“I can’t promise I’ll try. But I’ll try to try.”
This week, Colin and Carl discuss the diaphanous (or not) rumors of a Google Phone, water ice on Mars, and Penny Arcade getting its own gaming franchise. On Boston in Brief, Colin inexplicably catches a case of the mildly drunken giggles while we discuss AmieStreet.com, a local company offering reasonably-priced music downloads sans DRM.
Any comments or suggestions?
Email: Colin, Carl, Captain Damage
Skype: bostongeek
Voice: 1.617.209.4200
All music composed and recorded by Karl Kornfeld.
LMFAO! Funny ass episode. *snort* Nuclear Wessels! *still laughing*
I hope Greg’s bathroom woes pass as quickly as… errrr… well, quickly. It’s not quite the same without the GGC.
I’ve tried a couple times to like Amie St, but the interface is just bad. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to browse by artist, just by track. It’s maddening. I love emusic (which also features drm-free mp3s from indie labels), and while their interface is a little kludgy, it’s paradise compared to Amie.
Just to clarify…the listening experience at Amie is actually really good. Long samples, you can listen to whole albums or individual tracks, the player is really well done. Haven’t played with the playlist/radio stuff yet, but it looks interesting, at least.
Which, now that I think of it, makes it all the more maddening that they make browsing by artist impossible.
OMG.
Is there anything beer can’t fix?
Great show! LMAO!!
MORE BEER!
Okay, I figured I should at least give them a shot after bitching about them so much…there’s some really, really good music on Amie, for dirt cheap. I ended up going for the “find a couple bands I like, then look at what people who rec’d them also liked” approach to browsing, and it’s worked out pretty well. Almost burned through my initial $10 I added to my account.
When I mean fix I mean make better
Oh, and I’m with Colin in completely not understanding how Tycho and Gabe making good gag strips somehow equals Tycho and Gabe can’t make a good game.
Also, example of game that was just funny all the time? Maniac Mansion. God I fucking loved that game.
Wow. I had so many comments to make that I had to listen a second time while I wasn’t in my car so I could type them out.
I haven’t heard much yet about the Penny Arcade game – I haven’t even watched the trailer yet. But I do know that Gabe and Tycho are some damn funny guys. But don’t assume that because they write their strip in a 3-panel format, that’s all they’re capable of. Also, don’t assume that any game they make would rely entirely on humor. Yes – that’s what their webcomic is, but it’s short-form. The game would need more than just humor, although I can only assume that humor would play a large role.
Speaking of humor in games, have you ever played Psychonauts? That game was nonstop funny. Only game that’s ever made me laugh out loud, although I do really appreciate Maniac Mansion too. (you can download the remake free at http://people.freenet.de/lucasfangames/maniac/games_eng.htm) And about all games being one-dimensional, have you ever played Beyond Good and Evil? Great conspiracy-theory type plot, great characters, and incredibly varied gameplay with fighting, driving, stealth, puzzles, and minigames.
Releasing the game on multiple platforms shouldn’t be too tough. For Xbox, if they use XNA, they can get onto XBLA fairly easily. I know nothing about the PS3’s online download system, but I can only assume that they do or will have a similar system. And the PC is obviously the easiest of all.
And I did use a studfinder on that wall. It’s just that the shelves were 12″ deep, and the studs are 16″ apart, so we could only attach one end of the shelf to a stud. After patching the hole, we’ve devised another shelf scheme that involves attaching them to the back wall rather than the sides. This time, only studs.
The Lucas fan games site is no more. Anyone got an archive lying around? I’d love to give it a go.
Whoops! Sorry – I pasted in my old link without checking it. Here’s a current link.
http://new.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=401
Okay, I’m starting to dig the Amie St., but their id3 tags are for shit. Some are missing genre, some have a different genre for each track on an album, some are missing track numbers, one was missing the album name.
(also, thanks for the maniac mansion link, Greg)
If the Google phone has quantum teleportation I will definitely buy one.
BostonGeek needs to have a Game and Beer convention somewhere.