Game Time With Manny

We return with a wildly barebones news week. While we do discuss the disbanding of the studio behind Prince of Persia the lost crown I fill the rest of the time letting you know how I feel about my Alarmo. As for what we have been playing I finished Metaphor and Good Boy Galaxy while diving back into Hades II. Matt finished Saint's Row 2 and moved on to Far Cry 3.

It's been a wild two weeks since the last podcast. Nintendo announced an alarm clock, Ubisoft is in for a potential buyout and the original Red Dead is coming to PC finally. Despite the fact that I had COVID for a week I still managed to play a bit of Zelda, start and stop Victory Heat Rally when I lost my save data, and binge Metaphor: Refantazio for 25 hours! Matt took a much more interesting approach and sampled a ton of games for 15 minutes and reports his feelings on which he might continue and which he thought were no good.

We took an extra week off because I was in San Francisco for vacation! Now that I've returned we go over a lot of news like the very pricey PS5 Pro, TGS announcements, PalWorld being sued by Nintendo, and Assassin's Creed Shadows being delayed. I played SO many new games like the Plucky Squire, Balatro, UFO 50, and Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Matt has continued to stick with older games like Dragon's Dogma, Stuntman: Ignition, and Crackdown. We have so much to discuss so this one goes a bit longer than recent episodes!

We return for a week of relatively little news. A pair of Nintendo Directs happened, Annapurna and Remedy teamed up, and... CONCORD GOT SHUT DOWN AFTER TWO WEEKS! Matt regales us with tales of Saints Row 2, Mass Effect, and Super Metroid before I let you know Star Wars Outlaws is pretty mid and Astro Bot is incredible.

My desktop decided that it didn't want to work today so I quickly pivoted to recording on my desktop. There were no issues there until Matt started to talk about the film Anaconda. Coincidence? I'll let you be the juge. Gamescom happened and we talk about that and some of the news surrounding it. I didn't really play much to save myself for the coming barrage of new releases, but Matt played Need for Speed Undercover and Turok (2008)

Video game news always seems to be depressing now. We get upset about some layoffs and then go into detail about the shutdown of Industry staple Game Informer. As for what we played I have continued Octopath Traveler 2, but got into the 2KXO beta and share my thoughts on that. Matt continues to go ham and beat Army of Two, and began playing the first PSP God of War Game.

We are truly in the summer news doldrums now! We talk about the Sag-Aftra video game strike and all of Humble Games suddenly being laid off. Not a very uplifting news segment... Then, I go on about how I am continuing to play Zenless Zone Zero, beat Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, and am continuing to plug away at Octopath Traveler 2. Matt on the other hand decided to try and turn back time to 2008, so he's playing the classic Tomb Raider: Underworld! He also finished that Ratchet and Clank game from last time I didn't even know existed!

The news well is dry, so I talk about going to Enchanted Forest: Water Safari (where the fun never stops). Then we talk a bit about Microsoft changing the Game Pass tiers and pricing. Matt has been in the process of moving and changing jobs so he played a bit of the Ratchet and Clank game that came out in 2013 I had never heard of before. I beat Elden Ring's DLC because I am a god gamer and moved on to getting addicted to Mihoyo's newest Gacha game Zenless Zone Zero.

Is it time for me to get a new mic? Inexplicably the sound quality on my mic was randomly much worse again. It sounds like I'm in an open floor warehouse. Despite that we still talk about how the Nintendo Switch is still alive and kicking with the latest Nintendo Direct. Then we move in to the games we've been playing. I beat Nine Sols and moved right on to Elden Ring and its DLC because I am obviously a god-tier gamer. Matthew has been in the process of moving, so he played some shorter stuff like God of War 3 and Mafia.

Geoff Keighly continues to build Summer Game Fest on the corpse of E3, so we watched all the hot showcases and let you know what we think! Many things were revealed, but nothing too crazy. Matt played a lot of older games and started Hellblade 2 while I mostly played the hottest new metroidvania to hit the market, Nine Sols.

Some combination of my congested voice and my mic being super weird made me sound really blown out this episode, so enjoy that! Matt and I discuss IGN hoovering up a bunch if other game media sites, and do a lot of speculation on what could be shown at Summer Games Fest and all the surrounding showcases. I finally played 2012's Dishonored and loved it and continued the old game train by playing the new Paper Mario remaster (2004's finest). Matt wanted to throw us all off so he played another part of Resident Evil 6 and started Dave the Diver over on PS5.

We return after a month of delays to bring you the news of even more upsetting layoffs and changes in the industry! At least we played a bunch of games! Matt went back to uncharted 2, and played some Mario Party while I went buck wild and played Animal Well, Hades II, Another Crab's Treasure, Eiyuden Chronicle, and Harold Halibut!

It's our 250th episode, but we didn't really prepare anything special. Instead we discuss how Dead Space is on ice again at EA, the insanity a few studio closures, and some hot indie showcases. Matt got extra into hockey these past few weeks so he really only played Metroid Prime. That allowed me to talk at length about the 900 games I played such as Yellow taxi Goes Vroom, Harold Halibut, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Eiyuden Chronicle!

We return from our one episode without layoffs to let you know about some more layoffs. Then we hit the bottom of the news barrel to bring you hot things like maybe Gears 6 is getting announced this summer. In the games section you can hear all about my Stardew Valley Bender before we move into my favorite part of the podcast, which is listening to what wild ass games Matt has decided to play. Did anyone guess the original Borderlands? I sure didn't.

For once the news wasn't dominated by layoffs and studio closures! We discuss a few titles that were shown off and a few release date announcements. The true meat of the episode comes from the metric ton of games we both played over the past two weeks. I finished FF7 Rebirth, and started Stardew Valley (again), and Dragon's Dogma 2! Matt again went ham and played Devil May Cry 2, Call of Duty (the original), Gat Out of Hell and more! Get in now for all this hot video game talk!

Sadly the video game industry is continuing to fall apart so we once again discuss the numerous layoffs and closures that have happened before moving into some slightly more positive news. I played Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth almost exclusively while Matt finished Vanquish and Bioshock Infinite. He's also chipping away at some other games such as the classic Heavy Rain (JASONNNNN!)

Despite the fact that Xbox announced they were doing exactly what all the rumors said people are somehow mostly okay with that now. We discuss how everything is still basically the same. Most of the other news was a Nintendo Partner Direct, which we also talk about. I continued to play Persona 3 Reload and beat the story of Tekken 8. Matt finally beat Alan Wake 2 and then dipped into the well to start Vanquish.

Video game news came at us hard this week, so we discuss the Sony State of Play and do a whole lot of speculation about what the hell is going on with Xbox. I started Persona 3 Reload and have been playing a lot of Street Fighter 6. Matt played a billion games but the ones I was excited about were the Witcher 2 and that weird new free Silent Hill game!

If you thought that the industry was going to get better in 2024 you were wrong. Layoffs are continuing at an alarming pace across the industry in a way that doesn't match up to the excellent software coming out of most studios. Matt and I have both been playing some older games which we go over quickly before getting to the new hotness. I have been dabbling with Tekken and playing more Yakuza 8 than sleeping. Matt has been on that Prince of Persia grind and he's happy to tell us all about it.

Welcome to 2024! We return with news that 2024 still sucks for the video game industry and go over all the layoffs that happened recently. Much to my dismay that's really the only news... On the upside Matt and I played a bunch of games over the past few weeks and we are here to tell you about them! Matt has been playing Alan Wake 2, Forza Horizon 3, and of War 2. I was true to my word and played The Man Who Erased His Name, Ghost Trick, Unpacking, and Cocoon! I'm using a lot of exclamation points here!