Grab your sneakers and a pair of scissors, its Force Feedback! This week, we’re talking disturbing trends in Japanese love simulators, response to the Handheld/Hardcore gaming discussion last week, Children of the Axe, the EBA fan podcast, and so much more!
Its not fun and games till someone loses an eye!
EpicBattleAxe
whoismilan
(on handheld gaming)
Sony aren’t the ones dropping the ball, the consumers are.
MGS Peace Walker has gameplay deeper than MGS4 (which is one of my favorite games of all time, BTW), and a story that actually makes sense and is interesting. In my opinion it stands as easily one of the best games this year, to me so far only rivaled by Mass Effect 2.
Seriously, this “there are no games” was already overplayed years ago. Final Fantasy Crisis Core, God of War, Persona Portable titles, Dissidia, GTA Stories series, Ratchet & Clank … the list just goes on and on. There are plenty of great titles for the PSP, but when it becomes time to show the money, consumers look away.
When Kojima releases Peace Walker and other developers can tell that this is a AAA grade Kojima title, what do you think that tells them when consumers still look away?
Once God of War Ghost of Sparta fails (which it will) I wouldn’t expect many other top hardcore games to be announced for handhelds for quite some time. Death of handheld hardcore: Consumers claim to be interested, but they aren’t, not really.
man of war
Great show as usual. Wish i could know what DK’s opinion is on some of the topics discussed. I don’t think he’s a fanboy. The man is just PASSIONATE about things, he should be and that’s what make EBA what it is …no numbness whatsoever! My take on the whole handheld gaming: as long as you don’t dumb it up, cripple the industry and call it “the future of gaming”, go right ahead.
EBA Forums
More than just a game… It’s my life.
Project12
On the 3rd September of 2009, Konami released LovePlus, a single player dating sim for the Nintendo DS.
To give a detailed lowdown on the game, it has three girls and you choose one to get into a relationship with and from there you have to maintain it. The girls are rendered in 3D, anime-style and are communicated to by speaking into the DS microphone and kissing by tapping the touch screen. The games feature events that depend on the time of day and date so you better remember her birthday or she’ll pout.
But I’m not done yet. Recall I mentioned that they visit Atami and the hotel. Local businesses are loving the exposure the game is giving them. Konami and Atami had agreed to cross-promote each other, and it worked.
Restaurants are successfully selling meals that appear in game and fish cakes with the girls’ faces drawn on them are flying off the shelves.
Konami promoted a cake sale on Christmas 2009 in relation to the game. An hour after the announcement, all 300 cakes were sold out, even before the bakeries had opened.
After being hit hard by economic troubles, Atami is bouncing back.
LovePlus to some people really mean more than a game, it’s their life.
TheMetalAxe
Project12 said there is a man who married himself to a virtual character. I can’t even comprehend the emotional situation this man must have been in. With the kind of sales written down here, and the kind of game it is, it’s obvious that players have formed intense bonds with these “characters”, which, needless to say don’t bond back. The bond itself is strong enough to bend their perception of reality, it drowns them in disillusions they form for themselves, and probably willingly.
What I wonder is at what point is this to be considered insanity? Human needs are not met, and these humans are despite to fulfill these need. Not only that, these people are ridiculed for their emotional situation, instead of being helped. It’s almost like the cooperation is selling tickets to further psychological imbalance to people already in bad conditions.
Children of the Axe Episode 05
Gapped
So in this Episode Ben returns from the woods, Schwick loves horror games and Cuckoo hates everything.
So yes, we returned from our deep slumber! Ben cut our latest recording this time. So give him a shoutout 
Yazan93
@epicbattleaxe just saw the contant creators show with DK couldn’t recognise him without the puns. im not kidding!
Elerigo_amor
@epicbattleaxe If Duke Nukem Forever is not the best game ever i will put my nuts in a nutcracker, and provide evidence!
Dawid Wilczynski
AXE LORDS I SALUTE THEE! Brent ya said you would try to add to the favorite game soundtracks forum topic. I would love to see your favs and also Tony’s and of course DK Money Shizzle to Nizzle fo Dizzle Rizzle. HOLLA!
Kenneth Foutreyn
Hey, my against the wall post goes out to the US and European gaming markets. Too many times the release dates of the games aren’t the same, too many times there are way too less special editions in stock for game retailers and too many times we can’t get the pre-order stuff that you can in the US. Even though those pr…e-order bonuses suck, American gamers get in-game items that European gamers can’t get over here. Gamers all over the world should have the exact same opportunities and chances to get the extra content and/or special editions. For example: you couldn’t pre-order the GoW3 Ultimate Edition after the first day it was announced for Europe because it was such a limited amount. IT SUCKS!
Tevje Skui
Whats up!? Greetings from Norway! I actually have two questions: Do you record EBC via skype or all three in the same room? AND what are your favorite bands?
Hails!
GAMETRAILERS
ieatsithlords
You can’t help but feel a bit of joy when you get on GT and see a new EpicBattleAxe, makes my entire week.
RiftWalker
I think many people seem to miss the point of what RPGS are. A game doesn’t have to be drowning in numbers, stats and such. A RPG is designed primarily to tell an enthralling story and Bioware is amazing at that. Focusing more on the shooting portions means that we get a more polished experience with a gripping story.
Lable07
I have an idea that would benefit all XBL subscribers. Instead of jack the price up ten dollars as it will be when the price change takes effect. MS needs to make another tier (Platinum $59.99) that includes the LastFM, Facebook, ESPN, and Twitter. Netflix should belong to all three tiers (Silver, Gold, Platinum) since you are not allowed to watch/use the service unless you have a external Netflix membership. In this structure ‘Gold’ membership will include the functionality it has now minus what I listed in the ‘Platinum’ tier.
Everybody wins!
Nfanboy
A bit weird to talk about handled future without EVEN mentioning the 3DS… Maybe because there are too many hardcore games annouced on it and the discussion wouldn’t have make sense.
Anyway, for the rest of the show, great stuff as usual.
stillwell
Your handheld games are not hardcore talk was a disaster. The DS has so many hardcore games, you obviously just don’t know them. The DS is for example the RPG monster of this generation, and that’s just the surface.
BuKKakFaCE
This shit again! Why not talk about people that lives outside US like in EU, Asia or what ever that got the price increase of XBOX Live without having any extra features like NetFlix, Hulu, ESPN, how the fuck does Microsoft justify that price increase for people that lives outside NA.
Let’s force some feed back to the feedback section of force feedback. The place to forcefully feed back some enforced feedback to force feedback. Don’t force the issue or feed the trolls. Back to reality:
This feature is beginning to be the funniest/interestingest part of the site. From trying to mispronounce the usernames to diving deeper into the topics that appear to bother the various eba fancommunities (plural!) to just calling attention to interesting things/topics, this segment is continually closing in on striking that fine balance between humor, passion and intelligence that makes the weekly (well, at least kinda weekly) skirmishes of EBC as good as they are.
COTA5? Was 4 already out? Looks like it, so it’s time to spend some time there as well. After I get some sleep though.
Elerigo_amor, it saddens me to inform you there is a painfull experience coming your way. I’m not saying DNF will be bad or anything, but ‘best game ever’… probably not.
Lastly, I’m getting a bit tired of the ‘is this game a good RPG?’ discussions (not restricted to Bioware or ME)… shouldn’t the question be ‘is this game a good game?’. If it’s a good RPG but the game sucks, who’s going to play it? Even for RPG-fans, that is ultimately not a good thing, because a bad game that happens to be an RPG can potentially turn gamers away from RPGs in general, and the resulting low sales will have a similar effect on developers and publishers.
Anyway, great show as usual, may the feedback be with you. Keep slicin’, etc.
Everyone is looking at the price incorrectly.
Yes, it only went up in said places, even the UK were they don’t have access to all these pointless features, but it went up and is now roughly the same as everywhere else in the world.
US, Canada, UK, etcetera, they were all the ten bucks cheaper than other places, Germany for instance.
Germany has always cost as much as the US – one reason for it is that the prices are never adjusted when currency value alters… the other is that MS are dicks and can get away with it.
No offence Daniel, but you said “Sweet-@$$ G.O.G. Action” wrong at the panel.
I agree about Xbox live. The price keeps going up yet here in Australia we aren’t getting all the features. We don’t get netflix, ESPN, whatever FM and Hulu, we miss out on alot of arcade games and get DLC late. I don’t see why we have to pay more when we’re getting fucked up the ass. It also costs $89 a year and ms points are more expensive also ie: $20 for MW2 map packs. Its not even about currency exchange because Aus is getting 92 US cents to the dollar so yeah its bullshit.
PS. we only just got zune movie rentals like 1 month ago.
swedish death metal ftw, arch enemy, dark tranquillity and in flames fucking rule, emperor and dimmu borgir own your black metal soul
Xbox live in the uk or rather great Britain does not get the same services as the usa. Due to netflix and espbn being region encoded or region locked. So, having a price hick while still not receiving the same service is unbelievably stupid.
As for microsoft not making a shot at the handle market I would say the are, with window 7 phone that has xbox live as standard integration to the phone.
Speaking of motion control’s, here the Move’s first web-commercial. It’s… different to say the least.
http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/2010/09/15/video-playstation-move-men/
Lords of the Axe, be greeted.
This is my first Force Feedback and I love the concept you guys have come up with so I have to check out the others.
I would really want to hear Keith Swiader, Jess Conditt and Reuben Moretz on the show sometime so perhaps the EBA community could get to “know” them better and hear their opinion even more
What EBA, TG, BA, DK, LOLROFLBBQETCETC… just thought i’d point something out about the Xbox Live price increase (as you said in FFB006 that you don’t always hear the news from around the globe) Here in the UK the price of a yearly subsctiption isn’t going up, only the monthly fee (see: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/news-features/news/price-increase-news.htm)
Also we do get the Zune experience, Sky Player and all that other shit i don’t want or need.
Peace out.
So on Episode 5 you guys said lenovo will probably not be sucessful with ebox… i kinda disagree… lenovo was a chinese company yes? before ibm got them… so who is to say they dont release a dirt cheap console in china (maybe ps2 price range) which who knows… plays PC games??
Kinda like onlive.
Hell there are so many different small manufacturers in china… lenovo might be a big fish in (lets face it) very BIG pond that has so far been ignored.
Great Force Feedback. I have a suggestion on something i’ve been thinking for a while now…you guys should change the “001″, “002″, etc from the Force Feedback section; to something like (i.e.,next week show) Force Feedback “Con-troller”…or just skip some numbers and name it Force Feedback “089″.
What do you think? …meh?
And DK gets away with a “getting off” pun.
Hey Brent! Did You just say that Mono, the Japanese post rock band, is one of Your favourite bands out there? 10 000 thumbs up, man! I love them so much, I own all of their albums (except the EPs because they’re out of print), including the collaboration CD “Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain”, the “Sky Is the Same as Ever” DVD and the live CD/DVD “Holy Ground”. I’ve been to all but the first of their concerts in my country (I didn’t know they existed back then). They really make music and not songs, they tell stories with their musical tracks and every album and every concert is a journey.
So, in short, while I already respect You, Mr Brent Adams, You have just earned a brand new crap ton of respect on top of that from me by making that statement.
PS: By any chance, have You been to their New York anniversary concert?