Two Fat Gamers

Two fat Gamers is a slightly opinionated yet quite factual discussion based show that involves the Gamer and his world. Featuring News, Opinions, and rumors within the realm of gaming. We also have reviews and discussions on the latest movies and some that are classics. Feel free to move about the site and onto our Forums(Located in Links section).

-TWO FAT GAMERS

And D. E. A. D. Spells DEAD!

 Well months after nothing it's safe for you guys to say TFG is over. It was a good run, but it was bound to end at some point. So, it's over go turn on a movie or something....

It's been a long time, but we're coming back, just in time for a pre-E3 show. Link's back too. We're hoping to do more casts as the summer rolls in.

 More later,

-Mike 

Watchmen is out in theaters if you haven't noticed and I have posted a review of the film. I tried to keep spoilers out of the review as best to my ability. I hope you enjoy it!

 A movie so nice, it's worth seeing twice!

 next podcast shouldn't be long from now...

-Mike

After a long long long wait, TFG has a new episode. All of us hope you enjoy the extra long version!

 Link Here

 The volume is a bit low, I'll see if I can fix that later on.

In a rather stunning turn of events

EGM, a very popular magazine of TFG hosts, is no longer being published after its January 2009 issue. It appears Ziff Davis Media has sold 1UP Network to UGO/HURST. It's a rather sad day for gamers who subscribe to this magazine, but business is business. 

Looks like we're back!

But please be patient...

Two Fat Gamers as of now is on Hiatus. The podcast has been at a dead standstill and I don't see much getting done anytime soon. I don't know how much time it'll last, but it could be a while. The site will receive updates and videos to its video page, but for now the podcast is not happening...

I enjoyed doing the cast for as long as I could, but it's been limping for a while now. 

-Mike

Though I stated earlier Episode 24 would be recorded on Saturday it was not. Sometimes plans get thrown around and you have to go with it. The episode will probably be moved to next weekend.

 On a better note we had fun playing Rock Band. You can see the results on my Facebook. Here. From my homepage you can go to videos and it should be easy to find my horrible quality videos. I might put them on Youtube...

 -Mike

A new review has been added, this time Watchmen is the topic of review. This old but famous graphic novel has been with me for a few months and I finally decided to finish it. Go read the review and maybe pick up the book yourself.

 Next Episode set for Saturday!

Cheers

The Xbox 360 now has a refreshed looked without the blades of the former style.This will be covered in the next episode along with our thoughts on Quantum of Solace. Guest appearances are possible but uncertain.

Just letting you know we are still here.

-Mike

In America today is election day! What better way to distract you from the ads and constant dribble of who is better than the other than our own Podcast? The Halloween special is available now. There is no opinions section because of some reworking of our plans.  We hope you enjoy this short but sweet episode!

Stream/Download Here

 Also up is a review of Dead Space done by me. I was compelled to write up a review and not wait for the next podcast! Please read it and discuss it on the forums if you like.

-Mike

Happy Halloween

It was a rough night for Jeremy and I as we were tired from walking around the town on the night of hallows eve. The podcast is 95% done and should be out sometime soon. As a treat here are a few pics from WoW's events during the holiday.

 the wicker man

 It's burning

 Jeremy's Closeup

 Oh no, it's a goblin!

 Mm Candy!

-Mike

the inside joke of Bx2T has been floating among friends and internet chats I have with them. To understand this joke you would have to know the story behind it. Almost like Chuck Norris, Billy Bob Thornton has won us over as badass of the century. He is to us the new Chuck Norris. To help in explaining I will quote the forum.

"why do we spread this message?" you ask.

Simply because no other man has coached a baseball team, been a Farmer and an Astronaut in one movie all at once, and controlled all fate within Eagle Eye. He has gone as far back as the Alamo and survived! He taught gym, he's been a bad Santa, he's even been CatDog's Father!

Bx2T is a god among mortals. He surpasses even that of Norris. Billy doesn't need karate movies and Vietnam to be the ultimate bad ass. He did it even while being Karl Childer in Sling Blade! Billy Bob Thorton(Bx2T) is the one that allows existence and deprives you from it. He is the beginning and the end. With one snap your whole world will crumble.

 Anyway it's all in good fun. Billy Bob Thornton(Bx2T) is superior to Chuck Norris and I hope to get a shirt around to honor him as such.

 "Ask not a God, What Man can do himself!"

-Mike

It's been about two weeks since the last update to the site. I apologize for letting news pass by. The past few days I've had my hands on Dead Space and been out of contact and reach of my computer so the podcast was dropped. Good news is we can continue this Friday most likely. The Force Unleashed review will remain untold in the next episode most likely, but they'll be some Dead Space chat and Fable II. I don't have a movie to talk about yet, but  Fight Club is a possibility. Sadly I will be breaking the first rule of FC, you don't talk about it.

in other news Another Halo novel and an art book are coming this November. Recently another trailer has been released for Alan Wake. view it in the video section.

 -Mike

Episode 22 has been recorded and edited. I'm running a last test as I type this, so by the daybreak of Saturday it should be up and downloadable. The episode came out rather well with the newly added fade in and out effects and some other technical changes.

The podcast should be up in a few hours, now I have to recharge with sleep...

*Update*

Episode 22 is now available Here

 -Mike

Halo Wars has been in my sights for quite a while. Since that first trailer two years ago at E3 '06 I've been excited and patient for the release. Sadly the release isn't until spring of '09, but today I have discovered a cinematic that adds to my appetite.

-Mike

Current plan is Friday after School time. We have some topics planned out and the plans will be finalized Thursday. Look for some talk of Star Wars:Force Unleashed with the full review being in Episode 23(We hope). Movies talks will include Burn After Reading and maybe Eagle Eye if I can get to it before the recording time. Other news bits and discussions are TBA for the moment.

Other News...

The Xbox 'Update' so they call it has given us nothing. After 24hours of waiting there is no changes but the errors that games took on because of this. Many games will not function properly over Xbox Live, leaving a lot of angry gamers and little children... I suspect the update they released is to prepare everything for the actual Update coming soon(Novemberish)

 -Mike

I'm officially excited about Bungie's next addition to Halo 3. It's not a full game but it's extra content. To be exact, Bungie has some extra campaign missions on the rise. Some say it's 01/06/09, that it's a squad based shooter mission, and that it is during the fight in New Mombasa. below is the video.

Keep It Clean Teaser

Most of these have been confirmed but we don't have a date confirmed...So far we are sure of ODSTs being involved weather it be a few survivors or just one. New Mombasa has been hit hard by Regret's ship slipping into slipstream space above the city.The EMP wave caused windows to shatter, buildings to tear like paper, cameras to fail, [Suspected]Damage to an A.I, and possibly wiped out hundreds of ODSTs still dropping in their HEV pods. 

It has been going on behind the backs of the internet for quite a long time. It started back in one forum that was condemned. Then it began again in another which was lost. It then moved for a short time to the TFG forum. Now it has been finished in the current forum since it journeyed from the TFG Forum. The Saga of Chaos was born a story that forum members would add to. The added parts could be random, but had to have some relativity with the characters in some way. It began with Tim and ended with many others. Each arch is a story of amazing talent and fantastic action.

 Please download the Word Document format Here!

-Mike

 First, we have Episode 21 for your Downloading pleasure! Click Here to Download(Recommended) or stream!

 also of interest...

 Well, Bungie is up to their mysterious agenda again. First they post an early Weekly Update, then THIS is posted. Looks like Bungie's big announcement is coming soon. The Superintendent is back as well. I suppose Bungie is plotting an ARG with this fellow. More will be revealed as time goes.

corruption much?

 -Mike

In the near future There are two games sure to be reviewed by TFG. those two are Star Wars: Force Unleashed, and Fallout 3. Both are pre-ordered and confirmed as purchased. All we do now is wait, not so easy when you are desperate to find out if 2 out of 5 was deserved from X-Play... I'm getting a bit nervous as the days go by.

GRENDEL is proving to be worth every cent. Episode 20 went over fine and everything is safe within the hard drive. I got a few nice pictures photoshopped as well. below being one such photoshop.

Some of you may get the reference. I'm currently using this as a default for most of my profiles.

-Mike

Episode 20...

is early since we've been a bit behind in the recordings the past few weeks. It's short, but full of content as always. Episode 21 is scheduled this weekend so far with Burn Notice as our movie discussion.

Download/ Stream: Here

Just so you know the old music is from the Fallout series Soundtracks. Not just randomly thrown in.

-Mike

Time to show you the new part to the TFG equipment family!

Meet GRENDEL:

Grendel here is a Western Digital 500gb My Book External Hard Drive. After a few months of planning I stumbled upon this drive and decided to purchase for both the podcast archives, and for my own media storage. Upon receiving and first activating the name "GRENDEL" just sorta popped into my head, and their it became the title of the storage device. My interest in mythology and Beowulf also may have sparked it a tad.

Well there you have it...We will be using this bad boy for our future podcasts of course. The next being recorded Wednesday, edited and released shortly afterward.

-Mike

The original announcement was to be in last weeks episode but we at TFG Podcasts have been busy with arranging an interview with a Halo fan and Machinima Filmmaker, BoldDoughnut. Bolddoughnut has been heading the Lower The Guns campaign over at Bungie.net. This average joe has put together a group of nearly 4,000 members. Here is the back and forth we shared recently.

TFG: What is your name and background involving video games, Filming, and the Lower Your Guns movement, if I may call it that?

BD:  Hello, my name is bolddoughnut and I am the founder of the The Lower The Guns group on Bungie.net.   I started out with the N64 about 8 years ago and since then have been hooked on video games.  My first experience with Halo was in 2000 when I played it at a friend’s party and went out the next day to get it and since then have been playing mostly the halo games.     Starting about 3 years ago in halo 2 I personally began to make machinima and since then have created a MLG/ machinima clan called The Never Regret Clan.    At the beginning of July (2008) I was talking to one of my Xbox live friends called Jayfng2 and we began talking about how is stunk that we could not lower the weapons over Xbox live.  He then came up with the idea of a Bungie,net group and I created it on July 7th, 2008.    Since then we have been gathering support to boycott halo 3 on September 25th, 2008 to alert Bungie to the issue of weapon lowering and to show them how big of a issue it really it.   

TFG: What is your cause in this movement?

BD: the cause of this movement is to encourage enough gamers to boycott halo 3 on September 25th, 2008 that bungie feels the effects and decides that they should put some resources into enabling the lowering of weapons over Xbox live.   

TFG: What is/are the goal(s) of those who are part of this cause?

BD: our goal is to get the weapons lowered over Xbox live and to show Bungie how big its machinima community truly is.

TFG: On Bungie there is a group you administrate for called "Lower Your Weapons". When precisely did this group get its birth?

BD: July 7th, 2008

TFG: Was it easy to start bringing those in the realm of machinima to the group?

BD: No it was not when we first started we thought that we would probably get no attention at all and we made a few movies that promoted the group and they sort of took off by itself and a lot of the groups joined after Time Glitch from Flem Productions came and started helping us recruit for the cause.

TFG: While we are talking about the group started on Bugnie.net, the Studio's website, what made you decide to create a group for this cause? Were there any restrictions you had to keep in mind throughout recruitment and discussion in the group?

BD:  The main reason was that we are all Halo 3 gamers and we are its community so why not make it a community thing by putting it on their website?  We do not hate Bungie and this way it makes it easy for most of the active people in the halo 3 community to join and support the cause because it’s on a site that we all know and love.     

TFG: I have seen quite a few videos on this ambition to get Weapons lowering back on live. What exactly sparked your involvement in this movement?

BD: When you are trying to get a machinima group to do something and to move its fan base towards the cause you must get the leader to show interest by creating a video because it not only spreads the word to the leaders fan base but to other people that run across the video by accident.    Not to mention it’s the best way to explain what the purpose of this group really is.


TFG: Are there any big names on your side of this matter?

BD: No but we do have the support of the This Spartan Life community for the most part and we do have Flem Productions.  Other than that its mostly smaller lesser known groups.

TFG: How is not playing one day of halo on live going to make them change there minds?

BD:  The reason a boycott is necessary is because how else are you going to get their attention?   If you post in their forums they can just ignore it and if you all play the game what does it really matter?   But if you make a dent in their numbers on a day that is important such as September 25th (the first anniversary of halo 3)   that’s when they will truly notice it.   Not to forget though that we are also planning on having a mass amount of people play halo 2 on that day we hope to increase the number of people on halo 2 by about 2000 or more which will make a big splash in the stats which is what they look at. 

TFG: What is some good that comes out of making these halo videos with the feature?

BD: While it may sound somewhat stupid having the weapons lowered allows people to make serious machinima over Xbox live.   For instance lets say in real life that you went down the grocery store and the owner has a shotgun and he is holding it (because you live out in the middle of no where) and while he is ringing you up at the cash register he keeps the gun pointed at you and even when he is talking to you he keeps it pointed at you.   Doesn’t make much sense right?   Why the heck would you have a gun pointed at someone unless they were hostile?  It just looks horribly stupid and because of this many major machinima productions have been hurt and deeply disabled because of this.

TFG: Is there anything bad that could come from the use of gun lowering over live?

BD: there is always the chance of exploiting it to your advantage such as the BXR in halo 2 but Bungie should be able to fix that.

TFG: This idea to protest halo 3 by refusing to play it on its anniversary is quite clever. About how many people not playing on September 25th do you think it would take to impact those at Bungie Studios?

BD: To catch their eye we would need about 10,000 to dumb found them probably 250,000 as you can tell there is no way we will be able to get that number of people involved in time but we will still continue activities and boycotts after this one until the job is done.

TFG: What reasons have they given to not allow gun lowering over live?

BD: From what I have gathered the only reason is that they didn’t have enough testers before the game was released to go and test the weapon lowering feature.   

TFG: Do you think these reasons are legitimate?

BD: yes.

TFG: How long have the in-game Film makers been irritated by this restriction that Bungie placed?

BD: Since the release of Halo 3

TFG: Do you think this feature would be available in all parts of online play or could it be narrowed to custom games only?

BD: It’s hard to say it depends on how they encoded the game.

TFG: Any last thoughts or statements you'd like to tell the readers?

BD: I would like to thank Two Fat Gamers for featuring us and I would like to thank the moderators Time Glitch (Prime recruiter), MC Defcon (head of forums), Jayfng2 (Co-Creator).   I would also like to thank all of the groups that have supported us throughout our campaign and every person that has joined to help us.  

Again,  Thank you for your time BoldDoughnut.

 -Mike