Castle Magus

"The Many Reboots of Ghost In The Shell | Castle Super Beast 372"

2026-05-16T18:19:02Z

Pat's actual "am I crazy?" thing around 6 minutes into the video was not all that crazy. Pat's "real" take near the end of the video, around 14 minutes in, was off the wall bonkers, and I'm glad Woolie told him he was "batshit." I think (or at least hope) he was just being facetious with the latter thing, though.

They only talk about it briefly in the video above, but despite what Woolie says there, it is most certainly not "the reality" that Stanley Kubrick's movie The Shining is "way, way better" than Stephen King's novel The Shining. "Kubrick's changes" absolutely did not make "a better product than the source material." It's certainly different, and good in its own way, but it's not better than the novel. The only thing that is "hilarious and kind of insane" is Woolie's dumbfuck claim to the contrary.

The movie The Shining by Stanley Kubrick is, however, better than King's own TV adaptation of his novel The Shining.

(I've only read the book version of Doctor Sleep, so I can't compare it to the 2019 movie, which I haven't seen. I've heard it makes changes to what was in the book, though. [For instance, in the book, the Overlook Hotel had burned down. In the movie... no, not so much.] In general, King is not averse to changes made in adaptations of his stuff, e.g. his love for the ending of the film version of The Mist, which King has claimed he wished he'd come up with it for the novella. He just really hated the changes Kubrick made in The Shining, and I don't blame him.)

comments

"What Makes a Mascot Cursed?"

2026-05-16T04:51:18Z

Stephan shows off mascots of a cursed variety to Lani and Jesse, who then decide just how cursed they are!

I called all of the ones in the "Actual Demon" category, except, oddly, for the clown. Sure, the bit at the start with him coming up out of the doghouse was weird, but once he sat down with the cereal, it seemed strangely wholesome to me. (Well, as wholesome as a sugar-infused rice cereal can be, anyway.) I would have rated him "Kinda Weird" at most. Honestly, old school Ronald McDonald (played by Willard Scott, which they don't mention in the video) seemed creepier to me than the Post Sugar Rice Krinkles clown did.

Oh, I also thought those toe monsters should have been in "Actual Demon," but TFS rated them merely "Threatening Aura."

comments

"Why This Mario Galaxy Theme Makes You FEEL Like You're Flying"

2026-05-14T18:32:17Z

comments

"The Pothole Vigilante | Castle Super Beast 372"

2026-05-14T18:04:18Z

This is a 25 minute long story from Woolie about a guy going around Montreal fixing potholes that otherwise would probably never get fixed, with a segue from Pat in the middle about a story of how British Columbia was giving people "clean" fentanyl and other such drugs to keep them from dying to dirty drugs, with the people receiving the drugs going out and selling them in order to get more of the dirty drugs, and then the two stories were brought together into one complete whole at the end.

comments

"Chrono Trigger vs FF6 | Castle Super Beast 371"

2026-05-12T18:25:10Z

I'll give the edge to Chrono Trigger (says Kane Magus), but Final Fantasy VI is really good, too.

That said, the entirety of "Dancing Mad" kind of stomps "World Revolution," not that "World Revolution" isn't still pretty great, even so. That said, to be fair to Chrono Trigger, the (spoilers for Chrono Trigger in the next link) final boss isn't just the part with "World Revolution." (And again, yes, it is possible to beat all of that with only Crono, by himself.)

For me, though, the top-most tier boss/character theme of Chrono Trigger will always be "Battle with Magus."

(I really need to find a way to play Radiant Historia one of these days.)

comments

"The 2 Notes That Changed Movie Music Forever"

2026-05-12T00:11:34Z

comments

"Great Video Game Crash Of 1983"

2026-05-11T20:42:36Z

"I talk about my experience of this crash as both a young consumer and a new game developer."

So... a somewhat different take on the situation than this one. He's not really talking about any of the current stuff, though, aside from a mention at the start about how "it's nothing like the 1983 crash." He still acknowledges that the current crap is bad, and it absolutely is bad, but the video doesn't dwell on it and simply describes his experience of the 1983 crash.

Yeah, this current... thing... whatever it is that's happening with the modern video game industry is not a crash. Sadly. As much as I've long wished it would just go ahead and actually crash already, what it's doing right now is not that. Honestly, I agree more with Tim Cain here that "it's nothing like the 1983 crash" than I do with John and Brenda Romero that it's "crashier." It's certainly something, but it's not the flame-engulfed car off the cliff into the explosives factory crash that 1983 was. And as Cain mentions here, it was a crash of the console industry specifically, since the PC game industry was still doing okay and getting stronger around that time. The current thing is affecting all sectors of the industry, though, not just consoles, since these days there's not really all that much difference between the "console" and "PC" (and "mobile") games industry. They're all shit now, in their own not too dissimilar ways. And it's affecting way more than just the United States the way the 1983 crash mostly did. This current thing is worldwide.

( Edit with additional Youtube embed behind a cut )

comments

"Star Citizen: The Billion Dollar Cult | Castle Super Beast 371"

2026-05-11T19:07:01Z

Sounds about right, yeah. All of the things mentioned in this video (which goes beyond just Star Citizen) are examples of yet another facet of that monolithic turd I dearly, dearly hate which I call "modern video game industry bullshit."

Back in 2012, I gave $30 USD to the Star Citizen Kickstarter (which had, in retrospect, the utterly laughable "estimated delivery" date of "November 2014"). I still get the occasional email from Roberts Space Industries/Cloud Imperium Games, but I pretty much have them muted now (I did so when they declared the game had been "updated" to require AVX). At this point in time, I don't even care if Star Citizen ever actually comes out or not, because I'm pretty sure I would never even play it if it did. I just do not give a shit anymore, certainly not enough to give them any more money.

And yeah, over the past decade or so, I've seen far too many cases of far too many grifters using Patreon and the like to milk far too many gullible fools via "video game" (and other such) projects that never actually get completed or released (because if they did, the all-but-free stream of money every month would dry up). I've never once supported a Patreon campaign and I never intend to do so, in part explicitly because of this phenomenon, and in part because I'd already been generally burned out on the whole "crowd-funding" thing due to Kickstarter and Indiegogo and the like.

comments

"KOTOR vs Mass Effect | Castle Super Beast 371"

2026-05-11T02:51:54Z

Unlike Pat, I never really made much of a "Mass Effect is Star Trek" connection, but it makes sense, I guess. I can see it, kind of. I still have yet to play Mass Effect 3 at all, even though I do have it (and the first two games, which I've definitely played) on Origin/EA app/whatever the hell it's called now. Maybe someday, possibly. That said, I've played way better games that were closer than Mass Effect is to being Star Trek, and most of those were actual Star Trek games.

Starting around here, Pat starts spitting out mad truth, at least as far as Star Trek is concerned. And kind of as far as Mass Effect is concerned, too. I don't give a shit about Kirk on a motorcycle or blasting aliens with Beastie Boys[1] or whatever. I'd sincerely rather have the crew (and Q) just sitting around a table talking about philosophy or whatever for a full hour or two. And with Mass Effect, my favorite parts were chilling on the Citadel or the Normandy talking to people or reading lore logs or probing Uranus, as opposed to the driving around on rocky/sandy planets and/or the repetitive hallways of combat.

(PS, Pat: It was the Romulans who were tricked into joining the war, not the Klingons. You really don't ever need to trick Klingons into joining a war. You might need to trick them into joining a war on your side, but they're pretty much always going to be up for a war. The Romulans, by contrast, wanted to just sit back and watch the whole thing from afar and then step out of the shadows and join the winners after it was all over.)

[1] - Oh, and that fourth Star Trek movie in the Kelvin timeline that they'd been working on for years with not much to show for it seems to be officially dead now, finally. Given how dogshit Star Trek Beyond was, I'm not displeased by this. Though, apparently, Paramount is rebooting the movies again in 2028 or something. Maybe this will actually be good, or maybe it'll be yet more way-too-actiony dogshit like the Pine-Kirk movies increasingly became. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

comments

"Indie games have built a thriving economy in territory traditional publishers abandoned or ignored"

2026-05-09T23:36:20Z

"Godot's growth figures and Steam revenue data show that far from being a sideshow, indie gaming is a slow-burning revolution"

I would say that roughly 99.999% of the games I've bought in the past, say, decade or so have been indie games. Or at least AA games. I think the last big AAA game I bought was probably Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete Edition back in 2022, for a little over $20 (it was normally $50). You can't even buy that version any more, now, because it has been delisted in favor of the supposed "remaster." (This game absolutely did not need a remaster, but that's another possible rant for another time.) And I got Red Dead Redemption 2 a year before that, too, because I caved and got it for around $40 (it's normally $60). That's the most I've paid for any video game since I started my policy.

But then, with stuff like Baldur's Gate 3 being called an "indie" game, it's getting harder to tell what's an indie game and what's not, aside from using the actual literal definition of the word "independent," from which "indie" is derived, I guess (in which case Baldur's Gate 3 is, in fact, not an indie game).

comments

"Forbidden Solitaire & The Rise of Meta Narrative Indie Puzzle Games | Castle Super Beast 371"

2026-05-09T20:16:05Z

"Quirky" definitely doesn't mean the same thing as "charming," Woolie. However, I don't usually see it as pejorative the way Pat kind of does, either. I mean, yeah, I guess it can be a pejorative, depending on what's being described and who's doing the describing, but I don't usually see it as such (unless it's obvious that whoever is using it is doing so in a kind of asshole-ish way to start with), though. I'd describe EarthBound, for example, as both "quirky" and "charming," and it would't be redundant to do so. "Quirky," to me, means unconventional, kinda offbeat, maybe even a little strange. I'd absolutely describe games like Forbidden Solitaire or Titanium Court (based on what very, very little I know about them, since I only just learned of their existence as of this video) way more as "quirky," at the very least, rather than "charming."

The trailers for Titanium Court on the Steam page just being the guy who made the game singing uninformative songs about the game, however, leave me feeling ambivalent, to the point of leaning toward regarding the game with apathy/antipathy. (Especially when one of the songs starts by literally saying "Do not play my video game, do not buy my latest software product." I just find that kind of blatant reverse psychology-type shit to be tiresome, at best.) This is "quirky" in the pejorative sense, as far as I'm concerned. It is not "charming," not even a little bit. If I'd first seen/heard this in a Discovery Queue on Steam, rather than via it being mentioned in a CSB video, I'd probably have just marked it as Ignored without a second thought. Then again, this probably never would have even appeared in my one of my Discovery Queues in the first place, since I have "Match 3" and "Auto Battler" filtered out.

With all of that said... I still added it to my wishlist, along with Forbidden Solitaire, and I may bite on them someday, if I see them on a 75%-or-greater sale or in a Humble Bundle with, like, ten other games for $12 or something.

I didn't know Inscryption even had any kind of "quirky" meta shenanigans, because even though I bought it on a dirt cheap sale based on the hype, I never got much past the tutorial of the card game shit, which I mostly found intensely uninteresting. Steams says I played it for 24 minutes, a little over a year ago. (Maybe I just don't like card-based video games, in general. *shrug* Which doesn't bode well for Forbidden Solitaire, I suppose.) But, perhaps, I may eventually give Inscryption another shot, someday...

comments

"Hey, 'AI' Still Sucks"

2026-05-08T20:13:34Z

A post on John Scalzi's blog.

comments

Pyre Lookout

2026-05-08T05:37:58Z

Here is a video game, which can be played, for free, in a browser or downloaded, that is very heavily inspired by Disco Elysium. You play as a guy in a firewatch tower with some other people, and you notice the smell of smoke from a fire. The game proceeds from there. It's rather short. I finished it in about an hour or less.

(EDIT) There is more than one ending, apparently. In my ending, everyone (eventually) escaped via helicopter. I started a new game, but it kind of started bugging out a bit, i.e. the dialog window was disappearing before I could read the last bit (something that did not happen during my first playthrough), so I stopped there. (/EDIT)

comments

"First Words! | Castle Super Beast 371"

2026-05-08T03:09:28Z

Woolie's girl is saying "Da da" now. Only one syllable away from "doodah."

comments

"More And More Games Are Asking A Question Even Philosophers Haven't Been Able To Answer"

2026-05-07T23:44:37Z

"Prove You're Human, Among Us, and several other sci-fi games are grappling with one, big question: What makes us human?"

I've never given the slightest crap about Among Us (aside from the crossover with Vampire Survivors, and even that was probably my least favorite of the VS DLCs that have come out), what with it being a multiplayer-only game and all, and neither No, I'm Not a Human nor Shift at Midnight look all that appealing to me, either.

However, I've just added Prove You're Human to my Steam wishlist. Could be interesting, and wishlisting is free, after all.

comments

"Blue hair"

2026-05-07T22:33:26Z

As a follow up to this horseshit, I looked at one of the Reddit threads linked to in that article.

And now, from that, I have fodder for another linguistic pet peeve post. When and why and how the fuck did the term "blue hair" go from meaning old, pearl-clutching, conservative people (or, more generally, just "old people"), as it has been for nearly a century now, to suddenly meaning "young, liberal activists" or whatever the blue hell it ostensibly """""means""""" now?

Seriously, people in that Reddit post were indignantly replying to the OP, saying that "blue hairs" (apparently, based on context, meaning liberals) would be the last ones to like that shit, when the OP actually was using the term in the original sense, meaning "old people" (and probably, more specifically, Trumpanzee old people).

comments

"A Comedian Walks Into a Police Station"

2026-05-07T21:48:49Z

"A social media manager with a background in radio comedy has made the Greensboro Police Department's social media wildly popular. But a pattern of offensive posts may threaten the department's reputation at a critical time."

Wow, being someone who tends to avoid most "social media" like the bubonic plague these days, I had no idea that the social media presence of the Greensboro Police Department has been so incredibly shitty for so long. (I mean, I didn't know the Greensboro Police Department had a social media presence at all until now, for that matter. *shrug*)

Where'd they find this stupid DeSota asshat? 4chan? The article compares the shitbag to Howard Stern, but Howard Stern (at least as far as I'm aware) was never the social media """""manager""""" for a police department, of all things. As someone in the article was quoted: "Sir, this is not a Wendy's." This isn't cheeky fast food restaurant accounts trading meme-y insults on 卐️-formerly-Twitter or whatever, this is the public-facing social media for a fucking police department. ಠ_ಠ

comments

"Switch 2 Reportedly Too Good a Deal, Investors Want That Fixed"

2026-05-07T21:18:58Z

As if I needed another reason to not bother with buying one. *eye roll + weary sigh*

I'll just say, again, that investors, shareholders, and their ilk are probably the worst thing about capitalism, in general. Sure, their money might make some things possible that might otherwise not have been possible at all, but in far too many cases, it's their greedy, piggy little fingers that end up ruining the pie for everyone.

comments

"Nintendo Games Don't Get Discounted as They Launch at a Fair Price and Are 'The Best.'"

2026-05-05T18:49:45Z

Full headline, because of inadequate Dreamwidth subject field size: "Nintendo Games Don't Get Discounted as They Launch at a Fair Price and Are 'The Best,' Reggie Fils-Aimé Says

In other news: "Nintendo Games Don't Get Bought By Kane Magus At All Because They Don't Get Discounted."

Or, more accurately: "Kane Magus Hasn't Bought a Nintendo Console Since The Wii (Which He Sold In 2014) At Least In Part Because Nintendo Games Don't Get Discounted."

comments

"And Now I Reveal the Contents of My FBI File"

2026-05-04T15:21:39Z

A post on John Scalzi's Whatever blog, which is a follow up to a previous post.

Supposedly, the FBI responded within a few days that they don't actually have a file on John Scalzi.

But then, the first comment is from Cory Doctorow, saying that that's basically what the FBI tells everybody on an initial request, and that if you really want your file, you have to appeal and keep pressing them. And I would bet that that actually works on probably 99% of people who send FOIA requests to the FBI and gets them to just immediately give up (and then "FOIA request made for their file" is probably added to the file that the FBI has lied about not having).

comments

"Hero shooter Last Flag halts production just 2 weeks after launch"

2026-05-03T19:18:01Z

Full headline, because it wouldn't all fit up there: "Hero shooter Last Flag halts production just 2 weeks after launch, but vows to 'make sure that the game doesn't disappear'"

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, [the increasingly obvious market realities of multiplayer-only hero/extraction/whatever-the-fuck shooter live service games and the fact that gamers are increasingly growing weary and wary of them are] gonna get you, too
Another one bites the dust

"we didn't build a 'live service' free-to-play game" == we charged actual cash money upfront for this shit before dumping it after just a mere two weeks. (At least it was "only" $15 and not $40 like what Concord charged. But that was still $15 too much.)

Also, if your dogshit game requires you to actively provide "support" or else the game dies, it is, by definition, a "live service" game. I don't give a fuck if you're trying to avoid that term due to the well-earned negative connotations it brings with it now.

"been unable to find the audience it needs to give all of you the experience you deserve" == none of you fuckers wanted to buy our crappy game from the outset, so this is all your fault.

"Last Flag isn't going anywhere" == this is almost assuredly the last anyone will hear about this game ever again, because that's what they all say whenever a worse-than-worthless live-service whatsit like this is shut down.

Well, if absolutely nothing else, at least this multiplayer-only hero shooter game, which I never heard of before reading that article there and don't give the slightest shit about except to mock it for failing to last barely half a month before dying, is (paying lip service to) trying to do the basic bare minimum level of avoiding the asshattery of simply letting their game disappear, which should be industry standard but isn't. I'll give them that infinitesimal amount of credit, I suppose.

A couple of comments under the article:

1) "How is nine characters, two maps, multiplayer+bots only, and no story mode a complete game?..."

2) "for 15 bucks (12 euros), that's passable."

Um, no, apparently it wasn't passable (nor should it be), or else this game wouldn't be dead after just two weeks. Duh.

comments

"My Brief Obsession with the Worst RPG Ever Made"

2026-04-30T08:34:05Z

"This is a formal apology to anyone who knew me when I was twelve."

(Video contains some spoilers for not just Lunar: Dragon Song but several other games as well, which are mentioned in the video's description.)

Hmm, so, as of today, I learned that Lunar: Dragon Song is a thing that exists. I loved the other Lunar games, so it's weird that I've never even heard of this one before now. And I actually had a Nintendo DS in the time frame it was released, too.

And... it seems I may have dodged a bullet there. That said, based on this video but having not played this game myself, I'm not sure I would call this the worst RPG ever made. I mean, yeah, it kind of sounds like ass, but I'm sure I've played worse.

I mean, Ultima IX: Ascension[1] exists, after all. Look, the Ultima series was great. I even sort of liked Ultima VIII: Pagan, despite the atrociously shitty platform jumping (though, to be marginally fair to myself, it was [oddly, in retrospect] the first game I ever played in the Ultima series). And the early games are still good (if super ultra dated by today's standards). But Ultima IX was barely passable at best and putrid dogshit at worst. I mostly blame Electronic Arts for this (even if it wasn't just EA's fault).

Oh, and Dragon Age II, which is the game that essentially killed the Dragon Age franchise as far as I'm concerned. (Well, that and the fact that Dragon Age Inquisition apparently has one those early bird Denuvo forever-licenses on PC, which means I'll almost assuredly never play it). I mostly blame EA for this one, too (even if, again, it wasn't solely EA's fault, I guess). The first game (and, to a lesser extent, its DLCs and expansion) was rather good, though.

And Quest 64... um... the only thing I remember about that one now is that it was called Quest 64. So... I dunno, maybe it's not as bad as Lunar: Dragon Song?

And that's not even counting the myriad RPGMaker slop games that exists on Steam and the like nowadays. Sure, there are some decent ones in there, but there are some real stinkers in there, too. And these days, I only extremely rarely feel like digging through the pile to try find any potential gold, and I usually only do so via word-of-mouth from elsewhere.

[1] - Spoony's whole Ultima Retrospective series was pretty good. Disclaimer: it's been many years since I first watched this, when it was originally made, so I'm not sure how well it may hold up today, given that Spoony's brand of humor was... pretty brash. Man, I still kind of miss Spoony, even so... even if he's sort of back (after having gone off the deep end for several years) and occasionally does videos with that Conversations with Curtis guy (i.e. Paul Morgan Stetler, the guy who played Curtis in Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, a game that Spoony LPed back in ye olden days).

comments

Fresh Express salad kits rant

2026-04-29T22:07:20Z

Over the several years that I've been buying Fresh Express salad kits from Food Lion, this will be the third time now that I've gotten one that failed to include the packet containing the stuff like dressing and croutons, etc. In this particular case, I only have the lettuce, the carrots, and the radicchio. It is missing the Asian apple vinaigrette, wonton strips, cashews and apples.

In one of the other cases, I ended up with just a bag of lettuce, nothing else.

Fortunately (relatively speaking), for today at least, there happened to be some Chick-fil-a honey mustard sauce in the fridge left over from the other day. It's not great, but at least it wasn't just a bowl of lettuce and carrots with nothing else for it. But it's still rather annoying to not have all the other stuff that was supposed to be in there.

comments

"Supreme Court sharply limits use of race in redistricting in a win for Republicans"

2026-04-29T18:59:25Z

"The court agreed with Republicans that the congressional map Louisiana drew is a racial gerrymander, making it harder for civil rights plaintiffs to challenge future maps."

"...Alito wrote that 'allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost any other context.'"

Oh, really, "Justice" Alito? Race has never before played a role in government decision-making based on the Constitution?

The very fucking reason the Voting Rights Act came into being was because people (including previous SCOTUS assclowns) were abusing and misinterpreting[1] the Constitution in ways that allowed them to be racist shitfucks. The Voting Rights Act was meant to prevent that shit. And now the SCROTUS IMPOTUS-packed SCOTUS is basically saying that pretty much any congressional district map that was made to conform to the Voting Rights Act is itself now inherently racist and open to being declared unconstitutional. That's definitely a "win for Republicans," to be sure, because this very SCOTUS decision itself is an explicitly racist shitfuck one, while deceitfully claiming to be the exact opposite of that. To hell with the (Conservative/Republican/Trumpanzee majority of the) Supreme Court.

Institutional racism exists, and the current SCOTUS is actively perpetuating it while disingenuously pretending to combat it.

In any case, this is just yet another bizarre, ass-backwards, expressly racist decision by the Trump-stacked SCOTUS (and which is, of course, also in alignment with Trump's ongoing war against voting rights). *weary goddamned sigh* I really fucking hate that six goddamned unelected asshats are able to increasingly ruin the country like this.

[1] - I think there needs to be a new word like "disinterpret" (or, perhaps, increased use of the already existing one) which differentiates between accidental misinterpretation and deliberately malicious misinterpretation (in a sort of "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" sense), because none of that shit was "accidental" or "by mistake," nor is this current shit, either. Sort of like how we have "misinformation" and "disinformation" now to differentiate between accidental and deliberate falsehoods being wrongly spread as fact. Too many misinterpretations being spread as misinformation by otherwise well-meaning people are the direct result of explicit disinterpretations being spread as deliberate disinformation by evil shitbags.

comments

"How conspiracy theories spread after the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting"

2026-04-28T19:07:41Z

PBS gives some possible reasons why, but one reason they don't give is the demonstrable fact that far too many people in this country are simply very stupid and very gullible.

Asinine, bullshit conspiracy theories and the credulous, blithering morons who believe in them are, at least in part, why the United States has been afflicted (again) with the plague that is the Presidency of Donald J. Trump in the first place, after all.

comments