How To Murder Time

This week we’re taking a look at game length. Is there such a thing as too short or too long, and what effect does that have on our enjoyment and perceived value?

It’s another what we’re playing show and this time we’ve been spending time in Guildwars 1 and 2, as well as year 2 of Lego Dimensions and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

It’s Hugo book time so we’re joined again by Days and Toerag to look at another winner. This episode we’re looking at the 2012 Novel Redshirts by John Scalzi. It’s the tale of a starship that certainly isn’t the Enterprise and what it’s like to be a red shirt on that ship, especially if you’re unfortunate enough to be selected for an away team… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(novel) http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/31/a-note-about-the-format-of-redshirts/ http://www.slhuang.com/blog/2012/10/03/an-open-letter-to-john-scalzi/

It’s that time of year again, so Jon is back to shouting at Anna in Forza Horizon 3 while also playing The Bunker, a full FMV game that amazingly doesn’t suck. Tim on the other hand is being overly cruel to Kerbals and the group is back in Guild Wars 2.

This week Tim is talking about nostalgia and Jon is quietly disagreeing with some of the conclusions.

We’re talking about what we’ve been playing again, and it’s a colourful mix of Destiny, The Solus Project, Both Minecraft and Dirt Rally in VR and Tabletop Simulator with not everybody in VR. That’s a lot of VR. If you want to read along for the next Hugo podcast in a few weeks then the book in question is Redshirts by John Scalzi, we’ll mention future ones at the end of each Hugo show.

This week we’re expanded the team with @StMistaken and @Dr_Toerag for the first of our new monthly looks at the winners of the Hugo award for best novel. We’re starting at the very beginning with Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, the very first winner back in 1953. It’s a tale of committing a murder in a society where telepaths can read your mind before you commit the crime. The Demolished Man Alfred Bester Interview with Bester The games chat will be back next week.

It’s a trio of space games this episode, with Starbound, No Man’s Sky and X: Rebirth. Two of those games didn’t have the best of launches…

This time on the podcast Jon has been playing Inside, the next game from the people who made Limbo, and Tim has been too busy voting in the Hugo awards to play any games so he talks about the best novel category instead.

Staying in with Tabletop Simulator, Going out with Pokemon Go, Kickstarting System Shock and co-op in Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And “accidentally” dropping children in rivers. Don’t ask.

It’s a sad day as Planetside has closed so Tim went back for a last look. Meanwhile Jon has been playing Saints Row The Third in co-op and we’ve both been playing on the new Minecraft server. Lastly there’s a bit about boardgames as we’ve not mentioned them for a while and some thoroughly enjoyable games of Cube Quest and Ticket To Ride have been played.

This week we’ve been playing Total War: Warhammer, Skyrim and Just Cause 3’s 2nd DLC. It adds mechs.

This week we’re chatting about Doom and Uncharted, as well as the Hugo nominations and ill advised attempts to get fit that may have lead to injury shortly after recording the show.

They’ve added making stuff into Planetside 2 so the Friday night game group went to take a look. Meanwhile Forza 6 Apex released on PC as a beta, so is the free to play elements any better than when Forza 5 launched? Finally there’s adventuring to be done in Divinity: Original Sin. Here’s the video version for those of you you like pictures.  

This week we’re talking about the first DLC missions for Just Cause 3 and why it’s not as good as 2, why Carmageddon Reincarnation doesn’t feel great and why Tim can’t get on with Rocket League. There’s also a bit of a rant about VR and how The Vanishing of Ethan Carter manages to get it so wrong control wise (at least on the the Rift), and why this is a big problem with VR as a whole.