The Vagabond Gamecast

Hey ye faithful, welcome to our last episode of the season! This time the duo wraps up the podcasting year by going over some recent going ons, and then reviewing their best and worst games/experiences/whatever from 2021. Remember when it was cool in 2020 for people to say things like “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over” in reference to this pandemic gruesomeness? ‘Tis the season to be jolly, as 2021 aka pandemic year 2 draws to a close with no end in sight for the ‘Rona. Pretty good chance to hunker down and play video games though right?[...]

In this episode: Matt’s taken on the noble job of delving a little into what it’s been like for our intrepid hero, Stephen G. Tucker, career wise as a VFX artist with over a decade of working in the film and game industries around the world.  Through his career, he’s worked on a wide variety of projects ranging from working a Houdini VFX Artist/Technical Director on fully CG (Gnomeo and Juliet, Happy Feet 2) and live action (Jack the Giant Slayer, Ender’s Game) films, to competitive multi-player (Gears of War 4, Darwin Project), and single-player games (Shape of The World,[...]

Sometimes we here at the Vagabond Gamecast make a concerted effort to have a topic planned ahead of time for discussion so that we can try to spark a conversation with a direction and ensure quality bonding time for you, our audience. Sometimes despite having a topic planned ahead of time, we just let our attention spans run wild like they’ve never ran before. Well, kiddos, here’s one of those times! Turns out Matt actually had played a video game this time around, so we couldn’t help but spend our whole session (minus the parts where we talk about our[...]

We launch into this week’s episode by fondly discussing the realities of living / working near loud sounds. Think building construction is bad? I invite you to try and concentrate on your job while people dance to Under Pressure just a few meters away for the better part of a month. It’s an earth shattering experience… but only half as shattering as an actual earth quake. Matt and Steve have both been through some small tremors in their time on this planet, and can’t help but meander through their collective fear of mother nature for a bit before getting onto[...]

Focusing more on the “vagabond” portion of the “Vagabond Gamecast” title for a change, we spend most of this week’s session talking about what it’s like moving around – with a particular emphasis on what sort of an impact that has on a kid’s education. Topics sort of meander from our (lack of) French education, what we thought of the homework phases of our lives (high school vs college), a little bit of a comparison between how our education was for Steve as an animator vs Matt as an electronic engineer, and (as stated earlier) what moving around means for[...]

The 80’s, (or as we call it: the greaties), was a fantastic time to be a kid. Not only did we have a killer line-up of games to play on the Nintendo Entertainment System – but we also had a killer line-up of animated shows to watch on our glorious CRT TVs. One of those amazing shows we thrived on in our youth was Captain N: The Game Master – a hot show from 1989 that describes itself as: “Considered the quintessential animated series for gamers, Captain N: The Game Master used its flare for exciting storytelling and its overwhelming[...]

With Metroid Dread’s release, it was inevitable that we took some time to discuss one of our favourite properties from the greaties. While Steve’s initial reaction to the nine minutes that he’s played of the latest Switch title is cold, the fact remains that Metroid is a franchise that we’ve both loved since playing it on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. If you are looking for a good Metroid game, Steve’s ranking on the Franchise is as follows: 1. Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)2. Super Metroid (SNES)3. Metroid II: Return of Samus (Gameboy)4. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)5. Metroid (NES)6. Metroid Fusion (GBA)7.[...]

I don’t know if you’ve heard… but apparently in 2019 there was some sort of virus that began to spread around. It’s changed a few things in how people live their lives. It’s changed a few things in how we live our lives. Now, we’re lucky in that our lives haven’t been drastically affected. As two chaps who have the ability to work from home, we’re able to continue our jobs with minimal disruption. But nonetheless, life is different.  In this episode we’ve decided to take a bit of time to discuss how things have changed for us.

This time around, the duo dives into a topic they haven’t spent too much time on: tabletop games! …and specifically the rather influential Magic: The Gathering. Matt is an on-again off-again “huge fan” (well, huge during the on-again times), and it ends up Stephen has had some good times with it too. We deep dive on what we like and don’t like, both from a game development point of view as well as from a business and marketing perspective. Whether you are a huge magic fan yourself or just think it’s the geekiest thing on earth, come hear us share[...]

After having a few technical difficulties with the attempt at extra audio in last week’s Castlevania: Bloodlines focused episode, we couldn’t leave well enough alone. We’re back with another Castlevania bonanza. This time with that 1997 PS1 classic: Symphony of The Night. We appear to have the workflow a little more figured out this time around when it comes to patching in some tunes so sit back, relax, and allow yourself absorb our fond recollections of a classic game which remains a favourite for both of us.

Matt’s been a bit of a rascal this week. He’s been staying up late, and consuming spiritual opium. Tisk tisk, Matt. Tisk tisk. While our podcast kicks off on a bit of an aside on Video Games in China, the meaty center of this week’s audiophile unfriendly episode of The Vagabond Gamecast zones in on the Sega Genesis classic: Castlevania: Bloodlines (aka バンパイアキラー for those of you who may be dripping with curiosity over what they called this title in Japan). Having both just completed our very first playthroughs of the game this week, we do a bit of a[...]

  Steve and Matt are the type of blokes who really enjoy doing some creative endeavors on the side. Unfortunately, all this moving around and dealing with adult stuff, like keeping their children alive and remaining gainfully employed, tends to put a squeeze on free time and shake up the routine.   After some cheerful discussion about recent gaming activity and what motivates us to play games (or do anything really) we dig into the challenges we’ve faced with trying to make time for side projects and hobbies.   For anyone not in the know, Steve and Matt actually started[...]

OK, hear me out here… I get that the ongoing title of this series has been “Sorted By Console”… but let’s face it… computers are pretty great too. In last week’s episode we waxed poetic about what it was like in the latter part of the millennium once we had access to the internet… but you know… even before the internet, computers were pretty great. And so in today’s episode, we’re going to visit the joys of that period in computational recreation – the period where we grew accustomed to DOS and mice that would inevitably clog up with hair.  Some[...]

Cranky and speeding towards the big 4-0 as we step along through the 2020s, I think most people our age that were hardcore geeks in their teens really miss those early days of the internet in some way or another. If they don’t, they missed out! Something about them were just different. Like, different in a way that’s undeniably inferior, but with a simple charm. Communities were more scattered and smaller, the world was a more anonymous place, and the marvel of this insane new technology entered our lives at the perfect budding curious age. The early internet was a[...]

Man, those Nintendo 64 controllers were just the worst. Is there actually a following for those? Are there people out there that don’t think so? What percentage of them would you say haven’t actually broken and are still even usable, dear listeners? And what was with the wonky Dreamcast controller and its oddball shape and cord that connected from the bottom? We could also spend an eternity talking about all the quirky oddball third party controllers out there. So what are the best controllers? Is there an ultimate controller that will suit everyone for all needs? (Spoiler: not a chance)[...]

Hello, our beloved listeners! It’s great getting the old podcasts up onto YouTube! One thing that we’ve always noticed, is that humans talk too slow. Whenever we listen to content, we tend to listen at 1.5x speed, so it’s nice from our perspective being able to easily do that. (You’ve always been able to on our website, but it’s not really a feature in iTunes.) We’ve even been experimenting with speeding our content up by about 8% this season to help keep the pace a little better without speeding it up to the point where it would be difficult for[...]

Back in May 2021, one Jason Schreier released unto the world his words in the form of a book called “Press Reset” which sought to tell the behind-the-scenes story of several games from the 2010’s.  Matt and Steve, having both read Jason’s prior book “Blood, Sweat, and Pixels“, were keen to dig into this new book. As luck would have it, it came up on both of their radars at the same time… so come join them in this week’s Vagabond Gamecast as the two discuss their thoughts after having read the first three chapters.  Some side topics you may[...]

Matt and Steve have come to the disappointing realization that they are mere game enthusiasts in a world where collectors now have millions of dollars at their disposal. In this episode, we take a brief moment to bask in the glory of the musical choice for this year’s Olympic games. Never thought we’d live to see the day where Yasunori Mitsuda’s genius was appreciated by all the sports watchers around the world, but I’m not going to complain now that we’re finally in a good timeline! If Steve’s predictions are correct, Frog’s Theme will do more for Olympians than Tinder[...]

Hey everyone, are you all down on your “Canada knowledge”? Try to follow along because this time around, our friendly duo reaches back into the past to discuss our humble small-town Canadian origins and how we’ve moved on from them. We take a bit of a less-game focused approach this time to re-visit what it is like being oft-travelling (and oft-not) nerdy gaming dads in this crazy world. Both hailing from the relatively sparsely populated east coast of Canada, we touch on the adjustments and attitude changes we’ve experienced living in a variety of different places, and focus particularly on[...]

What’re these nerdy dudes up to this week? Well, we’re stepping away from talking gameplay and software stuff this week to focus on gaming hardware this time around. Do you upgrade your systems to the “Pro” version? Is it worth it? Do you hold out, knowing that a pro version is inevitable? Is it good for consumers or just a nuisance for those of us that end up owning inferior versions of hardware, effectively being penalized for being early adopters? The recent announcement of an OLED Switch (that is otherwise unchanged from the existing model) got us thinking console hardware[...]

Just a couple of weeks ago, on this here podcast, Matt and Steve blathered on and on about our opinions of how narrative is used in games. Matt being the cantankerous curmudgeon that he is, stood atop his pulpit and proclaimed that games are games and should remain that way. Leave the narrative to the birds and bees. Which Well… that might not be entirely accurate. But the point is… a couple of recommendations ended up being made which lead him to actually take some time out of his week to play What Remains of Edith Finch, a hit 2017 adventure game (walking[...]

There’s something satisfying about taking care of a problem yourself! This episode is largely about some of those gaming and moving related Do It Yourself tasks that we’ve done over the years. As is usual, though we start our conversation with a conversation! Conversations can meander, but this one is focused quite a bit on what it’s like both in software and game/film development and work-life balance breaking into our main topic. What kind of things do you do yourself? Do you buy expensive furniture or build Ikea? Do you buy pizza or make it from scratch? In terms of[...]

Is Matt a grumpy miser that sticks his nose up about everything? Well, yes, maybe, but what does that have to do with narrative in games?This time around, we go over what we like and dislike about narrative and the different ways developers choose to weave it into their game experiences. Stephen likes to whet his palette with a wide variety of different stuff, but is generally pretty drawn to games with strong narratives. Matt is particularly snarky and old-school, and just wants to play the damn game without being interrupted by cutscenes of cartoons whining about their problems. Is[...]

When you’ve been on this beautiful planet for as many years as we have, you start to learn that some things are the way there are, and there can be no exceptions. Spend enough time in the sun and you’ll get burned. Spend enough time in the water, and your fingers will shrivel up like prunes. Watch enough video game inspired films and your sanity will be lost.  You’d think that Matt and Steve would be the ideal audience for game films. We both love games, we both love film… and yet…The Super Mario Bros Super Show was fantastic! It’s[...]

It’s been a good romp through 80s and 90s video game history thus far. This week, the duo re-visit the early naughties to talk about a system they barely played (XBox), one they played a few games a lot on (Gamecube), and one they are still playing (The Nintendo DS). How well did our college years treat us for video game entertainment? Let’s confabulate. * 2:30 – After waking up, we kick things off with some chatter about the big XBox titles back in the day, like Halo, Halo 2, Splinter Cell, Ninja Gaiden, GTA, and the Dead or Alive[...]

Growing up as children of the 80’s, we spent many a days huddled up in our dark basements with our eyes glued to the delicious glow of a cathode ray tube television.  Eventually, we grew up (ha!) and found ourselves with families! What does this mean for our gaming lives? Have we introduced our offspring to the world of puzzle solving with pixels? Come on in and find out how an elder millennial incorporates gaming into parenthood!Before we get into the games in this episode, we take a moment to discuss our children’s television habits in general. What’s with kids[...]

What a crazy world we’re in, where our two fine Vagabond Gamecast co-hosts are engaging in varsity sport discourse! It wasn’t a long time ago (ok, maybe it was) when our heroes were back in high school fighting for their very right to game after school… now you mean to tell us that parents are going to be showing up to esports events to cheer their Elympians on!? I totally came up with Elympian on my own just now. Is that a word? If it isn’t already, well my friend who just googled their way here from the distant future,[...]

Once upon a time, someone decided to make a video game. It was made for a console that you could buy in a store! It came with carefully crafted manuals, posters, and packaging! You took the game home, you appreciated the packaging and … well maybe your dog ate it. It’s gone. Luckily that game still exists! But well… over time maybe the connections were not so tight on that console… you blew some dust out of that game and for a while it worked great! But over time, that little bit of saliva from your breath corroded the connection[...]

It’s 2021. Your grizzled veteran hosts now occasionally find themselves working together with interns and young colleagues that were born in this century. We’re not talking babies and kids here, these are functioning adults, and these creatures didn’t even exist when DeForest Kelley and Gene Siskel were doin’ stuff. Or, um, alive even. Just how wretched are these souls that missed the great CRT era? Just how much pity is appropriate for those whose eyes don’t even light up at the mention of those three letters? Really though, what is it that the “I don’t even know what that is”[...]

The Game Boy Advance is a special little nostalgia machine. In an era where games were increasingly becoming 3D – suddenly we had access to great SNES-like titles in the palm of our hands. There were lots of older titles that got ports to this little beast, but lots of reimaginings as well. This cartridge based, portable, console is definitely a highlight in the world of gaming. If you’re too eager to make your way through the audio itself, be sure to read inside to see some of our highlights. * Before we get into the “meat” we have a bit[...]

Hello and welcome back to the greatest podcast this side of the known universe! That’s right folks, it’s been a minute since the last season of The Vagabond Gamecast, but rest assured that your favourite internet personalities would never deign to keep you from knowing what their favourite games of their live are. So strap yourselves in and get ready – it’s the return of Matthew “Can’t Get Enough of the 80’s” Langille and Stephen “Doesn’t Play Enough of The Games He Buys” Tucker. Are you ready to hear about the PlayStation 2!? While the insight you’ll garner from listening to our[...]

Surprise! It’s part 2 of our little tour through our favorite games on gaming consoles of times past. We’ll (roughly) follow the chronological ordering for these systems right up into the present through this series. After a bit of chatting about recently gaming (including Rockman X 1 and 2 for Matt, and Final Fantasy Tactics and A King’s Tale for Stephen) these brothers hop into some game listin’ and discussing… This week we run through the 32-bit / CD age and end with a brief touch on the Gameboy Color. Obviously, it’s mega important that you check the details inside![...]

Alrighty-roo true believers, welcome to the multi-part “Best Games” series of Vagabond Gamecasts! Matt and Steve are going to be sitting down for the next little while and catching up on just what their favourite games were on each console. Let’s be honest here… our two heroes are in their early 30’s which means that they practically missed out on the first two console generations. For this reason, we’re going to be skipping ahead straight to the Third Generation and even then we’re going to be skipping a lot of the consoles as we go. So in this week, we’ll[...]

Ever stop and consider a game’s treatment of death? We’re talking death as a game mechanic, death as a story element, or maybe death as a game theme. Death abounds! This week, we look at death in games and how it’s incorporated into a variety of genres. We also explore how the treatment of death in games has evolved over time, and how our preferences for its inclusion as a game mechanic have changed as we’ve become stuffy adults with full schedules. Various salient examples of death handled trivially or in a frustrating manner are discussed and contrasted with what[...]

After having a couple of podcasts where we discussed the indie homebrew scene and ROM hacking, we decided to hone in on one magical source of nerd power known as Tomas Guinan who has delved into both of these worlds. In this week’s special episode of The Vagabond Gamecast we conduct our very first interview! Can you smell that Nova Scotian musk yet? That’s right folks, today, we’ve got not one, not two, but THREE of Truro’s finest current/former citizens in your ears today. Tomas joins us for over an hour of chatting about his ongoing Kickstarter for the Eskimo[...]

Lots to talk about this time around everybody! The hacker bug has bitten Stephen these days and he’s devoted some funds to a new computer purchase to feed his hobby. And thus sets up our discussion this time around about homebrew and independent development! After a little catch-up chatter, we talk motivations for getting involved in a burgeoning development community and being part of that movement (in this case, VR) before lightly touching on some future projects in the works. We contrast indie projects that look to create new experiences (again, VR) with those that recreate classic experiences (dev on[...]

Hope you’ve got a great set of headphones to go along with this week’s gamecast! Today we’re sitting down to do a side-by-side audio comparison of the Famicom Disk System / Nintendo Entertainment System editions of the original Legend of Zelda thanks to the YouTube video that was put up by Clyde Madelin in support of his Legends of Localization, Book1: The Legend of Zelda. It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole, if you’re interested in learning more about the audio hardware on these old consoles. Definitely an intersting world to delve into!

There’s nothing quite like curling up by a fire on a cold, cold, Canadian, winter night with a heartwarming book. Which is why it’s a shame that video game companies have given up on the practice of including fine literature with their titles. This week, our two heroes embark on a journey of nostalgia (what else is new) for the long lost days of instruction manuals that were ready and willing to bring us up to speed, and make us feel at home before launching us into hundreds of hours of electronic ecstacy. No, but seriously, if you weren’t around[...]

There’s few people who would contest that great characters, a compelling story, and challenging puzzles make a game great, however sometimes it’s the little things that can make a game fun or tedious. In this week’s episode of The Vagabond Gamecast, Matt and Steve take some time to discuss some of what makes a great or poor inventory system. Our heroes cover some simple mechanics such as what was used in earlier platforming titles such as Adventure Island, Castlevania, Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World to the more in-depth RPG sytems such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and[...]

Sometimes our actual recording sessions get jumbled up and separated out over the course of a couple weeks as we get time to record them. They don’t quite align with publication time, meaning things can sometimes get a little out of sync. No big deal; this time around, we mix things up and pause on the solid game topic discussion. Instead, we have a random chat about recent happenings in our lives as gamer parents with broad tastes but restricted schedules. Stephen touches on some recent gaming and a teaching project he has in the pipeline, and Matt has started[...]

Tune in for a five minute chat on our topic of the week: what drives you to make a new console purchase? We’ve graciously wrapped this light discussion in some much more substantial general game chatter and game-related complaining. But- This is no lackadaisical padding! Stay tuned for some analysis of the games we’ve been playing (finishing even), and a discussion on Infocom-style adventure games/visual novels and other genres we haven’t seen utilized as of late. We also touch on some of the frustrations inherent in retro games that have mostly disappeared from their modern counterparts, and delve into some[...]

Have you ever been curious about the art side of video game development? Matt was! And so he ambushed Stephen with some questions about it! There are of course many different artistic roles in game development and this week Stephen shares some insights from his experience working in the game industry as a VFX artist as we go into interview-format to dig into where his professional career has taken him. Some of the topics covered include: * Interviewing for VFX jobs in games * Tools used by game VFX artists * VFX teams at game companies * Hunting for VFX[...]

In this week we bring you back to the late 1990’s to share what it was like to live through the birth of competent emulators for Nintendo systems and experience a flourishing “romhacking” community responsible for the first available English-language versions of some relatively important games from the NES~SNES era. We touch lightly on some of the technical aspects of game fan-translations and general hacking of video game ROMs, and generally focus on the experience of being involved in the community. This is a particularly nostalgic period for Matt, who credits it with solidifying his interest in computer science and[...]

Anyone reaching into the depths of gaming history has surely hit upon gemsters and junkness, and probably games that could really qualify as both. One perhaps need look no farther than the original Ultima 1 (later, “Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness”… yeah, “darkness” for sure) for a telling example. We’ve come a long way since the early 80s. Games like Donkey Kong and the original Mario Bros remain replayable and endearing classics, while some of the more ambitious and trendsetting titles have sadly long since been eclipsed by modern experiences. It’s hard to really say that Ultima 1[...]

The days of the classic arcade have come and (mostly) gone. Some people missed the boat entirely (anybody younger than, uh, 30? 25 maybe?), and some people never let go (like… us. Matt at least…). This week we explore this classic place of entertainment and contrast it’s general disappearance in the west and lingering presence in the east. Arcades do continue to exist in some form of course; they’re somewhat niche (good luck finding them in small towns), often full of import titles, or sometimes even intentionally going for a retro “vibe”. As always, in addition to the subject at[...]

There were two main sources of gaming news, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. We had the kid in our class who’s uncle worked at Nintendo and would tell us all the upcoming news months before it would ever find its way into print or on shelves… and we had access to a variety of print magazines each month that would tell us all the actual for real facts about the world of gaming. It’s a little sad to notice that print media is so scarce these days, and so we spend this episode of The Vagabond Gamecast reminiscing[...]

This week we take a semi-deep dive into the “Rockman” / “Megaman” / call-it-what-you-will series and discuss our favorites, what makes each game stand out to us, and how the series incorporates into our personal nostalgia stories. We focus on the mainline series and its evolution through the years, but do touch a bit on X and the other spinoffs, so this will hopefully serve as a bit of a nice mini history lesson for anybody not fully aware of the series. As always, we touch on what we're currently playing and finishing up playing. Matt's been into FTL, while[...]

It’s great to have grown up through a time when games have developed so much. We had the luck of being kids in the 8-bit era, and still love playing games today. One particular art form which we’re fond of from the PlayStation era is the use of pre-rendered backgrounds. We don’t see them as frequently now as we did in the late 90’s as developers have fallen in love with fully 3D environments. After catching up a little bit on Matt’s completion of his Final Fantasy Tactics Advance playthrough, and our disappointment with the games Square Enix churned out[...]

…Or does it? Everyone enjoys games for different reasons, but what is it that really drives the appeal for you? This time around, our time-strapped parents discuss what it is that “makes a game” for them. The contrast is interesting, as Steve puts more weight on the narrative and flavor elements like theme, visuals, and music; meanwhile, Matt feels that the core gameplay mechanics make or break the game (“are” the game, even). Various examples through gaming history are plucked out to illustrate our points, so make sure you’re up on your 80’s and 90’s games! That brings us full[...]

It’s always a fun time for our two temerarious hosts to dig through their nerdy game lists. Staunch listeners will certainly be aware of this “list-obsession” of ours. This time, we share what we’re excited to get into as 2017 rolls along, and dwell a bit on how we choose what games to play and what we focus on in prioritizing our jumbo game collections. Both dweebo-coolsters keep multiple lists, but take a pretty different approach. We definitely still see a trend of Matt digging deep into the past with his game picks, though there are some ongoing efforts to[...]

Firstly… Steve apologizes profusely for his terrible audio quality. Having just moved, his mic set-up isn’t what it should be and it’s resulted in levels being blown out. As you know, Steve has just recently moved to Montréal which is in the French region of Canada. This poses the question of what is it like moving to French Canada as an English speaker? In this episode we discuss the milestone of our kids first starting to talk and the idea of raising them multi-lingual. This leads into a discussion of what it was like learning French as a child in[...]