Every year we celebrate spooky season, but we haven't really had an episode dedicated to Christmas - until now! That's right this episode we are taking a look at Holiday Games! We talk about some modern classics like Spider-Man Miles Morales, some old classics like Snatcher, and then...well...I don't think any one is calling 'Games Advent Calendar 2024' a classic, but it is a holiday game! We also take time to play the new hotness Lumines Arise, which does have some holiday-ish levels tucked away.

On top of games, we also talk about some holiday traditions that we have such as black Friday shopping or getting Popeye's chicken. And then as usual we've got some trivia at the end with a game of 20 questions. Brian couldn't make it in time for that but he would have gotten it way earlier than those fools. Anyway, grab your wrapping paper and your scotch tape and do some multi-tasking while listening to our latest episode on Holiday Games!

The 2025 Game Awards have just wrapped up and The Beats crew watched for the entire 3 and a half hour stretch! We recorded our reactions to the show and are bringing them to you raw and unedited (except for a large chunk of time where we didn't say a whole lot - we'll spare you hearing Muff eat chips and use his printer for an hour). See any games announced that you're excited for? Any games that you think got robbed (no Lumines nomination for best music???) Let us know by sending a note to beatofthemonth@gmail.com. And stay tuned for our next episode with our Beat of the Year celebration!

For this episode we have another one of our deep dives, although this time we are taking a look at not 1, not 2, but 25 individual games! UFO 50 is a compilation of 50 individual retro style games that released in 2024 and more recently this year on Switch, and has been on the Beats crew radar for awhile. But wait, there are 50 games and we're only talking about 25? What gives? Yeah, it turns out that playing 50 games takes a long time, and so does talking about 50 games. So we decided to split things in the middle and call it at the halfway point.

For a sampling of what to expect from the first half of this collection, you've got a car racing game with a Splatoon paint mechanic, a golf ball RPG, a house party deck builder, a platformer with controls unlike anything we've ever played, and a ton more! It's a fun and varied collection of games with something for everyone. So settle in, grab your retro style controller of choice, and join us for this deep dive of UFO 50!

Apologies for the delay with this episode, but it was a rough work week. Well while we're on the subject, let's go ahead and talk about some games featuring the Beats Crew's favorite past time - work! We talk about Yakuza Infinite Wealth where you get occupation based job classes, Once Upon a Katamari where your dad gives you work all day long, and more! But it's not all just about fun and games - we talk about our real life work experiences at Walmart, Gamestop, and other places that kept us gainfully (painfully?) employed in our youth. And to wrap things up have a double dose of work based trivia at the end to put your brain to work as well. So get ready to punch in, zone out until break time, and join us for this look at working games!

Halloween is almost here and the spooky season is coming to a close. To send things off with a bang we are celebrating by having a trivia game show contest with a spooky theme! All questions will be related to horror games such as Silent Hill, Five Nights at Freddy's, old school horror games - and more! As an added twist, we select categories in the order that we think will bank us more points. Later questions are worth more points, so it's best to tackle the challenging topics first and hope for the best later. Think you've got some skills in horror game trivia? Then grab your chainsaw controller and join us, for this Spooky Game Trivia Contest!

We are halfway through the spooky season and we've got another fitting episode dealing with Creepy games! For long time listeners of the show you may recall way back in 2020 when we did an episode about Scary games. So what's the difference between Scary and Creepy you ask? Well we kick the episode off with that discussion and then get into some specific Creepy games that we played such as Little Nightmares 2, Silent Hill 4, and more! We also talk about some creepy adjacent titles that we wrapped up recently like Expedition 33 and Elden Ring. And then after that as always we've got some trivia lined up that will not only test your game knowledge but also the lyrics of one Creep-y song in particular... So go ahead and get yourself settled into the dark basement or the dusty attic and join us - for this look at Creepy Games!

Spooky season is here, and to celebrate we are kicking off October with a look at one of the oldest horror themed video game franchises (that also just celebrated a 40th anniversary) - Ghosts 'n Goblins! We cover the early games on NES, Genesis, and SNES that everyone knows and loves. Wait, does everyone love them? I thought so, but maybe not... We then cover some of the spin-off games with the Gargoyle's Quest and Maximo series before getting back into the more recent traditional releases on PSP and modern consoles.

And if that's not enough Ghosts 'n Goblins content for you, we dive really deep into some obscure offshoots with some True or False trivia. So grab your dagger, and your - oh shoot I accidentally grabbed my torch. No one likes the torch. Well anyway, keep playing until the dagger shows back up and then join us for this deep dive - of Ghosts 'n Goblins!

For our 5 year anniversary special we took a look at our backlogs and voted a single game for each person to finally beat and cross off the list. On this episode we see what everyone's true colors are and if they actually stood by their word to play those games. Does Brian finally beat Elden Ring? Does Darkside finally play Metal Gear Solid 4? Does Sonic Frontier have a chance of meeting Melbro's hype game expectations? Tune in to find out all that and more!

But before we get into all that, we take some time to look at our fantasy bracket and how our games list of 2025 releases is doing. For some of us, it's not going too well. Who would have know The Hobbit: Tales from the Shire would be a bust? If you want to check out our Fantasy roster, please check us out by going to www.fantasycritic.games and searching for 'The Beats'.