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Again For the First Time

Again For the First Time

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ON A VOYAGE: A quick Star Trek check-in as D. Bethel finds an appropriate point in his Deep Space Nine watch-through to start watching Star Trek: Voyager.

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew is unimpressed with the most recent installment of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers on Netflix: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Cosmic Fury. Unfortunately, D. is equally unimpressed after finally giving a go to Netflix’s Castlevania series.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Nerd Business” (31 July 2014): Where our hosts discuss the impact and legacy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
  • “The Unpop Culture” (28 July 2017): Where D. Bethel tries Netflix’s Castlevania for the first time and can’t get past the first episode.
  • “Films in Quarries” (18 June 2021): Where Andrew starts investigating the confusing origins of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
  • “Doctor Ennui” (27 August 2021): Where Andrew dives deep into the Super Sentai pool.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Mighty Morphin’ Paranormal Rangers

Mighty Morphin’ Paranormal Rangers

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TWITTER STILL SUCKS: Our hosts take a second to check in on the state of Twitter, recently purchased by billionaire, Elon Musk, and all the strange changes that have been made to the service.

TOS VS. TNG: D. Bethel briefly returns to Star Trek by watching the last original series movie/first Next Generation movie, Star Trek: Generations. It’s…fine.

RELEVANT LINKS:

  • “Twitter Comes Tumblr-ing Down.” Comic Lab, 10 November 2022. The episode of the excellent Comic Lab podcast (with Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett) where they thoroughly investigate the fall––and fallout––of Twitter.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Alien Control Party” (22 January 2016): Where our hosts discuss previous Digital Eclipse ports in their discussion about archiving old video games.
  • “Aggressive Modulation” (04 November 2022): Where our hosts reflect on, and analyze, the legacy of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

  • “Yakety Sax” by Boots Randolph
Rural Byrd

Rural Byrd

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WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew actually gets into sports (kind of) after watching the first season of the new HBO basketball docu-drama, Winning Time. D. Bethel plays Studio Koba’s recent release, Narita Boy, and is delighted by its retro stylings and gameplay but also impressed by its impressive step into modern storytelling and themes.

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FEATURED MUSIC:

Ghost Games

Ghost Games

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BETTER DREAD THAN DEAD: D. Bethel shares some initial thoughts on the newest 2D Metroid game, Metroid 5 aka Metroid Dread.

EMULATE YOU WANT IT, THAT’S THE WAY YOU NEED IT: Kotaku got in a bit of heat when they reported a story about how people were able to get Metroid Dread up and running on emulators in a smooth 60 frames per second at 4K resolution. The problem is that, in the original story, readers felt that Kotaku was, in fact, recommending people pirate Dread instead of buying it because of the emulator’s stronger performance. This lead to another round of discussion about emulation, piracy, and game preservation. Andrew and D. Bethel do their best to weigh in on these issues.

RELEVANT LINKS:

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “The Eye of Agamemnon” (18 November 2016): Where D. Bethel and Andrew discuss the storied history of old episodes of Doctor Who erased from existence by the BBC.
  • “River City Rampage” (17 August 2018): Where Andrew and D. Bethel discuss the value and importance (and danger) of video game emulation.
  • “I Am the State” (26 February 2021): Where D. Bethel and Andrew discuss whether the Metroid series is being neglected by Nintendo.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

In the Reward Zone

In the Reward Zone

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WEEK IN GEEK: This week, Andrew plays the first few games in Square Enix’s nostalgia-trip, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster, while D. Bethel dives into nostalgia and music theory reading the newest book from Boss Fight Books, Final Fantasy VI by Sebastian Deken.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Premature Clapulation” (19 June 2014): In Episode 4, D. Bethel and Andrew discuss the positive qualities of Final Fantasy VI.
  • “Answer Sandwich” (24 October 2014): Where Andrew and D. Bethel discuss the work of Final Fantasy composer, Nobuo Uematsu.
  • “BTAS” (7 August 2015): Nearly exactly six years ago, D. Bethel and Andrew talk about the ludomusicology of Final Fantasy VI.
  • “Alien Control Party” (22 January 2016): Where Andrew and D. Bethel ponder the different ways––and the best ways––to “archive” old games for modern players.
  • “Five Minutes to Funny” (9 December 2016): Where D. Bethel shares his thoughts reading the Boss Fight Book about Metal Gear Solid, written by Ashly & Anthony Burch.
  • “Editing Is Magic” (13 July 2018): Where D. Bethel and Andrew read Final Fantasy V by Chris Kohler, published by Boss Fight Books.
  • “Little Paper People” (2 November 2018): Where D. Bethel reads and shares his thoughts about another Boss Fight Books book, Shovel Knight by David L. Craddock.

RELEVANT LINKS:

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Drive Your Gorilla

Drive Your Gorilla

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CONFIRMATION BIAS: Abandoned is an upcoming Playstation 5-exclusive game made by the small Netherlands-based team, Blue Box Game Studios. After the game’s director made an enigmatic tweet, the internet exploded with conspiracy theories, asserting that the game and its trailers were nothing more than clues that this was not a stand-alone survival horror game but was actually a Silent Hill sequel. More than that, people have asserted that it’s a Silent Hill sequel directed by Hideo Kojima, despite the fact that the studio has gone to great lengths to assure fans that it is not. Andrew and Dan discuss the conspiracy and how it got wrapped up in the darker parts of nerd culture, internet culture, and the complicated edges of fandom.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • “Shortcast 57 – Fair Point, Dude” (01 June 2018): Where D. Bethel talks about the Super Nt, a Super NES clone made by Analogue.
  • “For Great Justice” (19 February 2021): Where Andrew & D. Bethel discuss the video game, Six Days in Fallujah, and the discourse around tweets made by developer Rami Ismail.
  • “I Am the State” (26 February 2021): Where our hosts discuss Nintendo’s continued neglect of the Metroid franchise.
  • “Films in Quarries” (18 June 2021): Where D. Bethel gets excited at the announcement of Metroid: Dread.

RELEVANT LINKS:

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Dating the Void

Dating the Void

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ELEMENTARY, DEAR WOHN JATSON: A brief look at an upcoming multi-platform release from Capcom that gathers two Ace Attorney games previously unavailable outside of Japan. The collection, called The Great Ace Attorney, features some interesting localization of characters names. While not unusual in itself, the fact that in Japan a character named “Sherlock Holmes” had to be changed––to “Herlock Sholmes” for release in the United States points to some very strange aspects of copyright law. Andrew dives deep into the mystery.

Image Source: Capcom

CUTTING CUTSCENES: Based on an GamesIndustry.biz interview with Weird West narrative designer, Lucas Loredo, who posits the idea that maybe we live in a gaming world that no longer has a need for cutscenes in games. D. Bethel and Andrew dive into the purpose of cutscenes and do their best to answer the question themselves.

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FEATURED MUSIC:

ADDITIONAL MUSIC:

I Am The State

I Am The State

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LOST IN ZEBES: With a lot of internet chatter focusing on the 35th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda‘s 1986 release, it made D. Bethel upset because another major Nintendo franchise was also released that year that nobody––much less Nintendo itself––seems that interested in celebrating, the weird, wonderful Metroid. D. Bethel talks with Andrew to see why this game and the series it spawned never gained the legs and legacy of Nintendo’s bigger franchises.

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RELEVANT EPISODES:

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FEATURED MUSIC:

Shortcast 62 – Not the Episode Title

Shortcast 62 – Not the Episode Title

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WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew finds fitness inspiration in the modular experience of Zombies, Run! while D. Bethel can’t stop thinking about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.

Watch D. Bethel play (with the aid of his dog, Rusty) through the opening levels of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon:

INFO:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 126 – Not Choosable Parts

Episode 126 – Not Choosable Parts

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WEEK IN GEEK: In what should be a Shortcast ended up being an entire episode, this week Dan and Andrew have a lot to say about their respective Weeks in Geek. Andrew attended Emerald City Comic Con and attended some panels and people-watched while also playing a bit of the officially licensed sequel to the NES cult hit, River City Ransom, Conatus Creative Inc.’s River City Ransom Underground while Dan saw Logan and has a lot to say about it (spoiler-free), nerd tribalism, and superhero movies.

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Stayin’ in Black” by Wax Audio
-“El Limo-Nator” by Marco Beltrami (from Logan)
-“Some Kind of Monster” by Metallica