Hot Button

Episode 95: Hot Button Year-Three Edition

It’s a full house this week as we celebrate our third birthday together. So join us in going back through every topic we’ve ever covered from the very beginning all the way to today! A near two and half hours of updating, correcting, and reflecting on the good times. This along with poking fun at the constant strangeness this industry seems to endlessly relish in.

Episode 94: Microtransactions #5

Our mini-stories series is back! This week we super vary it up and get into the licensing around car manufacturers in racing games, the theft of some classic internet memes, and finally which deep secrets lay hidden behind the legendary Demon’s Souls door.

Episode 93: Watching You - The Tale of Camdrome

In what might be one of the most mysterious projects we have ever covered, this week we explore the confusing history of a social experiment who’s intentions to this day are still being investigated. A supposed horror FMV title played through web cameras that also may have even shared close connections with some of the top names in the indie gaming space. Whether or not it ever was destined to see release is truly the ultimate question here in the finale of our 2021 Halloween series!

Episode 92: A Free Mind is a Tasty Mind - Stubbs the Zombie/F.E.A.R. Cannibalism Controversy

Are video games teaching your children to eat each other? This week we discuss the time that the industry became under fire in the absolute dumbest way imaginable, along with the origins of an inept advocacy group who hand-waved their way into headlines by picking a fight the Entertainment Software Ratings Board.

Episode 91: I Podcast, Therefore I AM - The History of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Part 2

And we’re back with the second and final part on the captivating development behind Cyberdream’s playable 1995 translation of Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. This week, we get deep into it’s actual production, release, and legacy! Along with our personal experiences of analyzing it’s intensely terrifying narrative themes.

Episode 90: I Podcast, Therefore I AM - The History of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Part 1

It’s finally that time of year again, everybody! And what better way to kick off the spooky scary Halloween season than by digging into the story of how one of cult gaming’s most fascinating point-and-click PC adventure titles came to fruition, a direct adaptation AND expansion of Harlan Ellison’s sci-fi horror masterpiece “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. On Part I, we break down this twisted work of fiction as well as the early days of the author and developer team who made it all possible.

Episode 89: Well Bam, There It Is! - The History of the Xbox 360 Kinect

Don’t y’all just hate those pesky controllers? Wouldn’t your body or voice make a better one? Back in 2010, Microsoft sure thought that! This week we get into life of the motion-sensing camera peripheral for the Xbox 360 known as the Kinect. Everything from its inception to its reception as well as all the tech talk and personal experiences in between.

Episode 88: For the Love of Gaia… - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

We’ve watched the film, now it’s time for the full breakdown. This week we get deep into the production and release of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within! A costly cinematic disaster of a computer animated sci-fi epic that for some reason shares a name with the hugely successful gaming series that inspired it. If you’ve also ever wanted to know how Square and Enix became Square Enix, than this is the story for you!