The Game Show

What game came in the box? This week we go console by console, from the NES to the Switch 2, and pick our favorite pack-in game for each one. The classics are all here: Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Sonic, Wii Sports. So are the misfires like Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and the oddballs like Hexic on the 360 and Astro’s Playroom on the PS5. Jess makes the case for Pokémon Colosseum, Jet Set Radio Future, and Pokopia. Jack picks Halo every time. Along the way we cover PlayStation demo discs, the TurboDuo launch disc, the GBA bundles nobody remembers, and why 1-2-Switch should have been free.

Also this week: Xbox says it is not for sale, Star Wars Galactic Racer is the best reviewed Star Wars game in 20 years, the Pokémon Fossil Museum heads to Denver, and 007 First Light gets free DLC.

Watch Jess and Break play Pokémon Crystal live Mondays at 6:00 PM Central on the BreakmanX YouTube channel.

The Game Show has been covering gaming since 2002. More at breakmanx.com.

Hot takes night. Break, Jack Burt0n, Jess, Logan, and Darria defend their spiciest gaming opinions: GameCube was the best of its generation, long games are overrated, Souls games aren't a flex, and piracy helped the industry. Plus a clip from the very first Game Show in 2002 where Break predicted Microsoft's whole playbook. News: Suda51 goes independent, Microsoft patents ads after boss fights, Witcher 3 Remastered, and GTA 6's map size.

The full crew is back and the topic is video game endings. We pick the best endings ever made, from Chrono Trigger and Super Metroid to Portal, Final Fantasy VI, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Subnautica, Alan Wake 2 and a surprisingly emotional case for Mario Kart Wii. Then a lightning round on the worst, including Mass Effect 3, Mega Man X6 and whoever that was pretending to be Chris Redfield in Resident Evil 7.

News this week: the Xbox layoffs and Halo moving to Activision, Control Resonant launching tomorrow, Jess reviews the new Resident Evil movie, Sega nearly cancelled Sonic, the Tokyo Game Show recap, the DLSS 5 leak, and someone put a fruit fly brain in Minecraft.

The Game Show has been running since 2002. Watch live every Wednesday at 9:00 PM Central on the BreakmanX YouTube channel, and catch the Pokémon Crystal co-stream with Jess and Break on Mondays at 6:00 PM Central. Full archive and Discord at breakmanx.com.

Spoiler warning. We talk about how these games end.

Sir Randall of Ye Old Press joins Break to talk about building physical big box editions for digital-only games. Hollow Knight: Silksong. Ocarina of Time on PC. Warframe. Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. He designs the box, prints the art, and puts a disc in it.

We get into how he makes them, why Limited Run and First Press pushed him into doing it himself, his official Colossal Cave collector's editions for Ken and Roberta Williams, and what Sony's 2028 decision to end physical production means for people who want to own what they buy.

Plus the news: Diablo V, Xbox picks up Kojima's PHYSINT after PlayStation walked, Sony argues in court that you never owned your digital games, Game Pass day-one rumors, and a possible Eternal Darkness remaster.

Randall's work: yeold.press and Sir Randall Does Stuff on YouTube.

The Game Show, running since 2002. Season 13. breakmanx.com

We gave box art a full episode. Jess, Jack, and Logan brought picks, the rules were loose, and Jess found a cover so cursed it stopped the show.

First the news. A new Nintendogs is rumored for Switch 2. The Blizzard union ratified its first contract covering 1,900 employees. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe got eight-player split-screen, Mario Kart World added free SNES tracks, Metroid Ravenous got a trailer, and the Ocarina of Time remake was revealed the day before.

Then box art. The original Mega Man cover that has nothing to do with the game. Zelda II manual art. Trojan. The Sims Medieval. Pokemon Pinball. Blue Dragon in Japan. Garfield Kart, which somehow has never come up in 650 episodes. The Okami box that shipped with an IGN watermark on it. And Snow White and the Seven Clever Boys.

We also debuted our new BreakmanX artwork this episode.

The Game Show has been running since 2002. New episodes every week at breakmanx.com.

The crew heads back to the arcade this week. Everyone brought a list of their favorite arcade games and the memories that go with them. Break's picks run from Konami beat 'em ups like TMNT and X-Men to shmups like Truxton, Radiant Silvergun, and Metal Slug, plus a deep cut called The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy that you've probably never played. Jack came in with fifteen picks of his own, including Sunset Riders, After Burner II, and Time Crisis II. Then the whole table swaps arcade stories. Aladdin's Castle discoveries, two hour drives for DDR, and the first time anyone saw Mortal Kombat in the wild.

In the news: Gamescom 2026 brings a Witcher 3 remaster and a new expansion, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2 finally frees MGS4 from the PS3, Xbox starts beta testing a disc to digital program, and Dave Bautista is officially cast as Kratos.

The Game Show has been running since 2002 as one of the first video game podcasts ever made. Hosted by BreakmanX with Jack Burton, Maul, Darria, Logan, and Jess. New episodes every week at breakmanx.com.

Tonight we’re talking cheat codes and the Game Genie. How they worked, why they worked, the arms race between publishers and kids trying to break their games.

🎮 About The Game Show
Running since 2002, one of the earliest gaming podcasts around. Season 13 continues our look at consoles, industry news, and the games shaping it all.

🔗 Links
BreakmanX: https://breakmanx.com
Discord: linked at breakmanx.com

► MUSIC
Opening: Project X – Mega Man 2 “Project X2 – Title Screen” OC ReMix – https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00625
Closing: Project X – Mega Man 2 “Ending” Buy the album here: https://projectx.bandcamp.com/album/m…

This week the crew ranks sequels that beat the original — Mario, Sonic, Metroid, Resident Evil, Metal Gear, Zelda, Pokémon, Horizon, and more. Some picks are easy calls, some might start an argument.

Games discussed:
Super Mario Bros. 2, Sonic 3, Pokémon Crystal, Jedi Survivor, Mega Man 2, Mario Kart 8, Alan Wake 2, Super Metroid, Jet Set Radio Future, Horizon Forbidden West, A Link to the Past, Resident Evil 2, Metal Gear Solid.

The Game Show has been running since 2002 — one of the first video game podcasts ever made. New episodes weekly.

We're counting down some of the biggest console failures in gaming history — and we actually played most of them ourselves. The Phantom, Infinium Labs' infamous vaporware console that never shipped a single unit. Gizmondo, the handheld secretly bankrolled by the Swedish mafia. Nokia's N-Gage, the "taco phone" you had to hold sideways to make calls. And the Ouya, the Kickstarter darling that raised $8.5 million and still couldn't make it.

Plus we get into some deep-cut flops: the NEC PC-FX, the NEC SuperGrafx, the Virtual Boy, the Atari 7800, the Philips CD-i, and even Soulja Boy's short-lived line of retro consoles.

We also cover this week's gaming news: EA's finalized sale to the Saudi PIF and Jared Kushner, a leaked Xbox backward compatibility document for Project Helix, mass layoffs at the FIFA World Cup game's studio, and a new Lego PlayStation 1 set.

The Game Show has been running since 2002 — one of the earliest gaming podcasts around. Every week we cover the games we're playing, the news shaping the industry, and whatever else we can't shut up about.

Join the conversation at breakmanx.com — click Discord to chat with us during the week, or drop a comment, we read them all.

The greatest GameCube games of all time, ranked and argued about by the crew that started this show on that very console. Rogue Leader, Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Beyond Good and Evil, Ikaruga, and a dozen more picks get debated — plus gaming news on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 hitting Switch 2, the Avatar Legends fighting game, and a Dungeons & Dragons movie in the works.

The Game Show has been running since 2002 — one of the longest-running gaming podcasts on the internet.

🎮 More at https://breakmanx.com