Chamberlain and Chance

Blizzard has a firmer than usual grasp on our luxury time. Alex, who is good at Diablo, is on his second or third character, efficiently cruising through nightmare dungeons in world tier 3 with his undead entourage. Chamberlain, who is bad at Diablo, is playing it like an Assassin's Creed game, delving every dungeon and visiting every icon he comes across, accumulating aspects that he will never use. Chance tries to avoid Blizzard but still played a bunch of Overwatch 2, this time on PC servers full of players unprepared for healer POTGs.

Alex returns to us in spite of canceled flights, full New York hotels and old racist Spaniards and brings with him tales of Diablo 4. Chamberlain has also failed to resist Lilith's call and is chasing along, about 50 levels behind, with his beginner level Rogue, screaming 'look at me, I'm a big boy now!' Chance, on the other hand, has principles. He is playing Cyberpunk 2077 in preparation for this upcoming DLC, killing dozens of chooms before the first victim hits the floor.

He is also playing Overwatch 2, so you know, principles.

Alex is away on very important (drinking) business which leaves only two options for this episode: bitching or reminiscing. Never wanting to let you down, Chamberlain and Chance do their best to bring you both. Chance continues his new Cyberpunk 2077 run, crushed by the fact that inflation has invaded the game world and the good motorcycle now costs significantly more than it did at launch. And Chamberlain finishes up a reasonable indie boomer shooter in Boltgun before wading through Planet of Lana in one sitting.

Ok, Microsoft didn't actually win, but they did put on a better not-E3 show than either Sony or Ubisoft did. Starfield looks like an actual game now! Forza has a date! Chamberlain is still the only one who will ever own an XBox Series X! Speaking of selling out, Alex bought Diablo 4 and assures everyone that it is very good and that he doesn't feel at all bad about where his money and time went. Chance has replaced Tears of the Kingdom with Cyberpunk 2077 and is preparing for the expansion. And Chamberlain did penance for both real and imagined crimes by playing as much Gollum as he could stand.

One of us finished Tears of the Kingdom but you will need to wait to the end of the episode to find out who it was, what he thought about it, and just how moving it was. In the meantime, Chamberlain endorses Street Fighter 6 but has even more to say about Bramble. Alex fights the good fight (of not giving Blizzard any more money) and gets Diablo 3 running on the Steam Deck, and Chance makes new additions to Chance's hate mail bag.

Spoiler warnings for Tears of the Kingdom and Bramble.

Last week Chamberlain took a long, hard look at his life, his free time, and what may or may be making him miserable. Then he stopped playing Tears of the Kingdom, picked up several little games that no one else had heard of, and he felt better about everything. Gamer hipster, indeed. Chance continues to have the audacity to enjoy a very well crafted game, playing through epic quests of his own making, loving all of his time in Hyrule. At least he is still mad at Overwatch 2. And Alex jumps through economic hoops to get Borderlands 3 to run on the steam deck.

Sony had a thing. It was mediocre when compared to old E3 offerings, missing both the surprise announcements and arrogant pomp that used to be the norm. There was a lot of Spider-Man 2, which looked great, but we already knew that. Chance and Chamberlain continue to play Tears of the Kingdom, just in very different ways and at different levels of enjoyment. Chance is having grand adventures and Chamberlain swings wildly between board and annoyed. And Alex wisely eschews the entire argument by replaying Dragon Quest 11.

Tears of the Kingdom has arrived and one of our heroes is not exactly pleased with it. He is frankly fed up with what sees as a double standard, that Nintendo is allowed to make 'fugly' games while Sony and Microsoft are not. You get no points for guessing which of them feels this way. Also this week, Alex has finished Jedi Survivor, Chance is called a very strange name in Chance's hatemail bag, and it is Chamberlain. He is the defective one, send the angry tweets to him.

No Zelda yet, what are our heroes to do? Chamberlain was (and is) in a disagreeable mood, so he took his frustrations out on Afterimage by dropping it and then Redfall by hating it before finding surprising solace in a several years old PC RPG that was just barely ported to console. Bards Tale IV is good. Who knew? Chance and Alex are as steady as ever and just as surprised as anyone else that EA has managed to release two single player games, in the same year, and they are both good. First it was the Dead Space remake, and now Jedi Survivor. It seems that they are 'listening to people' and 'giving them what they want.'

Surprising: Chance has played two good games in a row that are not Overwatch. This time it is Star Wars Jedi Survivor, a game made better by developers listening to the complaints about the first game.

Not surprising: Redfall is bad and Arkane should feel bad.

Surprising: Chamberlain had minor complaints about an otherwise good Metroidvania, Afterimage, and they were patched while he was playing the game.

Not surprising: Alex could teach a literal class on how to play Borderlands 3. For college credit. It would be an AP class with a hefty GPA requirement for admission.