Glass House Games

“You think of Mortal Kombat, you think of boobs, gore, and that’s it. But there’s actually a story there.” – Shay 

Jordan, Shay, and Sam talk about the Netflix television adaptation of author Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher saga. Sam is our resident expert on all things Witcher, whereas Shay and Jordan have only played a few hours of the epic role-playing game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - does that change how they feel about the television show?  

After they toss a coin to their Witcher, Shay tells Sam and Jordan about her childhood love of Mortal Kombat: The Animated Series, a cartoon that first aired in 1996 and is far more family-friendly than the series of fighting games on which it’s based. And then they delve into other video game-y television shows. Find out if your favourite gets a mention, and if it doesn’t: head to glasshouse.games and tell us all about it.  This episode contains mention of events from multiple episodes of Netflix’s The Witcher.  

Links: 

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/30/2... 

https://kafkadesk.org/2019/10/29/pola... 

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-w... 

https://witcherschool.com/ 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20... 

https://twitter.com/SamMaggs/status/1... 

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018...

This week’s snack was: double chocolate cookies! You can find the recipe at https://www.hotforfoodblog.com/recipe... 

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

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"I've never wanted to swing on a 10-year-old more in my life." - Shay  

Shay, Maggie and Jordan reflect on Life is Strange 2, third in the Life is Strange series from developers Dontnod Entertainment. Life is Strange 2 is a narrative-driven, choice-based episodic game focusing on the lives of two Mexican-American brothers, Sean and Daniel. The game touches on themes of belonging, racism and brotherhood. Join us as we explore whether or not Life is Strange 2 is voyeuristic in the ways it touches on these topics.  

This episode contains spoilers.  

Reflections are scored individually on a scale from love to hate, and then a group Glass House Games verdict is determined using our magical algorithm.

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected] 

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“I don’t really like shooting at anyone or anything.” – Maggie.

Jordan, Shay, Sam, Maggie, and Alex P talk about ways they might improve their gaming lives in 2020. New Year’s Resolutions are probably just one more way we put too much emphasis on productivity, but also: we’ve all got big backlogs of unplayed games we should probably try to tackle. Or should we be deciding to play fewer games of a certain kind: fewer sequels, fewer default male protagonists, fewer guns?

This episode does NOT contain spoilers for The Expanse, just a fair amount of Sam and Jordan trying to convince everyone to watch it without revealing any specific plot details.

This episode does contain some discussion of food, both at the beginning in Jordan’s discussion of her achievements from 2019 and later on in the episode, with a warning for those who might not want to listen.

This week’s snack was: condensed milk cookies! Maggie recommends you search the internet for a recipe that looks good to you.

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

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“This was more of a chore-ific game than a horrific one.” – Maggie  

Maggie, Jordan, and Shay reflect on Luigi’s Mansion 3, the third installment in the nearly two-decades-old franchise. It’s the second such offering by Next Level Games, and we talk about the game’s controls, our favourite levels in the game, and Gooigi of course. Guess who got to fulfil their hoovering fantasy?  

This episode contains spoilers.

Links: 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/1... 

https://twitter.com/chrissyteigen/sta... 

Reflections are scored individually on a scale from love to hate, and then a group Glass House Games verdict is determined using our magical algorithm.  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram

“It was like Death Stranding... meets The Witcher... with Shadow of the Colossus aesthetics.” – Sam and Alex CG.

Jordan, Shay, Sam, Maggie, Alex P, and Alex CG talk about the past decade in video games, what has changed (and what hasn’t) since 2010, and what games from the past ten years were most important to each of us.

This episode contains spoilers for Heavy Rain but we may have actually managed to avoid spoiling anything else.

Links:

http://awards.bafta.org/award/2011/games

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2010/dec/22/top-20-games-20101

https://onezero.medium.com/why-the-best-video-games-lie-to-you-67ae22f1412f

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/jan/10/top-selling-games-of-2010

https://www.polygon.com/features/2019/11/5/20948196/video-games-predictions-decade-2010-2020

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnwzj/how-an-augmented-reality-game-escalated-into-real-world-spy-warfare

https://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-videogames-of-the-decade-2010s

https://www.polygon.com/features/2019/11/4/20947389/best-games-2019-2010-ps4-switch-xbox-pc-10-1

https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/5/20949553/best-games-movies-comics-decade-2019-2010

https://www.eurogamer.net/archive/games-of-the-decade

This week’s snack was: Crosstown Doughnuts! Come by the studio on your way to buy some for yourself.

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

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“I can’t make a mental map of all that shit he’s trying to tie together!” – Alex P 

Maggie, Sam, Alex CG, and Alex P reflect on Death Stranding, the first release from Kojima Productions since its reformation as an independent studio. We talk about whether the game truly offered an “all-new, genre-defying experience for the PlayStation 4 system”, celebrity appearances, advertising in games, and whether it’s possible to tell a complex story without exposition.  

This episode contains spoilers.

Links: 

https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/14/20... 

https://uk.ign.com/articles/2019/11/1... 

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/why... 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20... 

https://frieze.com/article/odradek-fo... 

Reflections are scored individually on a scale from love to hate, and then a group Glass House Games verdict is determined using our magical algorithm.  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram

“The enemy is capitalism, it’s not just Call of Duty.” – Sam.

Jordan, Shay, Sam, Alex CG, and Marijam Didžgalvytė talk about why AAA developers and publishers continue to insist that their games contain no political statements despite all the evidence to the contrary. We also ask whether proudly political games do enough to merit all the plaudits, and take a moment to fast-forward the conversation even further: to the uncomfortable geopolitics behind the global video games industry and its means of production.

Links:

https://www.polygon.com/e3/2018/6/12/17451688/the-division-2-is-not-making-any-political-statements

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3x4y8/ea-is-changing-the-name-of-a-nazi-in-battlefield-v-that-belonged-to-a-real-life-resistance-fighter

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjqy94/david-cage-wants-to-know-what-youd-do-to-fight-for-your-rights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Jb5Qj5JPM

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/jun/25/ubisoft-tom-clancy-division-2-politics-criticism

https://www.vg247.com/2019/05/31/can-stories-apolitical-asked-video-game-writers-narrative-designers/

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-division-2-and-the-severing-of-politics-from-video-games#

https://theoutline.com/post/7803/are-video-games-political-conservative-liberal?zd=2&zi=luv75ex2

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/cnbc-transcript-cnbcs-becky-quick-interviews-activision-blizzard-ceo-bobby-kotick-from-the-cnbc-evolve-conference-in-los-angeles-today.html

https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/20/17480666/video-games-companies-lying-politics

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-02-dontnod-if-we-didnt-talk-about-politics-that-would-be-a-political-message

http://www.bafta.org/games/features/power-of-games-beyond-entertainment

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/30/papers-please-wins-2014-gamecity-prize

https://medium.com/@marijamdid/radical-critique-of-papers-please-d1e24e57b8d5

This week’s snack was: elephant ear, baklava, and other assorted baked goods that you can buy in Brick Lane!  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram

“You watch him get beat up by these two security guards and he’s like “can I come with you?”, that doesn’t make any sense!” – Shay  

Sam, Shay, and Alex P reflect on The Outer Worlds, the latest RPG from Obsidian. We talk about its Fallout influence, satire of capitalism and why the main menu might be the best thing about it.  

This episode contains spoilers.  

Links:

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/obsidian-says-it-doesnt-want-outer-worlds-to-be-a-politically-charged-game/

Reflections are scored individually on a scale from love to hate, and then a group Glass House Games verdict is determined using our magical algorithm.  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram

“I think it might be the worst game I’ve played this year” – Alex P.

Jordan, Maggie, and Alex P talk about the winners of The Game Awards, wonder why Disco Elysium wasn’t up for Game of the Year when it won so many other awards, and try to remember the name of the Xbox Series X.

Links:  

https://thegameawards.com/ 

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the... 

https://www.theguardian.com/games/201... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tUqI... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJWI4... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbq7B... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHdaW... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsjTK... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPGrt... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkC5i... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb55y... 

This week’s snack was: chocolate salami! You can find recipes online.  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram

“I was surprised that the nerdy kid was called Brad.” – Jordan.  

Jordan, Shay, Sam, and Maggie reflect on The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, the choice-based survival horror game from Supermassive Games. Shay can’t help but compare it to Until Dawn, Sam has thoughts on the cinematic approach, and Jordan and Maggie prove that it’s probably much better when you play it with friends.  

This episode contains spoilers.  

Reflections are scored individually on a scale from love to hate, and then a group Glass House Games verdict is determined using our magical algorithm.  

Join the conversation at https://glasshouse.games 

Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Follow @GHGshow on Twitter and Instagram