OK, so we wanted to talk about six topics in five days. Here’s what got smushed together this year! Games and podcasts. We’re starting with podcasts before Events Specialist Greg takes it away with all his gaming knowledge:
Let’s Slip on our Headphones to Talk Podcasts
Ruby’s Picks
The favorite podcast of our hosts, who are right and have great taste, was the year’s best new podcast, “Normal Gossip.” The show has already run three eight-episode seasons in 2022, and I for one cannot wait for it to come back. (The show is produced by writer-owned Defector Media, meaning they set their own schedule to avoid burnout.) Host Kelsey McKinney and Producer Alex Sujong Laughlin collect everyday gossip stories from listeners, anonymize them, and recount them to rapt guests. It’s like hearing everyone’s best story, told by a great storyteller, without any burden of ever having to interact with any of the people from the stories. If you’re looking for a good place to start, I think the episode where podcast royalty Tracy Clayton reacts to a squirrel-based story has the best resolution of any of the stories. I love them all, but the ones with no hero (like, I would argue, this one with Laci Mosley) are a low-pressure window into other people’s lives. As always, bird lamp. — Editor Ruby
Ira’s Picks
Going solo with the crowd-funded Comedy Bang Bang World was a major gamble for Scott Aukerman, but it's paid off in big ways. In its second year, CBB World has grown into a mini-network dedicated to improvised and scripted comedy that rarely misses. It's all great, but if I had to pick a few favorites from the roster I'd go for Ego Nwodim's "Entreè PeeE Neur's Entrepreneur Tour," Will Hines' "You Can't Handle the Sleuths," Tim Baltz's "Hey Randy!" and the venerable "Comedy Bang Bang," whose latest season stands as one of the funniest in the show's 13-year run. Outside of the immediate CBB orbit, my comedy favorites ran to "The Neighborhood Listen," Big Grande's "Teacher's Lounge," "Hollywood Handbook," "Going Deep with Dr. Diana Deep" and "108.9 The Hawk." — Editor Ira
Greg’s Picks
Hey folks! Event Specialist Greg here to lead you into our game wrap-up. And what better way to transition than to talk about a game podcast. My favorite live-play D&D podcast is “Rude Tales of Magic,” and the cast of that show have spun off a sci-fi show. It’s called “Oh These, Those Stars of Space” and it’s a Space Problem of the Week serial. The show draws initial inspiration from “Star Trek,” but lets its cast of improvisers build and introduce new characters seemingly at will. This leads to an expansive cast of miscreants and weirdos, including: ship chef Liberty Balboa (a giant Philadelphian cockroach), ship navigation robot Threadcount 900, ship vape salesman Carboat Bin Laden, ship lawyer Tuscaloosa Casketshowroom, and ship actual canonical Rip Van Winkle: Rip Van Winkle. The show uses the incredibly simple Lasers & Feelings game system, which injects very light game mechanics into the storytelling. Right now the top episode of both shows’ feeds is a bonus called “Yuletide Combat Family,” which takes an even sillier approach to storytelling. If you need some madcap (and usually very vulgar) fun, this is great listening. Now onto games!
And Now, Let’s Game On!
Greg’s Picks
“Elden Ring” stormed into the year 2022 with a thoughtful and sculpted open world that still delivered a massive scale, without sacrificing the hard-edged difficulty of previous FromSoftware games. That made the difference for me, as the linearity of their previous games has been a huge roadblock. But in this game you can hit da bricks at any time, and that has made all the difference. You can simply disengage from the wall you’re bashing your head against to go elsewhere. Maybe you find a new spell! Maybe you meet up with a new character! Probably your actions inadvertently lead to their death! Them’s the breaks when you’re playing a game from Japan’s most notoriously challenging developers in a world written by fantasy’s most ruthless writer.
This year also saw not one but two flagship releases in the “Pokémon” series, as “Pokémon Legends: Arceus” took us back in time to a primitive version of the Sinnoh region, while “Pokémon Scarlet” and “Violet” continued the main line of the series with an all-new generation of cute and curious friends. “Arceus” put players at real risk, as wild Pokemon no longer randomly burst out of tall grass, but will actively hunt and attack would-be trainers even as the player tracks them. Both games proved to be controversial releases, as some fans bristled against the Pokémon Company’s bare-bones approach to environmental design. Comparisons were drawn to the five-year-old visuals of Nintendo’s own “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,” and not favorably. The fact seems to be, however, that “Pokémon” games still sell like nanab berry hotcakes, regardless of their visual fidelity. As long as the design and evolutions of the dozens of new creatures in each generation stay thoughtful, fun, and sometimes outright unhinged, the series’ future is secure.
(Bonus Trivia: There are only two Flying/Fighting Pokémon in the series. One of them is a cool-looking fusion of a lucha libre wrestler and a hawk, and the newly-introduced one is basically just a violent, screaming flamingo. Both are perfect, both are valid.)
I spent a lot of time gaming with my partner this year, as we near year three as a pair of work-from-home indoor kids. “Kirby and The Forgotten Land” was a particular favorite, letting us switch control of Kirby and the very-capable Waddledee to rescue adorable friends across a beautifully designed variety of challenging and beautiful worlds. New to the series is Mouthful Mode, where the hapless Kirby tries to swallow inanimate objects too big for his belly, and then sort of…wraps around them? It’s bizarre, but delightful. My time in “Elden Ring” even prepared me for the unexpected necessity of the dodge roll here, as bosses become more challenging. The game ramps up in difficulty toward the end as Kirby once again faces off against Lovecraftian cosmic horrors beyond the reckoning of mortal minds. Honorable mentions in this category go to “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge” for taking us back to the arcade beat-em-ups of yore with pixel-perfect accuracy and punched-up accessibility, and to “Nobody Saves the World,” another sterling release from Drinkbox Studios that brings a truly wild amount of variety to the top-down “Zelda” formula. Now let’s turn it over to Sophie for another video game spotlight!
Sophie’s Picks
Despite the fact that I’ve only been able to put in about six hours worth of playtime, “Pentiment” is quickly climbing to the top of my Game of the Year list. “Pentiment” is a game that thrives in the specificity of its setting – you play as Andreas, a journeyman artist working in the scriptorium of an abbey overlooking a small village. Plot ensues, and you soon find yourself in the middle of a murder investigation. The game is a clear labor of love (you don’t just set a game in 16th century Bavaria on a whim), with an art style meant to evoke an illuminated manuscript, and an attention to detail that puts internet pedants to shame (clearly, “Pentiment” also takes its RPG mechanics very seriously). I can’t wait to see where this mystery is going to take me. — Editor Sophie
Gather ‘Round the Table
Greg’s Picks
Greg here, again! Our gaming this year wasn’t all digital; it will come as no surprise that trivia nerds are also sometimes board game nerds. I gathered with friends around the physical table plenty of times for board games. Standouts were Vagrantsong, a cooperative skirmish battler set in a world inspired by folk horror and “Cuphead”-style animation nostalgia; equal parts dreadful and challenging. I also played a healthy amount of My Father’s Work. It’s a lushly gothic mad scientist simulator with numerous scenarios. The choose-your-own adventure plot twists are mediated by a well-designed mobile app to narrate the story without robbing players of their agency.
Let’s take a quick moment before I go to talk party games! If you’re looking for something to spice up your New Year’s festivities, the king of the party game mountain remains Wavelength in 2022, which is a sort of subjective trivia game about your own friends’ opinions and feelings. It’s a great game for new groups and old friends alike, and the components bring to mind a '70s game show. There is nothing quite like the feeling of getting a four-pointer on that seemingly vast white dial. If you’re looking for a party game to weave into a party, Don’t Get Got will let you and up to nine friends turn any sizable gathering into a surreptitious spy-battle of secret missions. With the right batch of performative goofs, it’s a ton of fun. Hand a wallet of silly missions to your cool cousins when you go out for your “cool cousin walk” this year, and then watch the holiday fun unfold. — Events Specialist Greg
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