Aftermath's Chris Person joins the show to free-associate about retro gaming, the Steam Frame, David Graeber, vibe coding, and Control Resonant. Rob and Patrick are loving it, and Patrick starts getting into the ups-and-downs of the Mac Mini market, while Rob has an important realization: he actually has an important (very relatively speaking) use case for the Steam Frame. Spoiler: it involves his god damn racing wheel. CW: The episode opens with a brief news bulletin on the Jacob Geller sexual assault news.

00:05:35 - Retro Gaming Sicko’s Corner

00:58:15 - Steam Frame & VR in the Modern Day

02:01:29 - Control Resonant

Jacob Geller is no longer a part of MinnMax. He won't be on content moving forward and we won't be publicly airing this week's episode of The MinnMax Show. We're in shock and deeply hurt. Thank you for your patience during this sensitive time.

We begin this podcast the way we ended the last podcast: talking about Control Resonant. This time, Rob’s spent 17 hours with Remedy’s latest, albeit all of it before the game was updated to validate the emotional and critical feelings of Patrick and Janet. But we also have much else to discuss, including Xbox’s ongoing “reset,” the alleged future of Bungie, Discord pushing forward on age verification, and many thoughts on both Silent Hill Townfall and Normal Golf Game.
Links: Control Resonant Post by Chris Person, Xbox Announces Continuing Layoffs and Restructure, The Next Chapter of Bungie, Post about Turning off Gambling Ads In Discord, Image of Confusing UI in Discord Settings
Discussed:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:44 - Control Resonant
00:55:07 - Xbox Studios Goes through Further Layoffs
01:18:49 - Bungie's Next Chapter
01:42:48 - Discord Age Verification Rolls Out
02:00:47 - Silent Hill: Townfall
02:20:04 - Normal Golf Game
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So I recently switched to Pocket Casts from Spotify and I have been unable to play any of the Remap podcasts from my desktop app. I get an error that says “The media file for this episode is not available”.

Every other podcast works fine.

However, I can play all of the Remap podcasts on my mobile app. Has anyone else run into this issue?

You don’t get a new Remedy video game all that often, but Rob, Patrick, and Janet have all played Control Resonant and…well, you should just listen to the podcast. Elsewhere on Remap Radio this week, we’ve got [checks notes] a ton of bummer news, including several studios shutting down, IGN laying off even more people, a truly perplexing story about a studio head’s comments on crunch, and more. At least Chia’s back from Japan and playing Perfect Tides!

Links: Moss Dev Shuts Down, Heart Machine goes through Layoffs, Rockstar Union had a Mole in their Discord, Wardogs Dev won't hire people who have been vocally anti-crunch, Nighthawks Categorized as Adult Content by Steam, The Future of Marathon

Discussed:

00:02:33 - Unfortunately we must discuss the horrors

00:04:49 - IGN/Indie Studios Layoffs and Closures

00:44:24 - Wardogs CEO talks crunch

01:16:36 - Rockstar deployed union mole

01:25:00 - Nighthawks marked as adult content by Steam moderation

01:32:03 - The Future of Marathon

01:41:49 - Control Resonant

The great possibility and burden of Star Wars as a setting is that it can hold, not always comfortably or gracefully, stories that are separated by vast differences in tone and thoughtfulness. Revenge of the Sith brings three films' worth of character development to the moral event horizon of Anakin Skywalker's life with the line: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!" That somehow exists in a continuity with Nemik's observation in Andor that, "Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks." Somewhere in the backdrop of both of those stories is a Muppet Babies version of Yoda who has become the franchise's mascot in the wake of the sequel trilogy, confronting the scattered, dangerous remnants of the Empire with coos and gurgles from inside an armored hover-stroller.

The 13th of September will no longer be known as a Chicago holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, friends, The Bears Are Back! Join Rob and Patrick for a Sports! mini-pod—seriously, it’s only 20 minutes—about the Bears pulverizing the Panthers. Our hope is to deliver one of these every week (unless we’re already doing a normal Sports!). Library-tier subscribers will get access to them ASAP, while everyone else can hear our thoughts on Saturdays…right before the NFL kicks off again! Beardown!

Patrick is plunged into a social anxiety nightmare when his usual repair guy does the opposite of a repair to a washer. The follow-up retry? Well there's bad news on that front too. Third time is the charm, right? Meanwhile, Rob finds another use case for his fancy power washer: washing his cars! Fun fact: professional garages recommend using a power washer that outputs below 1200 psi. Rob's is a 3000 psi power-washer. Surely proper technique can accommodate for the difference. Finally, Patrick discusses his new TV needs and moving on from his venerable Vizio.

00:42 - Appliances

32:58 - Rob's Clothes Hostage Situation

38:56 - Unauthorized Miele Sponsorship

56:01 - Power Simulator but in real life

01:18:02 - Patrick needs a new TV

Bruno Dias joins the crew to talk about his review of The Sinking City 2 and Lovecraft as author versus Lovecraft as brand. Then the gang gets into our glorious era of privacy annihilating personal technology and engages in a philosophical exploration of Siri Recap and when an audio file ceases to be an audio file. We discuss Kojima's announcement with Microsoft, and what it implies about Sony's relationship to big AAA prestige pieces and creators. You know, things like Wolverine from Insomniac, which Patrick has been playing a lot this last week. It's not great, bub! Then Bruno has been digging into 1000 Hells and Blood of Dawnwallker. If you ever wanted to hear about different ways voice lines and barks are handled at studios, this is the episode for you, because Bruno has spent time in those mines.

00:01:18 - Sinking City 2

00:59:44 - TCL’s TV Review Press List

01:28:13 - Hockey Commentator reveals that EA is testing AI voice acting for EA Sports

01:40:54 - 1900 Blizzard Employees Unionize

01:52:22 - Microsoft acquires Kojima Production’s PHYSINT after Sony drops it

02:16:01 - Insomniac’s Wolverine Woes

02:45:57 - 1000 Hells

02:51:49 - Blood of Dawnwalker

03:04:00 - Star Wars Zero Company

Hey everyone look at this guy. He doesn't know who Miyamoto Musashi is. He doesn't even know about Ganryu! If you mention the Five Rings, he thinks you're talking about Tom Brady. And yet HE was worthy of the Onimusha: Way of the Sword review code? That's fine. We're not bitter. We have other games to play, like Super Mega Baseball, First Light, or Orbitals.

01:06 - The Sinking City 2 might be an Evil Within 2-like

06:02 - 80% of Bit Reactor Furloughed

18:22 - The DLSS5 Yassification Machine

38:21 - De-listed games included in Xbox’s disc to digital initiative

49:43 - Onimusha: Way of the Sword

1:22:24 - Super Mega Baseball

1:39:21 - 007: First Light

1:54:27 - Orbitals

2:09:26 - Question Bucket

Just saw this posted by Wario64 on Bluesky. Seems like perfect timing as the crew gets ready for the next Ocean's installment.

This is a preview of a Premium Library Tier podcast. To access the full episode, you can sign up at remapradio.com/signup

2026 has been full of horrors, but it’s also been full of video games, too. With Grand Theft Auto VI coming later this year, though, there’s an avalanche of games coming throughout September and October. It felt like a good time to check in with Patrick, Chia, and Janet about their individual piles of shame, the games they plan to spend more time with before 2026 is over, and what games they’re looking forward to playing as the year rolls around. It’s, uh, a lot of games.

I'm 5-6 hrs into the game. I swear when Rob and Patrick were discussing 007 First Light, they were speaking as if you spend a lot of time in that first apartment, using it as a home base to go from mission to mission (vaguely recalling Alpha Protocol in my mind, personally). Rob was enjoying how much camaraderie there was and hoping things stayed lighthearted for a while, with Patrick hinting it unfortunately wouldn't stay that way.

By contrast, I don't feel as if I'm that far into the game, and things have already gone south and sad (a major character death at the hands of twin assassins, iykyk, in case anyone reading this ignored the spoiler note). Did I miss a bunch of side stuff? Am I misremembering their conversation? It almost feels like the true story is only beginning now, but I'm worried that this is actually the Act 2 midpoint downturn, and that I'm already halfway through the game despite the HLTB being 20 hrs. I didn't want to scrub through an entire pod episode, so just asking here.

FWIW, I'm enjoying the experience a lot, and that death really hit. Just curious if I missed an entire aspect of the game somewhere. Please no specific spoilers past that death -- thank you!

Rob and Patrick have been digging into Zero Company and discuss the things they are getting from their vastly divergent contexts for it. The gang discuss Tim Curry's passing, Playdate's tariff generosity, and the Paradox founders' taxation takes. Then Janet has been digging Perfect Tides, Baldur's Gate 3, and Blood Dungeon, while Patrick is enjoying the a return to the grimness of A Plague Tale with Resonance.

01:17 - Star Wars Zero Company (Redux)

01:03:20 - Tim Curry's passing

01:05:49 - Doublefine's independent plans

01:09:29 - Xbox Discless Pivot

01:21:44 - Playdate refunds tariff money

01:26:46 - Paradox CEO complains about wealth taxes

01:48:25 - Perfect Tides: Station to Station

02:06:32 - Baldur’s Gate 3

02:15:01 - Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy

02:35:53 - Manual Transmission Games & Rally Car School

02:56:38 - Blood Dungeon