hatking

Just an fyi, Playground Games does the Horizon games, not Turn 10. So that might explain some of the discrepancy.

I've been playing a lot of GameCube lately. It's a great console. Pikmin and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 were the two games I got when I got my GameCube back in 2001. They're probably the games I associate most with that console because of that.
I didn't touch a ton of first party stuff back then, but there's still something about that console that feels really unique to me. It has a cool vibe. From its UI, to the sound effects it uses when you boot it up or navigate the system menus, to the boxy little console itself, and the very strange-for-Nintendo marketing campaign around it (feat. Rob Zombie).

Yo, go to a few indie shows in your area (if you feel safe doing so). Do a little digging, I'm guessing there's probably something near you. There's like four separate promotions within an hour drive of me and I am not in a major city. The indie shows I've been to have all been bangers. You'll get so much more out of it being at a live event with crowd energy, and with indie shows you can get prime viewing for like $10-$20. Once you've been to a few, you'll start to see traveling performers from your region and develop favorites.

For me personally, I like programming focused on specific media. Guilty Treasures is pretty close to my absolute dream show—pretty much the idea I had when asking myself what would I make a podcast about. Something focused on esoteric art, with idiosyncratic passion-analysis. Hot Takeouts looks like it's going to be in this ballpark too, so it's exciting to see two shows pop up that are very much tailored to my interests. I'm also totally game for any straight up video game editorializing; Quick Looks, Friday shows, or whatever form that's going to take, I'm in.

If you happen to be in the Xbox preview program thing, sign up for the raffle they do there. It’s not guaranteed and it might take a while, but I got mine after like three months wait and didn’t have to stress out refreshing Bestbuy.com at all.

@charlesda: Just this week I bought something very similar to this at a local game shop for $15 (amazon link). I was kind of forced into this because my television doesn't have composite or component in, just a bunch of HDMI ports. It's not exactly graceful as it needs its own power source (if you have a slim PS2 you can actually power it with one of the USB ports on the console itself), but despite the extra wire the PS2 games look much clearer than they ever otherwise would on that hardware with my TV. Most PS2 games do not support progressive scan (here's a handy list), so you're likely not going to get anything approaching HD. But still, even your average PS2 game will display in a noticeable step up from composite, and probably component.

I had this happen on another podcast I listen to a couple months ago. It was extremely weird and invasive feeling as it dawned on me that no, a couple of comedians from LA probably aren't being sponsored by a local car dealership 2500 miles away. But ads have been awful for a long time, and I guess if anything it's surprising it took this long for podcasts to get weird about it. Luckily, it seems like the app I use for listening to podcasts generally breaks that "feature" and the moment where I assume a targeted ad is meant to play will just be a couple seconds of silence before throwing back to the podcast.

I worded that poorly, I haven't had the opportunity to play Cruis'n Blast in any form, but I have played the older Cruis'n game and have a sense of nostalgia for them—along with other goofball arcade racers of that ilk. Blast does seem right in that wheelhouse, so I'll check it out!

While I really miss games like Cruis'n Blast, and I'm almost certainly going to pick up both of these, I can't deny how incredible Forza Horizon 5 looks.

I was so stunned by how good it looks that I didn't really listen to what they were describing about how it plays until a second watch. It sounds like they have some really fun ideas. The piñata event they showed sounds like a more realized version of those excellent team events in Burnout Paradise. If that's the direction they're taking the multiplayer, branching out into new fun things you can do with people outside of racing, then I am really excited for this.