Community Showcase Submissions - July 2018

Hey Brandon and Brad. I've been making these pages to load onto my workmates computers if they leave them logged in. It's usually using a picture of my face, or thier faces. So I decided to make one with Huber. I've also found it works particularly well on phones, so wherever you tap, you get a little Huber face. Anyway, I hope you have a bit of fun with it. <a href="https://tinyurl.com/xphuber" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/xphuber</a> Love and Respect, The Banana Forklift Killer

The Banana Forklift Killer

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Alexander Zyryanov

Dummy comment to make first one's appear.

Alexander Zyryanov

Safety post.

Michael Stevens

Just commenting making sure it stays, also this has been updated since Thursday.

Megan Linart

After Table break had time to beat ending 1 of Hollow Knight. Intense ending, psycho boss.

Steven Beaumont

Hello Allies. While I was on vacation I finally got myself a PSVR. I have never tired VR hence it was a leap of faith to see if I could stomach it. I got the new version and the bundle with PSVR world and downloaded all the demoes I could find to try things out. I have to say I am impressed with it but none of the demoes really didn’t wow me. I have seen VR before back in its early stages just like 3D hence I am a old guy so, I started looking at the web to find a game to buy. People talk a lot about RE7 but as a newcomer to the VR experience I wanted something more beginner level for me and I found it. Moss was the game I picked, and this is probably one of the best store experiences I have had in a long time. Now to be fair this is not because the story is special, but it is they way it is told. The VR experience deep but not on the level that is overwhelming to newcomers. The game speaks to me because it brings back so many memories from movies and other games. I don’t want to go into to much detail about it because that is something people can see/listen too on my podcast that I am rebooting. I did 71 episodes in 2011 and had great fun but as time went on well I found new things to do and didn’t get back to it and it died out. With PSVR and Moss I really wanted to talk and share my experience with people again which was the whole idea with my podcast. So, I have been working on my intro and I would like to share this with the community. This is a one man show so it takes time to do things also need to find time to record stuff. I hope I can have the first episode out soon and Moss will be one of my topics. Link to the intro <a href="https://youtu.be/L77iJ1e6Jio" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/L77iJ1e6Jio</a>

Christophe Fettouhi

Greetings Brandon and Brad, It’s the month of the World Cup, so by the time the showcase goes live England will probably have broken my heart yet again. I’m summering with my parents (or rather wintering, given they live in Australia) and the whole household has gone football (soccer) crazy. It’s even inspired my Dad and I to take up FIFA again, thanks to the free World Cup update (cupdate?). I’m casting my mind back to 1997 or maybe 1996. At six years of age, I’m already into computer games. I love watching Dad and my brother Joel play classic DOS games like ‘Commander Keen’ and ‘Jill Of The Jungle’, and their beloved flight simulators (I might return to those another month). One day, Dad came home with a demo disc with the words ‘Fifa 96’ written on it. “What’s this, Da?” “I think it’s a football game.” “What, like sport?” “Just give it a go, you might like it!” Dad was a little worried that neither of us are into sport, I guess. We were immigrant kids twice over, my parents having moved from Northern Ireland to Canada to Australia; the local sports never made an impression on us, at least not until much later. Mum and Dad had let their childhood love of football drift, and in those days it was a barely a blip on the Australian scene. Anyway, we tried Fifa. I think the graphics hooked us right away – it had an S-VGA sheen to which shareware games rarely aspired. Or maybe it was the warm and welcoming voice of legendary commentator John Motson: “EA Sports presents Virtual Stadium Soccer, and today’s friendly match sees Brazil vs Italy”. Dad gently guided us through the rules but I don’t think we needed much coaching. We were in love. We must have played Brazil vs Italy a hundred times before Dad found a copy of the full game – in those days it was an enormously rare and expensive treat to get an actual boxed game from a shop. Now a whole world of football was open to us. We picked our clubs based on who we liked in the game – I, luckily, chose Manchester United. Poor Joel picked Blackburn Rovers, who happened to be excellent in the mid-90s but have been largely useless ever since. Sliding doors and all that. Of course, we soon started watching the Premier League highlights on TV. We bought magazines and plastered posters on our walls. We bought cards and traded them between us. We joined a local club. When World Cup 98 rolled around we got up at 4am to watch the matches. Even though we’re Northern Irish, we went for England by default as the only British team. When they went out to Argentina on penalties, we cried our eyes out. Fifa 96 hooked us on football, and football acted as a kind of conduit to our homeland. One childhood passion created and fed another; both remain with me to this day.

Samuel Cardwell

Hope this isn't too late! Hi Brandon and Brad! First time in the showcase, long time patron. Just wanted to leave a short note to say that one of the best things about Easy Allies is that it has motivated me to play games that I skipped for whatever reason when they first came out or series' that once did not grab my attention. I'm proud to say that Kingdom Hearts - a game that I wrote off because the Disney stuff made it seem like it was for little kids - has joined the likes of Resident Evil Remake, Bayonetta, Danganronpa, Yakuza 0, and Persona 5 on the list of games I have now had the pleasure to have completed all because of the inspiration from the Easy Allies. Now its just a choice between diving right in to Kingdom Hearts 2.5 or to finally finish off FFXV... Cheers! Ethan

erce

Post keeps being deleted, lets hope this Google Drive works. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oKCX_o2GwTTSwL-RdNitu7aFnj8R9pCp/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oKCX_o2GwTTSwL-RdNitu7aFnj8R9pCp/view?usp=sharing</a>

Samo Rozman

I've tried 7 times but my post keeps being deleted. Let's hope this way works

Samo Rozman

post protection

Hey brandon and brad, hopefully this isn’t too late as it’s very late wednesday night so I’m gonna write fast! E3 happened a few weeks ago, it was cool. Here are some of my opinions on conferences and games in as few of words as possible Conferences from worst to best: EA: EA, no! You go to time out think about what you just did! Bethesda: Hold for applause. Devolver: At least it was shorter and more entertaining than Bethesda, hold for applause. Square Enix: The transitions were nice. PC gaming show: I didn’t actually watch this one but this spots feels right. Nintendo: That was a very informative Smash Bros direct and also some game about forts at night shadow dropped I guess. Sony: We’ll be right back with our conference after we move all these people from one auditorium to another. Ubisoft: Dang it Ubi! If those sales were up to 85% off instead of just up to 80% you could have won best conference. Microsoft: World premier. Also CD Projekt Red with the best hack ever. Games in no particular order: Command and Conquer Rivals: I’m not even a C &amp;C fan and I was insulted. Ghost of Tsushima: Holy Crap this game looks beautiful! Death Stranding: I’m as confused as I am intrigued. Sekiro: Tough bosses, death and bad faces, yep this a Fromsoft game and I would have it no other way. Super Smash Bros Ultimate: Pichu returns! RIP Mario. Anthem: I just can’t muster even an ounce of interest. Sea of Solitude: Wind Waker meets Celeste? I’m in. And finally Cyberpunk 2077: I really hope I don’t have to wait until 2077 to actually play this because it’s going to be amazing! And one final thing, Octopath traveler releases next week. HYPE!!!!!!!!

I didn't even know it was out?!

XWF Outlaw

Dummy comment to make first one's appear.

Alexander Zyryanov

L&amp;R

Ian Alexander

Last time I submitted to Community Showcase, Brandon accidentally read my Ni No Kuni 2 review saying, “characters react with less emotion than my girlfriend.” The shock from Bosman was hilarious. Makes me think we need some Rodney Dangerfield style reviews from EZA or something, haha! I didn't submit anything last month because my girlfriend (who does have emotions, by the way) were busy buying/renovating/moving into a new apartment here in Taichung City, Taiwan! Whoa, that was very stressful... Anyway, we did it and now I am typing this from my new 'computer room.' As for gaming, I found I couldn't get into any story-based games during the transition because I never felt ready to settle down for a few hours, but instead I played the free For Honor starter pack that they gave away during E3. I found the game to be a lot of fun. I went all in on the Kensei samurai and haven't really played any of the others. I was glad to see there isn't any totally broken over-powered character that everyone uses. I also just bought Mario Kart 8 (see, this is why it keeps selling) been playing that with my girlfriend and during breaks between classes at work. (I teach English in a cram school.) Also, tried out the Octopath Traveler Demo and I am still not totally sold on that, but now that we're all moved in maybe I can give it a shot as my return to story-based games. Also, need to finish the RE7 DLC after that RE2 E3 HYYYYYPE!~ Now we just need some Tenchu for next E3, or will Ghost of Tsushima scratch that itch? Thanks guys! L&amp;R, Ian - @alexander_arts

Ian Alexander

Hello there Brad and Jones! Am I too late for the deadline of posting a comment for the showcase? I hope not! But if I am that's ok there's always next month! Since I did not have enough time to make a proper thing to send you guys this month, I'm just going to share some Art/shirt designs I have already done for some of you and I have some questions for both of you! First of all, here is a fun design I made for Brad in tribute to that Winnie the Pooh Stream! I recommend watching the archive of that stream it was a lot of fun! <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms42rrf0pkvk8is/EZA-SICK-FREAKS-Neatoshop-Size.jpg?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/ms42rrf0pkvk8is/EZA-SICK-FREAKS-Neatoshop-Size.jpg?dl=0</a> Here is the Design I created for Kyle, a mash-up of his favorite pokemon with his sad boy rap lyrics: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/xmf1uut8z943qiv/EZA-KYLE-FARFETCHED-2Small.jpg?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/xmf1uut8z943qiv/EZA-KYLE-FARFETCHED-2Small.jpg?dl=0</a> And here's a graphic design for Ian, who is always thinking about synths: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6lu04plfi0omfi2/Ian-Shirt-01.jpg?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/6lu04plfi0omfi2/Ian-Shirt-01.jpg?dl=0</a> These are the ones I have created so far. I am now in process of creating one for Huber and for Ben. Here's a sneak peek of a Work in progress that I'm doing for Huber: <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0b4f4twlo1147r/HUBER-DREAMS---WIP.jpg?dl=0" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0b4f4twlo1147r/HUBER-DREAMS---WIP.jpg?dl=0</a> Now to my questions: Brad! Would you like another different Shirt with a new design? You can ask for anything you like, and I will try making it with the best of my skills with avoiding as much copyright infringement as I can! Ben asked for a sick Majima shirt and that's what I'm doing for him! Jones! What would YOU like on your shirt? Would you like another batman shirt or something more wild like a Red Dead-related design? I know you said you don't want a bright colored shirt, so I'm working with ideas for black and dark red shirts! And a last question: If anybody in the community is interested in buying these shirts as well, I'm thinking about putting up these designs for sale on my online store (www.ellygehshop.com) . Would you guys be ok with that? I'd totally understand if you're not. And if you are, I will be giving part of the profit right back into my patreon pledge to you guys! This feels like the best way to support you guys more and as much as I can! Would you guys be cool with that? And that's it! Thank you so much for making the internet a better place!! Elly, aka ellygeh (the “geh” is pronounced like “meh” but with a G)

Hello Jones and Brad I have to say that now that E3 is over and the first half of the year is done. That this year hasn't quite lived up to last year. Then again last year had the release of a new console, as well as a insane amount of great games. Still I have high hopes for this year, with Dragon Quest still to come in September and Smash in December. Plus a number other great games thrown in between them. Plus I think next year will be rather great if the games that we already know about, are as good as they look. I personally think it could be as good as last year. This summer so far has been decent enough, Gundam Breaker was a major let down, Nobunaga's Ambition was not as good as the last in its series either. Yet, Ys VIII has been a lot of fun to play, the Octo-expansion was amazing and Bloodstain is one of my favorite games of the year if not my favorite game so far. Plus, next week Octopath arrives, and from what I have played in the Demo, that game looks rather impressive.

Mr.V

Hi Jones and Brad E3 is over and it seems like all people can about is Nintendo not having any games and saying the switch is dead which I don't get. I thought Nintendo had enough to lineup the rest of the year. It had a bunch of 3rd party which people complained so much about on wiiu, but now that it has 3rd party people don't care they just want a Zelda every year. While I agree if you don't like smash it can be seen as a little dissapointing, but that's not a fair critique. What if the big 4 games at sony didn't interest me? That doesn't mean it was a bad e3 for sony. Plus it's hard to have great years every year even Nintendo. Sony has had quite a few stinkers 2016 comes to mind. People need to stop holding developers to unrealistic standards; games take time to make let them make them.

kyouzou14

*comment keeper*

Prototype Jay

I'm using my Comment Just to say a few things quickly because i didn't get the email about Community Showcase and couldn't get my thoughts together fast enough. 1) Long Live Squirtle Squad. We may be gone, but i still think of you as my brothers! &lt;3 2) My soul was crushed that i got every samurai game at e3 except Onimusha 3) Remember being able to play games till 4am and still get up in the morning as fresh as a daisy? R.I.P those times. And just a special thanks To the Unofficial EZA discord community. Since moving out and getting back into the swing of things at work it's been tough to be social and the community has been fantastic. From good vibe posters, to tin foil hat wearing dinos, to scarf wearing godzilla fans, the community has kept my spirits up and have always been there to lend me an ear as i have for them too. Love you guys and thank you so much discord gang. P.S BANG BANG BANG Pull my devil trigger. PJ

Prototype Jay

Greetings Jones and Brad!! Zephyr Moon here! Happy belated 4th of July!! Here’s a story. The Betting Specials has become one of my favorite events from you guys and I thought about sending you something special to commemorate the occasion. A few months ago, I approached a couple of people about a crazy idea. I presented to them the idea of a fighters selection screen of your personas and they all thought it was a great idea. With help and advice from the awesome Chris Leroux (aka ICantPotato) as well as an 8-bit cover of the betting special music by CptHampton, we managed to get it animated and incorporated music to it. When it was all done, I messaged Ian and he and Kyle gave us the thumbs up. For anyone that wants to check it out, watch the Easy Allies E3 2018 Betting Special. But for now, here’s a little piece from that screen of Ultima Brad wielding the Buster Sword. This was actually the second version that I made as the first wasn't interesting enough for the screen. Give Ultima my condolences, Brad. It was a good fight, but the better persona won. And congrats on obtaining the Platinum! Love &amp; Respect. P.S. I’m already having ideas for the next E3. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C2kHJy82hOVt7DRsEk9kVFP0D35jrtqZ/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C2kHJy82hOVt7DRsEk9kVFP0D35jrtqZ/view?usp=sharing</a>

Sara Knite

Saving...

Trung Nguyen

Hey Brandon and Brad. I don't follow sports much nowadays but my vacation has been mostly been used watching World Cup and oh boy has it been an insane one. We are down to Top 8 and we have only seen one non-goal match, three penalty kick battles in where one ended in an insane goalkeeper duel and teams that were expected to advance far before the tournament started going home. Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and many other big stars gone because their teams were not good enough which shows that when you win, you win as a team. Well that's enough of sports talk. E3. The biggest gaming related event of the year was a joy to experience though you guys. Learning more about games in-depth of things we were interested in and others that weren't in our radar but is now. I love Press Conferences/Showcases they are like a rollercoaster. EA never cease to amaze me how lower we go than we have expectations for it, Microsoft having a great amount of content in theirs, Bethesda which was the worst one and saved by Brandon's rant which I always love to hear and see. Not malicious, just extremely disappointed. I knew it was Resident Evil 2 remake the moment I saw the first screen. It was because we expected it and the room looked familiar because of shelves. Confirmation was 100% when it went to rat camera as to give nods to Outbreak series. I was hoping it to be in style of Resident Evil remake to be honestly but after seeing it I am excited to play it and how they are going to expand the map/area and hope Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is in a planning phase to get a same treatment. I could go on on things from E3 but that would be like repeating the obvious which is E3 was great once again thanks to you all and your wonderful coverage of it. Love and Respect TearjuEngi PS. For your information I didn't get a platinum trophy when I posted a picture of Resident Evil remake last time. I am simply one away from it which is beating it in a mode that keeps inventory boxes as separate.

Trung Nguyen

Hello, German-efficient Allies! E3 was a total joy to spend with you and chat, despite me having to go to sleep basically when the sun was rising! But I'll leave the more E3-focused comments to others, because on one E3 day, during the interval between the end of the day's broadcasts and your return to the garage for impressions, I decided to listen to the latest episode of Tabletop Escapades, 2x20. But what is that? What do I hear? Ben describing the sound of a violin, then actually singing a melody? Then Kyle adding some brief but funky harpsichord on top of it? One does not simply come up with a melody on the fly during Tabletop Escapades! This has happened before, and the consequences are known! There is no escape! Upon the fateful day of the Community Showcase, a submission will be received! A submission that will contain the fruits of the labour of a poor soul who cannot resist the compulsion to turn the aforementioned seed of a musical idea into a not-quite-fully-fledged passable piece of music! Love &amp; Respect! The link to my submission: <a href="https://youtu.be/f7dRbn5giRU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/f7dRbn5giRU</a> As I did the last time for the Battle Theme, I provide here the link to the birth of this piece of music: <a href="https://youtu.be/kNvOyd0j_Oc?t=26m53s" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/kNvOyd0j_Oc?t=26m53s</a> Specifically, Ben's bit of violin is at 27:27 and Kyle's added funky harpsichord at 28:00.

Kévin Gillet

Greetings Brad and Jones! Last month I watched „The last Jedi“ with my wife. It was the first time I’ve seen the movie since last December and her first viewing at all. I have to admit, I liked it more than I remember – maybe because I knew beforehand which parts were “ignorable” and pointless. My wife just plainly hates the movie. Much more importantly, watching the movie started an itch to play a Star Wars game with a good story. So I dug deep into my Steam Library and found two gems that are not only great Star Wars games, but also have a compelling plot: “Knights of the old Republic” and “Republic Commando”. Now I know: KotoR would have been the right call, since it is the superior game in almost every aspect. But(!), I knew beforehand that my leisure time would be limited and that a 30+ hour game would take up the whole month. In hindsight my call was absolutely right – it took me almost three weekends to complete an eight-hour game, but it was a time spent well. To be fair: The game has not aged well – the graphics are coarse and the shooting is not as tight as in modern shooters However, I honestly believe that Republic Commando is the best Star Wars Shooter we got in the last 15 years. It intelligently focuses on the parts of the clone wars without Jedi and thus gets rid of rid of those “gods” that can slay hundreds of droids without a scratch. Consequently, the combat scenarios feel more grounded and more intimate – case and point: three super battle droids are real menace if you don’t have laser swords. The game tries to sell a “Band of Brothers” vibe and story, which perfectly suits the idea of a clone trooper elite squad behind enemy lines. One could easily argue that the banter between the characters sometimes drifts deep into cheesy territory – but so is the dialogue in the movies and the animated series, so I would say it is true to its source material. The aspect of the game that I always liked the most is the way you issue commands to your squad. At specific predetermined location you can order your teammates to man a turret, start sniping, throw grenades, hack computers or plant explosives with just one button press. In the late game, combat scenarios have more of these command options than you have teammates. Consequently, there are multiple interesting trade-offs - which sniper positions are you choosing?; how do you reposition your squad if enemies are suddenly attacking from another direction?; should a teammate hack the computer to progress or should you do it yourself because they have infinite ammo at sniping positions (and you don’t)? For a few years I hoped for a sequel (the ending hints at a follow-up storyline). The last years I was hoping for remake. At the moment, I am simply happy that Steam offers the possibility to play a game that got no love in the recent years.

Greetings, Brad and Jones! I’ve been a $10 patron since April, but I never took advantage of my contribution by submitting to community comments… until now! I don’t have anything to contribute as far as art or music, but I thought it would be fun to write a review of some games I’ve been playing for the first time, and theme the submission around the guest ally in some way. Seeing that the guest today is Brad, there’s only one game that is appropriate for such an occasion: Kingdom Hearts. The best way I can describe this game is that I think that it is more than the sum of its parts. Which is a nice way for me to say that I think the game kind of sucks, even though I did enjoy it. My biggest problem with the game is that only one stat increases upon a level up. It feels awful to spend a ton of time grinding up for a particularly tough boss, only to get more AP when I need defense. I acknowledge that the fault is mostly on me, since in retrospect I built Sora incorrectly at the start, but after 15 hours is when my problems surfaced and I was too committed to restart. I also got lost very easily in the various worlds, and spent a lot of time just figuring out where I need to be. On top of that, I really don’t think Sora controls all that great. His jumping feels imprecise, and swinging a keyblade always felt stiff. And don’t get me started on the Gummi Ship. Despite my problems with it, I stuck through to the end. I do have to give it credit on a handful of things, however. I think the overall pacing of the game is solid, with it not spending too much time in one world outside of a few cases. And there were many cheesy and silly moments that made me audibly laugh. And especially with the PS4 remaster, the game holds up visually. While there were good points, the bad taste in my mouth is what I remember the most. Sorry, Brad. There is some good news, though. I’ve also been playing Kingdom Hearts 2! I don’t have much to say on it right now as I haven’t finished it, but most of the things that annoyed me about Kingdom Hearts have mostly been addressed. Instead, it found new ways to annoy me. I’m currently around halfway through the game and have been forced to return to all the worlds again. I much preferred the “one and done” approach from Kingdom Hearts 1. And the one thing I don’t like about how the game controls is that I don’t think that there is a way to get a dodge roll outside of Drive forms. But the issues I do have are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Glad to have finally played both. Love and Respect -ChrisTheFields

Making sure Patreon doesn't eat this post! Love you guys, keep up the great work!

Hello Brandon and Brad, I hope you guys got some rest this month after all of the excitement of E3. Your coverage was great as always and I already can’t wait to see what next E3 has in store. There is so much to talk about, but right now, since I’ve missed the last three community showcases due to computer problems and Patreon eating my comment last month, I feel like a rant is in store. As it turns out though, it's so much of a rant that I couldn't fit it under 500 words, so looks like I'll be talking about it next month. Thank you both for being such great sports in reading this and I hope you had a great 4th of July! Rant commencement: I love the Fire Emblem games, granted I am a newcomer to the series but I have played all of the 3DS releases, the last one being FE Fates: Conquest. Within the FE community, Conquest is commonly held as being the best out of Fates mainly due to it’s level design and strategy. Granted none of the Fates games are thought to have a great story, myself included, but I find that the sheer absurdity of Conquest’s story to be so bad that it ruined my enjoyment of the game. 1. Your character has been confined to a fortress all of their life, and no reason is given by your father who has never visited you, either. None of your siblings are under this strange "quarantine" and they can go anywhere in the kingdom freely. 2. Your father, who shows no emotion at seeing you, orders you to prove your skill by defeating enemy prisoners and once you defeat them, orders you to execute them. You refuse to kill defenseless prisoners and once your father starts casting magic at the prisoners you step in. Your father’s very reasonable response to your defiance is to order your brother to kill you. 3. You ask your father for forgiveness and he gives you a mission, which if you succeed you will be forgiven of your “crime”. Your father lies about the nature of the mission, uses you to violate a border treaty, and uses his henchman to try to kill you. The henchman confesses that he was following your father’s orders. Then the sword your father gave you launches down a canyon so you can plummet to your death. 4. After you are rescued, you are captured by Hoshido where you find out you were abducted by King Garon years ago from Hoshido, and are in fact Hoshidan royalty. 5. During a celebration, your "gift" sword is used by a shadowy figure to kill your mother (and thousands of others), ending the protective spell that prevents Nohr from invading Hoshido; and of course and invasion is the very next thing that happens. 6. You are then given a choice, one of which is to fight on the side of the homicidal maniac king, who ordered you killed…twice; and this is just the begining of the problems with Conquest's story.

Good day to you two. I wanted to start a series of video submissions about one of my favorite games and who else to start it with other than the man who got me into the game, Brad. When Overwatch was announced I never could've imagined that I'd be consistently playing it more than two years after its release. I remember some members of the Gametrailers crew were ecstatic about how well it played at Blizz-Con, but these same members were big fans of many Blizzard games, so I interpreted their reactions as overreactions. I had never played any Blizzard game and the closest comparison being made to Overwatch was Team Fortress 2, a game I never got into for more than a few rounds. I shrugged the hype off and thought that Overwatch just wasn't for me. Then I happen to watch a stream of Brad playing the Overwatch beta as Zenyetta shortly before release; this was the first time I had actually seen gameplay and I was immediately interested. The mechanics looked so solid and the characters functioned in such unique ways, I had to try the beta myself. More than two years later I'm still playing Overwatch and I'd like to share some rundowns of my most played characters, the first one will be the first hero I ever saw, Zenyatta, often shortened to Zen. This is the first time I've ever made a video like this but hopefully it will showcase why Zen is such a challenging yet rewarding character to play. <a href="https://youtu.be/RnEkMasg0dg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/RnEkMasg0dg</a>

Joseph Caruso

reposting as this disappeared after a couple hours earlier

rob

Hi Brandon and Brad! This is my first contribution to the community showcase since upping my patreon tier in June, so sorry if it’s a little long. I’ll start off with my current gaming progress. While Nintendo’s press conference at E3 this year was very lackluster, they did drop Hollow Knight on Switch, so I traded in my WiiU for one that week. I picked up Hollow Knight, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Golf Story, and pre-ordered Dark Souls Remastered. Even though Hollow Knight was the catalyst that made me finally pull the trigger on buying a Switch, I’ve hesitated to start it, as I know it’s going to be a daunting challenge. I decided to start off light and play Golf Story first, and I loved it. There is so much charm in that game. Playing an RPG centered on three click golf mechanics was really neat, and I’d love to play more games that blend genres and mechanics that aren’t normally seen together, such as Yoku’s Island Express. After finishing Golf Story I put off starting Hollow Knight again, and instead started working my way through the story mode of Puyo Puyo Tetris. I think this is the best competitive puzzle game out there, but I am woefully bad at the Puyo Puyo side of it. Hopefully next month I’ll have something to say about Hollow Knight. Stepping from current games to future games, I’m finally starting to wind down from the hype of E3. Everything’s been talked about to death already, but I have to quickly add to the many voices that are excited about SEKIRO!! I could not be more excited to see what From Software has in store for us, Sekiro looks to be a familiar but new experience that fills the Tenchu shaped hole in my heart. The Souls/borne games have been my favorites since I first stepped foot in Anor Londo, and I bet Sekiro will be right up there with Dark Souls and Bloodborne as all-time favorites. You two did amazing on the Souls Retro by the way; a friend sending me the first episode was what got me to start following the Allies. The other games I’m most excited for from E3 are Ghost of Tsushima, Cyberpunk 2077, Control, and Sable. Big shout out to Don for introducing that last one to me, I may have completely missed out on this very cool project if I hadn’t been on the lookout for it thanks to him. One last thing: The latest Hall of Greats ceremony introduced two more games to the hallowed Halls, and both inductees were the first two Greats that I have not only never completed, but never played at all! I was personally rooting for Tropical Freeze, and I’m still holding out hope that Mega Man Legends can one day be recognized as “one of the greats”. Thank you for everything you all do, Love &amp; Respect, Rob H

rob

Since my entry for last month's showcase seem to have been lost to the annals of history, I've asked and been given permission to combine last month's and this month's entries into one post, which is what I'll be doing below. JUNE SUBMISSION: Hello Brandon, and welcome back Huber! It's been a whole, uneventful month since I moved to my new apartment, with not much going on as I wait excitedly for my most anticipated release of the year: The Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion. As my financial situation continues to somewhat strained I don't have much new to share, having mostly been playing Splatoon 2 and League of Legends (speaking of which, they recently released their latest character, the vengeful, deep-sea themed revenant Pyke, and I just wanna say that he is unquestionably one of my new favourites), so for this showcase, I thought I'd take the chance to share some art that I've commissioned from some wonderful artists around the net: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/WNBary1" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/WNBary1</a> Getting what I think the least amount of people will care for out of the way first, the first image is a commission drawn by PeckOnTheCheek ( <a href="http://peckonthecheek.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://peckonthecheek.tumblr.com/</a> ) of my original Hiveswap character Ventre Vetala. A noble by birth on account of his violet blood, Ventre is an eccentric aristocrat with an antiquated vocabulary and an interest in collecting valuable artifacts from shipwrecks. His hero title (if you recall the January showcase, where I talked about that) is the Rogue of Blood, and is depicted wearing that outfit in the right image. The second and third images are commissions of my Splatoon character, wielding two of my favourite weapons, the Splat Brella and Dynamo Roller, respectively. The first image was drawn by Jenny ( <a href="http://bunnysharks.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://bunnysharks.tumblr.com/</a> ) and the second was drawn by Cynthia ( <a href="https://twitter.com/mythridate" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/mythridate</a> ) The last two drawings are not actually commissions, but rather gifts from two somewhat new but very dear friends of mine, Rhi ( <a href="https://lesbian-octoling.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://lesbian-octoling.tumblr.com/</a> ) and King, ( <a href="https://b-urst-bomb.tumblr.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://b-urst-bomb.tumblr.com/</a> ) featuring Laine and Melia, two of my original Splatoon characters. As someone with lots of ideas but no artististic skills of my own, I cannot overstate how much I appreciate them taking their time to do this for me. So that's all for now, but I might just come back with more cool drawings in another showcase as I really enjoy getting commissions done for me. Until next time: Love and Respect, Small Leviathan JULY SUBMISSION: Hi Brandon and Bradley! E3 was quite the spectacle this year, but I actually want to get through my thoughts on it rather quickly, as I've got something more pressing I'd like to talk about. With that said, the proper reveal of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was fantastic, though I just wanna say that I'm predicting that it'll have a big supernatural twist, Bloodborne-style. The shadow drop of Hollow Knight for Switch was neat, and Smash Ultimate was one of the grandest moments in Nintendo Direct history. With that said my second biggest surprise was probably Dying Light 2. I like Dying Light a lot for its gameplay but the story is mediocre at best, a problem that seems like it'll be solved with Chris Avellone at the helm for the sequel. So what was the biggest surprise? That just happens to be the main subject of this month's submission, because my highlight from E3 is when Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami came on stage following the Splatoon World Championships to announce that we were only less than 36 hours from the worldwide release of Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion. Octo Expansion is a curious beast, being structured very differently from Splatoon's previous singleplayer campaigns. Rather than putting you in hub areas where you have to find and complete all levels before beating a boss and progressing to the next hub area, Octo Expansion tasks you with finding four items spread out at specific points in a vast network of gradually discovered underground subway lines. This might seem like a more streamlined approach to level progression, but in reality it allows for a great deal of exploration, as there is more than one way to reach each objective, and you only have to complete a fraction of the 80 levels to get there. Similarly astounding is the sheer variety in the levels. There are some bad apples, like the sculpting levels where you have to destroy boxes to imitate a shape, but for the most part the depth and ingenuity of the tasks you have to perform is staggering, especially compared to the rather linear approach of the previous single player campaigns. The story is, while perhaps a bit more disconnected from the previous worldbuilding than I would liked, still top notch. The music duo and news hosts, Pearl and Marina, finally get to step into the spotlight, fleshing out their personalities and their backstories. The new soundtrack does not disappoint either, with Splatoon's list of fictional artists seeing an addition in the form of Dedf1sh, whose sound ranges from oppressively electronic to bouncy electroswing and even vaporwave. Pearl and Marina also gets some new tracks, including the, by now, iconic reveal trailer theme Nasty Majesty. The entire Expansion is topped off by a long-winded but fantastic finale, including a final boss the scale of which Splatoon has never seen before. Overall, Octo Expansion isn't just a great addition, it's the next step of Splatoon's singleplayer experience. Love and Respect, Small Leviathan

Small Leviathan

Hello Brad and Brandon! I don't have super much to contribute this month. So thought I'd just give a little update on my gaming progress. Im starting to realise that my goal for this year (finish a game a month) are going out the window. Yet looking back I have gone though quite the large amount of new games, so maybe its more that I need a "break" than anything. I recently went back to The Division with some friends. I havent played this since launch and it dawned on me how far the game as come, I mean it is still a grind fest, but there are so many small quality of life improvements and the underground expansion added some new randomly generated content which I have enjoyed. Secondly I received The Last of Us: Remaster and have put in a couple hours into it, this is another game I havent played since the PS3 days and it hit right in the feels. The opening had me crying like a baby and sneaking past the clickers on a high difficulty are exciting and scary. Each area got me on high alert and once I have managed to get through I can take a deep breath as I dare to breath again. Once Im through with this I will FINALLY get around to give Ori and the blind forest a go as my housemate keeps going on about it being a game you "have to play or you'll be missing out". Lastly I just want to give a shout out and remind people that we soon are getting Zone of the Enders 2: MARS to the PS4! so go and preorder. Last lastly, Just a shout out to Brad for always looking so dapper and he seem to be such a sweet person now that Ultima is finally gone! &lt;3 L&amp;R Sebastian a.k.a Lotiaz

Sebastian Hall

I have never been more hyped for a video game in my whole life than I was for Kingdom Hearts 2. I remember being on fan forums for at least two years, starting with discussions and arguments about who the Blonde-Haired Kid in early preview screenshots was (we called him BHK for short; he turned out to be Roxas). I remember watching and re-watching a blurry video capture of the Deep Dive secret ending from the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts 1, and then watching several fan-edited versions of it set to Linkin Park and System of a Down. I remember, tragically, learning the names and ranks of every Organization 13 member by heart. I remember, even more tragically, writing a beat-for-beat recap of Chain of Memories for people who couldn't be bothered buying the game on GBA. I'm pretty sure these already existed on GameFAQs, but by God, I felt important. I remember reading rumours that Tron was making an appearance. I looked up what Tron even was since I had never heard of it, and thought to myself "pfft, that's ridiculous". Shortly afterwards, I saw a Famitsu magazine scan with Bruce Boxleitner's neon-blue face next to Sora's and thought, "well... it's still ridiculous." (Note: this is now my favourite world in the whole series.) And most importantly, I remember walking into Electronics Boutique in Chatswood, Sydney on September of 2006 and being gifted the game for my birthday, six agonising months after it came out in the US and GameTrailers gave it a score of 8.4. I finished it within a couple of weeks, and much to my disappointment, I agreed. All this and more came flooding back as I replayed the game last month, for the first time in a decade, on PS4. And wouldn't you know it -- it holds up. It's the new additions that making it sing: the 60-fps gameplay is refreshing, the Final Mix battles are surprising, and maybe Brad can answer this, but did they actually make Proud mode difficult this time around or have I just gotten worse? In any case, between this and my trip this weekend to the Sydney Opera House for the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra World Tour, it's safe to say that I enjoy Kingdom Hearts 2 now more than ever before, even in my most fanboy-ish days. It is, most assuredly, a good game. (Except for the Roxas prologue. That still sucks.) POST-CONCERT EDIT: I have now seen Yoko Shimomura play the piano, and I feel good.

DaleBastion

Safety comment because Patreon ate the last one.

Phazonmasher

Note (Don't read this): I got to see Patreon eat my comment in real time this month in less than an hour. If it, for some reason, shows up again. You can just ignore this one. Actual comment: For this month's JRPG recommendation, I don't have one! I've been too busy revisiting one of my old friends in Dark Souls Remastered. What a phenomenal game! But there is one aspect of the game that has always bothered me, and I've made a point to reconsider it on this playthrough - the soundtrack. Dark Souls' soundtrack had two things going against it when I finally got around to playing it in 2013 on PC. The first is that it was nowhere near as good as the haunting, off-beat score to Demon's Souls. The second reason is my long-standing troubled relationship with Dark Souls composer Motoi Sakuraba. I've been playing JRPGs for a very long time, and I've grown tired of Sakuraba. His samey approach to composition has always rubbed me the wrong way. On this playthrough, I actually began to appreciate a lot of what Sakuraba did with the score. I still think his cheesy epicness comes through in a bad way with some boss fights though. Here are a few standouts: 1. Gravelord Nito - Now this is what I'm talking about. The off-kilter piano and harpsichord combo combined with the continually rising strings leading into guttural chants and wispy female vocal lines. It fits perfectly and I adore it. 2. Seath the Scaleless - Somehow Sakuraba has turned his usual epic style into something that's actually kind of whimsical and fun. The combination of his usual brass and choral lines with the dreamy ascending and descending harp fits so well with the arena. The real standout in this track is the discordant xylophone that I feel really sells how insane Seath has become in this quest for immortality. 3. Ornstein and Smough - Wow, I used to hate this track so much. I thought it represented everything that I hated about Sakuraba, but I began to warm up to it on this playthrough as I was helping out other players in jolly co-operation. I love the organ solo that comes in around the one-minute mark that separates the opening and the main melody. Speaking of which, that main melody is the kind of epic that I enjoy as the brass is not overbearing and really works with the strings and chorus to create this sense of majesty that Ornstein and Smouth emanate. 4. Finally, my absolute favorite track in the game, and was actually a track that I loved on my first playthrough - Ancient Dragon. This is the song that plays when you get to Ash Lake. It's so simple in its use of a bell, a bass drum and interchanging male and female choruses; but it's so effective at conveying the solemn nobility of the arch trees. The visuals combined with the song made Ash Lake my favorite location in any video game. In conclusion, Dark Souls has a good soundtrack, and I let my beef with Sakuraba over his lackluster Tales of scores cloud my judgment. As an aside, Brad, do you have a favorite track from Dark Souls? Much Love and Respect, Zach

Phazonmasher

Hi Jones and Brad! Capcom is a studio that I never payed much attention too in the past. I hear from a lot of people online and some friends that Capcom is their favourite studio. The only Capcom IP that I have ever been into was Viewtiful Joe. So at the start of the year I decided to try more Capcom games to see why people love them so much. At the start of the year I bought Monster Hunter World, the story did nothing for me but having 3 strangers join my quest to fuck up a Diablos is awesome. After about 50 hours of playing it, there's nothing there pulling me back in to the game, maybe there will be another fun crossover costume I could get but right now I'm fine with putting the game away. Me and my friend played through Resident Evil 5 and I had a real good time with it. We then went through Resident Evil 4. I wish I played this a long time ago. I am awful at playing this game but I loved every second of it. I just beat Devil may cry 4 and liked the first half playing as Nero, the second half just made me do the exact same thing but with dante who I found nowhere near as fun as Nero. And now I'll ask you Jones and Brad. What are some other Capcom games that I should be playing? Thanks for taking the time to read my comment. Love and Respect!

Hi Brad and Jones! First off, congrats on an incredible E3 and hitting that very well deserved 50K mark. June was a very strange month when it came to my gaming. When it started, I was beginning my quest to pick up the Nier Automata platinum (still ongoing, but on pause). And then… E3 happened. E3 month always has a way of completely upending my game plan (pun intended), completely changing my focus without my expecting it. If you would have told me the two games I would be most hyped about after E3 would be Assassin’s Creed Origins and Last of Us Part 2, I would have been surprised, and yet, here we are. That Last of Us trailer has staked out camp in my brain and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It got me to pick the original back up to continue making progress (got through 5 more hours but, again, I’m a fraidy cat). I haven’t played an Assassin’s game since Revelations left me cold, but I’m going to jump back in with Odyssey. After putting Last of Us back on the shelf for a bit, since I have time before the second one is released, I went on the hunt for something new. I searched the PSN sales and found Divinity Original Sin for $10, and that was too good to pass up. I’ve put in about 15 hours and have really enjoyed it, with vibes reminding me of old PC games I used to play like Nox and Diablo. However, the save system is brutal, resulting in losing 3 hours of progress because I wasn’t paying attention. It’s gonna take a bit before I can shake that off. Pokemon Sun is still an ongoing concern, as I’m grinding up to go against the “Elite Four”, or whatever the Alolan equivalent is called. And that brings me to what I started this weekend. It’s a favorite of the EZA crew that I’ve been putting off for a while now. That’s none other than The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. After waiting 3 hours for the hefty 20 Gig update to download, I was underway, getting acquainted with Geralt and the world around him. There are for sure things that I’m positive I’d understand better if I had played the previous games, but CD Projekt Red does a great job in giving you the context clues to understand why certain things are important. After about 5 hours, I’ve finished the first big quest and moved along to what seems to be the main thrust of the story, and I couldn’t be more excited. The characters have already endeared themselves to me, which I’m thankful for. From the outside, I was worried Geralt was going to be a bland or one-note fantasy character, but the game actually gives you a chance to change that. Can’t wait for that studio. Bring back Mandatory Update Nights. Kyle “GOTYlocks” Lee

Kate Bishop

Dummy comment to make first comment appear.

Alexander Zyryanov

Hello Allies! Since Brad is joining us this time I hope this video might inspire him to bring back Amateur Gundam Construction! This is my build of the Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam 3.0: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj07gB-SuUo&amp;ab_channel=FebreGundam" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj07gB-SuUo&amp;ab_channel=FebreGundam</a> (you can mute the audio and cut it at the end or preferably play it at 1.5 speed since the video is 3 minutes and 20 seconds long) Love and Respect from Brazil

<a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/TimBashen/status/1013694483941249025" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://mobile.twitter.com/TimBashen/status/1013694483941249025</a> After a few days on the smaller islands around Bali and Lombok, I was making my way back to Bali. It was a boat trip around 3 hours if I remember correctly and I was fairly exhausted, but the waves were to wild for me to get some sleep. But this young stranger thought my shoulder was steady enough to sleep on. I decided to let him sleep. He looked so tired and a few years younger then me. When he finally woke we didn’t spoke a word but I had to laugh a little. Fun times

Tim Bechen

Please dont eat me patreon lol

S.H.I.E.L.D.

César Villa

Hello Allies! I don't know why I was sure this month Blood would be the special guest for the showcase, so I preemptively wrote about a game I played recently “Her Story”. When the email came I saw that Brad was going to be the chosen one, I thought “Oh my God, I'm not prepared for Ultima!”; Then I remembered Ian won the special and I chilled a bit, took a second look at the games I played this month, and it was obvious what I was suppose to cover. Backstory 1. Back in the wii days I bought a couple of Gamecube to SNES port adapters from retro-usb to play virtual console titles. Since I had the snes from my childhood and two working controllers, I thought it would be a good way to better emulate the old school feeling and save the energy in the wiimote batteries for wii games. It was a solid investment. Backstory 2. When Smash for 3DS and wiiU was announced, I was not interested. I've never played any game in the series, but some guys from work convinced me to get the 3DS game so we could all fight during lunch time. We didn't play much, but I enjoyed the game. I was not very excited for the wiiU version, but that changed when Nintendo announced that people who registered both the 3DS &amp; wiiU games in club Nintendo, would get a CD with the soundtrack of both games.I'm a sucker for videogame scores, so I couldn't resist anymore. Since I was already forking the cash, I got the edition with the Gamecube port adapter and an extra controller. Backstory 3. When Bloodstained Ritual of the Night was announced, it didn't take long for me to back it. I love Symphony of the night and pretty much all things Castlevania; so when I received the email with my download code for the Switch version of Curse of the moon, I was very excited; we both were. Believe or not, I got into Castlevania because my wife loved it. I had only played Symphony of the night, but we've beat the NES, SNES &amp; turbographx games together and I have conquered evil alone in the GBA &amp; DS games as well. After playing the first level of curse of the moon using the joycons, a thought crossed my mind. I went to the other room and came back with a Frankenstein monster consisting of the wiiU-gamecube adapter, my gamecube to SNES port adapter and a SNES contoller. I plugged it all to the Switch... and son of a bitch! It works! It's alive! It's alive! I cannot describe the odd satisfaction of beating the game with this unholy setup. Playing this retro game with such an old school controller fits perfectly; every jump, stab, kill and death felt exactly like it did when I was 12 years old. Could not have done it any other way. Love &amp; Respect. César.

César Villa

Just a reply because I'll probably have to edit this due to as of this entry being a bit inebriated. I'll probably forget though, so apologies for any typos or atrocious grammar.

Jason A. Sackel

For the month of June, as far as video games goes, I started with Yoku's Island Express. That game... just fantastic all around. I really can't think of a bad thing to say about it. Any issue I had was my own doing. If I was rushing, my timing would be off, and I can't hold that against it. Absolutely loved it. I wasn't really interested in any games coming out this month, but I did download Mad Max via PS Plus a few months back. The biggest flaw of that game has to be the driving controls... or the writing... anyways, yea, the driving was pretty trash. There was one driving mission in the game that made me almost give up entirely and delete it forever. I enjoyed the movies and wanted to enjoy this, but in the end, not so much. E3 also happened. I think the best moment was probably Ubisoft's opening with the marching band because I couldn't shake the thought that it was an elaborate celebration of "F you, Vivendi... We're free!" Quick run down of games I am looking forward to that were shown. Tetris Effect looks divine. Sea of Solitude has me curious. Kingdom Hearts III looks beautiful. We Happy Few has me interested. Tunic seems quaint. Beyond Good and Evil 2 has me wanting to play the first game. Skull &amp; Bones looks more intriguing than Sea of Thieves ever did. Transference still looks like a blast, loved the demo at PSX last year. Sable looks like a delight. The Last of Us Part II looks fantastic. Ghost of Tsushima looks cool and kinda has a Yojimbo vibe. Control looks really neat. Spider-Man looks fun. Dreams... just let me buy that game already. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate... looks like a Smash game, and that is good enough for me. Those are all the games that have me interested in a potential purchase upon release. Finally, I played The "Awesome" Adventures of Captain Spirit. I didn't care for Life is Strange in the slightest, but the trailer for this had me curious. My main issue with the first game was that characters were cardboard and that they didn't sound like teenagers as much as what an adult perceived a teenager to sound like. With the trailer, I thought the kid sounded like a kid. The writing in this one was leagues better than the first game, but still very textbook. I did try doing things a little different a second time for curiosity sake and saw differences in reactions, some which felt a lot more natural, but I was checked out at that point due to how my first full playthrough went. In short, something is off in these games when it comes to writing, mainly the characters. There are certainly moments that are good, some even really well done, but if it ends and plays out the exact way you pictured it when you started the game, then what is the point?

Jason A. Sackel

(Hi Brandon and Brad. While my post is definitely about something Kyle has talked about, it's basically a gospel that I want to spread to all the allies. I want to back him up. I do feel a little bad that my first one of these isn't specific to the two of you - but this just something that I felt passionate enough to up my pledge for, so here it goes. I had to edit and rewrite this a few times, but I’m finally… okay with it. There are some spoilers for this wonderful game, but I don't think it's possible to say what needs to be said without spoiling it just a tiny bit. Thanks so much for EVERYTHING all of you do. Good luck on the studio hunt!) - Lapis Greetings allies. Megaman Legends is one of the greats. Forgive the mild spoilers. The year is 1997, one year before the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time set the bar. Megaman Legends is released, just before Christmas. You boot up the game to the sound of tides washing in and out, while the narrator describes a world of lost technology, a world of hopes and adventure, but most of all - a world of diggers. Diggers, are those who delve into the ruins of a lost civilization, and Megaman Volnutt is one such digger. The game has you split between the town and the underground ruins. While not immediately obvious, all the ruins in the game are actually a massive interconnected labyrinth. Some false walls and high ledges are the only thing separating the tiny cave you save a shopkeeper in from the final boss of the game. Now let’s talk about the town. I can’t even begin to express how many true and human characters inhabit this place - people that feel like they have lives and plights. The sidequests that involve these people do more than just right a wrong, or help someone - they actively contribute to the sense of community that pervades the entire game. Honestly, this is not even the tip of the iceberg. This was one of the first true 3D games, yet it feels so precise and good in your hands. The sounds have a weight and impact that no other game of its era can match. I don’t know if I’ve ever met characters that I’ve wanted to love quite so badly as the delightful and sometimes twisted people scattered across Kattelox. That wasn’t enough. They also made every dungeon in this game connected, they made a vast labyrinth out of the most complex and challenging parts of the game. Guys, they made a world, a whole real world. With trucks that can run you over, a sewer that leads into deadly robots, and a whole lot of real people. Please, play this game before the next hall of greats.

...

Congrats to Rainy Day Ian for finally being the one capable of stripping the belt away from Ultima Brad. I made this to honor Ian's victory. <a href="https://twitter.com/JHunterPearson/status/1013151295648264204" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/JHunterPearson/status/1013151295648264204</a>

Congrats on 50k, you deserve it, best in the biz.

POKEY CLYDE

Mario Tennis Aces Rant: Online lag is terrible (we have to pay for that?), single player mode lacks typical polish and doesn't even have simple options like a retry button for challenges, cpu tournaments offline are super easy, nothing to unlock besides a few stages, no stage select mode when playing, you can't play normal tennis (match length) in a TENNIS GAME, etc... The full game is essentially that demo plus a short campaign mode which you can finish in one to two sessions. 5 or 6 out of 10 if I was a reviewer. New mechanics and gameplay + visuals are all top notch and I'll bust it out for some fun local co-op but otherwise this game is going to be stuck on the shelf. Anyways, rant mostly over, ... My hopes for this game and what it could have been are probably making me look at it too negatively. But seriously... I can't even play a tennis set? They don't stop at 2-0 in the pros and shake hands. I'm fine with online mode being that way but you can't edit it for yourself solo offline. Imagine the outrage of most gaming communities if this was implemented similarly... this is like a mario golf game where you cant play 9 holes let alone 18 My Question: I'm starting to worry about Nintendo a bit with their big releases due to Mario Tennis Aces. I absolutely believe this game was pushed out too early! Do you two have concerns about the big N potentially rushing games now or in the future to fill parts of their calendar?

Brogan Trull

Hoooooold

Eric Jackson

Self, cease this silly, senseless, sibilant sentence structure.

Hey BJ! Hey Brad! For the third month in a row, I have to postpone what I had originally planned to be the very first thing I ever sent the Allies: a thorough history of my interactions with GameTrailers and the subsequent result of everyone at EZA being ridiculously important to me. This time it's not because I suddenly upgraded my Patron tier on a whim or because I distracted myself with a different topic, but because it's just taking a very long time to write. So, in the spirit of E3, I will try to substitute substance with sensationalism and see if I can perhaps drum up some excitement for my little pet project, or at least get a few people to remember that it's coming long enough to be underwhelmed by it when it finally gets here. My relationship with GameTrailers is long, complex, dispassionate, emotional, straightforward, still a novelty, and full of contradictions. I simultaneously consider myself a longtime fan and a late to the party convert. I developed strong bonds thanks to an ability to cater to my lack of interest in direct connection. My affection for the staff of GT grew as it shrunk, and when it all ended I was hit by a profound feeling of "Oh well, that's the way it goes." But some time later, I saw an announcement trailer for something called... EZA [big boy cut] Please join me next month or later for a story I like to call "Fandom Born of Apathy." Thanks for your time, Eli (N.) Peters P.S. since I promised to actually mention a game this time, I will leave you with a link for a trailer that's far too long for the showcase and certainly not of my own making, but which lead to my discovery of GameTrailers fourteen years ago: the opening cinematic of Onimusha 3: Demon Siege. <a href="https://youtu.be/FWnEgTscIro" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/FWnEgTscIro</a>

Boku wa Goofy

VGJunky

Hey Brandon and Brad, This year is shaping up to be my best year in game completions (16 and counting), unfortunately this month I have only completed 2 games: Bloodstaind: Curse of the Moon and Pokemon Quest. Bloodstaind was great and much more forgiving than o.g. castlevania. And surprisingly Pokemon Quest does have credits, as well as a massive post-game that I will probably fall off of. My main challenge this month has been trying to overcome Hollow Knight. This game is hard. The amount of side content and also finding out how to get somewhere is equal parts amazing and sometimes exhaustive. The design of the world is amazing but every time I find a new place I get a little depressed at my ineptitude, not that I am a novice at metroidvania's, I have beaten most of the 2D Metroid's and the Shantae games but the intensity of some enemies is more intense than some of the worst Dark Souls scrubs. I just have the final boss, the secret ending stuff to do and some clean up. As Ben first said 'Don't Skip'. This brings me to E3 and my biggest concern. As I love 2D metroidvania's when ever I watch any visuals of Bloodstaind: Ritual of the Night, it appears that Miriam is moving through water or mud. Since you have had hands on with the game is the movement speed a concern, especially in this era of tight controlling and fast paced 2D indie platformers. Will this slower paced game appeal to the growing audience of indie gamers? Finally I would like to make a motion that Brandon makes it right and at least plays the prologue of Metroid Prime at Eazy Livin'. A 30 minute chunk of this game that will hopefully inspire you to continue the journey. Hurray for Metroid Prime. My gamecube was the first console I bought with my own money and this game will stay with me forever. Truly one of the greats. Love and Respect.

Steven Beaumont

Hello again Allies! From the Unofficial Alliance Discord we are bringing the results from the Unofficial Alliance Discord Betting Special. As a recap: 4 teams participated, each being led by their captain. Gutsy Goombas guided by Limey Raunchy Ridleys launched by Rooter McGavin Squirtle Squad led by ohyescoolgreat Xiphoid Xenos commanded by Elijnis The Gutsy Goombas and the Raunchy Ridleys squared off against each other as did the Squirtle Squad and the Xiphoid Xenos. Captains and their team members were asked questions for points. Final bets were made, but didn’t have any impact on the results. As E3 started slow, so did the betting. Microsoft was the conference that put everybody on the board with the Gutsy Goombas getting 3 right answers. Then things slowed down again with few points being awarded. (Never bet against Skyrim) Sony made things interesting again. Shawn Layden kept his fingers glued together, a baby was possibly heard faintly crying and Days Gone was nowhere to be seen. The Gutsy Goombas and the Xiphoid Xenos were in the lead after Sony, But Nintendo was next… And there were still the bets that cover the whole of E3. But it wasn’t enough for the Squirtle Squad, Digital influencers spoke in greater numbers than expected, Nintendo showed a bunch of third party games and Red Dead was nowhere to be seen. In the end, the Squirtle Squad went down with 9 points against the Xiphoid Xenos with 16 points. Things were contentious on the other side. Did the allies call that trailer a 10, or was it directed at the presentation as a whole? Would Big the Cat reveal himself by the end of E3? Was that really a cry from a baby? It wasn’t meant to be for the Raunchy Ridleys and they lost 10 to Gutsy Goomba’s 13 points. The stack of Goomba’s were too big for Ridley and the Xiphoid Xenos revealed that the name actually was a convoluted reference to the Xenoblade series. With the power of waifu’s on their side, the strategies of the Squirtle Squad failed. As agreed upon, the Raunchy Ridleys are working on their haiku’s on Donkey Kong Country and the Squirtle Squad on the one true waifu, Pyra. The winners will battle it out at gamescom and the losers have 1 more chance to stay in the race. A word of thanks to everybody who participated and those who made this event possible.

Ibrahim Sozer

Hello Brandon and Brad! So I have had this discussion with my friends and was curious about your guys thought on it. What do you guys think of the different strategies employed by the big 3 console makers regarding games? Sony and Microsoft seem to focus on really big games that will take a while to develop and release while Nintendo focuses on showing off games close to their release date and focus on games coming out now. Do you think either strategy is better or do you prefer one over the other?

Just making sure this doesn’t evaporate.

Michelle Jackson

UPDATED: A game dev/E3/General June update. I show some hastily made art in this, please excuse the jank, it was a profoundly rushed job. Also. Didn’t mention it in the video but thought I would here, just found out I met my first weight loss goal of losing 70 lbs! <a href="https://youtu.be/C0ICtaAs6RM" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/C0ICtaAs6RM</a>

Michelle Jackson

Hello Jones and Brad I just want to start off and say thanks again for all of the advice you gave me on the podcast a few weeks ago. I am finally starting up Final Fantasy Tactics and having a fun time with it. I don’t have too much to say other than it’s my labs 3rd birthday this month! I actually got her from a shelter about 2 1/2 years ago and named her Lilo. Before I got her I was in a deep depression and I was very lonely I had a rough time getting out of bed, eating, and enjoying the things I loved. Then it soon escalated to self harm. My parents eventually found out what was happening, they were with me every step of the way. I made the choice to start therapy and it was the best decision I had ever made. Soon after that I asked my parents if I could get a dog. Lilo saved my life, she is my true partner in crime, she motivates me every day and is my best friend. The day I went to see the dogs I walked up to her kennel and as soon as she saw me she jumped about a foot in the air in pure excitement and I knew I needed to take her home. She is a bundle of pure energy from top to bottom, she loves people, and is just the craziest, and happiest dog. The complete opposite of me. I just wanted to dedicate my post to her and wish her the happiest birthday to the entire easy allies chat and community. I’ve attached some pictures of her for everyone to enjoy. <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BSBvHJpAMsY/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BSBvHJpAMsY/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BJQtTE2g6U8/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BJQtTE2g6U8/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BJQtwHngaaP/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BJQtwHngaaP/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BIgmpItguJe/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BIgmpItguJe/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BFHQMo5PocN/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BFHQMo5PocN/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BFPYmeMvoTo/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BFPYmeMvoTo/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/BAFR3-zvoY-/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/BAFR3-zvoY-/</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/p/7QrXNJPoeD/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://instagram.com/p/7QrXNJPoeD/</a> Other than that I want to thank you guys for the top notch content you always put out and the positive vibes you express in every video leaves me with so much joy and happiness. I’m proud to be a patreon and being there to help get you guys to 50k has been a pleasure. Ps. Last weekend my brother and I were at my house drunk and I put on Fiasco at Regina’s Wedding he has never seen any of your videos before and he absolutely loved it! Now we quote Maxine and Chucky all of the time. Stay humble.

Megan Linart

Hello Brandon and Brad, Massive congratulations on hitting 50k, I hope it has stayed that way as July rolled around. Since Brad is there let's talk achievements. I'm playing Rayman Legends every day in order to get the platinum, it's going to take me another 2-3 weeks and I've already decided that it's probably not worth it, which made me think up a quick game: below are the Platinums I have gained so far an whether I think they were WORTH IT, or NOT. Resident Evil 7 - WORTH IT. RE games are a joy to play through multiple times with the benefit of better weapons and knowledge Nier: Automata - WORTH IT. I love everything about this game, including the fact you can buy the trickier trophies with in game currency. Don't even feel bad about it, creators intent! South Park: TFBW - NOT WORTH IT. Only because I had to do a second full playthrough to get the last trophy. Rocket League - WORTH IT. I think I got it just by playing. Horizon Zero Dawn - NOT WORTH IT. This is a fantastic 20 hour game, but the stale side quests and 'go here, pick this up' collectible hunts turned it into a tedious 60 hour game. Shovel Knight - WORTH IT. Some tricky ones here, but it just meant playing more Shovel night, which is never bad. Resident Evil Remake - WORTH IT. OK that one's a gimme, see above. DOOM - WORTH IT. I just loved playing it, looking forward to Eternal Grim Fandango - NOT WORTH IT. One of my faves, but some trophies are linked to specific dialogue trees and had to play tank controls. Velocity 2X - WORTH IT. Maybe my first Platinum, so that might have helped Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - NOT WORTH IT. A bunch of challenge maps you have to Gold, stopped being fun Valkyria Chronicles - WORTH IT. Yeah another one I just loved having a reason to play. Table Top Racing World Tour - NOT WORTH IT. This was a 'free' PSN game and I had some time on my hands, wouldn't have done it otherwise. Shadow of Mordor -NOT WORTH IT. I didn't pick up Shadow of War because I got way more than enough 100%ing this one. Bloodborne - WORTH IT. cos it is isn't it The Witness - WORTH IT. no matter how frustrating that final trophy, the elation after getting it is pretty unique MGSV - NOT WORTH IT. I think I spent 200+ hours getting this, that just feels like a waste of time. Guacamelee - WORTH IT. You just gotta 100% a Metroidvania! Arkham Knight - NOT WORTH IT. this was a close one, but there's a bit too much padding and I'd say about 100 too many Riddler trophies. So I just realized this is my 2nd list in 2 months, I'll try not to make a habit of that! As ever, L &amp; R, Dave Cleland Hottake! Breath of the Wild would be worse with achievements.

Greetings allies. I would like to present a case for why there should be a worst sound track award! It is quite easy too have a ok sound track. And often there is many games contending for best soundtrack. But very rarely is there a game that unintentionally has music so bad. It makes you pause the game the game and walk away unable too cope with it any longer. For me this was ni no Kuni 2 it’s sound track was largely forgettable and substandard. I can deal with that but then it has a few songs that are so terible and overused I can’t forget them and it haunts me. Due too text limit I may have already passed I rest my case

Matthew Palling

Hello Jones, Brad, and Chat. June was very packed month for me so I hope that the next few minutes won't take long. First I like to take time to update people on the conclusion of my last months post. As you may remember my town was rocked by tornadoes back in May. Lots of people asked were those took place. This happened in Connecticut, a state not normally associated with this kind of natural disaster. To put minds at ease; I am safe and my family is safe. I send my warmest thanks to everyone in chat with the kind words and wellwishes you made a month ago as we continue repairs across the area. Just another reason why the EZA Community is second to none in the L&amp;R department. Now let's shift gears to E3. I took a whole weekend off of 2 jobs to watch the E3 pressers with my friends. Had a blast ranking on EA, squeezing my head at Bethesda, Being agasp at Cyberpunk 2077 at Microsoft, and wondering if a big boy slipped during Ubisoft. (BTW Brad, #Bigboytripped). I was able to score a ticket to watch the Sony press conference in a theater in NYC so I watched EZA reactions to Ubisoft on the train and the PC show while waiting in line. Highlights: TLoU Part II, Ghosts of Tsushima, and of course, Resident Evil 2. Also during the preshow, an ad came up for God of War. And the entire audience, in unrehearsed spontaneous unison shouted: BOY!. Lowlights: that god-awful delay transition to the commentators that had that NYC crowd NOT having any of it. As well as the one lone empty seat next to me was taken by a dude who clearly had too much to drink before the show. (Seriously, he asked me if this was the Solo movie as Sean Laydon was onstage) but thankfully left when the bad transition took forever. And finally Nintendo should have had a Smash direct instead. Now quickly to the games I was able to get to this month. Sorry, No new update for Mario Odyssey Quest this month. Although my Switch has the Octopath Traveler demo on standby. Played the WatchDogs 2 dlc and breezed by it. Was ok. Did its job. Kept me in it. I finished LEGO Jurassic World and gotta say: I am underwhelmed. The game punished you by thinking its rewarding you. The sound mechanics in this game are awkward to downright cringeworthy. The cheeky comedy seldom landed for me. Containes bad repetitive gameplay mechanics, and other than some cool character skins to collect, there was nothing enticing enough for to go back to collect the red bricks or the dino packs to earn more. Sorry, just wasn't what I was expecting from my first LEGO game. But fear not. I have LEGO Marvel Super Heroes on deck. Played the first Episode of Telltale Batman S2: Enemy Within and I'm liking it. Made me question EVERY choice I made upon its conclusion. Looking forward to giving Jones an update on Episode 2 next month. Finally, as Brad is on this month he will be happy to hear I have begun my complete playthrough of the entire Kingdom Hearts series. As of 7/1, I have started Kingdom Hearts. A game I have finished but never played since its original release. The plan is to finish and Platinum all 9 games in 1.5,2.5, &amp; 2.8 in 213 days before the release of KHIII in January. I am also simultaneously watching Brad's streams with my progression to see what we did differently. Would be awesome for Jones and Brad to do a show akin to Brandon Plays Pokemon called Brandon Plays Kingdom Hearts. This was a crazy month and I've rambled on for too long. Congratulations on hitting 50k and beyond. L&amp;R.

XWF Outlaw

Safety reply - can a fellow Ally please check the links?

M I K E Y M O

Hello Brandon and Brad, This is my first community showcase letter since community comments in 2016. I originally wrote in response to a podcast discussion about Amy Henning’s Star Wars game in which Ian asked if a third person action-adventure Star Wars game was “enough”. I gladly wrote in to say it was more than enough and exactly what I want to see from a Star Wars game. Skip ahead a few years and unfortunately, Ian was correct with that prediction :( I digress - I’m writing to Easy Allies this month in celebration of the $50k studio goal which I was looking forward to since EZA knocked most of their goals out of the park at its inception. I have seen comments from the community over the years regarding your studio and one criticism I see is that people love the comfortable vibes and aesthetic of Jones’ garage. I’ve attached some reference images and video of another podcast I love called The Nine Club. They are a skateboarding podcast where the guest is the focus of the podcast discussion and most of the time, the camera is also focused on the guest. Therefore, The Nine Club’s set does not exactly meet up with the needs of the Easy Allies who usually share the spotlight in their video content. However, The Nine Club nails the comfortable aesthetic of a living room type set, where shelves in the back are dressed with skateboarding magazines, old skate videos, neon signs, products, posters on the walls, and more. The camera set-up is somewhat similar to EZA as well, including an off to the side booth/switcher. I imagine some of their set dressing is very interchangeable with video game art, video games boxes, controllers, consoles, statues, signs, etc. I am not trying to influence you nor speak on behalf of the community at large. I am hoping my references can inspire you all creatively to reach the type of set-up you want to achieve with your studio. I hope it is of some worth to you. I’ll be watching however you decide to handle it. Thank-you for everything, - Michael Rebellato (DIPSET) Link to PNG References (please contact me if these do not work): <a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q1hHOF-P3vzG81sFTs2UImso3UhHcdym?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q1hHOF-P3vzG81sFTs2UImso3UhHcdym?usp=sharing</a> Link to Episode (if you so wish to watch for a few minutes on your own time): <a href="https://youtu.be/z4pwm37EVyw" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/z4pwm37EVyw</a>

M I K E Y M O

Hello Brandon and Brad, I'm a new Patron having pledged just after E3 where I discovered you all and then upping my pledge shortly after. I just wanted to say thanks for all you do and for fostering such a great community. I've recently completed the first short story of my own comic about a cat wizard named Kuro (which can be read for free at www.kurocomic.com ) and am allowing myself a moment of pride in completing something that I had no idea how to do but stuck with and finished. I'm now moving on to working out some ideas for the next story and looking forward to learning more about the craft of making comics.

Hi, this is Yitz, a new Patreon supporter, so yeah—glad to be here. Over the past year, I've been working on this weird little video game, and I just released it! I'm super exited about that, obviously. Here's the trailer: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB0EieIWU-E" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB0EieIWU-E</a> (Also, here's the Steam page, if you wanna check it out ;) <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/789570/Nepenthe/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://store.steampowered.com/app/789570/Nepenthe/</a> )

Yitz

Resistance 4. The more it is spoken aloud the better. Bring back Resistance Sony and Insomniac!

Ajax

Hi Brandon, Hi Brad. Congratulations on hitting $50,000 this month. Now that you are international super stars how about a tour? New York, Pensylvania, Washington DC, and Miami should cover most of us on the East Coast. We would love to see you guys.

Mikehook1

Hey guys, hope things are going well in this post E3 world. Since our wonderful Brad is here this month I figured I would spend a little time and talk about the best thing I couldn't possibly recommend: Kingdom Hearts. Part of what resonates so strongly with me about this franchise is the story of that first game, the fact that it's a coming of age tale about a group of young adults trying to find a purpose for themselves through the act of venturing to other worlds, which just ticked all the boxes for a young me when playing, as I was younger than Sora when I picked up the first game in 2002, and whenever I boot up KH1 and hear that title theme, boy does that take me back. Let me also say that I'd like to have some words with Nomura. Aqua has been my favorite character since Birth By Sleep, not only because of her overall quality as a character, but largely in part of the tremendous sacrifices she makes for her friends, and the fact that the realm of darkness seems to be something of a revolving door for Riku, Sora and Mickey whenever they find themselves there, on top of the fact that Mickey encounters Aqua (spoilers) at the end of her prologue in 2.8 and I guess forgets to mention that for a whole year before remembering that they should try and rescue her. On top of all that she's had to deal with, succumbing to the will of Xehanort is just too much for me to bear. One last thing I'll mention about Kingdom Hearts is just a little thing I've been considering since 2002 is whether or not Sora has a in fact "Open the door to the Light". Has he already fulfilled this prophecy in KH2 or has it not yet come to pass? Time will tell. As a bit of an apology for making you read that Brandon, here's a little anecdote for you. Me and a friend of mine have a great passion for Disney, specifically Disney Animation Studios feature length movies, and often sit down and have impromtu trivia based on characters, actors, bonus features, etc., whatever can stump the other person. So I have a trivia question for you. Basil Rathbone has a posthumous credit in an animated Disney film from the late 80s, 19 years after his death. Can you guess the film, and/or the roll he played? I'll drop the answer at the bottom of my comment. Also, a fun Disney fact for Brad, did you know that Kathryn Beaumont, who played the original Alice in Wonderland in 1952 reprised her role as Alice in KH1 in 2002? Last fun fact. I was born the day The Little Mermaid hit theaters in North America, meaning I was born in tandem with the Disney Renaissance. Apologies for rambling. It's 3am here and I wanted to finish some sketches for this month. L&amp;R <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk1mb6Eg7s0/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk1mb6Eg7s0/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck</a>Scrolling to the next photos in the post will get each animal alone with text. Also, if you have any want for this images in PNG form, let me know where I should send them. No pressure. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk11WfLA7TY/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk11WfLA7TY/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BeRvw85lYDt/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/p/BeRvw85lYDt/?hl=en&amp;taken-by=jacks.on.deck</a> The Great Mouse Detective - He plays Sherlock Holmes.

Eric Jackson

safety comment!

Mason Victoria

Hey Allie's. First time joining the showcase and wasn't sure what to post so I decided to just mention some platinums and good games I've played this year. Hellblade was a fantastic game with a simple one and done play through to Platinum that I'd highly recommend to anyone wanting an emotional journey. God of war was a flat out masterpiece of a game with a fairly easy Platinum as well. Finally platinumed Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth after 137 hours and Is one of my favorites and most hated at the same time. Currently I'm about 300 hours into Monster Hunter World and I'm eagerly awaiting the Summer Twighlight Fest to begin this weekend in order to grind out those gold crowns and finally get this Platinum that is being held hostage behind a wall of RNG trophies. Hopefully in the next showcase I can bring good news on that but we shall see. PS: The Living Will in KH2 will be the death of me and that games platinum. Love and Respect - washburnidol.

Michael Stevens

Hello Brandon and Brad, This has been a big month for me, but not in terms of gaming. I moved house at the start of June as mentioned in last months submission and now I live in the Scottish countryside. This has changed me dramatically. Before moving, I could easily spend a week at a time in the house. I work from home, so no need to leave. Now that I have moved though, I am outside every day. Going on nice scenic walks and spending a lot more time with my wife. I have also taken up meditation. A lot of the inspiration for that came from you Brandon. It helps center my day, ready for the afternoon to come. With a 4 year old, this has been a lot of help, as it has given me more patience. In terms of gaming, I got God of War for father's day and also bought myself Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 and 2.5 Remix collection. I have had my eye on Kingdom Hearts for a while, with all of Brad's encouragement to try it. Finally went for it after the E3 trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3, as I need to get ready. I haven't put much time in to either of these games yet though. With my PS4 hard drive space running low, I have turned my attention to Hitman as I only have a few episodes left to complete and then I can clear it off to make space for more games. Hitman is such a fun game and definitely seems like a good game for group stream, as you can make contract challenges for others to try out. Love and respect, BeardedScotsman86

BeardedScotsman86

...

Alexander Zyryanov

I rarely shift gears. If I made a choice I’ll stick with it even if there is a better option. But this E3 convinced me that it’s time to move from PlayStation to Xbox. Both PlayStation and Xbox have great first and third-party titles, but Microsoft has much clearer vision of the future. While Sony keeps its platform closed, Microsoft has backward compatibility and PC cross-buy. They also push subscription model with Xbox Game Pass. And they heavily invest in streaming games from the cloud, which excites me the most. I know that many of you are rolling your eyes now, so I’ll spent the rest of the comment trying to explain, why streaming is our bright future. First of all, streaming enables you to play games anywhere you want. Even Switch forces you to carry the console with you, but streaming doesn’t have such limitations. My consoles are hooked to the TV, but sometimes I want to play from my PC in the other room. Thanks to the streaming, I don’t have to go and grab the console – I just launch an app and play (unless it involves PS VR or Kinect). This works beyond the next room: I’ve connected to my PS4 across the city and it was undistinguishable from playing home. I know that this may sound like a fantasy, but I live in Russia, and since we’ve embraced internet so late, our online infrastructure was built with modern technologies and equipment. I live in an old apartment house in a cheap part of the city, and I can choose from 6 Internet providers, which offers me basically guaranteed bidirectional 100 megabits with 2-3ms delay to city’s biggest datacenters for $8 a month. I know that many of you can only dream of such things, but as a network engineer I can assure you: online infrastructure always follows the demand. Especially when demand is created by such big and vocal community as gamers, and when it is supported by such huge company as Microsoft. No disrespect to PlayStation Now, but Sony’s online infrastructure is not even close to Microsoft’s, so don’t judge game streaming technology by what you see today. And when we start streaming games from the cloud we’ll see how great it is. We will no longer waste our time waiting in line in store or waiting at home for the delivery or download. We will no longer grief for not playing on PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, we will no longer worry about saving money for the new console or PC. And since all games will be available with flat Game Pass subscription (hopefully), we will not have to pick one game over another because of our limited money. This E3 Microsoft showed us the future in which we will be able to play whatever we want wherever we want. I believe in this future and I believe that Microsoft will bring us there. And that’s why I’m switching from PlayStation to Xbox.

Alexander Zyryanov

Hey boys, We're still waiting in suspense to see if you guys hit the 50K for the month. Even without it, you guys are at a record high and I think it won't be too long if you manage to keep up this momentum. Keep pumping out that content! I didn't win any bets, but I'll take some time to put in a final word before we move on from E3 while it's still relatively fresh. I think that Ben summarized my feelings on it best when it came to Sony's showcase: the intermission wasn't great but in light of the top tier games and gameplay on display I found that I simply didn't care. At the very least, that intermission was more interesting than Microsoft's extended Gamepass segment, which went on too long and was outright boring instead of just weird. They got that blemish out of the way early and the rest of the conference was a 10. -Every- -Single- -Game- was a game that I want to buy, and that's an astounding feat, one that no other conference in history has accomplished for me. I'm making an exception for Trover Saves the Universe, which was obviously thrown in there to give the Allies time to come down from the RE2 Remake hype before it was time for the next big thing. The next year or two for Playstation are looking very promising, indeed, and I can't wait to get my hands on the games. On the flipside, I have to ask myself if Microsoft convinced me to get an Xbox, and the answer is still unequivocally "no." I don't see that answer changing - not even with the announcement of 5 new studios added to the mix, all of which I quite honestly care nothing for based on pedigree - or in some cases lack thereof. Yes, that includes Ninja Theory. I'll be receptive if they come up with something interesting out of these folks but it'll probably be another 3-5 years before anything substantial. Seriously, nothing but disappointment following the 360 era. I also don't give a rat's bottom about console crossplay, so there's that, too. Switching gears entirely, just curious Brad - how's Snorlax doing? And I'm sorry you didn't get the Charizard card, Jones, maybe you can trade for it! That was part of the spirit of the gift anyway. At least you got the creepy Japanese Hypno Finally, I would like to remind people that August is mostly quiet but that Sega is dropping Yakuza 0 on PC, Shenmue 1 + 2 ports, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 all in one month. Perfect time to hop in before stuff gets crazy. Other than that I don't have much else to say - I'll probably be watching this video during some downtime at Anime Expo and simultaneously trying not to die from the record heat for this time of year so wish everybody luck, especially the cosplayers, and make sure to stay hydrated, yourselves. Toodles, VGJunky

VGJunky

E3 was a great time huh? Before getting into brief reactions to each conference and my top five moments of the month, congrats to EZA for outstanding coverage, the production was fantastic and for getting to the $50K goal! Now onto the summaries: EA: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is announced as the title, with a Holiday 2019 release, and there’s NO visual aid? Outside of this, Anthem, Unravel 2, Sea of Solitude, and Andrea Rene’s great hosting were the only memorable moments. Microsoft: Wow. Personally: Halo, Ori, Metro, Kingdom Hearts, Gears, and the best conference ender in CyberPunk were the highlights. But special shout outs to Sekiro, Forza Horizon 4, the slew of new 1st party acquisitions, Division 2, Devil May Cry 5, Jump Force, Dying Light 2…. WHAT A SHOW! The BEST Xbox conference. Of. All. TIME. Bethesda: How can there be THAT MUCH CRINGE?! What happened since 2015? That was great! This year was…. Ugh. Don’t get me wrong: Pete Hines and Todd Howard were funny, and I’m ALL about DOOM: Eternal and Wolfenstein Youngblood. But this conference wasn’t good. At least they got ahead of both Starfield AND the next Elder Scrolls… Two next gen games and saying E.S.6 will be AFTER Starfield and we only have short teasers? This conference was bizarre. Square-Enix: I’m a little higher than most, but not by much on this half-hour TV show. Succinct with interesting stuff, but not much in quantity. What WAS there was fascinating, but still notable omissions. Kingdom Hearts was going to be an automatic hit for me, I love looking at Octopath Traveler, and I’m curious about Babylon’s Fall. Ubisoft: A solid show, with that all too crucial human element (“WE NAILED IT!” and the Star Fox moment) While this had the least amount I was interested in, Beyond Good &amp; Evil 2 was so captivating, and I want to know so much more. The Hit Record collaboration was a wonderful surprise as well. Sony: This was… an experience. Last of Us Part II is such an anticipated game for me and I was really aggravated by the bizarre intermission. So much so, I’ll admit it: I wanted to write Sony off under the thankfully false pretense on the crowd moving between each deep dive. BUT: I could NOT think of a better way rebound: All four deep dives? Satisfying. A new game from Remedy and Nioh 2? Surprising. The Kingdom Hearts III Pirates trailer? Shocking. Resident Evil 2 Remake?... Come sit with me, my dearest friend Hype. And rejoice in the collective euphoria. Except for Trover Saves the Universe, EVERYTHING showed wonderfully. Nintendo: Short and without anything for me except for Octopath Traveler, but home to the best SHOWN game this E3. Smash… well…. Smashed. Excellently done. My top five moments: 5.) DOOM Eternal’s reveal 4.) Sony recovers from horrible conference structure 3.) Developers are people too! (Ubisoft) 2.) Most of the Xbox conference 1.) EZA surpasses $50,000 goal Until next year, thanks E3!

Brandon K Gann

Hello Brandon and Brad! Congratulations on all the amazing content you have given us over the past month, and all the patreons, new and old, that tuned in and helped push you over that 50k goal. (If the following paragraph is too much, please feel free to start on the next one!) I had the most amazing experience where I went to an E3 party and a mutual friend and I bonded over the EZA bets and went nuts when the 'big boy slipped'. We then proceeded to show all our friends the betting special, and tuned into all the pre and post shows, sharing your jolly vibes to our friends. (Continue here if you skipped the previous paragraph!) Per usual, I am bringing new music as I continue to grown my gaming composition portfolio! I wrote this feel good 8-bit bossa chiptune for a fellow ally that I connected with through a previous Community Showcase. I will be visiting Los Angeles (!!!) in mid-August just before you all hit the beach for Easy Living, so I wanted to write a feel good tune that gets me hyped to be under that California sky. If you have any plans for an August meetup, it would mean the world to me! (Disneyland, anyone?!) Enjoy the tune and L&amp;R! Mason Victoria (the song loops around at the 3 minute mark) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkthWMq7-wI" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkthWMq7-wI</a>

Mason Victoria