Gismos Episode....ummm 13?

Well, well, well. It has certainly been a minute hasn't it friends? About a 7 month long minute. So what do we have to say for ourselves? An inarticulate gesture with a gaping maw and some unintelligible muttering is about the best we can do. We simply got busy adulting, prioritizing other things like careers, wives/girlfriends/fiance's, artistic interests etc. You know how it is. Comparatively the whole " Hey i got a job so i can buy all the games i want....but, can't play games because i have a job" complex has been running through our minds lately as an apt comparison to our situation as of late. 

So were back, and were not apologizing for the hiatus....or the lack of news regarding said hiatus. We got the band back together, including Jordan, which is kind of a big deal since we haven't been in a room together officially, all at the same time, in...well... ever. Sure were a bit rusty but that's all part of the dazzling charm of the Evade Gismo crew isn't it? Welcome back to the Gismos friends please enjoy! Leave your whimsical comments below and sound off with any questions or topics youd like to hear us yammer about.

MICRO-REVIEW: MIITOMO

Pic made in-game. If this doesn't sell you Miitomo, I don't know what will.

I am a gaming omnivore. With the desperation of a thirsty alcoholic, I clamor for more and more diversions from life’s metronome, while facetiously demanding that these be awesome for free, and readily available. Anything can be a game, really, and any game can be fun. Even among cheap and dirty paper-bagged malt beers, one finds shining stars, and Miitomo resonates as one such guilty pleasure. Nintendo’s new cartoon avatar-oriented social networking game provides laughter without wit, fun without skill, and breadth without depth - and I play it every day. On account creation, Miitomo requests access to your phone's camera (to snap pictures for cute-ification into Mii-form) and preexisting Facebook & Twitter accounts (to import friendlists of friend-Mii's). From there on out, it's pretty much show & tell. 

Allow me to explain Miitomo's elaborate info-economy by way of flowchart.

Imagine all your real-life friends as immortal tamagotchi’s: they dawdle; they chirp; they change, insignificantly, over time; and they don’t die if you forget to feed them. Now swirl in a Balderdash of personal questions and a bottlenecked daily clothes-shopping economy, and you have Miitomo. There is a Gabe Newell quote somewhere about industrializing the playerbase, drafting them into the game design production chain. Miitomo champions this attitude, as it does little else than translate your and your friends’ wardrobe choices and quiz responses into something bobble-headedly pleasant. But, you know what? For such a nefarious sham, it does this so well. Miitomo proves to me that a video-game needn’t challenge skills, command attention, nor broaden the imagination to delight. Sometimes it is enough for a game just to keep you company on a long busride home. And hey, who would've thought you'd be able to hear completely unfiltered profanity coming out of Nintendo toons?

Miitomo: Nintendo's Zen of daily-dose cuteness. On iOS & Android. Twenty minutes a day, for a week and a half so far.

GISMOS_09 - FIREWATCH SIT DOWN

It's a big fat EPISODE 9 in yo faces friends! BiIIIIg spoilers ahead for Firewatch...gargantuan even so dodge this particular podcast if you haven't played it yet. Or face it head on to hear about what we really though in this Firewatch sitdown. See it's like a round table but we don't actually have a round table, or a table at all for that matter, so its more of a gangster style 'sitdown' if you will. Yes sitdown is now one word you can thank the Italians for that one. 

GISMOS_06 - GOD DAMN PAL

Tristan, Kevin and old man Petie boy help themselves to a big bite out of the old conversation pie. We take a new and possibly improved format for a test spin. Pete compares Kevins mancave to Silent Hill 4 'The Room.' Kevin wonders if anyone saw the latest James Bond 'film' and does anybody really care? Impressions on Mr.Blows latest game 'The Witness' are also heard to have been remarked.  A gawd awful intermission song takes place....sadly and we talk about our questions for the week: What are your favorite and most memorable game mechanics? Which do you prefer the game character improving or improving as a user? and what does EA origin have to do to win you back as a consumer, assuming you were one to begin with. All this and so much more right here in the Gismos! 

We encourage you wonderful listeners to participate. It's much more fun that way. By any means you feel is necessary- write us, rate our podcast subscribe and ask questions, fuck make a statement just so we know your alive and paying attention. And again folks, thanks for using your precious time to hear us out, we know its the most valuable thing you can afford us.