PixlBit

I don't remember the Black Widow controversy. 

Never heard of this game, but there was a ring out-based 3D fighter on N64 I rented quite a bit ... and worked into a Nerds Without Pants podcast at one point, but now I can't remember the name of it. lol 

In any case, the good thing about mediocre fighters is that while mediocre, if the gameplay isn't totally broken you've still got yourself a fighter. It's like cooking mashed potatoes. Sometimes you've really hit on something, most of the time they're fine, but very rarely do you manage to mess them up so bad you can't eat them. 

Kinda makes me want to play Farm Simulator '19 again. lol 

I was 7 in 1997, so the only story I have about it is getting an N64 and Star Fox 64 for Christmas. 

Did not realize Tenacious D had an HBO show in 1997. 

Definitely remember Austin Powers though. 

Hexen was not on my radar at the time, but love the sound design in the video. 

I like Bruce Dickinson a lot ... but in doses. 

That book sounds real interesting. Want to say I've heard of it. 

Is it really a ripoff just because you're hitting the same genre? I dunno, maybe it's deeper than that, but I get annoyed at how much music is called a "rip off" of something else. 

I still remember when whoever owns the rights to Tom Petty's "Last Dance of Mary Jane" wanted to sue the Red Hot Chili Peppers for "Dani California" because the riffs ARE pretty damn identical, but they are in such different tempos and accomplish such different things musically that I fail to see how one is a "rip off." And of course the vocal melodies are completely different. I dunno, that just seems to come from people who want to prove to you what they know (and legal teams who want to make some money from the copyrights they have) more than people who are actually upset about "rip offs."

NFS Heat sounds fun. And I am definitely buying a PS5 at some point, but I'm excited for even less focus on exclusives next generation. We're almost to where games are like movies and you just play them on whatever home system you happened to buy. Almost. Ok, we're not even close but still closer than most previous game system cycles. 

I love that show but it's one of those things where my friend is a bit too obsessed with it to the point I almost don't want to admit to him how good it is cause it's not the be all end all of cultural humanity. It's his Yakuza, to use my exact same character flaw as an example. 

But yeah, I've heard the same thing about the show. I think mostly what people seem to mean by that is how it jumps between lots of different characters and connects between seasons, which was much less commonplace before streaming. I think that's why The Wire had to find so much of its audience later: people were not necessarily ready for televsion to veer from its episodic (re: self-contained episodes like Law and Order) nature in the 2000s. 

They have pretty much every popular Japanese gambling parlor game, I'd wager. There are also dice games like cho-han that are completely luck-based I seem to do pretty well in. 

Yakuza also has Texas Hold 'Em, black jack, roulette etc. in the casinos. I imagine a lot of the games in this collection you're reviewing are in Yakuza too. 

Those games sound like they'd be more book-ish, if anything, which makes sense for your tastes. Although one of the reasons I love Yakuza so much has nothing to do with its cinematic storytelling, but how I feel like I'm living out a novel about urban Japan when interacting with NPCs. 

First, thank you for reminding me about that cover cause I was really thinking it was a Stevie Wonder cover the other day and could not figure out for the life of me I was thinking of "Higher Ground." Now I know why I was thinking about Stevie Wonder when I heard the Ohio Players RHCP "Love Rollercoaster" cover come on the other day. Random, I know, but it's been bothering me. 

Also, I've never heard "Warped" before but wow is that different for them. I'm not sure if I like it or not. I'll have to listen again when I'm expecting that kind of sound. "Aeroplane" didn't veer away from their typical sound anywhere close to that degree. That's interesting.