The Crate and Crowbar

Latest Episodes:

Episode 430: The High-Dingus Scenario Jan 12, 2024

Show notes

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. He wouldn’t need to oxygenate his blood if he was a real man.
South Scrimshaw Part One: a sci-fi visual novel written in the style of a nature documentary about alien whales. It’s excellent!
The Finals is a very sweaty place for dinguses and a thrillingly dynamic shooter.
Robocop: Rogue City is a 6.5/10 shooter which is a huge credit to its producers.
This Bed We Made is a mystery game in which you play a cleaner in a hotel.
Pentiment is a superb medieval murder mystery.
Cocoon is a puzzle game in which you are a bug with magic balls.

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 429: Sickos for Polish Dec 22, 2023

Show notes

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 more than a namecheck to: Cocoon, Destiny 2, Jedi Survivor, Vampire Survivors, Hunt: Showdown
Baldur’s Gate 3: game of the year or… game of the decade?!
Cult of the Lamb, a cartoon action roguelike soon to feature sex, by popular demand.
Dave the Diver, a multi-genre sushi experience.
Witchfire, an early access spooky shooter set in the witch era, but with more ACOG sights.
Tallboys making a game about a tall boy: Militsioner
The historical triumphs and ellisions of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey VS a short holiday to off-season Athens.
Chants of Sennaar, a terrific linguistic puzzle game.

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 428: Chaotic Evil Steamed Hams Nov 17, 2023

Show notes

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 Hams sketch.
The Talos Principle 2
It’s “Roboterhaus”. Thanks, Germans.
Free on the Epic Game Store if you’re an Amazon Prime customer: Invincible Presents: Atom Eve.
Lovely Mike Cook’s lovely talk at the Roguelike Celebration, encouraging people to experiment with making the very rules of games themselves procedural.
In his Roguelike Celebration talk, the also lovely Tom Francis picks apart the procedural considerations and the many teleporters of Heat Signature, lovely-ly.

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 427: The Worst Seven Dwarves You Can Conceive Oct 30, 2023

Show notes

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 took every fibre of maturity and decency I possess not to title this episode “The Pussy Posse”.
BE EXCITED about the forthcoming Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island, a “back to basics” instalment of the classic roguelike that nonetheless moves the series into 3D.
Spider-Man 2. Spider-Mans? Spiders-Man? A tour deforce of tech, traversal mechanics and symbiote-led therapy.
Venom 2 sounds very odd.
Resi 4’s remake doesn’t replace the original but is a success in its own right.
The Resi HD project.
Please don’t remake the racist Resi!
Invention abounds in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a generous and sumptuous return to 2D.

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 426: On a Spiritual Level, Nothing Matters Oct 13, 2023

Show notes

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 shoot that matter in robot xenoplanet hell, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon.
Put an orb in your orb (inside your orb) in brilliantly chitinous puzzle game, Cocoon.
Referenced: exploratory puzzle-platformer, Fez, weird insect open-world racing game, Vangers, and recursive Sokoban brain-breaker, Patrick’s Parabox.
Potential GOTYs: Marvel’s Midnight Suns and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew.
Crate and Crowbar crimes detected in The Lamplighters League.
Beep beep, motherfucker! It’s Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.
Return to roof-hopping murder basics in Assassin’s Creed: Mirage.

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 425: Real Chads ********** to Ambient Nightmares Sep 29, 2023

Show notes

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: The Cursed Crew is a superb real-time-with-pause stealth game by the sadly and abruptly shuttered studio Mimimi.
Baldur’s Gate’s final act is worth waiting for, if your machine can run it now.
Starfield. Oh boy.
Quake 2’s remaster by Nightdive gives a new lease of life to an almost-classic but Machine Games’ new campaign for, Heart of the Machine, is transcendent.

ou 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 424: Shamblesman’s Terrible Holiday Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

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, Dungeons and Daddies, Rude Tales of Magic
The Monte Cook roleplaying game Jamie is trying to remember is Predation (though Numenera is also great!)
The Wonderful 101 is Platinum’s cartoon superhero combo brawler, touted as the spiritual sequel to Viewtiful Joe
Astral Chain is Platinum’s game about cops versus demons
Vanquish is Platinum’s slidey robot shooter
Transformers: Devastation is Platinum’s surprising foray into a true trash licence
Platinum Games also had a hand in Final Fantasy 16 and Nier Automata
Madworld was Platinum’s first game and promised a catalogue of hyperviolent Wii games that never arrived, possibly because it wasn’t very good
Bayonetta is Platinum’s masterpiece and I totally don’t get it, sorry
DmC was Ninja Theory’s take on the Devil May Cry series
Pikmin 4 is incoming and has a free demo.

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 423: He Loves to Juice a Rag Aug 05, 2023

Show notes

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 large Clive.
Souls-inspired shooter sequel Remnant 2 has striking Bloodbornisms and Anar Londo moments aplenty in its grab-bag of genres. Plus: a dog.
Firstperson puzzler Viewfinder’s mutable (and mute-able) world is a thrilling central conceit, but leaves its potential unjuiced.
Also referenced: Portal, Portal 2, Manifold Garden and Diablo IV.

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 422: Bottomfully Endful Jul 21, 2023

Show notes

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?
The Outer Wilds
Slay The Spire
Hunt: Showdown
Disco Elysium
Bloodborne
Hitman
Max Payne 3: from the time when real men were bald, drunk and sad, and games were fucking full of them.
Spelunking, base-building mash-up: Mr Sun’s Hat Box
Diablo IV is very OK.
Hunt: Showdown’s new boss compels a return to the swamp that lives forever in our hearts.
Wizardry-style JRPG, Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society

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 421: Pat the Yak Jul 14, 2023

Show notes

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 cultural resonance.
Uncharted 4 is a game about being frustratingly reasonable with friends and family, admiring broaches, and mowing down bazillions of enemies in stunning locations.
LA Noire is a game about shouting unexpectedly at little old ladies, who may be lying, but are not lying in quite the right way.
Bloodborne is a game of sick delirium and celestial terror that is somehow a lovely place to go back to.

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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