AR Podcast #7: The Best of the Best & all the Rest (2012)

2012 was a hazy year in which we welcomed another writer, drank an inordinately large amount, swore at a picture of the Pope because it made us feel better, didn’t watch the Hobbit, still didn’t watch Lord of the Rings (okay, that was just AJ), and set fire to Piers Morgan (none of us did that but Potter insisted it would make us seem cool). While we were(n’t) doing these things we sat on beds and sofas and played games: lots of them.

The rules are simple: we nominate games – three of them – that were released in 2012 and then talk about them for a good while. Possibly too long.

This is the Best of the Bestcast, 2012 edition.

Timeline

00:35 – Potter gets the play on his pseudonym wrong

01:22 – Spoilers for AR Cast #8

02:40 – Ken Kutaragi memories

04:22 – The gang talk Turkish politics and anecdotes that, somehow, relate to the PS3

08:00 – Shaun has slightly over-prepared for the discussion

09:00 – An N-Gage conversation breaks out; it is “N-Gageing” (we can guarantee that AJ is getting chills as he reads this) (and he wrote it)

11:48 – Shaun pronounces “Taco” really weirdly, at least twice

13:20 – Simply Red gets the Ron Swanson treatment

15:20 – Inevitable pawn jokes

20:40 – Michael Moorcock’s name is hilarious

25:40 – Potter talks about another open world game

27:00 – “It’s like a semi-decent action film”

29:20 – Yakuza 3‘s fighting system

32:20 – Storytelling in games is important but don’t pay attention to TV adverts as they tell you nothing

36:40 – SPOILERS: Binary Domain is not nominated for game of the year

39:00 – Talk starts about post rock band Mogwai

42:16 – Far Cry 2

45:30 – “Killing is Harmless”

47:50 – Anthony Burch is invited to be part of the team

52:00 – Because no games conversation is complete without mentioning Rise of the Robots

56:00 – Shaun: “I’m here to help”

58:30 – AJ feels so alone

61:00 – Dylan doesn’t have enough lady parts to be a good girlfriend

65:30 – After over an hour of talking random shit, the honourable mentions begin

69:25 – “Randy Pitchford is masturbating right now”

74:00 – Friends and girlfriends mostly die horribly

79:00 – The team talk about Shaun’s guest spot on You Total Cult; AJ threatens to write angry letters

84:40 – Despite the sound mix, the clattering of rain and erratic mouseclicks the team move on to the low points of the year.

85:30 – Women commenting on your breasts isn’t as fun as you would imagine

87:28 – Far Cry 3 is a game set in a cage

90:10 – Spoiling a bad game

92:06 – Potter and AJ stop talking about spoilers but, on reflection, some of the spoilers were not actually true

96:40 – “Sometimes I just like subpar First Person Shooters”

99:00 – Arcadian Rhythms pours out a 40 oz. for the developers and publishers

100:30 – Koch Media

103:00 – AR consider potential SEGA-funded crossovers

106:20 – The team take a break, but forget to mention that it’s actually a break between two podcasts

Games mentioned

Diablo 2
Pocket Kingdoms
Analogue: A Hate Story
Haze
Sleeping Dogs
Gears of War 3
Lair
Yakuza 3
Witcher 2
Far Cry 3
Saints Row: The Third
Awesomenauts
Dragon’s Dogma
Binary Domain
Tokyo Jungle
Mindjack
Borderlands 2
Spelunky HD
Xcom: Enemy Unknown
Faster than Light
The Walking Dead, Eps. 1-5
Skyrim
Dead Island

Credits: Many thanks to Ben Alleguen (Soundcloud) for the use of one of his tunes in our intro and transition segments.