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This right here is the link to the forum thread! Follow it, it won’t bite. If you didn’t listen to the audio bit yet and don’t know what I’m talking about, read on. We’re coming up on the end of 2012, and we’d like to get one more episode in the bag before the world ends or 2013 begins, whichever thing goes down. Traditionally that means it’s time for The IMmies, and we’ll probably still do that early next year after we’ve all caught up on some 2012 games we haven’t played yet, but we were talking about it after the last recording, and going forward we want the podcast to involve you guys more. Immortal Machines is the PC Gaming podcast of Colony of Gamers, after all, and we like to think we aren’t just doing this for ourselves (sure, we’re mostly doing it for ourselves, but not entirely). So our next episode is going to be crowdsourced. We’re handing the reins to you! (Nothing can go wrong with this plan.) What do you want to hear us talk about? Nothing’s out of bounds as long as it’s PC related – ask us to talk about a new PC game, a forgotten classic, stuff about the state of the industry, whatever’s on your mind. We’re gonna talk about what you tell us to. And while I reserve the right to change this later, my current intention is to leave nothing out – if you post it in the thread on the CoG forums, we’ll say something about it, no matter how long the thread gets. If it’s a three hour episode, then it is. But that also means that if you make no requests, the episode might be very short.  So go over there and post. Give us some marching orders. Make your podcast monkeys dance!

Going on two years ago now, my compatriots and I dove deep into the topic of sequels in PC gaming, asking the hard questions of whether our physical and digital shelves were too full of copies, spin-offs and follow-ups (sometimes) and whether originality still had a place in the industry (yes). The sequel to Episode 38 was lost in a tragic warehouse fire. But the sequel to that is here for your listening pleasure! We have an absurdly crowded house of 7 folks gathered to once again survey the landscape of PC games over the last couple of years and ask ourselves: how do we feel about the games we love and the nigh-endless sequels they receive? The following links may prove useful to you on our journey. Ultima Online: The Second Age free UO shard A thing I wrote about Dear Esther A short film called “Sight” Hulks and Horrors on IndieGoGo Alright, I think you’re well equipped now. Strap in for Sequelitis III: The Search for Part II. Hosted by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are Mike [Bandango], John [J_Arcane], Robert [Trebor], Steve [Dukefrukem], and James [Vigil80] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Don’t forget to follow our Twitter feed, and if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

No pithy title this time around, much as I love coming up with them. This episode is just straight-up content, and we’ve packed it full for you. So what did we talk about? As the title implies, Diablo 3 gets a fair amount of attention, as the 800 lb PC gaming gorilla in the room right now. Couldn’t really avoid it, so we tried to give it its due. (I promised to post our Battletags, so they are: Ravenlock#1691, Vigil80#1885, Dukefrukem#1729 and Bacalou#1908) And E3 is going on, so that too gets discussion time – you may find the following videos relevant to enjoying our conversation (linking GiantBomb videos, because I like those guys). Splinter Cell: Blacklist E3 Demo Dead Space 3 Co-Op E3 Demo Assassin’s Creed III Ship Compat E3 Demo Watch Dogs E3 Demo Beyond E3 Demo Star Wars 1313 E3 Demo We also talk about the crazy Arma II mod / social experiment “Day Z“, and the RockPaperShotgun articles about it, which you should read. Furthermore, you should check out Windward, which is basically a free online version of the combat of Sid Meier’s Pirates!, and Against the Wall, which is just different and cool. Finally, at the end of the episode, we’ve got a special treat – an interview with Nathan Hunt of Storm Isle Productions, who are remaking 1997 strategy title Netstorm with their fan project, Rising Storm. You may have seen the forum thread on Colony of Gamers about it – it’s looking great and has been generally very well received by the community. If you enjoy slightly offbeat strategy games, this deserves your attention. So come on in! We’ve got a lot to catch up on. Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James [Vigil80], John [J_Arcane], and Steve [Dukefrukem] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Don’t forget to follow our Twitter feed, and if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

So it’s been a little while since I hosted an episode; apparently I go away for a month or so and the whole damn world changes. We just talk about the games we would like to see, now, and we all get together and give each other money, and eventually – we hope – the games get made, I guess. That’s just the way it works now. Want a new adventure game from Tim Schafer? So do 87,000 other people – chip in and get it done. How about a Star Trek-inspired space roguelike? Got you covered. A sequel to Wasteland? Done. A new Shadowrun game by the original designer? Coming right up. A spiritual successor to Rainbow Six? That’s over here. Space combat? Yes, of course. A Zombie sandbox FPS with huge multiplayer ambitions? You want this one. Even Al Lowe is bringing back Leisure Suit Larry, for crying out loud. What were the odds of that? So, yeah. I don’t understand anything anymore, but niche gamer wish fulfillment has literally become a free-for-all overnight. Just figure out what type of game a corner of the internet has been lamenting not having for 10 years or more, make a Kickstarter, put on your most convincing “I’ll make your dreams come true” face for the pitch video, and watch the dollars pour in. Well, sometimes. As we’ll be discussing, sometimes you barely make it. Sometimes you don’t make it at all. And who knows if any actual games come out of all this. But it’s a brave new world, and – spoilers! – one of our own is jumping in feet first with a Kickstarter of their own. You’ll have to listen to find out who. (I lied. It’s J_Arcane! And this is his game: Hulks & Horrors! You should listen, though.) I did promise in the course of the recording to toss out some links, so here they are: - The Dwarf Fortress Lazy Newb Pack (every time, Daniel. Every time.) - The Neverending Indie Thread on CoG - What Would Moly Deux? The Peter Molyneux Game Jam. As we are wont to do, we talked a long time, so I’d best let you get to listening. Let’s give this thing A Kick(start) in the Rear. Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James “Fuck Your Dreams I Want Pie” [Vigil80], Daniel [danielOut, also of fiftycal.net] and the no-longer-anonymous John [J_Arcane] of Bedroom Wall Press! Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Don’t forget to follow our Twitter feed, and if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

Picking up where we left off with The IMmies – and filling time during a slow release period – our trio of podcasters runs down the titles we’re most looking forward to in 2012. Listen in and wait for the “Oh yeah!” moment when we remind you of a game you forgot was coming. Of course, we also announce the winner of our IMmies giveaway. Preceding that, we cast a critical eye at the well-worn “Top X Games of All Time” feature. Everyone likes lists, it’s true, but is this particular well running dry? Is it really “of all time” if it’s revisited and revised every year? Perhaps a new game comes out that deserves a spot, but what does it say when the previous #1 falls over 25 places down? It wouldn’t feel right without What We’ve Been Playing. We weigh in again on Riddler Arkham City, Skyrim and sighting an actual Elder Scroll, our first forays into The Old Republic, X3: Terran Conflict (turns out the “time accelerator” is a real thing), and forays into the Diablo 3 beta, in which we now have at least two of the crew participating. And as we mull over the mammoths that are X3 and Skyrim, ask yourself: If you never saw the ending, did you finish playing? Give our oh-so-optimistic episode a listen here. Hosted by James [Vigil80] Participant is Robert [Trebor] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] Don’t forget to check the Twitter, and visit the Colony of Gamers discussion thread to share the games you’re looking forward to.

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2012. I know it crept up on me unexpectedly, but in one respect we are prepared: a ton of PC games came out in 2011, and as we are wont to do, we’ve gathered around the yuletide fire to praise and pillory them as we feel is deserved. As was the case last year, this is one of our longer shows, and even with the excessive runtime I know we didn’t give everything the credit it deserves. That, dear listener, is where you come in. We’re running another IMmies Giveaway Giveaway this year, and here’s how it works. You either e-mail us (podcast@immortalmachines.com) or post in the thread over at Colony of Gamers, and tell us what your favorite PC games of 2011 were and why. We’ll pick one of you at random, and you’ll be able to gift one of your favorites to somebody else on our dime. You look like a hero, somebody gets to play a great game, everybody wins. So get on that, and we’ll announce our winner in the next episode. So let’s dig in. There’s a lot to talk about. Without further ado, welcome to The IMmies 2011! Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James [Vigil80], Roberts [Trebor] and Chris [JPublic] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Have you followed our Twitter feed? That’s a thing you could do. And if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

No, this isn’t the episode where we talk about Skyrim.  Next time, guys. So here’s what I wanted to do:  I wanted to record a Deus Ex spoilercast.  This is a game with some great story bits, and some well-thought-out callbacks to the original game, both explicit and subtle.  I love me some game stories, so I wanted to talk about all of that.  But here’s the thing:  I haven’t finished Human Revolution yet. “That’s okay,” I thought.  ”I don’t mind having things spoiled as a rule, so I’ll just let the other guys talk about it, and I can chime in with my opinions even on the stuff I haven’t seen myself yet.  It’ll be fine.”  Well, here’s the other thing:  None of us have finished Human Revolution yet. How does that happen?  This was easily one of the most anticipated games of the year, for all of us.  We were seriously hyped for it before it came out, and we were eager to buy it as soon as it was available.  And please don’t misunderstand, there’s lots of stuff we like about it.  In some ways it might be a better game than the original Deus Ex.  But none of us have finished it?  How does that make any sense? So we talk about that.  And other stuff, too – you’ll hear what else we’ve been playing, you’ll get our responses to your e-mails and tweets, the usual. Mainly, though, we’re talking about Deus Ex, and how We Never Asked For This. Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James [Vigil80] and Robert [Trebor] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Have you followed our Twitter feed?  That’s a thing you could do.  And if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

Given our enthusiasm in releasing the Bastion interview, among other things, this episode is a tad late. But, it’s nevertheless full to bursting. We’ve got classic games covered as Robert revisits the original Red Faction and experiments with Virtual Box for titles like Dune 2000, Stronghold, and Diablo. And I recount my time with SWAT 4, the Dungeon Keeper 2 release from Good Old Games, and the original Deus Ex. We’re on the cutting edge, too, with the (oft misheard) Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Clayton’s experience as benefactor of a public Minecraft server, a look at OnLive’s progress, and Eric’s shiny, new GPU. Following the break, Eric and I can’t help but share our potent feelings about Ubisoft’s mis-management of From Dust for PC, and GameStop’s Deus Ex debacle. But, the good feelings flow again when Gabe Newell’s latest comments about piracy and Valve’s growth spurs us to take a positive look at the developing free-to-play scene. There’s something for everyone as we run The Gamut. Hosted and Summarized by James [Vigil80] Participants are Robert [Trebor] and Eric [Ravenlock] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] Join the free-for-all and find show notes and links at the Colony of Gamers discussion thread. And check out @ImmortalMachine on Twitter for real time updates.

Some games are simply a privilege to play.  From the moment I started Bastion, I had the impression that I was going to come away from it with that feeling, and after a playthrough and a half, it hasn’t waned on me yet.  I expect I’ll start a third playthrough, when I’m done with the second. If you’ve played through the game, you know that the superbly sparse and evocative writing makes up a large portion of its appeal.  So we were thrilled to have the chance to interview Greg Kasavin, Bastion‘s writer and creative director, for this episode of the IndieCast.  If you haven’t played through Bastion, don’t worry, we stay almost entirely spoiler-free.  (But really, you should play Bastion.) Our thanks to Supergiant Games for lending us some of Greg’s time, and for making such a phenomenal game.  It was a tremendous pleasure to get to talk to one of its creators, and we can’t wait to see what they do next. We did ask for your questions, of course, and the vast majority of them are answered within.  And one of you won a free copy of the game!  Was it you?  You’ll have to listen and find out. Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James [Vigil80] and Greg Kasavin of Supergiant Games Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Have you followed our Twitter feed?  That’s a thing you could do.  And if you want to join the discussion, come visit the forum thread over at Colony of Gamers.)

I’m gonna warn you in advance, guys:  we’re venting a little bit this time around, in honor of my return to the host seat.  The last year or so has seen some pretty absurd things happen to the PC gaming market, and the Always-Online DRM Scheme For Single Player Games sits proudly at the top of the list of Incredibly Stupid Ideas we’ve had to endure.  We thought it was over.  We thought it had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be not just ineffective but harmful, driving away legitimate customers while doing nothing to deter pirates.  We thought. Obviously, Ubisoft thought differently.  Luckily, none of us much care about a new Driver title, but it’s disheartening to see, y’know?  And then there was the news about Dragon Age 2 being pulled from Steam (later to be followed by the reveal that Battlefield 3 won’t be on Steam at all), and the whole EA vs. Valve kerfuffle in general.  And then there was Blizzard saying that Diablo 3 has essentially been turned into Guild Wars, where you’re always playing online and oh also we’re gonna let you sell your in-game items for real world dollars.  And… ugh.  We just needed to rant for awhile about all this jazz, so that’s what we did.  Companies: stop being dicks to us, and to each other.  Please.  Thank you. It’s not all doom and gloom, though.  We’ve been playing a lot of games, and Daniel wants you to know that with the help of the Lazy Newb Pack you too can dive into the deep end of the ocean that is Dwarf Fortress.  (While you’re at it, read this NYT article about Tarn Adams; it’s incredible.)  There’s also some listener mail in there, and more!  Probably.  You won’t know until you listen. I know we’ve had our differences… but Can’t We All Just Get Along? Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock] Participants are James [Vigil80] and Daniel [danielOut] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo] (Have you followed our Twitter feed? That’s a thing you could do. Then come chat about things in the episode thread at Colony of Gamers.)

Yeeeeeeeee-haw. So I took a look through the historical documents, and determined that it’s been a long damn time since I did an IndieCast.  Well, technically a long damn time since I did any recording, and I’ve got a plan to fix that.  But for the moment, I managed to get James and Daniel together to talk about some of the stuff the indie scene has produced in the last few months, because it hasn’t exactly been quiet. Do we talk about Terraria?  Of course we do.  Jamestown?  Yeah, there’s some of that.  Dungeons of Dredmor?  My heavens yes.  And a whole lot else besides; we went a little free-form on this one, but there was a lot to cover.  Breath of Death VII, Cthulhu Saves the World, Sanctum, Runespell, Frozen Synapse, Solar 2, even Garshasp makes a brief, confused appearance.  (Actually we’re the confused ones, on that.  Maybe you can help us.) This one’s a little longer than your standard-issue IndieCast, but we’re making up for lost time.  We should be back to the regular format soon, and hope to have some sweet interviews to throw your way as well.  For now, come on and dive in.  We’ve got a lot to talk about.

The IM crew are not about to let E3 pass us by without getting our word in. It’s only the industry’s most important event, after all. Special guest Scott, of heavy-hitting sister show In-Game Chat, generously shares some of his first hand experience even as he recovers from the convention phage. We run down the hot – and lukewarm – titles like The Old Republic, Rage, and Battlefield 3, and wax a little philosophical about the nature of E3 and the shape it could take in the future. No show is complete without what we’ve been playing, and this is no exception. Robert leads the way in revisiting former news makers Assassin’s Creed and Amnesia. Clayton is our crash test dummy for Duke Nukem Forever, and we try to decide if Duke’s lost that lovin’ feelin’ after all.  And roughly halfway through the show, we are graced by our first honest-to-goodness caller. A host’s indecisiveness, a guest’s grim determination, veterans’ stalwart contributions. It’s all here in our E3 Spree. Don’t forget the Colony of Gamers discussion thread, and follow ImmortalMachine on Twitter for your to-the-minute chance to call the show. Hosted and summarized by James [Vigil80] Participants are Scott [Psykoboy2], Brian[Xerxes] and Robert [Trebor] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo]

It has been an incredibly long time since Clayton has actually hosted an episode so things are a bit different for this episode. Covered in this podcast Dig-Boxer games like Minecraft, Terraria, King Arthur’s Gold and a few others. Also in this podcast we talk about the necessity of tutorial portions of games. And, just like this summary, this recording is also quite petite. Hosted and summarized by Clayton [Voodoo] Participants are James [Vigil80], Daniel [danielOut] and Nathaniel [Doctor Setebos] Produced by Clayton [Voodoo]