The Cartridge Family Podford Media

No offense to the new and shiny Resident Evil 3 Remake, but no remaster was more highly anticipated than Final Fantasy 7. The teasers. The delays. The first world agony. Fans endured, and Square Enix finally delivered this gorgeous video game that Joe intends to lose his entire weekend to, certain review scores (from websites we won’t name) be damned. Standing in his way? Only his loving wife and child.
Moving over to John, he’s still into Animal Crossing but his nighttime play sessions don’t allow him to enjoy the full experience. Everything of importance is closed, he’s catching the same fish, and many of his neighbors are asleep. Hopefully he gets a bit of time this weekend to play during a normal hour.
As for Buffa, it’s Resident Evil 3 Remake all the time! With the gym closed, he’s enjoying RE3 in bite-sized chunks every day from 8:15AM to 9:00AM, but with roughly 5 hours of playtime to see this zombie masher to its bloody end, he’s not ready to say goodbye so soon. The plan? Go through Raccoon City all over again, but with end game unlocks.
The Family concludes this episode with their thoughts on Sony’s controversial PlayStation 5 DualSense controller, and John delivers the beatdown. Up next, the celebrational 100th Cartridge Family episode!

The global pandemic continues and John chose to take drastic measures to ensure his family’s survival. He buys fruit and veggies from a local farm, he orders meat from a butcher (at least he’s not hunting…yet), and he even cut his own hair! Joe, meanwhile, finally left his house after two months of isolation.
What’s the one thing keeping these two sane? Animal Crossing: New Horizons! They’re passing the time collecting bugs, Easter eggs, and other things. John and his kids have their own copies (John also came up with a clever way for his kids to do chores… with Animal Crossing as the reward), while Joe and his wife are testing the limits of their marriage by occupying the same island! Nintendo… their future is in your hands.
Fortunately for Joe, Square Enix’s long awaited Final Fantasy 7 remake is nearly upon us, so he’ll have something to keep busy with in case his significant other refuses to relinquish the Switch.
Meanwhile, Buffa is brains deep into the Resident Evil 3: Nemesis remake. He chooses to live through both the virtual and actual pandemics simultaneously. Find out what he thinks of Capcom’s newest survival horror adventure, then stay for his tales of what it’s like outside amongst toilet-paper hoarding masses.
We close with Joe insisting that Rogue Legacy 2 deserves everyone’s attention, and a germ-riddled beatdown that will give you the shivers.

Oh, Sony! You’re on top of the world with the PlayStation 4. You’ve had years to position the PlayStation 5 as the next evolutionary step in your path to continued dominance. There’s literally no way you could mess this up.
Yikes! Find out how everything went wrong during the week’s surprise PS5 tech rundown. We hope you speak Cerny!
Then we have GameStop. For one brief moment, we applauded the company for releasing DOOM Eternal a day early to promote social distancing within its stores. But then corporate wasted its good press by refusing to close those stores as the pressure for the United States to shut down amid the COVID-19 crisis intensifies. Why? Well, because GameStop considers itself essential retail, putting its video game business in the same group that most people would drop supermarkets and pharmacies into. People need their physical copies of games just as much as they need Albuterol inhalers, right? Sorry, no.
In other news, John has more Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing systems than you do, Joe heaps praise on Ori and the Will of the Wisps, and Buffa is ready for the Resident Evil 3 demo. All that and more as we charge ahead to episode 100!

Episode 096 is by far the strangest episode of The Cartridge Family, but we are living in strange times. The world is gripped with Coronavirus fever. Toilet paper is missing. Large cases of water are difficult to find. Hand sanitizer? That was the first to go.
With this in mind, there’s a lot of Coronavirus talk. Joe quarantines himself on a regular basis so he’s doing just fine. John, meanwhile, is apparently sitting on a big stash of toilet paper and rice. Then we have Buffa, who still goes to the gym despite the mass hysteria. Nothing will stop him from achieving those gains!
Fortunately, amidst what is now a global pandemic, there’s a bright side. For starters, this will probably encourage more people to wash their hands, which can only be a good thing. Beyond that, video games provide a means to escape reality in troubling times. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out March 20, alongside DOOM Eternal. After that, we have the Resident Evil 3 Remake, where gamers can experience a virtual pandemic while living in a real one. Whoah!
Yes, the NBA suspended its season, other sports leagues followed suit, and E3 2020 is toast, but maybe we should relax, sit down on a comfy couch, and fire up our console or PC game of choice. We’ll get through this together!

We’re little more than two months into 2020 and this year’s been quiet for video games, at least until a few days ago. Despite the anemic start, things are heating up in such a big way that Buffa is actually considering a VR-capable PC. Oh boy!
In no particular order, Valve served up a generous helping of gameplay for Half-Life: Alyx, and Capcom unveiled several minutes of in-game action for its upcoming Resident Evil 3 remake. We also have Square Enix, which released a demo for its highly anticipated re-imaging of the smash hit PSOne RPG, Final Fantasy 7. Did Joe, our resident RPG aficionado, beat the demo several times over? His response might surprise you.
Going back to Half-Life: Alyx, Buffa sort of has the PC itch despite ditching PCs more than ten years ago for Mac. Now, with Asgard’s Wrath and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners already released, with Alyx on the way… is now the time for Buffa to become a member of the PC master race? He already has the Oculus Quest. Now all he needs is an Oculus Link cable and about $1500. What can go wrong?
Meanwhile, John successfully introduced video games to his daughters. It seems like everyone in the Benyamine family owns a Switch and copies of Stardew Valley. This is by John’s design, as he primes his kids to become professional gamers. We’re pretty sure he’s going to make competitive Animal Crossing a thing several years from now. Much like in Stardew Valley… he is… planting the seeds.
We round out the show with a rumored Star Wars game, Corona talk, and even a little politics following a dramatic Super Tuesday showdown. Only five more episodes until 100!

Buffa's out of town today so it's Joe's turn to type up some nonsense for you to read instead of simply listening to our delightful, weekly gaming podcast. I'm kidding. Buffa's a talented writer and I'm nothing. No one. An ant. A shadow of an ant. Dust.
Check out our latest episode. John and I breakdown the latest from Yacht Club Games, Xbox Series X's info dump, and how the Caronavirus is impacting the games industry. Thanks for listening as always and enjoy!