Featured Image

First of all, we’d like to thank the amazing yurricanes for working with us to create the featured image for this episode. I think you’ll agree that it’s an amazing piece of art, and you should definitely check out their work.

We’d also like to thank Georgie (aka ChapSketch) for working with Squidge on the episode artwork for the entire New Cupboard of Shame series. Head on over to Georgie’s Etsy page to commission some work from her. You really should, as she’s blooming brilliant.

Players

Squidge

AndrewD

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Content Warning

Squidge was fully in charge of hosting, producing and editing this episode. As such, he decided to leave the few swears in the episode without bleeping them. This was done for comedy reasons, as we felt that there is very little in the episode which could offend most listeners.

Please listen responsibly.

Show Notes

Squidge wanted to take a shiny new look at The Cupboard of Shame. The difference being that he wanted to invite some familiar voices onto the show, one at a time, and discuss one game that they want to jettison into the Cupboard of Shame. This being the fifth episode in the new series, he invited Andrew “Podcast Collector” Dickinson to dispatch something into the devious

and totally real cupboard

cupboard.

As a quick reminder, Squidge describes The Cupboard of Shame as:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

The idea behind it is games that you have bought in your past, played it, but you don’t know why you bought [them] but you did anyway.

Any complaints that you have about the game; why you want to stick it in the Cupboard of Shame. We’ll talk about the good points and the bad points [of the game], and we’ll share some fun facts about the game.

Previous Entries into the Cupboard of Shame

The Cupboard of Shame reboot has only seen three entries so far:

  • Chief Problems decided that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim needed to be stored behind the walnut doors of destiny in episode 136
  • Lulu wanted to jettison Chaos Legion to the nether realms of the electronically challenged cupboard in episode 138
  • Sean wanted to yeet Risk of Rain 2 into the underbelly of the cupboard in episode 139
  • Ginger wished to send Final Fantasy X-2 into the depths of cheap MDF that is the cupboard in episode 140

You can read about the New Cupboard of Shame series at our page dedicated to all of the episodes: here.

Prior to the Cupboard of Shame reboot, Squidge had challenged both G and himself to put some titles into the Cupboard of Shame. The titles that they chose include:

  • Iron Man the Movie Video Game
  • WET
  • Rambo: The Video Game
  • Crackdown
  • Final Fantasy XIII

You can hear their discussion on these games (and a few more) in episode 47: The Cupboard of Shame

here’s a link to that episode

All of the “classic” Cupboard of Shame episodes

aka before Squidge’s 2022 sexy reboot

can be found here.

Andrew’s Chosen Game

Although Andrew has a list of games which are Cupboard of Shame worthy, one shone like a beacon when Squidge approached him to be on the show:

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

It didn’t review particularly well, but I liked it as a guilty pleasure - and that’s Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Squidge admitted that he had never played either of the Kane & Lynch titles, because he had been blinded by the light of Borderlands. Which is quite interesting when you think about it.

Apparently, it was initially the art style which drew Andrew in:

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

So [Kane & Lynch :Dead Men] is like a generic looking PS3 third person shooter. It’s a decent enough game - I’ve never played it, but from what I’ve seen it’s a decent enough game.

But for [Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days] they completely changed it. …it’s all set in Shanghai for the majority of the time. And it’s mostly at night, all neon lights and stuff… it looks amazing, and that kind of caught my eye.

And then I ended up playing it. I played it on my own, and I also played it in co-op. And it took me by surprise that a very generic third person shooter could actually be quite enjoyable. And almost film like.

What’s So Bad About it?

Any discussion of a bad game needs to cover what’s so bad about the game. So Squidge asked, “what’s so bad about this game?” before visibly recoiling.

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

What’s bad about this game?

Well it reviewed horrifically when it came out; it was lambasted as being this generic third person shooter that really didn’t make any effort. It was almost a step back in some regards to what had come recently, like Gears of War and those kinds of third person shooters that have done things like cover mechanics.

Kane & Lynch is a straight forward third person shooter, so you just run at people at shoot them. It was super generic and came out at a time when these kinds of games were evolving. A lot of people saw it as style over substance.

Those are some pretty strong points, to be fair.

And of course, we couldn’t bring you an episode of the show with Andrew without him coming up with some new products:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Manhunter is a completely different thing

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

Is that like Leisure Suit Larry, but for women?

And even the story felt phoned in, apparently:

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

The story gets you from place to place within the game, but it’s really threadbare. So you get introduced to a mob boss that you have to go meet, and you have to kill a load of people to get to. Or you have to save somebody, I think his girlfriend crops up and you have to go save her.

What Are Some Redeeming Features?

It’s never good to focus on the negative. So what’s good about this game, or at least what redeems it slightly:

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

Although it’s a generic third person shooter, it’s a very good one. It works well. You know mechanically, it feels good to shoot people in the face. It’s a really good game, and it’s really cheap now.

And the co-op is great. So that’s another thing that’s even more important today than it was back then: having that co-op experience with somebody. It’s a lot of fun.

Having a strong co-op system is very important for the majority of first and third person shooters, especially ones which have multiple protagonists.

AndrewD's Avatar AndrewD

Kane & Lynch 2 is a game that’s really good to be watched, I think because of the whole style over substance thing.

If you really don’t want to play it, which is fine if you don’t. But it’s a really fun game to watch people play because of the style of it.

In Closing

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

My final question to you, "in The context of The Cupboard of Shame, would you yeet/kick/throw with vigour into the cupboard, or would you delete it from existence, or keep it as a guilty pleasure to go back to it?"

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners. Please see the above list for copyright details pertaining to music used.

Games Covered

We mentioned 25 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: