Image by desfunk.

Ash and I don't watch a lot of anime, but we've watched enough to fill an hour's worth of podcastery. If you've got a soft spot for Cowboy Bebop, or if you absolutely hate Azumanga Daioh, you probably won't like us very much at the end of this week's episode.

I still need to watch My Neighbor Totoro.

At the conclusion of a recent episode of "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin," Anthony Burch instantly and remorselessly bought Shadow Complex off Xbox Live Arcade, subsequently funding an author who has referred to homosexuals as "hypocrites."

When reached for comment, Burch was typically full of sh*t. "I didn't mean to buy it," he told Destructoid, "Ash just handed me the controller, I don't hate gay people," the gay-hating game critic said.

After delivering said comment, Burch punched every gay person in the face and high-fived Glenn Beck.

I'm pretty happy with this week's episode of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'.

I was kind of worried that the subject matter may have been too grim to be funny for most people (a la Geometry Wars), but the ep seems to have gotten a pretty good reception so far.

If you feel the video Diggworthy, feel free to lend your support here.

I'm also trying to convince Ashley Davis to start selling videogame hoodies like those featured in the video, but the chick won't budge. Maybe one day.

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a (semi) weekly podcast.

This week's episode of the HAWPcast is, perhaps thankfully, a little shorter than our other episodes.

Clocking in at just under an hour, Ash and I discuss comics, Terry Gilliam, westerns, Joss Whedon, The Sims, and political assassination. You can listen to it here (click the iTunes button on the right side of the page if you want to get it that way).

(About halfway through, Ash freaks out about a picture I've sent her. This is the picture.)

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a (semi) weekly podcast.

Don't worry, this week's HAWPcast (click the iTunes button on the right side of the page if you want to get it that way) is not another commentary episode.

If we're all terribly lucky, this will be the last Doctor Who-related HAWPcast for a long, long, long time. That said, Ash and I could not, in good conscience, record another podcast without at least discussing The End of Time and the Tenth Doctor's departure.

We do, at the very least, discuss videogames when we aren't completely nerding the f*ck out about sci-fi shows that don't really matter. Half-Life, Portal, and BioShock are discussed in some detail. Emphasis on some. 

Oh, and listener questions. Lots of listener questions.

My New Year's Resolution is to learn more about lighting. I'll stick to it until roughly the end of this sentence.

This week's episode is a sort of 2009-in-review thing, except not really. Perhaps you will enjoy it. If you don't, it will ruin your day and thus taint the entire year of 2010 for you. So, you know. Be careful.

As I write this the video has only been up for about twenty minutes, but that hasn't stopped the flow of entertaining comments. Like this one.

dragonfluffy said:

ALL THESE GAMES SUCK THEY ARE ALL GAY AND DUMB NOTHING ARE FOR THE PC

That's all for now.

Nobody seems to like this week's episode of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin', but that's okay, because I do.

I usually have trouble thinking of something else to write for these HAWP promotional posts. Only today did I suddenly realize the obvious -- I just need to repeat my favorite GameTrailer user comment! It'll fill space, and make us all feel a lot better about ourselves.

Hughboizilla said:

THAT WAS SO BAD I THINK IT GAVE ME CANCER

Why the hell didn't I think of this earlier?

(Also, blah blah our DVD blah blah our podcast.)

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a (semi) weekly podcast.

This week's HAWPcast starts off like your typical nostalgia trip -- Ash used to participate in forum-based roleplaying, har har har -- before turning into a more specific discussion about "hangout" games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, which then somehow turns into a discussion about Left 4 Dead 2, which then turns into a discussion about nonlinear story delivery.

You can listen to this week's episode here, or subscribe to the show on iTunes.

If you want to read the Resetti article we reference about halfway through, you can do so here.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a pretty fun game on its own. What's even cooler about it, however, is that its rules are flexible enough to allow for multiple methods of play: in the same way that Far Cry 2 lends itself to permadeath runthroughs and Ikaruga allows for dot-eating as a strategy, so too does Left 4 Dead 2 allow for...

...Well, this.

I dunno if anyone will seriously try to play the game in the way Ash and I suggest in this week's episode, but it could be interesting to find out. If nothing else, I can now claim that I have designed or co-designed three different games, even though one is only sort-of a game and "Left 4 Friendz" is only a reworking of the rules of an existing game and I don't actually know if it's any fun or not but you shut the hell up, because I've designed three games.

If you like the video, you might also consider listening to our podcast or getting our DVD. We've got shirts, too.

Christmas is just around the corner. That's all I'm saying.

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a (semi) weekly podcast.

Ashly and myself enjoy Doctor Who. We've made very little secret of this throughout both seasons of "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin." We also typically end up discussing it in some way during the other HAWPcast episodes, so we figured, to hell with it -- let's just devote an entire episode to Doctor Who conversations and leave it at that.

With that in mind, this week's HAWPcast functions as a commentary track for "The Waters of Mars," the most recent Doctor Who special. You'll need to not-download a copy of the episode to get the full nerdosity.

If you're not into Doctor Who at all, you're honestly better off skipping this week's podcast altogether. We'll go back to telling random childhood stories and embarrassing anecdotes next week.

_{Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin is a Dtoid-created comedy series about videogames and cupcakes.}

This week's episode may initially seem the stuff of tired conversations and unimaginative theories, but stick with it -- it gets better.

And way more violent.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: I really, truly didn't expect to enjoy Uncharted 2 as much as I did. I wonder if it's got something to do with the fact that I had an entire game to get to know the characters beforehand: I didn't actually realize how much I liked Elena and Sully until they showed up in Among Thieves, in much the same way I didn't realize how much Dog and Alyx mattered to me until Episode One.

But I digress -- watch the Uncharted 2 episode of HAWP, and, if you like it, please feel free to tell your friends.

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. Once Upon a Pixel is a completely different series made by some of the same people. If you hate one, you may like the other.

Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is Destructoid's surreal comedy series about videogames and gamer culture. It's pretty good.

At this year's Penny Arcade Expo, Ash and I had a panel, and that was fun. During the panel, we got Rey Gutierrez to help us film an episode of Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' using the audience as extras.

You can watch that episode here.

I'll say it now, just because I'm not sure if I said it anywhere else; the panel, and PAX 2009 in general, were both incredibly fun and the people we met were really cool. To be able to commemorate that weekend through an episode of our show is about as masturbatory as anything you can imagine, but we hope you enjoy the show anyway.

As always, you can discuss the show in the forums.

_{Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin' is a surreal comedy series made by Anthony and Ashly Burch. They do a weekly podcast about the show, and everything else that comes to mind.}

God help the stream-of-consciousness style of these podcasts. A good portion of this week's episode will mean absolutely nothing to you, as you are (A) not, as far as I can tell, either Ashly or myself and (B) probably not intimately familiar with our friends. 

Still, there's some decent stuff in there. Bits about almost getting beaten up, and some good discussion about the Star Wars trilogy.

As always, you can listen to the show here or subscribe to us on iTunes. And hit the jump for a (very short) linkdump of the things we discuss on the podcast.