I’ve got enough beef in here to feed the Ukraine!
It’s football season! Scrimpnut takes listeners to the sidelines for a look at Madden NFL 07. Tritone’s crazy about demos and brings us a full report on the past week in demo goodness. And as always, you get the best in gaming headlines and new releases. Do it, I’m heahhh! Listen now! 25:31 min.

Some time ago, several EMB editors got together to discuss the phenomenon of “WoW Burnout” in the GamersHell Podcast. One astute editor - whom I will not name here so as to seem modest - asserted that they were bored with the game because they haven’t tried all the angles. Most notably, none of the bored editors had tried the game from the perspective of the horde. That changed last week, and the end result is what is being called “the second coming,” or alternatively, “why they all reactivated their accounts.” Observe:
EatMyBomb is now serving up hot, fresh, horde questing on the Eldre’Thalas server. We are guildless currently, but a guild charter is being passed around and we anticipate guilditation in the near future.

Tolobos is happy to be back in action.

On another note, my sister and I are still running with the alliance crowd as well. You can see here from this suspicious screen:

I thought this place was a monastery, not a strip club.
In short, long live the horde.

Ok,take out a pencil. It’s pop quiz time! As you know, we’ve been studying RTS games in general and LEFT BEHIND:ETERNAL FORCES in particular. What’s that, Esteban? This game is wholly holy s***? Good one, Esteban, good one. High five. Though, I must remind you, that kind of language is inappropriate. Ok, here we go:

1. Match the screenshots above with the captions below:
a. a group of citizens who have succumbed to a condition that robs them of their free will and mental competence, rendering them intellectually impotent
b. a screenshot from DEAD RISING

2. Which of the following describes the main difference between LEFT BEHIND: ETERNAL FORCES and the COMMAND AND CONQUER games?
a. one game has a more elaborate tech tree
b. one game has more diverse units
c. Only the plot of C&C has a plausible story and is grounded in reality (Read on …)

Games suck. There, do I have your attention? Didn’t think so. Games F***ING SUCK! Not yet? Ok…let’s try…tits. Lovingly rendered, digital tits with areolae the size of Susan B. Anthonys (her commemorative coin, plural–note the lack of apostrophe) and nipples like hardened number 2 pencil erasers that have been sitting in the desk drawer too long. Still nothing? Jesus! What’s wrong, are you people on dope?! Why did you take this class anyway?

Actually, class, we’re going to talk about gambling. You might say you’re going to Vegas for the free booze, cheap steaks, and Barry Manilow, but at some point you’re gonna get that feeling…and before you know it, you throw down, pull the crank, spin the wheel…uh, you know…gamble. You try to beat the odds. You got a system, right? Can’t lose. Just like game developers. Just like publishers. Just like retailers, and consumers. You can be a high roller or you can sneak down in the middle of the night and bet the Winnebago, but in the end it all comes down to luck.

Or, does it? (Read on …)

Gamers are, by nature, a resilient lot, used to being promised the moon and weathering the disappointment when instead of gaming gold, the friendly UPS man delivers a huge, steaming turd of a game that is broken, buggy, inept, amateurish, graphically inferior, or reeking of gameplay that, well, reeks. Gamers bravely shrug their shoulders, hawk back a big wet loogey of sorrow, and hoof it to the local EB where they try to convince the clerk that, damn if they didn’t get two copies of DUNGEON LORDS for their birthday.

DARK AND LIGHT, the latest MMO from France (home of THE SAGA OF RYZOM), premiered with such a thud it made the bungled launches of Anarchy Online and WW2 Online look like events of Blizzard-y perfection. Literally nothing about this franchise—from the awkward translations on the website, through the frustrating and broken (some would say criminal) account management system, to the ridiculously unplayable game itself—comes even close to working. (Read on …)

Well, it’s great to be back, and thanks to everyone for the cards and gifts and generally supportive emails (note to TYGRR: not THIS time, bro). Yes, the operation went well…they may call it “minor surgery,” but when you see the size of the frickin’ knife and they’re telling you to count backwards from 10…well, it doesn’t seem so minor then, does it? So, except for the tingling and the rash, things are pretty good. Oh, and apologies to the Make a Wish Foundation…I guess you didn’t get the email, and I’m sorry you flew Adrian Grenier all the way out here for nothing. He did seem pretty pissed off.

Anyway. This being one of the driest summers on record for major PC titles (Titan Quest? City Life? CivCity:Dubuque?) I turned to the PC’s bellicose little half-sibling, the xBox 360, where a plethora of high-profile games have been released, many in the past month. (Also, Jeff “suggested” I address these games, and his knees-in-the-ribs manner can be very persuasive) While it’s generally true that I think console gaming is to PC gaming as tofu is to turkey (turkey, in this case, chosen for its alliterative value more than its desireability as a meat)–i.e., a pale, oddly textured imitation–it is also true that, in the words of Paul Simon, I “took some comfort there.” With the console games, I mean. (Read on …)