Podcast #10: The Destructocast

A little while back AJ proposed what he dubbed a “Destructocast”: a weekend in which the Arcadian Rhythms crew would get together and play through an entire trilogy of games. For some reason everyone agreed to it (with the exception of those further afield like Walker and Spann), and it was mutually agreed that we’d try the concept out with Techlands’s Call of Juarez trilogy. CoJ isn’t technically a trilogy because there are four of them but, well, whatever. We skipped over Bound in Blood.

The crew recorded a whole bunch of material over the weekend, much of which was captured while Arcadian Rhythms was substantially under the influence, and it was down to our hapless editors to dissect it and turn it into something vaguely listenable.

We feel it’s down to you to decide how successful they were.

Timeline

• 00:45 – A drunken tribute that dates the podcast
• 04:46 – Special guest Madd and AJ have a long argument about what constitutes the end of the game. Both are confused about what a ‘flash forward’ might be
• 06:15 – The conversation begins in earnest
• 08:07 – Another argument soon breaks out
• 09:15 – After the argument ends a well-structured introduction is formulated (spoiler: it isn’t)
• 11:45 – AJ loses his shit
• 12:05 – “…horses or corpses”
• 13:10 – “We are doing this for three days.”
• 13:39 – The first checkpoint is reached and the crew takes a short break
• 15:50 – “How can you not adore this game?”
• 18:00 – AJ makes no sense
• 18:20 – Dylan argues for sobriety, which is hilarious given that it’s Dylan arguing for it
• 20:35 – The next day the gang regroup with a new member but sans Dylan.
• 22:16 – “You said Call of Duty!” (We managed to only do this once)
• 23:20 – Shaun breaks down the first game’s many failings
• 24:45 – AJ mixes up the two main characters’ names
• 25:45 – “Fuckfest of uselessness”
• 27:30 – The torture of Dylan, plus mixing up Call of Juarez with Call of Duty (okay, so we did this more than once)
• 30:43 – “You’re not quoting from the Bible if you’re ad-libbing”
• 31:15 – Talk moves onto the subject of infinitely spawning enemies
• 34:00 – Potter gets rendered and prerendered mixed up with real time. Then, everyone else breaks some bad news to him
• 36:30 – “My powerful thumbs”
• 40:43 – AJ says that he is looking forward to listening to the original part of the podcast (he really shouldn’t be)
• 41:40 – AJ and Shaun reconvene on the final day to talk about Call of Juarez: Gunslinger and recap on the trilogy
• 44:20 – Shaun offers sound advice on how not to play Call of Juarez: The Cartel
• 49:15 – Things take an unexpectedly positive turn
• 51:05 – “Games don’t do that!”
• 51:50 – AJ brings up the Snake Oil salesman… again
• 54:50 – After Shaun succintly summarises the positive elements of the Call of Juarez games, AJ fails to remember Darksiders
• 56:45 – “Unless you have more to say” (surprise! Both Shaun and AJ did)
• 58:30 – It looks like Dylan trolled us
• 1:00:40 – For about the umpteenth time we agree that Call of Juarez should not have been played
• 1:02:30 – We tail off and start looking at Shaun’s game collection including an amusing anecdote about the best Elder Scrolls game
• 1:06:30 – An appeal is made to Spark Unlimited to not fuck up Lost Planet 3
• 1:07:40 – AJ and Shaun talk about how Claire (Shaun’s girlfriend) had a better trilogy of games planned for a parallel Destructocast that sadly never happened
• 1:10:02 – AJ answers the one person who politely posted a question for us on the Arcadian Rhythms Facebook page
• 1:11:40 – Shaun responds to the one person who posted similarly on the AR site itself (thanks Sid!)
• 1:14:30 – “Spare money for a War Hero?”
• 1:16:15 – Prepare to cringe with story time!

Games Mentioned

• Call of Juarez
• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
• Call of Juarez: The Cartel 
• Call of Juarez: The Gunslinger
• Mindjack
• God of War
• The Shiva – (it is referred to as ‘The Shadow’ and ‘The Shilo’)
• State of Decay
• Lost Planet 2
• Resident Evil 6 
• Left 4 Dead
• LA Noire
• Homefront
• Inversion
• Ride to Hell: Retribution
• Red Dead Redemption
• Half Life 
• Chronicles of Riddick: Tales from Butcher bay 
• James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club
• Elder Scrolls: Shadowkey 
• Pocket Kingdoms
• The Resistance trilogy
• Turning Point: The Fall of Liberty
• Legendary: The Box
• Dark Souls
• The Last of Us

Thanks for listening, and we look forward to hearing your feedback or thoughts below… or shouted at us on Facebook and Twitter.