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Season 7, Episode 25

We’re taking the high road at the following link.

I can’t say for sure what’s gone wrong lately with people whose job it is to craft, promote, and celebrate video games.  I understand that games are literally serious business, and in a certain light might well be confused with serious art, but the lengths to which heads have gone up asses is beyond my ability to understand.  I know how easily a cause or an argument can grow to fill your entire field of view, but I don’t know how a person can stand to let what should be a cherished pastime become a bone of such incredible contention.  There are a lot of folks (myself included, sometimes) who should lighten up, maybe, and just enjoy some games.

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Season 7, Episode 24

We’re dropping quarters in the slots at the following link.

It’s honestly worth having Arjay look at me like I’m speaking gibberish if it means he’s taking the time to put himself on record about one thing or another.  Or, as is the case in this episode, if he’s making the effort to explain something to me like the five-year-old I appear to be.  Here I’m talking about fighting games, the culture surrounding them, and the competitive scene that motivates the top-level players.  That fighting games exist, and that they support a competitive scene is literally the sum of my knowledge about them, as if they were a rumor, so rest assured that my questions about the EVO tournament are genuine and that my attitude isn’t affected.  I’m really this clueless and stupid.

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Season 7, Episode 23

We’re of two minds at the following link.

I swear sometimes I can hear the internet rolling its eyes when I go on, at incredible length, about some MMOG or another.  I’m perfectly aware of how it sounds when I’m having my way, and I can promise you that even my co-hosts drift off in search of any other thing in the entire world they can be thinking about when I do.  But there’s not much they can do to stop me running my mouth, so I’m damn well going to spend a half-hour this week on Final Fantasy 14, and many more half-hours in the future, I’m sure.

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Season 7, Episode 22

Our heads are up for hunting at the following link.

Whether he’s jumped out of the pan and into the fire or made like a rat from a sinking ship, Don Mattrick’s emergency teleport from Microsoft to Zynga is sure to make him a profit and allow him continued use of his unnaturally thick skin.  This is a perfectly rational decision for a man of business, of course, and there are a great many reasons to absolve Mattrick of the blame that’s been heaped upon him in the weeks since the XBO’s reveal.  But every gust in the recent shitstorm has only served to remind us of the fact that this is all just business, run by men who wield billions and are payed in millions.  Yes, we’re well aware this is how the world is run and there’s (supposedly) nothing wrong with that.  But then why are our inner children so far out of sorts?  This was supposed to be fun and games.

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Season 7, Episode 21

We’re whistling for the wind at the following link.

For the first time in the longest we’re actually motivated by the summer doldrums.  We’re generally impatient people and we’d love to have the new consoles and many new games in hand, but we’re also anxious to clear this extraordinary backlog of games from our ledger.  We won’t get it done of course, but we’ll labor under the illusion that we will, and we’ll happily add to the list during every sale and discount the summer cares to offer.  Two steps forward and two steps back, I suppose.