This week: A continuation of last week's discussion about game pricing. This time 'round we tackle the price of portable gaming, downloadable content, Xbox Live Arcade game price drops (or nonexistence of any) and more. Plus, we go over what we've been playing this week and play a couple voicemails.

Thanks for listening! You can leave us a voicemail comment by calling 713-893-8069. Or you can e-mail us, vote for us on Digg, leave a comment on the iTunes Music Store, leave a comment on the blog page or join our forums!

This week's links:
Planet Puzzle League
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Band of Bugs
Transformers
Hot Brain
Time Ace
DiRT
Tenchu Z

Whether it's Microsoft having to publicly justify the $10 price tag of Pac-Man Championship Edition and explain the reason why Shadowrun on 360 is $10 more than it is on PC, or news the Sony is "studying" PS3 price cuts...the price of gaming is a big topic of discussion these days. In the second segment we kick off a conversation about game/console pricing that will continue in next week's cast. Have $60 games changed the way you decide what to buy? Have you jumped ship to Gamefly and other rental services to continue enjoying your hobby? And we'd actually like to hear your opinions on it as well, so call that voicemail line and leave us a message--we'll be playing a few of them in part two next week.

As always we begin the 'cast by talking about what we're playing (not much, really) and finish it out by going over some of the feedback from the last few episodes.

Thanks for listening! You can leave us a voicemail comment by calling 713-893-8069. Or you can e-mail us, vote for us on Digg, leave a comment on the iTunes Music Store, leave a comment on the blog page or join our forums!

This week's links:
Planet Puzzle League
Prince of Persia
Puzzle Quest
Virtual Console: Punch Out
Final Fantasy IX
Pac-Man Championship Edition
YouTube: Pac-Man C.E.
Gamerscore blog: Lunchtime Conversation (Pac-Man and Pricing)
Level-Up: Disparity from Microsoft Game Studios: Priceless
PS3 price drop only a matter of time
Joystiq: May NPD: Nintendo still on top, industry sales up 49%

To celebrate the release of Tomb Raider Anniversary (or, depending on who you ask, Pac-Man Championship Edition) the boys tackle the topic of retro remakes this week. Do we like �em? Do we hate �em? Should Square Enix just give up on the Final Fantasy remakes already? You�ll have to listen to find out.

And after that, we take some listener calls (Dan likes to call them �reader� calls�he�s so cute) and discuss the current state of game magazines, the reaction to the most recent EGM redesign, and why dudes are so compelled to call us when they�re drunk.

Of course, before all that the guys talk about the games they�ve played in the last week, and somehow manage not to mention Catan or World of Warcraft�at least no more than a passing mention.

So listen already!

This week's links:
Planet Puzzle League
Youtube: Tetris Attack
Pac-Man Championship Edition
Puzzle Quest
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Shadowrun
C.R.U.S.H.

This is the episode that almost didn't happen. Or, rather, it's the episode that happened three times and we still didn't make it out alive. Either way you look at it, here it is and let's all just be glad it's over. The first two tries at recording this  over the weekend were foiled by CJ's laptop teetering on the brink of obsolescence. The third time was the charm, except that halfway through Dan's Internet went wonky and his recording software crashed, leaving us with only a rough backup track of his contributions to this episode. If you're wondering why Dan sounds like he's broadcasting from a dark cave somewhere, this is why.

But there are bright spots in this episode. It's not all bad (we swear). Thanks to Forza 2, Mad Tracks and the DIRT demo, we decided to spend the second segment talking about racing games. And despite Dan being disconnected during it and Phil's near complete lack of interest in the genre, we think it turned out OK. You be the judge.

Thanks for listening and for hanging in there during our technical difficulties! Leave us a voicemail comment by calling 713-893-8069. Or you can e-mail us, vote for us on Digg, leave a comment on the iTunes Music Store, leave a comment on the blog page or join our forums!

This week's links:
Forza 2
Shadowrun
Ouendan 2
Planet Puzzle League
Catan
DIRT demo
Mad Tracks
Youtube: Speed Devils Online

Sometimes, technology is against you. Episode 32 is delayed -- and will be posted on Tuesday, June 5, instead of the usual Monday.

CJ spent the last few days in Chicago and we tried, twice, to record Episode 32 while he was on the road. Unfortunately, the iBook he'd purchased back in 2002 wasn't powerful enough to handle Skype and recording via Audacity without crashing multiple times or resetting its settings to record via the laptop's internal microphone instead of the headset.

The lesson here is that CJ needs to buy a new laptop before we try to do a show while he's on the road again.

UPDATE: Well, we recorded it a third time. And of course ran head-on into two more technical problems that have prevented this one from going smoothly. So the episode will be out Tuesday night, hopefully before midnight. Here's a tease -- we discuss racing games.