We decided to start the new year off with a nice, harmless bit of fun as we played through Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to while away the winter days. It turns out, we really weren't that impressed with it and our attempt at a positive start to 2022 was somewhat misguided! We chat about the underdeveloped and unfunny story, the disappointing use of the SSD tech to make what is essentially a fancy grappling hook and the monotonously easy difficulty. We do have praise for how beautiful this game looks, and for its excellent and refined gunplay, but we expected better from a series this far into its stride on this powerful new hardware. Ah well!

Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats and relax - it's time for the A Winner Is You Game of the Year Awards for 2021. We're doing our GOTY show a little differently to most, as we only considered games we'd covered on the podcast in 2021 for the majority of the awards. The categories for this year are: Best Story, Best Gameplay, Most Bullshit, Best Surprise, Best 2021 Non-Podcast Game, Best Old Non-Podcast Game, Worst Game, and Best Game. If you agree or disagree with our choices, please get in touch and let us know. Now, on to 2022!

We close out our 2021 with arguably the biggest game of the year - Halo Infinite. It's finally here after all the delays, all the memes and all the hype, and it's... yeah, it's pretty good innit. We discuss the beautiful combat, the missed opportunity of the open world, the weird story decisions surrounding the Cortana angle, and that wonderful grappling hook. Is this the ultimate Halo game? Is this the direction Halo should have been taken or is it a bust to make it open world? We answer these questions and more. Tune in next time for our 2021 game of the year awards!

It's been 20 years since the hugely influential Max Payne first released. That means 20 years of film noir-aping, Slow-mo-diving, metaphor-chewing, fourth wall-breaking, painkiller-popping action. Join us for a raucous ride through the game's story as we discuss the numerous plot twists, unrelenting action, bullet time brilliance and debate whether the whole thing still holds up today. Oh, and the song at the end is Snowball Fight by the amazing Hyper Potions, so if you want excitement (and rad music), shove them up your stockings. Merry Christmas everyone!

Ahoy mateys! Get out your trusty insurance catalogues and dust off your time-travelling pocket watches as we investigate the mysterious Return of the Obra Dinn. Lucas Pope's sophomore effort is a brain-busting bonanza of beguiling blunders on the high seas, and its presentation and premise is one that is truly unique and just a little bit frustrating at times! Fear not, because we present to you the full story in chronological order, with all the deaths explained as well as clues on how you should have identified the poor scallywags who bit the dust. Also David was recovering from the flu, so send your best wishes to him that he recovers and doesn't need a visit from ol' Henry Evans, and excuse his croaky voice!

All aboard the Winner Is You Express, as we delve deep into the atmospheric and mysterious world of Do My Best Games' 2016 zombie shooter/train conductor hit The Final Station. Let's discuss the elephant in the... train: We don't have the definitive theory on what the hell this game is about. We don't know for sure what the ending means, and we certainly weren't able to read all the dialogue because we were too busy fixing the chuffin' train most of the time! Still, we tackle it the best we can - looking at online theories, wiki entries, and our own experiences to try and piece together this puzzling game. Regardless, it's a beautiful, satisfying and tense game to play so get on it yourself and get listening!

We're at that time of year where things are getting dark, cold and miserable, so come with us into a whole new galaxy where things are all bouncy and colourful and fun! It can only be a Mario game, eh? Super Mario Galaxy remains an absolute masterpiece, but is it as mindblowing or groundbreaking today as it was back in 2007? How do the controls hold up? How does the 3D All Stars version look and play? Why did the sequel not have a story in it? We answer all these questions and break down the game, galaxy-by-galaxy, to talk through our favourite moments (and vice versa - looking at you, Melty Molten Galaxy). Enough talk, let's-a have at you! (Reuploaded to fix audio issues. Sorry!)

The scares continue (and end) with the second part of our month of horror games, just in time for Halloween, as we delve into the realm where no-one can hear your scream to play some Alien Isolation. Touted by many as the best survival horror game of the last generation, we have to admit that we probably found it more annoying than scary for the most part! What's not up for debate is the objectively incredible setting, atmosphere, sound design and attention to detail this game delivers. The ultimate Alien companion piece, Isolation is a masterpiece in movie reverence. But is it good?

Introducing SPOOKTOBERFEST, our (hopefully) annual celebration of horror video games throughout the month of October. First up in this smorgasbord of scares is an underrated gem of a game from 1998 - Square's survival horror RPG Parasite Eve. We praise the game's mechanics,unique mixing of genres, and its ragtag bunch of characters, whilst lamenting the relentless difficulty spike of the ending's huge dungeon and boss fight marathon. You know by now how this works so tune in for a deep dive into the game's story from start to finish, but watch out for a jump scare of our own when David's mic decided to quit on us and his sound goes all echoey and shitey. Sorry about that! Make sure you check back for the rest of the month for more horror highlights from the gaming sphere.

Please don't hate us for our brief hiatus, this game is just suuuper long! We decided to do a deep dive on a game that has been itching away at us since its less-than-earth-shattering release back in 2019 - Bend Studio's Days Gone. That's right, we went full on backlog busting with this one! We discuss the game's numerous issues - the story, the bland characters, the bugs and glitches, the length, the mission structure... but also we show our appreciation for how, in spite of all that, it's undeniably good fun. Our deep dive tackles all the main characters and their arcs, as well as what we feel about the 'true' ending (or what we don't understand about it, to be honest). It's a long one, but so is the game, and you surely expect that from us by now, right? Good!