Hot Button

It’s a full house this week as we celebrate our third birthday together. So join us in going back through every topic we’ve ever covered from the very beginning all the way to today! A near two and half hours of updating, correcting, and reflecting on the good times. This along with poking fun at the constant strangeness this industry seems to endlessly relish in.

Our mini-stories series is back! This week we super vary it up and get into the licensing around car manufacturers in racing games, the theft of some classic internet memes, and finally which deep secrets lay hidden behind the legendary Demon’s Souls door.

In what might be one of the most mysterious projects we have ever covered, this week we explore the confusing history of a social experiment who’s intentions to this day are still being investigated. A supposed horror FMV title played through web cameras that also may have even shared close connections with some of the top names in the indie gaming space. Whether or not it ever was destined to see...

Are video games teaching your children to eat each other? This week we discuss the time that the industry became under fire in the absolute dumbest way imaginable, along with the origins of an inept advocacy group who hand-waved their way into headlines by picking a fight the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

And we’re back with the second and final part on the captivating development behind Cyberdream’s playable 1995 translation of Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. This week, we get deep into it’s actual production, release, and legacy! Along with our personal experiences of analyzing it’s intensely terrifying narrative themes.

It’s finally that time of year again, everybody! And what better way to kick off the spooky scary Halloween season than by digging into the story of how one of cult gaming’s most fascinating point-and-click PC adventure titles came to fruition, a direct adaptation AND expansion of Harlan Ellison’s sci-fi horror masterpiece “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. On Part I, we break down this twisted...

Don’t y’all just hate those pesky controllers? Wouldn’t your body or voice make a better one? Back in 2010, Microsoft sure thought that! This week we get into life of the motion-sensing camera peripheral for the Xbox 360 known as the Kinect. Everything from its inception to its reception as well as all the tech talk and personal experiences in between.

We’ve watched the film, now it’s time for the full breakdown. This week we get deep into the production and release of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within! A costly cinematic disaster of a computer animated sci-fi epic that for some reason shares a name with the hugely successful gaming series that inspired it. If you’ve also ever wanted to know how Square and Enix became Square Enix, than this is t...

Our third official Hot Button commentary is here! Listen to us watch 2001’s mess of a sci-fi epic, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, a film that is TOTALLY based off the popular video game franchise and not at all a bizarre fever dream of CGI and heady writing guaranteed to make your head spin. So allow us to ease the pain of your viewing experience and be sure to check in again next week when we...

This week we dive back into the publisher graveyard and go through the full life of one of gaming’s biggest rises and falls. From Red Faction to Saint’s Row to Darksiders, we cover THQ’s extensive library of releases as well as the various developers behind them. It all seemed as if the B-tier game for them was on lock… or at least it was until their unfortunate demise.

What happens when you mix a Navy Seal, Mickey Rourke, and Bethesda together? Apparently a pretty downright terrible first-person-shooter. This week we dig into the notorious Rogue Warrior, based on Dick Marcinko's "autobiography" of the same name! An unintentional comedy of broken mechanics and laughably poor writing, all wrapped up in an anti-communist package that only Reagan himself wouldn’t fi...

We’ve told you where Unreal came from, now it’s time we give the same treatment to Unity! A free cross-platform game engine that we almost guarantee that you’ve had experience with, regardless of where you play or what genres you like. Today we look at its development history as well as its uses and impact on the greater industry and beyond.

It’s the second ever Hot Button commentary track! Once you finished listening to our series on Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell, you can now take a trip to 2007 and join us in a watch of the very film that brought them both back into the limelight brighter than ever before.

It’s investigation time in the studio, because we’re back with part 2 of our series on the careers of several of the classic arcade scene’s most famous record holders… and therefor scandals. Everything from Dragster to Pac-Man to Donkey Kong. The race to the top of the scoreboard knows no bounds! So come find out the truth behind Billy Mitchell, as well as his hot sauce. Spoiler: It’s delicious.

So who has what it takes to be the ultimate Donkey Kong master? On part 1 of our new series, we take you through the origins of classic arcade’s biggest leap into the realm of tournaments and organized gaming world records ever. Along with the early years of its most controversial competitor.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo has returned! And so has our bonus episode! On today’s recap, we run through each of the conferences, good and bad, as well as discuss all the fun announcements from this past week that’ll help us game our way into the next year and beyond!  Timestamps:  Summer Games Fest - 0:06:10, Wholesome Direct - 0:31:30, Ubisoft - 0:33:17, Devolver - 1:09:25, Gearbox - 1:18:...

It’s controversy time! This week we’re back in the Senate room with the second and final part of our series on Night Trap. Find out how a team of fun-loving film makers and game designers accidentally helped in leading us to the most important formation in the entire medium’s history!

The parents are gone so what’s the first thing you think of? Party! On part 1 of our series on the infamous Night Trap, we take you through a time when Hasbro helped kick off the beginning of full motion video games! Everything from the on-set film shoot by their dedicated crew to the sudden cancellation of the console that almost ended it all. It’s a campy adventure filled with stumbling vampires...

At last! Our triumphant return! Listen in as we run through the trials and tribulations of that time when television and video games attempted to join hands in glorious partnership. These are the salad days, hard downfall, and eventual re-reckoning into the modern age with what was/is G4 Tech TV.

And we’re back to ring in the new year with a lost episode of Microtransactions! This week it’s all about scams, conspiracies, and miscommunications, as we venture into the weird world of 3 controversies that likely flew under your gaming radar.

It’s our second anniversary so that means it's time for another recap! We cover not only the episodes from our second (and first) year, but also the insane 12 months that was 2020. Hear all about our switch to a bi-weekly schedule, the adjustment to remote recording, and our delayed plans for additional content. All this along our usual updates, fixes, jokes and discussion about past content. Also...

With the launch of the Xbox Series X and S on the horizon, it’s time we took a look back at the story surrounding Microsoft's previous generation machine, the Xbox One. The tumultuous reveal, it’s shaky launch, the new Kinect sensor, GamePass, the One X, Project xCloud, and everything else in between. Listen in on the conclusion to our trilogy on the family of consoles that started all the way bac...

As promised, we are back for a trip around the digital campfire with the tale of Killswitch. A supposed video game made in limited quantities by the Karvina Corporation in 1989, except now it’s time for us to take a crack at its many curious mysteries. Could the file actually delete itself upon death or completion? Was it indeed made by a cult? Did the 5,000 unites produced exist? And did copy of...

In the electronic age, urban legends like Polybius have fallen by the wayside, but that doesn't mean we can't find another spooky story to tell. Enter creepypastas! Join us around the digital campfire as we tell the tale of Pale Luna, an old text-based adventure game lost to time. Afterwards we go an internet investigation into the validity of the tale. Is it fact or is it fiction?

What happens when Disney’s pantsless honey-loving teddy bear makes it into a Taiwanese psychological horror game? A lot actually! On our second episode of Hot Button’s 2020 Halloween special, we dig into just what the hell happened last year with cult-favorite Steam darling Devotion and why it continues to be banned from sale across the world.