8-4 Play

Yo-kai Watch 2, Super House of Dead Ninjas, Japanese baths, Dragon Quest X for 3DS, John's free-to-play addiction, preorder DLC, 3DS update speculation, EVO 2014 hyyyype!

Superagent Ben Judd joins the crew to recap what we learned from E3, dig deep into Shovel Knight, the Destiny Alpha, Summer Games Done Quick, balloon swords, Evo 2014, and more.

John Davison, Garnett Lee, and Mike McWhertor -- plus a surprise blast of bonus guests! -- join Mark and John from LA to talk anything and everything E3, including Smash Bros, Destiny, Zelda, Bloodborne, Splatoon, and plenty more!

With Mark and John out of town, JJ packs the E3 Hype Train(TM)(C) with a rowdy gang of friends-of-the-show (Jean Snow, ex-intern Tom, ex-intern Johnny, Esteban Salazar of Marvelous AQL, John Davis of Q Games) to discuss / predict / argue what's about to go down in L.A.

With only a couple weeks till the hype train leaves the station we take a quick stop to talk about Super TIME Force, Sportsfriends, Kero Blaster, Yo-Kai Watch, the Kinect cut and run, Nintendo's financial results, Project Beast, Tetsuya Mizuguchi returning to video games and more.

On this, the most golden of weeks, the regular crew checks in to weigh in on Hearthstone, YO-Kai Watch mania, Dark Souls 2 PC, Nintendo E3 news, Xbox TV, the E.T. Dig, old Japanese cell phone games, From Software's sale and more.

Our 100th episode gets the band back together (finally!), along with friends from 17-Bit and 2 Player Productions, to talk PAX East, Below, MGSV: Ground Zeroes, Dark Souls II, PS4 eye tracking, Steam sales numbers, Tomodachi Life, and of course, Sir Mix-a-Lot.

John and Hiroko are back, as are celebrity ex-interns Alex "Jungle Fire" Aniel, Chris "Scan Lines" Reed, and Tom "Hitman" Staniforth, joining us to talk Heroes of the Storm, Diablo 3, Gundam Extreme Vs. Maxi Boost, Boom Beach, Monument Valley, Facebook & Oculus, Phil Spencer & Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, Brave Wave music, and more!

John, Mark, and Hiroko are out working GDC, so it’s up to JJ and guests Johnny Linnert and Jean Snow to pick up the slack! This week we talk Dark Souls II, Luftrausers, Awesomenauts Assemble!, Towerfall: Ascension, Project Morpheus, Bitsummit, Iga going solo and more!

Dark Souls. That's it. 150 minutes of talk about Dark Souls. No other games. No news. Just Dark Souls. Can you survive and make it to the end? In content AND format, truly the Dark Souls of podcasts. ...Dark Souls.

Metal Gear Solid translator Jeremy Blaustein and Sega honcho Ethan Einhorn join us on the eve of the Japanese PS4 launch to talk about their illustrious careers (Jaleco! Konami! Sega!), the latest games we've been playing (Titanfall! Strider! Left Behind!), and all the news that's fit to...uh, recite (Twitch Plays Pokemon! Nintendo Direct! PS4 Launch!). Have at it!

With John in Hawaii working on his Flappy Bird score, Tokyo-based gaming expert Jean Snow and Johnny (ex-) "Intern" Linnert join the gang to talk Outlast, Brothers, Broken Age, Tales of Xillia, Puppeteer, Sengoku Basara 4, Groove Coaster Arcade, lots of Dark Souls, Nintendo's recent investors meeting, Xbox One rumors and, yup, more!

Six hours have passed since the occupation of 8-4 Towers by one Alexander O. Smith, founder and leader of the Kajiya sect. Tune in for talk of his various localization feats (Vagrant Story! Tactics Ogre! Final Fantasy XII!) as well as his current Kickstarter project Unsung Story, along with thoughts on Don't Starve, Kirby: Triple D, DayZ, Zubaz, and plenty more.

John's out sick, but the show must go on! Join us for New Year's holiday reminiscings, including Ys II, Bravely Default, what Hiroko *wants* to play, Steam machines, the new Oculus Rift, pizza and a whole lotta rock, paper, scissors.

8-4 alumni Andy Church and Brendon Pritchard come home for the holidays to tell us all about their latest MMO adventures in Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X Version 2, but not before we talk about Zelda: ALBW (again), Puzzle & Dragons Z, Bravely Default, Electronic Super Joy, Kamen Rider belt buckles, last week's Nintendo Direct, and more. Happy Holidays!

Newcomer Roy Blakely joins the 8-4-some to talk (more) Mario, (more) Zelda, (more) Resogun, Ibb and Obb, Samurai Gunn, Bravely Default, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX, 3DS Miiverse, the VGX Awards, the life and times of Hideki Kamiya, and more.

John and JJ are back! And talking Mario, Zelda, both new next-gen systems, Mario, Persona 5, microtransactions, Zelda, Resogun, Mario, & taking sides in the console wars. Did we mention Zelda? And stick around for a special bonus segment focus(attack)ing on the Ultra Street Fighter 4 location test in Japanese arcades. Also, Mario.

No PS4s. No John. No JJ. No problem! ...well, OK, one problem with the audio near the start... BUT ANYWAY! CheapyD and Scott Popular pitch in to help go over everything we’ve seen and heard (and not played, yet) of Sony’s new system, plus Super Mario 3D World, Black Friday shopping deals, and -- perhaps most importantly -- how to pronounce “BlazBlue.” 5:28 – iPad vs WiiU for kids 14:30 – Super Mar...

Resolutions and media centers and firmware, oh my! Special guest @CheapyD joins the gang / the internet in dissecting every damn detail trickling out about the next-gen systems, and why it will matter – unless it won't. Plus Battlefield 4 PTSD, Street Fighter II trivia, and war stories from the Dark Souls II beta (and not the game). Fans of podcasts, rejoice!

With Captain MacDonald of the good ship 8-4 Play off plundering the high seas in his vacation dinghy, the rest of the crew have assembled in the poop deck for a relaxed bout of hearty discussion (read: directionless rambling) on topics such as Pokemon X/Y, Zelda: Wind Waker HD, Device 6, the new Vita 2000, Supercell's billions, the Sonic cartoon, the Valve controller, Boogerman's long-awaited (?)...

Just thought we'd let everyone know that up front. What we are talking about is Monster Hunter 4, the Steambox controller, Super Mario 3D World, Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Wii U Party, Pikmin 3 DLC, the legacy of the Wii, Dragon Quest X on smartphones, and remembering Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Jeremy Parish, Matt Leone, Mike McWhertor, Griffin McElroy, Brian Silva, Jake Kazdal, and the mangod himself, Shane Bettenhausen, all join us to talk Deep Down, Dark Souls 2, Metal Gear Solid V, Vita TV, Gravity Daze...2 (?), Monster Hunter Frontier G, Yakuza Isshin, Wii Sports Club, Strider, and more, plus we all pay our respects to the late, great Nintendo president, Hiroshi Yamauchi.

Please stow your laptops and power triangles as we depart for our special 84th (!) episode, with first-blush Monster Hunter 4 and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle impressions, thoughts on Vita TV and the revamped Vita handheld, PS4's rumored virtual reality headset and virtual lack of games for Japan (or is there?), Dragon Quest X expansions, and of course, Mighty No. 9! 

We're off to PAX and a special sumthin' sumthin' -- but first, more on the Wonderful 101, Killer is Dead, Divekick, the 2DS announcement, PS4 and XBONE launch comparison, Gamescom news (and fresh rumors), and more!

Kevin Larrabee of Back in my Play (Dorito it!) and Mehdi Debbabi-Zourgani of Je Game Moi Non Plus (cherchez le sur Dorito!) join us to talk retro games, Suda 51, and the...how do you say? ESSAUNCE of The Wonderful 101, DuckTales Remastered, amazon's new console, Carmack at Oculus, Nintendo Direct, MS news, Sony news, and more.