Watch Out for Fireballs!
Kole Ross
Episode 102: Harvest Moon / SimCity
Episode 102: Harvest Moon / SimCity
Watch Out for Fireballs!
Kole Ross
Extrasode 93: Jet Set Radio
Extrasode 93: Jet Set Radio
Watch Out for Fireballs!
Kole Ross
Extrasode 92: Brave Fencer Musashi

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Brave Fencer Musashi.

Extrasode 92: Brave Fencer Musashi
Watch Out for Fireballs!
Kole Ross
Episode 92: Brave Fencer Musashi

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross absorb Brave Fencer Musashi.

Episode 92: Brave Fencer Musashi
Watch Out for Fireballs!
Kole Ross
Extrasode 91: Rock Band

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Rock Band.

Extrasode 91: Rock Band

Watch Out for Fireballs!

Episode 96: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross noscope with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Call of Duty has become emblematic of AAA bloat. Podcasts like ours tend to dismiss it out of hand as the poster child for a kind of game that hasn't just run out of ideas, but refuses to be reflective about the ideas it does have. It could be argued that it all began here. However, it's more complicated than that. Call of Duty 4 is a perfectly fine shooter with moments that really stand out. Moreover, it's a game that has heart, from a series that notoriously lacks it.

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Episode 95: Game Books

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross venture forth to discuss game books, choose your own adventures, and Steve Jackson's Sorcery!

What is game? It's any interactive experience that has both failure states and a success state. By that reasoning, game books are games. Also, it's in the name. This special episode is all about non-video interactive narratives, books with branching paths and mechanics.

We cover the Bantam Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, Steve Jackson's Sorcery!, the Goosebumps Choose Your Own Scare, and more. For as nostalgic as this topic is, there's a surprising connection between these books and the current crop of narrative-driven games we play today.

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Episode 94: Star Control II

Gary Butterfield, Kole Ross, and Zack Johnson open a hailing frequency to talk about Star Control II.

The Ur-Quan and their battle thralls have dominated this quadrant of the galaxy, and it's up to a human crew with some Precursor technology to reunite the Alliance of Free Stars and act as liberators. This is a game that defies categorization. Part space combat arcade game, part resource gathering, part adventure game... the larger picture of all of these pretty little parts is an engrossing world filled with varied and interesting species and civilizations, each with their own stories to tell.

This ranks really high up there on our list of favorite games we've done on the show, and we really recommend you check it out.

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Extrasode 93: Jet Set Radio

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross read your responses to Jet Set Radio.

The audience was mostly in agreement with us that the game is a case of style over substance. But tune in to hear the praise anyway, because damn is that style good. Also, Brayton Cameron calls in to educate us on where the music in Jet Set Radio comes from.

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Episode 93: Jet Set Radio

Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross dig through the ditches of Jet Set Radio.

It's gang warfare in its most stylish and innocent form. It's also a gleeful tribute to free expression in the face of corporate oppression. It's got one of the best soundtracks in any game, ever. Difficulty issues aside, this is a unique game that's worth playing if only to see the kinds of strange things that happened in the Dreamcast era.

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