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The Crate and Crowbar — Games & Hobbies
The Crate and Crowbar

A group of friends who work in the games industry meet up once a week to talk about PC games over a drink. “Off-the-cuff” is a polite way to say “unprofessional”, right?

Copyright: © The Crate and Crowbar

Latest Episodes:

Episode 380: Good Dad Anxiety Sep 10, 2021

Show notes

Alex and Tom S gather to discuss the surprising amount of PC news to emerge from this week’s PlayStation event, before moving on to the musical weaponry of roguelikelike shmup Beat Blast and the newly portable RPG with good teleportation, Divinity: Original Sin 2. Also discussed: progress in shmup Mushihimesama, ruining games with mods, a strange cat, and Keanu Reeves’ one good face.

The Matrix Resurrections’ first trailer has Keanu doing his face.
God Of War Ragnarok finally got a proper trailer and we love the look of Thor.
Forspoken also got a new story trailer with a weird looking cat.
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Remake was also announced at PlayStation’s event, and it’s a ground-up remake.
Grand Theft Auto 5 also got a PlayStation 5 trailer and it looks… the same.
Alex has been playing twin-stick shooter Beat Blast, in which your weaponry works on a beat sequencer.
Tom has been tinkering with shmups, too, his favourite being Mushihimesama. Alex has sung its praises on previous episodes.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 recently launched on iPad, and even more recently got cross save with PC. Has Tom been playing it in the bath? He doesn’t say.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 379: Tech LARPers vs. Cyber Pope Sep 04, 2021

Show notes

Alex, Tom S and Graham retreat from the terrible non-fungible present into the comforting embrace of the past, with the sequel to cult classic Psychonauts, the recent remaster and expansion of Quake, and the last great real-time strategy game, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. Also discussed: a good boy, our hoarding instincts, and Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

The co-founder of Vine is creating NFTs out of videogame-style loot, without the videogame, and it’s selling for absurd sums of money.
Cult classic Japanese RPG Moon: Remix RPG Adventure got an English translation last year, and now it’s coming to PC.
Japanese games are experiencing something of a renaissance, dominating Steam’s best seller charts for July.
Psychonauts 2 is out! It’s a fantastic world to explore, blessed with the forgettable platforming we crave.
Bethesda celebrated the 25th anniversary of Quake by announcing and releasing a remaster which makes it prettier and includes a new expansion and Quake 64.
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance remains an unrivalled strategy game experience, and it runs better than ever via Steam.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 378: Pickle Pickle Aug 20, 2021

Show notes

Tom S and Chris gather to discuss the everyone-gets-an-F22 convenience apocalypse of Project Wingman, the flippy martial arts of Marvel’s Avengers: War For Wakanda, and the rise of civilization in the Civ-like Humankind. Also discussed: jackets in Cyberpunk, Among Us in Fortnite, and school plays in trouble.

Cyberpunk 2077 received a new patch which added exactly what the troubled RPG shooter needed: two new jackets. And not a lot else.
Chris has a secret love for videos of school plays going wrong, and provided good reasons why.
Fortnite Impostors is a new Among Us-style mode for Epic’s juggernaut, and the developers of actual Among Us are sound slightly miffed.
Marvel’s Avengers War For Wakanda adds playable Black Panther to Square Enix’s compromised action RPG biff ’em up.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance did it better by doing less – and by being Diablo.
Project Wingman is set in the aftermath of a volcano apocalypse in which everyone gets a plane. Some of the planes are very large.
Humankind is the new 4X strategy game from the makers of Endless Legend/Space, and it goes head-to-head with Sid Meier’s Civilization.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 377: Incredible Overdesigned Cyberpunk Bong Aug 06, 2021

Show notes

Alex and Tom Senior soak in the drippings of the rich in beautiful topdown shooter The Ascent, descend further into bullet hell via several classic shmups, and relax to the heavenly harp of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Plus, discussion of Call Of Duty’s Double Agent mode, and Tom’s back on the chess.

Call Of Duty is getting an Among Us-style mode called Double Agent, in which some players will be team killers and bellends. Not sure what the mode is about, though.
The Ascent is a stunning cyberpunk RPG shooter from new British studio Neon Giant.
Alex has been persevering with Mushihimesama, the bullet hell shmup. He discussed it at greater length in episode 359.
Alex keeps getting distracted by other shmups though, such as: STRIKERS 1945 II, Raiden IV: OverKill, Cho Ren Sha 68K, and DoDonPachi Resurrection. They’re all classics.
Tom has been soothed and delighted by the pacing and harps of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD on the Switch.
Do you know anything about playing lightgun games on modern PCs? Tom wants to hear from you, as prepares to buy a Sinden lightgun. He’d probably like to hear from you if you know more about British actor Donald Sinden, too.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 376: The Wax People Who Die Jul 31, 2021

Show notes

It’s all hands on deck – Steam Deck, that is – as Alex, Tom F and Graham gather to discuss Valve’s latest foray into hardware territory. Plus, Tom explains the comforts of roguelike deckbuilder Roguebook, and Alex uncovers the mysterious city of (people who might be turned into) gold in The Forgotten City. Also discussed: Wildermyth, Neurocracy, and why Day Of The Tentacle and point-and-click adventures are good actually.

Valve announced the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC that runs every game on Steam. It’s the power of a thousand owls in the palm of your hand.
Roguebook is a new roguelike deckbuilder from Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield and the developers of Faeria.
Trials Of Fire was another roguelike deckbuilder set within the pages of a book, which Tom discussed on episode 365.
After Insaniquarium and Plants vs. Zombies, designer George Fan made Octogeddon. He has since joined and left Magic developers Wizards Of The Coast.
Wildermyth is a procedural storytelling RPG, which Tom is beginning his journey into.
Neurocracy is interactive fiction about solving a murder via the pages of a fictional Wikipedia. We interviewed its developer last year, and the first episode is out now.
The Forgotten City began as a Skyrim mod and is now a standalone game, about investigating a time loop in a cursed Roman city.
Day Of The Tentacle is probably the best adventure game, but not necessarily the one we love the most.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 375: New-Agey Laser Dolphin Jul 10, 2021

Show notes

Chris and Tom S gather under the watchful eye of a seagull and discuss the car horror of Beware, the stuck-to-a-toilet horror of Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster, and the geometric horror of sorting rectangles in Tetris Effect. Also discussed: in what year we’d happily be trapped, our best and least liked noises, and Léa Seydoux Kart Racing.

Arkane released a ten-minute trailer for Deathloop that explained what Deathloop actually is.
PlayStation’s State Of Play also brought a new trailer for the Death Stranding: Director’s Cut.
Beware, beware, be a very wary ~~bear~~ driver of a car in horror sim Beware. There was a new trailer this past week which prompted Chris to play the old demo.
Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne HD Remaster brought the long-running JRPG dungeon crawler to PC for the first time in May.
Chris has been playing fancy artisinal Tetris, aka Tetris Effect. He argues it had one of the best game trailers ever, and he’s not wrong. The game’s available on PC from Steam and Game Pass.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 374: Uncomfortable About My Organs Jun 25, 2021

Show notes

Alex and Graham discuss 2D platformers… with a twist! Graham punts himself through the magnetic levels of Super Magbot while Alex swims in the inky droplets of Ynglet. Plus, lizard tummies are rubbed in Little Witch In The Woods, and Quake’s 25th anniversary is celebrated via the medium of envying Robert Yang’s talent. To finish, Graham pitches Alex a game about scooping people’s insides out.

Quake turned 25 years old, with some level design jams to celebrate.
The omni-talented Robert Yang made a Quake map included in one of the packs and wrote about it.
Friend of the pod and former RPS writer Brendan Caldwell also released a Quake map called Big Boy’s Birthday Party.
Little Witch In The Woods had a demo during the Steam Next Fest but it’s gone now.
Super Magbot has magnets where the jumping would normally be.
Ynglet is a platformer, too, but you’re leaping between and swimming through droplets in a felt-tip world.
Working Stiff is a great book about forensic pathology. You can find it via bookshop.org, and also evil online bookstores.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 373: Gary Barlow’s Space Crusade Jun 19, 2021

Show notes

Marsh, Tom S and Chris look back over the week of E3 announcements, from Giancarlo Esposito’s opinion of dictators, to the reveal of Peter Quiff in Guardians Of The Galaxy, to the onslaught of Left 4 Deadlikes. Also discussed: several dozen other E3 reveals, plus Tom’s new computer ennui, and Chris’s fondness for Chivalry 2.

Giancarlo Esposito was interviewed by Geoff Keighley during this year’s E3, with chat about, uh, dictators and astrology.
Weezer also played during the show, but maybe they shouldn’t have.
Then the founders of Deviation Games arrived to announce what good friends they were. Their company website is quite something.
Fall Guys is getting a bean with a boob window, but maybe it shouldn’t have.
The gang blast through some Summer Game Fest announcements, so let’s do the same: Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is coming, as if the original wasn’t self-indulgent enough; an Evil Dead game exists; there’s a spate of Left4likes coming, including The Anacrusis, Back 4 Blood and Redfall; Planet Of Lana was a Limbolike among many; and Geoff got to gift Elden Ring to the stream chat.
Bethesda showed more of Starfield than a logo, but no actual game.
Stalker 2: Heart Of Chernobyl is entering into the crowded Stalker genre.
Contraband is a an open world co-op game from the makers of Just Cause.
Sea Of Thieves is getting a Pirates Of The Caribbean tie-in ten years too late.
Battlefield 2042 is a big war and we like it.
12 Minutes is a time loop game about Willem Dafoe telling you off. Marsh compares it to Masq; Tom S confuses it with Facade.
Psychonauts 2 yep, yes.
Somerville is a new Limbolike coming from the co-founder of Limbo creator Playdead.
Halo Infinite’s multiplayer is free and that is good.
The rat game is back in A Plague Tale: Requiem.
The slime game is back in Slime Rancher 2.
Atomic Heart continues to wow with its character design.
Replaced has pixel art with luxurious lighting and a camera seemingly inspired by martial arts films.
Forza Horizon 5 looked amazing and was Tom’s game of E3.
Rainbow Six Extraction uses the tools an destruction of R6: Siege for a co-op monster slayer.
Avatar has finally achieved its inevitable form as an open world Ubisoft game in Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora.
The Square Enix conference began with Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy. Marsh is right, I did hate it.
Babylon’s Fall did not stick in the memory.
Life Is Strange: True Colours gives you a new psychic power: empathy.
Stranger Of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin inspired more conversation than any other game of E3. A kind of victory.
Chris has been waving swords about in Chivalry 2, which launched this past week.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 372: A Very Feral AutoDog To You Jun 05, 2021

Show notes

There’s a logjam down the River Take and Chris and Alex join Tom F to help clear it, smashing through Monster Train, Overboard!, Slipways, Unexplored 2, Necromunda: Hired Gun, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Subnautica Below Zero, and Griftlands. Where the river meets the sea, Chris and Alex drown some old games they once loved.

Chris has been playing Monster Train, for you but not himself.
God hates you in Overboard!, a mystery game in which you are the murderer from the makers of 80 Days.
Slipways is a microstrategy game about constructing trade empires in space, released this week.
Unexplored 2 is a roguelike RPG that’s procedurally generated from top to bottom. Alex spoke to its developer many years ago about the design of Unexplored 1.
Chris continues his exploration of alright Warhammer games with the profoundly ’90s Necromunda: Hired Guns.
Make your own Cyber-Mastiff – out of an actual dog.
Tom has revisited Mass Effect via the recent Legendary Edition and strongly recommends repeating yourself.
Subnautica Below Zero is a strong reminder of how good Subnautica is.
Story-driven RPG chafes up against roguelite deck-building in Griftlands, which has now graduated from early access.
Alex saves the spiciest of takes for Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus.
Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

Episode 371: Tarnish This Pony’s Big Day May 29, 2021

Show notes

Chris and Graham challenge Valheim’s developers to stop over-hyping ponies, launch Far Cry 6 opinions like missiles from a Katyusha backpack, and definitively answer why people like Warhammer via the turn-based strategy of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground.

Valheim’s developers bought a pony. An incredible flex, but why must they call it a horse?
Valheim has also sold quite a lot of copies – 6.8 million, to be exact. Ignore that Graham said 6.2m on the pod.
Far Cry 6 got its first proper trailer, confirming that it is a Far Cry game.
Warhammer Age Of Sigmar: Storm Ground is too many names, but otherwise seems a very enjoyable turn-based ghost smasher.
A reader asks what game we’re glad we stuck with, and we both choose Hitman games: Chris the more recent trilogy, and Graham 2006’s Hitman: Blood Money.
Here’s a video that will let you tell people you’ve seen the end of Earthworm Jim.

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 at questions@crateandcrowbar.com or tweet us @crateandcrowbar. You can also listen to it on YouTube, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you like.

The Crate and Crowbar is kindly funded by our Patreon backers. If you’d like to know more about supporting our podcast and its spinoffs, click here.

Our intro music is by The Mandibles from their track Clambake. Many of the band members now tour as Count Bobo And The Bullion.

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