Gaming Under The Influence

2020 is winding down. Mike & Alex are here to talk about all the highlights of the past year. In 2019 major publishers marketed their return to single-player with Jedi Fallen Order & Sekiro. this year, the quantity of excellent games was no less substantial. Featuring a discussion of games as an instrument for world-building, recent indie soulslikes and the greatest hits of the year, including Cyb...

Mike & Alex have spent a week navigating the controversy surrounding Cyberpunk. While the overwhelming majority of commentators remain fixated on consumerist pet causes, the quality and content of the game (in its optimal state) has largely been forgotten. This episode features a continued discussion of why this approach is misguided… at least for people who care about video games. Also treating t...

Cyberpunk 2077 is everything we could have hoped for. Mike & Alex are here to describe their ~20hr impressions, as well as discuss the controversy surrounding CDPR & glitches in early builds of the game.

Are you starved for a next gen game to play? Are you wondering if Assassins Creed Valhalla is worth your time? Do you think Ubisoft gave up making good games a hundred years ago? Alex has finished Demon's Souls and Mike is here to convince him ACV deserves attention. Featuring a) a discussion of the multilayered world-building, which descends from gods and secret history down to the physical prope...

The nominees for 2020's Game Awards have been announced. Mike & Alex are here to explain why the bevy of western-style, anthropocentric games dominating the show in 2020 are inferior to last year's entries, and even to Japanese titles conspicuously absent from this list of 'Game of the Year' contenders. Including a discussion of why Half Life Alyx is awful in concept, the sentimentalism of God of...

Demon's Souls Remake is done. Alex and Mike are experiencing soulsborne withdrawl and are here to describe some recent entries in the genre to tide you over until Elden Ring. From the loot-based progression of Nioh 2, Gnostic worldbuilding of Mortal shell to the sci-fi horror of Hellpoint, join us for a jaunt through the best souslike games of 2020.

Alex & Mike have completed the Demon's Souls remake and are here to gush to you about how, with this incredible game, PS5 comes barreling out of the gate with the best console launch of all time. This is the same genre-inventing epic we fell in love with eleven years and one month ago, with a fresh visual interpretation courtesy of Bluepoint. Also featuring a brief discussion of the lightning fast...

After Watch Dogs Legion, we dive into Ubisoft's next major offering. The aggressive monetization and loot-based progression appear to have been abandoned, in favor of a more conventional progression system the likes of which we encounter in Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn. Cheers to the resurrection of Ubisoft.

Next gen is just a few days away. Mike & Alex are here to forecast the most exciting releases of November 2020, including PS5 games launching in the coming week. Thoughts on Demon's Souls Remake's modified healing system, Godfall's looter mechanics & settlement-building in Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

Mike & Alex discuss the endings of Ghost of Tsushima & Death Stranding before getting into the shockingly wicked Watch Dogs Legion. Includes an analysis of political content in the game, core loop, the near-future scifi cyberpunk dystopian depiction of London & the joy of flying in open-world games.