[Podcast] Gaming With the Moms #7:  Todd Bishop Is Not a Mom

Welcome to episode 7 of Gaming With the Moms! Host and Pixelkin Managing Editor Nicole Tanner leads the conversation about family gaming news. This week we run down some news, some rumors, some hopes, and some fears. And we talk a little bit about parenting styles—from free-range to helicopter and everything in between.

Todd Bishop, editor and founder of GeekWire, joins us this week!  He’s not a mom. But he’s the dad of a 4-year-old girl. Yay!

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News & Idle Gossip

• There’s no incentive to attack other characters in Nintendo’s Splatoon, slated for release this week. Todd wonders if the Wii U install base is enough to make Splatoon the HUGE game that by all accounts it really should be (since it’s a creative,  totally nonviolent shooter).
• Where is Skylanders going? Is it going to be called Skylanders Superchargers? Or is the leaked info just a tease? (Check out Meredith Bland’s impression of Skylanders here. It’s hilarious.)
• A Portal pinball game is coming and it’ll have GLADoS’s voice! What?!! That’s so cool!
• SuperMega Baseball, a slightly goofy version of a sports videogame, is being released on the Xbox One.
• Humble Bundle, a cool way to buy indie games, has released its first Nintendo bundle.  We explain what Humble Bundle is: indie games become part of a bundle and get their games out there more, people get to pay what they wish, and part of the money goes to charity. The charity for this bundle is Code.org.
  

  Kingdom Hearts III is on the way.

• Nicole runs down the times for the E3 press conferences—just in case you want to be the first on your block to know about all the upcoming video games. Simone is quivering with anticipation about the new Kingdom Hearts game. We go into all the reasons we’re not going to E3—you can see the announcements online anyhow, it’s hard to get hands-on time with games, and we’re too tired to party.  Todd would like Nintendo to announce something great. We’d also like to hear about cool new HoloLens stuff.
• Cortana is coming to a whole bunch of platforms, playing the role of a Siri-type personal assistant. Todd points out that this is a sign of how Microsoft is really opening up. We know one thing about Siri—she can’t pronounce “Simone de Rochefort” correctly. Simone: “I suffer at the hands of computers daily.” 

  

  Cortana in Halo 4. Your personal assistant Cortana won’t look like this. She’ll just be a voice, of course.

• There’s a line of K’nex toys based on video games. “Plantsies & Zombies!” says Nicole’s adorable daughter Ana. Todd talks about playing the Game of Life on the Amazon Fire Stick.
• In the Department of Name Dropping, Nicole and Simone have a fangirl confab about author Peter S. Beagle.
• Todd, ace tech reporter that he is, reports on the latest scoop about the Microsoft HoloLens. Microsoft applied for a patent for a “blended reality” application. He also talks about how the HoloLens might be used to consult with remote electricians and plumbers.
• A GeekWire story this week reported that a group of UW researchers studied parents using smartphones when they’re supervising kids on the playground. The study found that parents aren’t using their smartphones on the playground as much as you might think.
• A goofy discussion of parenting technique ensues, and Simone invents a new system: Pokémon Parenting, in which you send your kid off at the age of 10 to go capture wild animals.

What We Played

• Todd played some games with his 4-year-old. He recommends Kinect Party for the Xbox 360. Todd says it’s the “perfect kids’ game.” On the Fire TV Stick, Todd and his daughter like Crossy Road, which looks like Minecraft and plays like Frogger.
• Simone’s been playing Life Is Strange. She and Nicole brag about never getting in trouble when they were teenagers.
• Linda played an educational game called Mystery Word Town and a human vs. nature survival game, Subnautica.
• Simone played Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, a side-scrolling platforming stealth game, which she’s enjoying a lot.
• Nicole and Simone reminisce about playing Hearthstone over the weekend.

Other Business

Gaming With the Moms was recorded in the studios of the Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle. Music by Pat Goodwin at Novelty Shop Creative. Nicole Tanner, Linda Breneman, Simone de Rochefort, and Todd Bishop participated in this podcast. Thanks for listening! And if you like this podcast, please consider rating us on iTunes! And subscribing! It really helps us out!

If you have questions or comments PLEASE send them to hello@pixelkin.org.  We’ll answer your questions in the podcast!

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You can find all the Gaming With the Moms podcasts here, or: