7 Minutes

What are your "sliding doors moment" games, the ones with an outsized effect on your taste and even on your life? That's the question we confront in this episode, taking turns examining the paths that brought us to where we are today. Less wistfully, we also lament the state of the industry at length.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions & what we’ve been playing

41:14 - Recent events, mostly layoffs and studio closures

1:24:48 - What does the future look like for Sony?

1:20:42 - The games that shaped us

It's a new year, and that means a new slew of games coming down the pipeline. In this episode, we discuss which upcoming titles we're each looking forward to, and then dive into some of the latest headlines creating waves in the industry. What do we think of Xbox's move to release certain exclusives across platforms? And do we agree that the age of the console-exclusive is coming to an end? Tune in to find out.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions & What we’ve been playing

51:59 - 2024 releases we’re looking forward to and why

1:24:48 - What does the future look like for Sony?

1:35:31 - What does the future look like for Xbox, and for consoles in general?

2023 was certainly one for the books in gaming. A string of AAA juggernauts, sleeper hits, and unexpected surprises hit our consoles and PCs this year, and were (and still are) struggling to keep up.

So which of 2023's list of gems made our top-five games of the year? Which hit our honorable mentions? Listen in to find out!

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions & What we’ve been playing

17:56 - Metacritic Fantasy Draft Finale

23:09 - The Best of 2023: Our Honorable Mentions

35:53 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 5s

55:02 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 4s

1:06:43 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 3s

1:19:11 - The Best of 2023: Our Number 2s

1:36:58 -The Best of 2023: Our Number 1s

After a brief hiatus, we're back and, boy, did we have a lot to catch up on. From Tears of the Kingdom to Super Mario RPG, we cover 12 games we've been playing since our last episode and our thoughts on all of them. Is Lords of the Fallen perhaps one of the best Soulslikes in years? Does Mario RPG meet the high bar that the original set? And is Midnight Suns the sleeper hit you should be checking out? Tune in for all this and much, much more.

Timestamps

0:00 - Introductions and near-final Metacritic draft updates.

7:32 - Thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

41:23 - Thoughts on Final Fantasy XVI.

1:10:47 - Thoughts on Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

1:14:38 - Thoughts on Paper Mario (via Switch Online).

1:16:19 - Thoughts on Sonic Superstars.

1:19:16 - Thoughts on Cocoon.

1:22:05 - Thoughts on Baldur’s Gate 3.

1:30:48 - Thoughts on Lies of P.

1:42:13 - Thoughts on Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

1:43:12 - Thoughts on Lords of the Fallen.

1:51:01 - Thoughts on Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

2:06:55 - Thoughts on the Super Mario RPG remake.

Glitches, day 1 patches, poor performance, and underwhelming quality. In this episode, we discuss (and do a little venting about) the unfortunate new normal of the games industry: releasing imperfect games that need to be patched upon release or that simply fail to live up to expectations and hype.

Timestamps:

0:00:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.

0:53:17 - Metacritic Fantasy Draft Bloodbath.

1:04:17 - Glitches are bad.

1:45:12 - Glitches are … good?

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild completely revamped the series, making a sharp detour away from the well-worn formula that most of the games have followed since A Link to the Past. Its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, is set to continue the story of Link and Zelda's adventures in this iteration of Hyrule. But while we're all Zelda fans here at 7 Minutes — some of us more than others — we're not all in agreement about how we feel about the new direction the series has taken.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introductions and what we’ve been playing.

48:54 - Zack’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

55:39 - Dom’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:03:23 - Robert’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:15:55 - Angie’s thoughts on Breath of the Wild.

1:27:16 - Dom’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:34:00 - Robert’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:41:18 - Angie’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

1:52:28 - Zack’s thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

There are a lot of gaming streaming and subscription services out there today, and they're not all made equal. This week, we sat down to discuss which services we use, the pros and cons of each, how we'd like to see them improve, and what we think the future of these services looks like.

Timestamps:

So we've been gone. For a while. But we've been playing games (lots of them) and we're ready to get back into the podcast — and brought a new friend! Robert and Angela's cousin, Dominic, is our new cohost, and in this episode we're discussing our Metacritic 2023 Fantasy Draft. We've each chosen 10 games we think will be the highest-scoring this year and are competing to get the highest score. What games did we choose and why? Tune in to learn more and hear our inevitable segues into other gaming-related topics.

Timestamps:

Angela, Robert and Zack drop all pretense of being a general purpose video game podcast and talk at length about licensed games of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s (but especially the 1990s).

Timestamps:

In our second season debut, Robert, Zack, and Angela take on rhythm games, a genre that burned bright in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s, and is now a faded ember. From narratively focused titles like PaRappa to cover band fantasies like Guitar Hero to fitness-adjacent spectacles like DDR, we talk about it all.

Timestamps: