If you want to know why the podcast was late this week, the reason was both simple and totally unsatisfactory in every way. We were watching a movie. As we tend to do before we record el Poddeo we popped out for some sustenance and Yug also picked up a little bit of light entertainment to fill in the time while eating and so prevent unnecessary communication. We try to avoid talking wherever possible. Our lawyers have recommended that.

Yug’s choice of movies was a little unusual. He hired An Inconvenient Truth. And we watched it. While watching the fact that we were finished our food and had something important to do became quite distinctly not that important at all, and we continued to watch enthralled.

I’ve seen my share of thriller movies. From Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Saw to Seven I’ve seen people hacked into bits by various implements, my personal favourite being the otherwise barely adequate Wrong Turn. Aside from featuring the eye blisteringly hot Eliza Dushku the only ...

If you want to know why the podcast was late this week, the reason was both simple and totally unsatisfactory in every way. We were watching a movie. As we tend to do before we record el Poddeo we popped out for some sustenance and Yug also picked up a little bit of light entertainment to fill in the time while eating and so prevent unnecessary communication. We try to avoid talking wherever possible. Our lawyers have recommended that.

Yug’s choice of movies was a little unusual. He hired An Inconvenient Truth. And we watched it. While watching the fact that we were finished our food and had something important to do became quite distinctly not that important at all, and we continued to watch enthralled.

I’ve seen my share of thriller movies. From Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Saw to Seven I’ve seen people hacked into bits by various implements, my personal favourite being the otherwise barely adequate Wrong Turn. Aside from featuring the eye blisteringly hot Eliza Dushku the only act of greatness this movie has is a scene in which a girl’s head is cut in half, the top half resting on top of a saw blade while the bottom half slides out from underneath it. So wrong it’s right. Actually probably the only scene that beats that is the start of Ghost Ship. Man, how can a movie start off so right and then go nowhere? I call it the “Saving Private Ryan Effect”.

I’ve seen some horrors. From the tension of Omen (It’s all for you, Damien!) to both versions of the Ring. From the Shining to The Grudge, Rosemary’s Baby to Mimic, classics like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, or Carrie. Actually, I think the scariest ghost I’ve ever seen in a movie was the damn librarian in Ghostbusters. I was a little kid when I saw it in theatres, and I think it twisted me for life.

But the scariest movie I’ve seen in a long time is An Inconvenient Truth.

There wasn’t a lot new here. We’re all aware of global warming, environmental changes, etc, but to have them all laid out in such a clear and obvious way is more than a little worrying.

What is the relevance to gaming? There isn’t one really. Just thought it deserved a mention.

The point of the comic above is a connection more to an article by our “friend” Oracle than anything else. He talks in detail about the shortage of games for the Wii at present, and I don’t really want to rain on his parade.

This kind of thing is pretty common. Just after launch there’s always a dead time. Anything that was nearly done came out at launch, and anything “bigger” is usually a little way off, generally 6 months to a year after the initial launch.

The PS3 is going to face the same issue, and the Xbox360 has recently come out of its own drought, finally having some absolute killer titles after a quiet first six months. Both of those consoles were pretty reliable, though. There were some good games coming. There always would be. Even though we may be in many ways critical of the PS3 there is little to no doubt that it’s going to get developer support in a big way. It’s the Playstation 3, for Vishnu’s sake, and people are going to buy it in droves. Some of them may be drovers. I’m not sure, I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it’s a nice image.

The Wii, on the other hand, is a different issue.

If there’s any one thing Nintendo is good at, it’s making quality games consoles, with awesome games. If there’s any one thing it’s bad at lately, it’s supporting the damn thing.

While they’ve been good on the portable side, their home consoles from the N64 up have been awesome hardware with some of the best games… every 6 months. The Wii launch list is emptier than Britney Spears scalp.

More than anything else this is where Nintendo needs to step up. The hugely positive reaction the Wii has gotten will help a lot, with developers able to justify development more for this awesome install base than they ever could for the lesser Gamecube, but unless it gets some REAL games and soon it will be stuck as a party only console for a good long time.