Free Play

In the season finale of Free Play, Matt & Bubba talk about the PlayStation Showcase - and the Handheld that is much more reminiscent of the WiiU controller than the Switch.

Tears of the Kingdom is out and making waves in the gaming world. Matt & Bubba give you their first impressions in the penultimate episode of this season.

Many odd things have happened since Elon Musk took over Twitter. The latest has been the upheaval of the verification system which had really helped in separating the trolls from the rich and famous. Now…. not so much. When you have verified accounts tweeting about Russia/Ukraine bombings and celebrities trying to get rid of their blue checkmarks, you know things are going off the rails. Is verification something really worth having? What was the point before Elon and what’s the point now?

What if I sent you a link to an awesome song that was just released on Spotify by Drake and The Weeknd. It sounds just like their voices and just like their production. Turns out, it's a song created by an AI who has been trained to emulate music by the two artists and Universal Music Group is rallying to get it removed from the interwebs. If a song is created completely by an AI, then who owns it? The people it’s “inspired by” even if it’s not them singing?

Tears of the Kingdom is releasing in a few short weeks and Free Play is discussing Matt’s hopes, dreams, and fears about this long awaited experience. There are so many theories about what this game will mean for the Zelda franchise when it comes to story, gameplay, and beyond and no one wants to miss out on the hype. Kate also put together what she thought would be a fun segment at the end of the show that she will never repeat: Zelda trivia.

With Matt out of the office for the day, Bubba and Kate chat about reading people’s texts over their shoulder in airplanes, if deviled eggs are good or not, and most importantly: their thoughts on the Super Mario Movie and the brilliantness of Jack Black. Also, do critic’s thoughts matter about the movie if they literally have no idea about anything Mario?

There is a lot happening in the world of Free Play this week. Matt recaps PAX East and his disappointments with Nintendo’s lackluster Zelda presence. E3 is canceled. They’ll talk about the new Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios and throw together some ideas for a Zelda theme park that are pretty dang good. Matt and Kate also introduce a new segment about celebrity coffee orders that blew Bubba away.

Season 1 of the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us wrapped this past week and as fans of Naughty Dog and Sony’s original games, Bubba, Matt & Kate wanted to chat about it. HBO really set the bar high for future gaming IPs turned into live action shows and movies. They cast some ideas for seasons 2 and 3 of the show, the possibility of a Last of Us Part 3 game, and how much Pedro Pascal is TOO MUCH Pedro Pascal. If that’s even a thing.

We’re celebrating LTN’s 5th birthday and can’t believe how fast the time has gone. So much has happened in the past five years and looking back brings up a lot of memories. Kate took the time this week to come up with some hard hitting questions to interview Matt, Bubba, and herself about LTN’s future and some things that they hold near and dear to their hearts from the past five years. HBD Love Thy Nerd!

Every once in awhile, Bubba sends something Kate's way that she's actually interested in. This week, it was a link to The Last Kingdom Board Game Kickstarter from Gamelyn Games. The Last Kingdom Netflix series is one of Kate's favorite shows, so she was super pumped to see this even though tabletop games aren’t her area of expertise. That got them curious about other Netflix IPs that have been turned into tabletop experiences.