One of Swords Podcast 002: Boise Garage

So for the 80's Cover Band you had to rap Ice Ice Baby? I thought that song erupted in 1990.

Loved your appearances on TalkRadar.

@Yameen
For the Mass Effect 2 advertising, it was shown during the NFC Championship Saints vs. Vikings game during halftime.

Yes, we cheated into the 90s because the guy who was in the band before me could rap better than he could sing. The core of our setlist was early 80s new-wave, but the crowd loved "Ice Ice Baby" so much that we realized that their enjoyment was more important than our accuracy. :)

We also did "U Can't Touch This" in a medly, and considered "Baby Got Back" too, but we all felt 1992 was pushing it.

So the 80's cover band turned to a 90's rap/dance coverband that phased out the musicians for a track that said "WOO....YEAH" in the background for 4 minutes?

Well I'm one of you're UK listeners. I have only ever seen that megadrive in one place, i haven't bought one but i've come very close to buying one as it was my first ever console. This is the shop i have seen it on:
" http://www.firebox.com/product/2331/Sega-Mega-D... "
It does have both NTSC and PAL compatibility but i don't think it has HD.
Great podcast and website, can't wait for the 200th OXM Podcast where i hope you will appear.

Hey, Dan. I loved the podcast! Keep up the great work! Yameen was a pretty good co-host as well. Many props to his music. I'm looking forward to next week's podcast.

I had vista when it first came out and had it for a year or two and loved what it tried to do but hated its incompatability issues, now i've upgraded my laptop to windows 7 and love it cause it takes everything good about vista and makes it all work, i love it and would definatly recommend it

Haven't upgraded to Windows 7. I have XP, don't see any reason to upgrade, does everything I need it to do.

This second podcast was enjoyable. I think this one made the tone on what we can expect from this podcast, which will be, of course, totally Activision oriented. I'm glad to hear that the subject "Dan hired by Activision" is fading out. Don't let me wrong and I don't want to be offensive whatsoever, but I've followed the whole history listening to OXM podcast, TalkRadar and your first podcast. Now when I hear something about your role there, I really want to forward the podcast to more interesting subjects. This second edition was very good, you talking about several different subjects and you life history took just a little bit of the time, which was good. Again, don't let me wrong! I like you and your podcast and I'm kind identify myself with you, since we're the same age, I've started playing Atari 2600 back in 80's, etc...The only difference is that you're smarter and followed your passion professionally and I don't (uh, a lot of envy here, eh?!). My point is we all need to move on and your recent career move was interesting, but now we want to hear something else. I believe is what you want too, since this second podcast was almost about different stuff. Congrats!!!!

Thanks. I definitely do not want the podcast to be "let's talk about Dan" but I do understand that there are going to be some basic questions about how and why I switched over and stuff. But yeah, I figure, let's address them early and move on.

Re: mass hero games, CoD/MW2 franchises
I completely forgot about the hero games when I was talking with you about how people hate Activision. I guess the fact they did that could have come off has a cash grab to some people. I personally am not interested in that genre of games, so I haven't paid much attention and thus my opinion hasn't changed, perhaps if I was a fan of that genre I would be a bit upset.
The fact Treyarch is working on the CoD series now was imo a GREAT idea. Treyarch did an absolutely awesome job with WaW, and I cannot wait for the next installment. Also, the lifespan of most games doesn't last very long, so I would love to see a new CoD/MW2 game every year, or with a 1 year gap. I love FPS games, and especially those in these franchises (...as of WaW lol).

Speaking of CoD... I was under the impression that Vietnam was not a rumor, but was infact confirmed. It's been a while since I heard about it though so maybe my brain went into the mode where it assumes something I've read or heard is true. lol I do recall something being said about moving the CoD franchise away from WW2, and I believe that had been in conversation with someone at Treyarch or Activision. (wish I could remember where I heard that)

Personally, I would love for the next installment of CoD to be in Vietnam.
That could also encourage and influence Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg to do a Band of Brothers type movie in Vietnam as well. I know CoD spawned off Band of Brothers (probably had some influence from Enemy at the Gates too), and it actually looks to me like in their next movie The Pacific is going to closely follow the path that CoD:WaW took. (Yeah I know they didn't have to get any ideas from the game, it was all already there for anyone who knows anything about WW2, but it seems like they might be going through the same linear path that Treyarch took us through... we'll see)
Also, my uncle is a Vietnam Vet, so it could give me a bit more insight on what he had to go through while he was out there. I do hope if they do it, they do it right. I've heard some bad stories from my uncle.

Last thing... (yes I like to reply to my own posts rather than edit...)
I personally think Activision-Blizzard should do exclusive first time announcements on your show.
Being that you are working for them now and really are their more personal connection with the community, you should be able to get interviews with Devs from all companies and get some sort of exclusives. Doesn't have to be every week, maybe once a month, or every other month.

For instance, someone at Blizzard could be working on something for Diablo 3 and want to introduce it... be it art or new abilities or something. It would be nice for their release of that content to be done simultaneously with your show, announced on your show where to go to find the new stuff. Something like that, shouldn't really be too much of a big deal.

Of course I realize it's possible you still have under 1000 listeners (if your twitter follower count matches your podcast listeners), so exclusives might be a bit tough at the moment.

I suggest delving deeper into the pool of personalities that you have access to and seeing if they're interested in doing some exclusive stuff. You're probably way ahead of me on that though I hope. :)

Vietnam is definitely not confirmed; it's just a popular rumor. Like I said, a new COD game this year has not even been announced, let alone the developer or setting for such a game. So we're several steps ahead of ourselves already.

Rumors are always kind of a bad situation for the publisher and developer, because if they are true, then people go "oh, yeah, old news" and if it's not true they say "but I wanted that rumor." So I've always thought that it's fun to speculate...unless you're making the game. :)

Definitely fun to speculate. To me, it doesn't really matter what setting the next installment of CoD takes place in... as long as there is a next installment. Though I do hope it is Vietnam.

I hope if they do a CoD installment in Vietnam, that they show as many sides of the war as they can, starting from soldiers entering the military to what happened when they stepped foot back on American soil. Many of these soldiers were not treated as heroes. It's not even close to the happiest story, but it should be historically accurate.