Emotive Pixels: The Year of AAA Videogames

We explore the empty procedural rhetoric of changing Eve's clothes, and probe if we have *feelings* about the matter. We also cover two books, Elise Hu's "Flawless" and "Practicing Feminism in South Korea: The women's movement against sexual violence" by Kyungja Jung.

We find more in common between two seemingly different tiers of 2024 games than we expected, generating questions about interactivity and polish.

We get to know our cohost Will with his life's companion piece.

We discuss the 2025 charmer that would go on to sweep the Keighleys, while slowly continuing to investigate and yet unravel our gaming personalities.

We journey through 45 rooms and a permanent foundation in a game about becoming a character from Divinity: Original Sin 2.The hardest dungeon EVER designed, the video Will was recently watching, about Maze: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle by Christopher Manson

We subject many of our games covered so far against each other in only 2 of 8 brackets of a double elimination match, to be concluded sometime in the future. For the long-time fans 💖Featuring the following: The NPC Award, The Experimental Excellence Award, The Should Have Been Huge Award, Put It On Repeat Soundtrack Award, The Photomode or It Didn't Happen Award, The Inventory Tetris MVP Award, The If You Build It, They Will Cry Award, The Wait... What Just Happened? Award, The Came Out of Nowhere Award, The Haunting Vibes, No Jumpscares Award, and The Most Satisfying Button-Press Award.And producing the following quotes: "Bro, are you serious? [Game 1] launched broken; [game 2] launched to economic collapse and heartbreak!""This game was Factorio 10 years before Factorio existed!""I don't have any lovers to be in my dangerous space-time!""[This game] was great, back in like, 1960...""It's a fart, but it's a dragon punch.""Whereas, everybody has made a Duck Tales game by this point, which is what [this game] is."

We get deep into the plot of this large JRPG political election story, its metatextual commentaries (or lack thereof) on 16th century English authors, and its intertwining of Medieval royal succession and liberal democracy.

We break the hearts of fandom as we are baffled by the rampaging success of Baldur's Gate 3, an interesting game made of many spectacular details that don't cohere for us into something that we like playing - a game whose reception and accolades led us to be very confused: "It's all informed by the next sentence you don't get to pick."Part 2 in our evolving series of wrestling with understanding the inherent appeal of all-consuming and frictional media objects.

We continue our investigation of what big-budget gaming means with one of the titans of AAA graphical fidelity, marred by a rocky launch. Yet, after 4 years, the game captivates us all. Was it all the dollars spent on Polish demoscene graphics programmers, fantastic voice acting, and Studio Trigger tie-ins?

From Keighleys 2024 winners to Italian gamebook dozen-sellers. Craig: Lil' Gator Game, The Plucky Squire, Shadow Warrior 3, Road 96, Astro Bot Nate: Balatro on mobile updates, Another Crab's Treasure, 1000xResist, Final Fantasy XVI, Felvidek Pauly: 49 Keys, Home Safety Hotline, White Knuckle, NaissanceE

Season 5 is all about AAA gaming in 2025, and in episode 1 we inspect the EA-published Immortals of Aveum, which was declared a commercial failure last year, with most of its studio laid off. What is going on in the game - can we find a reason for its lack of success? Is it actually an indie game in disguise, and is that what "AA" gaming is? Remap Radio interview with Bret Robbins

We ride the cozy caravan into the storm in this charming open world. We ponder identity, coziness, and the differing texture between this and Sable.

We dive deep into the mind of a lekky on a crumbling North Shore oil rig as the otherworldly manifestation of our avoidance gives us a hard time.

We press through the fog of trauma.

We fall into the Olympic Peninsula trauma-bonded to a four-wheel Object of Power. Pacific Drive and the New Weird A Shell in the Pit's website Dear Dwery: Pacific Drive with Alexander Dracott

We probe the tender and potentially autistic-coded Harold Halibut, a German narrative game handmade with over 200kg of clay.

Three gamers absolutely fail to grok a cultural phenomenon that uniquely represents today's neoliberal world. Ordered map of Elden Ring Hustling Souls — Hard games and neoliberal catharsis Hollywood's Downfall Hidetaka Miyazaki on guides

We question the voice in our head during a surrealist existentialist Siberian adventure about faith and relationships, full of a lot of interesting and satisfying mechanics. This game has it all!

We slay a major white whale. Pauly: Future Racer 2000/Silkbulb Test, Chess for Idiots, Asphalt Legends 9, Mullet Mad Jack, Star Trucker, racing sim updates Nate: Night Runners Prologue, 20 Small Mazes, Sheepy: A Short Adventure, Exophobia, NASCAR Heat 4 (bad), Exit 8, The Thaumaturge Craig: Cuccchi, Super Mario Maker 2, Super Mario Brothers Wonder, God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla, Red Dead Redemption 2

We are gripped by poker-solitaire fever. Playing Balatro is Like Being Elon Musk on Ketamine

The gang's all here! We cover racing sims, VR DJing, visual novels, aspirational Unity jank, and splatterfests. Automobilista 2, Assetto Corsa, Hotshot Racing, Vampire Survivors, Windy Meadow - a Roadwarden Tale, Slay the Princess, Jett: The Far Shore + Given Time, Foam Stars, Persona 5, virtual reality DJing feat. Vinyl Reality and Tribe XR, Killer Frequency Pauly Mallwear's Necrowave Nightmare DJ setThe Playdate PodcastMKBHD's podcast interview with Teenage Engineering

We regale in deep philosophy and fantastic Yugoslav architecture.

We aim to hit the best line of loving Forza without comparing to Gran Turismo, but end up off-track.

A celebration of the Playdate, as well as some retrospectives on 2023. We take a new approach to reviewing the year, with 6 categories of highlights and a look to the year ahead. Some of what we mentioned: Saturday Edition, Crankin's Time Travel Adventure, Forza Motorsport, Talos Principle 2, Chants of Sennaar, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Tinykin, Super Mario Brothers Wonder, Jusant, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cities Skylines 2, and Baldur's Gate 3.

We attempt to fit Alan Wake 2 in the Alan-Wake-2-shaped-hole in Nate's heart labeled "POSTMODERN MEDIA THEORY".

We remove all the limbs, and are not triggered by any of it. In a bonus segment, we also fail to escape prison.

We visit Mortimer Goth's digs while creating a gorgeous but confusing [Loading...] bridge to the undead and time-warped.

A smattering of minisodes. We cover: Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Cult of the Lamb, Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, and also, more quickly: Dear Esther, Resident Evil Village (demo), Venba, Madison Karrh's "Birth", The Master's Pupil, Terra Nil, Suzerain, Roadwarden, Dave the Diver (speculative), Inscryption, Haven, Deathloop, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Viewfinder, Forza Horizon 5 & Rally Mexico/Hot Wheels DLCs, and Ace Attorney Chronicles. (Whew! 😅) Also covered: A psychology test from UW Madison that reveals interesting patterns in how you think - whether you're a visual thinker, whether you visualize language, and whether you have an internal monologue.

Craig has a blast being a dog.

We try to classify Alan Wake, like, as a person. Alan Wake from the Control universe

We tango our way through the tensions between Finance and R&D.

We explore the historical and theological sides of Josh Sawyer's Pentiment with an enjoyer of all things Lutheran.

We journey deep into City 17 in true first person mode, and discover who employs the G-Man.

We explore a procedural Chicago, in which we were twice joined by an open-hearted A$AP Rocky.

We learn Kratos's full story, and ponder why Microsoft struggles with the Sony flavor of AAA.

We journey to the hopeless glittering land of Revachol, where tides of history wash over citizens in ways we are unaccustomed to.

We reconvene after giving Immortality some time, and ingesting some thinkpieces.

We process what we absorbed from Sam Barlow's film fragment exploration game. In the next episode, we dive deeper.

We have our minds blown by just how much is going on in the Final Fantasy VII Remake part 1 and INTERmission Intergrade. Referenced pictures: one, and two

We debate whether DVD menus are games.In Space With Markiplier, part 1In Space With Markiplier, part 2Bloopers & Behind-the-scenesCorridor Crew + Markiplier Our favorite channels: Craig: Noclip, People Make Games, Writing On Games, Game Maker's Toolkit, MKBHD, Johnny Harris, Binging With Babish, Luke Thomas, Kinda Funny Nate: Regular Car Reviews ("Mr. Regular"), Numberphile, VHS Rallies Pauly: Pat Finnerty, StoneMountain64 and F.A.S.T Squad, CodeMiko (Vtuber), Paul's Hardware Will: Philip DeFranco, Corridor Crew, Jazza, Magnus Midtbø, Anton Fomenko, Crooked Media, Adam Savage

We turn the art dial on mental health to 11.

We fail to live up to Lucas Pope's hopes in his artsy and ambitious supernatural high seas detective followup to Papers Please.

We solve the mysteries of Perfect 25 to a soundtrack of divine Scottish citypop. Road to IGF: Inside the fantastic murder-mystery design of Paradise Killer Interview with Kaizen Game Works LudoNarracon livestream with Kaizen Game Works XGM Radio Episode 70 w/ Composer Barry "Epoch" Topping' seems to have been lost to time... Making the Music of Paradise Killer Music for Paradise: A bit more in-depth looks at some of the songs' constructions

We process the deaths of 150 years in a labyrinthine house in Friday Harbor, Washington.Shall We Play a Game?, What's Good Games, Ólafur Arnalds

We traverse the United Cities of Iceland and reconnect America.

We discuss the emotional impacts of two large presences in our year of Covid, and attempt to process why the experience of playing these two games felt somehow transcendent in a year of isolation, loneliness, and a void of travel. GeoGuessr, a free to play online gamified Google Maps Street View game astronaut.io, a website that randomly serves unseen YouTube videos and somehow strikes a similar chord to GeoGuessr

We talk about our perception of the themes and designers' intents in this labyrinthine surreal art of 5 acts, conceived and released over a decade in the wake of American recession. Un Pueblo de Nada, or all WEVP broadcasts GDC '14: The Scenography of Kentucky Route Zero Junebug's solo album Eggplant's 'Into the Depths' series Justin Clark's GameSpot review Personal reflections: Blake Hester: A Kentuckian ex-alcoholic's deep reflections on Kentucky Route Zero Amanda Hudgins, Bullet Points: The anger, pain, and disgust of Kentucky Route Zero being the primary game experience about Kentucky, written by outsiders (also see the whole issue) Nicholas O'Brien, Critical Distance: On the themes of Kentucky Route Zero (theme analysis, with many supporting links) Carolyn Petit: Revisiting Acts I-IV while Desperately Looking for Work

On our first episode recorded since 2017, we gather to discuss Snowrunner and its predecessors, off-roading games about driving trucks through miserably gorgeous terrain. Check out the Story Break episode proposing a movie based on Snowrunner! Naturally, it's a Tarkovsky flick.

We compare a game of contextual discovery to a game whose incredible philosophy is apparently all skippable.

This week, we take to the streets in 2015's return to form for a gigantic franchise that got so lost it even had a movie before examining its roots.