Amanda Kay Oaks

I definitely hope we see Heart Gold and Soul Silver on Switch in the near future, with the others to follow. And surely the Black and White remakes will be announced soon, too! Hopefully we will get some new announcements from The Pokemon Company during Worlds in August. Fingers crossed!

With all the hype and delays, I definitely hope this one delivers. Even my husband, who almost never plays video games, is excited for it.

Maybe it's just me, but June's Steam Next Fest lineup feels even more overwhelming than usual. There are a ton of games and it seems like Steam's event filters are a little bit broken. I still managed to find quite a few gems, including the Moonlight Peaks demo and the latest Vampire: The Masquerade visual novel prologue. But I'm curious... what is everyone else playing? Any standouts I might have missed? (My recommendations here, if you're curious).

Late to the game here but I also prefer a weekly release. I like having something to look forward to, and if everything drops at once, I tend to rush through it too quickly.

As someone who spends a lot of time on Bookstagram, I'm pretty tired of seeing hockey romances everywhere. I'm all for variety in the bookish space and while I have zero interest in sports romance, I would never yuck anyone's yum. That said, seeing how publishers just oversaturate the market with anything that gets trendy on TikTok is a little bit exhausting and makes me worried about what other books are getting passed up for another take on the same concept. Happy that fans of the books are getting adaptations, though. Just... we can stop making new books now. There are plenty of iterations on hockey romance to keep folks busy for years at this point.

I am definitely going to pick it up. I love the X-Men and am really curious to see Insomniac's spin on a Wolverine game.

Recently finished finally watching Severance. Also really enjoyed the adaptation of Margo's Got Money Troubles. Now we're on to Schmiggadoon, which is pretty good so far.

I admittedly need to go back and finish this one, but I liked what I've seen of it so far!

I need to go back and wrap up Spider-Man 2 before Wolverine, too. Such great games.

Nice! Hope you enjoy what's left of the game!

I've hard so many good things about 007! So glad it's delivering for folks.

I'll add to this that if you like to read digitally, you can usually get free manga ebooks through services like Libby or Hoopla with your library card. Then you can read on your phone or send to an eReader. This is how I read a lot of my manga these days because the budget and shelf space are both tight.

There's been so much chatter about new games with the showcases last week, I want to bring it back to basics for a minute. What are you playing right now as we head into the weekend? Personally, I'm going to spend some time with Diablo Immortal and Dave the Diver because we love very opposite vibes over here and both have new content dropping soon, so they're on my mind.

Personally I've never really been an Xbox person. So my main takeaway is that the promise of getting new Xbox games on PS5 is being walked back, which is kind of a bummer. I do think it's wild to give away a ton of free consoles and then turn around and say that profits are down and they're prepping to do layoffs less than a week later. Guess we'll see where things go.

I keep forgetting about Revelation! I still need to finish Rebirth, but I am very excited for the trilogy to be complete.

I often feel like the big gaming showcases blend together. So many games have similar styles and chase similar trends that it can be hard to get excited for them. That said, there were a few games that piqued my interest at each, which I can't always say for things like State of Play and Xbox.

Ocarina of Time has such fond childhood memories for me. I played that one with my brother growing up. So I'm both excited and a little sad to see a remake on the way. But I'm definitely going to play the heck out of it lol.

Yeah, it wasn't much new considering how long it's been. But it's nice to know they're still even thinking about it at this point lol.

That makes me nervous for the movie, to be honest. It feels very "we didn't do as good a job hyping this as we wanted so um... enjoy?" That said, I'd love to be able to truly enjoy a Marvel movie without quite so much viewing homework, so if that's what he's getting at, great.

Yes! Both standout scenes! They just captured the tabletop experience so well while still telling a fun fantasy story.

Laufey might get me to finally play God of War. It looks amazing! And the new Spyro looks great, too!

I tend to avoid horror in general, so I'm not interested in these kind of remakes. If they have an interesting idea that feels natural, sure. But I agree, some of them do feel like they're just playing with the IP because they can.

I am forever hoping for a sequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. That movie was so good, it's criminal it didn't really perform well in the box office.

We're finally through Summer Game Fest week, which brought soooo many new game reveals and trailers. With yesterday's Nintendo Direct, all the major publishers have shown off some of what's to come. So, what are you most hyped to see? Personally, I'm more than ready for Moonlight Peaks and Fable. And I'm excited for the Pokopia DLC and Ocarina of Time remake. What are your most exciting reveals from the last week?

I honestly really enjoyed this one. The Pokopia DLC was very exciting, and I'm happy to see a new Final Fantasy game as well. And of course the Ocarina of Time remake and that Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer out of nowhere didn't hurt, either!