Feedback

San Francisco was nice and all, but it sure felt good to come back to sunny Los Angeles and our home studio. We had a great week up at the Game Developers Conference, but now it's time to get back to regularly scheduled programming. (That is, until next week's PAX East...)

Adam, Patrick, Abbie and Sterling file into Studio B in an orderly fashion, and speak into the microphones at an acceptable volume about what they liked the most at GDC, the 360's narrow victory over the Wii in the February NPD sales figures, and Modern Warfare 2's "Stimulus Package" map pack. Does its $15 price tag stimulate the panel? YOU MUST VIEW TO FIND OUT.

 Also spoken of in excited tones:

• Ubisoft's Just Dance, formerly dominating the charts in the UK, sold 275K copies here. What's the deal? And perhaps more importantly, what is Sterling's experience with this game?
• Is Bad Company 2's positive reception enough to siphon players away from Call of Duty, or is a juggernaut always going to be a juggernaut?
• We've presented our thoughts about PlayStation Move, and now it's time to listen to yours in our Question of the Week.
• Just how awesome is Borderlands' "Secret Armory of General Knoxx" DLC? And is Heavy Rain's "The Taxidermist" scene worth your digital dollars?
• Mmm...pie. Also, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. But really...pie.

Feedback: Tracking your every movement in the finest detail since 2009.

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We've just arrived back from San Francisco after attending the annual Game Developers Conference, and even though PAX East is already just around the corner, Feedback cannot be ignored. Since we're back in the studio for this week's episode of Feedback, however, we need some help from you fine folk.

What do you want to ask this week's panel? Note: we'll be talking a lot about GDC. Submit away!

Have something to share? Sitting on a news tip? E-mail me. You can also follow me on Twitter.

You know what's better than one Feedback in a given week? Try two Feedbacks! And we're not talking about just doubling up with another in-studio edition either. I'm talking about a super special on location field trip edition of Feedback from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco! Do we treat you right, or what?

On this special Field Trip version of Feedback Adam Sessler, Abbie Heppe, Andrew Pfister and Patrick Klepek share their thoughts on:

• Sony’s newly named PlayStation Move motion controller: Should Sony have put a bigger emphasis on built-from-the-ground-up Move games, instead of touting how well Zipper Interactive was able to graft on motion controls to SOCOM 4?
• Heavy Rain is selling well: We’re a little surprised, but it’s definitely encouraging. What could this mean for the future of interactive fiction?
• Best of Show: What games did the G4 crew come away from GDC 2010 most excited about?

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Our intrepid team of videogame experts is back for another around behind the microphone and in front of the camera in this week's edition of Feedback.

Adam "King of Videogames" Sessler, Patrick "Hot News Tip" Klepek, Andrew "I Love The Brewers" Pfister, Matt "Because It Rhymed The Green Mile" Keil and Rob "Your Ultimate Fantasy XIII" Manuel discuss the hottest issues in videogames and then share their thoughts and impressions on our games of the week Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Final Fantasy XIII.

On This Week's Feedback...

• Catch up on the latest Fall of Duty News including the lawsuit between Activision and Infinity Ward.
• Hear about the shenanigans Valve pulled to announce the release of Portal 2 and Steam for Mac.
• Find out what to expect from GDC 2010.
• Game of the Week: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Bonus Game of the Week: Final Fantasy XIII

You're probably looking at the title and thinking, "Where does cake fit into this?" If you haven't figured it out yet, I lied. (See what I did there?!)

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Near the end of Apollo 13, Tom Hanks (as Cmdr. Jim Lovell) was describing the events that lead to the accidental explosion aboard the Odyssey service module on the ill-fated 1970 mission to the moon. "It was a minor defect that occurred two years before I was even named the flight's commander," he explained. I imagine that's what it must have been like for Sony on late Sunday afternoon when thousands of PlayStation 3's decided to take a 24-hour break in observance of a non-existent leap year, programmed into the system without anybody seeming to notice.

There was a slim chance that the situation could develop into a full-fledged fiasco, and it inadvertantly pointed out the potential dangers of surrendering control of your purchased games to a central authority. 

Then late on Monady night, things just got crazy over at Infinity Ward. But you've already read a lot about that. This week's edition of Feedback tackles both of these topics with Adam, Patrick, Abbie, Sterling, and myself rounding out the table. And to cap it off, we threw in our reactions to yesterday's new Metroid: Other M trailer. Spoiler: I hate it. But I have yet to determine if the hatred is rational or irrational.

(We're not usually negative people, I swear.)

G4tv.com's Feedback: Breaking the news into reasonable, digestable portions since 2009.

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So, how was your Monday?

We're only the second day into the work week, and we've already filled our show plan for tomorrow's episode of Feedback: yesterday's PlayStation 3 Leap Year Glitch that induced a mild panic, and of course, last night's bombshell that corporate shenanigans are occurring at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward (catch the original story on that here).

We're taping at 4:00 PM (Pacific Time) this afternoon, and we want to hear your questions and comments about both of these stories so we can incorporate them into the show. Pipe up in the comments below by 3:30 PM, and as always, try to have an avatar associated with your profile (it makes things easier for us).

As the world struggles to understand the long-term effects of the apocalyps3, the weary foot soldiers at G4 are putting on a brave face and moving forward with a new episode of Feedback. It's also the first week in a while that we don't have a truly massive game to talk about, so expect a little bit of this and a little bit of that when Feedback drops on Wednesday. But I need your help for the last segment.

I need questions! Please, readers, feed me. Feed me questions.

You guys have demanded we talk about Heavy Rain for weeks. Believe me, the Feedback crew (heck, the whole G4 staff) has wanted to talk about Heavy Rain for weeks, too. Thankfully, with Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain now on store shelves, the Heavy Rain edition of Feedback is now here. Andrew Pfister, Adam Sessler, Sterling McGarvey, Mike Leffler of X-Play and myself headed into the studio to discuss 2010's most controversial game yet. There are some strong opinions on this one, friends.

In this week's episode of Feedback...

• Three of us spent most of last week at the Red Rock Casino & Resort in Las Vegas to take in DICE 2010. We went, we saw, we learned, we talked. Find out what our big takeaways were.
• Heavy Rain discussion for a good, long time. 'Nuff said!
• A user wonders whether younger gamers play video games for a different reason and whether older gamers with more experience go into playing video games with a unique eye.

Feedback, spending nights in Las Vegas inside watching episodes of Lost since, er, last week.

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Our first Feedback "field trip" went up this weekend but we're heading into the studio soon yet again. We'll be talking about the one and only Heavy Rain this week, so as with other weeks, steer your submitted questions away from Heavy Rain, as Quantic Dream's game will get plenty of discussion.

Remember: you have an increased chance at being picked with a working profile image!

Feedback is on a field trip! This week, the gaming clique is hanging out at DICE 2010, rubbing shoulders with theupper-crust of the gaming world. This week, Feedback regulars Adam Sessler and Patrick Klepek are proud to host a couple of amazing guests: Randy Pitchford from Gearbox Software and Dr. Peter Raad, Founder and Executive Director of The Guildhall at SMU.

The game of the week is Borderlands, but the discussion ranges all over the video game map. Check it out by clicking the video below:

Highlights include:

• Adam and Patrick discuss their DICE Summit highlights, including Activision's Bobby Kotick, our lives as RPGs, and the complete failure to notice a moonwalking bear.
• Randy Pitchford from Gearbox drops by to talk about DICE and the reaction to (and future of) Borderlands.
• We talk with the SMU Guildhall's Dr. Peter Raad about this year's Indie Game Challenge.

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UPDATE: Revised Feedback edition with all-new Alan Wake impressions.

Feedback is back, baby. The big news of the week: X10! We just returned from Microsoft's X10 a few days ago, and the Xbox 360-centric media event saw blockbuster news about Halo: Reach, Fable III, Dead Rising 2, Alan Wake and more. 

Also: This week, Feedback is going straight to HELL… with Game of the Week Dante’s Inferno. A very aggressive marketing campaign, strong religious overtones, and gameplay reminiscent of a well-established franchise has everyone talking about this epic poem adaptation.  So sit back and listen as ringmaster Adam Sessler, Abbie Heppe, Andrew Pfister and Patrick Klepek discuss the finer points of Dante’s and the larger issue of whether imitation is truly the sincerest form of flattery.

But that’s not all. We’re also talking about.:

• Alan Wake: Tune in for this discussion where we take off the wraps and get in depth about this much-anticipated horror game.

• Activision’s layoffs: The economy might be (slowly) improving, but Activision has pink-slipped some employees. They’ve also slightly shifted directions. What does that mean for you, The Gamer? Feedback will break it down for ya.

• Plus, reader's question of the week, witty repartee, thoughtful observations and more.

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Wait, wait, wait. What the heck, right? We just published a new episode of Feedback, but we're already asking for a user question of the week? It's true. We're going to be at DICE next week, which means we're recording next week's episode of Feedback early. There may even be a special, DICE-exclusive version of Feedback (stay tuned for details!) It's all out of love. What should we talk about?

(We're a little late -- sorry!)

You can't stop Feedback. We just keep rolling. This week is no different. We were all a little worried about how BioShock 2 might turn out, but, thankfully, it looks like our fears have been put to rest: it's pretty good. Reviewer and TheFeed writer Jake Gaskill joins Adam Sessler, Abbie Heppe and myself to discuss our initial thoughts about BioShock 2 -- and a whole lot more.

On this episode of Feedback...

• We manage to bring up Mass Effect 2 again. That's not really a bad thing, especially since it's to discuss news that Electronic Arts and BioWare are planning "something" for early 2011.
• Bethesda Softworks has released the first information on Fallout: New Vegas. It sounds like Obsidian Entertainment is getting ready to take over our lives again. We're a little excited...
• Microsoft is dropping old school Xbox Live, thus breaking support for Halo 2. The crew gets divided over the merits of having more than 100 friends on the service. Whose side are you on?
• Oh, there's a little thing called BioShock 2. We return to Rapture. We are impressed.
• Feedback started with Mass Effect 2 and ends with Mass Effect 2. In this case, though, it's the nature of good vs. evil and whether games can better achieve a gray area going forward.

Feedback, getting philosophical every time Adam decides to namedrop someone we don't know.

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I seem to be the only person in the office who hasn't finished Mass Effect 2, which is why it's convenient that BioShock 2 has decided to be released the week after, totally screwing with my free time. That's a long way of saying: we're going to be talking about BioShock 2 on Feedback this week, so don't ask any questions about BioShock 2! We've got it covered. That said, if you want to be Feedback's question of the week, it's time to head to the comments.

Also, a reminder. You have a better chance of getting picked if you have an avatar!

Have something to share? Sitting on a news tip? E-mail me. You can also follow me on Twitter.

UPDATE: We fixed our technical troubles, and the video looks all spiffy and new again. Thanks for your patience!

The 2010 train keeps rollin' along, kicked into overdrive by the release of BioWare's Mass Effect 2. We couldn't help but talk about Mass Effect 2 last week, so we made it the focus of Feedback for this week. You can't have too much Mass Effect, right? That's good, because Adam Sessler, Abbie Heppe, Matt Keil and myself have plenty say about our lastest adventures in spaaaaaace.

In this episode of Feedback...

• Apple announced the iPad last week and everyone finds themselves surprisingly interested in what this could mean for games. The only problem? We haven't seen those games yet.
• Nintendo's started discussing their plans for E3, including the debut of games for the Vitality Sensor. Unfortunately, we're also pretty sure that means no Legend of Zelda until 2011.
• Platinum Games have announced their next game, Vanquish. We know almost nothing about it, but that's not going to stop Feedback from discussing our unrealistic expectations for it!
• We discuss a little game called Mass Effect 2.
• A user wonders if the continued genre blending in games like Mass Effect 2 will lead to more developers letting gamers influence what happens in games. Our conclusion: maaaaybe.

Feedback, where Adam Sessler, like Richard Alpert on Lost, never seems to age.

Attention Podcasters: The iTunes feed for this online show has been discontinued. Feedback will now be available through iTunes as part of the "G4tv.com Web Shows" podcast, so subscribe to that, or watch new episodes as soon as they go up on G4tv.com/feedback. Check out this page for links to all of G4's iTunes podcasts. Thanks! 

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