Popzara Podcast

And now we come to the end of the ride. After nearly twenty years of delivering a bazaar of culture and commentary, this will be the final post on Popzara.

Ever since I was sent the Toshiba Rice Cooker last year, I’ve been using it like crazy to not only cook rice, but also stews, cakes, and more. For the longest time, I’ve heard about the famed company Zojirushi and their top of the line rice cookers that professionals use, especially the hilarious YouTube personality Nigel Ng aka Uncle Roger that swears by their products.

I won’t deny it, the cutesy looking artwork on Kimono Cats drew me in to check it out, as I had no idea it had already been released on mobile devices last year. After playing it for a bit, it does remind me heavily of most mobile device games thanks to having small but fun mini games, collectables, and even some building and managing your town that’s perfect for passing the time whenever you need...

I’ll start off by stating I’m a huge fan of the now classic 2012 PlayStation 3 game, Journey. It literally took me on a journey of emotions as I made my ways through different lands while having random online players helping off and on to reach the end of it.

Quality is a big deal when we're talking about gaming peripherals, but comfort's also important in its own way. If you’ve ever finished a multi-hour gaming session and taken off your headset with a sigh of relief, you've got a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about.

The Mafia series has always occupied a special place in the wide world of crime simulators. Compared to the satirical action of something like Grand Theft Auto or Saints Row, Mafia tends to be the more serious, cinematic alternative.

With jaw-dropping entries like The Wild Robot and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, DreamWorks continues to show us why it owns the crown in terms of American animation quality. While other studios keep trying to perfect the same digital animation style we’ve been seeing since the mid-‘90s, the Universal-owned studio has found a way to bridge the hand-drawn look of yesteryear with the sleekness of mod...

Going through so many games that have released lately, I would often hear about Medieval Dynasty and how people enjoyed playing through its survival and building challenges to create a thriving town in ancient times. It only made sense for publisher Toplitz Productions to build upon this (pun intended) and release a feudal Japan version called Sengoku Dynasty.

It’s Popzara’s Movie Time! Podcast, where our in-house movie nerds Ethan Brehm and Nate Evans take you on an unscripted journey yakking and chatting about some of their favorite movie moments and cinematic scenes, from past and present, presented without snark and snobbery for your listening pleasure. For this extra-special episode the guys take a look back at 1973’s American Graffiti, George Luca...

You've got a new console, and now you've got a problem: the second controller dilemma. You want to play with friends or family, but the thought of shelling out nearly a hundred dollars for another official gamepad is a tough pill to swallow, and this gets even more painful when you start thinking about having groups of friends over.

If you're a PC gamer, there's a point you might reach when you realize literally everything on your desk is glowing. Your mouse, your keyboard, your PC case, maybe even your mousepad - they’re all pulsing with rainbows of RGB lighting.

It’s hard to argue that Japanese developer M2 haven’t been great stewards of porting games from a certain era, and their relationship with Konami has been especially fruitful. Going back decades, it’s produced some of the best retrospective compilations of the developer’s best series, especially with their Contra and Castlevania Anniversary Collections.

Every gamer has a hierarchy of accessories, a sort of unspoken tier list of the stuff you love and the stuff everyone else gets to use. For instance, you’ve almost inevitably got your main controller, the one with the perfectly worn-in thumbsticks from hours of play with the tension that's just right.

There’s a certain subset of gaming hardware that serves as an announcement of intent. You don’t just casually end up with a high-end racing wheel or a HOTAS flight stick setup.

It’s rare for a long-delayed sequel to feel like it should exist - especially one so tied to a specific era. But Freakier Friday, the follow-up to Disney’s 2003 Freaky Friday, slips back into its body-swap chaos like a favorite old hoodie: familiar, comfortable, and surprisingly welcome.

It's interesting to observe the evolution of a genre over time. An initial foundation is one thing, but real gaming gems tend to arise when developers build on what came before.

It feels like we’re in the middle of a golden age for game development coming from China. Studios are producing absolute bangers that have been taking the world by storm, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Souls-like genre.

To hear it described, Earthion probably isn’t for you. A side-scrolling shmup (shoot ‘em up) developed for a dead console that was discontinued 30+ years ago, it’s hardly cutting-edge.

I was already a happy camper late last year when I got my Apple Watch, as I finally got to see what all the hype was about with wearable tech. Just when I thought I couldn’t love my watch any more, here comes MAGEASY with not one, but two must have accessories for it with the MAGEASY Odyssey Apple Watch Case and Nappa Leather Apple Watch Band.

I’ve always wanted to pick up an Apple Pencil for my iPad Air, but that $130 price tag always kept me from buying one. I was more than excited when MAGEASY reached out to me to review the MAGEASY Instinct iPad Stylus Pencil that works just as well as the Apple Pencil while being much easier on your wallet.

Seems like it was just last year when I was a teenager trying to get my hands on any anime I could watch back in the mid-1990s. I remember finally getting my hands on the famed Grave of the Fireflies, a film focusing on two siblings caught near the end of World War II.

While going through many of the newest anime series out there, I kept hearing about one that would always rise to the top of the pile, Dan Da Dan. After smirking to myself about the title and its premise of dealing with UFOs and ghosts, I decided to give it a shot and it turned out to be one of the wildest, most fun shows I’ve seen.

Fourth time’s the charm - well, almost. Fantastic Four: First Steps is easily the best cinematic take on Marvel’s First Family to date, which is both a win.

There’s a certain kind of person who derives primal satisfaction from breaking things. I don’t mean in a malicious way; I mean that feeling you get from popping bubble wrap.

The year 2025 is looking like a renaissance for ninja games, especially those of a very particular lineage. While Ninja Five-O proved some relics should remain in the past, Ninja Hayate HD-Remaster was available if you craved 1980s anime with limited interaction.