The FUNCAST!

Another year has gone missing, and the Fungineer gang is on the case! We go over the whole first half of 2023 in Video Games to see what we remember. We remember a lot as it turns out, cause boy howdy did some real bangers release early and often.

Join us wont you?

It's TGA Season, the most important holiday season of the year! What will take home the coveted prize of Best E-Sports Event? Which giant company will win for Best Indie Game? Can there only be one winner of Best Game Direction? What the hell even is an Action Adventure game in 2023? All these questions - and more! - are totally not going to be answered here in this podcast. Sorry. You'll need to wait for the TGAs to air for that.

In the meantime, enjoy our ramblin' about it!

The spooky season means an unholy return to life!

It's a good thing that nothing happened, and no new video games came out in the summer months everyone got busy with life stuff in. What's that? Way too many video games came out?

Oh.

Oh, no.

Nintendo Direct! Announced the night before it aired, it turned out to be something of a banger, with games both new and old. Andrew loses himself in the music from a Mario RPG remake, Daniel is very excited about Pikmin 4, and Dean watches the trailer for the new Mario game live! Oh, we also have all been playing Diablo 4, so we talk about that a bit too!

Video Game Announcement Month has commenced, and today we take a look at the incredibly long and incredibly dense Xbox conference! Mostly, because some of it did spill over into the Ubisoft event, and carried forward from the Summer Games Fest show. So really it's only a mostly Xbox/Microsoft episode. But boy, what a conference - and that doesn't even count the near hour long deep dive into the upcoming Everything and Forever game Starfield! Buckle up your space pants for blast off!

Our unplanned break ended up being a great boon, because it gave us, like, two whole weeks to play the new Zelda! We have a lot to say, but for your benefit, we kept it to only 80 minutes, almost entirely focused on things as they are in the world before you do a dungeon. There are some minor spoilers for that stuff, and for a couple of the things outside this scope (but they are pretty contextless I think, so it's fine!!!) but otherwise is just some friends chatting up a storm about a really fantastic adventure.

Games Discussed: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. That's it, that's the one.

Nintendo did us a favour by dropping an incredibly dense indie direct on us, so now we have *a lot* to talk about! Cat Games, Farming Games, Weird Puzzle Games, Cool Puzzle Games, Cozy Puzzle Games with Cats, and the Store Brand Jet Set Radio that daddy Sega won't give you. Then it's on to the news, where Halo keeps dying, Daddy Sega buys Angry Birds, NDAs become suggestions, Dreams are dead, and a studio (allegedly) goes full pirate.

Dean played nothing but Deceive Inc., a cross between Hitman and Assassins Creed multiplayer, Andrew tried to chase the hell demon high in Path of Exile, and Daniel convinces Andrew to buy a game mid-podcast because he cannot stop gushing about a deck building roguelite called Wildfrost.

Welcome to what is a surprisingly Movie And/Or TV Show focused episode of the Funcast. Weird how that worked out, but someone we managed to unearth some truly terrifying horrors from the deep dark. Daniel also played Dredge for a bit, and It's really quite good.

No Mario movie, but how about some Dungeons and Dragons instead? Or perhaps the two weeks of Stuff Getting Cancelled? Been rough out there for "open betas" and "game sequels", and "huge gaming conferences". Tears of the Kingdom had a whole gameplay video, Torchlight 2 (?) got played (??), and yet more almost literally DnD was played in Solasta!

A really full episode!

It's the reached the point where putting your social security number into a random piece of software with a Waifu in it seems like not the worst idea.

Things that actually seem like bad ideas include: EA delisting a bunch of gold games, Atari buying studios, Asset Packs filled with stolen goods, and making mobile phone only semi-sequels to Persona 5.

Good Ideas include listening to us talk about Diablo 4, Sun Haven, and having Daniel (sort of poorly I'm sorry it was a long night and I was tired) explain SPIN RHYTHM XD.

Its a five star runtime for this episode, buckle up!

Its episode fifty! Five Zero! That's kind of a lot, so first up, thanks for listening

Second of all, holy cow, we have some news! And by news, we *mostly* mean companies stepping on rakes for our enjoyment(?). Square Enix's president is going to go join his Apes, Starfield has a release date, Suicide Squad might not be killing the Justice League anytime soon, GameStop can't sell games, and Konami remembers us!

Andrew finished up that Final Fantasy music game and played a lot of Wo Long, Tim's got the Gungrave G.O.R.E, Dean and Daniel are all up in Destiny 2s latest expansion, and somehow there is even time to get the newest entry in the Xeno Clash series in here.

It is happening again. Tim's back! And we've got a bit of a light load of news because of a kinda bland Playstation State of Play, which just means more time to speak about matters of the heart, of both the Atomic and Wild varieties. Tim is going to tell us all about the newest entry in the modern 360 B-Game Genre, Wanted: Dead, and gets to contrast it with Hi-Fi Rush. Daniel is all about Wild Hearts, Dean and friends are not so wild for Atomic Heart, Destiny 2 expansion prep is back, Dead Space and Metroid Prime remakes are wonderful and *deep breath* I think that's it? Man, so many games all of a sudden. 

A long show is the only way to do justice to a frankly incredibly dense Nintendo Direct! Its literally made just for me, with all the hottest hits like Gameboy Games and Baten Kaitos, and I guess Metroid Prime and stuff too. 

Seriously, it was so much *stuff* that I don't really want to list it all out here in the description, so you better listen to us break it all down, ok?

Oh, and then we went super deep into the new Freelancer mode in HITMAN: World Of Assassination. We have mixed opinions! Oops!

January is drawing to a close, which means that holy cow, it's time for the news machine to kick off its cobwebs and get to work. Dungeons and Dragons (And Coastal Wizards), Blizzard hoists themselves by their own petard *again*, and Microsoft announced some video games?

Huh, yeah they sure did, that's a new one. One of them even came out right away, and Daniel seems pretty freaking in to it! Andrew went delving into his 52 game multicart to see what pixel ninjas jumped out, Colegate-Chan makes their appearance, and an extremely complicated slot machine destroys our capitalist institutions, finally ushering in the revolution and setting us free to podcast. Enjoy it!

Games Discussed: DnD, Minecraft Legends, Forza Motorsport, The Elder Scrolls Online, RedFall, Hi-Fi Rush, Luck Be A Landlord, Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, Fire Emblem: Engage, Chess 2

It's pretty amazing to be here in an entirely new year, completely unburdened by the past.... except for a bunch of games we played at some point during our seasonal break that all came out last year. Old games, soon to be replaced with new games! Hopefully!!

Games Discussed: Infernax, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, High on Life,  Gunner, HEAT, PC!, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Ready or Not. 

It's the dwarfiest time of the year here at Funcast HQ, and we built an entire gallery to fill with wondrous video games of the future! A whole lot of games have totally real release dates in the totally real year of 2023, at least up until June. After that, I think there are no more games. Which is good, because there are *so many to talk about*. Like Dwarf Fortress! And the new World of Warcraft Expansion! And others that we will get to at some point I promise

Sure was a lot of the VG and As huh? Probably more than we needed considering how much stuff was hurrie-WORLD PREMIER

It's our full coverage of the E3 Extension/Awards show today, and yeah, we have some stuff to say! From winners to the losers to the stuff in between, wWORLD PREMIER

Join us, won't you?

It's Awards Season! Which means it's also time for an Exxtra Thicc podcast about all the categories in the upcoming Keighlies. Yes, all the categories. All *five* E-Sports ones, the four or five Indie Game categories that really could be three different ones, the bizarre choices and infuriating exclusions, all here! For some reason.

We even find some time to get in some thoughts about the much analyzed and much derided Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Turns out, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, even when it can't see very well.

Games Discussed: All of them, seriously.

We're back! And its a real normal episode! Finally. Greeting us this normal day is a lot of back and forth industry drama, a feast of little guy vs big guys. Old games get working again after a long hiatus, and sequels get really, finally, truly, announced! Andrew brings back his 7/10 gameshow, and then tells us about his first bit of time with the new God of War. Daniel finally gets to talk about SIGNALIS, the Resident Evil/Silent Hill hybrid, and Deans gots thems real cool sounding indie multiplayer PVPVE experience Hell is Others!

Games Discussed: Signalis, God of War Ragnarök, Hell is Others, FAITH, Disco Elysium, Doom Eternal, Dark Souls Remastered, Control, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

A grave misfortune wiped out the first half-ish of the original recording, so enjoy an abbreviated episode! We finally get to talk about how great Yakuza: Like A Dragon is, Dean talks about how not great Gotham Knights is, and a new GamePass GameClub game is chosen, that everyone might have played already! How different will it be years later? Find out in a couple of weeks!

Games Discussed: Gotham Knights, Yakuza: Like A Dragon

The summoning circles I set up every year finally worked, and out from it emerged Bloober Team, the scariest choice for a remake of Silent Hill 2! The whole rest of the Silent Hill direct was also a surprise, and goes to show that when it comes to compressing and storing content, demonic seals are top tier. Blizzard has also been up to some spooky business, Bayonetta Voice Actor drama is being super witchy, and a BRAND NEW MID PODCAST GAME arrives!

Quick talks about the Darktide Beta, Last Command, Grounded, and Far Cry 6: the most seasonal slate of games you will ever see.

Funcast! It's here!

Games Discussed: Overwatch 2, Silent Hill 2/F/Downfall/Ascension/A Movie, Bayonetta, God of War Ragnarok, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, Witcher 1 Remake, Darktide, Last Command, Grounded, Far Cry 6. 

Tim is out on assignment, and that's ok because Tired Guy Mario is finally off on his adventure in the Tenacious D Kingdom, and all its strange and concerning scenery. That Super Mario Movie trailer shepherded us all the way into a week full of news! A lot of it isn't great, especially if you are a server for Overwatch 2, or a server for Stadia. Sorry gang, it's time to take the racks out behind the barn and put 'em down. 

It's *less* of a bummer to be a fan of Need for Speed, because it's looking mighty fine in its new vinyl wrap, Platinum apolgizes for Babylon's Fall but is totally going to do it again, and will someone get CD Projekt out of the announcement factory? Its getting silly.

Andrew walks us through his Ludum Dare 51 experiences in making Wizcross, Daniel is still in GUNDAM EVOLUTION land, and Dean is way into BONELABS, which is a surprising VR Playground

Games Discussed: Need for Speed Unbound, Overwatch and Overwatch 2, GUNDAM EVOLUTION, Bonelabs, Wizcross, The Witcher(series), Cyberpunk, Babylon's Fall

Soda! It's the lifeblood of society. So is finally getting to talk about We Happy Few, an open world survival roguelite immersive sim thing, with some hot 60s ~Style~, and a real weird launch. Also on the docket: News! They still make that stuff, it turns out, and boy howdy Overwatch sure makes a lot of it. 

Andrew is back with his wacky quiz show and a roguelite about a knight that likes digging, GUNDAM EVOLUTION is out to Daniel's delight, Tim defends Domes, and Dean is in the lab, Working on some Bones. 

Games Discussed: Totally Real Video Game: Skull And Bones, We Happy Few, Overwatch/2, GUNDAM EVOLUTION, Defend The Dome, BoneWorks, Shovel Knight Dig.

Jughead opened a portal to the News Dimension and all the video games fell out. Seriously, it's very rude to have a second? Third? E3 in the middle of the week like that. Shame on you Video Games.

Nintendo Direct! Sony Thing! TGS! A lot of cool stuff, farming sims, and a God of War. Major GTA 6 leaks that lead to some fun surprises, and Diablo 4 decided to join the leaky boat party as well.

Hey, so first things first: we do talk about that jerk dingus that made a game and turned his patch notes into a portal to hell. We dunk on him pretty good, but if you don't want to hear it, skip from ~8m10s til ~14m40s, and I think you should be good.

We got Xbox Controller news! Lighter, Leaner PS5s! Weird, cut back Cyberpunk news! NFTs go wrong (shock, horror)! Also, Temtem is finally out, Tim has been Surviving Digimon, Dean is replaying Outer Worlds! Funcastic! Share your joy with a stranger, today!

It's an anime day! I'd like to give you a real reason, but mostly it's just a coincidence that there is more animated JoJo in the world. And I guess that we also finally did some talking about SCARLET NEXUS, a game that out animes Devil May Cry in its own genre. We even pick a new GamePass GameClub game! Finally!

Some talking bout the news, because companies just can't stop buying each other, fun Zelda rumours, weird scams, and even Disney TCG! What will those crazy mice think of next.

Daniel talks about Immortality — the new game from Sam Barlow, not his vampiric curse. I promise, it isn't a spoilercast! Although maybe one day...

Tim rolled around at the speed of bullets in ROLLDERDROME, and Andrew brings up Total War: Warhammer 3 and its newest Immortal Empires campaign and oh god it was supposed to be quick.

Games Discussed: Immortality, Total War: Warhammer 3, Rollerdrome, Scarlet Nexus, We Happy Few, BROK the Investigator

Another whole week off? Sorry about that, but we were busy getting way into this sweet new family and friend support group out in the woods. The leader is this cute little lamb and life is pretty great honestly, just don't ask where the fertilizer goes or what happened to Ol' Hoss yesterday. 

Yes, this is a deep dive episode into Cult of the Lamb, since for the first time in ages almost all of us actually played the same new game! We also have some news, the fun surprise of Sakurai becoming a game design YouTuber, and a promise to totally continue our GamePass GameClub and get back to "normal".

Games Discussed: Cult of the Lamb

Welcome back to delay season once again! Much like game announcement season, it never ends. That Gollum game everyone was totally super hyped for? Delayed. KOTOR Remake? Delayed forever. Not great. But you know what is great? Weird videogame carny rumours in Nier Automata, and Rockstar cleaning up their own internal messes.

Also great? Battletech (mostly)! The five minutes we played Multiverses for was also pretty cool, alongside some New-Old-Games like Lunacid and Dread Delusion, all wrapped up in a new twist on an old Podcast Gameshow within a Podcast favourite. We talk Battletech, Harebrained Schemes digital revival of a tabletop classic, and pick an extremely anime followup to our GamePass GameClub.

Games Discussed: Multiversus, Lunacid, Dread Delusion, GTA 5, GTA 6, KOTOR, Nier Automata, Battletech, Scarlet Nexus, VR

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com

It's only slightly used and broken, but hey, GameStop had it for a song, so why not pick up a new episode of The Funcast! (seriously though I lost the start of this to audio gremlins, the fumigators should get it sorted out)

We've got Marvel SNAPing its way into a bad time, Ubisoft is cancelling and delaying stuff literally no-one knows about, CD Projekt lost a lot of value, and wow that's not cheery fun news this week, is it? Don't worry! Digital Extremes had itself a Tennocon and announced a bunch of cool stuff, just for me.

Last Call BBS and the cute kitty cat simulator round out this one, but not before the greatest videogame trivia podcast within-a-podcast returns!

Games Discussed: Marvel SNAP, Stray, Last Call BBS, Warframe, Ubisofts catalogue, Cyberpunk 2077, Soulframe

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com

Somehow, NFTs have returned. We don't know why either, but it's great to have some comedy fall into your lap. Unity *also* continues to shoot itself in both feet repeatedly, which is a really unfun mess to have to deal with. Shame on you, we just got that rug! We got some more Steamdeck impressions, a look at Marvel SNAP!, the return of the Tall Witchy Lady, Kirby gets real hangry, and WoW adds scalies!

Games Discussed: Marvel SNAP!, Bayonetta 3, Kirby's Dream Buffet, Skate 4, WoW Dragonflight.

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com

Back together at full strength, and unmatched team of cyber warriors has crossed the barrier between the digital world and reality to do one thing: Talk about really dumb video game news. Thats right, they somehow keep making dumb announcements for stuff in the video game factory, like something called a "Web3 Console" and a "Remake of an old cult favourite game". Such nonsense. We also talk about the video game tie-in for a kids series we had no idea existed, pick a new GamePass GameClub VideoGame, browse a 90s BBS and more! This week, on the FUNCAST!

Games Discussed: Mechwarrior 5, Revita, Monolith, Gunfire Reborn, Vampire Survivors, Slay The Spire, The Mummy Demastered, Last Call BBS, The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom, BattleTech, Lolipop Chainsaw, Red Dead Redemption

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com

A day late and a co-host short, we return! Basking in the radiant energy of a miniature Nintendo Direct and unbound of the shackles of our oppressors, Tim, Daniel, and Dean have a surprising amount of stuff to say about video games and all the weird gross GamersTM out there making lives more difficult for developers for no reason. Its fun! To talk about, not to do. 

Games Discussed: Megaman Battle Network (series), Monster Rancher, Mechwarrior 5, Warframe, Monster Hunter: Rise, Harvestella, Rune Factory, Outriders: Worldslater, Project Lazarus, GDQ, Armored Core, Monkey Island, Skull and Bones

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com

We got a weird one! Andrew is driving! The first half of the episode didn't record properly! But we made this anyway, so please enjoy, because there is stuff in here like our GamePass GameClub Game, what we've been playing, and laughing at Activision. All good things!

Games Discussed: Two Point Hospital, Neon White, METAL MAX XENO: REBORN, Warframe.

Email us at: funcastahoy@gmail.com