Half-Life projects, Comic-Con program guide, Playstation Factory & Esports Mental Toughness

First, Dev-i-boy found a list of Valve games that never came out. These games were created in the dark times before Half Life: Alyx was announced, and include some interesting looks at what Half Life 3 could have been.

You can't go to Comic-Con this year, but you can watch it online. There's a great program with tons of shows including comics, television and gaming news. It's also probably the most accessible Comic-Con ever, since you don't need to leave your house and the shows are free.

First the robots came for the car factory jobs, and I said nothing. Then they came for the Playstation 4 assembly jobs, and I said "Cool, that's some nice tech". Sony has almost fully automated their assembly line and only use four people on the ends of a single assembly line that makes one console every 30 seconds. It's awesome.

Esports are stressful, and high skill players show the same signs of stress as their analogue counterparts. This doesn't surprise the Nerds at all, but it's an interesting study.

This week, Professor played a chaotic real time dice rolling game, DJ kept the peace in Agents of Mayhem and Dev-i-boy got distracted by job applications. Wish him luck.

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Pokemon Snap, Apple Lootboxes, Super Collider & Cyberpunk 2077 featuring Stephen from Sigmate Studios & Comics2movies

This week, Deviboy returns from his exile, and Stephen from Comics2Movies and XCT joins us to discuss a new comic.

Devi brings news from the far off land of Nintendo. It's time to get your cameras out for the New Pokemon Snap. Apart from Nintendo's hopeless naming, it's shaping up to be an expanded photography game for the new generation. We all hope they fit in the fun easter eggs and interactions.

Oh no, Loot Boxes! Apple are being taken to court for exploiting children via the App Store. We think we've got a solution to the problem too, so be ready to send us your opinions on the system.

Supercollider? I hardly know her! CERN are designing a 100km collider almost 4 times the size of the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC failed to open a portal to hell and lead to a demon invasion, but maybe the Future Circular Collider will. Somebody get Doomguy on speed dial.

Cyberpunk 2077 is delayed again, but to tide us over until the release a comic series titled Trauma Team. This also gives it the accidental honour of being the first piece of Cyberpunk 2077 to release. Until then, keep working to create a hyper corporate dystopia so we can all live out our Cyberpunk fantasies.

In gaming, Professor went up against space card sharks in Star Realms, Deviboy relived his childhood in Raze 2 and Stephen fell in love with Hearthstone.

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Nintendo Lawyers, Home Gardening & Comic-Con At Home featuring Shaun from Comics2Movies

This week we invite our special guest Shaun Keenan, creator of Xtreme Champion Tournament (in which mythical and legendary heroes face off) to share his thoughts on some news from San Diego Comic Con.

Kicking things off, the Nerds discuss Nintendo's itchy DMCA trigger finger, they’ve taken down the tragically short-lived DirectX 12 Super Mario 64 Port. This was a fan work based on the Mario 64 decompilation project, reformed into a gorgeous 4k Ultra-Widescreen rendition of everyone's favourite plumber. And they also lost 2TB of data including user account details, which are now being used to hack people. Oops.

There's now one less reason to leave the house, since gardening provides a boost to your emotional well-being that is as powerful as going out for dinner or taking a run. Grow chickens and you have an excuse for a dinner and a run as well. So, is gardening the ultimate weapon against millennial depression memes?

Lastly, Shaun chips in to talk about SDCC's move to being an online only event. Pros: Better food. Better chairs. No lines. Cons: No costumes. No crowd excitement. It's a tough sell for some of us, but the rest of us are perfectly happy to stay at home.

This week, Professor broke his brain in HyperRogue and DJ confronted his fear of the dark in Alan Wake.

Come back next week, we miss you.

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Virtual meetings, Wonder Woman, WarriOrb & Autism Studies

Welcome, to the World of TOMOROOOW!

What does listening to a podcast have to do with listening to your boss? Science is now showing benefits to virtual meetings. Which means one day, even your boss might be replaced by a voice over the wire. This still doesn't mean you can get out of wearing pants.

Wonder Woman's director thinks DC shouldn't follow the tried and true MCU formula. Sure, it worked for them, but can it be pulled off twice? Let us know if you have a good argument for there being room for two comic cinematic universes.

WarriOrb is a new game that's just been released on Steam. But following a highly popular demo, WarriOrb's initial sales have been disappointingly low. The devs have posted their own analysis on Reddit, and they're understandably confused.

Wrapping up, we have a discussion about scientific studies involving Autistic people.

We played Crysis and Legends of Runeterra this week. Professor's computer didn't melt playing Crysis, and DJ isn't any better at counting cards.

Wait around to hear from us next week with another great episode.

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PS5 Controllers, 2020 in Anime & Mars Rover 2020

WOOHOO!!! Happy New Year folks, we hope you are all safe where ever you are in the world. May the new year bring you lots of joy and laughter. At the start of this episode we wish to celebrate the fact that we have achieved 100 episodes, yay!! Now, first topic of the week is from Professor, and it is looking at the PS5, yes that is right, the PS5. We seriously manage to get our one and only Professor talking about the PS5, and positively too. We discuss changes being made to the controller and what it means for the future and the past. Confused? Well listen in to find out exactly what is happening, the discussion is quite interesting.

                Next up we have DJ bringing us the year ahead in Anime. We have a list of some things to look forward to and what we hope for. We discuss what is looking interesting and why. DJ tells us his hopes and discusses what he likes on the list, and so does Buck. We also have news about upcoming changes to Evangelion. That’s right grab hold of something and get ready for this as it is awesome. If you want to know what is happening you know what to do.

                Next up we have Buck and the new Mars Rover set to launch later this year for the latest mission to Mars from NASA. This is looking sweet. Remember we were talking in a previous episode last year about the training of NASA scientists happening in Australia in preparation for the next mission? This is it! Yep, the search for signs of life on Mars is going to the next level with the new Rover. Buck is starting to Geek out about this and will be keeping us updated as news comes to hand. If you want to find out more about what is happening on the newest mission listen in and see where the smiley face is.

                As normal we have the regular shout outs, remembrances, Birthdays, and special events. We wish to ask that if you are able to donate to help the Rural Fire Services, or any Firefighter battling the fires in Australia please do. We have posted links on our Facebook page to a few and there are many other options, but please help, thank you. Once again we wish everyone a Happy New Year, stay safe, look out for each other and stay hydrated.

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Pokémon Crash, Beetles & Fox Movies

Hello and welcome to another illuminating episode of fun and frivolity with those goofballs from Nerds Amalgamated. First up we have a story about how Nintendo are crashing Roku devices. That’s right, Nintendo have an issue with Pokémon Sword and Shield that is causing Roku to crash and shut down. Now if you want to know more you will need to listen in and then you can tell us what you think in our Facebook group if you think Buck is being to grumpy.

Next up we have the start of Jurassic Park with a beetle trapped in amber. That’s right, a real beetle trapped in amber. This one in particular is historical due to a few important factors, such as the age of the beetle. Would you believe it was around almost 100 million years ago? That’s right and it played an important part in the local ecology. Want to know how the listen in for our second story and then tell us what was your favourite part of the Jurassic Park movies?

Last up we have those poor people at Disney having to vault movies to try and increase the value and increase the margins. That’s right, since Disney the evil organization seeing world domination have bought Fox media they have begun to reduce access to Fox movies to create a false scarcity. This is only one of the underhanded things that they are doing, if you want to know more you know what to do. Also let us know what you think about these dirty tricks by Disney in our group.

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