725: The Best and Worst of CD-ROM Horror

Retronauts

Technology, Games, Video Games, Leisure

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2025

⏱️ 101 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greetings, you rancid retro revenants! We're knee-deep in the spookiest of seasons, which means it's time once again to crack open the crypt and gaze in fright at a selection of horror games that tried their best to scare our pants off oh so many decades ago. In the past few years, we've covered NES and 16-bit games, so now it's time to move onto the world of multimedia: where pre-rended ghouls and washed up actors alike did their best to make horror thrive in an era beyond floppies. On this week's episode, join Bob Mackey, Kaye Ross (of Duckfeed.tv) and Michael Sawyer as the crew attempts to appreciate the art of fake blood and FMV.

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Cover art by Nick Daniel.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sharing intimate photos of her without her consent.
0:02.9	Unwanted touching. Unwanted comments. Unwanted nudes.
0:06.6	Controlling what she can and can't wear.
0:08.5	Controlling who she can and can't see.
0:10.3	Threatening her.
0:11.6	Enough. This is abuse.
0:14.2	If you think it's wrong, act on it.
0:16.5	Call it out, show support, report it.
0:19.4	There are many ways you can safely tackle violence against women and girls.
0:23.4	Find out how at gov.uk.uk slash enough.
0:27.3	If someone is in danger, call 999.
0:30.1	This week on Retronauts, five easy ways to tell the difference between Mike Dawson and Steve Mason. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts and happy Halloween.
1:00.5	Even if you don't celebrate it, that's how evil this holiday is because on this episode, we are celebrating the season with the third installment of what I'm now calling our annual horror game sampler.
1:11.0	So in 2023, we covered horror games on the NES. And in 2024, we covered horror games on 16-bit
1:16.4	platforms. So this time around, we'll be covering horror games from the multimedia era,
1:21.8	specifically the PC CD-ROM format. Did this increased storage capacity format make games scarier? Today, we're going to find out. And who is going to find out with me? Who are our guests today on the episode? I'm Kay Ross from the DuckFeed.tv Network of Podcasts. And who else do we have? I'm Mike Sawyer. I go by Slow Beef on the Internet. I do, you know, streaming on Twitch and YouTube and all that fun stuff. And yes, welcome to the show, both of you. So as usual, we're going to be judging these games via what I'm calling the creepy quotient. So once we're done talking about a particular game, we're going to give a single number based on how effectively spooky the game in question is. And at the end of the episode, we are going to figure out
2:04.5	what is the spookiest horror CD-ROM game of them all. This is legally binding. We are the
2:10.6	authority on this matter. Do not question it in any way. Before I go on any further, though,
2:15.5	I want to know what all of our experience is with this kind of game on this format.
2:21.3	So basically, where do you go back?
2:23.7	How far do you go back with horror games on CD-ROM?
2:26.7	Let's start with Michael or Slow Beef.
	...

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