We continue our chat with Michael Warbington and dig into a rich vein we usually leave unmined: video games.
With different levels of skill, engagement and knowledge, we look at the experience of gaming in 2022, the intersection of art and commerce, the prevalence of in-game microtransactions, getting mercilessly griefed by racist swearing twelve year-olds, and a game’s replayability. What do we want out of the gaming experience?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
We’re back to dive into an overstuffed grab bag of off-topic nonsense with Roz Townsend, and we grapple with the important questions that keep us up at night.
Is Colonel Sanders the closest thing we have to an American Time Lord? What are our favorite fictional restaurants? Are self-published fan zines a lost art? Are skunks a form of Pokémon? Did Freddie Mercury go super saiyan in the ’80s? Are modern video game mechanics inaccessible to people who didn’t grow up with them?
Plus, Casey becomes annoyed at a group of small children not being as entranced by My Neighbor Totoro as he is, and we all betray our socialist leanings.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Mike and Casey sit down with Jeremy Whitman to try to wrap our brains about two strange things that defy description and even logic.
First is a used book Mike snatched up at work — possibly written by someone on an F.B.I. watch list — that is a far-too-comprehensive instructional manual for beating the shit out of people with a maglite flashlight.
And then Mike and Casey try to decompress from the experience of recently watching Nicolas Winding Refn’s bizarre new film, “The Neon Demon.”
Because…holy shit, you guys.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sorry, Mario! Your podcast is in another castle!
Mike and Casey pull on their Power Gloves and strap on their Virtual Boys because, it’s time to save the Mushroom Kingdom with Ask an Atheist‘s Sam Mulvey and Bob Mackey of the Retronauts podcast! This month, we’re talking about the video game company that practically served as a fifth food group for an entire generation: Nintendo!
We discuss the company’s multi-decade dominance of the video game market, its legacy, and how it pulled the industry out of the nosedive of Atari’s implosion in the early 1980s. We talk about how visionary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto created the canvas of our childhoods, and how the company went from standing atop the wreckage of Sega to becoming the Switzerland of the modern day console wars.
Previously titled: “On the Altar of Saint Miyamoto”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download