The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

Perhaps not the most pressing candidate for the remake treatment, nevertheless, EA Motive found itself remaking 2008's sci-fi horror shooter Dead Space for 'current gen' in 2023. Leon and Jon - along with contributors for the Cane and Rinse community - consider the changes and differences from the original to the all-singing, all-dancing update. Was the whole project worthwhile? Listen in and find...

Star Wars + DOOM = awesome success. A simple enough equation for mid-90s LucasArts, but is there more to Dark Forces than that? Leon, Chris Worthington, Darren and Tony blast and puzzle their way through this first-person shooter adventure, with missives from Cane and Rinse's community alliance along the way. From the MS-DOS original to the recent Nightdive remaster, we have all planet-destroying...

The twin-stick shooter never fully caught on in the arcade's golden age, and yet, some years after the beloved Robotron 2084, Eugene Jarvis and his team returned to that particular mechanical interface wellspring for another go round, with 1990's spiritual successor Smash TV. Leon, Jesse, Michiel and community contributors scream bloody murder at Smash TV's ultraviolent, loud, frenetic, brutal and...

In this issue of Cane and Rinse, Chris, Jon, Leah and Sean discuss 2024's Minishoot' Adventures. A notable PC/Mac exclusive (at the time of recording), made by SoulGame Studio. This top-down action adventure borrows heavily from The Legend of Zelda and mixes it with bullet-dodging, dexterity-based gameplay normally found in bullet hell shoot 'em ups.

The oft-cited standard bearer of VR gaming.  Half-Life: Alyx offered gamers near total immersion in the Half-Life universe when many were experiencing the first Covid-19 lockdown.  The game carried the weight of being the first Half-Life game in 13 years and the reason to purchase a Valve Index headset. Did it bear up under that weight?

Our Tony's nomination for the 14th year of podcasts is 2007's first-person survival horror,  S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl. Leon, Jon and James join him in immersing themselves in this notoriously demanding and spiky - if ultimately rewarding - FPS. We also hear tales from The Zone via our trusty community contributors.

Lead developer Andrew Shouldice stuffed every single corner of Tunic's world with secrets and mysteries, and created a wonderfully faithful, detailed and devious retro-style game manual to help and/or baffle players. Tom, Brian and Chris delve deep into the indie adventure, assessing its controversial combat and widely beloved soundtrack.

Presented explicitly as the world's first "stupid game" or "baka game", Segare Ijiri is a pretty well known cultural touchstone in Japan, but virtually unknown outside of it, even among fans of Japanese gaming obscura. Michiel, Brian, Leah and Sean attempt to cross language and cultural barriers to delve into this strange piece of software... and surprisingly discover meaning in what was purposefu...

A vintage game about an anachronistic job delivering a dying medium. Atari's arcade hit Paperboy is 40! Leon, Brian, Chris Worthington, Dan and community contributors grip tasselled BMX handlebars and brave the gamut of suburban challenges faced daily by our intrepid news disseminator. As is the custom for these type of shows, we also hear of its many conversions, ports, spin-offs and sequels for...

This week, Cane and Rinse is on strike! It is your choice whether you will salt or scab. Follow Ryan, Chris, James and Jon into the perplexing but provocative pillar of the modern videogame avant-garde, David Kanaga's enigmatic Oikospiel Book I. They discuss abstraction, labour rights, plunderludics, and whether or not it is ethical to make dogs write operas. It's an unusual podcast for an unusual...

Back for a fourteenth year of deep-dive videogame review podcasts, and the first subject for 2025 is SEGA's Panzer Dragoon. Leon, Chris O'Regan, Chris Worthington and Michiel - along with contributions from the Cane and Rinse community - look back at the Saturn CD that spawned a four-game series of dragonborn blasters (and one RPG). Here we focus on the 30-year-old original, as well as its various...

We conclude our thirteenth year of podcasts by covering the all-conquering, 2023 game of the year awards-sweeping, Baldur's Gate 3. Leon, Jay, Leah and Rich - along with contributions from the mighty Cane and Rinse community attempt to do justice to - and even pick a few holes in - this cosmically well-regarded RPG. From our relationships with the characters, to our relationships with each other i...

In the aftermath of the golden age of graphic adventure games, the early 2000s offered plenty of ammunition for those who declared the genre to be dead. Microids was intent on changing the narrative when it released spiritual successor to cult-hit Amerzone, Syberia.  Chris Worthington, James, Michiel and Tony ask themselves if it was successful. 

Team Ancient turned its attention from the urban grime of Streets of Rage 2 to the lush meadows, dry deserts and atmospheric caverns of Oasis for its Mega Drive follow-up, The Story of Thor. Leon, Chris Worthington, Michiel and community contributors quest for the four spirits is on! As usual we discuss the art, the audio and the mashed-up mechanics of this action/RPG hybrid. 

This week's destination is the Last Resort hotel. Luxury, decadence, and packed to the rafters with happy haunts. Ryan Zhao, Leah Haydu, and James Carter brave the halls of the haunted hotel in Luigi's Mansion 3.

In a pre-prequel, pre-Disney's Star Wars world, almost any game featuring George Lucas' galaxy-spanning space opera was greeted with fervour. So it was with Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the N64 and PC in 1998. Leon, Chris Worthington and Jon - along with contributions from you, the listeners - suit up and blast through the entire trilogy, focusing on the original, and GameCube sequels Rogue Leade...

“EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG” Mark Cerny’s first full project as a prodigious teen game creator (after coding a ‘mushroom growing algorithm’ for Millipede) was Atari’s […] The post Marble Madness – Cane and Rinse No.645 appeared first on Cane and Rinse .

Representing the tiny overlap in the Venn diagram of at least two niche subgenres (prehistoric jungle platformers/games with simian protagonists), Juju Densetsu (or Toki) is also a fairly pedestrian, memory-based platform/shooter. Leon, Chris Worthington, Dan and Toki-lover Michiel muse upon why this one has been condemned to apparent obscurity, despite receiving some acclaim, multiple home conver...

Installation artist, juggler, balloon artist and first-time game developer William Chyr told himself it would take three months to design a Portal-sized puzzle game. Seven years later, he released a 'counterfactual physics game' that captures the spirit of both M.C. Escher's mind-bending work and the Paris scene in Christopher Nolan's Inception. Thomas, Brian and Chris Worthington chat about the i...

After a tumultuous few years of company takeovers and platform swaps, Rare's Perfect Dark Zero landed as an Xbox 360 console exclusive launch title. Leon, Darren (former Rare), Ryan (Xbox employee) and community contributors pick the prequel apart, 19 years on from its release. Could it live up to the legacy of its N64 forerunner, let alone that game's predecessor GoldenEye 007? Listen in to find...

Just ahead of the release of the fourth instalment in BioWare's fantasy RPG series(if you're a supporter of our Patreon), we finally get around to scrutinising the third game in the series - Dragon Age: Inquisition. Leon, Brian, Leah and Tony have quested long, scouring the plains of Thedas to explore the game's systems and characters - intimately. As usual we also have correspondents from the far...

What better way to spend time in the ocean than to fish while trying not to succumb to ancient malices from the deep? For this is apparently what is on offer with 2023's indie darling, Dredge. Chris O'Regan with James and Brian along with contributions from the Cane and Rinse listenership – tell tall tales of fishes larger than a house they 'allegedly' caught, while fighting off stress induced fat...

Marvel's relatively obscure comic book sci-fi misfits received a huge boost in recognition with their first MCU movie in 2014. Following a sequel and a Telltale series, Square Enix tasked their Eidos Montreal studio with making an action game starring the underdog antiheroes. Leon, Brian, Karl and Leah team up to celebrate the highs and nitpick at the lows of the resulting romp. Along with contrib...

New protagonists for a new era. Initially, officially, considered to be a gaiden, Konami's second game entitled Vampire Killer was arguably canonised as Castlevania: Bloodlines in the USA. Leon, Leah and Sean talk whips, spears, level design and boss fights. Even the always excellent contributions from the Cane and Rinse community can't persuade us to spend much time on the neutered European/Austr...

It could have been Sonic 3D, but the tech wasn't ready. In fact, the game itself wasn't entirely ready when it was due to release, leading to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles coming out on separate (full-price) cartridges. Leon, Leah and Tony - along with community contributors - dash into the eventual complete title, Sonic 3 & Knuckles.