Dreams & Dragons

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Light Brigade written by Peter J Tomasi, art by Peter Snejbjerg, colors by Bjarne Hansen, letters by Ken Lopez & Rob Leigh

Just your standard WW2 story where a group of U.S. infantry are recruited by the immortal Centurion Marcus Longinus to stop a fallen angel and his army of near immortal half-human offspring from igniting an archangels Wrathful Sword upon the ever-burning Cross of the Nazarene and using it to overthrow God. So you know, same old same old…

Plus its drawn by Snejbjerg who I’ve loved since way back when he was on Books of Magic. And here he gives Frank Quietly a run for the money in the ability to draw humans that have been shot to fuck and back…

But the main appeal here is the story again. Which is kind of Devil’s Brigade meets Zulu meets Demon Knight. So you know, its chock full of awesome and plenty of scenes where Nazi’s get shot…

Headlines this week, and a new addition to the cast!  Sam has joined our motley crew, and we are now a three-host podcast, at least until such time as we fire him.

Sam gets welcomed to the ‘cast.  Jonathan talks about Gen Con and Ex Illis, a game he didn’t have the opportunity to actually try out, but still has opinions on.  Alex goes on and on about GameStop again.  Then we get into headlines!

The News:

• Three Brothers Killed Over Xbox 360
• A bunch of game announcements and release dates that’ll take up too much space to link individually.
• Guard plays Plants vs. Zombies. Inmates play Run Away!
• Bow Wow Loses $100k to the Game in Madden Beatdown
• NCSoft sued for making games that are too addictive.
• PS3 Cracked via USB Dongle
• Australian iPhone Censorship, Developers Threaten Pullout

See ya next week for a headline that ballooned into its own topic!

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We jump right into the action this week, as Sam rejoins us to gives us his Top Ten, plus a few runners-up.  Not a lot to post here without giving the show away.  Enjoy!

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The Holmberg and the Writer get together to discuss the inevitable coming of ebooks. This all stems from a thread on the Spooky Outhouse forums.

We start about talking about music. You knew it was going to come up, so we take care of it right away.

Piracy and why ebooks are now viable.

The inconvenience of living in a market transition. What do you do when you own a book in paper but you want it digitally?

Point of view: what is a book to a reader, a writer, and a publisher. Here are some of the things consumers should take into account. Here are some of the things the industry should consider. Let’s all work together, eh?

The Big 6 of Publishing: Random House, Simon and Schuster, Penguin, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and the Hatchett Group. Will they survive the transition to digital publishing? Do they have relevance when paper isn’t involved in books?

Organic growth, market share, and why ebooks are a certainty. Here is the projection graph for 2010 sales that Joe mentioned.

What happens when a book doesn’t sell

Want to learn more about the industry? Look into Pimp My Novel, Nathan Bransford, Janet Reid, Kristin Nelson, GalleyCat, Publishers Weekly, Publisher’s Lunch, and others. There is a lot of information out there.

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We’ve got a very focused show for you today.  No banter, no week in review, we’re all about the topic today.  What’s the topic?  Money!

We’ve got Sam (also known as Neosect on the forums) along for the ride, and we’ve got some answers from Brad, one of our Australian listeners.

If you’d like to follow along, you can check out the questions in the forums, and be sure to post your own answers there, as well, when you’re done listening.

Next week: Sam’s Top Ten!

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The Red Dead 3-Way has a clearly marked Spoiler Warning, so listen without fear!

Episode 33 is coming soon.  We’ve delayed the recording date thanks to Alex’s new job (discussed later), so you’ve got ’til Saturday to send us in responses to our questions.  Love to hear from you!

Jonathan talks about Prince of Persia and his reasons for giving Bayonetta another shot, while Alex talks a bit about Record of Agarest War, Ancient Trader, and his new job at GameStop.

We try to keep Alex’s Microsoft fanboyism at bay, but there’s some big news out of Redmond since our last show, so the headlines section is a bit slanted.

First, the Kinect has a price, has a bundle, and can apparently be finagled into recognizing seated players.

Second, 1 vs. 100 has been cancelled, and Alex is distraught about that.

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We’re talking games this week.

We’re still looking for your thoughts on Episode 33.  We want your contributions, in any form you choose.

Games discussed:

• Ancient Trader
• Red Dead Redemption
• Singularity
• Ghostbusters
• inFamous
• My Japanese Coach
• Picross 3D
• Just Cause 2
• Civilization IV Complete
• Frogger

See ya next week!

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(Reposting due to broken link to podcast)

We’ve got a headline show this week!  But first, banter.

We put off talking about games ’til next week, because we’ve got a ton of stuff, and the Steam Sale was still going on, so who knows what all may have been purchased between recording and releasing.  We do talk, though, about preparations for a topic show in Episode 33, which we want your participation in.  Also, OnLive appears to have a plan to make money.  (Shocking!)

Headlines!

• id Software’s Rage Leads Game Critics’ E3 Noms
• Junction Point taking the (mean) Mickey out of Epic Mickey
• Reggie confirms 2011 launch for 3DS on Fallon
• Alleged Kinect hardware specs claim two active player limit
• Retailer says Kinect pre-orders are “very low,” blames guessed-at price point
• Market Research Firm: Kinect (and Move) will have “negligible impact” on market
• Microsoft: Kinect Not For Core Gamers
• Introducing Hulu Plus: More wherever. More whenever. Than ever.
• Redbox Dabbles in Game Rentals

Bonus feature after the credits: Alex has an interview with American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks. The interview has nothing to do with gaming, it was just a “something interesting happened this week” event.

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