The music intensifies as all other sound becomes a damp whisper. A single gunshot is fired and a beloved character slowly falls to the ground while their comrades yell out in shock. What an emotional scene! Or at least, it would be if it weren’t for the fact that the character in question already received about a thousand bullet wounds earlier in a gameplay segment.

This is a problem that plagues many gaming narratives. Story is often governed by a very different set of rules than gameplay, resulting in some very awkward and even comical moments in what should be distressing scenes. Because of the interactive nature of games, it’s difficult to avoid these pitfalls. Yet, some games manage to handle it a cut above the rest.

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On a very special episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we are joined by special guest Randall Johnson… er.. Smith… Portman… Guy. You know, from the JPAG.

In What We’ve Been Playing, Randall kicks us off with “Battlefield: 1943″ and also super nerdy D&D talk. We talk about the second episode of “Tales of Monkey Island”, Jonah is in the Beta of “Champions Online”, while Jesse talks “Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance” with a focus on the games’ story and has also finally finished “Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time”. Brittany gives her thoughts on “Tomb Raider: Underworld” while Wesley reports on the iPhone game “Hysteria Project”, the original “Half life” and the XBLA hit “Shadow complex”. We also all give our takes on the “Batman: Arkham Asylum” Demo.

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"A Real American Worldwide Peace Keeping Organization... Hero."

On a very special twenty-seventh episode of Barrel Roll, we are once again joined by our good pal, Wesley Johnson. He has braved Wizard World Chicago and the new G.I. Joe movie and lived to tell us about them on the show.

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"Do you got your tickets?"

Well, do you?

We don’t got time to bleed, nor does pain hurt when we are once again visited by our good friend, Wesley “InsulinFunk” Johnson. He has been playing “1 VS 100″ on XBLA, trying to finish “Shadow of the Colossus” for our upcoming special episode, Simon the Sorcerer and Ghostbusters.

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"A Dramatic Recreation of Golfin' for Brains"

On a very special twentieth episode of Barrel Roll, A Video Game Podcast, we are joined by special guest Dalibor “Dali” Dimovski, co-founder of Sidequesting.com to talk about video games and video game related topics.

First and foremost is what we’ve been playing, which ranges from Sega’s new Wii title “Let’s Tap” and “Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance”, to a comparison of the Wii and 360 versions of “Tiger Woods 10″. Which version wins out? The one that is most fun! Also Rhythm Heaven and Mega Man Star Force 3 demos have been played by Jesse.

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