All things must end. Or must they? Yes. But sometimes: no. That’s right: it’s the final part of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME! You can listen this episode on YouTube here . If you’ve taken the time to listen to the entirety of this nonsense, thank you: we hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be back in the new year with the medium to hot takes you’re used to, along with more Miniatures Monthly, Little Grey Cells, Bloodborne, and so on. Merry Christmas! Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution...
Dec 25, 2017•2 hr
Confrontation leads to new adventure as Chris attempts to write… a spoiler-free description of part three of C&C D&D! You can listen this episode on YouTube here . Tune in tomorrow for the FINALE of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME. I mean, it’s only Christmas. You don’t have anything else to do, right? Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles . Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion ....
Dec 24, 2017•1 hr 49 min
Our Dungeons & Dragons roleplay adventure continues as our heroes take their quest to the streets of Grey Home. If you prefer, you can listen this episode on YouTube here . Come back tomorrow for part three of THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME. Many thanks to Mike Debenham for his fabulous contribution to this series. Our music is based on Clambake by The Mandibles . Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion ....
Dec 23, 2017•1 hr 48 min
It’s time for something a little different. In the run-up to Christmas, we’ll be posting our first-ever Dungeons & Dragons live play podcast: a magical mystery murder adventure called THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME. This is part one. Expect part two tomorrow, part three after that, and so on. You can listen on YouTube if you prefer, or receive your MP3s via the regular C&C podcast feed. THE MIRACLE AT GREY HOME is an adventure that Chris wrote, played using D&D 5e rules. Our characters beg...
Dec 22, 2017•1 hr 34 min
Chris, Tom and Pip came here to round up our games of the year and eat praline chocolates… and we’ve got a whole lot of praline chocolates. Also, Pip hates pralines. This is the last regular C&C episode of 2017! As such, you might want to check out the YouTube version : it’s that time again when we do a video of our faces and mouth parts doing the podcast! Look at them flap! Discussed in this episode: Divinity: Original Sin 2 The Norwood Suite Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider For Honor Ab...
Dec 22, 2017•2 hr 42 min
Get ready for a visceral Christmas experience as Chris, by himself, talks about Hello Neighbour and Hellblade. By himself. This is, needless to say, a bit of a stopgap episode before we gather for this year’s annual roundup special. As such, Patreon backers will not be charged for it. There’s a lot more C&C coming over the course of the next week. Hold on for our D&D special, Miniatures Monthly, Bloodborne, a video podcast special, and so on. If nothing else, I hope you find some use for...
Dec 15, 2017•46 min
Chris, Tom F and John Roberts discuss indie news, Seven: The Days Long Gone, Destiny 2’s first expansion, Sorcery!, Shadowhand, and more. ‘More’ in this case includes the opportunity horse, the verb ‘to suchet’, a bit of Warhammer, the changes to Patreon, our upcoming Christmas specials, and so on. Joakim Sandberg’s Iconoclasts has a release date! As does Gorogoa ! Davy Wreden is hiring programmers . Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It is out. Bridge Constructor Portal is a thing. HUMANITY(tm) . A v...
Dec 08, 2017•1 hr 50 min
Chris and Tom S discuss Destiny 2 changes, Civ VI’s new expansion, the horizontal lifestyle enabled by the Steam Link, and all of the things that Chris likes about Battlefront II. Plus: the cultural benefits of expending one (1) Sean Bean, why you probably should try to fight a crocodile, games-as-toys, C&C D&D, returning to the early noughties, and why we’re all Bossk sometimes. Here’s that update on the future of Destiny 2 . In Civilizaiton VI: Rise and Fall , it’s not looking good for...
Dec 01, 2017•1 hr 40 min
Tom F is joined by Zack and Kevin from Asymmetric for a Crate & Crowbar/Videogames Hotdog crossover episode recorded at Fantastic Arcade in Austin, Texas. Discussed: the explosive appeal of Untitled Goose Game, Wilmot’s Warehouse, Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It, Minute, Into The Breach, and loads more. It’s all in the shownotes below. Patreon backers will not be charged for this episode . It’s a bit of a departure from normal podcast procedure, and we didn’t want to risk double-charging peo...
Nov 24, 2017•1 hr 37 min
Chris and both Toms dig into the Battlefront II microtransactions thing, momentarily become a film podcast while talking about Injustice 2, and rewind back to Shadwen for a chat about parenthood. Plus: a voice from the past returns, the importance of the trudge AND the squeak, Superman’s uncanny lips, and Ian M. Banks’ Play of the Game. Here’s a weird thing: we originally thought this week’s episode was going to have to go up on Saturday. It’s not! It’s out on Thursday! That means that the intro...
Nov 16, 2017•2 hr 13 min
Tom, Chris and Alex have medium takes on Call of Duty: World War II, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Dota 2 Turbo, and the industry’s latest travails. Plus: getting the better of Satan, hopes for a hairy new Hitman, co-op jobs, Tuesday, impressing kids with chicken, bud motivation, and more. Chris talks a bit about Dota 2 in this episode! If you’re one of the people who hate it when this happens, skip from 1:21:20 to 1:34:50. There are also spoilers for quite old PlayStation game Shadow of the Coloss...
Nov 10, 2017•2 hr 3 min
Chris, Tom F and John Roberts discuss Spelunky 2, Dota 2’s update, Wolfenstein II, Divinity: Original Sin, Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and other oranges besides. Plus: the faulty UX of life, dancemat Tinder, internet things forever lost to time, and diminishing takeout returns. Spelunky 2 has been announced! Here’s the trailer . Dota 2 has been updated! Here is the nonsense . Here’s the trailer for Destiny 2’s first expansion. Minor campaign spoilers! Wolfenstein II continues to divide them hot t...
Nov 03, 2017•2 hr 14 min
Tom, Chris and Tom discuss Steam’s new curator system, Wolfenstein II, Destiny 2, and Opus Magnum. Plus: an episode of 999 featuring a rogue X-Wing CD-ROM, the New Game+ of your life, and the machinations of the hated foe, Alex Wiltshire. The Halloween Steam Sale is on. Stories Untold is good, and cheap! Here’s Valve’s blog post about the new Steam Curators system. Manveer Heir spoke about EA on the Waypoint podcast . Chris has been unpacking his complex relationship with Wolfenstein II: The New...
Oct 27, 2017•2 hr 48 min
Chris, Pip and Tom discuss the new Zachtronics game, the closure of Visceral, A Mortician’s Tale, Shadow of War, and more. Plus: Babe Runner: Pig In The City, the midpoint between The Raid and Watership Down, hot cauliflower facts, inadvisable waffle digressions, and some videogame questions maybe? Jury’s out on that one. Here’s the trailer for Zachtronics’ very pretty Opus Magnum . Team Fortress 2’s new update comes with the first new animated short in ages. Overgrowth is out! Chris didn’t know...
Oct 20, 2017•2 hr 46 min
Chris, Tom and Tom discuss the 10 year anniversary of The Orange Box, Universal Paperclips, Middle-earth (TM) Shadow of War, and EVE Valkyrie: Warzone. Plus: explaining your game in fifty words or less, Chris’ worst idea, games fit for an Oxbridge application, rum, and more. The Orange Box is 10 years old this week! Here’s PC Gamer’s coverage , including Tom F’s republished reviews . Here’s the Guardian article about the attention-sapping consequences of modern app design. Universal Paperclips u...
Oct 13, 2017•2 hr 27 min
Chris and the Toms discuss Assassin’s Creed: Oranges, Divinity: Oranges Sin 2, and the hunt for a missing crate of origins. Also: Cuphead’s accessibility, Skaven’s terrifying ‘shitty rats anywhere’ power in Total War: Warhammer 2, and Battlegrounds’ Chinese review bomb. Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds has had 70,000 Steam reviews in the last 30 days and its score is now officially ‘Mixed’ . Cuphead’s brutal but you’ll probably buy it anyway because a) it’s gorgeous and b) everyone else did. Assas...
Oct 06, 2017•2 hr 46 min
Pip, Tom F, and some refreshing glasses of gin and tonic assemble to reflect upon the release of Heat Signature before moving on to other hip and happening PC games of the moment, including: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Also! Your questions regarding community controversies and one of like a million reasons why Facebook is bullshit. We’re on a single mic again this week, but hopefully some post processing magic means it sounds okay. Heat Signature is out wooo! Tom...
Sep 29, 2017•2 hr 1 min
Tom, Chris and Tom gather on the eve of Heat Signature’s release to talk Divinity: Original Sin 2, which they haven’t actually played, and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, which they have. Plus: character name conventions, systems with character, the secrets of a Twitter drafts folder, and the number of action points consumed by making love and listening to Death From Above in the same turn. Heat Signature is out! Tom has made an entire game again! Congratulations, Tom! Hackmud is one year old...
Sep 22, 2017•2 hr 1 min
Chris, Tom, Pip and Tom discuss Heat Signature’s impending release, FUGL, XCOM 2, Tooth and Tail, and loads of questions. Plus: top Chris Pip tips, one-handed Final Fantasy, the problem of being both extremely fast and extremely poisoned, and bums. Again. Find out more about Heat Signature, the game what Tom done, here . Here’s a bit more on EVE’s space station heist . Pip has been flapping about in FUGL and lolling around in League of Legends . Chris is waving a flag for Tooth and Tail . Tom’s ...
Sep 15, 2017•2 hr 33 min
Chris and Pip convene in a post-Tom world to discuss PUBG’s popularity, new Life is Strange, and Absolver. Also Chris says he won’t talk about Destiny 2, and then does. We’ve skipped the questions section this week due to our (temporarily) reduced headcount – we’d like to dig into them properly when we’ve got at least one more Tom. If you’ve sent a question in the last week, don’t fret: we’ve received it. That there Plunkbag sure has sold a lot of videogames . Pip’s been playing Life is Strange:...
Sep 08, 2017•1 hr 32 min
Notorious hobbledehoys Pip, Tom F and Tom S gather to discuss gaming matters of the day, including the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, Destiny 2, Dead Cells and bums. Plus! Your questions and finest game name substitutions. Show notes: BIG NEWS OF THE WEEK. Vermintide 2 . ALSO Dontnod are doing something narrative next year. Marc Laidlaw laid out the plot of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 . XCOM 2: War of the Chosen is hard work but grea...
Sep 02, 2017•1 hr 58 min
Chris, Tom F and returning guest John Roberts talk Gamescom news, Technomancers, West of Loathing, snakes and Flotillas. Here’s the Age of Empires IV trailer. Also, Jurassic Thingy . Overwatch’s latest short , which Chris doesn’t like, the tiresome arsehole. Here’s that interview where EA’s Patrick Soderlund talks about the possibility of Mass Effect coming back. John’s been playing Ian, The Technomancer . Tom has returned to both No Man’s Sky and Shadow Tactics and possibly accidentally announc...
Aug 25, 2017•2 hr 11 min
Pip, Chris and Tom discuss No Man’s Sky’s latest update, 868-HACK’s latest expansion, and The Long Dark’s latest aurorae. Plus middle names, questions, and wat. Here are some of those XCOM 2 propaganda posters . Snake people? Don’t fuck them. Here’s the Prey demo . Also, West of Loathing . Everybody’s been playing that No Man’s Sky . Tom’s been playing 868-HACK ‘s first expansion, PLAN.B. Pip’s got bear trouble in The Long Dark . Blue mosquitos , via Caroline. Let’s take a moment to revisit I Am...
Aug 18, 2017•2 hr 22 min
Chris, Tom and Tom discuss Artifact, the Dota 2 International, Hellblade, Shadow Tactics, The Shrouded Isle, Lawbreakers and more. Please note: we discuss the recent Hellblade debate, including some mechanical spoilers, from around the 28 minute mark to the 49 minute mark. After that, there’s a less-potentially-spoilery chat about the game itself. Here’s the announcement trailer for Artifact . …and this is the reaction it got . Contrast with this trailer for a patch number from last year. Here’s...
Aug 11, 2017•2 hr 51 min
Pip, Chris, Tom and Tom celebrate 200 episodes the only way they know how: by doing another episode. Featuring The Long Dark, Tacoma, ducks, rum and time. Plus: looking forward to Guild Wars 2’s next expansion, the future of esports and VR and dancing and stuff as experienced at ChinaJoy, hastily abandoned segue ambitions, meditations upon the nature of change, meditations upon the nature of Captain Morgan’s, Pyre, Blernsball, ducks, the price of Tom Francis, Tom Francis’ strangest noise, Shepar...
Aug 04, 2017•3 hr 20 min
Two Toms and a Pip gather to discuss the death of everything, Unity’s rep, Pyre, Walden, and QUERN. Also, mad clunking noises! We had to record on a table with the old mic this week, so apologies for the dip in sound quality. Normal services will resume shortly. Show notes: Contrary to what we thought on the podcast this week, MS Paint lives ! MS are just moving it to their store as a free app. Flash is well dead though. Or soon to be. Desktop Tower Defense will still destroy your spare time. Th...
Jul 29, 2017•2 hr 6 min
Chris and Tom S are joined by PC Gamer editor-in-chief Samuel Roberts to discuss The Sexy Brutale, GTA Online and open world co-op. Then, suddenly, Pip! Plus: CBeebies on fire near the Sennheiser Gate, pulling out of Everything, old Dota grudges, the mysteries of the Sweaty Brutale, and an encounter with Kelvin in The David Cage. Play Hitman backwards in The Sexy Brutale . Tom and Sam have been on a long journey with GTA Online . Pip has specific problems with Walden, a game . Is this the egg th...
Jul 21, 2017•1 hr 49 min
Pip, Tom and Chris discuss VR, Hollow Knight, Slime Rancher, a little PUBG, esports, whether or not we should have more wine, and puns. Plus: quadges from quadges, bodily censure, the 7/10 fallacy, and loads more. Be summoned by the hot takes bell, be repelled by the heady tang of fresh plort. when you go dark souls with your best mates in VR perhaps??? Tom’s been playing the lovely Hollow Knight . Pip’s true monstrosity has been revealed via Slime Rancher . Chris is still plunkin’ away at that ...
Jul 14, 2017•3 hr 3 min
Chris, Tom F and John R discuss Tyranny, Zombie Night Terror, Diablo III, Everspace, and so on. Also: a fate worse than Bejewelled Infinite, things gravity can’t do, and a briefcase full of snakes. New Overwatch man, Doomfist . Evil Genius 2 is being worked on by Rebellion. The first one was made by Elixir. John’s been playing Tyranny and Zombie Night Terror . Follow Bonetom’s further boneadventures in Diablo III: Bone of Bones . Tom has failed to extract the Dark Horse from a mine in West of Lo...
Jul 07, 2017•2 hr 6 min
Chris, Tom, Tom and secret Pip discuss Steam sales, Diablo III’s Necromancer, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and more. Plus: meditations on the question of review-bombing, how the radishes are doing, assorted crime, and an extended discussion of Poirot for some reason. Looks like meat’s back on the prix fixe, boys. Diablo III got its Necromancer this week. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds got a brilliant patch, too. Chris wrote this article for Eurogamer about PUBG’s roots in dodgy survival shooter...
Jun 30, 2017•2 hr 35 min
