Kurt Pankau Dot Com

⛏️ They came with fire, they came with axes... Deep Rock Galactic  is a co-op first person shooter in which a team of up to four dwarves go on mining missions in the procedurally generated caves of Hoxxes IV. Released in 2020 by Coffee Stain Publishing, it was the first game developed by Danish studio Ghost Ship Games and draws heavily from Minecraft  and Left 4 Dead . How I Remember It... For this final installment of Memory Leaks , I want to talk about a game that I loved so much I had to let it go. Honestly, I'm not going to talk about the game that much. It's new, it's fun, it's inexpensive, it's got a very wry sense of humor and some inventive biome design. If you like co-op FPSs with rogue-like sensibilities and lots of customizations and collectibles, you should definitely check it out. The learning curve is a teensy bit steep, so play it with friends who can show you the ropes. I have a bit of an addictive personality. I don't want to just enjoy somethin

💼 Oh, I'm Sorry, Did I Break Your Concentration? For a long time I thought I was a Quentin Tarantino fan. Sure, Reservoir Dogs  was a little rough, and Jackie Brown  was kinda boring, and then Kill Bill  was a bit bloated. But Pulp Fiction  was a masterpiece, and I maintained my fandom on the strength of that. It was one of the first films I bought when I switched from VHS to DVD. And that's not hyperbole. I literally bought a copy of this movie at the same time as I was buying my first DVD player. There's a poster from it up in my children's play room. We should probably take that down, honestly. Anyway, at some point I realized that I don't actually like Tarantino's films all that much. He has a particular affect to his storytelling that has grown tiresome. But I still feel a lot of affection for Pulp Fiction , and it had been a minute since I'd seen the now nearly thirty-year-old film, so I was curious how it held up. Was it still any good now that I am

💣 I Gotta Say That Mable... Super Bomberman  was the first title in the Bomberman  series released for the Super Nintendo. Published by Hudson in 1993, it continued the franchise's model of "maze + action" gameplay with upgraded graphics. You drop timed bombs that will explode in all (four) directions a set number of hexes and you use these to defeat enemies, clear paths, and collect power-ups to your character and/or your bombs. Hijinx ensue. How I Remember It... I don't remember how or when we acquired this game, but it definitely wasn't right after release. It was one of those franchises that I'd been vaguely aware of for most of my life (the first game was released in 1983) but had never been terribly drawn towards. And then we acquired it. And... It's kinda like a  Zelda  dungeon but with fewer puzzles and more explosives. I played it a ton  one summer between what would have to have been my junior and senior years of college and listening to Music  

🎄 Back on my bullshit... Fair warning: this is one of those posts where I'm a bit freer with my disdain for certain aspects of Christianity, so if that's going to upset you, maybe give this one a pass. It's the holiday season, so it's time for me to dust off an old hobby horse of mine. You're familiar with the Nativity story. The Angel of the Lord appears to Mary and tells her she will have a child who will be called Emmanuel (he isn't actually called that anywhere in the New Testament, but that's neither here nor there). Mary gets pregnant demi-god style prior to her marriage to Joseph. There's a census, so Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem. There's no room at the inn so they stay in the stable. Jesus is born and laid in a manger. Angels sing, shepherds come, as do wise men from the East with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Joseph, et al, then head off to Egypt to avoid Herod's baby-killing before landing back in Nazareth. Cool. Now c

🛡️ Catch Me If You Can... In 1996 Game Freak released two games called Pokemon Red  and Pokemon Blue  for the Nintendo Game Boy. These were JRPGs aimed at 10-year-olds that used a simplified turn-based battle system and were built around a social gimmick. There are 150 creatures called Pokemon in the game and one of the goals is to catch every one of them, only can't do it alone. Red  and Blue  each had Pokemon that were exclusive to that title, so the only way to get everything was to make in-game trades with a friend who owned the other version. The games were tied into a multi-media franchise that included manga, a TV show, and a collectible trading card game. And it was a mega-hit, one of the most successful and influential intellectual properties of the 90s and it continues to this day. In 2019, Pokemon Sword  & Shield  were released, the eighth set of games in the mainline series and the first for a console system that wasn't handheld only. How I Remember It... I mis