Home Row

Or "Cincinatti is just the most depressing place".  Everyone but Joe is insane, Chili is the only cold-weather food. Lasagna? LASAGNA?! What are you people doing with your lives?

Our very special guest this week is CKD - find him over at https://twitter.com/CommodoreKD

In another typical December, news is light but that's good - cus we be playin games y'all. 

Doxy got time with Star Wars Battlefront and was absolutely in love with it. She's on the same page that everything about the game is engaging and just plain cool Star Wars stuff.  Brian and Joe want to see when she might hit that wall of "well that's all there is" but it seems like her wide-eyed adoration for the Star Wars she got to jump into will make that later, rather than sooner.

Our esteemed guest CKD played a bit of Just Cause 3, and is noting some pretty glaring differences in the style of Just Cause 3.  While some things were taken out, the game is "still Just Cause, and still fun." and describes it as "everything explodes all the time".  Joe and CKD gush about how there are some things that are a little off, but the overall game is a ton of fun, and designed to just let you go crazy in the best ways.  

The gang gets into a discussion then about open world games and driving controls and different mechanics; example being GTA V and the handling for each car model, while still being a huge open world.  

We stop quick to talk about Rainbow Six Siege and how no one on the show is playing it. Joe played a while back but never got the itch to buy the full product and it still doesn't get that "full experience" feel across.

Brian played a ton of board games recently and gushes about his wife lying to him and it being totally okay. Brian is slogging through Sword Art Online: Lost Song but unfortunately it's just not doing it, the characters and enemies are still quite same-y, the story is a bit cliche, but there is some saving grace in the flying, but it's few and far between.

Brian and Joe have Gears Remastered on deck but haven't played - which spins into a sweet discussion about how the use of "COME ON" plays into the game, and how Gears wore out for a bit, but now it feels like time to go back. Doxy says "I'm never not going to be excited for a Gears game". While Brian isn't sold on the creepy aspects, the rest of the crew reminisces about how that's always kind of been part of the series.

Find CKD all over the internet! Tumblr // Twitter

Doxy - Twitch.tv/Zer0Doxy // Twitter 

Brian - Twitter // Twitch.tv/Quiglin 

Joe - Twitch.tv/Joe_McCallister // Twitter

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Just Kidding! We ain’t done, not by a long shot.  This week – it’s more microtransaction garbage in a game that’s not even done yet! Killing Floor 2 has added the option for sweet sweet real bucks to be used for items, and as expected, Reddit handles it with grace. We dive into what is acceptable and what’s just the word for paying for the things.  Also we talk at length about Kotaku, as they’ve put up a piece that at first blush seems a bit like a “yeah you guys do you” but after further inspection comes off a bit more “what did you expect?”.  It’s a complicated issue which only the most analytical and critical of pundits can analyze with depth…so we gave it a shot anyway.

Doxy has been playing some Noct – a creepy and sublime top-down game where you’ve got to work together using arcade combat to solve puzzles.  She’s digging it for sure but wants to get more time in before really rendering a judgement.  Also on the docket for Doxy…the Dox-et if you will – is SoulHunt a creepy take on the hide and seek phenom that came out of Garry’s Mod, players can inhabit objects while avoiding a clown in a hospital.  The clown can hear your heartbeat, and you can stay your heartbeat for a few seconds in order to hopefully keep your soul alive as a cup for a few minutes more. 

Brian is all over some Star Wars Battlefront, and as is the general consensus with the game – it’s mostly awesome, but can start to show its lack of depth and content after a few hours.  All that being said though Brian and Joe gush about how engrossing and engaging it is as a Star Wars experience in the moment to moment gameplay. It’s only when you realize you’ve only got four real maps, and not a lot of drive to keep going that it becomes a bummer, but by then the next game starts.  Also on for Brian is Sword Art Online: Lost Song where he’s pretty much got some of the same feelings as Battlefront, where it’s great to start but after a bit the rough edges pop up and it just starts to wear.  Walking through characters, recycled enemies, and a general feeling of being the wrong kind of time machine make this one not-too-hot on his list for the time being, but he’s not saying it’s total garbage.

Joe has been playing more Fallout 4 and spares us the song and dance, but assures us that while it’s still a 5/5, he’s continuing the trek on PC and loving it even more with a solid framerate and making some crazy choices for Barb the wasteland badass. He’s also just reviewed The Crew: Wild Run, and it redeems a lot of what made The Crew so blah at launch, although it’s still held back by the same chains that held the original back – microtransactions and a lack of real collection of a stable of cars. Wild Run introduces some really cool stuff with monster trucks, motorbikes, drifting, and drag racing, all of which Joe thinks would’ve made The Crew a standout racer if it was there at launch, but it wasn’t and that might hurt Wild Run in notoriety.

Doxy - Twitch.tv/Zer0Doxy // Twitter 

Brian - Twitter // Twitch.tv/Quiglin 

Joe - Twitch.tv/Joe_McCallister // Twitter

It's not the clip show you've been waiting for, it's Doxy, Joe and Brian talking about the 2 big releases of the week in Rise of the Tomb Raider and Fallout 4.
Thanks to CKD for calling out that we forgot the link; https://discord.gg/0dXwwssNFV25gGjS

*If you're listening/reading and want a live show the week of Fallout to talk about it as well as Tomb Raider, let us know! Tweet at twitter.com/homerowpodcast!

In this episode we anxiously await our copies of Fallout 4, instead we have to revisit Konami because they can't stay out the news. Konami LA is no more, and we muse about the bummer it is - Joe was at this studio last year playing Metal Gear Solid V and feels really weird about remembering faces that now have no job.  The crew's thoughts are with the team there and as they're a super talented team, we hope they get picked up quick.

The topic of throttling and bad internet come up as Brian turns into RoboQuiglin4000 a few times and we side track into rants about how the US internet is just...just the worst. #comcastkills

The crew then moves over to how leaks are bad, and generally just bad form.  As the discussion moves on they break down the difference between a leak and a spoiler, the effect on gamers, and the unintended super bummer that comes for the developer trying to hold things close to the chest.

After a few big bummers we talk about the games that are coming up that are just pure excite - Star Wars Battlefront, Just Cause, Uncharted - we're in for a great few months folks, and the Home Row crew cannot wait to chat about them with you.

Brian's been playing a lot of Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and finds himself wanting to go back - which is more than a few of the past entries can say. The people that populate London hold some interest and tell some fun stories, as well as seem to be interesting enough.

Doxy is all about Until Dawn and loves the hell out of it - she basically freaks out saying that every and all people should play.  Binding Of Isaac Afterbirth is next up, and as is probably par for the course; she loves it.  She's playing more and finding some new twists that aren't necessarily her favorite - but that doesn't sway the opinion; it's awesome.

We're also making a custom bundle of sorts when we hit 500 subscribers on YouTube! Tell your friends and when we hit 500 we'll enter all our subs into a pool and give away a ton of stuff!!

An amazing live show, duh - we love our chat...so...SO much it really can't be understated - and with our transition to our own, new channel at twitch.tv/homerowpodcast - we're doing once a month live shows.  This one was a bit rough as it was full of tech issues right away, and Joe lost audio, but thankfully the viewer count kept climbing, and our amazing audience carried us through!  

This week we chat about the SAG-AFTA voice actors union ( a bit of a late breaking story but hey, we take what we get). We also chat about how Minecraft owner Microsoft now owns a big physics engine (Joe is totally right, it's a much better business decision than Minecraft, objectively) and we hit the reveal of Far Cry Primal - which even though Ubi is going a little...well Ubisoft on this one, we're probably all still going to check it out.

Doxy is playing some D&D and is totally hyped, so we get the full story of her rolled character, and she's just super (we would totally welcome fanart of this or a fan writeup of the story...just.saying.) and started a new stream of Don't Starve Together with Ambz (twitch.tv/canhasambz).

Brian's played Mighty No. 9 right after a bit of Mega Man, and side by side it's a little weird. He also soured a little on Heroes of Might and Magic, as it seemed to just get to be a bit much, but fans will still love it. He also got a review copy of Rebel Galaxy, which he's super psyched to tell us more about in another show.

Joe has had a bit of a slow week, after the logjam that was last weeks playlist, he's back to waiting on Battlefront, playing a PS4 version of Wasteland 2 for review (which he can't really talk about too much, but the it was great the first time around on PC), and another game called Grand Age: Medieval but can't really offer up a good opinion, oh and that's embargoed too - so next week there'll be more for sure.

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in THIS, the 16th, and most memorable episode yet, because they just get better and better - we chat about the fact that Konami has "comitted to the core" and plans to continue developing games on their IP like Castelvania and Metal Gear, we doubt they'll do much of repute but really hope some up and coming writer gets a crack at some seriously cool opportunities for stories.  We also chat about games cutting single player entirely - Call of Duty Black Ops III has no campaign on Xbox 360 and PS3, but you get zombies, so Activision are generous gods.  Rainbow 6 Siege has no single player as well, but for different reasons it seems - Brian gets a bit upset about the COD news, while Joe still isn't sure R6 has what it needs to be worth that $60 price tag.

Doxy Played some Jotun and likes it quite a bit, but chat seemed to not dig the art style for some reason, while she also got some time in with P.T. finally - it only made her more sadified that it won't come to be. She wasn't a fan of the puzzles though, and even if it were something of a teaser to be tough to figure out, some of itw as just dumb.  She also explains how she had to rethink interior design following the late night play.

Brian got into a lot of really cool board games including Exploding Kittens and Artemis. Exploding Kittens almost made Doxy cry at first, but the game still sounds like a blast, and Artemis looks to be a really cool starship sim game played with a projector and dictating responsibilities.  

Joe can finally talk about FIFA, and reveals that it's an incredible soccer game for fans, as well as those that wanted to check the game out in general - with a good learning curve that teaches as you go, and a super addictive Ultimate Team mode, it's just plain fun.  If you hate soccer though, you'll hate FIFA so just move on.  Also NBA Live 16 is a bit rough, with some weird physics and a system that just feels like it's cheating you more often than not, it never pays off to put more time in and never feels truly engaging.  This is about the time where Doxy brings up Elements, a card game she's been playing that seems to play against you in the wrong ways - drawing the exact cards you don't need.  Moving on Joe also played Skylanders Superchargers, a baby game he thought, but it took him back to golden days of sitting cross-legged on the floor...and then he actually did that.

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The gang is back, and talkin robot dildos.  We kick off the week welcoming our very special guest Green9090 who brings to the table the wonderful world of VR Porn Peripherals which quickly devolves into how we're basically going to sex up robots sooner than later with the gem of a quote "you can put your dick on it, but you're not going to like what it does" (paraphrasing).  We chat about the name change from Project Morpheus to Playstation VR or PSVR, or however the PSPR folks will spin it. There's also chattings about PS Vita, PS VitaTV, and much more, but the real star this week is the things we've played.  

Green enlightens us to his obsession with Dark Souls II and his recent journeys through the game in a new way, with Scholar of the First Sin - he's liking getting back into Dark Souls but some of the decisions seem downright weird.

Brian has been all about that bear in Danganronpa which he finished up and found totally awesome, with a cool ending as well as some end-game content he didn't expect. Now he's looking forward to the second game, which he moved right up to the top spot in his Gamefly queue, which is telling. Oh and he watches 8-bit people sleep. Beyond that, his "poop" games, which the rest of us call pooping games; Family Guy, the Simpsons, those wonderful wait for it game types.

Doxy recounts the wonderful game that is Shovel Knight, which we concurred we all want to play, but no one did.  Running only $15 it might not be a bad time to pick it up and an expansion on the horizon, it's worth checking out. Doxy is also anxiously awaiting her precious Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth and next week will be playing the terrifying looking SOMA.

Joe has been, well, busy with games.  Mad Max did some cool things and built a neat world to look at but one that just fell flat especially in combat, and felt like it took bits from other games but never made anything all its own. Metal Gear is still his fallback, to waste time and fulton out more troops or just chill out, retaining the GOTY spot for now but still having to fight a bit against The Witcher. Joe also wanted to make sure people know about Blues and Bullets, an episodic noir with some really cool artistic flair and some very interesting investigation set pieces, only running $5 on Xbox One and Steam right now.  Currently Joe is all about Destiny, The Taken King is king of taking (get it??) all his time, and it has turned him back on to Destiny, likening it more to the Reaper of Souls update for Diablo - better loot, more fun, and an actually interesting Sci Fi story.  Joe has also been playing some FIFA 16 but can't really talk about it in terms of a review, so look forward to that next week.

We apologize, we lost track of the episode numbers and don't ever think we can truly get it back. The show has become a monster from which we have no control. Lay down your arms and surrender your souls, it's HomeRow!

In yet another bummer of a news week, nothing really big happened - so we talk a bit about how money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure does solve a lot of problems.  Notch is sad, guys, like really sad. $2.5 Bills can beat out Jay-Z and Beyonce for a mansion in the hills, but it also comes with boredom, isolation, and some just real downers.  Doxy explains her emotional progression and we all take our turns sympathizing, and partiallly criticizing some things the Minecraft creator blurted out at 3 AM.  

Joe's been playing the big guns recently, Mad Max and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - and MGS is wonderful in most all respects, but Mad Max is a little tougher to pin down.  Brian is after some of that sweet, sweet Mega Man Legacy Collection, and finally got into PT. Unfortunately for anyone that likes games, that's about as far as that one goes.  Doxy goes back to Torchlight 2, a game the entire cast gives the "oh yeah that's an amazing game" cheer to, and explains her on-stream hijinks. As well as her ignorance to what the little red thing means in Fallout Shelter.

The gang is back, and chatting Gamescom GameBombs - Joe and Brian both watched the Xbox briefing and fill Doxy in on how 2016 is looking for the MS exclusives Crackdown, Scalebound, and Quantum Break, while touching on Rise of the Tomb Raider, Star Wars Battlefront, Halo, and a few others coming this year yet.  While Joe and Brian turn to little kids again talking about Star Wars Battlefront, Doxy is uberhype5000 for Dark Souls 3, which admittedly looks incredible.  All that talk of being afraid of what a yearly entry might do to the series was put aside when a giant skeleton face piereced the veil of darkness.  Overall it's a good show, like every other one, so listen.

Joe got some time with and reviewed Submerged, a beautiful and serene indie game from some of the crew behind Bioshock, as well as some time with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, where he fell down the stairs and shut it off.  Also a bit more time in The Witcher and Battlefield Hardline, but that's just normal now.

Brian played a bit more Omega Quintet, officially making it too damn much (70 hours), some F1 2015 which he reviewed over at CoinOpTV, as well as playing some Sword Art Online which seems to be scratching that JRPG itch.

Doxy has been moving across the country, not in the Sims or some other game, literally moving across the country. Finding herself back in good ol Iowa (land of the best corn and tenderloins you'll ever find, eat shit Indiana) she's had a bit of fun with Rocket League.

In a yet another summer slow news week - we jump in to discuss harassment and why its just the worst, and how different gaming communities act - Xbox Live being wholly different than PC. We also weigh in on how we think people come to harass, and why they're just the worst. Brian and Doxy break into what might just have to be a new segment of the show; Board Games! And Brian comments on how totally normal the latest JRPG he's playing is.

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