Married with Video Games Podcast

Matthew played through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle while Christina got to watch an excellent Indiana Jones not-movie and listen to the fantastic vocals of Troy Baker. But seriously, this game will make you want to watch the original trilogy after every gameplay session. The storytelling and vibes are absolute perfection.

Matthew and Christina got to play a video game together! Tehy played through Hazelight Studios's It Takes Two, which is an incredible amount of fun.

We did it. We made it through Black Myth: Wukong. This game had its ups and downs in the difficulty of its bosses (and there are plenty). But if you like Soulslike games and a challenge, you'll enjoy it. 

Christina played the heck out of Astro Bot! There's definitely a reason it won Game of the Year in 2024 (we dive into that, too). It's also incredibly adorable and is an excellent modern-day platformer.

It's our annual roundup episode! We go through all the games we played throughout 2024, our favorites and least favorites, what we're excited for in 2025, and gush over Alan Wake II, somehow.

Matthew and Christina have been playing the heck out of Balatro, which, if you didn't know, won Indie Game of the Year at the Game Awards. It deserves it. We can't write this description anymore because we have to go back to playing more Balatro.

Matthew played through the Dead Space Remake that came out in 2023 and had so many jump scares. Even Christina managed to get a jump scare! This is a solid remake and still so very, very creepy and atmospheric.

Christina played through The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and it's a wonderful throwback to the Zelda games of old. Except not! Because you play as Zelda! And get to use things like in Tears of the Kingdom! It's just all-around fun.

It's a second spooky episode this year! Matthew finished the second and final DLC for Alan Wake 2: The Lake House. It's a return to basics for the survival horror series and fun to step back into Cauldron Lake. We just hope Control 2 shows up sooner rather than later.

For our annual spooky game episode, Matthew played through Inscryption, which starts out as a tabletop card game in a spooky cabin you can't escape and gets a little stranger from there. It's a fun, quick play, but that first act is definitely the highlight.

Christina played Dungeons of Hinterberg while Matthew backseat gamed on the puzzles in the dungeons. This is the perfect blend of cozy and action RPG and can really be as much or as little of both as you want it to be.

Christina played through almost two seasons of Sun Haven, which is a fantasy farming sim/RPG reminiscent of Stardew Valley. So yes. She and Matthew draw many comparisons and parallels. If you're in the market for a new game in this genre, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

If you want some of the best combat out there, both in looks and feel, then man do we have a game for you. Stellar Blade absolutely rocks the combat. The story is absolutely nothing to write home about and all of the characters are bland, but we'll be dreaming about that combat for quite some time.

Matthew and Christina jumped headfirst into the Alan Wake 2: Night Springs DLC. It's all sorts of wonderful, from a pitch-perfect fanfic to a Control tie-in to multiverse traversal a la Quantum Break (if we can even say that), fans will really enjoy these three bite-sized episodes. We absolutely did. You shouldn't even be surprised; we're drinking the Remedyverse Kool-Aid.

In the rephrased words of Milhouse on The Simpsons, "It took two months, but we did it. It's done." Spoiler alert: We did not like this game, and that may make this our most controversial episode. Let's talk about it!

Hades II launched into early access on PC out of the blue, and Christina has been playing the crap out of it. This game is incredibly polished for being early access, and these are our thoughts on it after playing about a dozen or so hours!

Matthew is slowly making his way through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and we give our impressions on the first half of the game. And then pivot to how much we both loved the Stellar Blade demo!

Matthew played through Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. We did it! We beat the two games we wanted to before Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth! This is a great follow-up to the first game and a fun return to the Star Wars universe.

Christina played through Nobody Saves the World as Matthew waits for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It's a creative action RPG that has a ton of potential that we only realized while recording this podcast.

Matthew downloaded the God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla DLC and played through it over the course of three evenings. For being a free DLC from a AAA studio, this sure added a ton of lore and gave a well-crafted epilogue to the 2023 game.

Matthew and Christina are still deep in the Remedy-verse, visiting 2016's Quantum Break. Time travel hijinks! Iceman! Characters who show up in Control and Alan Wake II but not really for copyright reasons! Emails!

Welcome to the first podcast of 2024! Matthew and Christina are still on their Remedy kick, throwing it back to the 2001 Max Payne. We have some thoughts on this old school game and are interested to see what the future remake has in store.

It's our annual roundup episode where we discuss every game we played in 2023, games we started and didn't finish, and go through our favorites/least favorites and take you on some wild tangents. Come along for the ride!

Matthew finished Alan Wake II, even managing to platinum the game, and Christina was along for the whole twisty, dark, horrifying ride. Remedy's latest game is all sorts of fantastic for so many reasons and we barely even scratch the surface.

Christina played through the Kickstarted Sea of Stars that had Matt constantly looking up songs from Chrono Trigger. It's the perfect throwback and spiritual successor to that long line of RPGs and we had a ton of fun with it.

It's our annual spooky game podcast! While not necessarily spooky, Death's Door fits thematically. Christina had a great time playing and Matthew enjoyed watching (and actually played a bit of it when it came out in 2021).

Christina dove headfirst into Dave the Diver and its scuba/fishing and restaurant management sim, and Matthew came along for the ride. This one throws a lot at you and it's definitely a lot to take in.

It's a long one this time around, with Christina finally having beaten The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom after 100 hours. Matthew was just along for the ride. There's a lot to discuss in this episode, and heavy spoiler alert for the story towards the end of the episode!

It's another interlude episode! With Christina taking her sweet time with Tears of the Kingdom, we fill the lack of episodes by looking at five video games coming out in the second half of 2023 that we will absolutely be playing.

Matthew played through the Resident Evil 4 Remake and neither he nor Christina played the original, so there's no nostalgia lenses going into this one. That being said, it's still a solid third-person shooter!

Christina has played as much Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom as possible with a toddler in the house while Matthew has been forced to sit and watch. These are our first thoughts with no spoilers about the story, but a few mild spoilers regarding items, enemies, and changes to Hyrule.

Christina played through Dredge while Matthew watched and had to deal with secondhand creepiness from this fantastic, Lovecraftian, creepy... fishing game? Yes, fishing game.

Matthew and Christina are doing something different for this episode. With the success of The Last of Us on HBO, we brainstorm five different video game franchises that would make great TV adaptations, with a couple of honorary mentions.

Matthew played through Hogwarts Legacy while Christina watched and realized how much niche and useless Harry Potter trivia still resides in her brain. If you grew up with the series and always wanted to explore  Hogwarts, man, do we have a game for you.

Christina played the heck out of Diablo IV during its beta weekend. Matthew mostly watched, but got a chance to play as a necromancer. These are our disjointed thoughts on it and what we hope for when it comes out in June!

Matthew played through God of War Ragnarok and Christina enjoyed pretty much every second of it. We have minimal complaints and fawn over the vastly different realms you traverse as well as where the story takes you.

It took seven in-game years and 165 hours, but Christina did it! She 100-percented Stardew Valley! Her and Matthew go through all of what that entailed and how much of an endeavor it really was.

Matthew played through Evil West on the PS5 and honestly, it was fun to play through an old school linear shooter game for a change.

It's our annual review episode! We touch on every game we played in 2022, our favorites and our least favorites, and what we're looking forward to in 2023.

Christina played Hades! It is just as fantastic as it was when it released back in 2020. We can absolutely see why it won indie of the year at The Game Awards back then. It's a blast.

It's the annual Halloween episode! This year we managed to make our way through Resident Evil Village and finally interact with giant vampire lady everyone freaked out about! Also, it's a solid Resident Evil game!

For our 50th (50TH!!!) MWVG episode, Christina played Tunic! Her first Soulslike game! Matthew-approved! Excellent music and great combat and a fantastic throwback to the old-school days of gaming, this one was a ton of fun.

It took eight months, but Matthew finally beat Horizon Forbidden West! Listen, if you are a fan of open world games with piles upon piles of side quests and upgrading mechanics, this is absolutely your game. Also, Ashly Burch is still the best.

Christina plays her first roguelike! Matthew got to watch! We had fun with this one for different reasons and to everyone's surprise, we actually have ratings that are completely different!

Matthew and Christina finally got the Steam Deck! We give our first impressions of the device/system and then do a quick review of the first game we bought and played on it: Power Wash Simulator! It's exactly what it sounds like!

Christina finally got to play the cat game on the PS5! Stray was all sorts of adorable and entertaining with a fantastic soundtrack that Matthew enjoyed.

Christina got to play some heavy duty nostalgia when Pokémon Snap came out on the Nintendo Switch Online virtual console, and Matthew got to sit back and watch. It is an incredibly fun, very short, mindless game with old school Pocket Monsters.

Matthew made Christina play EarthBound, one of his favorite JRPGs from his childhood. It's a brand new genre for Christina, and it honestly still holds up really well!

It's Elden Ring! Everyone, it's finally Elden Ring! Matthew played 70+ hours before we could record this one, and it's definitely this generation of consoles' Breath of the Wild. It's a heck of a lot of fun for a Souls game.

Matthew and Christina head 24 years into the past to play The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch Online. While the port is terrible, the game itself is still all sorts of wonderful.

Matthew and Christina are BACK in 2022 with a fantastic, hilarious game: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. It definitely deserves its win at TGA for Best Story. And it's absolutely hilarious, please go play it now if you haven't yet.