Hark, another game! This time we take a look at the demo for the new fantasy action RPG from EA and 38 Studios called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. We all enjoyed it for the most part, though some more than others, and there was more than one comparison to that other action RPG that rhymes with “Cry Tim.” Have you played the demo (or the full game) and if so, who (if any) do you agree with?

We love games, and even more than that we love playing games together. So you can imagine our excitement when Dave bought us all a copy of a lesser-known, tower defense/action RPG hybrid called Dungeon Defenders. We played this together over the course of a few nights (and some of us even longer than that) and, as you’ll hear, we think it’s definitely one you should check out.

Oh Spike TV, how you amuse us with your video games “awards” show. We definitely have some thoughts on the show itself but first we run down the list of winners to see how we did with our picks. Do you agree with the winners?

The Spike TV VGAs have about as much clout in the game industry as the MTV Movie Awards do in the movie industry. Still, we’re suckers for awards shows, especially ones that involve video games. As such, we thought we’d run down the list of nominees and make our predictions as to which games will win. Take a listen and let us know if you agree with our choices.

It’s no secret that our episode schedule has been a little haphazard lately, and as much as we’d like to say it’s because we’ve been contemplating world peace, alas, that’s not true. We’ve been playing video games. Really good video games at that. So we thought we’d spend an hour (and twenty minutes) telling you about the games we’ve been playing and what we love so much about them that we have shunned all of our other responsibilities. What games have you been playing lately?

Oh World of Warcraft, how we’ve invested years of our lives in you. But like all good things, our relationship with you must too come to an end. We realized that our lack of excitement about the new WoW expansion during this year’s Blizzcon meant that we were finally moving on from this most massive of MMOs so we thought we’d give it a proper send off by remembering some of our favorite moments from the game. With this episode we are officially retiring from the game and this topic and we finally hang the WoW jersey from the Geek Bits rafters.

The Battlefield 3 beta hit Xbox Live, PSN and PC just a few days ago so we all decided to try it out. Did the anti-FPS Matt like it? Did the CoD-loving Dan think it measured up to his other beloved shooter? Was the Xbox Live-challenged Opey able to connect and play with everyone? Did the busy-as-a-bee Dave have a chance to play it? The answers to these questions and more await you in this episode!

Dan has been playing Minecraft for about a year now and finally convinced (most of) us to try it out as well. We’ve been playing it for a couple of weeks now and wanted to share our opinions of it, as well as tell you about an awesome project we’re working on within Minecraft.

The topic of discussion in the second of our experimental new show format is centered around none other than Gears of War 3. Released less than a week ago, Matt, Dan and Dave had the chance to play it, both together and solo, and (spoiler alert!) loved it! This is definitely one of the best games of the year so far, so be sure to click play below (or download the show) to hear what we loved about it.

We’re back to our regular routine this week except we’re a Dave short. To celebrate (being back, not Dave being gone) we have a zombie-filled episode for you. We open things up with a discussion of Dead Island, then check out some anime zombies with High School of the Dead before capping things off with another look inside the Zombie Survival Guide. Man, it’s good to be back.

Use the links provided to download this episode directly to your PC or stream it using the player below. Reference information provided after the break.

1. Dead Island
2. High School of the Dead
3. Zombie Survival Guide – What firearm(s) would you use?
4. Shout-outs – Johnathan Bell, Steve Sanders, Trevor Martin, @rnabrand

This Week’s Challenge
Opey – Come up with your top 5 geek places to put on your bucket list.