enough to live up to the memories of the first 3 games?

The answer to these questions, gaming news, and so much more in this edition of Got Game.

And to eliminate any inside jokes we suggest you check out this video of a Nintendo super fan that we’ll reference. However, inside jokes or not this video is truly a must see!

And before I forget we’ll also have some important information for you regarding these Assassins Creed Lineage videos.

Check that out too. I don’t want to ruin the video for you, so I will simply say that it is worth any gamer’s time.

We’ve tweeted a lot about the Vortex Competition this week, and with good reason. They host an awesome boot camp that future game developers can learn so much great information from.

However, the bootcamp is just 1 part of this event. The Vortex Competition is the other big draw, and we’d like to congratulate the 2009 competition champions: the Pixel Pirates.

Their winning game, Colour-Coded, was described by the Dare to be Digital video game competition as, “a 3D puzzle/platformer where you manage a group of characters through physics based puzzles in the environment. The catch is the objects do not have their physical attributes, you have to apply it.”

 
The easier explanation is to basically think of LittleBigPlanet, but with brighter colours and harder puzzles. Regardless of what you want to call it, it looks like a fun game that I would like to trying someday. Luckily, part of the Vortex Competition’s 1st place prize is the opportunity to have the winning games commercialized through a variety of channels.

We’ll keep an eye on this process, and let you know when (if) you can try it out for yourself.

Hello my fellow Goblin Gamers,

How was your Halo-ween? Sorry, that pun never gets old, but I did Halo it up this year. Sort of… I got really lazy this year and just went to my buddy’s house party with my helmet on and an old BBQ apron I found in my basement. Meet Master Chef!

And because this time of year is all about tricking and treating I have small gift for you. We like to call it our Halloween edition of Got Game. You can find it right below this link.

In this episode, we’ll talk some scary gaming moments, discuss a recently released game called Fairytale Fights (it will turn your favorite childhood stories on their collective ears), talk about some new hand held consoles rumors, and we’ll review Forza 3 & Ratchet and Clank.

Also, I am sorry we never posted that video of Ken at Nintendo’s E3 North. As hard as I looked, I could not find it. Sorry about that.