The Queue: I studied for this

Nothing like coming back from a weeklong road trip and being immediately assigned homework from a fellow Queue writer. I’m not one to back down from a challenge so I’ve spent all week working on my answers. So if this article feels especially Cory-heavy well now you know why.

My trip itself was really fun. Drove through the wilds of Kentucky (stopping at Cumberland Gap and Mammoth Cave NP) and Missouri to get to Kansas City (this just in: BBQ is yummy). Saw some wild bison on the way back which was really awesome. But enough about last week, it’s time to get to my work from this week!

Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band! I honestly thought that COVID would’ve killed this tour but it’s still going strong. For those keeping track his current rotation includes Colin Hay of Men At Work, Hamish Stuart of Average White Band and Steve Lukather of Toto. It was a blast!

There are two games I have penciled in to play upon release: Strange Antiquities (the sequel to Strange Horticulture) which is arriving next Wednesday, and the Final Fantasy Tactics remaster that is releasing on September 30. My goal is finish both before Guild Wars 2 expansion Visions of Eternity comes out on October 28.

I won’t be completely abandoning WoW during that time, of course, because I’m still trying to complete my patch 11.2 Hunter armor transmog sets and also Brewfest starts in less than two weeks!

My dream concert right now is for Ms Taylor Swift to do an acoustic concert predominantly featuring “folk”-style songs with heavy inclusion of folklore and evermore tracks. She could name it Folk Tayls. However, considering how The Life of a Showgirl is being portrayed I don’t expect to see her go in this direction again any time soon.

I would love to see my favorite Canadian indie band fanclubwallet however their upcoming tour doesn’t come very close to my area.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t having a good time with the Direct today. I’m not really a fan of the modern Mario games (defined as post-SMB3 in my old brain) or Pokemon so frankly this Direct wasn’t really for me. We didn’t even get an update on the forthcoming Professor Layton so I have to presume it’s been delayed until 2026. I did think Storm Lancers looked neat, and while I can’t play Metroid Prime games because they’re first person, the new motorcycle looks great — I’ll definitely be picking up that Amiibo.

By the end I was prepared to dismiss the entire thing as a wasted hour but just when I thought I couldn’t be any more bored with the Direct, Nintendo announced a brand new Fire Emblem game and totally redeemed themselves! Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave is what may get me to purchase a Switch 2.

I don’t even have to think about this: I would make it a crime to mark a purchase as “shipped” if all that has been done is generate a label. If it ain’t out the door I better not get an update that pretends like it is.

A normal bed to sleep in that night. I think it’s great you’re camping and I’m a huge fan of the outdoors, but my wreck of a body can’t sleep on the ground anymore — heck, even a hotel bed sometimes is a struggle. So while I do try to get outside as much as I can I’m only focusing on things I can get done with plenty of time to check-in or get home after I’m done.

I’ve always been shocked at how non-plussed the citizenry of Oz is at the departure of their Wizard. He was such an important figure that he was equated with the land itself, but he was free to depart for elsewhere on a balloon without anyone suggesting that’s not a good idea. Either he was completely inessential or the people are in serious denial. Regardless I would not want to deal with the sort of aftermath his removal would entail in reality so the Lollipop Guild it is!

Ooooh, good question! I’m honestly not certain what’s considered “standard” for the Winter Olympics. I love all the Snowboarding events and also enjoy the drama (and memes) around Curling.

Summer Olympics is a little easier to distinguish the categories. For standard I’m going to go with Gymnastics (I favor the women because they tend to be more dramatic but the men events are fun too). Non-standard I like Archery — although I would understand if people consider it standard — but I am really looking forward to Flag Football in 2028 as long as NFL players get a chance to be on the teams.

I honestly don’t understand the mentality of the development team (or more likely the executives focusing on profits) behind Diablo 4. All that had to do was copy/paste the best parts of D3 into the new game and just focus on expansions every one-two years and everyone would be happy. Instead someone got dollar signs in their eyes over the Season model and they’ve basically been firefighting ever since release.

So I’m not playing it currently and I have no plans to come back and play more until the next expansion comes out because the little attempts they’ve been making to advance the story each season don’t feel worth it.

Ok, that’s all the time we have for questions from Cory or anyone else. Hopefully I got all my answers right! Everyone have a good weekend and be sure to leave plenty of homework questions for Cory to answer on Monday!