Rundown (6/15/2025) Segmented Summer Showcases – Slice 2

• Post published:06/15/2025
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:73 mins read
• Post comments:13 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: During My Vacation, I Wrote a Novel’s Worth of Stuff!
• Xbox Games Showcase Rundown (Games For Your Home Computer, TV, and Telephone)
• ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X Announced (The Xbox Handheld is Finally Here!)
• Xbox Reasserts Play Anywhere As A Key Selling Point (But Do People Actually Want It?)
• Super Meat Boy 3D Announced Super Meat Boy is BACK in the Third Dimension
• Beast of Reincarnation Announced (Game Freak’s AAA Action Game is Real!)
• Clockwork Revolution Re-Revealed (And It Looks DOPE!)
• Don’t Nod Announces Aphelion (They Are Also Running Out of Money)
• No Ghosts At The Grand Is a Baffling Musical Mystery (Magical Musical Negro Jumpscare!)
• Aniimo Announced as the Latest Big Budget Critter Collector (Too Bad It’s a Damn Live Service!)
• Persona 4 Revival Announced (The Only Reason to Remake Persona 4 Is to Make It Gayer)
• The Xbox Showcase Dribs and Drabs (Stuff I Don’t FEEL Like Propping Up, or Have Much to Say About)
• Splatoon Raiders Announced (And Natalie Complains About PVP Games Being Bad)
• Nintendo Switch 2 Sells 3.5 Million in Four Days! (Nintendo Switch 2 Da Moon!)
• Bloober Team is Remaking Silent Hill (1999) (Try Not To Be Too Shocked)
• Metal Gear Δ: Snake Eater is Getting A New Online Mode! (RIP Metal Gear Online…)

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Rundown (1/26/2025) The Straight Dope On Gamindustri

• Post published:01/26/2025
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:50 mins read
• Post comments:2 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: The Straight Dope On The Current State of Gamindustri
• In a Final Act of Excellence, The FTC Goes After Loot Boxes! (Specifically, Genshin Impact)
• Time For The Quarterly-ish Xbox Thing! (A Rapidly Written Xbox Developer Direct Recap)
• Ninja Gaiden 4 Announced (Natalie Rambles About the History of Team Ninja)
• Ninja Gaiden II Black Shadow Dropped This Week (It’s Not As Good As It Sounds…)

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Rundown (9/22/2024) An Impromptu Vita Retrospective

• Post published:09/22/2024
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:56 mins read
• Post comments:6 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: An Impromptu Vita Retrospective
• ♫FREEEEEDOM WAAAAARS!♫ (Freedom Wars Remastered Announced)
• So Long Touch Arcade (Massive Gaming Publication Shuts Down After 16 Years)
• Playtika Acquires SuperPlay for $700 Million (We Need Better Reporting on Mobile Games…)
• Starlight Re:Volver and the Financial Landscape of Games (You Can’t Fund a REAL Games Nowadays…)
• Interest Rates Dropping Affects The Gamindustri, You, and Natalie (♫Cash Rules Everything Around Me, Gotta Get The Money!♫)
• Another Console Data Tangent! (You Gotta Have One Every Week!)
• Who is the REAL Master of Pokémon? (Natalie Talks About A Video Essay She Watched Twice)
• Pokémon v Pocketpair – A Palworld Patent Panic (Nintendo Sues Pocket Pair for Patent Infringement)
• How Do You Solve The Final Fantasy Problem? (Or Why Didn’t FFXVI and FFVIIR2 Do Well?)
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Announced (Yar Har, Fiddle De Dee! Being a Pirate Is What We Wanna Be!)
• The Annapurna Interactive Exodus Explained! (IGN Reveals The Full Story!)

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Rundown (6/16/2024) S3 2024 is Done and Dusted

• Post published:06/16/2024
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:77 mins read
• Post comments:2 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: S3 2024 is Done and Dusted
• TSF Showcase 2024-24 Sekainohate de Aimashou [Meets True Love on the World End] by Sun Takeda
• Microsoft Gaming’s Summer Showcase (Xbox is the Schrödinger’s Cat of Gaming)
• Doom: The Dark Ages Announced (Doom 666: Gettin’ Medieval)
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Announced (Nothing Obscure About This, No Claire Farron In Sight)
• South of Midnight Gameplay Reveal (4 Minute Trailer, 3 Minutes of Cutscene)
• Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Gameplay Reveal (Little Changes Beyond Aesthetics, But That’s Okay)
• Perfect Dark Reboot ‘Gameplay’ Reveal (I Think This Is a Vertical Slice Covering a Disaster)
• Life is Strange: Double Exposure Announced (They REALLY Wanted to Call This Life is Strange 2…)
• Atomfall Announced (More Details Required to Form Proper Reaction)
• Gears of War: E-Day Announced (Gears of War 0: Please Forget About Judgment)
• The Adorably All-Digital Xbox Series X is REAL! (Natalie Almost Rambles About Xbox Storage Prices)
• Ubisoft’s Summer Showcase (Ubisoft Forward Happened)
• Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP? More Like ReNOT! (Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP Gameplay Reveal)
• EPIC LEAKS (Epic Games Store Leaks Unannounced Titles)
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard Has Been Formally Unveiled (Natalie’s History with Dragon Age)
• Cassie’s First Impressions of Dragon Age: The Veilguard (Cassie’s Corner Returns)

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Rundown (1/28/2024) Palling Around in Palworld

• Post published:01/28/2024
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:35 mins read
• Post comments:2 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie Rambles About Palworld – Week 1
• No One Can Stop The Pokémadness (Palworld is a Global Sensation and Home to Massive Controversy)
• TSF Showcase 2024-04 Oto x Maho by Shirase Shuu and Suemitsu Dicca
• Microsoft’s Big Cuts! (Microsoft Layoffs, Cancellation, and War on Physical Games)

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Rundown (9/24/2023) Ai’s Time Warp and Premise Predicament

• Post published:09/24/2023
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:56 mins read
• Post comments:2 Comments

This Week’s Topics:

• Rundown Preamble Ramble: Ai’s Time Warp And Premise Predicament
• TSF Showcase #2023-29 Watashi no Karada, Okashi Shimasu [Rent My Body] by Fujiya (Nectar)
• FTC Leaks Are the Coolest E3! (Boatload of Xbox Internal Documents Leak Via FTC)
• If Gaming Goes Online Only, Fuck It, I’m Done (Natalie Rambles About Killing Ownership In The Name of Innovation)
• What’s a Toaplan, and Why’s It Getting a Revival Arc? (Tatsujin Announces Revivals of Toaplan Games)
• Izuna the Unemployed Ninja Has a New Job (Success Announced Izuna: The Unemployed Ninja Reboot)
• Hell is a City Connection (Natalie Tries to Unravel City Connection’s TGS Lineup)
• Under Unity, We Fail (Unity Executives Apologize, Give People Another Shitty Deal)

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Rundown (6/12) Segmented Summer Showcases (S3) 2022: I’d Rather Be Writing OPPAI 3 Right Now

• Post published:06/13/2022
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:14 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss the regularly scheduled early June Mika Saft & Bethany Esda video game showcase.

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Natalie Rambles About 2020

• Post published:12/30/2020
• Post category:Rambles
• Reading time:56 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Because 2020 is finally at an end, and good riddance!

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Rundown (11/08-11/14) More Work-Related Schedule Kerfuffles!

• Post published:11/15/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:6 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss the follies of an irregular work schedule and the start of the 9th generation (for real this time).

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Rundown (9/20-9/26) Electrolysis is Not Fun

• Post published:09/27/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:12 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss genital electrocution, the consolidation of gamindustri, how propriety memory is always a mistake, the shift from Zero to the Future, a new challenger in this era of platform wars, and a curious compilation of classic titles.

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Rundown (9/06-9/12) Systems of Frustration

• Post published:09/13/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:20 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss my writing being invalidated by patches, the highs and lows of the next Xbox, another limited remastered compilation, a most unexpected prequel, the fumblings of a troublesome trend-chaser, and the most absurd company name in all of video games. Oh, and also Ubisoft’s attempts at repressing the fact that they defended and protected abusers for years.

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Rundown (5/03-5/09) Natalie’s Not A Squid Kid!

• Post published:05/10/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:10 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss the merits of multiplayer, Muv-Luv Con, and the hottest games coming to an XSX near you.

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Rundown (3/15-3/21) Quarantine Time with Haz-Nat

• Post published:03/22/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:7 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss the modern troubles and Gen 9 (or G9N if you’re feeling a little cheeky).

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Rundown (2/23-2/29) Relative Strangers

• Post published:03/01/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:7 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss familial matters, a remastered romantic tragedy, an intelligent distribution divergence, a Platinum combo, and the virus of destruction.

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Rundown (1/05-1/11) 1,500 Words A Day

• Post published:01/12/2020
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:10 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss rising numbers, the return of two masks, a Chinese solution to never losing your luster, becoming a Mudkip, another brand new world to explore, and why the 9th generation of console gaming will disappoint the children.

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Rundown (12/08-12/14) The Conclusion of Chaos: Part 2

• Post published:12/15/2019
• Post category:Rundowns
• Reading time:15 mins read
• Post comments:0 Comments

Wherein I discuss the end of a great trial, the crumbling of a retail giant, expanding licenses, surreal stealth releases, and the assorted announcements of two underwhelming live streamed events.

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