Some intellectual properties are like PFAS. Once introduced to the environment, they will never go away, just sitting and warping whatever they touch. The Hannah-Barbera archives are a superfund site of these, and no property has stuck around like Scooby-Doo. Night of 100 Frights has the distinction of being a very faithfully created 3D version of something that wasn’t great in the first place, attached to rote 3D platformer gameplay.

We also discuss exercise games, Scooby-Doo honoring the victims of 9/11, and mourning Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.

The Ripper strikes again! This time, it’s an unlucky someone down at the National Transportation Safety Board warehouse with a chest cavity full of soup. The problem is, there are no witnesses. At least, there are no corporeal witnesses.

Also discussed:

• Shadows of North America: The Great Ghost Dance

• Under the Hood: Hiring Runners

• Grimoire: Spirits

Thank you to Darrin Michelson for our art this season, and to Gwen Static for the music!T

Kaye, Ben, Dennis, and Moxie talk about Star Wars: Zero Company, Aliens: Fire Team Elite 2, Nordhold and much more!

The Grind:

• Moxie: Aliens: Fire Team Elite 2.

• Dennis: Aliens: Fire Team Elite 2. Stellaris. Star Wars: Zero Company.

• Ben: Big Walk. Nordhold.

The Multiplayer:

• What games remind you of childhood?

The End Boss:

• Zero Company staff put on furlough shortly before the game released.

• Even more Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks.

• nVidia’s DLSS 5 slop upscaler will cut your frame rate in half.

• People are digging up new details in the original Skyrim gameplay reveal.

Someone call Powerman 5000 because we’ve found out what it’s like when worlds collide. Following a cartoonish affair last episode, Jimmy’s plot and the cartel plot run straight into each other as Lalo reaches out to Jimmy to help clean up the mess with Krazy-8’s arrest.

We’re running out of Fallout games to cover! Which means we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to bring you a close look at the memory-holed PS2 and XBox entry into the series: Brotherhood of Steel. It’s a Dark Alliance-like that demonstrates that one of those can actually be a lot worse than the others, and it’s all made worse by how poorly it handles the Fallout setting.

Highlighted project: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Searched the name, no obit.

They made a fun Pong game for the PlayStation. ANYWAY, did you know that we both got Covid-19 in Las Vegas? Let’s rank the symptoms!

What harm could deep deep discounts cause? There’s no way they could set off a chain reaction that leads directly or indirectly to the creation of a Heisenberg, right?

Uh oh! Both Gary and Kaye have COVID! So please forgive our voices and our absolute flightiness as we answer your questions, read your responses to Ogre Battle 64 and Dispatch, and talk about what makes an inventory system good or bad.

SEPTEMBER GAMES:

• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

• The Saboteur

• Pacific Drive (Premium)

OCTOBER GAMES:

• Cultic

• Stone of Madness

• Silent Hill: Townfall

Everything To Jean Anouilh.