Rod, Karen and Jack discuss listener feedback, entertainment, ex Bungie dev suing Sony, Wonder Woman game canceled, Fable delayed, Twisted Metal game canceled, Cheetozard, PS3 system update, Netflix AI-gaming Chief leaves, MS AI gaming copilot, Record of Ragnarok season 3, Last of Us actress already seeing harassment, Last of Us 3 might not happen, SAG still far apart with industry on AI protections, Ubisoft, Blizzcon is back in person, next gen Xbox news, Indiana Jones coming to PS5, Discord looking into an IPO, Space Ghost actor dies, MS shutting down Skype, Reacher season 3, Ubisoft could sell of Assassin’s Creed and the PowerPuff Girls trailer leaks.
The Nerd Off: (Protected Content)
Hi y’all, Felix here. First of all been a while but ya bois still out here grinding. Took a break from anime work to work on kids shows over here and just haven’t left haha. Work is so much less stressful and hours are better so I haven’t yet been tempted back. I now just enjoy anime as a viewer. I’ve been enjoying solo leveling and rewatching bleach recently. I started collecting the dvds again so I now have half of bleach on dvd. I wanna watch all the non filler so I can watch the new anime with proper non filler-confused context.
I only wanted to write because I am so glad we as a society collectively decided to tell the gamers to stfu regarding assassin’s creed shadows. What happened a week or so ago gave me hope for the general public again. I follow Hasan but I got my issues with him (the way he engages with discussions around black peoples issues and especially black people he disagrees with gives 2015 Bernie bro and he’s refused to address that at all) but him getting that ratio on musk and getting the assist from Ubisoft is a moment I won’t soon forget.
I already almost crashed out the first time the Yasuke controversy started because we as black nerds have known about him for ages and he’s been in various games, manga anime etc. so seeing racist gamers try and rewrite history in real time was infuriating. I was literally playing as a Yasuke main in the most recent samurai warriors game years before this stuff went off so I’m so happy to see everybody including Ubisoft just in the end go hard against the nonsense. Plus the extra dev time they had on shadows allowed them to put out a more polished product which is a huge W. It’s hilarious it took Hasan beefing with Elon directly for us to get to this point but im so glad I never have to see the nonsense complaints ever again or see people take them seriously. I hope this means the gamergate resurgence has reached a tipping point where people who were swayed by them now realise it was all bullshit just like a decade ago.
I myself have mostly been playing driving games recently because I got a racing wheel with manual clutch and gearbox to practice in-between my driving lessons (yes I’m learning to drive at my big age of 31 but public transport been hit or miss recently so just covering my bases lol). I’ve been obsessed with Forza horizon, less so for the actual racing (I am horrible at racing with the wheel) but I’m just driving around the open world chilling with some music on and it’s greatly helped my actual driving.
Lastly, I am so hyped for the Switch 2. My literal only hope was cyberpunk on that thing so I can replay it on the go and now that I seen the price I’m second guessing haha. It’s not as bad in the UK as it is for y’all but the package for what it’s giving does look enticing regardless. Anyway have a great show y’all, Felix out.
Happy gaming, Rod, Karen & fellow nerds.
Nintendo, I’m fucking proud of you. Even if I may not be able to afford your Switch 2 ($450 in the US, thanks for nothing Trump, Gamergate, & MAGA), I love that you’re finally getting deep into modern gaming & are taking even bigger chances with your marquee titles. I’m not even upset you’re asking us customers to buy extra content for your Switch 2 device or that Mario Kart World is $80 in the US (again, thanks for nothing, MAGA, Gamergate & Trump), besides the price of the software brick should be going up & if your hardware is going to make games like Donkey Kong Bonanza, Zelda, Metroid, and other notable titles look like XB1 &/or PS4 at their “base” constitution? Cool with me. The fact they’re releasing it on June 5th, means this thing’s lit.
What I’ve been playing? Y’all ever heard of Odin Sphere? It was an old game once on the PlayStation 2 in 2007. I never beat it on the system, but I remembered really digging it, I just lost track of time & focus.
It’s an action-RPG with fighting mechanics & it’s done with five characters spread within a world of Norse mythology in seven chapters in a 2D, hand drawn environment. I bought the remastered game for PS5 & it goes. Besides the occasional slowdown, here & there, where things get hectic (PS2 version had similar problems) but everything’s deep. Combat’s even deeper than it’s original console version. I don’t know if the game’s on sale, currently, but I highly recommend it.
Started to give the Uncharted series some love with a playthrough of the first game & Im diggin’ it but these enemies absorb more bullets than Dorian Tyrell from The Mask spit them bullets & spat them out to kill some dudes. I’ll shoot a nigga with an AK or a pistol & it would take like 5 or six hits & this is on normal mode. Ridiculous. Certainly a game of its time but also ahead of it? Can’t wait to do 2 & 3.
Moviewise, besides Black Bag, Mickey 17, Snow White, there’s not much that has caught my eye, recently, but I was on a Patreon with the great Chris Lamberth talk with him about Magazine Dreams & it was a lot of fun. He liked it, I found it to be a sorrier version of Taxi Driver. Jonathan Majors, whew buddy. In fairness, he was good, just not worthy of the initial praise he received before Disney shopped the film to Briarcliff after his charges. And my main problem with it is, his character is more one-dimensional a Sugar Daddy. It literally came & went from the theaters. It was out in only 800 theaters on March 21st (I saw it weeks earlier via a Monday screening) & poof, it’s gone. Now, that Naked Gun trailer, in the words of MTR’s Kriss: “Kriss Tears” We byke! Real talk, a lot of the movies for the summer look to deliver.
Peace, y’all.
Karen, thank you for recommending “The Red Ranger Becomes a Adventure In Another World.” As a 40+ man that still watches new iterations of power rangers (it scratches my itch for old school kung fu/karate movies and big mecha fights) – this was right up my alley.
I watched it expecting just some camp and jokes on the Power Ranger formula and that’s definitely there. But the story is actually… Good? Like they weave the cheesy ranger tropes into the story well enough that it’s still a coherent adventure story. For example – answering why Rangers don’t just start a battle with the Megazord and it actually being a story beat that makes sense…. And the cutaways to the Kizuna 5 flashbacks are *chef’s kiss* I’d just wrapped up Friren (I think I got that recommendation from Rod? Not sure, it’s been in the list for a minute. Also amazing, btw) and needed a something new and Red Ranger hit the spot. Here’s hoping that it gets another season to dig into more of the storylines.
Man Two Point Museum sounds amazing, I really need to get that once I’m done with Bear and Breakfast. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, Karen has elite taste in video games.
Howdy Awesometastic Nerds,
I was helping out at my kids school, preparing for a book fair when I came across Negalyod: The God Network. Just wanted to see if anyone had seen or was familiar with this. It looked interesting and even my local comic books store didn’t have it or had heard of it.
Here’s the official view just in case https://www.google.com/books/edition/Negalyod_The_God_Network/i3VgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en
Karen thank you so much for recommending “Rising Impact”! I never would have bothered to watch this since I too know nothing about golf, but damn am I invested in Gawain!