Gamer’s Advocate

Game Sounds You'll Never Forget - Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda - Podcast Episode 52

Join AMKomnenos, Banana, and Legion as we discuss memorable audio cues in our experiences with gaming. We attempt to recall those special soundbytes that can instantly take us back to a moment in time when we played some of our favorite games. Join us as we provide a (definitely not complete) list of those video game sounds that can define a game for us, and a handful of those sounds that can ruin a game. Feel free to share your own in the comments!

Is Relatability Important in Gaming? - Podcast 51 - Death Stranding, Mass Effect, Hollow Knight

Join AMKomnenos, Banana, and Legion as we discuss relatable characters in video games. What is it that we find connects us to these characters? Can we relate to characters other than the main character, or even NPCs? Does a character need to be fleshed out for us to find something to identify with? Does the connection to a character even need to be major aspect of their personality? Join us for an investigation into the characters we've latched onto over the years, and feel free to offer your relatable characters!

The BIG 5-0! Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! - Podcast Episode 50

We're celebrating episode 50 of the podcast with a collection of outtakes, bloopers, and general mishaps that we've encountered along the way. It should come as no surprise that over the course of recording 49 previous episodes, we've had to cut quite a great deal out of our episodes. We're sharing a lot of that cut content with you now! (And we promise it's not because we haven't recorded something new!)

Game Length or Girth? - Ep. 49 - Metaphor, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy, Dragon Age

Join AMKomnenos, Banana, and Legion as they discuss the impact that a game's length can have on the gameplay experience. Is there a universal cutoff for game time that qualifies as too long? Can a game be engaging enough that the actual play time doesn't matter? Does pacing affect how a long a game feels? Is game length more important for specific genres? Is your favorite game too long?

When Did Gaming STOP Being Fun? - Ep. 48 - Morrowind, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Civilization, Madden

Join AMKomnenos, Banana, and Legion as they dig into a very pervasive concept within the video game community especially in regard to the game review process: comparison being the thief of joy. We discuss the trend within the gaming community to anticipate disappointment in new game releases, and the tendency to fall back on the "this isn't as good as the previous game" criticism. Does this same bias exist in other media? Do we encourage this behavior within the community? Do developers encourage it with their behavior?

The BEST VILLAINS (in gaming)! - Ep. 47 - Final Fantasy, Knights of the Old Republic, Red Dead

Join AMKomnenos, Banana, and Legion as they dive into a major aspect of most of our favorite games: villains! What makes for a great villain? What makes a villain memorable or compelling? How do video games approach villains in a unique way? Is every villain just a hero with a different perspective? We discuss our most memorable and iconic villains and antagonists from the word of gaming (and a few of the ones that fell short).

EPIC Moments in Gaming! (SPOILERS) - Ep. 46 - Final Fantasy, Metroid, Starcraft, KotOR

THIS WILL BE A VERY SPOILER HEAVY EPISODE! Please use the timestamps below to navigate the episode if you want to avoid spoilers. Join AMKomnenos, BananaHammockRepublic, and LegionGrey as we discuss those moments in gaming that had the most significant impact on gamers and the industry over the years. We dig into the moments in games that lingered with us for whatever reason; the moments that managed to have a big emotional impact, the moments that forced us to re-evaluate our understanding of the game (and sometimes the real world), and those moments that just made us say "WTF!"

Comfort Gaming (Welcome Home) - Ep. 45 - Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Civilization, Baldur's Gate

Join AMKomnenos, BananaHammockRepublic, and LegionGrey as we discuss comfort games and games that just help us relax. Which games makes us feel cozy even if they're not really cozy games? What game mechanics or genres do we find comforting? What aspects of a game really contribute to that comfy, cozy feeling? Are we even comfy with each other?

Spaaaaace! - Episode 44 - Star Wars, Hardspace Shipbreaker, Mass Effect

Join AMKomnenos, BananaHammockRepublic, and LegionGrey as we do our very best to discuss the topic of futurism in video gaming. We dig into sci-fi settings and how they compare to more medieval fantasy, the distant future vs. the near future, and the idea of coziness within a sci-fi environment. We also talk about a lot of irrelevant topics and pick fights with celebrities, so do your best to follow along.

Consoles - Episode 43 - Metal Gear, Legend of Zelda, Baldur's Gate, Final Fantasy, Assassin's Creed

Join AMKomnenos, BananaHammockRepublic, and LegionGrey as we discuss a topic tied intimately to where video gaming really got its start: consoles. We discuss our history with console gaming and the progression of consoles over the years, and maybe even possible futures for consoles as technology continues to improve. We definitely didn't get off topic once, and certainly never lost our cool.