The Free Cheese

This week on The Free Cheese, bury me with my treasure. We spend some time with a puzzle game that never found much attention in North America, playing the re-release of its Sega Saturn port from the arcade. Join us as we work through the best strategies and tactics for clearing the game and setting new high scores in Cleopatra Fortune!

This week on The Free Cheese, give me your garbage and I'll send it right back! What do you do when your fighting game is the most popular game in the genre? You make a puzzle game spinoff. We play and rank Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, while providing some tips that helped us to become incredibly intermediate level players!

This week on The Free Cheese, we're sliding into P Tier.   In celebration of EVO 2024 and fighting games, we're spending an episode talking about Salty Bet. The online betting casino based on the MUGEN fighting game engine has been around for over a decade and still shines as an example of using a live streaming platform in a unique manner.   We discuss our best wins, greatest losses, and some of...

This week on The Free Cheese, which weapon will you choose? SoulCalibur II joined the scene with some new friends when it hit consoles, bringing exclusive characters to each version of the game. We discuss the general gameplay and experience of its fighting system, then go deeper into Weapon Master and the secret characters you unlock.

This week on The Free Cheese, to the mountain top. Our evaluation of Pokémon's second generation continues in this episode as we return to Kanto and complete the second half of the games. We discuss the balance in difficulty across the next set of gyms and share our experience taking on the game's final boss. Then, we assess how it fares in comparison to itself, other games in the series, and its...

This week on The Free Cheese, they're probably dead by now. We bring Digimon expert Marc back to the podcast to discuss its history and future, share our collective histories with the franchise, and what makes it stand out against its contemporaries. We each acquired a Digivice ahead of recording and spent some time training our virtual pets. In the episode, we recant our experiences raising Digim...

This week on The Free Cheese, you wanna get nuts? It's the 35th anniversary of Batman and we're celebrating by playing the Sunsoft video game adaptation. We discuss the impact of Tim Burton's 1989 film, our history with Batman, and of course we rank Batman: The Video Game on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, we like our new, old consoles. As we reach the 50% mark of the year and this season, we reflect on the games we've played so far. We discuss our disappointments in some and surprises in others. We talk a bit about what 2024 has brought us, both in new titles as well as new experiences for us. Finally, we discuss the purchases of PSP and Xbox that we made this year and...

This week on The Free Cheese, DualShock controller required. We play, review, and rank one of Sony's early first-party efforts to see how it stands against The List. We discuss the unique gameplay of Ape Escape and how the right stick combat works with each gadget you acquire.

This week on The Free Cheese, we try to set the high score for car flips. A Sega classic joins The List this week while we take an intense, leisurely drive across several countries. We dissect the gameplay of Out Run, how it has held up for almost forty years, and share our tips for success (or more realistically, how to avoid our mistakes).

This week on The Free Cheese, grab your Xbox and 15 friends, we're having a party. Our three-part series on Halo: Combat Evolved continues with a focused conversation on the competitive multiplayer of the game. We discuss our history with Halo multiplayer, how it influenced other titles, and try to uncover what makes it special. As a bonus, we add Halo: Fireteam Raven to The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, we charge by the bomb. We took a trip to a local arcade and share the experience of the modern arcade. We reflect on the arcades of yore and the games that used to draw us to them. Finally, we look ahead at what is to come of arcades and what we hope the future holds.

This week on The Free Cheese, six more weeks of Syphon Filter. The final entry in the Syphon Filter series becomes the first to join The List. We recap our understanding of the series' plot, highlight some of the differences introduced in this game, and discuss how it fares against the PSP library at its time of release.

This week on The Free Cheese, we can't leave without our buddy Superfly. After reviewing and ranking Quake and Quake II over the last two seasons of the podcast, we follow it up John Romero's Daikatana. Wielding the titular weapon (as briefly as possible), we travel through time and fight the power before it ends us all.

This week on The Free Cheese, no fair, she drew more guns than me. We return to the launch of the PSP to check out how Konami diverted the Metal Gear Solid games and created something more suited for portability. Metal Gear Acid joins The List this week once we get over the fact that we move by cards, shoot by cards, and do everything else by cards.

This week on The Free Cheese, we have obtained the metatron ore. It's time we take on the role of Leo Stenbuck and climb into Jehuty. If that makes any sense to you, you already know how much fun we had this week. If not, come learn about Zone of the Enders with us. We discuss our time with the first game in the series, how it's connected to other Konami properties, and rank it on The List .

This week on The Free Cheese, I'm yours forever. We're revisiting our Game of the Game of the Year , only this time we're together. Our fourth and final Wii Sports Killer for Season 12 enters the conversation as we discuss the new additions to Tetris Effect Connected, breakdown its individual modes, and reminisce on other games that made us feel something.

This week on The Free Cheese, the road is rainbow. We play Super Mario Kart in this episode and discuss how it started not only the kart racing genre but also opened the world up to crossovers. We compare the first entry to our favorites and talk about where it sits in the history of SNES games.

This week on The Free Cheese, is he on fire? Our first baseball game makes The List with MLB Slugfest 20-04. Just in time for the start of the season, we check out how the alternative to modern simulation baseball games holds up.

This week on The Free Cheese, you can't hack this boss. We finally check in with a game we've talked about for years to see how Starbreeze's Syndicate reimagines the classic strategy game. Can Brian Cox and Rosario Dawson save the story? Does Detective Vision™ enhance every game? Let's find out and rank Syndicate on The List!

This week on The Free Cheese, did you think that the book was better? We point and click our way through Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, exploring each of the game's characters and stumbling our way into different endings. We discuss the central themes in the game, some of the surprises we found, and explore how the game feels to play for the first time in 2024.

This week on The Free Cheese, you have to get more of them. Our two panel members play through Pokémon Gold Version and Pokémon Silver Version. We visit Johto in this episode and discuss our third of four Wii Sports Killers. While only the second in the core series, the pair of games were originally intended to be the final games in the series and brought a significant number of additions to the g...

This week on The Free Cheese, time is a key to creation and a vessel for destruction! What happens when Atlus translates its Megami Tensei series into something to compete with other monster collecting RPGs on Game Boy Advance? The DemiKids are born! We take a look at the first and only DemiKids games to release in North America. We explore where they differ from other Megami Tensei games, how the...

This week on The Free Cheese, play some games, dork! We join the WarioWare corporation five seconds at a time, punching, mashing, picking, and jumping all the way to the top. In this episode, we break down the essence of what makes WarioWare so intriguing and easy to learn. We look at how the game is able to satisfy each element of playing a video game and see where it ranks against other Nintendo...

This week on The Free Cheese, everything is upside down. We revisit what we consider the title synonymous with Sony's original vision for the PlayStation Vita just in time for the platform's twelfth anniversary. While Gravity Rush would later receive a port to PlayStation 4 and a sequel on the platform, its beginnings on Vita are definitive. We discuss the game's unique gameplay, its influences, a...