This week the boys spend a lengthy amount of time talking about what they’ve been playing. Titles like Super Contra, Wing Commander Arena, Alien Syndrome, Overlord, Heavenly Sword, Project Sylpheed and more. And Phil has a total "Shane" moment in the process.

Then, thrill to the story of how young Dan Dormer got his first break in the videogame industry, and get a bit of advice on how you, too, could do the same.

Finally, we field some calls from our awesome listeners, and find out just how much Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 are going to suck. Oh, and just how little CJ knows about sports games.

We open this episode by talking a little bit about which outlet we thought had the better E3 show coverage (or, rather, whose coverage we looked at most). But E3 is but a distant memory for the remainder. While we chat about what games we've been playing and rap for a little while about the Jeff Bell Internet drama (full story at links in the show notes) and game developer Dave Perry's comment about the Wii's fad factor, we spend most of this episode on more of the crew's "Tales of How I Got Into the Industry."

This time it's CJ and Phil, whose stories about breaking into the industry run parallel at one point (thus why we did them at the same time, aside from it also generally being a slow news week). No Greg this week and no feedback section, though if we get enough calls on the voicemail line that'll return next time.

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! Thanks to all who participated in our Bomberman Live game night last Friday.

* BTW, "Playing like Derek" is a reference to an Easter Egg in Bomberman Live for Xbox 360.

This week's links:
Kotaku: Just Doing Our Job: AP Interrupts Our Miyamoto Interview
Picross DS
Bomberman Live
NCAA '08
Sonic the Hedgehog
Super Stardust HD
1UP.com: Microsoft's Jeff Bell Calls Out Message Board Poster
Joystiq: Jeff Bell asks message board user: "And your contribution to society is...what?"
Next-gen.biz: In Defense of Jeff Bell
CJ's blog: Three and a half months later, the dream is over
Magweasel: Phil's first issue of EGM
Magweasel: CJ's first issue of EGM

It's the happiest time of the year for game companies. A time when they take precious manpower from their development cycle and cobble together an E3 demo in the hopes that some unwashed game journalist won't pass judgement on their product based on a five-minute demonstration and a press release.

This week four of your favourite unwashed game journalists pick apart the three big press conferences as seen from the sidelines. Who did well? Who did poorly? Who the hell wrote Reggie's "Zap A Zombie" line and do they still have a job?

Along the way the boys tackle issues like the imminent death of the Guitar Hero franchise, Nintendo's apparent lack of "real" games, the Sega Vintage line of Live Arcade games, and CJ's refusal to acknowledge any of our fine forum members on the show. Thank goodness our three other hosts do it for him.

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!

Hello radio listeners!

We will record a mega E3-themed show this weekend (likely on Saturday). And we're looking for your opinions about the show. The press conferences, the games, the coverage websites are doing, any comment or question on E3 you'd care to leave us. If we get any (and that's a big "if") we'll probably play them on the show. So call 713-893-8069 on your telephone thingamajigs, or Skype us at username playeronepodcast and leave us a comment.

Please? 'Cuz otherwise you'll hear us...bitching about Sony, bitching about Nintendo, bitching about Microsoft and their Halo 3 Xbox 360, and bitching about bitching about all of these things. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that your phone calls would make our show so much nicer. Unless, that is, you're calling to bitch.

Call before Saturday morning or we can't use ya. :'(

We began recording this episode on Sunday with really just one thought in mind--talking about E3. And in the second segment we do that, mostly focusing on E3s passed and how the show changed during the time we (well, minus Dan) were actively involved in gaming magazine publishing. We share a few stories, a few yarns, a few fun anecdotes. The perfect thing in case any of you are heading down to the "new" E3, which takes place this week (none of us are, btw -- though two of us were invited).

Other topics briefly touched upon including Microsoft's admission of defects with the 360 and the new warranty/repair program they've got going for anyone who's experienced red rings past, present and future. Unfortunately too late for those who just up and bought new systems. And we talk about the PS3 price cut coming this week, which was confirmed in between the time we recorded this and the time the finished episode was posted. Unfortunately it's just a temporary price cut in lieu of another $599 PS3 hardware SKU coming in August. What the heck is Sony doing?

And naturally we begin the show by talking about what we played this week. Which isn't much, but there's some good stuff in here. If you like Moist Hollows, and awesome segues.

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
Overlord
The Darkness
Transformers
Missile Command
Final Fantasy
Super Mario Bros. 2
Miyamoto Mario Pictochat
Open Letter From Peter Moore
PlayStation.blog: New PS3, New Price Drop & More News Coming

Two members of our cast are total Harry Potter geeks. In fact, the only passion that outstrips their love of the bespectacled wizard has to do with the Transformers. So you can guess what most of this episode is about. Who has the better game -- Harry or Optimus?

Along with the two biggies, the boys tackle Carcassonne and Final Fantasy this week. Plus a look at some of the latest headlines in the gaming industry. And finally, they talk a bit about the licensed movie game genre.

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!