Hey! Look! Listen!

On the lead up to the grand return of the franchise with the long awaited Return to Monkey Island, we dial back the clock to have a look at the series' debut entry. So grab a grog or a ghost-killing root beer, as we wax lyrical about the iconic and massively influential The Secret of Monkey Island. 

On this episode we have selected some of our favourite indie games; maybe ones that wouldn't fill an entire episode, but ones that we love, or at the very least contain some very interesting ideas. We cover six games in all, which range from odd narrative experiments to genre-defining masterpieces.  

The fifth and sixth entries in the Resident Evil franchise are often considered low points, what with their abandonment of horror in favour of action, their reliance on being multiplayer experiences, and their impenetrable, self-serious plotlines. On this episode we take a look at these two games to decide if their dark reputations are warranted. Short answer: no, not really actually! But, yes, ki...

On this week's episode we do a full bodied analysis of Catherine, one of the strangest games that we've ever tackled on this podcast. We celebrate its uniqueness, as well as its adult themes, while also admitting its colossal failings, and wonder whether or not it's a game that we can even fully recommend that people play.       

Talking about games that actually exist is for the birds! This episode deals only in games that absolutely should exist, but somehow don't in this wretched timeline. Be they returns to long-dormant franchises, or deserved follow-ups to one-hit-wonders, it's time to close our eyes and imagine a better world where the games listed in this episode were granted gosh darned sequels, and life was just b...

Join us as we discuss the PS2 action, puzzle, platforming masterpiece, Shadow Of The Colossus.    

It's the middle of June, the spoookiest time of the year! So let's jump back to the era of the PS1 to take a look at the first three entries in the seminal, long-running horror franchise, Resident Evil. And since all three games eventually went on to receive full-blown remakes, let's take a look at those too. 

Join us in The Land of the Dead as we discuss the beloved Lucas Arts adventure game, Grim Fandango, which has the peculiar honour of being one of the most celebrated games of its genre, while at the same time being largely responsible for that genre's decline.    

Time to take a look at two hit indie games from solo auteur designer, Lucas Pope. We explore how both games' mundane but fascinating premises are used as avenues to some truly exemplary game design, where the gameplay and the storytelling are one in the same.    

This week's episode is a deep dive on the Japanese role playing games/teenage life simulators, Persona. We take a look at the entire franchise, from its beginnings as a spin-off through to its evolution as one of the most popular JRPGs of all time.

There are few game franchises as beloved or as influential as The Legend of Zelda series. So here's a foolhardy attempt to analyse and rank all 19 main entries in the series, which has been one of Nintendo's main tentpoles since the far flung days of 1986. 

On this episode we have a discussion about "Open World" games, and all the successes and failures that can come from this genre. And what better way to do this than chatting about two of the biggest recent releases, Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West, which both take very different approaches to their open worlds.

The PlayStation 5 is new and shiny, but let's take a moment to look back and appreciate the good ol' PlayStation 4! What better way to do that than to make a list of the 10 best games that are exclusive to the PS4. It had an excellent library of games, so this list was surprisingly difficult to whittle down.

On this episode of Hey! Look! Listen the discussion is about a very hard game. But just because it is very hard doesn't mean that it also isn't an amazing, seminal achievement in the medium of video games. A hunter must hunt, and we simply must wax lyrical about FromSoftware's 2015 Playstation 4 classic, Bloodborne. And maybe the conversation might also swing around to the company's latest beautif...

For the second time we take a look at the ropey process of transforming video games into major motion pictures, inspired by two of our favourite franchises, Uncharted and Resident Evil, which both received dubious adaptations recently.

On this episode we take a look at Half-Life, undoubtedly one of the most important, revolutionary games ever made. We discuss the radical method it used to weave its narrative, as well as the overall franchise's fascinating relationship with the growing technology of the game industry.

This week we are joined by a guest who is not quite as much of a gamer as we are these days, and use this as an opportunity to discuss the power that nostalgia has over gaming as a hobby. We reminisce about our own memories of growing up together playing games, and take a look at the medium from more of an "outsider's" perspective. All our episodes are pretty much driven by nostalgia, but this one...

Is there anything quite as 90s as playing a 4-player multiplayer game that's based off of a Pierce Brosnan action movie, and everyone is sitting in the same room, hunched over a single television screen? On this episode, we take a hugely affectionate look back at the game that might just be the king of multiplayer on the Nintendo 64, and discuss whether or not it still manages to hold its title as...

Seven... That's an oddly specific number... But, yes! Sit back and enjoy a rundown of some of the best games that came out during the year of our Lord 2021. Pretty bad year all around, but it yielded some genuinely fantastic games. And here are seven of them!  

The 30-year-old Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge has long been regarded as a gaming classic, and a prime example of the "point-and-click adventure" genre. As such, it is the perfect game to examine with a fine tooth comb in order to analyze this always-niche, always-divisive gaming genre, and to pick out all the ways it can stumble and all the ways it absolutely soars.     

On this episode we talk about Naughty Dog's iconic, rip roaring Indiana Jones homage, Uncharted. We mostly chat about the main four games in the series, from their big action set pieces to their meditative quiet moments. But we also veer into other topics that relate to this expansive franchise. For example, Mark Wahlberg is brought up multiple times for some reason.

Final Fantasy is one of gaming's most enduring franchises, with over thirty years of history. Each game has its own personality, has left its own individual mark, has its own iteration of the giant yellow birds we know and love as Chocobos... So why not sit back and enjoy a foolhardy attempt to rank each entry of this colossal franchise in this jumbo-sized episode of Hey! Look! Listen! 

For the third time we take a look at the Metal Gear Solid series, delving into the 1960s-set prequel, Snake Eater. We talk about topics that range from eating frogs, to Bond theme songs, to killing old men by changing the clocks on our Playstation 2s. This is our 20th episode (kind of) and we'd like to thank everyone who's been listening to Hey! Look! Listen! and who have allowed us to chat about...

In late 2002, Capcom announced that they would be releasing a collection of five games with the goal of boosting sales for the Nintendo Gamecube. Each of these five games were wildly different from each other, and varied in overall quality, but all ended up being at the very least really interesting, weird games. One even ended up being an absolute masterpiece. Gather 'round for some good old remi...

We continue our examination of the horrible world of The Last of Us by moving on to its much anticipated but eventually divisive sequel. We talk about the controversial narrative choices that Naughty Dog made with this next chapter, as well as the evolution of its brutally violent gameplay. And, from a safe distance and while wearing safety goggles, we ponder the reasons why a certain percentage o...