Gamers on the Go

The Casual Hour’s Johnny Amizich returns to the show to push, crash and stretch our knowledge of Intelligent System’s string of the 3DS and Wii U puzzle games. While we mainly focus on “the good one,” that being the original Pushmo, we do take a look at the entire franchise. Plus, we talk about the much more accurate European and Japanese names for each game in the series.

Matt “Giggysan” Giguere is back this episode to help us pay tribute to the 3DS, a system that has all but finished its run as Nintendo’s last dedicated handheld console. We’ll take a look back at the machine and its features, its successes and failures, its quirks and its lasting legacy.

And then we’ll brave the monumental task of cherry picking the 3DS’ 25 best games (with a fair amount of rules to keep things interesting). If you’re not into the idea of an almost four hour podcast, don’t worry, we’ll be publishing our list soon for your reading pleasure, as well as posting personal favorite lists from Matt and Chase.

Casual Hour co-host Johnny Amizich is back on GOTG to discuss a surprising low point of the Pokemon series with Pokemon Black & White 2. Johnny and Chase discuss what we think went wrong with this one, while also picking out the handful of good things still to be found. And Chase somewhat softens his stance on nicknaming Pokemon.

As we wave goodbye to 2019 and the end of the 2010s, GOTG's East Coast Correspondent Matt Giguere joins us to discuss the state of handheld video gaming and the best portable games of the year.

But if listening to a three hour podcast is not your thing, we'll be posting our individual written top 10 lists in the coming days.

Thanks to everyone for your support this year. We look forward to making more shows in the next decade!

Frequent flyers on the GOTG program, Matt Giguere and Bobby Pease join Chase for this spoiler-filled episode on the newest entry in Nintendo's ongoing strategy franchise, Fire Emblem Three Houses. We've each selected a different house and come together to compare and contrast the stories we experienced (and, y'know, decide who best girl is.) Strap in, it's going to be a long one.

We’re back in Boston (”we” being Chase and East Coast Correspondent Matt Giguere) for PAX East 2017. We played a lot of games, met a lot of great people and even went to a half-birthday party for Danny O’Dwyer’s Noclip. We talk about a ton of stuff this episode: Devolver Digital, Adult Swim Games, Sony, Nintendo and many, many more.

Longtime guest, new Vita owner and Android enthusiast Pierce Courchaine joins Chase to talk about all the great ports games that came to Sony’s semi-forgotten portable as well as the a completely non-comprehensive look at what we played from the App Store and Google Play (do you know how many games release on these storefronts a day? It’s nuts.)

And after listening to our final podcast of 2016, be sure to check out Pierce’s personal top five handheld games list and all of GOTG’s other game of the year coverage by clicking through the tag “GOTGGOTY2016.”

Our last list will be posted tomorrow and then we’re off for the holidays!

Our east coast correspondent, Matt Giguere is back to chat with Chase about the best games to grace Nintendo’s handheld in 2016, a semi-comprehensive year-in-review if you will.

Matt also made his list of the top five handheld games of the year. You can read that here. And to see all of Gamers on the Go’s game of the year content, check the tag “GOTGGOTY2016.”

Just in time for GOTG’s 2016 Game of the Year, frequent guest Pierce Courchaine returns to the show to talk about last year’s GOTY winner, SteamWorld Heist. How does the game hold up now that it’s out on vita and iOS devices? Tune in and find out!

GOTG East Coast Correspondent Matt Giguere is back once again, this time to talk about Nintendo’s newest console announcement, the Nintendo Switch!

Now that Pierce Courchaine is married (and more importantly, has a Vita thanks to Chase’s wedding present), we can talk about a very good and important game: Spelunky! Though not originally a handheld game, it’s hard to argue the Vita version isn’t the best way to play this fantastic game. We dig deep to uncover all the mysteries Spelunky has to offer.

Danielle Doerr makes her podcasting debut to discuss one (two, maybe even three?) of the best games of 2016, Fire Emblem Fates. We discuss both the Birthright and Conquest paths of the game, but if you’re looking for some dirt on the culminating path of Revelation, you won’t find it here. What you will find is a copious amount of comparisons to our 2013 Game of the Year: Fire Emblem Awakening (in the podcast, we erroneously say it was 2014. Time flies!)

If you don’t remember our episode on Kirby’s Dream Land 2 (it was our fourth episode after all), we give a refresher on Kirby’s history and what makes Kirby: Triple Deluxe unique (or not so unique, as the case may be).

Gamers on the Go frequent flyer, Zach Fleeman returns to the podcast to talk about the best game on Sony’s PlayStation Portable: Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.

Zach is currently very early in his playthrough of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, so if you’re worried about spoilers for that game, fret not. The rest of the titles in the series are all fair game, but we mainly stay focused on Big Boss related topics.

East Coast Correspondent, Matt Giguere returns to GOTG triumphant, for he has finally gotten Chase to play the 2002 GBA classic, Metroid Fusion. We cover what goes into reviving a beloved franchise after eight years, where the series’ timeline might continue and never once make a “y can’t metroid crawl?” reference. Though we do spend a long, long time at the end discussing some of Matt and Chase’s currently played games. So if you’re up for that, you’ll get plenty of it!

Chase met Happy Badger Studio’s Carol Mertz at the St. Louis-based game festival PixelPop last month (a fact that is definitely not mentioned on this episode a few hundred times), and played her new card game, Pass The Buck: A Game of Corporate Responsibility Management. It was so fun, we brought her on to tell you about it herself.

We talk about the game’s passive aggressive Facebook post origins, what it takes to run a Kickstarter campaign and the difficulties of people not reading the instructions.

Chase and Rick are joined by the Head Designer at BlitWise Productions, Mike Welch, to discuss Pocket Tanks, a game that released well over a decade ago, and is still going strong today.

We cover the origins of Pocket Tanks and the artillery strategy genre, how Mike was ahead of the curve in terms of mobile game trends and just how it’s possible to keep updating the same game for such a long time.

Josh Barnard (aka josh-shmosh) comes to GOTG to talk about his experience in modding video game hardware, specifically the Nintendo Game Boy! Josh’s newest design is a Splatoon-themed Game Boy with Jackson Pollock-esque paint splotches and a bevy of other modifications. They’re loving named SquidKids, and you can buy them right here. Chase has one, and you should too!

In addition to the ins and outs of hardware mods, Josh and Chase also dissect the 1990 GB classic, Balloon Kid. And of course a discussion of Joust, Balloon Fight and even Flappy Bird happens at some point.

MIT educated, Latin enthusiast and, most important of all, the man behind Patchwork Games, Patrick Rodriguez joins the podcast to talk about his 8 Bitty Games series: a collection of eight games built to be played on the original Game Boy.

We chat about how the project got started, what challenges arise when you’re building for a piece of tech from 1989 and opine about the virtues of the oft-forgotten Game Boy Printer.

Pierce Courchaine returns for his fourth appearance on GOTG, this time to discuss the 4th generation of Pokemon games: Diamond & Pearl.

Despite being a veteran of earlier Pocket Monster games, this is Pierce’s first time playing through a DS Pokemon game. And we decided to mix things up a bit by taking the Gym Leader challenge. What does that entail? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Doubling up on our alliterative “B” games, East Coast Correspondent Matt Giguere returns to chat about HAL Laboratory’s eShop-only puzzler, BOXBOY!

Since it’s also about that time, we get into some E3 predictions/dreams. You didn’t think we could fill two hours with monochromatic puzzle game talk, did you?

The allure of free-to-play has never quite caught on with Chase, but that’s what guests are for! Potential whale (whale-in-the-making?) Parker Gibson sits down to talk about the constant cycle of invading, defending and watching cooldown timers tick away.

East Coast Correspondent Matt Giguere is back to talk about the best games (handheld or not) at 2015′s PAX East in Boston. Sadly, Chase was unable to visit the show this year, so he gets to learn right along with you. We cover too many games to name individually, but there are some links in the show notes if you want to follow up on things.

Zach Fleeman returns to expand on his curious pick of a 1994 Game Boy game (that then released on Virtual Console in 2011) for his 2014 Game of the Year. And with that, we explore the history of pre-Rare Donkey Kong, the often confusing structure of Nintendo development teams and chat a bit about how cool the Super Game Boy was (and how sad it was that no one really took advantage of it).

Pierce Courchaine returns to talk about one of the PS Vita’s (and PS3 and PS4, for that matter) best games: Sound Shapes. We break down the tracks that got us grooving the most, get a little too inside baseball on the controls and Chase gets all melty when it comes to Beck.

2014 has come to a close, and like last year, we’ve gathered show regulars Matt Giguere and Zach Fleeman to discuss the best handhelds and mobile had to offer.

While too many games to count are discussed on the episode, if you want a condensed look at what games each of us loved, our personal Top 5 lists will be posted here throughout the coming week.

Thanks so much for being a part of Gamers on the Go. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be reaching our third year this April. We’ve gotten a lot of great guests and talked about a lot of great games, and we look forward to continuing to deliver more of that in the future.

It’s only been six episodes since we last talked about Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, but hey, we got Ty Frahm back, so let’s talk about the newest iteration of everyone’s favorite pocket monster battling franchise.

Gamers on the Go platinum member, Matt Giguere returns to talk about the newest big Nintendo title on the 3DS. We chat about the series’ past, how the new game compares, how we imagine Amiibo working and discuss in a very calm and civilized manner about how the cutting of Lucas is a pure unadulterated travesty (OK, maybe Chase isn’t so calm about it.)

Yacht Club Games’ Nick Wozniak and Sean Velasco join Chase to discuss their love letter to Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom gaming, Shovel Knight.

Hear how Yacht Club Games began, how Shovel Knight went from Kickstarter dream to award-winning reality, and how the game might’ve been different it it had just made its original $75,000 goal.

Director of Publishing & PR @Harmonix and Project Lead on @RecordRun, John Drake comes on to talk about the newest mobile game from the music-minded developer.

John gives us a candid rundown of Harmonix’s history with handhelds, the story behind the timing of releasing Record Run during the Amplitude Kickstarter and definitively restates that no, no one is currently working on Rock Band 4 (yet).

Back from the holidays, we’re starting 2014 right with CEO of Swedish developer Image & Form, Brjann Sigurgeirsson speaking with us about their breakout eShop hit, SteamWorld Dig!

In addition to a fair amount of talk about the mining platforming adventure, we talk about the studio’s early days of “edutainment” games and how they’ve transitioned to original IPs. We also discuss what drew them to developing games for Nintendo handhelds as well as what Image & Form might be up to in the very near future.

Matt Giguere and Zach Fleeman return to talk about the year’s best in handheld gaming. For our second and final part (you can check out Part 1 here), we cover 2013’s greatest iOS and Vita games.

And then we finally get down to business and pick our overall favorites of 2013.

Thank you all for a great year! Gamers on the Go will be back in January.

Joined by Gamers on the Go veterans Matt Giguere and Zach Fleeman, we discuss the year’s best handheld games, starting with the 3DS.

What a fantastic year for this little system. In fact, it was such a great year, we had to dedicate an entire episode to all the great games found on the Nintendo handheld.

Check back in tomorrow for Part 2 where we chat about the best games to come to Vita and iOS, as well as our picks for Handheld Game of the Year!

Giant Bomb’s Patrick Klepek joins Chase to talk about one of the best (and most interesting) Vita games to come out this year.

In addition to the Tearaway discussion, Patrick and Chase also muse on the future of Nintendo, the potential dangers of PlayStation Plus and talk about some of their favorite handheld games of the year (and Chase accidentally displays some clairvoyance in today’s Smash Bros announcement).

And who do we have on to talk about such an important game? Why it’s returning guest, Pierce Courchaine.

We explore the entire Tetris saga, from its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, to the game’s disputed rights and how it finally came to the Nintendo’s consoles.

We also take a look at the many improvements and no-so-improvements of subsequent Tetris games and declare what we believe to be the definitive Tetris experience.

Fellow former Bitmob writer and Pokemon master, Matt Polen, joins Chase as we return to our look at the Pokemon franchise, digging this time into the second generation.

The thing is…the new Pokemon X and Y are still pretty fresh in our minds, so the conversation inevitably deviates into that territory time and again.

Matt Giguere makes his triumphant return to Gamers on the Go to help shake up the regular formula a bit. This time, we discuss the launch lineups for handheld systems from the Atari Lynx to the PlayStation Vita (and end up deciding on a clear winner).

Just a heads up: This is the longest GotG episode yet, clocking in at over two-and-a-half hours!

This episode we get all minimalistic with Rymdkapsel's Swedish designer, Martin Jonasson (and we don't mention meatballs even once!)

We chat about what it takes to develop a game by yourself, how Rymdkapsel became a PlayStation Mobile title and how best to sneak t-shirts through international customs.

Make sure you grab a copy of Rymdkapsel on the PS Mobile store (part of PSN), the iOS App Store or Android via Google Play.

This episode, we dig into the rave-tastic, electronic feast for the eyes and the ears, Double Fine’s newest game: Dropchord.

And who better to discuss the game with than its Project Lead, Patrick Hackett!

Hear about the inspiration behind Dropchord, the changing landscape of the Double Fine offices, and whether Double Fine is secretly working on Psychonauts 2 (spoiler: they’re not, but our fingers are still forever crossed).

Apologies for the minor audio issues near the end of the episode.

You can snag a copy of Dropchord on Leap’s Airspace store, the iOS App Store, and on Google Play.

World 8 Podcast host and proud member of KC SRK, AJ Hurst, returns to GOTG to talk about one of the true classics of the Game Boy: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.

Tune in to hear what SML2 has in common with Animal Crossing, how Wario became the face of Nintendo on handhelds, and listen to our random discussion of why handheld fighting games are terrible.