The Weekenders are enamored with the most gloriously goofy video game of 2016 thus far: id's fast, furious, and self-assured Doom reboot. When not scouring demon-infested Martian hellscapes (or just... Hell's hellscapes) for Doomguys to fist-bump, Danielle ponders the delights of Soft Body and Rob goes toe-to-toe with a million-orc army.

Discussed: Doom, Wolfenstein: The New Order, WOW, Gwent, Blitzball, Total War: Warhammer, Soft Body

The weekenders examine the curious case of a game critic who... gave his opinion on a video game. Then the game's publisher told its fans that it's ok for a critic to do such a thing. It's the curious case of Stellaris! Elsewhere, the weekenders ponder sexism in games they enjoy and tackle Captain America: Civil War.

Stellaris, Fallout 4, Street Fighter 5, Alien: Isolation, The Witcher 3, Dragon's Crown, Captain America: Civil War

The Weekenders are joined by freelance game critic extraordinaire Heather Alexandra to discuss AAA game franchises' ever-present need to top themselves. Will every major franchise end up in space? Is marketing to blame? Is Saints Row really the best? Plus: Overwatch, Blizzard's candy colored shooter, and Kim, a Rudyard Kipling novel adaptation. So, basically the same thing.

Discussed: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, Mass Effect, Saints Row, Overwatch, Rudyard Kipling's Kim

The Weekenders have a full plate this time around, with PAX stories of fake wrestling, playing Pyre, and taking in the atmosphere of an overcrowded show floor. Later, Rob dives into the wonderful Mad Max: Fury Road, and Danielle gets her secret decoder ring ready for a wild marathon of The Americans.

Discussed: PAX, E3, Pyre, Final Fantasy 10, Outlast 2, Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing Transformed, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Americans

With both Weekenders starting a love affair with Street Fighter V, this week is all about coming to blows with fighting games and the real-life combat sports that inspire them. The depth, heart, and complications of controlled violence—in real life and its digital formats—offer a great deal for us to wrestle with.

Discussed: Street Fighter V, fencing, boxing, MMA, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, The Billionaire's Vinegar, Gang Leader for a Day

(The original version of this file had a minute-long gap about 36 minutes in. The updated version is fixed—sorry about that!) Inspired by Danielle's Dark Souls misery and Rob's experience with hardcore sims, the Weekenders ponder the costs and the pleasures of high investment games. Is it really worth dozens of hours of your busy life to defeat an imaginary dragon, or to land a phantom plane on a digital aircraft carrier? Do the highest highs always have to be accompanied by the lowest lows? And is "get good" ever an appropriate response to whining about difficult games? No. The answer to that is no.

Discussed: Dark Souls III, Demon's Souls, The Witcher 3, Silent Hunter 3, Billions, W/ Bob and David

We here on Idle Weekend are pretty fond of story-based games, so you can imagine we have fond feelings for the genre terribly known as "walking simulators." The weekenders chat about Adr1ft, a space-walking simulator, and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, a ghost walking simulator, in order to suss out the future of the genre.

Discussed: Adr1ft, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Tacoma, Firewatch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Gun Street Girl (Adrian McKinty novel), The Fall

The question used to be whether or not to play a game. Now, it's whether or not to Let's Play a game, and man, we wish we had a better term for it. Controversy over whether or not Let's Play video cut into indie sales has us pondering the ways and means of the form. Elsewhere, we tackle the evergreen subject of "objective" game reviews.

Discussed: That Dragon, Cancer; Life is Strange; RUSE; Murdered: Soul Suspect; X-Wing: Alliance; The People vs. O.J. Simpson; Daredevil

The Weekenders ponder the strange case of the Wii U, a weird console from a company that only makes weird consoles these days, with some of the best games of the last few years. Has Nintendo Splatooned its way into the Wii U's demise? Is the Wii U the new Dreamcast?

Discussed: Wii U; Splatoon; Game Boys: Triumph, Heartbreak, and the Quest for Cash in the Battleground of Competitive Videogaming; The Private Eye

It's GDC week! Which means the Weekenders have serious FOMO. Rob is dealing with it by playing a ton of Burnout Paradise, one of the finest arcade racers ever produced. Danielle went to GDC for two days, and has the burned-out vocal cords to prove it.

Discussed: Burnout Paradise, Need For Speed: Rivals, Forza, Driver: San Francisco, Spec Ops: The Line, Redshirts, Codex

Like a perfect diamond wrapped in layers of greasy wrapping paper, this week we're talking about great games that happened to be buried in... other stuff. Does a focus on meaty game length ruin a wonderful, if shorter, experience, or merely water it down? Helping us answer these questions are the aliens, wolf men, succubi and vampires that we know and love (and spend too much time with).

Rust, Alien: Isolation, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Lost Girl, the Joe Pitt Casebooks

Idle Weekend invites you to a judgment-free zone where the hosts reveal their gaming soft spots. You know, those juicy indulgences that will always call to you, whether it's the fashionable (or acclaimed) thing of the moment or not. For your intrepid hosts, those siren songs may include cyberpunk, weird horror, learning new places, and, naturally, The Witcher 3.

Discussed: ANATOMY, Dust City, Curtain, the works of Kitty Horrorshow, The Witness, The Witcher 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Mafia, Scourge of War, The Witness, Lost Girl, Offworld Trading Company, Defragmented, Southern Cross, Batman (Grant Morrison comics)

The Weekenders are joined by cyberpunk expert and friend of the show Austin Walker of Giant Bomb to talk about our dreams of the 90s. SUPERHOT has us in a 90s cyberpunk frame of mind, so we take a jog down the information superhighway paved by Hackers, The Net, and Strange Days. It's a transhumanist treat!

Discussed: SUPERHOT, Hackers, The Net, Strange Days, Else Heart.Break(), Californium, Steve Jobs, The Witch

Is there a right way to play, or are video games the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups of the entertainment world? Are you doing it wrong? Are WE doing it wrong? The Weekenders investigate. On the way, they encounter Sherlock Holmes, shrieking YouTube streamers, and one very pissed-off alien named Frankie the Xenomorph.

Discussed: The Witcher 3, Alien: Isolation, Layers of Fear, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, Tyke: Elephant Outlaw

The Weekenders welcome longtime friend Tom Chick to the show to talk about how skill matters in our ability to understand games. Can we ever truly "get" something we're terrible at? Do some games give us an ego boost that we should consider in reviews? Also this week: XCOM 2 gives Rob the howling fantods, Danielle yells at empty rooms in The Witness, and Tom has strong opinions about MOBAs.

Discussed: Homeward: Deserts of Kharak, XCOM 2, StarCraft 2, BioShock 2, Massive Chalice, The Witness, Victoria, Firewatch, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt