As good a pinball videogame as I've played. This properly melted my brain last year.

I love how hard Aidy Bryant sells every line in Platonic. Character could be a total dud in someone else's hands. Another great part of a quietly excellent show.

I think calling it foul drainage is unnecessarily cruel. It's natural produce. No shame in it.

If I could have any superpower, I'd ask to be more assertive when talking to builders.

I know naff all about architecture, but it's notable that both Terry Farrell and Nicholas Grimshaw died in the same month. Became aware of them through a brilliant BBC doc The Brits Who Built The Modern World, and felt the tiniest connection to Farrell/Grimshaw's early work.

I did not have a comedy gold Sean Penn performance on my 2025 bingo card. One of the many wild highlights of One Battle After Another. First five star film I've seen in yonks.

Incredible. 10/10, no notes

I aged a million years in 2017, but the games were good.

That Chronoscript trailer looked great - Deskworks previous (similar) game RPG Time: The Legend of Wright is a proper underrated gem. One of the, like, five videogames that is actually funny.

Second case of the final Rise of the Golden Idol DLC is brilliant - a detective love letter to one of the best to ever do it.

Tough break for GTA6.

Sainsburys full of parents doing a big shop with the kids they're dropping off at uni, buying them the last vegetable they're going to eat for the next three years.

@fachewachewa.itch.io If anyone knows this, you will - online game, maybe 5x5 grid of names with clues about who to cross off. Sort of Minesweeper meets Guess Who. I'm sure I haven't imagined it.

Dreamed last night that Edge gave a [10] to this terrible platformer about a cartoon dog and woke up feeling really agitated about it.

Oh hey, just so you know, I'm available to review Hades II if you'd like words from someone who's written 500+ unbylined reviews for Edge magazine. I've put 60 hours into the various Early Access versions, if that helps sweeten the deal at all...

Metroid looks like it might get a bit Gears 5 - zipping between locations where the proper Prime action kicks in. It needed to do *something* that the others didn't. I'm into it.

Truly bonkers.

These deep dive episodes are probably the best ones we do, certainly the most nutritional value. This Bully episode is a nice companion piece to our GTA replays.

The amazing thing about video games is that they can really let you express a different side of yourself, something that perhaps you couldn't or wouldn't reveal in the real world

Someone has been leaving hectoring fish stickers around my desk at work.

Someone is going to confuse these two and have a terrible time at the movies.

Somehow spent most of the weekend playing Hell Is Us. Feels like one of *those* sevens: not sure the combat has the juice (but it's at least not too punishing) but the hands-off structure (there's no map or objective markers) makes you lean in. I'm kinda hooked.

Alien Earth is going to make a huge dent on metal water bottle sales.

This film is bonkers. Dreadful first hour, but hugely entertaining for the rest. You come out feeling like you've watched a much better film. The music studio scene is an absolute scorcher.

I don't think I've ever heard a soundtrack torpedo a film harder than Highest 2 Lowest. Every emotional beat announced in the clumsiest way possible. I'm howling at some of this stuff.

Indiana Jones DLC wrapped up - lovely use of a lazy Saturday. Loved that it was mostly puzzles. Machine Games really mastered the staging of these over the game, with all their whirring parts and dramatic room transformations. I'd happily play one of these every few years for the rest of time.

Fun one this, though we accidentally spent 100+ combined hours playing games for the episode. Inefficient way to do business, but for our precious listeners, *anything*.

Cast these two as father and son in something.

The most important gaming event of the year.

No one better at set dressing than IO. Bond looks fab.

Saw Fiddler on the Roof at the Hippodrome - not a musical I'm familiar with, but struck by wealth of bangers in the first half (beautifully played, sung and danced). But where's the ending? One moment all this drama is set up and the next you're clapping and being ushered out into a Bristol carpark.

Mafia The Old Country might be the first example of Chekhov's volcano.

Lovely response to this one. Makes all those horrendous mission failures feel worth it.

This guy is so good in Justified. Looks like the devil in human form (those impossibly arched eyebrows), and whenever he turns up you know you're in for a fun episode.

I didn't have the patience to finish GTA San Andreas back in the day, but had a lot of fun rectifying that in the gentler definitive edition. A great time, that hopefully translates into a great pod.

A powerfully ominous cloud.

Kicking me up the ass whenever I bend over to pick up a penny.

Seven out ten Dexter Resurrection episodes down and it still hasn't shit the bed. Dare a guy dream of a return to form?

Every line in that Neo Berlin trailer sounds as if it was recorded on a wildly different mic, ranging from professional sound booth to budget gaming headset.

How I felt at the end of the Metacritic Game:

I didn't have Steam account until quite late.

This would have been a killer Yes Yes No on Reply All.

Recording our first attempt at a new Metacritic game today where you have 750 credits to buy 10 games - games cost their Metacritic score. Quite an interesting exercise in evaluating past scores. Lots of things seem wildly 'overpriced' now. The fun is sniffing out undervalued favourites.

There's a bit in Amazon's The Assassin where a character drops a manga reference that is so out of place it feels like being hit by a car.

Bold to make a Fantastic Four film set after they did all the interesting stuff that made the world fall in love with them. And to cast four people with zero chemistry. Absolutely hopeless stuff.

These episodes often feel like a disaster in the moment, but this was a fun games court to listen back to. Samuel and the listeners brought their A-game.

Nice to see Ludocene out in the wild. If it serves up my 'expert' card, adding it to your search will serve up loads of detective and mystery games I've enjoyed. Hey, I'll take any chance I get to push The Centennial Case.

Fuckin' Games Court prep. 💀💀💀