The Crate And Crowbar

Alex, Chris and Marsh take on the Pied Poper in A Plague Tale: Innocence, pootle across the Sea of Thieves, burp their way through Sigma Theory: Global Cold War and leave a faint but distinctly colonic whiff of Dota in their wake. BUY BUY BUY And people did – specifically they went and bought all [...]

Tom, Chris, Alex and Marsh rejoice in the return of Half-Life, coo at the UI of Unity of Command II, marvel at the muddle of Death Stranding and spark up our Good Hot Swords in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. This episode is brought to you in association with The People’s Lidl Rum David Bowie [...]

Alex, Chris and Marsh provide only the most deletable content as they marvel at the obscene indulgence of Death Stranding, tumble through infinity in Manifold Garden and test the limits of dark ecstasy in Lust From Beyond: Prologue. Don’t open with the genital shoggoth. Brian David Gilbert has made a Hideo Kojima name generator. That’s [...]

Marsh is joined by artist John Roberts to sleuth through Jenny LeClue: Detectivu, unpick the mysteries of Tangle Tower and expose deceptions in Telling Lies. Also: class war and Photoshop brushes. Fallout 1st is undergoing a proletariat revolution. EA’s stuff is back on Steam now. Cool? The Steam Library has been revamped. Hm. Detectiving and [...]

Marsh, Alex, Chris, both Toms and (occasionally Pip) assemble for the dawn of the podcast’s third century. Featuring Outer Worlds, more Disco Elysium, Radio Commander, Teamfight Tactics and more. Plus: the rise of Norman Buffus, British Public Transport Elysium, an extremely long conversation about pants, books, the cursed Beeb, and some vital Tom Francis news. [...]

Chris and Marsh get the comms horn for Fortnite’s spectacular server shutdown, eat the wave of FOMO in Destiny 2 and unleash their inner twat upon Disco Elysium. Also: house rules for goblins. Fortnite Chapter 2 is a marketing coup and some sort of game, too, I guess. A good thread on the aforementioned. Chris [...]

Toms Francis and Senior join Marsh to discuss dismissive dad death in Indivisible and lobby for gun-lobbing in both Borderlands 3 and John Wick Hex. Also: why PCs are awful and no one should build them. Please, don’t say “fampany”. Blizzard’s incredible, punitive reaction to a pro-player speaking out about Hong Kong. UsTwo Games got [...]

Tom F, Alex and Marsh discuss the voxely promise of Teardown and existential terror of Microsoft Flight Simulator, return to Destiny redux, play some holes in What the Golf? and get nailed by every pixel in Noita. Put that in your leviathan and smoke it. Admire the restrained scope and exquisite smashiness of Teardown by [...]

Tom F and Chris break into the pod chamber to discuss the latest wave of gaming subscription programmes, the pipe edge situations of Overland, and some game about a goose you probably haven’t heard of. You’ve always got some redundant beans. The subs models in question are Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, Humble Monthly and [...]

Chris, Tom S and Marsh discuss The Hunt: Showdown, Nocked! True Tales of Robin Hood and Astral Chain. Plus things that tinkle and jangle, things that waggle to make friars happy and things that should be renamed, remade and covered with moons. It’s a busy weekend for game releases: honk at a farmer in Untitled [...]

Chris, Tom F, Alex and… Marsh (!) discuss Wilmot’s Warehouse, Guild Wars 2, Slay The Spire’s new class and Control. Plus: what’s that wizard’s problem anyway, the tricky issue of endings, David Cage’s Hamlet, and so on. One is a box in Wilmot’s Warehouse. Here’s the excellent trailer, featuring Pip! Six birthdays all at once [...]

Tom F and Alex are joined by special guest Mike Cook: AI researcher, indie dev, and friend of the podcast. We get into AI judging games, combining games, designing games, and failing to understand what’s so good about walls. Also discussed: long Cebs in The International, dialogue style in A Short Hike, gossip in Fire [...]

Chris, Tom F and Alex discuss Dicey Dungeons, Jupiter Hell, Exanima and Fire Emblem. Plus: arguably the worst way of categorising games we’ve ever come up with, and that’s saying something. I’m sorry, but for physics reasons I need you to cradle me and lower me to the earth. We’ve all been playing Dicey Dungeons, [...]

Chris, Pip and Tom F briefly return to autobattlers before discussing A Short Hike, Stones of Solace, Islanders, and the faults of a variety of algorithms. All this, just so that an otter can say well done. Pip’s lives in Teamfight Tactics now. …with breaks for Stones of Solace. Tom has taken A Short Hike [...]

Chris and both Toms wander in late to discuss assorted retro shooters, Nowhere Prophet, Fire Emblem, naughty semaphore, and additional tepid takes. I’m a murder president on the go, and I need my fix. Tom S’s been playing a big pile of all-caps retro shooters, including AMID EVIL, DUSK, Ion Fury. Tom F has been [...]

Tom F, Chris and Alex use videogames’ full name as they discuss Kingdom Come, Bloodstained, Griftlands, Mechanicus, The Witcher 3 and more. Chris has been pondering Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus. Alex has been developing an art collection in Assassin’s Creed: It’s A Real Journey and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Tom’s been [...]

Autobattlers agogo. Pip and Chris take some time out from their busy wizard management schedule to discuss Valve’s Steam Lab before delivering the definitive verdict on the world’s array of autochesses. The Steam Labs page has all of the info you need about Valve’s disparate attempts to replace me and everyone I know with a [...]

Tom F, Chris and John discuss the cutthroat business of wizard cards, the biting bureaucracy of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and the travails of high finance in Hitman 2 New York. Here’s a picture of a gem that might belong to a new, free, Slay The Spire character. A lot of people sure have played Dota Underlords, [...]

Chris, Tom F and Alex revisit Life is Strange, consider time’s cooldown in Touhou Luna Nights, chew noisily on Dota Underlords, and fling themselves over Shape of the World. I’ve activated the four rocks… show me the staircase. Tom’s returned to Life is Strange. Here’s the blog post by Ashly Burch that Tom mentions. Note: [...]

Pip, Chris and Tom F dive into a big pile of E3 nonsense followed by a big pile of questions nonsense, considering the noun-circle ramifications of both. We’re DONE, Octavian! You know what you did! Here’s that Watch Dogs: Legion footage from E3. Also, Phil Savage’s review of the pub from Everybody’s Gone To The [...]