Podcast: DF #99: Raining Down Heavy Spoilers

This week's Thursday episode of Distributed Failure features some news, some spoilers, and plenty of ridiculous nonsense, like tales of snorting pixie dust. There is obviously a heavy focus (see what I did there) on Heavy Rain spoilers, but there is something here for everyone. Be sure to check out our live show Saturday (3/13/10) on the All Games Network at 5PM CST; it will be the big 100th episode! [postponed].

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Memorable Gaming Moment 2002: Animal Crossing

You may be asking yourself this: Why is Kush sharing another memory of 2002? The simple answer is that I am God and I can do anything I want, such as punching infants and baby animals in the face. Now that I got that out of the way, it’s time to move on to memorable moment numero duo. You may have already read my Morrowind moment, but that was not the only game that grabbed me in 2002. 2002 was also the year I finally bought a Gamecube; the first Nintendo system I bought (excluding handhelds) since the NES. I bought the system solely for Metroid Prime, but to my surprise, the game that really sucked me in was Animal Crossing.

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Gaming Memories: Final Fantasy II

When I was in the 10th grade I was an overweight Geek, for those of you counting at home that was 1993; I guess you could say nothing much has changed. I had just received my SNES the previous Christmas and it was heaven. A few years earlier a local department store was closing its doors and inside the store was a whole section of magazines and guides for a ton of video games. I found one for a game called Final Fantasy and convinced my dad to buy it for me; I believe it cost $1 at the time.

I had never seen a game like this before; Wizards, warriors, and thieves. The game seemed huge and I decided I was going to rent this game. I had just picked up my trusty guide and no dragon seemed too dangerous, no stone would be left unturned. I would stop the evil Chaos from destroying the world!

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What Can One Hundred Dollars Buy?

I have been struggling these past few days with how I should spend a very specific amount of money. That amount would be one hundred thousand dollars!!! Actually, it's only one hundred dollars.

I was seriously thinking about picking up the Guitar Hero: World Tour band kit bundle through Walmart's website for $99, but I wanted to just pick it up in store. This was impossible thanks to the fact that Walmart does not match their prices in store with their prices online. I could purchase it through their website and choose "ship up at store" (which is free) as my shipping method, but why should I have to do that? Why does Walmart feel the need to waste my time (and theirs) just because they won't match their own friggin' prices?

The other game(s) that I was considering instead of Guitar Hero was The Sims 3, as well as the recent "Complete Pack" of Civilization IV. I would have most likely picked up the limited edition of The Sims 3 because I am a bit of a Sims whore, but my fear that the game may not run on my system halted my purchase. The total of these two games would have equaled $110. I did not buy them, nor did I buy Guitar Hero. What did I end up buying you ask? Find out with more sausage...

What I ended up buying was 4 copies of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (w/Subzero animation cell) for the X360 at $15 a pop, Prince of Persia (X360) for $15, Need for Speed: Undercover (X360) for $12, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (NDS) for $5, and Metal Slug 7 (NDS) for $10.

This all ended up costing me roughly $110 after taxes. The awesome part of this tale is that I can pretty much get all of my money back by selling these sealed copies (yes, they are all brand new copies) on eBay for a nice lump o' change. I must thank Target (and small town stupidity) for making this all happen. I may actually go back and pick up some more copies since they still had about 10 copies of MK and PoP each. Thank you Walmart for being completely ridiculous and thank you my computer for being outdated! None of this could have ever happened without you!

I also have to throw a shout out to K-Mart for Metal Slug 7 and a shout out to Shop Ko for Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.

DF# 48: We Have an Absence of Poo

We're back for another week of utter awesomeness, mostly thanks to the "poo-mans" absence. That's right, this week you're stuck with only Rob and Kush whether you like it or not! We start off the show, like every other week, with "What We've Been Playing" and I get interrupted by the phone call that never dies. We talk about Wheelman, Ninja Blade, Peggle on XBLA, Crystal Defenders, Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Killzone 2 (yet again), and plenty more.

After "What We've Been Playing", we jump into a little gaming news including the Nintendo DS breaking 100M world-wide sales, as well as Bioshock 2 speculation. We then go into "The Sausage Dump", which is our new segment dedicated to all things not related to video games. This week's Sausage Dump revolves around our thoughts on the Watchmen film and how Rob is completely wrong and smoking too much crack. We end the show with the "Question of the Week" and discuss why game-to-movie and movie-to-game adaptations rarely work (and if that trend will ever stop).

• DF# 48: We Have an Absence of Poo

Thanks for listening to our little podcast as always and be sure to check back next week for Gus' glorious return. Below is next week's all new Question of the Week from yours truly:

QotW (3/19/09): "What is more important in a video game: The gameplay, or the story? Can a game still survive if it has great gameplay, but not story (and vice-versa)?" ...I look forward to hearing the community's thoughts and if you have a vocal answer, feel free to email me at: pixelatedsausage@gmail.com, or the show's direct email: distributedfailure@gmail.com