T.O.T. - Bananza - Pokemon Legends Z-A - MK - MTG - DQ1&2 - Xillia - Syberia - Turtle Beach - More! - ThisWeekInGeek

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Did you grow up?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Wickham Net, PlayStation Star both catch you said any CV
do you like to think you would win in a
fight between Batman and the Master?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Chick?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Comics, case, movies, music, can TV.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
They're gonna tell you whether thinking me.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Super heroes are nothing?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Catch sharp back, They're gonna say.

Speaker 5 (00:22):
The world domcakes, comics, ks, movies, music, can TV. They're
gonna tell you whether thing you me superheroesur nothing.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Cat sharp back, They're gonna say the world swear can't cake,
swear can't cake?

Speaker 6 (00:59):
Well, Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome out to another review show.
We were off this week because Birdman was down with
the plague real bad, and I was approaching that I
was starting to lose my voice and just I was
like feeling the plague coming on, but I was like,

(01:21):
I can't do the show. So we ended up taking
the Monday after Halloween off, but we did have plenty
of reviews ready to go, so I said, all right,
if I'm feeling any better by midweek, I'll put together
a show that has the reviews that we had initially
planned to put in, plus a couple others, and we'll,

(01:44):
hopefully fingers crossed, get back to doing the regular program
the following week. So in this particular show, there's going
to be a bunch of stuff from Birdman that he's
been that he has recorded, you know, prior to being ill.
Maybe as when this recording comes out, he might have
a couple more things ready to go. We'll see how

(02:04):
he's feeling. But I'm not exactly sure what he's got.
He just said, Hey, I've I've got a bunch of stuff. Check,
you know, check the work folders and see what we've got.
I have a few things personally myself, I have in
my my my feeling sickness era. I've gone and played
some indie titles for review. We'll just sort of do

(02:26):
a bit of a first impressions round up right here,
and then I'll just mention what some of the reviews
are going to be that I've already you know, got prepped.
I've been playing Simon the Sorcerer Origins on the Nintendo Switch.
This is a like prequel to Simon the Sorcerer, which
was an adventure series on PC back in the nineties

(02:49):
that I had briefly, you know seen. I don't think
I had ever played the originals. I am playing this.
I couldn't pinpoint it, but it's your classic adventure style,
you know, point click, think Sierra, think Lucas Arts, that
sort of stuff. It's charming, good art, good you know,
voice acting, and just overall like audio direction. I think

(03:13):
it's a really solid title and it's a good way
to get into. It works quite well on the Switch.
Obviously it's available on PC or other platforms, but I've
had a good time with it so far. I would
say I'm about like eighty percent through again, a bit
of a delay because of just overalls overall feeling sick,
but pretty good time as well as I've been playing

(03:34):
Unboxed The Room. This on PC is what you would think.
It's one of those pixel art, you know, soothing meditation
kind of games where you're just like organizing, clicking, moving
things around just to you know, make things feel zen
and good. And what obviously piqued my interest was the

(03:55):
art for it had a little cat in a box,
which I was like, okay, yeah, let's check that out,
and I'd say it's exactly what you'd think. It's good.
I've also been playing Neon Inferno on Steam. Now this
is a it's sort of a mishmash of genres. Think

(04:18):
pixel art, think gunstar heroes, wild guns, a little bit
of metal slug in this design, you know, beat them up,
destroy them up, shoot them up across the screen, has
a little bit of everything in there. It's pretty wild.
It also runs on pretty you know, low end hard

(04:39):
where you don't need anything major. It'll run quite well,
very very good art design, good audio, and most importantly,
the controls are tight and fun. So I'm having a
great time with that. Definitely worth checking out if you're
into like early nineties arcade, beat them up, slash, unique
genre mashups. So, I mean, that's been pretty sweet so far.

(05:03):
So that's mostly what I've been playing. When it comes
to like smaller indie titles, I've got a couple more
that I'm sort of on the go with, but I'll
mention them as i play more of them so that
I'm able to like really determine whether or not, you know,
it's something I can speak upon being good or not.
I will have a few other reviews in here. I've

(05:24):
been playing a few RPGs, which obviously take up some
more substantial amount of my time over the last week
or two, but I'll have a couple of reviews from that,
and here I might have some individual movies or maybe
a roundup of movies. We'll see it, depending on how
many have been able to watch. Also, I have some
stuff that's come in that is mostly for Gift Guide

(05:47):
consideration as that's starting to happen. But I will have
some first impressions over, if not today, over the next
week or two with some neat computer peripherals, gaming hardware,
that sort of fun stuff. So I'm gonna sort of
try to bounce back and forth between Birdman reviews of
my own. We'll see if there's anything else we can

(06:08):
include here, but I'll come back at the end just
quickly and tell you what programming is like coming up
now that we're past the spooky week where we had
a lot of stuff coming out, but we still have
a lot of things, you know, ready to go as
we get closer and closer to the you know, our
holiday coverage. So I guess, without further ado, I'm going
to send it over to Birdman and you're going to
hear something that he was reviewing and interested in. Right now.

Speaker 7 (06:32):
Hey, guys, this is Mike the Birdman here. I'm here
to talk to you about something really interesting. We got
sent for holiday gift god consideration from our friends over
at Nintendo. So Nintendo sent over a review code for
the Nintendo Switch to title Donkey Kong Bonanza. Now, I
gotta preface this by saying, I am normally not a
three D platformer.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Guy. I'm used to playing games like The.

Speaker 7 (06:55):
Last of Us Days Gone, Call of Duty, you know,
stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
This is typically not my game.

Speaker 7 (07:05):
So I've been sick with COVID for the last little
bit and I'm literally just recovering now. But while I
was sick, I had a real chance to sit down
and play this game. And I've got to say, guys,
I am so pleasantly surprised by this. I haven't had
this much fun with a Donkey Kong Country title since

(07:25):
my parents got me Donkey Kong Country in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Like Donkey Kong.

Speaker 7 (07:32):
Country, games don't normally vibe with me, but this one
really did. So the setup is Donkey Kong is a
miner and he's on this place called England Island Shenanigan's happened,
and he.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Has to dig down to the planet's core, help.

Speaker 7 (07:47):
His friends along the way, and maybe get something a
little bit special. At the end of the day, maybe
you get a wish granted. And the thing that really
makes this game so interesting and weird is the game
has like these destructible environments and it's kind of like
this explorable Sandbucks.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I've read people would compare.

Speaker 7 (08:08):
This as the spiritual successor the Super Mario Odyssey, which
I literally didn't get to like a week and a
half a week and a half ago, so I had
no frame of reference for this going in, and I'm
really glad that I didn't, cause my impressions of this
game right now are this is another this is a blast,

(08:28):
Like I'm not bored. You can buy power ups, you
can there's like a skill tree you can invest in.
But here's the thing, you can beat the game even
if you don't do that, Like I'm like, what really, like, yeah,
you don't need any upgrades, you don't need to invest
in it.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
That you can literally beat the game from starting to finish.

Speaker 7 (08:45):
And from what I can tell was I watched a
few people play this online. Is there's not just one
way to solve a puzzle. Nintendo's kind of adopted this
design philosophy. Well, if it works, go ahead, and that
is awesome. Like literally, if you have the right combination
of powers, you can skip entire sections of these incredibly.

(09:10):
I don't know if I call them annoying puzzles, but
if you think there's one way to solve a puzzle,
there's probably like twelve different.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Ways to get around it. That is awesome.

Speaker 7 (09:20):
And it feels so rewarding to just smash through rock,
dirt and whatever else and just finding all these hidden things,
like yeah, yeah, you can collect fossils, you can get
different clothing, you can and it's not just cosmetic. It
does stuff like maybe you can swim faster, maybe you
have like a longer range, or you hit harder, you
get like extra punch power or whatever. It's fun, Like

(09:44):
this game is stupid fun and I didn't expect that.
And Pauline's back and I'm really glad to see her
get a little bit of time to shine here. And
there's now DLC for it too. I didn't get a
code for the D so I can't really talk about
that in any real depth. I have a body yet,

(10:05):
I'm gonna wait till like one hundred percent this game
before I do it.

Speaker 8 (10:08):
And that's a.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
Really really cool thing.

Speaker 7 (10:10):
You don't have to want one hundred percent to get
something out of it. And Donkey Kong Country Bananza, it's
such a welcome fun time you can take at your
own pace.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
It's gorgeous to look at.

Speaker 7 (10:25):
I think it's one of the best games on the
switch to currently, and in fact, I really don't think
it's hyperbole to say this might be one of my
games of the year considering some of the disappointments I've
had in some other properties this year not from Nintendo.
I'm looking at you, Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection. No, seriously,

(10:47):
Donkey Kong Country Bananza, This or Donkey Kong Bonanza Story
maybe my game of the year. And that is the
most unexpected phrase I didn't expect to say.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
I had fun with this.

Speaker 7 (11:00):
It's fun, it's inventive, there's so much to explore and
do you're not bored, and I like the fact that
it rewards creative play. So yeah, can I recommend Donkey
Kolling Bonanza one If you're a switch to owner, this
is a must buy without a doubt. Once you start

(11:24):
smashing things and getting all that gold and all, when
you start racking up all the all the bananas to
get your cool skill points, and you build your donkey
calling your way to suit your play style, You're gonna
have a blast. Seriously, this is easily one of the
no brainer recommendations for this year's holiday gift Guide, and

(11:46):
you can count on me recommending this from us here
at this weekend geek dot net.

Speaker 8 (11:53):
This is Dragon Quest one end to HD two D
rebak a new beginning and ending.

Speaker 9 (11:59):
Await sublime beyond belief, Our journey has only just begun.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
May fortune go with thee brave euro We will bring
you to justice.

Speaker 8 (12:30):
Now the real fun becames your mind.

Speaker 10 (12:36):
This ends now.

Speaker 8 (12:41):
Play nicely now, but timeless adventures that define a genre return.
Dragon Quest one and to HD two D we available now.

Speaker 6 (12:54):
Our friends at Square Inex have sent Dragon Quests one
and two HD two two D remake for the PlayStation
five for us to check out. And I couldn't be happier.
I always try to stay like very you know, neutral,
I try to go you know, as as objective as possible,

(13:16):
but subjectively, I was very excited to play this title.
I have been a fan of the HG two D
stuff they've been doing since they started it. Obviously with
I guess a soft boot with the Octopath games, that
was sort of the style. But I can say this
last year we covered the Dragon Quest three HD two

(13:39):
D and it was the first time I had ever
actually played it, but I knew the storyline behind it.
For anybody still wondering, you know, without going into like
major spoilers or anything, the reason that they recommend you
play three first now in the order is that three
starts out as a regular different game, but at the
end it's sort of revealed that it's a prequel to

(14:00):
Dragon Quest one or Dragon Warrior one as you would
have known North America growing up, and if you had
a Nintendo Power subscription and you've got one of the
games free, that's what it was called then. But it's
connected in that it's you know, there's parts that take
place in the same world, but you'll have to play
the games to see how they're connected. And I can

(14:22):
say this, I went into playing Dragon Quest one a
little worried about how much would be able to be
kept or changed. And if you're wondering why they would
pair you know, two games and one, it's because Dragon
Quest won on the NES. If you play it and
you know what you're doing and you're careful and methodical,
you can beat that game in like four hours for

(14:44):
an art you know, maybe four to seven hours for
an RPG. And that is you know, it's one of
the smallest j RPGs ever. It was one of the
first ones, obviously, but if you want to do a
quick comparison to something like, let's say a Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy one is probably four times as large, you know,
in length, as what you can do in the original

(15:07):
Dragon Quest. So in going into it, I was intrigued
to see what they would do. Well, what they did
is they took what was a very essential story. And
I will say this, you know, I can spoil without spoiling.
The main plot of two. Two is a much larger,
much more expansive game, but the basic plot of one
on the nes and I can say this because it's

(15:28):
not spoiling it for this game is you are the
descendant of some mythical hero from the past who Whisper.
Whisper is the hero from Dragon Quest three, and you
arrive in this kingdom and the princess is missing. The
king is like, you're the descendant of the hero, could

(15:49):
you please save my daughter? And you go first you
go and find a cave that shows that you are
the descendant of him by Like in the original game,
it's just you read it and it's proving your bravery
to find it. You find a few different items that
are required to traverse the world to then find a

(16:09):
key that you can use to unlock a door in
the cave. Fight a dragon, save the princess, bring her home,
get an item from the princess. Find three pieces of
armor a find the the I guess think three or
four pieces of armor that are for your ancestor that
you can then use to have really good armor to

(16:31):
then build a rainbow bridge using the items you received
earlier to go into the dragon Lord's castle, and then
he gives you the option to join him. If you do,
it's game over, or you choose no to beat him.
You beat him, and it's the end of the game. Hurrah.
It's actually very short overall. Well, what they did with
Dragon Quest one here is they took it. It still

(16:53):
follows the same plot points, but they've added extra NPCs
that that you would tract with like with full voiced dialogue,
everything is voiced. Everything into the SAHTT series now is
like fully voiced in English or Japanese. They add like
brand new NPCs to give backstory. The characters have their
own backstories and the side stories that are happening. You

(17:16):
do the same order of events. There's just in between
each of these they've added a lot more flavor. When
there's like there's like tertiary side quests with characters, so
how you obtain certain items and including like some of
your your special gear from your ancestor, and that is

(17:38):
somewhat tied to side quests that weren't there before. It
used to be just randomly could find them. Now it's
tied to doing those quest lines, but they're not overly
long quest lines. It still pads it out a little bit.
But what it did was it took a game that
was very plain and bland, initially very dry, and added
a whole lot of personality to it. And you know,

(18:01):
if you're playing it, let's say on I played it
jumping between different difficulties because the normal difficulties fine, but
I wanted to see what it would be like. Hard
is challenging, and it's more grindy, and I am at
a point in my life where I do not want
to grind beyond when I have to, and then if
you put it down to the easiest setting, you can
make it easy. But you can also turn on an

(18:22):
invincibility mode. And if you do that again it was
just like in the previous and Dragon Quest three I
mentioned it before. You can turn that on if you're
playing with kids and you don't want to have a
fail state. You know, you want to just be able
to beat it. You can get into a part where
if you're two under leveled, you might be doing like
zero damage or one damage to the enemy, and it
might take a while to beat them, but you're never

(18:43):
going to be in a situation where you die. Well,
you can turn that on or off. There's a bunch
of other toggles. There is a graphics mode and a
performance mode. I left it on graphics mode. It's a
turn based game, and I don't care if that means that,
you know, it's sort of stuck at like thirty FPS
or something. It wasn't noticeable to my eye, and turning
it on the performance mode wasn't going to make it

(19:03):
better for a turn based game. So I just left
it at the default, which is the fidelity mode or
graphics mode, and it turned the game, you know, me
playing on a bunch of mixed settings back and forth
from what was like, like I said, up between a
four and like six hour game. You know, if you

(19:24):
played it fast on the original nes it turns it
into a twelve to maybe fourteen hour game. And I'm like,
you know, that's pretty darn good. And then you know,
you beat the game, you save it. You move on
to Dragon Quest two, which I had never played. I
owned it, and I owned it multiple times. I had

(19:45):
only played like the first couple hours and it was
too hard for me as a kid. The grind was
just too much for young Alex. But I had owned it,
and then I sold it when those games became worth
a lot of money. I think, I know, bought it
for five bucks at a garage sale, and I think
I sold for like eighty or one hundred Canadian dollars
back then, which is like, you know, probably about one

(20:05):
hundred and fifty two hundred dollars now when you consider
you know, inflation and everything, and you know, I was like, okay,
I knew that it was a direct sequel. So again,
this takes place multi generations down. The hero of the
first game has married the princess and their progeny and
like their children eventually spawned three other nations within the world.

(20:30):
And what you've done is you've taken the original world
of the first game, and that ends up being on
the map of the new game basically one quarter maybe
about a quarter or so, maybe even a little less
of the world, and then it expands beyond that and
you get to see the rest of the world, which
is where the new kingdoms are. And the basic premise

(20:51):
is a new threat has come into power, destroys one
of the kingdoms of your scions, your children and from
the original you know, great great, great, great great whatever
grandchildren and because of this, the other they all have
to band together and they're going to try to stop Hargon,

(21:12):
the the you know, evil high Priest, you know who's
worshiping you know, the devil or whatever, and you you know,
collect your party for the first time in the series,
you know, could play as multiple people. There's some more
quality of life stuff that's been added that I won't
mention because it might spoil it for some of the
people that have played previously. But you traverse the world.
It's very linear to start, and then the second half

(21:34):
of the game. It lets you go and you help
a bunch of different people in different areas. You get
a boat you can travel in. There's the ability to
go underwater and travel under underwater. This is you know,
it becomes a much more robust j RPG experience. Pretty
amazing for just the second game of the series. Now,
some of it obviously has been because of quality of
life updates, but uh, there's lots of NPCs. There's you know,

(22:00):
a coliseum. There is a sort of random chance lottery
based system within it where you buy a bunch of
stuff or sometimes you find them in chess, but you
buy a bunch of stuff and a shopkeeper will give
you tickets you can use in the raffles, and those
raffles can get you some pretty cool prizes. There's the
mini medals which are in both games, which I still

(22:22):
haven't found everything from them. There is some optional superbosses
to fight. It's a much more robust title, and I
think in my case again doing the mixed difficulty stuff,
I was like thirty five hours in there. So you
add that stuff together, you're looking at forty somewhere between
forty and fifty hours for both games, and that's not

(22:44):
to do a completionist round that's just to do basically
i'd say ninety percent of what's in the game. So
I was very impressed, and I can totally see why
they did have to pair it, because you could not
really have released Dragon Quest one on its own and
asked a full retail price for it in today's day
and age, you wouldn't have been able to do that.
But bundling it with you know, a game that is

(23:06):
a little more robust. But Dragon Quest two is a
little shorter. I'd say it's about five to ten hours
shorter than Dragon Quest three is on the whole. But
when you pair it with you know, oh, Dragon Quest one,
you end up getting slightly more gameplay value out of
it than you do even in the third game. So
it was a very smart move with it did. I'm

(23:26):
hoping that they end up continuing forward and doing four,
which I played a bit of four back in the day,
but I never played five or six, so you know,
we'll see how this series ends up continuing. But I've
been very impressed. Obviously, the music is fantastic, the gameplay
is great, there's all those quality and life updates. When
it comes to difficulty and settings. That way, there's the

(23:48):
fully voice acting part of it. The presentation is phenomenal.
There's just enough you know, modern hooks in there to
keep you engaged. And it was their biggest feat they
had was taking Dragon Quest one and modernizing it to
a point where it didn't feel like a forty year
old game. So, you know, very impressed with it that way.

(24:09):
I think this is going to be a great Christmas
present for people. It's probably gonna make our holiday gift guide,
so keep watch for that. Very impressed with what Square
Enix has done here, and we'll hope to see what
they do with the series moving forward.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Hey guys, this is Mike the Birdman here.

Speaker 7 (24:22):
I'm here to talking about something interesting from our friends
over at Inside Editions. They sent over a copy of
Flawless Victory, a visual history of the iconic series Mortal Kombat.
So I got to get the goro sized elephant out
of the room. Well show con size if you prefer.

(24:44):
There is some apparent AI upscaling in this or some
kind of an AI enhandser, and that mostly comes from
some of the character portraits. It's most noticeable on Malina,
Katana Scorpion sub Zero, and Sonya in their early portraits.
I noticed it specifically with Katana from Mortal Kombat too,

(25:06):
Molina from Mortal Kombat to sub Zero from Mortal Kombat
one and two, and Sonya. For sure, some of it's
a little less egregious than others, but it looks like
Katana should be maybe visiting a surgeon to maybe get
that looked at. Beyond that, though, the author Ian Flynn

(25:28):
put together some really interesting stuff in this book, and
I'm going to talk about some of the positives.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
The section that I went to immediately.

Speaker 7 (25:35):
Upon grabbing this book is at the end of this
nearly three hundred page book, or just a little bit over,
is the other Realm section.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
I wanted to know what weird stuff are they going
to talk about?

Speaker 7 (25:46):
So they talk about Mortal Kombat One, Mortal Kombat Annihilation,
Defenders of the Realm, Mortal Kombat Conquest.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
The Lacy Continues, and all the other properties.

Speaker 7 (25:56):
But the thing I really wanted to know is there
anything on the live action tour?

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Which there is some though some of these are screenshots
from the YouTube clip that's gone around for years where
I think they're in KTLA or something, and that's fine, whatever.
Not as much depth as I would have liked, but
you do get like a full colored flyer for the tour.

Speaker 7 (26:22):
Not as extensive as the Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection documentary
that was just put out by Digital Eclipse. You can
view that in its entirety on YouTube and it's really
worth a watch. But there was stuff here that I
felt was a little bit lacking, but I'm glad it
got some representation. I'm a huge merch guy, like I'm

(26:44):
the type of guy who might have the action figure
for when they did the Street Fighter Gi Joe's or
the Mortal Kombat Gi Joe's, and I have some of
that in here. In fact, the thing I found the
most interesting is I didn't know there was a Mortal
Kombat lunch box. I can't say I'm totally surprised by that,
but there's some kind of like a computer desk that
has like the arcade artwork from Mortal Kombat too, with

(27:07):
like raid and something like it.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I never knew that existed.

Speaker 7 (27:10):
I didn't even know the Mortal Kombat action figures had
a line of vehicles like you guys know from listening
to me. Over the course of this shows, in two
thousand and seven. I'm a toy guy, so that's what
I was really looking forward to seeing here. Now there
are some pretty good representations of in package examples of
some of the toys from this series, and again kind
of cool.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Was kind of hoping they go a little bit more
into the music.

Speaker 7 (27:34):
They obviously talking about the I think if I remember
recall correctly, they do talk about the Immortals CD, which
was the big thing that got the whole Mortal Kombat
techno syndrome thing.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
But there were also other albums released.

Speaker 7 (27:47):
There was the soundtracks of Mortal Kombat one and two,
Mortal Kombat, More Kombat, and the Arcade stuff, so I
was hoping there'd be a little bit more history with that,
but it is what it is. It's not like I
expect them to print up the liner notes from CDs
that are hard to find. But what this book does
have is it does show behind the scenes artwork and

(28:08):
some stuff you've seen in the crypt and everything. I
went to the cyber Ninja stuff, some stuff like Sector
Cyrax and Smoke, which was really cool. I started looking
up my other favorite ninja, Reptile, and.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Again there's some artwork here. I don't think I've seen,
but I'm pretty sure this would be available in the
crypt and other stuff.

Speaker 7 (28:27):
I haven't unlocked everything in every Mortal Kombat game, but
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
There's the thing that hangs.

Speaker 7 (28:35):
Heavy over this is the community response, and it's hard
to not acknowledge that with this. So what is my
recommendation of this book? I gotta say I did like
seeing some of these illustrations.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
But the reason I enjoy it a lot is because
I saw the Digital Eclipsed.

Speaker 7 (28:54):
Documentary first, and I'm thinking, I know where that's from.
I know John To did that because they showed some
of that in the documentary, and I thought that was
really need, especially seeing some of the original concept art
for Goro and Shang Lao, who would eventually become Shangsung.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
Like, Okay, that's cool. I dig that.

Speaker 7 (29:15):
One of the big questions I do have to ask, though,
is with Flawless Victory, how is this going to be
different than what Digital eclips is offering in their Collector's
Edition for Mortal Kombat, which comes out physically in December.
Though I think the Collector's Edition might be might be
further down the road. I'm not one hundred percent sure.

(29:38):
So I'm curious to know what that looks like. However,
as it stands, you can go into most major retailers
and pick this book up right now. Do I recommend
you pick this book up? Well, that's going to depend
on how much of a combatant you are, what are
you willing to overlook, and how much do you you

(30:00):
want to see stuff you may have already seen before.
I do think on some level this is cool, I
really do, and I'm not gonna deny that. I don't
like what they've done with the original Mortal Kombat portraits.
Why some characters get them and others don't like? Why
did I not get Sindel's portrait from Ultimate Mortal Kombat three,

(30:21):
for example, or something like that. I get you want,
like some of the big characters like Katana and Molina
are integral to the franchise, but it just it doesn't
look great and I don't know why this happened. And again,
if I'm wrong, please correct me. I think this book
would be worth it if it goes on sale. I

(30:45):
do think it's worth that when this drops below its
suggested retail price.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
I think I saw this in my local retailer for
about sixty bucks. That's a little high for me.

Speaker 7 (30:53):
If you could get this at around thirty or so,
I think that's a lot more reasonable. Personally, I do
think there could have been more included in this, but
I can also recognize that the Mortal Kombat community is
a very passionate one.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
And they know what they want.

Speaker 7 (31:14):
And because I'm coming back to the franchise since I
last reviewed Mortal Kombat one, It's been a while, but
I'm an old school guy. I used to play Mortal
Kombat one, two, and three in the arcade so much
so I used the hustle kids on Mortal Kombat too.
Dare I say I could even call myself a competitive
Mortal Kombat two player. Some of this feels like a disappointment,

(31:36):
but some of this really excites me. The fact that
I can have big pictures of Sector and Syrax and Scorpion,
all the different incarnations of sub Zero's costume. Here's what
Chao Khan's early designs look like. Here's what Irma's designs
have evolved over time.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Here's Kabal. If you ever want to look at that gross.

Speaker 7 (31:51):
Guy up close, you can do that again. I think
it's cool. I hope there will be more in the
future if they ever do, like an updated version of
this in maybe a couple of years.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Who knows. I have seen that happen before.

Speaker 7 (32:09):
Mortal Kombat is at a franchise that ever evolves, So yeah,
maybe we'll see more from this, But yeah, as it
stands right now, maybe wait for this to go on sale,
or maybe ask for it from Santa for Christmas. I'm
sure he can make a stopover from the nether Realm
for you. So Flawless Victory, a visual history of the
iconic series Mortal Kombat from Inside Editions as of right

(32:30):
now gets a wait for a sale if you're gonna
pick it up.

Speaker 8 (32:36):
Lunio City is waiting, inviting you to compete as a
Pokemon trainer in new dynamic battles when night falls the
best trainers lies. Are you prepared to face the challenge
and tackle the mysterious incidents happening in earlier city?

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Okay?

Speaker 7 (32:58):
My Legend z A available October sixteenth on Nintendo Switch
and Nintendo Switch two.

Speaker 6 (33:03):
Looks the producer here, and I'm continuing on with some
of the Nintendo stuff that they sent over for a review. Now,
these are probably going to be making I've mentioned this
before our holiday gift guide. So these are going to
be first impression slash early reviews because I previously talked
about the Mario Galaxy and Galaxy two games, and now

(33:25):
I'm taking out Pokemon legends. You know, za ZA. In Canada,
we would say z to A or z A. But
I am checking this out on the switch to I
know other people have already covered it. Mostly we're sort
of getting into it now. There's been a lot on

(33:45):
the go. I'm you know, several hours in I would say,
you know, as far as playing, and I'm more impressed
than I was going to expect. To be honest, I
was not a fan of the performance issues that some
previous games have had in the series, especially you know,

(34:07):
the last one. As we don't need to go into
that because that's not what we're here about. But I
can say this, there have been some interesting de Giant
choices with this title being basically around its scope and
what it is doing, what it isn't doing, what maybe
it should be doing.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
I'm not given to that.

Speaker 6 (34:26):
I am just basically here to talk about whether or
not it feels fun and if it's going to be
something that kids are going to like because that's ultimately
what it is. I am an adult approaching middle age
still playing Pokemon. You know, I was a super fan,
you know, in the first and second generation obviously, because
when the first you know, I got my copy of

(34:47):
Pokemon read when I was like ten years old, eleven
years old, I think maybe, so I was the perfect age.
And then you know, I had my copy of Goal,
my brother had Silver, and beyond that, it was sort
of hit or miss with me when it came to
playing them, because they I sort of outgrew the style
of RPG that they were, you know, being very entry level,
and then I sort of got sucked back in with

(35:09):
the switch when we started when I was working for
twig here and I you know, playing Sword and Shield
some of the other ones like let's Go Pikachu and
evuh and I've played Arcius or Archaeus and I was
impressed with that. Obviously, this isn't an extension of that
style of gameplay, not the flagship main games. And I
mean I can say this, I'm I'm having a pretty

(35:30):
good time. There's if I have any complaints with this,
it's that there isn't, you know, the diversity in the biomes.
There's a whole lot beyond what you see is what
you get. It's not as interactive. There is something to
be said about game freaks design philosophy kind of being
stuck twenty five years ago and like there's still like

(35:51):
around two thousand and one when it comes to game design.
But this style, you know, going to be a little
bit more action oriented, doing something a little different. It
does show that they're willing to do some expansion when
it comes to, you know, gameplay and innovations that way,
they still probably need to do some work when it

(36:12):
comes to presentation of just the graphical fidelity.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Of their games.

Speaker 6 (36:16):
But more important is performance wise. This plays a lot
better than the last game that was released, So that's
the most important part. Beyond the fact that it's just
it's fun. It is like it's undeniable, you know. The
presentation visually is you know, some of the better stuff
that they've put out before. Gameplay feel wise, it's great.

(36:39):
Kids are going to love it. It's obviously going to
be a big holiday seller. And you know, you're not
going to get any arguments for me on that. So
from what I've played so far, my first impressions are
that it is a lot better that I, as somebody
who has been a pretty big skeptic of the last
few releases have been, I was pretty impressed. So we'll

(37:01):
probably do more covers later on, maybe do a full review,
But as it stands, for my first impressions review, it's good,
and I'll say it's gonna make our holiday gift guide,
so we'll probably have more to talk about when that happens,
since you know, a few weeks from now. But I'm
very happy with what I've played so far, which is
a big surprise for me. And if you know me,
if you're a listener, and you know that I am

(37:22):
openly critical when I feel something is either stagnant or
I don't like the way something was presented. I'm fully
willing to admit that in playing it, I've had a
lot more fun than I was expecting. So take that
as you will. And I think that you know, if
you're already a fan, you've already you're already clamoring for it.
But if you're somebody who's been on the fence like me,
or either a lapsed fan or somebody who's been like

(37:44):
I don't know, you know what I'd say give it
a go.

Speaker 7 (37:46):
Hey guys, this is Mike the Birdman here. I'm here
to talk about something interesting. I got sent for my
friends over at Wizards of the Coast. I was given
access to the Marvels, Spider Man, Magic the Gathering sets.
So I was given a booster box, a booster bundle,
I believe, a couple of collectors boosters, and all the

(38:07):
welcome decks. This set is about two hundred and eighty
plus cards. I want to say, a lot of cool
chase cards, a lot of cool legendary the big poll
being obviously the sole Stone, which is from Thanosa's Infinity Gauntlets.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
I actually did.

Speaker 7 (38:22):
Pull a Soulestone, but not the really cool ten thousand
dollars one, because if that was the case, truth be told,
I'd probably still be here. But anyway, so I pulled
this set, and I gotta say I didn't get as
many hits as I was thinking I was going to.
And now that's not the reason why you buy a set.
That's not the way magic is. But I see there's

(38:43):
a very large community of people online who make pretty
much a living out of doing that. They pull cards,
they do live streams. I'm probably gonna do that probably
going forward, actually, just because it's a lot of fun
now to talk about my impressions of this set so far,
I gotta say I'm pretty big Marvel guy. I've always
loved Spider Man. Obviously, with great power comes great responsibility.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I'm a big fan of the.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Rogues Gallery, like you know Venom, Carnage, Dot, Chameleon, Vulture,
even you know characters like Hammerhead, Tombstone, some of the
lesser known guys.

Speaker 7 (39:21):
So in this set there's a lot of obviously Spider Man.
One of the big chases is the Spectacular Spider Man.
There's a bunch of different variations from the Spider Armor,
which I was really excited to see. There's the Bombasic
bag Man, which is a very big chase card and
it's pretty cool. There's also a lot of references to

(39:41):
some of the Spider Women, like Araq nine is one
of my favorite Spider Women of all time. I've always
loved that look. And yes I'm even acknowledging Sidney Sweeney
and Madam Webb as that version of Spider Woman. But
still very cool in terms of a set. One of
the weird things I did so I decided to do

(40:02):
a little bit of on the ground research for this,
and I went to a local card show.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Asking some local magic people what do you think about this?

Speaker 7 (40:11):
And the big consensus that I got is not a
lot of people are talking about this set outside of
like the really big hits. And I've even went down
to some local card shops and just asked around some
local players, like are you buying these?

Speaker 1 (40:28):
And it doesn't seem like a lot of people are.

Speaker 7 (40:30):
And I find that especially strange because everybody loves Spider Man,
like We're getting Spider Man brand new day next year,
and the cartoon is awesome, friendly neighborhood Spider Man on
Disney Plus, and the comics are great, and that's really
cool across the Spider Verse. Really got people hyped for.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
It in a long time.

Speaker 7 (40:48):
I mean, Miles Morales is in this set, and Spider
Gwen awesome card by the way, and I figured a
lot more people would be excited, and it just doesn't
seem to be the case.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Even on local store shelves.

Speaker 7 (41:02):
I'm seeing a lot of them around, even collector boosters
I'm seeing, which when I compare this to the first
set that I've looked at in a really long time,
the Final Fantasy stuff, that stuff flew off shelves, you
couldn't find that whatever, And I just I'm seeing Spider
Man everywhere and I don't quite know what.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
To make of that.

Speaker 7 (41:23):
So that aside mechanically some of these cards, I'm seeing
some interesting combinations that people are doing for Commander, which
I think is kind of neat, but it seems like
this set is not built for that, so much like
there weren't Commander decks for this I thought, honestly, there'd
be stuff like Fallout had it. I think Assassin's Creed

(41:44):
had it and stuff like that, and I was really
expecting there to be Spider Men themed decks, if you will,
and I didn't see that, and that was honestly a very,
very very big surprise to be Now as to whether
you should collect this set, I think in some ways
it is kind of cool, but I do wish there

(42:05):
was more excitement in the community.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
And again, I'm so new to this.

Speaker 7 (42:09):
I'm still learning on who to take advice from, but
I'm following the advice of my own community, and I'm
just I'm not seeing a lot of the hype here
and it sucks because I'm a big Spider man guy,
and I really wanted to get excited for this.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Now pulling some of the cards, I started.

Speaker 7 (42:26):
Getting ideas like okay, could I do a Spider Gwen
and a Morales them deck? And I'm thinking, Okay, maybe
I've got some ideas here, because there's interesting things with
tokens you can do. There's a lot of really cool
abilities in this set. From what I understand, Am I
a magic expert?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
No?

Speaker 1 (42:43):
What I like to be?

Speaker 7 (42:44):
Yes, I felt like there was a lot more synergy
in the Final Fantasy set that I'm seeing here, and
that's something I do understand.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
One other minor.

Speaker 7 (42:56):
Quibble that I have with this is I felt like
some of the artwork for certain cards just doesn't pop.
Like there's some really weird like I got a lot
of like here's like a random bagel or something, or
here's like a police swat team or stuff like that,
and like, Okay, that's cool, but where's like my George Stacey,

(43:18):
where's you know?

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Just little things like that. I don't know. I guess
I was expecting.

Speaker 7 (43:23):
Maybe a little bit more, and maybe with more Marvel
collaborations down the road, I will see that reflected in
future Marvel sets. But as of right now, I'm going
to say, if you're a Marvel collector, maybe the best
way to go about this is buying the singles, like,
look at what the cards do. Build your deck around

(43:45):
the singles, because I think with the collector stuff from
all the things I've seen, pulling hits is hard and
I'm honestly very surprised I didn't pull one of the
super big hits. Honestly, I was really hoping to get
Anti then I'm horrifying Healer because I'm thinking I could
really do some damage with that, and I never got it.

(44:05):
Now I know you can get a version of that
with I want to say, one of the Marvel Legends
collaborations they're doing right now.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
So if you want a cool action figure, you'll get
the card.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
So I don't know, but yeah, I'm gonna say Magic
the Gatherings spider Man set is if you're a magic guy,
maybe see if you can get a deal on stuff.
I can see this staying at around retail, at least
from what I've seen in my local communities for this,
I wish the excitement was there for this, So unfortunately

(44:34):
this kind of falls on the Parker luck. But hey,
who knows what will happen. Maybe things will change as
the community gets these cards more into play and tournaments
and all that stuff. Maybe we'll see some really amazing
combos comes out. But for now, I'm gonna say it's
looking like it's gonna be a brand new day for
Spider Man and well maybe Mefisto has taken the excitement

(44:56):
from the community in exchange for another upcoming universe as set.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Hey y'all, this is David from Luce, Cannon and Ram
coming to you with another great book recommendation from our
friends over at Titan Books. Unfortunately, we are moving past
the spooky season, which I know isn't as exciting for
those of us that love the Halloween festivities. But what
if I told you this year that the holidays don't
have to be fluffy and nice. What if I told
you that the ultimate Christmas horror story, made popular by

(45:26):
an infamous eighty slasher, is now being offered up as
one of the best film novelizations I've read in years. Well,
my friends, you've made it through Halloween and now try
to survive Christmas. As Titan Books proudly presents the immortal
Holiday slasher Silent Night Deadly Night, the official novelization of
the original movie by Armanda Munas. That's right, the film
that made parents picket, movie theaters, TV stations pull the ads,

(45:50):
and Cisco and Ebert publicly shamed the director, the writer,
and producers is now available to read in a four
hundred page novel that most horror fans are not ready for.
It's Christmas Eve nineteen seventy one, and five year old
Billy Chapman witnesses his parents being brutally murdered by a
psychopath and a Santa suit. Billy and his little brother
are then left in the care of the Catholic orphanage

(46:10):
run by the sadistic Mother Superior. Jumping forward to December
of nineteen eighty four, Billy is now eighteen years old
and trying to live a normal life. But when he's
recruited to play Santa Claus at Iris Toys, his trauma
cannot be contained, as Billy snaps and begins a bloody rampage,
punishing all those who he deems naughty. Will Billy make
his way back to the orphanage to punish Mother Superior?

(46:31):
Trust me when I say you will want to read
this book and find out as someone who's been a
lifelong fan of SILENTI Deadly Night franchise. I thought I
knew the story and the horrors of Billy's Christmas Eve rampage,
but Muna's at the helm of the Yuletide trip to Hell.
No one is ready for what is on the pages
of this novelization. Not only will you get to experience
all the carnage you know and love from the classic film,

(46:52):
like Billy's use of antlers for impalement, bullies on sleds
losing their heads, the axe wielding and archery supplied massacre
inside of Iris Toys, but even more deliciously disturbing and
depraved details the film didn't provide, like grandpa sadistic behavior
inside the hospital, Billy's life outside of Saint Mary's, the
grim backstory and demise of the Santa Claus psychopath, Sister

(47:15):
Margaret's unhealthy obsession with Billy, the massacre of cocaine driven
carollers outside of Nativity, and so much more. Santa's Watching.
Santa is waiting for you to add some eighties insanity
to your holiday season this year, and this is the
novelization that will do it. Armando Munas is clearly a
fan of the source material and worked one on one
with co executive producers of the film to bring you

(47:37):
the ultimate version of Silent Night, Deadly Night we never
got until now. Christmas Eve will be the scariest night
of the year if you don't grab yourself a copy
of the book that the Pta Catholic Church and Mother's
for Morality would deem uber sleazy. Silent Night, Deadly Night,
the official novelization of the original film by Armando Munas,
available now at Titanbooks dot Com.

Speaker 6 (47:57):
Alex the producer here just with a very quickie review
of Siberia Remastered now. Siberia is a game that I
think a lot of people have probably seen when it
comes to screenshots or box art, but probably haven't you know, played,

(48:18):
or maybe they did, or they they're not entirely sure
if they remember it or not. But what's funny about
it is it is one of the adventure titles from
what I call the lost era of adventure titles, you know,
out of the heyday of like the late eighties, early nineties,

(48:44):
but also before sort of the renaissance happened in the indie.

Speaker 9 (48:48):
World in like.

Speaker 6 (48:52):
The last five to ten years.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Right, So.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
What we had here was a series that you know,
for anybody of the uninitiated, there was I guess a
Marizon in nineteen eighty nine, Siberia was two thousand and two,
and there's there's a second, a third, a fourth game,
and then there's like remakes and remasters that came out
this year. So what's interesting is they've done it, says remastered,

(49:20):
but it's more like a complete rebuild because the original
game had that you know, late nineties early two thousands,
three D you know world view in aesthetic, especially even
the camera angles in that, and what you have now
is a like full blown ground up remake, much better, lighting,
much better, well basically everything and the whole presentation is

(49:45):
just you know, much higher. Now what's interesting is, you know,
for somebody like myself who had never played it maybe briefly,
you know, touched upon it back in the day, I
went in and went completely blind to play it. And
what you're playing through is, uh, you're basically playing a
lawyer who's tasked with selling and overseeing the sale of

(50:09):
a major company, and the journey across from Europe and
Russia to find the brother of the deceased owner of
the business.

Speaker 5 (50:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
Now there is.

Speaker 6 (50:23):
The stuff you learn about personal life of the of
the main character you're there's also you know, the intrigue
and the mysteries involved. And I don't want to spoil
anything just saying that it follows a really good path.
It's one of those things where you could see this
being adapted and turned into like a TV show or movie. Uh.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
And it just has that, you know, that good.

Speaker 6 (50:43):
Adventure style, you know, gameplay and a big, big boost
to the graphics and lighting and everything atmosphere is good.
Audio is good, controls are good, everything is solid. If
you're a fan of you know, adventure titles, especially more
modern ones that take the like three the World stuff.
If you've liked perhaps like the Agatha Christie style ones

(51:04):
like the Buro games or the Sherlock Holmes games that
have been released in recent years, that's a similar analog
to this, and I think you'll really like it. But
this was again from that lost era of late nineties
early two thousands of adventure titles, at least i'd say
lost in the West, like North America, they were still
thriving in Europe and other parts of the world. Just

(51:25):
it's nice to see them come back, and I think
Microids has done a good job with you know, publishing this,
and it's much more extensive of a remastering quotes than
I was expecting.

Speaker 7 (51:37):
Hey, guys, this is Mike the Byrdman here. I'm here
to talk to about one of the latest releases from Modifius.
I'm gonna be talking about Star Trek Adventures of the
role playing game the twenty third century campaign.

Speaker 8 (51:48):
Guy.

Speaker 7 (51:49):
However, before I go any further in this impressions, I
do have to mention I am a freelance contributor for
Star Trek Adventures by Modis. I did contribute stuff for
this book into which I was compensated and I was
paid for. I did receive a complimentary copy of the
book in PDF, and I will be receiving.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
A print copy at some point.

Speaker 7 (52:13):
So what I'm gonna talk about today is my experiences
with the book, and you can decide to do with
that what you want. This is not necessarily an endorsement.
These are just my thoughts of having a chance to
put this in play.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
At my table.

Speaker 7 (52:29):
The twenty third century is the original series. It's the
motion pictures are from Star Trek. The motion picture all
the way to Star Trek, the Undiscovered Country, and to
a lesser extent, the little bit of Star Trek generation
that happens just before Kirk dies.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Sorry spoiler for like a thirty year old movie, right.
I think it's interesting. This is the Star Trek that
I didn't actually start on.

Speaker 7 (52:51):
I grew up on TNG, So going back to revisit
the movies for this was kind of fun. And just
seeing some of the optional new rules where you can
do stuff with traump and casualties on your ship and fatigue,
but also new rules for environment options whether you're on
Andria or Beta Z or Denoid.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Or tell Our Prime.

Speaker 7 (53:11):
I want to say it's kind of cool. I love that,
and just getting the tone of this time in Star
Trek is very unique because you have so many things
going on. You've got the conflict with the Klingons, the Ramulans,
You've got stuff going on with the Gorn, the Tholians.

(53:31):
But the book does an interesting way in blending it
all together, and some of the other writers contributed some
really interesting stuff in there, especially in how it's written.
One of the things I really want to draw attention
to is actually some of the artwork and I found
that kind of neat. There's stuff done in the twenty
third century that's lower deck style, and even in the
animated series not gonna lie, I thought that was.

Speaker 8 (53:53):
Kind of cool.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
But it's just in terms of a book that if
you wanted to write something, I would consider this pretty
much essential if you wanted to run anything in the
twenty third century, if you had this, the Technology Book
and the Exploration Guide, which came out earlier this year,
you would have a pretty awesome thing. And in my game,

(54:16):
I'm actually going to be adapting some of the rules
here where it talks about casualties and I hope my
players aren't listening because you've got trouble coming. But again,
and even to talk about when this stuff happens, you
have to think about what happens during this, the destruction
of Practice, the whale probe vejure, just all these major

(54:38):
galactic shaking events. And that's to say nothing of Genesis
stuff like that. I mean, like, there's so many things
in here that you can weave into your game where
you are literally exploring the galaxy at the same time
as Kirk Sulu Chekhov, Ohara Spock and Scottie I'm pretty
sure in any but yeah, it's like you are out

(55:02):
there doing this, and I think for game masters and
players this can Especially if you're an older Star Trek fan,
I think having this will really help bring color into
your game. And even if you're a newer fan for
Strange New World and Discovery, it does bring new stuff
in there because that stuff is also talked about as well.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
So what are my thoughts on this?

Speaker 7 (55:28):
Like I said, because I'm a contributor, I can't give
you a review because that would be, you know, not cool.
But as a Star Trek fan, I think it's neat.
I do, and for someone who's not had every single
episode memorized of the original series or the movies for example,

(55:48):
I think this is a lovely trip down memory lane.
And I know I feel enriched as a person who's
running a Star Trek Adventures game right now. In my
private life, this will help me when I start doing
time travel stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I think it would be kind of neat to.

Speaker 7 (56:06):
Bring my players maybe right into the Genesis conflict, maybe
someone steals Genesis and maybe Spock doesn't die right there's
some time travel shenanigans I could do.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
How might that shape up?

Speaker 7 (56:23):
Things going forward, right, Maybe that might change the events
of Star Trek four. Maybe Spock needed to die to
connect with the whales in some way. Maybe that changed
him over the course. Again, that's the beauty of role
playing in storytelling. You can do whatever you want, but
having tools that inform your storytelling.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Decisions, I think it's pretty interesting.

Speaker 7 (56:44):
So once again, Star Trek Adventures second Edition, the twenty
third century Campaign Guide is available now from modifius.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
If you want to check out some of the stuff
that I wrote in there.

Speaker 7 (56:54):
I wrote some of the sidebars like don't ask where
it came from was one of my personal favorite ones
that I wrote. I also wrote about a hospital ship
during the Klingon Civil War in the early days, stuff
like that. I talked about sabotage with the Ramulens, and

(57:16):
if you use any of my characters or ideas in
your game, so that'd be kind of cool to know.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
So email us feedback at this. We can keep done that,
but check it out.

Speaker 7 (57:26):
I would really like to hear what your thoughts are.
So once again, those are my thoughts.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
This is not a review.

Speaker 7 (57:32):
These are just impressions that I have Because I didn't
write everything. I just wrote a little a couple of
pieces of fiction.

Speaker 6 (57:53):
I wonder how this goodly creature is now here?

Speaker 7 (57:58):
How beauteous mankind?

Speaker 10 (57:59):
Is bravery world that has such people.

Speaker 11 (58:02):
At all these years I've been planning my revenge against
Avon Barnes and all the world.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
We don't care about these people's well being.

Speaker 9 (58:17):
We just want to get the most and sky high
and then have them repeat until.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
They up and za, it's wailed. It's time to fuck
shin up.

Speaker 8 (58:32):
Stop such heavily touches in their touch Jersey's.

Speaker 5 (58:37):
Faces, She'll just.

Speaker 10 (58:44):
Come out, Jill, suck my balls.

Speaker 8 (58:59):
These violent delights have violent ends.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Tears track pro.

Speaker 6 (59:10):
This one's been a little while in the making, that's right.
The newest trauma feature film, directed by Lloyd Kaufman hashtag
Shakespeare shit Storm, which was you know, obviously based on
The Tempest from Shakespeare, but has been released on you

(59:31):
know home video four k Ultra Blu Ray plus regular
Blu Ray.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
A little while ago. Actually this was.

Speaker 6 (59:40):
During Birdman's birthday week. We received it. We ended up
watching it at his birthday together and we're just now,
you know, having a chance to go back and watch
all the special features and have you know, just a
very quick review of it, because we ended up loving
it a lot more than we're expecting. It is lower

(01:00:01):
budget than even previous trauma pictures have been. I know
that it was produced, you know, during the pandemic is
but the best way to describe it over the course
of a while.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
But they.

Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
Absolutely loaded it with tons of features, as you'd expect
most trauma releases to do. I personally haven't seen Lloyd
Coffin's return to Newcomb High one and two, so in
between like this and the previous one, I hadn't seen
anything that he had done since Poultrygeist or poultry Geist,

(01:00:37):
which is like almost twenty years ago now actually, And
in going back, I can see that there's still the
love for the schlock, but also the love for the
message behind it. And there is a fair amount of
good special effects, actual funny jokes, the right kind of
over the top characters describing the plot. You kind of

(01:00:59):
have to watch for yourself. I will say this, as
far as special features are concerned and how it looks
being on a four K disc, it's not like this
was going to have like massive differences when it comes
to color depth and even like tone mapping, or anything
like that. As far as I could tell it, even

(01:01:20):
though it's on four K, it I didn't see my
TV switch into like Dolby Atmos about or anything. Is
just the normal release in four K, but it does
have a ton of features. There's the standard opening that
you get from Lloyd Kaufman where he introduces the film,
which he's been doing ever since they put out VHS
releases in the eighties and nineties. There is producers and

(01:01:44):
cast commentaries over that. There is a bunch of behind
the scenes features equaling like hours of extra content, theatrical trailers.
There is just different and little skits and things that
they did during the pandemic, things to protest Russia's invasion

(01:02:07):
of the Ukraine. There is a full length behind the
scenes documentary. It's like it's easily over an hour with
other features included there. There is the original songs in
the movie highlighted, a bunch of other stuff. The main
movie and the introduction and the commentary is on the

(01:02:29):
four K disc and on the Blu ray disc is
where you have all the special features, and it's it's
pretty solid. It's weird to say this, but I think
Trauma is more and more important to you know, film art,
maybe even society now than they've ever been. So I'm

(01:02:49):
just happy to see that, you know, uncle Lloyd is
still making movies and hopefully we see more from him soon.
This is not gonna be for absolutely everybody.

Speaker 8 (01:02:57):
This is not the movie to.

Speaker 6 (01:02:59):
Get you into Troma. This is the movie for Trauma fanatics.
And I do like that they put this out shortly
after the Toxic Avenger remake or reimagining came out, as
hopefully this is something that will, you know, people will
be spurred onto watching after they check out the Toxic
Avenger because I'm just very happy that, you know, in

(01:03:20):
twenty twenty five, we're still seeing brand new, high quality
releases from Trauma. Alex the producer here with just a
quickie review. Our friends over at Namkamandai sent a review
copy of Tales of Cilia. Now, this is a game
that I played back on the PS three when it launched,

(01:03:41):
and what's interesting to me is I didn't remember anything
about it. It was one of the later era, mid
to later era PS three titles, and there's obviously Tales Diluted.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Two I had played.

Speaker 6 (01:03:56):
These are probably not they weren't the first Tales games
that I played, but they were sort of like fairly
early on in the games that I had played in
the series, and I had a blast. When I remember
playing it. Initially, I didn't remember anything about the story
except a few key things that you know, in playing
it now, I'm not going to reveal because it's part

(01:04:17):
of like the main main you know, plot reveals. But
in going back and playing it now, this remastered version
has a bunch of quality of life updates, the major
ones being that you know, what they've changed is they've
access to the Grade shop. Early if you know the
Tales games, when you do things in the game like

(01:04:39):
viewing a lot of skits, beating it sort of enemies
like little internal achievements will add to the great quotes,
and at the end of the game, when you beat
it and you do like a new game plus, you
can open up the grade menu, and the grade menu
allows you to spend those points to do things like
double your experience game, double the money gained, you know,

(01:04:59):
lower or increase you know, certain damage dealt difficulty settings,
keep certain items that sort of stuff it. Basically, it's
like unlocking like new game plus fun stuff and what
they've done is they've given you the ability to access
the shop early. Basically when you start the game, you
can turn them monor off. It gives you all the

(01:05:19):
points that you need to basically unlock everything if you
choose to, so you can basically on top of changing
the difficulty like there's you know, easy, medium, hard, and
so on in Nightmare or whatever in the game, you
can then modify beyond that by changing things in the
grade system as well to tweak it to your own settings.
They've added destination icons which will show you, you know,

(01:05:41):
how far away from a certain task here you are,
which is very critical because that is one thing I
remembered about the original game is that you could get
lost pretty easy because it's not a very large game.
This is something I'll say if you've only been playing
like the most recent Tales games, like the very very
early Tales games that were two D were very large
and expansive games with like grand things happening. The most

(01:06:05):
recent couple like Tales of Her Eyes or even I
would say Tales of Graces, which obviously is is what
came later after this when it comes on when it
came on PS three. The last couple of releases from
Tales have been a little grander. This was from a
middling era of the franchise where they were medium budget

(01:06:29):
double A games. There weren't really triple A titles that
that didn't come to later. In scope, it's a smaller game.
There's not a ton of the world you're going to traverse.
This was probably and probably will be the more I
would say divisive aspect. Zillion Zilly two have a smaller

(01:06:53):
scope and a lot less biomes and worldly travel tours.
There is a bunch of backtracking back and forth out,
lots of cutscenes, and lots of cool things happening. Obviously,
it's just not as grand as I would say, maybe
you know, as some of the other titles in the series,
And that was much more noticeable to me now going

(01:07:13):
back and playing it after what close to fifteen years
or more twenty years whatever it is since this came out,
and I can say the quality of life stuff they've
added has really added to the overall enjoyability, especially I
think if you're a newcomer, because you can really customize
your play how you want. The destination icons really help,

(01:07:34):
and the enemy en countertoggle if you just want to
go out and like do a gathering of resources. You
can turn off the enemy encounters toggle and then basically
enemies you'll run right through them, you won't touch them,
you won't go into battle. So if you're really trying
to like grind up leveling up your like city stats
and stuff, that's how you can do it. Because in

(01:07:54):
this game, you can go to any like shop, Let's
say you want to go to an item shop or anything,
and you can actually donate money or donate resources that
you find in the field to upgrade the level of
each shop, and the higher the level, the more items
that are available, newer items, better items, as well as

(01:08:14):
things like discounts on items, and that is how you
get you know, you want better weapons, you have to
raise the level of the shop before you can purchase them.
So having the enemy encounter ability to be turned off
really helps. If you just want to spend like, put
headphones on, listen to some music, spend ten minutes running
around the field back and forth, gathering items as they
populate that you can then return, you know, sell them

(01:08:36):
to the shop, upgrade your stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
You know, move on.

Speaker 6 (01:08:39):
So it's a very streamlined game that way. The voice
acting is pretty good for the most part. I will
say this going back and watching it since then. The
script is pretty rough there there is this is anime
the game and mostly the right ways. But I can
say this that it's not the it's not a philosopher's

(01:09:05):
thinking person's RPG. I'll say that it is pretty straightforward.
It sometimes thinks that it's smarter than it is, but
it makes up for it with having a pretty fun
battle system that was very similar and sort of carried
forward in a few titles. If you have played the
last few games of the Tail series, you know what

(01:09:28):
I mean. The big one being if you're somebody who's
only new to Tales from the Arise game, the Rise
has a very different, more modern battle system, and that
was one of the selling features. So just know that
this battle system is a little more primitive and this
is sort of what the franchise was kind of known
for for about a ten year period with a bunch
of different games, So keep that in mind when you

(01:09:50):
play it. I think you'll have a good time. The
price point depending on the country, and it's pretty good.
It's not like a full modern retail triple A price
price at a double a price which is pretty much
in line with what the game is. That with all
the other features, you know, like the early great chop access,
the destination icons, and the enemy encounters toggle. Having that

(01:10:15):
is massive and really adds to the value. But if
you're looking for an RPG to play, you know, I
would say, honestly, in between some of the bigger games
that you're going to be playing, this is a great
one to go to. And now it's no longer stuck
on the PS three, Like I checked, I own this
digitally on the PS three or no I have yet?

(01:10:37):
Do I have it digitally? I think I either have
it digitally or I might have my case with my discimwheer.
But I remember I still own this the original version,
so you know, but that hardware is aging. It was
also one thing to mention here. Originally it was like
seven to twenty p and I think it was sixty
fps in battles, thirty fps in the field and in cutscenes,

(01:10:59):
and obviously there's like thirty fps or twenty four frames
or three fs fully animated you know, anime scenes and
a few parts that remains the same here, But the
game does play. I don't know if it's internally resolution
at that, but it does play at four K. On
the PS five, it plays in four K. Everything is
at sixty. I didn't encounter any frame rate drops, so

(01:11:22):
both field and battles and cut scenes that are in
game engine cut scenes are now all playing at sixty.
So that's a big, big boost here. So it's a
pretty good remaster and something that's no longer stuck on
the PS three generation, So I definitely think it's worth
checking out for IPG fans.

Speaker 7 (01:11:37):
Hey guys, it's Mike the byrd Man. I'm back and
I'm here to talk about something. Yes, spooky season may
be over, but scary movies never stop. And I'm here
to talk about something we got sent from our friends
over at Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. I'm talking about a
movie that came out earlier this summer, the movie Weapons
by director Zach Kreger. This is a very strange movie.

(01:12:02):
First time I've ever seen anything by this director. I
think he did the movie Barbarian if I'm not mistaken.
And I went into this mostly because I thought the
trailers looked interesting. Late one night, mysteriously, an entire class
of children just goes missing, with the exception of their
teacher and one other kid, and obviously the town is

(01:12:25):
up in arms.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
They want answers. And it's not as simple as you
may think. This movie has an amazing cast.

Speaker 7 (01:12:33):
Fanos is in it, Han Solos in it, Long from
the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Julie Garner leads it as
the teacher. And it's an amazingly effective, yet weird movie.
But I will say this about this. The ending will

(01:12:54):
take you by surprise. Do not look it up. But
i will say this, Watch this movie. It's really good.
After you've absorbed it and seen that through once, go
back and watch the ending. And I'm just gonna say this,
Benny Hill, You're welcome. Now that being said, let's continue on.

(01:13:16):
Like I said, movie is fantastic, absolutely worth a watch.
Cannot recommend it enough. Now where this falls short as
a disc is I think special features should be longer
than stuff you can find on YouTube. I'm not saying
I'm expecting everybody to have the same level as the
Superman disc which came out from Warner Brothers earlier this year,

(01:13:39):
which had a very extensive making up and a lot
of special features on it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
This one, they all.

Speaker 7 (01:13:46):
Feel like stuff you get off an ePK, and that
just may come down to how much money did they
have to spend putting together the disc, and maybe they
didn't expect this they do as well.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:13:58):
I really feel certain movies, especially a horror movies, benefit
from director and cast commentary.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
There's the kid in this, the main child. I would
love to hear what he thinks about this stuff.

Speaker 7 (01:14:13):
But then again, I guess there's some stuff you can't
really comment on, but with the ivent of technology, you
can only bring him in to talk about his parts
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
But to hear what Zach might say.

Speaker 7 (01:14:22):
I'd be very curious, because during the special features he
talks about I came up with this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
Scene in the shower. I was inspired.

Speaker 7 (01:14:29):
I didn't know what the story was until I started writing,
and that's very much my creative process as well.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
I get an idea and I just kind of go
and see where it happens. When the keyboard stops.

Speaker 7 (01:14:41):
Weapons is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and like
I said, it's a really good time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
It's just a really weak physical disc.

Speaker 7 (01:14:49):
However, on the Blu ray disc copy that I got,
you also get a digital code, which again nice to have,
nice to be able to stream this anywhere. So Weapons
worth owning at this current time, I'm going to say
in this release, probably not only because I think the
special features are weak.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
The movie itself is fantastic.

Speaker 7 (01:15:12):
Now if there is an addition that comes out later,
then yes, if you can get this in the most
stunning definition ever with a bunch of special features, Like
I said, I would really push for a deep making
of and I would absolutely dare I say, demand a
director's commentary. I want to peek inside this guy's head

(01:15:32):
and see what is kind of rolling around in there,
because I've.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
Got some questions.

Speaker 7 (01:15:37):
But overall, Weapons is definitely worth streaming if you can
get this for Christmas. Hey, free stuff is free stuff.
So yeah, that's gonna be my recommendation for Weapons on
Blu Ray with a digital code. Big thanks to Warner
Brothers for sending a copy of this over and uh,
well you're not going to see that ending coming, I
assure you.

Speaker 6 (01:16:00):
Fujifilm our friends at Fujifilm have sent over a really
cool device for us to check out review and that
is the in Stacts of Mini Link three, specifically Super
Mario Edition. Now We've talked about their products in the past,
you know when it comes to their instant cameras as
well as the in stacks uh you know Mini Links before,

(01:16:22):
which is the portable printer where you can connect you know,
your your phone to it, send pictures and print on
the go. It's portable, it's compact to put it away.
Now what's interesting is this is the first time that
I've seen them partner up with Nintendo. And what you
get is you get the in Sacts Mini Link three

(01:16:43):
printer with a you know, Mario coin block themed protective
you know, silicon case that you put around it, which
is it's just something kind of neat if you're looking
to get something for kids or you know, to print with.
It's it almost harkens back to me thinking about like
the game Boy printer or something, you know, back in
the day.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:17:03):
Now, obviously this isn't made by Nintendo themselves, but the
fact that they've partner with them, giving them the license
and the silicon cover. There's also advertisements showing that you
can obviously connect your switch to your phone. So the
idea is you use your switch or switch to to
uh to like print pictures from your phone, but you
could send those pictures from your screenshots from the games

(01:17:26):
over to your phone. Then you know, crop them, doever
you want, print them up, you know, and you know
end up saving uh, you know, your your memories that way.
And you can get a bunch of different uh you know,
in stacks uh you know, photo prints that you can
get different borders for them. Sometimes they have like you know,
fancier uh stock paper for it. There's a bunch of

(01:17:46):
different ones you can get. And the idea is you
then can just print directly. And it's really cool because
I have not seen a company, you know, go this
route before with partnering with an antenda for this kind
of product. And as we've covered their previous instincts mini
links in the past, you know, it's just a solid,

(01:18:10):
solid device and now you've got a really cool silicon
protector for it. And basically on the one side, it
says super Mario's got Mario's face with the orangey yellow
background golden color which is for the block. And if
you turn it on the opposite side, you see the
question mark block and you see Mario's hand fist going
up to hit the block. And then the idea is

(01:18:30):
he hits it and outprints the picture. Really neat stuff.
If you're looking for something a little different for the
gamer when it comes to like the holidays, this might
be something to consider if they've already got you know,
the Fuji come stuff in the past. But also because
it's the portable printer, you don't need to have had
specifically you know, their products to use. You can just

(01:18:52):
use your smartphone, connect to it via their app and
Bluetooth and print it that way. It just might be
something cool for the gamer out there that, you know,
you try to think, WHOA, I don't know what they want.
You know, they like games, but they might buy the
games themselves. This is something cool to add to their
collection that they can actually find useful. And you know what,
it's got the silicon cover. It's great. But if they

(01:19:13):
want to make it a little more professional, they don't
want to take it on the go. Maybe they're they're
worried about having their Mario thing out there. You just
take the cover off and you can use the the
printer as is, or you throw it on there for
like some neat little flare. Our friends at Turtle Beach
sent over Gaming Mouse for us to check out. This
is something that I have not covered from them, the

(01:19:34):
more we've always covered headsets and game controllers. Well, they
sent over the Burst to Pro, which is their high performance, lightweight,
wireless esports mouse, and oh boy, it is pretty lightweight
but also very responsive. I have large man hands and
it doesn't feel too small or too big. It's sort

(01:19:55):
of the right medium in size when it comes to
you know, for me at least, and I can say
this it's it's from first look, it's got pretty much
what you would expect and want, you know, the standard
DEPI switch, you know. The difference is what they're advertising

(01:20:16):
is that it's one hundred million clicks that you can
do before it wears out. I don't know how you
would test that a hundred million clicks, but that being said,
that shows confidence in this. The big feature for me,
you know, even taking away any other marketing speakers think
it has n video reflex support. The idea is as

(01:20:39):
low latency as you could possibly get from you know,
a you know, wireless mouse. But the biggest feature for me,
because this is going to be something that sells it
beyond the gaming space of just being a high performance,
really good quality mouse, which is what it is is
that it's got up to one hundred and fifty hours

(01:20:59):
of game time you know when you're using it, you know,
before the batteries die. And that, my friends, is a
very big deal. Now, when I've used you know, mice
in the past, even you know, I would say business
class or high quality. You know, you're generally looking at

(01:21:23):
I get somewhere between forty and fifty hours of straight
use if it's in like a high performance mode. So
the fact that you know, this gets up two hundred
and fifty hours at one Killer Hurts polling rate. Now,
polling rate is when how fast is communicating and how
frequently it's communicating between the you know, the host and

(01:21:44):
the and the the I guess client. So in this case,
you know, one Killer Hurts is better than what you
get from like entry level or like regular business mice.
It's already a gaming class speed. Now, if you go
up to eight Killer Hurts, which is significantly faster and

(01:22:05):
lower latency, it will go down to about forty hours.
But that is way way above anything you see with
pretty much any wireless mouse out there. It also includes
like grip tape, low friction skates in the bottom, which
I can say that's pretty pretty confidently that it's very
well designed as far as the tracking of it, it

(01:22:29):
feels accurate. The DPS button is a depise switch, is
good and easy to use. It's just a solid, you know,
pretty portable mouse that I would say is good in
most cases. In my case, you know, it's a black mouse.
It matches any athetic. You know, you can get it
for work and nobody has to know it's a gaming mouse.
And I'd say it's going to be a good gift

(01:22:49):
if you're getting somebody, you know, a new setup for
Christmas or something like that, So maybe keep an eye out.
Will probably include it in our holiday gift guide as well,
once I've had a little more time to really, you know,
daily drive it and use it. But I'm very satisfied
with the Turtle Beach Burst two pro so far.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Those magnificent beats.

Speaker 8 (01:23:07):
Color mee kookie. But something very odd is going on
around here.

Speaker 10 (01:23:10):
You're not allowed to talk anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
And that's going to do it for the show this week.
What do we have coming up? Well?

Speaker 6 (01:23:18):
As of this recording, we will be having an Earth
Versus soup on Abbot and Costello meet the Invisible Man,
and then next week's episode is going to be Abbt
and Costello meet the Mummy. So continuing on with the
I guess the Universal Monsters mash up with Abbot and
Costello that they've covered pretty much. I think they're covering

(01:23:40):
all over the next little bit. We also have an
episode of Future Imperfect coming on Judge Dread and the
Dread you know remake or new adaptation that happened in
twenty twelve, as well as fairly soon. Not sure exactly

(01:24:02):
which day yet, but we're going to be having an
episode of Luce Canon on the goofy movies, the both
cartoon movies from the nineties, So that's what's on the go.
We're actually recording a bunch of new stuff too, but
that's what's looking like it's coming up over the next oh,
let's say a week or so, unless you know, things
shift around. I know Birdman is working on some other

(01:24:25):
interesting projects. We've got a few that we've gotten on
the go. We're continuing on with Future Imperfect, recording new
stuff for revisits of the motion pictures you know in
the series. We're going to do two shots of each
Star Trek one and two three and four, five and six,
and so on, And the plan is we're going to
be releasing those likely during the holiday break when we're off,

(01:24:48):
so we have something pretty much every week or every
other week where we're we're talking trek or talking some
form of science fiction. We've we've actually been recording some
really interesting things lately of and we've got some random
but weird and interesting concepts. We're going to do some
movie pairings that have similar themes, but maybe some of
them are loosely themed and some of them are very

(01:25:09):
tightly themed together, so we will see with that. I
know that Birdman's also got a bunch of stuff on
the goal that he's doing for Loose Cannon that I'm
not a part of other than helping with the back
end editing and that sort of stuff. So we'll see
that coming up soon. But that is going to do
it right now for this week. We'll be back likely

(01:25:30):
on Monday, as long as everybody's feeling one hundred percent
better right here at this week in geek dot Net.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you
even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.

Speaker 10 (01:25:46):
Thanks for listening to this episode of This Week in Geek.
Hungry for more, check out our website at this week
in Geek dot Net. You can subscribe to the podcast,
browse our Twitter and Instagram, and leave your thoughts on
today's topics. If you'd like to give us some feedback,
send us an email at Feedback at this weekendgeek dot net.
Tune in next time, and remember, lower your shields and

(01:26:07):
surrender your listenership.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
We would be honored if you would join us. Thank
you for your cooperation. Good night,

All Episodes

T.O.T. - Bananza - Pokemon Legends Z-A - MK - MTG - DQ1&2 - Xillia - Syberia - Turtle Beach - More!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Medal of Honor: Stories of Courage

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}T.O.T. - Bananza - Pokemon Legends Z-A - MK - MTG - DQ1&2 - Xillia - Syberia - Turtle Beach - More!