Unnecessary Gaming

This week's video games episode finds Chris in his happy place as he shows Divinity: Original Sin 2 a whole lot of love while arguing with Pawel about what a Fantasy RPG is. Meanwhile, Pawel has been playing Echo (not Ecco), a stealth game in which the AI learns how to beat you from observing your choices and behaviour. Also this week Chris and Dave have a bit to say about Starbound and its excellent balance of relaxing base building and exploration of alien planets.

Enjoy!

Divinity: Original Sin 2: 03:34

Echo: 29:40

Starbound: 45:20

A full squad of Unnecessaries have a spot of early tomfoolery over which one of them is called Pawel, before they move on to a couple of good chats about some of the more fun and chaotic tabletop games they've played recently: Goblins, Inc, a tile-laying game in which four players split into two teams and build robots of death to batter each other with; and Escape: The Curse of the Temple (Big Box Edition), a co-operative, real-time, frantic, dice-rolling game, which involves the players attempting to, well, escape from an ancient temple before time runs out and they're locked in forever.

Enjoy!

Goblins, Inc: 02:18

Escape: The Curse of the Temple: 23:50

Chris, Euan, Pawel, and Dave kick off by opening the mailbag for the first time, as an annoyed listener manages to sneak in a review of Uncharted 4. The proper gaming chat starts with Destiny 2, as Pawel skives work to play a video game again, and Chris attempts to tackle Fortnite, a game which is trying to be a lot of things at once (and basically succeeding). Also, Euan manages to squeeze in a quick talk about PS2 game Shadow of Memories (aka Shadow of Destiny), a weird time-travelling game of yesteryear.

Enjoy!

Destiny 2: 07:14

Fortnite: 25:58

Shadow of Memories/Destiny: 52:05

Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave are back for a healthy chat about two completely different board games! Strap yourselves in (and board your windows up) for a long chat about This War of Mine, a narrative-heavy game which sees the players controlling a small group of people trying desperately to survive in a war-torn city. We then lighten things up a bit with the hospital building/patient curing game Quarantine, a short and easy to learn board game which has a decent amount of screwing over your fellow players by filling their hospitals with disease.

Enjoy!

This War of Mine: 1:43

Quarantine: 42:22

Chris, Euan, Pawel, and even Dave are back from an unintentionally extended holiday to talk video games! During the break, Euan finally finished Final Fantasy XV, and has a good rant about it, while Chris talks about The Sexy Brutale, a quirky time-travelling point-and-click murder mystery game for the modern gaming world. Dave has a bit to say about Alaskan survival/exploration game The Wild EIght, and specifically its multiplayer mode, and Pawel attempts to pour out some love for Uncharted 4, but the conversation is... ehh.. derailed.

Enjoy!

Final Fantasy XV: 3:16

The Sexy Brutale: 10:24

The Wild Eight: 21:35

Uncharted 4/everything else: 38:16

Chris and Euan are on their lonesome for this week's board games episode, which covers a couple of games that they've enjoyed for a few years now, starting with Mage Wars, a deckbuilding mage-battling game with a huge difference in that all your cards and abilities are available to you from the off. They then go back to Xia: Legends of a Drift System, the sci-fi sandbox game of customisable ships battering around a dangerous galaxy, and have a look at the new expansion for it, Embers of a Forsaken Star, and all the delights that it adds.

Enjoy!

Mage Wars: 2:33

Xia: Embers of a Forsaken Star: 29:47

This week's video games episode begins with looking up Pawel's name on Urban Dictionary for kicks, before the lads actually start talking about some video games, starting with a very brief return to Neon Chrome and then a much, much longer chat about another roguelike, Unexplored, which Chris has been enjoying immensely. Euan then goes back a good few years to talk about Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, in anticipation of a new Call of Cthulhu game being released later this year. Pawel brings us forward into the 2010s (or is it back to the 1940s?) as he chats about the RTS game Company of Heroes 2, set on the Eastern Front during World War 2, before Chris has some silly fun with one-vs-many horror survival game Friday the 13th: The Game.

Enjoy!

Unexplored/Neon Chrome: 5:04

Call of Cthulhu: 23:40

Company of Heroes 2: 35:00

Friday the 13th: 47:03

Chris, Euan and Pawel have a 66% Japanese episode with two games from designers from the land of the rising sun, starting with Tragedy Looper, a "1 versus many" time-travel board game in which the good guys are trying to prevent tragedies from happening by, uhhh, letting them happen a couple of times. Next up is Fairy Tale, a light, fantasy-themed card game of set collection and with multiple ways of scoring points. Pawel then ruins the Japanese theme of the episode by talking some more about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and specifically about its standalone adventures and expansions such as Dunwich Legacy.

Dave also gives a message from beyond the grave. (Note: Dave isn't actually dead)

Enjoy!

Tragedy Looper: 3:18

Fairy Tale: 26:32

Arkham Horror Card Game: 40:30

Chris, Euan and Pawel bring you another video games episode! Chris kicks off with an update on two VR games, first asking Pawel about his experience with Star Trek Bridge Crew and then a short bit about his own playthrough of Farpoint. Euan then talks about the strange Egyptian sci-fi old-school style indie RPG Void Pyramid and how he's been stalking its mysterious designer known only as "A Hagen". Chris jacks himself into Neon Chrome, an addictive and well designed top-down cyberpunk shooter with roguelike elements, while Pawel returns to the Gabriel Knight series with the 20th Anniversary remake of Sins of the Father.

Also, more vague politics.

Enjoy!

Star Trek Bridge Crew/Farpoint: 3:20

Void Pyramid: 13:04

Neon Chrome: 26:10

Gabriel Knight Sins of the Father: 41:04

Chris, Euan, Pawel and Dave bring you the missing board games episode from last week!

This week we give most of the episode over to Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games, as we give our first impressions of the newly-arrived story-telling/adventuring game Near and Far. We also chat about one of Euan's favourite games, The Ancient World, where the players are attempting to unite groups of people under their banners to fight off the threat of attacking Titans. Although Pawel thinks the humans are the real monsters.

Finally, we return to Captain Sonar, after Chris and Euan managed to get a full eight-player real-time game of this incredibly fun team-based submarine-commanding torpedo-firing stealth-running mine-dropping game of wits.

New video games episode will be out later this week!

Enjoy!

Near and Far: 2:30

The Ancient World: 25:30

Captain Sonar: 46:10