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.

 

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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