The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

Cane and Rinse

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A long-form games club with memory intact.

The gist

The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast treats each game as something to sit with, not merely rate and move past. Recent episodes move from Kirby and Wario to Defender, Rollcage, Balan Wonderworld, Castlevania, and Please, Touch The Artwork with patient context and personal history.

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About The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast is a deep, conversational archive of games criticism in panel form. It is not built around hot takes. The show works title by title, letting each episode make space for context, recollection, mechanics, music, ports, credits, and the odd little facts that tend to fall out of shorter coverage. Recent subjects show its range clearly. Kirby and the Forgotten Land becomes a discussion of approachability, skill ceilings, segmented 3D spaces, and how a game can support children and completionists at the same time. Wario Land opens out into Game Boy aesthetics, Ryoji Yoshitomi's music, and the way a Mario-adjacent game can feel familiar but slightly discordant. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream brings spoiler warnings, Harlan Ellison context, point-and-click frustration, walkthrough use, dead-end puzzle states, and the peculiar appeal of a game that may be easier to discuss than recommend. The show is comfortable with that distinction. Balan Wonderworld is approached through its clumsy design, bright environments, character work, world-music flavor, and dreamlike connection to earlier Sonic and Nights-era sensibilities. Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness makes room for naming confusion, development titles, director's-cut logic, and the strange pull of Nintendo 64 memory. Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II get framed through PlayStation culture, improbable physics, toy-car energy, and drum and bass or techno momentum. Defender and Stargate bring in arcade history, scoring endurance, bugs that became features, ROM variants, and Julian Jazz Rignor's perspective. Please, Touch The Artwork shifts the register toward museum signs, Belgian art-game puzzles, hidden-object structure, and playful title confusion. The pace is leisurely. The pleasure is cumulative. Instead of flattening old games into nostalgia or verdicts, the panel keeps asking what it felt like to play them then, what it feels like now, and which imperfections still have a pulse.

Made for: Best for players who like patient, spoiler-friendly conversations about game history, design texture, ports, music, and personal memory. It especially suits retro-gaming fans who enjoy context as much as conclusions.

What sets it apart: The show stands apart through its issue-by-issue focus, panel chemistry, and willingness to spend serious time on imperfect, obscure, or awkward games. It treats hardware quirks, regional versions, magazine culture, and player memories as part of the criticism.

In their own words

The videogame discussion podcast

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Single-game roundtables connect firsthand play with the mechanical, technical, and historical details that shape how video games feel.

The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast gives one game at a time the full roundtable treatment. Leon Cox guides discussions that move between personal play, design choices, historical context, and community correspondence, while Thomas Quilfelt takes the chair for Astro Bot.

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A Wario soundtrack gets the close attention you usually reserve for Defender's hardware-breaking tricks.

Press play if you want

to hear several players compare how a game feels, not merely deliver a verdict
the design oddities, technical sleights, and historical quirks behind games old and new

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

retro game historypersonal play memoriesdeveloper and credit contextregional title differencesmusic and sound designhardware and port quirksspoiler-heavy analysisarcade and platform game design

Talks about

Leisure Video Games

Best episodes of The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Turrican II: The Final Fight - Cane and Rinse No.709Apr 14, 2026

A clear-eyed look at a punishing adventure game, with the rough edges left in place.

Cane and Rinse issue 442 opens with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, a 1995 sci-fi horror point-and-click adventure based on the 1967 short story.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Cane and Rinse No.708Apr 7, 2026

A calm Kirby discussion that finds more depth than the game's surface suggests.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land comes across as an easy entry point that still gives more experienced players something to chew on. The strongest point is the balance: it welcomes newcomers without flattening the game into pure handholding, and there is enough room for cleaner,…

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - Cane and Rinse No.707Mar 31, 2026

A warm, detailed panel on Wario Land and the odd shape that still makes it stand apart.

The Cane and Rinse panel treats Wario Land, Super Mario Land 3 as a Game Boy platformer with its own weird little identity, not just a Mario offshoot in a different costume.

Defender and Stargate – Cane and Rinse No.703Mar 3, 2026

Arcade history, score chasing, and a guest who has been there since the early days.

This issue stays with Defender and Stargate in the way real arcade talk often does: memory, versions, score chasing, and the small details that collectors care about.

Contra: The Hard Corps – Cane and Rinse No.681Sep 9, 2025

A thoughtful deep-dive into one of Contra's most unusual regional variants.

Contra Hardcore gets a solid, regional-history-minded look at one of the series' strangest entries. Leon, Dan, and Sean treat the game's oddities as part of the appeal, not a novelty, moving from series context to platform trivia without losing the thread.

Astro Bot – Cane and Rinse No.680Sep 2, 2025

A warm, thoughtful discussion of Astro Bot's polish, charm, and first-party craft.

Cane and Rinse turns its attention to Astro Bot, framing Team Asobi's PS5 platformer as a polished first-party release and then teasing out why it lands so well.

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Find your next episode

About The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

Podcasts like The Cane and Rinse videogame podcast

Episodes

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days - Cane and Rinse No.733

Titanfall 2 - Cane and Rinse No.732

Under A Killing Moon - Cane and Rinse No.731

Life Is Strange: True Colors - Cane and Rinse No.730

IMMORTALITY - Cane and Rinse No.729

Interview Extra: Andrew Elmore

Dragon Quest - Cane and Rinse No.728

Unicorn Overlord - Cane and Rinse No.727

No Man's Sky - Cane and Rinse No.726

Frogger - Cane and Rinse No.725

LocoRoco series - Cane and Rinse No.724

Day of the Tentacle - Cane and Rinse No.723

Aliens: Fireteam Elite - Cane and Rinse No.722

Onimusha: Warlords - Cane and Rinse No.721

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor - Cane and Rinse No.720

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon – Cane and Rinse No.719

Sonic Adventure 2 - Cane and Rinse No.718

Yakuza: Dead Souls - Cane and Rinse No.717

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo - Cane and Rinse No.716

Metal Slug - Cane and Rinse No.715

Shadows of Doubt - Cane and Rinse No.714

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei - Cane and Rinse No.713

Citizen Sleeper - Cane and Rinse No. 712

Returnal – Cane and Rinse No.711

Mother 3 - Cane and Rinse No 710

Turrican II: The Final Fight - Cane and Rinse No.709

Kirby and the Forgotten Land - Cane and Rinse No.708

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - Cane and Rinse No.707

Balan Wonderworld - Cane and Rinse No.706

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness – Cane and Rinse No.705

Rollcage and Rollcage Stage II – Cane and Rinse No.704

Defender and Stargate – Cane and Rinse No.703

Please, Touch The Artwork – Cane and Rinse No.702

Time Crisis – Cane and Rinse No.701

Black Myth: Wukong – Cane and Rinse No.700

Turrican – Cane and Rinse No.699

Sin and Punishment – Cane and Rinse No.698

Rescue on Fractalus! – Cane and Rinse No.697

Sonic Adventure – Cane and Rinse no.696

Kingdom Hearts II – Cane and Rinse No.695

Dark Cloud – Cane and Rinse No.694

Judgment – Cane and Rinse No.693

Amnesia: The Bunker – Cane and Rinse No.692

Castlevania Legends – Cane and Rinse No.691

Escape from Monkey Island – Cane and Rinse No.690

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins – Cane and Rinse No.689

Alan Wake II – Cane and Rinse No.688

Amnesia: Rebirth – Cane and Rinse No.687

Inscryption – Cane and Rinse No.686

Bayonetta 3 – Cane and Rinse No.685

Wipeout series – Cane and Rinse No.684

Sonic 3D Blast (Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island) – Cane and Rinse No.683

Metroid: Samus Returns – Cane and Rinse No.682

Contra: The Hard Corps – Cane and Rinse No.681

Astro Bot – Cane and Rinse No.680

EarthBound (Mother 2) – Cane and Rinse No.679

Gauntlet, Gauntlet II and Gauntlet IV – Cane and Rinse No.678

Chrono Cross - Cane and Rinse No.677

Pikmin 3 - Cane and Rinse No.676

Pseudoregalia - Cane and Rinse No.675

RoboCop - Cane and Rinse No.674

Walkabout Mini Golf - Cane and Rinse No.673

AM2R: Return of Samus - Cane and Rinse No.672

Bomberman - Cane and Rinse No.671

Mother (Earthbound Beginnings) - Cane and Rinse No.670

Jet Set Radio - Cane and Rinse No.669

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - Cane and Rinse No.668

Umurangi Generation - Cane and Rinse No.667

We Know the Devil - Cane and Rinse No.666

Syberia II - Cane and Rinse No.665

Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo 2 - Cane and Rinse No.664