"The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom" came out for the Nintendo Switch this week, and it is charming, adorable, fun, and extremely innovative. There's just one problem: The frame rates whip around faster and harder than Tingle cashing in his rupees.

Due to the (now passed) hurricane in the Southern U.S., Colette takes a break this week (all is well) and Matt shares his early impressions of a wonderful game with very questionable tech.

Also, Sony's State of Play dropped some release dates, trailers, and updates that are well worth breaking down.

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A big announcement shook the Game-O-Verse to its core earlier this week. "Flappy Bird," the massively viral mobile game from 2014, would be making a triumphant return: New game modes, updated levels, and...crypto?

An entity called "The Flappy Bird Foundation" plans to resurrect the beloved game this year. But as the media poked at this announcement, the plot thickens. The game had been abandoned the same year it was released, due to the immense pressure and scrutiny on its creator, Dong Nguyen. After the re-release announcement, Nguyen tweeted for the first time in 7 years that he has nothing to do with the game, never sold it, and doesn't support crypto.

So...who owns "Flappy Bird?" Who has the right to re-release it? And if IP is "abandoned," can anyone just start monetizing it?

Meanwhile, the PS5 Professional sure is expensive. Crying about game consoles on the Internet is nothing new, but we ask the honest question: Who is this upgraded hardware for? And what kind of prices will the market bear in an era of infinite choice?

Plus: Possible leaked images of the Nintendo Switch 2? And a tale of two very different "Baldur's Gate 3" experiences.

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Busy lives, work schedules, children, and sleep did not permit a co-operative recording this week, so Matt shares how starting "Baldur's Gate 3" last week with Colette's husband Patrick and friend-of-the show Sky Burkson has been a transformative experience.

We shall return with more BG3 shenanigans (and the week's news) next Friday!

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After 8 years in development and two weeks of beta testing, Sony has pulled the plug on "Concord" after a shockingly low player count. The hero shooter failed to pull its target audience away from the 47 other live service games they're already playing, and Sony has de-listed it for sale and refunded those who have pre-purchased.

What does this say about the state of the games industry, and Sony's huge foray into the live service arena?

Plus: A Minecraft Movie trailer gets a mixed response from the Internet, and ConcernedApe hasn't touched "Haunted Chocolatier" for a while

Meanwhile, the preview embargo has lifted on "The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom," and boy-howdy, the new gameplay looks spectacular.

Colette's playing: Peglin

Matt's playing: Sins of a Solar Empire II, and Darkest Dungeon II

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The past week+ has seen an avalanche of announcements, teasers, demos, updates, DLCs, collab-os, and shadow drops. Why?? Gamescom 2024 and a surprise Direct from Miyamoto & Co.

We pluck out the most interesting and hype-filled tidbits, including some games you should download RIGHT MEOW.

Plus: What's up with the puppet museum in Atlanta?

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Another day, another news story about studios laying off hundreds of video game developers. Why did this industry become so volatile? And what makes game devs so vulnerable to job insecurity, especially when the industry's profits have never been higher?

This week we're joined by Dr. Johanna Weststar, a professor of labor studies (and Stardew enthusiast!) at Western University in Ontario, Canada. She's the co-author of a new book, "Not all Fun and Games: Videogame Labour, Project-based Workplaces and the New Citizenship at Work," which dissects 15 years of employment data and trends to figure out why game development is so fraught, and how we can improve it.

There's so much more to the story besides "crunch." The explosion of temporary gig work, erosion of social safety nets, do-or-die publishing schedules, and struggles to unionize remote and disparate workers has lead to a reckoning in the games industry. But despite these challenges, we may be on the verge of a more secure work life for the people who make our favorite adventures — akin to the protections put in place for Hollywood when that industry was still young in the 1930s and 40s. What we do next, legally and culturally, will make all the difference.

Plus: How a blog from 2004 changed the Internet's perception of game dev, and your questions!

Find more of Johanna's work, publications, and how you can connect with her here: https://dan.uwo.ca/people/faculty/johanna_weststar.html

And her work with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA): https://igda.org/dss/

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Larian Studios has shared player data on the 1-year anniversary of their smash hit "Baldur's Gate 3." Among the fascinating tidbits is that only 34 players have reached a VERY rare ending to the story that can only be unlocked through a specific sequence of events. What's more, there's an even SECRET-er ending that cannot be reached by normal means. But one YouTuber found a hack that unlocks the final events no one was meant to see.

Plus, we discuss why accomplishing things in games is sometimes more satisfying than accomplishing things IRL, why that can lead to feelings of guilt, and why giving your brain permission to rest is never time wasted.

Also: Sound sensitivity when it comes to game controllers, and why the MOBAPAD ChiTu Wireless Pro gamepad is Matt's new favorite piece of hardware.

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After a 33 year run, the print magazine and website "Game Informer" has been abruptly shuttered by its parent company, GameStop. Fans and preservationists have been scrambling this week to preserve its decades of articles, but the fate of the digital content remains unknown. We discuss the importance of media preservation, and why it's so hard for companies to commit.

Plus: A Stardew-like with some refreshing mechanics, and what if the Ghibli classic "Kiki's Delivery Service" was a video game?

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