Abject Suffering

Listen, have fun, go mad, get buried in a Dymaxion house. That's about the order of operations in this episode about a UK-only kids game based on a property called the Tweenies. They like to have fun and dance around, and one time a genie trapped them in the jungle with dinosaurs. But is there a more sinister side?

Why would you play a game about making games when you could make a game yourself, said the wise man, you absolute clod. Game Dev Tycoon bears a striking resemblance to Kairosoft's Game Dev Story, and they have caught plenty of heat for that, but if you're going to mimic a light management sim, there are far worse examples to crib from.

The Genesis is home to some very weird and obscure games, and Saint Sword is one of those. We use its strange transformation powerups to launch into a prolonged conversation about the pros and cons of centaurism.

Is it here because it's a late entry in a beloved series that changed hands? No, it's here so we can joyously talk about the opening cutscenes. It's very hard to be mad at this game unless your favorite unit got nerfed. Then you'll hold a murderous grudge for life.

We chose this game on the basis of a misunderstanding, because the UK doesn't know how to name candy. What we thought would be a game about those sweet, sour, chalky tablets, ended up being a game about big M&Ms. Would the game based on the chalky candy have been any better? It's impossible to say, so we'll say yes. Yes, it would have been better.

We take this perfectly fine party game and play it exactly the wrong way... Alone! We also talk about hats, the problem of having a head that's too big, and the meanest thing Gary has ever done.

Hop into a limo with $1,000 and your worst yuppie friends and head to Vegas in order to learn about the hidden horrors of strangers approaching you to ask for things. Also, we learn about the daring exploits of Mr. Colo$tomy, high roller extraordinaire.

It's hard to know what Devolver Digital was thinking when they signed on this one. You may think the idea of a turn-based side scrolling stealth game sounds cool, and it might be, but only if it was... finished. Ronin is not.

What follows is an in-depth report on what qualities someone must possess to be "so raven". This Disney Channel millennial favorite is, honestly, a conceptual 50 car pileup, and the universe it inhabits is so weird we only get a chance to scratch its surface.

It's the video game version of "The Song That Never Ends", and ironically it ALSO pisses off bus drivers. A joke game created for an unreleased Penn and Teller prank game, Desert Bus has ascended from myth to meme to genuine charity hero. We talk a little about its history, then bag on how terrible road trips are.

One Must Fall 2097 is an illustration that the Console/PC gap cuts boths ways, depending on the genre. While the PC exceled at first person shooters and RPGs early on, it struggled with racing games and fighting games... though it's not like they didn't try. An early effort by Epic, this fighting game pits Dorito robots against each other, with different pilots you cannot see.

You remember this object from your childhood? Now it's covered in blood! That's the 90s industrial touch, baybee. Listen to us talk about this strange first-person pinball game and wrestle with why effort isn't inherently a bad thing, but it can certainly make things worse.

It's a clash of the titans, as we clash about whether this game about titanic animals is any fun. And that makes for an episode that, on the whole, stays on topic! At least in comparison to the other episodes of this show.

What happens when your toilet is also a living creature who produces waste? We talk about this and more, and unsuccessfully try to not make this episode all about how old television was terrible.

A game with an unlikely name has an outsized legacy, weirdly turning into an engine for early 3D first person PC games. But before we hit that, we have to talk about unlikely showbiz rites of passage and a very bad brush with emesis.

Odd are you played it on a demo disk back in the day, but this PlayStation game is better and weirder than you'd expect. Also, heads up, there's a gnarly anecdote about a plumbing accident that gets about as bad as it could possibly get. If you're squeamish, you'll know when to turn things off.

We can't lie and say this minigame collection is any good, but we CAN talk about how great the Goosebumps books are. And we can gush about how important kids' horror media was to us when we were young.

A boring Battlezone clone's hilarious manual sets us off onto talking about business monsters again. You might not believe that Forbes Corporate Warrior exists. You might not WANT to believe that Forbes Corporate Warrior exists. You aren't ready for Forbes Corporate Warrior to exist.

Funny enough, it was the most misguided port I could think of. Which isn't to say that the mini version of Max Payne isn't impressive in its own way... It's just frustrating to always get killed by enemies who are off-screen.

Crass, classist humor can't paper over a thin game long enough for us to not find another truly depressing internet phenomenon. And we can't stress enough: be cool.