Thursday 17 February 2011

Negative World Podcast - Episode 002 - Sophomore Slump

The Negative World Podcast hits its sophomore slump as a Pandareus confident in his abilities to lead a podcast by himself gets hit with a harsh dose of reality! Hopefully the magic of editing will make it so that no one but the people there (Paleo, Zero and Warerare) will know what really went on on that fateful day.

Before launching into each participant's topic Zero, lord and master of NegativeWorld.org, explains briefly the origins of everyone's favorite Nintendo site/forum, and even hints at future plans for the site. That's exclusive info, folks!

Then we discuss Paleo's excuse to bring up Endless Ocean, educational games and how they could motivate kids to learn more about certain topics, if only those games were of a higher quality! Zero has a lot to say about this topic as well, as teaching kids is his day job! I think that means we can legitimately call ourselves "a panel of expert". No plural.

Zero then asks each person to talk about an overlooked game of their choice. Who picked 999, Deadly Creatures, Retro Game Challenge and Disaster: Day of Crisis? Only one way to find out!

Pandareus thinks it's a good idea to ask to a bunch of people without any actual experience designing games about game difficulty and the challenge of designing games that will satisfy both gaming savants and newcomers. Selectable difficulty levels are all well and good in action games, but what kind of good does that do to Nintendo who primarily makes platformers and adventure games?

We save the best for last as Warerare recounts his day at an even where he was chased by zombies and got to play the 3DS. You are so totally jealous right now. Listen as the three other participants attempt to live vicariously through him by asking him why he looked so damn happy on that photo of him playing Face Raiders.

As usual, the best part of the podcast is when no one has started talking yet and a cool intro tune is playing. There is more where that came from, so why not check it out?

Thursday 10 February 2011

Negative World Podcast - Episode 001

A brave crew of experienced message board posters on an incredible journey go beyond the keyboard and dare discuss face to face (not literally).

Listen with amazement as GelatinousEncore, CPA Wei, DrFinkelstein and Pandareus explore topics in a much more superficial way than they would have been in a regular forum thread. But it is being delivered in a newish format that allows you to get your dose of Negative World on the go, therefore is is better. Don't try to stop progress, you won't be able to!

After a musical intro composed by NegativeWorld's lord and master Zero, smile at the ineptitude of Pandareus who foolishly believed that listening to hundreds of podcasts somehow qualified him to host one! Seeing as he basically lives on the boards, you would expect him to be able to describe Negative World better. It's okay, however, as there is no way anyone not already familiar with the board will even hear him. Listen to him clumsily presenting his topic, Wiiware, first claiming that the games are fantastic only to go on about the ways the service is not.

Your eyes will be wide with amazement as you discover the true extent of DrFinkelstein's love for Animal Crossing! Nintendo has broken his heart by releasing a Wii version that lived up to the series' enormous potential, but that hasn't stopped him from coming up with ways to reignite the old flame. Hear him passionately describe them to three other dudes who only bought the GameCube version of the game for the NES classics it contained, or never touched the series at all.

Things get more grave and serious as CPA Wei presents his topic, the end of the Wii's and the DS's livespan. Our crew attempts to answer the question: Is Kirby truly a harbinger of death for a Nintendo home console? Pandareus comes prepared with a list of coming-late-in-the-gen games on past Nintendo consoles, but then forgets to make the point he was getting at. Thankfully the rest of the crew picks up the slack with their insights.

Finally, we prepare to close the podcast the same way Nintendo prepares to put their handhelds to sleep when they've run their course: Pokémon. GelatinousEncore regales us with his tales of playing his imported copy of Pokémon White, and comes up with 5 ways to improve the franchise. The whole crew then comes to the conclusion that there are way more than just five ways to end the stagnation, and seem to agree that they wouldn't be all that hard to implement. Nintendo is being lazy, and we care!

The show ends about as gracefully as it started. Breathe a sigh of relief as Zero's beats signal that the torture is over, but stay tuned for a smerdprise.