During the years 1998 – 2004, PC Gaming was at its peak. With Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, The Sims, and Half-Life 2, among others, PC gaming had never seen better glory days since Doom came out. It was a good ol’ time, as they say. In the years since then, PC gaming has taken a rather forced backseat to console gamers, endured shitty ports, and had even the most basic of PC gaming rights removed.

I’m happy to report that this is no longer the case. PC gaming isn’t dead, its only been sleeping. With recent releases like Deus Ex: Human Evolution (which fared much better on the PC), Infinity Ward changing their minds about dedicated servers, and Team Fortress 2 picking up more steam (get it?!?!?!?) since it became a free-to-play game, PC gaming has never looked better. Also, did I mention that I’m really excited about the new Borderlands? Oh, also: DotA 2.

To be honest, I was re-energized about PC gaming after playing through 20 hours of Deus Ex: Human Evolution. This game symbolizes a golden-age of PC gaming long forgotten, and I urge you to pick it up. Full review coming when I get around to completing the game.

Side note: Like Brett said, we aren’t dead. Really.

That’s right! We are officially back with our reunion episode! 72PC Podcast is officially back on the air. We’ll try the best we can to bring you the best video game reviews, opinions, news, and general banter on a semi-regular basis. Stay tuned to the website for all the great stuff. We’re working on a better way to bring you live podcasts, but for now, we’re going to focus on bringing you quality pre-recorded content. If you have any ideas, suggestions, or would like to see a certain topic, throw an email to fanmail@seventytwopinconnector.com.

Seventy Two Pin Connector Podcast – Episode 043 – Skibbity Fuck Poop Video Games

Go ahead and click for the show notes…

Feel The Magic Official Trailer:

Heavy Rain Trailer:

Wu Controller:

Poets of the Fall – Late Goodbye (Max Payne 2 Ending Song)

Big Daddy Daycare:

Welcome to Missing Information.

Less of a Point A to Point B mod, and more of a collection of unreleased tech demos, Missing Information is for the avid Half-Life fan only. Standard fare gamers and casual fans need not apply. If you’re just passing through the Half-Life universe and aren’t up to an arm’s deep romp into the bits that were cut from the final product: Move along, nothing to see here.

That said… even as an avid Half-Life Anonymous member, this mod was kind of a let down. It is cool to get to see enemies, weapons, and areas that didn’t make it into the final game, but at the end of the day, you realize that these things were taken out for a reason (Keep in mind, the build I was playing was a DEMO, not as the final release). Want to check out the scraps on the editing floor? This mod is for you.

ModDB – Half-Life 2: Missing Information

ModDB – Half-Life 2: Goldeneye Source

The Radiator is an interesting mod, again, with a heavy focus on the narrative. These are completely unrelated (as far as I can tell) short segments that tell a singular story. The first part being the story of a girl being taken on a date to go stargazing. From a technology-only standpoint, the gameplay is incredibly interesting. You spend the majority of the time picking out constellations by looking at them. The narrative in this is good… but very one-dimensional. I didn’t feel very attached to the characters through the entirety of the episode… but it was the environment that grabbed me.

The second story, however… Really really cool storytelling. The episode starts off with you in marriage counseling session, and then transports you to the inner-working of the main character’s mind where you are in charge of memory repression. You can either solve little box puzzles to repress bad memories, or you can destroy the boxes, releasing the memories contained inside. Multiple endings make this mod a good bit of fun trying to find other ways to solve each scenario.

Its a good bit of fun, check it out if, especially if you liked Dear Esther.

ModDB – Half-Life 2: The Radiator

So, over the next few days, I’ll be reviewing some cool mods I come across, whether they are Half-Life 2 (My current addiction all over again…), Unreal 2004, or any other game mod I see fit to post. As with most mods, the one’s I post about will be free of charge, keeping in line with my personal philosophy of being a cheapass. Enjoy!

One of the better known mods for Valve’s Half-Life 2, Dear Esther doesn’t focus on intense action sequences, robust multiplayer, or hyper-realistic graphics. Instead: Dear Esther focuses on what some believe to be a long lost relic of gaming: Immersive Narrative. Some people have called this mod pretentious, and their opinion isn’t highly wrong, this is a game made for the “Games Are Art” crowd, and it makes no apologies about it. The mod opens with you on a dock, facing a house, with an older British man narrating the story. Involving, immersive, but highly subjective. This story doesn’t have clear cut endings, beginnings, standard fare from the art-crowd. Level design is pretty unclear in the beginning stages, but gets much better later on.

So what sets this mod apart? Sheer pacing. The way the player is thrust into the world, the way little hints and clues are slowly revealed. That said: This experience is highly subjective, either you’ll like this, or you’ll hate it, and that’s about all it comes down to. Personally: I loved it, but your mileage may vary.

ModDB – Half-Life 2: Dear Esther

Seventy Two Pin Connector Podcast: Episode 029 – From Ze Future!!

Another minicast!! This one is about the reliance on graphics found in modern gaming. Its no secret that most game companies concern themselves with one objective: Make it pretty. They don’t concern themselves with gameplay, immersion, or story to any extent. For a subject very close to my philosophy on game design, I suggest you take a listen.

72 Pin Connector Podcast: Minicast 003 – Graphics