There's always a joker in the pack, and the joker is me.

Or at least, that's what my inner circle would have you believe after I doled out the simoleons for the PS5 Pro, a mid-generation upgrade to the Sony PS5 home console entertainment system. While not a revolutionary upgrade, we have had fun revisiting titles with the latest enhancements.

After comparing our frames per second, we turn to a different kind of FPS as Porter shares his thoughts on Activison's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. We also think of ways to ruin the cartoon antics of Mario and Luigi: Brothership by pondering what a Mario RPG would be like if the brothers were allowed to verbalize their thoughts in anything other than pseudo-Italian gibberish.

And to all the scalpers who tried to hoard PS5 Pros thinking it would pay off, I leave you with the wise words of Mo'Nique:

"See, when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite."

"Time Marches On, And The Age Of A New King Draws Nearer..." or a new president, as we vent our U.S. election eve anxieties by discussing the excellent Metaphor: ReFantazio - developed by Atlus/Studio Zero and published by Sega.

We have a "poggers" time (Thanks Chuck!) as we entertain ourselves with some of the worst presidential candidate impersonations ever, complaining about Dragon Age: The Veilguard (née Dreadwolf), and thinking about how no matter what happens over the next few days, at least we will probably still get to play Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. Probably.

So, get out the vote! But only if you plan on voting for the face on the big floating rock in the sky that I want to win...

We are so smart, clever, and witty that we played a horror game near Halloween, because it was released the month before Halloween, and now we can talk about it on Halloween. Now THIS is podcasting!

Obviously we are discussing the artistic genius of Shadow Generations...Is what I tried to make happen, but instead we are actually discussing the Silent Hill 2 2024 remake developed by Bloober Team and published by Konami.

Join us as we praise everything but the combat in what turns out to be a very deftly executed remake of one of the genre's best titles. Of course, we cannot help but veer off topic into the upcoming Game Awards (oh, how I do hope we have a special Muppet guest appearance this year) and spend some time reminiscing about Splatoon for no real reason other than the Wii U was mentioned (Xenoblade Chronicles X!!) and we are legally obligated to talk about Splatoon when that happens.

"What was that? ... Okay, James!" ~ Wendy Williams

Buzz is joined by special guest Porter to talk about Team Asobi and Japan Studio's "Astro Bot." And when we say talk, we mean praise heavily. I mean, have you played it? It's really good. Maybe even Game of the Year good...

We inevitably talk about Yakuza (you know the drill by now), but there was an RGG summit just the other day so it's actually timely for once. Although we recorded this episode AHEAD of that commercial broadcast, and no, we didn't predict Pirates in Hawaii, but we'll take it just cause it's Majima.

Oh, and we balk the cost of the PS5 Pro. The price of the PS5 Pro is really too damn high.

And so I leave you with the following:

When I find myself in times of trouble, the anthropomorphic GPU comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, I do it for you
Yeah, all that you see, rendered by me
Speaking words of wisdom, I'm your GPU

(Go West) Life is peaceful there
(Go West) In the open air
(Go West) Where the skies are blue
(Go West) This is what we’re gonna do

Thank Goodness You're Here!

...is an excellent game that Buzz and special guest Porter both played but is also not the focus of this episode. That would just be a solid hour of praise for what is clearly game of the year 2024.

Instead, in an oddly timely move, we discuss Game Science's global release of "Black Myth: Wukong". An action RPG set after the events of the literary classic "Journey to the West".

With a little over fifty percent of the game under our collective belts, we order an open-faced compliment sandwich, starting off with what we really enjoyed about our experience before delving into some thoughts on the game's console performance on the PS5 and how it holds up in comparison to other contemporary entries in the action genre.

Unfortunately we have to take a trip down controversy lane, because it happened and we are suckers for "feminist propaganda" (oh, I'd like to prop a gander I don't mind saying (an actual shame that we are not talking about Thank Goodness You're Here with joke like that)).

Go West, this is what we’re gonna do, Go West!

We decided to take the "Reading is Fundamental" feat and dive into R.A. Salvatore's "Homeland," the first book in the Legend of Drizzt series (some would argue it's the 4th and they are wrong *cough* Sarah *cough*).

When we do eventually get around to talking about the book, we cover the first two chapters of the novel and stand there, I mean dumbfounded, mouth agape at just how evil those Drow really are. Content warning for things like slavery, faceless wizards, baby sacrifices, big spiders, fratricide, dismemberment, and deadly espionage. I mean, they looked at the evil menu and said, "Yeah, one of everything and a Coke Zero."

Apart from the scandal, we also ponder the depiction of the Drow in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, specifically working through questions around misogynist interpretations of the famously matriarchal species. Sarah takes an interesting viewpoint of comparing them to a modern interpretation of the Gorgons of Greek myth, while Buzz wonders if it's possible to reclaim the identity altogether?

Will bravely soldiers on in this episode despite tornadoes literally touching down around him. Remember: you should head to a basement or interior room whenever you hear a tornado siren!

The latest round of video game commercials has come to a close with the Summer Game Fest (seriously, why not games plural?). Despite the heat dome reminding us how cooked our goose really is, we manage to temper our expectations for the showings from this year's vitamin E3 supplement.

But beyond arguing about games we might not see until 2026, highlights of this episode include:

Buzz realizes how much he missed out on Alan Wake II last year.

Another sign of the apocalypse arrives with Sarah having managed to net herself a platinum trophy with the game Sable.

Lots of Dragon Age discussion. Like, a lot.

Will finally puts a pin in Rebirth and wants to know what the heck is up with that ending.

It's simply too hot out.

It's a Hadozee, sorry, a doozy of a dungeon crawl, as we discuss that sensitive subject of race (soon to be species) in D&D.

With One D&D updates starting to crest over the horizon (or "2024 Revision to 5th Edition,"? I genuinely don't know how they are marketing this anymore...and I think the MM comes out in 2025 anyway...), the ways in which we generate our player characters and NPCs will be updated, including that important first step of choosing a race.

We also look back at all the elements that have often found themselves tangled up with DND races, such as language, culture, and alignment, and how the soon-to-be updated source books are offering a looser connection between one's species and other character traits.

Somehow we get wildly off target by talking about Target, Pride, Harvest Moon, Larian Studios, Farmer's Only, Animal Well, Indika, and even Orcas!

Like Jessica Rabbit once said, "I'm not evil. My character race was just written that way."