PCGP Episode 3
We’re joined by Sid Meier, one of the original Game Gods, with whom we discuss the nearly-gold Civilization IV, the future of his development house Firaxis, and his games’ ongoing effect on the academic community.
We also discuss the immanent release of Age of Empires III, homebrew software on the Sony PSP, the upcoming Battlefield 2 patch, and current headlines. Plus for the first time ever, listener questions are played on the air and discussed. We love these, so keep them coming. Enjoy!
September 13th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
I loaded up ScummVM just last week, pretty funny that you mentioned it. I think the PSP is a great platform for adventure games. The games play great, and look great on the small screen. Although I did have trouble with the Whack-A-Rat minigame in Sam & Max. It was impossible for me to get 20 rats so I had to play up until after that point on a ScummVM emulator on the PC and then copy the savegame over to my PSP. I only wish I could copy the save games from the PSP to the PC and have them work to get past tough/twitch parts like that.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
Great show!
September 13th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
Nice solution with the save game. Strange that it doesn’t work the other way around — I don’t have my PSP in front of me, but I thought it just saved the games in a folder off the root. You can’t just copy those to the PC? Different format?
Anyway, glad the topic is of interest. I probably should have mentioned that Doom & Quake have been ported too, but my nostalgia kicks into higher gears the further back we go in time.
September 13th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
Hey guys,
I’m longtime subscriber of the mag and now a fan of the podcast…
“BUT”
Leave the politics out of both please…
Conservative crackpots by magazines too.
-Water Rat-
September 13th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
I just discovered this podcast today and its freakin awesome. Definetly the best gaming podcast ever. Its inteligent, funny, up-to-date, well paced, and it kicks ass. Keep doin what youre doing, game-ruining conservative crackpots be damned.
September 13th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Politics are fair game when they’re directly related to gaming. Besides, Leland Yee is a Democrat - I’d say we did a fair amount of criticism on both sides.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:58 am
Believe me, Water Rat, when it comes to games legislation I’ve got more vitriol for Democrats any day of the week. As DJ mentions, we take Leland Yee to task in this episode, and we’ve been outraged at what Hillary Clinton has been saying about games recently. Politicians in general need to just clam up when it comes to videogames, or at least know what they’re talking about when they wade into the debate.
September 14th, 2005 at 5:27 am
“I thought it just saved the games in a folder off the root. You can’t just copy those to the PC? Different format?”
It’s the same format, but for some reason when I try and bring a PSP save to my PC and load it up my PC sees it as “Unrecgnized Version” or something along those lines and I can’t load it. Maybe it’s something the ScummVM PSP devs can work on.
September 14th, 2005 at 2:27 pm
I have a lot of mixed feelings about Sid Meier’s commets. A transition to console games has often been accompanied by a shallowing of the gameplay and the experience in general. While “Pirates!” was spared of this, it might have been the exception rather than the rule.
It certainly sounded like Sid Meier wasn’t too in favor of another Alpha Centauri game. That is an unfortunate thing. Perhaps they will consider going back to it one day.
Any thoughts on the interview? It was pretty good. I do hope that Meier will be careful in his leadership of Firaxis.
September 14th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
I’m rather disappointed that Sid Meier, in a roundabout way, basically brushed off further development of a sequel to Alpha Centauri. PC Gamer gave it what, 98% way back. It is 6 years since its release and I still play it since there are no newer games like it that come close.
I believe this is due to the fact that Alpha Centauri probably wouldn’t port well to consoles, which all developers are rubbing their hands over since $$ are rolling in their eyes.
Seems like if we want to see something like it soon, the only choice would be a total conversion Mod of CIV IV.
*wants to slap Sid Meier*
September 14th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Oh yea, and Agnus Dei is pronounced Awg-noos day-ee (more correct) or Awg-noos day.
Great show guys!
September 14th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Hello again past two pods been great but i am having trouble downloading the direct download only dling at 7.0 KB. Have you changed something?
September 14th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
You mean Angus Dei *isn’t* Texan?
September 18th, 2005 at 4:15 am
Typical “talk a lot and say nothing” interview from Sid unforunately :/. Lots of semi-ignoring the question in order to get back to marketing/talking-points.
September 18th, 2005 at 1:43 pm
Whoa, I was just re-listening to the PCG podcast 3, and at the VERY end you hear someone cough, and Dan Morris mutter something….
OMG its a secret message!! Just kidding of course, he must have been talking right before he hit the stop record button.
Anyone else notice that?
September 19th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
I did. he was joking bud.
he said “lunch! thank God!”
September 21st, 2005 at 9:34 pm
I’m really digging the Podcasts, guys. I just listed to Ep3 on the way home from work tonite (I’ll listen to Ep4 on the way in tomorrow). And I like the musical interludes. One suggestion: puleeeze get DJ’s mic leveled out. He’s always coming off way more loud than everyone else [insert joke here].
October 27th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
I actually liked this podcast alot. Especially the comments about the violence in videogames. Very intersting.
Now about DJ being louder. I think his voice is just deeper (and manlier if I might comment) and comes off as louder.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
That was pretty good, great show! I am a bit late but i will catch up on other episodes, i really like it!