Marsh, Tom S and Graham gather to discuss the looming mecha dickbot of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the small remote-controlled bots of Duskers, the time manipulation combat of Superhot and the importance of comedy in Portal 2.

Also discussed: fairness in roguelikes, the kerfuffle over corpses in Darkest Dungeon, the fate of aging esports professionals, kindly pensioners playing Journey, which pretty games will tax your new PC, which literary characters or objects we’d like to play in a game, and the prettiest videogame explosions.

Show notes

  • MGSV The Phantom Pain is out next week! Here’s its launch trailer, with all its sentimental madness for giant mecha dickbots.
  • Duskers is in early access now with 3-6 months of development left, but Marsh is already in love with the blip-bloop of its spaceship-searching squads.
  • Here’s a brief synopsis of the Darkest Dungeon situation, in which feature additions to the game rose the ire of some players such that they’re now optional.
  • Superhot was Kickstarted last year and its beta is currently out with some of those backers. If you’re not one of them, you can still play the original free prototype.
  • The Iain M. Banks Culture novels take from games, but games don’t take enough from them.
  • Here’s the book that Graham is referring to about the Vietnam war through the objects carried by its soldiers.

The place to discuss this episode is on the Episode Discussion forum. You can also listen to this episode on YouTube, and check out our channel there for other stuff.

If you have a question for a future episode, send it to us at questions@crateandcrowbar.com. You can also leave questions for us on the forum or tweet us @crateandcrowbar.

You can also follow us on Twitter as individuals:

Tom Senior
Marsh Davies
Graham Smith

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

If you want to support the podcast, you can pledge us a dollar or two per ep over on our Patreon – thanks again to everyone who’s already does. You can also give us a one-off tip if you prefer: