Podcastalooza: The News You May Have Missed

By Brian Crecente Published December 31, 2008 |

Many of you, hopefully most of you, sat down and watched our Very Special Kotaku Holiday Podcast. But how many of you caught the director’s uncut of each in-game podcast?

https://lastchance.cc/a-very-special-kotaku-holiday-podcast-5117229%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Over the past week we’ve been running a new unedited in-game podcast each day. Because I know some of you don’t have the time or ability to watch the podcasts in their entirety, I had Adam go through them and break out some of what happened in each.

Media Molecule Talks LittleBigPlanet Moderation, New Pitches and How The Found Out About That Recall

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Media Molecule’s Moo Yu talked to us about the stunning depth of user-generated content found in LittleBigPlanet as he showed off a few examples. Despite the relatively low sales, Yu says that Media Molecule is happy with how the game was received.

He also talked about how new moderation tools and interface design changes are coming to make moderating games easier. Top of the list is feedback to the creator of the level so they know when their game was cut.

Finally, Yu says that Media Molecule continues to support LBP and isn’t even sure if they will need to make a LittleBigPlanet 2.

Resistance 2 Podcast: Multiplayer Tweaks Coming

https://lastchance.cc/resistance-2-podcast-multiplayer-tweaks-coming-5117968%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

The folks from Insomniac were kind enough to show us that you can indeed make it through an entire level of multiplayer coop if you don’t suck at Resistance 2.

While protecting us and gunning down the bad guys they talked about their design philosophy, how the game is different from other shooters and why multiplayer is the future of gaming.

The team also expressed their frustrations over what they believe are reviews written well before the reviewer actually finishes the game.

Call of Duty: World at War: Balancing Historic Realism With Fun

https://lastchance.cc/call-of-duty-world-at-war-balancing-historic-realism-5117970%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

The Treyarch folks talk about their next Call of Duty and whether their really is a rivalry between their studio and Infinity Ward. They also talked about what goes into making a World War II game authentic and what care they take in dealing with what for manyis a sensitive topic.

Finally they touch on their decision to give the game a darker tone this time around and how adding zombies into multiplayer fit into that.

Castle Crashers with Major Nelson

https://lastchance.cc/castle-crashers-with-major-nelson-452592022%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Major Nelson joined us in Castle Crashers to talk about the stability of Xbox Live and make a little bet about whether servers will crash this holiday like they did last holiday.

He also talked about the future plans for New Xbox Live Experience avatars, his opinion of the VGA Awards, and compared Microsoft’s paid online experience to Sony’s free one.

And what that Zune phone we’ve been hearing about?

Chet Faliszek Talks Left 4 Dead’s Future

https://lastchance.cc/chet-faliszek-talks-left-4-deads-future-5118863%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Valve writer Chet Faliszek joined us in the PC version of Left 4 Dead to reveal that the zombie game actually does have a back story that no one outside Valve knows. It details the start of the infection. They use this for reference to deliver what we see in the game now. Chet isn’t really interested in ever having the player play this story. He’s interested on how the world reacts to it, how it falls apart.

After talking about how the story is delivered without a story in the game, Chet drops some news, telling us that new downloadable content is on the way for both the PC, and the Xbox 360. He says it will include versus maps and “new stuff.”

Then he ruins it all by pretending he’s never heard of Portal 2. Oh Chet.

Home Could Remain in Beta Indefinitely

https://lastchance.cc/home-could-remain-in-beta-indefinitely-5119579%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Home’s director Jack Buser invites us to his digital Home to talk about the Playstation 3’s free virtual world. Home, he tells us, may actually never leave beta.

New clothes and designer furniture is on the way to Home with some San Francisco stores even making an appearance in the world.

Buser tells us that the most important things in Home are mini-games and dancing… dancing The Robot if I have anything to say about it. He says he considers home a separate entity than the XMB. It’s a community, not a replacement. He even likes to be able to just turn on the console and play a game. Game announcements in home and themed areas will be making an appearance soon too.

Finally he says that Sony is looking at forums to see what people want to see in Home.

Jaffe: Gears of War 2 Versus God of War 3, PS3 Versus Wii

https://lastchance.cc/jaffe-gears-of-war-2-versus-god-of-war-3-ps3-versus-w-5117999%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E

Playstation developer David Jaffe solidifies his position as one of Kotaku’s favorite developers in this podcast where he discusses what he likes about Gears, how God of War 3 will compare and his take on the Playstation 3’s successes and failures in 2008.

Despite being exclusive to Sony, Jaffe even talked about his interest in developing a Wii title.

The famously outspoken developer also talks about the ups and downs of blogging on his own site and how he too missed prom. We almost even got him to spill some beans on his next big project for the Playstation 3, but it sounds like we’re going to have to wait for an update on his blog for that.