SC9 - Mission to Wackyville!

Submitted by Perrin on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 17:49

A more light hearted and topical gaming treat awaits you in this week's episode. It was my birthday yesterday so it's a day late, and I guess that's just something you're going to have to live with.

In our comedy themed Big Issue we talk about MadWorld, Host Master and the Conquest of Humour and Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust. In bollocks of the week we follow two ridiculous Nintendo related stories, and in You Should(n't) Play This I forgot to make any notes while Rob clearly did so I look a right idiot.

Enhanced iTunes M4A version (25.3MB)
Normal MP3 Version (23.5MB)

Our reader question for this week: What's the most emotional experience you've had playing a video game?

Cannon Fodder. That hillside

Submitted by chooban on Tue, 21/04/2009 - 18:56.

Cannon Fodder. That hillside covered in graves still makes me shiver. I can remember replaying the first missions over and over so that I could keep the initial squad alive as long as possible.

The first time I played Quake my pal and I took the train into town so that we could buy the latest PC Format with the cover disc. We played it in the dark, sound turned up the way it should be. The first level was fine but at the very start of the second level all you can hear is the Ogre (or whatever it's called) making disgusting noises and he's just around the corner. Just around the corner and throwing grenades around. It gave me the shits.

Playing "Project Zero 2" with a flatmate. Whoever was in charge of the controller during encounters would generally hammer the shutter button while the other would get frustrated that they weren't taking their time to use the correct film. We both agreed that when in the driving seat, you just want to make the fuckers go away as fast as possible, balls to waiting for that magic moment where they lunge at you.

Sheer, unadulterated joy; Katamari Damacy.

I wasn't going to mention ICO

Submitted by Quit on Tue, 14/04/2009 - 00:25.

I wasn't going to mention ICO because I thought it might be a bit obvious, but the bit when you're on the bridge and you have the opportunity to escape, but Yorda is in trouble, I actually said "Oh no you don't" and ran back, and then when the cut scene came back in I realized that I had a really 'manga' style look of determination on my face.
At that point it didn't occur to me that I was playing a game, I was getting me and her out.

I guess that's a similar scenario to my Pikmin story.
Maybe I like rescuing things?

Playing Half Life 2, and its

Submitted by rossmills on Sun, 12/04/2009 - 15:45.

Playing Half Life 2, and its subsequent episodes was a strange experience for me, because I think I started to feel something for Alyx Vance as I would a real girl.

Maybe it's the fact that I had spent X hours of exhilirating time with this "girl", maybe it's that her facial expressions were realistic enough that I could have believed that they were real, or maybe Valve are just that good at putting forward a character I can feel something for.

Either way, I recognised myself feeling this way, and was mildly disturbed, and nipped it in the bud. It helps that I could just put down the game, as I couldn't someone in real life.

Or maybe I felt that way because I AM mildly disturbed.

I definitely think that Siren

Submitted by Vyze on Sun, 12/04/2009 - 14:20.

I definitely think that Siren (the new one) has a great atmosphere for creating emotional experiences, although every experience is along the lines of "I just shit my pants". Probably the most creeped out I've ever been in a game was the one part in Siren when the zombies decided NOT to attack me, it all just felt so sinister to be perfectly safe. I hadn't been as creeped out since I played the first Project Zero. Then again, I had just moved into a tiny, cramped, cold, unfamiliar mobile home in the middle of nowhere while the new house was being built and animals would make fucking loud and terrifying noises in the middle of the night about 10ft away from my room. Playing that game in those conditions wasn't good for a healthy night's sleep.

Yakuza 2 was fantastic for drawing out emotions, even if it did it in a pretty stereotypical gangster-film kind of way. I ended up getting way too attached to both the love interest and the main bad guy, and the sequence before the final boss fight was just amazing. It just makes me even more annoyed that Yakuza 3 and Kenzan seem to have no word of an English language release at all.

Finally, and most embarassingly, case 2-4 of Phoenix Wright 2. Whenever you have to stall the case and once you see Maya again at the end of it. Although it was probably the weakest overall game in the series (not to say that Apollo Justice wasn't mostly rubbish), that final case is easily one of the best.

I had been checking for the

Submitted by ChampagneOLeary on Sat, 11/04/2009 - 07:59.

I had been checking for the new podcast for what felt like ages, but I must have just missed when it came later and have only just got it.

The most emotional experience, as intended, would be Shadow of the Colossus. I can't really explain the feeling, but I choked up after almost every colossi. Then at the ending, my word. I never fully broke, but my heartstrings were under severe tension.

The most emotional experience, not as intended, would have been Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. Being rubbish back then (not that I'm much better now), it would take me a good hour to get through the first 3 bosses, and then have to have about 50 attempts at M. Bison. This usually brought on tears of frustration, violent anger, once even swinging the controler around my head by the lead and then lashing the pad down onto the SNES. It still didn't crash; you couldn't do that sort of thing with a Mega Drive.

P.S. I do love this podcast but you need to sort out your goals. Your failure to discuss alcohol means you're failing on 50% of your mission statement, however much you excel on the games.

TOO MANY GAMES TO COUNT but

Submitted by elenawing on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 22:18.

TOO MANY GAMES TO COUNT

but here's one of the first times i MAJORLY got emotional over a game

oddly enough it was FFX in the final scene where Tidus basically went "kthnx bye!"

I'd basically grown up in a world with scenes like...HELL final fantasy 9 has the hero dissapear, only for him to reappear, have a happy ending and LALALA happy super fun times lets have freak monkey babies.

It was the first time where he TRULY went...and i was so shocked, i sat through the credits, bawling.

then ffx-2 made it better again and i went YAY and then threw the shit game in the bin once i had gone through its agonizing torture to see the end.

I'm sure theres one specific

Submitted by Agent_grey on Fri, 10/04/2009 - 22:15.

I'm sure theres one specific occasion I went absolutly destraught at something in a game, but it must of been so disturbing that I can only vaugly recall the appalled feeling and no real details.

I do find that the best way to make me cry though is to make me laugh first, if you can do that and then seemingly 180' me, I'm very easy to emotionally manipulate via media after that.
One thing that I did enjoy but found myself in the minority are the Megaman Legends Games, appalling controls they may have I still love em and they are remarkably silly stuff and often amusing.
In the second game the main characters meet a man who has a very thinly veild connection to the main good guy female lead and is most likly her missing father. He has amnesia and married the barwoman of a shitty town they meet and lets the girl go off to save the day. As doing so he throws away a photo of the girl and her family. I may be reading too much into it because lord knows Capcom love having vauge fucking story points, esspecially in megaman, but it looks like the bastard was not only her Dad but figured he'd rather keep the life he had than involve her.

What a cunt!

Another instance wasnt with me but a friend of mine. I wasnt esspecially enamoured with FF8, but said friend loved it. I came around just while he was playing and saw him reaching a scene where he Squall and annoying female FF lead number 34 float around in a space ship and talk.
He'd been quietly reading for a while, then started mumbling.
Louder and louder he got. He was yelling at them to kiss.
"stop fucking about and KISS her you BASTARD!"
They do and he threw his pad down and shouted "FUCKING FINNALY!"
Then he turned to me and said "Oh hey, how long you been here?"

Biased against the DSi?

Submitted by trav on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 20:06.

Biased against the DSi? Never. It's not like I sat in one of their presentations, was told that the i in DSi is because it has cameras now, so it's got EYES! Oh how I laughed and that. Then the technical speak started again, to which I slumped back into my chair, eyes rolled in the back of the skull and hoping for a swift death.

But don't worry kids. Nintendo make puns!!!!!

Anyway... just to hanker back to the Big Issue stuff. What about something on DRM. I know you've done one on Piracy and as I'm too lazy to listen to it again I'm going to say you didn't go into too much detail about DRM. I've been on both sides of the argument, the thieving bastard customer who clearly steals everything and the Nazi company who demands that my PC is there property once the game is installed. Think that could be a good discussion.

As for this weeks question. It's Dead Space. The entire game just fucks me up. Curtains closed, lights off, sound right up and being the little pussy that I am, I can't play for more than half an hour. I walk everyone and everytime something appears I jump out of my skin. It's a game that creeps me the fuck out and will love it forever for it.

I was playing Pikmin 2 on the

Submitted by Quit on Thu, 09/04/2009 - 18:57.

I was playing Pikmin 2 on the GameCube, and one of the underground levels went badly wrong. One of the ones on steel girders with a shit load of monsters. Our mission was going badly and the little shits were just following me around, chanting, getting eaten, not picking up treasure, and just being fucks. I threw one of them over the edge, as if to teach them a lesson.

I threw one of them over the edge. As if to teach them a lesson. A blue one. At random. It fell. It fell so far. I heard it cry out as it was falling and then it's cries fell silent.

My mood changed.

The rest of the Pikmin were looking at me. They were looking at me to guide them out of this horrible maze of monsters. This horrible maze of monsters that I had led them into. They still looked to me for leadership and direction even though I had just needlessly killed one of them. I had killed one of them for no reason other than to relieve my frustration. I had become a vengeful god. I was unhappy with myself.

I made a pact with the Pikmin in my mind, that some of us were going to die, but none of us needlessly.
We would do our best to get out of there. We would honor those that were dead already and I would make amends for my vengeful act by doing my best to keep all the others alive. No Pikmin was expendable. They all meant something to me now. They were relying on me. I couldn't let them down.

I'd love to pretend that I'd been drinking, or taking some of those drugs that we have in London, but in actual fact, this little game about resource management and problem solving taught me something about myself. And humanity. And shit.