BOOM!

Big explosions illuminate the night sky as a cavalcade of people are stopped in the middle of the street, awe etched onto their stony faces. Their eyes reflect the dazzling array of colors as their ears are filled with a chorus of bursts. The smell of gunpowder fills the air, tantalizing the viewers into a state of nostalgia, as emotions and memories flood them reminding them of a time of childlike innocence and wonder.

In a barren field, about a half of a mile away from the procession of people, there are heaps of artillery shell tubes. They are towering and grand, offering balls of light to the night sky. Laid out in uniformity of rows and columns, the mini cannons await with eager jubilation to be of use. Whirling around them with lighted sticks, four people ignite the fireworks. The movement of lighting and escaping to safety in choreographed repetition appears to be an interpretive dance, conveying deeper and complex feelings for the world. Their faces gleam in the fading light of the fireworks.

This year starts out with a bang for Swordchomp! We start off 2018 with a packed episode of the Chompcast, eager to make this year our year. Joining us for the first Chompcast episode of 2018 is one of our dear friends, Rich Meister, a fun and intelligent fellow of destructoid.com. We discuss eight of the games we are most excited for in 2018, and we briefly mention the Nintendo Direct released at the beginning of the year. Prey and Nier: Automata are both games on our mind as we have finished them over our break, as we reflect on the positives and negatives of both. We include a Bio Break article that discussed two separate studies that investigate male insects that lose legs become more sexually successful as they invest more resources into their testes.

Recorded January 12, 2018