If you do a Google image search for RPG, unfortunately most of the shots you’ll find feature a certain deadly weapon.  However, use that word around any gamer and they’ll immediately think something completely different. Role-playing games.  If you play games regularly, chances are good you’ve played at least one RPG at some point in your life.  Many of us thoroughly enjoy the genre in all its facets, which made this week’s Staff Picks even more difficult.  Once again, the staff here at Spawn Kill got together to each pick just one of our most favorite RPGs.  Again, no easy task.  However, we all managed to settle on one title to represent some of our favorite moments in gaming.  Check out our list, and feel free to list your picks in the comments.  And, unlike us, you aren’t limited to just one pick.

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The Kill Kast is back again and we hope to start a new streak of consecutive podcasts. In Episode 14 Stephanie, Eric and Rebecca get together to talk about what they’ve been playing which includes Dragon Quest IX, StarCraft 2 and Mafia II. We go through some recent news such as Mass Effect hitting the PS3, the Windows Phone 7 and the Sony PSP phone. For our topic(s) this week we discuss last week’s Community Voice and what you all said along with our recent Staff Picks and why we love those soundtracks. We also talk about Dragon Age a whole lot, mainly why Origins is so awesome and why Dragon Age 2 has us worried. It happens. I think it’s high time we just start a separate Dragon Age podcast…

You can download and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and let us know what you thought about the episode. Thanks for listening!

We stepped into the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep presentation and were surprised to be face to face with none other than Tetsuya Nomura who was sitting there with an entourage of translators.  Both Stephanie and Dave had assumed that we were in for a demo of the game itself just like all of our previous appointments had been thus far. So when we sat down with Nomura, we flipped out our notebooks and prepared to absorb in any juicy information we could pry about the upcoming PSP Kingdom Hearts title, Birth by Sleep.

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I know you know us at Spawn Kill. If there’s any Xbox Live Arcade/PSN game we’ve been excited about lately, it’s been Konami’s revival of their jetpacking possum icon, Sparkster, in Rocket Knight. Never having played the original myself, discovering that Konami had an iconic furry mascot of their own during the 90’s piqued my interest after reading Eric’s hands-on from the Konami Gamer’s Day event, and pushed us to pry an interview out of Tomm Hulett, the Associate Producer on Rocket Knight at Konami Digital Entertainment. Next up? Rocket Knight 2: Possums Gone Wild – Piloting Mechs.

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Want to win a sweet Lost Planet 2 swag package right here at Spawn Kill? All you have to do is tell us your biggest kill of all time, in or out of a video game.  As an example, one time I was shark hunting in the middle of the Pacific ocean when I killed a blue whale. I then swam its corpse to a local Japanese village and they had food and heat for nearly a decade. I was labeled a hero and to this day there stands a statue of me in their town center. Obviously, true story. Feel free to be as epic in the telling as you like. We’ll pick five people at random or five people who know how to spin a yarn and give them a nice little package full of Capcom goodies, including a t-shirt, a water bottle, and Kill Big poster. Check them out below for visual details.

So get crackin’!  The contest ends on midnight of next Saturday!

Though we’ve certainly come quite a long way from the days of the arcade where a speaking character was a luxury, games today retain elements that can be traced back to the golden days of gaming. Yes, you still find characters who never (or rarely) speak. Yes, these characters do not speak so that you may live vicariously through them. You speak for them. And in some cases, you’ll choose what “they’re” saying, but is it really them speaking? And how much control do you really have over a set narrative when you have limited control over what they’re “really” saying? Are they simply a vehicle for designers to skip over an entire step?

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A simple choice can change your life forever. For instance, you may selfishly choose to drive drunk and end someone’s life, or yours. You could easily choose to get a ride home and not risk wrecking or endangering someone’s health. Of course, those are choices that can be made with dire outcomes. Gaming is slowly but surely introducing the same kinds of decisions. But are we ready? Are they being implemented correctly? And how do we feel about choosing “right” versus “wrong?”

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After checking out the disco robots running rampant at PAX East thanks to Fugazo, we were hungry for more. Andrew Lum, the creative genius behind the upcoming game, agreed to answer a few more of our questions concerning the battle royale for a robot’s several girlfriends to shed a little light on the history behind such a game. Thanks, Andrew, for letting us pick your brain! Enjoy this mini-interview with Andrew Lum of Fugazo.

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The Spawn Kill crew recently got a hold of several Lost Planet 2 multiplayer demo codes, and though we gave many of the codes away, Snarkasaur, TheHerp, and K-Tuck couldn’t help but check it out for themselves. The multiplayer itself was met with some mixed results both in terms of gameplay and game mechanics, so the crew took it upon themselves to run through the previously released co-op demo and compare the results between the two.

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Just recently Spawn Kill had the opportunity to check out a few of EA’s upcoming games and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 made a little appearance since it was its launch week, it was actually present in 3D form on the PC which was fantastically impressive. We took a few moments to sit down with Lo Wallmo of the DICE team to chat about Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

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We’re serving up Episode 06, the Kill Kast Collector’s Edition. And you didn’t even have to pre-order! This week you’ll be joining Tigresa (Stephanie) alongside a gaggle of tavern he-wenches K-Tuck (Kevin), Snarkasaur (Dave), and The Herp (aka Eric aka Sports). We dish a little on what we’ve been playing (recorded Thursday, 1/28) and our varied opinion on what’s really “collectable” in Collector’s Editions of several upcoming and past games, and what’s just there to trick you into doling out an addition $10-$40 for unrecycled plastic.

Follow the Kill Kast on Twitter, and if you’re an iTunes user, we’d love it if you’d subscribe if you enjoy the Kill Kast!

Subscribe on iTunes by searching “Spawn Kill” — you’ll see us!

@Tigresa – @Snarkasaur – @K-Tuck – @The Herp – @Molotov Cupcake

Yes, 2009 was quite a tumultuous year. It wasn’t quite the explosive year in gaming it was made out to be, but we laughed, we cried, and we broke several controllers. We ran to our favorite gaming forum to complain, and buddy, you know we had plenty to complain about. Similarly, we had plenty to rejoice about, with some of the biggest names in gaming bringing us several adventures we won’t soon forget. In 2010, things are only going to get better, or so we hope. But what of the games we were presented with this in 2009? Which one moved us the way no other could? Which game made us weep with tears of joy at how impossibly beautiful it was? And which one made us revile at the very sight of its hideous character models? Well, faithful Spawn Killer, you’re about to find out. We’re happy to present the first annual Spawn Kill Game of the Year Awards.

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On the fifth episode of the Kill Kast, Molotov Cupcake, Tigresa, Snarkasaur, and The Herp discuss their nominations and personal game of the year decisions as a companion to the game of the year post, found here. Join the staff for a colorful discussion regarding some of the year’s best, including Dragon Age: Origins, Retro Game Challenge, and more!

Unfortunately, Molotov had to drop out not too long into the discussion due to technical difficulties, so if you’re curious as to the rest of her picks regarding the Game of the Year awards, she’d be more than happy to discuss them with you via e-mail or her Twitter.

Thanks for your interest in the fifth episode of the Kill Kast, and we hope you enjoy the show! Download or stream the podcast below. We are also now on iTunes!

If you want to follow our GOTY podcasts’ individual voices on Twitter, everyone is listed below!

@Tigresaa – @Snarkasaur – @MolotovCupcake - @TheHerp80

If you are a hardcore gamer, sometimes it can be difficult to get the insight on what’s good in the neighborhood of casual games because we tend to cross them off our list for our own holiday lists. But we all have friends and family we’d love to get into gaming, or those who simply enjoy it on a casual level. Tigresa and Cuatro Chihuahuas bring you the best of both worlds, without Miley Cyrus unfortunately, and have put together a great guide of gifts to nab for those casual gamers in your life.

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Christmas will have come and gone in January, but doesn’t mean you can stop spending money! The Spawn Kill cast minus a couple of us — that’s Molotov Cupcake, Tigresa, K-Tuck, The Herp, and Snarkasaur — discusses the cornucopia of games being released Q1 of 2010 and various subjects that coincide with the games coming out as well as our subsequently drained bank accounts. Also on the agenda as usual is what we’ve been playing as well as a couple short news snippets. Don’t forget to enter the Call of Duty contest! You have until tomorrow to comment and win.

As always, thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy the fourth episode of the Kill Kast!

Download or stream the podcast below.