This is probably the worst podcast we've done in a while, audio wise. Dave goes several minutes without recording, Tokyo's all distorted, and there's too much cross talk. At the same time, this is also one of the shows I've had the most fun doing, so you balance. Check it out. Maybe it'll be for you. Maybe you're into us griefing Matt. Maybe you're into Mass Effect. Maybe you're into short news stories. Maybe you're into questions. Maybe you're into racism. Maybe you're into NoNewGames.com, which is pretty cool and probably creative.

While I was writing that article about Doom you probably just read, I was having another conversation with some friends of mine. The talk was such that I felt my mind was on the verge of collapse trying to get through, so after stopping with that discussion, I'm going to write it out now, so that I have it properly phrased the next time I need to talk about it.

This is about how story in games, as it exists now, is entirely unnecessary. There's going to be spoilers for a few games. You were warned.

Maybe I have ADD, or a minor form of it. I have difficulty focusing on most video games for any amount of time. Very rarely do I play any game outside of an hour, the obvious exceptions being games that I know going in as being short (Samorost, Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2). It's people like me- at least like me in this respect- that cause casual games to exist. People that don't always want a video game to act as some broad narrative, and just want something to do for a few minutes while waiting for the food in the over, or the dishwasher, or a phonecall.