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.

"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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.