Behold!  We have consulted the most ancient of tomes and conjured an auditory apparition for your amusements.  Some may seek to explain this feat by turning to the actions of humankind and their feeble attempt to use technology to harness the great cosmic forces.  We know better though.  We know podcasts are governed by an older logic, one governed by laws untouched and untouchable by simple mortals.  Laws that some, in an attempt to make sense of an impenetrable code, attempt to distill into a single word more easily held by our fragile cultural psyche: magic.

This week on the EXP Podcast, Scott and I take to the skys and poke strange alien creatures with sticks. We're back to No Man's Sky. Does the game live up to the hype? Is it possible to understand the breeding habits of the pyramid-headed freaks that litter my starting world? Why do Sci-Fi games have universally bad UI? All these questions and more in our latest debrief.

Show notes:

• Music from No Man's Sky OST
• Runtime: 38 mins 

If you're tired and need a break from space mining, here's a little piece of history for you. That's right: it's the last podcast recorded before No Man's Sky ushered in the new era of prosperity/despair in which we now find ourselves living (I'm writing this pre-release). Since we PC players are still waiting on the go-ahead from mission control, we decided to have a pre-release conversation around expectations, hype, and the best way to leverage brand synergy when naming planets. See you on the forest moon of Chevy's!

This week on the EXP Podcast, Scott and I look at friendliness by the numbers. Thanks to a recent survey by research firm Quantic Foundry, we have some data about the ideal way gamers like to play with other people. Some of the results are actually surprising, but are they accurate? And what does this say about games that bridge the competitive/cooperative divide? And what about VR? All this and more!