The hosts of the Post Game Report have the honor of being joined by CooperativePeon, from the Talking About Games forums.

This episode is very unpredictable and entertaining. Conversations jump from Beyonce to Fight Night Round 4 for the Xbox 360.

From The Balcony: Analyze This!

With all the talk about video game analysts, JVB decides to talk about the impact an analyst can potentially have on the gaming industry.

These "behind the scenes" videos are becoming pretty popular among video game marketing types, probably because sites like ours tend to post them with regularity. But, that is a discussion for another day. Check out the below developer video for Batman: Arkham Ayslum. From the looks of it, Rocksteady were big fans of BioShock and tried to apply some of the same ideas regarding location and atmosphere found in Rapture and apply it to the Batman universe.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is scheduled to be released on August 25, 2009 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PC.

Left 4 Dead 2 haters may have one less thing to complain about. Talking to CVG, Valve's Doug Lombardi had this to say:

We plan to keep supporting Left 4 Dead 1. There will be some announcements coming before summer's out about what's coming there, and then we haven't shown everything that's in Left 4 Dead 2 yet.

He goes on to add:

I think 8, 9 months from now once everything's been out for a while and everyone's had time to see the complete product of Left 4 Dead 2 and see continued support for Left 4 Dead 1, they may sort of see what we were up to and what the method of our madness was there.

If there has ever been a developer who deserves the benefit of the doubt, it would be Valve. Let's just hope they keep to the timetable they have outlined in these statements or the backlash and negativity around the Left 4 Dead 2 announcement will probably continue to escalate.

Tales of Monkey Island, the new episodic game from Telltale Games, is set to land on PC and WiiWare next week. If you're interested in the further adventures of Guybrush and his trials against the evil pirate LeChuck, this gameplay trailer should serve to further whet your appetite.

For your Monkey Island needs, be sure to go to www.talesofmi.com!

By all accounts, Damnation was a bad game. Bad games are certainly plentiful in this industry, but unfortunately for Damnation developer Blue Omega, the game's title has proven prophetic. According to a previously released Twitter message from Blue Omega programmer Geoff Rowland, the studio that developed Damnation has been damned, with the entire development team laid off. The Tweet has since disappeared, but is now confirmed by at least two other sources.

In addition to the blanket layoffs come reports from Shacknews of two lawsuits revealing a very troubled production for the critically panned game. The first lawsuit alleges Blue Omega's failure to pay studio Point of View for work on the game they were outsourced to perform, resulting in POV appealing to the game's developer, Codemasters, for compensation. The second lawsuit involves another outsourced studio, Velvetelvis, which is charged with shoddy work on the game that railroaded Blue Omega's development schedule, delaying the game's release and incurring further development costs.

This hardly sounds like the sort of productive work environment that people hope for during game development. Except this time, it wasn't just the game and gamers that suffered, it was also the developers, who now find themselves out of a job.

Attention Bethesda: we’re not made of money. Stop making games so good we are obligated to buy them. With the latest Fallout 3 downloadable content taking us to Point Lookout, Bethesda provides yet another unique and interesting environment to explore. Filled with bogs, ghouls and inbred yokels, the marshes and hills of Maryland not only offer a rich Civil War Era back-story, but include at least ten new quest lines to pursue while providing some of the toughest challenges yet. But at this point it isn’t enough just to simply say that Point Lookout is a good piece of DLC worth the $10 price tag.

The fact of the matter is, this is the fourth of the Fallout 3 DLC packs, with still one more to come, and it doesn’t take a math major to realize that buying all five planned updates at $10 each is nearly the price of the original game. Consequently, no matter how good all this content is, it’s hard to definitively say, “Buy it,” when for some gamers, doing so would simply be a poor business decision.

Read on to find out whether you should jump on the ferry to Point Lookout, or jump in your car and head to the store.

According to MediaPost, Microsoft's Silverlight, their alternative to Adobe Flash, will be integrated into the Xbox LIVE service.

At first glance, this sounds like ads will be plastered all over your screen when on LIVE. Major Nelson recently posted on his blog, that this isn't really the case. What Microsoft plans to do with Silverlight is not interfere with our gaming experience, but enhance it. It sounds like ads will be tailored to your personal gaming experience, and integrate themselves seamlessly with the dashboard.

At this early stage, it's very hard to tell how this development will truly affect our gameplay experience. While we can all agree that ads are an annoyance on a paid service, hopefully this wont be so obtrusive as to make playing games a hassle. At any rate, this is sure to stir up the controversy, so feel free to make your opinion known in the comments!

It looks like the Splinter Cell: Conviction marketing machine is kicking into high gear. Ubisoft has sent us the first video in their "Behind Closed Doors" series for the game. Watch as Ubisoft Montreal discusses game mechanics including "mark and execute," "last known position," and my personal favorite, "PEV."

Mechanics aside, Splinter Cell: Conviction is shaping up to be a very impressive game. The game blasts its way onto the Xbox 360 in the fall.

It was announced by Microsoft at their E3 press conference that Last.fm would be showing up on Xbox LIVE for user to enjoy. But other than the announcement, no real details have been known. Thanks to Joystiq, a little light has been shed on the service.

According to Christina DeRosa, general manager for LIVE, Xbox Silver members will have a "trial" of 3 hours of Last.fm per month. Gold subscribers will have unlimited access. Both tiers will be ad-supported, but those who want a more complete experience can add a premium subscription that will nix ads and add other features not normally available.

It wasn't mentioned how much this premium subscription would cost, but the normal web-based Last.fm is $3 a month (or pounds or euros, depending on your location). Let us know what you think of these developments in the comments!

Were you part of the unlucky few who didn't get into the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta? All is not lost; Naughty Dog has announced that there will be a second multiplayer demo closer to the game's release date and this time the demo will be "available to an even wider group."

Kudos, Naughty Dog, now even more people can get a feel for what you are bringing to the multiplayer table, and your game should get an added push come fall.

Via PlayStation.Blog

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When Sony first announced that it was removing backwards compatibility from the PS3, fans were outraged. Many felt betrayed because they were losing access to an impressive catalog of games. Eventually, people came to accept it, mostly because they had no choice, but they endured and moved on.

Today, Siliconera is reporting that Sony Computer Entertainment has filed for a patent which will effectively allow all PS3s to play PS2 games via software emulation. The article speculates that an upcoming firmware update in the fall may utilize the technology.

This raises the question, why would Sony do this now? The PS2 is still selling relatively well, and this backwards compatibility issue seemed to be dying down over the last 6 months. Of course, there's a chance Sony has plans to sell PS2 games via digital download, allowing for easier access to some hard-to-find titles in their catalog.

Could Sony be adding backwards compatibility as a value-add to make the PS3 a more attractive purchase? Perhaps Sony plans to charge for backwards compatibility, or maybe they are filing for the patent and simply plan to do nothing with it. Stay tuned to TAG as we get more information, and let us know in the comments what you think about all this.

Word of mouth has been very good for THQ’s Red Faction: Guerilla. That is one of the reasons why it comes as no surprise that three new pieces of DLC have been announced for this sandbox game set on the red planet.

The first DLC, titled Demon of the Badlands, is a “single player mission arc that takes place in an entirely new Mars landscape,” and is scheduled to be released on August 13. THQ promises more details on all the upcoming DLC in the near future, so stay tuned to TAG as we get more information.

Demon of the Badlands will be available for both the Xbox 360 and PS3, for 800 Microsoft Points and $9.99, respectively. Hit the jump to see some additional screen shots of the upcoming content.

And here we go...

Talking About Games is proud to present the Talking About Gamers podcast. It is a community podcast that puts the TAG forums in the spotlight. Please sit back relax and give us a listen as we introduce all of the people that will take podcasting to a new level.

Also, a big "thank you" goes out to iFester for the logo.

If you enjoy our show, please leave us a review on iTunes. We want this podcast to be all about the community, so all feedback will be greatly appreciated.

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John Carmack is just getting started as far as programming for the iPhone is concerned.

In an interview with MTV Multiplayer celebrating the release of Doom Resurrection, an original Doom IP for the iPhone and iPod Touch, Carmack unveiled plans to bring other classic id titles to Apple's portable gaming platform. Specficially, Carmack said that there was "no doubt" that Quake and Quake 2 would be titles that should be released on the iPhone. In addition, with the recent release of the iPhone 3G[S], Carmack stated that Quake 3 "would not be a problem at all." This announcement of the Quake series is in addition to Wolfenstein RPG, Doom 2 RPG, and Rage, all games already tentatively slated to be released.

We'll be sure to keep tabs on id's announcements, as well as any other big name titles that should be heading to the iPhone. Meanwhile, gamers interested in Doom Resurrection can find the title on Apple's App Store.