It was a light week in video game news, though a report about improved working conditions at Rockstar Games and some insight into Sony’s production strategy for the PS5 gives us a chance to talk about how games are made and what the future is looking like with next-gen consoles. We also talk about the games we’ve been playing during the shut-in, with Sean returning to Kamurocho for Yakuza 5 and Jonathan discovering the awfulness that is Resident Evil 5 and the awesomeness that is Platinum Games’...
Apr 20, 2020•2 hr•Ep. 348
It’s a fun grab-bag style episode this week, as we have one big ticket news item – the reveal of the PlayStation 5 controller – and a lot of other random topics, including some great listener mail! First, we tell some more stories from life in the Coronavirus lockdown, including Jonathan drowning his classmates in Terraria. Then, we look back on the masterpiece that is Capcom’s Resident Evil 4, which Jonathan just played for the first time, and discuss the rumor that Capcom may be developing a r...
Apr 13, 2020•2 hr 40 min•Ep. 347
This week is another crossover with our sister series, Weekly Suit Gundam, as we dive deep into the wacky and wonderful world of Alternate Universe Gundam for the first time with 1994’s bizarre Shonen soap-opera classic Mobile Fighter G Gundam, one of the strangest, coolest, and most endearingly heartfelt entries in the entire Gundam franchise. That discussion takes up the bulk of today’s extra-long show, but if you haven’t seen G Gundam, fear not! We also give another update on Life in the Time...
Apr 06, 2020•4 hr 10 min•Ep. 346
It’s a big week for video games, as we dive deep with the excellent, gargantuan, delightfully brutal DOOM Eternal for a full spoiler review, talk more about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Jonathan finally catches up with last year’s outstanding Resident Evil 2 remake! We also give another Coronavirus Lockdown Check-in, full of stories from this very bizarre time we’re all living through, and check in on a little bit of news from Nintendo and the announcement of some new Nier games for the st...
Mar 30, 2020•2 hr 15 min•Ep. 345
It’s a very busy show this week, as we got our first in-depth look at Sony’s PlayStation 5, finally got to play Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and return to Neon Genesis Evangelion to talk about The End of Evangelion. For the games, we just give some quick spoiler-free first impressions – the full review of Doom Eternal will be on next week’s show – while Jonathan also talks about finishing Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Sean gives final thoughts on Yakuza 4. Then we dive dee...
Mar 23, 2020•3 hr 24 min•Ep. 344
The world is on fire, but the podcast must go on! With Jonathan back in Colorado for the long haul of social distancing, he and Sean get together to talk about what life has been like as Coronavirus hit the United States in full, affecting both of our professions and keeping us at home for the foreseeable future. It’s a crazy time, with all sorts of cancellations and social disruptions, but we also find some time to talk about recent games we’ve been playing, including Ori and the Will of the Wi...
Mar 16, 2020•3 hr 35 min•Ep. 343
A year after the show’s arrival on Netflix, and a year after promising to do an episode all about it, we’ve finally done a Neon Genesis Evangelion episode! A crossover with our sister show Weekly Suit Gundam, we dive deep with the original 26 episodes of Hideaki Anno’s influential classic, and find that, while it has frequently magnificent direction, animation, and voice acting, the story, structure, and themes are a lot more undercooked and problematic. It’s certainly a fascinating show to talk...
Mar 02, 2020•3 hr 31 min•Ep. 342
Last week’s countdown of The Top 10 Games of 2019 was one of our longest episodes ever, but we didn’t quite finish the countdown. That’s because our #1 game of the year, FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, was so beautifully, blisteringly good it deserved an episode all of its own, and that’s exactly what we’ve recorded for today: An in-depth, episode-length conversation about one of the very best games we’ve ever had the pleasure to discuss on this show. Sekiro may be the single hardest g...
Feb 24, 2020•1 hr 57 min•Ep. 341
After being delayed by Jonathan’s trip to Japan and our Best of the Decade episodes, it’s finally time for our annual countdown of the very best Video Games of the year. And it’s better late than never, because 2019 was a really interesting year for games, and both of us wound up with eclectic, surprising Top 10 lists that don’t look quite like any countdown we’ve done in years past, allowing us to go deep with some games we’ve never talked about before, and revisit favorites that were recurring...
Feb 17, 2020•4 hr 27 min•Ep. 340
In a very rare move for this podcast, this week’s show is all about American television, as we dive deep with three very different, very good genre shows from the end of 2019: Disney+’s outstanding Star Wars series The Mandalorian, HBO’s wildly ambitious Watchmen, and Netflix’s unexpectedly strong The Witcher. Every one of these shows was a pleasant surprise – some more so than others – and each wrangles a tricky property into serial television in really interesting ways. They’re all worthy of d...
Feb 03, 2020•3 hr 12 min•Ep. 339
Jonathan just spent three weeks in Japan over the winter break, and now it’s time to tell all the stories from his adventures in the land of the rising sun! From seeing the life-size Unicorn Gundam in Odaiba to visiting the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka to visiting all sorts of famous temples like Zenkoji, Kinkakuji, and Matsumoto Castle, to meeting the infamous Snow Monkeys of Nagano – there were so many incredible experiences, and this podcast is bursting at the seams with great memories. You...
Jan 27, 2020•3 hr 23 min•Ep. 338
Jonathan’s just returned from his three-week vacation in Japan, and while we’ll have lots about that trip on next week’s episode, today’s podcast is a quick catch-up, as Sean shares what he’s been up to the last few weeks, including a review of Netflix’s surprisingly good Witcher series. Then we cover some recent gaming news, including delays for major games like Cyberpunk 2077, Avengers, and Final Fantasy VII Remake, and this week’s Nintendo Direct unveiling Byleth in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate...
Jan 20, 2020•46 min•Ep. 337
Today is the third and final part of our three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade, as we look at the best and most significant Video Games of the 2010s. One of the primary subjects of our podcast throughout this decade, we’ve got a lot of thoughts on which games most shaped the past ten years, and we’ve divided our discussion into two segments: First, our respective lists of the Top 10 Video Games of the 2010s, with each host delivering their own thoughts on which games were ...
Jan 13, 2020•2 hr 52 min•Ep. 334
For our first show of 2020, we’re continuing our three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade that was the 2010s. This week, it’s all anime (and all Sean) all the time, as Sean, our podcast’s resident prolific anime viewer, tells us about the 50 best animated shows from Japan he watched these past ten years. There’s a detailed Top 10 and then a slightly-less-detailed list of 40 honorable mentions, so if you’re looking for some anime recommendations, there’s a solid decade’s worth...
Jan 06, 2020•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 333
For our final show of 2019, we’re kicking off a three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade, starting today with the Best Films of the 2010s. Jonathan’s been a working film critic and film academic for most of the past ten years, and while Sean’s been to the movies less frequently this decade, 10 years is still plenty of time to see some truly great films. So today, we’re counting down the best of the best – each host has a Top 10 list of the decade’s greatest films, and Jonatha...
Dec 30, 2019•4 hr 3 min•Ep. 332
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and welcome to our 2nd annual Weekly Stuff Christmas Special! After we gave a live-reaction to Pokémon Christmas Bash, the worst Christmas album of all time, on last year’s special, we’re upping the ante this year with a live performance of the worst adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol money can buy: A ‘Christian’ Carol, an Evangelist stage play that shifts the action of Dickens’ text from Victorian London to the American Old West, transforms the cen...
Dec 25, 2019•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 336
Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy came to a close this week with The Rise of Skywalker, Episode IX in the long-running saga and the final adventure for characters like Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. And it’s a pretty baffling finale too, built on a terrible script with nonsensical plotting, confusing character motivations, and a collection of the worst and stupidest twists Star Wars has ever seen. The cast is game, John Williams does his thing, and the visuals are occasionally nice, but this is b...
Dec 23, 2019•3 hr 31 min•Ep. 335
Our first year of Weekly Suit Gundam comes to a close as we reach the end of the Universal Century with 1993’s Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, the final full series set in the Universal Century and the last before creator Yoshiyuki Tomino took a break from the franchise and Sunrise branched out into Alternate Universe stories. Victory Gundam is famously one of the darkest installments in the series, with a large cast, a shockingly high mortality rate, and the youngest protagonist so far in 13-year-o...
Dec 19, 2019•3 hr 27 min•Ep. 331
The Game Awards weren’t as eventful in 2019 as they have been in previous years, with the big exception of Microsoft surprising everyone with the formal unveiling of the next generation’s Xbox…and its terrible, horrible, no good very bad name: the Xbox Series X. There’s a lot of promising stuff to be excited for in Microsoft’s new system, but that name is a breathtaking stinker somehow even more confusing than the third Xbox being called the Xbox One, and we have…thoughts. The awards themselves ...
Dec 16, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 330
We’ve got two big video reviews for you this week, as Sean tells us all about the wacky world of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, and Jonathan gives final thoughts on Pokemon Sword & Shield. One of these games is very straightforward to discuss, and one is more…um, confusing, but both are well worth your attention, and they were a lot of fun to talk about. We also talk about our respective Thanksgivings and go over some Black Friday purchases, including Jonathan’s shiny new Xbox One SAD editi...
Dec 09, 2019•2 hr 54 min•Ep. 329
It’s a Star Wars heavy show this week, as we discuss the first three episodes of The Mandalorian on Disney+ and give final thoughts on the video game Jedi Fallen Order, following up on our initial discussion last week. These are both excellent pieces of Star Wars media, effectively doing things we haven’t seen from the franchise before, and combined, they have us more enthusiastic about the state of Star Wars than at any point this decade. We also talk about the surprising announcement of a new ...
Nov 25, 2019•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 328
In one of the busiest, most jam-packed podcasts we’ve ever recorded, we give first impressions of the week’s two major video game releases, Pokemon Sword & Shield for Nintendo Switch and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for the PS4. Star Wars in particular is an incredibly surprising, exciting game, and gives us a lot to talk about without ever touching on any spoilers. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Jonathan also reviews a slew of November movies – Jojo Rabbit, Doctor Sleep, Ford v Fer...
Nov 18, 2019•3 hr 27 min•Ep. 327
Blizzard’s annual BlizzConevent took place this week amidst a storm of political controversy, but the two major announcements the company showed off were incredible, with both Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 delivering jaw-dropping cinematic short films and impressive gameplay reels. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for this week’s podcast, though, as we also hear first impressions from Sean on Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, talk about the latest in a long line of unqualified white guys to be fired fr...
Nov 04, 2019•2 hr 7 min•Ep. 326
Our journey through Universal Century Gundam continues with one of the strangest and most rewarding corners of the franchise, the 1991 theatrical feature Mobile Suit Gundam F91. Written and Directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and reuniting him with Gundam’s original character designer, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and original mecha designer, Kunio Okawara, Gundam F91 was the first attempt to move beyond the original Universal Century saga that had reached its culmination in Char’s Counterattack. Set 30 years l...
Oct 31, 2019•2 hr 23 min•Ep. 325
WARNING: This episode contains potential SPOILERS for STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, based on internet leaks about the film. This discussion takes place between 1:05:03 and 1:09:36. Please skip if you do not want to hear any possible leaked information about the film. It’s a packed grab-bag episode this week, as Sean talks about playing the campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and finishing Devil May Cry 5, Jonathan waxes poetic about his rediscovered love for The Witcher 3 on Nintendo S...
Oct 28, 2019•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 324
Breaking Bad returned this week with the all-new sequel movie, El Camino, written and directed by Vince Gilligan and starring Aaron Paul, proving itself a pretty fantastic opportunity to dive back into seemingly well-explored territory. We talk about the movie at length (with spoilers reserved for our big segment at the end), but before that, there’s also a bevy of news to go over, including the surprise delay of Doom Eternal, Sony’s low-key announcement of the PlayStation 5, and Blizzard gettin...
Oct 14, 2019•2 hr 35 min•Ep. 323
Our 300th episode milestone celebration continues this week with Part 2 of our countdown of our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of All Time! Last week’s discussion proved surprising, as our lists had no overlap and a lot of surprises. Part 2 finds us covering a similarly broad range of shows, and while our Top 2 choices may not exactly be revelations to longtime listeners, they give us a chance to talk once more not just about our favorite television, but about some of our favorite memories recording 3...
Oct 07, 2019•3 hr 58 min•Ep. 322
300 is a big number. A terrifyingly big number. And we’ve got an intimidatingly large episode to go along with it. Following in the footsteps of our milestone Episodes 200 and 250, where we counted down our favorite Films and Video Games, this week, we present our personal lists of our Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of All Time. It’s a big discussion that’s going to spill over into next week’s Part 2, but this first half is a blast, as Sean and Jonathan don’t share a single show on the bottom half of ...
Sep 30, 2019•3 hr 44 min•Ep. 321
Released in seven parts from 2010 to 2014, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn is an extravagant OVA sequel to the original saga of Universal Century Gundam, set three years after Char’s Counterattack and engaging in a direct, deeply thoughtful dialogue with the major themes and ideas of the franchise’s 70s and 80s output. It’s also a spectacular production, with movie-caliber animation, an all-time great score by Hiroyuki Sawano, and some of the greatest mobile suit action the franchise has ever seen. W...
Sep 23, 2019•3 hr 20 min•Ep. 320
After a few weeks away from the main podcast, Sean and Jonathan are both back for a fun, oftentimes extremely silly episode. We review Platinum Games’ Astral Chain for the Nintendo Switch and Remedy’s Control for PS4 and Xbox, but also debate whether Goku or Superman would win in a fight, taste test a new mystery Mountain Dew flavor live on the air, hear a list of fact checks from Sean on Jonathan’s Nintendo Direct comments on last week’s bonus podcast, and there may or may not also be an improm...
Sep 16, 2019•2 hr 8 min•Ep. 319
