Wide Flank: Happy Gaming

It’s time to take your first journey into space, little Hearthian. Blast off into an alien solar system to uncover the strange physics and mechanics of planets you’ve only dreamed of. Many spoilers in this episode. But if that doesn’t bother you, read on. Awaiting your arrival are the Hourglass Twins, a “double planet” (this is a real term), where two celestial bodies are locked together in their...

Hades is the latest release from Supergiant Games, a studio that consistently releases some of the slickest and most stylish games of the generation. This is the best yet. You are Zagreus, a son of Hades, determined to break free from the Stygian realm of your birth. A roguelike (roguelite?) that will test your twitch skills with weapons and power ups that make each run unique. Maybe most remarkab...

A listener asked us if we prefer the perfect brevity of Portal, or the focused improvements of Portal 2. But that gives it away – perfection wins every time. We often described Portal as a proof of concept, but that isn’t a criticism. What else could you ask of a three hour game? It says everything it needed to say. After Portal was released, the thoughts of a generation of gamers were changed, ma...

Alon is joined by Neil and Chris to talk about the fast, hyper, and hardcore game that is Neon White. We love it and it kicks ass, check it out. Neil is on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/clineil_ Chris recently made a game called Silly Seance: http://sillyseance.com/ Happy gaming. Everywhere that you can find us: https://linktr.ee/wideflank Timestamps: 00:00 - Opening 01:10 - Neon White backgro...

Another classic that really held up. Released in 1995 for the SNES, Chrono Trigger continues to top “Best Of” video game lists. None of us had played it, so we played it! The combat sort of sucked but there was so much that made up for that. It looked great, the world was compelling, some weird good NPC dialogue and a soundtrack that rocked. Next Gameclub is Portal + Portal 2: https://store.steamp...

Play the game, then come back and listen to this podcast. How to talk about one of the more peculiar games of the last decade… Inscryption is a lot and it’s hard to describe it without spoiling it. It’s a deck-builder, it’s an escape room, it’s a roller coaster of a roguelike (sort of). You can approximate this game’s vibe by combining the strategy of Slay the Spire, the wonder of Myst, the advent...

This is the story of a man, John-117, the Master Chief. This is the story of America. Of Bungie. This is the story of developer crunch, of sleeping in the office, of grandiose expectations, and of delivering on them (albeit imperfectly). The name itself “Halo: Combat Evolved” is a corporate compromise between Bungie artists and Microsoft marketing shills. This is the story of multiplayer so good t...

For this gameclub the Wide Flank gang played “Prey” (2017). The Typhon have broken containment and are running amok on the space station Talos 1. But this is an immersive sim so as much as it is your job to blast these aliens to bits, you also need to read a lot of emails between HR and disgruntled office workers. The game is a little messy, but that's kind of the point. Unfortunately Prey doesn’t...

This month the gang played Mega Man X. Was it good? Yes. Could it have been better? Yes. It's a blast from the past with a killer soundtrack and a half-assed attempt at a Blade Runner plot line. What's not to love? How about enemies respawning immediately after killing them just because the camera moved. We spend a lot of time comparing MMX to other games trying to pinpoint what about the mechanic...

This month, Aleah, Teddy and Danny discussed Dune Part 1. There's a lot to like about this film and a lot to look forward to in Part 2, but it definitely has its missteps. As readers of the book, we definitely felt that Denis did a great job visualizing Frank Herbert's novel. Next game for Gameclub is Mega Man X. Happy gaming.  Everywhere that you can find Wide Flank: https://linktr.ee/widefl...

The Last of Us. Yep, we decided to play it one more time (or in Alon’s case, the first time). Teddy and Danny have played this many times since its release, and to no one's surprise, still loved it. It’s a game that gets its storytelling so right. The voice acting is 2nd to none. The plot is familiar, and even has its fair share of tropes, but its characters are so well developed that we didn’t mi...

Before Wide Flank, there was a podcast called Zero One Why. It was a show where Teddy, Danny and Aleah reviewed movies and gave them a One (watch it) or a Zero (don’t watch it) and talked about why. We reunited to review and react to Bo Burnham’s Netflix special “Inside”. We had an amazing time recording together again and did our best to add some unique takes on the widely lauded and over-reviewe...

For this month’s Gameclub, Alon, Danny and Teddy talk about Metal Gear Solid (1998). This was our hardest episode yet. What can you add to the pile of think pieces and criticism of one of the most beloved games of a generation? We do our best to use terms like postmodern and the 4th wall to describe our experience but not sure if we say them correctly. There are some misses here: Why is it in 3D?...

For this month’s Gameclub, Alon, Danny and Teddy talk a lot about Subnautica. You are a lone survivor after an interstellar spaceship crashes down on an ocean planet. What do you do? Scuba dive and mine minerals until you can blast back off into space, of course. The game isn’t perfect, but the ambiance? Flawless. We spend a lot of time talking about the early access release schedule and how that...

Alon, Danny, and Teddy play Doom (2016). They went to Mars, they went to Hell, and they ripped and they teared along the way. But first they had to put on the Doomguy mask and become the Doom Slayer. Doom in 1993 both defined and challenged the idea of what a First Person Shooter is, was, and should be. Doom in 2016 did it again. And it fuckin’ rocked. - 00:00 - Technical difficulties and we start...

Alon is joined by friends and fighting game freaks Chris and Hayden to talk about the newest hype fighter called Guilty Gear Strive. We try to focus on the appeal of the game and what the designers nailed about the game but also we drift into some more macro game design concepts. Now Playing is a new series from Wide Flank (as opposed to Gameclub) where we’ll bring on friends/gamers/whomever to ta...

Alon, Danny and Teddy play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It was like running a marathon and then running the same course in reverse. Was it fun? Sort of. We’re glad we did it. SotN is definitely smarter than it looks at first blush. It’s dripping with style and the soundtrack is bananas. There was a lot that didn’t age well, but that's okay. Your racist grandma still has some redeeming quali...

Alon, Danny and Teddy played through Half Life 2 and had a freaking BLAST. Do we say anything original here? Probably not, but it was great to play and shoot the shit, so to speak. We wanted to keep our very first ep short and sweet, but we cover: 00:00 - Intro 00:34 - Is this still a good game 06:35 - What aged the best 10:00 - What aged the worst 18:00 - Pathing, level design 20:30 - Game diffic...