With 2021 complete and in the books, it's time for us to take our annual look at our personal picks for Game of the Year.  Join us for a supersized show in which we count down our top five picks, honorable mentions, and even a few dishonorable mentions. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Acquisitions.  Xbox Game Pass.  Banjo-Kazooie back on a Nintendo platform.  2021 was a wild year for video gaming news, so it's time for us to take our annual look back at the biggest events in the gaming world for the last year.  Settle in and join us for ninety minutes of discussion. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

The hilariously named players from 1995's Fighting Baseball for the Super Famicom have become a popular meme thanks to... well, with names like Bobsun Duggnut and Sleve McDicheal, I think you can understand why the Internet had a good laugh.  Now you can generate your own Fighting Baseball team members with Ariel Caplan's Bobsun Dugnutt Redux generator.  The whole thing is powered by some JavaScript and Cloudinary, generating a team roster in the style of the original video game.  Now batting: Douglus Tromk!

Microsoft stunned the business world this week by laying out nearly $70B in cash to acquire Activision-Blizzard.  We have definite opinions about this purchase, so this week's podcast is dedicated to discussing the ramifications of what this means to the video game industry.  Blake also has a few gears to grind regarding gaming streaming culture catchphrases and controller holders shaped like beloved characters. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Blake Grundman has the pinball fever this week on the podcast, telling the tale of how his beloved Star Wars pinball table died and what he had to go through to get it repaired.  Then he has another story for us about taking spare parts from the repair job and building a second, smaller digital table.  Finally, while he was dealing with those things, I replaced my aging Game Boy Advance battery with a new one that has me back up and running. The man tells a hell of a story, so sit back for an hour and take it all in. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

The ongoing lawsuit between Epic and Apple reached a temporary resolution recently, but before the case moves on to the appeal phase of its life cycle, Blake Grundman wants to air his grievances about the verdict and wonder where it's all going to lead.  Join us for a shorter than usual show this week that tears into the matter, and if there's time we'll get to the real important stuff like the twenty-fifth anniversary of Donkey Kong Land 2 (but there won't be time). Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

The video gaming community is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the original Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis this month, and Sega is celebrating too with a series of events, products, and new games all coming out this year.  Last week one of those events blew the doors off the Internet, so if you missed the Sonic Symphony, it's time to set aside two hours and watch some of Sonic's greatest musical hits performed by a symphony and fan-favorite rock bands such as Crush 40 that have contributed to the franchise's soundtracks over the years.  The expected games are all represented with Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Sonic Adventure are all featured, but there are some deeper cuts such as a medley from the Game Gear titles that are largely overlooked now, there's a Sega Saturn-era piece that covers Sonic Jam of all things, and there's a surprising focus on the disastrous Sonic the Hedgehog from 2006 that is notorious for its unfinished state, but did feature great music.  Noticeably, the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 / Sonic & Knuckles medley did not include any selections from the music tracks composed by Michael Jackson and his team that are now allegedly the reason why the games have not been re-released on any platform since 2011.  I enjoyed the show and even if you're not familiar with everything in the concert, I bet you will too.

I made a very unofficial album of the Sonic Symphony concert. It’s just the audio from the broadcast cut into tracks for easy listening, but I tried my best to make it nice. Please read the notes for info on some choices I made. https://t.co/Zx62xrNlQT

— Jeremy Baker (@GameBuddy) June 24, 2021

Plenty of us passed over WayForward's Shantae when it was released for the Game Boy Color back in 2002.  After all, it showed up very late in the GBC's lifespan and, if you didn't know any better, you might mistakenly peg it as a childrens' game about a cute little genie that uses the power of dance to fight her enemies including the dastardly pirate, Risky Boots.  Boy, did we miss out.  There's actually a lot of tricky platforming and sly innuendo that makes the game more appropriate for an older audience than a younger one.  As series co-creator Matt Bozon says, the games are "too sexy to be a kid's brand, and too girly for a male gamer brand."

It took a while, but that little game eventually spread its wings into a whole franchise of fantastic character platformers in the Metroid style of collecting new abilities and backtracking to see what has opened up in previous paths.  Today there are a bunch of Shantae games spanning a variety of platforms (not including the games that were cancelled before they could really get off the ground including pitches for Super NES and Game Boy Advance versions), and it can be difficult to keep them all straight.  WayForward has produced a short retrospective detailing all of Shantae's adventures in celebration of the entire series arriving on Nintendo Switch (including that first GBC game!) and, soon, other contemporary platforms.  Review your history lesson and then jump in with whichever adventure appeals to you the most.

The old saying goes: you can pick your cats, and you can pick your toys, but you can't pick your cat's toys.  Buy a cat a fancy new toy and she'll prefer to play with the cardboard box that it came in instead.  Set out a tower for a cat to climb, and they'll stare at it and then walk away unimpressed.  My wife had an old, scratched-up cat tree that has put in many years of service that, after all this time, the cats in our clowder have grown bored of playing in and sleeping on.  We had it set up in the living room where it was ignored with prejudice.  How do we make it more appealing?  My wife gave it a Super Mario makeover, covering the ratty carpet with new fabrics invoking the familiar Mushroom Kingdom bricks, pipes, and piranha plants.  Now we can't keep the cats off of it!  Check out this brief video of Moxxi playfully batting around a Starman.

Momma made us a thing#levelup #catlovers #gamers pic.twitter.com/kanbT3NMla

— Arwyn: Blind, but still a #BestCat (@BestCatArwyn) April 30, 2021

Sony made some waves in the gaming community recently when it was announced that they were closing the PSN stores for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation Vita.  There was such a loud uproar of resistance to this news that Sony doublebacked on the plan and will leave the PS3 and Vita stores open while the PSP is still closing down.  This led us to start talking about our favorite video games that have been delisted from online stores, never to be seen again.  This week's podcast is all about those lost games that we still love and may or may not have had a chance to buy such as The Simpsons arcade game, Castlevania The Adventure ReBirth, ModNation Racers, Noby Noby Boy, and many more.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way.