SideQuesting

Welcome to the SideQuest, your semi-weekly podcast devoted to gaming, culture, and gaming culture, with the occasional tangent.

Episode 110 brings us a fantastic interview with Sam Houston of GamerDNA, TweetMyGaming, and the Video Game Industry Twitter List.  We talk a little about what we’ve been playing (yes, Dali DID buy Red Faction), Sam explains how GamerDNA has evolved over the last year, Dali fawns over TweetMyGaming, Mike talks social networking in games, and Ryan… Well, at least Yaniv wasn’t there.

We also use Sam as our guinea pig for our new podcast feature, videogame word association.

Hosts:

Dali Dimovski, Ryan Gan, Mike Wehner, and Sam Houston

Links:
TweetMyGaming.com
GamerDNA.com

Music:
Intro – Main Finger – Disco Link Returns
Outro – The Bub Bard – Desperate Love

Finally, please subscribe and rate us in iTunes:

 

 The SideQuest - Episode #110 - Summer of Sam (Houston) [64:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (343)

I cannot stand GameStop. Their customer service, horrible trade-in service, reselling of used games, the prices – everything about them just sets me off. They are a plague to me and I plan to continue avoiding them. I have not gone there in quite some time but recently ran into two seperate encounters with them and it further fueled my hatred towards them.

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One of the first publishers that arranged and confirmed an appointment to meet with us at E3 was Southpeak games.  They replied early on, well before most other publishers had even started planning their appointments for the event.  I respect when companies are on the ball like that.  I also respect when the people I meet with are as enjoyable to talk to as they are knowledgeable about the games, and the folks at SouthPeak (and Sandbox Strategies) made me enjoy talking about each game, whether it was my flavor or not.

Other publishers take note:  If you have good folks talking about your product, it goes a long way.   Perception is key.

With that said, Sandbox’s Rob Fleischer took me on a tour of the SouthPeak booth and made my stay enjoyable.  Here’s what I saw.

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Red Faction: Guerrilla.  The Conduit.  Tiger Woods 10.  All games I could be playing and enjoying had it not been for my unwarranted obsession with Infinite Undiscovery, a game so bad that I can’t put it down.  I paid only 10 bucks for it at Best Buy’s firesale recently, so putting it away or throwing it up on Goozex should be no issue, right?

Wrong.

In my case I am obsessed with finishing it.  Heck, I still haven’t even come close to completing GTA IV yet I spend awkward late evenings pondering at what the completely uncreative plot of IU will bring next.  “I KNOW he’s actually the hero.  I KNOW the girl is actually a princess.  I KNOW she’s in love with him.”  I tell myself all of these things in efforts to somehow convince myself that it is okay to put a different disc in the drive.

I began to wonder if there were other people who have had similar experiences as I am having right now.  Have they, too, fallen victim to similar guilty pleasures of Dr Drew’s rehab clinic proportions?  Are other gamers playing (or have played) games so bad that they need to justify the 3 hours they might have played thus far by completing the stinky pile of dog poop?

If this is something that you’ve found yourself doing, playing a bad game until you complete it, let us know.  I can’t imagine that I’m the lone idiot (savant?) still playing a bad game.

William “Billy” Mays passed away today at the youthful age of 50.  Following a week of heartache in the celebrity world, losing Billy (who’s star was indeed climbing) sent reverberations through the web on an otherwise peaceful and sunny Sunday morning.

Mays had geek cred.  As the star of some of the most famous recent infomercials, each time I saw him on TV I stopped channel-surfing and watched him explain whatever product he was flipping.  He made watching infomercials as fun and entertaining as possible, and seemed to truly enjoy his work.  Even though there were parodies and jokes, Mays took it all in stride, often joining in on the fun.

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When SEGA first announced that they were publishing Prope’s Let’s Tap, I think the initial thought that went through my head was “Wha—at?”  Could a developer create such an ambitious, quirky title and actually make it fun, or would it amount to being a glorified tech demo?

SEGA was kind enough to send along a review copy for us to take a look at.  Read on for our full review to help you decide if this is a game you’d want in your collection.

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Welcome to the SideQuest, your semi-weekly podcast devoted to gaming, culture, and gaming culture, with the occasional tangent.

A truly awesome episode this week as the fearsome foursome is joined by one Mike McGarrigle, our latest contributor to the site.  We talk about Red Faction: Guerilla, reviewing games, Red Faction: Guerilla, Ryan’s apparent computer problems, and Red Faction: Guerilla.

Hosts:
Dali Dimovski, Ryan Gan, Mike Wehner, Yaniv Pereyaslavsky, and Mike McGarrigle

Visit us at www.SideQuesting.com

Music:
Intro – Main Finger – Disco Link Returns
Outro – The Bub Bard – Desperate Love

Finally, please subscribe and rate us in iTunes:

 

 The SideQuest Episode #109: The Band is Back Together [63:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (329)

SideQuest of the Month (SQotM) is a new feature that we’re starting here at SideQuesting. The basic premise is that we, as a staff, we’ll be picking a game around this time each month to be the Official SideQuest of the Month for the next month, giving you guys some time to pick it up, or think about getting it. Throughout the month, we’ll be playing the game, and we encourage you to seek us out online, and jump in a game with us.
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I’ve had an iPhone for a little over a year now, and I’ve found that the most use it’s gotten has been in the gaming space. Of the gaming I’ve done on my iPhone, the vast majority of that has been playing one particular type of game called ‘Tower Defense. The concept is simple: keep the bad guys from getting through your gate by building towers with particular weapons or defense capabilities.

Fieldrunners is widely considered one of the best of this genre, and many (myself included) consider it one of the best iPhone games available. A simple concept, paired with great graphics and sound, plus a good variety of play modes makes this a game anyone should check out.

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Contributed by: Whitney Meers

As a longtime video game enthusiast, I’ve never felt generationally removed from any aspect of gaming – not with Nintendo DS (I’m from the GameBoy era), not Wii, not even the virtual insanity that is Tony Hawk’s Ride, which I had the opportunity to experiment with at E3. So why does it take a child’s game to make me feel like I’m too old to be playing?

Read on for the review!

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