In the Rock, Sean Connery's character is James Bond. It works well with the Bond timeline, and Connery plays the character exactly as he did Bond. It's fun to see Bond as a secondary character and what it would be like if he was captured.

They did look better on CRTs. Modern displays will smooth things in a way the original developers didn't intend. It's less pronounced in the PS1/N64 era, but SNES/NES has some games that look noticeably worse without applying a filter.

The convenience of bundling is greater than my perceived risk of theft. Maybe if I lived in a place where pick pockets were more common, the algebra would change. Also, my wallet case only has 1 credit card and my drivers license. It's pretty easy to cancel a credit card, and a new driver's license isn't hard to get.

Lance Reddick is a recent one for me. I never realized how many properties he's contributed to that I've enjoyed. His death was so close to John Wick 4's release and Horizon: Forbidden West. He was in all this media I was consuming to gone.

I'm not thrilled about it particularly since it feels so soon after the previous price hike, but it's a great app. I also wish I could use my Google play credits for the early renewal discount.

They lost ~$10b in net income in Q4 '22 and Q1 '23 so definitely a company in some level of distress, but Q2 saw them ~$7.5b in the black.

Agreed. I used to be blown away by a game from a technical standpoint 2-3 times per console generation and at a similar clip on the PC side. Now we are getting GTA V and Skyrim re-released for the 10th time. Neither of those games were groundbreaking at the time (IMO) as they both were good but predictable progressions from their previous entries.

Playing DKC and seeing the detailed sprites, Mario 64 (and several others) ushering in 3D, the FMVs in FF VII, and the enemy AI in FEAR, these things felt like monumental leaps forward. Nowadays, the closest thing I can think of is something like Elden Ring or TotK which to me is just taking an existing good game (Dark Souls/BotW) and slapping a mechanic onto it (Open world/crafting). They are both excellent games, but neither compare to the leap forward of FF VII or Mario 64.

Maybe I'm just jaded by adulthood and have my rose tinted glasses on.

His average tournament placing is 3.x. He's pretty much been on lead or chase card for every disk round this year.

I'd take Tattar over the field for FPO. I just hope it's close going into the final round.

For MPO, there are a dozen or so players with a chance. I like Isaac Robinson's odds. On the flip side, Calvin is obviously the favorite and even injured it's still Paul McBeth at worlds.

Agreed. Udisc is the best in class by far. Spend the 15 minutes (if that) necessary to familiarize yourself with the UI and you'll never look back.

FBRef has him at "only" 10.7 xA last season in the PL behind KDB (14.1) and Tripper (11.8).

https://fbref.com/...

I have a double nutsac which other than the stupid name I really like. Fits 10ish discs, has a slot for a water bottle, and a pocket for a mini/keys/towel/etc.

As someone who invested an embarrassing amount of time into each mainline game since 3, 9 was awful. I think there may have been a decent (musou) game under there, but even several years and patches later it's rough. The battlefields are empty. The traversal is buggy. The upgrade system is grindy in the least fun way. I don't want to mine metal in a DW game...

The best musou games in the last 5-10 years have been spinoffs like Hyrule and Fire Emblem. I don't have much faith in Koei Tecmo releasing a DW game that captures the essence of 3-5 in a modern way.