We are in that time of year which traditionally gives gamers a break. A break from the seemingly endless stream of high-profile, triple-A titles from the industry’s biggest publishers. Many use this time to catch up on their backlogs, like our friends over at SideQuesting. Others, whom I can only guess are younger gamers with a lot of free time on their hands, don’t really know what to play during this slow period. Maybe they use this time to get even better at [insert popular FPS here]?

It has given me a chance to take a step back and reflect on my habits as a gamer and how they relate to the industry as a whole. Video games have become increasingly disposable as entertainment. As soon as you finish one title (or more often than not, before you even get a chance to really dig into the game you just purchased), there are ten more waiting on the shelves vying for your hard earned cash.

Media coverage is all around us as citizens of the internet. The big gaming blogs generally can’t linger on any one title because they work in a medium that is only rewarded when things are kept fresh on their home page. That isn’t a dig at what they do, it is just the nature of the beast. Core gamers are more than happy to jump from game to game every week. I find this odd considering the cost of new games has been in the $35 to $60 range this entire console generation, and those price points are driven even higher with special editions.

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"Mario Tractors"

On a very special tenth episode of “Barrel Roll! - A Video Game Podcast”, we are once again joined by our good friend Wesley Johnson from InsulinFunk.net

We are also having a contest, the details of which are found at the end of the episode. More info is located after the break.

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"Word"

On a very special third episode of “Barrel Roll!”, we are joined by the internet’s own Wesley Johnson of InsulinFunk.net, as well as the JPAG.

We get into what we’ve been playing, where we discuss the Fallout DLC “Operation Anchorage”, Jesse tries his darnedest to explain just what the heck “Noby Noby Boy” is all about, Luke has been playing through “Rogue Galaxy”, and Wesley talks about “50 Cent, Blood on the Sand.”

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