Abject Suffering

Latest Episodes:

Episode 24: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Nov 24, 2013

Show notes

We're surrounded every day by things that will outlive us. This glass, if it doesn't shatter, will probably be in a Goodwill long after I'm dead... helping some other soul drink water without getting their shirt wet. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are just like this glass. Once, they didn't exist. Then they started existing. And then they didn't stop existing. The NES game is an artifact of that violent cultural birth. Also, it doesn't really belong here, except it's kind of flickery and a little too hard.

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Episode 23: Mission: Impossible Nov 10, 2013

Show notes

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take this container of Vaseline, and smear it all over these Doritos. Just really get it in there. That's right. Rub it real good. Now stack them up and press your face into it. You deserve this, don't you? Welcome to the N64 club. Welcome to the new death.

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Episode 22: Friday the 13th Oct 27, 2013

Show notes

If people don't stop having sex, then the human race is done for. The church has done all it can, but it's not enough. We must instead turn to our masked vigilante saviors to stop this sexy, sexy scourge once and for all. Jason Voorhees gets a pretty good start at Camp Crystal Lake, but I think I speak for everyone when I say "He hasn't gone far enough."

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Episode 21: Home Alone Oct 13, 2013

Show notes

Home Alone was written by John Hughes. So were a bunch of other movies. He was a fixture, and then he just went away. Was he aware of this game? Did he conceive of the stereotyped mobsters that are in it? Were the giant spiders under the house the whole time... waiting? Who knows. Digital Daniel Stern will outlive us all.

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Episode 20: Ren and Stimpy Space Cadet Adventures Sep 29, 2013

Show notes

You've gotta love a good moral panic. Of all the things that were supposed to ruin me as a child, very few of them did. Instead they twisted me and shaped me into the man I am today... Simpsons fixations and all. What I should have been wary of was crass commercialism... an avalanche of shitty licensed GameBoy platformers that had little to no relation to their source material (or little to no relation to action games). How can you capture something as fucking nutso as Ren and Stimpy in a game? We spend about 35 minutes figuring out that you can't do it with a monochrome spaceship where Log attacks you.

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Episode 19: Mohawk and Headphone Jack Aug 28, 2013

Show notes

Let me tell you a few things about Michael Henderson. He's a Duckfeed.tv superfan who regularly contributes to our shows. He graciously backed the Watch Out for Fireballs! Kickstarter campaign. He's also a merciless, calculating miscreant who means only to do Gary and Kole harm. We're somewhat convinced that Michael designed Mohawk and Headphone Jack specifically to be as unappealing as possible. Good job, Michael. You broke us.

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Episode 18: Captain Skyhawk Aug 28, 2013

Show notes

We don't contend with mediocrity that often. So far, the closest we got was Pac Man 2, and that doesn't really count since it's so weird. Captain Skyhawk doesn't really belong here. You fly around and shoot some aliens and stuff, you do a bunch of different kinds of missions, and the graphics aren't terrible. Instead of complaining, just have stories about Kole's childhood and Gary's balloon fetish.

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Episode 17: Bubsy II Aug 14, 2013

Show notes

This is the singularity that happens when 1000 bad ideas try and cram their way into a premise that isn't promising. This is our first mascot platformer... any why not live life to the hilt?

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Episode 16: Road Runner's Death Valley Rally Jul 31, 2013

Show notes

Kole has become unstuck in time. This is the epicenter of his primary dissonance: how can he be a 26 year old man, but appreciate Road Runner cartoons and Nick at Nite? The only explanation involves temporal fuckery, and a holistic approach to why he is entirely out of touch with this modern American world. Dream on, and play a bad platformer, you pilgrim of the (pre)modern age.

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Episode 15: Where's Waldo? Jul 17, 2013

Show notes

Saving Private Ryan started out as a Where's Waldo film adaptation. True fact. But Spielberg descended into the heart of darkness, gradually turning Martin Handford's whimsical vision into a twisted hellscape of severed limbs and broken hearts. This NES game is a re-telling of that re-telling.

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