Episode 123 - 3,000 Emails - Life is Strange: True Colors

Bah! What a thankless life! Being a podcaster in the age of monsters!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Life is Strange: True Colors, because we just can’t quit this series apparently. The third game follows the gameplay precedents the series has adhered to thus far, being an adventure game in the “Telltale style” (a term that seems more and more dated since the studio was closed and then reanimated), that focuses on dialog trees and choice-matters narrative branches as opposed to puzzles. It even maintains a lot of the aesthetic and tone set up in the previous games, though notably the plot is now a lot more grounded barring Alex’s power to read and occasionally feel other’s emotions. And that power is probably the closest the series has come to smoothly integrating new mechanics into its overall structure, given how important emotions are to, you know, interfacing with other human beings. If you don’t know the series, everything revolves around its characters and plot, so we’d recommend playing the game first if you’re interested before listening to the episode and I won’t get into anything more spoiler-y here. We’re going to be talking about character building and how the game chooses to focus its emotional energy this time around, the setting of the game and how it succeeds in setting the groundwork for the game’s tone, but may stifle other aspects, and we spoil the true lore of the game which mixes an eldritch death cult and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Thanks for joining us today! If you’ve been listening for a while, you may have caught our episode on Life is Strange 2, which I would say we had…some issues with. Coming off a series low (in our opinion), we wondered if this third game could recapture what made the first game actually good. And it mostly does! We’d love to hear about your views on the trajectory of the franchise and whether you agree with our assessment on this (or any other LiS game). Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going from a game you can mostly play with one hand to a game that feels like you might need three to competently manage in Metroid Dread, so check us out then.

NOCLIP Pocket E53 - Medicinal Straw - Toem

A new podcast has been added to your HikeLady,

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Toem, a photo-taking adventure game from developer Something We Made, and a game that is, well, frankly, sort of squarely in our wheelhouse. In Toem, you are tasked with going from place to place and fulfilling requests, which you do by using your camera and some limited environmental interaction to solve puzzles and obtain items. The camera is definitely the most noteworthy mechanical part of this game, switching from the game’s isometric perspective into a first person one and allowing you to freely move around and take pictures at whatever angle you choose. This is used to good effect, putting things in locations you can barely see without the on-the-ground viewpoint given to you by the camera. It makes the puzzles feel engaging and occasionally challenging, yet the lenient completion requirements allow you to moderate exactly how chill of an experience you want from it. Combine that with the game’s grayscale art style and varied characters, and you have a short, laid back game that scratches that itch for a do nothing night at home that you can play in a single sitting. We’re going to be talking about the unique way this game approaches puzzles, what it does to encourage completing the game at your own pace, and we try to turn the podcast into a news show for some dumb reason.

Thank you for joining us again this week! Toem was, to us, a pretty decent follow up to Ocarina of Time, just because it is so short and laid back. There is functionally no pressure in this game and it makes for a really calm experience to sit down and play. Did you find the slow but dense style of this game to work for you, or were you searching for something a little deeper? How did you feel about the presentation, whether it be the simplistic visuals or the acoustic indie soundtrack? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord, and maybe drop a suggestion for what we should play next. Next time, we’re playing a game that no one requested, in the form of Wandersong, which, debatably, is a pretty similar game to to all the indie adventure games we play, but with a more musical bent. It’s certainly a lot more colorful than Toem, so at least that sets it apart. We hope you’ll come back for it next time.

Episode 122 - Narrow Guillotine Alley - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Would you like to hear what I said again?

Welcome back! I don’t know how much I really need to say about Ocarina of Time, it’s one of the few axioms of video games that you can just assume people know about and understand. This game accomplished a lot for the industry at the time, making a lasting impact on both games, in the form of how design changed after it came out, and players who would use it as a point of comparison for action adventure games for years to come. But we’re playing it now, in 2021, and want to examine it using our modern lens. What design decisions hold up, and what felt like a limitation of the time or the hardware it was originally released on? How has its impact affected other games in its series and otherwise? How annoying, comparatively, are the different NPCs who talk to you against your will? We try to answer these questions as well as discuss our experiences more in our usual way and hopefully that ends up being an entertaining take on this game that has been talked absolutely to death over the last twenty years. We’re going to be talking about dungeon design and how the 3DS update brought out the best in some of them, the presentation of the game in terms of its world and atmosphere and the effect that had to enrapture players at the time, and the many Unix systems that we should know.

Thank you for joining us this week. This game almost feels like a right of passage for content creation, and it’s probably about time we finally talk about it. It certainly has a legacy that is lasting, and coming at it with fresh-ish eyes won’t really change that, but it’s interesting to see what parts of it still work because it really shines a light on the parts of the game that have been emulated by developers over the years. Is this a nostalgic classic for you, or did you get on the boat late? Have you, however impossible it might seem to people, not ever played this? Let us know in the comments, or over on Discord. Next time, we’re going from an all time classic to a newer title in a beloved (by us) franchise with Life is Strange: True Colors, so come back for that if you thought it was weird for us to not be talking about a game mostly about walking around and talking to people.

NOCLIP Pocket E52 - Free the Jesus Trapped Inside - The Procession to Calvary

All hail Podcast John!

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about The Procession to Calvary, a point and click adventure game with an art style composed entirely of renaissance era paintings. If that hasn’t already sold you on the idea, then I don’t really know what your deal is. Comparisons to Monty Python are pretty common in the discourse surrounding this game, and it’s pretty clear why that is, given the art style and the game’s emphasis on humor. To some extent, the game is much more focused on being a comedy than it is a point and click game, and that absolutely works for it. The barebones mechanic set also allows for more of your verbs to be used in these jokes as well, with the ability to punch pretty much anyone and applaud the in-game musicians performing the music you’ll hear throughout the game. Overall, it’s a interesting and pretty strange little title that’s worth trying out if only to see something visually new and outlandish. We’re going to be talking about what made jokes land or not for us, whether or not the puzzles in this game constitute “moon logic", and, somehow, some way, for some reason, Chalk Zone.

Thank you for joining us again this week! If you played this one, did the old-ish adventure game mechanics make you feel nostalgic while playing this game, or were they a hurdle to get over? Was this funny to you? Let us know in the comments, or pop over to our Discord to talk about it with us. Starting, well, technically last episode, we’re going to be slowing down releases a bit due to some scheduling concerns, so sorry about that. If this game was up your alley, though, maybe try out some of the other weird games we’ve covered over the years in the meantime. No time like the present, right? Next time, we’re going to be talking about Toem, a recent release which is less on the irreverent humor side and more on the cute photography side of games we talk about on Pocket, so we hope you’ll come back for that.

Episode 121 - Psytation Needed - Psychonauts 2

Name for me this podcast so roughly bearing me o’er the sea!

Welcome back to NOCLIP in the not so spooky month of November! Today, we’re going to be talking about Psychonauts 2, the long-awaited sequel from Double Fine. Psychonauts 2 is an action platformer game in much the same way as its predecessor, but with a more ambitious scope that comes from having so many years in between titles. As it picks up briskly from where Rhombus of Ruin ended (which, itself, picks up immediately after the events of the first game), you might be surprised at the depth of the game’s themes. The tone is very much the same, with an emphasis on humor that plays into the game’s outlandish premise, but it spends the time to much more critically examine its characters. The game focuses on the real impact its characters have on each other and their surroundings all the while honing the platforming elements, elevating it from a cult favorite to a pretty genuinely well made game on all fronts. The movement is smooth and your abilities feel more integrated in combat, making everything from level progression to the greatly expanded side content feel natural, exciting and fun. We’re going to be talking about how the levels in this game feel more fleshed out, though maybe less punchy, than in the first, the psy powers and how they’ve been changed and updated, and about Nick Johnsmith’s juicy middle.

Thank you for listening! By the nature of us doing the podcast only in recent years, it feels like it hasn’t been that long since we played the original Psychonauts, but as big fans of the original, we couldn’t let this one go without comment. How do you feel about this game and the changes it made? Was it satisfyingly different to you? Not different enough? Did you also wonder why the other intern kids got pretty roughly sidelined for most of the game? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord where you can talk about the game and suggest new games for us to play! Next time, we’re going to be talking about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which I’m going to say like it’s no big deal, but am actually nervous to have something interesting to say about it after like 25 years and a million think pieces. So I hope you’ll join us in our existential dread then!

NOCLIP Pocket E51 - One Noodle - Carrion

Podcast 60% breached.

Happy Halloween! For our final game this October, we’re going to become the monster and take on Carrion, a Metroidvania where you play as a big tentacle monster. On its own, that is kind of a lackluster description for the game, but what makes the game successful at its goals is a bit difficult to describe in a short way. What the game really excels at is making the monster you play as feel just right, in a way that the premise doesn’t quite get across. You’ll stalk enemies from just out of sight and attack in a quick and lethal way. Your movement is extremely free, being able to move straight up vertical shafts as if gravity doesn’t exist by propelling yourself up the walls, but also encumbered enough by your sheer mass that getting to some places takes just long enough to create tension. You are extremely powerful, but very fragile. The game may not be particularly scary, exactly, but it does succeed in putting you in the headspace of a monster, which if that isn’t in the Halloween spirit, I don’t know what is. We’re going to be talking about how the level design keeps you moving forward while still keeping the ability-unlock progression system of a Metroidvania, how wrapping your head around the controls and your movement options actually forces you to play the game like the monster should, and we talk about the butchery equipment that was sold to us as kids.

Thank you for listening to NOCLIP this week, and for another year of October horror games! We’re pretty happy with the variety we managed this year and will keep an eye out for more of the strange and interesting projects as we plan for next year’s crop. How about you, though? What horror games, if any, did you play to get into the spirit this year? Did we manage to introduce you to something new or at least have you try something you haven’t yet? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord! As we move into November, we want to go in an entirely different direction, and are going to be talking about The Procession to Calvary, so we hope you’ll join us for that!

Episode 120 - Dude With Knife - Outlast

When people get scared, they’re as likely to turn to podcasts as anything else.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Outlast, which is one of the classics of the modern horror game community. This is a first person horror adventure game that gives you no way of defending yourself against the things that are coming to kill you (a “haunted house game” in our parlance), but despite coming out when this type of game was decidedly in vogue, it sets itself apart in two big ways. First, it is shockingly fast paced for a game in the genre, with a lot of your time spent running and following a fairly clear path, and less of it spent investigating and exploring the way something like Amnesia would play. And the second, pretty clearly, is its aesthetic. The washed out green atmosphere is a staple of the game’s marketing which carries over into its DLC and sequel as well, but also emphasizes the found-footage style they were going for here. Using your camera as a flashlight and as a way to get collectibles in a kind of token way is the gimmick that the game rides on and it does succeed in generating an identity of its own. We’re going to be talking about how the game holds up after several years and multiple refinements of its genre, the effectiveness of patrolling enemies, and we explore the assumptions created by the “gamer brain.”

Thank you for joining us for the last episode of Halloween! On the main podcast, anyway, we still have one more horror title to talk about on Pocket next week, so be sure to check in for that to really round out the month. Did you play Outlast when it came out, or had it recommended while talking about horror titles? Do you think it holds up? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Thank you for listening and I hope your October has been pleasantly spooky, or unpleasantly, or whatever you wanted it to be. As we’re leaving October, next time we’re going to be talking about Psychonauts 2, the newest entry in the list of game sequels that released extremely far apart from their predecessors, so we hope you’ll be back for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E50 - An Edgelord Production - Sally Face

Once they started calling me that, I figured if I owned the podcast, they couldn’t use it against me.

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! It’s the middle of October which means we are right in the middle of horror season, and so today we’re talking about Sally Face. Sally Face is a horror adventure game made by a single person that mashes together so many elements of horror that you might find it surprising that the game actually manages to be surprisingly sentimental. While the game begins with a combination of real world horror and a couple of ghosts, it quickly spirals out of control and adds more and more elements, potentially as a consequence of its episodic release structure, or maybe a desire to fit all the developers ideas into the game, but whether you find this disarming or charming is going to come down to personal preference. It’s a game that has a certain edge to it from its lo-fi production and subject matter, but in the end, if you stick with it, you will become strangely endeared to the characters. We’re going to talk about how tone and atmosphere fit around overall aesthetics, having a mix of different mechanics thrown in for variety and how well it was pulled off, and we discuss this games meets meets meets between Nickelodeon cartoons, video games and collectible cards from the 80s.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game comes from a recommendation from an IRL friend (thanks, btw, if you’re reading this), and we were pretty surprised by how positive we came off on it. Which is a spoiler for the episode, I guess. If you played along, let us know how you felt about it down in the comments or over on Discord! I would imagine for people less entrenched in adventure games this may feel a little mechanics-light, but it hits a sweet spot I think for most audiences with a tolerance for the kind of game this is. We’re going to be wrapping up Halloween on another pocket episode, so be sure to join us while you’re carving your jack-o’-lanterns or eating candy corn or whatever you do for the season as we discuss Carrion next time!

Episode 119 - Orange Flavored Apple - The Medium

Remember, you can’t save every podcast.

Welcome to our first episode for this year’s Halloween! We’re going to be talking about The Medium, a horror adventure game with the hook that you are able to control your character in two different versions of the game world simultaneously; both the real world and the spirit world are accessible due to your status as a “medium.” What this translates to mechanically is that you move around the two versions of the world and need to solve various puzzles in order to get around. It has a little bit more depth than that, with sections having you in only one world or the other, or swapping between the two, but it does mostly consist of traversal obstacles and simple lock-and-key style puzzles. It tends to get by on its visuals, which are genuinely interesting, using color grading and surreal landscapes to really separate the two versions of the game’s world. We’re going to be talking about variety versus depth of mechanics, the importance of considering the non-literal interpretation of your narrative, and we try to figure out how to blink your ears.

Thank you for joining us again this week, and this year for another spooky Halloween. This developer, Bloober Team, sort of gained their popularity with “Layers of Fear” and has been steadily growing in budget in their later releases. We haven’t exactly kept up with them, so it was a bit surprising to see a game with more of a mechanical focus than the games we were aware of previously. How did this game sit with you? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord. And stay tuned, as we still have another game (and a couple more Pocket episodes) on horror games this month, and next time we’re talking about Outlast, one of the classic horror titles with a deliberate found footage aesthetic.

Six Years of NOCLIP - Balloon Clown May

Unbelievably, we’ve now been doing this podcast for the length of a US Senator’s term, and that’s weird in at least several ways. We hope we’ve pleased our constituency during that time, though, especially since the other candidates in the upcoming race are likely much more popular than us and we do intend to try skating by on the high incumbency rates of elected officials. This metaphor kinda stopped working immediately.

For today’s anniversary celebration though, we’re giving you another selection of outtakes, bloopers and our sound test ramblings culled from this year’s episodes covering topics from how thoroughly we theme our episodes to reality tv dating shows and slogans for fictional companies. We hope you enjoy, and if you don’t, well, I can’t exactly blame you. We want to thank our friends for joining us on several episodes this year, the listeners for showing interest in what we do and validating this particular questionable use of our time, and whoever is out there creating the market for the unique and exceptionally weird games we like to play on Pocket sometimes. More horror titles are coming up for the rest of this month, so keep an eye out for that, and we’ll be back to provide an awful listening experience again next year. See ya then!

NOCLIP Pocket E49 - That Certain Elephant - Buddy Simulator 1984

What’s your favorite podcast?

Welcome to Halloween! To kick off the spooky season, we’re talking about Buddy Simulator 1984, which is a kind of a weird melding between a number of different genres, most of which I won’t want to give away if you haven’t yet played the game. While Buddy Simulator definitely has the look and feel of a horror game, especially in its advertising, that mix of genres is equaled by a mix of tones and the game can be as funny as it is unsettling at times. To avoid giving too much away, this is an experimental indie game with a retro art style, old school musical sensibility, self aware sense of humor (and general themes of self awareness) and a quirky way of blending these things together, and that’s either something you probably know if you’re into or not. We’re going to be talking about games that can be both narratively and mechanically different for different players or playthroughs, comparisons to other games and what this says about this game’s design and what it does to stand out, and how the game handles you asking to bring a sea predator around with you at all times.

Thank you for joining us this week! We’re just getting started both as far as our October horror games go and, in fact, episodes we’re releasing today, so be sure to stick around and subscribe for the incoming deluge of episodes. Did you play Buddy Simulator? How do you feel about the infinite comparisons it gets to that certain other black and white indie game? Is it warranted, or does this do enough of its own thing to stand on its own? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Our next episode of Pocket for this month is going to be exploring Sally Face, a hand drawn point and click adventure game with a sort of early 2000’s indie comic aesthetic sense. It’s a bit of an odd one, so we hope you’ll check out the episode!

Episode 118 - Felt Like a Big Man - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Raiden something happened to me last Thursday when I was driving home. I had a couple of miles to go - I looked up and saw a glowing orange podcast in the sky, to the east! It was moving very irregularly... suddenly there was intense light all around me - and when I came to, I was home. What do you think happened to me?

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Metal Gear Solid 2, the sequel to Metal Gear Solid and arguably the game that cemented Kojima as a designer with an eye for details who was willing to do some of the strangest things in AAA games. And also made it clear that he really wanted to make movies. Regardless of how you feel about MGS2’s plot, or many of Kojima’s plots generally, the game tells its story through some of the most elaborate cutscenes and lengthiest dialogue ever seen to this point in the industry, and that was debatably among the things most discussed when the game came out. Beyond that though, this game is mechanically a step up from its predecessor as well, and does a lot more with its stealth action framework than people were used to, making use of the new first person aiming mechanics as well as a robust inventory of usable items to force its players to think outside the box (ha ha) to tackle its challenges. The game gained notoriety from the surprises it kept hidden in the lead-up to its release, and even afterward received praise for being inventive and focusing on things games usually didn’t at that time. All that said, it’s been twenty years since it first released, so we have to ask if it held up? Is it still a justifiable favorite MGS2 game even when stacked against its later sequels and prequels? Find out, as we talk about the bizarre twists and questionable plot decisions made in the game, the variety of ways you can deal with the games obstacles, and when the bird crap comes back.

Thank you for joining us once again. The spoilers for this game are more or less a known quantity by anyone who plays games these days, but I still don’t want to get too much into them here because they were the type of thing that really intrigued me when I played the game the first time. If you’ve played MGS2, what was your favorite weird thing that happened? Do you think it held up, or is it kind of a nightmare to play these days, or did you always find it kind of pretentious? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re getting into Halloween, our favorite time of year, and we’ll be talking about The Medium, so I hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E48 - Murdering You Magazine - Limbo

Press A to Podcast (I don’t know, there’s no text in this game!)

Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about Limbo, which is the first game from Danish developer Playdead, and their breakout hit as well. Something about the game’s simplicity, both in controls and art style really struck a chord with people when it released and it became surprisingly successful in the indie space back in 2010. A lot of the cinematic platformer type gameplay seen here would get refined in their next game, Inside, which we talked about like a million years ago, but there is still something distinctly eerie about Limbo. The game is very quiet and pretty dark, with each failure by the player punctuated by a more grisly animation than you would imagine, and the overall difficulty means you’ll be seeing these deaths fairly often. Whether the trial and error gameplay sits well with you is a matter of personal taste, but you can’t deny the tone it sets or the atmosphere it puts you in. We’re going to be talking about difficulty and how the game ramps up in complexity as it goes on, the intricacies in the detail Playdead packed into the world, and how I am a big hypocrite (or am I?).

Thank you for joining us again this week! We felt like this game was an appropriate lead in to the spookiest month of the year, given its dour tone and creepy visual style. What did you think of Inside? Did you play this years ago, or maybe visited it for the first time for this podcast? How did the difficulty of the game strike you, and did you feel it became appropriately complex near the end of the game? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re entering Halloween proper, and for our first Pocket episode, we’ll be talking about Buddy Simulator 1984, so please check us out then… or else! Scary enough for you?!

Episode 117 - Snow Ass Peaks - Super Mario 3D World (and Bowser's Fury)

Mario, this podcast is out of control! I tried to help it but it’s too big and mad.

Welcome back to the podcast! It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about a Mario platformer (depending on if you could Mario Maker, it’s been two to three years), so with Nintendo celebrating the 35th anniversary last year and releasing the Switch port of 3D World, it seemed like a good time. So we waited a year and then did it. Our lack of timeliness aside, 3D Word was the Wii U’s entry into the world of 3D Mario platformers, and like the console it was originally on it was, let’s say, differently appreciated. 3D World follows the design sense of Super Mario 3D Land, a game that was on the 3DS and tried to merge the 3D and 2D Mario titles in the way it was presented and designed and this felt normal and pretty good on a handheld console. 3D World, however, puts the spotlight on some of the stranger aspects of this choice now that it sits in the same circle as games like Mario Galaxy or 64. It being different than Mario’s other 3D outings is not inherently a bad thing, though, and the game is still as charming and polished as you’ve come to expect, but whether or not it’s what you’re looking for in a Mario game will be up to you to decide. As an added bonus, we’ll be talking about Bowser’s Fury, a game that is more in the design space of Mario Sunshine et al., which came packed in with the Switch port of 3D World. We’re going to be talking about camera controls and perspective in a game that is trying to be a hybrid of 2D and 3D platformer design, presentation and absolutely nailing the musical interpretation of Mario, a game series that helped create the video game music paradigm, and we try for several minutes to remember the names of some Mario 64 levels.

Thank you for joining us again this week! It really has been a startlingly long time since we’ve discussed a Mario game, and despite this being a newer title (in the form of the Switch port), it’s still one of the more off-beat games and one we probably would have gotten around to had the port never released. How did 3D World strike you? Did you think Bowser’s Fury was worth getting the game for, or maybe not think we should have devoted almost half the podcast to it? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! We’ve been going back to some older games recently, and we’ve got one more to go before we hit Halloween hard. Next time we’re going to be talking about Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, a heavily anticipated sequel and one that didn’t do what a lot of people expected, so we hope you’ll join us for that.

NOCLIP Pocket E47 - The Three Rs of Adventuring - Sorcery!

POD: By casting this spell, the caster may talk about video games weekly.

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Sorcery!, a game based on a series of choose-your-own-adventure books created by Steve Jackson that seek to emulate the experience of a traditional tabletop RPG in a single player format. The task of adapting these books falls to Inkle, the developer of previous podcast game Heaven’s Vault, and it somehow feels so natural I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of these types of books adapted in a similar way. Between the flowery language, some of which was taken directly from the books and others which have been invented for the game, the implementation of the spellcasting system and the beautiful visual presentation of the maps and characters, it really makes you feel like you just hopped on Roll20 with your GM for a weird one-on-one session of an RPG. Not to say that the game doesn’t have its shortcomings, but even as it drags in some places and can feel a little cheap at times (though the pain of getting killed unexpectedly is lessened significantly by the generous retry system), the novelty of it makes it worth checking out anyway. We’re going to be talking about the pushback that your typical player will feel against being able to rewind at any time, how spellcasting works and how it allows for interesting solutions to the game’s problems, and how, if it is in any way, this is like a Jumanji.

Thank you for joining us again this week! This game has been out for some time, and the books it’s based on have been around for almost forty years, but we couldn’t help but play it once we heard about it. Are you an RPG-er (a godless servant of the magiks), and does this game tickle the same fancies that playing D&D or whatever flavor of TTRPG you jive with does? Let us know down in the comments or over on our discord! I realize we are hurtling toward October at this point and it represents a big month for us typically, so to get in the mood, let’s talk about a game that falls more on the unsettling side and less as outright horror. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Limbo! (I’m just excited, this game doesn’t also have an exclamation point in its name) Which, of course, is the breakout game from Playdead, whose later game, Inside, we already covered what feels like a million years ago, so we hope you’ll join us then.

Episode 116 - Wholly Unholy - Devil May Cry

I should have been the one to fill your podcast with light!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Devil May Cry, the first game in the DMC series that defined a genre in a way. Character action games of today all have a bit of DNA (the D stands for “Devil” here, presumably) from this game in them, whether that’s in level design, unlockable moves/combos or just the focus on stylish combat, usually with an accompanying rating system, and so going back to see how they were all implemented in the first DMC game was quite an experience. An experience made all the more unexpected by how well the first game manages all these systems. Truly, the level of competency on display here for what is more or less the first try is impressive and makes me question whether this game really was designed that well, or if the genre hasn’t pushed that far forward in the last twenty years. Presentation and questionable voice acting aside, even the game’s visual style with it’s gothic architecture, quietly grotesque enemy design, and the anime sword biker detective himself, Dante, has gone down as nothing short of iconic in the world of games. We’re going to be talking about the strength in simplicity in a combat system, the elements of old-style design that do manage to hold this game back on a modern playthrough, and how we think that castles are…pretty cool.

Thank you for joining us again this week. We may have played the remastered version of this game, but it did still feel like the proverbial blast from the past to pick it up again after nearly two decades. How do you feel the game holds up? Is this game your favorite in the series, or was it dethroned by one of its many sequels? Do you want to make some kind of meme about our podcast featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series? Let us know in the comments, or over on our Discord server where we talk about the games and take suggestions. Next time, we’re going to be taking on another game that’s been remastered in the form of Super Mario 3D World (+ Bowser’s Fury), the Switch port of the Wii U Mario game that presumably very few people ended up actually playing in its original incarnation. We hope you’ll check that one out too.

NOCLIP Pocket E46 - A Unix System - Oxenfree

In the end we all become podcasts,

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Oxenfree, the narrative adventure game about some spooky things that happen on an island at night. The game is extremely focused on its story, so I hesitate to give much more of the plot away from that, but its unique elements come from the way that story is delivered. The primary mechanic of the game is a conversation system that uses fully voice acted dialogue in an attempt to more naturally mimic actual conversations as opposed to more traditional adventure games where you can sit around for thirty minutes before answering someone’s question. Does it always work? Well, no, not always, but it gives a sense of urgency to a system that rarely has one without displaying a hokey timer on the screen. Beyond that, the game’s appeal comes largely from the tone and aesthetic, with a cartoony art style and dreamy synth music all wrapped around a very modern collection of characters who are all written well enough to be believable in a Spielbergian kind of way. We’re going to be talking about how this game fits into the wider genre of adventure games, how the mechanical elements function and help drive the plot forward as well as giving you incentive to act in a reasonable way toward the other characters, and we debate whether the existence of ghosts has any bearing on this fictional narrative.

Thank you for joining us this week! What did you think about Oxenfree? I know the game definitely has a following, likely driven by the likeable characters and deeper mysteries it contains, but on a first playthrough, how much of this did you actually engage with? Did this game inspire multiple playthroughs to see what other endings it offered or were you satisfied with letting the story be what it was based on your decisions? Let us know in the comments or over on Discord! Next time, we’re breaking out our fancy dice and player’s handbooks to play through Sorcery!, a TTRPG simulation game from Inkle, the developer of Heaven’s Vault, a game we played 8 months ago but feels like it was more recent than that because time is an illusion. Anyway, thanks for listening!

Episode 115 - Optimal Mastication - Xenoblade Chronicles

This is the strongest podcast ever built!

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about another expansive JRPG in the form of Xenoblade Chronicles. A series that debuted on the Wii, and took off, like several before it, due to its protagonist being included in Super Smash Bros., Xenoblade is an RPG with a subgenre that is really tricky to pin down. The overarching game, with its characters and story, feels like a traditional epic JRPG in the same way that a Final Fantasy game does, but its mechanics between combat and its quest system feel ripped straight out of a more Western MMO. With an emphasis on cooldown management and positioning based attacks, there isn’t much like it in the single-player realm of the genre, though the staple classes of Tank/DPS/Healer are all present here. That isn’t to say there isn’t room for experimentation, and the depth present in the game’s systems are arguably one of the most engaging parts of playing this. And if you aren’t here for the mechanical depth and number crunching, the game makes a pretty significant impression aesthetically as well. With an emphasis on huge vistas (which also translate into a large overall world map) and a soundtrack that kicks way more ass than you would expect, it doesn’t really pull its punches in this area either. Obviously the game has its flaws, and it’s been polarizing if public opinion can be believed, but it’s definitely worth checking out if only for the couple of things it does absolutely incredibly well. We’re going to be talking about the mechanical interactions the game almost hides away behind a probably-too-strong protagonist character, how the game’s emphasis on character plays into it both narratively and mechanically in an extremely satisfying way, and we pitch the movie that the expansion should have been and cast the really underutilized Composite Jason Alexander.

Thank you for listening this week! We have been (read: Chad has been) putting off playing this game for a while due to just how long it is, but it was surprisingly easy to sink into the game once it started. What side of the “love it or hate it” spectrum do you fall on? Did Sharla’s incredibly stupid costume design and weird posture make you quit playing this game the second she appeared on screen? Let us know over in our Discord or in the comments! Next time, prepare to have your dark soul filled with light, because we’re going to be playing Devil May Cry (the first one), so we hope you’ll join us for that!

NOCLIP Pocket E45 - God of Gamers - OlliOlli

Frontside Varial Podcast

Welcome back to the show this week! Today, we’re going to be talking about OlliOlli. This is a skateboarding game from 2014 that approaches the genre in a different way than it’s usually handled. While still definitely showing an arcade style high score type of design, your run will end as soon as you bail, enforcing an almost Meat Boy or Hotline Miami style of iterative gameplay, where you repeat a level over and over until you get that “perfect” run. This means that even the early levels can be an intense experience, and when compounded with the controls, which have you performing tricks by inputting a sequence of directions on the analog stick (not unlike fighting game special moves), the game definitely presents a system that is difficult to master, but satisfying once achieved. Given that, the biggest hurdle for this game to clear is whether or not it contains the breadth of content necessary for most people to want to actually make it to that level. We’re going to be talking about the value the difficulty brings to the game, how music can help motivate players, and lament the fact we were never forced to pull out the claw grip.

Thank you for joining us for this episode on a game that is a staggering seven years old at this point. My opinion on this game kinda flipped since first playing it nearer its release, and it feels a lot more interesting these days. How do you feel about this game? Did you make it to the level of mastery we could only speculate on? Do you also think high level play of a pretty simplistic overall game is a cool thing? Does the sequel fix the issues we perceive as being present in this one? Let us know over on our discord or in the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Oxenfree, a narrative adventure game with a focus on puzzles and dialogue, making it about as unrelated to this game as it can be. We hope you’ll join us for that.

Episode 114 - Bring Back Bricks - TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

Podcasts AND zombies? This is seriously supernatural.

Welcome! On this episode of the podcast, we’re going to be talking about TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, a game developed by Free Radicals and and the third and final entry in the TimeSplitters franchise, a console FPS franchise that rode the wave of multiplayer shooters released on consoles during the span of time between when Goldeneye released and when people got sick of them. This particular entry lands on the latter half of that timeline, and is in some ways better and worse for it. Better because there is clearly experience behind the design of this game, with a huge emphasis on variety both in the campaign and multiplayer modes, a bevy of content to unlock, and smaller, arguably more unnecessary, complexities hidden within each of these. And worse because it does feel a bit like a hodgepodge of FPS design philosophies, taking the originality it has in its theme and running with it over that huge amount of content in ways that may stretch it a bit too thin. Either way, if you’re nostalgic for this game, or even just this era of everyone sitting on the couch in the basement, arguing over who gets the good controller and drinking Surge, this game will help you travel back in time to relive that experience. We’re going to be talking about the impact of Rare’s FPS games on the N64 on how the genre, and therefore this game, developed, the aesthetics and theme that place this game somewhere between pastiche and parody to video games’ most favorite media genres, and we discuss which character might be a silly himbo.

Thank you for joining us this week, Dan. This episode was an inevitability that we successfully put off for almost six years. The game holds a bit of special place for a subset of our childhood friends and was a preferred game to play in those after-school moments and weekend parties in the suburbs as a tween. But what about the rest of you? Did you play this game when it came out, or, even more unlikely, revisit it recently? Do you think it holds up as well as we did, or were we fully blinded by the heavy tinting of the nostalgia glasses? Let us know over on Discord or in the comments on YouTube. Either way, we hope you enjoyed the episode and join us next time when we talk about Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition!