Vidjagame Apocalypse

Once a game series reaches a certain level of success, spinoffs are inevitable; some of them spawn their own franchises, like Mega Man X, while others rapidly fizzle into obscurity, like Mega Man Soccer. This week, merritt k and TL Foster join us to celebrate five of the latter category, after which we'll get into Trombone Champ: Unflattened, Loco Motive, the Xbox Avatar app disappearing, and the...

Nov. 27 would be Bruce Lee's 84th birthday, and that's as good an excuse as any to get  Anthony Abatte on for a howl-filled discussion of our favorite unauthorized Bruce Lee knockoffs in fighting games. Then we'll talk about STALKER 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Great God Grove, The Game Awards 2024 nominations, and the songs you associate with specific videogames (that didn't include them)....

As much as videogames tend to be about wreaking havoc and wrecking stuff, there are relatively few that actually let you tear through and collapse the buildings that dot their landscapes. We're not sure why it took us 601 episodes to reach the topic of games where you can wreck buildings, but here we are, and after that we'll get into Tetris Forever, Rise of the Golden Idol, Slitterhead, Super Nin...

We've somehow made it to 600 shows! To celebrate, TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing joins us for a laugh-filled Top 5 about previous Top 5s, and it's so big, it's a TOP 6! After that trip down memory lane, we'll talk more about Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Vampire Survivors: Ode to Castlevania, Nintendo confirming backwards compatibility for the Switch successor, and your favorite moments from our 5...

It's the day after Halloween, but we've got one last spooky show in us - this time about wandering ghosts you can find off the beaten path in games that aren't even about horror.   With Tony Wilson of Framework along for the ride, we'll also talk about Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Clock Tower: Rewind, an Oregon Trail movie, and the games you wish other games would rip off...

The early Resident Evil games were once popular enough to spawn a whole horde of zombie-killing imitators with fixed camera angles and tank controls, and erstwhile host Dave Rudden rejoins us this week to laugh at five of the more obscure ones. Then we'll get into Sonic X Shadow Generations, Mechwarrior 5: Clans, news from the Xbox Partner Preview, and your most favoritest zombie games. Question o...

We're deep into spooky season, so let's take a look back at the strange wave of profane, silly, borderline sleazy zombie games the industry pumped out in the late-'00s/early-'10s, with help from TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing ! Then we'll talk more about Metaphor: ReFantazio, Europa, the Game Freak data breach, and your most irrational habits when playing games. Question of the Week: What's you...

Expecting a movie to be an entertaining adaptation of a videogame  and  be scary seems like asking too much, but gosh darn it if the horror-game movies we talk about in this week's Top 5 with Steve Guntli (of  CinemArcade and Puppet Masters/Castle Freaks ) didn't try. Then we'll talk about the Silent HIll 2 remake, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO, Nintendo's timely new announcemen...

With spooky season upon us at last, TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing joins us for a Top 5 on games that gradually reveal themselves to be haunted traps set by malevolent entities lurking deep within the code (ample spoiler warnings and timestamps here, so keep those fast-forward fingers ready). Then we'll get into The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Mortal Komba 1: Khaos Reigns, Katsuhiro Hara...

We're all busy, traveling, or directly in the path of a category 4 hurricane this week - but the show must go on, so please bear with our lack of a Top 5 as we jump straight into UFO 50, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, the State of Play and Sonic Central announcements, and the words you learned from vidjagames. Question of the Week: What unexpected genre or setting do you want to see your favorite ga...

Astro Bot's trajectory from minor character in a tech demo to the face of the best-reviewed platformer on PS5 inspired this week's Top 5, about platformer mascots who went from secondary characters to headlining their own games. After that, we'll get into Funko Fusion, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown's Mask of Darkness DLC, The Plucky Squire,announcements from the EA investor event, and your favo...

We just passed the 25th anniversary of the Dreamcast's 9/9/99 US launch, and are marking the occasion with a look at five of the strangest and best controllers and accessories for Sega's ill-fated console. Then we'll dive straight into Astro Bot, PS5 Pro, Warhammer 40k Space Marine II, Yars Rising, the Minecraft movie trailer, and your favorite games that got so-so reviews.  Question of the Week:...

All three hosts of Welcome to the Thing - TL Foster , Emmett Watkins , and Jarrett Green - join us this week for a special crossover episode and take charge of our Top 5 to focus on "value versions" of popular big-deal games. We'll also get into Tactical Breach Wizards, Bakeru, Squirrel with a Gun, Concord's rapid demise, the best Zeldas being declared non-canon, and your favorite Star Wars NPCs....

Star Wars Outlaws is out (and fun as hell) this week, inviting players to meet Canto Bight street thief-turned-interstellar scoundrel Kay Vess - so we're inviting  Chris Baker back to talk about Kay and five other Star Wars heroes who were created especially for videogames. We'll also get into Castlevania Domunus Collection, Nintendo Direct news, and your thoughts on politicians and their likely f...

Black Myth: Wukong is out, and Tony Wilson of Framework has been playing it - but also, Sun Wukong's defiance of Heaven inspired this week's Top 5, about games driven by rebellion against the gods. We'll also get into Dustborn, Arco, reveals from Gamescom's Opening Night LIve, and the "terrible" works of pop culture you'll die on a hill to defend. Question of the Week: Name the favorite game of an...

The Borderlands movie opened last weekend, and we've got things to say about it. It also underwhelmed at the box office, putting it on track to be a major flop - but will it flop as hard as the videogame-based movies in this week's Top 5, all of which lost millions in theaters? While we wait to see, we'll get into The Crush House, SteamWorld Heist II, Beetlejuice in MultiVersus, and the first game...

Game Informer's plug was shockingly pulled last week, bringing the last of the major US videogame magazines to an unceremonious end. We'll leave it to others to properly eulogize GI, but we'll mark its passing by inviting Dan Amrich and Dave Rudden (both former editors of GamePro and other mags) to talk about five of our all-time favorite game magazines. Then we'll get into Volgarr the Viking II,...

Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters, and we're so fixated on Marvel's foul-mouthed, fourth-wall-breaking murder-goof that we're going to talk about five games he stars in, and invite the legend  Chris Baker - who worked on many of them and made headlines for refuting the "$100,000,000" rumor - to talk about them with us. Then we'll get into Thank Goodness You're Here, videogame voice actors going...

The recent release of Twisters inspired us to spend this week's Top 5 segment talking about five of the best tornadoes in games, because why not, and we even invited  Tony Wilson of Framework to help us talk about 'em. Then we'll get into Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, Veritus, Kunitsu-Gami, EVO 2024 announcements, and the cool stuff you've won in contests. Question of the Week: Inspir...

This week's launch of EA Sports College Football 25 marks the return of the NCAA Football series after an 11-year absence, so TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing joins us to talk about it and five other long-dead or dormant sports franchises that we'd love to see come back. Then we'll get into Anger Foot, Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Beat Them! 2, the cance...

Games that are pure parodies - ones that (mainly) target a single game from a competitor to emulate and lampoon - are relatively rare for a lot of reasons, but we scraped together enough to make them the subject of this week's Top 5. After that, we'll look at The Case of the Golden Idol's Xbox debut, the Xbox Game Pass price hike, 3DS's Puzzle Swap finally getting "beaten," and your favorite games...

We're heading into the 4th of July weekend, when Americans traditionally celebrate Jaws' 1975 attack on Amity Island, so this week we'll (finally!) look at five games where you get to play as a bloody great shark. Then we'll talk about Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, The First Descendant, Nintendo's anti-scalper strategy, and the characters you'd like to sese appear iin Mortal Kombat 1 next. Question of the...

We're halfway through another year, so we've grabbed Brendan Hesse to help us take a look back through the past six months and pick out our five favorite games from 2024 so far. Then we'll get deeper into Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Beyond Good & Evil - 20th Anniversary Edition, Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, rumors around upcoming additions to Mortal Kombat 1's roster, and your favorite...

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdree is out at last today, and we've got Tony WIlson of Framework on to talk about his experience with it - but first, we're going to talk about five DEEPLY suspicious. wildly creepy NPCs who actually proved trustworthy in spite of setting off alarm bells in our heads. Plus we'll talk about the Nintendo Direct reveals — including Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Zelda: Echoes...

This week, we delve into news from Summer Game Fest, Xbox Games Showcase, and Ubisoft Forward — but not before inviting Chris Baker on to talk about five "lesser" ports of A-list games that suddenly became the only versions after the "real" games got canceled. We'll also take a look at Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Selaco, and the pop-culture icons you think still need defining games. Question o...