Happy new year! Although chances are more people will catch this episode long after New Years Day, but whatever. Welcome back folks, today we're cutting through a few solid pieces of culture. I've got some games, some movies and some other stuff on the menu. I guess it's worth warning you of spoilers, but I always feel the kind of people listening to this have probably gotten caught up on the source material first anyway.

   Yes, there is a background noise. I'm sorry. I wanted to test filming in this huge, industrial turbine space at my work. Fear not, no work was sacrificed in the process of making the episode (unless that is your sort of thing, then yeah totally). I tried to keep it to a minimal dull roar, but hopefully it isn't a distraction or unpleasant for ya'll.

   Well I go right into Fallout 76 finally, and it's really not pretty. That's not to say that the game is an out-rite disaster; I specifically say in the title you should "wait to buy" the game. The reason is that it's not done. At least, it feels like it's not. It feels like my copy of Fallout 4 was patched to include malicious, dick-headed NPCs and 0 glitchy combat encounters. But you'll hear me go into it more. The real victim here, and what's been the most upsetting is the loss of story in the game. Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4 all had AMAZING stories. Real, emotional and plot driven adventures were set as the standard for the gaming experience, and when you realize that Fallout 76's campaign is a shadow of the former game potential, it's already too late. My wasteland experiences have mostly just been MMO style wandering, with little to no care or attention to the world around. My hope will be for DLC, patches and fixes (and they better be free *shakes fist*) so that there can be a remedy for the game. It's got tons of potential, but is also full of tons of shit.

   Movie wise, Aquaman is still fantastic. It's still climbing its way up to the 1 Billion box office mark, so godspeed little fish. I loved the movie, and really understood that when in the face of the worst movie going experience in years (see previous episode), I still had such a positive time watching it. And Marvel had a home run of their own though, with Into the Spiderverse web-swinging into everyone's hearts. I liked it. It wasn't "the rebirth of Spiderman as we know it" or any other hyperbole I've heard. But it's good. Between playing Spiderman on the PS4 and this new movie, I'm all in with the web-slingers. My only concern has been that we've pretty much nailed the formula with Tom Holland as Peter Parker. So I think we just showed how great of a character Miles Morales can be, but I hope it's not a replacement for Peter. I also want to say what a time it is to be alive, that we had Nicholas Cage play Superman and Spiderman Noir in the same year. And no one loves that more than me (well except him, and probably his son Kal-El).

   Lastly; Ready Player One. This was a gut punch for me, because I had such high expectations for the movie. Hailed as "the most ambitious pop-culture movie to date" it literally collapsed under the weight of its own references. Now I don't go too negative on this show, I mean you really have to deserve it for me to start making beans on how bad something is. But this one got me. The absolute bukkake of cultural references, Easter Eggs and cringey audience fulfillment was downright hard to watch. As I said, I still have to get through the second half of the movie. I'm not gonna judge it unfairly. But man oh man, I'm going back in with low expectations. I really thought after Wreck It Ralph studios would understand how to make a tasteful video-game/culture tribute movie, but oh well. Also too much of the movie is animated. That really takes a lot away from it, and did it feel misleading to anyone else in the trailers? I don't member thinking "I'm going to watch pretty much a whole animated movie", hell even Tron was way more live action.

   Ahh well, it's good to be back guys and I hope you like the episode. 

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