Our cynical sense is tingling at the following link.

E3 is upon us. EA’s announcements are already off the table and that wasn’t all too fulfilling for us so we’re hoping the next few days have a little more meat on the bones. We have a bit of a recap for EA’s event here but there just wasn’t that much to bite into. Even with Anthem being less than a year away they gave us very little on that game. The gameplay shown was edited video. How do you form a team? How do you find other players? Can we fast travel to locations on a map? Movement is flying, it seems, but are there vehicles that can also get us around? How’s the in-game economy work? What do we get when we defeat enemies? How do we obtain new weapons or armor? They answered a lot of questions but very little of those questions had to do with how the gameplay works but more how the game works. There’s no PVP, there’s no lootboxes, it’s always online, there can be a team of four, you can go underwater, etc. They didn’t sell me on the game and they’ve got less than a year to do that.

Let’s hope the longer times we get from the other companies press conferences this week can show off a bit more about how a game plays and less about how a game works.

We’re on long distance at the following link.

You miss two weeks and like three games get announced. Then again, it’s a week before E3 so when three games get announced you’re still pretty clueless about a lot of them until AFTER the whole E3 thing happens.

Detroit was released last week and we didn’t really have much to say about it. When only one of us has played it, it can be difficult to talk about given a game with so many choices can easily lead to spoilers without ever getting into the meat of the title. So we didn’t say much.

There’s thoughts we have on the new Battlefield, though to listen to the show you’d only think we really cared about how the hell it’s titled. Is it FIVE or is it V? Then there’s the quick thing about a new Assassin’s Creed and it’s just as quickly discussed on the show. Plus, Fallout. We give it a bit more time, but with any of these things the only thing we really know is that we’ll know more about them all after E3. EA’s big event will kick off just before the show next weekend, so we’ll have some idea and plenty to talk about. Then, the week following that, we’ll know a WHOLE lot more about everything else.

We’re good through 2032 at the following link.

Destiny 2 is keeping my attention. Easily noticeable by the fact that it was really the only thing I played all week. They’ve given us some strings to keep pulling us along week by week, but if it’s not enough they risk losing our interest early cause we finished, and if it’s too much, they risk losing us to not wanting to put in the time for what we eventually get for it. I can see the tough act of balancing they have to figure out, but I’m still enjoying it so I’ll still carry on. For now.

We won’t be having a show next week. Most of us – actually, ALL of us will be out of town for the weekend, but when we return we’ll be one week out from E3. Plenty to speculate on for the return episode and plenty to actually talk about from the E3 fallout on the one after.

We renewed our license at the following link.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Destiny 2 got another expansion. Bigger, it seems, than the last one, which is good, although short on story it expands afterwards. Which is what it should do, but that story could have been better. I can look past that though if it keeps giving me more carrots on the end of the stick, and that’s happening. The bug hasn’t completely bit into me yet, but it feels close. Time will tell just how this ends up, but it’s better than before.

On the surface, it looks like we’re getting more things to chase so that’ll keep me interested, but that’s only on the surface. Once that chase begins, it’s really got to hold me and that’ll be where I really grade this new expansion. How long can it keep me coming back?

You know how we cover Destiny, here. It was almost weekly talk of the game since it was played so much and then nothing. For months it was nothing because nothing was there. Now there’s something but is it enough?

We’re about to find out.

We can google that for you at the following link.

I have finally started God Of War, but that really isn’t saying much for me and my way of playing games. Which brings us to a small side discussion about having too many collectibles in games, or branching paths in something that should really be more linear. It’s all subjective to the player than the game, so it isn’t really any sort of fault I put on the developers. It’s just my oh-look-a-squirrel way of playing games.

There’s also a bit of a rant about video game trailers as well, but I think I’m being extremely cynical with that way of thinking. The point is, a trailer for a game is made to sell you on the game. We complain about movies putting all the best parts in a trailer, but that’s EXACTLY what a video game trailer will do. They want to show you all the best parts to hold your interest and get your money. This doesn’t really apply to franchise games, so much, when we know what to expect, but for new IPs, you’re going to see the best of what they have to offer – but it’s usually in cinematic form, rather than something significant like gameplay. Cinematics being the least percentage of a video game (unless you’re a Kojima game) and gameplay being the most of anything else you ever do in a video game. In the marketing world of video games, I’m probably in the minority, but you’re going to sell me a whole lot more on your product by showing me what’s inside (gameplay) rather than the art on the box (cinematic).

Then again, with games like God Of War, the cinematic is the gameplay. And it’s amazing.

We put it on a bomb, an actual bomb, at the following link.

We haven’t spoken to Twisted Pixel in a few years but we hope to change that and keep a regular correspondence with them and the show. We used to have them on every time they released a new game and then they went silent for a while. You’ll find out why when you hear our interview with Amanda May in this episode.

We all played games this week, but the only thing new for me was the Detroit demo. I was already sold on the game from all the branching paths, but the demo showed me this was much better than Beyond Two Souls – their last effort at the “your choices matter” type of gameplay style. Because in that game, it didn’t. At all. However, Detroit looks like that course was corrected. We’ll see later this month when it releases.

At some point I should probably start (and finish) God Of War. I’m a bit behind.

It’s behind a glass display case at the following link.

I never started out doing this show to reach any kind of goals. It was, and still is, a great hobby of mine and everyone else involved. It just comes with perks every now and then. Like realizing that you’ve not only spoken with, but also met and visited the people and places behind your favorite games. And not just recent favorite games, but the games that made you. The games that shaped who you’d become as a gamer.

MYST was that game for me, no doubt about it. That goes all the way back to 1993. And I have been in love with every game in the series ever since, never once ever expecting that I’d get to talk to one of the people who created the game, but also getting to meet him and visit the studio.

It will never not be special to me to have these people on our show.

We think that’s too much money for an Atari at the following link.

Sometimes when we don’t play anything for a week, we have a reason. Maybe not a good reason, but we have a reason. Or, we just make up games for the things we did. For instance, I played Homeowner Simulator and Matt put some time in with Car Repair Simulator. I actually did a marathon of mine while Matt only played like a single level and then actually got around to putting time in with some video games.

I’m hoping this week will let me get in a variety of game playing, because there is nothing addictive or really anything that you get from playing Homeowner Simulator. Especially not the level I was playing.

We kinda get off on a rant at the following link.

Far Cry 5 is out and I couldn’t be any less interested. It’s just not pulling me in. I don’t know if it’s the genre or the setting or the name, but watching videos of game play there’s just no hook for me. About the ONLY thing that raises my interest level is the damn fly fishing. Which is exactly all I did when I played the demo at PAX last year. Luckily, Matt and Nate both seem to be enjoying it.

As for me, I’m still playing Burnout Paradise and also, apparently, having some sort of strong opinion on how voice actors don’t keep me coming back to a game or a movie. It’s a tangent I got off on early in this episode and got completely lost in the rant so I apologize for that.

But seriously, character tone is more important than vocal tone – unless it’s the Muppets and then you better have a real good mix of both.

We’re on an adventure at the following link.

This is the one where we play Dungeons & Dragons. For some of us it was our first time and for others they were well experienced. That likely goes for the same for a lot of you who listened or will listen and watch this.

It was an experiment that seemed to be pretty successful, but we need to hear from you on that. Did this translate well for you? Is it something you enjoyed? Most of all, is this something you’d want us to do again?

We always welcome feedback to the show, but it isn’t something we always seek out. We’ve just always done what we do week in and week out and go from there, but this is one of the cases where we really need to hear from you on how successful this actually turned out. Where ever you might be reading this or watching this or listening to this, leave a comment or send us a tweet or an email.

Tell us what you thought. It’s the only way for us to know if we should do this again.