Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Recorded Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 10pm EST/7pm PST.

After a series of cancellations that came at us like a barrage, Joe and I were wondering if we shouldn’t have had those black bean, garlic and tripe sandwiches. We carried on anyway though, because of devotion to our listener.

This week, I’ve got a much higher quality headset, more adjustments have been made to how the podcast is put together, and we’re working at a higher bitrate from beginning to end. Hopefully this will improve the listener experience a bit. Let us know what you think.

Download the podcast here (53.3 MB, 58:14).
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Full show notes are available after the jump.

What We’re Playing:

Joe has finished Stranglehold and has some impressions. Now he’s working on Rogue Trooper, and jumps into the wayback machine with The Last Express. Stephen’s trying to finish Twilight Princess, but it’s a pretty challenging final dungeon. He’s also exploring some of the alternate modes in Portrait of Ruin. Laugh as we try desperately to figure out how to say “Picross.”

Cross-Platform:

Joe’s trying to figure out how he’s going to afford all the big games that are coming out before the end of the year. Stephen figures he simply isn’t going to. There’s going to be a lot for everyone to play.

PC/Mac:

Joe has some impressions from his play time in the Crysis Demo, and talks about the recently announced specs for Unreal Tournament 3. He also talks about his Stranglehold review. Stephen’s trying to work out the details of how to use AlephOne to play the Classic Mac titles in Bungie’s Marathon Trilogy, which are now available free, on his iMac.

Microsoft:

Joe’s got Project Gotham Racing 4, and it’s out this week.
Halo 3 tops 1 million online players at once, George took a picture. Xbox Live groaned under the weight.
Bungie has been freed from Microsoft, perhaps they used their jobs as bargaining chips.

Nintendo:

Console game imports have been appearing on the Virtual Console. Battle Lode Runner appeared some time ago without any noise but, Super Mario Bros 2 (Lost Levels) and Sin & Punishment are part of a new push by Nintendo. We discuss our mutual distaste for Super Mario 2 US, and our interest in Lost Levels. They’re more expensive than other games on the platform, but is localization on a VC game worth an extra 1-2 dollars, when every game on the system has gone through localization at some point? Not really. Will we pay it? Well, yes.

Nintendo’s giving away Wii Remote Jackets so you can make your Wii Remote look ridiculous and it’s slightly less likely to kill someone when you chuck it at their head.

I’m preparing to finally complete Oracle of Seasons with a new Game Boy Advance SP by selling my two old GBAs on eBay, one of which is modded and the other is custom painted. Not everyone wants Pearl Pink or Pear Blue… but why is it so friggin’ hard to find a Graphite GBA SP? Because people are hoarding them and selling them on eBay at a serious markup.

Sony:

We struggle through the Sony news for Paul’s sake, and get by purely on the basis of how bad the news is for Sony. There’s a new PS3 in the Euro territories with a 40GB HDD and PS1-only backwards compatibility. Is this a good idea for anyone? Well, I’m sure Microsoft and Nintendo are happy about it. To make matters worse, Unreal Tournament 3 joins the crowd of PS3 games delayed to 2008.

Reader Request!

Charlie in Corona, CA, a reader of the site that works with Joe’s wife, wants to get our opinions on Assassin’s Creed. Instead, we talk about PC demos for a while before getting confused and then back to the point. Stephen and Joe like the video they’ve seen of the game. It’s a shame it’s only on PS3 and 360, a Wii or PC version would have been nice, Stephen thinks. Joe says a PC version’s expected next year. Stephen points out that there are persistent rumors of a Nintendo DS version of Assassin’s Creed, largely based on retail listings. Check out Assassin’s Creed here.

Our podcast music is from Revolution Void, Increase the Dosage, track 4: Effects of Elevation. Used with permission.

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