‘Brothers’, A Tale of Rubbing Your Belly, While Patting Your Head

This week’s episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast is on Brother: A Tale of Two Sons. Brothers is a game that made it into my personal top 5 last year on the back of it utilizing the medium to do something different and far more focused than most video games can claim. I’ve written a base explanation of how it uses the camera to great effect by doing something different where other video games wouldn’t even think about it and go with the standard. | more

Paths and Parables

This podcast on The Stanley Parable was recorded back in January, that’s how far ahead we are. I really love this game and was really excited to finally get to talk in depth about it. There’s something about its brand of wackiness and intellectual masturbation that fits my personal brand of criticism and thinking. It’s also a title that doesn’t get much exploration beyond surface level discussion even when it comes to the game’s meaning. | more

All the Terror of Hide-and-Seek

The is the episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast I’ve been wanting to have for a long time now; it’s on Knock Knock. I reviewed the game back in November of last year and gave it a pretty favorable review, focusing on its atmosphere and its general creepy tone. But I didn’t understand the game. In parts that was a good thing, making the horror even more effective, but in other ways it was frustrating. I don’t talk a lot in this podcast as I unfortunately found that I had missed quite a bit of content relating to the actual story of the game. | more

All That Remains of ‘The Walking Dead’

With a new season of Telltale’s The Walking Dead we bring together the Moving Pixels crew to compare notes on the podcast. Unfortunately, what transpires is a podcast where we all ended up making the same decisions and so did most other players. The discussion of the game seems a lot more ill focused and scattershot, because the episode itself feels that way. Though as usual the actual discussion turned out much better than I remember. Funny thing, I couldn’t stand the two-channel mix of the podcast. | more

Critical Distance End of Year Podcast 2013

And we finish the Critical Distance end of year stuff late this year with episode 14 of the CDC Podcast because I was lazy and there wasn’t anything about 2013 that seemed to inspire anybody. I had a lot less to edit and did a far more slapdash job of it this time and it is a much shorter show. And yet, it difficult to care about this particular year. As long as it was and I got complaints from both panel and listeners, at least 2012 was fun. The more I think about 2013 the less I think is worthy of remembrance. | more

Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Best Games of 2013

Our first podcast of the year at PopMatters is up and it’s us looking at last year’s games. Chris, Nick and I rundown our top 5 games of the year or rather we start off by doing that, but near the end it sort of goes off the rails and we end up talking about a few more. Only two games appeared on more than one list and one appeared on all three lists. We also get to talk about some honorable mentions. Then, and I forgot about this, we wrap up by discussing the very concept of Game of the Year awards. | more

Beyond the Point-and-Click Adventure

We finally get around to talking about David Cages latest piece, Beyond: Two Souls, on the Moving Pixels podcast. I’m going to admit right off the bat that I perhaps harp on the problems brought up by the anachronic storytelling of Beyond a bit too much in our discussion, but there are just so many issues that keep popping up because of it. I liked Beyond, but I wanted to like it even more than I did. The pieces where there for a great whole, but they were arranged poorly and execution matters more than the ideas at play. | more

Neon Noir Fairy Tales

The next episode of the Moving Pixels podcast, the first in what is sure to be a series, discussing The Wolf Among Us. I am an unabashed Fables fan. I spend much of the time on the podcast resisting the urge to spew continuity all over the place. The angle of Telltale has chosen to work with the subject matter has so much to work with and benefits greatly if you know the details about the world. And from what my fellow podcasts have said, it works even if you don’t know the world that much. | more

Sword, Sex and Suda 51

A while back we at PopMatters played Suda 51 latest creation, though only in a writing capacity this time, Killer is Dead. The studio sent multiple codes, so I got one and we decided ‘hold a podcast on it.’ I expressed my thoughts on twitter on beating the game, and later repeated them on the podcast, as “thoroughly mediocre.” I think it might be the most apt way to describe the game. While it does have interesting points, plenty to grab onto for a discussion and absolutely dripping with Suda 51′s artistic self all over the place, it just meh. | more

We Have No Mouths and We Must Scream

Just one day after Halloween, out comes our two many podcast discussion on the classic adventure game I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. In the beginning we lament that we have to warn about spoiling the game, including puzzles. In fact, a large portion of the podcast could constitute a walkthrough because of the integrated nature of them regarding the thematic content. The puzzles aren’t divorced from the story like many traditional point and click adventure games and on that alone I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream comes out far ahead of much of its genre. | more