The Crate and Crowbar

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 [...]

More Animal Crossing with Pip and Chris! We talk island design, the pleasures and pitfalls of meeting your inexplicably naked heroes, put Blathers on trial for art crime, and consider the ups and downs of multiplayer island life. You can find this bonus episode on YouTube, and our intro music is, as ever, Clambake by [...]

Alex, Tom F and Graham e-gather to e-give their e-takes on the Assassin’s Creed reveal, get kicked right in the breach phase, courtesy of XCOM: Chimera Squad, and amp up the wide-men of Gears Tactics. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has been announced. Watch the Vikings raid and pillage – but in a good way – in [...]

Tom S, Chris and Marsh evade the Gull Squad to bring you takes on the trousers of tactics spin-off XCOM: Chimera Squad, tubestation construction sim StationFlow and kraken-based illusory-victory machine Magic: The Gathering Arena. This isn’t relevant to show, but I think it’s important to say at the top of this that Tom would absolutely [...]

Tom F and Marsh are joined by the mellifluous voice of Graham Smith to have weird wives in Sigma Theory, poke fingers into Half-Life: Alyx’s fungal bird beaks and enjoy Valorant in the brief twilight that heralds our inevitable obsolescence. A new game from Firaxis comes out next week! It’s XCOM: Chimera Squad, aka Tactical [...]

Alex, Chris and both Toms (!) reach across timezones to discuss sunny getaways in Hitman 2, fraught getaways in Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and more. I’m going to be honest with you. It was very hot in my office when we recorded this episode, so I opened the window a crack. I [...]

Hello! Again! We’ve done another one of these! Chris and Pip cross the egg event horizon as they check in on island life, two weeks later. You can find this bonus episode on YouTube, if you like. As ever, our intro music is Clambake by The Mandibles. Some show notes! Here’s the website that lets [...]

Alex, Marsh, Chris and Tom Senior discuss the most topical games of the age, including but not limited to The Room VR, Call of Duty for some reason, hunting in Red Dead 2, and Mount & Blade: Bannerlord. We’re still getting used to this new remote recording setup, and we’ll be looking to invest in [...]

Marsh, Chris and Alex attempt our first remote pod to discuss AI-augmented game development and the various verbs of Doom Eternal. This is a shorter pod than usual as we get used to a new way of recording – but we’re going to do our best to continue to deliver hot pods every week. We [...]

Hello! In this special mini-pod, Pip and Chris share their experiences of Animal Crossing: New Horizons while playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. No spoilers, unless you didn’t know about the time that Chris killed his husband and fled to an island retreat with the family silver. Things are tough all over, and so we thought [...]

Chris, Marsh and a moth get drippy then descend into the underworld of Iris And The Giant, adjudicate on the latest Destiny drama and order a 14-inch stuffed-crust Warzone. The crust is stuffed with guns. Bane of trans-pacific trade and the NBA: Geoff Keighley. Wash your hands to be spared his wrath. Alan Hazelden has [...]

Chris and Alex discuss some actual games news and bury themselves kneck-deep in Dark Future and World of Horror – just in time for a special report from salty ocean correspondent Pip! Plus: voice controls, work-life balance, the hot panic of an embarassing gaming moment, our go-to grunts, and other emanations from this bumper episode [...]