The Digital Bench

38 - Buy and Sell Used Games Or Get Out

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58c5fa911e5b6c36786ab685/1631677367131-Q7QMQXM3B7X8UR5GPR7C/sadgamestopwall.jpg?format=1000w] Photo by Timothy Hill It shouldn’t be a surprise that some of the members of The Digital Bench worked at a very prominent used videogame retailer. You know which one - the one where you can buy and sell used games. A lot of times when people reminisce about the past, at some point they’ll usually say “I had some of the best times of my life in that place.” I can confidently say that this wasn’t true here. You’ll learn a lot of skills that you’ll hopefully be able to leverage into a career elsewhere but the end goal should never be to stay. Still, it’s worth revisiting, if only to remind yourself that somehow made it out. True story: due to a lack of payroll, I ended up working close to a 24 hour shift going from the opening shift of Christmas Eve until early Christmas morning because the store looked like a disaster, we didn’t have the staffing to recover, and there was an after-Christmas marketing set that needed to go up. Pretty sure that’s the year that broke me. Joe sat in while Justin and I decided to share our experiences and remind ourselves of the not-so-great times.

37 - Al Borland Fan Fiction

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58c5fa911e5b6c36786ab685/1628880746232-BCV9IIOWLIEMSNGNJ5CS/grounded-spider-explosion.png?format=1000w] It’s just as bad as it looks. Apologies to anyone who suffers from arachnophobia 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!

35 - The Roommate Who Eats Your Food

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58c5fa911e5b6c36786ab685/1620832234427-JZBHQVE4X4BPKV6LUVLO/RE_Village_Jan21_Screens_Lady_Dimitrescu.jpg?format=1000w] You didn’t put in on the order. Those were not your leftovers. To say that Resident Evil Village is a love letter to Resident Evil 4 would be underselling it. They’ve somehow taken an already heightened action-horror series and elevated it even more. It’s great that it’s stayed spooky after all these entries but it is still very much a Resident Evil game. Take that how you will. Equally spooky is Returnal’s lack of a save system, which is a shame because there’s a really great game underneath that very glaring oversight. This problem was solved years ago; why is it still a thing in 2021? From there we also talk about the need for games to respect the player’s time and how we’d like to see that addressed across different genres (looking at you, MMOs). Questions/comments? Drop us a line: podcast@thedigitalbench.com [podcast@thedigitalbench.com]

34 - The Last of Us Spoilercast

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58c5fa911e5b6c36786ab685/1619710690537-WH82PNQDO86TYS0MBLE6/2510225ee9c256649429.83815251-TLOUPII_Review_Screenshot_03.jpg?format=1000w] Play Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) According to a recent report [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-09/sony-s-obsession-with-blockbusters-is-stirring-unrest-within-playstation-empire], 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 what this remaster could look like. It’s not all bad, trust me. 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.

33 - No Yucking the Yum

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58c5fa911e5b6c36786ab685/1618373886830-SF9WFZVWJ6E9KZKXT0XG/Outriders_Launch_1.jpg?format=1000w] Some very specific vibes here On this week’s episode, we talk about the highlights and lowlights of Outriders. There’s certainly something here for someone; it just might not be us. What we know is definitely for us is Monster Hunter Rise. In fact, it’s so much for us that Justin has already hit triple digits in gameplay hours. Joe got into the Diablo 2: Resurrected Alpha and - SURPRISE - it’s actually still very good. There’s a few smart quality of life changes that we dive into as well. We also spend a bit of time reflecting on the state of comic book writing, the Justice League movie, and revisiting previous works from a certain attached director.