Tonight we are down a Tam and also down having a constructed list of topics to go from.  The only roll forward topic left on the list is decidedly a “Tam” topic so we end up more or less winging it.  There is a decidedly Pax East flair to the show given that a number of topics we discussed circle things announced at or going on during Pax.  However none of the crew actually attended this year. Related to this we talk about The Outer Worlds, Magic the Gathering Mythic Invitational, Wolfenstein Youngblood Trailer, Borderlands 3 Trailer.  There is a brief interlude about returning to Final Fantasy XIV which Grace has done this week, and another oddball topic as Bel discusses getting Cemu the Wii U Emulator up and running and playing Breath of the Wild rendered in native 4k.

Topics Discussed

  • Pax East
    • The Outer Worlds Gameplay Stream
      • Questions about it actually releasing in 2019
    • Magic the Gathering
      • Mythic Invitational
      • Current State of Standard
      • War of the Spark Rumors
    • Wolfenstein Youngblood Trailer
      • Juxtaposition of Teens and Ultra-Violence
    • Borderlands 3 Trailer
      • Weird reveal live stream
      • Can Borderlands happen with none of the original writers?
      • Lessons learned from Pre-Sequel
      • Appearance of Tell Tale Characters
    • Cemu - Wii U Emulator
      • The Breath of the Wild Emulator
      • Rendered in Native 4k
Direct download: aggrochat_episode246.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:01am EDT

Tonight we talk about Baba Is You, a game that has sort of come from out of nowhere but dominated large chunks of our time recently.  From there Bel talks about how Division 2 has improved upon the original, which leads is way to a discussion about the political ramifications of the game and how UbiSoft claims there are not any.  From there we discuss Sekiro and how it is in many ways a brand new Tenchu game. Finally we discuss the Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest Tokyo reveals.

Topics Discussed:

  • Baba Is You and Fun
  • Division 2
    • Improving Upon the First
    • UbiSoft Claiming not to make a Political Statement
    • The ramifications of the Statement Made
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
    • Tenchu Remastered
    • Soulsian Skills Don’t Apply
  • Final Fantasy XIV Fanfest Tokyo Reveals
    • Dancer
    • Ronso
    • Dwarves are just weird Lalafell
Direct download: aggrochat_episode245.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:38am EDT

Tonight signals the triumphant return of Doctor Grace!  I cannot adequately express how happy we are to have her back among our number.  As far as topics go… we once again punt forward the only topic that we had planned and replace them with a few discussions gathered up moments before we started recording.  Tonight we talk about Anthem and get Grace’s impressions so far… as well as dig into some of the frustrations around high end loot and weird item scaling. Thalen tells us how to learn to love Eureka in Final Fantasy XIV and get past the fact that it is so grindy.  Finally we wrap things up with a discussion about the Super Mario World Rom Hack scene and the differences between Vanilla and Chocolate.

Topics Discussed

  • The Return of Doctor Grace
  • Anthem
    • Grace and Thalen Impressions
    • High End Loot Woes
    • Item Scaling Weirdness
  • Final Fantasy XIV
    • Eureka Grinding
    • Relic Weapons
  • Super Mario World
    • Rom Hacks
    • Kaizo Mario
    • Terminus
    • Assembly Editing
Direct download: aggrochat_episode244.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 10:41am EDT

Tonight we start the show with a heartfelt congratulations for our very own now Doctor Grace, for passing the gauntlet and defending her thesis.  While I am certain we will revisit this point when she officially returns to the show, we thought it was worth noting tonight. After derailing completely on a discussion about the origin of the Garter snake…  we dive into Pokemon Scotland aka Sword and Shield and the little bit of information we know about it at this point. From there Bel talks a bit about the Magic the Gathering Deck Builder's Toolkit league that he is starting at work and why he went down that path.  Kodra breaks off from this into a discussion about the game Gruff, which leads to further talk about how balanced asymmetrical play is really hard to design.

We then dig into some of the large patches that happened this past week… namely Anthem that occured mere hours before recording the show and Warframe that occurred earlier in the week.  Bel and Tam talk a bit about their impressions so far about the tweaks made that make the characters feel significantly more powerful in Anthem. The rest of the crew that plays Warframe… which is basically everyone but Bel…  dive into a discussion about the changes that were made to the melee combat system and some of the things that are soon to come as well.

Topics Discussed

  • Doctor Grace
  • Garter Snakes
  • Pokemon Sword and Shield
    • Pokemon Scotland
  • Work Magic League
    • Deckbuilders Toolkit
  • Gruff
  • Difficulties of Asymmetrical Gameplay
  • Anthem Patch
  • Warframe Patch
    • Melee Combat Changes
    • Hildryn Frame
Direct download: aggrochat_episode243.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:41am EDT

This week we talk about the topic that has spent the most time so far rolling from show to show because we didn’t feel like we had enough time to properly address it.  We have a Trello board where we stub out future topics, and before Christmas Tam put the topic of Silent versus Voiced protagonists on that board… and we are finally getting around to talking about it.  Not surprisingly we spent almost the entire episode on this one topic as there is a lot of stuff to unpack here about characters and whether or not we are meant to place ourselves into them. We also talk briefly about the Warframe Nightwave alert system that just went into that game.

Topics Discussed:

  • Voiced Versus Silent Protagonist
    • Personal Preferences
    • Times when it works and Fourth Wall breaking.
    • Jarring nature of a character you don’t relate to that is supposed to represent you.
    • Classic game examples
  • Warframe
    • Nightwave Alert System
Direct download: aggrochat_episode242.mp3
Category:gaming -- posted at: 9:35am EDT

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