Listen Now:

 NBS Review Episode 13: Current Affairs Edition (+ Special Guest Tim Smalley!) [64:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Episode Topics:

30 Sega Genesis come to PSP/PS2.

EA concentrating on DS rather than PSP - we inevitably rip it out of Sony.

History of Sony format failures - more inevitable ripping out of Sony.

Sony doesn’t know about it’s own Blu-Ray statistics - addition to the above.

PS3 titles being cancelled in favour for Xbox 360 only - addition, again, to the above.

Restricitions’ on hand luggage electronics on planes. Experiences with baggage handlers. Alternative transport? Flying naked?

Vista Coupons -… Aero and Intel integrated graphics and the average consumers buying habits.

New NVIDIA integrated graphics are a step lower than the current 6150.

ATI subpoena by Intel for its future forecasts etc.

Rockstar’s “Bully”, marketing, parenting, game potential, getting it banned?

AOL releases search data which is ultimately identifiable. Should search data remain anonymous or should it be questioned?

Episode Notes:

No massive topics on discussion this week, more of the little things in life that are just as important.
Unfortunately, due to the news we can’t help but rip it into Sony. But then again, Sony making bad press this year is as inevitable as the earth turning. After all, as consumers they should work to please US! Maybe, should people care enough; we’ll get emails from Sony fanboi’s. We can but cross our fingers, hope to die, stick a needle in our eye.

None of us hate Sony, after all, how can you hate a company that never does anything right. OK, I’ll concede on the PSX/PS2 as the possible exception, if they are your consoles of choice, that is.

Tim was on his skype phone seeing as we roped him in 10 minutes before going live. Hiren has taken this week off and we miss him for keeping us in check with regards to timing. I think we have a space open for next week too so let us know if you’re interested!

Tim doesn’t actually pee during the podcast, I’ve been reliably informed he was pouring a drink or perhaps collecting one from a miniature waterfall in his house?

We had another half hour on quad-sli discussion, but due to the ever unenabling crap that is Powergramo: it didn’t record. So after Tim falling into oblivion (not assimilated by Bethesda) we apologise for the loss of the further discussion on quad SLI. You’ve got an hour to listen to though, so it’s not like we’ve left you short changed.

We got scanned by the governments! NOOES!! /Changes name and goes underground, living on the edge, always on the run, a rebel without a cause…

Music is from the contender for best FPS ever released: System Shock 2. No longer sold and used to be out on the net as “abandonware” for a while until Looking Glass Studios threw a hissy fit. If you do find a copy now, most likely second hand, you’ll have to find an XP/2k patch to play it as it wasn’t written to support the NT kernel. We’re borrowing Peter Kolfers arranged mixes from the game and those familiar with it will bask in the glory of Science and Operations. No monkeys included.

You might also enjoy checking out our delicious link for stuff that interests us and may make the next podcast: http://del.icio.us/nbsreview If you find something cool, email it on!

Many thanks, as usual for Tim Smalley from Bit-tech.net for taking the time out of his Saturday at incredibly short notice in order to spend it with us!

- Rich

Two things from me:

1) H-bomb (Hiren has been renamed since technically “Mike” is now Mike Fev until I come up with something ridiculous for him, too), we miss you.  The lack of our companion can really be felt on this episode, in all the unseen ways he makes the show better - like shutting Rich and I up on cue, or even recording the bloody thing.

2) Timmeh saved our bacon and your ears, because Rich was talking about just having us two sit and talk about all this stuff.  Since he had no sugar this week and I only had 2 cups of coffee to start my day, this would have been an auditory tragedy of epic proportions.  Thanks for the fill-in on short notice, Tim, and a warm “thank you” to G for his unknown consent to make use of his skype phone.

Aside from that, enjoy the episode!

- Brett

Listen Now:

 NBS Review EP12: Wii Three Disappointment? Gears Of War (+Wil Harris at Bit-Tech Special Guest!) [48:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Episode Topics:

Wii Specs: Disappointment?

E3 Aftermath: What will ‘07 offer?

Gears of War: Released at the same time as the PS3

The future of optical media: Holographic?

Episode Notes:

Super Special Guest is Wil Harris from Bit-tech.net. We thank him for his time

We cracked the recording quality this week and managed to get DVD quality 48KHz/16bit, but had to downsample to 44.1KHz/16bit for podpress in order to be compatible. However, this is still twice as good as our normal noise output and I saved the mp3 in 80KHz over 64KHz to give you that extra feeling of fuzzy fidelity when listening to the music.

It’s apparent I have to learn when to shut up. And to eat less sugar.

I’ve got to say, I’m finding it hard to find things to write. We’ve got a pretty straight cut, well conversed episode where everyone was really on the ball. I have this warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

In case you didn’t get the joke Wil made: Pining for the Fjords = Monty Python, The Dead Parrot Sketch.

Overall cynicism level: Extreme Off the chart.

I don’t even know what the hell happened with little Jimmy and his swearing problem, or, uh.. other problems. It’s full of confusion and everyone is taking everything the wrong way. Congratulations to everyone for really reaffirming the explicit tag we’ve attained. Maybe we should replace our logo with a parental guidance one?

I couldn’t find any free “funeral” or “death” music to go in where I said I’d put some. I spent hours trying to find some decent video game music and eventually stumbled on two out of a load I downloaded and I can’t remember where I got them from to give credit! All I know is that the Intro is called Colossus and the Ending is a fan-mix from The Last Ninja game, “Central Park” level. I went through Lemmings, Final Fantasy (which is all still being sold so that’s definitely out), Ridge Racer (again, on sale) and Zelda II to name a few.

- Richard

w00t to another complete episode!  I just wanted to stress that someone should beat the  **** out of little Jimmy for whingeing to iTunes and giving us an “Explicit” rating.  You go to hell, little Jimmy, you go to hell and you die.
Some day, I’d love to release some of the outtakes of this episode, as they were beyond the very concept of entertaining…

- Brett

Listen Now:

 NBS Review EP11: Old School For Season 2! Snake-Eyes! AMD/ATI, Torrenting. [41:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This Episodes Topics:

AMD buys out ATI with super special guest star, Tim Smalley from Bit-tech.net
Torrenting of game demos and game updates

What games we’ve been playing in the last month

Episode Notes (excuse list):

What ever you do, never, ever buy Powergramo. Currently it’s one of the worst software products I’ve ever used. Not only is the recording quality incredibly poor 50% of the time, but their forums lack any kind of support and when you initiate a conversation the prompt isn’t to record the conversation, it’s to cancel recording. So if you click YES, it cancels, not continues. Logic flies out the window and thus Hiren recorded it in Hotrecorder (at 12KHz instead of 24KHz unfortunately), instead of me recording it in a 44.1KHz/16bit wave. Then, the only output compatible was 11.5KHz mp3, which is why we sound a bit flat, despite having the best connection ever this week. Obviously, we were aiming for “old skool” this week with the 1980s recording sound quality and music to match. As always we will endever to keep trying to improve our output and will continue again next week for uber quality.

Musak is to be reminised from the original Double Dragon 2, on the NES and Mortal Kombat: Goros Layer, on the Mega Drive.

Snake Eyes is a reference to the gambling term for 11. To be said when using the hands in shape of guns with index finger pointing. Perhaps with a slight, Texan accent to compliment.

I can’t believe I missed the blatant innuendo at 2 minutes 50! Damn!

If you hear echo it’s because Tim was sitting 6 feet away from me, and we didn’t realise how bad it would be. I eventually got off my arse and moved away to minimise it. Also blame Tim for breathing down your ear.. tsk, amateures!

Bretts hot market tip: Shares in AMD! GOGOGOGOGO!

I seem to have my wires crossed with Brett in the game updates discussion where he’s talking about WoW and I’m thinking he’s referring to Battlefield which is EA.

Bah the TechNetwork, we don’t need you anyway. We don’t need no school, no edu-cation. Why should we dub ourselves down? Why should we not be real? Without the shit, as it were. Ok, we swear a bit but it’s not like we use them for adjectives, nouns AND vowels through out every sentence. We are adults making a show for adults. I don’t expect children to understand the finer points of market dynamics and those who do are probably old enough to have been well versed in the language of the playground.

Much respect to Tim for taking time out his busy day to spend an hour with us!

- Richard

Listen Now:

 NBS Episode 10: Photography Special! [52:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This Weeks Topics:

Apple Pie (merely heated, NOT home made)

Photography with Expert, David Gregory!

Stealing, Borrowing, Using and Abusing Wifi.

Show Comments Richards’ Essay:

Im assured the pie was good, consumed with cream; however, we weren’t given pictures or video of the proceeding consumption nor a taste of the succulent apples or crispy breadcrumbs. The first topic next week will be to discuss in depth whether a crumble can indeed be characterised as a pie? I literally cannot wait. In fact we might start a new NBS: NBS Cooking Reheating PIE MAKING!, uh, Review.

Huge thanks and apologies to David Gregory, who wasn’t only an incredible wealth of knowledge but accepted our barrage of questions for nearly thirty minutes. The Spanish hold nothing to us, when it comes to an inquisition. Although, I’m told, David did expect it.

On Wifi; we recorded this and had the topic logged down for TWO WEEKS (NB: My “curb crawl for Wifi” comments pre-episode 9) and now Twit 59 not only comes out with the same topic but also the SAME CONCLUSIONS as us. May I be first to say: ARGH! You try to do something original and someone bigger not only beats you to it but makes you sound like you basically regurgitate their ideas. Shit. However, much respect to them for reaching the same conclusions as us, after all, we know we’re awesome.

Overall we had a good, straight through run, which means H hasn’t had to labour with the edit. Another week, another small step towards high quality ameteurness. As this isn’t our main line of work we couldn’t call it, Professional.

The phonetic responce this week is provided by 50FootWave, and their track, Animal. You can catch the whole thing at the end.
- Richard

Listen Now:

 NBS Episode 9: The Next Generation [54:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Topics This Week:

Vista Beta 2

US’ ESRB (versus a government regulated system like in Britain)

Vapourware Games

Show Comments:

I hope you enjoyed my loose Star Trek opening parody. I did promise in episode 8 I would do one. I realise my “Wil Shatner” impression could do with some work, and in fact, that Wil Shatner was in the original star trek not the next generation, which was Patrick Stewart. But the title is also linked into the fact that Vista is “the next generation” of windows so the accuracy of the Trek universe comes second to my ingenious multi-levelled titles.

Thankfully someone fixed my home internet connection so I didn’t have to curb crawl for free Wifi at 11pm. I can’t imagine what that might have ended up like, visualising some “dark car” at the side of the road, a guy in it sporting headphones and a mic and merely the luminescence of a backlight allowing everyone around to question WTF was going on. I honestly don’t think you could breed an any more apparently dodgy situation, especially in small town middle England. Incidentally we’re using it as a topic in episode 10, so stay wired… or, out scouting for wireless; whatever floats your boat.

Hiren’s editing this week, so chose music from the awesomely mellow Soundfreak: You are the joy of my life. We’re having an ongoing argument about how long the music should be in the opening and ending. We’ve come to an arrangement of a 30 second intro and no more than a minute on the exit, and even then that was a struggle for me to achieve since I wanted full tracks leading out, but H wasn’t having anything of it, citing that people switch off after we finish talking. I find that kinda sad, but accept it may be the case. However, it seems this week he’s caved entirely and I’ve got plenty of music in it \o/ Please absorb the ending.

In addition, if anyone reads this, let us know what you prefer. Do you mind our random, free game music choices?? Or moody electronica? How long do you want to listen to music when opening and closing? I hope you’ve got a kick at least somewhere along the line from something you recognise.

Did you notice our, yet again, smoother running and greater conversation flow? With experience we’re getting the whole “internet radio” thing done right. See if you can notice where Hiren and Brett lead in questions for everyone, somewhat far better than my topic intros will ever be.

I think the ultimate conclusion from the gaming vapourware chat is that no one should ever announce a game. Ever. Until it’s done and on the shelf. Sort of like a nice suprise. Unless you can live up to the hype you create AND release it on time, which inevitably never happens for some reason or another. Usually because of gaming executives over-estimating how much they can crack their whips before their arms get tired.

I’ll grab some screenshots of Vista, shortly, to show everyone what we’ve been talking about.

Much respect to Mike Fethers for his time and effort as our guest this week Thanks dude!

- Richard

Listen Now:

 NBS Episode 8: Google Office Physics.. Podcasting! [48:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Topics This Week

AMD/ATI potential; multiple graphics cards; electrical bills; 3rd GPU Physics; interactive physics versus graphics calculated physics approximations; dedicated physics processing… tangent.

Podcasting!

Google Office; conspiracy theories; usability of Google products; market movements against Microsoft; Gmail and Hotmail; website appeal; web 2.0 sites

Show Comments

Hopefully it’s not too quiet for everyone and the sound quality is probably the best we’ve ever had! Woo!

It’s getting harder and harder for me to write cynical posts about what happened because we’re reducing our mistake making to a minimum. I said “Creative Graphics Cards” instead of sound cards, but because I’m editing, it got cut! Heh.

The first topic has a massive tangent which makes it quite long to listen to, but it works itself out in the end.

Well, to be honest, it wouldn’t be a suprise that I’ve never even heard the word dictionary to most people. “The most illiterate of the intelligentia..” I suppose I should be flattered I’m at least considered, intelligent.
We have actually only made 7c through Google ads. And what makes it sadder is that we’re probably at least 7c more profitable than most podcasts out there.

Brett is silky smooth this week when it comes to changing topics. You could throw water over him and he wouldn’t even be wet.

It’s a good job we don’t have to pay royalties for saying the word, Google, as that 7c would be LONG GONE. Admittedly it’s not my conspiracy theory too, it’s a combination of a few other peoples I liked and was just regurgitating.

This Weeks Musical opener is the Theme of MUSHA Aleste, from the Mega Drive. I don’t know why, but old skool 8 bit game music always makes me smile (hence, why I use it so often). I’ve never actually played the game, but Brett assures me it was arguably the best the Mega Drive had to offer. I can’t agree having spent many-a-evening playing Streets of Rage 2 on ultra hard.

The ending is from Minibosses SuperMario track.

- Richard