The Crate and Crowbar

Jamie and Chris convene from the palatial purple of Quincy Jones’ recording studio to tell tales of indentational trauma, BP garage psychogeography and also some games! Chris has been cutting people’s legs off in Halfsword and thinking fondly of Marsh Davies.Jamie has been rejoicing in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s crystal meth extravaganza Mewgenics.Chris has been playing [...]

Marsh is joined by Graham to chat about Jank, a hot new website for cool people, the best games of the decade so far, deduction game TR-49, frenzied shmup Sektori and joyous platformer Big Hops. Jank!!!!!!!!!!!! Jank.cool!!!! Visit Jank! Wow! Read Jank’s list of the best games of the Decade so far! TR-49 Sektori Big [...]

Jamie and Marsh throw themselves into the depths of Ball X Pit, launch themselves into toilets in Bloodlines 2, and dive cinematically from exploding balconies in Battlefield 6. Show notes: Join Jamie in person on Saturday 29th November at Birmingham Comicon for a chat about getting into games. Ball X Pit Into the Breach Vampire: [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh discuss what the f Silent Hill f is about, get systemic in Sword Hero, jump ship in Jump Space, try to pronounce “photogrammetry” correctly while discussing Mind Diver AND take a cathartically large dump on Alien: Earth. Silent Hill f Big-time ambiguity intertext: Henry James’ Turn of the Screw I’ve always [...]

Marsh and Jamie dishonour their families in the oddly quaint Mafia: The Old Country, soak sands in Sword of the Sea, and synergise to the max in Merge Maestro, Kill the Brickman and Raccoin. Show notes: Mafia: The Old Country Sword of the Sea Merge Maestro Raccoin Kill the Brickman You can hang out with [...]

Jamie and Marsh join together to talk sad boys, roguelike birds and frenzied bananas. Birdigo Donkey Kong: BananzaMarsh is making Gold Teeth. You can hang out with us and our community on our Discord channel. If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us via the Questions sub-channel on our Discord [...]

Chris and Marsh are joined by Paul Canavan to talk about draining men (halleluja), the not-so-shy huluds and space-nun zoomies of Dune: Awakening. We do not talk about Donkey Kong Bananza. Dune: Awakening Paul is making Pale Tides. Marsh is making Gold Teeth. Chris is one of the most extraordinarily talented and versatile people I’ve [...]

Jamie and Marsh get pumped, pepped and revved up for the summer games marketing onslaught, and then enjoy the more tangible pleasures of demos in the Steam Next Fest, including: Ball X Pit, Morsels, Bits & Bops, Consume Me, Dispatch and Baby Steps. In this episode, I, Marsh, misremember Peggle’s mascot as Bookworm Adventures’ mascot, [...]

Jamie and Marsh whoosh blueily through Doom: The Dark Ages, find real big fish in South of Midnight, experience the fraying bonds of marriage in It Takes Two, and feed children to a giant worm in Nidhogg. Doom: The Dark Ages South of Midnight It Takes Two Nidhogg Kirby’s Air Ride Rhythm Heaven Fever “You [...]

Click ‘Use’, then click ‘Pod’. Success! You have unlocked access to an episode of adventure game discussion from the steamy podding lairs of Jamie and Tom! First we turn our attentions to the fine timeline-twisting futuristic adventure game, Old Skies. We’re enjoying it greatly, along with Unavowed and the rest of Wadjet Eye Games collection. [...]

Jamie, Tom and Marsh head out into the wild blue yonder (without headphones on like some kind of smug Japanese writer) and talk about 3 open world games, somewhat alike in dignity. Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is the brand new tiny-sword-up-my-sleeve ’em up, has peerless breezes, great killings, but boy is there a lot of it! [...]

The distant troglodyte descendants of Jamie and Marsh relive memories of the before-times and the joyous videogames that were once played, namely: 1000xResist, Type Help and Pathologic 3: Quarantine. Pathologic 3: Quarantine is the demo for a larger forthcoming game, and is harrowing in about every way it can be. 1000xResist is a brilliant game [...]

Tom S joins Marsh to be baffled by BAFTA noms, enjoy the chaotic departure from military fiction in Black Ops 6, put on a purple frenzied bone hat in Monster Hunter, and bolster our collection of severed tongues in Avowed like the nimdoots we are. The BAFTA website has been designed by maniacs. You can [...]

Jamie and Marsh wallop their way through a sea of fascists in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and enjoy the peaches, pots and permadeath of Shiren the Wanderer 6. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is made by Machine Games, also known for the Wolfenstein reboot, its sequels and some brilliant level packs for [...]

Chris, Jamie, and friend of pod Paul Canavan squat doon in a cundie with a bottle of buckie and some (probably vegan) haggis tae blether aboot Scottish games and games that aren’t Scottish. We talk the excellent thrills, chills, and repeated drops off of oil rigs of fab walking sim Still Wakes The Deep, the [...]

Chris, Senior Tom and Marsh convene to talk Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Diablo 4, Rise Of The Golden Idol, Xenotilt, Destiny 2 and then Chris talks about Dragon Age: Veilguard non-stop for about 45 minutes and it’s kind of incredible. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a game about cutting robots into many bits, or just [...]

In which Tom Senior, Marsh Davies and Jamie Brittain convene on a perfectly normal and entirely non-epoch defining night in early November 2024 to discuss God Of War: Ragnarök at length, as well as providing various witterings about trailers good, names bad, books read and John Wayne movies for some reason. At one point Jamie [...]

Tom S, Jamie and Marsh gather, like a drift of dead leaves, to discuss some seasonally spooky games: Alan Wake 2 and Mouthwashing. Also mentioned: Arco and Grunn. Painshill Park. The crystal grotto is closed on Mondays. Alan Wake 2 Remember Quantum Break? My sympathies. Garth Marenghi is a better writer than Alan Wake, and [...]

Marsh, Jamie and Chris convene to navigate the bouncy balls of Peglin, the less bouncy but surprisingly solid shooty-bangs of Warhammer 40K Space Marine 2, before failing to enjoy UFO 50 as much as they probably should. Games Discussed: PeglinWarhammer 40K: Space Marine 2UFO 50 Back Gold Teeth here! You can hang out with us [...]

Jamie kindly permits Marsh to talk about Gold Teeth, the tabletop roleplaying game he’s Kickstarting, which is just an excuse to ramble at length about roleplaying games more broadly with excellent chums Jim Rossignol and Chris Lackey. Gold Teeth! It’s a game of piracy and occult horror! Strange Studies of Strange Stories – an excellent [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh return to explain where the hell they’ve been, before launching into discussions of effervescent pie-em-up comedy game Thank Goodness You’re Here, following that with some entirely unbiased discussion of glorious turn based tactics game Tactical Breach Wizards. We also discuss cosmetic etiquette in the grimdark future hellwarscape of Warhammer: Space Marine [...]

Jamie and Marsh reel from Microsoft’s latest layoffs, mismanage time in Hades 2, paddle in the uncanny, chlorinated waters of Pools, devour the bite-sized city-building triumphs of Against the Storm, and indulge their flaws in The Thaumaturge. The last lay offs of 2024. Thankfully there won’t be any more of those! Phew!! Nathan Brown’s Hit [...]

Jamie and Alex show their cards in deck-builders Balatro and Cobalt Core (poker- and space-flavoured respectively), before descending into the chaotic, cavernous depths of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and finally wrangling Dead Red Redemption 2 into completion. Balatro Cobalt Core Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Red Dead Redemption 2 You can hang out with us and [...]

Chris and Marsh discuss disappointing children’s entertainment, disappointing sales figures, anti-mnemonic naming choices, the rulebreaking delight of card game Balatro, the dishonourable cheeses of Honor Mode in Baldur’s Gate 3, and return once more to Night Country. AI wrote cheques that Willy Wonker simply could not cash. Immortals of Aveum may not have sold well, [...]

Jamie and Marsh discuss the latest seasons of Fargo and True Detective, two anthology shows about troubling crimes and the yet more troubled cops who investigate them. Fargo was originally a film by the Coen Brothers, and was adapted to TV by Noah Hawley, who is also known for the show Legion. Also mentioned: Happy [...]

Join Jamie and Chris as they join Past Jamie for a solo pod about train-sets and low-key terror in the demo deluge of Steam Next Fest. Then they return to the present, which is also now the past, to discuss smushing bugs in the name of Super Earth in Helldivers 2. All aboard the Jamie [...]

Tom F joins Marsh to make the biggest sticks in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, become the stick in Pacific island adventure Tchia, stick to walls in Jusant and stick it to space pirates in timeloop deckbuilder Cobalt Core. Just forbidden enough: Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is Tom’s game of 2023. Tactical Breach Wizards [...]

Marsh and Chris celebrate the new year by poking the wound in our psychic gestalt. Also: are AI tools ethical? Yeah, we solve that one. 100%. Bosh. Done. Also also: space whale visual novel South Scrimshaw, team shooter The Finals, Robocop: Rogue City, mystery game This Bed We Made, Pentiment and Cocoon. Alex’s COVID-recovery blogpost. [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh reminisce on the year that was, the teeth they lost, oceans they regret leaving, algorithms that have failed them and, very eventually, the games they played. Bold takes on Baldur’s Gate, Dave the Diver, Cult of the Lamb [sexy], Witchfire and Chants of Sennaar. Games of the year we give barely [...]

Jamie and Marsh voyage into their deepest nightmare – a metatextual commentary on the subjective nature of storytelling – and shine a light on Alan Wake 2, then decide to incarcerate their dying, plaque-filled brains in the philosophical puzzle islands of The Talos Principle 2. Alan Wake 2 Twin Peaks: The Return The Simpson’s Steamed [...]

Tom S and Jamie don spandex and fling themselves into the uncynical optimism of Spider-Man 2, recall Tom Hardy’s come-hither Mr Tumble, return to both an up-res’d and a remade Resident Evil 4, and finish with a snifter of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. You don’t want to find yourself in that kind of posse. It [...]

Tom S and Marsh switch their feet for tank tracks, and every other part of their body for bazookas, in Armored Core VI, suffer orb separation anxiety in Cocoon, enjoy to the janky return to Night City in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and stab through Baghdad in Assassin’s Creed: Mirage. It’s the rockets you don’t [...]

Tom F, Jamie and Marsh pause time to queue up their synchronised takes on peerless piratical stealth game, Shadow Gambit, enjoy the sights of Baldur’s Gate biggest Big Town, curtly dismiss Starfield, and triumphantly reinvade Stroggos in a revamped Quake 2. So, Unity absolutely shit the bed. Godot and GameMaker are also available. Shadow Gambit: [...]

Tom S, Jamie and Marsh roll up to Baldur’s Gate 3, a distressingly horny roleplaying masterpiece, discover the cancel culture of The Wonderful 101, and use demons like yo-yos in Astral Chain. Baldur’s Gate 3, a CRPG classic in the making, and one of the sluttiest games ever made D&D roleplay podcasts: The Adventure Zone, [...]

Chris, Tom S and Marsh immolate dogs in the fields and fields and fields of Final Fantasy 16, plunder the pseudo-Yarnhams and battle-Narnias of Remnant 2, and step into the frame of Viewfinder, but remain puzzlingly unpuzzled. Final Fantasy 16’s coverage so far has hidden its kaijus beneath a very large bushel, and a very [...]

Chris, Alex and Marsh creak, rasp and seep from their respective tombs to bewail the passing of the years on this, the 10th anniversary of the podcast. Plus: fulton fun in Mr Sun’s Hatbox, killer crocs in Hunt: Showdown, démodé dipsticks in Max Payne 3 and a terrible quiz. Best games of the last decade? [...]

Jamie and Marsh journey into the distant past in the hopes of forging an alternate timeline where the episode’s prologue makes sense. In doing so, they ponder the dark Drakes of Uncharted 4, the deranged doubts of LA Noire and the dream dogs of Bloodborne. Outlander references clearly do not possess the anticipated levels of [...]

Jamie, Tom S and Marsh emerge from a morass of pod-opposites to deliver belated takes on Not E3, chicken sandwiches, grimdark clicker game Diablo IV and the latest season of Chess. Nick Cage has been turned into Dead by Daylight DLC Assassin’s Creed: Mirage Starfield Citizen Sleeper 2 Star Wars: Outlaws Baby Steps Kunitsu-Gami: Path [...]

Jamie joins Marsh to discuss the imminent game glut, puzzlesome reverse dog-trial Humanity, super-stylish brawler Sifu and clever Counter-Strike-alike Veiled Experts. Diablo, Street Fighter 6 and Amnesia: The Bunker are all poised for release, while Bungie’s Marathon jangles gaudily on the distant horizon. Quirky puzzler Humanity has lots of bodies but perhaps fewer brains. Flee [...]

Chris, Jamie and Marsh commit goblin puzzlecrimes in the high-altitude sandbox of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom, and exchange gems for beards in the thoroughly-explained yurts of Jedi: Survivor. Surefire GOTY for some, intimidating possibility-space for others: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom. Return me to the reassuring monkey-bars and [...]

Marsh and Jamie’s treason finally consigns them to Darkest Dungeon 2, where they lament what Jedi Survivor means for Marsh’s wallet, unpick The Spider of Lanka’s web of intrigue, have a cold shower in Shadows of Doubt and plunge headfirst into Thumper VR. Triumphantly grim roguelike roadtrip sequel, Darkest Dungeon 2. More soon, ish, on [...]

Chris and Marsh gather, along with unwelcome centipedes and a man who knows about doors, to discuss the cosy horror of fishing game Dredge, the most annoying hand of Marvel Snap and why STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order is crunchy like a biscuit but tastes like yoghurt. Dredge: fear the real ocean William Related fishy [...]

Marsh is joined by game dev and writer Jim Rossignol to discuss the grotesque tabletop roleplaying game they have made together. It’s called TEETH, it’s about occult criminality in a cursed corner of 18th century England, and it’s Kickstarting right now! Kickstart TEETH (if you like)! Watch our Kickstarter trailer at the link above or [...]

In which Tom Senior and Jamie Brittain convene in the past to talk about a lot of games to be released in the next year or so, and beyond! Part 2 hopefully to be recorded soon! Here’s a Youtube playlist of trailers for the games mentioned. Super Mario Galaxy Monster Hunter Rise Destiny 2 Elden [...]

It’s a laid-back one this week as Jamie and Tom S convene to admire the gentle art of booting a panda through a wall in Tekken 7. There’s more spectacular booting to be had in DmC: Devil May Cry and the stompy Dead Space remake, but can any of this compare to the thrill of [...]

Separate children, Jamie and Chris, de-schism to become a single mass with opinions on lying down, class-traitor sandwich praxis, the tragic dynamics of a friendship defined by Sonic/Batman, the Steam Deck, Hi-Fi RUSH, Burnhouse Lane and Marvel Snap. Why not pair The Sonic Movie with the lavish mediocrity of Death on the Nile? There are [...]

Tom S and Marsh climb into a big bin of telly trash and wallow in the sugary delights of nutrient-free reality TV from Big Brother through Bake-Off to The Traitors. Shows that we mention: Big Brother The Great British Bake-Off Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares Easy Bake Battle Is It Cake? Masterchef: The Professionals Baking Impossible [...]

Jamie, Tom S and Marsh press the electric brain’s hot-take button to generate plausible opinions on proc-gen classic Dwarf Fortress, Marvel deck-builder-tactics mash-up Midnight Suns, animated medieval manuscript mystery Pentiment, and genealogical rogue-lite Rogue Legacy 2. Press A to advance through perplexingly titled visual novel Umineko When They Cry. The triumphant Steam release of modern [...]

Chris and Marsh wash away their Mayonnaise Sins only to commit the far worse crime of liking parts of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also: the pokable pencils of A Little to the Left and suspicious horses in Roadwarden. The Golden Chicken and Meat Market in Dearborn, just outside of Detroit, is a very [...]

Jamie and Marsh drive a jeep through the questionable exoticism of Uncharted: Lost Legacy and peevishly waddle about in the ambiguous middle distance of Somerville. Tom F’s great post on chess. Matinee adventure expandalone, Uncharted: Lost Legacy, is part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (can you have a “collection” which comprises just two [...]