The Evo Championship Series begins today, giving fighting-game fans around the world a chance to feel really inadequate by watching pro competitors at work. Since none of us are going, the best you'll get is this week's Top 5 - suggested by special guest star Heidi Kemps (of <a href="http://gaming.moe/" target="_blank">Gaming.moe</a>) - in which we count down our favorite fighting franchises that never made it past their first sequels. We then get maudlin over the sad passing of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, but not before delving into Deception IV and this week's other new releases. This one's pretty up-and-down, and that's even before we get to the answers to last week's unfortunate QOTW.

The Predator's arrival this week in Mortal Kombat X isn't exactly unprecedented, considering that the skull-collecting alien hunter has been the ultimate crossover star since the '90s. But he's not the first Hollywood character to make an appearance in an unrelated game, either, so we thought it'd be fun to look at five other instances when film icons suddenly showed up in games that had nothing to do with their movies. Then there's some brief talk about SKullgirls: 2nd Encore and Rocket League, a quick run through some pre-Comic-Con news, and a look at your favorite games of 2015 so far.

It's the midpoint of the year, which means it's time to pick our favorite games of the past six months. Which ones made the cut? Listen as we validate (or invalidate) your opinions, completely forget Troy Baker's name, and then spend most of the second segment talking about favorites that didn't make the cut, because it's a slow week. Then we talk about games you wish hadn't been canceled. Fun!

In celebration of a certain shark's 40th anniversary, the Steven Spielberg classic Jaws was re-released to theaters this week - and because we seize literally any excuse to bring up Jaws games, we've created a whole Top 5 around them, which should be enough to keep Mikel from mentioning Jaws Unleashed for at least a while. Then it's on to talk about Batman: Arkham Knight, Yoshi's Woolly World's early release abroad, some lingering E3 impressions, and your favorite moments from E3 2015.

With Jurassic World hitting theaters and (LEGO-themed) games, this week seems like a perfect time for an appreciation of our favorite apex predator, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and its five best appearances as a menacing boss monster. Then there's some excitable, digression-heavy talk about Fallout 4, Steam refunds, Uwe Boll cursing Kickstarter, and the video-game deaths you felt bad about causing.

Hatred's release grabbed headlines and then sort of fizzled out this week, but not before we put together a Top 5 about games that let you live out your worst bully fantasies by indiscriminately murdering innocent civilians. With that out of the way, it's on to the last conversation we'll ever have about Hatred, as well as some talk about Massive Chalice, (pre-announcement) Fallout 4, and your favorite advergames and/or game ads.

When advertisers and games come together, the results are usually annoying in-game billboards, awkward insertions of commercial taglines into dialogue, or a set-up for stale jokes about Doritos and Mountain Dew. But once every 100 years (give or take), unholy pacts between ads and games create something wonderful, memorable, sometimes even playable. We count down five of our favorites in this week's show, after which we talk about Witcher 3 (again), Ultra Street Fighter IV, Splatoon, the impending early release of Hatred, and your favorite mobile games.

Conventional wisdom holds that handheld versions of multiplatform games are, at best, stripped-down shadows of their console brethren, and best forgotten. Sometimes, conventional wisdom is for idiots. USGamer's Bob Mackey joins us this week for a Top 5 about handheld companion games that outshone their higher-profile console versions, after which we jump into a rambling conversation about Witcher 3 and Destiny: House of Wolves (and The Simpsons, and some other stuff) before looking at characters you used to think were cool.

Sega's Saturn might have been an underpowered, overpriced mess of a system when it prematurely launched 20 years ago this week — but dammit, it still holds a special place in our hearts, partly because it boasted some truly amazing games. In this episode, we count down our five favorites, after which we dive into an anemic slate of new releases (including Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains), get excited over Fallout/Bloodstained/Assassin's Creed Syndicate news, and the alt-history games that captured your imaginations.

For many Americans, Cinco de Mayo is a grand opportunity to crowd into Mexican restaurants, get drunk, and wear ridiculous hats while not knowing the first thing about what the holiday's actually about. Now that it's come and gone, however, Gamespot's Chris Watters joins us to talk about a different kind of cultural appropriation: Japanese games that include sombrero-wearing characters, often for no clear thematic reason. After that, there's some argument about alternate histories in general, and Wolfenstein: The Old Blood in particular, followed by Tony Hawk news and a look at some of the fan art that you consider to be your most embarrassing/favorite work.

Our longtime friend Dan Amrich (of Palette-Swap Ninja and Critical Path) joins us this week, and we repay him by making him suffer through counting down five of the loudest, chattiest, most obnoxious cartoon characters ever to headline a platformer. Then there's some excitement over the return of Broken Age; a lot of chat about recent Konami, Valve, Hatred, Black Ops III, and Just Cause 3 news; and a fond look at your favorite Star Wars games.

It's the week of 4/20, which means you probably spent most of Monday massaging your temples in anguish as the Internet brayed endless weed jokes and used the word "ganja" unironically. Well, tough, because it's not over yet —we're late to the party and we're getting our smoke on. Or, well, the protagonists in this week's Top 5 are, as we count down a selection of games in which you can watch your avatar get high. Then there's some chat about Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China (during which we somehow fail to make any "chronic" puns) and Killing Floor 2, as well as a whole lot of talk about the weekend's two big Star Wars trailers: The Force Awakens, and EA's Battlefront.

Do you often find yourself rooting for the bad guys, sometimes even when they're not snappier dressers than the heroes? You're not alone, and a lot of games cater to your dark impulses with the option to play as their Big Bads and put the sappy good guys in their place. Along with special guest Heidi Kemps of gaming.moe, we explore five of our favorite villain experiences this week, followed by a spirited discussion of Mortal Kombat X, Westerado: Double Barreled, Grand Theft Auto V on PC, and your last memories of being in an arcade.

With David Lynch dropping out (at least temporarily) of the Twin Peaks resurrection over the weekend, the time was ripe for an idea that's been sitting on our back burner for a while: games that borrowed heavily from the landmark '90s show, forging their own uniquely weird identities in the process. Some of them may even surprise you. There's also some light talk about Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, excitement over Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and ranting over Amiibos, and a look at your favorite April Fool's gags of 2015.

San Francisco seems to get destroyed a lot more often than most other cities in fiction, and that includes games - so this week, we take a look at five games that wreaked the most destruction on VGA's hometown. Then there's some extended Bloodborne chat with Michael Grimm, a bit of excitement over Axiom Verge, and a look at the games you said made purchasing a new console or video card worthwhile.

Fresh off our playthrough of the dazzling Final Fantasy XV demo, we begin this week's show by looking at the proud tradition of packing high-profile demos to help sell (and, more often than not, almost completely eclipse) medium-profile games. Then it's on to some rapturous Bloodborne chatter, our thoughts on Hideo Kojima leaving Konami, and your best drunk-gaming experiences.

Given that St. Patrick's Day was this week, we opted for the convenient holiday theme and made this episode about the most Irish thing games have to offer: Irish accents, affected by (mostly) non-Irish actors. Then it's on to some brief talk about Battlefield Hardline, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, and Jason Voorhees joining Mortal Kombat X, after which we take a look at your ideas for the perfect VR experience.

GameSpot's Chris Watters joins us this week to help us talk about our five favorite Metroidvanias (or Castletroids, if you're the type to worry about infringing on trademarks), but that's the tip of the iceberg. Part 2 launches into a look at Ori and the Blind Forest and Hotline Miami 2, followed by cool things witnessed at GDC and PAX East, and your embarrassing convention stories (bolstered with a few more of our own, as well as a strangely impassioned argument over the correct orientation of ass gaskets).

This week, Ray Barnholt of Scroll, No More Whoppers and Retronauts joins us for frank talk about five faintly embarrassing vanity games that recast popular musicians as action heroes (or action-hero enablers). Then we move on to talk about tepid new releases, gross baby-delivery games, and games you loved because they were short.

Returning to business as usual after last week's three-hour explodaganza, we're kicking this week's show off with a look at five movie-to-game adaptations that, for whatever reason, only ever appeared on PSP. Then it's on to some talk about Dragonball Xenoverse and Way of the Samurai 4, news of Kanye dabbling in game design, and answers to the questions you wanted to ask us.

EPISODE 100 IS HERE AT LAST! To congratulate ourselves for actually sticking with a project for this long, we start with a Top 5 in which Chris tries to justify buying a New Nintendo 3DS immediately after dismissing it,  switch to a brief rundown of this week's new releases, and then begin a nearly THREE-HOUR TOP 100 wherein we try to figure out the context behind all our Secret Sounds. This is our least game-focused show ever, but it's also our filthiest, with lots of sometimes-funny behind-the-scenes bits that you've only heard if you listened to all our shows to the end.

With the exception of maybe Rambo, it's difficult to think of any characters who've been ripped off as frequently as Indiana Jones. (Granted, you could argue Dr. Jones is himself a ripoff, but that's beside the point.) With rumors of a film reboot on the rise, we devote this week to the ersatz Indys who've been whipping their way through games since the '80s. Then it's on to chat about Evolve, the pros and (mostly) cons of a Netflix Zelda series, and the comedy sketches you'd like to turn into games.

Not a lot of comedy sketches get their own video games, and after hearing about the mostly terrible entries in this week's Top 5, you'll understand why. With that safely out of the way, it's on to some chatter about #IDARB and Game of Thrones, SOE transitioning to Daybreak, and the mythologies you'd like to adapt into games.

In honor of Grim Fandango's long-overdue return, we decided to base this week's Top 5 around games influenced (however loosely) by Mexican folklore and its vision of the underworld — and we approach the topic with all the sensitivity and respect you'd expect from four suburban white guys. Moving on from there, we talk about Dying Light, hear some shocking voice samples from a forgotten Bomberman, and take a look at what your ideal current-gen remakes would be.

Now that we're in a (still just) brand-new year, we've got 11 whole months of cool new games to look forward to, many of which will probably get bumped to next year. Best not to think negatively, though, so this week we take a look at the five games we're most excited for this year. After that, there's some talk about Saints Row IV: Re-Elected, Gat Out of Hell and the Resident Evil RE-master, some wild speculation about a new Indigo Prophecy, and a look at the 2015 games you're most looking forward to.

We're back with our first show of 2015! Aaaand it's about 2014, as Bob Mackey and Michael Grimm join the show to help us talk about our favorite villains of last year. After that, there's some (very brief) new-release talk, a meandering discussion about newly resurrected DOS games, and a look at your favorite games of last year!

Before Mikel, Chris, Tyler, and Dave all left for the holiday break, they attempted to record one last show: a festive holiday special about their Top 5 Santas. It didn't go as planned. This was the audio file we found after they'd disappeared, and it lays to rest any questions raised by the strangeness of recent VGA host breaks. Listen at your own risk.

This week's show marks our last "real" VGA for 2014, so following last year's established tradition, we're going out with a countdown of our 10 favorite games of the year. Which ones will make the cut? After we find out, it's on to some new-releases talk about Elite: Dangerous, an unexpectedly heated debate sparked by Hatred news, and some of the old movies you'd like to see made into games.

The longer a tie-in game takes to come out after the movie it's based on, the better it tends to be. By that logic, the five games in this week's Top 5 — which all adapted movies that came out at least two decades before — must be AMAZING. Then it's on to some chatter about Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Suikoden II, the PlayStation Experience, and the games that made you cry.

Who says games can't make you cry? As the Bay Area shifts from a yearlong drought to winter monsoon season, it seems like a perfect time to make things awkwardly personal with a Top 5 about the games that made the hosts choke up and shed a tear or two. Just a little. In a totally manly way. After that, we take a look at the last big game releases of 2014, the Assassin's Creed Victory leak, and the stories you wish you could change.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in America, meaning everyone's blowing off work so they can gorge themselves while cooped up in pressure-cookers of familial loathing and resentment. We're no exception, so in honor of the noble sacrifice of the walking-bird (or "turkey" to non-Simpsons fans), we've invited Retronauts host Bob Mackey to share in a short, Top 5-centric show about our new favorite genre: the "walking simulator."

Everyone loves "what-if" scenarios, and games are a great way to explore them, particularly when it comes to alternate views of world history? What if, for example, two warring, medieval secret societies had survived to spread their influence across the world? What if World War II had been fought by anime teenagers? These and other questions are answered by the games in this week's Top 5, followed by some talk about Far Cry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and WWE 2k15, and a look at the franchises you got sick of first.

The holiday game-release season is in full swing this week, with headliners that include two Assassin's Creed games - one of which inspired a Top 5 about our favorite interquels. After that, it's on to a discussion of AC Unity and Rogue (as well as Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Valkyria Chronicles), before moving on to Overwatch, Just Cause 3, and the best lies you've ever been told about games.

Another year brings another Call of Duty, along with another round of jaded gamers rolling their eyes at the silly rah-rah army hero baby game. As anyone who's played through its slickly realized campaigns can attest, however, there's more to CoD's stories than big guns and simplistic pro-war attitudes. There've even been a few times when the series was downright subversive, and these are the fodder for this week's Top 5.

It's Halloween! Well, Halloweek, at least. After a few weeks of spooky Top 5 topics, we dug deep into gaming's roots for five seriously old-school horror games. Atari 2600 old-school. Terrifying. With that out of the way, it's on to business as usual with Sunset Overdrive, Lords of the Fallen, the return of X-Wing and TIE Fighter, and your favorite in-game haunted houses.

It's still October, which means another quasi-spooky episode (spoopisode?), this time about our favorite creepy, horror-infested houses.  Then the conversation moves on to this week's monstrous crop of new releases (including Fantasia: Music Evolved, Bayonetta 2, and Screencheat) and a look at the game characters you've dressed up as for Halloween.

Continuing with this month's horror theme, our Top 5 this week focuses on the oft-maligned practice of shoehorning zombies into games that didn't have them initially — often with spectacular results. Then there's some fevered discussion of The Evil Within and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, a brief dusting of New York Comic-Con news, and a look at how well you'd do — realistically speaking — in a zombie apocalypse.

Alien: Isolation's deviously clever xenomorph has been getting a lot of (mixed) praise lately, but it's hardly the first randomized creeper to have chased us through a game. This week, we celebrate five of our favorite relentless, indestructible pursuers, then switch gears to talk about Isolation and Shadow of Mordor before moving on to the fictional universes you'd love to see through the eyes of a new or minor character.

With Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor out this week and Alien: Isolation about to follow, Mikel resumes hosting duties to talk about five other movie-related games starring relative nobodies. Then there's some talk about Super Smash Bros., Tyler's identity gets "borrowed," and a look into what you really want from next-gen. 

Thanks to Saints Row IV's just-revealed Gat Out of Hell DLC, we've got Lucifer's infernal realm on the brain. so we've devoted this week's Top 5 to some of the stranger ways everyone's favorite Lake of Fire has been realized in games. Then there's some talk about Sims 4, PAX announcements, recent... unpleasantness on the Internet, and your scariest experiences with horror games.

The Every Simpsons Ever Marathon has an iron grip on our souls this week, so no, we actually couldn't think of a better topic for this week's Top 5 than our favorite Simpsons games. Once that's out of our system, we move on to Metro Redux, an almost completely uninformed discussion of Madden 15, a lot of ranting about PSN hackers, and the games that - for you - will end the relative drought of new releases we've been seeing this summer.

We're about a week late to the party here, but that bad boy of '90s gaming, the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive to our international listeners), just celebrated 25 years since its U.S. launch. Somehow, we managed to stop pitying ourselves about advancing age long enough to put together a tribute to our five favorite franchises from Sega's glory days. Then it's on to talking about Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition and WWE SuperCard, more griping about current-gen consoles, and your favorite memories of Robin Williams.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you why this is a sad week. In light of recent events, we hastily, clumsily cobbled together a tribute to Robin Williams for this week's show by centering our Top 5 on games based on his movies. (Some of them are kind of terrible, though, so this may be stretching the definition of "tribute.") Then we resume normal programming with some talk about Hohokum, the return of Sierra, and the crappy licensed games you loved as a kid.

Twenty years ago, it was a given that if a movie released between the months of May and September, it'd have a flashy-looking tie-in game on every major console — and actual humans would be excited for it. 1994 was jam-packed with wholly unnecessary movie-games, so let's count down the five best as dictated by their movies' box-office grosses. Then there's some talk about Sacred 3, a lot more talk about how nobody wants to pay for news anymore and things were better when Glenn Miller was running the country,  and your most embarrassing fart-related stories.

No discussion of whether video games are art would be complete without totally ignoring all the ones that feature fart buttons. Good thing we're not discussing art this week. After a spirited discussion of five games that let you pass gas at will, we move on to The Last of Us Remastered, talk about recent Xbox One developments, and discuss your saddest experiences with games.

With Comic-Con in full swing this week, this episode revolves around our favorite games based on comic books... that DON'T FEATURE SUPERHEROES (at least not in a traditional sense). Then, following an unhealthy number of digressions, we lay into Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, the Destiny beta, and your favorite digital monkeys.

"Pro Wrestling" doesn't always mean "beefy dudes in Speedos." Sometimes it means insultingly gratuitous panty shots, four-armed monsters, and Bart Simpson suplexing Moe Szyslak. This week, we take a look at five of the strangest wrestling games of recent years, after which our brief discussion of this week's paltry new releases gets completely derailed with talk about movies with apes and Transformers in them. Then we talk about the worst jobs you've ever had. It's fun!

No matter how monotonous, thankless, or gross a job is, you can bet it'd make a pretty badass video game with just a few conceptual tweaks. Our show this week starts off with five of them, followed by some vague ramblings about sexist Hearthstone tournaments and Nintendo shareholder meetings, as well as a look at your favorite games of the year so far.

We're just past the halfway point of 2014, which means it's time to look back at the past six months of games and collectively pick out our favorites. Also, Tyler and Mikel argue about Sniper Elite III, Henry talks about wrestling, and we call out your favorite videogame butts of all time.

We've been teasing this one a long time, and now Anne Lewis at last has the floor to recognize her five favorite in-game butts. This is real, people. We're doing this. Hang on to your butts, etc. Oh, and then stick around as we talk about some recent games, try to identify more Steam games based on their reviews, and talk about which character's you'd love to see gender-swapped.

Another E3 has come and gone. Was it good for you? If not, too bad, because you're not getting another one until next year. 2014's show was a lot more grim and dark than it's been in a while, at least if you only look at the trailers — so we dedicated this week's show to the five saddest ones we could remember.  Then there's some more general E3 discussion, some talk about the blow-up around Assassin's Creed Unity's approach to gender, and a look at which E3 reveals got you the most excited.

After last week's child-endangering double-whammy of Watch Dogs and Among the Sleep, we thought, "Hey, that looks fun," and decided to focus this week's Top 5 on games that put kids into life-threatening situations, often for no other reason than to provoke an easy emotional response from the audience. Then it's on to the disappointing Murdered: Soul Suspect,  a smattering of pre-E3 news, and your favorite non-Mario kart racers.

Watch Dogs is here! Watch Dogs is here! But first, let's observe Laser Time's weeklong Block Karty with a quick rundown of five questionable, mascot-themed kart-racing also-rans, none of which starred mustachioed plumbers. Then there's some talk about new releases (some of which aren't Watch Dogs), a special appearance by the Norwegian King of Names, and a look at what you're eager to see from E3 in a couple weeks.

Far Cry 4's finally been announced, and even though it's just concept art of a dude in a Scooby-Doo purple suit at this point, we're still excited. So excited, in fact, that we hung this week's Top 5 on the announcement, making it all about our favorite videogame mountains in honor of the Himalayan setting. There's also plenty of talk about Wolfenstein: The New Order, Transistor, and Tropico 5, along with a look at multiplayer games you'd be sad to lose.

When you hit episode 64 of any podcast, there are really only two directions you can go in, topic-wise: something to do with the Nintendo 64, or the iconic Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four." If you're the kind of person who skips headlines and just reads article text, guess which one we went with? Aside from what were, in retrospect, some really overcompensatory attempts to transition from kiddie to gritty, there's some chat about this week's sparse crop of new releases and your ideas for Kevin Spacey movies-turned-games. Oh, and Brett Elston's on this one.

Last week saw the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a movie reputedly so terrible that it's actually scoring well below some versions of its terrible tie-in game on Metacritic. Or wait — it turns out that's actually par for the course with a lot of superhero movies and their associated games, seemingly regardless of their respective quality. We take a look at the biggest disparities in this week's Top 5, then follow it up with some entertaining sound clips starring Kevin Spacey, and your favorite games-within-games.

What do games really think of their audiences? If their portrayals of gamers are any indication, the sentiment is somewhere between contempt, pity, and outright affection. This week's show takes a look at five standout examples before moving on to a scattershot discussion of new releases, not enough talk about the E.T. landfill excavation, and your favorite gaming trios.

This week, the subdued trio of Mikel, Anne, and Dave lead an exploration into the deeper mysteries of games that use nonsensical babbling instead of voice-acting, after which we stumble through a meager field of new releases, a few news tidbits, and a look at the real-world facts you've learned from your years of playing games.

Too many HD "remakes" these days are content to slap on some sharp new textures and call it a day. Most don't want to risk the ire of gamers by actually overhauling gameplay or design that worked 20 years ago, but a notable few have braved those waters and actually come out better for it. We celebrate them in this week's Top 5, then move on to talk about Trials Fusion, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and what your favorite Internet pranks were from this year's April Fool's Day.

By listener request (and in lieu of any better ideas), this week's Top 5 is dedicated gaming's greatest graffiti artists (or possibly just graffiti-themed games; we seem a little fuzzy on the concept). There's also lots of talk about Amazon officially getting into the console business, along with some idle conjecture about Titanfall on 360 and your ideas for mundane-activity simulators.

Last week's trailer for the Michael Bay Ninja Turtles movie was an inspiration — specifically, an inspiration for a Top 5 about the worst TMNT games of all time. With that out of the way, we talk about Goat Simulator, California State Senator Leland Yee allegedly becoming a real-life GTA character, and your ideas for games that would be better with virtual reality.

After decades spent on the technological trash heap, virtual reality's had a huge resurgence in the past week. Sony unveiled Morpheus, Oculus Rift rolled out its Crystal Cove prototype, and Microsoft revealed it was working on its own headset — and that was all before Facebook bought Oculus (which happened after we recorded this week's episode). It was a no-brainer, then, to start off VGA 57 with a rundown of our top 5 favorite/catastrophically failed headsets, after which we talk about Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, Infamous: Second Mark Ecko's Getting Up, and what you'd do if you were given free rein to mess up a game's established canon.

Inspired by the console-specific weirdness in this week's release of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Episode 56 rolls up with a Top 5 about DLC expansions that threw canon to the wind. Then we continue with some talk about the mildly disappointing Ground Zeroes (which looks like a goddamn 11 out of 10 next to the crass letdown of Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z), and take a look at some of your favorite mechs.

Now that Titanfall is presumably eating up everyone's time on PC and Xbox One, we kick off our fifty-fifth show with what may be our shortest Top 5 yet, about the weirdest mechs we could think of. There's also some talk about Dark Souls II and (naturally) Titanfall, some getting grossed out at Chris' obscene texting (and also at the Shaq-Fu sequel), and then a look at what you'd do if you could turn any TV show into a game.

In case the title didn't give it away, this week we honor the arrival of South Park: The Stick of Truth with a Top 5 about other games based on basic-cable TV shows, and somehow manage to mess even that up by including a network show! Can you imagine? Also, Anne busts out another "guess the game by its Steam reviews" game, and we give a listen to some of your favorite victory sounds.

The last week of February boasts some notably dark-looking new releases, so we thought we'd add a little color with our five favorite games about bringing dead worlds back to life. Then we unwisely gush about Thief and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 just days before finding out everyone else hated them, chat about some troubling developments in last week's news cycle, and talk about your biggest crushes on game characters.

VGA takes another quick trip back to the criminality well this week, with a look at five  "heroes" who did hard time and became our favorite video-game convicts. Then we dive right into Earth Defense Force 2025 and Strider, talk about our experiences in the Elder Scrolls Online and Titanfall betas, and run through some of your suggestions for game-inspired Olympic events.

As athletes compete and hotel rooms disintegrate at the Sochi Olympics, we follow a listener suggestion and take a look back at some of our favorite games about The Games — with the caveat that few of them were ever any good, and we've barely played any of them, if at all. (It's probably funnier that way.) Then there's some brief talk about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, a quick overview of the D.I.C.E. awards, and a long, self-indulgent look at your favorite moments from our first 50 episodes.

Between last week's Sly Cooper movie reveal and the incoming release of Thief, February is shaping up to be a very burgle-y month. So let's kick it off with a celebration of our favorite master thieves, then get giddy about Jazzpunk, Octodad, and Dustforce before talking about your favorite sports games of all time. Oh! And it's also our 50th anniversary, so expect a few tiny surprises, including a news "theme" for which your ears will never forgive us.

With Oscar season finally upon us, there's no better time to (once again) use Hollywood's long history with gaming as a creative crutch. This time, we take a look at games positioned as legitimate sequels to movies (whether by design, or simply by dint of being the closest thing we're likely to get) before talking about Broken Age, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, and Candy Banner: The Crush Saga. We also try to guess games by their user reviews, and then take a look at what you'd do if you could turn this year's Oscar-nominated films into games.

Apropos of nothing, we start off this week's show with a Top 5 about heroes who have, at best, a tenuous grip on their heads. Then there's some talk about Broken Age, Banner Saga, and a smattering of last week's news, followed by some startling revelations about your favorite ability-granting costumes.

The VGA crew limps through another slow January release week the only way we know how: with lots of tangential nonsense. There's also a Top 5 about costume changes as a major gameplay mechanic, some chat about CES 2014 and PlayStation Now, a bold plan to Kickstart and revive the Official Dreamcast Magazine, and a quick look at your most-anticipated games of 2014.

Aaaand we're back! VGA returns from its two-week hiatus with an obligatory Top 5 about our most hotly anticipated games. Then we get cheery on bumwine and talk about the booze- and game-related shenanigans we got up to while we't making podcasts, after which we run through your personal picks for Game of the Year 2013.

This year isn't quite finished, but Vidjagame Apocalypse is until January 7, so here's an extra-long countdown of the VGA regulars' 10 favorite games of 2013! After that, we touch on the meager crop of year-end new releases and discuss your picks for the worst game of the year (oh, and apologies in advance for the ear-splitting raccoon chorus. No, we've never heard of Autotune).

As the wheezing beast that is 2013 enters its final weeks of life, we've come roaring back from hiatus with our Top 5 protagonists who went villain for the sequel, a little bit of talk about new releases (including the somewhat surprising Gran Turismo 6), and a very special musical performance by The Raccoon that he swore to kill us over if we ever let it see the light of day. Then we talk about what you were planning to play over Thanksgiving (or comparable holiday), sure.

Has it really been 125 years already? Another Thanksgivukkah is nearly upon us, once again merging Thanksgiving with the first night of Hanukkah in an explosion of festive confusion! This week, we spend plenty of time talking about the Xbox One launch (as well as your favorite launch games of all time), but not before discussing our five favorite turkeys in gaming and performing the most amateurish Thanksgivukkah skit we could slap together at the last minute.

We're stuck between launches as of this writing, with the PS4 (theoretically) in stores and the Xbox One poised to give us a slightly different version of the events of last Friday. What an exciting time to be alive, and what a perfect time to tick off the five best console launch games ever! (OK, seven. We  cheated on the last one.) In the second segment, we talk about our experiences with the new systems and their launch games, after which we go over your picks for the game that defined the last generation.

In just a few days as of this posting, the PlayStation 4 will be a thing you can buy, bringing about the first major generational shift for consoles since the release of the Xbox 360 eight years ago. With "next-gen" about to become "current-gen," and "current-gen" poised to become another fond memory for gamers to get nostalgic about in a decade or so, we've dedicated the first half of this show to five games that may not have been the best or even most important, but that -- for better or worse -- defined the 360/PS3/Wii generation. And, sure, there's also some talk about the PS4's launch library, Call of Duty: Ghosts resolutions, and whether any of you are buying Activision's flagship shooter this year.

This week is Call of Duty week, with CoD: Ghosts hitting store shelves ahead of its next-gen launches, but let's ignore that for the first half of the show. Instead, we'll talk about our favorite heroes over 40, then chat with Bob "bobservo" Mackey of Retronauts fame about Typing of the Dead: Overkill, and discuss what you all did for Halloween.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is out today, and to mark the occasion, we sit down with a SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Gabe Graziani, senior community developer at Ubisoft and the official face of Assassin's Creed fandom! But first, Halloween is this week, so let's celebrate by talking about playable werewolves, after which we'll get to some of your creepiest experiences playing games.

Remember way back when game publishers weren't interested in locking down their intellectual property, and would hand the franchise keys to any porting house that had two ZX Spectrums to rub together? No? Well, this week's Top 5 does, as we take a look at some of the not-quite-official sequels that were part of gaming's early years. There's also a little chat about Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies, as well as some vague disappointment about Watch_Dogs being delayed and the resultant lack of enthusiasm in this fall's next-gen launch lineups — and then we talk about what you'd slap Tom Clancy's name on AND your favorite cover Pokemon.

This week, Mikel and the rest of the regular VGA crew take a breather, giving special guests Henry Gilbert, Carolyn Gudmundson and Brett Elston exactly the opening they need to stage an impromptu reunion of their old Pokemon Monday podcast and chat at length about Pokemon X/Y, before turning the conversation to the very important matter of Pokemon in general.

If you're not a Pokémon fan, the biggest release this week is Beyond: Two Souls, the latest beautiful, divisive, interactive game-like thing from developer Quantic Dream and its cackling French overlord, David Cage. In honor of its arrival (and to balance out all the swipes we've taken at Heavy Rain over the years), we lavish a little praise on our favorite moments in David Cage's creations, shed a tear over Tom Clancy's passing, and talk about some of the things you wanted to do in Grand Theft Auto Online before the servers were working properly.

This week, we decided to take a look at some of our favorite, sadly misguided one-off consoles, created mainly by companies who'd dipped their toes into video games once or twice and suddenly thought they could be the next Nintendo. Then there's a whole bunch of talk about Steam OS (or possibly a Greek guy named Steamos), a general loss of cohesion, and a look at your most memorable experiences standing in launch lines.

Grand Theft Auto has finally become so ingrained in mainstream culture that not only did GTA V break all sales records for all media ever (probably), but it took a torture scene to raise any real controversy this time around. So naturally, we've jumped on the lurid bandwagon with our top 5 disturbingly interactive torture scenes, more GTA chatter, a po-faced discussion about sexism in games by four straight white males, and your favorite GTA or GTA-alike missions.

It's all about one specific big release this week, as we begin with a celebration of GTA clones and then dive into a lengthy discussion about Grand Theft Auto V. We also talk about your favorite game tie-ins, and Tyler never gets around to talking for an hour about Papers, Please, which is only a little bit disappointing.

No Top 5 this week — just lots and lots of talk about the cool stuff we saw at PAX Prime. (Big thanks to everyone who came to our meetup at GameWorks!) We also chat about Killzone: Mercenary, Arma III and Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5, take a long look at Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, and find out which single question you'd ask your favorite video game characters.

Everyone's back from another successful PAX, and yet this week's episode was recorded just before PAX. It's not outdated — it's a time capsule! A time capsule that focuses on five games disavowed by their own creators (or the creators of whatever franchise spawned them), as well as a little Rayman and a little Killer Is Dead, plus your favorite indie games of 2013.

Not a whole lot's happening during the gap between Gamescom and PAX, and yet we somehow found a way to fill more than 100 minutes with chatter about great actors who slummed it in games, next-gen console release dates, and your most favoritest weapons of 2013.

For no other reason than that a listener suggested it, we spend a fat chunk of this week's episode dissecting five games that changed radically during development, often into (or away from) something that completely defied our expectations — and, in a few cases, changed the course of gaming history. (Thanks, Odie Esty!) Since this is also the biggest week for retail game releases in a while, there's quite a bit of talk about Saints Row IV, Splinter Cell and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (among others), along with a look at your favorite indie/smaller-budget/download-only games.

You can never have too many musical episodes, right? This week, we give a listen to five bands that exist only in their respective games (counting down our favorites as we go). There's also some talk about Luigis and clown heists, a little bit of fawning over just-released indie game Papers, Please, and a look at the games people nagged you to play so much, you didn't want to play them anymore. (WARNING: We may nag you about these.)

With the release of Pikmin 3 this week, it's high time we paid tribute to the great unsung heroes of gaming: disposable minions. Specifically your disposable minions. We also have a lively discussion about Dragon's Crown's extreme stylization, chat a bit about Phil Fish and online abuse, and explore your ideas for kaiju games.

Giant city-crushin' monsters are in right now, so why not devote a show to their greatest appearances in video games (and give kaiju expert Brett Elston a chance to wax nostalgic at the same time)? There's also some talk of mysterious new PC releases, e-cigarettes for some reason, and a quick look at your favorite games of the year so far.

Have we really been doing this for 25 straight weeks? Dang. To celebrate being halfway to 50, we spend this episode counting down our top 5 games of 2013 (so far), gushing about Earthbound, recounting your most memorable game deals, and introducing a NEW COMMUNITY SEGMENT (OK we admit it it's just a twitter contest).

This week, we pay our respects to five hotly anticipated games that were shut down before  ever really seeing the light of day. We also chat about a little iOS oddity called Deus Ex: The Fall (and other new releases, sure), freak out over the revelation that Microsoft's been handing user data over to the NSA, and talk about which times and settings you'd love to explore in an open-world game.

Ride to Hell: Retribution is already being hailed by critics as the worst game of 2013, which has been enough to get most outlets to forget about it. Most outlets, however, are not run by masochists for whom the phrase "worst game" is a kind of catnip, so we used it as a jumping-off point for a Top 5 about biker gangs. We also talk about The Walking Dead: 400 Days and some of the worst things you've ever done in a game. (Turns out some of you are real sadists, so this was a treat.)

Last week was a pretty important one for our LGBT friends; not only was it Pride Week, but the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, clearing the way for gay marriages to be recognized on a federal level. What better way to say "congratulations!" than with a countdown of our favorite trailblazing gay characters from games? (If Pride isn't your thing, you may want to cover your ears for this one.)

This week's Vidjagame Apocalypse starts out innocuously enough, with a look at movies based on fake games, but things get heated in the second half, when the crew debates the merits of Microsoft's decision to roll back its digital rights management plans for the Xbox One. Oh, and in between there's some talk about Deadpool, Project X Zone and other games that actually exist for consoles that are currently available.

In this week's episode of Vidjagame Apocalypse we start up a suicide prevention hotline. JUST KIDDING. We talk about making people kill themselves in videogames. Good times. We also talk about Remember Me and your reactions to the Xbone.

In this week's episode we talk about our favorite canine friends and the Xbox One reveal. It's basically just four people talking about dogs for two hours.