Ok, this may be a long one, so please bear with me.  This is about what’s happened to the show and the possible future of the show.

Shortly after we recorded Episode 21, Mike ended up leaving Game Crazy.  The details really aren’t important.  On my end, Mike was most of the reason I worked for Game Crazy.  I thought it was a pretty good company and their business practices were (and still are) far better than GameStop’s.  When Mike approached me about working for him at the store he was opening as an indy retailer, I really had to weigh my options.

Not only did I work for Mike, we’re friends too (as is evident if you ever have listened to an episode).  I also had to look at what I had working for me if I stayed at Game Crazy.  The one issue I had/have with Game Crazy is the insane emphasis on selling MVP’s, preorders, warranties and Game Guards.  The products weren’t necessarily bad, but the pressure to push them on customers was making it not as fun a place to work anymore.  Add in the fact that we were hearing from Game Crazy management that they were loving what we were doing, but not hearing even a peep about making us official or that even being a possibility really sealed the deal for me.  We worked hard to put out a good show and essentially given the impression that as long as we were doing it for free (while spending all the money on the equipment and web space out of our pockets), they were fine with it.  I’m not that upset that they didn’t want to work with us officially or pay us or whatever because that’s their business decision and I respect that.  I also understand that this all happened around the declaration of bankruptcy by Movie Gallery.  Still, it would’ve been nice to get some kind of official acknowledgement for all the work we did.

So, I ended leaving Game Crazy and going to work for Mike at his new business, A Better Game Store.  We’re cheaper than all the other places and give more credit than they do, all withough warranties, memberships, and other crap that we don’t have to push.  Things are going great and business is booming.  We’re really having a good time, and Mike might even put up a store front.  Right now, I own the domain abettergamestore.com and it will bring you here, but that may change.

What does all of this have to do with the complete lack of episodes?  Well, between the work Mike was putting into getting the store ready and the tons of work involved especially in the first months of a new business, he hasn’t had time to even think about the show.  I’m only working two nights a week at the store, but I’ve also moved into a new position at my main place of employment which keeps me quite a bit more busy and ScreenGeeks Radio has really begun to take off, so that’s taken most of my free time.  Add in our involvement with Asylum Championship Wrestling (Mike’s the business manager and I’m the A/V guy for the shows), and free time is sparse.

However, Mike and I were talking a couple weeks ago and specifically about how we miss doing the show.  We decided that we need to start it up again.  There is absolutely no timetable as to when production is going to resume, but we are going to start the show again.  It’s looking like we won’t be even thinking about it until the end of July/beginning of August, but we are officially coming back.

What I need is help from the whole three people who still check this site on occasion.  Obviously, we’re not going to keep the name Game Crazy Radio.  The main logo and our mascot, Flame Dude (yup, that was his name), were made specifically to identify with Game Crazy without treading on copyright infringement.  If Game Crazy wants to use Flame Dude, they need to get in contact with Mark Rantal about the rights to his work.  We essentially made the arrangement with him that he’d design it for free for us at the time, but he owns the rights to the art and anyone else wanting to use it has to make arrangements with him.  Ok, back on topic…We need a new title for the show.  We thought about A Better Game Cast, but that just sounds WAY too cocky.  The name of the store is more of a gag.  “Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t have that game, but if you call A Better Game Store…” You get the point.  So, what should we call the show?  I’ll be uploading the new store logo in place of GCR in the next couple days, but we need a name.  Once we have that, we can come up with a logo for the show.  Send your ideas to dave at gamecrazyradio dot com.  You’ll also get to e-mail me if you click my picture at the bottom.  Whoever comes up with the name we use will get something cool.  I’d say what, but I haven’t cleared anything with the boss man yet.  I’ll say as soon as we come up with something.  Maybe Gears 2.  Hmmmm…

Anyway, that’s the state of where things are.  The show is going to be officially affiliated with a game store, but not the one we planned on initially.  Hopefully we’ll get people back listening to the show once we fire it up again…as long as we don’t suck as bad as Yaris.  I’ll also be posting up some news and trying to get involved with the forums again.  Ya know, those things that haven’t been active since March at the latest.

Here it is. Undeniable evidence that there is a loving God in heaven…

(more…)

You have to get to the end of the episode.  About the first nine minutes is the audio from the Fox News story about Mass Effect and the G4 segment as well.  If you want to skip that, go to about 9 minutes in.

 

 GCR Episode 21: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yeah, this one’s less than 20 minutes, but we make up for it the next episode.

 

 GCR Episode 20: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I know that doesn’t help those who want to listen to the show, so I decided to post one of my greatest moments of public humiliation on the internet for your enjoyment.  A year or so ago, I went to a charity bowling even with my place of employment.  What took place was bowling SO horrendous that the technical lead felt the need to tape me and make the following video.  Now that I don’t suck THAT bad anymore, I can watch this without crying now.  The video actually stops about half-way through the running time, but it’s still effective.  You’ll notice some of the pictures have Mo in them and everyone else is co-workers from the time.  I hope you find enjoyment in my pain.

Apparently, there are people in the media who think it’s been too long since an evil videogame that threatens our childhood and freedom has come out, so they decided to make up bogus BS and attribute it to Mass Effect.  We have a discussion going about this already on our boards, but now Fox News has picked up on bad journalism and now make Al Roker look like a candidate for the Edward R. Murrow award.  If you had no idea what Mass Effect was before watching this video, you might just think that it’s an interactive harlequin novel instead of an amazing gaming experience.

I do plan on sending Fox News an e-mail and I would encourage anyone else outraged by this to do the same.  I would just ask that you be articulate and make sense.  I’m sure they’ve already been swamped by more than enough “U guyz are teh sux0rs!” e-mails.  Anyway, watch and be horrified.  Thanks to Joystiq for putting this up.

Ok, so nobody is seeing it from the outside, but we’ve been hit with about 1100 spam hits behind the scenes.  As a response, I’m disabling comments in all articles.  You’ll just have to go to the other place to comment now (I say it that way so I don’t use the magic spambot keyword).  I’m working on approving legit people as quickly as possible.  I’m working to find a plugin that will fight the spam, then I’ll enable comments again.

So, in the space of the last couple of hours, we’ve pretty much been spam-bombed.  I’ve got most of it cleaned out, but an unfortunate side effect is that you can’t post unless you have a comment previously approved.  I’ll do my best to keep on top of that, but it just has to happen for now.

I’m still creating polls for all the categories for voting, but I’ve started creating the polls so you can vote on your games of the year.  I’ve put them under the Flamehead Awards section of our community.  You have to register, but it’s fairly painless.  Feel free to discuss games, but please no flamewars…except in the worst of the year category.  That one’s fair game.

Before speculation goes around as to why changes are happening, I’m just going to address them now.  We started out this show trying to become the official podcast for Game Crazy.  We’ve been thrilled that we’ve been able to help some people get taken care of through back channels.  However, it’s become pretty clear that we will never be the official show.  There are no hard feelings, but we’ve also accepted the reality that it isn’t going to happen.

Then, Mo ended up having to move to Lousisiana.  Like we’ve said, he’s still part of the show and will be back on once he gets settled.  Now, due to circumstances that won’t be discussed, Mike has decided to leave Game Crazy to pursue other opportunities.

I’m very happy with the group that we have doing the show and we now have people assuming that since the show has the name Game Crazy, they have a right to be on it.  All of these things happening have led me to the decision that it is time for a change.  We’re going to roll with the name GameCrazy Radio for the time being until we decide on a new name.  We’ll be getting a new domain, a new logo and hopefully a redesigned site in the future.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know what’s going on.  We’re not going away, we’re just changing a bit.

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that there are changes coming to GCR.  The first you’ll notice is in our disclaimer.  More changes will be coming this week and we’re hoping to get back to production soon.

I probably won’t be on for tonight’s game, but we’ll be playing Call of Duty 4 multiplayer tonight on XBox Live.  The festivities will kick off about 10:30pm MST.  Since I won’t be there, pm Boots (new gamertag Seawolf Boots.  I miss Gladus) and he’ll invite you into the game.

At least I’m letting everyone know ahead of time.  As part of a ritual of mourning over Mo leaving us to become a gator wrestler (or wrassler), we’re taking this week off as well.  Actually, we’ve got some big things brewing that are forcing us to take a week off.  Don’t worry, we’re not quitting the show or anything.

I don’t think we’ve posted any rumors yet, but this is just too interesting to ignore.  Joystiq is reporting (via Xbox Evolved) that the N64 classic is supposedly coming to the XBox Live Arcade shortly before Activision releases their next 007 game.  They say that an agreement has come between Microsoft, Rareware, MGM Studios and Activision, which would apparently clear the way for this to happen.  The only question is if Nintendo is part of the equation.  GoldenEye was exclusive to the N64, but that wouldn’t matter if they weren’t the publisher.

GoldenEye really does deserve a place in history as a forefather of console FPS like Doom and Pathways Into Darkness are for PC FPS gaming.  However, the question has to be how well it will hold up.  They probably will update the graphics some, but I have fewer happy gaming memories than playing paintball, painting “HI!” on the wall you can hide behind and wasting your poor friend who’s having fun appreciating your work.

I probably won’t be picking this up, but I can only hope it does obscenely good business in order to get the one game everyone actually wants from the Rare library on XBLA, and that would be Killer Instinct.  I picked up Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and it’s a beautiful port of the arcade game.  I would be happy as happy could be if I could Ultimate combo Saberwolf off the top of the building with Orchid in all its arcade quality glory.

Unfortunately, through a combination of sickness and lack of sleep (partially due to sickness, partially due to a going away party for Mo), there will not be a show this week.  I’ll give you the gist of what it would have been.  We make fun of the news, mock Halo 3 a bit and apologize to everybody we’ve offended.  We’ll be back with a re-enactment next week.

Oh, and when I say going away party for Mo, he’s not leaving the show, but he is moving to another state.  He’ll probably be off the show for a few weeks as he’s settling down in the new place, but he is still very much a part of the show.

This week’s game of choice is part of one of the most popular games of 2007, but a lot of people don’t play it.  Most people own Orange Box to play Portal.  I have to admit, it’s most of the reason I own it.  But we’ll be playing the Looney Tunes of multiplayer FPS, Team Fortress 2.  We’ll be kicking off about 10pm MST, but I’ll be on earlier as usual so hit me up and we’ll have a good time…wait, that came out wrong.

The only way you can do that is to hack someone else’s Live account to use their Recon armor and then pull off quite possibly the most impressive Halo 3 suicide ever recorded.  I can’t wait to see people try to top this one.

This is quite a rambling episode, but a funny one.  Enjoy!  We’ll be back to normal production next week.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This time, we throw out our nominations/considerations for games of the year.  Voting should be up on the forums tomorrow.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So I was chatting with some of the good geeps over at the GeekLabel Forums and Uno came up several times.  I decided that I’ll be playin some Uno tonight starting at about 8:30-9:00pm and playing until everyone shows up for Battlefield.  As before, PM me and I’ll invite you to our game or get you into another one.

Reverse THIS!