Hey Got Gamers,

You’ve listen to us for years, but you’ve never had a chance to see us do our weekly radio program. To celebrate 5 years of Got Game we wanted to invite you into the studio and show you how Got Game is recorded.

Therefore, instead of a show blog this week, please enjoy this behind the scenes video of us taping our 5 year anniversary show.

|
|
|

The Got Game crew and former host Zack Cooper surround a picture of Ken Rodney.

Hey Got Gamers,

We are moving time slots. From now on you can catch Got Game at 8 am every Sunday morning. This new schedule started next week, so catch us at 8 am on May 19th and every Sunday after that.

Luckily, if you missed us this Sunday, we can help you out with a post-broadcast podcast version of our show. A show that can be found in the audio file below this paragraph, but we’re just calling it our May 12th 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

This week the crew discusses:

• A) EA locking up all the games that have either FIFA or Star Wars on the box
• B) A twist in the Silicon Knights story that no one saw coming
• C) The fact that 2 Leafs are still in the NHL cover vote

|
|
Plus, we talk to Dan Robinson of Eutechnyx about new game possibilities for gamers on a week with no retail releases.

Image courtesy of Eutechnyx twitter account.

Hey Got Gamers,

This week we talked about the playoff predictions of EA Sports by using NHL 14 to simulate the post season. We didn’t have a chance to talk about all the teams, so in case your favorite team is not the Maple Leafs I have placed that full results in the chart below this paragraph.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a handy chart for all of our topics this week, but don’t worry we discuss them in full in this week’s show. As luck would have it, you can find that show in the audio file below this paragraph, but we’re just calling it the May 5th 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

This week on Got Game the crew also discussed:

• A) Edelson LLC representing gamers in a lawsuit against Sega and Gearbox over Aliens: Colonial Marines
• B) The announcement of a new Call of Duty game coming out this year

|
|
|
PLUS, WE TALKED TO GALEN CLAVIO, FROM INDIANA’S SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, ABOUT HIS STUDY THAT COULD AFFECT ON GOING COURT CASES THAT HAVE TO DEAL WITH PLAYER LIKENESSES IN VIDEOGAMES.

Image courtesy of http://iuhockey.com

|
AND IN OUR REVIEW SEGMENT WE GET OUR 80′s ON WITH UBISOFT’S FARCRY 3: BLOOD DRAGON…

BEFORE WE SEE HOW THE CLIPS FALL FOR TELLTALE’S POKER NIGHT 2

REVIEWED BY STEVEN LOUNG

Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons is a terrible game that no self-respecting human being should ever consider playing.

Developed by Gravity and published by Barunson Creative, both Korean game companies, Wander of the Dragons is a full-blown remake of the arcade game Double Dragon II: The Revenge for Xbox Live Arcade.

For those uninitiated, the Double Dragon series of games are beat ‘em ups that were intended to suck quarters from unsuspecting teenagers in the 1980s and, unfortunately, that same philosophy has held true with this new modern rendition of Technos’ 1988 tale of revenge.

‘So just how bad can Wander of the Dragons possibly be’ you might be wondering? Well, considering that a snippet of the game’s XBL description reads as, “This is a remake of “Double Dragon II” a 80’s game. The story line takes same as original game story. However, the graphic, character, action, system, etc. are change.” It isn’t too hard to see just how little care was put into the making of this title when simple localization intricacies, such as a properly translated description, were completely ignored.

That isn’t to say that the game’s descriptive blurb was completely inaccurate since it basically let gamers know what the game is about; however, what it doesn’t tell you is that every feature that was described in the game will make you want to rip your hair out.
Starting with the game’s story – and I use that term very loosely – just like the original, Wander of the Dragons tells a narrative of revenge that sees brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee seeking and kicking the crap out of the bad guys who killed their love interest, Marian.

Of course, no real emotional connection is made to Marian. She is on screen just long enough to be gunned down at the end of the game’s tutorial mission; so, unless you know about the first Double Dragon, you’ll probably end up with a lot of unanswered questions.

Now an admirable attempt was made to tell a story using a series of manga-like comic strips, but the voice-overs were so terrible that the slick art ended up looking ironic in comparison.

As for the actual meat and potatoes of the game itself, everything is almost an entirely broken mess and reeks of problems that were prevalent in the original arcade title.

For one, the game features the same sort of gameplay as the 80′s arcade version. That’s to say, you mash the punch or kick button, wait for enemies to get knocked down, wait for them to get up, and then rinse and repeat. You may find this game very dry, or even boring, if that’s not something you are interested in. On top of that, this game also has some problems involving knocking enemies off the screen and then waiting for them to come back, or understanding if an enemy is above or a little below you.

A new elbow feature was added to the mix and this was implemented to primarily combat a major problem with beat ‘em ups, the issue of enemies getting behind you. The idea was that by simply pressing the elbow button your character would be able to effectively hit an enemy behind him and still continue smacking the one in front of him.

In theory it sounds great, but in practice it just doesn’t work because it seemed to either have spotty collision detection or the hit-box just wasn’t big enough to be used in any meaningful manner.

Looking further at the technical side of things, I didn’t experience any lock ups or game-stopping bugs but I did encounter lots of slowdown – particularly when there were a lot of enemies on screen.

Other than the basic story, the game also has a couple other modes like versus and survival. Versus is exactly as advertised and plays out pretty much identical to versus mode found in the SNES-port of the arcade classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time but with the exception of that game actually being good. The survival mode has you going up against wave-after-wave of enemies like almost every game since Gears of War was released.

Of all the gameplay faults in Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons, multiplayer is where it really dropped the ball. As mentioned before, there is a versus mode and there’s also two-player co-op. However, all of this is only done locally with only online leaderboards for the survival and story modes. This is an egregious omission because the game is only remotely fun when you’re playing with someone else and, quite frankly, you’d probably have to bribe your friends and family to convince them to play this game with you on your couch.

Graphically, besides the cool looking cut scenes, this game is really ugly and looks like something that was dragged out of the crypt of 2002. Both technically and artistically this game’s aesthetic fails with ugly textures everywhere, absolutely generic backgrounds and awful-looking character models that would need to be toned down a bunch before you could even call them stereotypes.

Audio-wise, as previously mentioned, the voice acting is a joke; however, the music isn’t offensive but instead just very, very generic rock. The only highlight, if you want to call it one, is that the ending credits feature a remixed version of the original Double Dragon theme. I didn’t think it was as good as the stuff that you’ll find on OC Remix, but it wasn’t bad.

To reiterate what I said at the beginning of the review, Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons is a terrible game that no self-respecting human being should ever consider. With that said, do not waste your money by purchasing this game.

Score: 0.5/10

Hey Got Gamers,

If you haven’t seen this yet, we have an image of what the new Barry Sanders cover for Madden NFL 25 will look like.

However, believe it or not, this week has been so busy the Madden Cover was the topic we spent the least amount of time on. You can find all those topics in the audio file below this paragraph, but we just call it the April 28th 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

This week the crew also discusses:

• A) Nintendo’s choice to not hold a big E3 Press conference
• B) The worst kept secret in gaming
• C) Women who want to be in EA’s FIFA franchise
• D) The final resting spot for THQ’s remaining franchises

|
|
|
PLUS OUR REVIEW SEGMENT IS FILLED WITH OUR THOUGHTS ON STAR TREK

AND LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER: THE CHASE BEGINS

|
Hey Got Gamers,

As promised here’s the first trailer for NHL 14.

Hockey is our national past time, and we’re as excited as you are for the next installment of virtual hockey. However, September 10th is a long way away, so while you’re here watching the trailer let’s talk about some great games you can play today.

Conveniently, you can hear us discuss games that have been, or will be, released by clicking on the audio file below this paragraph. However, we’re just calling it the April 21st 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

THIS WEEK ON GOT GAME THE CREW DISCUSSES:

• A) The news we’ve heard so far about NHL 14
  
• B) A lawsuit against Sony PlayStation by Canadian citizens that’s could net you swag
  
• C) Bethesda’s new project: The Evil Within

|
|
PLUS, POKER NIGHT 2‘s EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, KEVIN BOYLE, JOINS US TO TALK ABOUT THE NEWEST RELEASE COMING FROM TELLTALE GAMES.

|
|
IN OUR REVIEW SEGMENT, WE’LL HEAR A VERDICT IN THE TRIAL OF INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US.

AND WE’LL SEE IF DRINKBOX STUDIOS USED ENOUGH AVOCADOS IN THEIR RECIPE FOR GUACAMELEE.

Hey Got Gamers,

We mentioned it on this week’s edition of Got Game, and we tweeted about it on the Got Game twitter account; however, if you did not hear yet, Warner Brothers was out in full force at the Yonge-Dundas Square this weekend.

Under that seemingly innocent looking tent was roughly 2 dozen or more consoles playing copies of the recently released Injustice Gods Among Us.

There was also a special guest in the square. Ed Boon, the co-creator of the Mortal Kombat franchise and a key player in the development of Injustice Gods Among Us, was also around taking pictures and signing autographes.

Since the Got Game crew was down there, we decided to corner Mr. Boon and ask him about his new super hero fighting game. That interview can be hard in the audio file below this paragraph.

Download

Hey Got Gamers,

In case some of you are actually playing the Defiance MMO, we thought that we should point out that the accompanying TV show starts on April 15th 2013. Check your local listings.

Image courtesy of the Showcase Facebook page.

This does mean that Calhoun will finish up his review of Defiance this week, but that’s far from the only topic we discuss. A wide range of discussion points can be found in the audio file below this paragraph, but we’re just calling it the April 14th 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

This week the crew discusses:

A) The status of the MADDEN NFL 25 cover vote
B) Two new Batman games from the Arkham franchise
C) Recently announced DLC for Sony Online Entertainment’s DC Universe Online
D) The Central Organization of Police Specialists

|
|
WE WILL ALSO TAKE SOME TIME TO TALK WITH ADAM URBANO, FROM FIGHTING GAME DEVELOPER NETHERREALM STUDIOS, ABOUT INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US.

Got a few Xbox points kicking around? Pick up BattleBlock Theatre.

A review by Christine Chubb

One thing I love about XBLA games is that there’s a chance you can pick up a really great, quirky game for a decent price. Behemoth’s BattleBlock Theatre fills that requirement perfectly.

It should come as no surprise that I love personality in a game and this one has it in spades. The first few minutes of the introduction literally had me laughing out loud. The sarcastically comedic narrator sets the tone for this gaming experience perfectly because what you’re about to play is a little bit crazy, a little bit silly, absolutely adorable and ridiculously violent.

This 2-D side scroller starts with you and your friends, including Hatty Hattington (amazing name) on a ship that gets caught in a storm and shipwrecked on an island inhabited by cats starved for sadistic entertainment.  You’re taken prisoner and forced to take part in a “theatre performance” which are basically levels filled with blocks and bad guys as you collect gems and yarn. Weaving in more comedy, if you do poorly or die repeatedly the narrator will mock you.

The gems and yarn can be used between levels to either unlock different looks for you character or weapons. The yarn is used to bribe corrupt cat police officers who will swap it for weapon upgrades.

Throughout the levels you also get to pick up little items which temporarily help you through parts of the game, usually enabling you to fly such as angel wings or a jet pack.

The level design and creativity of some of the weapons reminded me of a sadistic Little Big Planet.

Although this game is very fun, there are a few problems. There’s a lot of repletion in the look and feel of the levels, which makes it seem a little routine after a while. I found it was pretty easy to get the flow of ducking and dodging enemies throughout the levels, making them not too challenging at times – decreasing the replayability factor.

While there are several ways to fight the bad guys standing in your path, I found that the actual hand to hand combat controls were not as receptive as I’d like, making it frustrating at times when you’re trying to shove one of them into a wall of electricity and despite pressing the button repeatedly, they just slap you off the cloud of smoke you’re standing on into the water below.  (Yes that is a specific example from one of the levels).

The main mode – the Adventure Mode -is divided up into chapters, which each have nine levels.  There are also time trials between chapters to give the player a little more variety.  This mode can be played solo or in co-op.

The game also has a multi-player mode called the Arena Mode. Up to four players can either team up or go head-to-head in a variety of different mini games.

For the more creative types, there’s also a level editor where you can create your own stage for any of the mini game modes. These can also be uploaded to the community for others to download.

While this game was fun playing by myself, it’s more fun with someone else because it’s easy to start ignoring the level and just find hilarious ways to kill each other.

All in all, I really enjoyed this game.

You can pick it up for 1200 Microsoft Points or $14.99.

Score: 8.5/10

Hey Got Gamers,

I want to start off this week’s show blog by pointing you in the direction of this commercial for MLB 13 The Show.

I am pointing you in that direction for two reasons. First, we reference it when we talk to Jose Bautista on this week’s edition of Got Game. Two, it is just a funny spot.

Clearly, we’re excited to have Jose join us this week, but I also feel the need to point out that our discussion with him will not make up the whole show. We’ll discuss a number of topics this week, and you can find them all in the audio file below this paragraph. That’s the audio file that we’re calling the April 7th 2013 edition of Got Game.

Download

THIS WEEK ON GOT GAME THE CREW DISCUSSES:

• A) Disney shutting down LucasArts
  
• B) More developments with Curt Schilling‘s 38 Studios

|
|
|
WE ALSO TALK TO CHRIS HARVEY, FROM DRINKBOX STUDIOS, ABOUT THIS WEEK’S RELEASE OF THEIR GAME: GUACAMELEE.

|
|
|
PLUS, IN OUR REVIEW SECTION MOMIN TAKES A LOOK AT LUIGI’S MANSION: DARK MOON.

|
AND CALHOUN WILL GIVE YOU SOME THOUGHTS ON DEFIANCE.