The Pitch

This week's episode is about Hidden Agenda, a really neat DOS game that is both too serious and too good to joke much about. It's a strategy game where you run a fictional post-revolutionary Central American country, making decisions that steer its development and inevitably piss off the people around you. So instead we talk about Gary's recent solo PRGE, and give some extremely belated takes on the Silent Hill announcements. We recorded this a while ago.

This week we venture further into Nokron, the underground exile of the Nox people, who perfected a weapon to kill a god. This involves some detours through Ancestral Worshippers, and a brush with a strange levitating coffin, before we reach the Sacred Ground itself, overtaken by Silver Tears.

Messes just lead to more messes as Walt and Jesse continue to deal with the aftermath of their first cook. The biggest loose end is Krazy-8, chained to a post in Jesse's basement, with Walt looking for any reason to let him go. This episode has some of the most rivetting scenes in the series, along with one of the most embarrassing... Get out of here with that "soul" stuff.

We would like to thank Gwen Static for composing our theme song, and Trent Peters for creating our great podcast art.

Kole, Ben, David, and Dennis talk about Persona 5 Royal, Walkabout Mini Golf, Dawncaster, and much more.

• Ben: V Rising. Phasmophobia.
• Kole: Phasmophobia. Walkabout Mini Golf.
• David: Deep Rock Galactic.
• Dennis: Dawncaster. Fallout 3. Persona 5 Royal.

• What game or property do you want a survival horror version of?

• A Riven remake is on the way.
• Apparently Nascar 2005 for GameCube is a lot more useful than we thought.
• The Last of Us HBO series premieres in January 2023.
• The PS Plus numbers.

When they say nobody asked for this, that's Gary Butterfield erasure. I asked for this. I exist!

I mean, sure, Adam Jensen is a pretty tough pill to swallow. He shaves his beard in an extremely obnoxious way. Further, this is clearly the middle chapter of a prequel trilogy, which might be the most direct recipe for an unimportant narrative. However....however....

All of the above, plus a regrettable marketing campaign, basically eclipsed the entire conversation about this immersive sim that plays incredibly well. This number is worth your time for level design alone. Hear us talk about why.

Support Watch Out for Fireballs!

Sometimes it takes a Geekwad to save a kingdom. So we must venture back in time to grab outdated stereotypes about nerds and put them to work. Wacky Funsters! is a minigame collection with a budget, an early 90s DOS game that was probably sold in Office Max stores until 2005. And it gets us talking about all of the other not-quite-games that clogged the bargain bins, too.

This week's episodes: Fruity Plum, Plum Flute, Star Of Bethlehem, and Hollow Heart.

It's a shame when a great idea is wasted on a terrible execution. That's what happened with Michigan: Report from Hell. You play as a television camera man who is out with a team covering mysterious and violent incidents in Chicago as a strange fog rolls in. You shape the events through what you choose to film. Great idea, right? Too nothing about it holds together, leaving us with a clunky and awkward PS2 survival horror game that should have been great.

Three days of physical and mental unrest have sent a man to seek sanctuary at the services of the Cathedral of St. Barnabé. But far from being able to escape his problems, he finds himself pursued by an unearthly church organist all across Paris to his own home, unable to escape that which hunts for his very soul.

"In the Court of the Dragon" is the third story from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. This massively influential work of weird fiction would go on to inspire a number of other creators whose work you love.

Other Halloween Readings:

• "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers
• "This Band Could Be Your Life" by Gary Butterfield
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• "The Mask" by Robert W. Chambers
• "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski
• "The Prodigy of Dreams" by Thomas Ligotti 

At long last, we can continue with Ranni's work now that the stars have moved again... and punched a big ol' hole in Limgrave. Big enough that we can get into the previously inaccessible Eternal City of Nokron. Here, we seek out the blasphemous treasure of the Nox, and see a little bit of the mad science they were doing in order to supplant the Golden Order.