Shawn McDowell

@turboshawn.com

Producer & Editor for Giant Bomb. Producer & Occasional Co-host for Jeff Grubb's Game Mess. Lifelong Pokémon & fighting game nerd. (He/Him) https://www.twitch.tv/turboshawn | https://www.youtube.com/@TurboShawn

Hey, that's me! Beast of Reincarnation has as a *lot* of issues. Once the game transitions from a punishing Souls-like to more of a character action game, I think it's a lot of fun! It just takes too long to get there. Also, yes: Everything about the presentation is just "Nier Automata at home".

Giant Bomb@giantbomb.com · 2d ago

Shawn reviewed Beast of Reincarnation! Fans of the genre will likely find this Souls-like to be a mixed bag. While there's fun to be had, ultimately its presentation is underwhelming and filled with... *cough* tropes. Read the full review here ➡️ giantbomb.com/reviews/beas...

Giant Bomb review graphic for Beast of Reincarnation.

Score: 3.5/5

"Beast of Reincarnation feels like the result of Game Freak’s designers having something to say (or at least wishing they did), but constantly struggling to find the right words. It eventually becomes a very fun action RPG to play, but stumbles many, many times on the path of getting there."

- Shawn McDowell

We tried something interesting with this one. Adobe Premiere is a dogshit application that has made multicam videos difficult for me & Jan to produce while we transition to Resolve. So, this video was produced entirely with live switching in OBS, like a live TV show!

Giant Bomb@giantbomb.com · 2d ago

Let's go for a (big, giant even) walk! Jerf, Grubb, Mike, Dan, and Jan check out the co-op fun and puzzle-solving goodness of House House's Big Walk in a new Quick Look! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd_8... giantbomb.com/videos/quick...

Heads-up on the Pepsiman recomp: it *does* use AI. And well, you can see what the kind of person the dev behind it is. As I said last time I raised it, it's become a race to first and the limelight that's going to wreck the recomp scene. Some of the most important game preservation work.

barleybap@barleybap.bsky.social · 2w ago

A heads up that AI *was* used here. The developer also seems to be fond of ableist slurs, which you know, very cool to see in 2026.

xemu has 19x the amount of games they're starting with. 224x if you're willing to settle for "playable" over "perfect", which i'd expect microsoft's first party implementation to amount to tbh. plus you're not giving microsoft any money, which you shouldn't.

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Wario64@wario64.bsky.social · 2w ago

XBOX Backward Compatibility on PC announced starting with 4 games: -BLiNX: The Time Sweeper -Conker: Live and Reloaded -Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge -Fuzion Frenzy news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/0...