Normandy FM

Ellie's first day in Seattle sets up the conflicts going on beyond her revenge tour, but it also is full of some memorable, quiet moments along the way. Janet Garcia joins us as we contend with The Last of Us Part II's OWBS and also how the game tries to humanize the members of the WLF we fight along the way. We also take a trip down memory lane as Ellie thinks back on a birthday gift from Joel sh...

It's time for the second of our Mass Effect: Legendary Edition roundtables as Fanbyte's Elise Favis and GameSpot's Lucy James and Michael Higham join us to talk all about Mass Effect 2. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @normandyfmshow Eric: @seamoosi Kenneth: @shepardcdr Elise: @elisefavis Lucy: @lucyjamesgames Michael:@m...

It's time to jump four years into the future and see how Joel and Ellie's life in Jackson panned out. In our first episode covering The Last of Us Part II, Natalie Flores returns to talk through what American culture looks like in the apocalypse, how Ellie and Dina's relationship is introduced, and the instigating incident that throws our heroine's life into a spiral. Enjoy the show! Become a Norm...

The Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is here, so that means Normandy FM is headed back home to talk about all three games again with a roundtable of great guests. First up, John Warren and Kat Bailey join us to talk about the first Mass Effect, how well the foundations of the series have aged, and why Kenneth had to play through the game twice. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://pat...

It's time to close out our The Last of Us Part I episodes with the Left Behind DLC. Sam Greer returns to talk about Ellie's past, how video games survive in the apocalypse, and how TLOU as a franchise handles the preservation of queer culture. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @normandyfmshow Eric: @seamoosi Kenneth: @shep...

It's the Last of Us Part I finale here on Normandy FM, as Vikki Blake joins us as we head into Salt Lake City. This week we talk about Joel's final decision, the merits of saving one at the cost of the many, and how not giving the player a choice can be a meaningful gameplay moment. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @norma...

Uh, remember that time we covered Mass Effect for this show? Well, it turns out we missed out on one of those game's true endings. So we decided we'd make a BioBit to cover it, talk about our feelings heading into Mass Effect: Legendary Edition for the show, and announce the line-up for our LE Roundtable episodes. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us...

This week we're going through what is probably the darkest segment of The Last of Us: Winter. Fanbyte's Danielle Riendeau joins us as we talk through playing as Ellie, how violence can be framed as an act of love, and David, the worst person in the goddamn game. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @normandyfmshow Eric: @seam...

After a couple thousand miles of trucking it across the country, Joel and Ellie have finally found Tommy. This week Bryden Keks joins us as we talk about the happy reunion between Joel and his little brother, Ellie finally making the man confront his traumatic past, and how she finally starts to come into her own as a capable fighter. By necessity, really. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patr...

Our lovely car ride takes an unexpected turn as Joel and Ellie head into Pittsburgh. This week, Alan Wen joins us as we talk Joel's gradual trust in Ellie and how it contrasts with our new friends: brothers Sam and Henry. We also make a stop in an abandoned sewer, navigate a no man's land covered by a mouthy sniper, and talk about what it means to have a childhood when you're in the post-apocalyps...

This week Paste intern Moises Taveras is our guest as we head into Bill's Town. It's time for gays being toxic to each other, biology lessons, and a deep dive into the psyche of a man who insists on being alone. We also took some time to talk about the Bloomberg report that a Last of Us remake is in the works, and what the story surrounding it means for PlayStation. Bloomberg's story: https://www....

With Ellie in hand we're headed to the capitol building and Madeline Blondeau is joining us to make the delivery. This week we talk about how Ellie's naivety tells us a lot about The Last of Us' world, how the game communicates danger with the Clickers, and how Tess goes out on her own terms. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy...

It's time for another episode of BioBits, our Bioware news show. Fanbyte News Editor and Kenneth's boss Imran Khan joins us to talk about the latest update on the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remasters. For easy reference, here are the links to Bioware's breakdown and IGN's comparison footage that we'll be discussing. Legendary Edition breakdown: https://www.ea.com/games/mass-effect/mass-effect-...

It's time for a new chapter as Normandy FM makes the transition from "Bioware retrospective" to "video game retrospective." We're talking about The Last of Us. SDGC's John Phipps joins Ken and Eric to talk the game's depiction of fatherhood as we run through its iconic opening sequence, the dated (but accessible) stealth, and maybe at the very end we meet up with someone who will grow to be more i...

It's our last Bioware episode (for now) as we head back to Mass Effect to talk about what is probably one of the best pieces of story in the whole series: Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation. We talk about the tie-in novel's humanless view of the Mass Effect universe, how it gives closure on some of Andromeda's hanging threads, and wonder aloud if the next Mass Effect game will address the power d...

Somehow after last week we managed to have more negative feelings about Dragon Age's anime movie than Mass Effect's. Dawn of the Seeker stars Cassandra Pentaghast in a story before we met her in Dragon Age II. And man, is she unrecognizable in this nothing ass film. We also took some time to talk about Dragon Age 4 pivoting to single player only, as the news didn't seem to merit a whole BioBit. En...

Bioware announced that it's officially ending development on its planned Anthem overhaul. So we got together to talk about how we got here and what this likely means for Bioware moving forward. Also we talked about Henry Cavill and the prospect of him being involved in Mass Effect and why a movie about Shepard would be stupid as heck. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com...

This week we're returning to Mass Effect to discuss the series' anime movie following James Vega. Mass Effect: Paragon Lost feels like two movies in one: one that was bad, and another that had a semblance of a good idea. Neither of which feels properly connected to the games it's based on. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM:...

Parting is such sweet sorrow. This week we wrap up our Jade Empire season with Khee Hoon Chan and Andrew King is here to help ups tie it off with a neat bow. It's time to take down Master Li, although there are a few decisions to make along the way. We also talk about our romantic conclusions, the final decision, and whether or not Jade Empire succeeds at painting greys in its red and blue moralit...

It's time for the week of The Big Twist of Jade Empire. Jason Coles joins us to talk about rushed romances, spirit worlds, and whether staring at a baseball too long counts as a "flaw" in martial arts teachings. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @normandyfmshow Eric: @seamoosi Kenneth: @shepardcdr Khee Hoon: @crapstacular...

Sam Greer joins us as we head into the Imperial City to unmask Death Hand's plot....or is it his plot? Who can say? This week we infiltrate the Lotus Assassins, go through the RPG equivalent of a Hitman level, and see the beginnings of Jade Empire's romance. This means we're also gonna unpack the extremely messy ways it handles its queer relationships, which is always fun. Enjoy the show! Become a...

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is upon us, so it's time for another episode of BioBits. Ken and Eric talk about the remaster of the original trilogy, changes being made to Mass Effect, and our hopes for how conversations around the series might change a decade later. Enjoy the show! Become a Normandy FM patron: http://patreon.com/normandyfm Follow us on Twitter: Normandy FM: @normandyfmshow Eric:...

Tien's Landing is a dysfunctional town, so we're spending an unexpectedly long time here as we solve everyone's problems. As well as our own. This week we set out to get a new flyer and wind map, but leave with a huge group of weirdos helping us find Master Li. But the main topic of the week is the weirdness of Jade Empire's morality system, which seems to get more rigid and binary as the game goe...

Welcome to the first episode of BioBits, a series of mini-Normandy FM episodes for when things happen in the Bioware world. This week, a report from The Gamer revealed Jack was originally meant to be pansexual in Mass Effect, but Bioware was worried about a second wave of controversy with Fox News. Gayming Magazine's Aimee Hart joins us to talk our way through our feelings about what it all means...

We're back with a new season, a new series, and a new co-host. It's Jade Empire time here at Normandy FM. Khee Hoon Chan joins us for the first episode of our Jade Empire retrospective, where we dive into how Bioware made a fantasy version of China that isn't actually China. There's a lot to unpack this season. We also talk about the limitations of its morality system, the hidden depth of its comb...