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happy Father's Day ✨

Spanish:

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I've reached enlightenment

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when people look at my art or listen to my music or read my writing and they just nod and go "huh neat" instead of actually telling me what they think about it

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🇮🇷 Tehran, Iran - A man restores a well-known mural depicting the US flag with bombs and skulls, and the phrase “Down with the USA.”

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I have to admit that the more we see from CrossWorlds, the less enthusiastic I am about it. Mostly thanks to all the crossover DLC.

Early on, following its announcement and the public playtest, CrossWorlds was pitched as this big celebration of Sonic in kart racing form. A big roster of characters, a bunch of tracks based on locations across the series, even the return of the Babylon Rogues and Extreme Gear for Riders fans. It seemed like it was doing everything right.

And then they started announcing the crossovers.

First they announced the first few Sega guest characters who'll be added for free. And that was fine. That made sense. It's all Sega stuff, and seeing Ichiban and Miku racing against Sonic characters is funny.

And then right after that, they announced... Minecraft. Minecraft Steve will be in the Sonic racing game, along with a whole Minecraft track, as part of the season pass that's being announced months before the game is even out. It seemed very arbitrary, just doing a crossover with something super popular as a marketing stunt.

And then, as had been previously leaked, we got the SpongeBob announcement. SpongeBob and Patrick will be in the new Sonic racing game, along with a Bikini Bottom track. And like, yeah, I love those first few seasons of SpongeBob as much as the next late-gen millennial, but does that mean I think SpongeBob makes sense to include here? No. And later in the season pass we'll also be getting TMNT and Avatar crossovers, because of course we are. Nick characters are literally half of the season pass. I will admit that the turtles are a good fit for Sonic, but the rest? Come on. But please be sure to pay $90 USD to get the Digital Deluxe Edition so you can play as Aang, everyone!

The current fan favorite (Sega-developed) Sonic kart racer, All-Stars Racing Transformed, also had its fair share of random third party guest characters. I didn't mind it there. The difference to me is that the selection there was so random and asinine that it was kind of charming, and easy to ignore. Including Danica Patrick, Wreck-It Ralph, and one of the guys from the YogsCast in a Sonic racing game was so stupid that it was funny. It was also easy to ignore in a game that already had such a hodgepodge crossover roster.

But here it feels cynical. It's a generic corporate synergy move in what was pitched as purely a Sonic game. Viacom will shove SpongeBob, the turtles, and Aang into every game they can as cosmetic DLC, from Fortnite to Fall Guys to Smite and beyond. We're not getting these characters because someone at Sega thought they'd be the best fit for Sonic, but rather because Viacom owns the Sonic movies and they wanted to do cross-promotion of their Most Valuable IP with Sega. This wasn't a decision made by a creative, it was made by a boardroom. And also they had to do it on the cheap, I guess, because they couldn't pay to get Tom Kenny or Bill Fagerbakke to provide voice lines, or even get the rights to use stock clips of theirs. So SpongeBob and Patrick are just going to be mute in this racing game that places a huge emphasis on having a ton of voice lines and interactions for the Sonic cast. There's a very real chance we're just gonna see lobbies full of mute crossover characters when playing online. Sonic is simply a part of the Viacom corporate machine now, whether we like it or not. And Minecraft is here because it's the most popular game in the world and its movie just made almost a billion dollars, I guess.

It just feels like it's watering down the identity of the game so much. I like Fortnite, but I don't need every other game in the world to turn into Fortnite with all these corporate crossovers. It's fucking exhausting. I won't go as far as going "slot crisis" mode here and assume that these DLC characters have taken slots from other characters I'd rather see included, but like... If the game comes out and Tangle and Whisper aren't in it, but SpongeBob is? Sorry, but you're never going to hear the end of it from me lmao

(I know fans have already datamined an Extreme Gear for Whisper that seems to point to their inclusion, but that's not exactly a confirmation. It could literally just be the Extreme Gear thrown in as a nod to the comics and nothing else. Also now that we have all these mute crossover characters part of me worries that they wouldn't even bother casting voice actresses for them, which is half the reason why I'd be excited to see them in a game in the first place. I know it's a whole different rights situation with the Nick characters, but still, the thought is in my head.)

So yeah. I dunno. It'll probably still be decent. But these last few announcements have kind of killed the excitement for me.

At least I still have Ring Racers.

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SUBJUGATION 2025 IS OFFICIALLY OUT

it's 12 tracks for $7, plus a remix of track 1, a celesta version of track 7, and the instrumental for track 4

and of course, here's a code which you can redeem here to get it for free if nobody else has taken it xen4-jjjv

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thats wiiiild

wait this game has a save system?

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if you don't have a save file flowey says you need to start over

wait this game has a save system?

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wait this game has a save system?

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you and your dreadful little polycule haven't seen the last of me

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youtube release of kneel before us

get the whole album here

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HELPPPPP

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The US has bombed Iran’s Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear sites.

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i started this as kind of not really that serious but then it just kinda… kept going. uh.

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i'm always going like "what did you say" or "can you repeat that" until a band releases official lyrics for an extremely old song nobody knew they were the ones who made and then i'm like why did everyone think they said "blind the wind" did they even listen to the song