Orange Lounge Radio

You know we have to mention that Nintendo Revolution controller... Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks review... Konami to merge with Capcom?... FFXI expansion pack... Metal Gear Solid 4 News... Suikoden 1 & 2 PSP bound... More Tokyo Game Show news and much more

On the Revolution controller, I think the primary concept (following Skie's lead) is "reconfigurable." It looks like if you hold it sideways, it's very similar to an NES controller. Also, if it has all those fancy gyros and mercury switches, special controllers may be a simple as providing a variety of snap-on plastics that can hold them in a gun, joystick, trackball, Irritating Stick, or whatever configuration they can dream of. Unfortunately, this will probably lead to gimmicky control schemes that make no sense (shades of the DS touchscreen).

Here's a possibility: dance games where you strap controls to your calves?

Mortal Kombat being cute: As you said last night on the live show, "Riiiiiight..."

Mini Gear on MGS4: Did you see how the thing was being all cute-like? I'm supposing that's supposed to be comedy relief in an otherwise war-torn locale. It has a Cell processor! It falls on its own! XP Also, as someone who's played MGS and MGS2 (I should rent MGS3 some time), I find it really odd to see Solid Snake smiling in one of the screenshots.

Katamari PSP: The story is that an island full of animals was hit by a tsunami and one of the inhabitants was a large turtle that ended up at what appears to be the Prince's own island. He gets the Prince to help out the survivors. There WAS a town and stuff there, so it's not just about the animals. Also noted was a level that took place in a bedroom that's underwater. I can sort of see how they can use the D-pad and 4 buttons to work: all you have to do is slide/tilt your thumb to the buttons. =\ I can't see how that technique would not have been thought of. I was also personally thinking analog stick + 4 buttons. (Wonder how the soundtrack would be...)

I'll hear the last 20 minutes of the podcast on my bus ride home.

P.S.: skie, what were you doing here at 6:50 am? XP

Last week was "sexy." This week was "cute." It was almost "giggly," but "cute" won. I don't know who was criticizing Dark Sakura, but if she knows what a Channel F was, she's almost as old school as you get. If you're MY age, I remember before video games and before pinball had digital, LED displays.

When I was in High School (yes, High School), the Channel F was used on a local TV station as a contest! They called it TV POW! I'm not making this up. When you wanted to shoot at the moving target (a block) you'd say "POW" into the telephone. They pretended it was "voice activated," but it was really somebody offscreen pressing that weird, triangular joystick/button thing.

Even though the Bally Arcade controller was very similar, it worked much better than Channel F. I think I may even have a pair of controllers somewhere....

robbway wrote:When I was in High School (yes, High School), the Channel F was used on a local TV station as a contest! They called it TV POW! I'm not making this up. When you wanted to shoot at the moving target (a block) you'd say "POW" into the telephone. They pretended it was "voice activated," but it was really somebody offscreen pressing that weird, triangular joystick/button thing.

That sounds oddly familiar...
But I can't say I know about it first hand. (P.S. I'm young, I only graduated High School 2 years ago).

Reenee wrote:P.S.: skie, what were you doing here at 6:50 am? XP

sometimes i sneak on before i leave for work :p

I've heard one central criticism from all the podcasts, including OLRTG, about PSP lack of games. Admittedly, there was a dry spell in the summer, but I've yet to play entirely thru a PSP game since launch. I have a life which made that possible.

Because of this, I feel that the US has become a nation of casual gamers. By casual, I mean "play it for 8 hours or less, then stop." That fits me to a tee. If I had devoted all of my gametime to the PSP games, I may have been close to finishing up by the time Namco 50th came out. So the question is, are we more casual than before? Are we more of a Throw Away Society when it comes to video games?

As a postscript, I'm really disturbed by Untold Legends reviews that claim the game is short. I've been strictly doing all of the quests and trading up my equipment and supplies. That was about 80 hours ago, by game time, and I'm close to being done. It's so repetitive, though, most people won't play it that long. I guess this is why RPGs with "X Hours Play" rating is so useless.

We're all nerds here skie XP
Some are just cooler than others like you, ds, and loki
-Paulie

What was the link Loki mentioned at the end of the podcast? I missed it.

Here you go:
http://www.citizensunitednegatingtechnology.org

And also mentioned (but not spelled out) was the Liberty City Stories site for PSP (verify your age!)
http://www.rockstargames.com/libertycitystories/