The Free Cheese

This week on The Free Cheese, eighteen inch nails? id Software makes another appearance on The List with its sequel to Quake. Quake II takes the series in a new direction and we discuss how the different landscape influences the gameplay and our overall impression of the first id Software game without John Romero.

This week on The Free Cheese, so is he still waiting? We're going back to high school, or going back to someone's high school this week to find out why the children are disappearing. We learn the secrets that await us within Leafmore High and figure out which one of the five of us knows how to run.

This week on The Free Cheese, Cryptid Kombat - Coming this Fall. After sharing some local horror icons, we wander through the woods to find ourselves in Simogo's Year Walk. Released on multiple platforms since 2013, we discuss the game and how it takes advantage of the unique properties of each platform it called home. We talk about its lasting impact and of course, rank it on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, congratulations Gunpei Yokoi! Our second Console Ranking episode adds ten additional consoles to the list, many of which we've never held before. How do they stack up against our favorites? Tune in and find out.

This week on The Free Cheese, here comes a new challenger. Street Fighter 6 returns with a new entry, ready to reinvigorate longtime fans and create a new generation along the way. We talk about our Street Fighter history, fighting games, and break down the new modes and features before ranking it against the rest of the games on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, The Empire Strikes Back. Long before you could play your favorite characters in free-to-play video games, developers created movie and television show tie-in games that often strayed far enough from the source to become their own thing entirely. We take a look at one of the attempts at recapturing the magic of  The Empire Strikes Back for the home console and see how...

This week on The Free Cheese, anyone who says the subway is dangerous... We watch a comic book come to life in 2007's The Darkness and see how it holds up sixteen years later. Playing as Jackie Estacado, we wield The Darkness to enact revenge in New York City.

This week on The Free Cheese, Marc is a WeiNeR. Following up on our episode covering Rogue earlier this year, we watch the genre evolve on the Sega Genesis with—sorry, taking a break to hula dance—ToeJam & Earl. We run away from chickens with mortars, evil ice cream trucks, and herds of nerds as we search for ten ship parts that will help us to escape doom on Earth.

This week on The Free Cheese, how many eggs? As we close out the month of June, we discuss our Game of the Year so far and share updates on what we're looking most forward to playing in the remaining months. We return to some segments from Season 10 with a theme that keeps everything tied to our games for this month.

This week on The Free Cheese, where ballers come to play. We play basketball outside of the arena in this episode, revisiting one of the best basketball games ever made. We discuss what makes this game so unique and how NBA 2K has changed the sport entirely.

This week on The Free Cheese, is this a boat? Dotemu revives a classic with new characters and a new look for a new generation. We learn the art of windjamming and spend some time this week reminiscing on air hockey as we rank another game on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, I'd like to try increasing fun. Will you make the next great game for the Senga Exodus? Did your last effort fail to impress the magazine reviewers? Maybe you'll do better after hiring Shigeto Minamoto. Game Dev Story lets us start our own studio and see what it's like to manage a team of people making video games. We put them out to the market, receive review scores,...

This week on The Free Cheese, we recommend playing this episode at 2X speed. We celebrate the history of speedrunning just in time for Summer Games Done Quick 2023. We look back at the beginnings of speedrunning, share some of our favorite runs, and offer insight into the games we would consider running.

This week on The Free Cheese, shoutout to all the horses! We discuss our favorite companions in video games, both on and off the screen. We share the friendships we've built through games and what makes a bad in-game companion.

This week on The Free Cheese, jump, man. Donkey Kong returns in 1994's Game Boy release, making its debut on The List in this episode. We talk about the game, its creation, how it created new moves for Mario, and where it ended up.

This week on The Free Cheese, take my hand.  We wake up in a castle and find a girl in a cage. We don't speak the same language but it won't stop us from escaping. During our journey this week, we'll solve puzzles and strike at shadows as the PlayStation 2 classic, Ico, joins the list.

This week on The Free Cheese, business is business.  We survive an earthquake and spend six days trying to help others through the aftermath. We make new friends, say goodbye to others, and find a lot of compasses and backpacks. 

This week on The Free Cheese, the best of our best.  We each share the span of years we identify as our "golden era" of video games. We identify the platforms we played on and the games that stand out from the era. 

This week on The Free Cheese, we're shopping at SUS. Grab your Sidekick and hit the scene in New York to take over one fight at a time. We're playing the sequel to Def Jam: Vendetta, watching the evolution of WWF No Mercy take its new form.

This week on The Free Cheese, g-g-g-ghosts! Gear up and make way into the haunted house of the day with us. We investigate paranormal activity and try to make it out alive in Phasmophobia as we celebrate our 500th episode.

This week on The Free Cheese, welcome to Berlin! We roll the clocks back to 1980 and play Rogue, adding it to our list in the process. Naturally, we discuss the game's influence and try to break down our understanding of the many different definitions of what it is to be a roguelike.

This week on The Free Cheese, when the eggs hatch. While the world revels in another Resident Evil series remake this week, let's go back to the beginning. We recant our first memories of Resident Evil 4, offer thoughts on how our most recent session played out, and discuss the various ways we've interacted with the game through the years. Then, we rank it on The List with the rest and the best of...

This week on The Free Cheese, the most detailed lips on the Game Boy Color. Another month, another handheld adventure, but our first Gaiden on the list. What happens when you take survival horror and give it to the developers of Mary Kate and Ashley: Winner's Circle? Zombies on a boat, it turns out.

This week on The Free Cheese, what's your frequency? Harmonix have repeatedly made its name one to remember with every new franchise. In this episode, we take a look at the studio's sophomore release for PlayStation 2.

This week on The Free Cheese, drop that pizza in some soup! At long last, a Hideo Kojima game makes it onto the list. We did that already? Well this one predicts the future! Join us in conversation about Snatcher and help save the world from invasion.