episode

'Like a Dragon: Yakuza' and a Release Roundup

From Like a Dragon to Dragon Age, settle in for a supersized Button Mash blowout! First, Ben, Brian Phillips, and Matt James discuss which games they would stream to enhance their appeal if they were running for office. Then, they break down Prime Video’s latest TV adaptation of a video game franchise, Like a Dragon: Yakuza (14:00), before Ben and Matt recommend several recent releases that are easy to consume, including the latest Call of Duty and a Pokémon mobile sensation (52:00). Then Ben and Joshua Rivera discuss Mario &amp; Luigi: Brothership, comedic Mario, weird Nintendo, the swan song of the Switch, whether Dragon Age: The Veilguard is BioWare&#8217;s big comeback, and the pros and cons of the industry’s franchise reliance (1:20:00).
Host: Ben Lindbergh 
Guests: Brian Phillips, Matt James, and Joshua Rivera 
Producer: Devon Renaldo 
Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal

Ben is a writer, podcaster, and editor who covers culture and sports. He hosts ‘Effectively Wild’ at FanGraphs and previously wrote for FiveThirtyEight and Grantland, served as editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus, and authored ‘The MVP Machine’ and ‘The Only Rule Is It Has to Work.’

Ben Lindbergh

Brian Phillips is the New York Times bestselling author of ‘Impossible Owls’ and the host of the podcasts ‘Truthless’ and ‘22 Goals.’ A former staff writer for Grantland and senior writer for MTV News, he has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, among others.

Brian Phillips

Joshua Rivera is a Philadelphia-based culture writer whose work has appeared in GQ, New York, Vanity Fair, Polygon, and others. You can follow him at @jmrivera02.

‘Like a Dragon: Yakuza’ and a Recent Release Roundup

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