Trevor Scheld

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It's business as usual this week at the CouchCast.  The guys, Tino, Nick, Type, Trev and Amanda... HOLD THE PHONE! Amanda?  This week the guys are joined by community member Nectar.  They look back at the past two weeks at what they've been playing, and what's coming up in the next couple of weeks too.  The group take a look into Bobby Kotick's latest public address at DICE, Ubisoft's DRM scheme, the next Unreal Engine, and what is being called "The Xbox Effect".

Questions were a little slim this week, but the group have fun with it anyways.  As always a "Would you rather" gets snuck in, and much hilarity ensued.

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    This week the guys sit on the imaginary couch we all pretend to be on while recording and talk about some games they've been playing.  They also discuss wether or not Xbox is a monopoly and if games are spoiling themselves due to over saturation.  Plus a triumphant return to Ranny submitted Would you rathers.

Twenty Oh Nine has been a great year for gaming.  It was full of controversy, both ridiculous and legit.  Downloadable content exploded in a big way, the Playstation 3 dropped in price which prompted Xbox to respond in kind.  The Wii saw sales drops almost all year long but put out a game that finally spoke to its core audience which it had been long neglecting.  This year was also ground breaking because it showed us that quarter one of the real year (not fiscal) could put out a metric fuck ton of awesome games and get sales just as well as a Q4 pre-Christmas release.  Casual games lured in the hardcore audience (ex. Plants vs. Zombies) and basically bridged the gap between the two.  Shadow Complex showed us that you can put out a game that looks like it could have been on disc for full price at XBLA prices during their summer specials.  Left 4 Dead 2 proved that Valve can make a sequel in just one year and have it actually look like a sequel but still can't put out a third episode to Half-Life 2.  All in all, it's been a pretty sweet year.

So what did I think of it all?  I've read so many articles that this decade was abysmal and they can't wait to get to 2010 and while I agree with them overall, gaming has had a great decade and 2009 is one hell of an end cap.  2000 saw the birth of the PS2, which is considered one of the greatest gaming platforms to date.  Nintendo mailed out $80 million worth of gloves to protect your palm from the N64 controller while playing Mario Party.  A decade that started with Diablo 2, Deus Ex, American McGee's Alice, and Perfect Dark (the only true successor to Golden Eye),  ended with Dragon Age: Origins, Modern Warfare 2, Flower, and Torchlight; this was the kind of decade that inspires the next generation.  If I were to look at just the games this year that I loved I'd end up with these three: League of Legends, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Saboteur.

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Couchcast 14 is live!

    This week the boys discuss the new tf2 update and the new LoL update.  The also go over the winners of the VGA's and conmpare them to the winners of the IGA's.  Last but never least we answer listener mail which includes a hilarious Ranny (Would you Rather?) question.

All and all, it's been a great year here at CouchAthletics and we look forward to seeing you guys next year!

I always felt like in the return of Indiana Jones that Harrison Ford should have said, "Nazis... why'd it have to be Nazis."  Instead, we got a man hiding in a refrigerator to survive a nuclear blast.  My thoughts were the same when I saw the description for what seemed like just another open world game mixed together with a WW2 game.  Developed by the recently disbanded studio Pandemic, The Saboteur is an open world game set in Paris during its occupation by the 3rd Reich.  You play as an Irish race car driver employed by the British to usurp the Germans at any corner, plus you're hellbent on revenging your friend who was killed by a high ranking Nazi officer.  Oh, and you're a douche.  To the Max.

Will Pandemic be remembered for making an awesome game or was shutting them down warranted?  Read on to find out.

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Couchcast 13 is live!

    This week the regular cast of the Couch (Type, Trev, Nick and Tino) discuss amonst other things why they don't care at all about the DSi.  The ask for opinions on the VGAs and remind PC users of IWnet that their ISP now hates them, but they won't get the message because their still downloading this on a 56k down-throttled connection.

     Now I'll sign some petitions, maybe repeal a foolish law or show some support to a minority group.  You know, worthwhile causes.  So you can imagine when the boycott/petition of Left 4 Dead 2 came around, I wanted to know more about why there was a need to do that.  Boycotters raised concerns over the speed at which a sequel was conceived and went to press (only one year since the release of Left 4 Dead).  Modders and map makers were initially concerned about continued support and how little time they'd had to play around with the official release of the L4D SDK.  The final concern and perhaps the most pressing matter was how different this game would be.  With many people still regularly playing games of L4D, Valve had to find the right mix of innovation and reiteration to release a game that would feel different enough to warrant a sequel but still feel familiar enough to reflect that original winning formula.

Did Valve nail the recipe with all eleven herbs and spices?  Find out after the break.

     Modern Warfare 2 is no stranger to controversy, whether it’s PC users' dissent over the removal of dedicated servers (among other "essential" PC options) or concerns over the depiction of terrorism in the level “No Russian.”  News broke recently that the Russian version of the game was receiving heavy criticism from the country's gamers due to its portrayal and supposedly the inclusion of Russia as the aggressor in a war on America.  In a blog on gotPS3, Russian’s display disgust in what they view is the stereotype of the “evil Russian.”  To be fair, he did beat the crap out of Rocky.  Spoilers from here on out.
 
     Read more to find out why this is all ridiculous.

     Did you like the music in Borderlands? Lord knows I did.  That opening sequence is made three times as awesome by the inclusion of Cage the Elephant's song Ain't no Rest for the Wicked.  Here's the catch, you want to hear that song you shouldn't be looking to the Borderlands' soundtrack to scratch that itch.

     Alot of the music was badass though, so if you need to listen to it on the go pick up the offical soundtrack.

For the full track list check inside.