The Digital Bench

It shouldn't come as a surprise that some of the members of The Digital Bench are GameStop alum. I'd like to say that some of the best times of my life were had in that store, but that would be a lie. It wasn't all horrific but it wasn't great.

2020 part 2 continues. It's still been a light couple of months but that hasn't stopped us from catching up on our backlog and checking out some new stuff including Grounded!

This week, the crew realizes that it takes a village to run away from the tall lady. We also get real mad about a good game with no save system.

According to a recent report, a remake of the original The Last of Us is on its way. There’s never been a better time to finally do our oft-delayed spoiler-cast. Justin and I sat down to hash out our feelings on the franchise and talk through our feelings on what this remaster could look like. It’s not all bad, trust me. There’s definitely room for improvement though. If it isn’t obvious, this episode contains spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2. Skip this if you don’t want to be spoiled on any plot elements.

This month we take talk a bit about Outriders, Monster Hunter Rise, Diablo II: Resurrected, and comic book writing? That last one doesn't seem right.

Justin, Rob, and Leroy take a deeper dive into Bloober Team's latest horror game to discuss what they liked, what they could have done without, and what they look forward to in the future.

The Digital Bench Podcast returns and has very little to no recollection of a pre-pandemic world. It's fine though, some games came out we think.

The Bench has rung in the new year and are reading to jump back into the swing of things. We check in with the crew to see how the holidays were and to see what items we all managed to finally tackle from our backlogs.

The Bench gathers to discuss everyone's games of the year. Also, we talk a LOT about Pokemon. Are the two related? Maybe.

We discuss the finer and not so fine points of Borderlands 3. It's fine. We do our monthly Destiny check in. Justin also managed to make a $30,000 burger stand in a zoo before getting his first animal.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is out. It's fine. It's a good enough one of those. You know what I'm talking about.

There’s a lot to unpack, including our E3 Post-mortem, Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers, Void Bastards, Team Sonic Racing, Maximum Action and more!

As it turns out, Hypnospace Outlaw fuckin' went some places. So does episode 3 of Life is Strange 2. We also checked out Quake Arena, Destiny, Minecraft, and WoW Classic.

We have returned from our March sabbatical to regale you with tales from the PAX East show floor. As it turns out, a lot of the companies outsource their PR to separate companies and it makes for some interesting conversations when you try to figure out some pretty basic information about a game! It’s not surprising though; a lot of Indie studios tend to be made up of much smaller teams and it’s really hard to pull someone away from a team for a trade show when they very likely are the team. Some games also just don’t necessarily show well; you have to get your hands on them to better understand them. All in all, it was a good trip. We did manage to play some other games in our extra time as well, including: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Hypnospace Outlaw Mortal Kombat 11 Nanotale - Typing Chronicles Wrath: Aeon of Ruin Ion Maiden Wing of Darkness

Let’s get this out of the way: There are parts of Anthem that are either already cool or have the potential to be really, really cool. The problem is that potential is met with so much resistance from poor optimization and confusing quality of life decisions that you constantly feel frustrated. It’s not inherently bad; this is just a bit of a poor launch. Yes, that’s even in comparison to the original Destiny launch. We’ve all been here before. We’ve seen this exact same story play out before. How did it still happen to release like this? Don’t worry though, we also did manage to play some other games that did make us happy: Tetris 99, Planet Coaster, Apex Legends, and more round out the cast this month.

We talk a lot about the Resident Evil 2 remake. It's kind of the only game that matters this month.

I am a dumbass.

This month: Red Dead Redemption 2, Forza Horizon 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Destiny 2, Return of the Obra Dinn

I have to say that Destiny 2 is the epitome of a love-hate relationship. Watching a community go from “This is the best game ever” to “This is pure shit garbage” at the drop of a patch never ceases to amaze me. Features that were literally brought in because players beg for them are now met with pure vitriol until it’s patched out in the next content drop. It’s even better when the same player base pines for the days when that same feature was still in the game. If you weren’t keeping tabs on Destiny 2, we’re currently in the “love” phase. Don’t worry, we do get into some other games this month as well. NBA 2K19 dropped and I thoroughly enjoyed getting dunked on by fools in the Chinese league. Subserial Network seems like it’s poised to scratch the massive void left behind by games like Missing: Since January and Evidence: The Last Ritual. Apparently World of Warcraft: Battle For Azeroth is not that great. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to control a hole that increases in size as you suck more and more of your hometown into the depths of hell, then Donut County sure is a game for you.

* How does one successfully launder 3 billion space bucks? *Are the horde really on the wrong side of history? *Is Dead Cells the best 2D action platformer of the past decade? These are all very fair questions to ask. I can't say that we actually attempted to answer any of them though. August was a bit of a lean month in terms of new releases, but we still got down to business and played a few, and you know what? That's okay.