Author: BreakmanX

Phasmophobia co-op was the plan for the Halloween episode, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do on The Game Show since 2002. Back then the bandwidth couldn’t handle it. Now it can. So on October 29 the crew went ghost hunting while I watched from the van. The game only seats four, so I hosted and Jack Burton, Jess, Logan, and Darria played. Logan is the one who actually knows Phasmophobia. He walked everyone through the gear, paid for a full loadout out of his own in-game money, and then watched all of it get lost in the first house.…

Some of the scariest moments in gaming never came from a horror game. Jess and Break dig into the ones that got under our skin anyway. Horror games are supposed to scare you. That’s the deal. But some of the creepiest moments in gaming showed up in places that had no business being unsettling such as a kids’ RPG, a cartoon platformer, a game about catching cute monsters. This week Jess and Break go through the moments that stuck with us: the Lavender Town music and the ghost of Marowak, the moon hanging over Termina in Majora’s Mask, the empty…

The Pokemon Crystal Olivine Lighthouse does not have a gym leader at the top. It has a sick Ampharos. Episode 13 is the one where Jess and Break climb all the way up, find out the badge is somewhere else, and spend the rest of the night on the water getting the medicine. The Pokemon Crystal Olivine Lighthouse does not have a gym leader at the top. It has a sick Ampharos. Episode 13 is the one where Jess and Break climb all the way up, find out the badge is somewhere else, and spend the rest of the night…

Clone consoles are everywhere. Ace has had real Genesis boards open on his bench for fifteen years and built MiSTer arcade cores at the chip level. He knows exactly where the copies fall short. Clone consoles are the easiest way to play old games on a new TV, and most of them are wrong in ways you will not notice until somebody points it out. This week that somebody is Ace. He designed the Mega Amp, the audio mod that fixes the sound on a Sega Genesis and Mega Drive, and he wrote the Sega-16 guide on Genesis hardware revisions…

Round two with Morty. After the Gengar wipeout in Episode 10 and a full week of grinding in Episode 11, Jess and Break walk back into the Ecruteak Gym in Pokémon Crystal. Maul is a Haunter now. [WIN: The Fog Badge is ours.

The Pokemon Crystal Haunter evolution finally happened. Episode 11 of Gotta Catch ‘Em All with Jess and Break was never going to be the Morty rematch. After Gengar wiped the whole team two weeks ago, the plan was simple: grind, catch what we could, and get Maul some levels. We got the levels. We also got a brand new Pokemon out of it. ## A Grind Night Around Ecruteak We opened licking our wounds and picked a direction. East out of Ecruteak there was a free Ultra Ball sitting on the ground and a cave that does not need Flash.…

Gaming hot takes night finally happened. Break, Jack Burton, Jess, Logan, and Darria each brought their spiciest opinions to The Game Show and defended them live. Some of them landed with the whole crew nodding along. A couple of them set the chat on fire. That was the plan. This episode also marks 24 years since the very first Game Show aired in September 2002. Break dug up the original audio, and it turns out one of his hot takes from that first night holds up better than anyone expected. The 2002 Microsoft prediction On the first episode, five days…

The Game Show is back with the full crew this week, and the topic is video game endings. Everybody brought their favorites, we got through four rounds of picks, and then we squeezed in a lightning round of the worst before the clock ran out. The best video game endings, as picked by the crew Break went old school with Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, Portal, the original Metroid and Mega Man 2. Chrono Trigger gets the nod for having more than a dozen endings before New Game Plus was even a term. Super Metroid gets it for the baby Metroid…

The Pokemon Crystal Morty fight is where this series took its first loss. Ten episodes, five weeks off, and a Gengar that would not go down. Where We Left Off Last time we survived a rival battle in the Burned Tower that we had no business surviving, then fell straight through the floor. This episode picks up in the basement with the team exactly as beat up as we left it. The first few minutes were a reunion tour. We caught a Koffing on the way out, and Maximus Prime in chat named him Grimace. Then I walked into the…

Sir Randall of Ye Old Press builds physical big box editions for games that only ever shipped digital. Hollow Knight: Silksong. Ocarina of Time on PC. Warframe. Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. He designs the box, prints the art, burns the game to an archive-grade disc, and puts it on the shelf. This week he joined The Game Show to talk about how he does it and why it matters, and Jack Burton made it in from a very late flight for the back half. Who Is Sir Randall of Ye Old Press? Randall got into this the way a lot…

We finally gave video game box art a full episode. Jess, Jack, and Logan each brought picks, the rules were loose on purpose, and Jess found something so cursed it stopped the show cold. The News First Jess opened with a Nintendogs rumor. Leaker Mallow932 claims a new one is in development for Switch 2. Nothing is confirmed, but the account has a decent track record. The bigger story was the Blizzard union ratifying its first contract. It covers 1,900 employees and includes guardrails on generative AI use, layoff protections, and remote and hybrid work benefits. That is a rare…

This week The Game Show gets into the packaging. Not the games themselves, but the boxes they came in and the manuals that used to be inside them. Break makes the case for Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy. The gold Zelda cartridge, the manual maps, the Amano art on the Final Fantasy boxes. Jess brings a list that covers a lot more ground. Super Mario Strikers, Pokémon Pinball, Vice City, Kingdom Hearts, Nier Automata, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dragon Age Origins, Hades, X-Men Legends, The Sims Medieval, Animal Crossing Wild World, Harvest Moon Save the Homeland, Resident Evil 7, and…

The best arcade games ever made are the topic this week, and the whole crew came ready. Break, Jack, Logan, and Darria each brought a list of favorites along with the arcade memories that go with them. Jess is out sick this week but will be back Tuesday for Pokémon. Nobody showed restraint with their lists and that’s how it should be. So what are the best arcade games of all time? Ask four hosts and you’ll get four very different answers, which is exactly why this episode exists. For me the answer starts with the Konami beat ’em up…

Tonight we’re talking cheat codes and the Game Genie. How they worked, why they worked, the arms race between publishers and kids trying to break their games. 🎮 About The Game ShowRunning since 2002, one of the earliest gaming podcasts around. Season 13 continues our look at consoles, industry news, and the games shaping it all. 🔗 LinksBreakmanX: https://breakmanx.comDiscord: linked at breakmanx.com ► MUSICOpening: Project X – Mega Man 2 “Project X2 – Title Screen” OC ReMix – https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00625Closing: Project X – Mega Man 2 “Ending” Buy the album here: https://projectx.bandcamp.com/album/m…

Everyone keeps warning me about a cow. It’s just a cow. Right? Badge three is on the line as Jess and Break take on Whitney at the Goldenrod Gym in Pokemon Crystal. Jess has been suspiciously quiet about Miltank, chat has been suspiciously loud, and Break is walking in blind like always. Plus the Odd Egg is still riding in the party, and Goldenrod’s got plenty left to explore. 🎮 Break & Jess Catch ‘Em All Jess is guiding Break through Pokémon Crystal for the very first time. New episode every Tuesday. 🔗 Links BreakmanX: https://breakmanx.com Discord: linked at breakmanx.com…

Every gamer has an opinion on this one. On this episode of The Game Show, we’re ranking 15 sequels that beat the original — games that took what came before and made it better in every way that matters. From NES classics to modern PS5 hits, here’s our list.

Episode 8 opened with the strangest inventory this series has had so far. Two badges. A wall of Game Corner coins from the night I got banned and came back for revenge. And the Odd Egg, which has been in the party for two episodes and will not hatch. I checked. If you’re just finding the series, here’s the short version. I’ve hosted a gaming podcast since 2002 and had never played a Pokemon game until Jess, who grew up on Crystal, started teaching me from zero on weekly streams. The full ten hour compilation of episodes 1 through 7…

There’s a ten hour video on the channel now, and I want to explain why it exists. I’ve hosted a gaming podcast since 2002, and for that entire run I carried a secret. I had never played a Pokemon game. Not Red, not Blue, not anything. Jess co-hosts our streams and grew up on Pokemon Crystal, and when she found out, she decided this could not stand. She offered to teach me from zero, live, one weekly session at a time. This compilation is the Pokemon Crystal full playthrough of everything so far. Seven episodes in one continuous video. The…

Every console generation has its share of failed game consoles. Tonight we dug into four of the most infamous: the Phantom, a system so vaporous it never actually shipped; Gizmondo, a handheld that got buried by scandal as much as bad hardware; Nokia’s N-Gage, a phone-console hybrid that satisfied nobody; and the Ouya, a crowdfunded Android console that promised to blow up the industry and instead became a punchline. We played most of these ourselves at E3 or when they hit shelves, so this isn’t secondhand. We lived through it. If you want more of this, we also covered the…

Two Pokemon Crystal daycare eggs. One city still left to explore. Let’s go. Picking Up: The Pokemon Crystal Daycare Eggs We left off last episode with a genuinely funny problem: two separate OddEggs, back to back, from the day care man and the day care lady inGoldenrod City. Neither of us planned for that. One egg from the daycare man, who apparently found it while looking after someone else’sPokemon. One from the day care lady, minutes later, no explanationneeded beyond “here’s an egg.” So now we’re carrying two Pokemon Crystal daycare eggs at once, and thisepisode is about figuring out…

The GameCube turns 25 this year. To celebrate, the whole crew got together to pick the best GameCube games of all time, and we agreed on almost nothing. Break makes the case for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Jess showed up with a list long enough to fill the whole episode, with Super Mario Sunshine, the Resident Evil remake, Animal Crossing, and both GameCube Harvest Moon games on it. Smash Bros. Melee came up about thirty seconds in, because of course it did. What Are the Best GameCube Games of All Time? That is the fight. The GameCube…

We’re back to weekly, and Goldenrod City did not disappoint. The Team Logan the Wooper had his best episode yet and went from “basically helpless”to nearly getting swept by poison and surviving anyway. Kakuna finallyevolved into Beedrill mid-battle, which felt earned after how long we saton that cocoon stage. Maul is still our MVP-in-waiting for the next gym,and we picked up a Jigglypuff along the way (named for our next scheduledguest, Coury — sorry in advance, Coury). We also spent a solid twenty minutes hunting Abra. Caught one Snubbull.Nearly lost Logan to a Jigglypuff bout that got way tenser than…

Darria Dennison is a filmmaker and actor based in the Topeka, Kansas area. She has worked on multiple award-winning films and projects as a cinematographer, editor, and actress. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and in Mass Media with a concentration in Film and Video from Washburn University. With skills in broadcast, in her time at KSNT News she helped develop and serve as the technical director and editor for the sports show K-Nation, which is a 30-minute special that covers news from KU and K-State Athletics Programs. She had the opportunity to attend, film, and edit a…

Every console generation has at least one add-on that promised big thingsand ended up in a bargain bin within a year. Tonight’s episode covers theworst offenders. Nintendo’s toy-robot gimmick from 1985 is on the list. Sois Microsoft finally pulling the plug on Kinect in 2017. THE CLASSICS The Sega 32X and Sega CD are the two everyone thinks of first, and forgood reason. The 32X launched the same month Sega announced the Saturn’sJapanese debut. That undercut its own $159 add-on before it had a chance.The Sega CD did a little better commercially, but 60% of its launchlibrary was full-motion video…

Azalea Town & the Slowpoke Well Mystery! We roll into Azalea Town and things get weird fast. Slowpoke are vanishing, the well’s got a Team Rocket problem, and we’ve still got a Gym Badge to earn from Bugsy. Jess and Break work through the puzzle, catch some new Pokémon, and figure out just how much trouble Team Rocket is causing in Johto. #Pokemon #PokemonCrystal #LetsPlay

The greatest video game villains of all time didn’t just stand between us and the ending. They deleted save files, kidnapped princesses, blew up planets, and made us put the controller down and walk away. On this episode of The Game Show, Break and the crew rank the most evil, most memorable, and most unfair bad guys in gaming history, and the number one pick did not go over quietly. Who Are the Greatest Video Game Villains? Every era has its icons. Dr. Wily rebuilt his robot masters no matter how many times Mega Man tore the fortress down. Bowser…

Two episodes into the grind and we are still not ready for Bugsy. Episode 4is more Route 32 encounters, more Union Cave, more experience points, andmore slow progress toward Azalea Town. Falkner is behind us. The Zephyr Badge is in the case. But Jess has beenwarning me about Bugsy since episode 2, and I am starting to believe her. The Grind Grinding is not glamorous. It is repetitive battles against wild Pokemonuntil your team hits the levels you need. In Crystal, the stretch betweenViolet City and Azalea Town is one of the classic early-game grinding zones.Route 32 has variety, Union…

This isn’t a thrift store find or an eBay rescue. It’s the exact NES I unboxed on Christmas morning 1988, the machine that started everything this site has ever been about. This is the NES restoration I owed it. The NES Restoration Plan It sat in storage since 2008. When I finally pulled it out, it was dying. The capacitors were done, the 72-pin connector was worn out, and it barely booted. I’d had consoles modded before, but this one needed more than a mod. It needed a resurrection. Enter Fenris Wolf Retro. The plan we landed on was a…

Some games bring people together. These are not those games. This week we’re counting down the local multiplayer classics that turned best friends into sworn enemies, one couch session at a time. From NBA Jam elbows to TMNT button-mashing betrayals, and Halo we get into why same-couch gaming bred the pettiest, most personal rivalries in the hobby. Screen-watching. Phantom controller “malfunctions” right as the comeback started. That one friend who only ever picked the broken character and swore it was skill. If you grew up handing someone the second controller and immediately regretting it, this episode is for you Watch,…

The crew walks the entire history of US console launch lineups in one sitting, starting with the 1985 NES — Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Hogan’s Alley, Excite Bike, Kung Fu — and moving through the Sega Genesis, the Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, F-Zero, Gradius III, Final Fight), the botched surprise drop of the Sega Saturn, the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64, the Neo Geo AES at $200 a cartridge, the Sega Dreamcast, the PlayStation 2, the Xbox and Halo: Combat Evolved, the GameCube with Rogue Leader, and finally the $599 PlayStation 3. Returning guest…