Abject Suffering (Duckfeed Productions LLC)

This cinematic game for the NES is slightly divisive between us, as it awkwardly fumbles to be Rainbow 6 before Rainbow 6 was possible on hardware.

It's a classic Gary Butterfield pick: it's an advergame about snack food. But M&M's Kart Racing for the Wii also happens to be the least fun, and least functional, kart racer we've covered for the show. It also leads us to one of the more bizarre and sad wikis we've found for a property.

You remember this object from your childhood? Now it's covered in blood! That's the 90s industrial touch, baybee. Listen to us talk about this strange first-person pinball game and wrestle with why effort isn't inherently a bad thing, but it can certainly make things worse.

This week we talk about Warlocked, the tiny RTS that kind of could. That's right... they made a real time strategy game for the Game Boy Color and it actually works, although it doesn't feel like your usual strategy game. We also talk about a horrifying video involving a toilet.

The burgers are also made out of rocks. Because it's caveman times.

Bubble Bobble is elemental! How could you screw it up? Well, they found a way. Bubble Bobble Revolution isn’t just bad because it’s nonfunctional… even if you could get past level 30, it would still be an ugly game that feels bad in your hands. But there isn’t much to say beyond that, so enjoy a meandering talk about what the existence of the Costco Guys says about our chances of the world getting better, ever.

An 80s action movie themed beat em video game. No, you don't play as animals.

It's hard to know what Devolver Digital was thinking when they signed on this one. You may think the idea of a turn-based side scrolling stealth game sounds cool, and it might be, but only if it was... finished. Ronin is not.

You know the nova is heavy because the mechs can't even stand up.

Well, I don't see why the devs had to make it sexual.

This game isn't bad, but it's really not for us. You play as a monster who wants to grow his garden, which means going into little pocket dimensions to make friends to bring back home. This turns into a message game about how to be a better friend to yourself... but it's all very basic, and the writing clangs on our taste. So instead, we talk about some strange encounters Gary recently had in Portland.

Wine, sodomy and the lash. Or something like that I'm assuming. I'm not saying it is porn but I sure felt embarassed accidentally googling it at my day job.

We hadn't done a mainline Sonic game for Abject Suffering before, so we're happy that our first one is a doozy.

You have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Get okay with penetration!

Funny enough, it was the most misguided port I could think of. Which isn't to say that the mini version of Max Payne isn't impressive in its own way... It's just frustrating to always get killed by enemies who are off-screen.

Hey folks, Herc’s Adventures is actually kind of a good game. Made by the Zombies Ate My Neighbors team at LucasArts, it expands on that formula with some neat ideas like its novel death mechanic and its open world. But to be honest, a lot of this episode is informed by residual Guppy Energy left over from recording the Sonic 3 Adaptation Decay with Will.

To maintain order, the Secret Games Commission (SGC) is formed to organize tournaments deciding which organization gets to control all of Neo-Amerika, leading to the creation of Biological Flying Robotic Enhanced Armored Killing Synthoids (Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.) serving as the champions for each participating organization.

Please do not listen before listening to Wild 1-5, and 7-8. You can skip 6 and 0.

This is the most positive you'll see us be about a brand.

"So, Mr. Tyrannosaurus, where do you see yourself in five years?"

Christopher Walken walks into a bar. Everybody cheers.

7h1s 1s 0n3 y0u d0n'7 w4n7 70 m1ss, f0lk5.

This is probably someone's favorite game, which is weird to us. After the 16-bit era, Treasure kind of split in two. One part released bullet hell shooters. The other had a habit of making technical platformers that are impossibly ugly to look at. Silhouette Mirage falls into the latter camp, with a projectile affinity system that was a test run for Ikaruga's main gimmick.

We were excited to play a band simulator, but all we got was Lemonade Stand plus puns.

Kevin James got udders. You heard me.

For our very special 600th episode, we talk about the most video game-shaped thing you could get that wasn’t a video game: the Tiger Handheld Electronics game. These heavily licensed consolation prizes were barely interactive, made heinous noises, and were ubiquitous in the early nineties. You can play many of them on the Internet Archive, but why would you?

I was suckered into playing this game because I got a comic book that was just an advertisement.

We stumbled into a gross one. Sorry, folks.

This is more like a limp response to Resident Evil than a hard edge.

Imagine a pop-o-matic world. That might have made the Game of Life more interesting! Everything ensconced within perfect plastic and metal, the ideal randomizer. However, another way to make the Game of Life more interesting is to make it into a video game like Jones in the Fast Lane. A lesser-known Sierra title that plays like a board game, you start at the bottom rung of your career, and try to use your limited time and money to reach your goals. It's neat!

We've only made this mistake once before, but there was a calendar whoopsie. So while we primarily talk about Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, we also get a little bit of Princess Tomato and the Salad Kingdom. A minor misunderstanding gives way to discussions of frightening produce and the ravages of age.

It's Edcruciating.

It's a classic Abject Suffering showdown! Gary is extremely apathetic toward Gundams, while Kole is mildly apathetic but remembers liking them in the past. Catch the clash!

Slight discussion of a super British anti-game quickly gives way to an anxious therapy session about the 2016 US election. You've been forewarned!

The wild swings that developers took on the PS2 are infinitely fascinating, and one that you don't hear too much about is Dog's Life. It's a bad game, but there's not much else like it. It's open-ish world, you play as a dog, and you can shit and piss at the press of a button. One person does all of the voices, and the ending needs to be seen to be believed.

Have you seen THIS? No, really, have you seen this? Because it's very good.

The weirdest creative Hail Mary we've ever seen a studio throw.

Will Hughes joins Kole once again to talk about the DS launch game "Feel the Magic: XY XX", which is best described as "horny Warioware". We end up talking about the game quite a bit, though Will does frequently bully Kole the whole time. There's nothing to be done about it. Special Guest: Will Hughes.

Tootinis is a game that feels like a student project that ended up getting a little money behind it. Very little money, mind you. So we're fully in "Please Be Cool" mode because all these people did was make a weird kids' game with baffling characters and a very funny intro. Additionally we talk about what Totino's Pizzas become when they enter your mouth, the new garage that Kole saw, and Gary's glimpse at our cold metallic future.

It came from Brazil!

Truth time: Buffy is a blind spot for us. Both of us were watching different things in the 90s, and sometimes it's just too hard to go back to something from that era if you don't have any nostalgia for it. This first Buffy game is an anemic GBC brawler, so instead we talk about our newest supernatural villain: the incompetent Frankenstein.

The conflict that will tear the network apart.

If I was a kid and I got a Muppet game where I couldn't play as Kermit, I'd be pissed. That's the world that Muppet Monster Adventure forces on us, one where people know who Robin the Frog is. The good Muppets have been kidnapped by an evil monster, and it's up to Robin to rescue them, maybe? This is a bog standard licensed platformer, and it's not especially terrible as those go.

Get ready for us to be effusively positive about an extremely strange and nostalgic experience.

We didn't know about the updated Rocko reboot movie when we recorded this, which is eerie.

Maximum baffling. Maximum repugnant.

Dried fruit almost had a home in the NES in this mediocre platformer published by Capcom. The problem is, the popular California Raisins commercials, where sentient fruit performed Motown classics, cost more to produce than they generated in sales. So the California Raisins went away, and this game didn't see the light of day until recently.

When you want Mario Kart, but your mom says you have Mario Kart at home.

How do you talk about a game that isn't a game... yet?

You know, it's probably about time we give freeware Linux games a shot! Ew. Nevermind, let's go to Chili's.

Van Helsing is actually the doctor. The character is Van Helsing's monster.

Discussion of a bland D&D game for Genesis gives way to talk about sports, then a little bit about politics. Sorry, we're only human!

Everyone's favorite Marvel characters finally get their own game.

This episode is a quick announcement to let you know that the way you get Duckfeed's premium content is changing. Patreon now offers individual feeds of all of our backer-only shows. This gives you control over what your podcast player downloads, and what you ultimately listen to. Since Patreon itself has this feature, we will no longer be using the individual show feeds on Fireside for our premium content. Those feeds will no longer be updated. Here's what you need to do: You will now need to subscribe to each show you want to listen to individually through Patreon. The process is very simple, just go to the Membership tab on our Patreon page. I've also created a detailed guide for you in the pinned post on our Patreon page. (https://www.patreon.com/posts/122629571) The delivery of public episodes isn't changing at this time. (So to get both the public and premium episodes of Watch Out for Fireballs!, you will need to subscribe to both the feed provided on Patreon and the public feed on watchoutforfireballs.com. I apologize for this duplication, there just isn't a way to handle it better at the moment). Very little else is changing at the moment. You will still get email notifications about every episode we post, regardless of what shows you subscribe to. If you miss the combined feed of all of our shows, what we called the firehose, we're sorry that it went away. You can recreate the effect either by using an RSS feed combiner service, or using features in the podcast app you already use to group shows together into one list of episodes. This feature is called Stations in Apple Podcasts, Overcast calls it Smart Playlists, Podcast Addict calls it Playlists. Pocketcasts doesn't have an option for this as far as I know. Patreon's multi-show RSS feature is still in testing, and there may be hiccups. This is also just one of many changes Patreon is making to make podcasting on their platform better for everyone, so expect more features in the near future. If you have any feedback about the experience, please write at info@duckfeed.tv. To sweeten the pot if this change makes you want to back us for the first time, or to become a patron again, use the code MULTIFEED (all one word) to get 20% off the first month of a new subscription.

Ah. FMV. What did we ever do to deserve you?

We already struggle to talk about sports. Listen in to find out what happens when we have no knowledge of the game or its cultural context!

This recently revived and translated SNES game is a little less food-oriented than the title would have you believe. It's not a complete lie, but what you get is a Cho-Aniki brawler with a little bit of cooking thrown in. Which is a bummer, all told.

A baffling game gives way to a discussion on obstinate linguistics.

Looks like we found another classic Abject Suffering redemption.

From the Kid Kool collection, we learn about Kole's new son and also contemplate some unsettling interactions.

Probably one of the most hideous games we've covered for the show?

The most Psygnosis-looking non-Psygnosis game is virtually unplayable. Seriously, look up a video of this game.

Cartoons you can shoot with a gun!

This week has us looking at a fun little indie game about a young girl trying to use her dolls to figure out how people have sex. It's a very small project, made over three days for a game jam, but it's a fun springboard into a few conversations about sex and insecurity.

It's very hard to be a Castlevania fan, especially when Konami decides that this very ugly and shallow Power Stone clone is worth releasing. Famously featuring a story line where a little girl wants bigger boobs, it also has hideous costume redesigns for a large number of beloved Castlevania characters, and a pretty lame excuse plot.

Let's attend to the question of Kole's sandwich paradox.

Galerians for the PlayStation is a flawed but interesting survival horror game, existing today primarily for people who are passionate about that era of the genre. Galerians: Ash is beloved by none. Picking up right at the end of the original game, Ash follows the continuing adventures of Rion through the world of Basically Akira, trying to stop synthetic humans from destroying the world. But they made it an action game and they shouldn't have done that.

An episode where, admittedly, neither of us can remember a specific aspect of the Heroes of Might and Magic universe... but it doesn't matter, because this is actually just King's Bounty! So you can't trick us with your lies.

Gary's favorite game of all time. He will go to the mat to defend this game.

The Curious Expedition isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but it sits at a table set with a lot of outdated tropes that don't look so great nowadays. We're pretty sure this Patron just wanted us to make a bummer episode about colonialism. So we talk about that, along with how people just drown in pig shit and we, as a society, have decided to accept that.

The good news is that this episode doesn't get as gross as you'd expect. This is a modern-ish remake of a storied German franchise where you start and run an pay toilet empire. Which isn't a terrible idea, even if the execution stinks.

Kole accidentally backdoored a good game in for a mini-WOFF.

There was no reason for them to digitize this simple dice game, but they did it anyway, and gave it one crackerjack title. We talk about road trip memories, rural fair competitions, and generally vibe about how great and horrifying pigs can be.

It's like your favorite anti-comedy movie. But it's a fake game!

David Cage is back on his bullshit.

This little businessman sim is actually pretty good, so we do a kind of job interview of our own.

Is there a name for the kind of stealth horror game that's popular with streamers? Things like Hello Neighbor and Bendy and the Ink Machine? Whatever that is, this is one of those, but with a fun, crappy educational vibe. Truth is, this is actually pretty good and fun, so we range far afield on this episode.

You can hear our souls leaving our bodies.

The ultimate lesson of this tech-demo stretched to full game is "be yourself." Also, if any viscous substance crosses our doorstep, we'll immediately start talking about ejaculate.

Every time we say the word "bee", the speed of the episode remains the same.

O.D.T.: Escape… or Die Trying is a game with a confusing title. The O.D.T. is short for O.D.T.: Escape… or Die Trying or Die Trying. It’s a botched attempt at a Tomb Raider-like third person action game with theming and a story that are sure to put you to sleep. So we instead talk about how unfair the concept of Mario and Sonic competing in the Olympic Games would be.

People love incremental and idle games. Kole's ambivalent. Gary hates them. Somehow this turned into an extremely on-topic mini-WOFF! about the genre at large, with Cookie Clicker as the starting off point. Welcome to Hell!

Absolutely shameless.

Wow, living through a disaster would suck. Let's make a comedy game out of it.

Special thanks to Andrew for taking us back to the Dickieverse, where we learn how MDickie thinks video game development works.

Eternam is a very strange adventure game. Taking cues from Westworld, you play as Don Jonz, who won a vacation package to a fantasy planet, only to learn that his arch rival is working some kind of scheme there. Decent jokes and horrifying faces abound!

The kids are going to have to learn about FUB and his obscure war at some point. That's why we're covering Loaded, a bonkers shooter that has all the charm of seven Twisted Metal games rammed together. We also talk about the Miracle of Uncles.

Gonna throw you around. Maybe put you in a toilet. The world is our canvas!

We know this is a good game. We're just overwhelmed.

That's just the way I boop around the house.

Do yourself a favor and at least watch the intro to this game. Holy cow, those walk cycles.

The word “faselei” means “babble” in German, which is a better description of this podcast than this game. Faselei!, our first Neo Geo Pocket Color game, is actually kind of neat… a turn-based tactics game with a very unique action system. The problem is, it’s about mechs… about which we have little to say. So instead we talk about inhalants, that wonderful feeling of finally identifying a half-remembered game from your childhood, and the bizarre ceremony of hockey games.

Since nobody knows what "Family Dog" is, we address the Shaq flat-earth controversy head on.

The beginning of your JRPG is terrible.

Irritating Stick is a game about not touching the sides. This episode of the show is mostly about coping with trashgut.

It turns out "Zendor" is what your grand uncle called "debt". What I'm saying is you just inherited a lot debt.

We all know the stereotypical traits of nerds. Thick glasses, nasally voice... narcolepsy? Lester the Unlikely is a cinematic platformer, a la Out of This World or Prince of Persia, that highlights how important good level design is to that kind of game. However, if you're looking for a game that lets you punish turtles, this one's got your number.. Shredder.

A sub-par Guitar Hero clone that doesn't list band names or anything. Just shitty, shitty covers of pop songs.

A bold vision of an eternal Halloween.