More and more, the games Powet plays are $10-$15 add-ons and episodic content. Is this trend wide-spread? Is the era of expensive, disc-based gaming over?

Also, news of the video game world at GamesCom and BlizzCon, reviews of Ponyo, District 9, the new Professor Layton (out today), and more! Also introducing special guest Shaun Hatton of Toronto Thumbs and the 4 Color Rebellion network!

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(Do you still buy games on discs? Love Steam and downloadable content? Leave a comment below!)

Show notes after the jump!

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The first supplemental in a long while! Crazy rants about Mattel’s poor handling of its Wonder Twins release… sans monkey! Well, sans monkey for most people. Even for the people who were supposed to get it!

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Show notes after the jump!
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Thanks to Mike Xfactor on our forums for alerting me this has been posted online. Brock’s gone, Hatred’s off the deep end, Dean loves Hitler, 21 is Larping, Doc comes back from the future, and Hank needs a haircut. Also, David Bowie returns.

The foruth season begins in November with 8 episodes, and will continue summer 2010 with 8 more. Yes, its terrible to split the season into 2 parts, but we’re getting 3 more episodes than we got from previous seasons, and not nearly the wait there was from season 2 to 3

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Don’t you love surprises? Like when you open a present for your birthday and actually got what you wanted or you wear an old pair of pants and find a $20 bill in them from last season? Surprises help keep life interesting and fresh, as we never know what could happen next and what the next surprise could be. This concept has been reflected upon by various forms of media to keep them fresh and interesting as well, and video games are no exception. One of the all-time great surprises video games have always had in store for us gamers is the concept of the hidden character – i.e. A secret member of the cast that does not show up on the initial roster and must either be found in-game or made accessible through various means.
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Before there was Lord of the Rings (the films, not the books) or Harry Potter, there was Willow. Co-produced by George Lucas and Ron Howard, and starring Warwick Davis (who had previously played as one of the Ewoks in Star Wars Episode VI) and Val Kilmer (long before he played his part in the destruction of the Batman film franchise in the mid 90s), Willow told the tale of a dwarf’s quest to rescue a baby from an evil sorceress queen. George had high hopes of Willow becoming Lucas’s fantasy equivalent to Star Wars, but it met low numbers at the box office and mixed reviews from critics. However, enough fans liked it enough for the film to gain cult status, and Capcom was fond enough of the property to release a pair of games based on Willow, one for the NES and the other for arcade.
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If you have been paying attention, you’ll notice that there is a revolution going on in gaming. The independent gaming scene has been getting bigger and bigger these past few years. Freely available open-source tools such as Gimp and Blender, as well as the accessibility of easy to learn programming languages such as Python and Blender have made game programming easier than ever, and there is more of an incentive for indie developers to get started as well. Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace features sections for independently made games, while indie developed games such as Everyday Shooter, Braid, and Dishwasher: Dead Samurai have been swiped up by big name companies, releasing them on various download services to critical acclaim. These games are going way beyond DIY shooters and puzzle games, introducing unique methods of story telling and gameplay mechanics. Crayon Physics, developed by Petri Purho, is one of the most recent faces of the indie gaming movement. It won first place at the 2008 independent games festival, and it puts many mainstream-developed games to shame.
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