PODCAST · leisure
Abject Suffering
by Duckfeed.tv
This is a podcast that's nominally about bad games. In reality, every Monday, Gary Butterfield and Kaye Ross choose a game at random from the titles submitted by listeners, play it, and venture off on a freeform discussion that winds between the topic at hand and some dumb nonsense.Public RSS Feed: https://www.patreon.com/rss/80117?show=1702263
Episodes
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Abject Suffering 684: Catz
Ubisoft looked at Nintendogs and decided “hey, we could mess that up.” The result was the Petz series, where you adopt an animal and train it to fight for you, but not in a Pokémon way. Some talk about cat fur coat patterns determining personalities turns to a more existential talk of easy and...
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Abject Suffering 683: Shinobi
Shinobi for the PlayStation 2 isn’t a bad game. In fact, Kaye knows that she’s bringing a backdoor WOFF! pick to the show. However, it’s janky and it’s overly difficult because it’s from an era before character action was solved. When we run out of stuff to say about Shinobi, we start…
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Abject Suffering 682: Road Rash 64
Road Rash is a weird series because it was once very popular, and now you don’t hear about it. At all. And even the worst version of it, the hideous N64 game, isn’t all that terrible. There’s just something fun about jumping bikes and whipping people with chains. All this hog talk gets us talking...
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Abject Suffering 681: Magic Boy
Magic Boy is another stilted puzzle platformer with that Amiga stink on it. You are some kind of magical boy, and it’s up to you to stun and basement escaped magical animals so even worse things don’t happen. What really matters is that Gary threw a pool party recently, and we got to cavort.
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Abject Suffering 680: Minute to Win It
In the DS/Wii/Kinect shovelware bonanza, nothing was off limits, including a Guy Fieri show that was just "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" for dummies. Featuring finicky touch screen control versions of bizarre physical challenges, Minute to Win It for the DS is the bottom of the crop. We also…
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Abject Suffering 679: Super Morph
Super Morph is a PAL-only puzzle platformer that’s actually pretty neat. A young boy’s neglectful uncle put him into a matter transporter, and now the boy is trapped in flux between different states of matter. He must solve puzzles to find the gears that will fix the machine so he can return to…
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Abject Suffering 678: Scooby-Doo Night of 100 Frights!
Some intellectual properties are like PFAS. Once introduced to the environment, they will never go away, just sitting and warping whatever they touch. The Hannah-Barbera archives are a superfund site of these, and no property has stuck around like Scooby-Doo. Night of 100 Frights has the...
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Abject Suffering 677: Pong: The Next Level
They made a fun Pong game for the PlayStation. ANYWAY, did you know that we both got Covid-19 in Las Vegas? Let’s rank the symptoms!
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Abject Suffering 676: DJ Boy
DJ Boy is a beat-em-up on roller skates. Roller blades? No, skates. The most hip-hop conveyance imaginable. That’s because this is a game steeped in a very removed Japanese understanding of US hip hop culture, which comes with some extremely uncomfortable racial depictions. Also, it’s time to…
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Abject Suffering 675: Balan Wonderworld
Balan Wonderworld is so infamous that sometimes you wonder if it could actually ever be that bad. Chat, it’s very bad. It ranks right behind chronically mistreating his workers on the list of worst things Yuji Naka has ever done. It’s so bad that we remain on topic for the whole episode.
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Abject Suffering 674: Whiplash
Portal didn’t invent the story about the banal cruelty of corporate super science, but it sure did it better than Whiplash. You play a weasel who has a rabbit chained to you, hopping and bopping to try to escape from a laboratory. And while it promises sweet grappling hook action, all it delivers...
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Abject Suffering 673: Flix and Chill 2 Millennials
We understand why you all voted for Flix and Chill 2: Millennials in our episode poll. Look at that title. Little did you know that it’s also a viciously uninteresting adventure game in the guise of a dating sim. Millennials are strange birds, we are led to believe. Also, Kaye invents a fun new...
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Abject Suffering 672: Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo Jojo (GBC)
The Powerpuff Girls was a fine cartoon. It hit a lot of people at the right age, and its groovy 90s aesthetic was instantly iconic. So it probably deserved a better game than this, a very sloppy brawler and asset hunt. We also talk about the differing legacies of Nicktoons and Cartoon Network...
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Abject Suffering 671: Riddick Bowe Boxing
Riddick Bowe Boxing, known as “Chavez” in some regions, is actually a very good boxing game for the Super Nintendo. So we return to the old topics of boxing in general, how quick and brutal real fights can be, Kaye’s dwindling number of pockets for pocket sand, and the bizarreness of “free use”...
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Abject Suffering 670: Rugrats: Time Travelers
Everyone knows the Rugrats, the hideous Nickelodeon babies who taught us about Passover. Well, they also traveled through time, at least on the GameBoy. And it didn’t turn out very good for anybody. Maybe they should have stopped David Crosby from writing a very creepy song.
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Abject Suffering 669: Space Jam
Everybody get up, it’s time to talk about the Space Jam video game now. And it’s just a weak NBA Jam byproduct, with zero cartoony wackiness to be found. We also talk about the Space Jam sequel and how it was the height of cynical corporate IP management.
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Abject Suffering 668: Phix: The Adventure
Phix is a furby who got magnet powers, and this entire game is an exploration of how to execute on that premise as sorely as possible. But one of the bosses is a big titty Medusa monster, so we discuss whether or not we could find love if one of our arms was a snake.
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Abject Suffering 667: Bill Laimbeer's Future Basketball
Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball is a game that is so infamous that we’re shocked we haven’t covered it yet. It’s a terrible basketball game about a terrible man, and there’s always fun to be had when talking about hoops. But a conversation about a lying Lyft driver leads us to the incredible...
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Abject Suffering 666: Hell Pie
Hell Pie is a spiritual successor to Conker’s Bad Fur day, and a successful one! It’s also not very funny because it’s trying too hard to be transgressive. However, the platforming is kind of on point, which pains us greatly to say.
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Abject Suffering 665: Streamer Life Simulator
Streamer Life Simulator is, believe it or not, streamer slop. An incredibly janky asset flip that tries to skate by on utter charmlessness. It’s also one of many simulator games that doesn’t really bother to make a game out of what it’s simulating. It just slaps a bathroom meter on it. In…
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Abject Suffering 664: Silent Debuggers
We just need to admit that if old people are farting, it's a slippery slope before... you know. We also think children's games are awesome when performed by professional athletes.
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Abject Suffering 663: Dare Devil Derby 3D
There's not really much to this game, it's a shitty kart racer. We mostly talk how to make bars more quiet.
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Abject Suffering 662: Deep Freeze
Deep Freeze is a Japan-only PlayStation Resident Evil clone where you’re fighting terrorists instead of zombies. It’s most noteworthy for its bonkers intro CGI, but there’s not much to say about a snappier tank control shooter. So instead, we ask the question: What is the strangest movie to jerk...
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Abject Suffering 661: Titenic
Very little in the world is funnier than copyright infringement. That’s why the infamous Chinese bootleg game Titenic (spelling intentional) is worth taking a look at. It’s also kind of good? At least it plays well, and it’s short. Jack and Rose are ready for revenge, and they will ensure that…
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Abject Suffering 660: Xenophage Alien Bloodsport
The catalog of DOS games is full of visually impressive experiments that aren’t very fun to play. That’s where we find Xenophage: Alien Bloodsport, a game that is somehow technically adept but also horrifying to look at. It’s also maybe the worst fighting game we’ve ever played. Plus, it includes…
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Abject Suffering 659: Sunset Riders
What do goofy cowboys and queer gatekeeping have in common? Stay tuned.
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Abject Suffering 658: Bioforge
BioForge is an also-ran in the world of Alone in the Dark clones, telling the story of a man who wakes up augmented into a cyborg on an alien ship. But you use the NumPad to kick, so everything neat about it goes out the window. It WAS, however, featured in a book called “1001 Games to Play…
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Abject Suffering 657: White Van Racer
We walked into this one completely unaware of preexisting stereotypes about professionals who drive white vans. Apparently Britons have thoughts. And as a joke game, this kind of works for a minute. So instead we talk about how to properly brand a plumbing company to attract a clientele that...
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Abject Suffering 656: Haven: Call of the King
Haven: Call of the King is a PS2 platformer that doesn’t want you to think it’s a platformer. It wants you to think it’s anything and everything all at once. That’s why they don’t want you to call it a “platformer”, they want you to call it a “FreeFormer”. Which is… hey listen, we’re really sorry...
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Abject Suffering 655: AAAHH!! Real Monsters
Nickelodeon was at the height of their powers in the 90s when they decided to start throwing more and more Nicktoons down the chute. This led to them trying to capture the grotesquery of Ren & Stimpy without any of its transgression. Thus, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters was born, a show about monsters…
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Abject Suffering 654: Amazon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a simple game, but it’s timeless. The Amazon trail is complicated and involves time traveling magic panthers, and nobody has thought about it in thirty years. There’s a lesson there. Additionally, there are lessons in hiring contractors to fix your bathroom, and lessons about...
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Abject Suffering 653: Special Report
This is a sequel episode to Abject Suffering 619: Wild Woody. Look, we totally intended to record an episode about a video game. But sometimes you’re at a discount grocery store and you stumble across the deal of a lifetime. How many lives could you change with $100?
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Abject Suffering 652: McDonalds Changeables Game Experience
It’s time for another McDonald’s episode because they released a new game on the sly when they brought back the Changeables Happy Meal Toys. You know, those little toys that are like Transformers but the “disguise” form is food that scientists labored over to make sure you’d eat it forever. This...
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Abject Suffering 651: Twisted Metal: Small Brawl
Look out! It's tiny Sweettooth! He's going to run us over in his tiny car!
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Abject Suffering 650: Donkey Kong 3
This episode is about a Donkey Kong sequel that's about a man who kills bugs. Kaye also talks about schlepping her cats across the country and Gary uses a bathroom in a haunted house.
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Abject Suffering 649: Dangerous Dave's Risky Rescues
The Dangerous Dave games are a series of PC platformers that acted as a precursor to Commander Keen, except with a redneck aesthetic and hyperviolence. This entry is hard, but not terrible, so we talk about how modern Helltimes have rendered thinking about having superpowers unpalatable.
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Abject Suffering 648: Beast Wars: Transformers
Beast Wars: Transformers is an ugly show, and the PlayStation game based on it is even uglier. It’s a little bleak to consider that the cheap animation of the 80s cartoon is the best that these robots would ever look. So instead, Gary proposes a new sex move called “Trick or Treat”, and we work…
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Abject Suffering 647: Bad Dudes
It’s honestly weird that we haven’t already covered the NES version of Bad Dudes, a game with an infamous intro and horribly choppy handling. So Kaye brings it as her vanity pick, and we talk about how bad times have also made ALL of us into Bad Dudes.
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Abject Suffering 646: Friday Night Funkin'
Friday Night Funkin’, a rhythm game credited with keeping Newgrounds relevant in the 2020s, is actually pretty good. The music works better than the visuals, and the fan community is really… enthusiastic… but there’s not much to hate here. So instead we talk about Gary’s trip to San Francisco,...
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Abject Suffering 645: Love is... in Bloom: The Flower Shop Garden
Love Is… is a very sad and weird comic strip about naked eight year olds who are married and like being really bossy about what is and isn’t love. The game is nothing, but we cannot bring ourselves to stop diving into the comic’s archive to boggle at what was once (and apparently still is?)...
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Abject Suffering 644: Minority Report: Everybody Runs
Minority Report: Everybody Runs is a licensed tie in game to a movie where ladies lay eggs that tell the future. Since this is a perfect fit for us, we talk about what precog powers would do to our lives, and Kaye talks about preparing for her upcoming move.
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Abject Suffering 643: Biker Mice from Mars
The Biker Mice from Mars was an also-ran in the Turtles boom of the early nineties. Its premise was exactly what the title implies, and it relied on the idea of bikers being a lot cooler than they actually are. But given any chance to talk about the Turtles, we dig into the missed potential in…
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Abject Suffering 642: Panic!
Panic! isn’t really a game, it’s a mouse training program with some context-free visual gags. Faced with the possibility that disliking this makes us sticks in the mud, we talk about why this presentation is a disservice to the very necessary emotion of whimsy.
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Abject Suffering 641: Satan Santa
We’ve done most of the major Christmas-themed games, so we had to dig deep and find some of the worst slop Steam could provide. Satan Santa is an asset flip game that makes generous use of AI in its text and marketing materials. A demon has replaced Santa and a kid needs to walk really slow about...
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Abject Suffering 640: Rock n' Roll Racing
Rock n’ Roll Racing is a game that people love. It’s pog monsters doing combat racing from an irritating isometric perspective, set to SNES chiptune renditions of classic rock songs. For what it is, it’s hard to find too much to complain about… so we talk about Gary’s ongoing crisis of whether or...
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Abject Suffering 639: Palace of Deceit: The Dragon's Plight
Everyone has to start somewhere. For Cliff Blezinski, starting meant making a pale imitation of Shadowgate called Palace of Deceit: The Dragon’s Plight. Playing it is a master class in what makes Shadowgate good. But you can’t be too hard on the kid for it, he was sixteen. Be hard on him for the...
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Abject Suffering 638: Gamer Simulator
Gamer Simulator is an unfinished piece of slopware available on Steam that doesn’t really simulate being a gamer, as much as it simulates being under a geas that makes it so you can only derive sustenance from powerups you find in video games. And when you’re done eating virtual hamburgers, you…
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Abject Suffering 637: Pagemaster
At the twilight of Macauley Culkin’s first act, he released a trio of flops that included the movie The Pagemaster, a combination live action and animated film where he plays an awful little nerd who learns confidence by going into books. Because it was 1994, they made a ton of very bad and loose...
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Abject Suffering 636: Spore Hero Arena
The kids today don’t know the cautionary tale of Spore, Will Wright’s big gamble on a universal god sim that absolutely didn’t pay off. And even fewer kids know about the avalanche of Spore shovelware that followed EA taking a bath on the main game. It’s so fitting for a game about evolutionary...
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Abject Suffering 635: Action Man: Operation Extreme
We thought there would be meat on something called “Action Man”, but then we found out that it’s just a re-badging of what we in America know as G.I. Joe. Which is disappointing. While we wait to talk about these exciting “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles” next week, we also discuss the Free Willy...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
This is a podcast that's nominally about bad games. In reality, every Monday, Gary Butterfield and Kaye Ross choose a game at random from the titles submitted by listeners, play it, and venture off on a freeform discussion that winds between the topic at hand and some dumb nonsense.Public RSS Feed: https://www.patreon.com/rss/80117?show=1702263
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Abject Suffering have?
Abject Suffering currently has 683 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Abject Suffering about?
This is a podcast that's nominally about bad games. In reality, every Monday, Gary Butterfield and Kaye Ross choose a game at random from the titles submitted by listeners, play it, and venture off on a freeform discussion that winds between the topic at hand and some dumb nonsense.Public RSS Feed:...
How often does Abject Suffering release new episodes?
Abject Suffering releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 683 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to Abject Suffering?
You can listen to Abject Suffering on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Abject Suffering?
Abject Suffering is created and hosted by Duckfeed.tv.
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