Locclo

I'm really curious to try it out. I loved both P4G and P5, even beat 5 twice (once at launch, once when P5R came out). I've always heard people speak highly of the story and characters, but I was never brave enough to try and deal with the gameplay. I'm thrilled it's on Game Pass day one so I can give it a shot.

I thought of two more I remember reading not too long ago that I really wound up liking.

Year Zero by Rob Reid. Outside of the solar system is a galactic society that enjoys art in all its forms, and Earth (which is as-yet uncontacted) is considered a planet of hopeless, culture-less barbarians with nothing to contribute. One day, they discover that our music, alone, is so mind-bogglingly, world-shatteringly beautiful that it causes an enormous upheaval in society, resulting in the day that the first human song was discovered to be the new year zero and the start of a new era. However, because of a technicality in the way their legal system works, they now owe an enormous debt--more money that exists--to humans in copyright fines. I thought it was a really fun read, sort of gave me similar vibes as Hitchhiker's Guide (even if the plots are totally different).

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I don't remember a ton about this, it's been a while since I read it (and it's a very long, hefty read). It's a fantasy story about an orphan named Locke Lamora who winds up under the care of a fake priest and learns the trade of being a thief and a con artist. Eventually, he winds up caught in the middle of a power struggle in his city's underworld and has to navigate his way out while ensuring that he doesn't end up on the wrong side of the winner. I liked it quite a bit when I read it, though it's occasionally a little gruesome (it is, after all, the underworld). I also just, for whatever reason, like the idea of thieves being the protagonists of stories, so I may be a little biased.

The Bobiverse books are great! I've read them a couple of times now, super fun reads. Can't wait to see what the future holds for the series (apparently he's talked about wanting to do at least 8 total).

Project Hail Mary is a fantastic book from Andy Weir, author of The Martian. A mysterious cosmic event puts Earth on the brink, and as a last-ditch effort, humanity sends out a team on a long trip out into space to figure out how to fix it. Very much in the vein of The Martian, sort of nearish future sci-fi rooted firmly on the science side.

I know this one has been talked about before, but I'll yell about it forever: The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch. The story follows an investigator trying to solve a crime unfolding in the present by traveling to possible futures where they already found the guy. However, there's a constant, looming threat in the form of cosmic horror/end-of-the-world event moving backwards in time from the distant future, tracking closer and closer as they continue to jump through time. It's a very surreal and haunting story, part sci-fi, part thriller, part horror.

Really stretching the definition of "modern" at this point (2005 was only a few years ago, right? Right?) but I'll throw it out there anyway: the Spin trilogy by Robert Charles Wilson. One night, the stars disappear entirely from the night sky, and technologies based on space or high orbit are thrown into chaos. It eventually comes out that the Earth has been encased in a bubble, and time is passing at an extremely rapid pace outside of it. The story is a mix of both the sci-fi side of figuring out what to do about it, but the main character is not actually directly involved in that plot, so it's more about people trying to live their lives in a very uncertain time. I wasn't as hot on the sequels, but Spin is one of the best sci-fi books I've read in a long time.

Wonka (3/5)

Not the biggest musical fan, but it was fun to watch and very cute. It seemed to me like the sort of movie where the entire cast was just having a lot of fun with it. I do think it was a little long for what it was, and it probably could have been edited down a bit. I still quite enjoyed my time with it, though, and it was definitely worth going out to see it.

It'll always be World for me. Perhaps I'm just a baby gamer, but even as a kid, I was super frustrated playing SMB3 because of always having to start over completely from scratch. The first two worlds of Mario 3 are practically burned into my brain, while I know almost nothing from world 3 on. Part of the reason I loved SMW was because it was a Mario game I could finally play at my own pace and actually stand a chance of finishing the damn thing.

Aside from that, I just always found World more fun to play. I prefer the cape over the leaf (flying just feels so good, and I don't like having to mash A to fly/glide), and I loved how a lot of levels had secret exits, so there was always this extra game of exploring the levels for hidden paths rather than just figuring out how to get to the end. Plus the game just looks gorgeous on the SNES hardware.

It turns out we, we were the real Time Trotters.

I could be wrong (I think Bakalar has joked about it a couple times) but they basically said that in terms of numbers, not enough people use the site compared to YouTube and Twitch, so it's not as worthwhile to keep it updated. Plus, Jan's all by his lonesome as a video producer, so it's basically all on him to make sure anything gets posted here.

Personally, while I check the site from time to time, I pretty much watch everything on YouTube now. Some odd stuff is still not archived there (the latest Friday Night Forking series seemingly only exists on Twitch as a "hey, rewatch this old broadcast" sort of thing), but everything else seems to go there. The one main complaint I have is that they seem to be largely leaning on YouTube's automatic archiving, presumably to give Jan slightly less work to deal with, so stuff gets split between videos being actually posted and videos just showing up under past livestreams.

In terms of Revengeance specifically, I just listen to it via my podcatcher on my phone, since episodes of that get posted in the same feed as the Bombcast. The last episode I have is from November 23rd, I presume because Game of the Year interfered with the normal schedule.

Another JFG fan chiming in over here! I was obsessed with the game as a kid, even had a poster hanging up that was included with the strategy guide. I know it gets some flak for requiring you to collect everything, but I really enjoyed backtracking to all the levels with different characters, new abilities, and a whole new arsenal. It's a very sort of checklist game for me, like get through to the midpoint where everyone meets up, then going through the planets again and crossing them off one by one.

I played through DK64 a while back (even got the 101%), and as much as I liked it as a kid, I don't think it held up very well. Once you unlock all the Kongs, it gets extremely tedious having to go through every level 5 times, sometimes more because one Kong's abilities are needed to unlock another Kong's banana. I've been curious to play through it with the instant-switching mod, but the last time I checked in on it, it seemed like it only worked on real hardware with a modded cart, which was way more effort than I was willing to put in for it.

Never been able to find Eagle Rare specifically, but I had a nice bourbon in his honor the other day. Wish you were still here, Ryan.

Hey everyone! This is my third year doing Extra Life but I was also part of the last Community Endurance Run. This year I'll be doing the same as last time: rocking out for the kids! I'll be streaming 24 hours of Clone Hero, a PC-based clone of Guitar Hero/Rock Band this Saturday. I'll be covering everything from 90s hits to crowd favorites to questionable covers and about...75% of what's included in Guitar Hero: Metallica, among many others.

My page is: extra-life.org/participant/shawn-h

Twitch is: twitch.tv/captainblackblade