Category: Blog Posts

Hatton here with a blog this week, and since we are starting in on the Livestream for the Cure season – I came across a charity purchase that, if you are reading this in a month or so will have less relevance, but not absolutely none.

You see, I have been a fan of Bundle sites for years. The most famous, and the center of this article, Humble Bundle, are sort of the Godfather of the ‘spend less for more’ software and gaming bundle packs. There are a few sites that due similar things nowadays: Fanatical, Epic Bundles, etc… but Humble has always felt the most legit – and as they now distribute their own line of games, there’s good reason.

To put money, and donation is 100%, to the war efforts in Ukraine, they are doing a helluva bundle right now with the Stand With Ukraine Bundle. $40 for over 100 games, some software, a few pieces of 3D terrain renders, comics, etc… it doesn’t matter that I already own some of the topline games on that list, it was an easy purchase.  So I thought I’d list a couple of the games I have tried, or already love from the set. If this little post gets another donation to a good cause, it was worth it.

SATISFACTORY – Ever play Factorio? Do you like automating coal mining so you can automate iron mining so you can automate robot generation so you can automate your automation automator? Yeah… Satisfactory is Factorio in an FPS style – and it’s gorgeous.  Great biomes, gorgeous landscapes, and giant girder structures with a good sense of humor.  I’ve spent an idiotic amount of time building my horrible factory that I am very aware is inefficient.. but damn is it fun.

SLAY THE SPIRE / RING OF PAIN – I pushed these together because they are very much cut from the same ‘Deckbuilding Roguelike’ style of game that Slay the Spire planted a flag in and games like Ring of Pain brought their own concept to.  I don’t play CCGs because I am not good enough at deckbuild strats to win enough to have fun, but I sure as hell don’t mind losing hundreds of time to the same damn knight who keeps getting in my damn way.  Very much a ‘Play for 5 minutes, realize it’s been 2 hours’ kind of game.

SUNSET OVERDRIVE – This was my big surprise out of the bundle so far. A game from Insomniac Games (Spyro, Ratchet & Clank) that looks and feels like Fortnite (but 3 years earlier), plays like Jet Set Radio or Aggressive Inline, and is an open world’y, tower defense’y, splatterfest?  How did I miss this when it came out? Now, to be fair, the reason I probably missed it is because it isn’t the greatest game. The controls are very loose, the music cuts in and out as it sees fit, and the targetting is miserable… but for the cost of .37 cents?  It’s tons of fun!

That’s just a couple – I’ve tried Corridor Z, a runner that’s obviously a port from mobile that’s ok. Necroworm, a Sokoban puzzler, Neverout, a ‘Cube’ puzzle that hurts my head, and Pop-Up Dungeon, a ‘tabletop rpg’ style strategy game… so, if you see this early enough – give to a good cause – try a bunch of games – and tell the developers thanks.

Yes, it’s true.

I’m weening myself off slowly… (slowly…)  but… it’s hard.

So, I was always a “Hey, let’s look at Steam and see what free games they have!” and, truth be told, a lot of it is the Valorant/Paladins/Apex type of games that.. I’ll be honest..   I fucking suck at.

But Epic Games… (~shakes fist at sky~ DAMN YOU EPIC GAAAAAAAAMES!) they pump out a new free game every Thursday, and, over the pandemic, there were times where it was a new one almost every 24 hours.

I JUST got in to Red Dead Redemption II (Which wasn’t free, but got on super deep sale) and.. I finally decided to sit down and dig through games I got through Epic but haven’t played yet… so, here are some of the ones out of the over 100 I have on EPIC that I haven’t played but am eager to get in to…

ABZU – I tried 5 minutes of it.. and the game is beautiful.  I get the sense it’s going to be super short… but the visuals alone are worth checking out.

Vampyr – I loved Bloodlines from WoD, and am eagerly waiting for Bloodlines 2 to finish.. until then, this game has some great reviews and I’m hoping to relive some of the feel I got from Bloodlines to hold me over till the sequel.

Obduction – It’s from the creators of Myst, which means I’m already sold

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – I never played TR on the original PlayStation systems, but did pick up Tomb Raider (2013) on Steam and really enjoyed it.  If it’s anything like it.. I’m looking forward to finally tucking in to it.

Games I HAVE gotten to play…

Saints Row The Third : Remastered – It’s GTAV with more camp, sarcasm and gratuitous.. well.. everything, and I’m having a blast with it so far.

Control – I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about this game, and even though I’m only about 3 hours in, I am absolutely loving everything about it.

Elite Dangerous – Friends of mine introduced me to this game through VR a few years ago and.. this game is simply stunning.  It looked great on my old RX 580 gpu, it looks AMAZING on a RTX 3060.  If you check it out, be prepared to lose large chunks of your life to it.

Shadowrun Returns – Not gonna lie, I loved/hated “Shadowrun” on the Super Nintendo.  This has the same feel, but so much smoother and…just.. better overall.  I’m a sucker for the world of Shadowrun, and I really need to make time to get back in to this one.

What free games are YOU looking forward to checking out?  What have you played you enjoyed?  Let us know!

ALSO

Livestream For The Cure 6 is May 19th-21st!  9am-Midnight each day!  100% of all donations go to The Cancer Research Institute, and this year we’re shooting for $20,000.  Please come join us and a whole host of other amazing content creators from around the world to help make a world immune to cancer.

Follow at @livestream4cure on Twitter and @Livestreamforthecure on Facebook for more details.  For those looking to donate, the early donations link is currently OPEN and can be found here…   https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

– PCR

♫ Superstardom overload
I need to get back on the road
Tune it all out and turn it up too loud
Do people still wave lighters in the crowd? ♫
                         – Dada: Information Undertow

I have to assume that it’s because of the pandemic.. the long hours spent in front of my computer or, at the very least, at home – where I no longer was driving 30 minutes to and fro my job, that I’ve found myself burnt out on entertainment. It’s surprising, but not shocking, if that makes sense. Between being furloughed and then working from home, I had a literal 8+ hours more of my life  that I had to find to dedicate to something. It took a few months to stop beating myself up over the fact I wasn’t creating art in some capacity… I beat a few video games… hell, even wrote a list about it. But now that we are sort of coming out the other side of things, painfully slowly, and yet I still get the chance to work from home – I find that I am less and less interested in diving in to nonstop television.

There was a great time where we had Mando and Lovecraft and Bucky and Watchmen and Wanda and… it was a buffet of high-budget entertainment that was literally catered to nerdy ol’ me – but other than my wife saying ‘hey, let’s watch a movie together’ or a few ‘I must see this’ bits, I find my desire to load up anything other than a podcast or some music to be dwindling.  Recently, in video gaming, I started to notice the same ADHD tendency my movie viewing habits had taken on… HEY NEW THING.. HEY NEW THING.. sale HEY 4 NEW THINGS.. and I’m curbing that and doing my best to not play 6 games at once, but one.. maybe two. Hell, I’ve read more books since January than I did in 2021.

My point is simply that I have been eating a lot of candy for the last three years, figuratively speaking (ok, fine, and literally) and my brain started begging for different kinds of sustenance. Eventually, I’ll get to Boba Fett.. and yeah, I’m still all about the new season of Westworld when it comes out, but I have no interest in binging Obi-Wan… I think I’d rather finish that Grady Hendrix book…

What about all of you – have you had a burnout experience during all of this?  Let us know in all the usual places.  Til then, I’m Hatton.

James and I are, once again, honored and thrilled to be involved in this year’s Livestream For The Cure.  Mark your calendars and join us, it’s always an amazing time for a phenomenal cause!

And now…a message from Nicholas Haskins…

Hello one and all!

The page at the Cancer Research Institute site is now live. Early donations can be made up to and through the event on this page. Please share this with anyone you know who might be able to help spread the word. 

https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

100% of proceeds go to the Cancer Research Institute and immunotherapy research, training the body’s immune system to fight against all forms of cancer. The donations are tax deductible. This year for the Livestream for the Cure we’re aiming for our biggest goal ever of $20,000, and we need your help to do it. Together, we can make a difference.

Together, we can ignite the spark of hope in a future immune to cancer. Please, help us fight for that future. The biggest question we always get about the event is, “How can I help?” Not everyone can donate,  but everyone can help to share the event on social media and spread the word so we can have a great shot of hitting our goal.

Please join us for the live event at https://twitch.tv/livestreamforthecure. We’ll be live May 19th – 21st from 9 AM to Midnight each day fighting for a future where cancer is a distant memory. I’ll be joined by creator partners from around the world, who are coming together to help put an end to cancer in our lifetime.Follow the event on Facebook @LivestreamForTheCure.

Follow us on Instagram @LivestreamForTheCure.

Follow the event on Twitter @Livestream4Cure

Thank you so much for fighting alongside me. Let’s work together for a better world. Let’s work for a future without cancer.

Nicholas Haskins
Livestream for the Cure

The announcements of WWE’s new video game are out, and I laugh and laugh every single time because at the end of the day: nothing changes. To be fair, if there is a WWE game that ever deserved an eyeball, it will be this year, but I don’t expect a lot. Why this year? Because the last WWE game was a trainwreck beyond trainwreck that damn near destroyed the studio that was building it.

It was not only a dramatically similar game to the year prior, it was a buggy mess.. and when it comes to games, like most sport-oriented games, where year to year they just slap a new coat of paint and update the year, it was shockingly funny – especially when they ask a top dollar price for these games and offer at least 6 months worth of DLC.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d talk about a few features I would love in a wrestling game.

GM MODE
But Hatton, tons of wrestling games have had this – and they do, but never the way I want.. and I think that’s because wrestling sits in this strange ‘liminal’ sport. It isn’t a REAL sport, so it isn’t as simple as putting two teams against each other, but in a video game it isn’t entirely SCRIPTED. That means that you have this mix of an action game and The Sims, where your results are based on vague numbers like ‘Audience’ and ‘Rating’.

I want a much more story driven GM mode. Literally, the fictional GM in a fed where putting good wrestlers into nonstop bad matches gets them mad at me or creating shows of 5-star classics gets me a raise. Where I can slowly make bad wrestlers into main eventers, and I can make people thrilled with Hogan is defeated by Barry Horowitz.

HEEL / FACE MODE
There is one game that does this – and if you’ve talked to me about wrestling games, I’ve probably apologized for loving it.. and that’s Rumble Roses. Do heel stuff, you go bad guy. You save good guys, you become a good guy. Yes, in Rumble Roses, the good guy is a sexy librarian and the bad guy version is a dominatrix librarian… but the idea is still badass.

NO MERCY’S STORY – BUT A BETTER GAME
Bring on your hate. No Mercy for the N64 isn’t a good game… want proof? How did you beat the APA in a NO DQ Handicapped match? I’ll tell you how – you stood outside and threw stairs at them until one of them was knocked out because it was impossible to win by wrestling them.

No Mercy, though, has one of the greatest storylines in wrestling gamery.. the story has branches, and tells you where the branches are. If you win this match you’ll go discover THIS plot – if you lose, THIS plot. If you knock out the ref, DIFFERENT plot. It was so unique and such a great way to show the avenues wrestling can go in, I am shocked nobody has tried it since.

In the end, I just want a wrestling game that feels engaging to me, a guy who likes playing video games alone. I don’t care about online play, and I don’t want a stat-grinder.. I have Disgaea for that. I want what wrestling really is – and that’s interesting stories – albeit, interesting stories told by men in shiny underpants.

Send all your scathing disagreement about No Mercy to @RevVoice and @STSTCast, and we’ll see you next time!
– Hatton

Yes, it’s a terrible joke….

…but not as terrible as seeing between the veil and dealing with The Old Ones and the Elder Gods and non-euclidian geometry….

I love me some Lovecraft.  Yes, Howard Philip was an amazingly troubled individual whose views on politics, class, and race were questionable, but this blog isn’t here to dissect the man.. more the medium of his works.

I recently watched “Color Out Of Space” and… two things struck me…

1) Nicholas Cage will say “yes” to anything.

2) Lovecraftian movies just… aren’t that great.

The closest thing I’ve seen to a TRUE “Lovecraftian Movie” was “In the Mouth of Madness”.  It conveyed not only the weird waking-dream-slash-blurring-the-line-of-perceived-reality-and-what-really-the-fuck-might-be-going-on but the slowly seeping in horror/madness of many of Lovecraft’s works.

Unfortunately, movies like “From Beyond”, “Dagon”, and “The Void” are the usual offerings which either feel like they’re dancing around the edges of the story, or diving in with such gusto that a 5 page short story is turned into a 2 hour movie adding so much more than the original story did, that it’s just as ‘different’ but from the other side of the coin.

I think the problem with many Lovecraft translations stems from the fact that, through writings and notes… Lovecraft himself stated he wasn’t very good at writing action sequences.. so he largely avoided them… which.. makes for slow-paced movies.  Also, his descriptions were either fringe and minimal to let your imagination fill in the blanks (which oft-times can be far more horrifying) , or such a psychedelic fever-dream of description that it’s not something that translates well to film.

I know Alan Moore often complained that he wished people would stop making movies out of his works as they were intended to best be told correctly on in the medium he presented them in (I think he’s wrong…), but from what we’ve seen in movie adaptations from the works of H.P. Lovecraft…  Moore might be right.  Just.. not about his own works.

– PCR

Well dip me in chocolate and gift me on Valentine’s – one of the games that I love that nobody really mentions, Chrono Cross, is getting the Square Enix video game remake treatment. I’m elated, although that is tempered by the fact that Squeenix are notorious for giving “important” games a notable spit and polish, while only giving games like Chrono Cross – games that didn’t move the needle – a visual upgrade, but then never go back to fix the new bugs or UI issues they’ve created.

With that in mind, I thought I’d drop three more games here that I would be ecstatic over if they got an out of nowhere remake – games that I’ve sunk a dumb amount of time into that have been lost to shruggable sales figures so not as many people are willing to part with their nostalgi-bucks.

ADVENTURES OF LOLO
I’ve mentioned this game at least once before, it was a single screen puzzler where you were a little blue ball trying to collect hearts. It was 100% a game for puzzle nerds, but it was, at times, gruesomely hard. You could call it simply a revved up sokoban-style game, and it is, but there were so many wonderful additions, power-ups, monsters, and evil mechanics in that game, I’d be on line day one to get a copy of something new.

KLAX
If you know this game – you already are hearing the sound of small colorful bricks slapping against each other. Klax looks like you took Guitar Hero and made it makeout with Tetris. A match three game with colorful bricks clacking down a chute.. I don’t know why I played this every time I found it at an arcade.. I don’t know what weird itch it scratches in my brain – but Tetris Unleased shows you can take something simple and give it a fresh coat and have it be amazing. Klax deserves that very treatment.

TRON
I hear you, if you are a nerd of a certain vintage, ‘Do you mean Deadly Discs or Light Cycles’ and the answer is – yes, obviously. We live in an era of VR – of big arena games – of Battle Royale games – we live in an era where a series of Tron games, whether alone or in a Fall Guys style ‘the last 10 people don’t make the next round’ would be astounding. All I’ve asked for in this world since I was 8 was a good modern light cycles game. (There have been attempts, none have been given the Hatton seal of approval) — but why not Deadly Discs? Why not firing your disc against a spinning MCP? Why not flying a Recognizer over the Grid to escape? WHY – NOT!? ANSWER ME!?!??!

…sorry. What are some games that you think deserve some re-thinking? You know where to let us know!
– Hatton

Hey guys, Rob here….

The title basically says it all.  These are movies that.. in some way… enticed us into watching them, either by clever trailers, word of mouth, or sheer morbid curiosity… only to leave us far stupider than when we went in.

This list is FAR from all inclusive, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on YOUR entries to this list…

Let’s get to it!

Sausage Party
I mean, they let us know who and what this movie was right in the trailer right?  Anthropomorphic food trying to find the meaning of their existence, all the while filling the screen with a level of perverseness that would make the cast of Porky’s blush.  And yet…  even knowing what we were getting ourselves into..  this movie left us feeling mentally regressed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Let’s take a beloved horror movie franchise, reboot it, and suck every last ounce of what made it great out of it!  A lot of people thought Jackie Earle Haley would make a great Freddy Krueger (myself included) but this horrible vision made me feel as if I lost 1/3 of my brain cells.

Any Adam Sandler Movie
Ok, I take that back.  Waterboy was fun as hell, and The Longest Yard, while a husk of the original, had enough cameos to make it fun to watch.  Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer can be exempt as well…but those were in “The Before Times”  Anything even REMOTELY recent?  Nah fam.  I mean.. good on him for being able to play exactly ONE type of character and building an entire career on it, but Ernest did it first.

Malignant
Ok, I came to this bandwagon late, and had ignored any and all hype about it.  That being said… JESUS this movie is not at all good.  From the forced attempt to make an ‘iconic’ weapon, to the hilariously horrible CGI of Maddy’s face in the fight in the police station, this entire movie is a spot-fest of “What the fuck am I watching… and why am I still watching it?”

What movies made YOU dumber?  Let us know!

SomethingSomethingCast on Facebook
@STSTCast on Twitter
– PCR

We do our best to not get political – we have our opinions, but it is totally not what the Somethingcast is about… so if we take away any perceived anthropomorphic attraction anyone has to the Green M&M, and we disregard any fanfiction that may have been written about her, Erin the E-Surance Girl (Remember her? If not.. don’t google her), and the Michellen Man in a menage tire. What we’re left with is a time-honored question of what really is the best candy out there?  So, because it’s kinda what we do, I compiled a list of mine, and my dentist’s favorites…

Reese’s Sticks – It’s sad that these seem to be falling out of favor, as I’ve seen them less and less. Soon they won’t be at your regular old convenient store and you’ll have to go to the weird convenient store with the brown paper top shelf magazines. Anyway, they are just Reese’s versions of Nutty Buddies, with a notable layer of peanut butter… and given that 20% of my bodyfat is made of peanut butter, I’ll pick these over the highly inferior (but also delicious) Cups any day.

Sour Patch Kids – There was a time where I ate so many sour patch kids, my tongue felt like it stopped working for a day. Ever eat so many sour candies that you get a tongue pimple? Or you fray the sides of your cheek?  Ever eat so many Sour Patch Kids you can’t eat them for a year because it reminds you of how sick you made yourself on them the last time, but still.. you kinda want to get the bag anyway? I would hope, by now in this list, you realize that I may have a bit of a candy problem.

Hi-Chews – Ok, I don’t know where these things came from. Apparently, they’ve only been around for a comparatively small amount of time – but they took the 80’s candy Bonkers, which were like Starbursts, but suuuper chewy, they mixed them with weird Japanese candies so you can have flavors like ‘Lychee’ and ‘Red Mango Pomegranate Tea’ and they just made them miserably delicious.  Out of every candy on this list, this is the only one I will say no to, as you can taste the damn things ripping out your fillings… and you just don’t care.

Now, most of this list is not in order, but my number one favorite candy in the world is almost part of my identity at this point.. friends of mine will buy me a bag of these on my birthday or tell me if they tried a new one…

Trolli Peach Rings – I don’t know what it is. I’m super picky about Gummies, because I think most of them taste way too too sweet or they’ve used some amount of sucralose so they have that fake nasty taste… but the Trolli brand Peach rings, the ones that are half yellow and half peach, that are just a hint of sour, but melt immediately into sweet. Color me green and call me Kermit, these things have caused me nausea by how many I’ve eaten in years gone by. It’s a sickness. They’re masterpieces of deliciousness.  When I see some other company has a peachring candy, oh, I’ll try it… but none can top these.

So, what are your favorite sexy candies?  You know where to tell us

Hey all, PCR here.

A great disturbance was felt through The Force recently when Microsoft announced they were buying Activision/Blizzard in an all cash deal.  As a (former) long time World of Warcraft and Hearthstone player, I have a bit of a soft spot for Blizzard…  I met many amazing friends, some of which have become “in person” amazing friends I’ve had for years… and, (as one of those friends said recently) “I don’t regret one minute of the time I played.. but I also don’t regret the day I walked away”.

I have far less history with Microsoft (gaming).  I don’t have GamePass, and as far as consoles go, I had an OG XBox and a Series S (both of which I sold).

That said, this merger COULD be good for gaming, it could also be bad.

Here’s my thoughts…

Pros : With chip shortages still making consoles amazingly hard to find, this is going to get a LOT more games into a LOT more hands quicker.

: The offerings on GamePass are about to get a LOT more interesting and varied.

: Microsoft could do a lot to mitigate thoughts they’re becoming (more) of the “all-controlling, evil empire” by cleaning house at Activision and removing the personnel and other elements that plagued the company over the recent years

Cons : There’s ZERO guarantee Microsoft will clean house from problematic elements of Activision, which could/would be seen as rewarding that kind of behavior/environment as long as bottom line numbers are met.

: Could create a far bigger ‘Exclusively on…’ rift in the gaming industry.

: WIll Microsoft having that kind of control in the gaming industry stifle developers?

There’s a LOT that’s unknown, and I am far from having professional insight in the gaming community, but it will be interesting to see how this affects the overall landscape of gaming/cloud gaming.

What do YOU think?