In the traditional post-Christmas slump, we struggle to find meaning in this cruel world. Not really. Instead, we just complain about Dead Space on the iPad.

Ara's recovering from surgery but that doesn't keep him away from ChatterBox. Alon dissects an inadequacy common to many popular mobile games. Alon and Rich chuckle at the giant consumer WIN against Paul Christoforo [probably formerly of] Ocean Marketing.

Ara's friend, Scott, joins us to guest host as we talk a little about scantily clad spacecraft, Skyrim bugs, shilling online reviews, and the future of digital distribution.

Ara proves that Gran Turismo makes you a better driver in real life, he and Alon share the pain of the XBOX Live non-update, David from Texas finds out that he's being a wuss and needs to learn how to play first-person shooters like the rest of us, and Alon tries desperately to learn what all the fuss over Skyrim is about.

Alon misses the show, so TJ drives across the country to take over! He, Ara, and Rich talk about the new XBOX Metro UI update. There's also some talk about Ace Combat and Skyrim. Ara conducts an impromptu job interview with TJ. Alon manages to call in just in time to discuss the grey market of user review scores.

The holiday season bounty is upon us, and Ara can't handle the volume. Moreover, he doesn't see reason to. Pen-15 tells us why he likes to go camping and why Modern Warfare 3 isn't as good as its predecessor. Alon loves that Ubisoft is making a drawing tablet for the Wii.

Batman Arkham City is pretty good even if it is easy, Sonic Generations is more crap even if it looks nice, and Modern Warfare 3 is... well, we don't know anything about Modern Warfare 3, but it still makes us laugh.

Ara was surprised to find that a Need For Speed game had genuinely redeemable qualities. Alon was fascinated by Gabe Newell's discussion of the economics of Steam.

Our friend, Ashish Amresh, joins us from ASU's College of Technology and Innovation to tell us about Word Fighter Lite, a student-developed game in the Android and iOS app stores. We expose him to some horrendously bad YouTube commentary about Dark Souls, some curious factoids about Chinese gaming, and criticism of PlayStation Network's Rochard.

After Ara announces that he got some new TV's and Alon salivates over the upcoming Phoenix Food Truck Festival, they talk to Tessa and Michaela about the underdeveloped role of women in game development.