This week the gang talks L.A. Noire, Terraria, and the mystic yet unreliable Yeti. I don’t know why I decided to say underscore like 20 times during the show, and not always appropriately, but what do you want out of free entertainment?

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I spent the majority of yesterday thinking about the shiny new copy of L.A. Noire that was stowed away in my backpack.  I had picked up my pre-ordered copy during my lunch break, held it in my hands, and felt the weight of the three disc game as it slid from my grasp and into my bag.  The final six hours of my shift crept by at a torturous pace and I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Needless to say, I was freakin’ excited to play the game that had been on my radar for nearly a year.  As the game loaded on my Xbox 360 I found myself saying a little prayer to the gaming gods that this highly anticipated game would not disappoint me like other games have recently (*cough*Brink*cough*), and let me tell you, it hasn’t.

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In a shocking turn of events, the gang was all together to record the Level 78 show last night. Unfortunately (I blame you makers of PrettyMay Recorder for Skype) there is no PROOF of this since the recorder malfunctioned.

So here’s what you missed!

• Niki says Brink is not so good. The MP mode is repetitive, there is ostensibly no campaign (just MP with bots), and the level design fails to provide any sense of verticality that would make the parkour movement worthwhile.
• Adam loved the Red Faction: Armageddon demo, shrugged at the Gears 3 beta, and talked relentlessly about Dong Dong Never Die, a free 2D fighting game for the PC that is so full of indescribable wonder…. and a guy named Violent Dong Dong.
• Pete has been playing a ton of Bust-a-Move 2, which he attributes to how it’s a near perfect puzzle game.
• Daniel (Cruz) played some game, but I wasn’t paying any attention to him. I think it was Barbie Horse Adventures?

And that’s pretty much it! Sorry folks, we’ll be back next week with redundancy back in place!

Adam and Pete are joined this week by Ben Daniels, formerly of the Shotgun Podcast. They talk random things about random games, Outland, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and whether an outstanding narrative can overshadow lackluster gameplay.

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My fellow podcast hosts have already spoken their piece about Valve’s newest title on Level 75, but they had to abide by courtesy not to spoil the game for you. I, on the other hand, am able to put this courtesy entirely out of my mind, because I can tell you that if you have not finished Portal 2, you should not read this.

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Anyone who says video games don’t cause violence has obviously not played Mortal Kombat. As a kid, I remember attempting to uppercut my best friend David after throwing a cup of ice at him. He countered with a clumsy leg sweeping move, which only succeeded in him scuffing my Keds. This was a common scene when you lived two blocks from Keystone Pizza, the only arcade in town, and they had just installed a brand spankin’ new Mortal Kombat Arcade game. We made a small fortune scrounging for quarters under couch cushions, in our dad’s pockets and mom’s purses, under car seats, and in junk drawers, spending every last one each Saturday afternoon playing match after match. When we were broke, we sat and spectated our friends’ matches until our mothers drug us home for dinner. Mortal Kombat had burrowed its way into our hearts and brains, starting a love affair that had been long forgotten, until I picked up the latest Mortal Kombat for my PS3.

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This week Adam, Niki, and Pete throw caution (and gamertags) to the wind as they discuss Mortal Kombat, the PSN outage, and melted buttaaaaah.

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