Undead Knights, Stolen Reviews and Casting News: The OrNERDnary Podcast #62

My week was relatively uneventful, dominated largely by three very different video games, the culmination of a TV show and one of my guilty pleasures.

Discussing that last bit, guilty pleasures, led to a rambling monologue from the top of my head during the recording of this episode that I hope makes sense to some of you even if, I’ll sheepishly admit, I didn’t come to any sort of profound point during my rant.

I also found the following topics worthy of discussion:
-The plagiarism controversy at IGN
-Batwoman has been cast in the Arrowverse
-PS4 has sold nearly 83 million units
-Negan is coming to Tekken 7 for some reason
-My final thoughts on the differences between Altered Carbon the book and show
-Dead Cells is a fantastic game that you should buy right now
-Lady Gaga turns down a role in Birds of Prey (thankfully)
-Dragon Ball Fighter Z kicks ass at EVO and simultaneously warms my cold fighting game hating heart.
-Venom could be PG-13 for very business reasons

and more

Thanks as always for listening and I’ll see you next week.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

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PolyNerdic Play Test: Dead Cells

Some time in May of 2017 Giant Bomb put out a video entitled Unfinished: Dead Cells and I knew immediately that I was looking at something I needed to play.

Unfortunately 15 months ago the game was only available as an early access game on PC, which meant I could only watch the game develop and grow from afar.

Jump forward to August 7th 2018 or what some would call “Yesterday” and Dead Cells released on PS4, Xbox One, Switch and of course PC as a fully finished game.

After waiting so long for this game I knew when I got home from work this morning I would be buying the game (after all what is the point of physically killing oneself with a bunch of 12 hour shifts if one can’t treat themselves to a $25 game?).

I woke up this afternoon, (nearly) fully rested and ready to dive into the game I purchased before bed.

Before I knew it nearly two hours had passed, I was ecstatic and knew I needed to share with you all the brilliance of the game.

Last thing I’ll say, go buy this game.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

Full disclosure: generally speaking I abhor fighting games.

I am not good at them.  If I face someone of higher than mediocre skill level I will likely get my face stomped into the floor and I’m not much better against the computer.  If the game has a story mode I there are almost equal odds that I will or will not be able to finish it without assistance.

Despite this fact, I have spent the entirety of 2018 with my eye on Dragon Ball FighterZ.

I have written here and here about my sudden and surprising love of anime (Dragon Ball being one of the culprits) so it was only natural that a very well received game set in the that universe would have caught my attention.

I was simply hesitant to spend $60 on a game in a genre of which I possess such a visceral hatred.

Last week I found the game on sale for a reasonable price and I knew I had to grab it.

Despite my dislike of the genre I have to say this is one of the best games I’ve played all year simply by virtue of how amazing each and every fight is.

I only recorded two matches for this Play Test and explained the hub world and how the story mode works but I feel it’s more than enough to show how perfectly the game captures the feel of the show as well as how fluid the animation is and responsive the controls are.

The game is amazing.

Easily the best fighting game I’ve played in ages.

I may be late to the party but I fully appreciate an amazing game when I see one.

Also my gameplay is far from Pro-tier so I highly suggest you look at the finals from this year’s EVO tournament because this game flat out stole the show.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

What I Lack In Charisma I Have a Surplus of in Imagination: The OrNERDnary Podcast #61

Spent a fair bit of time the last couple of weeks daydreaming about what I would do if I had the financial resources, charisma, social network and good fortune needed to turn PolyNerdic.com from the blog of a dorky doof in southern Ohio into an absolute powerhouse in the world of Nerd Culture.

Namely I focused a lot on the question of “who would I hire to make up the PolyNerdic team?”

In this podcast I answer that question and the answers may shock, irritate, amuse or delight you (if anything at all).

Also included in this episode:
-I finally finished Dragonball Z Kai and started Black Lagoon
-My thoughts on the latest Venom trailer and Tom Hardy’s choice of accent
-Xbox Games with Gold and PS4 Plus games for August have been revealed
-Batman the Animated Series is coming to Blu-ray
-No Man’s Sky is back in a big way but is it any good?
-Will Disney rehire James Gunn after the Guardians’ cast stood up for him?
-An indie game was mining cryptocurrency behind your back?

Thanks for listening.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

Yep, the Anime is Spreading

So back in February I wrote a piece called “Oh Shit, I Suddenly Like Anime Now” that detailed how my lifelong dislike of anime had unexpectedly been turned on its head through a subtle chipping away at the meticulously built walls shielding me

An afternoon watching Death Note with my daughter here, a very anime inspired video game there and suddenly I was interested in the stuff like I had never been before.

Over the last six or so months I’ve slowly watched all of Dragonball Z Kai and dabbled here and there in the various anime offerings to be found on Netflix.

I finished DBZ earlier in the week and immediately started fretting over which show to watch next.

I have Cowboy Bebop, My Hero Academia, Evangelion 1.11 and Trigun: Badlands Rumble on hand but what I settled on is Black Lagoon and within 5 minutes I was hooked.

From the episode and a half I’ve watched so far as of this writing, Black Lagoon’s premise is about a business man who is kidnapped by a team of mercenaries and is forced to tag-along with them when the deal they were working starts falling apart.

Pretty typical stuff but the characters and dialogue have me glued to the screen.

Especially Revy,  although it’s easy to laugh at the way the character fits stereotypical design tropes, I fucking love her attitude…as best shown in the two clips below (they make up one full sequence).

I’m absolutely sold.

As the title of this says, the anime as spread, it’s in my brain now and taken root.

Enough of my babbling I’ve got crazy awesome stuff to watch before work.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

PolyNerdic Play Test: No Man’s Sky: Next

Hey.

Remember No Man’s Sky?

Yeah I kind of forgot about it too.

It came out 2 years ago to a lot of fanfare (and a ton of disappointment for many folks).  I put in about 16.5 hours back then before falling off, took a look at it again right before the first big patch and haven’t thought much of it since I dubbed it my Most Disappointing Game of 2016.

The folks at Hello Games apparently were listening to the backlash against their game and have obviously spent the last two years working hard on improving their game.

I’ve spent a little while with the update and have to say I think they have moved their game to state a that is a hell of a lot closer to what they initially promised.

It still isn’t a perfect game, the procedurally generated environments and creatures can lead to some funny stuff.

But the game remains one of the best “sit back and relax” games I’ve ever played as long as you stay away from nearly all forms of combat (space combat blows and on foot combat is dull).  If you stick to exploration and discovery (maybe play the “creative/safe” mode?) there is a lot of fun to be had in what can only be described as a chill experience.

Here is a quick little video I put together this afternoon showcasing some of the changes (but not all since I’m still very early into a new run of the game).

No Man’s Sky still has it’s problems (combat, lengthy flights through empty space if you lack resources for the fastest flight, etc) but I’ll be damned if Sean Murray and crew haven’t all but salvaged their disastrous 2016 release.

They really should have put it out on some form of early access, had they done that I can’t help but think they’d have been beloved not reviled.

Author’s note: Interested in tracking my time with the game via photos?  You can find the uploaded screen-caps on the PolyNerdic Facebook page here.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)

The Short Versions of What I Had Planned: The OrNERDnary Podcast #60

This week was meant to be dedicated to covering SDCC 2018 in full, taking a deep dive into all the news and happenings of the biggest nerd convention of the year.

Life and/or my job had other plans though.

So instead of the full breakdown I had intended I had to do a quick episode talking about the which trailers I loved and which ones didn’t do anything for me so that I could get sleep before a 2nd consecutive bit of overtime at non-overtime rates.

I also discuss:
-my continued adventures with DBZ Kai
-my thoughts after finally playing Heavy Rain
-where Ant-man and the Wasp falls in my overall rankings of the MCU
-my thoughts on season one of the all-time classic Twilight Zone
-my girlfriend and I going to see some live “wrasslin”
-and honestly not much else.

This week’s episode is short and to the point, I hope next week gets to be a full show but with work being how it is I can’t make any promises.

-Shad (@PolyNerdic)