Total Playtime – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Our episode this week was recorded... this week! Regular episodes are back on current events schedule. We talk about techxecutives, trying to make Meta happen, and argue about review scores, as games media are cursed to do until the sun explodes. Plus! We've been playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, My Summer Car, and Spirit Swap.

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Lawsuits are fake, Avowed and Civ 7 reactions, lol at Meta's terrible ad, VR devs don't feel great about Meta, being all gamergatey bites Kingdom Come II on the bum, sorry, you're legally not allowed to review my game poorly.

Games!

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Spirit Swap, My Summer Car.

Recommendations:

25 commandments for journalists, by the late Tim Radford (his obit. can be found here), the musical And Juliet, the film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and the documentary Boyzone: No Matter What.

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It's another catchup episode we recorded far too long ago! The next one will be more timely, but here we're discussing the games that we're most looking forward to in 2025. Mushrooms! Dinosaurs! Kings! Some of these games have already come out and we take no responsibility for their quality. You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Jonty's picks: GTAVI! Fable! Doom: The Dark Ages! Commandos Origins! That Half-Life thing! Mouse: PI For Hire!

Alice's picks: Mushroom Musume! Dead Letter Dept! Eldritch House! Avowed! (The Mermaid Mask! Promise Mascot Agency!)

Nate's picks: Civ VII! Kingmakers! Subnautica 2! Atomfall! Jurassic Park: Survival!

Recommendations this week are SBC Hyrdra-Collagen gel, St. Elwick's Newsletter Association, Video Nasty, and Blank Check.

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In this bumper episode of Total Playtime we discuss everything* that we would have discussed if we were on air at the time, except we all** got fired*** six months ago. Where things are out of date or have changed since we recorded we have endeavoured to provide more up-to-date context in the links below. Thanks for listening!

*Not everything

**Two of us

***were made redundant.

Links!

Neil is a big seal. "Soft layoffs" impacted Ziff Davis More recent GDC survey than the one we mention indicates even more people are impacted by layoffs. Digital Foundry: John vs. Palword. Nintendo sued Palworld. Swen from Larian did a good speech. Catly initially looked like it might be AI but the devs have since denied it and released another trailer. Read Max's thesis that people like AI because people like bad art. Stage Fright looks cool, as did Outer Worlds 2 and One Move Away. The Witcher IV is happening. Naughty Dog's new IP looks like shit Star Wars. Borderlands 4 is ready to drop the hottest memes of 2011.

Recommendations: Bookmarked by Chris, Matt's Off Road Recovery, Lidl Spicy Salami Sticks, and Skulls: An Exploration Of Alan Dudley's Curious Collection. Find game links on Patreon.

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It's a big commitment, deciding whether to listen to a new podcast, so for our first episode we're giving you a little taster. An amuse bouche but for the ears, as it were. Alice, Nate and Jon(ty) introduce themselves anew to you, our lovely little sausages, and talk a bit about what the podcast will be. Or at least what they hope it'll be. Tell us what you hope it'll be at totalplaytimepod@gmail.com.

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Recommendations this week are Ed Zitron's long rant about why the internet sucks and whose fault it is, and Matt Levine's Bloomberg newsletter Money Stuff to make heavy duty finance stuff more understandable. Plus a trio of nature recs from Nate: the Netflix documentary Our Oceans for good whale footage, the YouTube channel Extinct Zoo, and the PBS Eons podcast.

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The I've had three hours of sleep and can't think of a better title edition! This time we discuss Warner Bros. doing more redundancies and how digital ownership is an illusion. Plus! Steam Next Fest demos, and the new discoverability app everyone's talking about. And more! We've been playing Avowed, and a cool free text-based puzzle game feat. mysterious deaths.

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067

Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon. 

Links

WB shut down good studios and have good systems in their Indiana Jones warehouse of patents. You don't own your Amazon ebooks. The Video Game History Foundation is preserving games. Dominic Tarason has a great free games spreadsheet. Ludocene is having a crack at a different, better kind of game discovery.

Games

Cantaloupe Chronicle, Do No Harm, Type Help, Avowed, Resogun

Recommendations

The Sky Thief article on Rolling Stone; Todd In The Shadows.

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This week Jonty is away in Europe not doing counter espionage, so Alice and Nate talk about Bungie's new game Marathon, which looks fine, I guess. We discuss whether it's worth going to see the A Minecraft Movie (no). Also, Nate explains Civ 7 and Age Of Empires patches, and forces Alice to design an absurd breakfast.

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067

Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Why hello there, Marathon. Civ 7 and AoEII are both getting updated. Critical support for Phoebe Waller Bridge. No support for Jared Hess.

Games!

Promise Mascot Agency. It's really good!

Recommendations

Nate recommends Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerlands and Alice recommends Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis.

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Ubisoft's latest stab-fest did really well, hurrah! But they still did that weird subsidiary plan with Tencent, hurroo. At least the official Ass Creed social media account got in a few shots. Plus: Bloodlines 2 delayed again, Game Informer is back, and we prepare to fight Gul'dan. 

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067

Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

The CWA formed a games union! Cool! Game Informer is back, but at what cost? AC: Shadows did good numbers, and so did this burn on Elon Musk, but Ubi still sold 25% of their best franchises to Tencent, in a move that just kind of instinctively feels bad. FightinCowboy going off on his Shadows stream, however, felt good. Bloodlines 2 is delayed again. I first previewed it like 6 years ago, lol.

Games!

Schedule I. The Beekeeper's Picnic. AC: Shadows.

Recommendations

Jonty recommends Father John Misty, Nate recommends the Shamrock Shake, although it is now no longer available in the UK so here is its Wikipedia page, and I recommend Out There Screaming: An Anthology of Black Horror.

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This week everyone is trying to make fetch happen, from the leaked demo of an infinitely genAI small-talking NPC, to Ubisoft finally launching the rumoured Animus Hub alongside Assassin's Creed Shadows. Sometimes you just have to do something to get your manager off your back. Plus: we've been playing Wanderstop and looking at Split Fiction.

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067

Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Everyone hates fake Aloy, although Ashly Burch has a more measured take. Games writers got mad at one guy in particular. I will fucking piledrive you if you mention AI again by Nikhil Suresh. Assassin's Creed Shadows is the first to feature the Animus Hub, may God have mercy on our souls, but also we're hoping Shadows does well for all our sakes. The writing in Split Fiction might not be that great and Josef Fares isn't that concerned about genAI.

Games!

Split Fiction. No Case Should Remain Unsolved. Wanderstop.

Recommendations

Jonty recommends you grow some rosemary and put it on steak, and I recommend the book Character Limit and the podcast QAA (for the Nth time).

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The internet briefly tore itself apart over how good games are allowed to be, most specifically Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French JRPG (??) that everyone loves - or possibly loves too much. We discuss this, Todd Howard cucking us (and indie games) by shadow-dropping the Oblivion remaster, plus our reviews of Blue Prince and Old Skies.

You can listen to the episode directly right here, or find it in your pod catching apps.

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/total-playtime/id1790845149

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1jPv8y9BRzqATFT7zXRxKW

RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6786cf573ceecdbe85eac067

Acast: https://shows.acast.com/total-playtime

Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

EA revealed their XCOM but Star Wars game (on the 19th). Sure, whatever. The Oblivion remaster came out, but the Skyblivion folk say they will continue their work. Raw Fury will too, no matter how many times they have to release a game! Clair Obscur is out and did really well and everyone loves it. (FYI the BDS movement is calling for boycotts of Xbox)

Games!

Blue Prince and Old Skies.

Recommendations

Grow your own tomatoes, support trans rights and charities, go to protests and buy from cool trans businesses, creators, authors and artists.

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This week there was even more news about what remains of games media, and a new GTA 6 trailer following the delay of GTA 6, which itself is probably bad news for games media. It's rough out there, folks. We discuss all of these things plus Sean Bean, the joke that will kill Nate, and the GTA feature requests of the Gaming Anti-Pope. Artwork by Marsh Davies. Music by God Ribbon.

Links!

Will Alice ever outrun the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Pope Crave accidentally became a real media outlet. Giant Bomb bought Giant Bomb in an all-Jeff transaction. Jeff Prime saluted Kinda Funny. Polygon was bought by Valnet, which is probably bad. The GTA 6 trailer came out and it wasn't on the date predicted.The GTA 6 website contains enough material for like five different magazine cover features, we used to be a country. Do not become addicted to Latinas. Jonty reviewed Revenge of the Savage Planet. Qanon Anonymous.

Games!

Crusader Kings 3, Revenge of the Savage Planet and Skin Deep.

Recommendations:

Alice recommends The failure of Pop Quiz Hotshot, Jonty recommends Carpoolers by Alejandro Cartagena, Nate recommends The Floozies, Marvel Years and Moon Tricks.

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