So, quite a few people don't like/watch video content, and don't like seeing the homepage filled with videos. Let's try something new, see if it sticks.

What are the best videos you have watched this past week/fortnight?

I don’t know how many of you watch “nerd” movie channels, or ever did. But for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about stuff like ScreenJunkies, Collider and all their auxiliaries like SchmoesKnow.

These are the people that were made fun of by RedLetterMedia in their NerdCrew videos which funnily enough they don’t do anymore.

They were pillars of the YouTube film community. In fact, back when I was first getting into movies in the early 2010s, they were the majority of content. Until the video essay boom came into fruition circa 2015, and of which is now the primary style of video.

They would make dozens upon dozens of videos and podcasts talking about the latest trailer for a Marvel movie. They would speculate about what would happen in the next Star Wars movie. They would react to trailers and over-exaggerate. They would fully embrace all things that Funko Pop nerds embraced.

2019 was the height of all of this. The MCU’s Infinity Saga came to a close with Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the Star Wars Sequel trilogy wrapped up later in the year with The Rise of Skywalker. The hype for these movies were unbelievable, even if one of them disappointed and left everyone with a bitter after-taste.

Then the pandemic happened and all nerd movie news stopped. There was nothing to react to, there was nothing to hype. Wonder Woman 1984 came out, but nobody liked it.

The following year was a little bit better thanks to the hype machine surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home. But still, the views that these nerd channels were getting dropped significantly. Check out the difference between the reviews on Fandom Entertainment's channel for Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The drop in audience is remarkable. And that’s for the big reviews. The day-to-day content that these channels posted are down significantly, and in the case of Fandom Entertainment (of ScreenJunkies), they have stopped producing daily videos. It’s a YouTube channel on life support.

Collider is an empty shell of itself, they canceled all of their nerd panels and only do generic press junket videos.

It’s simple really. These things ended. Interest in the MCU has dipped since Endgame (with the exception of Spider-Man). Star Wars has stopped making movies, and the TV shows have been of mixed quality. People moved on. These channels aren't needed anymore.

The era of the 2010s movie nerd YouTube channel is over. The only ones staying alive are ones that relied more on personality rather than farming content. I’m talking about JeremyJahns, Chris Stuckmann, and Mr. Sunday Movies. Their audience stayed around because their audience liked their personality.

My child (who does not live with me) has a PC. He's pretty good at sorting problems out for himself, but he sometimes needs extra help. We've tried doing this over phone and video calls, and it's an unfun experience for both of us.

Is there a remote access software that would fit our needs? I want to be able to connect to his computer over the Internet and have some level of control when he's logged into his account. I'd need to be able to open files, I wouldn't have to be able to save them. He's using Windows 11. I think he's using the home version. I'm using Windows 10 Pro. We both have reasonably good Internet speed.

I'd love to see live vs not live versions of your favourite music.

Here are some of mine.

Free Throw - Two Beers In. The crowd love this, and the intensity reaches almost scary levels.

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz7Wq0pqV_Q
Not live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNcc4PTZDAg

Skegss - New York California. Skegss look like the kind of band I want to watch live and the audience look like they're having a blast.

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOQdWSkeEZI
Official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNFkrK54m8o

Wet Leg - Chaise Longue. There are loads of live versions and it's hard to pick one, but I chose this because the audience is full of women and they're fully into the performance. Hester and Rhian make it look effortless, and I love that they give the appearance of not caring what people think.

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTvUR940L5M
OMV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9jeJk2UHQ

Title Fight: Head in the Ceiling Fan. Way too loud in a small sweaty room seems like the best way to watch them live. Overwhelmed by a wall of noise. The closest I got to something like this was either Jesus and Mary Chain in 86, or Wedding Present a bit later, and they weren't really comparable. (Although, I have tinnitus and I do want to give them all decent ear plugs because wow tinnitus sucks).

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb1S1wUWG7o
OMV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu9KgGqXDyw

I was playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with my kid the other day and it was a blast. Nintendo have really nailed this game, especially in the balance of accessible enough for beginners to have fun but hard enough for people to have a challenge too.

My other favourite game (although I haven't played it for a while) is Sega Rally Championship on Sega Saturn. This game has 4 tracks (one of which needs to be unlocked) and 3 cars (and again, one of these needs to be unlocked). The tiny number of cars and tracks means that you get to do the same corners over and over. This might sound tedious, but when you hit the corner just right you know it. You can get a sense of mastery over it. I've spent many hours playing games in the Gran Turismo series, and I really enjoy them, but fair play some of the tracks and cars are just shovelled into the game and you don't spend much time with them

In the first Gran Turismo the licensing tests were properly hard. They weren't messing around. Getting bronze requires people to read the manual and understand what the point of the test is. Getting all gold is an actual challenge for experienced players. I feel like the tests (at least, the bronze levels) got easier in later games. The UK soundtrack was small but pretty good.

My final mention is the Burnout series. I loved the crash junctions. I'm not sure the open world of Paradise was fun - it meant spending a lot of time driving across a map to get to the start line of various events. I feel the same way about many games - I'd rather just have a menu of levels and what I need to do to complete them (GoldenEye, SNES PilotWings, BlastCorps are all good examples) than have this stuff obscured by the open world. Burnout on the Nintendo DS was a genuinely awful game. I think Burnout Dominator was my favourite in the series.

So, what do driving games get right? What do they miss? What interesting game mechanics do you enjoy?

There were a few years when RTS was a popular genre with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft being very popular examples.

But these games have mostly died out, and I was wondering if maybe I'm just not aware of modern RTS variants, or if there are good reasons why these games died off.

Like, are Tower Defence games a form of RTS?

Are there any RTS games where teams play against each other, so 2v2 rather than 1v1?

So, quite a few people don't like/watch video content, and don't like seeing the homepage filled with videos. Let's try something new, see if it sticks.

What are the best videos you have watched this past week/fortnight?