XP Bar

No funny description today. Just discussions of the Hitman 3 release drama, cumulonimbus gaming via Stadia, Immortals and the Rise of the Subtitle, that Monster Hunter demo that made me think my Switch was broken, big chunky Hori controllers, Super Mario Bros. and Kaizo Super Mario Bros. Gaiden, and Timothy Olyphant's run in with Colombian drug lords.

The Masked Singer continues to dominate all discussion on this, the latest episode of the XP Bar. But once we tear ourselves away from costumed conundrums, there's still plenty of time to talk about: Tucker's bizarre melting walls, Michael's 76 different falls (out), and Christian's arcade cabinet withdrawals. And we complain about the Dead Space fiction and how Steven Soderbergh is really wringing those HDMI 2.1 cables dry.

We're Back! The Bar is dusty and the mugs are full of bee carcasses but we're here to talk about video games. Or, rather, Christian is here to talk about video games and Michael and Tucker are here for emotional support.

Zach returns from the eye mines to regale us with his thoughts on The Last of Us Part 5 Minus 3. Tucker doesn't quite agree with those opinions which creates mild friction, i.e. good podcast fun! Christian has thoughts as well but he takes the moral high ground on the whole thing which I think is honorable if not a little crass. Michael didn't play the game but he has the strongest opinions of all. Sports Bar is back?!?

I AM THREATENED BY LADY BICEPS

A video game tragedy in three parts. Act 1, wherein Michael plays Yakuza 0 and Civ VI and emerges relatively unscathed, yet fearful for the future and despondent about the world he is leaving to his children. Act II: Wherein Tucker realizes his life was a lie in a manner similar to a MGMT music video or something of the sort. Act II features guest appearances by Danganronpa 2 and Max Payne, as well as a certain Trials of Mana character we all know and love! Act IIV is where it all comes together, baby. Christian must reclaim his father's crusted jewel by playing through 17 different game series, including Gears, Rage (Streets of), Hawk (Tony of), and Paper Mario. And then we talk about remasters for a while.

Tucker ranks the original 151 Pokemon from best to worst why not

Tie thine horsey upon thine post, ye shaggy muck farmer! And step into this old timey podcast tavern/pizza buffet! What's old is new again here in the XP Bar! Ys 1? Sure! That's a video game we could talk about! The Trials of Mana and Final Fantasy VII remake duology of April 2020? What a great thing for the sounds coming out of our mouths to be about! And Gears Tactics even? What dark majiks have thou spun to create such a trough of greasey gaming opinions? Now go and vanquish the endew dwagon!

The XP Bar's essential workers trudge on in to deliver the world what it needs most in these trying times: video game complainin'. We also ogle the Sega Master System, ponder how guns work in video games (via Singularity), fawn over Isabelle's cute little foot pads, and then circle the wagons on the whole "video game industry eating itself" thing.

Touching microphones is so in right now but we do you one better by talking into them! "What about?" you ask in your reedy, alluring voice. Well dish up some of this action: Christian got an Xbox 1 X and he's using it to play Xbox 360 games from 2006 and SNK games from the 90s! And he played through a bunch of Half-Life stuff as we ponder our own half-lives! Michael played one of several Wrath of Cortex games and he doesn't give a flip what you think about that situation! And Tucker is experiencing a Crisis on just one Earth but it's this Earth bub and it's our home so let's all take a walk once in a while ok?

Murder most foul has visited the venerable halls of the XP Bar Podcast. That's right... BEV IS DEAD!! This is a whomdoneit for the ages. Was it possibly Christian? Now that he has finished playing 200 hours of the Witcher series, his life is grey and purposeless. Did his nihilism compel him to KNIFE THE EDITOR?! Perhaps it was Michael. His Crash 2 time trial times have not been good enough to get those platinum relics. Could his anger have caused him to KNIFE THE EDITOR? Maybe it was Tucker. Tucker is handsome and cool. He didn't do it.

All aboard the poop train! Christian is wearing a conductor's hat and he's gonna talk about needing to get rocks off in time and you're gonna LISTEN.

Michael muscles magical maestro Tucker to the concrete curb condescendingly in order to take over the studio and describe video game plots from memory! This is the big hobby in 2020, in case you hadn't heard. Don't steal our idea though. I'm mailing this idea to myself so I'll see you in court is how this is going down! Thanks for listening!

The XPB Crew sally forth into a new decade with Bev in tow. No bars are holed during THIS 90 minute gaming discussion, I can assure you of THAT, friend. Christian playing every Witcher game? Expected. Comforting in its familiarity. Tucker talking about the Souls series vis-a-vis Dark Souls 2? Please, I have 4 of that at home. Michael asking the worst video game question ever pondered? Now we're talking.

Tucker runs through the plots of Ocarina of Time, Bioshock Infinite, Half-Life 2, and MGS2 from memory. Everything stated here is now canonical. Please update the wikis.

Tucker takes over the airwaves to deliver cage free and organic bootleg XP Bar content. With a surprise guest!

We return for a few more end of year award categories from our big ol' bag of 2019 nostalgia. We fight about and then determine winners for: Best Use of Music, Best Looking Game, and Worst Character.

It's time for us to look back at the year in games through a series of occasionally inane award categories! Part 1 includes deliberations regarding and final awards given for: Worst Smelling Game, Best Sonic Game of the Year, Best -Verse, Best Debra Wilson, Freshest Game, Best Loop, Best Ensemble Cast, and the most prestigious of them all: The "Outer Wilds or The Outer Worlds" Award.

Where's Michael? Have you seen this Michael? Maybe he stood in front of his microwave for too long, cooked his insides a bit. Ah well, he'll be back. In his absence, let's get caught up on our 2019 backlogs and start to prep for the GOTY conversations that will tear us asunder. That means we're running down a heat-lamped-to-hell buffet full of games like Metro: Exodus, Disco Elysium, Rage 2, Yooka-Laylee and the Subtitle of Destiny, Bee Fight, Race Car Chef, Current Conflict, and Far Cry 5 2: Short Fun. Minor spoilers for Oops! Prank Party occur at 46:31.

Welcome to the soft launch of XP Bar+, our amazing paid subscription service that brings a WEALTH of content to YOU! You can't pay us ENOUGH to talk about Death Stranding and JoJo's Bizarre Meme Scream, and you can't pay us enough NOT to talk about the 10 Canonical Games of the current generation. Seriously, it's the whole first hour of the podcast BUT! If you slip me a fiver I'll cut it down to just the Fortnite talk. No givesies backsies.

On this beautiful Hallow's Eve, I'm excited to announce: we've heard you, and we're ready to introduce the paywall that every one of our listeners has been asking for. XP Bar First will allow you to mute any of the XP Bar regulars at will. Don't want Christian's insight on The Outer Worlds? Blast that mother out of the cast. Don't want Tucker to pontificate about how Borderlands 3 is actually good? You got it, bud. You can even cut out the part where Michael talks about his skin rash; THE POWER IS YOURS (FOR A RECURRING FEE OF $13 A MONTH). A brave new era begins now. Catch it.

Think of a large container of some sort. A whale carcass, say. This podcast would not even fully FIT in that container, my eldest son, and it is all the better for it. It gives us time to stretch our toesie-wosies a bit. It gives us time to react IN REAL TIME to the "Dolittle" trailer. It gives Christian time to build several new PCs and then to play cell phone games on them. It gives Michael time to make us question our perilous, ponderous status as consumers of things and gasoline. It gives Tucker time to kinda play a little bit of a couple games and go "hehe sploooo."

Tucker and Michael sashay their way through a truly edgy, improvisational show about all manner of important things. Gundam clothing, Gundam hats, clothing for Gundams. Gundam socks. A watch that a Gundam would wear in order to tell time. But like Batman, the XP Bar Podcast and Grill is always prepared. Prepared to talk about Batman: Arkham Knight and Borderlands and Wattam and Shadow the Hedgehog and oh the list just goes on, doesn't it? And to think this is a bite-size 'cast! Don't fill up now, we're going to Culver's tonight.

We welcome special guest Zach "Salacious B Crumb" Hagenbucher to the Bar! Zach doesn't give a flip what your mother has to say, he's here and he's ready to talk about Zach things. That means this is the professional wrestling/Star Warscast that you've all been dreaming about as you drool on your lil' pillows. BUT THIS PUPPY IS OVER 2 HOURS LONG SO YOU BETTER BELIEVE WE ALSO TALK ABOUT: Telling Lies, Borderlands 3, Wii U Disc Edges, Gears 5 of War, F1, The Milwaukee Brewdawgs, Cabela's Ice Monster Poachcraft Simulator, and many other things. If you make it all the way through you win a prize! The prize is Michael's IPA backwash.

Upon this Darke Sabbath, the XP Bar crew work a shift at their second job: reviewing video games on the internet and putting them in an ordered list from best to worst. This episode is part of a series of crossover podcasts covering the Kingdom Hearts series; in this one, we're talking about the red headed step child, Re:coded. If you like the idea of extremely time consuming thought exercises, check us out over at The Socket on YourTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pe6X7PP0eotOdt6_tTX7Q

It's Radon Awareness Month! Open your windows! Fill your basement with concrete! Play some video games! Tucker, Michael, and Christian are here to get the word out about the best medium-speed food in all of Wisconsin, the best French acrobat antagonists, the best non-union voice acting in all of Raccoon City, and the best worst Kingdom Hearts game of them all. Have you ever been encouraged to film your high school teacher eating? No? Good!

Remember The Adjustment Bureau? If so, keep it to yourself! We already talk enough about Matt Damon's stellar filmography on this Christianless episode of the XP Bar Podcast. Outside of The Bourne Conversation, we also find time to talk about Fire Emblem: Unfortunate Subtitle, Rival Schools/PRIVATE JUSTICE ACADEMY, Rolento, Pokemon GO: Beantown Edition, and the Lost in Blue/Stepford Wives crossover you didn't know you needed. And then we talk about the differences between movies and video games and things get heavy.

With Christian out standing in his field, Tucker and Michael hunker down to talk about cool art. Like the Doug Movie. And The Phantom Menace. Cool art is absolutely flowing out of the talk spigot on this episode of the XP Bar Podcast. Unfortunately we also have to talk about video games, so get your wader wings on and dive into a frothy bath consisting of Metro Exodus, Fallout 76, Star Fox 64, Rival Schools, Sonic Advance 2, and maybe a surprise! A Dutch Drum & Bass surprise!

Don your peanut helmets and tighten your IPA kneepads, cuz the XP Bar is hitting the road! Our barbikebar is stopping at all your favorite haunts: SolSeraph, Void Buddies, Roblox, Bloodstained, Mario 2 Maker, even Fallout 76 of all things! What's your favorite horror movie? Yell it at your phone now!

The #1 topic on this episode of this video game podcast is personal hygiene! Personal hygiene is important! Are you a scrubber or a swabber? Do you clean the inside as well as the outside? Oh and we talk about Void Bastards, Bloodstained, Crash Team Remakering, Fallout 76, Steamworld Pilfer, and Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds Outer Wilds

With Christian away, Tucker and Michael must do the unthinkable: podcast about E3. The highlights, the lowlifes, the Todds, the CGI cutscenes featuring no gameplay whatsoever. The hopes, the dreams, the unfireable short men in jackets. The pit bulls, the meme men. Welcome to the only press conference you need, toots.

Oh no! There aren't as many games to talk about! This is poor luck, chum. It means we get to talk about our deepest, darkest secrets instead. Our tooth brushing secrets. Our lettuce secrets. Our Wuppo secrets. Oh and we talk about Sonic a lot because this is the ship we're on and I'm the captain, Skipper. How's your Fantasy Sonic League roster looking?

What is cyberpunk? What is vaporwave? Why do people sleep nude? Is Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed if the eagle doesn't caw? Will Sonic kiss the lady? Find out in this latest episode of the XP Bar Podcast!

Tucker, Michael, and Christian have laced up their bowling shoes and are ready to hit the lanes. The lanes of conversation. The lanes of memory and time. The lanes of surprisingly existent Pokemon Stadium games, the lanes of Dreamstm, the lanes of drywall repair. The lanes of freedom. This is a video game podcast.

While Tucker wrestles with Crash Bandicoot 3's Coco winks and time travel kinks, Christian chases his dream of making his digi-dad proud of his baseball career. Meanwhile, Michael must come to terms with a different digital dream entirely: a Digimminy dream.

The gang throw open the XP Bar doors and make sure all the scratches are buffed and all the wallpaper is flat in this format-testing prelaunch episode of the podcast.