All My Best Friends Are Digital

We shot them up last week, and this week we are beating them up. One wonders what them did to deserve all this violence, but we move on to more pressing questions--such as, what ground food is best? And, how many mechanisms is too much, and how many light years past that is Astral Ascent? NB: The name of that weird creature in Golden Axe and Altered Beast is a "chicken leg." What We're Playing00:55 Caitlin: Helldivers 2 (Arrowhead, 2024)06:00 Mark: Streets of Rage 4 (Dotemu, 2020)11:48 GOOF: Alien vs. Predator (Capcom, 1994)19:37 Feature Game: Astral Ascent (Hibernia Workshop, 2023)SHOUT53:52 Caitlin: Dragon Age: The Veilguard (BioWare)56:41 Mark: Metal Slug Tactics (SNK)

Mark is some sort of degenerate killjoy who doesn't like Tolkien much, but can Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor win him over regardless? Caitlin's death-march through all the Final Fantasy games continues, as does the mining of classic titles from the NES to fuel GOOF.What We're Playing01:04 Caitlin: Final Fantasy II (Square)07:26 Mark: Have a Nice Death (Magic Design Studios)12 :17 GOOF: Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (Namco)23 :53 Feature Game: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Monolith)44:23 Spoilers begin50:04 Spoilers endSHOUT51:57 Caitlin: LEGO Horizon Adventures (Guerilla)53:39 Mark: Dreamcast Capcom VS SNK 2 in English and Terry Bogard in Street Fighter 6 (Capcom and kind of SNK)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice tackles the issue of having a mentally ill protagonist head-on. How successful is the portrayal? And how good is the game itself? And perhaps most importantly, can we all get on the same page and acknowledge that Cain from Final Fantasy II (or IV, for you purists) was a massive douche?What We're Playing01:12 Caitlin: Hellcard (Thing Trunk)05:14 Mark: Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster)12:07 GOOF: Final Fantasy (yes, the FIRST one) (Square)26:58 Feature Game: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Ninja Theory)52:42 Spoilers begin1:06:14 Spoilers endSHOUT1:06:46 Caitlin: Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail (Square Enix)1:08:20 Mark: Hades II (Supergiant)