Hey guys ;)
Man, it's been like 18 months since I closed the doors on GamerAndy.com....  Sure, there have been a few posts about where we happened to be at the time, but yeah....   And the show (GamerAndy Live!) did keep going as an audio romp, until I got so burnt out just before Christmas that I called it quits

Was spending too much time looking for a place for the show to live, too much time trying to keep the community alive, and way too much time fighting our ever present Technical Difficulties to put any time into actually doing the show.

And frankly, thats the only part I like!

So here we are four months later, and again I am resurrecting this old project - except this time, there are some changes.

First off - GamerAndy Live! has gone through a metamorphis and roused from its hibernation as a Video Podcast!

There are plenty of changes coming, but for now GamerAndy Live! is going to be a Live broadcast video podcast every Thursday night from 5:30PM PST-6:30PM PST, the show will then be released (Friday Morning) as a streamable flash video (like the one you'll see below) as well as over an RSS feed in a host of formats so you can watch it on your computer, your ipod, zune, etc.

We are partnering with GearLive on this new project to keep the backend workload down for myself and our other hosts - If you followed us on the great GamerAndy Exodus of '07 you'll be familiar with both Jones and Elaine, my partners in crime - and everyone should remember the fun-loving Sherveen Mashayekhi, who has taken on the roll of our producer and video-getter in this endeavor.

There are lots of fun changes exciting twists coming down the pipes, but I wanted to take the moment to toss up the pilot episode of GamerAndy Live! in its new format for your perusal

Comments are currently down while we completely rework the back-end on the site, so please send feedback to andythegamer@gmail.com

Talk to you soon!

-Andy

... We got two turntables and a microphone.

Actually, no. We don't. But for all of you who have been missing your GamerAndy and GamerAndy Live! podcasts, we are no longer here.

... and neither are we at worthplaying.com.

It's a long, crazy story with absolutely *no* bad guys. Too long to go into here.

But we have yet another new home -- at GearLive.com. More specifically, you can find us in their forums and on their gaming site, PlayFeed.

Not only are we podcasting every week (up to episode 80 now) but we will be having special Halo 3 vidcasts (yes, Andy and Edie on video) for your viewing pleasure in the next week.

This place is awesome and you should check it out.

See you GAL! fans over there. We're on a roll and big things are happening. Be there when it all goes down and you can say, "I knew GAL! back when it had its own website."

Hey all.

Just a quick note. We're getting settled at our new home over at WORTHPLAYING.COM

This will be the last post to hit the front page of GA. After this goes up I'm locking down the publishing side of the site. Guess I better make this good :)

This is my third attempt at writing this post -- I just can't seem to get it right. How do you recap two incredible years of something that was supposed to last only a few months?

We started GA as a challenge, and then it took on a life of its own. Our first episode of the podcast was a disaster, but it set a dangerous precedent. We were real, and we were not going away.

Over the years I've met so many incredible people, both on the publishing side and from readers. I remember the insanely wierd meetup with Cyris Mustang at the VideoGames Live! Show after GDC last year, where we both kinda shuffled around not making eye contact before the show started. It felt like a first goddamn date. But that's kinda been a trend for me. This public stuff has always made me nervous as hell, and honestly doing GA for the extended periods that I've done it has really emboldened me in my every day life.

I'm not going to get all sappy here, because it's not all bad news. I'm going to make this next part big so you pay attention to it:

GamerAndy.com is going to cease to exist (in the near future, for now it's just getting locked down) but GamerAndy Live! is moving to a new site, where we'll have better access and the ability to STRICTLY concentrate on the show.

I've spent the past two weeks talking with a variety of sites out there, and earlier this week we came to an agreement with WorthPlaying.com

I was going to wait until the new site was set up before dropping this bomb on our regulars (except the forum-ites, who have known about this since I started looking).

Our deal with WP goes as follows:

- GamerAndy Live! will become to official show of and at WorthPlaying.com, in exchange for which WorthPlaying offers substantial "above the fold" promotion, including but not limited to a dock on one side of the new page layout, a post when each new episode is released (Friday morning, starting next week) and a rotating banner ad with the rest of the site's advertisements.

- WP also agrees to support GamerAndy Live! with the use of their industry connections to help secure interview opportunities, press invitations, and industry functions.

- In exchange for this, the crew of GamerAndy Live! agrees to produce a new episode every week with complete shownotes and officially refer to GAL as WorthPlaying Presents GamerAndy Live!

- GamerAndy Live! will supply its own hosting (this was one of my demands, I want control)

-GamerAndy Live! will endeavour to create a community at WorthPlaying.com using their considerable skillz and utter hotness. Yes Dante, you can come, too.

So yeah, thats where we are right now. I went to great pains to find a site that:

a) Has significant traffic so we can grow our audience (WP has more than 30x our daily traffic);

b)Would give us complete freedom to talk all the shit we want and won't try to censor Hawkes when he comes back on the show in June :);

c) Is updated regularly;

d) Seems like a fit for our audience.

I know the site is broken now. Ranier (the content editor over at WP) was extremely apologetic about that and assured me that the completely rebuilt site will be live within the next month. With that will come the return of comments and full integration of the forums.

I'm sure you have lots of questions, and I'm available to answer them. For now visit THIS THREAD in our forums. We've moved most of our hardcores to the WP forums, and I honestly encourage all of you to make that journey with us.

When they write the history books, this will be known as The Great GA Exodus.

While it would be a brave thing for us to sit here and let the site stagnate from technical issues and lack of content, I think it is a far braver thing we do by making this journey.

Hope to see you all on the other side.

GamerAndy.com wasn't just a site. It was something special. It took on a life of its own, and I feel like I was merely dragged along in its wake. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Thank you for being part of all this.

Adam "Andy" Levine
Editor, GamerAndy.com
Co-Host, GamerAndy Live!
adam.levine@gamerandy.com

"When the music's over, turn out the lights, turn out the lights, turn out the lights." - Jim Morrison and "The Doors"

I had a dream of Gamer Andy.  It wasn’t something out of the ordinary; I wanted it to become my job.  I wanted to wake up in the morning, call game companies, and secure interviews, all that.  It was a beautiful idea, a wonderful dream.

It’s over now.

When Andy told me his intentions to shut down Gamer Andy, it wasn’t a surprise.  Real life had hit Andy and I pretty hard and in my case had forced me into nasty work hours.  I kept up with gaming news, and watched the site, where news was as sporadic as a socialite driving sober.  I don’t believe shutting down was a choice as much as a certainty.  All three consoles were out, there were no more rumors to push around, nor news to share save for upcoming games.

We lost interest.

Andy asked me to podcast several times, but I didn’t have the availability.  The show must go on, and thankfully he did.  If he waited for my ugly mug he’d be waiting till June when phase one of my current project ends.

But I digress.

I want to thank Adam Levine, for taking a chance on some nutter with an opinion and half a measure of writing style.  I want to thank Edie Sellers for helping me hone my radio voice into a (relatively) working instrument.  To George Ettinger for showing me just how untalented my writing actually is.  To Sherveen Mashayekhi for a level of passion and commitment I wish I still had.  To Sharon O’Neill, for breaking every stereotype relating to gamers and having style and substance as well. 

And finally, to Dante of Smeg, 8Bucks50, WikkidSinner, everyone who has ever written me, but most of all Bert.  You the fans made coming back to do this much less a job, or a hobby, and made it fun.  You gave me hope that my thoughts and ideas didn’t just disappear into the Internet ether, but were listened to, and actually resonated with you.

Andy and I were talking yesterday about the upcoming podcast, and how eventually I want to get involved again.  I told him that Gamer Andy’s book has closed, but him and I podcasting, that’s just a chapter that’s been bookmarked.

I’ll be back, of course.  You can’t stop the Hawkes.

Thanks for nearly 2 wonderful years!

Semper Fi!

Comments? Discuss in our Forums.

A warning:  ZDnet is reporting that XBOX LIVE has been at least partially exposed to a hacking group which has used the info it found to purchase points and other materials through player's member accounts.  Any readers should take time ASAP to make sure that their personal info like credit card numbers and account passwords are safe, first by checking the account and then by contacting Microsoft.  Our sympathies to any GA readers who may be affected by this.

In other news, this is almost certinly my last post here.  Good luck to Andy, George, Edie and the rest of the GA staff and to all of our readers.  It's been great sharing my thoughts with all of you, and thanks to those of you who responded both with criticism and appreciation.

As the dolphins said,
"So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Josh

Damn, this game has me conflicted.

Awesome racing!  But only eight (highly detailed and complex) tracks.  Near-lagless online play that feels balanced and exciting!  But no split screen.  Stunning graphics!  But limited sound options and only viewable in 720p.  Vehicles so detailed they could star in their own individual titles!  Load times that make the baby Jesus cry.

Motorstorm certainly does serve as an excellent example of the visual power of the PS3, no question.  The demos, even the most recent of them, feel like alpha-release compared to the impressive attention to detail of the full game.  Mud doesn’t just kick up from the tires of the vehicle ahead of you, it spatters back down in a gloppy mess over the hood of your truck (saying that the hood hasn’t been torn off in a rear-end collision that left your opponent a rusting hulk at the bottom of an Arizona canyon) and windshield, partially obscuring your view for a few seconds.  And the pretty explosions aren’t just reserved for you, expect to see at least two or three massive wrecks during each race, especially when multiple vehicle classes are in tight spaces.  It's not the prerendered look of the infamous E3 video, but it does perfectly capture the spirit and intensity that the footage promised.

There are about a half-dozen vehicle classes in the game, ranging from massive big rigs and dump trucks to dirt bikes and ATVs, with monster trucks, rally cars, and buggys  adding more variety to the mix.  Given that each track has multiple marked routes and possibly dozens of lines each tailored to particular vehicle classes, good players have a serious chance at winning with most of them, even when the AI catch-up is turned off (I recommend leaving it on in single player, it keeps other cars near you and the action far more intense on-screen).  Heavier vehicles have low acceleration and momentum that carries them through mud pits with ease, lighter vehicles will tear across hardpacked dirt and rock at high speed but generally flounder in the shorter, straighter, muddier sections of the course.  And of course, smaller vehicles are more likely to be torn apart like tissue paper if one of those big rigs hits them with any serious force.

Online play is pretty damn fun, and as one of the most anticipated titles on the system the servers are packed.  But being that the host has to manually restart the game each round, this means that if he suddenly feels nature’s call the rest of the players could be left waiting several minutes until the game starts.  Also, much like Resistance, Motorstorm is a delightfully lag-free experience.  Given the lag problems on some other games, I’d love to see some of these studios offer up whatever code magic they employ here to other developers.

The problems arise in terms of variety:  While there are multiple obvious and hidden routes to each, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s only eight tracks. No split-screen multiplayer, and while looking at the game gives a good argument that doing so could result in framerate and visual quality sacrifices, I want to race against my brothers, or my friend who just got back from college halfway across the state on spring break!  This is tolerable, not acceptable, for a first-gen release.  But future omissions of the most basic form of multiplayer in any racing title will be utterly insufficient.  Finally, load times, especially when choosing a vehicle, tend to be downright bad.  It can be upwards of fifteen seconds between choosing an event to race in and choosing your vehicle, and then another fifteen to twenty seconds on top of that to fully load the map. This really pulls me out of the high-energy experiences of the races themselves, and loading in complex 3D backgrounds highlighting the Motorstorm festival itself during menus means that you’ll spend a lot more time looking at loading screens than you want to.  The payo is great, in the end, but it still seems ather unnecessary.  One small mercy is that the actual initial startup load isn’t long at all, jut the levels and especially the vehicles.  Finally, sound always feels either way too looud or way too quiet, and the odd choices for setting levels mean that it's hard to balance without a lot of needless trial and error.  They really couldn't give me full 0-100 control over the music and engine noise levels?

Motorstorm is a great racing game in a lot of ways, but has some basic flaws that detract from the experience.  If you want some highly entertaining arcade-style racing on the PS3, it could be for you.  But if you want to sit down and play with friends and family, you may want to look elsewhere or give it a rent first.

Virtua Fighter 5 is out, one of the most notable titles in Sony's opening salvo of spring releases.  While the game looks phenomenal, it's hard to reccommend any game on visuals alone.  Does Sega's latest fighter stand up to its previous high standards?  And if so, is it worth buying for the PS3, or even the 360?

Hey all,
we're done with GDC and have a podcast (shorty) from tuesday going up tommorow along with some general impressions and in-depth commentary of the event this weekend.   I was only able to attend for two days, and have been busting my hump catching up on work for the rest of the week, so sorry if this is a bit late

In the meantime, heres the video of me being kinda a jerk at the Microsoft Blogger Breakfast.    I tried my hardest to ask tough questions, and I think that this was a huge improvement for me personally (from a journalistic "being an asshat" standpoint) over last year.   What do you think?

I'm the guy in the knit cap.

Video: GDC 2007 Microsoft Blogger Breakfast

Morning All,
Andy here at early-o'clock preparing to leave for our first day of GDC.   Edie and Kevin will be attending the next four days of the event (assuming there are things worth spending four days seeing) and so we'll be tossing up stories as we deem the relevent.   Today we're mostly booked seeing upcoming games on the PC and XBox360 since (as usual) Microsoft is the only of the console manufacturers who bothered returning our many phone calls.

On the agenda for today, we're attending talks, demos and hands-ons re:

Bioware: Mass Effect
Hironobu Sakaguchi: Blue Dragon
Peter Molyneux: Fable 2 (we assume)
Turn 10- Forza 2
Funcom - Age of Conan
XBLA and Casual Games
XNA Team
MSGS: Halo 2 for Vista

Additionally, I'll be sneaking in to a round-table discussion on next-gen RPG's.

Beyond that, we had hoped to gather some of the press and industry luminaries at the event for a podcast giving impressions on the events of the day, but unless we can convince someone to give us a couple of chairs (From what I'm told, a commodity more valuable than gold pressed latinum
Should we fail, we may retreat to a restaurant and bust our proverbial move  in the grand ol' style of Roscoe's Chicken an' Waffles.    Engineer Kev is with us for the day, so fear not chappies - the quality will be uber.   Joining us on tonights cast will be (potentially others) the infamous Joe from SPOnG, who was previously on episode 14 of GAL.   Thats right.  The one that never aired.

So buck up brave reader - And if there are any spots ya'll want us to stop by this week to give you some personalized reporting, hit me up at andy@gamerandy.com

Weird headline, but it seems that Sony has learned a few things from the Bush Administration about how to handle the press: If you don't like what it's doing, shut it down.

As you probably know from multiple reports, GDC founder Jamil Moledina let forth recently that PS3 owners will be "very happy" after hearing Phil Harrison's next week's conference keynote address.

This started a huge amount of crazy speculation. And why woudn't it? It was tantalizing. It was juicy. What, oh what, could make owners of the most expensive and generally underwhelming console ever made "very happy," short of sending each owner an extra-large pizza and a life's supply of beer?

We all want the PS3 to reach its full potenitality, and this sure sounded like Sony was finally going to pay off on the promises that its new console would rock our worlds!

Kotaku joined in the spec-u-thon, but being a large news site, it had enough mojo to get deeper and find more people to dish a little dirt on what exactly this great news will be. And they got wind of a a "rumor" from an anoymous source that it would be "PlayStation Home," a new graphical interface system.

As a responsible news site, Kotaku contacted Sony to comment on the rumor. That's what you do when you get a rumor. You ask for comment and expect that, at the very least, you get a "no comment."

But Kotaku got more than that. It got war.

In an email to Kotaku, David Karakker, senior director of Sony's corporate communications, wrote that Sony is "very disappointed that after trying to work with you as closely as possible and provide you and your team with access and information, you chose to report on this rumor. ... I can't defend outlets that can't work cooperatively with us."

And since then, according to Kotaku and reports in Joystiq, Sony has essentially frozen out Kotaku. Not just in this matter, but in all matters of news. It won't return Kotaku's phone calls. It won't offer any input or contact with one of the largest and most viewed gaming-news sites in the world.

Apparently, in Sonyworld (tm), "work cooperatively" means "take what we give you, print it, and don't ask questions."

Why is this reminicent of the Bush Adminstration? Because this most recent presidential adminstration has been charged with exactly the same thing for years. Reporters who are doing their job -- reporting news -- but not doing it in exactly the way that the admistration prefers pretty much get nothing from the Press Office. You lose access, and especially in the White House Press Corps, access is your lifeblood.

In fact, it's a pretty good way to control bad press. But it's also a really good way to make whatever entity you are -- be it the White House or an electronics company -- look pretty slimey. The press will distrust the hell out of you and resent the hell out of you, and that only makes the public who reads their articles distrust you, too.

There's been a growing culture of mistrust of and retaliation against those whose jobs it is to give you, the consumer, as much information as possible.

Maybe it's because my wife is a reporter, but since when did reporters who don't regurgitate press releases become the enemy? Since when is it a crime to actually research and try to get a "scoop," and then take the professional, responsible step to follow up to get the true and accurate story? And, worse yet, doesn't Sony's actions send a message to any gaming writer who gets a little dish on the company to not follow through and do the responsible thing: Give the subject a chance to comment?

What does an action like this say to me about Sony? They're not to be trusted. Do you see Steve Jobs freezing out the San Francisco Chronicle or New York Times because they -- accurately -- speculated that the big annoucment at this year's MacWorld was the iPhone?

No. Why? Because it only brought more excitement to the annoucement. When you leak "big news" information, you expect someone is actually going to try to figure out what the big news is.

If you don't want reporters asking questions, then keep your damn mouth shut.

Why is Sony being such dickheads? Because Sony likes complete and utter control. Rather than just offer a "no comment" and move on, Sony decided to retaliate against Kotaku for doing its job.

And what does it say about Sony? It says that it will only work with people who tow the party line and make no waves. So, pretty much, everything Sony says and anything Sony allows to be printed can be considered bullshit. Because if they won't talk to reporters who are being responsible and doing their jobs, then you have to ask yourself what kind of ass-kissing brown-nose do you have to be to get Sony to talk to you.

But beyond that, it also shows how amazing stupid Sony's public-relations department is. Much excitement churned when "big news" was rumored to be coming out at Phil's keynote. Now, that fun has been killed, or at least tinged with a edge of distaste. And suspicion.

Sony, how can we trust that your big, great, new feature is any good when you pretty much kill off anyone who commits the grevious crime of speculating and trying to confirm a "rumor."

So, nice job, Sony. You managed to take something I for one was looking forward to at this year's GDC and fuck it up.

You might want to consider the pizza/beer idea, because short of that, your big news won't be as earth-shattering now as it could have been if you hadn't been such assholes.

I don't normally post release dates for games.  Frankly, they're not usually announcements worthy of our time 'round these parts, but Bioshock is one of those games that has me absolutely falling all over myself with anticipation.  

Am I hyped?   Yeah.

This is why I've been lurking their community site over at CultOfRapture, where today the community manager flat out announced that Bioshock will be street legal on August 21st.    A little later than I hoped, but I won't complain -   Hey Irrational!  How bout letting us indie media in for a sneak peek?!

From the post:

BIOSHOCK STREET DATE IS AUGUST 21
February 28, 2007

The headline says it all: BioShock's street date is August 21st. That's a Tuesday, for all you who might be planning your "sick" days in advance.

Let the countdown begin!

Hey all!

To everyone out there who wrote in or messaged us on XBL about our mention on 1up yours, thanks :) We heard.

And as some of you have heard, Edie and I attended the Shadowrun Press Event in SF - we played a nearer-to-final build than had been shown previously with all the bells and whistles, did we enjoy it?   Did edie get pw0ned or did she perhaps become the p0wnz3r?

Tune in this week to find out!

To download you can use one of the links below with your favorite podcast/blogcast tool.

What is it about parents' media watchdog groups?

They seem to see porn around every corner. And you know what, it only makes them look crazy -- which sucks because if anything, they should be a calm voice of reason and education for parents overwhelmed by emergent technology.

But they know as well as the Mitchell Brothers did that smut sells -- even if you're the ones who purportedly are trying to stop it.

Recently, a parents' website, PornTalk.com, sent out this missive to its readers warning them of the pus-covered, seeping disease that they could be inadvertenly letting into their homes by purchasing a Nintendo Wii:

Alright parents now listen up. We wanted to let you know that Nintendo's Wii Gaming Console can access pornography. This highly popular and very fun gaming console is one of the hottest items out there and is a blast to play. But because the device is a Wi-Fi (wireless internet) console able to access the internet, this means that you can surf the net pretty easily.

Gawd. This just makes me sick. Not because PornTalk isn't providing a necessary educational service to parents too busy to read the Nintendo's users manual. It actually is.

In fact, something that neither Kotaku nor Gizmodo (who broke this item) mentioned in their predictably snotty reports was that the post actually provides very good information for the parental owner of a new Wii. It goes into detail about parental controls the Wii offers and it shows how you can set up the system so that it cannot recieve or send messages -- both handy tools for a parent who's worried about the evils of the world coming to give their little angels herpes and sell their organs.

But of course, this couldn't be written starting with something like, "Wow. Nintendo has done a great job of providing us concerned parents a way to block inappropriate websites and keep pedophiles from contacting our kids. Hooray for Nintendo!"

Nope. That wouldn't sell eyes, now would it?

Of couse, they felt the need to grab their hair, put on their best Macauley Culken face and scream, "OH MY GOD, PEOPLE!!! YOU COULD ... concievably... GET PORN ON YOUR WII!!!!!!!!!! SAVE YOURSELVES!!! SAVE THE CHILDREN!! GOOD LORD, THIS IS AMERICA!!! HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?!?!?!"

Of course, followed much later with handy details on how Nintendo has parental controls.

I'm sorry, but in an age when digital gaming entertainment is already suffered many slings and arrows from technological Ludites who are more interested in getting their names in the news than actually working to protect children (rhymes with "hack"), the last thing parents need is one more hysterical voice added to the chorus.

Especially a hysterical voice that obviously has done a little research and knows that the potential danger has already been taken care of.

So boo on you, you uptight, fear-mongering freaks at PornTalk. If you're going to offer desperately needed information to protect children, you have an obligation not to incite unnecessary parental panic in order to get a few hits. Stop using porn and fear as your selling tool. It makes you no better than the pornographers you supposedly are trying to stop.

Gimme a D and a Y!

What's that spell? Actually, what's that MIS-spell? Indie!

While GamerAndy is currently working out who we will meet and when at the upcoming GDC, I've been soaking in as much information as I possibly can about the stuff that won't be covered by Everybody and His Kid Brother -- or EHKB (tm).

Of course, the epitome of EHBK media, Joystiq, finds what I was looking for and probably one of the most intriguing inclusions to GDC this year: GameTap's Indies Program.

In an effort to break out the next greatest game developer while launching a new subscription service, GameTap will spotlight three new titles by independent developers at GDC. One will recieve $10,000 and a 5-year contract with GameTap to distribute the game and the other two snag $5,000 each.

I for one am really interested in what exactly these games are and will certainly be giving them a long, hard look. Indy gaming has been long promised from the industry, and we thought that XBLA was the answer. But alas, those tacit promises and potentialities have yet to be realized.

And I guess I'm not surprised. I mean, did we really think that an industry that's enjoyed a virtual monopoly on a multibilliondollar market for oh so many years was REALLY going to open its arms all wide and friendly to a bunch of lean, independent companies who can do what they do better, faster and cheaper?

So, we'll see what GameTap's new program has to offer? I'm skeptical, but not without hope.