Episode 40: Join us for our season finale as we reflect on the year of podcasts we did. Will has a big announcement, and some tough questions, like, "What if you went home to encounter a four foot version of yourself?" We also share our new year's resolutions and intentions, and give a small preview of what's to come from all of us at Hitpoint Pals…

Episode 39: On our penultimate episode of the year, Travis and Will have a game shoutout for AI Dungeon 2, an experimental text-based adventure that uses a database of choose your own adventure stories to respond to anything you say or do. Then we do some shoutouts for our favorite games of the year, including Sekiro, Resident Evil 2, and Ape Out. …

Episode 38: Life is Strange 2 spoilers from 25:25 - 37:10. We begin with a declaration from Will that he is a born again Christian and things only get less pious from there. But first Travis and Will recap their experience watching the Playstation Awards, a Japanese broadcast translated on the fly and often indecipherable, to us but mostly to the s…

Episode 37: The crew speaks with members of Rebekah and Cam's D&D group on the finale of their campaign, and their takeaways from a story that lasted two years. Then we talk about a few games we've been playing, including Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, GRIS, and Betrayer. Before we can wrap, we get in some offhand mentions of Sonic the Hedgehog, and…

Episode 36: Travis has been enjoying the satisfaction of positive feedback and repetitive tasks in Death Stranding, which we only discuss in vague terms since Will is eagerly awaiting the 2020 PC release, and doesn't want the game spoiled. But we fully discuss Caleb's time in Luigi's Mansion, where apparently Luigi looks really, really good. Also, …

Episode 35: The divisive auteur theory changed the way we critique films, and could go on to impact the way we talk about video games as well. There are many figures known for their collective works as video game directors and producers, but is Hideo Kojima spearheading a new brand of gaming auteur, for better or for worse? That's our topic this we…

Episode 34: What do you do when your service corgi gets swept down a storm drain and into the creepy tunnels beneath the city? Will fills us in on that journey in the lo-fi horror game Lost in Vivo, which he enjoyed a lot. We then try to determine whether or not ghosts are real and share some paranormal or just plain odd encounters we've all had. R…

Episode 33: Sony's Playstation 5 is a year away, and we just... aren't very excited about it. We get into the evolution of games hardware and the shrinking gap in technology leaps between major console generations. With the PS5 expected to be backwards-compatible with the PS4, we also touch on hardware architecture and compatibility, where the lack…

Episode 32: Will reads us a Steam review critical solely of gameplay time, and presents us with an open-ended question. How do we value games in relation to money spent and "content" time received? And how dependent are our opinions on an economic system where time is money? We discuss the "$1 = 1 hr. of gameplay" line of thinking, the stagnant $60…

Episode 31: Are subscription services the future? Does it make any sense to spend $60 on a game anymore? We're back from our hiatus to talk all things monthly payments, including Apple Arcade, which launched with a strong catalog of exclusives. Rebekah asks for advice on romance options in Stardew Valley, while Travis has enjoyed exploring The Olde…

Episode 30: How can a single player RPG be "dead?" We take a look at the tumultuous evolution of player-developer interaction over time, and the expectation players have grown to have for not just technical patches, but free content updates. A new culture has formed around reworking games that had less than stellar releases a la No Man's Sky, and t…

Episode 29: William and Travis have been enjoying the surprise hit Remnant: From the Ashes, while Rebekah experiences an over the table dilemma in her D&D game. Mount & Blade II finally gets a tantalizing early access date, and megacorporations continue to reign unchecked. Also, thoughts on Life is Strange 2 - Episode 4, and the Popeye's chicken sa…

Episode 28: Examining the work of Amanda Phillips in Shooting to Kill: Headshots, Twitch Reflexes, and the Mechropolitics of Video Games, the valorization of the headshot from multiplayer lobbies to the esports stage, and the media propaganda that rationalizes police brutality with the narrative of split-second decision making. How does our interpr…

Episode 27: The idea that video games are responsible for mass murders is still pushed by political figures and fans of the guns industry. On this episode we take a look at systemic violence in the United States and the intersection between capitalism, hatred, gun control, and yes, video games. If that sounds messy, well, it is. But we know that ga…

Episode 26: You guys ever heard of Mixer? Forgot about that. Will has been adventuring in what he calls "Stealth Souls," or Sekiro. We break down how effective Sekiro's stealth system is, then reminisce on Thief: The Dark Project's challenging but rewarding stealth mechanics, and wish more games would treat stealth with the depth it deserves. Also,…

Episode 25: Going to a Denny's at 3 in the morning is a classic American ritual, an experience shared by many and from which we derive a greater meaning. This week, we're talking about the shared experience of playing games, and the rituals we partake in before and during our gaming sessions and the purpose behind them. Gotta get that bad juju out …

Episode 24: Some games we associate with so many positive memories that picking them up again feels like returning home, and there are psychological reasons behind the phenomenon. This week we discuss an article by Polygon's Astrid Johnson, who breaks down why a game like Breath of the Wild can evoke such a reaction. Cam Call joins us on the podcas…

Episode 23: Rebekah has released a new and exciting zine called "Brave," and we kick things off by talking about the project and being passionate about independent publications. Then it's on to video game news. The "Den of Thieves" G2A came under fire again Monday when indie developer Mike Rose condemned Google ads directing people to buy his games…

Episode 22: We recorded this episode a few minutes after an earthquake shook Vegas, so Travis is on edge. But we dive right into The Outer Worlds co-director Leonard Boyarski's statement that the game will be "political," but not "politically-charged" and the misguided pandering developers often practice to reassure sensitive fans the game is worth…

Episode 21: Marianne Williamson is channeling powerful crystal energy. Beto o'Rourke wants to make sure you know he can speak Spanish. And the planet is rapidly advancing towards irreparable destruction. Meanwhile, we discuss an article about climate change from a gaming perspective, where beautiful digital recreations of nature are overshadowed by…

Episode 20: Making our post-E3 return, the Hitpoint Pals recap their favorite announcements from the showcase including Watch Dogs: Legion, Cyberpunk 2077, and Psychonauts 2. We then take a look at the decision by EA to sell Nazi character cosmetics in Battlefield V, and the dangers of normalizing Nazis as "just German soldiers." We look at the gam…

Episode 19: Following an exciting week of pre-E3 announcements, we gathered to unpack the week's news and then dive right into a special conversation about queerness in video games. Will and I do our best to follow along as Rebekah guides us through a discussion about the way that games are already queer, and tries to show us how the mere act of pl…

Episode 18: First things first, everyone saw Godzilla: King of the Monsters this weekend, so before we can get anything done we have to get our thoughts on big monster movie out of the way. Then it's a full fledged Kojimian nightmare as we remark on the latest Death Stranding trailer, our histories with Kojima games, and our hopes and skepticism ab…

Episode 17: Will gives his his thoughts and praise for Total War: Three Kingdoms, and fills us in on the perils of hiring a high maintenance character like Lu Bu. Travis gives Life is Strange 2 some attention, and Rebekah's guilt about colonizing Zimbabwe in Civilization VI leads to a larger discussion about morality in strategy games. Then we move…

You want a good girl, but you need the bad podcast. After eight seasons of highs and lows, HBO put a bow on Game of Thrones, a pop culture phenomenon that transcended genre to become a cornerstone of water cooler discussions. Despite its unavoidably nerdy status as a sword and sorcery story, the world fell in love with David Benioff and Dan Weiss's…

Episode 16: Paradox's newest grand strategy title Imperator: Rome blends the best parts of Crusader Kings and Europa Universals, but the final product feels too heavily distilled to remain engaging over long gameplay sessions. We talk about how Paradox games generally launch feature lite, and what we're hoping to see added to Imperator: Rome in the…

Episode 15: Reflections on The Elder Scrolls spark a discussion on how games treat race, and from there we dive into a rabbit hole that begins with a deep lore reading of the exclusively mono-racial identities in Tamriel, and ends with a sharp rebuke of Gamergate culture and the practice of labeling diversity as politics. We share some of our exper…

Episode 14: James Marsden's police car says "Green Hills." Then he yells, "SFPD!" Which is it, James Marsden? We look back on the first trailer for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film, the criticism it received, and the surprising announcement by director Jeff Fowler that changes "will happen." We also touch on new hardware entering the VR market …

Episode 13: Rebekah and Cam join the podcast and fill us in on the D&D campaigns that they are currently running. In games we've been playing, we discuss the pensive farming game The Stillness in the Wind and the meditative city puzzler ISLANDERS. Plus, Travis enters the modern era of Assassin's Creed games with Assassin's Creed: Origins, and the l…

Episode 12: Caleb discusses two games he has been playing on stream, Spec Ops: The Line, a military shooter that makes you feel bad about yourself, and The Darkness II, an action shooter where you're an antihero with Venom inside you. We also take a look at a story about a secret server for City of Heroes operating in the dark for an exclusive grou…

Episode 11: That disturbance in the force you felt was the Star Wars Episode XI trailer debuting. Equally as exciting was our first look at Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. We gathered around our mics for a special Star Wars edition of Hitpoint Pals. Games discussed: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, The Force Unleashed, Knights of the Old Republic, Game …

Episode 10: In games we played this week, Travis discusses the final episode of The Walking Dead: The Final Season and its sendoff to the series and Telltale Games as a whole. Amy starts a zoo in Zoo Tycoon 2, and takes us into the world of kinky Sims 3. Caleb continues his Dark Souls journey, and William revisits wholesome mouse RPG Ghost of a Tal…

Travis's first impressions of The Elder Scrolls: Blades early access release, plus William and Caleb have been playing the Dark Souls series. We also recap the week in gaming news, starting with Gearbox's reveal of Borderlands 3, then Sony's VR-heavy "State of Play" announcements, the Apple Arcade subscription platform for mobile games, and Daedali…

This past week, two important things happened. The first was Google's Stadia announcement - a new platform to compete with Xbox, Playstation, Twitch, and God. The second was hamster discourse which resulted in Amy getting blocked by Chrissy Teigen on Twitter. We also talk about some games? News discussed: Google announces Stadia, a games streaming …

It finally happened. The Master Chief Collection, coming to PC. After celebrating the great news we touch on rumors about a new streaming service by Google, and developer Turtle Rock Studios announces a Left 4 Dead follow-up. We wrap up with spoiler-free thoughts on Captain Marvel. News discussed: Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC! …

We try to process the leaked Sonic the Hedgehog design. What's up with his eyes? Why do we not deserve good things? Xbox teases a Tuesday announcement regarding the Master Chief Collection and we hope it's a PC release. Travis revisits the mobile game series Infinity Blade, which was removed from the app store by Epic. And Tori gives us a rundown o…

We round up the latest on upcoming games including Pokemon Sun/Moon, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, Vermintide 2: Winds of Magic, and spooky sea-crawler Barotrauma. Then we dive into the week's top stories: THQ Nordic hosts a Q&A on a platform known as a hive for illegal activities, more info on the next generation of Xbox console(s), and the massiv…

Anthem is the latest rocky launch for a series of high profile "games as a service" style games, we take a critical look at how this has changed the way games are released and consumed. Also, Xbox game pass may bring games to the Nintendo Switch, via a new streaming service. And Amy Rutherford joins us to delve into Sims lore and the upcoming Sims …

It's Nintendo Direct week and Link has awoken once again. Plus, Blizzard reveals their true colors. Also, the Overwatch League returns and with it, GOATS. All this and more on this week's episode of Hitpoint Pals. To support us on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/hpp

Nostalgia for the days when Star Wars games were good, and a new report lends even more credibility to the Oculus Rift S coming soon. Plus, Apex Legends impressions, and the Hitpoint Pals wander into cult-occupied Montana. All this and more on this week's episode of Hitpoint Pals. To support us on Anchor: https://anchor.fm/hpp…

A trip into the world of Anthem raises the question - what makes a good co-op game? Also: What does the future of digital game stores look like following the Metro Exodus controversy? Plus: Are we the Hitpoint Pals? Featuring Resident Evil: 2, Anthem, Sea of Thieves, and more.