Our hosts say good-bye to 2016 in a predictable but reliable fashion, with a new Shortcast.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew gets wrapped up in the indie hit, Stardew Valley while Dan gets politically informed as he listens to Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime.
Despite some mild technical difficulties and some remote-location recording, Andrew and Dan bring you through the holidays with a brand new Shortcast!
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew plays some updated versions of previous Weeks in Geek, going back to Master of Orion and Civilization VI while Dan is mildly skeptical of the new Image Comics series from Mark Millar and Greg Capullo, Reborn.
Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook page and subscribe to the YouTube channel for even more content and conversation. To help the show out and spread the word, please subscribe to the show on iTunes and leave a review.
For all intents and purposes, that was a Shortcast recap.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew takes a break from Civilization VI and Fallout 4 to play Bravely Second on his Nintendo 3DS while Dan plays through the well-made but wobbly-written Stories: The Path of Destinies.
ALL IN A NAME: Based on the article written by the McArthur Law firm, Dan and Andrew investigate the strange situation between Cards Against Humanity and a homage/derivative game, Humanity Hates Trump. Where can the IP line be drawn?
Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook page and subscribe to and like the videos on the official YouTube channel. To help spread the word, please subscribe to, and leave a review of, the show on the iTunes store.
For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.
FEATURED MU SIC:
-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Phoenix Wright – Objection” by Masakazu Sugimori, Akemi Kimura, & Noriyuki Iwadare
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew spends some time with Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror: The Card Game while Dan reads Boss Fight Books’ Metal Gear Solid by sibling team, Ashly and Anthony Burch (a book Dan may actually finish!).
The classy cover for Metal Gear Solid by Ashly & Anthony Burch. Source: Boss Fight Books
GONNA TAKE YOU FOR A RIDE: Sony had it’s most recent Playstation Experience event which unveiled a lot of new games, most Sony exclusives, but amid that they announce the new installment of the previously-thought-dead franchise with Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
Plus, an extended gameplay trailer has been released since the segment was recorded, confirming both Captain America’s and Darkstalkers‘ Morrigan’s presence in the game.
REBOOTING FRANCHISES: With the upcoming Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Dan and Andrew investigate the approach to legacy franchises. Should we reboot and start from scratch, or keep pushing the continuity forward or leave it be and fill in the “cracks”?
Leave your thoughts as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook group and like and subscribe to the official YouTube channel. Email Andrew at andrew@forallintents.net or D. Bethel at dbethel@forallintents.net. Help the show out by subscribing to and leaving a review of the show at the official iTunes store. If you like the episode, please feel free to share.
For all intents and purposes, that was a podcast recap.
FEATURED MUSIC:
-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“Player Select” by Mitsuhiko Takano (from Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes)
-“Rey’s Theme” by John Williams (from Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
WEEK IN GEEK: In honor of the 53rd anniversary of the show, Andrew watched the 1970s Doctor Who serial, “Day of the Daleks,” and follows that up with the new timey-wimey show, Timeless. Dan gets nostalgic to re-read X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson and finds, to his estimation, that it holds up rather well.
WAR KIND OF CHANGES: Andrew picks up Fallout 4 on PS4 and talks about what he’s seeing with Dan, who still hasn’t beaten it.
THE CRAFT OF CRAFTING: Building off of Fallout 4‘s systems, Dan and Andrew talk about the rise of crafting mechanics in video games, from Minecraft to Diablo II to Skyrim.
Leave your thoughts as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook page and YouTube channel for all the latest updates, videos, and listener conversations. To help spread the word, please subscribe and review the show on iTunes.
For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.
FEATURED MUSIC:
-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“It’s All Over But the Crying” by The Ink Spots
-“Building the Deathcoaster” by Joseph LoDuca (from Army of Darkness)
WEEK IN GEEK: To celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, Andrew and Dan share their recent happenings. Andrew plays more of The Trail while Dan reads through his new copy of The Art of Metal Gear Solid V and reads the Metal Gear fan comic, “Yellowcake,” by millionfish.
Leave your thoughts about this week’s topics at forallintents.net. Join the official Facebook group for site updates, links, and conversations with other listeners. Be sure to watch, like, and subscribe to the official YouTube channel, too. To help spread the word, please subscribe to the show and leave a review of it on the iTunes store.
For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap. And Happy Thanksgiving!
FEATURED MUSIC:
-“Thunder Busters” by Wax Audio
-“You’re My Best Friend” by Queen
-“Thank You” by High Spirits
For the first time since the show returned in 2005, Doctor Who showrunner, Steven Moffat, has hired a writer whose resumé includes a story from the classic era, meaning its unbroken run from 1963 to 1989. The BBC announced in an upcoming issue of the official publication of the show, Doctor Who Magazine, that Rona Munro will be writing an episode for series/season 10 titled, “The Eaters of Light.” Though the show has brought back a director and actors from the classic run, this is the first time a classic Who writer has been commissioned to write for the revived show.
“Survival” DVD cover. If “The Eaters of Light” has cheetah people and cans of Nitro-9, Andrew and Dan will be happy. Source: BBC
Munro has the distinction of writing the final serial for the classic run, the Seventh Doctor story, “Survival,” in 1989 which sent the show––with an addendum by script editor at the time, Andrew Cartmel––into what has been called “The Wilderness Years,” meaning the span of mostly Who-less time between 1989 to 2005. Despite the views of some who felt she may have been “slumming” by writing for the dying show, she has said it was her “dream job” despite being “a mournful time in the show’s history.”
Cartmel brought Munro to the show in 1989 because of her impressive history writing for the stage and film, which was an important decision for a series that was remarkably lacking in female representation in production. This is even more remarkable in the face of the fact that the show was basically created by a woman, Verity Lambert. The modern iteration of the show has drawn the same criticism from many fans and critics––even notable Who writer and fan, Neil Gaiman, has called it out. In the last few years, Moffat has made some steps to remedy the situation. However, as of 2015’s series 9, a total of only five women have written for the show out of the 90-plus hires made since 1963.
Rona Munro (above) is also Scottish, which speaks to the general Scottish takeover of Doctor Who. Photo: Laura Braun for The Telegraph
Of her series 10 episode, Munro is enthusiastic, noting that she tried to capture what made her a scared but rapt fan as a child:
When I was very small and watching the First Doctor, I had a special cushion known as “Rona’s Doctor Whocushion.” I would hide my face in it when the Daleks or other monsters appeared on screen! “The Eaters of Light” is my version of other stories that have haunted me for almost as long.
Series 10, it should be noted, has been slated to be Steven Moffat’s final as showrunner. He has been at the helm since series 5 in 2010 and has been very controversial among the fan base even as his tenure ushered the show into becoming a worldwide phenomenon (especially with Matt Smith in the role of the Doctor) as well as covering the well-regarded 50th anniversary story, “The Day of the Doctor,” which brought David Tennant back to his role of the 10th Doctor alongside Matt Smith.
WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew finally sat down and saw Marvel’s newest addition to its cinematic universe, Doctor Strange, while Dan sits down and replays the opening of Mass Effect 2.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: After being pushed back in the movie schedule before getting removed completely, The Inhumans finally gets a release date…on television…kind of. While it’s premiere will be in IMAX theaters for a few weeks, Marvel announced that a The Inhumans tv show will air on ABC alongside Agents of SHIELD. Dan and Andrew talk about this newest plan and what it says about the static between Marvel’s movie house and television studios.
NEW WHO, IN COLOR: The Second Doctor’s premiere story, “The Power of the Daleks,” is getting a DVD release in fully animated form (due to the original episodes getting wiped by the BBC in the 1970s), but more interestingly the release will be getting an extra feature of the whole story in color. Andrew and Dan discuss this feature as well as the state of missing Doctor Who, based on the News Blast Andrew wrote about this announcement.
Leave your thoughts as comments at forallintents.net. Be sure to join the official Facebook group for links and conversation with other listeners. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch Andrew and Dan play video games. If you want to help the show, be sure to subscribe and review the show on iTunes to spread the word to new potential listeners.
For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.
FEATURED MUSIC:
-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“More Human Than Human” by White Zombie
-“I Am the Doctor” by Jon Pertwee
It’s weird to think about, but video games didn’t officially become protected expressions of free speech until a 2011 Supreme Court casejudged it so. I think what adds to the surrealism of that realization is how prevalent video games were as a topic of discussion in popular discourse leading up to that decision. Violent video games and their effects on children through to “hot coffee,” Grand Theft Auto, and the mercifully forgotten Jack Thompson were just bookends on a narrative full of ups and downs. According to Patrick Klepek’s article, however, the fight had been waged in the court system long before the Supreme Court ever got their hands on it.
By 2011, the video game scene was pretty much United States-centric as an industry with developers such as Rockstar being brought under the microscope to search for corroborating evidence that they were as bad as Camel using cartoons to sell cigarettes to children. In 1993, however, Nintendo was king. And, despite their stateside headquarters in Seattle (and, for a long time, a majority stake in the Mariners), it was very much a Japanese company. That’s why Klepek’s overview and interview of how Nintendo went under the gun to defend video games is well worth the read through, because I wonder if they would be as hearty today. Part of me thinks Nintendo would be excused simply because it’s a multigenerational institution at this point, and our culture is comfortable with its presence and practices (I think of John Denver being called in front of the PMRC in the mid-1980s to defend against censorship in music). However, another part of me wonders if they’d be excused because the company has become so divorced from modern gaming that it’s not even in the conversation for many people.
Either way, the company went to bat for the industry at a critical time, and Klepek’s interview and overview should be read and supported by all gamers. Also, a big welcome to Waypoint, the official gaming wing of Vice. They headhunted Austin Walker away from my favorite gaming site, Giant Bomb, to become editor-in-chief, and as sad as I was to hear that he was leaving, as soon as they said Vice had sniped him, it made total and complete sense. They already have a lot of thoughtful critical articles up at Waypoint, and I suggest you check it out regularly.
This is the last I’ll mention it, possibly, but the recent election left a lot of people scratching their heads (as well as angry, horrified, and dreadful, for a variety of reasons). The last place I thought I’d find any decent, rational conversation about it would be a podcast associated with the humor website and listicle factory, Cracked. Editor-in-Chief, Jack O’Brien, sits down with Cracked.com‘s executive editor of humor and well-informed dude, Jason Pargin (aka David Wong), who wrote a widely-circulated article post-election titled, “Don’t Panic.”
While I will not say that what is discussed in this podcast is gospel and should be fully obeyed, they go out of their way to be as inclusive as possible while doing their best to recognize their own privilege and points of view. That said, it’s a great starting point for conversation about the election and what progressively-minded people can do in its aftermath.
Most importantly, I never thought I’d be pointing toward anything that had to do with Cracked. It was brought to my attention by friend of the show, Walter, and I thank him for doing so. I’d have to listen to the episode again to assess how much of it is simply two white guys calming each other down in the face of an open nativist being elected into office or if it actually has some salient points. At the very least, none of the topics or points of view are radical in the episode and serve as an excellent start to a conversation that we all could use to help balance the discourse and get people to start listening to each other rather than just yelling (though I’m not disparaging the yelling, either; sigh. It’s a complicated issue).
Fans of classic Doctor Who already know about tonight’s US premier of the newly re-constituted (or, more appropriately, regenerated) story, “The Power of the Daleks,” first aired in November and December of 1966. Lost in the infamous archive purge that the BBC went through in the early 1970s, the story was targeted for an animated form after several other stories received animated supplements (e.g., “The Invasion,” “The Reign of Terror“). The big difference with this story is that (a) the entire story had to be animated due to the loss of any complete episodes; and (b) this was Patrick Troughton’s first story as the Doctor, taking over after William Hartnell’s departure. In that regard, this is a pivotal story in the history of Doctor Who because it presents the audience with “regeneration” (or, as described in the story, “renewal”) for the first time.
The newly regenerated Doctor in his animated form, baggy pants and all.
More recently, the BBC announced that this story will also be done with a separate color-animated version, to be included as a separate digital download or as an added feature to the DVD release. One can assume that they based the animation’s colors on production stills from the episode. It can even be seen in the color choice for the Daleks, who sport the classic 1960s white/gray and blue exterior.
1966 Daleks in full color. Or, colour, I guess. The original 1960s color scheme, as well.
This is unexpected, as all of the previous black-and-white Doctor Who stories had been released without any color added. It probably more represents a feature of the animation process and less a desire to colorize old episodes. Previously, a number of Third Doctor stories have been re-colorized by the Doctor Who Restoration Team; only black-and-white versions of color episodes had been retained, so the team used relatively sophisticated methods to restore color to the footage. But there had been no discussion (until now, at least) of adding color to the historically black-and-white episodes.
The question remains to be seen as to whether or not this will be attempted for other episodes. The Restoration Team has done “special editions” and re-cuts of some of the later episodes, including a substantively re-worked rendition of “Enlightenment” and a re-cut “movie version” of “The Curse of Fenric.” It may be simply that “The Power of the Daleks” was a big enough episode to warrant special treatment. Maybe “The Unearthly Child” or “The War Games” will warrant a special colorized version as well. Only time will tell.
