The Experience Points Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

What with the hectic holiday season and all the game of the year madness, we were so busy talking about games that we didn't have time to talk about games-adjacent things like Secret Level.  The streaming anthology series takes direct inspiration from some very well known (and not so well known) games, so we sat down to debrief on what makes a good short-form cross-media game story.  Honestly, we're still having nightmares about the Pac-Man episode.

The Switch 2 announcement is here and it made a splash, but it's one of those tiny little splashes you see at the Olympics. Classic Nintendo, no notes. Join us this week as we discuss, dissect, and have a laugh with the Switch 2 announce trailer.

I can't believe we missed out on the most important PlayStation Pro news when we talked about it a couple weeks ago.  Yes, your long nightmare of dealing with disorganized lose paper is over: Sony has created a solution and it only costs $1000.  But hurry: there's only 12,300 in existence, so act quickly or else you'll have to go crawling back to Clippy.  We dig into this as well as more stories on Professor Layton, Microsoft R&D, and Nintendo's secret police this week.

After watching the recent Batman movie, we came to a couple conclusions: 1) Batman's gamer tag is probably "V3ngence_420" and 2) there are some very interesting parallels between this latest cinematic take on the caped crusader and recent video game portrayals. This week we dive into the movie as well as various Batman games and how they've built on such an iconic character.

An update to the last podcast, Sony has updated their subscription policies and offerings and it's honestly getting better. Also, Netflix had a very bad week. Will they really invest heavily in gaming in the near future? Subscribe to find out!

Show Notes:

This week we're dipping into some recent and headlines around game difficulty as well as the difficulty of putting on a physical event in the year 2022. Games like Eldin Ring and Tunic are still very much top of mind and their popularity has brought people to revisit how best to navigate the balance between challenge and letting players experience all a game has to offer. Back on the release and conference front, we talk about some MIA Nintendo games as well as the increasingly unpredictable future of everyone's favorite reason to escape from LA: E3.

This week on the EXP Podcast, we fight hordes of monsters in the bullet-hill homage to Castlevania - Vampire Survivors. We also revisit and share some closing thoughts on Tunic and Elden Ring. Now, on to the Pacifist Pete run!

Show Notes:
- Music by Brad Sucks and Vampire Survivors

The video game subscription scene got a bit more crowded this week after Sony revealed their new PlayStation Plus tiers. It's clear they're leaning into the retro angle as well as streaming games, but how does it compare to what Microsoft and Nintendo are doing? This week we do some analysis as well as grapple with the tangled web of monthly recurring bills that has come to comprise the bulk of our entertainment budgets.

This week on the EXP Podcast, we get into Tunic - an adorable little homage to Zelda that actually seems pretty difficult. We also get back on the Elden Ring horse (Torrent, I guess), and explore what makes this game, or all Souls games, special.

Every year, Jorge and I play Journey on the anniversary of its release. We don't always talk about it since, honestly, if you took a drink every time we mentioned Journey on any randomly-selected show you'd probably be rushed to the hospital before the episode ended. However, this year is special: we are celebrating a decade of Journey! We're ten years in and still finding new things to appreciate about one of the medium's truly outstanding works. We hope you can join us in continuing the discussion and perhaps even go with us on next year's trip through the desert?