A Green Mushroom

Game of Thrones is Back! In this episode: Beej forgets whether it’s A Song of Ice and Fire or A Song of Fire and Ice . Please accept our sincerest apologies. Game of Thrones is back! Season 6 debuted last week, and for the first time (we think) in television history, the adaptation is further along than the source material. The edits the showrunners made to the show help viewers invest in the world, and the combination of seasons and characters make the show more palatable than the books may be to readers. We discuss which characters they want to see standing when it’s game over, and aside from Tyrion, there are actually a couple of surprises on what they want to happen and who they want to live/die! Do you agree with us? Let us know! Weekly Geekery Void - Star Fox Zero Co-op / Star Fox Guard Beej - The Story of Overwatch ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ) Health Hack: Go streaking! Take your normal exercise, dial it down, and do it every single day for a...

On the recommendation of my friend @professorbeej I checked out Rising Stars .  I had been talking to him about the things I like and dislike in comics and that I've had trouble finding ones that click with me. This recommendation was right up my Alley. Rising Stars sees an event happen over a small town which causes all the babies currently in utero to gain super powers once they're little kids.  So, one generation from one small town are all the super heroes the world will ever have. It's about their lives and how they impact the world... and each other. It has a story to tell, it tells it, and then it wraps up.  I wish that more comics would do this instead of trying to drag out series forever. I can easily recommend Rising Stars to you.  I grabbed it on Comixology in three volumes that make up 24 comics total.  Check it out if it sounds like your type of comic!

This is not my normal kind of book.  It's about Japanese ghosts and how they fit into Japanese culture.  I don't typically stray from fiction when it comes to reading for fun, but this one was cool! I found it because it's by the author that does Japanese cultural essays in Wayward, which is my favorite part about that comic.  It's actually the main reason that I still pick it up whenever a new issue releases. Yurei: The Japanese Ghost is all about Japanese ghosts and their evolution over the years.  It's a fascinating read and gave me a lot of cultural insight that I knew nothing about. Overall it's an interesting read, although it had some culture touch points that were hard for me to grasp as a Westerner.  But I got a lot of good information out of this book.  I would say if you're interested in either Japanese culture or ghosts in general you'll find something worthwhile in reading this.

They're so good! I loved getting my Blu Ray of The Force Awakens.  By the time it arrived I had already watched the movie digitally a bunch (since it released that way first) but the Blu Ray came with the special features. They were fantastic!  The main documentary included was one of the best official behind the scenes documentaries I've ever seen.  The deleted scenes added a little bit more context to parts of the movie, but it was obvious why they were cut.  And all the little feature vignettes were awesome from the creature creation to John Williams scoring the movie. I can't recommend the special features enough.  If you love Star Wars like I do it's a must watch!

I've been having a ton of trouble with my Wii U external HDD lately.  It randomly will disconnect and after playing with it and troubleshooting it for months I've come to determine that it's probably the fault of the Wii U and not the HDD. So I looked for a good solution, but didn't want to buy another external HDD with external power to just run into the same situation again Then I found some other people in forums having a similar issue and I was super surprised to see the recommended fix. Who would have thought the fix would be a cheap little flash drive?  I grabbed a 128GB flash drive as cheap as I could find it (which was very cheap) and moved all the games from the old HDD to the flash drive. Not only is it totally stable, it's also faster to load.  Weird. Anyway, if you run into the same problem maybe the same fix will help you.

House of Cards season 4 gets the series back on track compared to season 3.  Where season 3 found the Underwoods in power... it didn't really know what to do with it and the season stagnated. Season 4 takes a few episodes to transition from that feeling to new sorts of intrigue and shifts in power and it's all the better for it! Claire truly gets to shine this season and she ends up being an even more interesting character than Francis.  I actually found myself wanting him in the show less so that she could be in it more. It's also nice to see all the threads from previous seasons start to pull together as the past catches up to the Underwoods.  And the season finale left me wanting more, which is always a great sign. After season 3 I didn't know if I would keep going with this show but after watching season 4 I know that I'll jump into season 5 as soon as it's available!

Blizzard Games In this episode: Blizzard games have been a part of our lives since we were kids. Now, as adults, we are still loving and playing Blizzard games. From the original Warcraft to The Lost Vikings to Overwatch and whatever comes next, we will probably be playing Blizzard games our whole lives. Games like Warcraft got us hooked, Hearthstone being on every device we own keep us connected, and new takes on old genres like Overwatch keep us coming back. Blizzard breaks down existing game genres into their fundamental parts, builds them back up into a new product, and then polishes them until they shine. Weekly Geekery: Void - Spider-Verse Beej - Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Season 2 Health Hack: One day each week, eat no meat at all. It’s easier than it sounds! Check out MeatlessMonday.com for recipes and details on starting it. Be sure to subscribe to the Geek to Geek Podcast your favorite podcast app, drop a review so we know how we’r...

I went into The Expanse not knowing what to expect except that it's a Sci Fi show.  And for that matter it's also a Syfy show... which usually doesn't bode well. But Syfy has been talking about how they're revamping their lineup lately to actually attempt to make good science fiction again and not just mass produce the low hanging fruit shows anymore.  The Expanse is part of that initiative and it shows. Instead of trying to set up a sci-fi premise that they can do weekly procedural episodes off of, The Expanse is based on a book series.  Season 1 has ten episodes and covers the first book in that series.  It has a story to tell and doesn't waste the viewer's time with filler. I really like it. Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy schlocky sci-fi too, but The Expanse is actually good sci-fi and it's a very nice change of pace for it. It sees Earth, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt miners as the three main divisions of humanity.  All of them are at od...

One of the recommendations I got from a few people after the comic podcast was to check out the first two runs of The Ultimates comics. It turns out these are fantastic. The Ultimates is definitely a huge source of inspiration for the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of The Avengers.  The Ultimates is the start of it's own separate universe from the main Marvel comics so they're not burdened with all the history of all the characters.  It gets to assemble it's own Avengers for the very first time and it does a great job. The pacing of the story is fast and I love that about it.  Every issue moves multiple storylines forward which is something very few comics can say. I don't really want to spoil anything about the plot because it's so good. My main takeaway is that this is going to go into my back pocket as a recommendation for people who ask me what comics they should check out.  I think most people will like The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2.

Factorio is a weird game to talk about.  It doesn't look like much.  And to describe it... it sounds somewhat like a blend of Minecraft and work? You start factorio and manually dig up some resources.  Then you can build a mining drill to automate the mining.  At which point you'll want to build some grabby arms and boxes to store your new resources automatically.  But then you'll realize you can make conveyor belts and transport these to automate the production of goods. This loop of manually creating something new followed by figuring out how to automate it is the core to the game and it's super fun. If you're the kind of person who likes crafting games, puzzle games, or automation games there's probably something here for you. I feel like I didn't do a great job of describing it, so check out the video embedded below.

After finishing up Far Cry Primal I already had uPlay on my computer from installing it so I figured I might as well install Assassin's Creed Rogue since I had picked it up on Steam Sale a while ago. It's kind of a weird entry in the series since it came out at the same time the newer consoles were getting new Assassin's Creed games.  While that was happening the previous generation consoles got Rogue. After a few hours I see exactly why this is.  Rogue is just Assassin's Creed 4 systems given a slightly different coat of paint and a new story.  There's really nothing to see here unless you feel obligated to play through every facet of the overall Assassin's Creed story. If you're ever tempted by this game just go pick up Assassin's Creed 4 instead.  It will give you a better experience. I'm putting down rogue and probably never coming back to it.  I'll wait for the next main entry in the series.  After last year's fantastic Assas...

Far Cry Primal takes the only parts of Far Cry 4 that I enjoyed and turns them into a full game. It basically extracts the hunting and exploration while removing the annoying parts I didn't like.  I legitimately got to use a bow and arrow the entire game and it was wonderful! Far Cry Primal throws you back to 10,000 BC.  The game is all about hunting animals, exploring your homeland, and defeating the other tribes that are trying to keep yours small. It has a very satisfying core gameplay loop.  Explore, claim some new land, find a specialist for your tribe, do an epic hunt.  It's a great mix of story missions (not too many) and open world exploration.  I really like that I started the game with a bow/arrow, club, and spear then ended the game with a better bow/arrow, better club, and better spear.  It doesn't fall prey to the classic open world endgame where you eventually get overpowered vehicles, explosives, and guns.... since it's in 10,000 BC...

BACKLOG In this episode: We love so much stuff! Honestly, we love pretty much everything! So we need a system to organize it all because our free time is limited. Void has a fantastic queue system that takes the pain away: just pick what’s at the top and hit the ground running. Make a list of all the media you want to consume, and then start working your way down it. (Yes, it’s more complicated than that, but that’s why we talk about it in the show!) Wunderlist works great for organization. Weekly Geekery: Void - Empires of EVE: A History of the Great Wars of EVE Online / Wunderlist Beej - Pokemon: Omega Ruby Health Hack: Instead of calories, think about much would you would have to work out to burn off that cake? Be sure to subscribe to the Geek to Geek Podcast your favorite podcast app, drop a review so we know how we’re doing, and feel free contact us via email at geektogeekcast@gmail.com or @geektogeekcast on Twitter with any commen...

When they announced the Final Fantasy XV release date (September 30th by the way) they also released a brand new demo. The first Final Fantasy XV demo took multiple hours to play through, had a huge portion of the gameplay systems, and had a large part of the open world to explore.  It was a great taste of the game. Since this is the "Platinum" demo I expected even more! Instead I got a 19 minute walk while a mythical creature sent me text messages on the smartphone it handed to me.  It was weird.  And unsatisfying. Why is this the Platinum demo?  Why even put this out in the wild?  My total playtime was only 19 minutes and 5+ of those minutes were loading screens. I'm super disappointed in this demo.  I expected more from you Final Fantasy XV.

Star Wars Rebels Season 2 just wrapped up the other week and it was another solid season of the show! The main Jedi storyline continues to be the highlight with the overall rebellion storyline coming in a close second.  Whenever an episode is pushing one or both of these stories forward it's a really good episode. When Rebels instead decides to do a one off or side-character focused episode it's much more "meh".  It's never as bad as the worst episodes of Clone Wars were but I constantly want them to get back to the main storylines. And the main storylines are just great!  The season ended with a fantastic finale that sees Kanan, Ezra, Ahsoka, and Darth Vader all in interesting places.  It also manages to re-introduce Darth Maul into the universe and opens up lots of potential for him in the future. I continue to be really happy with Rebels and if you're a Star Wars fan you should definitely check it out!

After slogging through The Three Body problem I thought I would try to find a sci-fi book that would grab my attention.  I looked at my list of books to check out and saw that Ancillary Justice was super highly rated on Amazon so I got it. I could not get into Ancillary Justice at all. The book starts with disconnected events, none of which are interesting, and a main character that doesn't actually have personality because it's a computer in host bodies. I really tried to get into it.  I even did my typical second attempt at a highly rated book I'm having trouble getting into... I listened to the audiobook instead.  Generally this will give me a better sense of characters once I hear them voiced and it lets me get through parts of books that are a slog since I can have the audiobook playing while I'm doing other things too (like playing a game). But since the main character is a computer the narrator speaks very monotone and very computer-like.  I unders...

The Three Body Problem is a book I heard rave reviews for.  What I found was not what I was expecting. The novel is about first contact with aliens, but it takes forever  to get to the point.  Instead you spend the first quarter of the book reading about the cultural revolution in China then you spend almost the entire rest of the book following characters who are trying to put together clues to a mystery (alien first contact... it's obvious the entire time) while never actually being interesting. No one ever puts the pieces together or accomplishes anything.  Instead they need it spelled out for them by the person who made first contact. There's no drama, no good story arc, never a character you can relate to.  And to top it all off there are huge sections of the book that are written as dry as possible. What I expected was a groundbreaking Sci-Fi novel since that's what it was sold to me as.  What I found was the longest preamble to a premise ...

Creatures Such As We is another interactive novel from Choice of Games and again I really enjoyed it. I guess I've never truly outgrown the choose your own adventure game and I love this modern incarnation of it. Creatures Such As We finds you as a tour guide of a space station on the moon.  As your next group of tourists show up you learn that they're the main development team of your favorite video game.  The story goes from there. It's hard to review the story in any real way since it's a choose your own adventure game and can go a bunch of different ways.  That being said, I was happy with the story that was told in my playthrough. If it sounds at all interesting I suggest you check it out !

ROGUE ONE TRAILER In this episode: We GEEK OUT over the Rogue One Trailer ! Be sure to subscribe to the Geek to Geek Podcast your favorite podcast app, drop a review so we know how we’re doing, and feel free contact us via email at geektogeekcast@gmail.com or @geektogeekcast on Twitter with any comments, questions, or suggestions for the show. Thanks for listening, and we can’t wait to hear from you! Subscribe: iTunes Overcast Pocket Casts RSS Feed

COMICS In this episode: We talk about comics - yay! We discuss our history with comics, our friends who got us into certain comics, and how much we love digital comics. We also talk about our favorite comics and give you recommendations: Void Wayward Rat Queens Kanan: The Last Padawan Mary Jane / Mary Jane loves Spider Man / Spider Man Loves Mary Jane Joss Whedon’s run of Astonishing X-Men Issues 1-24, bonus double-sized issue Thor Thor: God of Thunder Vol. 1 - The God Butcher Thor: God of Thunder Vol. 2 - Godbomb Beej J. Michael Straczynski, writer Rising Stars (24 issues, 3 volumes) Midnight Nation Amazing Spider-man CrossGen Scion Ms. Marvel The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2 Do not read The Ultimates 3 . It is bad. Weekly Geekery: Void - Star Wars: Rebels Season 2 Finale / The Force Awakens Special Features / Rogue One Trailer Beej - Rising Stars / Comixology Health Hack: ...