PPR 162

s we all leave the holiday behind and officially ring in 2026, or whatever the hell George was calling it (we think it was the "Düo-Dusé"). We thought it would be neat to look at the holiday season under a lens, and think about the “comfort games” that come with the season.

Think about all of the arguments or justifications you’ve heard for whether or not a film or album is a Xmas-coded production? Like, beyond all of the Die Hard or The Thin Man shitposts, there are pieces of media that folks just associate with the holidays, even when they’re not centrally focused on the jolly time—and some choice picks that don’t even do that much.

We all assign these arbitrary associations between literature and film around yuletides and such, so why not video games too? To ensure we really get some spirit out of this topic, we’ve asked some wonderful folks to appear on the episode, and give us their thoughts on the matter, as well as the games that they associate with the season of giving. Join Andrew and George as they have the pleasure of inviting Emily and Kate of No Small Games, and Rick of Pixel Project Radio to ham it up over this silly little query on what we all like to enjoy on our screens during a heart-warming and arguably anaphylactic event every year in December.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

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PPR Presents Play Play: Gladmort Press Kit Demo

025 sure has been a banger year for the Neo•Geo, like—we’ve got Final Vendetta, Vengeance Hunters, and the game in our latest entry of Play Play: Gladmort, by Chipsonsteroids and Pixel Heart.

George had the opportunity to check out a slice of this action title for SNK’s black-and-gold wonder, courtesy of a demo provided by the developer, where he played it with original hardware via the NeoSD Flashcart from Teraonion. Check out what he has to say about it, and all of the ways you can scope out this game now, regardless of whether or not you have what may be the most expensive retro console to own.

PPR Presents Limelight: Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams

urprise! We're streaming one of George's favorite Holiday traditions right now!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube at 12:00 PM PST-ish on 12/25/2025 to watch the us play through one of the cololest little! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Press Pause Radio streaming features for y'all!

QCF: Dispatch

tory-telling is such a powerful method of expression, and is something that can really make the difference in a piece of media, like a film where the production quality isn’t great, or a book where the writing is banal, or for a video game that doesn’t have the best gameplay. An immersive story can save any one of these experiences, but unlike film or literature, a video game has the strength of being designed around a well-crafted story, thanks to the ability to interact with the content diegetically.

All of those moments you found yourself yelling at the characters on screen to discover the  Machiavellian identity of someone close to them, or when you clicked with the hidden message that was woven throughout the progression of the plot—all of these micro-expressions seem to hit even stronger when you had a hand in making it happen. One specific studio has earned its Butter Brickle out of delivering those experiences at a premium, and after being out of the game for the last couple of years, the former development house,  Telltale Games, is now under a new banner, Adhoc Studio, and their reentry to the scene is accompanied by an exciting collaboration as well.

In partnership with the Tabletop gaming fanatics, Critical Role, Adhoc Studio has unveiled their debut, Dispatch, a brand new original story that takes inspiration from the cape-intensive ambience of a Superhero-centric Universe. The world of Dispatch wears its comic book inspiration proudly on its sleeve, and has embroidered that stitch in the thread of Telltale’s previous hits like The Walking Dead or The Wolves Among Us, only with a statistical twist that was built with the spirit of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign under the guise of a 911-like dispatch work simulator. Now, the juxtaposition of choice-driven comment and dice roll-fueled action may initially come off as a dissonant formula, especially when broken down to an episodic format no less, but y’all—they done did it.

The ambitious alliance between Adhoc Studio and Critical Roll proves to be more than just a dap-up for the clicks, as Dispatch arguably stands to be the best choice-driven narrative game the team has ever made.

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PPR Presents Ourcade: Silent Hill 2

elcome to the next entry of dual stream feature, Ourcade! The feature where George and his partner will stream some games in tandem with one another—specifically games that have had a remaster or remake, where George will be playing the original, while Val is playing the new version. In this streaming session, George and Val are going to play the most iconic entry of Konami’s survival-horror dynasty, Silent Hill 2. On George’s end, he’ll be playing the PS2 classic that redefined the genre back in 2001, while Val will be playing the Bloober Team remake that released last year exclusively on the PS5.

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube at 7:00 PM PST on 12/12/2025 to watch the us play through what has been heralded as one of the best video games of all time! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Press Pause Radio streaming features for y'all!

PPR Presents Limelight: Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

t’s been nearly a decade since the long-awaited new chapter for the Metroid Prime series was teased at the end of a Nintendo Direct with Metroid Prime 4.

Since then, we’ve gotten a new logo, a subtitle, and some reassurance that yes, it’s still coming, WELL into the point that we’ve gotten the Nintendo Switch 2 now, and it’s here where we’ll show you our look at the game as George will be streaming Metroid Prime 4: Beyond for Limelight on Press Pause Radio! This should make for an interesting stream too because he’ll be testing out the new Mouse-oriented controls with the use of his of official Super NES Mouse Pad.

The first stream was a wild ride into the new psychic power mechanics, and the enviornmental puzzles designed around them were dope as all hell. Now that George has made it to the Desert area, we'll be able to see the game open up even more. Oh, and don't worry, George made sure to snag a Samus & Vi-O-La Amiibo so that we can all get the sweet tunes that were stupidly locked out of the base game!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 12:00 PM PST on 12/11/2025 to watch Samus Aran’s new first-person adventure on the Switch 2! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!

Late to the Party: Void Stranger

emories of my youth in school certainly aren’t the most pleasant times from my childhood, because, surprising no one at all, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call an academic kid—some would say I was more of the opposite. Still, aside from all of the coming-of-age crap that public school pounds into you, there was a memory I had from an art assignment our English teacher gave us to complete (weird, I know, but stick with me.)  The guy was SUPER into Ernest Hemingway, like, he just loved the way that old drunk could mentally instill a scene with his stories using just carefully woven words and nothing more. So, naturally,  he wanted us to try and draw out a specific scene from one of his books, A Farewell To Arms, where we had to do an interpretative sketch drawing of the moment the main character, Frederic, was caught in the mayhem of the Italian army’s retreat during World War I.

The classroom sheet detailed the instruction in a blurb at the top, right below the usual heading where you would write out your name and the date, with the rest of the sheet being a blank canvas for you to use for the sketch. I don’t know what came over me, but I used ALL of the real estate the paper had to offer, which included me scribbling art over the instructions and header area, using every inch of the paper I could.  I mean, I too enjoyed the work of Hemingway, so I’m sure that helped my engagement with the work, but my teacher absolutely gushed over the paper after I turned it in (I promise you this humble brag is going to go somewhere, stick with me.) My English teacher praised that my vision wasn’t limited by the concept of margins, and that I went beyond these perceptions to complete my goal with the classwork.

I haven’t really thought about this dumb little moment for years, until just recently, when I decided to pick up where I left off on a little gem of an indie game that took over my life for a few weeks in 2023, System Erasure’s Void Stranger. As much as I had enjoyed the game, I eventually succumbed to the density of its challenge, and the availability of several other new games at the time, I decided that it was time to move on to something else to boot up on my screen.

So yeah, I started playing Void Stranger again, since I thought it was a natural fit for some bedtime gaming with my new ROG Xbox Ally X, and at some point, something just clicked, and it really has sunk its teeth into me this time around. I know I’m a sucker for the usual Avant-Garde gameplay designs that actively work to subvert the very conventions they’re built with, with stuff like Tunic and FEZ, but Void Stranger is just, in a whole different class of its own.  After, ahem, falling deeper into the void with my play through, I managed to tough out the game and make it to the credits.

Something that I’ve felt immensely proud of, and yet sickeningly anxious about, because I’d soon learn that I’ve only scratched the surface of this dumb little brain worm of a game.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Sin & Punishment

ince the Analogue 3D released a few weeks ago, love for the N64 has been coming out of the woodwork, including us! We managed to beat the unreleased N64 prototype, Viewpoint 2064 last week on stream, and now we’re going to go with another technically unreleased game (at least in North America.) Yup, you guessed it, we’re playing Sin & Punishment, and no, we’re not doing it through the NSO service but through the George’s modded N64 to ensure the most accurate of shitty N64 graphics!

Be sure to tune in to our Twitch or YouTube  at 7:00 PM PST on 12/10/2025 to watch the Treasure gem imported more than any other N64 title! You can check out the streams here or directly on our Twitch and YouTube channels, and vibe along with us as we work towards ushering in a new age of Limelight for y'all!