Hey All!
It's that time once again. Between now and February 3rd at 11:59p ET, you'll be able to vote on a topic Dagan and I will add to the list while we recording a future wave of KnockBack.
The five choices below are the five highest-voted suggestions from the Topic Primary Election earlier this month. The names in parenthesis are the five Patrons who came up with the topics.
You can only vote for one topic, so choose carefully!
Enjoy! -Colin
For your viewing pleasure.
Timestamps to skip ads:
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2021-01-29 22:32:13 +0000 UTC View Post
All anyone wants to talk about is the recent GameStop stock market fiasco. Well, fine! We'll do just that. Let's chat about capitalism, "the market," class, and much more, sifting down into the actual nitty-gritty: How did a dying brick-and-mortar video game store find itself at the center of one of the most memorable global financial stories in recent history? But there's other news, too, of course, specifically out of Denmark, where IO Interactive is doubling its headcount as it gears up fo...
2021-01-29 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
For your viewing pleasure.
2021-01-28 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
It was an incredibly busy week for Xbox! The Xbox Live Gold fiasco, their first major Xbox Series X/S exclusive released, and Microsoft shared the company's recent earnings painting a clear picture of where Xbox stands as a division within the company. Even more crazy is that amongst all of this, there are rumors spreading of how one of the original Xbox's RPG exclusives may be making a return. That very RPG is Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic and it is seemingly in development at a stu...
2021-01-28 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a while since just you and I (Colin!) spoke, hasn't it? So let's chat for a little bit, just me (Colin!) and you, all about the things you want to talk about. Gran Turismo 7? Sure, we can touch on that. The definition of "second party?" I think we can do that. Possibilities for a PlayStation 5 Pro? Let's go there. Returnal's potential? Let us gush. PlayStation games on PC, scalping consoles, Star Wars games, what it's like making a game. Trust me (Colin!): We have a lot to talk abou...
2021-01-26 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Long Island, New York is the nautical homeland of The Moriarty Boys, and it comes up on KnockBack constantly. Almost every one of our childhood and teenage stories, memories, and events happened there, and -- at the request of the audience -- we thought we'd take the opportunity to do a non-IP-driven episode of our show all about that peculiar strip of land in New York City's shadow. For without it, there would be no Colin and Dagan as you know us today, and in its absence, our lives would ha...
2021-01-25 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
For your viewing pleasure.
2021-01-22 17:01:04 +0000 UTC View Post
If we're being totally honest, Capcom's recent Resident Evil Village event was largely a waste of time, considering we could have just watched gameplay and gotten a release date without the false promise of an "event." But it was awesome to more thoroughly see the newest entry in the company's long-running survival horror franchise, and we simply cannot wait to play it. Yet, with RE8 now coming to PS4 in addition to PS5, it begs the question: When will publishers and developers more readily s...
2021-01-22 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Note: This is a reupload of an old episode that was accidently deleted by Dustin a few months ago. Please feel free to make fun of him in the comments.
It wasn't even a year ago that prolific Polish developer CD Projekt and The Witcher's creator Andrzej Sapkowski found themselves in a legal battle over the beloved fantasy IP. But times certainly do change. Both sides of the dispute have announced that, in the wake of their dispute, they'll now be working more closely to...
2021-01-22 17:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
For your viewing pleasure.
2021-01-21 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Today, Defining Duke invites in their very first guest to show, Chris Ray Gun! Chris sits down with Matty and Karak to mull over the 29 confirmed exclusive games dropping in 2021, but it always came back to Halo. Whether it is a flagship IP or not is up for debate, but the reality is that Halo Infinite is currently Xbox's biggest announced game coming soon and that means a lot is riding on it. From the free-to-play multiplayer, to valuable lessons learned by 343, to the campaign, Halo Infinit...
2021-01-21 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
When futuristic scholars look back on 2020, they'll no doubt remark that it was one of the best years in human history, what with the global pandemic and political anarchy and all of the other uplifting pillars of the last 365 days or so. Yet, 2020 did unironically glow in one significant way: It was a hell of a year for video games, especially on PlayStation. Thus, let's embark on one of our great Sacred Symbols traditions and bestow accolades to the year's very best offerings... and al...
2021-01-19 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The term 'action movie' is sometimes used as a pejorative in order to hand-wave away bombastic and violent films that don't have some sort of deeper meaning. Yet, 2014's John Wick -- starring the seemingly-affable Keanu Reeves -- may just have redefined the term for a modern era. The titular Wick's head-first dive into the underworld seems almost unimaginably absurd at first. And maybe it is. But it's the texture underneath that truly gleams here: The shadowy characters, the thoughtful world-...
2021-01-18 17:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
When Electronic Arts signed a 10-year exclusive development and publishing deal with Disney for the Star Wars license, it had the potential to be something huge for the lucrative (but oft-under siege) companies. Eight years later, though, it's clear both sides (and EA in particular) have largely squandered the deal, with a couple of Battlefronts, a Rogue Squadron revival, and an admittedly very promising single-player game to show for it. Yet, in the bleakness comes unexpected news, for the m...
2021-01-15 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
For your viewing pleasure.
2021-01-15 17:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
After a busy holiday season, there is an expected lull for gaming in January, but 2021 seems to be playing by its own ruleset. Xbox's acquiring of Bethesda may already be paying dividends with the announcement of Machine Games' brand new Indiana Jones game. For years Xbox has sought an answer to Uncharted even going to the length of purchasing timed exclusivity for a Tomb Raider game in 2015. After all this time, it appears the very answer may be the series that inspired Uncharted itself. Fur...
2021-01-14 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
For your viewing pleasure.
2021-01-14 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The so-called 'One Sony' initiative is a long-discussed attempt to unify all of the Japanese conglomerate's many operations into one coherent commercial vision. From music to television -- and from movies to games and beyond -- Sony has sometimes-competing interests that don't always pull in the right direction, and history is littered with the corpses of lost opportunity. That is until more recently, when PlayStation Productions was founded to leverage Sony's considerable mone...
2021-01-12 17:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
In the late '90s and early '00s, writer and director Wes Anderson came out swinging with his beloved comedies Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. His third film, however -- 2001's The Royal Tenenbaums -- is perhaps his most beloved project, a movie all about an equally talented and troubled family of two estranged parents, three peculiar adult children, and a small group of outsiders that make up their wider clan. The Royal Tenenbaums is a hysterical flick, but it's also deep, moody, and meaningful. ...
2021-01-11 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Sacred Symbols on video for the very first time.
2021-01-08 17:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
For some peculiar reason, Sony simply refuses to officially announce how many PlayStation 5 consoles have been sold, which leaves us only one choice: We've gotta speculate. Really, we can actually do a little bit better than that -- reliable inside sources note PS5 is a meteoric success -- but we're left to wonder why Sony won't say anything itself. Say something, why don't you?! Plus: Cyberpunk 2077 draws its first class-action lawsuit, People Can Fly's Outriders has been delayed, Tenchu may...
2021-01-08 17:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
World War II raged from 1939 to 1945, and as its name aptly suggests, there was fighting pretty much everywhere: the Pacific, North Africa, the Middle East, the Soviet Union, France and the UK, and on and on. However, HBO's 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers -- released in 2001 -- explores one piece of one of the theaters of war through the eyes of the United States' much-celebrated Easy Company Airborne Regiment, one of the fiercest group of fighting men America has ever assembled. Band of ...
2021-01-07 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post
For your eyeballs.
2021-01-07 17:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Game Pass, the popular and successful Xbox subscription service, has a knack for rolling in more without asking for additional money from its users. That trend seems to be continuing after EA Play was packaged in and now Xbox has their eyes set on the next logical step — adding in uPlay. Ubisoft owns a suite of tantalizing franchises and this move could only serve to boost the service to new heights. Also, more on potential Xbox exclusives Elder Scrolls VI and Arkane Studios’ next game pl...
2021-01-07 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Good news: 2020 is over! One of the worst years ever (for many people) is finally behind us, and so now we get to stare longingly at 2021. Now, 2021 promises to be quite the year in the world of PlayStation. We've got first and second party exclusives en route, lots of third party love, and a few surprises lurking around the corner, no doubt. Today's episode is dedicated to prognostication: What do we think 2021 holds for our beloved ecosystem? From thoughts on Horizon: Forbidden West, God of...
2021-01-05 17:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostHello!
One of Sacred Symbols' and KnockBack's great traditions is intensive audience interaction, and obviously our new Xbox podcast Defining Duke is gonna follow suit.
Submit your questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, and ideas to the show using weekly threads like this one, so that Matt and ACG can figure out what they want to use. As always, pithy and well-written comments have the best chance of being used.
As this is an Xbox podcast, be sure your ...
In case you'd rather watch...
2021-01-04 14:24:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Here at Last Stand, we don't like to encroach on territory unless we think we can provide particular value for our audience. Back in 2018, we launched Sacred Symbols and KnockBack because we felt like there was a demand for high-quality PlayStation and nostalgia podcasts (respectively), but since then, we've halted our expansion. Yet, with a mighty promising 2021 (and beyond) shaping up for Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S -- and with our audience openly and regularly clamoring for expert Xbox cov...
2021-01-04 14:05:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey Everyone!
First off, Happy New Year. I hope you and yours are doing great. It's awesome to have you here with us! Right off the bat, allow me to direct your attention to the video associated with this post. If you don't see it, you can find it here. It'll explain pretty much everything (in our typically unserious way), but if you'd rather read, well... read on.
When I founded Colin's Last Sta...