August 11, 2016 The cockpit lid closes, the engines fire up, the atmosphere melts away, and the infinite vastness of space is laid before you. "VHERH THOO?" flap the disgustingly real rubber lips protruding from your cockpit dashboard. "STHOMWHER NICE I THOOPE." You know the lips are still learning, but this knowledge does not endear you to them. You zoom out to check the galactic map, enter a destination for yourself, and prepare for a long trip. "DTHID YOU KNOW" the lips started, "I KNOOW THREE DITHVERENT PLEPLE NAMMED SEAN MURRAY?" You violently claw at the cockpit lid, spring it open and are sucked into the void, barely missing a resplendent space whale that happened to be cruising by. You think there's something written on the side of the whale, but before you can read it, you die in space.

Discussed: No Man's Sky, Overcooked, Spaceteam (card game), Pandemic: Legacy, House of the Dying Sun, RimWorld, Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray

August 4, 2016 "This has happened, look what you've done," the robot wrote. Chris sent Danielle to her death in deep space, but her estranged husband still comes to visit. "It's just garbage," the robot continued. Smirking, a besunglassed Nick Breckon catches a ride on a dolphin and breaks the surface in a graceful arc. "Video game & pop culture cast, hacking and robot-mongering awaits," the robot concluded, incorrectly. "It's a good one!"

Discussed: Abzu, RimWorld, Headlander

July 28, 2016 Join us on two very different journeys to the future... of the past. We crack open our briefcase-sized laptop and hack through layer after layer of security in the 80s cyberpunk world of Quadrilateral Cowboy, then take a wrong turn and find ourselves in the polished fiberglass and shag carpet Fondlarium of Headlander. Batman is destroyed.

Discussed: Quadrilateral Cowboy, Headlander, RimWorld, Inside, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Half-Life, Imbroglio, Batman

July 21, 2016 Dear Mom: Life in the new colony sucks. No one knows how to hunt, the clothes they give us keep falling apart, every night there are literal wolves at the door, and Nick (or "Goldblum" as he has fashioned himself) can't keep a handle on his most basic impulses. The cable package only has ESPN 1, so Evo's out of the question. I had a pet rat for a while but I don't know what happened to it. Probably something terrible. I never thought space would be like this. I hope I can go home soon.

Discussed: RimWorld, Prison Architect, Jeff Goldblum, Street Fighter V, Counter Strike: GO, Rust, The Jejune Institute, Latitude, Spot Goes To Hollywood

July 14, 2016 You pass someone on the street and immediately you know. The light hitting their face, the way they amble forward, aware of the world but maybe simultaneously inside a totally different world too. You pass them and keep to yourself, knowing that you are apart from them, not of them, but you also know, deep down, that you could become one of them at any time.

Discussed: Pokémon GO, Inside, Limbo, Splash Damage, Dark Souls III, Hitman, Far Cry 2, Warhammer, Pepsiman

July 7, 2016 This week we do our best to unpack the criminal scandal surrounding Counter-Strike: GO gambling sites and the streamers who secretly own them while publicly promoting them, then we play a game exclusively about criminals packing things.

Discussed: Counter-Strike: GO, Asemblance, Fitz Packerton, Demon's Souls, Imbroglio, Escape Velocity, System Shock (Remastered)

June 30, 2016 The robot hovers silently in front of you; its micro-props keep it nearly still in the hot evening breeze. System Shock buzzes on the screen behind you. Next to it on another screen, the new Hitman runs idle, waiting. You've made a little easy cash from the robot tonight already - no big scores but better than the alternative - which means your luck has to be running thin, but how thin? You're not sure if you imagine it but as your hand approaches the palm acceptance plate the robot seems to pause, as if to breathe in. You lower your hand, slowly slide the balcony door shut and go play video games.

Discussed: System Shock (Remastered), Hitman (2016), Overland, Counter-Strike: GO, Bridge

June 23, 2016 Look, I am amazing at sneaking. Everyone knows I’ve always been amazing at it. It’s breathtaking–just incredible–how well I hide in a box. Cheatin’ Hitman has all the codes and tricks, and everyone still sees him. Ruins all credibility of the franchise. Just pathetic. Can’t even find the secret ghost window. Sad!

Discussed: Hitman (2016), Warhammer: Total War, The Haunted Mansion: Ghost Post, The Witness, The Matrix: Revolutions, accessibility in games, robot escapes

June 16, 2016 It's E3 time again. This is a weird E3, landing in a transitional time when everyone might have preferred to not come but felt the obligation all the same. We untangle our own understanding of Sony and Microsoft's announcements, get stoked about Zelda, and visit the world's largest bag of Doritos.

Discussed: Xbox Scorpio, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Overland, Itch Refinery, The Haunted Mansion: Ghost Post

June 9, 2016 Maybe, somewhere beneath the games you play, somewhere too deep to feel, there is another battle taking place between forces so staggering, so total, as to be invisible. You choose a hero, enter the arena and attack, then hear a faint echo coming from miles away, or maybe the past, the future? An assailant vaporizes before you, your leaderboard lights up and you smile, but way down deep in the earth, deep in your bones, you hear the muffled cries of the Heavy and all the heavies that came before and after him, and you know what you are a part of. You change loadouts and respawn.

Discussed: Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, Defense of the Ancients, Total War: Warhammer, Total War: Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, Deus Ex GO, Imbroglio, Bridge

June 2, 2016 This week we're joined by special guest Danielle Riendeau to wander the abandoned hallways of Mars, where we create a Hell of our own, one where there's no one to bother us and all the time in the world to relax and take it in. Meanwhile, Chris takes a risky assignment in Marrakesh and is killed on the toilet, but makes it home to regale Jake with accounts of how good Overwatch is.

Discussed: Hitman (2016), Doom (2016), Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Soft Body, The Idle Fiction Jam, Mouth Feel: The Summer Wizard Cocktail Jam, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

May 26, 2016 This week we're throwing away our traditional hyper-competitive leaderboard and focusing on hand-selected stats that show us what we've accomplished. Chris plays Overwatch and discovers that, after years away there's still a Blizzard for him. Nick goes to Disneyland, comes home and finds a new release of Planet Coaster. "This means something," he says, burying his theme park under mountains of dirt. Alone, late at night, Jake builds the Nublar.

Discussed: Wizard Jam, Overwatch, Planet Coaster, Imbroglio, Hitman (2016)

May 19, 2016 In the middle of an awkward conversation you accidentally press down the left and right sticks at the same time. It turns out to be for the best: Your buddies look completely ridiculous frozen mid-sentence and you decide this is a perfect moment to preserve as a photo. You try to clear up the shot by setting any enemies to hidden... and find yourself suddenly alone in the room. Realizing you have no friends, you go load up Steam and play Doom for eight hours without interruption.

Discussed: Uncharted 4, Doom (2016), Dark Souls 3, DevGAMM, Planet Coaster, Parkitect, RollerCoaster Tycoon World, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

May 13, 2016 Before Chris disappears deep into Russia on assignment, we check all our dead drops for incoming correspondence with readers abroad, and find some gems, long forgotten and wedged way in the back. Enjoy tales of babywalling your identical twin, of vile things left in jars, of theme parks gone wrong, and of the time Nick Breckon played Dark Souls 3 alone with nothing but a bottle of rum.

Discussed: Dark Souls 3, HTC Vive, Parkitect, Planet Coaster, American McGee Presents: Tim Burton's Willy Wonka Tycoon

May 4, 2016 Join us as we wander the world without a map, pecking away with tiny pointed attacks at anything perceived as adversarial, navigating with only the barest remembered scraps of where things were, what they were like, how they should be.

Discussed: Offworld Trading Company, Dark Souls III, Hyper Light Drifter, Duck Game, Team Fortress 2, Hitman, Sin Episodes