Episode 152 - The Winters of Our Discontent - Resident Evil: Village

How dare you talk about saving your podcast when you’ve murdered mine?

Welcome back to the podcast, and to our delightfully themed Spooktember in July. We’re concluding our first set of games with Resident Evil: Village, currently the latest main series, non-remake Resident Evil game, and one that received a lot of hype prior to release thanks to a marketing strategy that involved a nine foot tall vampire lady. One of the first things you might notice in the game itself is how it relates to other games in the series. Specifically, RE8 features the same protagonist, Ethan Winters, as RE7, a game that was making obvious strides to return to the series’ survival horror roots, which had largely been supplanted by a more action-heavy approach since RE4. Now, in Village, it seems like Capcom wanted to mesh the two and the inspiration taken from RE4 is pretty obvious with the game containing a merchant who can upgrade your weapons, and a more dynamic combat system with enemies who are faster and more threatening than those in the previous title. While this persists across most of the game, several quieter moments break up the action (sometimes becoming the best parts of the game themselves), but the two halves of the design philosophy never really meet in the middle and it ends up feeling more episodic than a real blend. That isn’t to say the game is bad, it’s actually quite good, but it does sit in an awkward place in the series. Unless something this game does is just really your “thing” it’s hard to recommend if you haven’t played some of the games it is directly referencing in its design. We’re going to be talking about the design of each of the levels and how they follow a certain structure and brisk pace, we talk about the inclusion of the merchant and an economy in the game and how that effects how you play it compared to other RE titles, and we discuss the nuances of the relationship between the “Big Bad” and the “Small Bads”.

Thank you for joining us again this week! The Resident Evil cycle of the month is now over, so let us know what you think. How do you feel RE8 stacks up against other games in the series, or just other horror games in general? I personally like that there is a high-profile triple-A horror franchise that is willing to pour money into doing weird stuff like this on occasion, but game development of this scale always comes with some baggage. Continue the discussion over on our Discord server or in the comment section. Next time, we’re moving into the “Ghost” phase of Spooktember in July and talking about Ghostwire: Tokyo, so we hope you’ll join us then, even if it is statistically unlikely you played the game.

NOCLIP Pocket E83 - A Big Boulder - Resident Evil 4 Remake

“Fun” rhymes with “podcast” for a reason, stranger.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about the Resident Evil 4 Remake that was released this year. Why are we talking about this game on Pocket? Well, we wanted to squeeze it in closer to its release date and the focus of the episode is mainly going to be on the way the remake differs from the original, rather than our typical beat by beat discussion of the game itself. This resulted, of course, in an hour long Pocket episode because they changed a whole lot, actually. The bones of Resident Evil 4 are still here, obviously, and the Village portion of the game is still similar to the original in many ways, but there is a ton of new and altered content throughout and that’s without talking about the fundamental changes to the gameplay. Leon controls in a much more fluid way which feels more modern, but necessitates a change in the overall combat system. Enemies are much more aggressive and have new angles of attack to match Leon’s ability to parry with the knife, perform stealth kills and even move while shooting (what a novel idea). This makes the game even more action-focused than the original, which was a massive departure from the series at the time of its release. Basically, even for fans of the original game, this remake represents fantastic new content, rather than a replacement, and that’s probably the best thing they could have done for a remake of an icon like this. We’re going to be talking about combat and difficulty and how the updates change what the game feels like to play, the slight change in tone to bring it out of the B movie camp that defined the original, and we call out the great offense that is adding crafting to Resident Evil 4.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We probably could have gone on about this game for another hour and done a full episode, but we were afraid it would be a little redundant both with the discourse that has already happened and the fact that we had already covered the game in the past. Not to mention we have a slate of games planned for the extremely well-thought-out Spooktember in July theme month we have going on and didn’t feel like it would fit at a different time in the schedule. How did you feel about the changes to the game? Was the remake the first time you’ve played RE4, and if so do you have any desire to go back and see where it came from? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be moving along into the next subtheme of the month and talking about Ghostrunner, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 151 - Sacred Octopus Stick - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Expand-a-band-band, podcast stash!

Welcome back to the podcast! We took a bit of an extra long time with this one, but if you’ve played this game, I imagine you’ll understand why. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a massive open world game and the sequel to Breath of the Wild, the game that some people said redefined what open world games should be. To an extent that is true, and we have already seen a lot of its impact on the genre, but Tears of the Kingdom adds a pretty significant amount of innovation on top of that, and some of that stuff is going to be hard for developers to replicate. And all of that while reusing the same ground map as Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom is huge, yes, adding large new areas to explore and containing thousands of discrete goals to accomplish from quests to shrines to dungeons and collectibles, but its most defining feature is a more fiddly one, specifically the new abilities that let you manipulate the game’s physics system on an entirely new level than Breath of the Wild was able to pull off. Ultrahand, Recall and Fuse let you use the game’s environment more or less to your whims, building contraptions with prepackaged device spheres to do anything from driving a car across Hyrule to making an enemy-seeking robot, shoot arrows imbued with an absurd number of item specific properties and move objects back and forth through time, opening a ton of possibilities not just in combat, but in traversal and puzzle solving. Meanwhile Ascend makes you entirely rethink the way you look at the game world, the effect of which isn’t dissimilar to Red Faction’s destructible environments way back in the PS2 era feeling like a revolutionary upheaval of game systems. The experience of playing this game is somehow very different from playing its predecessor, but with a familiarity that makes it feel simultaneously very comfortable but also tricking you into maybe not being as blown away as you could be. We’re going to be talking about our exploration of the mechanics and how our experiences differed in how and when we realized we could take advantage of our new abilities, the inclusion of new enemies and dungeons that felt significantly different from each other and from Breath of the Wild, and we confirm that the Ganondorf we are talking about is the shirtless sexy Demon King one.

Thank you for joining us this week, and apologies for the late release! Tears of the Kingdom is probably going to be one of (if not the) most talked about games this year, and we aren’t exactly early to the discourse, but I hope you enjoy the episode. I’m not kidding when I say Ascend has changed the way I view games, with me thinking I can travel vertically in everything I play now. It’ll be a while before the effects of this game wear off on people. What did you think? Was the game worth the wait since 2017? Did the game make your Switch catch on fire? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comment section! Next time, we’re entering into the very well named and not stupid at all “Spooktember in July” where we’re going to be talking about Resident Evil VIII (or Village, or 8, I suppose) so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E82 - Diarrhea Wednesday - The Bunker

One whiff of this and you’ll have your throat slit over the last tin of podcasts.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV adventure game with a surprising level of production value. We chose to cover this game partly because we had played it before, and there are several other things coming up that are going to take up a lot of our time, and also partly just to expose ourselves as people who keep really hoping for an FMV game to really knock our socks off. This didn’t manage that, but it still has some interesting qualities. Being a more modern game, The Bunker lacks the B-movie cheesiness that is honestly the selling point for a lot of older FMV titles these days, but having a focus on more of the filmic quality is a direction you rarely see these types of games go. Using actors with experience and some truly outstanding set design goes a long way to make the game feel more like a movie. More like a movie, in fact, that it does a game. The Bunker’s level of interaction is low. Barring one or maybe two instances, your choices have no impact on the plot unfolding, and most of the things that require player input could have easily been accomplished without it, making the interactivity feel like a token inclusion. While it doesn’t strike the perfect balance, or much of a balance at all, there is something that still feels pretty novel about it, and the story it tells is at worst competently executed and pretty interesting. We’re going to talk about how much interaction the game has and what impact it really makes, the environments in the game and how much they sell the premise, and we talk about the things that really don’t need to follow a schedule.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was a short episode on a pretty short game because we are gearing up for some bigger things in the future and we wanted to maintain living while still being able to get them out in time. Still, this is at least kind of a strange one to look at right? FMV is a dying, some would say dead, subgenre and to see the amount of care put into making this feel like a modern piece of media gives me at least some respect for it. Have you played any FMV games in recent times? How do you think the genre holds up, and is there a way of making an interactive film like this more satisfying to play? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments section! Next time, unless we find the inspiration to do some kind of filler between this and Zelda, we’re going to be talking about the Resident Evil 4 remake, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 150 - You Betcha - Super Mario 64

It is decreed that one shall pound the podcast.

Welcome to the 150th episode of NOCLIP! Today, we’re celebrating, in a way, by finally talking about Super Mario 64, one of the single most defining video games of all time. Platformers, and probably games generally, were changed forever following the success of Mario 64, and that influence is impossible to deny. We’re going to be looking at that influence, and specifically, the problem solving that went into making this game work as well as it did. The technology that made this game possible was new at the time, and much of what makes playing video games in 3D possible needed to be defined and explained to the player. How do you see where you are, how do you interact with enemies and navigate the world? These questions needed solutions and the elegance with which most of them were handled is extremely impressive for what is essentially a first attempt. That being said, the game is extremely old in the context of the medium, and playing the game now is very different than playing it then, so seeing how the things pioneered in Mario 64 have been iterated on, or in some cases, have remained staples of the genre since, is also an interesting exercise. Does it “hold up” to the cruelty of time? Is the game even fun for someone playing it for the first time today? This is a question that will have a more immediate and well known answer as time goes on, but we are right at that edge where its legendary status and ubiquity among people playing games still mean that most people have an attachment to it and are able to contextualize it in line with its contemporaries. This much is true though, it holds up better than most, if not all of its immediate contemporaries, and the contributions it made to the medium are still obvious even now. We’re going to be talking about the obsessive diegesis of Mario 64’s world and how charming it is, the level and objective design and how experimentation was core to the game’s success, and we make an argument for Nintendo to do some pretty unorthodox DLC.

Thank you for joining us this week! Super Mario 64 is a game that, honestly, hasn’t been on our schedule for a very long time for a number of reasons. The number of people who have talked about it already being among the most potent reasons, but there were other reasons this didn’t feel quite right for us to do. However, given the kind-of milestone of being our 150th episode, and with Nintendo being in the spotlight recently due to Zelda, it felt appropriate to take our shot at the almost 30 year old game finally. And personally, I’m pretty happy with the result. Let us know what you think of our discussion of this classic down in the comment section or over on our Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and it’s probably going to be delayed by a bit, so we hope you’ll anticipate that.

NOCLIP Pocket E81 - Strategy of Flailing - Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Why is every podcast fish?

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final episode from Mystery May! Today, we’re talking about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game about an octopus doing his best to blend in with human society. The game is straight out of the Goat Simulator era of physics-based games, and owes a lot to all the QWOP-inspired physics hell games that came before it, but what makes Octodad stand out is that it’s just much more playable than most other games in the genre. In Octodad, you control your legs and arm separately, with a wobbly ragdoll character and everything in the environment weighs nothing to allow for it to maximally fly around everywhere when you bump into it. However, the game has a plot and it wants you to finish it, so it never reaches Getting Over It levels of difficulty. In a way, this does make the game weaker, as the crazy physics interactions are less pronounced, but it’s a game you can finish and one that doesn’t overstay its welcome, giving it more of a feeling of real player-friendly design and making it a great jumping off point for getting into the genre. We’re going to be talking about the game’s perceived difficulty, how Octodad cultivates its comedy and makes it work, even at the player’s expense, and give you our top strategy tips for cheating at the arcade.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for seeing us through Mystery May this year! We’re really happy with how it turned out, so we’ll be dredging the table up again next year as well. Did you play Octodad at any point in the 9 years since it came out? Did you play the original freeware Octodad? How did you feel about Mystery May and are there any games you were really pulling for off our table? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to keep it a little bit unorthodox and are going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV game about people living in the post-apocalypse, so we hope you’ll keep an eye out for that.

Episode 149 - It's a Slant Rhyme - Child of Light

What is love known by? When it hurts to say “Welcome to NOCLIP.”

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we are doing as the dice instructed per the rules of Mystery May and playing Child of Light. Another game that’s been on our list for a while, Child of Light is an Ubisoft developed RPG that showcases the studio’s “UbiArt Framework” engine that was designed with the intention of being able to develop with artist’s ease of use specifically in mind. As a result, Child of Light is a game that has an obvious focus on delivering it’s storybook-styled visuals over all else, and therefore has a strong and consistent aesthetic throughout. Beyond the visual style itself, the music fits the theme well while not being overly showy, and conversely, the writing is done entirely in rhyme, calling attention to itself massively and just being a big in-your-face element of the game. Playing the game, though, is more traditional RPG fare, with its big distinguishing twist being a combat timer that allows strategies based around slowing or interrupting enemies and choosing attacks based on the length of time they take to cast. It fits together well enough but contains some design pitfalls that makes this a flawed game, but still an interesting one. We’re going to be talking about the abundance of systems and the harm they can do to the player’s experience, the really charming character and visual design and how they fit it together with the narrative and gameplay, and how Ubisoft really changed as a person once they got that sweet-sweet Rabbids money.

Thank you for joining us again today! We’re sad to see Mystery May close out, because it’s been a surprisingly fun time not having to make decisions about what to play. Were you one of the people who played Child of Light when it released, and if so, what made it grab you then? Did you pick it up recently and become confused at the weird DLC elements that just kind of got thrown in? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, with full control back in our hands, we’re going to be talking about Super Mario 64, sort of keeping with the theme of “how did it take them this long to cover this,” so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E80 - If He Had Wheels - Rascal

Take out the reptile, first of all.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first Mystery May title for Pocket, we managed to roll a critical miss, forcing us to do an epilogue episode on Rascal, probably the worst game we’ve covered for the podcast. What started as a joke episode based on a history with the game became probably the podcast’s most enduring reference point for things being done badly and given how old the episode is, it probably was high time we took another stab at it. This episode isn’t overly long, and features far fewer hosts, but hopefully this is a good introduction to the game and why we keep talking about it, even after five years. Rascal itself is a 3D platformer for the PS1 that pretty much behaves in every way contrary to how a platformer should. You have tank-esque controls, a camera that will absolutely not do what you want it to do, and a terrible gun that you use to fight infinitely respawning enemies that appear offscreen and kill you. It’s a nightmare, but at least it’s a funny nightmare. The game so confidently thrusts you into its meat grinder of ill conceived challenges that you can’t help but laugh at your own poor fortune. We’re going to be talking about the outdated design philosophy that is expected of games of this era, the baffling design philosophy that makes up the rest of the game and we talk about all the games that were definitely inspired by Rascal’s secret genius.

Thank you for listening this week, or at least I hope you listened to make playing this game again worth it. We are actually happy to resurrect this particular meme, though, because we’ve referenced the game already this year, possibly multiple times. This is as close to a signature game as we have on this podcast, so hopefully this can be the last word, unless we roll a critical miss again at some point in the future… But did you play Rascal? Why? Was it out of a call of the void style curiosity because you saw the game lying around? Were you given this game as a gift, either by someone who didn’t know better, or more likely, as a gag? Let us know over on our Discord server or in the comments below! Next time, the dice deigned we talk about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, closing out an extremely weird chapter in NOCLIP Pocket history, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

Also, massive credit to this frankly incredible guide, that we reference multiple times in both this and the original Rascal episode: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198413-rascal/faqs/37867

Episode 148 - Knower of the Tomes - Braid

All those years ago, Tim had left the podcast behind.

Welcome back to the podcast! For our first episode in Mystery May (but with rolling dice instead of solving mysteries), we’re going to be talking about Braid! Braid, as honestly you’re probably already aware, is a puzzle platformer that received a massive amount of recognition and acclaim when it launched on the Xbox Live Arcade way back in 2008. Far more puzzle than platformer, in Braid you use standard platforming controls and the ability to reverse time to collect puzzle pieces and complete levels, with each new level offering a different gimmick that changes the way the world and sometimes your abilities work. Gameplay-wise, the puzzles are extremely well-built. Never being outright unsolvable for the average person but also deep enough to provide a challenge and featuring some truly unique solutions. To some, this will be the biggest draw of the game. For others, the game’s melancholic tone and vague story will be the thing that hooks them, and it is also well crafted. The writing is eloquent and evocative, calling to mind how we as people handle mistakes and questioning the fantasy of being able to turn back time to correct them. As two different elements of the game, they both really sing, but when experienced together, how well do they mix? We’re going to be talking about our difficulties with the puzzles, our difficulties with piecing the game’s message together from the parts it gives you, and we make listening to the episode without being embarrassed about it a difficulty by telling a yo mama joke at the halfway point.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Braid coming up first on Mystery May is a great example of what we designed the whole system around because it’s been on our list literally since the inception of the podcast and kept getting kicked further down the road. It feels good to have finally played it, but missing the cultural zeitgeist on this game may have done more harm than we realized? Do you think Braid still holds up and its intentions still come across in the modern day? Do you think Braid has had an impact on game development or just indie game popularity generally? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Child of Light, as deigned by the fates, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Mystery May tables: https://noclippodcast.net/mystery-may

NOCLIP Pocket E79 - Marth Tiara - Shadow of the Colossus

Podcasts that are once lost cannot be reclaimed.

Welcome to the very first (kind of) NOCLIP Epilogue! On this series, that we’ll come back to every once in a while, we’re going to be revising some of our earliest episodes to rehash our discussions but with more media literacy and higher quality audio. For our first formal entry in the series (not counting Undertale, which we did as a primer to the Deltarune series, which, you know, we’ll get back to at some point), we’re going to be covering Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode. Shadow, in case you’re somehow unaware, is the second game from Team Ico, and is loosely set in the same universe and has a similar visual and mood to Ico. There is a dour atmosphere over the whole game, with a plot centering around a character attempting to revive a dead woman, a mysterious masked man and his cadre of knights and a Godlike figure named Dormin who promises to help with the resurrection if we do a task for him. There’s an air of mystery around the entire process, from what you’re doing to the plot itself and even who the characters are, and this lack of certainty cements the atmosphere of the game as well as keeps the player on the hunt for clues, making the whole experience more intellectually stimulating in addition to its mechanical challenges. As for what you actually do, Shadow tasks you with taking down 16 enormous boss creatures by physically climbing all over them and attacking weak points. Your player character controls in what feels like a very fragile and imprecise way, making this task feel difficult and imposing. There’s a lot more to say about how the game mixes its themes and its mechanics, but that should be the gist if you aren’t already a fan, so listen to us unpack the rest of it in today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about the way everything from the world to your horse contributes to the overall themes of the game, we talk about the pacing of the game and its ambitions versus the game we really got, and we speculate on what Mono’s last will and testament probably had in it.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and for indulging us this nostalgic look back at one of our favorite games we covered. Hopefully the epilogue series continues to do what we intended, as I feel like even this shorter episode gets across what makes the game good better than we were able to do seven, almost eight, years ago. What did you think about this episode format? Do you have suggestions for other games we covered in the long-long ago for us to take another look at? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, we’re doing our first Mystery May pocket episode, which is a different style to previous years, and through a series of events that are unfortunate, we ended up being forced to do an immediate epilogue follow up on the worst game we’ve ever covered (debatably) in Rascal for the Playstation, so if you enjoy when we suffer, please join us then.

Episode 147 - Ghosts in Football - Neon White

Not bad for a dead podcast, huh?

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a first person platformer with a little bit of shooting in it. First person platformers aren’t exactly rare, per se, but they’re less common than the majority of other types of games in the genre, and so it’s worth considering the intentionality of its choice when a game comes out that uses the perspective. Neon White is maybe one of the best uses of the genre that I’ve ever seen. Because of its focus on getting fast times on each stage, the first person perspective gives a real sense of speed that you can actually feel, making you physically lean around when you play the game because of the focus it requires. It offers precision in shooting, an element of the game that feels less like eliminating threats and more like doing tricks in a Tony Hawk game; quickly spinning around to pick off some enemies after taking a shortcut or strategically shooting something coming up in the distance to save a weapon card for use later. The whole game gives a sense of continuing improvement and trains you to see the lines each level has and then to look away from them to find a faster route. The game has a less-than-novel, but still very cool narrative which feels like Battle Royale but set in Heaven, and characters that are easy to like despite falling into certain tropes and archetypes. It’s serviceable, and serves as downtime between the frantic action of the main missions. Neon White is a very rad game that does cool stuff in an awesome way. We’re going to be talking about the functionality of the gun/soul card discard system and how it adds to the decision making in gameplay, motivation to do better and whether it comes from the game or from within yourself, and we do some classic shipping of characters.

Thank you for listening today! Neon White was one of those games that seems like it’s going to be intimidating, but then ends up being surprisingly accessible. If you got through the game, did you feel like it could have been harder and offered a more robust challenge, or was what’s there more than enough to keep you entertained? Did you try to push your scores as low as they could go? Let us know over in the Discord, or in the comments below! Next time, we’re entering into Mystery May, but not like the old Mystery May where we did mystery games. Now, we’re taking a bunch of games that have been on our various lists of games to play for years that we never seem to get around to and putting them on a table and letting dice decide our episode. The first one selected for this month is Braid, the classic puzzle platformer, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E78 - The Stranger - Perfect Tides

At least I’m not ugly and annoying!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Perfect Tides, a point and click adventure game in true throwback fashion. With a pixel art style and several ways to interact with your environment, you explore the island of Perfect Tides solving puzzles and picking up inventory items. Yet, this isn’t really the draw of the game. It can be, if you’re looking for an adventure game that’s like the classics, but more forgiving, but the character work is the real star of the show here. You play as Mara, a 15 year old girl (in the year 2000), as she struggles to find her place in life, participating in the early internet, going to high school and trying to get along with her family. It’s not new ground to cover, for sure, but the depth of characterization given to Mara, as well as many of the supporting characters in the game, is deeply impressive. Most people will be able to relate to at least something Mara is going through, and the game’s perspective helps to provide some self examination on how we all handle our trauma. It’s a rough game at times, both mechanically and as far as content goes, but the end result is a beautiful study of teenage life. We’re going to be talking about the up-and-downsides of styling this game after old school adventure titles and express our mechanical woes, we separate the story from the characters and discuss how much importance is placed on the latter, and we make some medical suggestions, even though we are not doctors.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game caught at least me off guard with just how frank and relatable it was, but I imagine that must be different for everyone. If you played it, what did you think? Were you in the age range to appreciate the references to the culture of the new millennium, or do you think that doesn’t really matter because we all know Flagpole Sitta or whatever? Let us know down in the comments or on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be introducing a new (kind of) series to the podcast, epilogue episodes, where we go back to games we did early on in the podcast and examine them with fresh eyes and give our updated opinions in a more listenable package. For our first (second, if you count Undertale, which is part of a separate series on Deltarune, which…oops, stay tuned on that one) epilogue, we’re going back to Shadow of the Colossus, which was our second ever episode, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 146 - Red House Studios - God of War: Ragnarok

Close your heart to it.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, Santa Monica Studios follow up to 2018’s God of War. And honestly, you in all likelihood know what this game is all about, so let’s just jump into it. Ragnarok is a direct continuation of the events in the previous game, and more than that, it almost feels like a direct continuation of the development of that game. It builds entirely off the systems that existed in the first game but adds some more variety in the form of more unique bosses, different companions and, eventually, a new weapon to play around with which does expand your options in combat. Does this variety actually change enough, though? Yes and no. While the combat feels more varied, and not fighting thirty more trolls is a welcome change, it still has some issues, some of which feel even more pronounced here in the sequel, and the basic systems aren’t really altered enough to ever really feel like you’re playing something different than 2018’s game. As a narrative continuation of the previous game though, this one does make strides in fleshing out its characters further, giving several of them proper arcs they didn’t have previously and completely revitalizing some characters into something more than archetypes. It’s a mixed bag of a game and one whose successes and failures are actually pretty complicated and a good indication of how huge games are being made, so we hope this episode can unravel at least some of it. We’re going to be talking about the sequel-y-ness of this game, both in how it’s built off its predecessor and how it sets up for a probable third game, the combat and its accompanying gear system, and what sort of hairdo they could give Kratos to most set off the vocal internet video game fans.

Thank you for listening again this week! This episode sort of exemplifies why it can be so complicated to talk about the big new releases when they come out. For one, we’re like six months late to this particular party because of our scheduling, and for two, we aren’t really “God of War fans” in the traditional sense, so we aren’t coming at this from a place of excitement or anticipation for the sequel. If you are, what did you think of the game? Do you think our criticisms were well placed? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a fast-paced FPS platforming game that somehow jammed a deck building element into it, so we hope you’ll join us for untangling that.

NOCLIP Pocket E77 - Poisoned With Golf - Jazzpunk

If you need me, I’ll be in the podcast cellar.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket this week! Today we’re talking about Jazzpunk, an unorthodox adventure game from 2014. When I say unorthodox, what you do in the game from a base mechanical level is pretty normal, moving around and interacting with objects and your inventory to solve puzzles and progress, but the logic of the game and the scenarios you play through are all pretty surreal and feel designed around the question “why not.” The game isn’t too hard to wrap your head around though; the scenes themselves are bizarre, not the puzzles’ requirements. The result is a game that is genuinely funny at times, with lots of one off interactable gags and minigames that you can get through pretty smoothly, with enough content you will probably miss to make each playthrough a little bit different. We’re going to be talking about why it is that jokes landed sometimes and not others, the aesthetics and world design that feels so varied from level to level, and the number of Wilhelm screams one is allotted in any particular work.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP Pocket again this week! If you hadn’t surmised, yesterday’s fast food centric episode was an April Fools gag, but honestly this game could have fared fine as an April Fools Day episode itself. It was a weird little experience to play through, and one I wish I had actually played closer to when it came out. Comedy ages in weird ways sometimes, and something felt a bit dated about some of these jokes, though the overall vibe is still pretty good. What did you think? Did Jazzpunk hit the right notes for you or is it a bit too aggressively strange? Let us know over in the Discord or in the comments below! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Perfect Tides, which is a point and click game, so we hope you’ll join us for something very much in our usual wheelhouse.

Episode 145 - Spaghetti and Towels - Shadows Over Loathing

This is a podcast that is actually a podcast. This is a big step for us.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Shadows Over Loathing, a turn based RPG and a follow up to Kingdom of Loathing and West of Loathing, the latter of which we’ve covered on the podcast before. The Loathing games are all RPGs, but the combat isn’t really the part of the game that should draw you in. It’s pretty unbalanced in the player’s favor, and you shouldn’t have much trouble making it through no matter what mechanical choices you end up making. However, the game’s expressive writing, both in the form of dialog and scenario design, is at the absolute top of the pile when it comes to being consistently funny and imaginative. The game is constantly subverting your expectations, aided by the random encounter system, so you can’t possibly guess what’s going to pop up at any given time. Now while this is unequivocally a good thing and the reason you should be playing the game, Shadows Over Loathing, as compared to its kin, is themed around cosmic horror, which is not historically the funniest genre. And it’s true, the game’s tone clashes with its theme a decent amount and it means that while there is some solid horror writing in here, the game never really becomes scary. The tone remains light even in the most Lovecraftian scenarios and it probably doesn’t help that the game’s aesthetic is “stick figures,” though admittedly the detail in some of the designs can be surprising. We’re going to be talking about what areas were the most (and least) imaginative, how the mechanics can rub against the rest of the game in a lightly uncomfortable way, and shoes. We talk about a classic shoes.

Thank you for joining us again this week! I was pretty sold on doing this game from the moment I heard about it, but in the end I think we were a little disappointed at how similar to West of Loathing it ended up being. Still a fantastic game and entirely worth playing if you haven’t played West or just loved it, but it did have the opportunity to be a bit more different and just didn’t quite make there. Did you feel the same? Was this your first Loathing game? Let us know in the comments or over on the Discord. Next time, we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, which while a pretty big game for us to be talking about, is still about three months later than everyone else talked about it. So I hope you’ll join us anyway, lol.

NOCLIP Pocket E76 - Attacked by a Chair - Vampire Survivors

Thank you, but the podcast is in another coffin.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Vampire Survivors, the game that seemingly everyone has played. Vampire Survivors released in a form of early access on PC and mobile, and grew a pretty large player base by the time it hit its official release last year and has since popularized a genre that it has become the blueprint for, coincidentally similar to its main inspiration, Castlevania. In a Survivors game, the player defeats hundreds (or thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of enemies to incrementally become stronger, in this case without any controls beyond movement, until the entire play area becomes a visual disaster of exploding projectiles and whips and skeletons and giant plants, etc. That absurd endgame, which only gets wilder as the game progresses, is the main driving force for the player like a bite sized roguelike where the goal is to outscale the challenges the game sets against you. And Vampire Survivors, in its simplicity, has really nailed what makes this work. There is very little input required from the player, meaning that outside of making decisions on how to build your character, and which character to build, the skill floor is very low. Anyone with the desire to beat this game can get to the point where they are clearing levels reliably eventually, and the steady drip of new content up to and including paid DLC means they will have new levels to clear and things to unlock for a long time. Combine that with the nostalgic homage to Castlevania and the sick ass soundtrack, and the picture of how this game is as much of a success as it is becomes pretty clear. We’re going to talk about the unlock system and how it compels you to keep playing the game, how characters and weapons impact your strategy and by how much, and we briefly discuss the merits of referring to this game as a walking simulator.

Thank you for joining us again this week! We’re trying this new experiment this year called “play games Andy won’t like” and so far I think it’s gone pretty swimmingly. With Vampire Survivors being such a smash hit recently, did you pick it up? And if so, did you get a handle on the fuss, and what it was all about? Have you played other games in the budding genre? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going back to a game that’s been on our list for literally years, but felt appropriate (and short enough to help maintain our schedule), Jazzpunk! We hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 144 - Intimacy with the Sword - Gunfire Reborn

Adds one podcast every one week. Resets on shield break.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re finishing up our listener suggested games for Fanbruary by talking about Gunfire Reborn. Gunfire Reborn is a co-op first person shooter roguelite title with an emphasis on multiplayer play. This is a very mechanics focused game, with the primary enjoyment coming from the loop of gradually improving your character abilities, finding new and better guns and experimenting to see what works. As such, being someone who likes to get into the details to determine what builds will provide the biggest damage numbers at the end of the day is going to be pretty important to enjoying this game. Between having eight characters, each with their own abilities, upgrades and a small skill tree, the massive overall skill tree, a lot of different weapons, over one hundred scrolls to modify gameplay and a development roadmap that appears at the beginning of the game indicating they’re going to be adding even more, a lot of experimentation is required. And all of this is a good thing, because it gives the game the variety it needs to remain fun over many hours of gameplay. On the other hand, the game’s levels and enemies are less varied, which can sometimes feel a little underwhelming without any major shakeups beyond increasing difficulty. It’s a tricky balance to strike as a game that is designed to be played over a long period. The presentation elements of the game are serviceable, bordering on cool at times, with the character and enemy designs mostly being very solid, but it’s really the multiplayer roguelite elements that are going to carry your enjoyment with this one. We’re going to talk about choosing characters and how different each of them can feel from one another, we judge the feeling of different guns and how they compare to other games in the genre, and we hem and haw about comparing roguelikes to Hades for the umpteenth time.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP this week! We finally finished Fanbruary deep into March at this point, so I hope everyone is ready for more regularly scheduled programming, so to speak. This game was fun and unfortunately for my coverage of games moving forward from this, I’ve added it to the list of things that I’m playing regularly. How did this game land for you? Did this recapture the feeling of a game like Hades or is it a bit too unpolished for your liking? Let us know over on Discord or down in the comments below. Next time, we’re going to be moving in a pretty vastly different direction and are going to be talking about Shadows Over Loathing, so we hope you’ll tune in then!

NOCLIP Pocket E75 - Check for Lice - Cursed to Golf

You’ve been cursed…to podcast.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final Pocket episode for Fanbruary! Today, we were suggested Cursed to Golf, an indie roguelike golf title, which is just the kind of genre fusion to get you excited. Cursed to Golf uses what has been established as the “golf video game mechanics” where you play a timing minigame to set your shot power and the angle of your shot and then the physics system takes it from there, but places them within something akin to a precision platforming level. All of this is then wrapped in the roguelike genre where you play semi-randomized levels and running out of shots means you start again from the beginning, with the goal of completing 18 stages before that happens. We take issues with some of the global decisions that the game makes (and you’ll just have to listen to find out what those are), but from a nitty-gritty design perspective, this game is incredibly clever and the relatively simple gameplay is hyper focused and plays extremely well. Add to that a killer soundtrack and gorgeous pixel art and this game comes off as extremely well made and something that is just fun to be in. We’re going to be talking about the merits of combining the genres this game mashes up, how the game handles its roguelike elements, and whether or not you should always have beer when golfing.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This was an interesting game both to play and talk about because it really kicked our asses across the front and back nine. If you’re a fan of roguelikes generally, what did you think about the implementation of that genre in this game? Were you able to figure out the Ace Cards easily or was there a lot of trial and error involved? Let us know down in the comments or over on our Discord! And while you’re there, feel free to drop us a suggestion. Fanbruary is coming to an end, but we’re always open to hearing what people would like us to play. And as we move out of the month, we’re doing the first chosen-by-us game of the year, and we’re going with Vampire Survivors, a game that you’ve probably already played given its recent popularity, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 143 - A Hole Named James - Sacrifice

An enemy wizard is approaching your podcast!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for the first main episode of Fanbruary, we’re going to be talking about Sacrifice, an RTS title from 2000. Sacrifice is billed as an RTS game without a bunch of resources to manage, and it in fact does have only three: your health, mana and souls, the resource you use to summon units, but this did not stop us from being overwhelmed and bad at it. If you are looking for nuanced discussion of the game from seasoned RTS veterans, this isn’t going to be the podcast for you, but from a first encounter with the game, there’s still a lot going on. The production value present in Sacrifice is much higher than we could have expected, and there were many choices, both large sweeping decisions to smaller touches that show a lot of care was put into the game. Voice actors that video game fans and just average people would recognize, imaginative creature designs and a pretty expansive tutorial make this an appealing game to just about anyone. We’re going to talk about managing units in a third person RTS game, how the narrative/gameplay interaction is shockingly robust for a game of this era, and we somehow find a way to shoehorn in a reference to Blitzball.

Thank you for joining us again this week! When we first heard about Sacrifice, we thought we may have another Realms of the Haunting on our hands, but it turned out to be just a very competent entry in the RTS genre that people just seem to be less aware of than the big ones. Is it our unfamiliarity with the genre, or is Sacrifice actually a hidden gem? If you played along, were you able to manage the game easier than we did? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Gunfire Reborn to close out Fanbruary, so be sure to join us then!