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Lets Play / Spoiler Warning

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The Spoiler Warning crew. From the left: Josh/Reginald Cuftbert, You, Shamus, Rutskarn and Mumbles.

Josh: Ok, so next episode... Hopefully there will be less rage-filled discussions about how much Bethesda deserves to die in a fiery pit.
Rutskarn: I don't know, why change the formula now?
Shamus: I know; we've got a good thing going here. The worst thing they could do is put out a good game now: They'd put us right out of business.
— Spoiler Warning: Let's Play Fallout 3 (Episode 20)

Note: This entry has nothing to do with actual Spoilers. If you were looking for that kind of Spoiler, check out the Handling Spoilers page.

Spoiler Warning is a DVD Commentary-style Let's Play group, whose main style consists of deconstructing, analyzing and (in some cases) ruthlessly mocking the plots and characters of the games they play, usually while using a play-style designed to showcase pieces of the game in ways that 'normal' players usually won't see (i.e. by playing the game like it was a tabletop role-playing session and they are The Loonie). They tend to favour Role-Playing Games and the video game equivalents of Oscar Bait.

The group (in order of appearance) consists of:

  • Josh Viel: (2010-) Former anime reviewer for The Escapist and international man of mystery. Plays the game, with the others as backseat drivers and peanut gallery.
  • Shamus Young: (2010-2017) Better known as the author of DM of the Rings as well as a contributor for The Escapist. Tends to serve as Mister Exposition, and also the most opinionated of the group.
  • Randy Johnson : (2010-2010) The Player for the majority of the Mass Effect LP (taking over for Josh a handful of episodes in), Randy left after season one was finished. Started the group's now signature Chaotic Stupid play-style.
  • Adam "Rutskarn" DeCamp: (2010-) Added to the group for the Fallout 3 LP. Head writer for Indie Game studio Pyrodactyl, who made Unrest. The group Troll, Pungeon Master and hipster.
  • Mumbles: (2011-, only intermittent appearances since 2014) Added to the group for the Bioshock LP. The group's authority on comics and wrestling. Added to the show to fill the missing cannibal demographic.
  • Chris "Campster" Franklin: (2012-) Added a few episodes into the Deus Ex: Human Revolution LP. Runs the video game Youtube series {Errant Signal}, and provides Straight Man analysis (and a few jokes).
  • Glitch: (2017-, intermittent appearances prior) Added to the permanent crew during Life Is Strange. Plays the role of foil to Josh and provides alternative suggestions to the current choices of the crew.

    Main games LPed 

The team also occasionally hold specials in-between seasons, to celebrate holidays, or because one of the cast is missing for the week and the rest don't want to continue without them.

    Specials 

They also host a weekly Spin-Off podcast, The Diecast, where they discuss news of games, technology, films, whatever else catches their interest and (in theory) answer mailbag questions sent by fans.

If you wish to support them, they have a Patreon account here. All money will go to Josh, as he edits all the footage together and will soon likely have to upgrade his software.

The LPs provide examples of:

  • Actually Pretty Funny: The group seems legitimately amused by the Old World Blues toaster.
  • Accentuate the Negative: The group, particularly Shamus and Josh are harshly critical and will quickly pick on parts of the game that they find frustrating or general issues with the plot. Though they do point out the parts they like in the games and as harsh as they are, they can give praise when justified.
    • And then there's Half-Life 2, which is practically non-stop gushing.
    • They also note that in the first episode of New Vegas that of all the games they've done to that point, New Vegas is definitely better written, if hardly flawless.
      • And again at the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, when Shamus admits that the game blew away his expectations, and allowed him to like Take Cover! shooters. (Though he still disliked Mass Effect 2.) Both he and Josh think that they like the game more after their LP, unlike with most games.
    • This was lampshaded during the playthrough of Dishonored when Rutskarn pointed out he liked the game and yet playing through it as a Spoiler Warning commentator was causing him to nitpick the game mercilessly, culminating in him mocking Corvo's mask just out of a sense of having to criticise something.
    • The Last Of Us is another example of the team mostly being positive of the game.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: For Fallout 3, destroying the Citadel at the end of Broken Steel.
    • The group's reaction to getting Miranda (who is distinctly Plot Armored compared to other characters) killed in the endgame of Mass Effect 2.
      Shamus: This is like Christmas...
    • At the end of New Vegas, Shamus' reaction to the incinerator's destruction.
  • Angrish: The April Fools Let's Play of Trainz 2 reduced Rutskarn to angry, incomprehensible ranting.
    • Similarly, Mario Auditore going "It's-a me, Mario!" has the same effect.
    • The Season of Mystery made Josh go into this at the end.
  • The Alcoholic: The original Reginald Cuftbert, during Fallout 3, succeeded at picking up addictions to practically every habit-forming substance in the Capital Wasteland. Appropriately, 'addiction to new substance' became one of the parts of their Drinking Game.
    • In New Vegas, Cuftbert manages to become addicted to alcohol just by drinking a single bottle of whiskey. This is also the reason why they later picked up Cass as their companion due to her Whiskey-related perk, though she later ditches him due to his Stupid Evil nature.
      • It's even sillier than that: due to a quirk of the game's addiction system, you can't actually be addicted to "alcohol". Cuftbert instead gets addicted to whiskey specifically. He later picks up addictions to scotch (a specific type of whiskey!), beer and wine.note 
  • Anticlimax: Throughout the Bioshock Infinite playthrough, everyone who's already played (so, not Josh) keeps hyping up the famous "Ghost Mom" boss fight that comes near the end of the game. Finally, after slogging through the game, they reach the fight... and discover that Josh's current build is actually incredibly well-suited for this fight. End result: Ghost Mom is defeated in under a minute.
  • Arc Fatigue: In-Universe The Skyrim season began to suffer from this as the players all agreed that they had spent too long in one game and ran out of things to say, with several plots and quests simply abandoned in order to swiftly finish the 'main' quest. Ultimately they used it as a point of comparison between the Elder Scrolls games and Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas, both of whom also had very long seasons but hadn't driven them to the same level of despondency.
  • Ascended Meme: During a rousing session of Assassin's Creed II's "Run Over Pedestrians With Your Horse" minigame, Rutskarn began singing They Might Be Giants' "Older", a reference to Shamus' famous "Rollercoaster Bowling" video.
    • Did you say BEES?
  • Awesome, but Impractical
  • The Backwards Я: For their Metro 2033 playthrough. Comes out saying "Spoilzya Shayiiig".
  • Berserk Button:
    • invoked Idiot Plots and Railroading pisses them the hell off, with Bethesda earning a special place for Fallout 3.
    • In particular, Little Lamplight in Fallout 3. In fact, there is no end to the amount of criticism and scorn Shamus can generate over Fallout 3.
    • Yeoman Kelly Chambers of Mass Effect 2 in particular is a sour point for Mumbles because Kelly happens to be her name. She's also disgusted by Mr. Plinkett's voice.
    • The incinerator in New Vegas that Josh lugs around for no reason whatsoever.
    • They generally don't like it when characters spare the villains for incredibly weak reasons other than "It'd be wrong to kill them" or simply not take the initiative to kill the villain standing in front of them. Shamus was particularly upset about how in Honest Hearts the option to tell Graham to simply execute Salt-Upon-Wounds wasn't immediately available without a perk (though it turns out he just missed it).
    • Kai Leng of Mass Effect 3 is a massive one due to his infamous Cutscene Power to the Max, Story-Driven Invulnerability and silly character design that clashes with the setting.
    • The noise that the Idiot Savant perk makes in Fallout 4 is very much this, particularly for Rutskarn.
  • Big "WHAT?!": Common reactions to particularly outrageous/stupid plot events, especially from Rutskarn.
  • Big "NO!": Mumbles is... quite upset when she realizes she called Triple H Triple X by mistake.
    • Also Shamus during the Probing Questions special.
    • Mumbles was also not happy to learn from Mr. House that cats are now extinct in the Fallout universe.
  • Brick Joke: Rutskarn's Face/Off pun in the Amnesia episode.
  • Cannon Fodder: During the Mass Effect 2 playthrough, the group mocked the Blue Suns' status as useless mooks mercilessly. Needless to say, they were unimpressed when Aria offered to get them (along with the other expendable merc armies) as War Assets.
  • Catchphrase: Most of the team has one.
    • Shamus:
      • Someone mentioning a criticism and going "Euugh, yes!" and elaborating. Often coupled with "This is what bugs me about X/this game-"
      • Which leads to "In the Original [INSERT NAME OF PREQUEL/SPIRITUAL PREQUEL GAME HERE]..." (Drink!)
      • Someone making a suggestion for Josh to do something stupid, to which he responds "Strongly in favor of."
      • "You okay, buddy?" whenever Josh finds a corpse lying around in a humorous position or whenever a body is thrown across the room by accident.
    • Rutskarn:
      • Calling someone's name several times sequentially when he's trying to cut in.
      • Starting his points with "Okay, so, like, here's the thing..."
      • Sarcastically talking about "the rich [game] canon/lore".
      • During Alan Wake, he often says "Coffee? I LOVE COFFEE!"
    • Mumbles:
      • "God-dammit, you guys!"
      • Correcting NPC's pronunciation of Caesar in Fallout New Vegas:
      Mumbles: Kaiiiiiiiiiiiii-sarrrrrrrrrrr...
    • Chris: "I boo that", generally in response to one of Rutskarn's puns.
    • Josh: "STOP! SHOOTING! ME!"
  • Chaotic Stupid: The general playing style, which is both partly to (usually) show contempt for the story and partly for the lulz. This even describes how Josh plays the game (using/carrying weapons he puts no skills into, charging headfirst into battle with a stealth build/in a cover-based shooter) though he usually makes it work somehow (though not without dying multiple times).
    • Exaggerated in the Scribblenauts episode, pretty much everything Josh does is completely overcomplicated, abstract, or pointless.
    • Defied in Metro 2033, where the crew intentionally went for as many Morality Points as possible so they could show the Good Ending, since it's the one first-time players of the game is less likely to see (and also because the fact it's not canon made for a more interesting point of discussion).
    • Siding with Power Gangers to attack Goodsprings in Fallout New Vegas, entirely because there's no good reason why you would do that.
  • Chekhov's Gun During the New Vegas playthrough The Incinerator.
    "Okay, it's time for you Incinerator, to do what I always knew you could do"
  • Cherry Tapping: One fast forward sequence during New Vegas had Reginald Cuftbert beating a Freeside thug to death with his bare hands... over a period of several minutes.
  • Child Hater: Children in games have a tendency of reminding them of Little Lamplight and as such enrage them to no end. The kid in Mass Effect 3 is occasionally referred to as Mayor MacReady since he's just as annoying in-game. Averted however with Clementine of The Walking Dead, who they note as one of the better written child characters that they've seen in any media while also acknowledging that Duck was probably written with the intention of frustrating the player.
  • Comedic Sociopathy/For the Evulz: A major part of their humor, especially in Fallout 3. Not only do they nuke Megaton, they blow up Three Dog and take the chance to kill Brotherhood of Steel members whenever possible. In the Mass Effect series, this takes the form of trying to take Renegade options whenever possible.
    • This even lead them to choosing the Paragon option for the endgame of Mass Effect 2.
      Rutskarn: Ok, let's evaluate this rationally. On the one hand, the technology would be extremely useful, would help the galaxy, and-
      Shamus: -Prove the existence of the Reapers...
      Mumbles: And there's no way the Reapers would ever attack in the future, right?...
      Rutskarn: Hold it, hold it. On the other hand, I actually do have a counterpoint: *ahem* Fuck the Illusive Man, blow it up!
    • In New Vegas, they also "completed" Boone's quest by having him kill the wrong target (specifically his old friend Manny), telling him that they just wanted to see him die and killing him when he retaliates. Later on they said that they didn't want to kill Boone, only wanting to "mess with him" and didn't know that he'd actually become hostile afterwards.
  • Could Say It, But...: In "Challenge Mode" (where the commentators had agreed not to say anything negative about the game):
    Rutskarn: Hypothetically, if there were something very stupid and wrong about that scene, and we weren't allowed to talk about it because we're not allowed to talk about bad things on this episode, would that not sort of replicate the experience of playing the game by yourself and having no one to complain about it to?
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: invoked A common way to annoy Mumbles is to feign complete ignorance about comic books (specifically Batman) and invoking Animation Age Ghetto.
  • Cut Lex Luthor a Check: They point out during their Marlow Briggs playthrough that for the cost of just a few of the dozens of helicopters they've destroyed, this company could have afforded to hire a new translator to replace Briggs' girlfriend, who's rescue is the game's primary objective. Also, whatever the gigantic mobile refinery/evil lair the Indefenistrable is mining and refining, it can't possibly be valuable enough to pay for a gigantic mobile refinery/supervillain lair, and all the mooks and helicopters around it.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: A prime pet peeve, especially for Shamus. Their series on The Walking Dead made Shamus wonder if more game companies should follow the example of that game and make everything interactive, including making Cutscene Stupidity player-initiated, so they would eventually notice how glaringly stupid and inconsistent cutscenes make them act.
    Rutskarn: That is a dystopian vision, Shamus.
    Shamus: Yes, that is blind idealism.
    • One of the reasons that Kai Leng was so massively despised was because this was induced upon every other character (particularly Shepard, who forgets that she's a biotic) in order to make him look cool.
    • The team frequently point out how Lara always defaults to the bow in Tomb Raider, even when it's not practical, or when Lara has a damn gun, if only so the game doesn't end the first time Lara meets the Big Bad.
  • Cutting the Knot: A (un)surprising amount of quests get solved this way, i.e. by horribly murdering the quest-giver.
  • Deadpan Snarker: All members of the group are this to varying degrees.
  • Deconstruction: The group's main hat.
  • Designated Hero: Another sore spot of the group is when a game tells you a person is supposed to be heroic and good, even when what's happened in-universe so far gives no reason to support this. Amongst other things they point out that the accusations against Saren in Mass Effect objectively come down like nothing but paranoid ramblings with no evidence (and then mocking the flimsiness of the evidence you do find), that the Brotherhood of Steel continues to insist that Reginald Cuftbert is a hero who's supposed to save the Wasteland and not a mercenary even though he's killed half of them, nuked Megaton, killed Three Dog, tried to kill Little Lamplight, and a lot more, and that Ezio is a egotistical revenge-driven spree killer who kills hundreds of guards just doing their job while letting the Big Bad walk away to cause more mischief because suddenly "it won't bring his family back".
  • Die, Chair, Die!: inverted, Alan Wake got hurt by a chair by walking near it
  • Disproportionate Retribution: As punishment for throwing a bottle at a Metrocop, Josh gets stuck to a wall by a glitch and is given a thorough thwacking.
    • During the Skyrim season, episode 6. Josh is arrested for petty theft right before the first dragon battle. He does his time then shows up at the battle and kills all the guards helping him before even bothering to attack the dragon, all for revenge. The others point out its revenge for being arrested for a crime he actually committed where he got away with most of the crime (he killed the person he stole from).
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Both Rutskarn and Mumbles never fail to be distracted by Samara's fashion choices throughout Mass Effect 2.
  • Dizzy Cam: Josh's fast, twitchy mouse movements can make some episodes difficult to watch. The Bioshock season is by far the worst, after which they decided that traditional, action-based FPS's wouldn't work for their show.
  • Drinking Game: Has an official one. Take a shot if (1) The main character dies. (2) If all contributors talk over each other at the same time. (3) Whenever the game they're playing gets compared to whatever game it's a sequel/Spiritual Successor of (double that if it's by Shamus). (4) Whenever the game crashes on-screen. (5) Whenever Josh mucks up in combat and starts blaming the interface, swears or uses his Catchphrase. (6) Whenever said mucking up causes a near-death experience that causes him to spam healing items. Other options depend more on which game is played, such as substance abuse in Fallout and the 'rogue cell' gag in Mass Effect 2.
    • Josh and Mumbles eventually decided to play the game themselves during Honest Hearts in order to drown their bloodlust for each other.
    • For those morbidly curious, here is the result of the game during the Fallout 3 playthrough.
    • Their Skyrim playthrough resulted in them warning viewers to NOT play the drinking game, as they will probably die. (this was within the first 10 episodes.)
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Reginald Cuftbert of Fallout 3, slayer of Three Dog, The Enclave, and The Capital Brotherhood (and a lot of other things in-between), died for good (and unintentionally) in a Random Encounter with a non-named super mutant not two minutes after finishing the last quest of Broken Steel. The group decided this was too good an Anti-Climax to waste, and stopped playing.
    • The crew explicitly mention this as happening to Subject Zero/Jack in Mass Effect 3, after failing to do the mission that saves her (believing that she had died in the endgame of ME2) and meeting her as a random mook with no importance that they kill instantly.
    • Reginald Dohvahkitty, breaker of Skyrim, died during the end sequence by picking a fight with the collected dragons of Skyrim during Alduin's funeral. Similarly to the Fallout 3 example, the group immediately stopped the let's play right there.
  • Dull Surprise: The crew's In-Universe opinion of The Outsider in Dishonored.
  • The Eeyore: Shamus and Campster. Shamus tends to criticize poor decisions of the game makers, while Campster tends to get pessimistic about Josh's play style.
  • Even Chaotic Stupidity Has Standards:
    • At the end of the main Fallout 3 campaign, they refused to use the Modified FEV due to the fact that it is tantamount to a slow suicide, with the player not being immune to any of its effects despite what Eden (who is unaware that the Lone Wanderer is born a wastelander) says.
    • A better example was their all-rescue streak in Bioshock (naturally, with Shamus lampshading that the 'gains' of going all-harvest were so minimal so as to render the 'moral choice' pretty much moot).
    • In Dishonored, during the Lady Boyle mission they decided that the Non-Lethal path (which involves giving Lady Boyle to a Stalker with a Crush) was way too creepy, opting instead to kill both her and said stalker.
  • Dull Surprise: A major complaint about Dishonored is that the voice acting comes off as incredibly bland and emotionless. Particularly bad is The Outsider, who despite being intended to come off as a disinterested trickster god simply comes off as really boring.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: It is kind of weird looking back on the first season with the lack of Mumbles and Rutskarn and the inclusion of Randy. Shamus himself commented that the first season wasn't really Spoiler Warning as we understand it now.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: Josh typically speeds through lengthy role playing games, avoiding much repetitive grinding for the sake of the audience. This often leads to a need to exploit certain mechanics or resources at the last minute to overcome the endgame/ final boss.
  • Evil Laugh: Once given permission to do Honest Hearts after being vetoed against doing so previously and tormenting the rest of the cast for an entire week's worth of episodes, Josh indulges himself in deliciously vile bouts of laughter in jubilation in having gotten his way.
    • Josh gives another one at the end of Until Dawn after succeeding at getting an Everybody Lives ending by sheer dumb luck/common sense.
  • The Faceless: Josh. Lampshaded when Shamus showed pictures of their trip to PAX, where all photos of Josh were either taken from behind or with his face obscured in some way.
  • Failed a Spot Check: Shamus not spotting things happening on-screen happens semi-regularly. It's even happened to Josh a few times, and he's the one playing. Shamus also admitted to having failed to spot Liberty Prime during his first play-through of Fallout 3. For those not in the know, Liberty Prime is a 50 feet tall Humongous Mecha and tends to dominate the room it's in, which you visit several times during the course of the game.
    • Josh also points out during the Mass Effect 2 series that a large group of Quarians failed a spot check on their wost enemy in the middle of their home
    • Shamus also admits that in his first playthrough of Mass Effect 3 he completely missed out on Lt. Cortez. As such, his death had limited impact on him. He also admits that in Human Revolution he had no idea that it was possible to talk your way into the Police Station rather than being forced to sneak in.
  • Fission Mailed: 'The Great Crash' in Fallout: New Vegas.
    • This was shortly followed by the episode 'Fission Mailed', in which Shamus inadvertently made Josh go do the Honest Hearts DLC.
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Flat "What": Shamus' reaction to the cauterization scene in Tomb Raider 2013.
  • Flashback Cut: The opening of Human Revolutions involved Shamus saying the reason they weren't playing the original Deus Ex first was due to problems with the others' computers in viewing his stream properly. We then cut to a flashback of how said stream looked to the other players. (WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or ear.)
  • For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Discussed in episode 14 of the Dishonored season.
    Rutskarn: "It's like if some guy was dressed as John Wilkes Booth at a president's party, and he was John Wilkes Booth and had a pistol, we figured if he was actually here to kill us, there was no way! He would've removed at least one of those variables."
  • Fridge Logic: Pointing out the in-universe Fridge Logic in the games they play is their secondary hat, like the above Little Lamplight question and why, for whatever reason, C4 is classified as a concealed weapon in Fallout: New Vegas. In one case, Josh is impressed when Papa Khan lampshades the Fridge Logic of Cuftbert coming to his home and talking to him while having no idea who he is.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Their chief complaint about The Last of Us is that the excessive shooter gameplay clashes with the excellent story. This was also a complaint during their Alan Wake season.
  • Genre Mashup: Mumbles asserts during Alan Wake that any genre of music you can name has already been done. Including Chris' suggestion of Neoclassical Reggae Punk.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: Rutskarn's attempt at playing Hitman eventually devolves into killing everyone 47 sees.
  • Grumpy Old Man: Shamus. They occasionally mock this by referring to him as a curmudgeon who hates all games.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Jarenth, contributor to Bluescreenofawesome and regular Spoiler Warning website commentator, took over for shamus for one week during the Dishonored playthrough.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: How Cuftbert is played in the Fallout games. As a Stealth and Melee build, his favored assassination technique is to plant explosives in others' pants, commonly uses weapons that he is for all intents and purposes incompetent with and generally favors a Leeroy Jenkins approach.
    • Not to mention his favourite weapon; the perpetually burning Shishkebab. How anyone manages to stay stealthy with a Flaming Sword is anybody's guess, but Reginald does it somehow.
    • Assassin's Creed II is already Highly Visible Ninja: The Game, but Josh's extremely unsubtle play style and confusion with the controls sure as heck doesn't improve matters. Much lampshading on how tearing off a few posters compensates for his misadventures abound.
      • They finally succeeded at the Stealth-Based Mission by rushing through the courtyard and stabbing a person in the face before he could cry out.
    • As for the Dishonored playthrough... Well... Yes. It qualifies too.
  • Hostile Show Takeover: The reason for the Team Fortress 2 episode? The Spy sapped the Normandy.
    • Shamus at one point gets sick and can't record for a week during Alan Wake. The rest of the crew treat the event as this.
  • Hurricane of Puns: Rutskarn do these a bit. The end of the Trainz episode eventually devolved into this.
    • The word "chip" loses all meaning during episode 27 of New Vegas thanks to Rutskarn and Mumbles.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Josh is called a nerd for recognizing Laura Bailey as Lust by Rutskarn, who participates in LARP sessions.
  • Iconic Item: The pre-war bonnet in the Fallout games
  • I'm a Humanitarian: In Fallout: New Vegas, Mumbles is often urging Josh to take up cannibalism, which he always refuses for the sake of not wanting to waste a perk. Of course, he does at one point absentmindedly eat a piece of human flesh he looted from the Fiends.
  • Informed Ability: One of the reasons the group despised Cerberus is the fact that despite how evidence proves that the one thing they are consistent in is having things backfire horribly on them they are made out to be dangerously competent and as of Mass Effect 3 are capable of waging war on the galaxy despite being a small terrorist cell. Similarly, in the third game the group saw Aria as a Creator's Pet being made out to be a big-shot despite the fact that the only thing she actually rules is an asteroid (which by the time of the third game she's lost to Cerberus) and were less impressed by her offer to get the Cannon Fodder mercenary companies of the previous games as Shepard's allies. note 
  • Insistent Terminology:
    • It's pronounced Kai-Sarr, not Caesar. Mumbles loves pointing this out.
    • Shamus was very insistent about referring to Mass Effect 2 as a "cover-based shooter" instead of an RPG.
    • Reginald Cuftbert is not a mercenary, at least according to the Brotherhood of Steel.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit: The crew had problems with Ezio's getup, often referring to it as "the clown suit". They're generally quite mocking of impractical outfits.
  • Kick the Dog: During Honest Hearts, Josh killed a dog who wasn't even hostile to him for the hell of it. Then everybody else called him out on it. Then Rutskarn explicitly named this trope. And commanded someone to add it to this wiki. So we did.
    • That and killing Veronica for the hell of it after killing off her entire family.
    • He also makes sure to go out of his way to try and emotionally crush Wayne Haas in Human Revolution in a way that still lets him progress with the game.
  • Kill Him Already!: They will usually say this when the protagonist simply stands there and lets the villain talk.
  • The Lad-ette:
    • Its a recurring joke that Mumbles, despite being the only girl on the show, is actually the least girly of the Spoiler Warning crew. For example, most of the guys on the show admit to spending a lot of time fussing over their character's outfits when that's an option.
    Campster: Dammit, why did you let me turn a third of the Diecast into "Chris bitches about stuff"? ... You should have distracted me with 1812 Overture-style farting noises.
    Josh: But Mumbles isn't here...
    Campster: Is that her job?
    Josh: It seems like it would be her job.
    • Mumbles was originally bought in to serve as a counterpoint to the guys' kvetching over Bioshock. She's proven to be possibly the most profane, acerbic, bloodthirsty, sadistic, and cannibalistic (when playing games) of the crew, often suggesting violent options or scoffing at monsters not being scary. And she complained that the LP made her like Bioshock less.
  • Lame Pun Reaction: Endemic given the Pungeon Master in their midst. Campster once (jokingly) tried to leave the show over a particularly crappy pun during the Tomb Raider season.
    • There's too many examples to list, but here's a typical one from their Fallout 3 playthrough.
      Rutskarn: So, y'know, every good playthrough, I try to always make sure my party consists of the Fawkes and the hound.
      *Beat*
      Josh: Uuuurgh...
      Shamus: You... you have transcended puns, Rutskarn.
      Josh: You are a very bad person.
      Shamus: Your puns are war crimes.
      Josh: The Geneva Convention protects against your puns.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Cuftbert in all his/her incarnations loves to get into situations that he/she is unequipped/underleveled for for, such as murdering the Brotherhood of Steel within the Citadel, taking down Fortification Hill, rushing in with Biotic Charge, punching Securitrons, and taking on the Boomers wearing nothing but Benny's fancy suit and a bonnet. Through the power of drugs, spamming attacks and sheer luck he manages to make it through. Eventually.
    • Turns out that this process works quite well during Dead Money with an Unarmed build. However the consequence is that the story and the background information (most of which is discovered via taking the time to read terminals and talk to characters) is rushed through and just barely explained by Josh to the confusion of the rest of the group.
    • This is not helped by Josh's tendency to level in certain skills, then pick up powerful, exotic (and usually heavy) weapons that do not benefit for said skills, then to carry said weapon around, refusing to sell it, even when its out of ammo. When the rest of the team invariably points this out, he continues to do so just to troll them. Statements to the effect of "Thank goodness you have all those points in energy weapons!" are a Running Gag in both Fallout games.
    • However, they make an exception for Human Revolutions, where Stealth is at least attempted with some success.
    • In Mass Effect 3, this works out much better since the Vanguard in the game has been upgraded to become something of a Game-Breaker.
  • Legacy Character: Reginald Cuftbert, who is associated with their general Chaotic Stupid playstyle. He even has a Distaff Counterpart in Regina Shepard. The character somehow manages to find his way to Assassin's Creed II as assassination target Francesco de Pazzi.
  • Lord British Postulate: The group went to extreme lengths during the end-game of Mass Effect 2 to get Miranda (who has extreme Plot Armour on the suicide mission) killed without having to bring her along in the party or killing off anyone else they liked in the process. They managed it.
    • The amount of times the crew 'killed' Elder Lyons (only for the game to resurrect him because he's unkillable) in Fallout 3 can only be counted using several pairs of hands. They finally got their comeuppance in Broken Steel, but by using a legitimate plot point instead of bugs.
  • Long List: In the Hitman: Absolution series, Rutskarn apologizes to all groups who have been offended by the stereotypes depicted poorly in the game:
    Shamus: ...although putting any character in this game is sort of derogatory towards that character. (laughs) This environment is inherently insulting to anyone who exists in it.
    Rutskarn: I would like to apologize to the following groups: Women... homosexuals... people of all ethnicities, particularly hispanics... white men... gross fat ugly white men... South Dakotans... hitmens... billionaires...
  • Lower-Deck Episode: Any filler episode featuring Rutskarn and his other LP crew, Jibar, Phase and Blackfox.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Reginald Cuftbert's valiant crusade against the Boomers featured several dozen angry NPCs with grenade launchers, missile launchers, and even ARTILLERY SHELLS blowing Reginald's limbs off.
  • Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Marlow Briggs and the ___ of ___.
  • Malicious Misnaming: "Buttskarn", a Running Gag nickname used throughout the series. You get one guess which one of the group it refers to.
  • Mondegreen Gag: During episode 4 of New Vegas, Mumbles goes into her hipster imitation, and talks about chilling out with a Pabst beer.
    All: [Beat]
    Shamus: Oh, Pabst beer! Oh my gosh, I won't even say what I thought you said.
    Rutskarn: {relieved} Oh God! Oh that's what she said.
  • Munchkin: Josh's playing style usually involves crit-stacking. However, he's also quite prone to doing the exact opposite.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: Lampshaded in the Mass Effect videos. "The Council is sure to listen to us once we shoot a bunch of guys in the face!"
  • Naked People Are Funny: In the Fallout 4 season, "Fantasy" "Roleplaying" is completely derailed when Josh makes a misclick that causes Piper to strip down to her underwear.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Invoked in the Amnesia and Slender specials, where the crew went out of their way to not be scared by the games and making sure nobody who ever watches those specials ever will, either.
  • Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Colonel Autumn in Fallout 3, whose only crime was resurrecting Anna Holt.
  • Not With the Safety On, You Won't: Narrowly avoided with Reciever; Josh noticed something was wrong with how his character was holding the gun
  • Perverse Sexual Lust: Towards Tali and Garrus in Mass Effect and its sequel, moreso the former.
  • Pet the Dog: Characters that are liked are generally treated favorably.
    • In Mass Effect 2, the group occasionally force Josh to not take Renegade options (usually helping out injured aliens) and play nice (to his frustration), particularly when it comes to Tali.
    • And Mordin. Josh in particular seems to have a lot of respect for him.
      • Josh also edited their save data so that Wrex was alive, whereas he dies on default without a save file from the first game.
    • Josh also ends up saving the companions in Dead Money just because he likes the characters. He also sticks with House for a surprising amount of time before finally killing him (ironically right after House gives the order to exterminate the Brotherhood of Steel, something that Josh would've gladly done out of his own volition).
    • Despite playing High Chaos in Dishonored, Josh chose to spare Daud since he's the only character with any actual depth.
    • Despite being stereotypical teenagers the crew confessed to feeling sympathy for the main characters in Until Dawn, even the ones who don't get much characterisation like Matt and Jessica. The group even went out of their way to try to make them behave as nicely as possible, leading to Shamus causing an Everybody Lives ending despite playing blind.
  • Precision F-Strike: Rutskarn's reaction to the 'Golden Mask' debacle in Assassin's Creed II. Also in the climax of Mass Effect 2.
  • Railroading: The group's arch-nemesis, and one of the quickest things they will point out. The most frustrating example being Shepard being forced to work with Cerberus in ME2 despite the fact that Shepard is a Sole Survivor of one of their "Rogue Cells".
    • A quest in New Vegas involved going into the headquarters of Caesar's Legion. They killed Caesar and every living human in the camp. Mr. House says while it will hurt the Legion in the long term it's not going to keep them from participating in the final battle, to groans from the quartet. However, as a commenter pointed out, this sort of thing was fairly typical for the Romans and it's justified and lampshaded in-game by several characters.
  • Promoted to Opening Titles: Chris "Campster" Franklin, creator of "Errant Signal" was originally meant as simply a guest commentator for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He later went on to become a cast regular.
  • Obviously Evil: One of the things that the group like about Human Revolutions is that despite the fact that Frank Pritchard is consistently a jerk to Adam Jensen and David Sarif is a Cyberpunk CEO, neither are actually evil nor do they backstab Jensen at any point in the game.
    • It irritates them regarding the Enclave in Fallout 3, with their particular brand of "supervillain evil".
  • Reality Is Unrealistic: Shamus mentions at one point that he doesn't judge accents anymore because he once thought that Lelianna's French accent was badly done only to learn that Corinne Kempa is French and that was her real accent.
  • Running Gag:
    • Someone (commonly Shamus) getting upbraided by the others for spoiling the plot of the games they play.
    • Rutskarn's (under legal drinking) age. And, on the other end, jokes about how Shamus is old. Usually from Shamus.
    • Reginald Cuftbert the Third starting every episode of Bioshock by trying to dig his way out of Rapture with his wrench, before quickly becoming distracted by something shiny and/or killable.
    • The mockery of Cerberus in Mass Effect 2, where everything questionable was handwaved as being caused by a 'Rogue Cell'. In the end, the crew decided that the Collectors themselves were a 'rogue cell' due to the sheer stupidity of their plan.
    • The incinerator in Fallout: New Vegas, which Reginald lugged with him for practically the entire season for no reason at all, much to Shamus' annoyance. The incinerator was finally destroyed by a C4 trap that was laid for the end boss, Legate Lanius.
      • Also in that game, someone suggesting Josh do X, and Josh responding, with false ignorance, "What's X?" or "I have no idea what you're/you guys are talking about".
      • Mumbles' insistence on taking up cannibalism.
      • Everything is part of Mr. House's plan.
      Shamus (impersonating Mr. House): I knew you would kill that hooker, in fact I accounted for it in my plans. It's a requirement for taking over Vegas.
    • In Assassin's Creed II, jokes about Ezio's unsubtle outfit and Josh's playing style are aplenty.
    • DXHR: Josh not taking the "Parachute" augment, no matter how convenient.
    • Shamus mentioning how something will cause people to "yell at us in the comments".
    • '''COF'''FEE? I ''love'' '''COF'''FEE.
    • "I'm in one of these boxes. Find me." A joke from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and their riff of This Island Earth.
  • Sanity Slippage: Spending time watching Josh's calculated trolling in the form of playing New Vegas as randomly and stupidly as possible induces this upon the group, especially Shamus.
  • Sarcasm Failure: The climax of Mass Effect 2 causes most of the cast to suffer from temporary Sarcasm Failure (of the 'I have seen something too stupid' kind). Especially Rutskarn, who hadn't seen it before.
  • Self-Deprecation: The group are very aware of their tendencies towards nitpicking issues that others would find relatively insignificant and aren't above poking fun at themselves for it.
    • When one of them is absent from Spoiler Warning or the Diecast, it's often assumed to be because they're with other, cool friends or doing something worthwhile.
    • Rewatching the start of the Fallout 3 in the New Vegas season, Shamus knocks "the Twenty Sided guy" for complaining so much and having an annoying voice.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge: Shamus declared that for one episode in the Mass Effect 3 LP that they cannot say anything negative. Said episode happened to be the first Kai Leng boss battle.
  • Serial Escalation: The Saints Row episode. Just... The whole episode. Josh finally meets a game where his playstyle is (almost) the norm for expected behaviour. Hilarity Ensues.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: In Mass Effect 2, the story of Thane took this bent (which was lampshaded). He was recruited, never used once, never talked to once, and then killed by debris in the opening rounds of the Suicide Mission. Basically, all that (plot-mandated) ado for absolutely nothing.
    • In Assassin's Creed II, the team basically proclaimed the entire carnivale of Venice as this, considering you went through a lot of pointless minigames just to have the prize taken away due to a bribe.
  • Shiny New Australia: This trope was mentioned off-hand during the climax of Mass Effect 2.
  • Shown Their Work: During a certain scene in Tomb Raider, where Lara is in a massive pool of blood, the group say that while it may seem like hundreds of people would've had to die to make this much blood, in truth it doesn't take much blood to turn water red. Immediately lampshaded when Josh snarkily thanked the group for this information.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The opening for ME2, which features Shepard being blown out of the Normandy while a jaunty jazz tune plays.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: Another trademark is to question overly complicated quest proceedings (which they're Railroaded into) with asking why they don't do the obvious, i.e. commonly kill someone.
    • Shamus pointed out that the entire reason Mass Effect 2's plot exist is apparently because nobody thinks about mining, booby-trapping, disabling or otherwise blockading the Omega 4 relay, since it's the only way the Collectors can enter the rest of the galaxy. Doesn't help that the Arrival DLC mostly invalidates the entire plot of going through the relay and attacking the Collectors in the first place.
  • Stealth-Based Mission: Another apparent pet peeve of the group, given their response to the forced stealth section in Assassin's Creed II (which is supposedly a stealth game — not that Josh plays it like one in any given way). However, given how they liked Dishonored, it does seem fair to say that they don't hate stealth games.
  • Stupid Evil: Their opinion of Mass Effect's Cerberus, specifically in how their research always seems to end up killing more humans than the main villains and never actually produces anything useful in the end. Likewise, they consider The Illusive Man as a Smug Snake at the very best.
    • Likewise, they accuse Caesar's Legion and The Templars of being pointlessly evil for no real reason.
    • And, of course, Josh himself. (Or at least his playstyle for the purposes of the LP; he actually demonstrates a fair amount of intelligence.)
  • Suckiness Is Painful:
    • Josh's playstyle and Rutskarn's puns occasionally have this effect on the others.
    Shamus: Is this my blood? I think this is- I think I'm bleeding. Guys, I think that pun...
    • Alluding to Fallout 3 can have a similar outcome.
    Mumbles: Lemme get this straight. So my father was putting together a project before I was born...and he got in trouble and he died for it. And now I have to pick up the project and purify the wasteland.
    Shamus: Yes. Thank you, Mumbles. Excuse me, I have to throw up blood.
    • Rutskarn's cover of TLC's "No Scrubs" during Marlow Briggs caused a Collective Groan from the rest of the cast.
    Chris: This is my two weeks, Shamus, this is my two weeks.
    Shamus: That's fair. I'm glad you're not suing us.
    Rutskarn: I can sort of hear a sucking noise as all the money was removed from our patreon.
  • Tempting Fate: During the first episode of the Half-Life 2 episode, Josh proclaims how he's yet to find a significant bug in the game. Not two seconds later he gets stun-locked into a wall while a bugged Metro Cop keeps whaling on him non-stop.
    • Some few episodes (and uncomfortably many bugs) of Half-Life 2 later, they eventually lampshade having done this.
    • During episode 2 of The Walking Dead, while at the tractor ambush, Josh keeps walking around in circles behind the cover while taunting Mark about how he can move around freely and Mark can't. He's promptly shot dead.
    • In ep. 18 of Tomb Raider (2013), Josh mentions that there hasn't been any huge graphical glitches in a while. The rest of the cast starts lampshading this:
      Shamus: Hey, you know what? It's been over 30 seconds since Josh died hilariously; can you guys believe it?
      Rutskarn: Do you know it's been a few months since Josh has had a kidney stone?
      • Played straighter two videos later when they bring it up again, only to trigger the weirdest graphical glitch to date — though thankfully temporary and not crash-inducing.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Fallout Reginalds' favorite kill methods are to put explosives down unsuspecting people's pants. And then there's the time they assassinated the leadership of the Omertas with C4... While sitting in the same roomnote ...
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Rutskarn frequently mentions his love of Del Taco. On the Diecast, the others speculate that if he was very rich, he would have a Del Taco restaurant built into his house.
  • Troll: If they're not picking on the game, they're picking on each other. And when they're not doing that, it's the audience's turn.
    • After a hilariously successful trolling session on Mumbles in New Vegas ep. 14, Rutskarn sums it up pretty well:
      Rutskarn: This show is passed off as video game criticism, but it's actually a trolling master series.
    • Also from Josh wasting time in New Vegas:
    Shamus: Oh my gosh, this is you griefing us again.
    Josh: I don't know you guys haven't figured out that I'm always griefing you. I mean, it's been 160 episodes.
  • Tsundere:
    • Apparently, all it takes for Christine to trust Reginald is to chase him around the Sierra Madre casino while unloading many, many buckshots into his ass. Thank goodness for Good Bad Bugs.
  • Uriah Gambit: Sarah Lyons in Fallout 3. Miranda and Jacob in Mass Effect 2.
  • Voodoo Shark: Mentioned multiple times in several games, but the trope was openly discussed during the Fallout 3 playthrough.
  • Walking Techbane: While certain games such as the Fallout games are already known for being buggy as hell, Josh seems to have a special talent for finding glitches that will likely screw him over.
  • We Have Reserves: During the Nova Prospekt chapter in Half-Life 2, Josh demonstrates that you can use antlions to set off tripmines. This kicks off a string of references to comedic uses of this trope in fiction.
  • What Are Records?: Regarding "Knights of the Old Republic'':
    Rutskarn: There are people playing this who were born the year it came out.
    Josh: Jesus Christ. Don't...don't even say that. God, I feel as old as Shamus now.
    Shamus: You can't possibly.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Mumbles calls Shamus out on his shoddy parenting skills when he lets Josh play Honest Hearts in Fallout New Vegas after he did everything in his power to irk everyone else because they wouldn't let him play Honest Hearts.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: While going through the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, the crew speculates on who the Shadow Broker actually is.
    Mumbles: It's actually Jenkins

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