Episodit
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When a movie invokes our obscure hometown of Brookhaven, Long Island, you know we have to give that film the proper KnockBack treatment. Dagan's been smitten with Alex Garland's 2015 directorial debut Ex Machina recently, and in a strange twist-of-fate, I (Colin) have actually seen this flick, a relative rarity. Dag and I both sat down to watch it again, though, and deliver this episode of KB to you today on the tail-end. Garland's AI-focused film may be nearing its decade mark. Yet, it's somehow jumped the boundary from sci-fi to reality in the 10 or so years that have elapsed since its release. AI is no longer some future hypothetical what-if; it's happening before our very eyes. And there's no doubt that Ex Machina has a lot to say about the subject: Its creation, its development, and its very essence and nature. Can robots ever be alive? Perhaps it depends on what being alive even means.
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It's been a while since we've covered a game on KnockBack, so we thought we'd return with a bang. Long-requested as a target of our show, The Lost Legacy is a peculiar 2017 release that fits somewhere between an expansion and a full game, and it doesn't star Nate and Sully, but rather Chloe and Nadine, an interesting pairing to be sure. Made quickly by a spin-off Naughty Dog team and received well upon launch on PS4, The Lost Legacy may have represented the most conspicuous gap in my (Colin's) history with PlayStation, but that's no longer the case. Did Dagan and I like the game, though? We did, of course... and we have a ton to say about it. So please join us!
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We're settling back in from Sacred Symbols 300 live in New York City, and the experience has us (The Brothers Moriarty) feeling nostalgic, which is a good thing for our retro-and-nostalgia-themed show. We're particularly sentimental about our parents, who both attended the show, and who -- at 73 years old, both -- have always come through for us, even if the path wasn't always linear, or even clear. We love making fun of our mom and dad on KnockBack; it's a staple of Dagan and Colin podcasts. But we thought we'd go in the other direction today, and talk about all the ways we love and appreciate our parents, how we think they helped form us into the people we are today, and add to the deep Moriarty lore that only grows by leaps and bounds here at Last Stand.
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With all of the hullabaloo surrounding Arrowhead's hit PS5 and PC game Helldivers 2, we figured we'd delve into its most obvious inspiration: Starship Troopers. Most people know Starship Troopers as the 1997 Paul Verhoeven sci-fi flick, but it's actually much more than that. It all started as an award-winning novel written back in 1959 by an author named Robert Heinlein, and strangely, the film and book couldn't possibly be more different in many respects. But because the book (which is awesome) is a quick read, and the film (which is good, but not nearly as good as the book) is comparatively short, too, so we figured we'd digest both, take lots of notes, and compare and contrast the two. The result is an interesting conversation, one that asks questions like: Is the book really fascist-aligned, as often claimed? Are the bugs the victims of human aggression, and could we ever come to terms with such a race? Does the idea of earning one's citizenship actually not sound that crazy, after all? Could every human have a deathwish, deep down inside? Clearly, we've much to discuss.
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For this week's KnockBack, we thought we'd do something a little bit different. A major fuel source for the origins of our podcast back in 2018 was our shared love of the NES: The hardware, its games, and the community that's long surrounded it. So we thought we'd delve back into that subject matter by each constructing a Top 10 NES Games list and then trying to fuse them together, a task we almost immediately abandoned when we realized we approached our respective lists quite differently. Thus, what emerges is a robust talk about many of the games from our respective childhoods, and how we still grapple with their undeniable greatness to this day.
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1975's Jaws is a seminal work in the thriller genre, and it was somehow delivered by an overwhelmed, overworked, and over-his-head Steven Spielberg, directing only his second theatrically-released film. With a bloated budget more than twice as high as originally anticipated -- and filmed on-location with great difficulty, sending it more than three months beyond its planned schedule -- Jaws had everything working against it. But in the cauldron, something rather revolutionary cooked. From score to acting performances to an oceanic foe that's rarely seen for technical reasons (greatly benefiting the movie!), everything works serendipitously, making Jaws one of the '70s most iconic and important films, and something we simply had to cover here on KnockBack.
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While we certainly neither condone nor encourage underage drinking, the reality is that both of us did plenty of it in our heyday. Indeed, drinking before you're 21 in the US is basically a rite of passage for generations of young people. (And yes, the drinking age should be 18.) And while we absolutely don't endorse our past behavior, we thought we would have some fun talking about our respective introductions to drinking: Trying our first beer, going to our first party, getting drunk for the first time, and -- god forbid! -- hungover. From Bud Heavies and Mike's Hard Lemonade to tequila and scotch... well... we may have been a little over our heads. Enjoy.
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For our 'holiday' episode of KnockBack this year, we thought we'd do something special. As such, please welcome our mom to the show, BettyAnn Moriarty. The reality is this: Our mother comes up on the show constantly. In fact, if you guys are on social media, you may even interact with her. Needless to say, she's one of the most special people in our lives, and thus, we thought we'd take some time to reminisce, tell some old stories, ask probing questions about the past, and add to the extensive tome of Moriarty lore that we can all probably agree is already a little too long. Without further ado, please enjoy. And Happy New Year!
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For the Brothers Moriarty, Final Fantasy IV -- or Final Fantasy II, as we once knew it on SNES way back when -- is a uniquely nostalgic product. Upon its release in the west, we played the game together, often with me (Colin) sneaking into Dagan's room after I was 'put to bed' so I could watch him conquer the tale. Thus, we eagerly revisit this all-time JRPG classic in KnockBack style, but it's not the first time we've done so. Long-time listeners will recall that one of the very first KB offerings in 2018 was FFIV (Episode 16, in fact). But our show today is a lot different than it was then, and frankly, this is a far deeper and more comprehensive look at Squaresoft's classic than the earlier podcast, as we've both come off a fresh playthrough via the Pixel Remaster. Cecil's tale of darkness-to-light -- and the many stories of the lovable cast that surround him -- helped catapult an entire genre into the hearts of gamers worldwide. Some would even argue IV is the best Final Fantasy, full-stop. We think you could easily make that argument, yes, but such a deep topic deserves much more nuance. Three hours' worth, in fact.
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For this week's episode of KnockBack, we thought we'd do things a little differently. Indeed, there's no specific topic to discuss per se. Instead, we thought we'd ask each other a few random questions about our respective childhoods to see where the conversation might lead. So let's get into the nitty-gritty about Dagan's most memorable youth sports triumph, Colin's frightened remembrances of the unnecessarily scary Unsolved Mysteries theme song, the GI Joe Dagan fruitlessly hunted down around the Island for months and years, Colin's regret that he didn't realize he loved football at an earlier age, and much more. We recorded this on Thanksgiving because we love you that much. Enjoy!
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While KnockBack typically revolves around the video games, films, TV shows, and so on of the past, some of the most-popular and most-requested episodes of the show over the last six-ish years relate to Moriarty family stories. Today's release is one such episode. Using a certain recent wedding as a jumping-off point, we thought we'd go a level or two deeper and discuss the physics and chemistry of a typical family gathering in the Moriarty family, both yesterday and today. After all, endless interactions with those closest to us helped morph us into who we are, and so really, you can only know the Brothers Moriarty if you know about the many foundational elements around them, sometimes only occasionally seen at a dinner or event, but nonetheless fundamentally central to the entire story.
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Paul Verhoeven's 1987 dystopian sci-fi film RoboCop is considered more and more of a classic the further we get from its release year. Indeed, a lot of the ongoing revision pertaining to RoboCop has to do with its subject matter: Mega-corporations, militarism, the use of police force, and a mighty thick layer of satire that heavily lampoons American culture, past and present alike. On the outside, Peter Weller's portrayal of the titular mechanized law enforcement officer is merely a piece of cinema history due to its visually-iconic protagonist. But between the seams are strings to pull at that bring audiences to deeper and darker places, taking a gory allusion to post-modernity to a whole new level. Can robots think and feel? Well, RoboCop sure can.
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Only a couple of months from when this episode of KnockBack launches, an Avatar-themed AAA game will launch from Ubisoft-owned studio Massive. And -- as you may already know -- I (Colin) am a fan of Massive, as I love their Division series. So when I heard they were making a Far Cry-like title that happens to be Avatar-themed, I knew I had to play it. But there was a glaring problem: I didn't know the source material. KnockBack seemed like a good place to concoct a remedy so that I could emerge from the murky waters un-posered. As such, Dagan and I sat down to watch James Cameron's smash-hit 2009 film, which neither of us had seen, and really have no familiarity with whatsoever. And while we liked what it was attempting to do, whether or not it's successful is another story entirely. Allegorically-hinged on humanity's destruction of Earth -- and drowning in freaky blue humanoids galore -- Avatar is widely-considered both the pinnacle of cultural relevance and something seemingly inconsequential. Obviously, it's neither.
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If you're an American gen-xer or millennial, there's a better-than-decent chance you were heavily influenced by MTV growing up. Launched in the early '80s, culturally crescendoing in the '90s, and still highly-relevant into the 2000s, MTV's brand of so-called 'music television' helped define a succession of generations' musical tastes, fashion, and the wider spectrum of entertainment full-stop. Today's episode of KnockBack is dedicated to MTV through the eyes of two people born in 1973 and 1984, both loyal viewers of the network not unlike millions upon millions of their respective contemporaries. There were the music videos, yes. And they were glorious. But there's so much more to delve into, too: Programming (120 Minutes, Headbangers Ball, TRL), spin-offs (VH1, MTV2), the rise of reality television as we know it (The Real World, Road Rules), and on and on and on. We definitely wanted our MTV. Did you?
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If you're an older player of video games, you know that 2007 was an historically-insane year for the medium. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Super Mario Galaxy, BioShock, The Orange Box, God of War II, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and Mass Effect -- amongst others -- all launched within 9 months of each other. And then there was Halo 3, arguably the king of them all. Halo 3 is the Xbox brand's single best-selling game by a mile, and it's an emblem of Microsoft's most successful era both commercially and critically, when it was a completely dominant force with its boot on its competitor's neck. Short and sweet at only eight hours (or so) long, Halo 3 is a thrill to play, though it does lack its predecessor's emphasis on story and lore, which is a bit of a bummer. And it of course thrived via online play via Xbox Live, which isn't at all what our podcast is about. Instead, we focus on its action movie-like campaign, which we both had a blast with. And we reminisce about a time when Microsoft nearly won the so-called Console War, before it somewhat befuddingly dropped the ball and gave the crown away.
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Welcome back to KnockBack! This week, instead of focusing-in on a specific game, movie, TV show, or whatever, we thought we'd do another one of our reminiscing episodes instead. Thus, today, our focus is card collecting. At different stages of his childhood, Dagan collected Star Wars cards, Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, and even caught the Smurfs bug. Colin, meanwhile, went through three distinct card-collecting phases: Sports (baseball and hockey), IP (Marvel Universe and GI Joe), and outright gaming cards (Magic and Star Wars CCG). So join us as we recollect on the time-consuming, money-demanding, and strangely-addictive world of card collecting that we were both sucked into at one time, and which many of you out there are still very much involved with today.
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In 2022, we -- the Brothers Moriarty -- sat down to discuss Xbox's seminal 2001 launch offering, Halo: Combat Evolved. We loved it, and we promised that we'd get to Halo 2 one day. Well, today is that day. Released late in 2004, at the back-end of Xbox's truncated lifecycle, Halo 2 is widely-considered one of the Xbox brand's highest-quality and most important games in its two decade-plus history. And candidly, we can see why. With expert gunplay, a fun sci-fi story, and a brisk runtime reminiscent of its generation (and which we frankly long for today), Halo 2 has us not only gushing about a title one-in-three OG Xbox owners purchased -- which is an insane attach rate -- but has us longing to play Halo 3, too, which we will certainly be getting to in short order here on KnockBack.
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As we continue our cruise through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters here on KnockBack, we come to the enigma that is Final Fantasy III. Like Final Fantasy II, III never got a western release at the time it came to Famicom in 1990. But unlike II, which finally saw the light of day in the west late in the PSone era, we had to wait until 2006 to play Final Fantasy III in western markets, and we did so via a 3D remake on Nintendo DS with a sterile and boring aesthetic overshadowing an otherwise solid job-based title. Finally, though, we can experience it as intended, with chibi sprites and chiptunes, and we're glad we did. A prelude to beloved Final Fantasy IV -- not in story, but in substance -- Final Fantasy III is a worthy old-school JRPG, one we're pleased to present thoughts on today. What's even more exciting, though, is that we can now be unleashed on the truly amazing series entries to come...
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