Episode #102 of Jumping the Shark is up and features a visit from the Senior Producer of the upcoming MMO RTS End of Nations, Chris Lena. I missed out, celebrating my daughter’s birthday, but the rest of the gang is on the case, digging up everything they can on the latest project from Petroglyph. After that Brandon talks about Driver and Infinity Blade and why Space Marine didn’t meet his expectations. Danielle finds Skyward Sword awkward to swing, but does fall in love with Mario 3D Land, and Bill sweeps down into Arkham City to mete out some vigilante justice.
It’s a quick and dirtless episode for Jumping the Shark #99. My work week from hell (all three days of it) precluded me from joining, but that can’t stop the rest of the crew from talking about moments in gaming they’re most thankful for from the past year. On the way, Bill delivers his penultimate chapter on the road to completing Dark Souls, Danielle dives into a board game so rare Bill has never heard of it, called Name of the Rose, and Brandon demonstrates why he’s the ultimate Batman. Join us for this last step before our big episode 100 extravaganza (in which we’ll largely do the same stuff we’ve been doing all along)!
The whole crew is back together for Jumping the Shark #98. This week Bill gives us his latest installment of Dark Souls torment, I take my first wintery steps into the world of Skyrim, Brandon goes on and on about Batman’s ball-stomping abilities (don’t ask), and Danielle makes her very own HTML 5 bowling game complete with unique ball physics and actual PBA players and season play. (I may be exaggerating.) Our topic this week is games we hated that everyone else loved (and vice-versa), as inspired by Brandon’s rather surprising dislike for Uncharted 3.
On a personal note, this could very well be my only post this week. Between a bunch of work in my inbox that I didn’t expect and holiday travel, there’s not much time for writing. So, if this is where we part for a few days I wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. Go Lions!
It’s just Brandon, Danielle, and me for Jumping the Shark 97, as The Hand was unavoidably detained by a sudden case of mono. (Not really.) This week I talk about my travails with Demon’s Souls, Danielle continues her sojourn into Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, and Brandon doesn’t really talk about much, unless, of course, you count a heaping mass of details about Saint’s Row 3. Yep, Binky is on the case and he’s loving it every minute of it, so don’t miss that!
For our topic this week we discuss gamer stereotypes, specifically how gamers stereotype each other, a subject that came up while I was watching Twitter reaction to Call of Duty release day. This is pretty much as close as this cast gets to talking Call of Duty.
So, here’s one tangent that occurred to me about this topic while I was editing that I wish we had thought to address directly: Dividing harmless stereotypes from destructive ones. You’ll find in the show that I think the whole Call of Duty DudeBro stereotype is largely both harmless and funny, mostly because it’s just so ridiculous. An audience the size of CoD’s can’t possibly be represented by a single group and even if it were, there’s too much humor in the DudeBro stereotype to not have some fun with it. At some point you have to be willing to laugh at yourself, for crying out loud.
This, however, lead into an unfortunate statement on my part in which I inferred that these things don’t matter because “it’s just games;” a premise that is ridiculous on its face and not really what I meant. After all, Danielle just held court last week with a fairly serious discussion of women in games and the stereotypes that come from that. This is a topic worthy of serious discussion as there is genuine harm that comes from some of the attitudes engendered towards women in this business, even if it is “just games.”
The question really becomes: In terms of gamer stereotyping, where is the line between what’s harmful and should be discussed and what should be dismissed as harmless and largely in good fun. When you figure out the answer to that question, be sure to let us know. I’m going to head over to NeoGaf now and make fun of nerds in thick, taped glasses who think Skyrim is good. (Actually, it probably is. I’ve hardly had any time with it as yet.)
On Jumping the Shark 86 we are joined by Cedar Hill Games founder and former Bioware designer, Tobyn Manthorpe. Cedar Hill Games just published the excellent Emissary of War for the iOS and Tobyn joins us to talk about the game, what he’s learned about iOS publishing since delivering his first game, Pistols at Dawn, and what he likes about being an independent developer. A good time was had by all, and he even stuck around for the second half of the show, in which we discuss what we’ve been playing, a list that includes Madden ’12, Deus Ex, Quarrel, the 7 Wonders board game, and Fruit Ninja. Definitely stay put for Bill’s excellent analysis of Madden.
