Exquisite Suffering

If we didn't cover this game for the show, I'd have gone my whole life without learning that Bionicles aren't just very boring, but also very racist. That may be too strong... let's say... uncomfortably racially coded. It's hyper-serious and cribs a lot of tribal iconography, which makes it the most 2000s thing imaginable. And we spend the whole episode trying to wrap our heads around it.

This is one of the hardest episodes we've had to record. Fighting games are generally difficult because they don't have many mechanical hooks for us to hold onto. The one saving grace is that most of them have goofy characters we can clown on. Not this one. No, Rise of the Robots is dry and soulless, like a sandwich with no sauce at all.

This is a big one, folks. Conker is an also-ran Rare mascot who is only remembered for the game that was so boring that they had to turn it into a big drunken fart. Lots of people remember this game fondly, but we can't find a slice of charm in it.

Sonic has always been out to save animals from Dr. Robotnik. So it's a little galling when they say "no, really, these interdimensional birds are for real!" However, that's about all there is to complain about here. It's the most playable isometric game we've covered for the show, and its only crime is being a very poor fit as a Sonic game.

Things somehow go downhill from the Dilberito. I'll come clean with you. If you know who Scott Adams is, and you know our general outlook on things, you can probably guess where this episode goes. And if you're not down for that, the first portion of the episode is for you. We talk about the Dilberito.

I gotta say, this one kind of got away from us. It's not good work. But that has to be okay sometimes?

Street Fighter 2010 makes people angry. It posits an alternate future for Ken, where he picks up science and saves the world from his own misused creation. Street Fighter fans are more invested in Ken becoming some kind of dojo master or something boring like that. Choose cyber-Ken to be cool.

Phil Hartman was a hero of comedy. Referred to as "The Glue" on the set of SNL, his special skill was to hold his co-stars together and be whatever they needed in order to make the sketch work. Consummate and dependable supporting players are extremely rare, and he managed to lift everyone around him up in a way that's  admirable. Hartman's untimely death was absurdly tragic, and the fact that one...

Swagman is extremely ugly and bad, so we spend most of our time pitching a new series: The Many Deaths and Infinite Hells of George Costanza. If anyone knows how to get this to Jason Alexander, please let us know.

We managed to do so well for so long, getting through the majority of this episode before getting off on a tear about religion and politics. So, if that's not your thing, this might be uncomfortable for you. However, there's some fun stuff at the beginning!

Riddle me this, riddle me that, then come and listen to us chat. Batman Forever is a profoundly forgettable movie, and the games based on it are almost improbably execrable. Listen in to find out how.

This is the story of shirtless, sweaty men whose pixelated souls are doomed to pit fight forever, surrounded by knife women and Phil who is not dead yet.

The game itself is innocuous enough, and advergaming in general is fine . That's not why this episode is one of our angriest ever. While grasping for straws to research this fairly obscure game, we found the VS Battle Wiki , and we hate it.

The Back to the Future 2 defenders have logged on, though we won't defend this weird game with apparently stolen assets.

Perfect Weapon is a really strange game with a terrible control scheme, so naturally we decided to make this episode a really misguided listicle about file formats.

A debatable kusoge title derails into conversation about probability, and which animal you would inflict the human curse upon.

Y'all forgot that, at one point, Austin Powers was really good. This game, however, isn't. At least not entirely. It's got a great conceit, so just picture your GameBoy Color being your tip calculator with Mike Myers as your guide.

Everyone knows Frogger. It's an okay/fine arcade game with a novel premise, starring one of natures chillest animals. But we had no idea that Konami, of all people, took Frogger and ran with it, creating the extended Frogiverse. And it all began with Frogger: The Great Quest. A frog does not know how to rule a kingdom! It will die!

It would be bad enough if we were talking about the PS2 version of the game based on American Idol ("Pop Idol" in Europe). Instead, we're talking about the GameBoy Advance version of this misguided rhythm game where nothing you do matters! And of course I included audio samples.

It's a question for the ages, even though it was answered in that one movie. Roger Rabbit was a landmark film that explored the concept of sexy cartoons in a slightly less creepy way than Cool World. The game based on it is a strange adventure title made by Rare, that tries to lean into the mystery story but ends up being mostly about looking through empty drawers.

Someone at BioWare has an abiding passion for the lore and mythos of Sonic the Hedgehog. It kind of casts a pall over all of their work, doesn't it? This is a boring lite RPG for kids, so we spend most of our time discussing whether or not Sonic is a selfish lover (he totally is, you guys).

When ROMs are outlawed, only outlaws will have ROMs. Mad Max for the NES is a very strange game, approximating a survival experience while also being way too difficult. Those meters just don't want to stay full. We also talk about the more modern Mad Max game, and ponder why big games lose steam.

We resisted talking about smoking for so long. It was a temptation, as Rex Ronan is an educational game that aims to teach kids how smoking will mess up your body. So we talk about the absurdities of experimental surgery, and do some GameFAQs stuff... but we fuck it up in the last ten minutes or so. Sorry.

It's time to play our favorite game, that old standard: Which Wizard is coolest? Honestly, there's not a whole lot to talk about with this game, aside from how weird blonds are. So we wiz it up.

They keep trying to make Predator happen, but he always plays second fiddle to them crazy penis bugs. We look at the abysmal NES Predator game and try to figure out why. Just, why? Also, we check in on Arnold (since it's been a while), and we visit the Kasket Korner, since our friend and enemy KasketDarkfyre did a pretty bad review for this game.