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Our writer Julian Ramirez is a big proponent of physical media, always lauding formats new and old (mostly old nowadays). Whether is vinyl, cassettes or CDs; 4k UHD, Blu-ray, or VHSs, he believes that physical media is an important part of preserving art and imbues another dimension of appreciating the work.  This series will focus on some of his favorite pieces of physical media in his collection. Just a little bit over ten years ago, I started writing for Gapers Block. It was a small outlet out of Chicago focusing on arts, culture sports, you name it they covered it. I mainly wrote for their music section called Transmission. It was a blast and in those first six months really got me even more excited for music than I already was. One of my first assignments was King Krule’s first Chicago show at Lincoln Hall. If that’s all it was or were to be, it’s a pretty big show considering King Krule's standing as one of the most interesting UK artists to debut since then. But in the following years this show has become something special to me. It was a show that wouldn’t have even been on my radar had my cousin Maya not recommended it to me months before on the way to other concert, really selling me on lead singer Archy Marshall’s voice and guitar work. 6 Feet Beneath The Moon was maybe a month old at the time and from the first listen of the opening track during that car ride, I was hooked. Those droning strums of the album opener “Easy Easy “careen into Marshall’s unbelievably deep voice, much deeper than any 19 year old should have. It’s a stellar intro to Marshall and had I been more of aware of King Krule songs like “The Noose of Jah City” or “Out Getting Ribs” (a song that has become a personal and obvious fan favorite) would have set an insane bar for Marshall to meet. But the rest of the album does so marvelously. The gentle and chill out jam that underlines “Neptune Estate” is almost the antithesis of “Lizard State”, a song that relishes in excess and boisterousness. The entire album vacillates between moments of calm (“Baby Blue”) or melancholy (“Cementality”) and jaunty tracks (“The Krockadile”). When it finally came time to see the man and his band, I made sure to arrive early enough that the main floor wasn’t packed and the upstairs balcony seats were still plentiful. I took  a little lap around the venue before I planted in my spot up, stopping at the merch stand for a sec to just to see what they had on hand. It was the usual spread of shirts from both King Krule and the opening band TOPS (who are also excellent), a screen-printed poster for the show by Leslie Herman, and physical copies of their respective albums. That’s when my eyes widened. In the center of the table was a copy of 6 Feet Beneath The Moon , King Krule’s debut album, but it looked different. Instead of the typical black and white cover art created by Mister Gone, the cover was drawn over with colorful designs. It was as abstract as the original cover, signed mr. gone and priced at $10 more than the regular release.  I asked the person behind the table what the deal was with this unique edition and she didn’t really know anything about them. It feels dumb to say but I didn’t immediately purchase it. I thought about it for a long while but ended up back in my balcony seat with nothing. But every passing second my thoughts returned to that special looking edition of the album and before not too long I rushed back down to the table and immediately asked for a copy. Or what I thought would be a copy. The record, which was sleeved to protect its unique designs, was also taped down to the table. I figured the King Krule crew had made a bunch of these records and they would just grab one from the back and hand over a non-display copy. But no, it was the one from the table getting cut from its sticky confines and handed over to me (along with one of those gorgeous posters). Even without the the special drawn on art, the psychical album is a treasure. Mister Gone's art is displayed throughout the gatefold, highlighted by photographs of the band shot by Reuben Bastienne-Lewis. It a messy hand made style that works in tandem with the emotions and vocals that Archy Marshall pours over the albums instrumentals. In the moments between sets I stopped back down to the merch table to pick up the opening band TOPS’ own debut album and they informed be that the King Krule crew had a very limited number of copies of those hand drawn albums, pretty much only having one per stop. Months later I would come to find out that Mister Gone (mr. gone) was Jack Marshall, Archy Marshall’s brother, and likely the one who drew on my copy. Years later I would find other fans that also had unique copies of 6 Feet Beneath The Moon from this tour. And a bunch of fans who wanted to buy my copy occasionally messaging me in hopes of purchasing it. Photos of different variations of King Krule's 6 Feet Beneath The Moon from Discogs Just under nine years later, my cousin Maya, who opened my eyes to the sounds of King Krule passed away suddenly. A little over a decade later I play my vinyl copy of the album while staring at it's uniwue cover. and am flooded with memories of the year it came out. Memories of jamming out to that album in car on the way to the show that now feels like a footnote. Memories of King Krule commanding the stage with a deftness far beyond his years. Memories of my cousin feeling proud about recommending such a damn fine band. Physical media is not just owning something I could easily stream on the tons of available services. It's about the beauty of the physical item, the memories it can conjure, and the new ones that can be imbued on it. You can purchase a copy of King Krule's 6 Feet beneath the Moon at your local record store or favorite online retailer. You can also stream the album if you must, but I highly recommend you get a physical copy.

Rogue Trooper might be a bit obscure in the states, and that's probably why I didn't realize there were people looking to make an adaptation of the blue-skinned , gun-toting comic book action hero “19” from the storied 2000 AD line of comics. To add to the excitement, Duncan Jones, the man behind Moon, Source Code and the Warcraft movie is helming the animated feature that has been ‘filmed’ entirely using Unreal Engine 5. Rogue Trooper’s story will follow Genetic Soldier 19 and three of his fallen comrades–one stored in his helmet, one in his rucksack and one in his gun–as they embark on a mission to avenge his dead comrades and find out who betrayed them. The film was made at Rebellion Film Studios in Oxfordshire, with Aneurin Barnard starring as 19 along with Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The First Avenger), Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Dunkirk), Daryl McCormack (Bad Sisters, Good Luck To You Leo Grande) and Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9, Saltburn), Jemaine Clement (Avatar 2: The Way of Water), Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows), Diane Morgan (Cunk on Earth), Alice Lowe (Black Mirror), Asa Butterfield (Sex Education, Hugo) and Sean Bean (Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings). Rogue Trooper is a long running comic series from 2000 AD comics, the same publication that gave the world Judge Dredd. It’ll be great to see what a feature film adaptation of Rogue Trooper will look like, but there hasn’t been much to see beyond a lone teaser image. However, it sounds like the actors portraying the characters may be doing more than just voicing them. Producer Stuart Fenegan commented: “The advancements in Unreal Engine 5 and the inclusion of MetaHuman rigs mean that it is now possible to achieve a very high standard of animation within an indie budget. Working with our amazing partners at Rebellion, Epic and Treehouse Digital we are pioneering and developing a new creative pipeline that will enable independent production of CG animated films.” Rebellion CEO, Jason Kingsley CBE, who is a Producer on Rogue Trooper, added: “We are thrilled to be working with Duncan Jones, who is a fellow British creative visionary and 2000 AD fan with global reach. Rogue Trooper highlights Rebellion’s leading position within the entertainment industries. It has been filmed at our dedicated Oxfordshire film studios and combines beautiful storytelling from our iconic 2000 AD comic book universe with animation and production technology from the video game industry. We cannot wait for everyone to see these incredible stories brought to life on screen.” The Rogue Trooper comic was created by legendary artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Kingsman) and writer Gerry Finley-Day (Dan Dare) and released by British publishers 2000 AD, home to Judge Dredd, Halo Jones and Sláine. Rogue Trooper is produced by Stuart Fenegan (Moon, Source Code, Warcraft, Mute) alongside Jason Kingsley (Dredd, School's Out Forever), Chris Kingsley (Dredd, School's Out Forever) and Duncan Jones. The film is set to complete in 2025.

With 2023 closed, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the things that stood out in gaming. After combing the annals of Steam, we have found the best freebies of the last year. Let’s get into it. Postmouse Postmouse is a 3D Platformer where you play as a mouse being suddenly forced to deliver the mail. Explore the forest and meet all your animal neighbors as you try to find the recipients of the letters. It’s adorable, heart warming and overall well animated. It does have a short run time with some bugginess, but it’s got tons of heart and charm to spare. The Finals A combat based game show where you and a group of friends steal bags of cash from safes posted all over the playing field. Unfortunately, you aren’t the only team trying to grab the cash and bank it for themselves. With lots of gunplay and fully destructible environments, no one match is ever the same. An Arcade Full of Cats A simple game of finding all the cats in a single image, but with a funny story pulling it all together. Cats were interjected at key moments in history to make a more cat friendly timeline, but the cats never wanted to leave, so it’s up to you to find them and bring them home. A pleasant handful of puzzles that do well as perfect bite sized puzzles to entertain you throughout your day. Pineapple On Pizza To explain this game is to ruin this game. It’s a first person exploration game where you experience the culture of a volcanic Polynesian island and its inhabitants in a fairly barebones and clever way. See this through to the end for a good chuckle. SkyIsland SkyIsland is a tilt shifted action adventure like a simplified diablo or Zelda. You get three different melee weapons and a bow and arrow to help Pino fix his broken plane, defeat monsters and return home. It’s well animated with some anime influences and well designed boss battles. Definitely worth picking up. The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog This was originally an April Fool’s joke but ended up being such a lovely visual novel whodunit murder mystery. Sonic and his friends get on a murder mystery dinner party train for a fun birthday party, but there ends up being something more sinister afoot. It’s funny in all the right ways while still making for an interesting premise.

Every passing year TNK Fest rises to the occasion: kicking off the year with amazing shows. The multi-day fest spreads itself across a nice collection of venues (this year included Lincoln Hall, Schubas, Sleeping Village, & Gman Tavern). Each show has a wonderful variety emphasizing on rising acts, both local and nationwide, giving devoted concert goers a taste of the familiar and the new. This year I had the opportunity to see what is likely one of my favorite lineups of the fest with Squirrel Flower, Tenci, and Greg Freeman playing Lincoln Hall. The night kicked off with Tenci, an artist I've been trying to see for quite a while but time has slipped on by me every time. I've been enamored with Jess Shoman's amazing voice since her debut My Heart is an Open Field and that feeling only grew with her sophomore release A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing. Tender and heartfelt only scratch the surface of Shoman's art which was as enthralling as I hoped. "Two Cups" off her latest is a great example of Shoman and crew's ability to create a mesmerizing track as they all ascend into it's chanting end: "I won’t wait (Fill my cup)". Throughout Tenci's set there was a screen urging the crowd to reach out their alders about supporting the ceasefire in Gaza. Shoman even stopped the set towards the end to add more awareness to the matter. The topic was important for er and the crowd as we all pulled out our phones and together emailed our alders on the matter. While that aside tot he real world may have been odd in another setting, it was exactly what you wanted from an artist like Shoman. Her set continued with the incredible "Sour Cherries" before she introduced her band. Her set ended with a beautiful song I couldn't immediately identify, although the lyrics are still swimming around in my head. While I didn't get to experience "Joy" live, the quality flow of the set more than made up for it. Greg Freeman followed that up with one of the most instantly gratifying sets I've heard. I wasn't keenly aware of Freeman and his sound but with in moments of starting his set I was hooked. Freeman and his band careened into a set full of undeniably catchy jams. Honestly, I'm a bit at a loss to describe their sound. They evoke a lot of alt country sounds, effectively laying them, with some more experimental elements and a heavy dose of old school rock. "Long Distance Driver" feels like a lost Neil Young track as Freeman's voice yearns and howls while his band rages on. It was a sight to see them all work so furiously and cohesively, especially as as Freeman donned a harmonica for "Come and Change My Body". It all came to a head with "Colorado" where the already blisteringly great band blew past any sense of normalcy and lunged into great territory. Made me an instant fan. With two unique band having made their mark on the night it was time for another to change the vibe up again and send the packed Lincoln Hall into new territory. The light dimmed and stayed that way for the majority of Squirrel Flower's set, letting this otherworldly haze settle her and the rest of on the crowd. Ella O'Connor Williams, the main power behind the Squirrel Flower moniker, instantly set the mood of her set with an amazing performance of "i don't use a trash can". The track has origins in the early beginnings of Squirrel Flower but has a completely new breath of life infused into it with its appearance on William's latest album Tomorrow​’​s Fire. Looping her voice over and over on top of itself till the ethereal aura bloomed past the edges of the stage. It was a downright hypnotizing performance. Squirrel Flower followed that with another track off Tomorrow​’​s Fire "Full Time Job". Like the opening track, it laments the mundane world around her. While "i don't use a trash can" does so in a lighter than air way, "Full Time Job" rages as she and the band crank up the raucous quietly of their sound. Williams able to maintain both ends of the spectrum so well while her voice is steadfast in the center, anchoring every one of her songs with it's emotionally deep quality. Most of the songs off Tomorrow​’​s Fire got a spotlight during the set, with only a small handful off Plant (i) & I Was Born Swimming getting some love. But that's to be expected when your last album is as tight and enduring as Tomorrow​’​s Fire. There are just so many powerful songs throughout the album. Take the emotions that swirl in telling your crush how you feel about them in "intheskatepark" where Williams conjures up a saccharine cadence as she sings "thought if I told you slowly/you'd be feeling the same way". Or "Canyon" on the other hand which swells with noisy guitars while Williams gets lost in the spontaneity of a relationship. These songs deserved the spotlight as much as Williams' cover of "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" deserves to cap off as many Squirrel Flower sets as it can. All photos by Julian Ramirez. This post was originally published at Third Coast Review

The movie world is awash with remakes lately. For better or worse, people are taking films we loved and having another go at them, with varying degrees of success. And, at least to the casual observer, it seems like the more beloved the franchise, the worse a remake is received - taking things like the Disney live action movies, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Cats as just a few examples. It’s not even that all these films are bad. But especially with cult classics, it’s hard for lightning to strike twice. Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter is such an iconic and impressive performance that it’s hard to separate from Curry himself, and that makes it hard to cast anyone else in the role. Still other filmmakers attempting remakes try to duck around bad production value or impress with lots of unnecessary CGI and lose the heart of the story and the charming nature of the original world built from painted backdrops and foam bricks. Bombastic soundtracks and practical effects get replaced, and you’re left with this uncanny valley feeling of looking at something you’re supposed to recognize and it’s not quite there. All that to say it’s an uphill battle pleasing fans of any genre of films with remakes. It can definitely be done, but it takes impeccable casting, attention to detail and a real love for the source material. That, or Muppets. Recently, the internet has dreamed up the perfect treatment for a cult classic that we at Culture Combine are very protective of ourselves: The Princess Bride. Every so often someone talks about trying to reimagine The Princess Bride, and every time, I shake my head. It’s crazy enough that William Goldman’s book was able to be translated to an amazing film the way it was - it already breaks the lightning rule - but it’s near impossible to imagine anyone else but Peter Falk reading to Fred Savage or Cary Elwes tumbling down a hill and wrestling ROUSes in the fire swamp. NO ONE can recapture the wit, heart, camp, and action of that film… Except maybe Kermit and crew. Recently in a Princess Bride Inconceivableposting group on Facebook, we found something so compelling, it’s taking the internet by storm. A poster named Brian Quintin shared the brilliant concept, crediting the original idea to someone on Tumblr known as komakesthings. By now, you may even have already seen it, but it bears mentioning that The Muppet Princess Bride is probably the only acceptable reimagining of such an amazing cult classic film. Can Muppets swashbuckle? See Muppet Treasure Island. Can Muppets stay true to the original source material and still work their magic to transcend even “straightforward” retellings and become the gold standard for the remake? See Muppet Christmas Carol, which recently took the throne for best Christmas film of all time. And can the Muppets handle incredibly witty comedy and slapstick hijinks? See EVERY MUPPET FILM EVER. What’s even more exciting about this imaginative mashup is that they brought proof of concept, in the form of these amazing mockups. There’s Kermit as the Dread Pirate Roberts/Westley, Piggy as Buttercup, the Swedish Chef as the priest, and the proof of concept even puts a bow on it with Elwes in the great Peter Falk’s role, reading Goldman’s book to Tad. It’s something we didn’t know we wanted until right now, and to be honest, we wouldn’t mind if the magicmakers who still handle Henson’s legacy at least took it for a test drive.

I’m still undecided whether Early Access games are saving video games, or making them worse. Sometimes, however, they just lead to disappointment. Such is the case with Phantom Abyss, a game that I played in Early Access with excitement for the final product–only to be ultimately disappointed. Phantom Abyss is a first person parkour ‘em up set to a vaguely Indiana Jones theme–though sometimes it feels more like Legends of the Hidden Temple. The goal is to maneuver through various randomly configured dungeons (they call them temples), avoiding traps, while employing your whip and dash to escape or progress. It’s definitely one of those games that sounds great on paper, especially with its asynchronous multiplier. See, you’re not actually playing in real-time against other players, but you see other players’ runs as phantoms. The goal is to learn from their mistakes, survive where they didn’t, and take their whips if they perish. It’s not really a race, though it does have that feel–and sometimes certain modifiers benefit from you staying ahead of phantoms. The parkour in Phantom Abyss isn’t the best. It’s not that movement feels bad, it just doesn’t feel particularly fun, either. You have dash, which is probably the most useful movement tool despite the whip being one of the marquee game features. The whip is a little too hyped up. Sure, you can use it to open chests and grapple up walls, but it’s frustratingly janky and unreliable. At first, the dungeons were interesting; the traps I encountered were varied and exciting–until they weren’t. It only took a few hours before I felt like I was running through the same corridors just in different configurations. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of danger in these dungeons. You have to survive spikes, pitfalls, things that’ll fall on your head, darts, etc. And even traps you’ve encountered before might be more dangerous if you’re forced to approach them from less than ideal directions. There are also different modifiers that can help you, but they more often give you more to watch out for–like giant poison spitting heads or laser firing orbs. There isn’t combat in Phantom Abyss, though, so all you can do is (try to) avoid getting damaged. If your health drops to zero, you lose all progress in that dungeon. There is a progression system in Phantom Abyss that lets you upgrade different abilities, which make the challenges in the game ever so slightly easier. You can even unlock different whips with their own inherent abilities that can give you an advantage or even influence your playstyle. However, as much fun as I had parkouring around in the first few hours of Phantom Abyss, I never ended up finding the fun. Each run felt drab and even those clever traps started to see a little same-y, until I felt like I’ve seen everything–and what’s left is to see it in different configurations. Phantom Abyss is definitely an example of a game with a great idea that just doesn’t land. It’s too bad, because a Fall Guys -ish meets Indiana Jones -ish sounds like a great thing on paper. But even with a progression system that beckoned me to keep playing, I tapped out as soon as I discovered that I just wasn’t having any fun. Phantom Abyss is available now for PC via Steam and on Xbox Series S|X,

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the Best Buy....website... I don't know if you know this, but "girl culture" is having its moment, as it should have long ago. We're finally seeing Barbie blowing out the box office, Mean Girls making everything "so fetch" again, and video games recognizing that "girl gamers" have always been a thing, and giving us collabs with companies like OPI or making our Xbox its own Barbie Dream House. With the success of the incredibly powerful and influential market that is being represented in Barbie, those who celebrate and participate in "girl culture" no matter where or how or what that looks like, are seeing more and more things they just gotta have. Nintendo's already announced its plans for an amazing adventure where Princess Peach isn't just waiting in another castle when it announced Princess Peach: Showtime, at its recent Nintendo Direct, but there's also some fantastic new merch in the lineup, with gorgeous pastel pink Joy-Con being shown off all over the internets ahead of the release. If you're a person who loves all those 'aesthetic' Switch setups or just simply loves all things rose-hued, these are going to be irresistible. There's already so many fun options with Joy-Con and you can mix and match to fit your mood, but it's time for classic pink, and we're going to be clickin' that link and pre-ordering these for sure. And yes, we're probably going to put it on Instagram (with our purple PS5) when we do. You can pre-order these blushing beauties on Best Buy now.

They say everything old is new again and at least to my “geriatric” millennial eyes it means my generation’s being sold nostalgia while the Gen Z kids are making TikTok "get ready with me" makeup tutorials for the 90’s grunge look. We’re getting old and they’re thinking they invented messy eyeshadow and runny mascara and the Ninja Turtles. We’re shouting at clouds and they’re buying styrofoam cup stylized imitation Converse, for some reason. I’d love to say we of this generation are above moral panic but to be honest, go as far back as you care to google it and you’ll find that everything from comic books to pinball machines were encouraging kids to become one of Satan’s minions or tear the very fabric of the modern family apart. Too much radio time to too much TV time to too much time on phones and Roblox and Fortnite (Oh my!) And what’s a moral panic without some sense of exaggerated danger in the form of a threat to something we’re all supposed to collectively hold dear to us? We watched our parents buy into the censorship and leaned real hard in the opposite direction. Sure, we didn’t start the fire, but we definitely didn’t think that playing Dungeons and Dragons was going to open you up to anything but math, strategy and longlasting friendships. Are we above it? No, and bad habits die hard. That said though, a lot of moral panics these days, at least for us as elder millennials, boil down to a raised eyebrow or a rolled eye. We needed something with less stakes, perhaps. Less stressful than a threat to everything we are and hold dear. So, we hopped on social media and started making brackets for Disney movies and snack foods. And recently, we started the petty panic epidemic, with a monster of the week to banter about that’s just about as rubber and nonthreatening as those little jelly Godzilla finger things you got out of gumball machines at the grocery store. If you understand when it stops being hilarious and starts being dangerous (think violating people’s boundaries, mockery, not being inclusive), then you can have some real fun of getting a little mad about things that don’t really matter much. On social media it’s an art form. Play the game, vent some stress, and dip out when you just don’t care anymore. Right? Or is it a little more insidious than we thought, and a little bit too fine a line to want to walk before you’re following in your parents footsteps and banning things instead of having conversations. There’s always a new “thing” to fixate on, and right now if you’re in the realms of TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Insta, you might be noticing a three headed monster emerging. This month’s targets have been chosen, and it starts with Stanley cups. This polarizing cup is a suburban status symbol and launched a company that had previously sold thermoses to construction crews into a limelight they hadn’t really seen before, despite having the same or better quality stainless steel bottles on offer for decades. From mommy blogs and play dates it hit magazines, TV shows and the internet at large, and suddenly, and without warning… Starbucks, aka Starby’s to our successors and Stanley collided for one super-mega commercial colossus in the Valentine’s Day limited edition Stanley pink. Not any pink and red: candy heart pink and Russell Stover’s special selection red. And as soon as they dropped a Target release date, it was on. Before you know it, everyone and their mom are at Target behaving badly seconds after strolling in the door to get their mitts on two mugs that, let’s face it, may survive car fires but aren’t really very different from any other stainless steel travel mug. Meanwhile, a makeup company that’s graduated from indie to mainstream, mostly by embracing the magic of the “collab” in a much more successful way than McDonald’s, who thinks that a collab just means adding "X" something to a regular Big Mac Meal and putting it in an adult happy meal box. ColourPop's made an even bigger name of themselves lately, going from just creating great indie makeup that competed with high end dupes to creating eyeshadow palettes and lipsticks to match the mood of your favorite IP, from Animal Crossing to Avatar to Sailor Moon, Harry Potter (a major misstep, and a dealbreaker for many) AND a brand new IP that folks just a little younger than me who didn’t cut their vampire-show teeth on Buffy the Vampire Slayer hold dear: Twilight. So what’s the problem here? Everything from highlighters that don’t shine properly to “false advertising” for announcements that show a deep blood red lip not available using anything in the kit. Moving on from that we’ve got the Sephora tweens. These little monsters are said to have spawned forth from some of our own loins, and perhaps even more shocking, if you want to buy into what’s weirdly become a sort of legitimate panic in some circles, they’re at the makeup stores behaving badly. Mixing up Drunk Elephant smoothies in their Lululemon and…this is all because of gentle parenting! These kids don’t ever get told no and… Here’s where that fine line starts to come in. And this may be an unpopular opinion, but it’s the premise that takes it from eyeroll to exclusion and starts witch hunts and plays into dangerous agendas. I have the lived experience of being a tween. No matter who you are, if you take an honest look back at that “special” time of your life you’re likely to find trauma, drama and angst. You’re also likely to recall yourself as a surly sarcastic little thing that didn’t think it was cool to like anything, hated the way adults did everything, and deeply idolized actual teens and twentysomethings. At least in my cis white female circles, this very critically involved things like Lip Smackers, cucumber melon body lotion, Clinique Happy and CKOne, and edgy little Urban Decay eyeshadow pots. We were the mall invaders. We were the samplers of every single thing in Bath and Body Works and neighboring Yankee Candle and the ones laughing and running past shelves full of glass bottles and somehow not passing out in Perfumania. We were the hellions with war painted arms from swatching all the things at the MAC counter who would bother the makeup artists to do looks on us and then if we were lucky afford one or two things they used that we’d then take home and desperately try to reproduce with Cover Girl and Wet & Wild. Did we leave a mess? Maybe we tried not to, but probably. Did we become sullen, whiny, sometimes sobbing messes when we couldn’t buy the WHOLE look from the MAC counter? Were we not, dare I say, little shits to our parents and some poor store staff who were just trying to do their jobs? It’s this very thing that got me thinking: maybe we’re better off with positivity instead of panic, even if it’s petty. While we’re all aiming for respectful interactions with other humans, let’s not forget that we’ve all gotta figure it out some time, and as much as we insisted it’s not “just a phase, Mom” luckily, it really is. Turning tweens into the latest threat to society isn’t anything new, but it’s not going to help anything, either. And as we’ve learned from Cady Heron in Mean Girls, “calling somebody else fat won’t make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter.” It might be fun to laugh at soccer moms clamoring for the last pink Stanley at Target, and it might be easy to demonize the tweens being obnoxious and making a mess at Sephora, but it’s probably wiser to keep it to an eyeroll and a doomscroll and try not to cast too much judgement on people’s choices or journeys, because while we might be doing better at staying away from extremes, there’s more room for accepting people for who they are, even if they like pineapple on pizza.

It’s been announced that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II isn’t getting a physical release, and that seems to be continuing the trend that has been started with Alan Wake II. While Alan Wake II found itself on many game of the year lists, it didn’t find itself on store shelves in physical form since it was a digital-only release. It looks like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, the follow-up to 2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice will also stay digital only as developer Ninja Theory has recently confirmed. Digital only looks to be our future, but it’s definitely bad for consumers. And this is the (extremely simplified) reason why: When you buy a digital product, you’re not actually buying the product itself. Instead, you’re often just paying for access to it. With physical media, the agreements are pretty similar, but the access to your physical media can’t be taken away. With a digital product, there are all sorts of reasons and/or ways your access to that piece of media can be revoked. This loss of access to digital media is already creating a sort of crisis. Some classic movies are almost impossible to find online. For instance, when I look up George Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead on Justwatch.com it succinctly informs me that “This title is not available for streaming.” It’s not like you can run to a video rental store (RIP Blockbuster) or even a Redbox and pick up this movie, so your options truly are limited. You can either pirate the movie (if you have the knowledge and want to take the risk) or you can find a physical copy. I was a digital only proponent, until I started to lose access to my stuff as the servers providing it went down. I paid for games that I couldn’t even download anymore. Over the last few years, I started retro collecting because I found that games running on emulated versions didn’t feel the same as they did on original hardware. There certainly is a convenience with digital only. We don’t have to lug our CD collections around in those CD sleeves. And having instant access almost anywhere is definitely an advantage of the more limited physical only versions. But with that convenience we’re giving up personal ownership. I’m not saying that the days of showing off your DVD/Blu-Ray collection should return, but there is a real danger of losing access to media–and even a danger for media to be lost to time. The way of digital only looks to be the prevalent trend, however, with leaks of new digital only Xbox Series consoles and PlayStations with optional optical drives. Hell, Microsoft just let go most of their physical media team during its recent massive layoffs. it’s hard to ignore the writing on the wall: digital only is probably our future.

Daredevil Born Again may have received some great news–especially for fans of the original Netflix series. Fan favorite characters Foggy Nelson and Karen Page might be getting their original actors according to Jeff Sneider on X (formerly Twitter): What that means for the canonicity of the original Netflix show remains to be seen, but I’d like to think that somewhere along the line that Kevin Feige and the forces-that-be over at Marvel decided to expand upon Netflix’s fantastic Daredevil rather than start fresh from the ground-up. I mean, why not? And that’s the question most of the internet was asking until casting choices (namely, Wilson Fisk’s Wife) proved that there may be some shakeup with the show’s original cast. Which is a shame, because Daredevil on Netflix was a great live action showing for the Man Without Fear and his associates. But this latest rumor has served as a panacea for fans that felt like they were going to be forced to watch as their show turned into a twisted, MCU-ified version of itself. Frankly, I actually enjoyed the moments of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil that we got in Echo and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, though both of these have had their critics amongst fans. But I am thrilled to know that Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson might be returning as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson (respectively), because they added heart and a whole lot of fantastic acting to Daredevil during its run on Netflix. Production on Daredevil: Born Again is starting to ramp up, so expect more news coming out of the House of Mouse regarding the Scarlet Swashbuckler and his MCU outing.

I’ve been a Deep Rock Galactic fan since the beginning–and even though I’m coming up on 2,000 hours of playtime, I haven’t gotten sick of it yet. It doesn’t hurt that I have a regular twice a week game where my friends and I dive into the depths of Hoxxes to destroy the local ecosystem while strip mining the minerals. It’s exciting to me, then, that Deep Rock Galactic only seems to be getting more popular each passing year–and with more games on the horizon being developed by Ghost Ship Games (and others!) in the Deep Rock Galactic universe, hopefully this drop pod won’t slow down anytime soon. But let’s look at some of these end of year stats, published by Ghost Ship Games. Unfortunately, most of these stats reflect only the Steam version of Deep Rock Galactic–leaving out the Microsoft Store version (which caters both Windows and Xbox players) and the PlayStation version. It’s amazing that the Deep Rock Galactic community has over 8 million dwarves, and over 150,000 daily users on Steam. It’s definitely an active community. Among the player deaths, it’s no surprise that falling is still the number one cause of death for dwarves on Hoxxes. Coming in far in second place are those ever-present glyphid grunts. Sadly, these stats leave a lot of questions I’d like answered. What is the most played class? How often do cave leaches get dwarves before they get the cave leeches. What are the error cubes for? Stuff like that. Hopefully these stats will only go up for next year–though that seems unlikely for a game that is half a decade old. Then again, if you rock and stone, you're never alone. Rock and stone, miners!

I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of the Vectrex. In fact, it wasn’t until I managed to buy one at a retro game shop that I actually got my hands on one the first time. It's a classic retro system that's impressive to play. There have been people like Sean Kelly that have kept the Vectrex alive and well and helped it stand the test of time, and now there’s a new shoot ‘em up being developed for it called Neon Hawk. If you’re not aware, the Vectrex doesn’t render scenes in pixels. Instead it uses vector graphics to draw images on the screen. It’s a look that has managed to age gracefully, and definitely reminds you of the early days of home video games. While it’s not a surprise that there is a passionate community out there still making games for the Vectrex, what’s surprising is just how great this game looks, even for a Vectrex game: According to user MJR on the Shmups forum (shmups.system11.org) the game is being developed by an industry veteran that has worked on games like Max Payne 2, Alan Wake and more. The user describes the game as “a rail shooter game, Space Harrier style.” And it looks incredibly impressive for a Vectrex game. I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for any updates on this project, and hopefully get a playable build at some point.