Going to be talking about several games but not going into spoilers (except Limbus Company which I’ve spoiler texted). Limbus Company, Ace Combat 8, and Expedition 33.

It’s difficult to describe but there’s a specific feeling I get when putting my hands on a game or piece of media when I just know I’m experience a masterpiece in real time.

For Expedition 33 it was leaving the tutorial and the music and art going absolutely ham in every respect. Despite only having two combat encounters, I knew the game was going to devour my life and I was right.

More recently, Ace Combat 8 just absolutely nails everything great about 7 and takes it to the next level. The story, the music, the feel, gameplay, literally everything. By Mission 3 I just said “yep this is a masterpiece,” and I’m still feeling it at mission 13 and so on.

I’m eating good with Canto X in Limbus Company too. Insanely good music, new gameplay system, metric ton of awesome story moments and some of the biggest lore drops the series has ever seen. MASSIVE SPOILERS: Talking to series villain and boogeyman Carmen face to face and “btw go check out THE LIBRARY,” in addition to a second smoke war on the horizon. The entire universe has changed with this canto and I am so excited for it. Project Moon always hits it out of the park but while I was playing it I just knew I would never forget the experience.

So lately I was looking to go back in time to pretend I am at a time period where the PS3 is not quite ready for launch, but it’s almost there.

Like what I am trying to say is that I wanted to look back at that particular era of gaming to figure out what made people interested in wanting to get the system as I know it’s not quite 20 years old yet, but it’s just that I was curious on what made people back then get one since it had no games available, and it was really expensive to buy again during launch date.

Something truly wicked is being unleashed during Season 5: A Grim Doctrine.

The wait is over! Our newest Support Hero is here with the arrival of Doctrine. Freed from his volcanic prison by Doomfist himself, this sinister foe can manipulate life using his Eternal Scepter and mechanical drones, while also empowering each ability with his signature Infuse.

Break into Watchpoint: Grímsvötn - the Icelandic prison that once held Doctrine and Doomfist, and our first new Escort Map since Overwatch 2 launched. Battle your way through fire and ice as the final chapter in the Reign of Talon starts right here.

The Halloween mayhem continues this year with our newest event, Mystery Madness: Graveyard Games. You’ll start off as a random Hero and unlock random new powers each time you die. Complete chilling challenges to collect Offerings and help summon the next Hero into the madness.

Unlock haunting new cosmetics through the Season 5 Ultimate Battle Pass, Starter Pack, and in the Shop like Dokiwatch 2.0, our latest collaboration, and new Mythic skin for Wuyang and Mythic weapon skin for Lúcio.

If you thought you knew Sombra and Roadhog before, get ready to think again. Sombra is hacking her way into the Support role, while Roadhog changes things up with a revamped Scrap Gun and all-new Trash Compactor ability.

I keep thinking on that one moment in the new Spider-Man movie with the new Black Widow, I was clearly supposed to go "Oh, it's the lady from the thing!"

But all I got was "Wait, who is she?"

And that made me think... this feeling will probably be tenfold for Doomsday, the movie that's actually supposed to be the get together of all previous movies.

I would love to be wrong about it, but will I?

"Ojou (お嬢), pronounced o-joe (often Ojou-san or Ojou-sama, as they are the more formal honorifics), a formal Japanese word for literally "young lady", is typically used in anime when referring to wealthy, high-class female characters. In the original Japanese, expect all types of ojou to use the more formal first-person pronoun "watakushi" rather than the neutral "watashi" or the more casual (and feminine-only) "atashi," and to make heavy use of the "wa" feminine emphasis particle at the end of their sentences. Most Ojou characters can be boiled down to three main types: a Proper Lady, an Ice Queen, and Royal Brat version." - TV Tropes

This is Nellie Oleson Dalton from Little House on the Prairie (My mom's favorite show); she grew up to be a spoiled brat and a bully due to how her Karen of a Mom raised her. She served as a rival and nemesis to the show’s protagonist, Laura Ingalls.

So tomorrow is the big wipe for Marathon and i've had some friends asking about it since they know in two months its getting its big pve mode that appears to be something for more of a Monster Hunter-ery crowd. Mostly they want to know "do you think the genre is even gonna have legs?". Which is understandable since it seems clear devs hoped this would be the next Battle Royale fad and i'm gonna be honest outside of Fortnite i can't even name any BR games that come out anymore or if any do.

My personal opinion is this: Extraction games absolutely have a future. They just dont have it in pvp.

Now i enjoy Marathon quite a bit but i'm enjoying it in a sicko way as a stealth shooter not unlike Sir you are being Hunted or Metal Gear Online to a lesser extent. I'll kill a player now and then but my real enjoyment in the game comes from getting in as a merc robbing these scp crime scenes of evidence and bugging out without anyone knowing i'm there at all. Not quite what the devs intended but its a unique experience i can't really get anywhere else and with new stealth games being rare as rocking horse shit nowadays i'll take what i can get right?

But obviously thats not the intended playstyle and the intended playstyle of "tense, clippable mexican standoffs" didn't happen either. Most extraction encounters default to "what if Dark Souls invaders could gank and two shot you?", sort of. Point is it wasn't what the devs wanted and we have seen the player numbers and drop offs to show the audience for that is not there in the numbers anybody is looking for. So what do they do?

Leaning to PVE has seemed obvious but the question of course is in what form. You have games like Helldivers where its objective focussed, games like Monster Hunter or Salmon Run where there is a singular target objective, games like Left 4 Dead where its fight through hordes to get to something and theres elements of each i could see but also don't really seem to gel with the idea of trying to establish a subgenre of its own.

Personally the closest i can think of a longterm future for the genre is something more akin to the DLC's put out for the first entry in the Divsion series. One called Survival was players starting with nothing in a blizzard and having to survive to escape. The other called Underground was a series of randomly generated new york subway tunnels and stations with activities and bosses with its own levelling and perks progression system. Some kind of seasonal game that blends the two where death can come easy as well as losing gear but the goal is to work together with other players to achieve some objective that would be much harder alone seems to me like the genre sweet spot thats going to see it stick around in a way "what if team deathmatch on a big map?" has tried and clearly failed to do. Which isn't the answer the pvp crowd wants but i figure as long as devs keep a pvp mode as an option they can hopefully offer the best of both worlds. I just do not see a new pvp extraction shooter ever being announced after 2026 unless they are part of a pve package. Devs tried it hoping it was the next big thing and clearly it wasn't.

Or maybe the genre will just vanish and be remembered as a blip outside Hunt and Tarkov who knows. What are you expecting?

You can have a separate one for Woolie and for Pat. One for John as well, if you feel like you know his tastes well enough.

Basically, what ONE piece of media would you recommend with the understanding that the recommendee could force you to experience anything in media they've experienced. So whatever your recommendation is, it needs to be worth you potentially having to play through Omikron the Nomad Soul.

For Woolie, I would recommend playing SWTOR. I genuinely think he'd enjoy playing through the class stories and the idea of him playing an MMO that Pat hasn't played tickles me.

For Pat, I'd recommend watching Gary and His Demons. He's mentioned liking Venture Bros and Rick and Morty (before the fandom ruined it). Gary and His Demons is that kind of energy with a demon hunter anime premise and a hefty dose of Canadian. I also think some of the later themes in Season 2 would resonate well with him.

Let's say they're one those bosses who start as a human and drink something to turn into a monster. What's the plan if they win? Are they going to keep doing their CEO job or whatever as a giant eyeball monster?

David Zaslav Shares Farewell Video to Warner Bros. Discovery Employees

David Zaslav, four and a half years after closing the debt-burdened deal that formed Warner Bros. Discovery, is bidding farewell to the company’s employees as it is about to get swallowed up by David Ellison’s Paramount — to create a media giant saddled with even more debt.

Zaslav, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, shared a video with employees Monday expressing gratitude for their hard work and creativity over the years. (The video, viewed by Variety, is available only on WBD’s internal portal.) Zaslav will exit with the megamerger of Paramount and WBD, scheduled to close Oct. 6, with the new Ellison-run company adopting the name Skydance Corp.

In the video, Zaslav sits alone in a director’s chair in the Loft warehouse at Warner Bros. Studios’ Ranch facility in Burbank, California.

“For me, it’s been a great honor to be alongside all of you,” Zaslav says, speaking to the camera in the 3-minute video. “I hope you take pride in what you’ve built, what you’ve created, and the role you’ve played in shaping an extraordinary history.”

Zaslav’s video includes a montage of Warner Bros. Discovery’s greatest hits, including clips from “The Pitt,” “The Lego Movie,” “Barbie,” “One Battle After Another,” “Dune,” “Hacks,” “Friends,” “The House of the Dragon,” “White Lotus,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Sinners,” Discovery’s Shark Week and (of course!) “Harry Potter,” as well as shots from CNN and WBD’s sports programming. According to a company source, Zaslav wanted to share his goodbye message as a video rather than a text memo in order to capture the visuals.

(Note: Half of those were before he came on.)

“I can’t wait to see what you do in the years ahead,” Zaslav says. “I’m so grateful for all these years at Warner Bros. Discovery, for the wonderful experiences creating content, telling stories and getting to know so many of you.”

Zaslav has been among the most highly compensated CEOs in the media biz. In 2025, his pay package totaled $165 million. That included a one-time grant of stock options valued at $109.6 million, which the company awarded to Zaslav on June 12, 2025, for his work on the company’s plan to split into two publicly traded entities (one housing WB’s HBO, HBO Max and studios business; the other largely composed of the linear TV network business along with Discovery+ and other assets). The WBD split into two companies did not proceed because of the deal to sell the company to Paramount Skydance.

When the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger closes, Zaslav is set to receive a “golden parachute” payout of at least $550 million.

Over the years, Zaslav and his lieutenants made job cuts across the company as they looked to reduce costs and improve operating efficiency. For full-year 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery had a pro-forma EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) loss of about $2.1 billion. In 2025, it generated EBITDA profit of $1.4 billion and has been on track for double-digit percentage growth in subscriber-related revenue growth in 2026.

Jackass. Someday, I hope he fucking rots.

Since it's the spooky season, time for some spooky questions! As the title states, what're your favorite instances of genuinely heroic characters that're also fucking terrifying? Whether it be their powers, how they look, whatever.

Yami Yugi/Atem in the early parts of Yu-Gi-Oh. As many people probably know already, the first 7 volumes of Yu-Gi-Oh were very different in terms of tone and premise. And one of those differences was in Yami Yugi himself. At the start of the series, Yami Yugi was a much more sinister figure who appeared to punish the wicked. And let's just say he could get very creative with the Penalty Games. Stuff like Ushio rolling around in garbage thinking its money, making an asshole TV producer see the world through a censor mosaic for the rest of his life, and having Kaiba feel the sensation of getting killed by Duel Monsters. That last one in particular traumatized Kaiba pretty damn badly. Thankfully, as the story goes on, he becomes more merciful and only whips out the mind breaking magic when its absolutely necessary.

Most JoJos fall under this category. For example, most villain plans post-Stardust Crusaders include "find a way to keep Jotaro from finding out I exist". But my personal picks are Josuke and Giorno. Josuke is usually one of the more chilled out protagonists in the series. However, do not piss him off. He can use Crazy Diamond's restoration powers in some pretty damn brutal ways. This ranges from literally rearranging your face, to trapping people in unending torment, as Angelo and Terunosuke find out the hard way. And Giorno does geninely desire to protect the weak and the innocent. But he's also not above doing some utterly horrible things to those that cross him. Case in point, him tricking Polpo into eating his gun, pulverizing Cioccolata to death over the course of 7 pages/30 seconds straight, and Gold Experience Requiem sending Diavolo to the infinite pain dimension. He certainly got Jonathan's caring nature, mixed in with Dio's ruthlessness towards his enemies.

Samus Aran in Metroid is pretty damn scary if you think about. Here's this nigh-unstoppable warrior clad in high tech armor that can shrug off almost anything you throw at them, who also has something of a reputation of destroying planets. A lot of Pirate Logs in Prime boil down to "how do we weaponize this weird shit we found to try and kill Samus?" And then the log of them realizing Samus has made landfall on Tallon IV is them going "FUCK!" Metroid Fusion flips the script with the SA-X and shows you what it's like to be hunted down by a fully powered Samus, and it's approriately horrific. And then both Dread and Ravenous give her a Metroid's ability to siphon life energy right out of people, while also going totally apeshit. She may be a force for good in the universe, but she's also quite the terrifying one.

I'm watching the newest Versus Wolves where John recommended Void Stranger to Woolie. John loves Void Stranger so much and whenever the game comes up I'm so bummed out because while I love the art, the music, the story, and the knowledge-gated secrets of the game when I played it, at a certain point the punishing sokoban (block pushing puzzle) gameplay just became too difficult and frustrating for me.

I eventually did some of the secret content by using guides that just told me exactly what buttons to push on every level, but that definitely sapped a lot of the feeling out of discovering things myself. I adore games where you could have done things all along but you just didn't know you could (Outer Wilds, The Witness, Blue Prince, etc), but there's just something about the trial-and-error-and-error-and-error nature of sokobans that just isn't fun for me, and needing to get through dozens and dozens of those levels in order to try some new idea I learned became too much for me to endure.

It's a bummer!

What are some games that you wish you enjoyed the gameplay more so you could experience the rest of what it offers to the fullest?

Bit blatant a Captain America in space but kinda charming and we've already had a Captain of Britain, Canada, the Soviet Union so it's not like the worst angle to go for. Plus I do like a proper Skrull superhero, kinda wish it was Virtue but his story does sorta have a proper end as like a pacifist christian charity Superman so I can see why you'd rather not bring him back.

Also Knull's back and all white and blue now, the Space God of Light or something.

Humphries (Senior Vice President of Narrative) suggested that today's version might be considerably more modest than the traditional fantasy of becoming extraordinarily wealthy.

"Maybe the American Dream is more modest now. It's a house for your family and your loans paid off instead of wild success—but maybe today, that's just as out of reach for the average person."