The Crate And Crowbar

Alex, Tom F and Marsh island-hop in peerless push-block puzzler A Monster’s Expedition, island-cop in murder mystery Paradise Killer, and Ireland-top in medieval wife-finding interface, Crusader Kings III. Plus! Hadean Lands and Defense of the Oasis. Enjoy the agony of U-turning marketing executives as a result of the Sony’s PS5 showcase. Is this the best [...]

Graham, Tom S and Chris pick apart the latest Ubisoft Forward like carrion on road-kill, before swooping on, beaks bloodied, to devour Mafia: Definitive Edition, Marvel’s Avengers and Mortal Shell. Mmm-mm! Ubisoft Forward’s livestream and Yves Guillemot’s apology. Geoff Keighley was not impressed. For the love of God, Ubisoft, DO NOT BAIT HIS DISPLEASURE! Has [...]

Tom F, Chris and Marsh offer late takes on the quickly cooling Gamescom starch bomb, ferry frogs to the great beyond in Spiritfarer and nitpick the nitpicking, and other ape antics, in epic evolution yarn, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. Gamescom was put in the microwave for 6 minutes and served without butter. Tom Clancy’s Elite [...]

Chris, Tom F and Marsh ogle the inter-corporate fisticuffs of Epic v Apple, boggle at the buffs of roguelike shooter Risk of Rain 2, make bassist assumptions in identity puzzler Family and fear ducks in Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s Tim vs Tim! Chris Plante has a good summary and analysis of the Epic/Apple lawsuit in [...]

Alex, Chris and Marsh dispute the tutes of Horizon: Zero Dawn, unpack throwback hack-n-slash Book of Demons, wibble beans in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout and quibble shtick in meta point-n-click There Is No Game, before returning to our briny home. Pony Island and Hex are the Daniel Mullins Games games which precede the recently unveiled [...]

Tom F, Alex and Marsh gather to discuss Obsidian’s backyard survival game Grounded, go postal, in a very tranquil way, in Thousand Threads, sink into a fug of nostalgia for Halo 3, toot flutes and avoid parps in Ghosts of Tsushima and briefly descend into Hades. Dana Schwartz’s tweet about Reddit user NoNoNo_OhOhOh’s post about [...]

Tom S, Graham and Marsh congeal into a mass of gnashing mouths to chew over indie creature feature Carrion, disrespect the lore in Star Wars: Battlefront II and smash many glass men in the expandalone Superhot: Mind Control Delete. We talk about the Xbox Showcase. You can watch the full stream here, and, because I [...]

Alex, Tom S and Graham minotalk and cyclopine about the forthcoming Total War Saga: Troy, delight in the hikes and hot bilge of Death Stranding and feel all kinds of 7/10 about Ghosts of Tsushima. Here’s that story on testing seeds for impossibility in Slay The Spire. Mentioned as Alex’s spire-alike of choice: Monster Train [...]

Chris, Tom S and Marsh pore over the Final Hours of Half-Life: Alyx, soar over the Hyper Scape, chew over Rocket Arena, simply cannot get over Call of Duty: Warzone, and gush over, er, chess. “Not a new game but a good one.” You heard it here first. Geoff Keighley’s illuminating and partially accurate docu-app: [...]

Alex, Rich McC and Marsh attempt to master the remastered Red Alert, get decked online in WWII-themed collectable card game KARDS and prepare to try self-professed Dark Souls homage Mortal Shell. Valorant. Skins. Expensive. Boring. Do better, News. The Ubisoft longboat is very leaky: the latest vid of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. You can play Command [...]

Pip and Chris return for another deep dive (!) into the state of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. We delve into the diving discourse, discuss the various quandaries of lategame life, and assemble our wishlists for the future of the game. You can find this bonus episode on YouTube, and our intro music is, as ever, [...]

Graham, Tom F and Chris aim their laser-like takes to dismantle the zen pleasures of Hardspace: Shipbreaker, the tawdry traumas of The Last of Us Part II, the chaotic bird-butt coop of KeyWe and the narrative clunk of Cloudpunk. Do a physics on men, shelves and concrete, in this throwback shooter: Trepang2. Do a physics [...]

Alex, Tom S and Marsh swelter and sweat through a discussion of ecstatic automation in Satisfactory, the didactic bleakness of The Last of Us Part II, the long view of Humankind and dire straits in Desperados III. Cherish your mucky factory in Satisfactory. The Last of Us Part II sounds unplayably horrible to me, but [...]

Chris, Alex and Marsh ponder penguin chicanery, Destiny’s destiny, dialogue-by-card-deck in Signs of the Sojourner, conversation-as-combat in Griftlands, redeem Mass Effect: Andromeda, resist scratching tingles and rejoice at Desperados III. What is shape? Shape is crime. What is going on with Aiball / Penguin Cretins? Gamesindustry.biz have talked about it here. A Monster’s Expedition – [...]

Alex, Tom F and Graham muse on the eternal E3 news, marvel at itchio’s BLM bundle, lament pyromantic stealth game Wildfire, adore deck-builder Monster Train and flail further in Half-Life: Alyx. IGN’s eternal E3. The Escapist’s indie stream. Sony’s PS5 stream. I found it unconscionably boring, to my surprise and dismay. Undaunted: The Heretic One [...]

Tom S, Chris and Marsh try to fathom the bloody ways of Stoneshard, bloody the fathoms in Maneater, embrace doldrums in Sludge Life, bang the old drum for Fez, make other things go bang in Receiver 2, and probe wholes, holes and souls in The Witness. At the beginning of this episode we express our [...]

Sorry for the pops and crackles on this one! Alex and Marsh are joined by special and exceedingly distant guest, Rich McCormick, to discuss Noclip’s Arkane documentary, space thriller Observation and space driller Deep Rock Galactic. Wholesome Direct – not just a showcase of games about frogs wearing Nike Air Jordans. Noclip’s fabulous Arkane documentary [...]

Alex, Chris and Marsh gather to be confounded by Crucible, the first foray into videogames by billionaire devourer of iguana flesh, Jeff Bezos, and admire acrobatic aerial shmup Jet Lancer. Crucible is out! Should Crucible be out? HMM. Whither the edgy boys go? They go to be a sharkborg. Fly, fly, up and away in [...]

Tom F and Alex are joined by special guests and storied devs Soren Johnson and (at the end) Leyla Johnson – CEO and president of Mohawk Games, respectively – to talk about Old World, an historical, epic strategy game. And polygamy. You can get in on Old World’s Early Access phase via the Epic Games [...]

Tom S, Chris and Marsh lay themselves bare to discuss the Xbox showcase, sample the tasty-tasty-tasty open world comfort food of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, unspool tubes in Filament and eye-roll at time-gribblies in Close to the Sun. The XBOX XERIEX X is coming and, if anyone notices, they will be able to play some [...]