Burning Barrel Podcast Network

We were supposed to talk Killer7 this week, but in true fashion neither Jon nor I bothered to play the game. Instead, we bring Nathan back as we have a somewhat casual chat about the games we grew up loving. Sit back and relax as we wax poetic about some nostalgia! (p.s. check the tags for the games we discuss.) This week’s game-along picks are NON-EXISTANT! Go ahead and throw some suggestions and tune in a week from now for our discussion!

Nathan finally plays Far Cry 3 and finds some things to enjoy in it (and promptly being forced away from those things). Paul gets annoyed at Black Ops 2‘s sorry excuse for a story and the two complain about issues with indie game developers selling incomplete products (Steam Greenlight is some bullshit, yo). New Community brings some concerns and documentaries on pornography and bronies are discussed. Also, we dive into Nathan’s redneck history and talk some illegal activities. Intro theme is Stunt by Matt McFarland(Matt McFarland) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

The take-over begins as Nathan (better known as “Kraznor” by his legion of fans) joins Paul and Jon on a discussion about a game he loved as a kid. This episode marks a number of milestones including: Nathan actually has NOSTALGIA for something! Jon actually hates a game! Paul actually doesn’t talk a whole lot! Retro Killscreen actually stays on topic! (for the most part…) This week’s game-along picks are Killer7(PS2/GC) and maybe Space Channel 5(SD) so find a copy of one or both and tune in a week from now for our discussion!

It’s the day after the Super Bowl and Nathan nor Paul seem to care too much. Apparently some people think Borderlands 2 has racist characters, Bullet To The Head is kind of garbage and Receiver is a decent tech demo prototype but shitty “game”. Also, “dueling” ain’t what it used to be and we say happy birthday to a known friend by drinking amazing coffee… in a bar?! (well, Paul got drunk too anyways)

Although Jim Crawford has had a love for video games for a long time and been making games for almost as long, it was a flash game in the final quarter of 2012 entitled Frog Fractions that won over the hearts of many gamers with its finely tuned homage to a variety of old style games and charming ridiculous nature. We chat about game jams, the dangers of Tarantino film themes and how badly video games end. Oh, and we talk some Frog Fractions but you might just want to play it first if you haven’t!

After putting it off for so long, Jon and Paul finally get to playing Parasite Eve & Die Hard Arcade and try to catch up by talking about BOTH! Please note, there is some Parasite Eve spoiler talk here and there when it’s brought up but let’s be honest… if you cared about spoilers, you would’ve played it by now! Also, a well-known friend of the show sends in an email in an attempt to squeeze in some movie opinions!

I met Lauren back when Destructoid was home to The Podcastle podcast, which she co-hosted with John Kershaw (wardrox) andJim Sterling. Since then, Lauren has finished her post-secondary education in journalism and has been carving her name into the games journalism industry with her enthusiastic and blatantly honest approach to video game criticisms. Make sure to follow Lauren on twitter and keep up with her thoughts on her site!

After a long weekend at the Global Game Jam, Nathan is understandably exhausted so we bring in Eno Metzo (www.theawfulgamer.com) to talk about the latest action movies, the confusions of buying a Nintendo DS, whether the Evil Dead remake will be any good and what’s REALLY important in movies these days (hint: show title). Also, our new movies writer, Matt Jamieson, joins us after the break to talk about Movie 43.

Well, we knew it would come to this. Our first live broadcast recording of Retro Killscreen happened kind of last minute as Jon and I were the busiest we’ve been in a long time this week and figured it might be cool to answer listener questions about retro games as we tried our best to get you guys something to listen to.

Nathan’s back and has been finishing off the main quest-line in Skyrim and getting some quality time in with KRUNCH. Paul is somewhat cynical about just how “good” Double Fine’s The Cave looks and the two have a long talk about Zero Dark Thirty and how “meh” it turned out to be. It wouldn’t be a normal podcast without Nathan hating everything in the “media critic” industry, so we talk about Anthony Burch’s self-depreciation, unrealistic nostalgic goals and how he got scolded for hating Casablanca in his film class. Also, we revisit an old My Little Pony conversation and find out if Nathan has any new F/M/K answers…

Although starting off as a World of Warcraft podcast, Ventchat has quickly become a favorite comedy show for many (including us at Pixel Response). With nothing more than a couple of base ideas per show, it's the chemistry between the four hosts ("Fen", "Esta", "Sauce" and "Turdhat" that takes the standard 'Morning Radio Show' format to something very unique and special. Fen was gracious enough to set aside some time to chat with Paul and we're happy to provide a small chunk of the talk to you in which the two discuss things like smoking, the podcast patent troll, anonymity on the internet and video games. Oh, I suppose they talk a bit about Ventchat too. Check out Ventchat and come hang out Saturday nights at 9pm PST! Outro: Ventchat intro by Reddwarf (used with special permission from Ventchat)

Benjamin Rivers has an impressive portfolio of illustration and design to his name, but it was his ambient horror/thriller game Home that first got our attention. Praised and (sometimes unfairly) disregarded for its rather unorthodox approach to narrative, Home forces the player to create their own narrative in their heads by providing as little context as possible while letting them choose how in-depth they choose to go. It isn’t surprising that Ben would prefer a good story over much of anything else, but it was surprising to hear just how far his stories go.

Things get interesting this week as Jon and Paul try to discuss the qualities of Super Mario 64 while actually playing the game (Jon) or just having a strong dislike of the game (Paul). The conversation jumps as it always does to subsequent subjects discussing the qualities of Mario games, Nintendo intellectual properties that should be exploited more often and… Jurassic Park 4? I don’t even know anymore.

I feel like I should almost apologize for this upload. Basically, schedules conflicted and Nathan wasn’t able to make it to record this week’s episode so last minute this turned into a live show, chatroom full podcast with ProtonJon taking up the guest host spot. Basically, I personally don’t feel this is indicative to the type of quality recordings we have put out in the past before or can produce, but damnit if it wasn’t just a fun time talking to random people, asking each other stupid questions and bantering about god knows what like only Jon can do. Also, we talk a bit about that DmC: Devil May Cry game… or something…

Jon and Paul recount where the hell they’ve been, say some things they might regret later if the significant others hear and talk about how bad Keith Courage is. Also, Paul played Low G Man so that comes up as well as discussing if Battletoads and Contra are even good games. This week’s game-along picks are Die Hard Arcade(SAT) and Parasite Eve(PSX) so find a copy of one or both and tune in two weeks from now for our discussion!

Ryan started acting at the young age of 5 years, and has been performing ever since. He played drums in a female-fronted political punk band called Overated for 9-years, before shooting his first full-length film, "Thankskilling". Overated toured all over the Midwest, appearing with bands such as The Riverboat Gamblers, The Misfits, Killola, Strike Anywhere, and many more (see website). During that time, Ryan had a huge interest in film, attending Ohio University in 2005, right after high school, for a short amount of time, working as a sound tech for various college projects. One in particular, called "Pinned", directed by Patrick Norman, was favored by Ryan. He is residing in Columbus, OH where he runs his record label, REF Records, and performs as a nerd-core hip-hop artist that the locals know as "Huge Euge". Eno Metzo from The Awful Gamer joins Paul as they talk to Ryan Francis, known by many in the B-Rated indie horror fandom as "Darren the Nerd" from ThanksKilling and Huge Euge to his local nerdcore hi

Extra long episode this week as Paul and Nathan dive into the morality of movies that glorify violence for comedic (God Bless America) and patriotic (Zero Dark Thirty) means, video games that are hard to classify as “games”, what they look for in their top ten picks for the year and Paul spreads the word about the Canadian show Kenny vs. Spenny to a curious chat room. Also, alcohol apparently leads conversation about video games to weird places and youth traumas.

After one failed attempt, Calvin was nice enough to step online again to converse with us and, unfortunately, we had some technical issues with connections and audio quality. While not unlistenable, there are noticeable breaks and cracks. I’ve done my best to fix the audio up to a standard I feel comfortable releasing and hope you enjoy our chat. -P Calvin French has been making games for awhile but this past year released The Real Texas to surprisingly receptive critical attention from sites such as Giant Bomb and Destructoid. With The Real Texas boasting the description of a mashup of Zelda: Link to the Past and Ultima VI, there is little surprise to find that Calvin has a particular respect and appreciation for very specific games from his childhood. We talk about what makes a good game, inspirations and the qualities of explosive trucks.

Welcome to a brand new year! What better time to talk about older media? Maybe not that old, but Nathan revisits 21 Jump Street and Paul finally catches up with Looper in our final attempts in creating our top 10 lists. In the same regard, Nathan dives into some Binary Domain and Mark of the Ninja while Paul gets some ideas out on his time with Far Cry 3. Also, the two decide that Cart Life might be one of the most important sandbox games created.

Remind me to come back and write something witty or insightful here. I guess I could tell you we talk some Game of the Year deliberation bitterness and that spurs random chats about some of our thoughts for media of the year. I could also tell you we talk about our opinions on Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell and in doing so make more cynical remarks on video game criticism. I might even tell you about how Nathan saw Django Unchained and played a neat little life simulation Cart Life and we talk a bit about that some. So yeah, remind me to write something like that here, okay? Also, have a great new year and we’ll see you on the other side!