The Free Cheese

This week on The Free Cheese, is it cool? A portion of our focus this year has been the exploration of variety within the PlayStation library, but this episode inspects a title inspired by them and designed with modern sensibilities. We arrive at Crow Country, eager to see how it compares to the games it draws influence from and what the past thirty years of game design and convention provide to t...

This week on The Free Cheese, snip snip. Our exploration through the PlayStation library takes a turn to horror with the first North American release in the Clock Tower series. We each explore our own version of the story's events, learn the secrets within the game, and do what we can to avoid the Scissorman. Tune in to hear the 200th ranking on The List !

This week on The Free Cheese, there goes summer. We reflect on another fourth of the year passing by by diving into the biggest news stories from the quarter. We look back at PlayStation canceling...everything? And Xbox collapsing...everything? Meanwhile, Nintendo tries to revitalize the industry with Nintendo 64 remakes. We check in with the games we each played on and off the podcast over the su...

This week on The Free Cheese, you are now in the Forest of Confusion. We have accepted the invitation to darkness and embark on our adventure into Tecmo's Deception. Exploring and designing the game's castle, we set traps and chase down intruders to defy the irony of self-sought freedom.

This week on The Free Cheese, Dogs loves to wear this T-shirt. We're trapped on Dinosaur Island and are forced to uncover its secrets when Christmas vacation is significantly interrupted. As Blue Stinger joins The List, we reflect on the Dreamcast and discuss our time with one of its launch titles.

This week on The Free Cheese, how the soup is made. Ahead of selecting another season's worth of video games to play and rank, we talk about what goes into building out a schedule. Then, we share the games that we (probably) won't add to The List (probably).

This week on The Free Cheese, that is good tennis. The Nintendo 64 brought us many new adventures for Mario, but only one introduced Waluigi to the world. In this episode, we explore Mario Tennis, discuss its technical approach to simulating the sport, and celebrate our tournament wins.

This week on The Free Cheese, The Free Cheese's Matt Soellner in... With a series of successful mainline entries, all great media must spin-off into a new direction and Namco brought all of its unused ideas to life with Death By Degrees. Departing from the signature gameplay in Tekken, this game uses a new combat system and adopts ideas from a lot of other video games. Here, we figure out how well...

This week on The Free Cheese, new family Christmas picture. We're playing the one game from the makers of Gran Turismo that isn't about racing, instead seeing what a 1999 rail shooter with FMV cutscenes does that the likes of Star Fox doesn't.

This week on The Free Cheese, you spin me right round. After years trapped on the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon returns on Xbox with Orta, only to stay there ever since. We discuss the gameplay options to switch between and upgrade each dragon from, how boss fights play out, and how dynamic the world design remains through the end of the story.

This week on The Free Cheese, shake to kill. We explore the inaugural world of Grasshopper Manufacture's No More Heroes and climb to the top of the assassin's rank. We discuss how the game compliments the Wii controls and what it brings to the greater library on the system.

This week on The Free Cheese, we're playing vol lee ball. We've been invited to Zack's island to figure out why people want to go here in the first place.

This week on The Free Cheese, I want to go on something more thrilling than Super Mario Galaxy 2. We revisit a true classic, build some theme parks, and talk about what makes up creating a timeless experience. In RollerCoaster Tycoon, we describe our respective approaches in shaping pathways, designing rides, and hiring staff. Then, we rank it on The List .

This week on The Free Cheese, there's a rare, blue flower. After Batman and Robin put Batman's film adventures on hold, the franchise took a journey through many potential futures before finding its path forward in Batman Begins and its eventual trilogy of movies. We see how its movie tie-in holds up today and reflect on a bygone era in video games.

This week on The Free Cheese, no more GUILT. We grab what every great surgeon and medical student calls their most important tool: the Nintendo DS stylus. With it in tow, we gel, slice, burn, cut, inject, extract, and stitch our way through Trauma Center: Under the Knife one patient at a time.

This week on The Free Cheese, the year is half full. We look back over the past ninety days at the video games we've played on and off air, then discuss some video game headlines from the past quarter. We also check in with each of the major platforms and see how Nintendo Switch 2 holds up one year later.

This week on The Free Cheese, increase the population. You are in a committed relationship and wake up in bed beside another woman. Great job! Now it's time to climb blocks and navigate your social life one conversation at a time. Atlus takes a break from its established franchises to introduce Catherine and in this episode, we explore its expanded Full Body edition, ranking it on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, reload reload reload. We went to an arcade to return to The House of the Dead for a special episode highlighting Sega and some of its arcade history. We discuss our time with the game, what it's like visiting an arcade in 2026, and where we wish the series would go from here.

This week on The Free Cheese, Mobius 1 has crashed! We take to the skies in the first PlayStation 2 entry in the Ace Combat series. We discuss the story and its presentation, how easy it is to learn to fly, and what lasted with us by the end of our time with Ace Combat 04.

This week on The Free Cheese, it's a blade master's fate. Atlus, your friends behind the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series, once made a first-person action game for the Sega Dreamcast. We play and discuss Maken X, appreciate its sound design (and question a few of the choices), and reminisce on the start to the twenty-first century.

This week on The Free Cheese, Sly, raccoon on feet. We return to the second PlayStation to explore one of its core third-person platforming franchises, Sly Cooper. After exploring the world created by Sucker Punch Productions, we share our thoughts on what this first entry does right from the start, how much we loved the look and sound of the game, and why meaningful collectibles make the differen...

This week on The Free Cheese, welcome to Cocoon. We add our first Final Fantasy game to The List with the flagship title of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, Final Fantasy XIII. After years of hearing the global criticism of the game, we explore how much of that was echoes and what was reality. We dive deep into the combat system, discuss the characters we gravitated towards, and try really, real...

This week on The Free Cheese, beginning of universe. Our exploration of the PlayStation continues this week with the grid-based puzzle game, Intelligent Qube. We appreciate its simplicity and how intense the stages can become, discuss the replayability, and then rank it on The List.

This week on The Free Cheese, when was the last time they made one of those? We explore the recent notion that the release gaps of new entries in franchises are failing to build deeper connections with younger players. From there, we discuss the franchises we connected with and why we stay engaged with them, looking at how crossovers and cross-media installments have maintained our connections wit...

This week on The Free Cheese, in the bag, pig! We take control of the pink-haired, chomping Tomba to discover a PlayStation adventure that has long invited us into its world. Through our time with it, we explore the twisting, turning map and try to stop the inevitably evil pigs.