The Weekly Stuff #150 – Celebrating the Nintendo 64 at 20 and Sonic the Hedgehog at 25

In our 150^th episode of the podcast, we take a trip down memory lane to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Nintendo 64 and the 25^th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog. The N64 was a formative console for both of us, containing some of the greatest games ever made – but also arriving with some major flaws that would prove a sea change for Nintendo. Breaking down its history and impact makes for a fascinating conversation. Sonic the Hedgehog has perhaps an even more complex and convoluted history, given the sheer gap in quality between his best and worst games, but it’s safe to say that if it weren’t for the blue hedgehog, neither of us would be into games the way we are today, and as we look at Sonic’s best and worst moments, it’s hard to feel anything other than overall fondness for Sonic and his strange group of friends. Discussion of Pixar’s Finding Dory, Nintendo’s Kirby: Planet Robobot, and The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine rounds out the episode.

The Weekly Stuff #149– E3 Analysis Spectacular! Discussing all the news from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and more!

If you’ve listened to The Weekly Stuff for any period of time, you know we – or, at least, Sean – are sort of unhealthily obsessed with E3, and the many strange, overlong, weirdly wonderful press conferences and gaming announcements that come along with it. As we do every single year, we break down all the major conferences in order, from EA to Bethesda to Microsoft to Ubisoft to Sony, and to the Zelda- and Pokemon-themed musings of Nintendo. Which companies put on the best shows? What announcements and trailers surprised or impressed us most? Which games have we come out of E3 more or less excited for? In what is easily our longest podcast ever – sorry about that – we break down every announcement and trailer, and even wind up pitching a movie in which Zac Efron and Jaime Foxx get high at E3 (we got loopy there for a stretch). This is one of our favorite podcasts to do every year, and we hope you enjoy.

The Weekly Stuff #148– Pre-E3 News Analysis & Speculation Spectacular!

With E3 and its myriad press conferences right around the corner, we prepare for one of the year’s biggest weeks in game news by recapping what turned out to be a pretty intense week of announcements and leaks in its own right, in which we learned the first details about Watch Dogs 2, were introduced to the next piece of Destiny with the unveiling of Rise of Iron, and most importantly, finally got a North American release date for Persona 5. We cover this and much more, before moving on to a round of speculation, going through each of the major entities sent to have a press conference at E3 – including Bethesda, Ubisoft, Microsoft, and Sony – and parsing out what we know, what we don’t know, and what we think might happen. How accurate will our predictions turn out to be? Tune in next week to find out.