DiRT Rally

Codemasters surprised us all by busting out DiRT Rally onto Steam Early Access with pretty much zero warning or fanfare. Zac and Rob go check out where it's at.

As the SaladCast enters it's ninth year it’s time to treat ourselves to a new theme tune and a hearty "everything will be ok".

In this episode, Into The Breach, Sea of Thieves, kettle justification, Surviving Mars, Gears of War, Super Mario World and some news.

Dan has re-plumbed his tubes and returns to the fold only to find a mess of games happened. Let's clean it up!

In this episode: Dan’s E3 review, Tekken 7, Atari, Sonic’s boosh, Ever Oasis, bagging areas, DiRT 4, and the Zelda section never leaves.

I know, I know. This SaladCast is really late. I did that thing where you sit down to do a speicifc task and then end up doing something else, several times, like an idiot. So news and things have probably happened since we recorded this but we've been playing old stuff anyway. Enjoy.

In this episode: Nintendo Switch, Assassin’s Creed IV, "10 a day", DiRT Rally, Command and Conquer chatter, Viva Pinata, Black Mesa, Crazy Taxi, Enter the Gungeon, Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut and the obligatory Factorio Mod Minute.

Rob often gets a bit of a ribbing from his cohorts about what he considers newsworthy for the cast but this week fate leaves Zac in charge of Rob's list... so some stuff may get a bit ignored.

This week we have new PC’s, XCOM 2, maintenance, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Day of the Tentacle: Remastered, steering wheel updates, Pokémon GO and gums.

CS:GO gambling is shady. Everyone’s on the take.

After a week off for Dan to get some surgery we're back and Zac and Rob have colds. Go figure.

Plenty of news this week as the games industry comes out of hibernation featuring Rocket League, money, Peter Molyneux, legal fights, Amazon, poopy PC ports and Nintendo. Welcome back!

What does it mean if you get "Enter Sandman" stuck in your head for a day and you haven't even heard the song in, like, forever? Does it cement it as a badass song? Is it destined to get on my nerves? Am I doomed to cause people to sleep forever? The answer may be found in your reaction to arcane recordings of the SaladCast. I hear there may be talk about the games we can’t quite finish yet, VR pricing, vague news, and not dying in the snow and a hidden message if you listen in reverse.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! It's time for the end of year special show: GOTY 2015! We must scrutinize the heck out of 2015 for the good of mankind, for it is written: "Those who podcast, must arbitrarily award." There’s a lot of difficult decisions and few easy answers in one of the busiest gaming years in memory an you can find out exactly how the team arrive at their conclusions (a blog with the results will go up later).

Fair warning: we may talk about story spoilers and mention the Weak Ass Californian Gap.

It's the countdown to the close of the SaladCast for 2015 when we’ll do a countdown to close 2015. Until then have a regular SaladCast.

There are NO Star Wars spoilers here. You’ve all seen it already anyway.

Who likes long podcasts? We like long podcasts! So we made a long podcast! Exclamation marks!!! Rob gets sour over another Rare Replay game but Dan returns from Morocco to lift him up with MGSV. Zac, meanwhile, exposes us all to his lucky glow (it's radiation) by starting Fallout 4 again.

PS. We kinda totally missed that most of PSX had happened the day before recording. It wasn’t that great though.

Aaaaaand in the blue corner; The current console champion of the world, weighing in at over 25 million units sold despite only a few great games and looking to fight dirty; Sony Playstation! This would be the honest introduction in the current generation fight and it's Sony’s time to come out swinging as they dominate Paris Games Week. French it up!

Oh and there was a small release on XBONE called Halo 5. You might have heard of it.

To all those who went to EGX 2015, I have to clap my hands. Finally a show where the crowd isn't composed of annoying idiots who barge their way through to get anywhere, treading on toes as they do. You make music concerts look thoroughly uncivilised... which is probably the point in a lot of cases but I’m still impressed. See you next year my people.

Needless to say there’s a lot of EGX coverage this week but there’s just enough time for Zac to cover his tabletop adventures too.

Rob may have been stag party levels of hungover when we recorded this (his may still be a bit hungover as this is written) but there are gaming discussions that must burst forth like liquidated stomach lining! Discussions of food challenges, press-ups, not having Windows 10, Keiji Inafune and maybe a videogame or two lie within.

And no, we didn't talk about Pixels. Go wallow in your own misery.

In a move that screams "5 years ago" the happysalad team provide a SaladCast of a length more in keeping with our former restrictions. We don't even get a cameo from Dan’s alarm to ignore.

In this episode we play some new stuff and keep playing the stuff we were playing and of course mourn the loss of gaming’s most charming man.

BANANAS!

The "Fallout" from E3 doesn't leave us too much to “Unravel” and there isn’t much “Uncharted” news to cover. So while there are plenty of new games are on the “Horizon”, there are even more for us to “Maker” our way through right now. So let’s “Siege” the day, party all “Knight” and deliver “SOMA” Saladcast. It’s just how we “DOOM”.

Hoo-bloody-ray there's news. Quite a bit of it in fact. So much that it’s in danger of leaving not that much for actual E3. Just in case there is some stuff left over for next week Zac and Rob keep you informed.

In this episode: Infinifactory, Fallout 4, Splatoon, Oculus Rift, Steam hardware and refunds, Dishonored 2, XCOM 2, Microsoft, Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, DiRT Rally, Time Crisis 5, Star Wars Battlepod and some other stuff.

Sometimes the genius the Nintendo knows no bounds. From their crystal ball they predicted that the weeks leading to E3 will be bereft of any interesting news. What a perfect time to release a game, a new IP no less, to give everyone something to talk about! As such happysalad now follows an inverse law of news quantity to podcast length.

In this episode: Splatoon, Minecraft, DiRT Rally, Skullgirls, Rayman Legends, Castle Storm, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Starbound and Zac walks.

As E3 is looming, just one month away, it's light news time. Nothing much is happening until the convention crazy starts leaking out like battery acid.

In this episode we talk about Guillermo Del Toro, Gears of War, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Formula Fusion, Splatoon, Kerbal Space Program, Rayman Legends, Freedom Planet, Dirt Rally, GTA V and there’s some pretty stupid padding.

The videogame industry always has one thing going for it: unpredictability. These last two weeks have shown us some of that chaos and there's quite a bit of news to moan about including Steam "modgate", Silent Hills, Kerbal Space Program, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, DiRT Rally, The Pinball Arcade, Dungeons of the Endless, Freedom Planet, Forza Horizon 2, Rayman Legends, PoolNationFX, GTA V and other stuff too!