This year we are starting what I hope will be a tradition for our podcast, a "Games of the Year" show.  Notice that it is plural, because there is no one "Game of the Year" when an ensemble cast is involved with fairly diverse tastes.  As such we sat down and made lists of the five games that were the most significant to us this year, and then talked about them.  The end result was this monster three hour podcast that I edited between the evening we recorded it and the morning I am posting it.  As such we ended up with two shows worth of content, and today you are going to get the second part of this experiment.

For this "Games of the Year" show we have Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Rae and Tam.  I hope all of you had a great Holiday, and hope you all have an excellent New Year in the coming days.  I want to thank our listeners so much for giving us your time this year, and we hope to give you an excellent Season 2.

This year we are starting what I hope will be a tradition for our podcast, a "Games of the Year" show.  Notice that it is plural, because there is no one "Game of the Year" when an ensemble cast is involved with fairly diverse tastes.  As such we sat down and made lists of the five games that were the most significant to us this year, and then talked about them.  The end result was this monster three hour podcast that I edited between the evening we recorded it and the morning I am posting it.  As such we ended up with two shows worth of content, and today you are going to get part one of this experiment.

For this "Games of the Year" show we have Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Rae and Tam.  Hope you enjoy it, and hope you have a very Happy Holiday, and we will get the second part to you before you have a Happy New Year.

Tonight I am joined by Tam, Ashgar and Kodra as we discuss the various things we have been doing.  One of which is this really interesting raid simulation game that makes me think that the creator must have been a serious vanilla wow raider.  In fact as Tam talks about it in detail... I am pretty sure I could assign names to the various raid personalities from my own experience.  Additionally we delve into our experiences raiding in Final Fantasy XIV and my week of raiding Highmaul in World of Warcraft.  There are of course other topics that fall in between the raid discussion... but it was a very raidy episode.

Tonight we swap things up a bit, Kodra drives the bus and does an excellent job doing it.  During the day Belghast had some pretty rough news, and just didn't feel up to being his jolly self, as such Kodra stepped in to offer support and we made it through the show in one piece.  Tonight we are joined by Belghast, Kodra, Rae, Ashgar and Raven and talk random gamey bits.  There is much discussion of Final Fantasy XIV as usual with Raven talking about completing her second Novus weapon and beginning a second Nexus grind, and several of us talking about our victory over Ultros and solid attempts on Tier 5 in Binding Coil of Bahamut.  I talk World of Warcraft raiding, and looking forward to beginning the Highmaul Raid after missing Thursday and my raids first two boss kills.

Together Bel, Rae, Kodra and Ashgar talk Heroes of the Storm, since this week they finally saw fit to give Rae an invite.  That game is exceptionally fun and better suited for a more casual gamer than League of Legends is.  Over the course of the week we have played quite a bit of it and talk about our personal hero preferences and playstyles.  Kodra runs a much tighter ship than I seem to, because we actually clocked in at just barely over an hour once editing was finished.  Extra special thanks to Kodra for steering the ship while I couldn't quite muster the oomph to do so.

On this episode we have a special guest on AggroChat that may turn into a more permanent addition.  Raven is a friend that I initially met through Twitter but we all have become close to through our time spent in Final Fantasy XIV.  She has been awesome with offering to fill in with her characters whenever we happen to need them for our guilds semi-regular shenanigans.  With Rae’s recent absence from the show I had been kicking around the idea of bringing on another person, and thankfully Raven showed some interest in doing it.  Hopefully she had as much fun as the rest of us did, and she brought some interesting takes on the topics we discussed.

This was a massive meandering show where we talked about some of our favorite puzzle games at length even dredging things up like Tetris Attack.  We talked about the Road Not Taken, which is quite possibly the most depressing puzzle rpg ever.  We talk Super Smash brothers, and do a horrible job at trying to guess Ashgar’s favorite character.  We talk about Kodra’s experience playing Dragon Age Origins and how he is ultimately playing a completely different game than I ever managed to play.  We fall into a giant Final Fantasy XIV crafting discussion, since Raven is the pocket expert on the topic.  Finally I discuss my frustrations with Molten Core 40 man LFR from this past Tuesday and how it really does make players not ever want to do 40 man again.

Tonight we have Belghast, Ashgar, Kodra and Tamrielo and once again we fill the evening talking about the games we have been playing.  Kodra talks about his recent experiences playing the Shadows of Mordor, and how the sandbox is actually more enjoyable than the story.  Ashgar talks about Little Big Planet 3 and the beauty of sackboy.  I talk about the rather large WoW shaped hole that I seem to have fallen into with the release of Warlords of Draenor.  Tamrielo talks about his recent experiences in Final Fantasy XIV and finally finding a set piece robe that I actually likes.  This of course is just a sketch of the topics discussed, and several games in between including Endless Legend, Civlization Beyond and Fallen London.

Tonight I am joined by Ashgar, Kodra and Tam as we ramble ever onwards about video games and things related to those video games.  Tonight we talk the supremely interesting 4X game Endless Legend... which if nothing else seems to have an endless thing of configuration options.  We talk about Shadows of Mordor where we determine that it may in fact be a "Bel game" so long as I can suffer through the stealth places.  Finally I unload about my recent waffle and subsequent return to World of Warcraft for the Warlords of Draenor expansion.  All of which we expound upon at length in traditiona AggroChat style.

Tonight I am joined by Ashgar, Kodra and Tam as we ramble along about various gaming tidbits.  Ashgar having moved across country, is a real team player for somehow managing to string together both internet and a machine to record from all in time to join us.  Kodra and I dig into a length conversation about his recent return to Magic the Gathering Online, and the fact that I am dipping my toes into it as well.  Tam joins us after a long day at an Infinity Minatures tournament, and talks about the experiences and  battles of the day.  Ash having spent the week moving, did not have a lot of gameplay but did talk a bit about replaying Final Fantasy X on the vita.  

Together we discuss the happenings of Blizzcon and the announcement of the first brand new IP in 17 years... Overwatch.  Kodra and I are cautiously optimistic and looking forward to it.  Tam and Ash are mostly just cautious.  All of us agree that it looks interesting.  Another happening of Blizzcon, the announcement of the Gnomes vs Goblins expansion for Hearthstone serves as a segway into our frustrations with the one dimensional nature of Gnomes in the Warcraft franchise.  Can't being short and smart also be awesome?  Do they have to always remain a running gag?  Once again we manage to spend an hour and a half delving into these topics and bringing them to you our listeners.

This week I am joined by Ashgar, Rae and Tam as we talk about the major patch that just landed in Final Fantasy XIV.  The servers have been besieged by a rolling group of rogues... as the patch completely revives chain running FATEs in so many zones.  Tam talks about the last week spent pushing up a Ninja from level 1 and finally hitting 50 this afternoon.  We talk about the new dungeons, the changes to raiding, and the changes to the relic weapon process.  Additionally folks talk about the recent changes in the League of Legends competitive scene.

Tonight we were joined by Ashgar, Kodra, Rae and Tam as we discuss all sorts of stuff going on.  We talk about the latest round of FFXIV announcements coming out of the London Fanfest.  Unfortunately the announcement that we got in Vegas of the Job information coming in London... was a bit of a tease.  We also talk about what we are looking forward to Tuesday when the 2.4 patch lands.  I talk about my experiences with Rift Nightmare Tide launch and the fairly catastrophic server rollback that caused me to loose essentially one entire days worth of playtime and a bunch of other stuff that came with that.  Tam and Kodra talk about their experiences playing Civilization Beyond Earth as a co-operative team.  Finally Rae fills us in on some of the craziness that is happening in the post season League.  It seems like there is a ton of "horse trading" going on as players are swapping teams left and right.

At the point of posting this podcast Sunday morning...  we have now completed our Extra Life marathon as part of the Alliance of Awesome team and as a group we raised almost $2000 for the charity.  Super proud of everyone that participated and tuned in to watch us go.