The Crate and Crowbar

Tom S, Alex and Marsh graft themselves into a singular mass of thrashing limbs and return to Elden Ring’s shattered land, get lost in the knot of Tunic’s shortcuts and enjoy the drizzle of Gran Turismo 7. Be wary of lore, in short, hole ahead: Elden Ring. Homage to Zelda games of yore, Tunic. The [...]

Jamie and Marsh compile a list of 50 movies, released across the last 22 years, which are dead good. Are they the deadest good? Decide for yourself! They certainly contain all manner of blood-drinking, cow-kissing, custard-selling, marmalade-making, bestiality, incest and murder. Phantom Thread There Will Be Blood The Piano Teacher The White Ribbon Cache The [...]

Chris, Tom S and Marsh deliver the world’s very first takes that anyone has ever had about Elden Ring. Salute the skill of Bumbo, fear the knife-eagle’s fire-bollock, regret the crafting system and wonder, “Why is it always behind?” Are show notes even necessary for this episode? Elden Ring is the new game from From [...]

Jamie offers Marsh a cinematic serving suggestion: a pairing of Hitchcock’s classic 1940 adaptation of Rebecca with the 1948 version of Brighton Rock starring Richard Attenborough. Discussed: hauntings, Hell and the occult origins of beef tea. You can watch both of these films for free on The Inter-Net! Rebecca is on Youtube and Brighton Rock [...]

Chris and Marsh define irrelevance by recording a podcast hours before the release of the biggest game of the year so far, and instead discuss Destiny 2’s Witch Queen expansion, brutalist physics puzzler ABRISS, Total War: Warhammer 3, how much whomp you can put in a bog, and more. Destiny 2‘s shaggy dog story about [...]

Jamie and Alex take a trip up the castellated spires and lethal staircases of the Castlevania series. We cover both the bonkers camp of the Symphony Of The Night-likes, and also the lethal twitching of the 8 & 16 bit games on Old Nintendos. Yes in that order, as this is a very personal and [...]

Tom S and Marsh discuss the underwhelming goon-kicking reward loop of Dying Light 2, the high-calibre clobbering but confusing structure of Sifu, and the many ways of being stuck in Expeditions: Rome. Dying Light 2: Staaaaaay Human is an expansive parkour game with comically wonko interpersonal drama and surprisingly crap combat. Hybrid tactics/strategy RPG Expeditions: [...]

Jamie, Graham and Chris get lost in the desert of the real for three and half hours. Join them as they discuss the several Matrices, velcro, dads, bad squids, comedy French Dracula bastards, whether Geoff Keighley is real, whether films themselves exist, the “vocabulary of power”, the emotional logistics of sofas, 5D aeroplanes – and [...]

Graham, Alex and Marsh revel in the dopamine hit of spook-’em-shmup, Vampire Survivors, grumble about Halo Infinite, cultivate occult vegetables in Strange Horticulture and use children as ammunition in Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Starting out strong, it’s Robotron with Ghosts and Upgrades, aka, Vampire Survivors. And why not? Also playable in your browser. There may [...]

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 [...]