The Pitch

With all apologies to Jenni Polodna, we venture into the teeming subculture of auto-generated Horse Cop games on the app store.

In this episode, we sit down to talk about Proteus, the boy so bad his mom doesn't even call him by his real name, which is Kevin. Proteus wreaks havok (not that havok) on a small town, turns Wolverine inside out both physically and mentally, and creates a bunch of tiny rogues. It's as ridiculous as it sounds.

Thanks for listening everyone!

Kole, Dennis, Jala, and David talk about EA’s microtransaction woes, LISA: The Painful RPG, and we ask you about your favorite in-game creations.

• EA backs down on some Star Wars Battlegrounds II
• Humble Care Package Bundle has some very good stuff in it.
• David explains what it means to be an outlaw.
• Games used as education about domestic violence.

• What's the coolest thing you've built/crafted in a game?

• David: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Destiny 2.
• Jala: Steins;Gate. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.
• Dennis: Destiny 2. Super Mario Galaxy 2.
• Kole: LISA: The Painful RPG.

Links:

•  Jala Prendes  on Instagram: “Find me out at #texasrenaissancefestival if you go today! 😘 Ren Fest look — wizard who can run marathon distances and storm castles. Get…” • Instagram
•  Jala Prendes  on Instagram: “Just havin’ a sippy sip in the Magic Garden before watching Iris & Rose: Wild and Thorny. 😁” • Instagram
• Duckstiny 2 Raid 11/12 Calus - YouTube Gaming

It's a bird. It's a bat. It's a skeeter!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Kole and Gary talk about Actraiser, an early SNES game that mashes up two disparate gameplay modes. On one hand, you have some Castlevania-like platforming. On the other, you've got a simulation god game where you fight demons and watch your kingdom grow. How do they work together? How does everything fit? Does it hold up?

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Links:

• little nicky (2000) TRAILER - YouTube
• Yard globe - Wikipedia
• Always Sunny, Dance off w/ Sweet Dee and inflatable tube man - YouTube
• Wheelmonk | Nioh Wiki
• Hordak | Wiki Grayskull | FANDOM powered by Wikia

We took a lil break but The Hook Brought Us Back

In a sort of anti Scatman John situation, a jackass frontman makes a decent song a bit worse rather than the other way around. 3 more episodes this season!

You can't help but feel a little bad for Buckner and Garcia. They wrote a fun  song about an arcade game they liked, and ended up being forever branded as a novelty act and a one-hit wonder. The record label railroaded them into making an album full of video game songs to take advantage of the popularity of their single, "Pac-Man Fever". What they ended up creating was a very strange beast: full of overly literal lyrics about gameplay and embarrassingly dated musical genre sendups... but also full of catchy hooks and well-used samples.

It's a bit of a stretch to call this album an adaptation, but it's a memorable time capsule from the arcade boom of the early 80s. Also, we really like talking about music.

This episode solidifies an axiom for Abject Suffering episodes: the funnier a game is trying to be, the more serious the episode will end up. Crypt Worlds is a 2013 anti-game that's chock full of surreal imagery and weird-Twitter-like writing. It's also not bad, but we have questions about what it's trying to accomplish... and how effectively it's accomplishing it.

A group of intelligent squids is called an ink tank.

Autumn and Jeremy Greer join me for an episode that begins a flashback to Roland's first adventure as a gunslinger. He, Alain, and Cuthbert venture to the town of Hambry in the eastern barony of Mejis for protection... but instead find themselves in the grips of a larger plot and greater danger. This chapter introduces us to Susan, Rhea, and the Big Coffin Hunters.