Vidjagame Apocalypse

It's the end of June, which means it's time to sit down and take a hard look at the games that came out over the past six months, and pick our five favorites from the madding crowd. Jorge Albor of rival podcast Experience Points joins us to chat about the games that stole our hearts, plus we'll look at your favorite announcements from E3! (Oh, and uhhh Mikel's back, I guess?)

Since nobody else is doing them, and we know how starved you all must be for E3 2018 content, it's a good thing we're here with our annual Best of E3 show. We're doing things a little differently this year. Matty Allen, Chris Antista, TL "TurboBison" Foster, and first-time guest Marcus "Annoyed Gamer" Beer have chosen their top 5 games of the show, but we've also gathered votes from YOU the fans a...

By the time you listen this episode, E3 2018 will have come and gone, and we'll all know a heck of a lot more about this year's upcoming game releases. That includes one of the biggest games of the year: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! One of this week's most exciting reveals about the game was that it will feature every fighter ever included in Nintendo's brawler series, which fits perfectly with the...

E3 2018 is upon us, and even though the show technically doesn't start until next week, the hype train has already left the station with a payload full of leaks and new game announcements. But not every game announced at E3 sees the light of day. On this week's show, Matty Allen, Chris Antista, and special guest Dylan Tierney discuss five of the biggest games announced at E3 that were eventually c...

What do the new God of War and the YouTube Red series Cobra Kai have in common, other than the fact that they both feature leads with anger management issues? They're both new entries in franchises we thought we'd moved on from, yet turned out way better than we could've hoped -- or even asked for, for that matter. The comeback success of these two dormant franchises got us thinking about some oth...

Things get technical in this week's episode of Vidjagame Apocalypse as Chris and Matty Allen are joined by USGamer.net Editor in Chief Kat Bailey to discuss the top 5 androids in videogames. Inspired by the release of David Cage and Quantic Dream's Detroit: Become Human , we explore the Uncanny Valley, ponder what it means to be human, and try to figure out why dudes in games seem so thirsty for a...

Surprise! We just couldn't stay away, and while Mikel continues to enjoy his (well-deserved) sabbatical, Chris, Matty Allen, and special guest Trav "TurboBison" Foster are here with a bonus edition of Vidjagame Apocalypse. Prior to his break, Mikel suggested a topic tied to the Nintendo Labo that we couldn't resist covering: the Weirdest Nintendo Peripherals of All Time! So stop fiddling around wi...

This is it, folks - VGA is going on hiatus, and we've cooked up a hell of an episode to tide you over until we come back. In addition to Chris and Mikel, we've assembled Brett Elston, Dan Amrich, Anne Lewis, and Tyler Wilde to tackle a forbidden subject from our distant pasts, one we swore we'd never do: a list of the greatest barrels ever. What dark forces will be unleashed by assembling such a s...

God of War is out this week, taking jaded Greek hipster Kratos on a spree of cultural appropriation through Scandinavia (or something like that). To celebrate the series' by-all-accounts amazing rebirth, Matthew Allen and Alaina Yee help us dedicate this week's show to five other games that draw heavy inspiration from Norse mythology, complete with one-eyed gods, Valkyries, and battles at the end...

Who doesn't like to hear a villain sing about themselves and their evil plans? It's a time-honored tradition, dating back to some really old thing or other, but it's a more recent phenomenon in video games. So this week, special guests Alaina Yee and Matthew Allen join to help us count down five - count 'em, five! - of our favorite singing bad guys.

Ready Player One is in theaters this week, and whatever you think of it, the core idea of being rewarded with actual riches for doing something in a game is a powerful one. So powerful, in fact, that it's been done several times in real life. So with help from Matthew Allen and Nathan Ortega, let's spend this short-form episode diving into five games that were sold on the promise of fantastic rewa...

Big news this week - VGA is going on hiatus at the end of April. But we've got plenty of shows still to go, starting with this week's, in which Heidi Kemps and Matthew Allen help us look at five Japanese games that never made it out of Japan, despite their series being popular over here. Then it's on to Sea of Thieves, Attack on Titan 2, Assassin's Creed Rogue Remastered, PUBG mobile, and the game...

Last week saw a return to the bad old days of video games as a whipping boy in the national debate over violent crime, and that brought some weird old memories rushing back - so many, in fact, that we decided to drag special guests Nick Suttner and Matthew Allen into an unexpectedly heavy discussion of five of the most controversial, moral panic-inducing games of the past 30 years. We also take th...

Plenty of games let you play as multiple heroes, but how many have you switching back and forth between heroes that seriously have it in for each other, pushing you to work against yourself as your perspective shifts? A whole bunch, as it turns out, so this week we'll look at five of our favorites, with help from Matthew Allen. Then it's on to idle chatter about Far Cry Arcade, the return of Fear...

This week's big release is Moss, a VR game about a tiny mouse on a quest - so with help from Macworld editor Leif Johnson, let's take a look at five classic games in which you're a tiny creature trying to survive in a regular-sized world. Then we chat about hidden messages in Metal Gear Survive, get a little crestfallen for Chrono Trigger, and look at your favorite videogame dogs.

The Lunar New Year has declared this the Year of the Dog, so let's celebrate with a Top 5 about our favorite dog protagonists (dogtagonists?) with Matthew Allen! We then slip through a wormhole and wind up in a Metal Gear Survive discussion, consider the looming possibility of a Sonic the Hedgehog film, and talk about the songs and other media that will always be tied to certain games in your memo...

VGA's five-year anniversary was last week, so Henry Gilbert joins us for a belated Top 5 about some of the greatest fifth entries in game franchises ever. We also chat about Dynasty Warriors 9 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Kingdom Hearts 3, and your same-sex waifus and husbandos.

VGA passes its five-year anniversary with a cough-filled, Shadow of the Colossus-themed episode, in which Matthew Allen joins us to talk about five games that took clear inspiration from Sony's classic (and now re-released) giant-killer. We then move on to talking about Toad's disgusting head, PUBG's anti-cheating measures, and the games you wish you could erase from your memory and re-experience.

Happy Groundhog Day, everybody! This week, Nathan Ortega and Aziz Twaijri join us to talk about heroes stuck in recurring time loops, struggling to change events in a bid to escape their fates. We also shift our format around slightly to talk about new releases at the top of the show, then go on for too long about rumors of Microsoft buyouts before looking at your favorite fighting-game moves ever...

Of course we're gonna yell about Labo, but we've also played Dragonball Fighters Z, SOS, the new OK KO game, and special guest Bob Mackey has played over sixty hours of Monster Hunter Worlds!

Street Fighter V Arcade Edition is out this week, so our old pal Brett "Brelston" Elston returns to help us talk about it and five fighting games that had some really bizarre side modes built in. We then move on to Sims doing laundry, Gravity Rush 2's online features getting a stay of execution, and the licensed games you'd like to see make a comeback.

With Awesome Games Done Quick tearing through mesmerizing speedruns for charity this week, Matthew Allen and Bob Mackey join us to take a look at five games that you can play and beat (or "beat") in 15 minutes or less - all without any cheating, glitching, or practicing to develop any special skills whatsoever. Then we briefly look at a few meaty Switch ports, get surprised by PSN's top 2017 downl...

We're back and ready to take on a new year, as community member and industry veteran Matthew Allen joins us to look ahead and count down five of the games we're looking forward to the most in 2018. Then it's on to talk about the first registered N-Gage speedrun, Microsoft discontinuing the Kinect adapter, and your own most-awaited games due (hopefully) in the next 12 months.

It's time at last for our fifth annual countdown of our favorite games of the year, and this one's a whopper. Clocking in at nearly 3 1/2 hours, this episode's rotating cast of guest hosts includes Tim Turi, Brett Elston, Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Matthew Jay, who drop in to give their own two cents on our picks until we finally close it out with a look at some of your GOTYs.