Hivemind Times Issue #52

Welcome To The Hivemind Times!

Hey cowards!

I hope everyone’s week has been just wonderful. We hit ya with some Unlimited action this week that I hope you have enjoyed, maybe we will even slap a main channel on ya today! We had some very exciting shoots over the last week with a long awaited (return) of a guest that has me just teeming with excitement to drop those bangers on ya. 

In the meantime we will try and entertain you with this issue of the Hivemind Times, packed full of Cronk updates, Tony tunes, Movie review, and Grant stuff. I’m off to the UK next week and I’m gonna leave the station in Cronk’s control which should be either electric or an absolute shit show. 

Try and have some fun this weekend, cut loose and drink a ginger ale! Talk later fools!

- Riley & Graydon

WEEKLY PLAYLIST

Another classic Tony playlist for y’all to vibe with.

VIDEO GAMES

Cronk here, I finally got invited to the Skate 4 playtest

Now technically I signed an NDA and I'm not supposed to talk about it, but I would like to see them try and sue me for talking about it in this newsletter.

Few weeks back I got the email with my invite code. I was moderately hyped, but I'm sick of waiting for this dumb ass game. Took me a few days of fussing around with the install to actually get it to play on my PC. I tried to regain some excitement and booted it up, immediately greeted by a million tutorials on how to do tricks and play a game I've been playing since 2009. Killed my vibe instantly, but I knocked the dirt off my shoulder and gave playing it a real shot.

Then I noticed there is a million watermarks in the playtest that float around the screen and block your view. No worries, I ignored them. I made it to the city part of the map and it was exquisitely mid. I really have no comments on the graphics, they’re alright. There's this weird announcer voice that guides you through the game that I also found incredibly annoying. The motion on the board feels weird, the game feels slow but tries to look fast.

The game feels pretty good, just like any other Skate, but feels kinda bland. I'm still hype for the actual release and I think it'll be a great game. The playtest really tested my patience though.

- Cronk

MOVIE REVIEW

Together directed by Michael Shanks, starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie

Lemme say this: I have no idea why this movie is receiving positive reviews. It might have worked as a short film in the 30/45min range because to its credit there are some genuinely good scares in the first act. I’ll even go as far as saying the plot is rather original when it comes to the genre.

That is as far as my praise will go because instead of leaning into the aspects that seemed to be working for the movie, they give into some extremely heavy hand metaphorical bull shit. The tone shifts at the climax to straight up comedy and all good faith was lost for me in the final 45 minutes. 

I don’t want to get into too many details because I know people hate when I spoil shit. I’m just here to give fair warning if you want to go see Together go see the 7pmish show time in order not to ruin your whole evening. Dave Franco puts up a painful performance that feels like he went 2/18 from the field and fouled out by the end. 

I don’t give a fuck if they are actually married, they had more chemistry during the press run than they portrayed on screen. Overall felt kind of like the reheated cult version of The Substance or something. I don’t know, I’m excited for Weapons to come out, horror needs a win.

- Graydon

LIVE SHOW REVIEW

Hey guys just a lil update from ol’ G, I went to the Men I Trust show in Detroit on Tuesday.

I wasn’t planning on going early to see the opener until I looked at the flyer and saw that Strongboi was opening (Alice Phoebe Lou’s side project) which was such a sick surprise. I’ve never seen her live and she’s one of my favs, and I like Strongboi a lot too.

Strongboi’s set was super jazzy and sounded great (better than Men I Trust), they played some of my favs: Magic, Be Mine, and Special. After their set was over I popped out to grab a nice refreshing soda water with lemon and lime. When Men I Trust came on they opened with my favorite song of theirs from their newest album “To Ease You”, but I can’t lie I was disappointed with how it sounded, it honestly felt like they didn’t really hit a groove until about 4 songs into the set, and THEN it went different mode.

That was my second time seeing Men I Trust live, overall it was great and seeing Alice and Co. as well was such a treat. Detroit was the first show of the US tour, if you can catch them live I definitely suggest doing so!

 Strongboi:

Men I Trust:

- Grant

THIS WEEK’S COMICS

MERCH