Gamer's Daytimer

Drafts: Pandemic Journal: Entry #1: A few weeks in.

Here’s a post I drafted a few weeks past when the pandemic really began in the United States back in March 2020. I’m never going to finish it, but it’s worth getting out of drafts. Just bear in mind that I was writing this over a year ago.

Most people in the world haven’t faced anything like this. Maybe no one has.

“We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations — one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people’s lives”

I am particularly blessed with my situation facing coronavirus. I get to lodge with my parents while waiting to begin law school. I have the ability to work from home and am in no danger of losing my job. I have access to plenty of food, easy internet access, and reside in a state that is responsibly responding to the health crisis (for the most part).

People are suffering and dying right now and I have neither the expertise nor personal experience to write about it. Still, I think there’s plenty of value of keeping a journal. I think there will be plenty of interest on this period of time in the future and the more written about it, the better.

But…. this being this site, I’m only going to write about all of the media I’ve consumed while stuck at home.

Community

Community had long been locked away from me due to semi-lack of availability. It was streamable on Hulu (by and large the least accessible streaming service) and you could always watch the DVDs, assuming you had the initiative to walk all the way over to your DVD box.

I never had that initiative though, so it had been a good-long time since I got to experience the joy of Dan Harmon’s ambitious sitcom (and one gas leak year). I was kicking off my own college career back in 2009 and I remember the obsession that possessed me to get more people to watch this show. In my defense, Community on the brink of cancellation for its entire run.

Well, now it’s on Netflix and is still a joy to watch (even the gas leak year). I will keep holding out my (not completely unrealistic) hopes that Harmon will finally make good on the “and a movie” half of the prophecy but until then, I will thank non-denominational Mr. Winter that this amazing show dropped on Netflix in the middle of a pandemic.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It is true non-Cusack serendipity that this game was set to drop right as the pandemic swept through the states. I’ve been treating it as little bouts of meditation a couple of times per day. Log in, harvest my rocks, check the store, talk to some villagers… it is all very cathartic.

This isn’t what Animal Crossing is really about though. What Animal Crossing is really about is seeing the towns people post online. I’m referring to painstakingly constructed monuments to dedication constructed over the course of 200 hours. I’m referring to people creating home arcades, recreations of the Kanto region, Satanic cult villages.

Animal Crossing is the actualization of FOMO. Someone is out there doing it better than you and it’s amazing that they are.

Golf Story

I will refer all inquiries regarding Golf Story to the love letter Spencer Hall wrote to it on The Banner Society.

Steins; Gate

Steins; Gate is fighting me. I bought it, not realizing it was a visual novel, and have stuck with it for 10 hours. This is 10 hours over the course of months as I find myself requiring frequent breaks from it.

For a story that is supposed to be about time travel, I have seen maybe one and a half instances of it in the first 10 hours (more if you count bananas, I suppose).

I will fight through to the end of this thing because it is supposed to be good. Also sunk-cost fallacy and all that.

Hunter x Hunter

I had put off Hunter x Hunter for a long time. I didn’t like the feel of its theme song and disappointingly, that’s enough to keep me from shows that I’ll love. It would have helped to know that it was created by Yoshihiro Togashi; Yu Yu Hakusho happens to be one of my favorite anime and there is a lot of it in Hunter x Hunter.

As with most good and long running anime, the quality of Hunter fluctuates between good arcs and less good arcs. The hunter exam, Karapika’s vendetta against the Shadow Troupe, and Greed Island are all bangers. Killua’s family and the chimera ant arcs… well the colors of the world don’t seem as bright without the grey.

Additional note: the friend who turned me onto Hunter subsequently blew my mind by revealing 1. Togashi is married to the creator of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi and 2. Apparently it’s supposed to be pronounced “hunter hunter” with no X.

Big no to that second one.

The Expanse

Being quarantined at my parents’ house for a long period of time has had the to-be-expected side effect of picking a show to watch with my dad. That show turned out to be The Expanse. This has been a slow burn for me and I certainly would have ditched it had the old man not so enthusiastically endorsed it.

Still, things a building up and I am a little more excited to watch every subsequent episode. I’m slowly becoming invested in characters I disliked and the protomolecule becomes even more interesting in a time framed by coronavirus.

I’d also appreciate if more science fiction were set within our own solar system. Get on that, writers.

Jackbox Party Pack

I can think of no better game to accompany the many “Zoom Parties” I am now spending with my friends. It’s surprisingly hard to find a video game that can support eight players and even harder to find one that my parents could enjoy.

Quiplash is the best minigame of the bunch (though I did receive the complaint that it wasn’t fair for people who aren’t funny). I now insist opening every Jackbox session with Monster Seeking Monster because there’s nothing I find funnier than trying to convince multiple people to date you with only four messages.

The Hangover

I hadn’t seen the first Hangover movie since it came out in theaters. A rewatch reminded me of why that thing was a sensation when it came out.

To keep the good times rolling I watched the second one. I’m never impressed when someone makes the same movie twice… like The Force Awakens with less nostalgic source material.

Role Models

I love everything David Wain does so therefore, I love Role Models. I’m not sure why… I tried to take my parents along for the ride this time and was painfully aware of how poorly the jokes were landing. It could be the chemistry Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott have together or the staggering number of talented comedy people in the film.

In reality, it’s probably the fake Wings song.

Onward

I am of the opinion that Pixar has mostly been on the downswing since their acquisition by Disney. Pixar movies were once must-see events for me, but those halcyon days are long gone. Given how unimpressed I was with the trailer, I probably would have left Onward to move past-ward unimpeded had Disney not featured it on Disney+.

And that would have really been a shame.

Framed as a story about connecting with a father you never knew, the movie is truly a story about the relationship between brothers and how families support eachother in hardship.

Think of it as the brothers version of Frozen.

The stakes aren’t as high as most Pixar fare, but the message hits true and sometimes we need to ingest a simple and pure story.

Killer Queen Black

Long before we entered the disease-times, a video game bar named “Quarters” opened in downtown Salt Lake City. To go along with your basic arcade staples, the bar purchased a little game called Killer Queen to serve as their premiere attraction.

The machine was constantly crowded and I was far to intimidated to get my butt beat by a bunch of strangers while I learned the ropes, so I never ended up playing it.

Well, now that I’ve played the Switch version I know everything I need to know about Killer Queen.

There’s no winning if your queen sucks ass.
You’re only ever going to see military victories.

The Batman

I have spent many a year insisting that The Batman is superior to Batman the Animated Series.

I will now concede that I was proabably wrong.

I still haven’t seen BTAS, but The Batman is silly and kitschy and geared towards kids. This hasn’t stopped me from having a good time rewatching it. I’ll stand by it having some of the better villain designs among the Dark Knight’s rouges gallery.

1. I don’t get streaming.

Hey world. Long time, no see.

Honestly a lot has happened since I last wrote on this thing. I’m almost through my second semester of law school; I moved to a different state; I’ve gotten really into chess. Just lots of craziness.

I also messed around a bit with streaming yesterday. I am a long time proponent of it being a gigantic waste of time. I mean, why watch people play games that you can play yourself?

At least, that’s what I used to say. Honestly law school has driven me to create a Twitch account and follow a few people. I can’t really play anything or follow narrative while I am studying and it’s just comforting to have someone talking in the background.

I’m still not completely convinced I’m not wasting all my time watching these things. It’s very likely a byproduct of being stuck indoors for over a year (I’m getting the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday). BUT, I dipped a toe in and I might test the waters more in the future.

You can see what that first attempt looked like here (alright, it wasn’t the first attempt; the first attempts didn’t survive).

Additionally here are some streamers I have found myself watching a bit.
I’ll try to see you tomorrow.

Gaming:

Chess:

Disney+ Complete: Star vs. the Forces of Evil

Welcome to part three of a multi-hundred part series where I boil absolutely every last title on Disney’s hit streaming service down to the essential experience, saving you that tasty, tasty subscription fee.

Today the 2015 to 2019 animated series created by Daron Nefcy… Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

Image result for star vs. the forces of evil opening

It is difficult not to compare this series directly to Gravity Falls. Mostly so because the two shows seem to share a common online fanbase. I mean, the only reason I picked up SVTFOE in the first place was Disney+ recommended that I watch it after I finished GravFa.

I’m fascinated at the common interest between two shows that, at a glance, seem verrrrry different. Gravity Falls is a forward focused, Twin Peaks-esque mystery show that is thematically contained to one verrrrry interesting town. SVTFOE, in contrast, is set throughout the multiverse. It is combat focused and loves digging at the conflicts that arise from value differences in rubbing against neighboring dimensions.

However, just watching the shows though, you can feel that they value similar things. Both sport incredibly strong characters (though SVTFOE more often lets them drive the plot where as GravFa prefers its plots to drive the characters). Both shows begin with a “monster of the week” story-arc to ease their audiences in until they decide to move onto bigger and better things. Both shows have that adorable-chubby cheek animation thing going.

Image result for star vs. the forces of evil fat

It makes a lot of sense that people jumped from GravFa to SVTFOE. It feels like they belong together.

In a sense, it’s very apropos as Star, in it’s essence, is a show about relationships… maintaining them through distance, preserving them through strife, managing overlapping ones. And so, if you will forgive me, the rest of this is going to be about the relationship between Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz.

I know, I know, I hate it too. I can’t stand that plugging in a love triangle with strong characters is a surefire way to get me to invest in a story. Even worse that I feel the need to dedicate my whole summary around it… but I can’t honestly say I wasn’t misty eyed and melancholy by the end of Cleaved, thus… here we are.

Not to say SVTFOE isn’t a multifaceted show. It tackles big and interesting ideas, but any attempt to address these before I confess that I was “shipping” Starco super hard would be acting in bad faith. Clearly the show valued this relationship as well. This is evidenced by actually paying it off and making it the central plot of the series’s closing moments.

I will note that poorer crafted stories have attempted this particular gambit before resulting in products that end up rather… well, hacky. We are able to avoid that result this time around because much like GravFa and SVTFOE feel like they belong together, Star and Marco feel like they belong together.

Allow me now to dive into SHIPPING 101. Many a ship originates from a show telling its audience that the potential is there. It’s a simple formula:

Put two characters together.
Have them open up to things they have previously been unwilling to open up about.
Add hugs/blushes.

It is much more difficult to manufacture honest moments that convince everyone (characters and audience included) that two people belong together. Relationships are messy… Star and Marco’s timing is terrible throughout the show. They both get knocked off course by easier feelings and less complicated situations.

Yet they endure through the messiness. They do so because they belong together. No matter the complicated minutia of a situation, at their core they have an unrelenting adoration of each other that they know is stronger than the tides that pull them apart. This is forged, not through the writing saying it should be, but by work. Dozens, hundreds, of moments proving this is something that should be.

No knock to anyone whom supports TomStar, but this is relationship told and not forged. Tom is an amazing character that is presented as a rote member of the rogues gallery until, through self determination, he becomes a bettered being and more complicated character because of it. His level of communication and respect with Marco despite being caught within the same love triangle is something I legitimately haven’t seen in fiction. It was a breath of fresh air and hopefully I’ll see it again.

All that said, Tom and Star’s relationship was weak by design. They begin the series as exes and it is not explained what drew them to each other in the first place. Their reconciliation is revealed in a conversation between Star and Marco that serves as friction between them rather than a purpose unto itself. Star’s intentions are clear because at every opportunity, when given the choice, the answer is Marco.

I should probably attempt to pull myself out of this gushing deluge but SVTFOE hits the that universal idea that most want and plenty envy… the thought that there is someone out there that you can trust, rely upon, and love beyond all.

Someone that will pay off your love and ask you if they can kiss you.

Someone that will always find a way to bridge the physical distance between you.

Someone that will put themself through the emotional gauntlet to stay in your life.

The last episode of SVTFOE could have easily veered towards tragedy and another version of myself would argue that by not actually sacrificing their relationship, the series ended took the easy way out.

That said, this version of me will never knock a plot for giving characters a happy ending they deserve.

In closing, I will shoehorn in a surprisingly poignant Scrubs quote:

With this one in the books, I wish the best to everyone trying to forge their own Starco. If you’re anything like me, SVTFOE will hang with you for awhile if it’s something you want but haven’t gotten yet.

That’s a good thing.

As they say…

It’s nothing a few re-watches won’t cure.

Disney+ Complete: Blank Check

Welcome to part two of a multi-hundred part series where I boil absolutely every last title on Disney’s hit streaming service down to the essential experience, saving you that tasty, tasty subscription fee.

Today the 1994 comedy directed by Rupert Wainwright… Blank Check.

The movie about a kid suddenly gifted a million dollars and launches a shopping spree provided endless fascination for me when I was younger. One million dollars seemed an unspendable amount of money at an age where I received a $10 per week allowance. At a time where it took me months to save up for the things I wanted (primarily video games), there was Blank Check letting me live vicariously through Preston.

Rewatching it on Disney+, as I near thirty, allows for some self-examination to what I’d do if one million dollars poofed into my existence. I’d pay off debts, invest for my future, buy a house… a car. It’s life changing money, but not enough to be interesting or make a movie about.

Preston, being a kid, blows through his money in six days (really it should’ve been one based on the castle he purchases). He buys a go-kart track for his back yard and a waterslide from the master bedroom of his house to the pool. Things that don’t exist because no one is going to blow their money on non-practical crap.

Apparently VR was something millionaires had in the 90’s.

Thus is the beauty of Blank Check. You get to enjoy a kid buying an insane amount of ice cream and beating up his driver in an inflatable sumo suit. You get immerse yourself in the sheer non-practicality of spending someone else’s money and avoid the consequences by using all the crap you bought as booby-traps to beat the bad guys.

Don’t get me wrong, this movie is terrrrrrrrrrrrible.

Preston’s love interest is an adult woman, the parents are laughably bad at keeping tabs on their child, and adult themes are present in a movie about a kid going on a shopping spree. I understandably missed the plot point where the primary villain was an escaped convict trying to launder his money on my first watch those years ago.

This is nothing that hasn’t been said before. The shortcomings of this movie are well documented.

As of now Blank Check has its place in my head. A fascinating piece of indulgence for me as a kid, and something that should never, ever, be watched again.

Spyro the Dragon: Reignited (2018)

For all intents and purposes (the correct usage of that phrase) this should cover the ranking of the 1998 release as well.

Spyro the Dragon fits that fun mold of game where I was so young when I played it that I cannot scrounge up one single bad memory from my expierience. Seriously, the time I spent running around a field, frying sheep and freeing dragon statues, might be the last remaining untainted memory I have left… so naturally I had to go and ruin it by playing the remake.

That lead up aside, I can only assume Spyro was an amazing platformer at the time. I mean, the graphics aren’t all that worse than those in the remake….

It’s weird how satisfying it is to beat the borderline gigantic basic bad-guys this game provides. Not to mention Insomniac foreshadows its better games with unique-ish charging and flying segments.

When all is said and done, there’s satisfaction in popping open an imprisoned ally and letting him wax poetic for a bit while you wonder why this much larger dragon hasn’t offered to help you out on the whole “rescuing your entire race mission”.

Regardless, mining the Spyro Universe for logic is likely an excercise in absurdity. Gnasty Gnorc opens events by casting a curse on every single dragon (with one notable exception) and follows it up by letting the runt of the dragon litter meticulously burn his way through the entire gnorc army.

I suppose we have to assume that Gnasty couldn’t simply just cast that spell again after Spyro has freed the final dragon… right? It didn’t seem like it was all that difficult to cast, though there is little explanation why it had total coverage sans Spyro (my guess is that he’s little).

So, while the story of Spyro might be noting to write home about (yet), there is always value within a solid/nostalgic/colorful platformer. It’s honestly difficult to find games that thread the needle between engaging enough to be worth playing but not engaging enough that I don’t fee guilty watching TV while I do it. In that task, Spyro is the perfect game.

Disney+ Complete: Gravity Falls

Welcome to part one of a multi-hundred part series where I boil absolutely every last title on Disney’s hit streaming service down to the essential experience, saving you that tasty, tasty subscription fee.

Today, the 2012 animated series created by Alex Hirsch… Gravity Falls.

There’s a lot to be said about a summer away from home. The connection you forge comes with the bitter knowledge that they’re not going to last more than a couple of months. Though the experience can be truly valuable and transformative, this can in turn accentuate the inherent sadness of the consistent trek towards that last day of summer.

This is the same sadness that permeates most Sunday afternoons, plagued with the knowledge that Monday is just around the corner.

The experience Gravity Falls provides will feel familiar to anyone who ever had a truly great time at Summer Camp. It spends its time weaving interesting and mysterious threads through characters that are easy to connect to. Then when your fleeting 2-season summer is over, it’s time to celebrate the good time you’ve had fretting over who the author of the diaries really was.

As with all good and creepy things set in a small town, the kneejerk reaction is to compare Gravity Falls to Twin Peaks. The show is clearly mining the tone and setting of the David Lynch classic for inspiration and to call it anything less than an homage would be a bald-faced lie.

Still, calling Gravity Falls animated Twin Peaks would be doing it a disservice as well. This is very much its own animal and should be treated as such. While I never finished Twin Peaks, I don’t believe a gnome ever got caught in a six-pack ring during its duration:

The characters fit tested archetypes, but possess a unique enough design to avoid seeming derivative or played out. A nice balance is struck between character and plot driven moments. There is a compulsion to learn who is writing the journals (a mystery that dodges a disappointing payoff) while the characters’ magnetism makes the monster-of-the week format satisfying.

Gravity Falls has surprisingly small rogues gallery for the type of show it is. Gideon, Bill, and the amazingly named Blendin Blenjamin Blandin (who is obviously voiced by Justin Roiland) are the only antagonists with more than one appearance. They’re fun and unique, but the show doesn’t lean upon them because this isn’t a story about your relationships with your enemies. It’s a story about your relationships with your family (both the ones you choose and the ones your born with).

If anything is the true antagonist in Gravity Falls, it’s mystery. The town’s slogan is literally “Nothing to see here!” yet the reality with Gravity Falls is what you don’t know much can definitely hurt you. (e.g. cursed wax museums, secret societies, a secret code on an arcade machine)

Image result for i eat kids — It’s heaven’s punishment for our terrible taste in everything!

This is why we get the main character we get. Dipper’s borderline obsession with learning all the information in the journals (and why everything seems more hopeless whenever they get lost) is the noble pursuit the show presents. Finding the answers to life’s mysteries is the right thing to do.

The counterbalance to that exists in the other main character, Mabel. From her perspective the pursuit of mystery can be obsessive and a selfish way to indulge curiosity. In Mabel, the focus lies in strengthening the familiar more so than the unknown.

The show ultimately relies on their relationship, even throughout the end. Theirs is the pillar upon which the whole structure rests, so it’s a good thing they have chemistry.

gravity falls hug GIF — Awkward sibling hug?

Despite my claim of boiling this down to the essentials at the top of this page, the reality is that I could write thousands of words on Gravity Falls and still not scratch the surface on what makes it great. The reason it is on Disney+ is because it needs to be watched, by everyone. The humor is genuine and incredibly mature at points. The story is intriguing. The animation is quality and design is interesting…

And somehow the voice cast includes this abundance of riches:
Kristen Schaal
Kevin Michael Richardson
John DiMaggio
Will Forte
TJ Miller
Stephen Root
Justin Roiland
Nick Offerman
Nathan Fillion
JK Simmons
Jon Oliver
Alfred Molina
Patton Oswald
and Mark Hamill

At the end, I know my sadness meant the time was worthwhile. I also know at some-point I’ll spend another summer away from home.

Image result for gravity falls see you next summer letter

EDIT: The Gravity Falls Shorts on Disney+ should also be watched.
They. Are. Hilarious.

Gamer’s Dayjournal; Vol I: 5th Time is the Charm Edition

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Gamer’s Dayjournal™, my totally serious attempt at a daily chronicle of all the latest gaming news give or take a couple decades. Think or it more as your latest update on whatever game happened across my desk at any given period. While this daily foray into an arbitrary wormhole is sure to set trends and amass a following, if you’re reading this first post then consider yourself a charter member.(Note that charter membership comes with no benefits, intangible or otherwise.)

With that out of the way, let us dive into the uncharted territories of re-charting territories. That is, when to go back to old games in lieu of pulling something from the non-stop deluge of new content constantly being released by the gaming industry.

As a rule, your time is better spent with a good game you haven’t played as opposed to a good game you’re returning to. That is the law of diminishing returns at work, or another way to put it….

This theory did not in fact hold up for the newer episodes of HIMYM.

Obviously there’s risk to diving into something new. Time is a valuable commodity and there’s always a risk that you’ve set forth on a piece of mediocre debris that will gobble up valuable hours before you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into. (The game industry is actually better about this problem than most; critics seem to have a more consolidated opinion about what makes a ‘good product’ than those for other platforms of media, but this is a topic too expansive for an aside.)

As they say, variety is the spice of life and the most fulfilled go out of their way to discover the new/exciting and leave the nostalgia in their memories where it belongs. With that said, I’m replaying Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time for at least the 5th time.

Ratchet and Clank is up there as far as gaming franchises go for me and CiT is the crème de la crème. At times I’ve felt it’s the best game ever made (if you check the under-kept list on the site, it’s at #2 behind Mass Effect 3) and here I am again, putting off gems like Resident Evil 2, Kingdom Hearts 3, and Red Dead Redemption 2 so I can dust off my PS3 and revisit this bad boy.

I don’t feel shame in returning to CiT because it has the ineffable quality. It’s that quality that brings people back to Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. It’s the quality that comes about when you’ve been playing high quality series for years and it culminates in an experience that just works on every level. There is a chemistry in some stories that leave you at a loss at how to describe why you love it, you just know that you want to revisit it as much as possible.

You know, that ineffable quality.

I can begin to dig at some of the things that work so well in CiT. Clank might be the most likable sidekick in any mascot-platformer. Insomniac smartly waited for this to deploy their first recurring villain and the story explores a past and stakes that were set up in the previous game to great effect, making the conclusion of this game all the more rewarding. (Note: Tools of Destruction, while inferior, did a lot of leg work to make the overall story better. I make myself play it before I replay CiT every time.)

It’s also just a really fun game. Ratchet and Clank always is. Still, this is a journal entry, not a review or retrospective or gushfest. (Okay, it’s kind of a gushfest.)

*How can you not fall in love with this face?*

Future entries can dive into the nuances of what makes this particular game great, but I think there’s an important lesson to learn from just beginning this silly thing:

Embrace the new…. but feel bad about coming back to your old flames every now and then.

Until next time.

If there is a next time

Podcast Curator: Sports

No, podcasts are not video games. Perhaps they fall a little outside the purview of a self-imagined video game blog.

However, as someone who contends for the title of most podcasts consumed per week, I have taken it upon myself to catalog the best of the best when it comes to the trendy media form with little barrier to entry.

Below is a non comprehensive list of the best sports podcasts with a rating up to three stars.

1-star: For addicts.

12 Pac Radio (Pac-12)

As a University of Utah alum, I’m always on the lookout for good Pac-12 coverage. 12 Pac is a fairly casual approach to the conference run by Arizona grads. The hosts are enthusiastic and provide good perspective of each team’s reputation nationally and within the conference as a whole.

Around the Horn (General)

ESPN posts the audio of this daily sports talk show where writers are awarded points for good debate and muted for cliches or ridiculous narratives. It fits the stereotype of “sports yelling” to a tee, but it’s an efficient way to get through the top stories from the previous day.

Dunc’d On Basketball (NBA)

This is the podcast to come to for nitty gritty analysis of the financial side of the NBA. Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux cover the CBA, draft, betting lines, and every team in the league five days a week. It’s dry but informative and definitely only for hardcore fans.

The Hoop Collective (NBA)

Bryan Windhorst’s soapbox is the best insight from an NBA beat reporter’s perspective. These are the people talking to the players. coaches, and owners on a daily basis and are on point in telling the human stories associated with the league.

2-star: Sport enriching.

Around the NFL (NFL)

NFL.com’s general debate podcast reviews every game of the season. The show doesn’t excel at any on thing specifically. Instead it opts to be a decent mix of comprehensive coverage, entertainment, and analysis. This is the definitive podcast for the everyday-nonfantasy-NFL fan.

Open Floor (NBA)

Sports Illustrated’s Ben Golliver and Andrew Sharp read and roast listener letters and tear down any homerism sent their way. They’re not as plugged in as Windhorst nor as comprehensive as Duncan, but Open Floor is close enough and a more entertaining listen then either of them.

Podcast of Champions (Pac-12)

The paradigm of Pac-12 podcasts is put out by the 247sports representatives from the LA schools. They cover every game in the conference (football only) and answer literally every question sent to them.

Their cutting bitterness towards the conference the cover is a refreshing extra bonus.

3-star: These might be better than the sports they cover.

Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody (NCAA)

Steven Godfrey and Bill Connolly are here to tell you that your college football team isn’t actually that good. The only niche podcast you’ll find with a 3-star ranking, PAPN can be acquired taste… but when it hooks you, it’ll open your mind to information for only the saltiest football analysts.

The Solid Verbal (NCAA)

When it comes to college football, Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildenbrandt run the most comprehensive operation around. The Verbal covers the most games per week by far and their reverb call-in line is digs up the amazing truffles of misplaced passions by college super-fans. This podcast is the cure for the common ignorance.

The Starters (NBA)

Originally called The Basketball Jones when it was started in 2006 by a group of Canadians, The Starters eventually evolved into its own television show on NBATV. The episodes are available in the podcast stream along with an extra pair of “Drop” shows designed specifically for the audio-only audience. They excel at satire and pinpointing the best parts of the NBA to highlight. This make The Starters the best way to follow the league short of watching it.

The Fantasy Footballers (NFL)

This daily fantasy football podcast is the best around. It is rare to find a podcast that fuses consistently entertaining banter with legitimately good fantasy information. Three guys from Arizona have managed to strike that balance and the best part is they run episodes year-round.

Honorable Mention

Hot Takedown

Rest in peace. The wide ranging FiveThirtyEight podcast was replaced by The Lab, an NBA focused podcast which also has gone on hiatus. Kate Fagan, Neil Paine, and Chad Matlin took a sledgehammer to the dumbest things that came out of the mouths of sports pundits. Being a FiveThirtyEight podcast, it was chock-full of analytics based debate. While it’s unclear why the show ended, we’ll always have the banger of a theme song to remember it by.

Spoiler-free Review: “Ratchet and Clank”

This is a review for the original Ratchet and Clank, developed by Insomniac and released in 2002 and again in 2012 as part of an HD collection. It does not refer to the game released in 2016 which is a full-scale reimagining.

Two decades ago, Insomiac Games saved themselves from a dire financial situation by releasing a little game called Spyro the Dragon. The game was successful enough to segue into a couple of sequels and the company was able to stay afloat.

In 2000, the PS2 was released and Insomniac was focused on their first game for new console generation. With a little help from Naughty Dog they managed to launch their longest running franchise about a heavily armed space cat and his robot friend/backpack.

Ratchet and Clank is a third-person mascot platformer with a heavy focus on weaponry. The game revolves around Ratchet, a lombax (space-cat), and his adventures after crossing paths with Clank, a robot that has uncovered a plot by an evil executive to destroy the galaxy.

The bulk of the game sets up single path levels filled with enemies and gives the player a bevy of weapons to combat them with. The guns range from traditional fare like blasters and flame-throwers to more gimmicky guns like the “Morph-o-ray” which transforms enemies into chickens. What seemed like a massive virtual armory at the time is a little less impressive in the light of almost two decades of game development, but there is enough imagination to separate itself from the average shoot ’em up.

The other method Ratchet and Clank used to forge its identity was its humor. While presenting itself towards younger audiences in the footsteps of Spyro and Jak and Daxter, it snuck in edgy humor aimed at older players. It wouldn’t give up the whole ghost like Conker’s Bad Fur Day, a game dedicated to crude humor. Rather, Ratchet was modeled closer to the Looney Tunes approach, with subtler jokes i.e. naming the game’s ultimate gun the RYNO (Rip You a New One).

The game balanced these key aspects with a variety of gameplay change-ups including hoverboard races, Clank puzzle sections, manning a gun turret, and grind courses. Somehow none of these minigames flopped or dragged on the flow of the game. The segments came rarely enough that they were always a welcome side-dish from the main course of running and gunning.

For its time, Ratchet and Clank was amazingly fun with inspired design. Despite this, it’s difficult to recommend it now, multiple console generations in the future. For starters, the series didn’t add functional strafing until its second installment. This is the most constant annoyance throughout the game and it’s notable when the movement function is a default in all modern shooters.

A less offensive drawback of the game’s age is the total absence of RPG elements. Health leveling also wasn’t introduced until the second game and weapon upgrades are rare, mainly being a factor in the second playthrough. The game is still completely playable but it is a disadvantageous contrast when comparing Ratchet to later installments.

Unrelated to the time it came out, the story has an uncomfortable second act. Without giving anything away, the chemistry between the two main characters is intentionally sacrificed for a plot point and it is not salvaged until the game’s closing third.

So with all of these weaknesses, why bother with Ratchet and Clank in 2018? Why bother writing a review now even when I already concluded that it probably isn’t worth replaying? Bother with it because it is the start of something special.

The first game launched an amazing franchise that improved on its mistakes with each installment all the way up to the reimagining in 2016. While the 2002 edition is probably skippable, later games in the series aren’t and before I delve deep into those, I need to pay homage to their roots.

Even with my hesitance, I’d very much recommend people go back and play the HD release of the game on PS3 if they have the stomach for it. The game isn’t a masterpiece by today’s standards, but it by no means broken and can still be a good time particularly for those of us that are nostalgic for the era of mascot platformers.

For those without the stomach or time for playing old games, I recommend reading a plot summary and watching the cutscenes. There was an edge to the first game that wasn’t captured in the 2016 version nor the accompanying movie that is worth preserving.

When that’s done, buckle up. As I said, this is the start of something special.

Spoiler-free Review: “Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc”

On your first day of school you are knocked unconscious and wake up to find that you are sealed inside with a handful of other students and an evil teddy bear serving as your “principal”. The bear gives you two options.

Live out the rest of your days trapped in the school.
Gain your freedom my murdering a fellow student and getting away with the crime.

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This is the premise that Danganronpa presents you with. What follows is a twenty hour virtual novel that has you forging relationships with your classmates only to watch it come crumbling down as you work towards a means of escape.

The gameplay is mostly contained to puzzle-like “class trial” segments which serve as a bookend for the chapters in the story. The game strikes a nice balance within the trials by providing you with enough information to develop a theory of events while still allowing ambiguity and making the revelations that come out during the trials to be genuinely surprising.

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The trials are at their strongest when they ask the player to determine the truth of events from collected testimony and evidence. The weakest moments come from a series a minigames designed to reveal a key word or discredit an aggressive argument. While silly, the minigames are mostly inoffensive and add some body to each chapter’s end.

However, the majority of your time in Danganronpa is spent investigating the mysteries of the school and getting to know your fellow classmates. There is a massive amount of text to read through and the game is conspicuously front-loaded; it will take several hours to reach the first trial.

You are allowed a certain amount of control during “free time” where you may select a classmate and attempt to win their affections through gift giving and asking questions. There is a grim cost-benefit analysis to these segments as investing time with a character only to have them die is a waste of your limited time. This in fact raises the stakes of the trials where I found myself dreading the deaths of characters I wanted to know more about.

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The PS4 port playable but should be forgone for the PSP version if possible. The longish story is perfect for picking up on the go. That said, the narrative is engrossing enough to binge if it hooks you, and it hooked the hell out of me.

If the reading is particularly discouraging, there is an amazing anime adaption which absolutely blazes through the story in thirteen half hour episodes. Those with Playstation VR can get an interesting taste of the game through a short virtual demo.

Danganronpa is definitively a game for a specific niche. The story is wild which is to be expected from Japanese developer, Spike Chunsoft and it can take awhile to get going. Yet for diligent players there is a rewarding conclusion after an amazing journey predicated on the twistiest turns and the turniest twists.

At minimum, this class is worth auditing.