When they say nobody asked for this, that's Gary Butterfield erasure. I asked for this. I exist! I mean, sure, Adam Jensen is a pretty tough pill to swallow. He shaves his beard in an extremely obnoxious way. Further, this is clearly the middle chapter of a prequel trilogy, which might be the most direct recipe for an unimportant narrative. However....however.... All of the above, plus a regrettable marketing campaign, basically eclipsed the entire conversation about this immersive sim that play...
Nov 03, 2022•3 hr 42 min
Sometimes it takes a Geekwad to save a kingdom. So we must venture back in time to grab outdated stereotypes about nerds and put them to work. Wacky Funsters! is a minigame collection with a budget, an early 90s DOS game that was probably sold in Office Max stores until 2005. And it gets us talking about all of the other not-quite-games that clogged the bargain bins, too.
Nov 02, 2022•5 min
This week's episodes: Fruity Plum, Plum Flute, Star Of Bethlehem, and Hollow Heart.
Nov 01, 2022•1 hr 6 min
It's a shame when a great idea is wasted on a terrible execution. That's what happened with Michigan: Report from Hell. You play as a television camera man who is out with a team covering mysterious and violent incidents in Chicago as a strange fog rolls in. You shape the events through what you choose to film. Great idea, right? Too nothing about it holds together, leaving us with a clunky and awkward PS2 survival horror game that should have been great.
Oct 31, 2022•48 min
Three days of physical and mental unrest have sent a man to seek sanctuary at the services of the Cathedral of St. Barnabé. But far from being able to escape his problems, he finds himself pursued by an unearthly church organist all across Paris to his own home, unable to escape that which hunts for his very soul. "In the Court of the Dragon" is the third story from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. This massively influential work of weird fiction would go on to inspire a number of other...
Oct 30, 2022•5 min
At long last, we can continue with Ranni's work now that the stars have moved again... and punched a big ol' hole in Limgrave. Big enough that we can get into the previously inaccessible Eternal City of Nokron. Here, we seek out the blasphemous treasure of the Nox, and see a little bit of the mad science they were doing in order to supplant the Golden Order.
Oct 30, 2022•5 min
Hello! It's time to get all your friends into Days of Future Cast because we've got an old fashioned jumping on point for you today. We're talking about the 2010 Uncanny X-Force series by Rick Remender, an incredible comic that is a lot of fun to talk about. In this episode we cover the first four issues. Enjoy! Reminder that you can read along with and ahead of the show by subscribing to Marvel Unlimited (we don't get paid for you doing that, so it's not an ad, it's just a cool service). You ca...
Oct 29, 2022•1 hr 34 min
Kole, Ben, David, and Dennis talk about Phantom Abyss, Tunic, Scorn, and much more! The Grind: Dennis: Phantom Abyss. Magic: The Gathering Arena. Kole: Scorn. David: Scorn. Deep Rock Galactic. Ben: Tunic. Satisfactory. The Multiplayer: Let’s talk about challenge runs! The End Boss: Square Enix trademarks “Symbiogenesis”. Streamer-funded Smash tournaments fill a void Nintendo isn’t interested in filling. Dark Souls 2 online play restored, but with caveats....
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 40 min
We've each had a Steam Deck for about a month, and we feel comfortable reporting... It's pretty great! This week's Topic has us discussing the Steam Deck in general, and how one should get into PC gaming in 2022. We also read your responses to October's games, which are Devotion, Strangeland, and the Evil Within 2. November's Games: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided SUPERHOT Half-Life: Alyx December's Games: Torment: Tides of Numenera (two parts) Shadowrun: Hong Kong (two parts) Arcade Special 3 (for pre...
Oct 27, 2022•2 hr 17 min
Things aren't going quite right for Jacob Singer. He's having flashbacks to the Vienam War and seeing demons all around him. Reality seems to be breaking down as he hops around in time. There's a truth he needs to face, and it might just take an angelic chiropractor to help him see it. Jacob's Ladder is one of the most influential horror films of all time, establishing psychological horror tropes and creating visuals that would be imitated across all media for years to come. Does it hold up to c...
Oct 26, 2022•5 min
This week's episodes: Tinytoma - Brimstone Bombs - 4.5 Volt - Tainted Cain
Oct 25, 2022•1 hr 8 min
If I was a kid and I got a Muppet game where I couldn't play as Kermit, I'd be pissed. That's the world that Muppet Monster Adventure forces on us, one where people know who Robin the Frog is. The good Muppets have been kidnapped by an evil monster, and it's up to Robin to rescue them, maybe? This is a bog standard licensed platformer, and it's not especially terrible as those go.
Oct 24, 2022•49 min
This week's Roundtable Roundtable has a slightly different format, because we are featuring two audio interviews with guests alongside your responses to the Caelid region of Elden Ring! Our first guest needs almost no introduction. Iron Pineapple is a popular YouTuber who makes funny and insightful videos about From Software games. You've probably seen his videos about the glut of Soulsborne games on Steam, or his numerous and hilarious challenge runs. Our second guest is Bryn , of the Generatio...
Oct 23, 2022•5 min
So you make some very good product, and through no fault of your own you end up with one and a half dead bodies. A worse show would make the bodies disappear conveniently. However, Breaking Bad is about two people who are inept at crime getting into their own way. Walt and Jesse are ready to go their separate ways, but first they have to split the duties of dealing with Emilio (deceased) and Krazy-8 (it's complicated). And some messes only get bigger. We would like to thank Gwen Static for compo...
Oct 22, 2022•56 min
Kole, Ben, David, and Dennis talk about Scorn, Outer Wilds, Echoes of the Eye, Slay the Spire: Downfall, and much more! The Grind: David: Deathloop. Deep Rock Galactic. Dennis: Deep Rock Galactic. Slay the Spire: Downfall Mod. Rabbids: Party of Legends. Ben: Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. Tunic. Kole: Scorn. The Multiplayer: What games handle grinding the best? The End Boss: Bayonetta 3 voiceover woes. Silent Hill announcements are happening and we’re uncertain. Scientists have taught brain cel...
Oct 21, 2022•1 hr 49 min
Warning: Fluid chat! It's sort of like limbo, in that you're seeing how low you can go but instead seeing how divorced a grizzled dadtagonist can get. This is a good ass game despite a nonsense story. The biggest issue is it throws away it's biggest strength half way through, pulling you out of the genuinely innovative semi open world stealth and into a series of MindRealms(tm). Still, the play is the thing, and the play is good.
Oct 20, 2022•51 min
One of the major dividing lines in video game history is when optical media became cheaper and more plentiful. That brought great stuff like Myst, and a few great FMV games... but it also brought us stuff like "Who Shot Johnny Rock?", a terrible FMV shooting game that's based entirely on fakeouts. Also, Gary torments Kole with a description of a segment from the Tales of the Darkside movie.
Oct 19, 2022•5 min
This week's episode: We're in a corn maze! (And we talk about Magic Skin, Revelation, Consolation Prize, and Polished Bone.)
Oct 18, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Clive Barker's most famous forray into video games is 2001's Undying, but that wasn't his first attempt. Before that, we learned all about the Nightbreed. It's unclear what a Nightbreed is, how you become one, or what they even do, but this Interactive Movie adventure game does its best to get you up to speed, terrible checkpointing and all.
Oct 17, 2022•38 min
This week we set our sights on the big guy himself, Radahn the Star Scourge, a general whose magic is so powerful that he has arrested the stars themselves. But we're not going to do it alone. Redmane Castle's festival is the first event of its kind, where a whole dungeon is changed for a specific encounter which is the crossroads for a few different quests. And the fight itself is a grand spectacle, iterating on Dark Souls II's Ivory King challenge.
Oct 17, 2022•5 min
Welcome back true believers! This week we're finishing up the Mutant Massacre crossover by discussing Uncanny X-Men #213 and #214. Then, because we both are 90s kids and we love Archangel, we skipped to X-Factor #24-26 to see Warren Worthington's transformation into the edgy (literally!) blue skinned villain. Reminder that you can read along with and ahead of the show by subscribing to Marvel Unlimited (we don't get paid for you doing that, so it's not an ad, it's just a cool service). You can a...
Oct 15, 2022•1 hr 31 min
Kole, Ben, and Dennis talk about Medieval Dynasty, Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, Ori and the Blind Forest, and much more! The Grind: Dennis: Ori and the Blind Forest. Medieval Dynasty. Ben: Dome Keeper. Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. Kole: Rocksmith 2014. The Multiplayer: What games use simplicity or minimalism to great effect? The End Boss: Among Us is coming to VR on November 10. Let’s talk about the Mario movie trailer. VTubers apologize for streaming porn with Splatoon 3, creatively....
Oct 14, 2022•1 hr 30 min
An unnamed man wakes up outside of a macabre circus, and he must set about learning why he is there. This classic-style point and click adventure game tells a pretty standard psychological horror story with a lot of allusions and metaphor, which isn't going to be everyone's favorite thing. However, there is tons of great horror imagery and a few very rewarding puzzles to try to tackle. Our highlighted project this week is Sinclair Lore , a YouTube channel run by our friends Sin and Sophie, where...
Oct 13, 2022•2 hr 15 min
The Sims is obviously an amazing game series and we wish we could play more of it. From the outside, the Sims community seems like an inclusive and welcoming space where people can be creative and have fun. And then we have the Sims Spark'd, the product of an ill-advised partnership between EA, TBS, and Buzzfeed Multiplayer. They gather 12 Sims content creators, put them in teams of three, and subject them to baffling challenges, for which they are judged arbitrarily by some people who just happ...
Oct 12, 2022•5 min
This week's episodes: Yuck Heart, Urn Of Souls, Akeldama, and Tainted Magdalene.
Oct 11, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Listen, it's not great when the way you earn points in a game is to find a lady and have vigorous sex with her before she disappears. That's what happens in Dan Dolme, a game about a man with a large penis whose girlfriend goes missing and he must find her and engage with her sexually. But the whole presentation is so surreal that it's hard to condemn it too much, at least from our point of view. If you want to argue that, we're fine, but please understand that this is a game where in order to p...
Oct 10, 2022•41 min
Our quest to defeat Starscourge Radan is near its end as we storm his stronghold, Redmane Castle. This legacy dungeon is quite strange, and not just in the context of Elden Ring. There are two versions of it, one that is full of enemies, and another that is empty and ready for the Festival to kill the rot-blighted demigod. FromSoft have never done anything like this, and while it's not entirely successful, it's still really neat. Because there's relatively little to talk about in Redmane itself,...
Oct 09, 2022•5 min
We're off to the races as we talk about the first episode of Breaking Bad, the clumsily-named "Pilot". Pretty much everything is here, introducing us to the main cast and showing us Walt's life of quiet humiliation before he reunites with Jesse Pinkman and makes his first forrays into the criminal underworld. Is the tone kind of weird, with moments that are a little too broad? Yeah, sure, but it's already great television and it's the first step down a great road. We would like to thank Gwen Sta...
Oct 08, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Kole, David, Dennis, and Jala talk about Catherine Full Body, Deep Rock Galactic, Metal Gear Survive, and much more! The Grind: Jala: Catherine: Full Body. Shining Force 2. Dennis: XCOM II: War of the Chosen. Trackmania. Deep Rock Galactic. David: Deathloop. Kole: Vampire Survivors. Metal Gear Survive. The Multiplayer: What’s your Last Meal game? The End Boss: Google kills Stadia. CD Projekt Red announces a Cyberpunk sequel and several new Witcher games. Fandom buys GameFAQS and Kole is concerne...
Oct 07, 2022•2 hr 2 min
(Cryptkeeper Voice) Spooky month begins with the ultimate heebie jeebie, a real Boo-riffic blunder! So buckle up boils and ghouls and non die-scary siblings alike. * Play Devotion before listening to this macabre tale of goof'em ups. Seriously, it's one of the best games we've done for the show and it's only 3 hours long. It's Silent Hill 2 tier. * Until next grime, fiends! BWahahahahahaha Support Watch Out for Fireballs!...
Oct 06, 2022•2 hr 47 min
