The Crate And Crowbar

Chris, Tom, Tom and Alex contend with Guilty Gear Xrd, Lumines Remastered, Sword With Sauce, Jurassic World: Evolution, a bit of Vamypr, and get in deep with Big Scorsese. Tom S has been watching, and sometimes playing, Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-. Tom S and Alex have been playing Hackmud, which is weird for Chris. Alex [...]

Pip and the Toms discuss a surprising amount of news, most of it Steamy, then share thoughts on Jurassic World Evolution, Cryptark, Fortnite, and Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Chris has been hard at work on the wordy side of hackmud 2.0, which is going live next week and will be 25% off when you read this. [...]

In which Chris, Alex and Pip promise to avoid overanalysing E3, and to focus on the things we’re excited about, and then do exactly the opposite. John Shuttleworth’s I Can’t Back To Savoury Now, the soundtrack to this year’s E3, and indeed every year’s E3. From Bethesda: Fallout 76 (don’t forget to look up the [...]

Chris, Tom F and John R chat Far: Lone Sails, Dicey Dungeons, Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and a bit of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Plus: the secret handshakes shared by the kin of the brood-sergeant, top chuffin’, the Haddaway collab we’ve been waiting for, our hottest takes of 2013, an endless sense of Bluth, the [...]

Pip, Chris and Alex consider the pre-E3 videogame news wasteland, revisit City of Brass, clean up House Flipper, and consider Idle Champions and the specific anxieties of the clicker genre. Plus: tragedy as volcanic death comes to Emmerdale. Here’s the trailer for Fallout 76, and Kotaku’s article about what it actually is, maybe. Here’s the [...]

Chris, Pip, Tom S and Alex dig deep to yield icy cold takes on Call of Duty: Blops Four, ‘Bio-Shock’, A Quiet Sleep, and assorted nonsense. Plus: the importance of Little Boots on the ground, the medium’s most lootable subcultures, whether it was or wasn’t all yellow, whether two Ayn Rands do indeed make an [...]

Chris, Pip, Tom F and – for one night only – Marsh (!) discuss Atomic Heart, more Far Cryin’, more Spire Slayin’, SpyParty, Murderous Pursuits, and City of Brass. Also: feeling nothing about sunsets, playing with orbs, holding for a moment in the hope position, the struggle of games to be effectively didactic, the history [...]

Chris and Tom S discuss Red Dead Redemption 2, new Tomb Raider, the state of triple-A development in general, dogs again, and videogame Millibands. The Red Dead Redemption 2 trailer – a splash? Of musky cowboy… water? Destiny 2: Warmind – Chris will play it, because he’s already bought it. Tom was left cold by [...]

Tom, Chris and Tom discuss Campo Santo’s move to Valve, the latest Ludum Dare, things what dogs do, Battletech, and Frostpunk. Plus: who you actually play as in The Sims, playing games rightly wrong, and legally mandating the ‘woo’ button. Here’s more on the Campo Santo news. Tom F’s big list o’ Ludum Dare recommendations [...]

Live from Rezzed! Chris, Tom F, Graham and Alex discuss their games of the show, and also Crusader Kings II. Plus: real live questions! Note: we’re still waiting to get the footage of this episode back from the Rezzed guys, so the YouTube version will be a little later than usual. Sorry! Here’s a PC [...]

Chris talks to Hannah Flynn from Failbetter about Sunless Skies, life in game development, reaching broader audiences, the myriad flaws of Zoolander 2, and more. This is the last in our series of chats from Rezzed – hope you’ve enjoyed them! Find out more about Sunless Skies here, and find this episode on YouTube here. [...]

At Rezzed we sat down with Disco Elysium design and writing lead Robert Kurvitz to discuss entering the games industry as an artist, the complexities of RPG design, politics, and disco. Find out more about Disco Elysium here, and you can listen to this episode on YouTube if you prefer. The Crate & Crowbar is [...]

Surprise! While we were at Rezzed we recorded a series of short, informal chats with interesting gamespeople. In this first episode, Chris and Alex sit down with X-COM creator Julian Gollop and Snapshot Games co-founder David Kaye to talk Phoenix Point. You can find out more about Phoenix Point on the game’s official site and, [...]

Chris, Alex and Tom S consider the end of SteamSpy, Radical Heights, Jalopy, All Walls Must Fall, and Tom’s daily Slay The Spire tendency. Plus: too much rum, wonky grammar lessons, and the low hop of the robots. SteamSpy announces its inability to continue operating via tweet. Boss Key’s Radical Heights. Here’s Alice O’Connor being [...]

Tom F, Chris and Alex discuss Far Cry 5 (again), Superhot VR, and Minit. Then, a chat about Into The Breach is followed by questions from questions calamity. Plus: the mystery of the third Tom, the lamentable sacking of the sex helicopter, and – what comes, dangling upon a string? Toot toot, it’s the low-hanging [...]

Chris, Pip reunite with Tom Francis to discuss GDC highlights, Sunless Skies, Far Cry 5, and first impressions of All Walls Must Fall. You can find the full IGF results here. Everybody love a bit of Wobble Garden. Rezzed! We’re doing it. Pip’s been playing Sunless Skies. Tom has been playing Far Cry 5 and [...]

Chris and Pip gather in GDC week to discuss basically no news from GDC, many short games you should play, and space mistakes you shouldn’t make in Scavenger SV-4. Plus: a showcase of Pip’s ability to remember a grudge from four years ago, but not a song from last week. Jalopy is out next week. [...]

Pip, Chris and Alex discuss Artifact, Deep Rock Galactic, Vermintide II, and the inevitable end of everything. Plus: π bake it, Garfield’s first name, co-op FOMO, the dings of Catchphrase, Dota Plus, and my libido (an Amiibo.) Anyone for questions? I’ll pour! This is Artifact, the Dota 2 card game, from Vlav. And this is [...]

Tom S, Chris and Alex check in on VR, consider the gorgeous eggs of Final Fantasy XV, and ponder the literary aspirations of Beckett. Oculus’ critical Rift whoopsie has now been resolved. Here’s The Day Today’s remarkable foreshadowing of the experience of using Google Earth VR. Here’s Final Fantasy XV. And here’s the most important [...]

Tom, Tom and Chris discuss a range of ways in which one might fail upwards, from Into The Breach to Phoenix Point to the spooky bayou of Hunt: Showdown. Plus: my dog ate Hunt The Freeman, accent quandries, questionable etymology, and a sad dearth of whale colour options. Into The Breach is out now and, [...]