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One thing about this forum -- I can ask a brief question that boils down to "I don't feel like spending a lot of time using GoogleFu to figure it out" and a member takes time out of his or her day to give me an accurate and thoughtful answer. Thank you @NickC! And to follow up offering to check your store in return for cost to any LCVG member? Wow. As a slightly-related aside I'm reminded of Dean, EnemaEms, offering me his launch PS4 that he didn't need at cost. Haven't seen him here in ages, but thank you. You and NickC are genuinely good people.

Got lucky and bought a 3080 TI for MSRP at Best Buy Guess I'm building a new PC

Just got out of a preview screening at the BFI Southbank, including a prerecorded Q&A with Villeneuve. Don’t panic, it is properly great. Quibbles almost entirely revolve around the fact that it’s Part One, and I need Part Two tomorrow night, please. Cast are amazing, Villeneuve manages to keep the focus on character despite massive spectacle, and despite once again failing to bring a memorable tune Zimmer’s score really emphasises the pressure both Paul and Jessica feel under the weight of their responsibilities.

And I’m now $1,799.99 (+ sales tax) poorer! I finally ordered the TV Saturday morning and picked it up from Best Buy just after lunch. I spent most of afternoon lugging it home, unboxing it, and getting it set up. I spent most of the evening tinkering with it, trying to get as many devices hooked up as possible, and doing my best to calibrate the picture to the best of my abilities. I'm pretty pleased with what I've accomplished so far, but I still have a lot to learn. Ideally, I would already have all the pieces I need in order to get my entire system up and running to its full potential. However, this deal came up unexpectedly, and I still have a few things I need to get before I have everything exactly the way I want. Chief among them is a new receiver that can carry a 4K signal. I now have an Onkyo TX-RZ50 on preorder at Crutchfield, but who knows when that will ship? I also need to replace the HDMI cable running from the back of my receiver, up through the wall, and into the back of the TV. The cable currently installed can do 4K@60Hz, but I obviously need one that can do more than that. So, I ordered an Ultra High Speed HDMI cable from Monoprice (a 15-footer), which should meet my needs quite nicely. Once that arrives, I will remove the old Panasonic Plasma TV from the wall mount (which you can see in the picture above) and mount the LG. It will be a lot easier to fish the new HDMI cable through the wall if there isn't a huge TV in the way. I also ordered two of the same cables in the 10 foot variety for the Xbox Series X and PS5. I would just use the ones supplied in the box, but those aren't long enough to reach the receiver, which sits on the other side of my entertainment center. I also ordered an LED bias light to affix to the back of the TV. I installed a strip of these lights to be the back of my old Panasonic Plasma a couple years ago, and it makes a huge difference, especially when viewing content in a darkened room. That should be here on Tuesday, so I can get at least one part of the puzzle ready. In the meantime, I'm trying to make use of the TV as best I can. Until I mount it on the wall, I have it sitting atop my entertainment center where my center channel normally is. I also have the Xbox Series X, PS5 and Apple TV 4K plugged directly into HDMI inputs 1, 3, and 4 of the TV respectively. I then have a cable running from HDMI 2 on the TV to the back of my old receiver. I'm then using ARC to send the audio from there to to my speakers. This works pretty well, since it means that I can still enjoy the benefits of my new TV while I wait for the new receiver and cables to arrive. It does mean, though, that I can't make use of any higher-end audio codecs due to the fact that my old receiver does not support eARC, but it's a small price to pay for what I'm getting in return. As for my initial impressions, I can confidently say that this looks better than my old TV. 🙂 I mean it should, right? I mean, I never watched movies or played any games and felt disappointed by what I saw before. But now that I can play something like Ori and the Will of the Wisps in 4K at 120 fps in HDR, I'm quite in awe of it all. I'm almost a bit disappointed that I finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits a couple days before acquiring the new TV, given how gorgeous that game looks at higher resolutions. 4K streaming content looks amazing as well, but I still need to take a look at a few of the UHD Blu-rays I've gathered over the years to see how good they look. In the meantime, I do have one question (probably the first of many). When calibrating the TV, I noticed at there's a setting for OLED backlight. Currently, it is set to 100 (the highest setting). Do I want to lower this? If so, what would be a good setting? I assume that blasting the pixels at full power all the time is a good way to shorten the length of the TV's life. However, I don't know what I would set it at as an alternative. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

So, it looks like I can get an LG C1 65-inch 4K TV for $1,799.99 right now ($700 off the MSRP) at Best Buy. Just to be sure, this would be a rock solid choice if were to buy it, right?

Can Part 2 come out next week please.

If anyone wants to add me, I still enjoy competing for scores on Rock Band. Here's a shot of a family get-together a few weeks ago in my music room. I was near devastated when I learned that popular Rock Band 5 news site was a fake. Rock Band was made for a pandemic. Had Harmonix had their shit together and were able to launch a new RB during lockdown, Covid would have all been worth it. But, alas...

New Trailer

Latest project completed. My 13 year old daughter wanted to make a Thor costume for Halloween, and we already had a hammer, but not a helmet. Found something on Thingiverse that looked good though, so this was mostly just a print of https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2349293: I did mod it to remove the rotator, mostly because I didn't like the look of the band, and we decided that having the wings in one spot all the time wasn't a bad thing. Other than that, because of the large printer, I was able to do the whole thing in 3 pieces. The main helmet took 175hrs to print. Neat toy for sure. In the end, it probably would have been cheaper to buy something at a costume store (I think I used a whole roll of filament on this), but this way you ended up with exactly what you wanted (more or less), and it was a fun project to take on.

Seeing this tomorrow. I still won't believe it until I'm sitting there and it starts of course. What a crazy path it's taken to finally reach cinemas. UK ticket sales have been very good (pre-pandemic levels of good and the highest ticket pre-sales since Endgame).

Hype!

It looks like we’re finally going to get a closer look at the single-player campaign tomorrow: I think I speak for most long-time Halo fans when I say, “Please, be good, for the love of god!”

There's a lot to unpack, but I can finally say this is one of the things the movie finally got right the '84 and the mini series couldn't.

The crossover you never knew you needed.

I can only upvote this once...

This dude unboxes an original Xbox console from 2004 and plays some games for it on an old Sony Trinitron. The only thing that would have made this video better is if he had had one of the earlier versions that still had the Duke bundled with it. Also, assuming that this is authentic, and the box had really never been opened before, it’s striking how absolutely crappy the packaging is. Unboxing a Series X or Series S console is way nicer, making it feel like a more premium experience for a premium product. With this? The console and accessories are just shoved into plastic bags and tossed in the box, it seems.

My new 12.9in IPad Pro shipped! Should have it on Monday. I’m looking forward to seeing the 120hz screen in action.

Best Buy had an online drop Friday and I got lucky, unfortunately that may be over now unless you're a Best Buy Total Tech Member. Best Buy was one of the few places where you could get one MSRP. They were also doing in-store drops once a month at select stores, normally with long lines, my store apparently didn't sell out right away with the last drop two weeks ago, but most do. I'm curious to see how the next two+ month's at Best Buy go, both in-store and on-line now that Total Tech is a thing. Base 3080/3070 FHR (Full Hash Rate) cards are going to be the hardest to find, but here are some tips. 1. Follow @GPURestock and @NS_ALERTS on Twitter 2. Join NerdSpeak Discord https://discord.gg/KbeMPsFW 3. Download the Best Buy Phone App - There is a trick to show if a store has stock, many people have had success, but it seems to vary per store/employee. In the app Search "RTX", at the top of the search on the left there should be a "In Stock at "Your Store" "button, enable that, if stock of a GPU is showing that store should have it on hand (even if the app shows "Sold Out"). Go to the store, ask someone (preferably someone who may not know what a GPU is) to check inventory for the SKU and don't specifically tell them what it is. If you want to check a different store in the search, disable and re-enable the "In Stock" button each time you switch stores as that seems to actively refresh the search. I also don't mind checking my local store during the next drop if LCVG members are looking for a specific card, If I find one I'll sell it for Retail (MSRP + Tax) & Shipping

My iPad is eligible for an upgrade from Verizon so it looks like a 12.9in 2021 iPad Pro is in my future. I’ll put in the order later this morning. My current 2-year old iPad Pro 11in will go to my 15 year old who’s been clamoring for a more powerful tablet for artwork and to put their Apple pen to good use. Their existing and much older iPad 3 will get handed down to my 9 year old. Its a holiday season iPad swap at the Silvera household.

Headed over to Costco and they have a pallet full of the 760H’s at $449. I’m not a member so I didn’t pick it up but a buddy of mine is so I’m headed over tomorrow with him to buy it. Should have it all setup and ready to go tomorrow night.

It wasn’t particularly revelatory, no. No definite news on Part Two green light or anything. Lots of discussion about how much of a Dune fan he is, how many of the phenomenal cast they managed to get because everyone else loves Dune as well, and how big his insistence was on shooting exterior desert scenes in the desert rather than relying on sound stages and vfx isn’t a diss on people who can shoot virtually, but because capturing natural light in locations that inspire cast and crew is what he’s good at personally.

This arrived in the mail, for 100 rides, though I'm about to hit 100 walks too. Bike arrived middle of March, but it was July where I really kicked it into being routine. Down 25+ pounds so far, saw a digit I haven't seen in 18 months, and my blood numbers are all healthy except cholesterol. Doc is happy. Another 25 pounds or so will get me to just "overweight" on the BMI scale.

Looks like Sony is starting to do game trials: You can download and play 5-6 hours of each of these games before buying. Only on PS5.

I finished this one last night. All I had left to do were the last two boss fights. It took me a couple hours, but I managed to finally do it. Again, I was playing on Spirit Guide (a.k.a. Normal) difficulty. I'm not sure I'd say they were the hardest boss fights in the game. I still think I struggled more during the first real boss fight of the game if for no other reason than that was the first time there was a big difficulty spike like that, and I wasn't prepared for it. By the time I reached the end, however, I knew what to expect and was ready for it. That doesn't mean they didn't kick my ass, of course. Because they did. A lot. The hardest thing for me — especially with the first boss last night — was getting the timing down on my parrying. Despite the patch that made it easier to perform, I still feel like I never quite mastered it in a way that I could do it reliably. That holds true for not only the boss fights, but even for regular combat as well. In some ways though, that made combat more exciting. It meant that I couldn't just rely on parrying all the time. I had to mix it up with blocking and dodging, so fights never got to the point where I was just standing around, waiting for an enemy to attack, then parrying so I could counter. Trying to parry was always a gamble. If I pulled it off, I would be rewarded handsomely for it. If not, I'd either deplete my shield or just get smacked on my ass. When I did finally beat that first boss fight last night, it was because I managed to pull off a couple parries in a row, then spam him with several Rot hammer attacks all at once. It felt good. The second boss was a little easier than the first, I thought, especially when you reached the final stage of the fight. The real problem was just getting there. Without giving too much away for those of you who haven't reached it yet, let's just say the game forces you to go back to basics for a while. It makes you reassess your combat techniques and strategies for dealing with certain enemies. If you can get to the third and final stage of the fight, however, it's mostly a matter of dodging attacks and waiting for the opportunity to do some damage. It's not easy, but once you have the flow down, you're probably good to go. Overall, I really liked Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It felt like it had just the right amount of everything — the right amount of combat, exploring, collectables, etc. It was also, just the right length, being neither too long or too short. If I have one criticism, it's that there should be more options as far as difficulty settings go. The "Normal" in this game felt like "Hard" in most other games, which is fine for me, but I think it is likely to turn other people off. I'm glad there is a Story Mode for folks with lower skill levels, but I really think there could be a level in-between that and Spirit Guide. I've been eagerly anticipating Kena: Bridge of Spirits since it was announced at the PS5 showcase last year. I'm happy to say that it ultimately was worth the wait. I am very eager to see what Ember Lab do next.

On the way to $40.1 million opening domestically. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/dune-box-office-opening-hbo-max-1235036020/ WB have to be happy with those returns. Well above expectations as WB themselves were estimating about 30 million. The film has also hit $200 million globally and this is the largest opening of any day and date HBO Max movie up to this point. It’s also the best opening for any movie Denis has directed. Audiences are very pleased with the movie as well giving it an A- Cinemascore. I expect streaming numbers to be quite healthy here. The sequel must flow!

Sony A7 IV Announcement

Warner's UK Citizen Kane release looks rather lavish: Separate Commentaries by Roger Ebert and Peter Bogdanovich Interviews with Ruth Warrick and Robert Wise Opening: World Premiere of Citizen Kane Still Photography with Commentary by Roger Ebert ...and More Extras seem to be the same old stuff from the existing Blu that also got carried over to the Criterion UHD/Blu-ray release, but missing are things like the BBC documentary from the Criterion disc. Neither release includes the 'Battle over Citizen Kane' documentary though I still have a DVD copy of that. I'm not sure if the UK release will only be a Collector's Edition initially or not. I thought Clockwork Orange was going to be as that's all Warner UK originally revealed but they ended up quietly having a standalone edition for the UK for release on the same day so perhaps that will also be the case here. I must admit I'm torn about whether to get the Warner disc or Criterion, but I'm leaning towards importing the Criterion for the third audio commentary and additional bonus features (and I can stuff my DVD of the 'Battle...' documentary into the box to make it definitive).

Just pulled the trigger on a 16" M1 Max 32gb, 2TB. Daughter is majoring in both film and photography and needed a machine. This should hold her up for at least her college career. Really looking forward to testing it as I also need a new laptop ( still on a mid 2010 MBP) and have held out due to the lack of ports and non modular options. I accept that Apple will most likely never go back to user upgradable ram and storage but am glad they brought back the ports.

I got Rockband (£24) and a Beatles special edition set of instruments to go along with an old USB guitar we still had and the GH Live PS4 guitars we have. It still wasn’t cheap for the instruments (£100) but, these weren’t crazy overpriced either thankfully. It’s got the wireless drums I wanted and the Hofner bass I never had (which I like quite a bit) and all working in great condition 😊 With that said, we played for about an hour on the Beatles RB instruments and now I will probably never use the GH Live guitars again. In RB as they are quite difficult to play with and can’t use the strum bar (d-pad instead). I love that the PS2/3/4 instruments are all still compatible (with dongles) and that you can swap between platforms with the right dongles - very cool but they are all still pretty costly. I’m not sure it even matters much because I’m having to relearn Rockband all over again -😳 it’s been so long. Man it’s good to be back in it though, despite how bad we were playing it was instantly fun and we were tearing through the song catalog for old favourites and new songs we’ve never played. There are so many new songs since we played RB last that it’s crazy, my wife was thrilled with stuff like Chainsmokers and I grabbed Royal Blood and some others as soon as I saw them (yay). So, the account sharing seems to work fine on my daughters PS4 setting it as my “primary” while I’m on PS5 and she can download all the DLC songs we have so that’s cool. It’s also region free so no issues with US songs/access vs UK like we had before on Xbox360 which is great (man I hated that shit). But, of course I can’t get all the legacy imports I had before on 360 either now as they were all delisted years ago (sad). Since this is still a PS4 game, it doesn’t look like we can play it at the same time using the account sharing but, that’s to be expected I guess. I’m also still not sure if the song catalog will be available to her under her own profile but will try that once she reactivates her PS+ account. All the technicalities aside, it was fucking great to be playing RB again. Man I missed this.

The free 2.0 update looks fantastic: The paid DLC expansion is certainly cute, but a bit much for my taste (both in price and what it focuses on):

Fiber is great. Fun fact though. Insects eat fiber and have done so twice since I’ve had it with Verizon. The technician was like “Ya insects ate ya fiber” Blew my mind. I guess even insects have worry about colon cancer

Release day is good!

I love this.

So, real quick, this came out on Switch today. Even though I already own in on PS4/PS5 and can play it through Game Pass on my Xbox, I bought it on Switch to have a portable version I could play wherever and whenever I wanted. I played through most of Journey Mode this evening in both handheld and docked mode. For the most part, I think the port is pretty good, all things considered. The game seems to run fairly smoothly at what I assume is a 60 fps target — the right call for a game like this. However, aside from the fact that it runs at a much lower resolution than the PlayStation and Xbox counterparts (a fact made all too obvious now with my new 4K TV), a lot of the visual flair of those versions is trimmed down. The particle effects are especially scaled back. In some cases, it almost seems like they are absent all together. Ironically, this can make the game easier to play since those particles aren’t blocking your view of the board. It does mean, however, that the game loses some of its visual distinctiveness. But if that is in service to making the core gameplay more enjoyable on Switch, I’m in favor of it. Again, I would like to see John from Digital Foundry take a look at this one. Given what a Tetris nerd he is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. I’d be very interested in what he finds.

Not to mention Jack & Rose minifigs.

The review embargo is up. IGN — 9 (Amazing) Samuel Claiborn: Polygon: Metroid Dread reaches new heights by offering no mercy Russ Frushtick: GameSpot — 8 Steven Petite: Pretty positive reviews all around (the Metacritic as I type this is sitting at 88). I am surprised to hear that the game is actually pretty hard. I’m most excited to see what the boss fights are like, though. They sound pretty epic.

I see now that it actually says this right in the text but I was reading how this trial is not 5 hours of game time, but 5 hours real time from the moment you hit the download button. So your download time is included, and if you have to stop playing and come back, the clock is still ticking. That seems kinda dumb.

I finally started the game after sitting on it for over a year. The Director’s Cut seemed the perfect opportunity to do so given all of the improvements. This game has no business being as addictive as it is. I mean, the core gameplay loop on paper is an amalgamation of all of the things that would normally annoy the hell out of most of us in a vast majority of other games (high ratio of time spent in menus, inventory and encumberance management, literal walking simulator, etc.) but somehow it works! Once you let it get its hooks into you it’s pretty damned hard to put down and the sense of progression is just satisfying as hell. I started on Friday and am nearly done with Act 3 at this point. The story cadence is fairly typical Kojima. A great deal of pretentious exposition that tries to over-explain things a little too often. Thankfully, there is a sense of restraint on the cutscene side of things. It’s a bit heavy early on but once you are in the game proper, it strikes a much better balance. The good news is that everything that’s going on is just batshit crazy enough to keep your attention. This is a strange world with an series of extremely interesting mysteries playing out around Sam. What is the Death Stranding? How do the beaches tie the real world to the other side? Why is Higgs connection to the world of the dead so strong? What caused the BT’s and the voidouts? Who does BB keep seeing in its memories and why is Sam so connected to it? When you first start, all of this will sound like gibberish but there’s plenty of stuff to read, listen, and watch that help to build this world and you can’t help but be fascinated by it all. I popped this in expecting to check out the first few hours and take in the updated visuals (and the stellar art direction) while leaving a full playthrough for later. I ended up completely hooked and am full steam ahead until I see the credits roll. Not bad for a glorified FedEx simulator.:) Seriously though, there is just nothing else in the AAA space like this game and that’s /fantastic/. Metroid Dread may have to wait it’s turn. Oh and I can’t say enough about how amazing the online experience is here. Connecting a new area to the Chiral Network and seeing all of the tools and structures built by other players is so damned good. You want to add your own stuff just to help the overall community and you get rewarded for doing so. I love it.

Went all-in on the Undead or Alive KS several months ago (I have yet to play a Zombicide beyond Zombicide: Night of the Living Dead, but that was for a Halloween party) and looking forward to playing that Western theme. In other news, I introduced the kids to an old timey game, Catan. They loved it. I've always thought Catan was plodding and staid, but I thoroughly enjoyed it in this 3D version. Maybe I'm easily entertained by bright colors and plastic mountains. (Honestly, table presence has become such a big draw for me. Like, if I take the time to set up a game and get a bunch of people to put aside the time, the game needs to be an event that justifies the effort. Table presence and interesting, "deluxified' components are a big part of that - they can go quite a ways in helping define the experience for me. A game can be a bona fide classic, but if it looks ugly or "beige" I'll play something else and not think twice about it. )

0GB needed if you go through here https://www.xbox.com/en-US/play/games/marvel's-avengers/BRX6HS1G5CDK

I thought this was good. Stronger than Spectre but still a far cry from Casino Royale. I'll miss Craig in the role. I'm at odds as to whether I want to see them repeat the Craig formula of having the next Bond's run be a series of films with connective story tissue. I think perhaps I do. That approach does add to emotional investment in the character, and No Time to Die is absurd (often in classic Bond tradition) but emotionally grounded in reality which I feel is a good balance that they've found now with the franchise. At the same time, connecting stories for the next actor may feel somewhat stale after the last five, and if you don't remember minor characters and scenes in earlier films, as No Time to Die really requires, then it might be easy for a viewer to feel rather lost. Time will tell I suppose. I was surprised how understated Zimmer's score is. It's more in tune with Thomas Newman's two bond scores than any others, albeit with some emotionally manipulative "hey remember this? You bloody love this!" nods to two significant Barry pieces (that's not a complaint. I'm easily pleased). Johnny Marr never really gets to let rip as the full rendition of the Bond theme is, once again, used somewhat sparingly which is a great shame.

This isn't console specific or PS5 news per se but the rumor mill has been going for some time now that Sony will not update the PS5 with VRR until their TV line-up has been updated and there have been rumors that said update will be happening in the October/November timeframe. Well, we have our opening salvo: Hopefully, this means we will see VRR/ALLM rolled out to the PS5 sooner rather than later! I'm excited for both but short term, I can't wait for ALLM. The convenience of my Series X just kicking on game mode when I need it is super underrated and not having to manually make that shift on the PS5 will be wonderful. Long term, I'm planning a big refresh/upgrade on the audio side of my home theater with a new Atmos setup and the latest Onkyo HDMI 2.1 receiver in the March 2022 range so VRR will be a welcome addition.

At least Hermen has a good sense of humor about it:

I'm watching rasslin for the first time since it went HD. Evidently I have a lot of catching up to do. I have no idea who CM Punk is, but it's been a long time since I've seen people just so passionate about something. And I have no idea fans were that crazy about Chris Jericho and were singing along to his song. It's been fun. I'm in what'd I miss mode for the last 15 to 20 years.

With PS+ it’s 47% off ($31.79). Without PS+ it’s still a very good discount at $35.