prosekhans posts
Posts: 57
Files: 26
Final Fantasy XVI Review
[I’m not sure which of the two disclaimers to start with so I’m just go with this one: nothing in this review says you have to dislike something you like. No disagreement about the quality of something encourages or invites you to get mad, you can just shake your head and move on.][This review contains spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI and I’d suggest you either finish the game completely or decide you don’t care about finishing the game before moving on.]I went through all of Game of Thron...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (9/15/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. A lot to talk about this week and I have a plane to catch in a few days and I’ve not packed at all, so let’s get into it.Unity Blows Itself Up with New FeesThis week, game engine Unity — on which games like Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Beast Saber, Among Us, and many others are built — dropped a new fee structure on all licensees. Previously, developer...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (9/08/23)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This’ll be a shorter one this week as I’m between both announcing the game I’ve been working on and also going to Tokyo next week to help market said game. Still, there’s a few stories I definitely wanted to hit, so let’s get to it.E3 Not Returning for 2024, Reinventing for 2025The Entertainment Software Association — the ESA, a lobbying group...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (9/01/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week.The discourse is genuinely pretty rancid this week and it was one of the few times where I was hoping Twitter or X or whatever the hell they call it now actually did go down as opposed to all the times it wasn’t supposed to break but did anyway. That doesn’t stop the news from coming down anyway!Volition Studios ShutdownThis week, it was announced — ...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (8/25/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. I’m back after getting married last week in an event that was supposed to include a Pokemon battle between me and my wife. We had spent a while creating teams of Pokemon, EV training them, and essentially manufacturing a team of Pokemon that referenced our relationship. Unfortunately, the battle never happened because there was some weird connection iss...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (8/11/2023)
Hi! This is normally where the newsletter would be, but it takes a small backseat for this week and next week as I, you know, get married and stuff. We'll be back after that to cover whatever needs to be covered.On a side note, that FFXVI review is still in progress and, uh,yeah
Everything Everywhere Once a Week (8/04/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This may be the most old man thing I’ll ever say, but is it me or are there just fewer types of candy bars at the fronts of grocery stores these days? Like, if you don’t like Reese’s, then a fourth of the entire endcap is worthless to you between the Reese’s Cups, Sticks, Big Sticks, Big Cups, Pieces, etc. I feel like this is where candy you’ve ...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (7/28/23)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XVI recently and, well, I’ll finish that game before I give final thoughts but man do the first 8 hours of that game write a check that the third act cannot cash. Maybe it picks up the ball before it ends, though.Ubisoft Cancels Immortals: Fenyx Rising SequelThis week, VGC reported that Ubisoft Quebec had been ...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (7/21/23)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This week, at the grocery store, I overheard two men talking about Tears of the Kingdom. The only reason I noticed (aside from forgetting my headphones) was that one of the men was making fun of the other for going in a different order with the dungeons. He remarked, with a joking sense of smugness, that “You really messed up, unlike me, by helping thos...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (7/14/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. Apologies for the really scattered cadence lately. Turns out planning a wedding, shipping a game, and writing a book all simultaneously tends to just eat up whatever time and brain power one has left. Add to that, I’m also working on a long piece that I’m intending to drop on this Patreon soon and it’s all kinda fallen by the wayside. Still, this wi...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (6/23/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. We took a little time off, to get sick and get better, but we’re back to start discussing video games again. And I suppose, after finishing Zelda, start actually playing other video games again too. Currently have Diablo running on my Steam Deck (for all of an hour and a half before the battery runs out), Street Fighter 6 on my PS5, and FFXVI downloaded...
Materia Possessions 15 - Summer Game Rest
Wow, we're back! We've gone to Summer Game Fest, gotten sick (unrelated), gotten better (related), and played some video games in the meantime! This week, Imran is joined by Natalie, Nerium, and Michael Higham to talk about going to Los Angeles for what used to be E3 and now isn't, the return of the Xenoblade Minute Brought to you by Natalie, and discussion of Final Fantasy XVI from GameSpot's reviewer himself.RSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/d4b33ad8/podcast/rssApple music: https:/...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (6/02/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. I often feel like every time I step away from Tears of the Kingdom to do anything else, I’m dragging myself away from it. But after about 120 hours, I think I’m finally starting to pull away a little bit and can actually, you know, do other things. Maybe I start casting an eye toward the endgame soon.Nintendo Announces Everybody 1-2 SwitchI can’t no...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (5/26/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This week had previews and showcases and all sorts of other things to keep us busy and talk about, so let’s not waste time and jump into the biggest stories of the week.The First PlayStation Showcase in Two YearsOver the years, I’ve asked various people who would know why Sony seemingly dislikes the traditional gaming showcase model so much. They para...
Materia Possessions - Episode 14: Top Tiers of the Kingdom
We're back because we were really busy playing Tears of the Kingdom!Considering that really all we've been doing the last few weeks is playing the new Legend of Zelda game, it makes sense this week's episode will be primarily focused on that. GameSpot's Michael Higham, Fanbyte's Mike Williams, and If Your Driving's John Warren join me to talk all about what I start the conversation with calling "maybe the best game I've ever played."Minimal story spoilers, but...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (5/12/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This week is less about news and more about, well, all things Zelda. Most people who are reading this, or would be reading this, are probably out actually playing the game. I’ve only been playing it for something like eight hours, so I’m nowhere close to doing a review on it. But this seems like it would be a good time instead to talk about a related ...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (5/05/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. It’s Cinco de Mayo, which a lot of people use as an excuse to pack bars and pretend there’s a reason for it. It always kind of struck me as odd when we celebrated it in schools — not because we shouldn’t learn about other cultures, we should, but because no one actually really explained what it was about. We would just say it’s a Mexican holiday...
Materia Possessions 13 - Gacha Galaxy
*rolls*You got a 5-star podcast! Thanks to your generous contribution of Materia Possessions Bucks (MPB), you have won a podcast of the highest SSRR rarity. In this podcast, Imran, Michael, Andrea, and Mike talk about the latest gacha game from Hoyoverse, Honkai Star Rail. Andrea then talks about Roots of Pacha, which can be reductively boiled down "Stardew with cavemen." Imran and Mike also talk about Jedi Survivor and the struggle between delineating between a great game with several p...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (4/28/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. Happy end of April, so we’re one-third through 2023. Did you know you perceive time differently as an adult versus when you were younger, so things felt like they took longer back then and eventually it speeds up to where nothing feels like any amount of time at all? So not only does it feel like time is passing you by, it’s literally a symptom of agi...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (4/21/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. We took a small break last week led partially by Patreon just kind of…not working, but we’re back at it again. This week, we’re going to talk a little bit about something dominating the news in fits and starts: studio acquisitions and why they suddenly feel more prevalent than ever.Games Are ComplicatedSo let’s say you’re a game developer lookin...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (04/07/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. This week, we’re going to cover the general news, but I’ll also start with a review of the Super Mario Bros. movie. Yes, let’s all jump back into a Chrysler Voyager and head to the 1993 movie theater for—wait there’s a new movie?It’s-a Him, MarioThe Mario movie — this new one, by Illumination — was in some ways three decades in the making....
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (3/31/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. I expected that I’d do an “E3 Edition” of this newsletter eventually — presumably around, you know, E3 — but it seems we’re getting into it far earlier than usual. If you’re looking for Tears of the Kingdom thoughts, we talked about it in the latest podcast, though I suspect this newsletter will be eventually affected by TOTK either as conte...
Materia Possessions 11 - Total Recall
This week, a slightly smaller crew gets together because the universe has decided that Andrea and Natalie can never be on the same podcast. Natalie soldiers on despite this, though, and joins Imran and Michael Higham to talk hands-on impressions of Tekken 8 (in a segment we like to call Talkin' 8), Octopath Traveler II (in a segment we like to call Talktopath Traveler II), BugSnax, Vampire Survivors, Bear & Breakfast, Powerwash Simulator, and more. Of course, we also talk for a bit about The...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (3/25/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the goings on in the video game industry over the last week. We’re a day later than usual today because I wanted to write about GDC, the game developer’s conference, but that meant having to actually attend GDC through Friday. I also had a couple of other topics in mind I wanted to hit so we’re running a bit behind.Game Developers Conference 2024I’ve been to every GDC since 2017, which sounds a little less ...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (3/17/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about everything that’s happened in the video game industry this past week. Well, usually, but not a lot has actually happened this past week solely in games. Those that did are also kind of bummers! So this week, I’m going to talk a little bit about something that’s slowly been taking over the industry: remakes.Why Are So Many Games Being Remade Right Now?Good question! So far in 2023, we’ve had a fair few remak...
Materia Possessions 10 - Double Down for Diablo
This week, John, Andrea, and Nerium listen to Imran recount his food crimes in pursuit of a Diablo IV beta code. We also talk about Sons of the Forest, Final Fantasy Theatrhythm, Octopath Traveler II, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Is it a very easy Soulslike or a very difficult one? Or does the game itself have no idea what it actually wants to be? Also, where are all the Arby's?RSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/d4b33ad8/podcast/rssApple music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/materia-posses...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (3/10/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a weekly newsletter about the gaming industry and what’s going on in it. It’s Mario Day, a day to celebrate all-things Mario, and a number of things have happened this week including a Starfield delay, Forspoken sales, a Resident Evil 4 demo, and more. And we’ll get to that, but I wanted to hit a subject that’s been on my mind recently.Is JRPG a Distasteful Genre Name?If you know me, you know I think genres are generally bullshit. T...
Materia Possessions 09 - Devil May Clive
Materia Possessions is back after a short hiatus for people to do things like research books and play Final Fantasy XVI. In this episode, Imran, Michael Higham, Nerium Strom, and Mike Williams get together to talk about playing the newest Final Fantasy game. We also get a little choked up talking about Space for the Unbound, get fired up about Like a Dragon: Ishin, and pontificate on what Monster Hunter could learn from Wild Hearts.RSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/d4b33ad8/podcast/rssApple music: h...
Everything Everywhere Once A Week (2/24/2023)
Hello and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once A Week, a newsletter driven by your Patreon contributions. This week, I’m writing the newsletter from Atlanta, Georgia while I do research on a book about Yoko Taro’s Nier and Nier Automata titles for Press Run Publishing. That book should, in theory, be out later this year. But before all that, we have some stories to run down from this past week.Microsoft and Nintendo (And Others) Reach 10-Year Call of Duty DealAs part of the ongoing and seem...
Like A Dragon: Ishin!
It used to simply be a fact of the video game industry that not every title would make it over from Japan. I would flip through the Game Players magazines or Next-Generation or what have you and oggle their import pages with simultaneous wonder and bafflement. There would be so many games that just never came to America for whatever reason with exotic and mystifying names that all followed patterns like “Go! Go! Hyperman Fight!” that were inscrutable in terms of determining how the game play...
