Unnecessary Gaming

The first video games episode of the year brings a rambling chat about Assassin's Creed: Origins, Bounty Train, Fallout Shelter and the very first of our Retro Games Book Club section, in which we talk at great length about NetHack! We also find ourselves swerving dangerously into the contentious topic of loot boxes, giving a bit of a kicking to several modern games as we do so. Oh well.

Assassin's Creed Origins (03:17)

Fallout Shelter/loot box chat (21:20)

Bounty Train (40:30)

Retro Games Book Club: NetHack (45:28)

Hosted by Chris Hanratty, Euan Glasgow, Pawel Daruk and Dave McCreary

Music by Euan Glasgow & Chris Hanratty

Recorded and edited by Chris Hanratty

Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are back after their winter break to bring you some New Year board games chat! We also have a bit of an announcement about changes to the podcast for the future, so listen up at the back!

On top of that, Dave has fun with his first ever podcast recording duties by twiddling all the knobs while Chris is speaking.

Enjoy!

Games talked about in this episode:

Zooloretto (06:55)

Hegemonic (19:30)

Century Spice Road (51:50)

Hosted by Chris Hanratty, Euan Glasgow, Pawel Daruk and Dave McCreary

Music by Euan Glasgow

Recorded and edited by Dave McCreary

In the last episode of 2017 Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are talking video games, with Pawel playing through Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Euan taking on Streets of Rogue, and Dave playing the weirdly difficult Metroidvania game Hollow Knight!

Also in this episode, we talk about our recent attendance of Games Are For Everyone in Edinburgh, a gaming event run by We Throw Switches, where Chris, Euan and Dave played some excellent, some weird, and some just plain arty games including Reigns: Her Majesty, Phogs, Virtua Walker 87, Line Wobbler, Muddledash, and more!

Enjoy!

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice: 1:33

Streets of Rogue: 17:20

Hollow Knight: 28:27

Games Are For Everyone: 40:47

Pawel has returned from his Japan trip, and Chris, Euan and Dave spend a good ten minutes grilling him about it while Pawel gives them capsule toy souvenirs (live unboxing, folks!). It's then straight on to the board games, as the lads have accidentally had a very Rio Grande Sunday at the weekend, with plays of some classic Euros which they'll tell you all about: Princes of Florence, Attika, and Stone Age!

Enjoy!

Princes of Florence: 12:22

Attika: 36:27

Stone Age: 49:22

Note: The next board games/tabletop episode will be in January, as we will be taking our usual Christmas/New Year break after the next video games episode, which should be out next week. Cheers!

Chris, Euan and Dave talk video games this week! Skyrim VR is the big new release for PSVR and Chris has a great time punching people and filling them with 10 arrows every second; Dave has a very specific reason for playing time-stopping sci-fi game Heat Signature; Chris attempts to make a successful software company in Software Inc; and Euan and Chris have a quick chat about the new Playlink feature on PS4, having had a bit of a larf with That's You!. Enjoy!

Skyrim VR: 01:20

Heat Signature: 22:16

Software, Inc: 37:35

That's You!: 51:33

We are finally back with a tabletop episode, this time playing something a bit unusual for us with the area control/wargame 878 Vikings: Invasions of England, and then having a bit of silly (but thematic) fun with the disc-flicking dungeon crawling game Catacombs!

Enjoy!

878 Vikings: 04:05

Catacombs: 37:24

Euan takes over hosting duties for this video games episode as Chris is feeling a bit under the weather (not drunk), which starts with him verbally wandering on his continued journey through 90s gaming with Fallout, and a little bit about Command & Conquer. Pawel then talks us through Warhammer: Total War 2, the latest installment in the planned trilogy. Also, Chris gives his dying throat a workout by taking us through the cosmetic changes to Fortnite's Battle Royale, before talking about the good and bad bits of Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and finishes up with a quick chat about ridiculously difficult platformer Cuphead.

Enjoy!

Fallout: 02:01

Total War: Warhammer 2: 09:45

Fortnite Battle Royale: 29:28

Shadow of War: 38:26

Cuphead: 49:03

This week, in a departure from our usual format, we hand the episode over entirely to our Pathfinder roleplaying campaign, in which we talk about what Pathfinder is, the characters and stories in our campaign, and have a good old chat about the wonderful world of roleplaying in general, from the perspective of both new (Chris and Euan) and experienced players (Pawel, RPG maestro extraordinaire).

This episode begins with a dramatic reading from the journal of Euan's character, Bobby Treetops, the elf sailor. He's some lad.

Enjoy!

We have a belter of an episode this week as Pawel admits defeat and gets stuck right in to Divinity: Original Sin 2, Chris tries not to spoil the interactive video-based game Her Story, Euan goes back to the 90s and plays the original Fallout, and Chris gives a quick overview of his first couple of hours in Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

Enjoy!

Divinity: Original Sin 2: 01:40

Her Story: 22:30

Fallout: 34:30

Middle-earth: Shadow of War: 50:50

We're back with another tabletop games episode, this time talking about two board games with gorgeous artwork: Dice Forge, in which the players are constantly changing the physical faces of their dice to suit their needs and strategy, and Spirit Island, a fully co-operative game of angry gods and spirits (the players) who are repelling foreign invaders from colonising their lands.

Enjoy!

Dice Forge: 02:30

Spirit Island: 25:45