Chamberlain and Chance

No politics this week, only games and maybe a movie or two. We promise. It’s been too cold to get worked up about anything outside of our warm, cozy houses. Chamberlain has moved from one mediocre Diablo clone to another. What Shadows Awakening lacked in creativity Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor Martyr make up in big words and inscrutable mechanics. Alex has returned to Slay the Spire but has yet to actually slay the eponymous spire. And Chance and Overwatch are on a ‘break,’ so he had plenty of time for Darkest Dungeon, Horizon Zero Dawn and Resident Evil 2.

Fair warning, this week’s episode veers right off the road into the real world, something we do our best to avoid. We have to talk about something – it’s January. Chamberlain fills the doldrums with a bad Diablo clone. Chance spends a few days away from Overwatch and is getting the shakes. And Alex scrapes ice off his car windshield with a credit card before watching another season of True Detective.

It’s time for the 2019 hype list! These are the game that we are excited about for this year. This is not a promise that they will be good, or that they will even come out in the next twelve months, it is just an anticipatory list, a way to build our expectations up to an unreasonable degree. Too many big words, never mind, just GET HYPE!

Welcome to season 4! There is much to catch up on after the holiday break. Chamberlain spent an embarrassing about of time Assassin’s Creed Odyssey before playing Mega Man 11 and remembering that his child-like reflexes left him several decades ago. Alex is playing Borderland 2. Again. And Chance spent precious little time on his Switch, and when he did he wished he was playing something else. Something with ‘Over’ in the title.

Prepare yourself for the best games of 2018. Don’t listen to the VGAs. Pay no attention to all those critics who are compensated for sharing their opinions. Chamberlain, Chance and Alex have the honest, selfish truth for you and, in a first, agree on something very, very important. See you in 2019.

Sometimes we get almost everything right, like Chance did for his picks of games to look forward to in 2018. Sometimes two out of three ain't bad, like Alex's picks for what to look forward to in 2018. And sometimes a game is so embarrassing that it taints the rest of the list. All the Red Dead Redemptions 2s and God of Wars in the world cannot scrub Agony from Chamberlain's list. There's always next year.

Only three episodes left this year! This week Alex ties up some loose ends in Diablo 3 with seasonal characters. Chamberlain starts his third open world game in a row and wonders how much sleep he really needs to get by and Chance finds a new way to play Overwatch: on tiny screens centimeters from his eyes. Also work sucks, we need to find a way to get paid to play games.

It’s spoiler time on the Chamberlain and Chance podcast! All parts of Red Dead Redemption 2 are fair game, from the opening snow to the second epilogue. Sure, the game accomplishes what it set out to do, but is that good enough? Also this week: Chamberlain does what a spider can, Alex does what a Hollow Knight can and Chance slaughters a sacred Nintendo cow.

Chamberlain has finished Red Dead Redemption 2 but Chance and Alex have not. Reactions and small spoilers this week, no mercy on the spoiler front next. Alex didn’t finish RDR2 because he took a break to play Symphony of the Night. Chance didn’t finish it because his Arthur was busy romancing a widow who lived alone in the mountains or hunting caribou, looking for a perfect pelt. Well, that or Overwatch.

There are games other than Red Dead Redemption 2. Chamberlain was forced to play Spider-Man thanks to an Xbox Live outage and sampled The Tetris Effect. Alex bought Destiny 2 again in a valiant attempt to keep Activision from selling and/or closing Bungie. And Chance played through most of Diablo 3 on the switch. But all anyone thought about was collecting bounties, rustling horses and robbing banks. There is no escape from Rockstar’s dusty monster.