Married with Video Games Podcast

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!