Continuing from our first impressions of the PlayStation 5 last week, we dive deep with two of the biggest launch games: Bluepoint’s stunningly lavish remake of FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls, and Insomniac’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. They’re two of the best launch titles we’ve ever seen, for very different reasons, and it’s a ton of fun to talk about all the intricate in-and-outs of Demon’s Souls remarkable level design and glorious new aesthetics, as well as the bold, emotional narrative choice...
Nov 23, 2020•3 hr 9 min•Ep. 378
After quickly catching up on two weeks of busy global happenings and personal events, and celebrating the life of the great Alex Trebek, we dive headfirst into our first impressions of Sony’s brand new next-generation gaming console, the PlayStation 5! With a blazing fast SSD, a slick and surprisingly fully-featured UI, and perhaps the best controller ever packaged with a home console, the PS5 feels like a truly generational leap forward, and it’s got one of the most compelling launch line-ups w...
Nov 16, 2020•3 hr 20 min•Ep. 377
This week’s episode was prerecorded a few days before the US election everyone reading this has already lived through, so after a few minutes spent catching up and reacting to multiple possible scenarios, we dive into the week’s main topic: A new episode of Weekly Suit Gundam, wherein we review Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, the first Gundam of the 2000s and one of the most broadly popular entries in the history of the franchise. It’s also a hell of a series – even if it took one of us a while to star...
Nov 09, 2020•4 hr 5 min•Ep. 376
Continuing our 350 episode celebration spectacular, we’re counting down our Top 10 Favorite Books of All Time. Last week, Jonathan talked about Sherlock Holmes, his love of old wooden ships, and words of wisdom from Hayao Miyazaki, while Sean told us about his favorite Shakespeare play, several landmark works of literature concerning the darkness of the human condition, and explained how Moby Dick is in fact the gayest book ever written. This week, we finish our lists with our respective Top 5, ...
Nov 02, 2020•2 hr 29 min•Ep. 375
For our latest milestone of 350 episodes – halfway to 700! – we add to our previous ‘canon’ lists – Top 10 Movies for Episode 200 , Top 10 Games for 250, and Top 10 TV Shows for 300 – with something a little bit different: Our Top 10 Favorite Books! Literature isn’t something we talk about a whole lot on this show, but it is of course a big part of our lives, especially for Sean, who got an English degree in college and works as a high-school English teacher. And books, just like any piece of me...
Oct 26, 2020•2 hr 48 min•Ep. 374
This week, we’re kicking off a new miniseries that’s been in the works for months – BATMAN ON FILM, a 10-part critical retrospective of the caped crusader’s theatrical film history, coming over the next year in advance of Matt Reeves’ The Batman with Robert Pattinson, and at a time where the cultural conversation around policing in America has given us reason to re-evaluate the character and where he fits in the world of 2020. We begin today with Batman (1966), the film based on the classic TV s...
Oct 19, 2020•2 hr 27 min•Ep. 373
This week kicks off with Sean and Jonathan talking about some PS5 news, as the console got a full teardown and backwards compatibility detailed, before discussing Genshin Impact and Hades in greater detail. Then we take a quick trip to Sean’s Beta Corner to talk Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, before diving into our main topic: Another Weekly Suit Gundam discussion, this time about the 1996 OVA Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, one of the most universally beloved and undeniably entertain...
Oct 12, 2020•3 hr 27 min•Ep. 372
We cover a lot of ground in this week’s episode, from news including multiple weird Spider-Man announcements (movie and game) to a discussion on the state of movie theaters and releases amidst the pandemic, plus some new game impressions and a big bag of listener mail! To start, Sean gives some early thoughts on Genshin Impact, the Chinese free-to-play game that mixes Breath of the Wild with Gacha mechanics, and Jonathan discusses his early love for Hades, the latest critical darling from Superg...
Oct 05, 2020•2 hr 27 min•Ep. 371
After an unplanned two-month hiatus, Weekly Suit Gundam – our sister podcast exploring the wide and wonderful world of Mobile Suit Gundam – is finally back, with a big in-depth review and discussion of Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, the OVA series from 1991 that provides some of the highest highs and the lowest lows in the entire Gundam franchise, and makes for one of the best critical discussions about the series we’ve ever had. Before cutting to the Gundam talk, though, we also break down the c...
Sep 28, 2020•3 hr 26 min•Ep. 370
This week brought maybe the best gaming showcase event we’ve seen all year, as Sony not only unveiled the price and release date of the PlayStation 5, but also showed off the Demon’s Souls remake, gave us a good look at Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and most surprisingly, unveiled Final Fantasy XVI. It was a heck of a show, even if the pre-orders that followed were a disaster, and altogether, we’re more excited for the next generation than ever before. Jonathan also talks about Nintendo’s Super Mar...
Sep 21, 2020•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 369
It’s been a big couple of weeks for video game news, from Nintendo unveiling all their plans for Mario’s 35th anniversary to Xbox (finally!) unveiling the Series S and their next-gen launch dates and pricing, to another round of announcements from Ubisoft. We break down all of that and more, including a check-in on the state of movie releases in the US for the rest of 2020. Before all that, we also check in on how life is going amidst the ongoing pandemic chaos, Sean reviews the latest DLC for C...
Sep 14, 2020•2 hr 45 min•Ep. 368
This has been a rough, difficult week in a rough, difficult year, and the sudden loss of Chadwick Boseman, best known for playing King T’Challa in Marvel’s Black Panther, made it all the more wrenching. We start today’s show by playing tribute to the late actor and the heroic, inspirational legacy he left behind, before moving on to discussing our lives teaching in public schools and at the University level, where impossible situations and bad policies have us slowly losing our minds. Then we hi...
Aug 31, 2020•2 hr 7 min•Ep. 367
After travel and a giant inland hurricane in Iowa delayed our recording two weeks in a row, we are finally back with another jam-packed episode, full of life updates, news, and more! Jonathan talks about recording from his fancy new computer and making the switch from Mac to Windows, showing his brother Kurosawa movies, and getting into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, while Sean takes us on a trip to his Beta Corner to talk all about Marvel’s Avengers, the much-discussed superhero/ Destiny game la...
Aug 17, 2020•2 hr 56 min•Ep. 366
Our latest and possibly final entry in “Not-E3 2020” came this week with Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase, where they unveiled Halo: Infinite and detailed many other games coming to the Series X and Game Pass. It was certainly a compelling pitch for the latter, but did it do anything to pitch us on the fancy new console itself? We go in depth recapping the entire show, before settling in for a longer review discussion of Ghost of Tsushima, the excellent PS4 swan song that we can’t stop playing. N...
Jul 27, 2020•3 hr 7 min•Ep. 365
After giving some quick first impressions of Sucker Punch’s outstanding Ghost of Tsushima for PS4, this episode is fully dedicated to one long-awaited topic: Final Fantasy VII. This year’s PS4 remake, yes, but also the PS1 original, and the PSP spin-off Crisis Core, and the depressingly abysmal movie Advent Children. We talk about it all, having both finally journeyed through the complete Final Fantasy VII experience for the first time this year, diving deep into why the original remains such a ...
Jul 20, 2020•3 hr 25 min•Ep. 364
Not-E3 2020 continued this weekend with Ubisoft Forward, where the company showed off Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and announced (well, sort of, after many leaks) Far Cry 6. And it came under a cloud of terrible press for the French-Canadian gaming behemoth, as months’ worth of sexual harassment and toxic work environment allegations have resulted in one of the most dramatic corporate shake-ups in the history of video games. We talk about all of that and more before our latest W...
Jul 13, 2020•3 hr 26 min•Ep. 363
This week’s episode is a real humdinger of tonal and topical shifts. We start with some Final Fantasy VII chat – Sean having just played Crisis Core, the PSP spin-off, and Jonathan having just finished this year’s Remake – Jonathan reviews Minecraft Dungeons, and we discuss how weirdly prescient Steven Spielberg’s Jaws feels in a moment of profound government incompetence. For the news, we discuss reports that video games might be moving to a $70 price point for the new generation, and the weird...
Jul 06, 2020•3 hr 7 min•Ep. 362
To close out the anniversary month celebrations for our sister series, Weekly Suit Gundam, we’ve got a surprise review of a (rightfully) forgotten piece of the Gundam universe: G-Saviour, the live-action Canadian TV movie from 2000 that brought Gundam to live-action for its 20th anniversary, in spectacularly awful fashion. Boasting awful production values, bargain bin acting, a script straight of the Hallmark channel recycling bin, and almost nothing to distinguish itself as part of the larger G...
Jun 30, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 361
Naughty Dog’s latest, darkest, and most ambitious game to date has arrived in The Last of Us Part II, and today’s episode is a long, in-depth conversation about a game that is difficult to digest, but absolutely worth the effort of engaging with and discussing. The first game is, of course, one of our favorites – it was on both our Top 10 Games of All Time lists – so this sequel has been hotly anticipated. And while one of us has more complicated feelings about the final product then the other, ...
Jun 29, 2020•3 hr 56 min•Ep. 360
Our sister podcast Weekly Suit Gundam, a show exploring the wide and wonderful world of Mobile Suit Gundam, started out this time last year as a summer bonus miniseries. It’s a full-fledged show of its own now, and in this episode, we celebrate a full year of Gundam podcasts by taking a look back at everything we’ve discussed so far. We’ve reviewed 11 Gundam shows or movies to date – Gundam 79, Zeta, ZZ, Char’s Counterattack, Unicorn, F91, Victory, G Gundam, Gundam Wing, After War, and Turn A – ...
Jun 24, 2020•4 hr 5 min•Ep. 359
It’s a short but sweet episode this week as we cover a few pieces of news, including the passing of beloved actor Ian Holm, best known for his definitive portrayal of Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We also break down another ‘Not-E3 2020 event’ as EA gave one of their worst, least substantive press conferences ever, and rant about American movie theatres wildly irresponsible move to reopen in the midst of a pandemic. Jonathan gives a quick update on his One Piece progress, and S...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 358
This week brought the biggest entry yet in “Not E3 2020,” a series of events that would have taken place at E3 2020, if E3 2020 were thing. This time, it was the formal ‘reveal’ event for Sony’s PlayStation 5, with a big swath of game announcements – including a new Spider-Man, Hitman 3, the long-awaited Demon’s Souls remake, and Horizon: Forbidden West – and the unveiling of the console’s physical design. It was an exciting if uneven show, and that wasn’t even the only big gaming news this week...
Jun 15, 2020•3 hr 30 min•Ep. 357
This week’s episode is primarily the topic from today’s Weekly Suit Gundam, our Mobile Suit Gundam-themed sister series, which turns one year old today as we review 1999’s Turn A Gundam, one of the greatest and most thematically rich corners of the entire Gundam universe. But we also take some time at the top of the show to discuss the protests that have grown across the United States and abroad against police brutality and systemic racism. Our perspective as two white guys is only worth so much...
Jun 10, 2020•5 hr•Ep. 356
This week, we’re sharing an episode of our sister series, Weekly Suit Gundam, where we talk about one of the least known and most underrated corners of the Gundam universe, After War Gundam X. Running for only 39 episodes, its shortened run marked the end of four continuous years of the franchise holding the same time slot on Japanese television. But it’s also a special, woefully underappreciated show, a smart and soulful return to and commentary on the major tropes and archetypes of Yoshiyuki T...
Jun 01, 2020•3 hr 9 min•Ep. 355
We’ve got a shorter episode this week, but it’s packed with fun topics, including Jonathan getting a fancy new 4K TV and reviewing the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2, thoughts on finally playing 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Sean’s joy revisiting Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack as an adult. For the main news topics, we discuss the announcement that HBO Max is producing the ‘Zack Snyder Cut’ of Justice League, a new version of the 2017 bomb incorporating footage Snyder shot before exitin...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 354
On today’s bonus episode, we’re doing something different. A few weeks ago, Jonathan teased he was working on a paper for his phD program about Star Wars, and more specifically, the weird, disturbing relationship to nostalgia in the sequel trilogy films, along with other 30-year-later ‘legacy sequels’ that are now flooding the market. The essay was actually informed quite a bit by the discussion we had about The Rise of Skywalker back on episode 309, and other Star Wars conversations we’ve had o...
May 20, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 353
It’s a jam-packed episode this week, as we’re joined by Jonathan’s brother Thomas, fresh off an entire year spent in Japan, to discuss a week’s worth of news, a whole lotta stuff, and a very silly surprise topic at the end. First, we talk a bit more about Jonathan watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and take a look back at the original Genndy Tartakovsky’s original Clone Wars from 2003. We also give updates on some games we’re playing, including the new Hatsune Miku for Switch, before diving int...
May 18, 2020•2 hr 44 min•Ep. 352
This week promised the much-hyped first look at next-generation gameplay footage from Xbox, but the event was…well, underwhelming, to say the least. A lot of promising titles were introduced, but with almost no gameplay to speak of, how did Xbox and their partners set expectations so disastrously wrong? We talk about all that and more, after a big Star Wars hour at the top of the show. The final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars finished this week, and we get both a review of that from Sean an...
May 11, 2020•2 hr 35 min•Ep. 351
This is a week where we absolutely live up to the title of the show, with a crazy glut of random stuff to discuss, from Sean translating a video from Gundam’s 40th anniversary event, to Jonathan reaching a milestone reading One Piece, to Sean telling us about an awesome new anime called Keep Your Hands off Eizouken, to Jonathan talking about the wonders of finally playing Bayonetta, and so on back and forth for a good long while! Jonathan also reviews Streets of Rage 4, and we talk about several...
May 04, 2020•2 hr 24 min•Ep. 350
After a brief discussion of games we’ve been playing like Bayonetta and Yakuza 5 – and a preview of a Star Wars- themed paper Jonathan is writing with a very weird title – it’s back into the wide, wacky world of Gundam, as we finally reach Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, the 1995 anime that finally brought Gundam to the mainstream in the West when it premiered on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block in 2000. At once a throwback to many iconic pieces of Yoshiyuki Tomino’s original Gundam formula and a bold b...
Apr 27, 2020•3 hr 44 min•Ep. 349
