Watch Out For Fireballs!

We traveled to the Midwest Gaming Classic once again, this time to talk about what we're broadly calling "creative games". The headliner is Mario Paint, but the idea of games that let you either make games, or make art, goes way back. So we talk about the history, talk about how this articulates, and try to answer the question: Why is using games to make art so fun?

Life is Strange is a Telltale-style cinematic adventure game about a young woman named Max Caulfield who has a very strange week. On the same day, she discovers that she has the ability to rewind time, and she uses this ability to avert the death of Chloe, an estranged friend. Her powers get her wrapped up in a murder mystery that points to corruption in the heart of the small town of Arcadia Bay.

Some games are trapped in time, and this Dispatch episode has us wondering what makes some games age worse than others. How can something made 25 years ago feel more fresh and something made 5 years ago?

Resident Evil 2 is a classic game, so it's understandable that we were slightly nervous when Capcom said they were remaking it. Our worries were unfounded, because Capcom is back, baby, and this remake isn't just a good game in its own right, it does justice to the original. It makes sensible updates and incorporates memorable elements from every era of the series. This is how you do it. To hear the full episode, just back our Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/posts/woff-233-evil-2-26023975)

It's kind of ridiculous that we haven't done a Halo game yet. First because they were very big, and second because they're aging very poorly. However, there's plenty to like about Halo 3: ODST, the weird side story in the Halo franchise. The Rookie is separated from his squad, and he must roam the ruins of New Mombasa to find evidence of their battles and piece together what happened. We hope you like your jazz smoky, because it's all we got in stock.

Captian Martin Walker is not up to the task. Dubai is in ruins, and things just get worse from there. This is a military shooter about military shooters, and it's lauded for its story while its play is dismissed. But we're here to tell you: the play is fine!

We hear your thoughts on our Desperation Month games, and talk about what the deal is with gamers.

Desperation Month concludes with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, a Ukranian-developed open world first person shooter. The Zone is a harsh place with infinite possibilities, but you have to fight to find them. Especially in the back third of the game, where it's all fight. Until then, though, there's lots of very good survival play going on. This is a preview of that full episode, which you can get by backing us on Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/woff-230-s-t-l-k-25357460)

We continue Desperation Month with Frostpunk, a city building sim where things start bad and only get worse. It's the late 19th century and the world is quickly freezing. Humanity's last chance is to huddle around generators in the north, making moral compromises to survive the cold and the scarcity it brings. Frostpunk is an amazing strategy sim game with A+ theming, and it's sure to make you feel like garbage.

We begin Desperation Month with a very unusual sim game. You are a checkpoint worker in a fictional communist country, forced to decide the fates of immigrants as the rules change every day. It's a bleak and stressful game that forces you to contort yourself into monstrous shapes, tugging at you with incentives and survival. It's unique and powerful, even if it isn't strictly fun.

Our preview series continues with another game whose Lovecraft associations are looser, but undeniable. Eternal Darkness is an inventive, but flawed, game. But you can't argue that it doesn't make an impression. We will have more details about Unfilmable soon!

Gary and Kole take your questions, and chat about Video Game Violence before reading your thoughts on SMB2, Pyre, and Bioshock Infinite.

You all have been very generous, and we recently passed a Patreon milestone goal for a new show. That show is called "Unfilmable", and in it Gary and Kole will examine adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's work and ideas. We've recorded several episodes about Lovecraft-related or -inspired works, so we're re-presenting them to give you an idea of what the show will be like. This first episode hearkens back to the earliest days of our show, when we covered the Xbox game "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth." Every now and then between now and the launch, we'll drop another of these preview episodes.

We don't like Bioshock Infinite. The full episode is four hours of us trying our best to point out the many ways it falls short as a game, and as a conveyor of ideas. This is a preview of that full episode, which you can get by backing us on Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/woff-227-24690250)

SuperGiant is a studio we really love. We've covered both Bastion and Transistor on this show, so when William Rouse executive-produced an episode about Pyre it was a wonderful chance to complete the SuperGiant collection. And while there is plenty to love about Pyre's world, visual design, and music, we felt that the fantasy basketball came up a little short. Listen in to learn the specifics on why we felt the way we did, and give the game a shot to see if it lands the same for you.

This is our final "preview" episode of Adaptation Decay, our premium show about the ways that games are adapted to other media. We love this episode about the Buckner and Garcia album "Pac Man Fever" and we think you will, too. It demonstrates that Adaptation Decay isn't just a show about bad movies, but casts a wider net.

Super Mario Bros. 2 is unfairly ignored, either because of its provenance or because it's not a trailblazer like its predecessor, or as finely tuned as its successor. But it deserves credit for being ambitious, weird, and serving as the springboard for a lot of the great things we love about Mario games. So come along and listen to our case for why this might be the best of the NES Mario games.

Gary and Kole answer your questions, talk about difficulty in games, and then read your responses to River City Ransom, Owlboy and FFX.

Matthew sticks around to talk about the remainder of Final Fantasy X, which includes some fantastic boss fights, neat imagery, and questionable story beats. We also touch briefly on the absurd optional content this game has to offer to the most patient among us.

This is the first of two episodes about Final Fantasy X, a watershed game for Square that acts as a bridge between old and new for the series. Tidus is swept away into a strange world by an eldritch monstrosity. He finds new friends and ends up on a pilgrimage to rid the world of that same monstrosity. This episode covers the generalities and the first third of the game, up through Operation Mi'hen. Special thanks to our guest and backer Matthew Campbell for picking this game and offering his insight!