I grew up in a house where my Mom listened to whatever was popular on the radio and my Dad was playing a mix of classical Arabic and Motown. My memories of specific artist and songs on the Arabic side is hazy. Umm Kulthum is an artist that stands out, but most all of it is characterized by a specific sound^ that is imprinted on my mind.
In the late 90’s when rap started sampling the genre, it was a very specific cheat code that get me onboard early. Jay Z’s ‘Big Pimpin’ epitomizes that era, but it and a lot of other songs rode that wave for a few years.
Big Pimpin’ heavily sampled Abdel Halim Hafez’s ‘Khosara’. Well it was actually not sampled, but re-recorded. Water and a $100K lawsuit under the bridge later and the original is still the better song.
This topic all came rushing back to me with the Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out earlier this year. Specifically the track ‘So Be It’ where Pharrell sampled Talal Maddah’s ‘Maza Akoulou’.
^ That sound comes from the oud (pair shaped lute), ney (end blown flute), and darbuka (goblet drum) to name just a few.
I took a leap on Primal Planet. Once again it was a Besties recommendation, but I usually pair that with OpenCritic for the wisdom of the crowd. In this case that was 5 critic reviews at the time, that didn’t add up to enough consensus for them to score it yet. Regardless, the leap paid off.
Primal Planet released in late July from SeethingSwarm, a solo developer from Finland. The whole thing clocked in at 6-8 hours, played over the course of a weekend. That wasn’t a complete run, but did see me through the main plot. At it’s root it is a metroidvania lite, but without many of the gear/ability progression gates inherent to the genre.
Dinosaurs + Aliens as a theme is already a cheat code, but paired with strong platforming and semi-challenging combat is a great start. The pixel art and animation is peak SNES/Genesis and the sound track compliments it well. The upgrades via expanding your village and it’s inhabitants is a little under developed, but didn’t get in the way of progress. All in it was well crafted short game that well exceeds the $20 price tag. A nice high note to the recent wilderness.
The past 3-4 months has been a crazy run for new music: Freddie, Tyler, Wet Leg, Turnstile, Clipse, Amine, Ovrkast, & Aesop Rock. The album release cup runneth over. I won’t say that JID’s latest book ends that, because honestly let’s keep it going. But if it did, what a high note to go out on. Like Freddie Gibbs, JID is just going to bring the bars every time. All you need is killer production to match him. A tall order, but God Does Like Ugly manages to pull it off.
The biggest threat to us finishing the ABC challenge is us discovering and wanting to try other new restaurants. That was the point of the whole thing, right? So not the worst problem to have.
The once pop-up only pizza offering is now a brick and mortar in Church Hill. You still have to pre-order 24 hours ahead to ensure you can get these Detroit style sourdough pies. It is worth the effort, to answer our crews collective question post meal. The crispy edges, fluffy bites, and combination of tasty toppings all add up to great pizza. If it was closer and easier to get, we might have problem at our house.
Technically we could have used TXTUR as our letter “T” but that would be probably be cheating, as that is name of the furniture store, not the restaurant. We went to shop for furniture and pair it with a cocktail, fell in love with “Kapsalon” (pictured above) and the whole thing turned into dinner. You can turn up to 20% of your meal total into a discount on furniture. So we have a new coffee table and chair now too.
Skill Up, creator of the fantastic YouTube series TWIV, recently launched a companion site with the same name. This Week in Videogames is a news and review site that is fully fan supported. That means no ads, no SEO headlines, and no AI slop masquerading as writing a human crafted. After almost a month I find myself heading there 1-2 times a week as a new habit.
My history with reading videogame writing and news starts way back with Nintendo Power. Many magazines in between, eventually websites, and the early days of videogame podcast later. That space has evolved, decayed, bloomed, and cycled over and over again. Finding good, entertaining, and informative voices feels harder than ever right now. Ad revenue as a vehicle for writing and other content had the bottom fully fall out. Good writers are losing their jobs and scrambling to figure out what comes next.
New sites like TWIV, smaller projects like Chris Plante’s newsletter, and of course The Besties give me some hope. It is just sadly harder and harder to find now.
I’ve never once come away from a Freddie Gibbs album wanting. He makes music that is in conversation with an era of 90’s/early 00’s rap that I came up in. Not weighed down by it, but building on it with his own creativity and vision. Alfredo 2 is his 10th project since 2013 and his 3rd with The Alchemist on production. Throw in features from JID and Larry and it crushes. Smooth bars stacked on smooth beats.
After a summer gaming lull, the kids and I were eagerly awaiting Grounded 2. I played the first one sometime between 2020 and 2022 when it went from early access to full release. I went in solo and it was fun, but that lacked the punch of a full co-op run.
A few weeks back the sequel dropped in early access and the three of us jumped in. The novelty of getting honey I shrunk the kids-ed is still incredibly strong. Things are early, but the map feels big and there is lots to do. Riding ants introduces a new level of mobility and makes some of the death runs from the punishing difficulty a little less painful.
The survival and tech tree loop are already there too. There will need to be balance changes and an evolution of the late game, but the foundation they’ve built is solid. There’s a long term roadmap too that is fun to day dream about “what if” and “when”.
Last thought and a warning combined. It is buggy and sometimes buggy as hell. It is the first few weeks of early access so that is to be expected. But we had a few crashes and even more things that just bugged out. From missions, to disappearing mounts, to straight up base functionality just stopping. All of it is worth trying though, especially if you already have Game Pass. Really excited to keep an eye on this as it progresses.
I didn’t see a new Tyler album dropping less than a year after 2024’s excellent Chromakopia. Yet another curveball along his musical evolution. A dance music inspired rap record is right up my alley. See everything Amine has been doing since 2020. Lastly, the Clipse and Lebron in the same music video, while Tyler does his best Jamiroquai, is really playing to my old head tendencies.
I played a grand total of 2.5 hours of the first game before deciding it was not for me. So how did I get tricked into spending $70 on the sequel? I am over 30 hours played and I can’t quit it. I don’t know that it is good or that I’d recommend it, but it’s hooks are in me. There is something meditative about delivery missions and completing new roads. It’s combat is not great, but it’s story is bonkers, entertaining, and confusing. Highs and lows.
There is a steep bar for me with “clickers” and I’ve never played an auto battler before this. this little ear worm sneaked in via the Besties. I had a fun weekend playing it on the Steam Deck in a hotel room and never went back to it. You play mini games to get high scores, that make the automatic numbers go up, so you can upgrade your abilities in the mini games to get new high scores.
Rocket League, but players not cars. Yes, that is the reverse devolved pitch for Rocket League. This a soccer game by the Sifu development team. It shows in it’s art, fast pace, and hard to master controls. This could be a top 50 pick once it gets cross-play. They seem to be crushing it right now, so hopefully that community sticks around.
I have a teenager who loves a survival crafting game. I am always up for trying a new game with him, but he is the fuel in the engine. Terraria looks bad, and that is not a knock against pixel art, there are better looking pixel art games from the same era. It also has an overwhelming catalog of materials, and simplistic combat that is just wild clicking. Despite those shortcomings it’s progression loop is fun and made even better playing it with my kid.
Open world chill cycling and racing are right up my alley. The cell shaded graphics evoke good times with Jet Set Radio and Wind Waker. So why didn’t this make the cut? The difficultly feels out of tune. The first three hours offered little to no challenge, making the rewards of upgraded bike parts an empty loop. The performance got bad to unplayable as the number of buildings and objects on the screen increased. I run a 4080 and was getting big frame drops in a game that could have run on a Dreamcast in 2000.
Wet Leg was a Mike pick on the podcast way back in 2021. It resonated with me and got caught in my ear for the rest of the year and beyond. Their sophomore album just dropped they’ve caught the same and some new lightning in the bottle all over again. As a bonus they showed up on Tiny Desk the and killed it.
180 Lunches 