We can't put our Nintendo Switch 2 systems down or get Mario Kart World out of our heads, so while doing laps around the tracks, the VGA boys started thinking about our top kart racing items from across the genre. Guest Jarrett Green joins us to list our favorites, from the most useful, to the wacky and weird, and everything in between. 

Then we jump through a portal to discuss Splitgate 2, the Gex Trilogy collection, Tron Catalyst, FBC Firebreak, this week's news, and so much more. 

Question of the Week: What's the most memorable game you've played on a new game system? 

Break song is "Go Kart Racing" by Garfunkel and Oates. 

Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

It's June, which used to mean E3 time, but now just means there are still a ton of huge announcements and places to see new games in Los Angeles, just not at the convention center or E3 itself. And that is why we are calling this our BIG NOT E3 2025 EPISODE! Oh, did we mention there was also the launch of a little thing called the Nintendo Switch 2? Special guest JR Ralls joins us to talk about our impressions of Nintendo's new system and its launch lineup, all the big announcements from State of Play, Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, and more. 

Question of the Week: What's the weirdest way you've ever acquired a new game system?

Break song is "Switch" by Will Smith. 

Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

This is a big week for strange and cryptic games, and TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing joins to celebrate the release of South of Midnight with a look at five games that explore the supernatural and seamy sides of the American South. We'll also delve into Blue Prince and Promise Mascot Agency, complain about tariffs, speculate about Donkey Kong Bananza, and hear your thoughts about the Switch 2 reveal.

Question of the Week: What's the most you have ever spent for a console at launch (via bundles, secondary market, etc)?

Break song is You've Got to Walk by Ben Babbitt and the Bedquilt Ramblers. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

Barbie and Oppenheimer turned movie counter-programming into a cultural event, so let's seize on that by inviting Ryan Harig of Zanzeezee Podcast for a look at five dates when two huge and/or weirdly dissonant videogames debuted at the same time. Then we'll get into Exoprimal, My Friendly Neighborhood, Gravity Circuit, more Microsoft/Activision drama and Game Pass news, and the long-lost games you'd love to see re-released.

Nintendo has generally done a great job of making classic Mario games widely available; no matter the system, you'll be able to play Super Mario Bros. and its sequels in some form. But not all Mario games get that kind of support, and in fact, there are a few that have been all but forgotten since their original release. This week, Jim Stormdancer (of Frog Fractions and Topic Lords fame) joins us for a look at five Mario games that never got a second chance at life, after which we'll get into Limited Run Games' showcase, classic games disappearing, Microsoft edging closer to finally gobbling up Activision, and your favorite movie-based games.

A new Indiana Jones movie has hit theaters, and that's all the excuse we need to grab Framework's Tony Wilson and devote a show to five of Dr. Jones' best starring roles in videogames. Then we'll talk about Six Days in Fallujah hitting early access, Blumhouse looking to make more videogame adaptations after Five Nights at Freddy's, and the games you're most looking forward to in the next six months.

The midpoint of the year means it's time to decide what our five favorite games of the past six months are, and this week we're joined by Jesse Cox of Chilluminati (among other projects) to help us count 'em down. Then we'll dig into Sludge Life 2, unravel the latest knot of Activision-Microsoft news, and hear about your favorite games of the year so far.

The OUYA turned 10 this week, having fallen well short of its mission to reset the games industry as we knew it - so this week, we'll take a look at what went wrong, along with what happened to four other platforms that limped along or blazed out in the face of overwhelming competition over the past 10 years. Then we'll dig into Sonic Origins Plus, Aliens: Dark Descent, the wealth of Nintendo Direct announcements, and the pop-culture characters whose canonical ages make you feel old.

Summer Game Fest and a broad assortment of other showcases happened over the past week, unveiling hours of new trailers, gameplay footage, and announcements - so we're breaking format this week to focus on the news, pulling highlights from the deluge to talk about the reveals we found most interesting. We'll still cap it off with a look at new releases, including the Final Fantasy XVI and Lies of P demos, but there's a lot to discuss before we get there, so strap in!

Street Fighter 6 is out, and we're celebrating by inviting Emmett Watkins Jr. for a chat about five of the franchise's most off-kilter weirdos that we hope make a comeback in the very near future. Then we'll delve into Diablo IV, Killer Frequency, Bowser's canonical age, Apple's $3500 headset, and your favorite Street Fighter characters.

In 1992, Alone in the Dark pioneered the genre that would become known as "survival horror," with polygonal zombies and fixed camera angles similar to those that propelled Resident Evil to massive success a few years later. With a new Alone in the Dark on the horizon to remind us, we're dedicating this week's Top 5 to genre-defining games that got knocked aside by imitators who did it better. Then we'll talk about Street Fighter 6, the System Shock remake, a little Metal Gear Solid Delta news, and the E3-season announcements you're most excited for.

Sidekicks? Tag teams? Amateur stuff. This week, Greg Moore and Dave Rudden rejoin us for a look at five games that push you to move and be aware of two characters at the same time, with no help from another player. Then we'll put the pedal to the plastic in Lego 2K Drive, move fast and wreck stuff in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and Shinobi Non Grata, get into the raft of announcements from PlayStation Showcase 2023, and hear which Links are your favorite Links.

In Tears of the Kingdom, Link loses an arm but gains a shinier new one that lets him manipulate and fuse matter like a boss, enabling players to create everything from stick-and-rock hammers to functional mechs. That inspired this week's Top 5 about other heroes with cool prosthetic-arm superpowers, for which we're joined by TL Foster. Then we'll get deeper into TotK talk, plus Humanity, Mortal Kombat 1, the scaling-back of Overwatch 2's PVE plans, and your favorite videogame sequels of all time.

In this era of multiplatform releases and more-or-less standardized hardware, it can be easy to forget that great games didn't always stay great once they'd made their way to different consoles and computers. In fact, ports that were rushed, incomplete, or just plain lousy used to be common, and this week, we'll look at five of the most infamously bad ones. Then we'll talk about Atomfall, InZoi, and - of course! - the Switch 2 reveal, plus your views on dressing characters for aesthetics vs. stats.

Question of the Week: What are your thoughts on Switch 2? Did it live up to your expectations? Are you excited? Disappointed? Let us know. 

Break song is Rocket Man as performed by William Shatner. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is out this week, and it's one of only a few Zelda entries that could really be called sequels, continuing a story started in an earlier game. So this week, Ryan Harig of Zanzeezee podcast joins us to talk about five of our other favorite follow-up Zeldas, after which we'll get into Darkest Dungeon II, Ravenlok, Phil Spencer's Redfall mea culpa, and the most obscure Star Wars facts you know.

The ice planet Hoth was once one of the most ubiquitous levels in Star Wars games, and with more than 50 examples to choose from, some are bound to be kinda weird - so with Chris Baker on board to talk about his upcoming book, "X-Wings, Lightsabers, and Scorpion Vader," we'll take a look at five of the more unusual implementations of Hoth from across videogame history. Then we'll bite into Redfall and get further into Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, talk a bit about the real story behind the Gran Turismo movie, and hear about the times you took a punch to the face.

What if you could wade into a mob of the undead and, rather than being eaten, punch their lights out with your superior brawn? Last week's launch of Dead Island 2 got us thinking, so we re-invited Alex Faciane of Chilluminati and Super Beard Bros back for another appearance so we could talk about games that let you beat up zombies bare-knuckle style. Then we'll get into Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Dead Island 2, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, Cassette Beasts, the Street Fighter 6 demo, more Microsoft-Activision news, and the brands you'd want to turn into the next Pokémon Go.

What if all our stories of gods and magic weren't mythology, but sufficiently advanced technology? What if the world, nay, galaxy was seeded full of ancient future tech with a cool mystery to discover? Huh? What then? This week, Alex Faciane of Chilluminati and Super Beard Bros rejoins us to talk about five of our favorite long-dead but highly advanced alien precursors in games, after which we'll get into Minecraft Legends, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, reveals from the Nintendo Indies Showcase, and the secondary villains you'd promote to big boss.

This week sees the long-overdue return of erstwhile host Dave "Diamond Dog" Rudden to the show, to talk about five villains who rose from being secondary antagonists to the final boss in later games. Then we'll get into the remake of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, Kabaret, Tron: Identity, Ghostwire Tokyo, the Mario movie's huge box-office returns, and the dead gaming trends you'd like to see make a comeback. 

"Modern gaming" has been a thing, more or less, for close to 20 years now, and in that time we've seen a lot of hot new features, ideas, and trends become wildly popular and then fade out of fashion — some more quickly than others. With the Resident Evil 4 Remake excising one such feature from its re-imagining of the original, now seems like a good time to revisit an old topic and update it with five more dead modern-gaming trends,, after which we'll get into Dredge, Meet Your Maker, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, a mini-review of the Super Mario Bros. movie, and your favorite memories of the 3DS.

Nintendo finally shuttered the 3DS (and Wii U) eShop this week, on the 12th anniversary of the landmark handheld's North American release, so this week we're paying tribute to it with a look at five of the best digital-only exclusives to have disappeared along with the storefront. Then we'll get into Resident Evil 4 Remake, Tchia, Have A Nice Death, new developments in the Microsoft-Activision-Sony saga, and the actors you think lend gravitas to any role.

Last week, the world lost an iconic and unique talent with the passing of Lance Reddick, an actor who - in addition to a number of film and TV roles - lent his voice and face to a handful of videogame characters. This week, we pay tribute by looking at five of them, after which TL Foster of Welcome to the Thing and Live From the Pool House joins us to talk about WWE 2K23, Resident Evil 4 Remake, more drama around Microsoft, Sony, Call of Duty, and Redfall, and your favorite games that started in Early Access.

John Cena is the cover athlete for this week's launch of WWE 2K23, and his silly catchphrase is enough of a reason to invite Ryan Harig of Zanzeezee podcast to talk about five games that give players cool invisibility powers. Then we'll talk about Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, Valheim and Anno 1800 launching on consoles, Nintendo's justification for Tears of the Kingdom's $70 price tag, and your favorite "forgotten" games from long-running franchises.

Sometimes, wrapping a trilogy leaves developers without a clear path forward - and sometimes, their follow-ups are weird outliers that are quickly forgotten once the series either fades away or finds its footing again. A certain 10-year anniversary this week sent us down a rabbit hole of these games, and once we're done talking about them we'll get deeper into Wo Long, explore Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania, talk about Capcom Spotlight, and hear about the games you'd improve by adding pro-wrestling moves.

Plenty of games let you change your character's clothes, but in how many does it really matter, from a gameplay standpoint? At least five, which we'll talk about this week with model/stylist/game brand strategist and former journo Aiden Strawhun, who also knows how to talk about Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land way better than the rest of us. We'll also get into The First Berserker: Khazan, new announcements for Monster Hunter Wilds, the return of Game Informer, and the game names you've habitually mispronounced.

Question of the Week: Do you dress your game characters purely for power and stats, or more for aesthetics? 

Break song is Cover Girl by RuPaul. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

Wrestling and videogames have been closely intertwined since the early days - and this week, Jarrett Green of IGN and Welcome to the Thing joins us to talk about five non-wrestling games that nevertheless let you crush your enemies with piledrivers and powerbombs. Then we'll scratch the surface of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, chat about the validity and/or offensiveness of "JRPG" as a term, and look at the franchises you'd like to see recast their characters in new roles. 

Now that Super Nintendo World is bringing videogame aesthetics to Universal Studios, we're marking the occasion by inviting Emmett Watkins Jr. for a chat about five games set entirely in theme parks  — specifically the kind that characters are usually struggling to leave. Then we'll get into Like A Dragon: Ishin and Atomic Heart, Blumhouse getting into games, more about the Microsoft-Activision merger saga, and your personal stories of UFO encounters.

UFOs have been in the news a lot lately, and while they're most likely of the non-extraterrestrial variety, it seemed like a good time to grab Mike Williams of Fanbyte for a chat about five games themed around UFOs and alien abductions. Then we'll dig into Wanted: Dead, Wild Hearts, Blanc, Game Pass cannibalizing game sales, and the real and fictional places you'd like to see re-created in open worlds.

Open-world games, at their best, can be detailed portals to places we've always wanted to visit, whether real or fictitious - and this week, Anthony Abatte joins us for a look at five sandbox games that offer prime opportunities for virtual tourism. Then we'll talk about THAT game, plus Pizza Tower, news from this week's Nintendo Direct, and your favorite pieces of "idle" music.

Last week, the games industry defied licensing issues and rivalries to bring back GoldenEye 007 - and its banger pause-menu music, which inspired us to grab TL Foster for a quick Top 5 about our favorite pieces of music that play when we don't. Then we'll dig into the Dead Space remake, Hi-Fi Rush, Valiant Hearts: Coming Home, Inkulinati, and the game dialogue you enjoy listening to most.

January is traditionally the dumping ground for movies that studios don't expect to do well, so before it's over, let's grab Chris Baker for a look at five movies that got game adaptations in spite of being obscure, deeply weird, and/or outright commercial flops. After that, we'll rocket straight into Forspoken and Fire Emblem Engage, The Avengers game sunsetting, a new episode of The Last of Us TV show, and the creators you'd like to see return to the games industry.

There's a lot of overlap between the videogame and animation industries, but it's always a big deal when a big name in 2D cel animation decides to apply their talents to something interactive. This week, we'll look at five standout collaborations between game developers and old-school animators, after which we'll touch on Colossal Cave, Persona 3 and 4 coming to Game Pass, the demise of Stadia, and the games you'd like to see "enhanced" by voiceovers and/or FMV.

The Sega CD (or Mega-CD) turned 32(!) last month, and it remains the home not just of questionable FMV games and music-video makers, but of some of the best and weirdest versions of 16-bit games that were popular on other consoles at the time. Along with Greg Moore, we'll delve into five ancient games that got unforgettably "upgraded" with speech and FMV cutscenes, after which we'll talk about Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider, Borderlands movie news, the alleged end of PS5 shortages, and the upcoming games you're most looking forward to this year.

As a new year dawns, it's time to look ahead to the next 12 months (with help from Anthony "BruceWayneBrady" Abatte) and the five games we're most excited for. Will any surprise you? Probably not! But they'll be fun to talk about anyway. Then it's on to a few games we missed last year, including Sports Story, River City Girls 2, and Choo-Choo Charles, after which we'll talk about whether there's more story to be wrung from The Last of Us and your personal GOTYs of 2022.

The clock's running out on 2022, so let's cap it off with part 2 of our GOTY show, with our Top 5 Games of 2022 and a roster of guests including Brendan Hesse of The Crawl, Kat Bailey of IGN and Axe of the Blood God, Tony Wilson of Framework, and Wii Universe's Steve Guntli and Woody Ciskowski! Which games claimed our top honors this year? Jump in and find out!

Assassin's Creed Shadows is out, and we've got IGN's reviewer - friend of the show Jarrett Green - on to talk about Ubi's massive open-world shinobi-and-samurai adventure in feudal Japan! But first, we'll use this as an opportunity to talk about five other games made by western developers, but set in Japan. Once all that's done, we'll talk about the internet's reaction to Karl Urban's Johnny Cage, the SNES mysteriously getting faster with age, and your long-standing gaming regrets.

Question of the Week: Inspired by the Suikoden remaster, what's a game name you've habitually mispronounced, either by mistake or (for comedy's sake) on purpose? Were you ever embarrassingly corrected? Tell us about it.

Break song is We're the River City Girls by Megan McDuffee. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

As another year draws to a close, it's time to look back on the past 12 months and pick our top 10 games of the year, with help from special guests including Alex Faciane, Kat Bailey, TL Foster, Chris Baker, Anthony Abatte, and Tony Wilson. Following last year's precedent, we're splitting the top 10 into two manageable chunks. Check out our picks for 10 through 6 this week, and stay tuned for next week, when we'll tackle 5 through 1!

2022 is almost over, but wait! There's still DLC to talk about! So let's grab Brendan Hesse for a look at five of our favorite pieces of DLC to launch this year, after which we'll get into the Game Awards, High on Life, Crisis Core: FFVII Reunion, Lil Gator Game, God of War going live-action, and your favorite remasters/remakes of 2022.

This year has seen some excellent revivals of old games on new hardware, so let's kick off awards season a little early and take a look at our five favorite remasters and remakes of 2022, after which we'll get into The Callisto Protocol, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Need for Speed Unbound, Microsoft's acquisition moves, and movie games that stuck out in your head as ignoring the movies' plots.

Against all odds, we've somehow made it to 500 episodes, so we're celebrating by inviting a Secret Mystery Guest and digging into the five videogame franchises we've talked about the most over the past 499 episodes. Then we'll break format and talk about 10 games that have NEVER been in our Top 5s, plus a couple of brief cameos by other Secret Mystery Guests! 

Some games based on movies try to faithfully adapt the events of the film; others invent new scenes to pad out their runtime. And a select few throw the script in the garbage and invent their own version of events, and it's that last category that Chris Baker joins us this week to discuss. Then we'll talk more about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet; get into Gungrave GORE, The Devil in Me, and Evil West; and take a last-minute look at Black Friday game deals and the Nintendo franchises you think are due for an overhaul.

With this week marking the 10-year anniversary of the Wii U's release, TL Foster joins us for a look at five of the coolest games that still haven't made the jump to Switch. Then we'll dig into Pentiment, Tactics Ogre: Reborn, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, check out The Game Awards 2022 GOTY nominations, and hear you talk about old stuff you're not nostalgic for (but still love hearing about anyway).

This week, we take a look at five of the most sophisticated, fantastically expensive gaming devices ever released - you know, the ones the REALLY rich kid at your school had - with font of knowledge Dan Amrich, who also tells us quite a lot about his involvement with Atari 50, which is out now. Then we'll get into God of War and Sonic Frontiers, highlights from the Nintendo Indie Showcase, and your favorite videogame trilogies of all time.

The arrival of Resident Evil Village's Winters' Expansion DLC - which adds a new story starring Ethan's daughter Rose - inspired us to dig into five sequels where the hero's kid steps into the spotlight as the new protagonist. Then we'll get into Bayonetta 3, PSVR2's price and release date reveal, and the most you've ever spent on a game-related purchase.

It's our last show of spooky season, so TL Foster joins us for a look at five games that gave players the chance to be slasher villains, stalking and slaying hapless campers, partygoers, and other movie-inspired machete-fodder. Then we'll get into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Gotham Knights, the Witcher getting a modern remake, and your favorite bits from G4.

Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed is out this week and it's great, so we're leaning fully into it (and technically staying on-theme for Spooptober) by inviting Dan Amrich for a chat about the best and most memorable Ghostbusters games of the past 38 years. Then we'll get into Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, A Plague Tale: Requiem, the Silent HIll Transmission revelations, and your thoughts on who should play Mario.

We just passed Mar10 Day this week, and that got us thinking about all the times console makers have thought, "Hey! What if WE had a cute, highly marketable face to sell OUR hardware?" We'll take a look at five of the least successful attempts at machine-exclusive mascots this week, after which we'll get into WWE 2k25 and Wanderstop, share updated thoughts on Monster Hunter Wilds and Suikoden I & II HD Remaster, and hear which games you think should have a Nemesis System of their own.

Question of the Week: Do you have a persistent regret about a game (i.e., did you finish a game the "wrong" way, miss a piece of a story, make a bad decision, etc., that you've never gotten around to correcting)?

Break song is the credits music from Gex. Vidjagame Apocalypse theme by Matthew Joseph Payne.

It's the second week of Spooptober, so Tony Wilson of Framework joins us for a look at five games where holding your breath can make you invisible to ghosts and monsters - for as long as you can keep it in. Then we'll get into Asterigos: Curse of the Stars, reactions to the Mario movie trailer and the canceled Kingdom Hearts TV show, and your scariest water-related stories.

It's the first week of October, which means the start of four weeks of unbridled terror (OK not really) as we focus on horror games! This week, Anthony Abatte joins us to talk about five games that went for underwater scares, often by sticking players into oppressive deep-sea environments filled with massive wildlife and other threats. Then we'll switch gears to talk about Overwatch 2, Valkyrie Elysium, Stadia's shutdown, and your favorite X-Men.

Welcome to the Hellmouth Weirdos! Your favorite Morbid hosts Ash and Alaina are branching out from true crime and heading to Sunnydale for the ultimate Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rewatch podcast! Alaina is a Buffy superfan and Ash has never watched a single episode, so whether you're Team Angel, Team Spike, or have no clue who those people are…they've got you covered!

Join them each week as they slay their way through the series, episode by episode, re-watching, and watching for the very first time. They'll break down Buffy and her friends' adventures through weekly recaps, categories, and awards while Ash takes some (wooden stake) stabs at predicting what she thinks will happen next. They'll also welcome the occasional Buffy cast member, guest star, or celebrity superfan to join in the slaying.

Listen to The ReWatcher: http://wondery.fm/LT_ReWatcher