Hi, you probably don't know me... you know, aside from what you knew 3 years ago. Lets catch up, eh?

10. I came to DToid because of Jack Thompson- Or at least because of Robot Leader's dedicated hard journalisms. A guy crazy enough to jump into his car and drive right over to the court house where Jack Thompson was planning to get a judge to play the entirety of Bully? I was impressed and I've been somewhere around here ever since.

9. I was somewhere in the top 100 of DToid's leaderboards- Did you even know that Destructoid had leaderboards? True story. Destructoid used to have community leaderboards based on comments made, c-blog popularity and forum presence. Before the system was scrapped, I was just slightly in the upper teir with the editors and super users like Mxlyzptlx.

8. My favorite interview question is "How can I tell when you're stressed."- I work in QA for mobile device game/app software, and I used to play an active role in my company's earlier hiring pushes. Besides the "what games do you play" question, my absolute favorite to ask was for the candidate to tell me how I can tell they were stressed. Its a great question that stumped me many years ago. My favorite answer culminated in "... well I wouldn't punch anybody." He never did, which was awesome.

7. I'm still technically reading that one book by Yukio Mishima- Its a running vacation joke at this point. I even carried it with me to work for a bit. No progress.

6. I lost my dang mind over Way of the Samurai 3- Like very much so The punchline: I've only played to about 3 of the 15 some possible endings.



5. I don't use credit cards anymore- I'm glad to say Me and Mrs. Tubatic operate our daily lives with 0 use of consumer credit, and we effing love it. I don't go around getting all preachy Dave Ramsey-style about it, but if you ask me, I'd tell you one of the best things you can do for yourself financially is to not owe anyone any debt. Car notes, credit cards, will not stand, my friend. Buy used cars, and save your money, all the time.

4. I considered becoming a religious community leader- I've never had religion pressed upon me, but there was a point in my young life that I considered becoming a man of the cloth. Felt like the natural thing to do for the paragon life I was trying to lead. I never ended up finishing my front to back read of the bible, though. Between that and my own personal misgivings about churches and church communities, it probably all turned out for the best.

3. I used to hang with the hardcore/straightedge/emocore/screamo scene- In so far as I used to spin that stuff in college as an on-air DJ, and helped put on a few shows in Baltimore. Cipher, Codeseven, Shai Hulud, Boy Sets Fire, Hatebreed, Visions of Disorder, Agnostic Front and Frodus are names I remember from that time, but only know as ghosts now. Good, strange times, remembered fondly.

2. I've appeared on the Today Show, like twice- Both as a tuba player, ever so breifly. University of Maryland Baltimore County, my alma mater, doesn't have any major championship sports teams, but happens to have had one of the best collegiate chess teams in America. Thusly, the rolled out the UMBC Pep Band for the chess team's national morning appearances. Fun Fact: controversy later hit the chess team as they were found, at least once year, to have brought in ringers that were not enrolled.

1. I'm gonna be a father, y'all- Yup! Mrs. Tubatic is probably dividing cells as you read this. I'm pretty much freaking out, but I'm very excited about this whole thing, of course! Of all the things I've tried to create in my life, shaping this life will be the greatest challenge, and most likely the most rewarding.

Also, we've been keeping it under wraps. If you know me on facebook: shhhh! :D

As life has dealt my hand, I have been the traveler of 45 minute commute to and from work for the past 7 years. In that time, I've found a lot of time to enjoy revile several gaming podcasts. As we start to forget 2011, I wanted to say a few words about my loved and loved/hated podcasts from the past year. Podcasts that grew on me, and podcasts I turned off nearly entirely (save for bored desperation). in awkward list form, here's what I've been listening to in gaming podcasts over the last year. (iTunes links provided for my easy recommends.)

Touch Arcade Show + Bonus Content

I've got to lead with the best. Brad Nicholson, ex-Dtoid contributor and helms man of the Electric Hydra, has really outdone himself with this podcast series. While he's not necessarily the high octane, Quick Hit tiger that dazzled long time Podtoid listeners, he' s managed to fit his crafted muscle humor into a truly grand catalog of podcast content. Covering iOS and Android with the staff of toucharcade.com, this show oscilates very regularly between the regular format show and interview sessions with (mostly) indie iOS devs. The combination of the two is hands down some of the best content that's being done in games “journalism” in podcast format.

Frog Pants Studios podcasts, including The Final Score and The Instance

Where Brad Nicholson and Touch Arcade bring a certain level of reverence and sometimes humble respect to the table, Frog Pants Studio Network, lead by artist and podcast marathon man Scott Johnson, brings a slapdash irreverence to every show he's involved with. While this results in an honest and enjoyably goofy response to the world of game and tech at large, this also ends in some of the most groan-worthy informational gafs. Casually mixing up Jamestown and Zeno Clash completely grinded my gears this year, and really turned me off for quite a few months, especially regarding how definitively dismissive Scott and the team can be. They're titans of podcasting and pump lots of content, but don't ask too much of their accuracy in giving props where due.



8-4 Play

The newest thing I've been tuning into. While plenty of shows I listen to take an unashamed anti-Japan tact to their commentary, 8-4 (helmed by a handful of localization pros based in Japan) presents a refreshingly Pro-Japan / culture-agnostic viewpoint to the table. There's a good bit of joy in these folks, somewhat akin to the bubbly RetroForceGo team from back in the day. A must for Japanophile gamers.

Gamers With Jobs Conference Call

This is kind of a favorite, but its got an art-snob streak that sometimes brings the proceedings to a wine sniffing bog. The crew at GWJ has a knack for zeroing in on some really clever and nerd-high-brow commentary. The unfortunate result is a heavy/creepy affinity for Bioshock and Ken Levine and a yum-yucking disdain for japanese auteurship. Though not always on the bleeding edge of any given topic, they manage a good, mature-but-fun spin on any given 'cast. Also, these guys love board games, and the esoteric board game indulgence is a nice break from video game drama.

Weekend Confirmed

This is a nice way to end a week. Except for the occasional sour guest and the occasional drunken cast, this show keeps it fun, funny and not overly snarky for snark's sake. They have mostly reasonable discussion and I really appreciate them for it. They're more or less inoffensive, but I hesitate to saddle them as such: there's nothing negative about being rock solid and consistently on your a game like this crew is.



Rebel FM

This is has become on of my least favorite podcasts, primarily for the efforts of show regular Arthur Geiss. My goodness. While I hadn't noticed it until someone pointed it out to me, Arthur is no doubt the most miserable person doing podcasts about games right now. Between a cloying devotion to watchdogging offensive content and controversy, he maintains a disappointed opinion about any topic, with the exception of anything to do with Gears of War, which I think is just the only game that he likes. While I've enjoyed the rest of the team enough, Arthur Geiss is the dark spot on any podcast that I happen across.

Giant Bombcast

Long story short, you'll do well to listen to these guys every week, and their Game of the Year deliberations are the greatest end of year podcasts every, single, year. If you don't know, you need to.

Zero Cool Podcast

These guys are the New Mutants of Destructiod podcasts. Darren Nakamura, Kauz, Ben Perlee, and WalkYourPath have put together the best podcast that only one, maybe two people listen to. I won a copy of Frozen Synapse from these guys and, aside from that, they really put out some good discussion and game coverage.



Podtoid

Man. Shoot. I dunno. Its like... uuuh. I mean...

OK. You know how when X-Force changed from an off the record group of Rob Leifeld level beefy badasses and suddenly became a group of always dying, excessively self asborbed superstars the just kind of took the name X-Force? Its kind of like that. Except this new X-Force isn't completely awful.

Its not so much a podcast about video games now, as it is a podcast about the meaning and nature of Dtoid itself. Compared to the rest of this list, its mathematically unlistenable and awful. However, contrasted against the rest of this list, its a grand palette cleanser. In that, its about the same as it ever was, and on some weird level, I have to love that, at least a little.

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But what are you guys listening to? Is there anything else out there worth a listening, or worth avoiding? Shout it out, Dtoid!

NOTE! I get a little spoilery, though I showed some restraint. Read at your own risky. Game has great performances regardless of knowing the plot points anyway...

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One of my favorite games from last year was L.A. Noire. While the gameplay had its problems with jank and excessive handholding, the narrative flow and character performances made the experience something special. Having a big appreciation of police procedurals TV shows and films, I was drawn into this thick series of crime vignettes and period specific spacial and character settings. What really struck a chord with me, though, was how dedicated L.A. Noire is to keeping the player from identifying and connecting with the main protagonist of the game.

At the start of L.A. Noire, we find Cole Phelps at the bottom rung of the LAPD career ladder, with a wartime past that seems to hang on him in this not-so-proud way. As the start to a narrative, it seems well enough that we're in for a hero's story, as Cole ascends the ranks as a detective and eventually rules the roost, presumably, toward the greatest victory. We expect to find Cole vindicated and victorious by the end, but the Detective Phelps we have at the end of L.A. Noire's narrative is less than a white knight. Only the most forgiving or open minded player will easily accept the character as he's presented by the final act.



And that in particular is what makes the whole trip especially captivating. What Team Bondi gave the player is not the begrudging yet strangely willing hero of John Marston or the sad but morally malleable Niko Bellic. Nor is it the nihilistic via aggressive apathy tough of Johnny Kibitz from GTAIV Lost and Damned. With paper thin regard for who the player would want Phelps to be, the Cole that you have to play is a character that takes none of his overall disposition or destiny from the player's decisions. By the time the user hits that last act and the gameplay twist runs its course, it feels that you haven't even been playing Cole himself. Its more like you've been playing Cole's will to redeem his arrogant and regretted past.

What drove this home for me was the level of interaction with Cole that the player has. Very specifically, you don't control his home life. You don't control what he eats, and you barely control what he wears. But in the context of your protagonist's profession in police work, you are the driving catalyst for the ascension and motiviation of this crappy sap to which you're given the reigns. It not that you're pushing Cole to respond to suspects aggressively: you're indicating when Cole's professional line should be agreeable or distrustingly pressing. You never manage Cole's personal life or his relationship to his family, but you are the intangible dedication to job and duty that keeps him working well into the evening. In an era where the open world has presented players with the customizable, lived-in character, here's this guy. While the world around him appears to be this fully functioning world, the only context we can even begin to touch him in is professional.


Image found here

In this way, the turn in characterization that the game takes for the final act makes a lot of sense. What can a player do with Phelps when he is completely neutered in terms of his career and skill? Nothing. As our crushed protagonist passes his work onto the avatar of the final act, we're presented a certain scenario. The first mission of that final stretch is one all about sparking interest and getting our last man to care about continuing Cole Phelp's work. When the final splashes of the game's narrative plays out, the content is all about the will to set things right, from Cole's outro to the wrap-around flashback stinger, its undeniable, to me, that we've run a full tragic arc through this rollercoaster ride.

Its unfortunate that several people gave up on L.A. Noire about half way through. The gameplay and the intentional samey-ness of the homicide worked in active deterrent to players that had not been successfully hooked by the story content. What the game lacks in character movement in the first half, it makes up for in the back 9 with, in my opinion, one of the best falls a video game character has ever been allowed to have.

"I'm prepared to scour the Earth for that motherf*ck*r. If Butch goes to Indochina, I want a (dude) waiting in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his *ss."
-Marcellus Wallace, Pulp Fiction

Looking past the way he says it, Marcellus Wallace expresses a poignant value of being the big man in charge. As a person in a position of power and leadership, Mr. Wallace can both request and expect the near impossible to happen at his very whim. While the concept of a man popping out of a rice bowl to exact revenge is farfetched and comical, the intent is serious and clear. By his command, Butch is not intended to get far, and Marcellus has the network and resources in place to facilitate the end of Butch, without laying a hand on him.

At the beginning of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, we find Ezio Auditore on the cusp of knowing this same level of power and control. After spending much of his life fighting his own battles and gaining the respect of several certain powerful people in his world, the older and wiser Auditore sets about to execute both a personal and honor bound plan against the controlling faction in the city of Rome. To this end, Ezio revives the Assassin's Order, with himself as the leader. As he recruits and fills in the Order, we the players come to experience the fruit that preparedness and organization can bring, without ever having to consider the logistics of food based stakeouts.



Ezio can call in death on any target he chooses with just the bare minimum of preparation, simply by raising his fist. Wether near a river dock, the congested city, or the open fields, Ezio's assassin recruits will appear as if the strike had been planned for days. His agents of death will jump in over fences, ride in on horseback, or even emerge from blind corners that the couldn't have possibly know to hide in on such short notice. By whatever means available, the order will get it done. The sensation of it is pure satisfaction, and no less a power trip than stabbing the group of targets on your own.

What cements the feeling is the investment that the player puts into this team of death artisans. The game has you recruiting each member individually, saving them from the ruling Borgia family's aggression. From there, the player decides how each assassin improves, and even picks their initiate costume color. This is your team you're calling in, and they're as effective as you train them to be.



Mr. Wallace would approve of the training regimen here. The focus in the meta game of assassin order management is on sending out disciples to various locations around Europe and Western Asia to complete contract work, ranging from infiltrating Lavish parties to extracting friends of the order in dire need. Large missions describe far less covert battles against the Templar threat. You never see these events play out, but you're given Marcellus Wallace's point of view on the matter: I want this done, tell me you've done it. As each mission succeeds or fails, your charges earn the valuable XP needed to rise in rank, all the way up to a full fledged Leap of Faith taking induction ceremony as a capital "A" Assassino.

And with that full corp of deadly, trusted Assassins, your rule as "The Man" in Rome becomes absolute. From a gameplay perspective, there were few things that I enjoyed more last year than making the call and having a righteous "plan" come together. I'm hoping there's more of this in Assassin's Creed Revelations, but if not, I highly recommend giving Brotherhood a run to experience this unique gaming sensation.

For the past few weeks, Jim Sterling has taken on the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade entry for the week, and each has come in disappointing in his opinion. This has come as a surprise, as many of the games show an overwhelming amount of promise and skill in some area. Bastion with its unique approach to narrative, From Dust with it's manipulation of physical elements and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet with it's gorgeous artstyle: these little download games are presenting players with some of the absolutely highest quality components that are sorely lacking in some games that are made by teams of people for many hundreds of thousands of dollars. At any sectional slice, you would be forgiven for thinking you're having a go at a highly crafted work of AAA gamecraft.

But as Jim sums up, something has mackered the final project into palpable dissatisfaction. For all of Bastion's narrative prowess, a shallowness was evident and unpalatable for Sterling. As deft and lush as the element manipulation and physics may be, the game turns out to have little in the way of god-game depth. Even the down right beautiful ITSP tops off as a merely adequate rum through a not very developed tunnel of straight forward adventure gameplay. All amazing and promising games, all suffering from a similar malady: a general lack of full-on depth and substance. It's to be expected that not every game will be awesome. But, how is it that these three games in particular are weighing in as ornate jugs half full of delicious libation?



An easy solution would be to blame Jim Sterling for being tired of his work or some other ridiculous accusation. He's an easy target, because he's so fat. Fat with the presence he maintains on Destructoid, not only as a reviewer, but as a regular news and feature writer on the site. Couple that with the love these games are getting from several other outlets, and one might think he's just having a sad faced go at Microsoft's summer push. However, a look at those other outlets will reveal that the flaws Jim points out are echoed, but overall downplayed. They are there, but discounted in favor of praise and the will to endure the faults to enjoy these games.

So look then to the developers. What's creating this viscious strain of substandard games wrapped in wondrous coating? Theories are numerous, but I think the realities of these games' creation and existence are the ultimate culprit: a small scope game can excel in brilliant ideas, but its in danger of simply not having the key resources (time, people, money to sustain the project) to create the well tempered game that satisfies that deep gamer-thirst for long-lasting game sustenance. This is going to be the defining trait of this era of indie gamecraft at the dawn of digital distribution platforms and services: great ideas, truncated scope.



Greg Kasavin of Bastion's SuperGiantGames, has said that his studio simply wouldn't exist if not for digital distribution slashing the cost of delivering a game to the masses. They can't afford to put Bastion in a box and put it on store shelves. However, Bastion exists in a world where the game can be downloaded to a gameplayer. Similarly, I'm sure, From Dust as it exists today would never be a big enough idea or experience for Ubisoft to greenlight mass production, let alone greenlight the resources for developing the idea from the basic game it is now into a boxed product. These ideas and games thrive off of their smaller scope and are meeting with success and life outside of their creator's minds. This is great.

What isn't great is the loss of well developed, deeply explored games. The digital indie space thrives on the short experience. Indie game ideas bloom at the lower $0.99 to $15.99 price range, but you're not going to find the exhaustive and awe inspiring depth of SimCity, The Sims or Civ. A proper edition of those franchises, mind you: their iOS counterparts lack the depth and gusto of their originals without much room for argument.



Not to say depth can't be achieved in the indie space. Super Meat Boy is a thorough and shining study in pure run and jump. And even now, Jim is working on a review for E.Y.E, an apparently super detailed mash of an indie title built on top of the Source Engine. Hack anything, play how you want, and experience a world of details. Glaring issues aside, it sounds like its providing him with some level of real joy and contentment. But this depth is the exception in the digital indie space.

I've gone on about this whole thing about depth before, but its an item that rarely comes up as a solid point in the "Casual/Hardcore" or "Indie/Corporate" argument space. What do you think Destructoid? Are we losing depth in our games in this digital indie age? What sort of deep and detailed experiences are you finding on digital platforms? Or am I just barking up a dead horse? What's your take on this?

Hello Destructoid, it feels like we haven't hung out in forever. You look well. Have you lost weight?

Part of the reason I haven't been musing out like a bandit on the c-blogs lately is that I've been tinkering with the idea of maybe designing and making my own games for the past few months. I don't actually have much to show for it, except this game right here!

Rubber Duck Zerocraft, First Version for Other People!

Fair Warning: It *should* be just as easy as unzipping the .exe and running the .exe. It shouldn't cause any problems. If it does, I'm sorry: I've no idea where to even begin troubleshooting it, and honestly, it may not be worth the effort to. You probably have much better games to get running on PC than this prototype.

I highly recommend playing this with a controller. Grab JoyToKey (its free) and give yourself a button for Shift and a button for Space.



There isn't too much to it, really. I wanted to get a good grip on how GameMaker works, so I more or less built this game out of the tutorial for 2D shmups on the GameMaker Tutorial page. I mainly wanted to try creating a shmup without projectile attacks. The focus is on defense and avoidance. My main concession is that I can't do art especially well. If you pretend, in that regard, that I am 5 years old, this may be acceptable. I'll eventually pick up the full version of GameMaker and add some sweet particle effects, but for now, that's what's up.

It doesn't necessarily need more priming than that, so I'd love for you to give it a shot and give me your opinions on it Any of it. I want to call my self effectively done with this incarnation of the game, so any feedback will help me improve my gamecraft and possibly make a better, more involved version 2/ sequel in the future. I've got a few other neat ideas I want to scratch out, which I hope to produce much more efficiently than this one!

Have fun and let me know what you think!