Happy Holidays! Episode 4 of The Punished Podcast marks our final episode of the year, but fret not—we have an awesome show in store for you.

To close out the year, we brought five of our writers together to reflect on the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2023. Which games wowed us? Which games punked us? What are we excited to play in 2024? Listen along as we tell all.

For the latter portion of the podcast, our editorial team reconvened to tally up the final scores for our 2023 Fantasy Gaming league. Despite a competitive draft (and some smart waiver wire pick-ups), in the end, there could only be one victor. Get the full play-by-play in this month’s episode.

MP3 Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Allison — 4.5 out of 5

David — 4 out of 5

Kei — 4.5 out of 5

Jason — 4.5 out of 5

Sam — 4.5 out of 5

Curious how this year’s Fantasy Gaming league panned out? Read up on the highlights below:

December 2022

Our editorial team gathered to preview the upcoming year's gaming slate. We took turns, snake order, assembling a team of six gaming releases. The goal: End the year with the highest average Metacritic score.

Only the top four games from each team would count toward the average, meaning we could draft with our hearts and swing for the fences. So, we did. Check out the full 2023 Fantasy Gaming draft here.

By the end of the draft, we were left with three contenders:

January 2023 to June 2023

For six months, our gladiators battled it out for goodness and glory. Each month brought new gaming releases—and with them, the promise of green Metacritic scores, universal acclaim, and more points for the Fantasy Gaming leaderboard.

We won't dig up the past, but if you want the full blow-by-blow, you don't need pay-per-view. Catch the full recap by reading each of our H1 2023 Fantasy Gaming updates:

• Fantasy Gaming Update: Jan 2023 – Fire Emblem and Dead Space Kick Off the Competition!
• Fantasy Gaming Update: March 2023 – Resident Evil 4 Retakes Its Crown
• Fantasy Gaming Update: April 2023 – Jedi: Survivor Soars, Redfall Stinks
• Fantasy Gaming Update: June 2023 – Zelda, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, and More!

June 2023

By the end of June, the Fantasy landscape was well-established. Team Amanda had seen a massive dub in May with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but also a massive dud in Arkhane Studios' Redfall. Team Sam enjoyed two strong performances thanks to Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Street Fighter VI. And Team David, despite some decent releases, suffered two major game delays.

As the summer set in, the leading horses were creating some distance from the pack.

July 2023

Then, we decided to shake things up. In July, we hosted a one-time Fantasy Gaming "waiver wires pick-up." The rules were simple: Each team could drop two games and replace them with another two. With Summer Games Fest at our backs, there was a gluttony of fresh releases ready to be added. Naturally, we took advantage. Check out our full 2023 waiver wire adventures here.

With our waiver wire completed, we entered the second half of 2023 with revamped teams—and renewed fires.

December 2023

This was it. After months of releases, we reconvened for one last hurrah. If you haven't already listened, we highly recommend you scroll up to the top of this article and give our podcast a listen.

Still here? That's cool too. Here's the final leaderboard (and our newly crowned Fantasy Gaming winner):

In 3rd, with an average top four of 87.8 (and an overall average of 86.5)... Team David!

In 2nd, with an average top four of 91.3 (and an overall average of 73.5)... Team Amanda!

And in 1st, with an average top four of 91.3 (and, critically, an overall average of 88.7)... Team Sam!!!

That's right, folks! We had to go to a tie-breaker to decide the final winner.

Thanks so much for tuning into Fantasy Gaming these past 12 months. We've had a blast playing, and we hope to do it again soon!

The post The Punished Podcast: Episode 4 – Best of 2023 Recap appeared first on The Punished Backlog.

Welcome back to The Punished Podcast! In this episode, we talk about the gaming phenomena that inspired this site’s very name: the backlog. 

You’ve got games to play, and so do we. Listen along as we discuss what’s in our current backlogs, the challenges to getting through that stack of games, and tips for newcomers looking to break into the hobby. Plus, hear our reactions to a spicy take from the site’s newest contributor, Zack Gulinello!

MP3 Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Here’s a brief summary of our strategies for managing the backlog: 

We discuss a wide range of games, new and old. In alphabetical order, here are some that dominated our conversation (and haunt our free time):

The post The Punished Podcast: Episode 3 – The Backlog appeared first on The Punished Backlog.

Welcome back to The Punished Podcast! Before we dive into the meat and grits of this one, a heartfelt disclaimer: We recorded this one on August 27, right at the tail-end of Gamescom. That was seven weeks ago—an eternity in a year as fast-moving as this.

Back then, people were excited for Starfield. Anything was possible in the tantalizing reaches of space. Fast forward nearly two months, and the hype has waned. The game was good, not great; life moved on. Cyberpunk 2.0 came out. Maybe it’ll be enough to get Amanda to replay it. Who can say.

The point is, I dropped the ball, and I apologize. A special apology to my co-hosts, Amanda Tien and Sam Martinelli, and equal thanks for their patience as I ploddingly put this one together.

The good news? The content’s still fire!

This episode, we discuss the ideal game length. What makes a great two-hour game? A great 100-hour epic? Tune in for our thoughts, accompanied by a truly scathing take from yours truly.

Correction: At 43:26, I state that The Shawshank Redemption is a “crisp, 90-minute film.” That movie is two and a half hours, per IMDB. Clearly, I’m not a film expert. (Still a breezy film, though…)

MP3 Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Looking for your next big, medium, or small playthrough? Look no further. We went ahead and compiled every game we mentioned in this episode, then ordered it by “all styles” length on How Long To Beat.

Any title marked with an emoji is particularly great.

The post The Punished Podcast: Episode 2 – Game Length appeared first on The Punished Backlog.

Welcome to The Punished Podcast! In episode one, the Punished Backlog editorial team (Sam Martinelli, David Silbert, Amanda Tien) tackles a topic that is top of mind for everyone in gaming this year: remakes and remasters. We share our favorite examples of both, and discuss what it means that we keep getting so many of them. The crew also adds a new inductee to the Punished Hall of Fame… the Nintendo DS!

MP3 Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Some comments from the podcast (edited for clarity):

David: I would say a remaster is a developer or studio updating [a game] visually and, to an extent, mechanically to make it play well and make it accessible to a modern audience but maintaining the same look and feel. A good example of this, in my opinion, is Metroid Prime Remastered. I know Retro Studios updated the controls to utilize a dual analog setup, so the game is less clunky than we remember from the GameCube version. But it still ultimately looks and feels the same as the original game.

With a remake, you’re definitely creating new assets, building everything from the ground up, and re-imagining the visuals and mechanics. A good example of that, for me, is The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. Some people look at that as a remaster, but I look at it as a remake because I think the look and feel are quite different from the original. I think something like the Dead Space remake also fits the bill, though it toes the line definitionally, since the gameplay is mostly the same.

Sam: It does feel like every medium recycles things constantly. I think about how King Kong has been made several times, somehow we can’t get away from King Kong! Like everyone in Hollywood has figured it out, that all audiences want to see over and over again is a large ape, just with different visual effects.

I was thinking about this with Mass Effect, which is such an interesting example to me. I played the entire Legendary Edition last year for the first time, and at any point before the Legendary Edition released, I could have played all three of the original versions of those games at any given time, but I didn’t: I waited for the remaster. In a sense, I got got. EA basically just said, “Hey, what if we gave you access to something again? What if we gave you a reason to pay money for this again?” And that’s sometimes a risk that comes with the desire for more remakes and remasters. Sometimes I think we just want to buy something again.

Sam: Today, I’m inducting the Nintendo DS! It’s weird… the Nintendo DS is not my favorite Nintendo platform, but I think it’s the best example of Nintendo striking a balance between simple and complex games, between casual and hardcore titles, between gimmicky and classic controls. You could do anything with the DS. It had this promise to it that it actually achieved.

The Nintendo DS was so creative. And every single person who has DS–and there are many people who have/had a Nintendo DS, as we’ll get into–has a different favorite. It’s amazing that we all have such different favorites. David, for example, has sung Hotel Dusk: Room 215′s praises for years.

David: For me, the DS strikes all the boxes. Lifetime console sales: the DS is second only to the Playstation 2, and it’s trailing by a million units. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was even closer than that. But chances are, if someone’s played a video game before (besides mobile games), it was on a PS2 or a Nintendo DS. That’s the greatest likelihood.

The DS was an amazing handheld device. There was a quality and quantity of experiences on the platform. Hotel Dusk is such a phenomenal game that really used the DS in a novel way; you turned it sideways to hold it like a book. On the left side, you navigated through this dilapidated model, and on the right, you’d advance the dialogue and look at clues.

Amanda: I loved the touch screen and the microphone! There was one franchise that made me think of both: Nintendogs. To date, that series has sold a combined total of 2.69 million copies worldwide, making it the second bestselling franchise on the console.

One of the reasons that’s interesting is that Nintendo reported that most of the people who bought Nintendogs were female and that 44% of the audience for the Nintendo DS was female. I wanted to bring this up because the DS as a platform welcomed in new audiences of gamers, and I wanted to recognize that it’s an inclusive thing that these games were exciting to other groups of people.

Listen to our episode for all our thoughts on the impact of the DS!

The post The Punished Podcast: Episode 1 – Remakes vs. Remasters appeared first on The Punished Backlog.