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Trigames.NET Podcast Ep. 104 - Gumball de Slunk

• 8Jul 09

  Pete Wants to Give Away Psychonauts (and hey look--Episode 139)

  Episode 139 hit the airwaves yesterday--well, technically Monday night, but the RSS feed wasn't updated until yesterday. Surprise, surprise: I wasn't in attendance--not even via elongated chat, unlike episode...9? 10? 11? Whichever one that was so very long ago where I talked to Ethan and Tony via chatroom. Well, ok, I made a small appearance for like 20 seconds to tell you all that I'm better than you and that I was about to get drenched in a creek, but that doesn't count. So, Al and Pete ran the show--and there was some good discussion to be had. Most importantly, Pete says he's trying to give away his Psychonauts. He leaves details at the end of the cast, so yeah, listen to it.

  Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? is on deck again, after a little hiatus for the whole Monster Huntron, and I expect to have a draft to Justin for Gamespot either by Friday or first thing Monday morning, which is conveniently just before the game releases. I haven't been paying attention to the release chatter, but I did hear (and discussed this on episode 13 that it might be download-only, which I might have to consider when writing this dealie up since I'm playing it off a UMD. But in any case, you can expect a review up when the game releases. That's enough narcissism from me, so with that, I say, EMAIL the podcast at mailbag AT trigames DOT net after you hear what Pete wants you to do. And stuff. Yeah!

  • Posted Jul 8, 2009 6:32 pm PT
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• 6Jul 09

  Design annoyances in, of all places, Scrabble!?

  Yep, Scrabble. But before you start laughing, I'm specifically talking about the Blackberry version of Scrabble from EA, which I have installed on my Curve 8330. My sister and I were playing it extensively during our trip upstate in Phoenicia for the long weekend, and the one little issue that I noticed while playing on my own just got more annoying as I was playing with another human.

  The issue--since, of course, this is a device with a keyboard--is that the game still treats the device as if it were a traditional 12-key phone. That means you click on the space on which you want to place a letter, then select the letter with your trackball, then click again to place. Now, there's nothing wrong with this for any other device, but Blackberry Curves have FULL KEYBOARDS. Why not let the user, say, enable a "keyboard mode" that let's you type out your word of choice (the game would obviously not respond to you trying to type letters you don't have), then ask you to orient and place? Especially because the game can run somewhat slowly at times, this would save a lot of time over the old click-select-click-each-letter method.

  It's funny how something as simple and old as Scrabble can lead an irrational grump like me to rant about "design decisions" due to how varied and versatile our *mobile devices* are becoming. When I used Scrabble on my flip phone, I was ecstatic just to have it at all. Now I'm waving my cane and throwing my dentures just because EA didn't program a keyboard mode for handsets that have the capability. Ah, to be spoiled and pampered.

  • Posted Jul 6, 2009 9:24 am PT
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• 2Jul 09

  If you love Master P, you might love Episode 138.

  Actually, even if you don't... you'll still love it because Pete stammers and I glamours.

  Wait what?

  Episode 138 is uploaded (check your Zune/iTunes/RSS feeds) along with a belated Trilobyte. I intended to upload it last week but things got a little busy and I, well, just didn't upload it. But I did yesterday. So enjoy that. Have fun, be young, drink Poopsi. And all that.

  My review for Holy Invasion Of Privacy Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This? will be in progress shortly. I just have to play through it a little more and see if there's anything else I can uncover about it. The short, non-final verdict is that it's, "Eh." It's still a little awkward to do what you want--and by that, I don't mean "win," but just do basic things. Look at it this way: In Rise of Nations, when you click on a Barracks, then click on Train Soldier, you train a damn soldier. In HIOPBWDIDTDT, when you want to raise a certain monster, sometimes your slimes will put enough nutrients in a block, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll even suck it up for themselves. When they die, sometimes they'll leave behind enough nutrients for you to raise a monster, but then, sometimes they won't. I guess the game is banking on its zany sense of humor, and it does have quite a bit of it. But... eh. We'll see if anything changes during my last handful of hours with it.

  Oh yeah. The podcast has a mailbag, so fill it up:

  MAILBAG (at!) TRIGAMES (dot!) NET !!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111one (or you can use our immature mailing form here... be sure to select the radio button for "Mailbag")
  

  • Posted Jul 2, 2009 6:59 am PT
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