Episode 146: Winky Faces

Something weird happened with the audio for this week's podcast. I use a Polycom speaker phone currently (maybe now's a good time to get a real mic), and something was wrong with it this time. Maybe the handset wasn't on right, or there was an issue due to prior use that caused some distortion and feedback or something. The problem wasn't evident until listening back and editing, so the entire episode is like that. Luckily, the noise removal feature in Audacity helped quite a bit, making the audio a little more robotic and hollow but taking care of most of the distortion and background static. You may still notice it, especially if listening with headphones, but all things considered, it could have been a lot worse. Plenty of new game releases make up this week's news segment. After that, we read several really great emails from listeners. Topics include Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight, a Double Fine display at the game exhibition in Hamburg, the Nintendo SNES-Mini rumor, the portability of digital downloads on the Nintendo Switch, and what happens when the online servers for games are shut down. That last topic was supposed to be more about the lack of fanfare when the Disney Infinity servers were taken down, but I somehow manage to turn it into a rant about online services in general, and my fears about digital-only content and game patches when current-gen and last-gen servers are eventually shuttered. It seems I'm nowhere close to finishing Persona 5 yet (PS4), or Syberia 2 (PS3) for that matter, so I talk a little about both games, but without a pre-recorded review segment this week. In particular, I talk about the small-scale criticism about P5's English translation, and my thoughts on the puzzle design in S2. Addie talks a little about Little Alchemy (iOS) and Clash Royale (iOS), with me asking questions to better understand what she's playing. Then in our final segment, I count down my personal Top 10 List of the games released this year (so far) that have already hit my ever-growing backlog. The point here is to maybe provide some insight on a few games I'll be playing and talking about in the weeks to come. Steam codes given away this week are Dexodonex, Operation KREEP, and Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. If you're the first listener to enter this week's password (given out during the show) into the box near the bottom of our website's main page, you can redeem these codes on Steam. It never hurts to check, even if you're a few days late. Sometimes, the codes go unclaimed longer than you might expect. Have feedback? Write to us at [email protected] Find links and show notes at http://www.vggpodcast.com