The Crate And Crowbar

Chris, Alex and Marsh are inconvenienced, entertainingly, by Monster Hunter Rise, marvel at Spider-Man’s well-considered nodes, sniff in trepidation at Book of Travels, and bop skeletons in VR weapon-waggler Legendary Tales. Hear us shiver and quack our opinions about the Microsoft buyout of Activision Blizzard in this seamlessly integrated addendum to the main pod. Nathan [...]

Tom S and Marsh don a tux, down a martini and inexplicably detonate a telescope array as they look back at Daniel Craig’s 15 years in the role of James Bond. Does the blue-eyed man-slab manage to escape the deadly traps laid by the series’ own outdated idiom? Which of the films would they happily [...]

Marsh and Graham come together to drop children into lava in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, destroy buildings in Teardown Part Two, infect entire populations in WorldBox, and for a change of pace, construct some lovely spaceships in Sunshine Heavy Industries. Also discussed: the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Community, and why you should [...]

Alex, Tom F and Chris present Our Caveats About The Games of the Year. Among the games at least partially endorsed are: The Ascent, Chicory, Valheim, Hitman III, Deathloop, Metroid Dread, Halo Infinite, Life is Strange: True Colors and Chivalry 2. Happy holidays, and see you in 2022! This is a pod about the games [...]

Welcome to the Alex And Tom Experience, in which Tom slides across the visually gorgeous but mechanically sparse Solar Ash and Alex descends into the visually sparse but mechanically delightful Dungeon Encounters. Also discussed: Returnal, Demon’s Souls, Radiohead and The Matrix. Radiohead’s Kid A Mnesia virtual museum/experience is neat, but also covered in QR codes [...]

Jamie and Chris catch the last ferry to The Crock Pot for an extended, episode by episode recap of Mike Flanagan’s big themed, warm hearted Netflix horror show, Midnight Mass. Meet Steve and find out what His Deal is, learn about the redemptive power of hats, and listen as we lengthily monologue on the efficacy [...]

Tom S, Chris and Marsh discuss roly-poly science-mysticism in Exo One, unpick the odd decisions of Halo Infinite’s meta, get trapped in the batshit progression trench of Battlefield 2042 and become a good-time wombat in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Sorry again for the occasional pops on Chris’s audio. We thought we’d fixed it in [...]

Tom F and Marsh are joined and gently corralled by expert telly-brain Jamie Brittain to discuss the beloved Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Is it the greatest of all Treks? (Yes.) And why? And has the art that made it great been lost? Let’s begin these show notes as the series itself does: with its [...]

Alex and Chris talk a moderate amount about two games that talk a lot: Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy and its heroic banterboxes, and Forza Horizon 5 and its lovebombing festival of wheels. Also discussed: the newly announced SteamWorld, the latest Mass Effect tease, and Elden Ring. Apologies for some stuttering on Chris’s audio track [...]

Chris, Tom and Marsh stick their hands in the hot-take box and withdraw spicy and/or arid opinions on Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, the seminal Fortnite emote. Great Whomps, Giger Babies and Very Expository Wives… this is only the beginning! Haris Durrani’s essay on the muslim influences and intertexts of Frank Herbert’s Dune. … And [...]

Alex and Marsh wander a cursed corner of England to shamelessly plug Marsh’s latest RPG venture, Stranger & Stranger, attempt to card-shark their way out of a cabin in Inscryption and hop, lightly, through hardcore roguelike Rift Wizard. Teeth: Stranger & Stranger is the name of Marsh and Jim’s roleplaying mini-campaign. Our last two games [...]

Marsh and Graham perform an act of self-sacrifice and of public service, by inviting all ten Fast And The Furious movies into the Crate And Crowbar, locking the doors, and setting the building alight. Yes! We discuss the entire Fast Saga, including the Dominic Toretto ennealogy and spin-off Hobbs & Shaw. As explained last week, [...]

Chris and Alex gather to put tshirts on an alligator in Far Cry 6 and flat caps on cat men in Splitgate. Also discussed: Chalomet, Crowe, weirs, Deathloop, and the future of the pod. Timothy Chalomet’s Wonka origin movie is sadly just called Wonka.You can watch papier-mâché Russell Crowe fall into Pultney weir anytime you [...]

Marsh, Chris and Tom S journey through the Moebius-inspired deserts of Sable, bash through the skeleton-filled dungeons of Diablo 2 Resurrected, and call for mother in the little adventures of Battlefield 2042. To close, they trade little kisses with the film adaptation of The Green Knight. Sable is a beautiful, thoughtfully constructed adventure about the [...]

The traveller returns! Marsh, Alex and Tom F reunite to spin a tapestry about the swinging spider platformer Webbed, to swath the tactical satisfaction of WH40k: Battlesector in silk, and to suck the liquidised Deathloop through their mouth orifices. Also discussed: Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Tights In Fight Spaces, and Darth Maul naked in a shower. [...]

Alex and Tom S gather to discuss the surprising amount of PC news to emerge from this week’s PlayStation event, before moving on to the musical weaponry of roguelikelike shmup Beat Blast and the newly portable RPG with good teleportation, Divinity: Original Sin 2. Also discussed: progress in shmup Mushihimesama, ruining games with mods, a [...]

Alex, Tom S and Graham retreat from the terrible non-fungible present into the comforting embrace of the past, with the sequel to cult classic Psychonauts, the recent remaster and expansion of Quake, and the last great real-time strategy game, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. Also discussed: a good boy, our hoarding instincts, and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. [...]

Tom S and Chris gather to discuss the everyone-gets-an-F22 convenience apocalypse of Project Wingman, the flippy martial arts of Marvel’s Avengers: War For Wakanda, and the rise of civilization in the Civ-like Humankind. Also discussed: jackets in Cyberpunk, Among Us in Fortnite, and school plays in trouble. Cyberpunk 2077 received a new patch which added [...]

Alex and Tom Senior soak in the drippings of the rich in beautiful topdown shooter The Ascent, descend further into bullet hell via several classic shmups, and relax to the heavenly harp of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Plus, discussion of Call Of Duty’s Double Agent mode, and Tom’s back on the chess. Call Of Duty is [...]

It’s all hands on deck – Steam Deck, that is – as Alex, Tom F and Graham gather to discuss Valve’s latest foray into hardware territory. Plus, Tom explains the comforts of roguelike deckbuilder Roguebook, and Alex uncovers the mysterious city of (people who might be turned into) gold in The Forgotten City. Also discussed: [...]