After some quick Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen impressions, the crew takes a deep dive into The Conduit, Fallout 3: Point Lookout, and Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers. It's our first three-way, so be gentle. Featuring Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, and Tim Spaeth.
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Topic and Game References:
- Fallout 3
- Fallout 3: Point Lookout DLC Review
- Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers
- Halo
- Perfect Dark
- The Conduit
Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.
Cleveland native Tim Spaeth grew up in a happy household – a household with a father whose major client happened to be an Atari games distributor. This led directly to Tim's first nickname: "The kid who got Atari games before anyone else." Indeed, he knew Pac-Man and E.T. were colossal bombs weeks before the rest of the world, and the resulting celebrity brought him great pleasure.
Through the years every aspect of Tim's life has been touched by gaming. He mastered typing thanks to Space Quest, honed his poker skills on The Sierra Network, and learned to hate after a particularly traumatic game of Tecmo Super Bowl.
Today, Tim lives in Chicago with his three kids and strives to find that perfect balance between family, career, and Warcraft. He enjoys broadcasting, martial arts, rock and roll, growing and shaving his beard, singing show tunes to the homeless, and losing at Mario Kart to his lovely, talented, and amazing girlfriend.
In late 2008, Tim became the producer and host of the GameCritics.com Podcast, and he's thrilled to be bringing GameCritics' unique editorial voice to a brand new medium.
Through the years every aspect of Tim's life has been touched by gaming. He mastered typing thanks to Space Quest, honed his poker skills on The Sierra Network, and learned to hate after a particularly traumatic game of Tecmo Super Bowl.
Today, Tim lives in Chicago with his three kids and strives to find that perfect balance between family, career, and Warcraft. He enjoys broadcasting, martial arts, rock and roll, growing and shaving his beard, singing show tunes to the homeless, and losing at Mario Kart to his lovely, talented, and amazing girlfriend.
In late 2008, Tim became the producer and host of the GameCritics.com Podcast, and he's thrilled to be bringing GameCritics' unique editorial voice to a brand new medium.
Latest posts by Tim Spaeth (see all)
- GameCritics.com Radio 2018 GOTY Celebration - January 12, 2019
- GameCritics.com Radio 2017 Holiday Awards Spectacular - January 13, 2018
- GameCritics.com Radio Episode 5: The Switch and Zelda - April 7, 2017
MP3 used motion for two things-aiming and the grappling hook, while everything else was a button/joystick action. I wouldn’t say it was revolutionary, but the throw/pull motion felt more natural than just hitting a button, and having to aim the Wiimote was more of a challenge than just using the auto-aim all the time. In my experience with the Wii, the motion controls are like spices-a dash here and there is good (MP3) but use too much and it can take away from the original flavor (Twilight Princess).
However, I haven’t played Conduit either, so I can’t make the comparison.
Richard — Good call, and I actually cut from the podcast a lengthy discussion about Metroid Prime 3. I brought it up as an example of good Wiimote FPS controls. Brad asked me to describe the controls, and according to Chi my description sounded exactly like what The Conduit is doing. Since I couldn’t compare my whole point came off as kind of limp and I axed it from the show. Editor’s prerogative. As for the theme song — it’s from the NES shooter Silver Surfer. It was always meant to be a temp track but we never got around… Read more »
In regards to wonky motions controls, I thought Metroid Prime 3 did a really good job of using the Wiimote as opposed to a traditional controller. Nothing was too convoluted to use and it felt better than if I was playing the game with a controller.
And also, Tim, you must tell me where you got the podcast intro music post haste.
Why all the hate for The Conduit? PS2-level graphics? Are you just trying to be harsh for sake of being harsh or are you critically looking at the graphics on that console and being fair?
Just a comment about the controls for the Conduit: (you knew I was going to write) Every action is remappable. The only action you cannot assign to a motion is reload, which also carries a dual action of picking up a weapon off the ground. Also, you can adjust how far you can look up and down. Not that it matters. How many times have you tried to see your feet in Quake 3? Well, rocket jumping I guess, right? As for the looks, the environments are pretty bland. The characters themselves carry the brunt of the graphical effects. But… Read more »
One thing I would like to clarify is my comparison between Perfect Dark and The Conduit. I didn’t mean to imply that the game looked like a N64 game. I forgot to elaborate further that the interior level design often reminded me of Perfect Dark (which is a good thing since when Rare was at the top of their game when they did GoldenEye and Perfect Dark). Perfect Dark also had a similar alien conspiracy plot involving the President which mirrors that of The Conduit.