Escapist Podcast: 078: Electronic Arts, Dead Space 3, and Puppies!

The Escapist Staff

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078: Electronic Arts, Dead Space 3, and Puppies!

This week, we discuss Electronic Arts, its recent decision to send Medal of Honor on a "vacation" and microtransactions in Dead Space 3. We also talk about the Superbowl, the far superior Puppy Bowl, and Susan gives us a brief history of The Escapist.

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Migs

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Oct 13, 2010
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Thanks for the fast delivery, Escacasts!

nice new logo by the way
 

bdcjacko

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Jun 9, 2010
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I hate Pokemon snap. I remember being so excited about it, I got it release day and the proceeded beating it that day. I even got all the pikachus and mews and shit that day. I never played it again because there was no reason. jerk ass pokemon.
 

Chrono212

Fluttershy has a mean K:DR
May 19, 2009
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I approve of the podcat logo.

Pokemon Snap is a good source of satire, ok! You just need to replace 'pokemon' with anything edgy or topical and you have an instant gaming satire piece!

Also another of my inane questions got answered by the team! /)^3^(\

PC games here in the UK are regularly £10 cheaper than their console cousins, for whatever specific reason.

Also I wholeheartedly approve of the new podcat logo. Who may we shower our praise on?
 

bdcjacko

Gone Fonzy
Jun 9, 2010
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EA did make a submarine game in the pacific theater that was a very early sandbox game called Sea Wolf. I played the shit out of it back in the day.
 

Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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Does EA realize that anyone who "Grew up" with mobile games is like eight to 12 years old?

Dead Space 3 is an M Rated game.
Are they really willing to wait 6 to 10 years to see the fruits of their stupid decision making?
 

Rassmusseum

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Oct 11, 2010
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I've always thought the "podcat" thing was a little silly, but I've got to admit....that logo is pretty damn clever!

However, I just noticed that this is the second episode 77 you have up after the previous "077: JJ Abrams and The End of THQ."
 

mykalwane

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I fully agree with Susan. Charmander and Pikachu be my favorites along with Pokemon Red and Yellow. Yellow did start you out with Pikachu, but it also a surfing mini-game. Pokemon Snap I got to say is my favorite of them all. I love just being on the rail and watching what would happen with the Pokemon. The trick with Mew was rather when Mew was distracted with Rainbows. Though I was more of a Digimon fan, not a Pokemon fan. So I was more into the Digimon cards instead of the Pokemon cards when they were big.Even still the Pokemon games were more enjoyable since they did try things that were neat from experimenting. Would not of expected Hey You Pikachu(think Kenicimals for N64) or Pokemon Snap to be possible if it wasn't for its popularity. Me I would love to see another Pokemon Snap game, or even an HD version.

Sniper alley, keep in mind that give the experience of the war to the people. Since that is one I really enjoy because it harked back to experience of old war stories I would hear when my Grandfather. Even though he wasn't there for WW1 but just the similarities to the experience to the same of those stories made it so enjoyable.

I like the new logo. Really wish you put up the podcast before noon. So I could have it on my Ipod by the time I need to do yardwork. Then again really do enjoy
 

klown

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I think the only problem with a Puppy World Cup is that the World Cup is a month long. I think it could work if they did animals from specific regions based on the game. Germany Vs Australia? German Shepard puppies and Australian Sheep Dogs, or like Echidnas. I think that would so so amazingly adorable if they had baby animals from different areas during the game.
 

Kuredan

Hingle McCringleberry
Dec 4, 2012
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First off, I am loving the new logo. Secondly, thank you so much for introducing me to the Puppy Bowl! I always dread Super Bowl Sunday since I have no interest in American Football! Now I have something to watch! I can also share with with like-minded friends! Yay! Puppies! Kitties! Exclamation points!

Captcha: Another Choice
 

Vie

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Mikeyfell said:
Does EA realize that anyone who "Grew up" with mobile games is like eight to 12 years old?

Dead Space 3 is an M Rated game.
Are they really willing to wait 6 to 10 years to see the fruits of their stupid decision making?
No, they know dumb parents will buy the game without paying any attention to the 18 rating and are perfectly happy to market to the very part of the market their game is explicitly banned from sale to. Remember "your mom will hate this game" from the Deadspace 2 marketing?

Love the new logo guys!

On the topic of developing games for the multiple platforms though, if the PS3 is the outsider it's not because of it's hardware; its more because of it's software.

The PS3 and the 360 are surprisingly similar when it comes to the fundamentals of the system. Both have PowerPC based central processors which run the same number of threads: The Xbox has three cores running two threads each, while the PS3 has eight cores with single threads - of which Six are available to developers for games (One runs the OS and security software while the last core is a backup in case one of the other cores is a dud or breaks down.) The two use graphics chips clocked at similar speeds (500MHz for the Xbox and 550MHz for the PS3) based on PC cards from the same time period (2005-2006 in both cases.) There are obviously differences between the two platforms, the PS3 favours speed of processing data while the Xbox favours volume of data, but the key ones are in the software side.

The reason why Xbox and PC code are comparatively similar has more to do with the XBox using a derivative of DirectX9. Consequently games which are developed on the Xbox platform, then ported to the PC use DirectX9 - because there's no point redeveloping the game from the ground up for later versions of DirectX since Microsoft altered the system so drastically with DX10. Since DX9 is available for windows at the same time, you might as well save time and use that. Sure, it means you can't support certain features - but if you can't make your investment back on the PC game sales where's the point in redeveloping it just to add those when you can't use them on the other platforms anyway?

If your porting from the PS3 you have to develop the game from the ground up for the other platforms, and vice versa. You can't really port a game to the PS3, you have to develop it again on that platform. You can reuse assets, but not code. At least, to my understanding.

I'm a PC gamer myself so I'd rather they would develop on the PC first, then make nerfed versions that the consoles can manage. But the PC market isn't big enough, in the opinion of the big game making studios, to support that. Why risk alienate the larger market by catering to the smaller one? Well EA and mates, you might want to ask Valve - unless you want to suggest that the console versions of their games are better than the PC ones?

Oh, and a game for getting a Scifi fan into games - try FTL. It's simple, easy to learn and cheep. Also it gets you used to loosing a lot at first, then getting better quickly.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

books, Books, BOOKS
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Jan 19, 2011
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The new image made when smile when I saw it.

I loves it! :D

I haven't played Pokemon Snap in a loooooong time and it was the second N64 game I've ever played, but I agree about Mewtwo. He was such a bastard to deal with and I always took my sweet time getting to him. I also played the Pokemon card game quite a bit when I was in Elementary school and that got me into Magic, and I think I still have my Pokemon cards too...somewhere....in my closet of crap.

Also, about the Puppy Bowl?

I remember hearing about it last year and my dad and I watched it just see what the big deal was since we had some time to kill before kick off. We watched that for over an hour and almost missed kick off. It was the cutest damn thing I've ever seen and I'm fairly sure we're gonna watch it again this year.

We have no idea why we watched it for that long, but the cuteness was just so...mesmerizing...
 

Airon

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Jan 8, 2012
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The remix.
https://soundcloud.com/airon-extv/escapist-podcast-2013-02-01

Not quite done enjoying the podacast.
 

MorganL4

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May 1, 2008
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I almost didn't listen to it because of the new logo.... I liken it to Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.... They try to drop COD and brand recognition goes down.... That said... CAT=AWESOME
 

shiajun

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Jun 12, 2008
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Fun fact, in Mexico Blockbuster is still a thing. Yes, they're not bankrupt here, at least not yet.