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Usually, games based on a popular media franchises let you embody the main characters from movies, TV shows, or books. This week, though, we’ll rope in Brendan “The Crawl” Hesse for a look at five games that cast you as... Read more
WWE 2K22 launches this week, inspiring us take a look at the way wrestling matches has been represented in non-“sports entertainment” games over the years. Then we’ll dig into Gran Turismo 7, lots more Elden Ring, Sony’s State of Play,... Read more
Elden Ring is here, and we can’t shut up about it! But before we start being unable to shut up, let’s grab Tony Wilson of Framework for a look at five of our favorite open worlds created by Japanese developers.... Read more
Some plot twists are just too good to keep under wraps for long, whether because of a game’s popularity, loose-lipped fans, or sequels that build their lore on formerly secret knowledge. This week, Larry Charles joins us for a look... Read more
Horizon: Forbidden West is out! To celebrate, we’ve invited Anthony Abatte to help us take a look at five games set in post-apocalyptic futures where swords, sorcery, and monsters reign supreme. Then we’ll talk about King of Fighters XV, Infernax,... Read more
Sifu is out this week, and its grow-old-instead-of-dying mechanic inspired us to pull together a top 5 about other games where your character grows up and gets old, with special guest Mike Williams of Fanbyte. Then it’s on to Dying... Read more
Pokémon Legends: Arceus has us thinking about isekai stories – where a hero is unexpectedly dropped into another world or time period, and struggles to get back – so with PNB’s TL Foster on board, let’s talk about five of... Read more
Pokémon Legends: Arceus is out this week, and while it’s not quite an open-world game, there was a point when a lot of people thought it was going to be – so with Leif Johnson on board, let’s take a... Read more
Rainbow Six Extraction is out this week, pitting three players against the mutant Archaeans – and we had so much fun playing it as a trio that we decided to talk about five of our favorite videogame trios (as a... Read more
January is the time for new-year’s resolutions — and what resolution is more popular, more strenuous, and more quickly abandoned than the one to get in shape? This week, we grab PNB’s Robert Beach for a look at five games... Read more
Another new year begins, as we shake off the holiday cobwebs and get back up to speed with a look ahead at five games we’re especially excited to get our hands on in the next 12 months. Will all of... Read more
Our two-part countdown of 2021’s best games concludes this week with our five favorite games of the year, with help from special guests Micah Seff; Steve Guntli and Woody Ciskowski of Wii Universe; Kat Bailey of IGN and Axe of... Read more
It’s time once again to look back on another great year for games and pick our favorites, and this year we’re breaking from tradition: Instead of one gargantuan show to mark the end of the year, we’re splitting our top... Read more
2021 is drawing to a close(!), and all things considered it’s been a pretty great year for videogames. Before we begin our annual GOTY countdown next week, let’s invite Tony Wilson of Framework for a look at five of our... Read more
December is here and the snow is upon (some of) us, so this week, we’re taking a look at games that let us step back from the action, take a deep breath, and nail someone real good with a snowball.... Read more
When is the end not the end? When a hinky-looking credits sequence is interrupted to let you know the game’s not over yet. This week, PNB‘s TL Foster rejoins us to talk about five times games faked us out with... Read more
Happy Black Friday, everybody! With Thanksgiving on our minds this week, we dedicated this week’s Top 5 to cooking minigames in bigger, non-cooking-themed games, after which we’ll wonder at the possibilities of WB’s MultiVersus, delve into a few highly topical... Read more
With this week's release of the Vaas: Insanity DLC for Far Cry 6, we welcome first-time guest Doug Trein of Basileus Games for a look at five other sequels and expansions that let us embody one of a game's villains,... Read more
An “unreliable narrator” can mean that a character is withholding information or deceiving you, or it can, in a very literal sense, mean a narrator who just doesn’t have their shit together. Leif Johnson joins us for a look at... Read more
SPONSORED: During the 1-900 number craze of the Nineties, one company provided the vast majority of phone sex. American Telnet was an empire founded by the man who called himself “The Telephone Pimp.” He ran the company “like General Motors”... Read more
Delivering a good, solid kick in a game feels great, especially when it sends your enemies flying helplessly into spikes or off cliffs. This week, the regular VGA crew pays tribute to five of the greatest, meatiest kick attacks ever... Read more
Halloween is almost here, so Anthony Abatte joins us for a look at five times games set aside a chunk of their (non-seasonal) storylines to celebrate Halloween with themed levels or missions! Then we’ll wrap up our final show of... Read more
Ready to face what lurks in the shadows? No? What if you had… a dog? Greg Moore rejoins us this week for a look at five horror games that pit you and a canine partner against unspeakable terrors, after which... Read more
Metroid Dread has launched the franchise in a suspenseful new direction, and given us an excuse to spend this week talking about some of our favorite horror games set in space, with special guest Alex Faciane of Chilluminati and Super... Read more
There’s something inherently eerie about an empty or abandoned hotel – especially if it’s only been abandoned by the living. With Framework‘s Tony Wilson on board for our second week of Spooptober ’21, let’s look at five highly memorable haunted... Read more
Today marks the return of Spooptober, when all of our shows are Halloween-themed for a whole month — but since it’s just getting started, let’s ease in with guest Greg Moore and five games that let you play as a... Read more
Grand Theft Auto V just turned eight last week, just months shy of its launch on a third console generation – so let’s grab PNB’s TL Foster for a look at five other games that just keep coming back, with... Read more
Deathloop is out this week, and we’re excited to talk about it – but first, let’s ease in with some a look at five other top-tier time-loop games that came along since we last covered the topic in episode 250.... Read more
Being normal-sized is cool and all, but what if you could – just for a little bit – get really, enormously huge and just stomp all the monsters or whatever who thought they could push you around? Leif Johnson joins... Read more
With another summer more or less over, this week’s show takes a look at five games that used summer camp – a place alternately associated with freedom, fun, or terror, depending on the context – as a backdrop for adventure... Read more
This week marks 30 years(!) since the North American launch of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System – by our measure, one of the best consoles ever. To celebrate, we invited Tony Wilson of Framework back on to talk about five... Read more
When it comes to crucibles that test the bonds of friendship or family, few burn hotter than the one where you lock yourselves into a moving vehicle for hours and hours and hours. As summer winds down, we’ve invited Tony... Read more
This week has seen an unusual surge in rodent-related media, with star turns for rat swarms in both The Suicide Squad and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. So this week, PNB‘s TL Foster joins us for a look at five games that... Read more
Only a few big-name game developers are generally seen as “auteurs” — creators with authorial control over (and who get most of the credit for) the games they make. Every so often, one of them strikes out on their own... Read more
Neo: The World Ends With You is out this week, giving us the first completely new TWEWY since the DS original, as well as an excuse to revisit Shibuya, one of Tokyo’s coolest neighborhoods. Let’s celebrate with a look at... Read more
With Steam Deck and the OLED Switch vying for preorders last week, now seems like an opportune time to grab Greg Moore for a look back at five handhelds that tried and failed to take on Nintendo, but made us... Read more
Donkey Kong, just like the plumber who debuted alongside him in 1981, has expanded far beyond his arcade roots to appear in everything from racers to rhythm games over the years. To celebrate Kong’s 40th anniversary, let’s take a look... Read more
Wise old men who lurk in caves to dispense advice and magical weapons are a trope as old as time – but as far as games go, their heyday was firmly in the ’80s. So this week, three cave-dwelling old... Read more
We’ve passed the midpoint of the year, so with help from Alex Faciane of Chilluminati and Super Beard Bros, it’s time to look back at five games that did the most to light up our first six months of 2021.... Read more
Any fictional feud that goes on long enough is bound, sooner or later, to be put on hold for an episode where the hero and villain team up to survive or fight a greater enemy. And this week, PNB‘s TL... Read more
E3 came back! Holy crap! And don’t worry, we’ll get deep in the weeds about it on this week’s show, but first we welcome PNB’s Brendan Hesse and take a look at our favorite episodes of Conan O’Brien’s Clueless Gamer,... Read more
We’ve always been great fans of trash pandas at VGA, so when this week’s release of Backbone cast one as a down-on-his-luck detective, we indulged our love of raccoons with a Top 5 about games that let you play as... Read more
This week, we stumbled onto PriceCharting.com – a huge database of purported videogame resale values – and thought it’d be fun to invite retro specialists Steve Guntli and Woody Ciskowski (of Ultra 64/Wii Universe) to talk about which (non-sports, non-game... Read more
A few weeks ago, we passed the 26th anniversary of the Sega Saturn’s deeply weird US launch, so Greg Moore joins us in belated celebration to talk about five of the best games that never made it stateside for Sega’s... Read more
Well, here it is, episode 420 – but we already did games that let you smoke pot 311 episodes ago! So instead, let’s look at celebrities who’ve appeared in videogames and now have their own (legal!) cannabis brands, with help... Read more
Resident Evil Village has its hooks firmly into the whole crew this week, so let’s invite PCMag.com‘s Mike Williams back on to talk about it a whole bunch more (along with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s Wrath of the Druids DLC)! We... Read more
Resident Evil Village is out, and the rampantly fetishized Lady Dimitrescu joins the hallowed ranks of Resident Evil’s iconic, nigh-indestructible “stalker” enemies. So let’s kick off this week’s show with five of the most memorable pursuers from Resident Evils past,... Read more
We’ve just passed two important Mortal Kombat milestones: the 10th anniversary of the franchise-revitalizing Mortal Kombat 9, and the release of a new MK movie that doesn’t suck. To celebrate, Anthony Abatte joins us for a look at five of... Read more
The formerly PlayStation-exclusive MLB The Show is now on Xbox, which is… kinda weird, right? Almost as weird as finding out that developers now owned by Sony used to make games for competing platforms, which is what we’re delving into... Read more
The San Francisco Bay Area is home to two-thirds of the VGA crew (along with a big chunk of the games industry), and it’s been re-created in a handful of games over the years – so now that our episode... Read more