Hey All.
It’s with a heavy heart that I announce Fireside Chats will be wrapping up towards the end of this year. While I don’t want to “retire” the brand forever -- because maybe one day I’ll bring it back or decide to do one-offs or something -- the show will go quiet beginning...
Welcome one and all to the inaugural episode of Sacred Symbols+, our weekly Patreon-exclusive supplement to Sacred Symbols: A PlayStation Podcast. As promised, we're going to try to explore some different stuff on this show, in addition to answering tons of your inquiries, expanding on our though...
2019-08-09 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Even the darkest fiction we watch and read typically has some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. But not Cormac McCarthy's The Road. First published in 2006 (and later turned into a film in 2009), The Road is unlike any father-and-son tale you've ever experienced. Civilization is in ruins, t...
2019-08-08 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
There are only a few questions that have truly consequential answers. "What's for dinner?" is a far more common (and certainly useful) inquiry than "what's the meaning of life?" It's just that one seeks a constantly-changing answer in pursuit of an ephemeral solution, while the other gets at the ...
2019-08-07 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
The popular gaming convention PAX West chose to host the first-ever live show in Sacred Symbols' history. We were excited, and so were many of you. Oh, but wait, never mind! Weeks after confirming our panel, the powers-that-be at PAX uninvited us from the show without explanation and with no reco...
2019-08-06 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey Everyone!
I hope you're well. Fun week, huh?
So, I had intended on announcing this earlier in the week, but obviously, 2019-08-02 01:01:00 +0000 UTC
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No matter where we're from, many of us spend something like 14 years in mandatory school systems that served only to distract us from our toys, video games, and watching cartoons. Yet there we were, imprisoned and desperate to escape. But school wasn't always an agonizing experience, especially w...
2019-08-01 20:33:43 +0000 UTC View Post
We're now all caught-up on Patron-selected topics! (Voting for Side Quest topics will begin again in the coming months. We're eager to get a few of our own out into the world, for the time being!)
2019-08-01 12:43:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Gaming's 10 Most Emotional Moments!
2019-08-01 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The powers-that-be at PAX West have uninvited Sacred Symbols from performing at its previously-scheduled panel, weeks after extending an invite and encouraging us to tell our audience we'll be there. I figured I'd sit down and talk to you guys and gals a little bit about it.
As this is a t...
50 episodes ago, we flipped the script here on Fireside Chats. Instead of being the interviewer, I (Colin!) became the interviewed. Episode 50 quickly went down as a fan-favorite, and with that in mind, I thought I'd do something similar for Episode 100. Once again, my girlfriend Erin sits in to ...
2019-07-31 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Sony-owned Media Molecule is hiring for a most unusual task: The studio is seeking small dev teams to create experiences inside the Early Access version of its PS4 exclusive Dreams. And they're willing to pay. The question, of course, is what that says about the state of Sony's absurdly long-in-d...
2019-07-30 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Colin Moriarty, Student Driver.
2019-07-29 20:06:46 +0000 UTC View Post
When Rosemary's Baby hit theaters in 1968, the horror genre as we know it today didn't really exist yet. The scariest flicks of the era were low budget, poorly lit, and corny beyond belief. But Roman Polanski's film helped define a shift towards the same kind of well written, expertly produced an...
2019-07-25 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Things tend to lean in a serious direction here on Fireside Chats, and that's all well and good. We often delve deep, get real, and challenge ourselves. But today's episode veers in a decidedly more lighthearted direction. Collin Sparling is a young 20-something music fan who asked to come on the...
2019-07-24 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Resistance is futile: The future of video game distribution is digital whether you like it or not. But we're an agile sect of consumers, and even the most stubborn among us can change our buying habits. Corporations entrenched in the ever-stagnant status quo, on the other hand, will inevitably be...
2019-07-23 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Our beloved KnockBack is a lot of things. It's a celebration of nostalgia and memory, of reminiscing and remembering, and, as it turns out, the many characters that make up The Moriarty Cinematic Universe. As our listenership (that's you!) knows, our dad -- Gerard Moriarty -- comes up all the tim...
2019-07-18 16:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Back on Episode 80 of Fireside Chats, we welcomed Kris Hall to the show, a man who was willing to openly talk about his battle with alcoholism, how adversely it affected his life, and how it almost cost him everything, including his children and his wife. Today, we welcome Kris' wife Joanne to th...
2019-07-17 16:01:32 +0000 UTC View Post
Our beloved industry has a decades-long tradition of declaring a Game of the Year, which usually occurs in December or January. But such decisions can be quite overwhelming, especially with 12 months worth of content to go over. So we thought we'd do things just a little bit differently. While yo...
2019-07-16 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostHey All,
I hope you're well!
I wanted to let you know that our panel submission for Sacred Symbols: A PlayStation Podcast at PAX West in Seattle has been accepted (I announced this on Twitt...
In 1998, Capcom followed its beloved survival horror game Resident Evil with a sequel. But Resident Evil 2 wasn't just any sequel. It experienced a tortured development, coming to store shelves a full year later than intended, which -- at the time -- was an absolutely catastrophic delay. So expec...
2019-07-12 02:32:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Avenge me!
2019-07-10 19:53:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Meet Jeremy Goldman, an expert in computer learning algorithms and AI who has worked for some of the world's biggest tech companies. And boy, does he have a ton of insight into what's going on with Google, Uber, and many others who rely a great deal on knowing and understanding you. Yes, you! For...
2019-07-10 16:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
The free market is a splendid thing. And sometimes, it's even a little scary. Today -- unplanned and at the tail end of our episode -- we discuss the eGirl Phenomenon on the back of the Gamer Girl Bathwater controversy. Just what in the actual hell is going on out there? We discuss (and we don't ...
2019-07-09 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
On the nose.
2019-07-05 20:23:10 +0000 UTC View Post
The Brothers Moriarty co-host KnockBack, but it's no secret who the star of the show is: Dagan. So let's focus solely on him today, and hear some of his stories from the '70s, '80s, and '90s. The through-line? These random events -- from his first experience seeing real-life gore to getting chase...
2019-07-04 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
People either get dogs or they don't. Heck, sometimes a person doesn't get dogs, and then suddenly, they do (like yours truly). But one way or another, they're an essential part of human life, and have been for thousands and thousands of years. Today's episode of Fireside Chats focuses on our mos...
2019-07-03 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Until recently, we've been left to wildly speculate about PlayStation 5. And boy, have we speculated! But since spring, Sony has been more than willing to talk about its next-gen machine, though it still declines to name it publicly. In a wide-ranging Wall Street Journal article, sources both at ...
2019-07-02 16:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello!
This month's Patreon-exclusive podcast is an episode of Sacred Symbols starring the one and only Chris Ray Gun.
Last week, y'all submitted like 150 questions to Chris, and he chose a handful to answer over an hour-long Q&A segment that could only be described as delightfu...
In America, The Fourth of July -- our so-called "Independence Day" -- is a time of raucous celebration. Families and friends gather around the country for burgers and hot dogs, slaw and baked beans, beers and cigars, and plenty of fireworks (of course). As children, though, The Fourth of July tak...
2019-06-27 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post