Bastard Sword

Ep.23 – Blasphemous, Horizon: Zero Dawn Remake, Lies of P, TGA Nominees

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 13:10:39 -0000

It's Blaspheming time! This week, Drew finally convinces Josh to power through Blasphemous, a super unique and absolutely beautiful 2D action platformer. We both come away very positive on the game overall, although it does have some frustrating design choices that keep it from quite reaching the all-timer status.

We also give a quick update on some of the games we've been playing lately, including Metaphor: ReFantazio, Lies of P, Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered, and Case of the Golden Idol, along with spending a minute discussing the recent TGA nominees (let's gooooo Erdtree). Thanks for listening!

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Ep.22 – Splinter Cell: Blacklist & Intravenous 2: Stealth Games Double Feature

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:05:32 -0000

Much like making a podcast without being listened to, there's something innately satisfying about creeping through the shadows without being seen. The Last of Us Part 2 kicked us back into a stealth mode and reminded us of the simpler pleasures in life like going prone in tall grass and occasionally making people stop moving. Stealth games, it turns out, are pretty dope, but there actually just aren't that many of them these days. We talk about why we think that is, what happened to the genre, what makes for a good stealth system, whether or not we're on the cusp of a utopian sneaky-mans-eliminating genre revival, and a couple games we've been digging lately - Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and Intravenous 2 (a killer indie spiritual successor). Thanks for listening!

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Ep.21 – Metaphor: ReFantazio, Silent Hill 2, Disco Elysium Followups and More!

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 12:34:04 -0000

So we uhh punted on Resident Evil 6 - we'll come back to it, I promise! - but we did hop on a couple huge, critically-acclaimed and fairly awesome big recent releases that we had to talk about. Josh has been diving into Metaphor: Refantazio, the new sprawling JRPG epic from the Persona devs, while Drew has been creeping ever-so-slowly through the thick fog and thicker dread of the Silent Hill 2 remake.

We also do a quick check-in on some of the big recent news stories, including the Disco Elysium fracture studios, the Halo Studios rebranding & engine switch, and the sad downfall of plucky, down-on-their-luck indie developer Ubisoft.

Thanks for listening!

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Ep.20 – Resident Evil 5 (is good, actually?)

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Spooky season continues with one of the least-beloved entries in one of the most-beloved survival horror series. Despite still being the best-selling game with the words "Resident" and "Evil" in the title, RE5 has a reputation as being not necessarily the nadir of the series, but the moment it began shamelessly trend-chasing and plummeting toward irrelevance. Despite the gleeful dive into full-on action schlock and the story's descent into dumb-even-by-Resident-Evil territory, we both found a lot to like about Resident Evil 5!

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Ep.19 – The Last Of Us: Part 2 (Is Pretty Great!)

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:57:02 -0000

I guess that's... the last of him 😎. This week, we tackle one of the more controversial major sequels in recent memory, The Last of Us: Part 2. Almost a half a decade (and a remaster) later, the internet is still very.... uhhh, divided on the story of this game. We spend some time talking about the choices it makes, how well they work for us, the upcoming season 2 of the HBO show, and the damn-near perfect combat design. Thanks for listening!

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Ep.18 – Disco Elysium (is one of the best games ever)

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 11:01:39 -0000

"You are a violent and irrepressible miracle. The vacuum of cosmos and the stars burning in it are afraid of you. Given enough time you would wipe us all out and replace us with nothing -- just by accident."

Disco Elysium is an absolutely breathtaking experience, a medium-defining accomplishment that's equal parts beautiful, ugly, hilarious, devastating, charming, hopeful, and human. It's a game that does so many things, effortlessly bouncing between different tones and subject matter all while spiraling around a deeply relatable and nuanced examination existing at the very brink of ever being able to get his shit together. It's amazing, absolute S-tier by any metric that isn't wrong, and we had to forcibly cut ourselves off so we didn't just rave about it for 5 hours.

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Ep.17 – The Age of Flops (Concord, Skull & Bones, Suicide Squad)

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 11:00:00 -0000

And we're back! Thanks for bearing with us while we got out lives together for a couple weeks - we made our grand re-entrance with a look at some of the least-anticipated games of this year or any other. There's been a unique phenomenon lately of these extremely high-profile failures; just this year we've had Suicide Squad, Skull & Bones, and Concord blow through mountains of cash and release to the world's biggest collective "...but why though?" and it's actually kind of fascinating how we've gotten so many unmitigated disasters back-to-back-to-back. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Is gaming dooooooomed? How can we ever recover from this? Those are the questions that we almost certainly don't answer in this episode!

Side note, this was recorded in the extremely brief window between Concord's release and its complete implosion, so put a mental asterisk on some of our observations about that particular game.

Thanks for listening!

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UFO 50 is awesome (bonus episode!)

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 18:13:57 -0000

UFO 50 finally released after having been in development for ages, and its one of the most low-key ambitious games I've played. It's extremely cool, as you'll hear me say no less than a dozen times in this mini-episode, and I couldn't wait to share some of my excitement about it. Thanks for listening! -Drew

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An Announcement! (We'll be right back)

Sat, 31 Aug 2024 16:57:00 -0000

We appreciate all the support! Just wanted to drop a quick update here to keep you aware of what's going on - you may have noticed that our schedule has fluctuated a little bit, soo we're taking a few weeks to get ahead of schedule. Check back soon, and thanks for bearing with us!

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Ep.16 – Shadow of the Colossus, Doom 1 & 2, Black Myth Wukong, and more!

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 11:01:37 -0000

What if we killed some giant hulking beasts, but felt really bad about it? Shadow of the Colossus is an absolute all-timer, one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments that can never be replaced or replicated. Even as we approach its 20th birthday, it stands as a high watermark for spectacle, atmosphere, and just overall game design. We were feeling a little too negative with our last episode, so we wanted to spend some time heaping praise on an absolute masterpiece.

But wait, there's more! We also catch up on some recent gaming news, including the phenomenal Doom 1 + 2 Nightdive re-release, the early reviews for Black Myth: Wukong (uhh we recorded this before the weird NDA controversy, yikes), and a handful of promising indie releases. Thanks for listening!

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