Pietriots & the Casual Cinema Reviews

If you have ever visited the About section of the Pietriots Blog then you will likely have encountered this sentence describing the ethos and tone we try to set for the articles on it. “A casual site for casual gamers that enjoy casual games casually.” It would seem that casualness has extended to the actual writing of posts with just one single article created for all of 2023…. (Ooopsie-doopsie!)

Now, if you were hoping to see more gaming posts on this site then this article may disappoint you as I’m here to write about a different type of medium: The Movies aka Cinema. With my new position as “Pietriots World Sovereign of Cinema Reviews and News”, it’s a topic I’m excited to discuss further with all you cool kids and searchbot spiders and have been implicitly instructed to post about.

Please pay no attention to the 2022 dates indicating how long it has taken me to do this….
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The Newest Clickbait Nintendo Opinion: Nintendo Directs Need To Die

I am being completely serious folks, this is an opinion someone made and I have to wonder who on Gameindustry(dot)biz thought publishing this thing was a good idea? Oh, wait, a gaming journalism website needs traffic to stay alive. My bad. On the other hand, I now feel 5% less bad about my badly aged opinions on Pietriots, because reading this opinion is downright baffling and caused severe brain rot in me.

For the sake of being fair and wanting to give some historical insight, let’s first explain Nintendo Directs and why they are now the defacto way Nintendo (and others outside of Nintendo) announce games. The very first Nintendo Direct(s), plural because there was one for Japan and North America, was streamed in late October 2011. Instead of having to wait for E3 to happen every year, or do a press release that will later being unfairly scrutinized by the gaming media, Nintendo bypassed them and had either Reggie or Iwata talk directly to the audience against a white backdrop. While not every Direct is going to be a winner, the formula works because what it has to do is done well: advertise and inform. That is the ultimate goal of a Nintendo Direct, and throwing a surprise reveal at the beginning, middle and end of the Direct (and it doesn’t have to always be a Nintendo product) is a great formula.

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When its hard to understand basic common sense.

Readers of our site probably know about Did You Know Gaming, a YouTube gaming “fact” channel that is semi-notorious for being run by Liam Robertson, one of the most notorious Nintendo rumor insiders alongside Emily Rogers and for flubbing up facts. Well, twenty days ago, they got copyright struck by Nintendo of America for a video on a cancelled Legend of Zelda DS game. And of course, they got a bug up their ass, as seen here:

Most would think this is, once again, Nintendo unfairly flexing their (rightfully) legal muscle to squash “journalistic integrity” (its hard not to laugh when mentioning that in the same breath of Liam Robertson). Since we’re in the Cancel Culture age where people don’t do their research and automatically believe people a’la Helena Taylor exposing herself as a bitter ex-wife, the same will no doubt happen again with this. Too bad, NoA and Nintendo by extension were in the legal right, again.

Liam and his DYKG crew decided to do a piece on a cancelled game nobody knew existed in the first place until its existence was proven via that notorious gigaleak that occurred in 2020. Game betas, source code, documents and the like were illegally hacked and taken from Nintendo’s databases. You have no doubt seen some of this stuff on The Cutting Room Floor wiki (only a matter of time before Nintendo strikes those down since they do ask for money donations to stay alive). Liam’s journalist integrity has no standing since he took stolen content from a copyright holder without their permission and DYKG also makes money off of their videos.

Word of the wise, folks, when you do shit like this, make sure you don’t make money off of it. Though asking mostly Nintendo-centric YouTubers to not be morons is a bit of a hard ask.

Yeah, I’m still buying Bayonetta 3 regardless of this recent ‘scandal’.

I put the word scandal in air quotes because, first, taking one person’s word as gospel without knowing all the facts is so common these days you can easily ruin lives (or someone’s hard work) based on something trivial and stupid. I am, of course, making reference to Bayonetta’s former voice actress, Hellena Taylor, going on a Twitter tirade at the risk of breaking NDA because of the fact PlatinumGames, the creator of the character she voiced for two games and an anime movie (dubbed by Funimation), wouldn’t pay her more money because they supposedly only offered her $4,000.00 (US or CDN. or changed from UK Pounds, don’t know). Now, while I would be delighted as a working-class citizen to have four thousand bucks right now in my pocket, her recent outburst is making it public that voice over performances get paid like shit in the industry.

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PAXAUS 2022. Friday. Something is missing

A Melbourne morning, tram bell ringing, cold bluestone footpaths and the threat of rain. Mobs of gamers, easily distinguished by their plain baggy clothes (except for those in costume) and slouched posture, converge on the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre. It’s easy enough to make it inside but where to then? The speed runs were beginning at 9:00am yet dancing enforcers, dressed in yellow like minions, encouraged us to mill about in the queue hall, a cathedral dedicated to the lines that characterise PAX. So I just wandered in there, instead of further down the hall to the public access areas like I should’ve and found milling about, testing my bladder for another hour and a half to a DJ playing mashups of Blink 182 and the Pokémon theme song.

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No, Switch Isn’t “Dead” and Xbox Isn’t Winning

Whenever I hear the term “day one on Game Pass,” it always makes me wonder how much something will actually sell physically and if the company behind said game will even make a profit. While some will sing the praises of Game Pass, and while I have used it to dabble in games a bit (unless Xbox servers are down), I’m afraid I have to be one of those Negative Nancy types that has to take a realistic approach to this recent announcement (and Hollow Knight: Silksong too, gee, we haven’t see that one for a while haven’t we?).

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Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands – The Power of Imagination

I must be the only adventurer in the land who doesn’t know anything about Bunkers & Badasses. I’ve heard of it, but never really thought much about it. I suppose I just never had the friends or opportunities to pursue silly things like that. Pop culture didn’t interest me much anyway. Everyone talks about B&B like it’s a normal part of their vocabulary, while I stare blankly. Yeah, having friends and social experiences must be cool. Can’t relate. I’ve been a solo adventurer my whole life, just surviving in my own world. You get used to it.

I was asked to play a game for the first time in my life when my local group were short on players. Rather than be dismissive, I thought it was a good time to break out of my comfort zone and find out what it’s all about. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

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Transiruby – Androidvania

From the makers of Kamiko comes a brand new Metroidvania on the Switch. Kamiko, you say, what’s that? Kamiko was a neat little 2D Zelda clone by Skipmore that was about 60 minutes long. It came out around the Switch launch period as one of the first new Indie games on the system. Fast forward one Fairune Collection and five years later, and we have Transiruby. A game in a different genre and much bigger in scope. Really, this was meant to come out in 2019 according to this old trailer, but it’s only just come to Switch in the last week and the PC a few months ago.

To be quite honest, the delay didn’t bother me because I only just found out this game existed. So let’s check it out!

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Dying Light – Keeping The Dream Alive

It’s time to ROCK! Or it was, once upon a time. I’ve spent the past year working on these brand new songs that would change the world, but then the world changed into something else, something unfamiliar. Everything changed overnight. A deadly virus has overrun this town with chaos and isolated us from the rest of the world. The only use music has here now is a distraction for zombies. Yeah, look over there… BOOM! There goes the grenade. Sounds a bit like the bass drum part, no? My band is now tucked away in my backpack.

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Matto’s takeaways from the 9.23.2021 Nintendo Direct (and Bayonetta 3)

Screenshots were taken from Nintendo’s official website and PlatinumGames official website, and the Bayonetta 3 YouTube trailer.

A Nintendo Direct is always a good time, whether it announces the things you don’t expect or completely makes the “industry insiders” look hilariously wrong (more on that in a bit). But, hey, I got some things to talk about with this Direct, because some things are very interesting. But its also a chance for me to mock things semi-related to the Direct because why the hell not?

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How To Beat The “Impossible CPU” In Renegade Every Time

I recently finished mastering all the games in Clubhouse Games 51 Worldwide Classics for the Nintendo Switch. I’d almost done it a few months ago when I first got the game. I had been working my way through the various games usually bouncing around five of them until I mastered them and then dove into some others. However, it was near the end when I had eight or so games left to master that I started playing Renegade aka Reversi aka Othello in this package. It seemed like a simple game but I soon discovered it had more strategy to it than I had thought and soon the game seemed to be more complicated than Chess, Shogi or Riichi Mahjong due to the amount of times I’ve had to replay it.

It probably didn’t help that this was my first time ever playing the game of Renegade. With no idea of what kind of moves to make or what to look for on the board for the next best move, I was thwarted at just the Amazing CPU for some time. I felt I was improving over time and figuring out the strategy of the game and finally did beat that level of difficulty. Then I played the Impossible CPU and it was like I had learned nothing.

Nintendo showing how Renegade should really be played on the cover: CPU free.
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