8-4 Play

With Gaming Jesus off on a secret pilgrimage, the task falls to the few, the proud, the 8-4 interns (and the rest of us), to fill his massive void. Er... Anyway, this week it's GDC, more Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Nimble Quest, Year Walk, MGS5 and David Hayter-gate, Square Enix's recent shake-up, PSO2's delay, Skullgirls' crowdfunding success, Fire Emblem feet, and more!

Luigi's Mansion 2, Ridiculous Fishing, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Dark Souls (yes, again!), BitSummit, Dragon's Crown, Wii U troubles, Vita triumphs (and troubles), Durango rumors, Drakengard 3, Phantom Pain, Transistor, and oh-so-much more!

Dokuro, Virtue’s Last Reward, Phantasy Star Online 2, more Dark Souls, a little Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, GDC speeches, PS4 announcement aftermath, Miyamoto interviews, possible Shenmue kickstarters, Skullgirls kickstarter, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate cross-region play, Umihara Kawase, and more!

INTRO BS PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 STREAMING COOL PS4 CONTROLLER PS4 SHARING YES PS4 PS4 PS4 VITA WIIU PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 FEATURES PS4 KNACK PS4 PS4 KILLZONE PS4 PS4 WITNESS PS4 JASON! PS4 DEEP DOWN ZOMG PS4 PS4 SQUEENIX WTF PS4 DESTINY HANDS PS4 PS4 LUIGI END

Touch-panels! Valve boxes! Used-game-blocking-gamma rays and Ouyas and Apple's who-knows-whats-its! E3 isn't even a glimmer on the Hype Train horizon and yet you wouldn't know it from all the new system talk floating around – of course the 8-4 gang is above that sort of wild speculation. ...*Ahem* Anyway: Fire Emblem and Dragon Quest VII for the 3DS, DmC, and a chat with 17-bit big daddy Jake Kazdal on the release of Skulls of the Shogun.

Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata brought the winter heat during this week's Nintendo Direct with the first megatons of 2013, including Wind Waker HD, MegaTen x Fire Emblem, Xeno-whatever-they're-gonna-call-it, and Wii U Virtual Console, among others. We've got a full breakdown of the event, as well as fresh PlayStation 4 (and controller) talk, a whole bunch of news (Pandora's Tower! Project X-Zone! Killer is Dead! etc!), the latest in skin-smoothing placenta technology, and plenty more.

Ake-ome-koto-yoro! (Japanese for "Happy New Year!") We're back to our typical fo-matto ("format") to talk about Level 5's latest, Fantashi Raifu ("Fantasy Life"). We also get into atsui ("heated") discussions over Steam Box, Nvidia's Shield, Nintendo stuff, Pokemon X and Y, the Neo-Geo X handheld, and all sorts of other shinjouhou ("news"). Jaa ne bye bye! ("bye bye!")

No news, a few game impressions (Soul Sacrifice demo among them), and no GOTY BS – mostly just one, long, leisurely, holiday trip through the history of video games – PC and console, Japanese and American -- as we talk through the career of uber-programmer Gregg Tavares, a man who has worked at just about everywhere (Sony, Sega, Microprose, Virgin Interactive, Cinemaware, Naughty Dog, etc.) and on every system (Commodore 64, Amiga, NES, PC, 3DO, M2, Arcade, PSX, PS2, PSP, etc.) at one point or another, and has the stories to prove it. Happy holidays!

The cast and crew of 8-4 Play would like to thank all the discussion topics that made this award possible, including Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, the Wii U's Miiverse, the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards (and its assorted reveals, including Dark Souls II, The Phantom Pain, the new Last of Us trailer, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2), the final issue of Nintendo Power (rest its blessed soul), the Street Fighter x Mega Man freebie, and that one Vita game where you stroke your unit to make the characters squeal. Thank you all!

What you are about to listen to is real. The participants are not journalists, they are ACTUAL localizers with a giant project looming over their heads. All parties have agreed to dismiss their work for an hour and 52 minutes and have their disputes (over Wii U launch, Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Destiny, the week in Kickstarter and more) settled here, in our forum, on 8-4 Play.