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Pete Fenzel and Mark Lee tackle two very different topics in this week’s episode. First up is something hot off the presses: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement announcement. On one hand, it’s an important moment in the lives of two people in love. On the other hand, it’s a highly intentional and curated PR piece intended for mass consumption. On one hand, it’s evoking Romantic era artwork and classic symbols of feminism. On the other hand, Travis Kelce is wearing short pants and a … knitted polo shirt?
Second up is something slightly less prominent in the pop culture zeitgeist but slightly more important for middle aged gaming dads: modern remasters of old video games. The panel tackles two very different examples of this phenomenon: Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., a first-party commercial update to a fighting game originally released in 2006; and X-Wing Virtual Machine, a fan made update to a space combat sim originally released in 1993. They consider why they’re playing old games instead of new games and ponder what they’ve lost when old games make exponential gains in graphical fidelity.
Nostalgia and memory are the common threads between these two seemingly unrelated topics: both the Swift-Kelsey engagement announcement and new-old video games intentionally reshape the past for present consumption.
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