Writing on GamesCast

Your favourite weekly podcast is back! Some of the most anticipated games have come out in the close to four months (!) we've been on break, but instead of getting right to Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Resident Evil 4 remake, we make sure to spend a whole bunch of time waxing philosophical about Armoured Core and remembering that Forspoken was a game that actually released. Well, actually it takes us a while to get to games at all—we first have to talk about Jerry Springer and Type O Negative, of course. Also, this podcast is unlistenable. Good to be back. Genuinely, thanks for listening!

This is it. The second and final day of our Game of the Year deliberations. What game was most momentary? Disappointing? Oldest? Most remade and/or remastered and/or re-released and/or updated? Game of the Year-est?! All this and more answered in a measly... almost seven hours, rounding out to twelve hours total across the two days. Phew. Once again, hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed making it, and a massive thank you to Nico for editing the first day (I edited today's, sorry for the difference in volume between the two days)/doing all the crazy interludes you'll hear—he's the best. Wait, we actually answer some Bitbusters in a timely manner?! It must be Christmas!

Hope you are safe and well this holiday season and we'll see you again in 2023. 

CATEGORIES AWARDED AND TIMESTAMPS

10:53 - Best Moment (SPOILER WARNING, PROCEED WITH CAUTION)

2:07:05 - Most Disappointing

3:13:16 - Best Old Game

4:12:26 - Best Remake/Remaster/Re-release/Update

5:01:49 - Game of the Year

IT'S HERE. The start of our annual Game of the Year deliberations—twelve hours across two days, deciding between us which were the best and worst games of 2022. Today it's the spookiest, the most musical, the worst, the biggest surprise and, of course, the most strand-type game. Oh, also, there's old Bitbusters to be answered... and new ones to be given out?! Hope you have as much fun listening to this as we did making it. You're the best! 

(Also, there's some audio issues—Nico's mic got accidentally turned down for the first thirty minutes, then we corrected it. We tried some stuff with Best Music so you could actually hear the music we were discussing but sometimes the music can momentarily drown out discussion due to Discord compression and the like. Sorry about that—we're figuring it out as we go along, even seven years in!)

CATEGORIES AWARDED AND TIMESTAMPS

20:31 - Content Creator of the Year

24:59 - Golden Pumpkin

1:09:22 - Best Looking

2:17:52 - Best Music

3:01:40 - Worst Game

4:16:34 - Biggest Surprise

Stay tuned for Day Two!

If you want to know if we're back or not, search "every Joey's World Tour I'm back" on YouTube and watch the first video that comes up. That is to say, we're back. Playing grindcore festivals in the Czech Republic. Rewatching Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul. The Cyberpunk anime is really good, surprisingly (and Cyberpunk 2077 was always good). Immortality is a fascinating, honest, messy rumination on the place of art in modern society. Metal Hellsinger is a game that people seem to enjoy for some reason but is actually maybe the worst thing I've played all year. JoJo Stone Ocean is surprisingly disappointing. But most importantly... the grand return of BITBUSTERS. DUH SIMPSOOOONS! 

It's been a while, but honestly it's been a while for the last four or five years. You know the drill. Hamish watched Twin Peaks: The Return. Nico watched Batman. Post-game thoughts on Elden Ring, and returning to Dark Souls. Teardown is the best heist game since Quadrilateral Cowboy. Disco Elysium is one of the best novels you can ever play (also light talk of actual books). Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files speaks to the promising future of the Judgment franchise. Mordhau is the most fun you can have with a playerbase of weirdos. Some other neat little games you may not have heard of otherwise. I *can* get behind that!

We're back and we're spending the first ten to fifteen minutes communicating entirely in Henry Rollins clips from Get in the Van. The show has come full circle. Oh, we also dive into the most talked about game of the moment... Gran Turismo 7, the best Wikipedia article simulator ever created. I guess we spend a long time discussing Elden Ring as well—that game rules. After that it gets a bit hazy, but we get into Rainbow Six Siege, Tunic, the Tekken story, and we do a long-overdue check up on Tomato Way. Twenty-three years of the Writing on GamesCast now, my god. Thanks for listening! 

It's been a couple of months but we're back and ready to talk about... well, films and soundboard bullshit again mainly. The new Jackass film is so unbelievably good. The new Matrix is just... bad. The Sopranos is good but the film is bad. Hamish has played through Horizon Forbidden West and it's very good. He's also played Sifu which is really good but seeing as Nico hates Sekiro he'll probably think it's bad. BUT Nico has played Windjammers 2 which is very, very good. The "difficulty in games" debate is very bad. Harsh real time strategy games are good. Hitman VR is bad, but also good. Thank you all for your patience while we get back into the swing of things with the podcast. You're all very good.

Well, here it is. Day One was a resounding success I imagine, and here's Day Two to round it out, presented by Gold Bono. Almost six hours of deliberations taking us through the Golden Moments, the Golden Disappointments, the Golden Oldies, the Golden Remakes/Remasters/Re-releases/Updates and finally, the one you've all been waiting for... The Least Shittiest Ass Award. 

A sincere thank you from both Nico and Hamish for your continued support over the last six years and change. This is still immensely fun for us and we hope you get a kick out of it too. Here's to another year of obnoxious soundboard clips. Stay safe over the holidays and we'll be back in the new year!

CATEGORIES AWARDED AND TIMESTAMPS:

4:44 - Best Moment (spoiler alert—we list out the games we'll be talking about before the actual moments themselves, so keep an ear out)

2:25:41 - Most Disappointing

3:09:17 - Best Old Game

3:54:33 - Best Remake/Remaster/Re-release/Update

4:22:10 - Game of the Year

Quick everyone! Gather round the wireless! It's here! It's finally here! Time to be bombarded by loud soundboard clips as the Writing on GamesCast, for the sixth time, spends hours deliberating our picks for the best and worst games of the year! Day One is almost five hours of Scares, Songs and Strands, as well as being Sad for bad games. Things get chaotic a *lot*. We sincerely hope you enjoy it. 

CATEGORIES AWARDED AND TIMESTAMPS

18:22 - Content Creator of the Year

27:51 - Golden Pumpkin (including Top 5 Dread X Games)

56:55 - Best Looking

2:11:50 - Best Music

3:02:12 - Worst Game (AKA Shittiest Ass Award)

3:59:01 - Best Strand Game

4:04:14 - Biggest Surprise

Thanks so much for listening! Stick around for Day Two tomorrow where we'll be announcing the Game of the Year!

We're back after a month of Nico's life basically exploding! Hamish has been subjecting himself to the live action Cowboy Bebop and it is rough. Joe Pera Talks With You is the most earnest show on TV. Limp Bizkit Still Sucks. Shin Megami Tensei V seems to be very good at what it does even though the Switch can't handle it. Forza Horizon 5 is exactly the same as Forza Horizon 4 with even more shite patter, and it's one of the best games of the year. The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy Definitive Edition is the kind of mess that's hard to even comprehend. Nico chops lemons. Call of Duty Vanguard thinks you are the dumbest piece of sh*t on the planet. Putting Never Meant on a mixtape and learning every System of a Down song on guitar to impress girls in high school. Inscryption is weird and cool and we can't really talk about it for spoiler reasons. Reach up and grab a bean!

It's been a while since the last podcast and there are a ton of games we should probably be discussing, so of course we spend the equivalent of a feature-length film talking about, well... feature-length films and TV shows we've watched. Why Nico was so disappointed by The Many Saints of Newark (as well as Hamish's first full foray into The Sopranos), Spider-Men both Raimi and Recent, Jackass 3D because of course we have to talk about Jackass some more, why Pig is amazing and Nicolas Cage is a fantastic actor, 12 Angry Men's send up of people who don't like sports, Al Pacino going mental in Glengarry Glen Ross, the fraught relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, and Norm Macdonald's comedic legacy. 

Oh, I guess we also talk about Deathloop's mediocrity, why Planescape Torment might be Nico's new favourite game, dismantling a car as you're taking The Long Drive in it, the Dread X Collection, and a lengthy reflection on being confronted by the people who made a thing you've criticised. 

Don't worry, the soundboard is still here too!

The Ol' Gamin' Geezers are back to talk about... wait, actually, we do talk about games this time! Hamish beat Lost Judgment, so we have finally got an episode out on time to talk about something pre-release! Nico talks about WarioWare: Get it Together!, has finally started playing Bloodborne properly, as well as "some game made by some guy," Rift Wizard. Skatebird is wildly disappointing in every way except for the actual birds (don't worry, Nico took notes) and I Am Fish is kind of exactly what you expect. We reflect on Bitbusters, discuss the entire Matrix series in detail and make it clear we have not learned our lesson with the dumb sound effects. We would apologise, but we find it too funny. Hope you enjoy our King Diamond impressions!

There's a new Evangelion movie out, and Hamish has been collecting Japanese gangster blu-rays. Somehow in all the Takehsi Kitano talk we manage to narrowly avoid another hour-long segment dedicated to Fast and Furious, but only just. Twelve Minutes is so stupid that trying to explain it gives Hamish hiccups (spoiler warning from 1:15:30 to 1:42:30 approx). Lotta Yakuza: Like a Dragon talk. Nico has played Lego: Builder's Journey, and has some thoughts on that Quake remaster. Oh, also Hamish got his soundboard working again. Sorry in advance. 

Apologies for the shorter episode today—we were both delirious with the heat and the fact that we started late because we were laughing about stuff off mic. Oh, also we don't talk much about games at all this episode. Why do you listen to us again? Instead we discuss seagull infestation, our pal you don't know, Nico watching all the Fast and Furious films, that Jackass 4 trailer (and the unfortunate fate of our long-talked-about Jackass podcast, at least for now), the unexpected career twists and turns of the Dudesons, Gundam games, and how people talking about art nowadays drives us into deep despair. This was a fun one. He was a crumb of a boy.

The soundboard was messing up Hamish's audio, so Nico has to pick up the chaotic slack—don't worry, it's still a mess. After an hour talking about the Fast and Furious films, awful Marvel TV shows and IGN reviews of old Simpsons games (let's just say the wellbeing of developers is a *remarkably* recent consideration in the public eye), we actually talk about some stuff we've been playing! Hamish got an Xbox and Nico has been playing a bunch of Game Pass games—Forza Horizon 4, Descenders and, uh... Dungeons and Dragons Dark Alliance. Lego Builder's Journey is maybe the closest a game has come to legitimate photorealism, while Cruelty Squad looks like a complete nightmare (but might actually be game of the year). Oh also Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart is a great tech demo and a fantastic game... for kids. Shame should hang like a... actually nah, I'm not going to do the IGN thing. 

You read that right, we've somehow been doing this podcast for half a decade, and to celebrate, not only are we doing our traditional E3 roundup (breaking down all the big reveals from Microsoft and Bethesda, Nintendo, Square Enix and... Intellivision?!) but we also have a wealth of special guests—including Patrick Stewart, Peter Griffin, Homer Simpson and Winnie the Pooh! Thank you all so much for supporting us for so long! 

(also, we only became aware in the editing stage that the audio quality of Hambo's side of the recording was pretty shaky for some reason, with numerous pops and scratches. Rather than record the entire three and a half hours all over again, we figured we'd post it anyway. Apologies for the dip, we've found the source of the problem and it will be fixed for next time)

We're both just... so sorry. Some new games came out! Resident Evil Village, Pokemon Snap, Nier Replicant Ver.1.22474487139... (with spoiler talk at 1:32:34), Returnal, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and discussion about Hitman 3! We do discuss these things, we promise. It's just on you to do some digging to find it in amongst the complete and utter chaos of our new soundboard obsession. We promise we'll have more restraint next episode. Baby in a zoo.

You know the drill by now—nothing new released, so we talk for a frankly weird amount of time about Shaun Ryder's various projects, including one with an ocarina player and questionable album cover. Nico has played nothing and Hamish has been streaming! He dives deep into all things Oddworld, which has put Soulstorm in a new light. He also got a bunch of people to buy Bad Guys at School—making this podcast the biggest advertising drive the game has had. Together BnB is both underwhelming and ridiculously entertaining. The duo get upsettingly deep into the world of early 2000s softcore porn parody films. RIP Prince Philip! 

Daft politicians are on Cameo now and it turned Nico into the Joker. Video games! The spirit of OG Prince of Persia is alive and well in Oddworld Soulstorm, Genesis Noir is a fantastic animated movie that they shouldn't have slapped a bad game on top of, Narita Boy is a game that looks better than it plays but goddamn it looks good, Nico finally finished Deadly Premonition 2 and is still slogging through Yakuza Like a Dragon. Also certain speedrun communities have the worst patter, neither of us has seen the Snyder Cut and our lives are better for it, we explore the daft games Hamish has been sent via Keymailer, and a conversation about Wacky Races takes... one of the wildest turns we've had on the podcast in quite some time. I gotta tell you, The Big Chungus sends his regaaaards.

Welcome to the podcast s̶u̶p̶p̶o̶s̶i̶t̶o̶r̶y DEPOSITORY! As is seemingly going to be the case for a chunk of 2021, basically nothing new released so we start off with a lengthy discussion of 90s grunge, why "The Beatles is a terrible band" is such a tired take, and the golden rule of shreds videos—if you ain't on screen, you ain't making sound. That said we do discuss the recent Square Enix Presents stream (and poke just a little bit of fun at the Life is Strange franchise), the complete nothing that was the PlayStation State of Play, the madness of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, we realise The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is almost twenty years old, and reflect on how Mega64 has kinda always been the pinnacle of online video creation. Also, the much anticipated debut of Nico's new feature, The Twilight of the Porn Games, as well as your questions! 

Also apologies for some of the sound quality on this one—Hamish's computer fans were extremely loud and also he didn't realise you could actually hear him solving a Rubik's Cube at certain points during the podcast. What a dingo!

We've got a Big Rig to get to the Big Gig! Your favourite video game podcast is back to talk all things Gene Simmons—his Twitter presence, that time he was meant to play with The Melvins but Spinal Tap happened instead, his weird... vault thing, everything you're here for, right? Oh OK, we also discuss, well, a lot of stuff, including Persona 5 Strikers, Hamish's Rubik's Cube obsession, Nico's DOOM speedrun dominance, Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War and well-intentioned people taking the most depressingly conservative views on the purpose of art as possible, as well as checking in on Nico's progress in Deadly Premonition 2 and Hamish's slog through Twin Peaks' awful second season. We also preview a potentially hilarious new segment coming next week. Thanks for listening!

New releases are something of a barren wasteland right now, so after of course referencing the Gamestonks drama of the week (which was already old by the time we recorded this) we spend the first huge chunk talking about music again, and mercifully only about a quarter of that is Henry Rollins focused. Hardcore documentaries, Fugazi, the music Nico and Hamish made together, all of it is talked about in the most whiplash inducing way possible. Oh, and Hitman 3 is the Game of the Year already despite one of the most baffling launches of the last decade. Nico stepped into The Witcher 2 too soon after the first game. Destruction Allstars is fucking rubbish. We stumble across a potential sociopath. All this and more on this episode of the Writing on GamesCast! 

Happy New Year! It's all solved! Oh wait. Nothing is coming out, so obviously we talk about Henry Rollins for the first forty minutes (including some fun quotes from Get in the Van). We get to games eventually though! Hitman 3's launch has been awful, The Witcher is a janky masterpiece (and of course we have to be The Defenders of Cyberpunk as always, because it doesn't seem as if anyone's actually played the game before offering their hot takes), Hades should probably have been our game of the year, the later Mortal Kombat stories are really dumb (but are they good dumb?) and Dishonored—a game about a world being ravaged by plague—hits a little different in 2021. Can *you* get behind that?

Well, this is it. We round out our bumper Game of the Year podcasts by picking our, well, game of the year. Will Bugsnax take it? Not likely. Unless...

We both just want to thank you all for listening. This year has been unbelievably tough in so many ways and the holidays are always bad for many, but hopefully this whole thing can give you just a little bit of joy or relaxation for a while. It really means the world to us that you've stuck with us even while things have been as inconsistent as they are. Keep going everybody. See you in 2021!

Categories awarded:

Best Moment

Best Remake/Remaster/Re-release/Update

Best Old Game

Biggest Disappointment

Game of the Year

Well, it's finally here. Our fifth time into the breach. This year may have been unbearably awful in so many ways but... at least the games were interesting? Either way, here's day one of our insanely long deliberations over the best and worst of 2020, to find out who will be VICTORIOUS. Enjoy and stick around for Day Two coming tomorrow!

Categories awarded:

Content Creator of the Year

Golden Pumpkin

Best Looking

Best Music

Worst Game

Best Strand Game

Biggest Surprise

Take a look around you. If things look different, consider that it might be because we're in the NEXT GENERATION, BABY. Sony sent Hamish a PS5, so he goes over his experiences with the hardware (the DualSense and SSD), Demon's Souls, Astro's Playroom and Spider-Man Miles Morales. He also finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon. and has some... mixed thoughts. Nico brought his own next-gen title to the table in the form of the unwitting face of the PS5—Bugsnax—and things get weird and dark. Nico also finally played Deadly Premonition 2 and we struggle to talk about it for fear of spoiling the first game. Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is legitimately one of the most fun shooter campaigns in years. Trust in yourself!

We thank System of a Down for their service in what happened this week. Hamish has played through a whole bunch of Yakuza: Like a Dragon and it completely rules. Nico gives us his D&D Minute, and he also finished Mafia: Definitive Edition so we talk about that game at length for the third or fourth time in a row. Watch Dogs Legion is inadvertently the most dystopian game ever made. Descenders is a really chill game and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 just got an update that changes things up in ways we didn't expect. Just wait 'til the don hears about dis!

Wawaweewa! There's a new Borat film out and one half of the cast has seen it because what the heck else is there to do in 2020! We also discuss why D&D is fun! Mobster accents in Mafia: Definitive Edition now that Nico has played it! Could Amnesia: Rebirth be in with a chance to win the prestigious Golden Pumpkin award? The conclusion to the Tomato Way trilogy! VR is the only way to play Star Wars Squadrons! Our best/worst fast food rankings! Why we're anticipating Yakuza 7 and Cyberpunk 2077! All this and more on this week's edition of the Writing on GamesCast! Dziękuję!

The COVID Gamers are back to report on Big League Politics! No one's wearing masks! People are throwing fireworks at each other! But more importantly, just what the hell is Genshin Impact and why is it anime Breath of the Wild?! 

Also discussed: Mafia Definitive Edition is some of the best crime fiction games have to offer. Nico is predictably in love with Baldur's Gate 3. Spelunky 2 seems like an incredibly well-made game that both of us dislike playing. Hades is the remedy to all of Spelunky 2's problems. Trackmania 2020 has a bunch of new tracks and it gives us a chance to go off about how terrible that game's UI still is. We have an idea for a Jackass-themed podcast that might actually be really great. All this and more on this week's episode of the Writing on GamesCast! 

We had way too many games left from last week that we forgot to talk about, so we needed to get at you again with another episode that thankfully didn't take four months to release. We talk Lynchian awkwardness before getting into the PS5 reveal/Bethesda Microsoft stuff. Online people are anti-art weirdos who remind us of Tipper Gore. We spend a good hour or so trying to talk about Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 but it's so perfect that we end up discussing basically the entire Tony Hawk franchise. Trackmania should be the biggest game on the planet but it's too much of a confusing mess and that's partially why it's great. Freedom Fighters is what would happen if you gave Mario a gun. Super Mario 3D All-Stars gives Mario a water gun which is kinda close. Flight Simulator turns into The Witness once you descend below those clouds. Thanks for listening to these Late-twenties Skateboarders for another week!

So, um, hey! We're back after perhaps the lengthiest break we've ever had—hooray for protracted moves between apartments and enduring mental trauma! After a brief look back at the last few months (and of course the obligatory hour of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure talk), we chill out a little bit to get back into the swing of things. Holy moly, a lot of games came out while we were away, huh? Hamish wonders why Marvel's Avengers isn't just the simple cinematic brawler it clearly wants to be (and talks about that Captain America costume). Nico convinces Hamish to get into Rainbow Six Siege in 2020. Fast and Furious Crossroads is utterly, bafflingly bad. Because Hamish decided to finish it after all these years, we finally get to talk at length about why Deadly Premonition is just legitimately one of the best games ever made (it's so good that Hamish gets hiccups, sorry). We discuss your favourite game you haven't heard of yet, Bad Guys at School. Oh, and we make brief mention of The Last of Us Part 2, as if that game isn't totally exhausting to talk about. 

This podcast, for us, is a really nice break from the horrors of the real world and it feels good to do it again. Thank you for sticking with us, and generally just keeping going through this whole mess. We can do this, together.

You Can (Not) Redo. We recorded an episode a couple of weeks ago but the files got all funky so we had to ditch it, meaning that it's been two months since we recorded a podcast. But who knows what time even is anymore, right? In that spirit we spend a while talking about the state of things in this wild new world, then take an hour and a half to discuss how wild the Fast and Furious franchise is, as well as Hamish's foray into the world of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. We talk about games for a bit... but not the ones you might expect. Elon Musk vs Grimes' mum? Yare yare daze. The return of Bitbusters and the Big TIme Tommie Minute. This podcast has got it all! 

Well, it's a very weird time right now for everyone. We tried to make this a chill-ass podcast to counter all of that, but we couldn't help chatting a bit about it at the start. Somehow it always comes back to Henry Rollins though. With all that out the way, we get to discuss why Dreams can be a nightmare, why Nioh 2 can be a nightmare (even though that isn't quite as snappy as the Dreams/nightmare bit), a surprising experience with GeForce Now,  the worst level in Halo: Combat Evolved and how good Divinity Original Sin 2 still is. We see the return of both the Big Time Tommie Minute and Bitbusters to get you through these trying times, as well as a lengthy discussion about supermarket sandwiches. Ya-coo-WHO-sa zero.

We're back after a couple of months off! We've been real busy questioning the humanity of DMV drones and kicking people. In amongst that, though, we have found some time to play some games here and there! To that end, we've got thoughts on the Final Fantasy VII remake demo, Street Fighter V Championship Edition, Kentucky Route Zero, World of Horror, Halo and everyone's favourite game, EA Game Face. Rockbusters returns, the old British version of Toonami is discussed, and we try to make sense of the career trajectory of Beans from Even Stevens. There is no reason... to fight.

(also there may be some points later on where the audio falls slightly out of sync—technical problems on our end. Should hopefully still be listenable, and we'll try our best to make sure it's fixed for next week. Thanks for listening!)

Happy new year! We're back for a whole new decade of chatting shite. After a little while of figuring out how exactly to podcast again, we realise we've barely played anything since Game of the Year. Nico got back into Dark Souls 2 for some strange reason and, predictably, has hated every minute of it. Some thoughts on Thronebreaker, finally. Nico got his own Oculus Quest and, similarly to Hamish, has had his perspective on games shift dramatically. Nico reveals the Bitbusters answers he set up over a month ago, we answer your burning questions, and discuss terrible metalcore singers electrocuting themselves on stage. Anyone else #genesimmonschallenge!

Time to wrap this up. Our deliberations into the best, worst and... oldest of 2019 concludes with almost five hours of goofs, gaffs, guests and games. Will Death Stranding make top 10? You decide! No wait, we decide! Our guests decide! 

A massive thank you to to all of you for sticking with us over another year of inconsistent release schedules. We really appreciate it a whole lot. We'll be back in 2020 bigger than ever. Take it eas'.

Categories awarded:

Best Moment

Best Remake/Remaster/Re-release/Update

Best Old Game

Biggest Disappointment (Mafia 3 Blue Ribbon of Shame)

Game of the Year

Well, we're here. Time to subject ourselves to this endurance test once more. Here is over four-and-a-half hours of us talking about the best and worst we played this year. For an idea of how this goes, this is, by some margin, the longest/most heated Best Looking discussion we've ever had (it's all in good fun though). Enjoy, and stick around for day two!

Categories Awarded:

Golden Pumpkin

Best Looking

Best Music

Worst Game

Best Strand Game

Biggest Surprise

It's finally here—the StrandCast! That's right, we needed a month away just to deal with the momentous release of Death Stranding—a game that Nico inexplicably loves and Hamish gets exhausted even thinking about at this stage. We also talk Nico's venture to Vegas, how Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is... fine, why Pokemon might be bad now, as well as how the Oculus Quest is starting to reshape how Hamish looks at games (while looking like a cartoon doofus in Superhot VR). As always, we have Bitbusters (now with fabulous, furious prizes), the Big Time Tommie Minute, Goin' Postal and your questions! Next up—maaaybe Game of the Year?!

This is the third episode in a row (I think) where we talk for half an hour about a game we haven't played yet (Death Stranding). After a debrief on Nico's first viewing of the entire John Wick franchise and a discussion on how Henry Rollins might not be that great, we talk about how Modern Warfare's campaign might be as dumb as The Quiet Man. The Outer Worlds is so good we don't have much to say about it. Going Postal returns as do Nico's regerts about starting the segment. This answer's to last episodes Bitbusters legitimately break Hamish to the point that it might be the hardest he's laughed on the podcast. And because we didn't play many games, we have a bumper edition of your questions! OS for life, take it eas'.

People are playing Death Stranding now. We're not, but that won't stop us talking about it. Nico goes to Galaxy's Edge and has a measured opinion on new Star Wars. Everything John Wick Hex does is understandable, but that doesn't make it fun to play. Introducing Nico's second new feature in as many weeks, Goin' Postal. This means he has to play Postal 4 every week, which is a fate worse than death. A Short Hike is tiny Breath of the Wild and might honestly be in both of our game of the year lists. And yes, we announce the answers to Bitbusters, give you the Big Time Tommie Minute you've all been waiting for, and envision the most expensive game of Pong ever made.

Join us as one host recovers from illness while the other develops it. Question whether anyone that says either "Joker is an irresponsible movie" or "Joker is a modern classic" has ever seen the film/any film before. Untitled Goose Game is a funny little experience, but we'd probably choose Goat Simulator over it. Ghost Recon Breakpoint is maybe the most catastrophically broken AAA game in years but not a totally terrible time. John Wick Hex is a true disappointment. Yakuza 3 doesn't hold up super well. Checking in on Big Time Tommie. Introducing new feature Bitbusters—tune in next podcast to hear the answers I guess. And yes, we discuss that Nostalgia Critic video. Once again, take it eas'.

How ya doin' Instagram, it's the Writing on GamesCast here to talk about the legitimately weird announcements from that Nintendo Direct (including... Deadly Premonition 2?!), why Control ain't doing it for us, how Ghost Recon Breakpoint surprised us, we answer your questions, and get some life advice from a man smoking a cigar. Take it eas'.

Jackson Dingle and Ryan Nosecondname are talking Gamescom and have a lot to say about what was played/seen both on the show floor and behind closed doors—Avengers, Cyberpunk, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Dragonball Z Kakarot, and more. We also talk about how our opinion on Wolfenstein Youngblood somehow worsened from when we last called it "the most disappointing game since Mafia 3", Fire Emblem, that new No Man's Sky update (and why there probably won't be the usual Annual Video about it this time around) and Budget Tom Hardy from Upgrade starring in Telling Lies. Also a massive thank you to Nico who has taken over editing duties on the podcast—he's doing an amazing job. Thanks for supporting us!

 In which we get paid millions by Microsoft to take the podcast to Mixer. Well, we don't actually, but we do go into how Metal Gear Solid 4 makes more sense in 2019 (because it doesn't make sense), why Wolfenstein: Youngblood might be the most disappointing game we've played since Mafia 3, and why Goat Simulator is still (and has always been) great. Oh, you also have your requisite CKY and Mike Patton minutes. Good to be back. 

This one is a few days late thanks to some internet/audio hiccups (as well as some literal hiccups later on). Join the EVAGNs (that's meant to be a riff on AVGN but it totally doesn't work written down) to talk weird Japan-only Evangelion games, Nico getting to grips with Judgment, and Hamish's first (very brief) dip into Kingdom Hearts... for some reason. Oh, also, back by popular demand... the return of Mario Make Yourself.

Trying out a new hosting service here too, hopefully there aren't too many problems on that end. Thanks for listening!