Multiple Nerdgasm

Matt finally watched the new Resident Evil, directed by Zach Cregger of Barbarian and Weapons, and he and Luke agree it’s one of the better video game adaptations in a long time. We also try to untangle the games’ ever-shifting lore (T-Virus, the parasite, Village) and agree it’s best to just go with it. Matt is midway through the RE4 remake, and Luke is holding off on new games ahead of GTA 6.

News and chat: Taika Waititi’s response to the poor reviews of Clara and the Sun. Hayden Christensen is back in Star Wars, and a burglar who recognized him gave his stuff back. They also cover Jake Lloyd’s struggles, celebrity safety stories (David Spade, Meg Turney), and Geek of the Week feedback from Patreon listeners after the “incident” with Patrick Stewart.

The episode closes with games business news: Arkane’s union accusing Xbox of sabotaging Blade with a 19-month hiring freeze, the profit-versus-growth problem, Gears of War: E-Day’s reported cost, GTA 6 preloads, and the annoyance of internet providers raising prices after a 2-year promo.

Topics discussed

• The new Resident Evil movie
• Why it works as a game adaptation
• Resident Evil lore
• Luke's game-buying freeze
• The original Resident Evil (2002)
• Lake Placid rewatch
• Child stars growing up
• Taika Waititi's Klara and the Sun backlash
• Hayden Christensen and Star Wars
• Fame & Burglers & Stalkers
• Geek of the Week feedback
• Arkane's Blade game and Microsoft
• GTA 6 and internet bills

Links

Welcome to Episode 669, which has a 69 in it. We didn’t do 67 jokes because Luke says it’s not a thing, which just proves he’s too old for it. Anyway.

Luke saw Clayface and liked it, mostly because it’s just Clayface with no post-credits scene and no teaser for the next movie. It’s also properly body horror, so he got uncomfortable. I saw You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder / Elizabeth Holmes documentary, and I was so absorbed I’d have forgotten to eat popcorn from the clear A24 bucket that is technically a bucket for seeing everything. Luke can’t see it for a couple more weeks because Australia, so you’ll have to wait for the full chat. I also retell the gas station episode of Nathan for You where the attendant recommends drinking his grandson’s pee, and Nathan nearly breaks.

Elsewhere: the new Dune bucket now has two sandworms and we’ve made peace with how that looks. I did a Halloween double feature of Lake Placid (a masterpiece of ridiculous ’90s monster nonsense, with Betty White) and Anaconda (a snake movie with too many snakes and no reason to care). Grok made an “accurate” Odyssey and it’s boring, because it turns out you need more than a technically impressive thing on screen. Ridley Scott is making another Alien movie and I mostly want to know what the hell the end of Covenant was about.

I’m also running out of hard drive. One of my 8-year-old NAS drives is dying and replacements cost $1,000 right now, so I’ve decided to not think about it. We also get into Sam Altman wanting your RAM, ChatGPT telling people to go to the press about their Instagram problems, a man in Kentucky getting a religious exemption from AI (good luck with the internet, mate), Elder Scrolls: Sentinel, and the free AI-made Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom game that Luke paid $5 for. I forgot that was pay-what-you-want. Sorry.

The After Party this week has Geek of the Week (a big one, and we’re not allowed to make jokes until then), Vegemite news, and Hitler news. Fuck Hitler, we agree. But also, fuck Vegemite.

Topics discussed

• Clayface
• What's next for DC
• Dune: Part Three popcorn bucket
• You Can See Everything (Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos)
• Lake Placid and Anaconda
• Grok's "accurate" Odyssey
• Ridley Scott's new Alien movie
• Video games we played this week
• Elder Scrolls leak
• Xbox sales and hardware
• Matt's dying hard drives
• ChatGPT harms and AI-driven hacking
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom point-and-click

Full show notes and links: https://multiplenerdgasm.com/669-clayface-you-can-see-everything-lake-placid-vs-anaconda-groks-odyssey/

A leaked trailer has made Mass Effect fans angrier than anything BioWare has done recently. With the studio shut down and Mass Effect 5 cancelled, a petition is circulating to force EA to sell the franchise. Luke and Matt go through the whole sad run from Andromeda to Anthem to the purple Dragon Age game, and they ask whether EA might still have plans for the IP (probably involving microtransactions).

From there the show gets bigger. Anthropic reportedly lost $80.7 billion in the first half of this year. Matt is paying $20 a month for something that costs far more to run, and Nvidia is pre-selling RAM to companies that haven’t got anywhere to put it. Epic Games has gone AI-first on its Disney shooter after laying off 1,000 people. Matt, a senior developer, asks how anyone becomes a senior developer when there are no junior jobs. Luke’s answer is that people will be paid to play games again, and he says it with a straight face. We also try to work out whether Star Trek is a realistic model for universal basic income.

There’s a Congressional bill that would let you actually own the games you buy, and Luke’s plan for Microsoft to get rich by bringing back a feature it scrapped on the Xbox One. A Valve developer said ‘HLX’ out loud and got teased for it afterwards. Luke says Half-Life 2 was repetitive and will defend that position. Matt has been playing Little Kitty, Big City for his daughter, and he keeps putting off the chainsaw ladies in Resident Evil 4. Luke reviews Street Fighter and Other Mommy after two “private screenings”, there are rumours about the next James Bond, and Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie has been shelved.

Topics discussed

• BioWare shut down and Mass Effect 5 cancelled
• AI slop at Steam Next Fest
• Anthropic's losses and RAM pre-sales
• Junior developers and AI
• Epic Games goes AI-first
• Universal basic income and Star Trek
• Power to the Players Act
• Valve's HLX
• Little Kitty, Big City and Resident Evil 4
• Street Fighter and Other Mommy
• Next James Bond screen tests
• Taika Waititi's Star Wars movie shelved

Full show notes and links: https://multiplenerdgasm.com/668-mass-effect-5-cancelled-epic-goes-ai-first-and-why-you-dont-really-own-your/

Luke went to PAX Aus! What did he do there? What does he hate about conventions? And what was Matt playing this week? You’ll have to tune in to find out.

Topics discussed

• PAX Aus recap and Luke's pinball glory
• Board games over video games
• Con pet peeves, long lines and panel etiquette
• Pokémon, Pikmin Bloom and location-based games
• Con food and drink
• Alec Baldwin documentary follow-up
• You Can See Everything (Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos)
• Tesla's new Roadster demo and electric car competition
• Mike Flanagan and Stephen King remakes
• Strange Horticulture, Resident Evil 4 remake and Outbound
• AI mashups and Xbox

Links

It’s episode 666, so naturally we spent a chunk of it assigning the Seven Deadly Sins to the gaming industry’s worst offenders. Unity took Greed for trying to charge developers retroactively per install (still unforgivable). AI took Gluttony. Microsoft took… also Gluttony, basically. Luke took Sloth personally and voluntarily. Chris Roberts, who has been making Star Citizen since 2012, has taken over a billion dollars, and still hasn’t released the game, nearly got Sloth but ended up on Pride, which honestly tracks more.

Also in this episode: Luke bought a shirt in Vietnam that might have sea cucumbers on it. Matt went to a fake Warped Tour at a brewery and thinks the Green Day tribute band put in more effort than actual Green Day. The Witcher 3 Remastered looks incredible on an ultrawide with ray tracing. Luke wants Night Trap but can’t get it in Australia. Someone is selling bootleg 4K discs of The Abyss on Amazon. The Minecraft Realm still exists and nobody has logged in.

Oh, and the website has a new topics browser now: you can see that we’ve talked about Red Dead Redemption 2 fifteen times and Rogue One eighteen times. Which is a lot.

Topics discussed

• Matt went to a fake Warped Tour at a brewery
• Luke bought a bright sea-creature shirt in Vietnam
• Matt's been playing Graveyard Keeper
• The Witcher 3 remastered is out and looks incredible
• Xbox now has Mythic achievements
• Developers at The Coalition (Gears of War E-Day) are reportedly worried
• The 7 Deadly Sins of gaming and tech
• Bootleg physical media is apparently a real problem now
• Colin from Accounts season 3 is out on Paramount
• We're watching Ted Lasso season 4
• The Pokémon TCG printed so many cards in their new set that scalpers are stuck holding stock they can't flip for much profit. Extremely satisfying.
• Matt updated the Multiple Nerdgasm website with an AI-powered topics page
• Daylight saving is about to mess with their recording schedule again
• PAX Australia is next week

Links

Nathan Fielder moved into Elizabeth Holmes’ house for 10 days before she went to jail, made a documentary about it, and somehow it’s rated R for graphic nudity. We have no idea what’s going on and we cannot wait.

Also: Luke watched all of Silo Season 3 instead of going for a swim (the pool wasn’t warm enough), Matt went to see the Jonas Brothers and actually enjoyed it (being supportive, he insists), and Xbox had another rough week -Ninja Theory is being shut down after Microsoft couldn’t sell them, and Halo is now Activision’s problem.

George Lucas came out of his box this week to say his Star Wars special editions were necessary and justified. The Ewoks blinked their disagreement. Also he claims he had three more Star Wars movies planned… we’re pretty sure he did not.

Plus: the CEO of Nvidia doesn’t know his own address so kids don’t need to learn maths apparently, an AI actress glitched into Chinese mid-interview with Piers Morgan, and someone paid thousands of dollars in API fees to generate a garbage Counter-Strike clone. Good times!

Topics discussed

• Silo Season 3
• Wheel of Games on TrueAchievements
• Jonas Brothers
• Xbox Studio Closures
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
• Tilly Norwood, AI Actress
• Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Documentary
• Activision making the next Halo
• Star Wars original theatrical cut returning
• Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Full show notes and links: https://multiplenerdgasm.com/665-no-jonas/

Luke goes full cinema hermit and catches two movies in one day — the 40th anniversary of Transformers: The Movie (verdict: fun but makes absolutely no sense, Hot Rod forever) and Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil (verdict: actually good, go see it, the padlock jokes are perfect). Meanwhile Matt is still playing Yoshi and the Mysterious Book with his daughter, who apparently blasted through the new Bluey game in a single weekend like some kind of toddler speedrunner.

The internet is mad about Wolverine because Mystique has clothes on. Sweet Baby Inc, apparently. Blizzard announced StarCraft and Diablo 5 at BlizzCon because they had nothing else — both are 4-5 years away, both trailers are purely cinematic. Level-5 admitted they used some AI art in the Professor Layton remake announcement and everyone lost their minds. 007: First Light got delayed again on Switch 2, almost certainly because nobody wants to ship anything near GTA 6.

Buffy’s 30th anniversary Emmys segment happened, it got complicated, and also we learned what gooning is. You’re welcome. Plus: a dolphin named Bubbles who has figured out that if you scare a fish enough it will throw up, and then you eat that. Luke has decided he no longer likes dolphins.

Topics discussed

• Transformers: The Movie 40th anniversary re-release
• Zach Cregger's Resident Evil review
• Zack Snyder's Escape from New York remake
• Wolverine game 'fart sniffer' scent mechanic backlash
• Wolverine game backlash over Mystique/Jean Grey designs
• Professor Layton remake AI-art backlash
• 007 First Light delayed again on Switch 2
• StarCraft open-world shooter announced for 2030
• Diablo 5 announced for 2029
• Doctor Who put out to tender, could return 2028
• Buffy 30th anniversary Emmys kiss request controversy
• Buffy in memoriam segment backlash over Nicholas Brendon
• Dolphin Bubbles' vomit-eating hunting technique

Full show notes and links: https://multiplenerdgasm.com/664-goon-squad/

Luke’s three VBs in not hungover this week, so prepare for some high energy discussion of the week’s going on!

Topics discussed

• Xbox Cloud Gaming hour-limit exemption emails
• Nintendo's tariff-refund customer appreciation sale
• Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake revealed
• Metroid Ravenous announced
• IKEA's Kallax Storageborn Skyrim DLC
• Wolverine game review backlash despite solid scores
• Star Wars 50th anniversary theatrical re-release
• Bruce Campbell says he has five years left
• Apple's iPhone Duo foldable phone reveal
• South Park renamed 'South America' for season 29
• Ted Lasso discussion
• Spider-Noir wins posthumous Emmys after cancellation
• Dispatch game impressions

Links

This week Microsoft quietly kneecaps Xbox Cloud Gaming with new monthly hour limits, and they’re also keeping the tariff refunds. The future of gaming may not be financially viable?

Topics discussed

• Microsoft & Sony keep tariff refunds after court ruling
• Xbox Cloud Gaming new monthly hour limits
• RAM/storage price surge & AI bubble concerns
• The Witcher remake put on hold for Witcher 4
• James Pond AI-generated remake backlash
• PlayStation digital ownership class action lawsuit
• Steam 12TB data leak
• Silo season 3 finale
• Nicolas Cage's Spider-Noir cancelled after one season
• New Star Trek movie's 'bad apples' premise backlash
• Ridley Scott wants to make third Alien prequel
• Phil Tippett's studio goes bankrupt
• Alec Baldwin trial documentary announced

Full show notes and links: https://multiplenerdgasm.com/662-insert-coin/

Xbox’s limited-edition green throwback console sold out in under a minute this week, and is now sitting on eBay for $3,300 AUD. Reasonable? You be the judge. Actually no, we’ll be the judge. That’s ridiculous.

Topics discussed

• Green Xbox limited-edition console sells out & scalping
• Xbox price increases due to RAM costs
• Xbox disc-to-digital licensing feature
• IKEA Xbox furniture collection
• Canceled Iron Man game footage leak
• PlayStation's poorly-timed digital ownership reminder
• Home NAS/media server & Claude-powered news digest setup
• Witcher 3 free remaster & Witcher 4 2028 release
• Witcher 3 Songs of the Past expansion & Gwent
• Star Citizen: Squadron 42 delayed again
• Chris Roberts' alleged misappropriation of Freelancer funds
• No Man's Sky redemption arc comparison
• MCU catch-up: Black Panther Wakanda Forever
• Captain America: Brave New World & Red Hulk
• Thunderbolts review
• Fantastic Four: First Steps review
• Avengers Endgame Encore re-release
• Apple's $9 polishing cloth price cut

Links