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Podcasts

The Final Score: Episode 3

On this week’s episode of The Final Score we delve into gaming news, what we are playing, old school gaming and feedback from you.

The Final Score podcast is recorded live every Friday night at 3pm(MST)/6PM(EST). Be sure to join us as we broadcast live video and audio. Join in the discussion in the FS chatroom : frogpants.com/podcasts/the-frogpants-live-stream/

Latest News (discussed) :

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Trailer Revealed!: https://bit.ly/dv2P4T

StarCraft 2 given ‘Adults Only’ rating in South Korea: www.joystiq.com/2010/04/18/starcraft-2-given-adults-only-rating-in-south-korea/

Left 4 Dead 2 – “The Passing” Now Available on Steam!: https://store.steampowered.com/news/3742/

Xbox division posts $165 million profit in fiscal Q3 on strength of Xbox Live business: https://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/23/xbox-division-posts-165-million-profit-in-fiscal-q3/

PLAY TIME (what are we playing):

Scott:  (looking forward to 3D Dot Game Heroes on PS3) Played a little of the LD42 update.  Trying to finish Magic Ball

Brian: The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom, Blur Demo

PLAY TIME (Brian’s Quick Notes):

The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom (PC: Steam)

First impressions: Sounds like World Of Goo plays like Braid and looks like a silent film brought to video games

Story: In the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom you play as Mr. Winterbottom, a pie thief who finds himself misplaced in time when he tries to steal the Chronoberry Pie. What a cruel world. Luckily for Winterbottom he discovers a way to manipulate time and uses his new found power to continue his pie thievry ways by cloning himself. Constantly thwarting young children’s appetites along the way.

Game Play: Puzzle game. Simple control scheme. Jump, direction and record. Based on the level, you will have to record a clone or clones of yourself to solve the puzzle of getting to all the tasty pies. Sometimes, based on a time limit and overcoming certain obsticals with creative thought.

Music: by David Stanton. I want this soundtrack. Make it available now. Do it.

Graphics: Winterbottom has the classic look of a villian from the silent era. A well dressed man with a pencil thin mustache and tall hat who likes to tie women up to train tracks. Or maybe a chimney sweep. It’s all in there. The game is mostly black and white and uses prose between scenes to give hints and further the story…and sometimes just to be witty. Totally immersion.

———————————-
Blur Demo (xbox 360)

First impressions: Mario Kart meets Need For Speed: Underground.

Story: We don’t need no story. Let’s race and blow each other up.

Game Play: Race game. Just like in most Kart games you will be collecting items along the way to slow down or blow past the competition. My favorite is the bubble of protection (i’m sure it has a name…but I’m playing a demo here.) I tried the blaster power up but I could never stay on the road and hit anyone. When I tried the boost power up I did just I do in all race games that give you boost. I ran straight into the wall at 200 mph. Overall, this game was fun. It’s going to be all about the online play. But at $59.99 I may be waiting until the price comes down.

Music/Audio: I think they did a fine job with the music and audio in this demo. Most of the power ups have their own audio effects which helps with the immersion factor.
Graphics: This game looks great. Just what you would expect from a race game. Nothing really all that new here.

OLD SCHOOL GAMING:

Gauntlet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_(arcade_game)

Speaking of old school gaming, I challenged Scott to a better practice run in Marble Madness. I sucked it pretty bad. I need a trackball to play this game…laser mouse not recommended. Watch me painfully play the practice level!

Thanks to all those who sent in Force Feedback questions and comments. I love those. Reminds me of the reader feedback in the front of gaming magazines. CALL US OUT! podcast@finalscoreshow.com
Final Score: Episode 3
Categories
Podcasts

Film Sack: Convoy

This week, the Film Sack crew reviews the 70’s “trucker type” hit movie Convoy. This trail blazing film, directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, Ali MacGraw and my personal favorite Burt Young, delivers on the trucker goods and makes it easy to see why the years following it’s release spawned more cops v. road people movies.

Convoy’s story revolves around “Rubber Duck” (Kristofferson) who is going about his trucker business when a run in with the law snowballs into a race to the US/Mexico border that builds into a Convoy along the way and ends with one heck of an explosive face off.

Oh yeah, Did I mention the whole story is based on a trucker song of the same name “Convoy” by C.W. McCall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdc0Oq1VwH4

Overall, I would say I enjoyed this movie. Despite the fact that the aspect ratio was not right on Netflix streaming for this particular film. Most likely this was due to a poor film to tape conversion that was handed down to Netflix by the studio. I would recommend getting the DVD version over streaming this movie until they fix this.

There were some pretty good performances in this movie. Especially by Burt Young, who seemed to have more heart than any of the other truckers. Ernest Borgnine was real easy to hate as the primary antagonist cop. Ali McGraw provided some nice eye candy along with an ok performance and Kris Kristofferson had the looks to pull off a gritty trucker but seemed a little flat in place but did come across as honest and believable.

The CB/Trucker talk was fun for about 5 minutes and then I just started to tune it out. But an interesting look into the whole CB culture at that time.  “10W-40 Good Buddy….Hey wait a minute…you ain’t no trucker!!”

Most of the shots were well filmed and I’m sure posed a lot of problems at the time trying to film a whole convoy of moving trucks. Some cheating was attempted in a few scenes that failed. Like when you would only see 1 or 2 trucks on screen where there should have been 10 or 20.

Overall. I would give this film a 6 out 10. It was a pretty good ride but nothing to really sink your teeth into.

Another film in the sack!

Film Sack 25 “The One About Convoy”

Categories
Thoughts

OS Love/Hate

Living in the southern part of the United States, specifically South Carolina, I am in daily contact with people who passionately declare that their truck manufacturer is better than the competitor’s truck. People will expend great thought and varying degrees of creative effort into how they can insult their opposition. I’ve certainly seen my fair share of Calvin, of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, peeing on a Ford or Chevy emblem. But even with all that hate, there is a bit of playfulness to it. Not a lot of venom in that bite.

Now switch over to the internet. Tell someone how fond you are of your OS and you will find yourself in a whole heap of trouble that even the Duke boys couldn’t get themselves out of. YeeeeHaaaaaaa!

So why all the love/hate when it comes to your choice of OS? If a bunch of rednecks can be civil about the truck they drive, can’t we all play nice when someone has something nice to say about their own OS choice? Maybe if we let off a little steam by having cartoon characters peeing on our rivals logos we could talk to each other in comments and message boards with a little more kindness.

I’m Brian Dunaway and I love all OSes.

Categories
Thoughts

Driving, horning and giving the finger

This morning I was driving. Actually, I was sitting at a green light waiting for my turn to take a left against oncoming traffic. I pulled into the intersection and waited for the light to change. This particular intersection has no green turn arrow and during this time of the morning there is a constant flow of oncoming traffic.

The light turns yellow. There is a small gap between a car that just passed me in the oncoming traffic lane and another car behind it approaching the intersection. The approaching car does not appear to be slowing down very much. They may be thinking about making it through the yellow light. I slowly let my foot off the brake in case he decides to stop. But I’m not stupid. I’m not going to pull out in front of someone who is still moving at 30+ mph.

Then I hear a horn blow behind me. Obviously, this person really has to be somewhere and can not deal with waiting through another red light before turning. I can understand that. I’ve been there. But you know what. I don’t care how many times you blow the horn. I am not turning in front of an oncoming MOVING car.

Road Rage Time!!

I held up my hand for the individual behind me to see. I extended a single finger. But for some reason it wasn’t the one I thought I was going to hold up. Instead, I held up my index finger. I started wagging it. I said “No No” and I shook my head.

It may have been passive aggressive. But I felt better. I was basically saying “What are you…5 years old?”

This was the final straw for me and horns. I think horns should be removed from all cars. They are seldom used for their intended purpose. So much so that they cause more trouble than they solve. Often, people use them to express their dissatisfaction with how they perceive your driving skills or to get their friend’s attention. “HEY! BEEP BEEP!! I KNOW YOU!!”

The few times I have seen people blow the horn for a real reason, such as to notify another driver of their presence and to please not hit them, they always blow the horn about 3 seconds too late and then it turns from something useful to a long blast that says “HEY MORON!! YOU ALMOST HIT ME.”

Just like everyone else, my first reaction to someone invading my personal car space is for me to hit the brakes and put my hands at 10 and 2. Which is what I should do. I shouldn’t be concerned about the dang horn.

Down with car horns!

Categories
Thoughts

Brian’s Brain: Environmental Fixers

“Save The Frogs Day” is April 30, 2010. What’s that you say? You didn’t know that the frogs needed saving. I was not aware myself  until I was channel surfing recently and stopped on one of the local ETV channels where I caught this episode of Nature – Frogs: The Thin Green Line. You can watch the full video here:

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/frogs-the-thin-green-line/video-full-episode/4882/


You're Doing It Wrong

The episode mostly deals with scientist in the field who are trying to save many species of frogs from extinction due to a naturally occurring disease and predators as well as man influenced environmental changes such as introduction of trout into the ecosystem where there previously were none as well as chemical runoff into the the frogs natural habits.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself: I didn’t know Brian was a tree hugging hippie! Well, I’m not. But I also am no fool. When you start messing with the food chain I start getting concerned. Because, I like to eat. Not frog legs of course. That’s just nasty. Do you know where those legs have been!

Anyway, this got me to thinking. When do we cross the line between fixing what we broke and interfering with the natural order of things? I love frogs. I think they are beautiful to look at and they are very important to our ecosystem as we know it. I think we should be correcting things like the pollution we are introducing to these frogs that are causing mutations (are mutations always a bad thing? That’s another article I’ll have to cover later.) Also, we should try to remove the trout we placed unnaturally into the frogs habitats years ago. But should we be stopping chytridiomycosis.

The Chytrid fungus is naturally occurring in the environment and may play a role that we are not aware of. Nature has a way of evolving and replacing things that are removed from the ecosystem. It’s very resilient. As a human I value life and I think frogs are beautiful and I would love to always have them around. So I support saving the frogs. But I also question how much and how far our good intentions will swing before we stall the natural evolution of things.

I’m no expert. I’m just a guy who likes to question things. I also value your opinion. So be sure to comment below even if it’s to say “Brian. You are an idiot and you don’t know how to use commas.”

Brian D.

Categories
Podcasts

Comics Coast To Coast: Caldwell Tanner

On this episode of CC2C, me and John Sanford (Chippy & Loopus) talk with a very energetic Caldwell Tanner of loldwell.com about his webcomic career and his new job at College Humor dot com (NSFW) out of NY.

We cover topics from people typing with no thumbs (highdeas) to using Caldwell’s globe with dragons on it to geomap our locations. However, we do get around to staying on topic from time to time (purely on accident) and learn about Caldwell’s background and go onto talk about his webcomics and his experiences in working in a team environment.

With any good podcast meal you need to throw in some appetizers and dessert. That’s where Music To Draw By and Webcomic Pick Of The Week really shine. Music To Draw By features 11 year old Canadian artist dZ and Webcomic Pick Of the Week showcases Australian Dean Rankine’s webcomic WOTUGIVIZWOTUGET.

Even if you aren’t a huge comic fan, there is plenty on this episode to entertain you. Check it out.

Comics Coast To Coast Episode 90: The Caldwell Tanner Interview