Julian will never understand you.
Welcome back to Nerds Without Pants! This week, we shout out some of our favorite women in games, be they characters, developers, content creators, and more. Then we talk about a couple bad games and a couple better games before pitting Zelda against Dragon Quest in a cage match.
Hey, we came in under the two hour mark!
The Last of Us Part II has become one of the most divisive games of this console generation, so much so that we weren’t quite sure if we should do a full spoiler-cast, a quickie discussion during a Consumption Junction segment, or just skip it entirely. But it turns out that we have a lot to say about this game, so come join us to hear from the perspective of someone who played the entire game, and someone who watched a playthrough as we spoil the crap out of this game.
It's thinking...
Somehow, Nerds Without Pants has been podcasting pantsless for 8 years straight! Angelo joins us for a celebration, lots of reminiscing about console launches, and a good amount of video game talk. This is one of our most fun episodes so far this year, so don’t miss it!
A boy and his frog
My earliest years in gaming was a magical time. Every new game I discovered pioneered a fresh mechanic I hadn’t seen before. I'll never forget the moment when my brother's best friend came over with his NES games to show off Blaster Master. I marveled as the story elements unfolded while melancholic music played in the attract mode. Pressing the start button then transitioned me to the opening shot of an armored vehicle speeding off while the triumphant music swelled to a crescendo as I journeyed into the unknown. Never had I witnessed anything like that at the time. While everything I just described is nothing spectacular these days, Blaster Master still has a few gameplay elements that still hold up quite nicely.
Or: Attack of the YouTube People
Welcome to a very special edition of Nerds Without Pants! Not only is it our annual Halloween Havoc episode, but we are joined by NWP co-founder and former co-host Rob Ottone, on his first full show since 2013! Aaaaah, I’m so excited, just press play!
You'll have a Marble Blast... once the rest of the content is available.
Back when the GameCube released, I developed a real love for rolling monkeys in balls along complex tracks while hoping to reach the finish line without falling off. Yes, Super Monkey Ball was truly something special. Later, during the Wii’s lifespan, a couple titles based around rolling marbles appeared under a new series, Kororinpa, scratching that same itch. These were incredible games that used the Wii’s motion control to great effect and since then I’ve been pining for more ball rolling goodness in whatever form I can get it. Enter Marble It Up, a spiritual successor to the Marble Blast series that had its final release on the PC and Xbox 360. While I missed these titles, if Marble It Up indicates their quality, I’m sure I’d have loved them.
What do ivory, supernatural abilities, and religious zealots have in common?
I’ll start by saying that I’m in awe of Iconoclasts. It’s the culmination of nearly eight years of solo work by Joakim Sandberg. As someone who has built a much simpler game from scratch on my own, I can assure you this was no easy feat, and for such a complex and beautiful game it’s really a stunning achievement. The world, the art, the music, and the gameplay are all phenomenal. Traversing the world, solving puzzles, exploring the locales, and defeating bosses is consistently entertaining. I have some reservations with the story and the, at times, cringey dialog. The story does prove to be quite memorable in the end, but for much of Iconoclasts, I found myself lost in it, focused solely on the gameplay.
